"Ash!" Sawyer said, waving to him. "It's been a while, hasn't it?"

"Oh, yeah, we met you in Laverre," Ash remembered. "How's your Treecko doing?"

"Great!" Sawyer replied, sending the Pokémon out. "He's a Sceptile now. Your advice about focusing on acrobatics worked very well, and we've made a great team."

Sceptile nodded in agreement.

"So, what brings you here?" Serena asked. "I'm guessing you're on your own Gym Challenge, but I'd have thought you'd be somewhere else somehow."

"I'm picking up more team members for my next challenge," Sawyer explained. "In fact, that's why I recently caught my new Honedge – he's going to be a special weapon against Korrina and her Lucario!"

"I guess a Honedge would make a good weapon," Ash considered. "But Korrina's Mega Lucario is really strong, so you might want to make sure you've got more than one plan."

"Oh, that's right, you battled her," Sawyer agreed. "Well, maybe we can have a spar? And then I can see how much further I have to go."

Pikachu coughed.

"Perhaps someone like Clemont should see how much further you have to go?" he suggested. "That might work better for getting a good idea of where you stand in terms of strength, and it would mean Ash can concentrate on the battle."

"Good point!" Ash said. "Uh… well, I do have some practice to do with some new tricks, so maybe that would work? My Frogadier recently evolved to Greninja, and we've got a neat trick we can do together!"

"This doesn't involve you battling alongside your Pokémon, does it?" Sawyer asked. "You've got several reputations."

"Well, not quite, but also maybe?" Ash said. "It's easier to demonstrate, if that's okay…"

"It should be somewhere around here," Alain said, examining his Mega Ring. "The search function on this is terrible."

Charizard rumbled something, and Alain shook his head. "No, not yet. Maybe there's something else…"

He tapped the Mega Ring in a practised way, switching it from searching for Mega-compatible Pokémon to Mega Stones, and the ring lit up like a constellation.

"Or I could do that," he added. "That's not far that way. Come on, Charizard-"

There was an explosion, which made both trainer and Pokémon look up. Then a giant water shuriken flew up into the air, turned into a weird looking Greninja and threw another giant water shuriken right back down again before launching into a power dive and going back out of sight.

Alain broke into a run.

"That was fascinating," Sawyer said, as Ash shook his head to fight off a dizzy spell. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, that happens when one of my Pokémon does that," Ash explained. "It's like I'm getting his perspective on what's going on too, sort of, and sometimes I lose track of which is which for a moment. It's okay, no big deal."

"Then… well, I've heard that Mega Evolution involves a close connection with your Pokémon," Sawyer said, thinking out loud. "Is this the same?"

"It's more intense," Ash judged. "I think it could be because I'm doing it without a Key Stone or Mega Ring. It's nothing to do with the specific Pokémon because I've done it with my Charizard and it's different to when Charizard Mega-Evolves, and-"

They were interrupted as Alain arrived, with his Charizard half-running half-flying behind.

"You're Ash Ketchum, correct?" he asked, without preamble.

"No," Sawyer said. "He is, though."

"I meant him," Alain replied. "Ash Ketchum, I've been looking forward to meeting you."

"You have?" Ash asked. "Huh, okay! I hope you're not disappointed, then."

"Was that your Greninja I saw?" Alain said, waving vaguely in the direction of up. "I've never seen one like that before."

"Yeah, we don't know what it's called, but it's a thing he can do," Ash agreed. "So can my Zoroark, Charizard, Dragonite and Silver – he's a Lugia – plus possibly Mew but that could be a prank."

"Charizard?" Charizard repeated. "I'm pretty sure your Charizard can Mega Evolve as well."

"...did you just speak, Charizard?" Alain asked.

"Oh, this is always fun," Lokoko said. "I'm translating, is the simple explanation. My name is Lokoko, charmed to meet you."

"And yeah, Charizard can Mega Evolve, but he can't do this at the same time," Ash agreed. "I should probably check if he has the Gigantamax Factor some time too and if you can do one of them at the same time as doing that, it would be fun to see!"

"Probably not great for the stadium, though," Alain said, grudgingly and to himself. "Well, Ash, I wasn't expecting to meet you quite so soon… I've been travelling around the world trying to encounter trainers with all the Mega Evolutions, but I was in the area and when I saw your unusual Greninja…"

He shook his head. "And I've realized that the enormous cluster of Mega Stones I saw must have been yours."

"Hey, actually, that's a point!" Ash said. "Hold on a minute, I'll get Phanpy… hey, Sceptile, would you like to try out Mega Evolving to see if you and Sawyer can do it?"

"What does that have to do with a Phanpy?" Alain asked, confused.

To Alain's credit, he quickly realized what it had to do with Phanpy, when Phanpy looked around for five minutes and found a Sceptilite, a matched pair of Charizardite Y and a stone that none of them recognized.

"Huh," Ash said, turning it over a few times. "I might need to ask Diancie about that some time… anyway, think Sceptile is rested enough for a go at Mega Evolving? Or if he's not, then maybe we could have a battle, Alain?"

"I'll be honest," Alain began. "You're… not quite what I expected, Ash. I was expecting the most focused trainer alive."

"That's your mistake," Pikachu said. "Ash is the most focused trainer alive, he's just also very good at switching what he's focused on…"

"Wow," Mega Sceptile said, examining his hands. "I… didn't realize it would feel like this. It's just… impossible to easily describe."

"Yeah, it feels like that the first time at least," Ash agreed. "You do get used to it, though. The way I tend to put it into words is that it's like having a fizzing current of energy that fills every part of your body, and makes it easier to do just about everything, and it can be hard to control at first because it's like everything is so much more that doing normal things can lead to overdoing them."

He shrugged. "But you get used to it really quickly!"

"It's amazing how much insight you can get just from talking to Pokémon about what they experience," Sawyer said, impressed. "Is that based on all your Pokémon?"

"Well, no, it's based on personal experience," Ash explained. "I've only been Mega Evolved by Pikachu so far, maybe I should try it out with someone else sometime… anyway, I just realized, because we've got matching Mega Stones and Charizards we can get an idea of how strong both of our Charizards are with Mega Evolution, and then we could see if this weird thing my Charizard can do is stronger than Mega Evolving or not!"

Alain looked like he was still stuck on been Mega Evolved, but the prospect of a battle was interesting enough that he glanced up at Charizard.

"What do you think?" he asked.

"I certainly like the idea of giving this Charizardite a go," his Charizard decided.

While Ash and Alain got set up, which mostly involved Ash calling on Charizard and confirming that the big Fire-type was available, one of Alain's other Pokémon sidled over to Serena.

"So you can understand me, right?" the Sneasel checked. "I'm not used to that, but I thought I'd ask."

"Yes, that's right," Serena agreed. "Is there something in particular you wanted to talk about?"

"Well, the weird thing is, I wanted to come over to talk but now I'm having trouble thinking of what to say," Sneasel said. "Is that in any way normal?"

"I think that's part of a normal experience, yes," Braixen told them. "It's funny how that works. So, what's it like being on your team?"

Sneasel shrugged. "Eh. We're mostly a support team for Charizard, he and Alain are really close, and the rest of us are just kind of a normal Pokémon team I think. So, you know, no complaints."

The Ice-type's gaze moved over to Ponyta. "Why are you writing in a notebook?"

"I'm gathering information," Ponyta explained. "We're wondering whether the Pokemon-Trainer Synchronization, or whatever you want to call it, is more closely associated with Infinity Energy like Mega Evolution or if it's more like magic. And a good example of how to get at that is the extent to which it's possible to predict which Pokémon can do it. Such as here – can Ash's Pikachu do the synchronization if they try it right? Could Ash, instead, do it with Pikachu acting as his trainer?"

"Pokémon can't be trainers for humans, right?" Sneasel said.

"Pokémon can be trainers for other Pokémon, that much is certain!" Serena told them. "Ever met a Zorua? Sorry, trick question, you wouldn't know if you had or not."

"That is a disturbingly good point," Sneasel conceded, then there was an explosion overhead.

"That was great!" Ash called. "So now we have a basic idea of how strong both Charizards are!"

"You know, I wonder if this is a bit like that thing Gary does?" Pikachu mused, as Ash and Charizard struck a pose together before Charizard transformed.

"You might need to be more specific," Lokoko said. "I've seen him do a lot of things… but assuming you mean Z-moves, you're right, there does seem to be a bit of a connection."

Charizard's tail flame went blue.

"Is that it?" Alain's Charizard asked, still hovering in Mega-Y form. "It seems a bit less visually impressive than the other one."

Ash-Charizard shrugged. "That's the whole point of this test, isn't it? Let's go!"

"Let's go!" Ash agreed.

Clemont waved his hand. "And, begin!"

Ash-Charizard spread his wings, and took off.

Backwards.

Mega Charizard immediately flared his wings, and pointed. "Wait, that's – what – how are you doing that?"

"What's that Charizard doing?" Alain asked, concurring with his Pokémon.

"I don't see the problem," Ash-Charizard replied, wings held stiffly out to the side, as he hovered in place over Ash and gently yawed around his own axis. "I'm a Flying type who flies. Is something wrong?"

"It's something unusual about when a Pokémon does this," Ash clarified for Alain. "The others can do it too, so Zoroark has a weird thing he does with his Illusion abilities and Greninja's got that special extra-powerful Water Shuriken, that kind of thing… this is just the one Charizard has. We think."

Ash-Charizard had now half-folded his wings like he was doing a stooping dive, and was bouncing up and down in place.

"Well… just watch out in case he does something with it," Alain decided. "Thunder Punch!"

Mega Charizard lunged forwards, and Ash-Charizard zipped sideways out of the way before doing a backflip while shooting out a jet of flame. Then he held up one wing as a shield, held the other one up in front of that one as a shield for the shield, and shot off backwards into the air before banking around to come up behind Mega Charizard.

"Look out!" Alain called, and Mega Charizard whirled in place to use Flamethrower. Ash-Charizard just stopped in place, completely abandoning all his momentum, and the Flamethrower went past in front of him – then dodged to the side as Mega Charizard corrected his aim, then put both arms out in front of him and did a swan-dive into the ground with a faint krunch.

There were a few seconds of silence.

"...is your Pokémon all right?" Alain inquired.

"Huh?" Ash replied, tapping his foot on the ground. "Oh, yeah, he's fine."

Ash-Charizard burst back out of the ground at speed, aiming directly for Mega Charizard, and Alain pointed.

"Blast Burn!" he called.

"I'm not sure what we can conclude from that," Clemont admitted, once the two Charizard had been recalled after another ten minutes of intense battle.

"I know I have a lot to think about," Alain replied. "It was quite an experience meeting you, Ash Ketchum… I hope to meet you in a tournament in future, though I'm afraid that the battle when it actually happens will probably be shorter than I'd like."

"Oddly not a sentiment we usually hear," Pikachu said. "Usually it's more along the lines of, thank Arceus that's over."

"What is over?" Arc checked. "I do not have any appointments set to end at this point."

"No, not you," Pikachu replied. "They mean the other one."

"Understood," Arc stated.

Outside space and reality, Arceus' ring went bing.

Zheir brow furrowed, slightly.

"What is over?" zhey asked. "And why am I being thanked for it?"

AN:

I'm not quite sure how Arceus gets reception there, but would you refuse them a contract?