"What am I going to do?" Faba asked, in his secret lab.

Alakazam shrugged, on account of having immense natural powers of intellect but most of them having been focused in practice on learning how to do all kinds of psychic powers.

"Lusamine has to see that what I've done is worth it," Faba said, mostly to himself. "She has to. But I need results… that way it will prove that I'm the one who's been going about this the right way."

Alakazam made a questioning noise.

"If we can't control Ultra Beasts, we can't stop Ultra Beasts," Faba declared. "And a crucial step in controlling Ultra Beasts is to be able to make them appear."

He looked contemplative. "This is actually helping out a lot. I should remember to explain things to you more often. Anyway… if I want to make Ultra Beasts appear, I need to be able to generate an Ultra Wormhole, but without however Mohn did it I'm relying on guesswork… unless…"

Faba frowned. "There's something I was missing… I just need a moment to work it out."

"The nerve of that man," Lusamine said. "I wouldn't have believed he'd be that… well."

She shook her head. "Please don't let this give you a bad first impression of the Aether Paradise."

"It's an amazing place," Lana said, thinking out loud. "A whole floating island, full of researchers learning about Pokémon."

"Yeah, it's really cool!" Ash agreed. "I could see there were great Pokémon habitats, too."

"Thank you," Lusamine smiled. "We try our best to make sure that our research is ethical… well, except for Professor Faba, anyway…"

Her smile turned into a frown, then she shook her head. "Well, hopefully we'll be able to stop him causing any more trouble."

Lillie had picked up her bag again, and was petting Snowy, but then she turned to her brother.

"Gladion?" she said. "Can you send out Silvally, please?"

Gladion blinked, surprised, then did as she'd asked.

"Child-" Silvally began, and Lillie broke into a run before hugging Silvally.

"Thank you!" she said. "I remember now, you saved me from that Ultra Beast, and – and it's horrible you got put in this mask for it!"

Silvally raised his front paw, touching Lillie's back in return, then began to glow. The mask shattered and dissolved into shards, and a wave of light spread down his body from the mask to the tips of all four legs and to the twin-forks of his tail.

The light went upwards, as well, as his crest spread out to full size with the upper portion of his mask gone.

"Silvally, you evolved!" Gladion gasped. "Or…"

He looked puzzled. "Does that count as evolution? Or not?"

"He looked like this before," Lillie said, stroking Silvally's mane, and after a moment Gladion came over to do the same. "He's beautiful."

"Thank you, Lillie," Silvally said, touching first Umbreon and then Lycanroc as Gladion's other Pokémon came out to lend their support too. "And thank you, Gladion. You trusted me when I did not trust myself, and Lillie forgave me when I did not forgive myself."

Arc manifested, which, even given everything that had happened in the last ten minutes, was a bit much for Professor Burnet to just accept.

"Is that your phone?" she asked.

"Correct," Arc stated, trotting over to Silvally and inspecting him closely. "Hmm. It is my opinion that you should now be healthy. Ibid, do you agree?"

"Silvally," Ibid agreed. "It is not clear if Silvally is a Type Full or not. Its RKS system is activated. This Pokémon can employ specific memories to adapt its Type and confound its foes."

"I know I am designed to do that, but I do not know how," Silvally admitted.

"I will help you with it when there is time," Arc declared. "We are cousins, presumably. I can also add you to a mailing list for human created Pokémon, after I have created one, because it is apparently more common than I had anticipated."

"So…" Snowy began. "Just to be clear, you don't have any problems touching any Pokémon any more, right?" she said.

"No!" Lillie replied.

"Excellent!" King Dragonite announced. "Snowy, I give you royal authority to call a cuddle pile!"

"...wait!" Faba said. "That's it! That's exactly what I've been missing!"

He turned to Alakazam. "Quick, teleport me to the research centre!"

Alakazam scratched his head.

"Room 22," Faba clarified. "And hurry!"

Once the cuddle pile had taken place, Silvally raised his paw.

"Lillie," he said. "Do you remember where the attack happened? And why?"

"Why," Lillie repeated. "Oh – that's right! Mother, Professor Faba has a secret lab, I know where it is! That's where it happened!"

"Then that's probably where he went," Lusamine decided. "We should get down there."

"I will take both you and your sister, Gladion," Silvally declared. "We should hurry."

They did, and after a moment's preparation it was Lokoko who sliced open the doors to Faba's secret lab with half-a-dozen Solar Blades at once.

"You're just in time to see the proof of concept!" Faba said, from behind a control console. "I worked it out! I worked out how to open an Ultra Wormhole at will!"

The room had a haphazard mess of equipment, humming with power – and more than a dozen Cosmog, all piled into a sort of glass bowl thing which was directly connected to the central mass of cables.

"Where did they all come from?" Mallow asked. "I've never seen one before the one Ash brought to school a couple of days ago."

"Of course you haven't, it's an Ultra Beast!" Faba retorted. "But that was my breakthrough – it takes Ultra Beasts to make Ultra Wormholes! And this facility has a whole supply of Ditto!"

He stabbed down on a key, and the Cosmog in the bowl all trembled a bit before turning back into Ditto.

"I'm exhausted," one of them complained.

"Ditto," the rest chorused.

The one remaining Cosmog in the room, however, pulsed once, and a shimmering gateway opened in space.

"I've got a cloudache," Cosmog complained, then evolved to Cosmoem. "Oh, that fixed it!"

"At last!" Faba said. "See? I've made an Ultra Wormhole! My methods do work!"

"Uh," Ash began, raising his hand. "So, if you're trying to stop Ultra Beasts, and that's why you made Silvally, and step one is making an Ultra Wormhole… don't Ultra Beasts come through Ultra Wormholes? Wouldn't you need to be ready to stop them?"

"Don't blame me, I tried to point out that flaw," Alakazam said.

"You did not!" Faba retorted.

"It's not my fault you don't know sign language."

Then something looking like a weird transparent ghost-type Tentacruel came through the wormhole.

"That's one of the Pokémon that attacked me!" Lillie said.

"Go-Go-Nihilego!" the Ultra Beast declared, diving at Lusamine, and vanished with her into another Ultra Wormhole.

"Mom!" Lillie gasped. "What happened – we need to get her back!"

"We do," Gladion agreed. "Silvally… I know it's a long shot, but do you have a way to track down where that strange creature took her?"

"I do not," Silvally said. "I am sorry."

"I think I might, though," Burnet announced. "I'm going to need to double check to make sure, but we've been working on how to track Ultra Aura. That's energy which is especially associated with dimensional shifts, and that was definitely an Ultra Wormhole."

Ash was frowning at the place where Lusamine and the Ultra Beast had vanished.

"Hmm," he said. "Hey, I just thought of something… Professor Burnet?"

Faba began trying to sneak off, then stopped when Aten put a paw in front of him.

"Please, keep going," Aten invited. "I'd like a chance for some personal involvement in violence today."

Faba did not keep going, and Aten sighed. "It was probably too much to hope for."

"Ultra Beasts is a word for creatures that are from other dimensions, right?" Ash asked. "Or, other universes, because a dimension is just a direction like up and down. So there's a specific dimension and moving in it is what Ultra Beasts do to get here?"

"That's a surprisingly in depth understanding of cosmology for, well, anyone," Burnet admitted.

Ash patted Cosmoem. "I wish I could say I learned it to help Cosmoem, but it's actually something I already knew," he explained. "I've had a friend who lives in the Reverse World for years-"

"Meaning, Giratina," Pikachu supplied.

"-so I asked him about how it worked, and it didn't mention this specifically but I got a pretty good idea of how a lot of it works!" Ash resumed. "Anyway, I'm pretty much certain that Cosmoem is from this world, not another world, but I'm also pretty much certain that they can make Ultra Wormholes once they're fully grown – and decide where they go, too."

"I'm not really sure I follow how that would work," Burnet said. "But it sounds like you do. How could an Ultra Beast be from this world?"

"Well, Cosmoem is about a week old, and they've been learning really fast!" Ash explained. "Which is because they're a Pokémon, I guess, Pokémon seem to do that a lot. But whatever that Ultra Beast that took Director Lusamine was, it can make Ultra Wormholes, and if they're coming here then they can still make them even if they're at home. So for one of those Ultra Beasts, at home, it's just a regular creature but it can still make Ultra Wormholes. Same thing."

"That's… actually brilliant," Burnet said. "You're right, there's no reason why there couldn't be an Ultra Wormhole generating Pokémon from our world. How did you come up with that?"

"I kind of had a bit of a head start, because before Cosmoem was a Cosmog their parents appeared to me in a dream and asked me to look after them," Ash related. "And they appeared in the same kind of space distortion that that Ultra Beast appeared in, but I've met them before and they're definitely from this world. So there you go!"

"I was in the same dream, and so was Cresselia," Pikachu said helpfully.

"Hmm," Arc said, furrowing their brow slightly. "Silvally, I believe you are trying too hard."

"Too hard?" Silvally repeated.

"The RKS System is an attempt to recreate Multitype," Arc reminded him. "I have most of my collection of Plates sorted out now, but my grandprogenitor carries all xer plates with xer and has since the moment of xer hatching, excepting when they were specifically removed. It should be instinct."

Arc considered, then pulsed for a moment.

"I believe I have the solution," they said. "Silvally, please repeat after me. Get Volume."

"Get Volume," Silvally repeated, then blinked. "Um. Now I have letters in my mind. What does it mean that it says R RKS System?"

"Eject R," Arc said.

"Eject R," Silvally repeated, and a little disk drive opened up.

"There," Arc said. "You will be able to learn how to do it more naturally with time."

Gladion nodded, rummaging through a box and taking out a black disc. "And… there. Is that working?"

The RKS System closed, then activated, and Silvally's eyes, spikes and fin all changed colour.

"I believe I am now Dark type," Silvally said. "I also have quite a vivid memory of a documentary episode about the Dark type."

"Finding that was a huge time saver," Faba admitted, then realized that by saying that he'd reminded everyone he was there.

"Cosmoem, I don't want to rush you," Ash said. "But I think you can help rescue Lillie's mom… I'd guess it'd mean you'd be evolving, but it's up to you. If you don't want to, we can ask one of them to help instead."

"I want to help," Cosmoem said firmly. "And… I was thinking about the things you said. I know it's my choice. You've made it so clear that it's my choice. And I know what I want to do."

"How does Cosmog evolve, then?" Kiawe asked. "Do you know?"

"Maybe it has something to do with those Ultra Aura signatures," Burnet guessed. "The first ones we saw were at the Altar of the Sunne."

"Then let's go there!" Cosmoem decided.

Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, the Hikokyu crossed invisibly over the Sinnoh coast.

"Why are we going this way, anyway?" Mimikyu asked, glancing up at the nearest camera.

"Background statement: Designate Twerp visited several locations he has been in the past as part of lessons," Porygon informed them. "Apparently reasonable inference: He will choose Sinnoh at some point."

"So you're going to guess that some time he's going to visit somewhere in this whole region, which is massive, and that that'll let you ambush him," Mimikyu said. "How did I even get roped into this mess if that's your way of doing things?"

"Obvious rebuttal: Are you claiming we were intending to acquire you?" Porygon inquired.

"You can shut up."

AN:

"Silvally has evolved into Silvally" kind of… has problems as a statement.