"So today I thought I'd talk about Pokémon categories," Ash said. "There's a few related types of Pokémon, like owl Pokémon, and then there's some more closely related ones like Tiny Bird Pokémon. But because I've got Noctowl and Dartrix, we're going to start off with the wider category!"
He was about to continue, but the portraits by the side of the classroom started flashing.
"Oh, that's a shame," Kukui said. "I was interested in that one – next time, Ash?"
"Sure!" Ash confirmed. "I'll be sure to pick up where we left off."
He was already heading over to the lift that would take him down to the Ultra Guardians' base, and the students followed suit.
One ride later, and in their uniforms again, Lusamine appeared on the big screen.
"We detected some Ultra Aura a while ago," she said. "The signal wasn't very large, but we've been refining our scans, and we think we've narrowed down the area enough to send you out. Ash, do you have Zapdos with you?"
"No, but I do have Zekrom!" Ash replied. "Is he one, three or four?"
"One, I think," Lusamine answered, after some consideration. "Your Lugia is four, that one is obvious, but I wasn't sure which of Zekrom or Swellow should get one."
"It'd be ideal for me to get one!" Zekrom announced, coming out of his Pokéball.
"You should make a six badge for Ash's Raikou," Lillie suggested. "She's got optional wings and she's like a tiger."
"That's a very good point," Lusamine smiled. "I'll have to use that. Now, Ultra Guardians, ready for launch!"
The Ultra Guardians launched from their base, Zekrom leading the way, and as they flew Kiawe came alongside Lillie.
"Why Raikou?" he asked. "You seem like you know what she's getting at."
"She's a big fan, she showed both Gladion and myself the whole series when we were younger," Lillie replied. "The sixth one is actually a biplane… it's amazing what things stick with you."
She frowned. "Hold on. This looks familiar… are we just going down the beach?"
"I'll ask," Kiawe decided, and Charizard accelerated until they were alongside Zekrom instead. "Mr. Ketchum, are we going the right way?"
Zekrom rumbled something draconic, and Charizard gave the Legendary an extremely dubious look.
"What was that?" Kiawe asked, after a few seconds.
"Oh, Zekrom said that it wouldn't be ideal to go to the wrong place," Ash explained. "And Arc would tell me if we were going in the wrong direction, anyway.
They flew over Professor Kukui's house, with a shoom, then Zekrom circled and came down for a landing at a sandy inlet where waves broke over a sandbar and left the inner lagoon almost free from the waves of the wider sea.
"Kroooom," Zekrom considered.
"Huh," Ash decided, then raised Arc. "Hey, did Zekrom take a wrong turn? Director, are we close to where that signal is?"
"You're close, Ash," Lusamine replied.
"Then let's have a look around!" Ash decided. "Hmm…"
There was a thump-thump-thump as Lycanroc ran up, skidded to a halt, and jumped up at Ash.
Since it was Lycanroc, they didn't fall back down again, and just sort of floated there in mid-air as they Stealth Rocked their way out of having to do so.
"I thought that was you going overhead," they said, tail wagging. "Why are you so close? It's nice but confusing."
"We're looking out for an Ultra Beast," Ash explained. "Any idea where one might be?"
"Near the tree line," Arc said, a map appearing on their screen.
"Let's go, everyone!" Ash invited. "Be on the look out for that Ultra Beast!"
"Are we absolutely sure that's an Ultra Beast?" Sophocles asked, looking at the little purple Pokémon that was the result of their search.
"Poi!" the purple Ultra Beast said, waving. "Popoi-pole… poiii!"
It pointed at Pikachu. "Poi poi!"
"Any idea what that means, Arc?" Ash asked, then the Ultra Beast tackled Pikachu.
"That is not ideal!" Zekrom said, turbine lighting up, then had to shut their turbine down again in embarrassment when it turned out that the main thing the Ultra Beast wanted to do was to snuggle close to Pikachu.
"Poiii-poi!" they said, and Pikachu started giggling.
"I don't think this Ultra Beast is as unhappy as the other ones," Pikachu said. "Though maybe they're lost?"
"Let's see if Arc can work out a translation," Ash decided. "Does that sound like it'll work, Director?"
"That's as good a plan as any, Ash," Lusamine replied. "Maybe you can sort this out quickly once you can talk to them."
"So, what do we do in the meantime?" Kiawe asked. "We're out here instead of in class… is it bad that I just want to spend some time with the Ride Pokémon? I want to see how Charizard gets on with that Garchomp Pikachu uses."
"Oh, that would be nice," Lillie said. "Altaria, how does that sound?"
Altaria made a humming noise. "Fun!"
"I'll see if Lokoko's available," Ash decided. "Then… hey, Pikachu, what about teaching our new friend how to play Tag? Lycanroc, you and I can start it to show how it works!"
"I'm not entirely sure why this went the way it did," Lusamine admitted, taking a sip of coffee, and watching the view from the cameras.
Lana was having her Popplio blow bubbles in the air, and the Ride Dragonair was trying to balance as many as possible on their tail without having any of them pop. Then, right next to her, Mallow was trying to teach Flygon how to hover nose-down and tail-up, which meant starting with a flat hover and slowly pitching forwards a bit at a time, and Sophocles seemed to be playing chess with Metang.
She wasn't quite sure where they'd got the chess set.
Kiawe and Marowak were racing Garchomp up and down the beach, swapping Pokémon after every run, and all four of them seemed to be enjoying the competition. And Lillie and Snowy were just snoozing in the shade, curled up in Altaria's fluffy wings.
Lusamine smiled. "But, on the other hand… well, I suppose beach episodes are traditional."
"Oh, huh, so that's what's going on," Ash said, watching as the helpful digital Hoothoot pointed at diagrams. "I can do my best to understand that, I think… hey, what's your name?"
The Ultra Beast looked up, confused. "Piiioi?"
"Me-mew-ww," Ash explained.
"Okay, I didn't understand that," Pikachu said. "What was that?"
"Poi-pole!" the Ultra Beast said, clearly, pointing at itself.
"There's a weird tonal shift with how Poipole speaks, that's what," Ash explained. "It's, uh, all the frequencies are reversed, but frequency changes are still the same?"
"Wow, okay," Pikachu said. "No wonder they're hard to understand."
"Can you tell us about how you got here?" Ash asked.
Poipole scratched the side of their head. "Poole?"
"I suspect this could take a while," Pikachu said. "I wonder why they don't understand you?"
"It could be the same kind of thing," Ash pondered. "Maybe it's just hard to make the connection and Poipole will make sense of it eventually? It took Arc a while to get it worked out."
He cleared his throat. "Me-ew, eeew!"
Poipole brightened, and launched into an explanation.
"So, we've got good news, Director," Ash said. "We've asked Poipole about how they got here, and why, and what was going on, and with help from Arc we've managed to get most of the story."
"That sounds like excellent news," Lusamine replied. "If we can work out what's causing Ultra Beasts to end up here by mistake, we can hopefully find them sooner and send them back – or even stop them coming here by mistake in the first place."
"Right," Ash agreed. "So, they lived in a nest with lots of other Poipole and another Pokémon… I think Poipole evolves into them? I'm not certain because the word they used is a bit weird and I don't have Pidgey with me at the moment so I can't demonstrate. Anyway, there was also a Pokémon that provided lots of light to the world? Sort of like a sun, but different… but that Pokémon got badly hurt, and that sort of… broke the world, so it went all cold and dark. Poipole and the other Pokémon all huddled together to try and keep the last of the light safe, but Poipole eventually left and came here through an Ultra Wormhole."
He shrugged. "I didn't get whether that was one that was made by Poipole, one that happened naturally, or one that was made by something else. But once it ended up here, Poipole was fascinated by how bright the world is, and especially by Pikachu when we did the mission to send Buzzwole home! I guess it's because his cheeks make sparks of light a lot."
"That's… worrying news, Ash," Lusamine admitted. "I'll have to study to see if there's any clues about how to fix Poipole's world, but… hmm. How long ago did that injury to the light causing Pokémon happen?"
Ash made some mewing noises, then Poipole made Poipole noises back.
"They say it was, a while ago?" Ash passed on. "I guess Poipole isn't great with telling time."
"Now that I think about it, if their source of light was injured it's not easy to tell the time," Lusamine muttered. "And if Poipole came here that long ago, we probably can't find the Ultra Wormhole they used… they might be stuck here."
"Oh, that's not going to be much of a problem," Ash replied. "When I sent out Noctowl to have him use illusions and test something, Poipole asked how that worked, and they want to join my team! So I guess if we find out a way to get them home I can ask then, but before then I've got a new team member!"
"Really, I should have expected that," Lusamine decided. "So, what are you going to do now?"
"I'm going to finish explaining about Pokémon with closely related type names," Ash answered. "I think this Ultra Guardians mission is probably done."
"Ultroger," Lusamine responded, signing off.
"Ultroger?" Burnet repeated, smiling. "That's a new one."
"I didn't like the look Gladion gave me when I tried F.A.B," Lusamine said. "Hmm… I wonder if solving this problem of a light source would mean we could call ourselves Spectrum?"
"So this is Poipole," Ash introduced. "They're from another world, but they've agreed to join the team. Say hello, everyone! Me-ew, ew."
"What did you just say?" Torracat asked, padding over. "Hello, Poipole."
Poipole poked Torracat's fire bell. "Poi!"
"...do they have a speech impediment?" Torracat guessed.
"No, they're just young and have a different dialect," Ash replied. "I don't think I was able to properly explain the gender question, so I'm using they for now."
"I can respect that," Salazzle said, crouching down. "So, what type? Any idea?"
"Ibid?" Ash asked.
"Analyzing," Ibid stated, then turned into a miniature Poipole.
Poipole looked deeply impressed, especially when Ibid did a little dance and threw out a glob of poison.
"Poison type," Ibid announced.
"Neat," Salazzle summarized. "Hey, kid, want to learn how to use Venoshock?"
That made Poipole look mystified.
"Oh, right, language barrier," Salazzle realized. "Boss, any chance you can translate?"
"Shouldn't that wait until the hellos have finished?" Lycanroc checked. "There's a lot of hellos to get through."
"Yeah, fair," Salazzle agreed. "Actually, I'm going to go get some snacks, let's see what Poipole likes..."
AN:
Say hi to Poipole! They won't understand you, but it's polite.