After saying goodbye, and getting a lift back to his home universe, or timeline, or whichever it was, Ash found out that actually he'd only been gone about ten minutes by the local clocks.
Which was convenient, because it meant nobody had even got around to missing him.
Necrozma stayed around long enough to say hello to Dartrix and Meganium in particular, patting them on their respective heads and saying that they were a fan of how they enjoyed my style, then made an Ultra Wormhole and vanished through to relieve Solgaleo and Lunala of their job.
"It's really neat how some Legendary Pokémon symbolize something, then others do something, and then others still are something," Ash said, leaning against Nebby's side as he waved goodbye to Necrozma. "You know, how Solgaleo and Lunala symbolize the sun and moon but they're not actually up there shining down on the planet, and Yveltal doesn't get involved every time someone dies, while Rayquaza's main thing is the job of shooting down meteorites and stopping Groudon and Kyogre arguing. And Necrozma especially is a sun."
"Or a moon, probably," Nebby agreed, purring under his breath. "You know, Necrozma can be Shiny just at will? Because, you know… it's about what colour they shine, and shining is a thing they do all the time. They're normally white-yellow-golden, but they have a white-metal-silver setting instead."
"That does sound neat," Ash agreed. "Oh, hey, I should find Tapu Koko and tell him how the experiment went…"
Ash visited the Pokémon School that afternoon, and Lana came up to him almost as soon as he arrived.
"Mr. Ketchum, can you help?" she asked. "There's a Pokémon I met, but… I want to make sure I'm getting help from you about how to approach them properly."
"Oh, sure!" Ash agreed. "Is your class over for the day?"
"Yeah, we just finished a lesson about evolution stones," Lana confirmed. "Which is sort of appropriate, but – anyway, I know you talked about this stuff a lot, but it was a while ago and I haven't used any of it yet so I can't remember any of it. Can you go over it again?"
"You bet," Ash agreed. "So, first, what do you already know about the Pokémon?"
Lana frowned, lips moving slightly as she thought.
"I'm pretty sure they're a boy," she said. "It's one of those Pokémon with gender differences, but the difference is difficult to see and I didn't get a chance to ask, obviously."
Ash nodded. "Right… I guess it's a Pokémon that uses an evolution stone to evolve, so… Pikachu or Raichu, or a Nidoran...Gloom or Vileplume, maybe? Or-"
"Are you going through all of them from memory?" Lana asked, seriously impressed. "But, uh – anyway – they're an Eevee, so they can evolve from lots of evolution stones. And they were playing with Popplio yesterday, but I didn't want to interrupt them and surprise them. And now it'd feel awkward to ask, right?"
"It could be awkward, yeah, but how they're playing with Popplio is a good start, actually," Ash reassured her. "Remember, you can't understand Eevee but they can understand you, and Popplio can understand you, and they can talk to one another."
He frowned. "What kind of thing did you want to talk to them about?"
"All sorts, really," Lana said. "I wanted to ask them if they were okay, because they seemed really happy to play with Popplio but sad when Popplio left, so I don't really know if they're happy by themselves… and if they're not, they could come and live with me. And I'd like them to join my team, but that's – that feels like it should be separate."
"Well, she's learned well," Pikachu mused.
"Yeah, you're definitely thinking about this right," Ash agreed.
"That's good," Lana sighed.
She was still frowning, though. "How can I avoid making a mistake?"
"You can't guarantee you won't," Ash smiled. "You can just make sure you have a way to cope with it! But you know what might help break the ice?"
"Walking, walking, walking, I'm walking – along!" Eevee said to himself. "I don't know where I'm going, but I'm sure I'll find somewhere!"
Then he spotted someone up ahead, and brightened. "Oh! Popplio! Hi, it's great to see you!"
Full of enthusiasm, he raced up to her and jumped at her, and the Water-type just about managed to avoid falling over backwards.
"Yeah!" she agreed. "It's great to see you, too! How are you doing?"
"Great!" Eevee replied. "It's a sunny day and I had something to eat today!"
Popplio winced at that, for some reason, then flipped her tail a bit. "There's someone I'd like you to meet, okay?"
"Sure!" Eevee said. "Who are they?"
"She's called Lana," Popplio explained. "Lana?"
"That's my name, right?" asked a Quaxly, peering out from behind a log, then yelped in surprise as Eevee charged up to her and Tackled her as well.
"New friend~!" Eevee cheered, then looked at her. "Um. Is she okay? She's on the floor now."
Popplio tried not to commit to either giggling or sighing in exasperation. "I forgot how much you like doing that… Lana's actually my trainer, she's just turned into a Pokémon by magic so that she can meet you."
"Oh!" Eevee said.
He stepped back a bit. "What kind of Pokémon is a thats-my-name-right? I've not heard of that one!"
Explaining the full situation to Eevee took a bit more help, but eventually Lana and Popplio between them managed to explain to him what Lana was after.
Then he literally jumped at the chance to join Lana's team, before spending the whole rest of the afternoon teaching her how to surf on the local Mantine.
Lana did quite well, really, considering she couldn't understand what Eevee – or Sandy, as she nicknamed him – was saying. It didn't help either that Sandy's hair kept falling over his eyes, and he was very enthusiastic when Lana suggested getting him a hair-cut.
That got her knocked off Mantine again, but still.
Fur now trimmed, Sandy came with Lana to school the next day.
He then explained the long and sort-of-complicated process by which he'd come to Alola, which through the benefit of Lokoko's presence the whole class could follow and understand.
Well… understand, at least. Sandy's sheer enthusiasm and momentum when he explained everything that had happened led to him going back on himself, amending bits he'd already said to add other details, and going off to explain the trick of how to surf on a Mantine before asking if everyone wanted to give it a try.
"I'm not sure I can keep up with Sandy," Lillie admitted, once the little Eevee had finally finished. "But he's so enthusiastic, so it's hard to be annoyed."
That got nods.
Most of Ash's lesson that day was about how you could use your own knowledge to get more information out of what a wild Pokémon told you, and when you might need to ask follow up questions, but he had to keep it short because there was an appointment on his calendar to speak with someone called Hau.
He wasn't sure who Hau was, but if Arc put it there it must be important.
As it turned out, when Ash went to the meeting location Arc had put in alongside the appointment (helpfully marked as A Beach), Hau was a kid about Ash's own age who was Kahuna Hala's grandson.
He was also surprised to see Ash.
"Wait," he began. "You're actually real? I always thought you were like a ghost story or urban legend, or something like that."
"Really?" Ash replied. "I guess I did die once, so I can see where you'd get ghost story from… oh, yeah, and several of my Legendaries live in cities like Altomare! So both are right, kind of!"
Hau looked perplexed.
"Right," he said. "Anyway, uh… even if you are real, it turns out, why are you in Alola? I know you're not from here."
"That's right!" Ash agreed readily. "I'm not from here, but I am here as a teacher in Professor Kukui's class! Rotom's recording them in the hopes that, uh… how did Principal Oak put it?"
"They'd make some sense out of the you-ness, I think," Pikachu said. "Oh, hey, if Hau is Hala's grandson, does that mean he's going to be Kahuna eventually?"
"That's a good question!" Ash agreed. "Pikachu wants to know if you're going to be Kahuna eventually?"
"How would I even know that?" Hau said. "I'm – hold on, you actually can speak to Pokémon?"
Ash nodded. "Yeah!"
"Right," Hau replied, blinking quite hard several times. "That is, uh… okay, I missed how Principal Oak put it-"
"Oh, yeah, sorry," Ash said. "You know how it is, you come from a class where people are getting Pokémon translation, you leave your Ninetales there to keep doing it, you forget that now not everyone can understand what Pokémon say. Anyway, Principal Oak said that all the recordings would mean people got more of a chance to make sense of me, but he didn't really think that was likely I think."
He shrugged. "Still, if it helps people out! Oh, how do people end up as Kahunas anyway? I'm sort of scheduled to be called a Move Kahuna, I don't know if that's an official title or not but if it is I want to get the set up done."
Hau did his best to rally. "Well, uh… Kahunas are usually from within families, but not just anyone can end up the Kahuna. They have to be recognized by the Tapus as skilled trainers and also, I guess the closest term is pure of heart? Or, not likely to do the wrong thing for Alola."
"Right!" Ash said. "So it's a lot like Gym Leaders, except for the extra bit with the Tapus. I guess you'd have to do the Island Challenge first, and it's not like your grandfather is likely to leave any time soon, and even then you don't know who the Tapus will pick, but becoming a stronger Pokémon Trainer is important anyway! Hey, what Pokémon do you have?"
Hau had a Dartrix, who immediately got into a staring match with Ash's Dartrix, and an Alolan Raichu who examined Pikachu before hopping up onto his tail and floating there smugly.
Pikachu flicked his ears, then hopped up onto a Surfboard.
Raichu got less smug.
"How is that even-" Hau began, then shook his head. "Right, right. You're Ash Ketchum. I need to remind myself of that regularly when dealing with you… anyway, uh, I have a Tauros back home, and Dad said he'd get me an Eevee some time but that's not going to happen just yet. That's for when I have a good idea of how I want my full team to turn out, because Eevee has so much potential."
"And it depends what your Eevee wants to evolve into, too," Ash pointed out. "Oh, unless you mean your dad is going to try to find an Eevee that wants to evolve into a specific Pokémon? I guess there must be some of those, maybe they're there if you look for them…? I've never had a reason to look!"
"Left, and right, and boosh!" both Dartrix said at once, and Ash and Hau turned to look. Hau didn't understand but he turned to look anyway.
The two Grass-types were kicking their feet together, then tapping them either side, then flaring their wings.
"Good meeting," Ash's Dartrix added, looking up at his trainer. "Turns out we really get on well! We're birds of a feather!"
"Okay, that one has to have been deliberate," Pikachu muttered.
AN:
Where are you going, Eevee?
The answer, it seems, is "everywhere at once"