"Seriously, how do you think of these things?" Kiawe asked, during another lesson.

This time, the whole class – except Lana, who was late – were out on the sea, fishing. But they weren't fishing for Pokémon to catch.

Instead, they were fishing for Pokémon to battle.

"It seems really obvious, I guess?" Ash shrugged. "So part of a Pokémon League is always going to be dealing with surprises, and battling a Pokémon where the only time you have to work out how to do it is the time it takes to fish them up and ask them if they want a battle…"

He shrugged. "It was a good way to put that into practice."

Sophocles pulled up a Lanturn with a splash, and waved. "Hi, uh, do you want a battle?"

Lanturn's front and back orbs fizzled, and after a moment's confusion Sophocles sent out Vikavolt. "Uh – attack but only if they do want a fight?" he said.

"Lanturn, it's useful to use words to answer!" Ash called.

"Then, sure, I could go for one," Lanturn agreed.

Vikavolt zipped around to the side, ready to attack, and Lanturn responded with a Bubblebeam attack.

"Wow, this really is an interesting challenge!" Sophocles said. "And I guess it's pointing out what I need to work on… like getting a Bug attack for Vikavolt. Maybe Signal Beam?"

He pointed. "Tackle for now I guess?"

"How do I tackle?" Vikavolt asked.

"Just run into your enemy quickly, that's a good start," Ash said, then turned his attention back to the rest of the class.

Something caught his eye, and he raised his voice. "Oh, yeah, and if you get one of my Pokémon, they know what we're doing."

Mallow pulled up Dewott, who did a forward flip before landing half-in half-out of the water.

"Strengthen my heart, Scalchops!" he called out, and one of them lit up with a flash of flame while the other crackled with electricity.

"Tsareena, you're up!" Mallow said.

"How many of your Pokémon are down there?" Lillie asked, interested.

Ash began to count them off. "Charizard, Zoroark, one of the Dragonite, Mew I think, Silver, Croconaw… Latias and Latios… Aten but I think he's just on the lookout for easy targets… Buizel, Dewott obviously, I think I saw Sandile with a set of scuba gear… Greninja, and last of all Hawlucha, Terror of the Seas. I think that's all of them."

He shrugged. "I wanted to make sure there was great variety even if none of the wild Pokémon were interested."

"Oh, hey, look!" Kiawe said, once his Charizard had finished a training battle with Silver. "Lana's arrived. And she's got a Primarina now!"

Lana was indeed arriving, with her Primarina swimming alongside her Ride Lapras.

"Sorry I'm late, Mr. Ketchum," she said. "I had… a really weird experience, earlier. Sandy headed off earlier this morning, so I went after him, and it turned out his friend Mantine was asking for help with something… and I went to see what it was, and help out if I could."

She sat back on Lapras's shell. "And it turned out that a wild Pokémon needed my help… and it was Kyogre."

"Is this like when you fished up Kyogre once?" Mallow asked. "Because you've told that story a lot, and I don't think it's true at all."

"Hey," Lana protested, but without any real heat. "And, uh… well… there were these – Pokémon Hunters, I guess? Trying to hurt and capture Kyogre. They'd even poisoned them! And I was able to help, but it was really hard to fight them off, and that's how Primarina evolved."

"Pokémon Hunters?" Ash repeated, alert. "What Pokémon did they have?"

"A Seismitoad and two Palpitoads," Lana said. "We beat them eventually, though. The boss introduced himself as, Pokémon Hunter D, I think? And they had a submarine shaped like a Carvanha, but Kyogre drove it ashore on a little island and I told Officer Jenny."

"Well, at least it wasn't Hunter J," Ash decided. "She's a bit of a menace, but I haven't seen her since Sinnoh… I wonder if there's other Pokémon Hunters out there. Well done for stopping them!"

Lana touched her belt, which was missing Sandy's Dive Ball. "I had to leave Sandy at the Pokémon Centre, he got poisoned over and over and I ran out of antidotes. He was still cheerful, though."

"He helped save Kyogre!" Primarina pointed out. "So of course he was proud of himself! And happy to have helped, that's just what he's like."

"Well, congratulations for evolving," Ash told Primarina. "And it sounds like you did great work, Lana. Now… just to explain what's going on, we're fishing, but instead of fishing to catch Pokémon we're asking them for a battle. That way we get battles of all sorts."

"I got a Clobbopus a few minutes ago," Lillie told Lana. "There's a lot of variety down there."

"Oh, then maybe I'll get a chance to try out Oceanic Operetta!" Lana realized, getting her own fishing rod out. "Right now it'd be nice to have a practice battle…"

She checked her lure, then cast her fishing rod. The lure splashed into the water, dipping a couple of times, then vanished into the water as something tugged on the rod.

"Wow, that was quick!" Mallow said, impressed.

Lana leaned back and tugged, and the line resisted – actually reeling further out at first – then suddenly twanged and went slack.

And Kyogre launched herself over the entire group, backflipping on the way, before splashing down just on the far side of the group of Ride Pokémon.

"Morning!" she said. "I don't suppose my niece is around here, is she?"

"Yeah, Rayquaza's back at Kukui's house," Ash said. "Playing with Meltan. I can get her, though…"

Two days later, there was another Ultra Guardians alert.

Since Ash was in the middle of a lesson about what to do when battling a Pokémon you didn't know enough about, he and Kukui's class were able to do the full normal Ultra Guardians alert sequence, and a few minutes later they were suited up and in the base.

"Here are your things!" one of the Meltan said, as more than a dozen of them brought a box over.

"Thanks!" Ash told them, taking two Beast Balls and some medicine from the box, and the Meltan brought it down the line for the others to get their equipment as well. "Director, do we know anything?"

"Not much, but that's normal," Lusamine replied. "This isn't another Pheromosa situation, though, this time we caught the Ultra Wormhole itself manifesting. The Ultra Beast itself hasn't been identified, but that's why we're sending you out urgently."

A map appeared, showing Melemele Island with a blinking wormhole symbol.

"We're mobilizing a support team, but based on past experience actually getting this Ultra Beast home is mostly going to involve Nebby making a hole in the universe in a very loud way," Lusamine added. "Is that right?"

"Could be!" Ash agreed. "Could be Naganadel, though, I've got him along because he's a great example of a Pokémon people don't know enough about."

"Understood," Lusamine replied. "All right, everyone ready? Ultra Guardians, launch!"

"Ash has a weird team," Garchomp mused. "I mean, really weird."

"Yeah, you get used to some aspects of it," Pikachu shrugged, watching as Suicune ran along the air next to them, then frowned.

Scampering over to the edge of Garchomp's back, he looked down.

"Hey, Ash?" he called. "Arc? Are we at the Ultra Wormhole yet?"

"Arc says not quite!" Ash called back.

"Because those trees have had their tops chopped off," Pikachu explained, pointing down. "I think that could mean the Ultra Beast is on the move."

"Huh, you're right," Ash agreed, leaning over Suicune's back. "Let's go down and have a closer look!"

Suicune stopped water walking.

She dropped out of the sky in a sudden, precipitate plummet, then began water-walking again a bit at a time and braked to a halt – still in mid-air – about ten feet over the trees.

Now moving more slowly, she paced over to the trees as if she were moving down an invisible staircase, and Ash looked closely at one of them.

"That's a really smooth cut," he said. "Right?"

"Correct," Arc agreed.

The other Ultra Guardians descended around them.

"Don't do that!" Sophocles complained. "We thought the world had suddenly noticed that Suicune was doing something she couldn't, and had decided to correct it!"

"I didn't," Lana piped up.

"So, the wormhole was over there," Kiawe said, pointing. "And these are here, which means that if it's going anywhere, it would be… that way."

He pointed. "Which is… Hau'oli City."

"We'd better hurry, then!" Ash said. "We don't want anyone to get scared!"

"I've got an update," Lusamine told them, as they flew over the Hau'oli city limits.

"Huh?" Kiawe asked, looking at his video communicator. "What kind of update?"

"Faba was watching the shopping channel," Lusamine explained.

"It's therapy!" Faba defended himself, faintly.

"And Viren's on some kind of… work release thing to try and pay his fines?" Lusamine added. "I really don't understand it myself, but it doesn't count against his prison time, it just means he might not be bankrupt when he leaves… anyway, he was showing off an indestructible safe, then an unknown Pokémon appeared and cut the safe in half."

"That sounds like it could be the Ultra Beast," Mallow said. "Where could it be now, though…"

"Gah!" someone yelped, just below them.

Suicune dropped out of the sky again.

"They've got to stop doing that!" Kiawe protested, and Charizard slammed his wings up to shed velocity.

"It's… dreadful!" the head of a beauty salon explained. "Shocking! Unbelievable!"

"What is?" Lillie asked.

"Just look!" she said, pointing at the three Furfrou on the stand. "I was going to trim them, but they've already been trimmed by that weird Pokémon over with your friends!"

Lillie looked at the Furfrou, and… well, it was hard to argue.

The three Furfrou had trims which weren't any of the standard ones… but which did look a lot like Alolan Vulpix, Alolan Ninetales, and Ash's phone.

Which… probably meant Arceus.

"Frouuu," one of the Furfrou said.

Without looking away from the Ultra Beast, Ash took a Pokéball off his belt and sent out Lokoko.

"I hope you're not meant to re-style us," the Furfrou declared, turning his head to look at the nine wispy tails his fur was in now. "This is actually quite chic."

"I know," said the one on his left, the one who'd ended up in Arceus style. "Think about it, we could all be trend setters!"

"Hmph," the stylist said. "There's no accounting for taste."

"What happened to the customer always being right in matters of taste?" the third Furfrou asked, rolling her eyes. "Please."

"Okay, I think I get it," Ash said, most of his attention on Arc's screen. "Ibid, can you get Leavanny?"

The Bug-Grass type arrived in moments, checked Arc's screen, then faced the Ultra Beast before sweeping her Leaf Blades through the air. Whipping them together, so they struck one another, then away again, and in a one-following-the-other pattern.

In response, the alien Pokémon swished their own thin blades around.

"I see," Ash read off. "I didn't think there were things that shouldn't be cut. In my world all things can be cut, and it is not a problem."

Another exchange.

"And it's called Kartana," Ash added, not doing direct translation now. "So… do you need help to get home?"

Leavanny acted that out.

Kartana sliced a hole in the air, forming an Ultra Wormhole, and jumped through.

"...I guess that's a no, then," Mallow decided.

"Aww," Naganadel sighed. "I was hoping to get a chance to send an Ultra Beast home!"

Ash patted him on the wing. "It's okay, Naganadel. I'm sure you'd have done a great job!"

Then Rayquaza came in.

"I don't want lunch today," she told Ash. "I saw a meteorite as big as a bed heading for the school, caught it, and asked if anyone else wanted it. They didn't so I ate some of it and put the rest away for later."

"Well done, Rayquaza!" Ash said. "Huh, I wonder where that meteorite came from…"

Up in space, Deoxys, Deoxys and Big Rayquaza exchanged looks.

You are sure she caught it?

"Yeah, I'd recognize her anywhere," Rayquaza agreed. "We are never training near an earth-crossing asteroid again. Or speaking of this."

Agreed, both Deoxys said.

AN:

Kartana, like Naganadel, can handle themselves as far as Ultra Wormholes go.

I wonder if it's a trend in my work to have a big brother Rayquaza of some description?