"Well, here goes," Ash decided, north of Rubello. "Let's see what happens…"
He held up his hoof over the Badge Case, then carefully lowered the Heat Badge and placed it in its slot.
His ring changed back to gold in an instant, gems changing to their characteristic green colour, and he double-checked that there wasn't anyone in that direction before using Flamethrower.
Which worked, though it wasn't nearly as strong as he'd been managing before.
"That's fascinating," Max said, writing it down. "So it seems like you have to be a certain type to learn a move, but then you get to keep that move when you change types. That's… actually really versatile, so long as you can spare the time to actually learn a move."
"Yeah, it does take a while," Ash admitted. "It's not like, Foresight or Extremespeed, which came really suddenly. I guess…"
He frowned, thinking about it.
"Maybe it depends whether one of my Pokémon is going to be learning the same move at the same time," he suggested. "Because if they are, then obviously it doesn't actually mean I'm spending much time on learning it that I wouldn't otherwise. Latias learned Mystical Fire and Koraidon learned Flamethrower – and so did Octillery, I guess – at the same time I was learning Flamethrower, so that's good."
Ash shrugged. "But… well, I guess I am trying to find out what I am, sort of, but mostly I'm on my Pokémon Journey! And I'd rather train Pokémon and battle competitively than not do that."
"If that's what you want, Ash, I don't see a reason to do otherwise," Brock said. "But it's good you're actually thinking about it."
"Thanks," Ash smiled. "So, uh…"
He frowned. "Which way is Fortree again?"
"Main road goes right, here," Brock told him. "I think?"
"That's what the Pokénav says," Max agreed.
He scratched his head, then winced at a sleepy chirp. "Sorry, Swablu…"
Swablu ruffled her wings, then settled back down on Max's head to resume her sleep.
"Do you guys think I should try to get her to be more active?" Max asked, glancing up. "I don't know what's healthy or not, but she doesn't seem to like flying, and that doesn't seem right."
"We can talk about it over lunch," Brock recommended. "You're right that something might be wrong, but since we have the chance we can talk about it with Ash's help."
He frowned. "And maybe we'd better hurry, it's getting cold."
"Yeah, it is," Latias complained. "And quickly, too…"
Then it started snowing. The clouds seemed to come out of nowhere, and Ash quickly shut his badge case before passing it up to Pikachu with a twist of his foreleg. The Electric-type took it, moving it to his saddebags, and they all hurried for the nearest shelter.
"I didn't know there was snow forecast!" May complained, holding her bag over her head.
Latias used Safeguard, then spread it out a bit to cover the whole group, and the snow stopped a moment later.
"Huh," Brock frowned. "That shouldn't-"
It began raining.
"Ack!"
"This way!" a Pokémon shaped like a raindrop called. "We didn't know there was anyone out when we were testing – the institute's this way, Bart will stop when he realizes!"
"Who's Bart?" Ash asked, as Castform began to head back down the side road that didn't lead to Fortree. "Come on, guys, apparently someone's doing this, maybe we can get them to stop?"
"If someone's doing it, then this isn't natural," Brock pointed out. "And if someone's affecting the weather anyway-"
"Oh, yeah, good point!" Ash agreed. "We can get help from Koraidon!"
"Welcome to the Weather Institute!" a man in a white lab coat said, a few minutes later. "This is a special research facility where we study weather modification."
He looked up at the dish. "Sorry you got wet… though I was planning on testing out a sandstorm before the dish broke, so it could have been worse."
"The dish broke?" Max repeated. "Hmm… it looks intact to me."
"Well, it could have been part of the main machine, but it was showing all the diagnostics fine," the man explained, as Castform came over to join him. "That's an amazing collection of unusual Pokémon you've got there, I don't even recognize some of them."
"I'm Ash!" Ash introduced himself. "I don't actually know what Pokémon I am. And this is Koraidon, she's got an ability or something that makes it sunny."
Koraidon sat down on her haunches and waved a paw, smiling broadly. "Hi!"
"...oh, so that's why the machine hasn't been working," the man said. "That's fascinating. We've studied Pokémon that can alter the weather like that, but we've never had one here at the same time as we've been trying to modify the weather… I don't suppose you'd mind staying for long enough for us to run a few experiments?"
Someone else came down the stairs behind him, and the man coughed. "Oh dear, sorry… where are my manners. I'm Bart, and this is my assistant, Millie."
"It's nice to meet you," Millie said.
Brock frowned.
"Huh," he said. "That's weird."
"What's weird?" Ash asked.
"I'll tell you later-" Brock promised, then there was a sudden roar of helicopter rotors.
Two big helicopters flew overhead, and half-a-dozen Team Aqua grunts jumped out on rope lines – along with Shelley, the same trainer who'd raided the Oceanic Museum.
"You're here again," she said, with scorn. "Well, you'd better leave – Team Aqua's taking this place over! We need all the data stored here!"
"Not while I'm around," said Millie, in a completely different voice from before.
"What?" Bart asked, baffled, then Millie took off her wig and threw off her dress.
Underneath was an outfit in black and red, with a Team Magma logo on the jagged shawl over his shoulders, and the not-Millie stepped forwards and sent out a Ditto.
"Brodie," he told Ash, in an aside. "Undercover agent. Maxie sent me in case Team Aqua tried something… looks like I was here at just the right time."
"Team Magma," Shelley complained, as behind her the helicopters landed and reinforcements came out. "Well, that just means we'll have to beat you as well to get that data!"
"Pikachu, Koraidon, get ready," Ash said, then lowered his voice. "Latias, think you can stop those helicopters from taking off or something?"
"I'll try," Latias began, then they were interrupted again by another loud noise.
This time, the ground shook, and an enormous yellow Psyduck mecha rose out of the nearby river.
The beak flapped up, and revealed Jessie, James, and Meowth.
"If it's weather you want to see," Jessie began, folding her arms.
"Then you'll find the sky's not free!" James agreed.
Meowth jumped up, and pulled down a projection screen that lit up with a weather forecast on it.
"While some might think to be alarmed," Jessie said, and pointed at some rainy symbols with a little extendible stick.
"We say they'll all be becalmed," James told them, pulling the symbols off the board and throwing them away.
"Crazy cults are not benign," Jessie warned firmly.
James pressed a button. "But we'll help – with fake Cloud Nine."
"Jessie!" Jessie introduced herself.
"James!" James agreed, and a little chyron scrolled across their weather forecast with both their names.
"Everyone's welcome to feel under the weather," Jessie explained.
"But it's Rayquaza who brings you together!" James concluded.
"What in Kyogre's name is a Rayquaza?" Shelley asked, completely baffled.
"Oh, you're not super-ancient, I see," James said grandly. "Welcome!"
The multi-sided battle that followed saw two mostly separate but related struggles going on, one over the weather – where Bart, Castform and Koraidon fought to keep the weather sunny to give the greatest possible advantage to the Pokémon on the defending side, Team Aqua kept trying to make it rain to give their own Pokémon an advantage, and the Rockets just kept trying to scrub all the icons off the weather forecast and make the weather clear and pleasant – while the other was the more conventional Pokémon battle also taking place.
Brodie's Ditto took on the shape of Ash's Pikachu, apparently to get the best firepower they could, but even once that was done the Ditto had trouble matching up to Pikachu's powerful Thunderbolt attacks. That might partly have been because of Pikachu's multi-thunderbolt trick, which launched out a storm of half-a-dozen attacks at once, and partly because Pikachu had spent so long battling alongside Ash that he was a past master at efficient use of his electrical stores.
Meanwhile, Brock deployed Crobat and Forretress, May did her best to keep on top of what both Skitty and Bulbasaur were doing, and Ash spent most of his time focused on what Koraidon and Grovyle could do to help out.
Eventually, though, Team Rocket's attempt to fire Jessie's Seviper at someone with a compressed air cannon backfired, partly thanks to Latias adjusting the wiring from under cover of stealth, and their giant Psyduck robot sent them all Blasting Off again. Then Team Aqua retreated, unable to get hold of what they were after, and once they were gone Ash let out a sigh of relief.
"Good work, guys," he said.
"But… where's my assistant?" Bart asked.
"I was here to make sure Team Aqua didn't get their hands on your data," Brodie said. "Your actual assistant will be turning up soon, I think, but I'll… stick around for a bit. Just in case."
"How do you even do half of those moves?" his Ditto asked, pointing a pseudopod at Pikachu. "I was doing exactly the same as you and it was not working out!"
"I guess that's the difference between having a move and learning a move?" Ash shrugged.
"But we should check on the database," Brodie suggested. "Team Aqua could have managed to sneak someone in and stolen the data, that could be why they retreated."
"Oh! Of course, I'll get that sorted out," Bart agreed. "It shouldn't take more than a moment…"
AN:
I've got a backlog at the moment, so I'm running through it faster so you see it sooner; the cost of this is that there might be a delay once the backlog is run through, but it seemed like a good plan anyway.