"Something feels a bit off about this training," Riolu said, darting in and hitting Muk with half-a-dozen Force Palm attacks in a row.
Muk sort of rippled.
"Yeah, it's Muk's style," Ash agreed.
Muk's role on Ash's team was sort of… an antidote to people who had a way of dealing with Ash's usual style, really. Most of Ash's Pokémon were fast and tough, but they could be dealt with by someone with the right counter-tactics, and the right counter-tactics were similar enough between the different Pokémon on Ash's team that sometimes Ash ended up in a difficult place.
Which was what Muk's job was. He was so resilient, and so different to everyone else, that he could take a pounding and keep on going.
Of course, that just meant making sure Muk could handle the barrage of attacks. Which was what most of Ash's Pokémon had been doing in turns all day.
The sun was getting low in the sky, so they'd need to stop soon, but… for everyone else, it was good stamina training.
Ash! Dexter said suddenly. I missed something big.
"What's that?" Ash asked, confused.
Something really big. Remember that archaeological dig site?
It only took Ash a moment to remember. "With the, giant Alakazam, and the giant Gengar, and that… weird giant Jigglypuff?"
Yes, Dexter confirmed. This is the day the dig reaches the place they found the artefacts… specifically, the Gengar one.
"Didn't we reveal the – oh, right, we only revealed the Alakazam one," Pikachu said.
"Then we need to act fast," Ash decided. "Riolu, you've got Shadow Claw at least… what else can handle that giant Gengar?"
Not much, Dexter admitted. Those were unusually powerful.
Unusually powerful… something about that was reminding Ash of something else. Not this, a different memory – a memory that didn't feel right – but he couldn't work out what it was.
"I guess we'd better try and find those artefacts, then," Ash decided. "Either make sure none of them activate, or if we have to, turn all of them on. Let's go!"
He recalled all the Pokémon he had out, except Pikachu, and checked Dexter's map for a moment before hurrying for the dig site.
At about the same time, Gary Oak was having a break from his own training routine before the Pokémon League.
In his case, that meant volunteering with a nearby archaeology dig.
"This looks interesting," he said. "Doctor, you know how we're looking for evidence of an ancient civilization?"
The archaeologist, a young woman by the name of Eve, looked up from her own investigation of the side tunnel they'd gone down. "Of course – why?"
Gary held up a strange, black object made of two large spheres connected together by one small one. "Because I think this looks like proof to me."
"Interesting," Eve admitted, looking more closely. "Where did you find it?"
"Dee took an in-situ photo before I picked it up," Gary assured her.
Gary, I feel nervous around that thing, Dee said. I'm searching for the reference for why, but it's… wrong.
"We can't just stop doing archaeological research just because someone's nervous," Eve said. "If we did that, think how many discoveries would never be found, just because someone was worried about being possessed by the spirits of the ancestors for investigating their tombs! I'd think any ancestors would be glad to see their work was being appreciated."
This is different, Dee pleaded. Please – we should leave!
The object twitched, and an invisible force pushed Gary solidly in the chest. He let out an oof of lost air, fell backwards and dropped the object… which stayed in the air, crackling faintly.
"Doctor?" Gary wheezed out, pushing himself back upright, "I'm new to archaeology. Is this normal?"
"Not especially," Eve replied.
As they watched, a shape began to solidify in the air. It began as a vague suggestion, but it become more visible and solid by the moment. It was a huge Gengar, almost too big to fit in the tunnel.
And it was still growing.
I hate to say, but – I told you so!
"Not the time, Dee!" Gary replied, grabbing the startled Eve and lifting her up with an oof of effort, then turned to run. "Mind giving us some cover?"
On it, Dee stated, materializing her combat form from her projector and turning to face behind them – following Gary, but backwards. Set up. Zap Cannon.
The Electric attack flashed out towards the Gengar, but it didn't bother dodging – the attack simply failed to connect.
Warning! Dee said. This Gengar is immune to an electrical attack. Conjecture is that rather than its normal traits it has something which simulates Wonder Guard.
"Oh, just brilliant," Gary muttered, one-handing Dee's earpiece into his ear. "And I'm fresh out of Dark-types… Ash!"
Dee connected the call, and there was a click-buzz before Gary heard the sound of running feet. "What is it, Gary?"
"I'm working with an archaeologist, Eve," Gary explained. "We managed somehow to wake up a giant Ghost type in the caves to the east."
He put Eve down, now they were outside the cave, and the two of them kept running. The Gengar followed them, then turned, and Gary cursed. "Ash, it's got some kind of Wonder Guard ability, I can't touch it, and it's heading for Pallet Town!"
Ash said a word that was even worse than the one Gary had used. "All right, I should have told you about this one. Wasn't thinking – call your grandfather and let everyone else know, I'll take over delaying it!"
Gary's mind went straight there. "Ash, you can't be thinking of-"
"Shadow Ball is an option, Gary, it has to be," Ash replied. "But Pidgeot and Riolu have Ghost-type moves, and Brock's Ninetales has Dark Pulse so if we can get her over here we have a chance."
Gary nodded, briefly wondering if Dee would pass that on somehow, then turned back to check on Eve.
"Come on!" he called. "Sorry, Ash, that wasn't meant for you – we're heading straight back to town, we can't lure that Gengar away anyway. We're just going over that ridge where I fell out of a tree when we were six."
"I know the one," Ash agreed, then the line went click.
"I did not – become – an archaeologist – to run!" Eve said, panting. "I'm not – fit enough – for this!"
"Do you need my help again?" Gary asked, slowing up and checking on the Gengar again. "Or, uh – I've got… no, I left the Nidos back home-"
A sudden gale lashed at them, nearly knocking them both over, and Gary caught Eve before she actually fell down the slope.
"What was that?" Eve asked, breathing quickly.
Gary knew. Ash's Pidgeot had just swept past, barely ten feet over Gengar's head, and her Ominous Wind attack hit the Gengar hard enough to actually slow it down.
Ash himself was sprinting over to the two of them. "Are you okay?"
"Think so," Gary replied. "My ankle stings a bit, I nearly fell over, but it'll be fine. Are you going to be okay?"
"Hope so," Ash replied. "Go and get support, I can't fight this thing alone and you've got a bigger team than me."
"I'll stay here," Eve said. "Maybe I can help."
"Fine!" Gary declared. "But stay safe – both of you."
He took off in a sprint, and Pidgeot swept in again with another Ominous Wind. Riolu got involved too, pacing up to look for an opening, and that gave them enough of a breather that Ash turned to Eve.
"You're the archaeologist, right?" he checked. "Any ideas, Doctor?"
"I found a tablet, earlier," Eve explained. "In the ruins. I wasn't able to decipher it, though, it's old and – well, that's why I brought Gary in to help, this excavation has become far bigger than we were expecting and everyone else is busy elsewhere. And he was interested in helping-"
"Calm down," Pikachu suggested.
"Yeah, Pikachu's got a point," Ash said. "It's a weird situation, you just need to avoid panicking… do you have any pictures of the tablet? Dexter might be able to help."
He held out the core, and Dexter materialized around it.
"I've got it in my camera," Eve volunteered, digging the piece of equipment out. "And… ah… there we go."
She brought it up on the back screen, and Dexter's eyes flashed.
Analyzing, he said. Translating.
Beware the two great powers of destruction,
the shadow of the dark device will grapple with the prisoner of the unearthly urn.
The sacred city will be no more as day is swallowed up by night.
Darker still for you when they return to lay waste to the world,
but no human knows the secret to soothe the powers and guide them back to the shadow world.
The two of them were silent for a long moment after that.
"What was the point?" Eve asked. "If they knew this was going to happen, why would they do it?"
"Pokéatlantis," Ash said, suddenly sure.
He remembered the arguments, the rulers of Pokémonopolis shouting at him – no, at the ruler of Pokéatlantis – and his own heated replies, about their mutual distrust and their plans to use maiju as weapons.
It was an effort, but Ash shook off the echo of a long dead king and his grandiose dreams of capturing a Legendary Pokémon.
"That could make sense," Eve was saying. "But then – how did they make this Pokémon so powerful?"
Pidgeot launched another Ominous Wind at the enormous Gengar, hammering it with ghostly energy, and a Night Shade attack passed right through her.
Her Normal-type meant that she didn't have to worry about that specifically, but it was a sign as ominous as the wind. It was the first time the Gengar had hit her, and if it ever worked out how to use an attack that wasn't Ghost type she'd be in big trouble now it was able to aim well enough.
On the other wing, her repeated uses of Ominous Wind were at least making her stronger and faster… then, as she banked around for another pass, she spotted something on the ground that shouldn't be there.
What was she doing here?
Gary ran into the lobby of his grandfather's lab, panted a bit, then turned for the Pokéball room.
He'd have to check where the Pokémon he wanted actually were, but he could build himself a team of Psychic types and Pokémon with Ghost-type attacks all right.
Brock was already there. "Gary, I was going to head out, and Misty already has, but I realized you don't know the whole details of what happened last time."
"Huh?" Gary replied.
"There's a big Alakazam that could turn up, too, so don't forget Bug-types," Brock explained.
"Right, got it," Gary said, looking over the shelves – which Grandad had labelled, which was nice. "Okay, Alakazam, and…"
"Who's in use?" Brock asked, pointing down at his belt.
"What do you mean? Nobody?" Gary asked, then looked down at his belt.
Which had five full Pokéballs, and one empty one.
"Eevee," Gary realized. "She must have decided to fight – we need to go and rescue her!"
He snatched up his hurriedly chosen team and ran out into the twilight, Brock a pace behind him.
"An unearthly urn and a dark device," Ash said. "Which is, awesomely alliterative, but it also means there's more than one of them around here."
"It's nice being able to use those lines you didn't think of first time around, isn't it?" Pikachu asked.
"Hey," Ash complained. "But yeah… anyway, maybe if we can find the other one, we can get it to fight the giant Gengar. Gengar wasn't saying anything that made sense, but we can probably rely on that other one to fight as well."
"Perhaps," Eve said. "But your Pidgeot seems to be doing well?"
"She can't keep it up forever," Ash explained. "Now, uh… Dexter, any idea how to find this thing?"
Geophysics surveys, Dexter suggested. Pikachu, if you start using electrical attacks into the ground I can record the results, and we can see if there are any unusual formations or spaces underground.
"Oh!" Eve said. "That might work."
Pikachu hopped down from Ash's shoulder and opened up with a Shock Wave, and Ash glanced back at his gallant Pidgeot – and at Riolu, who darted forwards to swipe with Shadow Claw before turning and running away – then followed Eve and the Pokémon.
"What are you doing here?" Pidgeot demanded, doing a wingover.
"I want to help!" Eevee replied, glancing up. "I don't want Gary to be in danger, I don't want his hometown to be in danger, and-"
She stopped, as Pidgeot's attacks made the Gengar ponderously turn away from her, then kept going. "And, and this thing's the opposite of what a Pokémon should be! We're supposed to protect people, and battle for fun, not just destroy!"
"At the moment, you're one of the ones who needs protecting!" Pidgeot called down, sparing enough concentration to keep an air current carrying their words to one another.
"No! I won't accept that I have to leave you to fight alone!" Eevee replied. "I'm a Normal type too!"
"Just hide! I'm sorry, but you're not powerful enough yet!"
Pidgeot banked around Gengar, and one of the Ghost's missed attacks blew a tree to splinters.
Eevee spotted the blast, and suddenly felt afraid. A moment ago she'd felt confident that she could just distract Gengar, even if she couldn't damage it… but her Normal type only made her immune to the direct effects of a Ghost's attacks. The side effects were something else entirely.
Shrapnel, blast force… collapsing trees… those were all still risks.
Well, if she'd wanted to avoid risk, Eevee wouldn't have been herself.
The Gengar threw a kind of Shadow Ball at her, which looked like it was going to hit a nearby tree instead of her, and Eevee used Quick Attack to dodge out of the way.
"This has a weird kind of glow to it," Ash reported, holding up a strange brown object with a blotchy pattern. "What do you think?"
Eve examined it. "I can't see any glow…?"
"I mean in Aura sight," Ash explained. "Do you think this is the unearthly urn?"
"It's not much of an urn, but words do change in meaning over the centuries," Eve replied. "Maybe our modern word for urn is just a kind of specific meaning from a much more generic term? But the question is, how do we use it?"
Pikachu came bounding over. "I found something!"
"It's definitely got the same pattern," Eve said, taking it from him. "But it's a spoon… hmm."
She rotated it. "Isn't there a Pokémon that's associated with spoons?"
"Alakazam," Ash answered, taking the spoon in turn. "I guess Alakazam are a lot like Gengar, so that could be what's going on…"
He turned the probably-the-Urn over, noticing a slot that the spoon would fit into, then double-checked that his hat was firmly on his head.
And slotted the spoon into the urn.
It went click, lifted into the air, and went flying back down the tunnel.
"What did you do that for?" Eve asked, surprised.
"We wanted to get them fighting, right?" Ash asked. "If they're rivals, they might end up focused on one another and they'd stop threatening Pallet Town."
"Maybe not deliberately, but – what are we going to do now?" Eve said.
The ground shook slightly, and she glanced up at the ceiling before continuing. "Two Pokémon that powerful fighting one another… the amount of damage they could do… where will it end?"
"When Legendary Pokémon get involved," Ash replied. "I'd guess, anyway. Pokémon like Lugia and Ho-Oh…"
He stopped, as another flash of foreign memory came.
The King of Pokéatlantis, exultant that the great maiju of his rivals had defeated one another and wrecked their military. Buying him time – years, maybe – to enact his grand plan with Ho-Oh.
Ash frowned, and pushed the memory away again.
He hadn't known they were there, not until… now.
Probably something to do with Pokémonopolis stirring the memories up, if Ash had to guess.
"Well…" he began. "I think this happened in the past, and the area's not one big crater, so maybe there's something here which can stop them both. Pikachu, Dexter, we need to keep looking… and if something stopped these then it's not somewhere it would have been hidden like these were."
Eve blinked. "I – yes, that's a good point. We need to think about the cultural context."
Pidgeot disengaged from the battle in the gathering darkness as an enormous Alakazam began fighting the Gengar.
Their fight was no longer creeping towards Pallet Town, so she wasn't needed to buy time nearly so urgently, and she did urgently need rest from all the Ominous Wind attacks that she'd fired.
"You're distracted," Riolu said, and Eevee flicked her ears in irritation before conceding the point.
"And you?" she asked.
"So am I," Riolu agreed. "We need to be ready if Ash needs us to solve this, however it's going to be solved."
He kept a wary eye on the two now-battling Pokémon, retreating pace by pace, and Eevee paused for a moment before darting back.
She spotted Gary on the way – and plenty of reinforcements – and changed course to lope over to him. He held out his arms, gathered her up as she arrived, and picked her up to hold her.
"You shouldn't have done that," he said. "Oh… don't do that to me again, okay?"
Eevee knew what he meant.
He was worried for her, just as she'd been worried for him, and she smiled brightly-
-until a flash of light caught her eye.
One of the Alakazam's attacks had bounced off the surging Ghost-type energies of the Gengar, and there was a beam of psychic light heading for Gary.
Eevee reacted without the need for conscious thought. She wriggled free of his arms, used his chest as a springboard, and jumped straight into the beam.
"Eevee!"
For a moment, Gary just stared at the flash of multicoloured light.
Then Umbreon landed on the forest floor, briefly looked herself over, then smirked.
"My turn," she announced, rings glowing, and turned towards the battling Pokémon. "Dark Pulse!"
"Giant paintbrush," Ash said. "Really?"
"We did have a spoon already," Pikachu pointed out.
"True, but… what do you think?" Ash asked. "A Smeargle?"
"What's a Smeargle?" Eve asked.
Ash held up Dexter, whose screen was displaying one of the Painter Pokémon with tail poised to draw. "They're Normal-types, and they can copy moves… they're a bit weak, physically, but they can do just about anything."
"That's… impressive," Eve admitted. "I'm not really very knowledgeable about Pokémon, I didn't have much time for them when I was younger."
"When you were-" Ash began. "You're, what, a year older than me?"
"I was a Doctor of Archaeology by nine!" Eve defended herself. "Do you have any idea how much work that takes? I barely had time to eat!"
Pikachu used Thunderbolt, mostly on Ash, and mostly to get his attention. "Enormous Pokémon rampage to stop, Ash!"
"Oh, right," Ash said. "Well… I guess it was easy enough to work out how the Urn worked, so let's try it with this one too!"
He grabbed the handle of the paintbrush, and pulled it out to activate it.
"That was anticlimactic," Gary said, sitting down with a sigh.
Umbreon rubbed against his legs, and he reached down to caress her.
"I thought these fights you kept getting in were impressive."
"Against those things, I'm not going for impressive if something else works," Ash defended himself. "Though I guess I could have just sent for Mewtwo."
Misty snapped her fingers. "Hey… you know how strong those cloned Pokémon were? Didn't they have the same markings to that Alakazam and Gengar and stuff?"
"That is a good point," Brock agreed. "But we can't really test it, since the cloning machines got thrown in a volcano…"
Later that night, Ash meditated.
He'd felt the alien presence twice today, and he wanted to find out what was going on.
The King of Pokéatlantis, as a memory, was a problem for Ash – but nothing he didn't deal with already. The King of Pokéatlantis, as a person, could be a problem for anyone.
Ash gave a mental snort.
It was… not very charitable of him, but he sort of wished that Ho-Oh hadn't made the King immortal. Spending an age trapped in that capture device might have been poetic justice, but the problem with poems was that things rhymed and happened over and over again.
Maybe Ash should have thrown the orb in the sea, or something.
Then something flashed up in Ash's memory. A shard that felt like his, but unfamiliar… he didn't remember it, even though it was a memory.
Battle. Betrayal. Familiar scene, but unfamiliar participants. Absence of friends. Loss. Pain, exhaustion. Battle. Hopeless charge.
Death and renewal.
Ash staggered back.
So that was what had happened on New Island last time?
So much of what had happened was… parallel, in uncomfortable ways, and it added one to the list of prophecies he'd fulfilled.
But, at the same time… it was good to know. It filled in a lot of gaps about when Ash had met Mewtwo on Mount Quena in Johto, and he'd rather know.
It felt… it felt like his memory, but like someone else had held it for a while. Like it was what Mewtwo had taken, the first time around, restored when he'd reminded Mewtwo, and lost until now.
It wasn't what Ash had come looking for, though, and he cast his senses wider.
Something else twinkled in the distance. Another shard, that was more like… a dark, night-black purple, if anything here had colours.
More hesitant, this time, after discovering how overwhelming the rush of memories could be, Ash reached for this one as well.
Rage. Megalomania. Frustration.
But they were faint, and there was no king here. Only memories.
Ash relaxed a little, and viewed what was actually there.
There were a few details, but not much. Arguments, diplomatic mostly. Some battles, mostly without Pokémon. And the build-up to the king's imprisonment, underlaid with boiling rage and a feeling of injustice.
Ash sort of suspected that they were the main things that the king had been stewing over for all his time in the capture device.
He locked away the alien shard, since unlike the New Island one he didn't want to remember it casually, then relaxed and dropped into a proper sleep.
AN:
Why is it that ancient civilizations always seal away their weapons of mass destruction so insecurely that a random bloke touching it is enough to trigger its' release? Modern equivalents don't detonate if you drop them, set fire to them, shoot them, crush them, pretty much anything. They're made that way.
Also, Umbreon. She evolved earlier, but then Gary is nicer earlier. Though apparently the douche that we know and... tolerate, from the anime, isn't actually the original version. Like Kasumi(Misty) and Takeshi(Brock), Shigeru was very different to his English-language version - he and Ash saw one another as honourable rivals.
Kasumi, meanwhile, was very self-confident, flirty and thought she was the hottest thing in the room. And Takeshi often asked people when they were going to be eighteen and made suggestive comments.
You can probably see why they changed them for the US and English in general.
Not much in the way of substantive changes here.