"So if I catch a Pokémon when I have six already, they go back to Professor Oak's lab," Ash explained, in the woods just outside New Bark Town. "It's mostly to make sure that a trainer doesn't end up overloaded by Pokémon while they're out and about, but it's something that can be turned off… I don't want to overload myself, either, but it seems like I shouldn't count even if it is a rule."

"That's why you sent Totodile and Cyndaquil back to Professor Oak?" Latias checked. "So that, you've got Pikachu, Noctowl, Phanpy and Bayleef, and then you and I will make six… then once we're both safe from being caught, you can add them back onto your team?"

"That's right," Ash agreed. "It's sort of weird and complicated, but because I'm a Pokémon and because I really do need help from a Pokémon to do a lot of things at the moment Professor Oak says that it should be okay. And that it's like other people who have… service Pokémon? To help them out."

He looked sort of distant for a moment. "Professor Elm told me that there are people who train Pokémon specially to do that kind of job – to be experts at helping people. It's sort of a nice idea, and it's… nice to think about?"

"I know what you mean," Pikachu agreed. "The idea that there's people who can be helped by Pokémon, and so there's Pokémon being trained specifically to help them."

He shrugged. "But that's not my style. I'm going to help you, Ash, and the way I'm going to help you is by going all the way with you. Wherever you're going!"

"Thanks, Pikachu!" Ash smiled. "So, I don't know which order we should do this, but… Noctowl, can you get those two Pokéballs please?"

Noctowl floated two Pokéballs out of Ash's bags. "There you go, Ash."

"Thanks!" Ash smiled. "And… oh, actually, we should do me first, because otherwise if I tried to throw one at Latias I might catch myself."

He stepped back. "Pikachu, you do it, okay? You've been with me since day one."

Pikachu did a double-take. "Really? I… thought you were going to just press the button on the Pokéball and catch yourself."

"I could," Ash agreed. "But we're together forever, Pikachu, okay?"

The ex-human waved at himself with a hoof. "I don't know what I am any more, and I don't know if I'm a Legendary, and what I'm the Legendary of if I am one. But I know you're by my side. There's nobody I trust more."

"Wow," Pikachu said. "...sorry, I need a moment."

He squeezed his eyes closed, dabbing at them with a paw, then picked up one of the Pokéballs.

"This feels weird," he admitted, then threw it.

Both registrations complete, Ash went back to Elm's Lab to transfer Totodile and Cyndaquil back into his team, but as he entered the lab Professor Elm waved at him.

"Oh, Ash!" he said. "I just remembered – Professor Oak said that you're not just Pokémon shaped now, but you can understand Pokémon as well. Is that right?"

"That's right!" Ash agreed. "That was what the magic was supposed to let me do, and I guess it worked pretty well so I can't complain!"

"Well, in that case, you might be able to help out with this," Elm explained, reaching down and putting an egg case on the table. "This egg was poached from somewhere, we're not sure where, and while the Pokémon in the egg might know where they're from the only one who could actually find that out is, well, someone who can speak to Pokémon. Which means you."

"Then I'll make sure to help them out," Ash declared. "It's my duty, or something… hmm, I wonder if that's what my duty is. Doing things that need doing, you know, like a lot of Legendary Pokémon have special duties and some Pokémon that aren't do too."

"It's a broad category, but it fits," Pikachu had to admit.

"What are other Legendary Pokémon duties?" Latias asked. "You've met more than me by the sounds of it."

"Well…" Ash began, frowning. "So I don't know if this applies for all of them, but the Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres down at Shamouti need to keep their islands elementally charged, and the Lugia there needs to keep Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres from beating one another up? Then I think Suicune runs around finding problems to solve, which sounds a lot like me too in a way, and Celebi's job is… going backwards and forwards in time?"

He tilted his head. "Actually, I should ask Suicune what their job is next time I see them. And Ho-Oh, too…"

"Sorry, next time you see them?" Professor Elm asked, who'd been quietly freaking out about Ash's whole list. "Do you see them often?"

"Suicune, yeah, several times!" Ash answered. "Three, I think. And Ho-Oh only once, but that time I didn't have a flying Pokémon I could send up to say hello and I couldn't understand anyway. So I've got a much better chance of asking next time… hey, Latias, would you mind putting the egg case in my saddlebag so I can take it back to our rooms? I think the left one's mostly empty."

Elm was still mouthing several times to himself.

"I feel like this should be easy," Latias complained, two days later, trying to lift a Pokéball with her mind.

It steadfastly insisted on staying in one place.

"Maybe you should wait until Noctowl's up so you can ask her how she does it?" Ash suggested. "Admittedly I haven't had much luck learning Confusion even with her help, but you're Psychic so it should be easier for you… but then again, I've been trying for weeks! So you probably are doing better than me."

"How does that work?" Latias asked.

"Well-" Ash began, then had to stop. "Hang on. Phanpy, don't get into bad habits, okay?"

"Bad habits?" Phanpy repeated. "What's one of those? Is it a type of hole?"

"It's because you're slowing down, rather than staying at full speed and turning corners," Ash explained. "It might mean it takes you a bit longer to get somewhere, but if you stay at full speed Rollout will hit a lot harder, okay?"

"Okay!" Phanpy said, nodding.

"Anyway, what I mean is, I know I haven't been able to do it despite trying for weeks," Ash resumed, turning back to Latias. "But all we know about how you're doing is that you've been trying for a few days. It's like, if someone lost a battle several times you sort of know he's probably worse than someone who lost a battle once, even if neither of them have won it?"

"I guess that works," Latias frowned.

"Okay, Pikachu," Ash said, switching back to him now. "You're great at hitting things with Thunderbolt, and Thunder works out great too, but it doesn't always hit… so what I was thinking was, what about if you break up your Thunder into lots of Thunderbolts at once? Let's see if that means it hits more often!"

Pikachu nodded. "Seems reasonable to me," he said, cheeks sparking. "Let's try this!"

Before he'd fired out more than one testing salvo, though, blasting a pattern of marks in the ground, the egg case started beeping.

"Oh!" Latias gasped. "I don't think I've seen a Pokémon hatch before."

Cyndaquil and Bayleef hurried over to look more closely. Then so did Phanpy, but he went past a lot more quickly.

"Wait, am I supposed to slow down now?" Phanpy asked, turning around. "I forgot that rule was only for battles!"

Latias caught the Ground-type, sliding backwards with an oof and letting Phanpy shed all his momentum, then put him down to watch along with the others.

The egg hatched, revealing it to be a Larvitar, and the Ground-and-Rock type promptly curled up and used Harden.

"Huh," Ash said. "That's weird… I wonder if Professor Oak has any ideas?"

He picked up his Pokédex with a hoof and aimed it at Larvitar.

"Larvitar," it told them. "The Rock Skin Pokémon. Larvitar generally hatch deep within the earth and take a long time before coming to the surface. This Pokémon knows Screech, Harden, and the egg move Hidden Power."

Ash backed up a bit. "Maybe we should give them some space, guys," he suggested. "If Larvitar usually hatch underground then this must be a weird place for this one… and he must be scared, too. It's like with Charizard, right? Or, different, but not completely different."

"Charizard?" Latias asked.

"Charizard's amazing!" Bayleef said. "He's really big and tough and he flies around-"

"-and isn't afraid of anything!" Cyndaquil agreed. "Not even an Entei!"

Ash wilted slightly. "I… think I just realized that nobody here except me and Pikachu ever met Charizard as Charmander," he said. "Charmander had a really bad trainer, who played a mean prank on Charmander…"

It took a bit of time to get through the whole story, before everyone had heard it and could go and start training again, but it felt good to talk about it.

And Larvitar didn't say anything, but that evening when it was time to go in they found Larvitar had moved closer to Ash over the course of the afternoon.

Heading up to Mount Silver would take a while, especially if there was a chance they'd have to detour in order to drop Larvitar off where he was supposed to be from, but over the course of the time before they had to leave Latias got to the point where she could use some Psychic move or other – which could have been Confusion, but they weren't sure – to pick things up and put them down.

She could also just, move things with her claws while invisible, that was still something she could do, but with both of them available that meant she had options. While Noctowl, much to her relief, had a sleep schedule that was closer to her natural one again.

Totodile, Bayleef, Cyndaquil, Heracross and Phanpy were all a lot closer to where Ash wanted them to be for the Silver Conference, and while there was never too much training in the abstract Ash had to admit that in reality you did need to actually reach the Silver Conference in time to compete.

He wasn't sure what an abstract was, except perhaps the baby Pokémon of an Abra, but he got the general idea.

A couple of weeks in New Bark Town had also made Larvitar a lot more comfortable with Ash specifically. Part of that was that he and Ash had shared a dream, or something like that, where Ash had seen what had happened to Larvitar's egg before it had ended up in Professor Elm's hands.

It hadn't been enough to be sure where Larvitar was from, but it was enough to confirm he was from near Mount Silver and that meant his family was probably somewhere in the reserve.

Then Brock pointed out that they were heading that way anyway, and that Ash could help out by asking the local Pokémon to spread the word about a missing Larvitar egg.

That sounded like a plan, so they set off for Mount Silver with Pikachu and Larvitar sharing space on Ash's back.

Predictably, they ran into Team Rocket on the way, who'd brought a robot Kingler. The robot Kingler had large, clamping claws, electrically insulated, which it used to pick up both Pikachu and Larvitar at the same time.

Unfortunately for Team Rocket, though, they hadn't really thought through the fact that it only had two claws. So when Bayleef had started trying to pull the robot's legs out from under it, it had had to put Larvitar down to pick her up.

Then, when Cyndaquil began hitting it with Flamethrower, the Kingler put down Pikachu to snag Cyndaquil instead.

Then Larvitar had used Dig to get one of its legs trapped in the ground, and that was more or less it even before Latias started trying to work out which cables to unplug.

"How often do you run into those Team Rocket guys?" the Dragon-type asked, once Team Rocket had duly Blasted Off Again thanks to Heracross.

"A lot, actually," Ash replied, thinking. "We were talking about this with Clair, before we came to Alto Mare, right, guys?"

"If you mean how often we run into Team Rocket, then yes, it's a lot," Misty concurred. "Though it has let us train our Pokémon a lot."

"That's a really small silver lining," Brock said. "Unlike Mount Silver, which is a really big silver lining!"

He looked down. "Ash, can you call Larvitar over? I think he mostly listens to you."

"Sure," Ash agreed, kneeling down. "Larvitar? It's okay now, they've gone."

The Rock-type dug his way out of the ground, and nodded.

"Still not very talkative, huh?" Pikachu said. "You did good work, Larvitar. Well done."

"Pikachu's right," Ash confirmed. "Great work, Larvitar! It was really smart of you to dig that hole under Team Rocket's robot."

Larvitar smiled slightly. "Thank you."

"Now, do you want to climb back up yourself, or get help from Latias?" Ash asked. "Don't worry, we'll get you back to your family soon."

The Rock-type thought about that, then went around to Ash's side and climbed up the lower part of his golden ring to get onto his back.

"All set?" Ash checked, then straightened up again. "Let's go, then!"

"Any idea what the Twerp is?" James asked, in the latest Team Rocket Base Camp.

It sounded better than 'crash landing site'.

"Well, I don't know about you guys, but I think he's gotta be somethin' rare," Meowth replied. "I did get dis really old book last time we were in town, though."

"You bought a book?" Jessie demanded. "We were saving up for a mech!"

"Hey, I didn't say I bought it!" Meowth protested. "I did dat old trick where you swap the covers so you ain't buying what it says, so I got it for less money than the sticker said! And I swapped the stickers, too, dat's another old trick!"

"He's right, that's two tricks, so it must have cost practically nothing!" James said, impressed. "So, what does the book say?"

"Well, it's really old, an' everything," Meowth replied. "It's all hand written notes an' stuff, and I don't read cursive great. An' the pictures are kinda scribbly, but… lessee…"

He pulled it out of the debris, brushed off a few bits of debris, and flicked through. "I'd got to… here," he said.

"But that's almost all the way through the book," Jessie protested. "How many pages are there?"

"Uh… two hundred an' forty two," Meowth said, then flicked back. The book fell open a few pages from the end, and they looked.

"That… actually looks like the twerp," James said, slowly. "That must be it!"

"Finally, some kinda good luck for once!" Jessie enthused. "So, what kind of Pokémon is he?"

"Uh…" Meowth said, reading. "Da name's smudged… it is the heavenly fount from which pours forth the light that shines across Hisui, wherever dat is… its luminance guides an' protects all Pokémon… Hisuian mythology states that… smudge… is the creator of all things."

He blinked a few times, and sat back. "Dat sounds like one of them really serious legendaries to me."

"You mean, the twerp's a legendary?" Jessie asked.

"The twerp's a serious legendary?" James added.

Meowth checked himself, just to make sure he hadn't been obliterated from existence and he hadn't noticed. "Suddenly I think we ain't gonna be tryin' to steal Pikachu. I don't wanna be destroyed by a heavenly fount whatever dat is."

"So, we'll have to get on his good side!" James realized. "How can we do that?"

"Worshipping!" Meowth declared, with enthusiasm. "That's like suckin' up only it's to a really powerful divine thingy and so people don't mind."

He frowned. "Only question is, how do we do somethin' like that?"

"Well… now that I think about it," Jessie said, putting a finger to her lips. "He hasn't actually destroyed us yet, has he? And he obviously could."

"So maybe it's something he likes?" James frowned.

"Or maybe it's some kind of thing where he's beaten death!" Meowth said. "I swear he died once, but I ain't able to remember da details… just that it was really movin' and stuff. An' we're kinda challenging him in much smaller ways dan dat so it's like pretendin' to be a small version of that big thing he did once."

Jessie brightened. "So… what we need to do is worship him, which we've already been doing by accident with all those schemes, and he's rewarding us!"

"And we've gotta make sure we don't tell anyone," Meowth added. "'cause otherwise he'd be tellin' everyone. So it's like a mystery! An' that means we're some of the only ones getting the benefit, too!"

That made sense to all of them, and they shared a series of satisfied nods.

"Not far from Mount Silver now," Misty said, shading her eyes. "What do you think? Are we getting close to anything Larvitar recognizes?"

"Any idea, Larvitar?" Ash asked.

Larvitar shook his head a little.

"Nothing special," he said.

"That's okay, just keep a look out and you'll be doing great," Ash advised. "Maybe I should send Noctowl out tonight to start asking."

"Why not me right now?" Latias checked.

"It's because of Team Rocket," Ash replied. "You're not far from having a good Confusion attack, but you need something else that's going to work on Dark types or you could just be beaten by a Dark type. Maybe… hmm, Steel Wing or something I guess? Not sure."

"Why Steel Wing, Ash?" Brock asked. "I'm not saying it's wrong, I'm interested."

"Well, the Rockets have Wobbuffet, don't they?" Ash said. "It's a Psychic-type, sure, but if it can just use Mirror Coat it can send all of Latias's attacks back twice as hard."

"Oh, is that how it works?" Latias asked. "Actually, I don't know how it works. How does it work?"

"Mirror Coat bounces back ranged attacks, mostly," Pikachu supplied, clambering up Ash's ring to the top so he was closer to her. "And Counter is direct attacks. But they don't work against the other kind, so if you have both you can mix it up."

"Got it!" Latias said, grateful. "That makes a lot of sense!"

Then an Unown bounced off Misty's head.

"That was weird," she said, as they stopped walking and Brock turned around to look. "When it bounced off my head, it was like I saw something for a moment… like, its thoughts, or memories, or something."

"That is weird," Ash said, crouching down to get closer. "Hey, are you okay?"

"Unknown," Unown replied.

Ash reached out, touching the letter Pokémon, and it flashed gold for a moment. Dozens more Unown poured in from out of nowhere, and in moments there was a swirling sphere of Unown hovering in front of them.

"Ready for instructions," the sphere stated.

"Instructions?" Ash repeated. "Uh… can you tell me what just happened?"

"Alphabet Form engaged," the sphere clarified. "I, we, are at your command."

"...huh," Ash said. "I guess this is a different form of Unown to the one everyone's normally familiar with?"

"Oh, like Wishiwashi!" Misty said, pleased to find a situation she could apply some of her own knowledge. "They have a School Form, that's a bit like this."

"At my command," Ash repeated, slowly, thinking about that. "So… you mean, in a Pokémon battle kind of way?"

"That would be acceptable," Unown stated.

"There's something kind of familiar about Unown," Ash said, frowning, and watching as Unown – presently in G Form, which was either their current shape or a representative of the alphabet or something along those lines – talked to a fascinated Larvitar about how Hidden Power worked.

"You mean more than just how they've been around for the last day or so?" Brock checked. "And want to stick with you from now on?"

He glanced off in a sort of southwest direction. "You're not thinking about Greenfield, are you?"

"A bit," Ash answered. "I think the Unown there did Alphabet Form too, and that went wrong… I guess I should ask."

He glanced at Brock. "How long is it until dinner?"

"It should be twenty minutes or so," Brock replied. "Ash, you'd tell me if you were feeling weird hunger pangs, right? We don't know what kind of nutrients you need as a Pokémon, but I'd feel more comfortable if you were having some Pokémon food."

"I still like what I used to eat, and I haven't felt hungry at weird times or anything," Ash replied, with a shrug. "Hey, Unown, do you have a moment? It's okay if you're in the middle of something."

Unown bobbed up and down. "Explanation understood?"

Larvitar nodded.

That confirmed, Unown floated over to Ash. "A moment is available. What is the problem?"

"It's not a problem, really," Ash said. "Or, I don't think it's one. There was this trouble I got into months ago, somewhere else in Johto, where there was a girl who'd connected to other Unown? And they made lots of crystals, and illusion Pokémon, and it was really weird. Is that something that can happen?"

"Configuration changes were made after previous incident," Unown replied. "User privilege checks have been instituted. The incident you speak of will not happen again."

"Oh, that's all right then," Ash nodded. "Thank you, Unown, I wanted to make sure."

"Providing information on request is one of our functions," Unown declared.

Then Noctowl came flying into the camp site, flaring her wings and landing on a convenient perch – that being part of Ash's ring.

"Well, I've talked to several of the nearby Flying-types," she reported. "And they've agreed to spread the word. So there should be news in a day or two."

"That's great, well done Noctowl!" Ash praised. "We'll get you back to your mom, or possibly mom and dad, or miscellaneous other parent soon, Larvitar."

"That would be nice," Larvitar smiled.

Naturally, when they did find Larvitar's mother, it wasn't as simple as that.

They certainly found her, but they also found a gang of Pokémon Poachers currently trying to steal her with a giant mechanical crane, and even as they arrived the robot's main crane lifted Tyranitar up into the air with her arms and legs bound.

"Oh no!" Larvitar said, trembling, then curled up and used Harden.

"Larvitar, are you okay?" Ash asked, trying to divide his attention between everything that was going on. Pikachu went bounding forwards off his back, cheeks sparking, then used Thunderbolt several times at once.

The bolts slammed into the crane, sending it skidding visibly backwards, but they also hit Tyranitar and she groaned.

"Pikachu, don't – that was hurting Tyranitar too!" Ash said. "She's going to be resistant to Fire attacks, though – Cyndaquil, Flamethrower, but be careful!"

Cyndaquil used Flamethrower, but the poachers' crane coped with the attack much more easily than Pikachu's one.

"They're going to take mama away like they took me away," Larvitar said in a thin voice, and Ash tensed.

"What do you guys think you're doing!?" he demanded. "Stealing Pokémon like that, it's cruel! And taking an egg is even worse!"

"Hey, what's that? Pokémon in a hat," one of the poachers replied, through a megaphone on the crane. "You're thinking funny, it's all about money!"

At that, Ash saw red and broke into a gallop.

A moment later, he also saw the side of the crane, since he'd crossed the distance in just a moment of blurring speed and slammed into the side of it. The crane rocked alarmingly, rising up on one set of treads and hanging there for a long moment, then slammed back down.

"Bro, that was a big hit," came over the speakers, more quietly than before and in a different voice. "That Pokémon was tough!"

"Stop saying it was a big hit! The Poacher Brothers won't quit!" the first voice said.

"Yeah!" a third voice agreed.

The crane cable was swinging alarmingly, now, with Tyranitar on the end swaying back and forth and making the whole device rock from side to side – nearly enough to make it tip over.

Ash wasn't sure how he'd done that sudden burst of motion – Quick Attack maybe? – but he knew he'd need a run up to do it again even if he could. Then he caught sight of something on the other side of the crane.

Latias. Invisible, orbiting in a worry, and not sure what to do.

"Hey!" he called, waving a hoof. "Headbutt the crane!"

As it turned out, Latias didn't actually know Headbutt.

But you didn't actually need to know the move in order to headbutt something, and Latias was very grateful for the direction. She hit the crane even faster than Ash had, and much higher up, and at the right time to make the whole thing topple over with a crash.

Which gave Bayleef the stable target she needed to cut the net with Razor Leaf.

Which promptly gave the Poacher Brothers a very big angry Tyranitar shaped problem.

Once they'd explained everything to the nearby Pokémon Rangers, and said goodbye to Larvitar and Tyranitar, and set up camp, Latias faded back into visibility with a squeak.

"My head hurts…"

"I'm not surprised, but I am really grateful!" Ash told her. "Thanks, Latias, that really put those poachers into a lot of trouble!"

"I don't think I want to do that again," Latias added. "Or if I do do it again, it had better be a proper move."

"Speaking of a proper move, can you do that again, Ash?" Bayleef asked. "It was amazing!"

"Yeah!" Cyndaquil agreed. "It was so fast!"

"I don't really know, but I guess I should try to get it so I can do it all the time," Ash agreed. "Latias, let's see what Brock says about your headache, okay? He's better at medicine than me."

"Sure," Latias nodded, then winced.

Pikachu held up his paw. "Let me guess, Ash, you're going to avoid focusing on learning that move properly until after the Pokémon League."

"That's right!" Ash confirmed. "Until then I want to focus on making sure everyone's ready for it!"

AN:

I debated what to do with Unown, but this seemed to work best.