After consulting a map, Brock suggested that they should head back down the coast and visit Dewford that way. It was on an island anyway, so they'd have to take an unusual route to get to it either way, and it seemed like a better option than heading north first.

Before they could get going, though, Max met someone from Devon Corp. and was invited in for a tour. That turned into the whole group being invited in, especially once Max's new acquaintance turned out to be Mr. Stone himself (and once Mr. Stone saw Ash), and he explained one of the latest projects of Devon Corp.

"We're trying to revive fossils," Mr. Stone explained. "Ancient Pokémon, preserved in rock, but which could still be brought back to life through DNA."

"Oh, I think I've met some of those," Ash replied, frowning. "Some of them revived while we were there, but other ones had already revived or maybe were breeding populations already. Does it happen naturally?"

"I didn't think so," Mr. Stone admitted. "But if you've seen it happen, then it must be possible."

"I guess whatever causes it is unknown, then," Max said.

One of Ash's Pokéballs opened.

Pikachu sniggered. "No, not you, Unown."

"Understood," Unown stated, hovering next to Ash, then floated over to look at the workbench.

"It sounds amazing that you can just take something from millions of years ago, and then turn it into a living Pokémon," Ash said. "How is that even possible?"

"Evaluating," Unown stated. "Requirements consist of the following. DNA scanning. Emulation of original Pokémon. Protein synthesis. Generation of complete form. Creation of merged reality."

"That sounds complicated!" Ash admitted. "It's really cool that anyone can keep track of that. Science is amazing."

He tapped a hoof on the floor. "To just… create a Pokémon based on nothing but DNA…"

"Instructions receipted," Unown stated, transitioning to Alphabet Form, then there was a very bright flash and a large reptilian Pokémon, mostly red but with predominantly white feathers and accents in blue and pink and black, appeared next to them and knocked the desk over.

"Whoa!" Max gasped. "What just happened?"

"Are you okay?" Ash asked.

"I am very confused," the Pokémon said. "Who am I?"

Latias got Ash's Pokédex out.

"No direct match. Best guess is Cyclizar," the Pokédex reported. "This Pokémon knows the move Sunny Day."

"Huh, I haven't heard something like that before…" Ash wondered. "Maybe Professor Elm added something to let it guess?"

While Ash might have been right, pointing the Pokédex at him a second time just resulted in a moment's processing before it announced that he was "Ash Ketchum".

"Well, worth a try," Pikachu shrugged. "Good idea, Latias."

Ash crouched down to the lizardlike Pokémon. "So, uh… I don't know what to call you, but can you say some things?"

"Some things?" the Pokémon replied, baffled. "How would that help?"

"Well, Pokémon can usually only say things made up out of their name," Ash replied. "So Pikachu is saying things in Pikachu, which is all made up of the syllables Pikachu, but I hear it as normal speech because of, I guess something to do with magic or whatever Pokémon I am."

"I'm not sure how that helps," the Pokémon replied. "What's a Pokémon?"

"Well, Ash, I think the longest string of syllables I heard there that didn't sound out of place is Koraidon," Pikachu supplied.

"Well, saying those things helps because it means my friend Pikachu here can listen to what you're saying and work out what your species probably is," Ash explained. "You're probably a Koraidon, is our guess, which I've never heard of before but I've never heard of a me before either. And… huh, I guess you're kind of like a just hatched Pokémon, right? You don't know a lot of things, but that's okay, you never had a chance to learn! It's like Phanpy."

"I am very lost," the newly-named Koraidon said.

"What did your Pokémon do there?" Mr. Stone asked. "Is that something we can do ourselves? It'd be really helpful if we could create fossil Pokémon that quickly… admittedly I'm not sure what the fossil Pokémon is a fossil from."

"What did happen, Unown?" Ash asked. "Could Mr. Stone do it?"

"Rapid creation," Unown clarified. "Manifestation of past Pokémon from extrapolation of DNA. Subject Mr. Stone has insufficient privileges."

"Right," Ash frowned. "And, uh, it's probably not a good idea to make Pokémon out of thin air, okay? It's not very polite for the Pokémon because they don't seem to know anything."

"Lock out accepted on this function," Unown stated.

"This isn't how I expected the tour to go," Max admitted.

"It's not how I expected the tour to go either," Mr. Stone said. "But, perhaps you'd like to see a couple of the successes we had before? Which were using our actual resurrection machine, that is."

The Anorith and Lileep they had in a nearby room did both seem very nice, though a lot of Ash's attention was on Koraidon.

"How are you doing?" he asked. "I guess I feel responsible for what happened, because I know Unown did it but they were just reacting to what I said. So… it's up to you what happens, but I can help out."

"Can I come with you?" Koraidon requested. "You seem to know what you're doing."

Pikachu started giggling, and Ash grinned nervously.

"I do my best!" he replied. "But sure, you can come with us if you want, and any time you want to change your mind, that's fine too."

He frowned. "Uh… it would probably help if you had a Pokéball, but that's not required."

"Pokéball?" Koraidon said. "I still don't even know what a Pokémon is. What's a Pokéball?"

"Can I try?" Latias asked, which made Koraidon jump. "Oh, sorry… a Pokéball is a small ball which a Pokémon can use as a place to live, when you're inside it's like it's a lot bigger and more comfortable. A Pokémon is a creature that can go into a Pokéball, more or less, which means anything except humans."

"Mr. Stone over there, and May, Max and Brock, they're all humans," Ash explained. "There's lots of humans and even more Pokémon… Latias, can I have Unown's Pokéball as a demonstration?"

When they left Devon Corp., it was with Koraidon as a new member of the team – and one who was quite happy to just go into their new Pokéball and spend some time relaxing.

Latias volunteered to help out by explaining some background knowledge things for them when they had a chance, and so did Pikachu.

Then, after that, they had to go a bit of a way back down the coast for the best boat ride to Dewford, and a trip back down the coast meant camping out.

They got set up early, in the middle of the afternoon, to leave some time in the day for training. Koraidon stayed in their Pokéball for now – Ash wasn't sure if they were a boy or a girl and really it seemed like a bit of a difficult question to spring on someone who didn't understand it on their first day – but Bulbasaur got to work teaching Treecko how to use Razor Leaf, Pikachu started helping May, Torchic and Wurmple understand the difference between basic and more complex attacks, and Ash started demonstrating Extremespeed for Taillow.

Then, because he could only do it a few times before ending up exhausted, switched to helping May understand the kind of points Pikachu was making.

It was a nice, cozy sort of afternoon.

"Are you ready to eat, Koraidon?" Brock asked. "I'm not sure what you prefer, so I've set up a testing platter."

Koraidon came out of their Pokéball, then looked up in confusion as the clouds parted and the evening sun shone more strongly. "What just happened?"

"Huh!" Ash realized. "That looks kind of like the move Sunny Day, but you'd know if you'd used it, right?"

"I've never used a move before," Koraidon said. "The other ceiling didn't look like that. What's that?"

"That's the sky," Latias told them. "Oh, of course, you haven't been outside at all! I didn't think of that."

"I don't think any of us did," Ash said. "Koraidon, how about you eat now, okay? We can explain how the sky works later."

He frowned, thinking about how to explain eating to someone who hadn't, then picked up one of the berries in a set. "You can pick up food, and put it in your mouth, or… I guess the other option is to just pick the food up with your mouth directly. And then you chew on it, which is… breaking it up with your teeth? And swallow it down. Some things taste better than others, but which ones taste better depends on who's doing it."

Ash bit off some of the berry, chewed, and swallowed. "Like that."

"Okay," Koraidon replied, looking with intense concentration at the things on the plates, then carefully picked up a Tamato Berry.

After a careful half an hour of eating, Brock had a set of notes on what Koraidon did or didn't like.

They'd sampled at least a little of everything, but their response had mostly been from dislike to ambivalence to mild interest.

Except for the bread, which had been completely finished off in about three bites.

"Well!" Brock decided. "I think I can sum up what kind of food I'm going to cook Koraidon from now on."

"You can?" Ash asked. "How?"

"Sandwiches!" Brock replied. "Plus, any Pokémon food needed for a specific purpose is going to involve croutons."

"What are croutons?"

"Oh, I think I can do that one!" Latias said, pleased to be able to contribute. "They're sort of like little bits of toasted bread, they turn up in different kinds of food."

Koraidon licked their lips.

"I don't know, somehow… I didn't expect being a Pokémon Trainer to be like this."

"Huh?" Max asked, yawning. "May? Were you saying something?"

"Oh, uh, sorry for waking you up," May apologized. "I was just thinking."

She patted Torchic on the head. "I think what I wasn't realizing was… I was imagining that being a Pokémon Trainer would be about having to live with a Pokémon."

Torchic puffed out his chest in indignation, and May giggled. "I didn't think about how knowing the same person for a while turns them into a friend, unless you really don't get on."

"I guess," Max nodded, still a bit bleary, then rubbed his eyes. "It's morning, right?"

"Looks like," May confirmed. "Check your Pokénav, maybe?"

"Oh, yeah," Max realized. "Yeah, it's morning… technically… how are you so awake?"

"I probably got to sleep before you," May suggested. "Despite how you were explaining the types to Koraidon."

Max nodded. "I guess," he agreed. "It's nice to help out, but I think I've already made some realizations about how the things that you get taught in classrooms aren't the same as the things actual Pokémon Trainers know and use."

He waved vaguely in Ash's direction. "Like… all of that."

"True," May agreed.

She stretched. "So, Torchic, what about if we try and get something working? Maybe try one of those things Pikachu mentioned about how to use Ember?"

Torchic nodded, very interested.

"Then let's see how much progress we can make," May decided. "Only… somewhere we won't wake up the boys."

Max was already trying to crawl back into his sleeping bag.

Actually getting to Dewford mostly involved taking a boat, and partly involved Latias getting bored after half an hour and towing the boat to Dewford.

Since she did that from underneath the water, she didn't pull the boat into anything, but she did leave Mr. Briney looking with a great deal of confusion at the fuel he'd used that day.

"And, here we are," Ash said, as he trotted off the S.S. Wingull. "Dewford Island!"

There was a flash as Koraidon came out of their Pokéball.

"What is an island?" they asked, then noticed they were wobbling on the edge of a narrow wooden pathway and returned themselves with a hasty flash of red light.

"Oh, well, I can explain," Ash volunteered. "So, land is anything that's solid, really, and it's things you can walk on. Everything you've seen so far has been on the land. But water, water is like what we had to drink during our picnics, but when there's a lot of it it fills up some of the lower places there are, so high places are land and lower places are pools of water. And an island is land surrounded by water."

Brock sort of nodded to himself as he went over what Ash had said, then nodded again more firmly. "I think that about covers it, Ash, at least the simple explanation."

"So… are you going to challenge the gym?" Max asked.

"Maybe," Ash replied, looking thoughtful. "Brawly's… Fighting type, right?"

"Yeah," Max agreed. "But I'm sure Dad could beat him."

"I want to make sure Taillow's ready for it," Ash explained. "And probably Treecko if I'm going to use him twice in a row… it'd probably be good for him, but I want to make sure."

He tapped a hoof. "I was thinking about it after what happened where Koraidon got made… Koraidon didn't know anything, so you really have to think about how you explain things to them, but it's better to think about how a Pokémon's going to fight and get the obvious things they'll need sorted out first, right? And I wouldn't want to leave Dewford without actually looking around, anyway… though I guess I could try today or tomorrow, then have a rematch if it doesn't work."

He shrugged, making his golden ring sway a bit. "But let's go and get something to eat first!"

AN:

Cyclizar exists, so close enough to extrapolating from additional data.

Turns out being a legendary of creation has… certain side effects.