"Hmm…" Ash said, thinking. "I… actually?"
He glanced at Cynthia. "I just realized, I don't know how to Mega Evolve a Pokémon normally."
"That's a good point," Cynthia said, nodding. "Well, we know your special Frontier symbol can make Mega Evolution happen when the other things that would be necessary aren't available, but Garchomp's Mega Stone is the only one I have. So I don't think we can have you practice even if you borrowed my Key Stone, at least just yet."
She shrugged. "Maybe the best thing to do is… hmm. Now, have I seen any Showcase stars Mega Evolving their Pokémon?"
"What's a Showcase?" Dawn asked. "It rings a bell but I'm not sure what it is specifically."
"It's more of a Kalos thing," Cynthia answered. "Though I think I heard once that they were planning to import something similar… the term I heard was Contest Spectaculars. Anyway, the idea is that a Showcase is a bit like an Appeal round only, with audience voting."
She waved her hand. "I was wondering if that would indicate that actually battling with a Pokémon isn't needed to form a close enough bond, but then again I suppose a Showcase doesn't necessarily prove that a Pokémon hasn't… you know, I think this might be something to research."
Garchomp made a sniggering noise.
"Not by us," Cynthia added. "I'll send it to, oh, Sycamore, he can handle it. He likes that kind of thing… anyway, I think we're probably going to have to work with this as something that we research over time instead of something that has a specific plan and objective where we follow the method."
She frowned. "Though it is a pity that we can't do it in a rigorous way, but that's not how friendship works."
"Oh, yeah, I remember that discussion," Garchomp nodded.
"What was it?" Ash asked.
"Oh, she said… if I could guarantee that we'd make friends, I could do it regardless of who the person was, which means I wouldn't care about who they were, which means that they wouldn't actually be friends," the Dragon-type explained.
"I don't know," Latias frowned. "I think you can guarantee that Ash is going to make friends with someone?"
"That depends who they are, though," Ash contested. "You know, like… like, Doctor Yung."
Latias winced. "Bleah. Okay, good point."
Garchomp nodded, glad to have her point made successfully.
"So I had a lot of thought over where we should go first," Cynthia explained, holding up the map. "Going west would take us to Canalave, where there's a Steel-type gym. Going north would take us to Floaroma Town, where there… okay, there isn't a gym there, but going from there can get you to Eterna City which has a Grass-type gym. And going east would take us to Oreburgh, which is a Rock-type gym."
"It sounds like you decided what would be a good idea," Ash said. "Did you? I guess I'm new to Sinnoh so I don't mind… though I do have a Rock-type badge already."
"That's why I picked Oreburgh," Cynthia replied.
Everyone else looked a bit confused.
"Huh?" Pikachu asked "Shouldn't you have been trying to pick between Canalave and Eterna, then?"
"Honestly, that's more like what I'd expect," Garchomp replied, shrugging. "But, well, Cynthia gotta Cynthia."
"They've got a point," Ash said. "Why Oreburgh?"
"Because you've got a Rock-type badge, and that would make it a new discovery if you won another one," Cynthia clarified. "Then we can head west or north."
"Why not keep going east, if we start going that way?" Ash checked.
"That's probably because of Mount Coronet," Dawn told him. "It's… big."
They looked up at Mount Coronet.
"Let me check something, please," Miraidon requested, then crouched down and sprang into the air. Their wings snapped out, holding them up for several long seconds, then they disengaged them again to thump to the ground.
"It is all one mountain range," they said. "Possibly all one mountain."
"Yeah, that is big," Ash agreed. "Wow, I can see why you'd not want to cross that more than once."
"There's legends about it, as you'd expect," Cynthia told them. "It's said to have been a focus of electromagnetic energy for hundreds of years – since long before, well, we had electromagnetic devices, actually. And it's meant to be where the Sinnoh region was created."
"That makes sense!" Miraidon declared. "You'd want to be able to see what you were doing to create somewhere, so doing it on a high place is important."
Lucario translated, and Cynthia chuckled.
"That's a good point," she said. "Though based on textual inferences I think it's actually that this is where the recorded history of Sinnoh begins. Celestic Town is either the oldest town in Sinnoh or so close as makes no difference, and it's nestled right next to Mount Coronet, so you can see how that would happen."
"So much of history is about that, isn't it?" Dawn guessed. "About working out what's real from what people said or wrote down…"
"Well, wrote down or did, mostly," Cynthia corrected. "Though I'd love to know what people said in the past…"
She turned to Ash. "Actually… no, that's not really an appropriate use of your powers, is it."
Ash tilted his head, actually considering it properly as he realized something.
"I… guess there's a thing with Jirachi that's sort of related to time?" he said. "Jirachi sleeps for a thousand years between waking up for a week, but last time he did he made friends with my friend Max, so if I can work out how to get around that then I should. Because it's better for Jirachi and because I said I would. So… that might involve time somehow, and then maybe that would be involved? But I don't know, and I don't want to just… create a Pokémon to do that. Not if there's another way to do it."
"Dad, I'm really glad you're reluctant like that," Mew told him, curling their tail around the top of Ash's ring. "It seems… important, that you are."
Ash knocked on the door of Oreburgh Gym.
After a long pause, someone opened the door. "Yes?"
"I challenge-" Ash began, then Cynthia held up her hand.
"Ash?" she said. "That's not actually the Gym Leader, Roark."
"-oh," Ash trailed off, embarrassed now. "Sorry, I sort of assumed… is Roark in?"
"No, he's not," the man replied. "I'm here to tell people that. He should be back later today, but right now he's doing an excavation."
"Archaeological?" Cynthia asked, interested.
The man shook his head. "A fossil, I think," he replied, and Cynthia's interest immediately dropped noticeably. "It's for the Oreburgh Museum."
"I've been there, but not in the last couple of years," Dawn reminisced. "Is there anything new with it?"
"There is, actually!" the man replied. "We got in a Stone revival machine from Devon Corporation in Hoenn."
"Oh, that's neat," Latias said. "Maybe we should visit?"
"Yeah, we could!" Ash agreed, thinking. "And – well, I guess Koraidon's like a revived fossil in some ways, so I should go and get her and we can visit. Or maybe we can go and see Roark, then the museum, then he'll know I'm after a gym battle?"
By the time they got to the mine after going to the Pokémon Centre, Roark had left, but that just meant they went straight to the museum.
"Ah, Champion!" the man at the front desk said, with a smile. "Is this group with you?"
"We're travelling together, yes," Cynthia confirmed.
"Then it's free entry," the man told her.
Cynthia blinked, then looked back at the size of the group.
Ash had Latias and Pikachu with him, plus Koraidon, Miraidon and Mew, and Zorua was sitting on Koraidon's head. Then Dawn had Piplup with her, and of course Cynthia herself had both Eevee and Lucario out.
"Are you sure?" she asked.
Dawn laughed. "I think I get it," she said. "Last time I came here it was free entry anyway, right?"
"Yes," the man at the front desk confirmed. "Just a little joke of mine. It's free entry for your group, and for everyone else too."
"Not bad," Cynthia judged.
"What's that?" Koraidon asked, pointing at a pile of papers in the corner.
"Let's see," Ash said, and picked one up with Confusion.
It had pictures and questions on it, and he read one of them before brightening. "Oh, right, it's kind of a thing where… you go around the museum and solve problems, I think?"
"That's right," the greeter agreed. "It's something for younger children."
"We are all younger children," Miraidon stated. "Who should carry our sheet?"
"I'll do it?" Mew volunteered, floating over to take it.
The sight of the Psychic-type made the otherwise unflapped greeter do a double-take, but he shook his head a couple of times before visibly deciding to not make much fuss about it.
"Hmm," Mew added. "So the first one is about, um… ancient plants that make modern electricity."
"Voltorb!" Zorua announced.
"Really?" Koraidon asked, looking up. "Is Voltorb an ancient plant? I thought it wasn't."
"Think so," Zorua asked, more confused now. He tried scratching his head with a paw, then fell over forwards, stood back up again, and fluffed himself with a grumble.
"One of the museum exhibits might say what it is," Latias suggested. "Museums often say what the things in them are. I know the one back home does!"
Latias's guess turned out to be correct, and they went back and forth through the museum looking for things that fit the description – starting with coal, which was in the first exhibit room, and then going back and forth between the rocks in one part of the museum and the fossil Pokémon in the other.
"Hi!" Koraidon waved, leaning on one of the railings, then tilted her head. "Oh! Actually, I never got a chance to ask before… when you get revived, do you remember things?"
The trio of Shieldon exchanged glances, not quite sure what to say.
"We… don't actually know," one of them said, eventually. "We're second-generation. Our parents were fossil revivals, but we weren't."
"Oh, okay," Koraidon said, stepping back and thumping back down on all fours. "Do you know where I can find someone who's first generation?"
"I… think I heard a Rampardos complaining about grass once?" another Shieldon volunteered. "He said it wasn't something he was used to."
Miraidon's antennae perked up.
"It seems that we have our answer," they said. "A Rampardos who was revived and was a new creation like us would not know grass was something to not be used to."
"Oh, well spotted!" Koraidon realized. "Great work, Miraidon!"
Miraidon displayed a pleased expression on their screen, then Mew flew over with a pencil and the work sheet.
"I think I found the answer to the question," they said. "But I'm not sure. Can you come and check? I think the Bastiodon is the one that makes a wall when they line up…"
"Let's go and look," Koraidon suggested.
Ash smiled, then Cynthia waved to get Ash's attention.
"That's Roark," she said, pointing.
"Oh – thanks, Cynthia!" Ash replied.
At the sound of Cynthia's name, Roark whirled and looked panicked, then relaxed a little when he saw that she wasn't striding towards him with her Garchomp in the lead.
"Is there something wrong?" he asked. "Sorry I wasn't in my gym… oh, you're Ash Ketchum, right?"
"That's me," Ash confirmed.
There was a thump sound, and they looked over to see that Turtwig and a Tirtouga were comparing notes on what they could do. Which mostly involved headbutting berries to see which of them could make it go further.
Dawn was torn between asking them to stop and laughing.
"And I'd like to challenge you to a gym battle!" Ash went on. "Only, not right now because we're still enjoying the museum."
"That's good," Roark said. "I'll be available once I've finished reviving the fossil in some Old Amber. It's probably going to be an Aerodactyl, but you never quite know for sure… then, well, I can't promise you'll get the first slot, it depends if someone else shows up, but I'll do my best to stay in the gym for the rest of the day."
He nodded towards Koraidon. "What is that Pokémon, by the way? They remind me a little of an Archeops or a Tyrantrum, but only a bit."
"Koraidon's unique," Ash replied. "I created her by mistake, but I'm really glad I did."
Roark gave him an odd look, then glanced at Cynthia. "...created?"
"I say this in all honesty… we don't have time for the full story," Cynthia replied. "Now, here's a much more important question."
She opened the museum brochure. "Is the museum cafe better than the food stalls?"
AN:
Cynthia's asking the important questions, of course.