The group was walking on the road, Ash was holding a stone and looking down at it, it was Yellow and brown, back when they were given the choices of the stones, they were specifically for Pokemon that the International Police used, so no Charizard, no Blastoise, no Venusaur, no Gyarados mega stone.
So he took the safe option and took one he did recognize the Alakazam mega stone, and he also guided Brock to a certain silver and blue stone. Meanwhile Misty and Yellow took random ones, but knowing plot armor, they will probably be able to use it, well it doesn't matter yet they don't even have Keystones.
But speaking of which, the stone Magikarp brought was a Gyaradosite, which was convenient but still useless since he didn't have a Keystone.
Eventually, when they stopped for lunch Ash took advantage since it was Brock's turn to cook, he released his Pokemon and pulled Poliwrath and Gyarados aside to finally scan them.
—
[Poliwrath(M)]
[Ability: Water Absorb Hidden ability, Swift Swim.]
[Current moves: Hydro Pump, Hypnosis, Rain dance, Power-up Punch, Rest, Wake-Up Slap, Protect, Substitute, Belly Drum, Strength, Focus Punch, Submission, Flip Turn, Drain Punch, Liquidation, Bulk Up]
[Gy- Error, override code 3768 - updating…updating..Error inaccurate information fixing problem momentarily…]
[✨Gyarados✨(M)]
[Ability: Intimidate Hidden ability: Moxie]
[Current moves: Bounce, Hydro Pump, Waterfall, Dragon Tail, Bulldoze, Aqua Tail, Ice Fang, Crunch, Dragon Dance]
[Fury from the deep - When facing an opponent, if the opponent sees Gyarados as stronger or an equal, they gain a -2 to both physical and Special Attack, if the opponent deems Gyarados overwhelmingly stronger, they will lose all will to fight, no matter what.]
—
'Well, that's neat, also new, so not only is Gyarados shiny now, but he gained a mutation, it is painfully long but it seems to just be an upgraded Intimidate, does that mean I can give Pokemon a mutation if I do something, well I guess I can't think about it much now,' Ash thought to himself as both the water bros where playing in a pond, and by that I mean they where sparing since this was the first time they could fight each other.
Misty and Yellow walked up next to Ash, "Hey I've been meaning to ask but is that the same Magikarp from before, if so why is it so big and a Shiny," Misty asked pointing at his water snake.
Most Gyarados average around 21 '04 feet, a bit more than 6.5 meters, even Misty's is on the shorter side with it being at around 20 feet, but Ash's is at a whopping 30 feet, a bit more than 9 meters.
Ash shrugged, "He is the same one, and I guess he is Shiny, I don't know I guess he was always one, something happened he shed his red scales and they became Gold, then he evolved and now he is red". Ash said as he pulled out a golden scale and showed it to them.
"That's weird, I haven't seen something like this, but I guess anything can happen," Misty said as she inspected the scale.
"Wait but what about your Poliwrath, don't you need a water stone for that, they are pretty rare, how did you get one." Misty realized looking at his muscular frog thing, they may look similar but as a self-proclaimed water-type expert, Misty could tell the difference.
Ash simply answered, "You guys were gone for a long time, I didn't just stay in Vermilion." completely dodged the question, but it did make Misty drop the subject.
At the time Brock called everyone for lunch so they went to eat, then Ash had to prepare the new diet now that they had 2 Gyarados, 1 being massive and supposedly still growing, and a big fire lizard. Now that he thought about it, if Oak wasn't sponsoring him he probably would have only been training maybe 4 fully evolved Pokemon at a time.
It's expensive, but thankfully he can sap out as much money from Oak as he wants as long as it is considered an expense for his journey, and he ain't going to say a thing about it because of what he did and it didn't even matter anyway, he still got his fire lizard.
Though he does have a long and short-term plan to make money, since Oak will probably only cover Kanto and Johto, maybe Hoenn and Sinnoh if he stretches it, but the point is he won't have a infinite money Miltank forever. But his short-term plan for steady income involves all 30 Tauros, no matter how stupid that sounds on paper.
Also on the matter of the Eggs, everyone still had theirs thankfully, Misty decided to carry her's out of the incubator and in her arms, despite Ash and Brock telling her that it would take longer to hatch without it, but she didn't care claiming that Lorelei entrusted her the egg so she would keep it safe, she even rejected the offer to find out what it was.
Ash on the other hand said he would keep his in his 'Bag', and put it in his pocket space, then changed the time in there to be as fast as he could make it, he already had a pretty good idea what the Pokemon was even without checking it, and so it would take a long time for it to hatch, potentially a year depending on how fresh it was, but with this it would hatch in a month at most.
They understood and didn't say anything, but Brock and Yellow still asked him to pull it out every now and then so they could look at it, for Yellow's curiosity and because Brock wanted to study it since it was the first time he saw an Egg that wasn't a Rock type. Ash obviously didn't mind, so he let them.
After they ate they set up camp for the night, and then they all went to sleep, almost all of them, Ash got out of his tent around midnight. There he let out Gloom and Weepinbell, both of them were still half asleep but then they heard something.
"Hey guys, you wanna evolve?" Ash said, as soon as he said that a Yellow background appeared behind the 2 Pokemon, and a …? appeared as they both tilted their heads.
He didn't have to make a connection to tell that both of them were thinking [Say again.]
"I said if you wanna evolve I have a stone," Ash said as he went into his storage and held out the stone in his left hand, the hand that the ring was on, both Gloom and Weepinbell looked shocked and stared at Ash with admiration as they both nodded furiously.
Ash showed off as he threw the stone in the air and caught it hoping to do a cool pose as they both evolved, but as soon as the stone touched his ring, the ring glowed brightly and disappeared, all 3 of them stood frozen for a second when they all looked at the ring then all collectively went Σ(っ°Д°;)っ
Thankfully it was still night so no one woke up, but they were still panicking as quietly as they could.
Ash looked at the ring and on it was the image of a leaf and a dial thing that would make it spin around. Weepinbell used some vines to pull his hand towards them as they both started looking at the ring panicking.
Eventually, it led to Ash, poking Weepinbell, and when he did he immediately started glowing and growing until he stood as a Victreebel—making the 3 look stunned again looking at each other with a Σ(°△°|||).
Ash pulled back his hand and looked at his ring, the symbol was still there so he looked at Gloom then pointed at him, at the moment they were 5 feet apart instead of touching like he did with Victreebel.
And to their surprise, it worked and Gloom started glowing as well as he started glowing and growing, then the horrible smell they were used to changed into a slightly less bad smell as a Vileplume stood in front of them.
As they both started admiring each other Ash quickly pulled up his dex.
—
[Victreebel (M)]
[Ability: Chlorophyll Hidden Ability: Effect Spore]
[Current moves: Vine whip(advanced), Growth, sleep powder, poison powder, stun spore, Sludge Bomb, Giga Drain, Swords Dance, Protect, Knock Off, Sunny Day, Solar beam, Fly trap, Leaf Blade, Grass Knot, Power Whip, Synthesis, Strength Sap, Stockpile]
[Vileplume (M)]
[Ability: Chlorophyll Hidden Ability: Effect Spore.]
[Current moves: Giga Drain , Growth, sleep powder, poison powder, stun spore, Leech Seed, Sludge Bomb , Protect, Energy Ball, Sunny day, Solar beam, Strength Sap, Venoshock, Teeter Dance, Toxic, Grass Knot, Synthesis]
—
Ash nodded seeing their new move pools, and with the power boost they would still be useful for a bit, Ash returned them to their Pokeballs as he went back to his tent and looked at his ring, he looked at it curiously and then pulled out a normal Moonstone and poked the ring with it, nothing happened.
So he pulled out the eternal moonstone and did the same, and just like before there was another image on the side, Ash thought about it spinning and it switched. So Ash spent the next few minutes trying them all on it, and when he was done he had no stones and an image of each on the ring.
'This is weird, this can't be everything this thing can do, Ho-Oh gave me this thing so there has to be something about it, but for now it seems like they are compatible with the stones, I wonder why, did Ho-Oh figure out the only reason I agreed to go on the S.S. Anne, so it gave me something that would help, no this can't be it, there has to be something more.' Ash thought before giving up and going to sleep.
The next morning during breakfast he was looking at the map. In the original work Ash was stranded on an island then like 3 episodes later came back to the mainland, but instead of going to a city he went to Maiden's Peak, so he had to find his own way or find it on the map.
Brock saw him looking at the map so he went over and sat next to him, "Do you have a plan?"
Ash was slightly startled since Brock surprised him but composed himself, "So we should get to Saffron in a few days if we go north through Route 6, but if you guys want we can make a stop by Maiden's Peak, and if we stay for the first celebration we should get to Saffron a few days depending on how long you wanna stay over there."
Everyone was listening and immediately Misty and Brock agreed, "Yes I hear the summer festival is amazing," Misty said.
"And it will be my last chance to find beautiful girls in swimsuits before Summer ends," Brock immediately agreed, and Misty didn't even pull his ear this time.
Ash was currently being pushed off his seat, he was barely still on it as he grabbed both of them by the head and pushed them back, "Alright, sure we can make a pit stop, and since we are there we might as well see the Butterfree coming back from mating season."
As soon as Ash said that Kitty in the corner who was eating immediately froze and dropped his food and slowly started back at Ash as he realized something.
"Frrreeeeﾍ(;´Д｀ﾍ)"
Kitty was sitting over by the side being depressed, meanwhile Yellow was trying to comfort him.
"There there, it's ok," Yellow said while patting the butterfly on the back.
Ash appeared behind Yellow, "If it makes you feel any better they left before you evolved."
"Free(T^T)"
"I guess not, Brock go comfort him," Ash said.
"What, Why me?" Brock immediately asked.
"Because you're also depressed from not being able to get a girl, so you can both bond over being maidenless," Ash said, and that statement caused Brock physical pain as he appeared next to Kitty and Yellow walked over to Ash.
"Was that the best Idea?" Yellow asked, looking at the two love birds crying in the corner.
"It's fine, it's better for them to get over it now than later, any way you want pancakes?" Ash said, stretching his arm over his head.
Misty then appeared from nowhere and jumped to put her arm around Ash, "Only if you make them how I like them!"
Ash sighed, "Fluffy with an illegal amount of sugar, an Alolan classic, sure why not, give you more energy." he said as he took Misty off his back.
After a few minutes, it was ready and everyone ate, Brock and Kitty appeared again looking like they bonded after finally getting over their distinct lack of maidens.
After Breakfast, they packed up everything and started walking again.