Serena stared at the strange Pokemon in front of Ash, completely dumbfounded. She had no idea what it was, why it had saved her and why Ash seemed to recognize it. She realized she probably shouldn't argue with the whole thing, though. She decided to just be grateful it had decided to show up at this point. That hyper beam to the face likely wouldn't have been very fun.

Suddenly, the Pokemon that had saved her teleported and in the next moment, it was hovering right next to her. The net she was in immediately ripped apart and she expected to fall, but there was a definite feeling of weightlessness. The Pokemon reached out and held her shoulder and she blinked in surprise. However, once she opened her eyes again, she was hovering in front of Ash and was then dropped in front of him on Charizard.

"Serena!" Ash yelled happily, hugging her tightly.

As weird as the situation was, Serena ignored all that and hugged him back. Who knew what would happen now between Team Rocket, Lysandre, Zygarde and Squishy? It was terrifying, of course, but at least she was with Ash. Nothing seemed as bad as it was only a few moments ago.

Are you alright? Serena stared in shock at the Pokemon that had saved her. He was looking at her. Was it him that had spoken?

"This is Mewtwo." Ash explained quickly. "He's...uh...an old friend I guess. He uses telepathy to speak. I'll explain later when," he gestured to everything around them, "this is done."

"Oh..." Serena looked at Mewtwo. "Yeah, I'm alright. Thank you, Mewtwo."

Good. Mewtwo suddenly looked to the ground and Serena could see that a large group of Pokemon were coming out of the woods. Many of them looked normal, although quite a few also seemed to have strange markings on them.My friends have arrived. I had to come a little ahead of them, because I could sense what Giovanni was going to do.

When Mewtwo said this, Serena looked up towards where Giovanni was standing in his helicopter. He was staring at Mewtwo, looking completely stunned. "What...are you?" He finally said. "Are you a Pokemon?"

Mewtwo seemed to actually laugh for a moment. Yes, I happen to be a Pokemon. I happen to exist, because of you. Giovanni stared at him with more confusion and then Mewtwo waved a hand in the air and Giovanni's eyes became glassy for a moment.

"What are you doing?" Ash suddenly asked, fear in his voice. "He'll just go straight for your sanctuary."

I only returned his memories of when he funded the lab that created me and what he did to me afterwards. Mewtwo replied. I have no intention of him finding my sanctuary.

"Then why not take his memory of all this? That would save time." Ash asked. Serena nodded, thinking it was a good question.

Easier to give than to take. Mewtwo explained.

"You...your my Pokemon." Giovanni suddenly said causing them to all look at the Team Rocket leader.

Serena could see that this made Mewtwo pretty mad. Ash is the one who spoke up though. "Mewtwo doesn't belong to anyone!" He yelled. "All you did was try to use him for evil." Now that Giovanni didn't have leverage, she realized Ash was pretty confident in his chances at beating the Team Rocket leader. Not to mention, they had Mewtwo as well.

Then, shocking everyone who was observing the scene with Giovanni and Mewtwo, a loud roar was heard behind them. Serena turned and saw Lysandre's Zygarde suddenly shove away Squishy, who was looking exhausted. Then, he reared his head back and fired a dragon pulse that slammed into Squishy, firing him towards the forest where Team Rocket had emerged from. Then, Zygarde looked towards them.

"Ready, everyone?" Ash asked. His six Pokemon all answered in confident calls. "Charizard and Inferneape, flamethrower. Sceptile, leaf storm. Pikachu, thunderbolt. Greninja, water shuriken. Pidgeot, blow it all forward with gust."

The attacks all shot forward just in time. Zygarde prepared another dragon pulse and it was launched forward and it sped towards them. The attacks slammed together and a massive explosion shook the air over top of Lumiose City. Serena felt Ash quickly pull her down, doing whatever he could do to shield her from the incoming shock wave.

Her stomach lurched as suddenly Charizard was whipped away by the wind, rolling through the air. Serena's eyes were shut tight, but she managed to open them just a crack and was surprised to see Mewtwo struggling with the blast as well. However, she just barely saw him start to glow in a blue light and then felt her body stop moving. She opened her eyes more and saw that Mewtwo had just managed to stop them.

"Where's Giovanni?" Ash suddenly asked. Serena didn't really register what he was talking about for a moment, but then realized that the helicopter that Giovanni had been on wasn't in the sky anymore.

"Did he get hit?" Serena asked, not guilty at all that she was hoping he had been hit.

No. Mewtwo said. He's on the ground. He pointed and Serena could just see Giovanni on the ground near his helicopter. Jessie, James and Meowth were there too. They were glaring up at Zygarde and Serena instantly knew that Giovanni was going to do whatever he could to get control of the Sundial.

"We have to stop him. He's gonna try to get on Prism Tower." Serena yelled.

"We've gotta deal with Zygarde first." Ash said. "Don't worry, as bad as Lysandre is, at least he's going to fight Giovanni off. We can let those two fight each other." He took a deep breath. "Meanwhile, Mewtwo and I-"

"Don't even try it." Serena interrupted, knowing what he was about to suggest. "I'm staying with you."

Ash hesitated and she turned and glared at him. For a moment, he looked like he was going to argue, but then he smiled. "Fine. Just don't..."

"Don't do anything you would do?" Serena asked sarcastically.

"Yeah." Ash nodded. "Exactly." He looked down and Serena followed his gaze. They'd been blown back pretty far. They were now hovering over what she supposed they should call, their army. In between them and Lumiose City, was the massive gathering of Team Rocket members. Zygarde was behind them, hovering over the city. "Can you guys still fight?" Ash called down to everyone below them. There was a confident chorus of shouts of agreement. "Alright," Ash yelled, "then let's go!"

XXXXX

Clemont didn't really have time to be shocked about the mysterious Pokemon that had just saved his friends. He would have loved to know what was going on, but things were quickly becoming pretty hectic. With Zygarde suddenly free and Squishy currently down, things weren't looking good. That was without considering the whole Lysandre and Team Rocket thing. Clemont was starting to wish he and Bonnie had just run off. He shook his head. No, he couldn't have those thoughts. He had to help his friends and he had to find his dad.

Just as he was thinking of all this, a roar was heard from Prism Tower and Clemont looked to see Lysandre standing next to a terrifying looking creature. "Mega Gyrados." Alain quickly explained. "Looks like Lysandre is still in this fight."

Clemont could tell Alain was desperate to settle his score with Lysandre, so he took a deep breath and spoke. "You deal with that. I'll go look for my d- Blaziken Mask." He looked over to where Iris, Cilan and Dawn were. They were staring up at Zygarde and glancing nervously at where Ash was. "You guys go ahead and help Ash." They nodded and set off, grateful they had the excuse to go and help.

Clemont then clicked a button on his backpack strap and his Aipom arm came out. He extended it out and hooked onto a baclony of a building nearby and then jumped off of Charizard. He had no idea what was coming over him the last few hours. Apparently he hadbeen learning a lot from Ash throughout their travels. He managed to use the Aipom arm to kind of rapel his way down and in a few minutes he was on the streets. He did his best to ignore the sounds of battling coming from Prism Tower and, of course, what he knew to be a war going on just outside the city. It wasn't easy, but he focused on looking for his dad and managed to tune some of it out.

He should have expected it, but he'd obviously been hoping to avoid any battles. Regardless, rounding a corner, Clemont ended up having to stop, startled by a Tyranitar and an Arbok. Their trainers, a woman with red hair and a man with blue hair, were behind them. They had white suits with a red 'R' on the top left. They were members of Team Rocket.

"Well, Archer, looks like we've got our first enemy." The red-haired woman said.

"Yes, Ariana, and from what I know, he's the gym leader here. This should be interesting." The blue-haired man replied.

Ariana started cackling like a witch. "He's not even calling out any Pokemon. They must already be defeated. Some gym leader he must be."

Clemont gritted his teeth. What was he supposed to do, call out exhausted and beaten up Pokemon? He sighed and pulled out Luxray's pokeball. If one of his Pokemon could do it, it was Luxray. "Luxray, please, I need you." He called out, sending out the electric-lion. Luxray didn't look too good, but he managed to stand straight and stare down his opponents.

Archer chuckled. "That thing can barely stand." He pointed. "Tyranitar, earthquake!"

Tyranitar was just about to strike the ground with its tail, when a blast of pink wind struck it in the back. Quickly following that, blue stones started shooting up from the ground and struck Arbok, sending the purple snake flying. Then, a jet of flames smacked into both of the Team Rocket Pokemon and knocked them to the ground.

Clemont glanced at where the attacks came from and instantly smiled. Serena's Sylveon and Pancham were there, accompanied by his dad and his Blaziken, in its mega evolved form and clearly not poisoned anymore. Nurse Joy, along with the Joy from Glorio City who came with Brock, were also there, with the Pokemon from the Pokemon centre.

"Blaziken, finish this with one last flamethrower!" Mega Blaziken shot his head forward and launched a massive blast of flames towards Tyranitar and Arbok, who were already struggling to their feet. They screeched in pain and then tumbled to the ground. Meyer then looked at a stunned Archer and Ariana. "I suggest you get out of my city now." They didn't need to be told twice and they instantly ran off.

"Clemont, are you alright?" Meyer asked, walking up to him.

"Yeah, thanks for the help." Clemont answered. "I came here looking for you. Why'd you disappear like that?"

"I had to clear out the Pokemon centre. I'm..." He gestured in the direction of Zygarde. "That could make things pretty dangerous."

"Right." Clemont agreed. He then looked at Sylveon and Pancham, who were both nervously looking around, obviously thinking of Serena. "Hey you two, don't worry. Serena's safe...well as safe as any of us are right now." The two Pokemon looked relieved after that, but obviously seemed a little worried still.

"Come on," Meyer said, "we need to go and help. There's something of Professor Sycamore's that might be able to help Ash."

XXXXX

Charizard landed and Alain and Mairin hopped off. This was it. It was always going to come to this at some point. Lysandre had brought Alain into this world of mega evolution. He'd then manipulated Alain into doing his dirty work for him. He'd caused Mairin's Chespie to nearly die. He'd attacked a city of innocent people. He was going to pay for it.

There was no time for small talk. "Charizard, flamethrower!" He yelled.

Lysandre laughed, amused at Alain's eagerness to start the battle. "Aqua tail." He countered, his voice calm. Gyrados easily vaporized the incoming flamethrower by striking it with his water-covered tail. Lysandre then narrowed his eyes. "So, no interest in the other battles raging on around the city, Alain?"

"Beating you is one step in ending all this." Alain explained. "Ash is strong enough to deal with the rest. I'm ending your control over Zygarde." He pointed. "Charizard, dragon claw!"

"Iron head." Lysandre countered. Gyrados braced himself and lowered his head as Charizard launched forward, his claws glowing in a green light. Charizard slashed down once and Gyrados threw up his head and struck back. The fire-lizard's first strike clattered off like nothing and then he slashed down with his other claw. Gyardos again countered by launching his head up and Charizard's claw was deflected once more. As Charizard flew back a few paces, Lysandre laughed again. "You've gotten weaker, Alain. Perhaps it wasn't a fluke that Ketchum beat your Charizard with one that wasn't even mega evolved."

"Ash knows more about Pokemon than either of us." Alain said. "He can bring out the power of his Pokemon like nobody else." He took a deep breath. He had to focus. He was letting his anger with Lysandre get in the way of properly fighting the battle. "Charizard, fly up." Charizard whipped up high into the air and hovered well above Gyrados. "Dive down and use flamethrower!"

"Aqua tail." Lysandre ordered, looking unimpressed. His Gyradors raised its tail and held it up against the jet of flames, which evaporated on contact.

"Quick, thunder punch!" Alain shouted. Charizard seemed to have already known what his trainer was going to order. His flames had hidden him and he passed through them unseen. He pulled back a fist and it crackled with electricity. Then, he rushed forward and slammed it into Gyrados' water-covered tail. It jolted through and Gyrados shrieked in pain, while Charizard flew back to avoid the thrashing it was doing.

"Clever, Alain." Lysandre muttered, glaring at Alain and Mairin. "Gyrados, use earthquake."

"What?" Alain asked. That didn't make any sense. Charizard was in the air. That move wouldn't do anything to him. Gyrados then slammed his tail to the ground and Prism Tower began to violently shake. Alain heard a yelp behind him and immediately knew why Lysandre had called the attack. "Mairin!" He yelled, turning around and seeing her trip due to the shaking ground. His eyes widened, seeing her perilously close to the edge. He reached out and tried to grab her, but the ground was shaking too much and he almost fell off himself. Then, his breath stopped as he saw her go over the edge. "Charizard, catch her!"

"Chespie, vine whip!" Mairin yelled. Alain managed to get to the edge and he saw Mairin holding on to Chespie, who had his vines on one of the ledges. He was straining, but it looked like he'd be able to hold on for Charizard to get them.

Alain turned to Lysandre. "What do you think you're doing?" He shouted. He then stopped, eyes wide. Lysandre wasn't there. Then, there was a loud scraping noise and he looked up to see the Sundial being pulled up by some kind of machine that was being lowered by a helicopter. He looked up and saw Lysandre was in it. "Coward!" Alain yelled.

"I need to deal with Ketchum." Lysandre explained. "And I need my Sundial for that. Thank you for supplying me with some mega evolution energy." Alain clenched his fists as Lysandre's helicopter whipped away towards where Ash was battling Zygarde.

Charizard then emerged from below, carrying Mairin and Chespie. "You two alright?" He asked. Mairin nodded. "We're gonna have to get going again. Lysandre's doing whatever he can to make things more difficult."

XXXXX

Bonnie couldn't take it. She wasn't going to sit back and watch while her friends continued to fight. She was getting involved. So, naturally, she snuck off while Misty and Brock were confronted by a couple of Team Rocket members calling themselves Butch and Cassidy. May had pushed ahead using her Blaziken, so she hadn't been around to watch Bonnie. Gary, meanwhile, had been kind of filling Ash's leader role on the ground while Ash dealt with the chaos in the sky.

She was enjoying herself, actually. Bonnie was using Dedenne to distract various Team Rocket members in order for good trainers, Ash's Pokemon, Wetlands Pokemon or the mysterious Pokemon that had showed with the Pokemon Brock had called Mewtwo.

Finally, a couple of the Team Rocket members noticed her. They had a Wheezing and a Golbat. One was a man with blue hair, while another was a man with purple hair. "Hey kid, what do you think you're doing here?" Blue-haired man said.

"Dedenne, thundershock!" Bonnie yelled. Dedenne didn't hesitate. He leaped off of Bonnie's head and sent his jet of electricity towards the Golbat. The bat-like Pokemon screeched in pain and staggered back.

"Not bad, huh Proton?" The purple-haired man said, chuckling.

"Shut up, Petrel." Proton said. "Golbat, wing attack!"

As Golbat was about to shoot towards Dedenne, vines wrapped around his wings and pulled him back. Then, a blue turtle-like Pokemon shot forward and struck Golbat with what Bonnie knew to be a skullbash attack. The two Pokemon that had just helped her out quickly scrambled forward and stood between her and the Team Rocket trainers. It was a Bulbasaur and a Squirtle.

"Are you Ash's Pokemon?" Bonnie asked them. The two nodded. "Awesome!" Bonnie yelled. She'd been wanting to meet these two for a long time, ever since Ash had mentioned they were a couple of his oldest. She remembered he'd said they'd been key factors in him winning the Battle Frontier in Kanto.

Golbat had just managed to get to his feet and was panting, but apparently still able to continue. Proton didn't look too happy about what had just happened. "Golbat, smarten up and get ready to attack." He looked over at Petrel. "Help out for once."

Petrel smirked and then looked at his Wheezing. "Wheezing, use sludge."

Bonnie didn't bother ordering Ash's Pokemon this time. Considering these were a couple of his oldest, she decided they likely had enough experience and training that would make them capable of handling this fairly easily.

And she was right. Squirtle easily deflected the poisonous sludge attack with a water gun. After that, Bulbasaur fired off a razor leaf attack that smashed into Wheezing with tremendous speed and force, knocking the poison-Pokemon back.

"Golbat, wing attack!" Proton ordered. Golbat quickly darted forward and it looked like he might be able to land the attack, but Bulbasaur jumped up and a seed shot out of the plant on his back and it struck the bat-Pokemon. Immediately, vines shot out of it and covered it. Squirtle then gave it one more water gun and it was launched back, where it landed hard on the ground and didn't move.

"That's it." Pretrel glared at Bonnie, who was giggling at how easy it was for Bulbasaur and Squirtle. "Wheezing, smokescreen." Bonnie immediately stopped laughing as thick, black smoke started surrounding her and the Pokemon guarding her.

Suddenly, Bonnie felt a hand grab her shoulder. She was then dragged out of the smoke and she looked up to see Proton holding onto her. "Let me go!" She shouted. "Stupid Team Rocket."

"She's pretty rude, isn't she?" Proton asked Petrel.

"Yeah, definitely gotta teach her some manners." Petrel agreed, smirking.

"Dedenne, thundershock!" Bonnie yelled. When nothing happened, she looked and saw that Dedenne was currently being held down by the exhausted Golbat. Since Dedenne wasn' often used for battling, he didn't have enough strength to get out of it.

Just when Bonnie thought she was going to get kidnapped for sure, the grip on her shoulder was gone and she heard Proton yell in pain. She turned around and saw a fluffy pig-monkey-Pokemon with brown, boxing glove hands, punching the two Team Rocket members that had attacked her. Then, vines wrapped around them and she noticed that Bulbasaur and Squirtle had managed to get out of their restraints. He tossed them up and Squirtle launched them away with one more water gun.

"Bonnie!" Bonnie stood up and looked towards where the voice had come from. Gary was running up to her with Blastoise next to him. "What did you go running off for?"

"I don't wanna watch from the sidelines." Bonnie said, narrowing her eyes. "I can fight."

"Yeah..." Gary muttered. "Looked like it." He looked at the three Pokemon that had saved her. "Good thing Ash's Pokemon were here." He sighed. "Whatever, come on. You can stick with me, but stay close." He turned around and was about to go forward towards the field where the fighting was, but then he stopped.

"What is it?" Bonnie asked.

Gary pointed. "Giovanni." Bonnie followed where he was pointing and she could just see it. The Team Rocket leader seemed to be hovering around the city entrance near Prism Tower. "He's probably trying to find Lysandre so he can get whatever he's using to control Zygarde."

"Then let's stop him." Bonnie said and she started running forward, hearing Gary muttering behind her.

XXXXX

"Pidgeot, fly around the back. You, Infernape and Sceptile attack from that side. Mewtwo, you get it from above. We'll take this side." Ash ordered. It was strange to be giving Mewtwo an order, but the legendary Pokemon didn't seem to bothered by it. He recognized the seriousness of the situation and seemed ok with Ash taking the lead.

"What's your plan?" Serena asked him, as Mewtwo and Pidgeot set off towards their places.

"Um...I don't really have one." Ash answered, laughing nervously. "Hopefully we can stall until Squishy recovers. And maybe Mewtwo's powerful enough to beat Zygarde anyways." He said hopefully.

"Maybe..." Serena said quietly, although she didn't sound very confident. Ash understood why. As powerful as Mewtwo was, Zygarde had ripped up an entire field pretty quickly and had the power to destroy a mountain with a single strike.

Ash then shook his head. "No...we're strong enough. Greninja and I are meant to do this. Don't worry, we're not losing this. What do we say?"

"Don't give up till it's over." Serena answered quickly.

"Right." Ash said. "So let's fight. Greninja, get ready to use water shuriken. Pikachu, you be ready with thunderbolt." Both of his Pokemon murmured their agreement. "Serena, you sure you want to stay?"

"It's not like it's much safer down there." She answered, apparently knowing just the way to defeat Ash's argument of trying to keep her safe. He glanced down at the battle below and could see little explosions from various Pokemon attacks happening everywhere.

"Fine." Ash sighed. The last thing he wanted to do was bring Serena close to an angry legendary Pokemon, but he didn't seem to have any choice at the moment. "Charizard, let's go."

The fire-lizard flew forward and approached Zygarde. The massive legendary Pokemon was staring around angrily. He was aware that he was being surrounded. Of course, he looked towards Ash and Serena first, apparently deciding to strike down the humans before anything else. His mouth opened and Ash knew he was preparing a dragon pulse. However, he was struck by flames and a storm of leaves from behind him and lurched forward in pain. Infernape and Sceptile had distracted him.

"Now, Greninja and Pikachu, go!" Ash ordered, wanting to take this chance. Greninja immediately sent a powerful trio of watery ninja stars that whipped towards Zygarde. Pikachu then launched a powerful thunderbolt that engulfed them in electricity, turning them into electric water shurikens.

However, Zygarde quickly righted himself from the attack from Infernape and Sceptile and seemed to be preparing another dragon pulse. This was where having Mewtwo on their side came in handy. A dark ball of purple and black energy shot down from above Zygarde and struck him in the jaw. It wasn't the best power Mewtwo could muster, because it was rushed, but it was enough to distract Zygarde so the attack from Pikachu and Greninja could strike.

There was a loud roar from Zygarde as he thrashed around in pain. This time, though, he seemed made at Mewtwo for distracting him. He looked up into the sky at the legendary psychic Pokemon and roared again. He then shot up and in an instant he was slamming into Mewtwo.

"Mewtwo!" Ash shouted in concern. "That was extreme speed." He explained quickly. "Charizard fly up fast.

As they flew up, Ash could see Mewtwo staggering back in pain. He probably hadn't been hurt like that since Giovanni had attacked him in Johto. He definitely looked a little stunned at the power of Zygarde. However, he seemed to be recovering and he quickly fired a shadow ball back towards Zygarde which slammed into the legendary Pokemon's chest and caused it to stagger back.

Suddenly, Ash realized they had to move back. "Charizard, down!" He yelled. It was just in time, too, because Mewtwo and Zygarde had just sent a shadow ball and a dragon pulse against each other and the attacks exploded against each other, sending a shock wave of wind downwards that Charizard managed to avoid the worst of.

"How are we supposed to help when we can't even get close to them?" Serena asked.

"I don't know." Ash answered. "Maybe..." He glanced around, hoping for some kind of answer to come to him. He then noticed a Dragonite coming towards them, with Dawn, Cilan and Iris on its back.

"Ash! We came to help." Iris yelled. "What..." She looked up at the battle that was now raging between Mewtwo and Zygarde. They weren't even bothering to charge their attacks. It was a barrage of mini shadow balls and mini dragon pulses. They were just doing everything they could to land an attack, even if it was minor.

"We're trying to figure that out as well." Ash said. "It's hard to get close without getting knocked back." Then the answer came to him and he looked towards Prism Tower. Unfortunately, what he wanted didn't seem to be there anymore. "Where's the Sundial?"

Serena quickly found out where and pointed it out. "I'm guessing that's Lysandre's helicopter." She said darkly. She was silent for a moment and then pointed out something else. "Look, that's Alain and Mairin. They're chasing them."

"We've gotta get that Sundial." Ash said. "It's our best chance of stopping Zygarde. Then, we can focus on Lysandre and Giovanni."