76 A New Discovery!?!

"What the-?! I thought Lucario were supposed to be really rare?!" May exclaimed as they all surrounded us in a semicircle.

"They ARE! But they're not supposed to be found anywhere near Kanto either." Dawn stated confusedly

"W-what are we going to do?!" Joy cried out with panic, since this was obviously the first time she was in this kind of situation.

As the girls voiced their confusion and panic though, Lucario and I both continued to scrutinize our opponents.

All Pokemon carried three specific signatures in their aura, compared the usual two that humans had.

First was the aura that depicted their identity. This type of aura was a reflection of them as an individual, and would allow me to differentiate between people and Pokemon when they looked exactly alike, like the Nurses Joy and Officers Jenny.

Second was the aura that depicted their species. All creatures possessed an aura spread throughout their entire race, which I can use to identify a Pokemon before laying eyes on it, like I had with Nidoran since I was familiar with Nidorina's aura.

And finally was the aura that humans didn't possess, the aura that depicted their type. Even now I could feel fighting and steel type aura emanating from Lucario to match his typing, and I had detected the same thing when I was attacked by the Rocky Mountain Mercs, which gave me the heads up to switch to Pokemon strong against rock types.

The Lucario in front of us however did not possess the aura belonging to Lucario that I was so familiar with, either the species or the typing. Or at least, they hadn't before?

Somehow their species and typing aura was changing from the strangeness that they were before, into actual Lucario. It was as if they were transforming right down to the molecular-

"Son of a bitch!" I exclaimed as I realized what was going on.

"Partner?" Lucario asked curiously without looking away from them.

"No, not you. I just realized what it is we're dealing with here!" I declared while looking around at all of the surrounding Lucario.

Now that I was looking closely at them, every single one looked exactly alike without any variations one usually saw in Pokemon, other than some being slightly smaller. And they all looked exactly like MY Lucario.

"So? How do we fight them?" Lucario asked irritably as I didn't give them an immediate answer.

"Easy, think of how you'd beat yourself in a fight." I told him as if it were simple.

"Really?! That's it?!?" Lucario exclaimed, right as one of them suddenly appeared right next to him using Extreme Speed.

"Grrr!" Lucario growled as it used Meteor Mash next, using Quick Guard to defend against its metallic arm.

"You can have this back!" He cried while using the move Counter, sending double the power back at the attacking Lucario.

*BOOM!*

*CRASH!*

One of the larger crystals shattered as the attacking Lucario hit it, making the entire cavern rumble as it came crashing down onto the ground.

"Woah..." One of the girls uttered in awe of the spectacle, but I wasn't paying attention enough to tell which one.

Instead, I grabbed my remaining Pokeballs, except for the still tired Charmeleon's, and threw them all out.

"Go! Give Lucario a hand!" I commanded them all, as Exeggutor, three Meowth, Buizel, Tauros, and Miltank all charged forward alongside Zubat and Magneton. Happiny of course stayed beside me in case she needed to heal any of them.

"All of you go as well! I want one of those Lucario!" May cried as she sent out her Pokemon as well, Baltoy, Caterpie, Delkatty, Swablu and Spheal alongside Combusken and Pichu.

"Yes! I'll be able to match Ace!" Dawn declared as she sent out Rosalia, Chatot, Glameow and Beautifly along with Piplup and Luxio.

"U-um... What do I do?" Joy asked anxiously as the rest of us prepared to fight.

"You're my nurse, right?" I asked her without looking back.

"Y-yes...?"

"Then support and heal us when we need it." I told her firmly, before barking out, "Exeggutor, use Pollen Bomb!"

"TOR!"

With a cry of affirmation, Exeggutor launched several large seeds into the air above the attacking Lucario. And when they came back down, they exploded upon impact to deal a fair amount of damage to our attackers, while also scattering tons of pollen into the air to inflict sleep, paralysis, and even poisoning.

"Good job! Now Meowth team!" I cried out, prompting my three Meowth forward, two of which were sporting fancy new collars with Everstones on them.

But as they got closer with their claws at the ready, one of the Lucario within leapt out of the crowd and made to attack on of my Meowth, it's paw located in deadly toxins.

"Meow!" The male Meowth cried as he jumped in front of the female the attack was meant for, taking it head on and receiving significant damage while being simultaneously poisoned.

"Damn, Poison Jab!" I swore, and was about to have Happiny heal Meowth before the poison did anymore damage. But suddenly...

"Chansey, use Heal Bell!"

Joy's voice rang out before the chime of a bell sounded, which rang clearer and louder than any Happiny produced before.

"Exeggutor, use your psychic powers to pull Meowth back to us." I ordered, which he readily complied as a slightly glowing Meowth was lifted up into the air.

"Now use your Heal Pulse Chansey!" Joy commanded.

"See see!"

Chansey cried before a pulse of energy washed over us, one much more powerful than those I'd felt from Happiny. And as it did so I watched as Meowth became visibly better within moments, before he leapt back to his feet and into the fray.

"Alright then." I stated while looking down at Happiny.

"Happiny, go and see if you can help Chansey in any way. But make sure to stay out of trouble."

"Piny piny!" She chimed before trotting over to do just that.

I then scanned the battlefield to get an idea what was going on.

So far as I could see, the Lucario around us were nowhere near as strong as my partner. They may look like him and have his moves, but they didn't have all of the same training and experience Lucario had.

As such, all the rest of our Pokemon were able to hold their own against them by working together. For example, Zubat, Swablu and Chatot we're all working together to create a large and powerful Gust attack that was repeatedly buffeting several Lucario at once.

My three Meowth meanwhile, having learned from the first one getting hurt, were playing a game of cat and mouse against the Lucario. And while normally such tactics would never work against them, due to their ability to sense aura, these Lucario weren't able to keep up as my Meowth darted too and fro agilely.

And if anyone got injured, Exeggutor would pull them back like he had Meowth, and Chansey or Happiny would heal them before they rejoined the battle.

With things going well, I turned my attention to studying the auras of the Lucario we were fighting, both to learn more about them, and to identify the strongest amongst them.

"Lucario, that one!" I declared once I had done just that, pointing out the largest of them all.

"On it!" Lucario shouted back, before using Extreme Speed to appear right next to it instantly, and then throwing a Force Palm right in the middle of its body.

"Grrrrrrr..." The Lucario growled in frustration as it was stunned, and its entire body became paralyzed from the attack.

Taking advantage of this, I quickly threw a Pokeball at the Lucario, which hit and sucked it inside.

"..."

I focused on the Pokeball, willing it to capture the Pokemon inside as it shook several times, before finally falling still.

"Yes!"

"Hey! You already have a Lucario!" May cried as she saw me catch one of them.

"And? Look around. It's a Lucario smorgasbord right now!" I exclaimed while quickly collecting my new Pokemon, though I didn't tell her what it REALLY was.

Just like Nidoran earlier, my Pokedex was alerting me that I was over my carry limit until I registered the Pokemon I just caught as one of my Breeder Pokemon. I admit, I nearly chuckled at that one.

And it was only when my Pokedex was no longer screaming at me that I tried to scan it. I say tried, because the moment I did something happened that I hadn't been expecting.

~~~

ERROR! ERROR!

UNKNOWN SPECIES DETECTED!

~~~

"What the...?" I uttered confusedly, as the Pokedex stated it didn't know what I was scanning.

But that couldn't be. Could it?

My curiosity growing, I looked out over the remaining Lucario, and told May and Dawn, "catch as many as you can to send to the professors! I'll explain later!"

Though I could feel their confusion neither girl questioned me since they had been planning to catch one or two of them to begin with.

I even tossed an empty Pokeball to Joy and said, "you should catch one as well."

"Eh!?! But I'm not a Trainer!" Joy tried to protest.

"Doesn't matter." I answered bluntly, before throwing several more Pokeballs out to catch the Lucario.

Beside me, the girls both did the same as we caught every single one we could, before sending them back to our respective labs.

As a result, the number of Lucario we were up against began to rapidly dwindle until only a few were left, and each one I caught I forwarded to the lab while only keeping the first one.

Soon the only one left was the smallest Lucario amongst the bunch, which only stood at two feet tall. And as it tried to figure out what to do, I signaled to the girls to wait as Joy stepped forward.

"Uh, go Pokeball!" She cried cutely while throwing her only Pokeball at it, which hit as it sucked the Lucario in.

*Ding.*

And with that chime, the battle ended.

"Phew... That was pretty scary, but I caught a whole bunch of Lucario!" Dawn proclaimed excitedly.

"Right?! I gotta shuffle some of my Pokemon around!" May replied as she pulled her Pokedex out to do just that.

"Hold on you two, I wanna show you something first." I told them hurriedly, making all three girls look at me curiously.

But, instead of just telling them, I activated the Pokeball I used earlier, and what came out was something that looked completely different from what went in.

"Ditto?" The little pink ball of gelatin asked curiously as it looked around confusedly.

"What is that?" May asked incredulously, even as I picked it up and put it on my shoulder.

"This May, is a Ditto." I told her with a smile while poking the little Ditto to tickle it.

"""Ditto?""" All three uttered in confusion.

"Yep. Ditto." I replied. But if what I realized earlier was true, then their confusion was justified.

When I tried to scan Ditto earlier my Pokedex hadn't known what it was, and thinking back now, none of our lessons on the Pokemon around Kanto had covered Ditto at all. So, it was entirely possible that Ditto were completely undiscovered until now. A possibility that increased when one thought about their unique ability.

"But what happened to all of the Lucario?!" May asked urgently.

"Just watch." I said patiently while setting Ditto on the ground in front of Chansey.

"Go ahead Ditto."

"Ditto!" It cried while looking Chansey up and down, before its shape began to change suddenly.

A second later the girls were all gaping as we looked at TWO Chansey standing there, while Chansey herself appeared shocked.

"See see!"

"See see!"

They exclaimed to one another.

"This is what a Ditto does." I said while placing my hand atop the copy's head. "They can transform into a perfect copy of any Pokemon, and even use the same moves they use in combat."

The girls all looked at the two Chansey in awe as they examined one another, the only difference being that one was slightly bigger than the other.

"Amazing..." Dawn uttered, before seeming to realize something as she asked, "does that mean all those Lucario we were fighting...?"

"Yep. They all probably copied Lucario since he's the strongest Pokemon of the group." I said while looking to my partner, who smirked cockily.

"Well at least they have good taste."

I snorted at him while returning Ditto to its Pokeball, and placing it on my belt.

"Wow... There's really so many more interesting Pokemon out there..." Joy uttered as she looked at the Pokeball that held her Ditto in awe.

"Yep! And if we ran into these guys right after entering the cave, then I wonder what else is waiting for us inside!" I exclaimed while marching forward amidst all of the destruction.

First I returned most of my Pokemon so they could get some rest, leaving out only my three Meowth and Magneton. The former was so they could find any items that were laying around and left behind by previous trainers, and the latter so it could use Flash to light the way.

And so began our treasure hunt as we delved deeper into the large cave system.

My goal wasn't to explore all of it, but just to look around and see what was what while my Meowth found anything they could. And boy were they finding stuff.

I was receiving a near constant stream of items from my three cats as we went deeper into the cave. Pokeballs, Great Balls, Ultra Balls, gold nuggets, medicine that unfortunately was expired, and even more fossils.

The most curious items they found though was a couple more of those strange orbs, like the ones I got from the market in Pewter city, and the one I'd found under Parasect in Mt. Moon. These two however were pale in color with streaks of purple and pink running through them, while one also had a streak of blue.

Naturally I pocketed everything that could be used still, including the two orbs.

We continued going into the cave until an alarm I set before we left went off on my Pokenav, letting me know it was time to head back. After all, I needed to call Brock today about the Pokemon I was going to get from him.

Before we headed back though we found a crack in the ceiling from which a steady stream of very fine sand was pouring through, which I readily recognized as Soft Sand.

Soft Sand was a mysterious type of sand that could increase the power of a Pokemon's ground type moves, similar to how a Miracle Seed worked for grass types. So I naturally collected as much of it as I could.

But it could also answer the question for why Cerulean cave was so infamous for having strong Pokemon, if all of the Rock and ground types that called it home were strengthened by the source of this Soft Sand. It might be worth coming back in the future to investigate.

So, after filling a couple dozen jars with the Soft Sand, we quickly made our way out of the cave outside, where we were able to receive service on our Pokenav again. And the second that happened, mine went off to indicate the numerous messages and missed calls I had received while exploring.

Of course, they were all from professor Oak, and the first one I opened stated,

Ace, WHAT IN MEW'S NAME DID YOU SEND ME!?!!?