Which is harder to navigate: Victory Road or Mt. Coronet?

With the shiny new badge glittering in her badge case (and making all her other badges look like rusty bits of tin, as she hadn't polished them once) and her Pokémon back to full health, Dawn headed out to the beach. She was sure that Staraptor could carry her up the waterfall, and Lucas had his Alakazam to zap him to the top. She could see no problem with this theory.

"Dawn! Lucas! Over here!"

Nope, not a problem. Not even the familiar voice that was demanding their attention.

Barry slowed down long enough to have a short conversation, and smiled widely. "So, I see you made it past Team Galactic," he said, and the heroes shared a brief look, silently deciding not to let Barry in on all the details. "And I hear Dawn got her final badge! You guys are just blowing through this whole journey thing, aren't you?"

"Have you gotten your final badge yet?" Dawn asked, and Barry took a step back.

"I was actually back home, telling my mom about everything that happened. She said that you guys called your parents and Professor Rowan, but didn't stop to visit."

"We were trying to avoid the Awkward Parent Smother-Hug," Dawn explained, avoiding eye contact. "I figured that as long as they know we're fine, they can control their relief before seeing us again."

"So you really beat them, huh?"

"It was all Dawn," Lucas told him. "I got lost, but she had Cyrus beat before my Snover and I found them."

"How could you get lost? You were right there on the mountain!" They were spared from answering by Barry changing his mind about wanting to know. "I'm not going to challenge you to a battle now, Dawn. You're too tough for me at the moment. But Lucas?" He pulled a ball from his belt. "What about you?"

"No." Lucas knew that Snover, at least, would be disappointed by this, but the trainer was not a battler. His Pokémon were for friendship and protection, not for sport. He'd evolve Clefairy and Snover, and then his battling days would be behind him until Professor Rowan sent him on another errand. "Sorry, Barry. You were her rival, and it just feels weird."

Barry didn't seem to mind. "Well, if you change your mind, the offer's still there. I'll challenge Volkner and catch up to Dawn in no time. And then we can battle."

Dawn managed to pretend she shared her friend's enthusiasm, but in reality, she was just wondering how Lucas had managed to refuse a battle request. She'd never been able to do it. But, as Barry once again ran off to battle, she decided she had bigger problems.

"Was that your friend?"

The woman was familiar, somehow, though neither could remember where they'd seen her before. Was she an actress? A musician, maybe?

She didn't seem to notice the confusion her presence had thrust them into. "He seems interesting. It must be nice, having a friend like that. And did I hear him mention that one of you had eight badges?"

"We're going to the Pokémon League," Lucas said at once, pointing to the tall cliff where the building stood, visible even from this distance. "We were just about to head out now."

"Do you have Waterfall? It's going to be hard to reach the building without it."

"We have Surf," Dawn told her, tilting her head toward Lucas. "We've been using his Gyarados as transportation for...how long has it been? Days? Weeks?"

"I'm not sure myself," Lucas admitted. "We'll find a way around it, don't worry about us."

"Really?" The young woman smiled. "I was going to give you two the HM. I'm going back to Johto in a few days, and as a Steel-type trainer, all of my Pokémon have a hard time swimming. I need somebody to take it, and since the shops refuse to let me sell it to them, I thought I'd offer it to somebody heading up there."

So that's where Dawn had seen her. This girl was the Gym Leader in Olivine City. Jasmine, right?

Lucas took the HM, figuring that as a trainer of two different Water-types, he had more of a chance finding a use for it than Dawn. Jasmine didn't waste time, only thanked him for taking it off her hands and returned to her sunbathing.

"Well, that happened." Dawn grabbed Lucas by the sleeve of his coat, pulling him forward. "Come on, let's go. We have a mission to finish."

Letting Gyarados carry them up to the waterfall, they agreed to cheat around the rules once more. It wasn't like they hadn't zapped themselves around before, and the only move Gyarados had that Lucas was willing to delete was Rain Dance, which they had declared necessary in case Defog was needed. So, Staraptor swept Dawn up to the top, while Alakazam teleported his trainer and his teammate.

The kids decided to stop at the Pokémon Center, figuring that it was easier to heal here than use up their entire collection of items. They called the professor on the video phone, too.

"Aren't you proud?" Dawn cheered, flashing Giratina's entry on the Pokedex. "We made it to the Pokémon Center right in front of Victory Road."

"And you haven't made it through yet?" Rowan's mustache twitched as Dawn slumped down. "You're procrastinating, aren't you?"

"It's scary," she admitted. "The Elite Four are the most powerful trainers in the region, and the Champion tops even them. I've met Flint, and he seems nice, but I don't think he'll hold back because I saved Sinnoh."

"You saved the whole world, Dawn," Professor Rowan told her, and she looked up briefly. "Did you think Team Galactic was going to settle for only Sinnoh? You did something most would consider impossible - and, in the process, did something that not even Cynthia could do, though she tried."

"I did?" Dawn looked up for real this time, focusing on the mustache instead of the man's eyes. "What did I do, Professor?"

Rowan was quiet for a split second, as if what he was going to admit was painful to him. "You proved me wrong," he finally said. "I never thought Team Galactic was much of a threat. They were even more stupid than their hair, so I believed that they were a mildly dangerous annoyance. I never doubted that they needed to be stopped, but I believed they were more of a danger to themselves than Sinnoh."

"And bombing Lake Valor wasn't a clue to you?"

"No. That was the point where I considered the possibility. I'm sorry I didn't see it until then - I would have joined you and helped you fight."

"But you don't take Pokémon with you when you leave the lab, Professor," Lucas interrupted, getting their attention.

"Who says I would take Pokémon?" The professor wasn't surprised that Lucas would come to this conclusion. "The grunts were easy enough to scare off. But that's in the past, and I've missed my chance."

"So do you have any advice for the Elite Four, then?" Dawn asked.

"Getting there would be a step in the right direction," Rowan offered, and Dawn had no idea if he was joking or not. "And bringing a lucky charm may not be a bad idea."

Dawn rolled her eyes, but slipped her arm around her friend's anyway. "Goodbye, Professor."

Within the first thirty minutes of Victory Road, they had to use four separate illegal Teleports, battle six trainers just as lost as they were, and retreat back to the Pokémon Center because Umbreon got caught in a Graveler's Explosion. The next half-hour, they spent wandering aimlessly until they found the first set of stairs.

"This is stupid," Dawn said as they struggled to find a way past the alarming number of boulders. "What kind of idiot designed this?"

"It's supposed to be a challenge, Dawn," Lucas pointed out. "They got the wild Pokémon living here to organize a trap."

"Why?"

"To test challengers, I guess." Lucas shrugged. "Maybe they want to see how long it takes before they give up."

Dawn tried moving a Strength rock herself, but it didn't budge. "And why were we dumb enough to take the challenge when Alakazam and Staraptor could have gotten us to the building?"

"Maybe they would have refused." When Dawn looked confused, probably knowing that their Pokémon had never objected to illegal moves before, Lucas corrected himself. "Staraptor's new to carrying humans when he flies, right? Maybe he wouldn't have trusted himself to take you that high. And Alakazam's never taken us that far before, so maybe it would be hard on him, too."

Dawn admitted he had a point, but that only made her mood worse. "But Lucas, look at this place! Can't we just use Alakazam to zap us to the chamber exit?"

"I'm not sure he has any more idea where it is than we do."

Dawn groaned and leaned against the wall. "This is stupid," she said again. "To get out of this place, we need three HM slaves and a legendary! There's no way we'll ever -"

She stopped, and one could almost see the idea bulb go off over her head. Lucas knew her well enough to be afraid when she stopped mid-sentence, and the look in her eyes scared him even more. "Dawn, we have other options," he started, but she was already starting her own plan, a ball in her hand.

"Giratina, get us out of here!"

Seeing the beast again had no effect on Lucas's fear, but when Giratina took the opportunity to rip another hole in reality, Lucas felt the exasperation from early in the journey come back with a vengeance. "You can't be serious."

Dawn climbed onto Giratina's back, looking down at Lucas. "If you want to solve the puzzle yourself, you're welcome to do it." She patted her legendary on the neck, the only part of him she could reach. "I'm just going to have a little conversation with him, that's all."

"And have him drop you off at the entrance to the League building."

"Well, yeah, that was kind of the plan."

Giratina shook his head, even as Lucas reluctantly got on board. Once they were in the Distortion World, the portal closing behind them and Giratina shifting into its other form right underneath them, he turned to stare her down. "You really have no respect for the rules, do you, Dawn?"

"Absolutely not," she answered at once.

"Works for me," Giratina said, and tore open another hole as Lucas, for what was not the first time, silently asked himself if he was the only sane person in this crazy region.

Giratina did not drop them off at the castle, telling Dawn that she had to do some work for herself, but Dawn could see light from the outside coming through a large hole. He must have dropped them off on the floor with the exit, halfway through the chamber.

"It should be easy from here," she told him, returning him to the ball with another bar of chocolate. "A few trainers for practice, and then we can escape."

"Maybe not even then." Lucas had noticed that seeing two kids riding Giratina, and then that the beast had gone inside one of the girl's Pokeballs, had scared quite a few of the trainers on this floor. "I don't think you're going to have a problem here, Dawn."

"That remains to be seen." Dawn started on her way, double-checking to make sure Lucas had his Gyarados in case they needed to Surf.

When they emerged into the light, they found that most people did need to Surf after all. Dawn, noticing the waterfall, rode her Staraptor again, and Lucas had no choice but to follow with Alakazam.

As always, the building contained a Pokémon Center and a shop area where they could buy healing items for the challenge. As Dawn and Lucas left their Pokémon there, Dawn went nearly broke stocking up for her challenge.

"You can't be too careful," she'd said when Lucas had pointed that out. "Besides, I have the Explorer Kit. I heard there's a lot of great stuff underground for people who know how to use it properly. I'll take lessons from the crazy old guy, dig stuff up and sell it."

"Hey, Dawn! Over here!"

That was fast, Dawn thought as Barry nearly crashed into her. "How long did that battle take, Barry?" she asked, and Barry shrugged.

"Just a few minutes. Volkner made a one-on-one challenge, apparently he didn't think anyone but you could take him. Gave me the badge, said something about rethinking everything, and sent me on my way. After that, I just had my Staraptor Fly me up here to skip over Victory Road."

"I tore a hole in the fabric of reality," Dawn said happily.

Barry laughed out loud. "This is why we're friends, Dawn," he said, throwing an arm around her shoulders. "Neither of us cares for rules!"

"That does make sense," Lucas said under his breath, but Dawn and Barry pretended they hadn't noticed.

"So, are either of you up to battle? Come on, Dawn, we have to prepare for the Elite Four somehow!"

Dawn felt the 'no' on the tip of her tongue, but she stopped herself from saying it. Riding through the Distortion World may have taken time from their attempt at solving the maze, but it also cut down her opportunities to battle with other strong trainers.

"Fine, Barry," she found herself saying. "Whatever you say."

"Awesome!" Barry threw the ball in his hand. "I'll open with my Staraptor!"

Dawn's answering wicked grin was enough to make all witnesses in the room cower in fear. "Giratina, time to shine!"

The preparation room was immediately emptied.