Professor Juniper suggested the friends head to the Decolore Islands, which weren't in Unova itself but were not too far away, and Ash thought for a bit before deciding that he liked the sound of that.

"Decolore, Decolore…" Iris said, out loud. "I might have heard of that place once? I'm not sure…"

She shrugged. "I guess it sounds like as good a place as any."

"So the big question then is how we get there," Pikachu supposed. "And if Cilan's coming with us?"

"I think I'll tag along for a bit longer," Cilan decided. "I want to see how, um…"

He snapped his fingers. "How the medley of flavours develops! That's a good way to think of it!"

"Do you come up with those metaphors before or after you actually have the feeling in the first place?" Iris asked, trying not to laugh. "Or is it something where it happens at the same time?"

"It's definitely one of those," Cilan replied. "But a true chef never reveals his secrets! Unless he's writing a cookery book. Or he wants to. Or he's bored, I suppose. Or if someone's watching."

"Searching," Arc informed them. "Cruise located. Searching again. Cruise tickets identified. There is a Pokémon Trainer deal."

"What's a Pokémon Trainer deal?" Giratiny asked. "Do we have to swim alongside? Or do I mean fly alongside?"

"Uh…" Ash began, reading off Arc's screen. "Apparently it means that we don't have to go on specific ships, we just need to move on from one island to the next and we can use the tickets to make any journey so long as we don't go to the same island more than once… I think that's what this means. It's so people have time to train and search for Pokémon without getting rushed, while people who aren't spending time training can just get quick journeys. The only downside is that, uh, I guess they can't promise us a room, just space on the ship?"

"That's actually a pretty good deal, right?" Axew checked. "We get to do what we'd normally do on land, but on the sea!"

"I guess it'd be that, or flying on Dragonites or other Pokémon, but it'd be kind of rude to rely on them without asking," Ash said, thinking out loud. "And we might meet people on a cruise ship, too… anyone have any problems with that?"

Iris' Premier Ball flashed, and Kyurem came out.

"...Reshiram was the one with the question," he said, returned himself, then this time White Kyurem emerged.

"Is there a limitation on the number of Pokémon that trainers can take on board, for catering?" the gestalt checked. "We do not know if they are ready for the number of large Pokémon in the group."

"I don't think it'd be a big problem," Ash said. "We've got a few ways to sort it out… actually, I wanted to check something. Hoopa, what do you think about doing food delivery?"

A golden portal opened in mid-air.

"Hoopa is astonished you would say such a thing!" Hoopa said from the other side of the ring, hands on hips in the Dahara sunlight. "Hoopa would be exchanging the dignity of Hoopa's Mythical status as a Pokémon for something as simple as delivering food…"

The Psychic-type began sniggering, then waved a hand. "Hoopa is just messing with you. Hoopa accepts bribes in the form of coffee orders!"

"Thanks!" Ash said. "I'll make sure to order you something for your time if we need any!"

"It really is true, then," White Kyurem noted. "It is all down to who you know."

"Well, here we are!" Ash said, at their first stop. "The Decolore Islands! Which one's this again?"

"This is Honey Island," Ibid told him. "It is my turn to explain something."

"That's neat," Ash told them. "So, uh… I guess there'd be Combee here? And Beedrill?"

"There might be Ribombee, too," Iris said, wincing. "Okay, Emolga, keep an eye out for Fairy types!"

"I'm more interested in hearing if the bee Pokémon here do special types of honey," Cilan told them. "There's an amazing amount you can do to instil flavours into honey based on what the bee Pokémon eat before they make the honey… there's gastronomic creations! Apicot honey! Garlic honey!"

Ash nodded, thinking. "So, uh… is it about flowers, or about food in general?" he asked. "Could you have honey that's Ivysaur flavoured? Because Heracross might be interested in that…"

"I don't see a reason why not," Cilan told them, as they walked up a path. "And Iris, I imagine they might make honey that's flavoured with Roseli berry flowers."

Then a bush rustled next to them.

"Excuse me," a Teddiursa said. "But I heard you talking about honey. Do you have some? I'm afraid I'm quite hungry."

"Come back!" a Spoink asked, coming over with a boing-boing-boing sound and nervously bouncing next to the Teddiursa. "I'm sorry we're bothering you, Mr. human trainers…"

"Are we bothering them?" Teddiursa asked. "That sounds like the sort of thing you'd have to try and do, but all I'm doing is asking them if they can spare a smackerel."

"I'm afraid we don't have any honey," Ash told the Pokémon, crouching down. "We're actually here to see if we can get some ourselves, but since it's Honey Island I'd have thought that there was some here."

"Oh!" Teddiursa said, sounding astonished. "You know, that's an excellent idea. I'm sure I've got plenty of honey at home, I'm just not sure which direction home is."

"You don't mean… we're lost?" Spoink fretted.

"Of course we're not," Teddiursa said, calmly. "I know exactly where I am, and it's right next to my good friend Spoink. I'm just not sure where home is, and that's quite different."

"Oh, that's good to know," Spoink sighed, relaxing.

Cilan rummaged in his pocket, and got out a magnifying glass. "Well, we'll find out where your home is!" he said. "We just need to find some clues."

Ibid transformed into a miniature version of Teddiursa.

"Teddiursa," it said. "Normal type. Original trainer: none. Habitat: about two miles that way in the middle of the forty hectare forest, turn left, right, right, left, then right at the big oak tree with the swing."

"That's very helpful of you, small me," Teddiursa told Ibid. "I don't know where I'd be without me."

The first clue Ash and friends had that they were getting close was when an Incineroar jumped down and wrapped Ash in a hug.

"You found them!" he said, practically picking Ash up and shaking him with enthusiasm. "You found them you found them! We were so worried we were going in circles!"

"You were going in circles," a Bunnelby corrected, with a sigh. "I was sure they'd turn up again sooner or later."

"It was our pleasure!" Ash replied, as Incineroar let him go and jumped twelve feet into the air. "I guess you're really close friends, huh?"

"That's right!" Incineroar agreed. "All of us here are great friends! It's why I love it here, I'm bouncing with enthusiasm!"

"You're… not a lot like I've ever seen an Incineroar before," Iris said.

"Well, you've not seen the right kind of Incineroar!" the Fire-type replied. "Oh, and I should introduce you to the others! Noctowl is going to love meeting you, and Kangaskhan is going to love meeting you, and Mudbray is going to grumble but that's just how he is…"

The local Noctowl wasn't entirely happy to be woken up in the middle of the day, but it sounded like he was used to it.

"Yes, Incineroar's like that," he said, blinking a few times and unruffling his feathers. "I'm very pleased to meet you."

"I'm pleased to meet you!" Ash replied, holding out a hand, and shook Noctowl's proffered wing. "I've got a Noctowl as part of my team, but he's Shiny so he looks different."

He stepped back again, and held up his arm for reference. "Also, either you're larger than normal, or my Noctowl's smaller than normal, or something else is going on."

"Like what?" Teddiursa asked.

"Well, maybe they're both larger than normal?" Spoink suggested. "One of them could be less larger than normal than the other?"

"Oh, of course," Teddiursa realized. "That's very clever of you, Spoink. I wouldn't have thought of that."

He tapped his head. "I wonder if we'll ever meet a Noctowl who's more larger than normal than normal? That Noctowl might be very big indeed."

"Or maybe we'll meet an Incineroar who's bouncier than me!" Incineroar suggested. "It'd be a shame if I wasn't the only one so bouncy, but then I'd be able to have competitions with someone who wasn't Kangaskhan or Bunnelby!"

Bunnelby put a paw over his face. "I'm not sure it's called a competition if you're having it at me."

"You know Bounce," Incineroar replied, completely unapologetic. "Who else am I meant to have a bouncing competition with? Except Kangaskhan!"

"Someone call for me?" a little voice piped up.

Cilan spotted the speaker, and looked politely confused. "You're a baby Kangaskhan, right?"

"Yep!" the little Normal-type agreed.

"Shouldn't you be with your mom?" Iris asked. "I think that's how Kangaskhan work."

"Oh, that's easy!" he answered, holding up a bracelet. "This is our Mega Ring! Mom's got the Mega Stone! It's how I go out and play with the others, and I know I'm always safe because I can just stop Mega-Evolving and I'll be back safe with Mom!"

"That's really clever!" Ash congratulated. "Did you come up with that?"

"Actually, it was our human friend Robin," Noctowl said. "He's training to become a Pokémon Ranger, according to his last letter."

"Ah, Pokémon Rangers," Cilan smiled. "They're like onions – they go with everything!"

"I don't think he's like onions," Mudbray said, gloomily. "Onions make you cry. Of course, it could just be me that's for. Wouldn't surprise me."

"Actually, there's some tricks you can learn to help with onions," Cilan confided. "One of the best is to wear a clothes-peg on your nose, and chew on some Pecha flavoured taffy while you chop! It keeps your mouth damp and means the onion's enzymes don't get to you."

"Probably won't work," Mudbray sighed.

"Well, this is Honey Island, so it'd be a shame if you left without trying some honey," Noctowl decided. "Would you mind helping us collect some?"

"Sure!" Ash agreed. "So long as the bee Pokémon who made it agree."

"Oh, that sounds like it'd be a much easier way of doing things," Teddiursa said. "I had a plan involving a balloon."

"Are you sure you're not mis-remembering?" Spoink checked. "I know we took the flowers and jars we were trading up with a balloon, because we had trouble carrying it all."

"That sounds like a much easier way of doing things," Teddiursa smiled. "If we have a few more ideas, maybe we'll just have honey appear in front of us without having to do anything."

"Those Pokémon were really friendly," Ash commented, the next morning.

They were on a cruise ship heading from Honey Island to Scalchop Island, a journey that was expected to take a few days at least, and both Iris and Cilan had signed up for a Pokémon tournament on board. That left Ash to enjoy the sea air, and work through a few things with some of his Pokémon.

"I know," Pikachu agreed. "And a lot of Pokémon are friendly, obviously, but they were much more friendly than normal. You can really see why a human who grew up around them would think Pokémon Ranger straight away."

"I can see why they eat this honey," Giratiny said, wisps wiggling back and forth as he inspected the inside of a little jar of chrysanthemum-flavoured honey. "It's delectable!"

Then he slipped, and went entirely inside.

"Whoops," drifted out of the jar, in a sort of muted musical way.

"Hold on, Giratiny, don't do anything just yet," Ash advised. "Right! So what you're going to want to do is to phase through the whole jar and the honey at the same time, okay? That'll make sure it all stays inside, and you go outside."

"I think I get it," Giratiny agreed, flickering a few times, then went intangible, and slowly floated his way through the wall of the glass jar. "Did that work?"

"Well, you're out of the jar," Ash told him. "The real question is whether or not you're sticky."

The Ghost-type resolidified, inspected himself, and nodded. "All good."

"Well done, Giratiny," Ash told him. "Especially, well done for not panicking. And I guess that good, quick control of intangibility is a good thing to work on next, it can really help out in a battle or just generally."

"Right!"

"Actually, I wanted to try something out," Pikachu said, and jumped into the air. He used Surf, forming himself a watery surfboard to land on, and inspected where it was floating.

"Hmm," he mused. "So what I want to know is whether I'll keep going at the same speed the cruise ship is indefinitely, or if the cruise ship changing course means I'll swerve off to the left or right. Any idea how long it is until we do a course change?"

"Hmm," Ash frowned. "Zygarde, is that something you can help work out?"

He looked over to the Dragon-type. "Zygarde?"

Zygarde burped.

They were lounging in a deckchair in the sun, and their tail-hexes were sleepily flopping back and forth.

"I am a sun dog," they stated.

Then someone called out that there was a thief, and that their gemstone had gone missing.

"My Eye of Liepard was stolen during the tournament!" Mrs. Ripple said. "And my poor Watchog who was guarding it was knocked out!"

"I was knocked out by a Roselia," Watchog said. "It belonged to that man, Mr. Shaw!"

"I – but – yes, I did that, but I didn't want to steal the gem!" Mr. Shaw defended himself. "I wanted to look at it again, and it was already missing!"

"A likely story," said Teaque, the trainer Iris had been battling when the whole thing kicked off. "You're the only one without an alibi."

"Actually, I don't think that's really true?" Ash tried to point out. "Firstly, I don't have an alibi unless you accept what Pokémon say, and secondly there's loads of Pokémon. Someone could even have brought a Pokémon on board especially to steal the gem."

"Then what do we do?" Mrs. Ripple demanded. "Surely someone must be guilty!"

"Hmm," Ash considered. "I wonder… Marshadow, can you use Switcheroo with Spectral Thief?"

"Not exactly," Marshadow replied, sliding out of Ash's shadow, then spread his arms. "But honestly I don't need to, I can taste guilt. It was that man over there, and his Vanillite."

"This is nonsense!" Teaque complained. "I have an alibi!"

"But does your Vanillite?" Ash asked.

"I don't need to listen to this!" Teaque said, folding his arms. "You should stop making such wild accusations, or I'll have to defend myself. Galvantula!"

Raikou came out of her Safari Ball.

"Waf," she said, using Roar, and there was a bit of chaos as several Pokémon were recalled into their Pokéballs or others came out. One of the ones who came out was Teaque's Vanillite, though, and the Eye of Liepard was around their neck.

"I am a problem solver," Raikou declared proudly, as the captain ordered Teaque arrested.

Then Cilan came back in wearing a hat.

"I'm here to solve the mystery!" he said. "I'm a connoisseur detective!"

"Sorry, too late," Iris told him. "Ash happened to it."

AN:

Does Decolore even count as a region? It doesn't have any gyms, and it doesn't have super-powerful Pokémon to challenge yourself against either.

Unless Ash just missed them all.