"Hmm…" Goodra said, as they walked along the road towards Laverre.

"Is something wrong?" Ash asked. "You look like you're thinking about something."

"Oh, that must be because I am thinking about something," Goodra decided. "I'm thinking about how the land looks around here. It seems a bit familiar, not very familiar, but I'm not sure where it might be a bit familiar from. So as you can guess I'm a bit confused."

"So… maybe you saw it a long time ago?" Ash suggested. "Or while it was night?"

"I don't think it's that, but maybe it's something similar… oh, I know!" Goodra said, and used Dragon Ascent.

The move let him, a dragon, ascend into the sky, and once he was high enough he stopped and came back down. A second blast of Dragon Ascent cancelled his momentum just before landing, and he hit the ground with a thump.

"This area looks like it looked when I was carried along by that Swanna!" he said. "We must be close to where I live!"

Ash took Arc and Ibid out of his pocket. "Do either of you know where that might be, then?"

"Goomy often live in wet places," Ibid supplied. "Did you?"

"Yes!" Goodra agreed. "I lived in a wetlands-y sort of place!"

"Nearest wetlands identified," Arc said. "Projecting best routes."

"This isn't just going to be telling us to teleport again, is it?" Pikachu asked.

"I have factored in how Ash likes walking," Arc explained. "Teleporting would be the quickest route but not preferred, thus it would not necessarily be the best."

"Oh, but… wait," Goodra said, holding out his hands. "If we go back there, we'll meet that Florges who scared me off before! And, um, I'm not sure I'm ready for that…?"

"We'll help if you want it!" Ash assured Goodra. "Or if you'd rather we didn't go back, that's fine too! Well, Zacian might go over and tell them about how what they're doing is wrong, but you wouldn't have to get involved."

"Umm…" Goodra said, thinking about it. "I think I do want to go there and help make sure that my home is safe? But I want to make sure I'm ready first."

"Then I know just what to do!" Ash declared. "But to make sure, you're worried about battling a Fairy type because they're immune to almost all your moves, right?"

"That's right," Goodra agreed. "And I know I have Sunsteel Strike, but it gives me so few options…"

He shrugged, awkwardly. "Sorry, I'm a worrier…"

"It's okay to be worried!" Ash told him. "And it's okay to tell people, so they can help if you want help, or give you space if you'd rather have space. And this time the way we can help is teaching you how to use Soak!"

"I-" Pikachu began, frowned, then nodded. "Yeah, I see how that works."

"So, what we need is a supply of high pressure water!" Ash decided. "That way we can make sure Goodra gets the basic idea…"

"Oh, I can help with that!" Clemont said. "I was making the Clemontic Fine Summer Day Portable Shower, but I think I misplaced a zero and so instead of a nice sprinkle it shoots out with the force of a firehose."

"I'm glad I'm not one of those Fire types with a flame they need to keep intact," Braixen said.


"Excuse me," asked a bearded man, a warden called Keanan. "Do you two know that this is a wild Pokémon preservation area?"

"No, but we weren't planning on catching any Pokémon," Braixen replied.

Keanan blinked. "Um… huh. Are you one of those Pokémon that's actually a human turned into a Pokémon, that I've heard about?"

He looked her up and down. "It'd explain the umbrella, at least."

"No, I'm a familiar," Braixen said. "My trainer's the Buneary over there, and our friend Ash is the Absol, and they're helping the rest of Ash's Pokémon train that Goodra in how to use Soak."

"Incoming," Zygarde provided, and Braixen raised her umbrella to fend off a splatter of water.

"Right," Keanan decided. "And are you actually a Zorua or something?"

"No, I'm a girl!" Bonnie answered. "And that boy running around there is my brother, he's trying to catch up with Goodra and change the settings on the water cannon!"

"I'm actually the Ninetales over there," added a woman with a ring on her finger. "And I'm translating. I'm also trying out a design, what do you think of this ring design? One of the good things about illusions is that you can see how something looks on you before it actually gets made."

Keanan's Bellsprout bounced up and down. "I recognize that Goodra!" he said. "That's the Goomy who lived here!"

"Really?" Keanan asked. "Wait. Leaving aside for the moment the unusual experience of understanding you, how can you recognize a Goodra from having known the Goomy they evolved from?"

"...you've got me there," Bellsprout admitted. "By all indications it doesn't make sense."


"You!" Goodra said, pointing firmly at Florges. "I'm back and I won't forgive you for what you did!"

"For what I did?" Florges repeated. "So, first of all, I've never actually met a Goodra. Second, what do you think I did, because a lot of things have happened in the past and if you're going to make me go through all of them until I hit on the right one we'll be here all day."

"I was the Goomy you scared off!" Goodra told her.

"Really?" Florges asked, blinking. "That's odd. That only happened a month or two ago, didn't it? I haven't been keeping track but I don't think it was all that long ago…"

"Why would that matter?" Braixen asked.

"I'm not an expert," Serena replied, from under her hat. "But from context I'm guessing that Pokémon normally take longer than that to evolve twice."

"Huh."

"Well, it was me!" Goodra said firmly. "And I'm back, and I'm upset! And don't think you can beat me just because you're a Fairy-type!"

"Hold on, hold on," Florges requested. "You still haven't told me what I did, unless you mean scaring you off."

"It's that and invading and taking over the wetlands!" Goodra said.

"Well, not that I expect you to care, but I had a good reason for it," Florges sniffed. "Don't try to tell me you wouldn't do anything to save a loved one."

"Of – that's why I'm here in the first place!" Goodra declared. "And I know Soak, so your Fairy type won't make you immune to my moves – it'll be a fair fight!"

"Soak?" Florges repeated. "You know Soak?"


Two minutes later they were in a cave with a sick Floette, and the Royal Chirurgeon examined her leaves carefully.

"Yes, definitely dehydrated," he said.

"Soak!" Goodra announced, and two seconds later nobody in the cave was dehydrated under any possible definition of the word.

"You just helped out straight away," Florges marvelled. "Despite-"

"I'm still annoyed about why you did what you did," Goodra interrupted, as the Dragonite next to him brushed water off his fine orange scales. "But Floette wasn't involved in any of that, so of course I helped them out."

He put his hands on his hips. "You could have just asked for help! Then you'd have got help sooner, and more easily, and nobody would have been scared or hurt! It would have been better for everyone, including Floette!"

Florges looked very embarrassed.

"You'd think having Symbiosis would make a Florges more likely to think about that kind of thing," Pikachu said. "I did remember that ability right, right?"

"Correct," Ibid confirmed. "Though this Florges has Flower Veil instead, which hurts your case a bit."


Goodra considered all his options, including staying in the wetlands to protect them and staying with Ash, and eventually opted for asking for suggestions from King Dragonite.

King Dragonite responded by doing a special diving-glomp-tackle that sent Goodra sliding halfway across the nearest shallow lake, then saying that he could be a marsh-quess and that it'd then be his job to stay there when he felt he wanted to because noble titles were mostly a bit of fun for the Ryuunited Kingdom anyway.

He then hugged everyone else in sight, told Goodra to use Spacial Rend to send a message if he needed a lift from Ibid, and finished up by hugging Ash again and revealing to the distinctly confused Keanan that Ash hadn't actually turned back from being an Absol yet in any meaningful sense.

But with that sorted out, at least as far as Goodra was concerned, the friends continued on their way to Laverre.


"Hmm," Ash said. "Something seems weird about this place."

"Really?" Serena replied. "I don't see anything."

"Technically true but also unhelpful," Braixen giggled, lifting her pointy hat so Serena could see where they were. "Actually, I know we're working on my balance with Sereneary on my head, but that is a disadvantage… is there such a thing as a one way mirror for a hat?"

"I don't think one way mirrors are normally a thing," Clemont told them. "What normally seems like a one way mirror is actually a sheet of glass, but one side is much darker than the other so the reflection overwhelms the light coming through from the dark room."

"Oh, that's sort of disappointing," Braixen admitted. "Maybe one way mirrors can be made through magic?"

"Or we could just make part of the hat slightly see through," Serena suggested. "It's quite dark inside the hat so it'd just look like the rest of the design, right?"

"What seems weird about this place, Ash?" Zygarde asked, getting them all back on track.

"Well, I feel like I recognize it," Ash said.

Zygarde, Lokoko and Pikachu exchanged glances.

"This must be serious," Lokoko said. "Now that I think about it, the area does look familiar… I wonder if we've been made to think we're going around in circles?"

"Or if we're actually going around in circles," Pikachu said. "Arc, what do you think?"

"I am checking my dead reckoning information," Arc told them. "Result: ghosts."

"This checks out: it is dead reckoning," Zygarde stated. "To restate for clarity: there are ghosts influencing where we think we are and where we think we are going?"

Aten came out of his Pokéball.

"Be back later, going to go and see if I can commit spectrecide," he said, darting off.

They watched him go.

"You know, it's really amazing how much his manners have improved," Ash smiled. "Back when we met he wouldn't have said anything."

"Back when we met he wouldn't have got that ultraviolently protective, either," Pikachu agreed, as a Gengar ran past with Aten trying his level best to do something violent to it. "We should probably stop him at some point though."

"Oh, maybe that's because of a haunted house I've heard is nearby?" Serena guessed.

"Does it count as a haunted house if Ghost types live there?" Bonnie asked. "Or is it only a haunted house if Ghost types don't live there? Is Ash's house Dragoned?"

Aten went past again, in the other direction, this time chasing a Haunter as well as a Gengar. Then a Gastly went left-to-right.

"That one wasn't even running away from anything," Serena said.

Haunter went past chasing Gastly, then Aten chasing Haunter, then Gastly, Haunter and Gengar chasing Aten. Then Haunter chased Gastly in one direction at the same time as Aten was chasing Gengar in the other.

"We really should get involved at some point," Braixen said, not making a move to do anything.


AN:


Sereneary or Bunserena? Bunearena? Bunarena?