"That's an interesting design," Lokoko said. "What's that?"
"Well, white gold is in fashion, and so I thought it would be an interesting idea to twine together white gold and conventional yellow gold, as if a woven bracelet," Valerie answered. "Possibly also with some rose gold. Then you have the garnet, which is a mineral formed under high heat and pressure and which is also isotropic – that means that light passes through it the same way from any angle. The pyropes are a quite lovely deep red, and the spessartines are more orange, so it's up to you which you prefer or if you'd rather have no gemstone at all."
Lokoko nodded. "I see, and… I think I'll need a little more time to think about it, but the twined gold design is the one that's struck me the most. Thank you for your time and effort."
"I'm glad you appreciated it," Valerie told her. "Now, before we move on to the Gym Battle itself, I do have an important question for your trainer."
She turned to Ash. "What's with this potion I keep hearing rumours about?"
"Oh, that's magic!" Serena said. "It works mostly by reshaping the morphic field of the drinker, refracted through who they are, and then homes in on an appropriate Pokémon. And because that's who you are, it means that if you go through a change in your life sometimes the Pokémon you get will evolve."
She rummaged in her bag. "I've still got some of my first batch, if you'd like to try it?"
"Very little could possibly please me more," Valerie said.
"I get it!" Braixen agreed. "And I'm kind of curious what you end up as myself, I've had a few ideas but I'm not sure if any of them is correct."
Valerie was clearly thinking about it herself, then accepted a mug from the thermos Serena provided and drank down the potion.
There was a puff of smoke, and suddenly she was an odd-looking pink and yellow bird Pokémon with wide, swooping wings.
"I'm actually not sure I recognize that one," Serena admitted.
"I do!" Mew announced. "That's one of the extra forms of Oricorio! I don't remember what it's called but there was a big misunderstanding around Oricorio and somehow it got missed that there's only four major islands in Alola. She's found the Fairy form!"
"Oricorio," Valerie repeated, then blinked. "Can I still talk? Yes, good… sorry about that, I was a bit confused."
"Yeah, that can happen," Serena said. "You're thinking through what you turned into so your first words are what the Pokémon is, and it sounds like you can only speak in the Pokémon language even though you knew what you were trying to say and you said it properly."
"Quite," Valerie said. "And I think that, yes, Oricorio is a Pokémon that's all about changing style and changing performances… I can see how that would fit with me."
"That's what makes finding out what someone is so interesting," Braixen supplied. "You've got no idea what someone will be, but it always seems to feel right once it happens."
"Thank you, then, Serena and Braixen," Valerie decided. "Now, Ash, please send out your first Pokémon."
"I've already chosen who I'm using first," Ash said, holding up a Pokéball.
Valerie sent out her Sylveon.
"Here we go!" Sylveon said, shaking himself out and glancing back at his trainer – then did a double-take. "Wait, what? Who are you and where did Valerie go?"
"I'm still Valerie," Valerie told her Sylveon. "You must have missed the bit about the potion, perhaps you were asleep?"
"Drowsing," Sylveon admitted. "I had a late night last night."
Ash sent out Frogadier, and Sylveon turned his attention back to the battlefield, then shook his head and glanced back at Valerie again. "Is it going to be different that you're a Pokémon?"
"It shouldn't be!" Valerie replied, jumping into the air to test her wings. "Hmm, it seems I may need a bit of practice?"
"I can sort that out in a bit," Mew suggested.
One of Valerie's assistants called for the battle to begin, and Valerie pointed. "Disarming Voice!"
"A-hem," Sylveon said, with a little cough. "One. Two. One two three four!"
Frogadier blurred into motion, using a Frubblebeam to create a double on either side of him (or possibly two doubles to the left of him, or two to his right) then moved forwards and hurled a synchronized Water Pulse from all three clones.
Sylveon's ribbons flicked out, three of them blocking the attacks and the fourth lashing out at Frogadier himself, but the Water-type that Sylveon went for turned out to be a Frubble-clone and dissolved into a mass of sticky bubbles.
"So no one told you life was going to be this waay-" Sylveon sang.
"Is that what you've been singing all along?" Valerie asked, amused. "Imagine… I never knew."
"It depends how I feel," Sylveon replied, switching to Fairy Wind, with his ribbons flicking fast enough to prompt little shockwaves and accompanying whirls of sparkling light. "I could switch to something else if you'd prefer?"
"I think it's up to you, really," Valerie told him.
"In that case," Sylveon said, then ducked under a Water Pulse that had bounced off the ceiling and nearly caught him by surprise. "In honour of our guests: My name is John Wellington-Wells, I'm a dealer in magic and spells~!"
Frogadier ducked, dodged and backflipped away from Sylveon's Disarming Voice attacks, but it was a bit hard to actually do that, and after two hits he resorted instead to punching the incoming music with Faint Attacks.
"Go in close!" Ash called. "Sylveon's going to outfight you at range!"
"Ready," Valerie warned, then swept her wing across. "Now!"
"This particularly rapid, unintelligible patter isn't generally heard and if it is it doesn't matter," Sylveon said at an extremely fast clip, while also using two ribbons to snag around the real Frogadier's ankles before whipping him around and slamming him into the arena floor.
"How did he do that?" Bonnie asked, as Frogadier pushed himself upright and tried to exploit the fact that Sylveon was now on the other end of a pair of ribbons to whip Sylveon around, and Sylveon talked about being an interesting indiwiddle. "How did he tell which Frogadier was the right one?"
"It could have been guesswork?" Clemont guessed. "You'd expect to get the right one sometimes. But maybe it was to do with that Disarming Voice attack instead, that could be how he could tell which was the right Frogadier."
"Frogadier, sing back!" Ash called.
"I don't know any songs, which would make that hard," Frogadier replied.
"Just do the Croaking Chorus!" Ash suggested.
"Excuse you?" Sylveon said, sliding to a halt. "I know the Croaking Chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes!"
"Faint Attack!" Ash said.
Sylveon dodged to the side, which was when he found out that Frogadier's Faint Attack worked a little unconventionally, and got hooked into the air by a frog kick that to all appearances had actually missed.
"Now, juggle!" Ash added. "Merge two Water Pulses into a giant one!"
"Can you do that?" Sylveon protested, just before finding out that the answer was yes.
The second Pokémon Valerie sent out was a Mr. Mime, who put his hands together and did a small bow before twirling one hand and producing a kind of cane-shaped blur of violet force.
He tipped a hat made out of indigo energy with the other hand, just as Ash sent out Hawlucha.
"Are you ready, Hawlucha?" Ash asked.
"Ssh!" Hawlucha replied, in a stage whisper loud enough that everyone heard it anyway. "Do you not see I'm in disguise?"
He adjusted a pair of thick rimmed spectacles. "They don't know that I'm actually Hawlucha!"
"Oddly enough, I do know that he's actually Hawlucha," Valerie said, sounding amused. "You've certainly got a varied set of Pokémon, Ash!"
"Oh, I get it," Ash realized. "Okay, let's do this! Begin with Aerial Ace!"
Hawlucha ran forwards, sprang onto the attack, and Mr. Mime waved his cane around to knock Hawlucha aside with a clang sound.
"I am reflected from darkness, but I am bright," the Psychic-type said. "I am silver, yet pink is the light. I am what is left, when day becomes night, and the strongest Pokémon fear my might. What am I?"
Hawlucha sprang into the air. "I don't know, what are you?"
"Moonblast!" Mr. Mime answered, holding up his free palm, and a blast of silvery-pink light hammered into Hawlucha and knocked him all the way up to the ceiling. The impact smashed his glasses off his beak, and he left an impression in the ceiling.
"Aha!" Ash said. "Now Hawlucha's ready for you!"
"Wasn't he saying he wasn't Hawlucha?" Valerie said.
"That's just to disguise his real identity!" Ash answered. "Hawlucha, Bullet Punch!"
Hawlucha shot down and hit Mr. Mime with a very potent punch that sent the Fairy-type sprawling backwards.
"Aha!" Hawlucha said. "You thought you were picking on the mild-mannered journalist, Hawlucha! But instead, you were insulting the Mon of Steel!"
"Hawlucha was the Mon of Steel, not the civilian identity," Ash pointed out. "I didn't know what the civilian identity was."
"Oops," Hawlucha admitted. "I'll have to be better about that next time."
"What's the sound of one hand clapping?" Mr. Mime said, then used Play Rough.
Hawlucha caught the incoming palm strike, shifted, and flipped Mr. Mime over to slam into the opposite floor.
"Now, Sunny Day!" Ash said. "Use that to get stronger, and Hyper Beam!"
Hawlucha deployed eyebeams.
"And finish with Flying Press!" Ash added. "That move's normally your two types, so now it should be Steel type!"
Valerie's assistant had sidled over to Clemont.
"I'd normally ask Valerie, but she's busy at the moment and also a bird," she said. "What is going on?"
"I don't think anyone actually knows, including Ash," Clemont replied. "It's easier to just sort of go with it?"
"And that's enough mysteries from you, Mr. Mime," Hawlucha said. "Or Myster E. Mime, if that's your real name."
"It's not yet, but I'm tempted," Mr. Mime admitted.
"All right, I'm recalling Mr. Mime," Valerie judged. "I think I know the answer at this point, Ash, but are you leaving Hawlucha out?"
"I'm switching him out," Ash replied, holding up another Pokéball, and Hawlucha jumped into the air before flying over to hover next to Ash.
"Shouldn't you be flapping your wings?" Pikachu asked.
"No, I'm not wearing glasses, so I can do this," Hawlucha replied. "It's complicated."
"Spritzee," Valerie said.
The little avian Fairy-type emerged from her Pokéball, did a lap of Valerie, and chirped appreciatively.
"That works for you," she said. "I like it."
"Thank you," Valerie replied.
"And I'm sending out Scrafty!" Ash replied.
"Hmm, interesting," Valerie said, as the Dark-type took her place. "Are we ready to begin?"
Her assistant counted them in.
On three, Valerie made a sort of ffft noise, then shook her head. "Curse! Can't whistle with a beak…"
Spritzee dodged to the side away from Scrafty's first attack, a fist-twirling punch that carried a wave of smelly mud with it as she used Toxic, and energy glowed around her as she used Curse – twice in a row – before flaring her wings and using Trick Room.
"Now, Gyro Ball!" Valerie said.
Spritzee balanced on her beak, spread her wings, and began twirling around with a glittering steely light developing around her. In the strange altered reality of Trick Room, she moved a lot quicker than Scrafty, and pinged between Scrafty and the walls, floor and ceiling several times like a rapidly-moving pinball.
"Backflips!" Ash called. "You're moving slower, so exploit it to get more air time!"
He started typing on Arc. "Uh, there was something I remember hearing about… what was it…"
"Dazzling Gleam," Valerie ordered.
"There's probably a forest fire or something somewhere, focus on that and make a smokescreen!" Ash countered, and Scrafty used Secret Power. One palm landed on the ground and she twisted the rest of her body around, legs whirling, and smoke and flaming cinders filled the Trick Room box.
"There it is!" Ash added. "Nature Power, for the area around a black hole! Distort time yourself and Trick Room the Trick Room!"
The distortions abruptly ceased, and Scrafty did a handspring that was only sort of visible through the smoke.
"Gas giant thunderstorm technique!" she called. "Secret Power!"
A Thunder attack echoed around the room, but Spritzee had still been spinning in Gyro Ball and deflected the worst of the attack.
"Now you need to stop her spinning!" Ash advised.
"Got it!" Scrafty replied. "I think I've got something like that – aha! Pulsar Secret Power, Rapid Spin!"
That helped, but didn't quite stop Spritzee – so instead Scrafty considered carefully, before throwing up another Trick Room on top of the second Trick Room as the first wore off.
"Ah, of course!" she announced. "Try this!"
She hurried over to the wall, and did a wall-walking thing where she took a run-up and ran along it for several steps supported by her left arm. That turned into an actual Gravity move that made the whole room's gravity change direction, and between them Lokoko and Ponyta caught all the spectators.
Spritzee however completely lost her balance, and Scrafty lined up carefully before kicking the Flying-type out a window.
"I hope that's the battle over," she admitted, standing on a wall. "That was tricky."
"So I sort of get that that's based on using Secret Power and Nature Power, but what was the last one?" Valerie requested, handing Ash the not-particularly-creatively-named Fairy Badge.
"It's one of those places where it looks like cars or water or whatever are flowing or rolling uphill," Scrafty answered. "Making gravity strong is easy but making it go in a funny direction is harder."
"Well, thank you for explaining," Valerie said. "And for an excellent battle – and, of course, for this whole experience!"
"Now, let's get started with that flying lesson," Mew suggested, turning into a Skarmory with a flash. "First off, let's have a look at those wings… it's been a long time since I saw an Oricorio with that wing structure, more fool me for forgetting to include the right flowers somewhere… I should nag someone about that, unless I forget…"
AN:
Just going with the Oricorio flow.