The third round was the semi-final, which meant that the last three Performers were going to be whittled down to one challenger to Aria, and the restriction on Pokémon was relaxed to two.

Serena was already glad to have got this far, but her choice here was difficult, and after thinking carefully she opted to send out Litleo and Ponyta. The two Pokémon got on well, and while it was a big jump for Litleo she was eager enough to give it a go, and that was good enough for Serena.

When they stepped out onto the stage, Litleo had a pair of bows – one over each ear, one yellow and one scarlet red – while Ponyta had augmented her glasses with a headband and Serena had gone through the trouble of braiding her entire mane before weaving violet stars into it.

All three of them took a bow, and then Litleo blew out a stream of flame – green flame, patterned with yellow, in a way that looked peculiar to the eye.

Ponyta took it with a pulse of psychic energy, laying it down on the floor of the stage, and it flickered back and forth like grass in the wind. Then Litleo's next contribution was a different colour of flame, this time brown and red patterned together, and Serena took that on the tip of a wand before turning it into a pillar.


"You were involved with that one, weren't you?" Giratiny asked, nudging Moltres.

"Yeah, a bit," Moltres agreed. "I definitely showed her Burning Jealousy if that's what you mean. But the real breakthrough was when she compared that with Firebeam and Icethrower, and decided – there's no other word for it – that you could make different elements with different coloured flames. And that since Burning something is a condition that lingers around until a Pokémon faints, while Ponyta's horn is about healing, working together they could make fire that burned itself indefinitely."

"I love science," Giratiny said. "It's fascinating."

"They are painting with fire," Luxray said, not unreasonably. "Not only is that not physically possible under normal circumstances, I think it's more art than science."

"I don't know," Giratiny replied. "Look more closely. She's doing plants now, right?"

"That's a tree trunk, yes," Luxray replied warily. "Why?"

"Well, first she did grass, and now she's doing tree trunks," Giratiny replied. "So she's working on stem fields."

Luxray raised his paw, stopped, lowered it, stopped again, then let out a deep sigh.

"The awful thing is, I'm not sure if that's actually meant to be a pun, or literally how the world works around you lot," he sighed. "I suppose it could be both."


By now the scene was almost complete, though it had ended up quite dark and misty from a contained Smokescreen, and Litleo had vanished behind some of the flame-built scenery she'd made.

Serena stepped back a moment, judging how it looked, then nodded to Ponyta and spun her wand around once.

A little flame appeared on it with a snap, then brightened, and Serena lowered her wand to the ground. Ponyta did the same with her horn, then the two of them straightened up at once.

As they did, flames coiled off Serena's wand to form a pair of wings outlined in Mystical Fire on Ponyta's back. Her mane and tail brightened as well, lighting up with contained life energy, and Litleo rose above the trees with her own mane blazing in a corona of red and yellow fire.

The smoke vanished, making the whole scene brighten as a simulation of sunrise.


"You know, some Pokémon just use Sunny Day," Dedenne noted. "I'm not saying it's too much, but… some Pokémon do just use Sunny Day."

"I think being extravagant is sort of the point," Tyrunt replied. "Right? I don't know if you get extra points for extravagance, it depends on the audience, but it can't hurt unless you overdo it."

He shifted enough in his seat to do a considering, thoughtful movement with a forearm. "What would it look like if a Performer overdid it? I know you can spend too much time practicing and end up over-rehearsed, but how can you do an overly extravagant performance?"

"Maybe if the audience doesn't see what's going on?" Bonnie said. "If all you see is sparkles, it just looks pretty. And pretty is nice, but not as nice as a proper performance."

She leaned forwards. "And I know I want Serena to win, but I want to see what the other finalists are going to do too!"


At about the same time, some distance away, a pair of Pyroar and a litter of Litleo looked up at the Hoopa floating overhead.

"That was cool!" one of the Litleo said. "Was that really Litleo? I barely recognized her!"

"And I didn't know you could do even half of that!" his brother agreed.

"Why did you show us that?" the female Pyroar asked.

"Hoopa thought you would be interested!" Hoopa replied. "Hoopa is doing a new service called Hoopaflix! It is where Hoopa shows you on-demand scenes from around the world, without you needing to specifically order them, ask for them, or want them in any way, shape or form whatsoever! Hoopa is very proud of it."

"That sounds like you'd show someone something they didn't want to see," the male Pyroar pointed out.

"Are you telling Hoopa that you did not want to see what Hoopa showed you?" Hoopa demanded.

"Well, no, but-"

"Then Hoopa does not see the problem," Hoopa interrupted. "If you want to sign up to Hoopaflix, do absolutely nothing, Hoopa decides who sees Hoopaflix. Hoopa also in many cases arranges the programs, they are Hoopa exclusive productions!"

Hoopa formed a Hyperspace Hole. "Coming soon on Hoopaflix: Suicune, Entei and Raikou racing to see who gets a sandwich! Rated 'woof' by one of them probably and 'what kind of sandwich' by Suicune I assume!"

Hoopa vanished.

After a long pause, Litleo raised his paw.

"I kind of want to see that," he admitted.


"This last round is going to be really hard, right?" Iris asked. "I don't really understand how they work."

"Of course it's going to be hard!" Cilan replied. "I'm a connoisseur of difficult challenges!"

"Is there anything you're not a connoisseur of, Cilan?" Cress asked, sniggering.

Cilan rubbed his chin. "I'll have to think about that one…"

"Excuse me, please," Chili asked, and Iris furled her wing slightly. "Is there a reason why you're not, you know, human? Or at least a Zoroark?"

"Because my latest potion won't wear off for a few hours, of course," Iris answered. "Why would I not be a dragon when I've got the chance to be one?"

"Anyway!" Cilan said. "There's more than one reason it's hard, but one of them is that it's a direct one-on-one against Aria, the reigning Kalos Queen! And she's not had any rounds yet, while Serena's already had to do several of them, so she's used up a lot of the tricks she might have… and, of course, Aria is a celebrity! So people are naturally going to be predisposed to give her the points!"

"That sounds kind of unfair," Cress admitted.

"It's a pageant, they're surprisingly cut-throat," Chili opined.

"Wait, there we go," Iris said, pointing at the television.


Braixen swooped down on a broomstick, sitting side-saddle before stepping off towards the audience and performing a curtsey.

"Welcome, everyone!" she said. "I hope you enjoy!"

She took her hat off, put it on the ground, and lifted it up to reveal Litleo. Then she put her had on the ground again, and lifted it up, and this time Ponyta came out with a flash of white light and a cloud of sparkles.

The third time it was Sylveon. The fourth, Pancham. And then the final time, and Sereneary came out before taking Braixen's paw and accepting a lift up onto Ponyta's back.

"I agree," she said. "We hope you enjoy what we have for you today!"

There was a flicker of green as the Mystical Fire started, and Braixen shrank her broomstick-wand – swapping it out for a staff-wand instead – and brought it down with a flash of flame and smoke.


"You said she's your daughter, right?" asked one of the members of the audience.

"Yes, she is," Grace agreed. "And I'm… very impressed with how well she's doing. At what she wants to do."

"Right, right," the spectator agreed. "Only… I have to ask. Is she the fox or the rabbit?"

"She's the Buneary," Grace said. "I… think? I'm almost certain, but with her friends it's hard to be completely sure."


Serena's Mystical Fire, Braixen's Flamethrower, Litleo's multicoloured Heat Wave and Sylveon's Fire Blast all collided at once overhead, with Ponyta wrapping the impact in a psychic shield, and Pancham sprang from one Pokémon to another before letting out a shout and firing up a fist-shaped Dark Pulse that shattered the shield. The flames shot out in all directions like sparkling fireworks, and Serena's whole team posed at once while the display rained down.

Then, with their performance over, they moved aside to watch Aria's go.

She was using only three Pokémon – Aromatisse, Delphox and Vivillon – but almost as soon as she started Serena was frowning.

"I think… hm," she began, softly. "I didn't think of that."

"What?" Braixen replied, also quietly so they didn't interfere with the performance.

"It's the flow of it," she replied. "The focus of attention keeps going back and forth smoothly, because only one Pokémon is doing something at a time, but there's not so many of them that it takes too long. We had to have lots of things going on at once to avoid running out of time and let everyone get involved in each step, but… I think we overdid it by having everyone on stage. It got too cluttered."

"Oh, I see what you mean," Sylveon realized. "Wow. I wouldn't have noticed that if you hadn't pointed it out."

She looked apprehensive. "Does that mean we might not win?"

"We won't know until the scoring, but… I wouldn't mind either way," Serena assured her. "We all got a chance, and it was fun, after all."

"That's right," Sylveon agreed.


It was close, in the end – closer than Serena had expected – but Aria retained her title of Kalos Queen.

She promptly came over to Serena and congratulated her for coming second, reminding Serena that only one person every year who wasn't the reigning Kalos Queen could make it to the final, and Serena had done just that.

"And, who knows," the other Performer added. "Maybe you'll take my title some day!"

"Maybe," Serena agreed. "We'll see, right?"

"And," Aria added. "I expect you're heading off somewhere else soon, but you'll want this. Palermo told me to pass it on to you – call her when you're ready to take the next step."

She pulled a business card from a pocket in her dress, and handed it to Sereneary before heading off.

"Wow," Serena said, looking at it. "That's amazing."

"You got a business card from Palermo?" Pancham asked. "That's a big deal, right?"

"Her dress has pockets," Serena replied. "I didn't even notice it had them… now that is impressive."


"Are you all right?" Pikachu asked. "You seem upset."

"I'm not upset, I'm concentrating!" Litleo replied. "I'm trying to spontaneously set my Rivalry ability to focus on Aria, because that way I'll improve enough for us to win the next time we see her!"

Her mane caught fire, which was mostly a cosmetic difference.

"Luxio made this sound very easy," the Fire-type said.

"So, we're going to be heading off to get Ash's last Kalos Badge next, right?" Clemont checked. "I think that means going to Snowbelle City…"

"Arc?" Ash checked.

"Correct," Arc confirmed. "Would you like a list of your Pokémon who do not have a Type advantage?"

"No thanks, I already know," Ash waved off. "Thanks for the offer, though!"


"Hmm," Professor Oak said. "Perhaps…"

He nodded, and typed something out.

Summary of the methods by which humans can use moves normally used by Pokémon.

"I think-" he began, then Tracey came in.

Completely soaked.

"So," he began. "I found something out."

"You did?" Professor Oak replied. "Did Marill use the wrong move?"

"No, I was doing a sketch of Suicune," Tracey replied. "And she was using Water Pulse. And it turned out I was doing a sketch."

He sighed. "So, suddenly my new sketchbook is damp and it's going to go all crinkly."

Professor Oak nodded.

"I see," he said. "Well, at least it's relevant to my latest research!"


AN:


I think Mew is to blame. Somehow.