A flying ship hovered high over Kalos, and in the cockpit a woman called Cherie shifted one of the controls.

"We should be good for the rest of the journey, now," she said. "Good weather all the way."

"That's a relief," her teammate Levi said. "That crosswind was annoying…"

"It's what we have to deal with on this mission, so…" Cherie shrugged. "Take it up with the boss if you want."

"No thanks," Levi snorted.

Their airship rocked slightly, then Cherie looked over as an alert began to buzz.

"That's probably not good," she said. "We've got a guest approaching… I'll set the autopilot, you go deal with it."

Levi nodded, checking his bracelet, then hurried out onto the main deck.

"It's Volcanion," he called back, then sent out his Alakazam and Glalie as the Legendary Pokémon's steam jets steered him down to a landing on the deck.

"I'll be a moment!" Cherie called back.

Levi swept his hand over the bracelet he was wearing. "Mega Wave!"

Both Pokémon let out pained cries, then Mega-Evolved in a flash.

"Release-" Volcanion began, but before he could finish the Fire-and-Water-type was attacked by both Mega Glalie and Mega Alakazam. He fired back at both, using Hydro Pump, and Levi used the distraction to get out a pair of electronic restrictor cuffs.

"Psychic!" he said, commanding Mega Alakazam to hold Volcanion in place for a moment, then threw one of the cuffs. It snapped into place around Volcanion's left leg, and Volcanion's head swung around to look squarely at Levi.

"Human!" he rumbled, making it an insult.

Levi threw the second band. "Glalie, Freeze-Dry!"

Volcanion had to choose which attack to deal with, and he deflected the restrictor band away. Mega Glalie's attack hit squarely, freezing Volcanion in a block of ice, and Mega Alakazam threw him off the side of the ship.

"All right, ready-" Cherie said, then watched the disappearing Volcanion. "Or not, I guess. That was quick."

"Mega Wave is really good," Levi said, reverting both Pokémon. "We'll have to thank the boss for it."

He waved ironically as Volcanion vanished into the distance. "Now, let's get Magearna back to the castle."

"Is she here?" Prince Raleigh asked, looking at Minister Alva for guidance.

"I am sure that Levi and Cherie would not return without Magearna," Minister Alva replied, then smiled as his two subordinates unloaded the mechanical Pokémon. "There, you see?"

"At last," Prince Raleigh said, with a smile. "Magearna has finally returned to the Azoth Kingdom, where she was originally born."

"Created, surely?" Minister Alva asked. "Magearna was the work of Nikola, correct?"

"Yes, of course," Raleigh agreed. "We both know that, Minister, but you're forgetting about Nikola's greatest genius. He built her a soul-heart, so Magearna was truly born – that's why she's an artificial Pokémon."

He sighed. "Every year it only becomes more obvious how brilliant Nikola must have been… Porygon are amazing Pokémon, certainly, but Nikola built one five hundred years ago in clockwork. I can barely imagine how capable he was."

"I assure you, my Prince, I did not forget," Alva said, smoothly. "It's just a difference in terminology, that's all. We must be precise about technical matters."

"Of course, Minister," the Prince agreed. "Precision is important in neo-arcane science."

He stepped forwards. "Now… Magearna, it is my pleasure to welcome you back to your birthplace and true home. I am Prince Raleigh, and this is Minister Alva, my teacher."

"Hey!" Levi shouted, over by the door. "What's going-"

"Stop them!" Cherie said.

Then a boy wearing a cap and carrying an enormous red Pokémon came through the door at a run, wobbling from side to side a bit as he went.

"What is the meaning of this?" Alva demanded.

"Magearna, I'm here to rescue you!" the red Pokémon said.

"Well, Volcanion and I have these weird things on that keep us magnetically attached together!" the boy explained, skidding to a halt. "This is quicker than Volcanion carrying me."

"Maag?" Magearna asked, sounding more confused than anything.

"If you can understand it, be my guest," Volcanion replied.

"Gengar!" Alva said, clicking his staff against the floor. "Get rid of these intruders!"

His Shiny Gengar came out, and as he activated Mega Wave so did the Alakazam and Glalie he'd given Levi.

"Time to go!" the boy said, and Volcanion picked Magearna up.

"You really shouldn't kidnap Pokémon, you know!" he added, as a parting shot.

Then the boy ran off so fast that it just left Mega Gengar and the others staring.

"...was that neo-arcane science?" Prince Raleigh asked.

"An excellent question, my prince," Alva admitted.

That night, on the Nebel Plateau where Volcanion and Magearna lived, Pokémon and humans crept silently through the gloom.

"Ssh," Meowth said. "We gotta make sure they don't hear us, and there's some Pokémon out there with pretty good hearing! You seen the size of Noivern ears?"

"If we're meant to not be heard, maybe you should shut up," Jessie replied, wearing a brocade suit with a tailed jacket and a domino mask over her eyes.

"Well, we don't need to steal all the Pokémon, not yet," James said. "Just Magearna."

He adjusted his red fedora and trench coat. "That's step one of the plan. Or is it step two?"

Here we go, Yamask signed.

"It's step one, all right?" Meowth hissed. "Look, da plan is: Step one, steal Magearna. Step two: gloat to dat Alva guy about step three. Step three: steal all da Mega Wave gizmos an' Pokémon. Step four: leave. Step five: Boss is really impressed an' stuff."

"Why is step two gloating?" Inkay asked.

"Because we couldn't gloat about it after leavin' of course!" Meowth replied. "Maybe the actual stealing was step four, now I think about it… I ain't great with numbers sometimes."

"I thought Step One was to get ourselves hired by Alva," James protested. "Wasn't it?"

"No, no, dat wasn't Step One," Meowth countered. "Dat was step its not a step. Step one has to be stealing Magearna, 'cause step one doesn't ever not work!"

"Fascinated query," Porygon said, from Jessie's fine pocketsmartwatch. "What step is having an argument not far from the people you are about to steal a Pokémon from?"

"That's not a step either," Jessie replied, getting the pocketsmartwatch out to glare at. "That's just how things are done. Now, shush so we can get on with the stealing."

"You got her back!" Raleigh said, impressed. "Minister Alva, these new men of yours are very capable."

"Excuse me?" James asked. "Who are you calling men?"

"I'm sure he must have meant you and Meowth," Jessie decided. "Or, possibly, me and Meowth, depending on how easily convinced he is."

"...right," Raleigh said, not really sure how to process that, then turned to his sister. "You see? Magearna is back, just as we hoped."

"I don't know," Kimia frowned. "There's something that isn't right about this."

"Not this again," Raleigh grumbled, folding his arms. "Minister Alva has done nothing to justify your attitude to him. He's a good man."

"Yeah!" Meowth agreed. "He only hires da best criminals."

"Criminals?" Kimia repeated. "Did you know about this, Raleigh?"

"I'm sure that the Prince doesn't want to spend time thinking about such inconsequentialities," Minister Alva said. "Not when we finally have Magearna back with us."

"Yes, of course," Raleigh nodded. "Magearna, we-"

"Excuse me a moment, please," Alva requested. "Gengar, we discussed this."

His Gengar reached out, paralyzing Magearna with a single touch, and Alva reached in to open the hatch on her chest.

"Wait – Minister, what are you doing?" Raleigh protested. "Magearna needs the Soul-Heart!"

"This was the point all along," Alva replied, removing the Soul-Heart and sending Magearna clattering to the floor, then there was a flash as Jessie and James sent out their Pokémon.

"We might call ourselves thieves," Jessie said.

"Scam artists," James agreed.

"Impersonators."

"Insurance fraudsters!"

"Infiltrators and sneaks, burglars and robbers," Jessie continued, listing them off on her fingers. "Wasn't there that one time we did barratry?"

"I wouldn't know, I've never been to law school," James sighed.

"Anyway!" Jessie resumed. "We may be all of those things, and probably more, I don't have our latest rap sheet on hand. But! We'd never do something like that, especially once we have all your Mega Wave Pokémon!"

"Oh, hey, we're onto Step Three!" Meowth announced. "Uh, or is that step two?"

"Step three, I think," James said. "Wait, hold on, that means we forgot to do the gloating! We'd better do that first."

Alva gestured, and he, Levi and Cherie between them sent out a total of fifteen Pokémon, all of whom Mega Evolved.

Jessie let out a sigh.

"Well, so much for getting rich quick," she said.

Thirty-four seconds later, Ambipom caught her teammates with a giant net deployed from the Mecha Giratina.

"How did it go?" she asked, leaning out the side and steering with her tails.

"Well, we ain't got any Mega Evolvin' Pokémon, so take a wild guess," Meowth grumbled. "Back to da drawin' board."

With Levi and Cherie keeping the Prince and Princess out of the way, Alva had time to exult in the success of his plan.

Just as he'd always read, Nikolai had built mechanisms into the whole Azoth Castle to transform it into a flying battlestation… and, just as he'd suspected, the Soul-Heart that was installed into Magearna was the same as the power source for the defences.

It was a much better use of such awesome power, and it was exactly why he'd spent so long working for the kingdom to begin with… because, now, all that power was his.

"Hey, boss!" Levi called, running into the control room. "I know you said to keep an eye on the royal brats, but there's trouble!"

"What kind of trouble?" Alva asked, turning to him. "What do I even pay you for, anyway? Fix it!"

"Yeah, Cherie and I Mega Evolved all our Pokémon and they're up top now," Levi said. "It's just, uh, there's a lot of Pokémon up there!"

Alva rolled his eyes, then tapped into the surveillance systems. "Let's see what you're complaining about now…"

It took a moment to get the right camera, but when he did the first sight he saw was a Braixen waving their wand about as a Litleo's flame danced in front of them – before making a hundred little streamers of multicoloured fire come flaring out and crash into Mega Sharpedo, Mega Manectric and Mega Banette.

An Entei ran past, blurring off camera so fast that Alva lost track, and when he switched to a different camera instead he saw that not only was Volcanion back but a Zekrom was charging up some kind of electric attack before blasting Mega Camerupt with it.

That shouldn't have worked, but apparently it did anyway.

"What is going on up there?" Alva asked, watching as an odd-looking Greninja materialized next to Mega Beedrill and hit it with a water shuriken. "And which of you is watching the Prince and Princess?"

"Magearna," Volcanion said, head low. "I should never have let…"

His voice trailed off.

"She will be okay," he said. "If we can recover the Soul-Heart. Where is it?"

"It's what Alva used to make the castle take off," Kimia said. "I didn't know that was possible."

"It's the power core," Raleigh decided. "I've seen where it goes – I know where it is – but it was built before Magearna. I think it's supposed to be her and her alone who decides who gets the power of the defences."

Marshadow held up the Soul-Heart. "Is this it?"

"I – but – how did you do that?" Kimia asked.

"Other thieves are amateurs," Marshadow said.

Then everyone started to feel floaty.

"Ah," Marshadow said. "In hindsight, that might have been how we're flying."

That evening, on the balcony of a fortunately-neither-flying-nor-crashed castle, Kimia and Raleigh waved goodbye to the travelling trainers.

"I never thought I'd actually meet Ash Ketchum," Kimia said. "He really does live up to the stories… it was amazing when his Clefairy just stopped the falling castle like that."

"You're right," Raleigh agreed, with a bit of a sigh.

"Are you all right?" his sister asked.

"Just…" Raleigh began. "I keep thinking about how Minister Alva tricked me. How he got those other two to work with him, how he used the arcane science Nikolai left us to enslave more than a dozen Pokémon and force them to Mega Evolve…"

He shook his head, and Kimia took his hand.

"You did make mistakes," she agreed. "I'm not going to say you didn't. But what matters now is to do better… Magearna doesn't want to live here, not now, but maybe we can try and make it so she will want to live here, just by making the kingdom a better place. Right?"

Raleigh swallowed, then nodded. "Right."

Then Team Rocket landed on the far side of the balcony.

"Prepare for trouble!" Jessie demanded, as her parachute slowly collapsed behind her.

"And make-"

"Wait, wait, hold on," Meowth said, interrupting James. "Where's dat Alva guy?"

"In prison," Kimia replied, sending out her Gardevoir. "And all his Mega Wave devices are broken, as well, and the Pokémon left!"

Jessie huffed. "The cheek!"

"Hey, at least we got an appearance in this picture," James pointed out. "Let's get dinner somewhere in town, I saw a nice restaurant earlier."

AN:

Bit of a perspective flip for this one.

It's also the last movie that takes place in the main-line of the anime, with the following movies being alternate-continuity or in one case a remake.