Not all the lessons were handled by Ash, and not even all the school trips. Professor Kukui suggested a fishing trip, to take place the next day, and said that because Lana was the Water-type trainer it'd be a good idea for her to take charge.

"Really?" Lana asked, surprised. "I'm not… well…"

"Can I help?" Ash asked, and got a nod from Professor Kukui. "So, the first thing about teaching is, if it's something you know about, you're trying to make sure that the people you're teaching learn the same thing as you. And it's important to remember that just because it's obvious to you it might not be obvious to them… right?"

"I guess that makes sense," Lana admitted. "But it's hard to think of what to say, and standing up in front of everyone…"

"Hmm," Ash said, thinking about it. "Maybe it's best to just remember that you're telling your friends something. You wouldn't mind if it was just telling them something cool, right?"

He shrugged. "I don't know! I've been doing Pokémon Leagues for a long time and that involves going out against lots of people in battles, so I don't really mind that kind of thing much any more. But I can try and help."


The morning of the fishing trip, Lana did her best to follow Ash's advice.

She told everyone about how you get the attention of Pokémon, and how it was best to fish from a Ride Pokémon like her Lapras or a Wailmer, and said that it was important both to attract the Pokémon in the first place and then get them in close enough to battle or catch – even if you weren't going to do either of those things, it didn't really count if you didn't reel them in.

"And, um… sorry, I have to ask," Lana added, after doing that bit. "Lillie, is that a protective suit?"

"I want to do the lesson," Lillie replied, from inside her thick outfit fitted with a round dome. "I don't want to freeze up from touching Pokémon… I'll get over it eventually, but today isn't eventually. And this way I can catch Pokémon properly."

"Well… thank you," Lana said. "You're right, that should work, and it'll keep you safer if you fall in the water."

"Speaking of that!" Ash remembered. "In case anyone else falls in the water, I'm going to make sure a couple of my friends are around just to keep people safe. Okay?"


With the preparation complete, Lana took them down to the pier with the Ride Pokémon.

"You can pick between a Wailmer or a Lapras," she explained. "I'm going on my Lapras here, but either of them is fine – you can see how they're wearing special harnesses that give you more support if you're fishing from them…"

She trailed off. "I don't recognize that Pokémon."

Suicune waved a paw.

"Oh, that's Suicune!" Ash said. "I used to have a Lapras but it turned out that he wasn't really a Lapras, and I don't have a Wailmer, so I asked Suicune and she's happy to help out. That way there's more Ride Pokémon available for everyone else!"

"Suicune," Rotom reported. "The Aurora Pokémon."

He made a querying buzz sound. "Does this one's ability Pressure relate to water pressure?"

"Maybe it does," Suicune said. "I don't think I've actually checked that before."

"Isn't Suicune another legendary Pokémon?" Lillie asked. "I know I've heard about Ash before, but it's one thing to hear about it and completely different to keep seeing them all."

While she was talking, Ash had knelt down by the side of the pier.

"Okay, everyone's ready!" he announced, putting some balls back on his belt. "So, let's go fishing!"


"A lot of how you fish is that there isn't just one way to do it," Lana told them all, as they floated in the sea. "You need to think about what kind of Pokémon you're attracting with your lure, and then when you reel them in you need to think about that."

Her lure twitched, and she pulled hard for a second before slacking off a bit, then pulled hard for a second again. "Like this!"

Kiawe watched, then cast his own lure into the sea for the third time.

"I don't get it," he said, glancing at Sophocles. "What am I doing wrong? Isn't the lure supposed to, you know, lure the Pokémon?"

"Don't ask me," Sophocles replied. "I'm trying to work out how to attract a Water-type… would they be more interested in something with flavour, maybe?"

Kiawe shook his head, then went back to casting.

"I think you could be doing it too often," Lillie guessed. "It's not spending long enough in the water to attract attention? Maybe?"

"That's a good point," Professor Kukui said. "It might not be the answer, but there's nothing wrong in trying it out – you've got to remember to Bide your time!"

"I guess," Kiawe grumbled, shading his eyes. "Hey, is it me or is Pikachu fishing by himself from that water surfboard thing he does?"

"Oh, yeah," Sophocles agreed, his irritation forgotten. "He's just using his tail. How would that work?"

There was a splash, then Pikachu flicked his tail into the air and out came a Keldeo.

"...huh," Sophocles said, as Keldeo used Hydro Pump to make sure he didn't crash back into the water, then hovered there on four fizzing hydro-jets. "Maybe that does work. Hey, Togedemaru, can you dip your tail in the water?"

Togedemaru squeaked at him, waving her tail and then scratching her head.

"If you're asking how that would work, I don't know, but it just worked for Pikachu," Sophocles said, as Suicune loped over and Ash began having a cheerful conversation with the newly arrived Water-type.


Down under the water, Latias rolled on her back and looked up.

"So this is a fishing minigame, right?" she asked, speaking out loud for the benefit of the other two Diving Pokémon next to her. "Do we take part as well?"

"I don't think so," Charizard replied. "Otherwise it'd be a tug of war minigame. We're more like the people who stop someone falling out of bounds."

"And if too many of them do it at once, I get to try out Twister!" Silver said. "It's like resetting the whole thing. Dad showed me how to control it really well, he's actually used it to rescue ships in trouble before without being noticed."

He scratched his head with a wing. "At least, without being noticed as a Lugia. I think the giant waterspout that deposited a ship on dry land got… you know, noticed in general."


"Do you have a list of the Pokémon that you'd expect to find around Melemele?" Lillie asked, looking up at Rotom as he hovered overhead. "Is Keldeo on it?"

"Keldeo is not on the list," Rotom replied. "However, after overhearing their conversation, I am starting to think that Keldeo should be on every list. That specific Keldeo, in fact!"

"Oh, okay," Lillie said, nodding to herself, then looked back down at her lure.

It twitched slightly.

"Was that a bite?" Lana asked.

The lure didn't move again, after that, and Lillie shook her head. "I don't think so."

"Well, keep an eye on it," Lana advised.

"I was wondering what it could be," Lillie went on. "Maybe a Magikarp? And, well… I should be all right in my suit, but I don't want a fish Pokémon in my lap anyway."

"That's right," Lana realized. "You don't have one to deflect a Pokémon away, apart from what Lapras can do."

A girl's head popped up above the water.

Or what I can do, supplied a mental voice. Hi! I'm Latias, but I heard that you had problems with Pokémon so I'm looking like I'm not a Pokémon.

Lillie thought about that.

"I'll try not to commit that to memory, in case I end up paranoid of everything," she decided.

Oops! Latias said, and ducked back under the water.

Then Lillie's lure twitched again, this time much more emphatically.

"All right," Lana said. "Looks like you've got a Pokémon on there, now, reel it in!"

Lillie pulled her rod upwards, and the sea bulged upwards as an enormous pink-and-white shape emerged.

Palkia floated into the air, soaring much more slowly than anything normally would, and Lillie gasped.

"What Pokémon is that?" she asked. "I don't recognize…"

"I think that Pokémon is Palkia," Rotom replied. "I do not know for sure, but the images seem to match!"

Palkia was now hovering in mid-air, moving his limbs around almost as if he was swimming, and slowly looked around as he did so.

"The Spatial Pokémon," Rotom went on. "It appears in mythology. It is said to live in a gap in the spatial dimension parallel to ours."

"PAAAL," Palkia rumbled.

"Oh, hi!" Ash called, and Suicune bounded across the water. "Giratina passed on my message?"

Palkia nodded.

"Great!" Ash replied. "See, I had this idea for a lesson demonstration, and Clefairy could do it but it'd be good to have extra help…"

"Is that… just going to pass without comment?" Mallow asked.

Rotom put an arm against his screen. "Hypothesis: Palkia is Water type and that is why this is not unexpected."


Meanwhile, in Kalos, Serena held up her hand with five fingers raised. "Ready? And… four and three and two and one and now."

Pyroar crouched, then sprang into the air, and landed with a splash of blue-green flames which rippled outwards like water. Curling in her own length, she turned to jump towards Serena, and her trainer ducked down so that Pyroar went just overhead.

Flicking her wrist, Serena threw the wand she was carrying upwards, lighting it on fire at the same moment, and caught it again as if she'd caught one of the embers from Pyroar's mane. It had the same colours, bright yellow and red, and she drew a wide circle before stepping to one side as Pyroar turned to jump again.

This time, Pyroar went through the circle, and as she did it collapsed inwards. Wings of fire with alternating red-yellow feathers materialized, and Serena gestured up as Pyroar sprang upwards this time – then began using the sympathetic connection between the two flames, holding her wand in place to allow the wings to support Pyroar, and turning her wand in another big circle so that as it moved upwards it could let them tug Pyroar higher.

Finally, she put her hands in the air, wand held out in one of them, and Pyroar landed with her hindpaws on Serena's hands and her flaming wings spread wide. They acted as a support as she reared up, roaring, then sank back to a crouch.

They held it for three seconds, then Pyroar jumped off again and Serena let out a sigh of relief.

"I think you need to have another lesson in Psychic," she judged. "I think that went well, but you're heavy now."

"Fair," Pyroar admitted. "Still, at least you weren't a Buneary."

"True, but we should remember that idea, it'd be funny," Serena said, then turned her attention to Palermo. "What did you think? How can we make that the kind of routine that would work to win Kalos Queen?"

Palermo considered.

"Well," she began. "It's a good basis – it's a one-Pokémon routine, though really what you need is something for three or four Pokémon. You overloaded your final routine, remember."

"I remember," Serena nodded, thinking. "What about if the whole Master Class set has the same theme, like, circus events?"

"That could work, but watch out," Palermo warned. "If you commit to a theme too early in planning, you can end up accepting sub-par individual routines because they fit the theme."

"We have had to work hard to avoid being too focused on magic," Braixen agreed, from the sidelines. "Still, I thought that was good!"


AN:


Fishing!

Plus showing how Serena is doing now.