"Does it get confusing having four different arenas to go between?" May asked. "You can't see all of them..."
"We do look over the highlights from the ones we don't attend," Bruno told her, sitting back on one of the chairs. "There was this time a few years ago Agatha skipped the entire League, though… not entirely sure why."
He shrugged. "Anyway, your brother's on… what, third, in this one?"
"Yeah, that sounds about right," May agreed. "And that friend he made is on first in the Water arena. I wonder what Pokémon she's got this time, I haven't recognized half of them."
"Probably a Water type," Misty said. "I'm interested in seeing if she's got any Water Pokémon from Alola, I did some reading on them last night."
"Shouldn't you have read about them already?" May asked. "Sorry, I know a lot less about how the Gym Leader thing works than you'd think..."
Misty shrugged. "I probably did, but it was a long time ago."
"Right," May realized. "Yeah, you've had more than a year longer than me you've done twice over."
They looked at the screen as Iwalani and her opponent stepped up to the poolside, and as the referee informed them that draining the pool was considered bad form.
Then both Pokémon came out. The boy on the right side of the arena sent out his Poliwhirl, and Iwalani replied with a dinky little fish of a Water-type.
"Oh, hey, this is cool," Misty told them, leaning towards the screen. "Watch this."
The fish glowed, and then more fish of the same type came streaming in from all directions – forming a kind of piscine swirl that slowly resolved itself into a huge, armoured predator shape made entirely out of fish.
"What the heck!?" Iwalani's opponent demanded. "I thought it was one Pokémon at a time, not… a hundred!"
"Hey, that's still one Pokémon," Iwalani protested. "It's just Wishiwashi's ability, it's called Schooling."
"Can that really just be one Pokémon?" May wondered. "Is it like Diglett and Dugtrio, or Magnemite and Magneton?"
"No, it's a lot stranger than that," Misty told them. "If they get damaged enough, they turn back. It took a lot of research – apparently what they eventually did was to have someone use a Master Ball on a wild but willing Wishiwashi in School Form, and the Master Ball captured the whole Pokémon."
"Right, so it's just an odd Form change," Bruno nodded. "Sounds like an expensive experiment."
"You haven't read all the failed ones," Misty chuckled. "A lot of abilities and stuff fail on a Wishiwashi, even if they're not in School Form… there's one theory that what's actually going on is that it's warping space to do it."
"Sounds plausible to me," Will volunteered.
Over in the Water arena, the referee finished checking through his book of rulings. "I'll allow it," he said. "Begin!"
"Alolan Pokémon are strange," Max mused, watching the battle on the screen as he waited for his turn. "I know there are Pokémon like Dugtrio, but still..."
"Remind me who you're planning on using first?" Cinder asked. "Is it the kickboxing mushroom who considers being poisoned healthy?"
"Good point," Max admitted, after thinking about it for a moment. "It really is about what you're used to, huh..."
"Tajira to the battlefield!" the marshal called, and a boy stood up from the benches.
"Already?" he asked. "What happened to the guys on first?"
"Didn't you see the screen?" one of the girls next to him asked. "This guy with a Metagross threw all three Pokémon into the wall."
"That sounds like a job for a Dark type," Cinder noted.
"Well, it depends," Max replied. "It might be a job for a Psychic type, or even a quick Fire-type."
"Maybe," Cinder agreed, with a nod. "I'd need to make sure I didn't get caught by Miracle Eye, if it was me."
"How do you think you'd be doing if you were in this League?" Lance asked Ash suddenly.
Ash looked up. "Huh? Oh – well, uh, I don't think this looks like the kind of League I get any more."
Lance invited him to explain further.
"It's… kind of hard to explain," Ash went on. "I think it started in Sinnoh the first time around – I started running into these really, really powerful trainers. There was this guy in Sinnoh the first time who had a Latios and a Darkrai, and the Latios was a surprise to everyone because he'd only ever shown the Darkrai all the way up to semi finals."
"I assume you beat the Darkrai," Lance noted.
"And the Latios, but Pikachu was my last Pokémon left at that point and he knocked himself out doing it," Ash supplied. "Then there was someone at the Unova league who was… kind of odd, actually. He had really powerful Pokémon, though, like a strong Riolu who evolved into a Lucario, and then a Hydreigon."
"Ash, he didn't know the difference between five and six, didn't know how many badges you needed to enter a Pokémon League and thought Ecruteak was in Unova or something," Pikachu reminded him. "And yes, I'm still bitter..."
Lance listened as Dexter translated Pikachu's words, then frowned. "You said he had a Hydreigon? Those are… not the easiest Pokémon to train. How?"
"I don't know," Ash admitted. "Then… well, the next one was the Indigo League again, and that had Jessie and James in it as well as Gary. After that was the Silver Conference-"
"-which I'm entirely familiar with," Lance interjected. "Quite apart from that boy from Orre with the three Legendary Beasts, we all noticed Steve. Yes, that does seem to be forming a pattern."
He shook his head. "And the Hoenn league is obvious… but what about your friend Max? Doesn't he have a Legendary Pokémon?"
"That's a good point, actually," Lucario said. "Maybe we'd have ended up fighting Deoxys."
"I thought he had Jirachi," Lance frowned.
"The Deoxys is a new thing," Ash explained. "It's kind of a long story, but basically he's got Deoxys to the same extent I have Mewtwo or Lugia – mostly as a trusted friend, not as a battle Pokémon."
"I battled your Lugia," Lance pointed out. "Are you telling me you didn't give him any training?"
"No, I did train him," Ash said. "And he's been spending some time with my other Pokémon taking part in some of their events..."
"You are a very unconventional trainer," Lance summarized.
Max took his place by the side of the rock-strewn arena, and blinked.
"How did they fix this so quickly?" he asked. "I saw that last battle, they smashed all the rocks!"
After the Tyranitar was returned, they had a Diglett team sort it out, Kris supplied. I don't know where they got the rocks from, though. Presumably underground.
"I do hear there are rocks there," Max agreed, going for his belt to prepare his first Pokémon. "Ready!"
"I'm ready too," his opponent called, giving a thumbs-up.
"Begin!" the referee announced, and Max threw his Pokéball – releasing his Breloom, Guy, who pulsed a faint purple as his customary Toxic Orb triggered.
Opposite him, his foe's Nidorino dropped to the floor. He snorted, pawing at the ground, and his trainer swept up the returning Pokéball with an offhand catch.
"Rush him!" she ordered, and Nidorino bounded forwards. His horn lit off with a faint orange glow, signal of an incoming Fury Attack, and Guy set his stance with his tail held poised to counterbalance him.
"Low kick!" Max called.
Guy dropped low, and swept his clawed foot through the air at ankle level – though he missed, as Nidorino leapt into the air and dodged.
Sliding around in a turn, Nidorino came to a halt facing back at Guy before charging again. This time he fired out a salvo of Poison Sting barbs, to keep Guy on the defensive.
Guy let them hit him, then jumped to the top of the nearest pillar and examined the faintly purple barb in his elbow.
"Doesn't that… hurt?" Max asked.
The Breloom shook his head. "Nope, not really."
He wobbled as a headbutt hit the rock, making it shake back and forth, then he jumped off before Nidorino actually felled the pillar. Landing with a thump of his tail against the ground, he lashed out as Nidorino charged him and scored a glancing blow on the snout of the Poison-type.
Nidorino snorted, scowled, then tried to bite down on Guy's arm. He missed, but a second attempt got Guy on the knuckle.
Guy yelped and flung Nidorino into the nearest rock wall, which went crunch but didn't seem to have harmed the enemy Poison-type much.
"That did hurt!" he complained.
"Okay, don't let him do it again!" Max advised. "That was probably Peck!"
"I can see that," Guy agreed, crouching slightly, then jumped into the air and fired a Seed Bomb. It exploded next to Nidorino as he got to his feet, and then Guy's opponent came rushing out of the dust cloud.
"Breloom, Low Kick!" Max ordered.
Nidorino reacted exactly the same way he had the first time – which meant he got a kick to the face as Guy obeyed Max's hidden order and did a high sweeping kick.
That sent him flying off course and smashing into the same rock pillar he'd hit the first time, and gravel fell off in a splatterplish sound as he shook his head to clear it.
"Huh, wonder what happened there," Iwalani said, watching the TV as she picked Pin Missiles out of her Dartrix' feathers. "I could swear he said low kick."
Dartrix fluffed his feathers, then froze for a moment before letting out a high-pitched hoot.
"Did you just stick yourself again?" Iwalani asked.
She shook her head. "Dartrix, you're such a… bird brain..."
The Flying-type twisted his head around to give her a look.
"Yeah, okay, deserved that one," Iwalani admitted. "Okay, come on, let's get the rest of those pins out before you hurt yourself too much..."
"Assault him!" Nidorino's trainer called, and her Poison-type backed up a bit before charging forwards again. This time he drifted to the right a bit, kicked off a small ramp, and launched himself into the air to come down on top of Guy.
Squinting a little into the sun, Guy readied his Bullet Punch.
"Look out!" Max called suddenly, just before Nidorino used Ice Beam – scoring a direct hit on Guy's chest, knocking him skidding backwards halfway across the arena with frost damage on his torso and a little on his tail.
"Ow," the Grass-type said succinctly, and brushed the ice off – feeling his Poison Heal already starting to handle the damage.
"Now, Venoshock!"
This time, Nidorino's trainer had to give him the order explicitly – and that gave Guy enough time to fire a Seed Bomb at the ground. The explosion was no fun, but it did get him out of the way before Nidorino could hit him with the powerful Poison-type attack – and it was less painful than that would have been.
Seeing Nidorino chasing after him, Guy gritted his teeth before doing two more Seed Bomb jumps. That got him almost all the way across the rock arena, and he dropped down to land neatly on the far side of a rock pillar – digging in his claws so he didn't fall all the way to the ground, then resting for a moment before climbing back up towards the top.
"Guy!" Max called, cupping his hands around his mouth to be heard. "He's coming up to the pillar! Do Dad's thing!"
Guy nodded, understanding straight away, and jumped down to land in front of Nidorino. He chambered a punch, electrical energy sparking on it as he prepared to Thunderpunch Nidorino, then as his opponent charged Guy switched both moves and fists and hit Nidorino with a full-power Facade.
Nidorino managed to get off a Venoshock even as Guy punched him into the middle distance, and the stream of purple energy combined with the recoil sent Guy flying into the arena retaining wall with a kind of leathery thump.
Landing on the floor with a very similar flump sound, Guy pulled himself to his feet by using his tail to keep steady. His scrapes and bruises were already starting to heal, but slowly.
Then an Ice Beam hit him, and he collapsed forwards.
"Why did that connect?" May asked, frowning, then realized. "Oh, right – Guy and Max both couldn't see where Nidorino landed, they couldn't tell it was up on top of that pillar."
Will nodded a confirmation, as Max walked out far enough into the arena to get line-of-sight on Guy and recall him.
"Dad's thing..." Karen said out loud. "Norman Maple, right?"
"That's Dad all right," May agreed. "His signature move is Facade. It's really good for Guy, but a Pokémon with Venoshock is just a bad match-up for Guy and that's one tough Nidorino."
Down below, Max sent out his second Pokémon, and Will leaned forwards a little.
"A Gallade," he noted. "Interesting."
"Yah!" Casey shouted, swinging her bat and connecting with the baseball. A sharp whack sound heralded it being sent flying off into the middle distance, where her Raticate jumped and caught it in her teeth.
"Good catch!" the trainer called, as Raticate threw it to Lucario and the Fighting-type passed it on to Zapdos. "Okay, let's try something new, Zapdos."
Her guest nodded his attention.
"So this is a trick that relies on physics," Casey explained, and gestured for the ball so Zapdos tossed it to her. "If you give a ball a spin, then it kind of veers off the path it would have been on without that spin."
Zapdos nodded.
"Lucario, get ready to catch," Casey called. "So this is without any spin."
She threw the ball, and it flew across the clearing to hit Lucario's black-and-yellow palm with a slight clang.
"Simple," Casey summarized, catching the ball as Lucario gently lobbed it back to her. "And if you put a spin on it, like this..."
Casey threw the ball again, but this time it curved slightly off a straight path – meaning that, while Lucario still caught it, she had to bend down awkwardly to the side to do so.
Zapdos tilted his head a little, and said something in a voice like an overloading transformer.
Coming over to hand the ball to her trainer this time, Lucario supplied the translation. "He said that was very interesting, but he's not sure how he'd do it himself."
"Oh, right," Casey realized. "Okay, uh… well, my first thought is that you could sort of slide the top of your beak over the bottom as you let go. We can give it some practice, if you want."
Zapdos nodded, liking that idea, then flew a little way off so he had a reasonable amount of space. Casey waved to her Pokémon, and they all formed a group around her to field – except Pidgeot, who stayed hovering overhead to catch any fly balls.
As Zapdos was about to throw, though, there was a crashing sound in the trees. A roar followed, metallic and rumbling and bass, and Lucario moved over to stand by her trainer.
"That's an Aggron," she informed Casey. "Big one, by the sounds of it."
"Should we fight it?" Casey asked.
"Master – Casey – if there's going to be a fight, you're going to be on Pidgeot and out of the way," Lucario told her firmly. "You're the most fragile one here."
"I guess," Casey admitted.
Then a wave of dry air washed past her as Zapdos took off, hovering low over the field, and shouted a challenge.
"He says that he's not going to let you get hurt," Lucario supplied. "By name, actually."
Casey glanced to her side at the big Flying-type, which was slowly flying towards the shaking trees.
Aggron came bursting out of the treeline, and roared a challenge.
Zapdos screeched back, wings crackling with electricity, and gave Aggron a wink.
The Steel-type met his eyes, nodding imperceptibly, then used Rock Throw to begin what would turn out to be a very visually impressive battle.
A suspicious observer might have noticed a certain lack of actual damaging blows, though.
Professor Oak inspected Tracey's latest brace of pictures. The first one, which was a little postcard-sized sketch with graphite pencil, depicted the two young Growlithe living in the ranch chasing Houndoom's spade-tipped tail.
There was a lot that hadn't been drawn, in the sketch. Houndoom himself was just a suggestion in faint grey lines, and there was only one little tuft of grass.
Nodding, Oak moved on to the second one. This was much larger, wrought in coloured pencils and soft shades, and showed a quiet morning scene at the seashore – Ash's Lugia and his family, lit by the soft light of dawn with Samiya glittering in the background.
"Not bad, Tracey," Oak judged. "Not bad at all. I think you should show this one to them, they might want to keep it."
"I'll do that," Tracey agreed.
"Still, I think I could show you a thing or two," Oak added. "I was quite the artist in my younger days."
We have both seen your sketchbook, Professor, you do not need to tell us.
"Sketchbook," Oak agreed, nodding. "And then there was my fieldwork at University – I took sketches of Pokémon in their natural habitats when I was describing them."
He plucked a piece of paper out of the nearby printer, and picked up a pencil from the table. Sharpening the pencil to a point, he sat down at the table… and stopped.
"Professor?" Tracey asked, concerned.
"I just realized I haven't drawn anything for twelve years," Professor Oak explained. "I fell out of the habit years before we went back in time... I think?"
He put the pencil down. "I'm afraid all the time travel and alteration of history has made it very difficult to tell."
"That's okay," Tracey told him. "If you want to draw, then draw – we know you've not done it in a while, so we won't think less of you if it's bad and we'll be even more impressed if it's good."
"In theory, anyway," Oak said to himself. "Well, I suppose… hmm, perhaps I should start by drawing a Voltorb?"
Now that, we will judge you for, Damos noted.
"I bet Ash's Aura exercises are more interesting than this," Ritchie sighed, making a repetitive motion with his hand. As he did, coloured water bubbled up from the bottle sat in front of him.
It formed a sphere, then distorted as he altered the psychic forces on it. First the sphere became a long cylinder, then it changed to a cube, then a pyramid, and after that he cycled through the first four shapes at random for a minute before moving on to the next.
This was a more complex shape to make, a ring like a donut with a hole in the middle, and after holding it like that for ten seconds he added a second ring at right angles to the first.
How is it going? Rose asked, her mental voice still new and uncertain.
Not too bad, Ritchie told his Swellow, trying not to lose concentration. It's much easier to do the big stuff than something this small and fiddly.
I'll be quiet, then, Rose promised.
No, it's fine, Ritchie assured her hastily. It helps me learn to – whoops!
The dyed water fell to the floor, though Sparky caught it with his own psychic powers before it soaked into the sand.
"Thanks," Ritchie told him, and put the water back in the bottle. "Okay, let's try this again..."
"Okay, let's battle!" Barry announced. "This is going to be great – Smeargle, get ready!"
Smeargle nodded, facing down the Onix Barry's foe had sent out.
"Smeargle, this is going to be a dry run for the gym in Oreburgh!" Barry reminded him. "Okay, use Seed Flare!"
The Onix and his trainer – a burly mountain Hiker – both looked startled, and then Smeargle flicked his brush in a complex pattern.
A small brown grass seed bounced to the floor in front of Onix, and exploded.
"Ow!" Onix complained, shaking his head, and looked down at the crater. "Was that really Seed Flare?"
"All right!" Barry enthused. "You got him! Now let's see a Hydro Cannon!"
Smeargle's brush moved again as he dodged out of the way of a Tackle from Onix, and produced a stream of water.
The canine Pokémon directed what was almost certainly not a Hydro Cannon at Onix, managing to score a glancing hit, then sketched out a circle in the air and turned it into Protect to avoid being flattened by the return attack.
"You're doing great!" Barry told his Pokémon. "Now, finish him off with a Judgement!"
Smeargle held up a paw, asking Onix to stop for a moment, and turned to give his trainer an eloquent look.
"What?" Barry asked. "Oh, is this about the Plate thing? Well, use Origin Pulse then!"
Smeargle's eyebrow raised slightly, then he dropped his hand and rummaged for his portable whiteboard. Producing it from under his beret, he got to writing.
Barry examined the result.
"Oh, that's right," he realized. "You didn't Sketch that move yet, so you can't use it, or rather you can use it because you can use everything but you don't know the specifics of what I'm asking for! I read about how that's how Smeargle work on the internet," he added.
Smeargle expressed his disagreement with that statement, largely with his eyebrows as Barry hadn't given the whiteboard back yet.
"Uh, is this battle going to actually keep going?" the hiker asked.
"Wait, I know!" Barry said, with a kind of manic energy. "You could try sketching all his moves and using them back at him! No, wait, there are moves a twenty foot rock snake would be better at than a Smeargle. Uh… what about using Leech Seed!"
Smeargle indicated this was a good idea, by turning around and inviting Onix to resume the battle. As soon as the Rock-type did, he rolled to the side and used Leech Seed.
Off to the side of the battle, Barry's Prinplup shook his head.
"Tell me what you think of this," Delia requested. "It's a new blend."
She poured out a little tea into the cups arrayed around the edge of her garden table, then put the teapot back down again and offered a plate of sandwiches.
"I'll be fine, thank you," Martha Hale replied, waving off the plate, though her husband took one of the small sandwiches. Shaymin requested one as well, and the shiny Entei at the end of the table declined just after his mate did.
Martha was the first to take a sip of the tea, and considered it for a moment before nodding. "Well, I like it."
"Glad to hear it," Delia smiled. "I added a little mint, but not too much."
Shaymin considered it, then nodded her approval as well. "I think it would be nice to have a little Gracidea, but that's just my taste."
"Well, if you have it with Gracidea that's your choice," Delia replied. "But I know you get a lot more boisterous when you're in Sky Form, so perhaps you should try later rather than now."
"I suppose that is true," Shaymin agreed, and took another sip.
"Oh, I was going to ask," Delia added. "How is Molly doing?"
"She's doing well," Entei answered. "Last time I visited, she introduced her latest Pokémon to us – she's building up quite a nice team, though Eevee is still her strongest."
"And she does write us home," Spencer supplied. "Well, it's more sending videos, because Gary is right there with his Porygon to record them, but she's good about doing it three times a week. Apparently she's thinking of doing some of the Pokémon League Challenge again, to train up her newer Pokémon."
"How many gyms are there in Sinnoh?" Delia asked.
"I think about… ten? Eleven?" Suicune asked, tapping her paw absently on the table. "My original showed me around, but she focused mainly on the eight or nine most well travelled ones. I can't remember how many others there are."
"There's eleven," Entei informed his mate, and she gave him a tolerant look before picking up her cup in both paws for a drink.
Then she put it down again. "Oh, dear… sorry, I think I must have spilled some of the tea on my paws. It's distilled water now."
"Not to worry," Delia said. "Just pour it out for the lawn, I'll get you some more."
As she did, there was a rhythmic thump thump thump sound from nearby, and Ash's Raikou went tearing past down the road.
"A fine day to you all!" he called, then vanished out of sight behind the trees.
"That's always a little odd," Entei mused.
"Oh?" Spencer asked.
"Well, it's just… for both of us, that is," he indicated Suicune next to him. "It's odd for us to see the non-shiny Raikou here because our family dynamic – as created – leads us to view our Raikou as our elder son. And he looks quite similar, so on first glance we see a son and then on second glance we see someone else."
"That must be odd," Martha agreed readily. "I know Delia has that problem where her son has an improbable number of doubles – isn't that right?"
Delia nodded her confirmation, putting her teacup down. "Yes, that's right. I met Ritchie once – briefly – and it was very strange."
"So you have to resist the feeling that you should be mothering him somehow?" Shaymin asked, curious.
"That, and-"
-there was a loud ZZAP, and a few of the cynical Spearow flock inhabiting the area around the ranch made half-hearted motions in the direction of flight.
"-and sometimes there's this," the Suicune added. "Do you have any idea how odd it feels to want to scold someone who is not even theoretically your child?"
"What's wrong with that?" Delia asked. "If he's done something he should be ashamed of, then there shouldn't be a problem making sure he knows about it."
"He is about a hundred years older than me," Suicune pointed out.
Another loud ZZAP blasted through the air, and Raikou's booming laughter rose above it.
"All right!" he called. "Now, let's see about a dashed moving target, shall we?"
Suicune got up. "I'm terribly sorry," she said. "I just need to see to this."
"You know, it's really odd," Dawn said out loud.
"What's that?" Brock asked.
"Just..." Dawn shrugged. "Watching a Pokémon League going on, even on TV, and wondering how my friend will do – and it's not Ash, because Ash isn't in this one."
"Which is a pity," Buneary sighed. "It's always interesting to watch when he finally lets Pikachu do something."
"I'd say that at some point you had to disallow some specific Pokémon to keep it fairer," Dawn mused. "But then there's other people who use Legendaries as their entire team. It's kind of a thing where if you're using them you really have earned it."
"Things have kind of conspired to prevent Ash doing an Elite Four challenge," Brock mused.
Tyrunt raised his hand.
"Oh, what is it?" Brock asked, turning his attention away from the screen showing the battles going on down in Kanto.
"What's an Elite Four challenge?" the Dragon-type requested.
"Well, it's more of a battling thing, so keep that in mind," Brock began.
"It's the next thing trainers do after a Pokémon League challenge," Mawile supplied. "There are some really strong trainers, who all specialize in one particular type of Pokémon, and if someone beats the Pokémon League they get to try and beat those trainers too."
Tyrunt nodded along, showing he was understanding. "Okay. I… don't think I'd like to see that."
"Battles with trainers like that are usually really fun," Mawile told him. "Pikachu says that Pokémon who battle like that usually find it really fun, or they wouldn't practice enough. But that's okay, I know you don't like it when Pokémon get hurt."
The Rock-type sat down, nodding a bit, and toyed with his tail.
"Are you going to be doing more contest things?" he asked. "I liked the first bit with the appeals."
"Well, there is a Contest fairly soon, I think," Brock noted. "Is that right, Dawn?"
"Yeah, I think so," Dawn nodded. "Floaroma, if I'm remembering right. That's in… a day or two, was when we got there last time."
Tyrunt considered that, but as he was about to reply Dawn's Pokétch beeped.
"What does that mean?" Brock asked.
"I don't know," Dawn admitted. "I've been trying to download an app to customize the beep alerts, but for now that could be the alarm clock..."
She checked the electronic device, and cycled through the modes until she found the alert. "Oh, here we are…"
After looking at it for a few seconds, she took her phone out of her bag.
"It lets you know if you have a phone call?" Brock asked.
"I set it up so it lets me know if I get a text," Dawn explained. "It seemed like a good idea at the time."
Turning the phone on, she read the text. "Oh, okay – Princess Salvia is letting me know she'd like to have a Contest some time in the next few days."
"That means Floaroma, right?" Buneary asked.
"Yes, that's right, it means it'll probably be Floaroma," Dawn confirmed.
"Princess?" Tyrunt asked Mawile quietly.
"Humans who get the best dresses," Mawile replied, just as quietly.
Dawn thought for a moment, then nodded. "All right, I'll let her know it should be okay. She says it shouldn't be very busy, so I'll ask her which Pokémon she might want to use in the Contest."
"This is going to be an odd feeling, either way," Buneary said to herself.
Roland swept his forearm down, and a Vacuum Wave flicked off it towards his opponent.
The Dragonair's coiled body shifted sinuously, and the Vacuum Wave missed – crashing into one of the rocky obstacles on the battlefield. There was a secondary creeeaaack as a fracture line in the obstacle gave way, but neither Pokémon noticed – Dragonair was curling around to attack Roland from the side, and Max's Gallade was whirling to match the new attack direction.
Dragonair fired out a burst of green flame, which rolled down on Roland before being blocked by a bright blue shield of hardened air.
"And I only just got used to being immune to Dragon attacks," Roland muttered to himself, then teleported out of the shield before he became too vulnerable.
Dragonair whirled, the beads on his tail glowing, and whipped a Twister at his opponent. That meant Roland had to teleport again, but the Water Pulse directed at him this time was more his speed and he sliced it in half with a quick Slash.
Switching out his Normal-type blade for an Ice Blade, he teleported again to deliver a hit into Dragonair's side. That made the Dragon-type screech, but he wasn't out yet and Roland saw the incoming Fire Blast just in time to get out of there.
Teleporting twice before resting, Roland fused his Ice Blade with Air Slash and then conjured a Fury Cutter for his other arm. Thus prepared, he came running out from behind cover – only to find Dragonair had gone.
"Behind you!" Max called, and Roland jumped into the air just in time to avoid Dragonair hitting him with a Dragon Rush from behind. The blue Dragon Pokémon coiled around into a circle and launched himself up to follow Roland, and Max's Gallade had to fight hard with both blades to fend off a ferocious combination of Extremespeed attacks.
The sequence of blows came faster and faster, and while Roland was blocking all of them he realized that that might not even be what Dragonair was trying to do – instead, every block was knocking Roland backwards, making him move faster, and-
-Roland teleported out just before Dragonair slammed him into the ground.
"Is this a knight against a dragon?" Karen asked, amused.
"No, that would be a Gardevoir," Will replied. "At least, if you want the knight to be a sir."
Karen gave him a confused look, then shrugged and turned back to the battle.
Will quirked his lips. "I suppose they're not all guaranteed to be funny."
"I think you just need to know a lot more about that evolutionary line," Bruno suggested. "How do you think the Gallade's doing?"
"I'm not sure why he keeps doing those things with his blade moves," Will admitted, as Roland let his combined weapon disintegrate and built a new one out of Leaf Blade and Psycho Cut. "But with that in mind, that style's good and fluid. A lot of teleportation to control the engagement, which is good against a Pokémon as fast as a Dragonair, and he's using both melee and ranged attacks."
Max watched as Dragonair darted overhead – having done a hairpin turn and effectively cancelled out his own momentum, the Dragon-type went up high enough to see where Roland had gone before coming back down again, and a Dragon Pulse flashed out.
Almost as soon as Dragonair had fired, it was flying up again to come down somewhere else – trying to catch Roland before he teleported, and hit him with a powerful Dragon-type attack. But as far as Max could tell, Roland was still keeping ahead of his foe, teleporting at the drop of a hat to avoid any of Dragonair's attacks connecting, but the speed required was preventing the Gallade from counterattacking.
"Roland, Psychic!" Max called. "Catch that attack!"
His Gallade happened to be on top of one of the rocky spires as Max spoke, and he spread out his hands towards Dragonair's blast of dragonflame.
A glow flashed to life around them both, and the fire distorted – not burning out, not slamming into Roland, but trapped in a bubble of psychic energy.
Before he lost control of it, Roland made the flames move quickly. He whipped it around behind his back, gaining speed, then threw it back at Dragonair.
The Dragon-type dodged as his own attack was returned to him, but then realized his error – Roland's other hand flashed a brilliant pink-blue, and he fired a wide spread Dazzling Gleam attack.
Dragonair roared as the attack hit – Roland's diffuse attack preventing him from dodging, and still doing plenty of damage as the attack hit all of Dragonair – then dove down to get revenge on Roland.
Roland's hand stopped glowing, and he vanished in a flash of light to appear in mid-air. He caught the Dragon Pulse he'd thrown up before it left the arena, and wrapped it around his body as a shield as he dropped towards Dragonair.
"Overhead!" Max's opponent shouted, and Dragonair did another of his now-customary hairpin turns. He inhaled, gathering his power for a Draco Meteor, and launched it up at the sphere of captive Dragon Pulse overhead.
The glowing meteor rushed upwards, and exploded as it hit the sphere – dispersing it in a moment, revealing nothing inside.
Then Roland hit Dragonair with a Dazzling Gleam from below, which stunned Dragonair badly enough to knock him out of the sky and crashing to the ground.
Both hands flashing as he conjured a pair of Ice Blades, Roland crossed them together over Dragonair's face as the Dragon-type shook himself back to awareness.
"Yield," he requested.
Dragonair stared up at him, then nodded and thumped his tail twice.
He's surrendered, Roland informed both trainers and the referee, and after a moment's pause Dragonair was returned.
"Okay, that's two down," Max mused. "Are you okay to stay out, Roland?"
Sure! Roland replied, raising a hand in salute to his trainer. I'll do my best!
"Referee?" the other trainer asked. "Can I check what the rules are on Mega-Evolved Pokémon?"
"You're allowed one," the referee replied. "Any more than that have to be confirmed with your opponent."
"That's fine, I've only got one Pokémon left to use in this battle," the other trainer said, and sent out a Kangaskhan.
"Technically that's two Pokémon, sort of," the referee said, then shook his head. "It's okay, you're not in trouble."
"Great!" Max's opponent grinned, and held out a Mega Ring.
Kangaskhan's Mega Stone flared up, in sync with the Mega Ring, and when the light faded Max had his first proper look at a Mega Kangaskhan.
At first it looked as though nothing had changed at all – no new features or colour changes. But then he saw the younger Kangaskhan, who had come out of her mother's pouch and grown to a much heftier size.
The two of them struck a combined pose, and Roland readied himself.
"Aerial Ace!" their trainer ordered, and the mother Kangaskhan picked up her daughter before flinging her at Roland at speed.
Roland blocked with crossed blades, making the smaller Normal-type bounce off and upwards, and teleported in closer to the larger one to deliver a Fury Cutter attack.
"Now, Comet Punch!"
Roland dodged away from the left hook the mother Kangaskhan threw at him, but then took a hefty blow to the back from the daughter – who landed next to her parent after delivering the punch, close enough for the two to exchange a high-five.
"Wait, what just happened?" Max asked. "They both attack at once?"
He shook his head. "Roland, it's a two-against-one fight!"
"Earthquake!" his opponent ordered, and the two Kangaskhan punched the ground in sequence. The bigger one did first, making the ground jump violently and sending some of the pillars crashing to the ground, and Roland teleported into the air to avoid it – then the second one made the ground shake as well, less powerfully but still enough to unsettle Roland as he landed.
Teleporting behind them, he used Vacuum Wave to score a quick hit – then got knocked back by a pair of near-simultaneous Aqua Tail attacks. Two Shock Waves followed him as he regathered his wits and teleported away, and he had to decoy them into a fallen rock.
It was at that point he discovered just how many rocks a Mega Kangaskhan duo using Rock Slide could throw at him.
"So, it's not just Giovanni's Mega Kangaskhan who's a difficult proposition to fight," Lance said out loud.
"You had trouble with her?" May asked, looking around as Max returned Roland. "That sounds…"
"Remember, all Gym Leaders have to have beaten one of us, even if it is with reasonably equal teams," Lance pointed out. "But yes, she was very effective – she managed to out-Outrage one of my Dragonites, actually."
"How would you deal with her if you had to fight her now, then?" May asked.
"I've got a few ideas," Lance demurred. "The most important thing is probably to just stay out of the way, though the mother can throw the younger Kangaskhan as you saw."
May nodded. "Okay… but I suppose staying out of the way isn't really legal in official battles."
"It is unless you overdo it," Bruno supplied. "The rules about that are really complicated-"
He cut himself off. "Huh, you don't see that often. Did your brother just send out a Mythical Pokémon?"
"Okay, Jirachi!" Max called out. "You know what to do!"
Jirachi nodded, head tilting forwards, and flew through the air to a point over the middle of the stadium. His tags glowed, and then the ground underneath the Kangaskhan duo exploded.
The mother Kangaskhan grabbed her daughter out of the air before they landed, taking the impact herself, then set her down just long enough for the two to exchange a nod.
Jirachi's next Future Sight attack missed, as the Kangaskhan separated by diving in opposite directions. Rolling to get back upright, they both shot Shadow Balls up at Jirachi to form a pincer movement.
Max's most powerful Steel-type evaded by dodging to the right, only getting caught in the fringes of the ghostly explosion as the attacks collided, but no sooner had he recovered than two Shock Waves flashed up at him.
They hit his spherical shield, producing an odd-looking effect as the seeking electrical attacks bounced repeatedly over the surface of the Light Screen trying to find a way in. Neither managed it, and both faded after bouncing around enough to outline the shield from a dozen or so points.
Jirachi had just enough time to feel proud about the results before getting caught in some paired Fire Blasts.
As the flames dissipated, the spectators saw Jirachi had vanished.
"I assume he teleported," Will commented. "A lot of Psychic-types can and do."
"Yeah, he could do that before, but mostly he relied on blowing things up with Future Sight," May supplied. "I think he's definitely improved!"
"It's a little surprising such an old Pokémon would be so inexperienced," Will began, then saw May looking a little startled. "What is it?"
"Oh, just – I know he's been around for thousands and thousands of years," May explained, "but it's hard to see Jirachi as old. He's pretty young, really, because he hasn't actually lived most of that time – he was just frozen in a kind of sleep mode. He acts like a little kid, and he likes making giant sandwiches and sleeping in late."
"I see," Will replied. "My apologies, then… and I suppose I should have realized not many wild Pokémon would dare attack a Jirachi, anyway."
"There's that too," May agreed.
Jirachi popped up again, flying over one of the (now scarcer) rocky pillars, and fired a Charge Beam at the larger one of the Kangaskhan. The electrical attack did hit, but it didn't look like it did much – especially as Jirachi had to duck back down behind the hill to avoid a Shadow Ball, and flew backwards a moment later as the daughter Kangaskhan's Shadow Ball hit him.
His shield took the hit, shedding it without much damage, but it took a moment for Jirachi to see out of the smoky residue – and by the time he did, the mother Kangaskhan had thrown her daughter at him again.
The daughter slammed home a powerful punch into the top of Jirachi's shield as she went past, knocking him back towards her mother, and then bounced off the arena wall and followed him back.
Two punches hit the force screen at once, and it flashed in warning – and both Kangaskhan glowed as the punches lent them energy, making them stronger.
"Jirachi!" Max called, cupping his hands around his mouth. "This is a bit crazy, but – try Skill Swap!"
Up in the Elite Four box, confused looks were exchanged.
"Does Skill Swap work on whatever it is Mega Kangaskhan do?" Bruno asked, directing his question at Will.
"Good question," Will replied. "Let's find out."
"You don't know?" Karen blinked. "I thought Psychic specialists were all about knowing those kinds of tricks."
They watched as Jirachi dodged away from a small flying Kangaskhan, then spread his arms and opened his third eye.
It flashed, blinking once, and then the flying Kangaskhan abruptly stopped flying. The glow of her various performance boosts cut out with startling suddenness, and she yelped in surprise.
Her mother made a diving catch, snagging her out of the air, and gave her a concerned examination before asking a question.
The smaller Kangaskhan replied, and was gently put down by her parent.
"I think that's a yes," Will noted, taking out a small notebook and writing it down. "Though I believe that now means the Mega Kangaskhan has Serene Grace."
He looked up at Jirachi. "Also, Jirachi now has a double following him."
"This feels really odd!" Jirachi reported, looking at a slightly translucent copy of himself. "I can sort of see what it's seeing..."
He reached out a hand, as if to a mirror, but discovered that it was not a reflection – the faux Jirachi put out its right hand as well, and he ended up shaking hands with his double.
"Look out!" Max shouted, and Jirachi glanced down. He saw an incoming rock, yelped, and dove out of the way.
Spinning on his own axis, Jirachi tried out a Charge Beam, and the double following him through his dodges did the same thing as well. The flickering beam of electrical energy was weaker than his own, but still there, and Mega Kangaskhan shouted her annoyance as the attacks struck home.
Enraged, she jumped into the air with a powerful Bounce – aiming to come down on top of Jirachi and flatten him to the ground.
"Psyshock!" Max ordered.
Jirachi fired off his Psyshock attack, which only just clipped Mega Kangaskhan's tail. The double fared even worse, missing entirely, and Jirachi barely noticed the defensive field protecting the audience ripple before he was landed on by a large and angry kangaroo.
His shield lit up as it took the impact, then lit up again as it took the much heftier impact with the ground – having to support the entire weight of Mega Kangaskhan along with most of the energy of her enhanced Bounce attack.
"Any good ideas, Max?" Jirachi asked, throwing Mega Kangaskhan off with his telekinesis only to get hit by a Fire Punch which set him on fire. "Ow!"
"I'm thinking," Max replied, going through all the moves he knew Jirachi had learned. "Uh… Flash!"
"Do you mean Flash Cannon?" Jirachi asked.
"No, Flash!" Max reiterated, and Jirachi lit up like a camera-flash.
So did his double. The paired flare of light threw Mega Kangaskhan's next attack off, making her hit the floor instead, and Jirachi sighed in relief at the reprieve from being punched a lot.
Then he scratched his head, which was still on fire.
"Now, Hyper Beam!" Max added.
"Okay!" Jirachi replied, tags lighting up.
"Kangaskhan, look out!" his opponent called. "Dodge… uh… wait, left? No, your left!"
Both Jirachis fired, within a moment of one another. Mega Kangaskhan's dodge took her out of the way of the first beam, but the second still hit her and knocked her flying into the back wall.
Norman turned from the TV to his wife.
"Darling..."
"What is it, dear?" Caroline replied, smiling.
"I was wondering if it would be polite to ask our next door neighbour Gardevoir to help me with an experiment?"
"Would that experiment involve Slaking, Kangaskhan and a Mega Stone, by any chance?" Caroline asked.
"...it doesn't have to..."
"I think that means Mama's beaten," the daughter Kangaskhan said, watching as she shrank back to her normal size. "That was really odd."
She looked up at Jirachi. "And a bit unfair! I was enjoying fighting… and… um, are you meant to be on fire?"
"I should probably get that sorted out," Jirachi agreed. "Hold on a moment, I'll do it properly."
He cleared his throat, then went flying back towards Max. "Aaaah! I'm on fire!"
The young Kangaskhan watched him go, then sat down.
"Older Pokémon are strange sometimes," she said to herself.
A moment later, she vanished with her mother into their Pokéball.
Marowak whipped her hand out to the side, conjuring a tough thigh bone with a slight metallic shimmer to it.
Examining it for a moment, she shook her head before dispersing it.
"This is frustrating," she said out loud.
"What's frustrating?" Cacturne asked, leaning over. "I think this is a pretty relaxing day so far."
"It's not that," Marowak replied. "We had a mission, and we've made no progress on it – and not for lack of trying."
"Right, that," Cacturne realized. "Well… I don't know what to tell you. You and Abra were doing the sweep of the lower levels, right?"
Marowak nodded her confirmation. "No sign," she said. "It was like they'd abandoned the place long ago."
She manifested another thigh bone, and smacked it into her palm with a whack. "I don't like failing."
"I tend to think there's not much point being upset about failure if success wasn't an option," Cacturne opined.
The Grass-type held up an arm. "Acupuncture?"
Confused, Marowak tilted her head. "Pardon?"
"Audino suggested it," Cacturne informed her. "It's apparently quite relaxing. I thought you might want to give it a try."
As Marowak thought about it, Carnivine dipped the tip of one of his vines in the pot of paint to his side.
He let a few drops fall off, then carefully painted a yellow stripe onto his canvas. Pulling the vine back and examining the results, he then washed the vine and put his other one into the brown paint pot – just getting a fleck, this time, and starting to drybrush.
Seviper had a look, and nodded. "Not a bad painting of Weezing," he said.
"Thanks," Carnivine replied.
"Does he know you're doing it?" Seviper added, looking at the sleeping – and colourful – Weezing.
"I did tell him," Carnivine informed Seviper loftily. "So… no idea..."
Seviper considered the ethics of the situation, then slithered in a serpentine shrug. "Whatever. Arbok's asked me to help demonstrate some comedy thing to Mime Jr. - interested?"
"I think I'll keep painting," Carnivine begged off. "I'm thinking of calling this 'Alolan Muk Style Weezing'."
"So this Charlie person was a tramp?" Mime Jr. asked.
"No, that's his character," Arbok replied, a little testily. "Are you sure you've been paying attention?"
"I don't know, I wasn't paying attention," Mime Jr. replied.
Arbok hissed out a sigh, then noticed a little smirk on Mime Jr.'s face. "You scamp!"
The serpent shook his head. "I'm going to guess you already knew about Charlie Chaplin, then."
"Of course I do!" Mime Jr. replied. "James showed me once!"
His hand went to his mouth. "Or I assume he did. He left some recordings in his quarters when he went to Unova, and I watched them all, and some of them were Chaplin comedy. But I might be a bit sketchy on which one is which… was he the one who had a house fall on him but he was standing in the window?"
"No, that's Buster Keaton," Arbok answered. "Huh, I wonder if James has that collection yet, I've been meaning to watch some of those films for the longest time..."
He shook the idea off. "Anyway, I was thinking it might be good if you could do that kind of thing in combat."
"What, having a house fall on me?" Mime Jr. asked.
"No, the Chaplin thing," Arbok corrected. "A bit of slapstick, you know. Plus it would be good for a contest too."
He paused. "But perhaps first we should go over which comedian Charlie Chaplin actually was. I don't think we want you trying to drop a piano down a flight of stairs..."
"Oooh..." Chimecho said, leaning into Gyarados' mouth.
He turned his head away a little as the big Water-type exhaled, then leaned back and used his psychic powers to lift up a yardstick.
Carefully twisting it, he measured how many inches there were between Gyarados' gums, then repeated the number to himself a few times.
"What are you doing?" Dustox asked.
"Seeing which Pokémon is the big mouth!" Chimecho answered happily. "Jessie said Meowth was, but I don't think he is."
Dustox blinked. "All… right, then?" she said, a little bemused. "Well… you do that, then, if that's what you want to do."
"I'm measuring Victreebel next!" Chimecho added. "I think he might be the big mouth."
As Dustox took that in – and wondered whether her memory of her own once-and-future young was flawed, because none of them had ever had ideas this odd – she heard a muffled cough from the other end of the camp site.
"Okay, dat ain't too bad," Meowth judged. "But you gotta use youse tongue more ta form the words."
Moltres nodded, clacking her beak once, and tried again. "'y 'ame is 'oltre," she mumbled.
Shaking her head, she switched back to her first language. "Was that any better?"
"Still got room ta improve," Meowth told her. "But it's gettin' better, all right… tell ya what, let's try dat list of simple syllables again."
As Moltres crossed her eyes, ready to go down the list, Meowth held up a paw. "Just a moment, though. What did you say was your reason for dis, again?"
"I want to be able to introduce myself to humans," Moltres said. "To make me more intimidating. But so far I think I'm just going to sound like I need a throat sweet."
"Yeah, learnin' human ain't easy," Meowth shrugged. "Or everyone would do it. But you got the talent so far, so keep at it."
Moltres nodded, and tried again. "Ay. 'geeee..."
"Dat one sounds like one of the problems," Meowth noted.
As he gestured for her to keep going, Pikachu tapped him on the shoulder.
"Oh, hey," he said, turning. "New costume?"
"Sort of," Pikachu replied, showing him what she was wearing – a tailored Rocket jumpsuit, with the red R on the front and back and a lined hole for the tail. "I was actually interested to see if it counted as a costume at all."
Moltres leaned closer, interested as well. "So?"
In reply, their eclectic Electric-type ally shrugged. "I don't always know what moves they give, it sometimes means I need to experiment."
"Moltres, you better get ready to catch her," Meowth advised. "Knowin' what usually happens to us, she might go flyin'!"
Moltres nodded.
Cosplay Pikachu put her paws together, then flickered and produced a pair of illusory duplicates of herself.
Meowth and Moltres stared for a moment.
"That feels sort of like an anticlimax, really..." Moltres muttered.
"Nothing like a barbecue on a hillside," James sighed, smelling the woodsmoke coming from Audino's crackling cooking fire. "Don't you think so, Jessie?"
"You might be right," Jessie nodded. "You might be right."
She looked out over the landscape of western Sinnoh, and sighed.
"Problem?" James asked.
"Oh, just thinking about Dustox," Jessie replied. "I don't think it'd be right to stop her going off with her mate, but I will miss her."
"Yeah," James agreed, taking a hot dog from Audino. "We've been lucky to have so many of our Pokémon for so long."
He took a bite, then frowned. "...why is nobody else coming for dinner?"
Did you remember to tell them it was dinner time? Abra asked.
"...oops," James blushed. "I'll go do that..."
AN:
Slight delay on this one owing to a rather nasty cold, but I've managed to (just about) keep to the schedule of 1K words per day, six days a week.
Anyway – more battle on Indigo Plateau, including a very odd example of an ability not being exempted from Skill Swap, and looking in on other people.
As for Cameron... yeah. I have some plans for him, but suffice to say Pikachu at least is not happy about his own performance in that one.
