This is the second of two chapters today.


Dawn sent out both of her Pokémon, with Piplup coming out first and doing a forwards flip to land on the floor. Quilava came out a moment later, and the two shared a look.

"Remember, guys, the enemy's over there," Dawn pointed out. "You can argue later."

"Yeah, we can argue about the qualities of Ueda castle later," Quilava decided, as on the other side of the battlefield Drew's Masquerain and Butterfree both emerged from their own Pokéballs.

"Ueda castle?" Piplup repeated. "We moved off that topic four days ago! We're on the relative merits of film franchises."

"We were, but I decided that that topic was garbage," Quilava countered, his ruff blazing up a little. "It's pretty obvious which is better, you just go online and average the film reviews."

"You know as well as I do that averaging reviews doesn't tell the whole story!" Piplup said crossly. "It doesn't allow for niche appeal, and it's terrible if what you're trying to do is get a good picture of the franchise as a whole – a series with an absolute platonic ideal of a film and the worst one ever made would be on the same level as eighteen poorly done, samey middle of the road pieces which people like but don't love. It fails to appreciate how a given work is-"

He bit the words off and went on a tangent, illustrating his words with a flourish of his flipper. "The point is, there's plenty of nuanced and interesting questions we just haven't answered! Moving on from it as a topic is premature and short-sighted!"

"A topic can be tired out well before the number of remaining questions drops to zero," Quilava countered. "And the fact of the matter is, we're starting to sound like we know all our lines on the topic already."

As they continued meta-arguing, Drew shrugged. "Masquerain, use Silver Wind – Butterfree, pick it up with a Whirlwind!"

His Pokémon did as instructed, piping the Silver Wind into Butterfree's Whirlwind to give it a glittering corona.

"Water Sport!" Drew finished, and Masquerain flicked some of the pool water up into the whirlwind. They combined together to form a cylindrical mass of glowing water, held in the grip of Butterfree's whirlwind, and Drew slashed his arm down to signal that they should open fire.

"Guys..." Dawn said, warningly.

"I think you're being deliberately obtuse!" Piplup said, twisting a little. "And I want no more to do with this line of argument!"

He spun rapidly, producing a Whirlpool, and the Whirlpool bent down to wrap around Quilava before flinging him into the sky.

A moment later, the combination attack from his opponents arrived – and most of it was swept up in the Whirlpool as well, Piplup's faster spin overpowering the rotational momentum of Butterfree's one and capturing the majority of the material. The rest flicked all over the place, producing a sprinkler-pattern of glowing droplets, and Drew blinked.

"Wait – look up!" he shouted.

Quilava broke out of his Flame Wheel, which had shielded him from most of the water around him as he was flung into the air, and twisted to reorient himself before spinning up again – doing pirouettes in mid-air, this time, instead of a spindash like Ash's Quilava.

A curtain of flame spread across the central section of the arena, like an umbrella, and Quilava used Eruption to keep himself in the air a little longer – bringing the flame curtain down as a capture-net to keep the Bug-and-Flying-types from escaping.

Piplup accelerated his spin and took off, spreading his whirlpool out and sucking up more water from the pool, and the two flattened hemispheres met with an echoing, building crash that sent spray everywhere.

Butterfree and Masquerain emerged from the blast a little scorched, then had to dodge wildly aside as Quilava and Piplup used Fire and Water Pledge respectively. A brilliant rainbow spread out as the fire-water combination moves settled down, spray going everywhere and falling back to the pool in a series of gradated sheets – big heavy droplets first, with the smaller, mistier ones coming later.

Piplup popped his head up out of the pool, looking at Quilava on the poolside. "Well, that's the opener… now what?"

"They're in the air, so make sure you stay there too," Dawn suggested. "Piplup, freeze a platform and then take Quilava up!"

"You don't mean the jet trick, do you?" Piplup asked.

"Bet she does."

"Yep," Dawn confirmed. "Ice fire jet!"

Piplup duly froze a ring of ice, and Quilava jumped onto it. He adjusted his footing a little, then flared a bit of heat through his feet – melting little pawholds for himself – and waited as Piplup dove underwater.

There was a pause of a few seconds, and a Bubble attack boosted by a Gust came flicking down at Quilava with the speed of a Bubblebeam. Then Piplup's new Whirlpool worked up to speed, and Quilava's ice platform took off with a shoom of water. It rose slowly, up to about head height, and Drew signalled his Pokémon to attack the platform and drop Quilava off into the water.

About a second later, Quilava inhaled deeply, then fired a powerful Inferno right down through the middle of the ring. The water in the whirlpool soaked up the heat, and some of it was so heated that it flashed into steam – giving the whole thing a massive steam-rocket kick in the base, shooting Quilava high into the air.


Mawile checked off another box on her checklist.


The combination ice-and-steamjet craft went right past the altitude Drew's Bug-types were at, and kept going – reaching up and up until it finally lost coherency, then the jet unravelled from the bottom up and left both Pokémon in mid-air.

They hung there for a moment, and Piplup exchanged a glance with Quilava.

"Rose?" he asked.

"Rose," Quilava confirmed. "Just make sure the vortex is stable."

Piplup waved a flipper irritably, then used Whirlpool again – spinning himself up a tornado of water, which reached down to the pool and connected. It bulked out in an instant, and Drew considered for a moment before waving.

"Put spore moves into it!" he called.

Butterfree's wings flared, producing a glowing cloud of Stun Spores, and Masquerain used Gust to drive them into the vortex.

As they did, however, Quilava used Eruption.

The first, immediate consequence that everyone saw was a gigantic plume of flame spiking up into the air, shaped by air currents and by the rising power of the hot air into a licking flower of bright red fire. It came in sheets, spiking up and then falling again, and at any given time the outer layers were formed of enclosing, overlapping petals – the flower of a rose.

Water was forced out by the power of the blast, drawn up and disintegrating into mist, and created the outer leaves to go with the petals. But Quilava's attack was intended to keep them in the air, not rocket them back into the water, and even more power went down – contained inside Piplup's intense Whirlwind, but lighting it up a sea-green colour from within as the Fire-type stoked his flames yellow inside.

Then Piplup worked an instability into the whirlpool, which went flicking downwards and mixed a little packet of water consistently with the flames to heat it to boiling point. Another, a moment later, which got just as much.

Then two leaves burst out of the stem of the rose, formed of water boiling into steam with a core shot through with yellow flame, and one of them knocked Masquerain out of the air and sent him crashing into the water below.


"Wow!" Serena gaped. "I… didn't know you could do that with Pokémon moves! That's a giant-"

She stopped suddenly, remembering the time, and blushed. Oops…

Serena listened for a long moment, to see if she'd actually woken up her mother, then returned to the screen.

Dawn had told her some of what her Pokémon had done, and that was one thing, but watching the whole process live was quite different and very entertaining. From the ice-skating Mamoswine, to Pachirisu's electrical art in the first battle round, and now this… it was just amazing.


At the same time, much closer to the cup itself, Princess Salvia smiled.

It was good to see that her Togekiss was in such good hands – especially in terms of doing what she'd always wanted, to perform in Contests.

Depending on how this went, she'd have to send Dawn something. Either congratulations or commiserations, just to let Dawn know she'd been watching.


"I'll have to get someone with a Fire-type to try that with me," Wallace mused. "She goes through?"

"Yes, that took the rest of Drew's points away," Contesta agreed. "A fine performance indeed – she reminds me a little of May Maple, actually."

"I think they're friends," Joy contributed. "They both know Ash Ketchum, anyway, and I can see his influence on both of them – though in different ways, I think."

"Remarkable!" Mr. Sukizo stated.

"Well, let's move on to the next one," Wallace said. "It's time for the first semi-final, which looks like… Jesselina against May Maple. That should be interesting, I think they've clashed before in the Kanto Grand Festival final."

"That does sound like quite a treat."


"How does that checklist work?" Max asked, leaning over to watch as Mawile paged through it.

"Oh, it's pretty simple," Mawile replied. "I'm trying to count all the Pokémon who can fly under their own power, or who can fly with only a little help. So being lifted by another Pokémon doesn't count, but with Quilava just now he was the one doing all the pushing – the steam jet wouldn't have worked without him supplying the heat."

She nodded towards her trainer. "I've got a collapsible wooden pair of glider wings now, so I can fly by myself too! It goes in Ash's bag most of the time, but I can fly by myself if I want – and it's great fun. That's what I really like about flying, the sense of freedom and wonder."

"It sounds like it," Max admitted. "Are you thinking about how to have Tyrantrum fly?"

"I'd like him to be able to, but it's something which is kind of tricky to set up," Mawile agreed. "Hmmm… I wonder if you can teach someone levitation by resistance training..."

"I don't think I'm ready to try flying around with just my mind," Tyrantrum deferred. "And I don't think the world would be ready for me, either. People get scared enough when they see big teeth outside their window when it's a ground floor window..."


"Roland hasn't turned up yet," Kirlia complained, turning to her mother. "When's he going to appear?"

"That's actually May who's doing this one," Caroline pointed out gently. "Your brother's trainer is Max, not May. So he won't."

"Aww..." Kirlia sighed, then shrugged. "Ah well! I can get him to show off that trick he was all proud of a bit later."

"I think Max mentioned that one… the sword one, right?" Norman checked.

"That's right!" Kirlia agreed.

"Remember to use your psychic powers, dear," Gardevoir warned. "You forgot to translate for Norman and Caroline that time."

"Whoops… sorry," Kirlia blushed. "Yes, the sword one."


May stood by the side of the pool, and sent out her Pokémon – her starter, Blaziken, who landed with a whump on the lip of the pool itself.

As he straightened, her opponent – Jessie – sent out her own Pokémon, Pikachu.

"Huh," Blaziken said, interested. "Rematch. What's that costume, then?"

"Well, sort of a rematch," Cosplay Pikachu agreed, adjusting her trainers, then tightened her headband. "And I thought about doing a comic-book speedster, but all the really iconic ones are male..."

"That's never stopped you before," Blaziken replied.

"No, I just dressed as a sprinter," Cosplay-chu agreed, then used Extremespeed.

Blaziken burst into motion as well, heading out over the water, and pirouetted to slash out a Blaze Kick at his opponent before cornering fast and throwing up a spray of water as he did. The attack missed, Cosplaychu just sliding underneath it with her own plume of water, and electricity gathered around her cheeks before flicking out in a Thunderbolt.

The Thunderbolt hit a shower of water kicked up by Blaziken and blew it apart, neutralized by the charge soak, and Blaziken landed by the poolside before crouching slightly and running in again.

Despite their ability to use ranged attacks, both Pokémon stuck largely to very close-in moves as they continued to battle back and forth over the pool and poolside – wanting to avoid relying on an attack their opponent could easily dodge or block in the time it took to travel or to be aimed. Both Pokémon shot up clouds of spray, with Blaziken producing a larger plume due to his greater mass, and the trails hung in the air for several seconds before settling – by which point the running Pokémon had thrown up several more, newer, patterns to join them.

It was like watching an elaborate fountain display, as the two rooster-tails of spray flicked back and forth and came together before speeding apart again – lit from below by the light of a Thunderbolt or a Flamethrower or a Spark or a Fire Punch.


Wallace blinked. "Well… that's an odd one. I don't think we can actually score this one."

"Can't we ask Jeeves?" Contesta said. "He's filming it fast enough, right?"

"But by the time we'd reviewed ten seconds another minute would have happened," Wallace countered. "At least. We'd just be way too far behind."

He spread his arms. "I think, unless one of you spots anything which is obviously a good thing for one side or the other, we should just enjoy this-"

"Remarkable!"

"-battle," Wallace finished.


Legs a blur, Cosplay Pikachu charged her tail with lightning.

She let it build for a few seconds, holding it all in, then lowered her tail so it just contacted the spray from her extreme speed. Each large droplet fizzed with a sudden charge of electricity, and she ran a wide curve with a blazing trail of electricity following her – trying to trap Blaziken inside an electrical net, and incidentally also letting her look a bit like she was using the Speed Force.

That by itself gave her the energy to speed up, and she just barely avoided catching Blaziken as he did a forwards flip and handspring over her charged-up wall of water. She turned, using her tail to brake her and power-slide around – incidentally throwing up an enormous curtain of water which reached most of the way to the stands – and jumped, slamming her tail down into the water with a bang as she made contact.

Charge spread out in all directions, and she looked up for long enough to wince – Blaziken had managed to avoid the attack by jumping again – before breaking back into a run before she sank.


Landing on the side of the pool rather than the pool itself, Blaziken flared up – driving off the water which had been soaking him gradually over the course of the battle – then checked on his trainer.

She was absolutely sopping wet, and talking quickly to the referee. As he watched, she sent out Manaphy, who giggled before drawing off all the water into a little globe and sitting on it.

"Can you do that for me as well?" her opponent asked, and Manaphy gave her a smile before drying her off too.

Blaziken raised a hand. "Sorry."

"I think it was Pikachu who did it," May said. "Skyfire."

Blaziken nodded, and ran back into the battle – blurring with speed as he approached the poolside, then reaching it and springing almost directly upwards. Flame sparked from his wrists, then he inhaled to shoot down a trail of flame at the pool.

Cosplay Pikachu reacted to that in what was obviously a planned countermove, by running very fast in circles, and a moment later a waterspout began to form – reaching up for Blaziken, swallowing up his fire attack and surging higher to reach him.

"Mirror Move!" May said quickly.

Blaziken's Mirror Move activated, and it copied the move Pikachu was using for the battle – Extremespeed – resulting in an even greater impetus than he normally got from his Speed Boost.

He ran back down the waterspout, accelerating it even more as he went, but the affected section was all behind him and merely tugged at him as it went. His flames ran into it, drawn in by the hungry vortex, and he used Fire Spin to gain greater control over the result – then he came slashing out onto the main pool surface.

Cosplay Pikachu stopped generating her waterspout and turned, trying to trip him up, and the two had a complete martial-arts battle in a few seconds – spray rising up to hide them, and all getting drawn into the whirlpool overhead, which hadn't stopped yet and was in fact getting stronger as it assimilated the energy Blaziken had fed it with his Fire Spin.

Finally, Blaziken flipped backwards once – and slammed an Overheat into the water with both fists. The attack flashed down through the water, and exploded violently beneath the surface – hurling both Pokémon into the air.

Jessie's Pikachu was lighter, which proved to be her undoing – Blaziken had just enough weight to avoid the vortex, but she couldn't and was sucked up into it.

As his final move for the battle, Blaziken used Flame Burst. Weak as it was, it still did what he wanted, as the burst of fire in the middle of the overheated waterspout made the whole thing unravel at once in a mighty column of mist and steam.

Incidentally, it also launched Cosplay Pikachu over half a mile into the air, and Blaziken was catapulted back into the pool.

There were a few tense seconds, then Blaziken clambered out of the pool by the stairs – clearly exhausted, but still in one piece.


"...thirty three seconds?" Wallace asked, on seeing the blinking counter on Jeeves' screen. "That felt like..."

He shook his head. "All right, and we can see why these two Coordinators are so well renowned! May Maple defeats Jesselina in a lightning-fast, red-hot match!"

As Manaphy dried him off, Blaziken stuck his hand out and caught Pikachu's running shoes. Then his other hand went out, and he caught the Pokémon as well.


"Note to self, next time try a hydrokinetic," Cosplay Pikachu mused to herself. "Or perhaps someone with speed reducing powers… hmmm, vector control?"

"Ain't you gonna watch the final?" Meowth asked, startling the Pikachu out of contemplation.

"Wait, the final's happening already?" she asked, running the towel over her ears one more time. "What happened to the other semi final?"

It wasn't relevant enough to show, Abra supplied, floating lazily past. Dawn won.

"Show what?" Meowth asked. "Ain't that gonna make people angry if they didn't put somethin' on TV?"

Not what I meant, Abra replied, before teleporting off.

"He's always seemed a bit odd," Carnivine mused. "Well, shall we?"


Dawn looked down at her Pokéball, and took a deep breath.

"No need to worry," she said, not quite sure who she was reassuring. "It doesn't matter if we win, we've done well already."

May waved to her, and Dawn waved back before taking a stronger grip on her Pokéball.

At the signal, she sent out her Pokémon – Buneary, who came out onto the battlefield in a flash of smoke and bounded up above the cloud to wave at the crowd.

A moment later, May's own Pokémon materialized – Ethan's pink-and-blue curves coming out of thin air, before forming a complete Porygon2 shape.

"Ready for this?" Dawn checked.

Buneary nodded, "Ready!"

"Begin!" the announcer called.

Ethan immediately reconfigured, going from his normal form to an oddly prosaic airborne shape, and soared into the air. Buneary bounced from foot to foot, ready to react, and Ethan began to circle as he planned what to do.


I did not realize Ethan had developed that trick, Dexter relayed, as they all listened to the drone of Ethan's 'engine'. It's a very interesting one. A pity it doesn't count as a new one for Mawile's list.

"What is it?" Ash asked, curious. "I get he's a plane – a propeller plane as well – but is there anything special about it?"

Not especially, Dexter told him. It's a biplane, that's all – there's not enough information to tell more. If it had three wings I could tell more, but biplanes were quite common.

Ethan turned in on himself, firing Ice Beams which splashed across the pool and ground towards Buneary. The lapine Pokémon dodged them nimbly, bouncing back and forth, then jumped up in a massive leap which put her on course to catch Ethan's wing.

"Roll!" May called, and Ethan did an aileron roll to avoid being caught. Buneary's own Ice Beam hit him in the side, fired as she fell, and Ethan shimmered for a moment before shifting to Fire-type with a Conversion move.

One of the pairs of wings vanished, no longer needed, and the other one streamlined – becoming more rounded, sleeker, and considerably faster. The drone of the engine took on a sharper note, more like a continuous hammering beat several times a second, and Ethan circled higher this time.

Now this one is specific. Dexter replicated the wireframe-and-polygon model on his screen, rotating it, and highlighting the pink circles and recognition markings on the tail. It's an A6M5 fighter, and quite a good representation as well. I could probably tell you which carrier it's from if you give me a moment.

Ethan pulled up into an Immelmann turn, hung in the air for a moment, then tumbled before settling down onto a new course – almost directly downwards. His weapons flashed, firing Psybeams, and then a Zap Cannon flashed out straight at Buneary.

Dawn's Normal-type did a backflip, aimed for the Zap Cannon, then punched it.

Her fist went nowhere near. But a crackling electrical fist the size of a person did hit the Zap Cannon, blowing it apart, and Ethan pulled up as it dissipated to avoid getting too close.

"That's new, right?" Max asked.

"No comment," Pikachu said, which made everyone look over at him suspiciously.


Ethan circled once, wings out, then pulled up again. This time he let himself stall, and fell in a falling-leaf manoeuvre which lined him up with Buneary at seemingly random times. Each time he did, Tri Attacks flashed out – creating a complex web of laserlike attack beams, hitting Buneary twice and making her flinch.

As he reached the low point of his unorthodox attack run and cancelled his stall, however, Buneary broke into a run. She used Ice Beam to create a ramp, slid along it for a moment to launch into the air, and a glowing blue aura of Ice-typed energy surrounded her. She lashed out with it, throwing a little punch which became a massive Ice Punch as the energy flowed into it, and Ethan's Reflect came up just in time to divert some of the force of the blow.

Flipping over in mid-air, Buneary kicked out at the shapechanging Porygon2 – this attack expanding as well, managing to clip him on the base of the fuselage and knocking him upwards with a skein of ice across him.

There was a louder buzz from his engine, and the ice shivered off in pieces as Buneary skid-landed. Flames flickered over his body as he put his Converted Fire-type to use, and he pulled up in a high, looping turn before releasing something small and round.

Dawn looked closer, and blinked. "A… Sitrus berry?"

Ethan used Gravity, and the berry slammed into the ground with the force of a small bomb. Buneary was knocked into the air, then focused and recreated her glowing aura of ice. Her spectral feet caught her, stopping her from hitting the ground too hard, then dissolved again as she squinted up at Ethan.

Dawn checked the score, frowning – Buneary's new trick was helping, but Ethan's air-display of a fighting style was clearly a crowd-pleaser too and they were pretty close to level. This could be tricky.

A flash of green light pulsed over Ethan as he Recycled, then he pulled up-around-and-down into a dive. Another Sitrus berry dropped from his 'bomb bay', and he used Gravity again-

-and Buneary used a Fire Punch.

Boosted by her elemental aura, it knocked the Sitrus Berry right back up at Ethan and smacked into his left wing. The vector construct splintered, shimmering a bit as Ethan tried to concentrate, and he pulled up with a spluttering sound coming from his engine.

"Next era!" May called, and Ethan began to change again.


"Do Porygon normally fight like this?" Wallace asked, watching as the blue-and-orange shape shifted – the propeller vanishing, the wings sweeping back and two jet nozzles forming at the rear. "I haven't seen much Porygon battling, but..."

There is insufficient data for a meaningful answer, suh, Jeeves stated, a side window on his screen showing a 3-D model of what Ethan was doing, and highlights appearing around the two vertically stacked engine nozzles. That, however, is a Porygon2.

"Well, whatever it is now – whoah!" Contesta yelped, as Ethan lit off his new 'engines'. He took off at immense speed, flying just about straight up, and did a sliding vertical turn – 'drifting' through an oversized loop – before coming back down towards the battle area at a speed which turned him from a speck to a shape to a diving meteor in only a very few seconds.

He pulled up, skimming the water, and it rippled violently away before surging along the direction he'd been going as the slam of his sonic-boom shockwave echoed around the arena. Buneary was abruptly soaked, and Ethan swooped around in a high-speed turn to aim an Ice Beam at her.

It hit, but a moment too late as she shucked all the water off – forming it into a pair of bunny ears, which froze to block the Ice Beam attack from actually connecting with her. She discarded them, jumping closer to the pool, and this time the energy that coated her was more of a rippling exoskeleton of water. She wound up, watching as Ethan circled, then launched a punch at him as he began his dive.

All the water went with her fist, and kept going in a Water Pulse – one which Ethan had to manoeuvre wildly to avoid, and the dartlike shape he'd chosen for his current Contest stage wasn't quite up to it. The edge of the water clipped one wing, knocking him into a tumble, and by the time he recovered he was close to the ground.

Close enough for Buneary, who lashed out with one of her odd Thunderpunches and knocked him into a sliding terrain impact before he pulled up again.

"Get clear!" they heard May shout. "Then go forward!"


"What is it this time..." Dawn muttered to herself. "He's been three aircraft already!"

Buneary shot her a smile, and Dawn smiled back. Then they watched as Ethan reached a safe altitude, and changed.

The engines shifted position, going from two engines stacked atop one another to a side-by-side pair, and the form of the body adjusted as well – widening and flattening, with a prominent cockpit and a double rudder on the tailplane.

The biggest change, however, was the wings, which shifted out to the side – and kept shifting, varying their geometry from swept-back to wide as Ethan turned before going back to a streamlined position as he came down for an attack.

This time he opened with a sequence of Charge Beams, and Buneary summoned a pair of electrical paws to block with. The attacks were powerful enough she winced and slid back a little, but she was experienced with dealing with Electric-type attacks after her training with Pikachu and didn't falter.

Ethan's wings swept out to the side and he rolled, coming off his basic attack path, and stayed out of the radius where Buneary had proven able to attack last time. Still with wings swept for manoeuvrability, he wove through a tricky barrel-roll around the outside of the arena with a mixture of Signal Beams and Charge Beams firing whenever he was pointed at Buneary – who kept moving, dodging out of the way of a Signal Beam one minute and deflecting a Charge Beam into the pool the next.

"Shock Wave!" May instructed.

Buneary jumped higher than before, and dove into the water of the pool just ahead of the first Shock Wave – and Ethan kept firing them, rippling off bunny-seeking electrical attacks one after another after another and making the pool crackle and fizz.

Then he stopped, pulling up a little to circle warily.


Under the water, Buneary finally stopped cloaking herself in Thunderpunch.

The water tingled, repeatedly electrified by Ethan's attacks, and she took a moment to make sure everything was okay before planting both feet firmly on the bottom of the pool.

Then she used Bounce.


Buneary erupted out of the water, and half the pool came with her in one gigantic fist which froze into ice even as she rose. It rose above Ethan's electronic form as she finished solidifying it, and she smacked him down towards the water with all her might.

Ethan flashed once as he fell, changing shape one last time, then three giant engines kicked in and he just-about evaded her descending fist of doom as she tried to finish the job. Now without more than vestigial wings, his futuristic space-fighter of a shape began effectively ignoring physics to dart around and flick Psyshock attacks at Buneary.

Not idle herself, Buneary ditched the gigantic fist as too unwieldy and began getting around with high-speed bounces instead. Using ice to shape the battle area for good movement ramps, fire for explosions to adjust her trajectory and thunder for actual attacks, she was a multicoloured spark which wove a pattern of parabolic arcs and ground-bound skates around Ethan's continuous looping attack-run.


Serena clenched her fists. "Come on, Dawn..."

Blitzle raised his head, blinked at her, then dragged a pillow over his head and went back to sleep.


Sweeping her ice-cloaked feet across the water surface as she slid, Buneary made a big wave of water build up – getting colder and larger with every second. Psyshocks and Psybeams pocked the water around her, and one got close enough she had to block it with a big Ice Punch, then she decided it was big enough and pulsed Ice Beam into the water.

The whole roller froze at once, and she accelerated to triple the previous speed in moments before shooting out of the end like a cork from a bottle. Too close to dodge, Ethan unloaded two point-blank Tri Attacks at her and she punched him square on the nose.

The explosion that resulted made just about everyone watching flinch, and when they looked back they saw Buneary landing with a whump on the ground before struggling to her feet.

Ethan circled once more, trajectory a little wobbly, then dove sideways into the iced-over pool and crashed right through. There was a bright flash that lit the ice from underneath, and May looked down at her Pokédex.

"He's crashed," she reported. "Literally and figuratively…."

"Dizzy Punch," Buneary announced, then sat down again. Quite hard.


"All right!" Pikachu called. "Now that's a finishing move!"

Everyone else in that section of the stands looked at him.

"...ahem," he coughed. "Ignore that… please?"


"Is that Porygon2 going to be okay?" Wallace asked.

Porygon who battle usually employ an armoured projector separate from their physical processor, suh, Jeeves informed him. He will be fine.

"Good to know," Contesta said. "Mr. Sukizo, I think we can agree that was..."

"Fabulous!" the President of the Pokémon Fan Club said clearly.

Nurse Joy gave him a slightly mystified look.

"I agree!" Wallace said, then turned on the microphone. "I think we all agree that Dawn Berlitz has truly earned the Aqua Ribbon today!"


"Dear?"

Serena looked up, blushing. "...Mom? Sorry, I was kind of… loud..."

"Don't worry, it's about time to get up anyway," her mother said, yawning. "I take it your friend won?"

"Yeah, and it was amazing," Serena replied. "Thanks for letting me watch this..."

Grace smiled. "It's clearly made you happy, dear. And you did go to bed early last night to make up for it – and you'll go to bed early tonight, as well!"

Serena nodded.


AN:

And the second half of the Wallace Cup. Doing Contest fighting styles is fun.