This is the second of four chapters today.
Dawn opened the Pokéball she'd picked out, and watched with some surprise as a Raichu materialized.
"Hello," she said. "It's nice to meet you – we're going to be working together for the next couple of days, I hope."
Raichu looked up at her, and nodded – looking a bit nervous. "Yeah, I hope I don't just let you down..."
"We'll see what we can do," Dawn said. "And you don't have to worry about letting me down, I don't expect you to suddenly become the best Electric-type Pokémon there is in just a couple of days or anything like that."
Now Raichu looked confused. "That… was a really odd coincidence."
"It wasn't actually a coincidence," Dawn confided. "I understood what you said, so I thought I'd let you know it won't be a problem."
"Dawn's nice," Buneary added, lending her voice to her trainer. "You don't need to worry that she'll think the worse of you."
"That's just… odd," Raichu admitted. "I didn't even know humans could understand Pokémon."
"The funny thing is, I've heard that a lot lately," Dawn said, mostly to herself.
If this was the Raichu she somewhat-vaguely remembered from last time, then it was the one Ash had helped out. Something about self-confidence issues?
"I think I have an idea," she added. "About what to do for training, I mean."
She listed off ideas on her fingers. "Depending on what you'd rather focus on, we could look at – attack power, attack finesse, speed, or doing something a bit more spectacular."
"Dawn's a Coordinator," Buneary noted.
"Well… I'm not really sure which of those would help," Raichu sighed. "It's probably a waste of time to-"
"Okay, come on," Buneary interrupted him. "Look, here's the thing about training – it helps. It pretty much always helps, so long as you're focusing on what's at least vaguely close to helpful. And the funny thing is, it doesn't matter how strong you are when you start out – you still get stronger, you still get better. Or flashier."
She shook her head. "I'm probably not being very coherent, or… whatever. But I've seen how much it works. So have my friends. And everyone needs training, even the Pokémon who naturally start off really strong."
"But I did try training," Raichu replied. "And it didn't seem to help..."
"Then let's try something else," Buneary said, not letting it go just yet. "Contest training's pretty different to regular training, and while having powerful attacks helps it is actually possible to do an Appeal without ever needing to do much damage."
"I actually did have an idea for something using that tail," Dawn contributed. "Though I'm not sure where we can get some tinfoil on short notice."
Raichu gave her a totally baffled look, them slumped.
"Okay, sure, I guess we'll find out how badly it goes..."
"Hello," Brock said. "It's nice to meet you."
He held out his hand, and the Snover examined it before giving it a tentative touch.
"It feels warm," he noted. "I'm sorry, I don't think I understand?"
"Oh, the idea is that you shake the hand to say hello," Brock explained. "Like this."
He held out his hand to Geodude, who replied with a fist.
"...no, not a fist bump," Brock clarified. "A hand shake."
"Dude, I have my mojo to think of," Geodude objected, then shrugged. "Sure, Brockster, whatever."
He duly shook hands with Brock, who then turned to Snover. "See?"
"I think I understand," Snover said, and held out his hand for Brock to shake.
"All right, I'm guessing you've not interacted much with humans before," Brock decided. "Is that right?"
"Yeah, pretty much," Snover agreed, sighing a little. "It's just… I kind of feel like I'll make a mistake and then I'll upset everyone."
He shook his head. "It's why I keep my ability off, people will just feel so upset about it..."
"Your ability?" Brock said. "That's… Snow Warning, right, the one which makes it start snowing?"
"I saw something about how bad snow can be for human towns," Snover explained. "And I'm worried that if I start, I can't stop before things go wrong."
Brock hummed, thinking about that.
"Well, to me it sounds like what you need is a way to turn it off, or to do something else about it," he said. "I have a couple of ideas, but until then – you don't need to worry for the next couple of days, at least. Stantler knows Sunny Day, so he can cancel out your snow."
"That does sound helpful," Snover said. "You have a Stantler? I don't think I've met them before."
"That's right," Brock agreed. "Would you like to meet him?"
Snover thought about that.
"I… don't think so, not right now," he replied. "The idea of meeting new people has me a bit nervous, and I kind of prefer to be introduced to people one at a time."
"That's not a problem," Brock assured him. "Though I did have an idea for something we could do, if you don't mind."
Snover looked a little apprehensive.
"Nothing risky," Brock clarified. "I wasn't thinking of training, because you seem quite shy and I don't want to make you do something you're uncomfortable with. But I do other things as well, not just Pokémon training, and I think it might be good for you to get involved with those."
"You do?" Snover asked. "What sort of things?"
"Well, I've been studying to become a Pokémon Doctor," Brock told him. "Want to hear about that?"
"That… does sound nice," Snover agreed. "I should have realized some humans are doctors to Pokémon."
"Yeah, it's one of the ways we can help our partners," Brock said. "Let's see, I think I have one of my books in my backpack..."
"Where are the rest of your books?" Snover asked. "Are they where you live?"
"No, my friend Ash has a special bag that's bigger on the inside," Brock told the shy Ice-type. "Here we are… what sort of thing do you want us to look at?"
"...can we look at treating injuries from being cold?" Snover asked. "I think that's something I really should learn..."
"If you want," Brock said. "Just tell me if you're uncomfortable, we'll try something else."
"Heya!" Mawile said brightly. "Nice to meet you!"
"I… well, nice to meet you," said the Stunky she'd sent out of the borrowed Pokéball. "Where's your trainer?"
"Well, he's over there," Mawile said, waving vaguely in the direction she thought Ash had gone. "But I'm going to be helping you out today – I'm technically a trainer too, and I liked the idea of being able to help someone out!"
Stunky gave Mawile a look up and down, noticing the small-size belt she was wearing complete with Cherish Ball, then shook her head. "I… really don't know what to expect any more."
The mephit shrugged. "All right, so… what happens now?"
"Well, hmm… based on what my trainer does, the first step is to talk! Or stop you from destroying the world, but I'm kind of assuming that's not a thing..."
Stunky blinked.
"What?"
"Well, what do you like or dislike?" Mawile suggested. "Is there anything you're bothered by that I could help with?"
"I… huh, okay, this is happening I guess," Stunky said to herself. "So… I do kind of like the idea of having a proper trainer, maybe a Coordinator? But I really don't think that's ever going to happen, because I stink. It's not really something I can prevent, or do anything about at all."
Mawile tilted her head. "Huh. That's actually kind of interesting!"
"...it is?" Stunky asked.
"Well, I'm a Steel type," Mawile explained. "So I'm immune to Poison. But I guess it turns out that means your smell is kinda strong, but not really bad as such? It's hard to really explain it..."
She frowned. "It's still a bit distracting, yeah, I think I might need to give that one some thought… anyway, since I guess I'm your trainer for a bit then maybe we should do some training?"
"How would that even work?" Stunky asked. "I really don't know how trainers train Pokémon, just that it's something they do working with Pokémon."
"Well, a lot of it is just about being friends!" Mawile told her. "I think that's the most important bit. The Pokémon battling or Contest things are basically something the Pokémon enjoys as well, and some of what a trainer does is to find Pokémon who want to join in on what they're interested in."
She put a finger to her chin. "So… hmm, you said you liked the sound of a Coordinator? Does that mean you like the idea of being able to perform in a Contest?"
Stunky nodded. "Yeah, if only…"
"Hold on a moment, please!" Mawile asked. "I'm going to go and ask Brock for some fur shampoo and a comb – and maybe some ribbons, too, I think we've got some ribbons… does that sound nice?"
The Poison-type tilted her head, a little overwhelmed, and Mawile took that for assent and headed off.
"If you're having any problems, just let her know and she'll do her best to sort it out," Tyrantrum advised, making Stunky jump.
Then she winced. "Sorry… I think I sprayed a bit there… oh, no, you're really going to hate me now..."
"It was my fault," Tyrantrum replied, now speaking slightly more indistinctly as he tried not to breathe through his nose. "Don't suppose you know Defog?"
"What's Defog?"
"Okay, so here's the idea I had," Ash said, holding something up. "What do you think?"
"I think it's a mirror," Abra said, examining herself in it for a moment. "What's this for?"
"Well, I kind of have a reputation for unusual tactics these days, and I was thinking some up," Ash explained. "I know most Abra have trouble learning a lot of moves, but some of the ones they do learn are attacks that are beam attacks – like Signal Beam, or Psywave, or things like that."
"Is Psywave a beam?" Pikachu asked. "I thought it was more of a cone."
"Not sure, we should test it," Ash decided. "But I think Psybeam would do as well – straight-line very fast attacks."
"I'm not sure I understand," Abra confessed.
"Well, the idea is that – can you use telekinesis, or is it just teleporting?" Ash checked.
"I can teleport, and lift things a bit," Abra told him. "My concentration isn't great, though."
"That's fine, teleport should work," Ash assured her. "Now, the idea is that you teleport somewhere, drop the mirror, then while it's falling you teleport again and bounce the attack off the mirror onto the target Pokémon."
Abra stared at him for a moment, then at the mirror.
"That sounds incredibly difficult," she said. "Strangely cool, but incredibly difficult."
"That's kind of become our thing," Pikachu said. "Tell you what, let's start with Psybeam and Ash holding the mirror – you have Psybeam, right?"
"I do, yes," Abra agreed. "But won't that mean he might get hurt if he misses?"
"I'll just put my hat on," Ash said. "That should work."
"It makes him a Dark-type," Pikachu advised. "Basically at this point I think it's best not to think too hard about all the crazy things – just accept them and work from there."
Abra nodded, more than a little dubiously, then watched as Ash held up the mirror and Pikachu scampered off a bit.
"So I try to bounce it off and hit him?"
"That's right," Ash agreed. "For now he'll stay still so you can get some aiming practice."
"How's the temperature?" Mawile asked, as she scrubbed away at Stunky's fur.
"It's all right," Stunky replied, fur all damp and draped over her as sweet berry scents rose from the bubbles in the bath. "I'm not really used to hot baths, though."
"They are nice, though I've only really had one," Tyrantrum said. "Some of the Pokémon at the ranch were kind enough to heat the pond once, though, and that was fun."
"Yeah, it is a pity," Mawile admitted. "I guess it's a downside of being big…"
She continued working her hands through Stunky's fur, making sure to separate out all the strands as best she could – she was going to comb it later, but it would be easier if she did the work now.
"How normal is this for trained Pokémon?" Stunky asked, arching her back a little into the sensations of the washing. "It seems like a lot of work."
"It depends!" Mawile replied. "A lot of Pokémon who go into Contests get this kind of thing before Contests, depending on what they are of course – so a Rock type might get a really good polish instead. Actually, maybe we should try that!"
Stunky gave her a confused look, then realized what Mawile was talking about. "You mean you and Tyrantrum, right."
"Yep," Mawile nodded. "Okay, let's do your tail..."
"What about other Pokémon, the ones who are with battling trainers?" Stunky went on.
"Those don't get specially treated as often, but it really depends on the Pokémon and the trainer," Mawile said. "Some Pokémon really enjoy their time off and it makes them better fighters, others just keep training because training's what they enjoy. Okay, I think that's about enough…"
She got the towel out, and helped Stunky out of the bath and onto the towel. Then she got to work with the comb, and Tyrantrum watched as Mawile carefully teased out the strands.
"Can you smell anything?" Mawile asked, after a few minutes.
"Only the shampoo," Tyrantrum replied. "That's pretty good, actually. How did that work?"
"It's Pecha shampoo," Mawile explained. "Pecha neutralizes poison, so I thought it would be good to use it – it might not last ages, but a bath every few days should be all right."
"That… I hadn't noticed, but you're right," Stunky said, in tones of wonder. "Thank you, that's so much of a help… I'm still worried that I might accidentally make myself smell again, but I'll be starting from being clean at least..."
Mawile nodded. "Yep – and I'm going to make sure you look pretty as well!"
Stunky smiled, then blinked. "But – isn't the thing we're supposed to be doing tomorrow? You'll have to do it all again."
The Steel-type shrugged. "I don't mind, don't worry!"
"Okay, what have we learned?" Pikachu asked.
"That your trainer is, indeed, immune to Psybeams," Abra volunteered. "We've also learned that I have bad aim."
"That's okay, you can learn by practising," Ash said. "Once you've got basic aiming down, then you can move on to teleporting into position and firing the beam straight away, and eventually to teleporting the mirror one place and then firing a beam into it from somewhere else – it's a great way to make yourself more unpredictable, which is good for fighting, and if you have more than one mirror you could do even more complicated trick shots."
Abra nodded, then yawned – quickly stopping herself before the yawn got too loud.
"Are you tired?" Ash asked. "We could stop for a bit."
"No, I'm not tired!" Abra replied. "We should keep going."
"Well, if you want to," Ash said. "But if you want to stop, just let us know."
Abra shook her head, then eyed the mirror in Ash's hand. She moved to the right a bit, and fired a Psybeam at the reflection of Pikachu.
The Electric-type was hit squarely by the beam, and skidded back a few paces.
"That's more like it," he said, shaking his head a little. "Okay, let's move the mirror?"
Ash did so, turning it a little and moving it to his other hand. The Psychic-type examined it, moved to the left a bit, and nodded. "Right, I can see him from there..."
"Ready to give this a try?" Dawn asked.
"Not really," Raichu replied, examining his tail – the lightning-bolt now covered in strips of aluminium foil. "But let's give it a go anyway."
"Okay, so… start building up a bit of a charge," Dawn said. "Not much at first, just build it up slowly."
Raichu did so, letting some of his electrical energy flow along the thick cable of his tail to the tip, and nothing happened for several seconds. Then, all of a sudden, there was a kind of snapping sound, which made him jump.
"What was that?"
"That was some of the electrical charges jumping between layers of the foil," Dawn replied. "I'm not certain, but I think the more you charge it the more quickly that should happen."
There was another snapping sound a moment later, and Raichu flexed his tail around to examine. Sparks were crawling over it, little blue flashes with each snap sound as the charges jumped between two layers of the foil, and he stared at it for a long moment.
"This is me?" he asked.
"Yep, that's all you," Dawn assured him. "It's a bit basic for a routine, but it's a good starting point – especially because you can request for the lighting in the Contest hall to be turned down, and if you do something like that in the dark the sparks are all the more visible. Try putting some more electricity into it, see what happens?"
Raichu nodded, and began charging up the foil a bit more.
The high snap sounds of the charges breaking through got more and more frequent, going from occasional to a constant snap-snap-snap and then becoming more frequent still. Then they suddenly made a transition from being sounds into a single continuous sound, a kind of crackling chirping sound which started low and ramped up into a whine.
Raichu twisted his tail, wondering, and each movement changed the tone as it brought the foil surfaces closer together or further apart.
"Hey, that's better than I was expecting," Buneary said. "I think that might actually work as a musical instrument!"
"What do you think of that?" Dawn asked the Electric-type. "Shall we see if we can make it work as a musical thing?"
"Yes, that would be wonderful," Raichu agreed. "I hadn't realized..."
"There is one thing I'd like to check, though," Buneary added. "Hold still."
Raichu froze, mystified – wondering if he'd done something wrong – as Buneary approached the foil-wrapped tail, still sparking with electrical discharge.
Then Buneary tapped it lightly with a paw.
There was an electro-sparking bang as she made contact, and she flipped head-over-heels backwards three times before landing with a crackle of Thunder Punch – which also let her lose the last of the charge she'd been hit with.
"Oh no!" Raichu yelped. "Are you okay?"
"Yeah, I meant to do that," Buneary explained, feeling her lightly frizzed fur. "That's actually a pretty powerful charge you've got there, so you could use it in a battle as well."
"Why did you do that?" Raichu asked, baffled.
"How else was I going to check how much electrical power there was?" Buneary replied, shrugging. "I train with a really powerful Electric-type, I was fairly sure I wouldn't have too much trouble."
Raichu still looked a little dubious, but visibly focused on the electrical instrument on his tail instead of on the rest of what had just happened.
"Oh, that's amazing," Snover said softly. "So the different types of fractures are not just about what bone breaks, but how it breaks and even what happens to the body around it?"
"That's right," Brock agreed. "And someone doing emergency treatment has to work out which one they're seeing, because it's possible to make things worse by applying the wrong treatment. That would be kind of embarrassing, right?"
"And bad for them too, but yeah," Snover agreed. "And this is mostly about treating emergency stuff?"
"This part of the book is," Brock nodded. "Because there's basically two situations where you need to give someone medical help. Either they've got something a Pokémon Centre won't be able to fix, or they're not able to get to a Pokémon Centre quickly – so a lot of this is about making sure someone's not going to get worse. Then the rest of it is about what to do to stay healthy in the first place."
"I think I understand," Snover agreed, then looked around – worried. "Oh no!"
"What happened?" Brock asked.
"I must have lost control for a moment," Snover explained. "It's starting to snow!"
Brock looked around, confirming that there were snow clouds gathering overhead, and nodded. "Okay, well, there's a few things we can try here."
"Like what?" Snover asked.
"Well, if we had to, I could get Ninetales or one of the others to use Sunny Day and clear the snow away," Brock told him. "Or we could try and work something out so you can fix it yourself, with Ninetales to help if we really can't sort it out."
"I… well, I guess that second option is the one which is more sensible," Snover decided, audibly reluctant about it. "Since it's possible to fix it if it doesn't work..."
"That's the spirit," Brock said. "All right, so how did you notice that you'd lost control?"
"I… well, there was a sort of tingling feeling," Snover replied. "It was a bit odd… then I looked up, because I thought it might be snowing, and it was."
Brock glanced over at Geodude, who thought something over before nodding. "Sounds a bit like when I use sandstorm, Brockster."
"That's what I thought," Brock said. "Okay, Snover, can you try something?"
Snover nodded.
"Try and make that feeling stronger," Brock told him.
"But – wait, stronger?" Snover asked, completely baffled.
"If you can control it by making it stronger, you might be able to get a handle on how you do it at all," Brock explained. "If you've been worried about not being able to stop it once it starts, that might mean you've not done the practice you need."
Snover thought about that, then began to concentrate.
"That's strange," Giratina said, as the snow came down in drifts. "Should we stop for a bit?"
"Probably a good idea," Torterra agreed. "You're a Dragon type, right? How do you feel about snow?"
"Well, my normal approach is to just go into my own private universe and wait for it to stop," Giratina admitted. "Want to come? You've got more weaknesses to it than I do."
"Sure, in a minute," Torterra said. "Have you ever heard of cocoa?"
Giratina's expression indicated puzzlement.
"Then let me to go and get some, so I can introduce you to it..."
"Well, that's definitely less snow than there was a minute ago," Brock said. "That's good, it means you can make it weaker as well as stronger. Let's try stronger again for a moment?"
Snover frowned, concentrating, and the light snow drifting down around them turned heavier again. Flurries came down in waves, blanketing the trees in a soft coat of white which made the branches bow down a bit under the weight.
"And lighter one more time," Brock added.
"This is really hard to do," Snover said, focusing, and the snow slowly eased off again – the sky lightening a bit as the number of snowflakes dropped.
"You've been doing very well," Brock said.
"Truth," Geodude nodded. "You're alright, kid. Takes a lot of strength to do something you're not good at."
"Thank you, I guess," Snover panted. "You said something about a Ninetales?"
"Sure thing," Brock agreed. "Well done."
He sent Ninetales out, and she gave Snover an elegant bow before flicking her tails and using Sunny Day to banish the snow. Evening sunlight lit the area instead, making the snowdrifts and piles of snow on trees shine a subdued yellow-orange where they were in the light.
"I think that looks quite pretty, actually," she said. "What do you think?"
"Well… yeah, actually," Snover agreed. "And… it's kind of funny, but now after making it snow for so long while trying to make it stronger and weaker, I feel a bit tired?"
"I think that's because you've been getting exercise with your ability," Brock suggested. "We'll try some more tomorrow – I think what's happened is that you've started to notice it more, which will help you learn to control it fully."
"That sounds great!" Snover said. "Um… isn't there supposed to be a battle thing tomorrow, though?"
"Kid, the battle isn't important until your personal problems get worked out," Geodude said. "And you can take that to the bank."
"...I actually don't understand what that last bit means?" Snover admitted.
"Means you can trust it."
"The weather's been very strange today," Angie said. "Don't you think?"
Her assigned rental Pokémon nodded. "Traa!"
Then it reached out, nudging one of the counters on the board.
Angie looked down at the result, then sighed. "All right, you win."
Trapinch looked smug, which was quite a sight on a Pokémon which was composed of about fifty percent mouth.
Folding up the draughts board, Angie put it away in her things. "Okay, let's try something else – what about if we try some work with Sand Tomb? I think that Zorua said you knew that, back when she was over here..."
That got a nod from the Ground-type, followed by a head-tilt.
"I just had the idea that if you used Sand Tomb somewhere else while you were hiding underground, you could disguise where you were," Angie explained. "Or make it look like you were somewhere else, at least?"
She thought a bit more. "I know – let's try seeing if Shinx can find you? It'll be good training for him as well as you, because he'll be trying to catch you out and you'll be trying to catch him out."
Trapinch considered that, then nodded.
"All right, let's do it!"
"This really isn't the best approach to training," Conway said.
The Pikipek he was trying to help blew a raspberry, which was quite impressive for a bird, then spat more seeds at him. Conway's Slowking deflected the attacks with a Protect, sending them bouncing away in all directions, and Conway tried again once the barrage had finished.
"I know you can do that," he said. "It's very impressive. What I was wondering was what else you can do, so we can work out a combined strategy."
Another salvo of Bullet Seeds rattled off Slowking, and Conway shook his head with a sigh.
"How can I deal with a prideful Pokémon..." he muttered.
I think I have a suggestion.
Conway looked up, surprised. "Mewtwo?"
Given your appreciation for my books, I thought I should point out a simple error you have made, Mewtwo explained. You have someone who's able to translate for you.
With that, he left – before Conway could ask for clarification.
"Someone who could translate for… wait," Conway realized. "Slowking?"
Slowking nodded.
"You can translate for me?"
Another nod.
"Then why didn't you say something before?" Conway asked.
"You didn't ask," Slowking said placidly.
Conway sighed.
"All right, then," he said, after thinking for a bit. "Slowking, can you try and find out what Pikipek would like?"
The Psychic-type nodded, and gave Pikipek an encouraging look.
Pikipek burst into a storm of chirps and twitters, laying out his case rapidly and concisely while Slowking listened with a small smile.
After a few minutes, the Flying-type quietened down, and Slowking nodded.
"So, it sounds like he wants you to do something to work with his Bullet Seed," he explained. "He's very proud of it. Says it shouldn't be necessary to have other moves before you can even think of a way to use it."
"Okay, I… guess I can try that," Conway decided. "But only having Bullet Seed is going to cause problems with your style, so… maybe we should start with just Bullet Seed, then see where there might be problems once we've tried that out?"
Pikipek considered this, then nodded agreement.
"And… sorry, Slowking," Conway added. "I really should have thought of that without having to have Mewtwo point it out."
Pikachu yawned, blinking a bit.
After thinking it over, a bit muzzy from having just woken from sleep, he realized what it was that had alerted him – some kind of noise from outside the dorm room they were sleeping in.
Nothing major, or everyone would be awake, but still…
He looked around, checking everyone else was still asleep, then headed for the door to investigate.
Halfway out the door, he paused… something seemed to be missing.
On checking again, he worked out what it was. Ash had been at pains to make sure Abra had somewhere to sleep if she didn't want to go back into her Pokéball overnight, and it was still set up – but it was empty.
Her Pokéball wasn't occupied, either…
"Hey."
Abra didn't move, just looking out over the moonlit forest.
Pikachu approached carefully, moving around in front of her to see if she was awake, but as he got closer her eyes opened.
"Are you okay?" Pikachu asked. "Sorry if I woke you."
"You didn't wake me," Abra replied. "And I'm fine."
"Are you sure?" Pikachu checked. "Don't Abra normally spend most of the time asleep? I don't think I've seen you sleep since we met you."
"It's none of your business!" Abra snapped, then put a hand to her forehead. "Sorry. Just… don't worry about it. It's my problem, not yours."
"We're helping you out, right?" Pikachu pointed out. "Ash and the rest of us fix problems wherever we go, though admittedly we don't always get all of them and we do tend to leave headaches behind."
Abra shook her head irritably. "Just… look, this is something I've had to deal with for… for months at least. It makes me short tempered and annoyed and – and I know I'm not a very nice person because of it."
"Wait, you… oh, right," Pikachu realized. "Insomnia?"
Abra scowled, then sighed. "Yeah… stupid, isn't it… an Abra who can't sleep. I never manage more than an hour or two a night, and… and it's just stupid!"
Her tail thumped hard into the table she was sitting on, then she shook her head again. "Sorry. This is just… sorry, I'm taking it out on you."
"Guys?" Ash whispered. "Something up?"
"Abra was awake, and it woke me up," Pikachu explained. "She's got trouble sleeping."
Abra looked annoyed that Pikachu had explained, then put her fingers against her temples and sighed. "I… suppose I didn't exactly ask you to keep it secret. Look, I can at least get a bit of rest by meditating, can you let me do that?"
"Can we try something first?" Ash asked, still keeping his voice low. "I think we might be able to help."
That got him an annoyed look, and Abra rubbed her eyes. "If it doesn't work, will you at least stop bothering me?"
"Sure," Ash agreed. "I'm only bothering you know because I think it might work."
"...fine, then," Abra decided, reluctantly.
"Again?" Butterfree asked, shaking his head a little as he woke. "It's only been a few days since the last time..."
"Your trainer again?" his mate said, looking up. "I suppose he is in Sinnoh now."
"True," Ash's Butterfree agreed. "All right, dear, I'm going to go and see what he needs help with. Hopefully I'll be back soon."
"Sounds good," the pink Butterfree replied. "I'll probably try to get back to sleep."
Ash's first Bug-type smiled at her, then Returned himself and was whisked away by the transceiver.
"Where did Dad go?" asked a Metapod, sleepily.
"Just off to help his trainer," her mother said. "Nothing to worry about."
"I guess the big question is whether this actually counts as the Ability, Insomnia," Ash said, as Butterfree arrived. "Dexter, can you tell?"
Tracing, Dexter answered. Aborting Trace. Tracing… aborting Trace. Tracing… aborting Trace.
"Why are you doing it like that?" Abra asked. "That sounds really odd."
I am using random sampling to check if you have multiple Abilities, Dexter informed her. Sampling complete. Sampled 8 times, identified Inner Focus 8 times. No other Abilities detected.
Ash sent Butterfree out. "I guess that means it's okay to go ahead, then… sorry for waking you, Butterfree."
"It's okay, I know to come along if you need help," Butterfree replied. "What do you need?"
"...can you use Sleep Powder on her?" Ash requested.
Abra blinked. "Would that even..."
"That's kind of ironic, huh," Butterfree said, then flitted over to Abra and made a pass over her. Little glittering sparks fell from his wings, and drifted down to land all over Abra.
She took a breath, swayed, then fell over and began to snore.
"Phew," Ash said. "I'm glad that worked. Thanks, Butterfree."
"What are we going to do in future, though?" Pikachu asked, as Ash gently picked the Psychic-type up to carry her back to bed. "If she can only get sleep when she's forced to, won't that mean she still can't sleep under normal circumstances? She'd need someone with her just to manage her sleep cycle properly."
"I did have an idea about that," Ash replied, as Butterfree returned to his Pokéball and Dexter transmitted the Bug-type back to his family again. "She's still got that mirror..."
Bright and early the next morning, Torterra ran through the trees.
Spotting a likely place to hide out, he dug his feet into the mud and slid around in a half-circle – aided by the wet patches left by the snowfall of the previous day – before thumping softly into some trees which blocked any approach from directly behind him.
No sooner had he taken his new 'bunker' position than Giratina emerged from a portal – firing a Shadow Ball, which Torterra burst with a quick outwards-firing pulse of Razor Leaf.
Charging up an Energy Ball while he was inside his active defences, Torterra fired the Energy Ball out as soon as he dropped it – hitting Giratina a glancing blow on the side, and making the Ghost-type duck into another gate to the Reverse World.
Feeling faintly smug, Torterra shook himself a little and began to listen – seeking any clue as to where Giratina might be coming from next. Even with the trees covering his rear arc, Torterra still had almost two hundred and fifty degrees of arc to watch out along, and his head swung back and forth as he tried to cover everything.
Then a Shadow Sneak smacked into him from behind.
Turning in annoyance, Torterra caught sight of the Reverse World gate just as it snapped shut.
That was annoying, but then again if he pulsed some Razor Leaves out every second or so in the 'blind' spot it would keep him covered – and it had potential to score points on Giratina, to boot. So he began sending out little bursts of razor-edged green leaves, not enough to damage the trees but enough to be noticed.
Despite his preparations, he was still surprised when a hole opened up directly underneath him and dropped him into the Reverse World.
"I am fairly sure that is not how I was told your portals work," Torterra said some minutes later, lying comfortably in the branches of an upside-down tree which pressed into a grassy field.
"What makes you say that?" Giratina asked.
"Well, I was pretty sure there was no reflective surface there," Torterra replied. "That seems like a pretty big difference."
He frowned. "Though, now I come to think of it..."
"It's actually because of the Griseous Orb," Giratina replied. "Forming portals on mirror surfaces does make them easier to do, but it's not strictly necessary – the more symmetries there are to work with already, the easier it is to produce them, and without the Orb I'm a lot weaker. Most of what I did in the chase after Zero was leaning on Shaymin's portals, but the areas where the real and reverse worlds are similar help as well. At my weakest I think I was limited to places of similarity where there was a mirror on both sides."
"Huh, that's interesting," Torterra admitted. "I should have realized it before, you were ripping open gates in mid-air and that's not reflective – I guess I must have assumed there was a mirror there in the Reverse World, though they'd have had to all be really conveniently placed."
"I have considered learning some moves which would let me create a mirror anywhere," Giratina admitted. "I shouldn't need it, but it's good to have a backup plan in case I lose the Orb again."
"Sounds good," Torterra agreed. "Now, in future, can we try not to do the drop-me-in-a-hole thing? It's very impressive, but I don't get to learn much."
Stunky looked to her side, where Mawile was. "I'm not really sure I'm going to be okay doing this..."
"If you don't want to, that's fine," Mawile told her. "It's all about confidence. I don't want to force you into something, you're the only one who can decide if you're ready!"
"But… do you think I'm ready?" Stunky asked, sitting back and running her tail nervously through her claws – disturbing the train of three pink bows slightly. "This is just… I feel like it's a good idea, but I don't know!"
Mawile patted her on the shoulder. "I think I shouldn't suggest anything, because you'll do it because I think it instead of because you think it's a good idea."
"That's… ergh, yeah, that is a good point," Stunky groaned, her voice nearly slipping over into a whine. "...okay, I'll do it."
Mawile gave her shoulder a squeeze, and Stunky visibly steadied herself before walking out onto the stage to do her Appeal.
There wasn't a great deal of sophistication to it, really – they'd only had a day or two and most of that had been spent on grooming rather than training – but Stunky had picked up Flamethrower, and Mawile was sure she'd be able to do great.
Without needing to worry about setting her smell alight, and with the audience not distracted by what would otherwise be a strong smell, Stunky began painting with fire. Her tail flicked around, the three bows catching the light one at a time or all together, and oily smoke rose up from a flickering orange point of light that alternately went down to ground level and shot up to draw lines through the air.
Mawile smiled, pleased at the result.
It looked like Stunky was doing fine.
"All right?" Ash asked, as Abra stirred.
She didn't seem to hear him at first, letting out a long yawn, then blinked a few times and rubbed her eyes.
"I went to… right, the Butterfree," she said. "It's morning. How long?"
"It's not actually morning," Ash told her. "It's afternoon. You've been asleep for… about fourteen hours, I think."
Abra blinked. "I… was?"
She looked around, then a hand went to her head. "I feel… well, I do still feel tired, but a lot less stressed?"
"That's pretty normal if someone's just woken up," Pikachu said.
"Thank you," Abra added. "That's so much help, even to get just one proper night's sleep – or day's sleep, I suppose."
"I did have another idea," Ash added. "Well, more than one, but the simplest would just mean you needed that mirror."
Abra reached to the side, where she'd left it the previous night, and took it from the wooden table.
"Well, it's here," she said. "What's the idea?"
"I was thinking it should be possible for you to learn Hypnosis," Ash explained. "If that doesn't work out, we can do something else – maybe something with a recording of Sing or Grass Whistle. I do actually know a Jigglypuff, so that's possible."
"I suppose it's worth trying," Abra agreed. "But isn't the tournament and exhibition section of the task happening this afternoon?"
"We can miss it," Ash shrugged. "Helping out with this is more important."
Raichu stepped up onto the podium, and closed his eyes.
Reaching into the tuxedo he was wearing, he drew out a conductor's baton. After a pause, as he took a steadying breath, he gestured.
There was a snapping bzzzzzert as his foil-crafted musical instrument powered up, and then he began to conduct himself – a series of harsh, crisp notes blazing into the air one at a time.
With just a day to rehearse, Dawn hadn't wanted to try and give him too much to remember. Doing a reactive or complicated performance was right out, but just being able to do it at all was impressive – and sparks flew from his tail as he twisted and flexed it, providing a visual accompaniment to the music that he kept on 4/4 time in the key of B minor.
In the Hall of the Mountain King began slowly, at first, but rose in speed as he increased the pace – a change in speed but not in actions, something that Raichu could handle. He still made a couple of mistakes, partly from nerves, but just kept going rather than stop and rethink – and the momentum carried him through, keeping the audience spellbound by the utterly unorthodox Appeal.
When he reached the final crescendo, the first bang and the second of silence which followed it – accompanied by a shower of sparks which nearly hid him from sight – caused gasps. Then he repeated it five more times, and finally pushed so much current through that the foil exploded into confetti right on the final note.
After a few seconds of shock – on his part as well as the audience – he bowed, and the applause rolled over him.
AN:
Different Pokemon need different kinds of treatment to flouish.
