This is the third of four chapters today.
Snover spread his arms out, focusing, and grey clouds gathered overhead.
They began to snow, fat white flakes drifting down in swirls and clumps… but not everywhere. In fact, the snow was focused – heaviest towards the middle of the impromptu Contest area, and much lighter out towards the edges. A light dusting of much smaller snowflakes fell on the front rows of the audience, but mostly because of the wind.
"Good," Brock said, holding up an umbrella right in the middle as snow piled on it. "You're doing great, well done. Now let's try the next step?"
Snover nodded his agreement, and the snowclouds almost inverted – shifting their patterns, adjusting for wind and making it so that the heaviest snow was falling on the outside instead of the inside. Another line of heavier snowcloud dropped down a pattern, making a line which crossed Brock's umbrella, and finally Snover dismissed the snow clouds entirely.
What was left was a Pokéball-shaped pattern of accumulated snow, and Snover launched some Razor Leaves up to pepper one side of the pattern and give it a white-green colour scheme.
"Well done," Brock repeated, stepping out of the pattern. "I'm impressed."
"So am I," Professor Rowan said. "It looks like you two are cooperating well, Mr. Slate."
Pikipek flew low over the battlefield, keeping an eye out, then picked his target and swooped in on it – only for the ground underneath him to explode upwards.
The Flying-type rolled sideways to maximize his reaction time, just about escaping the jaws which tried to snap at him, then rolled back upright and glanced around for advice.
"Strafing run," Conway instructed, and Pikipek pulled up and around in a half-loop before coming back around and facing his opponent – Angie's rental Trapinch.
He altered his angle slightly and began using Bullet Seed, sending Grass-type projectiles flying down towards the Ground-type. The first few struck next to Trapinch, rather than hitting directly, but Pikipek 'walked' his attack quickly to make sure it caught Trapinch directly.
The Ground-type opened his mouth and ate the seeds.
"That's new," Conway noted. "Pull up!"
Pikipek pulled up hard, 'standing on his tail' to get distance as fast as possible, and made it up to about twice head height before turning to circle.
"Good work, Trapinch!" Angie called. "Now, back underground! Make sure he can't tell where you are!"
Trapinch sunk back into the ground, and Conway frowned – thinking about how to solve the problem.
"We're going to have to go low," he said. "But this time use co-axial."
Pikipek chirped an agreement, and Conway adjusted his glasses.
His plan was to have Pikipek use his Bullet Seeds not directly, but to target another attack – using the Bullet Seed to tell when he was lined up properly… because the seeds would miss just enough to tell him that the Sludge Bomb was going to hit.
"Go!" he instructed.
"Get ready, Trapinch!" Angie called.
"Well, I'd like to tell all of you a heartfelt well done!" Professor Rowan said with a smile. "Several of you managed to bond with your Pokémon to a level we would not normally expect to see, and I'd like to extend special thanks for the humans and Pokémon – like Lucario, Mewtwo, Brock and Dawn – who took time to help translate between humans and Pokémon who were having trouble. It's something we don't normally expect to see and it's been very useful."
Dawn smiled – glad to have been able to help, though it had largely been on the second day when Raichu was making sure he'd learned his notes right.
"Now, we've covered working with training Pokémon, but that's not all we look at in the Summer Academy," Rowan went on. "I've discussed it with Ash Ketchum this morning, and he's given the okay for a more unusual research task than normal."
At that, Dawn blinked and looked over at Ash. "Why would..."
"Abra was asleep, so we had the time," Pikachu explained. "It's going to be… interesting."
Angie raised her hand. "Professor, what's the task? And why is Ash Ketchum involved?"
"Well, they're his Pokémon," Professor Rowan replied. "Tomorrow morning some of Ash Ketchum's Pokémon are going to be coming over here, and we're going to have everyone observe one of them – make a sketch, write notes on their behaviour and so on. I'll go into more detail in a minute, but I wanted to thank Mr. Ketchum first for his generosity in allowing that."
"They were mostly pretty interested," Ash explained. "It's really them who you should thank, not me..."
"Let's see, who do I pick?" Mabel asked, looking at the eclectic collection of Pokémon Ash had transported over. "There's so many..."
After a few minutes thinking, not wanting to make the wrong choice, she made her selection – one of the Tauros.
Nodding to herself and checking the sample observation report they'd been given, she began by noting the identity of the Pokémon. "Okay… Tauros. Right..."
After that simple bit, the information she needed got more complicated and harder to acquire. She had to observe the habits of the Pokémon, any moves they possessed and used, and draw a sketch showing the Pokémon in a 'typical state'.
Sitting down, she began sketching away – deciding to get started on that, and to fill in observational stuff when it actually happened. Take notes, at least, and then turn them into proper sentences later.
A few minutes in, she looked up and frowned.
"Aquatic," she wrote. "Able to walk on water..."
That wasn't normal, right?
After thinking about it for a bit, Mabel shrugged and kept sketching.
As she roughed out the leg, not really concentrating, the other Tauros all came running out to the lakeshore as well. The one she'd been looking at thundered back in onto dry land, and the next time she looked up she had to guess which Tauros to continue working on.
Shortly after she made her selection, it exhaled a blast of fire which drove up a mist of steam from the lake surface.
"Flamethrower..." she muttered absently, mostly focused on the tricky work of sketching, and paused for just long enough to take a note before going back to concentrate on the tail.
The Tauros all swapped places again while she wasn't looking.
"Er..."Hibiki said, looking up at his subject and then down at the sketch.
The sketch was beautifully done, and he was surprised how well it had gone. He hadn't thought he was that good at art.
Unfortunately, it was also for the front half of the Snorlax. And he'd reached the edge of the paper.
"I guess one good thing is I can just add another piece of paper?" Hibiki said. "And it'll line up, at least..."
Snorlax rolled over onto his other side.
Hibiki stared for a moment, then sighed and turned over to the next piece of paper. This one got turned sideways, and he started sketching again.
"And… done!" Benji said with a smile. "Thanks, you've been a great subject!"
Totodile did a twirl, then bowed.
Benji chuckled, casting one more look over the paper to confirm how the sketch looked, then moved down to a section a bit further down the paper. "Right, now I need to know a few things about your behaviour. What kind of moves do you do?"
Totodile tilted his head, thinking, then picked up a very big rock.
"Is that Strength or Superpower..." Benji thought out loud. "...let's just say at least one of them?"
That got him a grin from the Water-type, and Totodile put the rock down again before miming biting down on something.
"Bite too, okay..."
Benji sort of wondered if this was how you were supposed to do it. But weren't Pokémon watchers supposed to use all the information they had?
"All right, explain this one," Ash's Lapras said.
"What?" his cousin asked. "I thought we were doing pretty well at first."
"Cuz, I let you navigate on an easy route so you could show how well you were doing," Lapras sighed. "Can you not see the problem here?"
"...no?" the other Lapras asked.
In answer, Ash's Lapras bent his neck down and took a taste of the water. "It's fresh," he explained. "I don't know quite how you did it, but we're not even in the ocean any more."
"Well, we went south, and then..." the cousin frowned. "I think we took a left? Or possibly a right?"
"Great galloping Giratina, I've found a Pokémon with my trainer's sense of direction," Lapras groaned. "Okay, we need to work out where we are."
His transceiver beeped.
"Oh, that's wonderful timing," Lapras added. "Sis, can you make sure Cuz doesn't try and swim up a mountain or something? I should see what's up."
His little sister – now a mature Lapras herself, but he still thought of her as such – gave him a nod and a wink, over the protests of their cousin, and Lapras flexed his neck to activate the transceiver. "Hey, Dexter, what's up?"
He listened, and nodded. "Right, that might actually be a problem. My cousin was navigating and we've ended up in a lake. Don't ask me how."
Another pause.
"...seriously?"
Lapras turned, seeing Ash waving from the lakeshore.
He stared, then began to giggle.
There wasn't any other reaction that really made sense, at that point.
"Hey! Hold on!"
Ivysaur looked around. "Is this going to be quick? I just noticed-"
"Yeah, you!" Barry called, running up. "I wanted to ask you some questions, and you'd better answer them!"
The Grass-type blinked, surprised. "Can you actually speak Pokémon? I've never managed to put together the time to learn..."
"All right, so, first one!" Barry said. "Is Ash actually an alien from beyond the furthest stars?"
"That doesn't even make logical sense?" Ivysaur said, more than a little confused. "An alien would have to be from a star, or at least from a planet orbiting around it… unless you get really esoteric, that is."
"Second!" Barry continued. "Are any of you secretly the incarnated form of ancient deities?"
"Apart from the actual Legendary Pokémon on the team, which currently includes a Giratina, not as such," Ivysaur answered. "So no, since it's not a secret."
"And third!" Barry raised a third finger. "You've got to answer them all or I'll fine you a hundred Poké, remember!"
His Prinplup tapped him on the shoulder.
"As Prinplup has reminded me, I got the calculation wrong!" Barry said, without any change in his demeanor. "You've got to answer them all or I'll fine you a million Poké! Now, are any of you secretly time travellers from the distant past?"
Ivysaur blinked.
"Sorry, he gets like this," Prinplup shrugged.
"I can honestly say that none of us have yet travelled from the distant past," Ivysaur said, after thinking for a bit. "Except, in some cases, by living that long in the first place."
Barry glanced to his left at Smeargle, who was holding up a sign that said 'no' three times over.
"Thanks!" he said brightly. "I'll work out the secret yet, though!"
"Does Smeargle have a yes sign?" Ivysaur asked.
"Yes, but mostly to use when Barry asks questions in the negative."
"Wow, that's really impressive..." Sally said, watching as Swellow did flips and loops through the sky – an endless chain of acrobatic moves coming one after another after another, dancing in the air and using the merest breath of wind to adapt mid-flight. "I guess I know what to put down for what this Pokémon does..."
She made a few notes, then began to sketch.
A few seconds later she looked back up to get another look, and Swellow was in a completely different position – and still moving, so she couldn't get a good look at the same angle from the last time.
"I… uh… okay, this is a bit harder than I thought," Sally added, adding a few lines in when the angle was about right for a moment. "It's really impressive, but it'd be easier if Swellow just stopped moving for a bit."
"That's why I'm doing the other Flying-type," her friend Mark said.
"Huh?" Sally asked, looking over, and saw Mark was already halfway through sketching out a Noctowl.
Her gaze lifted to the Noctowl posed on a branch, and she examined it closely. Then frowned.
"That doesn't look right."
"It's definitely a Noctowl," Mark pointed out. "And you've heard of shiny Pokémon, right?"
"Well, yeah, but that's not what I mean," Sally replied. "He's posed. And he's not moving – not even breathing."
"Hey, these are Ash Ketchum's Pokémon," Mark said. "I'm not going to assume anything."
Sally looked around for a moment, then found an acorn on the ground. Aiming carefully, she lobbed the acorn gently at Noctowl and nodded as it passed right through him without slowing.
"Illusion," she said.
Mark frowned, then shrugged. "Eh, I'll just keep going. It's still a sketch."
"Aren't you supposed to be out with the others on your team?" Pachirisu asked.
"I wanted to wet the old whistle, what?" Noctowl replied, lifting a teacup with his foot and taking a sip. "The stunt double's handling it."
"So, when did you evolve?"
"You know that already, right?" Goodra asked. "I'm pretty sure you were there. Both times."
"I'm supposed to be doing a proper Pokémon Watcher report on you," Mawile replied logically. "I know what questions to ask, though!"
"Do Pokémon Watchers normally ask the Pokémon questions?" Tyrantrum said. "I didn't think most of them could do that."
"Well, asking is only polite," Mawile smiled. "I bet they'd find out a lot more if they asked the right questions."
Goodra nodded, accepting the logic. "Well, I've evolved twice so far," he said with a quick smile. "The first time, I was in a battle with a Fire-type, and unfortunately since Sliggoo can't really see it gave me a bit of a disadvantage..."
Mawile nodded, writing it down. "But you did something to get around it, right?"
"Yes, I did," Goodra agreed. "I learned to make it so that I could sense things when raindrops hit them, so when it was raining I could sense everything around me. It's something I can still do."
The Fairy-type wrote busily, taking down all the information, and adding a few of her own embellishments from what she remembered of the incidents. "Okay, so it's something that was only a problem in your middle evolution?"
Goodra nodded, smiling at her serious attitude.
"Because I just thought," she added, slowing down in her writing a little. "Isn't that a bit like the problem Tyranitar had when he was Pupitar? And a bit like how it works with Shelgon before they turn into Salamence? It seems like there's several Pokémon who have trouble in their middle form before becoming really powerful!"
"That's a good point," Goodra agreed. "I think you should write that one down as well, maybe we can ask Tyranitar's mother later because she had experience as a Pupitar?"
Mawile nodded. "That sounds like a good idea,"
She turned over to the next page of her pad. "What about the second time you evolved?"
"Well..."
Tyrantrum chuckled softly, remembering how Mawile had been the one to tell him – enthusiastically – about how she'd helped her friend evolve.
"I think I might have trouble doing this sketch," Danny admitted.
Torkoal made a disappointed noise.
"It's all the steam," Danny explained. "I can't actually see you very clearly. I mean, when it's leaking out it looks really cool, but..."
The kettle of a Pokémon let out a hissing sigh, and more steam billowed into the air – great clouds of it, making it nearly impenetrable and forming a fog of white. Then he walked forwards, out of the cloud of steam, and sat down.
"That works, I guess," Danny agreed. "You just vented it all off, right?"
Torkoal nodded.
"Okay, that's… actually, come to think of it, I should write down all the steam stuff first," Danny decided. "Hold on a minute."
"Koal," Torkoal agreed, yawning slightly.
"I – hey! Look, can you – stop!"
Primeape blurred across the clearing, punching empty air and lashing out with all four limbs depending on the needs of the moment.
"I'm trying to draw you!" Blake explained. "I need a good sketch of you in your natural environment!"
"This is my natural environment!" Primeape shot back. "Fighting!"
"I – just – hey!" the trainer continued. "I need to – look, you're just going to end up a blur with arms sticking out if you keep that up!"
"Acceptable!"
"I have no idea what you're even saying!"
"Then why are you asking me questions when you already know that I'm going to reply instead of just doing what you tell me?" Primeape asked, pulling a four-hit combo on thin air. "Basically, just accept it and start drawing me punching things!"
Flipping backwards through the air, Primeape took a pose and went gliding forwards. There was a brilliant flash of light from a Thunderbolt, the sound of punches as Primeape beat up something, and when Blake looked again he saw Primeape standing with his fists clenched over an extremely battered wooden plank.
His pencil got to work and he began sketching furiously, but three seconds later Primeape had already moved on.
"Oh, come on!"
"What did she say?" Matthew asked. "Can you tell me?"
Lucario nodded. "Firstly, she was saying how her fighting style revolves around spinning and using that as a basis for acceleration, and how she's worked out all sorts of tricks to make better use of it – you know, standard fighty Pokémon stuff."
"Cool," Matthew said, taking quick notes. "That's amazing! Anything else?"
Quilava nodded, and spoke again.
"She's also a devotee of the First Church of the Solar Princess," Lucario extemporized. "And she tends to call on the sun for help when she's in a tricky situation, which of course works because she's either fighting a Pokémon who can resist Fire attacks – who are usually in trouble from a Solarbeam and stuff – or she's fighting a Pokémon Fire-type attacks work on, which means she can just power up her attacks more that way."
Quilava gave her translator a look, but Matthew was too busy taking notes to notice.
"That's really cool, I didn't realize Pokémon had belief systems like that," the young trainer said. "Well, thinking about it, some of them are objects of worship, but… still?"
He shrugged. "Anyway, um… what else is there? How does she spend most of her time?"
Quilava began explaining, and Lucario nodded along as he translated.
Mendaciously.
"She spends a bit of time preaching each day, and after that she practices by operating as a treadmill. She has a cord which she moves when the rest of the Pokémon are doing speed training, and that way she gets as much exercise as the rest of us put together. Of course, we have to use fireproof material or she'll burn it. Then lunch is usually when she does her Homing Attacks..."
"Do you have an actual reason for doing this?" Quilava asked.
Lucario shrugged. "Because her fighting style is so strange, she has an advantage in tricking others in combat," he said, eyes glittering. "They have to watch out in case she's actually just misleading them, some Pokémon are crafty like that."
"Subtle..." Quilava muttered.
"Right, that's a good point!" Matthew agreed. "I guess I'd better make an extra point about how much Pokémon have to watch out for trickery in battles, especially from Quilava!"
Quilava tried not to snigger.
"I think this is going fairly well," Professor Rowan said, looking out over the field. "It's true that it's not quite the same as regular Pokémon watching, but there's also a lot more opportunity for unusual interactions – and, if I'm completely honest, it probably does help to introduce potential future Pokémon Watchers with an exciting situation instead of a boring one."
"Perhaps," his assistant said. "But then again, perhaps this is how Pokémon study will be done in future? Just asking?"
"That doesn't really work as the only way of doing things," Rowan demurred. "There's a lot you can learn from observing which even the Pokémon themselves might not know, or might not know the importance of at least."
"That's a good point," Yuzo agreed. "So… hey, wait, what's that?"
Rowan turned to see what his assistant was pointing at, and stared as a blur of movement resolved into a fast-moving Legendary Pokémon, which then slowed down and slid to a halt in front of them.
"Good day!" he announced, loudly. "Is this the place where Ash Ketchum's Pokémon are? I was worried I might be late!"
"Yeah, this is the place," Yuzo said, then blinked. "Wait – hold on, hold on! What do you mean late?"
"Late," the – Raikou, Rowan realized – the Raikou said. "You know? Not on time? Having to make up a disadvantage after the fact? Should think it's a simple enough concept!"
"No, but… where did you hear about this?" Rowan said.
"Back at Oak's Ranch, why?" Raikou said. "I heard there was something going on about Pokémon being shown off, and I decided to hurry up so I didn't miss it!"
"You mean you didn't just wait and take the transceiver?" Yuzo pointed out. "You ran all the way from Kanto?"
Raikou thought about that, then shrugged. "Well, dash it all, but it was a fun run anyway! Now, what's this showing off thing about?"
"I'm not actually sure if anyone still has a report to do," Rowan admitted. "But with how loud you've been I'm sure we'll find out if someone's looking for a project."
"You know what's really odd about all this?" Sceptile asked.
Donphan frowned, thinking about that question.
"Do you want me to go alphabetically or chronologically, and if the latter which chronology?"
"Okay, okay, that's a fair point," Sceptile admitted. "There's a lot. I meant about this situation specifically."
"In that case, no, I don't know what specific detail it is," Donphan replied. "Haircut?"
"No, it's – haircut?" Sceptile repeated, blinking. "Where did you get that one from?"
"Dunno," Donphan shrugged. "Just seemed to be a possibility."
"Well, the thing that I was actually thinking of is how we're famous," Sceptile clarified. "And that's something which has been an odd experience. To be famous on a continual basis, that is, instead of just for a short time after something particularly ridiculous happens."
He waved his hand in the vague direction of the Academy attendees who were studying them. "I mean, someone approached me earlier and said that I was his favourite Pokémon. It's just… not something I'm used to thinking about."
"True, but Mewtwo's really had to adapt to it," Donphan pointed out. "Remember, he started off being forgotten by pretty much everyone who had ever met him… now he's running a famous company in between doing book tours and stuff. He's really coping with it well."
"You're right, of course," Sceptile said.
He rolled his neck. "Though I wonder if we're going to be frontliners during the big battle at the end of the Sinnoh League."
"Do you mean the Elite Four or the big speedbump on the way?" Donphan checked. "Because when I hit speedbumps I tend to get big air for an Earthquake."
Sceptile shrugged. "Don't know which one I meant. Though I guess it partly depends on what that guy actually has as the rest of his team. We didn't expect the Latios last time."
"You called?" Latios asked from thin air.
"No, not you," Donphan told him, then blinked. "Quick question. How long have you been there?"
"A while," Latios replied. "Some kid found a way to get out of doing much work, asked me to cloak and then he could skip the sketch."
"Isn't the sketch mandatory?" Donphan asked.
"Yeah, but I intend to point that out tomorrow, treat it as a teachable moment," Latios said. "After doing a few hours on translation duty tomorrow morning, as well."
The air moved around them, suggesting Latios was shifting position. "Though, speaking of fame, it's kind of known that we're in Altomare now," he said. "It's just an accepted fact now rather than a legend, though they don't really know where and there's a sort of understanding not to try and find out. We just make sure we spend a lot of our trips underwater."
"Bet the tourists love that," Sceptile noted.
"Latias gets them to give her ice cream," Latios replied.
"Heya!"
Torterra looked up, and smiled. "Oh, hello Gible. How are things?"
"Oh, pretty good," Gible replied. "Hi Giratina."
Giratina nodded to show he'd heard. "I must say, I'm impressed you managed to get in here," he said. "There is a portal in, which I'm sure you found, but it's not exactly well marked."
"Well, no, but I saw it and it looked interesting so I went in," Gible explained. "I got a bit bored… oh, hey, want to see this cool trick I have?"
Torterra rolled his eyes. "This is going to be the Draco Meteor thing again, isn't it?"
"Now I'm curious," Giratina admitted. "Draco Meteor is not exactly a subtle move – how does one manage a 'trick' with it?"
"Here we go," Torterra muttered.
"Right!" Gible said, looking around the Reverse World. "That portal is still open, right?"
Giratina indicated that it was.
Gible took a breath, then fired a Draco Meteor attack into open space. The globe of orange light flew through the air, and exploded – and all the meteor bomblets swerved sideways, aiming for the portal, and flew through one at a time before making a right angle turn and going out of sight.
The Ghost-type blinked. "That's not what I expected, I must admit. How did you do that?"
"It's a thing with that attack of his," Torterra replied. "It kind of defaults to hunting down Dawn's Piplup. It's been useful a few times, though it's obviously not very good in a fight."
"I'm trying to make it so it'll home in on anyone!" Gible explained brightly. "But concentrating on making it hit someone and having that someone not be Piplup is hard!"
"So it's actually gone out of that portal, around several corners, and is now headed for Piplup – if it's not hit already," Giratina said, thinking. "That's got some interesting possibilities, especially if Piplup gets captured by our next foes, but it does seem quite impolite."
"Oh, no, I told him I'd be demonstrating!" Gible told the much larger dragon. "That's fine, right?"
"It's better than not telling him," Torterra confirmed. "But I'm not sure he appreciates it..."
"Any sign of it yet?" Piplup asked, peeking around the corner of his protective wall.
"Not yet," Pachirisu replied – standing on top of a useful vantage point. (Specifically Mamoswine.) "Why didn't you tell him he couldn't do it?"
"Couldn't tell him, couldn't get a word in edgeways," Piplup answered. "I think he needs another talk about manners."
"Maybe – seen them!" Pachirisu called, pointing.
Piplup had a moment to see the orange mini-meteors, all flying towards him in neat single file, then dove for salvation in the form of Togekiss.
A series of explosions shook the air, slamming into Togekiss' smooth feathers one after another, and after several seconds the blasts finally died down.
"Are you okay?" Togekiss checked.
"Yes, thank you," Piplup replied. "Kind of resentful about how I need to have you on-call for things like that, but glad that it's an option now."
Togekiss smiled. "Yes, I'm still getting used to the Dragon immunity myself, somewhat at least."
"So yeah," Lucario continued. "You'll want to make special note about how her style is-"
"Ahem."
Looking up from where he was helping Matthew, Lucario saw… Lucario. Arms crossed, face sour, foot tapping on the floor.
Springing to his feet, the first Lucario adopted the same pose and expression.
The second Lucario unfolded his arms, and the first followed suit.
Quilava started to snigger. "Do you really think that's going to work?"
The newcomer reached out, copied by the first Lucario, and the two pressed their palms together as if there was a mirror right at the midpoint between them.
Then, quick as lightning, the second Lucario powered up a Thunder Punch which touched the still-open palm of the first one. There was a yelp, a flash of blue light, and Zorua landed on the grass.
"Owww..." she mumbled, rubbing her paw. "You couldn't have asked?"
"That was more amusing," Lucario replied, then turned his attention to Quilava. "She was just translating, right?"
"Translating yes, correctly not so much," Quilava answered.
Lucario nodded, then crouched down to the confused trainer. "You might want to double check a lot of the information you wrote down. Zorua are notorious tricksters."
Reclining on thin air, Mewtwo wrote busily. The disconnected parts of a laptop floated in front of him, with the screen showing a rapidly expanding block of text and the keyboard going tackatackatackatackatacka as he psychically manipulated the keys.
With one of his actual hands, he took a sip of coffee.
"Oh, are you taking part in this as well?" Professor Rowan asked. "I was wondering if you were interested."
No, just taking the opportunity to do some work of my own, Mewtwo replied. Though I am doing a profile on one of Ash's Pokémon, so I suppose the answer is yes.
"You are?" Rowan said. "What kind of work of your own?"
I am writing an autobiography. I don't know if I'm going to publish it any time soon, but it seemed that it was a good idea to write it some time and this is useful downtime.
Rowan watched the words scroll up the screen, Mewtwo managing a truly astonishing rate of typing – easily four or five words per second, making the tackatackatackatackatacka of the keys fast enough that it almost blended together into a single low hum.
"It'd be kind of nice to have that kind of typing speed when writing up field observations," the Professor observed.
It's a bit hard on the keyboards, they don't last all that long, Mewtwo replied. Oh, I manage a lot of words with them, but it doesn't take very long to type all the words in question.
"That… yes, I can see why that would be a problem," Rowan agreed. "It probably gets quite expensive."
It's all about the tradeoff between convenience and cost, Mewtwo replied. Though I have to say I've never tried this with a typewriter. Might be interesting to see how long one lasted.
"So, I was wondering!" Angie said. "How did Ash end up meeting you? I mean, you're an Unovan Pokémon, right?"
"There are Keldeo elsewhere," Keldeo replied. "But yeah, I'm from Unova. It's kind of a long story, though..."
He shook his mane out. "We heard about how Ash was cool and stuff, and so we came to visit him to see if he needed help. It was quite a long journey, but the others liked the idea of a quest and we did a lot of good stuff along the way!"
"A quest?" Angie repeated. "Who are the others?"
"Right, I hadn't mentioned," Keldeo realized, then yawned. "Ergh… sorry, my personal clock's all messed up – anyway, it's the other Swords of Justice, Cobalion, Virizon and Terrakion. They pretty much brought me up, and I really respect all of them – and I'm really grateful to Ash for helping me become a Sword of Justice as well."
"How does that work?" Angie said. "I don't think I've heard of the Swords of Justice – how did you become a member?"
"Well, like I said, they brought me up," Keldeo replied. "And I spent a lot of time training in things like honourable combat and fighting with my horn, as well as how to help save Pokémon. But I could never get my signature moves to work, Sacred Sword and Secret Sword, so I hadn't earned the position of a member of the Swords yet."
"Okay, that's cool!" Angie smiled. "So the moves are actually how you become a Sword of Justice. So did Ash teach you them or something? I guess he does have that sword, so..."
"Actually, no, she came later," Keldeo clarified. "Ash helped me come to realize what being a hero meant, and that's how I became able to use my Sacred Sword and Secret Sword moves. It was realizing something about me as a person, not about how to fight – though I learned a lot from that too."
"So I guess Ash has really helped your development as a Pokémon," Angie said. "Interesting… how did he do that?"
"To be honest, it's kind of private, and it involves stuff about other Pokémon I don't want to share," Keldeo replied. "Can't really help you there… but a lot of what helped after that was being able to train against so many different Pokémon with all kinds of different experience! I learned a lot about battling all different kinds of Pokémon, and also about how to think when I trained – that's one of the biggest things Ash taught me."
He frowned. "But apart from that… well, Ash taught me a lot, like I was saying, and I also got a lot of good stuff from training against his Absol. She could kind of set it so that my not learning the lesson would be a disaster, so training with her was really efficient!"
"That's something cool I didn't know Pokémon abilities could do," Angie muttered, writing it down. "I wonder how many things like that there are, which aren't even part of what a Pokémon's supposed to have as their move or their official Ability – just a thing they can do, which is really powerful once you think about it?"
"Yeah, it's important to think about," Keldeo agreed. "I mean, Jirachi granting wishes isn't actually the move Wish, it's just a thing they do…"
Angie nodded, then looked down at her notes.
"I have… like three pages of stuff, but only about two paragraphs are about you," she said. "Can we ask about what moves you know?"
"Should I count moves I invented?"
"All right, so I think the important thing to know about my relationship with Ash is that, while it didn't have an ideal start, we became fast friends pretty quickly," Pikachu said. "We've been partners for ages now, I've been around longer than any of his other Pokémon and I think we've got the closest bond – obviously Lucario is close, but I still think Ash and I are closer. Though that's not a criticism of Lucario, it's just what I think."
He flicked his tail idly. "Ash has always pushed me to do better, but only because that's what I want too. If there's a way of getting stronger that I genuinely have problems with, he won't even hear of it – that's why I'm not a Raichu. But the result of all that, of all those years of pretty intensive training against a massive variety of opponents, is that I consider myself to be easily among the best at what I do. It's a self-reliant strength which I don't think I would have had without Ash there beside me – and it's the fact he was beside me for so much of it that leaves me confident that he's the right trainer for me."
"You do realize I don't understand a word, right?" Conway asked.
"I do keep not managing to find time for the Aura translation trick, but you have a Psychic type," Pikachu waved his paw. "I'm pretty sure that conversation's already been had."
Conway groaned, then sent the Slowking in question out with a flash of white light.
"I was asleep," Slowking said. "Can you start from the beginning?"
"Not until I make the other point I wanted to make," Pikachu went on. "For as long as I've known Ash, he's been good at understanding Pokémon. But I'm proud of the fact he really got me first, and I think that's part of what's shaped us both – even Ash's style for battlers fits much better with fast and agile Pokémon than with others, and I suspect part of that is because of me. It's kind of an odd – but meaningful – feeling to know that you've had such an impact on your trainer."
He shrugged, then brought out his Light Ball – tossing the sparkling electrical artefact up into the air, then reabsorbed it. "And even with all the troubles and dangers… I wouldn't have it any other way, I really wouldn't."
At that, Pikachu paused. "Except maybe a bit less mortal peril, that would be nice..."
"Hey, you got a moment?" Barry called.
Squirtle turned, checking the time with a glance at the sun, and blinked. "It's only about ten minutes until you need to hand in your paper, kid. You're leaving it a little late!"
"No, he handed in his paper earlier," Prinplup supplied.
Smeargle held up a sign, which informed Squirtle that Barry was probably wanting to talk about something else entirely.
"All right, kid, I'll hear it!" Squirtle declared, striking a pose. "If you want to hear about the badass leader of the Squirtle Squad, the mighty Squirtle, then you've come to the right place! And it won't matter if you can't understand my words, because my mighty passion will cut through misunderstanding and doubt! That's right, you're going to-"
Barry handed him a pad of paper. "Can I get an autograph?"
"...well, it's not what I expected, but I like your style!" Squirtle decided. He took the pen and flipped it through a slightly improbable manoeuvre, drawing a complex scribble on the pad. "It's a rare human who recognizes this level of distilled awesomeness when they see it!"
"Thanks," Barry said, reclaiming the paper. "I asked online which one of Ash Ketchum's Pokémon was the most clearly ridiculous, and I got about twice as many different suggestions as Pokémon he actually has – I think, but there's lots of lists out there and none of them really agree on what Pokémon he has – and then there was that a lot of them said different Pokémon for contradictory reasons! So I went through all of them and made a diagram, and I decided you were the one to ask because I couldn't find proof he's actually Rayquaza's trainer and too many people think Mewtwo's fake."
That one got through even Squirtle's armoured aplomb, and he did a double-take.
"Someone who's really persuasive on this forum I visit said that Mewtwo's only ever appeared on TV," he went on. "Apart from that his book and stuff could have been faked, so a lot of people on this forum say he's not real."
"I wonder if these people believe the world's round..." Prinplup said to himself. "That usually only appears on a screen."
"I confess I'm quite glad we're giving them a long task tomorrow," Rowan said, looking over the pile of essays and reports that had been handed in.
The presence of several Pokémon translators as well as such an interesting topic had meant everyone was quite motivated. Rowan wasn't certain, but he suspected some of the reports included actual original first-hand research – and, while it would be a pain to credit everyone involved, he thought it would be a nice little gesture if he worked with the people who'd done that quality of work to produce some written-up monographs, listing them as co-authors.
The problem was that that meant it would be a lot more effort to do the marking on the Pokémon Watcher essays than normal…
"Yeah, there must be hundreds of pages to go through," one of his aides agreed. "And some of this stuff… I think we might need to ask to borrow that Porygon-3 Ash Ketchum has to confirm if it's correct or not."
"Is that the term for it?" Rowan asked, interested. "Hm. I thought he hadn't decided what to call himself."
"I hadn't heard if that was the official name," the aide said. "But we need to use some name for him."
"Fair point, fair point," Rowan allowed. "Well, we can at least decide how to divide these up between us. Anyone mind if I do it?"
His aides all nodded, and Rowan partitioned out the papers more or less at random before picking the one on top of the pile and having a skim through.
It was quite thick.
Then he saw something odd, and went back to the front. There was a neat number on the end of the name, and he followed it to the end-notes.
I'm not sure if I can put the name Ketchum on here, because that sort of thing is a bit complicated.
"Hm," he said, getting the attention of the nearest assistant. "This is the one by that Mawile who's taking part. Quite good handwriting, bit blocky but legible enough..."
"Dexter?" Mawile asked.
I am online, Dexter said, his projector manifesting his newly-standard form. Is something the matter?
"I just wanted to say thank you," Mawile told him. "I didn't realize how much the lessons you gave me helped until I heard how many people were surprised I could write. I think lots more Pokémon should be able to write, but I also know it's going to be hard to do that… so thanks."
That's fine, it was a pleasure, Dexter told her. You're right, though, Pokémon literacy is something which is a bit lacking. I think a lot of us can read, but not many can write…
"Maybe if there are Porygon everywhere people will have a chance to learn!" Mawile suggested. "Though I know a lot of Pokémon don't have the right body parts… hmm, I might need to think about that a bit..."
"Another project?" Goodra asked.
"Maybe," Mawile said, thinking about it. "I'll let you know later?"
A long way to the south, as the sun set, a Shaymin came gliding down towards a likely-looking copse of trees.
"Phew," she said, already anticipating the night's sleep. "Flying is great, but flying for this long is really kind of tiring – well, I can just fly shorter distances in future, I guess."
She trimmed her angle carefully, dipping down towards the field, then touched down with a gallop which turned into a trot and then a walk.
Shrugging off her panniers by the log she was planning on sleeping in, she checked the angle of the sun and breathed a sigh of relief – that had definitely been cut too fine, and it was only a few minutes later that her transformation into Sky Form faded with the setting sun.
Checking over her Gracidea panniers, she nodded to herself at how healthy they looked – only to jump out of her skin as a voice spoke next to her.
"Hello."
Spinning around and falling onto her back, Shaymin looked at the Ninetales who'd spoken.
"Sorry for startling you," the Ninetales added. "I hadn't expected to meet a Shaymin here."
"I wasn't really expecting a Ninetales either," Shaymin said, rolling back upright. "Nice to meet you, though."
Ninetales turned her gaze to the panniers, then back to Shaymin. "A traveller, I take it?"
"That's right," Shaymin agreed, relaxing a little. "I want to see as much of the world as possible."
"A noble goal, and one I've been following for a while," Ninetales said. "I know I'm not very fast compared to you, but do you think we could travel together for a bit?"
Shaymin tilted her head. "I guess… sure, I wouldn't mind the company, it'd be a nice break. Where are you heading?"
"Wherever you are," Ninetales told her.
She swept her tails around her, making ready to use them as a fluffy pillow, then paused. "By the way, do you have a name?"
"Apart from Shaymin, not really," Shaymin answered. "I guess you mean a human one, though?"
"That's right," Ninetales agreed. "I was just curious."
"No, sorry," Shaymin told him. "Do you have one?"
"Kyoko," the Fire-type told her. "It's an old name, but I'm still proud of it."
"Nice to meet you, then, Kyoko," Shaymin said, then yawned. "I'm sorry, I've been flying all day a lot recently..."
"Then I'd better let you get to sleep," Ninetales suggested. "We can talk more in the morning."
AN:
Surprise appearance of the Ninetales from Johto.
Also, this seemed more interesting in general than using the local Pokémon.
