"You have to estimate how many Tauros are in a large area of park," Mawile read off. "The area is too large to survey all at once, and the Tauros move around a lot. Describe three ways you could get a rough idea of how many Pokémon."

She tapped a hand against her chin, her pencil drumming on the table as she twisted it in her other hand. "Hmmm… and I bet they'd consider it cheating if I just asked, too..."

After she said that, she frowned. "Actually, would they?"

Deciding to put it down and revisit the question if she came up with three other ideas, she wrote it in, with a footnote that mentioned how she was a Pokémon herself and so could ask without trouble.

It took her a few minutes of thinking to come up with a second one, using a paintball marker or something to tag some of the Tauros in an area one day, then count up all the Tauros in the area over the next few days and see how many of them had paint on them.

She noted carefully that the problem with this was if the Tauros washed the paint off themselves, but that she hoped it was okay. She also hoped the Tauros wouldn't be too upset by being hit with paintballs.

Mawile was puzzling over a third one when Damos chimed in. Mawile? You have an email. There's a video along with it.

"Oh, okay!" Mawile said, stopping the timer she was using to measure her completion time for the test and putting down her pencil. "Who's it from?"

Ash, Damos replied. Or, at least, I think Dexter sent it. I've invited Professor Oak to come and have a look too, I think he'll like it.


"...wow," Mawile said. "That was amazing!"

She frowned for a moment. "I think I need to add a new bit to my list!"

"I can see that being very popular," Professor Oak smiled. "If Mewtwo can work out some of the problems, that is… though, hm! I know they use Metagross to simulate micro gravity at the space centre down in Hoenn. Perhaps they could simulate a low gravity, and people could go flying… it would be a fine way to relate to Flying type Pokémon, I think."

"That sounds great!" Mawile agreed. "I'd start writing about it, but… I think I need to get back to my test..."

She turned, paused, then nodded. "Of course! If they move around a lot you can kinda treat the populations in each place as average! I think..."


"Why don't you ever listen to me?" Cresselia demanded. "I said we should meet up here on the fourth!"

The Darkrai opposite her crossed his arms, smoke issuing from his head as he fumed. "I did listen to you!" he replied. "I wanted to see what it was like first!"

"You couldn't take it on trust?" Cresselia asked hotly.

"Well, clearly you have issues with trusting me!" Darkrai shot back. "You're always busy anyway, I thought you'd appreciate getting some time away from all that paperwork you're doing!"

"I'm doing the paperwork for a very good reason, dear!" Cresselia insisted. "The settlement deal is the best offer we've had for a very long time, and if I get everything right now it's going to be an important source of value for us long into the future – it doesn't have to take up this much time forever, but the setup period is very delicate!"

"And if you'd realized how much time it was costing you then you'd have been much more circumspect about it!" Darkrai countered. "It's important we spend time together as well, sweetheart, we don't get much chance as it is!"

"But that wouldn't matter if you would just stick to the schedule!" Cresselia said hotly. "Now I have to spend some of our scheduled time off working, because you gave everyone nightmares!"

"That's not my fault!" Darkrai told her. "It's just how I am, all right?"

"But it wouldn't have been a problem if you waited until I was able to come with you!"


As the two lunar legendaries continued arguing over Canalave City, Ash and his friends looked skywards with a joint wince.

"This is a lot less impressive when you know what they're saying..." Dawn said, chuckling nervously.

"Yeah," Brock agreed. "It's kind of embarrassing, really… you feel like you shouldn't be here."

"I don't remember the other Darkrai we've encountered being this… this," Pikachu said. "Though admittedly they were generally on the job."

He gestured up. "Should we… do anything?"

"I'm not sure what we really could do," Ash said. "Telling them off seems kind of rude, and we can't just attack them over having a loud argument, that's really overreacting."

"Rude?" Lucario asked. "It's three AM. They're being kind of rude themselves."

"That is a good point..." Ash said, frowning. "Mewtwo, do you have any ideas?"

It occurs to me that there isn't any sound in space, and there's not a great deal of sound on the moon, Mewtwo noted. Though I suppose it would be non-ideal to get into the habit of putting people who annoy me on the moon. It might be the wrong image.

"Even if they live on the moon?" Brock asked.

Sending them to their moon rooms? Mewtwo considered. Perhaps not the impression I want to give either, as I'm one of the youngest Legendary Pokémon.

Lucario pointed. "I think Latias has decided to try and sort the problem out."


"Excuse me?" Latias said.

"Well, I just wanted to do something- yes?" Darkrai asked, turning to the Dragon-type.

"Sorry to interrupt," Latias told them both, clasping her hands together. "But I'm afraid that it's the middle of the night, and you're being quite loud. I have a suggestion, if you're willing to hear it?"

"Of course I am," Cresselia declared. "Darkrai here though-"

"Don't think I'm going to-"

Latias' eyes flared, and she conjured a Light Screen in front of each Legendary – showing them just themselves, instead of letting them look at one another.

"All right, as I was saying," she went on, disabling her shields again. "It's already morning in Alola. You could go there and enjoy yourselves a bit… perhaps try surfing? Sunbathe on the beach?"

She shrugged. "But, above all, get on with actually enjoying yourselves! I spent such a long time cooped up… take it from me, wasting your time off arguing is doing neither of you any good."

Darkrai and Cresselia stared at her, then at one another.

"...Alola?" Cresselia asked eventually.

"Alola," Darkrai agreed.


"Ready?" Will checked, adjusting his mask.

Misty nodded. "Yeah, I want to see if this will work. I've been working on a way to beat your telekinesis for a while."

"Another way?" Will chuckled. "As if using your own psychic Pokémon to interfere with my telekinesis – or using that Mega Gyarados of yours – weren't enough."

"That's right, it's not enough," Misty confirmed. "I'm working on something everyone can use… though I'm sure you'll promptly come up with a way around that in turn."

Will nodded. "That is how it works. So, who do you want to face today?"

"Doesn't really matter, so long as they're a telekinetic," Misty told him. "So… basically anyone."

The Psychic trainer thought on that for a moment, then sent out his Grumpig with a flash of light.

"Morning," the porcine Pokémon said with a wave of a trotter. "Nice to see you."

"And you," Misty smiled. "All right, Politoed, like we practiced!"

Politoed landed on the battlefield with a wet splatch sound of toad-feet, and squared off – waving briefly to Grumpig, then taking his stance.

"Psywave," Will instructed.

Grumpig's gems flared as he sent out a pulse of psychic energy, and Politoed fired a Bubblebeam back – disrupting most of the psychic attack, and reducing the remainder so it didn't hit Politoed very hard at all.

The Water-type bounced up and down twice, then slammed his feet into the ground hard with an Earthquake – one which cracked the arena they were standing on.

"Man, it's a good thing these are so easy to replace," Will noted absently. "And, by the way, that doesn't count as getting through the telekinetic shield. It just shook the ground a bit, not enough to actually hurt."

"I know, I know," Misty agreed. "Hey, you can't do a trick like this without plenty of misdirection, right?"

Will chuckled. "True," he agreed.

"Duck!" Misty added suddenly, and a flying piece of the terrain narrowly missed hitting Politoed. "Speaking of misdirection..."

"It wouldn't be a fair test if I made it too easy," Will noted, as Politoed Bounced out of easy range of a second attack.

"Water Sport," Misty ordered. "Then Ice Beam."

Water rained down towards Grumpig, only to be stopped by an exertion of telekinesis and spread in the way to act as a shield against the Ice-type attack coming down at the same time.

Politoed came slamming right down on top of the now-frozen ice, the sudden massive increase in weight driving it halfway from there to Grumpig, but the Psychic-type quickly adjusted to fling the ice – and Politoed – away.

Landing again, Politoed used Hydro Pump into one of the cracks the Earthquake had left. Water fountained in all directions, but especially back up at Politoed – though the Water-type didn't care much about getting soaked – and then the ground below Grumpig rumbled for a moment before disgorging a geyser.

Will gestured, and Grumpig tamped the water back down – also gaining a bit of distance, so Politoed couldn't use the continuous water route to deliver an attack.

"Not bad!" Misty's fellow Elite Four trainer nodded, as Politoed drew some of the available water up into a Water Pulse. "That's certainly one way to get through it."

"I'm not done," Misty replied, and Politoed used Fling.

On the Water Pulse.

Grumpig was slapped in the face by a fast-moving globe of water, and looked distinctly unhappy about it.

"Fling is a Dark type move," Misty pointed out.

"I take back what I said about it being nice to see you," Grumpig grumped good-naturedly.


"All right, time for a gym challenge!" Ash said, knocking on the door of Canalave Gym.

"How long was it since the last gym challenge?" Lucario asked.

"About, uh… two days, I think," Ash replied. "One if you count when we actually remembered to pick up Fantina's badge. But we're here now!"

The door opened as he spoke, and Byron leaned out. "Yes? Who – ah!"

Pulling the door more fully open, Byron looked Ash up and down. "You're Ash Ketchum, yes? My son told me what happened to his gym when you passed through..."

"Yeah, that was… a thing," Ash admitted.

"Well, rest assured I won't be as upset as he was, no matter what happens," Byron told him. "The gym's due a remodel, and getting rid of the old stuff would cost about as much whether or not it was intact."

He transferred his attention to Lucario. "And I can see you've got at least one fine Steel-type Pokémon."

"I've got a total of three," Ash replied. "Mawile has been with me for a while, and Kari is relatively new."

He tapped her hilt, and Byron nodded.

"Yes, Honedge is an interesting Pokémon… now, I've come to a decision, and I'm giving you my advanced challenge."

"What's the advanced challenge?" Lucario asked, interested.

"The advanced challenge is that you use your three oldest Pokémon," Byron told them. "It's a test of how well you know your Pokémon, and in particular how well you've trained any fossils."

"Uh… a couple of questions," Ash said. "First, if a Pokémon is a ghost, does it count their time before they became a ghost?"

"No, it's the time they've existed as part of that evolutionary line," Byron clarified. "So a ghost's first life doesn't count, but a fossil's does."

Brock waved a finger in the air, counting under his breath, then blinked and began to snigger.

"Okay, second question," Ash went on. "If one of them isn't available because he's training with someone else, what then?"

"You go to the fourth oldest, and so on," Byron told him. "Any other questions?"

"Yeah," Ash said. "And this is going to sound kind of rude, but… are you sure?"

"Of course!" Byron replied, leading them into his gym. "I've given it a lot of thought!"

Dawn started trying not to giggle as well.

"Because I'm pretty sure I know what the line up is going to be," Ash went on. "And I really want to check if you're okay facing Suicune, Ho-Oh and Giratina."

Byron stopped mid-stride.

"...what?"

"Well, with the Beasts it's a bit hard to tell, but I think Suicune is the oldest," Ash explained. "And they're a hundred and fifty, while Latias and Latios are only about a century old. Ho-Oh is obviously older because he created Suicune, and Giratina was instrumental in the creation of the universe so there's only maybe, uh… about six Pokémon who might be older than him? And one of them is the concept of time..."

Byron thought about that. A lot.

"Sure, why not?" he decided. "Like I said, the building's going to be remodelled anyway."


"Just through here," Byron said, leading them down a hallway. "Then up these stairs – I have two battle rooms, but if we want to have the possibility to wreck both we should start on the upper floor!"

He waved a hand at the wall, which was faced in slightly rusty iron. "You see the problem? Some damp got in, and the cost for repairing it is a nightmare – there's one company from down in Johto who have a Vaporeon that does ship repair work, but it's far too costly – easier to tear it all down and start again."

"I'm kind of surprised it's that costly," Brock commented. "I would have thought there'd be a lot of Vaporeon trained that way, it's not like rust is rare."

"So would I!" Byron replied. "But what can you do. Ah, there you are – just take them back to my house, thanks very much."

Two burly Machoke went down the stairs in the other direction, carrying large boxes.

"Fossils from the fossil room," Byron explained. "Any good gym has to have a fossil room!"

"I don't think my gym had a fossil room," Brock said, looking back down the stairs. "And I was a Rock type gym leader."

He shook his head. "I'm still supposed to be one, at that."

"Well, perhaps that's the problem, you need a fossil room," Byron advised. "All right, here's the battle area!"

At first glance, it was a fairly normal looking arena – apart from the walls made of bare steel plate, riveted in place. But there were scratches on the walls, the sign of accumulated damage, and it just didn't look like it was kept fully up to the original specifications.

Byron slapped the wall, producing a loud clang. "Still ready to go!"

He chuckled. "I love these rooms, but they need to be updated – that's just how it is! Make sure your Pokémon are ready, I just need to check everything I want to keep is out of the building!"

"Sure," Ash agreed. "I'll let you pick who you send out against my Pokémon specifically, it kind of seems only fair..."

He opened up Dexter. "Ready?"

Ready, Dexter confirmed. You already have Giratina with you, I'll just let Ho-Oh and Suicune know to prepare for a transfer.

An hourglass appeared on his screen, turning over twice, then vanished. A Pokéball appeared in the air, which Ash caught, then a Fast Ball which he snagged with the lower half of the same hand.

"Okay, guys," he explained. "Ho-Oh, you finally get a chance at a gym battle. Suicune-"

Suicune came out of her 'ball, landing lithely on the steel floor, and gave Ash a look. "...really? Didn't we discuss about how you didn't want to give someone an overwhelming challenge?"

"I know we did," Ash agreed. "Or, at least, I don't want to be that much like how Tobias approached things… but Byron asked for it. I mean, literally asked for it."

Suicune blinked. "Well, that… seems oddly specific. Father and myself?"

"Actually my three oldest Pokémon," Ash replied. "Lugia isn't available, so that means it's Giratina, Ho-Oh and you."

"No it isn't," Suicune replied.

"Why not?" Lucario asked. "If I am secretly one thousand years old I missed something. And we already asked about Kari."

"Well, I'm not the oldest of the Ecruteak Beast Trio," Suicune explained. "I'm the youngest, though not by much. Why did you think I was the oldest?"

"Partly because you always seem more sensible," Ash answered. "And partly because I usually hear it said Suicune, Entei and Raikou."

That's because that's the order you caught them in, Ash, Dexter pointed out.

"Oh, right… so what is the order?" Ash asked.

Ho-Oh flashed out of his own Pokéball, and hovered for a moment before setting down on the floor.

"The tower was struck by lightning," he said. "It burned, the flames taking it, until a rainstorm came to put out the fire. Of the three Pokémon who perished in the blaze and were reborn, they were created anew in the order of the events. Lightning, fire, and water."

"Wait," Brock said. "Would that mean Raikou is the oldest? But he's… Raikou."

"It's not by much," Suicune pointed out. "A few minutes, if that. But that counts if it's a tie breaker."

She paced over to the side of the arena, and sat down on her haunches. "But I'm interested in watching. You might want to bring Entei, I think he'd like to see this as well."

"All right," Ash agreed. "I guess that's your cue, Dexter."


"Everything's ready!" Byron reported. "Now, let's get this done!"

He paused, pointing at Raikou. "Is your Suicune busy?"

"No, she's over there," Ash replied, waving. "Turns out Raikou's the oldest. I'm using him first."

"Ahaha!" Byron laughed. "I see! Well, I'm going to LOVE this!"

"You sound like just the sort of trainer I like to see!" Raikou declared. "You're right! This is going to be excellent fun!"

"I have this odd sinking feeling..." Suicune said quietly.

"Oh?" Entei asked.

"Now, for my first Pokémon, you're going to be facing my Aggron!" Byron went on, sending out the big heavy Steel/Rock type – with an Aggronite on his brow. "Or, rather, my Mega Aggron!"

"All right, that's the kind of thing I like to hear!" Raikou declared, a few sparks running up and down his legs and terminating in his mane. "Get yourself Mega Evolved, and then we can really enjoy this!"

"Right!" Byron agreed, holding up his Mega Bracelet. "This is going to be marvellous! Don't hold back in the least!"

"Oh, that's what you meant," Entei realized. "This is essentially a battle between our brother and a human version of our brother, plus one Aggron in the middle of it."


As the golden light of Mega Evolution died down, Raikou looked his opponent's new form up and down before pawing once at the floor.

"Ah!" he said, chuckling. "I see you've prepared for this! This surface is too smooth for most Pokémon to get a grip on!"

A flash of blue light surged through him, and he slammed a paw into the floor – producing a series of creaks and groans as the floor distorted a little.

Mewtwo prudently established a shield around the Pokémon trainers and the spectators, but left the rest of the area clear.

"Should I say begin?" Brock asked.

"Why bother, they've already decided to!" Byron advised, as Mega Aggron began charging a Solarbeam.

Raikou's claws came out, a faint flicker of metallic blue sheathing them as he used Metal Claw and augmented it with Aura, and he suddenly charged off to the right – moving in a wide arc through the arena, leaving a trail of damaged steel behind him. Lightning fizzed around him as he circled around Mega Aggron, then he darted in and cuffed the Steel-type with a paw.

The electrical energy he'd been building up all discharged at once in a Spark attack, and Mega Aggron grunted before flicking his tail backwards at Raikou. The heavy weight crashed into Raikou's side, sending him skidding sideways in a screech of claws on steel, and the tail then slammed into the ground in an Earthquake.

Raikou jumped rather than take the hit, landing briefly on the wall before launching himself off again in a blur of speed. The easiest way to tell where he was going was by the sparkling trail of electricity he left behind, and he circled Mega Aggron twice before turning to face the Mega-Evolved Pokémon. His path didn't change, and he slid sideways for long enough to fire off an Aura Sphere – which crashed into Mega Aggron, sending him sliding a little way across the floor, but didn't prevent him replying with a Flash Cannon and a Flamethrower in quick succession.

Turning back to face in the same direction as he was going, Raikou wove in and out of the attacks with a booming laugh. "Excellent!"

"Surf!" Byron ordered.

"Surf?" Raikou repeated.

"Surf!" Mega Aggron confirmed, exhaling a wave of water which splashed against the floor – in such an amount that it got everywhere, covering the whole of the water to a depth of about a centimetre or so.

Raikou slowed a little, forced to do so by the much more slippery surface he was on now. He couldn't move fast enough to truly skip across the water, he couldn't turn that fast at that speed, so the water he could move across at the speed of sound still managed to slow him down.

"Aha, you didn't think that through!" he bellowed, and summoned a great surging rush of electricity before blasting it all into the water through his paws. Sparks flew, the water fizzing and popping as Raikou's Discharge attack spread out, and Mega Aggron's surface lit up with St. Elmo's Fire as some of the current went through him.

"Speak for yourself!" Byron called back. "Mega Aggron, use fire!"

Ash put his hands over his ears. So did Pikachu.

Mega Aggron used Flamethrower, sending a burst of flames surging out towards Raikou.

About halfway to their target they contacted the cloud of electrolyzed hydrogen and oxygen which Raikou had generated around himself.

The explosion was quite loud.


"Well, that's a disappointment!" Byron sighed, once the blast had died down. "I was hoping it would blow the roof off! But I suppose that means the air conditioning system is wrecked, so that's good."

"This whole situation would annoy Misty so much," Brock shook his head, looking around at the arena walls.

Despite Byron's evident feeling of anticlimax, the walls still showed the evidence of what had happened inside them – there was a definite distortion in the walls, along with a fine layer of damp from the water which had been blown all over the room by the explosion.

Out on the floor, Raikou shook himself a little to clear his dizziness, then chuckled.

"Ah, well! That was more like it!"

He tested his footing, a little gingerly, then broke into a run again. This time he moved noticeably slower at first, still making sure he was fit for the battle, but his speed steadily increased until he was just as much of a blur as before. The same lightning that had followed him the previous times built up, some of it fizzing out in charged discs onto the floor of the gym.

Mega Aggron used Surf again, but this time the stream of water hit a lightning bolt before it had even reached the ground. Lightning raced back up towards the Steel-type, shocking him lightly before he cancelled the attack out to avoid taking a nasty hit.

Most of the water in the stream burst outwards instead, largely transformed into steam instead of hydrogen, though that didn't stop Mega Aggron firing more beam attacks to try and catch Raikou out – using his Flamethower to form a curtain of fire Raikou would have to deal with, or sweeping his Flash Cannon around through where it looked like Raikou would run, or even throwing out Ice attacks to make the floor more slippery and try and make the Electric-type skid out.

"Whoops!" Raikou laughed, evading one of the attacks by a tiny margin, then using a Thunderbolt to shatter the ice ahead of him and give him better footholds. "Now, let's see if that trick the young Manectric likes will work out here!"

"Don't let him!" Byron instructed. "Earthquake!"

The building shook as Mega Aggron slammed a foot into the floor, this time managing to catch Raikou and knock him into the wall with a crash. The ex-Rock type followed up with a Rock Slide, and Raikou unlimbered his signs to knock three of the rocks away before returning one to sender with a stunning crack.

"Cry havoc!" Byron added. "Stone Edge!"

Raikou darted forwards, around the rocks which Mega Aggron sent his way, and pounced forwards as they left hefty dents in the gym wall with a lusty crash. The lightning he'd been gathering surged all at once, and he knocked Mega Aggron entirely into the air with a flash of mingled electrical and Aura energy.

The Electric-type darted forwards, following up his attack with a second one to knock Mega Aggron just a little higher. Aura flared as he hit again and again, each time forcing his opponent just a bit higher, until finally he went racing to the wall – up-around-and-down for an overhead Low Kick, slamming Mega Aggron back into the floor hard enough that the whole room groaned and distorted downwards.

The lightning trail reformed itself, then twisted together into three rings of electrical energy. They spun around one another for a few seconds as Raikou landed, then dissipated as Byron held up his hand. "He's out."

Mega Aggron reverted to just plain Aggron as he spoke, and Raikou exhaled with a huff.

"Good battle," he pronounced. "Marvellous! Don't you agree?"

"Of course!" Byron replied. "A pity you couldn't have made that overhead slam a bit stronger, though, he might have gone through the floor!"


"So I should recall Raikou, right?" Ash checked. "I can't remember what rules we're using..."

"Of course you should, I haven't seen your other Legendaries yet!" Byron replied.

Raikou raised a paw. "I think I'll be watching from over here, if that's quite fine by you!" he requested. "It's not often we get to see our fine father fighting!"

Mewtwo opened a gap in the shield to let Raikou in, and also to let both Ash's Ho-Oh and Byron's Bastiodon enter the field of battle.

"Begin whenever you're ready!" Byron called. "And make it as good as you can!"

"Of course," Ho-Oh replied, hovering in the middle of the room.

He turned his gaze to Bastiodon. "I fear I must ask you a personal question about your ability."

"What's the question?" Bastiodon replied.

"Thank you, that was it," Ho-Oh told him. "Since you heard my question, I now know you have Sturdy."

"Well, yeah, I have Sturdy," Bastiodon agreed. "Why is that a problem?"

"You misunderstand," Ho-Oh replied, rose-red flames glowing on the tips of all his feathers. They spread, forming a corona, then engulfed him in roaring Sacred Fire as he set himself alight.

Ho-Oh paused a moment, making sure his aim was good, then exhaled an astonishing blast of incandescent flame – one which widened out as it reached floor level, spreading out over about half the metallic surface, roaring and blazing and continuing as a single sustained attack.

Bastiodon was Sturdy.

The floor was not.


"Now that's more like it!" Byron declared, impressed, as he examined the melted edges of the hole – and his Steel-type, who was shaking glowing droplets of structurally compromised steel off himself. "Bastiodon! Earthquake! Then use Rain Dance!"

The Earthquake shook the building, and more of the floor between the two arena layers of the building fell in – distorting, peeling downwards, then breaking away with a metallic crash and landing on the lower floor.

"Now that the preliminaries are over with, it seems we can get on with the actual battle," Ho-Oh declared.


"Good day, dearie," Bertha smiled. "What's this I hear about a demonstration battle?"

"Bertha, good to see you," Cynthia replied. "Well, Ash Ketchum lent me one of his Pokémon, and we're having some familiarization battles… but it occurred to me that they're probably going to be quite impressive as well, so we may as well share them with the Sinnoh Elite Four at the very least."

She held up two buckets of popcorn. "Salted or buttered?"

"None for me thanks, dearie," Bertha answered, holding her hands up. "Very bad for you at my age!"

"Well, all right then," Cynthia said, with a disappointed moue. "But that means now I need to choose..."

She thought about it, shrugged, then picked up a bowl and poured in some from both popcorn containers.

"Begin!" she called. "Garchomp, Aerial Ace!"

The Dragon-type broke into a sprint along the ground. Shocks of air formed around her scythelike arms, and a moment later she jumped high into the air before lunging at her opponent.

Lugia rolled, psychic energy flaring around him as a single movement of his wings propelled him swiftly through the air, and began pulling in air to charge up an Aeroblast. Garchomp scored a glancing hit on one wing as she went past, pulling up into a stall turn and coming around for a second attack.

The Psychic-type unleashed his charged air as an Aeroburst rather than a more focused Aeroblast, knocking Garchomp off course, but this time the Ground-type was ready for her attack run to be disrupted and slashed out with a Rock Slide attack.

Lugia whipped his wing across to block, channelling psychic energy to augment the strength of his wing and make it a better shield, and diverted them without much injury. That also let him lash out with a powerful gust of wind, aiming for Garchomp but failing to catch her with it, before climbing much higher into the air with a powerful sweeping movement that sent grass billowing into the air from the arena floor.

"This is a nice stadium, isn't it?" Bertha said. "A bit lonely with only the five of us, though. And I see the boys are in the other box."

Cynthia nodded, much of her attention on the battle. "Rock rain!"

Garchomp twisted over and dove, slamming hard into the ground and shaking it. A Stone Edge fired as she did, and the boulders produced by the attack went flying high into the air.

Lugia noticed the multiple large rocks flying up past him, and manoeuvred to ensure they would all miss him handily. Then he heard a wham-wham-wham from below, and saw Cynthia's Garchomp blurring up towards him.

Her path was a series of high-speed jumps from one temporary platform to the next, using her considerable strength to push off from each one in turn to climb the falling rocks up to Lugia's altitude. Each one Garchomp hit went flying downwards to impact the arena floor with considerable force, except for one she used by smacking into it from underneath and shattering it into a dozen smaller fragments.

The shower of sharp-edged rocks hit Lugia from below and to one side, making him flinch, and while he was reacting Garchomp used one of the rocks she hadn't bounced off yet to resume her upwards momentum. That one burst into fragments as well, peppering the ground, and Lugia used Twister around himself to form a shield as Garchomp came blazing in.

"Well, it was nice," Bertha commented. "I think it's more of a rock and ground arena than a grass one now, though."

Cynthia chuckled. "Perhaps."

All the remaining flying Stone Edge rocks broke in quick succession as Garchomp used them to bounce off for a sequence of quick Crunch attacks, none of which got through the surging shield of Lugia's tornado Twister, then Cynthia pointed.

"Dragon Pulse," she instructed.

Garchomp inhaled and spat out a burst of multicoloured flames, which hammered into Lugia's twister and sent coils of disruption racing up and down it. The Dragon-type altered the direction of her attack, some of it angled to accelerate Lugia's Twister and other parts of it aimed to go against the grain, and after a few seconds the cylindrical shield began to fall apart.

Lugia let it, spreading his wings to sweep it aside, and revealed that he'd been preparing something inside his defence. The glowing light of an Aeroblast or Aeroburst was held in his jaws, and Garchomp got ready for the pulse of air pressure – except that Lugia instead used Hydro Pump, letting the compressed air tear the Hydro Pump to shreds and send water spraying out in a huge cone that completely encompassed the area Garchomp was flying through.

The disruption and spreading also robbed the Hydro Pump of much of its force, and Cynthia frowned – wondering for a moment what Lugia was playing at – until the Psychic-type Legendary switched to Blizzard, pouring energy into it and sweeping his wings wide so it swirled out to cover much of the arena.

Already wet from the spreading Hydro Pump, Garchomp flinched as she was hammered by frost and cold air. Her glide trajectory wavered, and she began using Fire Blast on and around herself to keep the worst of the cold away – before jack-knifing in mid-air to dive straight down into the ground in a Dig, vanishing with a crunch of displaced earth and avoiding the remainder of Lugia's ice-typed attack.

"Hmm, not bad," Bertha observed. "Of course, now you have the problem of what you're going to do to get back up and attacking. Very common problem for Ground types."

Cynthia smiled. "Yes, and fortunately Garchomp picked up a trick."

She cupped her hands. "Twister!"

A tornado of swirling blue energy erupted out of the ground, rising up towards Lugia, and Ash's Pokémon dropped into a Twister of his own before lunging down at Garchomp.

"Ah, so she did," Bertha nodded. "Lovely work, dearie."

"Yes, it's good having Lugia around just to train against, if nothing else," Cynthia agreed.


"Stealth Rock!" Byron instructed. "Remember, steel is just another kind of rock product!"

Bastiodon shrugged.

A circle of rocks flashed into existence around the Steel-type, moving to form a defensive screen, and Ho-Oh's flamethrower splashed off them to make the walls glow with heat.

"This is kind of an unusual gym battle situation," Ash said, one eye closed so he could see through the floor. "Ho-Oh has to be careful about when he moves between the upper and lower areas, because the upper area is safer for him but he can't attack as easily there… while the gap between the upper and lower areas has turbulence and stuff."

"Yes, it's impressive, isn't it!" Byron agreed. "Perhaps I should have thought of it before!"

"I'm not really sure how this fits with the steel type," Brock said, then shrugged. "But, well, it's your gym. For at least a few more minutes."

Bastiodon launched a volley of rocks at Ho-Oh, and the Fire-type shattered them into a thousand pieces with a jet of intense heat. The fragments fell around him, and then the Rock-type turned them into a Sandstorm and whipped up clouds of sand and rock fragments.

Ho-Oh's glow dimmed a little as he reduced his temperature from the brilliant blaze it had been, avoiding the potential problem of the sand building up on his wings. He flapped them twice, flying through the sandy cloud, then used Heat Wave – sending out a wave of fire and heat, which raised the temperature in the sandstorm itself to a high enough temperature that the sand melted into glass and forced it away from him at the same moment.

Before the currents of the sandstorm could regain control of the now-molten particles, Ho-Oh flared his wings and used Weather Ball. Most of the glass in the sandstorm came together into a single molten blob of glowing semi-liquid, which splashed down onto Bastiodon and sent gobbets of quickly-hardening glass spraying out from the point of impact like crater rays.

Bastiodon rocked back and forth, then used Ice Beam, and the glass flash-froze and shattered – sending fragments going everywhere – before the Rock-type pulled together a ball of rock for a Smack Down and launched it up at Ho-Oh.

The Fire-type's reaction was unconventional, but effective – he fired off a mighty burst of Sacred Fire, punching through the floor next to the hole he'd already torn, and a deluge of torn and half-melted steel fell down to intercept the attack.

Concentrating his fire again, Ho-Oh rocketed up through the now-enlarged hole. Sparks cascaded from his wings, and he readied his next attack.

"Hold on!" Ash called.

"What is it?" Ho-Oh asked.

"I think Bastiodon just passed out," Ash explained. "Overheating I think."

"I must admit, I did use a lot of fire," Ho-Oh admitted, cooling himself down somewhat – letting the heat dissipate, warming the room further. "Then encased him in glass. I'm surprised that the ice beam didn't help, though."

"I think it did," Ash supplied. "It's just that you then dropped molten steel on him."

"That would do it," Ho-Oh agreed, alighting on the edge of the hole. His talons sank in a bit, and he looked at them in surprise before turning to Ash and the other humans. "Is the floor not a bit hot for you?"

No, it's fine for them, Mewtwo answered. That's my doing. The rest of the steel is, indeed, very hot.

"Sort of a pity I didn't order Bastiodon to use Earthquake near the end, then!" Byron sighed. "That would have brought the house down!"

He shrugged. "Well, time for the third Pokémon match! And for this one, I'm using someone special… or, I will be once thing cool down a bit."

On it, Mewtwo stated, putting together a ball of Aura before draining away the heat from it, creating a large ball of ice Aura. It pulsed outwards, frosting the surfaces, and the whole building shifted noticeably as large chunks of it shrank from the sudden temperature change.

There, Mewtwo announced.

Ho-Oh spread his wings, tugged for a moment, then broke his talons free of the now-hard metal around them before flying over to his three children.

"Oh, uh, I should make sure Giratina understands what's going on," Ash suggested, sending the Dragon-type out. "Do you?"

"Hm?" Giratina asked. "I'm sorry, did I miss something?"

"We were training quite late last night," Pikachu admitted. "Sorry."

"Okay, so we're having a gym battle," Ash explained. "Byron's okay with battling only Legendary Pokémon, because he wants to wreck the building anyway. So you don't need to worry about that kind of thing."

Giratina glanced over to the smoking hole in the floor. "I must admit, I was wondering what kind of gym leader would have a gym reminiscent of a volcano."

"Hey, maybe I should suggest that idea to Flannery," Brock said to himself. "Or anyone else who's planning on having a fire type gym but doesn't have a quirk for it yet."

"So I should battle without regard for the structure of the building?" Giratina asked, wanting to make sure of this. "I know this world is not quite so prone to cause negative effects on my world as vice versa, but it was my understanding that humans were still quite attached to their possessions."

"If he's asking if it's really okay to destroy the place, tell him yes!" Byron called. "The louder the better!"

"Ah, that answers my question," Giratina said, considering. "But what of the area beyond the building?"

"That's still something we want to keep in one piece," Ash answered. "So, you know… don't try too hard for a large area of impact? And be careful with your portals."

I will be enshrouding the building in psychic energy to avoid overshoot, Mewtwo said. But even so Ash's advice is good.

"Very well, then," Giratina decided. "Who is to be my foe, then?"

"That would be him!" Byron announced, sending out a Mawile.

The Mawile looked Giratina up and down, then very deliberately tied on a headband – one which held a shimmering Mawilite.

Entei raised a paw. "Question. Are there not rules on how many Mega Evolved Pokémon you can use at once?"

"Of course there are!" Byron agreed. "The same's true of Legendary Pokémon, but you don't see me complaining, do you?"


"Right," Mega Mawile said, clashing his fists together with a whunng. "This should be interesting."

A steely glint shone over his body as he used Iron Defence, then charged forwards to attack Giratina.

The Ghost-type fired off a pair of Shadow Balls and an Aura Sphere, sending the latter into a portal which snapped shut a moment later, then brought his tail up to defend.

Mega Mawile's Play Rough attack hit an Iron Tail, making a noise which resonated through the building, and Giratina slid back a few inches before pushing back with a powerful flex. The power of Giratina's own muscles forced Mega Mawile back a step, and Giratina snap-fired a Dragon Pulse at the Fairy type to startle him.

Mega Mawile's jaws opened and swung around, firing Icy Wind attacks at Giratina from two angles – which the Dragon-type endured with a grimace, dealing relatively easily with an attack without Mega Mawile's huge strength behind it.

"Back off!" Byron called suddenly. "Go down to the lower area!"

Mega Mawile did so, backflipping and jumping down the ragged hole, and Giratina floated a little higher to prepare for whatever attack Mega Mawile might be preparing.

After a few seconds he gave a visible sinuous shrug, and opened a portal to the Reverse World on a flat horizontal plane across the gap in the floor.

The Aura Sphere he'd thrown through a portal some time before emerged, whipping down into the lower space, and the slightly muffled sound of an explosion came through to indicate that he'd scored a hit on something.

Satisfied by that, Giratina began charging another attack. This one was a glowing, fizzing Shadow Ball, spinning up faster as he readied it, and he fired it through the floor.

"It missed!" Ash called. "And, uh… I think it went off somewhere in the foundations. Mega Mawile is on the floor of the other room, kind of in the middle? But he's moving around."

"Then I need to make my aim better," Giratina said, half to himself, charging another Shadow Ball.

A Reverse World portal opened directly below him, matched by another a few inches further down and inside the lower arena room. Between them they effectively negated the existence of the floor, letting Giratina see into the lower room.

What he saw was a Mega Mawile approaching him very quickly.

The Fairy-type punched aside his Shadow Ball attack with one fist as he passed through the little area of the Reverse World defined by the portals, then hit Giratina with the other fist – his hugely boosted Play Rough knocking Giratina into the ceiling, leaving a visible serpentine dent.

The portals closed, and Giratina extricated himself from the dent by the simple expedient of phasing through the roof. He surged downwards, his crest lighting up, then turned briefly into a shadowy black silhouette before vanishing entirely from view.

Mega Mawile flipped around once and landed on the steel floor of the upper room with a clang, looking around for where Giratina had gone.

A bluish light flashed for a moment in the lower arena, then Giratina reappeared at speed – his path partially intersecting the floor, but phasing right through it and only coming into contact with Mega Mawile himself. The impact from an unexpected direction knocked Byron's Mega into the air, though Mega Mawile reacted fast enough to counter with a Play Rough punch that slowed Giratina's momentum and let Mega Mawile control how he hit the wall.

Pushing off again and bouncing off the roof, Mega Mawile dove down to deliver another Play Rough haymaker. This time Giratina reacted in time, phasing with his Shadow Force and a flash of blue to avoid the attack, and Mega Mawile punched a hole through the floor thanks to his inability to stop in time.


"How much of this is how Giratina already fought, and how much of it is the training?" Dawn asked.

"We focused on being able to react to new situations, to a significant extent," Lucario replied. "And I don't think he'd run into a Mega Mawile before, so his adapting to that is new. I think the two-portals trick is new as well, and I know that Aura Sphere trick has Ash written all over it."

"Yeah, I see what you mean," Dawn agreed. "So what else do you think Giratina is going to do?"

"Either try doing something else new, or go back to something that worked and that Mega Mawile didn't really react to properly before," Lucario suggested. "Either would do. Though I'm interested that Giratina hasn't come out of Shadow Force yet..."


"Where did your Pokémon go?" Byron asked. "You know I can set a time limit, right?"

"Not a short one, I hope..." Ash said. "I think he's actually in a completely different dimension."

That is not the word for it, Ash, Dexter interrupted. It is an alternate plane of reality, or a brane, or a world, or a universe. A dimension is like up-down, or left-right.

"Oh, so he'd be in a different dimension if he was flying," Ash realized. "Or time travelling."

The first one is… no. The second one is closer.

A moment later, the building shook.

"Ah, that sounds like Giratina is doing whatever it was he was planning," Lucario said.

Then there was a lurch, which left everyone feeling momentarily weightless. Mewtwo reacted quickly, holding everyone in a telekinetic grip so that when gravity resumed they wouldn't crash back onto the floor.

"Excellent, this should be spectacular!" Byron chuckled.

Then the roof blew in, revealing a surreal landscape of girders twisted into cylindrical towers outside.

A shower of dozens of Aura Spheres came flying in through the gap, all focusing in on Mega Mawile and surrounding him in explosions, followed by a crunch as something hit the gym from below.

Giratina swept up through the hole in the floor. "I believe I have met your requirement for the battle," he stated. "Where your gym once stood is now only a hole."

Byron looked out the hole in the roof, then down at the unconscious no-longer-Mega Mawile. "...where are we?"

"Oh, uh, I think Giratina just pulled your gym through into the Reverse World," Ash explained. "Then drove it into a wall, or possibly a floor."


"Uh… Officer?"

Officer Jenny looked up from doodling on her notepad. "Huh?"

There wasn't much to do these days, what with the crime in the city having more or less evaporated a few months ago… still, this sounded urgent. "Has something happened?"

"Um… I think so?" replied the trainee officer looking through the window. "I… think I need to report a crime."

"What kind of crime?" Jenny asked, sighing and getting up. "Come on, kid, give me a proper report."

"The Canalave Gym has vanished," her trainee answered. "It just… isn't there any more."

"Well, it was definitely there this morning," Jenny said, joining him at the window. "...and now it's not. You're right, that is odd."

She rubbed her temples. "And I was just thinking things had been a bit boring around here..."


"Spectacular as that was, I think I should ask," Byron said, looking though the roof at the shimmering portal showing the Sinnoh sky beyond it. "What did Giratina actually do?"

"I'll translate," Ash suggested. "What did you do, Giratina?"

"Well, I have given the limitations and peculiarities of my portals no small amount of thought," Giratina began, pausing for Ash to catch up. "After preparing several Aura Spheres in my World so they might home in on Mawile once I reopened a portal, it occurred to me that perhaps I might damage the gym most effectively by instead opening a portal to drop the building entire into it. However, as I felt it likely there was – sorry, should I slow down?"

"A bit," Ash asked. "He wanted to drop the gym into a portal."

"Yes," Giratina agreed. "So I did a small amount of damage to my own World to shake the foundations loose, and also to create a gap into which I could put a portal. This required that I use another portal some way overhead from the gym to lure the Aura Spheres away, but once done I made a portal beneath the gym somewhat wider than the gym itself. Then I simply used an Earthquake, shaking loose the gym from the ground around it, and dropped it into the portal."

It took several seconds for Ash to finish translating, and once he did Byron nodded.

"Very impressive!" he declared. "I love it! My gym is completely gone, and now all I need to do is to build a new one on top of where the old one used to be!"

As he spoke, Suicune looked up through the hole in the roof. She frowned, tilting her head a little, then crouched down and jumped up to the level of the roof and sprang off from there.

"I wonder what's got her fur in a bunch," Raikou pondered. "It can't be what happened here, surely? That was marvellous!"

"Speak for yourself," Entei muttered. "Do I have some kind of ability that's the opposite of Drought?"

Suicune came back down through the hole, the metal of the roof belling as she landed on it before jumping down to the badly damaged floor. "There's a police officer up there asking what happened to the building," she reported. "I told her my trainer was involved, and she's gone to get one of the incident report slips."

"Ah, I can see how that might concern her!" Byron admitted. "I hope you told her that I asked for it."

"You should probably tell her yourself," Suicune recommended. "I mean, it's not beyond the bounds of possibility that I'd be considered biased here… and, come to think of it, I'm not sure how well known it is that Giratina is Ash's now."


"Hey."

Byron looked up from the boxes his removal crew had taken out of his gym, and did a double-take. "Roark?"

"I heard what happened," Roark explained. "It made the news."

"Surprised you got here so quickly," Byron replied. "Teleport?"

Roark nodded.

"So, Ash Ketchum got you too, did he?" he asked.

"Well, he got me," Byron replied, shutting the lid on another box and heaving it aside. "Didn't know he got you as well."

"Yeah, collapsed my gym," Roark explained. "He had a kid with a Jirachi with him, so we weren't in it. What happened to yours?"

"Giratina dropped it through a hole," Byron answered, opening the next box. "They're still in town, sticking around while I make sure I don't want anything left in the gym."

He rummaged through the contents of the box, and found a paper-wrapped piece of rock at the bottom. "Ah! I was worried about this one."

Roark leaned over, and blinked. "Is that..."

"Yes," Byron confirmed, re-wrapping the fossil Sunkern leaf Roark had given him years ago. "It's the finest piece in my collection."

Roark glanced into the box, which included a magnificent Acheops fossil that was probably revivable, then back at the now-wrapped leaf.

"Thanks, Dad," he said.

Byron's ears reddened slightly. "It's only true," he replied. "It's the one I'd miss the most."

Roark considered that.

"Where are you staying tonight, Dad?" he asked. "You can't leave all this out overnight… tell you what, I'll get that Kadabra I hired to take us both back to Oreburgh for the night, and then I'll keep your collection safe until you need it."

Byron looked up, paused, then nodded firmly.

"That sounds like a fine plan," he said. "I take it you had to remodel after Ash Ketchum went through? It'll be interesting to see what you did with the old place!"


"So what are you going to do with the old gym?" Dawn asked.

"Good question..." Giratina admitted, musing.

A shadowy projection, one of the wing/arms his Altered Forme had, reached down to pick up a forkful of pasta. "I think I might just leave it where it is, and see what happens to it. It is not as though I am lacking in personal space."

He bit through the fork. "This is very good, though it tastes a little metallic."

"I think we'd better leave a big tip," Brock said. "And possibly invest in our own supply of chopsticks to use at places like this."


AN:


Yes, these two were not far apart in the show. So that's another gym, and I think we can call this one comprehensively wrecked.