"There it is!" May said. "Lilycove City!"

She shaded her eyes. "And the department store, of course… does anyone else have anything they want to pick up?"

"I was interested in a couple of things," Ash admitted. "Mostly presents… it might be a good idea to get a Moon Stone for Skitty and a Water Stone for Lotad, unless they're both sure they don't want to evolve into Delcatty and Ludicolo."

"In that order?" Max asked. "...actually, that was meant to be a joke but now I'm not so sure, given how you got your Dunsparce."

He glanced to the side. "Or how Combusken can somehow still fly even though he doesn't have any wings any more."

"I don't think Pokémon stop knowing moves just because they evolved, do they?" Ash frowned. "I've never heard of that before."

"I agree with Ash," Combusken said, leaning back as if the air were a cushion. "Clearly I can still use Fly."

"Though that does remind me," Ash added. "We're heading to Mossdeep after Lilycove, right? What's the best way to get there?"

Silver came out of his Dive Ball. "I can take you! Well, one of you anyway. And there's Zapdos too, and Dragonite… there's lots of options!"

"I know!" Ash agreed. "I'm just thinking about the best way to organize it. And whether Zygarde would want to have someone separate carry them."

"Your concern is appreciated!" Zygarde said, sitting down on the bluff. "But I will be fine with the usual approach."

"Meaning backpack," Pikachu agreed.

"I'm not much of a fan of the backpack now," Vulpix muttered. "It was cramped."

"Ooh!" Eevee said, jumping out of her own Pokéball. "What about if all those of us who can fly fly alongside? That way it can be like a parade!"

"...Eevee can fly?" Max asked. "Really?"

"Yep!" Eevee said, jumping into the air and staying there. "It's called Floaty Fall! It's a lot like Bouncy Bubble and Veevee Volley, and other moves like that!"

"Those are move names?" Max said. "...actually, hold on, now I'm curious. How are move names even chosen? Or do they just… happen?"

"You might want to ask Clefairy about that," Ash mused, then brightened. "Oh, yeah, who are you going to use in the Contest here, May? I… assume there's a Contest hall here, anyway."

"Maybe if May gets all her ribbons, then we can try Contests again!" Eevee suggested. "I bet Swablu would be great at it – we could do a duet!"

"...oh, I hadn't thought about double Contests before," May admitted. "There's a lot of interesting things we could do with those… especially if half the team was Skitty!"

Max raised a finger, then lowered it again.

"Okay, that is scary," he admitted. "What happens if she Me Firsts Doom Desire and converts it into, uh, Rock?"

They considered that.

"...let's not," May decided. "Or, at the very least, let's not somewhere people either live or like living."

At about the same time, miles over Mount Pyre, Meowth looked up from filing his claws.

"So… what do we got?" he asked.

"Concerned statement," Porygon began, appearing on the nearest screen. "You have not been reading the intelligence summaries?"

"Do I look like I read dat stuff?" Meowth demanded. "I learned ta talk human, dat's gotta be enough work for one cat, right?"

"Veiled rejoiner: clearly learning a language excuses you from applying yourself," Porygon said. "Smug addition. Which is why I am better than you as I have learned several."

"Then how come I always gotta translate what you say?" Meowth asked. "Didn't think'a that, did you?"

"Dramatic reveal," Porygon declared. "I have always been able to communicate with humans natively. Malicious addition: it just amuses me when you are required to repeat everything I say."

Meowth stared, then threw his file to the ground.

"Warn a cat before you tell him you've been takin' advantage of him like dat!" he snarled. "Why, I oughtta…"

"Serving suggestion," Porygon countered. "Have lunch. Addendum: Chimecho and Cacnea have finished in the kitchen."

"Dey have?" Meowth said. "Well, I guess you do lay out a good table, an' all. I guess I'll take dat as repayment."

Later that afternoon, Jessie and James looked at a map of Hoenn.

"Aqua was seen there," Jessie said, manipulating the controls, and a blue square appeared on the map. "Then there… then there… then over there… and there."

"But Magma was here," James replied, putting down a marker of his own. "And here. And there was that nonsense with the volcano… and the weather institute."

"I thought that was Aqua?" Jessie asked.

James frowned, stroking his chin. "No, I'm pretty sure it was both of them."

To compromise, he made the maker purple. "There!"

They stood back.

"...well, I'm stumped," James said, after a minute or so. "Did Meowth have anything useful to say?"

"It was mostly about cooking," Jessie sighed. "Though he did say it'd be helpful if we could get hold of a TM… something about seeing if they work on him?"

James considered that.

"I sort of want to see if he can learn some of those moves, but that's not really what we're after," he said, and fiddled with the controls again. "There must be an option somewhere on here…"

"Scanning," the computer system announced pleasantly.

Then a map appeared showing puzzle-pieces all over Hoenn, including a massive pile of them on top of one another in Lilycove.

"…isn't that that dog that follows the Twerps around?" Jessie asked. "That's strange."

May had just gone off to get ready, and the others were waiting for a chance to take their seats, when a familiar voice caught Ash's attention.

"Oh, this must be a musical," it said. "Wait… Ash? Is that you?"

"Keldeo?" Ash replied, turning around, and saw the Colt Pokémon trotting through the crowds on the street.

They seemed quite impressed.

"I didn't know you were in Unova!" he said. "What do you think of it? Caught any Unovan Pokémon yet?"

"But… we're not in Unova," Max protested. "We're in Hoenn."

Keldeo looked sceptical. "Are you sure?"

He trotted in a circle, looking around. "Because I'm fairly sure this is Undella Town."

"Did you get here by teleporting?" Brock asked.

"Oh, yeah, that reminds me!" Keldeo grinned. "I got my teleport to the point where I can take the other Swords of Justice along! Come on, guys, say hi – these are Ash and Brock! I've met them before!"

Cobalion, Virizion and Terrakion picked their way through the crowds as well, seeming considerably more nervous about the whole thing than Keldeo.

"Please do not take photographs," Cobalion asked, then inspected Ash. "Hm. Keldeo speaks well of you, you know."

"He does?" Ash said, brightening. "That's great!"

"I heard something about a musical," Terrakion contributed. "Is that still on? Or have they sold out?"

"This is a queue for a Pokémon Contest," Brock told him. "We're in Lilycove City, in Hoenn."

Virizion started giggling.

"Oh, okay," Keldeo replied, accepting that. "Still, they're fun, right?"

"My sister's taking part," Max supplied. "She had two routines she was working on, I'm not sure which one this is going to be, but they're both great!"

"I can see I'm not going to be able to stop this happening," Cobalion decided.

"Professor Oak says that about me sometimes," Ash replied. "Usually just after something's happened that he says has never happened before again."

"And fourth is May Maple!" Joy said. "She's been full of surprises so far, I hear – let's see how her Appeal goes this time!"

May stepped out onto the floor, and Max nodded.

"I know which one she's doing now," he said.

"You do?" Terrakion asked. "How?"

"Ssh," someone told him. "I know you're a Legendary Pokémon, but ssh."

"Sorry," Terrakion said, considerably more quietly. "But how do you know?"

"It's the outfit," Max pointed – May was in a dress that was quite short and white, but also had a lot of fluff to it, and her hair was tied up tightly in a bun.

"Come on out!" she called, holding up a Safari Ball, and Dratini emerged in a flash.

May caught him before he hit the ground, then placed him gently down, and clasped her hands before bowing to the Dragon-type. He bowed back, then blew gently, and a Twister attack sizzled out of his mouth.

Rather than surging forwards, or coming back to wrap around him and launch him into the air, it went coiling lazily upwards – like smoke – as Dratini controlled and focused the move. It got longer and longer, adding more coils and rising like a charmed snake, then the coils fell over as if they were solid and several of them ended up just in front of May.

"I think that might have gone wrong…?" Mr. Contesta said, dubiously, but May was already taking a step forward. She picked up the Twister coil in her hands – not seeming to care about how it was an active Pokémon attack – and threw it over herself, before doing the same with a second one as her Dratini stared at her with ferocious concentration.

"...is that actually possible?" Cobalion checked. "I am no expert on Dragon types. I'm just checking…"

Now with three coils around her, May gestured upwards. Dratini flicked his tail in response, and the whole Twister animated again – rising up and becoming an ascending spiral, then flicking over and transitioning into a single wide whirlwind that hid May completely from view for about ten seconds.

Next Dratini pulled the Twister back, unpeeling it and surrounding himself with it instead, and it launched him into the air. As it did, though, everyone saw that May's appearance had changed while she was hidden.

Her tightly wrapped hair had sprung back out into a more customary shape, and the hidden folds of the dress she'd been wearing had unfolded – changing it from white to blue, and a blue festooned with glitter at that.

She held out her arms, then nearly fell over as Dragonair landed in them and he turned out to be heavier than she was anticipating.

"...well, now!" Mr. Sukizo said, laughing. "A remarkable Evolution motif, but one that's ended up more literal than we were expecting!"

"Oh, I believe I see," Virizion mused. "So the dress was made so it could be quickly changed while she was concealed. Clever."

"Yeah, Bulbasaur and Croconaw had a lot of fun working on that," Ash said. "Bulbasaur's pretty good with a needle, I think he's going to teach Bulbasaur too."

"...Ash, not everyone can recognize the differences in Pokémon names," Brock pointed out.

"I thought it was you!" May's opponent declared, taking off the hat that completed his Cacturne outfit and flourishing it at her. "I remember you from Slateport!"

"Oh, yeah, sorry again," May winced. "I-"

"Sorry?" the man repeated. "Sorry? You think apologizing will do anything?"

"I am sorry, you know," May told him. "But I don't really know what to do apart from that."

The man frowned, then spread his hands. "Well, you could lose!"

He sent out his Pokémon, a Banette, and May sent out her own Dragonair – who coiled a little and hung in mid-air.

"Good choice, Dragonair," May whispered.

"This should be interesting!" Joy said. "Harley is famous for grudge matches!"

May brightened slightly at the reminder of his name, because she'd actually forgotten, then the judges called for them to begin and Harley's Banette threw a ball of flame that hit Dragonair squarely on the nose.

"Excellent!" Harley said, with a flourish. "Hex!"

"Twister!" May countered, and her Dragonair whipped up a shaped whirl of Twister around himself. "Now, dodge while you're inside the Twister – remember you can fly, you don't have to go in the same direction the Twister is going!"

She looked at the scores, which had shown a big drop from the original Will-o-Wisp but which were now a bit more even. It looked like Dragonair's control of his Twister was still scoring them points, but the problem was actually hitting Banette because the Ghost-type was fast-moving and hard to pin down.

On the plus side, Harley's Ghost-type wasn't hitting much either, even though he was making a big performance out of each Hex and the crowd was gasping and applauding…

"Dragonair!" she said. "Change of plans – bring your Twister in closer and make it warp and weft! Wrap it up and layer it, around and around then up and down!"

"So… is this actually still Twister?" Cobalion asked.

"Now that I think of it, Dragonair was paying a lot of attention to the sewing when he was a Dratini," Brock said, thinking about it. "And so was May, mind you… I thought that was just because it was part of the routine."

Ash was leaning forwards a bit. "That's kind of like Thunder Curtain, too, right Pikachu?"

"Yeah!" Pikachu agreed.

"Because I think I just had a new idea," Ash went on. "It, uh, might take a couple of weeks to teach everyone though, because I think everyone could use it."

"Disable!" Harley called.

His Banette reached into one of his 'sleeves', drew out a shimmering thread, then slashed it with a claw.

Dragonair's Twister immediately began to hiss and seethe and unravel, not coming apart straight away but about to.

"Dive into it!" May called. "Then use Dragon Rage to focus it!"

Dragonair dove into the unravelling Twister, but did not use Dragon Rage to focus it.

Instead, Dragonite used Hurricane, his brand-new wings sweeping out and drawing all the dragon energy of the disintegrating Twister into waves around them.

"Clap them together!" May decided.

"That's not fair!" Harley protested, then Dragonite hit Banette from both sides with focused and coiled-up Twister.

"So… I'm not entirely familiar on their constitution," Pikachu said, as May extinguished Dragonite before going up to collect her ribbon. "Does that make him a prince?"

"I suspect there will be some sort of noble title in it for him," Zygarde replied. "Did you know that the Kingdom has adopted the title Dux as a gender neutral term for the holder of ducal rank?"

"That sounds so specific that I'm going to guess you are one," Brock decided.

"King Dragonite is quite persuasive."

AN:

Wandering Legendaries taking it a bit further than usual.