"You're joking," Raoul Contesta said, as May sent out her Pokémon for the Appeal round. "You are actually joking."
"We all know who she travels around with," Mr. Sukizo said.
"Have you ever seen what the Cerulean Gym challenge has been like for the last year or two?" the Mulberry Joy added. "It's just how it seems to work out for that group."
"Ready, Manaphy?" May checked.
The Water-type gave her a firm nod in reply, his eyes flicking to the crowd, then nodded again.
"That's good," she said. "Okay, Bubble!"
The Water-type blew out a stream of bubbles into the air, spreading his flippers, and the bubbles grew larger as they rose – water filtering in as Manaphy created it, using what was technically probably Surf, until there were six foot-wide spheres of water floating overhead.
"And down they come," May added, quietly reminding him what came next so he didn't get worried about forgetting.
All six bubbles came down, one at a time, each one making a splat on the ground, and Manaphy drew himself up in the middle of them. Then he began to sing, a wordless tune, and stepped forwards while lifting his flippers.
The water on the floor crested up on either side, forming little miniature wave-ripples, and as Manaphy focused they got bigger until they were taller than he was. A third mass of water rose up, this one underneath Manaphy and lifting him higher, before the Seafaring Pokémon began to dance.
Two steps forward, and sweep his flippers ahead so the waves slapped into one another and sent a plume of spray into the air. One to the side, separating the waves again, and doing a twirl that sent them circling around in a semitransparent wall of water.
It wasn't a technically complicated dance, necessarily, but Manaphy was dancing with waves of his own creation and as his confidence grew he sped up – which naturally added a little turbulence and froth to the water, changing them from nearly-see-through curtains to walls of green-white water.
"Add some sparkle!" May said, and Manaphy slid down from his pillar onto the floor of the stage again. A sweeping gesture brought all the water up into a single sphere, returning to crystal clarity as the froth faded, and he split it in half before blowing a Fairy Wind into one of them.
This had been the hardest bit, in rehearsals, and May had a plan for how to recover if it had gone wrong. It didn't, though, with the bright blue-and-pink sparkles of the Fairy Wind flowing into the clear water bubble like a kind of slow-motion explosion before collapsing and mixing in with the water.
Manaphy pushed his flippers out to either side, sending the water blobs pouring away to either side, then began a much faster repeat of his original dance. This time rather than waves there were streams of water, one Fairy-pink on his right side and one clear-and-blue on his left, and they wove around one another as Manaphy rode a ball of water up and down through the air.
By the time he'd finished, he'd done a complete circle around May and the water streamers connected his start point to his end point. Then he drew all the water together, threw it up to form a Rain Dance, and jumped into May's arms.
"Well done!" Squirtle applauded. "That worked out great!"
"It's one of the funny things about a Contest routine," Brock said. "The amount of work that goes into rehearsing them means sometimes it's hard to tell if it actually does look good, while you're rehearsing… you're too close to it."
He shrugged, slightly. "At least, that's what I think of it."
"It is a difference with battling," Ash agreed, thinking out loud. "For battling, then you really do know if you've got a move working or not… the question is whether it's actually going to work in battle, and that's about your opponent. The worst thing there is if you're doing something which actually relies on something specific about your opponent, but you haven't realized it."
"So… what do you think?" Joy said, looking at her colleagues. "I've got some opinions, but you?"
"Well, I think that that Manaphy was new to Contest battling," Contesta replied. "They were a little bit nervous, but that's not actually something we take points for."
Joy nodded. "That makes sense."
"But as for the performance… it was good," Contesta went on. "The moves were combined well, and I'm not quite sure what move Manaphy was using to manipulate that water but I don't think we can honestly say it was performed poorly. And the Rain Dance at the end was extra flair, as well."
"Quite!" Mr. Sukizo agreed. "Did you notice, that water took at least five seconds to finish raining out. That means Manaphy was doing something to slow it down, not just throwing it and forgetting about it."
"I can see I've still got more to learn about Contest judging," Joy chuckled. "I would not have caught that point about the rain."
"What did you think of that, Manaphy?" May checked.
"That was fun!" Manaphy told her. "It went really great!"
"That's why we spend so much time practising," she said. "Okay, so, the next bit is the Battle Round. You remember what I said about that?"
"I do, mama!" Manaphy agreed, frowning slightly and touching the tip of a flipper to his mouth. "Umm… I still make my attacks look good, and you help me remember what to do?"
"That's about right," May agreed. "Let's have fun, okay?"
"Sunny Day!"
Manaphy's opponent, a Skarmory, let out a shout and spread his wings. The feathers splayed out a little, flashing into orange light one at a time, and a Sunny Day lit the hall with a wash of sunlight.
"That's impressive," Contesta said, making a note. "It's a strategic move, but for a Skarmory to know that move is risky… it could simply get itself into trouble, against Pokémon that have Fire attacks."
"Wave shield, Manaphy!" May called, as Skarmory's wings took on a more steely light and the Armor Bird Pokémon dove down in a Steel Wing attack.
Manaphy waved his hands, calling up the water he'd already spread on the floor, but under the effect of the sunlight it was sluggish – not with the same flowing ease he'd used in the Appeal round, or in the previous Battle round either.
Skarmory's attack still didn't hit solidly, but it did score a glancing blow, and Manaphy made another water cushion to catch himself.
"A good move," Sukizo said, pressing his controls, and May's point loss was smaller than it would otherwise have been. "But they're going to need to make a comeback, I think."
"Yes, I take your point," Contesta agreed. "Manaphy's on the back foot… back flipper? Do Manaphy have feet?"
"Swift!" Skarmory's trainer said, ordering Skarmory to fling out a barrage of throwing stars, and Manaphy threw up a wave shield just in time.
"If Manaphy keeps doing that, it's going to save them less points each time," Joy said, half to make sure she was following.
"Manaphy, use Bubble!" May called. "Make some big Bubbles – and use Fairy Wind on them!"
"Okay!" Manaphy replied, glad that May sounded like she had a plan even if Manaphy didn't know what to do, and coloured in all the bubbles he made with Fairy Wind so they sparkled and glittered as they moved. Skarmory came in for another attack while he was still working, this time using Air Slash, and Manaphy used a quick burst of water to dodge out of the way.
"Now, jump into one of them and mix them up!" May went on. "Keep them floating around, make it so Skarmory can't tell which one is which!"
Manaphy brought one of them down to ground level and jumped into it, vanishing with a plip sound behind the glitter, then the half-dozen big bubbles all began orbiting one another in a complicated pattern.
"Use Swift!" Skarmory's trainer said, and Skarmory's Swift did home in on the bubble which Manaphy was actually in, but the Swift attack itself didn't break through.
"Switch bubbles!" May called, quickly, and Manaphy dropped out of that bubble into another one.
"Swift again!" the other Coordinator said. "Keep it up – otherwise you'll lose track!"
Now May's opponent was losing points for repetition, but that wasn't enough to make it so they were going to win, and May waited a long moment before her next instruction.
"Now, burst the highest bubble – Rain Dance!"
"Rain Dance?" Skarmory's trainer repeated. "Wait – uh-"
The Sunny Day that Skarmory had been running was replaced by Manaphy's Rain Dance, sending glittering water raining down all across the arena, and Skarmory looked at his trainer for instructions.
"Burst them all!" May said. "And Surf!"
Every other bubble exploded at once into a swirl of glittering water, and Manaphy was revealed – and he clapped his flippers together, which brought the water together into two walls that caught Skarmory between them and brought the Steel-type to the ground.
"And catch yourself!" May reminded Manaphy, quickly, just in time so that the Water-type landed on a water cushion instead of hitting the floor.
"I'd say that was impressive for such a young Pokémon," Brock began. "But, uh… Pokémon ages are weird. Manaphy's definitely grown fast for his developmental age, though."
"That's a funny way of saying that Zorua doesn't get as much credit for winning a gym battle at about two minutes old," his Eevee said. "But then again there isn't really a non-funny way of talking about that, because it was funny!"
"All right!" Meowth said, jumping onto a table. "You guys have been enjoyin' the day, so far, right?"
"What I don't understand is why you have the flying base," Cassidy complained. "You're Team Rocket's perpetual failures. Since when have you done anything useful?"
She absently took a drink from one of the suit-wearing Wynaut catering the summit, then looked down at her. "Aside from maybe training Pokémon to do this kind of thing..."
"Hey!" James complained. "We do useful things! We report directly to the Boss!"
"That's right!" Jessie agreed. "And you'd better remember who ordered all of Team Rocket's Kanto agents to come up here!"
Butch snorted. "I guess if you're the new catering team…"
"Anyway!" Meowth said, raising his voice. "We got a presentation next, so you better go into the next room where we got some slides an' stuff! Questions at da end, please!"
It took a few minutes to get them all organized, but eventually the various Team Rocket agents were all piled into the lecture theatre.
"Okay, so, this is the first thing you need to know about," Jessie said, and Porygon threw an image of Ash up on the screen. "This is Ash Ketchum. He's a trainer with a very powerful Pikachu."
A few Rocket members started laughing.
"Yeah, yeah, it don't seem so funny when he's electrocutin' the Boss's Ground-types," Meowth said. "And the rest of his team ain't slouches either!"
The laughter died away a bit as Porygon threw up images of all of Ash's confirmed and suspected Pokémon.
There were a lot of pictures.
"...how many of those are Legendaries?" Wendy asked.
"Now dat's an interestin' question," Meowth said. "'cause it kinda depends how you define things. But I make it between twelve an' fifteen."
"The worst ones aren't even the Legendary Pokémon, though," Jessie said. "He's got a Swellow who's immune to Electric type attacks and can turn any attack into an Electric attack."
"...how do you even beat that?" Gozu asked. "Is it an Ability?"
James stroked his chin. "Well, if you find out, let us know…"
"Moving on to slide three," Jessie requested, and Porygon moved the presentation on.
"Zorua. Zacian. Noctowl. Mew, Ninetales, whatever this Pokémon is…" James said, waving his hand vaguely at Purrloin. "They're all masters of disguise, and that means it can be a real pain to know which Pokémon you're even battling. It's very inconsiderate."
Once the presentation was nearly over, none of the rocket agents were smiling any more.
"So, the basic rule is, be careful," Jessie pronounced. "Fortunately, we found out there's a trainer somewhere in Kanto who would make a good practice run. He's not too challenging, and he takes challengers if you can find him."
"Yeah!" Meowth agreed. "Some guy who lives in a pyramid, uh… Butch something?"
Butch's eye twitched. "That's got to be on purpose."
AN:
Giovanni is still on holiday.