Rather than walk all the way back around Sinnoh, Dawn suggested that maybe they could try out taking a boat from Canalave a few miles around the coast.

It sounded like a nice change of pace, and Ash and Whitney (and the relevant Pokémon) were all quick to agree, but almost immediately there was a problem – there weren't any ferries leaving Canalave.

"Why not?" Ash asked, curious.

"It's the Wailord," replied the sailor they were speaking to. "They've blocked the bay, just downriver of the bridge, so we can't get the ships out."

"Well, that's no good!" Ash frowned. "Something's up, and those Wailord must have a reason for doing what they're doing!"

He took a Moon Ball off his belt. "Latios, let's see if we can help!"

Latios came out of the Moon Ball. "You think we can help out?" he asked.

"Oh, you must be that League Champion kid," the sailor said, sounding impressed. "Going to defeat the Wailord, then?"

"Not if they have a good reason to do what they're doing," Ash replied. "I don't know – that's why I'm going to go and ask. Is it okay if I get a lift, Latios?"

"Not a problem," Latios replied, and Ash swung up on his back before boy, Pikachu and Latios shot off towards the mouth of Canalave Bay.

The sailor stared after them for a long moment, then turned back to Whitney and Dawn. "Is he usually like that?"

"Yeah, he's always been helpful like that for as long as I've known him," Dawn agreed.

"No, I mean…" the sailor began, then shook his head and chuckled. "Maybe I do mean that, then. Good kid."

Getting to the Wailord didn't take long, and Latios lowered so that Ash could speak to them.

"So… it's obvious that you're blocking the entrance to the bay," he started. "Why are you doing that?"

"Aren't you a Legendary Pokémon?" the Wailord Ash was addressing said. "What's even going on?"

"Hey, a Legendary Pokémon can have a trainer anyway," Ash said. "They're like other Pokémon, because they can choose to have a trainer or not, and what Latios chose is to have a trainer! Anyway, I asked the question first… oh, and, sorry for answering a question aimed at you, Latios."

"That's fine," Latios assured him. "Also, my sister is giggling a lot right now. Just so you know."

"That sounds like her," Ash agreed.

"Well, if you can understand Pokémon it makes a bit more sense why you have a Legendary Pokémon," Wailord conceded. "And… it's because a Wailmer has gone missing. We know that he went this way, and we don't want to miss him, but obviously we can't go into the city to actually find him. We don't even fit under the bridge, let alone into wherever a Wailmer can fit."

"That sounds like something that's easy enough to fix!" Ash said. "You could just use Minimize, and shrink down so you fit easily!"

"But none of us even know Minimize," Wailord protested. "I don't think any Wailord does."

"Then you can be the first!" Ash said. "Latios knows it, but it might be a bad idea for him to demonstrate if he's holding me up… Pidgey, can you give me a lift?"

Pidgey came out of her Pokéball, flashed through Pidgeotto to Pidgeot in a blur of Pidgeyvolution, and Ash swapped to her. Then Latios demonstrated, Minimizing down to about the size of Ash's hand, and all the Wailord stared.

"So, uh, the first step is that you have to realize it's not just about shrinking," Ash began. "If it was about shrinking, you'd get denser, but instead you don't get any denser and because you get smaller you get lighter. Right?"

"Well," the sailor said, watching as the pod of Wailord – each about the size of a Lapras – swam into the bay. "You don't see that often."

"And I wish you did, because it's great!" Whitney said, clapping her hands. "They're like those floating toys you get in swimming pools and on beaches! I wonder if they can be even smaller?"

"I heard a Wailmer just now," Chatot told Whitney, head tilting a bit. "Do you think it's relevant?"

"Yeah, probably," Whitney agreed.

The missing Wailmer was a bit confused to find the whole pod had come to find him, especially because the whole lot of them fitted into the drainage system under Canalave.

He was also a bit confused that the water in the drainage system had become sparkling clean and pure a few minutes before the Wailord had arrived – courtesy of Suicune – and when his mother told him that a Swampert had protested about the intrusion into his territory and Pikachu had blasted the Ground-type hard enough to correct his assumptions.

Still, it was nice to hear that some of the local urban Pokémon – in fact, just about all of them except for Swampert – had rallied together to help Wailmer out.

As Dawn said, it really made you sure that most Pokémon were basically good.

The ferry was moving up the coast when Ash spotted a mountainous island off the port side. "That looks interesting. Where's that?"

Whitney unfolded the map. "That looks like… Iron Island, I think. That or we've gone further than I think, but if we have then we'd have seen Iron Island before now. So I think that means it must be Iron Island!"

"Is that somewhere with Steel type Pokémon?" Ash wondered. "The name makes it sound like that, but I've been to at least one island that didn't have the right name… remember Alto Mare, Pikachu?"

"Oh, yeah, doesn't that place's name mean High Sea or something?" Pikachu asked. "You're right, it didn't have a very high sea. In fact the whole point was that the sea was lower there than normal."

"Right," Ash confirmed. "So maybe Iron Island isn't about an island that's made of iron, or it doesn't have Steel types on it."

"Alto Mare is great, by the way," Whitney told Dawn in an aside. "It's got as many canals as streets. Someone I knew once said it had too much water, but I think having that much water is great – it's a bit like Michina but not quite, because both places are about a different relationship to Pokémon. In Alto Mare, because the canals are everywhere water Pokémon can get everywhere."

"So can Latias and Latios," Ash told them, then looked down as Zygarde patted his foot. "Is something up?"

"I am detecting a disturbance on Iron Island," Zygarde explained. "I believe we should investigate."

"I guess that's okay," Ash said. "Ibid, can you get hold of Dragonite and Dragonite? I think they'd like to have a bit of a fly… and I'll just check with the guy who runs the ferry that it's okay for us to leave halfway through the journey."

Touching down on Iron Island, Ash let Zygarde down so that the Dragon-type could try to pinpoint the disturbance, but he'd barely started before someone came sliding down a rocky escarpment to greet them.

His name was Riley, and he had a Lucario companion, and he asked if they'd come to help.

"Sure!" Ash replied. "Depending on what's going on, then how we help might be different, but of course if someone needs help then we'll be helping somebody!"

"You've got a noble spirit, Ash Ketchum," Riley said, with a nod. "I am grateful for your help. I do not know what is going on, but my friend Lucario has had to fight off a surge of energy already."

"It was hard," Lucario confessed, sounding vulnerable. "It made me feel angry, and out of control."

"Then… do you have a Pokéball?" Ash asked. "Is it okay if you quickly go in there if you feel it happen again?"

"I do not," Lucario said. "Neither Riley nor myself has ever felt the need before… though, perhaps, that was short sighted."

"There is a disturbance going on again," Zygarde reported.

Lucario took a sharp breath, sinking down to one knee with his paw going to his forehead, then snarled. He took an ominous step forward, and Ash hit him on the side of the head with the flat of a Sacred Sword.

The impact startled Lucario, but more to the point it helped him get a handle on what was going on. He took another long breath, then blue light rose up around him and he made a forceful gesture.

"Thank you," he said. "I think."

Riley was staring. "What did you just do?"

"Sacred Sword," Ash replied. "Or, I guess it was False Swipe instead because I used the flat?"

"That's… enormously difficult," Riley told Ash. "I've never… you must understand, using Pokémon moves as a human is a prodigious feat of Aura."

"Oh!" Mew said, transforming back from a rock on the ground that turned out to be a Geodude that turned out to be Mew. "Sorry, Ash, I guess we started with the hard bits! That must mean everything else is easier!"

She waved. "Hi! I'm Mew!"

Over the next few minutes, Ash, Riley and Lucario talked about what could have caused Lucario's sudden flash of irritation.

Zygarde paced back and forth, occasionally raising their head or antenna to get a better reading, then padded back over to report.

"I have determined that the disturbance is not related to Aura," they said. "It is instead an electromagnetic disturbance."

"It is?" Pikachu asked. "I didn't feel anything."

"That is because you are not a Steel type," Zygarde informed him. "The low frequency energy waves are mostly of a type to which they are sensitive. The disturbance is focused on the other side of the island, and it is going on and off irregularly."

"Then I guess we should go and investigate," Ash decided.

"Scan is going well," Mars reported. "The Spear Key is narrowing down our search area."

"Good work," Saturn told her. "It is essential to our plans that we locate the Spear Pillar. Are the explosives in position?"

"I got word less than a minute ago," Mars told him. "The Iron Ruins will be destroyed completely, and there may also be an earthquake."

"Good," Saturn reiterated.

Then his Toxicroak tugged him on the arm and gestured.

"Cancel the operation," Saturn said, without any change in demeanour or tone of voice. "Evacuate the island, immediately. Bring the Spear Key but abandon any equipment you can't load up in the next forty seconds."

"But-" Mars began.

"Do it," Saturn insisted. "This is a priority override."

Less than five minutes later, Dawn's Pachirisu and Nickit were running through the Iron Ruins.

"Next one?" Nickit asked.

"Let's see… let's see…" Pachirisu replied, flinging an Aura Ring out to each side and concentrating. "Signal is…"

The charge of a battery twinged on her senses, and she pointed. "There!"

Nickit loped over to the ancient obelisk, concentrated, and her tail flicked out.

A small pile of wires clattered to the ground.

"That one's disarmed," she reported. "Any more?"

"I think there's one over this way!" Pachirisu called. "No, wait, Pikachu and Marshadow found it first!"

"And that's great!" Ash said. "No more risk of an explosion."

He looked up at Riley, who was staring at him. "What? Is there something stuck on my paw?"

"You just turned into a Pokémon," Riley pointed out. "You did something I didn't see, and turned into an Absol."

"It's this potion stuff!" Whitney explained. "Ash got some in, um, I think it was Johto? It's literally magic. You should try some! I kind of think you'll end up a Lucario but it's just a guess, you could end up being something else."

She indicated Dawn. "I keep telling Dawn that it's great fun, but she's not sure about trying it yet."

"I know I probably should try it at some point," Dawn admitted. "I'm just… a bit nervous about how you'll end up."

"I think… usually it's something which makes sense for who you are," Ash guessed, before activating Illusion and returning to human shape. "But it's your choice… and that's for both you I could be talking to, too."

"Right," Dawn agreed. "And I think that I should, but I want to wait until I feel that as well. That way I won't feel bad about it if it does turn out bad, even though I already think that's unlikely."

"You are all wise trainers," Lucario said. "You have helped us save our island, and shown us things that we did not know were possible, and all as a great gift rather than a burden of any sort."

Riley looked like he was trying to make a decision, then chuckled.

"Anyone want a Riolu egg?" he asked. "The Kingdom gave me one to pass on to a promising trainer, and really that could be any of you."

AN:

At any given time, you could be less than six feet from a Mew.

Partly because Mew have less than six feet, unless transformed.