Not long after Gible had joined them, the friends were walking along and Whitney was checking the map.

"So… I think we go down here," she said. "I – whoa, look out!"

A Magnezone went charging past in front of them, and Ash squinted after it.

"What's up with that Pokémon?" he asked. "They seem really angry about something…"

"Your assessment appears correct," Zygarde evaluated.

"Well, whatever it is, uh…" Whitney began, checking the map. "I think it's heading towards a nearby town."

Ash nodded, clenching his fist. "Then we should find out what the problem is!" he said. "Come on, guys!"

Whitney swung astride Rapidash, who stepped into the air, and Ash picked Zygarde up as he got ready to use Agility.

Dawn exhaled. "Okay, this is going to be a bit annoying, but let's see if it works. Pichu?"

"On it!" Pichu agreed.

Ash set off at a sprint, and Rapidash cantered away. Then Pichu put her paws together, eerie blue lightning fizzing around them, and the trees froze in place and faded to a pale blue as well.

"Wow," Cyndaquil gasped. "I never thought the world would look different like this. Can you do this when you're battling?"

"Not really, not yet," Pichu answered. "Sorry, I might not talk much. Concentrating."

Riolu relayed both of those, though he didn't quite get the voices right.

"That's fine," Dawn told them, then returned Cyndaquil and started walking.

"Hey!" Ash called. "Is something wrong? Do you need help?"

"Where did you come from?" Magnezone asked. "Weren't you just back there?"

"Yeah!" Ash agreed. "And then you went past looking mad and heading for a town, so I thought I'd see if I could help!"

Dawn blurred in next to them, then sighed. "I need a better way of getting around quickly," she said.

Magnezone looked confused.

"I just spent an extra quarter of an hour walking," Dawn explained. "I know it's a good way to catch up, but it's a bit boring to just walk like that."

She patted Riolu, as Whitney rode in on Rapidash. "At least I had someone to talk to!"

"Yeah!" Riolu agreed. "We had a good talk."

"I do not understand this situation," Magnezone declared. "All I wanted was to fight Metang and work off stress."

"Is that why you're heading into town?" Ash asked.

A Metang intruded into the meeting. "We are late for our appointment," it declared.

"Where do you normally do it?" Dawn asked. "If this is a normal thing, you must have a normal place to do it, so what's changed?"

Around three minutes later, a hand tugged on Baraz' cape.

"Huh?" he said, looking around. "Hoopa? You're up early."

"Hoopa does not sleep!" Hoopa said. "At least, not when Hoopa can be doing shenanigans. But Hoopa wants to ask… Dahara is a desert city, right? So Hoopa thinks that means it could do with more water?"

"We've got plenty of salt water, but fresh water is something we're missing," Baraz replied. "Wait, why are you asking-"

Hoopa opened a small portal. "Hoopa told you Hoopa could solve the problem!"

Hoopa then opened a large portal, and Baraz was nearly knocked down by a blast of cold water.

"Hoopa is unflooding a valley!" Hoopa announced proudly. "That way, Steel type Pokémon can beat one another up in peace!"

Baraz didn't seem to understand just how much that solved many problems at once.

After digging a drainage hole for the crater basin – which was the best way to actually stop it from filling up again, but which would have been a little harder before Hoopa had volunteered Hoopaself to drain the crater – the friends made their way to Daybreak Town.

On the way they met someone called Daniel, who was training a Snorlax in what he proudly described as a scientific way, and said that his Snorlax was as fast as a Pikachu.

"That's pretty good," Pikachu agreed. "Are they as fast as a Snorlax?"

Daniel frowned.

"Well, uh… yes? By definition," he said. "Though my Snorlax is faster than most other Snorlax."

"I didn't think of doing this way of training my Snorlax," Ash said, watching admiringly as Daniel's Snorlax did sit-ups. "Mostly mine spends his time sleeping, but when I wanted him to go faster I just taught him Agility. Then Extremespeed, because that helped with the speed too."

Daniel adjusted his glasses.

"That sounds difficult," he said. "And impossible to quantify until it's finished working. My way of doing things involves repeating beneficial skills so that Snorlax gets the best possible balance of abilities."

"Oh, like learning to master a move means you do it over and over again," Pikachu nodded. "I get that. But what about the imponderables, like willpower?"

"No, actually, that's here," Daniel said, pointing to his laptop. "I'm running a model of Snorlax's current willpower which takes into account his physical reactions, recent work and diet."

"Huh," Pikachu replied, leaning closer to the screen. "I don't actually understand most of the equations here, but… yep, you've got willpower all right. And mental flexibility."

He twitched his ears. "I have to admit, this is pretty good."

"Though I kind of think Snorlax needs a rest," Ash said.

Snorlax fell over and began snoring.

"Huh, I didn't expect that," Ash added. "It does make sense for a Snorlax to know Rest, but that wasn't meant to be an order and I'm not his trainer."

"Actually, he doesn't know Rest," Daniel frowned. "I suppose maybe he is tired… well, he'll need the rest before the Pokéathlon tomorrow."

"Please tell me they're still accepting entrants!" Whitney asked. "What are the events – same as Johto?"

"I think so?" Daniel replied. "It's three random events from a pool of ten… I don't know how they do it in Johto, or what the events are there…"

The events turned out, on the day, to consist of Hurdle Dash, Snow Throw and Circle Push.

Daniel's Snorlax managed to win the Hurdle Dash, with a close-run victory over the Absol he was facing, then in the Snow Throw a Snom aced the whole round by demonstrating that she was able to use glittering Frosmoth wings to fly despite not actually being a Frosmoth yet – on top of some excellent skills in snow-ball throwing.

Circle Push saw a Plusle doing her best but not quite able to edge out the performance by Daniel's Snorlax, and at the end of the whole day's event Daniel found himself quite surprisingly on top of the field.

"That was great!" Ash told him. "It looked like they were having a lot of fun out there."

Daniel shook his hand. "Yeah, I think I'd almost forgotten that… the point is to have fun, and even if winning is fun then it's not the only part of taking part that's fun. That Snom did really well, though."

"Heh, yeah," Ash agreed. "You're going on to the finals now, right? I don't remember how that works."

"You're the one who read it out to me yesterday," Daniel protested. "Did you forget that quickly?"

Pikachu thwapped Ash with his tail, which revealed that Ash was actually Zorua when the Illusion burst.

"Good going, Pikachu!" Zorua complained. "We nearly got away with it!"

"Hey, we checked the rules about this," Pikachu replied. "Only one entrant per round per competitor. It didn't even say they had to be your own Pokémon…"

Daniel blinked. "Uh… where are the trainers I met yesterday?"

"Getting two silver and one gold medal," Pikachu answered. "Zorua, you're going to have to relay that one."

"Do we know what Pokémon Dawn is using this time?" Mr. Sukizo asked, as the Daybreak Town contest began. "I think we've seen a bit more than a normal full six Pokémon team from her, but then again her friend Ash has a lot more than a normal full six Pokémon team. How many is it again?"

Contesta muttered under his breath for a moment. "...at least three full teams, I think," he said. "Just offhand. It's probably a lot more, but I might need some paper to try and work them out."

Sukizo waved him off. "It's fine," the other judge said. "I'll just assume she might have something new for us. She's up next, I think."

"I expect I'll be able to keep track of what you two are so enthusiastic about, sooner or later," Joy decided. "For now I'm mostly just looking forward to the Appeal."

Dawn stepped out onto the stage, bowed, then sent out Cyndaquil and Shinx. Cyndaquil promptly opened with something that was a lot like Rain Dance, slapping his paw down on the stage and producing a crackle and roll of thunder, and ominous clouds gathered around him.

"That's odd," Joy frowned. "We don't get many Cyndaquil in Daybreak Town, but that one doesn't look like they're the right colour."

"Oh, I'm fairly sure they're not the right colour, either Shiny or otherwise," Mr. Contesta observed. "I wonder – ah!"

There was a peal of thunder, then a zip-whoosh as Shinx cloaked herself in a giant flaming Arcanine, and Joy leaned over towards the other two judges.

"Is it me, or have they swapped Types?"

"All right, Cyndaquil!" Dawn called. "Blitz attack!"

Shinx began advancing, using Stomp or a very slow Flame Charge or something, and each footfall produced a pretty roil of flames which spread out before fading away into a wisp of smoke. Cyndaquil got moving as well at the same time as Shinx started her lumbering footsteps, lightning buzzing around him, and each time a footfall came down Cyndaquil jumped into the air with a snap of electricity and avoided the flame shockwave.

The clouds Cyndaquil had created rippled overhead, answering his lightning bursts with a roll of thunder of their own, but a moment later Cyndaquil missed his dodge and ended up underneath Arcanine's paw.

Then Dawn raised her hands to her mouth.

"Fight it, Shinx!" she called. "I know you can do it!"

Shinx's giant flaming Arcanine-form rippled, slowing just as it was about to step on Cyndaquil, and the younger Pokémon took his opportunity. He crouched, lightning fizzing around himself, then jumped up and right through the flaming Arcanine – and came out the other side holding Shinx, before using Magnet Rise to hold them both in mid-air just below the thunderclouds.

The flaming construct rippled, then exploded in a bright flash of light and a spherical expanding shockwave, and once it faded Cyndaquil dropped them both back to the ground.

"...so, just to be clear," Mr. Contesta began. "Those mistakes we saw were probably scripted?"

"Probably," Mr. Sukizo agreed. "That or they were semi-scripted and were going to move on to the next step whenever an error happened… and, really, either earns points by my book."

"Flamethrower!" called Dawn's opponent, a trainer called Ursula. "Jigglypuff, Hyper Voice it!"

Jigglypuff used Hyper Voice, amplifying the Flamethrower Ursula's Gabite had used, and Dawn snapped her fingers as the attack roared towards Swinub.

"Spectral Thief!" she ordered – more so the judges knew what she was doing than to reiterate what the fingersnap meant – and Nickit's tail flicked down into her shadow before coming out of Swinub's and grabbing at him.

The entire Pokémon vanished through the shadow, reappearing next to Nickit, and the combination Flamethrower-Hyper-Voice attack wooshed through empty space instead.

"What?" Ursula said, blinking. "How did – what just happened?"

"Nickit can steal all kinds of things," Dawn replied. "And there's no rule against stealing your own Pokémon… yet, anyway. She's not allowed to steal other trainers' Pokémon, points, the show or the hearts of the audience."

Nickit winked.

"Jigglypuff, Play Rough and grab that Nickit!" Ursula ordered. "Gabite, Dragon Rage them both!"

Nickit glanced up at her trainer, and winked.

"Go ahead," Dawn said.

Up in the audience, Zygarde winced at the result.

"I feel sympathetic," they said. "It is never fun to discover that an immunity you relied upon is less than complete."

"Isn't it less than complete here because Nickit stole Jigglypuff's Fairy type?" Whitney checked. "That's a different case, I'd think… but wow Nickit is glittery all of a sudden! I wonder if she'd be willing to do that again! For photos!"

AN:

That's the right competitive spirit, I think.