"Who's this I'm battling…" Manning said, checking the list. "Dawn, huh?"

He looked up as she walked out onto the field. "How many Gym Badges do you have?"

"Only four," Dawn replied. "They're all the same one, though, so I'm not sure how you count that."

Manning adjusted his glasses. "You've only got one Gym Badge, then… I think I'm getting through to the second round."

He held out his Pokéball, waiting for Dawn to do the same, then sent out his Pokémon. "Heatmor!"

Dawn's Swinub came out of her Pokéball, and tipped backwards so he was balanced on his hind feet before waving a forefoot in a 'hello' gesture."

Heatmor snorted, flames licking out of his proboscis, then took a ready stance as the announcer called out both Pokémon.

"It looks like it'll be a battle of fire against ice!" he said. "Now, competitors, begin!"

"Flamethrower!" Manning called, straight-away, and Heatmor exhaled a tongue of flame that reached out towards Swinub.

"Water Spout!" Dawn replied.

Manning frowned. "Sorry, what?"

Swinub dove into the ground like a swimmer, a brief fountain of earth rising up, then a torrent of water erupted out of the hole. It hammered into the Flamethrower, half-boiling and half-bursting and turning the simple attack into a kind of giant fan of spray that spread out through half the arena.

"What even was that?" Manning asked, baffled, as Heatmor stopped attacking now it was clear he wasn't achieving anything. "I didn't expect such a little Pokémon to make so much water!"

"Well, he didn't make it all himself," Dawn replied. "He dug it up – there's high pressure aquifers and stuff underground!"

Manning blinked a few times.

"How could you possibly know there was one right underneath your Swinub?" he asked. "How did they even build the stadium here if – no, this is a distraction. Heatmor, get a Solar Beam ready!"

"That's the funny thing about someone going from Contests to being a Gym Leader, even a junior one," Cynthia said.

"It's not the only funny thing," her Lucario pointed out. "There's several funny things about it."

"Fine, then," Cynthia replied, shaking her head. "That's one of the funny things, you pedant."

"If he didn't say it I was going to," her watch informed her.

"So, what is the funny thing?" N requested. "I'm not sure I quite get it."

"Normally, for a competitive Pokémon battler, the number of badges you have is a good start on how skilled you are," Cynthia explained. "But I think Dawn thought he was asking her how many Beacon Badges she had on hand… she's allowed to give them out, after all."

There was a bright flash down below as Swinub used Scald, and the Solarbeam refracted out into pretty rainbow patterns that played across the arena walls.

"Okay, that's it!" Manning said. "Heatmor, Smokescreen! Then do that thing you did in the Castelia Gym!"

Heatmor pumped out a smokescreen, and Dawn thought for a moment.

Then she pointed. "Swinub, that air's got smoke in it, and smoke is made of stuff that's kind of like volcanic ash, and volcanic ash turns into rock! Dig through the air!"

Cynthia thought about that.

"How much of what you taught her is just thinking too fast to realize that what you're thinking of doesn't make sense?" she asked Ash.

"Huh?" Ash replied. "Why wouldn't it make sense?"

He pointed. "It's working."

"We've certainly got a wide variety of competitors today," Freddy the Scoop said. "Isn't that one of the Striaton Gym Leaders?"

"Huh?" Alder asked, leaning forwards, then brightened. "Oh, yeah, that's Cilan. He's the, uh… third Gym Leader? I think he counts as third. There's a Dragonite there now though… some kind of trend if you ask me."

"That's quite a trend," the commentator replied. "And his opponent is Shepherd… let's see what they send out!"

The arena quietened down into an expectant hush, then Cilan and Shepherd both sent out their Pokémon.

"A Pansage and a Galvantula!" Freddy said. "That's an interesting matchup, wouldn't you say?"

"Yeah, it's difficult to overcome that kind of advantage," Alder nodded. "I guess we'll see how good Shepherd really is!"

"Pardon?" Freddy frowned, looking at the Unova Champion. "Don't you mean how good Cilan is?"

"Not really," Alder shrugged.

"But Galvantula's got the type advantage," Freddy said. "Bug type. And it's a stronger Pokémon and – what in Reshiram's name just happened?"

Alder held up his hand to shield his eyes.

"Blast Burn, I think," he decided. "No, I tell a lie, it's two Blast Burns, one to make sure the other one doesn't launch Pansage off like a space monkey."

"Reesh," said a small Reshiram.

Alder and Freddy slowly turned their gazes to the little white Dragon-type.

"Res-hi-resram," Reshiram added, and flew off.

"That was strange," Alder said. "I wonder what that was about?"

"I wonder if we'll ever know," Freddy agreed. "Or if that was even real. Did you see a Reshiram about the size of a Lillipup here a moment ago?"

"Yep," Alder confirmed.

The Fire attacks down below had finished, and Galvantula was being recalled, but then the small Reshiram appeared again with a Tepig hitching a ride on its back.

"...oh, it's back," Freddy said. "How do you think we should react to this?"

"At this point, just smile and nod," Alder advised. "That gets me through most social interactions."

Tepig took a pencil out from behind his ear, then drew a wooden sign with writing on it.

I am here for translation, it said, then he twirled the sign in his trotters. Think of it like subtitles.

"Well, thank you," Freddy the Scoop decided to begin with. "But, um… what did Reshiram say at first?"

Tepig looked down at Reshiram, who spoke. "Raam, resh."

I heard you say my name, so I thought I should turn up, the sign announced, as Tepig twirled it again.

"How are you doing that?" Alder asked. "It didn't say that last time."

Another twirl. Probably not relevant.

"Yeah, true," Alder admitted. "What else did you say, then?"

"Reesh," Reshiram supplied.

Not a lie, because it was a Blast Burn, there was just another Blast Burn, Tepig translated, spinning his sign twice for that one.

Another twirl. And you should probably announce the winner.

"Oh, of course!" Freddy admitted, flicking the switch on his microphone. "And Cilan wins! I'm not sure how, but I'm not arguing. Let's see what the next trainers have to show!"

"Do you actually have any more Dragon Types?" Georgia asked, as Iris' Archeops appeared. "If not, are you a Dragon Master at all?"

Iris shrugged. "I think all my Pokémon are dragons in spirit, but Archeops has learned a great new combination move!"

"Well, unfortunately for you, Beartic is ready for anything you've got to throw at us!" Georgia replied, pausing for a moment as the referee counted them in. "Beartic, Avalanche!"

"Skill Swap!" Iris retorted. "Then Nature's Madness!"

Georgia paled. "Wait, what?"

There was a sort of soft, fluffy explosion of ice and glitter, and when it faded Beartic looked distinctly unsettled.

"Okay, what even was that?" Georgia demanded. "I've only vaguely heard of the second move, but I'm pretty sure the first one can't be learned by Archeops!"

"I don't know, I'm pretty sure the first one can be learned by Archeops," Iris replied. "Because she did. And you've got to admit, reviving a fossil from over sixty-five million years ago is a pretty mad thing to do to nature."

"Well, I guess that's that," Cilan said, patting Dwebble on the back. "It was a good try, though."

"Yeah," Dwebble agreed. "I thought I had it, right up until I exploded."

"That's the downside with using that kind of move," Cilan agreed, glancing down. "Shell Trap is a neat move, but when you're setting up your own shell so that it'll explode if touched it's not a great thing to trip over."

He shrugged. "Still! We just need to work on it again, not every bake goes right the first time."

"True," Dwebble agreed. "So let's try it again when we get a chance."

Cilan nodded. "And once we've got some water available, of course!"

"Um… how are you doing that?" Pidove asked. "I came over to see if you wanted to come up and join us in the stands, but are you having a conversation with Dwebble? How are you doing that?"

Cilan held up a book. "This is how."

Pidove flew closer. "Um… Dwebble phrasebook? How does that work?"

"Quite well, really!" Cilan answered, turning it around to show Pidove the pages he'd been consulting. They were hand-written, neatly arranged with two columns per page of phrase-translation.

Pidove looked, then hovered slightly awkwardly and turned the page with her beak. Again.

"Every phrase in this book is Dwebble," she said.

"It's accurate!" Dwebble supplied, as Cilan turned the book around and flicked back and forth through it a bit.

"Yes," he agreed. "It is accurate. What would you expect, that it'd say a word that wasn't Dwebble?"

Pidove looked between Pokémon and trainer, then sputtered slightly. "But – what – how does that work? Where did you get that from, anyway?"

"Mew gave it to me," Cilan supplied. "He said that he'd learned enough calligraphy to get it right growing up in what would later become ancient Hisui, because apparently Hisui is what became Sinnoh and Sinnoh is the place which you'd end up if you stood right at the beginning of the universe and didn't move while it happened around you."

He put a hand to his chin. "At least, I think that's what he said. He was talking a bit fast and seemed very excited."

"Have you met Mew?" Dwebble asked.

"Good point," Cilan admitted.

"But how are you understanding me, then?" Pidove said. "I'm not a Dwebble!"

"No, but you're another Pokémon," Cilan replied. "And Pokémon speech is all different dialects of the same basic language, I learned that much from Ash."

"That's not what I mean," Pidove protested. "I mean – look – those phrases you're consulting say Dwebble, not Pidove! So how are you understanding them?"

"You make a good point," Cilan conceded.

"That's it?" Pidove asked. "Maybe Reshiram's wearing off on me, but I don't see how this can possibly be True."

Cilan glanced at Dwebble. "What did she say?"

"She asked if that was it," Dwebble provided. "Then she said maybe Reshiram was wearing off on her-"

"I give up," Pidove sighed, and flew off.

"That's a bit rude," Dwebble said, critically. "Especially because she won the argument."

"I think there's some real potential there," Excadrill said, crossing his claws, and Riolu's Metal Claw attack struck them with a resounding clang.

The Fighting-type spun away, light flaring up around his paws as he used a series of dramatic Flashes to divert attention, and sunk into a stance. "Maybe, but all we've got so far is that I have an attack that makes metal claws, and you have metal claws."

"Exactly," Excadrill replied, jogging a few steps and doing a twirl to Dragon Dance before breaking into a whirring Rapid Spin attack. Riolu went weaving to the side, then spun, and the Flash attacks on his palms united into a sort of dome of light.

Excadrill plunged straight into it, and went right through it without making contact with Riolu.

"Over here," Riolu called, from behind him. "And… so you're suggesting that Metal Claw implies the ability to manipulate metal on a more general level?"

"Exactly," Excadrill confirmed, and this time he went diving underground with Dig.

Riolu closed his eyes for a moment, then reached out a palm and gestured sharply upwards. Excadrill burst out of the ground with a crunch of dirt, hovered there about two feet off the floor, and folded his arms.

"You're right, this does work!" Riolu said, brightly. "I'm not quite sure if I'm holding you up or just your claws, though, it's Metal Claw not Metal Mole."

"Hmm," Excadrill replied, then used Shadow Claw. Riolu promptly lost his grip, then used Flash again, and the two Pokémon bobbed and weaved off over the uncertain ground.

"I'm completely lost at this point," Iris admitted. "You?"

"I think they're either inventing new moves or Riolu's teaching Excadrill how to do a Contest," Dawn admitted. "Possibly both."

She shrugged. "Still, pretty good day!"

AN:

I don't see what the problem is.

In any of this.