"Okay, guys!" Ash said. "Today we're doing a lesson on foreshadowing!"

He grinned. "You should already know all of this."

That announcement just left everyone baffled.

Mallow held up her hand, and waited until Ash called on her. "What?"

"So, uh, maybe foreshadowing isn't the right word," Ash admitted. "It's tricky to summarize it in a single word, though… it's about how much you can know about how someone's going to battle based on what you already know about them."

He held up Ibid, who turned into a miniature duplicate of Cynthia.

"So what do you know about how Cynthia battles?" he asked.

Lillie was the first to volunteer information. "She has a Togekiss? But her whole team isn't either Fairy or Flying."

"Right," Ash agreed. "So Cynthia's a generalist rather than a type specialist, and her top level team consists of about seven or eight Pokémon… Zacian?"

Zacian nodded, and formed images of Togekiss, Milotic, Spiritomb, Roserade, Garchomp, Glaceon, Gastrodon and Lucario.

"For a lot of trainers, especially famous ones, you can tell most of this by the information about them that's available anywhere!" Ash explained. "What Pokémon they have is just the start… you can also find out things like what moves those Pokémon have. That's the kind of thing it's possible to know going into a battle, but it's always possible for it to be out of date because trainers don't stay static – they keep training their Pokémon, after all!"

"Right, I get it," Kiawe realized. "So what you're saying is that we're talking about what you can work out about your opponent."

"Yeah!" Ash agreed. "Both before you battle them, and during the battle too. It's always possible for someone to come in with a complete surprise, but it's actually really hard for someone to train up a very strong Pokémon without using them against other trainers at all. Even then if the only thing a trainer's used their Pokémon against is other ones of their own Pokémon, it can be a tricky experience for that Pokémon shifting into doing major battles elsewhere."

Sophocles tapped on his laptop for a moment, then looked up. "I think I just realized something…"

He waved his hand. "That's a big part of how strong you are, isn't it, Mr. Ketchum? You've got such a diverse team of Pokémon, just, so many of them, that it's way harder for someone else to work out what you're likely to do."

"Exactly!" Ash said. "So with Cynthia, she's got some really strong Pokémon, but since three of them are weak to Ice attacks then having a Pokémon that's good at those is a useful start. And for someone like Steven who has only one team he doesn't really rotate, you've got enough information to do a lot of planning… it's one of the reasons why some trainers have lots of Pokémon at high levels and others don't, because it can get harder to make sure everyone's at the top of their game."

"Now I'm thinking about that, your team's even more impressive," Lana blinked. "Wow."

"There's also how it works out during a battle," Ash went on. "Especially a League type of battle, where you don't know the Pokémon your opponent has but they have to lock them in ahead of time. What it means is that trainers have a limited set of options available and they have to balance between using the best solution in this situation and hiding their best solution for later."

Zacian moved Cynthia's Pokémon images over to one side of the room, putting questionmarks over all of them, and Ash nodded.

"So, let's say that I just beat… Cynthia's Spiritomb, with Dragonite," he said, and Zacian made the illusions react appropriately. "And the best choice for Cynthia here would either be Glaceon or Togekiss, but instead she sends out Milotic. Think about what that could mean."

Kiawe's Marowak was the one to put her hand up first this time.

"Sure, go ahead, Marowak!" Ash said.

"It could mean she didn't bring Glaceon or Togekiss," Marowak said. "But that would be surprising because those are her two best ways to battle Dragon types."

"Yeah, exactly," Ash agreed. "It'd be unusual for her not to bring those two Pokémon, so you can't really plan based on that until you have better proof. But you might be able to be more confident that she doesn't have both of them, because if she had both then sending out Milotic is instead cutting into her ability to stop the things Milotic is best against."

He grinned. "She wouldn't want to end up with both Glaceon and Togekiss left as her last two Pokémon, if my next one to send out is Salazzle! But she might try to make me think I'd think that, so you can't be sure about this. You can just sort of… see where it's all pointing. And maybe it turns out Milotic actually knows Dazzling Gleam or Ice Beam now so it was a good choice anyway."

Ash then waved his hand, prompting Zacian to make the Cynthia illusions disappear, and replaced them with a different diagram – this time Cameron's team from the Vertress Conference.

"So I battled Cameron in the semi finals," Ash explained. "And this is what his team was like."

Then Zacian tweaked the image.

"And this is what I could have found out by watching all his battles before the one we had," Ash went on. "It's not a complete picture and it's missing some important Pokémon, like Reshiram, but it's a lot better than nothing. That's why I thought foreshadowing was a good word, it's hints, but it's not explaining exactly what's going to happen! Then you can put that together with what happens in the actual battle and use it for strategy."

He folded his arms. "Does anyone have a good example of another trainer where we can look at what we can find out about their team from what's been on TV and stuff?"

The next morning, Ash didn't have a lesson to do. And he wasn't going to be doing one for the next few days, either, because he wasn't sure how long his trip to Ula-Ula to do the Trials there would take.

"Isn't it just expected that we go there and win easily?" Pikachu said.

"That depends who's out to get experience, don't forget," Ash replied. "It's the old thing with spreading experience around!"

"Good point," Pikachu admitted. "Hmm, so, who's it going to be… well, now I think about it, you do have two new Pokémon since last time you did a trial."

"Right!" Ash agreed. "How does that sound, Poipole?"

Poipole tilted his head. "Poi… polle…"

He put a hand to the side of his head, then did a twirl. "What?"

"There you go!" Ash smiled. "Would you like to take part in a battle? Mew-meee-w-w-ew?"

Poipole brightened. "Poiii!"

"Now, uh…" Ash checked Arc. "First it's an Island Trial, right? Then a Grand Trial?"

"Correct," Arc confirmed. "Island trial location identified."

"That sounds good to me!" Ash declared. "Let's go!"

In an abandoned shopping mart on Ula'Ula island, a Totem Mimikyu whistled to himself as he arranged magazines.

"Hmm hmm~" he said, disguise tail flicking from side to side, then glanced back. "Hey, Haunter, think I should try a different disguise again soon?"

"Try a dragon!" Haunter suggested. "That way someone might try and hit you with a Dragon type move!"

"Try a Tyranitar," a Gastly retorted. "Or an Aron or something like that, you know. Make the next trial guy try to hit you with a Fighting move."

"Or you could be a Zorua," Gengar said, clapping her hands. "Then even if they do hit you they might think they didn't… hmm, can you disguise as a Zorua disguised as something else?"

"Steady on, guys, there's only so much I can do with this," Mimikyu laughed. "But that would be a fun prank if I could get it to work."

He stopped. "Huh?"

Then a hole opened in the world halfway down from the ceiling, and a trainer fell out.

"Gah!" Mimikyu yelped, startling back, and the other Ghosts dove for cover. "Warn a Pokémon before you do something like that!"

"Thanks, Giratina!" the trainer said. "That worked great!"

The hole in the world closed, and he turned to Mimikyu. "You're the Totem Pokémon, right? Or is it one of the others?"

"I'm the Totem Pokémon, yes – what was that?" Mimikyu replied, waving at where the Reverse World portal had been. "You just fell out of… did you say Giratina?"

"Yeah, Giratina's an old friend," the trainer replied. "There was a big queue at the ferry station so this seemed quicker. He's really nice."

"Hang on…" Mimikyu asked, and went back to his magazine collection before flipping through one of them. "Let's see… and… there we go. Orange Islands champions of the last ten years. Ash Ketchum, nobody else. That's you, right?"

"It's a tricky little league!" Ash confirmed. "Drake was really nice about it though, and his Dragonite's a sweetheart if you're not in a battle."

"Right, well, if you are Ash you're the one the Tapus warned me about," Mimikyu decided. "All right, then. I assume you're here for a trial?"

Ash gave a thumbs-up.

"Poi poiii!" agreed one of his Pokémon, presumably.

"I did not understand that," Mimikyu admitted. "What is that Pokémon?"

"This is Poipole!" Ash introduced them. "He's an Ultra Beast, he's still learning the way Pokémon talk in this world."

"Pokémon!" Poipole confirmed. "I'm Poipole!"

"So, what are the rules?" Ash checked. "I guess you have Pokémon helping you out, like the other Island Trials?"

"That's right," Mimikyu said, deciding to focus on what was actually important here. "Well, technically the first step is meant to be finding me, but that's sort of been skipped here… anyway, don't damage my magazine collection, and you get to use two Pokémon at once."

"That's great, I can have both my newest Pokémon take part!" Ash said, sending out Nebby with a flash of light.

"Hi!" they said, floating in space. "Hi, Poipole!"

"Poipole!" Poipole agreed happily.

"What Pokémon is that?" Mimikyu asked, confused. "Something about it is vaguely familiar but I don't quite recognize it."

"That's Nebby," Ash introduced them. "Nebby, did you hear the bit about being careful about the magazine collection?"

Nebby bobbed up and down. "Got it! Which form should I be?"

"Let's go Solgaleo," Ash decided. "That way Poipole can use his attacks without giving you trouble."

Mimikyu blinked. "Did you just say Solgaleo?"

"Tapu Bulu didn't give you much in the way of details, did he?" Pikachu asked, sympathetically.

"Not really, no…"

About ten minutes later, Ash was taking notes.

"Poipole could probably do with a move that works well on Poison-types," he said. "And Steel-types. Toxic and Venoshock works really well if you can use the combination, but against Pokémon who can't be poisoned it leaves him without many good options."

Nebby sat down in the middle of the abandoned store, raised one of his paws, and began petting Poipole. "We made a good team!"

"Poiiii!" Poipole cheered, spinning around as Nebby pet him.

"Well, it's good you're continuing to progress," Mimikyu murmured, now marginally less two-dimensional than he'd been after being caught by a Sunsteel Strike – one that had followed several Venoshocks to soften him up. "And it's a good thing that my assistants didn't do structural damage when they got knocked through the wall. I think you've definitely completed this Island Trial though… where did I put that special one you're supposed to get…"

Boxes rustled, and Mimikyu flicked one open with his busted tail. "There we go! Honestly I'm glad I'm immune to it."

"This one's, uh… Dragon, right?" Ash asked. "It's that or Fighting or Normal, and I've already got Normal and it doesn't look Fighting coloured."

"Correct," Mimikyu confirmed. "Oh, and if you get a chance, mind sending me some more recent magazines?"

AN:

Ash is very organized, in a way.

Not the usual way, but a way.