The sun shone brightly into the Garden of Latias and Latios as Ash Ketchum and his friends laid out the wedding plans on the picnic table.
"So should the flowers go here, or here?" asked May as she gazed at the plans.
"Well, I think they should go here" said Brock, pointing at a completely different spot.
"But," said Ash. "Will Latias like the flowers?"
"I think she will," said May.
"She'd better, after all the money we pooled into making this wedding successful." Muttered Max under his breath.
"I see a problem. The wedding is supposed to take place in two weeks, but shipping these flowers," said Ash, pointing at a catalogue, "Will take a month! We'll never get the flowers here in time."
"Two weeks! You never told us that! Now we won't have enough time to put up the streamers, buy pots for the flowers, get enough food for the buffet, buy Ash a tuxedo…" May cried, listing off a bunch of things that they still had to do.
"Can't you postpone it?" asked Brock.
"No, I don't think so. You see, I promised Latias a wedding two weeks from now. I even got Bianca to help her with her wedding dress!"
"How about ordering some other flowers instead?" suggested Max.
"Why can't we just catch some Bellosom? Then we don't have to pay, or wait for shipping." Said May.
"We can't, because for one reason, they won't look very pretty in the garden, and then they'll run loose. Secondly, Latias won't like them!" said Ash in frustration.
"Let's focus on setting this place up for now, okay?" said Max, realizing that the situation was desperate.
"Fine," they all said.
May began putting up the streamers and set up some chairs, while Max swept the place and set up the rest of the chairs. Brock brought a podium up to a high rock, where Ash had planned for the priest to stand. Ash made sure that everything was in order and decided to check up on the bakery to see how the wedding cake was going. He also got Max to calculate how much money he and his friends would have to give the stores that they bought everything from after the wedding.
"It's over nine thousand!" said Max.
"What, nine thousand!" exclaimed May. "There's no way that can be right!"
"Actually, you're right," said Max. "It's over nine million!"
"Oh no! There's no way we could possibly pay for that!"
"Wait," said Ash, peering down at the piece of paper that Max had done his math on. "What's the real total?"
"Fifteen million, nine hundred sixty-three thousand, twenty-one. Oh, and twenty cents' worth of tax."
Ash rummaged through his bag for money, and also told his friends to do the same thing.
"Well I got a lot of money from defeating the Elite Four and a whole lot of other trainers," said Ash. "How about you guys?"
"Same here," they all said in unison.
After Max added up all their money, they had around seventeen million dollars.
"We actually have enough money to pay for everything?!" said Brock in surprise.
After that they all went back to work. May flew to the wedding clothes shop and picked out a three tuxedos. Then she went to the dress shop and bought herself a dress. Max unpacked the picnic food that they had brought with them. Brock helped Max, and Ash put a tablecloth on the picnic table, after carefully placing the new and improved wedding plans on the soft green grass.
"I wonder what's taking May so long…?" wondered Ash to himself.
"Hey, let's start lunch without her," suggested Max. "I'm starved."
"So who's going to be the priest?" asked Brock.
"I don't know yet," Ash said absent-mindedly as he bit into a ham and cheese sandwich.
"But we have to have someone as the priest! If we don't, it won't be a proper wedding." Brock argued. "So find one now!" he finished, snatching Max's Pokenav and shoving it into Ash's face.
"Okay, okay," said Ash, calling all of Max's contacts and asking if they wanted to be a priest for a wedding, occasionally taking bites from his sandwich.
"No one wants to be the priest except for Scott…"moaned Ash.
"That crazy guy?!" said Brock. "No way!"
"Well he is our only choice," said Max. "And he can't figure out what to do with his life after the death of the Frontier Brains occurred…"
"Fine, I'll think about it," muttered Brock. "But don't think that I'll say yes,"
At that moment May had flown back, and was calling to them.
"Hey guys, do you think that these tuxedos look okay?"
Max looked up at the tuxedos briefly, then looked at May in a dull way.
"Yeah. Sure. Whatever."
"What do you mean 'whatever'? I went through a lot of trouble to get these!"
"Geez, fine. They look fine."
"Fine?! Fine?! Is that all you can say?!"
"Look, May, just calm down!"
"…"
The Traveler flew in from the west. He had just finished marking the legendary bird Ho-oh with a radioactive tracer spray, making it impossible for it to hide from him. As he went to mark Latias, the final target, he slowed down when he saw the mark was surrounded by four-no, five beings. The Traveler had done many of these jobs before, and he recognized an escort when he saw one. It would be hard to get this one without a massacre, and massacres drew attention. The Traveler activated his comlink at two thousand feet, and punched a number into his gauntlet, which had a multitude of things hidden inside.
"Hello, Ziba? Yes, I need you here right now. No, I don't care if you are haunting someone's dreams right now, just get over here!! Yes. Hoenn. Hurry up, and tell Metallo he's to come too. Got it? Good."
The plates on the Traveler's helmet shifted to form a macabre grin. Ziba and Metallo would make this whole mission go much faster, and he would not have to share the reward with them. The day was just getting better and better.