With Ash now up to two Symbols, the friends continued their partly (but not entirely) aimless journey through Kanto. The next Battle Facility was south of Lavender Town, and going there from Saffron City meant going east and south – possibly even in that order.
So is May going to be doing a battle next, or Ash? Ralts asked.
I'm not sure, really, Max admitted. There isn't a deadline on Ash challenging the Frontier Brains, but there is a deadline on May getting enough Ribbons… on the other hand, it's not a very difficult deadline and she's already got one. So if I had to guess it'd be May, but that's just a guess.
"Hey, Max!" May called. "Hurry up or you might get left behind!"
"Sorry!" Max shouted back. "I was talking to Ralts, I didn't realize you were getting so far ahead!"
He broke into a jog, catching up to them, but by the time he had a pair of Voltorbs had rolled out from a nearby bush and someone was threatening the group with a pitchfork.
"You'd better not be here to steal!" she said. "This place is protected by Attack Voltorbs!"
The Voltorbs treated that as an order to attack, and Swellow jumped out of Ash's Pokéball to intercept a Thunderbolt attack from both Electric-types.
"That was refreshing," she said, fluttering her wings. "What was that about, though?"
"Wait, I've heard of you," the girl frowned. "That's right! You're Ash Ketchum! And you're May Maple – I saw you on TV doing the Hoenn Grand Festival!"
She lowered her pitchfork. "Well, I guess you can come in!"
"I know it's good for us that you don't think we're trying to steal Pokémon, but that is a bit strange," Max pointed out.
"Honestly, if Ash Ketchum was the sort to try to steal something then he wouldn't be bothering with our farm," the girl replied. "He'd be aiming for something bigger, like… I don't know. Saffron City. Or the tides."
"How would you steal the tides?" Brock asked, then saw Ash applying himself to that as a question rather than as a rhetoric. "Ash, no."
Ash shrugged. "I was just thinking, you'd probably need Mirage Mew's help, but you could steal the moon, and the moon's something to do with the tides, right?"
"I am now suddenly both terrified and amused by the idea of my trainer turning to evil," Pikachu said. "Fortunately, he's being given lessons by a Lucario so it seems unlikely, even notwithstanding that he's Ash."
The girl they'd met turned out to be called Nicolette, and she and her parents ran a ranch that raised Pokémon eggs.
Rayquaza was terribly impressed with the whole thing, saying that she hadn't hatched from an egg so she was interested to see what they were like, and they got the tour. There were dozens and dozens of eggs, many of them belonging to other trainers – who left them there so the newborn Pokémon had a great start in life before meeting their trainer – while others belonged to the farm family.
"Nicolette's got a Vileplume she raised from an egg," explained the father, Christopher. "It doesn't necessarily mean that a caught Pokémon or a Pokémon you meet in the wild doesn't work out, but we always think there's something special about a Pokémon you raise from an egg."
"Right!" Zorua agreed brightly. "I know there's something special about me!"
Pikachu sniggered. "Is it your sense of humour?"
"The problem is, Nicolette hasn't been on her journey," Christopher added. "She wants to be a Coordinator, but… well, it's a dream of hers, but she doesn't want to leave home."
"That's a shame," May sighed. "I wasn't sure about going on my journey at first, but I met some great friends and they gave me an idea of what to do – it's been amazing. At least Nicolette knows what she wants to do, though."
"Do you think you could have a word with her?" Nicolette's mother Jeannie suggested. "She does think you're a great Coordinator, so hearing that you don't have to start out confident might help?"
"I'll see what I can do," May promised.
What May could do, it turned out, was to just… talk. Talk about how her journey had gone, and how it had been to be on the road and making friends and getting to know her Pokémon better.
Talking about how easy it really was to go on a Pokémon journey, and how you could stay at Pokémon Centres or in small towns or camp out on the road with just your Pokémon (and your friends, in May's case) and have a good time.
Then they had a Contest Battle, in which Vileplume and Bulbasaur spent half the time exchanging tips about Petal Dance and Solar Beam, and at the end of it all Nicolette said that she wasn't going to be leaving the ranch yet but that that was a yet – and she'd be trying to put together a great team to journey with, and set out once she had three or four Pokémon ready to go.
Also, May got an egg. Which was nice.
"What do you think it is?" she asked, the next day, as they trekked along the road.
"I wonder if it's an Eevee egg!" Brock's Eevee said, then jumped into the air and used Floaty Float. "It looks a bit like me, look!"
Eevee curled into a ball, covering herself with her fluffy tail. "See? I mean, I can't see, but you can!"
"Could be," May said. "What about you guys? Any other ideas?"
"It could be a Pidgey," Pidgey said, from Ash's other shoulder – Pikachu was on one, so the other one was always going to be the other shoulder.
"I don't think that's likely," Ash mused. "Not such a rare Pokémon… hey, maybe it's a shiny Pokémon? Do shiny Pokémon eggs show the normal colour or the shiny colour?"
"Normal," Max said. "I remember running into that in school once, it said that some old guy from east of Kalos hatched over twenty thousand eggs trying to confirm that."
"Wow," Brock winced. "That's really thorough research."
"Yeah, but the first one he got was a Pichu, which made him realize shiny Pichu looked too much like normal Pichu," Max shrugged. "So he had to keep going."
Brock chuckled, then checked the map.
"We're not far from Silver Town," he said. "There's a Pokémon Contest hall there… I think we know what that means."
"So do I," May agreed.
Max looked a bit distant, then nodded. "Do you know who you're using, sis?"
"Actually, I think I do," May declared. "I wasn't sure who to use in the Battle round, if I get there, but now I've made my mind up."
"How do you always know where May Maple is going to be performing?" Mr. Contesta asked. "Do you have a sixth sense?"
"Not at all," Mr. Sukizo replied. "I do, however, have excellent contacts."
"Mr. Sukizo is an old family friend," the Silver Town Joy explained. "He's such a lovely man."
"Wow," Raoul Contesta blinked. "It must take a lot of work to be a Joy family friend."
"Ah, here we go!" Mr. Sukizo said. "My goodness – when I saw that Arcanine in the audience I wondered whose it was!"
"Scorching Sands," May called, and Arcanine shook herself out – sending drifts of sand flying out of her fur, coating the floor of the Contest hall in a layer of sand deep enough to conceal it.
Her Fire Spin whirled for just a moment, there just long enough for an air current, and the current traced out a winding area where the sand was shallower and the dark hall floor could be half-seen.
"And mix in Flame Charge," May added. "Up and down."
Arcanine's fur lit up with orange flame, and she began to pace along the sand. At first her flames were banked enough that she just left pawprints, but then she flared it up abruptly as she reached the darker area and used Scorching Sands at the same time – so each pawprint left a splash of glass, and each time she took a step more glass came with it.
It looked like she was sloshing through water, then she turned around and retraced her steps and the sloshes got lower until they went away again.
"Across the river!" May said, prompting Arcanine to jump, and she sprang entirely over the darker section before landing on the far side. That left a little pile of sand from her landing point, and she straightened up – then turned, jumping high, and dropped into the 'river' with a great big splash that sent a spatter in all directions.
Not content with that, she rolled over, mixing Scorching Sands and Flame Charge so she was dripping with faux-water.
"That's quite a beautiful effect," Contesta said. "I've not seen someone do that before… though I suppose we have seen miss Maple doing things we've never seen before, before."
He looked slightly confused. "I… think?"
"Makes sense to me," Joy agreed.
During the Battle Round, May's toughest opponent was someone who'd only just shown up at the Contest in time to take part in the Appeal round.
He used a Venusaur, which was a tough Pokémon who'd trained a few simple moves to the point of being able to do them very well, and May's Munchlax had a great deal of trouble with them – his crowd-pleasing Mega Punch aura worked all right, but his Solarbeam move was no good against a Grass-type and that meant more than once May felt she had to try Metronome and hope for something good.
"Razor Leaf!" Jeremy said.
"Mega Punch them out of the air!" May retorted, and the leaves went everywhere as a Snorlax fist punched them aside. Jeremy's points went down, but only slightly because she'd done that before, and she clenched her fist before rolling the dice. "Metronome!"
"Frenzy Plant!" Jeremy countered, and Venusaur slammed an attack into Munchlax that sent him rolling backwards until he stopped himself almost at the edge of the floor. His Metronome triggered a moment later, sending out a burst of Telekinesis which lifted Venusaur into the air, and May suddenly remembered – Frenzy Plant was an attack that was so strong that her opponent needed to recharge after doing it.
"Mega Punch, Munchlax!" she called, and the giant Snorlax shape formed around him. "Grab Venusaur and throw him!"
"Laax!" Munchlax agreed, taking Venusaur by both front legs, and spun the Grass-type around before flinging him into the air.
"And Solarbeam!" she added. "That way!"
Venusaur's recharge time, plus the amount of time it took the Grass-type to rise and drop, meant that Munchlax just about had his beam ready by the time Venusaur was about to land. He sent out a beam of light at the landing zone just before Venusaur landed, with a crash that shook the hall, and Jeremy's points went down again.
"...I wonder if you just learned Seismic Toss," May frowned.
"I definitely need another reliable move for Munchlax," May said, still thinking about her battle the next day.
She'd got the Ribbon, only just, but it had been such a close fight she knew there was still work to be done.
"What you need is coverage, really," Max said. "Solarbeam is good for a lot of Pokémon but you know the types it struggles with… so perhaps something with fire?"
"I'm a fan of water, myself," Suicune told them, pacing alongside. "As if you couldn't tell."
"And Ice and Flying," Ash said, helpfully.
"Oh, very true," Suicune concurred. "Though I should point out that Munchlax might have trouble with a Fire type, or an Ice type… especially an Ice/Ghost like Froslass."
"That can be a target, then," Brock suggested. "To try and have moves that can cope with Froslass by the time you reach the Grand Festival."
He thought about that, then amended himself. "Cope with a Froslass. Not necessarily Ash's."
Max sniggered.
"Oh, hey, here's that lake that was on the map," he added. "It's… uh… didn't the map say it was a popular beauty and fishing spot?"
"It doesn't look very popular," Brock agreed. "Or beauty. There's a shed over there, so maybe there's fishing, but that's just one out of three."
Then a Crawdaunt jumped out of the lake, claws snapping.
It saw Suicune, coughed, and slunk back into the lake. "Sorry, don't mind me."
"That's a bit of a problem," Ash said. "Normally wild Pokémon aren't that aggressive."
"It is a bit of a problem," an old woman agreed, coming out of the shed. "And – my goodness is that Suicune?"
"Believe it or not, I am actually the third closest Legendary Pokémon to you right now," Suicune said. "Ash has one in his shadow and one in his jacket."
"Well, my word," the old woman said. "That's quite an amazing thing to see."
"Hey, look, there's that Crawdaunt!" Ash interrupted, pointing across the lake. "It's about to attack that guy!"
Then the guy recalled the Crawdaunt instead.
"Wait, that Crawdaunt was a Pokémon with a trainer?" Pikachu asked. "That's not great."
"I recognize him," the old woman said. "That's Mr. Saridakis! He's been trying to buy the lake and turn it into an amusement park! My granddaughter and I aren't selling our land, so he must be trying to force us out."
"Yes, it's dreadful manners," Suicune agreed.
She took a step out onto the lake, and the waters went from murky to sparkling crystal clear.
This also exposed a Dragonair who'd been floating two inches below the surface and watching Mr. Saridakis, and he dropped Crawdaunt's Pokéball and stared.
They were too far away to hear what he said, but Dragonair went stiff before slowly and reluctantly surfacing.
"Dragonair and I rescued him from drowning when he was a child," the old woman told them. "I sometimes wonder why, with how he is now, but…"
May's Dragonite emerged from his Pokéball.
"It is my amateur opinion that this conversation would go better if we were close enough to hear what Mr. Saridakis and Dragonair were saying," he said. "Also if Mr. Saridakis could understand Dragonair."
"He's got a point," May admitted. "We should probably get over there."
Mr. Saridakis was surprisingly contrite, though it turned out that it was because he hadn't known he'd been rescued from the lake by anyone – especially not a Dragonair who lived there.
He'd wanted to turn the lake into an amusement park to excise the bad memories, but simply meeting the Dragonair who'd saved him in the past seemed to have done him a world of good… though he did look a bit miffed when Brock pointed out that using his Crawdaunt to terrorize people into leaving was illegal and he could have got into a lot of trouble.
Still, everyone ended up happy, including a large number of Water-type Pokémon who came from all over to enjoy the now-clear water.
Brock's Lotad even evolved into Lombre, though nobody was quite sure why.
"Okay, so… I'm not supposed to do this," Shiny Xerneas confided. "I think. I'm not sure if the rules have changed over the last two thousand years and the other Xerneas… she just left me to enjoy my culture shock."
He tapped a hoof on the ground. "And it has been good culture shock. I nearly made sixteen neat holes in the roof when Professor Oak introduced me to surround sound. But I technically don't know if I'm allowed to do this, so I think it's okay."
Tracey's Scyther folded his arms. "You're talking in riddles."
"Besides, you were around Ash for a bit, it counts," the shiny Life Pokémon added. "I think. Anyway. Kneel."
Slightly baffled, but not wanting to refuse an instruction from a Legendary, Scyther knelt.
Xerneas tapped him on the shoulder with an antler, and a glow suffused him. "There. You're now in remarkably good shape for a Scyther of your age."
"I already was," Tracy's Scyther said, straightening and going eight feet in the air. "What the-!"
"Oh, I must have misjudged your age," Shiny Xerneas said. "Well, now you're in remarkably good shape for a Scyther of half your age. Enjoy!"
AN:
If there's a lake which needs to be cleaned up, then Suicune is going to do it. That's maths, probably.