If you've seen this one before, that is because I MADE A MISTAKE and uploaded this one out of sequence. Click back for the chapter that should have gone up on the 22nd November.

"That flying trick was cool," Ash said, holding one arm out so Buizel could perch on it for a conversation as they walked. "I guess it makes you a lot more manoeuvrable?"

"Of course," Buizel confirmed, tails spinning up and down again. "Water is much more dense than air, so it's a lot harder to run through. Right?"

"Makes sense to me," Ash agreed.

"So, if I can use my tails as propellers in water, the same works in air," Buizel finished. "Simple."

"You can't argue with the logic," Dawn admitted.

Buizel folded his arms, looking pleased with himself.

"So I guess the question is what you want to learn now," Ash said. "And what Pokéball you want, too."

"I'm not sure I follow," Buizel admitted. "Is there a choice?"

"Yeah, loads," Ash agreed. "I think I had a catalogue somewhere…"

While he began rummaging around for that, Pikachu looked Buizel up and down. (Ash was one-handed rummaging behind his back, with the Buizel arm still held out in front of him, so it wasn't that hard.) "Hmm. So, we know you're quick… what about if I start by showing you Quick Attack?"

"Quick Attack," Buizel repeated, tapping his foot. "How would that work, exactly?"

"It's an attack," Pikachu began.

That got a nod. "With you so far."

"That's quick," Pikachu finished. "so, Quick Attack."

"...no, you lost me," Buizel said. "Can I have a demonstration?"

"Got it!" Ash called, unfolding the catalogue. "What do you think?"

Buizel looked at the list of Pokéballs for several seconds.

"Quick Ball," he said.

"Sounds good!" Ash agreed. "We can probably get one in Eterna City, if you don't mind waiting."

"That should give enough time for me to see this Quick so-called Attack," Buizel added. "Well?"

Pikachu was about to demonstrate, but they were just turning a corner in the road and there was someone coming the other way.

"Hey, you look familiar!" Ash said, waving. "Aren't you one of the Sinnoh Elite Four?"

"Oh no," Lucian replied. "I mean, yes, but… you're here? I thought that was a rumour…"

"Hi!" Whitney waved. "I'm here too!"

"With all due respect, Gym Leader," Lucian answered, eyeing Whitney. "You have something of a reputation. Ash has, at last count, eight reputations and it's impossible to tell which is true."

"The one about giving Absols screaming headaches is sort of exaggerated, if it helps," Ash supplied. "There's one who screams the first time she meets me in a given day, but then she's fine, and I've met other Absol who coped better, and when I'm one then I don't suffer from it. So it can't apply to every Absol."

Lucian blinked a few times. "...nine," he said. "Well, it was nice to meet you, I'm going to go and warn Cynthia."

At Eterna City, they got Buizel his Quick Ball, and then Ash went to have his challenge with Gardenia.

"Welcome to my gym!" the Grass-type Gym Leader said. "Are you ready?"

"I don't actually know," Ash pointed out. "I don't know what your challenge is."

"Good point," Gardenia admitted. "My only requirement here is that you not use your starter Pokémon – that's because I want to see you taking care that all your Pokémon grow! Though I would also like to see any Grass types you have."

"I've got a few Grass types, but I was only planning on using one in this battle," Ash replied. "I could get the rest afterwards, though?"

"That would be wonderful!" Gardenia decided. "I've always wanted to see a Shaymin."

She took out a Pokéball. "Ready, and… begin!"

Ash sent out Turtwig, and Gardenia's first Pokémon turned out to be a Cherrim.

"Sunny Day!" she called, and Cherrim unfurled. "Pollen Puff!"

"Whoops!" Turtwig said, jumping to the side to avoid a bursting Pollen Puff attack. "It's a good thing sunlight helps Grass-types!"

Cherrim smiled at him.

"Weather Ball!" Gardenia ordered.

"Turtwig, speed up!" Ash ordered.

Turtwig took a hit from the flaming Weather Ball, flipped through the air, and landed on his back before flicking his twig to knock himself back upright.

"I can see I'll have to take you seriously!" he said, and a green aura flashed up around him. "Overgrowth!"

"Watch out, Cherrim," Gardenia warned. "That's making his Grass attacks stronger."

"Overgrowth!" Turtwig said again. "Overgrowth! O..ver...growth!"

Each time he said it, the green glow got brighter.

"I'm fascinated by how that worked, but – Pollen Puff!" Gardenia called. "Before he does it again!"

"Shell Smash!" Turtwig shouted, and glowing white fragments exploded out from his back to scatter all over the arena. He darted away from where Cherrim had aimed, landed on the wall, and leaves and flowers rained down from his impact point as he kicked off again to bounce off the roof.

He used Seed Bomb as he landed on Cherrim, blasting the other Grass-type into the ground a little and kicking off, and Cherrim tried to attack back but missed.

"Now, Turtwig!" Ash called. "Shell Trap!"

"I've heard of that one!" Gardenia said, then frowned. "Wait-"

All the glowing white fragments from Turtwig's Shell Smash exploded at once, some of them underneath Cherrim and all of them enhanced by Sunny Day.

"I'm kind of impressed!" Ash said, recalling Turtwig. "This is a pretty resilient gym… that explosion was bigger than I was expecting."

"I'm a Grass type gym leader," Gardenia pointed out. "Fireproofing is… necessary."

She shook her head. "Anyway, have your next Pokémon ready! Mine is Lilligant!"

"Croagunk!" Ash replied, sending the Poison-type out with a flash.

Croagunk adopted a stance.

"Interesting," Gardenia said. "Okay, Lilligant, stay alert… Magical Leaf!"

Croagunk dodged.

Gardenia frowned. "Wait, how did he do that? The whole point of Magical Leaf is that it doesn't… I'm not naive enough to think that that always works, but he didn't even really move…"

"He dodged!" Ash explained.

"But he didn't move," Gardenia protested. "That's how dodging works… Lilligant, use Solar Beam! And keep an eye out in case he does that again!"

Lilligant charged up her attack, then fired it out. It flashed out towards Croagunk, who twisted to the side a little, and the beam of light missed.

The strange thing about it was that it missed by a lot. Far more than Croagunk had actually dodged, in fact.

"There's something deeply strange going on," Gardenia said. "Lilligant, Pollen Puff on the ground! Knock some of the grass away – then use Nature Power!"

Nature Power turned into Earth Power, which Croagunk also dodged.

In that case, he dodged it by turning out to have been holding onto an Air Balloon.

"Stand still so I can hit you!" Lilligant demanded, hands on her hips.

"I am standing still," Croagunk replied. "It's not my fault you're having these problems."

He patted her on the shoulder. "Really, though, you should do something about the fact I hit you with a Poison Jab several minutes ago."

"You did?" Lilligant replied.

Then fell over.

"I… what?" Gardenia complained. "How did that even work?"

"I think it has something to do with dodging," Ash said. "Thanks for not testing the ring out thing, Croagunk!"

He snapped his fingers. "Oh, yeah, now I get a chance to ask, a Pokémon not being in a gym any more counts as a ring out, right? Is that even if the gym is what's moved?"

Gardenia took a deep, steadying breath.

"I'm not going to ask for clarification," she decided. "Please send your final Pokémon out."

Ash recalled Croagunk, and as he did Gardenia sent out her Roserade.

Ash's reply was Entei.

"Oh, hold on," Gardenia frowned. "Hold on… I've got the hang of this, now. Your style of Pokémon training is all about misdirection. So the one thing I can be sure of is that this isn't Entei."

It was Entei.

"Congratulations," Gardenia said, once the fire was out. "You've won the Forest Badge. And I've won a healthy respect for you… and next time I need to battle a League Champion, I'm definitely getting hold of a Pokémon who can Mega Evolve. Or maybe having the battle in Galar and borrowing a Dynamax Band, or… something."

"Sorry about all the damage to your gym," Ash replied, a bit awkwardly. "I assumed when you said it was fire resistant that it'd be okay for Entei to use Fly and stuff in here."

Gardenia shook her head.

"Honestly, you don't really need to apologize," she told him. "It's not going to take all that long to fix, and honestly your Entei was really impressive – I didn't even know you could do that thing where he jumped in the air and his head exploded."

"Yeah, it's kind of a weird move," Ash confirmed. "Mew said it's not really clear what Pokémon normally knows that move, but he knows it because it's a move and that's sort of his job."

He patted Entei, whose head was intact. "At least it only looks like that, right?"

"I wouldn't want to actually blow up my head," Entei said. "It did sting a bit, but that's what happens when a fireworks display goes off right next to your ear."

"So, where now?" Dawn asked, as they left Eterna City several hours later.

Gardenia had very much appreciated meeting Ash's Grass-types, and also appreciated being able to talk to all the Grass-types in her Gym thanks to Rapidash, and on top of that Hoopa had intervened and dropped a few extra Grass-types into the gym to say hello.

Virizion had been confused but pleasant, and glad that she had a way of getting back which didn't involve trusting to Keldeo's sometimes erratic navigation, and the appearance of Tapu Bulu had astonished Gardenia – at least until Hoopa also dropped in a Celebi, who waved hello and asked how Aten was getting on with his Pokéball.

Zarude hadn't gone down as well, though.

"Well… I was wondering about Hearthome City?" Ash suggested. "I think there's a gym there, and there's probably Contests there too."

Whitney checked the map.

"So, we could go over the mountains to get there, or we could go south and then over the mountains, or we could go out to sea," she reported. "Plenty of choice, at least!"

Ash's bag went beep.

"Is that a phone?" Stantler asked, briefly flickering into visibility.

"I don't think it is," Ash replied, as Grovyle emerged from his Pokéball with a flash. "I think Grovyle's right."

"You didn't hear what I said," Grovyle replied. "I didn't hear what I said. Did I say anything? Did you say something?"

Ash took the egg case out of his bag, opening it, and they all crowded around as the egg lit up with a white glow before resolving into a Happiny.

"Oh, wow!" Whitney said. "Happiny are definitely some of the cutest Pokémon!"

"Hiya!" Happiny waved. "Is one of you my trainer now?"

"I think that's up to you," Ash told her. "You don't have to decide right away, though."

"That's good," Happiny said. "I wouldn't want to choose too soon and miss out on something."

She tilted her head. "How soon is too soon? Because I've heard of these things called night times. When is that happening?"

"After dinner time," Whitney contributed. "Which is a great time, honestly, you're going to love it!"

AN:

Grass isn't the most common Legendary type, by any means, but there's a few.

If you've seen this one before, that is because I MADE A MISTAKE and uploaded this one out of sequence. Click back for the chapter that should have gone up on the 22nd November.