"Welcome to the Wallace Cup!" Mr. Contesta said, a couple of days later. "We're announcing this one at a special request from Wallace! Whose cup this is."
"It's remarkable how much influence you can get just from organizing the whole thing," Sukizo confirmed. "And it looks like the first performer is May Maple, from Hoenn, Top Coordinator of Kanto, in her Sinnoh debut!"
"Johto," Mr. Contesta said under his breath, because it felt like he should.
May sent out her Manaphy, who opened with Rain Dance and sent rain crashing down onto the field in a very peculiar sort of way. The raindrops weren't uniformly intense, but came down in sheets and squalls that formed words and shapes spelling out Manaphy's name.
"Now, cancel that rain!" May added. "Acid Armor!"
Manaphy dissolved away into the sodden ground as the rain stopped, then reformed again – this time much bigger, incorporating gallons upon gallons of the rained-out water with his hydrokinesis.
"Giant Fairy Wind!" May finished.
Manaphy charged up a Fairy Wind, but because of the way he was doing it – whether it was part of how he was formed at the moment or he was really making a giant puppet that was a duplicate of himself – the audience could see the Fairy Wind form, swirling around inside him and gaining strength before coming out with a whoosh as a fountain of sparkling fairy light.
"Well!" Contesta said, as May and Manaphy bowed – before Manaphy shrank back down, all the excess water flowing out into Lake Valor. "That's quite an opener! Was that Dynamax?"
"I Can't Believe It's Not Dynamax, I think," Sukizo suggested instead.
When Whitney did her Appeal, she had her Deerling start by using Leech Seed to set up some little plants spaced at intervals around the arena. Then Deerling began prancing around, green Solarbeam energy swirling around the flower between his ears, and twitching them as he went first one way and then another.
Bending down to sniff one of the plants, Deerling fired his Solarbeam at it, and it absorbed the energy to suddenly grow much larger. The Grass-type startled at that, rearing up and flailing with his hooves for a moment, then turned and ran away with a fizzle of lightning as he used Wild Charge.
Each of the other plants got an Energy Ball to make it grow as well as he went past it, and when he got back to the start he slid to a halt and struck a pose.
"That's quite creative," Joy said. "I suppose that means he wasn't really startled, but it was a good act!"
For Ash's part, his choice of Pokémon was Suicune. She began with an elegant bow, then broke into a run around the arena in a figure-of-eight sort of way – racing away from her trainer, turning left or right to run back around the walls, then returning to Ash and running away again.
After two loops each way, executed in a blur of motion that took only a few seconds, Suicune jumped and began flying. She did the very same figure-of-eight loop again, this time even faster and with a Tailwind swirling around her, and when she was on the left-turn half of the repeated sequence she used Hydro Pump – pouring the water into the swirling wind she was leaving – while not using it at all on the right-turn half, letting the wind itself pick up with nothing more than a dusting of ice crystals from Aurora Beam to highlight the vortex.
"Now, combine them!" Ash said, and Suicune did one more double-loop before she slid to a halt just in front of Ash. The two whirling windstorms she'd left drew together, one full of water and the other almost completely dry, and she paced forwards into the meeting point as they collided and exploded in a shower of spray.
She was lost in the maelstrom for two or three seconds, then jumped straight up and out before halting right at the apex – standing there, serene, as the storm vented itself below her.
"I think that's managed to bring together just about all the aspects of Suicune herself as a Pokémon," Contesta said, thinking about it. "Water, wind, ice, storm, speed and purity… there might be one or another that got missed, but that was quite impressive!"
When it was Dawn's turn for an Appeal, she had her Shinx demonstrate her Revelation Dance trick – and, in a new addition she hadn't done before, combined it with stepping into the arena herself.
Without an opponent or ally to use Conversion on, Shinx was mostly stuck with Camouflage to change her Type and what Revelation Dance did, but that still meant she could do a dramatic transformation mid-Appeal – and mid-Appeal meant precisely when Dawn ignored the snarling of the giant thunder-lion she was confronting and reached up to tap it on the nose.
The construct turning into a giant Venusaur made it all a bit esoteric, though.
"I wonder what the symbolism is…" Sukizo mused. "Well, I suppose we don't have to understand the deeper meaning in order to appreciate it!"
"So, how has it been not travelling with Ash?" Starly asked. "I've only ever travelled with Ash, so I'm curious what the transition to not travelling with him is like."
"Well, you run into Legendary Pokémon way less often," Max told him. "I've only met three since I stopped travelling with Ash, and two of them don't count because Manaphy is May's and Jirachi is sort of will be mine when I actually can have Pokémon."
"Who was the other, then?" Starly said.
"May's Dragonite once ran into a lost Articuno and brought him to us to give directions," Max explained, then looked up. "Oh, hey, look – it's Ash against May!"
Ash sent out Swellow, while May opted for her Skitty.
"Hah, Skitty is going to have trouble," Starly said. "Swellow can turn any move into an Electric type move, and she's immune to it."
"Yeah, I'm not so sure," Max replied. "Let's see what happens."
After a few seconds of circling, Skitty began with a Dragon-typed Water Pulse that was noticeably and legally distinct from Dragon Pulse. It split and spread as it approached Swellow, and the Flying-type clapped her wings with an electrical bang that converted the attack into Electric-type – only for Skitty to slap her own tail on the ground, converting the move again into a flash of steely light just before it connected.
"Wait, what was that?" Starly said, blinking. "Can she do that?"
"She's Skitty," Max's Mightyena yawned. "I wouldn't tell her she couldn't do anything, especially if I didn't want it done."
Swellow counterattacked with Steel Wing, coating her wings in silver before diving down in a blur. Skitty's response was to manifest wings herself, these ones made out of electricity, and Max nodded. "Oh, I see… Swellow can't convert a move if it's already that move."
Swellow promptly used Discharge when she got close enough, but even as she did Skitty Me-Firsted the move and Normalize-flashed it so that it turned into an omnidirectional pulse of darkness. Some of it got Electrified by Swellow, then Normalize-flashed again, and by the time it actually reached Swellow it was a solar pulse on the tip of an expanding hailstone-like multi-elemental wave that made the crowd go ooh appreciatively.
"Swellow, Air Slash!" Ash called. "Do a roll and attack!"
"Blizzard, and convert it!" May retaliated. "Convert it to Fairy type!"
That began a dance of type-switching and evasion which lasted for the whole rest of the time until the clock ran out, at the end of which the judges announced that Skitty had shown more flair and May would be moving on to the next round.
"I believe I have learned a lesson today," Starly said, bobbing his head. "Now let's see if I remember it…"
"What's the lesson?" Max asked.
"Something about not underestimating a Pokémon just because you don't know if it's achieved enlightenment," Starly replied, flicking his wing dismissively. "I'm sure Lucario will distill it down to something pithy, though. He's good at that."
Dawn ended up facing Whitney, in the next round, and the two of them had a chaotic Battle Round with Rapidash showing off a combination of telekinesis and Aurora Beam while Pachirisu used Aura Wheel to alternately defend herself, boost herself around the arena and go on the attack.
The judges especially liked it when Rapidash used Mystical Fire to give himself wings and boost his speed, either flying very low or merely making it look like he was flying in the middle of a flat-out gallop, but Pachirisu was bouncy enough to avoid most of Rapidash's attacks and scored enough hits of her own that she got the win.
Then Dawn found herself going up against May, and sent out Piplup while May's choice was her Blaziken.
"Piplup's kind of like Pikachu in some ways," Ash said, now in the audience with Max and Whitney. "He doesn't want to evolve either."
"It's a big decision," Zacian agreed. "I assume. I've not really had to face up to it myself, the closest thing I can do is go Crowned Sword and that's the opposite of a permanent change."
"Well, I certainly don't want to make such a permanent change," Pikachu said. "If turning into a Raichu was explicitly temporary, I might want to see if it was actually like I imagine it, but the risk of that being the case is far too great for me to go for it."
"Hmm…" Whitney said, to herself. "I wonder…"
"Is something up?" Ash asked, then his attention was drawn by the ongoing clash between Piplup and Blaziken. The Fighting-type lashed out with a Blaze Kick, swooping down through the air with smoke trailing from his arms, and Piplup spun into a Whirlpool Whirlwind rotating the same way as the kick to soak up most of the force.
"Get ready, Piplup!" Dawn called. "Don't commit until you're ready! Peck!"
Piplup's beak elongated like a sword, and he began parrying and riposting with avian grace – which was like feline grace, but taught mostly by a canine.
"What do you wonder?" Max checked.
"Oh, I was thinking about who Dawn is going to have translating for her, eventually," Whitney explained. "You've got Ralts, May has Manaphy, Brock has Vulpix, Misty has Togetic and I've got Rapidash, and Ash can do it for himself. And it's always good to be able to understand Pokémon, it helps you remember how much they're friends!"
"It might be a Pokémon she hasn't met yet," Ash replied, thinking. "Or she could turn out to have psychic powers. That's always a possibility, I didn't know I could use Aura until I'd been travelling for years."
Whitney whistled. "Good point! Hmm, she should really try that potion some time to see what she ends up as."
"That sounds like you've tried it," Max pointed out.
"I'm a Snom!" Whitney told him proudly.
"Hey, look!" Ash said, pointing at the battle.
Blaziken had begun a sweeping, whirling combination of kicks, but they weren't Blaze Kicks – instead, they were alternating between greenish-yellow Grass-type flares of solar energy and crackling lightning-shrouded Electrical attacks, and he was attacking first with one leg and then the other so that Piplup had to keep swapping around his direction of rotation to avoid taking a nasty hit.
"Bide!" Dawn said. "Cancel the whirlpool!"
Blaziken's next hit slammed Piplup into the air, costing Dawn points, but it was enough to charge up Piplup's Bide and he struck a mid-air pose.
Streamers of water swirled up around him, and Piplup used Behemoth Bash.
"Acrobatics!" May called, and Blaziken did a flip onto his front. "Blaze Kick!"
The Fire-type lashed out with both legs, hitting the incoming Behemoth Bash, and it drove his arms into the ground.
"Now, spin him!" May said.
Blaziken began to spin Piplup, whirling him up faster and faster, until finally he pushed the Water-type away to hit the ground and bounce off – his Behemoth Bash falling apart as he landed.
"I think that might have decided it," Max said. "Just a guess, but Dawn's points have vanished and May still has a few left, and I believe that's how you measure that kind of thing…"
"That was a really good battle," Dawn told May, afterwards. "I think Piplup and I have something new to work on, too!"
She chuckled. "And, yeah… I guess now I need to prove that I'm okay with losing a battle, too."
"It happens," May said. "Ash told me that any battle should be a learning experience, win or lose."
She shook Dawn's hand. "I really hope to see you again, too… I just hope it's not at a Grand Festival, because the way things are going I'd have even more difficult competition than I otherwise would!"
Dawn chuckled.
"I might need to wait until Piplup's over his sulk, though," she mused.
AN:
Whitney isn't just a Snom, she's the Snom from the TCG which is sitting on a bench and can call other basic Pokémon.
Presumably.