Dragonite was left behind at Mistralton City in case Skyla's new routine turned out to benefit from having a secondary Gym Leader, and the friends set off from there to Icirrus. Skyla's aircraft took off on schedule after all, which was nice to see, but as they approached a tower outside Mistralton itself a boy waved to them.
"Hey, there!" he called. "Are you here for the Wishing Bell Festival?"
"I don't think so," Ash replied. "Uh… Arc, we are here because it's on the route to Icirrus, right?"
"According to satellite information, we are on the route to Icirrus," Arc answered. "I detect only one significant temporal anomaly en route."
"That is more than normal," Zygarde said, then reevaluated. "Correction. That is normal."
"I have a question," Pikachu added, raising a paw. "What is the wishing bell festival? We're not from around here."
"Hey!" Iris protested.
"...quick check, what did you hear me say?" Pikachu asked.
"I got that one right, don't worry," Emolga reassured him.
"Right, right," Pikachu nodded. "I'm not from around here, Ash isn't from around here, Zygarde is from Kalos, I think Cilan is Striaton born and bread because he's a chef-"
Iris tried to complain about the pun, but was overruled by Cilan laughing at it.
"-so if you're from around here and have heard about it, you're a bit outnumbered," Pikachu finished, and shrugged. "Sorry."
"Well, uh, I'm not used to being asked that question by a Pokémon, but the Wishing Bell Festival is held right here at Mistralton Tower," the boy explained. "Teams of a trainer and a Pokémon run up the stairs, and whoever gets to the top first and rings the bell is said to have all their wishes come true!"
"Wow," Ash said. "So… are there any rules that limit what you can do? Can your Pokémon carry you? Can you carry your Pokémon?"
"I – I'm not actually an organizer," the boy admitted. "I'm here to compete, I'm just trying to work up the nerve."
"Well, I'm sure you'll make a good showing," said a grey-haired man. "And is that Ash Ketchum I see?"
He held out his hand for Ash to shake. "I'm Miles, the former Mistralton Gym Leader. Thank you for straightening out my grand-daughter, Ash – Skyla's a talented trainer, but she's never really been good at telling what to focus on."
"I'm glad to help out!" Ash replied. "So, do you know the rules?"
"I should hope I do, I'm running it," Miles chuckled. "The rules are… any entry team must include one human and one Pokémon, and there are six rounds in the competition. The tower climb is the last round of the competition."
"Competition?" Hoopa repeated, as a golden ring appeared next to them. "Hoopa will make sure the competition has enough competitors!"
"Uh oh," Pikachu muttered.
"Does it have to be one human and one Pokémon?" N said, raising a hoof. "I'd quite like to enter with Pidove, and, um, quickly before Hoopa's new entrants swamp the competition."
"Hoopa has found someone perfect for a wishing competition!" the Psychic-type announced, and Max landed next to them.
"Hi, Ash," Max said, picking himself up and putting his glasses back on. "What is it this time? Hoopa didn't bother to explain."
"It's a competition, but we're still hearing the rules," Ash replied. "How's May doing?"
"Grumbling about how I've said I want to go to all the places she's already been to do gym battles," Max replied. "I guess she won't get to do many new Contests, but I want to do all those gym battles."
"Hi Ash!" Ralts added, coming out of a Pokéball. "Thanks again to you and Mew for your help!"
"You're welcome!" Mew replied, popping out of N's mane, then held up a hand. "Oh! That reminds me, I just had a great idea for how to solve your problems, Keldeo!"
Mew vanished with a flash, but the flash had a sort of doubled-up stutter quality that revealed Mew had just teleported from on top of N's mane to behind Ash's shins.
"Can I have some of that other mix?" he asked Marshadow. "The reverse temporary one… great. Hey, Pidove, ever wanted to find out what fingers are like?"
A Hyperspace Hole formed. "Hoopa wants to check. Who would be the best human partner to Dialga and Palkia?"
"Kevin and Sheena, I guess," Ash replied.
Iris blinked a few times. "I… actually had not expected that you'd surprise me again like that, Ash," she admitted. "You have an offhand answer to that one?"
"Welcome, everyone!" Miles said, once Hoopa had got bored with adding new teams. "The first part of the Wishing Bell Festival is the quiz. I'll be making statements, and everyone needs to move either over to the circle post if they think the statement is true or the cross post if they think it's false. The team who gets the most correct answers overall goes ahead to the next round. So, firstly…"
As Miles said that the starter Pokémon new trainers could choose from were Rock, Grass and Water, and Ash raised his hand to ask about what he meant by new trainers, Max looked at the person next to him.
"So… are you that trainer who Ash beat in the Lily of the Valley finals?" he asked.
"No!" replied the trenchcoat with a Victini on its shoulder. "That wasn't a defeat. I simply voluntarily quit."
"And I know Jirachi's here with me, but isn't using Victini cheating?" Max went on. "Unless Victini can't make you win…?"
"Fine, fine," Miles said, more loudly. "The Pokémon handed out by Pokémon Professors, in most regions, are usually Fire, Rock and Water."
"That's a different three to the ones you said before," Cilan pointed out helpfully.
"...let's just move on to the next question," Miles decided. "You can only eat Casteliacones on Tuesdays."
"That one's definitely false, if you're dedicated enough," the trenchcoat said. "Victini! Get me a Casteliacone!"
Victini sniggered, and shot off with a koom of flame and air.
"Excuse me," one of the staff said, seconds later. "In the trenchcoat… where's your partner Pokémon? You do need to have them with you to compete."
"Drat," the trenchcoat grumbled, and Darkrai cast it away before wandering off muttering imprecations.
The quiz round involved some questions which were almost like guesswork, but after that came the scavenger hunt. Ash was assigned to find a Thunder Stone, which was easy because he already had one from when Sho's Pichu had tried to evolve Pikachu back in Sinnoh, and when Sheena and Palkia were told to go and get a Moon Stone Palkia just warped space and got a stone from the moon.
"Does this count?" the Dragon of Space asked. "I'd have got a meteorite but those are harder to spot."
"I think that's going to have to be fine," Sheena guessed. "Let's ask a marshal if it has to be a meteorite, though."
"Please do not bring down a meteorite to qualify," the nearest marshal replied, with almost reflexive speed.
"Okay, next is getting across a lake," Ash said, checking the instructions. "In a large wooden bucket?"
"I think larger wooden buckets are required," Dialga announced, lifting up his foot and showing the bucket was stuck on it.
"Speak for yourself," Palkia replied, climbing with Sheena into his bucket. "I am quite happy with this."
"That's because you're warping space to make it work," Dialga protested.
"You're saying that as if your plan isn't to pause time and complete the race in zero seconds," Kevin pointed out.
"That's actually a secret weapon," Dialga said. "Hold on, does it say that the racing Pokémon has to be in the bucket?"
"Doesn't look like it," Kevin said, double-checking. "You're right, I think you could just walk across the lake in frozen time."
"Everyone ready?" Miles called. "Three, two, one… go!"
Dialga and Palkia immediately collided next to the finish line, as Dialga crossed the lake in zero time and Palkia in zero space, and both of them fell sideways into a hole in space-time which swallowed them up.
Giratina's head briefly stuck out of the hole. "They're fine, don't worry," he reassured, then sank back into the Reverse World.
The next step was the Imitation Contest, where the contestants were given the name of someone famous from the Unova region and had to dress up to disguise themselves as the person within ten minutes.
"This one feels really subjective," Iris said, taking her task. "...oh, well, that one's not going to be too bad."
"Why's that?" Emolga asked.
Iris showed her the card.
"Huh, you're right," Emolga agreed. "You disguising yourself as Elesa is the harder part here, me disguising myself as her Emolga is just going to take a bit of makeup."
"A bit of makeup?" Iris repeated. "Why would it take that? You are an Emolga."
"Yeah, but we don't all look alike," Emolga replied. "Really, Iris, I'd have expected better of you."
"Right, but for most of them it's going to be, uh, Pikachu trying to look like an Excadrill, or something," Iris clarified. "For you, it's making you look like an Emolga, and you already look like an Emolga."
"I'm still going to do the makeup," Emolga decided. "You'd better hurry up though."
"No problem," Iris replied. "I borrowed some potion!"
Pidove posed, grinning and leaning back a bit with her hands behind her head and her poncho fluttering in the wind.
Next to her, N tried not to fall over under the weight of the enormous wig that made him look a lot more like a Bouffalant.
"You there, trainer!" Pidove said, pointing. "You're a fine Pokémon Trainer, I hope!"
The judges exchanged confused glances.
"Is that something that Alder said last time you met him?" one of them checked. "I hadn't realized he'd started communicating in bird noises, but I wouldn't put it past him."
"Should I translate?" N checked. "While she's currently human, Pidove doesn't actually speak any language except Pidove, because that's her usual form."
"Wait, your Trainer's a Pidove?" Miles asked. "I thought she just had an odd name."
"No, she's not my trainer," N corrected him. "We checked the rules, the human doesn't have to be the trainer of the Pokémon they take into the competition. Though it's not even mandatory for either of them to stay human or Pokémon during the competition… or to really be whatever it is they enter as."
"That's part of the Zorua Accessibility Guidelines," one of the judges said helpfully. "Clause-"
"3, I know," N interrupted.
"No, clause 3 is the one which says that fur shampoo has to be available in Pokémon Centre bathrooms."
N huffed. "Then which one is it that Zoruas or Zoroarks who are engaged in a Pokémon Journey are not to be required to reveal their true identity at any point during their journey, unless there is a specific medical reason?"
"Clause five," the judge said. "But the ZAG isn't very well organized."
"I'm not sure any set of rules is…"
"Step five of six!" Miles told the remaining competitors, now heavily narrowed down. "The Forest Race, which is a race to the foot of the Mistralton Tower! That's going to decide the three competitors who make it into the final!"
Ash held up his hand. "Are there any rules about how you get to the foot of the Mistralton Tower?"
"Not as long as you make it to the far side unscathed!" Miles said.
"Great!" Ash said.
"And, three, two, one… begin!" Miles instructed.
Ash used Agility.
"...I have to admit," Miles added, as the rest of the group set off behind the space where Ash had already been. "I hadn't really considered that the humans might have superpowers."
He shook his head, then noticed Iris with her arms crossed. "Do you have something to say?"
"Yes," Iris replied. "I was literally an exact replication of Elesa. I'm a Zoroark at the moment who was transformed via Illusion into Elesa, and Emolga was perfect because she's not just an Emolga but also put in the effort to get the makeup right. So why didn't I get through?"
"Attitude," Miles answered. "Elesa's one of my favourite people, so I'm very picky."
Iris grumbled something incoherent.
"Well, you're definitely first," the judge at the tower said. "Well done, Mr. Ketchum."
"Thanks," Ash replied, grinning. "I kind of wondered about whether Pikachu should take a turn carrying me, but Pikachu said no."
"I said, no, because if you wanted me to do that I'd just Sky Uppercut you so you landed next to the tower," Pikachu corrected him meticulously.
"Yeah!" Ash agreed. "Exactly."
Max came out of the woods next.
"I wanted to ask," he said. "Is it allowed for someone with psychic powers to use them to make someone else think they're at the finish, when they aren't?"
"No, that would be interfering with the race," the judge replied. "Did you do that, or did someone else do it to you?"
He glanced at Ash. "Or is it just a weird theoretical question? I've heard several of those so far this contest."
"No, someone tried to do it to me," Max replied. "But Ralts helped, and that's why I wanted to check this, because, uh…"
"I helped by giving him a headache," Ralts finished, trying to look innocent. "I know that was doing something nasty back after he'd done something nasty to us, but it was that or teleport Max away from him and that would be cheating."
The judge blinked. "...actually, I don't think we've ever had anyone trying to use teleport to get through the course before. Which is a surprise, really."
He got out the rulebook. "Um, hold on… yep… that's funny. Teleporting is banned for the tower run, but not the rest of the competition."
"So can we still compete?" Max checked.
"It should be fine," the judge replied.
"So… the last round is a race up a tower," Iris summarized.
"That's what it sounds like!" Pidove agreed, apparently quite glad to have wings again. "How's the translation going, by the way?"
"...probably quite well, if you asked how well it's going," Iris said, after several seconds of thought. "How do you think you'd have done if you got to the final round?"
"I don't think we'd have done very well," N decided regretfully. "They need to keep those Litwick lamps lit, and after the scavenger hunt thing-"
"I said I was sorry," Pidove chirped. "Really, what's the point of shoes anyway if they mean you can't hold things with your toes?"
Iris blinked. "I never actually thought about that before," she admitted. "But you did get shoes and stuff, didn't you? I wonder how-"
She cut herself off. "Never mind, it's magic."
"Where are the others, by the way?" N asked, glancing up at Pidove. "Usually there's at least three of you, not always the same ones except you, but… I sort of accept by this point that I'm surrounded by wild Pokémon. And it's now weird when I'm not."
"I think they're helping with the challenge," Pidove replied. "They have to try and blow the lamp out."
She fluttered her wings. "Hey, look! Someone's reached the top!"
"So, the net result of all this is that Max got a chance to have all his wishes come true!" Cilan said. "That's quite a prize!"
"Isn't he the kid who literally has a Jirachi?" Iris replied.
"That just makes it appropriate!" Cilan countered.
"All right, everyone who needs a lift back to their starting point, over here!" Aaron's Lucario called. "Hoopa dropped me here, so it seems to be my job to organize this now!"
AN:
It's Max!
And some other people.