On Harvest Island, the next island along the Decolore chain, Ash frowned as he considered a poster.

"Sumo contest, huh?" he asked. "I wonder if any of my Pokémon would be interested in that."

"How does sumo work, again?" Iris checked. "I vaguely know, but you're from somewhere they actually do it, right Ash?"

"I'm pretty sure sumo is a kind of shoving contest," Ash answered. "So you're not allowed to use any actual moves, but you use strength and weight and angle… I guess that would mean Snorlax would be at a disadvantage."

"Why would-" Iris began, then stopped. "Oh, yeah, I've seen his fighting style. It's mostly about moving really fast, and that's because of Agility… good point."

"Well, even if you're not going to be using your Snorlax, I'd like to see him anyway," someone said.

The speaker was a woman, and she adjusted her headphones before holding up a camera. "Am I right in thinking that I've just run into Ash Ketchum?"

"I don't think so," Ash said, frowning. "You've met me, but you didn't run into me, or you'd have knocked me over."

Pikachu shook his head. "For a moment there, Ash, I thought you needed a reminder that you don't always need to be so literal. Then I remembered that taking things as literally or as allegorically as you need is, essentially, your first superpower."

"Wow!" the woman said. "That's amazing, your Pikachu really can talk!"

"Actually, I can't," Pikachu corrected her. "Or, rather, I can speak Pikachu, and Pichu if you want, but those are the only languages I can speak. I've been meaning to try out Pikipek sometime."

That made the woman mutter to herself for a moment.

"Okay?" she said. "Oh, I should introduce myself – I'm Alexa. I'm a journalist! And if you really are Ash Ketchum, then I want to see how long it takes following you around for me to have all the newsworthy footage I can cope with."

"All signs point to not long," Emolga said. "Your accent sounds sort of familiar. It reminds me of Servine."

"Oh, I get what you mean!" Axew agreed, popping out of Iris' hair. "But I'm more reminded of Clefairy."

"I'm from Kalos, of course!" Alexa told them. "The most fashionable place in the world!"

"Ah, Kalos," Zygarde said. "I always feel it'd be slightly better as a hexagon, not a pentagon, but then I am biased in favour of hexagons."

"Kalos is quite an interesting place," Cilan smiled. "I'm a connoisseur of Kalosian influence, you know!"

Iris eyed him suspiciously. "...is that a joke?"

"So! What were you planning on doing today?" Alexa asked. "I'm interested to hear, but don't mind me – act as if I'm not here."

"Well, there is this Pokémon Sumo tournament," Ash said, picking up where the conversation had been before. "Oh, yeah, I could use Snorlax, maybe he'd do well even without using any moves… what about you guys?"

"I wonder if Crustle would work well!" Cilan said. "Or perhaps Stunfisk, he's quite a good shape for sumo."

"I'd say I should use the trio, but that'd be… a bit random," Iris said, thinking to herself. "Archeops is quite heavy…"

"Oh!" Alexa said. "I should get some footage of the three of you discussing! Even if I don't use it, this kind of decision is fascinating… ah, dear me, the camera's almost out of charge."

Alexa's Gogoat came out of his Pokéball, then nudged Alexa to remind her about the other Pokéball at her belt. "Helioptile's job."

"Oh, yes, of course!" Alexa agreed. "Thank you, Gogoat!"

She sent out her Helioptile, who began charging the camera, and Cilan smiled. "I see you've got some service Pokémon! We helped sort out an Absol for someone with anxiety problems, recently. It seemed to be working well last we heard."

"Yes, that's Gogoat's job," Alexa agreed. "He's very steady… exactly what someone like me needs, no?"

When they actually registered, the rules turned out to be slightly different than the ones Ash remembered – mostly that no Pokémon could touch the ground with anything that wasn't a foot.

Ash started asking about whether a Typhlosion's forepaws counted as a foot, and whether a Serperior counted as all foot or no foot at all, and if Pikachu's species-atypical characteristic bipedalism meant that his forepaws had been redesignated as not feet, and that sort of thing took up several minutes until eventually they were sorted out with Iris entering Dragonite, Giratiny volunteering in Altered Form for Ash and Cilan using Crustle as planned.

Then someone stole the first pie they'd got to have for lunch, which had Iris mad until Dragonite told her that he'd handle it.

"You will?" Iris said, surprised. "But… well, he's got away, right?"

"Sort of," Dragonite replied. "He didn't commit a crime, because he snatched it before you'd paid. But I recognized him as one of the entrants to the Sumo Tournament."

He looked as intimidating as a Dragonite could look. "There is honour within the circle."

At around the same time, a long way away, Mars opened the door.

Stared.

Closed the door.

"...uh," she began. "Mew? What did I just see?"

"Identifying your location," Mirage Mew replied, then condensed an avatar out of holographic light. "Can you be more specific? At the moment you can see a door."

"I mean what's on the other side of the door," Mars said. "I was hoping to find the common room, but instead I saw a giant silk structure with weird Pokémon hovering around it."

"I understand!" Mirage Mew said. "You took a wrong turn two junctions ago. This area is where five Genesect are reacclimatizing to being alive and deciding if they would like to live on the moon long term. I have provided them a variety of habitats including some based on their descriptions of their home."

Mars took all that in, then nodded slowly.

"I'm going to go back to the common room," she said. "I keep getting reminders that this place is ridiculous."

"Thank you!" Mirage Mew replied brightly. "I am always glad to hear that I am like my uncle."

"I think that went really well!" Ash told Giratiny. "Sorry you didn't win, but you did make it to the quarter finals and that's really good!"

"Thank you!" the little Ghost-type said. "I am glad they let my wings be used as arms without counting it as Wing Attack, even though I don't know that move."

"Maybe you should?" Ash asked. "You may as well."

"Good point," Giratiny nodded, thinking about that, then took his Griseous Orb out of a little bag.

Changing back to Origin Forme, he floated up to head height to see who was competing next. "Oh! It's that kid who took the pie!"

"We can see, Giratiny," Pikachu pointed out, not unkindly. "I think the announcer said his name was Rodney. But yes, that Golurk of his is a tricky one to fight in a sumo tournament because it's a combination of bulky and mobile."

Iris' Dragonite was facing off against Golurk, and the referee counted them down – three, two, one, and then the Pokémon began wrestling.

Reaching forwards, Dragonite took first one and then another of Golurk's hands and gripped them both with his own. The two Pokémon struggled for a moment, then Dragonite shifted slightly and pushed.

Golurk slid unstoppably backwards across the arena and ended up outside the circle in seconds, and Rodney gaped.

"What just happened?" he asked. "How did that Dragonite do that?"

"Excuse me," Dragonite said. "Has it escaped your notice that I'm a Dragonite? And that Dragonite can fly extremely fast?"

He floated into the air, as demonstration. "I learned to do this as a Dragonair, and I've only got better at it as a Dragonite. It doesn't involve my wings, and I can go close to the speed of sound. Think about how hard that means I can push."

Dragonite folded his arms, and there was a long pause.

"...did anyone actually understand that?" the announcer asked, after several seconds of silence. "Anyone at all?"

Ash held up his hand.

"We didn't just mean being able to understand the Pokémon," the announcer said. "My Tyrogue is as confused as I am."

"It seems pretty obvious to me!" Ash replied. "Uh, does anyone have a Smeargle? We can probably prove that what Dragonite did is okay if we can borrow their time for a bit…"

After Iris' Dragonite used Ice Punch, then repeated his sumo-levitation trick, the proffered Smeargle used Sketch and did indeed learn Ice Punch instead of Fly.

That let Dragonite advance to the finals, where Cilan's Crustle proved to be an unbeatable opponent, and afterwards – when Cilan was trying to work out how to get a year's supply of fruit home to Striaton – Iris got his attention.

"How did Crustle do that?" she asked.

"Oh?" Cilan replied. "Ah! You mean how he did at the sumo tournament. Well, plate tectonics involves very slow movements with an enormous amount of force behind them!"

Iris waited, then sighed.

"That's all the answer I'm going to get, isn't it?" she asked. "You'd think I'd be used to this by now, and usually I am, but sometimes…"

Kyurem patted her on the shoulder.

"I think being pragmatic about it all is the best approach," he advised. "But, then, I would say that."

Then Dragonite turned up, with Rodney.

"I had a talk with Golurk," he announced. "She says he was really hungry and doesn't always think straight like that. I'm not apologizing for winning, though."

Rodney looked at his feet. "Yeah, uh… sorry."

Iris chuckled. "I guess it happens…"

"I know!" Cilan said. "I'll ask Ash and Unown for their help, that way I can portal what's left home. But until then, what about if I make Cilan's Berry Interesting Surprise!"

"Let me guess," Kyurem requested. "The surprise is that there's no berries."

"Not at all!" Cilan replied, happily. "The surprise is how it's going to taste, I don't even recognize some of these. But that's just the kind of challenge I like as a chef!"

He turned to Rodney. "And you're invited! That's the spirit of the competition, after all, sharing food to end differences!"

The next morning, and with Striaton Gym's cupboards now stuffed full of berries, they left for the next island.

Alexa came along with them, saying that she was quite interested in seeing what a week in the life of Ash Ketchum was like, and Ash frowned.

"Uh… so do you mean a typical week?" he checked. "Also, how do you define a typical week? And also-"

"I think her idea is that she'll watch us for a week, and then she'll be set for her next several magazines or something," Pikachu interrupted.

"Yes, exactly!" Alexa agreed. "It would be magnificent to get more examples of unusual Pokémon, like that Snorlax!"

She looked a little uncertain. "Admittedly all my pictures of him are blurry, but since it's only him that's blurry at least the readers know that that's Snorlax rather than it just being that I'm not very good at photography, I suppose."

Meanwhile, in Unova, Giovanni checked through the latest reports.

Stroked his chin.

"What do you think, Persian?" he asked. "Is it safer to stay here, or go back to Kanto?"

Persian gave him a feline look. The look was also unimpressed, but to say so was practically redundant.

"Yes, I'm well aware that we don't have enough information," Giovanni said. "After he was reported in two places at once even a solid report of him on a cruise ship in Decolore isn't enough to be certain… maybe I should throw a dart at a map."

He considered, then shook his head.

The dart would probably send him to exactly where Ash Ketchum was about to be. Even if it bounced off the globe and hit something else entirely.

AN:

One wonders if she's got a fierce rival called Siri.