"What do you think?" May asked, looking at Max. "So now Torchic has Fire Spin, and Feather Dance, plus Quick Attack… do you think he needs something else, or should I teach Beautifly or Octillery something next?"
Max frowned, thinking about it.
"Beautifly has Tackle, String Shot, Gust and Silver Wind," he said. "Which is a nice mixture… Octillery has Water Pulse, Octazooka, Aurora Beam and Psybeam… I know it's focusing on him a bit, but I think Torchic could do with something else? I'm not sure though."
"Well… maybe I'll work on having everyone's moves more refined," May decided. "Octillery's had a Contest already, so maybe not her so much, but Beautifly and Torchic could both do with making sure they can switch moves without losing any momentum."
She looked at Ash and Brock. "Is that right? It sounds right."
"Yeah, I think so," Ash replied. "It wouldn't be quite the same if you were using them for battles and just battles, but for a contest routine I guess… flowing is important? Nobody really cares how your moves look in a regular battle, but a Contest is different."
"Though we're working on it anyway," Treecko said. "Or something a lot like it."
He jumped into the air, doing a twirl, then brought his tail down against Pikachu's. Pikachu blocked with an Iron Tail, and Treecko sprang back from the impact before whirling and turning it into a Razor Leaf.
"Yeah, it's working on momentum," Ash agreed, as the leaves whistled off to the side.
He tilted his head a bit, so he could see the two Pokémon using him as a training area. "Hmm… hey, Latias, can you decloak for long enough that Treecko can jump up on you? Then we can practice aiming at moving targets."
"What, for me?" Pikachu asked.
"No, for Treecko," Ash explained. "Because if Treecko is moving and you're not, then it's the same as if you're moving and Treecko isn't."
"I don't think that works, Ash," Latias said. "If I'm moving fast, then Treecko might get thrown clear and that wouldn't happen."
"Oh, yeah, good point," Ash admitted. "Hmm… what about if both Mudkip and Treecko ride on you, and Taillow's the one flying around as a target?"
Latias shifted Mudkip's Pokéball, sending the Water-type out, and he took up position on Latias's wing next to Treecko. Then Taillow came out as well, and Mudkip fired the moment Taillow was in position.
The blast of water was enough to make him blink.
"Huh," he said. "Wow, my Water Gun really is getting stronger from training under Koraidon's sunlight…"
When they stopped for lunch an hour or so later, Taillow was both wet and battered by Razor Leaf attacks, but treated that with about the same level of worry as he treated the regular electrocutions at Mauville Gym.
Which was to say, none whatsoever.
"I get it," Ash said. "But I think it's a good idea to switch you out now, okay? I'm going to give Absol some training in the afternoon instead, because he needs some more experience in dodging without using his danger sense."
He sank to the ground, and Latias put the rest of the Pokéballs next to him. "Hmm… does it look like it's going to rain, to you?"
"Could be," Pikachu judged.
Ash sent out Koraion.
"Sorry, you might need to eat quickly," he said, as the clouds moved aside. "There could be rain due, so it's best if you get yours done quickly and we can let the rain happen normally."
"Got it!" Koraidon said.
"Then I guess I'd better get my practice with Torchic in quickly too," May decided. "Let's begin with whirling between Feather Dance and Fire Spin when I say, okay? Then I'll start adding Quick Attack in a bit… got it?"
"Got it!" Torchic agreed. "What about lunch?"
"What about lunch…" Ash repeated. "I think Koraidon can stay out for a bit longer so we can have enough sun for Torchic to eat, as long as we don't overdo it, right?"
He sent out Absol as well. "How does that sound?"
"I literally cannot tell," Absol admitted. "Hmm… actually, Brock must have made that thing I like."
"And spin!" May said. "And… Fire Spin! Now, Feather Dance!"
Torchic twirled across the grass, and Mudkip sniggered before spraying some Water Gun on the bits that were smouldering a bit.
Then a Skitty came out of the woods.
"Ah, sir, you dance divinely," she said, flirting her tail. "It's enchanting!"
Torchic stopped dancing, mostly because he was confused.
"Huh?" he asked.
"Ooh, are you having lunch?" the Skitty added, scampering past him. "Can I have some?"
Over the next half an hour, Skitty had a snack, gave everyone present individualized compliments, had a bit more to eat and a quick drink, then once Ash had finished translating the compliments she asked if she could join in.
May had a frisbee along to practice Beautifly's Silver Wind and Gust, so the rest of their stop turned into a multi-sided game of flinging the little plastic disc back and forth, and at the end of the whole process the panting Normal-type asked if she could join May's team.
"I appreciate that the request may be impossible, but I dearly hope otherwise," she added.
So that meant May was up from three to four Pokémon, and as they set off again Skitty flicked her tail.
"It's marvellous to be with such a polite group of Pokémon and trainers!" she said. "I'm positively enchanted!"
Ash translated for her, and May smiled. "We're glad to have met you! You seem like a lovely young lady!"
Then it began raining.
"Ack!" Skitty added, diving into her new Pokéball in a flash of red light.
Max tried not to giggle. "I guess she is a cat… a very polite one, though."
"Hmm," May said. "Okay, Max, what do you think? What moves would be good for her?"
"Well, she already has Flatter, I think," Max said. "But apart from that… well, some Skitty have an ability called Normalize which converts all their moves to Normal type. She could have that, or she could have Cute Charm because… you know."
"Converting all their moves to Normal type," May repeated. "I'm trying to think about this… that could be a problem, right? That would mean they were all similar type."
"Yeah, it can be a problem," Max nodded. "It'd be a real problem for a battle Pokémon because it might mean they couldn't even land a hit on a Ghost type, no matter what move they used. But if she doesn't have that…"
He frowned, thinking about it, then shook his head. "Sorry, I can't remember enough at the moment. I think they're versatile in what moves they can learn, but there's nothing specific I can think of."
May nodded. "Thanks," she said. "It really is useful that you know this, because I still have trouble remembering the general stuff. I think I'm doing well with the specific Pokémon, but general stuff is more of a problem."
Max smiled, then looked up as he suddenly stopped being rained on. "Oh, hi Latias!"
Latias squeaked, decloaking enough to wave, then returned to invisibility.
"Actually, I had an idea about training," Ash said. "See, because it's raining, it's a bit easier to see Latias than normal, so what about if we have you work on Safeguard?"
"We talked about that one," Latias agreed. "But I've only used it a couple of times…"
"Yeah, and what I was thinking is, this is a good chance to work on it," Ash explained. "For several reasons."
He tried to count them off on his fingers, remembered he didn't have any any more, and managed to not stumble. "Uh, anyway… so, firstly, when you're invisible you're hard to see, but you can't really use any shielding moves like Safeguard. They glow so they give you away. But if someone sees you anyway then you might be in danger unless you can get your Safeguard working really quickly… so the idea is, you fly around, cloaked, but when either I say so or you spot someone about to attack you you use Safeguard."
Ash shook his head. "We'll probably start just making sure you can do it reliably at all, but eventually we should be aiming to get to where you can use Safeguard if you're about to be hit, but if someone misses with an attack you don't use it anyway."
"And why now?" Latias checked.
"It's because it's hard but not impossible to see you, because of the rain," Ash explained. "So that way the only one who really knows if they've spotted you is the Pokémon themselves. Otherwise I'd have to point you out with Foresight, or you'd have to be uncloaked, or they wouldn't have a clue. And all of those would actually make the training a bit more fiddly…"
Ash had Treecko, Mudkip and Absol swap out doing the training at different times, and for all of them they also developed their other skills a bit more.
Mudkip got more training in using his Water Gun at full strength, in the rain instead of the sun, and managed to get over a tricky problem with recoil that had turned up when he'd first started and nearly blasted himself off Ash's back entirely. Treecko worked up his Razor Leaf firing speed until he could turn and loose them off in a blur of green, and Absol only had Razor Wind as a ranged option but he managed to get to the point where it could whirl on his horn for several seconds before flicking off at Latias.
As for Latias herself, her Safeguard really improved over the course of the evening. First she turned it into a move she could do reliably, albeit with several seconds of boot-up time, then she was able to get it to come up quicker, and when they reached their resting stop for the evening she practically flopped onto the damp grass but was quite happy with her results.
"I never would have worked this hard in Altomare," she admitted. "Wow… it's amazing how much it helps to be encouraged, and stuff…"
When they reached the Fallarbor Town contest hall, May thought for a long while before deciding that she'd like to use Torchic in the coming Contest. Octillery had been involved in her debut, of course, and Skitty was working hard on getting her first proper move down – Swift, for which Ash had swapped in his Cyndaquil as a teacher – but hadn't got to the point where she could work up a routine with it yet.
With the choice thus between Beautifly and Torchic, May had opted for Torchic. That meant leaving her other three Pokémon with Ash, Brock and Max, and since they were all interested enough to watch, Ash went ahead and sorted out where he was going to sit before making himself available as a perch for Beautifly and a spot for Octillery to hang.
That left Skitty on Max's lap, which seemed to work out well.
"Something about this seems strange," Pikachu confessed. "But, well, I'm sure it won't matter all that much."
"I've never been on this side of one of these before," Octillery admitted. "What's different about the experience?"
"I think you're the first person in the group who's going to know that," Ash replied. "But, uh… don't forget to be quiet when the actual Contest is going."
"Right, sorry," Octillery said.
Ash glanced behind them, then up at Beautifly, and decided that the Bug-type's wings probably wouldn't get in the way of the spectators behind them.
Then the lights went down and the spotlights lit up on the stage.
May's Appeal came about in the middle of the group, and Torchic put his whole suite of moves to good use. Opening with an Ember barrage for his entrance, the Fire-type started zipping from place to place with Quick Attack, each time using a swirl of feathers to announce his arrival and a Fire Spin at the place where he'd been.
That might have been enough for a beginner routine, but May had planned something else out as well. Each of his Fire Spin flashes to hide himself and disappear had also provided enough spin and updraft to throw some Feather Dance feathers up into the air, forming a kind of confetti all over the central Contest space that floated in the air almost without descending to the ground at all – and then, for his finale, May had Torchic whip up an extra-strength Fire Spin, then scatter Feather Dance feathers all through it and create a plume of smoke and drifting fire that looked like a fireworks display.
It had taken a lot of experiments to get it exactly right, but with enough feathers up there and enough feathers sailing through the air some of them would collide – and when they collided, they went up in crackles and pops as the fire suddenly had extra downy material to consume.
It was a good thing Torchic's feathers and the feathers he produced from Feather Dance were naturally adapted to heat, though. Otherwise they might have smelled when so many of them were burned, and that would have spoiled the whole appeal.
"Contests are strange," Cyndaquil said, joining the many other Pokémon on Ash's back for the Battle Round.
"Remember not to be too loud," Ash murmured. "I know other people are talking, but it's best not to interrupt their conversations, right?"
Cyndaquil nodded.
"It is strange, though, right?" he asked. "In a battle you focus on winning, but Torchic can't just dodge. He has to do that funny feather move, or a Fire Spin swirl, or something like that. It means he's moving slower and gets hit more."
"That's right," Ash agreed. "But it also means the judges are more likely to give him points."
Just as he said it, Torchic's opponent struck a pose and used Psychic. The burst of energy flashed out at Torchic, knocking him staggering, and May's points went down.
"Hmm," Ash said softly.
"What is it?" Latias asked. "That sounds like you noticed something – oh!"
She clapped both paws over her mouth to muffle her squeak of surprise, as Torchic turned a melodramatic and apparently final twirl-and-collapse into a crucial extra moment to build up his spin for a Fire Spin, then shot a cloud of Feather Dance feathers through the Fire Spin to pepper his Medicham opponent with them.
Caught off guard, the Psychic-type took the hits and lost some points from it, and May pointed. "Unravel that Fire Spin into a single stream, Torchic!"
Torchic did just that, which turned into Flamethrower, and sent a splash of cinder-strewn flame across half the Contest Hall – forcing Medicham to scramble to block it.
"Torchic had been hit, sure, but it shouldn't have taken him that long to fall over," Ash explained. "And I noticed the points weren't going down like they should have. I think the judges saw it too."
He shook his head. "It's amazing what they can see, it seems like."
Torchic's combination of speed and his swirling, crowd-pleasing dodge carried him into the finals, then he had an entirely different challenge to deal with with Drew's Roselia. The Grass-type used a combination of Stun Spore and Petal Dance and Magical Leaf to keep Torchic under pressure – and, more importantly, to keep him using the same Fire Spin defensive move over and over – while Roselia worked her way through three different moves, shifting them around and mixing them up, so before long Torchic's points began to inexorably drop.
"Oh, dear, I do hope Torchic works out what to do in this situation," Skitty fretted. "It'd be such a shame for him to have come so far and then be eliminated right at the final."
"I know we're not allowed to help from here, but I can't think of what to do to help even if we could," Beautifly agreed, sidling sideways on Ash's ring so he could talk to Skitty without raising his voice as much.
"Torchic!" May called suddenly. "Spin up faster – then drop your Fire Spin! Switch to Feather Dance, and – Quick Attack left! Dodge like Ash's Pokémon do!"
"Ooh!" Cyndaquil said, balancing a bit precariously on Ash's head to get a better view. "She's right, that does look familiar!"
Unlike the Fire Spin, the Feather Dance couldn't outright stop any of Roselia's attacks, but it could blunt them – and every time Torchic darted from one place to another, or did a spin that sent a mix of white- and orange-coloured feathers fluffing out, he was doing something different to the pattern he'd come close to being trapped in.
"Hmm," Ash frowned. "Something's-"
"Now, Fire Spin and charge at Roselia!" May said.
"Dodge with a Petal Dance!" Drew retorted.
"And do a fireworks display!" May finished.
Drew's eyes widened, but too late.
In his blur of back-and-forth moves, Torchic had scattered feathers over most of the battle area – leaving only the area where Roselia had been. But now Roselia had moved, and the Fire-type's twirl and flare of flames sent flaming feathers raining down across the whole arena – feathers which touched off the others, and which made the whole floor fizz and crackle for several long moments.
It was enough that Roselia couldn't concentrate on where Torchic was, and it was enough that Torchic could wrap her in a Fire Spin – and it was enough that, when the time ran out, May had come out the winner.
And had her first Ribbon.
Ash did his best to applaud, which mostly involved thumping a hoof on the floor.
AN:
I've done, like, valley girl Skitty, and I've done Magic Skitty, now this is Manners Cat.