"Floaroma is supposed to have lovely gardens, right?" Dawn asked, pausing to smell the air. "I know we're still miles away, but I can already smell them."
"I think you're smelling a much closer garden," Latias said, then gained height.
"What did she say?" Dawn checked.
Ash thought about how to summarize it. "I think Latias is fairly sure that there's another nearby garden that you're smelling, rather than the actual Floaroma gardens," he said. "She's probably checking now."
A moment later, Latias came back down again. "I can see them," she reported. "There's a human woman and a Gardevoir watering a flower garden."
Ash passed that on as well, and Dawn laughed.
"I guess I should have realized it wasn't likely that I was smelling something from that far away," she said. "Still, it smells great anyway – let's have a look!"
"It's on our way anyway," Cynthia said.
She frowned, thinking. "Now that I think about it, I suppose it makes a lot of sense that it would be common for people to grow flowers around Floaroma as well as in the town itself. Regional customs can spread out a bit."
"Why's that?" Ash asked, thinking about some of the places he'd been in the past. "In places like Shamouti then they have these festivals that are really different to anywhere else. If things like that spread out, wouldn't those end up being everywhere?"
"That's a good question," Cynthia said. "And there might not be any one answer. But I personally think it's something to do with whether you feel that you've moved."
She waved her hand. "If you live in Floaroma, for example, and you move a few miles down the road, you don't have a good reason to stop what you're doing because you're still near Floaroma. But if you move away from Floaroma, and especially if what you do in Floaroma is a thing you think of as different about Floaroma, then moving to another place might be a reason to stop."
Then Cynthia shrugged. "Of course, that applies to things that it only takes one or a few people to do. If it's something that it takes a lot of people to do, then that's why it can remain standard for it to stay in a single place… you'd need a lot of people to move at once."
"Huh," Ash said, thinking about that. "I guess that makes sense… do you have to deal with that a lot in history?"
"Sometimes it can be very hard to track down how something spread from one place to another," Cynthia confided. "Especially if it turns out the reason why something spread is that a single person moved and brought an idea with them."
"Oh, like how nobody's quite sure how Contests spread," Dawn guessed. "And it's hard to track because you'd need to have someone writing down who first suggested it?"
"Exactly," Cynthia confirmed. "I actually looked at that one once…"
As she kept going, Ash looked down at Absol.
"Are you okay?" he asked. "You've been a bit distant today."
"I think there's something to be worried about, but I don't know the details," Absol replied. "I just have a bad feeling."
"I guess we'd better watch out, then," Ash said, looking around. "I can't see anything right now, but then… I probably wouldn't."
The woman with the Gardevoir was called Melodi, and she gasped when she saw Cynthia.
So did Gardevoir.
"It's quite a surprise to have you visit!" Melodi said. "What brings you here, Champion?"
"I'm not here in my role as Champion, don't worry," Cynthia assured her. "I'm here in my role as someone going to Floaroma Town."
"This is a lovely garden," Dawn said, and Pachirisu jumped down from her shoulder to sniff one of the flowers. "There's so many types!"
She looked around. "Are they planted, or wild, or a mixture?"
"I've cultivated them for the last three years, so planted," Melodi answered. "I'm glad you like it."
Then a Salamence went swooping low overhead.
"Whoa," Ash said, impressed. "That's a big Salamence."
"That's worrying," Cynthia frowned, watching as the Dragon-type banked around. "I think-"
They saw that the Salamence had someone on its back.
Cynthia's hand went to her waist, then she sent out Garchomp in a single smooth motion.
"Garchomp, stop that Salamence!" she called. "That's Hunter J!"
Garchomp took two steps and took off, blurring forwards, but the now-identified Hunter J raised a weapon in her right hand and fired. It hit Garchomp as the Dragon-type jinked, and in a moment she turned to stone.
Latias rocketed forwards as well, catching Garchomp and making sure she didn't hit the ground too hard, then J blasted both the Gardevoir and Koraidon with her weapon.
"What the-?!" Ash said. "Koraidon!"
"Don't worry," J said, scowling, with her blaster aimed directly at the group. "They'll be fine… just so long as none of you gives me a reason to change that."
Her Salamence landed, and she stepped off. Then the Dragon-type took off again and tackled Latias despite her invisibility, and J hit her with a freeze blast as well before switching back to Ash, Dawn and Cynthia as her focus.
"Who are you?" Dawn asked.
"Hunter J is a notorious Pokémon Hunter," Cynthia explained, a Pokéball in her hand – she hadn't quite had time to send them out before J was pointing the petrification gun at them again. "She's known for stealing rare Pokémon."
"It's just business," J said, her blaster twitching slightly towards Pikachu as the Electric-type's cheeks sparked. "Now, we can all get out of this with something we want, or I can get out of this with everything I want."
Ash's gaze flicked to Latias, then Koraidon, then Garchomp.
"Is this what you were expecting?" Pikachu asked, quietly.
"...no, or, I don't think so?" Absol replied.
"Why are you doing this?" Dawn demanded. "You're just – what, stealing Pokémon for rich people who want a Pokémon so they can say they've got that Pokémon? How does that even work?"
J snorted. "You're spending a lot of time thinking about the wrong thing here, girl. You should be asking yourself what I want, because that's the only way this is going to work out well for you."
Dawn muttered something, and Ash wondered why J hadn't just frozen them all already. Why they were having a standoff, instead.
Maybe… was there some kind of limit to it?
As he thought, though, a helicopter came flying low over the nearby trees, then landed next to J.
"Package the Gardevoir," J instructed, as some goons got out of it. "And… the Garchomp, Latias and that strange one there. I'm sure they'll fetch a good price."
Zorua growled. "Not nice person," he said.
Ash felt light headed. Like there was… something, some connection he wasn't making right now… and at the same time, he felt angry.
She was just… this was as bad as that guy from Shamouti, or worse. As bad as the worst times Team Rocket had ever tried to do anything, as bad as the Phantom! Even that guy who'd trapped Celebi in a Dark Ball!
"You're the worst kind of-" Ash began, then stopped as there was a crash off in the trees.
"What was that?" J demanded, most of her focus on the standoff.
"Ludicolo!" one of her henchmen said.
"What?" J asked, then glanced to the side.
"What?" Cynthia said, sounding just as surprised.
And a giant Ludicolo came walking out of the trees.
"Prepare for action!" Jessie's voice called.
"It's quite a distraction!" James agreed, as a pair of hydraulic rams lifted them up to the level of the hat.
They posed.
"To insert ourselves into an impasse!" Jessie said.
"And require our presence in Sinnoh today!" James explained, revealing why Jessie had pronounced it like that.
Jessie pointed. "To dissuade some massive collateral damage!"
"And reduce the problem to one we can manage!" James concurred.
They announced their names in their usual way, and Cynthia glanced at Ash. "...what?"
"Everyone's advised to stand well back!" Jessie said.
"But if you're Victini, please take up the slack!" James requested.
"Meowth, alack!" Meowth cheered.
"What does Victini have to do with any of this?" J asked.
"Oh, you're new!" James said. "I don't think we'll ask you to contribute to the collection plate."
"They're-" Ash began explaining, then noticed that J was distracted. "-Unown, keep us safe!"
J's attention snapped back to them and she fired, but Ash's Unown had come out of their Pokéball and transitioned to Alphabet Form in the same moment. A golden flash surrounded them, deflecting the paralysis beam, and J's Salamence roared before charging at the giant Ludicolo.
"Query," Unown began.
"Yes!" Ash replied, more angry than he could remember ever being before. "Judgement!"
When the flash and rumble of the Judgement had faded, there was a crater in the grass not far from the edge of the flower beds.
And, a little way past the edge, an Absol standing over J's prone form.
Ash glanced down for a moment, recognizing the Absol but wanting to be sure, and saw that it was his Absol.
He'd knocked J clear of the explosion itself.
"Unown, if you can cure the paralysis, then – please, do it," Ash requested.
"Complying," Unown answered, and a golden glow flashed around Latias, Garchomp, Gardevoir and Koraidon.
Then there was a flicker of blue, and J vanished.
"What just happened?" Dawn asked. "What was that explosion – where did J go?"
"Why did Absol do that?" Pikachu asked.
"...I," Ash began, then swallowed. "I think I know why."
The tension was wearing off, now, and he wobbled for a moment before Koraidon pressed in next to him.
"Lean on me, dad," she said.
"Thanks, Koraidon," Ash replied, heartfelt. "I, uh… I think what Absol was sensing wasn't Hunter J. It was… I was so angry, but if he hadn't done that, then I'd have felt so bad about…"
He shook his head. "Hunter J did something terrible, but – I shouldn't have needed to do that. We'd fixed her paralysis thing, that's her main weapon, I could have-"
"Ash," Cynthia interrupted, and Ash looked at her.
"I understand what you mean," she said. "And I understand why you reacted how you did… I don't think you did anything wrong, but you learned a lesson about what to do in future."
"I guess… yeah," Ash said.
Then there was an explosion as J's Salamence made Team Rocket Blast Off Again, and Cynthia pointed.
"Garchomp!" she called. "Scale Shot!"
J's Salamence roared, whirling, then got hit by Scale Shot.
A moment later, Salamence also got hit by the rest of Garchomp as she used Giga Impact.
This more or less ended the battle.
"Are you okay?" Cynthia checked, once a Jenny had showed up and she'd relaxed slightly.
"I… think so?" Ash tried, then winced at how his voice sounded.
He shook his head. "No, not really. I just… what kind of person does that? Why?"
"That's a good question," Cynthia admitted. "We don't know a lot about Hunter J."
She rubbed her temples. "Or Pokémon Hunters in general, but Hunter J is a particularly major problem. She's got a lot of support equipment, she's ruthless, and – well, you saw. And her only motive appears to be… money."
"I don't think that's her only motive, right?" Dawn said.
She looked troubled. "Or… maybe not even the main one. Because I've never heard of anything like that gun before, the one that was turning Pokémon to stone…"
"I have, but only from her," Cynthia agreed. "You're right, it's probably something she owns directly… it's curable, but it takes a lot of time and effort. Ash fixed the victims faster than anyone else has in the past."
"That's good, at least," Ash admitted, with a sigh.
"We're okay, Ash," Latias reassured him. "She's gone."
"For now," Ash replied.
He looked around. "Unown, is – that shield, is there a way you can make it so that it's impossible to petrify someone?"
"We can apply this in some cases, but not universally," Unown said, their letters flowing around them. "Would you like to protect: Yourself, Myself, and Noble Pokémon?"
"If that's possible, then – yeah," Ash agreed. "It'd really help to stop her from ambushing us in future."
He exhaled a sigh of relief, then straightened.
"Looks like we'll have to handle her next time, huh?" Pikachu asked. "Plus Charizard, if he's around."
"Sounds like!" Latias agreed. "Though I wouldn't like to battle that Salamence without warning."
"Actually, what is going to happen to that Salamence?" Ash asked.
"I asked Officer Jenny about that," Cynthia provided. "I was fairly sure, but it's good to know for certain. There are programs to rehabilitate the Pokémon that Pokémon Hunters use, it takes a lot of careful effort but they're going to be spread out while it happens… the Salamence is probably going to the Dragon Holy Land in Johto, and Aaron might get the Ariados to deal with."
"There's an Ariados?" Ash asked.
"And a Drapion," Cynthia replied. "She didn't have time to send them out before… that, and apparently however she got away left them behind."
"Rehabilitation is… one of those things like friendship," Garchomp provided. "There's no one way to do it, but, well, being a friend is a good start?"
"I guess it's sort of like with Charizard," Ash said. "He was really argumentative for a while, but eventually we worked something out…"
Dawn raised her hand. "Uh," she said. "I just remembered the guys who showed up in the giant robot Ludicolo. Who were they?"
"That's Jessie, James and Meowth," Ash explained. "And their Pokémon. They're… I think they're Team Rocket members, still? They kind of follow me around and turn up with giant robots every so often, it used to be to steal Pokémon but I'm not really sure what they're doing any more. I'm afraid to ask in case they remember that's what they used to do…"
That night, Pikachu shook Absol's shoulder.
"Huh?" the Dark-type asked, blinking a few times. "Whassat?"
"Wow, you didn't see getting woken up, I guess," Pikachu decided. "Anyway, I wanted to say something."
Absol bunked at his eyes with a paw, then shook himself.
"I'm awake, I'm awake," he said, though that wasn't quite as obvious as he was making it sound. "What is it, then?"
He yawned. "And is it something that can wait until morning?"
"Probably, but I wanted to say it now, so there," Pikachu replied. "Absol… thank you."
Absol tilted his head a little.
"Ash is my best friend," Pikachu elaborated. "And I don't… I think that he could have coped, if he'd gone through with what he was doing to J, but I'm glad he didn't have to try and cope. So thank you."
"That means a lot coming from you, Pikachu," Absol replied, then yawned again. "More than when Ash said it, in a funny sort of way. Only… I would quite like to get back to sleep now…"
AN:
Yep, it's Her.
Not for all that long though.