"Ash, it's good to see you again," Brawly said, the next morning. "And I heard about you and your friends helping with the storm yesterday. Thank you."

"Yeah, Koraidon especially did great work!" Ash agreed. "But we're back for a rematch! I made sure to get Treecko and Taillow ready for this!"

Brawly nodded. "Interesting, man!" he said. "You know, it's sort of cool to see if a trainer picks training up their existing team or catching new members to do a Gym rematch, so… let's see how it goes!"

He snorted. "And let's hope those guys with the giant robot don't show up again."

"Yeah," Ash agreed. "Ready for battle?"

A nod, and Brawly sent out his Hariyama.

"Treecko, you first!" Ash decided. "Razor Leaf!"

The Hariyama Brawly sent out was actually the same specific Pokémon as the Makuhita that he'd used during Ash's first gym battle, and though the Fighting-type was stronger he was so new to having evolved that it didn't actually mean a major spike in difficulty – as Ash noticed, Hariyama wasn't quite used to how to balance with his new body yet, and Treecko hammered in several Razor Leaf attacks in a row before darting underneath Hariyama's guard.

On Ash's instruction, Treecko stayed there for a daring two seconds, until Hariyama was just about to use Arm Thrust and flatten him, then dodged and rolled between Hariyama's legs. That got him behind the Fighting-type while he was still bent over, and Treecko clambered up Hariyama's back with the darting speed of an arboreal Pokémon – then did a double-spin and hit Hariyama from behind with an Iron Tail.

The impact completed the process of overbalancing Hariyama, and Treecko hit him with a continuous barrage of Razor Leaf – at least, until Brawly held up his hand.

"I give," he said. "I'm withdrawing Hariyama and switching to my other Pokémon. Beat her, you win the Badge!"

"Right!" Ash agreed, going through a complicated little two-hoofed dance to switch Pokémon. "Treecko, come on back – Taillow, your go!"

"Meditite!" Brawly responded. "Psybeam!"

"Dodge!" Ash called, and Taillow avoided the attack with an incredible burst of speed. He swerved around, dipping low to the ground, then used Extremespeed again – this time for a very short burst, dashing inside Meditite's guard and hammering her with a Wing Attack that sent her stumbling backwards.

"Recover," Brawly said. "Meditite, stay calm. You're going to need to react fast when Taillow gets close enough to hit, no matter how he does it."

"Hey, Taillow!" Ash called, as the Flying-type did a wide loop. "You know that thing we practiced not to do on the ground?"

"Yeah?" Taillow asked.

"Forget what I said!" Ash told him. "Do it on Meditite when I say!"

Ash's epiphany had been that, once Meditite was in the air, especially if she'd been knocked that way by a hard-hitting Extremespeed impact, then she didn't have nearly as much ability to react and counter Taillow's attacks – especially once he began combining Extremespeed bursts and tight turns to manoeuvre rapidly around the airspace.

It left Taillow exhausted and drooping, but triumphant, since Meditite had taken one too many hits. And, after only a moment of consideration, Brawly had got out the Knuckle Badge.

"Nice work with your fighting style, Ash," Brawly told him. "I can see you've got a real head for speed and agility."

"Thanks!" Ash replied. "Hmm, I wonder what colour this one will turn me…"

He took it. "Uh. This one said, The rift is born of disorder on the other side of this world."

"That's really weird," Pikachu frowned, recording it. "And, your gold went sort of… really reddish brass colour? Or just metallic red… while your gems have ended up orange."

"Maybe we'll work out how this works one day," Ash said.

Brawly just looked confused, then shrugged. "Well, it's your badge now."

From Dewford, the next place to go was Slateport.

They went by a small motorboat, which turned out to have a broken engine, but that wasn't as much of a problem as it sounded because Latias was quite willing to just tow them anyway.

A bit more slowly, this time.

"Thanks for the weather, Koraidon!" Max said, turning to look at the Pokémon before going back to gazing out to sea. "I wonder what kind of Pokémon there are out there, just under the water…"

Latias stuck her head up.

"There's me!" she said. "And some Sharpedo and Carvanha, a few Mantine… there's a lot of Pokémon I mostly didn't see in Altomare except when someone brought them for the Tour de Altomare."

Ash chuckled. "I guess so," he said. "Latias says there's Sharpedo, Mantine, Carvanha, and her. Plus some others I think?"

She gave a thumbs-up, then faded back into invisibility.

"This is a great way of getting to Slateport," May smiled. "And it's a great way to practice, as well… you need to work on dodging and countering enemy attacks in a Contest, and this is great weather for doing that with Beautifly and Octillery."

"Because my water attacks are weaker, you mean," Octillery said, then shrugged with several arms at once and fired at Beautifly. The Bug-type did a roll, spreading little wisps of Silver Wind out behind him, which got applause from Brock.

"That was very nice, Beautifly," he said. "If you can do that every time you dodge that's a good trick."

"I'll do my best," Beautifly told his trainer, then glanced at Ash. "Can you pass it on if I actually need to say something important?"

"Sure, just make sure you get my attention," Ash requested.

He closed his eyes, letting the wind ripple over his fur.

Ash didn't know a lot about what he was now, so it was easier to just focus on the thing he'd already been doing – becoming a Pokémon Trainer!

Viewed that way, his new body was just sort of… an extra challenge. And he had friends to help him out with them.

But there were good things about it, too, and they weren't all related to how he was able to understand his Pokémon.

"Ash?"

"Huh?" Ash asked, interrupted from what he was thinking about. "What is it, Koraidon?"

"I was thinking about something," the reptilian Pokémon said. "You're proud of me, right?"

"What – yeah, of course!" Ash told them. "You did great work helping people on Dewford, but even before that. You were in a really weird situation, and you've been working hard to make sure you can live with it."

"And… I've not been doing anything wrong?" Koraidon pressed, sounding nervous.

"Not at all," Ash told them. "Are you okay? You sound worried."

He trotted closer, and Koraidon seemed to relax a bit.

"You're okay with having girl Pokémon, right?" Koraidon asked. "A lot of your Pokémon are boys, and you explained how they're different, and…"

"Oh, huh," Ash realized. "I think you must have just not got around to meeting Noctowl and Bayleef. Yeah, I'm fine with that! I don't have as many as I have boy Pokémon at the moment, but that's just how it worked out."

"Because I think that's what I might be," Koraidon said. "I'd… like to be. But not if you don't like the sound of it, because…"

Koraidon stopped, and Ash smiled.

"I guess I used to think a bit differently about it?" he admitted. "When I was younger, and, uh, human, I did think of girls as different and boys as being better. But that's… silly, I guess is how I can say it?"

He reached up a hoof to tap Koraidon on the shoulder. "And, well… I'm sort of responsible for you. And I'm not great at how to do that, but this seems like an easy one. So, sure!"

Then, Ash wondered about what kind of things his father had been thinking, when he'd found out Ash was on the way.

Maybe one day Ash would be able to ask him. But, for now… Ash wasn't able to decide if he was trying to do better than his dad at this or not, but he wanted Koraidon to be happy and to do well.

"And you don't have to do something just because it makes me happy, okay?" he added. "It's great you think of me, though!"

Slateport was a nice city, and was the home of the Hoenn Grand Festival. There wasn't a Gym, but there was a Contest Hall as well, and May looked at the schedule before turning to her friends.

"When do you think I should enter for?" she asked. "The schedules are supposed to get crowded, but I don't even know if Torchic, Beautifly or Octillery is going to be best for it – let alone when they're going to be ready."

"Hmm," Ash frowned, doing his best to think about the problem.

Not everything about May's problem was the same as the kind of problem Ash had to deal with, because of the scheduling, but he'd just recently had to think about the question of whether to have a gym battle then or wait until later.

Ash raised a hoof, about to answer, but then realized that this would be May's first contest. And remembering his first Gym Battle it had been really disheartening to lose… he'd come back to win, but he'd felt really helpless and like he'd failed his Pokémon.

"What about if you book one in a couple of weeks?" Ash decided to say, instead. "That way, you've got something to work towards, and you're not working under pressure to try and get your team ready for one that's soon. But you're still committed, so you can have that to focus on."

"That's a very mature approach, Ash," Brock praised. "That's not what I remember you doing when you visited my gym."

"Hey, it's because of that!" Ash protested. "I can learn from my mistakes."

"Which is a good thing, because you've made a lot of them," Pikachu said, twitching his ears.

Latias did her best to stifle a giggle, but her best wasn't very well.

With May booked in for a Contest in two weeks, and with the friends all staying in one place to give May a chance to work on her team's Appeal routines and their Contest Battle skills, Ash got a chance to focus on his team as well.

With so long to do it, rather than stick to the same team all the way through Ash rotated them instead. Koraidon stayed, because she was still so young, and Latias was unlikely to ever rotate back without a strong reason, but even with Ash and Pikachu's slots permanently spoken four that still gave him four flexible slots. And he put all of them to use.

One day, it was running with Phanpy and Koraidon along the beach until they were tired out, then working with Taillow on seeing what he could add to his combination of Wing Attack and Extremespeed while Mudkip improved his aim. The next, it was Noctowl and Latias trying to get better at Psychic attacks, while Ash did his best to pick up what they found so easy, and Pikachu and Treecko provided help in acting as Contest Battle opponents.

It was during one of those long training days – one of the more blustery ones with the promise of rain, so Koraidon was in her Pokéball as otherwise having her out might interfere with rain and create a sort of drought – that a woman with a red hooded jacket approached Ash.

"You're Ash Ketchum, right?" she asked.

"Oh – yeah, that's me!" Ash confirmed. "Ash Ketchum, from Pallet Town in Kanto!"

"Thought so," the woman replied, nodding to herself. "So, listen… I heard about you from some friends, I was really impressed with how you did in the Silver Conference."

"Thanks," Ash replied, with a grin. "I didn't win, but I did better than the Indigo Conference and that's improvement!"

"Yeah," the woman agreed, then adjusted her jacket. "Ugh, this weather…"

"It's not that bad," Ash shrugged. "At least it's not raining, right?"

"Right!" the woman agreed. "See, I knew you had good taste…"

She glanced around. "Listen, I heard about this Pokémon you had, one that made the rain go away? Couldn't you just use that? Make the weather better for us?"

"I probably shouldn't," Ash replied. "It's kind of rude?"

"Hey, everyone likes sunny weather," the woman smiled. "But, I guess it's your choice… though, hey, if you end up getting in trouble, maybe look for us, okay?"

Ash watched her leave.

"That was weird," he said.

"Yeah, no kidding," Pikachu agreed. "Still, at least that probably wasn't James in disguise or something."

Ash kept thinking about what the woman had said, about the weather.

Something about the conversation had just felt… off.

It wasn't something that stuck in his mind and took his focus off what he was actually doing, though – he was still getting ready for the next gym of Hoenn, and then for the one after that, working not just on how to beat the Electric-type Mauville Gym but also the next gym on the list.

Because of the shape of Hoenn, that had to be the Fire-type gym at Lavaridge, run by the former Elite Four member Moore.

Which, one way or another, led to Mudkip practicing over and over in intense sunlight, to increase the power of his Water attacks.

"You don't think it'd be better for me to practice in rain?" he asked.

"I think it's possible that Moore is going to have sunlight happen," Ash replied. "And if that happens, you'll be dealing with your Water attacks being weaker anyway – and they might use Solar Beam on you."

"I guess," Mudkip grumbled.

"So it's important to train in situations which you think might happen," Koraidon said, thinking out loud.

"It depends how sure you are, I think?" Ash replied. "So, if you were going to battle a Water type gym leader, you'd really want to make sure you could deal with the water just because you knew it was definitely going to happen. But if you prepared to deal with something that doesn't turn up… well, it doesn't always mean it's wasted effort, but it can do."

Koraidon nodded, seriously.

"So… I would be good for that one," she decided.

"You can swim really well, yeah, and you have the ability to weaken their attacks," Ash agreed. "There isn't a Water gym on the path we're going to use until… nearly the end, but that also means you've got lots of time to get ready for that if you want it to be a target."

"I'd like that," Koraidon declared.

Then Brock came over to them.

"Ash, I thought so," he said. "May's Contest is starting soon."

"Oh!" Ash gasped. "Sorry, I lost track of time… uh, where's Pikachu, I bet he's going to want to watch too…"

He looked around, spotting Pikachu and Treecko training in a nearby tree, then stopped. "Oh – and, Koraidon, something I almost missed. For May some of her training Octillery has been when you're not around, because more powerful attacks can mess with her aim… and you'll probably have to go back into your Pokéball, sorry."

"That's fine," Koraidon said, then demonstrated by returning herself, and the hot sunny afternoon turned into a merely warm and somewhat sunny afternoon.

The women who were handling admissions had a bit of a problem with Ash, because he was distinctly not shaped for seats, and after several minutes during which one of them kept handling guests on one window while the other one searched online and checked her handbook, she looked up.

"So… were you always a Pokémon?" she asked.

"I was human until something happened to me," Ash replied. "There's something about how it's how I always truly was, but it was a surprise."

"Okay," the woman said. "Okay. I'm pretty sure that means you qualify as disabled or handicapped, so… I'll just put your friends in on two of the seats next to one of those areas, and you can stand while they sit. If that's okay?"

The word disabled made Ash feel uncomfortable, almost like he should object – loudly – at being called something like that, like he was broken now, but the time it took her to explain the rest of her idea helped give him time to think about it a bit.

She didn't mean it as an insult.

She was doing her best to help. And… really, there were things he couldn't do any more, that he used to be able to do.

There were things he could do now that he couldn't have done before, too.

It wasn't an insult.

So Ash pushed down his first reaction, and smiled instead. "That's great! Thanks for helping out with that."

"My pleasure," the woman told him. "Do you think you'll be attending other Contests in Hoenn?"

"Hopefully," Ash replied.

"Then I'll make sure to pass on your information," she replied. "Normally that wouldn't really be of enough help to bother with, but you're… recognizable."

May went third, out of the Coordinators in the Slateport Contest, and she did a little curtsey before sending out her Octillery.

"Like we planned," she said. "One, two, three…"

She began tapping her right foot, left-middle-right, and on the second middle-tap she gave the first instruction. "Water Pulse, three! Psybeam, three!"

Octillery fired her Water Pulse straight up, then right, then left, and followed that up with Psybeam attacks which flashed out to each of the water pulses and burst them in quick succession. That sent a sparkling mist raining down across the Contest arena, but May was still tapping her foot.

"Water Pulse, one!" she said, on a left-tap. "Aurora Beam, Psybeam!"

This time the Water-type fired out a pulse of water before freezing it with a multicoloured Aurora Beam and shattering it with Psybeam a moment afterwards.

"This is interesting!" the commentator reported, as May and Octillery mixed up the order of what they were doing – Water Pulse then Psybeam, Water Pulse then Aurora Beam, or even freezing the sparkling mist that had just come from a Water Pulse-Psybeam combination to make a white haze that hung in the air. "Octillery's showing great precision in hitting those flying attacks, because they're on the move!"

"Let's speed up!" May said. "Seven, left to right!"

Ash leaned forwards, watching as Octillery fired seven Water Pulses upwards in quick succession across a narrow arc. Then she switched to Psybeam and tracked back along the sequence, catching the last-fired one at the apex and the first-fired one when it was most of the way back down to the ground, producing an overlapping spray pattern in the air which lit up with the flash from each Aurora Beam that came next.

"They got it just right," Max said. "By the looks of things, if they'd tried doing that with eight they would have had one hit the floor."

"That's why it's important to know your limits," Brock said. "Right, Ash?"

"Yeah, if you know what you can and can't do then you can avoid screwing up," Ash agreed.

May and Octillery's display had the unfortunate side effect of getting May quite wet, by the end, with all the spray and frosty haze that had been drifting down for the whole Appeal, but it got them through the Appeal round with a high score and onto the Battle Round.

Her first opponent was someone called Drew, who May had apparently met before while Ash was mostly focused on Phanpy and Koraidon and so hadn't been there, and his Roselia turned out to have quite the arsenal of Grass-type moves. The Grass-type used Petal Dance to defend itself, Magical Leaf to pepper Octillery with hits as part of the swirling Petal Dances, and finished off with a twirling display that produced a Solar Beam Octillery was unable to effectively counter.

Still, the commentators asked for a special round of applause for May's first Contest, so that was nice.

"Okay," Octillery said, once they were all back together afterwards. "Since I know Ash is here, I know he can pass on what I think about Contests."

She folded her arms, which took some time. "Right?"

"Yeah, I can do that!" Ash confirmed. "What did you think?"

May looked worried.

"Like I said when we met, I was going to go along and give it a go," Octillery announced, and waited until Ash had passed that on.

"And?" May asked, nervously. "Did you like it?"

Octillery paused for several long seconds.

"Holy crap you were so right!" she said. "It felt great! I was showing off and people were paying attention and there was applause! The whole point of it is to show off, and we did that, and people appreciated it! I think I'm hooked!"

Ash didn't even need to translate that, because Octillery's enthusiasm had been so obvious, and May slumped so extravagantly with relief she nearly fell over.

Latias caught her, though.

On their last day in Slateport, the friends went to visit the Oceanic Museum, only to discover that they couldn't visit the Oceanic Museum because it was very closed.

That was sort of like normal closed, but at a different time. And when Max asked for a lift from Latias to look over the wall to see why it was closed, before Latias even answered a boy pointed at Max.

"You're trying to break into the museum!" he said.

"No I'm not!" Max replied. "I'm annoyed the museum isn't open!"

"Why do you think Max is trying to break in?" Ash tried.

"Because he wanted a Pokémon to lift him over the wall!" the boy said. "You must be another one of his Pokémon!"

"Hey, I'm a Pokémon trainer!" Ash replied. "Max isn't old enough to have Pokémon yet, so-"

"Of course he's old enough, he's the same age as me and I'm old enough!" the boy insisted, then sent out a Spheal. "Spheal, come on, let's deal with these museum thieves!"

"What, really?" Max groaned. "He actually does have a Pokémon? How fair is that?"

"Spheal, Water Gun!" the boy ordered, and Spheal used Water Gun.

On his trainer.

"Oh, wow, it's not just me!" May said brightly. "That's good to know, actually."

Torchic started giggling.

"This is fun!" Spheal said, doing a roll. "What now? Do any of you want to play?"

"Mudkip?" Ash suggested, and Latias sent out Mudkip for him. "Thanks."

"I'll definitely have the advantage now!" the boy said. "Spheal, Body Slam!"

Spheal rolled forwards, and Ash thought for a moment.

"Dig down a bit, then use Water Gun upwards!" he said.

Mudkip did just as instructed, and began balancing Spheal in the air on his Water Gun.

"Whee!" Spheal cheered, clapping his arms. "This is fun!"

A man in a suit arrived not long afterwards, and heard the story from the boy – called Marius – about how Ash was a Pokémon belonging to Max and how they were all trying to break into the museum.

Then he also heard Ash's side of the story, and smiled, and said that he understood why people would be worried.

"I closed the museum because, while I'm the curator, I'm also busy with other projects," he explained. "And the other people who help me run the museum are all busy with their own things at the moment, so I can't really open it myself for normal use."

Max looked downcast, and the man smiled.

"However…" he went on. "I'm here now, so I may as well show you around."

"Captain Stern!" Marius protested. "They might be part of a plot to steal something from the museum!"

"I very much doubt that," Stern replied, not very sternly. "Though I appreciate your courage and dedication, Marius."

He paused. "Though, forgive me asking, Ash, but… what kind of Pokémon are you?"

"We don't actually know," Ash admitted. "Professor Oak's trying to find out, and so am I, on my adventures. If you don't know it's not very likely that the answer's in your museum, though, I guess."

"I'd hate for you to have wasted the journey," Stern told him, then unlocked the doors to let them in.

He locked the doors again from the inside, once they were all in, but that was understandable because there was just the one of him.

"Captain Stern's been all over the world in his submarine!" Marius explained, as they went through the halls and looked at the exhibits. "He's seen amazing Pokémon that live so far down that nobody's ever seen them before!"

"Really?" Ash asked. "Huh. Maybe I'm a deep sea Pokémon, then."

"I think you'd be better at swimming," Pikachu said. "You're not bad, considering you didn't look like that six months ago, but you'd have to be better than Latias at minimum to be a deep-sea Pokémon."

"I guess," Ash agreed, then stopped in confusion as Stern took out his keys again. "Huh?"

"My office," Stern explained. "You see, there is something in particular that makes me more careful about security than normal at the moment."

Once inside his office, Stern showed the friends what he meant.

A pair of polished stone or glass orbs, one red and one blue, that shone faintly when Stone turned the light out to demonstrate.

"I found these three miles down," he said. "Right next to one another, near – well, near Sootopolis, when I was investigating the caves down there."

"Huh, those look pretty amazing," Ash said, reaching out to touch one.

There was a sort of fzzzrt as his hoof made contact, then he was repelled backwards with enough force to send him staggering back a step.

"That's never happened before," Stern informed them, interested. "I wonder what that means… it's a pity you don't know what kind of Pokémon you are, or that could help me with the mystery."

He shrugged, then put the Red Orb back in the case he'd used. He was about to do the same for the Blue Orb, but then there was a sudden wham sound and the building shook slightly.

"What was that?" Max asked.

"I bet it's Team Rocket!" Ash said. "They must be trying to break in!"

"Oh, no!" Latias squeaked. "This poor museum! We'll have to defend it!"

"Why the museum?" Pikachu asked, as Latias shifted Ash's Pokéballs to the floor and Ash sent out Mudkip, Treecko and Taillow. "Not that I'm complaining, but… why?"

"Lorenzo is a museum curator too!" Latias explained.

"Latias, don't forget, don't let them see you," Ash reminded her. "That way it's much harder for them to hit you."

"Right," Latias said, sounding a bit calmer now.

Brock sent out his Crobat, Geoude, and Corphish, then very definitely did not send out his Onix because that would probably be worse for the building.

As it turned out, it wasn't Team Rocket.

It was a gang in jumpsuits with a blue and white theme, all wearing goggles, with only the leader's goggles up off her face.

"This is no good," she said. "We were expecting the building to be empty… still, we can handle this."

She signalled, sending out a Mightyena and a Crawdaunt, and the other gang members sent out Corphish and Mightyena themselves.

"Why are you using so many Mightyena?" Max asked. "They're not bad Pokémon!"

"And we're not bad people," the leader replied. "Team Aqua is working to correct the errors in the world! So many places that are too dry for life… the sea is the most abundant place for life on the planet, and the wetter the land is the better it is for Pokémon!"

"That's not how it works!" Ash protested, then glanced at Brock. "Isn't it?"

"A lot of the sea doesn't have much life," Brock agreed. "It's only the places near the land where you really see lots of abundant Pokémon."

"Nonsense!" one of the Team Aqua grunts protested.

"I won't stand for this," the leader said. "Tear this place apart! Find that orb!"

Captain Stern did his best to control his expression, but Marius gasped and glanced behind him before catching himself.

The Team Aqua leader smirked. "That's helpful."

"Don't worry, Marius," Stern said. "We'll stop them."

He sent out his Sealeo, to accompany the rest of the Pokémon that had already come out – then there was a sort of rumbling, grinding noise.

And a giant robot Parasect came lumbering up to the hole in the wall.

The eyes opened, revealing themselves to be portholes, and Jessie and James rose up on platforms.

"You'd better get out of here!" Jessie said.

"It's our message, loud and clear!" James agreed.

The mech's legs went click-clack menacingly, and Jessie sent out a Seviper. "To protect those guys from infiltration!"

"To unite with them in indignation," James agreed, contributing a Cacnea.

Jessie flourished. "To protect our turf from crazy cults!"

"To provide help like we're adults!" James said, sounding like he couldn't quite believe it himself.

"Who are these guys, boss?" one of the Aqua grunts asked.

"Shut up," she hissed.

"Jessie!" Jessie introduced herself, possibly in response.

"James," James announced, because it was what they were doing at the moment.

"Everyone can join this incident!" Jessie informed them.

"But if you're Zarude, you'd best repent!" James concurred.

"What's a Zarude?" Marius said, completely baffled.

"Ah, you're new!" James said brightly. "Welcome!"

"Taillow, remember to dodge!" Ash instructed. "Mudkip, Treecko, concentrate together on one of those Mightyena!"

That was as good a signal as any, and the fighting got started properly.

When the dust settled, surprisingly, most of the museum was intact and all the actual exhibits were either untouched or – at worst – scattered across the floor.

There was one unfortunate loss, though, which was that during the chaos of the three-way brawl someone had managed to get into Stern's office and steal the blue Orb.

"I'm not really sure what they'll do with it, but even knowing about it at all is a surprise," Stern admitted. "But, any research I can do should be just as possible with the red one. And – thank you, for defending my museum."

"It's what we'd do for anyone, really," Ash admitted, then turned to Koraidon – who'd let herself out about halfway through. "And thanks for the help, Koraidon."

"I didn't do very well," she admitted.

"But you helped!" Ash insisted. "That's really the important bit. All we need to do now is help make sure you get better at it. It's way easier to get better at helping than to learn to help at all."

"Well… that's good," Koraidon said, smiling a tad shyly.

AN:

Koraidon turns out to be "girl".

And I tweaked the Stern thing, because in the anime the thing he's found is a piece of volcanic rock. Which is… hilariously dull, the sea floor's made of the stuff...