"So, Torchic has Ember, but I feel like that's not enough to be going on with," May said, checking some notes she'd written down. "At least… not by itself, for showy moves."

Torchic made a disappointed noise, and May tried not to laugh. "Don't worry, I'm saying that because we're going to help you out, okay? Peck is a good move, but it's not really… dramatic, not like your Ember is. And I'm asking for help about what to work on next, now that you've got a lot of work out of Ember."

"That's good," Torchic sighed in relief. "So, what kind of thing?"

"What kind of thing," Ash translated.

Since it was already getting dark, they'd mostly stopped training for the night. It hadn't actually been the plan to spend the last few hours of the sunlight training, they'd intended to go to a festival instead, but since the festival wasn't here the three of them who had Pokémon had just collectively shrugged and decided to work on their Pokémon.

"Well, I don't know," May admitted. "What kind of moves can Torchic learn?"

"I can help," Max said.

"I want to do this myself," May said, then stopped. "…actually, no, that's stupid of me. Sorry, Max. I was all thinking about how I could try and do this without anyone's help, but then I realized Ash is translating for me so that seems completely silly."

Max was still sulking a bit, and May sighed. "I really did screw up, didn't I… sorry again, Max. What moves can Torchic learn?"

Her brother looked dubious for a moment, then visibly decided on a reason to help out and scooted a bit closer.

"So, Torchic evolve into Fighting types," he said. "But, since they've got feathers, they're also like birds. That isn't a type, but they're more able to learn Flying type moves, like Peck… and Feather Dance."

"Feather Dance?" May repeated, interested. "That sounds like a good move… so, what does it do?"

"It's mostly defensive, it makes a swirl of feathers that weaken the opponent's attacks," Max explained.

"That sounds like it could be neat," Torchic said, nodding.

"I don't think you need to translate that one," Brock chuckled, then frowned. "Hey, can I hear something?"

"I can hear it too," Ash said, then raised both forelegs and hoisted himself up out of his resting-loaf position. "It sounds like trucks?"

Latias took off with a faint swoosh, then flew back down. "It is trucks!" she said. "Lots of them, they're driving this way."

May took the time to write down Feather Dance in her notebook as something to focus on, then stood up, and they all watched as the trucks drove up to a spot not far from the campsite and halted spread across a wide area.

Then they began unpacking.

One truck turned out to have a giant tent in it, a tent with colourful stripes that got set up by a team of humans and Pokémon.

Another had half a dozen concession stands of different types, all lit up with strings of coloured lights.

There was a folded-up Ferris Wheel. There were tethered blimps, and a roller coaster, and clowns and go-carts and merry-go-rounds and a magician and all sorts.

"Okay, I think I've worked out what's going on," Max said, eventually. "Turns out, we got here before the Millennium Festival did."

"Well, the guidebook definitely said it was opening today," Brock said. "Though I guess they are open, now…"

He checked it. "Oh, I see. It says it's open for all seven nights of the Millennium Comet being overhead. That explains that."

Ash took a step forwards, then stopped.

"Guys?" he asked. "We did do a lot of walking today, but if this is open at night then it'd be a shame to miss out… should we just go ahead and take part now? And, I guess sleep in late tomorrow morning?"

"I wouldn't mind sleeping late," May admitted. "Brock?"

"Well, if we're going to be attending the festival anyway…" Brock decided. "And it's going to be hard to sleep while they're making noise, too."

"This should be fun!" Latias said. "I've only ever seen the Altomare festivals before."

There was a lot to see, though Ash found it a bit embarrassing that some of the festival-goers seemed to treat him as if he was one of the attractions.

The shininess of his ring and the gems attached to it didn't really help his case, though at least one good thing was that they didn't actually glow in the dark. So he didn't look completely like a Pokémon specifically dressed up or brought in for the fair… just mostly.

It also meant that Ash had to really face up to something, not for the first time but in a new context, which was that he simply couldn't do a lot of things any more that his human friends still could.

Ferris wheels and dodgems alike simply weren't built for quadrupeds, and even if they had been his ring was just too awkward to let him fit in.

Still – and, fortunately – the others didn't spend all that much time going on the rides, and that meant Ash could take part. If only by watching on while Max tried his level best to win a big plush Mightyena, or when May got a dream catcher, or the antics of the clowns somehow taking ten minutes to get their very small car into the circus tent.

Then there was a magic show performance, involving a magician called Butler, where Max volunteered to take part. He was stuck in a box, then the box got destroyed, but fortunately he'd been either magically or stage magically transported out of the box to safety.

It was what happened after that that started to get weird, though.

"Hey, guys?" Max asked, once the show had ended and the spectators were mostly filtering out again. "Can you hear that voice?"

"What voice?" Pikachu asked.

"I can sort of hear something?" Latias said softly. "But it's really faint."

"Latias can hear something, but Pikachu can't, and I can't," Ash relayed. "Is it saying something?"

"It said it was stuck inside that crystal the magician was using," Max reported.

"Are you sure?" May asked. "It just looks like a crystal to me."

Latias looked pensive (to Ash, at least), putting her claws to her chin, then floated closer to Ash and began explaining something.

"Oh, huh," Ash frowned. "So, apparently Latias's father, who was a Latios, ended up turned from a normal Pokémon into a kind of jewel called the Soul Dew… so it is a thing that can happen where Pokémon get changed like that."

"That's amazing," May admitted. "I'm really not doing great today, am I…"

"I guess so long as you try your best to learn from it, that's the important bit?" Ash suggested. "So, uh… if there is a Pokémon or something in the crystal that's talking to you, what does that mean? And why is it just you?"

"Maybe there's something psychic about it?" Pikachu said. "If we had Noctowl with us we could check that."

"Yeah, good point," Ash agreed.

"Or it could mean that Jirachi has found his friend," a woman said, making them all jump.

"Jirachi?" Brock repeated. "That name sounds a little familiar, but I'm not sure where from…"

"Jirachi is a Pokémon that sleeps for a thousand years, but that can grant wishes," the woman explained, as the magician Butler came up to join them – with the crystal. "Legend says that he awakens only when two conditions are met. The Millennium Comet is in the sky… and a best friend chosen by destiny is there."

Butler held out the crystal. "Max, I think you must be that best friend. If you can hear Jirachi, there's no other explanation for it."

Max held out his hands, hesitated, then took the crystal.

"This is really Jirachi?" he asked.

"That's what Diane and I think," Butler said. "Obviously we can't be sure, because… well, because Jirachi hasn't been awake for a thousand years. But we think so."

"And the comet's in the sky, tonight," Diane pointed out. "Though, again, we're not sure if today counts… so Jirachi might awaken tonight or he might awaken tomorrow."

"It's actually interesting to think about how much stuff lasts so long," Ash mused. "Remember Shamouti, Pikachu?"

"Yeah, that was a weird one," Pikachu agreed. "I wonder how old those instructions were."

Despite the long day, Max had trouble getting to sleep that night, at least until May sang a song she'd learned from their mother. That seemed to help, and Max drifted off to sleep with the crystal in his arms.

Ash bedded down for the night, as well, but none of the friends woke up quite as late as they were expecting.

It turned out that not all of that first night was in the right period for Jirachi to awaken, but some of it was, and the crystal had unfurled into a sort of star-shaped Pokémon just as the sky was beginning to lighten with the promise of the sunrise.

Then Jirachi had woken Max up by telepathically saying hello, and Max had woken everyone else up, and they'd gone to show Butler and Diane that Jirachi had, indeed, been awakened.

"That's wonderful," Diane said. "Though… you should probably stay in our bus from now on? You got lucky with the weather tonight, but tomorrow it might rain, and it'd be a shame if one of Jirachi's seven days was mostly him being rained on."

"Only seven days, huh," Max sighed, then brightened. "Well, Jirachi, we're going to make them seven great days!"

Sure! Jirachi agreed, with a giggle. What kind of thing makes a day a great day?

"Well, there's an amusement park right here," Max pointed out. "We can spend the whole day enjoying ourselves!"

He stopped, glancing at the others, then frowned. "Actually… Jirachi, can I wish for something? You're supposed to be able to grant wishes, right?"

Oh! Yeah, wishes come true around me! Jirachi agreed. I don't really do it myself, sort of, but they happen!

"Then… I wish I knew what Pokémon Ash was," Max decided.

Jirachi's tags began to glow, then there was a sudden flash of gold light.

OW! he said, wincing and rubbing one of his tags. That hurt! It said, axis denied? What does that mean?

Max touched one of Jirachi's tags, then pulled his finger back and blew on it.

"They're hot!" he said.

"It sounds like that's a wish Jirachi can't grant, then," Diane said. "Do you not know what Pokémon Ash is?"

"No, the Pokédex has no idea and nor does Professor Oak," Ash replied. "And they usually know something, though I guess not always."

"Maybe we should try a different wish," Brock decided. "Something easier… like wishing for a mug of coffee. It's very early in the day."

Sure, whatever coffee is! Jirachi said. Would I like coffee?

"Whether you would or not, I don't think you should have any," May laughed.

Then stopped laughing. "Seriously, I don't think he should have any."

"Well, I wish for a nice full mug of coffee," Brock said, and a mug appeared in his hands.

Along with a lot of coffee grounds.

"That's one of my mugs," Diane noticed, opening a cupboard. "And… it's missing from here. So that must mean Jirachi's wishes teleported something instead of making something new. That's interesting."

"And it means you'd better be careful with the wishes," Ash said. "Maybe there are some things Jirachi's wishes can do that aren't just either teleporting things or that don't work, but I guess it's important to be careful?"

"Yeah, that reminds me a bit of what happened with Unown," Pikachu concurred.

"I get it, careful with wishes," Max agreed. "But let's go on those rides, Jirachi!"

Yeah! Jirachi agreed.

"Latias, can you-" Pikachu started.

"Join them? Sure!" Latias replied, then giggled. "I know what you mean, I'll keep an eye on them."

By that evening, Ash had finished helping the others move their things over to where Butler and Diane had parked their bus, and had managed to fit in a bit of a nap before going back out to look at the sights of the festival.

He'd then ended up involved in – or dragged into – something involving Pikachu, two Pichu, several other Pokémon (including his Treecko, May's Torchic, and Brock's baffled Corphish) and an extremely aggravated Manectric. Ash's main role had been to sort of get in Manectric's way, but that was in some way helpful.

Ash wasn't sure of the details, but according to Pikachu this kind of thing just happened every so often.

Then, as evening drew in and Ash was sitting with Koraidon to keep her company while she ate, a black-and-white Pokémon came loping up to them.

"What Pokémon's that?" Koraidon asked. "It's not one I've seen before."

"I could say the same thing," the Pokémon replied.

"I'll help," Pikachu said, lifting Ash's Pokédex.

It beeped.

"Absol, the Disaster Pokémon," Dexter announced. "Absol live in steep mountain regions and rarely venture down into areas inhabited by humans. Should an Absol be seen by humans, it is said that catastrophe is soon to follow."

Absol sighed. "I knew it was going to say that," he said.

"You did?" Ash asked, impressed. "Anyway, uh… right, you asked about us… this is Koraidon, but we don't know much about her species. And I'm Ash, and I'm a Pokémon but I don't even know what species."

"Called it," Absol said.

Pikachu looked a bit dubious.

"So… what does bring you here?" Koraidon asked, after some thought.

She glanced at Ash. "That's the kind of question you're meant to ask, right?"

"Yeah, that was good," Ash agreed. "Well done!"

Koraidon looked very happy.

"Well, there's supposed to be something going wrong around here," Absol said, vaguely. "Disaster sense, you know…"

"Disaster sense?" Ash repeated. "The Pokédex doesn't mention that, that's really cool! Is that why it says disaster follows?"

"That's about the shape of it," Absol confirmed. "Anyway, uh… yeah, there was something about a disaster if I didn't come here, but it was a bit vague, and now there's no disaster warnings showing up so, you know."

He shrugged.

"Wow, disaster sense is a lot less useful than I'd have thought," Latias said.

"Oh, hi Latias," Ash smiled. "I wasn't looking for you… I guess Max got back?"

"That's right," Latias confirmed. "He's having dinner, so I thought I'd see how you were getting on. I heard about from the Pokédex explanation."

"Got it," Ash said. "Thanks!"

He tilted his head, thinking. "So, if you were sensing disaster before, and now you aren't, doesn't that mean that you'll be doing something that's going to prevent a disaster? I wonder what that will be…"

"Directly or indirectly," Absol shrugged. "Probably, anyway. Look, have you got something to eat? I've come here from Forina and that's quite a long way…"

Ash sort of wondered if Recover was something he could use to get rid of feelings of tiredness, but he wasn't quite interested enough in doing that to actually try it when sleep was still an option. He turned in fairly early, early enough that there were still sounds coming from the festival, and invited Absol to stay nearby for lack of a better option.

Then, while it was still dark, May shouted something and Ash jolted awake.

"What was that?" he asked.

Pikachu darted outside, then so did Ash, and he saw a flash of light coming from the nearby circus tent with May standing by the open flap.

Something exploded, and Latias flew past – then back in the other direction, as Butler gave a command and a Shadow Ball went whizzing past her.

She had Jirachi with her, and he didn't look in good shape.

"What happened?" Brock asked, sounding half-asleep.

"He must have taken Jirachi while we were asleep!" Max said. "I thought he was helping us!"

"Butler…" Diane said, then did a double-take as she spotted Absol. "How long has that Absol been there?"

"He showed up earlier today," Ash supplied.

"If only I'd known – maybe Butler wouldn't have gone ahead with his plan!" Diane groaned.

"What plan?" Max said.

"I – I'll explain on the move," Diane said. "May, everyone – into the bus!"

Since everyone who'd been on the bus had left it, getting on was a bit of a mess. The rear doors were open, at least, and that let Latias swoop in and drop Jirachi off without causing much delay, but then Diane had to get in because she needed to go up near the front.

"Latias – sorry, can you get my things?" Ash called, as Max got on next and sat down next to Jirachi to check on him. Brock followed, then Absol jumped aboard, and by then Latias had flown right back out of the bus again over Absol's head and snagged Ash's bags from his tent.

"May, go to the side door!" Brock instructed. "Ash, you'd better get on now or it'll delay us too much!"

Ash did just as Brock suggested, putting one hoof onto the back part of the bus floor, then awkwardly side-stepping in to try and get in the way as little as possible with his ring. Latias dropped his bags into place, then returned herself to reduce the congestion, and Brock reached over Ash to pull one of the rear doors shut.

May hurried up to the side door as Diane moved to the driver's seat, and got on just before the bus shifted into gear and started moving. Butler's Mightyena came running up to follow them, but Ash called on Pikachu and if there was one thing Mightyena wasn't expecting it was being hit by a Thunderbolt that strong.

Then Brock managed to get the other door closed, and everyone breathed a sigh of relief, even though Ash was almost wedged in place.

"Can you take the back seats down?" Brock called.

"There's a catch for it, I think?" Diane replied. "Maybe a lever? Sorry I can't show you!"

"I knew something like this was going to happen," Absol said.

Eventually Brock did find the control to lower the seats, and that gave Ash enough freedom to move around a bit at least.

"Phew," he said. "Thanks, Brock… sometimes this is really awkward."

"You're taking it better than I would, Ash," Brock told him, then turned his attention to Diane. "Do you know anything about what Butler was planning?"

"Not as much as I thought," Diane admitted. "I knew it involved Jirachi, but… not that it was going to hurt him."

Most of her attention was on driving the bus through the gloom, not that Ash could see where they were going very well either, but she kept explaining. "So, Butler is an old friend of mine – since childhood, really, and he's… he is my boyfriend, I won't say was because he was the last time we talked. He's always been into gadgets, stage magic and science, things like that, but he got involved with Team Magma."

"Team Magma?" Ash asked. "I've heard of Team Aqua but not Team Magma… what do Team Magma want to do?"

"They want to use Groudon to do something," Diane said. "I don't think Butler ever told me what, specifically, even if they knew… most of his focus was on trying to get them the Groudon that they demanded, but even with the use of a Groudon Fossil he wasn't able to create one."

She sighed. "When we went to Forina and found Jirachi's cocoon, I… don't know. I don't think I really knew how driven he was. I thought the plan was that we were going to ask, but later…"

"Well, that's not what happened," May said. "He was using his Dusclops to force poor Jirachi to open the eye on his chest! Then he tried taking power from Jirachi to make a machine work, but it exploded, and even then he was just talking about doing it again!"

"This is terrible," Diane said, and she sounded really sad about it. "I didn't know he was like this. I grew up with him!"

"Is Jirachi okay, Brock?" Max asked. "You're the one who knows medicine."

"Let's have a look," Brock decided.

Ash trotted up the central part of the bus as well, as far as he could before his ring pressed into the still-raised seats on both sides, and swallowed at the sight of Jirachi.

The little Pokémon was normally so cheerful, and like this it… didn't seem right.

It wasn't right.

It shouldn't be happening.

There was a sort of flicker of golden light, too brief to do more than blink at, then Jirachi opened his eyes.

I'm hungry, he complained. Is it time for breakfast yet?

Since it wasn't time for breakfast yet, but Jirachi had had a terrible night already, Diane directed Brock to where there were some chocolate biscuits and Jirachi had some of those.

"So… what do we do?" May asked. "Are we driving to anywhere, or just… away from the festival?"

"We're driving away, for now," Diane replied. "There's somewhere I know where we can hide the bus from the air… Butler's got a blimp in one of the trucks, but he can't search everywhere we could get to on foot. So if we're not visible from the air, we should be good."

She made a turn. "That will let us get a few hours of sleep… then we should go to Forina. It's where Jirachi is from in the first place."

Ash frowned, trying to think about this in a way that made sense to him.

It was like he was battling Butler in a Pokémon battle…

"Wouldn't he be expecting you to go to Forina?" Ash asked.

"Maybe," Diane admitted. "I don't know. But maybe if we're ready for him we can battle his Pokémon… maybe I can even convince them myself that he's doing something wrong."

Latias sent herself out again, then went squeak because there was barely enough room for her.

"Um – what Pokémon does he have?" she asked, then returned herself in case they hit a bump.

Ash was actually tempted to do that too, because it would certainly save space and be less uncomfortable…

"Latias asked what Pokémon Butler has," he relayed.

"Oh, well, you saw Mightyena," she said. "And Kirlia and Dusclops are part of the act, so you saw them, but he's also got a Salamence. That's all of them."

"That could be tricky," Ash frowned, thinking about it. "Taillow can't do much against a Dusclops, and Salamence is a strong Pokemon… Pikachu can handle any of them, but I don't know if he can handle all of them."

"I bet I could," Pikachu replied.

"I believe you'd do way better than Butler was expecting," Ash said. "I just don't think we should just assume… we need to think about this, right?"

He yawned. "And I can't think straight at the moment."

"Ash is right, we should park up and rest," Diane decided. "We just need to get to the right spot…"

True to her word, Diane drove them to a sort of pseudo-cavern in the rock. It wasn't quite a cave, not really, but the trees growing over the top obscured them from view from just about any angle, and Ash gratefully got out of the back of the bus before settling down for a few more hours of sleep.

His mind was racing, trying to work out what they were going to do. They had to keep Jirachi safe, obviously, but.. was it really right that the rest of Jirachi's week, the only days he had left awake for a thousand years, were going to be spent running away?

It didn't sound right.

But then, there was what to do about Butler, and how Brock's team could help out…

Latias made a sort of squeaky snore noise as she slept not far away, and Ash did his best to just… think about that in the morning.

It wasn't easy.

"Okay," Diane said, over breakfast, once everyone was a bit more together. "So we need to work out what to do."

Can't we just go somewhere else? Jirachi asked, waving his hand in the green light filtering down through the overlapping bushes and trees.

"Can we?" Max said. "Just… leave Butler to hang around, and go to Mauville or something?"

"Whether you did or not, you'd have to come back to Forina to sleep," Absol contributed. "I know that much… I think it's in the prophecy. And please remember, I can't hear you when you talk with your mind."

"Aww," Jirachi sighed. "I'll do both but it's boring…"

"So if we're going to have to go to Forina anyway… maybe we need to rely on surprise," Ash suggested. "If we get there first, we can hide, and Butler won't be expecting that, right?"

"I'm not sure we can get there first," Diane frowned. "Can we?"

"If he has a blimp, it depends how fast it is," Brock said. "I should have checked which way the wind was blowing last night, but… Latias, can you go and have a look? Invisibly."

"Sure can!" Latias confirmed, vanishing into stealth and floating up and out of the cave. Ash watched her go, then turned back to his friends.

"And yes, we can get there quickly," he said. "Jirachi can get us there with a wish!"

"Oh! I can do that!" Jirachi said. "I wish we were-"

"Wait, no!" May said, but too late.

"-in Forina!" Jirachi finished, then looked worried. "Um. Did I do something wrong?"

The eye on his chest opened, then all of them – including Absol – lit up with a flash of psychic energy.

"I knew it," Absol grumbled.

The world around them lurched, all at once, and suddenly Ash, Brock, Max, May, Diane, Jirachi, Pikachu, Absol and the breakfast table were in a rocky cave.

Then purple energy beams flashed out from several nearby machines, catching them all at once, and Butler stood up.

"I thought this would happen," he said. "As soon as you realized Jirachi could teleport you… now, I know what I did wrong, and I'm going to fix it."

"Butler, stop!" Diane insisted. "You're going to hurt Jirachi. Is it worth it?"

"Groudon is worth it," Butler retorted. "And Jirachi will be fine. His millennium eye is already open, that was what the problem was last time."

He reached in to grab Jirachi, then pulled him over to a machine.

"No, I don't want to do it again, it hurt!" Jirachi wailed.

"Jirachi!" Max shouted, trying to reach out but held in place by the force beams.

"Taillow, Mudkip, Unown, can any of you come out?" Ash asked, tilting his head so he had a view of his Pokéballs in his bag, and they twitched slightly but none of them opened.

"Hey, FLYGON!" Absol howled. "I CALLED IT, so you'd better come and HELP at some point!"

"Thunderbolt!" Pikachu shouted, sparks blazing out of his fur, and some of them reached out from the forcefield but none of them got far enough.

Ash struggled, pushing as hard as he could, then relaxing before pushing again. He only had one hoof that could grip the ground, but when Ash's new body gripped something it gripped, and he hauled with all his might to try and get a second contact point.

It felt like it was actually working. Like he was starting to push through the forcefield. But Butler's machine was already working, and it was doing something, tracing out a pattern on the ground. Jirachi didn't seem to be hurt this time, but he was whimpering in fear, and Ash had a second hoof on the ground now-

"Absol?" a Flygon asked, then did a double-take. "What happened to you?"

"Just get us out of here!" Absol said.

Ash had three hooves on the ground now, and he panted for a moment before pushing again.

Something gave.

Ash exploded out of the cave in a blur of Extremespeed, and a pink-and-white blur rocketed in from the left, and both he and Latias collided with Butler's machines at exactly the same time and smashed them to pieces. Butler went staggering backwards, and Latias caught Jirachi out of the air, but Butler's machine had finished doing whatever it was doing and now some kind of monster was appearing.

"Groudon!" Butler said, then looked again and gasped. "No… that's not… what is that? That can't be Groudon!"

It was some kind of enormous red creature, with clawed hands and blue lines over its body, but there were shimmering green gelatinous tentacles extending from it in all directions and slamming into the ground.

Even as Ash watched, some of the trees nearest it withered away, and three Swablu from a panicked flight got hit by a tentacle and absorbed.

"What is that?" May asked, as Max took hold of Jirachi from Latias. "Is that a Pokémon?"

"It's absorbing energy!" Brock realized. "Remember? Jirachi can't create anything. But Butler forced Jirachi to create something, and it didn't work."

Then one of the tentacles whipped towards them – towards Butler – and Diane pushed him out of the way.

"I foresee really bad things happening if we don't run for it!" Absol pointed out, and Ash translated that before joining everyone else in running for safer ground.

"What do we do?" May asked, as the ground shook and the pseudo-Groudon's tentacles reached out for more and more Pokémon, and Latias and the local Flygon zipped in and out of the danger zone to carry Pokémon to safety faster than they could run or fly. "It's just… I don't know what we could do to fix this…"

She looked at Ash and Brock. "You've seen things like this before, right? How can we fix this? Can it be fixed?"

"I don't know," Ash admitted. "I… maybe?"

"If my machinery was still intact, I could reverse the polarity," Butler said, thinking to himself. "That would need Jirachi's help, but… I could undo the false creation."

Ash winced. "But Latias and I broke it," he said.

"It's not your fault," Brock reassured Ash. "This disaster wouldn't be happening if the timing had been slightly different, and-"

"We are not yet in a situation that is a disaster," Absol interrupted.

"How is this not a disaster?" Pikachu demanded. "Have you seen what's happening out there?"

"There's still a way to solve this," Absol insisted.

Ash was baffled. "How?" he asked. "How can there be a way to fix this? Do you know anything about how it can be?"

"It's disaster sense, not solution sense," Absol retorted.

"Maybe… maybe I need to go and join it," Jirachi said, swallowing. "That would fix it, right?"

"No way!" Max replied, hugging Jirachi tight. "There's no way that would fix it, and even if it did that's not right. It's not your fault!"

"It's my fault," Butler said. "I – I can't think of what to do. How can we destroy this false creation without harming anything else?"

False creation.

Something about that sounded familiar to Ash, but he couldn't work out why – then there was a shriek, and everyone looked up in shock.

Latias had got a bit too close to the pseudo-Groudon, and one of the tentacles had caught her.

"Latias!" Ash called, leaning right up to the edge of the cliff they were on. "Come on, you can get out – Pikachu, her Pokeball-"

Pikachu scrambled for it, but too late, and by the time the return beam flashed out Latias had been absorbed into the monster.

"That-" Ash said, biting off the word, then took a step back as the false Groudon seemed to get visibly larger. "It's just going to keep growing? Absol, are you sure-"

"As sure as I can be!" Absol replied. "There's a solution here, I just don't know it!"

"Then what help are you?" Pikachu demanded.

"Unown," Ash said, trying to clear his thoughts and blink frustrated tears out of his eyes, and struck a hoof against the ground. "I need your help."

"Unown?" Butler repeated, startled. "Why do you even have an Unown?"

Unown came out of their Pokéball, then transitioned to Alphabet Form "Input ready, state your requirement."

"Unown, I – I don't know how this works," Ash began. "So I'm sorry if this isn't something you can do. But – there are things I can't do, maybe not yet, but that you can, right? Entei wasn't real, this isn't a real Pokémon, but Koraidon's real."

He pointed a hoof directly at the Meta Groudon. "That fake Pokémon needs to be destroyed, but everyone inside it needs to be safe. Is – is that something you can do?"

"Restating," Unown declared. "It is your judgement that the Meta Groudon entity should not exist. All others in the area should be protected. Confirm?"

"Yes!" Ash confirmed. "That's exactly what I mean!"

"How could an Unown-" Butler began, then Unown lit up.

So did Ash's ring. Both shone gold for more than a second, then a spike of golden-orange light went rocketing into the air from the two upper tines of Ash's body and he staggered from a sudden overwhelming feeling of exhaustion.

"Ash!" May said. "Are you okay?"

Ash swallowed, managing to avoid falling over or sliding down the cliff, then watched as the spike reached its zenith. A golden light hanging high over Forina, brighter than the washed-out pale daylight view of the Millennium Comet.

Then it came crashing down.

It split into more than a dozen individual beams as it fell, each one shining brightly enough that it made their eyes water, and when it hit Meta Groudon it made the ground jump enough to send their whole group sprawling.

And Meta Groudon was simply obliterated. The looming construct was reduced to shimmering glitter floating in the air by an overlapping chaos of explosions, and when the blasts faded there were just the victims – floating in the air, and slowly descending towards the ground surrounded by sparkling light.

"Told you," Absol said quietly.

Less than a minute after the impact and the explosions, Butler had sent his Salamence to retrieve Diane, and Latias had come back up to join them.

"You're all right, right?" Ash asked. "I didn't know if you were going to be okay when that weird energy thing got you…"

"That was absolutely disgusting," Latias shuddered. "It was draining my energy all over and making me feel tired, and then when it pulled me in I was kind of stuck in a bubble and I couldn't see what was going on…"

She shook herself, then noticed Ash was wavering slightly. "And what about you? Are you okay? I didn't see what happened to get us free…"

"I guess I must have done it," Ash said, then sank into a crouch that kept his ring off the ground. "I just… that was such a powerful attack."

He shook himself, and Pikachu made a worried noise. "Ash…"

Then Koraidon came out of her Pokéball, and Taillow, Treecko and Mudkip, and Ash smiled slightly as the sunlight got stronger. "Guys-"

Koraidon did her level best to give Ash a hug.

"I don't know all of what was going on, but I know you did your best!" she said. "You saved Latias and she's our friend!"

Ash smiled. "Thanks, Koraidon."

"She's not the only one who wants to say well done!" Taillow insisted. "That was so scary and you were so cool… we have such a great trainer!"

"Thanks all of you," Ash replied, raising one of his free hooves to pat Koraidon on the back, which was awkward but he managed it. "And… yeah. I'm glad I did that, I just…"

He looked down for a moment. "I'm scared. Is that okay? That was something so powerful, and… it makes me nervous knowing I can do that. Even if it's with Unown's help, even if I don't really know how it happened… it just makes me scared of using it wrong."

"I trust you to use it right, Ash," Pikachu said softly. "Even if part of why is how concerned you are about it."

"Ash," Brock added. "If you want to talk about it, I'll do my best, okay? You're my friend, so I should help you with that."

"I guess right now I just want to… have some time to think?" Ash said. "That might help…"

He looked up. "Wait, there's still more than half the Millennium Comet left, right? So Jirachi and Max can play around here?"

Ash still wasn't entirely sure what to think about what had happened on their adventure with Jirachi, because there were several things and only some of them could be easily summarized one way or another.

Meeting Jirachi had been good, and so had watching him and Max play with all the available Pokémon around Forina for the rest of their time together. Ash liked Jirachi, he was a bit quick to act sometimes but so was Ash, and he and Max really got on well.

They'd especially had a lot of fun with Koraidon, who'd given them rides all around Forina to let them visit Pokémon at the far end of it.

Then there was Butler, and Diane, who… well, Butler had been a real jerk, but it certainly seemed like he'd realized what he did wrong. And he'd already said that he and Diane planned to stay there in Forina even after Jirachi went back to sleep.

Jirachi having to go back to sleep? That was much worse. It made Ash really uncomfortable to think about, and there was sort of an idea there but he needed to make sure he was going to be making the right choice or putting it the right way.

Everything about the Meta Groudon had been scary. Terrifying. And… in a different way, so had the way that that problem had been solved.

Ash knew he was kind of an idiot sometimes. Prone to acting before he thought. He got mad, and he did things because they felt right without thinking about the consequences.

Something like that didn't feel safe for him to be able to do.

He'd deal. He could do that. But… it was uncomfortable, and it was going to stick with him.

"Are you all right?" Absol asked, and Ash jolted.

"Oh, uh… mostly?" he said.

"If you say so," Absol shrugged. "Well, I came over here because of disaster stuff and now there isn't one any more, so I probably did what I was after."

"I should go and sort that thing out, actually," Ash admitted, rising to all fours.

He had it down to a standard, now, at least what he did on flat ground. One hoof out to the front, the opposite one to the rear, they held him up while he did the other two, then stepping forwards to being upright.

There was a Pokémon he wanted to talk to.

"Hey, Jirachi?" Ash asked. "Max?"

The two of them stopped halfway through playing a game of keep-up with a Sitrus Berry, and the berry bounced off the floor. "Huh?"

"What's up, Ash?" Max asked.

"I wanted to say," Ash explained. "So… I don't really know what I can do, Jirachi. I don't know how long it'll take me to learn. But if it turns out one of the things I can do is make sure you don't have to sleep for a thousand years, and so you can meet Max again, I'll get it so you can. Okay?"

"That sounds great!" Max beamed. "Right, Jirachi?"

"Right!" Jirachi agreed, flying in to give Ash a hug. "Thank you so much! I'd love to be able to meet Max next time I wake up!"

"I asked Unown about it," Ash added. "But they just said, uh, no options currently available? Which means one might be available in future..."

All too soon, their time in Forina came to a close, and the friends left.

Jirachi was still there, in his sleeping crystal form now, but Max said that… it was sad, but it was okay. Because he knew they'd meet again.

Butler and Diane were staying behind, as they'd said, but in addition to the whole of their normal group there was someone else tagging along as well.

"Why are you coming along, exactly?" Pikachu said.

"Because of Ash," Absol replied. "He needs an expert along to be able to tell everyone – be not afraid, for Ash is here!"

"And you don't think an Absol might give the opposite impression?"

AN:

The original film had some very dubious implications about how big Hoenn is, since the friends spent four full days driving most of the day to get to Forina.

Meanwhile, in Ash's development, he's starting to get a bit more of a handle on what he's capable of.

It's a lot to deal with.