"Okay, ready?" Koraidon asked. "Now it's time for you to try and do it deliberately!"
"Affirmative," Miraidon said, then closed their eyes.
Presumably. They didn't actually have eyelids, and their eyes were more like little display screens holding hundreds of little pixel points of light that changed whenever Miraidon looked in a different direction or blinked, but past testing had shown that Miraidon could actually stop looking at something and that it usually involved the screen going blank.
They did it now, and after a long pause the crackling electrical energy that had been fizzing around them all… slowed, then stopped.
"Well done!" Ash praised. "Great work – how does it feel?"
"It feels like pressure," Miraidon answered. "Like I am lying on a stone which is pressing into me, only inside me. It feels like if I relax it will come out again."
"That's how it was for me at first," Koraidon told them. "But it got easier to hold it back with practice, so before long you should be ready to hold it in place all the time – which is going to be great!"
She stopped for a moment, waving a paw at their surroundings. "Like this snow, right? This is something that I couldn't have experienced before, or, not properly like this."
"Yeah, sunny days are nice, but it's good to have a bit of a difference now and then," Ash said.
He frowned. "So, Brock? We think that Koraidon and Miraidon are both Dragon types, but would there be anything wrong with the two of them getting a chance to play in the snow?"
"You can play in it?" Koraidon asked, awed. "It looks pretty but I didn't know you could do that!"
"Well, they're Dragon types, so they're weak to Ice, but that's not the same as saying they shouldn't do it at all," Brock replied. "We're on the way to Cerosi Town, but the map says there's a Pokémon Centre not far from here… and you can always recall them for us to rush there if it goes badly."
He patted the Pokéball holding his starter. "Remember how Steelix dealt with that flood? That was water, which he's weak to, but he's a tough Pokémon and he didn't have to deal with it for long. So he was okay again after a bit of rest, and of course some rewards for being such a brave Pokémon."
Miraidon had already paced over to the side of the path, on the snowfield, and carefully lowered their paw down onto a bit of snow.
It resisted for a moment, then went crunch, and Miraidon's head raised up in surprise and interest.
Another press, and there were two paw-sized pawprints in the snow.
Then Koraidon took a run-up, jumped clear over her sibling, and went crash into the biggest snowdrift she could see.
It took them over an hour to get to the Pokémon Centre, despite how it turned out to literally be just around the next bend, but they had a lot of fun doing it. Neither Koraidon nor Miraidon could throw a conventional snowball, but Koraidon could pick up a big lump of snow while sitting on her haunches and just throw it at someone – while Miraidon spent most of their time trying to make a snow model of Pikachu.
It collapsed a lot, but Pikachu appreciated it, and it also turned out to give Miraidon a lot of practice at making sure they didn't forget themselves and let their Electric Terrain loose again.
Ash, meanwhile, could throw snowballs now thanks to his use of Confusion, and the multi-sided snowball fight that resulted eventually resulted in a quite snowy and damp collection of trainers, Pokémon, and one person who was both entering the Pokémon Centre.
"It's a good thing you got here when you did," the Nurse Joy said. "There's a blizzard due to arrive later today, I've been stopping everyone who's passing through as otherwise they'll end up stuck in the pass."
"Do they keep track of who's coming through?" Latias asked, half-turning around to go outside again.
"Latias has a point," Ash agreed. "Nurse Joy, would you know if there was anyone who hadn't made it yet?"
"Well, there is a mountain rescue team based nearby," Joy said. "We wouldn't know, but I stay in touch with my cousins at both ends of the pass and when there's a blizzard forecast we keep track."
"That's amazing!" Brock gushed. "Exactly the forethought I'd expect from such a wonderful-"
He abruptly froze solid, thanks mostly to the efforts of a Snorunt.
"Wow," May said, wincing. "Talk about a cold shoulder."
The Snorunt giggled.
"...is he all right?" Miraidon asked.
"Snorunt's quite good at making sure their ice attacks don't hurt anyone," Joy said. "They're a wild Pokémon, but they don't mean any harm."
The blizzard came along before much longer, and everyone just spent the rest of the day – and the night – with things they could do indoors.
For Ash, that meant working on Confusion, and alternating between that and helping Pikachu teach Miraidon how to use Thunderbolt.
Brock cooked up a big batch of food for all the Pokémon stuck in the Pokémon Centre overnight. Max helped Swablu out as she got advice from Latias on how to breathe out Dragon-type energy. Cyndaquil and Torkoal warmed up the traveller who stumbled in an hour into the snowstorm, and kept the supply of hot water for baths coming as a great way of making sure that (as Torkoal said) their hearts and bodies were warmed at once, which took away the cold of purposelessness.
May, meanwhile, found a room that wasn't being used for anything – an old storeroom, currently not full of anything – and worked on routines. The two Pokémon who hadn't won a Ribbon yet were Skitty and Octillery, so it was mostly the two of them alternating, and May did her best to have something to say after each time either of them had had a go at their routine.
It was after Skitty had used a combination of Thunderbolt and Magical Leaf – sending up a cloud of glowing leaves, each of them aimed at another leaf, so they spiralled together until the point Skitty hit them all at once with a single Thunderbolt – that she heard clapping from the door.
"Oh, hello, there," she said, smiling at the Snorunt they'd met earlier. "How are you feeling?"
Snorunt shrugged, moved a little to the side of the door, and sat own.
"Snooo?" the Ice-type asked.
"Skitt-itt-itty!" Skitty replied, using her tail to help her bow and nodding her head at the same time. "Skitty?"
"Runt," Snorunt said.
"Skitty-itty-tty, skit?" the Normal-type asked her trainer.
"Oh, um…" May began. "Is Snorunt asking what we're doing?"
A nod. "Skitt!"
"Well, Contests are a way that Pokémon can perform for people," May explained. "There's two kinds of Contest participation, one part is to show off with what's called an Appeal, and the other is like a normal battle but you try to make something look pretty even while you do the battling. But an Appeal, for example, is all about showing off technical skill."
She waved. "So Octillery is good at shooting down her own attacks, for example! She can fire a lot of them at once. While Skitty's focused mostly on learning extremely accurate attacks, and if you have a chain of Magical Leaves or Swift stars each following one another then you can make something that's not like most people normally see."
Then May frowned. "Actually… Skitty, what about if we try you firing a chain of Swift stars at your tail? So the first one's aimed at your tail, and then after that they're aimed at the previous Swift star… how would that work?"
"Skitty, itty," Skitty said, considering, before bowing towards Octillery.
"Till," Octillery nodded.
Then Snorunt hurried out into the middle of the floor, did a little bow, and used Double Team.
They exhaled a gust of icy air upwards from each of their three copies, then all did a twirl in unison as the sparkling icy dust rained down around them.
"That's nice!" May said. "Hmm… I wonder if it would improve it if you were skating around on an icy floor while doing that?"
One thing led to another, and when they departed the next morning May had her sixth team member.
"Are there any tips I should know about an Ice-type?" May asked, as they had lunch in a forest not far from Cerosi Town. "I mean, ones that haven't come up already, at least."
"Hmm," Ash said, putting down his fork and thinking about it. "I've only had Lapras, and he was an Ice and Water type…"
He tapped a hoof. "Lapras never really had trouble with being overheated, even though we were in hot weather, but that could be because he's a Water-type as well and so being in the sea helped with that… I guess that's the main thing I can think of, but I'm not great at that. Uh, Brock?"
"Ice-type Pokémon can have problems with temperature," Brock agreed, as Ash picked up his fork again – it was amazing how much he'd missed being able to eat easily with cutlery, at least once he had the chance again with Confusion helping. "But normally a healthy Ice-type can deal with it just fine, so as long as you're not making Snorunt sit out in the hot sun for long periods of time he should cope just fine."
"That's good to know," May said. "There's some Pokémon where it feels like it's more likely for there to be problems than others, right?"
"Yeah!" Latias said, not that May could understand her. "It's like how Cyndaquil has to be much more careful in rain than Torkoal does, even though they're both Fire-type Pokémon. Or… how Octillery has to stay hydrated."
Ash began translating that for May and Brock, but he was only about halfway through when Max looked worried.
"Huh?" he said. "Who said that?"
"Who said what?" Brock asked. "Ash, did you hear anything?"
"No…" Ash frowned.
"Well, I did!" Max insisted. "It came from this way!"
He stood up, almost knocking over his plate, and hurried off.
Swablu looked after him, then took off, and Ash took long enough to put his lunch down before following Max.
By the time Ash and May got there, Swablu was in a worried orbit while Max fretted over how to deal with a Ralts lying by the side of a lake.
"What do I do?" Max asked, worried. "He seems sick… is it safe to move him?"
"I think we can move him without disturbing him," Ash said, glancing up at Latias. "Do you think so?"
"I think I can help, certainly," Latias confirmed.
"No, I mean… I don't know what to do," Max said. "Can Brock help?"
He crouched down next to Ralts. "Hey, you were asking for my help, right?"
Ralts murmured something, and Max blinked. "Um… he says he's really hot and cold at the same time? But that he hurts all over, not anywhere in particular… I guess… let me know if this hurts?"
"What do you think is going on?" Ash asked, glancing at Latias.
"It sounds a bit like how Latios and I can communicate, but we're twins," Latias answered. "I don't know how it is that Max and Ralts can communicate like that."
"Okay, I've got you," Max said. "Let's get you to Brock, and then… uh, to the Pokémon Centre, I think…"
"Straight to the Pokémon Centre," was Brock's conclusion. "He's running a high fever. There's one along the road we were taking, we'd better hurry."
"Then I'll take him there!" Max declared.
"Uh," Ash began, thinking, then reached into his saddlebags with Confusion and sent out Miraidon. "Miraidon, we need to hurry to a Pokémon Centre – uh – which way is the Pokémon Centre?"
"Why me?" Miraidon asked, head tilting. "I can help, but why not my sister?"
"It's because she runs," Ash explained. "You use wheels when you're moving fast, I think that's going to mean less jolting."
"Shouldn't we do something to cool Ralts down?" May asked. "In a fever, isn't it the actual heat that does a lot of the damage?"
"It can be," Brock agreed, and May sent out Snorunt.
"Just a little bit, okay?" she asked, then took her headband off. "If you can freeze this, then Max can use it to keep Ralts cool."
Snorunt did a twirl, froze May's headband, froze the ground underneath himself, then slipped and fell over.
Ralts giggled, then winced, and Max took the headband to apply it to his forehead. "Thanks, Snorunt, I think that cheered him up…"
"We'll follow," Brock decided. "Ash, if you can leave Koraidon to help carry things we can move faster once we've packed everything up, but you should go with Max and Miraidon to help explain."
"Got it!" Ash agreed.
Max had been rummaging in his pocket, and pulled out the Pokénav. A few seconds with it, and he handed it to Latias.
"It's showing a map to the Pokémon Centre," he said. "You go in front and lead us, okay?"
"On it!" Latias agreed, as Max lifted Ralts up and Miraidon crouched down.
"Good luck," Koraidon told them.
Brock and May caught up at the Pokémon Centre about half an hour later, and May immediately sat down with a groan.
"My legs hurt so much," she said, sighing. "How is Ralts?"
"We didn't hear anything since he went in there," Max replied.
He swallowed. "I'm not sure what to think… is it good that we haven't heard anything? Is it bad?"
"It's good that you got him here so quickly," Brock replied, rubbing his own legs. "It was a long way… I don't think we'll be doing that again, Koraidon."
"What did you do?" Ash asked. "Did Koraidon give you both a ride?"
"Yes, but they didn't quite fit," his daughter explained. "It was awkward. Then instead I moved fast and they held onto my tendrils, and I towed them along. Then they said that actually not fitting was better and we went back to doing that."
"I guess she just explained it, but… ow," May repeated.
"So… what do we do now?" Max asked. "We just… wait, right?"
Swablu peeped, not actually saying anything but trying to comfort her friend, and Max gave her a hug.
"I haven't heard anything from him since we arrived," he added. "I don't know if that's good or not…"
Then there was a crash.
"What was that?" May asked.
A tree fell over, and revealed that there was a large robotic Audino just behind it.
"Oh, not these guys again," Max complained.
"That's actually been quite a long break from them, now I think about it," Pikachu observed.
The Audino's chest parted along a hatch in the middle, and Jessie and James struck poses.
"Prepare for action!" Jessie began.
"It's quite a distraction!" James told them all, then hit a control by his foot.
The mech's plates all lit up purple, making it look Shiny.
Jessie flourished a rose. "To protect your hearts from feeling blue!"
"To give you something you'd rather do!" James added, flourishing where his rose had been before Jessie took it out of his hands.
"To wait out a hospital's treatment time!" Jessie continued, striking half of a pose.
"And ad-lib ourselves a suitable rhyme!" James completed, striking the other half of the pose to make an A shape between the two of them.
They spread their other hands into the air, throwing glitter over themselves.
"Jessie!"
"James!"
"This mech might not be helpful later," Jessie shrugged.
"But at least it has Healer!" James finished.
"What?" Jessie said. "I thought it had Regenerator!"
"Meowth!" Meowth said. "That's wrong!"
"No, Regenerator just heals itself-"
"What are you even doing?" Ash asked. "Are you here to steal Ralts or something?"
He raised his hoof, then brought it down for emphasis. "Can't you just – stop!"
Ash's ring pulsed gold, and suddenly everything just… stopped moving.
Latias. Koraidon. Pikachu. The wind in the trees. Everything froze.
Except Ash… and, in front of him, Team Rocket.
"What?" James asked, sounding honestly offended. "Steal Pokémon? We don't do that any more!"
"Yeah!" Meowth agreed.
"We're providing enrichment and important battles, of course!" Jessie said. "Which… must be why you've paused time, so we can make sure we don't need to use oblique language!"
"Ain't oblique dat thing where you miss?" Meowth asked.
"You don't steal Pokémon?" Ash asked. "At all?"
"Yeah!" James agreed.
"It wouldn't be holy," Jessie said.
Ash wasn't sure what to say about that, but then his ring flashed gold again. Everything started moving, and he felt so tired he sank to his knees – nearly falling over completely, until Koraidon dashed over to support him.
"Okay, that's it!" Pikachu said, cheeks flaring. "I don't know what's going on here, and I don't care, and I'm going to make sure you don't hurt Ash!"
"That ain't-" Meowth began, but then the fighting started and it was a bit hard to hear over that.
"What happened?" Latias asked. "Are you okay, Ash?"
Miraidon's eyes did a happy-closed-smile image. "Did you see that Thunderbolt I did?"
"Yeah," Ash agreed, bracing himself, then pushed himself upright again. "I did, that was great! And… I don't really know what happened, Latias, but I…"
He shook his head. "I don't really know what to say about it, but… is it me, or have Team Rocket not actually tried to steal any Pokémon for ages?"
"Is that what they normally try and do?" Koraidon asked. "They've never done that that I noticed."
"Huh," Ash said. "I'm so used to them that I didn't really notice the change…"
"Did you notice something about what they were doing, then?" Pikachu said. "You just kind of… fell over."
"It's weird," Ash told his friend. "I think… maybe we should talk about it later? But if Team Rocket is doing this instead of trying to steal Pokémon…"
He shook his head. "It was annoying me before, but now, I think it's way better than them trying to steal Pokémon. If they do that they might succeed eventually."
"What was that noise?" the local Nurse Joy asked.
Max turned to the door so fast Swablu nearly fell off his head. "Is Ralts okay?"
"Oh, are you his trainer?" Joy said. "Yes, his fever's going down now. You did well to get him here in time."
"I… no, I'm not his trainer," Max answered. "Ralts is wild."
"Well, that's very good of you," Joy told him. "It's a shame, but some people wouldn't do that for a wild Pokémon."
"I had to," Max said, softly. "He needed help, and he reached out to me."
He reached up to pat Swablu. "And – that's the same way I met Swablu, and she's sort of my Pokémon now as well."
"Why don't you tell me about it?" Joy invited. "And we can go and see Ralts, so you can reassure yourself."
Ash already knew about how Swablu had a Pokéball, for emergencies, but it was one she didn't use most of the time. And how technically Swablu had been registered as one of Norman's Pokémon, but that Max had a sort of provisional license thing to let him have a Pokémon companion even though he was younger than ten, but it wasn't really something he'd paid attention to all that much even at the time.
Joy was very interested, though, talking with Max about what it was like having a first Pokémon and how he'd been dealing with it, and it was only when they reached the ward – and the Chansey still taking care of Ralts – that he realized that Joy had been doing it exactly to help Max relax.
"He should be okay by the end of the day," Joy told them. "Then, well, as a wild Pokémon your next problem is going to be finding his parents, but I suppose since you're with a talking Pokémon you'll be able to sort that out more easily than we will."
"And Ralts can speak to me," Max said. "I'd – is it okay if I stay in here?"
"He can speak to you?" Joy asked, surprised. "My word! That's not very common, but – well, I think I've read a medical paper on it once before. But a wild Pokémon forming a bond with a human they've never met before is very rare… I might need to ask my third cousin Joy if she had that when she met her partner…"
Eventually, Ralts was declared fit enough to leave the Pokémon Centre.
Not more than a moment after Joy had said that, though, the Psychic-type raised his hands, and Max looked surprised.
"You want me to carry you?" he asked.
"Yes," Ralts confirmed. "I… not for long? But you helped me. You feel safe."
Max had clearly understood that, but he didn't seem to know what to say. Wordlessly, he gathered Ralts into his arms, lifting the Psychic-type with difficulty, then carried him outside.
"Do you know where to go?" Max asked.
Ralts sort of waved his hand, then a Kirlia and a Gardevoir appeared in front of them in a flash of teleportation.
"Are you all right?" Gardevoir asked.
"Yeah!" Ralts nodded, vigorously, as Max crouched down to put him down again. "Mama, I fell in the lake and got really sick really quickly, but this human – I tried to reach out to you, mama, but I got him instead!"
That seemed to be as much of a surprise to Gardevoir as it had been to Joy earlier.
"Can I go with him when I'm older, mama?" Ralts added. "How much older do I need to be to be a trainer's Pokémon?"
Miraidon raised their paw.
"I have been dad's Pokémon since I was about thirty minutes old," they said. "Does that help?"
They had to make several video calls to sort out Max now having two Pokémon, but it was worth it.
AN:
More shuffling around of teams…