Ash got his new Badge, the Fen Badge, and then after a trip to the Pokémon Centre they headed out of town to the north.
"Hopefully I can battle Fantina this time," Ash said. "I know it's not meant to be normal for a Gym Leader to be away from their gym for a long time, but how long is too long?"
"That's a very subjective question," Cynthia answered. "There really is no one correct answer, because it depends so much on the circumstances… a Gym Leader who's able to leave someone else also capable of doing good gym battles is someone who we'd hardly worry about, while the more gyms there are in the region the better. If a region had only eight gyms then everyone really would need to be there all the time, or at least available all the time, but in Sinnoh we've got enough that for most people it's not a problem at all."
She shook her head. "For you, it's a bit different, though."
"Yeah, that's true," Latias agreed.
"It's different?" Riolu asked. "How's that? Is it because Ash is a Pokémon who's also a trainer?"
"It's because if I win a badge, or… sometimes for another reason, then I end up being able to use the badge or other thing to change Type," Ash told him. "That's what happens when I change colour, like when I was training on those defensive moves."
"Oh, so that's what you were doing," Riolu said, nodding to himself. "Wait, you can change Type at will? That's amazing! You must be able to be immune to loads of attacks!"
"That depends," Ash said, but he was thinking. "Uh… now I think about it, I do end up immune to an attack type if I'm that type, as well as being able to use the normal type immunities. So…"
He began counting under his breath. "I don't have any Badges for Ice, Ghost, Steel, Poison or Ground, but I can be immune to Ground attacks by being Flying-type and Ghost attacks by being Normal-type… that means I can be immune to fifteen types. Just, not all at once."
"What I wonder is if that's part of how powerful your father is," Cynthia mused, then checked her notes. "The rightful bearer of a Plate draws power from the Plate it holds… it gathers power from the Plates, listening for the flute's song… the powers of Plates are shared among Pokémon… it's cryptic, especially the bit about the flute's song, but that could be referring to Noble Pokémon or it could be referring to your father, Ash."
"I guess, yeah," Ash agreed. "If he has a complete set of them, then he could ignore any attack he wanted, so long as he saw it coming and had time to change."
"Almost any attack," Pikachu corrected, with a smirk. "We all know what it means when someone's supposed to be immune to me."
Ash stifled a laugh. "Don't plan to shock my dad before we even meet him, Pikachu!"
Pikachu sniffed. "I can make plans without actually having to do them," he said.
"You know when clouds look like something?" Zorua asked, from his perch on Miraidon's head, then rolled upright and pointed. "That cloud looks like something."
Ash glanced at Zorua, then followed his paw.
The cloud Zorua was pointing at was off to the left, but approaching rapidly, and it was an unhealthy-looking colour sort of like a bruise.
"What's that?" Dawn checked. "I didn't understand what Zorua said, but that can't be good… whenever I saw that kind of cloud before it was because I was about to be caught in a nasty rainstorm."
"Thought so," Zorua said, nodding to himself. "It looks like a problem."
Ash switched to his Mind Badge, then used Reflect, and a bubble of energy formed that deflected the rain away from him as it began to pelt down. Everyone else except Pikachu still got very wet very quickly, though, and Latias zipped off with a whoosh through the rain before coming back only seconds later.
"I spotted a house over there!" she said. "We can shelter from the rain there!"
"Thanks, Latias!" Ash called up. "Guys, let's go – Latias found us somewhere to shelter!"
When they got to what turned out to be a large mansion, Ash felt a bit guilty for being dry.
He wasn't unscathed, his legs were splashed with mud up to his knees from the run, but that still meant he was the only one whose things had stayed dry.
"Come in, please," a woman said, opening the door in from the porch. "Mr. Backlot won't mind, he likes guests, and on a day like this everyone needs somewhere to shelter from the rain!"
"Thank you," Cynthia replied, then paused. "Mr. Backlot? So that would mean that this is the Pokémon Mansion?"
"Why is it called Pokémon Mansion?" Riolu asked.
"Riolu would like to know why it's called Pokémon Mansion," Ash explained, half-distracted as he tried to catch some rain and use it to wash his legs off. "I guess I do too, because that sounds like a really big title."
"As far as I know, his family was the first one to think of it," the woman replied. "I'm Monica, I work for him. Would you like to use one of the baths?"
"That would work better than this, thanks," Ash said gratefully.
Mr. Backlot showed up while Ash was washing his legs and Cynthia and Dawn were changing next door, then once everyone was dried off he showed them around the building.
"I hope you can stay the night," he said. "It looks like it'll rain for the rest of the day, but I'd love to show you my Back Lot. I take pride in the rare Pokémon there."
"Do you know which came first?" Cynthia asked. "The Back Lot or the Backlot family?"
"Alas, I have no idea!" Mr. Backlot admitted. "None of my ancestors kept diaries."
Cynthia shook her head sadly. "What a terrible thing for them to overlook."
The rain went on into the evening, then slowed into drizzle, but by that point they were committed to staying overnight.
After so long on the road, or sleeping in a Pokémon Centre, Ash found it a bit strange to sleep indoors in a room that wasn't the standard Pokémon Centre ones. But that didn't actually stop him from getting a good night's sleep, and bright and early the next morning he and the others went out to see the Backlot back lot.
"Of course, it's not really a true wild environment," Mr. Backlot said, half-apologetically. "But there's wilderness all around, so I feel it helps to provide food for Pokémon who wouldn't otherwise have their preferences."
"It's always important to remember that," Dawn agreed. "Pokémon all have their own preferred types of food, and – just as important – they have things they don't like."
She shrugged. "It would be possible to do harm to the Pokémon around here if you did it wrong, but I don't think you're doing that."
Monica brought out a tray of Poffins, putting them down, and after a few seconds some Pokémon came out of the undergrowth.
"Hey, guys!" a Starly called. "Food's here!"
"Do I count as a wild Pokémon?" Riolu asked, looking up at Ash.
"I think it would probably be better for you to ask separately," Ash guessed. "This is the main chance these Pokémon have to eat, but you could ask for extra breakfast."
"Oh, yeah, whoops," Riolu admitted. "You're right, I really should have done that before. Sorry."
"You didn't do anything wrong, though," Latias pointed out. "You asked, first, and when you found out it wasn't a great idea you didn't do it. That's exactly how you should work."
"Now that's interesting," Cynthia said, pointing. "Is that a Jigglypuff?"
Ash looked up quickly, then relaxed a bit when he saw that the Pokémon wasn't carrying a microphone.
"Quick, Ash," Pikachu said. "Take off so you can see it from above."
"...what?" Latias asked, completely lost.
"I'd almost forgotten about that," Ash admitted. "Though now I do want to check…"
He rummaged for his Flying-type badge, and as he did Cynthia continued. "I'm surprised to see a Jigglypuff here, Mr. Backlot – they're not normally considered native to Sinnoh."
"Oh, yes, that happens a lot," Mr. Backlot replied. "My little garden does tend to have Pokémon from all over, and I'm mostly just glad to provide a place of respite for them."
He glanced at Ash's team. "Though I think you'd be used to being around Pokémon who aren't native to the region."
"Actually, speaking of that," Dawn said. "I wonder why it is that some Pokémon aren't found in Sinnoh any more, when they were found in Hisui."
"It's quite possible that they're just rarer," Cynthia answered.
Then a Rowlet bounced off her shoulder.
"Ow," he said, then blinked a few times. "Oh, hello."
"Good morning," Cynthia's Garchomp said, offering her scythe as a perch, and the Rowlet landed with a grateful flutter of wings. "You seem a little sleepy."
"Yes," Rowlet confirmed. "It's a problem with being a Rowlet, you know… I'm nocturnal but charged up by sunlight, so I always end up being unable to sleep during the day because of all the energy, and then sleepy all night when I'm supposed to be wide awake. The rainstorm helped, a bit."
He yawned, and turned his head to look at Dawn and Cynthia. "Which one's your trainer?"
"Garchomp's one of Cynthia's Pokémon," Latias provided, pointing at Cynthia.
Cynthia was looking contemplative.
"Who's your new friend?" she asked.
"Are we friends?" Rowlet replied, turning back to Garchomp. "That was quick."
Ash had finished finding out what a Jigglypuff looked like when seen from above, and landed back down next to them.
"That exam was wrong," he said. "That's a neat Pokémon."
Latias got to his Pokédex before he could, and scanned Rowlet, who turned out to be the Grass Quill Pokémon and a Grass-and-Flying-type who knew Leafage and Gust.
"That's a good combination to start with," Cynthia said. "Combining them together makes the leaf barrage much faster and harder to dodge, which lets you be just as accurate while being much higher and harder to hit."
"I would not have thought of that," Rowlet marvelled. "How would that work?"
"Why not have a go and find out?" Garchomp suggested.
Since it was Cynthia's idea, she walked Rowlet through how to combine Leafage with Gust to produce a high-speed barrage of grassy projectiles.
Then Garchomp acted as a target, and Rowlet was amazed at how much more accurate his attacks were… at least, once he'd been assured that the attacks apparently doing absolutely nothing was just normal.
It would have been a nice little diversion, except that Rowlet asked at the end if there was any reason he couldn't join them and travel with Cynthia. There wasn't, and Rowlet joined Cynthia's team, and they were about to leave when Zorua came scampering up.
"Made a friend," he explained, turning. "Say hello?"
A pale-blue Sandshrew followed, and waved a bit nervously. "Hello?"
"That's an Alolan Sandshrew," Cynthia recognized. "I wonder if they got here the same way Rowlet did?"
Ash knelt down to get closer to the ground.
"It's nice to meet you," he said. "Zorua's one of my Pokémon. Did he tell you about me?"
"He told me a lot," Sandshrew replied, tapping her claws together. "Apparently you're really important?"
"Yes," Zorua agreed, nodding. "He's the dad of three good friends."
Ash had been about to object to the description, but now he wasn't really sure what to say.
AN:
It's basically an "add any Pokémon here" card.
For clarity, there is one more chapter to post before the actual hiatus.