"...hmm," Koraidon said, looking out over the sea.
They were on their way to Mossdeep, now, for Ash's next Gym Battle – his seventh in Hoenn, and the first since LaRousse had upended things.
It still felt odd, but the time they'd spent doing the Contest had… helped. A bit.
So Ash looked over at her. "What is it, Koraidon?"
"I was thinking about how to be a good big sister," she explained. "Or… a relative in general maybe, but I'm only a big sister and I haven't been doing it for long. So I want to get it right."
She stretched, then shook herself out. "And looking at the sea reminded me… I should try and teach Miraidon to swim, in case they can swim like I can, but first I need to teach them how to turn off all the electrical energy they make. Otherwise it's not safe for everyone else, and not really for me either."
Ash nodded, following that.
"So… what do you think being a big sister is about?" he prompted.
"Oh, lots of things!" Koraidon replied, a bit grumpily. "That's the problem. I'm trying to sort it all out into a single thing, so I don't have to remember too much, and it's harder than I wanted. It's annoying."
Pikachu sniggered.
"Maybe it's more complicated than a single thing?" he suggested.
"It could be," Koraidon replied. "But I want to try anyway. And… well, how does this sound?"
She cleared her throat slightly. "Being a good older relative is trying to make it so that the younger one doesn't need you, while making sure they still want to know you."
Ash repeated that to himself, under his breath.
"It's a good starting point, yeah!" he said. "I think you're on to something, Koraidon."
"Really?" Koraidon asked, pleased.
Then some kids went speeding past their boat, each one on a slender blue Pokémon with an orange crest.
"Whoa!" Max gasped, coming to the rail. "I think those are Huntail!"
"What, the pink ones?" May said, from the other side of the boat.
"No, those are Gorebyss," Brock answered, and Ash looked back and forth between the two groups.
They all seemed to be heading in the same direction, towards the same island they were heading for.
"What's going on?" he asked.
"Oh, that's just the kids from B and C islands going to school," the boat's captain replied. "Each island has a Water-type that's like their mascot, so lots of the kids have them."
"I'm even more convinced than usual that I probably should have had a Pokémon years ago," Max said, reaching up and giving Swablu a scratch.
She cooed, snuggling into his hand, and Max took her down so he could keep doing it without holding his hand above his head all the time.
When they reached A island, their stopping place for now, Absol let himself out of his Pokéball.
"Be not afraid!" he announced. "For the son of the Original One is-"
"Absol!" Ash said, wincing. "What are you doing!?"
"I know you don't like talking about your father, so I'm doing it for you," Absol replied. "Why?"
"It's not because I don't like talking about it, it's because I don't know how to feel about it being talked about!" Ash replied. "And that's not helping!"
Absol looked embarrassed.
"...in my defence, this didn't seem like a very bad idea," he said. "Does… that mean you're okay with it?"
"I…" Ash said, then shook his head. "It means… it probably means that…"
He sighed. "I understand that I didn't actually tell you that it bothered me, not in the right way. And I know it's not your fault. But… please don't do it again?"
Absol looked at his paws.
"Sorry," he said. "I… I'll only do it again if it's obviously a good idea at the time, all right? And I do mean obviously."
Ash thought about that, then nodded.
"Okay," he said. "I'll trust you on that."
"On the plus side, I do now have a much better idea why my disaster sense isn't working," Absol said. "It's nice to have an explanation for that."
"...actually, can you stay out?" Ash asked. "The Psychic gym is next, and it'd be good if Grovyle picked up Night Slash from you like we planned…"
"Something about this seems weird, but I'm not going to object," Marshtomp said, that afternoon.
"It's good to be able to dodge, right?" Ash said. "Okay, Latias – Confusion! Marshtomp, dodge!"
Latias sent out a pulse of psychic energy, and Marshtomp punched the ground to hurl himself forwards. The strength of the blow left cracks behind him, and the psychic attack hit the ground where he'd been rather than where he was.
"I think that's working out well!" Ash said, trotting back and forth a bit. "Now, uh… the next thing is probably going to be dodging while also moving to attack. So, you know, going above Latias's attack but just above it."
"That's a trajectory thing, I think?" Max asked. "So… if Latias is a line, then you want Marshtomp moving in a curve over the line?"
"...sure, I think," Ash said. "How would that work?"
Max used his arm as a straight line. "Swablu, can you bend your wings down a bit… right… like that," he said. "So the curved line is the path Marshtomp would take, depending on how fast he can move…"
Then Koraidon came running up, trailed by Miraidon.
Ash had to stop and look more closely, because he'd never actually seen Miraidon moving that fast before. They still had the same electric field around them as before, which was why they'd been training inland, but Miraidon didn't run – their tail and throat generated a kind of wheel-shaped energy field, which let them move along the ground at high speed.
They slowed to a halt and their legs came out to stand on, then their head tilted. "That was fun."
"It was, yeah, but – Ash, there's some kind of big argument going on at the Pokémon Centre!" Koraidon explained. "Miraidon and I went that far when I was showing them how to move around quickly, they're arguing about if Gorebyss or Huntail is better I think?"
"Why are they arguing over that?" Ash asked. "I guess we'd better go and see what's going on…"
"I'll let May and Brock know," Max volunteered. "Only – where are you going?"
The Pokémon Centre wasn't far, but it still took a minute or so to get there.
Part of that was that Ash took the chance to have a look at Miraidon while the Electric-type was moving at speed.
When walking around more slowly, they used their legs in the same way Koraidon did, but when they were running – well, they didn't run, really.
It was good to know. And he was glad they were able to play together.
Then they were coming up on the Pokémon Centre, and Ash slowed down from what was probably a gallop to a canter and then a trot.
Pikachu poked his head out from behind Ash's neck. "Wow, that's a lot of arguing kids."
All the same boys and girls they'd seen coming to Island A earlier were at an outside pool, and so – to Ash's surprise – was Professor Birch.
"Professor?" Ash asked, stopping next to the man from Littleroot. "What's going on?"
"Ash!" Professor Birch said, pleased. "I didn't realize you were here – oh, well – I'm here on my latest assignment, which is to find out how it is that Clamperl evolves to Gorebyss and Huntail. And, I said that, and…"
The Pokémon Professor waved his hand helplessly. "Now this is happening."
"Huh," Ash frowned. "So… it's all them arguing about which one is better?"
"That's right," Birch agreed. "I didn't get nearly far enough to even explain what we do know."
Koraidon came up alongside him. "I asked Miraidon to stand back a bit, because that's a pool," she said. "I'm going to go back and keep them company, okay?"
"That's a good idea, Koraidon," Ash said. "Thank you for keeping them company."
Koraidon smiled, then loped back over to her sibling.
"So, what do you know?" Pikachu asked. "And have you asked their Pokémon?"
"Pikachu's asking what you know," Ash translated. "He'd also like to know if you've asked their Pokémon, which would be hard but not impossible I guess."
"Oh, well, we do know some things," Professor Birch agreed. "Some of it from asking Gorebyss and Huntail, actually. We know that a Deep Sea Tooth is involved with Huntail, and that a Deep Sea Scale is involved with Gorebyss, but apparently there's something unusual about it."
"Then I could try asking, right?" Ash asked.
He looked over at the ongoing argument. "If I can get anyone's attention…"
"I could try distracting them?" Latias volunteered.
"Maybe," Ash said, then stopped and looked at the pool.
It was rippling.
Pikachu slipped down Ash's side, landing on the poolside, then looked up at Ash. "Is it me, or is the ground shaking?"
Brock, May and Max came running up, then there was a crash as a giant shape came though the trees to one side of the pool.
It was a giant, mechanical, Quagsire.
"Oh, no, not these guys again," May groaned.
A hatch opened on top of the Quagsire, and Jessie and James stepped up onto the top.
"Making a choice drives children to weep!" Jessie said.
"But the Pokémon are both from the deep," James added, shaking his finger.
"To prevent this debate becoming a fight!"
James stepped on something, making the Quagsire yawn. "Since the sea down there's as black as night!"
"You could be doing much more with your time!" Jessie admonished.
"Like learning how to on-the-spot rhyme!" James suggested.
"Jessie!"
"James!"
"What is going on?" Miraidon asked, quietly, but nobody else was making any noise so Ash heard them anyway.
"Everyone's welcome to think of the sea," Jessie said, magnanimously.
"But you'd have to be Suicune for purity," James advised.
"Meowth!" Meowth agreed. "On three!"
"What's a Suicune, again?" one of the kids asked.
"Oh, you must be new!" James realized, grandly. "Welcome!"
Something lined up in Ash's mind.
Celebi. Jirachi. Lugia. Zarude, whatever that was. Regigigas. Zacian. Rayquaza. And now Suicune.
It couldn't be a coincidence-
"Is this some kind of joke to you?" he demanded, stepping forwards involuntarily. "You've – every time since – for months I've been full of – and you keep mentioning Legendaries? Talking about-"
Ash couldn't line up the words he wanted to say, well enough to say them, but sheer fury that made his voice tremble was making up for it.
"I knew you guys could be jerks, but have you been making jokes about me for months?" he asked, as Team Rocket and their Quagsire mech all backed up away from him. "From before I even knew for sure myself? Let alone knowing what I was, I didn't even know I was a Legendary Pokémon at all and – and you were just tossing in hints about it, like it was some kind of big mystery or something? Because you knew and I didn't and it meant you were – were – in on the joke?"
His legs were trembling with barely-suppressed rage, then Latias put her hand on his back, and that was enough to calm him down.
A bit.
"Pikachu, Thunderbolt!" he called, pointing his hoof, and Pikachu hit the Quagsire robot with a multi-Thunderbolt blast. Latias attacked as well, sending out a Dragon Pulse, and when the smoke cleared Team Rocket had been sent blasting off.
Ash took a deep, deep breath, and sighed it out, trying to relax.
Then he turned around.
"Professor, what kind of help do you need with your research?" he asked.
The local kids were very helpful, which was nice, and they quickly found out that the key aspect of evolving a Clamperl on demand was that they had to be traded.
Which was a nice lesson.
"Do you think we did something wrong?" Jessie asked, on B Island.
They'd been launched quite a long way.
"Well, I ain't gonna say one way or another, but we're still in one piece, right?" Meowth said.
"Hmm," James frowned. "You know, I think maybe he mostly minded because we might have been too obvious!"
He raised his finger. "He said it was like it was a mystery, just like we agreed! And he was upset about us mentioning something when he didn't know, but of course he must have known, because he's the creator of all things!"
"So it was a code, of course!" Jessie realized. "We'll just have to be more coded ourselves!"
"Now that's Hisuian logic!" Meowth nodded, appreciative. "Wherever Hisui is, anyways."
AN:
Ash is still a bit fragile at the moment.