After saying goodbye to Rayquaza, and catching the next ferry on their list, the friends arrived at Pacifidlog.
No sooner had they done so than Drew showed up.
"Hey, there," he waved. "Long time no see, May! I hear you've been picking up more Ribbons in time for the Grand Festival… think you'll make it?"
"I know there's only one or two more chances," May replied. "And this is one of them. What about you?"
"Oh, I got my fifth Ribbon weeks ago," Drew replied. "And, for your information, there's only one more chance left. So… no pressure."
"Isn't that something you say when there is pressure?" Ash wondered.
"Yeah, that's about the size of it," Drew agreed. "You're, uh… Ash, right?"
He frowned. "Come to think of it… you can understand Pokémon, right? So you can ask a Pokémon about themselves… what was the weird Pokémon May used in that one Contest I heard about? It was only rumours."
Pikachu began giggling.
"Was it that dragon Pokémon with the feathers?" Drew went on.
"No, it was her dad," Ash replied. "She borrowed me from me."
Drew blinked.
"I… had not realized that was an option," he admitted. "It just sounds deeply weird to me. Uh, no offence."
"Isn't that something you say when there's offence?" Max said, sweetly.
"Shaddup," Drew countered, but he was grinning. "Okay, I know when I'm beaten…"
Since Snorunt hadn't quite got his routine down just yet, May entered Skitty, and Ash took his place in one of the disabled slots.
As he'd learned to fly, by now, Ash thought he could maybe wedge himself into a normal seat if he made the right kind of preparations. But it would be so awkward, and uncomfortable, that after thinking about it a lot he decided that it was okay to keep using the disabled space.
If someone else who seemed to need it more was also there, and it was a choice, Ash would give his space up for them and try and work something else out. Maybe hovering overhead or something… but, until then, he was just going to stick to what was already working.
It made him feel vaguely guilty, but only a bit… or, at least, that was what he thought.
"It's okay," Latias told him, softly.
"Huh?" Ash replied.
"I can see you're not happy, Ash," she pointed out. "And – I personally think it's okay for you to be in this space. Okay?"
"I guess," Ash nodded, slowly. "It just feels weird."
"A lot of things do," Latias said. "A lot of how humans do things is weird, to me… still is, even after this long."
She put an invisible hand on his shoulder. "It's the same for you. It's something different, and even though you've done it several times, part of you is still expecting it to go back to the old way. But I bet going back to the old way would seem weird too, now."
"I guess," Ash repeated. "Yeah… that's a good point, Latias. Thanks."
"No problem!" Latias replied, then the first of the Appeals started.
After two excellent Appeals, one from a Jynx who combined Blizzard and Psychic and another Coordinator whose Houndoom used Shadow Ball before surrounding it with Swift, May had a tough act to follow.
"Okay," she said, smiling slightly, and did a curtsey to the crowd. Then she sent out Skitty, and Skitty did an equally polite bow to the crowd with a flick of her tail.
"Let's do this," May declared. "Skitty, skip the Swift, let's do the other routine we had planned."
"Ski!" Skitty agreed.
May clapped her hands three times, then pointed. "Begin! Magnet Bomb!"
Skitty flicked her tail, and created a globe of silver-and-blue light. Sparks around the outside of the orb were continuously flowing towards the centre of the orb, and the feline Normal-type bounced it on her nose and then her tail before jumping in the air and batting at it with her paws.
Juggling it five times, Skitty then made a second orb, and the two of them began to behave in much more complicated ways.
They orbited one another, attracted in a way that made them go on strange curving paths, and Skitty flicked the first one into the air with her tail so the second would follow it.
"Now, Magical Leaf!" May ordered, and Skitty did just that.
A swirl of leaves orbited her in a kind of stream that flowed around her twice, picking up speed each time, then shot up at the pair of circling Magnet Bombs. The precision behind Magical Leaf let her give it exactly the twist it needed, resulting in the Magical Leaf stream being funnelled through the attractive magnetic fields of the Magnet Bomb globes and picking up more speed – and, as a bonus, every single leaf was slightly later than the previous one and affected in a slightly different way.
Glowing leaves sprayed out above Skitty and May in an arc like the one made by a water sprinkler as it flicked back and forth, rising into the air before losing their momentum and drifting back down like confetti.
Then Skitty jumped forwards and rolled over upside down. She caught the first Magnet Bomb in her paws, the second with her tail, then pushed them both back into the air to collide and explode in a shower of sparks.
With that, she and May repeated their bow-and-curtsey from the beginning.
May's semi-final match was against Joshua, a local Coordinator and the trainer of the Houndoom who'd opened with such a dazzling display, and before the match itself started Skitty sat back and clasped her paws.
"I hope our match is a lovely display for all involved," she said.
"...you… do realize we're opponents?" Houndoom checked.
"Of course," Skitty replied. "I can still say it, can I not?"
The MC counted them in, and May frowned momentarily before making her decision. "Skitty, Swift!"
"Swift as well!" Joshua decided, prompting Houndoom to fire out a spray of stars at the same time as his opponent.
They arced and curved together, each star from Skitty's attack intercepting the ones from Houndoom's attack, and a shower of glittering attack collisions sparked across the whole line between them as not a single Swift went uncountered.
"...how do we score that one?" Mr. Sukizo asked. "It's remarkable, but it's not like either of them is… doing badly."
"That's an excellent question," Raoul Contesta admitted. "Joy, do you have any thoughts on the matter?"
"Well, I have thoughts, but not about this," Joy replied. "Look at Skitty's footwork!"
Houndoom was standing still, firing out his Swift attacks, but Skitty was hopping forwards five steps, then sideways eight steps, back five steps…
"...is she doing dressage?" Contesta asked. "I'm not sure if that's an excellent display of grace, or showing off."
"A marvellous demonstration," Skitty said, courteously, once the attack shower had finished. "I must say, I'm a Normal-type, but I suspect I'd be coming off worse if you'd landed attacks on me than the reverse."
"You know they don't give points for compliments, right?" Houndoom asked.
"Dodge to the side!" Joshua decided. "Then Flamethrower!"
"Magnet Bomb!" May retorted.
Houndoom did just as instructed, firing out a jet of flame, and Skitty swirled up a Magnet Bomb with a flick of her tail to lob into the way of the jet of flame. It pulled the jet itself off course, meaning that it missed, and Skitty added to that by firing out a stream of Magical Leaves that passed through the flame, caught fire, and whirled through a loop in the air before landing all around Houndoom.
Her opponent countered with a Swift attack, and Skitty was a bit slow to react that time. The attacks hit her, knocking her rolling across the stage and following her to keep landing hit after hit, until she managed to spin up a second Magnet Bomb and shield herself behind it.
Then she used Thunderbolt, as well, this time using the Magnet Bomb to curve her attack into Houndoom.
"Ooh," Snorunt said, impressed. "I love how she keeps taking Houndoom by surprise."
"Yep," Combusken agreed, with a nod. "Actually, I wonder if-"
Houndoom tried to switch from Flamethrower to Dark Pulse, got them mixed up, and the Dark Pulse ran into the back of the Flamethrower in his mouth and exploded.
"There we go," he said.
"What just happened?" Ralts asked.
"At a guess, that was Flatter," Max judged. "It's a useful move in a Contest because it means you can make it more likely your opponent makes a mistake."
Ash was impressed – after all, Max hadn't actually understood what Skitty said, just what Ralts said.
It was funny how easy it was to miss things like that, sometimes. Ash actually wondered if he'd have missed it himself, back in Kanto…
"You… jerk!" said May's finals opponent – a Coordinator called Erica. "How could you?"
"How could I?" May repeated, confused. "How could I what?"
"Joshua and I were going to be the first couple to win a Contest together!" Erica explained.
"Uh," May replied, confused. "How?"
"Excuse-" the MC began, but Erica answered the question.
"We were going to battle in the finals, and then whoever won it would be a ribbon we'd share!" the Coordinator said. "But you spoiled it!"
"Miss, nothing says another Coordinator has to let you win, under any conditions," the MC said.
"Then I'll just have to defend Joshua for him!" Erica said, and sent out her Jynx in a swirl of shimmering ice crystals.
"...wow," Brock said. "People do odd things because of romance."
Ash wasn't the only one who gave Brock an incredulous look.
"What?" Brock asked.
Latias giggled quietly.
On stage, Skitty juggled no fewer than three Magnet Bombs at once before flicking one of them at Jynx. The Psychic-type batted it away with a burst of Psychic, dodged the second, blew a Lovely Kiss at Skitty with a feathering of Blizzard energy around it, then discovered to her dismay that the second Magnet Bomb had pulled the first onto a different course and it exploded just behind her.
Skitty, for her part, evaded the Lovely Kiss with a comment that, alas, she was not currently looking to be in a relationship but she was sure that Jynx was a lovely lady.
Jynx promptly started complaining that, no, she was interested in Houndoom, and Ash frowned before glancing at Latias.
"I… don't know how romance and stuff like that works," he admitted, quietly. "I don't know if what Dad did to Mom was right or not… and I don't think I will know until I talk to him. Maybe not even then. But…"
He shook his head. "I feel like… what's the point, if it's not mostly just – well, being friends?"
"Oh?" Latias asked.
"I completely believe the bit about you not knowing how it works, for the record," Pikachu provided.
"Well, it's… this is probably something I don't understand," Ash replied. "It's always talked about as this… amazing thing. But, well, Brock keeps trying to ask people out when he's barely even met them, and then there's this… and I guess it just makes more sense to me if it happens when people are really good friends already."
He sighed. "Maybe I'm just too young to get it. I'm young for a human and I don't even know where I am on the scale for an Arceus."
"I think… there's an idea about it, and people like the idea," Latias said, speaking slowly as she thought. "Then they sort of… make what they feel fit into that pattern? That's my guess."
May and Skitty ended up winning their fifth Ribbon, qualifying them for the Grand Festival, and as a bonus after that Erica and Joshua had an actual talk about what they should or wanted to be like as friends. Instead of Erica just sort of… having an idea and running away with it.
Which was nice.
AN:
To be delicate and precise is, of course, a hallmark of good manners.
Magnetic bombs aren't, for some reason.