"Hmm…" May said, then put the wimple on Pikachu's head. "I think that's more or less finished it."
"I don't feel anything different," her Pikachu replied, inspecting the fabric of her princess costume, then doing a twirl. "Does it look princess-y enough?"
"Personally, I think so," Beautifly said. "But, then, I'm not an expert at princesses. We only met one that I can think of, and she wasn't really dressed like one."
Max passed Pikachu's words on, and May frowned. "I think so… hold on."
She put a mirror down in front of the Electric-type. "How does that look?"
"Well, it looks like I imagine a princess to look," the costumed Pikachu said. "So… maybe there's something I'm missing?"
She frowned. "Or maybe I should go with a knight outfit instead, since we're in a castle."
Seeing that she looked worried, May glanced at Max again, who rolled his eyes but provided a translation again.
"But, come on!" he added. "I know that working out how Pikachu's weird ability works is important, but we're going to miss the tournament if we don't hurry up! It's not an official tournament so I actually get the chance to enter, and I don't want to miss it!"
"Are you-" May began, stopped, and checked her watch.
And yelped.
"You're right!" she said. "Uh – good, you're in costume already – sorry, Pikachu, we'll have to work on this later, or we'll miss Max's chance to enter the tournament!"
She stopped. "Wait, maybe it's like Ash's badge thing and she has to do it herself – nope, think later, hurry now!"
The Rota Tournament was quite different from most of the tournaments Ash had entered.
That was partly because it wasn't really a formal tournament, and partly because it was so disconnected from the Pokémon League – predating it as a tradition by hundreds of years – that it still didn't require the trainer to have the Pokémon they used registered to them.
They just had to be willing to take part at the trainer's behest. Which… didn't change things much for Ash, but it did mean that Max could take part with his Swablu, and that was nice to watch.
The other thing about it was that everyone had to be in some kind of old fashioned costume. Ash had presented them a bit of a puzzle, but eventually he'd got help from the locals and they'd found a caparison that fit.
"So… you're technically a war horse like that, right?" Pikachu asked. "Like a Mudsdale or Rapidash?"
"I guess so," Ash agreed. "My ring doesn't really fit with that, but I guess it's just a really weird saddle from that point of view."
The organizer called a beginning to the next bout, which meant round, and Absol paced forwards.
"I am the Prince's Herald!" he announced. "Might I have your name, challenger?"
"...Breloom," the Breloom replied. "I didn't know we had to have special names."
"Wouldn't you normally get upset if Absol talked like that?" Latias asked.
"Normally, yeah," Ash said. "But… here it's just being in character, really."
He winced as Breloom landed a Mach Punch, and Absol used Razor Wind to brake himself to a halt just before he'd have left the arena. "Absol, Future Sight!"
Breloom ran forwards, Absol ran forwards to meet him, then just before the two Pokémon collided the Future Sight went off and blew Breloom into the air.
"Oh, sorry, I forgot to do the doom bit," Absol admitted. "That's a shame, I was really hoping to up my correct predictions count. Can we do that exact bit again?"
Breloom landed, and did not seem amenable to that idea.
Max had a great time, going out in the semi-finals to a knight with a Weavile who managed to blitz Swablu with high-speed dodges and Ice Beam, then Ash fought the very same knight in the finals.
Because that was how an elimination tournament worked.
It was a tricky match for Absol, who had to deal with Ice-type attacks from Weavile, but after a close shave with Blizzard Ash realized that Absol could just blow himself up with Future Sight every time he got caught in ice – it wouldn't hurt him, and it would destroy the ice.
That left the two Dark-types trying to damage one another more first, and ultimately Absol won out thanks to his Iron Tail attacks and what was probably a flagrant disregard for his own safety.
The knight then told Ash that it had been an interesting battle, removing their helmet to reveal that they were a girl, and Ash… was mostly confused about why she'd been trying to hide it in the first place.
At least until Brock turned up. Then it made a lot of sense.
For winning the tournament, Ash got a fun little title, Hero of the Year, and the Queen and her attendant (who was called Jenny, though she wasn't one of those Jennys)told him that the ball that evening was in his honour.
Which was… actually kind of boring sounding, in a way, but Ash knew that they'd be doing the ball anyway. And Latias volunteered to keep him company, invisibly so that nobody could actually tell that she was there but so Ash could still talk to her.
"You don't… think it'll be obvious that I'm talking to you?" Ash asked. "I guess I could be quiet, that might work…"
"I'm sure it'll work," Latias said.
That wasn't for a couple of hours, but May pulled him aside to talk about her Pikachu and whether or not her costume thing could be like Ash's Badge thing, and that was enough of a side-track that they and Max and Latias ended up talking about it in a very translated conversation for almost all of the time left until the ball.
Then the Queen's attendant came to get him, and took Ash (and, by extension, the others) to the ballroom.
"If you could take your seat on the throne, Guardian of the Aura," Jenny invited.
Ash looked at it.
"...erm," he began. "How?"
"That… is a good question," Jenny admitted. "Normally we do insist that the winner take the right Aura Guardian's dignified seat to start the ceremony, but I must admit we haven't had a winner who was a quadruped before."
Ash examined the throne for a bit longer, then sort of reversed himself into it. It fit, and there was enough of his hindquarters behind his ring that he could sit his back half on the throne without banging into it, but it was still a bit awkward and there were some chuckles in the crowd.
Ash really hoped he wasn't blushing at the moment.
"Good enough," Jenny decided, signalling, and Queen Ilene came over with a beautifully wrought staff.
"Huh," Ash said, as she got closer. "Is that a diamond in the head of the staff?"
"I don't think so," Jenny replied, managing to do it without moving her lips at all. "Please don't disrupt the ceremony."
"Only, it smells of diamonds," Ash continued, softly. "And… pearls, a bit?"
"I didn't know you knew what pearls smelled like," Latias said, then blinked. "But I do remember you mentioning what diamonds smell like before…?"
Queen Ilene presented Ash with the staff, and he raised a foreleg to take it.
The moment it touched his hoof, there was a very bright flash, a smell of pearls and diamonds, and a Lucario fell out of the crystal.
The Fighting-type caught himself on a paw, frowned, then looked up at Ash in confusion – eyes closed – and fell over backwards with a yelp.
"OW!" he moaned. "My EYES!"
"Are you okay?" Ash asked.
"What are you?" Lucario asked. "It's like looking into the sun!"
"That's… not that far off?" Latias said. "Sorry, Ash, the joke was too good to pass up…"
For obvious reasons, the ball and banquet didn't go ahead quite as scheduled.
At least, not for Ash, and not for his friends.
With the help of Jenny, they found out quite quickly that Lucario was from about two thousand years ago. He'd been put in the staff by Sir Aaron, a hero from the area who'd been in stories for centuries, but the way Lucario told it Sir Aaron had… not been a true hero, or at least that was not what had happened the last time he and Lucario had met.
Sir Aaron had been a master wielder of Aura, a skill which he'd been more experienced in than even Lucario himself – and that despite how Lucario were Pokémon that specialized in using Aura to do everything from attacks to feats of strength to being able to see people despite having closed eyes.
Which… went some way into explaining why Lucario had fallen over backwards, as Aura was something to do with life force and seeing what someone was truly like. It was all a bit embarrassing, for Ash, but he did his best to focus on something else instead of on that specifically.
Like the fact that Lucario could speak using Aura in a way that normal humans could understand. Jirachi had been able to do that as well, but Lucario didn't do it with psychic powers, and it made Ash wonder if – maybe – it was something that other Pokémon could learn to do.
He understood everything, apparently including things that nobody else could understand in some cases, but it was still a lot of work to translate everything.
Then, as Jenny was showing Lucario around, and the Fighting-type was trying to come to terms with how rooms he'd known were being used for completely different purposes, Latias got his attention.
"Do you think that…" she began, then frowned. "I'm not really sure how to put it? But today was the second time you said you smelled diamonds, right?"
"Oh – yeah, you're right," Ash realized. "The first time was… when we met the girl with the Baltoy? Calista, that's right."
"And she went forwards in time, or, she'd come back in time," Latias said. "The older version of her. And then Lucario has come forwards in time, because it's been thousands of years but it feels to them like it's less than a day."
"Time… I guess that might make sense," Ash said. "I don't know why it would be diamonds, though. And I don't know why I could smell pearls, either."
"Maybe it's a mystery for now," Latias decided. "But even if it is a mystery, I think we should still take notes about that."
"Yeah, that's true," Ash said, glancing back and floating his Pokédex out of his bag.
"Isn't that normally something Pikachu does?" Latias asked. "I know he said he didn't want to be at the ball, but we're not at the ball now."
"I know," Ash agreed. "But if he's having fun somewhere else with the other Pokémon, I don't want to distract him. Uh… I think I can type now with Confusion…"
They'd been following Lucario through the castle while they were talking, and as Ash tried slowly taking notes on his Pokédex Jenny led them out through a door into a courtyard.
"The tree is still here, then," Lucario said, then paused. "I… no."
"What is it?" Brock asked. "You sounded like you wanted to say something."
"Only that the Tree is… delicate," Lucario replied. "I don't fully understand it. Sir – my – I was told that the Tree should be left alone as much as possible."
"The Kingdom of Rota considers the protection of the Tree a part of our heritage," Jenny provided. "The Tree, and the Mew who lives there."
Then there was a loud, crackling bang, and a Weavile went flying out of an upper tower window pursued by a bolt of lightning.
"What was that!?" May asked, as Latias zipped ahead to catch the Dark-type, then had to do it again as a second Weavile went flying.
"And stay out!" Pikachu shouted, leaning out the window. "I don't know what you were trying to do to Mew, but – wait, Latias? Ash?"
"Hi, Pikachu!" Ash replied, waving a hoof. "What's going on up there?"
"How exactly does a Pikachu's Aura shine with a spark of golden light?" Lucario asked, carefully shading his eyes with a paw to make sure he didn't look at Ash.
"You can see he's a Noble Pokémon?" Ash checked, impressed. "Uh, hold on, I'll go up and check if Pikachu's okay… where's my Badges…"
Ash switched to his Feather Badge and began flying up to the tower, but about halfway up he spotted someone climbing down from a roof.
"Hey, are you supposed to be there?" he asked. "Wait, you're the one I battled in the tournament! Those are your Weavile who were attacking Mew!"
The woman – Kidd, Ash thought? - slipped on the roof, then locked eyes with him for a long moment.
Her glance went to the two paralyzed Weavile Latias was holding, then she sighed and muttered something.
"Yes, they're mine," she confirmed, raising her voice again. "But I'm only here to investigate Mew, not to try and hurt them or catch them."
"If that's true, then we should ask Mew and Pikachu to confirm that," Ash said, striking a hoof firmly to emphasize his point. "And Lucario can help translate, too, in case you think I'd be lying."
Kidd looked down at Ash's hooves, faintly confused. "How – did you just kick the air?"
"I'm Flying-type at the moment," Ash did his best to explain.
It didn't precisely seem to help, but it was, perhaps, better than nothing.
When everyone had gathered up in the tower – Ash, Brock, May, Max, Jenny, Kidd Summers, and the various Pokémon including Lucario – Kidd explained the full details of what had been going on.
She'd come to investigate Mew, like she'd said – and the two Weaviles had been trying to put a tracking device on Mew, which wasn't quite attacking but still wasn't very nice– but also to investigate the Tree of Beginning.
"There's so many amazing discoveries we could make, from fully understanding how it works," she said. "And I bet people would come from all over the world to see Mew-"
"That's not how it works," Jenny interrupted, folding her arms.
"What?" Kidd asked, confused. "What do you mean, it's not how it works?"
"The Tree of Beginning is part of the Kingdom of Rota," Jenny said. "If we wanted to exploit it somehow, we would have done that in the last two thousand years."
"The Tree of Beginning is best left as a part of the natural world," Lucario agreed. "I do not know what kind of science she speaks of, but… I cannot countenance the idea that skulking around without permission and trying to track Mew in secret is any way to discover anything beneficial."
Kidd looked uncomfortable.
"Yeah, the tree's pretty unstable sometimes," Mew volunteered. "I can make it do things, sure, but if I push it too hard or if it gets pushed too hard by other things then it can be really badly hurt."
Ash translated that, and Mew kept going. "It's… kind of boring up there…"
She sighed, tail drooping, then brightened. "But I do get to play with other Pokémon sometimes, so that's good."
"So… your job is to take care of the Tree of Beginning, right?" Ash asked. "How did you get that job?"
"It's one of those weird things," Mew said. "My mom pointed it out to me and said I should take care of it, back when it started to grow, and, yeah, it was really interesting watching it grow older! There's Regirock, Regice and Registeel who help protect it too, I guess, and there's some Pokémon who've been there since the tree first grew. It's nice, but they're not very much fun."
Lucario relayed that this time, and Kidd's hands twitched.
"I should really be taking notes," she said quietly. "I don't know what my boss is going to think about this, though…"
"You said it could be unstable, right?" Max checked. "What kind of thing makes it unstable?"
"Well, um… actually, Rota's been really good about not letting it happen!" Mew provided. "I guess if I was constantly having to deal with little problems it would be a bit more annoying, and a bit less boring, but I'd rather be bored than have to deal with the Tree destabilizing. But the last time it happened was… oh, about two thousand years ago?"
She waved her paw. "There was a big battle that was about to happen between two invading armies, and the tree started to destabilize and I started to suffer really badly, 'cause I'm linked with it and have been for absolutely ages, but we got really lucky because this guy called Sir Aaron showed up and helped me out-"
"Sir Aaron?!" Lucario repeated. "He – I remember that battle! I said we should go and fight the invaders, but – he said he was leaving, he had abandoned the palace and the queen, and would not be returning… and he sealed me in his staff."
"Oh, huh!" Mew said. "Small world, I guess? Uh… so, you know it's been two thousand years, right? Because… he, didn't survive healing the tree, but he wouldn't have survived this long anyway so…"
Lucario looked like his whole worldview had fallen apart, then been put back together again in a different shape.
For the second time that day.
"I never-" he began, then stopped, and tried again. "I thought-"
Max began translating for the other humans, and Ash reached out to put a hoof on Lucario's shoulder to try and comfort him.
"Why didn't he let me go with him!?" Lucario demanded, paws flaring up. "Why didn't he explain? I could have – he didn't have to die without me!"
"Lucario," Ash said, softly. "I – this is – I don't know how to say this properly, but it's something I'm only just thinking about myself… my Pokémon species, the only other one we know about is… older than the universe. So I'm going to live… a really long time, we think, and… and I don't think Pikachu's going to live that long. And – and I think… I think Sir Aaron wanted to know that you were going to live after him?"
He sighed. "This is all… us having to deal with problems that we don't really expect, huh… but… I think Sir Aaron wanted you to be okay. That… it was okay for him to go into something like that, as long as you were going to be okay."
"I think…" Mew began, twisting her tail in her paws. "I think that Sir Aaron left a Time Flower for you."
"What's a time flower?" Ash asked.
"They're-" Kidd began, then stopped as everyone looked at her.
"They are crystalline flowers that grow around the Tree of Beginning," Lucario answered, rubbing at his eyes with a paw. "The staff which I was trapped in used the same sort of crystal, but from a different source – I don't know the details. But the Time Flowers can record messages, and then they open up again when Aura encourages them to do so. I… believe that the same encouragement from Aura is why the staff released me when you took it."
He managed a slight smile. "You have… entirely too much Aura."
Then he looked up. "Can you… show me that Time Flower?"
"We'll go as well, if you want," Ash volunteered.
In a room at the heart of the Tree of Beginning, by Sir Aaron's body – preserved in crystal, at the moment of his death – Lucario knelt, and activated the Time Flower as Mew wrung her paws together.
Ash stood back, close enough to watch but far enough to give Lucario space, as the tragic scene played out. The faint scent of diamonds wafted through the air, then faded as the scene did.
"My mentor," Lucario said, softly. "A hero to the end… I am sorry I ever doubted you."
He put his paw on the crystal that held Aaron's body, holding it there for a long moment, then stood up.
"What now?" Pikachu asked.
"I have been asking myself that since Ash freed me, Lord Pikachu," Lucario said, which made Pikachu look contemplative. "But now… I do not know at all. I do not know how this time works, and I have no idea how to even begin familiarizing myself with it."
Ash thought about that.
"Here's an idea," he said. "I could see if my mom is interested in helping you!"
He waved a hoof vaguely. "She lives in Pallet Town, which is… a few days south of here on foot, but Pidgeot could get you there really quickly. And it's far enough away from Rota that you're not being reminded of everything, but it's not that far, and… and, well, I guess I just think it'd be good for both of you?"
Lucario considered that.
"I know it's a strange thing to say, but you can use Ash's bedroom," Delia said, later that evening, leading Lucario upstairs. "He can't really… use the bed any more, and it's got a bed which is about your size… and, take it from me, when you have a rambunctious ten-year-old you get something durable."
"I see," Lucario said, entering the room and looking around.
There was a collection of trophies on the dresser, which Lucario had a little context for at least, but so much of it was completely new to him.
"What is that thing on the ceiling?" he asked.
"That's a light," Delia replied. "It uses electricity to make light even at night."
She turned it on, and Lucario examined it.
"So I see," he said. "I clearly have a lot to learn."
"Just as long as you remember to wipe your paws when you come in!" Mimey contributed, leaning around the door. "If your paws get dirty in the first place. Do Lucario have an Aura technique that sorts that out?"
"Not that I know of," Lucario replied, considering. "Perhaps I will have to invent one. Or take up wearing shoes."
AN:
One of the really interesting things about having so many Pokémon fics is that I can frame the same event different ways. This time it's Kidd Summers's turn to have her decisions in the film looked at in a rather unflattering light.
And yes, Lucario doesn't mistake Ash for Sir Aaron, on account of being too busy mistaking him for a tiny but very bright star.
In addition, I should mention that this story's had some fanart. The best place to find it is the Media tag of the associated Spacebattles thread, though that thread does contain spoilers.