Paul ended up giving Azumarill away to a younger trainer, someone who wasn't quite sure what they were going to do when they went on their journey yet, and that seemed to work out okay for everyone concerned.

Then he went off to work on training up his other Pokémon a bit more, and Ash and the others had to decide where they were going to go next.

"So we could go over Mount Coronet at this point," Dawn said, pointing. "That's… north a little, then crossing over the range there, and we'd end up going to Hearthome City."

She slid her finger back west, then north. "Or that way, heading north straight to Eterna City, that's an option too… or we could go to Canalave, in the west."

"What about going through Floaroma?" Cynthia asked. "I know there's no Gym there, so we'd have to wait before I got a chance to see Ash pick up a new Type, but I think there's a Contest hall in the area."

"I guess it doesn't really matter much to me?" Ash said, shrugging. "I know we'll visit at least most of the gyms… what Types are the Gyms here?"

"Apart from Rock, there's… Steel, Grass, Water, Ghost, Electric, Ice, Fighting, Dragon, Flying and Normal," Cynthia listed off. "So the ones that are most important for you to visit are the new ones, which are…?"

"Steel, Grass, Ghost and Ice," Ash answered. "I've got the other seven already, mostly from Hoenn but the Dragon one was the Rising Badge from Johto. Then I guess the other ones depend on whether I want to compete in the Pokémon League."

He frowned. "Though I guess if I did manage to win, and beat Aaron and Bertha, that would get me Bug and Ground… or it might, anyway."

"This is a lot more complicated than Contests," Dawn said. "There you just do five."

"Normally with gyms you just do eight," Lucario replied. "Though Cynthia wasn't satisfied with that."

"If they're going to give me that many gyms, I'm going to do them all," Cynthia said. "It's a pity the Fairy gym closed down not long after we beat it."

"We seem to be off track," Pikachu said, leaning over the map, then pointed. "What about if I take charge and say, let's do the Floaroma Town one?"

"Pikachu says we should do Floaroma Town," Ash supplied.

"Ah, good," Cynthia said. "Someone's made a decision."

"We're all encountering people with skills we don't have on this trip," Lucario announced.

One lunchtime, on the road to Floaroma, Dawn stared off into the distance.

"Are you okay?" Ash asked.

"Oh, sorry," Dawn replied, shaking her head. "I'm just trying to think about a good way to design a routine for Piplup. I'm having trouble, because I think he needs another move to give him options but then there's way too many options."

"I know what she means," Latias admitted. "Well, for me it's slightly different because I am a Pokémon, but whenever I think about what a good move to try and learn would be I just end up thinking about all the combinations. It's…"

She shrugged. "I actually think that's one thing that trainers help focus? The thing to work on, that is."

"We're mostly just going for what we think works?" Ash replied. "Like, uh… that trick we worked out with Zorua is really good, but it only works for a steerable move that he's immune to. So Swift, and maybe some Fighting type moves would work, but after that I need to think of something else."

He shrugged, making his ring shake a bit with his movement. "But a Fighting move is good anyway because he's got to worry about Dark types more than anything else…"

"I can see that," Dawn said. "And, for Piplup, he's a Water type… so you'd think that learning an Ice move would make sense? Or would it be better to have a Water move that he can work with properly, instead of Bubblebeam where the attack doesn't really involve much water?"

Ash began to say something, stopped, and rethought.

"Do you want me to tell you what I think?" he asked. "Or do you want advice on how to decide?"

"That's a good question," Dawn admitted. "I think… I'd like to hear the advice first?"

"Well, you're already thinking about what would be good for Piplup, but what might help is asking what Piplup wants," Ash pointed out. "I know that's harder when you don't have someone able to translate like I can or Lucario can, but it's an option anyway, and… I guess if there's only one thing that fits with what he wants and what you think would be a good idea, it's… an obvious choice, I guess?"

Dawn blinked, then shook her head.

"Now I feel like an idiot," she admitted. "You're right."

Piplup wanted something impressive, nay, spectacular, as it turned out, and that led right back to Ash thinking about the things he'd seen trainers do in the past with Water moves.

"What about…" he began, thinking. "Well, one of the things that's really common with Water moves is using them to hide in. Or using the water as material to do something… so you could work on Whirlpool? That means you're getting the water to do that with, but it's not ending up on the ground, and it's a good start to make other kinds of moves from?"

"What do you think, Piplup?" Dawn asked. "Plus, if we get you spinning like May's Blaziken does, that could be used for things like Drill Peck or Rapid Spin too. It's got versatility!"

Piplup considered, then tried using Whirlpool. He did a twirl, then used the only Water move he knew at the moment.

Since that was Bubblebeam, he sprayed out a jet of bubbles in all directions, and some of them hit a nearby tree. A branch fell off, along with a Pachirisu, and the Electric-type shook herself out before putting her paws on her hips.

"What's the big idea?" she demanded.

"This feels familiar," Turtwig said, as Piplup stopped spinning, staggered around in a circle for a bit, then fell over.

Once the Pachirisu had had it explained that the whole thing was an accident, she calmed down a bit.

Then tilted her head.

"So what were you even trying to do?" she asked.

Piplup stuck his flipper up. "Succeeding!" he said.

"You were trying to succeed?" Pachirisu replied, frowning. "I guess I can see that, but you need a lot more work on it."

The Water-type grumbled something.

"It's for an Appeal," Turtwig explained. "The idea is, you do something that looks impressive and then the audience is impressed, because it looked impressive."

He raised a foreleg. "You've got to watch out that you don't do something unimpressive, though, because if that happens then people won't be impressed."

"I think I follow you," Pachirisu mumbled, paw waving back and forth a bit. "So you do something and that looks good, and people are impressed, and then… you win?"

"That's about the shape of it, yeah," Turtwig agreed. "Or, in some cases, you merely do well enough to get to the next round without actually winning."

"What are they talking about?" Dawn asked, curious.

"Contests, mostly," Ash replied. "Pachirisu wants to know what Piplup was doing and why."

"Oh, I can probably go into detail on that, if they haven't already," Dawn said. "So we're trying to have Piplup learn a new move, Whirlpool specifically, because it's good to have a varied toolkit and Whirlpool in particular works well for where Piplup is at the moment."

Pachirisu's tail twitched. "So it's good to learn moves that fit with what a Pokémon can do… well, right now I've got Sweet Kiss and apart from that it's all electrical moves, so where do I go from there?"

Ash translated for Dawn, since the question seemed to be for her, and Dawn frowned before getting out her Pokédex. "Let's see…"

"Ooh, what's that?" Pachirisu interrupted, then tilted her head in interest as it went beep and announced what moves she knew – Spark, Sweet Kiss and Discharge. "Wow, how does it know that?"

"I… actually don't know," Ash admitted. "I think Professor Oak's one of the only people who knows how the Pokédex works."

Dawn tapped at the Pokédex, going to the moves that Pachirisu were most commonly seen using. "Hmm…"

She turned it around, so Pachirisu could see the screen. "What do you think?"

"I wonder if one of them is going to remember that you're supposed to add the Pokémon to your team officially at some point," Pikachu said.

He looked down at Absol. "Any ideas?"

Absol shrugged. "Disaster sense, remember? Whatever's going to happen without my getting involved isn't a disaster, probably, and at that point I hit the limits of what I can do."

He tilted his head. "Though… hmm… no, I don't think this is anything to do with it. Just an idle thought, that's all."

"Should I know?" Pikachu asked.

"That depends," Absol replied. "Because I'm fairly sure I don't give predictions to Pokémon who think they're useless."

"You don't?" Pikachu said, surprised. "Huh. That would explain why I haven't heard any predictions from you for a while."

He flicked his ears. "Though, then again, it occurs to me that the best way to give predictions without them being questioned is to not tell them to anyone who's going to argue."

"This is also true," Absol said, then reached up inside his mane and pulled out a card.

He passed it to Pikachu, and Pikachu read it.

"Pikachu will nitpick," he read off. "I don't think that's even technically a prediction. That's just basic pattern recognition."

"Okay, it's time for your next lesson," Cynthia said, crouching down, as Ash mediated so Dawn and Pachirisu could discuss the merits of theming a Seed Bomb attack. "Ready?"

Jangmo-o nodded. "Jang-o!"

"Now, as a Pokémon that's both Fighting and Dragon type, the thing you need to worry about the most is Fairy type attacks," Cynthia went on. "Which is why I'm going to be teaching you Iron Defence, but that's not the actual lesson."

"O-o?" Jangmo-o asked, head tilting and eyes wide.

Cynthia smiled. "The lesson is about psychology," she said. "To someone who doesn't know what you're capable of, if someone does something that's supposed to be a great way of beating you, and it doesn't even seem to touch you – even if it does – if you don't seem to care, then that means their whole idea of how the battle is going to go is shaken. Or, rather, it means they have two ideas of how the battle is going to go, and ignoring such an effective attack makes them think it's the one they don't want."

Jangmo-o looked amazed.

"It also means that they might think they remembered your type wrong," Cynthia went on. "And there's other things as well… but that's today's lesson, so let's get started on Iron Defence!"

"How are you spelling that?" Lucario asked.

"Correctly," Cynthia replied. "Want to demonstrate it for Jangmo-o?"

AN:

Cynthia's intimidation factor isn't all accidental.