As the group made their way towards the Hotel Grand Lake, Koraidon still looked like she was mulling something over.
"I think that makes sense," she said, eventually.
"Huh?" Ash asked. "Is there something you're thinking about?"
"I was thinking about what Miraidon and I represent," Koraidon explained. "And our other siblings. See… there's five of us now, or there will be when Walking Wake and Iron Leaves get created, but they're already around so it sort of counts."
She waved her head slightly. "And I'm to do with the past, and Miraidon is to do with the future. And Walking Wake is to do with the past, and Iron Leaves is to do with the future. But Miraidon and I are about being something, while Walking Wake and Iron Leaves are about doing something. Right?"
"I guess, yeah," Ash agreed, nodding. "Yeah, I get what you mean – so it's like a square with one of you in each of the corners."
"Right!" Koraidon said, eagerly. "And then Mew is sort of in the middle, because they were made out of really advanced technology but also out of information from the past, and they're able to do a lot of things but it's not something that's important for them to do."
"So… in the middle for both of them," Latias said. "I guess that makes sense."
"Yeah!" Koraidon nodded. "Is it okay if I tell them, Dad?"
"Sure!" Ash agreed. "Just make sure that they know that it's all… a guess?"
He frowned. "Or, guess isn't quite the right word. Make sure they know that it's what you've worked out, but that it doesn't matter if they don't quite fit with it."
"Got it, Dad," Koraidon agreed. "I guess Aaron's Lucario is going back home when we get to the hotel, right?"
"Unless he wants to stay around, yeah," Ash confirmed. "Actually, because this is going to be a thing about watching Contests, maybe I could see about having you and Miraidon and Mew all watching."
"Zorua too?" Koraidon asked. "I bet he'd like it."
As soon as they were checked into the Hotel Grand Lake, Ash switched around his Pokémon so that he had Miraidon and Mew along in addition to Koraidon.
He got Pidgeot, as well, and the Flying-type crouched down to allow Aaron's Lucario on before taking off in a whoosh of wind and flying away to the south.
"Whoa," Riolu breathed, shading his eyes to watch them go. "That was like something out of the stories of Sir Aaron! He's meant to have had a Pidgeot."
Then Riolu looked devastated. "Oh, no! And I forgot to ask Lucario about that before he left!"
"I'll send mom a message to ask him," Ash said. "But I did see a painting of Sir Aaron and a Pidgeot in Cameran Castle, so I guess he probably did have a Pidgeot."
"Before we had cars and planes and so on, it was more common for humans to use Ride Pokémon," Dawn supplied. "And it's pretty common now, so imagine how common it was back then! Half the Noble Pokémon in Hisui would give me lifts when I really needed them."
"I can do that as well," Miraidon noted. "And not just to Zorua."
They looked up, and Zorua leaned far enough out on his perch to wave down at Miraidon.
"Ash!" a familiar voice called. "Fancy seeing you here!"
They turned, and Ash saw May hurrying towards them.
"It's been a while, huh?" she asked, slowing down a bit as she got close enough. "How have you been doing in Sinnoh?"
Ash smiled. "Great! It's been really interesting so far, we've learned a lot, and there's some cool Pokémon too! Like Buneary!"
May stifled a giggle.
"I see he's the same as always," she said. "How has it been, travelling with him?"
"Well, we've met four of his siblings so far," Dawn said. "I've also met Uxie and Giratina, but we haven't yet."
May looked slightly surprised.
"Oh, you're Dawn," she said. "Until you said something I thought you were Cynthia."
"I'm not really any good at Contests," Cynthia admitted readily.
Dawn frowned for a moment, then worked it out. "Oh, right, we've only spoken on the phone! That's funny, because I'd seen your Contests before I went on my journey, so I sort of assumed you'd know what I looked like."
"You don't know what Cynthia looks like?" Riolu asked.
"Plus, you know, the Riolu," May said vaguely. "Oh, actually, I should show you-"
"May, what gives?" Max called, from across the open space, then stumbled. "Is that – that's actually Cynthia, isn't it?"
Cynthia waved.
"As I was saying," May resumed. "Ash, Eevee evolved – here he is now!"
She held out a Pokéball, and a cloud of smoke encircled by glittering yellow stars sprayed out in all directions.
Inside the smoke, there was a bright white glow, then the smoke went billowing away all at once at the prompting of a red flash.
Revealed within the smoke was Espeon, who twitched his ears and waved.
Zorua jumped down from Miraidon's head, landing in front of Espeon, and walked around the Psychic-type to inspect him from all angles.
"Cool," he summarized.
"Thanks!" Espeon replied.
"We've got loads of catching up to do," Max said. "Wait, I just realized, I don't think Miraidon or Zorua have even met Jirachi!"
Riolu fell over.
"Mom and Dad have come to visit us, a few times," May said, over lunch.
There was a restaurant along the waterfront where the rule was that you had to win a battle before you could take your seat, but for some reason they'd just been seated straight away halfway through the explanation.
Cynthia had been lagging a bit behind, so she hadn't even had to wait to be seated. It did leave Ash a bit disappointed, though.
"Did you ever find out which side you're descended from the People of the Water?" Ash asked. "I know you weren't sure."
"We did, actually," Max said. "And it turns out, mostly mom, but dad turns out to have a little bit of it too. He didn't have the dream at first, but he did the second time he visited, and after that we looked at it."
"Tracing genealogies back into the past is difficult," Cynthia agreed, nodding. "Especially if you're not sure which direction to look in. It's relatively easy to look along the male line or the female line, because you know which parent to look for, but with something like this you have to check every parent and it quickly becomes an entire wall of notes as you try to keep track of everyone."
"Speaking from experience?" May asked.
Cynthia nodded, then smiled. "Of course, it helped when Dawn came back from the past… at that point I knew where I was aiming, and I could go forwards from the past and backwards from the present until the two joined up."
She took a forkful of pasta. "Sometimes, doing research is all about lining up the data in the right way – and sometimes, it's about a single realization that changes everything. And sometimes it's about holding everything together in your head so you can fit the pieces together."
"Whenever we hear about it in school, it's all about the single realizations," Max said. "Or it's about…"
He paused, trying to think through how to put it.
"Like it was obvious?" Cynthia asked.
"Yes!" Max agreed. "That's it. Like it was obvious, and that all someone had to do was to look at something to see how it worked. But that's not how it really happens at all, is it?"
"It can be, sometimes," Cynthia said. "But the rest of it is like Pokémon battling."
"How is it like Pokémon battling?" Latias asked.
"She said, how is it like Pokémon battling," Max provided, just ahead of Ash who was about to do the same thing.
Cynthia had used the question to take another bite, and she swallowed before continuing.
"It's because there's a mixture of several things going on," she said. "You need to know a lot of things, but you can't know everything there is to know and hold it all in your head at once. You need to use intuition and guesswork, but that by itself can lead to mistakes. And you need experience so you've got an idea of what works and what doesn't, but without letting it blind you to new concepts."
"That's so wise!" Riolu gasped.
Max chuckled.
"Who is Riolu's trainer, actually?" he asked. "You've all introduced the Pokémon you have, but I don't think anyone did him."
"He's not really anyone's Pokémon, he's along to learn more about the world," Dawn said. "He's a fan of Samurott's."
"And Cynthia's Lucario, too!" Riolu added. "He's cool! And – and there's so many amazing Pokémon you have, it's hard to keep track of them all but I'm doing my best!"
"So…" Ash began, after a pause. "How does the Wallace Cup work? I guess it's something to do with Wallace, and it's a Contest, but how come May is here? I didn't know you were registered to do Sinnoh Contests."
May nodded.
"That's right, I'm not," she said. "But the Wallace Cup is open to Coordinators from all around the world, because the Aqua Ribbon is valid for every Grand Festival."
"Wow," Ash said. "That would be like a Badge that worked for every Pokémon League."
He considered that.
"That would be a really hard badge, right?"
"The Wallace Cup is a real challenge," Dawn told him. "With Coordinators coming from everywhere, the Appeals round alone is a massive hurdle – in fact, even someone who goes out at the Appeals round is often praised for how well they do, because only sixteen competitors go through to the Battle Rounds."
She sighed happily. "This is going to be a lot of fun to watch, let alone take part in."
"There's something special about having a Pokémon you can fly on," Cynthia observed, watching as Max and his Altaria drifted overhead.
Jirachi was orbiting them, floating along and laughing, and after a moment Ash noticed that Mew was watching with interest.
"Do you want to go up and join them?" he asked. "You can if you want."
"Thanks, Dad," Mew replied. "I didn't want to – that is, um…"
They flicked their tail around, touching it. "I didn't ask because I was being silly."
"Hey, don't beat yourself up over it," Ash said. "Just go and join in."
Mew smiled, then floated up into the evening air, and as they did Dawn leaned back on the grass.
"I just thought," she said. "I'm going to be competing in the Wallace Cup, and May is one of the people who I'm going to be competing against."
She waved her hand. "I suppose… this sort of means that I'm the kind of person I wanted to be when I set out."
AN:
Return of the Maples.
And since Cynthia's got an Eevee who's aiming for Glaceon, I shifted May's one around a bit.