The Battle Rounds were all singles, not doubles, which meant that neither Dawn nor May could possibly use all their Pokémon in the Wallace Cup – there simply wasn't the space, no matter how well they did.

Of course, for Dawn one of those Pokémon was Samurott, who was thoroughly uninterested, so that made things a bit easier. She opened with Sneasel, against a Simipour all the way from Unova, and Sneasel's combination of Shadow Claw, lithe grace and Dawn remembering to add flourish carried them through despite an interesting variant of Water Pulse where the Simipour threw semi-solid water balloons around before popping them with a Water Gun attack.

May's own opponent in the first Battle Round was a Sandygast, from Alola, and her Beautifly had the advantage but she didn't let that make her complacent. Beautifly used his Psychic and Energy Ball attacks in an unorthodox combination, sustaining a single ball of green Grass-type energy which he rolled around the edge of his wing between attacks before blowing it down to hit Sandygast, and as the battle went on Ash looked up Sandygast on his Pokédex.

"That's a neat Pokémon," he said. "Ground and Ghost type, huh… there's other Pokémon with that combination, right?"

"Yes, Golurk is one example," Cynthia agreed. "Well, actually Sandygast is officially considered to be Ghost and Ground, while Golurk is Ground and Ghost, but that difference doesn't actually mean anything."

"Why is it there, then, if it doesn't mean anything?" Miraidon asked. "Why not just sort Pokémon types alphabetically?"

Cynthia's Lucario murmured a translation for her, and Cynthia nodded.

"It's actually because of wanting to keep consistency," she said. "There used to be a convention that if a Pokémon evolved and changed type, then whatever type stayed the same was the front one. But then there was another convention that the Flying type was always second, and another one that said Types should be alphabetical, and eventually everyone had a massive argument and they decided that however they were recorded first for a Pokémon should be the official order the Types go in."

Miraidon tilted their head.

"So what order are mine in?" they asked. "What about Koraidon's?"

The question, important as it was, had to wait as Sandygast used a Stone Edge attack, and Beautifly rolled gracefully out of the way before replying with a Psychic attack. He caught the rock as it came back down, infused it with the Grass-type energies of his Energy Ball, and made it explode in a shower of green sparkles and fragments of sandy rock.

Then he used Gust, blowing the whole assemblage at his opponent, and while it was less damaging than just using the Energy Ball would have been it was worth a lot of points.

After checking his Pokédex, Ash said that Koraidon and Miraidon both had Dragon as their second listed type.

It didn't mean anything, like Cynthia had said, but it was sort of interesting to know. And it was like Ash's siblings Dialga, Palkia and Giratina, who all had Dragon as their second type instead of their first.

"It's funny to think about that, though," Koraidon said. "Dawn did say she was trying not to change things, but maybe in a funny way she's why they're written that way round, because she learned it in school or something, and then that's how she wrote it down."

"I guess we'll have to ask Walking Wake if we get a chance," Ash suggested, then looked up to see that Dawn was up next. "Oh – huh, I forgot there's not many matches in the Battle Round."

"Fifteen, or sixteen if there's a third-fourth playoff," Max said. "It's like Cynthia's trick with the time – you start with sixteen Coordinators and end up with only one, and each elimination match eliminates one Coordinator, so there must be fifteen matches."

He shook himself. "I still can't get over how familiarly I'm talking about Cynthia, while she's there…"

"It's nice to be cited now and again," Cynthia told him, pleasantly. "Don't worry about it… now that I think about it, I should probably publish some collaborative work with Dawn."

She leaned back in her chair. "Even if how it works is going to be very difficult to explain, it'd at least give me a Laventon Number of two."

Then Dawn sent out her Turtwig, who emerged in a shower of petals, while her opponent's Pidgeotto did a flip in the air before returning to a hovering stance.

"Oh, this should be interesting," Cynthia decided. "You had a Pidgeotto before she evolved, right, Ash?"

"Yeah, but I don't know what one would be like in a Contest," Ash replied. "I guess we'll find out."

As a Flying-type, Pidgeotto had an advantage in a Contest – which was simply that he could blow back the attacks Turtwig sent in his direction, and move out of the way, and between those two factors it was difficult for Turtwig to do much that would score points.

For his part, Pidgeotto had a surprising amount of trouble pinning Turtwig down to use his balletic Air Cutter attacks, and the occasional Seed Bomb slipped past his Gusts to produce a little green snap as it exploded near him, so the points situation stayed close to level between the two Pokémon as the Battle Round wore on, but Dawn was definitely – slowly – losing.

"Now, this is interesting," Cynthia said. "Dawn doesn't look very worried."

"Oh, yeah," Ash realized. "Do you think she's got a plan?"

"I'd assume so," Cnythia said. "And as for why she hasn't done it… ah, I think I know."

She nodded at the scoreboard. "Contests have a time limit, and of course if one Pokémon runs out of points then they lose – but the closer the two are to either that points limit or that time limit, the less time Dawn's opponent is going to have to actually react to what Dawn and Turtwig do. If she pulled off her trick with three minutes of time and most of the score left, he'd be able to recover… it's a risky game, but it's a tactical one."

"Are you sure you're not much of a Contest goer?" Max asked. "That makes sense, but it's really based on familiarity with how Contests work."

Cynthia shrugged slightly. "They told us the rules, it's not like this is based on a secret or anything."

Max leaned back, then shifted a little to speak to Ash. "...okay, now I think I get more of why she's the Sinnoh Champion. That's actually a bit intimidating."

"Seed Bombs into the air!" Dawn called out, suddenly. "Multicoloured, straight up!"

"Uh," Pidgeotto's Coordinator said, blinking, because Pidgeotto wasn't anywhere near where Dawn had just ordered an attack. Turtwig fired out a Seed Bomb, then another, and as he kept going the first Seed Bomb rose into the air – then came back down again.

"Now, Rock Climb the Seed Bombs!" Dawn said.

"Oh, my word!" Mr. Contesta gasped.

Turtwig jumped, landing on the first Seed Bomb as it came back down, and kicked off immediately. He was already in the air again when the Seed Bomb exploded in a puff of red pollen, shoving him higher, and he did the same for the second with a puff of orange smoke.

And the third, which was yellow.

Within a few seconds, Turtwig had bounced off every single Seed Bomb he'd fired, leaving a rainbow pattern in the air and heading towards Pidgeotto, and Dawn pointed.

"Razor Leaf!" she said, pointing at the Flying-type.

"Gust!" Pidgeotto's trainer replied, and Pidgeotto used Gust to blow away the spiral of leaves – but he wasn't nearly so good at blowing away Turtwig, who did a flip and Tackled Pidgeotto in mid-air.

"Seed Bomb!" Dawn called out, and this time both Pokémon vanished for a moment inside a puff of white pollen-smoke.

Dawn's Pokémon landed hard, but since he'd just evolved to Grotle that was understandable.

"Pidgeotto, come on!" Dawn's opponent said. "He can't do that again, so let's-"

The bell rang for the end of the round, and he stopped. "Uh… dang."

Dawn was already coming out onto the field, to congratulate Grotle on his great work and shake hands with her opponent.

May's second opponent sent out an Alolan Vulpix, a beautiful vulpine Ice-type Pokémon, and with May's own choice of Froslass the two Pokémon were soon embroiled in an ice-off where ornate ice sculptures and skating twirls were the order of the day.

Vulpix also demonstrated that they could use Dazzling Gleam, which periodically turned the icy battle into a multicoloured art display, and Froslass more than held his own thanks to the use of Ice Spinner – timed well enough that every single time the Dazzling Gleam flashed out over the battlefield he was already doing a spin.

"Question," Zorua said.

"Huh?" Ash asked, looking over at the Ghost-type. "You wanted to ask something?"

"Yes," Zorua agreed, pointing. "That is a Vulpix, but different. Why is it different?"

Ash considered.

"I guess you don't just mean the idea of a regional variant, huh?" he asked, and Zorua shook his head. "Well… hang on a second…"

He got out his Pokédex, to see what it had to say, but it turned out that it only said that the Vulpix was an Ice-type from Alola and not why.

"There's speculation that the Alolan Vulpix adapted to the snowy climates that it lives in," Cynthia said. "But it's not something we know for sure… and knowing you, Ash, I suspect we'll eventually get a chance to ask."

"That's true," Ash said, but he was thinking. "I guess… the important bit is, whether or not we know the way it happened, what we do know is that the Ice-type Vulpix is that way because it fits with where it lives. And the Fire-type Vulpix is that way because it fits with where it lives."

Zorua nodded seriously.

"What about me?" he asked, patting his chest.

"I don't really know that either, Zorua," Ash said. "Sorry."

"I heard a story about it once, but I can't remember the details," Max told them. "It was scary and weird, though."

The Ghost-type fox tilted his head, and so did Koraidon, so Zorua's head ended up with twice the usual amount of tilt.

"Scary and weird?" Koraidon worried, and Ash frowned.

"I know there's lots of scary stories about Ghost-type Pokémon, but they really all just seem like stories to me," he said. "I used to believe some of them, but I keep meeting nice Ghosts so it seems more and more obvious that it's not something about all of them."

He frowned, trying to think of an example.

"So… people might think that trainers from Pallet Town turn into Pokémon, because that's what it looks like happened to me, and a lot of people have heard of me," he said. "But most people from Pallet Town haven't turned into Pokémon. Right?"

Zorua and Koraidon both nodded.

"And people think Ghosts are scary and creepy, so they believe more of that kind of thing… I guess with Giratina, too," Ash added. "So that means that even if there was a story about why some Zorua were Ghosts and others were Dark-types, it might not be true."

"Okay," Zorua said, flicking his tail, then looked back towards the Battle Round. "Yay ghosts."

Ash looked up, and saw Froslass had just won, though it looked like it had been close.

AN:

The joys of having incomplete information.

Also some Contest stuff I suppose.