A Faux Oak Finish!

### Written by

Sonic876, Punkasaurus0530, Frogadier55, NegimaLover, TMNTHedgehog5, and DragonSpore18

### Directed by

Sonic876 and NegimaLover

***A Faux Oak Finish!*** is the 34th episode of *Josh's Adventures of Pokémon DP: Galactic Battles*.

## Plot

Ash and his friends are busily helping Johanna prepare for the upcoming Twinleaf Festival. Neighbours Izzy and Cara arrive and are worried that Professor Oak hasn't shown up yet, while his blimp should have already landed. Ash and his friends offer to help and head off to look for the Professor. Nearby, Team Rocket are spying from a bush and come up with the plan of disguising James as Professor Oak, hoping to be able to pass him off as the real one. Izzy and Cara spot the imposter, mistaking the disguised James for the real Oak, and take him off to Johanna to get ready for his speech about the relationship between Pokémon and Evolution stones.
Meanwhile, the real Professor Oak is standing by while his driver is replacing his tire on the car. Oak sees a marsh ahead of him and wanders off to see what Pokémon are in it. His driver tells him not to go too far, but Oak assures him that he is just going to look around.

Ash and his friends are running down the path and soon find the driver without Professor Oak, who directs them to find Oak at the nearby marsh. Dawn warns that she has heard that the marsh is full of quicksand.

James is getting ready to begin a speech for all the kids out in the crowd. He tries to escape a couple of times, but he is caught by Izzy and Cara.

Professor Oak is walking through the marsh and sees a Poliwhirl. He makes up a poem about it and sees a Politoed walk out of the bushes. He goes over to look at it when two Quagsire walk up next to him. He also makes a poem about them. Ash and friends are walking up and waving when the Quagsire pick Oak up and run off, following the Politoed, much to everyone's confusion. As they give chase, Dawn reminds them that there is quicksand around. Piplup takes the lead, but quickly sinks into quicksand. Dawn sends out Buneary to use Ice Beam to save Piplup. Croagunk then takes the lead and begins to walk. Suddenly he stops, but Piplup keeps walking and falls into quicksand again. Croagunk quickly throws him out of it. Croagunk leads them to a cave, out of which comes Politoed followed by the Quagsire. Politoed challenges Croagunk to a duel which Croagunk wins. They walk into the cave to find Oak with a Lombre and two other Quagsire. Oak tells them that Politoed just wanted him to come give Lombre the Water Stone to help with the Pokémon's depression. Oak breaks off a small piece of the Water Stone and gives it to Lombre, which evolves it into Ludicolo and makes it happy again.

Meanwhile, back at the Twinleaf Festival, James walks out onto stage as his nerves begin to get to him and he won't say a word. Jessie and Meowth sneak over to the stage and tell James to think of this as a classic Team Rocket scheme to get tons of Pokémon. This encourages James and he begins to perform really well. Meowth wishes they had thought of this sooner as James is able to collect all the Pokémon in the crowd. Ash and his friends then run in with the real Professor Oak behind them. Dawn accuses the man on stage of being an imposter. James denies it, and a young boy from the crowd walks up and says that the real Professor Oak would be able to help him with his Pokémon, and sends out a Tyranitar. Izzy and Cara push James forward, but he is promptly blasted off by Tyranitar, with Jessie and Meowth running after him. Oak then walks up to Tyranitar and pulls a thorn out of its foot, making it happy. The boy is happy and everybody in the crowd cheers.

Meanwhile, James is dangling from a tree, while Jessie and Meowth are trying to figure out how to get him down. Their boss, Sayer, then walks up, and James falls from the tree. Much to the trio's disappointment, Sayer orders them back to work.

## Major events

* Dawn meets Professor Oak in person for the first time.

## Characters

### Humans

* Ash
* Dawn
* Brock
* Jessie
* James
* Professor Oak
* Johanna
* Sayer
* Izzy
* Cara
* Trainer
* Limo Driver
* Children

### Pokémon

* Pikachu (Ash's)
* Meowth (Team Rocket)
* Piplup (Dawn's)
* Buneary (Dawn's)
* Croagunk (Brock's)
* Tyranitar (Trainer's)
* Politoed
* Poliwhirl
* Quagsire (×6)
* Lombre (evolves)
* Ludicolo (newly evolved)

## Transcript

*Main article: A Faux Oak Finish!/Transcript*
## Trivia

* This is the second episode in which James disguised himself as Professor Oak; the first time was in *Will the Real Oak Please Stand Up?*.
	+ Coincidentally enough, James shares the same TPCi voice actor with Professor Oak, Billy Beach.
* This episode's English dub title is a play on "Photo finish" and is also similar to another episode's title. It may also refer to a wood paneling that seems to be oak wood, often called faux oak.
* This is the first episode where Johanna is seen without her apron on.
* Only James blasts off in this episode.
	+ He is also the only one who recites the motto.
* Jessie's Wobbuffet doesn't appear in this episode.