Meteorfallen Dreams

## Overview

A journey through memory lane inside the Meteor Falls...

## Prologue

Standing on a single foot, arms stretched on the sides of the shoulders, Bagon was simulating the flight in his mind. He draft the axis of the body first all on the left and then all on the right, repeating the exercise a couple of times.

"Hiiiiii!" a sudden wind almost swept him in the void, luckily he had always a safety strap.

"Woah. That was as exciting as terrifying." the dragon's heart was skipping inside the chest for the shock. "What happened? I swear the wind screamed on my face..."

"Over heeeere!" the ominous wind blew on his back this time. Bagon's chest bounced against the strap and back on the seat again, heeled over. "What'cha doing, Flygon?"

"Ah, Drifblim. Hold on a sec." Bagon attempted to free from the seat but the straps had knotted him and every attempt worsened the situation until he resigned. "Dammit, now I know why Squirtle is so buffed. I'm, like, dressing on a shell like him now. My name is Bagon anyway , not Flygon, although I wish there could be any *"fly"* in my name as well."

"Oooh, okay." Drifblim scratched the back of her dome, then pondered again "What were you doing before I appeared? I was drifting around the airplane when I saw you and I was overwhelmed by the curiosity immediately. And I stalked you then."

"Ehhh....Stalking? Mmh." the ghost blimp smiled innocently, after all she didn't seem malicious in her intentions. Decided to fulfill her curiosity: "I was following the flying lessons coded by my master, Ninjask. Do you remember him?"

"Aaaa, Shedinja. Of course!"

"No, I just said that he's Ninjask."

Drifblim rolled eyes in annoyance. "Are you sure? To me the name was Shedinja, but guess you know him better than me."

What was actually inside her brain? Bagon shook the head and continued. "Anyway, I was doing a flight simulation for practice."

"Without the sky?" Driflblim blink blinked. So did Bagon: she actually had a point. "Sounds quirky as Laser would say!"

"Wait, wait, this is why it is a simulation...no?" she was confusing him a lot, causing a lot of doubts in his creed all of sudden. Drifblim fluttered next to him, a disapproval look on her face. "This is not how you fly. You have to learn how to swim before."

"EH?"

"Flying is like swimming in the sky! Same blue, same foamy sensation on the skin because of the clouds." Her passionate speech breached into the heart of the dragon whose eyes shimmered while the mouth was jaw-opened listening to her. "C-Continue... What else you feel during a flight? I'm curious!"

"Like a gentle jellyfish, I let myself drift with the stream, some waves are hot air, some are fresh air. See? I'm moving wave after wave, between the clouds." Drifblim was a very graceful swimmer with her thin arms caressing the air, one after the other, in perfect coordination. Something Bagon could only keep dreaming to do. "This is your problem, you have never done true practice in the environment."

"Sigh. I used to at the beginning, when-"

Drifblim attached her strings around the seat, pulled with Ominous Wind, and carried Bagon away with herself!

"Aaaah! What's up with this?" Bagon clenched arms, teeth and even the tail to the seat as Drifblim shook vehemently to lose more weight and fly up up up and away. "Drifblim, an explanation would be so much appreciated right now!"

"Just keep swimming..." she replied holding a giggle. "Follow me! Bend on the belly, open arms and wave. Legs, too."

"Should I try this?" Bagon listened to the answer of his heart: yes. He began, like, kicking the air with the short limbs, and felt the sensation of void for the first time. It was nothing and everything at the same time, and tickling somehow. The attrition of the air tickled his feet so much that he laughed!

"Yes, it tickles first of all." Drifblim expected exactly that reaction. "Next sensation, if I still remember, is vertigo."

Bagon instead looked down in amaze, the whole region was under him after all this time, and didn't matter if he wasn't flying on his own. He was feeling the same! The long lost emotion of flight since. . . "Sniff. Of course." Tears started to rain on his goggles.

"Oh, I was wrong."

"I'm fine. Just a lil' bit of memory that strikes back." he had to put them off and on again once he was done. "This is just the closest experience to flying I have done so far, thank you so much. I can't believe this is not only a dream...and even if it is, well, nevermind I will wake up filled with joy." They continued to swim together in the sky, like a jellyfish and a turtle following the stream of Hoenn, until they arrived over a smoking mountain.

"Look there, the eruption is painting the clouds black! This is typical from good ol' Mt. Chimney but seeing it from this perspective? It's another story."

Drifblim looked down, and deflated immediately.

**// Vent //**

**"I was sooo wrong." Drifblim would say later. "It was then I remembered that I am the one that suffers of vertigo!"**

"Oh-oh. Driiifbliim?"

"Fsssssssssssssst..." the whistling noise of a balloon losing air was the only answer received.

Bagon rushed to fix her struggling with the straps, but even blowing air directly in her hole didn't inflate Drifblim again. "Holy Rayquamole, no chances at all. Here comes the landing!" He managed at least to guide the blimp during the fall, avoiding several pointy roofs before the final impact.

...

It was the 2nd night in a row that Dewott had refused to sleep. She looked quite scary now: huge eyebags, blood stained eyes, and all the scars collected during *Medott* certainly didn't help. Piplup shook the head, coming from the bathroom after having rinsed herself for breakfast as usual.

"I'll wait you at the tea table, after you're done in the bathroom."

"Uh? I don't need to do anything in there."

"You're not having breakfast at my table in that unacceptable condition." Piplup shook the head vehemently "Not at all. Go wash yourself, darling." Dewott shrugged in denial. "I can't accept this behavior. No way I let a pokèmon and a friend to waste away herself... Look how dirty and messy you are right now, eww, of course you feel the same inside."

"Please, Piplup, I'm trying to focus before the training."

"Training doesn't mean sweating forever! Oh, please, don't make me deliberately say you're awful, dear, you know how much I hate to be blunt." Still no reaction... "Fine. You don't look like Squirtle's girlfriend anymore but Swalot's!" Finally Dewott pointed the razored shell at her throat. "That's the Dewott I acknowledged all this time. Now, now, file that back please." The ott let out a relieving sigh.

"Actually I didn't stay up for training, but for thinking too much. I don't know what to do after yesterday..."

"I know it perfectly, instead. First thing is...getting your self-care back!" Piplup pulled her in the bathroom in front of the mirror. "See? You need to clean up and wash away all your wounds, both here" Pointed a wing at the ott's chest. "and in."

"Uhm, if you think so..." she prepared to enter in the shower.

"Then we'll talk about Chimecho and revenge, have faith my dear."

Piplup waited a little setting up the tea party in the meanwhile, when Dewott was finally back and back to look...pretty fine. "Darling! You're back, how you feel now?"

"Kind of the same as before, I guess?"

"At least you're clean." The penguin shrugged slightly sarcastic in her tone, but soon changed mood. "Revenge is always a dish best served cold. You're too heat to think it properly now. You're steaming and the steam obfuscates your mind."

"I know, I know. But I can't stand all of this any longer without reacting, I'm so frustrated. We won thanks to her yesterday! At least, this is how it looked no matter how many struggles, scars and stress I caused myself: she was the only one celebrated!" kicked the table pouring all the tea on the floor. "Ehm...sorry."

Piplup smiled sighing a little, then sipped her tea frantically "Don't worry, I'm used to that at this point, and I could care less in this moment. I want to help you."

"Really?"

"Yet you have to change your approach, I mean, drastically. Keep calm, and let them continue..." another sip followed by a quick clean up of the beak using a velvet napkin "Let the two lovebirds lose for the team, that will happen anyway."

"And how much I can wait?! Piplup, I'm suffering here." Dewott cried tears of pure rage filling the teapot of hot water, boiling water. "I was the happiest pokémon on Earth and I was deprived of it all, now Chimecho is the happiest so now it's her turn! NO?!"

"Then there's a way to accelerate the inevitable: assure the defeat of our team."

"Self-sabotage you mean? Ehm, actually I already tried it yesterday." Dewott confessed in shame. "But didn't work, at contrary, it just gave her the whole spotlight in saving the day. Jeez, if only Bagon would know this, I don't want to face him anymore...me and my awful thoughts."

"Oh, please, Bagon isn't a saint as well. Just remember the scandal of the Rare Candy." Piplup formed a icecube in the beak and let it gently sink in the teapot, putting the tea back to the optimal temperature "On a plus side, I'm certain he would die now to rid off such an element like Lucario."

"Yeah, that's something we share in common." Dewott rubbed the back of the neck nervously, but eventually smirked. "So we're going against our team and then drift the blame on Lucario."

"Trust me, like nobles elegantly eliminated their opponents from the inside by poisoning them, we'll poison the Jigglers until Chimario will be eliminated." The two water starters cheered on their plan chugging down the whole teapot.

For a pokèmon that had struggled to sleep, another one was living the polar opposite. Minun struggled to wake up this morning. He felt his limbs tremendously weak that the head was being an heavyweight for them. Barely crawled on the floor for a cup of coffee at Lester's diner. "Usual, right?"

"Yep, add a Chesto Berry to it, please. Yawn."

Chandelure roasted the chestnut berry and splashed it in the cup. The melting berry painted the coffee in a dark-blue dry flavor. "Here."

"Thanks." He blew and approached the lips to the mug, then he realized something. "You're Chandelure not Lester..."

"I don't know. I'm having troubles lately to distinguish from orange objects." Chandelure shrugged spicing up the situation with some sarcasm. Minun appreciated her wit, rolling a smile. "I'm substituting him at the oven, actually. He's still busy in the washing machine, stuck after it broke down."

Soon she said that, an huge mass of water drowned the whole class, scattering electricity in the air.

"A-A-Atchoom! Oh-oh. Oh no." Minun wobbled in overdrive, his cheeks overheating for the excess of electricity, and fainted. Chandelure glanced at him, and then at the coffee she had just prepared. "Perhaps it's better I stay out of catering sector unless my clients aren't already dead. Minun?" checked on him and picked up the smartphone, calling the number of Victini. "Dad? There was an accident you may want to fix, you know."

Minutes later, Minun was under the care of Vulpix. This one, dressed as a nursery, was licking his cheeks carefully and at the same time massaging his chest with her boiling paws, holding the tail firm between the hips. "It will survive, don't worry. Just needs a little of warming and attentions and will be back as new." She seemed confident in her statement.

"Alright, Vulpix, it's all in your paws." Victini deemed it enough. "But, please, take no more than one episode or I'll have to disqualify him, unfortunately."

"I don't think she's able to cure him." Lucario passed by, then remembered that wasn't his business and shrugged. Vulpix increased the energy in her massage, visibly unnerved.

"Stop it! It's just useless. It's useless to warm a body preventing it from rigor mortis." Chandelure quickly resumed a calm indifference in her creepy monotone but Victini didn't buy it this time. "I could personally provide him a suitable coffin then, meh."

"Uhm, why do you say it?" Victini asked her for more explanations.

"He's overheating already, there's certainly no need to warm him more...in a fever. Unless you want to speed up the process."

"I have enough!" Vulpix hopped off the bed, flicking up nose and tail offended. "Do it yourself if you don't believe in my methods. Victini, I take a day-off by now."

"What about Chimecho?" Dunsparce purposed out of the blue. "Ehm, sorry for the intrusion."

"She refused already." Victini said in a dry tone. "That's why I recurred to Vulpix."

"Chimecho refused to cure someone? Unbelievable."

"Same. The captain of the Jigglers reported me her decision personally."

Chandelure put on the parachute. "Then I made my decision. Dad, I need immunity for a day. If I won't come back by tonight, eliminate me instead."

"Wait, what?! Aghostina, what does that mean? Come back!" Victini couldn't believe she had just left the airplane and (almost) the competition this way. Neither could Lester or Dunsparce.

**// Vent //**

**"She's fully evolved and grown up." Victini desperately tried to make up with the situation. "I have only to accept it, whatever it takes to make her feel a woman. Guess this is one of those circumstances... but why now? Why Minun? I thought she was into Lester with that song. Groan, all those lessons with Reshiram yet I keep slipping truth under my nose. Sigh... There's nothing to do, she has to come back by herself with her own achievement. If she's looking for a victory out of this situation, I will not stop her fair and square! Never." He burned a V on his chest sealing this way his promise.**

"Where is Drifblim?!?" Lester shouted in a tiny voice soon after the landing revealed further absences.

"Sssplendid. How many enemies are missing?"

"I count THREE LEVIATHANS OUT OF 5."

**// Vent //**

**"I have. Only. Dunsparce." Lester squeaked losing a bolt.**

"So Bagon is not here." Dewott reflected on the situation "Without him there should be less team work."

## Challenge

The Meteor Falls. A rocky mountain system carved by the meteorites, wich created an underground spectacle of canals and rapids rushling in dozens of waterfalls. Victini led everyone across a suspended bridge, "More than ever you'll need to pull out the best of each of your teammates to reach the achievement." the contestants looked down the chasm they were walking over for a moment, "Impressed already, uh? Wait to get deep inside it. Challenge will take place all over the cave! The subterraneus river pumps water into a maze of rapids and waterfalls that you'll have to get through today.

Raft on a log boat: there's an obstacle course waiting for you. Do your best to stay upon the log from the beginning to the end, and collect the moon stones you find at the checkpoints.

-If a pokèmon reaches the end of the cave on the boat, all the stones collected are saved for the team score.

-If you fall from the boat another pokémon can retrieve it with all the stones, teammate or enemy.

Only one pokèmon per team rafts at turn and *each pokèmon has only one attempt*, so be careful on your choices of action. T**he winner is the team that brings the highest amount of moonstones to the exit!**"

"How are we making this being two, V-Victini?"

"Dunsparce, how dare you! This is Leviathan style of life." Lester corrected himself "Lesterian style of life: making the impossible possible and viceversa. I will make it possible, somehow, by the way!"

"Three. A-A-Atchooo! I can't let my team down for a simple flu." Minun struggled to stay on his feet, helping balance with the tail. "Count on me too, as much I can do I will try. Afterall, we're already used to play in inferiority since the very beginning." Poked Rotom very feebly on a shoulder.

"Very admirable." Victini praised him, then pointed metres down the bridge. "That's the starting line. Pick a teammate for the jump, and let the course begin!"

**// Vent //**

**"Hoenn Pokèmon are supposed to know this place very well in general." Beheeyem resumed the situation at a whole "However, Jigglers will miss Bagon that comes right from here, and Leviathans don't seem to have the best Minun available right now. It is evident that it would be better to spend the Hoenn cards for later, but, when your cards are an already extincted species and a species soon to get extincted by their natural predator Zangoose...**

**"I really want to provide a victory for once, all alone, all because of me." Anorith had flame in the eyes while saying so. "It's about time I step forward for my cause, that's why I'm not going to be the first and I'll make my voice clear with the Venturers."**

"Sssay it again, Anorith."

"You heard it already." He went face to face with her "I will not be the sacrificial lamb as usual. I'm more useful in the middle of the challenge or even at the end of it but not at the very beginning! I'm born for rowing, don't waste me: I could be your only chance of victory."

"Ahahahahahahah!"

"Seriously. I mean what I said." Anorith resisted to the urge of snap back at her as usual "Keep laughing, then. Don't say I didn't warn you when by the time we have identified the whole course I will be already eliminated from the course."

"Actually, I agree, as much I'm surprised that he-of the primal cortex was able to think over." Beheeyem took position in favor of Anorith's thesis "Hoenn Pokèmon are supposed to know this place very well in general. It is evident that it's better to spend the Hoenn cards only when the way is traced." soon imitated by Porygon Z. Seviper looked at Aurorus very menaciously then. "I agree with Anorith too."

"Who caresss? There isss no room for democracy in MY team. Don't forget that I'm the leader!"

"Your team haz been converted in OUR team, byte the way." Porygon Z used his psychic powers again to lift and toss her off the bridge. "The process is irreversible."

"You'll regret thisss..."

All the three teams picked their Hoenn cards eventually: Chimecho and Minun were also sent first. Lucario disagreed vibrantly.

"What's the matter, Lucario?" Piplup crossed arms doing a smug "You don't trust your girlfriend? Maybe you see Chimecho too weak."

"N-Never said that! If there's a weak here is you, and by a long time. Chimecho is a strong competitor...in her way." Lucario shifted eyes away, hiding behind his cranky mask. "It would have been better to use her for later, in fact, but still, sgrunt." Chimecho reassured him stroking one hip with her tail before to jump on the boat, but it was the determinate look on her face to tame all his doubts. "Those flaming eyes, they were the-the same yesterday during and **after** the concert..."

The three pokémon took position on the start line. Chimecho and Seviper knotted themselves around the logs while Minun wobbled on top of his feet trying to find the balance. They had to row a few to gain the necessary speed, Chimecho stayed attached to the boat moving the oar with the little paws but lacked a lot in strength, unlike Seviper that swept huge mass of water using her tail like a giant oar, and speed, unlike the faster and better trained Minun.

"Come on, remember all the crazy yoga you do on a regular basis." Lucario tried to encourage her shouting through the echo of the cave "I swear that sometimes I felt pain in the muscles more after doing exercises with you than after a fighting practice! I mean, those positions standing on the hands heeled over? That means you have something in those tiny arms I don't. Channel it!"

"My yoga is also a training?" Chimecho reflected upon it, she had never realized it this way before. Closed eyes and inhaled to let the psychic energy flow free from her mind to channel it all in the muscles: her paws began rowing and rowing harder and faster. Finally her boat reached the other two at the beginning of the rapids. The stream immediately caught them off guard and the speed escalated quickly rendering each boat harder to control.

"This has escalated very quickly! Argh, there's a curve to do. Anf, oar seems so heavy for a single." Minun barely managed to keep control of the direction drifting right in time. "If only Plusle was h-a-a--atchù. Sniff, this dump certainly doesn't help for my flu. What's that?" Something was coming in front of him, like, a moon or so, swinging at huge speed, and knocked him off the boat. "Aaah I found the first obstacle I guess?!" Minun realized to have istinctively attached to said moon swinging like on a t-bar (=trapezio da circo), and promptly decided for a craziness: jump as it swung backward again. He wasn't in 100% condition and normally would have never done an insane attempt at this low ratio of success, but he followed craziness for once and did a somersault flip to land back on the log. "Holy Kyogre, h-how the Groudon I did this? There was only a one percent possibility that I could land perfecty...Atchoom! Nevermind. I see I'm asked for a bis already."

More swinging Lunatone shaped hammers appeared to block the way, swinging from left to right. Minun used Double Team to dodge them pulling out more acrobacies.

"Now that's a contestant deserving to win. Even at half energy he's making quite the performance!" Victini was genuinely entertained but deep inside he was wondering then why Chandelure wasn't still back if Minun looked this fine, and why he had allowed her to temporary forfeit from the competition if Minun's sickness wasn't anything this serious at the end of the day. Minun had deceived them completely on a first impression, curse on him! "Even too much."

Seviper dodged the first moon flexing the whole body over the log, then made a couple of serpentines moving zig zag against the horizontal swinging ones, but there was something wrong in her approach as she wasn't doing this out of strategy but out of fear: she was escaping from every moon encountered! "Look at her face carefully, Aurorus. Can you cee what I cee?"

"Yes, Beheeyem. She's like having a trance. I remind this happened to me too, long time ago." Aurorus felt a sense of inquietude as well looking at those swinging lunar rocks. "And there was a Lunatone involved, too."

"I detect peaks of alpha radio in that area: Hypnosis."

"Exactly, Porygon Z."

Minun had begun to feel strange as well. He had allucinations of all the copycats of him turning into Plusle. "Brrr...the flu is joking me bad..Maybe if I wash my face they'll disappear." This moment of distraction almost costed him everything as a moon swang an inch from his head. "The rinse did nothing! I can still see Plusle everywhere, atchù! What was that sensation before? Urgh, I can't distinguish Lunatone from Plusle, reality from illusion at this point, they overlay too much in my mind..." fainted.

"Get lost lossser!" Seviper bumped him and lost the pattern acquired doing a zag instead of a zig right then a Lunatone came in. "Curssse!!!"

Chimecho had wisely stayed behind, but it would have been her turn anyway. Closed eyes to not see.

"She's scared already?" Dewott snickered at this decision. Chimecho was doing exactly what could make her look the weak chain.

"Look better." Ninjask spoke for the first time that day. "Seviper shows fear, Minun sees confusion, Chimecho is keeping her eyes closed to focus. Visualizing every obstacle in her mind, she will avoid the hypnotic movements of the Lunatones."

Dewott's confidence disappeared "Oh so it is? Understood..."

"Ahahah, yes!" Lucario cheered on "Keep showing them how you can do that with closed eyes."

"Oh kay." Chimecho blushed opening one eye in reply, but that almost proved a fatal mistake. She had barely a second to realize and use Protection, absorbing the impact with the swinging rock. This saved her from certain sink. "Don't distract me, Lucario, please." Phewed deeply.

"So...sorrow...sore...damn it."

"Accepted." Chimecho replied with a warm smirk, and closed eyes again until it was over. She and Minun, this one still fainted, reached the first checkpoint. Here Chimecho did something none expected: woke up Minun using Dream Eater.

"Ahh! W-Where I am?"

**// Vent //**

**Lucario squinted eyes. "Unbelievable... She had mercy again, snort! She's too kind to get vantage of an enemy, sigh."**

**"Chimecho helped me to keep a fair competition." Minun wasn't completely healed but certainly grateful. "She could have just continued her own course alone with an huge head up on us but no. What an heartful pokémon."**

Victini's voice echoed all over the Meteor Falls: "When you're at the checkpoint, the rapids slow down a bit so you have a very short gap of time to collect all the moonstones you can find around, then will come the waterfalls to bring you down the next level." Chimecho and Minun followed indications and rushed at the research leaving temporary their boats to the stream. Venturers, on the contrary, had to redo everything from the start line.

"That first obstacle is ominous." Anorith was glad to have not begun the challenge. "Someone has to deal with that Lunatone hypno-fest."

"Of course, it was added by Victini..." Beheeyem shrugged sarcastically "He must have used all his braincells since Jirachi's departure on the making of this obstacle considering he forgot to think at a punishment for me. Actually, you know what? That obstacle seems made just for me since it requires...brains. I'll go next."

"It feels like my head has gone through a blender recently, ouch." Bagon had remained unconscious for how many hours? He didn't know, and woken up in a place never seen before. "What am I doing here, what place was it anyway? Jeez, no clue. Splitch, splotch. I won't die for sure at least since this place is filled with water. Is there...a pokèmon?" His image reflected upon the crystaline structure of a giant stalagmite. "Hey, man, could you tell me where I am? I ended up here in circumstances I ignore at the moment, and I got lost soon I woke up. Hello, are you listening to, dude?"

"Didn't know you also talked with your own ghost of the mirror world as I always do. Ops! Sorry if it was private and I just interrupted a moment of intimacy."

"Uh?" Bagon turned back discovering a purple floating creature on his shoulders. "Who are you? Oh so that was only my mirror image."

"Who am I? Interesting question..." Drifblim pondered carefully "But I know who are you: Flygon!"

"My name is Flygon, then." turned in front of the stalagmite again "And where the fly part comes from? No wings by any means."

"That's all I remember, sorry." she sighed.

"Nah, nevermind! No need to blame yourself." Bagon decided to go explore the place. "Let's rebuild our memory, instead, about how to exit from here or so. Let's go, come on."

"Okey dokey!"

"We're underground for sure." Bagon extracted a mineral from a stalagmite, and crunched it. "Moonstone. Sounds familiar in a way. It tastes like...family."

"It tastes like nothing to me." Drifblim opened her mouth to taste it as well, but the stone sank immediately in her empty body and came out from the underbelly knot. Bagon picked up immediately after to finish it in a single morsel, then realized the akwardness of this moment. "That's a scene I will be happy to forget forever."

"Ops, I apology, but I couldn't resist." Bagon shook the blush off quickly and tried to find an explanation for his behavior. "It came just natural to me, maybe it's my favorite food as the species I am, and if so then, I'm in my homeplace. However, for some reason, I feel lost in my own home."

"Ohh, like: where was the bedroom already? Why there's so many moyan berry in my fridge? WHO LEFT THE DAMN TOILET OPEN IF I DON'T EVEN USE IT? OMG, THERE ARE OTHER GHOSTS IN THIS HOUSE!" He looked at her very concerned for a moment. "Just making examples. Pfft, I never experienced that before! Whatever I said before."

"Yeah, you got it." Bagon joked nearby a waterfall. "Who sold me a ludicrous house like this? I don't have shower, I have a freaking waterfall all for me. Imagine having sex under this...not with you! Speaking in generally."

"Ah, no worry, afterall it's even better underwater." Drifblim winked randomly.

"Alright alright, hold on a sec... How did I shower myself so far? No traces of soap n' shampoo. Suuus." Bagon walked through the fall discovering a secret room. "A-Ah! Here's the magic trick. Come here!" Drifblim had to squelch her body to fit in the passage, clearly forgetting that she was a ghost pokèmon. The hidden area was a single formation that had been carved by the water inside a giant moonstone: gem crusts sprouted everywhere inside the geode. They were pointy so Drifblim had to move really careful around, but collected lot of them anyway, they were too beautiful!

"I...I remember this place." Bagon put a foot where a footstep larger than an half was already there. "Remember, the more minerals you eat the more your wings will grow bigger when you will evolve, eh eh eh."

Bagon stared in shock. That wasn't just the echo of his voice. "Did you hear that too?"

The other shrugged utterly clueless.

"Then there's something with me and this place, t-that goes beyond my initial expectations. Let's go back."

"Wait, Flygon, I found something else that seems more than a simple souvenir! Yes, more like an archeological discovery."

"The hell?! This is a skeleton!"

"And it's huuuge. What kind of dinosaur could be?"

"I barely remember my name I remind you..." The two pokémon gazed at the leviathanic creature encrusted all over the geode, like it had became a single thing with the cave and they were walking inside it. "But if I ever met someone like this before, I certainly would remember." He cuddled the surface of the skull for a moment using his stout paws. She knock knocked on it instead.

"Maybe it's a sleeping fossil. I used to speak fossilese in the past. Ahem. Hellooo?" Bagon snatched her arm immediately with a serious look.

"Let's be respectful."

He left the grip on her arm soon after. They silently left the skeleton alone to its deserved sleep, crossing the falls backward. "Still no clue about this place, got only new questions without answers." Bagon looked upon, pointing a finger. "If the answers I look for aren't under the waterfall maybe they're above it." Started to climb, struggling against the water element. "Argh, it's too steep and slippery to be climbed."

"Then swim like I told you."

"Eh?"

"I'm sure this time I didn't imagine it: I told you to swim already today."

"Wait, what are you doing and how?" He turned and couldn't believe that she was swimming for real, and be perfectly fine. "This can't be..."

"It can, c'mon, join me!" Drifblim held one arm of the dragon, continuing to swim in the opposite direction of the waterfalls. "Flutter your arms back and forward and just keep swimming. Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just ke-ke-keeeeep swimmiiiing!"

"This makes no sense but I'm doing it...! Oh fuck me, it's working for real. There's no logic but it's even entertaining. Ahahahah! Faster, let's see who gets first at the top." It was like living kindergarten days again. They were having so much fun splashing each others and dashing against the stream! "I won as always, ah ah ah, I'm still young. Uh, what a strange thing to say... but we did it! Thanks to your encouragement, ehm, what's your name actually?"

"If you're Flygon...I'm Salamence of course!" Drifblim answered so genuinely in her tone that he had no hesitation "Then thank you so much, Salamence."

Beheeyem adopted a very chill approach to the challenge, taking a long time to reach the first obstacle: the lazy ass didn't row at all.

"Heeey, you offered for this challenge! What are you doing now?"

"Relax your primal cortex, it's nothing you can understand but I'll do an attempt: conserving energies for later." The alien explained. "Why bother when the stream will bring me anyway? All I have to do is move a little left or right to change direction when need, yawn. I'll waste my brain only on the actual obstacle."

**// Vent //**

**"Seviper, come back, I can't deal with this anymore..." Anorith pulled one of his wings while saying this in order to have another reason to suffer "I would have never imagined in my worst nightmares to say it, but I'm missing your leadership! You were likeable as a giant spur down the ass but having a sarcastic toilet down it the whole time is far far worse."**

By the time Beheeyem reached the first obstacle, the other competitors were almost at the second checkpoint. Chimecho and Minun rowed carefully but the obstacle seemed to be non existent at the horizon. The cave narrowed as they progressed until they could touch the icicles on the ceiling if they wanted. Minun bonked on a particularly long vibrating one but that was just a scratch. He continued like nothing happened.

Chimecho, instead, perceived a danger. The vibration spread from the ceiling in the water with increasing intensity, then stopped abruptly once reached the bottom of the river. "Oh no, this is not a good sign." The earthquake began, the water rumbled, the boats were shaken , and the icicles began to fall above them! "The fishes o-of the quake were angered by s-something. I think to know what it...w-was!" An icicle pierced her tail blocking her to the log permanently, Chimecho ignored the pain and kept her mind focused to avoid the next icicles the best she could prevent them, same was doing Minun that didn't appear as fast as before. He seemed lacking the same energy.

"Anf, anf, I feel so heavy and half-energetic now...w-w-w-woah!"

"There's only a way to survive: calm the earthquake. A vibration...argh... of an opposite frequence...ugh..." The boat was completely rick rolled underwater but Chimecho stayed attached because of the icicle "Aaanf. If only I reached all the Wiscash underwater with a single vibrating sound, they could tame. They were scared by the vibration caused by Minun, afterall, since it reached their sensitive wiskers abruptly. That means...gasp. The meteoritic rock has the same properties of a diapason. Of course, Lunatone and Solrock also use sound waves to communicate. Anf, I have to try again..."

Chimecho picked and attached all the moonstones she had to the oar keeping them together with Psychic. Therefore, plunged the oar underwater and launched a pitched note that rebounded on the ceiling and echoed all over the Meteor Falls.

"Chimecho!" Lucario couldn't see anything from that distance but recognized her voice. "What happened? What happened!"

"Stay on the bridge, Lucario, you're not allowed until it isn't your turn."

"It has become my turn already if she's not coming out from there."

The vibration caused by her soundwave was absorbed by the oar and by the oar extended to the bottom of the river in a single shot. The water boiled, then trembled again, until all the Wiscash were tamed. She made it. "Anf..." Unable to keep enough energy for Psychic, the loss of all the moonstones was the inevitable drawback.

"All done? Perfect. I let them take all their time to clear me the way and they did it right in time." Dodged the first swinging lunatone at light speed. "It wasn't so challenging as I anticipated. The patterns repeat. Now that I studied the pattern of every single Lunatone." Dodged the second, swinging left-right, even more easily. "It's only a matter of memory."

Minun's boat touched the second checkpoint in the aftermath, the rest of Minun followed soon after: his body had finally given up on the challenge. "Oh no, poor Minun." Chimecho attempted to reach the checkpoint but could just pass by in her conditions.

Lester tried to get Dunsparce prepared with a quirky motivational speech: "Keep in mind, you're an average dunsparce no more, you're Dunsparce with the capital D, ah! What's the difference you ask? You have graduated, and from graduation comes big responsibilities: as the newest emissary of quirkness you're called to act and think as a Leviathan. The word IMPOSSIBLE is only in the nickname. The word PLATITUDINOUS is erased from the DNA. Got it?"

"Ehmmmm-m-m-m..."

The leader of the Leviathans let out a deep sigh. "Think outside the washing machine, okay? Find your own way to get past every obstacle you'll find and, by the love of Arceus, don't force me to be more simpler in my explanations in the future. By the way, take Minun's stones back at any cost."

"I will do my q-quirk(?) best."

**// Vent //**

**"Not really sure what Lester wants me to do, because there's always something Seviper ordered me to do at the end, but Lester? He's too much convoluted: *think as a Leviathan.* It could be anything but if I do the wrong thing!?" Dunsparce shivered. "I don't want to become a disappointment for another team."**

Minun woke up temporarily in a room of the pokémon centre. He barely could keep one eye open for the weakness. Rubbed the cheeks getting slightly finger-burned by the electric heat: his fever had sensibly worsened. "I think I pushed over myself too much this time..." as his eyes closed again "P...anf...Pl....crrr....ronf...." the crackling of the electricity increased.

Dunsparce ,elaborated a plan that kept to himself, took control of the oar after many attempts. He wasn't certainly the best pokémon at handling being, well, limbless, but he had learned to use his small useless-to-fly wings to grab things by the time he had been on the show. "I should go faster if I use my tail, too." Drilled the surface of the water like a turbine. "R-Right?"

"Now that's an improvement!" Lester incitated from above "Keep on this way, don't limit your creativity. Go quirky, Dunsparce!"

"I see the lunatones already, anf... anf..." anxiety was already overwhelming him. Why it had to be Lunatone again? "I-It's not the same Lunatone, none of them is. Like Lester would say, Lunatone was one and only with capital L, and he's gone forever." But then, what did scare Seviper? "Seviper...she has never been the same after I-"

"Dunsparce! Be quirky and be distracted are like light and dark side of the moon. Land back on Earth immediately!"

"O-oh alright! First one is vertical so I duck to avoid it." Dunsparce had wisely carved a little hole in the wood where he could hide in case of danger. "Next would hit me from left to right, so I use Roll-On (=Rotolamento) to make the boat drift on the opposite side. Now it comes diagonally, uhm, duck again I guess? Worked. Yay!"

/**/ Seviper: "Sssince when he does better than me if he always sssucked at every challenge?!"**

"He has almost reached Beheeyem already! This is how slow is going that skive-off." Hearing that increased Dunsparce's morale even more: he hadn't only overcome his fear of Lunatone but was facing the obstacle with unusual confidence in his means. It was his momentum finally. Rowed beyond the lunatones and ignored the first checkpoint, aiming at Beheeyem. The Trick Room had faded in the meanwhile, meaning that despite having almost the same speed, Dunsparce was the faster of the two. "Slow down, Dunsparce, don't humiliate me further than necessary..." Beheeyem taunted him as the two boats were neck on neck, and he eventually managed to get in front. It was Dunsparce in the lead now.

He had to be really careful since they were entering the area of the Wiscash. Dunsparce didn't know the obstacle yet, but perceived all the movements underwater and proceeded without making any sound that could disturb the delicate balance of the place.

**// Dunsparce: when you're used to live in a dark cave, you have long learned that the least sounds you make, the best chances you get unnoticed by predators. I also learned how to listen ultrasounds or other forms of soundwaves emitted by the other pokèmon species."**

"*Just don't bump, Dunsparce*. *Don't bump.*" Kept repeating in mind "*Don't bump on anything and everything will be fine, Dunsparce. I cee you can do it.*" The last words made his heart skip. Accelerated. "*I'm not real you said before, yet you're crossing my birthplace. The voice you hear is the echo made by the cave, keep going..."* Dunsparce looked above, maybe it was the delayed effect of the first obstacle, but then Lunatone appeared behind him! "*Duuunspaaarce, I ceize you."*

*"*Noooo! I suffered already because of you, enough with you!" Dunsparce seized the oar with all his rage and hit the moon in pieces. "I d-d-don't have any fault for what happened to you, stop blaming your choice on me! I have always blamed myself for the actions of others: I did it with Sylveon! I did it with Aurorus! I did it the whole time I was with Seviper, a-a-and I did it only for having spectated your self-destruction!"

"This is your celf-destruction, actually. . ." The whole cave rumbled as fragments of the main icicle fell with all the oar of Dunsparce in the water. He had done it, he had caused the earthquake. Beheeyem was already in safe at this point, collecting moonstones also from Minun's boat. "A-Again...No, no, noooooooooooooooooo aaaaaargh!" He splashed the tail violently for the frustration, several times, like a powerful wave during a furious storm, ignoring everything coming onto him.

"But he's using...Aqua Tail!"

Beheeyem turned and shrugged "Looks like the mini-Seviper has finally evolved."

"Thief**!**"

/**/ Vent //**

**"He knowsss Thief too?!?" Seviper was confused. "How, I never taught him..."**

**"I learned Thief when I stole that egg for Seviper, but I never said it to her." Dunsparce revealed with a sour expression. "She would have never cared to listen."**

It was supereffective against Beheeyem. Dunsparce lunged on his boat and stole all the moonstones. Next would have been the other psychic type, Chimecho?

"Okay, how to proceed now?" After having walked for a while following the river where the waterfalls came from, Bagon and Drifblim were at a dead end: either they swam across it or they couldn't go any further. There was only a little problem with the first option: the stream was on the opposite way. "Just keep swimming here wouldn't be enough. The rapids are too powerful."

"Plus, I forgot already how to swim."

"Eh? Jeez, Salamence, that happened less than half an hour ago."

Drifblim sighed deeply in ashame, Bagon felt immediately guilty and made up "Sorry, Drifblim, I should have not pushed on this button, my mistake."

"...How did you call me?" she outbursted in giggles "Looks like I'm not alone doing this!"

"Ahahah! Yes, you're right. That nonsense name slipped out my tounge." Deep inside Bagon reflected on his mistake, trying to find a link to his memory. "Hey, what's that thing floating?" He grasped the wood with all the nails and managed to jump aboard: "A boat. Lucky shot. Take my hand, come on! Auff." The dragon phewed when Drifblim was finally aboard. "This is perfect, pity there isn't an oar too."

"Help me, something is biting on my leg!" Drifblim was dragged back in the water, but Bagon rescued her again and discovered an abandoned oar remained knotted to her. "Oh, what kind of pokèmon is this thing?"

"This is just an inanimate object..."

"Did you forget about Voltorb, Magnemite, Dhelmise?"

She actually had a point. "Well, this was the second luck of the day: we can row on the river. Puff...pant...with a little of struggle still...why my limbs had to be this stumpy." The stream was still too powerful for them. Suddenly Drifblim remembered to know Ominous Wind and swept the back of the boat fluttering the arms and blowing with the mouth. "Salameeence, you're a continuous surprise! We're rowin' like a moto-jet now. Wish I could have wings to do the same, ah..."

After a moment of daydreaming realized the way wasn't free. The river was filled with floating barrels that narrowed the passage.

"What the heck is that?" An icicle fell from the ceiling right then and hit one of the barrels that instantly blew up in fire sparkles. "Holy Kyogre that I don't remember who exactly is. Those things are explosive. We should be really careful, slow the wind."

"Ehm, I don't remember how..."

"Just put down the arms...no?"

"Alright! Genius. Smack."

"Wohohoah. Let's stay focused on the topic, okay?" the dragon shook the blush away and turned to the oar immediately. "I'll try to go zig-zag to avoid them, if it doesn't work then I'll make some explode to clear the way. Problem is this shit **floats:** they don't stay on a single point but drift. I wonder who was the genius that threw toxic wastes in my cave, and if I can personally congratulate with him eventually..."

"Those aren't toxic waste per say, I can tell from here." Drifblim showed some unexpected knowledge so unexpected to be unexpected to herself. "Team Magma. Those are leftovers of their geological experiments that especially focused on the source of draco meteors."

"Wow, Salamence, you know many things."

"I lived here for half a century, son. I assisted to many many wars between Aqua and Magma."

"Ooh..." Bagon was distracted for too long and bumped a barrel with the oar. "Oh shit!" Drifblim saved him from the explosion envelopping all her arms to protect the boat with her body. Being a Ghost the explosion didn't affect her at all. "You saved me." Bagon's eyes were glossing like a puppy while staying attached to her. "Wait, if you tanked the explosion like nothing that means you're a Ghost type!"

"Of course! Forgot I ghostified long time ago, ahahahahem."

"Oh, ehm, also, thanks so much." Bagon let her arms finally. "I think we found a way to get over this obstacle."

....

"From ash and cinder to dust and sandstorm, making progress..." Chandelure had just left behind Route 113. Still carrying an umbrella to protect herself, she walked through the desertical landscape like a mirage: a thin dark silouhette in the sunlight. "...and SUN. How long is this road. There's a script there..." Stopped by a rock carved in dot writings, and immediately moved forward. "Already fell on this with Regice, no thanks."

The storm had took away from her half of the health in the meanwhile. Chandelure had her energies counted. At least Victini wasn't there with her.

"Splendid. Dad would have never allowed me to cross a desert. See? That's some positive point of view." She was already fantasizing, too, talking to nobody. Continued trying to stay on the principal path all the while the sands dropped grain after grain down the hourglass of her healthbar...

Until she finally saw the exit, with a cute house waiting for her. Shrugged: mirage or no, she didn't have anything to lose. "Knock-knock. Doing this for education but I'll enter anyway as a ghost even if you locked. Ah, it's an abandoned house." Her frowny expression changed immediately. There was a soft comfy bed that seemed ready for use... yawn... "We all know where this is going." Fell asleep immediately.

...

Aurorus was the third choice of the Venturers, on her own initiative. Picked up an apparently insignificant pebble holding it in the mouth and jumped on the boat. Then lied down assuming a Lapras-esque position and splashed the four limbs in the water until they became covered in ice pinnacles. She used them as fins to row over the river in the general astonishment.

**// Vent //**

**"This pebble is a Float Stone." the camera zoomed on the pebble better and it still looked like anything special at all! Aurorus added more details then. "This basaltic pomicae is very rare to be found and it's mostly neglected as useless, but it serves to my problems of...weight during challenges. *It halves the weight of the pokèmon holding it*." Aurorus continued proudly. "The pomicae stones usually form in volcanic landscapes, so when we traveled to Soothoopolis I took the opportunity to find and collect one. I have a trained eye for these things."**

Aurorus moved surprisingly light fast and, in fact, caught the stream and soon was facing the lunatones already. "Seviper had flashbacks that scared her related to Lunatone. I need to discover the reason." First moon was too hard to be analyzed, so she submerged partially removing the Float Stone and putting it back when the lunatone was behind her way. When she merged back all the lower half of her body was frozen solid in armor plates.

"Didn't imagine she was able to do such a thing." Anorith was the most astonished at this scene.

Second moon swang horizontally. Aurorus waited for it but didn't dodge at all. Instead, stood up right when the lunatone hit the target! Stood up and blocked with all her body absorbing the impact with the help of that armor of ice. "Here. Uhm. This meteoritic rock emanates vibrating waves that reach certain species like Dunsparce and Seviper on a different level than anyone else. The eye is likely the core of this energy thus looking straight into it...

Into...

*Look at the red light, Aurorus, look at it intensely. It's the eye of Lunatone, it's the eye of Porygon, it's when I take control. Whenever you see the red you obey, whenever the light turns green you forget everything you did.*

*All the pain inflicted...*

*All the scars created...*

*Everything..."*

*"AURORUS!"* Anorith called her attention. But she didn't listen anything else. Aurorus spit the Float Stone and let herself drown for the weight.

**// Vent //**

**"How the hell this can be your mother?!" Anorith shouted in the direction of the fan-cooler, out of himself. "And how the hell she survived more than me as a fossil. . ."**

"Seviper, Aurorus is utterly useless to our alliance and team!" shouted openly in front of everyone. "Curse the day you followed that land snake and decided to force her in the S3. I'll vote her tonight if we lose."

"Ssshut up, Anorith!" Seviper bodyslammed him and hissed right in his eardrums. "*Thisss team doesn't serve anything than bring me to the merge. The alliance serves me to the victory. You two will be the 2nd and 3rd placed. That'sss all to care for than your little useless personal first victory!"*

"Understood now."

"Then don't question me ever again." Seviper left the cave at all, like she didn't care a shit about it anymore. Anorith was clenching the ground with the claws. "I will take this team on my shoulders as I did since the first challenge wether you care or not."

Chimecho, still ahead of everyone, reached the third lap but was trapped to her own boat. Neither Lucario or another teammate were allowed to go until she was still on the boat. "Forgive me, Jigglers."

"So she will be a ghost player for us: she can't do anything than float from checkpoint to checkpoint Hooow unfair!" Piplup fainted desperately in the hands of Dewott. She deserved an A-plus in drama acting. "Unless...Chimecho simply gives up at the next obstacle!"

"She's never gonna do that!" Lucario snapped out "Chimecho, rid off that stupid rock already. Remember what you did in the Distortion World? This is nothing in comparison. Hold on." Chimecho tried again bounding all her body around the icicle and pulling it with arms and teeth, still no avail and she risked to lose control of the boat a couple of times. Lucario picked up Anorith holding him with both hands.

"Hey, put me down! I'm not in the mood at all to deal with your bullshit too."

"Shut up or I use you as a gym spring instead!" He called the attention of Chimecho again. "Look, like last time: I have a joystick! Think like I have a joystick. This is nothing against the rules, I'm still on the bridge, no Victini?" The host shrugged in approval. "Chimecho, imagine that your body is under my control again...ehm...under a different circumstance."

"Okay." Chimecho focused on his voice only, like nothing else mattered, boat and obstacles included.

"Alright, straight your right arm in the air, and the other holds the icicle firmly. Done? Position the paw like a blade, this way." Lucario held Anorith with one hand "Store all your rage on that single part of the body, then, chop straightforward!" and cut through an imaginary obstacle. Chimecho replied that movement at contemporary but didn't get the same outcome: the arm barely carved in the icicle, remaining stuck. "Oh...I thought it could have,,,nevermind. Me and my ideas." Lucario let Anorith go then. Chimecho knew his feelings and felt very sorry for having disappointed him this time, then, her whole body trembled of an unknown energy that crept all over to the hand and in an huge powerful radiation destroyed the icicle in bits leaving Lucario speechless and gibberish. "E-Eh? So...hot. Urgh."

Chimecho was even more speechless than him, expressing her reaction with a dindling sound. However, she was finally free to move again, handled the oar again, and prepared for the third task, with Dunsparce right behind the corner.

**// Vent //**

**"I didn't expect Chimecho hid a strength of this power inside all the time." Lucario was able to speak again, alternating words with huffing and puffing. "Her chop was more devastating than my best Focus Punch. Aaaanf...I LOVE HER EVEN MORE NOW, AUUUUUUUUUU!" Lucario howled using all his lungs, so much his voice would have echoed and rebounded all over the vents for the rest of the day. "D-Damn it."**

**"That was Stored Power." Ninjask was the first to understand what had just happened. "Chimecho recurred to Calm Mind several times, storing stat boosts, then channeled them like Lucario said her and unleashed everything under pure energy. He taught her Stored Energy, interes- *"I LOVE HER EVEN MORE NOW, AUUUUUUUUUU!"* -ting."**

Chimecho had still a lot of work to do considering she had to collect all the moonstones from scratch.

"The third obstacle is a series of thumbnail holes shaped after me." Victini explained full of himself. "They replicate my best poses of victory. The task will be invalidated if you fail a single shape!"

"Ah! Don't worry, Dunsparce, this is my specialty." Lester picked up an imaginary joystick.

"Ehm, okay."

"Think I'm in your body, embrace all that electrifying overwhelmingly hyped sensation, and DO THE EPIC POSES. Victini poses, okay, they're easier by the way." Lester smugged. "...First shape is V-sign, pff. Straight the arm forward to cut the air, and ah! \*POSE\*"

Dunsparce objected to lack fingers.

"...Ah."

Chimecho was much more prompt than her counterpart, and made a perfect figure at first attempt even looking kawaii. "Avvvvvvvvv! Smooth V-Sign, very well executed! She also caught my inner cuteness." Dunsparce was up next with no possibility to slow down in that trait of the river. "Ehp, what can I do? *Wings.* Of course! \*P-Pose\*" He had to flutter a little mid air to fit in the hole and, despite showing much less confidence and cohordination, managed to use the wings as an hand to do the sign. The kawaii factor came naturally being a Dunsparce.

"Vvvvawwww! Goofy but absolutely adorkable." the camera zoomed on the background where Piplup was fainting for the cuteness overdose.

"I did this too. W-Wow."

"More confidence, Dunsparce, and you'll master the matter." Lester reassured. "By the way you are under my guidance, of course you're going to win." Dunsparce didn't like the last part.

"The idea of the wings as fingers was mine b-by the way."

"Just like I told you, think like me, ah! \*EPIC POSE\*" Lester had been used to account all the achievements of his teammates as outcomes of his leadership, just like Seviper did in the Venturers, but Dunsparce was not born a Leviathan and rummaged about it with a sour expression. The following cutscenes showed Chimecho and Dunsparce, respectively doing yoga and surrogated epic poses fitting in the next 4 thumbnail holes without many troubles, and both reached the checkpoint number 3.

"Chimecho can finally collect moon stones again, but, what will Dunsparce do soon they get back on the boats?"

Chimecho and Dunsparce tried to ignore each others looking for the gem crusts to be extracted. After the time ran out, Dunsparce let Chimecho go first as expected. Reflected on the situation, and made his move "Dig!" that teleported him back at the beginning of the cave. Then put all the moon stones collected in the spinner dryer of Lester. "I had this quirky plan in mind for the end, but I anticipated so you could get the spotlight you love so much b-by the way. *The team is only you now, Lester, like you always claimed*."

"First, Dunsparce, mind the difference between quirkness and sheer insanity!" Lester was left to finish the challenge utterly by himself. "How am I supposed to make this against one, two, three, ...seven, 7 opponents left?!"

**// Vent //**

**"Ohh you little spy of the Venturers." Lester was leaking water again for the overload of stress. "If I survive today, I'll make you regret Seviper! Ask Minun for more details by the way."**

**"If Leviathans lose our entire plan will be screwed!" Dewott cursed. "I have stayed watching too much."**

Dewott used the shell to cut the bridge protection making it look like an accident. "Dewott fell off the wrong side of the bridge! Dewooott? Darling, give a sign." Piplup understood and acted her part pretty well in front of Victini and everyone else. The host panicked immediately "Not another defection! I can't allow 4 withdrawals in the same episode! No, no, no, the show must go on."

Dewott's simulation had worked. She spider walked under the bridge and jumped in the river, hiding immediately in the river bed. Here waited for Lester to get on the log and attached under it like a Remoraid to the belly of a Mantine. Actually, she had to carry the heavyweight of Lester on her shoulders to keep him on surface. "Never expected a washing machine could be this heavy, gnnn...*I'm doing this for you, Squirtle..*." Lester was embarking water too, making him a painfully slow easy target on sight.

### Part II

When Aghostina woke her energy was fully restored. Left the house. "Finally back to civilization, and crowd, and people..." one step in the city and she felt immediately assaulted by hydrophobia and nausea. Mauville City was the most sickening place of the region for two reasons: it was a multileved traffic joint of several routes, and it was a metropolis. "My agoraphobiaaa! This torture must end... let me have this...eeeeeeenf..." She arrived at the entrance of the Master Contests crawling on her knees utterly consumed by the people. And it was even worse than the expectations.

*Pink, dainty, cloy.* Three words to resume that place in a nightmare. "What's this place, cannot exist." Rubbed eyes but nothing changed. She felt soulless: it was even worse than Sinnoh Contests. "If she isn't here I will die a second time for noth. . ."

"New contestant? This way." The three words had just materialized in a living form: a Pikachu dressed as a popstar led the way for her. "First time, eh? Don't worry, I'm a local star, you can use my dressroom." Before Chandelure could reply she had been already put on outfit and make-up identical to that Pikachu. "Uhhh, not bad! Not as me of course cuz, well, I'm Master of Grace for a reason, but you'll make a first impression for sure."

"G-Grace, I see. . .Give me the coup de grace, then."

"Uh? Ahahahah, no, I'm not here to participate." Pikachu then turned serious, staring right into the eyes of Chandelure with her cute, glossy, eyelashed ones: "But Grace is just a value like the other four, outside there it's just warfare. Coup de grace will be delivered to you by the other contestants...One in particular that is almost at my level. ALMOST." She was visibly unnerved judging by the way she was holding one of her thousands of 2nd place ribbons...

Chandelure decided to go to the bottom of that hell, and subscribed for the contest.

The washing machine was now going through Lunatone Hollow for the first time. Part of him shared an insane curiosity about all the quirks those obstacles had caused so far, the quirky behaviors of Aurorus, Seviper and Dunsparce...By the way there was another priority on the list, and that priority was survive. He filled on the pump "How many Lunatones here are lurving to taste my Hydro Pump? Here's a load of quirkness!"

But the pipe refused to eject water. "Still broken after all the time I spent fixing it?!" The swing blade Lunatone sliced off the top of his pipe. ". . .By the way."

"*What the hell? Lester had to suck just today? I'll fix this washing machine my way.*" Dewott cut through the wood and sliced the bottom part of Wash Rotom blowing in all the water she had in the lungs. This made him shoot Hydro Pump uncontrollably due to the removal of the top part, and the jet was so powerful to make an hole in the rock! "Ahem, by the way, here we go, ah! Behold my true power unleashed ahahahahah!"

**// Vent //**

**"I never thought that removing half of the pump from the washing machine would have made it doubled power!" Lester hyperventilated for the shock. "It was so simple? I hate to say it! I hate to admit it! I But...aaaanf...sometime the best solution can be platitudinous as well! AAAANF...anf....anf....I didn't say it, I was never here, forget everything."**

Dodged and zigzagged everything with epicness plus, until Dewott had breath for it. She ran out of oxygen right at the checkpoint corner. Porygon Z lifted up the head like a cowboy waiting for the corpse at the end of the river. Lester immediately averted this and pointed his gun at him. "Mirror duel, finally."

"You said it perfectly." Porygon Z aimed at the ceiling at the last second shooting the electric sphere. "Byte the way, your gun is empty, Lester." He was right and Lester had realized it in late. Meanwhile the electric sphere bounced like a ping pong ball from the ceiling to a stalagmite to a stalactite and ultimately to the boat. "M-Metagross!"

"Metagross's over, now there's only ME." Shot Zap Cannon a second time rickrolling the hit on the opposite side and reflected back from the lunatone blade, knocking off all of Lester's electronics in one single hit. The washing machine was dead forever, a dead trap Lester was stuck into. Dewott was paralyzed underwater. "Crap, I can't move to help."

"I collected it in my database: you're nothing without your quirks with electronics."

"Ahahah, fool! I can be quirky overall with nothing." Lester had lost mobility and likely the challenge but not an ounce of pride, insanity, or both.

"Then prove it."

"Like immediately! Just give me one second...two second..three...actually 5 I think." Lester's mind was blowing down. "Thinkthinkthinkthinkythink! Thinky pie!"

"And what does that even mean? Byte the way, Hyper Ray." Porygon Z locked aim when they were actually drifting already into the next part, aiming straight for Lester this time.

"Gnnn...I have to recur to this...gnnn...open, open, open!" the small poltergeist pushed the dryer open right then and did a simple platitudinous deflection...against the main prismatic pillar that split the huge energy received in multiple rays. Those not only killed off the majority of the Wishcash underwater but also wiplashed on the caster.

"CRITICAL ERROR 220-!"

"Learn from the true and only master of quirky solutions: even the most platitudinous of mine are actually crazy!" That was more a reflection than anything. "Uhh...whaaat?"

Porygon Z went this way out. "Venturers are also to their last chance." Not the best outcome for Dewott's scheme.

"Now I have to assure that two enemies don't lose. Curse! Will this Paralysis piss out already? Almost. Okay." She broke free. Then just there just now one of the surviving Wishcash appeared under the boat. "Not you too, return wherever you came from-" The washing machine suddenly dropped onto the head of the catfish knocking it down to the bottom. "Take this and wash those muddy whiskers of yours! Another platitudinous way to solve it, oops. Argh, abort me right now!" Dewott didn't have to do anything for once.

But she had to speed up that dumb challenge if she wanted Lester to reach Chimecho. "Aqua Jet!"

"Wwooww, didn't see the stream this powerful! Checkp-oint no." Lester would have but couldn't, so the boat raced directly on the third obstacle. "Doing poses is actually simple and platitudinous from me, so, ehm, onto it full speed I guess?" Dewott accelerated the swim barely leaving Rotom the timing to do the thumbnail holes.

"That isn't possible." Lucario stomped on the ground seeing that Lester was already close to Chimecho at this insane pace. "Where is Dewott, penguin?"

"I already told you to don't address me this manner, and I dare you hit a woman under Chimecho's visual." The Pride Pokémon showed unexpected guts in her reply. "You would not want to break her peaceful heart, AGAIN, with your brutality, don't you?" Lucario's frustration raised and he simply gave up on that altercation. "*Chimecho is the only thing important now. Not else. Focus on her aura, stupid dog you are.*"

"*Focus on an happy place: a graveyard full of bones...and **flowers**. Flowers...that are actually dandelions and chrysanthems **blossoming**...their petals out their body.* *There's a **crowd crying out loud**...their sorrow...so as my sorrow of being stuck in dainty clothes again what the hell am I doing with my afterlife!*"

"Contestant number 4 is...Aghostina!" the announcement of Chandelure's entrance was acquainted by the terrifying noises of cheers. Chandelure had shivers all over her body while approaching outside and feeding herself to the audience, unti she puked on the palk! "A little tiny teeny wince of stage fear, I guess. Let's clap her for encouragement!"

"No, you make this worse in this way...bll..." Pikachu Charme was giggling from the backstage. She should have never allowed an hopeless participant like that but every contest needs a tone of fun afterall, and she was right: she and the audience were having the time of their life. "*I'm not gonna make it alive... I'm so masochistic to be here for someone else. Guess nothing changed from life to afterlife*." The shrug was the only mechanism she knew to calm down, and it worked, at least stopped her from puking her soul at a whole. She was once told by Drifblim and Plusle that Hoenn Contests were a matter of nerves, and unnerving people was something she could cope with.

"Alright, forget it, that's not my style of grace." Chandelure burned down all her clothes turning them black and charred, and waved her body fluttering pieces of ash in the air. "I incinerated the concept of Grace."

Pikachu rubbed her graceful big eyes several times seeing the heart votes being filled over and over. Chandelure ended opening the small sunscreen umbrella under a rain of ash and cinders. "Route 113 style: a slow falling snow of ash covering white bones under a perennial bury."

Maybe was the color black, maybe was the morbid metaphore, but Aghostina assured to unnerve every other contestant for the rest of the contest, and the victory of the Normal Grace ribbon as well.

"Oh, it worked." Aghostina blink blinked losing herself reflected on the bronze plate of her first ribbon ever. "Thanks to your encouragement." Smirked sarcastically at the precious Pikachu which returned with an intense glare. "I'll immediately subscribe to the next stage."

...

"It's over, you can develop. There's no more toxic wastes at the horizon." the more Bagon and Drifblim proceeded among the underground river, they slowly developed a general sensation of peace and quiet. "Best part of this whole adventure is that we don't even have a single clue about the true destination, just cruisin' through it."

"We're on a cruise, then?" Drifblim stretched her plastic body, deflating a little. "Ah... My old bones needed a little of rest like this, pity sun never gets here even if you bring a mass of Solrock."

"Ahahah! True, and nonsense actually." Bagon took on the goggles. "In a way. Urgh, what's all this light all of sudden? The exit?"

"As much I remember, that is called Solrock, not Exit."

"Holy Kyogre." Bagon squinted eyes and jaw dropped: a nest of Solrock attached together formed a giant sun on the ceiling, actually creepy and suspicious looking, that made the water boil.

"A rare Mega Solrooock! I didn't remember this pokémon."

"Husssh." Bagon picked both the rows again and paddled slowly, overheating his fingers immediately. "Auch. They're incandescent already I can barely keep the grip. There's so much steam, too, anf, puff. Don't you suffer?" The hot air balloon shrugged in confusion. "You're trully one of a kind, Salamence..."

"And let me show you much even." Drifblim's body had enflated twice the size because of the steam absorbed. Grabbed the sides of the boat like an hot air balloon and carried everything and Bagon above the water. "Come with me, son, and I'll show you the true color of the sun!"

"Yuhuuuh! Wait, wait, getting too close to that sun thingy, Salamence, braaake!"

"How are you supposed to fly one day if you fear the very first thing you should aim at?"

It was then that Solrock turned their thousands of eyes on what was happening behind them. "Oh damn, spotted." They casted a single ray of light all together with the power of a million of solar panels that pierced through Drifblim's body, which wheezed away out of control deflating too quickly. A waterfall was waiting in front of them for the impact-

"Hold on, Salamence, I will not let you crash, I...I will fly you to safety, like, this!" The old knack for contraptions kicked back in time for Bagon to assemble a Leonard Flying Machine using what was left of the boat using the two oars as the helms. "Please, work, work, it works!" The boat whipped the surface of the water and took off in the air again before it was too late, rising up the waterfall. "I did it, we did it! Right? Salamence...?" Bagon checked on the senseless companion, she seemed alive and actually opened her eyes!

"Uh, Salamence who? I am Drifblim, Bagon." Both twitched eyes at each others for a long second. "Drifblim?"

Bagon let the grip on the helms in utter confusion, something was...wrong in the story. This proved to be fatal as he lost control of the boat. "I distracted. We're definitely crashlanding if we don't oar immediately!"

"Okay, but sometimes I would like to get less traumatic means of gaining back my memory..."

They both maneuvred desperately the oars to put the boat back on its position before the land, and they did it dashing and skidding against the rapids, rapids that were carrying Chimecho and Rotom to the 4th checkpoint.

"These auras..." Chimecho averted them. "Bagon!" They soon found out to come from opposite directions.

"Ahhh! Who are you?!"

Chimecho attempted a dodge but was pushed by Lester incoming from behind and the crash was inevitable: Dewott ricocheted in the air but that happened too fast to be seen, while Chimecho and Bagon bumped hardly and fell in the water. The echo of the impact reached everyone else.

"What happened?!? There was an accident near the second to last checkpoint."

This news rampaged on Anorith's will to win. "I have OARS in my body." He swam with all eight wings with oars attached on, steamrolling on every obstacle in his way: Lunatone, Wiscash, whatever. It only mattered to get to the rivals at this point before they could restart the course.

By the way, Lester was incredibly still alive. "Was that Drifblim by the way?! She's back! Oh thank you, I was dying out here alone."

**// Vent //**

**"Nah, not really, as I said I could win this solo, I'm also utterly totally proving it." Lester was visibly lying. "By the way I don't mind to have at least one more member to count on in this situation, one fucking member so I don't have to fuse my braincells. Ahahahah!"**

"Waterfall is not a big deal but reconsidering my words...I'm going to fuse down there!" His boat splashed in the hot boiling water after the jump. "This is insane, and trust it: word of an expert."

"Where is Chimecho's aura?" Lucario was the most worried of the team, but before he or Ninjask could do anything, Piplup had taken seat at the boat, and started already. "No, I should have, not you!"

"*Chimecho has finally fallen.* *I'm playing face up cards. So risky for my reputation but Dewott has gone too far that we can't go back anymore at this point.*" Piplup said to herself while posing to struggle with the oars. Lucario had seen enough and used Aura Sphere on her! Even Victini was confused at this point. "What's going on? This is anarchy, Ninjask! Never seen that coming under your leadership."

"I don't care, I'm going next to save Chimecho and just that. Then I'll think about the moonstones."

Ninjask didn't say or do anything to stop him.

...

Chandelure had been through all the three steps to hell to be there. The Master Grace tournament began while she was in the changing room.

"Good luck, rookie, you're entering in the lion cave. Oh, and, by the height of my influence I made a new rule that forces everyone to dress the same outfit to make things perfectly equals in the final and most important rank. I chose which outfit, too. LOOK!"

That annoying Pikachu was the first to enter the competition, all dressed in crystal white clothes. Aghostina felt it creepy, and quickly lost all of her certainties seeing that every contestant was dressing that way.

"I'm going against myself again, for what? A guy that barely knows me? No way, this makes no sense. I can't deny myself this way anymore, this whiteness has to burn down." She turned her wisps on the backstage burning everything, and roasted Pikachu from behind with the flames. Then launched a scream from the past: "I MUST BURN ALL THESE DAINTY WHITE FIGURES OF PERFECTION!"

"Eeeek!"

Then Chandelure opened fire on the audience while crying wax tears of flashbacks. "I must...anf I must...anf I MUST!!!"

"You must calm down and light off." One of the other contestants leaped on the stage, challenging the danger. It was the local champion.

"Burn you too then!" Chandelure turned her Flamethrower into the move Inferno generating a hurricane of flames. The pokèmon despite being dressed in a long skirt flipped perfectly to dodge the flames barely scorching her clothes. She then dashed straight in the hurricane and somersaulted over the chandelier that was unprepared for a direct attack: who would have been this crazy to launch themselves into the fire like that? Chandelure was then caught in the grip of the enemy, and pinned down by her hug.

"Sniff, Plusle?"

"It's all fine now, Lampent." The fire extinguishing system was then activated. Plusle continued to hug Chandelure tightly. "I missed you."

"I missed you way more, I missed your positivity, I need it again!" Chandelure outbursted in tears eventually, letting out all her exasperation accumulated during the day while the building was being evacuated in a rain of ashes.

...

With Jigglers surprisingly cutting themselves out of the competition, Anorith looted from the Jiggler abandoned boat and jumped off the waterfall as well. "I'm coming for the win!"

"Oh, please, how many times you pulled this sheet before?" Lester smugged.

"Not enough to give up already." Anorith tossed one oar as a spear against the Leviathan. "Ah, what do you think of my aim now?"

"Eh...it improved."

"Fish eyes, I don't forget what you said." Anorith tossed another one but hit the Solrock formation this time.

"Yup, nevermind. Fish eyes again."

"The boat drifted while I aimed, it doesn't count!"

"And you just activated the fourth and likely most dangerous obstacle: the Solrock grid!" Victini announced LOUDLY.

The swarm of sunpowered rocks casted beams of light in every direction, on the ceiling and in the water. A gridlock of energy obstructed the path and made the water literally burning.

"Fossil me! Fff...fff..fff." Anorith found his eight feathers in cinder soon he took them off the water.

"The floor is lava, the ceiling is lava, the water is lavahahahahah!" Lester lost any rhyme or reason instead.

Yet the worst part had to come in evidence for them. The gridlock changed pattern continuosly with every recharge.

"So. Quirky solution? Platitudinous solution. Quirky solution, platitudinous solution, quirky, platitudinous, quirky, platy, quirky, platy...AAARGH!" Lester put on the solar stain resistant that he used as washing machine.

**// Vent //**

**"Of course I emptied the washing machine before tossing it in the water! It's the first rule to always keep the dryer clean u.u"**

This simple idea worked as crazy as it seems. His sunscreen cover deflected the sunlight. He went past. "Ah...eh...what? I'm seriously scared of my own stunts sometimes!"

"This is unrealistic, there must be executive meddling of sort!" Anorith's frustration annhilated his sanity and he did the same passing under the sun rays. *"They're actually psychic illusion, they're Psychic and not Fire type afterall. That's how Lester made it. . ."*

"Shut up! I knew it already, Beheeyem!"

"Then, what are you waiting for, my primal cortex friend? Go."

Thus Anorith managed it and followed Lester to the last trait.

"Last part is gonna be a wasteland! Literally." Victini giggled in excitement for torturing two of his least favorite contestants all this long. Instead Lester and Anorith arrived both at the finish line in an underwhelming outcome. "HOVV?!"

"There were toxic barrels scattered around but..."

"...they were all exploded already."

Victini checked on personally, and he could only confirm their version. "This was not supposed to happen but this has already lasted too long. Let's see who the winner is."

Anorith and Lester emptied their respective boats of the moon stones. There were no doubts. "Anorith has collected more moonstones at the end!"

"For real? Finally a satisfaction: in your face, Lester, Seviper, Beheeyem, Porygon Z, Ninjask, Victini, everyone! Fish eyes here has just won it solo against any odds. How do you feel now? See me as the new menace? You should!" Anorith celebrated the joy of the moment rubbing his ego in front of everyone, especially the host. That was the best reward of all and-

"Ohh, moon stones? I collected so many in my bag today!" Drifblim came by boat to the finish line soon after. "Here."

Anorith returned to be a fossil spontaneously. "Oh, this may turn the tables. Considering that you actually faced the course on your own, Drifblim, your contribute is valid. With this supply of moonstones, I declare Leviathans the final winners of this episode!"

"Meh, as it changes anything coming first or second in this game." Beheeyem shrugged while Anorith was being carried to the nearby museum for being revived again.

"Drifblim, let me glomp you!" Lester squeezed her crying out of joy. It had been a very stressing day for him. While being glomped, Drifblim mentally rewinded all the things happened. *Then again, who was Salamence and why she reincarnated as him that whole day...?*

## Aftermath

"Chimechooo. Chimechooo! This should be the point where I saw her aura for the last time, that's the boat." Lucario dove underwater in search of her. There was a secret cave on the bottom of that waterfall. He merged on the opposite side finding all the three. Chimecho and Dewott were taking care of the fainted dragon, that murmured unreachable words.

"Chimecho!"

"Lucario!"

"What are you doing with him here?" Lucario felt a terrible sensation of jealousy but restrained it.

"Bagon suffered a post traumatic experience and I'm trying my best to do some healing. Dewott saved both of us when we fainted underwater, but he didn't recover yet."

"I have a cure for this kind of trauma." Lucario punched the dragon fair and square to the opposite wall.

"Gasp! You bastard."

"Pfui, watch better." Bagon touched first the cheek and then his head in pain feeling like brainwashed by a Rotom Wash itself. "Ouch, what happened? I'm so painful right now."

"Bagon! How do you feel?"

"Confused inside and destroyed outside. My mind is a mess." Bagon picked a frozen stalactice and put it on the heavy front. "First Drifblim flew me away, then we have fallen I guess... In this cave with a waterfall hiding a secret passage, like this, and another dragon was there. I lost Drifblim likely falling asleep but I remember *I did things with this dragon...during my dream. I flew over a waterfall...I flew dodging a series of chain reaction explosions...heck the dream went so far I flew with Salamence to the sun! It was everything for me. It was..."* Bagon stopped. Like his heart had a sudden brake. "*Family."*

He left the cave immediately diving back and kept swimming backward his memory lane. That wasn't just a dream, it was too realistic to not ask for answers. Young Bagon was used to make lot of questions that remained unanswered. "That last flight of us to the stars actually happened...here?" Glanced at the ceiling, shining of gem crusts like a star valley, and the huge Solrocks assembled as Sun. Proceeded backward the toxic point with anxiety increasing. "*Dodge the lightnings, child, dodge! Stay focus: it's crucial to look how many clouds are spotting around when you fly.*" The fumes of toxic waste clouded the sight like a sky approaching to a thunderstorm. Continued arriving at the verge of the first waterfall crossed with Drifblim before, but doing it from top to the bottom felt completely another experience. "*Just keep swimming in the air, that's the secret. You can't fly if you don't swim before."* now those phrases assumed the proper perception.

"My first and only flight. . ." Bagon fell down the rumbling mass of water. "Cough, cough, splut! It all happened here, and I understand it only nowadays: all I believed was a lie of **you**!" Rushed to the giant skeleton of his myth. "Salamence, grandpa... Why?" The small dragon begged on his knees and held firmly hand to hand his relate, recognizing the same hands that had nurtured him from the egg despite being calcified after all this time. "We never left Meteor Cave a single time. There's no sky, there's no sun, there was no flight at all. WE NEVER FLIED TOGETHER!"

Bagon took of his goggles for the last time with trembling fingers. "All you did was filling my head of illusions? I lived always a lie."

"I don't feel Salamence lied to you." Chimecho had followed him by the aura, teleporting behind him. "He wanted-

"Shut up! My dream has fallen to reality like a meteor. What's to feel more? I was lied by the same pokémon that made me grew on this dream!" Bagon tossed the goggles violently on the ground breaking them apart. "Anf...sniff...all I did was in the name of a lie that's why I never flied. Anf...I broke the very first object that tainted my memory forever." Picked them up again, in shardlings. A scroll rolled on his finger.

"*Dear Bagon,*

*If you're reading this, it means you finally discovered the truth about your evolution, and moreover about me.*

*I was never born to fly. I had this dream since I was a Bagon like you, but I suffered a disease that I discovered only when I finally evolved in Salamence: my wings hadn't grown any bones. They were empty, an aestethic. I couldn't fly at all, spending most of my life in this cave, and I learned to swim, and kept swimming giving up on my dream until you came. I met this little egg abandoned behind the waterfall - in case you wonder, I never had the chance to know your parents- and for a reason when you finally hatched I...felt...reborn again.*

*My dream was having a second birth in you. It was egotistic at the beginning, but then I understood that this was your dream and not mine, and I didn't want it could get shattered like mine. I did everything to not prevent you from your dream: the first time you asked me how to fly, I knew that I would have done the impossible trying to be your teacher without having flied at all. All you asked me about the sky in your fantasy, I promptly replied it. Heck I even crunched many Solrock together for that sun! But I could never reply a true flight at the end. You were too young to understand that we were only swimming among a rapid, leaping back and forward of waterfalls, in a cloud of illusions. And you were too young to see my true condition degenerating day after day.*

*Forgive me for my lies. I lied to you when I gave you my goggles after all the time you watched at them with awe and glossy eyes, putting this frame of eternal illusion on you. I knew my death was coming that same day, and that was, well, a gift for myself: I didn't want to leave you utterly alone, I wanted that at least a piece of me would have always be on your side, to live the same dream together one day.*

*But I was wrong again because that is only your dream, child, and I don't have anything to do with it. You will finally realize it without the goggles of this old skeleton of Salamence covering your eyes. You're finally ready to evolve.*

*Then grow wour wings, unlike me, and fly, son, fly high, and maybe we'll meet again in the above of the sky.*

*With love, Grandpa."*

Bagon stared at the words he had just read. Chimecho decided to leave him alone. He climbed over Salamence, the giant wings had been completely dissolved in over 20 years under the erosive force of the water, embraced him, and hanged the remnants of the goggles around the neck of the skeleton, gently putting them over the orb cavities that once were the tired eyes of an old dreamer.

Then, left Meteor Cave behind himself for the last time.

However, the aftermath of the episode wasn't only on the shoulders of the Jigglers. Victini had to take an important decision before the nominations.

"How's Minun? I understand." The phone gave him only bad news. Victini , reunited the Leviathans at the Fallarbor City Pokémon Center, struggled to put up the words. "I know you won but victory sometimes is sweet, sometimes can be sour and this is the case: I have to call Minun and Chandelure out of the game."

"Ah." Lester felt like he had just been maimed under his own lawn mower after having been burned in his oven, frozen in his fridge, and whirpooled in the spin dryer of his washing machine by this information. "Are you sure about this decision?! Aghostina doesn't deserve this, neither ehm Minun afterall! I will provide all the reasons right here right now, let me change properly to Rotom Fridge..."

"There's nothing you can do, Lester, no clause this time." Victini was dry. "It's rules I can't skip on, if you are unable to stay in the game for an entire episode you're out, even if it's my daughter I have to."

"But Chandelure is gone for only 23 hours and 51 minutes! The episode is not finished yet."

"So what, Lester? You think I can wish for Aghostina to be miraculously here in time?" the host shouted his own impotence on the events. "Jirachi, maybe, could, I can't for sure."

"We're here to differ!" Like the wish was listened, Chandelure appeared out of nowhere, and it was Plusle who had just talked.

"Where's my brother?" Plusle skipped on the reunion time and directed to the room where Minun was being hospitalized. "Let me enter!" Minun had been locked from the outside for the safety of the other degents, since his body was deflagrating electricity on everything. Nothing that three ghosts couldn't handle.

"Trick or Treat?" Chandelure purposed. "Halloween!" agreed the other two. The 3 held hands forming a triangle around Plusle adding Ghost to her type. (n.d.r.: this move is normally learned only by the Pumpkaboo family, but the anime once shown that every ghost can actually ghostify people alive...)

Plusle crossed the door like a ghost, appearing in front of the febricitant Minun like an angel. "Pl-pl---sle...?"

"I'm here, brother, don't worry. I will never abandon you in need." Rubbed her cheeks on his burning ones, sharing positive and negative charges. Smiled. "It's not the first time you get an electric fever, remember?"

"A-alright...ah...hsss...brrr...But this time is way worse, watch out!" zapped a powerful bolt but Plusle tanked it refusing to let him. "Sister...I'm sorry...I'm sorry for this...I'm sorry for your elimination! I should have never trusted Metagross..."

"Sssh. I don't care of your mistakes, I'm your sister and you are everything that matters to me. Just this." stroked the tail of the brother gently with hers. Then prepared the tail like a needle. "This will hurt a tiny teeny little, but I'll drain all the negative energy with my cathods. Hold on, Minun!" Inserted inside him discharging all the electricity away.

"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah!"

"Uuuuh! I have to update my Rotodex database. This is the first time I see that Plusle's tail used actually as a needle."

**// Vent //**

**Plusle explained it even better: "The tail is actually the mechanism we use to copulate, and it's the fastest way to transfer and switch electricity. Nothing I won't do for my brother's benefit!"**

"How do you feel now?"

Minun first gibbered something under shock, then glomped her. "I missed you so much! I feel still weak, though." Let the grip immediately with an heavy look on the face. "Sigh. So, what now? I feel utterly drained of my energy."

Everyone turned then at Victini. The host shook the head partially confirming on his decision. "I confirm my previous decision, but Chandelure is reintegrated in the game for having returned, don't know how, within the rules."

Chandelure sighed in disappointment. "No, no, thanks, Chandelure, for having brought my sister to cure me. I really appreciate!"

"I finally found a fridge, ew, it's an organ refrigerator but nevermind. Ahem!" Lester called up the attention on his law-sona. "Victini, ipse dixit you said that if a pokémon stays out of the game for 24h is automatically eliminated but also you reintegrated Chandelure for having returned before the 24th hour, correct?"

"I just did it, so, yes, Lester."

"Well, Chandelure has not returned alone. Plusle, who was unfairly eliminated from the competition I remember because of that Ditto you hate so much, returned at contemporary with her. Therefore, how about switching her in to replace the ill brother and reintegrate JUSTICE at full, too? It wouldn't affect the game balance, but it certainly would improve the rather low morale balance! And you can't penalize the victorious team, by the rules you written, read carefully between the lines next time."

Silence. The host shrugged, looked at Chandelure...Minun...and Plusle all pending on him. "You have a point. If Minun is fine."

"Y-Yes, yes..." Minun was still febbricitant but an happy blimp was in his eyes...and in the eyes of Chandelure, Drifblim.

"VVelcome back Plusle in Victini Victory Tour!"

Chandelure, Drifblim and Plusle gangbanged on Lester immediately after, celebrating their lawyer with the old motto: "Lester Latias Leviathans, wooh!"

"By the way it's best to not shake me too much since I'm carrying on, ehm, living organs." Everyone laughed. Then, Minun waved his companions for the last time. "Have care of yourself, Leviathans, and especially you, Lester, keep an eye on my sister and the other two in my absence!"

"I will, ah! \*EPIC POSE\*"

Chandelure then glanced at Victini with a sweet smile: "Thanks, daddy."

Victini smiled outside but was not doing the same inside. If only they would have known their happiness was useless... But he had still an official elimination in the agenda, and had to go for it.

## Ceremony

/**/ Nominations //**

**"Obviously Lucario." Piplup signed up her vote. "It surprises me it took this long to rid off such an element. Then will come Ninjask's turn, trust me."**

**"Piplup." Ninjask had no hesitation.**

**Lucario looked at his last wish ticket intensely. Then voted without using it again. "Bah..."**

**Chimecho entered in the vent. "I made a vow when I eliminated Squirtle, that I would have voted you if we lost again." She picked up Lucario's stamp, giving it a soft kiss, then put it down and signed on a different stamp. "I'm sorry."**

"Dewott, Dewott!" Dewott was about to get inside when Bagon reached her. "What's up? I have yet to do my vote, cannot wait your turn?"

"Oh, it's not for the nomination. Actually, I want to put something off my chest now. Salamence was a liar for the good, but I don't want to be the same."

"Jeez, okay, if you can't wait, I'm listening." Dewott sighed with a smile. "Afterall, you listened to my blowoffs everytime, and I can see why you need it so much after all you went through today. Speak, I'm all ears."

"I was the third vote."

"What?"

"I voted off Squirtle."

Dewott stared at him. Backed off a few. "What's going on? This kind of joke is nothing I ever expected from you...C'mon, be serious!"

But he was serious. Bagon took off her sunglasses, so she could see the truth straight in his eyes. "I voted him out of frustration. I couldn't take it anymore. Too many pokémon had evolved around me, inside or outside, while I was always the same. You had also evolved, and I was afraid I would have soon been the only one left. I didn't want that Squirtle could evolve before me, as much I loved him as a brother, you should know better than me how hard it feels to be the inferior sibling and still smiling."

"B-Bagon! I trusted you as a brother, and this..this..." Dewott cried. "This is unfair!" Bagon attempted to hug her.

"I felt so guilty when he was eliminated, it was then I realized to have been blinded by my own dreams. Dreams that I discovered today to have been always fallen like meteor showers." Sighed deeply. "I'm sorry."

"I don't want to see your face anymore!" Dewott closed eyes when she got invested by a shining light. Shelgon was now in front of her.

"Your wish has just been realized." His face was deep hidden in the shadow of the shell. "Grandpa was right: I evolved today."

**// Nominations//**

**Dewott escaped in the vent soon after. Her heart was racing under the scallop. In front of her, the picture of Bagon, Chimecho and Lucario. "Sniff, I should have never evolved. With evolution also evolved my p-problems. I hate evolution! Shelgon!"**

As Shelgon returned from the vent, Victini, a little shocked, started to count the votes.

"Oh my... What happened?" Piplup turned at Dewott that was, well, messed up again. "And what happened to you as well?!" Dewott was too upset to consider her friend. "Oh, dear, dear. It is always so hard to understand young generations and their volatile emotions." Chimecho seemed also upset, clinging to Lucario's arm with her bandaged tail the strongest possible.

"Eh...Chimecho? You will hurt yourself this way."

"Chimecho! You are the first to get the macarone." Victini announced repentinously. "Ninjask and last...Dewott! This settles the bottom three: Piplup, Shelgon, Lucario."

Piplup was pretty confident even after having received the poké ball. "Come on, darling, speed up this torture: pronounce the name with your most solemn voice."

"Okay, Piplup, since you asked. The Voltorb of Victimization goes to

3

2

1

BOOM!"

"Cough, cough, cough." she fanned all the smoke from the feathers. "Not again my blue precious! Would you stop using this system once for all if you can't control the range of the explosion at all?! Gaaasp." Lucario was fine on his seat, Chimecho had protected him from the explosion activating her shield. Piplup turned to the other side looking in utter shock at.

"...Shelgon! It is unbelievable, but Piplup and Lucario live again for another day."

"What, what, what went wrong? My plan was perfect!"

"Every plan can change in this reality." Dewott spoke in a grave tone. "Mine keep changing in particularly..."

"What do you mean?" Piplup was pale despite being covered in ash.

"She discovered that I was the one that voted Squirtle that night. I told her before she voted and I voted myself." Shelgon spoke in her place. "That was the only way I could repair my mistake. At least, the only one I could do. I'm sorry, Master Ninjask, I failed you. I was never born to fly, I only flied all this time with my mind and this way I lost the target." The dragon apologized attempting a bow but failed because of his newfound round shape. "I'm sorry with all of you, Jigglers, but overall, with you, Dewott."

"Why? I voted you, you know? Why you would apologize now?!" Dewott sobbed in despair "I have just eliminated you and not Lucario after all I did for it! I hate myself." Shelgon rolled towards her and hugged her the best he could in his conditions. "I hate myself, too. I hate what I've become. I had to go anyway since my dream was based on a lie. But you, Dewott, you have been always stayed true to yourself, you have nothing to blame."

"Sniff..." Dewott struggled inside but returned the hug.

"Say Squirtle I'm sorry when you'll see him again. Farewell." Then let himself fell down in the meteor shower like a shooting star. Or a meteorfallen dream if you prefer.

"Well, Jirachi Jigglers, it looks like you already did the merge." Victini closed the ceremony on a complete different note. Each Jiggler looked one to another with different emotions ranging from anxiety to diffidence to regret.

## Epilogue

Shelgon's fall ended in a lake of hot water, water that was no more at its place after that crashland. As consequence, Castform found herself launched on the roof, while being undressed of her cloud. Followed her priceless reaction.

"Gaaasp! For the cock of Groudon. Not agaaaaiiiiin!"

Squirtle was also on the roof, undressed of his shell for a lil' bit of moontanning. Took off the sunshades then to take a look at the meteor shower and recognized his friend immediately. "Duuuuuuuuuuude!"