The Dragonite clan's territory dwarfed every other habitat on the inner island. Even the Salamence population, fellow pseudo-legendaries, held less than half the ground.
Ash had a reason for saving this place for last, beyond the God level presence. In another part of Kanto, an ancient Dragonite of impossible size was waiting for him. He'd made a promise: return within six months, battle it, and help restore it to a normal form so it could live in the modern world.
That promise was as good as kept. With Mewtwo on the team, the logistics were trivial. But Ash still intended for Gardevoir to fight that battle. It had been decided, and if Gardevoir won, the ancient Dragonite would join his team.
With that addition all but certain, coming to the Dragonite clan for another Dragonite felt redundant. Yet here he was. Because nothing else on the island had given him what he was looking for.
The Dragonites noticed him the moment he crossed into their territory. Dozens of eyes turned his way. No hostility, just gentle curiosity.
That was the Dragonite line's defining trait, from Dratini through every stage: gentleness. Unless their Outrage was triggered, they ranked among the most peaceful species in the world. Only the Goodra family from Kalos matched them in sheer warmth.
Ash smiled and waved. Pikachu, perched on his shoulder, did the same. The Dragonites smiled back. Deep within the territory, the God level presence remained still. Either it had given tacit permission, or Lance had sent word ahead. Either way, no alarm was raised.
Ash began to browse.
The talent pool was impressive. The strongest Dragonite he assessed carried one S-rank stat and five A's. Exceptional by any standard, and likely the best on the entire island outside the God level. Lance's own Dragonite had double S-rank, so this wasn't far behind.
None of them sparked anything in Ash's chest.
He moved deeper. Past the Dragonite adults, into the areas where Dragonair and Dratini gathered. The younger stages outnumbered the evolved forms by a wide margin.
The Dragonair habitat stopped him in his tracks.
A group of them, fifteen or twenty, were rising into the sky in unison. Their bodies glowed with a deep sapphire light, sinuous forms weaving through the air like living currents of wind. Pseudo-legendaries were rare enough as individuals. Seeing them fly together in a formation, each one trailing that ethereal radiance, was something else entirely.
But one Dragonair wasn't flying.
She sat at the edge of the group's launch point, watching the others ascend. Her eyes tracked them across the sky with an expression Ash recognised: longing so deep it ached.
"Can't she fly?" Ash murmured.
He focused, and her data surfaced in his mind.
Dragonair. Female. Dragon-type.
Ability: Marvel Scale
Stats: Attack A (potential S)
Special Attack B (potential A)
Defence B (potential A)
Special Defence C (potential A)
HP C (potential A)
Speed A (potential S)
Double S potential and four A's. The strongest talent Ash had seen on Dragon Island.
And she couldn't fly.
"Woo-oh~~" One of the Dragonites near Ash let out a cry. Ash was stunned for a moment, then turned to the Dragonite and asked.
"She hasn't been able to fly since she evolved? And even here on Dragon Island, her growth has been unusually slow?"
The Dragonite froze. Then it looked at Ash with wide, startled eyes. The others nearby had the same reaction.
They'd seen humans who could understand Pokémon speech before. The Dragon Tamer Clan possessed Dragon Taming Power, an inherited ability that strengthened Dragon-types and allowed communication with them. But that was clan-specific, limited to Dragon-types, and genetic.
Ash wasn't Dragon Tamer Clan. He was an outsider. And he'd understood them like it was nothing.
Since he could listen, they talked.
The Dragonair had come from the outer island. Pseudo-legendaries did exist on the perimeter, but their talent tended to be lower. In the Pokémon world, class distinctions were blunt. Talent was measured by two things: how fast you evolved and how fast your strength grew. Nothing else.
Compared to the nuanced assessments humans used, the Pokémon standard was crude. Simple. And prone to misjudgement.
This Dragonair was one of those misjudgements.
On the outer island, this Dratini had evolved into Dragonair at a pace that outstripped nearly every peer in its generation. Without a trainer, without structured coaching, it had grown fast enough to earn a transfer to the inner island. The expectation was clear: denser Dragon-type energy, stronger competition, faster growth.
The opposite had happened. Since arriving in the interior, Dragonair's progress had crawled. And she couldn't fly.
For a Dratini, that was normal. For a Dragonair, it was a problem. Dragonair didn't fly with wings. They manipulated weather currents, riding the wind through sheer elemental control.
The most talented among them could enlarge the fin-like wings on their heads and achieve true powered flight, but that required exceptional ability. A Dragonair who couldn't even ride the wind had no chance of that.
The conclusion the clan had drawn was simple: early bloomer, late plateau. Fast growth as a Dratini, diminishing returns as a Dragonair. Talent that burned bright and burned out.
The Dragonite clan was gentle by nature. They hadn't driven her away. A Salamence pack would have. But tolerance wasn't the same as belonging, and Dragonair felt the gap between herself and her peers like a wound that wouldn't close.
She'd trained. She'd pushed. She'd done everything she could to at least get off the ground. Nothing worked.
Ash studied her from across the clearing and felt the familiar tug.
Her stats told one story. Double S potential, four A's. The strongest raw talent he'd found on Dragon Island. On par with Lance's ace Dragonite. By every measurable standard, this Pokémon should have been thriving.
Reality told a different story.
He'd seen this before. He'd seen it with Pikachu, overlooked at the lab. With Charmander, abandoned in the rain. With Bulbasaur and Squirtle, discarded by trainers who couldn't see past the surface. With Chimchar, thrown away by Paul because its potential wouldn't unlock on command.
Every time, the same pattern. A Pokémon with extraordinary hidden talent, failed by a system that measured the wrong things.
And every time, Ash had been the one to see what others missed.
"I'll make her fly." He said it to the Dragonites, one hand tapping his shoulder, voice carrying the same easy confidence he brought to everything. Then he started walking toward the grounded Dragonair.
On the other side of Dragon Island, Paul and Gary stood shoulder to shoulder in front of the entrance to the inner zone.
The gatekeeper was a Salamence. Early Elite Four level. Battle-scarred, territorial, and thoroughly uninterested in letting anyone pass.
The rules were blunt. Defeat the gatekeeper, enter the interior. Each trainer could field one Pokémon at a time. If that Pokémon went down, the test was over. No second attempts.
With an Elite Four pseudo-legendary standing guard, the barrier was designed to be impassable for anyone below a certain threshold. In most Conference years, no one from the Top 4 would have gotten through.
This year was different, but not by much. Paul's Torterra had fought through a full day of exploration and wasn't at peak condition. A clean solo win against an Elite-tier Salamence wasn't guaranteed.
Which was why Paul had done something he didn't do: cooperate.
Multiple trainers could attempt the trial together. Two Pokémon against one guardian. It wasn't elegant. It was practical. And between Gary's Mega Blastoise providing support and Torterra anchoring the offence, the math worked.
Neither of them liked the arrangement.
They had no real conflict, just competing egos that could be shelved when the goal was mutual.
"Blastoise, Hydro Pump! Cut off its air!"
Blastoise's triple cannons roared. Two pillars of pressurised water arced across the clearing and blocked the Salamence's takeoff path, forcing it back to the ground.
"Frenzy Plant."
Torterra stamped. Massive thorned vines erupted from the earth and wrapped around the Salamence's wings and limbs. Grass was quad-resisted by Salamence. The move wasn't meant to deal damage. It was meant to hold.
Salamence thrashed. Vines snapped and tore. But for two precious seconds, its wings stayed pinned.
"Ice Beam, now!" Gary seized the window.
Blastoise crouched. Ice-type energy compressed in all three barrels, building to critical density. The Salamence felt it. Felt the lethal shift in the air. It ripped through the last of the Frenzy Plant restraints and lunged skyward.
"Torterra, don't let it go!"
One more vine. Thicker than the others. It shot from the ground and locked around Salamence's hind leg just as it left the earth. The dragon jerked to a halt mid-launch, airborne for a fraction of a second, momentum killed.
Three beams of ice-blue light erupted from Blastoise's cannons.
"Hit it, Blastoise!"
Boom!!