Ash, Brock, May, and Max had been walking for a few days again, since their next destination was Lilycove City, and this city was probably the biggest one, at least in terms of Contests.

Lilycove was the town best known for its Contests, and it was also the biggest, second only to the Hoenn Grand Festival, so yeah, pretty big deal, Also, that meant May was more than a little nervous, especially after the way the last Contest turned out.

May did also ask Ash and Brock for help training, so she got that extra practice, but that didn’t stop her from feeling nervous, It’s just that now she was a lot...less nervous than the last time.

But as May was lost in thought, she heard Ash’s voice, "Hey."

May blinked.

Ash had slowed his pace and walked next to her casually, "You’re doing it again."

May frowned slightly, "Doing what?"

"Getting stuck in your head," he said simply.

She hesitated, "No I’m not."

Ash gave her a sideways look, and May slightly looked away too, like she didn’t even believe her own words either.

Ash snorted softly at the look on her face, hands tucked behind his head as he kept walking beside her.

"See? You even looked away like you got caught."

"I did not," May muttered weakly.

"You did."

"I didn’t."

Max slid down beside them and pushed up his glasses, "I can confirm, you did."

"That sounded pretty defensive," Brock commented.

May puffed her cheeks a little, finally shooting him a look, and Ash grinned because that reaction alone already looked better than the anxious expression she’d had a second ago.

May crossed her arms, "You’re all annoying."

"See?" Ash said to Brock and Max like he’d just proven a point, "She’s definitely feeling better."

"I was feeling fine before!"

"Uh-huh," Max deadpanned.

"Don’t worry your bunny ears, May, you’ll do great this time, and besides, like I said, if you fail, who cares? That just means we have more time to hang out, so how about we just enjoy the journey?" Ash said easily.

May huffed, She wanted to yell at Ash again and tell him her bandana doesn’t look like bunny ears, but she sighed, lowering her shoulders slightly, "That sounds a lot easier when you say it," May muttered.

Ash shrugged, "It’s really not that hard, Just act how you did back in Slateport and Fallarbor."

"I know, but...you know, last time I messed up, so what if I just do it again?"

"Then you move on, If you spend all your time thinking about what could happen, you’ll miss out on the things that are happening now," Ash responded.

"He’s right, you know, May," Brock added, "It’s not bad to think things through, but overthinking isn’t good either."

Ash glanced at her again before grinning slightly, "Besides, you already improved."

"I have?" May blinked.

"Yep."

"How?"

"You stopped crying every five minutes."

May immediately flushed bright red, "I did not cry every five minutes!"

"Every six minutes?" Ash put a finger on his chin like he was trying to remember something.

Brock nodded thoughtfully, "That sounds more accurate."

"Ash! Brock!"

Max nearly doubled over laughing while May looked seconds away from throwing a Pokéblock container at all of them.

But then Ash laughed too, completely carefree, and somehow that made it harder for May to stay irritated.

"You guys are seriously the worst," she mumbled, though there wasn’t much heat behind it anymore.

"Mission accomplished," Ash said proudly, "Just remember, we’re right here with ya, May."

May found herself smiling at that, so with one more deep breath, she puffed out her chest and looked down the road where they could see Lilycove City off in the distance.

—

{Meanwhile with Ashtwo}

D recently got word from Taka that Meteor was mobilizing. That was good, he could start his plan soon, but not yet.

He needed to make sure that Galactic would be too busy with Meteor to even respond to any of Sird’s calls or messages, Once he did that, he would strike to capture her and probably just turn her over to Team Rocket, since he couldn’t afford to hold onto her himself, That could risk exposing him.

But that also didn’t mean he wasn’t gonna take some things.

For one, the information from Galactic, He needed that both to prove that Sird was part of Galactic and had been leaking information to them, and also because he needed it himself to see how far along Galactic was with their plans.

D really had nearly no information on Galactic right now besides what he already knew from what Anabel and Looker gave him, Speaking of which, he really should give them a call one of these days.

But as far as he could tell from the system, Looker was taking paid leave and Anabel had left to do something in Hoenn, so he couldn’t really do much, Shame, He did kind of miss annoying them, Then again, after the incident, maybe he should wait a bit for things to cool off.

Back to the first priority: Sird.

Without her being able to contact Galactic, that would let him get rid of her without Galactic getting involved, since if they found out, he could guarantee that Cyrus would send people to come and take Sird back simply because of all the valuable information she had.

Ideally, the best-case scenario would be if he could capture Sird, prove everything against her, then leak fake information to Cyrus that she betrayed Team Galactic and ran away to another region, In fact, he had already started planting those seeds.

After all, with the information he got for Taka, he used Sird’s account to access it, so if Galactic looked deeper, they would find her username behind it, Now, that alone was not enough obviously, but it was one piece of the puzzle, He still had more things to set up while he waited.

Starting with getting access to Sird’s phone, since that was where all the really valuable information was.

Sure, he could get access to her computer, but she didn’t leave anything important on it, She was not stupid enough to leave evidence somewhere so obvious.

And yes, D checked, She wasn’t connected to the Wi-Fi either, so without even a small connection, he couldn’t get Porygon to hack her phone.

But that was also the least of his concerns, because even if he could get all of that done, and even if he could get her alone for a one-on-one fight, in the best-case scenario, Sird still had one last card,

Well two technically, but the second one wasn’t important at the moment

Darkrai, Sird had a Darkrai on her at all times, and as long as she had access to that, D wasn’t sure he could beat her in a one-on-one fight, since this one specifically had the unique ability to turn things to stone, He didn’t care about this body since it was a clone, but his Pokémon weren’t, and he wasn’t gonna take any risks.

But like with most things, D had a plan, and that started with him building something.

It was theoretically possible, As for what it was, well...something to lock someone’s Poké Balls.

Now, there had only been two instances of this happening in the series, at least as far as he could remember, The one most people knew was in Scarlet and Violet, when the AI Professor locked anyone’s Poké Balls that weren’t registered under the Professor’s ID.

In that case, it wasn’t really explained too well how it worked, just that they could do it for reasons, But that’s where the second, and technically first, time this happened came in: the Deoxys movie.

There, when the power got shut off, all Poké Balls stopped working.

This implied that Poké Balls were at least somewhat controlled by electromagnetic waves, and this was much easier to replicate, Plus, he could use all the spare materials he had from the Paradox Pokémon to try and copy the way the Professors made theirs.

But no matter what he did, he knew one thing: this was something he would absolutely never give to anyone else, or even use in public.

Just look at Team Rocket, I mean sure, they were better than the other organizations that tried to destroy the world, but they were still evil, and letting them have this was something he refused to do.

But he’d get there when he finished it, since he wasn’t even close to completing the prototype, much less testing it out.

So until then, he would try to solve the problem of Sird’s phone.

To do this, he would need someone to get close to her and help him out, and he knew the perfect person to help him: Orm.

As for how to persuade him, well, he also happened to learn something interesting while he was digging.

Let’s bring up Deoxys again.

Turns out, a good while ago, when Sird, Carr, and Orm found the Deoxys, Sird and Carr lied to Orm, saying they died while secretly keeping the Deoxys for themselves.

Now, the fact that the Deoxys were being held by Sird and Carr was a whole other big can of worms, and D would need to find out where they were as soon as he could, since this was the second thing that could go wrong.

But for the time being, he could use this to get Orm to help him.

After all, Orm didn’t have any extra motivation or secret plan, He just wanted to complete his job and saw all of Team Rocket as one big family, and if he thought that someone was doing something that would hurt his family, then he definitely wouldn’t sit still.

Especially since, after the mission, D confirmed that Sird and Carr didn’t really treat Orm like a friend, so it wouldn’t be too hard to get him on his side.

With that plan in mind, D got up and put on his mask and eyepatch again to hide his face, then walked out and headed toward the cafeteria, since that was probably the best place to find Orm.

As he walked, of course he saw people giving him pitying looks and avoiding him awkwardly, but that was to be expected considering everything, Although, strangely enough, he didn’t find his squad, Nowadays they were the only ones that talked to him.

But he shrugged and kept going, eventually getting to the cafeteria, There he saw the big man he was looking for, Orm, sitting at a table playing with a new batch of baby Shuckles, Ironically enough, he also saw half of his squad consisting of Domino, Jay, Oakley, and Annie, He didn’t know where the rest of them were, but for now that wasn’t important, He needed to talk to Orm.

So, trying to be casual, he walked up and waved his hand over his head, attempting to give a happy expression, "Hey, how you doing?" he said.

But it was kind of a weird sight for everyone else, since here was the person everyone talked about for always being sad and gloomy running up to the big guy most people tried to ignore.

Even Domino, Jay, Oakley, and Annie watched him in shock as he walked past their table and up to Orm.

Orm, meanwhile, looked up and his expression brightened seeing D, "Oh hi, oh wait," he said, quickly reaching into a nearby bag and pulling out a bag of animal crackers, He held it up like a child showing off their drawing, "I just found these new flavors, Do you wanna try them with me?"

Behind them, Domino nearly choked on her drink.

Jay blinked, seeing the two people you would expect never to hang out together casually, especially since he knew D, This seemed like it came out of nowhere.

Oakley leaned slightly toward Annie, "I think we entered an alternate universe."

D, of course, could hear all sorts of muttering, but he paid it no mind, "As much as I’d like to, I can’t since, you know," he said, pointing down to his mask, "But I wanted to talk to you about something."

"Sure," Orm said, not even questioning anything, Ever since the last mission they went on, he immediately saw D as a good person, so he liked D.

"Um...can we talk somewhere else?" D said, noticing Orm wasn’t standing up.

Orm blinked, "Oh right." He stood up and looked at all the Shuckles before quickly handing D one, "Hold this for a bit."

D accepted the Shuckle while Orm put all the babies into the bag so they could sleep, All of this was watched by everyone in the cafeteria, and everyone stared in stunned silence, When Orm was done, he picked up the bag and took the Shuckle back from D, placing it on his head so it could sleep, then nodded, "Ok, let’s go."

And there, in front of the stunned crowd, Orm and D walked out.

A moment later, Enid and Helena walked back in, but they looked confused seeing the cafeteria so silent.

They quickly ran over to the table and sat down, Enid leaned over to Jay and whispered, "What happened? Why is everyone acting like someone died?"

"Err...it’s kind of a long story...well no, actually it’s not, it’s just weird," Jay said, scratching his cheek awkwardly.

Meanwhile outside, D walked on, and while they walked he made sure no one was around with Aura, Once he was satisfied, he looked at Orm, who was still walking next to him, just petting his Shuckle.

"So, Orm," D finally said.

"Yeah?" Orm answered, looking up at D, curious about what he was going to tell him.

D stopped walking and narrowed his one eye, "Do you remember the Deoxys project?"

Orm stopped suddenly and his eyes widened as he slowly turned to look at D, "I...how?"

D smiled under the mask, "Would you like to learn what really happened?"

—

{Lilycove City}

May was looking around town trying to decide what she was going to do, since the Contest hadn’t even opened registration yet, that happened tomorrow, so for today she had nothing planned.

When they got to town, Ash volunteered to go find a place for them to stay, and Brock immediately forced him to take Max so Max could stop Ash from immediately paying for them to stay in a five-star hotel.

Brock, meanwhile, said he would go off to find some place for them to have lunch, leaving May with some free time.

She didn’t really know what to do, but she decided to let out her Eevee so it could guide her somewhere.

And thanks to Eevee tugging May along, she arrived at the berry market.

"Ah..." May muttered helplessly, seeing her Eevee looking excitedly at all the berries, Looks like she was just hungry.

But then again, this wasn’t the worst thing, May had been thinking about trying to make more Pokéblocks.

Granted, back when she made one for Bulbasaur, it was made with just one type of berry, so obviously it was going to taste decent, But if she remembered correctly, when Ash and Brock made Pokéblocks, they used all different kinds of berries.

She might as well try to make her own kind of recipe, I mean, how hard could it be? And conveniently enough, she saw a nearby shop advertising that they were offering classes on how to make Pokéblocks.

"Alright then, I’ll try it out!" May said to herself, looking confident, and she had a sous-chef right here in Eevee to help her.

—

A few minutes later, May entered the large open kitchen area where several Coordinators and Trainers were already gathered around long counters lined with berry blenders, bowls, and ingredients.

At the front stood a girl with shoulder-length purple hair and a cheerful smile.

"Welcome, everyone!" she said energetically, "I’m Kelly, and today we’ll be learning how to make Pokéblocks!"

Next to her stood an older woman with brown hair tied into a bun, Kelly’s mother, but everyone just called her Mrs. Otter.

With directions from Kelly and her mom, everyone in the class made a kind of Pokéblock, Some were better than others, and they were all different colors since everyone used a different mix of berries.

After each batch came out, everyone would try one to see how it turned out, and they would get feedback based on the taste, Everyone had some idea of what kind of flavor they were going for, whether spicy, sweet, bitter, and so on.

Well, except for May, She mainly grabbed a bunch of different berries, chopped them up, and shoved them in the blender, plus one very bitter berry that her Eevee accidentally dropped into the blender with her tail.

When she closed it, she put it on the highest setting and turned it on, and immediately the blender started making loud noises.

Everyone turned at the noise, seeing the blender basically shaking the entire table from how fast it was spinning, while purple smoke puffed out the sides.

Kelly’s eyes widened, "Um—"

"Is it supposed to do that?" someone asked nervously.

"Probably!" May answered way too confidently.

After it spun so fast some people thought it was going to explode, it stopped and opened up, and a pile of purple Pokéblocks shot out onto the plate.

The Pokéblocks themselves actually looked kind of impressive, They had a smooth texture and a perfect shape, besides their weird glowing purple color.

"...Huh," Kelly admitted, "That’s actually unique."

May lit up immediately, "Really?!"

Mrs. Otter carefully picked one up, "Well...appearance-wise..."

Eevee sniffed one curiously, then recoiled slightly.

May either didn’t notice or chose not to notice, "Well, the important thing is the taste!" she said confidently.

Everyone hesitated, but eventually curiosity won, Several people each picked up one Pokéblock.

Kelly took a cautious bite, and her expression froze instantly, Mrs. Otter bit into hers a second later and immediately turned green.

A Trainer in the back collapsed onto the counter, wheezing dramatically.

Another guy stared into space like he’d just seen the afterlife.

One girl quietly laid face-first onto the table.

"WHY IS IT SOUR AND SPICY AT THE SAME TIME?!" someone cried.

"My tongue feels numb—"

"It tastes purple!"

"How does something taste purple?!"

Kelly herself was desperately fanning her mouth while tears formed in her eyes, "I-I think my soul left my body for a second—"

May stared in horror, "...Oh no."

Eevee carefully nudged one with her paw, then very deliberately buried it under a napkin.

Kelly’s mom somehow recovered enough to speak, "...Well," she croaked weakly, "it is technically edible."

That somehow made it worse.

May slumped in embarrassment while the rest of the class continued recovering from what was apparently the most traumatic Pokéblock experience of their lives.

"I don’t understand..." May groaned, "I followed my instincts..."

"In fairness," Kelly coughed, still dying a little inside, "it is your first time making them, Everyone’s first Pokéblock isn’t the best, That just means you have room to grow."

May sighed again, covering her face with her hand, "This is embarrassing."

And there was still a big pile of purple Pokéblocks on the table, and she didn’t know what to do with them, But in fairness, there were a bunch of leftover Pokéblocks around since the batches made way too many for people and their Pokémon to eat.

When May was about to ask what to do with all the purple blocks, suddenly they heard the door to the shop open, and when they looked back they saw a certain Munchlax munching on a random berry and walking into the shop like it had done this a lot of times before.

Mrs. Otter looked up and smiled, "Oh, looks like the janitor is here, just in time too."

May blinked in confusion, but before she could ask what Mrs. Otter meant, she saw Munchlax walk up to the first table and eat the leftover Pokéblocks in one bite, Then it moved on to the next, and the next, and the next.

"Wha—" May blinked in confusion, and some of the other students did too.

Kelly laughed at everyone’s reactions, "Oh, that’s normal, don’t worry, She’s a wild Munchlax, Sometimes she comes into the shop and eats any leftover Pokéblocks, It happens," she said decisively, like this was completely normal.

But then Munchlax got to May’s table and saw her pile of purple Pokéblocks, May blinked and was about to call out to stop her, "Wait, don’t—"

Munchlax sniffed them, then immediately took a bite and ate them one by one, Since they were still made of food, and if it was made of food, then Munchlax would munch.

When Munchlax finished, she sat down and rubbed her belly happily, "Muuuu~"

Kelly chuckled into her hand and gave May a light elbow, "Hey, looks like someone liked your Pokéblocks."

"Really?" May said as she looked at the Munchlax, who seemed to be deciding whether it was worth going out to find more food or just taking a nap.

May walked up to Munchlax and leaned down to get closer to her level, "Hey, did you like them?"

Munchlax opened her eyes and nodded, making May clap her hands excitedly.

But when she did that, Munchlax looked down and saw some shiny red balls on May’s belt, May had a habit of polishing her Pokéballs to keep them clean, and to Munchlax they looked like candy.

Munchlax jumped down from the table and ran to May’s side, grabbing a random ball, which thankfully was an empty one since she had put all her Pokémon away except Eevee.

But when May noticed, both she and everyone else panicked.

"Wait, don’t eat that—" May tried calling out, but it was too late.

Munchlax opened her mouth and chomped down on the shrunken Pokéball, swallowing it in one gulp.

"Oh..." everyone said in unison.

"Um...should we call Nurse Joy?" May asked, scratching her cheek as she looked around at everyone since she had no idea what to do.

But inside Munchlax, the Pokéball unshrunk, and since it was inside her, the ball opened and pulled Munchlax into it from the inside as it clattered onto the ground.

Then there on the floor, the ball rolled once, again, then one more time, then it clicked shut.

Munchlax was caught.

Everyone looked at the Pokéball on the ground like it might explode, and May blinked once, "...Did I just catch her?"

"Uhhh...that’s certainly one way to catch a Pokémon," Kelly said, scratching the back of her head.

Eevee jumped over and rolled the ball under her paw like she was testing it.

Mrs. Otter snorted softly into her hand, "Honestly, that sounds exactly like something that would happen with this Munchlax."

"So...um, is this really okay? Do you want me to...like, release her?" May asked as she walked over and picked up the Pokéball.

"It’s okay, really." Kelly waved her hand quickly.

May blinked, "Huh?"

Kelly smiled reassuringly, "Munchlax was wild, She just wandered around the market and ate everything in sight, Everyone here liked her, but nobody actually owned her."

Mrs. Otter nodded, "Honestly, we figured it was only a matter of time before somebody caught her."

"And..." Kelly added with a grin, "she did willingly eat your Pokéblocks."

"That still feels less impressive now," May muttered.

"Too bad she’s your problem now," Kelly laughed.

"Well, okay then," May said, looking at the Pokéball and smiling slightly.

But that’s when she realized something. Oh Arceus, it was slimy. Which made sense since Munchlax did eat the ball, but still, gross.

"Ew, can I borrow a sink and some towels?" May said, suddenly wishing she hadn’t taken her gloves off to make those Pokéblocks, while everyone watching chuckled slightly at her reaction.