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It was a fine day on Akala Island, and Mallow was partaking in one of her favorite pastimes: sitting cross-legged on the ground in the lush jungle, enjoying a bit of Aromatherapy. She was surrounded by wild Comfey and Bounsweet which were more than happy to waft the soothing scent in her direction. As always, Lana kept watch nearby to make sure nobody saw Mallow in her blissed out state, swaying gently back and forth with her eyes closed and giggling. Nobody else knew about Mallow's guilty pleasure, and she intended to keep it that way.
Lana looked up and tried to peek through the jungle canopy. The sun was almost as high as Mallow. Nearly noon.
"We better wrap this up soon," said Lana. "I have somewhere to be."
"Whuh?" said Mallow without opening her eyes. "Where?"
"I have a meeting."
"Since when do you have meetings?"
"You mean you don't know?"
Mallow was just confused enough to come back to her senses. "No!"
"Hmm…" Lana pondered for a moment. "Well, you can come with me. We're meeting here in Alola this time, not far from here. We can walk."
"Okay." Mallow made a shaky attempt at getting up, and spread out her arms to keep from falling over. "Hehe, whee!" she squealed as she teetered side to side.
Lana rushed up to Mallow and grabbed her before she tumbled over. "Well, I can walk. You can… wobble." Lana put an arm around Mallow to support her long enough for the Aromatherapy to wear off, and they made their way out of the lush jungle.
Mallow was sober by the time she and Lana arrived at an office building on the outskirts of Heahea city. Lana explained that they had rented a meeting room inside, though much to Mallow's confusion, she never elaborated on who "they" were. Mallow would find out soon enough, as Lana searched for the right room number and opened the door.
Inside the plain office meeting room, several older Pokémon trainers dressed in shades of blue were seated around a long table. They chatted amongst themselves and didn't take notice of the two kids entering the room. Mallow could figure out the theme pretty quickly: they were all water-type specialists, and what's more, she recognized many of them as gym leaders from other regions. Misty of the Kanto region, Wallace of the Hoenn region, Nessa of the Galar region, and… Marlon? Was that his name? She recognized some more than others. There was even some blue haired girl dressed in a… Kyogre cosplay? It was an eclectic assortment of people to be sure, with a wide range of fashion tastes. They were all dressed in their most iconic outfits, and more than one of them were happy to embrace the whole "shirtless" look.
Mallow and Lana took two empty seats at the table. "How long have you been going to these? How did I never hear about this?" whispered Mallow.
"This is actually only my second time," said Lana. "It's biannual."
"What!! Is that why you suddenly left for Hoenn without me six months ago?"
"Yeah, sorry… we try to keep it secret."
Perhaps the most striking person in the room was the muscular, heavy set man standing at the front of the table wearing some kind of wrestling mask, and also rocking the shirtless look. He glanced around the room and checked a list. "Is everyone here?" he said in a booming voice which made Mallow jump. "Good, then we can get started."
Mallow nudged Lana. "Who's that?"
"Crasher Wake, from Sinnoh," replied Lana.
"Why's he in charge?"
"He's the most charismatic."
Crasher Wake cleared his throat with a loud rumble. "Um, Alola, everybody. Glad you could all make it to the beautiful Alola region! This was a GREAT suggestion for our next meeting location, by our very own newest member, Trial Captain Lana."
As if on cue, everyone broke into gentle applause. Lana blushed.
Crasher Wake shuffled his papers and continued. "All right, moving o-"
He paused mid-sentence. Crasher Wake inhaled deeply through his nose and furtively peered around the room. "I smell…"
He lunged over the table and thrust a finger toward Mallow. "...GRASS!!"
"Meep!" cried Mallow.
"Who are you? How did you find out about this? Are you a spy for the grass leaders?" interrogated Crasher Wake.
"N-no!" cried Mallow in a panic. "I just… wasn't invited?"
Crasher Wake eased up and pinched the bridge of his nose. "Agh, of course you weren't… Hang on everyone, this will only take a second."
Crasher Wake took out an old flip-phone and scrolled through his contacts. He placed a call and waited as the phone rang. The room was silent, and everyone else at the table shared awkward glances.
As soon as someone picked up, Crasher Wake shouted, "Erika, you useless lesbian! We have one of your girls!"
There was a pause. The room was silent enough that everyone could hear Erika on the other end say "...Whuh?"
"It's some girl from Alola, I'm pretty sure. Her name is…" Crasher Wake cupped his hand over the microphone. "What's your name?"
"...Mallow."
"Mellow!" he shouted into the phone. "Isn't she on your roster?"
Another pause. Embarrassingly, Mallow could identify Erika's subsequent "...Huh?" as the voice of someone under the influence of Aromatherapy.
"Come on, don't you remember? We're doing this whole 'inclusive' thing now, trial captains are welcome too. You forgot, didn't you?"
"Hehe… oops!" said Erika.
"So? Aren't you gonna do something about it?"
"...I'll send someone to pick her up." The call disconnected, and Crasher Wake put away his phone with a loud clack.
The room remained stiflingly silent. Crasher Wake stood impatiently, looking at his watch. But not a moment later, the silence was broken, and so was the window. Into the room crashed a woman clad in green, clearly dressed for adventure, holding onto a long vine from the jungle outside.
"Hey Gardenia," said Crasher Wake in an uncharacteristically casual tone.
"Howdy," said Gardenia. It didn't take long for her to notice the only green-haired girl in the room. She reached a hand out to Mallow. "Come with me."
At this point, Mallow had seen enough to be at the stage of "this may as well happen," so she got out of her seat and hesitantly approached the young woman. Mallow shrieked in surprise when Gardenia pulled her close and lifted her off the floor.
"Hold on tight," said Gardenia. She leapt from the window and swung from the vine with Mallow in tow, who was wailing the whole way. It took a few moments for Mallow's voice to fade away, leaving the room silent again.
"Well!" said Crasher Wake. "Hope you all don't mind the draft. Lana, no more uninvited guests, got it?"
Lana nodded. "Understood."
"Let's get focused, shall we? We have much to discuss." Crasher Wake paced around the back of the room. "Now, I know we never resolved the topic of our last meeting, but I don't want a repeat of what happened, okay?" He took in a deep breath and continued calmly, "I think we can all agree that we'd better permanently table the whole 'Is water wet?' debate."
Wallace raised his hand and opened his mouth to speak, but Crasher Wake instantly snapped at him, "NO! It's DONE! We're not going through it again. If you have literally anything else to talk about, then by all means, go ahead."
Wallace's mouth hung agape for a moment, but finding nothing to say, he backed down with a "hmph."
"Thank you." Crasher Wake looked through his notes and approached the whiteboard to write down the meeting's topic. "Alright, what do we have here… what to discuss this time…"
The water trainers waited patiently. Crasher Wake stood blankly facing the board, struggling to come up with something to write down. His body slowly tensed up, then he spun around in a fury and erupted to the room:
"OF COURSE IT'S WET!! WHAT ELSE WOULD IT BE?!"
The room immediately devolved into chaos. Crasher Wake tore open a water bottle with his bare hands and poured it over his face. Those who agreed with Crasher Wake and those who didn't shouted across the table at each other, their overlapping voices filling the air. Even Lana, a firm "water isn't wet" believer, joined in. And the meeting continued that way until well after their allotted time in the room. The building staff were afraid to ask them to leave, so the debate went on with nothing to stop it.