Long story short, what happened was Brock (he and Cilan had a proper reunion shortly after) had spotted yet another pretty girl and had sprinted towards her like a madman at the same time as Bonnie, who once again saw the girl as a perfect match for her brother Clemont. Because both Misty and Max were on the scene, they shared the same idea and both grabbed Brock by the ear and dragged him away, like old times. Clemont, who was flustered as hell, pulled Bonnie away with his Aipom Arm invention.

Iris really loved the groupchat because of the destruction they cause in their wake. Now that they met some of them in person makes it even better. Bonnie's not in the chat, but she's got shipper fuel. Iris plans on pressuring Bonnie's brother to get her a phone because she's got ideas. 

She's gotta meet the Lana girl too now, because what kind of schemes will they come up together?

Cilan made the mental note to keep Iris away from Lana when they first got to Kanto, because judging from what Lana did to Mallow's restaurant makes everything unsettling already. He doesn't want to know what a tag team consisting of two crackheads would be like.

Iris's phone dings with a notification from the chat. Ash sent a message saying that he's by the stage now and the contest was about to start. Misty sighs when she reads the message.

"I really thought he was going to go with an all-out battle tournament with Pokemon." She pockets her phone and decided that Brock cannot be trusted on his own, proceeding to drag him around by the ear. The poor man behind her cried out in pain as she pulled him away. 

"We thought so too. But of course, everything is better when it's unpredictable," Cilan responded. "It's boring if you know where you'll end up."

Their group makes idle chat until they reach the stage where Ash was in the crowd, waving them over. Gou and Koharu are with him, Koharu looking dead tired and Gou not really understanding the purpose of this event.

"Hey Ash, Gou, Koharu. Where'd the others go?" Cilan asked as they strode up to the boy in the cap. 

"They went to explore more, they'll be back soon." Ash suddenly turned to a girl with short honey-blonde hair and blue eyes, who was talking to another girl with dark blue hair and red eyes. "Hey, Serena, Miette! You're here too!" He immediately yelled, causing some audience members to stare.

The two girls jumped at hearing their names. Well, the honey-blonde jumped more than the other, but did nonetheless. The bluenette immediately took the opportunity to pass a knowing smirk towards the other, which made her narrow her eyes at the former, most likely promising retribution.

Serena definitely didn't prepare for this. 

She knew there was a chance for Ash to be within her line of sight if she decided to step foot into this festival, and Miette definitely had a say in that, because they had been in touch for quite a while despite Serena's reluctance to stay in contact. Miette, through a lot of teasing and threatening to steal Ash for herself if she didn't follow through, reassured her that it'll be fine if she'd just talk to him.

The problem is, doing that is way harder than waiting 4 years without fully realizing her crush on him. After all, training her party in Hoenn for a few months with Ash as her goal made her forget how to speak coherent sentences in front of the guy.

That was an over-exaggeration made by Miette, actually. Ash right now is in front of her, catching her up with all the things that went down in Alola. Serena's listening carefully, while Miette keeps smirking at the poor girl. 

Meanwhile, Gou was trying not to stare at Ash, Serena, and Miette talking to each other animatedly. He doesn't know why he feels irritated at those two girls specifically, despite getting along with Ash's other female friends. 

Koharu watches the scene unfold before her and sighs dejectedly. She had no time for Gou's pining and she definitely had no patience dealing with more than two idiots.

However, before she could open her mouth, an announcer had taken the stage along with the contestants and declared that the food competition will now start, and the contestants have to eat the most to win. He also announced that there is a similar contest for Pokemon just next to them that will also commence shortly.

Among the contestants were Lana and Conway. Ash immediately yelled "good luck" to Conway first, who smirked on the outside, but a slight tremble went unnoticed by most but caught by Gou told them that he wasn't extremely confident in his stomach capacity. Lana, knowing Ash was messing with her as well, grabbed a tomato from the bowl in front of her and chucked it straight at Ash. The tomato struck the boy square on the forehead, startling Serena and causing Miette to cackle. Ash plucked the tomato off his face and stuck out his tongue at Lana, who retaliated with a subtle flip-off, earning her an indignant "Hey!" from the former.

"You know what, Lana, you are my diety-"

"Iris, do you have no idea what she just did?" 

"Hell yeah I do!" Iris immediately responded, "And I love it."

"I hope you know I feel betrayed for the fourth time today," Ash glared at the indigo-haired girl, who cracked up.

The bickering continued until the finals, and a couple of people-including Mallow, who had joined up with the crew sometime in the contest-were surprised that Lana's still there. Mallow learned something new about her childhood friend that day.

Suddenly, a shout broke everyone's attention on the contestants. They all turned towards the display next to them, where an oddly familiar balloon head peeked out. The balloon slowly became the face of a Meowth as it ascended towards the sky, revealing four familiar entities cursing at their cover being blown.

Jessie sighed, upset that their stealth plan didn't work. "I thought you said that we'd get away without anyone knowing!" She snapped at James and Meowth, the blue-haired man rubbing the back of his head sheepishly.

"...Oops?"

The woman was visibly angry, but directed it at the crowd below. "We didn't manage to grab Pikachu, but we got other valuable Pokemon to give to the boss." She looked down, spotting their resident twerp surrounded by his twerp friends from every generation. She smirked, taking the opportunity to recite their motto when all of his friends, main twerp included, yelled "SHUT UP!" at the top of their lungs.

Now Jessie was really angry at being interrupted before she could even start. Meowth muttered behind her, "They got tired of it..."

"What the hell are you doing this time, Team Rocket?!" Iris yelled, her partner Axew already prepared to launch an attack at them.

"Well, what does it look like? We're taking opportunities," Jessie sneered and pointed below them. Multiple Pokemon are bunched together in a cage, all yelling incoherently and attempting to break out of the cage with their attacks. Many audience members gasped, indicating that the Pokemon in the cage belonged to them. 

"We'll be taking these to the boss now. Ta-ta!" The magenta-haired woman tutted. James then lifted their hot air balloon even more, and Meowth and Wobbuffet thought it necessary to taunt everyone as they prepared to leave.

That is, until Lana jumped off the stage, crouched down, got back up, ran towards Gou, and gave him something. Gou held something in his hand as he retracted his left arm back, then threw something at the balloon. The force was enough to make him stumble a little as what looked like a sharp pebble tore through the air and pierced the balloon. With air rapidly flowing out of the balloon, James frantically tried to stabilize it while Jessie called for the Rocket Gacha Machine. Pelipper delivered the machine as soon as they touched the ground with all the Pokemon still in the cage. 

Jessie and James grabbed Meowth and spun the machine twice, causing two dark purple Pokeballs to drop. Team Rocket sends out the Pokemon, grabbing the slips of paper that fluttered in the air. 

"The Hard Scale Pokemon, Golisopod!" Jessie exclaimed, with Golisopod exerting its strength at the crowd.

"The Bronze Bell Pokemon, Bronzong!" James yelled. Meowth and Wobbuffet let out a cheer, thankful once again that Team Rocket possessed such powerful Pokemon.

"Pikachu, you ready?" Pikachu nodded and jumped off of Ash's arm, onto the ground. Sparks flew out of his cheeks as the crowd dispersed to make space for a battle.

"Use Electroweb!" Pikachu prepared an Electro Ball on his tail and sent it towards Golisopod and Bronzong before they could do anything. Ash then ordered Pikachu to use Iron Tail on the cage, releasing the stolen Pokemon. 

"Golisopod, use Liquidation!"

"Bronzong, Flash Cannon!"

Golisopod sliced at the web containing them apart, releasing itself and its companion. Bronzong prepared a beam of light that shot straight at Pikachu.

"Pikachu, use Quick Attack!" Pikachu dashed forward, dodging the Flash Cannon and Liquidation. He then used extra force on his tail to propel himself upward, to which Ash told him to use Thunderbolt. 

The bolt of lightning pushed both Golisopod and Bronzong back and onto their temporary trainers, electrocuting all of Team Rocket. The sheer force of it all caused the Pokemon and Team Rocket to fly off with their balloon.

"Bye bye, Team Rocket! Take your lame-o motto elsewhere!" Iris yelled at the sky, unsure whether they could actually hear her at this point. 

Many people had begun to crowd around the stage upon hearing about a showdown, forming a mass of people cheering and crying. The ones who had their Pokemon nearly stolen by Team Rocket thanked Ash vigorously. Ash, on the other hand, felt slightly overwhelmed until Serena and Gou pushed most of the crowd away, their Pokemon doing the same thing.

Once the situation with Team Rocket was over, the large friend group that was Ash's traveling companions collectively decided to enjoy the fair, now that the contest had been cancelled due to the interruption.

While Ash was marveling at all the foods that came from Unova, Galar, and Kalos, Barry had barreled into him, causing both of them to fall over. The blonde immediately went into a fit, yelling about how Ash should add this fine to the long list of fines he's accumulated from bumping into him. Ash and Dawn roll their eyes while Brock laughs against the pain of Misty pulling on his ear again.