May just easily beat the preliminaries, so she and her friends chill at the Pokemon Center while she gets everyone healed awaiting the next round. Once again, Harley finds May and starts going on, and then eventually even proposes that they practice training together for the Contest battle, to which she agrees.

As Drew is polishing off Roselia and Masquerain, May and her friends walk by, pumped up than ever. Brock, who is reading the guidebook, then informs May that next round will be a double battle, so it’s best for May to look her Pokemon over at who’s in the best condition, and decide.

Ash is in another area, training with Snorunt and showing off to Max. However, just as Ash tells Snorunt to fire its Ice Beam, a small speck of dust flies in its face... causing Snorunt to sneeze an Ice Beam across the field. This Ice Beam is directed right at a trainer’s Swalot! Luckily, the chubby trainer jumps in the way to defend his Swalot, getting a bit of frost on his butt. However, Ash has his trusty Fire type, Torkoal help melt that off. After that, they introduce each other, and the boy is a Coordinator called Tonpei. Unfortunately, he’s in a pretty bad situation. After a run-in with three people, he lost his Contest Pass as well as his Ribbons and all! Typical act would be to agree to help, so... Max goes to get Jenny.

Jessie’s excitedly dancing around with the five Ribbons, glad she finally has the material to enter. She gets a bit too hyper, does a little dance with Meowth, and imagines being the top Coordinator as usual. James, however, then reminds her that she doesn’t exactly have any PokeBlocks, and has yet to train well enough. Plus, the data still remains in the Ribbon and Pass as to who they belong to, as James finds Tonpei while looking him up.

Despite Harley’s secret scheming to win the round, May trusts him and sends out her Pokemon in front of him. As they all do their cheers, Beautifly is interested in showing off, but Beautifly already had both the training and the round to shine, so it’s Skitty’s turn. May starts off by having it use Assist, and uses Combusken’s Fire Spin, directly hitting Harley’s Cacturne! As Harley takes note of this, Skitty uses another Assist, this time Beautifly’s Silver Wind. Harley acts all impressed, butters her up with how Assist and her team give her perfect combinations. Drew secretly watches the whole display from behind, thinking to himself what idiots they are for showing each other what they’ll use before the round...

Max and Jenny finally come back and find Ash and Tonpei sulking about the lost stuff. While Tonpei repeats his story to them, Max then reminds him that they’re probably going to use the Ribbons and pass to get into the Contest. With that, they would be found out and forced to confess, because they have Tonpei’s data so they’d come up as his...

As the second round starts, Tonpei waits in the hall with Ash and Jenny to catch the culprit. All of May’s friends are watching, including Savannah, Timmy, Kanata, Abby, Norman, and even the twins from Pacifidlog. As Vivian announces and presents the Ribbon Cup, there are five judges this time. Contesta, Skizo, and three Joys. Before they start, she introduces each of them and lets them all have a word (Brock’s mind goes crazy with the clones).

In the waiting room, Harley evilly reminds May that although they trained together, he does plan to win. While he’s at it, he does try to pull a certain trick, but May doesn’t fall for it this time. In the alley where Team Rocket are hiding, Jessie disguises herself as Tonpei (actually doing a pretty good job), and proceeds to enter.

At long last, Vivian says a few final words, sets off some confetti on stage, announcing that once again this round will start with another appeal stage. First trainer comes with a beautiful Ninetales, using Flamethrower. Next up is Harley, using not Cacturne, but Banette. Banette greets the audience with an evil cackle, which scares even Vivian. May notices it take over the screen in the waiting room and gets a bit nervous, but then it calms down and uses Will-O’-Wisp to create some dancing blue flames. Then, Banette uses Thunder, which creates a cool illusion yet shakes the stage and scares the audience. This gets him an 89 this time.

After that, a bunch of random Coordinators go using some cool Pokemon techniques, and finally, it’s Tonpei’s turn. As Jessie runs down the hall disguised, Ash, Max, Jenny, and the real Tonpei block her path. She doesn’t give up, but Tonpei then has his Swalot use Swallow, and it devours Jessie up. As she struggles inside for a little bit, it finally spits her out. Jessie’s about to fight back, but James and Meowth run off and drag her along.

The crowd are already impressed enough with Swalot’s unique entrance, starting flat and bouncing into shape. After that, it uses a Sludge Bomb combined with a Bullet Seed, and after the crowd enjoys that a bit, Swalot reaches out and Swallows them both, as the stage clears. 82.

May is up now, and it’s Skitty’s turn to shine. While the crowd are impressed with it’s cuteness, it uses an Assist of Silver Wind, the exact same way Beautifly used it last time. After that it uses a bunch of other Assists, basically taking Harley’s advice as it would be a cool way to show off almost a whole team with one cute Pokemon. Razor Leaf, Flamethrower, Vine Whip, String Shot, and Whirlwind all look amazing coming from Skitty. While Skizo is impressed, Contesta isn’t quite sure whether using the same move over and over is a good idea. Anyway, Skitty’s next Assist is a surprise—Solar Beam! Niether May nor her friends recall any of her Pokemon knowing Solar Beam... but then Brock notices Munchlax sleeping in Caroline’s lap. Anyway, Skitty’s next Assist creates a Petal Dance. However, as soon as it clears, Skitty starts running in circles unconsciously! It takes May a bit to realize why it’s doing that, but Brock is well aware that Petal Dance has the side effect of confusing the user. Either way, things aren’t looking too good.

Meanwhile, Harley is watching this in the waiting room, and realizes that she actually fell for it. He remembered her Bulbasaur well from the last Contest, and that it knew Petal Dance. Drew then confronts him about his whole scheme, and how he can actually win fairly without tricking his rivals. Either way, May then realizes that Harley tricked her into abusing Assist. So, she decides to use Doubleslap instead, which helps Skitty snap out of confusion by jumping around and waving its tail. Finally, Skitty jumps really high and uses its best attack—Blizzard, to create... well, a Blizzard below it, which turns into an incredibly tall and beautiful mound of ice. With that, Skitty lands right on the peak of it, and the crowd cheers. Unfortunately, May only gets a 79.

Out in the waiting room, May meets Drew and Harley. As she apologizes to Harley for taking his advice too strongly, Drew informs her that Harley was just pulling an all time low and tricking her. At first he denies it, but then he can’t help but confess how all this time he was sandbagging her and leading her on. With that dramatic confession, Harley smirks, and storms out of the room, leaving May quite irate. Drew says that he knew from the moment they met, that Harley was bad news. He’d tell more, but now it’s his turn. But, although he is her friend, he’s still her rival, so he mocks her gullibility.

This round Drew uses Masquerain, starting off with Hidden Power. Two rings of it form around Masquerain, and get bigger... and just as Drew snaps his fingers, they all explode indo sparkles all over the stage and audience. As they clear, the stage is filled with huge bubbles. Following that, Masquerain uses a Silver Wind at the middle, blasting the bubbles at the audience and into the sky so they can be seen at the stadium from a distance. With that, Drew bombs it with 100! May and Harley both look extremely nervous now.

With Robert and Milotic finishing off the appeal stage, Vivian announces the Coordinators moving on to the next round. Sure enough, May, Robert, Harley, and Drew are all there. As the brackets randomize for the battle rounds, May finds herself up against Harley! This is gonna be an intense round for the both of them! Later that night, TR decide to think of a new plan to crash the Festival this time...

May’s turn for the double battle against Harley has come. Thinking fast, May goes with Bulbasaur and Beautifly for this one. Harley uses Cacturne and Banette. To Be Continued...

Thanks to Zak for writing this Guide for Us