Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The kid showed up on a breezy Friday afternoon with an egg tucked irreverently under his arm and a pikachu clinging to his cap, weighing it down so it plastered itself uncomfortably to his head.

Kiawe didn’t think much of him, at first, but he was curious enough about the arrival of an outsider to traipse away from the rest of his class and watch, a tad suspiciously, as the kid battered on Principal Oak’s door with enough force to threaten to knock it down. That suspicion quickly became confusion; the principal opened the door to him with a familiar grin, fingers curling beneath the pikachu’s chin as though greeting an old friend.

“Ah, young Satoshi!” he said, warm and bright, nodding at the egg ‘young Satoshi’ now held between his palms. “I’ve been eggs-pecting you.”

Kiawe stifled a groan.

“Hi, Professor Oak!” the kid responded, his inflection that of a foreigner—though Kiawe didn’t know enough about the world to hazard a guess at which region he hailed from. His pikachu leaned into the principal’s touch with a happy chaa, tail quivering. “Professor Oak said you would be.” He passed the egg over, and the principal rolled it into the crook of his elbow, cradling it gently. “The egg’s fine, by the way. I only dropped it once on the way here!”

Kiawe’s eyes bulged out of their sockets; to his dismay, the principal only laughed, patting the smooth shell of the egg. “And it’s still in one piece! Sam was right to trust you with it.”

“Mm hmm,” the kid agreed, and Kiawe spluttered, the sound loud enough to draw their attention. “Oh,” the kid said, then, turning full-body to face him. His eyes were sharper than Kiawe’d thought they’d be, but he held himself casually, shoulders slouched and head tipped back to counterbalance the weight of his pikachu.

As though sensing his trainer’s growing discomfort, said pikachu slid down the kid’s back, over to his front, and into the net of hands waiting to catch him.

“Kiawe!” Principal Oak exclaimed, still smiling beatifically. “Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”

Kiawe straightened, spine rigid. “Professor Kukui’s not back from—” he gestured vaguely. The kid’s gaze tracked his every motion, and it weirded him out, a little bit. “Whatever he said he had to do. But—” he rounded on the kid, then, stalking closer until he could brandish a finger at him, “what do you mean, you only dropped it once?”

The pikachu in the kid’s arms bristled, cheeks crackling with lightning. Wisely, Kiawe shuffled back—but not by much.

“Uh,” the kid said, blinking rapidly, “I mean I only dropped it once! Eggs are real tough, you know. I’ve seen ‘em survive floods, fires, landslides—”

“Landslides?” Kiawe was aware his voice had pitched dangerously close to a shout, and that his behaviour was unbecoming, but he couldn’t bring himself to feel any shame. The kid mumbled something that sounded like that time wasn’t my fault, and Kiawe yelled, “That time?”

Principal Oak cleared his throat. Appropriately cowed, Kiawe folded his arms defensively over his chest and retreated until he was no longer breathing right in the kid’s face.

“Sorry,” he muttered—but not to the kid, who was staring at him oddly, brow all crumpled and mouth set in a hard, narrow line. His pikachu seemed similarly frustrated, as though the both of them shared one mind, one heart, one point of view. “I just—”

“Care about pokémon, I know,” the principal soothed. “Your passion is admirable, Kiawe, but you needn’t worry. My cousin gave me his assurance that there was no-one better to ensure this egg arrived here safely, and I trust his judgement. And eggs are hardy. It takes more than a simple fall to harm them.”

Kiawe didn’t, because anyone whose idea of a trustworthy courier was one who considered dropping their delivery a success was clearly out of their mind, but he kept that to himself. The principal’s words did, however, work to smother the flames of indignation building within his gut.

Then, the principal went and ruined things by bringing his hands together in a thunderous clap and saying, “I know! Since Professor Kukui hasn’t returned yet, why don’t you show him—” and here, he placed a hand on the kid’s shoulder— “around? This is his first time in Alola, after all.” His eyes dropped back down to the kid. “You don’t have anywhere to be, do you?”

The kid shook his head, and his expression shifted into something a little more personable at the idea of exploration.

“I,” Kiawe started, ready to protest, and then stopped. It was not wise, he knew, to argue with the principal, so he swallowed his rising upset and nodded once, sharply. “Sure, I guess.”

“Excellent.” Principal Oak’s smile widened, just a touch. “I’m sure the two of you will be fast friends in no time.”

Kiawe doubted it. He would much rather leave the kid to his own devices and return to his classmates, but the kid was looking at him determinedly, now, something brighter in his face, and Kiawe supposed that if anyone was going to show him Melemele, it ought to be someone who showed the island—the region—the reverence it was owed.

“Let’s go,” he said, words exhaled in a sigh, and departed the way he’d arrived, the kid hot on his heels with his pikachu still folded against his chest, trapped within the x of his arms.

They meandered down the hall in silence, save for the kid’s occasional, inane comments about the walls, or the ceilings, or any pokémon that happened to flutter by one of the windows. That there were people out there who’d never heard of oricorio before, for whom the sight of a pikipek was cause for wonder—

Though, Kiawe supposed, the kid did look a little green. Pikachu weren’t the strongest pokémon out there—hell, they weren’t even fully evolved—and when his eyes dropped to the kid’s belt, Kiawe couldn’t see any other poké balls.

A new trainer, then.

“That’s a ribombee,” he said when one zipped past, drawing the kid’s attention so much so that he pressed his face to the glass to get a closer look. “It’s a bug and fairy type, and it evolves from cutiefly.”

“Fairy type, huh? There are a lot of fairy types in Kalos. My friend—Serena—she has a sylveon, and Bonnie has a dedenne.”

The kid’s pikachu said, “Pika-pika! Pika-chu,” and the kid nodded enthusiastically, lots of uh huhs and yeahs, as though he understood.

“You’re from Kalos?” Kiawe blinked. He’d heard a Kalosian accent before, on TV, and it had sounded nothing like the kid’s. The kid looked up at him and grinned.

“Nope,” he said, “but we travelled there last year! I’m from Pallet Town, in Kanto.”

The town didn’t ring a bell, but Kiawe knew of the region well enough. He’d never been outside Alola—never travelled further than his charizard’s wings could carry him—but Kanto’s battle circuit was famous, both for being traditional—as far as gym challenges went—and wildly unpredictable.

“And you came all this way to deliver an egg?”

“And see Alola.” The kid jostled his pikachu, looking down at him with a grin. “We want to travel all over and see everything the world has to offer—right, buddy?”

“Pika pika!” the pikachu said.

They lapsed back into silence, though it didn’t feel as stilted as before. Kiawe led the kid down the stairs, round a corner, down another long corridor, through three sets of doors, and paused when the kid stopped to look at a long mural dedicated to graduated students’ work.

“Hey—” Kiawe halted, realising, abruptly and embarrassingly, that he couldn’t recall the kid’s name. “... What did you say you were called?”

The kid shifted his pikachu back up onto his shoulder, hands lifting absently to adjust his cap. “My name’s Ash,” he said, as though it was a tagline he’d said a thousand times before, “and this is my partner, Pikachu!”

Pikachu trilled a greeting, looking like a completely different pokémon when compared to the frowning, unfriendly thing he'd been outside the principal’s office. Kiawe half-bowed, reflexively, then paused—and frowned, curiously.

“That’s not what the principal called you,” he pointed out. The kid—Ash—brought a hand to his chin, cupping it thoughtfully.

“Oh, yeah, he called me Satoshi—” he said it differently to the principal, accent thick and musical— “which is my real name. But Ash is easier to remember.” A little sheepishly, he added, “And Satoshi makes me feel like I’m in trouble, or somethin’.”

“Ash, then,” Kiawe said, decisively. Ash beamed from ear-to-ear and followed him out into the school courtyard, towards the wide-open gates. “C’mon, I know a really cool—”

His words died in his throat at a familiar, frustrated bellow. Out on the street, tail a blazing line, his charizard—fire-fanged and fuming—stood off against a gaggle of jeering teens. The boys’ hair was buzzed down beneath their matching caps; silver chains hung low round their necks.

“Hey,” Kiawe shouted, then broke out into a sprint, Ash hot on his heels. “Hey!”

“What’s going on? Kiawe, what’s—”

“Skull Gang,” Kiawe snapped, distractedly. “Thugs and thieves—dropouts from the Island Challenge.”

“Thugs and thieves,” one of the teens—a boy, slightly taller than the rest, with lazy, vicious eyes and terrible posture—echoed, once they were in earshot. Kiawe put himself between them and his charizard, Ash not far behind him, and balled his fists by his hips. “Yeah, that’s right.” He nodded at the charizard. “That thing’s a beast,” he said. “Y’know, they don’t loan ride ‘mons out to us, anymore, not since what happened to them tauros. What d’you say you help me out and—”

“No,” Kiawe snarled. His charizard gave a throaty warble, wings spread in defiance. “You’d have to kill me.”

The teen cocked his head, considering. Then: “Careful what you wish for,” he said, and though the lower half of his face was obscured, the grin in his words was audible. “I want that charizard. ‘M gonna get that charizard. So I won’t ask you again: make this easy for us both ‘n’ hand it over.”

“He said no,” Ash spat, bristling. The Skull gangster’s eyes wandered over to him, as though only just taking note of his presence.

Then: “Fine. We’ll do it the hard way.”

He reached for his belt, as did the others, and a hoard of pokémon were released. Nine, Kiawe counted: a houndour, three golbat, a grimer—“Woah,” Ash muttered, despite himself, “I’ve never seen a grimer like that before,”—three salandit—“And I’ve never seen that pokémon before, either,”—and a drowzee.

“Ash,” Kiawe said, reaching for his own belt and releasing his turtonator, “get behind me.”

“Get behind you?” Ash sounded incredulous; Pikachu echoed his trainer’s sentiments. Kiawe spared him a glance and saw nothing but conviction in his face. “I want to help! Nine against one isn’t fair!”

“I can handle them on my own! Look,” Kiawe started, “I know you’re not from here, but these guys are strong.”

“And I’m not?”

Kiawe didn’t have an answer to that. “I don’t need your help,” he insisted.

The boys stared at one another, unblinking, until a shout of “Flame burst!” drew their attention back to the battle.

“Dodge it!” Kiawe shouted, and his turtonator moved to the left. “Use—”

“Denkō sekka!”

Something moved in Kiawe’s peripheral, a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it blur, and the drowzee was thrown back into the school wall with enough force to crack the brickwork. Kiawe looked back at Ash, stunned.

“It’ll be better if we work together,” Ash insisted. “Pikachu, jūman boruto!”

Using his tail as a springboard, Pikachu shot out of the way of a countering sludge bomb from the grimer and blasted the closest golbat with a blinding thunderbolt, bringing it down in one hit. Off to the side, the drowzee had peeled itself—barely standing—from the wall, and a well-placed iron tail finished it off.

Pikachu moved so quickly Kiawe could scarcely follow his movements. He seemed to half-anticipate Ash’s commands before they came, like he knew what his trainer was going to say even before Ash had the chance to think about it himself, and filled in the gaps himself.

They fought in perfect sync. It was like they’d been doing it for years already. It didn’t make any sense.

Not wanting to be left behind, Kiawe called, “Flamethrower, Turtonator!”—but the long column of fire was blocked by the houndour, who absorbed the heat into its tiny body and seemed to glow with it. Flash fire, he thought, of course. “Try dragon tail instead!”

That hit its mark, knocking the houndour out of the way, but while Turtonator was retreating, one of the remaining golbat hit it with a nasty air cutter, and the grimer nailed it head-on with a sludge bomb. The second golbat’s acrobatics was deflected with shell trap, though, and it fluttered away unevenly, badly charred.

“What was that?” Ash’s eyes were huge and starry, hands fisted by his face.

“Shell trap,” Kiawe muttered. Ash’s enthusiasm for the smallest things even in the heat of battle was—jarring, almost, like he didn’t fully realise the gravity of the situation. Like this was fun for him, despite the stakes. “Are you okay?” he asked, once Turtonator made it back to his side. His partner shook himself out with a determined grunt, eyes hard as flint.

He surveyed the situation. Pikachu was right in the thick of it, deflecting dragon claws with iron tail and narrowly avoiding sludge bombs and air cutters, but Kiawe could tell that the electric type was becoming overwhelmed. “Ash,” he said, “can you and Pikachu take out that houndour?”

Loathe as he was to admit it, even nine against two was a skewed fight. He could end it, but that houndour needed fainting. Its resistance to fire was lethal in a battle like this.

Ash cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted a command to Pikachu, who quickly fired off an electro ball in response.

The houndour dodged the first, skittering in close for a fire fang, but a second electro ball nailed it right in the face, and a subsequent thunderbolt finished it off. “Good job!”

Around them, the wind shifted. Reflexively, Kiawe glanced up at the trees—and was met with nothing but leaves and the strange, oppressive feeling of being watched.

Pikachu landed at Ash’s feet, cheeks sparking. “Den—”

“Ash, wait.” Kiawe stepped past Ash, thumbing his Z-ring. “Leave the rest to me.” Ash opened his mouth in wordless protest—then closed it when Kiawe began to move.

He crossed his arms over his chest, spread them wide, then crossed them at the wrist, out in front of him. Heat blazed through him, hotter than the sun, than Wela Volcano’s simmering cauldron, and his arms went up, over his head—then his left arm bent, hand at the elbow of his extended right arm. He felt, bodily, his energy swell—then shift, pushing outwards, towards Turtonator, into Turtonator, and knew, by his partner’s rasping growls, that he could feel it too.

The world fell away, until there was nothing but him, his pokémon, and the cowering opponents. He inhaled, drawing on the power of the earth beneath him—

And then he let it go.

Everything was red and orange and blisteringly hot, and then it was black with thick, rolling smoke, but that cleared, after a minute, leaving scorched earth and pokémon alike. The thugs took one look at their collapsed pokémon and panicked, recalling them all and fleeing with jeering threats of revenge and accusations of unfairness. Kiawe watched their retreating backs as he fought to regain his breath, skin sticky with sweat.

“What,” Ash said, once the gang had vanished, “was that?”

And Kiawe couldn’t help but explain the history as he knew it: the legends of the deities fighting great and powerful demons; the way their power, far-flung across Alola, had caused rocks to mutate into Z-crystals; the heroes that had lent their life forces to the guardians to use special Z-moves to conquer evil; and now, how the Island Challenge honoured that.

“Foreigners don’t get it. That’s why it’s an Alolan thing, and outsiders don’t usually get to use them.” Kiawe said—then faltered, remembering that Ash was an outsider. It was strange, he thought, how one battle by the other boy’s side had caused such a shift in his opinion of him, from annoyance, to tolerance, to quiet admiration. “I mean—”

Back at school, the bell rang. Kiawe looked over his shoulder at it and realised that they’d spent so much time battling, and then he’d spent so much time explaining Alolan folklore, that he’d run out of time to show Ash around.

“You’ve gotta go, right?” Ash surmised, scratching just beneath Pikachu’s chin. Kiawe hummed, and then they were both quiet, standing a few feet apart under the Alolan sun.

“Hey,” Kiawe said after a few seconds of silence, voice stilted and awkward. Ash shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at him earnestly. “You’ll still be here tomorrow, right?”

“Uh huh.” Ash nodded.

“You know where Iki Town is?” Another nod. “There’s a festival there tomorrow, if you want to come. It’s to honour our guardian deity—It’s the god of conflict, so we battle one another to show our respect for It.”

As expected, Ash’s eyes lit up at the mere mention of battle. “If you want,” Kiawe continued, “we can have a match. You’ll see more Z-moves, too. It starts at midday, so—”

“Alright!” Ash punched the air; his pikachu mimicked him, perfectly synced. Their enthusiasm was infectious, Kiawe thought, when he realised he was smiling at them both. “We’ll see you tomorrow, then!”

He held out his hand. Kiawe stared at it for several long moments, before relenting and grasping it in his own.

“Yeah,” he said. “See you tomorrow!”

Alola was a really awesome place, Ash thought. Everything felt slower here, than it did in Kanto, or Kalos, or anywhere else he’d been before, and the people all felt closer together, like everyone on Melemele was one big family.

By the time he made it to Iki Town, the sun was past its zenith, and the festival was in full swing. Huge torches lined the dirt paths, and market stalls were packed together just outside of them, selling food and trinkets and all kinds of things that Ash had never even seen before. There was even an entire stall dedicated to little wooden totems of various pokémon—Pikachu was fascinated by one that sort of looked like a pikachu but wasn’t a pikachu (the lady who ran the stall said it was a mimikyu, and that it wasn’t even an electric type), so Ash spent some of his pocket money some it and wore it around his neck on a little string.

Adjacent to that stall was a malasada hut. Ash spent even more of his pocket money there, and came away with a bag of eight for him and Pikachu to share.

He met up with Kiawe by the battlefield in the middle of town, where two trainers were locked in fierce battle: on the one side was a girl in overalls with bright green hair—Mallow, Kiawe said, who was one of his classmates—commanding a small, round, pink pokémon; on the other was a tan-skinned kid commanding a pokémon that sort of looked like a hoothoot, only cuter.

The kid’s pokémon tucked in its wings and nailed the girl’s pokémon head-on with a nasty-looking peck; it bounced across the pitch aimlessly, and when it rolled to a halt, it was unmoving.

“Mallow’s bounsweet is unable to battle,” said an old man up in a makeshift referee chair. “Hau and their rowlet are the winners!”

The gathered crowd shouted something in Alolan, then burst into congratulatory cheers.

“That’s Hau—they’re that guy’s grandkid,” Kiawe explained, nodding up at the man in the referee chair. “And that’s Hala, Melemele’s Kahuna. He’s the strongest trainer on the whole island—he was chosen by the guardian Itself.”

“Woah,” Ash said, balling his hands up into fists. Kahuna Hala was a broad, powerful-looking man, wide and imposing despite his age—he looked kind of like Wulfric, only warmer, and he stirred that same urge to fight in Ash, even from a distance.

He wondered if the kahuna would accept a battle request. Maybe not now, because he seemed pretty busy, but later, if Ash transferred some of his pokémon over from Kanto...

“Next to battle are Kiawe, of Akala Island, and…” Kahuna Hala paused, brow creasing as he peered at the page. His voice came out stilted when he resumed speaking. “Ash, from Pallet Town, in Kanto.”

Ash looked at Kiawe. Kiawe looked at the ground.

“Oh, yeah, I signed us up already,” he admitted, a little too late. “Honestly, I thought you wouldn’t be here in time.”

But Ash was never late to a battle if he could help it, not even one he didn’t know about. He beamed, and Kiawe offered him a tentative half-smile back.

The boys took their respective places on either side of the battlefield, while Kahuna Hala began to run through the basic rules: both trainers had the use of one pokémon, and the battle wasn’t over until one side’s pokémon had fainted. Z-moves were permitted, providing the trainer could use them—and here, Kahuna Hala looked pointedly at Ash’s bare wrist, who rubbed it absentmindedly, then looked over at Kiawe’s, and at the glittering Z-crystal embedded in the ring’s face.

Kahuna Hala called for them to release their respective pokémon, and Turtonator appeared in a flash of red light. Ash looked down at Pikachu.

“You ready, buddy?”

“Pika pi-ka!” Pikachu said, which Ash took as an emphatic yes.

Kahuna Hala looked between them both for a moment, lifted one brow at Pikachu, then leaned back in his seat. Ash swallowed the familiar urge to defend his partner’s right to battle at his side and turned his attention to Kiawe.

“Begin!”

“Flamethrower!”

“Thunderbolt!”

Fire and lightning clashed in the middle of the battlefield, throwing up dust and dirt.

“Don’t let up! Use electro ball!” Ash yelled, and Pikachu fired off an attack that blew the debris away and hit Turtonator head-on. Admirably, Turtonator shook it off. “Keep back and use thunderbolt again!”

“Smog!”

Turtonator spewed a thick, purple cloud of vile-smelling gas, and it was like Lake Acuity all over again. Ash grinned.

“Counter shield, Pikachu!” But Pikachu was already throwing himself to the ground, whipping up a whirling storm of electricity that dispersed the smog and struck Turtonator hard. Kiawe said something in Alolan that Ash didn’t understand, but it sounded disbelieving.

“Flamethrower, again!”

“Dodge to the left and start running!”

The flames caught Pikachu’s flank, and though he squealed in pain, he rushed in towards Turtonator regardless. And it wasn’t anything special, but Ash still felt this bright-happy swell at the way Pikachu trusted him unflinchingly, even when he was hurt.

“Now use iron tail!”

Ash watched Kiawe’s expression change: first focus, then incredulity, then arrogance—

“Shell trap!”

—and Turtonator turned his back, jagged armour glowing white-hot, just like Ash expected. Pikachu lunged one, two, three strides, tail hard as steel—then flipped, twisting at the hips, and drove his lower body down into the soil at Turtonator’s feet, exactly as they’d planned.

The ground erupted, dust and jagged junks nailing Turtonator’s shell. Pikachu sprang upwards, momentum carrying him out of the way of the triggered explosion—“Again, Pikachu!”—and nailed Turtonator in the throat.

“Quick attack, while it can’t see you! Don’t let up!”

“Pika!”

Kiawe bared his teeth in perplexed frustration. “Get out of the way, Turtonator! Use flamethrower to cover your retreat!”

A plume of fire scorched what was left of the dust cloud, but Pikachu moved far too quickly for Turtonator to escape easily: again and again, he shoved Turtonator back, until—

“Dragon tail!”

“Iron tail!”

—once more, the two clashed, matching each other blow after blow. Ash could feel the ache in his muscles, tension building to a fever pitch inside him, like all the world’s power was held in his chest. Turtonator shifted his weight; Pikachu followed too quickly and was punished for it, knocked across the pitch back towards its trainer.

“Get up, Pikachu!” Ash snapped. There was no room for kindness, not here. “You can keep going, right?”

Pikachu rolled to his feet with a sharp, defiant cry.

“Alright, use—”

Kiawe’s open palm met the ruby Z-crystal on his wrist. Ash’s command died in his throat.

“Change of plan,” he said. “Stay where you are.”

It was different, watching it from the other side of a battlefield, rather than from side-by-side with Kiawe. There was something dangerous about it from this end, something terrifying, a heaviness that felt entirely too big for any one trainer and their partner, like it was going to eat them all alive.

“Pikachu,” Ash said. Pikachu’s ears twitched backwards, though his eyes remained locked on Kiawe’s turtonator, and on the swirling Z-move growing ahead of him. “It’s just like we practiced. Don’t lose your nerve.”

Pikachu mumbled something that sounded a little exasperated, like he was saying, when have I ever lost my nerve?

Inferno overdrive drew closer. Ash counted them down: five, four, three, two, one—

“Now!”

Pikachu rushed into the path of the flames, heedless of the searing heat. Iron tail smashed downwards; quick attack shot Pikachu upwards; and he launched himself out of the way.

The battlefield erupted, all black smoke and blistering fire. Pikachu tucked his tail into its body, pulled his head into his chest, and spun over and over, letting loose a blinding thunderbolt in a mid-air countershield. When he touched down on charred earth, he was panting, but mostly unharmed, the brunt of the Z-move dodged and diffused.

“You did it, Pikachu!”

Pikachu tossed his head over his shoulder and gave a happy chaa.

In the aftermath, the battle’s relentless pace slowed just enough for Alola to come rushing back in, and Ash re-realised that they had an audience—and that they had gone deadly silent. He turned, bewildered, and saw a sea of blank, open faces looking back at him. He touched his hand to his cap uncertainly, and was met with hushed murmuring in a language he didn’t understand and the strange feeling he’d somehow messed up.

“You…” Across the pitch, Kiawe pushed his hands through his hair, voice bizarrely numb. His turtonator, exhausted, dropped to one knee, shaky but still conscious. “Ash, you—”

“Did I do something wrong?” Ash blurted. He’d never battled anyone from Alola before, never faced a Z-move or attended an Alolan festival, and the way everyone was looking at him made him feel as though dodging wasn’t what you were supposed to do when staring down such a ferocious attack.

But Pikachu was fast, not a tank, and Ash knew just how overwhelming Kiawe’s turtonator could be, from the way he had beaten all those Skull Gang pokémon like they were nothing. Enduring a Z-move didn’t seem like the smartest tactic.

“No, it’s just—how did Pikachu know to do that? How did you—you didn’t even tell him to do anything!”

“Oh,” Ash said, “we came up with it last night, after you said you’d battle me. I knew you’d wanna use that awesome Z-move again, and I knew we’d not stand a chance if we didn’t have some way to counter it!”

“But how did you know it’d work?”

Ash rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. “I didn’t! But I believed in Pikachu, and when you believe in your pokémon, you can do super crazy things that don’t even seem possible at first!”

Kiawe gaped at him; it was a look Ash had seen before, on rivals and gym leaders and expert battlers of all kinds. Up in the makeshift referee’s chair, Kahuna Hala cleared his throat.

“Your pokémon are both still standing,” he pointed out, tone level in the way adults’ voices went when they were trying to seem like they weren’t caught off-guard, “and neither of you have forfeited.”

… But Turtonator looked like he was struggling. Z-moves were strong, sure, but great power took great tolls. If Pikachu could land one more solid hit…

“Quick attack!”

“Shell trap!”

Turtonator lowered his head, bracing himself, and turned his back. Pikachu rushed towards his glowing armour at a breakneck pace, closing the distance between them with long strides—

And slammed, face-first, into something else entirely, a yellow blur flung out into the middle of its path. Dazed, Pikachu stumbled, barely maintaining his balance, and when he recovered, he found himself staring up at a—a creature.

Ash didn’t recognise it, but he felt like he was supposed to, because the little audience surrounding the battlefield went very, very loud—then silent, suddenly. He looked around and saw that their heads were bowed, like they were praying, and Ash got the feeling that this pokémon was someone important.

But if he was supposed to kneel, too, the pokémon didn’t give him the chance to. Energy flared across the battlefield, turning the world yellow; every hair on Ash’s body stood straight up, and fingers twitched relentlessly. A moment later, lightning erupted from the pokémon’s core.

“Dodge it!” he shouted. Pikachu dived out of the way of the discharge; Turtonator wasn’t so lucky, toppling with a low, agonised groan. Distantly, Ash heard Kiawe call out—and then everything narrowed down to Pikachu and that strange, powerful pokémon.

And sure, Ash didn’t know what species it was, nor did he understand just why everyone seemed so cowed by its presence, but he knew a challenge when he saw one. It didn’t take an expert to recognise when a pokémon wanted to fight.

Battling was his favourite language.

“Electro ball!” Pikachu flung the attack wide, arcing towards the pokémon’s vulnerable middle, but it cleaved through it with a steel wing and countered with a dazzling gleam that sent Pikachu flying. It rushed in close, readying another steel wing, and—“In, Pikachu! Roll and use iron tail!”—Pikachu twisted narrowly out of the way, connecting with the back of the pokémon’s skull with a painful-sounding crack.

“Keep pushing! Thunderbolt!” Ash shouted, but it was too late—even after taking an iron tail, the pokémon had the awareness and speed to snap its wings shut around its body, creating a kind of protective armour that the thunderbolt glanced harmlessly off. Another dazzling gleam threw Pikachu down with such force that he dented the ground at Ash’s feet, but he struggled resolutely to stand. “That’s it, Pikachu! Use—”

Ash cut himself off. The pokémon was right in front of him.

It leaned forwards until the base of its feathered crest brushed the brim of Ash’s cap—then shifted, rummaging, only to press something against Ash’s stomach. Reflexively, he brought his hands up, cupping them around the object, and when he looked down, he saw a Z-ring, just like Kiawe’s, embedded with yellow.

“For—is this for me?” He asked, because Kiawe had been telling him, only earlier, that Z-rings and Z-moves were an Alolan thing, and that the natives were stingy with their acceptance of foreign use of them. It had felt, at the time, like a subtle warning not to get his hopes up about getting his hands on that sort of power, and Ash had been disappointed, because they were so cool.

But pokémon were weird things, and Ash had learned, regions ago, that his journey wasn’t an ordinary one. He slipped the Z-ring onto his left wrist, testing the weight of it.

“You want me to use a Z-move? Right now?”

It tapped the Z-crystal in response, igniting it. Ash grinned.

“I don’t know what to do, but we’ll give it a shot—right, Pikachu?” he said. Pikachu looked a little worse for wear, all scraped up and shivery with adrenaline, but his eyes were full of determination.

Across from them, the pokémon trilled, feathers puffing up, and Ash didn’t need to speak its language to know that it said I’ll show you.

And it did. It backed itself up, all the way over to where Kiawe had been standing but wasn’t anymore (and Ash hadn’t seen him and Turtonator evacuate, but it didn’t really matter, now) and began to guide Ash and Pikachu through the steps.

Ash crossed his arms in front of his face and the Z-crystal blazed with light, emitting a faint buzz that diffused down his arm all the way up to his shoulder. He pushed his arms out, then crossed them at the wrists, extended parallel to the ground, and the soles of his feet began to burn, lungs constricting almost painfully in his chest, as though something was growing there and trying to make room for itself. His left arm swung across his body to the right, then his whole weight shifted left, and then he did this… pose, with his arms, that was tricky to orient but felt right, somehow, like his arms were naturally meant to be held like that.

His heart felt like it was going to explode. He’d felt… intense, before, with Gekkouga, like there were two souls smashed together into one space, like he was melting from the inside out and the only way to curb it was to go faster, harder, stronger, but this was—this was like a coil all wound up inside him, and there was only one way to escape the pressure.

He had to release it.

Hala had presumed—in all his years serving as Melemele Kahuna—that he’d come to know Tapu Koko’s motives and behaviours better than anyone. His understanding was far from perfect—nobody could ever truly hope to fathom a god—but Tapu Koko was more transparent than Alola’s more deceptive deities. Much like war, It was brute-headed, capricious, and unyielding.

Tapu Koko was drawn to strength, and Hala had trained for decades to earn Its attention in full, even for but a fraction of a second.

And that boy… that foreigner…

The boy was completely irreverent—out of ignorance, surely—and Tapu Koko had presented Itself to him, bestowed a gift upon him, battled him, tutored him in the use of a Z-move—

Hala couldn’t make heads nor tails of it. But there was something special about that boy—of that, he was certain. Anybody who drew the attention of a tapu was worth watching.

And Hala would watch him.

“Ma’am, your package has arrived.”

“Have them contacted and the money transferred.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

The man bowed, pivoted, and left, shoes echoing on the marble floor; behind his retreating form, the door slid shut automatically with a click, leaving the room silent and almost-empty. The researcher’s hand settled on the head of the salazzle at her side, fingers encircling the space between her eyes. The lizard pressed into the touch with a rumble of contentment, chest thrumming with a pleased snarl.

The researcher reached for the phone on her desk. She dialled a number and held it to her ear; it rang once, twice, three times, and then ticked as the receiver picked up.

“Hello?” the voice over the speaker called, scratchy and faraway.

“Alert the staff in Sector Eighteen; the President has a new job for them. The details will be sent to you shortly.” The researcher paused, mulling over her words carefully. “Let them know that failure will not be tolerated, and will result in termination.”

“... Yes, ma’am. Right away, ma’am.”

The researcher set the phone down. closed her hand over the computer mouse and clicked on a folder, opening a range of files. Expression inscrutable, she selected one of the videos and leaned back into her chair, fingers returning to her salazzle’s brow.

The footage rolled: a twisted, unnatural parody of a god, held at many metres’ distance by thick, unyielding metal poles operated by eight struggling men. It yowled and hissed, voice metallic and low, lean muscle rippling beneath an oil-spill black coat, and then tore itself free of its bonds, rending one man asunder in a burst of power and snapping its twisted jaws around the shoulder of another, tearing sinewy muscle and flesh. Several more men entered the compound, armed with rifles, and opened fire: four more of them were ripped to pieces before the creature finally succumbed to its injuries.

It was… unstable, she thought, but all prototypes were, and the blueprints were promising.

And she’d gone to so much trouble to get them. One way or another, she’d refine them, and perfect them.

The President’s—the region’s—fate depended on her. She had no choice.

Chapter Text

“The good news is that your pikachu hasn’t sustained any permanent damage,” Nurse Joy said, “and neither have you.”

She swabbed the last of the blood from Ash’s arm, which was all scraped up from his Z-crystal exploding, and wrapped it in several layers of gauze. Ash watched it all happen, feeling like the pain was still very far away, blocked by the excitement of the battle and the Z-move and wanting to make sure Pikachu was okay. Brock had always said that adrenaline was one hell of a drug—usually after Ash had gone and done something stupid, and gotten himself all beat up.

“But Pikachu will need several days’ rest before you can think about battling with him again,” she continued. “We’ll keep him for a while, just to make sure he's stable, but you’ll be able to pick him up soon.”

Ash nodded forlornly. Much as he was relieved that Pikachu would be fine, he knew how much his partner hated having to sit around and do nothing. “Thanks, Nurse Joy,” he said. Nurse Joy looked at him for several long moments, as though she wanted to say something more, but she moved down the counter to address another trainer carrying a sick-looking poochyena without so much as a goodbye.

Though he was reluctant to leave Pikachu by himself, Ash traipsed back out of the pokémon centre. The sun was setting low over Hau’oli’s beachfront; children raced along its sands, chasing or chased by pokémon of all kinds, and men and women alike lay out on towels and in deckchairs, catching the last of the day’s light. Out here, things almost felt normal, like Pikachu wasn’t in intensive care.

Like they hadn’t fought a god.

Ash had understood, back when he’d been battling that strange pokémon, that it hadn’t been ordinary. There’d been something off about it, this ancient aura that had flooded Ash’s every sense, but still—

When Kiawe had mentioned Tapu Koko on the day they’d first met, he hadn’t anticipated that he’d encounter it so soon. At some point, maybe, because legendaries seemed drawn to him, almost, but never so suddenly, and never so intimately.

… Then again, he hadn’t seen anything immediately miraculous in Kalos, and fate never liked to leave him alone for long.

“Ah, Ash!”

If Ash had thought him wide and imposing from afar, up close, Kahuna Hala was a wall of a man, and his loose, flowing clothing did nothing to hide his bulk. But there was something kind about his face, obscured as much of it was by thick, bushy, grey hair.

“Kahuna Hala,” Ash said, dropping his head. “Konbanwa!”

The locals, he’d learned, tended to look at him weirdly whenever he spoke Johtan—but in a good way, like he was a funny little novelty. Kahuna Hala was no exception; he barked out a loud, booming laugh, hands coming to rest on his gut.

“Alola to you too, my boy!” he said. “Kiawe said you might be here.”

“Is Turtonator alright?” Ash blurted. “I saw—when Tapu Koko first showed up, he fainted, and he looked pretty beat up.”

Kahuna Hala hummed approvingly, as though that’d been the right thing to say. “Turtonator’s a hardy thing,” he assured. “He's tired, but he'll recover! Kiawe’s more worried about you and your pikachu, actually.”

“... He is?” Ash asked, bewildered. He liked Kiawe, and thought he was a really great trainer, but there was something a little cold about the other boy, something that separated his skin from that sweltering fire beneath. He was passionate, though, especially about pokémon, so Ash supposed his concern for Pikachu made sense. “Pikachu’s fine. He's gotta stay in the pokémon centre for a bit, but Nurse Joy said I can pick him up soon!”

“Hah!” Kahuna Hala threw his head back. “he's made of tough stuff, for a rat.”

Ash, bristling, opened his mouth to protest—but the gleam in the kahuna’s eye quieted him. There was something wily about Hala, like everything he said was a test, in a way, of character, and of strength, and of Ash’s own understanding of things he didn’t even know how to explain.

“Kahuna Hala,” he said, instead, “Kiawe said that Tapu Koko was the god of conflict. Is that why It battled me?”

The man hummed in thought. “Come! Walk with me,” he said, setting a heavy hand on Ash’s shoulder and beginning to steer him down Hau’oli beachfront, back towards Iki Town and away from the pokémon centre. “It’s true that our tapu is drawn to acts of great strength, and that we honour It through battle because of that. But great strength is not found in children, Ash, and it isn’t found in pikachu, either.”

Again, Ash opened his mouth—then closed it. Kahuna Hala’s voice was low and serious, any previous levity drained from it.

“As Kahuna, I was chosen by Tapu Koko to protect this island and its way of life, but even I have only ever caught fleeting glimpses of our guardian. A meeting, once or twice, but nothing more. You’ve been here—what, a week?”

“Two days.”

The kahuna cleared his throat. “... Two days,” he amended, “and the tapu has already battled you.”

They walked until they reached Iki Town, then walked some more, until they arrived outside a wide, low hut that kind of reminded Ash of the kahuna himself. Hala led him inside, into a large, open room, where a makuhita was lounging on something that resembled a beanbag, and motioned for him to take a seat somewhere near it. He did, and the guts pokémon rolled to face him with a curious cry, gently smacking its rounded fist into Ash’s open palm in greeting.

Hala disappeared for some fifteen minutes, and returned with a steaming cup of herbal tea and a bowl of stew, which he passed to Ash without ceremony. “I thought you’d be hungry,” he said, while Ash inhaled the stew as though his life depended on it.

The kahuna waited until Ash was halfway through his mug of tea before speaking again. “So,” he began, watching the makuhita tumble into the boy’s lap, “Kiawe told me he’d told you about our Island Challenge.”

Ash shifted about until the makuhita’s weight was mostly over the bean bag. “Uh huh!”

“What d’you think of it? Sounds fun, no?”

He nodded emphatically, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah, but Kiawe said it’s not for outsiders. It’s an Alolan thing, like… like Z-rings.”

The kahuna stroked his moustache pensively. “Ordinarily, Kiawe would be right. The Island Challenge is a traditional rite of passage for young Alolan trainers—and Z-rings are sacred tools that allow us to wield Alola’s power. It’s only in particularly exceptional circumstances that we would deviate from that long-lasting standard.”

Ash frowned for a moment, thinking, and scratched absently at the inside of his left wrist, right beneath the cuff of his Z-ring. “Does that mean I have to give this back?”

There were a few beats of incredulous silence in which Hala simply stared at Ash, mouth a thin, unyielding line.

“... Ash,” the kahuna said, very slowly, like he was talking to someone stupid. “you are the very definition of an exceptional circumstance.”

Ash blinked. “I am?”

“Tapu Koko Itself selected you to wield a Z-move. It sees something in you that we haven’t recognised, yet, and the challenge is designed to bring out a trainer’s hidden potential.” The kahuna trudged across the room to a tall set of draws and came back with an amulet embedded with shards of yellow, red, pink, and purple. “If you want to take part in it, I’ll endorse you.”

Wide and starry-eyed, Ash held the amulet close—then twisted around until he could clip it to his backpack, where it dangled proudly. “Arigatō gozaimasu, Kahuna!” he said, voice almost a shout. Startled, the makuhita in his lap slid down to the tiled floor and waddled over to Hala, who scooped it up in one hand as though it weighed nothing at all.

“Hah! Think nothing of it, my boy. If Tapu Koko wills it, then who am I to say no?”

It was, Ash thought, a humble way of looking at things. Kahuna Hala seemed utterly devoted to his service to Tapu Koko, as though his role in life was far bigger than just him, or Iki Town, or even Melemele as a whole.

“Thanks,” he said again, regardless.

Outside, a pokémon called out into the night.

Professor Kukui’s lab was… loud. There was no other word for it—it swayed, and it creaked, and there were holes in the walls and roof that were haphazardly patched up, and the murkrow that sat on one of the chest of drawers beside the downwards staircase kept cawing at the small, pink, bear-like pokémon watching it with black, beady eyes.

“That’s stufful—or nuikoguma—the flailing pokémon. A normal and fighting type, bzzt! Stufful, despite looking cute, boast tremendous power, and are capable of punching holes in people with ease! They’re aggressive and territorial, and will attack any stranger who tries to approach them, bzzt,” Rotomdex said, voice entirely too cheerful. Ash screwed his face up and inched backwards, holding Pikachu close to his chest.

“What d’you think, eh? Useful, right?”

“Yeah,” Ash said, watching the professor scoop the stufful up and scratch beneath its chin like it was a domestic eevee.

“Rotom’ll be a real big help to you, yeah, ‘specially since you don’t know Alola all that well! It’s programmed to give info in every language you can think of, and it’s lived around here long enough to have that local experience too. You’ve used a pokédex before, right?”

“Uh huh.”

“Then you know that all those boring, scientific journals are actually worth reading, even if they put you to sleep?”

Ash tugged on the brim of his cap and threw Rotom a sheepish glance. “I know an app that condenses it all,” he admitted. Professor Kukui paused for a moment—then laughed.

“Fair enough, cousin! Rotom’s a real smart pokémon too, yeah, so I’m sure it’ll be able to summarise things for you, nice and easy. It’s autodidactic—”

“Huh?”

“Self-educated,” Kukui amended. “It records new data it sees and makes conclusions based on what that data infers, so that it can gain a better understanding of the world around it.”

“Woah,” Ash said, though he didn’t really understand what the professor was talking about. “That’s so cool!”

Outside, the sun was high in the sky, and it was no quieter than within the lab. Corsola puttered about on the beach, pinker than any Ash had ever seen before, though with diminutive crowns—thanks to being preyed on by mareanie, or hidoide, as Rotom gleefully explained—and a kid Ash recognised as Hau was sat on one of the rocks by the shore, their rowlet dozing in their lap, watching a pokémon that sort of looked like a sandcastle crawl slowly through the sand.

“That’s a sandygast—or sunaba—the sand heap pokémon,” Rotom chimed, predictably, but whatever it said after that went to waste, because Ash had already broken out into a sprint towards Hau. “Bzzt—hey! I was talking!”

Ash ignored it, vaulting up onto the rocks beside Hau. “Hi—”

Hau leaned into Ash’s space, until their noses were mere inches apart.

“You’re that guy who fought Tapu Koko, right?” they said, voice shrill and loud. Startled awake, their rowlet yawned, stretched, and started preening itself. “Man, that was awesome! Tutu always said Tapu Koko was elusive, but It went right up to you! What’s It smell like? Was battling It scary?”

“Uh…” Ash glanced at Pikachu; Pikachu glanced back, bewildered. “I dunno…? It wasn’t scary, though. A battle’s a battle, no matter who you’re up against!”

“Yeah, but not a legendary. I mean, it’s not like you’ve ever fought one of them before, right?”

Ash said nothing. Hau leaned back, squinting at him for a few moments, then grinned from ear to ear, folding their arms behind their head.

“Nah, you’re just messin’ with me,” they said decisively. “Kinda weird, though, that Tapu Koko chose to fight a foreigner, of all people. Tutu’s always said that Alola should stay Alolan ‘cause that’s what the guardians want, but Tapu Koko didn’t seem to care about that at all! Hey—maybe you’ve got some Alolan in you?”

“Maybe,” Ash said, unconvinced. Hau was quiet for several seconds—then sat up straight, as though struck by lightning.

“Oh!” they shouted. “Almost forgot. My name’s Hau—Kahuna Hala’s my grandfather. This is my starter, Rowlet—” they jostled the bird in their lap, and Rowlet puffed out his chest, oozing pride— “and this—” they reached into their pocket, pulled out a poké ball, and released a pichu in a flash of red light— “Is Pichu! Hey, Pichu, see that kid’s pikachu? That’s what you’re gonna look like, one day, and then you’re gonna be a raichu! Cool, huh?”

“Pichu pi- chu!”

“Nice to meet you, Hau, Rowlet, Pichu,” Ash said, because even though he already knew Hau’s name, it’d have been rude of him to say so. “My name’s Ash, from Pallet Town, and this is my partner, Pikachu! Oh, and that’s Rotom.”

Rotom buzzed proudly. “At your service, bzzt!”

Hau did this thing where they tilted their head like a confused hoothoot and frowned at Ash’s waist. “... That’s it? You don’t have any other pokémon?”

Ash ran his hand over the side of Pikachu’s face. “Not with me.”

“Well, you might wanna catch some, ‘cause when I did the first trial, I was attacked by two pokémon at once, and the totem pokémon—that’s the one you have to beat—was crazy strong. Like, it was surrounded by this super powerful aura—”

Ash tensed up, shoulders going tight.

“—and it took both of my partners just to stand a chance against it!”

“Pi kaa,” Pikachu cooed, and Ash nodded, rubbing his cheek against his shoulder fur. It was right—Hau’s pokémon were both inexperienced, and Pikachu had felled all kinds of powerful opponents. Taking down the first totem wouldn’t be difficult.

… But he couldn’t use Pikachu for every battle, and he didn’t want to, either.

“You could catch that sandygast, bzzt,” Rotom suggested, alighting on Ash’s backpack. Ash jumped—he’d almost forgotten about it—then watched the sandygast in question creep up along the shore, open its ‘mouth’ wide—

And swallow one of the corsola.

“Wait—!” Ash leapt to his feet, watching the sandygast sink slowly. “Pikachu, quick, do something!”

“Wait, Ash, sandygast are—”

Pikachu loosed a powerful thunderbolt, which struck the sandygast head-on—and dissipated harmlessly.

“—ground types, bzzt,” Rotom finished, lamely. “And ghost types. Most of Pikachu’s moves won’t do anything to it, bzzt!”

Though physically uninjured, the thunderbolt must have wounded the sandygast’s pride, because it reared back up to its full height and fired off a shadow ball. Pikachu’s cheeks sparked, ready to counter it, but another pokémon—small, brown, doglike—cleaved through the attack with a bite and raced towards the sandygast, throwing itself into it with another bite. The two scuffled, limbs flailing and sand being thrown about haphazardly, before the sandygast coughed up a pale, trembling corsola and melted away.

Ash watched, stunned, as the doglike pokémon pushed its muzzle underneath the corsola’s shock-frozen body and rolled it back towards its friends.

“That’s a rockruff—or iwanko—the puppy pokémon, bzzt,” Rotom stage-whispered, completely immune to situational cues. “Rockruff are—”

“Shh, Rotom,” Ash said, placing a hand over Rotom’s screen. “Hey, Hau, is that—”

“Nope, not mine,” Hau replied. “He hangs around the professor’s lab, but he’s never caught him. He's always training out here, and sometimes he disappears and comes back all beat up, but nobody knows where he goes. The professor said he wants to get strong and learn rock throw someday, so he'd never be happy as a lab pokémon, but he's never wanted to go with any new trainers, either. He sure is picky.”

“Kinda like Gekkouga,” Ash murmured, quiet enough that only Pikachu could hear him, and his partner squeaked an assent. His legs moved of their own volition, bringing him across the stretch of sand towards the rockruff, and he dropped to his knees a few feet away from him. “Hey!”

The rockruff picked hhis head up and looked at him, bright-eyed and inquisitive, tail wagging.

“You’re really cool, y’know,” Ash said. The rockruff’s tail wagged faster and faster until it was a blur behind it. “And strong. I mean, Pikachu’s fought some super powerful pokémon before, but even he couldn’t do any damage to that sandygast at all, and you managed to rescue that corsola all by yourself!”

It was a white lie—Ash knew iron tail probably would’ve been enough, if he’d had the sense to use it—but the rockruff didn’t need to know that. He held out a hand and the rockruff pushed closer, sniffing Ash’s palm and licking his fingers, muzzle warm and tickly.

“Hau said you wanna get even stronger, and even learn rock throw. ‘S that right?” The rockruff yapped in response. “Y’know, I have pokémon that can learn all kinds of powerful moves back home. Waruvial can use stone edge, and Gantle’s got a super strong rock blast! If you want, I’d love to help you master rock throw, and become the strongest rock type in Alola.”

The rockruff perked up, expression full of fire and fight. It was the sort of look that Ash sought in his pokémon: fierce, and determined, and unyielding, even in the face of hard work.

“We can make a deal,” Ash continued. “I help you learn rock throw, and you help me beat my first trial.”

It sounded like a fair trade-off to Ash, and it seemed like the rockruff thought so, too, because he cocked his head, pondered the offer for a few moments, and then reared up, planting his paws on Ash’s shoulders and scraping his face with the rocks in his mane in what Ash presumed was a big, resounding yes.

“Seems like he likes you!” Hau called.

“Yeah,” Ash said, laughing around the rockruff’s brutal affection, “sure does!”

Ash was a weird kid, Professor Kukui decided. It had been painfully obvious that there was something unusual about him back at the festival, and Kukui’s suspicions had only deepened after speaking to him. The kid battled like a seasoned veteran, and there was something perspicacious and stress-hollow about his eyes, but he was so damn small, like he hadn’t been alive long enough to accrue any experience at all. He marvelled at the most insignificant things—a stufful, a particularly shiny rock, Kukui’s vast collection of hyper potions—but seemed utterly unbothered by the importance of Tapu Koko’s blessing.

Lunala’s heavens, his partner was a pikachu, yet together, they had stood valiantly against a deity. And now, the boy was out on the beach outside the lab, urging a rockruff that had rejected all other trainers—Kukui included—through a ruthless training programme, running it up and down, attacking trees and rocks and invisible enemies alike.

“Tackle, Iwanko! Break through that boulder!” Ash shouted, and the rockruff—Iwanko—actually listened to him, throwing his entire weight into a large stone. He bounced back, picked himself back up, and slammed himself into the rock several more times, until it cracked, then splintered, then crumbled apart.

Iwanko yowled, victorious, and barrelled into the kid, knocking him into the sand and rubbing his mane against his face. Kukui hadn’t ever seen the pup so attached to someone. It was like he and Ash saw the world through the same eyes.

“Looking good, you guys!” he called from the porch. Ash sat up, hair a mess of sand, and held the rockruff against his stomach, beaming.

“Thanks, Professor! Iwanko’s really coming along, isn’t it?”

It was. Iwanko had always held potential, but he had lacked finesse: without someone to polish his jagged edges and hone his raw talent, he had been promising, but never particularly special.

And they’d only been at it for under a week—Kukui had all but moved Ash into the lab, partly due to Iwanko’s wailing and whining whenever the kid tried to leave—but the improvement was undeniable. The rockruff moved more smoothly, body low like a predator’s when he loped about—and perhaps he was trying too hard, but there was something endearing about all that effort.

“Sure is, cousin,” he said. “What’re you plannin’ to do about teaching him rock throw, though? All this running up ‘n’ down is good, but it doesn’t do much for that.”

“‘Course it does!” Ash insisted. “It’s about focus, right? So you run up and down and channel all your energy into one big push, and then you can do anything! The more focus Iwanko has, the easier it’ll be for him to learn a new move.”

There was more to learning a new move than simple desire—Iwanko’s lack of success so far was proof of that—but the kid seemed so earnest about it that Kukui didn’t have the heart to say so; and, privately, he was curious to see how successful this training method would be. He leaned back against the open door and watched Ash and Iwanko train for another twenty minutes, before the two of them stopped in front of the lab, breathing harsh and shaky.

“Hey, Professor, I know Nurse Joy said Pikachu can’t battle for a bit, but can he use a move? Just so I can show Iwanko somethin’?”

Kukui shrugged. “So long as you don’t push him.”

The ‘somethin’’ Ash wanted to show Iwanko, it turned out, was electro ball. Kukui didn’t get it, at first, but then the kid started talking about how just as when Iwanko used bite, he channelled all his energy into its teeth and thought ‘super mean thoughts’ to turn that focus into dark-type energy, channelling energy into your rear could yield attacks that spawned around the tail.

(At least, that’s what Kukui presumed he was saying. Most of the kid’s explanation consisted of grand gestures and dramatic sound effects that didn’t communicate anything technical, but definitely served to start a fire in the rockruff’s eyes, and maybe that was the point. Not cold, hard facts and clinical research, but willpower, and heart. Like this, Ash felt almost Alolan in his authenticity.)

“That’s what we did back when Pikachu was still learning iron tail, anyway,” Ash said, rubbing that spot behind the electric type’s left ear that made him melt happily into the ground. Then he stood, backed up, and waved his arms about. “‘Kay, Iwanko, you try it! Focus real hard, and aim at me!”

“Ash—”

“I know what I’m doin’, Professor!”

“Yeah, but—”

“Is this not your preferred method of training, bzzt?” Rotom said, hovering about Kukui’s head, and the professor stopped protesting, after that, though his expression was flinty and nervous. He was a grown man with a degree in this sort of thing. Ash was an overenthusiastic child.

Iwanko barked and snarled, paws kicking up sand, and gave it a damn good go. At first, he managed little more than an entertaining little intimidation dance—but Ash kept shouting, and after a while, Pikachu joined in, and then Kukui called out some encouragement—

And something happened. It wasn’t quite rock throw, but the pebbles around Iwanko’s neck began to glow, and the air around his tail shimmered and warped like it wanted to give into all that built-up power. Iwanko yowled; the air rippled and stilled; and then it flared again, and a small handful of rocks struck Ash’s crossed arms.

“I can’t believe it sort of worked, bzzt!” Rotom marvelled, screen flashing as its database updated. “Satoshi’s not a bad trainer, bzzt.”

Kukui watched Ash run across the beach and fling Iwanko into the air, praising him in a dialect that the professor didn’t fully understand, but also didn’t need to.

“No,” he agreed. “He’s really not.”

Ash crawled through the dense foliage, eyes still bleary with sleep. Pikachu, tucked in his pyjama shirt, dozed quietly; up ahead, Iwanko pressed on determinedly, leading Ash out of the forest and up onto a ledge overlooking a great, rocky outcrop.

“Whazzis’?” Ash murmured, shifting Pikachu into his arms and sprawling out on his stomach. Below, several pokémon gathered: some were recognisable, like the sudowoodo, or the braviary, or the magmar; others, like the two wolflike creatures perched higher than the rest, were utterly foreign to him.

Iwanko looked at them as though they were gods. They struck up an eerie howl, and the rockruff scrambled down the cliffside to the gathering. It was—beautiful, if unnerving. Ash felt cold all over, despite the humid warmth of the night.

Then the clustered pokémon scattered, pairing up, and Ash watched Iwanko prowl the edges, as though thinking, before throwing himself at a magmar. The magmar almost seemed to expect the ambush, knocking Iwanko back with a blistering fire punch, and Ash abruptly realised what was going on.

These pokémon were training with each other. Iwanko had been desperate to learn a rock type move for that magmar.

… But rock throw was still so new to the rockruff, and it was painfully apparent in the slow charge-up time. Iwanko retreated, trying to buy himself precious extra seconds, but flamethrower disrupted him, time and time again, pushing him into a corner. He was resolute, but Ash could see how quickly he was tiring.

“Dodge it, Iwanko! Use your surroundings and keep moving!” he shouted, unable to help himself. Crouched on one of the pillars overlooking the battleground, one of the two wolflike pokémon—reddish and bipedal—turned and fixed him with a narrow, crimson stare, but Ash didn’t quail.

They hadn’t really worked on dodging, during their training, but Iwanko was fast, and he was agile. The magmar closed in on him again with another fire punch, and Iwanko used the boulder behind him as footing to vault out of the way, springing higher and higher. The rocks around his neck glowed; the air around his tail bent, shimmered and snapped; and he flipped his body head over heels, firing off a vicious rock throw that nailed the magmar in the face.

It was the hit Iwanko needed to gather momentum. The pup rushed in and closed his jaws around the magmar’s arm, using that drive to swing out of the way of another flamethrower. Ash wanted to shout—to command—but this wasn’t his fight, and Iwanko didn’t look like he needed him, either. He ran circles round the magmar, summoned another rock throw, narrowly dodged one final, valiant fire punch—and then it was all over. The magmar hit the dirt, and when the dust cleared, it didn’t rise.

Ash watched the pokémon gather around as Iwanko helped his fallen foe up. Up on the pillars, the wolflike creatures started another howl; Iwanko threw his head back to join, and this time, it sounded like a victory song.

The girl was pale and thin, skin clinging to her bones, and her dress—once white—was a drenched, dirty shade of off-grey. Her hat hung low over her gaunt face, ripped at the top, and her hair was limp and filthy. She shook perpetually, didn’t look people in the eye, and when she spoke, she did so in a tremulous, whispering voice.

“Hello, is—is Professor Burnet here?”

“Who’s asking?”

“I, um—” the girl fidgeted, restless— “someone with information? Please, I just want to speak to her, I have—”

“Look, kid,” the analyst sighed, “this place isn’t safe for children, and the professor’s busy right now—”

“Please,” the girl begged, fumbling with the zip on her bag, “I have—look, I just—”

The analyst fell silent, scrutinising the contents of her bag for several long seconds. “... Where did you get that?”

“I want to speak to Professor Burnet,” the girl insisted, closing her bag back up. “I’m not—I won’t speak to anyone until you take me to her. Please.”

The analyst muttered something under his breath, sharp and irritated, then disappeared into the laboratory. He returned a few moments later, motioned for the girl to follow him, and led her down a silver, sterilised corridor towards a thick, metal door.

“In here,” he said. The girl swallowed, heart pounding in her throat, and pushed her way inside.

The lab was organised chaos, a mess of wires and humming computer monitors. Professor Burnet turned as the girl entered—and after a brief moment of hesitation, offered her a kind smile.

“Can I help you?” she asked. The girl tightened her grip on her bag strap and approached the professor on shaky legs, feeling as weak and unsteady as a newborn deerling.

“You’re researching the wormholes, right? You know about the ultra beasts?”

The colour drained from Professor Burnet’s face.

“It’s okay,” the girl said, quickly, mouth dry. “I already know all about it, I—I know—so… you don’t have to lie.”

She’d… seen them, the ultra beasts, and she’d seen the atrocities they were capable of. She’d seen the things that were supposed to fight them, and she’d seen the atrocities they were capable of, and the way they were treated, afterwards, for behaving according to their programming. She’d seen things that looked like people go in and out of portals that took them between dimensions, and she’d seen their numbers dwindle between missions, and then bulk back up as they were replaced by other not-people.

She’d seen experiments so unnatural, so unholy, her brain couldn’t comprehend them, even now. She’d… she’d been an experiment, once. Some part of her still felt like maybe she was.

Absently, she rubbed at a sore spot behind her ribs, where the skin was raised and scarred.

Professor Burnet rose, splaying both hands on the desk between her and the girl. “I know about them,” she admitted, finally. “I’m still researching what causes the wormholes, though.”

“I can tell you,” the girl blurted. Professor Burnet blanched further, if such a thing was possible. “I can—please, I can tell you, just—can you promise—” she wrung her hands. “... Please, I need somewhere to—I need a place to stay, just for a while, and rest up, and—”

“Where are your parents?” Professor Burnet asked, impossibly gentle. The girl dropped her head and was quiet.

“... Please,” she repeated, feeling rather like a broken record. The professor approached her slowly, set one hand on her pale, freezing shoulder, and crouched in front of her.

“What’s your name?”

The girl shivered, and unzipped her bag. Nestled inside, a nebulous pokémon slept, so still it could very well have been dead. When she scooped it out and held it in her palms, it stirred, weakly, but did not wake.

She took a deep breath. “Can you fix it?” she pleaded, voice shrill and high. “I promise, if you fix it, I’ll tell you everything I know.”

The prototype looked rudimentary, but it wasn’t supposed to be pretty. It curled with its back hunched, suspended in liquid yet painstakingly conscious, and eyed the researcher through the thick pane separating them warily.

It had never seen the world outside its tube; never known any life but one of solitude and imprisonment. Still, it was remarkably more docile than its predecessors had seemed on tape, even without any attempted socialisation. It had not tried, at any point, to lunge for her—had remained rather quiet and complacent despite its baleful glare.

And, despite its unattractive, unnatural appearance, it was healthy, and it was powerful. Its body was all packed muscle and gnarled claws and fangs. It looked—

It looked more like a weapon than a living creature.

She imagined the president’s beaming face, when she presented him with such a success. A hero, he’d call her, most likely. He’d probably tell her she’d saved them all from certain doom.

The researcher smiled. If it remained stable until the end of the week, they could proceed with future trials, and if it survived those, they could work on training it.

And then she’d be one step closer to a promotion.

Chapter Text

“I think Iwanko wants your lil partnership to be a bit more permanent, cousin,” Kukui said, watching Ash and Iwanko play-wrestle in the middle of his makeshift living room.

“You think?” Ash lifted his head (and Iwanko with it) to look over at Kukui, expression open and wondering. “‘S that true, Iwanko?”

The rockruff slid into Ash's lap and set his paws on his chest with a high, happy bark. It was as close to a yes as Kukui had ever heard from a pokémon.

“We’re gonna work together to be the strongest,” Ash promised, like Iwanko wouldn’t follow him to the ends of the earth regardless. “Me, you, ‘n’ Pikachu—we’re gonna beat the Island Challenge for sure!”

When Professor Kukui had contacted them concerning a foreign student wishing to partake in the Island Challenge, Ilima had expected a greenhorn—someone over-eager, maybe a little clumsy like Hau had been, excited and clueless but desperate to do well.

Ash was… half of those things. But he was also—well—Ash, and—

“... Trial Captain Ilima? Are you alright?” Ash asked, and Ilima realised, abruptly, that they were staring.

“Ah! I apologise, truly, it’s just—” Ilima paused, breathy and a little pink in the face— “you’re Ash Ketchum.” Bewildered, Ash nodded, and Ilima scrambled to elaborate. “I was… I was in Kalos, last year, when—”

A shadow flitted across Ash’s face. “Yeah,” he said, fingers forming a fist in the fabric of his t-shirt, over the right side of his ribs.

“I was in Ambrette Town at the time,” they continued. “Évoli and I, we watched you, and the gym leaders, and… you risked your life for Kalos. For the world. If Team Flare had—”

“Nah, it was nothin’,” Ash insisted, but his hands were restless and clammy. “It’s what anyone would’ve done, right? Lysandre was—he was a bad person, and good people will always stop the bad people. Even if I’m…” he trailed off; his pikachu pushed his face against his cheek and cooed quietly, expression forlorn and worried.

Ilima didn’t know if Ash was being deliberately humble, or if he didn’t realise that running headlong into the apocalypse was not something ordinary children—ordinary people—tended to do, but he seemed… uncomfortable, like the attention was something he was unused to, or—

“I just wanted to thank you,” they said, “for everything.”

“Well, I, uh—” Ash opened his mouth, brow creased—then stopped when Pikachu pulled on his hair. “You’re welcome,” he settled on, after a few moments of deliberation. “I just can’t stand it when people think they can choose how everyone should live, or—or who should live, at all.”

That last part was added a little darkly, like it was a recurring issue, but Ilima knew better than to press for elaboration. “I watched you in the league, too,” they said, hoping to steer the conversation towards something a little less grave. “Your pikachu is—he's something else, truly. To take on pokémon as powerful as tyranitar and metagross and emerge victorious...”

They sent out their eevee in a flash of light; the normal-type stretched herself out with a luxurious squeal, took note of her surroundings, and scrambled up into her trainer’s arms. “While evolution is an excellent way to increase a pokémon’s strength, it isn’t the only one. Évoli and I are hoping to one day challenge the Eevee Eight and earn the right to battle for an eevium Z, and prove that eevee are just as capable as their evolutions.”

“Evoi!”

Ash’s eyes sparkled. “Woah,” he breathed. “That’s just like me ‘n’ Pikachu! He wants to prove that you don’t need to evolve to be super strong, and I love my buddy just the way he is, so it works out perfect!”

“Oh, you too?” Ilima wasn’t sure why that surprised them—using a pikachu in a league when thunder stones were relatively easy to obtain was unorthodox.

“Uh huh! I really wanna see how your eevee fights, too, so—if you don’t mind—will you please battle me?”

Ilima cleared their throat, oddly bashful, but Ash’s enthusiasm was infectious. “I…”

“Oh.” Ash interrupted, before Ilima could accept his offer. His shoulders slumped. “Wait, I’m here for—” he gestured at Verdant Cavern. “The trial.”

“Oh,” Ilima echoed, and was quiet, for a moment. Then: “Well, I am Trial Captain Ilima. Surely defeating a trainer such as myself would be a sufficient test of your battling abilities.”

A slow smile spread across Ash’s face. “Yeah! Hey, Rotom, will you referee?”

“Of course! Is a two on two battle suitable, bzzt?”

“That’s fine by me,” Ilima said, watching Ash and Rotom take their places several metres apart.

“Alright, Pikachu,” Ash said, “kimi ni kimeta!”

Pikachu leapt down from his shoulder, sparking at the cheeks. Ilima gently set their eevee down in the ground; she dropped into an anticipatory crouch, blunt claws sinking into the soil.

Satisfied, Rotom lifted one ‘arm’. “Battle begin, bzzt!”

“You can have the first move,” Ash said politely.

Ilima had seen Ash battle in the Kalos League, and they knew that his pikachu—however unassuming—was far stronger than he looked.

… But so was Évoli. “Sunny day,” Ilima coaxed, and their eevee straightened up, ears and tail quivering. Inexplicably, despite its low position in the sky, the sun burned ever brighter. Ash shielded his face from its light. “Now—quick attack!”

“Dodge, Pikachu!” A counter-quick attack propelled the electric type out of the way, and a second smashed into Évoli’s flank. “Electro ball!”

“Hyper voice!” A shrill shriek shredded the oncoming sphere; Pikachu pinned his ears to his head and skittered back to his trainer’s feet uneasily. “Weather ball!”

“Beat it back! Don’t let it corner you!”

Iron tail slapped the attack away, but only just; the thunderbolt that followed was narrowly avoided by a quick leap to the right. Quick attack clashed with quick attack, and electro ball struck Évoli in her chest. The eevee paused, caught her breath, and yowled another powerful hyper voice, forcing Pikachu to turn his back.

Ilima’s eyes gleamed. “Now, Évoli! Weather ball, again!”

Weather ball scorched the fur along Pikachu’s spine, taking advantage of his distraction. “Ne t'arrête pas! Quick attack!”

Iron tail swung to cover Pikachu’s exposed side, and though Évoli glanced off it mostly-harmlessly, she knocked Pikachu down, leaving him wide open.

One final, powerful attack ought to be enough, Ilima thought.

“Last resort, Évoli!”

“Vee!” Dazzling light shrouded the eevee’s body, forming a ball that grew brighter and brighter ahead of her; it spun itself into a star, expanded outwards—

“Volt tackle!”

“Pika!”

—and was shattered into smithereens.

Évoli bounced backwards, landing in a heap at the mouth of Verdant Cavern. Rotom drifted over, gave her an experimental poke, then zipped back to its place in the middle of the makeshift battlefield’s perimeter.

“Ilima’s eevee is unable to battle! Satoshi and his pikachu are the winners, bzzt!”

Ilima recalled their eevee, fingers skimming her poké ball. “That was impressive,” they praised, bemused. Across the battlefield, Pikachu had returned to his spot on Ash’s shoulder, head lifted high so his trainer could rub his chin. “I didn’t realise your pikachu knew volt tackle.”

“That’s ‘cause we haven’t used it since…” Ash frowned, lost in thought. “... the beginning of our journey in Unova, right? And that was a while ago.” He glanced at Pikachu. “I didn’t even think you’d remember how to use it!”

“Pikapi.” Pikachu scowled, and Ilima laughed a little incredulously.

It did strike them as odd that Pikachu would have such a powerful move in his arsenal and just… opt not to use it. It was high risk—moves of that calibre always were—but Ilima thought the payoff was surely worth the pain.

“I wouldn’t have known,” they said, aiming for placating.

Ash rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, but that’s just ‘cause Pikachu’s so awesome,” he muttered. “Your eevee was super cool too! Last resort probably woulda done some real damage if it’d hit, and that weather ball was super strong.”

Ilima flushed, in spite of themself. They knew Évoli was no slouch in battle, but there was something special about hearing validation from the mouth of such an obviously-experienced trainer. “Thank you,” they stammered, pocketing Évoli’s poké ball and producing their second. They thumbed the catch, and—

“Woah, you have a pink mimirol?” Ash shouted, eyes wide and starry. Ilima’s buneary twitched his one unfurled ear and narrowed black, beady eyes at the boy. “I have a friend who has one, but hers isn’t pink. I never knew they could be that colour!”

Laporeille was Ilima’s pride and joy—a gift, and one they treasured dearly. Buneary were—well—they were difficult to train, put kindly, and it had taken many long months to win the stubborn creature over. Even now, their relationship sometimes felt more transactional than loving, but Ilima was determined to bond with him.

“Have you ever seen a shiny pokémon before?” Ilima asked. Ash hesitated, thinking, then nodded emphatically.

“Oh, yeah. Yorunozuku is shiny, but I didn’t really get what that meant when I caught him.”

Ilima hummed, pretending to understand what that was. Between them, Rotom beeped impatiently, gesticulating towards Ash.

“Oh! Sorry, Rotom,” he said, setting his hands on his hips. Ilima waited for Pikachu to descend and take his place on the pitch, but Ash turned to face the rockruff sitting patiently in the grass behind him. “You’re up, Iwanko!”

The rockruff bounded forwards with an excited yap; Ilima cocked their head, puzzled. “You aren’t going to use Pikachu again?”

Ash tugged on Pikachu’s ear affectionately. “Nah. Iwanko promised me he'd help me beat my first trial if I helped him learn a new move and get stronger, so I’ve gotta let him hold up his end of the bargain. And he'd be pretty upset if I didn’t let him battle, huh?”

Iwanko looked over his shoulder at the boy and whined, tail wagging.

“The match between Satoshi’s rockruff and Ilima’s buneary will now commence, bzzt!”

A pause.

“... Start, bzzt,” Rotom amended, a little lamely. Ash lit up.

“Alright!” he said. “Howl, Iwanko!”

The rockruff threw his head back and boosted its attack.

“Now use bite!”

“Let it come to you, Laporeille,” Ilima urged, hands balled into fists. The buneary coiled both ears tight to his head and shifted all his weight onto his back foot.

Iwanko lunged. His jaws snapped around empty air. Half a second later, a powerful drain punch struck him in the throat, flinging him back against the outer cavern wall.

Ash white-knuckled the hem of his t-shirt. “Iwanko!” he shouted. “Can you still fight?” The rockruff shook himself out and struggled to his feet, eyes blazing. “Good job!”

“Your rockruff’s resolve is truly remarkable,” Ilima commended. They had seen rock types far larger than Iwanko crumble when faced with Laporeille’s drain punch; it was a move they had practiced and perfected.

“Yeah, he's amazing,” Ash agreed. “And we’re gonna win because he's amazing! Rock throw, Iwanko!”

“Bounce!” Laporeille sprung sky-high, clearing the hurled debris with ease and hurtling downwards. The rockruff didn’t need a command to know to dodge.

Ash’s eyes sparked, and he spun his cap round, flattening it against his head. Something in his expression had Ilima tensing in anticipation.

“Rock throw, again!”

Iwanko slung boulders at Laporeille. Once more, the buneary bounced out of the way.

“Now, Iwanko! Use the rocks and jump up too!”

“Tu te fous de moi?” It sounded impossible. But Iwanko sprung from rock to rock, climbing higher and higher, until one final leap propelled him up towards Laporeille.

“Bite!”

“Play rough!”

In a battle of speed, Iwanko won out. It caught Laporeille before the buneary could react and threw him to the ground; he caught himself on his ears and skidded to an unsteady—but alert—halt.

They had to disrupt Ash, Ilima realised. They couldn’t let him gain any momentum.

“Teeter dance,” Ilima said, and Laporeille staggered back and forth, lurching precariously back and forth like a roly-poly doll. Iwanko stared right at him, ears perked and tongue lolling, and—

… And was fine. And that didn’t make any sense, because Ash hadn’t set up safeguard, or misty terrain, and rockruff were popular enough pets for Ilima to know that their abilities did not protect against confusion.

“What?” Ilima said—a remark they suspected was common, where Ash was concerned.

Ash beamed, unshaken. “Tackle!”

“Headb—” Tackle hit its mark, impossibly fast. Ilima had to switch it up, had to keep moving; even fleeting hesitation, they were learning quickly, was punished ruthlessly. “Knock it back with triple axel!”

Laporeille kicked Iwanko away, feet hard as ice. Keep pushing.

“Drain punch!”

The buneary shot across the battlefield, ears drawn in close to his head—

“Sand attack, Iwanko!”

—and missed his shot entirely, blinded by the dust.

“Laporeille!” Ilima shouted, panic swelling briefly and overpowering passion. Laporeille shook himself out, but his eyes were unfocused and half-closed, face screwed up in distress.

And Ash kept pushing. “Rock throw!” Iwanko hopped cleanly around the buneary and battered him with a barrage of boulders. Laporeille dropped to his knees, exhausted. “Finish it off with tackle!”

Ilima watched it happen in slow-motion, speechless. Laporeille hit the dirt—and it was over. Rotom zipped over, then zipped back, and announced the results in a tinny, almost smug-sounding voice.

“... Incredible.” Ilima found their voice some thirty seconds later, recalling Laporeille with a quiet sigh. “That move with the rock throw, where you had your rockruff use it as footing—that was… a risk, to put it lightly.”

Ash tucked Iwanko under his chin, wincing when he rubbed his rocky mane against his skin. “I’ve never done it with my own pokémon’s move before, but Iwanko’s not scared of anything, so I knew he wouldn’t get nervous and mess up, even though we’ve never practiced it.”

“And the way he just ignored Laporeille’s teeter dance—was that training?”

“Oh, I dunno about that,” Ash admitted. “Somethin’ to do with his ability, I think.”

Ilima shook their head, perplexed. “Well, a deal’s a deal. You beat me, so you’ve cleared my trial. If you wait here, I’ll get you your Z-crystal—normalium Z, which will let you use breakneck blitz, providing your pokémon knows a damaging normal-type move,” they said. “Your next challenge will be to defeat the Island Kahuna, Hala, but I must warn you—he’s far, far stronger than I am.”

“I’m lookin’ forward to it.” Ash grinned, squeezing Iwanko close to his chest, and Ilima knew he was telling the truth.

“So you had to fight Ilima instead of the totem pokémon?” Hau crammed half a malasada in their mouth and leaned back in their seat, squinting at Ash. “Man, I wish I’d fought Ilima. They’re so cool… and… and smart… and cool… and I bet they’re strong, too, right?”

“Uh huh.”

Hau dropped their head into their hands. “Man,” they repeated, dreamily. “They’re so cool.”

They reached for the bag of malasadas between them and Ash, pulled it towards them—and fumbled, dropping it on the floor. “Aw, shoot,” they muttered, reaching to retrieve it—but something intercepted them. Something small, and black, and cat-shaped.

“Hey—!” The pokémon looked up, yellow eyes stretched wide and bony shoulders hunched—then grabbed one of the malasadas from the bag, scrambled beneath Hau’s chair and shot down the street, knocking Rowlet over in its haste to escape.

“What was that?” Ash asked, half out of his chair.

Hau scratched the back of their neck with a sheepish laugh. “Oh, that litten,” they sighed. “It’s always running around, looking for stuff to steal. If you look away from your food for even a second—”

Ash settled back into his seat, chin against his chest. “... So this happens a lot?”

“Oh, yeah. It’s annoying, but it’s only one litten, and it’s so skinny… you kinda feel bad for it, y’know? Like, where’s its trainer?”

Ash frowned, troubled. Something about an abandoned starter was… unpleasantly familiar.

“And it’s not like malasadas cost anyth—” Hau faltered, eyes on a point behind Ash. Ash turned, following their gaze, and saw nothing at all.

“What?”

“... Where’s Iwanko?”

“Where’s Iwa—Iwanko!” he yelled, but Iwanko was gone.

Ash leapt to his feet. “Be right back,” he said. Hau shoved another malasada into their mouth and blinked at him, expression a little lost. “Pikachu, c’mon!”

He set off down the streets of Hau’oli City, following Pikachu’s far more sensitive nose and ears. The electric type led him through throngs of people and into the outskirts of the city, where the buildings had long-since lost their lustre; they were run down and falling apart.

Ash picked his way gingerly through rubble and debris, ducking beneath a precarious tower of crumbling planks of wood. Ahead of him, an uncountable throng of what looked like meowth, but were darker, purplish and far too emaciated to be recognisable, surrounded a pothole in the road, droopy eyes glinting with starved malice.

And at centre of it all was Iwanko, standing over a fallen litten and snarling at the approaching not-meowth.

“Iwanko!” The rockruff perked up at the sound of his trainer’s voice, eyes brightening and tail beginning to wag. Several of the not-meowth inched forwards—“Look out!”—and scattered, screaming with their tails tucked between their legs, to avoid rock throw.

From the rotted fences to the side of the street, a low wailing struck up, and something bigger emerged from an uneven stack of tires that, much like the not-meowth, sort of looked like a persian, only fatter, and bearing that same, sickly, purple fur.

It stalked, slow and deliberate, towards Iwanko, grinning maw stretched wide to reveal uneven, yellowing fangs. Iwanko dropped his head and bravely stood his ground, trembling with a palpable rage.

The not-persian lashed out with one heavy limb. Iwanko went flying. No longer guarded by the puppy, the litten seemed impossibly small; it clutched the half-eaten malasada protectively to its chest, but its eyes were screwed shut, and its body bore open wounds.

The not-persian stepped closer. Hot drool dripped from its blunted, wrinkled mouth.

“Pikachu!” Ash shouted, but the warning was unnecessary. Pikachu sprung from Ash’s shoulder and rushed into the crowd: thunderbolt disrupted the not-meowth as they began to swarm, sending them fleeing into cracks in the walls of the houses, and an iron rush got rid of the not-persian before it ever reached the litten.

A violent, alien satisfaction bloomed in Ash’s chest as he watched them retreat. He hated bullies. He hated cowards even more.

Iwanko emerged from the dewy grass, battered but otherwise fine, and slunk over to the litten, nudging it with his muzzle until it stood on shaky legs.

“Hey,” Ash said, cautiously making his way over and kneeling in the gravel beside it. “Are you oka—”

The litten’s claws sliced through his outstretched palm. Ash clutched his hand to his stomach, wincing.

“Okay, okay, sorry, I just…” he trailed off. The litten grabbed the malasada, narrowed its pupils warily at him, and began to stagger down the road, looking as though it’d keel over in a stiff breeze. Ash watched it go, nausea welling in his stomach, then picked Iwanko up and set off after it, quiet as he could possibly be.

Eventually, the litten brought Ash to an abandoned building. It slipped through a large hole in the side that looked as though it’d been created by a machamp’s fist, and disappeared into the darkness. Ash flattened himself to the wall and peered inside.

The interior of the house was largely collapsed; the staircase had fallen in on itself, creating a sort of cubbyhole. Within it, a dirty, half-decayed mattress supported the bulk of a large—but skeletal—stoutland, which lifted its heavy head when the litten nudged it awake.

Ash watched as the litten set the malasada down, ripped a tiny bit off, and then fumbled to feed it to the stoutland. It sat, patiently, while the stoutland swallowed, then did it again, and again, and again, pushing against the canine’s mane and mewling whenever it started to cough, phlegmy and harsh and awful.

He shivered, blood turned to ice in his veins. That stoutland was old—and very, very sick. Keeping it here, away from a pokémon centre…

“Litten…” he murmured. The litten whipped around and arched its back in warning.

“Hey, hey, it’s alright! I don’t wanna battle you—you’re hurt. You need to go to a pokémon centre, and so does that stoutland!” The litten peeled its lips back and hissed, but Ash set Iwanko down and approached, heedless of the threat. “Stoutland’s not gonna get any better if it stays here. C’mon, I just wanna help, so—”

All yowling aggression, half-asleep on its feet and still furious, the litten shot for Ash’s throat. Ash threw his arms up on instinct, tucking his head into his interlocked elbows.

The thing about wild pokémon was that you could always tell they were wild pokémon from the way they fought. It was all fangs and claws and ferocity, forgoing thought-out strategy in favour of raw, unfiltered instinct. Ash had seen it even in Iwanko when he had battled that sandygast the day they’d met: it was about survival, not technique.

The litten fought like that, too. It flailed and scrabbled, shredding Ash’s arms with little finesse, until Ash managed to fit his hands around its body, pinning its legs to its sides and trapping it within the bracket of his knees.

“It’s okay,” he kept saying to it, over and over, “it’s okay. I’m not gonna hurt you.”

He let the litten struggle there until it exhausted itself and slumped, panting, in his hold. Its expression was baleful, but it wasn’t trying to fight him anymore, and that—Ash counted that as a victory.

“That’s it, there you go,” he said, aiming for soothing. “I dunno what sorts of people you’ve met in the past, but you’ve gotta trust me. If you let me take you ‘n’ Stoutland to a pokémon centre, they can look at those cuts you’ve got, and maybe they can fix Stoutland up, too.”

Imploringly, he looked over at the stoutland. Its brows were so heavy Ash could scarcely make out its face, but it pushed out a quiet boof. From it, calm resignation rolled in waves.

“C’mon,” he said, taking a risk and tucking the litten into his shirt, “let’s go get help.”

The litten closed its eyes. Ash felt that was as close to an agreement as he was going to get.

He’d take it.

“Professor Kukui,” Rotom said, one evening, while Ash was out preparing for the grand trial, “I have some… questions, bzzt.”

Kukui paused; he had heard a great many inflections in Rotom’s voice, before, but he had never heard hesitation—never heard uncertainty.

“Sure,” he said, aiming for levity.

“They’re about Satoshi, bzzt.”

“... Go on. Is he fun to travel with? Is he settling in well?”

“Yes and yes! That’s not the issue. Satoshi is a fascinating case study—and a considerate trainer, bzzt.”

Case study, like Ash was some sort of specimen, and not a living, breathing kid. Kukui motioned for Rotom to continue. “But?”

“But he—but he makes no sense, bzzt! You saw his training methods with Iwanko, and his anomalous method of picking pokémon he wants to partner with, and his even more anomalous method of catching them, bzzt!”

Kukui rubbed his chin. “Yeah, but that’s just his style, y’know? Some trainers like to bond with their pokémon in weird ways. Doesn’t make him anything special.”

“But that’s not it, bzzt,” Rotom insisted. “Satoshi claims he’s from the Kanto region, and that he has participated at least partly in its gym challenge, and then Trial Captain Ilima says he saw Ash battle in the last Lumiose Conference—”

Kiawe had brought up Ash’s visit to Kalos before, but his phrasing had led Kukui to assume that it had been more of a holiday than a trainer’s journey, and Ash had never mentioned anything of the sort before. He knew that Ash was more experienced than he liked to let on, but he had never pried, never thought to press on scars lest they not be fully healed.

“Right,” he said, feeling suddenly very off-kilter.

“Have you checked his trainer files, bzzt?”

Kukui shook his head.

“I have! I took the liberty of doing so earlier today, and he’s participated in six major league conferences before coming here, bzzt! He’s a reigning champion in the Orange Islands! He finished second in the Lumiose Conference! He helped put an end to the Kalos Crisis, bzzt!”

“... What?” Kukui murmured, faintly.

Tapu Koko had recognised qualities in Ash unusual and brilliant enough to warrant a personal challenge. Kukui had spent many a night poring over the potential specifics of that criteria, but had come up empty handed, confident of nothing but the guardian’s expectation of strength.

He had suspected that Ash had more credits to his name than he had thought to admit. But this…

“And I found a video, from Kalos 24, that—”

“Show me,” Kukui demanded, unthinkingly. Rotom’s screen flashed to display the video: grainy footage of Ash and a garchomp atop Prism Tower; the cracked floor giving way beneath Pikachu as he rushed towards his trainer; and Ash, leaping after his partner.

The video clipped, then rolled again; Kukui, sick to his stomach, did not turn away. He watched it again, then again, then again, and every time, Ash jumped off that damn building like he wanted to die. Like his life wouldn’t matter unless Pikachu was in it.

Kukui couldn’t pinpoint, really, why it affected him so. Maybe it was because recklessness could be excused if it was for a good cause—because sacrifice was okay in the name of heroism. But Ash had not leapt after Pikachu because he’d thought, in that moment, that doing so would save him.

It hadn’t been an act of heroism. It had been an act of suicide.

Unsettled, Kukui had Rotom cut the feed; it switched tabs, and he stared, rather blankly, at another article detailing Ash’s greninja’s exploits as part of the Kalos cleanup project. It didn’t take an expert to know that Ash and Pikachu were close, but Kukui loved his pokémon, too, and he’d never—he wouldn’t die with them, if their deaths were certain. There was a line, he thought, between devotion and blindness, that he would never cross. Ash seemed so far over it that it seemed as though he had stopped considering himself separate from his partners.

If that greninja was anything to go by, though, maybe he wasn’t. Maybe Ash had stopped being an individual a long time ago.

He had noticed, as early as the festival, that there was something unorthodox about the kid, and it had nothing to do with the tapu’s interest in his presence. It was a subtle, intangible thing—Kukui could not put a name to it without sounding almost judgemental, but he had heard Kiawe mention it, too, in lessons, and Rotom had brought it up many a time, too: Ash did not do things the way they were supposed to be done. The Alolan approach to training was laxer in its distinguishment of the roles of pokémon and master than in other regions, but even here, there was a divide that felt like an established hierarchy. Rules were followed, no matter how minimal: pokémon aided trainers in their goals, and grew as a side-effect.

It had never occurred to Kukui that a trainer would sacrifice their own dreams to make room for their pokémon’s. But Ash’s greninja was—he was unique, one of a kind, and he was on the other side of the world.

He wondered if Ash understood how strange that was. To have come from a region as unyielding in its views of what made a pokémon trainer and to harbour views so radical they seemed almost unfathomable even in Alola—

“Professor Kukui, are you okay, bzzt?”

Was he okay? (Was Ash?)

“I’m fine, Rotom,” Kukui said. “Download Ash’s trainer files for me, will you? And… don’t mention this to him. Not now.”

He had a call to make in the morning.

The cosmog was stable, but still unconscious. Burnet had done all she could to ensure that its tenuously-constructed form was in no real danger of dissipating—and the first few days had been uncertain, because it had been so, unbelievably weak—but rousing it was another matter entirely.

It was exhausted. The girl—Lillie—had told her that the cosmog was capable of opening ultra wormholes, and it was this ability that had left it in such a deep state of torpor, and that it had been experimented on, but she was painfully cagey about the details: where she came from, what had happened to her, where her family was. Who had hurt her.

She was cooperative, though. Mostly. Her information was anecdotal, with no real evidence to back her claims, but there was something sincere about her, something heavy enough that Burnet suspected she was telling the truth.

… But if that was the case, then many of her own hypotheses about the ultra wormholes and the ultra beasts were incorrect. She could not see the ultra beasts as parasites, or potentially invasive species—the majority of them were creatures no more malevolent than ordinary pokémon. The dimension beyond their own was plural, not singular, and they were not all wildernesses: there was a city, if Lillie was to be believed, and a creature so ancient, so terrible, that it was sealed away by the people of that strange, faraway world.

Lillie had clammed up, after that, eyes glazed over and faraway, but Burnet didn’t want to risk pushing her into complete silence. Useful as her knowledge was, she was still a deeply traumatised child, and though Burnet knew nothing of the specifics of her past, she could infer enough from what she had been told.

Burnet checked the cosmog’s vitals one last time, then moved from her laboratory into the back room. Lillie was curled up on the sofa, a thin blanket thrown over her body.

And Burnet knew there was something the girl wasn’t telling her, because in the dark, through layers of fabric, her ribs glowed white.

The researcher’s salazzle alerted her of an approaching entity long before they entered the room; she rewarded her with a half-eaten rage candy bar seconds before the laboratory doors slid open with a metallic shnnk.

“There’s been another blackout, ma’am,” the assistant said, in lieu of a greeting. “It took out the entire southwest of the region. They believe it’ll take at least a week to restore power to the major cities—longer, for the smaller towns.”

“So I heard,” the researcher responded, not glancing up from her monitor. “But there’s nothing we can do about it—not permanently—until our trials are complete. We can’t risk following the president’s plan without knowing that we have the means with which to subdue the power source, and until then, blackouts will occur.”

“... About that.” The assistant cleared his throat, fidgeting. “The president has brought the deadline for completion of the trials… forward.”

The researcher paused at that, frowning briefly at the readings on-screen before finally turning to face her assistant. “... Forward?” she echoed, a tad disbelieving. “What has he said? What’s the new date?”

“He’s, ah… he’s given you six months.”

“That’s—” the researcher gripped her mouse tightly, knuckles aching. “He promised us three years. We’ve—that’s not enough time to ensure that the specimens are stable enough for private use, let alone public service.”

The assistant removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I know,” he sighed, “but he’s growing increasingly concerned about the declining state of the region. These blackouts are increasing in frequency, duration, and scope, and with—” he waved his hand in a vague, noncommittal gesture. “... certain things have had to change. You know how it is.”

She did, but knowledge did little to smother her frustration. Men could be so short-sighted, sometimes, concerned with speed and efficiency over a job well done.

“I’m aware,” the researcher muttered through gritted teeth. “If—tell the president that if he wishes for our trials to be complete within six months, then they will be—but that we’ll need increased funding, and I’ll need a larger team.”

“Yes, ma’am.” The assistant bowed, turned, and fled the room, leaving the researcher alone with her thoughts.

She curled one hand around her salazzle’s upper jaw and scowled at the data open on her monitor. Six months. As though she would be able to offer anything but a half-assed effort in that time.

“Rotom,” she said. The smartphone on her desk buzzed alive. “Make a note to contact Achroma. And request another batch of wishing stars from the president.”

Chapter Text

“... So, let me get this straight,” Hau said, stretching their arms up and lacing their fingers on top of their rowlet, which perched on their head, “that litten tried to kill you, just ‘cause he's got a chip on his shoulder and thinks all people are evil, or whatever… and you agreed to take him home? What for? So he can try to kill you again?”

“He doesn’t look as aggressive as you made him out to be,” Kiawe observed, from Ash’s other side. Tucked into a harness and strapped to Ash’s chest, the litten—bound in bandages that covered his entire midsection—flattened his ears to his head, teeth bared in a halfhearted warning.

Hau blinked. “Yeah, right. ‘Cause good, normal, friendly pokémon growl at people all the time.” They reached out to try and scratch the litten beneath his chin—and yanked their hand back when he swiped at them, rumbling low in his chest. “Sheesh! Lighten up, kitty. Not everyone’s out to get you!”

“Hey, knock it off,” Ash said, defensively, as though it hadn’t almost cost him his arm to manoeuvre him into the harness in the first place. “He doesn’t know any better. Professor Kukui said he—” Ash glanced down at the litten, then cupped his hands over its ears, and though Litten hissed, he couldn’t quite reach Ash with his claws. Ash continued speaking in a whisper. “Professor Kukui said he thinks Litten might have been stolen from another island by bad people, ‘cause Nurse Joy couldn’t find it on the starter registry, or anythin’.”

Kiawe grimaced. “He was probably taken from Wela Volcano Park. Litten and torracat are supposed to be protected there. My grandfather was Kahuna of Akala Island before Olivia—”

“Woah, really?” Ash and Hau chorused.

“Yeah, and he used to guard Wela Volcano Park. This used to belong to him, actually. He said he got it when he first started protecting Wela Volcano Park, even before he was made Kahuna by Tapu Lele." He touched the talisman around his neck—an even cross, the top prong embedded with a deep, red teardrop shape. It looked like the one Ilima wore in their hair, Ash thought. "He said torracat flame sacs bring hundreds on the black market, so poachers try to smuggle litten out so they can use them to make a profit. It’s disgusting. Those people are worse than scum.”

“You’re tellin’ me. Pokémon poachers are the worst,” Ash muttered.

Hau tugged gently on their rowlet’s leafy bowtie. “You say that like you’ve met any before!”

Ash balled his hands into fists. On his shoulder, Pikachu whined.

He’d seen what poachers could do to pokémon. The Iron-Masked Marauder’s treatment of Celebi had been nothing short of torture—it had almost cost it its life—and Hunter J—

After they had rescued Riolu, Ash had sat with him alone, for a while, and felt the tangled ball of Aura in Riolu's chest slowly unravel. It had been so bright, pure and burning in a way he hadn’t felt since his time in Rota, cynicism beat out by the embers of hope despite everything Riolu had been through.

Riolu had wanted to go with him that day; Ash still felt that intention like an imprint on his soul. Riolu had trusted him inexplicably, trusted the world in spite of its capability for cruelty. Less resilient pokémon had been broken by far simpler things, but Riolu had been—Riolu had been special. One of a kind, and it’d had nothing to do with aura sphere.

When Hunter J had called Riolu special, she had meant that he had been valuable. She had meant that he had been profitable. Pokémon had not been living, breathing, feeling creatures to her; they had been commodities, items to be stolen and sold. Deviations from the norm were only sought after if they were worth more than the standard, and the rest had been discarded like damaged goods.

Ash had always wondered how she could be so cold, so inhumane. It was as though her visor had acted as a barrier between her actions and accountability. Even her pokémon had been cruel; the air around them had been wrong, dark and dead and cold.

He still had nightmares about her, sometimes, and her drapion’s crushing grip, poison seeping into his skin. Or her salamence, and how nonchalantly it had razed an entire forest just because she’d told it to, like it lacked any agency, any moral compass of its own, more machine than monster.

“Pikapi,” Pikachu squeaked in his ear. Ash looked up, saw his friends’ faces peering at him, and realised he’d stopped walking.

“Oh— sorry.” Absently, he petted Pikachu’s ear. “Yeah, I’ve met… a few.”

“Of course you have,” Kiawe teased. Ash knew he meant no harm, but he pulled a face anyway.

They kept walking. Up ahead, Iwanko ran circles around Turtonator, weaving in and out of the slow-moving dragon’s feet; Hau’s new noibat fluttered excitedly about Iwanko’s head.

“I have!”

“What, when you were in Kalos?”

“Bet it was in the same place he battled all those legendaries,” Hau threw in. Kiawe paused.

“... You’ve fought other legendaries?”

“Y— I mean—”

“Of course he hasn’t!” Hau rolled their eyes. Ash laughed nervously.

He didn’t make a habit of talking about his previous journeys whenever he was in a new region, partly because he didn’t think them to be of any significance to the people he met. It didn’t—it didn’t matter, as far as he was concerned, that he had met legendaries, or fought poachers, or stopped criminal enterprises from taking over or destroying whole cities or regions or even the world, not to those who hadn’t been there with him.

But the people in Alola were… weird, and they kept asking questions, and when he answered them, they called him a liar.

“He lies as much as Lana does,” Hau continued.

Ash didn’t know who Lana was. “I do?”

“Uh huh. Just the other day, when we were learnin’ about Hoenn, she was telling a story about how she’d fished up a kyogre, and Kiawe actually thought she was tellin’ the truth, for a sec.”

“I didn’t!”

“Yeah, you did! You started askin’ about whether or not a groudon could be around, like either of ‘em would ever be anywhere near Alola, and—”

“Mrrow,” Litten mewled, head lifted and ears perked. Hau and Kiawe’s bickering ceased; out in front of them, Iwanko, Turtonator, and Noibat had gone very still.

Pikachu’s nose twitched. A staggering sense of déjà vu crept upon Ash—then the creeping weight of expectation—

And then a large hunk of metal—polished chrome, vaguely humanoid, emblazoned with a crimson ‘R’—dropped from the sky and landed in the sand several meters ahead of them all.

“Pipi-kachu!” Pikachu shouted, like he always did.

“Team Rocket!” Ash echoed, like he always did. From the top of the mecha, James waggled his fingers in a wave that felt familiarly patronising.

“What’s going on?” Kiawe’s voice rose to a shout, tone growing sharp and unsteady.

Jessie smoothed a hand through her hair. “What’s going on is certainly not you!”

“That doesn’t—”

“The nature of brats is they don’t have a clue!” James interrupted. Kiawe had the sense to stay quiet after that.

“The beauty so radiant the flowers and moon hide in shame. A single flower of evil in this fleeting world: Jessie!”

“The nobly heroic man of our times! The master of darkness fighting back against a tragic world: it's James!”

“It's all for one and one for all. A glittering dark star that always shines bright! Dig it, while Nyarth takes flight!”

“... Did that weird lookin’ meowth just talk?” Hau asked, screwing their nose up incredulously. Nyarth bristled.

“‘Ey, who are you callin’ weird lookin’?”

An ill-timed shriek from Sonansu marked the end of Team Rocket’s motto. The arms of the mecha swung round, hand opening up and snagging Turtonator, Iwanko, and Noibat in thick, transparent cages.

“Iwanko!”

“Noibat!”

“Give our pokémon back!” Kiawe yelled. “Turtonator, shell trap!”

The ensuing explosion struck the walls of Turtonator’s cage—it bounced back harmlessly, leaving it as pristine and unharmed as before. Ash supposed he shouldn’t have been surprised: Team Rocket usually accounted for standard elemental attacks when building their contraptions.

“Like that’d work,” Jessie scoffed.

“You brats are real boneheads!” Nyarth jeered, scrambling up onto James’ shoulder.

“We’ll make it easy for you: you hand over Pikachu, and we’ll give the others back. Sound like a deal?”

“As if!” Ash snapped. “Electro ball!”

“Sonansu, do— something!”

The wobbuffet’s mirror coat deflected electro ball, making it bigger and brighter. Thunderbolt blew it to smithereens.

“We know how you work, brat,” James said. “Beating us won’t be as easy as it used to be!”

Ash doubted that. They’d said it a thousand times, now, and it had never been the case.

“And we have a secret weapon,” Jessie cooed. (They’d said that a thousand times, too, it felt like.) Ash looked back at her; a luxury ball was suspended between her index and middle fingers. “Last chance to accept my offer!”

“Yeah,” Ash said, “no.”

Jessie sighed. “Well, I tried. Mimikyu, show them how it’s done!”

The creature that emerged from the luxury ball was—it was hauntingly familiar, like some crude knock-off done by someone that had only ever heard descriptions of what pikachu looked like. It was similar in the sense that from a distance, if squinted at, it might have passed for a pikachu.

Up close, the hemming of its rag stood out like old, gnarled scars. The twisted branch of its ‘tail’ was splintered and sharp; the markings on its ‘face’ bled slightly, fuzzed around the edges as though submerged in water and left to run.

Ash sucked in a sharp, unpleasant breath. Pikachu tucked himself against the crook of his neck and bristled, and Ash took comfort in knowing that he could feel it, too.

Something was off about this mimikyu. Most of Team Rocket’s pokémon emitted light, despite their trainers’ bad deeds, but this was—

Rotom surfaced from Ash’s backpack. “Mimikyu, the disguise pokémon. A ghost and fairy type, bzzt! Skilled tailors, mimikyu conceal their true appearance behind a more appealing costume. While many presume that this is done to make themselves more palatable for people, bzzt, as mimikyu tend to avoid humanity, recent studies by behaviourists have implied that the primary function of these disguises is to attract prey.”

“... Prey?” Hau echoed, a little dumbly.

The mimikyu’s beady gaze found Ash, and the darkness around it flared into something fierce and twisted.

Ash’s fingers sought the mimikyu pendant tucked beneath his t-shirt and gripped it tightly. It felt foreign and too-hot against his skin.

“Pikachu,” he murmured, voice scarcely above a whisper. “It hunts pikachu.”

He understood that some pokémon ate other pokémon. Pidgeot ate magikarp all the time—his own had often hunted for itself, after it had grown big enough to carry prey—and he’d seen his talonflame chase wingull across the sky. Sharpedo preyed on wailmer, pursuing them in packs; heatmor ate durant; and Rotom had told him that gumshoos would eat rattata and raticate, if it ever managed to catch them.

… But pokémon who hunted for food did so out of necessity, or out of instinct. They weren’t—they were never guided by morals, or a lack thereof; it was nature.

Jessie’s mimikyu did not seem driven by base instinct alone. There was something—awful about it, something sinister, that Ash couldn’t rationalise, or put into words. It was just this gut feeling of badness that took root in his stomach, this hard knot of nausea that wouldn’t budge.

“Alright, Mimikyu!” Jessie set her hands on her hips. “Use—”

The mimikyu gave an unearthly, rasping howl and launched itself at Ash.

“Steel wing!” Hau shouted, throwing their rowlet. The owl was flung aside by a brutal shadow claw and knocked out in one blow without doing anything to disrupt the mimikyu’s momentum; Hau ran to retrieve him with a pained cry.

“Oh dear, bzzt,” Rotom said. Mimikyu rushed forward.

“Out of the way, Pikachu!” Pikachu leapt down from Ash’s shoulder and made a mad dash towards the rock pools to their right. “Electro ball!”

Wood hammer smashed through the attack; a second crumbled the rock Pikachu had scaled only a half-second ago as though it were chalk. Mimikyu moved with reckless abandon: there was nothing calculated, nothing coordinated, about its assault. It showed no care for itself, nor for its surroundings—

Only for catching Pikachu.

“Hey, Mimikyu, listen to me! I’m the trainer here, not you!” Jessie wailed. Mimikyu parried an iron tail with a shadow claw, then battered it aside. “... On second thoughts, good job! Keep it up!”

“Thunderbolt, Pikachu!”

The attack ricocheted harmlessly off a blue-green barrier. Ash’s eyes widened. It knows protect? It has the sense to use it?

“Iron tail!” Pikachu flipped over another wood hammer and swung down: this time, the attack hit its mark—but Mimikyu didn’t move. Its makeshift head tipped backwards, hanging awkwardly from a broken neck, and though the creature hidden beneath the rag seemed to hesitate and flinch, it quickly bounced back, like it hadn’t been harmed at all.

“Rotom?” he asked.

“Mimikyu’s ability is disguise, bzzt. So long as its costume is intact, it can absorb damage from attacks without suffering any injury.”

If it had seemed furious before, it was frenzied, now. Its Aura loomed above it, a black, mangled shadow far, far bigger than any Ash had ever felt before. It was—unhinged. Hysterical. Murderous, even.

“Satoshi,” Rotom said. “Statistically, Pikachu’s chances of beating this mimikyu in a one on one battle are negligible, bzzt.”

And Ash didn’t like to take stock of any mathematical equation where battle was concerned, but it didn’t take some complex calculation to see that Pikachu was outmatched by Mimikyu’s sheer frustration alone. Love was a powerful modifier of a pokémon’s strength, but hatred was, too. “Yeah.” He cupped his hands around his mouth, panic a knife in his chest. “Change of plan!” Pikachu scrambled frantically through another rock pool, springing high to avoid another shadow claw. “Quick, into that tree!”

Bruised and breathing harshly, Pikachu put on a burst of speed with quick attack and scrambled up the closest palm tree, which Mimikyu set upon with rabid fervour. Ash scanned the beach desperately, searching for a way out.

There had to be something, but that Mimikyu—it wasn’t normal. Jessie seemed to have as much control over it as Ash would if he tried to reason with it.

Against his chest, the litten began to wriggle, ignoring his protests—“Wait, you’re hurt!”—and writhing until he could pull himself free of the harness and drop clumsily into the sand below.

“It looks like Litten wants to help in spite of his injuries, bzzt,” Rotom observed. “Litten are proud, independent pokémon—they traditionally prefer solitude to cooperation. Perhaps he feels the need to settle a debt, bzzt?”

Ash blinked. “For those weird meowth,” he surmised.

Kiawe made a choked-up sound. “He burns with the passion of Wela Volcano!”

It was a touching thought, if a little alarming. The litten drew in a deep breath, chest swelling beneath his bandaging.

Seconds later, the lower half of the tree—and Mimikyu—were ablaze. Ash stared down at the litten with something resembling bewildered wonderment.

“Mimikyu!” Jessie squawked. Mimikyu writhed and shrieked, dragging itself out of the flames and dousing itself in the sand. Its costume was a blackened, charred mess, and it heaved and shuddered while it recovered. “Get back here!”

“When a mimikyu’s disguise is damaged, it becomes vulnerable to attack, bzzt,” Rotom explained in Ash’s ear.

“So it can be beaten?”

“... Most people who ruin a mimikyu’s costume don’t live long enough to find out, bzzt.”

“Mimikyu, are you listening to me? I said Get back here!” Jessie’s demands fell on deaf ears; though moving unsteadily, so as not to throw off what remained of its burnt rag, Mimikyu determinedly crawled after Pikachu, only it was so small and slow, now, that the sight was just sad. Ash would have felt sorry for it, if it wasn’t so full of rage, still. If it wasn’t out to kill his partner. “Mimikyu!”

“Just put it back in its ball,” James said. “Forget pinching Pikachu—we should cut our losses and leave while we’re still ahead!”

“Four might be better than three, but three’s better than none,” Nyarth agreed. Jessie hesitated—then recalled Mimikyu, who had since slumped in the sand.

“Like we’d ever let that happen,” Kiawe snarled. The firium Z on his wrist glittered, as though agreeing. “Ash, that—that thing won’t stand up to the might of our Z-moves, will it?”

Ash thumbed his normalium Z. “Nah,” he estimated, “probably not.”

(He was right. Team Rocket’s mecha crumpled against the combined strengths of inferno overdrive and breakneck blitz: Pikachu punched a hole in the mecha’s body, and Turtonator detonated with far more power than before, blowing it apart from within.)

When Team Rocket was gone, their pokémon were safe, and Kiawe had finally stifled his tears of relief, arms looped tightly around Turtonator’s neck, he turned on Ash with a vengeance.

“Do you want to tell us who they were?” he asked, jabbing his finger into Ash’s chest. Ash was reminded, abruptly, of the first day they met; on his shoulder, Pikachu sparked at the cheeks in a half-hearted warning.

“Team Rocket,” Ash answered. “They’re bad guys who try to steal other people’s pokémon. They’ve been followin’ me ‘n’ Pikachu around since we first started travelling, and they just don’t know when to quit. I didn’t think they’d show up so soon, but…”

“Pika pika, pikachu,” Pikachu pointed out. Ash pinched his cheek affectionately.

“Yeah, exactly. They’re never too far behind.”

“... So you have met poachers before,” Hau said dumbly, their rowlet cradled protectively in their arms. “Do they ever win?”

Ash shook his head. “Nah, they’re not very good at being bad. They’re mostly—you know—just annoying, but I guess facing ‘em can be pretty scary if you’ve never done it before.”

“Shell trap did nothing to that machine,” Kiawe muttered. He looked back over at Turtonator, and his eyes filled with tears again. Ash wrung his hands, a little awkwardly.

“They’re, uh, pretty used to getting set on fire, or shocked, or—you know, being hit by normal moves. You’ve gotta think outside the box, but once you manage it, it gets easier.”

“Or you could just blast ‘em with Z-moves,” Hau pointed out.

“... Or you could just blast ‘em with Z-moves,” Ash acquiesced.

Kiawe clenched his fists, a grim, distant expression on his face. “Will they be back?”

“Uhh…” Ash scratched the back of his neck. “Probably? They’ll stop at nothin’ to get their hands on Pikachu, but—”

“Why?”

Ash blinked. “I dunno,” he said. “There are loads of wild Pikachu they could catch, but they think mine’s special, or somethin’. I mean, he is, but…”

Pikachu bumped their heads together gently. “Pika pika, pikachu. Pika chupi.”

The meaning was clear: warmth, and love, and a startling humility. Team Rocket’s presence was unchanging, but it never failed to surprise Ash how far he had come, and how much Pikachu had grown, and changed, and matured alongside him.

“But it’s okay, see? ‘Cause when we all work together, they’re real pushovers.”

Hau’s expression twisted into something disbelieving. “That mimikyu was not a pushover,” they said. “Man, I dunno about you guys, but it gave me the heebie-jeebies. I mean, even after Litten set it on fire, it was still…”

They trailed off, shuddering. Ash glanced down at the litten, who was still sitting at his feet with its back turned.

“Hey,” he said, kneeling in the sand beside him. “Thanks for saving Pikachu back there. I dunno what we would’ve done without you. That mimikyu was—” he swallowed. The pendant around his neck felt heavier, all of a sudden. “Let’s not do that again though, okay? Nurse Joy said you’ve gotta rest—she’d kill me if she knew I’d let you try ‘n’ battle.”

The litten sniffed his outstretched fingers—then turned up his nose, tail writhing like an angry ekans. And Ash knew a no when he saw one, so he dusted off his shorts and held up his hands.

“Alright, you can walk, but you better not try ‘n’ run off, okay? I don’t wanna have to send Iwanko after you again,” he huffed. The litten rolled his eyes, stretched himself out, and began a slow amble down the beach, the others in tow.

“... Hey, Ash,” Hau said, a few moments later, “if the thing about the pokémon poachers was true, does that mean you weren’t lying about the legendaries, either?”

The lab was quiet when Ash returned from the pokémon centre, the litten limp and listless against his chest. Rotom was updating, downloading some fancy new application that Ash was certain he’d never use, but made the ‘dex feel more important, and therefore was completely necessary; Iwanko and Pikachu were asleep on the sofa, a chewed-up substitute doll sandwiched between them; and one of the lab murkrow had raided the kitchen cupboards and was snacking on dried pasta. She croaked at him reproachfully when he passed her, but lifted her head so he could scratch her beak.

Ash climbed the ladder to his makeshift room and unfastened the litten from his harness, setting him on the bed between his knees; he sank miserably into the mattress, limbs splayed out like a staryu’s. Ash gently prodded his side, hoping to feel the sharp sting of claws, but he didn’t swipe at him. He didn’t even hiss.

When Rotom had finished updating, it joined them, hovering around Ash’s head. “You weren’t gone for long, bzzt,” it said. Ash shrugged one shoulder ineffectually.

“They wouldn’t let us visit,” he murmured. “Something about it bein’ too late, and apparently Stoutland was booked in for—for something, I dunno. Nurse Joy was pretty cagey about it.”

“Did she say anything about his condition, bzzt?”

“Not really. She said it wasn’t any worse, but…”

Rotom’s screen cycled through several flashing colours. “That’s good news, isn’t it, bzzt?”

Ash looked unconvinced. “Yeah, I guess, but she was lookin’ at this guy—” he gestured towards the litten— “while she was speaking, and she looked—she made that face adults do when they’re trying to hide something from you, ‘cause they think you’re not ready to know about it.”

Rotom lifted its ‘arms’, mouth falling open. “Oh,” it said. “Do you think she was—”

Ash nodded. He’d never understood why adults felt the need to lie with their words when their expressions were so honest—when any kid with eyes and half a brain could discern an untruth simply by watching the way their brows crumpled and their mouths twisted like they’d just bitten into a particularly sour iapapa berry, even though their words were sweeter than pecha juice.

They were stupid like that, sometimes. They liked to think they were cleverer than children, that they needed to shield them from everything bad in the world, and it was nice of them to care, he supposed, but they weren’t very good at putting it into practice.

“That’s… terrible, bzzt.” Rotom drifted over to the litten and tapped between his pointed shoulder blades in a clumsy, mechanical gesture of commiseration. “I’m sorry for your imminent loss.”

Ash grabbed the dex in both hands and reeled it in, holding it away from his body. “Rotom!”

The litten mewled mournfully; it was a sound Ash had never heard him make before, and he turned his attention to him with a troubled frown.

“Hey, don’t pay attention to Rotom,” he said, “I’m sure Stoutland’s gonna be just fine. The people over at the pokémon centre are real good at their job, y’know; they were probably just busy makin’ Stoutland feel better, and that’s why we couldn’t go visit it. I was just bein’...” he trailed off. He’d been a real mudbray about it, in Professor Kukui’s words. “I messed up, saying all that stuff. Sorry.”

The litten turned his head away and said nothing. Though Ash could feel something like gratitude in the air around him, everything was still tainted by grief.

“Yeah, I know. When someone you love’s hurtin’, you wanna be by them all the time, right?” The litten looked up at him. “I bet Stoutland’s missing you too. When we first got here, Pikachu got all beat up in a fight against Tapu Koko—” the litten’s eyes widened, a touch— “and even though we only spent one night apart, I felt like I was going mad. But that’s when you’ve gotta be bravest, y’know? When the people you love are weak, that’s when you’ve gotta be strong on your own.”

He steeled himself and reached out, gently petting along the litten’s spine. “... And you’re not totally alone,” he continued. “You’ve got me and Pikachu and Iwanko and Rotom and the Professor to fall back on. I know you don’t really like me much, or… or anyone, really, but I sure like you, so… if you ever change your mind about people being bad…”

He trailed off. The litten’s breathing had slowed and deepened; his eyes were closed, and the stiffness of his back had melted out entirely.

“I think he's asleep, bzzt,” Rotom observed, settling on Ash’s thigh. Ash fell back against his bed with a sleepy grunt.

“D’you think I got through to him?”

“It’s hard to tell. But his stress levels are far lower than they were, so it’s possible that you did something right, bzzt. And that’s—I think that’s the best you can hope for, right now.”

The dimensional research laboratory was—Lillie wasn’t certain if it qualified as a building any longer, let alone a functioning lab. It was—it looked more like the aftermath of an explosion than anything recognisable, brick and glass and metal alike indiscriminately reduced to rubble and dust and mangled, shredded wiring.

She picked her way through the debris quietly, her cosmog clutched protectively against her chest. It, luckily, was unharmed—as were the majority of the lab techs, if Officer Jenny’s search-and-rescue growlithe squadron had noses worth believing. But Professor Burnet’s research was—it was destroyed, for the most part. Backup servers were useful, but they did little to salvage tangible samples. Lillie couldn’t think too long about the years of evidence lost without her head beginning to throb.

… And it was all her fault. That—that thing… it had come for her. It had—it had known where she was. It had known how to find her.

More would come: of that, she was certain. Her mother had—her mother had told her this would happen, before she ran away, had told her that she was a conduit for something she didn’t understand, something she never would understand.

She thought maybe she was beginning to. She knew there was a—a word for it, for people like her, who’d gotten mixed up in things and gone to places they shouldn’t have, but she—her memories of it were distant. Blurry.

Her ribs burned, ice-hot and aching. The cosmog stirred in her arms and burbled at her, something bright and alien radiating from its semi-solid core, and she tucked it into her bag, zipping it shut and adjusting it against her hip.

She ducked beneath the yellow police tape and made her way towards Professor Burnet, leaning against one of the police cars.

“... expert intervention,” Officer Jenny was saying, arms folded over her chest. “For public safety—it’s in the community’s interests to ensure that if something else goes wrong, there are parameters in place to prevent any more damage. Our department alone doesn’t have the resources to deal with this sort of thing.”

She was right, but Lillie still winced, anyway. Professor Burnet’s expression was pinched and worrisome, and though she never looked away from Jenny, she looped one arm protectively around Lillie’s shoulders once she came within reach, pulling her into her side.

“Interpol is—a little extreme, though,” Burnet said. Lillie white-knuckled the hem of her dress and began to shake. “What happened today was an anomaly, Officer, and it wasn’t the result of anything we did. We didn’t summon that thing, it—it showed up on its own.”

Officer Jenny seemed unconvinced. “I’m no scientist,” she said, “but the stuff you do here—”

“Is related,” Burnet agreed, “but this was coincidental, not intentional.”

“And there’s no chance that it was brought about by something done accidentally? Even if it wasn’t purposeful—there’s no way some sort of… experiment went wrong?”

“I’m confident it wasn’t.”

“Completely?”

“I—I believe so.”

“Unfortunately, Professor, believing just isn’t good enough.”

“Officer, with all due respect—”

“Look, Professor, I get it. It’s not—ideal, not for you, nor for me, nor for the people of this city. But if this happens again, or if something worse happens, and we can’t stop it, or it takes us longer, and the damage isn’t contained to one building… it’s not worth the risk.”

“I can handle it,” Burnet insisted. “If my hypothesis is correct—”

“If—”

“—and I’m willing to put my career, my integrity, my freedom on the line for it—I can promise you that this won’t happen again.”

Lillie swallowed. That was—fighting talk, and famous last words seldom boded well. Did Burnet know that it was her? Had she deduced that something was off about her, that she was the root of the problem?

Officer Jenny looked unconvinced. But— “We’ll station someone here,” she said, “as a safety precaution, and if anything further happens, we will get interpol involved. In the meantime, we will keep this… pokémon in our custody, until we can be certain it doesn’t pose a danger to anybody.”

“That’s… fair.” Burnet nodded, shoulders slumping. “Thank you, Officer. And—thank you for your help.”

The police let them go shortly after that, and the journey to Tide Song Hotel was mostly-silent. Burnet seemed… troubled—paranoid, almost—and locked her room the moment Lillie stepped inside, pulling the curtains shut, sinking into an armchair and dropping her head into her hands with a weary sigh. Lillie perched on the edge of the single bed in the corner of the room; the cosmog materialised in her lap almost immediately, face screwed up.

“Professor,” Lillie murmured, then pitched her voice louder. “Professor. That pokémon—”

“It was an ultra beast. I know.”

They call it UB Absorption, in the Foundation, Lillie thought, though she did not say so. “It was a buzzwole,” she said. “It—it feeds on other creatures’ life forces, I think. Draining others’ vitality gives it strength.”

Professor Burnet gave her a long, hard look, then nodded to herself, white in the face.

It had smashed through the laboratory walls like they were sodden paper. That the police squadron had managed to subdue and capture it in a standard ultra ball before it had rampaged through the city was nothing short of a miracle.

“Do they make a habit of trying to kill you?”

Lillie tightened her grip on the cosmog—it phased through her fingertips, warping and rippling against her palms—and thought back to that dark, swelteringly hot place. Like a jungle, only… wrong, with trees that shuddered with every breath, that moved and bulged like flexing muscles, sinewy and wet to the touch.

“It’s—um… it’s not the first time they’ve come looking for me.”

An unspoken promise hung in the air: it won’t be the last.

Burnet had suspected, when she’d taken Lillie in, that the girl would bring baggage with her. She had not anticipated that her baggage would come in the form of raging extra-dimensionals, and the nature of her research was too important, too fragile, to risk destruction again.

“I don’t think it’s safe for you to stay here anymore.”

Lillie bowed her head. “I don’t think it is, either,” she whispered.

The man and woman both seemed human enough to be considered people, but just wrong enough that the station growlithe’s hackles raised when they stepped through the door, lips pulled back to reveal wary, snarling mouths.

“Can I help you both?” Officer Jenny asked, smothering her initial instinct and putting on a patient, customer-service smile. The woman of the pair clasped her hands behind her and hung back in the doorway, as though guarding it; the man approached slowly, pulling papers from the binder he held in his hand and setting them on the desk in front of Jenny.

“You can,” he said, voice warped and unnatural, like he was speaking underwater. “It has come to our contractor’s attention that this police department is in possession of an ultra beast.”

“... A what?”

“The creature you captured earlier today,” the man pressed. “The reddish, insectoid creature that destroyed the laboratory near here.”

“Yes. I don’t know what it is, but it’s dangerous. It took a whole lot of ultra balls to catch it—”

“That would be because it isn’t of this world. Ultra beasts such as UB Absorption come from other dimensions—the research of the laboratory it destroyed centres around such dimensions, but the scientists there know nothing of the nature of what they hope to study.”

“Professor Burnet promised me that she had everything under control.”

“Professor Burnet doesn’t understand what she has gotten herself into.” The man tapped the papers. “But we do. Our contractor has requested that you relinquish ownership of the ultra beast in your possession and allow us to take it and return it to its original dimension—for your sake, and for its. She has already obtained permission from your superiors. This is not negotiable.”

Officer Jenny squinted, suspiciously. “... And you promise that it won’t cause any more problems for us?”

The man wrapped his bluish moustache around his index finger and nodded. “The Aether Foundation will ensure it.”

The researcher’s laboratory was quiet—mostly because neither she nor her nattering assistants were in it—which was good, but rare. Colress rarely had the room to perform his own experiments, and he was determined to take advantage of having the place to himself. He’d stationed his beheeyem by the door and hooked his rotom up to the security system; between the two of them keeping guard, interruption was impossible, and he was able to devote his full attention to the three monitors in front of him.

The first—to his left—displayed data collected from his research on the seemingly self-imposed limitations on pokémon’s strength while funded by Team Plasma. The monitor to his right displayed a collation of the information garnered to create the prototypes: blueprints, documents, research reports.

The central monitor was split into two: a report on the final experimentation performed upon the previous iteration of the prototype—both its successes and its failures; and the vitals of the most recently revised model (which was suspended in liquid behind him), updating in real-time.

Unlike its predecessors, this newest prototype responded well to its accelerated growth; it seemed to have no adverse reaction to the drugs running through its system; and it had not rejected any of the wishing stars. Colress did not want to claim credit for the vast majority of the work that had constructed its basic blueprint, but the refinement, the perfection—that was all him. It was stronger, faster, smarter, and more durable than any that had come before it—it had proven that much in testing—and the tricky matter of its inherent behavioural issues was easily solved with a heavy dose of brainwashing and technological aid.

The researcher had seemed hesitant to dip her toes into mind control, initially. But that was these people’s greatest flaw: their ethical code, and their resistance to breaking away from either. Success in science was never achieved by those too afraid to try things just because somebody could get hurt, and the greater good was never fulfilled if the lesser of two evils was reduced to ‘just another evil.’

He had thought, when she had requested his help, that she understood. He was a little disappointed to learn that she didn’t—but at least she was compliant, if not cooperative.

… And he was sure she’d come around soon enough, once she saw how much progress he had made by bending the rules of moral acceptability just a little. If she let him continue, she’d meet her deadline—and have time for more.

Chapter Text

The litten woke him in the middle of the night, screaming up a storm, pacing and clawing at the walls. Ash stirred with a sharp pain above his brow and found himself staring into huge eyes, pupils blown so wide that the black all but swallowed the yellow sclerae.

“Mmh, Nyabby, what—” The litten struck him again, claws mostly retracted, then bolted for the front door, throwing his weight against it with a warbling, desperate wail. Ash blinked, rubbing at his cheek—then leapt out of bed, a heavy, awful sense of wrongness taking root in his gut.

They rushed to the pokémon centre alone. Nurse Joy lifted her head from the desk, eyes widening—Nyabby barrelled past her, clearing the desk in one clean leap and skittering down the hallway into the hospital section.

“Stop right there,” Nurse Joy started, rising from her chair. She held out one arm, forcing Ash to halt. “It’s unsuitable for children—”

“It’s Stoutland,” Ash retorted, breathlessly, around his hammering heart. “There’s something wrong with Stoutland.”

Nurse Joy paled—and let him past, though it didn’t feel like a deliberate act. He followed pulses of Nyabby’s pain down winding corridors, taking a sharp turn to the left and to a door shoved slightly ajar. The distress rolling through the crack was so loud that his feet rooted themselves to the ground.

He took a deep breath; tried to swallow the lump in his throat, though it stubbornly persisted; and pushed the door open to let himself in. Nurse Joy hovered at his back, shadowing him.

Inside the room was quiet and still, save for the quiet, drawn-out, unchanging squeal of the heart monitor. Nyabby was balanced on the table Stoutland lay upon, face pushed into the dog’s thick fur, and Stoutland was—Stoutland was—Ash couldn’t feel him, anymore. Even when his Aura had been weak, it had been solid, and now it was—

Stupidly, stupidly, Nurse Joy stepped around Ash’s frozen form and reached out to take Nyabby away—and in an instant, Nyabby exploded.

Fire gathered in his maw, jaws snapping shut dangerously close to Nurse Joy’s outstretched fingers; his claws followed, not nearly as merciful, and shredded the back of the woman’s hand. She withdrew with a pained gasp, fumbling for her pager and hitting a button that, within minutes, drew assistants carrying long, silvery leash poles.

“Wait, you’re gonna hurt him! Stop it!” Ash shouted, shaken from the harrowed trance that had settled over him, though his protests fell on deaf ears. Nyabby scrambled off the table and dodged the first leash; the second pole was caught in the grip of its fire fang, metal bending and warping in the extreme heat. “Leave him alone!”

Reckless with desperation, he pushed through to Nyabby, who was backed into a corner, and—

“Wait—!”

—came face to face with Nurse Joy’s blissey. Sing hit his ears; his shoulders hit the wall; he hit the floor, blocking Nyabby in; and everything went dark.

He came to in the waiting room, head feeling as though it was full of lead. Groggily, he sat up, pushing his knuckles into his eyes, and tried to piece together what had happened.

Stoutland, he recalled—and his stomach flipped. Stoutland had—he'd—and Nyabby had—

The door swung open, and Nurse Joy’s blissey waddled into the room, wringing her hands.

“Nyabby,” he blurted, as Blissey approached. “Where—”

Blissey took one of Ash’s hands in both of hers and squeezed gently. “Aah,” she said, peering up at him apologetically. He peered back, for a moment, trying to work out what she meant—then lit up, smiling sheepishly.

“Oh, right,” he said, reaching out to pat her head. “‘S’okay, I know you didn’t mean to knock me out.” She looked… happier, at that, pensive expression softening. “Is—is Nurse Joy alright? Where’s… what happened to Nyabby?”

Blissey looked—nervous, all of a sudden. “Aah…” she murmured, pulling Ash to his feet and leading him out into the front of the pokémon centre. It was quiet and dimly lit, empty save for a heavy crate sat on the front desk. Glazed, venomous yellow eyes stared out from the bars—then softened, minimally, when they settled on Ash. Conspicuously, Blissey shifted to hide behind him, guilt written on her simple face.

“Nyabby!” Ash whisper-shouted, rushing to free him. The litten stumbled when he stepped out of the crate, and Ash steadied him with a hand under his belly. “You’re okay,” he said, holding him tightly, and Nyabby let him, maybe because he was groggy, or maybe because he wanted to trust Ash, even if just a little bit.

… But Nurse Joy. Blissey. Pokémon centres. Nyabby’s hatred was so powerful it permeated the empty waiting room, permeated Ash. They were—irredeemable, in Nyabby’s eyes. Ash could feel his conviction as though it was his own.

The walk back to the lab was silent and subdued. Nyabby didn’t fight him—but he had no reason to: there was no Stoutland to run back to anymore. Ash knew Nyabby didn’t blame him for Stoutland’s death, but he blamed himself for taking him away from his home, for letting him waste away in a foreign, sterile place, surrounded by wires and white walls and not by those who had cared about him.

Kukui was waiting for them, Iwanko at his feet, and he didn’t need to ask anything to know. Ash was grateful for that, because he wasn’t sure if he’d be able to verbalise it, anyway. He’d seen pokémon die before, had held Lucario’s paw in the Tree of Beginning while he had faded into nothingness, but it wasn’t—it never—it never got easier.

He wished it did. He wished he knew what to say, when Nyabby slunk beneath his bed and buried himself into the darkest corner of his makeshift room, melting into the shadows and refusing to come out for days and days. He wouldn’t eat. He wouldn’t drink. Iwanko crept in after him, trying to coax him out, and reemerged with nothing but fresh scars to show for his efforts.

“... I’m sorry,” Ash murmured one night, voice thick and wet and strangled, one hand pushed blindly into the space beneath his bed. Pikachu burrowed his face into the crook of Ash's neck and tucked his tail beneath his collarbone, uneasiness radiating off him. “I know you loved Stoutland, and Stoutland seemed like he really loved you, too. I really—I really thought they could save him.”

Nyabby said nothing—but after a moment, he rasped his sandpapery tongue across Ash's fingers, then set his chin over Assh's knuckles and began to purr—quietly, but steadily. They fell asleep like that, and when Ash awoke with a blanket thrown over him—well—Professor Kukui didn’t know anything about it.

That evening, though Nyabby didn’t come out from under Ash’s bed, he accepted his nightly offering of a berry. The evening after, he poked his head out into the open, and three evenings later, Ash emerged from the laboratory basement to find it rummaging through his backpack, and Nyabby pulled out an empty poké ball, and butted his head into Ash's hand with a gentle mrrow, and—

And then Nyabby was his, just like that.

Another week passed before Ash felt ready to battle Hala—before even Nyabby grew impatient with his hesitation. (It could be good, Rotom had suggested, for helping Nyabby get over his grief, bzzt.) The Kahuna accepted his challenge immediately, though before Ash could hope to face him, he said, he would have to accompany him to the Ruins of Conflict and seek Tapu Koko’s approval. Ash agreed readily, partly out of eagerness to fight, and partly out of hope. He wanted to see Tapu Koko again—if not for battle, then simply to ask It questions. (Why had It chosen to battle Ash? What did It want from him?)

Hala led him into the ruins and up to Tapu Koko’s great stone shrine, inviting him to climb the stairs to its podium. “Tell me,” he said once they had both alighted on the shrine’s patterned base, looking across at Ash, “what do you know about the Ordinance of the Tapus?”

Ash cupped his chin, thinking. “Kiawe said that the Tapus used to fight demons that came from other worlds,” he said, “to protect Alola. He said Their power is what made Z-crystals, or… or something. He said something about some heroes, too…?”

Hala hummed. “The guardian deities protect Alola from invaders—though They also used to war against one another, until the destruction They caused in Their wars grew too great for the islands to sustain human life. Once, They battled our most powerful gods—and though They were defeated, They were rewarded for Their bravery, and that reward is what helped Them keep Alola safe in its darkest hours.”

He eased down onto his knees, settling back on his heels; Ash stared at him for a moment, before dropping down to join him. “You see, my boy, the Island Challenge is not simply a test of strength in the way a gym challenge is. It’s a test of your connection to Alola, to your pokémon, and how you interact with them, and the world, and how you give yourself to life.”

He swept his hand along the base of Tapu Koko’s shrine. “Each Kahuna must push the challengers that face them to overcome a trial that honours the deity of the island, and that helps them develop as a trainer—and as a person. As far as grand trials go, mine is the most straightforward: we will battle traditionally, with three pokémon each. If you win, you will earn yourself a fightinium-Z—and the right to move on in the Island Challenge.”

Ash nodded, fire stirring in his chest. Hala bowed his head.

“But first, we must pray. Tapu Koko is a wrathful god, and I don’t want to anger It before we’ve even begun.”

They emerged from the shrine to an oppressive, humid heat, sun blazing bright in the sky. Hala shielded his face as he looked up at it, leading Ash across the precarious bridge, down Mahalo Trial, and through Iki Town to the battlefield, where Professor Kukui was waiting for them, Iwanko pacing around his ankles.

“Tapu Koko heard our prayers,” Hala said, “and It answered them. Our battle today should be uninterrupted; Professor Kukui will referee.”

“Thanks, Professor!” Ash took his place on one side of the battlefield, watching Hala do the same across from him. Professor Kukui mounted the referee’s podium, motioning for the kahuna to release his first pokémon.

The one he selected was a stout, purple crab with rounded, bluish claws and a yellow and red piece of fabric wrapped around its midsection. Poking out of Ash’s open backpack, Rotom came to life.

“Crabrawler—or makenkani—the boxing pokémon. A fighting type, bzzt! Crabrawler are contentious pokémon that fight amongst one another to determine social standing. Their large pincers are used to protect their vulnerable faces and stomachs, and are their primary weaponry in battle—they’re prone to breaking due to overuse, though regenerate quickly, bzzt. They prefer higher perches, often scaling trees and buildings, and are fiercely territorial, unleashing punches at faster than fifty miles per hour to defend their nests! When defeated, they produce a foul-smelling foam from their mouths to deter predators, bzzt!”

“Huh,” Ash said. Crabrawler looked like she was supposed to be a water type, but appearances could be deceiving, and that did make things easier on him. He didn’t want to have to use Pikachu right off the bat. “Iwanko, you’re up!”

The puppy shook himself out and bounded out in front of Ash, striking the ground with his rocky mane and bristling all down his spine. Hala raised an eyebrow, but was silent.

“Iwanko, bzzt?” Rotom drifted out in front of Ash’s face and prodded the space between his eyes. “But he's a rock type! Why wouldn’t you go for a pokémon that isn’t weak to fighting moves?”

Ash grinned. “I’ve gotta use him at some point. Why not now? ‘Sides, facing tough situations and beating the odds is what makes battles so much fun!”

“... I don’t get you, bzzt,” Rotom admitted, but began to film with no further protests.

Professor Kukui raised an arm. “The challenger is granted the first move,” he said. “Begin!”

“Howl, then tackle!” Ash called, and Iwanko rushed in—only to leap backwards, yelping, as Crabrawler shattered the ground at the puppy’s paws.

Crabrawler’s fists were fast. Over fifty miles per hour, Ash remembered, sweat forming on his brow already. It was hard to picture, without seeing it, just how blisteringly swift that was, but Crabrawler’s pincers were blue streaks, blurring and leaving craters in their wake.

Iwanko danced around Crabrawler warily, snapping and growling to no avail: getting close was impossible. If they kept this up, sooner or later, Crabrawler would land an attack.

“Get back here, Iwanko! Use rock throw to cover yourself!”

Iwanko skittered back towards Ash while Crabrawler was preoccupied reducing rock throw to dust, casting him a questioning glance. He knew retreating wasn’t—typical of him, not in ordinary battle, but he had to think of a strategy. A single crabhammer would likely be enough to knock Iwanko out; if power-up punch hit, Crabrawler would only grow stronger—and she was already leaving hollows in the ground.

Bite wasn’t effective. Rock throw wasn’t effective. Tackle would be, if Crabrawler’s defence wasn’t airtight, but smashing through it seemed impossible, and—

“Stop looking at the battle from Iwanko’s perspective,” Hala advised, snapping Ash unceremoniously from his thoughts. “Draw strength from Alola and transfer it into your pokémon—don’t take their strength into yourself.”

“I’m not,” Ash started—then faltered. Because he did fight with his pokémon: their strength was shared, Auras intermingling, and they drew from one another. (Was that really so wrong? Had it ever failed him?)

“If you’re just going to stand there, then Crabrawler and I will attack. Thunder punch!” Hala roared.

“Dodge it!” Iwanko darted to the left as Crabrawler closed in, then ducked to avoid another sparking fist—but the third caught his haunches as he leapt away, sending him tumbling head over heels with a pained yelp. “Iwanko!”

“Crabhammer!”

Hala was ruthless. Ash knew that some pokémon’s punching moves hit harder innately, and certain adornments could increase physical strength—

“Sand attack!” he shouted, and Iwanko kicked dirt into Crabrawler’s unguarded eyes. Blinded, her attack went wide. Her pincer wobbled, just a little, on impact with the ground.

Ash’s eyes widened. Rotom had said something, earlier, about how crabrawler’s pincers tended to break in battle, due to how frequently they were used. If he could dislodge just one of them, Iwanko stood a chance of actually hitting those weak spots Crabrawler so fiercely protected.

“Run around, Iwanko! Use rock throw and don’t let up!”

Rotom drifted up to Ash’s shoulder, screen a mosaic of multicoloured question marks. “Satoshi?”

Ash patted the pokédex reflexively. “Don’t worry about it, Rotom.”

Predictably, Crabrawler’s fists made quick work of rock throw, moving like lightning. But Iwanko kept running, forcing her to spin in tight, disciplined circles, and the projectiles kept coming, and eventually, she began to stumble and sway, pincers held at an awkward angle. She swung to the left, overreaching, striking the hurled stone with the back of her left pincer—

And it snapped off, hitting the ground with a solid, full thunk. The crabrawler froze. Iwanko froze. Hala froze, for a moment, and that was all Ash needed.

He grinned, pointing at the crabrawler. “Rock throw!” Spurred into action, Iwanko sent Crabrawler tumbling backwards, weak side pummelled by the projectiles her remaining pincer couldn’t reach. “Chase it down with tackle!”

“Power-up punch!”

“Bite! Throw it!”

For a moment, the two writhed in the dirt as a tangled, flailing mass of limbs, even as Crabrawler struck Iwanko’s shoulder—then Iwanko righted himself, sinking its teeth into Crabrawler’s stunted limb and flinging her high into the sky.

“Rock throw again! Knock it down!” The attack hit its mark; Crabrawler plummeted, helpless. “Now use tackle and finish it!”

Iwanko dashed across the battlefield, closing the distance between himself and Crabrawler.

Hala struck his chest. “Endeavour.”

Ash’s blood turned to ice. Iwanko crashed into Crabrawler, driving her into the dirt—and toppled over, collapsing in a heap on top of her. Professor Kukui approached, crouching beside them.

“Kahuna Hala’s crabrawler is unable to battle,” he announced. “The challenger’s rockruff is—”

Iwanko stirred, weakly, and rolled away from Crabrawler. Slowly, but determinedly, he dragged himself to his feet. Ash breathed out a shaky sigh of relief.

“—still standing. The winner is the challenger, Ash!”

“For Iwanko to go from almost perfect health to barely standing with one attack… no wonder Tapu Koko chose Hala to be Its Kahuna, bzzt,” Rotom mused. Ash nodded, pale and grim-faced. In one move, Hala had undone the very point of his caution, had rendered his strategy almost obsolete.

He reached for Iwanko’s poké ball. “Good job, Iwanko,” he praised. “Take a break. You’ve earned it.”

Iwanko rounded on him with a ferocious growl. Ash didn’t need Aura, or a translator, to understand hhis intent; he clipped the poké ball back to his belt.

“Satoshi, Iwanko is—a stiff breeze could knock him out, bzzt! What are you planning?”

“Iwanko said he wanted to keep fighting.” Ash shrugged, adjusting his cap. “So we’re gonna fight ‘til the end!”

“An admirable choice,” Hala commended, returning his crabrawler, “if a foolish one. Resolve alone will not win this fight; distance yourself from Iwanko’s feelings.”

Ash bridled, just a little. “We’ll be just fine,” he insisted.

“Famous last words, bzzt,” Rotom murmured—and then Hala sent out his stufful.

Ash swallowed, recalling what Rotom had said about stufful on the day they’d first met. One blow from those thick, corded arms would ruin Iwanko. They had to keep back and attack from a distance.

“Howl, and then use rock throw!” Ash urged, but Iwanko, weak as he was from battling Crabrawler, mustered only one boulder. Stufful caught the attack between her forepaws and ground it into dust, claws scraping along the stone and setting Ash’s teeth on edge.

“Bulldoze!”

Iwanko dropped like a ninjask with an iron ball, and Stufful was upon him so fast Ash didn’t have time to react. A brutal force palm finished Iwanko off; it felt like overkill, really. Ash sensed, more than saw, the moment the rockruff gave up, a dwindling consciousness reverberating dully in his chest.

“The challenger’s rockruff is unable to battle,” Professor Kukui said—a sombre, hollow announcement. Ash retrieved Iwanko by hand, draping him over his discarded backpack and thanking him with a gentle touch to its slack muzzle. “Kahuna Hala and his stufful are the victors.”

“You put Iwanko in an impossible position by refusing to recall it,” Hala said. He sounded… disappointed, almost. “And then you admitted defeat before the battle was over.”

“Stufful was too fast. I couldn’t do anything—”

“Iwanko couldn’t have done anything. You could have tried. Your pokémon’s strength is your own: they rely on you to make the judgements they can’t call, to spot the paths to victory that they can’t see. That’s how you beat Crabrawler, not by looking through Iwanko’s eyes. If you only ever fight on their level, you ignore the unique perspective being a trainer provides you with. And they are the ones punished for it.”

Ash grimaced, silenced. He’d been—overconfident, still riding the high of beating Crabrawler, and he hadn’t stopped to consider the significance of his opponent’s credentials. Hala wasn’t just another strong trainer, or even a gym leader—he was the Kahuna, and Tapu Koko had chosen him to watch over Melemele. To test challengers’ mettle in Its stead, to push them to their very limits and force them to grow—or lose.

“Alright, Pikachu,” Ash said. “You’re—”

Nyabby emerged from his poké ball, face twisted up into a snarl.

“... Nyabby? What’s wrong?” The litten looked over his shoulder at him imploringly. Ash recognised his expression from when they’d battled Team Rocket; and, earlier, when he had tried to protect Stoutland from him.

“I think… Nyabby wants to fight, bzzt,” Rotom observed. “He does seem to have a strong sense of justice… for a litten. Perhaps he wants to get revenge for Iwanko, bzzt?”

“Yeah? ‘S that true, Nyabby?” Ash grinned. “Alright, if you say so!”

Something flickered across Hala’s face. “As the challenger—and as you lost the last match—you can have the first move.”

With the pace of the battle in his hands, Ash had the time to properly study Stufful: her broad, burly shoulders; her vast paws and heavy, blunted claws; her fur, longer and thicker than the stufful he recalled seeing in Professor Kukui’s lab; and the purple orb hanging around her neck, half-buried in her substantial ruff.

She had no discernable weaknesses. And unlike with Crabrawler, Rotom’s knowledge had offered no insight into a way to defeat it, either.

Stufful was strong. Fighting types often were, even without training—but Stufful was disciplined, and she was fast, and she could catch boulders like they were made of paper mâché.

In a battle of raw physical power alone, Stufful would likely win out every time. Ash didn’t doubt for one second that if he let Nyabby go the way of Iwanko, trapped under those colossal paws, the match would be over in seconds. But in a contest of speed…

He’d never trained with Nyabby before, but he’d seen how agile, how quick-footed, the litten could be, even when injured and half-starved. If they could get close, hit hard, and get out of range before Stufful had time to counter, they stood a chance.

“Work up, Nyabby, ‘n’ then use fury swipes!”

“Block it, Stufful!”

Nyabby flashed red and darted towards Stufful, striking at her with nimble, brutal movements. Stufful tucked her head into her chest and shielded her face with her arms, weathering the assault; Nyabby’s claws kept snagging in her fur, tufts coming away harmlessly and blunting the attacks. Rotom lit up.

“Oh,” it said. “Satoshi, wait, that stufful’s ability must be—”

“Strength.”

Stufful’s broad paw closed around Nyabby’s muzzle and smashed him into the ground. She shoved her other paw against Nyabby’s chest, light gathering there, and there was no way Nyabby would be able to get out of there in time—

“Fire spin, Nyabby!” Ash shouted. Nyabby parted his jaws and Stufful was engulfed in searing heat. She staggered backwards, trapped in the vortex, batting uselessly at the flames that licked up her limbs. Nyabby scrambled to his feet.

“Better,” Hala praised, “but not good enough. Break free, Stufful! Rollout!”

Ash was certain that it was only through rigorous training that Stufful kept fighting. “Dodge it!” he said, but Nyabby braced hiself against the attack and was knocked back, alighting nimbly a few feet away. “Now use fire fang!”

“Dual chop!”

The two moves clashed. Fire fang caught the first blow, and the second knocked Nyabby to the ground; strength flung the litten high into the sky, but Stufful was still dazed by fire spin’s trapping effect, and a final fire spin finished her off, laying her out in the dirt.

“You did it! Two down, one to go, bzzt!” Rotom cheered, while Professor Kukui announced the results and Hala recalled his Stufful. Nyabby touched down neatly on the ground, pushing into Ash’s open palm with a purr when he crouched and reached out to pet him. “If you keep this up, you might not even need Pikachu, bzzt!”

“You fought well,” Kahuna Hala praised, “but there’s a disconnect between you and your litten. He likes you well enough, but he doesn’t fully trust your judgement.”

Ash stared at his shoes. He knew his relationship with Nyabby was newer than his with Pikachu, or even with Iwanko, and that it was still—delicate, but— “Me ‘n’ Nyabby are doing just fine,” he retorted. “We beat Stufful together, didn’t we?”

“Because of her ability—and because her health was being sacrificed for power. You won’t be as lucky with my final partner.”

Hala’s final partner was a Herculean hariyama—a little slimmer than most, but tall, and with huge, mighty limbs. Even one of her wide fingers dwarfed Nyabby, but the litten only arched his back, puffing himself up and hissing like a gas leak.

“This hariyama is in her prime,” Hala explained. Hariyama lifted one hulking leg and brought it down with a terrible crash. “She was bred from my last ace, and was tutored by him, too. She's a prodigy—the pinnacle of her species.”

“No need to worry, then,” Ash muttered under his breath. “Nyabby, fire fang!”

“Fake out.” Hariyama’s broad palms slammed shut around Nyabby’s head, sending a shuddering flinch down the litten’s body. “Throw it!”

Nyabby landed on feather-light feet, unharmed but shaken, and spat out a column of fire—

“Stone edge!”

—which Hariyama smashed through relentlessly. Ash shouted to dodge, but Nyabby didn’t move; he took the stone edge head-on, sprawling at Ash’s feet.

“What a brutal attack,” Rotom whispered, “and Nyabby didn’t even try to move, bzzt!”

Ash clenched his hands into fists and held them there until his knuckles began to burn. “Nyabby! Are you alright?” Nyabby rose adamantly, though he was shaky, breathing laboured and uneven as though he had run a marathon.

“He's a fiery one, isn’t he?” Hala observed. “Very defiant. But defiance means nothing if it puts you in avoidable situations.”

Hala was right. Hariyama felt indomitable, towering over the fire-type like a great wall, and she wasn’t pulling her punches.

“Fire spin!” Ash tried, but the attack licked harmlessly up Hariyama’s bulk, and was extinguished by a slap from one of her massive hands.

“Is its ability thick fat—or is this just training, bzzt?” Rotom mused. Ash mumbled a quiet dunno, and Hala called for arm thrust, which—if Nyabby wouldn’t outright dodge, then maybe—

“Run straight in, Nyabby! Keep low and use fury swipes!”

Flattened to the ground, Nyabby slipped beneath Hariyama, fitting between her splayed fingers and lunging to sink sharp claws into her chest. Hariyama reared back, taken by surprise—

“Force palm.”

—and things shifted, suddenly and painfully. Hariyama caught Nyabby between those broad, powerful hands and squeezed, force palm building up slowly within that grip.

“Satoshi!” Rotom shouted, panicked. Nyabby started screaming, struggling futilely, and Ash—

Ash dropped his shoulders and steadied his breaths, fists unclenching like tulips blooming in the sun. He closed his eyes, let the tide drag him back to being six and seven and eight years old, muddied and bruise-kneed and wild, cornered by a boy supposed to be his friend, and tried to think of what he’d have wanted to hear back then, the words that would have made the fear less extant.

Life, his mom had always told him, was an uphill battle, but one’s greatest weapon wasn’t a stick or a sword or a mace—sometimes, the most valuable lesson to learn was when to stand your ground and when to run, and that running was not always the cowardly option. Sometimes, it was the only one that ensured survival.

“Stop! I give up!” Ash yelled, cutting through Nyabby’s fast-waning yowls and the otherwise-oppressive silence, and everything ground to a halt. Hariyama’s vice-like grip relaxed, retreating, and Nyabby staggered about, dazed, until Ash ran to scoop him up. “It’s okay, Nyabby,” he said, and the fire type murmured weakly. “You’re okay. You did good! It’s okay.”

He’d pushed Nyabby too far. He’d gotten so caught up in—in victory, in the rush of the fight, that he’d forgotten that Nyabby had only just recovered from his injuries, that he was still so new to being his partner, and Ash had acted selfishly.

His pokémon mattered more than winning. Maybe there had been moments, in the past, when he hadn’t fully believed that, but he knew better, now. There was always a next time. They would always come back stronger.

Across the pitch, Hala watched with an unreadable gaze. “Are you forfeiting the battle, or just this match?”

And Ash faltered. Because he hadn’t—he hadn’t known that continuing was an option. It never had been, before. Not really. “I can—I can keep going?” he asked, sounding a little dazed.

“Mm. But you must understand that you can’t use your litten for the remainder of this battle. You surrendered, so it counts as a defeat.”

Ash glanced down at Nyabby, trembling in his arms—then over at Pikachu, who was still bright-eyed and raring to go. He nodded, setting Nyabby down beside Iwanko. “I won’t need to use Nyabby. Me ‘n’ Pikachu can win this one for sure!”

“Hah! I like your attitude, kid.” There was some indiscernible light in Hala’s eye as he spoke. “I’ll admit, I’m interested to feel your pikachu’s power for myself, see what Tapu Koko found so irresistible.”

Ash grinned. He felt better about this matchup; Hariyama had beaten Nyabby pretty succinctly, but she had given away her fighting style, and he trusted his partner.

Having waited so patiently to battle, Pikachu was chomping at the bit to finally get involved; Ash could feel his enthusiasm as though it was his own.

“Electro ball!”

“Block it! Stone edge!”

Ash flung his arm out to the right. “Dodge with quick attack, Pikachu! Use thunderbolt!”

Pikachu blurred, escaping stone edge’s range, and came back into sharp focus behind Hariyama; thunderbolt hit her head-on, but if she suffered any pain, Ash couldn’t discern it from her unchanging expression. She was sturdy as a monolith, turning with slow deliberation to stare Pikachu down.

Kahuna Hala’s pokémon all had that in common, Ash realised. They were unflappable, and tenacious, and perfectly content to wait, even in the middle of a battle. It reminded him of Sawyer’s slaking, and the difficulties he’d faced fighting it: it was hard, keeping your momentum up, when your opponent could just stop.

… But victory wasn’t impossible. There were ways of taking control.

“Quick attack, Pikachu! Get in close and run around and around and around!” Pikachu blurred again and darted in between Hariyama’s feet, racing in tight circles. Hariyama braced herself, lowering her weight.

“Hah! You won’t get anywhere with that strategy. Arm thrust!”

Ash clenched his jaw. Arm thrust punched dents in the ground; Pikachu dodged them all, but the craters began to slow him down. “Use iron tail and get out of there!”

“Pika!” Pikachu struck Hariyama right beneath her knee and shot out of reach. That seemed to hurt—a critical hit, Rotom observed gleefully—and though Hariyama didn’t fall, though her face didn’t change, she subtly shifted her weight to her other leg. Hala made a sound of discontent.

“Stone edge!”

Stone edge blindsided Pikachu, leaving him sprawled in the dirt; he stood quickly, but was clearly disconcerted. Ash thumbed his Z-ring. Hariyama was—a monster, unperturbed by the damage she had sustained, and Ash wasn’t certain he could out-muscle her without relying on breakneck blitz.

Hariyama used stone edge again. Pikachu smashed the ground open with iron tail, blocking it—and then Hariyama was upon him, fist encased in ice.

“Thunderbolt!” Ice punch hit hard—but so did thunderbolt, and Ash saw Hariyama wince. “Iron tail! Aim for its leg again!”

This time, Hariyama fell, dropping to one knee. Across the field, Hala’s face shifted from hardened concentration to something resembling leashed viciousness.

“Get ready, Pikachu,” Ash said unthinkingly, feeling as though they were on the verge of a turning point. Pikachu landed at his feet with a determined snarl.

And then Hala said belly drum, and the sharp breath Professor Kukui sucked in was audible even from several metres away.

“If he’s using belly drum now, even after Hariyama has taken all that damage, bzzt…”

Ash nodded. “Yeah,” he said. “He’s gonna finish it in one hit.”

He’d never seen the fighting type Z-move before. It wasn’t like the one he’d seen Kiawe use: instead of manifesting as a singular point of energy and expanding outwards, it took the form of many, many elements, all a burnt bronze shade and looking very much like clenched hands.

His gaze jumped about. Where there were gaps in an attack, there was a chance of survival. “Use quick attack and dodge!”

Pikachu blurred a third time, a yellow streak weaving in and out of those glowing, fist-like projectiles, and for a moment, Ash thought it might somehow escape unscathed—but then Pikachu wobbled over one of the craters made earlier in the fight, hitting the dirt unceremoniously. Ash’s eyes roved, searching for a miracle—and found one in his partner.

“Electro ball!” Ash shouted, and Pikachu flung it—but the sphere split and branched outwards, forming a net that snagged the final projectile, slowing its momentum just enough that it pulsed and detonated before it hit.

“That’s electroweb, bzzt! Satoshi, that was a new move!”

“Sure was, Rotom,” Ash breathed, though his eyes were on Pikachu’s unmoving form, elation tinged by the bitter sting of concern. Not for the battle (he knew Pikachu better than that), but because that had to have hurt, regardless of electroweb’s cushioning. Professor Kukui waited a beat, then lifted his arm.

“The challenger’s pikachu is—”

“Piii…” Sparks leaping across his fur, Pikachu clambered to his feet, badly bruised but clinging obstinately to consciousness. Kukui’s announcement shrivelled in his throat; Hala blinked, stunned—then began to laugh, bringing his hands together in great, thunderous claps.

“First you dodge Kiawe’s inferno overdrive at the festival, and now you counter my all-out pummelling with—what, quick attack and electroweb?” He shook his head. “Most trainers would have tried to withstand it, or—used their own Z-move.”

“Well, yeah, maybe,” Ash said, open palm meeting the pointed centre of his normalium-Z. “But I didn’t, so now I can do this.”

Hariyama couldn’t have dodged even if she had tried. Breakneck blitz flung her far out of the perimeter of the battlefield, and she landed in a heap somewhere out in the grass behind Hala. Pikachu’s legs gave out beneath him shortly afterwards, but Ash was waiting to catch him, tucking him where Ash's shoulder met his neck.

Hala recalled his hariyama, watching Professor Kukui steal Ash’s cap and ruffle the kid’s hair affectionately. It wasn’t that he was surprised, really, that Ash had emerged victorious, because the kid had taken on Tapu Koko and put up a decent fight, but it was still a little dizzying, almost, to be faced with all that raw power for himself.

“Congratulations,” he boomed, making his way over. Ash blinked up at him, grinning giddily. “As promised, you’ve earned yourself a fightinium-Z. Your next stop is Akala, home of the water, fire, and grass trials, and of the next Kahuna, Olivia.” And Ash’s smile widened inexplicably, at that.

“Arigatō gozaimasu, Kahuna!” Ash said, just as he had when Hala had handed him his amulet, and he gathered Iwanko and Nyabby up in his arms, holding them close.

“Ah, Professor Kukui!” Professor Oak said, cheerily. His image—grainy, blue-tinted—flickered on-screen, before settling and coming into sharp focus. “What an unexpected call.”

“Yeah, well—” Kukui shifted forwards, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s not an emergency, necessarily, ‘n’ it doesn’t really have anything to do with work, so I didn’t wanna—y’know—book an appointment.”

“Oh? What can I do for you, then?”

Kukui glanced down at his hands, suddenly uncertain of how to word his concerns. How did one verbalise all that Ash was in a way that made sense?

“Nothing… pressing,” he said, then blanched.

They sat in silence for a few moments, staring at one another. After a minute, Professor Oak reached off-camera and drew a steaming mug to his lips.

“There’s something you want to ask,” he surmised, after taking a sip, “but you’re holding your tongue.”

Kukui winced. “It’s not—I mean—it’s about Ash,” he admitted, “and… about his past.”

Professor Oak leaned back in his chair. “Ah,” he said. “Fascinating boy, isn’t he?”

There was that word again—fascinating, like an experiment, not a person. From Rotom, it was understandable: pokémon didn’t necessarily understand the nuances of human speech. But Professor Oak? The man who had given Ash his pikachu and sent him off on his journey?

“He’s—he sure is somethin’,” Kukui acquiesced. “Strong, too. I saw—it said, in his files, that he’s competed in—”

“Six major leagues, and the more unorthodox Orange Archipelago’s league—which he won, if my memory serves me correctly.”

“It… it does, yeah.”

“Yes. But that’s not a question, Professor.”

“I guess it isn’t.” Kukui smiled, crookedly. “I wanted to ask—I mean—” There were so many things. Where did he begin? “... Is he alright?”

Professor Oak cocked his head. “Well, he’s in one piece, isn’t he? And he’s still travelling, and he seems to be enjoying himself, and I haven’t heard anything bad about Alola from him—”

“He speaks to you?”

“Not regularly, but… enough. Mostly about the pokémon I keep for him, and about how they’re faring.”

“Yeah, about that—how come he hasn’t brought his other pokémon to Alola with him?”

“Well, considering I care for over sixty of them—”

“Guardians—”

“Including thirty tauros—”

“Guardians,” Kukui breathed. “He’s mentioned a few pokémon before, but never—never that many.”

“Mm,” Professor Oak hummed. “Pikachu may be the only pokémon guaranteed a permanent place at his side, but that doesn’t mean he doesn't care deeply about the rest. He checks on them often.”

And Kukui had noticed the care that Ash had, for not just his own pokémon, but for every pokémon, no matter what they were or where they came from. No matter whether they were a humble litten, or—a god.

“Y’know, he sort of reminds me of a kid I knew, when I was younger,” Kukui mused. “They have the same look in their eyes, and the way Ash explains things, it’s like…” he trailed off. Professor Oak was staring at him, an indiscernible twinkle in his eye and a small, unnerving smile spreading slowly across his face. “What?”

“Nothing,” Professor Oak said. “But there are only two types of people in this world: people who aren't anything like Ash at all, and Ash Ketchum himself.”

Kukui opened his mouth—then closed it again, a puzzled frown distorting his features. “... I'm not sure I understand the implication, Professor.”

Professor Oak shook his head, though he was still smiling enigmatically. “No, I'm not sure you do, either. But do keep an eye on him. He'll be worth your while.”

“Professor—” Kukui faltered, having more questions than he started with, and not a single answer to show for his confusion—but before he could gather his thoughts, Professor Oak had ended the video call, leaving him sitting in stunned silence, somehow feeling more rattled and uncertain than he had been before their conversation commenced.

He was certain, more than anything, that Professor Oak knew more than he was willing to spell out without shrouding the truth in mystery, but if there had been any advice, or any answers, in his cryptic wording, then Kukui was clueless. He hadn’t even been able to ask about the footage Rotom had shown him, or about Ash’s strange greninja, or about why a pokémon like Tapu Koko would take such an interest in him, or—

Before he could begin to spiral, his phone buzzed on his desk; Burnet’s name lit up on the screen, and the tension bled from his shoulders.

“Hey,” he said as he picked up, voice warming and softening.

“Hey,” she replied, though she sounded… tense. Kukui sat up a little straighter. “I know this is out of the blue, but, uh—have you seen the news?”

Kukui swallowed. “No, why, what—has something happened? Are you okay?”

“I’m fine, but the lab is—it’s been destroyed.”

He paused, for a moment, pulling the phone away from his ear so he could stare, blankly, at its screen. “... What?” he asked numbly, hitting the speaker button. Though he couldn’t see her, Burnet’s wince was audible in her voice when she next spoke.

“I can explain later, I promise, I just—can you do me a favour?”

“Of course,” he assured, words rushing over themselves to get out. “Anything. Are you sure you’re alright?”

“I’m fine,” she insisted, though her tone was fond. “But I have… a ward, and she—she needs a place to stay. Somewhere with someone who’s… better at battling than I am. Do you think you could put her up? Just while I—sort out what’s going on over here.”

Kukui thought, then, about Ash. About how his wanderlust was palpable even when it wasn’t being mentioned. About how his eyes had lit up when Kahuna Hala had told him his next stop was Akala, about how excited he’d been about the prospect of exploring the island, of going on an adventure, of really travelling. About how his absence—temporary, fleeting, he was certain, but an absence nonetheless—would leave a gaping space in Kukui’s life—in his lab.

“Yeah, of course,” he murmured. “I'll take her.”

“Are you sure?” Burnet breathed, relief palpable. “She’s the perfect kid, really, but she’s… trouble.”

Kukui didn’t have time to unpack what that meant. “I’ll be fine,” he said, still thinking about Ash, and his pikachu, and Tapu Koko’s burning eyes. “I’ve got pretty good at dealing with trouble.”

Chapter Text

Mantine surfing was the most fun Ash had had since arriving in Alola. Nyabby hadn’t agreed—he had clung stubbornly to the broad neck of Kiawe’s charizard, yowling whenever they dipped too-close to the waves and dropping face-first into the sand once they touched down on the beach, looking the very image of disgust—but Pikachu had, and Iwanko had, and Professor Kukui had finally lost that pensive, troubled look in his eye, so Ash figured it was worth the scratches and cold shoulder Nyabby gave him afterwards.

(Mostly.)

Professor Kukui brought them to the Tide Song Hotel, where a white-haired woman (Professor Burnet, his girlfriend) and a scrawny, awkward-looking girl with a large barrel bag she kept clutched close to her side were waiting for them. Professor Burnet brightened when she saw them, though the girl seemed to deflate, tucking herself behind the professor and keeping her eyes trained on the floor as they approached.

“This must be your kid,” Professor Burnet said, smiling at Ash. Ash waved both hands in a traditional Alolan greeting, and beamed when she returned the gesture.

Kukui set a hand on his shoulder and nodded at the girl cowering behind Burnet. “And that must be yours,” he said.

“It is. Lillie, this is Professor Kukui, and those are Ash and Kiawe.”

Ash and Kiawe waved. Lillie kept her eyes on the ground and said nothing.

“Uh…” After a few moments of awkward silence, Kukui squeezed Ash’s shoulder and moved across the lobby. “We’re gonna go upstairs, yeah,” he said. “We’ve—”

“Professor talk,” Burnet said smoothly, following Kukui into the elevator. Lillie winced, tucking a phantom strand of hair behind her ear. “You guys have fun, yeah? Try ‘n’ get to know each other.”

Before any of them could respond, the elevator door closed behind the professors, leaving Ash, Kiawe, and the weak-kneed girl alone in the lobby.

“Lillie, right?” Kiawe said, after a few, uncomfortable moments of silence. The girl—Lillie—’s eyes darted over to him nervously, and she nodded in the briefest tiniest acknowledgement.

“Are you a pokémon trainer too?” Ash tried, and got a barely-there shake of Lillie’s head in response. She reminded Ash of a pokémon, a little bit, one that was scared and wounded and confused. Like Serena’s eevee, avoiding eye contact in the hopes that it’d make her disappear.

Kiawe cleared his throat, looking knocked off-kilter, like he wasn’t sure what to do with someone who couldn’t surpass his own energy. “Right. Well—I was going to show Ash my family’s ranch, if you wanted to come…? It’s not far from here, don’t worry.”

“I—” The girl swallowed, white-knuckling the strap of her bag. She looked—terrified, Ash realised, not just nervous, like she was convinced something awful was about to happen. It set him on edge, and Pikachu, too; the electric type seemed oddly tense, ears drooping worriedly. Not Serena’s eevee—his chimchar, back when he first took him in, and kindness seemed completely alien to him.

Kiawe gnawed on the inside of his cheek. “You don’t have to, but it’ll be… fun.”

“More fun than bein’ on your own,” Ash added.

“Okay,” she whispered, nodding to herself. “We can—I can go.”

“Great!” Ash put on a brave face, hoping to soothe whatever darkness had taken root inside her, and was rewarded with a watery, fleeting smile. He’d take it. “Kiawe was tellin’ me on the way here that his ranch has loads of miltank. Like, more miltank than you’ve ever seen in your life! He says he’s only got fourteen tauros, though, and I’ve got more back home…”

He kept chattering—partly because it staved off the awkwardness; mostly because the more he talked, the more relaxed Lillie seemed to become—as Kiawe led them down Heahea City’s touristy streets, through its suburbs, and out, abruptly, into the semi-wilderness of a bizarrely linear path signposted as Route 6: Straight Street.

It was quieter than Heahea City, enough that Ash’s mind began to wander, and Pikachu’s focus began to drift away from the world around him and down to Lillie’s bag, and the way that it shifted periodically. The movements were minute enough that they could’ve been from walking—but Pikachu still tuned in, ears twitching. “Pika?” he squeaked, drawing everyone to a standstill, and descended from Ash’s shoulder, approaching Lillie slowly.

“What’s wrong, Pikachu?” Ash asked. Pikachu rose onto his back legs, stretching to sniff at the bottom of Lillie’s bag.

Lillie recoiled with a high shriek. “Get—stay away from it!” she wailed. “Don’t come any closer!”

Pikachu backpedalled, rapidly, until he bumped into Ash’s shin, the fur along his spine puffed up in alarm. “Pikaaa,” he started, a bemused apology, scrambling back up onto Ash’s shoulder—but then Lillie’s bag stirred again, jumping, and—

And something appeared, floating in the space between them.

It was unlike anything Ash had ever seen before. It was small and vaguely round in shape, with cheeks that glowed like Pikachu’s—only they were blue, and this thing looked as though it’d been plucked from space itself. It peered at Pikachu with vacant, yellow eyes, as though assessing him, then turned to Kiawe—and then, finally, to Ash.

And then it laughed, a high-pitched, bell-like noise, mouth opening wide to reveal a swirling void of pink and yellow light.

“... What,” Kiawe said, “in the Guardians’ names… is that?”

Lillie turned a strange shade of white-blue and said nothing at all, save for making a strange, strangled sound in the back of her throat, somewhere halfway between a whimper and a choking gasp.

“Rotom?” Ash asked, semi-oblivious, throwing the question over his shoulder. Rotom surfaced from his backpack, scanning the pokémon and coming up with— “Nothing?”

“I don’t… I don’t compute, bzzt,” Rotom said. Lillie had since turned a nauseous almost-green, stock-still and bulging-eyed. “I can’t find anything like it in any of my databases. This is—” it turned to her. “What is this, bzzt?”

In lieu of a response, Lillie burst into tears, and the strange, tiny pokémon suddenly stopped laughing, expression contorting into one of childish, uncomprehending distress. More out of instinct than anything rational, Ash reached out to cup it in both his hands, while Kiawe—startled into action by Lillie’s panicked sobs—approached her as though she was a wounded deerling, one hand outstretched and alighting, delicately, on her bony shoulder.

“Hey, Lillie, I wasn’t trying to be—I didn’t mean to frighten you, or upset you, or—” Kiawe looked to Ash for help; Ash, equally flummoxed, could only offer a shrug, still cradling the little pokémon against his body. Pikachu pawed at it gently, wiping its damp, beady eyes. “I was just—surprised, that’s… that’s all.”

Lillie stared at them both, wide-eyed and panicked, breath whistling through her clenched teeth—but, after a moment, she began to unwind in increments, shoulder going slack beneath Kiawe’s palm. “O—okay. Okay. I, um…” She straightened, movements jerky, and dusted her—clean, unblemished—dress off. “Please, I know what it looks like—”

“I don’t, bzzt,” Rotom mumbled, and neither did Ash, but he wasn’t going to say anything about it.

“—but please, just—you can’t tell anyone about it, okay? Please.”

Rotom waved its arms with an indignant sense of urgency. “Don’t tell anyone? This is—this is an unregistered species, bzzt! It’s of great import! Keeping this quiet would be a disservice to—”

Whatever else the pokédex had planned on saying was muffled by the inside of Ash’s backpack. “Sorry about that one.” He laughed sheepishly. “It can get carried away when it gets excited, but I won’t let it tell anyone—and we won’t tell anyone, either. Right, Kiawe?”

Kiawe looked… unconvinced. “Why not?” he asked, suspicion bleeding into his voice. “What’s wrong with it?”

“Nothing! It’s just…”

“If Rotom doesn’t know about it, then it’s probably super rare, right?” Ash surmised, jostling the creature a little. Lillie looked at him, pupils as huge and dark as new moons, and nodded. “So there are probably loads of super bad people who’d wanna take it for themselves, if they knew about it. And it doesn’t look very strong. That’s why Lillie’s keepin’ it hidden. So it stays safe.”

“People like Team Rocket—or worse,” Kiawe murmured with abrupt clarity, nodding. His free hand’s fist clenched, expression suddenly something tense and impossibly passionate. “I’ll fight with all the strength of Wela Volcano to keep it safe!”

“There, y’see?” Ash said. “So there’s nothin’ to worry about! We’re on your side.”

Lillie sniffled, wiping at her eyes, and managed a smile. “Thank you,” she said. “Thank you so much!”

After that, the trio’s journey continued without further upset, and they made it to Paniola Ranch by noon, traversing greenery that became duller and duller until the ground beneath them was earthy and bare.

The ranch was a vast, open space, dusty pathways carved into a sea of yellow-green grass. Herds of miltank rested together, grazing and basking in the warmth; one or two tauros stood guard on the outskirts, bellowing at one another across the fields. A mixed group of mareep and flaaffy—smaller than the miltank herds, and more tightly-packed—moved in a slow trek along the westernmost fence, headed by a lean, powerful-looking ampharos, its tail gleaming red like a late-evening sun. And by the water troughs near the entrance gate, a girl who looked exactly like Kiawe, only much smaller, was tussling with a small, equine pokémon Rotom surfaced to refer to as a mudbray.

The girl ran to greet them once they reached the gate, vaulting over the fence and into Kiawe’s waiting arms. (Lillie stiffened, nervously, acutely aware that her pokémon was still cradled in Ash’s arms, “Kiawe!” she said, just as Kiawe, speaking over her, began to fuss, scolding her for playing with a mudbray alone again, Mimo, when she knew how strong they were (if it hurt her, he’d never forgive it—or himself, for letting her out of his sight) and checking her over for signs of imminent death.

“I think she’s fine, Kiawe,” Ash said, watching Pikachu and the mudbray sniff inquisitively at each other’s faces. Kiawe muttered something that sounded a little bit like a prayer and let Mimo slip out of his hold—though he kept one hand wrapped loosely around her upper arm like a tether.

“Woah,” Mimo said, eyes on the pokémon in Ash’s arms. “What’s that?”

Ash blanched. “It’s, um—”

“It’s—” Kiawe tightened his grip on her arm.

“It's called Nebby,” Lillie blurted. “Its—its name is Nebby. Please don’t tell anyone you saw it—it’s… it’s only a baby, and I’m keeping it safe.”

Mimo squinted, looking awfully suspicious—then Nebby stretched its ‘arms’ above its head and laughed, and Mimo started laughing with it, and then Kiawe and Ash and Lillie joined in, nervous and relieved all at once.

“Can I hold it?” Mimo said, and then gasped when Ash gently placed it in the crook of her arm (and pretended not to notice the way Kiawe started to fidget worriedly). “Nice to meet you, Nebby! You’re really weird,” she cooed, rubbing the golden circlet that wrapped around its body. Nebby wriggled and gurgled, just like a baby. Ash supposed it was a baby, in a way. “D’you guys wanna come in the house? Mom’s made loads of saimin.”

Ash had only had saimin once, when Professor Kukui had made it, but he’d liked it so much he’d eaten his weight in it. “Yeah! Man, I’m starving,” he said, and then Lillie nodded, too, so Mimo brought them in before Kiawe could say anything (though he still insisted on serving the saimin himself, because it was hot, and what if Mimo spilled some and burnt herself?).

They ate in mostly-silence, save for the loud, echoing sounds of Ash slurping noodles, while Mimo fussed over Nebby and Pikachu in equal measure.

“Hey,” she said, after a few minutes of quiet, “have you guys been to Pikachu Valley before?”

“Pikachu what, now?” Ash mumbled, mouth full. Mimo gaped at him.

“You have a pikachu and you’ve never been to Pikachu Valley?” she shouted. Kiawe winced, shushing her, but she only shouted louder. “There are hundreds of pikachu there! Maybe even thousands! You have to go! We have to go! Right now!”

“Mimo,” Kiawe sighed, wearily, “I don’t think that’s a—”

“Let’s do it!” Ash exclaimed, effectively cutting him off. “Hey, buddy, you wanna go see Pikachu Valley?”

“Pika pika!”

“What if—what if Professor Burnet wants me back soon?” Lillie asked uncertainly, but Rotom wriggled its way out of Ash’s backpack to point out that the professors would likely contact one of them if they needed anything, and with no more room to protest, they let Mimo rush them through the rest of their meal and pull them back outside.

“Pikamo, Pikawe, you’ve brought new friends, pika!” The girl—orange-haired, dressed head to toe in yellow, and sporting pikachu ears and a heart-tipped tail—clapped her hands together and beamed from ear to ear. “Welcome to Pikachu Valley, pika! My name’s Pikala—I look after all the pikachu here, pika!”

She spoke like Rotom did, Ash thought, adding something weird onto the end of sentences for no reason. “Um,” he said, “why does she…?”

“It’s part of life in Pikachu Valley!” Mimo grabbed his and Lillie’s wrists, tugging them forwards. “This is Ash, and that’s Lillie!”

“I see, pika,” Pikala said, cupping her chin and studying them both. “Pikash and Pikillie!”

“Uhh… sure.” Ash glanced at Lillie; Lillie glanced back, giving him an awkward half-grin.

“And your pikachu, pika…” Pikala reached out, ignorant to boundaries, and took Pikachu from Ash’s shoulder. “The sheen and density of his coat, the angles of his tail, the size of the caps on his ears, pika…” She scratched beneath his chin, and he gave a happy chaa, eyes closing. “He’s from southeastern Kanto, isn’t he, pika?”

Ash blinked. He didn’t—know exactly where in Kanto Pikachu was from, he realised, but he was from Kanto. “You can tell all that just from his fur and his tail?”

Pikala winked, letting Pikachu wriggle out of her arms and back onto Ash’s shoulder. “All the pikachu here are part of one colony, but they don’t all come from Alola, pika. I’ve gotten pretty good at telling each region’s pikachu apart, pika!”

“She’s so cool,” Mimo insisted. “Hey, Pikala, can I show Lillie the Pikachu House?”

“We can show her together, pika!” Pikala said, and the two—trailed by Kiawe, who was mumbling something about the dangers of electricity—tugged Lillie down the hill and towards a van that had been decorated to look like a pikachu, leaving Ash and Pikachu behind.

Pikachu Valley was awesome, Ash thought as he made his way down. Pikachu Paradise would’ve been an equally apt name: it sported lush, green grasses, a river running through the deepest part of the valley, and more pikachu than Team Rocket could shake a convoluted new mecha at.

… And, sat on the rocks by the riverbank, skimming stones along its surface, a familiar face. Ash stopped in his tracks, squinting. “Hau?”

Hau looked up, body unfurling; their face split into a huge grin. “Hey, Ash!” they shouted, waving their arms over their head. “Alola!”

“Alola!” Ash said back. Hau beckoned him closer, and he made his way over, swinging his legs over the smooth rock, kicking his shoes off, and dunking his feet in the stream water.

Hau leaned back, bracing their weight on their hands and turning their face to the sun. “So, you finally managed to beat Tutu, huh? What’d you think? He’s good, right?”

“Uh huh.” Ash nodded, thinking back to Crabrawler’s flashy fists and endeavour tactics; Stufful’s raw, brutish power; and Hariyama’s almost limitless endurance. “He was really tough. His Hariyama’s super strong; they had us on the ropes for a bit—right, bud?”

Pikachu trilled something high and semi-indignant, which Ash ascertained to mean something like I had it under control the entire time. Hau twisted to stare at them both, face screwing up.

“Maaan, he used Hariyama against you?” they groused. “He only used a makuhita against me.”

That was… probably for the best, Ash thought, but he didn’t say so. It wasn’t that he doubted Hau’s abilities as a trainer—they were learning fast, and obviously good—but Hariyama had been a veteran, and Hala had used her because Pikachu was, too.

“You’ll just hafta train real hard and show him you deserve a rematch!” Ash assured, and Hau looked happier, at that. They relaxed, grinning from ear to ear—then faltered again, scowling abruptly.

“Speaking of training real hard… have you tried any of the trials here, yet?” Ash shook his head; Hau smiled, sheepishly. “Yeah, well, the first one is, uh...” They stretched up, craning their neck and peering past Ash. “Hey, Pichu, c’mere!”

A moment later, Pichu emerged from a small crowd of pikachu and made his way over, ears droopy and dejected. Hau scooped him up in one hand, setting him on their lap. “No luck?” they said, and Pichu squeaked something unhappy and pitiful, wringing his paws together.

Ash frowned. “What’s ‘a matter?”

“We came here ‘cause I wanted Pichu to try and learn thunderbolt, and I thought if he was surrounded by all these pikachu, then maybe he’d pick it up, but it doesn’t seem to be working.”

Pichu deflated even further, looking incredibly sorry for himself. Ash winced sympathetically. “Don’t worry about it, Pichu,” he said. “It took Pikachu a while to learn iron tail, y’know? And it took Iwanko a while to learn rock throw, too! Don’t beat yourself up just ‘cause you’re finding it hard now.”

“Pika pi-ka!” Pikachu agreed emphatically, and Pichu peered up at him with huge, wonder-filled eyes. Ash glanced between them—then lit up.

“What if Pikachu tried to teach you?” he suggested. “Thunderbolt’s our favourite move! If you work together, you’ll have it down in no time.”

The two scampered off, Pichu hot on Pikachu’s heels. Ash turned back to Hau with rapt excitement.

“So, the first trial,” he said. “What’s it like?”

Hau laughed, a little hysterically. “Ah, man. It’s… I know your pikachu’s a freak of nature—hey, I mean that in a good way, don’t look all grumpy—but, uh, that trial?” They folded themselves back over their knees, staring glumly into the water. “Guardians. Me ‘n’ my team trained for ages before taking it on, and the totem—it wiped the floor with us. And three of my pokémon are supposed to be strong against water-type attacks!”

“Three?” Ash asked, furrowing his brow in confusion, because the last time he and Hau had met up, they’d only had three pokémon.

Hau’s eyes lit up, widening. “Oh, right! I caught an eevee after I came to Akala, and look—” they fumbled in their pockets for a moment, before pulling out a poké ball, hitting the catch, and— “My rowlet evolved into a dartrix!”

“Woah,” Ash said, “that’s so cool!”

Dartrix fluffed out his feathers and preened proudly.

“Yeah, he’s awesome. But even he couldn’t do anything against the trial.”

“Why, what’s it like?”

Hau stretched their arms above their head, thinking. “So you go into Brooklet Hill, and there’s this huge lake, and there’s a rock, where the Z-crystal is, right in the middle. All you’ve gotta do is send your pokémon in to get it.”

“... But?”

“... But there’s a totem araquanid guarding it, and it stops at nothing to stop you from getting it. I thought Dartrix ‘n’ Noibat would be able to avoid it, but even with Pichu and Eevee covering them, they couldn’t get close.” They prodded glumly at their bared knees, mouth a thin, unhappy line. “I know you’re a better trainer than me, ‘n’ all, but jeez, that araquanid…”

Ash puffed out his cheeks, scratching the back of his neck absentmindedly. Nyabby and Iwanko were both weak to water-type attacks, and Pikachu couldn’t out-swim an aquatic pokémon like an araquanid.

“Have you caught any new pokémon?” Hau asked, suddenly.

“Not since Nyabby.”

Hau grimaced. “You’re screwed, then; your team’ll be useless against that thing. No offence.”

Ash leaned forwards, eyes sparkling. “Is it really that tough?”

“Even worse. It oneshot Noibat with a giga drain.”

A familiar, funny feeling built in Ash’s stomach, flipping it over and twisting it into knots. He’d always loved a challenge—the more insurmountable it seemed, the better. “We’ll think of somethin’,” he assured. “What about you?”

Hau opened their mouth to respond—but a sudden cacophony stopped them, drawing their attention. Pikachu and Pichu were stood with another pikachu—female, with a curled patch of fur between her ears—and the female was watching, worriedly, as another pikachu, this one male, made his way towards them, eyes slitted and locked on Pikachu.

The rival pikachu was broad-shouldered, looked sunburnt in comparison to Pikachu, and boasted a thick cloud of fur between his ears; he stood several inches taller than Pikachu and bristled all down his spine, sparking from his deep red cheeks all the way to the tip of his tail, looped around the base of which was a beige, brittle rock roughly resembling a crown. He brute-forced his way between Pikachu and the female pikachu, shoving his head into Pikachu’s chest and knocking him half a foot backwards. Around them, the other pikachu swarmed and linked tails, forming an electrified semicircle bordering the river. Several ousted the female from their ranks, and she pulled Hau’s pichu with her, holding him close to her chest as she retreated to Ash and the others.

“Hey, knock it off!” Ash growled, indignant. “What’s going on?”

Rotom surfaced from Ash’s half-open backpack, expression uncharacteristically pensive. “In pikachu colonies, disputes are settled in combat, bzzt,” it said. “It’s traditionally for show—whichever pikachu first secures a bite on the other’s tail is declared victor, and the matter is considered resolved.”

“Disputes…? Pikachu didn’t do anything!”

“Pikachu earned Curly’s attention, pika.”

Ash jumped to his feet; Pikala was standing at his shoulder, hands clasped behind her back. Lillie, Kiawe, and Mimo stood beside her, looking equal parts uneasy and perplexed. “The Boss has been trying to win Curly over for months—and your pikachu managed to earn her favour almost immediately, pika! Now, your pikachu is the Boss’ rival in love, pika.”

Love? “You mean…”

“The Boss wants Curly to be his girlfriend, and your pikachu is messing that up, so now they have to fight, pika!”

Ash screwed up his face, sinking back onto the rock beside Hau. Girlfriend? “Pikachu doesn’t want a girlfriend,” he mumbled, hands balled into fists. “Pichu was trying to learn thunderbolt, and Pikachu offered to help, that’s all.”

Pikala hummed skeptically. “Mmm, maybe, but the Boss doesn’t see it that way, pika. There’s nothing we can do, anyway—the Boss rules this colony, and if he wants a fight, he’s going to get a fight, pika. It’s best to let the battle run its course; it’s the way this colony works, pika!”

“Aren’t you supposed to be their trainer? Can’t you just tell ‘em to stop?” Hau asked, easing their pichu out of Curly’s grip and setting him back in their lap. Pikala smiled—though it didn’t reach her eyes.

“Pikachu are pokémon, and pokémon aren’t like people, pika,” she said. “I don’t want to force them to be anything they’re not, pika! I don’t try to mess with nature—besides, isn’t battling what trainers do, pika?”

The Boss and Pikachu circled each other, sizing one another up. Pikachu seemed to know, instinctively, to keep his tail flattened against his outer flank, protecting it from the Boss’ beady eyes; the boss held everything high, strutting rather than prowling.

“He’s confident,” Kiawe observed. Pikala hummed, sounding—proud.

The Boss broke the stalemate first; his arrogant impatience formed a red ring about him, visible whenever Ash blinked. He swung his tail, the crude crown looped around its base struck Pikachu between the eyes, and Pikachu flinched, turning his face away and shutting his eyes. The crown snagged against his ear, dangling from it; a moment later, the Boss knocked it to the ground, slamming one broad forelimb into Pikachu’s chest and sending him flying. Stunned, Pikachu rose, tucking his tail beneath his body protectively and shielding his face with his paws—and the cycle repeated, over and over. The Boss beat him round the makeshift arena, offering no reprieve, no time to recover.

“What an interesting strategy, bzzt,” Rotom murmured. “By flinging that king’s rock, the Boss ensures that Pikachu can’t attack for flinching—and by using knock off, bzzt, he can retrieve it and cause extra damage.”

Ash balled his hands into fists and swallowed the urge to command. Pikachu’s Aura was a flickering, surprised thing, but his determination was bright and blue. “Pikachu’s got this,” he promised. The Boss couldn’t rely on one trick forever: the longer he persisted, the sloppier he grew.

And the Boss was persistent; soon, he had Pikachu haphazardly sprawled belly-down in the grass. He moved in on him with a cocky, swaggering gait, head held high, and swung his tail to fling his king’s rock once more—

And Pikachu blurred, dodging with quick attack. The Boss retrieved the rock with an irritated grumble, flinging it again—and Pikachu countered with iron tail, smashing it to smithereens.

“Alright!” Ash shouted, back on his feet. Pikachu’s eyes found his, briefly, and lit up with a smug glee.

The Boss froze, unblinking, staring blankly at the shattered pieces of his crown, as though he couldn’t comprehend its destruction—then flattened his ears to his head, baring his teeth in a snarl.

“He doesn’t look very happy, bzzt,” Rotom stage-whispered.

Kicking a large chunk of his shattered crown aside, the Boss flung himself into a reckless volt tackle. Pikachu vaulted into the air, using his tail as a springboard, and pulled himself into a tight flip, snagging the Boss with electroweb and halting his rampage. The Boss stumbled and fell with a frustrated growl, thrashing and wriggling futilely; Pikachu touched down neatly, shaking himself out and trotting towards the Boss’ vulnerable tail.

“That wasn’t much of a battle,” Kiawe snorted—but Ash felt uneasy, like things had happened too quickly and too easily for it to be over.

Then the Boss shouted something across the arena to Pikachu, low and derisive, and Pikachu’s whole demeanour changed, head dropping so that his chin brushed the grass and his tail lifting so it arced, stiff and trembling, over his spine. He looked—wild, Ash realised. He looked like he was wild.

“What’s happening?” Lillie asked, quietly. “What did the Boss say to him?” Rotom’s screen flashed blue, then displayed a move factfile.

“He used swagger, bzzt,” it said. “It’s a risky move—it makes an opponent stronger.”

“But that’s so—so counterproductive. Why would he…?” She trailed off, eyes scanning the screen.

Pikachu’s jaws snapped around his own paw, sharp enough that even Rotom recoiled with a modulated sound of distress.

“Because it confuses them, too,” Kiawe said.

Tucked against Ash’s ankle, Curly whimpered, and he bent to pet her ears. She probably felt responsible for it all, he realised, but that wasn’t fair, really, because it wasn’t like she’d planned on earning the Boss’ attention. It didn’t even seem reciprocated. The Boss was so caught up in getting what he wanted that he’d forgotten to consider her feelings.

“It’s okay,” he told her. She looked at him with watery eyes, and something in her expression made him pick her up, setting her on his shoulder. It was a comforting weight, even if she was a little lighter than Pikachu was, and didn’t tug his body to the side in quite the same way.

The Boss smashed his way out of the webbing, wreathed in electricity, and knocked Pikachu backwards; disoriented, helpless, and confused, Pikachu toppled, losing his footing and tumbling down the steep embankment into the river.

“Pikachu!” Ash shouted, restrained only by Kiawe’s hand crumpling the back of his collar. Frantic, he peered into the rippling water, but saw only his reflection. “Pikachu!”

Kiawe hauled him away from the water’s edge and back onto the boulder. The Boss lifted his tail high and turned his back, preening and parading before the eager colony, but his eyes roved wildly, like he was looking for something. They eventually settled on Curly, clinging to Ash’s shoulder, and narrowed, like he was waiting for something from her, but Curly only turned her head away, tucking it beneath Ash’s chin and chittering churlishly.

She doesn’t like you, Ash thought fiercely, like he was trying to transfer the notion into the Boss telepathically. She doesn’t like you, and beating up other pikachu won’t change that, and you should probably just leave her alone and stop being a big, dumb bully.

Then sparks struck the Boss from behind, and the chattering colony of pikachu went very, very quiet. The Boss turned back and found himself staring down the embankment at Pikachu—drenched, but very much conscious, and climbing, slowly, up towards him.

He struck the top of the embankment with brick break, dislodging huge chunks of dirt that rolled towards Pikachu—but Pikachu beat them back with iron tail, nailing the Boss in the face with one of them and buying enough time to ascend back into the arena.

Even after taking a beating, Pikachu was faster than the Boss—he was smaller, and leaner, and for all the power in the Boss’ reckless attacks, he was tiring fast. Pikachu leapt nimbly from spot to spot, flinging sparks the Boss’ way and wearing him down from a distance, and Ash could see the Boss’ frustration deepening, motions growing clumsier with white-hot rage.

That was Pikachu’s strength, he realised: the Boss was fighting for his pride, to prove himself to his colony, to Curly. Pikachu had nothing to lose.

Quick attack shunted the Boss backwards, and he teetered dangerously close to the edge of the embankment; he glanced down into the water, then retreated sideways with a low, growling shriek, jerking his head up and making a warbling sound that felt like a call to arms.

From the semicircle, three more pikachu—male, all smaller than the Boss—slunk forward, forcing Pikachu into the centre of the arena. One’s teeth grazed the air mere millimetres from Pikachu’s tail, chattering keenly.

Kiawe snarled, eyes burning. “Four against one’s not fair! How can the Boss call himself a true leader if he has to cheat to win?”

Pikala cocked her head. “How do you think they do it in the wild, pika? There are no rules in nature, pika.”

Two of the pikachu lunged for Pikachu from either side; he parried them both with iron tail, but the third—scruffy-looking, with a conniving gleam in his eyes—struck from behind, slamming his paw into the back of Pikachu’s head, and Pikachu flinched, flattening himself against the ground.

It was the opening they needed: the Boss’ three cronies swarmed Pikachu, pinning him down. He writhed and squirmed to no avail, tail whipping and wide open, and the Boss approached him leisurely, stopping to flick Pikachu between the eyes mockingly—

And Pichu leapt from Hau’s lap, flinging a barrage of stars that knocked the Boss off-kilter and scrambling through the crowd of pikachu to throw itself, white-hot and glowing, at one of the Boss’ lackeys. Its ears thinned, body and limbs elongating, and its tail curved into a sharp, jagged lightning bolt. It was—it was—

“Pichu?” Hau breathed, and Pichu—no, Pikachu—loosed a thunderbolt that sent one of the Boss’ cronies skittering across the arena, eyes wide and nervous. Ash’s pikachu twisted and bucked, throwing the other two off, and Hau’s pikachu helped him to his feet, rubbing their cheeks together.

“That’s more like it,” Kiawe said, grinning. “Two against four is a little fairer!”

“And Hau’s pikachu will have the advantage of post-evolution strength, bzzt,” Rotom added.

“Pi- ka!” Pikachu shouted, defiantly, and he and Hau’s pikachu locked tails, unleashing a joint thunderbolt powerful enough to send the Boss’ lackeys scrambling back into the throng of onlookers. Alone once more, the Boss suddenly didn’t seem nearly as ferocious: his pompadour was a frazzled mess, and he looked… smaller, almost. Less like a despot. More like… more like a pikachu.

Hau’s pikachu retreated, and it was back to a one on one. Quick attack met volt tackle, and Pikachu spun into an iron tail that nailed the Boss right between the eyes; he staggered, stunned, but shook himself out, throwing himself into another volt tackle. Once more, Pikachu sprung over him, launched by his tail, and this time, electroweb did its job, trapping the Boss long enough that Pikachu could meander over—

And gently snag his tail in his teeth.

“Nobody’s ever beaten the Boss in a battle before, pika. Your pikachu is really something, pika! And congratulations to you and your pikachu too, Pikau, pika!”

Pikala had been awfully nice about the whole thing, after the match had ended. The Boss had been surprisingly gracious, too—he’d come around to Pikachu almost immediately, and looked nothing like the brutish creature he had when Ash had first seen him, now he was cradled in Pikala’s arms like a baby. He’d even stopped leering at Curly—she still sat on Ash’s shoulder, while Pikachu took his place on the other, almost balancing Ash out.

“Gee, thanks,” Hau said, bracing their hands on their hips. “We’re gonna beat that trial easy, now! And Ash—uhh… Pikash… let’s battle next time we meet up, yeah? My pikachu versus your pikachu.”

“You’re on!” The two shook on it; then Hau set off up and out of Pikachu Valley, waving one last goodbye before disappearing over the hill.

Pikala waved them off, then turned back to Ash, squeezing the Boss tightly. “Well, it was nice of you to all come and visit, pika! Feel free to come back whenever you want, pika.”

“Thank you,” Lillie said, bowing a little. “It was—it was really fun.”

“Of course, pika! Curly—come on, pika. Let’s let these guys get off home, pika.”

“Pikaaa…” Curly then said, quietly. She looked nervous, over-grooming her paws, and didn’t budge from Ash’s shoulder. Pikala hesitated, frowning.

“Curly, pika?”

Mimo peered up at her. “Does she… wanna go with us?”

“I mean—” Pikala swallowed, faltering. “I—um… Curly, pika?”

Curly’s ears drooped, and Ash could feel the conflict in her, but she didn’t budge from his shoulder. Pikala ran her fingers through the Boss’—who looked shocked, tail stiff—pompadour, took a deep breath, and nodded.

“You can always come back if you want, pika,” she said, eyes on Curly. “And you four, pika! Take good care of her, pika. She’s—she’s a good pikachu, pika.”

Mimo loved the midday sun, but evening was her favourite: Kiawe was always busy enough that he couldn’t follow her around, harping on about how everything was dangerous and could kill her if she wasn’t careful, and she got to hang out with the mudbray by the edge of the ranch, right up against the northside fence.

It was peaceful, and she had a great view of Route 5 from where the mudbray grazed, enough that she could see the duo approaching her long before they came within earshot. They were weird-looking: the taller, a man, had a severe mouth, even if his eyes were hidden by a visor, but the smaller, a woman with braided orange hair, had a skip to her step that made her seem less scary.

“Hello, child,” the man said, in an equally-severe voice, “does this place belong to your family?”

“Sorry, mister,” Mimo responded, using the words her parents taught her, “our ranch isn’t for sale, and my parents don’t want to talk to you.”

The man floundered, then, seemingly speechless, until the woman stepped forwards, twirling her hair around her finger and beaming. “Sorry about him! He can be a bit… unusual, sometimes.” she laughed. “My name’s Zossie, and this is Dulse! We don’t want to buy your ranch—we just wanted to ask you if you’d seen anything, that’s all. You see, we’re looking for something veeery important—and dangerous. If you can tell us anything at all, you’ll be helping a lot of people out!”

Mimo perked up at that. She’d always liked the idea of being a hero—of being free, and saving people from dangerous things, and not having Kiawe breathing down her neck all the time. “What is it?” she asked, leaning forward over the fence.

The woman held out her arm and tapped her wrist, producing a holographic screen bearing two images. Mimo felt her stomach flip; one image was of Nebby, and the other was of Lillie, only she looked healthier, and less like she was wasting away.

“Now, we need you to tell us the truth,” Zossie insisted. She still sounded friendly, but there was something… off, about her voice, that Mimo hadn’t noticed before. Something modified. Something alien. “Have you seen either of these?”

Please don’t tell anyone you saw it, Lillie had said. It’s only a baby, and I’m keeping it safe.

Mimo tightened her grip on the fence and stared nervously at Zossie. She was waiting for an answer. Mimo didn’t know which to give her.

Chapter Text

Ash left Paniola Ranch early that morning. Lillie had already returned to Heahea City two evenings before, bundling Nebby tightly into her bag and accepting Kiawe’s offer of a ride on his charizard after only minor insistence from him, but Kiawe’s parents had demanded Ash stay the night—the ranch, they’d argued, was far closer to Brooklet Hill than the city—then the next, when the weather up at Brooklet Hill was too tumultuous for trial-goers. Ash felt a little bad, not getting to say goodbye to Professor Kukui in person, but Melemele was only a mantine surf away (and he could always ring, Rotom had reminded him in a tinny, officious voice).

Kiawe had already left for his morning job before school by the time Ash dragged himself out of bed, and Mimo was already up and dressed, sitting at the kitchen table with a mug of hot cocoa and an oddly sullen, uncertain expression on her face. Her eyes were dark and sunken, bottom lip worried by her teeth, and Curly was bundled in her lap, leaning into the absentminded petting of her fingers and cooing in that gentle way Pikachu did whenever Ash got himself all worked up and upset over something. Ash frowned.

“Alola,” he greeted, and Mimo brightened at his voice, picking her chin up from her chest.

“Alola, Ash! Mama made scrambled eggs, if you want some.” She jerked her head over towards the pan on the stove, but her voice still sounded hollower than Ash was used to. “Gotta keep your energy up if you’re gonna take on the trial today, right?”

Ash blinked, moving towards the pan. “You know about that?” he asked. Mimo nodded.

“Mhm! Mama said you were leaving today. And I saw the thingy on your bag, so I knew you were doing the Island Challenge.” She tilted forwards a little, jostling Curly gently. “I really wanna do it when I’m bigger, but Kiawe says I can’t, ‘cause I might get hurt.” Her voice grew low and mocking, then, in a poor imitation of Kiawe’s, and it was so stupid that Ash began to laugh. “He never even let me go with him when he started his, cause he said I was too little back then. But I’m not little now! I’m six!”

“Uh huh,” said Ash, seriously. “Y’know, Bonnie was seven when me ‘n’ her ‘n’ her brother journeyed through Kalos. And Max was seven too, in Hoenn.”

Thinking about it like that was… weird, putting Bonnie and Max in the same age bracket, because Max hadn’t seemed that small when Ash had travelled with him, but Bonnie had, moments of startling wisdom tempered by an otherwise overeager naivety. Maybe it was because Clemont had always felt more like a parent to Bonnie than May had to Max—just as Kiawe felt like one to Mimo, even as she resisted it.

“See! And that’s not much bigger than me. That’s like… less than a year!” Mimo threw her hands in the air and leaned back over her chair, swinging her legs out in front of her and kicking the underside of the table. “I bet it wasn’t even that dangerous, either. Kiawe’s just trying to scare me.”

Ash shovelled a spoonful of scrambled eggs into his mouth and thought about the way Kalos had burned. His shoulders curved a little, creases appearing between his brows. “Wanna come with me today?” he asked, in lieu of an answer; Mimo sat up straight, hugging Curly to her chest, beaming from ear to ear.

“I thought you’d never ask! I’ll be good, I promise. Mama’ll say yes, she always does—it’s Kiawe who says no.”

“Kiawe’s not here,” Ash pointed out, around another mouthful of scrambled eggs. They were slightly sweet and slightly acidic, imbued with the underlying taste of pineapple. “He’s not gonna be here until after school.”

Mimo’s smile grew mischievous, conspiratorial. “Plenty of time to do the trial, get the Z-crystal, and come back! He doesn’t even need to know.”

Kiawe’s mom sent them off with even more saimin and a ride stoutland that made Nyabby go all tense and weird, for a bit, before he pushed his face into the ruf at the back of its neck and disappeared into its fur. The stoutland didn’t seem to mind Nyabby’s claws, and Ash didn’t have the heart to pull Nyabby away, so even when they arrived at Brooklet Hill, he left the litten there, purring between the stoutland’s paws while it drenched him in viscous saliva.

“Play nice,” he said, and the stoutland woofed at him gently, licking him for good measure too. He wiped its spittle from his cheek with a half-laugh, half-grimace, then set off over the bridge and into the trial zone, as Kiawe had called it. A place he wasn’t allowed to leave until he either won or… didn’t, unless he wanted to have to start the trial all over again. The way he’d said it made Ash think trials were usually gruelling ordeals—more gruelling, even, than gym matches.

And battling Trial Captain Ilima had fun, but Ash wondered if maybe it was a bad thing, that he didn’t know how trials worked. The way Hau had spoken about it made it seem impossible, like Totem Araquanid was unbeatable.

But Brock’s onix had felt insurmountable, at first. No pokémon was invincible—even legendaries could be brought to their knees.

“So where’s the totem?” Mimo ran to catch up, slipping her hand into Ash’s and tugging until he looked down at her. She really did remind him of Bonnie, he thought; she shared that same exuberance.

“I dunno. That’s what we’ve gotta figure out.”

“How are you gonna beat it?”

“You’ll see. I’ve got a super secret weapon, though.”

“Mmm…” Mimo screwed up her face in a pout, but she let the topic drop. She was quiet enough after that for a while, swinging her and Ash’s arms and skipping more than walking, until they came upon a girl with her back turned, gripping a fishing pole tightly and watching her lure bob on the surface of one of the many pools in the area.

She was a little shorter than Ash, with dark blue hair and wide blue trousers with patterns reminiscent of waves. Clipped to her belt, Ash noticed a little talisman reminiscent of the one Trial Captain Ilima had worn in their hair and that Kiawe wore around his neck from his grandfather, though the teardrop was navy, this time, instead of pink or red. He wondered if the three were connected, somehow, or if it was just an Alolan thing.

At her side was a pokémon Ash had never seen before. It sort of reminded him of a seel, only smaller and pointier, with a pale ruff around its neck and a clownish pink nose.

“Hey, that’s Lana and Popplio,” Mimo told him, before shouting the girl’s name louder, waving. Lana turned at that, staring at them with inscrutable blue eyes—everything about her was very blue, Ash thought—before she smiled, reeling in her untouched lure, bending at the waist, and picking her pokémon—Popplio—up.

“Mimo! And…” she trailed off, tilting her head to one side and studying Ash.

“Oh, this is Ash! He’s Kiawe’s friend. He’s from Kanto, which Kiawe says is super far away.”

“Hey, you’re the one who told Kiawe you’d fished up a kyogre,” Ash said, remembering Hau’s teasing tone when they’d told him they didn’t believe anything he had to say about his past, even if Ash was pretty sure there were videos and news stories online for some of them, if Hau bothered to look them up. He remembered being sent one by Brock about Kalos, shortly before he’d travelled to Alola, and remembered his throat closing up, weirdly, even though he didn’t know why. Something about people acknowledging the things he’d done like they were weird, like he was weird, like he was—different, it made him—

Lana swung her fishing rod and tapped the brim of Ash’s cap with it. “I did fish up a kyogre,” she insisted, “Hau doesn’t know what they’re talking about! It must’ve gotten lost in a storm, and that’s why it was in Alola.”

“Really?” Mimo gasped, eyes sparkling. Lana nodded smugly.

“Mhm! I found it right here in Brooklet Hill.” Ash didn’t think Brooklet Hill was big enough to hold a kyogre, but he didn’t say that. “Who knows—maybe we’ll find another one today.”

Mimo’s grip on Ash’s hand turned painful. “I want to see a kyogre!” she demanded, gazing up at him. “C’mon, Ash, let’s go find a kyogre!”

Ash flushed, grinning nervously. “What about my trial?”

Lana’s expression shifted, then. “You’re here for the trial?” Ash nodded, and her eyes dropped to the amulet tied to his backpack. “Ah, of course,” she said. “Of course you are. Well, you’re in luck, because I know this place inside out, and I know exactly where the Z-crystal is.”

“You do?” Mimo wondered.

“I do! It’s in the middle of the lake at the bottom of Brooklet Hill. I can show you, if you’d like.”

She led Ash and Mimo down a dirt path interconnected by wooden walkways that bridged the various ponds of water leading to the lowermost part of the trial zone, which opened up into a vast lake bordered by sand and shrubbery. The waters were calm and still, breeze light, but Pikachu bristled anyway, ears high and alert. He shifted his weight forward, in the way he did when he was preparing to jump off Ash’s shoulder—and Ash stopped him, gently, with a hand to the chest.

“Not right now, bud,” he said. Pikachu flattened his ears and sulked in confused protest. “I know, but I want you to wait a bit. You’ve been battling a lot lately.”

Pikachu chittered in a way Ash ascertained to mean something like but I like battling. He smiled.

“Yeah, but I want you to wait a bit. Besides, there’s someone else I want to use first.”

“You can sit with me ‘n’ Curly if you want, Pikachu!” Mimo said, patting her shoulder, and Pikachu—with one final, dramatic sigh—abandoned Ash to join her.

Ash had thought about the trial a lot, in the day after Hau had told him about it. It’d weighed on his mind long into the afternoon, and when he’d finally spoken to Professor Oak about it, he’d been no closer to coming up with a strategy or a solution or even beginning to work out how to approach the trial than he had been before he’d known anything about it. The extra knowledge had made him feel like he’d taken several steps backwards in his preparation.

He’d bemoaned this to Professor Oak, who’d sat sagely sipping from a cup of tea, a wry little smile on his face. Pikachu couldn’t fly, he’d complained, and neither could Iwanko or Nyabby—and no terrestrial strategy would work. Hau had said so.

“It’s a shame,” Professor Oak had mused, “that you don’t have any pokémon that can fly.”

Ash tugged a poké ball from his belt, flicked the catch with his thumb, and a pokémon—resplendent, flaxen, avian—appeared in a flash of red light.

“Everyone, meet Yorunozuku!” he said. “Yorunozuku, this is Mimo, Curly, Lana, and—”

“You have an alternately-coloured pokémon, bzzt?!”

“— and Rotom,” Ash finished, lamely, but the pokédex had already torn itself free from his backpack and set upon Yorunozuku with an eager madness that reminded Ash a little of Brock whenever he saw a girl he thought was pretty.

“What type of pokémon is it, Rotom?” Mimo asked cluelessly, but if Rotom heard her, it didn’t acknowledge her, too enamoured with Yorunozuku’s gaudy sheen.

Yorunozuku twisted his head upside down, eyes shut against the blinding flash of Rotom’s camera, and Ash laughed nervously. “Rotom,” he said, a warning, “I don’t think—”

But Rotom ignored him, too, tugging at Yorunozuku’s sharply curving brows, prodding at his patterned chest, snapping pictures from every angle—

Until Yorunozuku grew tired and, righting his twisted head, lunged forwards and pecked Rotom’s screen hard enough to make it flash an awkward, bruising purple.

Rotom made a noise that sounded like a modulated cough. Ash got the sense it was maybe a little embarrassed, or shocked, because its excitement seemed to dissipate almost immediately, and it drifted back to cling to his cap, sheepish even once it began to speak. “Noctowl—or Yorunozuku—the owl pokémon. A normal and flying type, bzzt! Intelligent and cunning, noctowl are masters of nocturnal hunting: they can see clearly in almost total darkness, bzzt, and their feathers make their flight soundless. An ancient symbol of wisdom in Johto, noctowl were once called the emperors of dark nights. This one is… awfully small, for its species, bzzt.”

If looks could kill, Ash reckoned Rotom’s ghost typing would be a little more literal.

“Small… but mighty,” Mimo mused, “like me!” And Yorunozuku puffed out his chest, preening.

Ash turned his attention back to the vast, tranquil lake. “So… is the totem in there?”

“Somewhere,” Lana confirmed. “It never strays from the lake unless it’s pursuing an unlucky trial-goer… I heard that sometimes, when it’s particularly hungry, it eats its challengers.”

Mimo shuddered, shifting until she was partly tucked behind Ash, but her eyes were bright and excited. “Maybe it’s sleeping,” she suggested hopefully. “Y— Yor— Yoru could just fly out there and grab the Z-crystal. It’d be easy peasy!”

Yorunozuku turned and affixed Ash with a cool, judgemental stare. Ash didn’t need to read far into it to know that the noctowl was thinking the same thing he was: fat chance.

But they couldn’t stand ashore forever, watching the water lap at the sand, listening to the wingull call from the cliff faces. Ash white-knuckled his cap, dusted off his litten print t-shirt, and squared his shoulders. “Alright, Yorunozuku,” he called; the noctowl twisted his head until it was almost upside down. “Fly out straight towards the Z-crystal, but keep high!”

To his side, Lana snickered, a barely-there sound muffled by her palm, but Ash ignored it. Yorunozuku unfurled his brassy wings and took to the skies, shooting out overhead. The path was clear and straight, Z-crystal drawing ever closer—

And the water beneath him surged, a beam of ice cleaving through the air. Yorunozuku dropped out of the way, forced into a tight roll to the right, and looped back around, hovering some twenty metres from the rock. As though nothing had ever happened, the rolling waters settled.

Lana clasped her hands behind her back and smiled a dangerous smile. “Looks like it’s awake,” she said.

Ash glared at her. “Y’think?” he groused. “Try again, Yorunozuku!”

He did—and the same thing happened. The noctowl banked steeply, twisting his body out of the way, and Ash chewed on the skin beside his thumbnail contemplatively. So long as the totem could hide like that—submerged in the safety of the water, shooting ice beams to keep Yorunozuku away—they’d get nowhere.

Unless— Ash’s eyes lit up. “Use psychic on the Z-crystal!” he shouted. Yorunozuku’s eyes flashed a pale, sickly pink; the waterium Z lifted, dislodged from its place on the rock—

And the totem came with it, launching itself high out of the water with a shrieking, muffled rasp. It was—huge, bigger than Rotom had said araquanid were, and Ash felt slightly sick, looking at it. He wasn’t scared of any pokémon, but something about the sheer scale of it was— “Look out! Air slash!” he yelled. The totem flung itself at Yorunozuku, all long, sharp, stabbing limbs, and Yorunozuku met it with blue-blurring wings, whipping up blades of air that struck like scythes.

“Don’t let up! Use moonblast!”

It wasn’t a move Ash had ever seen Yorunozuku use before. But Professor Oak said the noctowl had been training, after Sinnoh, and had learned a whole wealth of new moves, should it ever be called upon to battle again. Ash wanted to use them all.

Yorunozuku widened his eyes, white as full moons, and flung a deep pink orb at the totem—only for it to slip, silently, under the water, evading. It leapt back out behind the noctowl, hitting him with dive. For a moment, he flailed as though half-caught in the totem’s water bubble, before his thrashing broke him out, bedraggled but free—

And the totem roared a gurgling roar. Behind Yorunozuku, something darted out from the shrubs along the shoreline, zipping across the lake’s surface.

“Behind you!” Ash shouted. The something—a masquerain, Ash realised—blurred, too fast even for Yorunozuku, and hit him from behind with an energy ball. “Moonblast!”

Yorunozuku tried—but the masquerain flared its antennae and blinded him with a flash of white light. The moonblast arced, harmlessly detonating in the water, and another strike from the totem’s long limbs sent the noctowl flying.

“Yoru!” Mimo yelled, distress bleeding into her voice. In her arms, Curly trembled, paws over her face. Ash bared his teeth in a frustrated grimace.

“Pull back and use air slash!”

Yorunozuku fluttered bedraggled wings and lifted to a safer altitude, covering his retreat with razor-sharp wind. He landed clumsily back on shore at Ash’s feet, drenched and disoriented, but stood still and proud while Ash towelled him off with a spare pikachu t-shirt he’d tucked away in his backpack. Out on the lake, Totem Araquanid loomed over the Z-crystal; the masquerain hovered low over the water, antennae wide and threatening.

“What’s that?” Mimo breathed, holding Curly tight. Rotom rubbed the space between its eyes in an uncannily human gesture.

“Masquerain—or amemoth—the eyeball pokémon. A bug and flying type, bzzt! Masquerain are incredibly nimble; their four wings allow them to fly in any direction, but if they become wet, they become immobile. They use the patterns on their antennae to intimidate enemies, and they nest on shorelines near open water, bzzt.”

“Sometimes, totem pokémon call allies to help them protect their Z-crystal,” Lana added, unhelpfully late. “Totems have complete control over all the pokémon living in their territory. Nobody really knows why, but Professor Kukui said it could have something to do with the energy they give off, like a sort of aura.”

At his side, Ash’s hand spasmed. “We’ll just take them both out,” he said decisively. Almost experimentally, he called for Yorunozuku to use air slash; predictably, the masquerain blurred and dodge with lightning speed. It was fast, he thought. Too fast. Beating it would be a matter of slowing it down, stopping its movements for one crucial moment and capitalising on its hesitation.

“That’s it!” he exclaimed, turning towards Pikachu. “Pikachu, are you up to fight?”

Pikachu wagged his tail and squinted his eyes in an expression that Ash figured was meant to be fierce, but only really looked kind of cute. He extended his arm, pointing at the rocks that stretched out into the water offshore. “Get as far out onto those rocks as you can, okay? Wait for me to tell you what to do. Yorunozuku, I need you to get the masquerain to chase you. Do whatever it takes!”

“What are you thinking, Satoshi?” Rotom asked. Ash turned to look at it, and at its screen, which still showed masquerain’s pokédex entry. A grin broke out across his face.

“You’ll see,” he promised. Rotom tilted a little, question marks flashing across its display.

Yorunozuku struck in a flurry of moonblasts, launching himself at the masquerain; fast as a ninjask, it shot out of the way, parrying with an energy ball that Yorunozuku shredded with air slash.

“Head for the totem!” Incensed, the araquanid lifted its head, water sloshing in its bubble, and shrieked a call to action that pushed the masquerain into an almost frantic pursuit of the noctowl. “Now fly back towards Pikachu!”

Yorunozuku soared, the masquerain hot on his tail feathers and closing the gap with every passing second; he drew nearer and nearer to the jagged rocks where Pikachu lurked, path set for collision—

“Up! Hypnosis!” Yorunozuku shot upwards, eyes flaring blue, and the masquerain stalled, spellbound.

“Hyper voice! Pikachu, use iron tail on the lake!” Water cascaded in one long arc, consuming the masquerain; when it settled, the masquerain fluttered weakly, wet wings barely able to support its body weight, and Pikachu’s electroweb finished it off.

“Ah,” Lana said. “Not bad. Using the masquerain's weakness to water to take it down…” she glanced over at Ash and smiled. “A decent strategy.”

“Thanks! I think.” He crouched in the sand, reaching out to pet Yorunozuku and Pikachu in turn once the noctowl touched down onshore. “Now we’ve just gotta take out the totem.”

“And get the Z-crystal,” Mimo added, eyes like stars.

And get the Z-crystal. If Ash lifted his head and squinted across the water, he could see it, deep blue and glittering in the morning sunlight, shadowed by the hulking form of its wild protector. He bit the tip of his tongue, thinking.

“Tell me about araquanid again, Rotom,” he said, after a moment.

“Araquanid—or onishizukumo—the water bubble pokémon. A water and bug type, bzzt! Araquanid are a hunting species that deliver fatal headbutts and drown their prey within the water bubble around their head, bzzt. Their long limbs allow them to traverse all manner of terrains in pursuit of what they want.”

Ash frowned. “Say that first bit again.”

“Araquanid—or onishizukumo—”

“The bit after that.”

“A water and bug type, bzzt…?”

Ash scratched the back of his neck. “The bit after that.”

Rotom threw its arms in the air. “Well that’s not the first bit, is it, bzzt?”

“I’m sorry! Can you say the…” Ash counted on his fingers. “Third bit again? Please?”

“Araquanid are a hunting species that deliver fatal headbutts and drown their prey within the water bubble around their head, bzzt.” It made a noise that sounded like a sigh. “Based on this, I would recommend utilising your pokémon’s ranged attacks, rather than trying to battle in close quarters, bzzt.”

“Nah,” Ash said; Rotom beeped indignantly. “I’ve got an idea.”

Pikachu loved when Ash got like this: wild-eyed and devious, brimming with an energy so bright and loud that he could feel it in his own chest, like a little bubble expanding inside his body and making him feel lightweight.

He liked battling. He liked the thrill of it, the danger, because it could get tough, could get overwhelming, but he never felt like he was struggling, like he was losing, even when he was, because Ash was there, and he knew Ash wouldn’t leave him, or pull something stupid just for the sake of getting him hurt. (When Ash did pull something that sounded stupid, it usually transpired as genius, anyway.)

It hadn’t always been like that. And for every new pokémon Ash caught, Pikachu could see a little of his old hesitance in them, too. Even when they joined him willingly, when they saw Ash, they still—doubted him, a little. Goukazaru had, back when he was a skittish chimchar. Gekkouga had, and he’d been special, like he was made to be with Ash, or maybe like Ash was made to be with him.

Nyabby doubted Ash, too. Pikachu’d tried to tell him, but he was stubborn. Like Lizardon, or Fushigidane, or—or Pikachu himself. He’d risked his life for Ash on day one and even he hadn’t trusted him fully for months. There’d still been a burgeoning anxiety every time he’d stepped out onto a battlefield, uncertain, unable to place complete faith in Ash’s abilities as a trainer.

Now, there was only excitement. They’d taken out the masquerain, and the totem was huge, but Pikachu had fought gods before. He’d fought gods before, and he’d won. An overgrown spider wasn’t enough to shake him, especially not when Ash was grinning at him and Yorunozuku like that, eyes full of fire. If Pikachu looked into them, it was like he could see Ash’s brain working, piecing together a plan.

“Pikapi?” he asked; Ash petted the base of his ear, right where he liked it best, and told him not to worry about it, so he didn’t. He just gripped the feathers at the base of Yorunozuku’s neck with his sharp little claws and tucked himself close so that he didn’t go flying when the noctowl lurched and took to the skies again, heading back towards the totem.

The totem didn’t like that, though. It roared a warning—leave this place!—and fired off an ice beam that Yorunozuku had to shoot upwards to dodge, then another, then another. Pikachu squeezed his eyes shut against the biting wind and was glad he wasn’t motion-sick. He’d been thrown about in battle before and this was almost nicer, in comparison.

Then Yorunozuku evened out, and the wind died down to a manageable level. Pikachu cracked open one eye but saw nothing but beating wings and a wide, blue sky.

Get ready to jump, Yorunozuku said. Across the lake, Ash shouted—quick attack! Into the bubble!—and Pikachu launched himself into the totem’s water bubble as the noctowl banked sharply left, dropping and spinning and wheeling away.

And then everything was dark and freezing and muffled, and Pikachu could hardly think. He felt the world around him shift, lurching upwards, heard a muffled rasping sound, loud and quiet and close and faraway all at once—and then he saw the araquanid’s fanged chelicerae, glowing green amidst the murk. He twisted, flailing, trying to escape—

And everything erupted in blinding light. The totem screamed, high enough that it hurt Pikachu’s ears, but he kept shocking it until he was suddenly wrenched free of the bubble, and he could breathe again, and it felt like he was trapped in a hurricane, for a moment. Something grabbed the scruff of his neck and he nearly used thunderbolt again, but he heard Yorunozuku’s voice, and when he blinked his eyes open, he saw that he was suspended in the air, held tight between Yorunozuku’s talons. He looked back at the totem to watch it sink beneath the tumultuous surface of the lake—and then it was gone.

Is it over? Pikachu asked. Yorunozuku twisted his head so he could look at him, the Z-crystal clamped between his beak, and let that speak for itself. Pikachu relaxed with a sigh and let Yorunozuku carry him to shore; the noctowl dropped him into one of Ash’s waiting hands, and the Z-crystal into the other, then landed in the sand and lifted his head with a smug, wordless coo.

You’ve not changed a bit, he said, letting Ash manoeuvre him back onto his shoulder. Yorunozuku looked at him and winked.

The researcher flung the door to her laboratory open with an unceremonious crash, muscling past the beheyeem hovering by the door; Colress turned his head slightly at the sound, but didn’t pivot fully to look at her.

“You,” she snarled, voice full of ice and barely-leashed rage, “What have you done with my salazzle?”

“Nothing she couldn’t handle,” he responded. “She’s fine, by the way. Alive, conscious, in perfect condition. I simply wanted to test something, and it worked. I’d call it scientific advancement.” When she opened her mouth as though to speak, he added: “I read the terms of your contract; all your pokémon are property of the company, and ergo, they’re property of your boss. I obtained permission for this from him.”

Her jaw worked, clenching, but no sound came out for a long moment.

“You can take a look at her for yourself, if you don’t believe me.” He produced the salazzle’s poké ball from his pocket and released her; she emerged hissing and perplexed, and though she quieted when she saw her trainer, body recoiling from Colress, she flattened herself against the ground and made no move to return to the researcher’s side. After a few seconds, he recalled her. “See? Perfectly healthy. She’s a little confused, but she’ll get over it.”

“You were called in here to help me complete this project, not to steal my pokémon and use them to sate your own sick curiosities. We have a job to do; the Chairman is demanding results, and he’s demanding them quickly, and we need to ensure that these prototypes are a success so that he can use them. The region’s safety is at stake. The region’s prosperity is at stake. The Chairman’s reputation is at stake.”

“And we’re on track.” Colress turned back to the monitors, adjusting the concentrations of the fluids transmitted to the prototype via IV. He watched it on the broadcast—clamped to a table, limp—as it spasmed briefly, and then was still. “I’d say we’re ahead of time. The prototype is stable, healthy, and will be ready to operate on by the end of the week at the latest.”

The researcher’s eye twitched. “To operate on?” she echoed. Colress pushed his glasses further up his nose and looked at her like she was stupid.

“To implant the multitype system,” he said, slowly. The researcher squinted at him suspiciously, like she expected there to be an and, but he kept looking at her steadily until she averted her gaze. “I’ve been cleared to keep your salazzle for a few more days—just to observe her recovery. After that, you can have her back.”

“You can’t just—”

“I can, actually. I can show you the documents, if you’d like. They were signed by the Chairman.” The researcher fell silent, seething. Colress knew it was probably hard for her, when she didn’t understand, when she was faced with an impossible choice: her love for her pokémon, or her loyalty to the Chairman, to her job.

“If anything’s happened to her,” she said, after a moment. “If you’ve hurt her in any way—”

“I understand your concern,” Colress murmured, placatingly. “But she truly is in perfect condition.”

The researcher drew herself up. “Keep her that way,” she demanded. The or else went unspoken, yet Colress heard it, clear as a bell. He bowed his head back over the monitors and listened to her leave.

Professor Kukui was—nice, Lillie thought, but she was still struggling to adjust to life on Melemele Island. He’d offered to enrol her in the school he taught at, to help her settle in and make new friends (Kiawe attended, apparently, and he was sweet enough, if a bit awkward), but the thought of being surrounded by a bunch of kids who already knew each other, who were probably normal and friendly and curious—it made her feel ill. And if she was at school, there would be nobody behind at home to look after Nebby, to make sure it didn’t wander off, or to keep it from being seen by—by anyone, whether people who didn’t know what it was, or… people who did.

It wasn’t that she meant to sound ungrateful. But it was difficult, especially when she didn’t know how to explain things without explaining everything, especially when explaining everything was too dangerous, even to someone as good as Professor Kukui. And he’d already done so much for her, willingly taking her in and giving her a home and not pressing her when she clammed up and refused to speak or go outside or answer any of his questions, even the ones that sounded simple, like where did you get Nebby from? She didn’t think it’d be fair to—to burden him with the whole story. The more he knew, the more at risk he was—and he’d already be in enough trouble if the people she was running from found out where she was.

Maybe a part of it was just that she didn’t want to get attached, didn’t want to leave any permanent reminders of her existence. For the most part, Professor Kukui gave her space, gave her time, and she still felt—like she was infringing, somehow.

Nebby was asleep—finally. It had cried and cried all morning after a long and energetic night, and Lillie was exhausted, too, but she’d lain down for close to an hour and sleep had so stubbornly evaded her that she’d admitted defeat. The lab was quiet, as it often was during the school day: Professor Kukui was out, teaching, so Lillie was alone, save for the luvdisc in the aquarium and the stufful napping on the sofa and the murkrow raiding the kitchen cupboards.

… And the stairs leading to the basement called to her. She hadn’t seen what was down there, yet. Professor Kukui often disappeared into the basement for hours at a time, while the world outside grew dark, and Lillie could often see blue light shining up the stairs, but she’d never—she’d never thought to ask if she could join him. She’d always figured that he’d have told her she was allowed.

But she was curious. Professor Burnet’s work had been above her paygrade, but it had still been interesting, looking at the data, trying to make sense of the research.

The gluttonous murkrow fluttered to the banister overlooking the stairs, tilted her head at Lillie, and croaked—then dropped down to the stairs and began to hop into the basement. Lillie supposed that was as good a sign as any and—feeling shaky and feverish—followed it. It landed on a desk by the far wall, next to a warmly-lit incubator holding an egg as white as snow.

She approached it slowly, as though scared to disturb it, and the murkrow shuffled away, disappearing into the shadows. Up close, the palest ice-blue markings were barely visible on its surface, forming shapes that looked like flowers or clouds. Tentatively, she reached out, fingers pressing feather-light against the smooth, warm glass—

“Cool, isn’t it?” a voice said behind her. Lillie whirled around, eyes wide like a deerling caught in the headlights, and drew her hands back against her chest. Professor Kukui was leaning against the wall at the bottom of the stairwell, arms folded. He didn’t look mad, but Lillie still felt this bitter, painful guilt in her stomach, like she’d been caught doing something terribly wrong.

“I— I didn’t— I wasn’t going to— I was just looking.” She swallowed. “Aren’t you—what about school?”

“Ended early today.” Professor Kukui pushed off the wall and ambled towards her; for every few steps he advanced, she took one in retreat. “Do you want to hold it?” he asked, airy and casual.

Lillie blinked. “I— pardon?”

“The egg. Do you want to hold it?” He flipped the lid of the incubator and eased the egg out, shifting it from hand to hand. Struck dumb and silly with nerves, Lillie nodded, and Kukui passed it to her with a smile, the corners of his eyes crinkling. It was hard, and colder to the touch than she expected; she cradled it in the crook of her elbow like a baby—then startled when it jumped a little in her arms.

“Hey,” he said, “looks like it likes you. It doesn’t do that with everyone, y’know.”

Lillie peered down at the egg, wondering. “Really?” she breathed, something strange and awed and humbled building inside her, making her hands feel funny—but in a good way, not like they did when things were falling apart around her and it was all her fault. Kukui’s smile widened, just a touch, and Lillie cradled the egg a little bit tighter, something painful in her chest beginning to unravel.

Mimikyu was seething.

Its beloved guise—now little more than a burnt, unrecognisable rag—had been replaced, hours devoted to painstakingly sewing scraps of cloth together into something resembling the original, but the memory of its destruction still lingered, white-hot and impossibly vivid in the forefront of Mimikyu’s mind. The pain. The way its body had burned, trapped by fire spin, helpless to do little more than watch and writhe and crawl like a wurmple across the shore.

And that stupid fucking pikachu had just—watched it burn. Had gloated while it had burned. Mimikyu hated him, wanted him dead, wanted that litten dead, wanted the boy who loved them dead—

It would get its revenge. The loud, magenta-haired woman that had caught it had promised that it would get its revenge. She was talking now, inanely, about something Mimikyu didn’t understand, nor did it care about, munching on berries with the lavender-haired man and the talking meowth and that obnoxious wobbuffet. Mimikyu would have joined them in eating, had it had an appetite. But it was too angry to eat. Too angry, almost, to think beyond the images of sweet, violent vengeance playing on loop in its head.

The loud, magenta-haired woman called it. Mimikyu pretended not to hear, at first, but then she called it again, almost at a shout. It turned with a rasping hiss—and saw a stufful, sniffing at its costume, teeth dangerously close to the fabric.

It struck her—hard—with its makeshift tail. The stufful didn’t even flinch, like she didn’t notice, and Mimikyu hated her, too. It drew itself up, blind with rage—

And was suddenly suspended in midair. It twisted. Howled. But Sonansu didn’t let go, just tightened his grip until eventually—eventually—Mimikyu gave up. At least here, the stufful couldn’t undo its hard work. (... But she had tried. Mimikyu wouldn’t forget.)

To its dismay, though, the loud, magenta-haired woman seemed to find the stufful cute. At least—she cooed over her, crouching down a few feet away and wiggling her fingers and squealing with stupid delight when the stufful sat back like a toddler and waved her forepaws back at her. Mimikyu didn’t know if she knew just how dangerous stufful were, if she knew they could knock over trees, but it also figured she’d like that about it, if she did. Not that it cared, or anything. It didn’t. It didn’t hate the woman, but it felt no affection for her, either. It just wanted its revenge. She was going to get it its revenge.

The stufful inched her way closer to the woman. Mimikyu heard the lavender-haired man suggest catching it, and rasped out one final, muffled protest, before it watched the woman distract the stufful with a whole heap of berries and then trap her while she was preoccupied. She disappeared into the ball, which shuddered a few times—before settling with a thunk. Mimikyu tried to swallow the urge to scream, failed, and was recalled to its ball as well.

Deep within the forests of Melemele Island, a bewear lifted her head, dark, beady eyes searching. Something was wrong. She didn’t know what—didn’t know how she knew—but something was wrong.

She returned to her den. It was dark and quiet, and when she sniffed the air, the scent of her cub was a little stale, like it hadn’t been there in a while. She followed its trail—wound through the undergrowth, something like a primitive form of anxiety beginning to spread through her mind, and soon found herself standing in a clearing. Berry stems littered the ground. Her cub’s scent trail disappeared. When she nosed through the grass, she smelled human. It didn’t take much brainpower to understand what that meant.

The bewear rose onto her hind legs and roared a mournful roar. The sound of silence answered her call.

Chapter Text

Lillie could feel herself spiralling, grip on herself slipping through her fingers like sand with every passing second. Against her back, the bark of the tree she sat against was coarse, digging into her spine; the grass beneath her was spiky and dry; and the murkrow’s claws, gripping her knee, were sharp. She clung to those sensations, desperate for something to ground her.

Stupidly, she’d started to think that maybe her life was on the upswing—that years and years of misfortune were tentatively coing to an end. Professor Kukui’s lab was safe; Nebby was healthy and happy; and the egg, which the professor had told her to hang onto, still twitched whenever she touched it, like the creature inside was trying to get closer to her, like it liked her, even without having ever seen her. She didn’t know anything about it—not what it was, nor how long it would be before it hatched—but she felt like she loved it, a little bit, or at least like she could love it, given time.

Then Nebby had escaped. She had one job—keep Nebby hidden, out of harm’s way—and she—she’d failed. And now it was lost on an island neither of them knew very well, and she had no idea where to even start looking for it, and she didn’t know how far it had gotten or which direction it had headed in or whether it was even alive, and—

“You don’t get it,” she said, stupidly, to the murkrow on her knee. “Nebby’s not safe out here like you are. Nobody—nobody’s looking for you like they are Nebby. If my mother’s—” she closed her mouth. The murkrow was watching her with beady, too-intelligent eyes, leaning closer as though she could possibly comprehend the importance of Lillie’s words. Some part of Lillie suspected she could—though who the bird would tell (and how), she didn’t know.

She lowered her voice anyway, in case the trees were listening, or in case the murkrow could somehow snitch on her. “If bad people find Nebby, they’ll hurt it. That’s why I have it. To—to keep it safe.”

“Krow,” the murkrow said, reproachfully. Lillie had never heard such blatant meaning in a pokémon’s cry before; the murkrow might as well have said ‘and you’re doing a great job of that, evidently’ in a language she understood, for how obvious its intent was.

“I know. I’m—I’m doing a terrible job, and I’m a terrible person, but I need to find Nebby before it’s too late, and I don’t even know where to start, so if you would just help me, please—”

The murkrow stretched out her wings and took off, a flurry of black feathers that wound through the trees and disappeared from view. Lillie watched her go with a burgeoning sense of despair.

“Of course,” she said to nobody in particular. Above her head, pikipek sang cheerful tunes, boring holes into trunks and plucking berries from branches. “Of course.” Her heart was hot and too-big in her chest, beating all wrong, and the space beneath her skin felt funny, buzzing like she was bleeding out from the inside. She felt like was going to cry, or throw up, or pass out, or—or all of the above, and it was stupid, and she was stupid, but she— she—

“Hey, are you okay?” Someone said from out of view; Lillie looked about and saw a girl approaching. “Poe wouldn’t leave me alone until I agreed to come with her.” She wore overalls and a pink flower in her hair, and her face was warm, smiling, compassionate. A bounsweet sat on her right shoulder, tucked into the crook of her neck, its face equally warm and smiling and completely insouciant; the murkrow perched on her left, looking terribly smug. “I’m Mallow. Do you know the professor?”

Lillie hadn’t even known the murkrow had a name. She rubbed one hand over her face and shut her eyes until they stopped burning. “Yes, I—I’m staying with him.” At Mallow’s perplexed expression, she added, hastily, “My name’s Lillie. I only moved in a week ago.”

“I thought the professor had a boy staying with him. The one with the pikachu, that Kiawe keeps talking about.”

Lillie’s eyes widened a touch. “You know Ash?”

“You know him too?” Mallow crouched in the grass beside her. “I mean—I don’t know him, but I saw him battle at the Iki Town Festival. He fought Tapu Koko.”

Strangely, that didn’t surprise Lillie. Hearing that he’d fought a guardian was somehow less world-altering than she thought it would be, than it would have been had the fact been about anyone else. There’d been something about Ash—about his eyes, emptiness behind a bright passion for life, that had made her suspect there were things he wasn’t telling people, things he didn’t want others to know. He was like her, in that sense, and he’d understood the gravity of hiding Nebby away from the world without her even having to put it into words.

Nebby. She dropped her head, shoulders hunching, and felt tears well in her eyes again, impossibly persistent. Mallow’s face crumpled, concern wrinkling her brow.

“Hey, what’s wrong? Did I say something?” She touched Lillie’s bare knee with her hand; it was warm, like her expression and her voice.

“No, sorry, I just…” Mallow kept her hand on Lillie’s knee, and Lillie found herself staring at that point of contact, feeling flushed and nervous and stupid. How did she explain that she’d lost a pokémon she wasn’t meant to have? “I’m okay, I’m—”

The girl squeezed her knee gently. “Are you sure?” she said, and Lillie shook her head without really meaning to. “C’mon, what’s the matter?”

Lillie told her everything: about how she’d been cleaning, and how she’d left the window open because she’d thought Nebby was asleep, and how she just hadn’t thought it’d ever even try to escape the lab, let alone succeed—

“And it got out, huh?” the girl surmised; Lillie nodded miserably. Poe made another one of her sharp, judgemental, laughing croaks.

“It’s only a baby. It won’t—it doesn’t know—it can’t survive on its own. It thinks everything’s a game.” And Lillie didn’t blame it, but sometimes, she wished that it was a little less. Less curious, less flippant, less intolerant of having to hide, less naive about the world and all its dangers.

She knew the life she was giving it wasn’t what it deserved. That it deserved better than what she could provide, than what was possible in their current circumstances. But she didn’t—she couldn’t just—

She’d seen what they could do, to people, to pokémon. How weak and still Nebby always went after their experiments, limp and sick and barely breathing. Survival, surely, was better than the alternative, no matter how limiting, no matter how hard. It was something she’d learned to tell herself during long months of white dresses and whiter walls, adjusting her sunhat so its floppy brim hid her watery eyes. She had been just as captive as Nebby. In a way, she supposed she still was.

The girl tilted her head, cheek rubbing against her bounsweet’s leafy crown, and tugged Lillie forwards, so she could pull them both to their feet and link their arms. Lillie’s face burned. “Well, if it’s a baby, it can’t have gotten far! I know this place like the back of my hand; if we work together, we’ll find it in no time! What does it look like?”

“It looks like…” the universe, Lillie thought. Like someone took the universe and fit it into one tiny body. “Have you ever seen a picture of a nebula?”

“Who’s the Masked Royal?” Ash asked. Standing opposite him, across the table, Sophocles stared at him for a long, long time, cheeks puffed out like an indignant pachirisu’s.

They were in Kiawe’s mom’s kitchen. Kiawe and Mimo were at the sink, clearing the dishes away after lunch; Pikachu was playing with Sophocles’ togedemaru, who had taken a shine to him; Curly was napping on the windowsill, limbs outstretched like a staryu’s; and Ash— Ash was being judged more profusely than he had been in a while, feeling more like an interogee in Officer Jenny’s police station than a kid talking to another kid.

“You know,” Sophocles said matter-of-factly. Ash didn’t know; he didn’t know a lot of things about Alola, really. He’d lived there a few weeks and he still didn’t know a lot—not like the way he’d felt in Unova, or Hoenn. Sometimes, he felt like he knew nothing at all, like he was as educated as he was before Professor Oak had told him that the archipelago even existed, only he felt different, wrist heavier, chest fuller. “The Masked Royal? You have to know the Masked Royal.” At Ash’s blank look, he elaborated: “Only the coolest trainer in the whole region? He holds the record for the longest streak of victories in battle royals; he’s never been beaten.”

Pikachu’s ears twitched upwards at ‘battle,’ listening from where Togedemaru had him pinned, nuzzling into him with sharp metal spines; if Ash’s could too, they would have. And Sophocles was already speaking to him like he was stupid, watching him with that same, disparaging look Max had often given May whenever she’d said something stupid, so Ash figured it wouldn’t do much harm to say: “Battle royals?”

Sophocles twisted his face up into a confused, awkward frown, brow and mouth both squiggly lines. “Um.” He rubbed the side of his face and looked to Kiawe for help, but Kiawe was still talking to Mimo in Alolan while they worked, fast and expressive, sloshing suds everywhere. “You know,” he repeated, and Ash still didn’t know, so he shook his head. “They’re battles where four pokémon fight each other at once.”

Ash’s eyes lit up. “Like a double battle?”

Sophocles hesitated. “Not, um, not really. Double battles are two v two; battle royals are… one v one v one v one. You can get attacked from any angle. The last pokémon standing wins the royal.”

“They’re meant to represent the battles the guardians used to have, long ago,” Kiawe said suddenly. He wasn’t looking at them, but Ash could hear the same reverence in his voice he always heard whenever Kiawe started speaking about Alola, or its gods, or its culture, or its history. “They would meet and wage war to see which would emerge triumphant, and the ancient people of Alola were inspired to develop battle royals.”

Ash had never heard of anything cooler. He felt like he’d burst if he didn’t get to see one, didn’t get to participate in one. “And you’re going to a match tonight?”

“Professor Kukui managed to get us tickets before they sold out. He said he had a friend who could get us in.” Togedemaru tumbled over, bumping into Sophocles’ ankle, and he bent to pick her up, tucking her into the crook of his arm. “The Masked Royal’s been missing for months! We all thought he was dead, or— or that he’d retired and just not told anybody.”

“Like his incineroar would let him,” Kiawe snorted, back still turned. “That thing’s a beast—the pinnacle of his species. He loves battling too much to quit quietly.”

“Incineroar?” Ash echoed; his backpack began to vibrate, weight jostling him about, and he didn’t have the heart to ignore it. “Go on, Rotom,” he said, tugging the zip open, and the ‘dex burst out with a scrambled, joyous sound, screen bright with the image of an unfamiliar, feline pokémon.

“Incineroar—or gaogaen—the heel pokémon!” It said, voice shrill. “A fire and dark type, and the final evolution of litten, bzzt!”

“That’s what litten evolve into?” Now Ash was looking at it properly, he could see the similarities in their banded fur and sharp eyes, but Nyabby seemed so small now that imagining him standing tall and muscular on two, thick legs felt almost impossible. Still, he thumbed the catch on Nyabby’s poké ball and let the litten out; he stretched on release, looking around warily and then following the line of Ash’s arm as he pointed at Rotom’s screen.

“Look, Nyabby, that’s an incineroar!” he said, just in case Nyabby didn’t know. “You could become one of those someday, if you wanted.”

Nyabby made a flat, rumbling sound, the sort Ash still struggled to understand, but pushed the line of his flank against Ash’s shin anyway. Across the room, Mimo piped up.

“The heel pokémon? What’s so special about its heels?”

“It’s a wrestling term, Mimo,” Kiawe interjected. He’d knelt, since the last time Ash had looked at him, and one of Mimo’s hands was gripping his shoulder, over the towel he’d slung across it. “It means they’re the bad guys.”

“It’s true, bzzt!” Rotom said, interjecting, sounding unnaturally cheerful. “In the late twentieth century, the litten line was temporarily removed from the starter registry in Alola, and the possession and use of incineroar without a special licence was a criminal offence, bzzt, due to their violent dispositions and a string of infamous cases in which incineroar attacked opposing trainers! Their selfish nature and tendency to ignore their trainers’ orders has been bred out enough amongst litten in the starter programme for them to have recently been restored as starters, but the same can’t be said for wild populations, bzzt.”

Wild populations, Ash thought, remembering what Kiawe had said about the litten in Wela Volcano Park, like the one Nyabby’s from. He frowned. He knew Nyabby could be difficult, sometimes, biting and scratching and refusing to listen whenever Ash told him to dodge, but that didn’t mean he was a bad pokémon, or that it was his destiny to become one if he decided to evolve, morality determined before he even had a chance to choose who he wanted to be.

He was just—he’d had a tough start in life, and he hadn’t met many good people before Ash, and he was still new to the whole ‘having a trainer’ thing, so Ash didn’t expect him to be obedient all the time. Maybe back when he’d been a rookie, and his expectations of life as a trainer and what his relationships with his pokémon would be like were still warped by what he’d seen on TV, he’d have been annoyed by Nyabby’s behaviour. He’d been annoyed by Lizardon’s, at first, before he’d realised what it was all about.

“Not all of them,” he said slowly, looking down at Nyabby. Nyabby was staring up at the picture of the incineroar on Rotom’s screen with eyes that gleamed a sickly, high-vis yellow, and Ash couldn’t tell if the litten liked what he saw. A strange, twisty feeling knotted in Ash’s stomach.

Rotom blinked, then, which Ash still found kind of funny, because it didn’t really need to; it hadn’t ever used to, when they first met. “Well, no,” it said, “but just as it’s in a drampa’s nature to burn down your house when it’s angry, it’s in an incineroar’s nature to maul things, bzzt.”

“It’s in a what’s nature to what,” Sophocles squeaked.

“I don’t think the Masked Royal would agree.” Kiawe was standing, now, and had moved over to where Ash was. He pressed his hand between Ash’s shoulder blades, a grounding pressure, and Ash made his body go all loose and easy on purpose, offering Kiawe a small smile that he hoped he’d be able to tell was grateful. “His incineroar fights with honour.”

“His incineroar destroys everything!” Mimo bounded over, trampling on Ash’s toes. “He could eat you in one bite!”

“But he won’t, Mimo. That’s the point,” Kiawe said.

“My data on incineroar suggests otherwise, bzzt,” Rotom countered condescendingly.

“Did nobody else hear what Rotom said about drampa?” Sophocles sounded desperate. Kiawe looked at him a little funnily, then turned back to Ash.

“We’ve got enough tickets for you to come tonight, if you want,” he said. Ash nodded, smile too-wide.

“Yeah,” he said. “That’d be good!”

Royal Avenue was crowded. It felt more like a hotspot in Unova than anywhere in Alola Ash had been so far, bright and bustling and loud. The road itself was lined with colourful stalls selling food and merchandise and a myriad of other things; gleaming in the evening light, the Battle Royal Dome stood large and silver. And, stood by the bridge leading into the dome, was—

“Lillie!” Ash ran towards her, breaking away from the others; she flinched, then turned, features smoothing into a timid smile when she spotted him. Her hand, which had been hooked into the elbow of the girl at her side, moved to tug restlessly at the hem of her t-shirt—the one Pikala had given her, in Pikachu Valley. Ash had never seen her in anything other than a ratty white dress. “And—”

“Mallow,” the girl at Lillie’s side said, warm. She looked familiar, like he’d seen her somewhere before, but only briefly, or a while ago, because the memory was hazy, distorted. He scanned her restlessly, thinking, before settling on the bounsweet perched on her shoulder with a dawning recognition.

“You were at the festival,” he said, remembering. “In Iki Town.”

Mallow clasped her hands beside her face and beamed so brightly and widely her eyes shut. “So were you! Your pikachu beat Kiawe’s turtonator.”

“He did not!” Kiawe spluttered, right beside Ash. Mallow jabbed a finger into Kiawe’s chest, then flicked his nose when he glanced down.

“Only because the tapu interrupted! Pikachu had Turtonator on the ropes and you know it.”

“The tapu what,” Sophocles said, right beside Kiawe. Kiawe grumbled something under his breath in Alolan, too quiet for Ash to make out, but let Mimo tug him away and towards one of the brightly coloured stalls. Sophocles squinted at Ash uncomprehendingly; Ash stared back; then Sophocles turned to follow Kiawe and Mimo, leaving Ash alone with the girls.

“How’s your Challenge going?” Lillie asked, once Sophocles had vanished into the throngs of people. Ash reached into the side pocket of his backpack and tugged out a small blue crystal.

“I beat the water trial a few days ago,” he said, holding the Waterium-Z out for Lillie and Mallow’s inspection. Lillie reached out to trace its faces with a tentative finger. “But I don’t have anyone with me that can use this yet.”

“Was it hard?”

“Super hard.” Ash bobbed his head. “Totem Araquanid was huge, and it came out of the lake like— aghhhh—” he threw his hands up in the air, then dropped them when Lillie flinched— “and then it kept using ice beam like— whooooosh, and then it called a masquerain to help it fight, and then it nearly drowned Pikachu—”

“It nearly drowned Pikachu?” Lillie whispered, paler than the moon. Ash scratched beneath Pikachu’s chin and grinned.

“Yeah, but Pikachu was super awesome, and he zapped Totem Araquanid from inside its bubble so we could get the Z-crystal.”

Pikachu lifted his head with a proud, emphatic chu! Lillie relaxed, but only a little, brow creased in lingering concern.

It was silent for a few moments—then a crackly voice announced, first in Alolan and then in a nasally Unovan dialect, that the exhibition match would begin in twenty minutes. Mallow grabbed both their arms with a grin, familiar already.

“Come on!” she said, and pulled them both into the dome.

-

The lights over the ring were blinding and white, and the roar of the crowd was low and so loud that Ash could feel it through him, buzzing deep in his bones. He let Nyabby out of his ball, setting him on his lap and gripping him tight so that when he shifted forwards in his seat, knees bumping the barrier in front of him, Nyabby could place his front paws on the railing.

Even from a distance, the Masked Royal cut an intimidating figure; he was tall, with broad shoulders and tanned skin. A colourful mask, warm shades, blacks, and striking white, obscured his entire face save for his eyes, and an equally-vibrant cape was tied around his throat; when he discarded it, swishing it in a wide arc and tossing it into the darkness beyond the ring’s ropes, he revealed a muscular back painted with thick, black, complex tattoos. At the centre, over his spine and reaching up between his shoulder blades, was an incineroar’s face, twisted into a permanent, vicious snarl.

“That’s him! That’s the Masked Royal!” Mimo shouted, barely audible over the din.

He lifted an arm and the crowd hushed obediently. Then he clenched his fist, the tunnel behind him erupted in flames, and a beast so large it made the Masked Royal seem small bounded out on all fours. Its build was kind of like an ursaring’s, Ash thought, only with undeniably feline features and longer limbs that lifted it several feet taller than its trainer once it rose onto its hind legs. When it lifted its head and roared, a deep, guttural sound, its fiery belt blew off great plumes of heat, hot enough that Ash could feel it on his face, and the audience broke out in fervour. Ash couldn’t tell if they were cheering or booing. It was just—noise, constant and overwhelming. He tightened his grip on Nyabby’s body, felt him tremble, tense and fired up, fur at the back of his neck lifting, tail striking Ash’s chest.

“He’s even bigger in person, bzzt,” Rotom murmured, clinging to Ash’s shoulder, the one not constantly occupied by Pikachu. “He’s the biggest incineroar I’ve ever seen.” Ash heard the metallic whirr of its camera lens adjusting, the staccato snickt of its shutter, and believed it. The Masked Royal’s incineroar was a monster. He wanted to battle him.

The Masked Royal’s three opponents emerged to a rippling wave of cheers. Ash didn’t recognise them, but Sophocles, at his side, said they were other known Royal trainers, ones that had risen to prominence while the Masked Royal had been gone. Their pokémon—a heavyset swampert, a sly-eyed mienshao, and a tauros, foaming at the mouth in anticipation—fell into a loose, practised formation once released from their poké balls.

“This happens every time,” Mimo said—a complaint, maybe, unless the reedy note to her voice was excitement. Ash couldn’t tell. “They always gang up on the Masked Royal.”

He’s never been beaten, Sophocles had said. Ash’s fingers dug into Nyabby’s ribs.

The mienshao moved first, springing into the air. Behind it, the swampert opened its wide, yawning maw to spit a blast of water at Incineroar—Incineroar stopped it with one sparking paw, splitting the torrent in two and sidestepping the mienshao right as it dropped. It crashed in a crumpled heap and stayed there, boneless, until Incineroar hefted it up by one whiplike limb and punched it in the gut. Green light diffused from its body—energy, sinking into Incineroar’s skin. Incineroar tossed the mienshao aside and it lay limp and unconscious until its trainer withdrew it in a bursting flash of red.

The crowd roared—Ash could definitely hear booing, now, at least half of them howling their disapproval. He supposed it was part of the game—of making a villain out of Incineroar, even if they loved the Masked Royal. Beside him, Lillie covered her face and half-curled herself into Mallow’s side.

The tauros lifted his head and bellowed; great rocks came crashing from above. Incineroar spun himself into a whirlwind and smashed them into dust, which sprayed over those sitting closest to the ring in a thick, opaque cloud. The swampert cleared it with hydro pump, lunging with deceptive speed and shoving Incineroar to the floor, trapped beneath its enormous bulk—the beast yowled, a terrible, screeching sound, and twisted, a flurry of limbs that somehow ended with him free. The ground beneath him erupted; he leapt out of the way, over the tauros, and landed face to face with the swampert. A clean blow between the eyes stunned it, more green light sinking into Incineroar; a second whirlwinding spin finished it off.

“His power is incredible, bzzt,” Rotom said. “It makes no sense! These pokémon should have the advantage, bzzt, but they’re—”

“Advantages are stupid,” Mimo yelled. Her voice was hoarse, now, from shouting so much. “Incineroar is unbeatable!”

It felt like it, Ash thought. Incineroar flexed and roared, and behind him, his trainer stood tall, a beacon, brightly-coloured—not like a cartoon character, but like a warning. Across from him, the tauros pawed the ground and struck itself with its whiplike tails, over and over, thick, scarred horns gleaming under the floodlights. Exposed to the searing heat of Incineroar’s fiery belt, the heavy stench of it—musky, like a barnyard—made Ash’s eyes water, even from way up in the stands.

The tauros moved first, lit by red heat, and charged, headlong, at Incineroar. The Masked Royal lifted one arm, fingers splayed; Incineroar mimicked him; and the tauros ran right into his massive paw, shunting him back several feet. Incinroar flexed his paw, claws biting into the tauros’ face, and held it there, hooves braced against the canvas floor, like it was nothing.

“He stopped the tauros’ outrage entirely.” Rotom sounded dazed. Ash had never known anything stop a tauros on a rampage—not like that, not so easily. “All that momentum just… gone, bzzt.”

The drone rotom’s camera broadcast a striking image across the big screens: the tauros’ baleful eye, wide and wild and bloodshot, glowing through the spaces between Incineroar’s thick claws. If it felt any pain, it didn’t show it, snorting dense, hot air from its nostrils and shoving its head further into Incineroar’s grip, driving against him, bellowing viciously. Its trainer shouted something, mouth moving on the screens, and was ignored.

Incineroar let the tauros struggle in his grip, brown mane matted with sweat. Then he snapped; red flared around him, brighter even than that which had consumed the tauros, and he swung and slashed with wild, feverish abandon. The tauros buckled beneath the assault, braying. Incineroar hefted it above his head and threw it into the ropes across the ring; they strained under the bull’s weight, but blessedly held until its trainer withdrew it.

Alone in the arena he emptied, Incineroar dropped down on all fours. His head was lowered. His back was curved. His pupils were small, slitted, shaking. Hot drool dripped from his mouth, steam curling up from it where it splashed on the floor between his paws. Then he threw his head back, rising onto his hind legs, and roared and roared until the crowd drowned him out again—cheering, jeering, making noise.

The Masked Royal hopped down from his podium and made his way over to Incineroar, fitting his hand into the junction of the beast’s neck and climbing until he could stand with one foot planted on either shoulder and bask in victory.

Nyabby was so tense in Ash’s lap that he had to look to make sure he hadn’t turned to stone; he was stock-still, but his eyes were bright, pupils blown. Ash rubbed his thumb between the litten’s shoulder blades and felt a muscle jump there. “Nyabby,” he started, without knowing how he was going to finish—and Nyabby moved, suddenly, tearing out of his grip and leaping away. “Nyabby!”

He stood; Mimo and Mallow and Sophocles and Kiawe stared at him. “Nyabby,” he said, by way of explanation, pushing past Mimo and Kiawe and Sophocles until he was on the staircase. He couldn’t see Nyabby in the dark, but Pikachu could, and Ash followed him down through the stands, into the floor space around the ring, and then—

A hand grabbed Ash’s shoulder, wrenching him backwards. “Woah, woah, woah,” a voice said—a deep voice, a man’s voice—and Ash struggled ineffectually against him. At his feet, Pikachu sparked at the cheeks.

“My litten,” he blurted—then stopped when he heard a familiar, piercing caterwaul, the sound Nyabby made whenever someone accidentally stepped on his tail, like he was angry and hurting. Another security guard stood by while his machoke held Nyabby round the abdomen, gripping him tightly while he flailed and screamed, probably terrifying him. “Let go of him! He’s not doing anything!”

“You heard the kid,” someone else said. Ash looked up and was met with sharp eyes and a mess of colour. The Masked Royal was even more imposing up close, arms folded over a broad chest; his incineroar loomed behind him, lips pulled back a little to reveal creamy canines. “Let ‘em go.”

The machoke’s hold slackened; Nyabby wriggled free, turning on it and striking like an ekans. For a brief moment, his outstretched limb blurred orange, and he struck the machoke across the face before springing away and slipping under the ropes into the ring. Ash shrugged the security guard’s hand off and followed him, Pikachu reappearing at his shoulder.

Under the gleaming floodlights, mere feet from the hulking form of Incineroar, he looked impossibly small; but he lifted his head and stared Incineroar down like he was ten feet tall. Incineroar stared back, expression unreadable, and for the longest time, nobody moved—then he tipped his head, the tiniest acknowledgement, turned to the Masked Royal, and recalled himself into his ball. Nyabby’s ears drooped, pinned tightly to his skull, like he was—dismayed, or frustrated, or disappointed. He let Ash pick him up, but Ash could feel him trembling, little claws digging into his forearm.

“Your litten’s got a fire about him,” the Masked Royal said. “I can feel it, burnin’ bright, just like Incineroar when he was small.” Ash could feel it too, pressed up against his ribs, stoked embers. “One day,” he continued, the rotom drone broadcasting his voice loud and clear over the speakers, “when that fire’s an inferno, Incineroar will battle him, for all of Alola to see.”

Nyabby narrowed his eyes; Ash’s chest felt full to bursting with excitement. All around them, the crowd erupted.

“I can’t believe the Masked Royal promised you a battle like that in front of everyone! The Masked Royal! That’s so cool!” Mimo yelled, mouth full of food. They were stood on Royal Avenue, in the shadow of the dome; the night sky was dark and awash with stars, but the street was still alive, buzzing with people and energy. “You have to get strong enough to fight him, Ash, you’ve gotta!”

“He was probably just saying it for a stunt,” Sophocles countered. He still looked a little funny, eyeing Ash like he’d grown a second head.

Mimo frowned. “The Masked Royal never says things he doesn’t mean. You’re gonna train real hard to battle him, won’t you, Ash?”

“Of course!” Ash hadn’t stopped thinking about it—about feeling all of Incineroar’s power for himself someday. About being the first person to beat him. “We’ve just gotta beat the Island Challenge and then we’ll be strong enough for sure!”

“You’re facing the fire trial next, right?” Lillie said, picking at a bag of pale pink cotton candy she’d split with Mallow.

“Right!”

“I can take you there, if you want,” Kiawe offered. “I know my way around.”

“Thanks! Fighting a fire-type pokémon’ll be a great way to prepare for the Masked Royal—right, Nyabby?” But when Ash looked down, Nyabby wasn’t there. A weird, cold feeling settled in his chest. “... Nyabby?”

He twisted around, searching, just in time to see a small black figure disappear behind one of the stalls.

“He’s been acting weird all day.” Mimo frowned.

“Yeah,” Ash said, suddenly distracted. “I’ll just—” he passed Mimo Pikachu and his milkshake and trailed after the litten, finding him sitting on a wall overlooking a park.

“Hey,” he said, sitting beside Nyabby and swinging his legs over the wall, letting his feet dangle in the empty night air. Nyabby twitched one ear in his direction but kept his gaze on the stars above, wide yellow eyes gleaming like lamplights. There was something inscrutable in his expression, and when Ash focused on him, he couldn’t detect his emotions in the way he usually could, like Nyabby was deliberately concealing things from him, the way he had when they’d first met.

It unsettled Ash, so he reached out and stroked along Nyabby’s spine, watching the way his black fur rippled like oil beneath his fingers and taking solace in the fact that he didn’t flinch away. Nyabby still scared him, sometimes—not in the wild, dangerous way Lizardon had, but because he didn’t want to mess up with him. Something about this moment felt important, like he had to get the words right, but he’d never been very good at conceptualising his emotions. It was better when his pokémon were open enough to just feel them with him, without him having to say anything at all.

“Wanna talk about what happened with that machoke? It looked like you were using a new move.” Nyabby looked down at his paw, the one he’d slapped the machoke with, and stretched his toes. “Can you do it again, d’you think?”

Nyabby shook himself out and swiped at the air a few times, trying to recreate the orange glow. Ash let him swing futilely for a few moments, watching him get more and more frustrated with himself, then said: “Hey, it’s okay if you can’t. We can work on it together. Sometimes these things just take time, y’know? Like when I was helping Iwanko learn rock throw—he didn’t get it at first, but we kept working, and now look at him! He doesn’t even have to try to use it. It’s just practice.”

Nyabby settled himself back down on the wall, slowly. He was closer to Ash than he had been before, and he rested his cheek against the side of Ash’s leg, where the fabric of his shorts ended and the skin just above his knee began. Ash gently petted the space between the litten’s ears and felt a deep, overwhelming love for him.

“I get it,” he said. “You wanna battle Incineroar. I do too. But we’ve gotta get strong, and we’ve gotta get smart. That means lots of training—not just about attacking, but about lots of other things, too. Like dodging.” Nyabby harrumphed, coughing out dark smoke. “Yeah, I know. But you saw Incineroar. He stopped an outrage from a tauros. We can’t just run straight into that. Not now, and maybe not ever. I dunno. But we’ll figure out a way to beat him. Me ‘n’ you, together.”

Nyabby pushed his head up into Ash’s hand, tilting it back so he could look at him. His eyes were burning now, focused, and he blinked slowly, the way Professor Kukui said litten did when they were happy.

“We’ve just gotta turn up the heat,” he promised. “At the next trail. That’s where we’ll start.”

Nyabby kneaded the wall, purring.

Chapter Text

The morning had started slowly, by Kiawe’s standards; orders from the farm were scarcer at the end of the week, and he’d been allowed longer in bed than usual. It was just as well—Ash planned on earning his next Z-crystal today, and they’d been in no rush to depart for Wela Volcano Park at the break of dawn. From experience, Kiawe knew that the totem was at her strongest during the peak of the day; it was smarter to arrive at the park sometime after noon and wait for the sun to dip lower before mounting an assault. Weirdly, Ash had been okay with it when Kiawe had brought it up to him the night before. He’d just shrugged, said ‘kay, makes sense to me, and been out like a light in minutes.

There’d been a strange vibe about Ash in general as of late, Kiawe thought. Ash was a strange kid—he said things that made little sense, sometimes, and did things that made even less sense. But there’d been a quiet focus in him recently that Kiawe only ever saw in fleeting moments—there and gone in the blink of an eye, so brief it was easy to assume you’d imagined it.

Now, it was almost constant. It freaked him out, a little. Kiawe couldn’t pinpoint the exact moment he’d stopped being unsettled by Ash’s vibrant individuality and started being comforted by it, but he knew he much preferred him loud than turned inward, introspective. It was like being promised a battle from the Masked Royal—which was still crazy, Kiawe thought, still unable to properly wrap his head around the fact that the Masked Royal had acknowledged Ash’s strength like that—had flipped a switch inside him, had rearranged his spirit and left him different.

“Do you have a plan for the totem?” he asked, after the long stretch of companionable silence between them verged on distant. The early afternoon air was hot and still, thick with moisture; sweat prickled at the nape of his neck, uncomfortable even without a shirt on, even though he was used to it. At his side, Ash dragged his feet while he walked, cap tugged low to shield his face from the sun, clothes damp and clinging to his skin; Pikachu, hanging off his shoulder, had his eyes closed, ears back and face turned towards the sky.

“I dunno, yet. I don’t really know what the fight’ll be like.” Ash stretched his arms above his head, jostling Pikachu a little. When he looked up at Kiawe, his eyes were bright, familiar. “But I promised Nyabby we’d fight the totem together, after what the Masked Royal said.”

Kiawe had a feeling he’d say something like that; it just seemed very Ash, to do things based on promises rather than on logic and hard strategy. Wela Volcano Park was a great place for fire types, but that boost in power was all but swallowed up by the fact that the totem was also a fire type—and a stronger one than Nyabby was on paper.

“And Iwanko hasn’t battled lately either, so…”

Iwanko was a smarter choice—but, Kiawe pointed out, puzzled, he’d technically battled only two days before. He’d fought Turtonator—and lost resoundingly, Kiawe remembered, a little smugly, but he’d not gone down easy, as tenacious and brazen as his trainer was.

“Yeah, I guess,” Ash said, rubbing the back of his neck and then wiping it on his shorts when it came away sticky, damp. “But that was just a spar. Besides, Turtonator is, like, way too strong for Iwanko to stand a chance just yet. He could keep up with Pikachu. Iwanko’ll get there, but he’s a long way off.”

That was true. Kiawe couldn’t quantify just how strong Pikachu was, exactly, but he was no pushover. As much as he hated to admit it, Mallow was right: Pikachu had beaten Turtonator back in Iki Town, and then he’d stood up to Tapu Koko. That wasn’t something a rookie battler could do. But he was still just—a pikachu, and Kiawe knew not everyone subscribed to the whole evolution thing—he’d endured Hau’s starstruck rants about Ilima enough times to know that—but it still seemed pretty weird to keep around a fairly nondescript pokémon without letting it reach its full potential.

“Why haven’t you evolved Pikachu?” he blurted, before he could think better of it. “I mean—you could buy a thunder stone in Konikoni, here on Akala, and just—evolve him now, if you wanted. He’d be even stronger than he is now.”

Ash tipped his head up, squinting the way Kiawe now knew he did when he was thinking really deeply about something. “When I first became a pokémon trainer back in Kanto,” he said, “I caught a bulbasaur, which I was super excited about, ‘cause venusaur are really strong, and I thought it’d be awesome if I could have one on my team. But when it was time for him to evolve into an ivysaur, he fought it with all his power, even though it looked real tough, like it was hurting him to stay a bulbasaur. And all the other bulbasaur that evolved didn’t get it at first, and they even got mad at him, ‘cause they thought he’d ruined their whole evolution festival, ‘cause he was the only one that stayed the same. But then Team Rocket showed up—”

“The ones that tried to kidnap our pokémon?”

“Uh huh.” Ash bounced a little on the balls of his feet while he walked, swinging his arms. “And they took all the ivysaur, and a venusaur too. But ‘cause my bulbasaur hadn’t evolved like the rest of them, he could put all that energy into learning solar beam instead, and it saved the venusaur and all the ivysaur with it!”

Kiawe nodded, not really getting it. He didn’t get what a bulbasaur learning solar beam instead of evolving had to do with Pikachu not becoming a raichu, or why that bulbasaur couldn’t have just evolved like the rest of them anyway.

“And my friend Dawn, from Sinnoh, she has a piplup. And when he got strong enough to evolve, he kept using bide to stop it, even though that tired him out and Dawn wanted him to just let himself evolve. But he kept doing it, and eventually a Nurse Joy gave him an everstone so he could stay the same forever.”

“So… he didn’t want to evolve? Even though his trainer wanted him to?” Kiawe had always thought that evolution was—normal, like getting older and becoming an adult. Something that just happened, that showed that a pokémon was getting stronger, that all its hard work was paying off. He just—he’d figured that all pokémon knew that, and accepted that, and even looked forward to it.

“Nope! And neither does my bulbasaur. And that’s okay, ‘cause there are loads of ways to get strong, even without evolving. My bulbasaur didn’t evolve, but he learned a super strong move instead. And Dawn’s piplup didn’t evolve, but he’s still able to help her win contests! It doesn’t matter that they aren’t evolving—they’re still changing, even if they look the same.”

Ash rubbed the side of his face against Pikachu’s fur; Pikachu rumbled happily, pushing back against him. “Pikachu’s perfect just the way he is,” he said. “If he ever wants to evolve, then we can try, but he’s never wanted to, so I’ve never wanted him to, either. It’s not my body that’s gotta change, y’know? Imagine one second you’re a.. super fast turtwig, and the next you’re a big, heavy grotle, and you can’t run anymore, you can’t dodge, you’ve just gotta… stand there and take attacks instead of doing what you always used to.”

He scuffed his foot against the dusty ground, voice weirdly raw all of a sudden. Kiawe got the feeling he wasn’t talking in hypotheticals, but he didn’t get it, didn’t know what to say. “It’s not the trainer that’s gotta deal with that. It’s the pokémon. And sometimes they never get used to it, and then they’re never the same, ‘cause it’s too late to go back. They should be the one who decides.”

“I guess.” Kiawe had never thought about it before—how it must feel to change so rapidly, so drastically, to blink and no longer recognise your reflection. Most pokémon he’d known had always seemed fine with it. He’d never considered that there would be some out there who weren’t just okay with not evolving, but who actively feared evolving, who went out of their way to avoid it. “How many regions have you been to? You said—you’re from Kanto, and you have a friend in Sinnoh, and you said you’ve been to Kalos.”

“Uh…” Ash counted them out on his fingers. “Kanto, Johto, Hoenn—”

“Pika,” Pikachu interrupted. “Pi pikachu.”

“Right, right.” Ash smiled gratefully. “Kanto, then the Orange Islands, then Johto, Hoenn… Sinnoh, Unova, Kalos, and now here. So that’s…”

“Eight, including Alola.” Kiawe’s head spun; that was more places than he even hoped to visit in his lifetime. “What did you do in them all?”

“Travel through them ‘n’ take on the leagues!” He said it like it was obvious. Kiawe supposed it was; Ash was doing the equivalent here, travelling from trial to trial when technically he wasn’t even meant to be allowed to. “‘Course, we did some other stuff along the way, but…”

“Were you any good?”

Ash shrugged. “I mean, I beat the Orange League. I came second in the Kalos League a few months ago, too. I really thought we were gonna make it, but Alain was just so strong. His charizard was crazy!”

“Pikachu,” Pikachu agreed, emphatically. Ash rubbed beneath his chin.

Kiawe went silent, staring. A strange, pervasive, nauseous feeling grew in his chest, one that failed to diminish in the quiet that hung between them. “So you’re— you’re a Champion.” He spoke the word as though it were something precious, a proper noun.

“I— I guess,” Ash said haltingly, like it had only just occurred to him, like it took Kiawe voicing it for it to sink in. “But, um, it’s just the Orange League. Anyone who beats it gets to call themselves that. I don’t, like, have to do anything. Or defend my title, or— I just get to… have the title. Nobody even ever uses it, though, so…”

“But you still have it. The title. You’re still a Champion.” He was rubbing shoulders with a Champion, a real-life pinnacle of pokémon training, and he— Guardians, he’d thought he was a rookie, at first. He’d been rude to him, when they’d met, convinced Ash wasn’t worth his time.

“It’s not that big of a deal,” Ash laughed, like he’d not just tilted Kiawe’s whole world on its axis. He was friends with a capital-C Champion. “C’mon, I’d not have said anything if I knew you’d be weird about it.”

“Sure,” Kiawe said faintly. He was still going to ask him a thousand questions later, though.

They walked a little longer; beneath their feet, the ground darkened from a dusty, reddish-beige to an sooty grey, thick and shifting like sand around them, and the air tipped from humid to something drier, tasting faintly of smoke and—unpleasantly—rotten eggs. Kiawe knew Ash and Pikachu could smell it too from the way their noses wrinkled, recoiling. “It’s the sulphur, I think,” he said. “From the volcano. We’re almost there.”

“It’s kinda gross,” Ash replied. Kiawe snorted and told him to stop being a big baby, and that it was going to get worse the closer they got, and that he’d get used to it. Ash made a complaining sound at that, but he perked up regardless at the promise that they weren’t fair. Then they kept walking, until voices off the beaten path made Ash stop abruptly and Pikachu lift his ears.

“‘S that Hau?” Ash said, already moving in the direction of the voices. He brought them to some high, browning shrubs, covered in a thin layer of dirt; on the other side of them, several metres away, was Hau, their back turned to them, and opposite Hau—

“I know him,” Kiawe said, a nasty taste in his mouth—more than just the sulphur. The boy across from Hau was a little taller than Kiawe remembered him being, trousers barely reaching three quarters of the way down his shins when before they’d hung low over his ankles, but he was just as scrawny, with that same, hunched stance, still gripping his left wrist—wrapped in greying bandages—with his right hand the way he had the last time Kiawe had run into him. His hair was a little longer, too, but still cut choppily, like he’d done it himself with a blunted knife, and his umbreon, a large, deceptively-soft looking creature, still wound around his ankles like it was trying to trip him up.

“You do?” Ash glanced up at him briefly. Kiawe nodded, face tight.

“Yeah. His name’s Gladion. He’s not a good guy.”

“… isn’t your grandfather Hala?” Gladion was saying to Hau. Kiawe narrowed his eyes.

“I dunno what that’s got to do with anything.” Hau folded their arms behind their head, weight tipping back onto their heels.

“You’d think that with him as your grandfather, you’d actually be a good battler, but it’s like you don’t even give a damn about it.” Gladion replied, like he couldn’t help himself, voice taking on a harsh, ugly note, sharp and bitter. Kiawe hated it. “Your pokémon are— fine, I guess. They’d probably be decent in a fight if they didn’t have such a shitty trainer. It’s embarrassing.”

Hau tensed. Behind their head, they adjusted their hands, the fingers of their left hand closing tightly around their right hand and leaving pale, yellowish indents. “C’mon,” they said, tone weird, “it was just a bit of fun. ‘S not like it was a serious battle.”

Gladion’s face twisted. “Fun?” he echoed derisively, disbelieving. “I— every battle is serious when you care about making your pokémon stronger. You might be able to mess around because you have privileges thanks to your grandfather, but for any normal trainer, any real trainer—”

From Kiawe’s side, Ash launched himself forwards, pushing through the dry shrubbery and stomping towards Gladion. “Hau’s as real a trainer as any of us!” he yelled; Pikachu echoed him, sparks flying from his cheeks. He looked just as wild and angry as he had when they faced those Skull Grunts on the day they’d first met, all naive, righteous frustration. Kiawe followed close behind, drawing himself up to his full height and noting, a touch smugly, that though Gladion had grown, he still wasn’t quite as tall as Kiawe was.

Gladion and Hau turned to look at them. Hau’s eyes were huge and glassy; Gladion wore a thunderous scowl, looking at Ash with scorn. Kiawe stepped a little closer to him and Gladion glanced at him briefly—then again, for longer, a strange, dawning recognition cracking his thunderous facade.

“Who are you,” he said, looking at Ash, phrasing it like a statement.

Ash snapped out his name—and Pikachu’s, the way he had when he’d introduced himself to Kiawe—straight to the point, just as Kiawe said, “Someone who knows pokémon training far better than you do.”

Gladion eyed them both up, gaze harsh and flinty, then snorted, like he’d come to the same conclusion about Ash Kiawe had, when they’d first met. “I doubt it,” he said, nodding a little towards Pikachu. Kiawe felt a bitter indignation swell inside him, hypocritical as it was.

“Oh yeah? Prove it!” Ash yelled, hands balled into fists. He stepped closer, shoulder against Hau’s—but Hau stopped him, wrapping their hand around one of his wrists and tugging at it.

“C’mon, just leave it,” they said, forcing a laugh. It sounded nervous. “It doesn’t even matter.”

“But it—” Ash turned to them; Kiawe watched the fight drain reluctantly from his body, though his shoulders remained tense. “... if you’re sure,” he began.

Gladion rolled his eyes. “Coward,” he murmured—and Ash rounded on him again.

“What did you say?”

“Ash,” Hau insisted, pulling at him harder. “Seriously, just leave it.”

Ash bristled, teeth bared, a wordless growl caught in his throat, but he let Hau pull him away. Kiawe turned to Gladion, who was watching him uneasily. “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said, and Gladion turned his back, impossibly stubborn, so Kiawe left him standing there.

“Don’t listen to that guy,” Ash was saying to Hau, when Kiawe rejoined them. They were sat on a flattened patch of coarse, dry grass just off the side of the road, and had both let their pokémon out; Hau’s looked a little worse for wear, scruffy and a touch morose, and had formed a queue in front of their trainer, who was spraying potions on their scrapes and hand-feeding them sliced berries. “He doesn’t know what he’s talking about!”

Kiawe settled in the grass beside Ash. “That’s what I said. Gladion’s always been a jerk. He just says things to try and upset you, ‘cause he thinks picking on people makes him look tough.”

Hau made a noncommittal sound, face pinched. They pushed their knuckles into their eyes for a few moments, then let their hands, still curled into loose fists, drop into their lap. “Yeah, I guess, but… he wiped my team like we were nothing,” they said, “so I guess he wasn’t all wrong. And he had this pokémon, and it— I dunno. I’ve never seen anything like it. It was way taller than you—” they nodded at Kiawe— “and it was wearing this huge helmet, so it couldn’t even hold its head up, and all I could see were its eyes.” They shuddered. “It looked so angry. It was like someone had just taken a bunch of random bits from a bunch of random pokémon and stuck ‘em together with superglue.”

“People have made pokémon before.” Kiawe ran his hands through the grass, tugging restlessly at the blades. They came away in sparse, sharp clumps. “Like porygon.”

“Or castform,” Ash offered. “But that was made for science, I think.”

Hau shrugged. “I dunno what that thing was made for. Destroying stuff, probably,” they continued after a beat, grimacing. “You’re strong, Ash, but it tore through my team without even breaking a sweat. It was like it couldn’t even feel pain. My pokémon aren’t weak, but none of their attacks even did anything to it.”

They were all quiet for a moment. Ash’s fingers found the space between Nyabby’s ears and rubbed gently. There was an emotion on his face that Kiawe couldn’t parse; it made him uneasy again, seeing Ash like that.

“How’s your challenge going?” he asked. Hau blinked at him, then smiled gratefully.

“Pretty good! It took us ages to beat that araquanid, though. Noibat really pulled through on that one.” They petted the dragon’s nose gently, then turned to Ash, who had moved Nyabby into his lap entirely and was stroking him with full-body sweeps of his hands. “How’d you find it?”

Ash shrugged, looking down at Nyabby, but there was a proud grin on his face. “Beat it first try,” he said; then, like he couldn’t help it, he launched into an animated explanation of his strategy. It mostly consisted of sounds and gestures—nothing of substance, nothing worth memorising—but Hau listened raptly anyway, wide-eyed and fascinated. It was something Kiawe had heard ten times before, but he listened too.

“And then,” Ash said, leaning back and bracing his weight on his hands, “we saw the Masked Royal fight the other day—”

“Really? I didn’t get to see it; I was too busy,” Hau complained.

“Uh huh! Anyway, Nyabby got all fired up watching his incineroar, so he went right up to him, and the Masked Royal said he’d battle us when Nyabby got stronger! Right, Kiawe?”

“He sure did. In front of the whole crowd.”

Hau’s eyes sparkled, and Kiawe felt a weird surge of pride, even if it had nothing to do with him. “Woah,” they breathed. “That’s so cool. Man, how come you’re getting all the cool stuff? First you get to battle Tapu Koko, now you’re gonna get to battle the Masked Royal…”

“Not for ages, probably,” Ash murmured; Hau steamrolled through him, still talking.

“I can’t even convince Tutu to take me seriously! I thought he’d start to, once he saw me doing the challenge, but he still acts like I’m a baby.”

“You’re just gonna have to prove him wrong,” Ash said decisively. “Lots of people don’t take me seriously! Sometimes, it gets me all mad, especially when they say stuff about Pikachu—” Kiawe grimaced guiltily, but Ash wasn’t even looking at him, all fired up— “but all that means is I just get the chance to surprise ‘em.”

“Yeah, exactly! That’s why I came here, for the fire trial—but the park’s closed to challengers, and no-one’s being let into the trial zone.”

Kiawe’s stomach flipped. His parents hadn’t mentioned anything; nobody had implied that anything was wrong. “What? I haven’t heard anything about— did something happen?”

“I dunno.” Hau picked restlessly at their fingernails. “All I know’s that the totem’s apparently gone crazy, so it’s too dangerous for trainers to get near, ‘cause it just attacks anyone it sees, even if they’re not doing anything.”

“Has anyone said why?”

“Not to me. Maybe nobody knows ‘cause the totem won’t let anyone stick around long enough to find out.”

“Then we’ll just have to go and find out ourselves!” Ash said. “If we can calm the totem down, we can take on the trial, right?”

Hau screwed their face up. They looked disconcerted—like they weren’t fully used to Ash, like he still rattled them. Kiawe guessed that made sense; most Alolans were taken aback by him. Kiawe wasn’t sure if Ash even ever noticed it, or if he was too caught up in himself and his own world to see the looks people gave him, sometimes. “Didn’t you hear me say the totem attacks anyone it sees?”

Ash shrugged. “We can handle it,” he said. Hau regarded him for a few seconds, then dropped back into the grass, throwing their arms above their head.

“Good luck with that,” they said. They stayed like that for a few moments, staring into the vast blue expanse of the sky, before they sat up, squinting in the direction they’d come from. “D’you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Kiawe asked—then he heard it too: voices, and whirring, and distant, heavy sounds. They recalled their pokémon and made their way back to the path.

“Dark pulse, Umbreon!”

There was a frantic edge to Gladion, something raw in his voice, and he gripped his wrapped wrist so tightly his fingertips were as grey as the bandages that bound them. Ahead of him, down the path, was a mecha bearing a familiar red ‘R’. Its belly was transparent; held within it was an umbreon. Deep magenta flared in pulsing, rolling waves from its rings, fizzling out uselessly against the barriers.

“Team Rocket!” Ash yelled, hands balled into fists. Gladion turned a little at his voice, eyes vicious.

“Stay out of this!” he snapped. Ash faltered, irritation settling over his face.

“But I—”

“I said stay out of this!” He reached for an ultra ball at his belt, but another—a premier ball, polished to a gleaming white—broke open, revealing a monstrosity in a burst of red light. A sense of foreboding settled over Kiawe, and he knew, immediately, that it was the creature Hau had mentioned earlier, for it matched their description perfectly. The claws of its front feet were twisted and gnarled, sinking into the dry earth beneath it, and a heavy helmet weighed down its head, forcing the sinewy muscle of its neck to bulge and strain to keep it from dragging across the ground.

“Rotom?” Ash said, quietly. The dex hovered about his head like an annoying cutiefly, and its screen was covered with question marks.

“I don’t know what that is, bzzt,” it replied. Its voice was tinny, perturbed. “I’ve never seen anything like it. I have no data whatsoever, bzzt.”

“... It’s in pain.” Ash was frowning. His shoulders were so tense they shook a little. Kiawe didn’t doubt him for a moment; the creature’s breathing was harsh and heavy, like it was struggling, and it hadn’t even done anything yet. “I can feel it. It’s so loud.”

“What da hell is dat?” The meowth—Nyarth, it had called itself the last time they’d run into each other—asked, voicing Kiawe’s own confusion.

“I’ve never seen anything like it!” James said. Now that Kiawe was looking at him, he noticed that he had a new pokémon with him, clinging to his shoulder—a mareanie, small and bluish-purple, tentacles framing sunken yellow eyes and a mouth full of too many teeth to be comfortable.

“If we’ve neva’ seen anythin’ like it, then it must be rare!”

“Rarer than an umbreon, that’s for sure.”

“Who cares what it is?” Jessie’s voice cut through their conversation, shrill and boisterous. “Just grab it!”

An arm shot out of the mecha, swinging its outstretched hand towards the creature, but it protected itself, stopping the arm in its tracks. With a frustrated, rasping breath, it reared up onto its hind legs, grabbed the arm in white-hot, glowing claws, and crushed it, metal bending and crumpling and splintering into shards. Wisely, Jessie flinched back, shadowed by Nyarth, whose claws sunk into the white front of her uniform.

Heedless, James pressed forward. “Use pin missile!”

The mareanie sprang from its place on his shoulder, firing a barrage of needles. Surprisingly nimble for its size, the strange pokémon stepped backwards, slipping just out of range.

“Silvally,” Gladion pleaded, hoarse. The creature—Silvally—roared, a throaty, rumbling sound that reverberated through its mask, and Gladion sighed a little, like he was resigning himself to its will. “Alright,” he said, tugging his sleeve back to reveal a Z-ring embedded with a gleaming silver Z-crystal. He didn’t have one of those, the last time Kiawe saw him. He thought Team Skull scorned them, scorned the Island Challenge, scorned Alola and its traditions.

“Umbreon,” he called again, “protect!” Then he moved, and his Z-crystal came to life, and Silvally made a sound like it was angry, or in pain, or overflowing. Corkscrew crash ripped through the belly of the mecha and tore it asunder; black smoke erupted from its core, and it shuddered, groaned, and broke apart. There was a distant shriek from Team Rocket, and then nothing but the sound of metal being wrenched from metal and the dull roar of dying machinery.

“What was that?” Ash murmured. Kiawe blinked and looked over at him, standing next to Hau, who he’d almost forgotten was still there.

“Corkscrew crash,” he answered. “It’s the steel type Z-move. Pikachu could use it someday, if you found the Z-crystal.”

The smoke cleared in increments. Team Rocket was gone; at the centre of the wreckage, still shielded by a shimmering, blue-green barrier, was Umbreon, unharmed and free. Silvally dragged itself over, movements sluggish and heavy, and dropped its head towards her; she nudged the side of her face against its mask, tender, before it vanished, withdrawn to its ball.

“C’mere, girl,” Gladion said, voice shaking. He’d dropped to one knee in the dirt since Kiawe had last looked at him, and he drew Umbreon close into his chest when she padded over, pushing his chin against her shoulder. She was the picture of calm, licking his forehead while he clung to her so tight the skin over his knuckles pulled taut and white. Kiawe supposed he was meant to feel bad for him; it’s what his mother would have asked of him, were she here, to extend compassion to someone in their hour of need, even if he didn’t think they deserved it. He didn’t.

“I’m glad you got your umbreon back,” Ash said, after a few moments. Kiawe heard it for what it was; a peace offering, after a messy introduction. “Team Rocket have always been like that.”

“He’s no better,” Kiawe muttered, before he could help it. Ash stared up at him with big, clueless eyes. “It’s kind of ironic, actually. Maybe this’ll teach him a lesson, now he knows how people feel when Team Skull steal their pokémon.”

“... He’s with Team Skull?”

“Shut up.” Gladion glared at him, eyes sharp and cutting.

“Why? Don’t like the truth?” When Gladion said nothing, he added, just to be a little mean: “You’re a hypocrite.”

Gladion opened his mouth, then closed it. After a few moments, he stood up, dusted himself off, and took a deep breath, like he was trying to compose himself. When he spoke, he pointedly refused to look at Kiawe, at any of them, eyes on his umbreon. “Whatever,” he said, voice flat. “You don’t know— you don’t get it. You’d never get it. I don’t expect you to understand what I’m—” And then he left, hands shoved into the pockets of his too-small hoodie, Umbreon pressed to his shin. They watched him go until he disappeared down the winding path.

“Sheesh, that was weird,” Hau said into the empty air, when nobody moved. “Hopefully we don’t run into him again.”

“Yeah,” Kiawe replied, distracted. He was watching Ash, who was staring at the last point on the horizon they’d been able to see Gladion before he vanished round a corner. His expression was weird again, hands clenched into loose fists.

“Are you guys still gonna try and find out what’s got the totem all mad?”

“Uh uh,” Ash said. He still looked weird, but his whole face was brighter, more determined.

“Well, good look with that.” Hau dusted their shorts off and grinned. “I’m gonna take my team to a pokémon centre; they’re still pretty banged up.” They hesitated briefly. “I know I said we’d battle next time we met, back in Pikachu Valley—”

“Don’t worry about it,” Ash said, reaching for them. “Next time, okay?”

“Next time,” Hau confirmed, and they clasped Ash’s hand in theirs.

The trial zone at Wela Volcano Park was still. Kiawe said that was strange, that even when there were no challengers, the place was usually crawling with pokémon—litten, like Nyabby, up on the cliffs; fletchling swooping through the sky; magmar, wading through shallow streams of lava.

It definitely seemed off to Ash. The quiet felt less like peace and more like a lidded pan on high heat, simmering, about to boil over. A sleeping dragon, or a volcano about to explode.

“Something’s really wrong,” Kiawe said, still sitting astride Charizard, who’d done all the hard work—carrying them high above the barricades keeping people out of the park. “It’s like all the pokémon living here just—it’s like they all just left.”

“Maybe they’re hiding from something,” Ash suggested. Iwanko trotted out a few metres ahead of him, poking his nose into holes in the rock and coming away empty-pawed.

“Maybe,” Kiawe echoed, but he sounded unconvinced. “Like… from the totem, if she’s rampaging. But I don’t… I don’t know why she’d…”

Iwanko barked, shrill and high. He was stood beneath what looked like a sort of naturally-formed plinth, dark and glittering in the harsh sun. Kiawe’s whole expression changed when he saw it, bitter and angry.

“... The Wela crown.”

“Huh?”

“Totem Salazzle, she guards the Wela crown. It’s embedded with fragments from fire gems and an old firium-Z. During the Wela Fire Festival, the totem graciously allows whoever guards the park to bestow the power of the crown onto any visiting fire types—but only the park guardian, and only during the festival. Otherwise, she protects it viciously, and shows no mercy to anyone who tries to approach it. She wouldn’t just— lose it. If it’s no longer there, then it hasn’t ‘gone missing’. It’s—”

“Been stolen.”

Kiawe grimaced, dragging a hand over his face. “Yeah.”

“Then we’ll just find it and bring it back!” Ash picked Iwanko up, holding him over the plinth. “Iwanko, d’you smell anything weird?”

Iwanko stretched out until his nose brushed the plinth and sniffed—then jerked back as if burned, ears back. Beneath them, the ground shifted and rumbled, like a great beast coming to life. But it didn’t feel like something was happening underground, like the volcano was waking up. It felt like—

“Ash!”

Ash looked up—and found himself staring into countless gleaming, violet eyes. Small, reptilian pokémon—each no longer than Ash’s forearm—swarmed from the holes in the cliff beside them, hissing, rattling their scales, descending in one clumsy, writhing wave towards them.

“Get on!” Kiawe shouted. Ash tucked Iwanko under one arm and made a mad dash for him, scrambling. Charizard’s body lurched beneath him too soon, all rippling muscle; he launched himself forwards, gliding low over the park; Ash’s fingers slipped against smooth scales—

“Ash!”

He hit the ground with a thud, breath forced from his lungs, and stayed there, winded, for a few seconds. He could hear Kiawe yelling—distant, muffled over the ringing of his ears, maybe screaming his name, or Charizard’s, telling the dragon to turn back—but Charizard surged forwards and upwards, beating his wings and leaving Ash behind. A few metres away from him, Pikachu and Iwanko lay in a crumpled heap, slowly rising to their feet and shaking themselves out.

“You guys okay?” he asked, once he found his voice. His whole body ached when he pushed himself up onto his knees, but it didn’t feel like he’d broken anything—just bruised himself, maybe. Pikachu darted to his side, lapping at a scrape on his elbow and climbing back onto his shoulder when he clearly deemed the wound not fatal.

The swarm crested the rocks above them, more emerging from dark pockets. They exhaled poison gas from their open, shrieking maws, moving in a rolling wave towards him; it began to rain fire.

“Move!” Ash yelled. Stupid and brave, Iwanko stepped forwards, kicking up sand—and was scorched, dropping despite the resistance. “Pikachu, counter shield!”

Sparks drove the cloud of poison back—not entirely, but enough for Ash to scramble forwards and grab the rockruff.

They made a break for it. Behind him, Ash heard something roar—louder than the swarm combined. He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw what he assumed was Totem Salazzle; she was huge and vicious-looking, and she swung her tail with enough force to shatter the rock beneath her. Ash turned and kept running. The air tasted funny; his head pounded, legs and lungs burning. In his arms, Iwanko shivered like he was cold, but he felt feverish, almost too hot to hold. Pikachu clung to his cap, claws digging into his temples.

He ran until the clamouring of the swarm behind him faded into silence, until he was out of the trial zone. At the base of the volcano, Kiawe was waiting for him; behind him, Charizard had his head lowered, maybe like he was sheepish, but he was a big, orange blur, and Ash couldn’t see clearly enough to make out his expression.

“...ened?” Kiawe was saying, but he sounded muffled and faraway. Ash shut his eyes for a moment; when he opened them, things were worse, the world a distorted, jumbled mess of colours.

“Kiawe,” he tried to say, but his tongue felt fuzzy, stuck to the roof of his mouth. “I don’t feel so good.”

Something pressed against his forehead, gentle and cool; then his legs gave out and everything went dark.

“Flash cannon!”

The assistant’s ferrothorn unleashed a barrage of silver energy; the researcher pressed the panel on her arm and the prototype changed, electricity sparking from its metal headpiece. Flash cannon knocked it back a little, claws sinking into the ground, but if it felt anything, it didn’t show it.

The researcher pressed the panel again, and the prototype shifted, now imbued with fighting energy. “Multi attack,” she said, and it launched itself forwards, deceptively quick for its large size. It smashed into the ferrothorn; when it retreated, the barbed pokémon was unconscious.

The assistant recalled it and sent out a magmortar. “Lava plume!”

“Take it,” the researcher said, pressing the panel. The prototype lowered its head into the attack, flames licking mostly-harmlessly up its flanks, stance solid as rock. “Now charge in.”

“Focus blast!” The magmortar lifted its cannon arm, firing; the sphere phased through the prototype as if it were a ghost.

“Thunderbolt!” the assistant attempted, but the attack was absorbed harmlessly into the prototype’s body. “Try psychic!”

“It’s futile,” the researcher said. Psychic failed to take root; the prototype reared up, gnarled claws outstretched, crest flowing blue like waves. “Multi attack again.”

The magmortar crumpled as quickly as the forretress had, and a dragapult took its place.

“Will-o-wisp!” Flames erupted from the prototype’s headpiece; the attack, predictably, did nothing. “Dragon darts!”

The researcher pressed the panel again; the prototype flashed briefly pink, but then returned to its previous fire typing, and staggered back with the force of the twin blows, huffing. The researcher blinked.

“Keep repeating the attack,” she told the dragapult, jabbing the panel several times; regardless of her pressing, the fairy typing would not take, and eventually, the prototype dropped, wounded. “Enough. There’s a problem with the multitype system.”

She cycled through the other types, watching the downed prototype morph on command; much like fairy, psychic refused to take, and the transitions into grass and ice were unreliable. Those were fixable, minor issues that could be smoothed out. The multitype system was imperfect, yes, but it was still largely functional. That it was so comfortable with a majority of type changes was a miracle in and of itself.

The researcher recalled the prototype to its ball and passed it to the assistant. “Take it back to the lab,” she said. “We still have work to do, and time is running out.”