Episode 4: The petal trail

Niko and Charlotte stared into the tunnel that, they presumed, led to Verdant Cavern. They had finally made it to their first trial site, only a couple of days after meeting Ilima. However, it was not the date they had set—the trio had arrived early.

It was evening, and the three sat down around a campfire nearby to rest and relax. Much of their walk that day—starting after meeting and saying farewell to their new friend, Kaila—was walking uphill through the western forests of Melemele Island. They didn't see much of the sea by this point due to their need to go more inland towards the mountain range that Verdant Cavern was a part of.

Niko and Charlotte got some training done during this trip, only stopping once for an hour or so. Niko wanted to try again with Litten, and for a while he felt like the two of them were making progress. A practice battle—a rematch—with Warren's Litleo proved this progress to be ephemeral at best, as Litten fell back into his previous mood and independently licked his wounds while Niko considered another course of action.

He needed another Pokémon—something, someone—that could help him in the event that Litten was rendered unable to battle, for whatever reason.

"Niko?" Charlotte asked her boyfriend, who was sitting next to her on the warm grass, staring into the fire, and clearly lost in thought.

"Hmm?"

"You alright?" she wondered.

"Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be?"

"You just seem…I don't know, more pensive than usual."

"Just thinking about Litten."

"You think too much about Litten," Charlotte said.

"Well, I'm sorry. He's all I've got right now, unlike you! Both of your Pokémon are okay with losing! Mine aren't!" Niko snapped back, turning away and watching the Fire Cat Pokémon sleep. He didn't manage to catch Charlotte's shocked—and slightly offended—glare.

"What're you getting at?" she asked, a hint of hurtfulness in her tone.

"What I'm getting at is that my only Pokémon has difficulty training because he hasn't won a battle yet! And I'm about to walk into a trial that I know nothing about with a Pokémon who has a fear of failure! Yet here you are, wondering why I think too much."

"Niko, you—"

"I'm a champion, Charlotte? Do you not know what that means for me?" Niko said, raising his voice. "The standards for me are higher than they are for you!"

"Niko, calm down…" Warren said.

"Says the guy who has no idea what he's doing with himself!" Niko said, turning his attention to Warren. "Tell me, Warren—what are you doing here? Just relaxing on the beaches of Alola while your girlfriend works hard to provide a living for the both of you? How selfish."

"Oh, shut up," Warren replied, standing up. "I don't know what's gotten into you, but you need to cut it out. You don't act like that around your girlfriend, and you certainly don't insinuate things about mine."

Niko stood up as well. "I need some time alone," he said, ironically grabbing Litten's pokéball and walking off. He needed a lot of time to think on his own, without the "constant nagging" of his two friends.

Charlotte put her face in her hands as she slowly started to cry. She and Niko hardly ever fought—only once or twice in Unova and once in Kalos, to her memory—but this time it was different. She didn't do or say anything inherently wrong. All she did was wonder how Niko—her boyfriend, her best friend—was doing; if he was hurt or sad; if he needed someone to talk to and bounce ideas off of. Instead, she got a snappy, out-of-nowhere response that made her wonder what was really going on inside his head. Most importantly, it made her wonder if Niko was even aware of how deep those feelings might have been.

She felt a light hand touch her shoulder and, looking up to expect Niko, found Warren sitting there.

"Are you alright?" he asked. She only nodded, quickly wiping tears away.

"If I may say…" Rotomdex began, only to be shushed by Warren with a light back-handed slap.

"I just don't know what I did wrong."

"Neither of us did anything wrong," Warren said, looking from Charlotte to the campfire, and then in the direction Niko had left in. "Niko's clearly stressed. We should give him the space to figure these things out. Remember, he isn't always like this."

"You're right. I should have been more understanding."

"You were understanding enough, though. You had no idea he would've reacted the way he did."

"I hope he's alright on his own," Charlotte said.

"Niko? Oh, I'm sure he is," Warren said with a smirk.

Niko sat against a tree, only half a mile away from their campsite, and near the cliffside facing the ocean. Litten's pokéball rolled around in his hand as he thought about not just the Fire Cat Pokémon, but also about the trial, his chances at it, and his fight with Charlotte and Warren.

He knew he had gone too far—that much was obvious. But why did he? That was the question Niko struggled to answer. He cared more about Charlotte than he realized, yet here he was, implicitly belittling her. As for Warren—Niko had no idea where his words had come from. They were far darker than his more than friendly feelings towards his former roommate and extraordinarily close friend.

Do I really, deep down, see Warren as useless? Niko asked himself. It was an odd question to consider, he thought, but one that he clearly needed to expend some energy considering. He personally found his own words and thoughts horrid, which only led to more confusion.

It was obvious, he thought, that Warren's goals in life were, at best, ambiguous. Whether or not the tall, brown-haired, stocky-built young man had seriously considered where had was going in life, Niko wasn't entirely sure. He did know that Warren's curiosity knew no bounds, and his enthusiasm for his friends was limitless. He loved travelling, seeing the world, and expanding his knowledge for the sake of putting his experiences and the things he saw into words—to use language to paint a mental picture for millions of others and express his life and journeys through the world. To Niko, that was meaningful, even if it wasn't always obvious. Furthermore, to experience that alongside a set of Pokémon that Warren had grown close to—even his Tranquil and Litleo, the two members of his team that had seen the least battle and training of his four—was additionally meaningful to Niko.

Warren's journey was unorthodox, and it had every right to be. Niko had to convince himself—even his deepest, most cynical self—of that.

Which, again, left Charlotte. Niko saw Charlotte as a far stronger, and far more capable trainer, than he was when he was as new to this as she was. Granted, she sometimes didn't handle pressure as well as she could have, but generally speaking he felt that she was in a better place than he had been. She was also older—two years older than Niko currently was, and eight years older than he had been when he began his journey in Kanto. Therefore, more mature than Niko. She had also seen him train with his Pokémon and participate in gym and league battles up close while in Unova before giving it a shot for herself. Niko had no reason to belittle her accomplishments—better than he was when he began—by implying that the standards were different for him when he became a conference champion.

Even if the standards were different, it wasn't right to say, Niko concluded to himself. Before he set out to apologize, he decided to sit there for a while longer, eventually succumbing to the tiredness from that day's journey.

The next morning, Charlotte woke up alone, with Warren several feet away. To her left were her two Pokémon, each sleeping up in the tree above her. She sat up, feeling a light headache and, when Charlotte considered the previous night, the headache felt more prominent.

"Morning," Warren eventually said as he woke up. "Sleep well?"

"Sort of," Charlotte said as she made breakfast. "Niko hasn't come back yet, has he?"

"Niko didn't return at all last night," Rotomdex noted, "I kept watch for him."

"Not yet, nope," Warren said with a sigh. "He must've been really worked up."

"Turns out I just fell asleep," Niko's voice said from behind the two of them. Hearing this, Charlotte immediately spun around as she stood up and brought Niko into a tight hug. Without saying much else, the three friends continued with their morning before Niko and Charlotte began training for their upcoming trial with Ilima.

Niko trained only with Litten that morning—no one else. Not Warren or Charlotte, only Litten. Well, if only for a few moments. At the start of their normal training routine, Niko noticed yellow petals fluttering through the wind, moving west towards the sea for whatever reason. Charlotte, Warren, and all of the Pokémon noticed it too, mesmerized by the yellow gust of wind blowing above them.

"It looks beautiful," Charlotte said, watching Noibat's eyes sparkle. Rowlet, meanwhile, was fast asleep.

Before anyone could say anything else, Noibat leapt into the air and backpedaled on the trail in order to see where the yellow petals originated from. Worried, Charlotte went after her, Rowlet in tow. Curious, Niko, Warren, and Litten followed.

The petal trail led them to a seemingly large valley filled with bright yellow flowers. Niko stood in awe at them, and watched Noibat fly downwards into the field to smell them. As she did so, she came across a small, pale yellow bird-like Pokémon with yellow pom-poms for hands.

"Rotomdex, what are those?" Niko asked as the trio made their way into the valley of yellow flowers. "Also…where are we?"

"We are in Melemele Meadow," Rotomdex began, "And those are called oricorio. They are known as the Dancing Pokémon. There are four forms of oricorio, depending on the nectar of the flowers nearby. These oricorio are electric and flying type, and are known as the "pom-pom style" oricorio. They lift up their opponent's spirits with their cheerful dance moves. When they let their guard down, they electrocute them with a jolt."

"Hmm…" Niko said with a smirk. "I think I'll try and catch one," he said as the pom-pom oricorio slapped Noibat along the side of the face, emitting electric sparks. "Litten, let's go!" Niko said, thrusting his hand forward as the Fire Cat Pokémon leapt into action. "Use ember!"

Litten fired off a series of small fireballs at the oricorio, who leapt out of the way, and the moves accidentally hit Noibat, causing the Sound Wave Pokémon to emit a high-pitched screech that shattered the ear drums of everything around her. Steeling himself, Niko commanded Litten to use ember again, this time hitting oricorio and knocking it into the flower bed. Once oricorio got back up, Litten followed up with a scratch, only to be met with a pom-pom slamming against the side of his body, launching him across the field, once more into Noibat, who responded with a high-pitched scream.

"Noibat, return," Charlotte said, "you've taken enough of a beating already. Niko, please watch out for Noibat next time."

"Please make sure she isn't in the way," Niko cautioned back before commanding Litten to use ember. The Fire Cat wasn't giving up this time, charging towards oricorio and firing off ember after ember in an effort to get the dancing Pokémon to relent. It didn't work, but Niko noticed oricorio was exhausted enough that a pokéball might work on it.

Pulling out a red-and-white pokéball, Niko expanded it quickly before throwing it through the field at oricorio. However, while the pokéball did seem to catch something, as a flash of red light emitted for forcing the ball to the ground, oricorio was not captured.

Something else was.

Confused, Niko approached the pokéball, noticing small bee-like Pokémon fluttering around, lightly gliding between Niko and oricorio and off into the wind above them. For a moment, Niko simply looked at the pokéball before Litten urged him to pick it up by lightly pushing it with his head after it clicked, indicating a successful capture. Oricorio, for its part, was very puzzled by this, but seemed to understand the situation better than Niko.

"What did you catch…?" Warren asked, approaching his friend alongside Charlotte and a sleeping Rowlet.

"I…don't know," Niko said. He opened up the pokéball to see one of those bee-like creatures that, only moments ago, he had seen for the first time. It looked at him with an equally confused look, but seemed content with itself. "Rotomdex, what is this?"

"Bzzzt," Rotomdex said, bringing up a picture of the tiny Pokémon, "It's called Cutiefly. It is a bug and fairy type Pokémon, and is known as the Bee Fly Pokémon. Cutiefly feeds on the nectar and pollen of flowers. Because it's able to sense auras, it can identify which flowers are about to bloom."

"Cutiefly…?" Niko said, and the Bee Fly Pokémon responded in kind with a light whizzing sound of its wings. "Well, hi. I didn't mean to catch you, but I guess we're partners now. My name is Niko, and this is my other Pokémon, Litten. This is my girlfriend, Charlotte, and my friend Warren. We're travelling the islands of Alola and taking on trials. Is that something you'd be interested in doing?"

Cutiefly looked at him curiously, as if it didn't hardly a single word Niko had said. It just continued to cheerfully flutter its wings.

"Uh, alright then," Niko said, finally noticing oricorio was gone. "Guess I'm not getting that oricorio.

"No, but you've gotten something else," Warren said, noting the incredibly small size of Cutiefly. "That could be of some use to you."

"I really think so. Hey Cutiefly, how about we go train a bit? I want to see what you're capable of!" Niko said excitedly. Cutiefly responded with equal enthusiasm, even if it was very clear that the Bee Fly Pokémon had no idea what it was about to get itself into. While they made their way back to their campsite, Niko asked Rotomdex for more information on Cutiefly, specifically the little Pokémon's moveset, as well as one of its potential abilities.

He then spent the remainder of the morning training with Litten and Cutiefly, particularly watching how the two of them interacted with one another. Meanwhile, Charlotte trained with her own two Pokémon, occasionally enlisting Warren for his help in training. However, during much of this time she thought about Niko, specifically about how he has been acting towards her recently.

Her thoughts were put on hold when the trio noticed Ilima walking up the hill just south of them, his z-ring gleaming in the midday sun.