Shoving up the long trail towards the north side of the island where the trial site was, the three were anxious to challenge all the trainers that lie in their way, check out all the cool Pokémon that lived in the bushes and under dirt mounds. And they were not disappointed in that regard, as there were numerous Pokémon waiting in the grass to pounce on nearby trainers, and just as many who were out for the hunt. And the trail was lined with enthusiastic trainers waiting to show off their skills, not that many of them were actually in any shape to take on Hau's enthusiasm for fights, Reimu's tenacity and fiery skill, or Lillie's overpowered Popplio. As they went along, collecting prize money and items form trainers as well as dropped items that were just lying around. Their Pokémon weren't even getting tired that quickly, since they were at most only taking one or two hits per battle before unleashing the business all over them.
Hau was eager to show off his Pichu to Reimu. The mouse Pokémon stood in front of her, presenting itself as if it were a performer on stage, and trying to charm her with its high-pitched, squeaky cry. She knelt down to its level and scratched it behind its ears, which gave her a static shock on her hand.
"Ack!" she exclaimed as she pulled her hand back in surprise. "No wonder this is an Electric-type, it's brimming with energy!" It did a cute little dance and a chirp. "Chu~~"
"Isn't he the best? I can't wait to evolve it, then it will be really strong!" Hau was literally brimming with excitement at the prospect of having his own Pikachu, and then Raichu. Lillie just looked on and stifled a chuckle while Reimu was still shaking her hand in the air trying to get the static charge off.
It was at that moment that a chill went up her spine.
Reimu took notice. "You okay? You look like you just had a shudder."
"No, I'm quite fine, really... in fact, I wasn't really thinking about anything in particular and then... well, I just got a chill up my spine!"
"Could it have something to do with the fact that were standing next to a cemetery?" Hau commented. Lillie looked behind her, and there was the sign: "Hau'oli Cemetery."
Now, Reimu was no stranger to the concept of ghosts living in cemeteries and then popping out on humans who walked near them and try to startle them, and she knew that Ghost was a type that existed, so her immediate thoughts went to a Ghost Pokémon of some sort.
"C'mon, let's go check it out," she said, gesturing to them to follow her in. Lillie wasn't too sure about it, Hau just went along with her idea.
Entering the cemetery, they looked around, but didn't really see anything other than bushes, gravestones, and people mourning their deceased loved ones. Reimu wasn't daunted, though; she knew darn well that ghosts, while they liked pranking humans, were also terribly shy and didn't like being sneaked up upon themselves; Yuyuko was just about the only ghost she'd met that wasn't like that.
"I have an idea," Reimu whispered, not wanting to disrespect those who were there mourning graves. "I'll go out there and act all clueless like I don't know what I'm doing. I want you two to hide in the bushes over there, with your Pokémon out. Now, I don't want you to make any noise, or that will scare the ghost back into hiding. Instead, when it appears, I want you to sneak up on it and then silently gesture your Pokémon to attack it, at which point I'll turn around and then we'll corner it and catch it. Alright?"
Lillie was still unsure. "Are you sure this is going to work?"
"We won't know if we don't try, now won't we?"
She stepped out of the bushes and feigned not knowing what she was doing there, looking around and then taking the Rotom-Dex out and using it like she was taking pictures of the landscape, as well as using the Poké Finder to take pictures of various critters in the area.
"Say, Reimu, did you happen to hear about that –"
"Shh!" Reimu had to quiet the Rotom-Dex so as not to scare off any ghosts – then again, Rotom was a Ghost-type itself, so it was completely in-character for it to be acting like an ass when she didn't want it to.
For a few minutes, nothing was happening. Hedwig was getting restless, and Lillie was having to steady Adele to keep her from just jumping out, on top of having to keep Nebby in the bag; its Pokéball still rattled from time to time, reminding Lillie that it really did not appreciate being locked up in that thing, even if it was for its own good.
As Reimu was looking around playing dumb, Hau whispered to Lillie "do you think she knows what she's doing?"
"I don't know. It looks like she's confident this will work though, so –" At that moment, Lillie froze in place and stared.
"What is it?" Hau asked her, not noticing the Gastly right behind him.
"L-l-ook!" she whispered.
He turned around, but the Gastly disappeared. Hau looked puzzled. "I don't see anything."
"It was behind you..." she replied, before looking over at Reimu. It was now hovering over her and was flailing its tongue about while Reimu obliviously continued to take pictures.
Lillie hesitantly looked over to Adele. "Water gun," she quietly commanded, pointing at the Gastly. She complied, then shot a jut of water at the Gastly over Reimu, scoring a direct hit on it. Immediately it yelped and turned invisible.
Reimu noticed this as well as the water left over from the attack dripping down onto her head. "What was that?"
There was a few seconds of silence, where the three just looked around awkwardly.
"Are you kids looking for something?" an older woman asked them.
"Uh, oh, um, well, we're... we're ghost hunting," Reimu replied. "My friend over here felt a chill up her spine, and we were just trying to find the thing that was causing it."
"Oh, I understand," the woman responded. "This cemetery attracts all sorts of ghost Pokémon. It would be a shame if you let them sneak up on you... a very big shame..."
Suddenly, an enormous tongue came out of her mouth and licked the air in front of Reimu, only because she flinched backward onto the ground. When she got back up, the Gastly was in front of her was already cackling to itself, apparently quite pleased at its latest surprise. Kogasa would be proud.
Reimu immediately sent out Sasha and ordered him to use Bite. He jumped into the air just as the Gastly attempted to dematerialize; however, the Bite managed to catch just before this happened, and the super-effective attack was enough to weaken Gastly enough to keep it from escaping and force it into fighting. That lick was the only offensive attack that it knew, so it kept attempting to lick Sasha, but he just kept the pressure coming with his flames. Eventually, the slippery Ghost Pokémon was weak enough that Reimu felt confident a Pokéball would be able to capture it, so she reached into her bag and started to fish one out...
...only for one to fly out of the bush and capture it. A few seconds later, it clicked, indicating a successful capture.
"Hey, that was mine!" Reimu cried out. She looked into the bushes and summoned Hau and Lillie out of them, each with an adorably sheepish look on their face.
"Alright, whichever one of you caught it under me, fess up or I'll give both of you a bad time." Her intimidating, piercing gaze went right through their souls, and was forceful enough to paralyze a Pokémon, literally. They just stood there like statues, unwilling to fess up to it.
"Was it you, Hau?" Reimu questioned forcefully. He shook his head. "You sure? I know you tend to do things recklessly. It would be a shame if I had to teach you a lesson with Sasha again."
She continued to scrutinize him, before she spotted Lillie trying to hold back a grin out of the corner of her eye. So she went over to her.
"Know something I don't? She asked Lillie. She tried to continue to look dignified and timid, before a dumb, wide grin holding back laughing spread across her face. After that, she let out a big laugh and brushed Reimu aside to grab the Pokéball. She let the Gastly out, who joined her in laughing.
Reimu just stood there. From what she knew of Lillie so far, this was unlike her, so what was going on? Where did she become a jerk like that Gastly all of a sudden?
"Care to explain?" Reimu asked her.
Lillie decided to tell the truth. "Well, you two have two, and I only have one. It wouldn't be fair for either of you to start getting greedy, now would it?" At the same time she was telling Reimu this, she was trying to keep Gastly from licking her like a dog before eventually tossing a Poké Bean its way to pacify it.
Fair point, Reimu supposed; with this development they now each had two Pokémon to fight with. Still, stealing a fair catch right under her nose? That was something she expected from a certain other blonde-haired girl she knew. She decided just to set it aside, and get on with their journey.
As they were leaving the cemetery, Hau had an idea. He reached into his bag and grabbed a disc out of it.
"Hey Lillie," he asked her. "You remember that ray gun the professor gave you before you took off? Could you get it out?"
Lillie paused before realizing what he was talking about. "Oh, sure. Hold on." She felt and rustled about her bag for a bit before pulling out what Hau was talking about. It was a ray gun-type device which had a disc drive in the back of it.
"What's that?" Reimu asked them.
Hau held it up as if he were Flash Gordon. "This is a TM device," he proclaimed. He held up the disc in his left hand. "And this is a TM."
"Oh, so you actually managed to win it?" Lillie asked.
"Yup! Got lucky twice and got the max prize on the big wheel! Now I can teach everyone here Thunderbolt!" He sent out his Pichu and demonstrated the move, to show that he had taught it the move.
Reimu decided to quickly look up Thunderbolt's TM on the Rotom-Dex to see what was compatible with it. Magnemite, obviously, but also Lillie's newly caught Gastly, which was interesting. She decided to let Hau zap her Magnemite so that it knew the more powerful Thunderbolt instead of Thunder Shock, and Lillie let him zap Gastly as well – after all, Thunderbolt would be the only strong move that it knew at the moment.
Once they taught their Pokémon new moves, they let them all out and had them simultaneously shoot lightning into the sky as a grand proclamation, you do not mess with them!
This was even visible from Iki Town, where Hala looked on and realized, it had to be them, having a fierce battle of some sort. In fact, it caught the attention of Tapu Koko, since Hala could hear its rooster-like cackle through the canyons below town. He couldn't help but smile.
They continued up the trail, battling and trouncing all the trainers who were along the way. In fact, it started to get to the point where people further up seemed to avoid them, as if someone from further down warned them about the trio.
As they walked along, they noticed a palm tree with a pile of berries beneath it. "Oh, look!" Hau called out. "A berry tree! We can pick up some berries here, then give 'em to our Pokémon so they can fight better!"
Reimu decided to scan some of the berries to see what was in the pile. According to the Rotom-Dex, mostly Oran, Perism, and Chesto berries. She decided to focus on the more useful ones as she picked them out and placed them into her back.
Suddenly, the berry pile began to shift. This caught them by surprise as they jumped back. A claw poked out of the pile, which lifted a crab out of the pile, who then put up its dukes and challenged them to a fight, which Hau obliged. Obviously, it was helping itself to some berries, and was none too happy that it was being disturbed.
Reimu was curious what this critter was, so she looked it up.
"Crabrawler, the Boxing Pokémon. It uses its large pincers to punch trees to knock berries out of them, which it then feeds on. They are a proud species, getting into competitions with each other as to who can climb higher than all the others."
That explains the berry pile. They knew they would need to be more careful with them going forward, since one of those things could be hiding inside. She looked up from the Dex and saw that Hau had somehow managed to capture it and add it to his team. More power to him, she supposed, and they were just about to continue when they noticed a red-and-white bird with a sack walking over and picking up what was left of the berry pile before running back towards a fence near the hillside.
"What's that bird doing with the berries?" Reimu asked. "We should probably go after it." They followed the bird inside a fence. Within the fence were many dirt plots, some of them with bushes growing out of them. When they got near the house, however, the bird was suddenly abducted by two men, and began kicking and flailing it and its pouch all about. It was the two Team Skull grunts.
A man came out the door to the house and demanded them to unhand the bird, which was apparently a Delibird. "That Delibird is one of my assistants! You must unhand it!"
"Dude, we're just lookin' for stuff from it so we can sell it and make ends meet, y'know?" one of the grunts told him. "Yeah, that's what we're doin'! How much stuff does the bird need anyway?"
"Stealing is stealing, and the items in Delibird's bag belong to it! Perhaps you should work on getting a job if you need money. Now unhand it!" the man told them.
"Alright, how about if you challenge us to a match, then if you can win, you can have it back with all its stuff in it!"
The man crossed his arms and began reaching for something. "Well, if that's how you want to do it..."
"Unhand the bird," Reimu projected at the grunts, who immediately turned around and had all the blood run out of their faces in fear.
"Oh snap, it's the Reapers!" one of them yelled.
"We'd better split! Here, you can have the bird!" the other one shouted as he dropped the Delibird back onto the ground as they took off running.
Reimu walked forward to the man. "Sorry about that," she told him. "I take it this is yours?" she said, referring to the Delibird.
"It is," the man replied. "And I do thank you for driving them off for me. For them to just run away from you like that, you must be strong trainers who buried them before."
"Pssh, they didn't even stand a chance," Hau said. "I took on one of them and my Rowlet got out of it without a scratch."
"And my Magnemite won against the other one before the fight even started," Reimu added on.
The man thought for a second before saying "ah, you must be the trio of unbeatable trainers I've been hearing about. Please, come on inside, I've got something for all three of you."
Surprised at the sudden invitation, the three of them followed the man inside of his house, where there were five or six more Delibirds in addition to the one they saved, as well as a couple stacks of bags on one of the counters.
"My name is Diego, but most just call me the Berry Master, because of my farm here, which has all sorts of different berries from all across the islands and beyond." He went over to the counter and got three of the bags, and gave each one of them one bag apiece. "These are berry seeds," he told them. "Just find a suitable plot to grow them in, take care of them, and they'll grow in to bushes that you can harvest more berries from."
They each looked at their bags of seeds which claimed to be assorted. They didn't really have a plot they could plant them in, but they guessed they could dig one in Iki Town or something. Reimu bowed politely to the man while thanking him, and had the other two do the same.
At the same time, the Delibird they saved unloaded its berry harvest onto the counter. "What do these birds do?" Reimu asked the Berry Master.
"They go out and find more berries for me so I can harvest their seeds and make more bags of seed. It's not much, but it does help when my crop isn't ready for harvest yet," he commented. The Delibird then went over and pulled one last item out of its bag, a TM for Brick Break, and handed it to Reimu, seemingly as thanks for saving it.
"Oh. Well, thank you!" she said. The Delibird chirped at it joyfully as it went back over to its brethren.
Just as they were heading out, the Berry Master said "oh, by the way, I actually get one or two of those grunts once every couple of weeks or so. They try to frisk my Delibirds for goodies they find to sell on the street."
"Sounds like you need a better security system," Reimu joked.
"I do have a better security system," he said, pulling out an ultra ball from which a Salamence came out, the beast calling out as it came out of its ball. He petted it under its chin as he thanked them again for sticking up for his Delibirds. They left his farm and continued up the trail.
It wasn't long after the Berry Master's house that they finally arrived at the Trial Site, as well as a Pokémon Center conveniently located right across from it. "What's a Pokémon Center doing out here in the middle of nowhere?" Reimu asked.
A man in a vest came down from it and answered her question. "Well, they serve weary trainers away from town. In addition to healing Pokémon, centers like this out in the backcountry have rooms and camp sites for traveling trainers out on their Island Challenges and whatnot." He looked over at the trail site, which was inside a cave and marked with a fence with triangles on it. "And because its across from the trial site, it usually gets a lot of business."
That makes some sense, Reimu thought, but it still came off as odd that a place like this out in the countryside was able to get so much business. She didn't imagine enough kids came out to this trial site to make it worthwhile.
They took advantage of the convenient location to heal up their Pokémon and stock up on some more healing items, and because it was early evening and, according to the map, there weren't any services between them and the route looping back to Iki Town, they decided it was best if they each did their trial and spent the night here.
Walking up to the cavern, they saw Ilmia leaning against one of the gate posts, having anticipated them all afternoon.
"You made it," he told them.
"What, you didn't think we would show up? We would just waste time in Hau'oli doing whatever?" Reimu said sarcastically. "So, what's the deal with this trial?"
"Each trial has their own rules, but they all end with a fight against the Totem Pokémon. In this case, all the Pokémon in this trial contain Normal-type Pokémon, and your task will be to defeat three of them emerging from their dens, before you will be allowed to wrestle the Normalium-Z out of the clutches of the Totem Pokémon at the end. You cannot capture any Pokémon here until your trial is finished. However, you may return to any trial site you have cleared to capture the Pokémon and find any goodies within."
He paused to catch his breath and clear his throat before continuing. "You must clear all the trials on each of the four islands before you may challenge the Kahuna in the Grand Trial, then earn your stamp and move on to the next island." He directed their attention toward the trial gate. "Once you pass the gate, you cannot leave the challenge until you either win, or are forced out because you have no usable Pokémon left. You can try a trial as many times as you need in order to win, but just know that. Only one trial-goer is allowed in at a time. Now, who wants to go first?"
Hau instantly volunteered. "I'll go!" he smiled.
"Eager as ever, aren't we, Hau?" Reimu remarked. "In any case, if it's mostly Normal-types in there, you might wanna use our Brick Break TM on that Crabrawler of yours to get through it more easily."
After she got Hau set up, he went bounding through the trial gates. Reimu and Lillie decided to kill time while he was off doing his trial by talking about idle things, which mostly included pepping Lillie up for her first trial. Then, the conversation drifted towards a topic that Reimu had been thinking about.
"So, Lillie, where exactly did you get Nebby from? And why do these bad people want it so bad?"
Lillie decided to speak in a quieter tone, just in case someone was listening in on them. "Uh, well, I stole it from them. They were planning on doing inhumane things to it, but I wouldn't stand with it. So I went in one day and swiped it in my bag."
The Pokéball containing Nebby wiggled around a bit and a "pew!" could be heard coming from inside. Lillie had to steady it to keep it from popping out where there were a bunch of people.
"What kinds of stuff?" Reimu asked. "Were they gonna stick needles in it? Because I know that's what Eirin likes to do to her rabbits, especially Reisen."
"I'm not sure exactly what they were going to do with it," Lillie responded, "but I can tell you it might have something to do with you ending up here."
Reimu's eyes widened when she heard this last bit. "What do you mean?"
"I'm not sure, exactly. However, I was cornered by the bad people when I was trying to escape, but Nebby teleported us to safety to get us out. However, this knocked it out for quite a while afterward. I heard them talking about some kind of dimensional holes, and after we got out of the museum I started thinking, and I realized they might have been wanting to see if it can open Ultra Wormholes."
Reimu put her fingers up to her hand in a thinking gesture as she said "hmmm, interesting." She started thinking about what this might mean. Why would such a small, seemingly weak puffball have the ability to do things that she was under the impression only gods could do? Why would these people be so interested in it? What were they trying to accomplish? What implications could this have for her prospects of getting back home? And what would happen if they found another avenue to pursue their experiments, or even captured Nebby and Lillie so they could resume whatever it was they were trying to do? What would happen if they succeeded, and what were they plotting to do with their success?
It sounded like an incident beyond an incident.
She thought about what this all could mean, but decided she might be getting ahead of herself and brought herself back to the present. She told Lillie that she would hang onto Nebby for her while she was out during her trial to make sure it didn't try to run off in the middle, especially since it couldn't fight. Lillie agreed it to it; Reimu was someone she had come to trust, and she felt she could trust Nebby to her while she was doing trials. Even so, she still saw herself as Nebby's caretaker, and wanted to prove she was capable enough to guide it onto a safe path, away from the people pursuing her.
After a while, Hau emerged from the trial site, holding his shiny new Normalium-Z in the air like a child holding their first baby tooth that fell out. He then clipped it right into the Z-crystal shaped slot on his Z-ring and showed off his brand new bling to each of them.
"Look what I got!" he boasted.
"Don't get so full of yourself, kiddo," Reimu cautioned. "We'll be joining that club with you soon enough." She patted him on the head, as if to say "that'll do donkey, that'll do."
Ilmia told Reimu he would need a few minutes to reset the trial site for her, so they would have to wait. While they were waiting, Reimu decided it would be fun for Hau to demonstrate Z-moves for her and Lillie. So she got some rocks from a pile on the side of the hill that the trial site cave was buried inside of, set up a mock target in front of Hau, and asked him to send Hedwig out.
She was surprised when, instead of the small, round owlet that Hau had started out with, a larger barn owl popped out of his Pokéball. "What do you think?" he asked. "She evolved while we were in there."
As usual, Reimu got out the Rotom-Dex to check out this new development.
"Dartrix, the Blade Quill Pokémon. The evolved form of Rowlet, it is very fussy about its appearance and spends most of its time grooming itself. It can shoot sharp leaves with pointed stems at its targets from under its wings."
As she looked up from the Dex, she could see Hau brushing and cleaning Hedwig, who almost seemed to instruct him on where to brush, where to wipe off the dust and mud, don't touch her head quill, and so on.
"Hey, Hau, focus," Reimu told him. "Could you demonstrate your shiny new Z-move for us?"
Hau looked up and smiled. "Oh, yeah sure, I would... if I didn't make her forget Tackle, which means she can't use it."
Reimu was puzzled. "Wait, what?"
"Yeah, so, the way Z-moves work is that the Pokémon has to have a move matching its type and then it upgrades the move, is what Ilmia told me. Or something like that."
"Well, that's a little disappointing," Reimu told him. She was looking forward to seeing what she could use before she actually got the ability to use it. She did realize that Magnemite still had Tackle, so she could probably find out for herself what the move was all about once she got the Z-crystal for herself.
After a few minutes, Ilmia emerged from the cavern and waved Reimu inside of the cave, which she did. Getting her things together, she stepped up forward and marched right in, ready to face whatever was lurking inside with confidence.
Inside the cavern, the air was muggy with moisture from small streams that flowed through it. All the nutrient-rich basaltic rock walls were covered in thick layers of moss, which glistened in the light of the sunset beaming in from either side of the cave. Logs bridged across precipices, and holes could be seen in the sides of some of the boulders and under stumps where Yungoos had made their dens.
"Welcome to the trial," Ilmia greeted Reimu walking alongside her inside the cave. "Your task if fairly simple: just make it from one side of the cavern to the other, and grab the Z-crystal inside the stone obelisk at the end." He swept his hand out across the cave. "However, Yungoos will jump out at you and attack you as you pass by their dens, and you are required to defeat at least three of them before you may proceed. This being a cave, Zubat and Alolan Diglett will also sometimes appear and attack you; whether or not you decide to deal with them will not affect the outcome of the trial. As a reminder, you may not capture any Pokémon here until after your trial is complete."
Reimu could live with not catching any Pokémon. It didn't sound like anything lived here that she was interested in anyway. Ilmia was quickly flown to the other side of the cave by a Charizard that came out of nowhere, and he stood at the exit, overlooking the cavern. This marked the start of the trial.
Beating three Yungoos sounded easy; after all, she had chewed through at least twenty of them over the course of the day, and she was thoroughly familiar with how they fought (not well at all despite their scowls). So she intentionally walked in front of one of the dens, and sure enough was "ambushed." "Ambushed," because Magnemite instantly sent about 50,000 volts through it, knocking it out.
She quickly scoped out a path through the cavern to figure out the quickest route, then scanned the area for all the Yungoos dens that were present. She went over to the next one, knocking out a wayward Zubat along the way, and got ready to engage the Yungoos within. However, this one decided to withdraw, and not come out.
She needed to knock it out in order to proceed, so she sent out Sasha and had him go in there and smoke out the critter, which he did. Seconds later, black smoke came out of the den as the Yungoos rushed out, with Sasha in pursuit. He managed to Bite onto it and shake it around several times before throwing it back at the rock wall around the den, then sent an Ember at it to finish it off.
Alright, cool, she thought. Just one more to go. She saw a dust cloud coming from one of the nearby dens, so she quickly climbed the rock wall just above her in order to reach it. As she did so, she kicked off a chunk of rock, which fell to the ground and glimmered on one side.
Noticing this, when she got to the top, she sent Magnemite out to go retrieve it and bring it back. While inspecting the rock, she realized that it concealed a piece of gold. So she threw and slammed the rock against the ground and the walls a few times in order to dislodge it from the surrounding black rock, and was rewarded with a small, rough nugget of pure gold. Amazed, she stuck it inside of her bag, and continued with her trial.
As she approached the dust cloud, it retreated back into the den, just like the last one. She then noticed another dust cloud in front of another hole. She went over to it to try and trap it, only for it to retreat again and another dust cloud to appear in front of a third hole. So she went over to the third hole, only for it to go back over to the first.
This was annoying, she thought. How am I supposed to go after it and beat it if it just keeps running away? It's almost like I need three of me in order to stand in front of each hole and...
Then she got an idea. She sent out both Magnemite and Sasha, and ordered each of them at one den hole each in order to block it, and to fire moves into them in order to force it into the last hole. Once they did, she got down to the ground and stuck her arms in.
Once she felt fur, she grabbed on. "C'mere, you little creep!" she exclaimed as she yanked it out of the den, the Loitering Pokémon squirming and wiggling around in her hands. She then threw it into the air, and was about to order Sasha to fire an Ember at it, before a Skarmory flew in out of nowhere and caught it in its mouth before flying out of the cave.
"Well... that didn't go QUITE as planned, but I hope that still counts as a KO," she said to herself. Recalling both her Pokémon, she approached Ilmia and asked him for his opinion on whether she should proceed.
"Okay, so, yeah, I probably didn't deal with that last one 'correctly,'" she stated, "but I hope that and everything else counts as three KOs for you."
Ilmia thought for a bit, then responded "I've never seen anyone else try and trap and beat a Pokémon themselves; that's actually supposed to be illegal except in self-defense. However, I think it was creative to trap the Yungoos in the way that you did; that puzzle trips most people up. Sad to see it end up as a Skarmory's dinner, though..."
"Yeah, sorry, didn't mean that," Reimu told him. "I was going to order Sasha to Ember it in midair and let the impact finish it off."
Ilmia clapped his hands. "What excellent synergy you have with your Pokémon to be able to fight alongside them! Alright I'll let you pass." He got out of the way, and she quickly rushed out.
Outside, there was a grass field with a rocky outcrop in the back behind a single stone obelisk containing the prize. Reimu walked forward cautiously, constantly looking to each of her sides looking for this Totem Pokémon. The closer she got, the more her eyes widened to scan a larger area, the more attuned to sounds her ears got, and the slower her steps became. She looked behind her occasionally, just to make sure it wasn't going to try and sneak up from behind, something many youkai such as Rumia were known to do in order to try and sneak-attack humans like her. Lots of these Pokémon were youkai-like, she noticed, so it didn't hurt to treat them more or less the same way.
Eventually, she reached the obelisk. She looked around. Still no sign of the Totem Pokémon, or any Pokémon for that matter; not even so much as indiscernible bugs could be seen. It was silent, the distant sound of the ocean waves the only ambiance to be had.
She eyed the Z-crystal with anticipation, the shimmering, brilliant milky-diamond gemstone with a symbol on it reflecting the soft orange rays of the sunset off if it. What if its appearance were triggered by her grabbing this? Many thoughts went through her mind in that moment.
She clenched Magnemite's Pokéball with her right hand, and with her left swiftly grabbed the crystal out of the stone and shoved it inside her Z-ring in one deft motion. She then decided to make a break for the exit, just to see if she could beat the Totem Pokémon's game without fighting it.
Whatever hopes she had of being able to do this, however, were soon dashed. An echoing bellow could be heard behind her in the distance, before the figure that made it leapt off a rock peak behind her high into the air, and landed on the ground in front of her with such force as to create a small earthquake, knocking her down to the ground and causing rocks to fall down onto the ground all around the field.
Reimu recovered from the shock of being knocked down and got back up onto her feet, and once she fixed her sunglasses saw the behemoth standing in front of her, staring her down like a predator eyeing its meal. It was blocking the exit and was NOT letting Reimu out without challenging her to a red-hot bout.
This – THIS, she realized – was the Totem Pokémon. It was a truly massive Gumshoos. It wasn't happy. It was surrounded in a bunch of orange energy. And it wanted the blood of a maiden on this night.
The monster stood up and let out a deafening roar before bending down to the ground and challenged her.
"Alright," she said after a few seconds. "If a fight is what you want, then I, the maiden of the Hakurei Shrine, will cast you to the forlorn pile of hopers wishing to question my authority, and that of the line of Hakurei maidens before me." She sent out Magnemite. "Let's rock."
The monster began by letting out another bellow, which summoned two Yungoos out of their hiding spots to back it up in the fight. It then ordered them to attack Magnemite, and they immediately began rushing toward it. But Reimu was having none of it. She ordered it to use Thunderbolt on both of them, which it did, putting its magnets together and letting out a concentrated electrical blast which blasted them apart. Once the dust settled, she saw one was down and out, and the other covered in electrical energy and struggling to move – paralyzed. She simply ordered Magnemite to Tackle it to finish it off.
That left the main beast to tame. It lashed out with its claws, knocking Magnemite back a few feet but otherwise not dealing much damage. It then lunged at it with its teeth hoping to crunch down on it, but Magnemite fired a weak bolt into the beast in self-defense, causing the Gumshoos to stagger back.
This gave Reimu the opening she needed to unleash a can of whoopass. She briefly looked up the Normal-type Z-dance on the Rotom Dex, and then ordered Magnemite to get ready while the Gumshoos was still distracted. Activating her ring and putting her arms up in a Z-shape, she called out to Magnemite "now's you chance! Unleash Breakneck Blitz!"
This caused Magnemite to absorb a massive amount of orange energy from the space around it, similar to the aura surrounding the Gumshoos. It then proceeded to take off like a rocket at high speed. The Gumshoos was able to look up from nursing its jaw long enough to see the train of incoming pain coming straight at it before being knocked down backwards onto the ground. Magnemite then flipped into the air straight above the Gumshoos, looking right down on its target.
"Now, blast it with Thunderbolt!" Reimu called out. A stream of electricity blasted down from where Magnemite was onto the Gumshoos, singeing it as the energy dissipated into the ground around it.
As it landed back on the ground, it stood – or, well, floated – in place, waiting for its next command. But Reimu had other plans. She recalled it, and sent Sasha out.
"Now, Sasha," Reimu said in a low tone with her arms crossed and her eyes closed, "finish it off in any way you choose."
Sasha looked at her with a look of determination and understanding across his face. He wasn't going to let his beloved master down at this critical moment. He wound back as if getting ready to pounce while whipping his tail around in the air, focused on the heavily weakened and struggling, but still conscious, Totem Pokémon in front of him. He emitted low growls as he stalked his prey; in his mind, he imagined himself Godzilla-sized and making off with the Totem in his mouth like a mouse he just caught.
Finally, he made his move, leaping high into the air. As he did, he was engulfed in light, his form beginning to change in midair as he just floated there. Finally, he began to fell back down to the ground and the light wore off, revealing a form which was larger and more feral-looking than the cool-looking kitten that had leapt into the air initially. He then turned around, and kicked the Gumshoos in the face with his newly muscular hind legs. The kick was strong enough to send it up and back, crashing back down into the ground.
The beast let out a low grunt as its arms and legs dropped, signaling defeat.
Reimu was proud at Sasha's accomplishment. She realized he must have evolved, so she took a moment to look up his new form, which seemed to grin right back at her.
"Torracat, the Fire Cat Pokémon. The evolution of Litten, it is considerably more expressive and wild than its previous form, its temperament matching its fiery powers at last. It uses powerful swipes and kicks to pound its opponents into submission, and it can fire streams of fire from the bell-like flame sac around its neck."
Sasha purred loudly and rubbed against her leg. She gave him a big shake, and he yowled in affirmation. He sounded more wild now, too.
Moments later, she was approached by Ilmia, who had watched the whole thing. He was clapping his hands and had a happy expression painted all over his face.
"Bravo! Bravo! I have never seen such a spectacle of a fight in my life before. Do you intentionally make your battles as spectacular as they are intense?"
She replied "well, where I'm from, fighting is practically an art. Part of winning a spell card duel is that your attacks are as pleasing to watch as they are powerful. I decided that myself when Yukari helped me come up with the spell card rules to begin with. And I expect my Pokémon to fight the same way I have trained myself and others, with grace, splendor and an overwhelming amount of force."
Ilmia was impressed. Here in front of him was a true lady of war, a knight who commanded her Pokémon like a general his men, who fought with honor but who was not above cunning tactics. And her tone suggested someone who could fracture your skull in a single motion underneath a seemingly delicate frame, and whose voice projected with an interesting mix of cheekiness, boredom, humor and hard authority. If you were around her, you were beneath her, and she made sure of it whenever possible.
If only his girlfriend was anywhere near as motivated and forceful.
"You're quite the warrior, Reimu. If I were to end up where you're from, I'd probably end up dead pretty quickly," he remarked. Reimu smirked; a pretty boy like him? Yeah, he'd be youkai chow pretty quickly, and even the people in the village would consider him weak, whether or not he actually was. But, if it was a facade, and she was starting to be sure it was, then he could theoretically hold his own.
He led her back out of the trial site, to a waiting Hau and Lillie. Again, he told them he was going to need a bit to reset the trial, especially since a Skarmory made off with one of his Yungoos, the third time that happened in two weeks. Once he was done, it would be Lillie's turn to face the music.
As he stepped back into the cavern, Reimu was approached by the both of them, brimming with curiosity about her performance.
"You did great in there!" Lillie beamed.
Reimu said in a lazy tone, "I did okay."
"Okay?" Hau replied. "I could hear the lightning bolts all the way out here! I'd say you did better than okay, I think you did even better than I did!"
"Well, maybe I did," Reimu told him.
As agreed, Lillie handed over the Pokéball containing Nebby to Reimu as they waited for the trial to be reset. It took thirty minutes, but eventually Ilmia came back out and motioned for Lillie to come challenge his trial.
She hesitated. She wasn't so sure about going into the trial chamber all by herself. She was visibly trembling. However, both Reimu and Hau gave her encouraging looks and words.
"You can do this," Hau told her. "It's honestly not that hard."
"You've got that overpowered Popplio with you, I think you'll rock house. Just believe in yourself."
Lillie nodded her head in understanding and smiled. "Alright. I won't let you down." She then disappeared inside the cave.
Reimu decided to sit down in front of the Pokémon Center with Hau. She decided to let Nebby out for a bit so it could play; if anyone wanted to steal it, she would beat them up. She wasn't worried.
As the blue-and-purple puffball bounced around the ground and played with a bean Reimu had thrown it, she sat there with Hau while staring at it.
"Hey Hau," she asked him, "this might be a bit of a loaded subject for an eleven year-old, but I was about your age when I had to start facing the real world, so I hope you get it. Have you ever thought about there being forces beyond our worlds who pull the strings and, just occasionally, send us zingers just to mess with us and see how we cope with them?"
He seemed a bit puzzled by this question, but tried to answer nonetheless. "Y'know, I just like to live my life and discover new things as I go along, and if some sort of jerk god decided to mess with my life somehow, I would just find a way to roll with it and then punch back if I can."
"I see," Reimu responded. She continued to monitor Nebby. "I was brought here by some force who wanted to separate me from Gensokyo for whatever reason, beyond the scope of what I'm used to dealing with. And to give you an idea, I've visited the Netherworld, been to Hell and back, traveled through the dream world to infiltrate the moon, stepped into a world parallel to the "real world" which was accessible through any crack if you believed hard enough... heck, my own ability is flying between alternate planes of existence at will, or at least, it is when I have access to my god's blessings."
Hau was intrigued by that last bit, and decided to ask her "how important is faith where you're from? Because here, we give our thanks and blessings to Tapu Koko whenever we can, but it sounds like you go further than that."
Reimu sighed. "Hau, where I'm from, faith, belief and religion are all very serious business. The reason Gensokyo exists to begin with is because when humans no longer fear the unknown or come up with rational explanations for stuff with scientific backing, mystical and magical beings and gods, well, they tend to disappear. Die, if you will. I know after a magazine explaining how echoes actually worked fell through the border one day, echo youkai started poofing out of existence like that," she said while snapping her fingers. "The last ones are being holed up by Miko in Senkai for that reason. The problem is that the people in the outside world from where I live lose faith too easily, lose things to believe in, put spiritual value into. I've heard things about the outside from Yukari's exploits there, how it's an uncaring world, full of corruption, famine, war, poverty and inequality. I've even heard they maintain weapons at all times for seemingly no purpose but to commit mass suicide. And I mean, sure, youkai are dangerous, but I feel humans without faith are infinitely much worse than even the strongest youkai or goddess. Without magic, whimsy, faith, spirituality, they're reduced to the animals they are deep inside, acting on instinct and survival of the fittest. So Gensokyo was created as a last bastion of all that stuff, where magic and faith could live and breathe freely, where humans could have something to believe in, where youkai and fairies could still roam and prank and torment humans without fear of facing extinction. Locked away from the outside world for all eternity. And my duty is to be the gatekeeper, the stewardess who makes sure no one steps out of line and that the integrity of the border separating the land from the outside is maintained."
She took a breath before continuing. "But here? You never let go of faith. Magic and stories are still alive and well here, even with technological advancement. You've learned to live with all that makes the world tick and even control it. I envy you; I wish I could bring my friends in Gensokyo here to see a wider world that might accept them."
To Hau, that was a lot of words. At the same time, it hit him significantly how a teenage girl like her knew so much and thought so much about the world around her. He was amazed at how wise she was, even if she was a bit of a lazy jokester at other times.
Their train of thought was broken when they heard a loud bang coming from the direction of the trial site. They both looked up and saw a column of smoke, dust and debris rising up and forming a mushroom cloud above the cavern.
"I think Lillie won," Reimu remarked. Hau just nodded at her in unsure agreement. Nebby didn't even know what was going on, because it was still focused on that bean.
A few minutes later, Lillie emerge from the cavern, covered in dust, the only thing shiny on her person being the Z-crystal she won from the Totem Gumshoos, who was currently having max revives shoved down its throat by Ilmia in an attempt to resuscitate it.
"I take it you were successful," Reimu told Lillie.
She looked down at Adele, who had now evolved into a Brionne, then looked up at Reimu and said "that bang happened right after she evolved. I simply can't explain it. After I won, Ilmia looked at the Totem Pokémon and then told me in a funny voice that he probably wasn't going to be able to run the trial for a few days." She seemed a little embarrassed. She was always concerned about trainers abusing their Pokémon, but never really thought about the Pokémon themselves being capable of such wanton destruction to the point that others did not want to fight it. And yet why didn't Adele display this when sparring against Hau and Reimu for practice?
Whatever the case, they had all now passed their first trial. Ahead of them was the grand trial against Hala back in Iki Town. But now, they would rest. So they checked out a camp space behind the Pokémon Center, which also included a three-person pup tent and sleeping bags. They had an excellent view of the ocean, which was almost a half-mile beneath them at the bottom of a large sea bluff. Even from their perch, they could see the waves gently rolling in and out, crashing against the rock walls, and the various Wingull and Pelliper gliding over the surface hoping to snatch up some tasty fish who were near the surface, before returning to den in hollows in the side of the bluffs rising over the thin beaches at the bottom.
As the sun set over the horizon, tinting the sky pinkish-orange and casting a far reaching glimmer across the sea, Reimu stood at the edge of the bluff, the winds whipping in against her and causing her hair to flow like the waves the winds helped push in.
"'mazing, isn't it?" Hau commented as he walked up to her.
To Reimu, "amazing" didn't do the sight justice. She had never seen the ocean before in her life, and was still amazed at how it seemed to go on forever. Of course, she knew it didn't really go on forever, but it was so vast that it overtook the horizon and made it certainly seem that way. She wondered just how far out in the ocean Alola was, how far she would need to travel before encountering other land, or indeed the continent.
As the light died down, people began to make campfires or fire up their grills to cook dinner. Dinner for the three was some hot dogs that they had picked up back in Hau'oli, which they cooked on skewers and roasted over the fire while telling each other some more stories.
"Alright, so, there was this one time where Remilia was hosting a talent show in the ballroom of her mansion," Reimu told Hau and Lillie as they listened on. "Cirno got up onto the stage and tried to show us how she was the strongest fighter of anyone in the room. Now, keep in mind, she's the most powerful fairy, which still isn't much because most fairies will go down to so much as smacking them with a broom."
She took a bite out of her hot dog before continuing. "So she had Daiyousei bring up a wood target and tie it down so she had something to demonstrate her new technique on." She used hand gestures to describe what happened next. "She pulled out a spell card no had seen, which struck me as impressive because Cirno actually managed to come up with her own spell card by herself. After she played it, she put her hands together like this, then shot a massive wave of snow and ice out from them. Now, this wave was HUGE, and knocked down everything in the room that wasn't bolted down, froze people in place, and there was just this white haze for a few seconds before we saw that the entire ballroom was covered in snow and enormous ice crystals."
Lillie sipped on some punch. "And then what?"
"Well, we pretty much beat the crap out of her after that, before Remilia herself impaled her with a spear. She respawned, of course, since all fae respawn instantly after dying. So we just continued to beat on her the rest of the night while Keine managed to get Mokou to come to the mansion and melt all the snow and free everyone who was frozen, who then started to beat on Cirno after that. I think Cirno died about 1,283 times that night – no, I wasn't keeping count, one of Nitori's friends was – which was a new record. She still walked away from it like nothing happened, no worse for wear."
She paused before dropping the punchline: "and the best part? The target was still intact." All three of them had a good laugh over that one, even if dying over a thousand times seemed really brutal. "So, is she really that stupid?" Hau asked.
"Well, I wouldn't quite call her stupid – she's actually pretty sharp and clever by fairy standards. But, again, that's not really saying a whole lot, since she only has about the common sense of a mentally restarted nine year old, and looks like she's nine, too, even though she's actually older than Remilia, who's past five hundred despite looking about thirteen. So she tends to get herself into situations with a lethally high amount of cockiness about her strength, which usually gets her killed."
Hau decided to ask a dumb question, just because he thought of it. "So if she's fairy, would that make her immune to Dragon-type attacks?"
Reimu scratched her head. "I wouldn't know, because he have neither something with a Dragon-type move nor Cirno here with us to test it. If nothing else, she got vaporized the one time she met a dragon, but I guess it didn't really use an 'attack,' per se, since it barely registered that she was there to begin with."
"What kinds of Dragons are in Gensokyo?" Lillie asked.
"Not many, but they're all very powerful. Dragons are actually the most powerful type of being in Gensokyo, since many of them can manipulate the weather, change the landscape, affect life force, lead and guide spirits, and in the case of the Great Dragon, travel in and out of the Hakurei Border itself."
She finished her hot dog before asking "and it looks like you have some really interesting Dragon legends here as well. Like that Rayquaza the museum lady was talking about. Looking at it gave me a lot of vibes of the Great Dragon."
A new voice chimed into their conversation "the Tao trio."
The three of them looked around trying to find the person the voice belonged to, before catching sight of a man with long, green hair and a black cap.
"Would you mind if I joined your conversation?" he asked them.
Reimu was a little apprehensive. "Who are you?"
He held his hand to his heart. "Oh, sorry, I should have introduced myself. I am N."
Lillie then spoke up. "Wait, that N? I've heard about you, you're that guy who – "
" – led Team Plasma before walking out on it. You would be correct." He sat down in front of the fire between Hau and Lillie, facing Reimu.
"Wanna hot dog?" Hau asked him.
"I'm fine," N told him. "I just came over here because I heard about you three talking about dragons."
"What do you know about dragons?" Reimu asked him.
He took a breath before starting a story. "Thousands of years ago in Unova, a large meteor fell out of the sky near a village. After the impact, the villagers inspected the crater, which was massive and went down seemingly forever.
"They made it down to the bottom, where a large rock sat in the middle of the impact. The rock cracked, and then blasted open, revealing a powerful dragon with control over fire, ice and lightning. The villagers revered it as a deity, and for centuries afterward, a prosperous civilization grew in Unova, and the being which they called Kyurem, came to be central to Unovan Taoism."
He continued, "however, one day, two princes, who were brothers, got into a dispute over truth and ideals. This dispute eventually grew into a bloody civil war, which was part of the larger Great War. With its civilization split between truth and ideals, Kyurem split into three beings: the fire dragon Reshiram, who represented truth; Zekrom, the lightning dragon who represented ideals; and Kyurem's own icy husk, which represented void.
"The war soon ended, leaving behind immense ruin, and both brothers were dead. Anguished by the loss of his sons and the dispute which had led them to war, the king attempted to bring the land back together, in order to bring Kyurem together. But by then, it was too late, as the two light and dark dragons had disappeared, and Kyurem cast in self-exile at the bottom of the Giant Chasm.
"Millennia passed, and the events of the war faded into the stuff of legend as Unova built itself up as a modern land. But Ghetsis never forgot. He was a descendant of the royal line, resentful at the actions of his forebears that had led to the collapse of their kingdom. So he set out to find the dragons and reunify Kyurem, so that he could take over Unova and rule like his ancestors before him."
He continued, "I never knew my parents. They were killed in a building collapse when I was an infant. In my first few years, I lived out in the wild and was raised by Pokémon. I came to see Pokémon as my friends, and bonded with them as such. Ghetsis took advantage of this when he found me and took me in. You see, he wanted someone who he could control to be the head of his scheme until he felt it was time to come out with his plan more openly. So he created Team Plasma. He found six other royal descendants to form the Seven Sages, and cast me as the 'king' of Team Plasma. I told him I wanted it to be an organization which encouraged friendship between humans and Pokémon. He didn't exactly agree with this at first, but soon twisted it to mean that humans and Pokémon should be separated so that Pokémon could be free from the tyranny of human control and being made to fight. In reality, he wanted to control all the Pokémon in Unova so that he would have no serious challenge once he reunited Kyurem. I was resentful of what he was doing, but had no choice but to go along with it.
"In came a strong trainer. Like you, he was starting his Pokémon journey. I decided to battle him on a whim, and was amazed by the amount of passion and drive he had for battles, and the love and caring he expressed for his Pokémon. So I followed him through his journey and secretly helped him obtain the Black dragon, Zekrom, while I controlled Reshiram, the White dragon. We faced off in the Plasma Palace, and he won the fight both against me and against Ghetsis. After the battle, I decided to release Reshiram so it could be free, while entrusting Zekrom to the trainer's care. After that, he disappeared, and I ditched Ghetsis."
He continued, "but the story doesn't end there. A couple of years later, another trainer who was starting her journey dared to take on Team Plasma, who by now was more openly led by Ghetsis and plotted to take over and control Unova with an iron fist. I helped her along by jinxing many of their plans, which culminated in a battle at the bottom of the Giant Chasm, where Ghetsis had succeeded in fusing Reshiram and Kyurem. She defeated him, after which he was reduced to a broken, mad mess. Nobody knows what happened to him after that, but Team Plasma disbanded, and the girl was entrusted with both Reshiram and Kyurem."
He looked out towards the now-moonlit ocean. "I still look for the other strong trainer, and wonder where he may be now. I've always wanted to tell him something, but I could never find a trace of him anywhere. But I know he's out there, with Zekrom, traveling the Earth and challenging trainers."
They took in his story, before Lillie asked him, "do you think we are strong trainers?"
He looked back at them and said "I came to this island a few months ago and have watched other new trainers struggle with their first trial. I like to observe the fights from there," he pointed at an outcropping just above the cavern. I think you three all have the potential to be excellent trainers, especially you," he looked at Reimu. "What is your name?"
"Reimu," she told him.
"Reimu... what a lovely name. I saw how you fight, how the bond you have with your Pokémon allows your fights to not only be completely one-sided, but works of art. I think you have the potential to exceed everyone I have ever met."
Reimu smiled. "You know, I've faced off with all kinds of things in my life. But, I still feel like there is much for me to learn, like I haven't seen everything that life has to throw at me, even in a predicament like what I'm in. All the mysteries, the tricks, y'know?"
"Mysteries and tricks..." N murmered.
There was a voice just like his calling out from the distance. "Shadow, it's time we went home. Please come back to me so we can leave."
He looked at the three. "I think master N is calling me." He poofed into smoke before a black, fox-like creature with red hair emerged where he had been sitting and cried out before returning to his master.
The three just sat there wide-eyed wondering what had just happened.
"This place gets just a little weirder the longer I'm here," Reimu remarked.
The moon was at a waxing crescent as its light shimmered across the sea. The three were still huddled around their campfire, and Hau was teaching Reimu how to cook up s'mores. She thought the treats were kind of strange, but otherwise tasted good. It soon got to be late, and everyone around them was putting out their fires, so Lillie had Adele put out the fire with a squirt of water, while the other two jokingly braced for the fireplace to blow up, which of course didn't happen.
Just before going to bed, they spent some time looking up at the stars in the skies above. They could see the constellations formed by the various stars up above, all the sorts of shapes that the imaginary lines formed in between the small white lights that dotted the skies above. In the distance, the faint glow of Hau'oli city shined from behind the hillside.
Reimu bumped Lillie and asked her "where's the north star?"
Lillie pointed at a constellation. "You see that? That constellation where I'm pointing up at?"
Reimu looked for a bit before seeing it. "Yeah, I kind of see it."
"That is Ursaring Major. They call it that because it looks like an Ursaring. And the North Star is in the ring on its 'belly.' Why do you ask?"
Reimu replied "when I was a child, I was taught how to navigate using star charts, so I could easily find my way if I ever got lost or disoriented. I didn't want to get lost while I was here, so I just wanted to know which way was north and which way was south."
"They don't teach us star charts," Lillie told Reimu. "In fact, they don't really teach you how to navigate in school unless you go into something like boating. Everyone just relies on their phones to get them where they need to go, their GPS's. But I'm a licensed boater, so I was taught how to navigate using old-fashioned methods, maps and compasses. And even then, I never thought about navigating using just starts, like you. I think that's pretty impressive that you know how to do that."
Reimu smiled. "When it's all you have, it's what you get good at doing."
They decided to huddle inside the tent, where Hau was already sleeping. They got into sleeping bags next to each other, and buried themselves inside the bags.
"Good night," Lillie whispered. "You too," Reimu whispered back, as they each rolled over and went to sleep.
