We are but dust and shadows. We are born from the earth and to the earth we will return. Aether might be on a quest to defy that natural process, but another has already figured out the secret to halting the cycle.

Alters don't interest champions who spent an epoque training to defeat the ones that alters are dedicated to. I turned my back on the sun chief's arcane symbols and headed for the sand dunes. Sin, Jun, and Gladion were with me, but we couldn't find you at all, Mimi. Perhaps Alila thought you shouldn't see this memory; we didn't think she'd want to show you something else, or that you'd take the time to ascend the sun chief's alter.

A harras of mudsdale stamped their hooves as we approached. The stableboy explained, "Hapu and her friends usually ride them around this hour, but they aren't here now and the creatures are impatient."

"Mudsdale need to feel the wind through their manes," Jun said. "Gladion and I have colleagues who keep mudsdale to ride for fun sometimes, and they pay people to ride for them if they're busy."

"Do you know how to ride a mudsdale?" Gladion asked.

Jun smiled like he was trying to be modest, but his chest puffed with pride. "Faba hired me a couple of times. I'm a natural."

"Ceruli and I went rapidash riding for her birthday," I added. "I... can manage."

Gladion patted our shoulders. "Then let's ride."

"You didn't ask me if I could ride," Sin whined, but added, "but obviously I can do anything Val can."

"You're strangers," the stableboy protested. Glaring at Gladion, he added, "And you're an outsider."

"I'm an Aether research associate," Gladion informed the boy dressed in rags. "There are no such things as outsiders in Alola—only rich and poor."

"That's what our chief has wanted since meeting the strange ultra beast," the child murmured, clutching his head and wandering away. "The sun chief used to care about Alola... what am I rambling about? Alola cares for itself."

I looked at Sin. "Someone should watch over him."

"Why does it have to be me?"

Gladion spoke up, "He'll be fine. Look, he's going home."

The boy entered a small hut and bolted the door. Satisfied, I put a hand on the nearest mudsdale. She nickered and relaxed into my touch. I raised a leg and slipped my boot into the stirrup and boosted myself onto the seat. Jun and Gladion followed suit with two of the other mudsdale. Sin grasped at the fender and seat jockey and rammed his face against the pommel. I think he almost climbed on backwards. When we finally started riding, though, he was the fastest.

After riding straight for ten minutes, we found a lone rider to the left. He disembarked from his mudsdale to let it drink from the river.

"Do you think he knows about the ultra beast?" I wondered, and we veered over to ask. Mudsdale lean when they turn, and I gripped the thick mane to avoid falling.

Despite the sun's warmth, the man wore a dark cloak. His hood fell back when he turned, revealing Aether-light hair. His eyes gleamed so brightly I had to look away. Jun compared it to burning magnesium; I thought it was like trying to look at the sun. He must be the ultra beast the stableboy mentioned, because he would want to advocate for outsiders.

The ultra beast fled from us, abandoning his saddle-free mudsdale by the river. He leaped into the water but did not get wet. A slipper touched a fallen leaf and he rebounded like a Cog-trained dancer. I should have stopped him, but I was too amazed. He hopped on three separate leaves before reaching the other side of the river. I thought, this is how we're supposed to walk on water. There's no need to manipulate it to our will if we can defy its tug on us.

"Val!" Gladion snapped me back to reality.

"Got it." I raised the water to carry us over to the ultra beast.

Sin grabbed him from behind and pinned him to the ground. "Who are you? Why did you try to flee?"

His last word broke like a glitch, and the man's dark cloak fell away as he bowed theatrically, two feet away. His prism-like clothing was gaudier than the diamond suit Gladion wore to last year's celebration.

"I am Death Defying." The prism-clad man's teeth shone like pearls. "You can call me Necros."

"Where's Solga?" I demanded. "What are you doing to him?"

Necros seemed to grow taller in his anger. "Solga, like all life, is a vessel for light that will only grow throughout the ages. The Alolans prayed for an immortal ruler, so I gave them one. I can make the four of you immortal, too. I recognize the greatness in you—you who were destined to kill Solga's enemies."

"I'm already immortal," Gladion replied.

"I don't want a parasite living inside me," Sin added.

"We are heroes, not gods," Jun declared.

"We don't want immortality," I told Necros. "And we don't want the anarchy you and the other ultra beasts bring. We want an island of culture and diversity, without being rooted to archaic beliefs and rituals. The Tapu were wrong to expect people to worship them, but we will carry their mission and preserve Alola's dignity by keeping our country from falling to primitive beasts."

When Necros's eyes weren't radiant like the sun, they were dark shards of flint. "You want the fruit but not the roots. Do you know how trees work?"

"Jun is the plant type; I'm a water type."

"Yet water represents life and ritual." Necros dipped his fingers in the river behind him. "Are you sure you do not want immortality? By becoming vessels of abundant light and unending life, I—no, we will become all-powerful."

"We can be powerful without forcing others into submission," Jun said.

"I need light to be powerful," Necros retorted. "I need life. If you refuse me, then there is another who holds as much light as all of you combined, for she was conceived on the night of the Tapu's deaths."

"Requiem," Gladion realized. He grabbed Necros and shook him. "What do you want with my sister?!" Sin's hands ignited, Jun summoned grass to coil around Necros's ankles, and I suspended the river in a tide over the ultra beast.

"I want nothing to do with her," Necros assured, with a contemptuous scoff at our elements. "Solga will fuse with her and their light will multiply infinitely. There will be enough to last millennia."

"You won't use my sister to make yourself a god!"

Necros's clothing reflected light and burst through our elements. My tide turned to drizzle that formed a rainbow with the sunlight and refracted from Necros's body. "Would you rather keep her mortal? You will watch her die."

"Aether will preserve her as it has done for me. She doesn't need you—her life is not meant to serve you."

Necros didn't respond. He vanished in a burst of radiance that washed away the ancient lands and returned us to Gladion's attic—and you.