A shrill scream penetrated the attic. "My sister is in danger!" Gladion shouted. He yanked open the trap door and dropped down without bothering with the rope ladder. His boots thudded on the marble floor, and he took off at a sprint without looking back. The air sizzled as portals from another realm opened. Energy transferred between worlds; without solstice or midnight to stabilize it, Gladion could feel the energy vibrating around him. "The ultra beasts are here!" he shouted over his shoulder. He trusted Mirami and the champions to handle them and protect Alola, despite their defeat in the priestesses' home.

This time would be different. They had the soulheart. Tzwol had lost an eye, and who knew what chaos Kalai caused in the ultra realm. Most importantly, Solga, Necros, and the ultra beasts needed each other. Solga relied on Necros to stay immortal; Necros needed powerful beings like Solga and the other ultra beasts for his own immortality; and while the ultra beasts had incredible abilities, Necros could feed them with more—and in the world of their ideals, they would need infinite power to stay on top.

Necros stood in his path, his black cloak made of a reflective material that resembled glass. Gladion unsheathed his shortsword and prepared to attack.

Necros turned his back on Gladion, whose sword struck the obsidian cloak. Necros continued turning, using the momentum to sweep Gladion's feet from under him. Necros's cloak burst into a thousand obsidian shards that bounced along the hallway. His prism suit blinded Gladion.

"You could be as radiant as I!" Necros declared, proudly displaying his gaudy suit.

Gladion kicked with both legs. Both men landed on the rolling fragments of Necros's shattered cloak, and they hopped around to keep their balance. Necros's suit distracted Gladion so he couldn't aim his sword. The ultra beast cackled as Gladion's shortsword missed again.

"Young Master Null!" a maid exclaimed after closing a door behind her. She gripped the baby bottle so tightly, milk spurted out.

"Evacuate the house, Marga," Gladion ordered. "It isn't safe here now."

Necros ducked, his shining eyes following Marga's path. "She must have come from the nursery!"

He vanished in a burst of light, but Gladion wasn't fooled. Necros turned himself into a wave that could flow through barriers, but Gladion didn't need fancy tricks to get the job done. Anti-magic was more efficient, anyway. He kicked the door open, though he lost his balance on the cloak's dark gemstones and tumbled into the plush-carpeted nursery.

Lusamine and Slasher faced against Solga and Necros. The Aether presidents were of glittering ivory and diamonds, a more familiar radiance to Gladion than Necros's excessive gaudiness. Solga's brown skin contrasted his ruby-and-gold garments, which must have weighed more than armor as it draped down his back and tail.

Behind Gladion's parents, baby Requiem cried in her rhinestone-adorned cradle. Solga and Necros's stances were directed at the massive cradle, and Gladion tightened his grip on his sword. "You won't hurt my family!"

Necros whirled back to face Gladion again while Solga charged ahead. This time, there was no obsidian to protect the ultra beast. Sunlight from the nursery's sun roof shone on the prism suit. Gladion forced himself to look at Necros directly. His boot struck the gaudy man's spine, and the flat edge of his shortsword whacked his opponent's head. Necros began glowing, but Gladion's harsh stare halted the wave energy.

Necros froze and then shrivelled into a smaller husk of a man. Wrinkles lined his once-smooth face, and his suit hung on his emaciated frame. His eyes clouded over and then darkened. "You took away my light! My light... Solga, help me! Fuse with the child and return my light!"

Slasher picked Requiem up from the cradle and kissed the crying infant before handing her to Lusamine. "Wait for us in the saferoom."

"I can't leave you behind," Lusamine hissed.

"You have to protect our baby," Slasher insisted. "Solga is a steel type, so it's better for me to fight him. Now go!"

Slasher threw himself between Lusamine and Solga. The sun chief's stronger steel dented Slasher's skin, and Lusamine flinched. Requiem wailed into her mother's shoulder. Lusamine's high heels echoed on the marble floor as she fled.

Slasher threw Solga off him and put a flaking hand on his son. "Are you okay?"

Gladion blinked several times, though his head still pounded from Necros's energy. He'd give himself cancer at this rate. "I'm fine."

"My light..." Necros whimpered.

Solga's tail flicked with disgust, the rubies on his armor clinking. "You have no place in Alola, weakling."

"I gave you light! Does your debt mean nothing to you? What about loyalty?"

"Loyalty belongs to a world of traditions, where people remain stagnant as they do the same things and serve the same people."

Gladion remembered Solga's alter. "That used to be your world."

Solga drew out his broadsword, monstrous compared to Gladion's smaller blade. The sunsteel's energy heated the room, and even Slasher and Necros looked afraid. "The pillager who calls himself Death Defying taught me a more magnificent world."

"It's a world of anarchy."

"Liberation!"

"Lost."

"Autonomous!"

Gladion suppressed a smile. Slasher was in position behind Solga, who remained unaware, focused only on his centuries-old fantasy. "It's a world for monsters."

"It's a world for warriors!" Solga roared and raised his fist. In his grip, instead of the sunsteel broadsword, was a rod made from ordinary steel.

Slasher tossed the sunsteel sword from one hand to the other. Sunlight from the sun roof reflected on the shifting blade. The room's temperature rose to an uncomfortable heat that Gladion struggled to quell for himself and his father. Solga and Necros caught on fire.

Necros burned faster, his scream cut short in less than a second. Solga glowed like the light vessel that had given him immortality. The fire burned holes in the knees of his trousers. His golden plates liquefied like wax, and his rubies dripped like blood. His face contorted as he howled in agony.

Gladion had no pity for the sun chief who had mutilated Mirami. "It looks like the sun will die."

Slasher threw down the sunsword, grabbed Gladion's hand, and ran from the burning nursery.

Tzwol couldn't see, but his nose guided the way for him. Rising smoke from the west wing made him turn to the east wing, from which he smelled candy canes and a hint of sunsteel. That was the scent of his enemy, the masked girl who had made him vulnerable. He'd broken her sword, but she'd taken his eye, inviting her brother to take the other one.

Tzwol needed to prove he was still effective without his sight. He sprinted toward the scent of candy canes and sunsteel.

Mirami admired the jagged sword from Aether's weapons room, which had an impressive supply that would have rivaled Lura's. She missed her dao with the hole, but she liked the new crooked blade, too. She wanted to prowl the area and ensure everything was in place, but there was no time for that. Tzwol would be here in seconds, which was why everything had to be perfect the first time around. There was no room for error.

The trap clicked at Tzwol's thundering steps. The ultra beast's war cry turned into a squeal. Mirami tried not to smile.

Tzwol floundered as he tried to dislodge the rattata trap from his foot, which was already starting to swell. His movement pulled on the next part of the trap.

The display crossbow's string pulled its arrow back.

"That archer boy is with you?! I can't smell him!" Tzwol exclaimed.

"He isn't here," Mimi told him. Mimicking Kalai's precision, she inserted the serrated part of her blade through the bow's string, trying to keep her hand from trembling. When she was sure the sword was in the right position, she slashed sideways with all her might. Satisfaction welled in her at the flamboyant gesture.

As soon as the string was cut, the arrow flew directly at Tzwol's nose. He ducked so the arrow struck the bell behind him.

At the chime, a gumball-sized ball bearing slid down. It knocked a row of dominoes, which triggered a spring, which struck a lever. Tzwol's head spun as he tried to follow along, and he didn't notice the pendulum until too late. The great brass gong knocked him out.

Mirami clicked her tongue. "Strength means nothing if it doesn't come with a sharp mind. How disappointing, Tzwol—you're hotter than sunsteel but you have less brains than a jellicent."

At the chime, Alila's gears whirred and her arms creaked as she raised her cannon. Shadows flickered and steel tore at the electrum of her skirt and ribbons as dominoes clattered and her cannon loaded with the sound of a spring's bounce. The gunshot was in sync with the pendulum's majestic gong.

Kartana screamed as her arm blew off. Alila reverted her cannon to a first-aid table. The doll picked up the contortionist, who could no longer twist and fold herself with one limb missing. Alila got to work disinfecting and bandaging Kartana's shoulder. They wanted to apprehend the ultra beasts and study their powers, not kill them like the champions had done with the Tapu.

Kalai lost his balance on the roof of Aether's building at the sound of the cannon. When Viole grabbed him, his skull knocked against the curly-haired boy's clavicle. Kalai pulled them both down to avoid Cephalus's inferno overblast, though the force knocked them off the roof.

Viole clung onto Kalai, who glanced behind him. Holding onto Viole with one arm, he thrust one of khukuri blades backward to drive it into the oak tree. Snow soaked through his jacket, and he cried out as he wrenched his arm to slow their fall.

Cephalus drifted down and landed as gently as a snowflake. Damn fire types, thought Kalai. He couldn't imagine Sin pulling that trick, but he made a mental note to try it later.

"Ceph, we're friends!" Viole exclaimed. "Kalai is your brother!"

"Half-brother," Cephalus and Kalai said at the same time. The fire type grimaced. "Malu was cruel to both of us, but suffering shouldn't bring people together."

If his arm didn't hurt so much, Kalai would have laughed. "You never even met Malu! I lived with him, but you never knew him."

"I knew him through my mother," Cephalus retorted. "She kept photos of him and taught me to avoid people like him—and you look like him: a short, vicious Alolan with eyes full of hate."

"I'm not like him."

"He isn't," Viole agreed. "I grew up with Kalai as my best friend when we were children. He's a troublemaker and a thief, but he's also kind and patient. You think you know your father through your mother's pictures and words, but you don't know him at all if you think Kalai is like him."

Cephalus turned his baleful yellow gaze on Viole. "Do you claim to know him?"

"Kalai made sure I never met him."

Cephalus did his fancy fire trick again, propelling himself to the side this time. "So I should consider myself fortunate for seeing the result of what he did to my mother without getting a chance to—okay, what the hell is going on?" Kalai and Viole were close enough that they could feel the force pulling them, too. Pulling? A thrusting fire should push.

Malu stood at the centre of Aether's grand courtyard, balancing on the edge of the ivory fountain. Snow flew at his outstretched fingers and vanished before touching his scarred skin.

Viole wrapped an arm around Kalai's waist and planted his hand on the oak behind him. Adhesion glued him to the tree. Kalai grabbed Cephalus's wrist as his half-brother began to fly toward Malu's voracity. Cephalus's paler fingers struggled to find grip. His firium ring flew off and joined the snow into the black hole. The fire type's hand went limp as Kalai's grip broke his wrist. Parked cars disappeared due to Malu's voracity, and the oak's roots cracked as the tree slowly got pulled in.

Cephalus's gaze hardened. "Let go," he ordered.

"You're crazy!"

Cephalus grinned. "All ultra beasts are insane, including you, brother."

Kalai pulled Cephalus toward him and Viole, but the fire type raked his nails down his brother's exposed forearm. Kalai's grip loosened enough for Cephalus to fly toward Malu.

Time seemed to slow for a brief second. Fire spiraled around father and son before Cephalus vanished, along with his magic. Finally satiated, Malu leaped backward from the fountain.

Kalai ran after him, but his father disappeared like a shadow outside Aether's grounds.

A shadow-like man shoved past Jun, almost knocking the bow out of his hand. "Kalai?" Jun stared after the retreating figure and knew it wasn't his friend—he was broader, his gait more of a swagger.

"He isn't here," Sin muttered. "They're fighting the ultra beasts, the sun chief, all the big bad guys, while we're stuck leading an evacuation."

"It isn't really an evacuation," Val amended, "and our role is as important as the others'. We're bringing the people to the southern shore and we'll guard them if the ultra beasts escape Aether." With a glance at Jun, she added, "We don't need to fight to be heroes."

Jun smiled at her, though Sin harrumphed. "I like fighting. I'm good at it."

Val looked at him in exasperation. "Is that it?"

Sin threw his arms into the air. "It's the only thing I'm good at!"

Jun decided not to state the contrary, that Sin really wasn't that good of a fighter.

"It's why I wanted to end the Tapu. If I could bask in the glory for the rest of my life like Hala, then I wouldn't need to worry about not having any other skills. But when Jun and Gladion started working for Aether and you enrolled in college, I knew I didn't want to end up like Hala, with nothing but past glories."

"You're in college, too," Val pointed out. "We have some of the same classes!"

"But you're doing so much better."

"I got a C in chemistry, remember?"

"And I failed ancient history."

Jun turned away, sensing this was meant to be private. Val's voice softened. "One failure doesn't define you, Incinera. You have many opportunities to change things. Times are changing."

Mirami, Gladion, Kalai, and Alila walked toward the shore. People cheered at their arrival. Jun caught murmurs of "ultra beasts" and "worse than fairies" as the crowd applauded. Someone shouted, "The champions of this epoque!"

Alila curtsied, Kalai and Gladion exchanged a look, and Mirami raised her hand to silence the island. "There are no longer any champions, nor Tapu. The fairies that remain do not seek to be gods, and should be treated with dignity. Those with ultra powers who remain also do not wish to conquer Alola, and should be treated as equals. Though Alola lives as an independent state, we must not fall to monstrosity. To commemorate our dignity as a nation, we will build an alter—not to four Tapu, who are dead anyway, but to four Laws."

"Laws!" Alolans muttered amongst themselves. "What's wrong with the current system?" "It's backward!" "Anything less would be anarchy!"

"I am Mirami." Her voice, despite her mask, resounded throughout the crowd. "My eyes have seen the distant past. I have climbed the alter of the sun chief and read his Laws, a code of morals that bound his people before he was corrupted. Priestesses, write these down, so all will remember and be held to justice if they disobey."

Reena dipped a quill in ink and nodded at Mirami.

"First, do not kill or injure a living creature unless it is necessary for survival and self-preservation. This forbids hunting fairies for sport or spite."

Guzma and the Skulls were nowhere to be seen. Jun narrowed his eyes. Though they were absent, they would be held to the same standard as the rest of Alola.

"Second, do not hide or falsify abilities. We must know and understand each other's powers. We shouldn't fear what we don't know, because we can learn about it. Ultra beasts do not have 'darker' powers; we have abilities that, if harnessed properly, can benefit everyone. Third, do not destroy, but seek to preserve. Appreciate the creator's intent. We destroyed the Tapu because we didn't know what they were defending us from. Write this down, Reena: these Laws exist to prevent us from becoming the monsters that the ultra beasts wanted us to be so they could conquer us and we'd have no choice but to submit to them. We are a proud country, and these Laws preserve our dignity."

Alola applauded, but Haixing called out, "What's the fourth Law?"

Mirami hesitated before answering. "Things change. Laws can change, too. Nothing is set in stone. Epoques from now, perhaps another set of Laws will better serve another generation. We must be rooted in tradition to bear fruit, but roots can grow, too."

SIX MONTHS LATER

Roots can grow, too.

Mirami wanted to hide from Alola in embarrassment, though she was proud of herself, too. In the months after her declaration and the establishment of Alola's Four Laws, Alola kept itself in check. She didn't know how, but Gladion had convinced Guzma to turn the Skulls into a Lawkeeper force to ensure Alola abided by its new Laws. After wandering lost without a purpose for a year since the Tapu's demise, Alola found a new purpose in seeking to understand what made Viole's adhesion sticky, Kartana's bone structure that allowed her to contort herself like origami, Tzwol's proboscis-like skin that drained energy like it was a flower's nectar.

So much had changed in the past year and a half, and so much more would continue to change. Gladion knocked on her door, a tablet in hand. "I have a lead on your father."

Mirami started packing bare essentials: sanitary and hygiene products, a change of clothes, a bottle-sized water filter.

"Gloette is a handmaid under the Unseelie King's service. She was arrested recently on suspicion that her cousin helps fairies escape the Unseelie Court. If they can find the trafficker, they'll have access to every fairy who has left the Unseelie Court without permission."

Mirami put her hood on as she walked down the corridor. Kalai and Viole waited for her by the stairs, leaning on opposite walls. Viole's pale blue eyes glittered, and her brother smiled.

"It's a tenuous lead since there's a fifty-fifty chance your father came from the Unseelie Court, and you'd have to find the cousin before the Unseelie Court does. Not to mention, Gloette is being held in a high-security prison. The Otherworld is full of dangers as well as wonders, and nothing is for certain."

"You don't have to come," Mirami told the young men.

"You're my sister," Kalai said, flicking one of the floppy ears on Mirami's hood. "And honestly, an adventure to search for your father sounds more rewarding than searching for mine."

Mirami turned to Viole. "And what about you?"

With a grin, Viole grabbed Kalai's gloved hand; his fingers were shorter, but his hand was bigger. Kalai tried to pull away, but their hands were glued together from adhesion. "Oh no, my adhesion is at it again! I guess I'm stuck with you guys."

Mirami giggled. "That's too bad."

Outside, two realmscollided as the sun reached its peak on the longest day. The three friends walkedthrough the courtyard. The Aether institutions and labs faded, replaced by bluetrees with yellow bark. Snow continued to fall, though from a purple sky.