Team Skull just keeps getting dumber.
As they agreed, they stayed in the library until it closed, and headed out for Route 10 the next day. Eli was put in charge of the battles, to catch up to Diana in experience. It turned out to be a lucky decision, because what he battled ended up being two wild Skarmory and a beauty's Steenee, which were all easily defeated with fire. The other trainers on the route didn't seem to notice them, until they got to the bus stop.
"What."
It wasn't Diana who said it, but Rotom, as the humans were too busy staring in shock, confusion, and secondhand shame. Two Team Skull grunts were attacking the bus stop sign. One of them turned to the kids, silently challenging them.
"What, you kids never seen someone aggressively dance at a bus stop before?"
The heroic trio spent a brief moment in silence. "Can't say I have," Diana said after finding her voice.
"Don't think anyone has without drugs," Rotom added.
"It looks stupid," Eli finished.
The grunt pointed accusingly at the sign, which his partner was still aggressively dancing at. "The sign started it!"
"I'm sure it did." Diana spoke with her placating voice, the one she used when humoring Eli's alien delusions. "But they moved the bus stop to right outside Malie City. We're here because we saw movement up here and thought it was a rare Pokémon."
"We'd get that rare Pokémon first," said the dancing grunt, as if he believed it.
"We just wanted to end the 9:15 bus forever!" the other grunt explained.
This was making less sense the longer it went on. "Any particular reason you chose the 9:15 bus?" Diana asked, trying very hard not to get interested in the logic behind Team Skull's decision.
"Don't ask follow-up questions!" Rotom hissed.
"It's not like it matters," Eli reminded her.
"Does anything matter?" The grunt pulled out a ball, glaring at the kids. "And for making me have an existential crisis, I'm gonna have to defeat you here!"
Eli looked to Diana hopefully. Diana shook her head. "You're the one who said it doesn't matter," she pointed out. "This is your fight."
The grunts sent out one Pokémon each. Eli looked back at his cousin, annoyed.
"Help now?"
Fine, then. She'd do it, but she wouldn't be happy about it. "Stanford, let's go!"
"Salandit, your turn!"
Salandit evolved, which was good. She did not immediately release a pheromone to control the Skull grunts to leave, or to make her the boss of Eli instead of the other way around, which made Diana very disappointed.
Eli was not impressed. "Do you seriously want me to be controlled by my own lizard?"
"Um..." Diana could answer yes or a no, but both would be a lie. It was a hard choice. "Not you in particular," she finally said, "but the Pokedex says she can, and I want to see someone get controlled by your lizard."
"Have her control Rotom, then."
"Rotom's genderless and only uses male pronouns for convenience."
Rotom looked down at Salazzle, who seemed slightly disappointed that she couldn't be of any use to science. "Sorry, baby. I'm off the market."
Salazzle rolled her eyes.
While this conversation was going on, the grunts were panicking. A boy and a girl traveling together...were these the kids that Plumeria and Gladion had encountered? The ones who beat their honorary big sister and their top enforcer?
"We're dead," said one grunt.
"Not if we beat it now," said the other, and they ran off like the cowards they were.
With the grunts gone, the kids took the 9:15 bus after all. At the top of Mount Hokulani, they met up with Professor Kukui once again, once more not wearing his mask. Before Diana could think of something sarcastic to say about that, he asked a question of his own.
"How do you like mountains, Diana?"
"Mountains?" She looked at Eli to make sure he'd heard the same thing she did, and he shrugged, just as confused. "They're ok, I guess. I've never been to one before."
Kukui laughed, but there was something different about it this time. It was almost like he was holding something back. "I can see that. What about Pokémon Leagues?"
"Alola has a League now?" This was interesting.
Kukui looked over a railing, and the kids followed. "Mount Hokulani is the second tallest mountain in Alola," he told them. "The first tallest mountain is Mount Lanakila…the closest you can get to the Legendary Pokémon of Alola. And right on that mountain is where I'll establish our Pokémon League!"
Diana sighed. "With yourself as the Champion, I'm guessing?"
"Nah." Kukui shoved his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. "I've got too much to do at the lab."
"The Masked Royal, then?"
"Actually, I've got two contestants to choose between. I'm just waiting for them to get there."
Diana looked out at the other mountain again. She could see the vague outline of a building. She had to admit, her new home being at least a little more like her old home appealed to her.
"I've always valued the old traditions of Alola," Kukui continued, "but I'm tired of being the only region that doesn't have a League or a Champion. We'll use the Island Challenge instead of the traditional quest, and I'll ask the kahunas to be the Elite Four, but our Champion will be legendary!"
The excitement of an Alola League disappeared, and Diana's mouth twisted in disappointment. "The kahunas? No, don't do that. Use people that the challengers haven't seen, at least until this League gets well-known enough to have TV specials. Not knowing what you're up against is half the fun of having an Elite Four in the first place."
"Well, I'll write their contracts for a year. After that, it's the Champion's call." He turned to face the building. "But enough about that! Right over there is a trial, so you should go and get another Z-Crystal, yeah?"
He had a point there.
After a trip to the Pokémon Center, they headed right to the Hokulani Observatory, Kukui with them. There was a tall man blocking the doorway, and Kukui seemed to know him.
"Kids, let me introduce you to Molayne. He runs the observatory, and the PC boxes, and was once the Hokulani captain. Molayne, I'd like you to meet Diana Freeman and Eli Frost."
"The scientist and the arsonist," Molayne said, and Eli smiled awkwardly.
"Getting better," he promised.
"You know us?" Diana asked, surprised.
"I don't think there's anyone in Alola who hasn't heard of you. You won two trials with your starter Pokémon alone, after all." Molayne's smile wasn't awkward, and Diana wondered what he had in common with the current captain. "Thank you for coming, but Captain Sophocles is a very busy guy. He has so many projects going, I don't even know how he trains. So, which of you is taking the Trial?"
Diana raised her hand, as if she didn't know he knew the answer to his question. "Me."
"Then I'll test you to see if you're ready for his Trial!"
Molayne's first Pokémon was a Skarmory. Diana suddenly wished that she had borrowed one of Eli's Pokémon for this battle.
Too late now. "Poliwhirl, let's go!"
Thanks to frequent use of Hypnosis, Poliwhirl defeated Skarmory by himself. The Metang was different – Diana had to use Murkrow for it. Three Night Shade attacks and Metang went down, but the Dugtrio took Murkrow out of the battle. Stufful finished the battle in Diana's favor, though, and quickly took on a glow of success.
The glow of evolution, to be more specific.
"That's a Bewear," Rotom explained as the freshly-evolved Pokémon stared at her now-massive paws. "It says that a Bewear will hug its companions, but doesn't know its own strength. Trainers have even left this world after their spines were squashed by the hugs."
Bewear made a little humming sound, then turned back to Diana. She reached for her Trainer, mouth open in excitement. Diana lifted her arms to hug back, her own face mirroring Bewear's expression. Then Bewear hugged Diana so hard that the girl was lifted off the ground.
"Myth busted," Diana said after a moment.
"It wasn't really an experiment, though," Eli pointed out. "Rotom might have given her a warning when he read off the entry."
"Good point." Diana thought it over. "Put me down, Bewear. We have to find a second Bewear and then try to…"
"No!" Eli, Rotom, Kukui, and Molayne all said together. Bewear followed Diana's order, but looked just as disappointed as Diana did at the forbidden science.
"Fine." Diana crossed her arms and pouted slightly. "It's like you guys don't care about science at all."
"We care about you not dying," Kukui told her.
"I care about her not dying," Bewear snapped, "but I also care that my species is suffering from a harmful stereotype!"
"We'll give a mannequin to a wild Bewear later," Rotom promised. "We have a trial right now, remember?"