The sound of breaking branches and crushed bushes retreated into the depths of the darkness. The blade pokemon, Kladenets, returned to its master, wrapping its silken banner around his arm as he gripped its hilt. Mallow skipped eagerly toward him. For the briefest instant, the young man thought himself on some long gone battlefield, being charged by an armoured warrior. But he fought the desire to raise the blade toward her.

"Well done! That was one of the fastest fights I've ever seen with Totem Lurantis! You're really-" Mallow was bouncing as she trotted, far more excitable than when he'd arrived at her campsite. The tall, tanned man grabbed her shoulder, pulling her back suddenly and almost off her feet just before Kaili started shouting. It was almost as if the man thought she was about to be attacked.

"Congrats" Kaili mocked back at her. "Only three deaths, but at least you got the speed-run record." There was more venom in his tone than he intended. He could feel his fingers tightening around the hilt of the Honedge as he spoke, but ignored it. Mallows eyes swept from Divey to Bird before settling with a nervous, confused expression on Kaili's face. "And here I thought you'd be like gym leaders and actually care about the shit that happens in your-"

Kiawe tapped Mallow's shoulder, pointing her to the pieces of Kecleon under a shrub nearby.

"You're right" she hung her head, stepping forward only for the young man to step back away from her. "I'm sorry for your loss Kaili. You did well and they fought well for you. You should be proud."

"And there's the mock concern. Only showing up when someone calls you on it. At least the big guy knew enough to remain sombre when it happened at his trial."

The green haired lass nodded silently before turning her back on him. Strangely, the desire to swipe at her ebbed the moment she turned away. Not that it was gone, but more that it held itself back. She stopped by the large pot, reaching into a bag beside the fire and drawing out a small green gemstone. It was about the size of the other ones he'd collected and was a dark green only discernible from black by the crackling light of the fire.

His fingers tightened around the sword hilt as she approached, he could feel the muscles of his forearm almost begging to move under the silk banner. But he wouldn't let them. His other hand extended, holding his hand out flat for her to drop the stone into. She attempted to touch his fingers as she placed it into his palm, but the young man almost recoiled, prompting her to just drop it in.

"I umm. I won't do the Z dance." She mumbled, looking down at the ground as she turned to start packing up the pot and campfire. "Kiawe told me that you're just not interested in using the Z moves." The tall man nodded once at Kaili as Mallow spoke, as if verifying her.

After dropping the Grass Z crystal with his others, Kaili moved over to pick up Bird and carry him to Divey. Only realising when he reached both of them that Kladenets was still out of his pokeball, Kaili lowered Bird onto the rock and returned the sword to his storage.

Gently he scooped up Divey first before trying to gather the bird as well. But no matter how he tried positioning them, one or the other kept falling from his arms, and for the brief moments he could support both. It was too heavy for him to hold properly.

He wasn't going to let himself cry, but he was about to scream in frustration. At the edge, just when the young man couldn't take it any longer, a hand moved in to gently support the Trumbeak and slide it out of his arms. Kaili looked over as Kiawe cradled the bird's body silently, nodding once.

Without saying anything to him, Kaili turned and left the jungle through the strange hollowed-log walkway. The night outside the 'jungle' felt far hotter than he remembered. The cool sea air didn't seem to help.

"Rotom. Please call Deathmachine." The little pokemon in his pocket didn't talk back, only chimed once and then again a few seconds later. "Thank you." He mumbled, lowering himself onto a chair-height rock as he continued to cradle the unmoving Luvdisc. Kiawe continued to simply stand nearby, the Trumbeak cradled in his arms. "I don't know how I'm going to take both of them." The young man mumbled again, still staring at the dirt.

There was a strange reddish-white flash of light before the area was relit by the crackling light of a fire. Looking up, Kaili found himself almost face to face with a Charizard. The grand lizard raised its head away from his own, rearing itself to full height beside the trial captain. There was a strange saddle harness strapped to its back that he could only see when its tail moved at the right angle to light it against the dark background.

There was a sudden almost mechanical screech followed by a heavy thump as the bronze feathered Skarmory landed between the young man and the Charizard.

"It's okay" Kaili finally spoke up again, stepping forward and setting one foot on the base of Deathmachine's tail feathers. "He's coming with us, I'm fine." The bird caw'd once before lowering itself enough for the young man to climb aboard. With Divey pinned between two layers of scales, with only a singlet to cushion it against one, Kaili looked over. The Charizard dropped to all fours to allow Kiawe to climb aboard. He'd expected the other man to simply hand the bird to the dragon to carry. But he continued to cradle it in one arm as he gripped the dragon's reigns with the other.

The flight to the archipelago was incredibly fast. The Charizard, while it didn't know where they were heading, kept pace with Deathmachine quite easily. Kiawe landed on the beach of the largest island, while Kaili and Deathmachine landed further up onto the grass.

As Kaili dismounted, a loud snore nearby was all he needed to know to tell where Mohn was hiding. He placed Divey on the sand before glancing around for a shovel, only to see Kiawe lay Bird beside the luvdisc.

A shuffling form caught his attention from the corner of his vision. The little pokemon cosplaying pikachu waddling across the sand toward the group. Kaili dropped to his knees, unable to stop himself wrapping his arms around the little pokemon to hold it close to him. Through closed eyes he saw a brief flash of light.

He could feel more than hear, the stomping from behind him. After a few seconds there was a sudden rumbling sound and some force through the ground that almost knocked the young man off balance. Finally breaking the hold, Kaili touched a pokeball on his belt and the little yellow pokemon disappeared in a flash of red light.

When he stood and turned around, the young man's eyes immediately fell on a pair of almost perfectly dug graves nearby. Deathmachine was laying on another island nearby, curled up best it could and clearly already asleep. Kiawe stood beside the graves, framed between the Charizard and a black-skinned Alolan Marowak.

With a single nod and a quiet thank you, Kaili picked up Bird and gently lowered him into one of the graves, before doing the same for Divey. It felt strange burying a fish on land. But it also felt like it would be rude to treat it differently than the others.

As the young man climbed and out stood staring down, Kiawe finally spoke. "Do you want to say anything for them?"

"No more. I'm not letting this happen to any of the others. The best I can do is try to make sure they're the only ones I need to do this for."

Kiawe nodded, looking down at the marowak when the young man finished. The little pokemon did a strange little dance, stomping about on the ground before the dirt surrounding the pits slid in and packed itself back nicely.

"You head back first." Kiawe said, tapping his black and gold pokeball and making the marowak vanish in a flash of red light. "Let your Skarmory sleep, Charizard will come back for me. Head for the ruins of life back near the city. That's where the Grand Trials are held."

"Thank you." Kaili mumbled, climbing aboard the Charizard and letting it sweep him away into the night.

The Charizard almost crashed to landing on the street of Heahea City. It didn't hurt, or damage the ground, but it was a far heavier landing than he was use to at this point. The moment he'd managed to peel himself off the creature's back and onto the solid ground, it had launched itself upward again and was off toward the sea.

The young man stretched his legs sideways, trying to unfasten his pants from some poorly positioned scales without causing himself any serious damage. After a few minutes he was finally ready to actually attend to his situation. First step was to find exactly where these ruins of life were. Walking with more speed than he'd intended to, the young man accidentally rushed to the window of the tourist centre.

Just through the window was a map of the island. Through a cave to his right, 'Diglett's Cave', was a stretch of land he'd seen from the air several times at this point. One end was labelled 'Konikoni city', the other 'Memorial Hill' and 'Ruins of Life'.

Nodding to himself, Kaili headed across and slightly up the road to the bridge to 'Diglett's Cave'. The bridge was lined up perfectly with the entrance, allowing the young man to see how dark it truly was inside far before he actually grew near. A sign hung outside the cave;

|| DIGLETT'S CAVE ||

|| Through to Konikoni ||

The cave was far roomier than he'd expected from the name. Inside seemed more reminiscent of the remains of an industrial mine than a cave. There were mounds of loose dirt beside pits of unfathomable depth. But also wheelbarrows and shovels scattered about the area. A giant pile of loose earth rose in the centre of this main chamber, making it impossible to properly see the other side.

Pulling the phone from his pocket, Kaili held it just in front of him. "Torch please." There wasn't even a beep response as the flashlight turned on. The memory of mocking Kukui with the idea of 'superior technology' flitted through his mind as he proceeded inward.

He could hear movement above him as he walked through the dark mine. A shuffling and occasional fluttering. A suspicion crossed his mind, that things would go poorly for him if he pointed the flashlight any higher than he was.

From the edges of his light he could see small creatures moving amid the dirt and apparently tilling the solid stone. Strange molelike creatures. He'd seen pictures of Diglett before, but these appeared to have some kind of strange disease, something stringy and pus yellow was growing from their heads. He couldn't help but feel just a little sorry for them.

And then he saw something that really did capture his attention. It was about the height of his waist and seemingly covered in a green stone armour. Though much of that height was a single spike-like fin rising from the top of its head. It had its back to him, apparently oblivious to the young man's very loud approach.

Kaili had never actually seen one of these, but he knew what it was all the same. Trying his best to remain as quiet as possible, he lowered his bag to the ground and unzipped it. To check it hadn't run away, he lifted the light to the larvitar again. But it hadn't seemed to move at all. As he pulled a pokeball from the bag, he quickly moved the phone from side to side, letting it light up the pokemon from multiple angles.

Not only did the larvitar not move, but there was a strangely placed flat rock near in front of it. The rock seemed to curve underneath as if it was sitting on the ground, but still had something akin to a shadow beneath it even when that shadow should be lit directly.

Turning the pokeball in his hand so as to make it easy to jab something, Kaili crouched as best as he could and slowly crabwalked toward the Larvitar. His hand holding the phone far above his head but still pointing at the pokemon. As he passed the rock, he kept his attention focused on it.

Almost on cue, the rock flicked aside and something leapt out at his ankle. He didn't even have a chance to see what it was before the pokeball made contact and it vanished in red light. The ball buzzed in his hand, he could feel it fighting to get out.

"You lost, deal with it." The young man turned it in his hand so to block the beam from letting the pokemon out. After several minutes, everything suddenly changed. He was standing in the Lush Jungle, hand in the grass. He was beside a yellow camper van in the middle of nowhere, taking the pokeball from a stranger in a weird vest. He was on his knees, left hand around someone's throat while bashing their face in with the pokeball. For a second, he forced himself to focus on this scene, forcing the others from his mind as his eyes seemed to drift upward. Beside him was a strange man in a business suit, grinning down at him as Kaili's fist drove forward like reality was running in slow motion.

Suddenly he was back crouched in the cave, his fist thrusting forward with the force of this imaginary punch and knocking him to the ground with an ungodly clattering.

Groaning in slight pain, Kaili lifted the pokeball to see the little keypad requesting a nickname.

'Sneak'

The ball chimed once the phrase was entered and the keypad folded away. Not even sure what he'd just caught, Kaili hooked the pokeball onto his belt with the others before pushing himself, painfully, to his feet.

"-block people?" a distant echo reached his ears. The sounds to follow a strange mass of muffled noises. Picking up his phone, Kaili brushed his pants a little before continuing along the winding path through the cave toward the sounds.

The closer he drew, the clearer it was that he was about to stumble on some argument. The first voice to become clear enough to make out, was also the first person he saw. A youth a little younger than himself standing in the light of the far entrance to the cave. He wore yellow pants and sported an orange bag, but Kaili had never heard Hau so riled up.

The boy smiled when he saw Kaili, puffing his chest out and looking back at a pair of other people Kaili could only now make out. Two youths in black and white clothes, white skull caps and bandanna's over their faces. There was a strange righteousness in Hau's posture, that mixed with everything else tonight… did not sit well with the young man.

"Kaili, finally, these punks are layin around ready to rob defenseless old ladies that come through. They're just waiting to mug someone." Hau stepped back closer to Kaili. There was a strange sensation of his hackles rising, though there was no hair on the back of Kaili's neck anymore.

"What are you talking about" He growled, Looking from the excited youth to the two skull teens loitering near the cave entrance. "Actually I don't care." The young man found himself turning to face Hau more fully, stretching his back as he did. "What are you doing in their face? Anyone who comes through a cave should be able to handle themselves. Right? Or are you about to tell me that a 'defenseless old lady' would be more than willing to walk under a swarm of Zubats? Or past pokemon that spring from little holes in the ground?"

He let his self control fall away, all the anger from the whole night suddenly unleashed as he advanced on Hau. The younger boy stepped back, recoiling a little as Kaili's fist clenched.

"You just assumed didn't you? That kids wearing black to stay warm in the night were out here to pick fights? Didn't think they might just like hangin round here? How 'bout that they wanna warn people it's dangerous inside?" Several images flashing through the young man's mind, almost as if they were reflected in Hau's eyes as he started to recoil from him even more.

"Yo chill bro" A voice came from behind him.

"Yeah leave 'em be, K. Punk's just an idiot yo."

Kaili looked over his shoulder, only now realising there was a hand on his upper arm. It looked like the boy was trying to pull him back, but Kaili couldn't feel any resistance. He looked from Liam to Hau and back.

The young man's hand relaxed, his arm swinging back to his side as he stepped away from Hau.

"Sorry." He looked at Hau, forcing himself to pull it together as the skull teens stepped back, visibly calmer themselves. "Sorry man, had that building for… for a while I guess, didn't mean to take it out at you."