The kid showed up on a breezy Friday afternoon with an egg tucked irreverently under his arm and a pikachu clinging to his cap, weighing it down so it plastered itself uncomfortably to his head.

Kiawe didn't think much of him, at first, but he was curious enough about the arrival of an outsider to traipse away from the rest of his class and watch, a tad suspiciously, as the kid battered on Principal Oak's door with enough force to threaten to knock it down. That suspicion quickly became confusion; the principal opened the door to him with a familiar grin, fingers curling beneath the pikachu's chin as though greeting an old friend.

"Ah, young Satoshi!" he said, warm and bright, nodding at the egg 'young Satoshi' now held between his palms. "I've been eggs-pecting you."

Kiawe stifled a groan.

"Hi, Professor Oak!" the kid responded, his inflection that of a foreigner—though Kiawe didn't know enough about the world to hazard a guess at which region he hailed from. His pikachu leaned into the principal's touch with a happy chaa, tail quivering. "Professor Oak said you would be." He passed the egg over, and the principal rolled it into the crook of his elbow, cradling it gently. "The egg's fine, by the way. I only dropped it once on the way here!"

Kiawe's eyes bulged out of their sockets; to his dismay, the principal only laughed, patting the smooth shell of the egg. "And it's still in one piece! Sam was right to trust you with it."

"Mm hmm," the kid agreed, and Kiawe spluttered, the sound loud enough to draw their attention. "Oh," the kid said, then, turning full-body to face him. His eyes were sharper than Kiawe'd thought they'd be, but he held himself casually, shoulders slouched and head tipped back to counterbalance the weight of his pikachu.

As though sensing his trainer's growing discomfort, said pikachu slid down the kid's back, over to his front, and into the net of hands waiting to catch him.

"Kiawe!" Principal Oak exclaimed, still smiling beatifically. "Aren't you supposed to be in class?"

Kiawe straightened, spine rigid. "Professor Kukui's not back from—" he gestured vaguely. The kid's gaze tracked his every motion, and it weirded him out, a little bit. "Whatever he said he had to do. But—" he rounded on the kid, then, stalking closer until he could brandish a finger at him, "what do you mean, you only dropped it once?"

The pikachu in the kid's arms bristled, cheeks crackling with lightning. Wisely, Kiawe shuffled back—but not by much.

"Uh," the kid said, blinking rapidly, "I mean I only dropped it once! Eggs are real tough, you know. I've seen 'em survive floods, fires, landslides—"

"Landslides?" Kiawe was aware his voice had pitched dangerously close to a shout, and that his behaviour was unbecoming, but he couldn't bring himself to feel any shame. The kid mumbled something that sounded like that time wasn't my fault, and Kiawe yelled, "That time?"

Principal Oak cleared his throat. Appropriately cowed, Kiawe folded his arms defensively over his chest and retreated until he was no longer breathing right in the kid's face.

"Sorry," he muttered—but not to the kid, who was staring at him oddly, brow all crumpled and mouth set in a hard, narrow line. His pikachu seemed similarly frustrated, as though the both of them shared one mind, one heart, one point of view. "I just—"

"Care about pokémon, I know," the principal soothed. "Your passion is admirable, Kiawe, but you needn't worry. My cousin gave me his assurance that there was no-one better to ensure this egg arrived here safely, and I trust his judgement. And eggs are hardy. It takes more than a simple fall to harm them."

Kiawe didn't, because anyone whose idea of a trustworthy courier was one who considered dropping their delivery a success was clearly out of their mind, but he kept that to himself. The principal's words did, however, work to smother the flames of indignation building within his gut.

Then, the principal went and ruined things by bringing his hands together in a thunderous clap and saying, "I know! Since Professor Kukui hasn't returned yet, why don't you show him—" and here, he placed a hand on the kid's shoulder— "around? This is his first time in Alola, after all." His eyes dropped back down to the kid. "You don't have anywhere to be, do you?"

The kid shook his head, and his expression shifted into something a little more personable at the idea of exploration.

"I," Kiawe started, ready to protest, and then stopped. It was not wise, he knew, to argue with the principal, so he swallowed his rising upset and nodded once, sharply. "Sure, I guess."

"Excellent." Principal Oak's smile widened, just a touch. "I'm sure the two of you will be fast friends in no time."

Kiawe doubted it. He would much rather leave the kid to his own devices and return to his classmates, but the kid was looking at him determinedly, now, something brighter in his face, and Kiawe supposed that if anyone was going to show him Melemele, it ought to be someone who showed the island—the region—the reverence it was owed.

"Let's go," he said, words exhaled in a sigh, and departed the way he'd arrived, the kid hot on his heels with his pikachu still folded against his chest, trapped within the x of his arms.

They meandered down the hall in silence, save for the kid's occasional, inane comments about the walls, or the ceilings, or any pokémon that happened to flutter by one of the windows. That there were people out there who'd never heard of oricorio before, for whom the sight of a pikipek was cause for wonder—

Though, Kiawe supposed, the kid did look a little green. Pikachu weren't the strongest pokémon out there—hell, they weren't even fully evolved—and when his eyes dropped to the kid's belt, Kiawe couldn't see any other poké balls.

A new trainer, then.

"That's a ribombee," he said when one zipped past, drawing the kid's attention so much so that he pressed his face to the glass to get a closer look. "It's a bug and fairy type, and it evolves from cutiefly."

"Fairy type, huh? There are a lot of fairy types in Kalos. My friend—Serena—she has a sylveon, and Bonnie has a dedenne."

The kid's pikachu said, "Pika-pika! Pika-chu," and the kid nodded enthusiastically, lots of uh huhs and yeahs, as though he understood.

"You're from Kalos?" Kiawe blinked. He'd heard a Kalosian accent before, on TV, and it had sounded nothing like the kid's. The kid looked up at him and grinned.

"Nope," he said, "but we travelled there last year! I'm from Pallet Town, in Kanto."

The town didn't ring a bell, but Kiawe knew of the region well enough. He'd never been outside Alola—never travelled further than his charizard's wings could carry him—but Kanto's battle circuit was famous, both for being traditional—as far as gym challenges went—and wildly unpredictable.

"And you came all this way to deliver an egg?"

"And see Alola." The kid jostled his pikachu, looking down at him with a grin. "We want to travel all over and see everything the world has to offer—right, buddy?"

"Pika pika!" the pikachu said.

They lapsed back into silence, though it didn't feel as stilted as before. Kiawe led the kid down the stairs, round a corner, down another long corridor, through three sets of doors, and paused when the kid stopped to look at a long mural dedicated to graduated students' work.

"Hey—" Kiawe halted, realising, abruptly and embarrassingly, that he couldn't recall the kid's name. "... What did you say you were called?"

The kid shifted his pikachu back up onto his shoulder, hands lifting absently to adjust his cap. "My name's Ash," he said, as though it was a tagline he'd said a thousand times before, "and this is my partner, Pikachu!"

Pikachu trilled a greeting, looking like a completely different pokémon when compared to the frowning, unfriendly thing he'd been outside the principal's office. Kiawe half-bowed, reflexively, then paused—and frowned, curiously.

"That's not what the principal called you," he pointed out. The kid—Ash—brought a hand to his chin, cupping it thoughtfully.

"Oh, yeah, he called me Satoshi—" he said it differently to the principal, accent thick and musical— "which is my real name. But Ash is easier to remember." A little sheepishly, he added, "And Satoshi makes me feel like I'm in trouble, or somethin'."

"Ash, then," Kiawe said, decisively. Ash beamed from ear-to-ear and followed him out into the school courtyard, towards the wide-open gates. "C'mon, I know a really cool—"

His words died in his throat at a familiar, frustrated bellow. Out on the street, tail a blazing line, his charizard—fire-fanged and fuming—stood off against a gaggle of jeering teens. The boys' hair was buzzed down beneath their matching caps; silver chains hung low round their necks.

"Hey," Kiawe shouted, then broke out into a sprint, Ash hot on his heels. "Hey!"

"What's going on? Kiawe, what's—"

"Skull Gang," Kiawe snapped, distractedly. "Thugs and thieves—dropouts from the Island Challenge."

"Thugs and thieves," one of the teens—a boy, slightly taller than the rest, with lazy, vicious eyes and terrible posture—echoed, once they were in earshot. Kiawe put himself between them and his charizard, Ash not far behind him, and balled his fists by his hips. "Yeah, that's right." He nodded at the charizard. "That thing's a beast," he said. "Y'know, they don't loan ride 'mons out to us, anymore, not since what happened to them tauros. What d'you say you help me out and—"

"No," Kiawe snarled. His charizard gave a throaty warble, wings spread in defiance. "You'd have to kill me."

The teen cocked his head, considering. Then: "Careful what you wish for," he said, and though the lower half of his face was obscured, the grin in his words was audible. "I want that charizard. 'M gonna get that charizard. So I won't ask you again: make this easy for us both 'n' hand it over."

"He said no," Ash spat, bristling. The Skull gangster's eyes wandered over to him, as though only just taking note of his presence.

Then: "Fine. We'll do it the hard way."

He reached for his belt, as did the others, and a hoard of pokémon were released. Nine, Kiawe counted: a houndour, three golbat, a grimer—"Woah," Ash muttered, despite himself, "I've never seen a grimer like that before,"—three salandit—"And I've never seen that pokémon before, either,"—and a drowzee.

"Ash," Kiawe said, reaching for his own belt and releasing his turtonator, "get behind me."

"Get behind you?" Ash sounded incredulous; Pikachu echoed his trainer's sentiments. Kiawe spared him a glance and saw nothing but conviction in his face. "I want to help! Nine against one isn't fair!"

"I can handle them on my own! Look," Kiawe started, "I know you're not from here, but these guys are strong."

"And I'm not?"

Kiawe didn't have an answer to that. "I don't need your help," he insisted.

The boys stared at one another, unblinking, until a shout of "Flame burst!" drew their attention back to the battle.

"Dodge it!" Kiawe shouted, and his turtonator moved to the left. "Use—"

"Denkō sekka!"

Something moved in Kiawe's peripheral, a blink-and-you'll-miss-it blur, and the drowzee was thrown back into the school wall with enough force to crack the brickwork. Kiawe looked back at Ash, stunned.

"It'll be better if we work together," Ash insisted. "Pikachu, jūman boruto!"

Using his tail as a springboard, Pikachu shot out of the way of a countering sludge bomb from the grimer and blasted the closest golbat with a blinding thunderbolt, bringing it down in one hit. Off to the side, the drowzee had peeled itself—barely standing—from the wall, and a well-placed iron tail finished it off.

Pikachu moved so quickly Kiawe could scarcely follow his movements. He seemed to half-anticipate Ash's commands before they came, like he knew what his trainer was going to say even before Ash had the chance to think about it himself, and filled in the gaps himself.

They fought in perfect sync. It was like they'd been doing it for years already. It didn't make any sense.

Not wanting to be left behind, Kiawe called, "Flamethrower, Turtonator!"—but the long column of fire was blocked by the houndour, who absorbed the heat into its tiny body and seemed to glow with it. Flash fire, he thought, of course. "Try dragon tail instead!"

That hit its mark, knocking the houndour out of the way, but while Turtonator was retreating, one of the remaining golbat hit it with a nasty air cutter, and the grimer nailed it head-on with a sludge bomb. The second golbat's acrobatics was deflected with shell trap, though, and it fluttered away unevenly, badly charred.

"What was that?" Ash's eyes were huge and starry, hands fisted by his face.

"Shell trap," Kiawe muttered. Ash's enthusiasm for the smallest things even in the heat of battle was—jarring, almost, like he didn't fully realise the gravity of the situation. Like this was fun for him, despite the stakes. "Are you okay?" he asked, once Turtonator made it back to his side. His partner shook himself out with a determined grunt, eyes hard as flint.

He surveyed the situation. Pikachu was right in the thick of it, deflecting dragon claws with iron tail and narrowly avoiding sludge bombs and air cutters, but Kiawe could tell that the electric type was becoming overwhelmed. "Ash," he said, "can you and Pikachu take out that houndour?"

Loathe as he was to admit it, even nine against two was a skewed fight. He could end it, but that houndour needed fainting. Its resistance to fire was lethal in a battle like this.

Ash cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted a command to Pikachu, who quickly fired off an electro ball in response.

The houndour dodged the first, skittering in close for a fire fang, but a second electro ball nailed it right in the face, and a subsequent thunderbolt finished it off. "Good job!"

Around them, the wind shifted. Reflexively, Kiawe glanced up at the trees—and was met with nothing but leaves and the strange, oppressive feeling of being watched.

Pikachu landed at Ash's feet, cheeks sparking. "Den—"

"Ash, wait." Kiawe stepped past Ash, thumbing his Z-ring. "Leave the rest to me." Ash opened his mouth in wordless protest—then closed it when Kiawe began to move.

He crossed his arms over his chest, spread them wide, then crossed them at the wrist, out in front of him. Heat blazed through him, hotter than the sun, than Wela Volcano's simmering cauldron, and his arms went up, over his head—then his left arm bent, hand at the elbow of his extended right arm. He felt, bodily, his energy swell—then shift, pushing outwards, towards Turtonator, into Turtonator, and knew, by his partner's rasping growls, that he could feel it too.

The world fell away, until there was nothing but him, his pokémon, and the cowering opponents. He inhaled, drawing on the power of the earth beneath him—

And then he let it go.

Everything was red and orange and blisteringly hot, and then it was black with thick, rolling smoke, but that cleared, after a minute, leaving scorched earth and pokémon alike. The thugs took one look at their collapsed pokémon and panicked, recalling them all and fleeing with jeering threats of revenge and accusations of unfairness. Kiawe watched their retreating backs as he fought to regain his breath, skin sticky with sweat.

"What," Ash said, once the gang had vanished, "was that?"

And Kiawe couldn't help but explain the history as he knew it: the legends of the deities fighting great and powerful demons; the way their power, far-flung across Alola, had caused rocks to mutate into Z-crystals; the heroes that had lent their life forces to the guardians to use special Z-moves to conquer evil; and now, how the Island Challenge honoured that.

"Foreigners don't get it. That's why it's an Alolan thing, and outsiders don't usually get to use them." Kiawe said—then faltered, remembering that Ash was an outsider. It was strange, he thought, how one battle by the other boy's side had caused such a shift in his opinion of him, from annoyance, to tolerance, to quiet admiration. "I mean—"

Back at school, the bell rang. Kiawe looked over his shoulder at it and realised that they'd spent so much time battling, and then he'd spent so much time explaining Alolan folklore, that he'd run out of time to show Ash around.

"You've gotta go, right?" Ash surmised, scratching just beneath Pikachu's chin. Kiawe hummed, and then they were both quiet, standing a few feet apart under the Alolan sun.

"Hey," Kiawe said after a few seconds of silence, voice stilted and awkward. Ash shoved his hands in his pockets and stared at him earnestly. "You'll still be here tomorrow, right?"

"Uh huh." Ash nodded.

"You know where Iki Town is?" Another nod. "There's a festival there tomorrow, if you want to come. It's to honour our guardian deity—It's the god of conflict, so we battle one another to show our respect for It."

As expected, Ash's eyes lit up at the mere mention of battle. "If you want," Kiawe continued, "we can have a match. You'll see more Z-moves, too. It starts at midday, so—"

"Alright!" Ash punched the air; his pikachu mimicked him, perfectly synced. Their enthusiasm was infectious, Kiawe thought, when he realised he was smiling at them both. "We'll see you tomorrow, then!"

He held out his hand. Kiawe stared at it for several long moments, before relenting and grasping it in his own.

"Yeah," he said. "See you tomorrow!"


Alola was a really awesome place, Ash thought. Everything felt slower here, than it did in Kanto, or Kalos, or anywhere else he'd been before, and the people all felt closer together, like everyone on Melemele was one big family.

By the time he made it to Iki Town, the sun was past its zenith, and the festival was in full swing. Huge torches lined the dirt paths, and market stalls were packed together just outside of them, selling food and trinkets and all kinds of things that Ash had never even seen before. There was even an entire stall dedicated to little wooden totems of various pokémon—Pikachu was fascinated by one that sort of looked like a pikachu but wasn't a pikachu (the lady who ran the stall said it was a mimikyu, and that it wasn't even an electric type), so Ash spent some of his pocket money some it and wore it around his neck on a little string.

Adjacent to that stall was a malasada hut. Ash spent even more of his pocket money there, and came away with a bag of eight for him and Pikachu to share.

He met up with Kiawe by the battlefield in the middle of town, where two trainers were locked in fierce battle: on the one side was a girl in overalls with bright green hair—Mallow, Kiawe said, who was one of his classmates—commanding a small, round, pink pokémon; on the other was a tan-skinned kid commanding a pokémon that sort of looked like a hoothoot, only cuter.

The kid's pokémon tucked in its wings and nailed the girl's pokémon head-on with a nasty-looking peck; it bounced across the pitch aimlessly, and when it rolled to a halt, it was unmoving.

"Mallow's bounsweet is unable to battle," said an old man up in a makeshift referee chair. "Hau and their rowlet are the winners!"

The gathered crowd shouted something in Alolan, then burst into congratulatory cheers.

"That's Hau—they're that guy's grandkid," Kiawe explained, nodding up at the man in the referee chair. "And that's Hala, Melemele's Kahuna. He's the strongest trainer on the whole island—he was chosen by the guardian Itself."

"Woah," Ash said, balling his hands up into fists. Kahuna Hala was a broad, powerful-looking man, wide and imposing despite his age—he looked kind of like Wulfric, only warmer, and he stirred that same urge to fight in Ash, even from a distance.

He wondered if the kahuna would accept a battle request. Maybe not now, because he seemed pretty busy, but later, if Ash transferred some of his pokémon over from Kanto...

"Next to battle are Kiawe, of Akala Island, and…" Kahuna Hala paused, brow creasing as he peered at the page. His voice came out stilted when he resumed speaking. "Ash, from Pallet Town, in Kanto."

Ash looked at Kiawe. Kiawe looked at the ground.

"Oh, yeah, I signed us up already," he admitted, a little too late. "Honestly, I thought you wouldn't be here in time."

But Ash was never late to a battle if he could help it, not even one he didn't know about. He beamed, and Kiawe offered him a tentative half-smile back.

The boys took their respective places on either side of the battlefield, while Kahuna Hala began to run through the basic rules: both trainers had the use of one pokémon, and the battle wasn't over until one side's pokémon had fainted. Z-moves were permitted, providing the trainer could use them—and here, Kahuna Hala looked pointedly at Ash's bare wrist, who rubbed it absentmindedly, then looked over at Kiawe's, and at the glittering Z-crystal embedded in the ring's face.

Kahuna Hala called for them to release their respective pokémon, and Turtonator appeared in a flash of red light. Ash looked down at Pikachu.

"You ready, buddy?"

"Pika pi-ka!" Pikachu said, which Ash took as an emphatic yes.

Kahuna Hala looked between them both for a moment, lifted one brow at Pikachu, then leaned back in his seat. Ash swallowed the familiar urge to defend his partner's right to battle at his side and turned his attention to Kiawe.

"Begin!"

"Flamethrower!"

"Thunderbolt!"

Fire and lightning clashed in the middle of the battlefield, throwing up dust and dirt.

"Don't let up! Use electro ball!" Ash yelled, and Pikachu fired off an attack that blew the debris away and hit Turtonator head-on. Admirably, Turtonator shook it off. "Keep back and use thunderbolt again!"

"Smog!"

Turtonator spewed a thick, purple cloud of vile-smelling gas, and it was like Lake Acuity all over again. Ash grinned.

"Counter shield, Pikachu!" But Pikachu was already throwing himself to the ground, whipping up a whirling storm of electricity that dispersed the smog and struck Turtonator hard. Kiawe said something in Alolan that Ash didn't understand, but it sounded disbelieving.

"Flamethrower, again!"

"Dodge to the left and start running!"

The flames caught Pikachu's flank, and though he squealed in pain, he rushed in towards Turtonator regardless. And it wasn't anything special, but Ash still felt this bright-happy swell at the way Pikachu trusted him unflinchingly, even when he was hurt.

"Now use iron tail!"

Ash watched Kiawe's expression change: first focus, then incredulity, then arrogance—

"Shell trap!"

—and Turtonator turned his back, jagged armour glowing white-hot, just like Ash expected. Pikachu lunged one, two, three strides, tail hard as steel—then flipped, twisting at the hips, and drove his lower body down into the soil at Turtonator's feet, exactly as they'd planned.

The ground erupted, dust and jagged junks nailing Turtonator's shell. Pikachu sprang upwards, momentum carrying him out of the way of the triggered explosion—"Again, Pikachu!"—and nailed Turtonator in the throat.

"Quick attack, while it can't see you! Don't let up!"

"Pika!"

Kiawe bared his teeth in perplexed frustration. "Get out of the way, Turtonator! Use flamethrower to cover your retreat!"

A plume of fire scorched what was left of the dust cloud, but Pikachu moved far too quickly for Turtonator to escape easily: again and again, he shoved Turtonator back, until—

"Dragon tail!"

"Iron tail!"

—once more, the two clashed, matching each other blow after blow. Ash could feel the ache in his muscles, tension building to a fever pitch inside him, like all the world's power was held in his chest. Turtonator shifted his weight; Pikachu followed too quickly and was punished for it, knocked across the pitch back towards its trainer.

"Get up, Pikachu!" Ash snapped. There was no room for kindness, not here. "You can keep going, right?"

Pikachu rolled to his feet with a sharp, defiant cry.

"Alright, use—"

Kiawe's open palm met the ruby Z-crystal on his wrist. Ash's command died in his throat.

"Change of plan," he said. "Stay where you are."

It was different, watching it from the other side of a battlefield, rather than from side-by-side with Kiawe. There was something dangerous about it from this end, something terrifying, a heaviness that felt entirely too big for any one trainer and their partner, like it was going to eat them all alive.

"Pikachu," Ash said. Pikachu's ears twitched backwards, though his eyes remained locked on Kiawe's turtonator, and on the swirling Z-move growing ahead of him. "It's just like we practiced. Don't lose your nerve."

Pikachu mumbled something that sounded a little exasperated, like he was saying, when have I ever lost my nerve?

Inferno overdrive drew closer. Ash counted them down: five, four, three, two, one—

"Now!"

Pikachu rushed into the path of the flames, heedless of the searing heat. Iron tail smashed downwards; quick attack shot Pikachu upwards; and he launched itself out of the way.

The battlefield erupted, all black smoke and blistering fire. Pikachu tucked his tail into its body, pulled his head into his chest, and spun over and over, letting loose a blinding thunderbolt in a mid-air countershield. When he touched down on charred earth, he was panting, but mostly unharmed, the brunt of the Z-move dodged and diffused.

"You did it, Pikachu!"

Pikachu tossed his head over his shoulder and gave a happy chaa.

In the aftermath, the battle's relentless pace slowed just enough for Alola to come rushing back in, and Ash re-realised that they had an audience—and that they had gone deadly silent. He turned, bewildered, and saw a sea of blank, open faces looking back at him. He touched his hand to his cap uncertainly, and was met with hushed murmuring in a language he didn't understand and the strange feeling he'd somehow messed up.

"You…" Across the pitch, Kiawe pushed his hands through his hair, voice bizarrely numb. His turtonator, exhausted, dropped to one knee, shaky but still conscious. "Ash, you—"

"Did I do something wrong?" Ash blurted. He'd never battled anyone from Alola before, never faced a Z-move or attended an Alolan festival, and the way everyone was looking at him made him feel as though dodging wasn't what you were supposed to do when staring down such a ferocious attack.

But Pikachu was fast, not a tank, and Ash knew just how overwhelming Kiawe's turtonator could be, from the way he had beaten all those Skull Gang pokémon like they were nothing. Enduring a Z-move didn't seem like the smartest tactic.

"No, it's just—how did Pikachu know to do that? How did you—you didn't even tell him to do anything!"

"Oh," Ash said, "we came up with it last night, after you said you'd battle me. I knew you'd wanna use that awesome Z-move again, and I knew we'd not stand a chance if we didn't have some way to counter it!"

"But how did you know it'd work?"

Ash rubbed the back of his neck sheepishly. "I didn't! But I believed in Pikachu, and when you believe in your pokémon, you can do super crazy things that don't even seem possible at first!"

Kiawe gaped at him; it was a look Ash had seen before, on rivals and gym leaders and expert battlers of all kinds. Up in the makeshift referee's chair, Kahuna Hala cleared his throat.

"Your pokémon are both still standing," he pointed out, tone level in the way adults' voices went when they were trying to seem like they weren't caught off-guard, "and neither of you have forfeited."

… But Turtonator looked like he was struggling. Z-moves were strong, sure, but great power took great tolls. If Pikachu could land one more solid hit…

"Quick attack!"

"Shell trap!"

Turtonator lowered his head, bracing itself, and turned his back. Pikachu rushed towards his glowing armour at a breakneck pace, closing the distance between them with long strides—

And slammed, face-first, into something else entirely, a yellow blur flung out into the middle of its path. Dazed, Pikachu stumbled, barely maintaining its balance, and when he recovered, h efound itself staring up at a—a creature.

Ash didn't recognise it, but he felt like he was supposed to, because the little audience surrounding the battlefield went very, very loud—then silent, suddenly. He looked around and saw that their heads were bowed, like they were praying, and Ash got the feeling that this pokémon was someone important.

But if he was supposed to kneel, too, the pokémon didn't give him the chance to. Energy flared across the battlefield, turning the world yellow; every hair on Ash's body stood straight up, and fingers twitched relentlessly. A moment later, lightning erupted from the pokémon's core.

"Dodge it!" he shouted. Pikachu dived out of the way of the discharge; Turtonator wasn't so lucky, toppling with a low, agonised groan. Distantly, Ash heard Kiawe call out—and then everything narrowed down to Pikachu and that strange, powerful pokémon.

And sure, Ash didn't know what species it was, nor did he understand just why everyone seemed so cowed by its presence, but he knew a challenge when he saw one. It didn't take an expert to recognise when a pokémon wanted to fight.

Battling was his favourite language.

"Electro ball!" Pikachu flung the attack wide, arcing towards the pokémon's vulnerable middle, but it cleaved through it with a steel wing and countered with a dazzling gleam that sent Pikachu flying. It rushed in close, readying another steel wing, and—"In, Pikachu! Roll and use iron tail!"—Pikachu twisted narrowly out of the way, connecting with the back of the pokémon's skull with a painful-sounding crack.

"Keep pushing! Thunderbolt!" Ash shouted, but it was too late—even after taking an iron tail, the pokémon had the awareness and speed to snap its wings shut around its body, creating a kind of protective armour that the thunderbolt glanced harmlessly off. Another dazzling gleam threw Pikachu down with such force that he dented the ground at Ash's feet, but it struggled resolutely to stand. "That's it, Pikachu! Use—"

Ash cut himself off. The pokémon was right in front of him.

It leaned forwards until the base of its feathered crest brushed the brim of Ash's cap—then shifted, rummaging, only to press something against Ash's stomach. Reflexively, he brought his hands up, cupping them around the object, and when he looked down, he saw a Z-ring, just like Kiawe's, embedded with yellow.

"For—is this for me?" He asked, because Kiawe had been telling him, only earlier, that Z-rings and Z-moves were an Alolan thing, and that the natives were stingy with their acceptance of foreign use of them. It had felt, at the time, like a subtle warning not to get his hopes up about getting his hands on that sort of power, and Ash had been disappointed, because they were so cool.

But pokémon were weird things, and Ash had learned, regions ago, that his journey wasn't an ordinary one. He slipped the Z-ring onto his left wrist, testing the weight of it.

"You want me to use a Z-move? Right now?"

It tapped the Z-crystal in response, igniting it. Ash grinned.

"I don't know what to do, but we'll give it a shot—right, Pikachu?" he said. Pikachu looked a little worse for wear, all scraped up and shivery with adrenaline, but his eyes were full of determination.

Across from them, the pokémon trilled, feathers puffing up, and Ash didn't need to speak its language to know that it said I'll show you.

And it did. It backed itself up, all the way over to where Kiawe had been standing but wasn't anymore (and Ash hadn't seen him and Turtonator evacuate, but it didn't really matter, now) and began to guide Ash and Pikachu through the steps.

Ash crossed his arms in front of his face and the Z-crystal blazed with light, emitting a faint buzz that diffused down his arm all the way up to his shoulder. He pushed his arms out, then crossed them at the wrists, extended parallel to the ground, and the soles of his feet began to burn, lungs constricting almost painfully in his chest, as though something was growing there and trying to make room for itself. His left arm swung across his body to the right, then his whole weight shifted left, and then he did this… pose, with his arms, that was tricky to orient but felt right, somehow, like his arms were naturally meant to be held like that.

His heart felt like it was going to explode. He'd felt… intense, before, with Gekkouga, like there were two souls smashed together into one space, like he was melting from the inside out and the only way to curb it was to go faster, harder, stronger, but this was—this was like a coil all wound up inside him, and there was only one way to escape the pressure.

He had to release it.


Hala had presumed—in all his years serving as Melemele Kahuna—that he'd come to know Tapu Koko's motives and behaviours better than anyone. His understanding was far from perfect—nobody could ever truly hope to fathom a god—but Tapu Koko was more transparent than Alola's more deceptive deities. Much like war, It was brute-headed, capricious, and unyielding.

Tapu Koko was drawn to strength, and Hala had trained for decades to earn Its attention in full, even for but a fraction of a second.

And that boy… that foreigner…

The boy was completely irreverent—out of ignorance, surely—and Tapu Koko had presented Itself to him, bestowed a gift upon him, battled him, tutored him in the use of a Z-move—

Hala couldn't make heads nor tails of it. But there was something special about that boy—of that, he was certain. Anybody who drew the attention of a tapu was worth watching.

And Hala would watch him.


"Ma'am, your package has arrived."

"Have them contacted and the money transferred."

"Of course, ma'am."

The man bowed, pivoted, and left, shoes echoing on the marble floor; behind his retreating form, the door slid shut automatically with a click, leaving the room silent and almost-empty. The researcher's hand settled on the head of the salazzle at her side, fingers encircling the space between her eyes. The lizard pressed into the touch with a rumble of contentment, chest thrumming with a pleased snarl.

The researcher reached for the phone on her desk. She dialled a number and held it to her ear; it rang once, twice, three times, and then ticked as the receiver picked up.

"Hello?" the voice over the speaker called, scratchy and faraway.

"Alert the staff in Sector Eighteen; the President has a new job for them. The details will be sent to you shortly." The researcher paused, mulling over her words carefully. "Let them know that failure will not be tolerated, and will result in termination."

"... Yes, ma'am. Right away, ma'am."

The researcher set the phone down. closed her hand over the computer mouse and clicked on a folder, opening a range of files. Expression inscrutable, she selected one of the videos and leaned back into her chair, fingers returning to her salazzle's brow.

The footage rolled: a twisted, unnatural parody of a god, held at many metres' distance by thick, unyielding metal poles operated by eight struggling men. It yowled and hissed, voice metallic and low, lean muscle rippling beneath an oil-spill black coat, and then tore itself free of its bonds, sinking its claws deep into the chest of the nearest man and snapping its beaked jaws around the shoulder of another, tearing sinewy muscle and flesh. Several more men entered the compound, armed with rifles, and opened fire: four more of them were ripped to pieces before the creature finally succumbed to its injuries.

It was… unstable, she thought, but all prototypes were, and the blueprints were promising.

And she'd gone to so much trouble to get them. One way or another, she'd refine them, and perfect them.

The President's—the region's—fate depended on her. She had no choice.


A/N:

Pikachu | Male, electric type.
Hardy nature. This pokémon is well-rounded.
Ability: Static. Contact with this pokémon may result in paralysis.
Moves: Thunderbolt, quick attack, iron tail, electro ball.

oOo

Turtonator | Male, fire/dragon type.
Relaxed nature. Physical defence is boosted; speed is decreased.
Ability: Shell armour. This pokémon is immune to critical hits.
Moves: Flamethrower, dragon tail, smog, shell trap.

Charizard | Male, fire/flying type.
Mild nature. Special attack is boosted; physical defence is decreased.
Ability: Blaze. When weak, this pokémon's fire-type attacks become massively powerful.
Moves: Flamethrower, air slash, dragon breath, slash.