"I think Iwanko wants your lil partnership to be a bit more permanent, cousin," Kukui said, watching Ash and Iwanko play-wrestle in the middle of his makeshift living room.

"You think?" Ash lifted his head (and Iwanko with it) to look over at Kukui, expression open and wondering. "'S that true, Iwanko?"

The rockruff slid into Ash's lap and set his paws on his chest with a high, happy bark. It was as close to a yes as Kukui had ever heard from a pokémon.

"We're gonna work together to be the strongest," Ash promised, like Iwanko wouldn't follow him to the ends of the earth regardless. "Me, you, 'n' Pikachu—we're gonna beat the Island Challenge for sure!"

When Professor Kukui had contacted them concerning a foreign student wishing to partake in the Island Challenge, Ilima had expected a greenhorn—someone over-eager, maybe a little clumsy like Hau had been, excited and clueless but desperate to do well.

Ash was… half of those things. But he was also—well—Ash, and—

"... Trial Captain Ilima? Are you alright?" Ash asked, and Ilima realised, abruptly, that they were staring.

"Ah! I apologise, truly, it's just—" Ilima paused, breathy and a little pink in the face— "you're Ash Ketchum." Bewildered, Ash nodded, and Ilima scrambled to elaborate. "I was… I was in Kalos, last year, when—"

A shadow flitted across Ash's face. "Yeah," he said, fingers forming a fist in the fabric of his t-shirt, over the right side of his ribs.

"I was in Ambrette Town at the time," they continued. "Évoli and I, we watched you, and the gym leaders, and… you risked your life for Kalos. For the world. If Team Flare had—"

"Nah, it was nothin'," Ash insisted, but his hands were restless and clammy. "It's what anyone would've done, right? Lysandre was—he was a bad person, and good people will always stop the bad people. Even if I'm…" he trailed off; his pikachu pushed his face against his cheek and cooed quietly, expression forlorn and worried.

Ilima didn't know if Ash was being deliberately humble, or if he didn't realise that running headlong into the apocalypse was not something ordinary children—ordinary people—tended to do, but he seemed… uncomfortable, like the attention was something he was unused to, or—

"I just wanted to thank you," they said, "for everything."

"Well, I, uh—" Ash opened his mouth, brow creased—then stopped when Pikachu pulled on his hair. "You're welcome," he settled on, after a few moments of deliberation. "I just can't stand it when people think they can choose how everyone should live, or—or who should live, at all."

That last part was added a little darkly, like it was a recurring issue, but Ilima knew better than to press for elaboration. "I watched you in the league, too," they said, hoping to steer the conversation towards something a little less grave. "Your pikachu is—he's something else, truly. To take on pokémon as powerful as tyranitar and metagross and emerge victorious..."

They sent out their eevee in a flash of light; the normal-type stretched herself out with a luxurious squeal, took note of her surroundings, and scrambled up into her trainer's arms. "While evolution is an excellent way to increase a pokémon's strength, it isn't the only one. Évoli and I are hoping to one day challenge the Eevee Eight and earn the right to battle for an eevium Z, and prove that eevee are just as capable as their evolutions."

"Evoi!"

Ash's eyes sparkled. "Woah," he breathed. "That's just like me 'n' Pikachu! He wants to prove that you don't need to evolve to be super strong, and I love my buddy just the way he is, so it works out perfect!"

"Oh, you too?" Ilima wasn't sure why that surprised them—using a pikachu in a league when thunder stones were relatively easy to obtain was unorthodox.

"Uh huh! I really wanna see how your eevee fights, too, so—if you don't mind—will you please battle me?"

Ilima cleared their throat, oddly bashful, but Ash's enthusiasm was infectious. "I…"

"Oh." Ash interrupted, before Ilima could accept his offer. His shoulders slumped. "Wait, I'm here for—" he gestured at Verdant Cavern. "The trial."

"Oh," Ilima echoed, and was quiet, for a moment. Then: "Well, I am Trial Captain Ilima. Surely defeating a trainer such as myself would be a sufficient test of your battling abilities."

A slow smile spread across Ash's face. "Yeah! Hey, Rotom, will you referee?"

"Of course! Is a two on two battle suitable, bzzt?"

"That's fine by me," Ilima said, watching Ash and Rotom take their places several metres apart.

"Alright, Pikachu," Ash said, "kimi ni kimeta!"

Pikachu leapt down from his shoulder, sparking at the cheeks. Ilima gently set their eevee down in the ground; she dropped into an anticipatory crouch, blunt claws sinking into the soil.

Satisfied, Rotom lifted one 'arm'. "Battle begin, bzzt!"

"You can have the first move," Ash said politely.

Ilima had seen Ash battle in the Kalos League, and they knew that his pikachu—however unassuming—was far stronger than it looked.

… But so was Évoli. "Sunny day," Ilima coaxed, and their eevee straightened up, ears and tail quivering. Inexplicably, despite its low position in the sky, the sun burned ever brighter. Ash shielded his face from its light. "Now—quick attack!"

"Dodge, Pikachu!" A counter-quick attack propelled the electric type out of the way, and a second smashed into Évoli's flank. "Electro ball!"

"Hyper voice!" A shrill shriek shredded the oncoming sphere; Pikachu pinned its ears to its head and skittered back to its trainer's feet uneasily. "Weather ball!"

"Beat it back! Don't let it corner you!"

Iron tail slapped the attack away, but only just; the thunderbolt that followed was narrowly avoided by a quick leap to the right. Quick attack clashed with quick attack, and electro ball struck Évoli in her chest. The eevee paused, caught her breath, and yowled another powerful hyper voice, forcing Pikachu to turn his back.

Ilima's eyes gleamed. "Now, Évoli! Weather ball, again!"

Weather ball scorched the fur along Pikachu's spine, taking advantage of his distraction. "Ne t'arrête pas! Quick attack!"

Iron tail swung to cover Pikachu's exposed side, and though Évoli glanced off it mostly-harmlessly, she knocked Pikachu down, leaving him wide open.

One final, powerful attack ought to be enough, Ilima thought.

"Last resort, Évoli!"

"Vee!" Dazzling light shrouded the eevee's body, forming a ball that grew brighter and brighter ahead of her; it spun itself into a star, expanded outwards—

"Volt tackle!"

"Pika!"

—and was shattered into smithereens.

Évoli bounced backwards, landing in a heap at the mouth of Verdant Cavern. Rotom drifted over, gave her an experimental poke, then zipped back to its place in the middle of the makeshift battlefield's perimeter.

"Ilima's eevee is unable to battle! Satoshi and his pikachu are the winners, bzzt!"

Ilima recalled their eevee, fingers skimming her poké ball. "That was impressive," they praised, bemused. Across the battlefield, Pikachu had returned to his spot on Ash's shoulder, head lifted high so his trainer could rub his chin. "I didn't realise your pikachu knew volt tackle."

"That's 'cause we haven't used it since…" Ash frowned, lost in thought. "... the beginning of our journey in Unova, right? And that was a while ago." He glanced at Pikachu. "I didn't even think you'd remember how to use it!"

"Pikapi." Pikachu scowled, and Ilima laughed a little incredulously.

It did strike them as odd that Pikachu would have such a powerful move in his arsenal and just… opt not to use it. It was high risk—moves of that calibre always were—but Ilima thought the payoff was surely worth the pain.

"I wouldn't have known," they said, aiming for placating.

Ash rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, but that's just 'cause Pikachu's so awesome," he muttered. "Your eevee was super cool too! Last resort probably woulda done some real damage if it'd hit, and that weather ball was super strong."

Ilima flushed, in spite of themself. They knew Évoli was no slouch in battle, but there was something special about hearing validation from the mouth of such an obviously-experienced trainer. "Thank you," they stammered, pocketing Évoli's poké ball and producing their second. They thumbed the catch, and—

"Woah, you have a pink mimirol?" Ash shouted, eyes wide and starry. Ilima's buneary twitched its one unfurled ear and narrowed black, beady eyes at the boy. "I have a friend who has one, but hers isn't pink. I never knew they could be that colour!"

Laporeille was Ilima's pride and joy—a gift, and one they treasured dearly. Buneary were—well—they were difficult to train, put kindly, and it had taken many long months to win the stubborn creature over. Even now, their relationship sometimes felt more transactional than loving, but Ilima was determined to bond with him.

"Have you ever seen a shiny pokémon before?" Ilima asked. Ash hesitated, thinking, then nodded emphatically.

"Oh, yeah. Yorunozuku is shiny, but I didn't really get what that meant when I caught him."

Ilima hummed, pretending to understand what that was. Between them, Rotom beeped impatiently, gesticulating towards Ash.

"Oh! Sorry, Rotom," he said, setting his hands on his hips. Ilima waited for Pikachu to descend and take his place on the pitch, but Ash turned to face the rockruff sitting patiently in the grass behind him. "You're up, Iwanko!"

The rockruff bounded forwards with an excited yap; Ilima cocked their head, puzzled. "You aren't going to use Pikachu again?"

Ash tugged on Pikachu's ear affectionately. "Nah. Iwanko promised me he'd help me beat my first trial if I helped him learn a new move and get stronger, so I've gotta let him hold up his end of the bargain. And he'd be pretty upset if I didn't let him battle, huh?"

Iwanko looked over his shoulder at the boy and whined, tail wagging.

"The match between Satoshi's rockruff and Ilima's buneary will now commence, bzzt!"

A pause.

"... Start, bzzt," Rotom amended, a little lamely. Ash lit up.

"Alright!" he said. "Howl, Iwanko!"

The rockruff threw his head back and boosted its attack.

"Now use bite!"

"Let it come to you, Laporeille," Ilima urged, hands balled into fists. The buneary coiled both ears tight to his head and shifted all his weight onto his back foot.

Iwanko lunged. His jaws snapped around empty air. Half a second later, a powerful drain punch struck him in the throat, flinging him back against the outer cavern wall.

Ash white-knuckled the hem of his t-shirt. "Iwanko!" he shouted. "Can you still fight?" The rockruff shook himself out and struggled to his feet, eyes blazing. "Good job!"

"Your rockruff's resolve is truly remarkable," Ilima commended. They had seen rock types far larger than Iwanko crumble when faced with Laporeille's drain punch; it was a move they had practiced and perfected.

"Yeah, he's amazing," Ash agreed. "And we're gonna win because he's amazing! Rock throw, Iwanko!"

"Bounce!" Laporeille sprung sky-high, clearing the hurled debris with ease and hurtling downwards. The rockruff didn't need a command to know to dodge.

Ash's eyes sparked, and he spun his cap round, flattening it against his head. Something in his expression had Ilima tensing in anticipation.

"Rock throw, again!"

Iwanko slung boulders at Laporeille. Once more, the buneary bounced out of the way.

"Now, Iwanko! Use the rocks and jump up too!"

"Tu te fous de moi?" It sounded impossible. But Iwanko sprung from rock to rock, climbing higher and higher, until one final leap propelled him up towards Laporeille.

"Bite!"

"Play rough!"

In a battle of speed, Iwanko won out. It caught Laporeille before the buneary could react and threw him to the ground; he caught himself on his ears and skidded to an unsteady—but alert—halt.

They had to disrupt Ash, Ilima realised. They couldn't let him gain any momentum.

"Teeter dance," Ilima said, and Laporeille staggered back and forth, lurching precariously back and forth like a roly-poly doll. Iwanko stared right at him, ears perked and tongue lolling, and—

… And was fine. And that didn't make any sense, because Ash hadn't set up safeguard, or misty terrain, and rockruff were popular enough pets for Ilima to know that their abilities did not protect against confusion.

"What?" Ilima said—a remark they suspected was common, where Ash was concerned.

Ash beamed, unshaken. "Tackle!"

"Headb—" Tackle hit its mark, impossibly fast. Ilima had to switch it up, had to keep moving; even fleeting hesitation, they were learning quickly, was punished ruthlessly. "Knock it back with triple axel!"

Laporeille kicked Iwanko away, feet hard as ice. Keep pushing.

"Drain punch!"

The buneary shot across the battlefield, ears drawn in close to his head—

"Sand attack, Iwanko!"

—and missed his shot entirely, blinded by the dust.

"Laporeille!" Ilima shouted, panic swelling briefly and overpowering passion. Laporeille shook itself out, but his eyes were unfocused and half-closed, face screwed up in distress.

And Ash kept pushing. "Rock throw!" Iwanko hopped cleanly around the buneary and battered him with a barrage of boulders. Laporeille dropped to his knees, exhausted. "Finish it off with tackle!"

Ilima watched it happen in slow-motion, speechless. Laporeille hit the dirt—and it was over. Rotom zipped over, then zipped back, and announced the results in a tinny, almost smug-sounding voice.

"... Incredible." Ilima found their voice some thirty seconds later, recalling Laporeille with a quiet sigh. "That move with the rock throw, where you had your rockruff use it as footing—that was… a risk, to put it lightly."

Ash tucked Iwanko under his chin, wincing when he rubbed his rocky mane against his skin. "I've never done it with my own pokémon's move before, but Iwanko's not scared of anything, so I knew he wouldn't get nervous and mess up, even though we've never practiced it."

"And the way he just ignored Laporeille's teeter dance—was that training?"

"Oh, I dunno about that," Ash admitted. "Somethin' to do with his ability, I think."

Ilima shook their head, perplexed. "Well, a deal's a deal. You beat me, so you've cleared my trial. If you wait here, I'll get you your Z-crystal—normalium Z, which will let you use breakneck blitz, providing your pokémon knows a damaging normal-type move," they said. "Your next challenge will be to defeat the Island Kahuna, Hala, but I must warn you—he's far, far stronger than I am."

"I'm lookin' forward to it." Ash grinned, squeezing Iwanko close to his chest, and Ilima knew he was telling the truth.

"So you had to fight Ilima instead of the totem pokémon?" Hau crammed half a malasada in their mouth and leaned back in their seat, squinting at Ash. "Man, I wish I'd fought Ilima. They're so cool… and… and smart… and cool… and I bet they're strong, too, right?"

"Uh huh."

Hau dropped their head into their hands. "Man," they repeated, dreamily. "They're so cool."

They reached for the bag of malasadas between them and Ash, pulled it towards them—and fumbled, dropping it on the floor. "Aw, shoot," they muttered, reaching to retrieve it—but something intercepted them. Something small, and black, and cat-shaped.

"Hey—!" The pokémon looked up, yellow eyes stretched wide and bony shoulders hunched—then grabbed one of the malasadas from the bag, scrambled beneath Hau's chair and shot down the street, knocking Rowlet over in its haste to escape.

"What was that?" Ash asked, half out of his chair.

Hau scratched the back of their neck with a sheepish laugh. "Oh, that litten," they sighed. "It's always running around, looking for stuff to steal. If you look away from your food for even a second—"

Ash settled back into his seat, chin against his chest. "... So this happens a lot?"

"Oh, yeah. It's annoying, but it's only one litten, and it's so skinny… you kinda feel bad for it, y'know? Like, where's its trainer?"

Ash frowned, troubled. Something about an abandoned starter was… unpleasantly familiar.

"And it's not like malasadas cost anyth—" Hau faltered, eyes on a point behind Ash. Ash turned, following their gaze, and saw nothing at all.

"What?"

"... Where's Iwanko?"

"Where's Iwa—Iwanko!" he yelled, but Iwanko was gone.

Ash leapt to his feet. "Be right back," he said. Hau shoved another malasada into their mouth and blinked at him, expression a little lost. "Pikachu, c'mon!"

He set off down the streets of Hau'oli City, following Pikachu's far more sensitive nose and ears. The electric type led him through throngs of people and into the outskirts of the city, where the buildings had long-since lost their lustre; they were run down and falling apart.

Ash picked his way gingerly through rubble and debris, ducking beneath a precarious tower of crumbling planks of wood. Ahead of him, an uncountable throng of what looked like meowth, but were darker, purplish and far too emaciated to be recognisable, surrounded a pothole in the road, droopy eyes glinting with starved malice.

And at centre of it all was Iwanko, standing over a fallen litten and snarling at the approaching not-meowth.

"Iwanko!" The rockruff perked up at the sound of his trainer's voice, eyes brightening and tail beginning to wag. Several of the not-meowth inched forwards—"Look out!"—and scattered, screaming with their tails tucked between their legs, to avoid rock throw.

From the rotted fences to the side of the street, a low wailing struck up, and something bigger emerged from an uneven stack of tires that, much like the not-meowth, sort of looked like a persian, only fatter, and bearing that same, sickly, purple fur.

It stalked, slow and deliberate, towards Iwanko, grinning maw stretched wide to reveal uneven, yellowing fangs. Iwanko dropped his head and bravely stood his ground, trembling with a palpable rage.

The not-persian lashed out with one heavy limb. Iwanko went flying. No longer guarded by the puppy, the litten seemed impossibly small; it clutched the half-eaten malasada protectively to its chest, but its eyes were screwed shut, and its body bore open wounds.

The not-persian stepped closer. Hot drool dripped from its blunted, wrinkled mouth.

"Pikachu!" Ash shouted, but the warning was unnecessary. Pikachu sprung from Ash's shoulder and rushed into the crowd: thunderbolt disrupted the not-meowth as they began to swarm, sending them fleeing into cracks in the walls of the houses, and an iron rush got rid of the not-persian before it ever reached the litten.

A violent, alien satisfaction bloomed in Ash's chest as he watched them retreat. He hated bullies. He hated cowards even more.

Iwanko emerged from the dewy grass, battered but otherwise fine, and slunk over to the litten, nudging it with his muzzle until it stood on shaky legs.

"Hey," Ash said, cautiously making his way over and kneeling in the gravel beside it. "Are you oka—"

The litten's claws sliced through his outstretched palm. Ash clutched his hand to his stomach, wincing.

"Okay, okay, sorry, I just…" he trailed off. The litten grabbed the malasada, narrowed its pupils warily at him, and began to stagger down the road, looking as though it'd keel over in a stiff breeze. Ash watched it go, nausea welling in his stomach, then picked Iwanko up and set off after it, quiet as he could possibly be.

Eventually, the litten brought Ash to an abandoned building. It slipped through a large hole in the side that looked as though it'd been created by a machamp's fist, and disappeared into the darkness. Ash flattened himself to the wall and peered inside.

The interior of the house was largely collapsed; the staircase had fallen in on itself, creating a sort of cubbyhole. Within it, a dirty, half-decayed mattress supported the bulk of a large—but skeletal—stoutland, which lifted its heavy head when the litten nudged it awake.

Ash watched as the litten set the malasada down, ripped a tiny bit off, and then fumbled to feed it to the stoutland. It sat, patiently, while the stoutland swallowed, then did it again, and again, and again, pushing against the canine's mane and mewling whenever it started to cough, phlegmy and harsh and awful.

He shivered, blood turned to ice in his veins. That stoutland was old—and very, very sick. Keeping it here, away from a pokémon centre…

"Litten…" he murmured. The litten whipped around and arched its back in warning.

"Hey, hey, it's alright! I don't wanna battle you—you're hurt. You need to go to a pokémon centre, and so does that stoutland!" The litten peeled its lips back and hissed, but Ash set Iwanko down and approached, heedless of the threat. "Stoutland's not gonna get any better if it stays here. C'mon, I just wanna help, so—"

All yowling aggression, half-asleep on its feet and still furious, the litten shot for Ash's throat. Ash threw his arms up on instinct, tucking his head into his interlocked elbows.

The thing about wild pokémon was that you could always tell they were wild pokémon from the way they fought. It was all fangs and claws and ferocity, forgoing thought-out strategy in favour of raw, unfiltered instinct. Ash had seen it even in Iwanko when he had battled that sandygast the day they'd met: it was about survival, not technique.

The litten fought like that, too. It flailed and scrabbled, shredding Ash's arms with little finesse, until Ash managed to fit his hands around its body, pinning its legs to its sides and trapping it within the bracket of his knees.

"It's okay," he kept saying to it, over and over, "it's okay. I'm not gonna hurt you."

He let the litten struggle there until it exhausted itself and slumped, panting, in his hold. Its expression was baleful, but it wasn't trying to fight him anymore, and that—Ash counted that as a victory.

"That's it, there you go," he said, aiming for soothing. "I dunno what sorts of people you've met in the past, but you've gotta trust me. If you let me take you 'n' Stoutland to a pokémon centre, they can look at those cuts you've got, and maybe they can fix Stoutland up, too."

Imploringly, he looked over at the stoutland. Its brows were so heavy Ash could scarcely make out its face, but it pushed out a quiet boof. From it, calm resignation rolled in waves.

"C'mon," he said, taking a risk and tucking the litten into his shirt, "let's go get help."

The litten closed its eyes. Ash felt that was as close to an agreement as he was going to get.

He'd take it.

"Professor Kukui," Rotom said, one evening, while Ash was out preparing for the grand trial, "I have some… questions, bzzt."

Kukui paused; he had heard a great many inflections in Rotom's voice, before, but he had never heard hesitation—never heard uncertainty.

"Sure," he said, aiming for levity.

"They're about Satoshi, bzzt."

"... Go on. Is he fun to travel with? Is he settling in well?"

"Yes and yes! That's not the issue. Satoshi is a fascinating case study—and a considerate trainer, bzzt."

Case study, like Ash was some sort of specimen, and not a living, breathing kid. Kukui motioned for Rotom to continue. "But?"

"But he—but he makes no sense, bzzt! You saw his training methods with Iwanko, and his anomalous method of picking pokémon he wants to partner with, and his even more anomalous method of catching them, bzzt!"

Kukui rubbed his chin. "Yeah, but that's just his style, y'know? Some trainers like to bond with their pokémon in weird ways. Doesn't make him anything special."

"But that's not it, bzzt," Rotom insisted. "Satoshi claims he's from the Kanto region, and that he has participated at least partly in its gym challenge, and then Trial Captain Ilima says he saw Ash battle in the last Lumiose Conference—"

Kiawe had brought up Ash's visit to Kalos before, but his phrasing had led Kukui to assume that it had been more of a holiday than a trainer's journey, and Ash had never mentioned anything of the sort before. He knew that Ash was more experienced than he liked to let on, but he had never pried, never thought to press on scars lest they not be fully healed.

"Right," he said, feeling suddenly very off-kilter.

"Have you checked his trainer files, bzzt?"

Kukui shook his head.

"I have! I took the liberty of doing so earlier today, and he's participated in six major league conferences before coming here, bzzt! He's a reigning champion in the Orange Islands! He finished second in the Lumiose Conference! He helped put an end to the Kalos Crisis, bzzt!"

"... What?" Kukui murmured, faintly.

Tapu Koko had recognised qualities in Ash unusual and brilliant enough to warrant a personal challenge. Kukui had spent many a night poring over the potential specifics of that criteria, but had come up empty handed, confident of nothing but the guardian's expectation of strength.

He had suspected that Ash had more credits to his name than he had thought to admit. But this…

"And I found a video, from Kalos 24, that—"

"Show me," Kukui demanded, unthinkingly. Rotom's screen flashed to display the video: grainy footage of Ash and a garchomp atop Prism Tower; the cracked floor giving way beneath Pikachu as he rushed towards his trainer; and Ash, leaping after his partner.

The video clipped, then rolled again; Kukui, sick to his stomach, did not turn away. He watched it again, then again, then again, and every time, Ash jumped off that damn building like he wanted to die. Like his life wouldn't matter unless Pikachu was in it.

Kukui couldn't pinpoint, really, why it affected him so. Maybe it was because recklessness could be excused if it was for a good cause—because sacrifice was okay in the name of heroism. But Ash had not leapt after Pikachu because he'd thought, in that moment, that doing so would save him.

It hadn't been an act of heroism. It had been an act of suicide.

Unsettled, Kukui had Rotom cut the feed; it switched tabs, and he stared, rather blankly, at another article detailing Ash's greninja's exploits as part of the Kalos cleanup project. It didn't take an expert to know that Ash and Pikachu were close, but Kukui loved his pokémon, too, and he'd never—he wouldn't die with them, if their deaths were certain. There was a line, he thought, between devotion and blindness, that he would never cross. Ash seemed so far over it that it seemed as though he had stopped considering himself separate from his partners.

If that greninja was anything to go by, though, maybe he wasn't. Maybe Ash had stopped being an individual a long time ago.

He had noticed, as early as the festival, that there was something unorthodox about the kid, and it had nothing to do with the tapu's interest in his presence. It was a subtle, intangible thing—Kukui could not put a name to it without sounding almost judgemental, but he had heard Kiawe mention it, too, in lessons, and Rotom had brought it up many a time, too: Ash did not do things the way they were supposed to be done. The Alolan approach to training was laxer in its distinguishment of the roles of pokémon and master than in other regions, but even here, there was a divide that felt like an established hierarchy. Rules were followed, no matter how minimal: pokémon aided trainers in their goals, and grew as a side-effect.

It had never occurred to Kukui that a trainer would sacrifice their own dreams to make room for their pokémon's. But Ash's greninja was—he was unique, one of a kind, and he was on the other side of the world.

He wondered if Ash understood how strange that was. To have come from a region as unyielding in its views of what made a pokémon trainer and to harbour views so radical they seemed almost unfathomable even in Alola—

"Professor Kukui, are you okay, bzzt?"

Was he okay? (Was Ash?)

"I'm fine, Rotom," Kukui said. "Download Ash's trainer files for me, will you? And… don't mention this to him. Not now."

He had a call to make in the morning.

The cosmog was stable, but still unconscious. Burnet had done all she could to ensure that its tenuously-constructed form was in no real danger of dissipating—and the first few days had been uncertain, because it had been so, unbelievably weak—but rousing it was another matter entirely.

It was exhausted. The girl—Lillie—had told her that the cosmog was capable of opening ultra wormholes, and it was this ability that had left it in such a deep state of torpor, and that it had been experimented on, but she was painfully cagey about the details: where she came from, what had happened to her, where her family was. Who had hurt her.

She was cooperative, though. Mostly. Her information was anecdotal, with no real evidence to back her claims, but there was something sincere about her, something heavy enough that Burnet suspected she was telling the truth.

… But if that was the case, then many of her own hypotheses about the ultra wormholes and the ultra beasts were incorrect. She could not see the ultra beasts as parasites, or potentially invasive species—the majority of them were creatures no more malevolent than ordinary pokémon. The dimension beyond their own was plural, not singular, and they were not all wildernesses: there was a city, if Lillie was to be believed, and a creature so ancient, so terrible, that it was sealed away by the people of that strange, faraway world.

Lillie had clammed up, after that, eyes glazed over and faraway, but Burnet didn't want to risk pushing her into complete silence. Useful as her knowledge was, she was still a deeply traumatised child, and though Burnet knew nothing of the specifics of her past, she could infer enough from what she had been told.

Burnet checked the cosmog's vitals one last time, then moved from her laboratory into the back room. Lillie was curled up on the sofa, a thin blanket thrown over her body.

And Burnet knew there was something the girl wasn't telling her, because in the dark, through layers of fabric, her ribs glowed white.

The researcher's salazzle alerted her of an approaching entity long before they entered the room; she rewarded her with a half-eaten rage candy bar seconds before the laboratory doors slid open with a metallic shnnk.

"There's been another blackout, ma'am," the assistant said, in lieu of a greeting. "It took out the entire southwest of the region. They believe it'll take at least a week to restore power to the major cities—longer, for the smaller towns."

"So I heard," the researcher responded, not glancing up from her monitor. "But there's nothing we can do about it—not permanently—until our trials are complete. We can't risk following the president's plan without knowing that we have the means with which to subdue the power source, and until then, blackouts will occur."

"... About that." The assistant cleared his throat, fidgeting. "The president has brought the deadline for completion of the trials… forward."

The researcher paused at that, frowning briefly at the readings on-screen before finally turning to face her assistant. "... Forward?" she echoed, a tad disbelieving. "What has he said? What's the new date?"

"He's, ah… he's given you six months."

"That's—" the researcher gripped her mouse tightly, knuckles aching. "He promised us three years. We've—that's not enough time to ensure that the specimens are stable enough for private use, let alone public service."

The assistant removed his glasses and rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I know," he sighed, "but he's growing increasingly concerned about the declining state of the region. These blackouts are increasing in frequency, duration, and scope, and with—" he waved his hand in a vague, noncommittal gesture. "... certain things have had to change. You know how it is."

She did, but knowledge did little to smother her frustration. Men could be so short-sighted, sometimes, concerned with speed and efficiency over a job well done.

"I'm aware," the researcher muttered through gritted teeth. "If—tell the president that if he wishes for our trials to be complete within six months, then they will be—but that we'll need increased funding, and I'll need a larger team."

"Yes, ma'am." The assistant bowed, turned, and fled the room, leaving the researcher alone with her thoughts.

She curled one hand around her salazzle's upper jaw and scowled at the data open on her monitor. Six months. As though she would be able to offer anything but a half-assed effort in that time.

"Rotom," she said. The smartphone on her desk buzzed alive. "Make a note to contact Achroma. And request another batch of wishing stars from the president."

A/N:

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