Lillie could feel herself spiralling, grip on herself slipping through her fingers like sand with every passing second. Against her back, the bark of the tree she sat against was coarse, digging into her spine; the grass beneath her was spiky and dry; and the murkrow's claws, gripping her knee, were sharp. She clung to those sensations, desperate for something to ground her.
Stupidly, she'd started to think that maybe her life was on the upswing—that years and years of misfortune were tentatively coing to an end. Professor Kukui's lab was safe; Nebby was healthy and happy; and the egg, which the professor had told her to hang onto, still twitched whenever she touched it, like the creature inside was trying to get closer to her, like it liked her, even without having ever seen her. She didn't know anything about it—not what it was, nor how long it would be before it hatched—but she felt like she loved it, a little bit, or at least like she could love it, given time.
Then Nebby had escaped. She had one job—keep Nebby hidden, out of harm's way—and she—she'd failed. And now it was lost on an island neither of them knew very well, and she had no idea where to even start looking for it, and she didn't know how far it had gotten or which direction it had headed in or whether it was even alive, and—
"You don't get it," she said, stupidly, to the murkrow on her knee. "Nebby's not safe out here like you are. Nobody—nobody's looking for you like they are Nebby. If my mother's—" she closed her mouth. The murkrow was watching her with beady, too-intelligent eyes, leaning closer as though she could possibly comprehend the importance of Lillie's words. Some part of Lillie suspected she could—though who the bird would tell (and how), she didn't know.
She lowered her voice anyway, in case the trees were listening, or in case the murkrow could somehow snitch on her. "If bad people find Nebby, they'll hurt it. That's why I have it. To—to keep it safe."
"Krow," the murkrow said, reproachfully. Lillie had never heard such blatant meaning in a pokémon's cry before; the murkrow might as well have said 'and you're doing a great job of that, evidently' in a language she understood, for how obvious its intent was.
"I know. I'm—I'm doing a terrible job, and I'm a terrible person, but I need to find Nebby before it's too late, and I don't even know where to start, so if you would just help me, please—"
The murkrow stretched out her wings and took off, a flurry of black feathers that wound through the trees and disappeared from view. Lillie watched her go with a burgeoning sense of despair.
"Of course," she said to nobody in particular. Above her head, pikipek sang cheerful tunes, boring holes into trunks and plucking berries from branches. "Of course." Her heart was hot and too-big in her chest, beating all wrong, and the space beneath her skin felt funny, buzzing like she was bleeding out from the inside. She felt like was going to cry, or throw up, or pass out, or—or all of the above, and it was stupid, and she was stupid, but she— she—
"Hey, are you okay?" Someone said from out of view; Lillie looked about and saw a girl approaching. "Poe wouldn't leave me alone until I agreed to come with her." She wore overalls and a pink flower in her hair, and her face was warm, smiling, compassionate. A bounsweet sat on her right shoulder, tucked into the crook of her neck, its face equally warm and smiling and completely insouciant; the murkrow perched on her left, looking terribly smug. "I'm Mallow. Do you know the professor?"
Lillie hadn't even known the murkrow had a name. She rubbed one hand over her face and shut her eyes until they stopped burning. "Yes, I—I'm staying with him." At Mallow's perplexed expression, she added, hastily, "My name's Lillie. I only moved in a week ago."
"I thought the professor had a boy staying with him. The one with the pikachu, that Kiawe keeps talking about."
Lillie's eyes widened a touch. "You know Ash?"
"You know him too?" Mallow crouched in the grass beside her. "I mean—I don't know him, but I saw him battle at the Iki Town Festival. He fought Tapu Koko."
Strangely, that didn't surprise Lillie. Hearing that he'd fought a guardian was somehow less world-altering than she thought it would be, than it would have been had the fact been about anyone else. There'd been something about Ash—about his eyes, emptiness behind a bright passion for life, that had made her suspect there were things he wasn't telling people, things he didn't want others to know. He was like her, in that sense, and he'd understood the gravity of hiding Nebby away from the world without her even having to put it into words.
Nebby. She dropped her head, shoulders hunching, and felt tears well in her eyes again, impossibly persistent. Mallow's face crumpled, concern wrinkling her brow.
"Hey, what's wrong? Did I say something?" She touched Lillie's bare knee with her hand; it was warm, like her expression and her voice.
"No, sorry, I just…" Mallow kept her hand on Lillie's knee, and Lillie found herself staring at that point of contact, feeling flushed and nervous and stupid. How did she explain that she'd lost a pokémon she wasn't meant to have? "I'm okay, I'm—"
The girl squeezed her knee gently. "Are you sure?" she said, and Lillie shook her head without really meaning to. "C'mon, what's the matter?"
Lillie told her everything: about how she'd been cleaning, and how she'd left the window open because she'd thought Nebby was asleep, and how she just hadn't thought it'd ever even try to escape the lab, let alone succeed—
"And it got out, huh?" the girl surmised; Lillie nodded miserably. Poe made another one of her sharp, judgemental, laughing croaks.
"It's only a baby. It won't—it doesn't know—it can't survive on its own. It thinks everything's a game." And Lillie didn't blame it, but sometimes, she wished that it was a little less. Less curious, less flippant, less intolerant of having to hide, less naive about the world and all its dangers.
She knew the life she was giving it wasn't what it deserved. That it deserved better than what she could provide, than what was possible in their current circumstances. But she didn't—she couldn't just—
She'd seen what they could do, to people, to pokémon. How weak and still Nebby always went after their experiments, limp and sick and barely breathing. Survival, surely, was better than the alternative, no matter how limiting, no matter how hard. It was something she'd learned to tell herself during long months of white dresses and whiter walls, adjusting her sunhat so its floppy brim hid her watery eyes. She had been just as captive as Nebby. In a way, she supposed she still was.
The girl tilted her head, cheek rubbing against her bounsweet's leafy crown, and tugged Lillie forwards, so she could pull them both to their feet and link their arms. Lillie's face burned. "Well, if it's a baby, it can't have gotten far! I know this place like the back of my hand; if we work together, we'll find it in no time! What does it look like?"
"It looks like…" the universe, Lillie thought. Like someone took the universe and fit it into one tiny body. "Have you ever seen a picture of a nebula?"
"Who's the Masked Royal?" Ash asked. Standing opposite him, across the table, Sophocles stared at him for a long, long time, cheeks puffed out like an indignant pachirisu's.
They were in Kiawe's mom's kitchen. Kiawe and Mimo were at the sink, clearing the dishes away after lunch; Pikachu was playing with Sophocles' togedemaru, who had taken a shine to him; Curly was napping on the windowsill, limbs outstretched like a staryu's; and Ash— Ash was being judged more profusely than he had been in a while, feeling more like an interogee in Officer Jenny's police station than a kid talking to another kid.
"You know," Sophocles said matter-of-factly. Ash didn't know; he didn't know a lot of things about Alola, really. He'd lived there a few weeks and he still didn't know a lot—not like the way he'd felt in Unova, or Hoenn. Sometimes, he felt like he knew nothing at all, like he was as educated as he was before Professor Oak had told him that the archipelago even existed, only he felt different, wrist heavier, chest fuller. "The Masked Royal? You have to know the Masked Royal." At Ash's blank look, he elaborated: "Only the coolest trainer in the whole region? He holds the record for the longest streak of victories in battle royals; he's never been beaten."
Pikachu's ears twitched upwards at 'battle,' listening from where Togedemaru had him pinned, nuzzling into him with sharp metal spines; if Ash's could too, they would have. And Sophocles was already speaking to him like he was stupid, watching him with that same, disparaging look Max had often given May whenever she'd said something stupid, so Ash figured it wouldn't do much harm to say: "Battle royals?"
Sophocles twisted his face up into a confused, awkward frown, brow and mouth both squiggly lines. "Um." He rubbed the side of his face and looked to Kiawe for help, but Kiawe was still talking to Mimo in Alolan while they worked, fast and expressive, sloshing suds everywhere. "You know," he repeated, and Ash still didn't know, so he shook his head. "They're battles where four pokémon fight each other at once."
Ash's eyes lit up. "Like a double battle?"
Sophocles hesitated. "Not, um, not really. Double battles are two v two; battle royals are… one v one v one v one. You can get attacked from any angle. The last pokémon standing wins the royal."
"They're meant to represent the battles the guardians used to have, long ago," Kiawe said suddenly. He wasn't looking at them, but Ash could hear the same reverence in his voice he always heard whenever Kiawe started speaking about Alola, or its gods, or its culture, or its history. "They would meet and wage war to see which would emerge triumphant, and the ancient people of Alola were inspired to develop battle royals."
Ash had never heard of anything cooler. He felt like he'd burst if he didn't get to see one, didn't get to participate in one. "And you're going to a match tonight?"
"Professor Kukui managed to get us tickets before they sold out. He said he had a friend who could get us in." Togedemaru tumbled over, bumping into Sophocles' ankle, and he bent to pick her up, tucking her into the crook of his arm. "The Masked Royal's been missing for months! We all thought he was dead, or— or that he'd retired and just not told anybody."
"Like his incineroar would let him," Kiawe snorted, back still turned. "That thing's a beast—the pinnacle of his species. He loves battling too much to quit quietly."
"Incineroar?" Ash echoed; his backpack began to vibrate, weight jostling him about, and he didn't have the heart to ignore it. "Go on, Rotom," he said, tugging the zip open, and the 'dex burst out with a scrambled, joyous sound, screen bright with the image of an unfamiliar , feline pokémon.
"Incineroar—or gaogaen—the heel pokémon!" It said, voice shrill. "A fire and dark type, and the final evolution of litten, bzzt!"
"That's what litten evolve into?" Now Ash was looking at it properly, he could see the similarities in their banded fur and sharp eyes, but Nyabby seemed so small now that imagining him standing tall and muscular on two, thick legs felt almost impossible. Still, he thumbed the catch on Nyabby's poké ball and let the litten out; he stretched on release, looking around warily and then following the line of Ash's arm as he pointed at Rotom's screen.
"Look, Nyabby, that's an incineroar!" he said, just in case Nyabby didn't know. "You could become one of those someday, if you wanted."
Nyabby made a flat, rumbling sound, the sort Ash still struggled to understand, but pushed the line of his flank against Ash's shin anyway. Across the room, Mimo piped up.
"The heel pokémon? What's so special about its heels?"
"It's a wrestling term, Mimo," Kiawe interjected. He'd knelt, since the last time Ash had looked at him, and one of Mimo's hands was gripping his shoulder, over the towel he'd slung across it. "It means they're the bad guys."
"It's true, bzzt!" Rotom said, interjecting, sounding unnaturally cheerful. "In the late twentieth century, the litten line was temporarily removed from the starter registry in Alola, and the possession and use of incineroar without a special licence was a criminal offence, bzzt, due to their violent dispositions and a string of infamous cases in which incineroar attacked opposing trainers! Their selfish nature and tendency to ignore their trainers' orders has been bred out enough amongst litten in the starter programme for them to have recently been restored as starters, but the same can't be said for wild populations, bzzt."
Wild populations, Ash thought, remembering what Kiawe had said about the litten in Wela Volcano Park, like the one Nyabby's from. He frowned. He knew Nyabby could be difficult, sometimes, biting and scratching and refusing to listen whenever Ash told him to dodge, but that didn't mean he was a bad pokémon, or that it was his destiny to become one if he decided to evolve, morality determined before he even had a chance to choose who he wanted to be.
He was just—he'd had a tough start in life, and he hadn't met many good people before Ash, and he was still new to the whole 'having a trainer' thing, so Ash didn't expect him to be obedient all the time. Maybe back when he'd been a rookie, and his expectations of life as a trainer and what his relationships with his pokémon would be like were still warped by what he'd seen on TV, he'd have been annoyed by Nyabby's behaviour. He'd been annoyed by Lizardon's, at first, before he'd realised what it was all about.
"Not all of them," he said slowly, looking down at Nyabby. Nyabby was staring up at the picture of the incineroar on Rotom's screen with eyes that gleamed a sickly, high-vis yellow, and Ash couldn't tell if the litten liked what he saw. A strange, twisty feeling knotted in Ash's stomach.
Rotom blinked, then, which Ash still found kind of funny, because it didn't really need to; it hadn't ever used to, when they first met. "Well, no," it said, "but just as it's in a drampa's nature to burn down your house when it's angry, it's in an incineroar's nature to maul things, bzzt."
"It's in a what's nature to what," Sophocles squeaked.
"I don't think the Masked Royal would agree." Kiawe was standing, now, and had moved over to where Ash was. He pressed his hand between Ash's shoulder blades, a grounding pressure, and Ash made his body go all loose and easy on purpose, offering Kiawe a small smile that he hoped he'd be able to tell was grateful. "His incineroar fights with honour."
"His incineroar destroys everything!" Mimo bounded over, trampling on Ash's toes. "He could eat you in one bite!"
"But he won't, Mimo. That's the point," Kiawe said.
"My data on incineroar suggests otherwise, bzzt," Rotom countered condescendingly.
"Did nobody else hear what Rotom said about drampa?" Sophocles sounded desperate. Kiawe looked at him a little funnily, then turned back to Ash.
"We've got enough tickets for you to come tonight, if you want," he said. Ash nodded, smile too-wide.
"Yeah," he said. "That'd be good!"
Royal Avenue was crowded. It felt more like a hotspot in Unova than anywhere in Alola Ash had been so far, bright and bustling and loud. The road itself was lined with colourful stalls selling food and merchandise and a myriad of other things; gleaming in the evening light, the Battle Royal Dome stood large and silver. And, stood by the bridge leading into the dome, was—
"Lillie!" Ash ran towards her, breaking away from the others; she flinched, then turned, features smoothing into a timid smile when she spotted him. Her hand, which had been hooked into the elbow of the girl at her side, moved to tug restlessly at the hem of her t-shirt—the one Pikala had given her, in Pikachu Valley. Ash had never seen her in anything other than a ratty white dress. "And—"
"Mallow," the girl at Lillie's side said, warm. She looked familiar, like he'd seen her somewhere before, but only briefly, or a while ago, because the memory was hazy, distorted. He scanned her restlessly, thinking, before settling on the bounsweet perched on her shoulder with a dawning recognition.
"You were at the festival," he said, remembering. "In Iki Town."
Mallow clasped her hands beside her face and beamed so brightly and widely her eyes shut. "So were you! Your pikachu beat Kiawe's turtonator."
"He did not!" Kiawe spluttered, right beside Ash. Mallow jabbed a finger into Kiawe's chest, then flicked his nose when he glanced down.
"Only because the tapu interrupted! Pikachu had Turtonator on the ropes and you know it."
"The tapu what," Sophocles said, right beside Kiawe. Kiawe grumbled something under his breath in Alolan, too quiet for Ash to make out, but let Mimo tug him away and towards one of the brightly coloured stalls. Sophocles squinted at Ash uncomprehendingly; Ash stared back; then Sophocles turned to follow Kiawe and Mimo, leaving Ash alone with the girls.
"How's your Challenge going?" Lillie asked, once Sophocles had vanished into the throngs of people. Ash reached into the side pocket of his backpack and tugged out a small blue crystal.
"I beat the water trial a few days ago," he said, holding the Waterium-Z out for Lillie and Mallow's inspection. Lillie reached out to trace its faces with a tentative finger. "But I don't have anyone with me that can use this yet."
"Was it hard?"
"Super hard." Ash bobbed his head. "Totem Araquanid was huge, and it came out of the lake like— aghhhh—" he threw his hands up in the air, then dropped them when Lillie flinched— "and then it kept using ice beam like— whooooosh, and then it called a masquerain to help it fight, and then it nearly drowned Pikachu—"
"It nearly drowned Pikachu?" Lillie whispered, paler than the moon. Ash scratched beneath Pikachu's chin and grinned.
"Yeah, but Pikachu was super awesome, and he zapped Totem Araquanid from inside its bubble so we could get the Z-crystal."
Pikachu lifted his head with a proud, emphatic chu! Lillie relaxed, but only a little, brow creased in lingering concern.
It was silent for a few moments—then a crackly voice announced, first in Alolan and then in a nasally Unovan dialect, that the exhibition match would begin in twenty minutes. Mallow grabbed both their arms with a grin, familiar already.
"Come on!" she said, and pulled them both into the dome.
The lights over the ring were blinding and white, and the roar of the crowd was low and so loud that Ash could feel it through him, buzzing deep in his bones. He let Nyabby out of his ball, setting him on his lap and gripping him tight so that when he shifted forwards in his seat, knees bumping the barrier in front of him, Nyabby could place his front paws on the railing.
Even from a distance, the Masked Royal cut an intimidating figure; he was tall, with broad shoulders and tanned skin. A colourful mask, warm shades, blacks, and striking white, obscured his entire face save for his eyes, and an equally-vibrant cape was tied around his throat; when he discarded it, swishing it in a wide arc and tossing it into the darkness beyond the ring's ropes, he revealed a muscular back painted with thick, black, complex tattoos. At the centre, over his spine and reaching up between his shoulder blades, was an incineroar's face, twisted into a permanent, vicious snarl.
"That's him! That's the Masked Royal!" Mimo shouted, barely audible over the din.
He lifted an arm and the crowd hushed obediently. Then he clenched his fist, the tunnel behind him erupted in flames, and a beast so large it made the Masked Royal seem small bounded out on all fours. Its build was kind of like an ursaring's, Ash thought, only with undeniably feline features and longer limbs that lifted it several feet taller than its trainer once it rose onto its hind legs. When it lifted its head and roared, a deep, guttural sound, its fiery belt blew off great plumes of heat, hot enough that Ash could feel it on his face, and the audience broke out in fervour. Ash couldn't tell if they were cheering or booing. It was just—noise, constant and overwhelming. He tightened his grip on Nyabby's body, felt him tremble, tense and fired up, fur at the back of his neck lifting, tail striking Ash's chest.
"He's even bigger in person, bzzt," Rotom murmured, clinging to Ash's shoulder, the one not constantly occupied by Pikachu. "He's the biggest incineroar I've ever seen." Ash heard the metallic whirr of its camera lens adjusting, the staccato snickt of its shutter, and believed it. The Masked Royal's incineroar was a monster. He wanted to battle him.
The Masked Royal's three opponents emerged to a rippling wave of cheers. Ash didn't recognise them, but Sophocles, at his side, said they were other known Royal trainers, ones that had risen to prominence while the Masked Royal had been gone. Their pokémon—a heavyset swampert, a sly-eyed mienshao, and a tauros, foaming at the mouth in anticipation—fell into a loose, practised formation once released from their poké balls.
"This happens every time," Mimo said—a complaint, maybe, unless the reedy note to her voice was excitement. Ash couldn't tell. "They always gang up on the Masked Royal."
He's never been beaten, Sophocles had said. Ash's fingers dug into Nyabby's ribs.
The mienshao moved first, springing into the air. Behind it, the swampert opened its wide, yawning maw to spit a blast of water at Incineroar—Incineroar stopped it with one sparking paw, splitting the torrent in two and sidestepping the mienshao right as it dropped. It crashed in a crumpled heap and stayed there, boneless, until Incineroar hefted it up by one whiplike limb and punched it in the gut. Green light diffused from its body—energy, sinking into Incineroar's skin. Incineroar tossed the mienshao aside and it lay limp and unconscious until its trainer withdrew it in a bursting flash of red.
The crowd roared—Ash could definitely hear booing, now, at least half of them howling their disapproval. He supposed it was part of the game—of making a villain out of Incineroar, even if they loved the Masked Royal. Beside him, Lillie covered her face and half-curled herself into Mallow's side.
The tauros lifted his head and bellowed; great rocks came crashing from above. Incineroar spun himself into a whirlwind and smashed them into dust, which sprayed over those sitting closest to the ring in a thick, opaque cloud. The swampert cleared it with hydro pump, lunging with deceptive speed and shoving Incineroar to the floor, trapped beneath its enormous bulk—the beast yowled, a terrible, screeching sound, and twisted, a flurry of limbs that somehow ended with him free. The ground beneath him erupted; he leapt out of the way, over the tauros, and landed face to face with the swampert. A clean blow between the eyes stunned it, more green light sinking into Incineroar; a second whirlwinding spin finished it off.
"His power is incredible, bzzt," Rotom said. "It makes no sense! These pokémon should have the advantage, bzzt, but they're—"
"Advantages are stupid," Mimo yelled. Her voice was hoarse, now, from shouting so much. "Incineroar is unbeatable!"
It felt like it, Ash thought. Incineroar flexed and roared, and behind him, his trainer stood tall, a beacon, brightly-coloured—not like a cartoon character, but like a warning. Across from him, the tauros pawed the ground and struck itself with its whiplike tails, over and over, thick, scarred horns gleaming under the floodlights. Exposed to the searing heat of Incineroar's fiery belt, the heavy stench of it—musky, like a barnyard—made Ash's eyes water, even from way up in the stands.
The tauros moved first, lit by red heat, and charged, headlong, at Incineroar. The Masked Royal lifted one arm, fingers splayed; Incineroar mimicked him; and the tauros ran right into his massive paw, shunting him back several feet. Incinroar flexed his paw, claws biting into the tauros' face, and held it there, hooves braced against the canvas floor, like it was nothing.
"He stopped the tauros' outrage entirely." Rotom sounded dazed. Ash had never known anything stop a tauros on a rampage—not like that, not so easily. "All that momentum just… gone, bzzt."
The drone rotom's camera broadcast a striking image across the big screens: the tauros' baleful eye, wide and wild and bloodshot, glowing through the spaces between Incineroar's thick claws. If it felt any pain, it didn't show it, snorting dense, hot air from its nostrils and shoving its head further into Incineroar's grip, driving against him, bellowing viciously. Its trainer shouted something, mouth moving on the screens, and was ignored.
Incineroar let the tauros struggle in his grip, brown mane matted with sweat. Then he snapped; red flared around him, brighter even than that which had consumed the tauros, and he swung and slashed with wild, feverish abandon. The tauros buckled beneath the assault, braying. Incineroar hefted it above his head and threw it into the ropes across the ring; they strained under the bull's weight, but blessedly held until its trainer withdrew it.
Alone in the arena he emptied, Incineroar dropped down on all fours. His head was lowered. His back was curved. His pupils were small, slitted, shaking. Hot drool dripped from his mouth, steam curling up from it where it splashed on the floor between his paws. Then he threw his head back, rising onto his hind legs, and roared and roared until the crowd drowned him out again—cheering, jeering, making noise.
The Masked Royal hopped down from his podium and made his way over to Incineroar, fitting his hand into the junction of the beast's neck and climbing until he could stand with one foot planted on either shoulder and bask in victory.
Nyabby was so tense in Ash's lap that he had to look to make sure he hadn't turned to stone; he was stock-still, but his eyes were bright, pupils blown. Ash rubbed his thumb between the litten's shoulder blades and felt a muscle jump there. "Nyabby," he started, without knowing how he was going to finish—and Nyabby moved, suddenly, tearing out of his grip and leaping away. "Nyabby!"
He stood; Mimo and Mallow and Sophocles and Kiawe stared at him. "Nyabby," he said, by way of explanation, pushing past Mimo and Kiawe and Sophocles until he was on the staircase. He couldn't see Nyabby in the dark, but Pikachu could, and Ash followed him down through the stands, into the floor space around the ring, and then—
A hand grabbed Ash's shoulder, wrenching him backwards. "Woah, woah, woah," a voice said—a deep voice, a man's voice—and Ash struggled ineffectually against him. At his feet, Pikachu sparked at the cheeks.
"My litten," he blurted—then stopped when he heard a familiar, piercing caterwaul, the sound Nyabby made whenever someone accidentally stepped on his tail, like he was angry and hurting. Another security guard stood by while his machoke held Nyabby round the abdomen, gripping him tightly while he flailed and screamed, probably terrifying him. "Let go of him! He's not doing anything!"
"You heard the kid," someone else said. Ash looked up and was met with sharp eyes and a mess of colour. The Masked Royal was even more imposing up close, arms folded over a broad chest; his incineroar loomed behind him, lips pulled back a little to reveal creamy canines. "Let 'em go."
The machoke's hold slackened; Nyabby wriggled free, turning on it and striking like an ekans. For a brief moment, his outstretched limb blurred orange, and he struck the machoke across the face before springing away and slipping under the ropes into the ring. Ash shrugged the security guard's hand off and followed him, Pikachu reappearing at his shoulder.
Under the gleaming floodlights, mere feet from the hulking form of Incineroar, he looked impossibly small; but he lifted his head and stared Incineroar down like he was ten feet tall. Incineroar stared back, expression unreadable, and for the longest time, nobody moved—then he tipped his head, the tiniest acknowledgement, turned to the Masked Royal, and recalled himself into his ball. Nyabby's ears drooped, pinned tightly to his skull, like he was—dismayed, or frustrated, or disappointed. He let Ash pick him up, but Ash could feel him trembling, little claws digging into his forearm.
"Your litten's got a fire about him," the Masked Royal said. "I can feel it, burnin' bright, just like Incineroar when he was small." Ash could feel it too, pressed up against his ribs, stoked embers. "One day," he continued, the rotom drone broadcasting his voice loud and clear over the speakers, "when that fire's an inferno, Incineroar will battle him, for all of Alola to see."
Nyabby narrowed his eyes; Ash's chest felt full to bursting with excitement. All around them, the crowd erupted.
"I can't believe the Masked Royal promised you a battle like that in front of everyone! The Masked Royal! That's so cool!" Mimo yelled, mouth full of food. They were stood on Royal Avenue, in the shadow of the dome; the night sky was dark and awash with stars, but the street was still alive, buzzing with people and energy. "You have to get strong enough to fight him, Ash, you've gotta!"
"He was probably just saying it for a stunt," Sophocles countered. He still looked a little funny, eyeing Ash like he'd grown a second head.
Mimo frowned. "The Masked Royal never says things he doesn't mean. You're gonna train real hard to battle him, won't you, Ash?"
"Of course!" Ash hadn't stopped thinking about it—about feeling all of Incineroar's power for himself someday. About being the first person to beat him. "We've just gotta beat the Island Challenge and then we'll be strong enough for sure!"
"You're facing the fire trial next, right?" Lillie said, picking at a bag of pale pink cotton candy she'd split with Mallow.
"Right!"
"I can take you there, if you want," Kiawe offered. "I know my way around."
"Thanks! Fighting a fire-type pokémon'll be a great way to prepare for the Masked Royal—right, Nyabby?" But when Ash looked down, Nyabby wasn't there. A weird, cold feeling settled in his chest. "... Nyabby?"
He twisted around, searching, just in time to see a small black figure disappear behind one of the stalls.
"He's been acting weird all day." Mimo frowned.
"Yeah," Ash said, suddenly distracted. "I'll just—" he passed Mimo Pikachu and his milkshake and trailed after the litten, finding him sitting on a wall overlooking a park.
"Hey," he said, sitting beside Nyabby and swinging his legs over the wall, letting his feet dangle in the empty night air. Nyabby twitched one ear in his direction but kept his gaze on the stars above, wide yellow eyes gleaming like lamplights. There was something inscrutable in his expression, and when Ash focused on him, he couldn't detect his emotions in the way he usually could, like Nyabby was deliberately concealing things from him, the way he had when they'd first met.
It unsettled Ash, so he reached out and stroked along Nyabby's spine, watching the way his black fur rippled like oil beneath his fingers and taking solace in the fact that he didn't flinch away. Nyabby still scared him, sometimes—not in the wild, dangerous way Lizardon had, but because he didn't want to mess up with him. Something about this moment felt important, like he had to get the words right, but he'd never been very good at conceptualising his emotions. It was better when his pokémon were open enough to just feel them with him, without him having to say anything at all.
"Wanna talk about what happened with that machoke? It looked like you were using a new move." Nyabby looked down at his paw, the one he'd slapped the machoke with, and stretched his toes. "Can you do it again, d'you think?"
Nyabby shook himself out and swiped at the air a few times, trying to recreate the orange glow. Ash let him swing futilely for a few moments, watching him get more and more frustrated with himself, then said: "Hey, it's okay if you can't. We can work on it together. Sometimes these things just take time, y'know? Like when I was helping Iwanko learn rock throw—he didn't get it at first, but we kept working, and now look at him! He doesn't even have to try to use it. It's just practice."
Nyabby settled himself back down on the wall, slowly. He was closer to Ash than he had been before, and he rested his cheek against the side of Ash's leg, where the fabric of his shorts ended and the skin just above his knee began. Ash gently petted the space between the litten's ears and felt a deep, overwhelming love for him.
"I get it," he said. "You wanna battle Incineroar. I do too. But we've gotta get strong, and we've gotta get smart. That means lots of training—not just about attacking, but about lots of other things, too. Like dodging." Nyabby harrumphed, coughing out dark smoke. "Yeah, I know. But you saw Incineroar. He stopped an outrage from a tauros. We can't just run straight into that. Not now, and maybe not ever. I dunno. But we'll figure out a way to beat him. Me 'n' you, together."
Nyabby pushed his head up into Ash's hand, tilting it back so he could look at him. His eyes were burning now, focused, and he blinked slowly, the way Professor Kukui said litten did when they were happy.
"We've just gotta turn up the heat," he promised. "At the next trail. That's where we'll start."
Nyabby kneaded the wall, purring.
A/N:
'Nyabby' (Litten) | Male, fire type.
Lonely nature. Attack is boosted; defence is decreased.
Ability: Blaze. When this pokémon's stamina is low, its fire-type attacks grow stronger.
Moves: Fire spin, fire fang, fury swipes, work up, (revenge*).