When we decided to name the 'alien' family with a space theme (Eli being found in Helios, Diana being named after a moon goddess) the editor went on a Pinterest search for space-themed girl names for their grandmother. We settled on a constellation.
It was almost three weeks later that they were called into action again. Once again, Tapu Koko warned Diana about it, in what (she assumed) meant that it was trying to be an ally in this terrifying time in her life. This time, there were reports of multiple Ultra Beasts on her own home island of Melemele.
Diana, naturally, was anxious.
"Don't worry," Anabel promised. "You have a theory about your own potential supernatural abilities growing stronger. The UBs don't expect that. You have your Pokémon and your cousin's, and if they fail - which is unlikely, by the way - you at least have Eli's personal defense mechanism."
Diana kept her comments to herself. Even if she was the Alolan Ninetales to Eli's Kantonian Ninetales, her ability was no use if not even fear was the exact trigger. It wasn't as if she hadn't practiced. She had dreaded the call, and had attempted to channel that into building a weapon.
The end result was nothing more than Rotom commenting that the temperature of her bedroom had dropped one degree, something that she wouldn't even have noticed without him. It wouldn't have even been something he'd noticed if she hadn't had Poliwhirl out.
It seemed Nihilego alone could activate it - a gift built from trauma instead of emotion. And she refused to give herself more trauma.
Then again, she might not have a choice.
"You kids again," said a familiar voice, and Diana spun around as Rotom yelped in shock.
Eli, who had been looking out the window since Anabel had mentioned someone was coming to assist, was not surprised. "Hey, Nanu."
"Frost," Nanu grunted in response, and Eli laughed.
"Still upset about Po Town, huh?"
"Of course I am. You made it a tourist attraction. Got those Team Skull idiots decent jobs, but now there are too many people on my island."
Eli laughed louder. "Sorry," he said, not very sorry at all.
Anabel cleared her throat. "While I will now have to look at Po Town myself," she said, to Nanu's grimace, "you were all called to discuss Ultra Beasts."
"Right. Those things." Nanu sounded like he liked the UBs as much as Diana did. Huh. Relieving. "So I was running late to some stupid kahuna meeting that Hala called us all in for. So then I got stuck being the messenger for the group."
"What's the message?" Diana asked, cutting to the chase.
"The message?" Nanu looked over at Diana, then Eli, then Anabel. "Three of 'em. In Verdant Cavern."
"Verdant Cavern?" Diana felt herself swallow. "I...Isn't that where Ilima has his trial?"
"Yep." Nanu shrugged. "Hala blocked it off, so the captain's probably safe. He doesn't seem to be the kind of idiot that would wander into danger. Or the kind of idiot that would let children wander into this kind of danger," he added with a dirty look toward Anabel.
"These children have methods of self-defense," Anabel pointed out. "Looker considered classifying them as UBs themselves. Now, the information on their behavior?"
Nanu paused to think of the best way to do this. "I would describe them as annoying, rude, destructive, and they wedge themselves into every single disaster that happens on this island whether or not they were responsible for it."
"I meant the UBs in Verdant Cavern," Anabel clarified.
"Oh right. These things shouldn't be as big of a problem as these two."
"Thanks, Nanu," two sarcastic voices said together, and the kids headed off together.
The entrance to Verdant Cavern was a familiar sight for Diana, but Eli had never been there before. The last time she was here, Ilima had banned him from following, partly due to the fact that he didn't have a challenge amulet but mostly because Eli hadn't learned the trigger or how to stop the fire.
Now, he had more control, she had more power, and Rotom had more awareness of how they behaved.
Still, none of them knew exactly what they were doing, so that was something that hadn't changed.
They all noticed the blur simultaneously. The scent of smoke came from nowhere, Diana's heartbeat picked up, and Rotom turned on the camera, refusing to let another mission go by without putting it online. Then the UB stepped into view, and Diana's fear faded to the background as curiosity once again took over.
It looked almost like a beautiful woman. It looked just a bit like Lusamine or Lillie, with its long legs and pale yellow color scheme, but it was far too much like an insect to match them. Its 'hair' looked like an insect's wings, its arms and legs were oddly jointed...and it seemed to be looking at the small group with just as much curiosity.
At least this Ultra Beast had eyes, which was another step up from the abominations they had faced in the past.
Diana tossed a Pokeball. "Honchkrow?" It came out sounding more uncertain than before, and once the bird appeared in front of her, she tilted her head to one side as she watched her opponent. The beast did the same. "Try not to kill this specimen. This one looks like it could be helpful."
Then the beast's aura flared up, and Diana immediately regretted saying so.
The beast sped into a lunging attack, but Honchkrow avoided it and retaliated with his and Diana's mutual favorite move, Foul Play. Then Diana threw a Beast Ball at it, and with three shakes, the ball sealed.
"That was easy," Diana commented as she picked up the ball. "I wasn't even scared of that one. What are the odds, right?"
"It's certainly something," Rotom agreed. "So, since we're classifying it, what should we call this Pokémon?"
"Something stupid," Eli decided. "Something really stupid, like Farqueen. The insect queen that acts like a big fart."
So, naturally, this led to him being jumped by not one but two of the beasts, as if they understood, and his yelp of terror was quickly replaced by him calling his Salazzle and making two more easy catches of his own.
They eventually brought in Looker and Anabel to name it, and the adults settled on calling it Pheromosa. The name came from the pheromone that had been the one thing Wicke had noticed about it, and Diana wondered if she'd been affected. Pheromosa - or 'Farqueen,' as Eli had called it - had no sexual characteristics recognized in any way determined by the usual standards of biology and personality, and it was said that it could affect just about anyone with its beauty. This could have applied to Diana, despite the difference in species and her very real crush on a male trial captain.
Anabel eventually leaned against the window, eyes closed. Looker seemed concerned by this, but Anabel just said that the evacuation had taken more out of her than usual. Diana could understand - she could tell when a UB call would come in thanks to a chicken with a god complex paying her visits at midnight. So she and Eli left for home.
Of course, they had to make one little stop first.
"You again," Mohn commented as they showed up on his island. "Here to drop more unwanted research specimens on me?"
Diana grinned. "You caught me," she admitted. "But don't worry. We'll finish the UB missions and come back to take you all home. Where is your home, Mohn?"
Mohn stopped what he was doing. Where was his home? He'd been on the island for so long he couldn't remember.
He couldn't remember much before the island, either. In fact, one of the few memories he really had was of that jellyfish that the mutant kids had brought to his island, which is why the ball had been dropped in an empty crate. He'd seen it before, and believed that Diana had the right idea on how to deal with it. But he couldn't figure out how he knew it.
"Don't know," he admitted. "Alola, I guess. Sounded right when you brought it up."
"Where in Alola?" Eli asked. "Which island? We live on Melemele, but we've been to all of them, we can take you wherever you want to go."
"I can't remember which island," Mohn admitted. "Or which town. Just take me to Melemele with you, I can wander until something seems familiar."
"Are you sure?"
"Something's bound to trigger a memory," Mohn said with a shrug. "And I can always go back to this island of nothing clicks. I like it here enough."
"So we'll try," Eli finished, "but it's ok if we fail?"
"Right," Mohn agreed. "Don't put too much pressure on yourselves. Kids should have fun, not get involved in a grown-up's problem."
Diana snorted. "Way too late for that, pal." She flexed her fingers, attempting to trigger an ice mechanism, but she knew it was useless. Her power worked like her cousin's - an internal temperature regulator that went haywire with trauma. Eli couldn't keep calm and make fire at the same time, not without a lighter or a match. She shouldn't expect anything of herself.
Mohn got concerned at her words, and approached Diana in a way not unlike a concerned parent. "Are you ok?"
"Not really." She shrugged. "But I'm alive, and not setting anything on fire. That's gotta be enough."
She dumped all the Pheromosa balls into the Nihilego crate, signaling the end of the conversation. Mohn looked at Eli, and Eli stared back.
As Diana and Rotom wandered out of Mohn's little hut to collect some beans, Mohn lowered his voice. "What are you kids?" he asked.
"Have you seen the Witch Mountain movies?" Eli asked. "What about X-Men?"
"Not that I know of."
Eli flinched. "Right. Amnesia. Short version is, we're mostly human. We just have a little extra something in our DNA. The X-gene, from an alien ancestor."
Mohn stared in silence. Then he laughed. "You know, that one makes sense. If you ever find your great-grandparents' spaceship, would you mind taking me for a ride?"
There was another alert, this one picked up by Rotom. There was a fourth beast loose on Melemele, and Looker didn't bother to tell Anabel after she'd seemed so tired. He'd sent information straight to Alola's heroes, leading them to searching the city for the beast. After dark. This was beginning to feel more like a horror movie than the adventure story they signed up for when Hala gave them Pokémon.
"Why couldn't it have shown up in the cave with the others?" Diana complained. "We shouldn't be doing Looker's job for him, or Anabel's, or -"
"Diana," Eli interrupted, and she immediately shut up. "I get that fear is a new thing for you, and that you're afraid of Ultra Beasts. Trust me, I get it, I'm scared of them too." The smoky scent proved his point, so she nodded. "But we're the ones that are supposed to handle it, so we'll have to put our fear to use in a way that isn't simple self-preservation. We have defense mechanism superpowers for a reason, right? Maybe they're useful against Ultra Beasts."
"We can't be that lucky."
"Diana," Rotom warned, and Diana smiled back, falsely innocent even as she planned a way to escape the burning remains of Hau'oli City. Rotom wasn't fooled. "Diana, come on. You don't need your powers to fight off UBs! You became Champion and fought the Bride of Cthulhu! And even Eli can take them with only Pokémon, so you still have backup."
"Are you sure? Pheromosa was something we never encountered before. What if this isn't one of them? What if it's something completely new? What if..."
Something bright caught Diana's attention. Eli had seen something, and had chosen his Incineroar to deal with the result while he called Ninetales and Larvesta to help him investigate.
Diana followed, mentally reviewing her entire team. Gizmo could use the practice, it was so far behind the others...Mimikyu's Disguise could probably freak this thing out...Stanford had won her three trials all by himself...
Taking a deep breath, she nodded to her cousin, giving him the signal to push back the bush that the creature had hidden in.
Gigantic eyes stared back. Then, slowly, the Ultra Beast stood up, towering over them as they attempted to figure out exactly how it had squeezed itself into the small bush.
Red. Huge insect eyes. Biceps as big as their heads, and a face needle the size of their arms. Diana bit back a scream as the cold set in, and Eli's gift, used to snapping to attention the moment he so much as thought something unsettling, activated. Fortunately, the city had been relatively Eli-proof for years, and the sprinkler system on the lawn quickly took care of the embers that sprang into existence.
"I wish I had a weapon now," Diana muttered.
Then the beast attacked.
It likely wouldn't have been so difficult, if it hadn't been so easy to defeat in battle.
It broke free of the first Beast Ball they'd thrown at it, so they had decided to fight first. Then it had gotten knocked down twice, and had reacted to losing the battle by fleeing. Then it would somehow heal itself and charge at them again.
"This thing's unstoppable!" Eli complained as his Ninetales spat snowflakes at the bug's retreating form.
"It looks pretty stoppable to me," Rotom commented from his position by Diana's head.
Diana had found a stick, and was currently doodling with it as she attempted to think. She couldn't use her powers to make a cage for it, and Eli's would probably kill it. She wouldn't object either way, but Looker and Anabel very clearly wanted it left alive. She could have Artemis restrain it, but Artemis was part Psychic and the obvious Bug-type would have an advantage. And it was stronger than Snorunt and Gizmo, but weaker than the other Pokémon that they had picked up on the journey.
She deliberately avoided looking when she heard Eli's groan of frustration as the bug returned. It was as she was turning her head that she saw a very familiar Pokémon, floating over with a look on its face that showed its clear annoyance with the situation.
"Grandma's Mismagius!" she cried, and Eli turned his head to look just in time for the bug to launch another attack at Ninetales.
"What's she doing out here?" Eli asked as Mismagius stood between Ninetales and the muscle bug, deciding to take on the responsibility of facing this thing, for the safety and sanity of her trainer's grandkids. His question answered, he quickly turned to Rotom. "What kind of moves does she know?"
Rotom started the scan, but Mismagius said something that made him stop. "She's not here to fight," he told them. "She's here to stall. Your grandmother's on her way."
Sure enough, the old woman herself arrived, and she spoke not to Mismagius but to the Ultra Beast.
"Stay out of my town!" The beast stepped back, as if challenging her to a fight. The woman didn't flinch. "I see. You're not from around here. Then let me introduce myself." Her voice changed slightly, filled with authority and a little extra power, and both Eli and Diana could tell exactly how she had ordered the Gyarados to stand down. "I am Ursa of Melemele. You will clean up your mess, leave my family alone, and go back to whatever hole you crawled out of."
The bug looked ashamed, but even as it finally gave up the fight and started attempting to fix what it broke, it mumbled to itself.
"Its hole closed up," Eli explained. "That's why they sent us to deal with the problem."
"And how do you do that?" Ursa's voice was much more like a typical old woman's when she spoke to her grandson, and Eli responded just as he would have if she'd commanded it.
"Like this," he said, and threw a Beast Ball at the monster. It was too distracted to free itself this time, or maybe the first one had just been an unlucky toss. Either way, Eli had captured another Ultra Beast, and their mission was finished.
When Eli had volunteered to fight it, Diana had focused on getting herself under control. The fear had vanished by the time Mismagius showed up, and the display of her grandmother's power fascinated her. "Can you come with us on all UB missions?" she asked hopefully.
Ursa shook her head. "I only helped here because it was close by. I'm not young, Diana, I would slow you down."
"What about ordering it to gather all its friends to come here? Then you can talk them all into obeying us, and then Eli and I can get them home."
Ursa chuckled. "What about this: you track and catch these things, and if any of them give you trouble, send them to me. Between my gift and your grandfather's creativity, we'll work out the perfect punishment for these nuisances."
Eli wondered for a moment what his mother and aunt had to live through as children. Diana, on the other hand, laughed a shaky laugh.
"That sounds great," she promised. Then she paused, looking back at the spot where the Ultra Beast had just been, and a question broke through. "But how did you know that you could use your 'quirk' on an Ultra Beast? Have you encountered one before?"
"No," Ursa answered, as if Diana had asked her to convince her mom to let her survive on nothing but fruit snacks for a week. "But I figured that if it worked on Tapu Koko, it would work on anything."
The stick fell from Diana's grip. Eli's mouth fell open. Rotom literally blue screened.
"I think we might need to talk this out," Diana said quietly.
Ursa laughed softly. "I suppose we do," she agreed. "But that can wait until tomorrow. You kids should be getting home. It's likely past your bedtime."