As a side effect of Editor getting lost in the postgame of her "Diana run," we wrote in a brief distraction from the plot. It fits with something else we have planned, don't question it.
Apparently, children weren't allowed to name things anymore. Wicke had named this new UB Celesteela. The minor sense of disappointment that they didn't get to come up with stupid names was accompanied by great relief that, according to Anabel, HQ had determined that there was only one beast left to take care of.
Looker took the chance to bring up his concerns, too. "Protecting the surrounding area was not too difficult for you, Chief?"
"We were all fine," Anabel promised. "Both me and my Pokémon. We've just been a little...surrounded, that's all."
Looker slumped in defeat. "As I'd feared," he said, almost to himself. Naturally, the three heroes all stopped to eavesdrop. Apparently, Anabel believed that Looker was upset about a UB showing up every time they invited the kids, even when all they wanted was to ask them to join them for a feast. Looker had no problem with that assumption, but he had a change of heart when she left to find them a place to eat.
"Diana," he said seriously, and she tried very hard to not think at all as she listened. "You have survived this far, and I cannot go on hiding this from you. Ten years ago, I came as part of a three-person team to eradicate a UB..."
"And you failed," Diana finished for him. "Trust me, I get it. That last one got away from me because my Decidueye is too awesome."
"It was more than mere failure." Looker stuffed his hands in his pockets, frowning, wishing that he was facing down Giratina itself at this point. The trainer from Sinnoh would most likely let him. "We found it. We tried to put an end to it..."
"And then it went to shi-"
"Nanu," Looker interrupted, giving away the identity of the new voice before the kids could confirm it themselves. "Not in front of children."
"We're not that young," Eli protested. "I watch some girl in Kalos blow virtual alien heads off. If I'm old enough for that, we're both probably old enough to hear a few swears."
"Virtual?" Nanu wasn't impressed. "Tell me when she really goes through with it. This jerk felt sorry for the monster. Got the third member of our team done in by it, too."
The trash can lit up again at the words.
"Done in?" Eli repeated, shaking as if he was back on the other side of the wormhole, without his Pokémon or breaking physics to help him contain it. "You were setting us up for a deathtrap this whole time?"
The garbage fire grew more unstable. Nanu didn't even blink.
"I had failed to consider that she wasn't trained for combat," Looker admitted. "That is why..." He trailed off, deciding to take care of the flames instead of finish.
Diana got it. "That's why you wanted us," she said, voice dull. She was too angry to be afraid, and not shocked enough to be enraged. "You imagined getting a couple of Green Lanterns, but you got new recruits to the X-Men that not even Charles Xavier himself would trust on a mission yet."
"Or want," Nanu added.
Diana ignored him. "You thought Eli could fight it while I chucked the Beast Balls."
"Well, since you were the one who, I quote, 'fought the Bride of Cthulhu and won,' we imagined that you would fight it while Eli threw the Beast Balls." Looker didn't look away from the remains of the fire, even as he spoke. "And it is not the only reason. They are drawn to those who have gone through an Ultra Wormhole. That is why you were selected, instead of the dozens of psychics across the world, even here in Alola. It must change people somehow."
"It certainly changed me," Diana admitted. "I know what fear is now. And I don't want to face it again, thanks."
"The monsters don't want to be here any more than you want them here," Nanu explained. "They feel Ultra radiation - thanks for the term, Freeman - and think they'll get home."
"And the dead woman?" Eli repeated, clearly not letting the topic change for long.
"She was bait," Nanu said bluntly. "She was bait, you're bait, your cousin's bait. Worms on a hook. They think that your freak show of a family will save you. I doubt it. The beasts go after Fallers without thinking about anything."
Eli was about to say something else, but Diana cut it off as she had another realization. "And we led a bunch of them to Mohn."
She was stupid. She hadn't realized that Mohn was Lillie's father despite the family colors, and now the closest thing her friends had to a sane parent was alone on an island surrounded by creatures that went after people like him and Diana and Eli and Lillie and Lusamine, with only modern technology and a layer of duct tape keeping him safe.
Even if she survived the UB missions, she would never get her degree.
Mohn was safe, at the moment. The beasts clearly hadn't figured out how to open Pokeballs, or at least the duct tape was holding. But he also had no problems just handing off the entire collection back to the kids.
"You're sure your grandmother can handle these things?" he asked, and Diana nodded. She'd cleared it with Ursa on the way, and if anyone can stop a UB attack, it was a little old lady thought to be a witch.
"You've heard how weird our family is," she reminded him. "And we're making arrangements for you to find a place to live back on the main islands, but it's a bit harder to move a man than it is to fill a bag with Pokeballs."
"I get it," Mohn promised, though he didn't know that she was planning on telling Wicke about him as soon as she turned over this next UB. "And you're taking me home with you?"
"We'll see."
He tossed Stanford and Robbie and Artemis a few extra beans, told them to be careful, and turned his attention to bribing a Magnemite.
"So what does your paranoid instinct tell you, Eli?" Diana asked when they were up in the air, sailing on a giant bat like most people rode on a Charizard. "Do you think we'll make it?"
"If not," he promised, "I'll take the beast out with me."
Given what had happened when he'd learned of what happened to Looker's former partner, she believed it. She only wished that she had crazy, destructive abilities to help him out.
By the time they made it to the restaurant boat on Poni Island, Looker and Nanu were both already there. Anabel had come along, and had gone before they had come, setting up protection for civilians.
In the wrong area, as Nanu pointed out.
Diana was less than impressed. "So you're going to do her job for her?" she asked the kahuna.
"I have to, kid." Nanu was as enthusiastic as she was, which did not come as a surprise. "He's trying to protect one Faller, so he's sending two others and me out to keep the thing away from her."
"Anabel's a Faller?" Eli asked before Diana could tell them to just point her in the direction of the beast.
"I don't think she knows it," Looker explained, "but Nanu and I, we found her unconscious here on this very island ten years ago. Just after finishing our mission. She had lost her memories, but there were a few things that stayed with her. Her name was Anabel, she came from Hoenn, she had protected a tower there, and that she was a powerful Trainer."
"Checks out," Diana said, recalling Mohn. He knew nothing but his name, his age, and that the Ultra Beasts clearly deserved to be locked away in duct taped Pokeballs.
"International Police placed her under observation," Nanu continued. "Just because they detected an insane amount of Ultra radiation."
"I believe that being lost in the wormhole for some time is what caused her lapse in memory," Looker said. "She decided to make a new life for herself in the International Police."
Nanu actually chuckled at that. "And then she got promoted over you," he taunted, and Looker cleared his throat. Nanu's laughter stopped, and he tilted his head to Diana. "So you found this kid on the internet and thought that she could do what other Fallers couldn't?"
"She is the first-ever Champion," Looker pointed out. "And the boy is not only a good Trainer himself, but has a defense mechanism that I believe you have witnessed. Or have you already forgotten how 'Frost and Freeman kick butt' is burned into the streets of Po Town?"
"I guess I can't fight against mutants," Nanu confessed. "Do what you want. If their parents don't care that their lives are in danger, I'm not going to step in. I get enough trouble as Acerola's guardian, I don't want more. But first." He picked out a Pokeball. "I challenge the girl to a rematch."
Diana accepted his challenge, and immediately wished that she'd prepared more for facing Dark-types. Mimikyu had Play Rough and Artemis had Moonblast, but it didn't stop her from losing Stanford and Lycanroc. She made a mental note to switch Mimikyu for Honchkrow or Poliwhirl. Probably Honchkrow - Poliwhirl hadn't decided what he wanted to be yet, so he wasn't at his full potential.
Nanu didn't seem to mind. "That'll do, girl," he said. "Don't let me down."
Then he left, and Looker started explaining. "The final UB: Glutton. Nanu said he would lead it deep into the heart of Resolution Cave. This is your final mission. Do your best."
They were on a mission, and desperate to end it. They wanted it to be done with already.
Naturally, that's when they bumped into the people from Kalos that they had encountered only once before.
"Diana!" the woman called, and it took the Champion a few seconds to remember her name.
"Uh...Sina, right?" Her mind jumped to the small cube in her bag, left untouched except for just a few instances.
In fact, the last time she'd used it was when one of those worm things had gotten into her bedroom...immediately after she officially earned her title. She hoped she didn't look too embarrassed about abandoning a mission from official lab scientists.
Sina laughed. "You haven't come to visit us at the lab," she teased, and Diana took an awkward step back.
"I've been busy." Not a lie in the slightest, but not the reason. "What do you want?"
"What I want," said Dexio, emphasizing the 'I' just slightly, "is to challenge Alola's new Champion, and to offer to trade missions with her."
Eli noticed his cousin perk up, and then deflate as she realized, before he could tell her, that the mission was taking the cube thing off her hands and not hunting down UBs. "Ok, fine," she said, not quite sure what the new mission he had in mind for her was. "But I'm kind of on a different mission right now, so let's make it quick."
The battle was, indeed, quick. Dexio was a Psychic-type user, so Diana used only Stanford for most of the match. She switched him out when he got tired, but Honchkrow took even less effort to defeat his opponents.
At the end of it, Diana returned the cube, and in exchange she got a Key Stone. She immediately attempted to attach it to her Z-ring, but stopped herself.
She should probably just experiment with Mega Evolution by doing things the normal way, instead. She'd take it to Olivia and ask her to put it in a bracelet or something. She'd go on missions to other regions and investigate the Mega Evolution myths, too.
And then she'd take the combined power of Mega Evolution and Z-Moves and use them on any other Ultra Beasts that dared to show up in her region.