And so we've reached the end of another adventure. We'll need more time to prepare for the next big one, but we have other things to keep our readers distracted.
The plans were set. Diana and Gladion would be returning the UBs to where they came from, while Eli would be heading to Unova with Hau and Wicke would be in charge of the Aether Foundation. They left in two days.
Tonight, they had one mission here in Alola.
"You're pretty cool about this, Gladion," Diana said, and Gladion made an indifferent noise.
"I watched you punch Tapu Bulu in the face," he said as he followed them into the ruins. "I'm just surprised you're challenging Tapu Koko to a battle."
Diana shrugged. "I didn't think it would let me."
They stopped in the back of the ruins, where Tapu Koko's throne was. Diana felt herself smile briefly at the thought that hers was much more impressive, then noticed that the boys were disappointed.
"You wanted to see Tapu Koko?" she asked Gladion, more than a little surprised.
Luckily, he seemed ashamed of himself. "Who wouldn't?" was the only defense he could find. "It saved you, after all. You couldn't have saved Lillie and my mother if you were dead."
"Only because it hadn't seen me before." Diana rolled her eyes. "Trust me, it only saved me so it could turn me into its UB-hunting slave."
"Servant," Eli corrected. "We did get paid. And not in potatoes, either."
True. They had returned home from dealing with Necrozma to find that Diana had received a lot of money and that Eli had received his own Z-ring and several crystals - most useful being both the Fire and Ice crystals. Still, Diana shook her head, insisting on her terminology.
"We were partners with the International Police, and they were the ones who paid us for our work. Tapu Koko didn't give me any compensation for Necrozma, and neither did Zossie's team." She crossed her arms stubbornly. "Besides, I made a bet. I have to defeat all the island guardians in the next few months, and I don't want to lose this talent."
"Understandable," Gladion agreed, though he wasn't entirely sure what the bet was. "But where is the overgrown chicken?"
Diana looked around once more, and shrugged. "Beats me. But I know how to summon it."
She cleared her throat, cupped her hands around her mouth, and proceeded to make the sound she described as 'the world's most annoying chicken call.' "Ko-ooo-ooo-ooh!"
There was a brief moment of nothing. Then, from the sky, came another "Ko-ooo-ooo-ooh!"
"I knew it," Diana said to herself as Tapu Koko lowered itself onto its throne. "I knew you wouldn't be able to resist the promise of a real fight."
The guardian Pokémon made a much shorter, quieter sound.
"I'm sure you know what I did to Tapu Bulu," Diana continued, and Tapu Koko nodded. "As much as I want to do the same to you, you probably wouldn't let me get away with it." Tapu Koko shook its head. "Then we'll do this a different way. Prove to me that you're a god, defeating six of my Pokémon, or lose and prove your lack of status to the entire world." She gestured to Rotom, who waved. "Do you accept?"
Tapu Koko chuckled. "I was hoping that this would be my challenge. Champion, Beast tamer, girl of two worlds...prepare your first Pokémon."
Rotom didn't need to translate. Diana selected her first Pokémon carefully. "Lycanroc, let's go!"
She had a Decidueye that had won her three trials by himself as her last resort. And, as his first resort, a Z-crystal that would change his Spirit Shackle move. She was confident that she could pull this off.
"Rotom, play boss music!"
After defeating an island guardian, Diana felt pretty pleased with herself. The happiness wasn't going to last, especially when she traveled with her whole family and island kahuna to see Eli and Hau off to another region, but she did perk up a bit when she saw a familiar face.
"You're telling me that you won't let me take these on the plane?"
The man behind the counter shook his head. "I'm sorry, sir. You're barely allowed to take your own luggage on the plane. In fact, your coat beeping is kind of suspicious."
"Colress!" Diana shouted, and the scientist turned involuntarily. He seemed to recognize her face, but not remember her name. She smiled innocently as she approached. "Hi. Diana, urban legend investigator and first-ever Champion of Alola. We met about halfway through my journey. You gave me a TM and told me to hold off on calling myself a scientist until I graduate or destroy my backyard."
"Ah, Diana!" He responded to her overly-innocent smile with one of his own. "I do remember something like that. You've done well for yourself."
She nodded. "What won't they let you take on the plane? Monster-making serum? Doomsday devices?"
Her eyes were bright in her excitement to see such things up close. Colress laughed out loud, as Diana's parents facepalmed. "You certainly are eager," he commented. "Unfortunately, I don't create doomsday devices anymore, and I'm burying all of my illegal serums here. Rosa has become a master at guilt-tripping."
"You won't have any of his illegal serums," Rotom immediately interjected.
"Especially since I don't even know where they are," Colress said, never dropping the smile.
Diana's face fell. Eli laughed.
"I'll make him show me his leftovers," Eli promised in a stage-whisper. "I'll send pictures."
"Thanks." Deciding to abandon the conversation about doomsday devices, Diana looked over at the man checking the suitcases. "What's he trying to smuggle out?"
"That's the thing, miss. We don't know." The man waved a hand wildly. "We've seen some weird things here. One guy even tried to smuggle out a Grubbin because his party was full, and made a joke about 'bug trafficking.' But I've never seen these things before."
"They're drives," Colress insisted as Diana groaned at the secondhand pun. "Developed by...the person I replaced at my previous job. I've come to collect them and turn them in to Cedric and Aurea Juniper."
"And what are they for?"
"We aren't entirely sure."
"Is the man with strange hair a friend of yours?" Ursa asked her granddaughter, and Diana nodded happily.
"A friend is a stretch," she admitted, "but he encourages my science!" She jumped back to the problem at hand, speaking to the airport employee with all the authority an 11-year-old could muster. "Can I use my position as Champion and employee at Professor Kukui's lab to declare that this is Important Pokémon Science and that the Junipers need to see what these drives are?"
Clearly, no one was prepared for that. "I guess so?"
"There we go!" Diana said cheerfully, and shoved the drives back into Colress's hands. "Remember me next time, ok?"
"I don't think I can forget that," Colress promised.
"So you're going back to Unova?" Eli asked, and Colress confirmed it. "Great! My friend and I are going, too!"
Colress was as nervous as anyone would be at the thought of being on a plane with Eli Frost. In fact he noticed several people who seemed to be heading to the same flight returning their tickets to the desk right then. But when Eli and Hau asked about Rosa and Professor Juniper and what kind of science they did together, he accepted them.
Of course, he did ask for stories about how Diana's research was going. That made her the proudest little scientist in the region.
When he started to the exit, Eli expected his mother to stop him, or his father, or grandparents. He didn't expect Diana.
"You know," she said, so quietly that the adults couldn't hear. "I always thought that once I got to Alola, we'd be causing trouble together. My experiments, your curse."
"We did cause trouble together," Eli pointed out.
"Not as much as we solved. That was a bit of a disappointment."
"I can tell you where my mom keeps the lighters," Eli suggested. "She hasn't used them in years."
Diana shook her head sadly. "It's not the same."
The plane called for boarding. Hau came up to collect his friend. "You doing ok, Diana?" he asked, and she shook her head.
"You, Eli, and Lillie. I just got close to all of you, and now you're gone."
"You have Gladion," Hau teased, though his own smile wasn't as wide as usual.
"He said we weren't friends, just no longer enemies."
"And Ilima," Rotom added, getting Diana to cough nervously at the thought.
"Right," she said, trying very hard to keep calm. "Well, I suggest you start your own YouTube channels so we can troll each other in the comments. I'll need your feedback for my experiments."
Eli nodded solemnly. "My comments will be the ones saying you need higher insurance than most stunt men."
"Can you...not do dangerous science when we're gone?" Hau asked.
Diana shook her head. "Nope."
One group hug later, and she let them go to say goodbye to their parents and grandparents. She let Rotom settle in her arms, and refused to cry.
Diana wanted to sleep in the next day. She'd seen off three of her closest friends in such a short time, and Kukui and Burnet had decided to take the day off for couple reasons, so there was no need for her at the lab.
She didn't expect a particularly insistent visitor, or her mother to wake her up.
"Diana," Luna's voice said, half-teasing, "don't you think you're a little young to have a boy at the door asking for you?"
Diana lifted her head from the pillow. "A boy?" she asked, forgetting for a moment what she had planned.
"Tall, blond, green eyes," Luna said happily, before dropping her voice a bit. "Honestly, a bit angry-looking. Should I be concerned?"
"No," Diana said around a yawn. "No, Gladion looks intimidating but he's just a big goth marshmallow. He's a Hufflepuff."
"I'll tell him you're on your way," Rotom announced, and flew off to the front door.
Ten minutes later, Diana left the house. Gladion wasn't any more annoyed than usual, which was a slight surprise. "I thought we agreed that we were going to start our mission today."
"I never said we'd start at 8 AM," Diana retaliated. "How did you know where I live?"
"I knew you lived on Melemele Island. I found the kahuna and asked him where I could find the Champion. Then I followed his directions and ended up here."
Diana nodded. That made sense. "I hope you know that this isn't just a mission of good will between worlds," she warned him. "I have a few personal interests this time."
"You mean how you're afraid of UBs?"
"That's one of them," Diana admitted. "But it's also as part of my research. I would have done this with Eli and insisted he go to Unova next year, probably with me, if it hadn't been for one tiny thing that only you can help me with."
Gladion seemed to have forgotten. "Don't you have Rotom as your research assistant?"
"Not for this one. Don't you remember the..." Diana cringed. "Luvdisc? That swam past us singing Disney?"
Gladion turned red from embarrassment and hid his face in his hand. "I'd almost forgotten."
"That's the thing. So, only you can help me prove that this is friendship, not true love."
Gladion thought about it. "Well, technically, if you pick apart the definition, friendship is a form of love. If it weren't for the Disney song, it could be right."
Diana laughed. "I thought you said we weren't friends." He smacked her on the shoulder, too gently to mean any harm. "Fine, I'll drop it. Now, before we start our intergalactic mission of peace, there's another reason."
"What other reason could there be?"
Diana released Artemis. "It's better to show you than to tell you," she admitted. "But you have to promise not to hit me. Or him."
"That's slightly horrifying."
"Doesn't matter. Just give me your word, Gladion."
He, reluctantly, promised. Rotom leaned in to quietly ask Diana a three-word question: "To the island?"
"To the island," Diana told him, and looked up at the giant bat. "Ok, Artemis. I think we need to make a bean-related pit stop and see if we can jog a few new memories out of our amnesiac friend."
She said 'amnesiac' so pointedly that Gladion knew it was a warning for him. Intrigued by what this could all mean, he agreed to let Artemis take him along to the island. And quickly discovered why Diana did not want him to punch anyone.
It looked like he'd have another mission once he and Diana were through with this one. But she'd given him a chance to have his whole family back, even if they didn't have the warm reunion Lillie had wanted. The least he could do was help her in her research.