With an Island Trial under his belt, Ash moved on to find the Kahuna of Ula'Ula Island and challenge him to a Grand Trial.

This proved harder than expected.

"So… I need to go to the police station?" Ash checked, looking down at Arc.

"Correct," Arc confirmed. "However, further details will not be provided. There is something of a challenge element to it."

"Oh, got it!" Ash confirmed. "If part of the challenge is finding out who the Kahuna is myself, it'd be disrespectful to skip it…"

He looked up, confirming on Arc's map that he was actually at the police station, and then knocked on the door.

There was a long pause.

"So, who are you?" an Alolan Meowth asked, licking her paw as she balanced against the window.

"I'm Ash Ketchum!" Ash introduced himself, thumping a thumb into his chest, just as the door opened.

The guy who'd opened it dropped his mug of coffee.

"You're real!?" he asked. "I thought Gio was making things up!"

"Gio?" Ash repeated, thinking. "Oh, yeah, the Viridian Gym leader! He said something like that during our gym battle. Are you friends?"

One of the other Alolan Meowth just inside the building began to snigger.

"Are you the Kahuna?" Ash added. "I'm here for a Grand Trial!"

"You'll have to wait, kid," the man replied. "It could be a while until the Kahuna comes back. What about if you play with my Meowth while I see if I can find him?"

Now more Meowth were sniggering, and the man rolled his eyes.

"Plus, I need to make a phone call," he added.

A phone rang.

"Yes?" Giovanni asked. "What. Really?"

He chuckled. "I told you, Nanu. He just appears. Honestly I'm glad he only came back to Kanto occasionally in the last couple of years."

Giovanni listened to what Nanu was saying, then shook his head.

"No, the solar lion is new in specific," he replied. "But that's just what he's like… it could have been a Zorua. Did you check if it was a Zorua? Apparently he's got several."

Pause.

"No, I don't have any advice for how to battle him, Nanu. He beat my Ground type gym with an all electric team on his first gym challenge. But whatever you do, don't dismiss that Pikachu."

Another, longer, pause.

"Nanu, his Pikachu electrocuted my final Pokémon. My best agents have been keeping track of his team for years, that Pikachu is the strongest thing on it."

Giovanni shook his head again. "No, I'm not going to do the Grand Trial for you. Just get around to it before he starts getting curious."

"You're a big cat!" one of the Meowth giggled. "I can't get over that! Really big cat!"

"That's me!" Solgaleo agreed. "But I can also be a big bat! Does that sound fun?"

"Cats are better," another Meowth retorted.

"I've got some other cat Pokémon," Ash told them, sending out Torracat. "I don't have one of the Beasts with me, though… I also don't have Noivern, he's another bat Pokémon. And I guess Pikachu doesn't count as a rat."

"Cats, bats, rats… it could be a themed team," Pikachu said, thinking about it. "The tricky thing is keeping it all to a single type. Can you think of a Dark or Normal Pokémon that's like a bat?"

"Not really," Ash replied, with a shrug.

"You've got a bell!" a Meowth said. "What's that for?"

"It's full of fire, that's what," Torracat answered, looking a little nervous, then one of the Meowth pulled on her tail.

Torracat picked the Meowth up and did a fairly comprehensive fireman's carry headlock elbow drop, mostly through reflex.

"Wow…" the other Meowth gasped, in unison.

"Again!" the dropped one said, flipping up onto his paws again. "That was fun!"

"Huh, not the usual reaction," Torracat admitted. "I guess it's something to do with landing on your feet? Okay, anyone else who wants to form a queue?"

A few hours later, someone turned up.

Ash asked if she was the Kahuna, and she said that – no, she wasn't the Kahuna, Nanu who Ash had met earlier was the Kahuna, and Ash brightened.

"Oh!" he realized. "So it's sort of like a challenge… the things he said are all still true even if he is the Kahuna?"

"No, and if they were that's probably just a coincidence," the woman said. "I'm Acerola… it looks like Nanu just left you playing with his Meowth? Sounds like him."

She stretched. "I'm actually here to talk to him, but I know some of the other places he might be. Tell you what, come back to the library and that'll give you something to do while I find him and drag him back."

"Pooi?" Poipole asked, looking up from making a Meowth drawing on the floor. "What?"

"A library is a place where there are books," Ash explained. "A library is a place where there are books. Me-eew-w-wmew!"

"...that's so weird, but also kind of endearing," Acerola said. "Was that mewing sound you speaking to your Pokémon?"

"Poipole's learning our languages!" Ash clarified. "And Pikachu's learning his. So I said the same thing in three different languages, two of them using Mew sounds."

"I swear Nanu should learn to do that, he spends enough time with his Meowth," Acerola muttered. "Okay, the library's this way."

Poipole was very interested to see all the books.

"Poii!" he said, floating in front of one and slowly turning the pages. "Poooi-pole!"

"That's right, some of them have pictures in," Ash agreed, turning another page. "Huh… hey, Nebby, this picture's got a Solgaleo and a Lunala. And something else, too-"

"Poooi!" Poipole interrupted, excited. "Poole-pole-poipoi! Poiii!"

"I'm only getting about a third of that," Pikachu said. "Something about light?"

"I think Poipole's saying that that's what their light source looked like, before they got hurt," Ash replied. "The Blinding One, huh…"

Nebby looked down at the book from where she was hanging off the ceiling.

"Well, I don't know much about that, but I'm still only little," she said. "You know, in age. Not in size. I'm quite big."

Ash, Pikachu, Nebby and Greninja were each about two books into a research session when Acerola came back, accompanied possibly involuntarily by Nanu.

"I found the Kahuna for you," Acerola explained. "Oh, what's this? I didn't take you for a book guy, no offence."

"I'm usually not!" Ash replied. "But this Blinding One seems kind of important to Poipole's home, and if we could work out what was going on and why they're linked to Solgaleo and Lunala it might let us save the world!"

Nanu snorted. "I do not believe the secret for how to save our world is in a Maile City public library."

"No, no, it's not this the world, it's the other the world," Ash explained. "Poipole is from another planet, or another something anyway, he got here by Ultra Wormhole. And it's like his world's sun got badly injured, or source of light at least, so we're trying to work out how to cure it."

"Or at least what it is," Greninja said, as one of their Frubble clones turned another page for Nebby.

"Yeah!" Ash confirmed. "But anyway, we can do more research later, I'm here for a Grand Trial!"

"You need to do an Island Trial first," Nanu denied.

"Already did that!" Ash replied, holding up the Draconium Z. "I didn't get a chance to work out if it's got a special mode, though."

"...special mode?" Nanu asked. "What do you mean, special mode? They're… Z crystals."

"Yeah, and a lot of mine have special modes that we've noticed!" Ash replied, rummaging around. "Uh… well, maybe it should wait until the trial, or afterwards, but this Electricium Z can change into a Pikachu specific one and use a special Z move! We decided it was called Ten Million Volt Thunderbolt, I think? And this Ghost one can change into a Hisuzorium Z which lets Aten use Ice Cold Royal Fury, that kind of thing… still don't know what this one does… this one's attuned to Meganium and Mega Meganium, so it can turn into a Mega Meganiumnium Z…"

"At this point I think I should probably hurry on to the trial," Nanu sighed. "Okay, trial rules, I get to set them… so, the rule is, you have to use only one Pokémon, I get three. Don't like it, tough."

"That's fine!" Ash replied. "What other rules are there on what Pokémon I use?"

"...no Legendaries," Nanu decided quickly. "Okay, let's go somewhere to properly do this."

Nanu took them to a set of ruins in the desert, which he introduced as the Ruins of Abundance.

"I think this should be far enough away from anywhere that we don't want to break," he said.

There was a sort of annoyed grumble, and Tapu Bulu made a rude gesture at them from the top of one of the nearby masses of rock.

"Like I said," Nanu added.

"Hmm," Ash frowned, thinking. "Is there some kind of connection between how the local Tapus act and how the Kahunas act? I'm mostly noticing it with you and Tapu Bulu but now I think about it trying to avoid doing something unless it's urgent is exactly the kind of thing Tapu Bulu would do!"

"I'm going to do my best not to treat that as an insult, kid," Nanu decided. "Anyway… you asked about the Blinding One, so I thought I'd better use this sacred place to explain it. The Blinding One is a figure of reverence in Alola, because it's said that the Blinding One along with their assistants Solgaleo and Lunala brought light to Alola. Before then it was nothing but darkness."

"Hmm," Ash frowned. "I guess maybe that means Nebby should speak to their parents about it, maybe that would give us a clue about what's going on. And… I wonder if I can get some information from Arceus about whether Alola really was pitch black before the Blinding One appeared… I don't think xey'd have wanted to leave somewhere that dark, not if they'd created the rest of the world. I mean… thinking about it, Mew came first, and Arceus came first, and while maybe Arceus doesn't need light to do anything I'm fairly sure Mew does unless he's turned into something that doesn't need it… but then again you need Dialga to be created for there to be any real concept of time, and Palkia for there to be any real concept of space, and both of those guys glow a bit at least."

Nanu and Tapu Bulu were both giving Ash concerned looks now as he free-associated. "And, the Reverse World always seems well lit, maybe Giratina never came here either? But then Groudon, Kyogre and Rayquaza, I think you'd need the sun to be there for Groudon to use their sunlight powers to help create the land, so I sort of think there must have been… oh! Maybe there was some kind of volcanic eruption and then the people of Alola were visited by a source of light from another world? That might be it!"

"Kid, what is your life?" Nanu asked. "How do you know all this stuff?"

"Oh, yeah, I should cite my sources, but loads of it is just personal conversation with Mew," Ash admitted. "I think you can say personal conversation as a source? It's just harder to check…"

"So," Dartrix said, yawning. "You didn't go to Ula'Ula?"

"You are correct," Zygarde confirmed. "It is not impossible that Ash will require my assistance, and in that case I will ask for assistance from Hoopa. And Hoopa is reliable when you want Hoopa to do something."

"Hoopa is always reliable!" Hoopa said, sticking their head through a wormhole.

"What about when someone wants you to not do something?" Zygarde inquired.

"Hoopa is sometimes reliable!" Hoopa amended Hoopaself.

"I actually meant him," Dartrix clarified, waving at Salazzle.

"No chance," Salazzle said. "I might get into a massive argument. It's the old thing about going back where you didn't fawn over a female, you know."

Hoopa, Dartrix and Zygarde exchanged glances.

"I don't think we have the least idea, no," Dartrix said, on behalf of all of them.

"Fair," Salazzle admitted. "Who wants lunch?"

AN:

Nanu has heard stories.

They've turned out to be true.