Yellow hobbled along a barely-worn forest path, leaning against Red like a crutch. The two were making slow progress. She was sure they'd barely made it a half a mile since they'd started. Yellow's mangled ankle ached, radiating pain up through her leg despite the casting around it. The air was chilled, the sun absent, and the ground shadowed. Rain dripped slowly through the leaves overhead, each drop an icy pinprick. All Yellow could see in the world around her was cold, damp, and dark.

And yet, she was warm. Red's arm around her shoulders gave her a stable anchor–a lifeline when her thoughts began to turn to the misery and despair that haunted the corners in her mind. His touch radiated soothing warmth that melted any ice that threatened to form around her soul. Even her ankle didn't seem so bad, despite the lightning, shooting pain that each misstep onto it sent through her system.

The change was nonsensical, and Yellow knew it. The freezing darkness was still there. The phantom still haunted the woods around her. The world was still in crisis. But despite the crushing reality of the situation, leaning on Red gave her foundation. With his support, the terror, the suffering, the chill in the air... No matter how much the hurricane buffeted her, it couldn't rip her away. The wave never broke, for the cliffs didn't exist. The bridge on which she stood was solid. The warm reprieve from the icy waters lasted.

Another slight misstep caused Yellow to grip Red's shoulder more tightly for balance, lessening even further the distance between them. He paused slightly, letting her catch herself, and then gave her shoulder a slight squeeze of reassurance. Yellow's face colored. She was very aware of how close they were. Very aware.

Part of her wanted to know what Red had been about to say before they'd been rudely interrupted by Guzma. That part of her paced restlessly, demanding that she ask immediately. After all, he'd been about to tell her anyway, what was the harm in asking for an answer that he'd already prepared to divulge? The other, milder, part of her objected, pointing out that this wasn't exactly the best time to get emotional, what with the crisis on hand. She didn't want to distract Red or herself from the immediate goal, at least.

"You holding up okay?"

The question took her by surprise. She didn't immediately comprehend it. "Uh... what do you mean?"

Red shrugged slightly. "You know, are you still doing all right? We've gone a pretty good ways."

Yellow laughed, though there was little humor to it. "Yeah, right. We've probably gotten a mile at most." She paused to consider her answer. "Yeah, I'm doing fine. I just wish I wasn't crippled like this and slowing you down."

Red's lips tightened. "I'm just glad you're not dead."

Yellow shivered, remembering how Guzma had threatened to have his Pokémon murder her. "Fair point."

Red must have felt her shaking, because he winced and said, "Sorry, that was kind of dark. Point is, we've moving at a steady pace, we're both safe, we're together, and I wouldn't want it any other way."

Yellow smiled. It was a small, barely noticeable smile, but genuine nonetheless. "I'm with you there."

They continued on for a while, dodging through the shadowy, rainy darkness around walls of thick underbrush and gnarled tree roots, before Red abruptly stopped. Yellow immediately went on guard, scanning the area, nervousness welling up inside her. "Wh-What's up?" she asked, shooting him a glance.

Red's gaze fixed on a bush. He shook his head. "Nothing, I guess. I could have sworn I saw something sparkling..."

Yellow thought for a moment. She was sure Red hadn't just imagined what he'd seen–he had a good eye for details like that–but there were a scarce number of things in the forest that could sparkle. A Pokemon might be able to, or perhaps some sort of strange bioluminescent plant she hadn't encountered before, brought here by the drastic ecosystem changes Team Rocket had caused, or maybe a crystal somehow elevated to the surface from underground, though Yellow couldn't think of a probable way for that to happen. With such a limited range of options, there was a high likelihood that whatever it was would be worth looking into. "Let's check it out."

She felt Red shrug. "Okay. It can't hurt, I guess."

They hobbled toward the bush where Red had seen the shimmer and knelt down to the best of their ability (Yellow managed to bend her good knee slightly and prop herself up with a hand resting on Red's hunched over back). He reached forward and parted the bush, carefully, so that if there was a Pokemon within, it wouldn't be startled and attack.

Instead of a Pokemon, however, on the ground within the bush lay two white devices that looked remarkably like wristwatches. Each had, in the place where the watch face would normally sit, a rhombus-shaped yellow crystal with a lightning emblem in the middle. Yellow stared at the wristbands for a second or two, processing the details, before a flurry of thoughts came to her. She was surprised to find that, in contrast to the cacophonic whirlpool of confused ideas that had torn apart her mind for days, the thoughts she had now were far more organized. She voiced the first one that seemed relevant. "Are those... thunderstones?"

Red shrugged. "I don't think so. Thunderstones are usually green with a yellow bolt, not yellow with black. But I'm honestly not sure. Maybe there's a different variation, or an artificial one, that's shown up. I honestly haven't kept track since I evolved Vee permanently. Though I can't imagine why someone would want to put a one-use thing on their wrist..."

Yellow considered that. "Maybe it's like the one you had a few years ago–infinite uses and all."

Red shook his head. "No, there's only one of those, and I've still got it with me." He frowned, his eyes locked on the wristbands. "That symbol could be a warning, too. I'm wondering if these things are high voltage or something..."

"I guess there's no way to know unless we're willing to get electrocuted," Yellow reasoned. "I don't think it's worth taking the risk."

Red shrugged once more. "Yeah, it wouldn't be, unless I had some way to neutralize that electricity." He grinned, glancing at Yellow. "Did I ever tell you about my electricity-proof gloves?"

She raised her eyebrows. "I don't think that ever came up."

He chuckled. "Got them from Lt. Surge a long time ago–unwillingly, of course." Reaching out, he grabbed the two wristbands, held them for a few seconds, and then nodded. "They're fine. My hands would be heating up by now if they weren't." He tossed one to Yellow and stood up, resuming their former position.

Yellow turned the device over repeatedly in her hands, observing its various features. It was made up of mostly whites and grays, with a few black accents here and there. She noted again its similarities in shape to a wristwatch, made up of nearly identical segments with one larger face. It was some sort of metal, obviously made to be very sturdy and hard to remove unintentionally, though despite its durability, it weighted surprisingly little. The rhomboid yellow crystal, upon a second glance, though well fitted, appeared to not be part of the device itself, though Yellow couldn't find a mechanism to remove it.

Her observations would have ended there, if this had simply been a metal contraption. Because she was thoroughly dissociated from any sort of technological or mechanical know-how, she couldn't figure anything else out by just looking at the device. Perhaps if Green had been there, or maybe that kid with the weird hair–Emerald if she recalled correctly–from Hoenn, they would have concluded something about the purpose of the wristband. However, it was precisely that dissociation from technology and firm entrenchment in nature that allowed Yellow to sense the device's peculiarity.

As she held the wristband, she could feel a strange energy coming from it with a pulsing regularity. The strange thought came to her that it was a heartbeat, though she couldn't decide whether that reassured her or terrified her. However, despite the strangeness of the energy, she quickly realized that it felt familiar. Her breath caught in her throat when the revelation hit her that this energy was of a similar sort to the life force of the Viridian Forest to which she was so attuned. Her fingers trembled, threatening to lose their grip in shock from the magnitude of her discovery. This device, though made of metal, tapped into the collective heartbeat of nature itself.

Yellow looked at Red, who was eyeing the wristband he held with confusion. She knew he didn't figure it out–couldn't figure it out–as naturally as she had. He didn't carry the curse... no, the gift... of Viridian. He needed help to understand. "Can you feel anything?" she prompted.

"Nah, not much," he admitted. "It's kinda cold, but I think that's just because it's been sitting out in the storm for a while."

Yellow nodded. He wouldn't be able to feel the pulsing if she didn't point it out to him. So, ignoring his surprised reaction, she took his hand and placed it against her chest, right over her heart. Then, she focused on synchronizing herself with the Forest.

She was weak–deprived of sleep and emotionally drained–and so she was unable to manifest her connection in any physical way. Healing a Pokemon was out of the question unless she wanted to put herself into a coma. She doubted whether she could even read her Pokemon's thoughts without passing out. However, despite her weakness, she could still feel her connection to the Forest she called home, and that was all she needed. As she tapped into it, she felt her heart rate shift until it beat as one with the Forest, and now the device.

"Can you feel my heartbeat?" she asked Red, staring into his eyes.

He blinked, obviously still confused. "Well, yeah, but I don't see how that's going to–"

"Hold the thing," Yellow advised. "One hand on me, one hand on it."

"Uh... okay," Red agreed, obliging. One second passed. Two. Three. Then... "Oh," Red muttered. Then louder, "Oh." He looked at Yellow, a slight smile on his face–the kind one gets when both amazed and faced with incredible strangeness. "That's weird. Cool, but weird."

"You feel it?"

He nodded. "Yeah, I do."

"That's the rhythm of the Forest–of nature itself," Yellow explained. She knew she could never make him understand completely. This was something that only she and the other children of Viridian could know. The other children, like Lance.

She paused, her thoughts stopping cold as she came to a shocking realization. She'd just thought about Lance without any sort of reaction, as though the topic was something casual. She knew that even a passing mention of his name should send her into a panic attack, that it should all but stop her heart, turn her pale, and freeze her muscles. And yet, even with that conscious knowledge, her body simply refused to react. The name radiated cold in the core of her very being–the cold of darkness and death. But a more powerful radiation eradicated the icy claws, one that began in her heart and spread outward, so that even the tiniest muscles at her fingertips felt energized. That warmth, she realized, began at the very place where Red's hand touched her chest.

"That's... huh," Red began. "That's pretty heavy stuff. So I guess these things are important?"

Yellow nodded. "I think so, but I don't yet know how."

He looked at his device once more. "Do you suppose we should take them with us?"

"Probably. We can probably wear them like watches until we need to take them off."

"Cool." He paused, like he couldn't figure out how to phrase his next thought. "Can... uh... can I have my hand back?"

With a jolt, Yellow realized she was still holding Red's hand in place over her heart, and her grip had tightened slightly, reluctant to let it go. A new, red warmth grew on her cheeks and ears as she quickly relinquished her grip. "Y-yeah... sorry."

He grinned. "No problem. So how do we...?" he muttered, turning his attention to his wristband. "What if I just..." Yellow watched as he slid his fingers into the band, and then his hand, and then his wrist, where he let the device sit. He frowned. "That's... weird. It fits perfectly."

Yellow could see the problem in that. If the wristband had been large enough to fit over Red's hand, it should have been far larger than his wrist. Curious, she repeated his process, and found that her device had the same skintight properties, fitting around her wrist as though it had been made specifically for her. "Do you think we should be worried about it?"

He shrugged. "I don't see the point. I'm just glad it feels good."

She nodded. "I guess that makes sense. But the first sign something is wrong, we should take them off."

"Got it."

And so they set off again, hobbling unsteadily through the dark woods. It had begun to rain again, and though the forest's canopy did a decent job at shielding them from the freezing torrent, eventually the dismal droplets began to drip through the leaves. And yet Yellow was still warm. With Red's arm around her and his shoulder pressing against hers, the pinpricks of ice couldn't even make her flinch.

However, she did flinch as they came across a horrible sight. Trees were knocked down in a path of destruction, splintered at the bases into haphazard bends, some hit by something so forcefully that the trunk was severed from the roots entirely. And, most chilling of all, in the midst of the destruction lay the unconscious forms of Blue and Green.

"Oh... God..." Red muttered, his arm around Yellow's shoulders tightening in shock. "What...?"

"Come on!" Yellow ordered, pointing at their fallen friends. "We have to help them!"

Red's eyes hardened in the same focused way they did when he was faced with an important battle–steeled by the determination of having a necessary goal. "Right."

They made their way over to the other two as quickly as possible, Yellow vaulting on one leg over fallen tree trunks when necessary, and knelt down beside them. The damage was even more shocking up close. Both seemed to still be breathing, which alleviated a great amount of Yellow's worry, but despite that reassurance, their wounds were jarring.

Green was bleeding from a cut on his head, the blood matting his hair and mixing with the rainwater pooled on the ground. His cape had been ripped off at some point, and his shirt had many holes ripped into it, through which Yellow could see cuts and gashes with various degrees of depth. Nothing looked fatal, though the head would, if left untreated, could spell trouble.

Blue was similarly battered, though her scrapes were more obvious, since both her arms and a great portion of her legs were uncovered. Because of this, Yellow could see that her wounds weren't caused by a blade of any sort, but by a rough, blunt object, as though someone had coated their fist in rock and struck her. Blood trickled slowly out of the corner of her mouth, indicating something had struck her stomach with a great deal of force.

"What... happened?" Red asked, his voice barely a whisper. "What could have...?"

"Guz...ma..." a rough, strained voice croaked. Yellow realized with a start that it was coming from Blue, who was apparently still conscious, though Green was not. She had opened her eyes and was now attempting to speak. She coughed, clearing her throat. "Guzma," she said, her voice now clearer. "He... he's got the thing."

Yellow waited for her throat to clench up, but it never happened. Red still provided her warmth, despite the terrible circumstances. "Did he...?" she asked. "Did he do this?"

Blue nodded, then grimaced like it caused her pain. "Yeah. That thing... it's so strong. It and Guzma wiped the floor with us... both of us."

Red's eyes narrowed further. "Uh oh," he muttered, almost inaudibly. Yellow agreed. If Blue and Green, two of the strongest trainers in the world, couldn't take down the phantom working together, it was virtually unbeatable.

"Can you stand?" she asked.

Blue shook her head, then grimaced again. "No. I... I'm way too bruised. Everything hurts. If I stand up... I might pass out, like him." Yellow understood. Green, determined to continue the fight, had tried to get up, and had rendered himself unconscious from fatigue in the process.

"We have to go after it," Red said grimly. "We don't have any choice. If that thing gets any farther..." He shook his head, and Yellow knew he was imagining this destruction on a larger scale. "We can't let it get any farther. Where is it?"

"That way," Blue answered, pointing to her left with her eyes, toward where the trail of destruction continued deeper into the forest. "It can't be too far. Guzma... I think he said something about opening another portal."

Yellow chewed her tongue. If another portal opened... if another angry spirit got out... "Then we've got to stop him. Will you be okay?"

Blue nodded. "Yeah, I'll be fine. But..." Suddenly, she lunged forward with one hand towards Yellow, seizing her wrist and gripping it like a vice. Her blue eyes blazed with sudden vigor. "Just a Pokemon," she said, staring directly into Yellow's eyes. "It's just... a..." Her grip slackened and her eyes glazed and closed. She fell backwards onto the ground, unconscious. She'd used the last of her energy to give that message.

Yellow and Red were both silent for a few moments, processing the exchange. Eventually, they were forced to conclude that they had no idea what Blue had meant. Yellow knew that that statement meant something, though. Blue wouldn't have wasted her consciousness on something irrelevant. She'd been trying to tell them... no, not both of them, specifically Yellow... something important. But despite her best efforts, Yellow couldn't figure it out. Somehow, she couldn't piece the importance of the words together.

However, time would not wait for her, and neither would Guzma. With a quick nod of determination to each other, she and Red began to hobble-sprint down the path of destruction the phantom had left in its wake.

As they continued, the destruction only got worse. Now the tree trunks not only lay strewn on the ground, but had been severed in two or more pieces, so that the floor of the Forest was now littered with miscellaneous bits of destroyed bark. The rain began to grow in intensity as well, a slow drizzle of liquid ice boring its way through the canopy.

With each drop of the frigid water sliding down her spine, Yellow grew tenser. She knew this was it. She was about to come face to face with her demon–with Lance. Her heart began to beat faster with panic at the thought of the impending confrontation–one where she might not escape alive. The concept of her demise, which, until the last hour or so, had become as good as a certainty in her mind, now rushed back into her thoughts. The paranoia that had become a habit–the knowledge that at any moment the phantom could rush at her, and constrict her throat, and choke her until the darkness at the edges of her vision became all that she could see –stepped back into her mind as easily as though it had never left. Her thoughts began to cloud again, dark smog filling her consciousness until she couldn't think of anything besides the cold rain, the surrounding shadows, and her impending death.

But then, suddenly, with the force of a sword and the gentleness of an embrace, Red's squeeze of her shoulder cut a swath of the fog away. He glanced at her. "We're going to be fine," he reassured, seeming to mean every word. "We can do this." And as simply as that, Yellow's panic melted, replaced by a steely determination, fortified by the warm feeling growing and radiating in her heart.

Those words couldn't have come at a better time, because moments later, the trail of destruction ended, and Yellow found herself facing what she'd dreaded for days. In front of her and Red, in an unnatural clearing caused by even more decimated trees, stood Guzma, holding his device, and hovering above him was none other than the phantom.

The uneven footfall she and Red had made on the soggy grass below when they had approached the clearing drew Guzma's attention, and he turned toward them with an expression somewhere in between irritation and arrogance, both accentuated by his skull-like face. "Oh, it's you two again. I thought I beat you so bad you couldn't get up." He turned his attention to Yellow, unable to stand on her own, and his manic grin stretched farther. "Oh, never mind. It looks like I did."

While he spoke, the phantom turned towards them as well, and struck up its eerie whistling again. This time, however, it was more intense–purposeful. The demon had a goal–a target for its wrath. Yellow didn't know where its eyes were, but she could feel them boring a hole straight into her. There was no doubt in her mind. The phantom–Lance's vengeful ghost–desired nothing more than to end her life in the same violent way she'd ended his.

"Well, you're too late to do... whatever you were going to do, anyway," Guzma continued, seemingly oblivious to the phantom's anger. "I made a few more adjustments to this thing with the data from the wormhole that got this thing..." He pointed carelessly at the hovering demon. "...here, and now I can open another one that won't collapse no matter how many of these things come through." He shrugged. "So, basically, y'all are screwed."

Red scowled and drew a poke ball. "Says you."

Guzma shrugged, grinning again. "What are you and your little crippled girlfriend gonna do about it when you can't even beat Iso?" He barked a laugh. "In fact, I think I should just get rid of you right now. Can't say it's been nice knowing you." He turned his sunken eyes up towards the phantom, which was wailing with barely suppressed rage. "All right, thingy, kill 'em." The demon, happy to oblige, began to hover slowly, menacingly, just as in Yellow's nightmares, towards her and Red.

Things seemed to slow down. Yellow came to several realizations in a matter of milliseconds. Suddenly, faced with the incarnation of all the terror that had haunted her mind since she'd watched the first rip in reality open, what Blue had been trying to tell her finally clicked. The deathly white phantom that drifted, wailing, toward her like a slow guillotine was not Lance's vengeful ghost, nor any ghost at all. It was a Pokemon. Just a Pokemon.

With that one understanding, despite the danger she still faced, the lead weight that had sat on Yellow's chest for so many days suddenly lifted, and she found she could finally breathe again. Reassured that the thing that had become, for her, the physical embodiment of death itself had no power whatsoever over her soul, her wavering heart and mind, which had been until now like a candle flickering in heavy wind, now sat still. The bridge under her feet stood as solid as though it were paved road, and she had finally crossed the abyss it stretched over. The swell of the wave beneath her had deposited her safely onto the shore. The icy water under which she had been forcibly submerged had vanished, and the reprieve she had experienced so rarely now lasted forever. The danger she had perceived for so long was, in fact, no danger at all.

This realization led seamlessly into the next. With her heart unrestrained, she felt new, raw energy seep into her body from both the Forest, and, surprisingly, the device she wore on her wrist, overriding her exhaustion. Her heartbeat fell smoothly into synchronization with the rhythm of nature that she shared with her Forest and the strange wristband, and suddenly, without warning, her home and the device aligned, and Yellow knew exactly what to do.

"Follow my lead," she said to Red, giving him a short hug of reassurance around his shoulders and separating from him to free her arms. Despite the pain in her ankle, she stood squarely on both feet. The energy that flowed through her overrode the pain. She would feel it later, but now it may as well not exist. The warmth that Red's touch had provided her in the depths of her cold despair filled her entire body, despite their lack of contact. It bubbled up from her heart and radiated outward, so that it seemed impossible that the drizzle that seeped through the canopy and soaked her didn't evaporate on contact.

Yellow sent out Chuchu, and was glad when Red sent out Pika to mimic her. Her next motions followed instructions that she didn't think of on her own, and from an outsider's perspective may have even looked silly, but inside she knew without a doubt that the cues came from the Forest she echoed and the device on her wrist, and that they were the exact right things to do.

She began to perform what must have looked like a little dance, but she knew that with each motion she was channeling yet more power from a source that few others had ever gotten the chance to comprehend. As she moved, she glanced over at Red, and smiled when she saw that he followed her movements perfectly, either copying her or following the guidelines from his own device.

Guzma looked at the two of them, first with incredulity, and then with mockery. "What are you morons even doing? You think some little interpretive dance routine is going to be able to stop this thing, or keep me from opening the portal?" He roared with derisive laughter as he hit a button on his remote device and opened another crack in the sky. "Keep going, it's hilarious. You're dead kids walking either way."

Yellow didn't bother answering him. She could see no point, and it might break her concentration. Besides, she was already at the end of the power gathering. Now, there was only one more step. She arranged her arms in a pose resembling the letter 'Z' and glanced down at Chuchu. Her Pikachu looked up at her with confidence, and Yellow sent the power she had gathered into her Pokemon.

Chuchu began to crackle with barely contained electric energy, and a halo of sparks emitted from around her. Yellow nodded, and leveled one arm to point at the phantom. She didn't know from where the next words she and Red spoke in unison came, but they shouted them with the same force and confidence as a war cry. "Gigavolt Havoc!"

The instant after two Pikachu heard the command, the Pokemon let loose with all the electric energy they'd gained, directed full force at the floating phantom, which was, in reality, just a Pokemon. Later Yellow would learn that the damage she and Red had caused was incredible, even for the move they'd used, since the Pokemon they'd hit was part rock type, against which electric type moves had little effect. At the moment, all she could perceive was the sound of catastrophic thunder ripping through the air, battering her eardrums, and a flash of light so bright she thought she might never see again.

When her vision and hearing finally cleared, Yellow blinked at the scene before her. The phantom was gone, either blasted away entirely or knocked through the portal Guzma had created moments before the final attack. That portal was nowhere to be found. The sky overhead, though still dreary, had lost the force with which it had downpoured just minutes ago. The sprinkle leaking through the canopy now felt warm, as though the explosion of energy had imparted to even the clouds the same warmth that radiated from Yellow's core.

In the middle of the clearing, like a black cloud, though even that seemed nonthreatening by now, sat Guzma, knocked off his feet by the attack and cradling the remote device, now charred and melting, evidently destroyed by the explosion. It took him many seconds to speak. Yellow was fine with that. Right then, she felt like she had the strength to stand there for days.

"You," he growled finally, looking up at the two with fury in his eyes. With his skull-shaped face and the vengeful fury in his eyes, he almost resembled a phantom himself. But only almost. "You evil little dirt-eating, disgusting pieces of shit!" He rose as he ranted. "I'll kill you! I'll kill you both for this, do you hear me?! I'm going to make you bleed, and suffer, and beg for mercy, and then I'm going to murder you with my own bare hands!" Obviously the idea of doing so now hadn't crossed his mind, because he spiked the ruined device on the ground and sent out, instead of the goliath Pokemon he'd used earlier, the Abra. His voice took on a note of hysteria as he continued. "I'll go back to Alola. I'll get another one of these portal thingamajigs. I'll let loose every monster that the unholy hand of Satan himself ever conceived of, and I'll set them all on you two! I'll let them torture you within an inch of death, and then I'll choke the last bits of life out of you! You're DEAD, DO YOU HEAR ME?!"

Yellow cocked an eyebrow at Red, who shrugged.

Guzma was silent for a moment, seething in his own fury. Eventually, he must have decided that anything else he could say would be redundant, or else had the passing thought that Yellow and Red might have some other powerful attack up their sleeves, because he picked the Abra up like a rag doll and thumped it in the head. "Get me out of here."

And just like that, the man responsible for the Forest's jeopardy was gone.

It took a moment for the implications of that to hit Yellow's mind. A few moments later, a broad grin broke out across her face. "We won," she said softly. Then, turning to Red, who wore a similar expression, she repeated louder and with more enthusiasm, "We won!" It shortly became a cheer that she repeated a few times. "We won! We won! We won! We won! We... we..."

Her last victory cry cut short when she caught Red's eye. It must have been the triumph of the situation–the excitement that comes after not just surviving a climactic battle, but overcoming the enemy–that was causing both their hearts to race like never before, or their frayed nerves, finally given relief after so long held tense, or some other factor. Either way, it didn't much matter, because quicker than Yellow's conscious brain could comprehend, he was kissing her, and she was kissing him, and their arms were wrapped around each other, holding each other close and never wanting to let go.

Her thoughts jumbled. She thought it was just from the sudden influx of emotions and subsequent abandon of reason, but realized quickly and painfully that the strength that had allowed her to ignore her ankle was ebbing away fast. Still she held on to consciousness for as long as possible, despite the agony radiating up her leg, despite her nervous system rapidly shutting down, and the last thing she remembered as she drifted away into unconsciousness was her and Red together at last, and the pure, warm joy in her heart.

Yellow awoke from her dreamless sleep dazed and confused. A harsh light that she dimly recognized as florescent assaulted her eyes from above where she lay, forcing her to squint and close her eyes again several times, trying to blink the stupor of sleep from them. Her body woke up slowly, her nervous system unresponsive at first, and then ever so gradually trickling feeling back into her system. She realized that the pain in her ankle had reduced to a dull ache. But the one thing that most occupied her mind, more than wondering where she was, or how much time had passed, or why her ankle didn't hurt as badly as it should have, was the feeling of warmth enveloping her hand–warmth she recognized immediately.

Mustering up all her strength and opening her eyes fully, Yellow sat up. She quickly recognized her surroundings as a hospital-like room that looked suspiciously more suited for Pokemon than humans. She guessed that she was in Professor Oak's laboratory, and that he'd tried his best to accommodate an injured human rather than an injured Pokemon. Her foot was set straight again, covered halfway up her shin with bandages and elevated on a pillow at the foot of the bed in which she lay. These observations only took her attention for a quarter of a second, because she quickly turned her eyes on the source of the warmth. At her bedside, gently holding her hand and looking at her with concern sat Red. At the sight of her stirring, he smiled, his worry evaporating. She smiled too.

"Hey," Yellow said, unsurprised to find her voice raspy from extended disuse.

"Hi," he replied. "Glad you're awake."

"Me too," she agreed. "How is everyone?"

"Blue and Green are doing fine," he answered. "The Professor bandaged them up pretty well, and they're healing quickly."

"That's good." She nodded slowly, relieved her friends were okay. "I was worried about them."

"Me too," he agreed. "It looked a lot worse than it actually was. Just a few bruises and cuts."

"That makes sense," she conceded. "The blood made it look pretty bad."

"Yeah." His eyes flitted down to her ankle. "Your foot was pretty far out of place. The Professor managed to twist it back to where it's supposed to be, but he thinks the bones will take a while to heal."

"I guess that makes sense." She shrugged. "That's not so bad. I'll just be on crutches for a few months, then. What about Guzma?"

"He's been missing since he teleported away," he informed her. "The Professor figures he's gone back to that Alola place he mentioned. The Professor has a contact there, so he's going to look into it further."

"That's great," she said. "I'm glad we managed to get him out of Kanto."

"Yeah." Red was silent for a few long moments. Then, "We... uh... we couldn't find your hat. It got lost in the flood. I'm really sorry."

"Oh, it's fine." She shrugged. "It's probably better it's gone, anyway. I probably wouldn't be wearing it much anymore."

Further silence reigned between them for what felt like an hour. They were both making small talk, going back and forth about uncomplicated things in order to avoid the real issue they both desperately wanted to address yet had no idea how to go about it. Each beat of quiet hid a thousand unspoken words at the tip of each of their tongues. Finally, Yellow, taking a deep breath, plunged in.

"What were you going to say?" she asked. "When you got cut off before. What were you going to say?"

"Oh." Red's face colored. He looked sheepish. "Er, well, you see... I was going to say... um, you know..."

Yellow's face began to burn as well. She leaned forward slightly, moving her eyes closer to his. "What? What were you going to say?"

Red looked both cornered and like he was exactly in the place he'd always wanted to be. "I... um... I was going to say... I... well... I... lo–" He swallowed and took a breath to steady himself. "Yellow, what I was going to say... what I'm saying now... is... I love you."

Yellow's breath abandoned her, but not so much that she couldn't whisper the words, "I love you too."

And then they were kissing again, and Yellow's pulse quickened with excitement. Her heart skipped two beats before picking up faster than it ever had before. The warm feeling at her core intensified, and radiated outward so powerfully she could swear her very skin gave off the warmth of a fire. She felt like she could have stayed like this forever, and was tempted to try until the sound of the door opening drew her attention.

"Oh," Professor Oak's voice said, sounding surprised. "I... well, I guess I can come back later."

Red and Yellow immediately separated, snapping back into the rigid sitting positions, their cheeks alive with embarrassment.

"No, no, Professor," Red said, trying and failing to sound nonchalant. "What's up?"

Professor Oak looked slightly flustered himself, understandable considering what he'd walked in on. Nevertheless he approached Yellow's bedside and sat in the other chair, opposite Red. "I thought I'd tell you a few things I've learned about the whole incident. That is, unless you have... something else you need to do that you don't want me here for?"

Yellow felt her face might melt off if she blushed any more. "No," she answered, her voice roughly and octave higher than usual. "Nothing." Red echoed her response.

The Professor shrugged and grinned. "Well, I suppose the first thing I should say is congratulations! You two managed to stop a major threat to the ecosystem before it got out of hand." He sighed. "But this is where things get complicated. Regarding the devices you picked up in the Forest... My cousin, Samson Oak, who lives in the Alola region, has done a bit of research on them, and come to some interesting conclusions. They're called Z-Rings. It's very odd that they would turn up in the Kanto region, since due to the Alola region's island guardian spirits, they have only ever been found on those islands."

Red frowned. "That's where Guzma is from, right? So couldn't he have gotten hold of a few of them and brought them over here?"

"Perhaps," the Professor conceded. "But according to what Samson knows about Guzma's current relationship with the island guardians, it's unlikely they would bestow one on him, let alone two."

"Then if he didn't bring them," Yellow reasoned. "They just spontaneously appeared in Kanto?" But that didn't seem right, she realized, remembering the connection between the heartbeat of the Forest and the rhythmic pulse of the Z-Ring. That sort of thing didn't happen by random chance.

The Professor shrugged. "I'll admit, it seems implausible. But perhaps the island guardians decided your need was great enough and placed them here." He laughed. "I don't claim to understand how legendary Pokemon think. Either way, it's both incredible that you found them in the first place, and that you were able to use them without any trouble. In Alola, sometimes Z-Ring holders have to practice for years to master a single technique."

Yellow considered telling him about how the Z-Ring and the spirit of the Forest had combined in unison to give her instructions on how to use it. She wondered what he'd think if she told him her hypothesis that the Z-Ring tapped into the heartbeat of nature, just like she did each time she used her connection to Viridian. Ultimately, she decided to keep silent about it all. If she told him, he would just become even more confused and frustrated, just as he had in the past each time he'd tried to understand her powers.

"Either way," the Professor continued. "What's even more remarkable was the creature Guzma summoned. Even Samson hadn't heard of it before. However, he was able to provide a hypothesis, though it's fairly baseless."

Yellow and Red both leaned toward him, interested. "What's he think, Professor?" Red asked.

"Well..." the Professor looked uncomfortable. "There's no real documented evidence of it, but a strange young man by the name of Gladion once told him that a local conservationist group has been attempting to open portals to other dimensions. Samson thinks that whatever you two confronted may have been a being from one of those portals. A being... from another dimension."

The two Pokedex holders were dumbfounded, struck silent in surprise at the idea. "So..." Yellow ventured slowly. "That thing might have been from an entirely different reality?"

The Professor nodded. "Yes. Gladion told Samson that these creatures are called Ultra Beasts, and the conservationist group is conducting research on them and trying to bring them to our world."

Red scowled. "That's stupid. We saw what one of those things did. If any more of them come here, they could destroy the whole region!"

"Yeah," Yellow added, growing more and more concerned as she imagined the level of destruction she'd seen scaled up to the whole Forest, and then to the region, and then to the world. "We have to stop them!"

The Professor looked pleased. "I'm glad you both think that way, because Samson actually requested that you two, Green, and Blue travel to the Alola region to work with him on curbing the Ultra Beast research. I suppose this means you will?"

Yellow thought for a while. She remembered the terror of facing what she'd thought was a vengeful ghost seeking revenge. She remembered the sleepless nights, the detached days, and the terrible cold. Then she recalled Blue's warning that it was just a Pokemon, and the warmth of Red's touch. She imagined facing ten thousand of those creatures, and found herself unafraid. She looked at Red. He nodded. "Definitely, Professor," she said, without a quaver in her voice.

The Professor grinned. "That's excellent! Samson will be glad to hear it. I'll call him after I tell Green and Blue to come upstairs and visit you. They'll be happy you're okay." He made his way back out the door, shutting it behind him.

Red raised his eyebrows at Yellow. "Alola, huh? I guess a visit to the tropics won't be too bad."

Yellow grinned. "Yeah, but I think we'll need some lighter clothing with all that sun."

He shrugged, smiling. "Oh, I don't know. I've heard it can get pretty chilly on the oceans when it's windy."

She laughed, and leaned forward and kissed him, warmth bubbling in her heart. No matter the trials they would face, they were together, and she didn't think she could ever be cold again.