A.N. Hopefully this chapter won't be finished after midnight this time. I have a shit sleep schedule as is. But anyway, this chapter may be a bit off, since it was originally going to be two separate chapters, but one of them felt too much like useless padding so I combined them together. But I w

CHAPTER 5

Risk and Reward.

Hau led the Aether siblings and Kukui to a small campsite on the outskirts of Poni Island. In the campsite were a few tents and a large firepit. One of the tents was chock full of maps and charts and another was full of clothes and provisions. There were three other tents as well, most likely used for sleeping. Lillie couldn't help but grimace slightly. "Does this expert of yours live here full time?" she asked. Hau shook his head. "Of course not," he replied, "It's where us and Elio meet whenever we go on our excursions through Ultra Wormholes."

At that moment, one of the sleeping tents' flaps opened, and out came a young woman with long brown hair. She was wearing an orange tank top and green cargo shorts. Hau ran up to her when he saw her and embraced her, which she happily returned. "About time you introduced me to the rest of your friends" she told him. She spoke with a faint Kalosian accent mixed in with an Alolan one. Hau rubbed the back of his head, then turned to the three he arrived with.

"Selene," he said, "This is Lillie, Elio's girlfriend, and Gladion, the current head of the Aether Paradise. You already know Professor Kukui. Everyone, this is Selene. She's the person me and Elio go travelling through Ultra Wormholes with. She's second to none when it comes to navigating them. And she's also my wonderful girlfriend." "Hau, you're making me blush," said Selene bashfully, before walking over to the Aether siblings. "Nice to meet you at last. As Hau said, I'm an expert in Wormhole navigation.

"He also told us you know how to track them" said Lillie, hopefully. Selene nodded. "That I do" she replied. They stared at her in amazement. "How can you do that?" Kukui asked. Selene grinned. "Follow me" she replied, leading them to the tent full of the charts. Inside was filled with maps and charts, as they had seen from the outside. But in the centre of the tent sat a small flute with weird crystals sticking out of it. The sight made Lillie gasp and tear up a little. "That's the moon flute!" she said. "Where did you get that?"

Selene turned to look at Lillie. "I found it by some old slightly broken statue on Poni Island after doing a bit of climbing. Why?" Selene's description brought back memories of that night ten years ago, when Lillie was told that Elio would be going on a journey he most likely wouldn't be coming back from. Now, they were looking to go through another Wormhole to bring him back to this world again. Lillie shook her head as fresh tears fell down her eyes. "N-no reason," she stuttered. "Excuse me a minute." Then without another word she quickly left the tent. Gladion went after her to make sure she was ok.

While they waited for the two to return, Kukui began asking Selene a few questions. "So how did you meet these two?" he asked. "It's quite an interesting story actually," Selene replied. "So, I'd found the Moon Flute just lying there abandoned by a statue. I picked it up and played it, when I suddenly found myself staring at an Ultra Wormhole. You'd better believe I went in without hesitation."

Kukui chuckled at that. "Have you always been so reckless?" he asked. Selene nodded. "I've been a known thrill-seeker in my family for all of my life, which has resulted in frequent trips to the hospital. Especially when we moved here from Kalos when I was five." She chuckled at the memory. "Anyway," she went on. "I found out a trick to tracking the Wormholes by playing the Moon Flute. If I play it with a specific mineral from a Wormhole, I can see exactly what's on the other side of it without having to enter it." "Which has come in very handy when we were looking for certain types of pokémon" Hau commented.

Selene nodded. "It was because of this trick that I got to know Hau and Elio. I found out that they were going into Ultra Wormholes to conduct research on them for you. So, I introduced myself and showed them my ability. Since then, we've been travelling through the Ultra Wormholes together. And a few months ago, during one of our excursions Hau asked me out." Hau blushed at this. "Elio kept asking me how the hell we didn't get together sooner" he told Kukui.

A few minutes later, Lillie and Gladion returned. "Sorry about that," said Lillie, drying her eyes. "The Moon Flute brought back some bad memories. Anyway, so how are you able to track Ultra Wormholes?" Selene picked up the Moon Flute and a mineral from one of the shelves of the stuff. She pulled the crystals out of the flute and replaced it with the new mineral. Then she began to play. After a few moments, she put the flute down and said, "If we want to get to the Wormhole I just saw, we'd need to go to Akala."

"So," Lillie asked nervously, "Would that work if we attached something that belongs to Elio to it?" Selene thought about it for a moment. "So that's why you've come huh?" she said. The four of them nodded. Selene chuckled. "Figured that'd be the case since I saw your broadcast. I'm very sorry for you Lillie. As for whether or not it would work, I'd say it would work." Lillie leapt with excitement at this. "Would you be able to figure out its coordinates?" sha asked.

Selene looked at her with confusion. "Faba used a machine to summon the Ultra Wormhole that trapped he used to trap Elio," Gladion explained. "If we can fix it and punch in the coordinates, we may be able to find him again." Selene nodded, then played the flute again. After a few moments, she confirmed that she could get the coordinates from the Flute.

The four of them cheered at this news. "So we've got our navigator and our army, now all we need is a way to traverse through the Ultra Wormholes quickly, yeah!" said Kukui happily. "Galar's Rotom bikes would come in very handy there" said Hau. "So let's head to Burnett's lab in Akala and make contact!" Kukui replied. With that settled, they got on Kukui's rickety boat again and headed off to Akala Island.

Sorry for how messy that chapter felt, but I'm a bit under the weather right now and like I said I'm combining two chapter ideas into one here. There was originally going to be one chapter all about Selene's life and another be them meeting her, but the one about Selene felt way too much like useless padding and barely reached the 1000 word mark so I combined it into this one. But anyway, I probably won't be able to update this tomorrow, but I'll try.