Poni Island is a peaceable place when people aren't panicking over the appearance of an evil bird kaiju.

"So are you sure you saw something out there?" Asks the police officer, his badge reflecting the morning sun.
"Y-YESSIR!" The fisherman spluttered. "I-I-IT WAS LIKE A-A-A G-GIANT, TWO-HEADED BIRD OR SOMETHIN'! I-IT CAME SCREAMIN' OUTTA THE WATER, I-IT'S EYES GLOWIN' R-R-RED AN' STUFF! AND WH-WHEN THE THING L-LOOKED AT ME, I S-SAW THE EVIL IN IT'S EYES!"
The police officer crossed his arms. "Ok, calm down, sir. we'll look into this…unusual sighting you've submitted, sir. Until then, just continue on with your day-to-day activities and try not to spread pani-"
The officer stopped talking and stared at the sky in astonishment. His mouth fell open as an immense figure larger than any Pokemon blotted out the sun.
"O-o-oh. That bird!" The officer stammered, before a gargantuan beak fell from the sky and swallowed him up. The fisherman began fleeing, screaming at the top of his lungs as Bherunda spread their violent wings wide. The huge creature watched the fisherman with a malevolent mix of amusement and hatred, only caring about his actions because of the sheer terror that was guiding them. Nearby, a newly-wed couple, woken up by the commotion, went outside to see what was going on. Upon seeing the giant creature, they stood frozen in awestruck fear. Never had any person anywhere in Alola seen such a huge, potent being such as Bherunda. The couple simply stood and stared, transfixed by the horrific novelty of this kaiju, for a good 5 seconds before the husband told his wife to get inside and call the Elite Four. While all this took place, Bherunda watched with malign amusement. They understood that these people were calling for backup, thus providing them with ample opportunities for unbridled sadism and devastation.

"Hala was a strong man who had faced many strange and powerful adversaries in his life, but a giant, two-headed bird was a new one for him.
"Are you quite sure it has two heads?" He asked. The people on the other end of the call were quite obviously panicking and started sobbing random pleas for help into Hala's ear.
"Ok, let's ask something else. Can you describe the Pokemon to me?"
There was a brief moment of silence before the woman on the phone with Hala began describing the monster. As she began, Hala pulled out a notebook and pencil and started scribbling notes.
"Hmm. Two heads. Unparalleled size. Eyes glowing red. Wickedly sharp teeth." Hala scratched his head. "This is most peculiar."

Before the woman could finish describing Bherunda, however, the kaiju decided that they weren't ok with being identified with such precision. They had also concluded that further terror could be wrought if the so-called backup these little gnats were summoning could do nothing but listen while the beings they were intended to help were gruesomely ended. By mutual decision, Bherunda moved in to instill ever more trauma upon the populace.

"Oh, god! It's coming!" the woman screamed. "FUCK, IT LOOKS ANGRY! HEEEELP, HALA! HEEEEEEEL-" Hala wiped sweat off his forehead. "Ma'am" he said, "Ma'am, are you still there?" Hala's brow furrowed as a horrific, bone-rattling shriek rang through the phone-line, before he lost contact with the woman.

Hala sat down and thought for a second. He was unsure about the situation, but knew that it was dire, to say the least. At last, he decided to call the Kahuna of Poni Island, Hapu. The phone rang for an unsettlingly lengthy period, which began to deeply worry Hala. Luckily, the phone picked up.

"Ol' Hala." Hapu's uniquely accented voice was somewhat of a relief to Hala's rather shaken nerves.

"I'm sorry to bother you, Hapu," Hala said, "but this is a matter of most urgency."

There was a short pause before Hapu's unimpressed voice said "Great. Another problem that ya want me to deal with, am I right?"

Hala sighed. "Based on what I've heard about it, no. I would like you to avoid it, in fact, until all the Kahunas have gathered together." Hala then proceeded to explain all he knew about the kaiju to Hapu. After he was done explaining the situation to Hapu, Hapu needed to think long and hard about it. When she spoke up, her voice had taken on a noticeably nervous tone. "And ya think we can take this ol' beastie on if we Kahunas combine forces?"

Hala remained silent. "Hala!" Hapu said, this time with more urgency. "We can take it on, right?"

Hala stood up and sighed. "I hope so, Hapu" he muttered. "I surely hope so."

Ailey was, unfortunately, hardly ready for the math exam. She managed to get a total of 2 hours of sleep the night prior, and she had to be shaken awake by her mom. With a bit of grumbling, Ailey managed to get out of bed, get dressed, eat breakfast, and saunter her way towards school. She wasn't terribly optimistic about today, with her basically sleepwalking to class. Her brain was hardly doing anything productive at the moment aside from performing basic functions like keeping her alive. As she approached the school, however, something caught her attention and made her snap awake.

It was Josan.

Suddenly feeling energized, Ailey ran over to him. He was in the midst of engaging in lively conversation with Lillie and Kiawe as Ailey approached. Getting closer, she felt more and more relaxed as Josan's details came into detail; his digital, pixilated eyes, his segmented robot arms, and, most noticeably, the wings extending from his back that he usually used for walking instead of flying. She was quite fond of Josan, though this fact was quite obvious and some of the other students would tease her about it. Lillie was legitimately curious about their friendship; after all, Ailey, being a human, and Josan, being a Sapieotech, weren't the same species. In fact, the question surrounding whether Josan was even a living organism could be raised, but Josan, for his part, insisted that since he's technically got DNA, cells, and a completely free will, he's a living being. He wouldn't deny, however, his cybernetic qualities.

"Hi, Josan!" Ailey waved enthusiastically. Josan looked over at her, and her heart skipped a beat when he smiled and waved back. Josan was supposedly quite good at hiding emotions, but he almost never felt the need to. His friends understood him well enough for him to feel safe with expressing emotions. However, while he was completely fine with showing visible disgust or explaining his current difficulties while curled up in a ball, he never showed any sign of romantic attraction towards anyone. His problem is that he never worked very well under pressure, and confessing to someone was likely to be a good way to stress him out. Hiding this one emotion wasn't really helping him either, though. He did have one person who he was madly head-over-heels for: Ailey. He was relatively sure that Ailey, with her immense friendliness and kindness towards him, probably felt quite similar to him as he felt towards her. He just wasn't prepared for the consequences should Ailey reject him.

Ailey began running in circles around him, laughing all the while. Josan, having a secret crush on the girl who was at the moment laughing and running around him, couldn't help but feel undeniably warm and cozy. The school bell, signalling that the start of class was to commence in 5 minute's time, made Josan jump. He landed on his mechanical wings (which in this case is basically just him landing on his feet), their metal tips making a sharp clanking sound on the cement. Ailey had paused mid-run when he got startled, and displayed confusion about what had just happened.

"Ah, I was just startled, that's all." Josan said while nodding. "Since the school bell nearly separated my soul from my body, I guess that means it's almost time to get that damn math exam outta the way!" He smiled warmly towards Ailey, who flustered slightly and diverted her gaze. "We may have to book it!" Josan exclaimed! "Ailey, you and I are apparently in the uppermost classroom! We'd better get going, babe!"

Josan quickly realized what he had said. "Ah." he thought to himself. "Awkward." Ailey's face, which before was flushed a light pink, suddenly shifted to a dark red. She shifted her weight from one foot to the other, tugging nervously at her left braid. "Y-yea. We should get going. Professor Kukui will be waiting for us."

The exam started off normally. The students were greeted by Kukui, who handed out the exams. Mallow muttered when she saw how many questions were included. Sophocles was halfway through the entire thing by the time Josan's internal computers had booted up. Ailey was chewing through her sixth pencil at that point. The questions themselves weren't difficult under normal circumstances, but Ailey and Josan were distracted, both thinking about the interactions they shared earlier that morning. Occasional eye contact between the two of them was made, though always quickly followed by them looking away and blushing intensely. Around noon, Josan and Ailey finished the first half of their exam. The fact that they finished at basically the same time was merely coincidental, but Ailey made a big deal out of it.

"Isn't that weird?" she mused. "Of all the people who could reach the halfway mark in their exam at the exact same time as me, I wouldn't expect you to be the one who would..." she looked at Josan to see his reaction, then frowned.

"What's wrong?" she asked. Josan had one hand on his ear, which meant he was picking up a live transmission. The thing that made Ailey nervous was his his rather worried expression. He glanced towards Ailey, but didn't answer. Ailey wasn't offended by the fact that her question was ignored, but she was starting to get a bit fidgety and was looking around at the other students, who for the most part either hadn't noticed Josan's anxiety or simply didn't think it was worth mentioning.

Josan sat at his desk, listening to the transmission for 10 minutes before anything really happened. As Ailey watched him, she couldn't help but notice how he appeared to be getting more concerned by the minute. Suddenly, Josan's eyes widened and he let out a sharp gasp. His face was quite pale indeed and he was shivering slightly. When he gasped, all the other students suddenly looked up to see what was going on. Ailey flinched. However, she quickly recovered from her sudden shock and came to Josan's side.

"Uuuuhoh...w-what's wrong, Joey?" she stuttered. Her fears from the night before suddenly resurfaced, and her brain quickly became filled with panicky thoughts.

Josan looked like he wanted to say something, but couldn't get any words out. Finally, after Ailey and Lillie had spent some time comforting him, he began to speak.

"S-s-something is happening on Poni Island," he said anxiously, "something bad."

The other students began whispering amongst themselves. Eventually, Lillie turned back to Josan and spoke up.

"W-when you say 'bad'," she gasped, "exactly how bad is it?"

"Really bad," Josan replied, "I was just listening to communications between the main command centre of the Alolan Air Force and five well-trained fighter pilots. They're fighting...something".

Josan said 'something' as if it was the most horrible word ever. Ailey made a terrified squeak and snuggled up against his shoulder. "Joey, I'm scared," she sniffled, "I'm really scared!"

Josan grabbed Ailey's hand as she started crying weakly into his shoulder. The other students were now quite restless. Kukui, who was writing some Emails, looked up and saw that everyone had suddenly made a nervous crowd around Josan. Intrigued, he came over to investigate.

"Yo, class," he said in his usual, optimistic voice, "what're y'all up to?"

Josan looked at him with a horrified expression on his face. Kukui sat down. "You ok, Joemeister?"

"N-no," Josan replied, squeezing Ailey's hand for comfort, "The Alolan Air Force just lost 5 elite fighter pilots."

Kukui's face took on a much more serious impression. "It did? How? The Alolan Air Force is the best of any region!"

Ailey pulled her face off of Josan's shoulder and let loose a horrified gasp. "You didn't tell us that that those pilots were killed!" she sobbed.

Josan grit his teeth. "I don't have any information on what it is they're fighting except for that-that scream!" He shivered at the thought. "The last thing to come from the pilot's end of the transmission before the command centre lost contact with them was this violent, evil sound, kind of like a scream, but one that was tainted by malevolence! It had two different pitches, which combined into one horrible, painfully detuned shriek of pure f***ing hatred!"

Kukui thought for a second. "I'm sure that if we need to be worried, we'll know. For the time being, let's have our lunch break!"

Everyone nervously agreed, but the mood had been completely ruined. The students spent the whole lunch break nervously discussing what was going on. It was agreed that everyone would keep their eye on the news, just to be safe.

The rest of the day was uneventful, if stressful. The students finished their exams and were sent home early. On her way home, Ailey was pulled over by Josan, who took her hand in fear.

"Ailey, I'm scared. I don't know what's going on!"

Ailey nodded and hugged him. "Me too, Joey! I hope nothing bad happens! Especially to you!"

Josan sighed. "I-I love you, Ailey. I don't want to lose you..."

His words were hardly a surprise to Ailey. "I love you too, Joey!"

The two hugged each other for some time before hesitantly saying goodbye. "I will see you tomorrow!" announced Ailey, "that's an order!"

Josan managed a halfhearted chuckle. "I'll see ya tomorrow. Stay safe." He grabbed Ailey's hand and kissed it. After he let go of it, Ailey tenderly put her hand on Josan's cheek, gave him one more kiss, and then ran home. Josan watched her run over a hill and out of view, then sighed and turned towards his own house.

"Good night, babe. Love ya." he whispered to himself.

WIP