“Can’t we go some other way than boat?” I grumbled as I held on and tried not to be sick.

  “It’s fastest,” Kukui said with a bit of a laugh.

  There was really something about the way he drove a boat that aggravated my motion sickness. Eevee seemed to be enjoying herself, though. She was half out of my hood, standing on my shoulder and looked like she was enjoying the wind. She let out little cheers every time we hit a wave and nearly left the water. I wish I was having any fun, but at least I could see the island in the distance. Goomy was on my other shoulder, clinging to me and also not having fun. She didn’t want to go back in her pokeball for some reason, not that I could really blame her. Though I think she was regretting that choice.

  Right now it looked like we were heading towards a cluster of docks and floating buildings. That had to be Seafolk Village. It was startlingly larger and more complex than both the games and in the anime. There were probably a few dozen boat buildings scattered around.

  I was glad I had packed up and taken everything and everyone with me, since it would probably be a few days to complete all three Trials, or however many I could get done on the island, and have a proper look around the village. I also had to hope that I could somehow get Poisonium, but that seemed unlikely. Was Plumeria even around? Wait why was I even trying to hope for a random encounter. “Professor? Where would I get a Poisonium crystal?”

  He glanced back at me for a second before turning his attention back forward. “Thinking about adding more to your first bit of Trial runs?” he joked. “Well, you can either ask for a Trial from a Kahuna, or a Trial Captain. Or try and find a poison type Totem. I’m surprised you're only asking now. You seem to know about all the Trials and Totems.”

  “I know a lot of them,” I admitted, thankful that we were finally pulling into the dock. I would have much preferred Burnet had given me a lift over, as she seemed to know how to drive a lot better. “But what are the Totems and where are they?”

  “Well…” He looked around as if trying to make sure no one was watching. “There’s a Totem Toxapex on Akala Island, though it’s hard to recommend his Trials. He likes to say participants fail even when they clearly succeed. Then there’s-” Again he hesitated to look around. “There’s a Totem Arbok on Melemele.” His expression turned a bit sour as he tied the boat to the dock. “And a Totem Muk at the waste-disposal site on Ula’ula.”

  I was getting off the boat as I listened to him talk. “Quite a few options.” I was thankful to be on the dock, as was Goomy.

  However Eevee complained, “I want to ride on the boat more…”

  “There are some others, but they aren’t official Trial Totems. Then again, you managed with Alma,” he said with a laugh.

  “Nothing here on Poni Island?” I asked, looking up at the massive mesa that made up most of the island.

  “Well-”

  “Don’t be giving out secrets, Kukui.” Hapu was suddenly there. Due to her height, I hadn’t even seen her approach.

  “I’m not,” he lied. “He wants to try and get Poisonium, so we were discussing Trials he could take to do them.”

  She folded her arms, frowning up at him. “Uh-huh.” She walked over to him, with her eyes narrowed. Suddenly she kicked the rope that he had just tied. Which immediately came loose.

  Kukui tried to grab it, but it slipped off the dock into the water. He laughed nervously, rubbing the back of his head. “I guess you’re still mad?”

  “Get off my island,” she said with a huff before turning to me. Her mood seemed to instantly shift and she smiled. “Ready for your first Trial?”

  “Uh…” I hesitated as I looked at Kukui, who had retreated to his boat.

  “Alola,” he called out and then proceeded to spend the next minute getting the boat turned around and away from the dock.

  We just watched him fumble about with it without saying anything.

  Eventually he got it going and began to sail off into the distance. “I don’t trust that man around a boat…” Hapu said after a moment.

  “Is he that bad?” I asked, turning to look back at her. She was short, and I knew that it was probably because she was young. She was supposed to be the youngest Kahuna, but I had no idea what her age was.

  “Just the other day, we had to go to Exeggutor Island, and without warning he goes ‘watch this’ and like… tries to spin around?” She sighed, shaking her head. “Tossed me off the boat,” she grumbled.

  I had to put my hand over my mouth in order to not laugh. “I see. So not the most reliable of captains.”

  “Yes.” She nodded a bit. “But enough about that. You’re here for Trails.” She clapped her hands together, sounding quite excited. “I know you beat Hala, but I also know that he forfeit before getting serious. You won’t get that sort of treatment around here.”

  “Alright, that sounds good,” I said with a soft laugh.

  “You’ll have to do at least two Trials on this island before you can take the Grand Trial against me.” She stood up a bit straighter, almost puffing out her chest. “One against my Island Captain Mara, and another from a Totem Pokemon.”

  Immediately my mind started to run through things. Mara? Not Mina? Wait that made sense, Mina would be too young at this time, right? But who was Mara? “Alright. Where can I find Mara?”

  “That’s where we’re going now.” She pointed at the large houseboat in the shape of a big blue fish. Whiscash always had such a happy look on its face, though it also looked incapable of having a thought in that big head, and whoever had stylized the boat had captured it perfectly.

  Out on the dock in front of the house was a rather young looking girl, blonde hair with paint in it, and a white paint covered shirt. She was painting over a large canvas that was spread across the ground.

  Standing near the door of the boat was a large pink dog with tusks. It was a Granbull that was attentively watching the girl. When it spotted the two of us it eyed me for a second, but seemed to recognize Hapu and it pushed the door open. “We have visitors!” they called back into the building.

  This also got the attention of the little girl and she looked up. She just watched the two of us as we approached. Before we got much closer a woman appeared in the doorway. She looked extremely like the little girl who I assumed was Mina, so this must be Mara? “Alola Kahuna?” she asked as she stepped out. She was dressed in a rather large blue and frilly dress.

  “Alola Mara. We have a challenger.”

  Mara frowned a bit, looking at me. “I wasn’t aware there was a Trial Journey going on.”

  Hapu nodded. “The Tapu have made an exception.”

  That caused the woman to stand up a bit straighter and then nod. “Alright. Mina,” she turned to the little girl. “Could you head inside for a little bit?”

  Mina just nodded, having already started to clean up the moment the adults started talking.

  “This Trial will be a battle for a Fairium Z crystal. Three on three,” Mara said as she turned back to me, stepping out onto the boardwalk. It was then that I noticed that it had markings of a battle arena. I hadn’t noticed it earlier because Mina’s things were hiding the iconic center symbol. “That fine?”

  I nodded. “Sounds good to me,” I said as I walked a bit forward to my position in the arena.

  There was a bit of a noise at the edge of the dock that drew everyone’s attention, and I watched as a man crawled out of the water and onto the dock. He pulled off a similar rebreather mask as to the one I had used. “This is an official battle between Captain Mara, and the Pokemon Expert Jason,” he announced, pointing out both sides. “Three versus three. No swaps. Any Pokemon that is returned will be considered knocked out. Captain, are you ready?”

  Was he just waiting there? Under the dock? His clothes are soaked… Mara was positioned opposite me in the arena. “I’m ready.” Her Granbull moved into the arena in front of her.

  “Challenger, are you ready?” He pointed at me with a flat hand.

  “Ready, I guess,” I said as I tossed out a pokeball, releasing Rio. She had been really upset that she hadn’t gotten to fight Hala, so I promised her that she would be first out. I’d also told her how she should fight ahead of time.

  “Begin!” the referee called.

  The boardwalk buckled under both Pokemon as they lunged at each other. Rio’s palm burst into the silver blue of steel energy and collided with Granbull's forehead as it used Headbutt. Rio clearly won the exchange as the pink dog flew back, rolling across the ground, while Rio merely slid back a few steps.

  It took a moment before the Granbull managed to get on its feet, though it looked a bit wobbly. Fairy was weak to steel, so I had told her to focus on using steel energy until I said otherwise. That was also what she was best at, so this was going to be a rather unfair battle.

  “Fire up!” Mara called, clearly able to see how this was going to go if she didn’t try and focus on type advantage. The pink dogs fists and tusks immediately burst into flames. They were using Fire Fang and Fire Punch at the same time? That was interesting. I wondered if it was because they were of the same energy that they both could be used at the same time, or if any move could be done like that. Or perhaps this was the same type of thing I had done with Scoly, where we just combined moves. But this was using multiple moves at once rather than combining them.

  Rio launched herself forward in response, stopping just a bit in front of her opponent before dashing to the side. She wasn’t able to use Extreme Speed yet, but she was capable of Agility. She blurred as three different figures of herself formed around the Granbull. Rather than try to figure out which one it was, the dog jumped up and breathed downward, spewing out flame that engulfed the area around.

  For a moment Rio vanished into the flame before appearing above the Granbull. She had a leg out, her foot already covered in steel energy as she was twisting in the air. The dog managed to use its Flamethrower to turn itself in the air and blast Rio before her leg managed to connect. However when it did it snapped their jaw shut, forcing it to swallow the flame and sent it straight into the flame weakened boardwalk, which buckled from the impact and let them punch through and into the water below.

  Mara ran to the edge of the dock to look under as Rio landed, taking a leap backwards to make space away from the hole. She was in the same sparring stance that she would face off against her mother that reminded me of some sort of martial arts pose. As I took a good look at her I could see that there were quite a few spots of burnt fur, and there were soft wisps of smoke rising off her.

  “Don’t you dare return me,” she growled softly. I had only just started to think about that and glanced at her pokeball, but apparently her aura sense was good enough that she could see me do it. Or she was just guessing. “I’m nowhere near done.” Maybe I was a bit too quick to return them when they got hurt? I’d have to talk to them about that.

  “Granbull has been returned!” the referee called out, which drew my attention back to the battle. Mara was returning back to her position. I could practically see her trying to work out a strategy. If she read Rio right, she would know that her strength was her strength, but her speed wasn’t the best and she wasn’t good at range. “Captain, please send out your next Pokemon.”

  The Pokemon that appeared had a pale yellow pokemon with a large black jaw extending from the back of its head. A Mawile would mitigate the steel advantage. I watched as a wave of steel energy washed over the smaller Pokemon as it immediately used some sort of defensive move; Iron Defense if I had to guess.

  Rio’s hands were already shining with silver blue energy and she was about to charge. “Shift to ground,” I said. With a flex of her hands the energy disappeared and was replaced with a long staff shaped object made of a dull brown energy. Cara hadn’t quite been able to use Bone Rush yet, but Rio had gotten a fairly good grasp of it.

  “Fire up!” Mara called again and I was reminded that Mawile also had several fire moves it could learn. So she mitigates the steel weakness while keeping the fire advantage. The large maw behind the yellow Pokemon was suddenly filled with flame. That was a good technique to practice. After observing the way that Granbull had used its fire energy, Mara had taught her Pokemon to channel their energy into its physical element so that they can shift it to use in several ways.

  The Pokemon on my side lowered herself to the ground, one hand placed on the ground as she held the staff behind her back. “This again?” she muttered.

  “Probably. If it bites you, you’ll be toast,” I said with a bit of a chuckle. She didn’t respond and instead rushed forward. The Mawile twisted and sent out a gout of flame from its large mouth. Rio dashed to the side, boosting her speed with Agility to properly avoid the move. This whole boardwalk was going to need some serious repairs after this fight.

  Mawile tracked Rio as she ran, the Flamethrower following after her and trying to get ahead of her. Rio had almost done a ninety degree shift around the other Pokemon, closing the distance as she did, but just as she got within range, the flame stopped and Mawile lunged, jaws open.

  I could see Rio’s eyes widen as the massive jaws threatened to completely engulf her, but she thrust the staff forward, striking the Mawile in the back of the throat. It staggered back, coughing. She then twisted the staff and slammed it on top of the jaw with enough force that it buckled the boards of the dock.

  However she made the mistake of relaxing, apparently thinking that that was enough, just in time for the Mawile to twist using its mouth like appendage for balance and delivered a Mega Kick to her side. This was her inexperience in real battles showing. I would have to explain the idea of tunnel vision to her and everyone else.

  She did recover quickly, landing on her feet after being launched away, and she hadn’t lost concentration on her staff. The Mawile hopped back onto their feet as well and pulled their jaws free from the boards with surprising ease. They looked unharmed, where as Rio was covered in little burnt patches and holding her side.

  “You good?” I called, turning her Pokeball in my hand. She just nodded. I nodded as well. “Don’t focus so much on the jaws.” As if on cue, said jaws burst back into flames. “The whole Pokemon is the threat.”

  “Mawile, keep distance,” Mara called out with her own response. Immediately the Pokemon leapt backwards and let loose with Flamethrower again. Rio was quick to get out of the way, but this time their opponent kept moving in an attempt to maintain the gap.

  That was a bit annoying to deal with, but I wondered how long it could actually keep that up for. A Pokemon only had so much energy, though I had noticed that every Pokemon had different amounts. Even if the type didn’t match, like how Rio could use Bone Rush easily, but Cara could not. Cara just didn’t have enough ground type energy to use the move yet.

  As expected, Mawile’s Flamethrower did eventually run out, though it was hard to tell if it was because they were out of fire energy, or if they were trying to conserve it since their current technique wasn’t working and Rio was just letting them burn through their energy stores.

  Then I spotted Mara suddenly start making strange movements, with Mawile sort of copying her while still keeping distance. I immediately recognized it. “Rio,” I said, which caused her ear to twitch. “You remember when you were asking questions about Z-Moves? Well, you’re about to see one.”

  Mara hit the final pose and there was a sudden burst of energy from around her Z-Ring. The burst rushed into Mawile, who suddenly had a visible aura like they’d gone Super Saiyan, but pink. The air around them was filled with glitter and sparkling little motes of lights as they rushed forward.

  Rio braced herself for the impact, but the other Pokemon suddenly stopped in front of her, and swayed side to side for a moment. I could see the confusion on her face, and then there was a burst of brilliant pink energy as Mawile shot forward and slammed into Rio. She had tried to block it with her bone staff, but it shattered like it wasn’t even there and the little yellow Pokemon collided with her stomach.

  There was a second when nothing happened, and then Rio was gone. I looked over to the side just in time to see her skip across the water three times before finally coming to a stop. There were a few moments of silence before the referee spoke up. “Challenger. If your Pokemon is still capable of battling, they need to return to the battlefield.”

  I nodded as I walked over to the edge of the dock, looking at Rio who was floating dozens of meters away, her eyes wide as she stared upwards. I cupped my hands around my mouth before shouting, “Rio? You good?”

  It took a moment before she raised a hand, giving me a thumbs up before twisting around and beginning to paddle back.

  “I can’t believe she’s okay after all that,” Goomy said softly.

  “Her staff had probably absorbed some of the blow,” I mumbled to her. “But she has to be hurting something fierce.” She definitely couldn’t take another serious hit, but if she wanted to keep fighting, I was going to let her. With a nod I walked back over to my position. “She’s swimming back,” I said to Mara and the referee with a bit of a smile.

  Mara looked flabbergasted that she hadn’t been knocked out by that. “You sure she’s okay?” she panted softly, obviously tired from the use of the Twinkle Tackle.

  I shrugged. “Won’t know for sure till she comes back. And she wants to keep fighting.”

  She just nodded before turning her attention back to her Pokemon, which also looked tired; not just from the move, but also the battle. While they seemed to shrug off the previous blows, their effect was starting to show now.

  Seconds ticked by and eventually we could hear the soft splashing of a dog paddle getting closer and closer. Then it suddenly stopped. I saw the way that Mawile tensed, completely focused on the direction they’d sent their opponent flying.

  Then in a burst of water, Rio appeared. Not from the edge of the dock, but from the hole she had made with Granbull. Which was behind Mawile. As the Pokemon tried to turn around, Rio used the edge of the hole for leverage and sprang forth with a move I recognized immediately: Reversal. Her paw met Mawile’s side, who was still trying to turn around to defend themself, and was promptly embedded into the boards of the dock.

  Rio took a few shaky steps back, breathing hard, a bit of froth at the edges of her mouth from over exerting herself. But she also had a rather dopey smile on her face, which was only getting wider and wider the longer it took for Mawile to move.

  “Mawile is unable to battle!” The referee suddenly called. He pointed his hand flat towards Mara. “Captain, please send out your next Pokemon.”

  She hesitated, slowly lifting the Pokeball and retrieving Mawile. I could see the look on her face. “Don’t you dare…” I mumbled.

  But she shook her head. “There’s no point in continuing. That was my strongest Pokemon, and you still have two unused. I forfeit.”

  “Damn it,” I cursed, letting out a sigh.

  “Captain Mara has forfeit,” the referee announced, now pointing his hand flat towards me. “The winner is Pokemon Expert Jason!”

  Rio staggered back several steps and I moved forward to put a hand on her back and help support her. Her fur was still wet with salt water, and I could feel how hard and fast her heart was pounding through her back. “That was fun,” she managed to say, still breathing hard and sporting a cheshire grin.

  Dee suddenly appeared in a flash of red light. “Goodness you’re a mess,” she mumbled as she started to use Healing Pulse.

  I glanced at Dee before smiling a bit down at Rio and rubbed between her ears. “You did a very good job,” I said with a bit of a smile. “Excellent maneuvering and use of the terrain.”

  “I let my guard down,” she said with a bit of a frown. “Twice.”

  “Lessons learned the hard way,” I said with a nod, reaching into my bag and pulling out a small washcloth and wiping the froth from her mouth.

  Mara came over, examining the state that Rio was in. “Are they alright?” She glanced at Dee, who was busy checking Rio over to make sure she didn’t have any severe injuries.

  “Lots of minor burns, and the worst thing are some rib fractures. But those can be healed up at the Pokecenter,” Dee explained.

  “She’s fine,” I said with a chuckle. “Mostly. She said it was fun.” I gave the woman a smile.

  “Fun, huh?” She seemed to think about this for a moment and then nodded, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a small pink crystal with a symbol that looked like a little winged person. “She trounced my poor Granbull… But he’s used to taking it easy on Trial goers.” She held out her hand which contained the Fairium crystal. “Is she your strongest Pokemon?”

  I had to actually think about that for a moment. “I think so? At least physically. She’s not the fastest, or the toughest, or the best at controlling her energy, but when it comes to raw strength she’s higher than everyone else.”

  Rio batted at my hand that was trying to clean her face up a bit, clearly annoyed that I just casually listed the areas she struggles with. “Mean,” she protested.

  A snort escaped me as I rubbed her face a bit harder. “You gotta know your weaknesses so you can watch out for them.”

  She just huffed at me in response, wobbling a bit away to escape my reach and hide behind Dee.

  I took this opportunity to reach out and take the crystal Mara was offering. “Thanks for not holding back.” I wanted to chastise the woman for taking the easy way out of the fight and not seeing it to the end. Maybe that was just me thinking about it like the games again, where you couldn’t back out of fights with other trainers.

  But here, when it’s a reality, it makes sense to not throw a Pokemon into a fight that you think you’ve lost. It may make come from behind victories less likely, but it also has less risk of your Pokemon getting seriously injured. Even though the best way for Pokemon to get stronger was to fight.

  Still. It was hard to not be annoyed.

  “Good luck on the rest of your Trials.” She had a bit of a smile on her face before she turned away and looked at the hole. “Now I’ve got to have someone repair the boardwalk… again…” she mumbled as she pulled out her phone.

  “Come on, Rio,” I said as I held up her Pokeball.

  She hesitated, glancing back to Mara, and then at me. “I can do that, right?”

  I blinked, furrowing my brows for a moment. “You mean Z-Moves?” She nodded. I smiled and nodded as well. “With practice, you can.”

  That seemed to be enough to satisfy her question and her tail started to wag. “Good.” She disappeared into red light as she returned to her pokeball. Dee quickly followed as she returned to her own pokeball.

  When I turned around, I had expected to find Hapu. However she hadn’t stayed for the battle, so I just made my way straight to the Pokecenter. Rio definitely needed it. However as I was walking my phone rang. I let my Z-Ring grab hold of the Fairium before pulling out my phone and looking at the screen; it showed that Kukui was calling. “Alola, Professor. What’s up?”

  He had a rather conflicted look on his face. “Alola,” he said but hesitated before continuing, “Is it alright if I give Guzma your number?”

  I blinked. “Guzma?” From the way that the Professor was occasionally glancing away, Guzma was probably not far away waiting for an answer.

  “Yeah. He was waiting here at the research center when I got back, and wanted your number.” That explained the sort of strained look on the Professor's face. The two of them had a rather complicated history.

  “That’s fine,” I said with a nod. “You can give him my number.”

  “Alright. He seemed pretty adamant that I just give him your number, but I wanted to check first,” he said with a chuckle.

  I chuckled as well. “Well, I appreciate it. Seems like some people are really loose with passing out other peoples numbers without asking.”

  “Right.” He cleared his throat. “Anyways, good luck on your Trials.”

  We both said Alola before he hung up. This was a very good sign that I had at least managed to get through to Guzma in some way. Now it would depend on how long it would take for him to actually call, and what he would want to say.

  The Pokecenter being a boat was quite interesting. Though it felt a bit precarious, as it seemed like it was more just placed on top of two large boats and floating there with an almost drawbridge leading to the door. I was a bit hesitant in stepping across it, but I convinced myself that it had to be safe. “Alola, Nurse Joy,” I said after entering and made my way to the counter.

  Joy looked very tired, but gave me a smile in return. “Alola. How can I help you?”

  “This one just had a rather rough battle,” I said as I put down Rio’s pokeball onto the tray. “And I would also like these other Pokemon looked at.” Eevee and Goomy were still out, so I decided to skip turning them over for the moment, but I put everyone else's pokeballs down.

  Dee jumped out again, giving Nurse Joy a slight bow before picking up the tray. “Oh! You’re Jason,” Nurse Joy said with a smile at Dee. It was rather humorous that I was getting recognized more for Dee than I was for anything else. Then it looked like she suddenly had an idea. “I… uhm, I hope you don’t mind me asking but is it alright if I borrow your Audino for a bit? We’re rather behind at the moment…”

  I blinked as I looked over at Dee, who looked up at me with a rather eager expression. I smiled a bit and nodded. “Sure. What happened?”

  She sighed. “Some kids- Team Skull I think they called themselves? Anyways they got in over their heads and caused a ruckus. We were still dealing with the cleanup of the problem at Exeggutor Island… At least Professor Kukui and Kahuna Hapu managed to solve that quickly, but then these Team Skull kids riled up a flock of Murkrow. So now we have a bunch of injured wild Pokemon to deal with.”

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  I just nodded slowly. “I don’t mind letting her help out for a bit,” I reached over and rubbed the top of Dee’s head.

  Nurse Joy bowed a bit to me. “Thank you.” With that the two of them disappeared through the door behind the counter.

  I had barely taken two steps towards the seating area when another door opened slightly and two people looked out, a teenage boy with blue hair and a girl with pink hair. They were dressed in mostly black with white details, and white caps. They had black bandanas around their faces and wore large silver skull pendants around their neck.

  “She gone?” the pink haired girl said, peeking around the boy.

  The two of them looked around a moment before the boy nodded. “Yeah, looks like it.” They quickly moved out of the room before both freezing mid step when they saw me. There was a moment of silence before the boy said, “Yo, the heck you lookin’ at?” While making exaggerated movements with his arms.

  It was a bit hard to keep the smile on my face while trying not to laugh. “You should probably go back to your room until Nurse Joy discharges you,” I said.

  “What? We ain’t gotta listen to you,” the girl snapped back, also with exaggerated movements.

  “Yeah, we ain’t listenin’,” the boy added and folded his arms in front of him.

  I let out a soft snort. “I’m just saying. There’s probably a reason she had you waiting.”

  The girl suddenly slapped the boy over the shoulder. “Show this punk foreigner what happens when they get in Team Skull’s way.”

  He hesitated before looking back. “Why I gotta be the one teachin’ the lessons?”

  She leaned in a bit and whispered harshly. “Cus my ‘mons are still knocked out.”

  “I ain’t much better,” he whispered back. Though in the empty room their voices were carrying quite farther than I think either of them realized.

  “You still got Tatta,” she argued, giving him a nudge. “All his ‘mons are probably with the nurse, and all he got is that slug.”

  He paused for a moment before looking over at me, and then seemed to gain some confidence as he pulled out a pokeball. “I’ll show you what happens when you get in Team Skull's way.” He released his Pokemon, the dark gray and mustachioed Alolan Rattatta appearing.

  I looked at the little thing, who looked like it had already been in a fight. But there was a surprisingly fierce and determined look on its face. It clearly had a strong fighting spirit. Although I wasn’t sure if I should back down, considering Goomy’s lack of combat experience… But this was the perfect opportunity.

  She jolted a bit in my hands as I lifted her off my shoulder and placed her on the floor. Looking back at me, she made a soft, “Huh?” noise.

  “You’re gonna battle,” I said as I gestured towards the Rattata called Tatta, and took a step back.

  She continued to stare at me. “Huh?”

  I gave her a thumbs up. “You got this.”

  She let out a third “Huh?” noise.

  “Tatta! Tackle!” the boy called out, pointing at Goomy.

  The Rattata let out a rather loud scream as it charged. Goomy just turned at the noise to see the approaching rat and closed her eyes. Tatta hit her, causing her to squish from the impact. Then to everyone’s surprise, including mine, the little rat was launched away several meters.

  Tatta laid on the floor on its back for a moment, its legs up in the air, seemingly trying to work out what just happened. Even from where I was I could see a bit of goop on its face and shoulder. Goomy hadn’t moved, her eyes still clenched like she was still waiting for the hit.

  “Uh… what?” the boy muttered.

  The two teenagers exchanged looks. The girl again slapped on his shoulder. “Do- do something.”

  “Tatta! Uh… tackle!” he ordered after a moment.

  To its credit, the Rattata rolled over, recovering from the surprise and brushing it off as some kind of fluke. Again it screamed as it charged. Goomy flinched from the noise, slightly opening an eye to see what was happening just in time to get struck again. She squished and then again Tatta was launched away.

  I was trying to figure out what was going on. It was like she was made of rubber. She also looked confused at what was going on and looked back at me. The only thing that I could think of was that her defense was so high that the Rattata couldn’t get through it. Or maybe the pokedex entry about punches and kicks just sliding off was accurate? Maybe some combination of the two? This was going to require testing.

  The moment I opened my mouth to order her was the moment that I realized I didn’t know what moves she knew. That was a rather large blunder on my part that I’d have to correct eventually. “Well?” I said with a bit of a smile, deciding to leave it up to Goomy. “Attack back.”

  She just stared at me a moment before turning around to the Rattata that was trying to get the slime off of its face. The two Team Skull members were just staring in shock at the little slug, who started to move towards the rat.

  “Tatta,” the boy said, an odd tone of worry in his voice. “Use Bite.” The little thing looked back at the boy, and then at Goomy, clearly hesitant to put something like that in its mouth. But it was obedient and a sort of dark light coated its teeth.

  However, it hesitated again as it watched Goomy swell up, nearly doubling in size. I don’t know who was more surprised at what happened next, me or everyone else. When she opened her mouth I caught a glimpse of the edge of a dark blue energy ball that suddenly burst into a gout of colorful gold and purple flame that shot across the room and collided with Tatta.

  I guess that dragon typing wasn’t just for show, but who would have thought she could use Dragon Breath? It wasn’t very large, and she didn’t seem to be able to maintain it for very long, but it was still a surprise that she could use the move. However even though it wasn’t that strong, it was still more than enough to knock down the already battered Rattata.

  “Tatta!” the boy shouted as he ran forward to pick up the small thing. “Aw man… I didn’t realize you were that roughed up…”

  I moved forward as well, picking up Goomy. “Good job,” I said softly as I squeezed her in my arms a bit.

  “What in Arceus is going on here?!” Nurse Joy shouted as the door flew open. All of us jumped, looking over. She looked around for a moment and at all of us. “No fighting inside the Pokecenter,” she said with an exasperated tone.

  “Sorry Nurse Joy,” I said with a bit of a nervous laugh.

  “Sorry Nurse Joy,” the two teens echoed, bowing their heads a bit.

  She huffed a bit, looking at the Rattata in the boy's arms. “Give them to me,” she demanded. The teen obeyed, walking over and returning Tatta to their ball before handing it over. “And that goes for the rest of your Pokemon as well. I was about to get started on them, and what do I find? Them all gone.” She glanced at the girl, who quickly moved forward and joined the boy in handing over all their pokeballs.

  “Sorry Nurse Joy,” they said again.

  I put Goomy back on my shoulder, who seemed rather shocked that she had actually won a fight. “And you!” Joy suddenly pointed at me and I started a bit, standing up straighter. Her eyes narrowed a bit, but there was a slight smile on her face. “Keep an eye on them.” With that she turned and disappeared back through the door with all the teens Pokemon.

  Both of them shoved their hands in their pockets in near perfect synchronization. That was clearly something they’d learned from watching Guzma. “Man. We almost got out,” the boy grumbled.

  “And would have if not for you,” the girl added, glaring at me.

  I just shrugged as I walked over to the waiting area and slumped onto a couch against the wall. “What’s the big deal anyways? Just sit and wait for your Pokemon.”

  “She’s gonna tell the Kahuna,” the girl said as the two of them walked over.

  “Well you two did cause problems.” I looked at the two of them for a moment. “Sit down.” There was a bit of hesitation as they looked at each other, but the boy shrugged and they both sat down across from me. They both sat slumped in the seat, their arms folded. It was actually pretty funny to watch them pout.

  I pulled Goomy down into my lap and checked on Eevee, who was asleep. Seems that she had fallen asleep at some point and missed all the fun. I started to rub and squish Goomy, who let out a few little noises at the attention. She looked exhausted, apparently having put everything she had into that Dragon Breath attack.

  Suddenly my phone rang. I pulled it out, noting that whoever was calling wasn’t in my contacts. I answered with an, “Alola.”

  On the other side of the screen was the very familiar face of Guzma, who was frowning. He took a deep breath and sighed. “Alola.”

  “What can I do for you, Guzma?” I noticed how the other two immediately tensed, their eyes locking on to me.

  “I just… About what you said yesterday,” he started, clearly struggling to figure out what to say.

  “Which part?” I said with a bit of a smile. “The part where I think you’re a good trainer?”

  He paused. “No… The other thing.”

  I glanced up at the two teens. “Ah, the other thing. About you being a good leader.”

  If looks could kill, I’m sure I would at least be wounded. “No. The other thing.”

  “Ohh that. Yeah. Tradition is just peer pressure from the dead,” I said with a bit of a nod.

  Now he looked absolutely pissed and I wondered if he was going to hang up on me. “Not that.”

  I was just smiling, trying not to laugh at the situation. “Oh, Guzma, before we continue.” I turned the phone to show the other two who immediately flinched and tensed up when they saw Guzma. “Ran into some people from your team.”

  “Tupp? Rapp?” I could practically hear the scowl on his face. “Where’s Zipp? What are you doing in a Pokecenter with Jace?”

  “I well-” the boy known as Tupp started but his voice faded.

  “We were… uh…” the girl that was Rapp also struggled.

  “We had a battle,” I said before turning the phone back around. Both of them seemed to relax as I didn’t immediately throw them under the bus.

  He looked at me for a moment and then sighed. “I see. So you were giving them a… talk as well?” He put a lot of emphasis on the word talk.

  “I was about to before you called,” I said with a bit of a chuckle. “As for where the other one is…” I looked over my phone at the two of them.

  “He’s…” Tupp hesitated.

  “He’s guarding the boat…” Rapp said.

  I nodded a bit. “Guarding the boat. He’s probably wondering where you are.”

  “I sent him a text earlier,” Tupp said, fumbling a bit to get his phone out of his pocket. He was quickly sending another text, probably to tell Zipp where they were and what was going on.

  Again I nodded and returned my focus back to Guzma. “So?”

  “So…” he hesitated for a moment and then sighed. “Look. I don’t think you’re right. But I-” he paused, “I think a lot of what you said made a lot of sense. I don’t like it, but I’m used to dealing with crap I don’t like. And today when I ran into Kukui, and he mentioned his league idea again I remembered some of what you said.”

  There was a conflicted look on his face, but I was going to remain silent until he finished and said what he wanted to say.

  “They said it would take a few years before they finally got it going. And I just…” He hesitated again as he seemed to think about what he was going to say next, “Are you gonna be in it?”

  “Maybe,” I paused for a moment and then smirked a bit. “Do you want me to participate?”

  He didn’t say anything for a few seconds before he tilted his head up a bit. “I wanna beat you when it really matters.”

  I out a soft snort and nodded. “Then I look forward to it.”

  He nodded. “Right. You better be here for it.”

  His gaze suddenly went somewhere in the distance and it looked like he was about to hang up, but I wanted to say one more thing, “Wait.” He stopped, looking back at his phone. “If you really wanna prove me wrong, about what I said… You better not lose.”

  He let out a snort before hanging up.

  A bit of a laugh escaped me as I put away my phone, now turning my attention back to the other two sitting across from me. “Now then… Back to you two.”

  They both stiffened.

  “I’m sure you’re expecting some kind of lecture, about safety, and staying out of trouble, and all that nonsense.” I waved my hand a bit as I leaned back in my seat. “But I know I don’t have to. I’m sure you’ve both been talked down to a lot today already.”

  I could see the way they both relaxed a bit, Rapp even let out a sigh and a nod. “Yeah…”

  “What I want you to do is learn,” I said with a bit of a smile. “Where did you go wrong? What was the mistake you made that led to it?”

  “Yeah, if-”

  Immediately I put up a hand to stop Tupp from talking. “I’m not asking whose fault it is, or telling you to blame each other or something else, or asking about what if scenarios. You made a mistake. You don’t have to say it out loud, but you know that you did. You know that somewhere you personally made a mistake. I want you to think about that, and know that everyone makes mistakes. That’s part of life. I make a lot of mistakes. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s not a bad thing.”

  Both of them sort of just stared at the floor as I talked. “I wasn’t watching where I was going,” Tupp said after a moment. “I knew the area was bad. I even mouthed off about it.”

  Rapp shifted a bit before she spoke, “I panicked. When Tupp tripped and started sliding, I just locked up when I could have helped him. If I had, he wouldn’t have fallen on that nest.”

  “Nah, there was nothin’ you coulda done, Rapp,” he said as he pat her arm slightly.

  She just stared at him, and I could tell that she was frowning at him under her mask. “Tupp, I have three Zubat. They could have easily grabbed you.”

  He stiffened slightly, his eyes widening at the sudden realization. It seemed he’d forgotten. “Ah. Right. Yeah… That woulda helped.”

  There was a moment of silence before the two of them started to laugh. “You really don’t think, huh?” Rapp said as she shoved Tupp slightly.

  “I was falling off a cliff, that makes it hard to think about stuff,” he retorted, clearly thinking about giving her a shove in return but thinking better of it before he did so.

  She let out a sort of snort like laugh. “It was hardly a cliff, more like a steep slope.”

  “Well maybe you should take a trip down it,” he snarked back. “See how much of a cliff it feels like to you.”

  “Alright, alright,” I interjected before they started to fight. “So you weren’t paying attention when you knew you should have been. A simple mistake to make that can lead to some pretty severe consequences.”

  He nodded. “Yeah… Won’t make that mistake again.”

  “Oh you probably will,” I said with a chuckle. “That’s one of those mistakes that’s really easy to do without realizing.”

  There was a puzzled look on his face. “Then what should I do?”

  “You just keep an eye out for it.” I waved a hand vaguely. “Try your best to remember this lesson, and not get overconfident. You should still have confidence, because as you said you knew the danger but went through it anyway. The most important thing when you do that is to be prepared for things to go bad. Expect the best, prepare for the worst.”

  He nodded slowly, doing his best to take in my explanation. “Right…”

  Rapp folded her arms in front of her. “I don’t know how talking about my mistake is going to help.”

  I shrugged a bit. “That’s fine. You got scared and locked up, that’s hardly anything that you could have helped.”

  She opened her mouth, clearly wanting to argue about how she wasn’t scared, but when she thought about the situation it was hard to deny that she had been.

  “There’s the concept of fight or flight when you enter a dangerous or scary situation.” I held up two fingers. “But what a lot of people don’t acknowledge is there’s a third category.” I raised a third finger. “Freeze.”

  “Fight, or flight, or freeze…” she muttered a bit, leaning back in her seat. “But how do I prevent it?”

  Again I shrugged. “It’s different for everyone. Unfortunately it’s just something you have to figure out on your own. But the best way is to have someone around you. The more the better.”

  “So we should have brought Zipp,” Tupp said with a sigh.

  “That would have helped. But…” I gestured at them and then around. “How many Pokemon do you have?”

  There was a moment of silence before they both seemed to realize it. Tupp began speaking, “We could have-”

  “-Had our Pokemon out,” Rapp finished, and both of them slapped their forehead at the same time.

  I nodded. “Exactly. Your Pokemon are there for you, just like you need to be there for them.” I gently pat Goomy a few times, who had fallen asleep in my lap. “They’re your partners, and your friends. If you’re going into a situation you know is dangerous, why would you do it alone when you could have friends by your side? Bravery? Bravado? What you should really worry about is how your actions will affect the people that care about you.”

  Tupp leaned back in his chair and folded his arms. “We’re Team Skull, there ain’t anyone that cares about us.”

  “What about Guzma?” I said with a roll of my eyes. “Or Rapp?” I gestured towards her. “Or Zipp? Or your Pokemon? You don’t think that they would care if you got hurt?”

  There was a moment of silence as the two of them looked at each other before looking away. “Okay, fair. I would care if Rapp or Zipp got hurt,” he said with a sigh.

  “Yeah, and I don’t wanna see Tupp get hurt…”

  I leaned forward a bit. “All of you in Team Skull care about each other. Guzma gathered you all up after the incident because he wanted you all to be able to support each other. You can do things alone…but why would you when you could do it together and make everything easier?”

  They were both quiet, sitting with their arms folded as they mulled over my words. After a few moments the door opened and Nurse Joy walked out, followed by Dee who was carrying a tray. “Well at least it looks like you all stayed out of trouble,” she said with a bit of a smile.

  I stood up, picking up Goomy as I did and placing her on my shoulder, amused that she easily stuck there. I returned Joy’s smile. “We’ve just been talking. Though I did end up getting a bit more lecture-y than I planned to.” I walked past the two teens and gave them each a pat on the shoulder. “I’d say stay out of trouble, but that’s no fun.”

  Nurse Joy gave me a disapproving look as I started to tuck my pokeballs back into my coat. “You shouldn’t encourage them.”

  “Oh come on, they’re just kids. Making messes is how they learn.” I glanced back at them with a smirk. “You just gotta make sure they help clean up so the lesson really sticks.”

  Suddenly she had a smile on her face again. “Oh? You know, that makes a lot of sense.” The two teens gave me a look of betrayal as Nurse Joy approached them. “Come on you two.”

  “Alola!” I called out with a laugh as I quickly made my escape from the Pokecenter, Dee quickly waddling after me to keep up. The two of us stood on the dock and I reached over and rubbed the top of her head. “How was it?”

  Dee took a deep breath, closing her eyes as she pressed a bit into my hand. “It was… nice. But I think I like helping everyone with their training more.”

  I laughed softly and nodded. “Alright. Well, let’s get going. There’s a lot of work to do for that next crystal.” We started to walk off through the city, walking towards the actual island. The town was extremely interesting, since it was made up entirely of boats. Most of them were shaped like Pokemon.

  Stepping off the dock and into the area known as the Poni Wilds I had to pause. I didn’t spend much time exploring Poni Island when I played the games, and I don’t remember a lot about it. What I did remember was that this is where you got a Key Stone from Dexio. And if I looked to my right I could see… yeah, the ruins of Ancient Poni Path.

  That was the way to Vast Poni Canyon. Which was honestly a silly name. Why didn’t they just call it Poni Canyon? Was that a translation thing? That was a thought, but it didn’t really matter, since I was looking at the real thing. And it was an absolutely huge rock formation that took up most of the island. I could even see the tip of The Altar of the- … would it be Moone or Sunne? I think it was Sunne in the anime, so that was probably what it was. But then there had been that short series of things, and that had been Moone. So maybe it was both?

  Maybe I’ll take a look after doing the dragon Trial. It was a place that I very much wanted to see, along with countless others. Although there were just too many places that I wanted to see to even list them. Some of them extravagant like the Altar, some of them were things that some people would think mundane. Like Hapu’s radish farm.

  Did Hapu even have a radish farm like in the anime? That was a thing about her story, that her parents left but she had refused to go and stayed on the farm. She also hadn’t been a Kahuna when Ash showed up, but she was now. That was an interesting change. I wondered how she had earned the approval of the Tapu. I should ask her about that after completing her Trial.

  Of course that would have to wait, as right now I wanted to take a look at those ruins. As I walked I opened up my coat a bit. “Everyone can come out,” I said with a bit of a smile. There were few people around.

  Everyone was keen to get out, and suddenly there were nearly a dozen Pokemon in front of me. “Freedom!” Rio declared, stretching her arms up to the sky. Diancie and Banette mimicked her pose, though she didn’t say anything.

  “It hasn’t been that long,” I scoffed. “You were just in the Pokecenter.”

  “Yeah, but I couldn’t do it earlier because of the battle, and the Pokecenter doesn’t count,” she retorted smugly. “That boat ride was long.”

  “That fight was awesome!” Scoly exclaimed. Brionne, Mikyu, and Banette all were in the process of getting up on her back, all of them working together to make it go faster. They all looked ready to go.

  “Yeah! That was awesome!” Brionne shouted, doing some odd mock fighting moves with her flippers. “You were like, woosh and bam.”

  I moved Goomy to join them, asking Dee, “Could you check her over?”

  Cara nodded as she moved to Rio’s side. “Indeed. It was a good fight.” She put a hand on Rio’s shoulder, a smile on her face. “You’ve improved a lot.”

  Rio had that big cheshire grin on her face again. “That Z-Move thing was intense. I think I actually blacked out for a second when it sent me flying.”

  “That was Twinkle Tackle,” I said with a nod, stepping over to join in the conversation. “It’s the fairy type Z-Move.”

  “Which ones do you have?” Rio asked excitedly.

  “Well, now I have Fairium, so I can do that move as well.” I held up my arm to show the Z-Ring. “This is the Primarium, which is a Pokemon species specific crystal that Brionne will be able to use when she evolves.”

  “I’ve got a special one?” Brionne said excitedly, bouncing around on top of Scoly’s back.

  “That’s cool. Are there other special ones like that?” Scoly asked as she leaned over to look more at the Z-Ring.

  “There’s a bunch of them, like one for Eevee and Mimikyu’s,” I explained, chuckling a bit.

  Mikyu crawled on top of Scoly’s head to get a better look at the bracelet. “One…for me?” she said softly, her head tilting from side to side. I reached over to rub the side of her costume, smiling and nodding.

  “What’s mine do?” Eevee asked from my shoulder.

  “Yours is Extreme Evoboost. It boosts all of your abilities, making you stronger, faster, tougher, and all that.”

  “Whoa…” she said softly. “That sounds cool.”

  “I plan to ask Tapu Koko for a crystal for you when I’ve finished his Trial.” I pointed to the other crystals. “On top of those two that I have, I’ve also got Normalium, which uses normal energy to do Breakneck Blitz. And the Fightinium that I got from Hala will let us use fighting energy for All-Out Pummeling.”

  “We can do that one?” Rio was practically vibrating with excitement.

  I chuckled a bit and nodded. “With some practice. Did you see how Mara and Mawille did some odd movements before they could use the move?”

  Her brow furrowed a bit as she thought about it a moment before shaking her head. “No… I didn’t.”

  Again I chuckled. “Well, it requires a certain amount of synchronization and combining the will or wish of the Trainer and Pokemon to unleash powerful moves. I don’t think we’ll have any problem, but I’m sure there are going to be a few problems when we first start.”

  “Mmm… I see…” She had quite a thoughtful expression.

  “So it requires both Trainer and Pokemon?” Cara said, wearing a bit of a frown. “So we can’t use it on our own.”

  “Maybe?” I had to think about it. Testing to see if a Pokemon could use it with another Pokemon would be an interesting experiment. The same would go for the other things, like Mega Evolutions. Was a Trainer really required? Could I give the Z-Ring to Cara and have her use it? I also wanted to see if I could sync up with both Rio and Cara to have them both perform All-Out Pummeling together at the same time. “We’ll have to test stuff out when we do another long term training session.”

  “Why can’t we train now?” Rio said with a huff.

  “We’ve got Trials to do,” Cara said, chastising her a bit. “You can’t just train forever.”

  “Why not?” she argued back. “It’s fun, and it makes us all stronger.”

  “Yes,” I interjected with a smile. “But what’s the point of all that strength if you don’t use it?”

  She opened her mouth to retort before closing it and folding her arms across her chest with a huff, unable to think of a rebuttal.

  I snorted softly before giving her a bit of a nudge. “You’re already plenty strong. You practically solo’d that Trial Captain.”

  “But I could be stronger,” she responded immediately. “That way-” she stopped, frowning. She glanced at Cara before she turned away. “Whatever. Let’s just do these Trial things so we can go back to training.”

  Cara took a step forward to follow after her, but I put a hand on her shoulder. “It’s alright. She’s just being impatient.” As I had watched her, it was fairly apparent that Rio wanted strength in order to protect the ones she cared about. It was why she kept slipping back into tanking when she was supposed to be deflecting. It was easier for her to take the hit and focus on protecting.

  Since it was about lunch time now, I gave everyone their pokeblocks before we started to actually walk through the Poni Wilds. I could see a few Pokemon around, mostly Rattata and Yungoos, though it was clear that most of them were avoiding the designated path towards the ruins. It was actually a fairly well maintained dirt road. I assumed that the lack of Pokemon was due to the incident that Team Skull had caused. Occasionally there was a Raticate or Gumshoos leading a small little group of young ones, but considering my group they all just took a look and immediately moved away.

  Everyone had started to excitedly talk about where they were and what was going on. I was walking beside Scoly, with Keo in front of me. She was probably the most animated, as this was the third island that she had now visited and was talking about the differences she had noticed between them all. Eevee had also woken up and was now sitting partially out of my hood to join in the conversation, which turned into a discussion of different climates and what they preferred.

  Scoly started to complain about sand, and everyone seemed to agree that it made everything difficult. Rio just said it was good for training because it made stuff harder, which some agreed, but the general consensus was that they didn’t like it. The only one who disagreed was Diancie, who said it was just like little rocks. Diancie was constantly drifting and twirling around the group, just happy to be out in the sunshine. She really sparkled in a beautiful way in the light and cast light onto the ground and surrounding area.

  As she was doing so I caught a glimpse of Dee and Cara, who were discussing something on the other side of Scoly, purposefully out of my earshot. That was a bit curious as I wondered what they were talking about. Cara seemed to be trying to demonstrate something, but I couldn’t get a good look because Scoly was in the way.

  The moment we entered the ruins I suddenly had to stop walking when I saw a rather large Pokemon appear not far away. It was a huge suit of bipedal armor colored teal. The reason that I had stopped was that it sort of appeared from behind a wall, holding what looked to be a large radish. That was Hapu’s Golurk. I wondered if she would use it in her Grand Trial against me. At least this confirmed that Hapu did indeed have a radish farm. Or at least someone did. I spotted the house, as well as a rather elderly lady sitting on a porch and watching the Golurk work out in the field.

  Along the wall was a large group of purple birds that looked to be holding feathered fans. That was the Sensu style of Oricorio. I was a bit surprised that this was the first time I’d seen one of those birds since being on the islands. Each island was supposed to have its own type of Oricorio, and back in the game I had actually had one on my team. It was fun to use nectar to change its typing and appearance.

  The birds were currently chattering about recent events. I heard the word Murkrow a lot, as well as them saying, “Those Skull kids.” It seemed like even the Pokemon were a bit bothered by what they had done.

  “Afternoon,” I said with a nod to them as we passed.

  They all turned to stare at me, most of them giving their own little greetings. And then immediately went into a flurry of discussions about who I was. One of them actually brought up that I was a foreigner doing the Trials. When some of the others tried to rebuff them, they insisted it was true as they had watched my battle with the Trial Captain.

  Cara was eying them as if assessing if they were a threat, while Rio immediately jumped into the conversation, claiming that it was true and that she was the one who had battled the Captain. Scoly and her ride along gang also went over to corroborate the story, and tell about how she and Brionne fought Hala. Rio even started demonstrating some of the moves she had used, although in a rather slow and exaggerated manner.

  From the way they were talking, I immediately knew that they were going to be doing so for quite a while. Behind them I could still see the Golurk, who occasionally glanced over at our group, but was mostly focused on his task of gathering radishes. “Alola,” a voice called and I looked over to see the old woman waving at me.

  I smiled and waved back. “Alola!” She made a gesture for me to come over. I gave Cara a few pats on the head to get her attention and let her know what I was doing before heading over. “Sorry if we’re disturbing you,” I said once I got closer.

  She waved her hand. “No, no. Nothing of the sort. I was just curious as to why someone would be wandering about this area looking like they were ready for war,” she said with a giggle. Now that I was closer and getting a better look at her, she was probably twice my age judging by her appearance and wrinkles on her face, but she had that sort of comforting expression.

  “Well, I’m participating in the Trials.”

  She nodded at that. “I see, I see. Then you’ll be battling my granddaughter eventually.”

  I nodded in return. “Yes. I’m looking forward to it, and hoping that she doesn’t hold back like Hala did.”

  She just giggled softly, nodding. “He’s too used to battling children, so he tends to hold back once he's satisfied.”

  “Well my Pokemon sure wasn’t. Rio, my Lucario over there showing off,” I pointed her out, “Was really frustrated because she was next and didn’t get a chance to fight. So she pushed herself really hard in the fight against Captain Mara and ignored a lot of her training. She has a habit of doing that that I’m trying to break her of.”

  The old woman nodded along as I spoke. “Sounds like a rather rambunctious one.”

  “They all kind of are,” I said with a chuckle. Several of them were looking over towards me now. “Ah, it looks like they’re done talking with the Oricorio. Alola.” I gave a bit of a wave as I walked off back towards my Pokemon.

  “Alola,” she said with a laugh.

  When I got back, they were all looking at me like it was my fault we were delayed. “Ready to go? We’ve got a lot of mountain hiking to do."

  Which I honestly wish was an exaggeration. Making our way through the Ancient Poni Path didn’t take long at all, since the moment we got past Hapu’s radish farm there were literally two buildings before we got to the entrance of Vast Poni canyon. The game and anime both really undersold this place, as it was huge.

  I was a bit cautious when standing in front of it, looking up at the massive stones. It would take a long time to explore it and find the tablet. There should be a large stone tablet that marks this as a Trail and explains it. If I remember correctly this was supposedly the first Trial to exist, and it was not not very easy. You constantly get jumped by Jangmo-o and Hakamo-o, until you reach the pedestal with the Dragonium, guarded by a Totem Kommo-o.

  None of which I could currently see. I did see a lot of Murkrow, and I was fairly certain the little glint of metal I saw up on a cliff side was a Skarmory. Cara was standing beside me, with Dee on the other side. Scoly and Rio were on my right, also looking at the large canyon that we were about to enter. “Those are some big mountains…” Rio mumbled.

  There was a general murmuring of agreement. I looked around a moment, seeing that there were a few places that people had set up camp in the past, probably Trial goers. That sounded like a good idea, and I decided to go with that decision. “We’ll set up camp, call this day early, and then set off in the morning.” I started to head towards one of the old campsites that was set up in the remnants of an old building.

  The rest of the day was spent with the Pokemon lightly sparring with each other, while I showed Cara and Rio the movements for All-Out Pummeling. Neither of them really got it and I knew I was going to have to try and figure out a way to explain it. I should probably ask someone, but it was honestly kind of fun trying to figure it out on my own. Diancie had joined the three of us and got it almost immediately, clearly enjoying dancing with us more than actually trying to do anything.

  Eventually the other two got most of the movements down just before we settled down for dinner. But they were still struggling. After I served everyone food and sat down, they were still discussing it. All of the Pokemon had joined in on the discussion, since they would all eventually be able to use Z-Moves of some sort, they all wanted to figure it out.

  “It’s simple,” I said with a soft laugh. “At least, in concept. We just have to combine our wishes, and unleash our full power.” My comment was met with a lot of frowns, but I just laughed more. “We’ll figure it out. Afterall, you said doing those movements caused my aura to shift, right Cara?”

  She nodded. “Yes… it did strange things.”

  “Even now, when I was demonstrating it, my aura was shifting, right?” Again she nodded. “Then just try to copy that. If there’s anyone here who can visualize and apply the movement of the aura, it’s you.”

  I watched as her face scrunched up a bit in embarrassment and she quickly turned her attention back to her food. With a bit more practice, I was sure we could get it. But it would have to wait for when we figured it out in the future.

  Lucario - Mother of Rio

  Lucario - Craves violence

  Scolipede - Pokemon transport unit

  Brionne - Doing sealy things

  Audino - Trained Nurse Pokemon

  Diancie - From Reflection Cave

  Eevee - Living that hood life

  Goomy - Full of dragon slug vibes

  Mimikyu - Collected from the Supermart

  Banette - Collected from the Supermart

  Vulpix (Alolan) - Taken from Pokecenter