The evening was passing quite comfortably, though I can’t quite say it was quiet. There were quite a few Murkrow that decided to hang around and beg for food. They were rather nice about it, so I let them have at our leftovers and gave them pokebeans. You’d think that I saved their lives with how much they crowded around, giving thanks and rubbing their beaks against me. Clearly they were used to humans and weren’t very cautious of them.

  I was a bit surprised they weren’t greedy and didn’t beg for more once they got a pokebean, but they are fairly large, almost the size of my hand, and according to the Pokemon who were eating them, tasty and filling. Once we were all in the tent, before going to bed, I gave everyone in my group a pokebean to see how they liked it. They all agreed they were delicious, but most of them couldn’t finish their beans due to having already eaten.

  They were just the basic beans, but the Professor had given me so many of them that I honestly didn’t mind wasting them. I did get woken up a few times in the night as certain large Pokemon got up and started munching on the leftover beans. The most frequent culprit was Diancie, although it might have just been that she didn’t quite get what subtlety was and so when she went to the pile, she just crunched and monched them till she was satisfied.

  Even Cara was guilty of getting up to grab some bits of unfinished bean. It was good to know that they really liked them and they would make good treats. For those moments that I was awake, I wondered if the Poke Pelago was actually a thing. It should be, right? They would have to be fairly close to Alola… If I remember they were small islands to the North East of Alola? Something to ask one of the Professors about.

  When morning came and we all started to get up, I gave everyone pokeblocks before we made our way out. The sight that found us outside nearly caused me to double over in laughter. There were dozens of Murkrow all settled around, some of them were dozing while others were softly talking to each other. Immediately when they saw me they all got excited, waking up those that were sleeping.

  I was a bit surprised that none of them begged, but they for sure all wore pleading looks. As I helped break down camp, I occasionally tossed beans out to waiting Murkrow, who were ecstatic to be fed. There were a lot of happy little voices all around filled with thanks and praise. “Don’t expect more,” I said when the last of them had finally gotten a pokebean. Among the crowd of birds I even spotted two light purple Murkrow. However there was also a pink Pokemon that caught my attention more than the others as they munched on a bean. It had been a while since I’d seen my little feline follower, but it was good to know they were alright, I guess.

  Several of the Murkrow had landed on me at this point, or were around my feet and bumping me with their beaks to show their thanks. That was the most obvious way they could do so, since they didn’t know I could understand them. It was interesting, and I couldn’t help but pet some of them. Their feathers were pretty soft, and some of them clearly liked the attention. The ones that didn’t moved out of my reach.

  They were also crowding around the Pokemon in my group. Diancie had the most on and around her, as she was a bit more off the ground than normal, and spinning and floating in the air with them. Scoly was absolutely covered in them as they discussed things with the other Pokemon that were already on her back. It was really amusing how chatty they all were. That abruptly changed when the word Trial was mentioned. Suddenly all of the birds went quiet for a moment, before mumbling to each other about the Trial.

  “Yeah, we’re here to take the Trial,” I confirmed, which caused all of them to turn their attention to me. They all stared silently for a moment, which honestly was a bit unnerving to have dozens of birds stare at you. Then they all started to talk amongst themselves in whispers.

  Eventually one of them spoke up, “We’ll take you to the Trial site for more beans.” This seemed to have a general murmur of agreement through the crow crowd.

  I thought about it a moment before smiling and nodding. “Alright. That would save us a lot of hiking and cave exploring.” Cara looked concerned but I just reached over and rubbed her back. I would have pat her on the head, or on the shoulder, but there were currently birds perched there. “Don’t worry, it’ll be-” My words caught as rather abruptly I was gripped and lifted off my feet.

  It only took two Murkrow to lift me, each one holding onto a bicep. The entire flock lifted off with us, a lot of them holding onto Scoly since she was the largest in my group. “Ah!” I heard her let out a little noise of surprise, but it was hard to hear anything over the cacophony of wing beats and bird chatter.

  There was a moment that I couldn’t see anything but birds, until finally they spread out and I saw it all. Poni island. I felt my heart beat faster as we crested over the mesa that made up the island. But this wasn’t from fear, this was excitement. I was flying. I was in the sky. It looked beautiful.

  We didn’t go that much higher as the Murkrow spent a moment just circling in the air, before they suddenly rushed into the canyon. I could hear the mixture of shouts and yells from everyone, the loudest shouts of excitement came from Keo and Rio. I could see Cara trying to remain calm, gipping onto the legs of some of the crows. On Scoly’s back, I could see that Mikyu had grabbed hold of Brionne, Banette, and Goomy to help keep them all secure. Diancie had several on her, who were helping her to fly faster since the Gravity she used on herself to move wasn’t very fast.

  “Yeah!” Eevee shouted, coming partially out of my hood to stand on my shoulder as we soared through the canyon. “This is awesome!”

  I had to agree that this was an exhilarating feeling and made me want to get a flying Pokemon to add to my family. Maybe I could just take this flock of Murkrow? That would get extremely expensive. And I definitely did not have enough pokeballs for them all.

  Someone I wasn’t expecting to be enjoying themselves was the Espurr, who had also been grabbed by a Murkrow and dragged along. But it seemed the cat was enjoying it somewhat.

  Unfortunately the flight wasn't as long as I had hoped. All too soon I saw the markers that designated a Trial area, and we rapidly descended. I was gently placed on the ground with a big smile on my face. “That was fun,” I said with a chuckle as I started to give out more beans.

  The Murkrow all let out happy noises and cheers as they accepted their rewards. I looked around to check that everyone was here. For a moment I didn’t see Diancie, but then I looked up and noticed that she was still in the sky playing with the Murkrow.

  It took a few minutes, but eventually all of the birds had a bean and began to disperse. I caught a glimpse of the little pink Espurr being carried away, carrying an arm full of beans. They were on quite an interesting journey of their own it seemed.

  Eventually I handed out the last pokebean. “Thank you,” I said as I rubbed the bird's beak with my knuckles, which they seemed to enjoy. This wasn’t quite the scenario I had planned for when I wanted the pokebeans, but I knew that they would come in handy, and I knew that they would continue to do so.

  “You bribed the Murkrow?” a voice suddenly spoke out from nearby. Looking over I saw a rather well dressed man, his suit a dark gray with blue accents and a black shirt. He had a head of shoulder length dark blue hair and a well trimmed goatee.

  “You can think of it that way. It’s not like getting through the canyon is part of the Trial, is it?” I asked with a bit of amusement in my tone.

  He laughed a bit as well, shaking his head. “Can’t say I’ve ever seen someone try that. Usually the Murkrow are a nuisance.”

  I let out a snort. “They’re smart, and social. Treat them kindly, share your food, and they’ll want to help you.” They were crows, afterall.

  There was a rather thoughtful expression on his face, but eventually he gave a soft laugh and nodded. “Right. Well, you are the expert.”

  It sounded like he didn’t quite believe what I was saying, but not like it really mattered. “Right, well if you’ll excuse me, I have a Trial to do.”

  “Not so fast,” he said with another little laugh. “You think I’m out here just for fun? You’re gonna battle me first.”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know what you do for fun.” I looked back at my Pokemon, wondering who I should send out. “Let’s go with four,” I said and suddenly Scoly, Rio, Cara, and Keo moved forward. Brionne came as well, riding on top of Scoly, clearly also wanting to battle. The other three that normally rode on Scoly had hopped off her back quite fast. “Rio you just fought, and I want you fresh for the Trial.” She looked disappointed but nodded and moved back to the rest of the group. Dee pat her on the back in a comforting way. “Four on four,” I said with a smile as I turned around.

  His brow furrowed, apparently confused at something, probably that I knew how many Pokemon he had, but he had four pokeballs displayed on his belt. “Alright. No swaps.” He pulled out his phone, putting it in his chest pocket after fiddling with it a bit.

  It took a moment for me to realize that he had set up his phone to record the battle. This was mentioned for battles in the wilds, and was the purpose of the battle app. I pulled out my phone to do the same, putting it in a pocket on my bag so that it was recording forward. It was interesting that the bag had a specific pocket for this, but it made sense. “Agreed. Keo, you’re up first.”

  The little ice fox sprang forward, jumping into the area between me and the other. Unlike with Goomy, I had gotten Keo to show me what moves she knew so I was more confident with sending her out. In response, the other person released their Pokemon, a tall pink pokemon, wearing a sort of shell-like crown on the top of their head: Slowking. That was an annoyingly hard counter to Keo, especially if it knew fire moves. “Ready?” he asked.

  I took a deep breath, a bit of a smile on my face. “Ready.”

  As soon as the word left my mouth, Keo rolled to the side just as a ray of pink energy struck the ground she’d been standing on. At the same time, snow began to fall all throughout the bit of canyon we stood in. It was about to get cold.

  “Icy wind,” I ordered. I hadn’t done any combat training with Keo, so I would have to be a bit more specific in my orders to her. Keo was much faster than the Slowking, so it didn’t even have a chance to try and defend itself before the wind washed over it and decreased its speed even further.

  However the large pink Pokemon seemed completely unbothered by being struck by the attack over and over again, and its eyes began to glow a bright pink. When nothing immediately happened, I assumed they had either used Future Sight or Amnesia. It raised its hand up and I saw a glimmer of white energy in its hand and I saw the shimmer of a shield as it used Protect.

  Future Sight would be rather annoying, but the other move that it just used was even more annoying. Was it just going to tank every hit and whittle her down with little attacks? Or wait for a moment to attack? “Keo, break the shield with Ice Beam.”

  The cold wind that was flowing from her mouth suddenly focused and became an intense beam that blasted into the shield made by Slowking. It iced over before shattering. “Confusion!” the other man shouted.

  “Confuse Ray!” I called out at the same time. The two beams swirled around each other and struck nearly at the same time. The Slowking staggered a bit, its eyes twisting and swirling around as it was trying to gain its bearings.

  Keo wasn’t much better, though she wasn’t confused, that looked like an empowered hit, so it probably was Amnesia that it used. It took her a moment to get back up.

  “Keo, use Hex.” It took her a second to refocus before the burst of ghost energy swirled around her and shot at Slowking. However it was met with another shield, which shattered from the contact. “Again! Keep it up!”

  Another two Protects were shattered before the confusion finally got hold, and the energy backfired and burst, causing the Slowking to flinch and take recoil damage from the failed attack, before it was struck with the Hex. I wasn’t sure if that was enough, but I didn’t get a chance to even wonder as a second Hex struck them. And then a third.

  “Keo, that’s enough!” I shouted, realizing that she wasn’t going to stop unless I ordered her.

  The energy she was gathering for another Hex dissipated and she looked over at me. I watched as the Slowking let out a sort of soft cough before slumping forward and crashing to the ground. Honestly I was surprised it had been still standing after taking several Hexes and Icy Winds. Sure, it was strong against ice energy, but it was weak to ghost, and the damage hex would deal would be doubled because of the status effect of confusion, so that meant it would be further increased. That Slowking had a massively high defense and health pool.

  Before I could take a better look at the state they were in, they disappeared in a red light. I hesitated. “I have a medical Pokemon, do you want her to take a look at them?” I asked as I looked over at the man.

  He seemed to think about it a moment and then shake his head. “Maybe after the battle.”

  “Keo, come on back,” I said, and she frowned at me. “You’ll get a lot more fighting today with the Trial.” I couldn’t help chuckling. Her and Rio just wanted to fight and get stronger so bad.

  With a huff she walked back, holding her head up high.

  I knelt down and pet her before she could get past me. “Good job.” She huffed again, but didn’t try to get away from my attention. “Brionne, your turn.”

  With a bit of help from Scoly, she launched into the air, landing on me and using me as a springboard to get into the arena. All the Pokemon started to snicker softly, and even the man across from me put a hand over his mouth to keep himself from laughing. Keo at least had the good mind to get out of my reach before she laughed.

  I stood back up, shaking my head with a sigh.

  “So, a Brionne,” the man said, sounding like he hadn’t even looked at my Pokemon since I arrived. “Usually they’re Primarina’s by the time they get to this Trial.”

  That was interesting, but it was probably because I was doing all of these Trials drastically out of order. I’d even skipped over the entire canyon, so it wasn’t surprising. However I could see that Brionne was immediately frustrated at the comment. She had expressed a want to reach her final evolution after spending so much time with Alma and the other Primarina.

  Before I had a chance to say anything, suddenly the man's shadow stretched and twisted in a strange manner before a large purple Pokemon slowly rose out of it. It was interesting that he hadn’t even said anything, but maybe he always used his Gengar against the Primarina line, so he just knew to come out?

  “Ready?” he asked, glancing from Brionne to his Gengar.

  “Ready. Time for a song, Brionne,” I said with a smirk.

  I could see a slight blush appear on Brionne’s face, but she sat up a bit straighter, putting a hand on her chest before she began to sing. This was a moment that I wanted to test. Since she had the Liquid Voice ability, that would change the type of Sing from normal to water, and thus bypass Gengar’s immunity to normal attacks. Brionne had also learned how to better control her voice attacks so that they didn’t affect bystanders. Which was a fascinating thing to find out was possible. It meant that moves could be used in a way to not affect certain people or Pokemon.

  Judging from the confusion on the man's face, he wasn’t sure what I was doing. Gengar was taking advantage of the perceived slip up by its opponent, and using some sort of buff move. However, when the purple Pokemon had finished, I saw the way its eyes began to droop, and it wobbled a bit. Before it could do anything else, it toppled back, snoring softly. It even had a comical snot bubble.

  “What… wait, what happened?” the man asked, staring at his Gengar snoozing in front of him.

  “Liquid Voice. It’s an extremely rare ability that the Primarina line has. It changes sound based moves energy from their type into water energy. So the move Sing changes from normal, to water,” I explained with a smile.

  He just stared at me for a moment and then looked back at his Gengar. “What?”

  “It makes Sing a water type move. I was betting that you wouldn’t know about it, since no one else I’ve mentioned it to seems to be aware of it.” It had been a bit of a gamble, but not even the Professors seemed to be aware of the ability and its effect, so I was fairly confident that this Trainer wouldn’t know.

  He was just frowning, but after another moment he pulled out a pokeball and returned his Gengar. That was a bit of a surprise. Brionne was also surprised. She had been preparing for the battle, using Aqua Ring and Amnesia, she had even covered the area with Misty Terrain.

  Clearly he was annoyed and didn’t want a buffed up Pokemon to get free shots, and would rather return them to keep them from getting hurt. “Go, Noctowl. Use Fly.” The large brown owl shaped Pokemon burst from the pokeball only to immediately soar up into the sky.

  “Ice them down, Brionne!” I called with a smile. Battling was honestly quite a lot of fun. Watching Brionne aim up, opening her mouth and shooting off light blue beams at the shape in the sky. Unlike in the game, Fly didn’t make a Pokemon completely immune, but it did make them a lot harder to hit.

  The missing beams collided with the cliff walls, causing streaks of ice to shoot up several meters. However this Noctowl was extremely maneuverable, and managed to avoid every beam until it was practically right on top of her. She barely managed to clip their wing before they slammed into them.

  Or at least they would have, but instead Brionne disappeared into a puff of smoke, leaving a sort of pokedoll made of energy in her place. He had given her too much time to prepare, and she had used Substitute as part of her buffing up. She was the only one who had managed to learn it from Mikyu and Banette. It was an extremely interesting move, as the doll was temporary and made from normal type energy. The first time I had seen it all I could think of was substitution jutsu.

  Noctowl then took a full force ice beam to the back, which looked like it hurt. The owl immediately flipped around, twisting and shattering the ice on its back before unleashing a flurry of Air Slashes. Brionne blasted a water jet into the ground to evade and I watched as the stream of water was split into several different streams by at least five blades made of air. Two of which actually managed to graze Brionne, leaving large red marks across her.

  But the owl wasn’t done as it lunged forward, grasping hold of Brionne before she could properly recover from her maneuver. With a spin they tossed her into the air and then took in a deep breath, its beak opening and I saw the white glint in its mouth. An intense beam of energy was shot upward as the Noctowl used Hyper Beam.

  The beam lasted for a few seconds and when it dissipated, there was an extremely burnt up doll in the place that Brionne had been. However she wasn’t far away, and still in the air due to the nature of how Substitute worked, only moving the user a short distance away. Noctowl needed a moment to recover from the Hyper Beam and couldn’t react as Brionne suddenly spun in the air, bursting into a small tornado of ice and water. Using her ice and water energy to copy the way that Scoly spun, she used something similar to Ice Spinner.

  The two of them collided in the air and both came crashing down hard into an explosion of ice and water. Both Pokemon seemed a bit disoriented, but Brionne was on top of the Noctowl and didn’t hesitate to open her mouth and fire a point blank Ice Beam. The beam then shifted from ice to water as she changed it to Aqua Jet to not only continue to blast the ice block of an owl again but to also get distance.

  She looked rough, two large red marks across her body, which I could see were bleeding slightly in certain places. Part of her looked a bit sunburned just from being so close to the Hyper Beam, and she was practically gasping for breath, struggling to stay upright. Her Aqua Ring was still going, which was, once again, probably the only thing keeping her from fainting.

  The owl disappeared in a burst of red as the man returned them. “That was a good fight,” he said with a chuckle. “Your Brionne is going to truly be a monster once it evolves.”

  I moved forward to pick Brionne up, moving back to hand her to the waiting Dee. “You did such a good job,” I said with a smile, gently rubbing her non-sunburnt cheek. She closed her eyes and leaned into my hand, a faint smile on her face.

  By the time I turned around I could see that he had already sent out his last Pokemon. A large green dragon shaped creature, with large red dome like lenses over its eyes. A ground dragon type like Flygon was going to be annoying to deal with, since I didn’t have any ice types left. He had probably saved it for last because of that. Cara was a bad choice since she was weak to ground energy, and it would be immune to Scoly’s poison.

  While I did have two Pokemon to his one, it was clear that they were strong. The Slowking must have been his weakest Pokemon, and I had gotten a gimme with Gengar. She would at least be resistant to their dragon attacks, and I wanted to give her more chances to show off and gain experience. Wait… why was I even worried? “Cara, you’re up.” She looked at me curiously and I smiled at her. “Show ‘em what you got.”

  She gave a smile in return as she stepped into the area. “Ready?” the man called out, a slight smirk on his face.

  “The question is, are you ready?” I responded, wearing a smirk on my face as well. Cara’s aura flared up before condensing and focusing on her paws and feet. The Flygon took this as the start and rushed forward, but when it reached the spot that Cara was, she wasn’t there and its attack hit nothing but air.

  Cara made contact with both paws into its side, causing it to slide several feet away. It twisted, trying to strike her with a tail coated in the purple blue dragon energy, but she ducked below, moving forward and striking it twice more in the back. It twisted and attempted to Bite, its jaws snapping the empty space that she had been in.

  She took advantage of its over extension and grabbed hold of it by the neck, setting her feet, twisting slightly at the waist, and then throwing the large Pokemon at full force into the wall of the canyon. It sat there a moment, clearly stunned and trying to figure out what just happened. “Move!” the man shouted in an attempt to get his Pokemon to refocus.

  I was focused on watching Cara rather than the Flygon. She was charging an Aura Sphere, and it was the most stable one she had ever managed. It was a massive swirling ball of energy, and when she launched it, I realized that she was doing something similar to the stance I had made when I was messing around trying to use a Kamehameha. I had a slight pang of embarrassment, but there was no denying its effectiveness.

  The Flygon barely managed to dive out of the way before the Aura Sphere collided with the wall and erupted into a small explosion that further propelled the poor thing and slammed it into the ground. It slid for quite a while before coming to a stop. It looked back at the small crater in the wall, and then at its trainer with a pleading gaze.

  However the trainer was a bit stunned, until Cara turned towards them. I could see his eyes widen a bit. “I forfeit!” he shouted quickly.

  I couldn’t help but laugh, while Cara just folded her arms, clearly disappointed. That Aura Sphere had been mostly show, rather than power. Just a big flash of energy with not a lot of substance. All it did was demonstrate that while her control had increased a lot, she wasn’t able to get the density tight enough. So it was quite an impressive sight, but not very strong. She knew that, I knew that, but apparently our opponent didn’t know that.

  I stepped forward to pat her on the shoulder. “You’ll get there,” I said softly. “That was the best one you’ve done so far.” Out of the corner of my eye I watched as he pulled his phone back out and began messing with it again. I did the same, ending the recording. There was a prompt asking if I ‘won’ or if I ‘lost’, and it was rather satisfying to press ‘won’. Immediately I noticed that I had received four thousand pokedollars as a reward for winning. I hadn’t even realized there was a wager in this… but I guess it made sense that Trainers had to make money somehow.

  I heard the man let out a rather heavy sigh, which drew my attention back to him. “Well, good battle,” he said with a bit of a chuckle.

  “Do you want Dee to look over your Pokemon?” I asked as I gestured back to her, as she was treating Brionne.

  He seemed to think it over for a moment before shaking his head. “Nah, I’ll just head straight to the Pokecenter.”

  When I opened my mouth to say that it would take quite a while to hike back down the mountain, and that he would be doing it without his team at full strength. Then he pulled out a small lime green device and pushed a button. “A Ride Pager,” I said with a bit of a sigh before slapping my forehead. I had completely forgotten about those.

  “Don’t have one?” he asked, apparently amused.

  I shook my head. “No,” I said with a sigh. “I forgot to get one.” And no one had offered to give me one.

  Suddenly there was a deep rumbling shout from above. “Ooii!”

  Looking up I saw a rather impressive orange reptile, with large wings and a flame at the tip of its tail. This was my first time seeing a Charizard. “Well…” My attention returned to the man as he waved the pager so that the Pokemon could see it. “They only give Pagers to trusted individuals, and it’s hard for outsiders to get them.”

  With a rather heavy thump, the Charizard landed, taking a look around at all the Pokemon. The first thing I noticed was I was just a few inches taller than them. The games and anime always made Charizard look huge, but clearly that wasn’t the case. “Alright, come on,” he said to the man.

  I wasn’t sure if the man understood, or was just keen on getting out of the canyon, as he mounted up onto the back of the flying lizard. “See ya around!” he called out as the Charizard shot into the air with one good flap of its wings.

  “Definitely want a flying Pokemon…” I muttered as I watched them disappear over the side of the canyon wall. Slowly my gaze drifted down to the path ahead that the man had been blocking. It was a sort of tunnel, and had two intricately carved sort of tiki poles on either side, surrounded by rocks at the base, and had sort of wooden painted flags coming off of them. The faces carved into them were of Pokemon, clearly depicting Jangmo-o, Hakamo-o, and Kommo-o.

  Just on the other side of the sort of small cave I could see a large stone tablet, and if I looked hard enough I could even see a pedestal in the distance. I was debating how to go about this, whether to just full force my way in quickly, or take it in a more slow and cautious way.

  Cara suddenly tugged a bit at my coat and I looked down at her. She was staring towards the pedestal. “I can sense something really powerful,” she said softly, her eyes not not moving.

  “There’s a Totem Kommo-o there,” I replied with a bit of a nod.

  I could see her hackles raise. “Like Alma?” Rio asked as she stepped beside her mother, also staring at the pedestal.

  “Yes,” I said with a bit of a chuckle. I looked back, Scoly looked excited, with an equally excited Keo and Brionne on her back, the little seal was looking much better, though the side of her face still looked a bit red. Her other passengers, Mikyu and Goomy, didn’t look quite excited. Though Banette had a rather curious expression. Diancie was bobbing up and down, also seemingly excited. This would be the first time she battled alongside everyone since the dragon fight. Ironic that it was going to be another dragon fight. Dee looked nervous, but also determined, which was a pleasant sight.

  “This is exciting,” Eevee said softly from my shoulder.

  I laughed a bit more as I reached up and scratched under her chin. “C’mon everyone.” I gestured for everyone to follow as I walked forward. I decided that I should record whatever happened, and so pulled out my phone and set it to record. I should probably do that for every battle.

  As soon as I crossed the line between the two tikis, there was a pressure that rushed past me like a gust of wind and I felt my heartrate pick up a bit. It was like when I first met Alma, that near overwhelming feeling of being in the presence of something that was extremely powerful. However this time we weren’t here to talk. We were here to pick a fight. And this dragon wasn’t going to be tired from sixteen hours of fighting dozens of Pokemon.

  I stopped at the stone tablet, looking at the faded writing and reading aloud, “Ahead lies a sacred ground of Trials. None who do not take part in its Trials will be allowed to walk upon this earth. Those lacking the courage to defeat the Totem guarding this land will be denied entry. But those who believe in their Pokemon and walk beside them shall gain great power!”

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  There was a moment of silence, where the only noise that we could hear was the rush of wind. Then came a roar that shook the entire canyon. From ledges above, figures began dropping down. Some were quadrupedal, gray with heart shaped gold plates on their head. Others were bipedal, standing nearly double in height with plates along their arms. And behind them all was an absolutely massive figure, plates running down its arms.

  I couldn’t help but gulp. “That is… a lot more than was in the game…” I muttered. There were over two dozen Jangmo-o, half as many Hakamo-o, and the Totem Kommo-o. I cleared my throat, taking a deep breath to calm my nerves a bit. “They’re dragon fighting types, ice and fairy type moves are going to be your best bet.”

  “A well prepared Challenger!” the Kommo-o said, laughing as he did. Despite the distance, it was extremely easy to hear him, as if they were standing in front of us. “Very good. Very good. I know much of you, and expected nothing less. To bring forth so many at once, unlike most Challengers that we must hold back against as we proceed with small skirmishes!” He spread his arms out wide. “Come! Let us revel in the sounds of the clash of battle!”

  In response, all of the Jangmo-o and Hakamo-o stomped, taking a stance and shouting. The Jangmo-o looked like they would charge, while the Hakamo-o were crouched, one arm raised with the other pointing out at us. I felt a shiver run down my spine, but I couldn’t help but smile. They had declared their intent to battle.

  I looked over the crowd of Pokemon, doing a quick count. There were over forty between us and the pedestal. That seemed a bit unfair. After a beat of silence, the crowd in front of us charged, shouting as they did. “Diancie. Full range.”

  She let out a bit of a giggle as she raised her hand, and out of the corner of my eye I could see a rather mischievous look on her face. “Down!” she shouted as she brought her hand down.

  I almost felt bad as the wave of high Gravity crashed into the Jangmo-o, as every single one of them immediately ate dirt. Several of the Hakamo-o did as well, but there were more than a dozen that remained up and running. They must be strong and closer to evolving than the others. Although it did cause them to hesitate.

  Behind them, the Kommo-o laughed. “Interesting!”

  “Try not to hit the ones who are down,” I said before Rio and Cara shot forward into the still standing crowd, Keo right behind them. They were met with flurries of Dragon Claws, and many beams of Dragon Pulse. Behind me I could hear the grinding of bug on stone as Scoly spun up.

  Diancie shot a Moonblast at one of the struggling Hakamo-o that was trying to get forward, and I was glad that she remembered that she could do other things besides just Gravity. Brionne also let loose with a Moon Beam that clipped several Pokemon, clearly aiming at the Totem. The massive Pokemon raised an arm and the beam was deflected off one of its arm plates and collided into the cliff side.

  Goomy, Mikyu, and Banette stayed grouped up as they charged forward. I hadn’t seen Mikyu or Banette in combat, so I was curious as to how they would fight. To my surprise, Goomy had really taken to being a tank and leapt forward in front of the two, taking a hit from a Hakamo-o. The blow sent her splatting slightly into the ground, but the recoil from hitting the slug threw the attacker’s hand back sharply, which left it open for Mikyu to jump on it and disappear into a cloud of fists and noises as she used Play Rough.

  Keo was dancing circles around the slowed Hakamo-o, blasting them with Ice Beam and Icy Wind as she ran about. With how she moved, sloppily ducking or jumping around claw and tail strikes, it was clear she still wasn’t fully used to the Gravity, but her opponents were in an even worse state.

  “You don’t have to fight, Dee,” I said softly to the pink Pokemon that had come up to my side. She was hesitating, glancing from me to the others as they fought. I placed a hand on her back, gently rubbing it.

  Before she responded, Scoly shot forward. Rather than going for any of the crowd, she hit the side of the canyon, flying across it and straight at the Kommo-o. Before she could even reach them, their hands burst into the blue of dragon energy and struck together in front of them. There was a burst, and the sound similar to a gong as the air practically exploded. I was certain that that was Clanging Scales, Kommo-o’s signature move.

  The resulting blast launched Scoly away, causing her to ricochet several times off the canyon walls back to the group of Pokemon. She struck off several Hakamo-o, but when she was about to hit Rio, she struck her and sent her flying into another Hakamo-o. This happened a few more times as Rio and Cara used Scoly to attack and cause problems throughout the battlefield.

  A flash of dragon fire caught my eye as I saw Goomy using Dragon Breath against a Hakamo-o’s Dragon Pulse. When it looked like the little slug was about to lose, the other dragon suddenly collapsed. Banette was standing behind it, looking down at it curiously. I hadn’t seen what she had done, but if I had to guess it was Shadow Sneak.

  Brionne had changed targets, and was now helping Diancie to whittle down the large amount of Pokemon. Several of those that had initially been taken down by Gravity had started to adjust and were standing up. None of the poor Jangmo-o seemed to be able to, but a lot more Hakamo-o were joining the battle.

  There was a sudden flash behind me and the Moon Beam from Brionne increased in intensity. When I looked back, I smiled as she was shining brightly in a mixture of blue and pink energy. As it faded, she had tripled in size, and now sported long flowing teal hair. “Finally!” She exclaimed as she had evolved into Primarina. She was laughing as she continued to fire off Moon Beams, which were noticeably more powerful. From the fact that I could still see a bit of red tint to the side of her face, it looked like the evolution hadn’t fully recovered her.

  Dee pulled on my sleeve, and I turned my attention around to her. “Hm?”

  She gestured at the Totem Pokemon, who was stomping, and causing their scale plates to ring out. It took me a moment before I realized they were buffing themself. They were using Clangorous Soul to increase all of their stats. That wasn’t something they could use in the Sun and Moon games, but it was something that they could later since Z-Moves couldn’t be used. It was still a surprise to see it and didn’t seem really fair to use when they weren’t even in the fight yet.

  However when I looked back at the battle it seemed like all of the Hakamo-o had been defeated. Cara, Rio, Keo, and Scoly were all standing in the middle of what truly looked like a battlefield. All of them were panting, looking around to make sure that none of them were getting up. Well, Scoly wasn’t, she was wobbling back and forth and struggling to keep upright.

  Mikyu, Banette, and Goomy looked extremely rough. It looked like Mikyu’s costume was broken with the way the head was sagging, and I could see a bunch of marks that had nearly cut through it. Goomy looked like she actually had a black eye, which was rather impressive considering how her body seemed to work. Banette had a ton of marks across her that looked almost like scars. “Dee, go help those three. No more fighting for them.”

  She nodded and quickly jogged towards them. All three looked relieved that their fight was over, even Banette. Brionne- no wait, it was Primarina now, moved up beside me. “I evolved,” she said happily.

  I reached over and rubbed the top of her head. “Good job.” I looked over at Diancie, who was sort of swaying and twirling in celebration. “And you did a good job, too. Now, for the actual fight.” I looked over at the Kommo-o, who had a rather large smile on its face.

  “Well done!” he called out, laughing. “Now! Come! Let me feel what your team can do!”

  We moved past the Pokemon on the ground, most of which were unconscious. “Diancie, release your Gravity for now.”

  With a wave of her hand, those defeated Pokemon were no longer under the pressure. Some of them stood up, clearly upset at being defeated in such a way, but knowing they couldn’t do anything.

  The Totem Kommo-o waited for us to approach. This part of the canyon was much larger, which was clearly the reason why they were waiting. Fighting in the canyon would have been detrimental to them due to how large they were. I wondered if they would use the mechanics of the game and call assistance. Having to deal with a Noivern or a Scizor on top of the Totem Pokemon would be annoying.

  “My name is Jason, though I prefer Jace. I am here for the Dragonium,” I said with a bit of laughter mixed into my tone, putting my hands on my hips and standing up straight.

  The Totem looked down at me with a bit of a frown before a smile crept onto their face. “I am the Totem Durn. I dare you to try.”

  “Go.” At my word, Cara, Rio, and Keo rushed forward. Both Lucario struck forward, using Metal Claw, which was countered with a dragon energy covered fist and ended in a stalemate. Durn was able to fend off both of them with one hand. Keo ran to the side, firing an Ice Beam which struck the Totem’s shoulder. Diancie raised her hand, but I placed a hand on her shoulder. “Wait,” I said softly.

  Primarina shot a Moon Beam, which was again deflected by the plates across the Kommo-o’s arm. But now that we were this close, I could see that the intense fairy energy was leaving quite a severe mark on the arm. Then they had to use that arm to block Scoly as she shot forward, slamming into him.

  “Now.” Diancie immediately dropped her hand and Gravity spiked. However, immediately I noticed that they seemed completely unaffected. I was hoping to throw it off balance.

  “You think a mere tripling of Gravity would hinder me?” He laughed as he blocked another full spin shot from Scoly.

  I was about to retort until what he just said actually registered. Triple? As in three? Wait, three? This was only three times? This sure felt like a heck of a lot more than three. My brow furrowed as I tried to think where I even got the comparison to think that it was ten times. And then I felt my face get a bit red as I remembered. There was a carnival that I liked to go to, and one of the rides boasted that it would be like feeling ten times the gravity. This was about the same feeling and I had based my entire assumption on the boastful words of a carny.

  Wow, and I had been so confident. That was extremely unscientific of me to not even question why I thought it was ten times… Did that mean that when Diancie had lowered it, it was less than double? Or was I just awful at telling the difference? I really didn’t want to think about it… Man, that is extremely embarrassing that I didn’t even question it and just went with my gut…

  For now I would just have to ignore my past over exaggeration and focus.

  Suddenly Durn slammed both of his fists together and there was an explosion of force. The force was so extreme that both Cara, Rio, and Keo were launched back, slamming into the walls of the canyon. I felt the wind pressure from the move, but it didn’t actually hurt at this range. But the sound of it was uncomfortable. Boomburst, one of the strongest sound moves was no joke when used by something like a Totem.

  I realized I lost track of Scoly for a moment, until I heard her shout, “Meteor Horn!” She had used the momentum from the Boomburst to go up the cliff, and was again using her new improvised move.

  Looking up, it was almost as if Durn knew that they had to take the move at least a little seriously as they went Super Saiyan, bursting into an aura of shining golden light as they activated their Totem Aura. They raised both arms, which shined in steel energy and took the blow head on. The ground below the massive Pokemon buckled and cracked as a noticeable crater formed under them.

  Durn swung their arms open, which caused Scoly to bounce up a bit into the air. “Not bad!” they shouted as they pulled their arm back. Scoly immediately curled up just before the massive dragon energy covered fist of the Kommo-o slammed into her and spiked her into the ground. I expected her to bounce, but instead she was now embedded into the dirt.

  The Kommo-o barely raised their other arm to block a blow from Rio, who struck with her Bone Rush staff. Then their chest exploded into the violet energy of Cara’s Aura Sphere, and before the smoke from the energy had cleared, a Moon Beam and Moonblast struck their chest as well, followed by an Ice Beam raking across their back.

  “Good!” they shouted. “Now this is a fight!” Their chest was marred with wounds from the three direct hits, and they were breathing hard. I could see the remnants of poison on their arms that had clearly seeped in. Yet even after all that, they were still standing and ready to fight.

  This was a Totem Pokemon.

  The difference in power was immense. How was anyone supposed to beat something like this in a one on one fight? Clearly the Kommo-o took it easy on Trial participants and focused more on the courage aspect to be able to face them. But I wasn’t doing that. They seemed to know that my courage had already been tested somewhat, and they just wanted a fight.

  So a fight I would give them.

  I pulled up my sleeve. “Cara! Rio!” I pulled free the Fightinium from the grasp of my Z-Rings band and placed it into the center slot. The two of them looked back, seeing the motion. I wanted to know if I could have them both use it at the same time? Time to find out.

  The moment I crossed my arms I felt it. The flow and pull of the energy. It was as if I was suddenly connected to Rio and Cara by our energy. No wonder they couldn’t get it previously, you needed to actually do it to truly understand it.

  As I performed the first movement, the large sumo like step, the Totem spotted it, but before he could comment or do anything he was struck with another series of fairy and ice attacks, as well as a Poison Jab delivered by a now recovered Scoly.

  Every part had a purpose, every fist thrown out held some sort of meaning. And I could actually feel it. Like I was doing more than just giving orders, I was actually lending my will to them, and then I hit the last pose. “All-Out Pummeling!” I shouted.

  Both Cara and Rio had been matching the movements, and the moment I finished there was a burst of orange light from the band and it rushed to the two of them. They flashed and ignited in energy. There was barely a second before both of them began rapidly palming the air in front of them. Each one sent what looked like a paw of energy at the Kommo-o.

  Immediately afterwards I fell to a knee, gasping for air. I was absolutely exhausted, barely managing to watch as the Totem was absolutely slammed with strike after strike, each one leaving bruises in the shape of paws all over its body.

  Durn staggered back several steps before falling back into a sitting position. No one moved, waiting. Well, no one but Dee, who rushed over to me and was helping me back up as she used Healing Pulse. It took a moment, but eventually the massive Totem’s eyes rolled back and it fell back and disappeared for a few seconds in a puff of dust.

  “Thank you, Dee,” I said before I started laughing. “That was harder than I thought.”

  “That was awesome!” Rio exclaimed, raising her fists in the air. She was panting softly, clearly a bit out of breath.

  “And tiring,” Cara added with a nod, also panting softly. “But also…very strong.”

  Everyone gathered up, and Dee began to check over everyone, using Heal Pulse several times to help with everyone’s wounds. Surprisingly Durn hadn’t done much attacking, mostly blocking. Maybe that was him taking it easy on us?

  I stopped my phone from recording as I walked over to the pedestal, my legs a bit wobbly. Up close it was a very simple rock with a carved out nook in the front. Inside was a cyan colored crystal, a bit off from the color of dragon energy, with an interesting symbol in it that appeared to be something containing a spiral, something like a basic interpretation of dragon flame.

  Reaching in and pulling out the crystal, I took another moment to examine it. “Dee? Could you heal Durn, and the Jangmo-o and Hakamo-o as well?” She nodded and quickly moved over to the massive Kommo-o. I put the Dragonium against the bracelet, and returned the Fightinium as well. Now that I had more Z-Crystals I realized that each one seemed to have its own place. Was I supposed to collect them all? There were a few that I had not planned to get, like most of the specific Pokemon ones.

  “A good fight,” a rather rough voice said and I turned to see Durn sitting up, a big smile on his face. Dee was a bit startled that they suddenly got up and quickly hurried off to help the other knocked out Pokemon. “As expected of the chosen Bridge.” He was a bit slow to get up, and was still covered in paw shaped bruises.

  My brow immediately furrowed. “Bridge? What’s that mean?”

  He looked at me for a moment and then laughed. “Ah! Forgive me. I guess it has not been explained to you. Lord Arceus is fickle like that, and the Earth Mother does not reveal what is not necessary until the time is right.”

  I frowned at him. “That doesn’t answer my question. What does that mean?”

  Again he laughed. “My apologies, but I do not know the answer. It is merely what the Earth Mother referred to you as.”

  That sounded like a lie, but it also sounded like he wasn’t going to tell me. “Okay… Then who is the Earth Mother?”

  He shook his head. “That is not for me to say.”

  “Oh don’t give me that. You can’t just spout random things like that, and then just not exposit on them!” I was trying not to shout. This sounded like a hint. The first hint that I’d gotten as to why I was here.

  “Ah, but that is where you are wrong.” With that, he performed a leap that caused enough wind it nearly knocked me over. When I looked up, I only saw his tail disappear over the edge of the cliff.

  “Shoulda left your ass unconscious…” I muttered with a sigh. That was two bits of information that sounded extremely important. The first being chosen Bridge. I was some sort of Bridge? Was that a Bridge between worlds? Locations? Things? Was I already a bridge, or was I going to be used as a bridge in the future? Or was it some kind of metaphorical bridge? Was it even a concept of bridge that I was aware of? Is this why I can talk to Pokemon? So many questions, and no answers.

  And then there was this Earth Mother. They made it sound like an actual thing rather than a concept, something akin to Mother Earth, or Gaia. Well, I mean I could just take it literally that that was what it was. Considering they seemed to put them roughly on the same level as Arceus I could only assume they were some sort of god Pokemon that I didn’t know about. That was both exciting and concerning.

  Well, there was no reason to dwell on it now. I would have to shelve the questions, ask some Professors or maybe the Kahuna about it. It’s just frustrating to feel that I was close to finding out something. I took a deep breath, letting it out slowly to calm myself. There was no point in getting bothered about it, since they made it sound like I’d find out eventually. The question was, how long would that be? Days? Months? Years? Only they know.

  Now it was time to turn my attention back to the current problem. I was out here in the canyon, with everyone on my team tired, aside from Dee, Diancie, and Primarina who looked in good shape. And ahead… was the Altar. I still wanted to see that. But first, I needed to find a place to let everyone rest, and from the looks of the dragon Pokemon around, we weren’t exactly welcome here.

  “I want everyone but Dee, Primarina, and Diancie to return to the pokeballs,” I said as I opened up my coat. “We’re gonna move a bit ahead to the Altar and see if there’s a place to rest.”

  “Altar?” Primarina asked, looking past the stone pedestal to the cavern path ahead.

  “Yeah, it’s a place I want to see.” Several Pokemon had already returned, clearly too tired to argue or eager to return to the comfort of a pokeball. Cara was the only one who seemed hesitant, standing beside me. I reached over and rubbed the top of her head. “It’s okay, I’ll be fine.”

  She looked at me for a moment. “Alright. If you’re sure,” she said before returning.

  With that the four of us made our way through the short tunnel. Primarina was much more confident and could get around a lot more easily, having learned a lot from the other seals. “That was fun!” Diancie suddenly announced, floating around us in circles.

  “I’m very glad you enjoyed it,” I said with a chuckle, reaching out and rubbing the diamond on top of her head as she passed. She stopped moving in order to grab my hand.

  Dee stopped walking, and the rest of us stopped in the little cave. She had a rather sour look on her face. I reached over and started to rub her back. Her head drooped a bit forward, and her shoulders slumped. “I don’t have to fight, right?”

  “Of course you don’t,” I said softly.

  “Yeah, you do lots for us,” Primarina added with a smile, coming up onto the other side of Dee. “You help us train, fix us up when we get hurt, and- well, okay you’re not good at cooking, but you help Jace cook!”

  Dee tried to frown, but couldn’t keep the smile off her face. “Right. Yeah.”

  “You play an extremely important role in the family, Dee.” I was continuing to rub her back, feeling the scars. “It’s okay if you don’t want to fight. It really is.”

  “But…” Her brow furrowed and her little hands clenched. “But I do want to fight, I'm just… I just… I can’t. I get like…this knot in my chest and I start to list off the reasons I shouldn’t fight…”

  “Why do you think you shouldn’t fight?” I asked after a moment of silence.

  “I have to take care of everyone else. I have to make sure that if anyone gets hurt, that I can help.” She was staring hard at the ground as she spoke.

  I crouched down a bit in order to be at eye level with her. “What you do is very important. But you’re not confident that you can help out in a fight, right?”

  She looked up at me before looking away. “I’ve never been able to fight when I need to.”

  Gently I grabbed hold of her hands, which she still had clenched into fists. “Why are you training so hard then?”

  “I…” she started to speak, but couldn’t seem to find the words to continue.

  “You train so hard. Maybe harder than anyone else.” I let go of one of her hands to reach into my bag, pulling out the small remote. The little display showed eighty. Sometimes it was hard to remember that she was wearing the weighted harness, since it was designed to not be visible.

  She was staring at the little remote, her brow furrowed.

  “We’ll be fighting Kahuna Hapu soon,” I said as I stood back up, putting the remote away. “You’re going to be fighting first, alright?”

  Her body jolted slightly as her gaze snapped up. “Me? I… uhm…” She went quiet for a moment before she nodded. “Alright.”

  I rubbed her head between her ears. “You’ll do great.”

  “Yeah!” Primarina gave her a nudge. “You’re really tough during training. It’ll be so fun to watch you battle.”

  I chuckled a bit. “Alright, let's go.” I reached back a moment to check on Eevee, who was sleeping again. I wondered if she would sleep less when she fully recovered, or if it was just her being like that and wanting to sleep all the time.

  Passing out of the exit of the cave, the first thing that we could see was the massive staircase in front. We were now in some sort of huge basin, up on a raised area. Not too far to either side of us it dropped off for who knows how far, ending in an odd sort of rocky terrain filled with ponds and flat landings scattered around.

  But the most impressive thing was what was in front. It was an absolutely massive structure, several stories high with what looked like a massive wall at the top. We all just stared at it a moment before I started to make my way towards it.

  There was a sudden rush of wind to the side and I watched as a Charizard gently landed. Hapu hopped off its back. “Glad I managed to spot you,” she said, smiling up at me. “Eric mentioned that you didn’t have a pager, so I wanted to see if you wanted a ride back after your Trial. Didn’t expect you’d already be done with it.”

  I chuckled a bit. “Yeah it was a rough Trial, but satisfying.”

  “You up for more battles today?” she asked, an eager look on her face.

  To that I shook my head. “No, I’ve only got Dee, Diancie, and Primarina in any shape to battle. And they’ve both used a lot of energy.”

  “Ah, sounds like Durn gave you a hard time,” she said with a bit of a giggle. “He can be rough.”

  “That’s putting it lightly,” I said with a sigh and a bit of a laugh. “I wasn’t expecting an all out war like that.”

  “War?” she asked, clearly confused.

  “Ah.” Rather than explain it, I pulled out my phone and showed her the video. I realized as I watched it as well that I hadn’t really been paying attention to the camera and where it was facing, so it missed a lot of things that I had seen, but also captured things that I hadn’t. The Banette-Mikyu combo was rather scary to watch, as they relied on ambushes and sneaking up on Pokemon who were focused on something else.

  “I’ve never heard of this Trial going like this…” Hapu muttered after a moment. “I’ll have to talk to Grandma about this.”

  “Durn did complain that he usually did small skirmishes, and sounded bored of them.” The video had now gotten to the fight against the Totem Kommo-o. Now that there was only one place to focus, the camera work got much better. Or at least was a lot more focused on the actual fight.

  Then it got to the end, and Hapu’s mouth actually fell open as she watched the double combo All-Out Pummeling. It took her a moment after the video ended before she spoke, “Are you alright?”

  “Hm?” I paused as I was putting my phone away. “Yeah? Tired in a way that I can’t quite describe, but other than that I’m fine.”

  She looked me up and down for a moment. “Are you sure?”

  My brow furrowed a bit. “Yeah. I wasn’t expecting that much power to be pulled for using two Z-Moves at once, but it wasn’t that bad.”

  “Usually people pass out,” she said, her voice tinged with concern. “It’s been tried before, but even doing two Z-Moves in a row, or even within a few minutes of each other, causes the Trainer to collapse. It takes a lot of training for even Elite Trainers to be able to use it twice in the same battle. I can’t even do multiple a day.”

  I thought about it for a moment before shrugging. “I do a lot of training with my Pokemon. Maybe the training helped? How many times can Kahuna Hala do it?”

  She had to think about it for a moment. “I’ve heard of him doing it three times in a row, but he nearly passed out after.”

  That was interesting, that there was clearly a method to be able to use it more often. I remembered that Hala had also been mostly unaffected when under the Gravity field, so maybe that was part of it? I for sure didn’t think I could do another Z-Move right now considering how tired I was. “I see…”

  “But, I’ve never heard of someone successfully doing two at once.” She folded her arms, thinking hard about it. Eventually she shrugged. “Another question for Grandma.”

  I chuckled a bit. “Must be nice having a knowledgeable grandmother.”

  She nodded. “She mentioned you came by. Or, well, she mentioned someone that seemed to be you with a bunch of Pokemon, so I assume it was you.”

  “If you mean the elderly lady by the turnip farm, then yes,” I said with a bit of a smile.

  She nodded. “Yeah. That’s my farm. Well, technically it’s my family's farm, but since it’s just me and Grandma, it’s pretty much my farm.” She nodded a few times as she spoke.

  “And now you’re Kahuna.” I wanted to see if I could find out how that happened.

  “Well, technically.” She frowned a bit. “The Tapu recognize me, and the other Kahuna, but a lot of people refuse to acknowledge that I’m the Kahuna. It makes doing stuff difficult, but Grandma has helped out a ton, since everyone respects her.”

  I nodded slowly, looking down at her. “Well, some people have problems listening to those younger than them.”

  Her face scrunched up. “Yeah. Which is annoying.” Suddenly her expression became a bit more fierce as she stared at me. “Which reminds me, why were you heading up to the Poni Altar?”

  Well that explained what the name was at least. That was the name for it in the manga, which gave me a bit of an idea. “Am I not allowed to see it?” I asked instead of answering.

  She paused for a moment before speaking, “It’s not that you can’t… But Trial Goers go back after finishing the Trial, since there’s nothing here aside from the Altar and you can’t leave the canyon.”

  “Part of the reason I chose Poni Island for my first area was to see this Altar,” I said truthfully. “It’s an incredible place of power and history. And not like I have either of the flutes to do anything with it.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw her flinch, her hand moving to her bag. So she had one of the flutes like in the manga? That was an interesting bit of knowledge. “Even then, I don’t really want to bother with the Ultra Wormholes. I’ve had enough dimensional travel by accident and would rather not try anything on purpose.”

  There was a moment of silence and I looked over to see what Primarina, Diancie, and Dee were doing while I was talking. They were sitting near the edge, looking down into what was essentially a valley, and talking quietly to each other. Occasionally they glanced back at me to see if we were leaving yet.

  “Kukui said you’re a Pokemon Expert, and said you knew a lot of stuff that most people don’t know,” Hapu finally spoke after a time. “So why do you want to see the Altar?”

  “Just to see it, if you can believe that,” I said with a chuckle. “There are so many places that I want to go and see… And this place is important.”

  “It’s been dormant for centuries. Part of the reason I was made Kahuna is because I was the only one my grandfather taught its history to.” She still had quite a fierce look on her face, like she really did not believe me.

  Again I chuckled. “It’ll be important,” I said with a bit of a smile before starting to walk up the steps.

  Dee and Primarina followed after. “Finally,” Primarina said with a huff. “The more I looked at these stairs, the more I was dreading climbing them.”

  I laughed. “Well, if you really don’t want to, you can return to your pokeball?”

  She seemed to think about that for a moment, but after looking up the stairs again she nodded. “Yeah.” I opened my coat and she disappeared into red light.

  “Do you want to as well?” I asked, looking at Dee and Diancie.

  There was a moment where she hesitated, but then shook her head. “No. It’s good exercise, right?”

  Diancie just tilted her head to the side, slowly floating up the stairs. Clearly unbothered.

  I chuckled a bit and nodded. “Yeah. Yeah, good training.” Glancing back, I could see that Hapu was following after us, though she looked rather unhappy about doing so.

  It took so long to get to the top that I honestly lost track of time. These stairs must be somewhere between fifteen and twenty stories tall. When we finally got to the top, my legs hurt. Dee simply collapsed forward at the top, panting. I can’t imagine how much worse it was for her considering her short legs. Diancie looked fine of course, and Hapu looked completely fine as well.

  There were two large pedestals on either side of the end of the staircase, one bearing the Sunne symbol, and the other with the Moone symbol. The path continued ahead to a rhombus shaped platform with a large symbol that was a mixture of both. Past that there were two sort of stone islands surrounded by water, fed from small streams that came from the massive rock ahead. Looking up at the remaining mountain I could see the massive doors with the same mixture of Sunne and Moone symbol emblazoned on it.

  As I stepped onto the rhombus platform, I knelt down to take a better look at the symbol. It was like both at the same time, and seemed to almost shift from one to the other as I looked at it and focused on different details.

  Turning around I was almost a bit overwhelmed at how much I could see. This platform was well above the plateau of Poni Island. I could see all the way out to the ocean, and the disappearing horizon in the distance. It was sights like this that I wanted to see. Looking to the right, I couldn’t see Exeggutor Island, as it was too close and blocked by the canyon, but if I looked left I could see the Battle Tree. Or at least the canopy of it.

  Hearing a groan, I looked down to see Dee rolling onto her back and sitting up on the uppermost step. She was complaining softly until she looked up and went quiet as she looked at the view. Diancie was beside her, completely silent and immobile. I realized that this was something that I should show everyone and opened my coat a bit. “Come out and look.” There was a series of bursting red lights as all of the Pokemon joined me.

  “Whoa…” Rio, Scoly, and Keo all said at the same time.

  I reached back to pull Eevee out of my hood, who grumbled a bit at being woken up. “Look at the view,” I said with a smile on my face.

  “Wha? Whoa…” She wiggled a bit in my arms before pulling herself back onto my shoulder. “You can see so far…” she mumbled.

  “It’s like being at the top of the world,” Cara said softly, gently gripping my hand. She had a rather serene look on her face, as if for the first time in a long time she wasn’t worrying about things.

  I just smiled as I looked around at all of them. All of the smaller Pokemon had climbed up onto Scoly and were talking softly to each other. As if they spoke too loud they would disturb something. “The world is vast. You can’t even see the other islands from here,” I said with a bit of a chuckle. All in all, it wasn’t even that high. League City back in Kalos was probably at a higher elevation, but you couldn’t see far because of the buildings.

  We sat there for a few minutes, enjoying the view. Rio and Keo were the first to lose interest, wanting to go back into their pokeball to rest. Everyone else soon followed, even Primarina, Diancie, and Dee, leaving me alone with Hapu in front of the Altar.

  “So, have you seen what you wanted to see?” she asked, almost at eye level with me because I was sitting down.

  I glanced over at her. “You get to see this view a lot, huh?”

  She paused, looking at me for a moment before nodding. “I come up here fairly often. Not as often since becoming Kahuna.”

  “Makes sense. Once you have responsibilities, you get less chances to see all the things that make the world beautiful. It’s not really fair.” I leaned back, resting on my hands. A few moments of silence passed before I took a deep breath and spoke again. “I think it’s time to go back.”

  Hapu used her Ride Pager to call two Charizard. I was a bit surprised that people could call two, her response was, “I’m a Kahuna.” Which I guess was enough of an answer. The large not-dragons landed, and I was again somewhat surprised that they were smaller than me. I don’t know why I just kept expecting them to be huge.

  I watched as Hapu mounted the one, watching how she did it before doing my best to get onto the other one. It took me a moment to figure out where my feet go, but it was surprisingly comfortable once I was sitting properly. Once Hapu saw that I was situated, she gave the order and we all took off into the sky.

  It was a very different experience from the Murkrow, as I didn’t feel like I was dangling. Though I definitely preferred this method of travel, since I had something to grab onto and the Charizard knew how to fly in a very smooth fashion. It was also clear that they knew where they were going without Hapu even telling them, and we soon landed just outside the turnip farm.

  “Thank you,” I said to the large fire lizard as I dismounted. I only got a slight grunt in response, but it sounded like one of acknowledgement rather than dismissal. Once both of us were on the ground again, both of them took off and quickly disappeared into the distance.

  I was watching them go, but Hapu’s words drew my focus back to the ground. “So when do you want to do your Grand Trial?” She was wearing quite an interesting smile. Behind her in the field I could see the Golurk watching us.

  “Tomorrow. I want to let everyone rest for the remainder of the day.” Then I realized. “I’ll need a place to set up camp for the night after visiting the Pokecenter…”

  “There’s plenty of places around here to do so,” she said with a vague gesture. “We’ll battle tomorrow, right over there.” She pointed over to what looked like a large open area, something like a field that wasn’t quite in use. Perfect for battling.

  I nodded. “Alright.” I smiled a bit. “Then I look forward to reveling in the sounds of the clash of battle,” I said with a chuckle.

  Hapu suddenly had a rather confused expression on her face. “Where did you hear that?”

  “That’s what the Totem Kommo-o said.”

  Her brow furrowed a bit. “Grandpa used to say that all the time…”

  I chuckled a bit more. “That’s probably where Durn got it from.” With that I turned, walking back towards Seafolk Village. “Alola!”

  Lucario - Mother of Rio

  Lucario - Craves violence

  Scolipede - Pokemon transport unit

  Brionne - - EVOLVED Primarina - - Doing big seal things

  Audino - Trained Nurse Pokemon

  Diancie - From Reflection Cave

  Eevee - Living that sleepy hood life

  Goomy - Full of dragon slug vibes

  Mimikyu - Collected from the Supermart

  Banette - Collected from the Supermart

  Vulpix (Alolan) - Bread and butter Ice Beams