"Now, I saw them over this way the other night. If they've made a nest here, it's probably somewhere out of the way..."

  Frostfire dropped into a hunting crouch, creeping into the space under the porch of the Pokemon Research Lab. With his slender body and flexible spine, he had no problem fitting into the narrow space. Sun and Hau lay flat on their stomachs at the edge, unwilling to follow out of fear of frightening away the Cutiefly. Sun covered his nostrils, loath to inhale the earthy musk of festering rot and mold. Disgusting.

  Hau cupped his hands around his eyes, miming binoculars. "I don't see anything."

  "Shh. Watch."

  The white tail-tip twitched: target spotted. Frostfire's muscles rippled under his fur as he stalked closer, slipping under darkness' shroud. Without a Litten's hyper-sensitive eyes, the boys couldn't discern the size, number, or species of the prey lurking in the shadows.

  It was only a few bated breaths before Frostfire slid back into the light, presenting to Sun his quarry: two Cutiefly tangled together in a mass, all legs and pale fuzz and torn gossamer wings. Drops of some unidentified fluid stained Frostfire's canines where they had pierced the bugs' tiny exoskeletons, dribbling down the Pokemon's alabaster chin and staining the dust navy blue.

  "Wait, Frostfire..."

  Frostfire flattened his ears at his Trainer's shift in disposition. He raised his tail as if to say: This is what you wanted, right?

  "You…" Sun swallowed a lump which had found its way into his throat. "You have to subdue them, not..."

  (And this was subdual.)

  "No, no... like, um, we want them on our side. They aren't really our enemies, just... friends we haven't made yet. There's no fun in harming the innocent."

  The porch steps creaked under Sun's weight. He was lucky Cutiefly wasn't a protected species; if they had been, such gross disregard for its life would incur a steep fine. Today, the only price he'd have to pay was on his own conscience.

  As if paying an unspoken penance, Frostfire had begun to dig a hole in the ground where the two Pokemon could be laid to rest. His rugged paws were optimal for such a task, and once he had finished he swept the disturbed spot with his tail to level out the dirt.

  Lālā flitted down from the lab's gutter, coming to land on the stair beside him. The unnatural way her head swiveled around unnerved Sun, along with her too-large eyes taking in every single twitch and microscopic movement he made. She eyed the blade of grass he held between his index and middle fingers warily. Simple physical attacks like Frostfire's Bites required less energy than elemental-based ones, so his proxy had yet to display any sign of deterioration. He'd have to replace soon it regardless; within the day it would wither and become unfit to be a vessel.

  Sun huffed; massaged his temples; steepled his fingers. Perhaps the Cutiefly idea was a bust - while it was possible to catch a weaker Pokemon in a Poke Ball without fighting it first, he figured it might be better to wait. Splitting his attention between Frostfire and another Pokemon would likely only exacerbate the Litten's behavioral problems. What a pain.

  An obnoxious peal of jangles commanded his attention, and he whipped around to see Rockruff clambering through the small flap at the bottom of the door. The Puppy Pokemon wagged his tail at the sight of Hau, barreling his way past Sun and Lālā.

  "Alola, Rockruff," Hau greeted, bending down to let Rockruff sniff his hand. Frostfire flicked his tail and padded over to Sun. "How ya doing, boy?"

  Rockruff barked, his jaws wide open as Hau fished through his pocket for a Rawst Berry - Rockruff's favorite. The fruit's bright blue juices stained his muzzle, including the scrap of gauze Sun had affixed the night prior. Hau frowned.

  "What's that bandage for?"

  "He tried to lick Frostfire as a ‘welcome present’ yesterday," Sun said flatly, "so Frostfire gave him a present of his own."

  The bandage was just a precaution - while Potions were usually enough to heal most wounds, Rockruff's frequent romps into the wilderness put the healing scab at risk of infection. Their options were to either give him a bandage or prevent him from going out at all, which Rockruff would not have tolerated. He was a true free spirit, and Sun couldn't imagine a Pokemon better suited to be the professor's partner.

  Hau continued to scratch Rockruff's beige coat, careful to avoid the ring of stones jutting out from the tuft of fur around his neck. "You'd better keep your distance from that mean ol' kitty," he advised Rockruff amicably. "You wouldn't wanna end up like those Cutiefly down there, do you? He's got a real vicious streak in 'im, I guess..."

  He trailed off - because Sun flinched like he'd been struck.

  "...Sun?"

  "Shut up," Sun spat.

  Hau sobered in an instant, and Rockruff's tail stopped wagging.

  "Death isn't a joke," Sun said, his voice low as rolling thunder. "Those Cutiefly died for nothing. Don't disrespect them."

  What an idiot. Like a damned Mudsdale, braying whatever garbage popped into his walnut-sized brain. Even now, the way he pointedly avoided Sun's eyes and stared at the ground vexed him further. If you didn't want to get reamed out, you shouldn't have said it.

  "I'm sorry," Hau said, his voice hollow. "I didn't mean it that way. It was just a joke…"

  It was the sort of apology you made when you didn't know what you'd said wrong. Sun curled his fists, brushing a stray hair out of his eyes. When he stood to his feet, Rockruff let out a low whine, backing away from the two like a child caught in the crossfire of their parents' bickering. Sun watched him slip away out to the shore, keeping up his pace even as the ground turned to sand beneath his paws.

  The voice of reason in his head spoke loud and clear: come on. Don't let anger cloud your judgment.

  The voice of reason in his head was a dumbass.

  "Before, you said you wanted a battle," Sun recalled. He bent his knees, dropping into an offensive stance - one of the universal body language signs Trainers used for nonverbal communication. Frostfire got the hint, sticking his tail straight in the air. "If it's a battle you want, I'll give you a battle."

  Hau rallied, motioning Lālā to his side. "Um, right!" He scrambled to his feet as the owlet Pokemon fluttered before him, settling in a patch of closely clipped grass and swiveling her head back at him. "Okay, Lālā! Let’s show them what we’ve got!" He flailed his arms, stretching out his syllables theatrically. "Use - "

  Before he could finish his command, Frostfire pounced, delivering a swift nip to the Rowlet's wingtip. She whirled away to shake off his jaws, shielding herself from his incoming barrage of swipes.

  Come on, Sun thought. You need to reorient yourself. You're off balance.

  Frostfire's lithe tail twisted, and he stumbled backwards, spitting out a tuft of blackened feathers. There was a tug on Sun's heart - more? - and the boy assented with a wordless nod. Spindly streaks of bronze threaded through the once pristine blade of grass in his palm.

  A snap; a crackle, like the flick of a lighter. Lālā's repeated slices met only air as Frostfire deftly weaved through them. Her eyes darted from side to side as she tried to follow his movements; unable to avoid his fangs, which he'd set ablaze. Sun plugged his ears as the bite made contact - he had no idea a Rowlet could produce such shrill caterwauls.

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  Bite after bite after bite, like she was but a chunk of meat Sun had put out for a snack. Gnawing and gnashing away as she squirmed and squirmed in vain; as clumps of feathers were wrenched away and shredded, revealing wrinkly patches of pale skin. Frostfire’s bottom lip and chin were slick and shiny with saliva, and Lālā burbled with discomfort as some of it smeared onto her. His eyes were glassy and unfocused and yet still aflame with wanton bloodlust.

  He was a natural.

  He was a psycho.

  A burst of light came to envelop his white fur. For a sliver of a moment, he was radiant - almost lustrous, as if he were made of solid pearl - and then he was nothing. Sun clicked the Poke Ball's center button once more, and it shrunk in his palm to about the size of a sand dollar: a nightmare dispelled.

  "You win. I forfeit."

  Hau stared, apparently unable to reckon with his 'victory'. Lālā preened her feathers, picking at the newly made bald spots. Sun let out a sigh of relief as he watched her calm, realizing Frostfire's ferocity had not traumatized her. How hardy Pokemon could be.

  "It was a good battle, Lālā," Sun forced out, avoiding either of his opponent-friends' gazes. He shuffled his way up to the front door, Frostfire's ball still in hand. "You fought real hard. You've got a bright future ahead of you..."

  idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot idiot

  Sun's pillow took punch after punch, denting and rebounding, denting and rebounding; resolute. Splashes of moisture appeared on the white case; their edges made uneven by the force of their falls.

  He couldn't be a lost cause. He couldn't. This morning, after Lillie had awakened to find herself next to him, she’d gotten so flustered, and his nonchalance hadn’t calmed her down. Frostfire had shot him a knowing look, like, you seeing this shit? And a laugh had forced itself from his dry throat, sweetening his bitter sighs. At that moment, his fingertips had brushed against the ever-elusive thing he imagined Trainers were supposed to feel with their Pokemon: a kinship beyond words. A bond stronger than any metal.

  And then Frostfire had padded off and the bond became air. Out of sight, out of reach.

  click click click click click click

  This was all his own fault, wasn't it? Having failed to kill him with its own claws, the Tapu had sent this Litten to punish him. Nothing could ever be so easy, could it? He wasn't permitted to have his mother, because he was... he was bad. He was evil, and Frostfire really was his mirror.

  The Tapu must have orchestrated this dumb preliminary somehow, to force him back there. The Tapu loathed him. The Tapu sought to punish him.

  And he couldn't blame it.

  click click click click click click

  "Sun? What are you doing? What's wrong?"

  He froze as he felt a hand on his back - the professor. He'd thought his tantrum had been silent enough to stay covert, but… he was like a damn beacon of festering rage and self-pity, hollowing out his own heart and oscillating himself into oblivion. His nails pressed into the pillow and he wiped snot from his nose, his cheeks red at himself.

  "Come on," the professor said, putting out his hands to reassure him. "Shh. Breathe."

  Another sob (was that a sob?) shuddered through him, and the underside of his sheets called to him, telling him to stick his head under and curl into himself until he was nothing but a speck blinked out of existence. Not a ghost, not a spirit, not a pile of bones or flesh worn away, but empty air.

  "Tell me," Kukui implored him. "What happened, Sun? I haven't seen you cry like this in a long time."

  Right. Because most of the time he didn't have the capacity to. In this brave new world, there was no time to cry over silly little things like fake dead Boltunds.

  "I don't want to talk about it right now," Sun said.

  "Are…" Kukui scratched his head. "Are you sure?"

  "I'm certain."

  Kukui turned away and sighed, leaving the boy to wallow in his sorrows. He studied the idiosyncratic collection of books in the boy’s bookcase. Graphic novels, an assortment of manga volumes, children's poetry, old magazines, notebooks full of tunnel-digging, and the compendium of Alolan mythology, still sitting atop the bookcase.

  "Hm? What's this?"

  Kukui took the book of myths and cracked it open. A thin strand of maroon fabric, the book's built-in bookmark, held the page to the "hakihaki o na hoku" legend, and this was the story he was met with. "I didn't know you had this," he commented, his index finger skimming over the verses. "These illustrations are real cool." He flipped back to the front cover. "It's in pretty good condition, too. Not perfect -" he pointed to where a seven-year-old Sun had scrawled his name - "but good enough. Probably worth more than a few bucks."

  Sun bristled. "It doesn't matter how much it's worth. It's mine."

  Kukui shook his head. "I meant theoretically."

  Sun rolled onto his stomach, kicking his legs up and resting his chin in his hands. "Thee-uh-ret-ik-call-lee," he said, pressing on a gratuitous layer of smarm, "I bet those old demo tapes in the basement would be worth a lot too. And while you're at it, why not find a way to distill all your old childhood memories and pimp those out to the highest bidder, too?"

  A moment passed.

  "Alright, cousin. Point taken." Kukui sighed. "You know, Burnet'd probably love this. You should show it to her."

  Burnet.

  Sun's heart softened at the thought of her. Burnet, the one who had suggested taking him in in the first place; the one who had picked up the shattered pieces of that heartsick boy and found a way to assemble them back together... oh, Burnet.

  Burnet had taken a lucrative position as the head researcher at a laboratory on Akala Island. As a result, the professors had devised a bit of an odd living arrangement: Burnet would spend every other month at her apartment in Heahea City, overseeing research at the lab, and then return home to Melemele. If the situation had put any undue stress on their relationship, Sun had yet to see any sign of it. Absence made the heart grow fonder, he supposed...

  He imagined she'd like Lillie. In a way, the girl reminded him of her - their smiles could both light up rooms. Yet Lillie always seemed to creep around with her shoulders hunched, as if she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. Despite all her responsibilities, Burnet never seemed to allow them to weigh her down. Sun hoped she'd be able to help Lillie with more than just Nebby.

  "Maybe I will," Sun said. Thinking of Burnet had cleared away a bit of his anguish - provided him a light in the dark tunnel - and he sat up, wiping his face. Kukui had returned to the 'hakihaki o na hoku' story and was stroking his bearded chin.

  "'The destroyer of stars'," he mused. "'The ender of worlds'. Heavy stuff." He shook his head. "Cousin, is it alright if I talk to you about something? It's been weighing on my mind."

  "Go ahead."

  "It's... maybe I shouldn't be telling you this, but..." he adjusted his collar, apparently bashful. Not a common emotion for the professor to display - Sun pulled his eyebrows together. "I've had a dream for a long time now. I don't know if I've ever told you this, but back when I was a teenager, I went on a tour of Kanto's gym challenge, up to their Pokemon League. It was like... like I'd been wearing blinders all my life, and then one day I had them taken away, and I could see a whole new utopia of battling I'd never known existed. And then I went back home, and all of that was ripped away from me.

  "Cousin, I think Alola's got a lotta catching up to do. The island challenge might be a cultural touchstone, but... the world's changing, and Alola's being left in the dust. The only regions in the UWF without a League are us and Accroze, and the only reason Accroze doesn't have one is because not enough people live there for one. It's clear to me, and to a lot of other people, that something's gotta change. Not everything, but something. Even Kahuna Hala thinks so, and he's the kahuna!

  "But it's really damn convenient our ancestors gave us a scapegoat to blame every little thing on. Every time someone wants to change the slightest little thing around here, this story gets brought up. Every time, it's, 'you're going to turn us against our Tapu'. There's been more so-called 'mea hakihaki o na hoku' then there are stars in the sky to break. But there's no reason the League system can't coexist with the island guardians - or, at least there doesn't need to be."

  Sun frowned. Kukui certainly wasn't the type to care about others' perceptions of him. For the Tapu's sake, he ran around in public every day in only a lab coat and sweatpants.

  "You shouldn't let those people shame you," he said. "Who cares what they think?"

  "I know. I know. But it's clear to me these sorts of sentiments are only growing more common - and I don't mean to disparage your friend, but the presence of her family's church definitely isn't helping matters. What happened yesterday..." Kukui trailed off, allowing his words to simmer; allowing Sun to recall the memory and twitch at the thought. "You're lucky you're just a kid, yeah, and you don't get to hear the worst of this. But there are rumblings in the community. Some believe this is finally the end. That the Tapu will turn against us, and society'll crumble and descend into thoughtless hedonism." He sighed and chuckled darkly. "He hasn't announced it to the public yet, but Hala's gonna cancel the festival next week. If the Tapu really is enraged, then holding it would just be tempting fate."

  Tempting fate. A shiver gripped Sun.

  "Shouldn't Hala know what's making the Tapu angry?" he ventured to ask. "He's its chosen, isn't he?"

  "Yes," Kukui admitted. "He should. But you know how the Tapu can be. It won't give him any signs."

  "Well…" Sun swallowed. "What if... what if the..."

  Just extend an olive branch, at the very least. They aren't your enemies.

  "What if the destroyer of stars is real, and they're right here on the island? But they just haven't exposed themselves yet."

  There was a long, pregnant pause. Kukui sighed, looking up and out the top window to the swollen clouds folding over the sun and each other, thick and gray. He closed the book, stroking the leatherbound cover.

  "Show this to Burnet once she comes home, yeah," he said again, handing it back. Never before had it felt so heavy in Sun's hands. "She's sure to love it."

  "You said that already."

  Kukui adjusted the brim of his cap and shut his eyes. "I need you to remember."