Sun stood on the edge of a balcony from the Aether Paradise, hands firmly placed on the banister as he looked north towards the near-endless sea with the four islands of Alola not far away in the distance, watching the sun dip beneath the horizon and shade the sky with purple and orange. After ten years spent on Alola, he felt like he now understood why his mom would begin her day basking in the sun on the porch with open arms. Now that his training days were long past him, he could enjoy brief moments like this, and today’s felt particularly special.
“Sun,” called the voice of Lillie from behind him, “we’re ready now.”
He turned around to see her standing in the entryway, the blonde braids at either side of her face from her youth pulled back with the rest of her hair in a single ponytail. She still looked unbelievably mature for a girl her age, especially wearing her labcoat, but Sun still loved that she still looked undeniably her.
“Alright,” Sun said, grabbing his own lab coat hanging from the banister. “Coming.”
With one swing around, Sun slipped his arms through both sleeves of the coat, and with a pull on the lapels, it was on straight. Lillie walked along with Sun back to the center of the floor, where a large circular pool that was lighted from the bottom stood, a thin layer of water resting still on the bottom.
On opposing sides from the pool stood two massive Pokémon, one resembling a metallic lion, the other appearing like an ethereal, purple bat. Both of their heads were covered in electrodes that were hooked up to the pool.
Sun and Lillie parted their ways and each walked towards one of the Pokémon. Sun stroked the side of the solid mane of the lion.
“You ready to go again, Solgaleo?” he gently cooed.
Solgaleo nodded vigorously, nearly throwing Sun up into the air as he continued petting him.
“That’s the spirit, buddy.”
“I know you’ll do great again, Lunala,” Lillie chirped, the Pokémon’s giant head resting on her palms.
Lunala closed its eyes and smiled with pure content, which earned it a small, tender caress from the side of Lillie’s face. Easing her hands off, Lunala came back upright. Both Sun and Lillie conversed back to the center, standing on both sides of an older woman in a white, stylish lab-skirt and a long curtain of ice-blonde hair like Lillie’s.
“Mother,” Lillie said to her, “Lunala and Solgaleo are both ready to go again.”
“Good,” she responded. “I have no doubt that we’ll finally be able to explore that system after long last.”
Sun’s hand rested upon her shoulder. “Hey Lusamine, how do you think those blowhards at Mossdeep are going to react once we do this?”
Lusamine couldn’t help but chuckle. For her and her company to uncover not just one, but two worlds beyond their own in her lifetime, was something she looked exceedingly forward to.
“I’m sure they’ll be proud of us as they were the first time,” Lillie said with a pout. “But I never got to experience it firsthand. It’s so very exciting!”
“Then let’s waste no more time,” Lusamine breathed eagerly. “Wicke, power up the jets.”
On the outer edge of the room, amongst a line of computers and a uniformed employee at each one, a lightly-wrinkled woman with purple hair and pink-rimmed glasses turned to her own machine. With a few strokes on the keyboard, and a flick of a switch, a whir came on in the pool, sputters of bubbles shooting out from the bottom before they settled into a steady stream, spinning the water around in a whirlpool. Lusamine looked to Sun, giving him a nod of approval.
“Solgaleo, Lunala.” His voice was loud, but commanded respect amongst the mighty beasts to his left and right. “Begin.”
Both of their foreheads and eyes glowed bright blue, the energy they channeled flowing through the wires connected to them, which made their way to the pool. The water inside, which had maintained a constant speed and motion, began to turn a thick, milky blue, countless lights like stars beneath the surface. Sun looked down into the pool, watching as the small, almost unnoticeable waves of water die down as the liquid maintained a flat, smooth space.
“Come on,” whispered Sun, slowly getting up and glancing at the two Pokemon. “You can do it.”
Solgaleo and Lunala each let out a small roar, and the surface began to fall through from the center out, dissipating like smoke to reveal an expansive starry space. Directly in the center was a sky-blue mass of gas with a bright star in the center. Lillie couldn’t help but let a small laugh escape, while Sun was too in wonder and surprised amazement to do much of anything other than smile with mouth wide open.
“They did it!” his mouth uttered out. “We finally did it.”
Lillie's mouth suddenly went agape. “Oh my god! Look at that!”
Sun’s and Lusamine’s eyes went to the star system, where they saw the light disappear beneath the cloud, replaced by a fainter, blue light.
“Unbelievable!” Wicke huffed, looking at the phenomenon through her monitor. “That solar system’s sun just disappeared, and… I’m not fully certain of it yet, but some sort of other star has taken its place!”
“Solgaleo, Lunala,” Sun instantly called to the beasts. “Get a little lower!”
With a tiny roar from each of them, their interstellar window went quickly down so that the solar system was almost directly beneath them. Sun, Lillie, and Lusamine looked at the new celestial body that had taken the sun’s place. It looked all too familiar, but it was still too fantastical for either of them to believe.
“Is that…” Lusamine wondered.
“It can’t be…” Lillie responded, equally bewildered.
“Oh my!” Wicke exclaimed, the object’s image blown up on her monitor. “That star that just appeared isn’t a star at all! It’s… it’s a moon!”
“Wow… look at the way it glows!”
“What kind of Pokémon do you think live down there?” Sun wondered aloud.
His thoughts were suddenly interrupted by the unnaturally loud purr that came from Solgaleo. Sun let out a soft breath from his nose.
“Wicke. Record our progress, and we’ll try and pick up more tomorrow morning.”
“But sir!” she exclaimed. “We’ve come so close. We’re practically there!”
“And we’ll arrive there tomorrow, but Solgaleo and Lunala are getting tired already. They’ve already done two excursions today, and I don’t want to exhaust them any further.”
“Yes, sir…” she said with forlornness.
As she began saving the information on her screen, Sun turned to Solgaleo.
“Alright guys,” he said with a hint of playfulness, “you both did great today. Go ahead and ease down–”
Sun’s command was interrupted by a whine from Lunala, who appeared to sway. Sun looked down at the pool, and was bemused to see that they were receding lower into the dust-cloud, quickly encroaching on a planet down below.
“Solgaleo, Lunala, what are you doing? Stop!”
“This isn’t right,” Lillie whimpered.
Frightened over how helplessly loopy the Pokémon suddenly looked as it started to bow over, she ran over to it. By now, the window had already lowered down to observe the planet’s atmosphere, continuing down.
“Lillie!” Lusamine shouted, “what are you–”
“We have to stop this!” she cried, her fingers desperately peeling at one of the electrodes. “If they don’t, they’ll–”
Suddenly, Lunala and Solgaleo let out piercing shrieks, the light blue glow of the top of their heads and eyes now replaced with an insidious pink. Lillie could only cover hear ears and curl up on her knees. Unbeknownst to her, the pool emitted a bright yellowish light, forcing everyone else in the room to shield their sight.
Sun managed to peek over his arm, seeing Lillie protecting herself as Lunala continued to flail in its rampage. With his right arm covering as much of his eyes as possible, Sun quickly scuttled across the floor behind Lillie, grabbing her by the collar and pulling her back just as Lunala’s wing slammed into the outer wall of the pool. Sun continued dragging her back until he was back with Lusamine.
“Is she alright?” she yelled.
“Looks fine!” he shouted back.
Gladion came down on a triangular lift at the south end of the room, wearing only a simple red tank-top and his torn black pants, five Poké Balls hooked to his red belt above his right thigh as well as a small, circular sack on the left side.
“Hey,” he shouted, “what’s going–”
Before the lift could even stop, he had to block his vision from the light, leaping over the guard-rail and sprinting towards Lillie, Lusamine, and Sun.
“What the hell is happening?” he asked.
As if responding to his question, the light began to stretch up, forming a grid-like cylindrical tower that pierced through the top of the tower. Gladion could barely make out the top of the tower branching off and heading in multiple directions. Without a second’s thought, he shot up and ran to the north balcony, crashing into the banister to break his run.
He watched with a sense of dread as the light snaked off and stopped above each of the four islands, the ends forming an individual wormhole.
“It’s happening again?” he grunted. Grabbing one of his Poké Balls, he tossed it out, and from it appeared a large purple bat with four winged limbs. “Crobat, go and fetch my jacket and Ride Pager.”
Despite the scowled look on the Pokémon’s face, it gave an understanding nod and flew as fast as its wings could carry it. Sun and Lusamine continued to watch the light tower, but watched as two shapes moving too fast to see any kind of telling details shoot out from the pool. Shortly after, six more figures followed, each coming in sets of two. By the time the two of them looked up to see more of them, they had already gone. At that moment, the light tower disappeared, along with the wormholes over Alola.
All the lights on the floor had been shut off, along with each computer and monitor surrounding the space.
“Nothing’s working!” one employee shouted, scrubbing his mouse on its pad and clicking it numerous times.
Another employee pressed and held down the power switch to his system unit, but still, nothing happened. “I can’t even get it to turn on!” she called out.
The brief statements and murmurs of mounting panic followed soon by the crashing sounds of Solgaleo and Lunala’s motionless bodies hitting the floor.
“No!” Sun screamed, rushing over to Solgaleo.
Lillie, realizing that the immediate danger had passed, opened her eyes and turned to see Lunala lying still on the floor. Lillie cried out as she and Lusamine rushed to its side.
“Lunala!” shouted Lusamine, pushing on the Pokémon’s chest. “Lunala! Lunala!”
Lillie’s tears came pouring out her eyes, gently shoving the Pokémon with the desperate hope that it would wake it. She was suddenly grabbed by her apparently furious mother.
“Why did you try and stop it?” Lusamine yelled into her face, her voice being choked by her own oncoming sobs. “Lunala could have killed you!”
“I’m sorry!” she wailed. “I didn’t know what else to do to make it stop. It looked like it was hurting!”
Lusamine, knowing nothing else could be said or done at this point, pulled Lillie in, clutching the back of her head and her back in as tight and consoling of a hug as she could.
As Sun cradled as much of Solgaleo’s head in his arms as he could, Wicke knelt beside him with a dome-like object in her hand, which she held to the side of the Pokémon’s chest. Looking at a small tablet in her other hand, she was relived to see a steady heartbeat from the monitor.
“It’s still alive,” she said with a bit more ease, “but you should bring it downstairs to the ICU right now.”
“Right,” Sun huffed, pulling out a Poké Ball from his coat pocket.
Holding it with the center button facing Solgaleo, a translucent red beam shot out from it and touched the Pokémon. Its body faded into a similarly shaped and colored energy as the beam, causing the ball to open up and all of the red light to recede inside the ball before it closed by itself.
“I'm sorry.” Sun pressed the Poké Ball to his head, fighting the urge not to cry. “I knew I shouldn't have gone again today.”
As he stood up, Gladion’s Crobat nearly collided with his head, forcing Sun to duck down and see where it was going. After seeing it with Gladion’s black hoodie in its teeth, he ran over to them while Wicke checked on Lunala. Gladion took his hoodie and threw it on, the slash in the middle of the chest revealing a small part of Gladion’s shirt. As Gladion patted Crobat, making the Pokémon’s fixed grimace shrink in pleasure, he returned it back into its Poké Ball.
“Gladion,” Sun panted, slowing to a quick stop. “What do you plan to do?”
Gladion walked out to the edge of the balcony, prompting Sun to follow him. “If whatever came from that wormhole is anything like the Ultra Beasts, I have to try and help contain them before anyone gets hurt.”
Sun nodded after a brief moment. “Just be careful out there.”
“Hmph. My Silvally was born and bred to take on such threats. We’ve grown far stronger in those years since. I’d say whatever came out won’t stand much of a chance should they choose to fight.”
“I have full confidence you won’t fail.”
Gladion didn’t even look back to see Sun smiling assuredly behind him. With a few steps back, he pulled out a yellowish-green device with a slot on the top where a Poké Ball would perfectly fit. With a couple of taps on the screen, a metallic, fully purple pokeball with a black button appeared inside the slot in a short strobe of light.
Picking it up and tossing it to the ground in front of him, the Poké Ball opened up with white energy exploding out of it. The energy took the form of a winged dragon, and once it fully formed, the light broke off and faded in small fragments, revealing a red, bipedal dragon with a flame on the end of its tail, as well as a large harness affixed to its back with a seat and handlebars. Gladion mounted the Pokémon quickly, and once he was securely on and holding onto the bars, the dragon stepped out and stood on the banister.
“Charizard,” he said to it, “head to Poni Island.”
With a roar, Charizard gently leapt off, nosediving towards the ocean below. Having picked up enough speed, the Charizard spread its wings out and scooped itself into the air, taking a hard left and flying towards the western-most island of the chain.
As Gladion and the Charizard grew smaller and smaller in the distance, Sun ran back inside to tend to Lillie and Lunala for whatever they both needed.
The waves rolled gently and quietly onto the beach of Kala’e Bay. The area was among the most secluded places on Melemele Island, where the vast majority of life in that sector of land swam beneath the sea. Washed up on the shore, however, were two small equine creatures laying still and unconscious as the water coming in and out wetted the parts of their bodies that laid upon the sand.
The first among them to awaken was a light-pink unicorn with a purple mane and tail with teal highlights, as well as an ornate mark on both sides of her rump of a purple and white star with two light-blue streams waving above it. As she weakly got up, her mane seemed to flow naturally off to the right of her head and neck.
She looked around her alien surroundings, breathing heavily and quickly as she did. She spotted the other pony beside her, a yellow pegasus with a long, flowing pink mane with a similar mark depicting three pink-winged butterflies.
“Fluttershy,” the unicorn said in a panic, shaking her with her hooves, “we have to get out of here.”
The pegasus called Fluttershy stirred awake, groaning as she raised her head up. Realizing the foreign nature of their location, Fluttershy also began to look nervous as she stood to her four hooves. “Wh– Where are we, Starlight? Where are the others?”
“I don’t know, but we can’t stay here! Look, I think there’s a cave we can take shelter in.”
Fluttershy looked back to where the unicorn she called Starlight was pointing to, revealing a sizable entrance in the side of the rock.
“Are you sure that’s a good idea?” Fluttershy whimpered. “There could be any number of scary, hungry monsters that can attack us.”
“Then I’ll attack them first,” she retorted with a tap of her horn with her hoof. “Now let’s go. It has to be better than out in the open like this.”
Fluttershy and Starlight both trotted inside the cave. While it wasn’t much, the openness of the cave seemed to settle Starlight down a little. There was still plenty of light out for them to monitor their surroundings, and it sounded very empty at the time.
“See?” Starlight huffed, unable to hide her nerves. “Nothing to worry about.”
“I’m scared,” Fluttershy began to weep. “I want to go home!”
Starlight ran to Fluttershy before the sobs she began to let out became even louder, pulling her into an embrace.
“I’m scared too, but we have to be strong. Or, at the very least appear strong.”
The last part seemed to be directed towards herself more than her timid friend.
“Som… dow… here,” a young woman’s voice faintly echoed down.
Starlight’s ears perked and twitched with the fear of danger as she was still wondering if her own paranoia was making her hear things.
“What was that?!” Fluttershy squealed.
“Quiet!” hissed Starlight, clamping her friend’s mouth down with her arms.
“It soun… ke… coup… kids,” another voice floated out, this one sounding noticeably more masculine.
“Come on,” the female voice called, sounding closer and easier to understand. “Let’s go looking.”
Fluttershy tried to cry something out, but Starlight’s hold made it incomprehensible.
“Okay, okay,” Starlight whispered harshly, getting Fluttershy to stay quiet, “they may have found us. Find someplace to hide, I’ll ward them off.”
“But what about…”
“I’m still skilled enough with magic to hold my own, now go!”
Without another moment’s hesitation, Fluttershy galloped off to Starlight’s right, leaving her alone. Starlight trotted to the bottom of a naturally-bumpy ramp, waiting for whatever was coming for them to appear from behind the passageway that otherwise kept their would-be assailants hidden.
Two bipedal figures came out from behind, but Starlight’s eyes were closed as her horn charged a bright light from its tip and fired.