“So they’re… those shellder were…” Sly gestured weakly, as he leaned his back against a sturdy tree. The Galarian and Hoenn Slowkings were conversing with each other in a friendly fashion, having been re-evolved to their high station. “And the… those people are…?”

“It’s Team Rocket,” said Becca, patting Sly on the arm gently. She covered her mouth and burped demurely. “They seem to do this sort of thing a lot.” She groaned softly as she patted her stomach, then looked up, confused, as flashes of light caught her attention from where the four ne’er-do-wells were congregating. “That’s new though…”

There was a rumbling that grew in intensity and volume until there was a sudden flash of light, and a pillar of what could only be described as glowing magma pierced the heavens. When it had faded, and sight had returned to the onlookers, Ed and Becca both stumbled their way to the corner of the clearing that had held the four now-skyborne criminals to see a distressing sight.

There was a small cauldron, next to a fire, on its side. The lid was completely missing. Poking halfway out of it was a limp eevee tail.

“Lux! Lux no! Speak to me!” Ed and Becca both ran forwards, flanked by Sly, a pit forming in their stomachs. The intensity of such a blast, the amount of energy released! The little cream and brown creature was so still. Ed gently pulled her out of the pot. She was covered almost nose to tail in sauce, and almost unmoving.

“Please be oka—” Ed squeaked as they all leaned closer.

Lux’s tail twitched slightly. There was a gurgling noise.

Pffffrrrrrrtttt….

Sly’s eyes watered furiously and he swiftly moved around to get upwind, gagging. “...Oh Arceus, what is that? Did Lux learn a poison move from the Galarians?”

“I think…” Becca waved her hand in front of her face, trying not to breathe. “I think it’s some sort of chilli Team Rocket cooked up.” Her voice was hoarse. “Faux, you’re on your own with this one.” The girl was looking more than a little green. She and the ranger made a swift retreat as, holding his breath, Ed dragged the overfed Eevee fully out of the cauldon’s depths from where she’d devoured almost her own body-weight in chili from the pot moments after encountering it. She was all but comatose, belly distended with the amount she’d stuffed herself with.

“Veee…”

Fffrrrrrttttt…

Ed’s eyes went wide, and he swiftly hit the recall button on Lux’s Luxury Ball. Only after the red return light had swallowed her did he take a breath. This proved to be a mistake.

“OH… Oh Arceus! I can even smell it through the pokeball! THROUGH THE POKEBALL! WHY!?”

He held the black and red sphere out as far away from him as he could, stumbling a little, eyes streaming, as the island they were standing on started to move. Wide-eyed, he watched as the Hoenn native slowpoke began their speedy — for slowpoke — march back to Table Rock.

“Guys? I think we better leave, unless any of you want to go with the Galarians?” he called out, picking up the pace even as he covered his mouth. He half considered just dropping Lux’s ball in the rush.

“Nope, nope, nope. I don’t think I could afford the plane ride back from wherever these guys end up next, and I do not have a pokemon powerful enough to carry me. Let’s get out of here!” replied Becca, recalling all of her pokemon who’d been enjoying themselves in a post-feast collective torpor. “Move it, move it! As accommodating as the Galarian slowking has been, I don’t think he’ll wait for us to disembark before he sets sail!”

The travelling island was already silently lifting up from the water as Sly, Ed and Becca hopped off the edge, the latter being caught by the other two as she dropped from the rising landmass.

As strangely as it had come, the enormous floating island drifted away into the sunset, with its complement of slowpoke and slowbro denizens bidding a fond farewell to their Hoenn compatriots, and vice versa.

“I think we’d best be off, me hearties,” said Briney, a strange look in his eyes as he contemplated their destination. “You’ve got a meeting that ye really can’t be late for. Hustle now, get onboard an’ we’ll be off.”

“Alright, let’s get everyone below decks, make sure we’ve got everything stowed before we weigh anchor.” Sly marched himself down the small steps into the depths of the small ship, swiftly followed by Becca, then Ed.

Then there came a faint pfffffrrrrrrrrtttttt… and then to a loud chorus of shouting, the door quickly flew open and a white light dumped an eevee on the upper deck. The door was resolutely shut and locked from the inside as Briney started the engines and slid away from the island and its strange, slow, inhabitants.

I growled to myself, looking at the door that had been resolutely barred to me. I could always batter it down with an Irontail, right? It might sink the boat… but maybe they’d deserve it for locking me outside? I pondered whether the injustice done to me was worth the trouble of getting Benny and Hill — also stuck out here on deck, though apparently more from choice in their case — to take me and any other worthy compatriots, nobody in this case, back to shore.

Oh well, at least the weather was—

There was a crack of lightning and then a roll of thunder as massive black clouds rolled in, and in seemingly moments, the clear and warm night turned to a torrential downpour.

“I should learn to keep my metaphorical muzzle shut,” I grumbled to myself, as hot rain poured down from the sky in its attempt to sink our vessel just by pure application of gravity and water. “At least things can’t get any worse.”

I knew what I’d done even before the words had finished rolling off my tongue, but it was too late. It was far, far too late. The next bright, actinic flash of light illuminated a rather large, serpentine form hovering in the sky before us all.

“Somehow,” I murmured to myself, “this will all get blamed on me.”

As Rayquaza — who else could the gargantuan, flying green serpent-dragon creature be? — drifted down before the boat, Mister Briney eased back on the engines somewhat, not that we were moving all that fast with the powers of the heavens arranged against us. Slowly, he unlocked one of the doors to the bridge, but as he opened the door, Rayquaza narrowed her eyes and, very slowly and pointedly, shook her head..

“Okay, I’ll be, ah, come and get me if you need me, alright?” He said in my direction, raising his voice over the rain, then very pointedly doffed his hat at the legendary pokemon, who very slowly nodded, gaze laser-focused on the seaman, and retreated into the bridge, locking the door, before moving below.

Traitor I thought at him, probably unfairly, as the sky serpent and ruler of the heavens drifted closer. Without even twitching, I felt her power expand, pushing the rain and wind away. It washed over me in a tide as inexorable as the motions of the stars. There was a moment of silence with which Rayquaza regarded us, the boat, myself and my two friends, before she spoke.

“Is this,” she asked, bringing a small, mostly flat and very circular object down almost to my eye level, “yours?”

“Umm…” I felt my eyelid twitch as I spied what could only be the lid to the pot of Rocket-chilli held in Rayquaza’s claws. It was blackened, as if by intense heat, and somewhat warped.

“I found it going far beyond escape velocity, heading into deep space.”

“Ah, well, y-you s-see—”

“I went through a rather large asteroid.”

“I c-can explain!” I squeaked. And then… squeakered. Thank goodness for the rain still coating the deck.

“Rather a good shot, really, although I could have done with some warning. The thermobaric laser-based launch platform was a stroke of genius.” Those Team Rocket idiots had almost shot Rayquaza with a laser, and then almost nailed her with a hypersonic chilli-pot lid. There was no way she’d believe me if I said that though, right? “Good thing too, I hadn’t noticed the blasted thing. That could’ve been a bit of a pickle! Grandad doesn’t really like it when he has to start over from a sudden, unplanned depopulation.”

“I’m sorry, It’ll n-never h-happen ag… eh? Uh, ah, I-I m-mean, y-yes, it was, wasn’t it?”

“Could I get the recipe you used for that? It smelled quite tasty. Thermo-chilli-dynamics is a bit of a lost art, I was wondering when it would be rediscovered.”

Blink.

“Ah. Well. Y’see… you might have to ask… Team Rocket? A-heh.”

“Team Rocket?” Now it was Rayquaza’s turn to have an eyelid twitch.

“Y-yeah, but, I mean, they have a meowth? Who talks? I mean, he talks Human.”

“Ah, them.” Rayquaza turned her muzzle skywards for a moment, searching the horizon. “Spotted them. Quite the trajectory. I’ll have to keep an eye on those miscreants. If they can cook chilli that tasty and useful as orbital defence weaponry, they’re worth the investment I put in on tracking their frequent sub-orbital manoeuvres. Thank you, little one. If you ever need assistance, just give me a call, I’ll help if I can.”

“Oh! Uh, th-thank you?”

“I don’t suppose you’d happen to have any of that chilli left?”

I pointed wordlessly to where the remains of the concoction was stored out of the reach of temptation from those stuck below in the very confined space below decks. Rayquaza floated over and hooked the pot with one claw.

“Much obliged, again. I’ll be seeing you. By the way, I’m told by… a mutual friend that you should practise that move I just shared.”

With a whip-crack of acceleration, Rayquaza vanished over the horizon, releasing the raging storm she’d brought with her. With streaks of lightning following her, the legendary was out of sight in moments.

“Practice that move?” asked Benny — or possibly Hill — as they sidled up to me.

“Y-yeah, I think she wants me to….” I closed my eyes, searching inside for the energy I’d felt emanate from Rayquaza. It was there, deep inside, still echoing in my core. Reaching into those depths, straining to pull up a squirming mass of that pure feeling, I felt my fur frizz out. As I opened my eyes, pushing that feeling out into the world, I saw little orange sparks leaping around my body and grounding into the boat. With a solid whumpf of changing air pressure, I felt the weather change. The rainfall dispersed and the seas calmed. The clouds rumbled off into the distance and the stars came out.

And I slumped to the deck, lightning still jumping between my teeth.

“You know,” said Hill, or Benny, I still hadn’t got those two straight, “that’s a pretty useful move. Think you’ll keep it?”

I looked up, suddenly bone tired. “I have no idea if I even can, but a sunny day when called for? I could get used to that.”

“I don’t think that was Sunny Day,” said Benny — or… you get the message — looking around as the storm disappeared into the distance. “Do you want to go get the Captain? Or should I?”

“I’m not allowed inside,” I grumbled. “You’d better get him.”

I curled up next to the engine to close my eyes for a few seconds, and the next thing I knew, we were at another island.

The boat travelled on through the night, with Briney standing resolutely at the wheel, every so often checking a map and reading the stars. Even when dawn saw the lazy red fingers of the sun reaching over the horizon, the man didn’t shirk from his duty, though he gratefully accepted a cup of coffee from Sly, who woke up first from the trio.

“Where are we headed? You had to stay up the whole night to get us there, we couldn’t have dropped anchor partway to rest?”

“Nay, young master Sylvester, the route to our destination requires attention throughout, and needs must its location be kept from those who would seek it without good reason.”

“Oh? I thought we were heading for Dewford?” Sly took another sip of his morning coffee, one eyebrow raised.

“Aye, ye might well be, but there’s another stop been called first. I trust ye can keep quiet about where ye be finding yerself? An’ the two others?”

Sly stood silently for a moment as he gripped the cup tightly. The chill from the night was gradually being burned off by the rays of the sun, but he still felt a tingle up his spine. “I’m a ranger. I don’t want to say keeping secrets is something we do on the regular, but I can appreciate the need for discretion. And they’re smart kids.”

“Well then. Head below, and then make sure young Miss Lux is hale and hearty whilst ye be at it!”

“If she’s, ah, got it out of her system I’ll give her a once-over.”

Briney smiled to himself as he brought his boat about. Minutes later as Sly gently went to pick up the still-sleeping Lux from her cosy nest, the two up on deck — and the two buizels — straightened and stood in shocked silence as an island appeared out of seemingly nowhere. He killed the engines, then yanked on the ship’s horn several times. Only when an answering bugle came from the shore did he resume the approach.

Shortly after, he was pulling alongside a well-used dock, with a large, serious ranger in an equally large, serious hat helping to tie them down.

“Welcome,” the large man said, as the ship’s passengers gathered on deck, “to Faraway Island.”