When we reconvened at the Pokémon Center, with Cutiefly being quick to gather up Pokémon to show off his new move. Togetic, Eeeve, and all three of Hope’s newest team members—Steenee, Rowlet, and Tangela—gathered around him on the exterior field.

He started his demonstration by closing his eyes and focusing on building up energy. As he did, light-colored dust streamed off his body and condensed together on the tip of his proboscis. It made it look like he had a growing clown nose at the tip of his face, but, regardless of appearances, he did eventually finish forming the attack.

The completed Pollen Puff made his happy buzz sound muffled, but by balancing it on his sharp nose, he didn’t have to focus on keeping it in the air. He flew around, giving everyone a chance for a closer look, then he paused in between them and seemed to try to urge them forward.

It took a second for the Pokémon to realize what he meant. Pollen Puff had two uses: it could deal damage, or it could heal. For the move to heal a Pokémon, however, the puff had to be consumed. To support that idea, he inched forward ever so slightly in the air to try to encourage at least someone to try it.

In the end, it was Togetic who plucked the Pollen Puff from his proboscis. She held the light ball between her hands and looked it over before popping it into her mouth.

A moment’s pause. A slight chew. Then, Togetic’s face lit up and she hummed with delight, swallowing the bite and rubbing her cheeks out of pleasure from the sweet flavor.

That was enough of a reaction to inspire the rest of the Pokémon to crowd Cutiefly, all of them practically begging to try one for themselves. Through the crowd, I could just barely make out Cutiefly’s proud expression, but he was quickly obscured by everyone surrounding him and asking for more.

“He has the basics of the move down, but Pollen Puff isn’t totally battle ready yet,” I said to Hope as we watched. “He’ll need to be able to form it faster if he wants to use it as an attack. Right now, it’s only useful as an out of battle utility rather than something he can do in a fight. I imagine that when he evolves in the next few days, he’ll be able to translate that growth into the power he needs.”

Hope hummed at my words, and she eyed her Pokémon as they ate the formed Pollen Puffs. Steenee had a blush on her face as she tried her best to look as dignified as possible despite greatly enjoying the flavor. As for Tangela and Rowlet, they chewed away on the puffs themselves, appreciating the sweet treat without a care in the world.

“You know, Ramos’s Jumpluff can actually use Pollen Puff, but he doesn’t use it too often in battle,” Hope said. “It’s a good attack for coverage, but most of his Grass Type moves tend to be stronger, and double battles are rare enough that its healing effect almost never comes up”

“It’ll be more powerful on a Bug Type than a Grass Type,” I pointed out.

“Yup. Cutiefly is going to be a powerhouse when he evolves. I mean, what was your plan? A Quiver Dance sweeper?”

I grinned.

“He might be frail, but with the right type of training, he’ll be impossible to pin down and his attacks will be devastating.”

Bug Types grew quickly, which was true with the rate Cutiefly had been developing. He started out incredibly weak, barely able to withstand even a breeze, but after seeing the way he handled the Gym’s Drampa, I knew he had a lot of potential.

Outside of Cutiefly’s move demonstration, Lillie had her own little group, too, with her Pokémon surrounding her as she sat on a bench with a book in hand. The four Pokémon on her team were all listening intently as Lillie held up a hand and gestured excitedly alongside the story she read out loud. Nebbie specifically looked absolutely enthralled by the tale she was weaving.

“And how did your trip to the library go?” I asked Hope.

“Well. I mostly waited outside, with Lillie going in by herself. From what she told me, it was definitely enlightening.” she replied.

“What did she figure out?”

Hope chuckled.

“I’ll have her explain.”

Hope led me over to the small group, and Lillie looked up from her spot on the bench. Cosmog let out a disappointed noise as Lillie stopped her lecture, but she at least bent down to scoop him up into her lap as a way to try to make it up to him.

“Was the Malie Gym worth it?” Lillie asked.

“Yes and no. Ryuki wasn’t there, but he left some of his Pokémon behind. I’d say I got a decent battle out of it, but I’m disappointed at the relative lack of dedication.”

“So we won’t be able to test him?” Hope asked.

“The stand-in leader told me Ryuki’ll be training nearby for a while. If we want to battle him, we’ll find him in Haina desert, to the south.”

“We can do that.” Hope nodded in approval.

Meanwhile, Lillie’s eyes seemed to sparkle in excitement.

“A desert...” Lillie said softly. “Are there any Ground and Fairy Type Pokémon there?”

“Not in this region, unfortunately. We’d need to head elsewhere to catch any,” I replied. “But enough about Ryuki. What did you figure out at the library?”

Lillie sat up a bit straighter, and held Nebbie with one hand to ensure he wouldn’t be pushed away while she dug into her backpack with her other. After a short search, she pulled out a book and held it aloft.

“The Light of Alola,” Lillie said, reading the title. “A girl and, um, someone else helped me find it. It’s about local legends and the story of ancient Solgaleo and Lunala.”

Nebbie’s two puffballs perked up the moment Lillie said that, and he looked up to her, expecting her to read. She saw that and giggled, but rather than directly reading from the book, she opened it up and gave us a brief summary of its contents.

“The book tells the story about how ‘the beast that calls the moon’ and ‘the beast that calls the sun’—Lunala and Solgaleo, I think—came out of portals in the sky and fought off something called ‘the beast that stole all heavens’ light,”

“Necrozma, I presume,” I said.

“Probably,” she said with a shrug. “Anyway, I think they fought it off, but it mentions the Island Guardians losing against the light-stealing Pokémon. There’re a lot of details either missing or hidden behind flowery language, so I checked it out from the library so I can try to decipher it further. But, um...”

Her face scrunched up briefly.

“It mentions both the Lake of the Sun and Moon and the Altar of the Sun and Moon. What do you know about them, Alex?”

It took me a moment to wrack my mind for knowledge. It’d been a long time since I played any of the games.

“I think... I think I remember Solgaleo and Lunala opening up holes to Ultra Space there? At least, they did in one of those two locations.”

Lillie immediately glanced down to Cosmog, who was still listening intently. After her gaze lingered on him for a moment, she snapped her head back up, determination clear in eyes.

“We need to visit. For Nebbie,” she said.

“Where are they?” I asked.

“They’re restricted to the public, but you two should be able to get me in,” Lillie replied.

(Hope nudged me in the shoulder proudly. “Look,” she said, “I bet she would have considered breaking and entering if it weren’t for us.”)

“The Lake of the Sun and Moon is here in Ula’ula, but the Altar of the Sun and Moon is all the way on the next island, Poni Island. We can visit the Lake first, and then the Altar second. We won’t even need to make that much of a detour to get there!”

I glanced over to Hope. She shrugged. We did actually have the authority to enter those locations.

“We can go there,” I said. Hope nodded in agreement besides me.

“Great!” Lillie clenched her fists and hopped off the bench, much to Cosmog’s surprise. “Let’s start heading there now!”

“Woah, woah, hold on, there. We still have other places to visit first, Lillie,” Hope interrupted. “Don’t you need to head to Mount Hokulani, first?”

Lillie blinked at us in confusion.

“Mount Hokulani is just northwest of Malie City, and its observatory is where the Electric Type Trial is held,” I explained. “Ula’ula’s passable routes stretch in a U-shape to the south, so it doesn’t make sense to have to cross the entire island again to take it on later.”

“I can’t believe I almost forgot!” Lillie’s face turned bright red with embarrassment. “There’s also the Ghost Type Trial on the way to the Lake, too. We’ll take both of them on, first!”

Oh yeah. The Ghost Type Trial.

I shivered at the thought, ignoring the way Hope noticed and sent me an amused look.

“And what about you, Alex?” Hope asked. “Have you forgotten to look up the prerequisites to take on Ula’ula’s Kahuna?”

“No?” I lied.

She just laughed.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I did too, at first, but after checking I found out it doesn’t really matter. Turns out, Kahuna Nanu is pretty lazy. All we have to do is reach his place of work outside of Po Town—a police station, apparently. As far as I can tell, the only requirement is to have won against at least one other Kahuna first. Po Town isn’t too far past the Lake, so we can head there right after.”

“So, in total, that’s Mount Hokulani, Haina Desert, the Ghost Type Trial, the Lake of the Sun and Moon, the Kahuna...” I counted off each one on my fingers. “Then, at the end, there’s also Guzma in Po Town, which—”

“Why is the Kahuna set up outside of Po Town if Team Skull took it over?” Lillie interjected.

“Well, that’s because, uh...”

Hope and I looked at one another. Neither of us had a way to respond.

“We’ll need to ask,” I said.

Regardless of whatever was going on with Po Town, Ula’ula was the largest of Alola’s islands, and the number of places we needed to visit made that fact clear. Our plans didn’t even include a few places we’d pass by, like Mount Lanakila and Blush Mountain. As it stood, we still had quite the journey to go and only two months to get through it.

There were two ways to reach the peak of Mount Hokulani: either hike up Route 10 or take a bus.

Considering the fact that taking a bus would have us miss everything the area had to offer—and considering the fact that the whole point of a Pokémon journey was the journey, not the destination—we hiked instead.

The base of the mountain was pretty standard as far as most Alolan routes went. It was a dirt path up a forested road with tropical plants that lined its sides. Trainers were present, both those taking on the Island Challenge and those exploring before taking on the Kahuna. Over the day and a half it took to reach where the route ended and the mountain started, Lillie got her fair share of battles, and both my and Hope’s Pokémon did as well.

When traveling, Lillie frequently took the lead, with Cosmog keeping watch psychically while Lillie kept a Pokémon by her side. Sometimes it was Brionne, sometimes it was Shiinotic, and other times it was Clefairy, who was yet to evolve into Clefable.

Flying Pokémon seemed to be the most common here, as they could use the face of the mountain to nest and the forest below to use to gather food. Occasionally, wild, territorial Fearow would swoop down, annoyed at our presence, and we’d be forced to fight them off. Despite the Type disadvantage, Lillie proved that she’d been developing as a trainer, having Shiinotic fight them off with allergenic spores that made any bird regret coming our way.

When we actually reached the part of the mountain not considered Route 10, the foliage gave way to coarse dirt, and there was only the occasional patch of dense grass here and there. At a few points, Lillie challenged Pokémon that appeared nearby, intent on getting more training in. Somehow, that included rare Steel Type species like Beldum and Skarmory, but there was also a point where a glob of pink goo waddled onto the road.

“What Pokémon is that?” Lillie asked when she saw the Pokémon.

She had Brionne out at the moment, and the seal Pokémon pushed its way forward to get closer to it.

As Brionne approached, the pink goo reacted to her presence, shifting and melting in a strange, amorphous way to turn around. A pair of divots darkened into eyes on its face, and a long line underneath them stretched out into a smile.

“‘Itto!” it gurgled.

With Brione right there, Lillie’s eyes widened as the wild Ditto quickly re-congealed to become a perfect copy of her own Pokémon. I chuckled, and Hope shouted at Lillie ahead of us.

“This is a good way to train!” she yelled. “How better to find your own weaknesses if not to fight yourself!?”

Hope grinned, obviously looking forward to the match. As we approached, Lillie’s face scrunched up in thought.

“Alright. We’ll do it,” she said as the Ditto-Brionne cocked its head to the side, mirroring Brionne’s own movement of confusion. “Ditto! We challenge you!”

The wild Pokémon stared for only a single moment before leaping into action. Before Lillie could do anything, it used its mimicry of Brionne’s fins to push itself forward and spin to slap the original with its seal-tail, using Pound.

“Icy Wind!” Lillie shouted. Brionne was just barely able to lean back to avoid the Ditto’s physical attack before unleashing a breath of chilly wind.

As the Ditto was temporarily a Water Type, it resisted the damage of the Icy Wind that blew over its body. However, what it didn’t resist was the chill that suffused the move, and it shivered when the attack reached its conclusion.

Next to me, Hope gave a hum of approval.

“Clever to use a move like that. If your opponent is identical to you, it makes sense to weaken them before engaging in a direct fight.”

Lillie continued to give orders.

“Now, Disarming Voice!”

Brionne sucked in a breath right when the Ditto-Brionne let loose its own Icy Wind. However, Brionne was far more used to her own body than the Ditto was, and she was able to tuck and roll out of the way before unleashing her loud shout.

The Icy Wind was interrupted as the Disarming Voice caused the amorphous mimicry to vibrate as if liquid. It collapsed on the side, briefly turning pink, then it yelled at Brionne right back.

“Ditto only took initiative with Pound. I think that without a trainer, Ditto doesn’t know what moves to use unless Brionne demonstrates them first,” I mused.

Brionne countered with her own Disarming Voice, and the pair began a shouting match that canceled out one another’s attack. Eventually, realizing this was going nowhere, the wild Ditto tucked and rolled in an exact imitation of how Brionne dodged moments before, then it pushed off the ground to leap in the air, where it began to change into a new shape.

“Huh,” Hope said.

For a brief moment, it was nothing more than a pink, formless blob, but that quickly constituted into an entirely new species right after. Where there was once a blue seal, there was now a literal floating rock. Two large burn marks on its surface looked similar to eyes, and five white nubs poked out around its edges.

“Hold on, if it used Transform like that...” I quickly turned my head.

Off to the side of the road was the Pokémon Ditto had just mimicked: a wild Minior covered by a rocky shell. It slowly spun in place, protected by its natural shell, idly watching the battle with casual interest.

“I don’t actually know that Pokémon.”

Hope pulled out her Pokédex to give it a scan.

“Minior, the Meteor Pokémon. Born in the ozone layer, it falls from the sky when its rocky, exterior shell becomes too heavy.”

Lillie heard that, and it only took her a second to form a new strategy. When the description ended, she pointed forward, issuing a new command.

“Bubble Beam!”

The Water Type move popped against the transformed Ditto, and it let loose one, final cry. Given that Ditto had made the mistake of turning into a Rock Type in an attempt to change things up, the super effective Bubble Beam was strong enough to knock it out of the air. Ditto fell to the ground in a melted puddle.

“Yes! Great job, Brionne!” Lillie cheered. After pausing for a moment, she reached into her pack to pull out a few berries and rushed to Ditto’s side to hand them over.

“Thank you. Here!”

When the berries fell onto it, there was no reaction initially. However, the gifted trio of Oran Berries soon sunk down as if being melted in acid. The Ditto managed to bring itself up from the puddle, and it smiled at Lillie and Brionne before it slithering back off into the patch of grass on the side of the road.

“Brionne needs to learn a more powerful Fairy Type move,” Lillie said quietly. She paused. “Should we work on Moonblast now or wait until after your evolution?”

Brionne didn’t give an answer right away; she merely wobbled her head back and forth and hummed in thought. The pair turned back to where Hope and I were watching, but their eyes immediately locked onto where the shelled Minior floated next to the road.

“Do you want to battle, too?” Lillie asked.

It made no noise, but it did float forward like it was interested. Hope and I took a step back as Brionne pushed herself forward to battle once again. It seemed that a second match was inevitable, so Lillie stood up a bit straighter and pointed to issue a command.

Except she never shouted anything. A yell from down the road interrupted her before the battle began.

“Stop! Don’t battle that Minior!”

A tall but lanky man in a disheveled jacket and bolo tie raced down the road towards us. His arms flailed at his sides as he breathed heavily from exertion. His shout was just unexpected enough that Lillie’s command was stalled, and everyone turned his way in confusion as he reached where the Minior waited and bent over to pant.

“Are... are you okay?” Lillie asked. Hope and I moved closer just in case.

“S-sorry,” he said, still a bit tired but pushing up into a natural slouch. “I’ve been trying to gather up all the Minior in these parts, and it's rare to see a wild one still in its shell.”

He didn’t even blink before taking a Pokéball out of his pocket and tapping it to Minior’s surface. Despite it being wild, the Pokéball barely even shook before it dinged to signify a capture.

“Wait, hold on, did you really just capture it that easily?” Hope asked.

“Since they’re space-based Pokémon, Minior are used to less atmospheric pressure and have trouble moving this close to our planet. They’re slow and weak when they’re still in their shells, but they can take at least one decent hit in exchange.” He placed the ball in his pocket and seemed to sigh in relief. At that, he turned as if to walk off, but then he froze when he realized we were waiting for further explanation.

“Oh! Oh, uh, I’m Molayne. Sorry for forgetting to introduce myself. I’ve been working as part of a partnership with the Aether Foundation in a conservation effort on this mountain.”

The Aether Foundation, huh?

Despite my distaste for the organization, Hope seemed completely unbothered. In fact, her eyes lit up in recognition.

“You’re Molayne!” she said.

“Um, yes? I just said that?”

“You’re an Elite Four candidate we need to test!”

A moment’s pause, and my own eyes widened. Honestly, I couldn’t believe I failed to make that connection, but, then again, he’d barely showed up in the games.

Molayne, unlike most trainers, seemed to lack any confident presence. He had no proud stature that most experienced trainers had, and he honestly just looked like some kind of exhausted computer technician. However, now that I’d been told who he was, I did recognize him from both the games and Kukui’s list of people.

This man was one of the strongest Steel Type specialists in the world. He used to be the Trial Captain on this very mountain before his retirement only a few years ago.

“Wait, uh, hold on. You two are Hope and Alex? Kukui told me about you." He smiled and chuckled awkwardly while rubbing the back of his neck. "Sorry. I can't battle you two today, but if you're willing to wait until tomorrow..."

His words drifted off right when Lillie walked over.

"What are you doing tonight?" she asked.

He did a double take when he saw her. His face lit up in recognition.

"Oh! And you're Lillie! Kukui talked a lot about you. You don't need to worry about my work with the Aether Foundation. Everyone here is a volunteer. Like I said, it’s a partnership, not a direct working relationship.”

"That's nice, but you still haven't given us much of an explanation," Hope butt in.

The man blinked once more before chuckling awkwardly again. He unconsciously brought up a hand to rub the ball with the Minior in it inside his pocket.

"Sorry. It’s been a long day. I'm working to save the Minior.”

Excuse me?

"That one specific, or..."

"All of them, hopefully."

At our blank expressions, he waved us to follow.

"It might be better to show you. The observatory isn’t too far ahead."

Molayne’s words proved prophetic, which made sense since he actively did his job on this mountain. It took only a few minutes to reach the peak, where a long, flat space stretched out before us.

In the back, there was a bright blue building that looked more like a research facility than just a basic observatory. It still contained a massive dome with an even larger telescope coming out of it, but that dome only took up half of the place. Next to it, there was a Pokémon Center, and on the field around it, several large tents were set up. A bunch of people milled around, looking at the stars that were beginning to appear with the onset of dusk.

However, more importantly, there were Pokémon all about. Specifically, the space was filled with countless wild Minior.

None of the wild meteor Pokémon had their shells, each and every one being an individual in an exposed core. Rather than slowly drifting around, the Pokémon flitted to and fro, with their bright colors coming in every shade of the rainbow and filling the place with a bright light.

Light blue Minior rushed around in a group as a forest green one followed. One that was orange moved up to spiral through the air, a wide smile on its face as it did. I even saw two different pitch-black Minior rushing through the crowd. Those ones looked special, as their bodies shone with iridescent gleams under the light of the others.

Compared to the glowing darkness of the dusk, the sheer amount of color here was something else. The Minior moved freely and happily, and the sight could only be described with one word:

“Beautiful,” Lillie breathed.

Despite all of that, Molayne had a bittersweet smile on his face.

“Unfortunately, this is closer to a retirement community than any kind of party. Come on, I’ll bring you to where we organize this.”

We moved through the crowd of people and Minior, passing by tourists too enthralled by the sight to pay any of us any mind. A few workers in blue shirts labeled “VOLUNTEER” nodded to Molayne respectively. All of them looked almost sad.

Right outside of the Observatory was a device built into the wall. It was set up underneath a canopy and next to a plastic desk, where a few of those volunteers were filling out forms.

Molayne moved up to the device, and he reached into his pocket to deposit in three different balls. On a screen built into the machine’s side, images of shelled Minior appeared, and a volunteer off to the side noted them and wrote something down.

“The thing is... Well...” Molayne let out a sigh. “Where do I start?”

He sat down behind the table and scratched his cheek unhappily.

"Minior live in the upper reaches of the atmosphere, usually, and they're the most abundant Pokémon up there. Outside of the occasional brave Flying Type, Clefairy, or Elgyem, there's not much other than them to find.

"However," and he said this with a sigh, "despite being biologically immortal, Minior still have limited lifespans. They feed and grow off of the stardust that drifts over the planet, which causes them to develop their exterior shells. Eventually, they fall down to one of a few specific locations around the globe, and many of them tend to break their shells on impact. Because of that, their cores are exposed, and—"

Someone nearby gasped. Turning around, we could see motes of light coming from the group of Minior drifting up into the sky. When Molayne next spoke, his voice came out a lot more softly than before.

"Minior are Pokémon that are lighter than air. They’re fast and agile, but without their shells, it's hard for them to withstand the weight of the atmosphere. Usually they can use their control of Type energy to maintain their forms, but if enough time passes...”

In the center of the glowing Pokémon, a yellow Minior floated to the top of the rest. It glowed a bright light, and its spiral eyes somehow curved up as part of a wide smile. The five points on its body wiggled in a wave, then, before our eyes, more and more of that stardust trailed off its body. Ever so slowly...

“Eventually...” Molayne said. “The Minior fade away.”

That first Minior was the start of a chain reaction, and a hush fell over the area as everyone turned to watch the final moments of this group of Minior. Despite the solemn mood, the Minior all smiled, as if expecting this, and a brilliant rainbow of stardust floated up into the sky.

The space above us became alight with an aurora formed by Minior dust, and the number of wild Pokémon shrunk and shrunk over time. What rainbow light was here gave way to white light, then that, too, faded.

It felt like forever and no time at all before all of the Minior were gone. The only light still present was that of the observatory and the nearby Pokémon Center. It felt as if no one could say any words.

It was as beautiful as it was tragic.

The silence continued before Molayne sighed, and everyone’s eyes turned to him once more.

“This is why we’re trying to work to save the Minior. Most of that released stardust will reform into new individuals, and some of their memories will be passed on, too. However, in recent years, the number of appearing Minior have been slowly ticking down. Since Minior are capable of learning to better sustain themselves out of their core form, we’re hoping to teach a few of them to maintain themselves and have them pass that knowledge around.”

He gestured to the machine built into the wall, where he had deposited the three, captured, shelled Minior from before. One of the volunteers began to walk around passing out pamphlets that discussed the observatory’s catch and release program.

“If anyone is willing, we’re taking donations to help with the program. We have other sister programs around the world, too, to assist species like Paras, Corsola, and the Galarian variants of Yamask and Slowpoke. Any little bit can help, so if you’re interested...”

Conversations in the crowd started up, and a few people walked over to make those requested donations. The mood remained solemn, and I completely understood why Molayne said he wasn’t able to battle tonight.

“How often does this happen?” Lillie asked quietly.

“This? Every few weeks, just about. Minior can last a while outside of their shells, and we capture as many of the shelled ones as we can to help with our program. Battle tends to break their shells, which is why I stopped your fight earlier. The problem with all of this is that Minior are Pokémon, and Pokémon like to battle, so...” he let out a sigh once more. “They get the royal treatment while they’re here, at least. It’s nice to spend that last bit surrounded by so many friends.”

Seeing how everyone had become so downcast at that, Molayne blinked several times before letting out several, purposeful laughs.

"But enough about the Minior!” he said with forced cheer. “There’s still an entire observatory to explore—it’s open twenty-four seven! And for anyone taking on the Island Challenge, it's a bit late now, but if you're interested, the observatory is where the Electric Type Trial takes place. If you head through that door over there...”

Lillie wiped her eyes, and she looked to both Hope and I as she did. We nodded to her to give her our approval, and, Pokéball in hand, she headed right over to the designated door to head inside.

“Think she’ll be fine?” I asked.

“You kidding? With how she’s been growing recently? She won’t have any problem at all.”

Both of us turned to Molayne.

"So our battle," he started.

"We can do it tomorrow," I replied.

"Good." He breathed out. "Sorry, but after tonight..."

I more than got it, and Hope did too. With Lillie gone, we turned our gazes back to the sky, and the stars above us seemed to shine a bit brighter.