Kukui awaited them at Hala's house. The house - a lodge, really, serving as a pseudo-community center for the residents of Iki Town - was expansive and always filled with Melemele's elders, who told stories of the past to anyone who would hear. Mostly each other. In recent years, Hala had set up a display of Alolan art and artifacts, with comprehensive descriptions of the history of each item and its creators.

  One such work was a gargantuan wooden sculpture of Tapu Koko. It was inspired by a legend, one of the ones in Sun’s collection, where Tapu Koko had hunted a beast terrorizing the islands. In one talon it held a crude, rugged spear, with the beast's crimson blood splattered upon its serrate edges. In that same blood the guardian had painted upon its shell the word "LANAKILA", or "VICTORY". When Sun had been younger, the sculpture had been on display in the main room, the one available to the public. It had towered over him, and even the reproduction of the Tapu's eyes held so much bloodlust it had made him uneasy, even though he knew Tapu Koko was supposed to be the hero of the story. He hadn't been at all surprised when he heard it had been shunted away into Hala’s office on account of it frightening too many small children.

  Now the sculpture sat across from him, its unseeing orange eyes boring into his. Beside him, his surrogate father put his arm around him, defensive.

  "If Sun says he's telling the truth, he's telling the truth. It’s not in his nature to lie."

  "I do not doubt his honesty," Hala clarified, his voice gruff. "But he is a child, and he is not immune to becoming confused or unintentionally omitting details." He turned to Sun, and Sun was thankful to pull his eyes away from the unnerving effigy. "Now, Sun, are you positive you’re unable to think of a reason the Tapu may have attacked you? Any at all?"

  "I'm positive," Sun answered. He'd never thought of himself as a very good liar, but so far Hala had taken all of his hook, line, and sinker - although he was certainly helped by Kukui's insistence that no, Sun could never have done anything wrong; he was just a boy of only eleven, and the Tapu knew eleven-year-old boys never got up to any mischief.

  When the police had come onto the scene, hungry as always for a suspect to blame, Hala had fended them off as he had the mad crowd, citing the children's anguish. Same with the news crew, and the other news crew, and the other other news crew - forget Hau'oli. This incident was making the regional news and beyond.

  But, as Kukui had assured Sun and a panic-stricken Lillie, the two's identities were protected under the law and as such would not be released to the public. While an audience member had filmed the incident and posted it online, the video had been filmed from a distance with a shaky hand; Sun, Lillie, and Mizuki's faces were little more than pixelated blurs.

  Hala's voice softened as he leaned in. "I believe you. I know Kukui is right about you - your courageous act likely saved both you and your friend's lives. You have done more than just earned this reward." He picked up a small box from beside his feet Sun hadn't noticed before. The box, a repurposed shoebox hastily wrapped in glitzy baby-blue paper, rattled as he took it from him. Sun almost tore into it right there and then, but the kahuna held out his arm: "Take it out to your friends and open it with them. I would like to be there to see you meet your new partner, but I must deal with this mess."

  "It's fine, sir," Sun said. "We understand."

  Hala nodded solemnly. Kukui followed Sun as he exited the office into the great room, where Lillie and Hau awaited them on a wicker bench. Lillie, her tears long since dried, animated at the sight of them. She scooted aside to make a place for them to sit. Hau slid his feet off the coffee table in front of them, adjusting his posture; he had eyes only for the box in Sun's hands. For a sliver of a moment, a crash of lightning outside the big window turned their bodies into silhouettes.

  "Did he talk to you? What did he say?"

  "I think I'm in the clear."

  The bench let out a slight creak as he sat down beside them - the threads of wicker mimicked the weaving of fabric, but were far less comfortable to sit on. Sun flinched as his lower spine pressed against it.

  "I guess Tutu gave you the last one, huh," Hau said. He held up his own red-and-white ball. "I already got mine!"

  "Go ahead, Sun, open the box," Kukui said. From his tone - like a parent instructing a child to open a gift from Santa Claus - Sun guessed he must have had some hand in this.

  Sun drew his long nails over the wrapping paper, slicing through with ease. He removed the box's cover, revealing three things: a pamphlet, some bright red piece of plastic, and, of course, a tiny red-and-white capsule.

  Hau put his hands over his mouth, failing to contain his giggles. "You've got claws, too, Sun! Guess you're just like 'im already."

  "Don't spoil it," Sun muttered. To be honest, he was a bit miffed he wouldn't have the chance to actually choose his first Pokemon, but he supposed he was paying the price for his tardiness. Like Ash Ketchum from the cartoon Ash's Adventures, who'd also overslept and been left with only a rowdy Pikachu as his first. He'd always found that kid horribly whiny and annoying, and the thought of having something in common with him irritated him further.

  The Poke Ball. The pinnacle of modernity, of human innovation. Sun pressed the center button once, and the ball expanded into its ready-to-release stage, to about the size of his palm. While the more advanced kinds came with special grips, the glossy finish of this cheaper base model was too slippery for Sun to keep a good hold on it.

  He closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and pressed the center button once more.

  The capsule hissed open, releasing a dazzling ray of light onto the coffee table in front of them. The light trembled and shifted; took on a concrete form as the creature's molecules converted from pure energy to flesh and blood.

  And the mouths of all four fell open in shock.

  "No way," Hau said, his eyes gleaming as he drank in the new Pokemon's appearance. "No friggin' way. Mizuki's going to be so pissed!"

  Sun looked at him. "What, you didn’t know?"

  "Aue, uh…" Hau shook his head. "No… I knew I wanted Rowlet already, so I didn’t look. You got real lucky, Sun!"

  Kukui adjusted his thick glasses as if disbelieving their efficacy. "Hala didn't tell me..."

  The Litten opened its jaws and let out a great yowl, as if mimicking the gaping humans before it. It ran its tongue over its glistening dagger-sharp canines, not as any sort of intimidation tactic but by pure force of habit. Its flame-red stripes and muzzle drew the eye, of course, but its most striking feature was its fur: where a standard Litten would be as dark as obsidian, this one was the color of freshly fallen snow.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  A thought floated into Sun's mind, although it likely wasn't the same one his companions were thinking. "It looks like you, Lillie."

  Lillie's cheeks went as red as the Litten's stripes. "What? Like me?"

  Sun blinked, taking another glance at the Litten... yes, the more he thought about it, the more obvious the resemblance was. While the Litten did not display its emotions outwardly in the manner Harmony or Kukui's Rockruff did, the intense stare of its amber eyes hinted at some sort of fervor simmering below the surface. "Yeah. Don't you guys see it?"

  "Not at all," Hau said. He had his own partner's Poke Ball in his hand, and Sun could tell he was antsy to show it off. "What makes you think that?"

  The exact reasons were difficult for Sun to pin down, but the longer he considered, the more certain he was of them. "Well, there's your skin, of course," he said, "and your hair, and its light-colored fur. But it's the eyes, I think. You've both got that same sort of gleam in your eyes."

  Lillie squinted, searching for the similarities Sun had noted. Litten seemed to gravitate towards her the way Harmony had before, reaching out its paw to touch her hand. This didn't surprise Sun at all: over millennia of domestication, Pokemon had become attuned to human emotion, and therefore be able to sense her innate kindness. An image popped into his head, and he snickered - her off in some backwoods, singing to a circle of wild Deerling and Fletchling, like a princess from an old cartoon.

  Now he reached out himself, curling his hands around the Litten's torso, but the professor's sudden nudge gave him pause.

  "Hold on," Kukui said. "You know the drill. Before you can go off with your new friend, we need to see whether Litten accepts you as its Trainer."

  Hau placed his hand on Sun's shoulder. "This part's easy. Rowlet and I got along great, and she accepted me instantly!" With those words, he allowed Rowlet to materialize on his shoulder, and the owl-like Pokemon hooted in greeting. "Here she is. I haven't thought of a good name for her yet."

  Spines of white rose along the Litten's fur as it arched its back, hissing. Rowlet turned her head to ogle the feline, which only increased Litten's rage, and it hacked up a hairball from its throat and set it on fire, turning it into a flaming projectile. Hau jerked to the side, narrowly avoiding the flaming projectile, but he hadn't been its target.

  "Hey!" Sun waved both hands at the agitated Litten as Rowlet flicked her wings, shaking off the attack. "No. No fighting outside of battles."

  Mizuki's words returned to him then: It's a compulsion.

  Litten's eyes slid to its Trainer as it lapped its paw. It looked again to the Rowlet, who its fireball attack had left reeling, and then back to Sun…

  Without warning, the albino Litten leaped into Sun's lap, knocking the box out of its way and onto the floor. It pawed at Sun's face with reckless abandon, but Sun did not direct it to stop.

  Kukui nodded, pleased. "I didn't doubt for a second it'd accept you."

  With Kukui's hand to guide him, Sun pressed his right thumb onto the activation button to register him as Litten's Trainer. Lillie reached out to pet his new charge, and the Litten graciously accepted her affections, purring in delight. Her eyes wandered over to him as he resettled the box onto his lap. "What else is in there?"

  "A booklet," Sun said. 'So You're A Fire-Type Trainer: A Beginner's Guide to the Hottest Type Around'. "And some weird plastic thing, too."

  Kukui eagerly looked over Sun's shoulder. "Why don't you turn on that red implement, cousin? I bet something good might happen..."

  Sun ignored him for now and picked up the pamphlet. The cover reminded him of one he might see on a biology textbook - a group of Salandit lazing by the stimulating heat of a lava flow. He remembered something he'd read about them once before: despite their Fire-Typing, Salandit were cold-blooded, and they needed to live in close proximity to such intense heat sources in order to maintain homeostasis.

  "I think you'll get a lot out of TURNING ON THAT RED DEVICE, Sun," Kukui said.

  "I'm going to, I'm going to. Give me a moment." Sun briefly thumbed the pages, skimming the pamphlet's contents. He wasn't at all interested in the red thing, but if Kukui insisted…

  Several clicking noises rang out as Litten repeatedly batted the device; it was much sturdier than it had seemed on first glance. Its weight, too, surprised him - Sun guessed it must have been all the cogs and machinery inside. He pressed the power button, and the screen flared to life, displaying a light blue background with the words "Alola Pokedex". A yellow loading bar displayed the device's progress in its self-configuration.

  "Scanning... scanning..."

  Kukui nudged the boy beside him. Sun failed to think of another time he'd seen the professor this giddy - like a Rockruff given a femur to gnaw. "This is a Pokedex," the professor said. "It can identify and categorize any Alolan Pokemon you come across. Ain't that neat, Sun?"

  "...I guess."

  An image of a standard-colored Litten loaded in. A synthesized voice rattled off various bits of information: this Litten was male, about three months old, a Fire-Type, and had been registered to a Trainer with an identical ID number to Sun's personal ID - he'd always wondered whether Trainer IDs were distinct from the government-issued PIDs, and was somewhat disappointed by the answer.

  "Would you like to give this Pokemon a nickname?"

  >Yes

  The screen brought up a keyboard for him to input his chosen nickname. He stared at it for a moment; then glanced at the white-furred Litten before him. Nine taps procured a word onto the screen, and one more made it final.

  "Registered to Trainer no. 9981527: Frostfire. This Pokemon's data has been added to the Pokedex."

  "There we go," Sun said, and a slight smile touched his lips. "Welcome, Frostfire."

  Frostfire curled into a ball, lowering his long wiry tail. If he had any feelings toward the name, he didn't show them.

  Hau frowned. "That name makes him sound like an Ice-Type or something."

  "I think it's a nice name," Lillie said. "The juxtaposition suits him, I think." She reached out again to stroke the Pokemon's back, eliciting another satisfied purr. "Frostfire, I don't think you realize just how lucky you are to have a Trainer like Sun. You're in good hands here."

  "Whatever," Hau muttered. "I wanna go to the malasada shop. You promised me. Plus we’ve gotta have our first battle soon!"

  Kukui shook his head. "I don't believe it's a good idea for you two to go out into the city right now. Not until things have - " he gestured to the door to Hala's office " - calmed down. Besides, you guys must be tired, aren't you?"

  "Not me," Hau asserted. He tapped his foot with increasing tenacity, as if trying to dispel all potential doubt.

  Sun took a deep sigh; closed his eyes. It was only about two in the afternoon, and as much as he would have liked to go out on Route One and discover some new Pokemon, the conflict brewing inside him had drained all his energy. Right now, all he wanted was to get his ass off this bench and go home, read his booklet, take a long, long nap, and not think about the events of this morning.

  Kukui must have noticed his dour mood, because he pulled him closer. "Everything alright, cousin?"

  "I'm fine." A surge of rage cut through him unbidden: only the twelve-thousandth lie I've had to tell today. The insanity of it all. Hau's face fell as he continued: "I don't want to battle right now. I'd like to bond with Frostfire a bit first. Plus, it's raining out. We should head home."

  Kukui nodded, ruffling Sun's hair. "That's a good idea. Lillie, what do you think?"

  Lillie nodded and rubbed her temple. She wasn’t really looking at any of the three of them, Sun realized - her hands still hovered over the side of her bag, which was tucked snugly in between her and Hau. Frostfire sniffed at her hand, and his pale lip curled.

  Sun mumbled Frostfire's name, clicking the Poke Ball and turning his new Litten into air. The Rowlet on Hau's shoulder visibly relaxed. Hau himself stared at his feet, dejected.

  "I guess we'll have to hold off on it, then," he conceded. "See ya tomorrow, Sun."

  Sun didn't answer. His eyes lingered on the two-inch-wide barrier of fabric between Hau's thigh and the end. Outside the rain pooled into the gutters, murmuring and rippling.