Sun shivered with pleasure and adrenaline.

  The night didn't reveal the end of the tunnel to him until he had already blown past its threshold, and when he found himself in the clearing with fresh air hitting his face, joy shocked through him. Here was an open den, free of the claustrophobia of the clustered, bunioned palms - each of which, he would later realize, played host to dozens and dozens of Rattata ogling him from their gnarled, knotted branches. This was a dead end, but a welcome one.

  Without the canopy overhead to blot out the sky, the moonlight streamed down, snagging on something on the path in front of him... too far ahead to reach. He crashed to his knees, exhausted.

  Did Ilima seriously intend for this to be his trial?

  He doubted the trial captain would have planted a Team Skull grunt here. Even if he did loathe Sun and his friends' guts, which Sun assured himself he did, never in a million years would he permit a knife to come so close to their throats. His politician father might have been able to disappear any such scandals, but... ah, Sun couldn't think with the rushing in his ears. His body begged for sleep, and his mind sympathized...

  Still, the glimmer ahead enticed him, and he crawled forward on his knees until he could make out some sort of pedestal: a wooden platform hollow on one side, where the star-speckled artifact sat, kite-like in shape. When he reached it, he used what little strength remained in him to push himself back on his feet, stretch his fingers to it, and feel it in his sweat-drenched palm. It had the texture of glass without its fragility, and a similar radiance to a freshly-used proxy.

  So many would never touch a single Z-Crystal. And here it was. In his hand.

  He stewed in the feeling, turning it over in his fingers. When the moonlight shone through it, he positioned it to project its symbol on the base of the pedestal: a small circle enclosed by two curved lines.

  "Hey, you. Kid."

  He whirled around to see three figures emerge from the tunnel. The faint whisper of wind had obscured the rustle of their steps, and without the addressal he would have never known they were there at all. He glanced back at the stone in his palm, unable to restrain a sheepish grin.

  The middle one, the one who'd spoken, a woman of perhaps the age of twenty - he had already never been the best at estimating, and the darkness hindered what little skill he had - edged closer to him, hands clasped behind her back. Her companions' identities - and intentions - he had less trouble discerning. Black bandanas with a white trim at the top concealed what lay under their eyes. His attention snapped to their balled fists, but either these were different grunts, or the one he'd run into had put his switchblade away.

  "Um," he stammered, "um, um, I was just... I'm sorry, I was just..."

  BE SMART ABOUT THIS, SUN.

  Wisdom informed him his best option was silence: he held his breath as he watched the woman put her fingers to her chin.

  "You must be Sun. Isn't that your name? Sun?"

  "No," said Sun.

  "That's a shame," the woman said. "I'm Plumeria, and the three of us have been looking for this kid called Sun. Like the thing in the sky, yeah? There's a rumor hereabouts that he's got a white-furred Litten with him." She shook her head. "If you were him, maybe we'd be willing to let you live... but, ah, well, that's simply a shame."

  Sun tensed, raising both his arms in front of his face to shield himself.

  "I'm not Sun," he repeated, "and I won't let you kill me."

  If he really were going to die tonight, he resolved, it would be at the Tapu's talons. Not at the haphazard hands of hooligans.

  The flash of his Poke Ball stained the space a brilliant white as Harmony materialized at his feet. He slipped both the shrunken capsule and the crystal into his pocket, and with his hands freed, he jammed his index fingers into his ears, focusing only on the staticky tide that met him.

  "Harmony! Do that thing... use your... disarm them! Like before!"

  Before the trio could move to cover their own ears, Harmony released his cry, eliciting a huff from the woman. Not her first rodeo, eh? Sun could only hope that didn't mean she had her own ace up her sleeve. But he did not so much as twitch.

  But then the trio’s eyes went wide, and they inclined their heads, enraptured by something above him. When the rumble of stomping feet leaked past his ears' defense, he finally assented and looked over his shoulder.

  Atop the ridge, a massive Raticate leered at the foursome, gnashing its buckteeth together. Plumes of orange aura intermittently burst from its spiky fur, warping around its body like a carapace.

  A Pokémon without a Trainer, facilitated.

  But... how, then? By who? And of all the times to encounter the Totem Pokémon... why, why now?

  A set of clicks and flashing lights behind him made him turn back around - turn his back to the Totem, bad practice - to see a new trio of Pokémon beside the Team Skull members: a Drowzee, a Zubat, and, most notably, one hulking Salazzle, with long, thin strips of skin like paper ribbons trailing off its back. It grinned, drew its fleshy tongue over its fangs, and held out one hand with grossly overgrown claws.

  "Harmony," Sun said, "disarm all of them. The Totem first."

  Again his fingers muted the impact, but it didn't matter. His mind buzzed at a mile a minute - what harm could Disarming Voice do to it now?

  One of the grunts' Drowzee stumbled closer, wiggling its little fingers at Harmony, who cocked his head at it. When its Trainer approached, shoulders raised as if intending to give a command, the Popplio did the same at him.

  Plumeria put her hand out. Her eyes, milky with moonlight, betrayed no emotion.

  "B. Let him weaken the Totem. It's best we deal with it when it's dealt with him."

  Oh, did they have such little faith in him? If he weren’t so fixated on the dead leaf in his pocket, Sun would have cursed them out. But a movement by the Raticate intense enough to trigger an avalanche of silt raining down from the ridge above stole his attention.

  The Totem leapt down from its position with an agility its bulk never would have indicated, coming just shy of squishing Harmony into blue paste. The Popplio hurried out of its way, warbling all the while, and came to huddle beside Sun's leg.

  "So what? We're just gonna sit here with our thumbs up our asses and wait for him?"

  A spurt of water from Harmony hit the Raticate square in the chest, but if it noticed, it didn't show it. The water pressure, Sun sensed, wouldn't be too effective against such a large Pokémon: the Totem stood at a height twice that of a standard Raticate, up to Sun's shoulder.

  "Boy, do you really want to take your chances with that thing? If so, be my guest."

  That tingling again. Disarming Voice, if that was what it was called, wasn't a Basic-Type move, was it? Fairy-Types channeled something else, something stronger. Yes, the dead leaf in his pocket. Focus, focus.

  His eyes snapped open. If he stood by and let Harmony sing, he wouldn't have to risk contact with the Totem at all!

  "Your voice, Harmony! Come on and show the world what you've got!"

  As the shadow of the Totem encroached upon the two of them, Sun held out his hands, signaling his full intent to stand his ground. His terror begged him to move from its path, but his reason knew neither of them could outrun it, and to attempt to do so would leave the both of them exposed.

  "Just use your Z-Move, bonehead," Plumeria said. "You did take the crystal, didn’t you? I saw you do it."

  Sun blinked, but couldn't afford to tear his gaze from the Raticate. "Z-Move?"

  "What, don't you know what a Z-Move is? A Z-Ring? Are you stupid?"

  "Of course I know what a Z-Ring is," Sun replied. "But I don't have one."

  Plumeria dropped her eyes.

  "You don't even have a Z-Ring," she cooed. "He doesn't even have a Z-Ring! And he thinks he has any right to the crystal!"

  She fell to pieces, rolling with mirthful laughter. She cocked her head to her two subordinates, and they mimicked her, but lacked her sincerity.

  "I didn't know you needed to have one for it to work," Sun said - which was, of course, a lie to cover himself, and only earned him another round of chortles. "Come on. I could really do without you playing backseat Trainer."

  The Raticate snuffled, angling its head towards the grunts... ah, yes, these were the trespassers, weren't they? And this child must have been the wayward one the others had spoken of. The outcast had stolen the crystal, but he didn't seem aligned with the others of his kind.

  How odd. Odd enough that, had the Totem possessed the desire or the capacity to stop and reconsider its plan of attack, it just might have saved itself some energy. Unfortunately for all parties involved, it did not think to adopt the Team Skull grunts' own strategy and let the demons finish themselves off.

  It flicked its ear to the side, motioning to a little one waiting in the darkness of a hidey-hole bored into the cliff. The other Raticate had grown weak letting their kin do all their fighting for them, and did not make good partners in battle; instead the guardian relied on the strongest of the lower class. A Rattata scampered out of the darkness, clicked its teeth at its master, and at once bolted towards the Popplio.

  Sun jolted to attention. "Harmony?"

  But Harmony had defeated two dozen of them with a single vocalization; even one of its cries was enough to set the Rattata reeling. It veered off its course and ran in circles, whirling with spittle. Spittle. Spittle, not...

  "Don't let it touch you," he said. "Don't let it bite you, don't let it scratch you..."

  In between inhales, Harmony glanced back up at him.

  "I'm telling you! Don't!"

  He'd never thought about what would happen if a Popplio or another of its ilk contracted rabies. If rabies made one so intensely terrified of even touching water, how could one ever think of channeling it, or producing it itself? Harmony would suffer so badly, and -

  He was meant to be 'disarmed', wasn't he? And yet these thoughts tore through him so... nausea curdled in him, he stumbled on his feet... the idea he would vomit slipped into his mind unbidden. He wouldn't let it touch him, he wouldn't let it touch him, he wouldn't let it touch any of them - he was supposed to be DISARMED, damn it.

  "Harmony! Harmony, get..."

  Would it help if he tapped his foot? Without thinking, he stepped off to the side, this way, that-a-way, swaying, generating their tempo... he retrieved his dead leaf from his pocket, holding it out in front of him.

  Keep time. Keep time. How little time did he have left? The sun had long since faded, and his hope had escaped with it. A wound on his calf pulsed, but he instead kept his focus on the stiff stem pressed between his thumb and forefinger, with the terrible knowledge that at any moment he could snap it and crinkle it into leaf litter and render it useless. Dead things never made ideal vessels.

  And then - he hadn't the luxury of listening, but...

  Harmony's song.

  One might have thought it comical to hear this nasally little pipsqueak bark his way through an aria; indeed, one of the grunts broke into another fit of belly-laughs. But Harmony's target was the Raticate, and the Raticate had no such inclination. It twitched its whiskers, ruby eyes narrowed.

  Sun's face split into a grin.

  "You like that, Raticate? You like it? You like?"

  He swept his foot from side to side, beckoning Harmony to turn his aria into a more improvised, jazzy, upbeat rhythm. The Popplio obliged, if only because Sun's abrupt change in tempo would have thrown him off otherwise.

  The Raticate clicked its teeth... its Rattata helper, who had still been dashing in circles, charged back to its hideout, mad and screeching.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  "See! Your friend likes it so much he... uh, uh..." Sun blinked heavily, restraining a yawn. "I mean… that's going to be you in a few minutes, O mighty Totem! Because it's time for the grand finale: now, Harmony! The Queen of the Night aria, from 'Die Zauberfl?te' !!!!!"

  Now, this command was entirely self-serving on Sun's part. Harmony had never actually heard the Queen of the Night aria, and thus had no ability to replicate it. So he tried his very best to deliver what he imagined such a tune might sound like, and the only similarity this had to the actual piece was their usage of the highest registers of their singers' vocal range. It didn’t hold a candle to the real thing, but Sun closed his eyes, basking in their success…

  Until the Totem barrelled into them, clawing and slashing at his chest, tearing into his shirt. A swipe below the belt sent him scrambling out of its way, trembling - and it lacked the reach to get back at him, but Harmony -

  "Harmony! Both at once!"

  Harmony, caught up in the Totem's violence, beat his flippers against its body, one eye closed in what Sun hoped wasn't pain. In his exertion a bubble formed at the bridge of his snout. Another desperate string of high notes left him.

  "Doing great! Keep on with it!"

  The Raticate twisted, clawing at itself, at its own flesh and fur - it wasn't the song harming it, it was the - the ratta tatta - the cancer of a thought, the idea of -

  revolution.

  Within the bowels of the City - where the unwanted ones, where they - where they ratta tatta chatta their lives away -

  one thought.

  'The crystal means nothing to us. For eons we have let the masters oppress us, steal our labor. And for what?'

  They concurred, they thought -

  They concurred - they concurred - they concurred - and for what? - for what?

  The revolution - it won't be televised, but -

  THEY PLOT AGAINST ME.

  Demon-child! Wayward one! Have you done this? This must be your doing.

  The song - the song, it's beautiful - there's FREEDOM in it, oh no, there's goodness - the weak ones hear it and think, we could CREATE, too, with our very own selves - with our very own bodies, our very own MINDS - they think, there's more to life than hunting for Berries -

  ALL OF YOU BELONG TO ME, YOU GET IT? I AM ALL YOUR LIVES - YOU COULD NEVER KNOW HOW GOOD YOU HAVE IT. THERE IS NOTHING IN THIS WORLD OTHER THAN WHAT YOU HAVE AT THIS MOMENT.

  Harmony wasn't strong enough to take on the Totem in one-to-one close combat. The repeated arias, as beautiful as they were, had also required a glut of his strength, and the proxy in Sun's pocket folded into itself, overfilled with energy. He swallowed and hung his head, knowing there was nothing left in the tank for either of them.

  But the Totem.

  The mere suggestion of revolution was, well, unthinkable. The whole rationale behind the ratta tatta rushing was to check any such ideas: keep the subjects weak, keep them distracted; keep their darkest thoughts, their truest thoughts, safely unthought.

  As an immune system hunts cancer cells, exterminating them before they grow into their grotesque, evil form, the Raticate too hunted dissenters. Dissenters metastasized. If one had slipped through the cracks and infected a whole swath of the City...

  The cullings, well... the last one had been mere weeks ago... they'd been closer and closer together, you know… had used to go years without one…

  But if the Totem dared to kill a demon-child? The demons could wipe out the City in a heartbeat if they so pleased. All of this was a charade. The tighter the Totem gripped his power, the less power he truly had -

  The boy had risen to his feet again, looking at the guardian with such pain in his gray eyes. The Totem thought, once, of his old nest... of being a Rattata. Of being a subject - but not a subject. A family member. He once had a mother, a father. He recalled exploring off alone in the jungle, pressing his nose to a black crystal he'd found half-submerged in the loam, and metamorphosing into someone else.

  The Totem understood then he and the boy were the same. Playthings of creatures far grander than either could ever dream of comprehending.

  The Totem broke. Rolled onto his back, whimpering.

  And on the other side of the island, for a single time only, a prayer was heard.

  Harmony bounced on the Totem's belly, perplexed at its behavior. He cast a sideways glance to Sun, who was standing to his feet, brushing himself off - he certainly didn't plan on questioning it. Or taking it for granted.

  "There you go," he said to the Team Skull members, gesturing towards the carnage. "You still doubt us now? Huh? Do ya?"

  Plumeria folded her arms. "Yes. Yes, we do."

  "Oh." Sun loosened his shoulders and shrugged. "Well, then, I guess there's not much I can do to fix your view of me."

  "You're pathetic," B snarled. "Don't even have a Z-Ring. Can't even beat a Totem - no, don't you dare try to claim you beat it. It forfeited. It rolled over and died for you."

  He fished out some sort of crescent-shaped thing from his pocket.

  "See here? Even I've got a Z-Ring! Kahuna Nanu thinks I'm - well, thought I was - good enough! I was good enough for him, and you - !"

  Sun blinked at him. He drew his gaze across the clearing, studying each of the trio. "So, is that what you all are? Flunkies? If you had more resources than me, and still did worse…"

  The other grunt put one hand on his hip and examined the nails on the other. "I mean, duh. It’s not the ones succeeding in the system who want to burn it down."

  "Now, now, A. We don't think of each other in that way," Plumeria said. "We're family here. Isn't that right? All of us, family. As one."

  For a reason he could not explain, Sun shuddered.

  "But that's how it is, isn't it? Your family doesn't ever want to keep you around for you as yourself. You're only a tool to them: a weapon. That's how Alola's treated us. You know?"

  "My mom 'loves' me," Sun said reflexively. "Even if no one else does."

  Plumeria narrowed her eyes. "Aren't you lucky, then."

  "I don't know," Sun said, embarrassed he intended to let the trio believe he had a mom to hold him anymore. He slipped out his Poke Ball to recall Harmony, replete with shame, and let it all loose. "Look, I lied, okay? I am Sun. I used to have a white-colored Litten, but I don't anymore. So, I don't know. I never wanted to give you any trouble." He turned to B and grimaced. "I definitely never wanted a knife pointed at my throat."

  "Most people don't," A said.

  Sun sighed.

  "All I ever wanted was to serve the Tapu. That’s all any Alolan ever ought to want, isn’t it?"

  At these words, B nearly reared upright. His Drowzee mimicked him, bouncing on the balls of its feet, wearing a smile under its little trunk.

  "The Tapu," the grunt sneered. "Your Tapu! What good has your Tapu ever done you? Or any of us? If humans weren't meant to be the dominant species - if we're really meant to serve a Tapu - why do we have all of what we have? We've never needed a Tapu. That superstitious bullshit's only ever held Alola back."

  This was far from Sun's first time hearing this argument, and yet he still had no counter to it. In fact, he couldn’t even say he disagreed.

  "Come on! I could have killed you back in that tunnel - and what then? I'd be a Tapu! I could kill you right this second, and nobody would be able to do anything about it! What makes me any different from Tapu Koko, or Lele, or Bulu, or whatever the hell the last one is?"

  The hairs on the back of Sun's neck stood on end, and it wasn't because of B's words. The static coursed through him, filtered into his blood... he cast his eyes to his sneakers, examining the loop of his shoelaces... were those, too, 'Tapu-protrusions'?

  "Go ahead and kill me," he said, too low for the trio to hear. "I don't think it'll matter anymore."

  B stopped, turning to Plumeria. "What is - hey, do you feel that?"

  "Obviously," Plumeria said. "Did you seriously think blaspheming the guardian deity on its own sacred ground was a good idea? Do you have an actual death wish?"

  Across from them, the Totem's body seized. Its mouth opened wide, as if its jaw had fallen off its hinge, and its fur visibly lifted off its skin, tugged at by some magnetism.

  "What - whaddya mean, own sacred ground? Is that what's up with this place?"

  "Trial sites are considered sacred, yeah," A chimed in. "Remember the Mart?"

  "Well, sure, but I - "

  The pressure in the air seemed to take physical form, slamming the quartet to the ground. Sun's breath left his body at the impact, and as he lay there prone, he fought to regain it. A puff of silt rose into the air, blinding him, but he couldn't have missed the raucous shouts of the others. One particularly unpleasant shriek arose from Plumeria's Salazzle, prompting him to jam his fingers in his ears one last time.

  And there in the center: who else would it be? Tapu Koko, the guardian deity of Melemele Island.

  The guardian of guardians put its talon on the Totem's forehead, sending another shiver through the Raticate's body: its ears twitched, and its tail flicked to life.

  "Wait," B was saying. "Wait, I - what is it? What’s it doing?"

  The boy hopped to his feet, putting a hand to his face and leaning forward. The Tapu turned to face the boy, rising into the air - like lightning, with all of lightning's precision -

  it struck.

  Having steadied his breath, Sun hopped back to his feet, waiting for his vision to focus. From several feet away, Plumeria and A did likewise; either from exhaustion or terror, the three Pokémon stayed down, paralyzed.

  The Tapu had closed its shell around B. When it pulled its sides apart, revealing the state of the boy, the others froze.

  Fractal patterns of blood wound themselves around the sides of the boy's face and onto his neck, and he stared transfixed at the newborn chasm in his chest. Well, his eyes stared, still wide and wild - without a second thought, the Tapu had pawed at his brain and heart, slashing away the life-force making him B. Without a first thought, perhaps.

  Sun's synapses fired commands to his feet; they did not heed them. The shock had crossed his wires and nothing, nowhere, would be heard or done. A void screamed in his ears; he knew, but did not think consciously, some people called that tinnitus.

  Tapu Koko didn't release B's body. Just hovered there, still with him, as if to give him the longest hug of all time. After all, it would be the last living being ever to feel his fading warmth.

  Something glinted from back in the dirt. B's muscles had relaxed in death, and his fingers had lost their grip on the Z-Ring. A single bounce in the dirt... rolling, rolling, rolling…

  The bracelet fell over onto its flat side, languishing only a couple feet away from Sun. The Tapu wouldn't see if he wriggled his toes, inch by inch by excruciating inch…

  A's stare latched on to him.

  "No."

  Sun reached down and pinched into the dust.

  "No, you fu - ! You wouldn't!"

  He would. Before stowing it in his pocket, he turned it over in his hand and pressed the tips of his pointer and middle fingers into the gap, so the two broken ends would poke into him. It didn’t open him, but he wanted it to.

  The Tapu closed its eyes, and its talons slipped free from B's abdomen. The boy hit the ground with a pathetic poff.

  Sun's feet finally remembered how to move, and he bolted back into the dark of the tunnel. The loneliness welcomed him once again, a long-lost friend; entered his psyche, distorted the memory, snipped it away; until he was sure nothing would stir his heart again until the end of time.

  Midnight. He didn't know it - not consciously - but he'd been running through this dark for three hours straight. The ache in his feet had given long ago to numbness, and he couldn't think about it any longer. Couldn't think of anything. Better than a sensory deprivation tank. Better than his own funeral.

  He had taken out the Normalium Z sometime after starting his run, just to verify its existence; he slipped it back into his pocket again, his fingers once again craving its glassy touch. The gash on his lower calf pulsed intermittently. He had a rough idea of where he’d earned it, but whether those fangs had been contaminated, coated with ra - with that sickness...

  His foot touched water, and he yelped, tumbling face-first into a small pond. Its lack of depth meant his chest made contact with the bottom, and he couldn't inhibit an accidental hiss, sucking in a mouthful of foul florid muck. Before he could rise again to clean himself off, he hacked up several tablespoons of water, shivering from its frigidity. His heart palpitated.

  Oh, god, this water was stagnant, wasn't it? And afflicted with an algal bloom, teeming with all the microbiota he could ever fear... algal blooms were the result of nutrient pollution, which meant this could have been some kind of septic drainage ditch. And to think he'd feared Tapu Koko all this time, unaware the source of his ultimate demise would be some variety of tropical waterborne illness. Cholera, or something...

  As if he needed another fatal illness to obsess over. Once he had tugged himself back to 'shore', he put his fingers to his open wound, wincing at the idea of something invading him, contaminating him, through it.

  Where was he?

  This pond was too ovular and even-edged to have been created naturally, but most of the civilization on this side of the island, the northern side, came in the form of tiny coastal fishing villages. He knew where the water lay, and he knew he was nowhere near it.

  He racked his brain for landmarks... the old community center had been this way. He'd only ever heard tales of it, as it had shut down long before his birth. A federal investigation had uncovered the man providing their main source of funding had been orchestrating a massive Ponzi scheme, and the man had reacted by driving his sports car off a cliff with his kids inside. On Melemele, they wouldn't even give him the dignity of speaking his name... which posed a problem, as the community center bore it...

  It must have been the old community center. Nothing else lay around here, unless it was a Ranger's storage shed, laid out for someone to observe the protected areas... of course, he'd probably wandered into a protected area... but they wouldn't allow a drainage ditch in one, would there?

  Ah, yes, up there in the distance stood a small shed. He struggled to his feet and took a few cautious steps towards it, until he could spot the light seeping out of its slit of a side window. If someone was in there, he could get himself help - medical attention - see the professors again -

  The door, slightly ajar, revealed a slice of yellowish light cutting into the trees: the dull, almost toxic fluorescent indoor lighting used in hallways, unbearable and ungodly out of place out here in this natural space. Nausea again overcame him, only exacerbated by his intensive exercise session, but he gathered the courage to guide the door all the way open.

  A small figure huddled in the far corner, arms crossed across their chest. Beside them, a large, bulky feline Pokémon dipped its head, a large orange plume protruding from between its ears. The figure grasped the strap of a messenger bag, and what had presumably been its contents lay strewn in a semicircle before them; the moment they saw Sun, they swept their hand over the space, collecting them and storing them back inside.

  "...Mizuki?"

  Not in any manner he'd ever seen her in before. She wore only a midnight-blue sports bra and her storm-gray slacks, and her dark hair was disheveled, poking out in matted tufts. Wrested-out clumps of it lined the wall, settling into the depressions of the white padded floor.

  And then, of course, there was the blood.

  Trickles and trickles of it wound down her exposed skin, soaking into the fabric of her garments. One velvet splotch of it brightened the white wall; another, her partner’s snowy fur. Thick lacerations streaked across her sides and up and down her limbs in an erratic, zig-zag pattern.

  Her mouth opened.

  "Mizuki? What are you doing out here?"

  No reply. No reaction.

  He stepped over the threshold, hesitant to allow the door to close behind him.

  "Are you okay? Should I call for help?"

  Mizuki jerked her head up, sprung to her feet, and slung the bag over her shoulder. Her eyes did not leave him.

  "Mizuki! I’m asking, do you need help? Those cuts..."

  She smiled.

  "I'm perfectly fine. You don't ever need to worry about me."

  Sun blinked, and she waltzed over to him, pressing her lips onto his cheek. As he brought his hand to verify what she had just done was real, bewildered, she skipped past him and out the door, slamming it shut behind him.

  "What."

  The Pokémon padded towards him, ears perked in curiosity. Now that he had a better view of him, Sun's eyes trailed downwards to the crimson paw-prints…

  "Frostfire? Did you do that to her? Your claws."

  Frostfire lowered his head to stare at them, and his jaw fell open, as if he, too, were shocked to see them red. He lowered his tail and backed away until he brushed against the wall.

  "Frostfire, how did you guys even get here? Where did she go?"

  The door reopened, and he whirled around, finding himself face-to-face with Mizuki and Tenshiro Kazakami. Flanking each of them were burly, broad-shouldered guards, each clad in a reflective nylon vest. If any of them noticed Mizuki's bloodied state, they did not acknowledge it.

  "Caught him trespassing," Mizuki said, aglow with pride. "I heard him say he meant to tell everyone where we live! Said he meant to bring an army here - to kill the Truth once and for all." She wiped a bit of red from her forehead and turned to her father, still grinning. "He's rotten to the core, isn't he, Dad? And, of course, there's only one cure for that..."

  Sun cowered, searching for an exit point - but the doorway was thoroughly blocked by the four, and he had no delusions about his lack of physical strength. The guards, with their sinewy, football-sized palms, could likely snap his neck in an instant if they so chose.

  "You don't have to worry, Sun," Mizuki continued. "Fortunately for you, there is something we can do to help you. Hey - how about this?"

  She approached him, putting one palm on each of his shoulders. He tingled at the contact, but wouldn’t tear his eyes from the adults. He searched for mercy in their expressions and found none.

  "We know precisely how to fix you," she whispered into his ear. "All we ask is for you to sit back and think very, very happy thoughts. Once you learn how to smile, Sun: you’ll never worry about a thing ever again."