The facilitator.

  To think there could be a fourth member of the proxy system... one understudied and hardly described in the literature. The facilitator is unquantifiable. Where is its root, its origination point?

  Around a century ago, several of the world's most renowned scientists convened and agreed there was nothing more to be invented or discovered. That humanity had reached its apex; that what they knew then was all there was. These were the same individuals who scoffed at the idea there may be some glimmers of truth in the concepts described in the legends of the past, and in the legends of other cultures: many of which have since proven true, or at least been shown to have some basis in reality.

  Take the proxy system, first described in the ancient lore of the Alolan archipelago as a concept known as "Z-Moves", a technique the likes of which still mystify we scientists today. They spoke of the cosmatics, those ethereal, celestial beasts, long before anyone else. And recent discoveries suggest they even had an inkling of facilitators.

  The facilitator - tender and elusive and hardly described in the literature. Some have said it must not exist. Indeed, it lies amongst those concepts the human brain cannot grasp, cannot put a name to. Some have theorized it stems from a quantum origin (...)

  Describe, for example, the color blue. You may be able to picture it in your head clear as day but you will never be able to describe its intrinsic qualities. You can compare it to the ocean or to the sky, but that is not a description of it in itself. The first step to understanding the facilitator is to understand the intangible.

  Yes, the Alolans knew full well what those scientists did not: that the world is in a state of constant flux, and we humans are but a single aspect. There is no apex for us to reach; there will always be a beyond for us to reach towards. A piece of wisdom the rest of us today must hold onto (...)

  This is why I have chosen to further my research in the Alola region. I am certain it must be possibly the most interconnected place on this vast planet.

  - Professor Samson Oak, at a lecture at Saffron University in the Kanto region, June 28th 2010

  Sun and Hau arrived at the cemetery at six o'clock, an hour before the preliminary's posted starting time. Sun almost expected to stumble upon Ilima - Lillie's report the week before had given him the impression the trial captain had practically taken up residence there - and he wasn't sure whether he was disappointed or relieved not to see him. He wasn't sure he had the capacity for either emotion.

  On the topic of Lillie: Sun hadn't seen her or Mizuki since the malasada shop incident, and in the time between the former had only called him once more, this past Wednesday. She wasn't going to be coming home anytime soon, she'd said. She was perfectly happy at the compound, and she'd been treated well. Mizuki was staying with her, too, but she was busy and didn't have any time to talk to Sun.

  Or - and this spoken hushed - any desire to.

  Despite him knowing better, he couldn't help but feel these were the consequences of keeping her at arm's length. What else could he have expected? He had sworn to protect her, whether he liked it or not.

  She wasn't the one he had to fear.

  The cemetery was cut into a circle of woodland up on the rise of a plateau. It had not originally been built in this location: once, back even before Hala had been selected as kahuna, it had lain closer to Iki Town, to the Ruins of Conflict, near the site where the Kazakamis' home stood today. But the development of Hau'oli had led to the branding of the city as a monument to life, and the cemetery had been relocated here. Sometimes Sun wondered whether they had brought the bodies up with them when they'd replotted the gravestones - a notion he'd gotten from a horror movie he'd watched over at Hau's. In those halcyon days when he'd been able to catch sleep, he'd have nightmares about the dead coming to take revenge on those who had defiled their sacred grounds.

  Viewing the cemetery all as one uniform block, it seemed like some sort of abstract art project. A colossal canvas embellished with the ultimate tributes to the insignificant. He turned his body out to the northeast corner, deluding himself into believing he wasn't scanning the horizon for one in particular.

  A snow-furred cat Pokémon stalked down the row of headstones, holding his nose to the ground. He craned his neck up to stare into the shadowed swoop of gnarled palm trees, focusing on a wild scent on the wind. A trace of something small and innocent, and, for certain, delicious. His red tongue flicked down the length of his whiskers in anticipation of his next meal.

  At least, that was what Sun assumed as he watched him. By this point, he had grown to assume Frostfire was perpetually thinking about taking lives. The Tapu knew his amber stare never betrayed any other emotions. He sniggered as Frostfire attempted in vain to scramble up the side of a headstone, then reconsidered - that was someone's eternal resting place, you know - but the Fire Cat Pokémon landed square on his tiny paws, his muscles rippling as he shook off the impact. A stray chill brushed past Sun, and he stuffed his hands into his capris.

  Over the course of the past week, Sun had Hau had stuck together like glue, conducting important research in preparation for the preliminary. Hau's family didn't own a computer and Kukui wouldn't let Sun on his, so the two had gone to use the desktops over at the new public library in Hau'oli. They had refreshed themselves on all manner of important information, such as how long it took to reach Level 50 in popular MMORPG "Legends of Terrebia".

  ...Alright, so perhaps the two may have gotten a little sidetracked.

  Help support creative writers by finding and reading their stories on the original site.

  But as unbelievable as it might have sounded, burying his worries into Legends of Terrebia had not helped Sun with his current quandary. Some Trainers would have envied his position: Frostfire wasn't bad at battling. If he battled them, he would be an invaluable asset indeed.

  The issue was Frostfire didn't battle his opponents. He hunted them.

  It didn't lift Sun's mood to hear Hau had already caught himself a second Pokémon: a Pichu. (Sun suspected what Frostfire had sensed earlier was its latent scent clinging to the other boy.) He'd spent hours toiling through the serene but predictable Route One until he'd spotted a pale flash among the endless green. The poor thing had been hiding in an indent under a tangle of bush, terrified of the looming flock of Pikipek and Trumbeak in the above canopy, and had decided to take its chances scampering out and away - right into the comparative safety of Hau's Poke Ball.

  "There must have been thirty or forty of them up there," Hau had said of the bird Pokémon. "You'd be fearing for your life too, if you were a baby Pokémon."

  Anyway, Hau had been ecstatic to stumble upon a Pichu in particular because

  1) it was rare and he could inflict his gloating upon anyone around, such as his best friend, who would graciously show him the mercy of tolerating such braggadocio

  2) he had heard they were able to play the ukulele.

  Yes. Despite Hau's own musical ability being roughly equivalent to an untrained Pichu's, he wanted to teach his to play the ukulele.

  "I feel like any Pokémon with two arms could play the ukulele if you taught it hard enough," Sun had said. This had been the kindest thing he could force himself to say.

  Unfortunately, he would not yet be able to witness Pichu's manifold abilities for himself, as Frostfire yet again had proven himself unable to control his hunting instincts in the presence of such a small, innocent, potentially musically inclined Pokémon. Even Lālā, in spite of her capacity for flight, was too wary of him to desire to explore the cemetery.

  Over the course of the hour the sun settled under the trees, abandoning the children to their fates. A few of Hau and Sun's old classmates joined them over by the stones, unwilling to wander far so as to avoid the specters sure to be lurking deeper inside. Sun recalled Frostfire at the first sign of their approach and sat with his back against a headstone, resting his chin on his knuckles until they impressed deep striations. He pulled out a book he'd checked out from the library and was not pulled back to awareness until Ilima's voice called him away.

  "Well, well, well. So you didn't give up after all. You've overcome the real first challenge of this trial: mind over matter."

  The man stood several yards away, in a dusky strip between two mausoleums. Sun squinted at him and thought he might have seen the trial captain lick his pale lips as he sized up the gathered children. He shook his head, ascribing it to simple fatigue from staring at his book so long.

  When the rim of his baseball cap slid too far into his field of vision, he adjusted the rivets on the back to refit it snugly. Today, free from the strict bonds of his school dress code, he wore his classic outfit, his favorite outfit, a blue-and-white striped tee paired with smoke-colored capri shorts. His eyes darted over the area, tallying the arriving challengers. Five... and eight... and twelve... with him, that was thirteen. There had been twenty at the interest meeting.

  "Sun."

  A familiar face loomed over the headstone at his back. A girl wearing a gaunt, ghoulish expression, her skin painted gray by the evening gloom. So that made fourteen.

  "Oh, hi, Mizuki." He shuffled his book back into his backpack, his gaze not leaving hers. "I've been meaning to talk to you." As in: I've been waiting for you to come off your high horse. "How have you been?"

  "Pay attention," she barked, motioning to Ilima.

  " - For your assignment," the trial captain was saying. Sun crawled closer, passing under another stone's shadow, straining to make out his voice against the chirp of crickets stirring in the overgrowth. "If you truly wish to undertake this journey, you must prove you have the capacity for self-reliance. As beautiful and placid as our Alola can be, amongst its wonders lurk also tribulations. If you cannot learn to take both failure and success as they come, you will only suffer down the road." He cleared his throat, giving the kids some time to stew on these words. "Of all Alola's islands, Melemele is by far the most hospitable. For better or for worse, humanity has left its mark here. This does not necessarily apply to the other islands."

  Certainly. The salmon gates in Hau'oli were a feature unique to the city - Sun had heard it was far more common for Pokémon on the other islands to wander into human territory. Melemele might not have been the largest island, but it was the most populated, and the most tame. The Cutiefly may have made themselves a home under the laboratory's porch, but Frostfire had cowed them into submission, and they hadn't dared venture out since. The extent of their presence was an idle buzz faintly audible when leaving or entering the lab.

  "Now, for your trial, all of you will spread out into the field. When I give the signal, you will begin to search for your fellow challengers, and when two of you make eye contact, you must initiate a battle - just like how it is in the real world. If you do not follow this direction, the both of you will be disqualified. The loser will be eliminated and accompany the winner for the remainder of the trial.

  "Please keep in mind I will not judge you on how many battles you win or how long you last, but rather on how you handle the scenario at hand. If I believe my amulets will be safe in your hands - " (They weren't his amulets, Sun grumbled, they really belonged to Hala) " - I will entrust you with one. If you attempt to bypass the competition by hiding until the end, I will not pass you. And, just as in a 'real' trial, if you attempt to catch any wild Pokémon here, I will disqualify you. Does anyone not understand these rules?"

  There was a silence. A Pokémon materialized beside Ilima: a diminutive primate Pokémon with a fleshy tongue sticking out of the corner of its mouth. It held its long, thin tail in a three-fingered hand, and a sickly green fluid dripped from the large brush-like tuft at its end.

  "Perfect." He clapped his hands together. "Okay. This is the southwestern corner of the cemetery. We will make use of the entire field here, so that you may all spread out evenly." He pulled out a clipboard with a roster, and his index finger hovered over each name. He pursed his lips. "I'll call out a direction to go in, and then call the names of those who will be going there."

  Please not the northeast please not the northeast please please Tapu Koko if you're listening please don't let him make me go that way

  "In the southeast corner, we'll have Tatiana, Keita, Hau, Luka, and Manuel." The named parties clumped together beside him, exchanging uneasy glances with one another. "Go and spread out. Don't stop walking until you can't see or hear each other, and don't start trying to find each other until you see my Smeargle's flare."

  The five turned to the southeast. Hau waved back at Sun, his eyes somehow still alight with joy in spite of the awaiting uncertainty. By the time Sun raised his hand to reciprocate, he had already disappeared into the growing shadows stilted by the trees.

  "In the northeast corner..." Mizuki gave Sun a quizzical glance as he took in a sharp breath - "we'll have Paulo, Mizuki, Marion, Keon, and..."

  Though he could not see him, Sun envisioned Ilima's predatory gray eyes gleaming through the darkness and landing on the unlucky last.

  "Sun."

  Sun rose to his feet, shut his eyes, and thumbed his nose at the sky.