Chapter 201 (Patreon)

Sorry for the delay, but I wanted to make sure this chapter came out well. As a warning, part of it is a bit sadder than usual, so please go into it keeping that in mind.
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We reconvened at the Pokémon Center, Cutiefly was quick to gather up Pokémon to show off his new move. Togetic, Eevee, 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 his move.

The completed Pollen Puff made his happy buzz muffled thanks to its presence, but by balancing it on his sharp nose, he didn’t have to focus on keeping it in the air. He flew around, letting everyone watching get a closer look, then he paused in the center 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: either damaging or healing. For the move to heal a Pokémon, however, the puff had to be consumed. He inched forward 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 the face. 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 hungrily swallowed, her eyes sparkling at the sweet flavor.

Her reaction was enough to inspire the rest of the Pokémon to crowd Cutiefly, all of them practically begging for one of their own. I could see Cutiefly’s proud expression on his face for just a moment before he was covered by the group, and then the happy cries of Pokémon experiencing the move’s flavor began to ring out.

“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 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 increase in power into an increase in the speed of the move.”

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, I couldn’t see its expression outside of the happy curve of its eyes.

“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 ability is rare to come up.”

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

“I have no doubts Cutiefly is going to be a powerhouse when he evolves. I mean, what was your plan? A Quiver Dance special 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 I’d been seeing in the rate Cutiefly had been developing. He started out incredibly weak, barely able to even take the weakest of attacks, but after seeing the way he handled the Gym’s Drampa, it was clear he contained immense potential in that small body of his.

Alongside Cutiefly and the rest on the field, Lillie was here, too, and she was sitting on a bench and giving her Pokémon a sort of lecture. The four Pokémon on her team were all listening intently as Lillie held up a hand and gestured excitedly alongside her words. Nebbie, however, looked absolutely enthralled by whatever Lillie was saying.

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

“Well, I mostly waited outside, but with what Lillie told me, it seems to have been certainly enlightening.” Hope said.

“What did she figure out?”

She 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 she stopped her lecture, but she 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.

“Well, yeah, but also no,” I said. “Ryuki wasn’t there, but he left some of his Pokémon. I’d say I got a decent battle out of it, but I’m disappointed at his lack of dedication.”

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

“I was told he’ll be training nearby for a while. If we want to battle him, we can find him in Haina desert, to the south.”

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

As she did, 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,” I replied. “But enough about Ryuki. What did you figure out at the library?”

At my question, Lillie sat up a bit straighter, and she temporarily moved Nebbie out of the way to give her room to reach into her backpack. By doing that, she pulled out a book and held it aloft.

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

Interested, Cosmog looked up next to Lillie, as if expecting her to read. She didn’t exactly read right out of the pages, but she did give us a brief summary as she checked through the book.

“Basically, 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 it. There’s 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 over to Cosmog, and she looked back up, determination clear in her expression.

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

“Where are they?” I asked.

She proceeded to explain.

Essentially, the Lake of the Sun and Moon was in Ula’ula, but the Altar of the Sun and Moon was all the way on the next island, Poni Island. Those places weren’t hard to reach, but the problem was they were historical sites that were restricted from public access. If we wanted to visit, we’d either need the proper authority or we’d need to submit forms for League approval.

I glanced over to Hope. She shrugged.

As Wandering Elite, both of us had the authority to enter.

“We’ll 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!”

“We have other places to visit first, Lillie,” Hope interrupted. “And 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 to her. “With Ula’ula’s routes stretching to the south, it doesn’t make sense to have to backtrack to take it on later.”

Lillie blushed at my words.

“I can’t believe I almost forgot! There’s also the Ghost Type trial on the way to the Lake, too. We’ll take both of them on, first!”

I shivered at the of a Ghost Type look, and Hope sent me an amused look in response.

“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.

Hope just laughed.

“Yeah, don’t worry about it. I did too, at first, but it doesn’t really matter,” she said. “Turns out, he’s lazy. All we have to do is reach his place of work outside of Po Town, at its police station. 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 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.

Hope and I exchanged a look. Neither of us had an answer to that.

“We’ll need to ask,” I said.

Regardless of whatever was going on in the background, Ula’ula was the largest of Alola’s islands, and the number of places we needed to visit made that fact clear. That didn’t even mention the locations we were skipping over. As it stood, we still had quite the journey to go and only two months to do it.

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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 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 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, using the face of the mountain above us to nest and the forest below to use to gather food. Occasionally, wild 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 primarily 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. Surprisingly, 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 melted in a strange, amorphous way to turn around. A pair of divots darkened into eyes on its face, and a long line underneath stretched out into a smile.

“‘Itto!” it gurgled.

With Brione right there, Lillie’s eyes widened as the wild Ditto quickly shifted 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, and 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 expression. “Ditto! We challenge you!”

The wild Pokémon blinked for only a single moment before it immediately leaped into action. Before Lillie could do anything, it used its mimicry of Brionne’s fins to push itself forward and spun to slap the original with its fake tail, using Pound.

“Icy Wind!” Lillie shouted. Brionne was just barely able to lean back to avoid the Ditto’s attack.

As the Ditto was temporarily a Water Type, it resisted the damage of the freezing breeze that rushed over its body. However, what it didn’t resist was the chill that suffused the move, and it shivered once the attack ended.

Next to me, Hope gave a hum of approval.

“Clever to use a move like that. If your opponent is the same as you, it makes sense to lower their capabilities before anything else.”

Lillie continued to give new orders.

“Now, Disarming Voice!”

Brionne shouted right when the Ditto-Brionne let loose its own Icy Wind in imitation. 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 seemed to send vibrating waves down the Ditto’s back. It collapsed on the side, injured, and it yelled at Brionne right back.

“Without a trainer, I think Ditto doesn’t know what moves to use unless Brionne demonstrates them first,” I mused.

Brionne countered with its 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 once more.

“Huh,” Hope said.

For a brief moment, it returned to its default shape of a pink, formless blob, but it quickly shifted 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 a natural shell, idly watching the battle with casual interest.

“I don’t actually know that Pokémon,” Hope said as she pulled out her Pokédex. It gave her a brief description of it in a robotic voice after a scan.

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

Lillie heard that, and the second the description completed, she pointed forward right at the floating, imitation Minior.

“Bubble Beam!”

Brionne opened her mouth and let loose her attack. 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, and the Ditto fell to the ground in a melted puddle.

“Yes! Great job, Brionne!” Lillie shouted. After cheering briefly, she paused to stare at the Ditto, likely stuck in thought about what she learned from this battle. From there, she reached into her pack to pull out a few berries, and she walked forward to kneel at the Ditto’s side as she placed the berries in its unmoving mess.

“Thank you. Here!”

There was no reaction initially, but then the gifted Oran Berries sunk down as if being melted in acid. The Ditto reconstituted itself from the puddle, and it smiled at Lillie and Brionne before it slithered back off into the patch of foliage on the side of the road.

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

Brionne didn’t give an answer right away; she merely bobbed her head 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 once again. With a second match set up, Lillie stood up a bit straighter, pointed at the wild Pokémon, and she—

“Stop! Don’t battle that Minior!”

A tall but lanky man in a disheveled jacket raced down the road towards us. His arms seemed to flail at his sides as he breathed heavily in exhaustion. His shout was unexpected enough that Lillie’s command was stalled, however, 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.

He held up a finger to motion for us to wait. His hands rested on his knees as he did his best to catch his breath. A moment passed, and he pushed on his back to stand up straight. However, he fell into a natural slouch right after, and he adjusted a bolo tie around his neck with some slight nerves.

“S-sorry,” he said, still a bit tired. “I’ve been trying to gather up all the Minior in these parts, and its 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 looked intent on walking off, but all of us were standing there, staring at him. Seeing we were waiting for further explanation, he blinked then tried to stand up a bit straighter as part of an introduction.

“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 for 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 eyes widened. Honestly, I couldn’t believe I failed to make that connection.

Molayne, unlike most trainers, seemed to lack any confident presence. He had no tall 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 mountain before his retirement a few years ago, too.

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

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! 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 work, uh, 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. He unconsciously brought up a hand to rub the ball with the Minior in it inside his pocket.

"Sorry. Sorry! I'm working to save the Minior," he replied.

"That one specifically, 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 was just a short trip up the road 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 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, but more importantly, there were Pokémon.

Specifically, countless wild Minior drifted about.

None of the wild meteor Pokémon had their shells. Each and every one was an individual in an exposed core. Rather than slowly drifting around, they darted to and fro, with their bright colors making this entire area be covered in rainbow 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 gained iridescent gleams under the light of the others.

In 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 had similar, bittersweet expressions on their faces.

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 the 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 moved to sit down behind a desk, and he scratched the side of his head as he unconsciously adjusted his tie once more.

"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 grow their outside 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, its 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, slowly, before our eyes, more of that stardust trailed off its body, and, slowly...

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

That first Minior was the start, and a hush fell over the area as everyone turned to watch the final moments of the wild Minior on the planet. They all smiled, expecting this, and a brilliant rainbow of stardust floated up into the heavens.

The sky became alight with an aurora of the Minior dust, and the number of wild Pokémon shrunk and shrunk over time. Eventually, what rainbow light had been here was gone, and the only form of illumination was the light coming from the observatory and the Pokémon Center.

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 help the species learn to last a little longer, at least.”

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 forms that discussed the facility’s catch and release program.

“If anyone is willing, we are 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 was still solemn, however, 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 can break their shells, which is why I stopped you earlier from the fight. The problem is that they’re Pokémon, and Pokémon like to battle, so...” he sighed 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 the mood 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 approval, and, Pokéball in hand, she headed right over to the designated door to head in.

“Think she’ll be fine?” I asked.

“You kidding? With how she’s been battling 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.

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Author Note:

My memory might be off, but I believe this is the first time there was a wild shiny Pokémon in this story. Black Minior are the shiny variant, and considering you can't see what color they are before you break their shell, it's incredibly difficult to figure out if a wild Minior is shiny or not in the games.

I love Minior. It's a shame it hasn't shown up in any Switch game. I wanted to give both it and its tragic situation a bit of a spotlight here.

Anyway, this chapter feels like I'm crossing off items from a bucket list. I wanted to talk about Minior, and I wanted to include a battle with a Ditto. It feels weird to have all of my plans being used up. Slowly, we're approaching the end, but if the first part of this chapter had anything to it, Alola still has a decent chunk to go.

Pokémon (and people) mentioned in this chapter:
Beldum
Ditto
Fearow
Minior
Skarmory

Molayne

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