“Hatched?” My voice is only a whisper. That the Pokémon would break through the shell so quickly is unexpected and yet it was foreseeable. Zir had kept it warm the whole time before.

Conia, meanwhile, presses a soft sigh through the line. “It’s ... incredibly cute...”

I want to ask her what it is, what it looks like, what it feels like – but these are all little things I’d rather save until I can see them for myself.

“I hope this doesn’t take too long,” I reply. “I can’t wait to see what’s looking at me when I get back!”

“I’ll be careful until then.”

It’s only a brief conversation, but it refreshes the heat and makes my detour less reprehensible. If Amethio has anything to criticise, I simply show him the hatched Pokémon and all his criticism simply disappears – or something like that.

To be honest, I can’t imagine it, but a girl can dream.

At least I can say that the waiting time feels like it passes in two breaths with all the ideas about what might have been in the egg. When the bus stops and a friendly man issues a ticket for me, the noise in my head briefly fades into the background.

Until I hear a scream.

Drawn out and distorted with rage. No words, just sounds pounding hard against my skull. The closer this bus gets to the observatory – labelled on a large passing sign – the louder the wailing becomes. It is anger that raises the hairs on my arms and forces me to clench my hands tightly together.

I can barely hold on to my seat until we reach the top. There is no sense of time. The bus driver just manages to open the door, so I don’t crash into the glass in my hasty attempt to get out of the vehicle. Still, I trip over feet and cling to a low metal fence separating the pavement from the road. The observatory is right behind me, unable to catch my interest. The screams in my head and the whispering of people take over. Somewhere, rocks are cracking. Nobody knows where to go. No one can recognise the noises that can barely compete with the screeching in my senses.

By now, the pain is reaching my fingertips. The feeling of closing my eyes so as not to go mad overwhelms me. And in the middle of the flickering blackness behind my eyelids, a path flashes. A pale road trying to lure me towards it. The headache threatens to knock me out and yet, this offered route is all I want to cling to.

On shaky legs, I follow this idea, open my eyes and stagger along the front of the observatory. To one side, a low fence separates the safe area from a narrow side path. A road to Neverland, if you look at the vastness of the mountain – in the middle of which is the Pokémon, whose attack almost cost me my life.

In an instant, I jump over the fence and follow the slender mountain path until I have to press my back against the stone wall – the Pokémon always in view. It lashes out, thundering its tentacles against the surrounding rock faces, accompanied by the distorted chirping of its existence. It doesn’t match the trembling, the wailing and screaming it embodies in my perception.

Only when I think I’m close enough do I raise my voice. My words are so loud they drown out even the roaring in my skull. “Over here!”

The silence following in the next breath leaves my head in a feverish heat. Simultaneously, the Pokémon slowly turns to face me.

“You?!” Shrill phrases ring in my ears. “This creature... It’s from this white place...”

The fact it recognises me is a good sign – at least it saves me from having to start from scratch. So I reach out to the Pokémon. “You don’t have to be afraid of this world! Come with me! Then we’ll find a way home ... together!”

For a moment, I think I recognise my voice as an echo. The Pokémon in my head doesn’t react, nor does anything else move. Instead, it gives me time to swallow the adrenaline under my skin and assess my situation.

My legs tremble. Unyielding rock presses against my back. The abyss looms before me should I slip. My body is surrounded by thousands of things, making my forehead sweat. One wrong move and my adventure ends.

“What does it want?” Finally, the Pokémon’s voice starts again. It seems to be scrutinising me more gently than before. “Can’t fly and just stands around. What is it planning?”

I twist the corners of my mouth briefly. Trying to talk to it was a stupid attempt. It already didn’t understand me in the Aether Paradise. If I want to communicate with it, it needs someone who at least speaks a similar language. The decision is obvious. Pokémon understand each other – research has proven this for years. So if anyone can help me, it’s one of my partners.

In slow motion, my hand moves to the pouch on my hip and digs out Pikipek’s ball. He can fly. There’s hardly any danger for him here.

Fortunately, I don’t have to throw the ball to let Coro out. His hasty wing beats and tilted head give me new hope.

“Coro, you need to tell this ... this Ultra Beast that we want to help. Nobody wants to hurt it. I want to help it get home.” I swallow dryly. “We might even help Nebby that way.”

My Pikipek’s gaze is slow to wander to the Ultra Beast, its movements vaguely defensive. We can’t get any closer without running into even greater danger, and we can’t hope for it to come towards us until it has fully understood the message.

In the next moment, it is Coro’s chirping breaking the silence between the fronts. It sounds so out of place with the situation that it is only my partner’s stare convincing me the message has the right undertone.

“Help me?”

The Pokémon’s voice reaches me again and I can hardly breathe a sigh of relief. My request has been heard. We can form an alliance here and now that will help both sides.

“Back home...” The voice hums before a scornful snort emerges. “Is it their fault I’m here?”

I want to say something, to contradict and give Coro more information, but my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. Nervousness dries me out and before I can get a croak past my lips, the creature starts lashing out again. This time, however, in our direction.

I press myself firmly against the rock while Pikipek flies aside for safety. He’s not stupid enough to draw the Pokémon’s attention directly in my direction. Then he gives me a quick glance and I know I have to do something – but what?

Without further ado, I suck the warm air from my surroundings deep into my lungs. I can think about the consequences later. In these seconds, I have to act. I have to adapt.

“Echoed voice! Pay back the headache I had to suffer!”

His feathery chest swollen, Pikipek seems to gather all his breath before throwing a sonic wave at the Ultra Beast in a loud scream. The surrounding stone walls and the depths at my feet provide enough unfilled space to catch the sounds and echo them back. Each individual sound combines to form a cacophony of noises, throbbing behind my temple and causing even the alien creature to tremble all over. Simultaneously, Coro doesn’t give it a second to recover. His beak produces one echo after another, like a siren travelling over this entire mountain.

The rocks begin to shake, gently, but enough to roll small stones into the abyss. Meanwhile, my hands rest on my ears, my eyes narrowed to slits, barely able to suppress the headache and its nausea. Dizziness clouds my vision and my legs can only hold my weight with numb difficulty. However, I can’t look away.

The Ultra Beast makes nothing more than suffering noises. They overpower the roaring in my head and the screeching of my partner. Not even when I open my mouth to give Pikipek the command “peck” is there anything to be heard other than the gasping sounds of the creature in front of me. I’m not even sure if my voice is loud enough to reach Coro.

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Only when he looks in my direction and nods, barely perceptibly, does the narrow success reach me. In the next blink of an eye, he flutters so hastily that he rushes towards the Ultra Beast like a projectile. Beak first, he grazes the creature’s body, but misses a good spot when it pulls its body aside with a tentacle.

A second later it lashes out, aiming for my partner – but hesitates in its action as a flicker erupts over its body.

“Coro, back!” I quickly remove my hands from my ears and reach for his Poké Ball again, which has gone back into my pocket somewhere in the meantime. However, Pikipek doesn’t make it back into his ball before the Ultra Beast lets out another scream – this time clearly audible to everyone.

The walls tremble again and while the figure disappears and Coro shakes his head as a small shimmer remains in the strange Pokémon’s place, the narrow path beneath me breaks.

My body follows the depths. My hat flies off. Bile presses into my throat and a part of me believes my heart is no longer beating. Every breath weighs like lead – until I hit my left shoulder on the edge of a rock. My body is jerked to the side. I’m still falling and the sound of pain rings in my ears. I gasp for air several times, feel the throbbing in my back and the burning tears in my eyes.

I’ll probably die before I reach the bottom.

Chirping above me makes me look up. Pikipek shoots towards me, his tiny feet outstretched, a pleading gleam in his eyes. My breath isn’t enough to resist, so I grab his skinny little legs. His fluttering is so weak that after two attempts, he can barely flap his wings to counter the tugging wind anymore. A mere second that fills me with warmth. No panic, no more tears. My skull aches like pins and needles, but at least I’m not alone. My feelings no longer lie divided in a bowl of scales – they are drowning; in strangely hypothermic acceptance.

Coro’s screeching chirp snaps me out of the two breaths in which I’ve lost myself. His feathers shimmer. Light envelops him. Every flap of his wings becomes firmer and for a breath, I think I’ve lost contact with him. My fingers glide through nothing as Pikipek is left in flickering light – like a rainbow – before he breaks out of it and shoots towards me once more.

My eyes widen. Particles of light pearl off his feathers and when he offers me his foot again for me to grab, I almost feel hopeful. But Coro, although bigger now, is still too weak.

Yet he isn’t willing to give up. With his head back, he lets out a cry, four long sounds that echo through the abyss as if this fall will never end. But a glance over my shoulder brings the ground into view. Green meadow. Concrete paths.

Maybe four seconds until impact.

Three seconds until my adventure ends.

Two seconds Coro fills with defenceless cawing as he pulls at my clothes.

Only one more when I close my eyes.

Then sharp pain follows.

The sudden pain shoots through my upper body, turning my stomach and bringing tears to my face. It takes a whole breath before I open my eyelids a crack and look straight into Amethio’s stare. His brows drawn together, he tightens his grip on my shoulder, so I almost cry out.

“Are you insane?”

It’s the first time I’ve heard him so loudly, and I can’t say my headache is grateful for it.

“I wanted to help the Pokémon...” I whimper quietly, averting my eyes.

Corviknight has already propelled us a few metres back up.

“Do you even think before you act?”

I feel like a toddler. He’s right, sure, I wasn’t thinking. But making the right decision with the voices in my head is harder than I expected. Or maybe it’s just me. I can’t deny I sometimes rush into things.

“I’m sorry...” is the only thing I can say, and it seems to take an eternity before Amethio lets out a sigh.

“What were you doing up there? You were supposed to go to Tapu Village.”

“Voices,” I reply, still averting my eyes. “I heard this creature and thought it was more important to go and see. It was angry. If it had come out any further, it could have hurt the people up there. I thought I could calm it down and maybe even ... catch it?”

I swallow a few times before moistening my dry lips with my tongue. “Where did you come from?”

“Observatory.” Amethio’s grip loosens, but that doesn’t help ease the pain. “Someone has built a machine to summon Pokémon.”

“Is it suitable for Rayquaza?” My gaze slowly find his. Amethio, however, briefly lowers his eyelids.

“Only Electric-type Pokémon.”

“Not much help... That means you also noticed when I fought the Ultra Beast?”

He snorts. “Trumbeak’s scream drew my attention to you.”

Trumbeak, huh? The evolution of my partner, conjured up out of stress. The calmness with which he flies after us doesn’t suggest that we were just fighting for my life. It’s probably because of Corviknight. In its presence, safety seems to be the norm. Or it’s because of Amethio’s closeness; the fact I can feel the warmth of his body as I lean against his chest and no longer feel like I’m falling into a hopeless abyss.

“Besides, I could catch this.” On the side, he holds out a misshapen stone to me.

“Looks like an unprocessed ... Z-Crystal...”

I don’t dare grab my Rotom and investigate. All I can do is put it in my pocket and wait. Amethio silently takes note.

In these breaths, I just want to forget the weakness in my limbs and digest everything slowly. There is protection in Amethio’s arms where I can take this time. I don’t have to change places or anything else. My position remains in front of him, my head resting on his shoulder, unable to move a muscle.

The wind in my hair seems cool; an unnatural feeling under the heat of Alola. Corviknight resists its exhaustion, but it will likely need a well-deserved rest after this flight.

Burying a hand in the fabric on Amethio’s chest, I wait until the throbbing in my shoulder numbs my flesh before loosening my grip. The headache finally subsides. What remains is deep-seated exhaustion. It’s tempting to fall asleep now, but I mustn’t cause my companion any more trouble. For today – no, for the next four weeks – I’ve overstepped the mark.

Still, I can’t avoid the daze of my senses. My mind drifts into blackness a few times. Tiredness elicits a slight yawn. My nose buries itself in Amethio’s shirt and my eyelids fall shut regularly. It’s a game that goes on almost forever until the wind stops pulling my hair and I think I can see houses in the immediate vicinity. The ground beneath us is earthy. Caravans have set up near the rock walls and there is a house in one corner, big enough and with a large enough sign to offer shelter to at least twenty people.

“Are we in Tapu Village?” With difficulty, I detach my head from Amethio’s shoulder and rub my eyes. It’s the same moment he uses to dismount, so I can’t use him as a pillow again.

“Route 13,” he returns. “The section further ahead is called Tapu Village.”

So we’re going to rest, even though it’s only afternoon and we could do a lot more than relax now. We are probably only taking this break for my sake. The tiredness sits too deep.

I finally slip sluggishly off Corviknight’s back so Amethio can call his Pokémon back. Immediately afterwards, I drag myself alongside him to the accommodation, through the door and into a rustic reception room where two old ladies are chatting in a hushed tone. Meanwhile, the man behind the bar nods to the words of a blond guy and, if I didn’t know any better, I would simply label him as a guy with poor taste in fashion. The truth is, however, that the ragged clothes with their red accents belong to someone who’s got in our way before – full of arrogance, with the confidence to take on Amethio.

Barely noticing, I position myself behind my companion. I am definitely not willing to be at the centre of this argument, should it break out.

In fact, the boy turns to us as the man behind the counter throws a friendly smile in our direction. Amethio returns the narrow gesture with a simple nod, his eyes fixed on the blond.

“So we meet again.” Jutting his chin, our counterpart buries his hands in his trouser pockets. “And I assume you still don’t know where Lillie is.”

“No.” Amethio barely engages in the conversation. Instead, he checks in under the other’s critical gaze and hands me a key to my room in the next breath.

It could be so simple. We turn around, walk up the stairs to the rooms, and leave all our problems behind. Tomorrow we start a fresh day. The circumstances seem a little better and nobody has to jump down each other’s throats.

Reality takes a different shape, though, as the stranger slams his hand down on the surface of the counter and draws his brows together until a small crease forms between them. “I’m only going to tell you this once, but I hope strongly that you’re looking out for Lillie.”

Amethio’s gaze sweeps over him as if to ask, “Or what?”. In the next blink of an eye, the temperature between the two of them drops twofold. Still, the stranger isn’t fazed for a second as he puts a hand on his hip and purses his lips.

“Team Skull is looking for her. Or rather, the Pokémon she has with her.” He fixes Amethio a little more insistently. “Who knows what they’ll do if they get their hands on Lillie... And she avoids me, so I guess I’ll have to turn to you.”

“Aren’t you part of this gang yourself?” I finally slide in next to Amethio, my arms crossed in front of my chest. My whole body hurts. Thinking back to our last encounter, there’s no doubt in my mind that he’s one of them – even if he’s not exactly on friendly terms with some of them.

“To achieve my own goals, yes. The Lillie issue is something else.”

“How do you know her?”

“It doesn’t matter.” He waves it off, becoming another unknown component in the overall picture.

Lillie is fourteen and carries more secrets around with her than a girl of that age should. There is Nebby, whom she wants to help. The Explorers’ rejection because her background check doesn’t fit. This boy who must be somewhere around our age and doesn’t look like someone you could imagine by her side. All the while, I can’t get over his looks.

The same eye colour. The same hair colour. Similar facial features shining through particularly clearly when he’s not busy staring at us like we’ve been insulting him for hours. When I take a closer look, they could hardly look more alike.

“You ... are related, aren’t you?” The question escapes me unplanned. Still, I cling to his expression, to the second when he looks away and furrows his brows even further.

“Take care of her, will you? If you don’t, you’ll get to know a different side of me.”

Without further ado, he ignores my question and turns away, storming out of the shelter, leaving nothing more than a mere hint of certainty that I might be right. In the end, I think I’ll have no choice but to ask Lillie as soon as I see her again.

Amethio, meanwhile, doesn’t let the situation hold him back any longer. Instead, he heads for a floor above and I have no choice but to follow. Freezing here won’t change the situation. We can both just wait and see and fulfil the Explorers’ actual goal. It’s not up to me to decide which strings are connected.