Nanu picked up the phone, he was just getting the last box of his stuff out of the precinct, so of course he'd get a call now. "This is the Malie City Police Station, Nanu speaking.", he answered. "Nanu, perfect. You weren't answering your cell phone, it's kahuna business. Kau'i's run away.", Hama explained in a panic. Nanu checked his pocket idly for his phone, and sure enough, one of his pokémon had taken it. "How soon do you need me over? I'm kinda busy here.", he responded too late. Hama was already shaking with icy rage, "Now you dolt! All she's got to keep her safe is a fresh caught Zubat! She is in immediate danger, now go do your job as a kahuna and a policeman!" "I quit being a policeman actually.", he corrected. "NOW!", was all he heard before she hung up. 'So that's what she used that pokéball for. Smart kid.', he thought as he called his Honchkrow down and flew off for Poni Island.
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A woman, a professor, was nearly done setting up a new piece of equipment. Behind Professor Burnet, a beeping began. She turned on a dime and rushed to the instruments making the noise. One showed a sudden spike in the measured levels, then a stabilizing at a higher background energy. Another displayed a heatmap of energy across the detectors laid out around Alola's islands, with a distinct source of dimensional disturbance on Poni Island. An excited whisper escaped the professor's lip, "Something came out of the hole!" She rushed to her phone to call her research partners, hoping one of them was on Poni Island to get more data.
A researcher, no one anyone's taken much note of in a long time, answered his phone. "Charlie, are you on Poni or can you get there soon?!", Burnet rattled. Charlie, seeing an opportunity, asked more, "What's happening on Poni?" "My equipment says something just came out of a dimensional rift! It could be an Ultra Beast! Or a Faller! They should be on the Poni Breaker Coast!", Burnet exclaimed. Charlie, the Aether Foundation researcher, smiled. "I think I can do something to help."
A branch chief, a titan of research in Alola, received a press on the edge of his mind. He responded, of course, and through his Alakazam and his associate's Porygon2, turned Psychic through Conversion of course, a psychic conversation began. 'What's the matter?', he thought to his subordinate. 'Burnet contacted me, a dimensional disturbance has been released on the Poni Breaker Coast', Charlie thought to the chief. 'Excellent, I'll bring this to the president. You've done well.', Faba replied tersely. He then motioned with his hand, and the psychic connection was cut before anything more could be communicated.
A strange popping sound could be heard and a bell rang at the mansion atop the Aether Paradise. A young boy with neat blonde hair answered the door, hoping to get ahead of anything that would take his quality family time away. "Mister Faba… why are you here?", Gladion asked. "Pertinent business for the president, young master. Where is she now?", Faba imposed. Gladion sighed, acknowledging his defeat this time in his fight for family time, and led Faba down the hall. Past the dining hall and the lounge, Gladion stopped at the very end of the grandiose hallway at the door to Lusamine's study. "Mother's in there.", he said simply, before leaving into the lounge.
As Faba entered the door, Gladion snuck back out of the lounge and pressed his ear against the keyhole to listen in. A muffled blur of excited words followed Faba's entrance, then his mother shouted, "READY MY BOAT THEN! THIS IS IMPORTANT!" He heard the branch chief stumble and then right himself with a thud of his foot against the floor, then a spree of stuttered words. Gladion was sure this was an important matter, sure, but he was also sure that it wouldn't take long and would be interesting, like most of his mother's work. He snuck off again, this time back out of the hall and up the ornate staircase to his little sister's room.
The young girl stared watchfully out of her window, down at the glass enclosure of the Aether Paradise and the menagerie of wild pokémon both inside and out. In the dark of the night, a knock hit her door and the girl jumped. Lillie's head turned to the door of her orderly bedroom, the wide brimmed sun hat she was made to wear slipping to the side slightly. She laid the hat on a bedpost and moved to the door. Her brother's voice came through the other side of the door, "Mother's going off on her boat for something interesting, do you want to sneak onto the boat with me?"
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Lillie sighed, and opened the door. Gladion stood there, a serious expression on his face, as if this was an important moment rather than a silly plan that would get them both in trouble. "I don't know…", Lillie said, hesitating, "Won't mother be… mad?" "We'll be fine.", Gladion assured her, but she was still anxious. With a finality that usually evaded her, she said, "If you don't actually have a plan for us to not get caught… I won't be coming with you Gladion." "I can make a plan.", he said.
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"My knees hurt Gladion…", Lillie complained, whispering. The siblings were stuffed into one of the baggage compartments in the luxury ship. Gladion's head was pushed down between his knees, but his eyes strained up to look at Lillie. "There's only so much space in here! Be glad I let you stretch out a bit.", he hissed. They sat in silence for a time, then again a spat broke out over their discomfort and they shifted around in the small space of the baggage compartment.
This cycle would repeat for what felt like hours before the ship lurched and the two were crumpled together by inertia. Gladion stuck his arm out of the impromptu meatball and knocked open the door, spilling the children onto the cold floor. For a moment they laid there exhausted before getting up. Lillie sat clutching her arm, bruised in the series of impacts, while Gladion quickly moved into a dark corner to avoid being spotted. Gladion clicked his tongue to get Lillie's attention, attempting to keep some decorum in their stealthing, but she just looked pitifully up at him and nursed her wound.
Past the brother and sister's silent bickering, Lusamine's Bewear rounded a corner and walked down the side of the yacht to the gangway. Gladion saw this and grabbed Lillie into his dark pocket. She hummed disapproval, but didn't move to leave the stealthy nook. Lusamine emerged from the stern side of the ship, called to Bewear, and disembarked onto the Poni Breaker Coast. After a thorough scouting by Gladion, the children followed their mother's search for the thing that came out of the ultra wormhole.
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Nanu landed on the rickety settlement of the Seafolk Village, walked across the pier, and signaled to the ace trainer on their Magnezone to come down with a whistle. "Any signs?", Nanu asked, getting to the point. "Just an unconscious Exeggcute, we think it's unrelated.", they reported concisely. "Hama needs you to cover the Ruins of Hope, don't need people without the guardian's approval messing around there.", they added. Nanu nodded, gave the ace trainer a firm handshake, and released Honchkrow yet again to move to his search area, the entire process of such a large scale search effort having long ago become second nature to him.
As Nanu flew circles around the Ruins of Hope and the surrounding area of the Poni Breaker Coast, searching for the young orphan that had impressed him so much, he instead saw something he was never meant to see. Below him, a woman yelled at her two children, in hysterics over something they had done to trouble her. She was barking at the top of her lungs, letting loose an avalanche of demeaning words at her children. One child, a girl in a small dress, was clutching herself and crying, while the boy at her side attempted to placate his mom. No act of abuse so flagrant would get by under his watch, and so, Nanu lowered himself to release a pokémon to follow the terrible mother.
He briefly considered what to send after the woman. Not Honchkrow, he would be needed for continuing the search. Not Absol, he would feel too obligated to reveal himself if something bad was about to happen. Briefly, Nanu reached for the ball containing his trusty Persian, but instead he indulged a desire to guarantee the despicable woman's fall and released his Sableye. She sank into the shadows of the canopy and hopped through the shadow of the woman's Bewear and into hers. A malicious smirk emerged from his usually flat expression, and he once again took to the skies.
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Floating above the Ruins of Hope, a creature known to the people of Alola only by the moniker UB-06 Adhesive glowed with mischief. They drifted over the island, strangely comfortable in this mysterious world, before a swift wooden clap echoed and darkness enclosed the alien invader. The guardian of the island swam back down through the air to its Ruins to find a place to contain the intruder.
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At the edge of her office chair, Professor Burnet's eyes darted between the instruments showing the location of the dimensional interloper and her phone. She picked up the phone, once again lingering on the page for Charlie's contact information. As her eyes flicked back to the display, she saw the energy signature fade into the blindspot around the Ruins of Hope and disappear. She cursed Kukui for not letting her put up sensors around the residences of the Tapus. Then she remembered his handsome face and decided to redirect her anger at someone who deserved it. She raised her phone and blocked the sad excuse for a researcher who'd led her on.