To Save an Island - OUTDATED

Fall in Alola is not very different than any other time of year; sure, it gets a little bit colder, but not by much. The leaves do not really change, nor do the grass or the animals. What does change, though, are the people. They get that Halloween buzz and start decorating everything and everyone. Halloween is a big part of Alolan culture, they revel in it, and it is my favorite holiday.

My name is Glace, and I am a glaceon; I am medium height with a larger build and large floppy ears and three tails. Also, I have three eyes. My job here at the ranch is to make sure nothing disastrous ever happens; you see, I have the ability to see the future. I see these visions and then go adventure out into the world to make sure the bad ones never come to fruition. Luckily I have not seen any bad visions this week, or any good ones for that matter; it has been pretty quiet around here. Oh, look, Mossy Stone Block has finished setting up the pumpkin carving table; let us go have a look. 

It was a long bench table with plenty of room for pokemon to come and sit. Pumpkins of all shapes and sizes sat upon a rubber tablecloth to protect the underlying wood from slime and gunk. There were big pumpkins, small pumpkins, lumpy pumpkins, white pumpkins, and even partially rotting pumpkins all ready to be carved up. Taking a seat at the table, I grabbed one of the knives that sat upon the rubber cloth in my long ribbon-like flaps that came from my head. I scanned the table. Eventually, my eyes landed upon a squat white pumpkin. It was flat large, and round, its segments well defined, a good challenge to carve. Reaching for it with my paws, I grabbed the object pulling it close to me.

Stabbing the top, I struggled against the thick skin to carve out the top stem but eventually, I got it done, pulling the top off. I cut off the sticking insides and tossed them into one of the bins in the center of the table. After the carving was complete, one of the pokemon would sort threw the gunk and fish out all the seeds to be roasted. Reaching into the pumpkin with my bootless paws, I pulled out the slimy insides, tossing them into the bucket. After I had gotten out as much as I could, I grabbed a little orange scraper and ran it across the inside of the flat pumpkin to get out the excess goo. Finally, I was ready to begin carving. The question was, of course, what to carve. Perhaps a face, the fun classic, or maybe mushrooms. I love mushrooms. An idea sprung into my mind, mushrooms with faces, like that cute clipart on the internet. So I began my work gently carving away at the short fruit. Ever so carefully, I carved a mushroom into each segment of the gourd so that one could see one no matter what side it was gazed upon. To finish it off, I poked little holes for eyes and tiny parentheses like mouths. Lifting myself off the bench, I grabbed a thick orange candle from a box nearby and plopped it into the pumpkin, shutting it in by placing the top on.

Grabbing the gourd with my feelers, I slowly carried it over to the steps of the house; it was a short walk, only about ten feet. But it was a slow walk; the pumpkin was heavy and slippery from the slime, and I did not want to drop it. Once I reached the stoop of the house, I placed it gently on the side of the stairs. A few of the other pokemon had completed their pumpkins before Mossy Stone Block had finished setting up the table, like the busier ones such as Gracidea, who I had seen carving elegant flowers a few days earlier. I was surprised she even carved one at all. Glancing back, I could see the other pokemon gathering at the table, some had begun carving, and others were still looking over the assortment of pumpkins to choose from; Carnival the ponta was even beginning to carve with her horn.

“Hey there!” I nearly jumped out of my skin. Whipping around, I saw Shiny standing behind me.

“Oh, hi Shiny, you scared me there,” I replied

“Oop, sorry about that,” they said in their midwestern accent. “Whatcha doing,”

“I just finished carving my pumpkin,” I pushed out my chest in pride

“This one,” he pointed at mine, “pretty cool if you ask me,” I got a sense that he wanted something from me.

“Need anything?” I asked
“No, no,” he paused for a second, “well, actually, I was wondering if you had any, you know, visions recently. Flambe has been saying I need to get out more. So I was looking to go on a, you know, adventure,” 

“Really, you don’t seem to be the adventurous spirit, and no, I have not had any visions recently,” he frowned a little.

“Ahhh, that's ok, the water balloon fight is going to start in a while, and I wanted to watch that,” he said and wandered off to the pumpkin carving table to join his family, which had gathered there. I tilted my head a bit as I watched him go. I loved that strange man.

Suddenly like a sort of plot convenience, I had a vision. Swirling mist surrounded me, and a voice rang out.

“You must save the spirit of autumn and restore peace to the land of the Alola Region. Travel to Blush Mountain and to the geothermal powerplant; there, you will find the one who threatens to consume all,” I saw swirling images, a pokemon, round and large, almost pumpkin-shaped. Then the vision ended as quickly as it began. I would, of course, go ask Shiny if he wanted to join me for this adventure, but first, I needed time to process what I had seen. I climbed up the stairs to the big green house. I squeezed inside the pokeflap and into the house.

I spent the rest of the day sleeping, only to awake the next morning, sadly, I had missed the water balloon fight and other activities, but my dreams led me to some clarification about my vision. I had to travel all the way to Blush Mountain on Ula’ula island in order to defeat some pumpkin-shaped creature to save all of the fall season and perhaps the entire world. It was a very stressful task to be assigned.

Getting up off of Jenna’s bed, where I had slept the night before, I stretched and padded out of the room and downstairs to the living room. There Shiny was sleeping in a little cat bed in the sun.

“Wake up,” I said, prodding him, but he did not budge; he was sound asleep. I poked him harder and harder until he finally awoke groggily.

“Huh, who's there,” he asked, half asleep.

“It's me, Glace; I had a vision we need to go on an adventure,” he quickly sprang to his feet, ready to go.

“Well, what are we waiting for? Let's go!”

First, we needed to find out exactly how we would get to the geothermal power plant; it was a whole two islands away to the east. So naturally, we went to the place where you got to find information. The library? No, the internet; using Jenna’s crappy ancient and slow pc, we looked for the best way to get there, finding that there were two options. We could either take a boat or ferry, or we could go Mantine surfing. Both would be hard to do without Jenna with us; lone pokemon can’t exactly do human activities. We decided to take the mantine to Heahea City on Akala Island and then take a ferry from there to Malie City on Ula’ula Island. First, we would have to get to route two and Big Wave Beach in order to go surfing, a small journey on its own.

The house we lived in was on route two, just on the border of Kala’e Bay, so we would have to go north on the rocky route and then onto route two. I was a bit worried about traveling north on the route; there were many bird pokemon just ready to swoop down and attack us. There were also plenty of trainers that might want to catch rare pokemon like us. They would, of course, be unable to as were are Jenna’s pokemon, but they would not know that as we were traveling without her.

Off we went saying goodbye to Jenna and the others before we left. But before we got very far, we met Gracidea standing in the field outside the house.

“Whatcha doing?” I asked her, and she simply sighed.

“Waiting for Kitty, who is late. She has some screws that I need,”

“Oh, I hope she comes soon,”

“You two are off on an adventure, Quandale told me,”

“Yeah, to save all of the fall season,” Shiny stated proudly. I expected her to laugh, but instead, she looked worried, gazing off into the distance.

“Mmm yes,” she was a strange one, unpredictable, even for a Mr. Mime. As we left her to wait, our journey truly began as we headed north into the rocky gulch.

“What was that all about, you think?” Shiny asked me.

“No idea,” Gracidea is no ordinary Mr. Mime; she was powerful, too powerful. I knew this, of course, from my visions; she had never told anyone about the power she held. I think she was afraid that they would see her differently. Plus, a being like that must have enemies everywhere. As we trodded along, we got some strange glances from the people on the road, but I think they knew that we were domestic pokemon; you don't just see a glaceon wandering about, especially not in the heat of the Alola Region. Luckily no one tried to catch us, yet. We were rare pokemon; glaceon are hard to come by if you don't live by an ice rock or have the right evolution stone, and litten are almost exclusively given out by the pokemon professor. There are some breeders, but they are far and few between. Finding one in the wild is virtually impossible for both of our kinds; that is what I’m trying to say.

“I’m tired,” Shiny suddenly stated.

“What? We have only just left, and there is still time to go back,”

“I know, we just should have brought snacks,” I nodded in agreement, but luckily the region is packed full of berry trees to shake and get a yummy snack. I am also versed in the art of forging. Stopping, we realized we were at the gulch. Shiny gulped loudly. We neither hand the advantage or disadvantage against the flying pokemon that awaited us. We had no choice but to continue on; the fate of the region was in our hands, so we stepped forward onto the hard sandy dirt. It was quiet at first, but we were constantly scanning the area for trainers and the ground for the shadows of bird pokemon. We pressed ourselves up against the natural stone walls as the birds often stuck to the middle of the path. Suddenly we spotted a trainer, and he spotted us, young, wearing a green school uniform from the trainers’ school. He grabbed a pokeball around his waist, ready to cast out a pokemon to battle. We booked it as quickly as we could; Shiny was panting behind me. Soon he was out of site, so we slowed sitting against the wall.

“Trainers, am I, right?” Shiny stated.

“I know, they see a rare pokemon, and they can’t help but annoy it,”

“Should have brought water too,”

“Yeah, hopefully, there will be some when we get to Big Wave Beach. It was always important to carry water when going on an adventure, especially in the heat of the Alola Region. The seasons don't really change; it only gets ever so slightly colder in the fall, so it was not like it was cold or anything. It was, in fact, actually kind of warm and windy, very windy so that we sometimes needed to cover our eyes from the sand that blew around.

After a short break, we stood, ready to continue our journey. But not looking where we were going, I accidentally stepped into the shadow of a bird pokemon. Before I even knew what happened, a rufflet flew down, hitting me. I sustained a tiny bit of damage. I leaped into action, using an ice beam to finish the attacker in one blow. The pokemon shrank down to microscopic size as all pokemon do when they faint. Even though the pokemon attacked me, I was at such a higher level than it.

“Are you ok?” Shiny asked, rushing over to see if I was ok.

“Yeah, I’m fine. I barely took any damage,”

“Still,”

“Really, I’m alright; let's continue on,”

“If you say so, you really don't want to take a break or anything after that,”

“Really, I’m fine; it was just a low-level rufflet,” a rare occurrence as normally rufflet are higher level, at least in other regions, I am told.

Continuing on, we really did our best to stick to the walls, dodging trainers when necessary. Many of them realized that we were domestic pokemon, but others did not try to capture us. Finally, we reached the end of route three, and we stepped onto route two.

The geography of the two routes was very different, route three being dry and canyon-like, whereas route two is just like the rest of the Alola Region, with grassy fields bordered by an ocean on one side and jungle on the other. Shortly into our walk on the new path, we came across I pokecenter on the right side of the trail. Stopping to take a short break, we watched the people buzz around it. There were trainers dashing about to heal their pokemon. Normal citizens go in to stop at the pokemart or cafe inside for a coffee or the like. But we did not stop for long, as we were almost at the beach that housed the Mantine surfing. The short journey to the surfing was boring, and nothing happened that was worth writing down.

Arriving at the beach, we stood on a cliffside that overlooked it. The beach was large and sprawling, with white soft-looking sand. We descended down a slope, past a surfer man, and onto the beach. The sand was soft! One might almost be tempted to roll in it if it would not get stuck in their fur.

Near some large rocks were a few tents, one was selling stuff, and the other housed the mantine surfing equipment.

“New Poke Surfing

Pokemon can now Surf”

Luckily I was able to read, so I read the sign posted outside of the said tent.

“What does it say?” Shiny asked.

“New Poke Surfing, Pokemon can now Surf,” I stated.

“Oh, cool, so we won't have to steal a Mantine,” he giggled a little bit.

We trodded up to the tent where a pale woman was standing. She bent down a little.

“Aww, look at you two! Aren't you adorable? Would you like to go surfing?” she questioned condescendingly. We both simply nodded. “Well, come with me, and we will get you suited up,” she took us over to the water where two mantines were waiting patiently. They wore black harnesses with a pink board attached to stand on. Suddenly I was picked up, and a bit of panic shot threw my body. The woman had lifted me up to set me on the board; she had a bit of trouble lifting me; glaceon are large pokemon, after all. But quickly, as I was lifted, I was put down atop of the pokemon.

“Have you two surfed before?” the woman asked; I nodded, not bothering to learn the rules; how hard could it be? “Well, then I won’t have to repeat them for you two,”

“What about me?” Shiny asked, but the woman could not understand him. People can not understand pokemon, but pokemon can understand people. Well, if a trainer’s bond is strong enough, they can understand what they are saying in a certain type of way.

Anyways she picked up Shiny too, which was much easier as Litten are kind of small; he was still big for a Litten, around the ‘huge’ or ‘giant’ growth. She placed him on the mantine too. Standing before us, she instructed the mantine to turn around and go out to sea.

“Have fun!” She called, “You’ll end up at Heahea City!”

We both gripped onto the handlebars of the board; I gripped them with my feelers too. I went before Shiny, with him following closely, but safely, behind me. Soon we came upon the large wave that would take us to Akala Island. The mantine did most of the work, and I did not really have to instruct it to go anywhere, which I did by leaning to one side or the other. Front or backward to go faster or slower, respectively.

“Bit of an odd activity to do in the fall,” Shiny called out. I turned my head back to him.

“I know, right!” turning back, I saw it, a rock. Quickly I leaned to the right, and the mantine dodged it. Glancing quickly behind me, I saw that Shiny had dogged it too. Maybe this would be a bit more stressful than I had anticipated. Coming up ahead, I saw it, a group of tentacool in the water; we would both have to dodge them all. I crouched down, preparing myself to make quick movements, and Shiny did too him, also seeing them ahead.

Left, left, right, left, right, right, left, left, left, right, and I was out of them; looking behind me, I saw that Shiny had made it too, luckily.

“Woo! That was hard,” he called out.

“Yeah, glad we made it,” I called back. After dodging the tentacool there were only a few more rocks to avoid, one of which had a small little pyukumuku sitting atop it. But finally, we made it to the beach, Heahea beach, to be exact. The Mantine slid gently to the shore where another woman was waiting for us. She was also pale and wearing a yellow shirt.

“Did you two have fun?” she asked before looking about, “wait, where’s your trainer?” Shiny and I looked at each other before dashing off past her and up a pair of stairs into Heahea city. Besides the dimensional research lab, there was not a lot to do in that city.

“Hey, why don’t we check out the dimensional research lab? They might have some information on what we are looking for,” Shiny stated.

“You know that's not a bad idea, but it's getting late; perhaps we could stop by the Tide Song Hotel for the night,” I responded while looking at a map of the area, spotting it nearby.

“I am very tired; I have not traveled this far in, well, ever,” so that was that; we headed over to the hotel. Once we had arrived, we needed to think of a game plan to get in. There was no way they would just let in two random pokemon without trainers. Luckily some new older folks were heading in with their luggage. Shiny and I looked at each other, knowing that if we played our cards right, we could tag along and sneak in.

Closely following the old couple, we moved just outside of their eyesight, padding as quietly as we could. The doors slid open, and we continued after them; ever so quietly as they checked in, we slid over to the elevator, quietly pressing the button. The elevator dinged and slid open, and we rushed inside, desperately pressing the button panel. Nobody followed after us; I guess they all just assumed we were already staying here. Since we had pressed just about every button on the panel, the elevator stopped at almost every floor; we got some weird looks as we ascended from the people waiting to go down. Finally, we made it to the final floor, and we quickly dashed down the hallway, adrenaline still pumping. We made it to the end of the hallway, the both of us looking up at the final door.

“How do we get in?” Shiny asked

“Here, boost me up,” I climbed awkwardly onto his shoulders; luckily, the doors were not magnet locks but rather standard ones that required a physical key instead of a card. I slid out one of my claws, jamming it delicately into the lock and wiggling it about until I heard a click. Jumping down from his shoulders, I reached up, gripping the doorknob with my paws; I turned, and the door opened.

The room was empty of residents or their luggage; the room was, in fact, completely unoccupied. There was a large king bed on the right side and a flat-screen tv across from it. Under it was a decent-sized mini fridge. At the end of the room was an open balcony, wind flowing gracefully into the room. There was also a bathroom and small kitchenette right at the entrance of the room. We both jumped up onto the counter of the kitchenette, Shiny turned on the sink, and we must have spent half an hour lapping up the water. After we had finished, we took a deeper look about the medium blue room, finally coming to the mini-fridge. Opening it up inside was some human food packaged neatly and poke food too in little plastic containers. I pulled them out, and we struggled to open them. They were meant to be opened with human hands after all, but finally, we managed to unveil the yummy insides. The food was so good, and not just because we were hungry from the adventure; the food was expertly crafted by chefs at the hotel restaurant. Not that I knew that, of course.

I padded out onto the balcony, looking out at the setting sun, casting the sky into a brilliant purple-red color. Stars began to twinkle ever so gently. Shiny followed me.

“This has been the adventure of a lifetime; I have never even left Melemele Island before,” he stretched out.

“And we still have even farther to go,” I stated

“Well, I’m going to head off to bed,” he wandered back into the room, jumping onto the plush bed and curled up to drift off to sleep. I stayed put, wanting to watch the sun fully set. As I watched it dip fully beneath the curve of the world, I glanced into the sky, watching a group of murkrow fly by under the brilliant and bright twinkling stars and moon. Finally, after I had been sitting for a while, I got up, stretched, and leaped up onto the bed, snuggling up against Shiny.

I awoke to Shiny prodding me awake.

“Are you ready to go yet? Are you ready to go yet?” he questioned incessantly.

“What?” I asked, still half asleep.

“Are you ready to continue the adventure?” I struggled to my feet and wiped the sleep dust out of my three eyes.

“Give me a minute. I need to eat first,” Shiny pushed an open container of pokefood towards me.

“Right, thanks,” I leaned down, gobbling it up. Finally, I stretched, leaping off the bed with a wobbly thud. Out the door, we went on our way.

“Remember we are going to the Dimensional Research Lab down the road to see if they know anything about this disaster,”

“I know, I know,” I replied, still groggy; I was not quite a morning person. We slunk out of the hotel, but nobody paid us any mind; like I said before, they must have thought that we were really staying there. Out the sliding glass doors, we went onto the roundabout, following the short road, we came to a turn, going left, we traveled down the street past a pokecenter and other buildings until we had arrived at the Dimensional Research Lab. Shiny and I looked at each other, puffing out our chests pretending to belong. That was the only way we would ever be allowed to stay inside; it was not like some large building where we could slink about. We entered the building, spotting a pc in the corner of the room; as we looked about, we saw that there was not a single person in here. In fact, the place looked completely abandoned. We shrugged at each other and headed over to the pc. I leaped up onto the chair, I knew how to read, so I was, of course, the one to use the machine.

Pressing the ‘on’ button, I prayed that it would turn on; luckily, it did, and a screen popped up. But it was asking for a password.

“What's it say?” Shiny asked.

“It's asking for a password,” I scanned the messy desk, my eyes stopping at a yellow post-it note that read,

“Password

Jigsaw”

Plopping it into the keyboard, I clicked enter as I had seen Jenna do so many times before. Miraculously it opened to a screen, “it worked,” I mumbled. The screen was blank but had a search bar. Slowly I typed ‘the one who threatens to consume all.’ The results showed a strange-looking pokemon, large and blue, with the largest mouth I had ever seen. I turned the monitor to Shiny,

“This is it, the pokemon from my vision,” Shiny stood up on his hind legs, taking a closer look.

“So this is what we will find on Ula’ula Island? How will we ever defeat something like that?”

“Uhh, the power of friendship?”

“Right,” Quickly, we both whipped around as the doors opened; two men in strange-looking outfits walked in. 

“What? Two pokemon!” One stated loudly. We rushed to bolt out the door, but they blocked it. “Oh no, you are not going anywhere,” Shiny and I prepared for a fight, a double battle. One man set out a snorunt, and the other a caterpie. I lunged forwards, biting the snorunt; it did a large amount of damage, almost causing it to faint. The caterpie lunged at Shiny using bug bite; it did a little damage but not something not to be shy about. Shiny moved next using ember, which knocked out the caterpie instantly, the trainer recalled his pokemon. Finally, the snorunt moved, it used ice shard against me, but it barely did any damage. It was now my turn to move again, so I decided to use mirror coat. The snorunt moved next, using its held item quick claw to pass Shiny. Luckily it attacked me using another ice shard. But the move ricocheted back at it knocking itself out. The trainer called it back. “Defeated by two wild pokemon, I can’t believe it,” one of the trainers said.

“How embarrassing,” the other said. Quickly we rushed out of the building and in between their legs. We stopped in the field outside across the road.

“Are you ok?” I asked Shiny if he had taken a fair bit more damage than I had.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he panted; he did look ok besides a few scrapes, “are you ok,”

“Fine as ever,” I replied. I had barely taken any damage, but the mirror coat had taken a bit out of me. After pausing for a bit, we walked into Heahea City and down to the dock where a boat was waiting to depart to Malie City. There was a decently long line of people waiting to get onto the boat. Sulking past them, we sneaked over to the side of the boat, I jumped up, and Shiny came up after me, who I had to help pull up. The boat itself was nice, kind of grimy as many seafaring vesicles are. I had read on the side of the ship before that it was known as Costly Bounty.

“I’ve never been on a boat before; I hope that I don't get seasick,” Shiny said

“Mmm, I’ve been on many boats before, traveling around the islands to prevent disasters, you know,”

“Do you like the sea,” he asked as the boat took off.

“I mean kind of; I don't really like to swim; Syl does, though, I don't really have any strong feelings towards it,”

“I feel you,”

“Do you like the sea?”

“Yeah, on hot summer days definitely, but as it is getting into fall, not a lot of people really go to the beach. It helps that we live right next to one, though,”

“Yeah,” I paused for a moment, “I hope we aren't missing too many fall activities; Halloween is coming up, so everyone wanted to get them done this weekend. But I'm kind of hoping they saved some for us. Then again, I don’t know how long we will be gone,”

“What if we went missing?” Shiny worried

“Gracidea would always come find us,”

“How would she know where we are?”

“She is just strong like that,” we gazed out onto the horizon of the sea, watching the waves bob back and forth. We watched the water pokemon swim about, the magikarp swarming the boat waiting for someone to drop some sort of food overboard. Soon we could see it on the horizon, Ula’ula Island and its twin peaks, Mount Lanakila, home of the pokemon championship, and Mount Hokulani, home of the Hokulani Observatory. Both of which we would not be visiting on this trip, sadly. I had always wanted to look out and see the sights. Or go frolic in the snow, maybe see some others of my kind, but I don't think they are around there.

Finally, the boat came to a stop and the dock, and we hopped off. Malie City was a beautiful place with a large expansive garden that I had always meant to go to but now was not that day. Walking along the road from the port, we glanced at shops selling all sorts of goods such as everstones and other held items, berries, and trinkets of all sorts. Sadly we could not stop to browse, not that we had any money, and I had left my cloak at home, so there were no pockets to carry anything in. It was probably for the best that we did not stop to buy anything; no need for extra clutter when the house was being redone too. Eventually, after walking for a little bit, we came to a fork in the road, one of many on this journey. Reading the sign at the fork, I turned to go left, as that way was the way to the geothermal power plant. The path was incredibly quiet aside from the light tooting of trumbeak in the distance; it was quite serene. The grassy and windey road was soft beneath our feet, but it did not last, and soon we came upon the rocky route 12. Reading the sign at the beginning of the route, it read something about the route being wild and hard to traverse.

“What does it say?” Shiny asked.

“Basically, that the road will be hard to travel upon. If only we had a mudsdale to gallop it for us,”

“But we do not, does Jenna even?” I shook my head

“No, I think she only has charizard; that would have been very useful,”

“Yeah, but you can only fly to places you have been, and neither of us have been here before, right?” I nodded in response. So we started upon the sandy rough road, but we quickly came aross the first unpassable area where a mudsdale would be required to cross.

“I have an idea,” I said before readying an ice beam attack to freeze the ground in front of us. It would be difficult; I had to make it sturdy enough for us to walk upon but not cold enough to burn Shiny’s feet. I was an ice type, so I did not need to worry about things like freezer burn. Out came the attack; it was a small frozen path. I darted across it, quickly sliding across. We had to hurry, or it would melt in the bright Alolan sun; even though it was fall, the sun still shone down harshly. Shiny was not so brave about crossing the ice bridge; putting one foot out, he tested the path making sure it would not crack. “You can do it!” I called out to him. He, too, ran across but slipped and fell, sliding all the way off on the other side where I was. “Haha, are you ok?” I giggled, pulling him up.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine,” he said grouchily, shaking the sand out of his coat. I only had to do the ice beam path once more. I readied the attack and fired, accidentally freezing over the entire rocky terrain. I slid over to the side, taking a split path. Shiny followed.

“Ow!” he exclaimed, looking at his paw.

“Oh! Did I burn it?” I worried

“Yeah, just a bit. I did not take that much damage,”

“I am so sorry!”

“Don’t worry about it; it's not like you meant to,” I nodded in remorse feeling badly that I had hurt my friend.

Having taken a split path, we looked forwards to seeing a winding road rather than more rocks; looking back; we could see the ice melting already; so there was no choice but to move forwards. We dashed forwards through some tall grass, but the both of us made it to the other side safely. Next, there was another patch of tall grass, but there was a small path around the outside of it, just small enough for us to follow, which we did. Finally, there was another patch of tall grass; we dashed through it but were stopped by a mudbray. It was a small animal; before Shiny could leap forwards, I lept ahead; ice is strong against ground, after all. Shiny simply stayed back to cheer me on, it would not be a fair fight, one against two, and fire types are weak against ground. The poke lept forwards using stomp, which I just happened to dodge. I used an ice beam which it also dodged. Next, the pokemon called for help, calling another pokemon, another mudbray to its side. Shiny left forwards, evening the odds even though he was weak against them. I used another ice beam to hit the mudbray that had attacked me, and I knocked it out. The other mudbray attacked Shiny using stomp wich did a good amount of damage. He used a tail whip attack against said mudbray, lowering its defense. I then used yet another ice beam attack, one shooting it.

Quickly I rushed to Shiny’s side to check to see if he was ok.

“Are you ok?” I asked; he had taken a lot of damage on this journey.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine; I think I just need to rest for a minute,” he replied.

“First, let us get out of this grass,” I said, leading him out of said tall grass and back onto the path. We rested under the shade of a canyon wall for quite a while, actually, until finally, Shiny stood.

“I’m ok now; let's keep going. I just never want to go on an adventure again; I mean, we could be doing fun holiday crafts,”

“True, true,” I said solemnly, missing what we were missing, “but all of Alola, even all of the world, is in our hands,” Shiny nodded tiredly.

We squeezed through the tight canyon and out into the open. Once in the opening, I looked up, reading the sign before us,

“Blush Mountain

Geothermal Power Plant”

“It says that the geothermal power plant is right ahead,” I stated happily. Glad that our journey was almost halfway done. After this, we would only need to get back, and going back always feels shorter than going someplace new.

Entering up the mountain, we stopped, and there was nothing before us. It was just some old, slightly rundown building. There was a sign which I strode over to and read aloud to Shiny,

“‘The Blush Mountain Geothermal Power Plant provides for most of Ula’ula’s power needs,’ this must be the disaster foretold; if this is destroyed, Ula’ula could be without power or worse. I mean, think of the hospitals,”

“Who knows how big the explosion would be, too,” Shiny stated, and I nodded in agreement.

A static feeling filled the air and our hairs stood on end, maybe because of the aura, maybe because of fear we ourselves did not even know. Then there was but a glimmer behind the powerplant. It almost looked like the setting sun at first, but then it got brighter and more shimmery. Before expanding into a full-blown portal. The portal was large and blue, about three stories tall. Suddenly something came crawling through, a pokemon. It, too was around three stories tall; it was round and orange, with the face of a terrifying smiling jack o’ lantern. It had purple tusks coming out from its mouth and bat wing-like eyebrows protruding from its face with a pair of purple horns. It had snappers coming from its behind and mouth. The flesh was not that of flesh but the skin of a pumpkin. 

It screamed,

“Guzzzzzlooord lordddd lord,” Guzzlord, that must have been its name; if not, that is what it was called now.

“This must be one of those ultra beasts,” Shiny exclaimed quietly as we hid behind the sign, hoping that it would not see us.

“Yeah, that must be why we can not understand it,” I replied quietly. But our quietness was in vain; the beast had spotted us. With its large claw-like appendages, it reached down and snapped at us, but we dodged Dark Souls style to the left, both of us, that is. But the creature had us right where we wanted it; its claws surrounded us to the right and the left; there were only two directions we could go, backward or forwards. Although Shiny was trembling and I was too at least a little bit, there was no retreat; we lept forwards into the building of the geothermal power plant. We had only a little while to figure out what to do before the guzzlord figured out where we were.

“What do we do?” Shiny exclaimed, terrified.

“There must be something in here that can help us,” I responded, looking desperately about the room. Most of it was barrels and other sorts of junk but right at the entrance was a set of controls and a chair in front. I leaped up onto the chair, “Quickly start pushing random buttons,”

“What if the whole thing explodes,”

“It won’t; I have faith,” I said, getting the feeling that some sort of being would protect us. We would not have been sent here to stop this being if we would destroy all of Ula’ula’s power in the prosses. We rapidly started pushing the random buttons, most of which just move about random machines. Suddenly the whole building shook; the guzzlord had found us. It ripped off a part of the ceiling part of the roof, breaking off and falling. Falling right onto the controls cruising them, they were completely and totally unusable. We rushed outside; not wanting to be shocked. The guzzlord grabbed at us but suddenly, a beam of electricity and power shot up from the hole in the roof, hurting the guzzlord; the ray was so powerful it knocked the pokemon back and dealt it so much damage that it almost fainted. With an ice beam from me and an ember from Shiny, the pokemon fainted, falling back into the portal, which promptly closed behind it. The ray of light collapsed, and we rushed back into the plant, looking to see if all of Ula’ula had lost its power. A gauge on one of the walls read that the power was stable. Although the controls were destroyed, some sort of backup system must have gone into effect to keep the power running. On the other side of the room were two pokebeds that we had not even noticed in the struggle; the sun had completely set too, and a peaceful night had fallen over the land. But it was not peaceful for us as Shiny paced across the room.

“What if it comes back?” he questioned.

“It won’t,”

“How do you know it won't?”

“Because I have faith, and if it does, then we will find a way to stop it again,”

“And if we can’t,” I simply shook my head; I was far too tired for these questions as the adrenaline faded.

“Then another will; this world is full of all sorts of heroes; just think of the champion,” this seemed to calm him down a bit. “Now, let's go to bed,” we each curled up on one of the pokebeds, but my sleep was restless; Shiny kept kicking me after all. But in the tiny bit of sleep I did have; I had another vision.

“Good work, my child, now return to me at the Hau’oli Cemetary near Hau’oli city,” I made out a figure almost like that of a deer. I awoke with a start, prodding Shiny to wake up.

“Wake up; it's not over,” I said, and he jumped to his feet.

“It’s coming back?” he asked, terrified.

“No, no, we need to go to Hau’oli City Cemetary; there, we will meet my mysterious vision giver,” He only sighed.

“So we have not saved all of fall yet; we are missing out on so many activities,”

“I know, but I must say that I think this is a bit more important than carving pumpkins and baking pies,”

“I know, I know your, right,” he said disappointedly.

“But who knows, there might be some sort of reward, plus Ula’ula beach is right outside the mountain, we can just take a mantine back to Big Wave Beach; I saw a sign,” I stated, and Shiny looked a bit happier.

“At least there is that,” he replied, partially unamused.

Suddenly two policemen busted into the building, followed by two workers.

“Yeah, so there was a big explosion; everything power-wise is working well- pokemon?” one of the workers exclaimed, pointing at us. We got up, dashing through their legs and down the sloop. It was only a short run to the beach, where we stopped on the soft sand for a breather.

“Oh, you two again! Would you like to surf again?” she questioned, patting us both on the heads. We looked at each other, and I rolled my eyes; turning back to her, I nodded.

She situated us back upon the mantine; they purred with delight, the same ones as before; they recognized us. It was a smooth ride back; the sea was calm for the autumn weather. That is one thing that changes with the seasons, the sea, and how rocky it is. Luckily the fall was still dawning upon us, and it was far from dangerous to travel upon with the mantines. There were but a few rocks and tentacool that we needed to dodge. But the most dangerous thing about the journey was a tentacruel that tried to destroy us, even following us for a little while. The tentacruel was very large but was thus pretty slow, so our mantine rides could quickly outswim it. Sliding onto the beach of the other side, we landed smoothly, jumping off onto the soft sand of Big Wave Beach of Melemele island. It was a bit hard to walk at first; the trip had given us sea legs just a little bit. Luckily it was a short walk to the cemetery. But we walked slowly; the adventure had taken a lot out of us, but we were definitely glad to be back on our home island. We were both just hoping that this mysterious stranger would not have us travel about different islands but somehow, I knew that they would not.

Shiny suddenly stopped; he was looking at the berry fields; suddenly, I realized just how hungry I was.

“Let's stop. Maybe the owners will let us eat some of the berries if we act cute enough,” I said hungrily. We entered the fields with our cutest faces on, at least that we could muster in our current tired states. Only to be greeted by Sniffle, the arcanine scorbunny fusion. He was a large pokemon, about half the size of a car and as tall as one. He had the build of an arcanine with the ears and bold markings of a scorbunny.

“Heya, back from your trip?” he said, pushing two berrys towards us. Before we could respond, we had gobbled up the berries quicker than quicksilver.

“Yeah, well, not quite,” I responded, “we still need to go to the cemetery to see the one who summoned us all about the islands,”

“Yeah, hopefully, they won’t make us do any more traveling,” Shiny said, flicking his ear.

“Well, Jenna put all the activities on hold until you two got back,”

“Just for us?” Shiny asked

“Yes- well, kind of Gracidea and Kitty are also missing; Jenna says that some portal sucked them up, but I’m sure they will be fine,” Shiny and I looked at each other, “well I have to get these berries back to the ranch,” he said hooking himself up to a wooden trailer and prancing off berries in tow. After our short break, we continued on, finally making it to the cemetery. We did not even have to go in before the pokemon appeared before us. It was a sawsbuck, fall form with the most gigantic antlers one had ever seen; upon them were a bush load of fall leaves.

“Hello,” it said in a mystical voice, “I am the one from your visions, and I have called you here for one final task,” they said.

“Look, person, you have had us travel all about the region to defeat some strange pokemon. We don't owe you anything,” Shiny snipped. He was obviously quite tired.

“You misunderstand, dear traveler, the task is nothing strenuous; I am the guardian of fall; all of the autumn is my dominion. You have protected fall by defeating the beast who threatened to consume all the world. Not only that, but the beast would have destroyed autumn as a concept itself. There is but one task left that can protect the autumn season,” they paused dramatically, “to celebrate it,”

“That’s it,” I gasped, slightly confused; the sawsbuck nodded. That was all we needed to do, return to the ranch and celebrate with Jenna and the other pokemon. Luckily they were waiting for us so we could have the optimal amount of celebrating.

“Yes, now leave me and celebrate,” the beast demanded before fading back into the jungle. Shiny and I looked at each other stunted.

“I guess we have no choice,” I said; he simply nodded in response to stunted to speak. After pausing for a bit, we were off; having to travel back home, we unspokenily decided to take the other way back home; it may have been longer, but at least there was not really a chance to be attacked by wild pokemon as most of the path was outside of the tall grass.

Following route two down south, we kept up a steady pace before quickly coming across a pokestop. The outside had been decorated with all sorts of holiday decorations, from bats to pumpkins to ghosts. Shiny was still damaged pretty badly, and I was still damaged a bit, too, so we decided to head in. The inside was decorated for Halloween too. The restaurant now served holiday drinks such as pumpkin spice lattes and the such. We wandered up to Nurse Joy, who wore I witch’s hat.

“Oh, hello, little pokemon do you need some healing, you both look to be in rough shape,” she chimed, and we both jumped atop the counter. She picked us up, placing us on a metal countertop. “This might sting a little bit, but it will help you heal quickly,” She pulled out two potions. Spraying us both down, we flinched as the potion hit us; it did sting a little but not that bad. Shacking out my coat, I hopped back down, Shiny following me, and we headed out the door.

It was one left turn and we entered Hau’oli City’s shopping district. We looked at all the shop windows as we walked by; they had all sorts of decorations in the windows showing the holiday spirit, art of spooky ghost pokemon, and other nocturnal pokemon like hoothoot and zubat.

“We should get something,” Shiny chirped, “For the holiday spirit and all,”

“Yeah, but we don't have any money,” I replied sadly. Suddenly a street vendor came over to us, placing light-up bat-shaped necklaces around us. Along with strapping little witch’s hats to our heads. He handed us both little plush pumpkins before unicycling off.

“Well, that does it,” I replied, slightly embarrassed about my new attire. Shiny prodded his hat a bit uncomfortably. We shrugged at each other a bit confused about what just happened, but I chalked it up to the holiday spirit in the air, both literally and metaphorically. Picking up the plush pumpkins in our mouths, we carried on taking in the holiday scenery. Little kids were running all about dressed in all sorts of costumes; I had completely forgotten that Iki Town’s Halloween fireworks show was tomorrow night. I had actually forgotten what day it was entirely; being a pokemon, these are not really things one needs to know. Alas, we continued our journey passed the beachfront and trainer school until we had made it to follow that up. We continued onto route three until finally, finally, we were home. 

A feeling of serenity washed over me as I saw the big green house and as Shiny and I stepped into the rolling fields outside the house. We were finally home. As we crossed the field, I felt the grass, or well weeds, beneath my feet. Although it was a bit difficult to walk on it, felt great to be home. As we approached the entrance of the home, we saw Gracidea and Kitty, they had returned from their adventure like I knew they would, but a large pokemon was also standing beside them, an entei. But there was no time for that now. The sun was just beginning to set, and I could have slept for hours. Jenna opened the door welcoming all of us back in, including the giant new pokemon. She lifted Shiny and me up into her arms and carried us to her room, placing us in our respective pokebeds, too tired to even eat. We were both still full from the berries earlier too.

The next morning after I had eaten, I sat upon the small porch stoop of the house, all the pumpkins had been carved, so it was pretty crowded. Now the day was to be spent wasted playing all sorts of fall games like apple bobbing and leg races. There were now leaves that had fallen from the Alola region trees, so sadly, we could not play in those. Getting up, I trodded over to where Mossy Stone Block was preparing a bucket of water for the apple bobbing. I pulled over one of the many bags of apples to her and opened it up, dumping it in as the water filled higher and higher until it almost was spilling out. Wandering about, I looked to see if anyone else needed help, but they did not. Finally, it was time for the games to begin and the true spirit of autumn to be returned to the land.

Ironically the first activity was apple bobbing; it was a difficult game with no powers aloud I did not even make the top five, which were:

1 Bruno the new entei

2 Banana the victreebel

3 Nippy the emolga

4 Bumble the skitty/alcremie fusion

5 Flambe the eevee

I did not even place as I said; I was still pretty tired from the adventure, so I was hazy when it came to doing these activities.

The next activity was a race; we were to ride upon some of the bigger pokemon to make it to the finish line. The rideable pokemon were Sniffle, Bruno, Noise the noivern, and Carnaval and Carousel the ponytas. Some chose to go without a ride, such as Jessica the ponyta and XD the crobat. The teams were as follows.

Upon Sniffle was Shiny, Silver the shiny eevee, Peekaboo the shiny emolga and I. 

On Noise were Bart the charjabug, Qundale the galarian meowth, Gremlin the darumaka, and Lace the carbink.

Finally, on Bruno road, Nippy, Mousy the cottenee, Flambe the eevee, and Bumble.

We road swiftly, hanging on for dear life so as not to fall off and hurt ourselves. Only Mousy fell but being a cottenee, she did not even hit the ground and thus luckily did not hurt herself. Sadly she was promptly disqualified from the race.

“This sure is something!” I called out to Shiny, who I was gripping.

“Yeah,” he called back, the wind making it slightly hard to hear, “But it sure is fun; I just still can’t believe this is all the autumn spirit wanted us to do,”

“I know, right,” I called back. Soon we made it to the finish line. The roap had already been broken, but I was confident that we placed in the top three. The placements were as follows:

1 XD

2 Bruno and his team

3 Sniffle and his team

We had placed! We were still third, but it was better than not placing at all. Shiny and I hi-fived each other and the rest of our team, giving good games to the other pokemon that both won and lost. That is what I really love about the ranch, that no matter who wins or losses, we are all winners, especially in the eyes of Jenna. Even the pokemon that don’t participate in the games.

The final event besides the festival and trick or treating, which would take place next week Wednesday, was the bag race. The pokemon would be placed in bags, and then we could hop across the field to try to make it to the other side. Flying or powers was not allowed. It was apparently very difficult for Jenna to find sacks big enough to fit all the pokemon, and some of them had to come custom. Not all the bags were of the same material; that was the cost of having so many pokemon of different sizes.

As each and every pokemon was fitted into a bag, besides those that did not want to participate and would rather stand and watch, we stood at the starting line. The path was the exact same as the other race, and we had to make it to the other side of the field. Jenna whistled, and we began; I was neck and neck with Shiny; our bond was new and fresh. I had never really spent time with him before our adventure, so it had definitely surprised me when he asked to travel with me. We were not strangers, but we had not been close either, more like acquaintances, kind of. We hopped along, glaring into each other's eyes; winning against the other pokemon did not matter; only winning against each other, we had become both friends and rivals. It never accrued to us that we had even crossed the finish line until Jenna yelled at us to stop. She came jogging over to us.

“It's a tie!” she announced, holding up our paws in victory. There would be no rerace. We would have to live with the fact that we were as good at sack racing as each other for the rest of our lives.

Jenna went about handing out the meddles to all of us, they were fake, and plastic; Shiny and I both got a gold one for coming in first at the race and another bronze one for coming in third at the other race. We also got a black one as a participation trophy for the apple bobbing, as everyone who did not place got. Three medals in total, I wondered where I would place them; maybe I would just stash them away under my bed to look at when I needed a pick-me-up.

Finally, it was time to head over to the fireworks festival as the sun would begin to set soon. All of the pokemon on the ranch came with even Electro, the hostile mareep, and Arsenic, the mischievous arbok. All came down to the fireworks festival.

It was only a very short walk to Iki Town, as it was just around the bend. The town was packed with people from the nearby Hau’oli city and even other islands as well. Some came to visit family, others just for fun. There were street vendors lined up and selling items like hats, masks, and food. I overheard a conversation between Shiny and his family, Bumble the skitty alcremie fusion, and Flambe the eevee.

“Go have fun with your friend,” Bumble said lovingly, “We will be fine,”

“Yeah, dad, we will,” said Flambe.

“Are you two really sure?” he questioned

“Yes,” they said in sync. So off he came over to me.

“Do you maybe want to hang out for the festival, that is,” he seemed a bit nervous about being declined.

“Yeah, what about your family, though?” I responded

“They will be fine without me; they are going to hang out with Sniffle and Bruno, I think,”

“I’d be glad to have you around; let's get something to eat; I have not eaten since this morning,” I said

“Yeah, me too,” We began to wander about, looking for what would be the best food. We suddenly stopped by one of the vendors; the smell was so good it was sucking us both in.

“Hello, little pokemon,” the man at the shop said, “would you like some food,” we nodded, and I pointed at the takoyaki; Shiny pointed at the same; they just smelled that good. He handed them to us, and we gripped the sticks in our mouths. I pulled out some pokedollars from my coat which I now wore, the weather was much colder tonight, and it really did feel like fall. I gave the man the money, and Shiny and I wandered away. Spotting a bench, we headed over, jumping up onto it.

The takoyaki was amazing, the best that I had ever had, not that I had eaten a lot of them. Shiny had, on the other hand, had plenty of takoyaki.

“These are really good, some of the best I have ever had,” that made me a bit sad, that almost all the others I would eat would not compare to these. As we were sitting, a man on a megaphone made an announcement.

“Attention, everyone! The fireworks are starting; let’s give it a countdown!

5

4

3

2

1”

The crowd shouted with him. Off went the first firework, glistening as it shoot up into the sky. Then suddenly, in an array of purple and orange, it exploded, wringing “Happy Halloween!” into the sky; everyone cheared as they watched the sky with delight. The explosion hurt my large ears a bit, but I barely noticed as more fireworks were shot up into the sky. Pumpkins and jack o lanteurns, ghosts, and ghouls were just some of the shapes projected into the say in dazzling light. I knew as we stood there that the autumn season was saved.