This might, perhaps, be a good place to explain the Island Challenge system before we send Enya on her first Trial.

First, a word (okay, several dozen) about how all the games have been structured until Sun and Moon.  In almost all Pokémon games, the player's trainer character treks all over his home region catching Pokémon (well, that hasn't changed...) and honing their abilities in hopes of challenging the region's eight Gym Leaders.  Each Gym Leader specialises in training a different type of Pokémon - Water, Rock, Ghost and so on.  When the player-character wins one of these battles, the Gym Leader gives him a Badge - the Cascade Badge from the Water-type Gym, for example, or the Boulder Badge from the Rock Gym.  Once the trainer has collected all eight Gym badges, he is sent to battle with the Elite Four, the top four trainers in the whole region.  If he defeats them, he gets to take on the last person who did so: the reigning Pokémon League Champion.  Should the trainer become Champion himself, he can expect a parade of challengers in turn.

In Alola, by contrast, there are no Gyms, no Champions, no Elite Four (or at least there haven't been; Professor Kukui is attempting to establish a Pokémon League for the Alola Region).  Instead, an up-and-coming trainer is given an amulet and sent on what's called the Island Challenge: Seven Captain's Trials, each against a specific Pokémon type, spread out over the four Islands of Alola.  Once the challenge-goer has completed all the Trials on a particular Island, she gets to battle that Island's Kahuna in a Grand Trial.  Each of the Kahunas also favors a particular type of Pokémon.  So...seven Trials and four Kahuna battles, covering eleven of the eighteen known Pokémon types.  And after each Trial, including the Grand Trials, the challenge-goer is awarded the Z-crystal for that move-type.  There are other Z-crystals that are unique to particular species of Pokémon, and crystals for the remaining types are rumored to be hidden in various places around the Islands.  The idea is to find, earn, or win them all.

Now, some of this lines up with the League system; the Trial sites could be said to function as Gyms, with the Captains as more-or-less Gym Leaders.  You could even call the Z-crystals "badges", although they're a helluva lot more useful in battle.  But the philosophy behind the Island Challenge couldn't be more different if it tried.  Completing the Island Challenge doesn't make you King or send other Trainers looking for your hide to tack onto the wall.  There are no ranks, no titles to defend.  It just makes you yet another of the strongest Trainers in Alola, and if you want to get together with the others for a friendly team battle, why, you can, and it doesn't cost anyone a title or their prestige.  It's not a competition with others at any level above the individual battle; just a test of a Trainer's own strength, in which the only real "rival" is herself.

So let's see how Enya-pen does in her first Captain's Trial.  I'd flop, I know that...because it's against Normal-types.  ;-b

  -:-  -:-  -:-

As it turned out, even after all that day's excitement, Enya was just getting warm.  Checking the engines and the wing-load balance before an Epic.  Bombing.  Run.  Went like this:

There was a patch of tall grass between her and the next Pokémon Center, so since she had no choice but to stomp through it, she did so long enough to find the Spearow and the Cutiefly.  Then she 'boarded' her higher-level Pokémon and brought out the weaker ones, and they went grass-stomping some more so's she could level them up a bit.  Her team is like Little League--everybody gets a chance to play.

But she knew this was all just stalling for time before the actual Captain's Trial, so once everybody'd had their workout, she went back to the Center, had some refreshments (Tapu Cocoa!), loaded up on potions and Pokébeans, and put a LOT of thought into who she was gonna take with her into that cavern.  She caught about a crapload of Pokémon yesterday, so there were a lot of choices.  She picked:

  -  Tayu, Dartrix (of course)
  -  Pity-Kitty, Persian
  -  Senator Sam, Yungoos
  -  Nepomuk, Slowpoke
  -  Tae Quon Lee, Makuhita (a Sumo-wrestler Pokémon)
  -  Tron, her trusty Magnemite



...and made her way to Verdant Cavern, where she met Captain Ilima and began her Trial.

The Cavern was beautiful, and she just stood there for a while, taking it all in...oh, and scoping out ramps, ledges, bridges and other means of getting from one "platform" to the next.  She spotted some hidden Items, too, and scooped them up.  And nothing too scary happened at first; she had to fight a few random 'mons who jumped out at her, then, umm, "persuade" two Team Skull goons (what the heck were they doing in there!!) to GTFO or at least stay out of the way.  But then she had to take on the Island's "Totem Pokémon", a much larger and more powerful version of a regular 'mon, raised by Captain Ilima himself and possessing a demigodly aura.  And what was this creature? --A dang Gumshoos!!  Ohh, Senator Sam got a kick out of that one...

One thing that Alolan Pokémon can do that Pokés from other regions cannot is summon other Pokémon for help in battle.  After Enya's team landed the first hit, Totem Gumshoos did just that, and next thing you know she's facing another Yungoos as well, and had to divide Tayu's attacks between them...  Nonetheless, she defeated the Totem Pokémon of Melemele Island, and thought she felt the eyes of Tapu Koko itself on her as she claimed her prize: The Normal-type Z-crystal, the first one she'd won rather than gotten bundled with a Pokémon.

Only then was she allowed out of the caverns.  And her friends, Hau, Professor Kukui and even Lillie, were out there to greet and congratulate her.  But the Trial was far from over.  FAR from it.  Turns out that was just loading the cargo bay, because the real Trial...was to defeat Kahuna Hala himself.  Oh, not immediately; he didn't ambush her as she emerged; that would've been incredibly rude and not at all Hawaiian.  Na, he walked her to the village where she'd had her very first battle and let her come to him when she was ready.

At length, and after spending a while feeding and pampering her team, she did...and much to her own very great surprise and Kahuna Hala's delight, she defeated him.  He gave her another Z-crystal (Fighting-type), taught her how to ride a Tauros, stamped her Trainer Passport, and told her she was good to go for the next Island.

BUT! ...She had one unfinished errand, besides finding a Drifloon for that lady: Random sent her off to the only as-yet-unexplored part of Melemele: Ten Carat Hill, which is actually an extinct volcano with a beautiful, peaceful and very large meadow where the crater used to be.  Think Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania, the archetypal African savannah habitat, and you'll get the picture.  And whyyyyy did Random send her there? --It's the only place in the whole of Alola where she could find a Rockruff.  Player knowledge?  Heck Yeah!!  But she has an in-game excuse; Professor Kukui has a Rockruff, and she fell in love with him and wanted one too.

Well, savannahs-in-a-crater tend to be pretty densely populated with wildlife, and so it was for Enya: She caught another half-crapload of Pokémon before she finally found her Little Dog.  But she did!  And so, after an 18-hour day and almost three hours of nonstop battling at her highest levels yet, she came staggering home and plopped into her bed...where, this morning, her mom's Meowth had to use an Awaken potion on her to make sure she gets to the marina on time.

 - - -

Off to Akala Island next.  But first, that Drifloon; and since battling really worked up everyone's appetites, she's out of Pokébeans again.

[Verdant Cavern, Melemele Island]

Today, our li'l Enya...

  o  Helped Trial Captain Illima take on a pair of grunts from Team Skull.  That't the first time the game music turned ugly...some kind of fuzzy grunge/rap/scratchy-disc nonsense.  Enya thoroughly humiliated her grunt just to make the Bad Noise go away!

  o  Got battled by the selfsame Captain as kind of a "Thank You"...you know, sort of like "Do that again, I was kinda busy the first time"?  He might have gone easy on her, or at least she didn't embarrass herself...

  o  Took on a couple of minor favors for people she met in town: She's supposed to find a Drifloon (li'l balloon-critter ) for one lady, a Cutiefly for another, and a Spearow for a little girl who wants to trade her Machop.  (Enya needs a Fighting-type...)




  o  Caught an Abra(!)  That's a big deal, because they teleport away at the first sign of a battle; this was her fifth attempt.

  o  Caught a Growlithe!  *That's* a big deal because it evolves into Arcanine, Random's Number One favorite from the first generation.  Also, she desperately needed a Fire Pokémon to keep other people's flamethrowers from toasting her poor widdle Grass Owl.

  o  Caught a Slowpoke and immediately put him to work - he's the first team member to have any Psychic moves.

  o  Caught a Smeargle (little artist-dog), which is F'ing hard to do because as soon as you use a move, he learns it and can use it back!

Annnnd...Tayu evolved into a Dartrix.  (His final form, Decidueye, should explain the Robin Hood association.)

And-and...Pity-Kitty is now an Alolan Persian.




Yes, all the "new hires" have names, including Tsanten (the Abra) and Pepper (the Growlithe).  And No, I do not intend to illustrate Enya's entire Pokédex.   ]{;o)

   

~ Pushy Americans, ~ Brenda thought; Rick was skipping straight to the main topic.  "Didn't ask about Ash's day," she replied curtly.  "I asked about yours.  As far as I know, you've been in here ever since we brought that little Ikran home.  I saw we've gotten your aircraft outta sight and laid down the first layer of camo on these shacks.  What else happened yesterday?  You know me, I'm a day-sleeper by necessity now.  We'll get to Ash's link in a little bit; but in the meantime, I'm asking what I missed."

Completely unexpectedly, a very muzzy female voice came from the "habitation" section of the HabMod.  "Yeah, I'd kinda like to hear about that too..." said Ash from behind the bulkhead that divided the sleeping area from the kitchen.

Brenda really hoped nobody saw her levitate a quarter of an inch out of her chair...

[OOC:]

...'cause that'd be "conduct unbecoming a badass."  *g*

By now Rick knew Brenda well enough to know that she wasn't the one to dive headfirst into a conversation. Plus, to be honest, it was nice to see someone enjoy the simple joy of having a good cup of coffee. It kinda made this small step from mere surviving to having small luxuries and valuing them. Probably the same like those wicker plates and baskets that would be in the making.

So, while Brenda tasted her coffee he smelled the still warm arepas - another one of those little, nice things to have. "I know you already had one, but want something to go with a second arepa?", he asked, opening the small fridge, checking on what was inside. "Me, I'm gonna go with what they call strawberry jam here - guess my brain needs something high energy." He put a few breakfast items on the table, then sat down opposite of Brenda. "Quite a day - you can say that again."

He yawned. "And don't wonder about Ash being out cold here. When she came out of link last night, you could have taken a picture of her and put it into the dictionary, right next to the word 'exhaustion'. I didn't get much out of her, but it must have been quite the day at Hometree too. Good and bad stuff..." He rubbed his neck. "At least from what I could get. There was a lot of stuff she'll have to tell again once she's awake and rested. Ya know - trying to make sense out of a battlefield when all the intel you got are a few troup movements and maybe a gunshot or two and you know very well that there's so much more going on... " After a short pause he added: "Although if I understood things right last night for now we're kind of released off battlefield and saving-the-world duty for now. We might actually have a chance to take some wicker making lessons." 

   ...  ...

A short stroll and some formalities later, Brenda seated her now-maskless self at the little kitchen table and laid down the leaf-tray of arepas she'd brought in from the fire.  She'd already confirmed that Ash was sacked out in her bunk in what could almost be an Enya position: belly-down, head turned facing the wall, her good arm dangling over the side.  "Heh...didn't know she had it in her to relax," the veteran driver smirked.  "Then again, I've never watched her sleep; the linkbed doesn't count."

Then she gestured at the leaf-platter.  "We're not gonna be seeing too many more of these," she remarked.  "Word around the fire last night is that our Na'vi are gonna be making wicker ones.  Baskets, trays, that sort of thing; maybe even some toys.  Says something about how long they think they're gonna be stuck here...or maybe about the number of big leaves they think are gonna be left by the time these ones wear out."

Now she sipped her coffee, eyes half-closed in bliss, the better to draw out the experience.  (Her arepa had disappeared before she'd even arrived at the HabMod.)  She didn't seem to be in any hurry to start the main conversation; but this only went back to her notion of Armenian manners, in which it was polite to show some interest in your hosts or guests as people before you and they "got to the point."

"So," she finally said, "did you sleep good?  Must've been quite a day..."

Rick noticed Brenda coming out of the shack, sauntering over to to pick up the arepas and then her beeline over to the habmod. It would have taken a denser man than him to guess her destination. So he grinned, toasted with his mug and then turned back to the kitchen to get out a second one, expecting his early morning guest and the questions she'd probably bring along with the arepas.

Game Log, continued.

   -:-

I just figured it out!!!  ...Err, bapped into it, more like...  In the opening moves of a petit-mal seizure (j/k), I poked the "choose/reply" button before anyone had said anything to me...and Lo, there was Dialogue!!  So...I guess there is a way for Enya to get noticed, and it ain't by waiting her turn and being polite.

[Enya:] *ferocious grin*

The fun part of my day, of course, was running Enya-pen all over Melemele Island.  This game is a lot more fun now that I know how to get people to talk to her!  So she loaded up on Pokébeans, bought a bunch of Pokéballs, received her Munchlax, threw down an expensive lemonade, then took down those trainers.  One of them was on the arrogant side, but when she got done with him he mumbled that he should have done his homework...

What happened next was hilarious: Enya got paged over the loudspeaker.  Lillie looked at her aghast, thinking that her friend must be in biiiig trouble if she was being summoned to the office.  "Enya, did you do something?"  "Mmmayybe..."  "You DID do something, didn't you??"  And Enya just walked off with that saucy air of "That's for me to know and you to find out!"

What it was, though, was that the teacher was impressed and wanted to battle her, too.  When that turned out well, she introduced Enya to Trial Captain Ilima, who would guide Enya through the Melemele phase of her Island Challenge.  So: Our girl's done the preliminaries and is now on the brink of the Real Adventure.  Not bad for a day's work...

Even better: Enya finally made it downtown and totally ditched Lillie and warped into the apparel shop and the hair salon.  She looks like a Enya nao.

Oh...and little Tayu is one level away from evolving into a Dartrix.  DarTOR, if you ask me, bein' as he's a boy...  This is messed up.  The starter species' gender ratio skews heavily male, but Rowlet and especially Popplio's evos have totally feminine Latin suffixes: Dartrix?  Primarina??  BRIONNE??  Not enough Romans in the world if Nintendo/GameFreak thought they were gonna get away with that one.

After some internal debate, I have opted to publicly humiliate myself by sharing the in-game achievements, but out-of-game cluelessness, that happened concerning Enya's stint at the Pokémon Trainers' School.  Hei, could be good for a laugh...  :#)

(Chronology: Assume each new post is for a new day unless stated otherwise.  It's no burden on the reader, and it keeps me from typing "The next day..." all the time but trying to keep it creative.)

The next morning (Aaagh!!  I can't stop!!!!), Hau showed Enya around the outskirts of Hau'oli City, the largest city not only on Melemele Island but in all of Alola.  Their first stops were at the Pokémon Center just down the road from Enya's house, and at the Pokémon Trainer Academy next door to it.

A Pokémon Center is a combination medical center for Pokémon and hangout for their trainers.  There's a café; a shop where you can buy Pokéballs, healing potions and other essentials; and the all-important nurse's station, where your banged-up and weary battlers will be restored to full health.  There's also a boarding facility of sorts for any of a trainer's Pokémon who are not actively adventuring.  A Pokémon team having six slots and Enya already having seven Pokémon, she already needed somewhere to put the odd critter out; she's been very careful about letting them take turns so no one gets completely left out.

With Hau and Lillie doing all the talking, Enya had no trouble obtaining the needed services.  But then Hau left in search of lunch *, and Lillie told Enya to meet her and Professor Kukui at the Academy when she'd finished up at the Center...

...and then Enya found her own and her team's welfare in the clumsy hands and muddled head of a 54-year-old first-time Pokémon player who hadn't yet figured out how everything works.

   * Lunch: There's a tasty treat on Alola called a malasada.  This is a real thing in Latin America, a fried-bread meat turnover.  The name means "poorly broiled", but it has to be tongue-in-cheek, because there's nothing poor about them; they're f'ing delicious.  Well, there are malasadas in Pokémon Sun and Moon.  And Hau is positively addicted to them.  If Enya ever gets in a pitched battle with him, she'll make sure she's got one of those in her backpack to distract him with.    :-]

One of my chief disappointments with the game is that it doesn't really let your character speak in any significant way.  People will ask her Yes or No questions, or the game will give her a list of choices.  But there's no way for her to ask questions, make requests, challenge people verbally or even jump up and down and yell "Hey, YOU!!"  No way, in other words, for her to get someone's attention.  Which, if you know anything about any version of Enya, her being overlooked is about as inconceivable as an Ikran doing a handstand.

So Enya went to the Trainers' School.  She stood by while Lillie and the Professor talked.  She was instructed to meet the teachers and the principal, search for Pokémon on the grounds, and that she'd be able to graduate once she'd defeated the four best students, who might or might not actually be on campus.

(Here we had a generational misunderstanding.  "Campus" in the game basically meant the schoolhouse.  However, "campus" for anyone who's been to college is a vaster entity that includes the grounds, common areas and outbuildings.  So when the Professor said "off-campus", maybe Enya understood it in the former sense...but her player was smacking his forehead and going "Crap, that could be anywhere on the island!!")

So here's my log for the next three days real-time...)

   -:-

Gaah, I'm bored in the game right now!  Enya has been told to find four trainers from the school, who might or might not be on campus, and she's checked everywhere she's ever walked and not found a one of them.

   -:-

I'm giving up on those Trainers for the day; maybe they'll pop up after dark, hang 'em. by which time Enya will be so mad and frustrated that she'll probably crush them, including the principal.

   -:-

Still stuck at the Trainer's School.  You're gonna love this: Enya has walked past, stopped in front of, walked circles around, gotten in the faces of, and has otherwise made herself a real nuisance to at least three of those four Trainers, maybe all four of 'em, and they haven't said a thing!  Which, unless I missed something, isn't how the game is supposed to work.  Supposedly, if you so much as get within line-of-sight of another Trainer, s/he challenges you to a battle.  A trigger-happy lot, yes!  And you're not allowed to refuse.  Point-of-honor, that sort of thing.  But Enya's been walking up to, past and around these kids for two days and not a one of them has so much as acknowledged her presence by anything more than an annoyed glance.  Is it 'cause she doesn't have her red t-shirt yet or something??

*Enya fumes*

The same thing happens at the Pokémon Center, where (I thought) the nurse was supposed to ask her if any of her Pokémon are hurt; the barista is supposed to offer refreshments for her and her party; and the Pokémart clerk is supposed to be trying to nab her attention, not t'other way around...

Nobody's talking to Enya!  How could anyone in any alternate Universe, even the Abyssal Realm, not want to talk to Enya?!  Maybe she doesn't stand in front of them long enough??

Which is a Bad Thing, because the Enya-shirts are in Hau'oli City, and she can't go to the City until she beats those four trainers, and she's out of healing potions and almost out of Pokébeans.  (Kinda gives "shop 'til you drop" a whole 'nother dimension, dunnit?)  (:-|

She caught a Grimer, though.  They like to be petted too, so she's just gonna have to get used to squishing her fingers through all that sludge.  My girl is "Fearless in devotion"...let's not forget that.  You'll never see "Eww" turn to "Aww" that fast again in your life.  ;-)

On her first successful collecting expedition, Enya battled and adopted...

 - Senator Sam, Yungoos

Figures her/my first capture would be the mini-Trump...  But I didn't call him Trump, Donald, Cheetos, or anything else related to Trump.  I named him after a cartoon politician character I used to draw in high school.  He *is* gonna look like somebody clearing his throat to make a stump speech when he evolves.



The rest:
 - Fletcher, Wingull (from Jonathan Livingston Seagull)
 - Pity-Kitty, Alolan Meowth (I got a kitty after all!!)
 - Naomi, Alolan Ratatta (after one of my pet rats)
 - Tron, Magnemite (Magnemite are genderless, btw; maybe the next two can be Wall-E and Eva) *g*
 - Gillian, Pikipek (after my D&D character, a winged elf)

I didn't make much progress in the actual story.  On the other hand, I've gotten to let Enya do some very Enya things, like splash in the ocean and go back to the cliff where she rescued Nebby just to watch the river flow under the ruined bridge.  It's pretty out there...a good place to pet and feed her li'l buddies.  And those scenic places reeeeaalllllyyyyyy amp up the positive effects of petting them.  She *so* spoils her 'mons: Typical battle is followed by a grooming session (to knock the dust off 'em), a feeding, and lots of petting, especially for the newly-captured ones.

Pokémon battles, at their heart, are about interactions between the elements.  Every Pokémon has a "type" which corresponds to one or more of these elements, and their type says a lot about their strengths and weaknesses in battle.   Grass absorbs water, for example.  Fighting (think karate) breaks rock.  Ground and Rock sound about the same, but Rock is weak to Ground; when the ground trembles, rocks break.  Ground and Fire, same thing; dirt smothers flames.  Electric vs Water: Water conducts electricity.  Electric vs Bug...well, you've heard of a bug-zapper.  So a Bug Pokémon going up against an Electric-type is gonna have a hard time of it unless it has moves or abilities that make up for its weakness.  This is why trainers try to form a balanced team; if your Bug-type does in fact find itself facing an Electric-type, you can always switch him out for a Ground-type, which is immune to Electric attacks.

In every version of the game, a new trainer is given a choice of three "starter" Pokémon, each one corresponding to an element: Grass, Water, or Fire.  Grass absorbs Water.  Water puts out Fire.  Fire burns Grass.  It's like Rock-Paper-Scissors that way.  And the three starter Pokémon for Sun and Moon are: Rowlet (Grass), Popplio (Water), and Litten (Fire).  Guess who's who?

      

Now that that's been explained...back to our story.

  -:-   -:-   -:-

The next day, Enya returned to Iki Town where the Kahuna awaited her, along with Hau and three baby Pokémon: a little owl, a sea-lion, and a kitten.  Enya chose, and was chosen by, her Ikran...err, her Tinyowl, whom she named Tayu.  Who better than a Tayu to travel with her as a Soul-friend?  Because as attached to the rest of her party as she may become, the bond between a trainer and her starter Pokémon will always be one-of-a-kind, taking "special" to a whole new level.

Kiye and I had some fun with me naming the tinyowl after a gentle, dreamy Na'vi lad.  How well would that fit when he started flinging feather-shurikens and arrows at things?  That's not very "Tayu" at all!  But Kiye reminded me that Na'vi Tayu's dancing had the power to evoke the inherent wildness and ferocity even of something as seemingly harmless as a Yerik.  So *this* Tayu is an actual Fierce Creature who will eventually be performing arrow- and shuriken dances.  For an owl who's going to grow up to be an avian Robin Hood, that's about as in-tune with its nature as it can get.  He won't even see it as battling...

And dance is a major feature in Alola.  There's one bird Pokémon who comes in four different forms according to which dance style it learns, from cheerleading to flamenco to hula to Japanese fan-dance.  The ultra-powerful Z-moves are invoked via a special dance.  And almost everybody kinda sways like tallgrass even when they're standing still; they just can't help it!

I've already made up my mind that we're gonna have to find a way to get Lillie to chill out too.  Probably help if Enya takes down whatever had the kid on the run in the first place...

At the same adoption ceremony, Enya was presented with a Z-ring.  This is a bracelet with a socket for any one of several "Z-crystals", which focus the power of the bond between Pokémon and trainer into an ultra-devastating move corresponding to the Pokémon's species or type.  Things like Sinister Arrow Raid, Inferno Overdrive and Pulverizing Pancake (which may or may not have been what killed the dinosaurs...  j/k!)...  What made Enya's Z-bracelet extra-special was that it was carved out of the same sparkling stone the Island Guardian had given her the day before.  She wouldn't be able to perform the moves until she collected the crystals, which she would earn by means of various Trials in what was called the Island Challenge.  This quest, if she accepted it, would take her all over Alola and line her up for some very fierce battles.  But for now, it was enough that she battled Hau to honor the Tapu, who, she was told, had a great fondness for Pokémon battles...and not always as just a spectator.  *g*

(That battle, by the way, is the one that Borderlands Enya flashed back to in "Borderlands: The Wall" when she first met Rowellan.)

   


Not bad for her first full day on the Island!