Ever since the day the very first fire had risen into the sky, ever since the night the very first Litten had hatched into the world, there had been one protocol passed down from parent to kitten. A law older than the universe itself, ingrained in every level of the burning ones' society:

  The white kittens were to die.

  Of course, it hadn't always been written in the blood and violence and fury it had come to be - once upon a time it had been permitted for the kittens to be simply exiled, thrown away on the side of a mountain moments after birth, to be made a Stufful's meal. To spare the parents the trauma of their kitten's blood on their claws. But never, in all of history, had they been permitted to live amongst the Incineroar in civilized society. For they were made not of ash, not of fire, but of snow, of weakness, of deception revealing itself, turning to water against the sun's splendor.

  (And as the heretics who disobeyed soon came to discover, there was a practical purpose as well - the white fur stuck out against the jungle darkness, and would reveal their hunting parties to prey, thwarting their hunts. Starvation was as good a punishment as any for doubting the ancestors.)

  But times had come to change. Not enough to subvert the natural laws, but enough to sow seeds of doubt and dissent and dissatisfaction among the burning ones' community. Once, thousands of them had roamed these forests, now, there were only about forty-five of them left. Smoke - not their own holy smoke, but the demons' artificial mockeries - choked the air, stealing their breath. Sickness descended upon them.

  So there was a need for a hero and a tyrant. (Among Incineroar, these have always been one and the same.) The one fated to lead them to paradise.

  They called him He-Who-Wears-Flame-As-Shadow. The name given at birth had been lost to time, and as was customary in their culture, this moniker had come to replace it. He had come to the congress of the seven clans, and with charisma and honeyed words, had outlined his plan. Their salvation, he claimed, lay with whom until now they had believed to be their enemies. A ranch on the pink island.

  The idea was controversial at first. Controversial enough to push two of the clans to storm out of the meeting right there and then, and to the present day no one knew what had become of them. But the five that stayed, as desperately independent as they may have been, had been also worn down by their tribulations, and accepted the offer of unity - with the qualifying mantra:

  "Never shall we let them cage us; never shall we let them break our spirits."

  Now, on this fateful night, He-Who-Wears paced around a patch of sickly yellow grass behind the ranch, his muscles rippling under his dark coat. On all fours now, as it exhausted him to tread on two paws, and the burden upon his mind was enough to bear as it was.

  He had tucked the kitten under the bush. The kit's eyes still were closed, and would stay as such in the weeks to come. His paws had pressed through his eggshell before his time, shocking his poor mother. No mewls came from him in his ignorant slumber.

  But He-Who-Wears could not bring himself to celebrate the coming of this Litten, his first son, into the world. For his kitten had come bearing a coat of white.

  And so Aldina and Kirikai returned to the garden of the dead.

  Aldina was... different. Pensive. Harmony - Kirikai - Harmony-as-Kirikai, Kirikai-as-Harmony, the actor had become the part - could only wonder what change had come about in her to make her frigid in this way. The summer of her soul giving to the winds of autumn. Perhaps it was the dreary atmosphere in the compound; sleeping on an inflatable cot with a hole in it which screeched bloody murder when either of them dared move atop it. Certainly neither of them had slept a wink.

  Aldina wept. For what, Kirikai didn't know. But he had never seen her - or any god apart from the clockwork doll - display vulnerability to such a degree. It wasn't in their nature.

  She didn't even crack a smile when the goddess she called an enemy fell onto her knees in despair upon her loss. The battle had not been difficult for Kirikai, but he still found himself exhausted - while her scaly green Metapod may not have had any tooth or claw to strike him with, its bursts of sticky white string had turned his every attempt at movement into a struggle. Afterwards, Aldina tried to simply brush the cords off him, but they clung to his fur and tugged at his skin, sending sharp, tingling spikes of pain up and down his body. In response, she cursed the other goddess for being a nuisance, a pest, a cockroach, not fit to tread upon the same ground as her, et cetera et cetera ad infinitum.

  She did not acknowledge her Pokémon further. A bit of praise for his good work, Kirikai knew, was far too much to ask for. Instead Aldina hissed her grievances under her breath, too low for the other goddess to hear.

  C:\gods\aldina> 'A Metapod. A friggin' Metapod. Now I think I see what Ilima meant.'

  This was not a forgiveness. She looked off into the distance, searching for the next challenge. The next victory.

  The flow of energy between them wasn't a rushing river as it should have been, but a mere trickle, a remnant of a rain shower pouring down a storm drain. Aldina was a miser when it came to sharing her power, and even more so when her heart was dark.

  She was still kneeling by his side in the dust when they saw three others approaching over the horizon. One held some sort of controlled flame, casting a whitish light onto the ground and the gravestones they passed. The others still silhouettes in shadow.

  Aldina took in a sharp breath.

  C:\gods\aldina> 'Sun.'

  It wasn't a question. Because Sun was aflame.

  Radiant. Cloying packets of bright orange orbited him, bursting from him like solar flares. His cheeks. His shoulders. The tips of his fingers. As if he could live up to his namesake and birth into the world endless light with only a single thought. His own partner Pokémon, the little Litten who had spurned Kirikai in the past, strode by his side, amber eyes alight with an arrogant glee. Kirikai shivered.

  Aldina, always one to play the lionheart, rose to her feet.

  C:\gods\aldina> 'So there you are, Sun. Took you long enough. And you, Keon.'

  There was a rumble of disgust audible in the latter name, but it went unacknowledged. Sun stepped forward, performing the Alola hand gesture.

  C:\gods\sun> 'Alola, [Aldina]. I hope you didn't end up encountering any spirit Pokémon, either.'

  C:\gods\aldina> 'Shut your trap and let's get to battling. Fire versus Water, is it? Doesn't exactly take a genius to predict the outcome of that matchup.'

  C:\gods\sun> 'Wait, how did you know I -'

  C:\gods\aldina> 'Your power. I can smell it on you.'

  She was right. It was like ozone: acrid and slightly tart.

  C:\gods\aldina> 'Are you even using a proxy? You're showing.'

  C:\gods\sun> 'Of course I am.'

  Sun held up something long and thin Kirikai could not make out through the darkness. But his attention was ripped away - without any further motion from the boy, Frostfire bounded forward and crouched into a fighting stance, beckoning Kirikai to do the same.

  Kirikai had a cursory understanding of Litten-speak. His father dealt with their kind quite regularly, and Primarina voiceboxes were more suited to the sounds of their language than vice versa, so their species had to shoulder the burden of learning it. Kirikai found the finer details and divergences in other Pokémon's cultures and languages fascinating, so he had never minded. And it wasn't truly so unfamiliar - like in his own native tongue, the meanings of its words relied on the speaker's intonation. He closed his eyes, rummaging deep through his memories for the relevant words.

  "I.... am.... ready," he said at last, clenching his muscles.

  Frostfire didn't respond or show even the slightest sign he had heard. Surely, Kirikai thought, his pronunciation had been off: until he remembered he'd never heard Frostfire speak anything more than throaty snarls and muted growls. Even Lālā the Rowlet had attempted to communicate with him despite their language barrier, and so had Mizuki's mother's Azurill.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Those eyes, those amber eyes: a cold abyss, a gaping cavern. He wouldn't look.

  A series of dull but undeniable aches rippled through him, and his tongue lolled out. Marion gasped.

  C:\gods\marion> 'Are you sure you should even be letting Harmony fight? She looks positively ex-haw-sted.'

  Aldina's reply came swift and absolute:

  C:\gods\aldina> 'I don't have a choice.'

  Kirikai could feel her eyes on his back, sharp and judgemental. Her thought nearly audible in his mind - showing weakness. Weakness accumulated over the past few days like impurities in a gemstone - the flow stopped once more. Refused. Locked out.

  You're letting me down.

  No. No, she couldn't lock him out, not now, not now, he begged her, don't be stubborn, please. He wasn't weak. He wasn't weak, if only she'd let him show her - !

  C:\gods\keon> 'Sun's got this in the bag. I'd be willing to bet money on it.'

  More doubt, a poison-tipped arrow in Kirikai's side. Sun furrowed his brow.

  C:\gods\sun> 'Don't jinx it.'

  Again and again Kirikai tugged, pleading, don't shut me out, don't shut me out, don't do this to me . A spurt of anger, too, arose in him - if you lose because of this, you only have yourself to blame.

  He reached deep into himself, into his hydrant glands to suck the water into his throat - nothing came. She'd spoiled him too much. A Trainer offered their Pokemon their surplus energy, far more energy than a Pokemon could ever create by themself. But there was a trade-off: over time, the Pokemon lost the ability to harness energy by themselves. Without all three members, there was no triad.

  Frostfire prowled, tail trembling with intrepid anticipation. Lithe legs and swift paws that could outmaneuver Kirikai with ease. A stray glimmer of starlight catching on his keen canines. Flame sparking in a flicker of a moment, poised to singe the fur off the Popplio's body. To expose the tender pink below; to wrinkle it to deep red, to necrotic black.

  Kirikai's eyes went wide with explosive reckoning:

  This is how I pay for my weakness.

  The demons wouldn't permit them to practice their traditions. Even the more benign ones who had taken them in wished, deep in some cruel corridor of their hearts, to stamp out the burning ones' flame. They defied the natural laws decreeing only the strong should survive. Under their reign of terror, the white-furred kittens would live.

  It had been a week He-Who-Wears-Flame-As-Shadow's son had been living under that bush when the truce was called. A negotiation between two feuding clans, Clan Tykaa and Clan Gryaan - the respective clans of He-Who-Wears and the kitten's mother, Rezaa. He-Who-Wears suspected Clan Gryaan had always been irritated their savior had come from the clan who, in history, had been their fiercest rivals, and over their time at the ranch, they had made themselves a constant thorn in his side. To them, each of his orders were mere suggestions.

  The quarrel was over the fact a Gryaan member had mistakenly (or purposely - that was the trick, wasn't it? certainly they must have noticed the scent markings) trespassed onto Clan Tykaa's designated square of the ranch without permission. Territorial disputes seemed so silly now: a mere charade. This was not their land. This land was strange and flat, marred with dying grass, void of the beautiful variety of life found in their jungles on the red island. But the jungles no longer sang to their kind, and the charade was a necessity. The charade was survival.

  In regards to their son, He-Who-Wears had had his words for Rezaa, a diminutive, soft-spoken Incineroar who wept pearls of weakness at the prospect of her son's death. The certainty of her son's death.

  "Flame-Wearer- inya ," she yowled, calling him by a love name only permitted to be spoken by one of his many mates, "I did not choose this any more than you did..."

  Rezaa was correct. Fate struck callously, indiscriminately; each white one's coming was its collusion. Fate, and nothing more. He had accepted this and apologized to her.

  The clans had always feuded. Violence was their calling, their existence, their truth. Peace was an artifice foisted upon them by those with no knowledge or respect for their traditions. The sky-fire burns to feed the grass, the grass grows to feed the Tauros, the Tauros roam to feed the Incineroar. This was the way of nature.

  Yet, here on this ranch, there were tame ones. The Primarina especially had curled up right in the demons' lap, and one of them, their leader Timbira, had insisted on acting as mediator to the clan leaders' meeting. Keeping his eye on them, to ensure they would not plot against the demons' rule.

  It was only natural those duplicitous Water-Types would see fit to do as such. Water was a necessary evil, created to be sipped of and bathed in, and nothing more.

  Nothing more.

  On the day of the meeting, the resentment He-Who-Wears had been stewing in still radiated off him in waves, even as he led the members of Clan Tykaa to the pasture where they had been meant to meet. Thick slats of wood marked the boundaries, their height up to about his waist. Usually, this pasture was home to a flock of Mareep and Flaaffy; they crowded in the corner furthest from the burning ones' gathering, fear in their eyes. Rezaa loomed at his back, jittery and slightly aloof.

  "Take into consideration, Flame-Wearer- inya, that our clan burns fire just as yours does," she said.

  "Of course, my Rezaa-ikya," he replied, his eyes intent on Clan Gryaan's leader: the honorable Uyuu-shazaa, who had ascended to the position quite recently and was far more charitable towards Clan Tykaa than his forebears. "If you will be willing to consider the same of mine."

  The only one to overhear their exchange was the water-lover. Timbira's tail lay fleshy and bloated upon the ground, shaped like one of the seashell pastries his masters fed him. It disquieted He-Who-Wears to see his azure eyes lacked all light. A subtle squeak accompanied every breath he took, as if coming to settle himself here in the pasture had been a herculean effort. In his broken approximation of the burning ones' speech, he began his introduction to the leaders and their clans.

  "And here," he said, his voice not strong enough to carry far, "is the most distinguished leader of Clan Gryaan, Uyuu-shazaa of the Moon's Shadow."

  In response, Uyuu bowed his head. Timbira's beady, myopic eyes settled on He-Who-Wears.

  "And this in concord with the celebrated one, leader of Clan Tykaa, known only as Flame-Wearer- inya. "

  At once an uproar arose amongst the gathered clans. The water-lover had called him by his secret name.

  Perhaps if He-Who-Wears-Flame-As-Shadow had been able to see past the inferno of anger which enveloped him then, he would have considered that no one had ever told Timbira of the name's meaning. But the shock of the insult left him blind to sense. He thought not of how unbecoming it would be for a clan leader to give in to violence at a peace talk: had Timbira been one of their kind, of equal standing, it would be unthinkable.

  But Timbira radiated what the burning ones loathed - weakness. He was less than.

  An aura of thick shadow arose from He-Who-Wears' claws, and he bared his fangs. Uyuu, too, moved into an offensive stance, summoning a dark gauntlet of his own. Rezaa and the other Incineroar stayed a distance behind, wisely recognizing this as the leaders' battle to fight.

  It seemed for a moment Timbira did not understand they meant to target him. He blinked slowly, sleepily, his eyes shifting from one to the other and back. Then the tendrils of his head-fur began to curl into themselves and rise up off his scalp, and pearls of moisture swelled in the air from nothing, gargantuan dewdrops sagging with their own weight.

  "Stand down, my friends," he said, voice low. "If you do not, I will not hesitate to attack."

  "It appears you have misunderstood our intentions, Timbira-vasaa," Uyuu hissed, drawing his claw in front of his throat to mimic what he intended to do to the Primarina. "Our kind may have our squabbles among each other, but we all burn with fire..."

  (They all burned, He-Who-Wears thought then, even the white ones. And deep in his soul something fractured.)

  Timbira opened his mouth to deliver his reply, but neither leader would stand for it.

  "Unlike you, Timbira-vasaa, we will not stand to be their slaves. No matter how you seek to break us down. We will never ..." He-Who-Wears motioned for the clans to finish the phrase.

  "- LET THEM CAGE US!"

  Timbira shook his head with vigor. "I believe you may be the ones misunderstanding my intentions, Flame-Wear-"

  At once - twin sets of claws swiping at the Primarina's flesh, raking his tail up from the tip to the ring of pink spikes. In his shock Timbira could not retain the floating dewdrops, and they disintegrated, falling to the dirt with a mighty splash and soaking into the dust. He-Who-Wears and Uyuu, made one in shared bloodlust, gnashed their teeth and grinned. Scattered voices fought one another to be heard: the burning ones' various shouts of triumph overtaking the water-lover's shrieks.

  Then their attention snapped to the farmhouse adjacent to the pasture. The water-lover's screams had managed to shatter a window, and a demon burst from the front door, tan and lanky, spewing words in its infernal language. In one great bound it leaped over the corral perimeter and released one of its slaves, a Flying-Type with a pair of sprawling black wings. The shadow descended over the crowd of burning ones, coming to circle over the clan leaders. Just out of reach of their itching claws.

  Uyuu whipped back to Timbira. "The demon. What's it saying, myaaa? What's it saying?"

  "'What's that noise', it is," the water-lover sniveled. "You hurt me. I hurt him. Now, he'll hurt you. That's what it is..."

  The mantra. The mantra. They needed to remember - He-Who-Wears glanced over his shoulder to discover the rest of his kind had already scattered. The cowards. Self-made slaves, the lot of them. And yet he could not wipe the grin from his face.

  More demons. Some wild-eyed and confined in terror; others pointing in delight at the rapture, at the spectacle of it all. He felt the urge to posture and take a bow to the adoring crowd, to force away the thought of the white kitten still looming in his mind. How wonderful it was to return to his theater again after so long away.

  He couldn't clear the ecstasy of battle even when the first demon shouted and the Toucannon, alive with energy, slammed the brunt of its body into his. An odd sheet of distortion settled over his vision, and still he smiled.

  Only when He-Who-Wears curled up in the straw pile in the stable stall they had forced him into did he come down from his high. The embers in his soul slowly withered, and in their place a frost seeped from the fracture, chilling him from his paws to the tips of his ears and tail. He leaned back, fading.

  An odd noise from outside enticed him, and he angled his ears in its direction. The demons were rummaging through the bushes: the bushes that didn't belong to him or his clan or to Clan Gryaan. They belonged only to the demons and always would.

  He didn't have to know their language to understand the meaning of their screeches of surprise. Tonight, he'd lose two things at once: his son and his pride.