Although I'd argue I got off on a good talon with Tapu Koko (though that could honestly apply to anyone, but I digress), it quickly became apparent to me as the year progressed that I was no master of astronomy. Trumbeak ate the stuff up; be it how stars formed, the gravitational pull of the sun above, or how the moon controlled the tides, she could explain it in a matter of seconds as if the definitions were somehow written on her eyeballs...but that isn't to say I understood any of the things she spewed, and Koko didn't make it any easier. Day after day he would tell us how prided the API was in the astronomers it produced; in other regions, he explained, the subject was what the entire school was most known for (academically, anyways), and it was the most favored class of Solgaleo and Lunala themselves. That only made me regret taking it more, leaving me to ask how much of a fool I'd make myself in the eyes of the more prestigious students. Trumbeak was the only thing getting me through the class, and the only source of enjoyment I got out of it, frankly.

So why do I bring this up? Well, on the last day before the exchange program was to be initiated, I followed Trumbeak into astronomy class just like any other morning, and prepared my notebook and computer for another round of confused notes. Unlike a certain professor, Koko couldn't care less where we sat, so naturally my girlfriend and I made it clear that we weren't to be separated...for my grade's sake, if absolutely nothing else. She giggled at my expense as I struggled to get all my things set up, only to nearly fall out of her seat laughing as Koko's words came from ahead:

"We'll be taking a slight diversion from the curriculum for today and today only. You won't be needing any note-taking materials!"

While most of the class rejoiced and breathed sighs of relief, I just groaned out of embarrassment as Trumbeak finished the last of her snickers. In reality I was giving everything not to hoot in happiness myself, but seeing her laugh was even more valuable to me.

"So," Koko began, bringing even the excitable Minior to silence. "I'm positive you've all heard numerous times about the exchange program that's happening...tomorrow, already! The claws of the time-lord Dialga are swift indeed!" The Land Spirit Pokémon stared at the ceiling for a moment in thought, only snapping back to reality when a student coughed. Shaking his head rather violently, he continued his speech as if nothing had happened: "Well, the place in which their school resides is still largely unexplored and unknown to Alolan Pokémon; very, very few are able to reach it alone. I myself desire to go there someday...but I digress.

"The place in question is actually directly linked to astronomy, so I'm sure it'll interest you somewhat, if not immensely. I present: Ultra Space!" Like lightning, Koko shot to the room's ceiling and pulled down from it a large white screen—the same sort that every classroom had—and with a quick jolt of electricity from the professor to a projector across the room, the screen came to life with what looked like an ancient drawing of a great otherworldly hole spread out across its flat surface. I recognized it immediately as an interpretation of an Ultra Wormhole, just like the one I had seen the past summer. As the memory of those haunting visions came back to me, I gulped and shivered a bit, and I could sense Trumbeak grow a little closer to me. What the portal had to do with the exchange program, of all things, I could only fear.

"Those of you who journeyed to Ula'ula Island last summer to witness the solar eclipse probably recognize this image," Tapu Koko began. I tried to focus on his words to keep my mind from wandering to the worst of possibilities. "Unfortunately, no actual pictures exist of these wormholes, from the humans or otherwise, so all we have to go off of are the works of even age-old artists. Ultra Wormholes, like the one many of you have seen, are the gateways to the mysterious alternate dimension of Ultra Space! The wormholes can appear randomly, but it's incredibly rare; they can also appear during eclipses, though the probability and size of the portal depends on the prominence of the actual eclipse. In fact, there have been reports of Pokémon being able to go so far as to gaze into the Ultra Space itself during the strongest solar and lunar eclipses!"

The class, or at least those of us that had seen the wormhole, looked back and forth at each other, some suspiciously and some fearfully. We didn't have much time to process anything, though, as Koko soon began crowing his speech again:

"Ultra Wormholes can also be opened manually, yet the strength required to do so is so great it's only known to be held by Pokémon with otherworldly, cosmic blood; that is, if they came from Ultra Space themselves, and wield unthinkable power! And Ultra Space itself, well...today much of it is left up to the imagination; the painter Smeargle, the writer and explorer Lucario, and even tales told by old Alolan village elder Pokémon, have all tried their hands to capture exactly what it was, what it meant." Images flashed across the projector screen, from paintings to books to more cave drawings, all chilling to the bone, don't get me wrong, but none able to recreate what I had seen in the eclipse that summer.

"Now, by sending our own brave scholars to truly capture the unknown, we'll be able to discover the very science and wonders of Ultra Space; the Pokémon of Alola will go farther than ever before!"

"Farther than we were m-meant to?" timid Comfey piped from a corner of the room, only half-asking.

Koko's eyes darted to her for a lightning-fast second, and he cawed, "Oh, have excitement, have ambition! The lucky students participating in this exchange program are the first astronauts of a new age, and their names will be remembered as resoundingly as the mightiest of humans'! This is greatness in the making, this is a breakthrough..."

"This is nuts," Trumbeak whispered to me jokingly. I smiled and chuckled, lightening the mysterious mood a bit. I didn't wanna say Koko was too excited for whatever would happen the next day, but I couldn't help but carry more skepticism than optimism, given how Midday especially had reacted to that document and all. Whatever had happened to the paper didn't matter now, I supposed, but the damage it had caused was already done...and I had a sinking feeling that it was only the beginning. If those wormholes really did lead to Ultra Space, and that was where the other school was...did that mean there was life out there, in the terrifying places that vision had shown me? And if whatever dwelled there was now on its way to the API...suddenly I didn't want to think about thinking about it.

Class was let out with me thanking the stars nothing was assigned, and together Trumbeak and I made for the door. I was already halfway into the second-floor common when Tapu Koko suddenly called from behind me: "Would you mind staying for a moment, Trumbeak? I've got something to show you! ...Er, you can feel free to look as well, Decidueye."

Trumbeak turned around sharply. "Of course," she replied, looking back at me for a moment before re-entering the lab. I followed, though a bit less enthusiastically; my mind was still full of thoughts about the little bombshell of information that had just been dropped. Nonetheless, who would I be to just leave her there?

"Now, I thought this'd interest you, Trumbeak, and perhaps even inspire you to continue your pursuit of the sciences, but you must promise one small thing. You too, Decidueye." We reached the other end of the room, where Koko usually taught, and pushed open the small-windowed door of what at first appeared to be a small storage closet that no normal Pokémon would look twice at. However, quickly the makings of a miniature laboratory became apparent to me (and Trumbeak too, judging by the gasp she let out from in front of me): vials of powder and yellow blood samples (likely from Electric-type Pokémon) lined shelves on the walls, the floor was littered with old bolts, screws and other pieces of metal, and a tiny wooden table sat in the room's very middle. On the table were two almost identical, yet unfinished machines: rectangular, small in size, with an antenna sticking out from one end. It was those machines that Koko stopped at, and turning around he whispered, "Don't tell a soul."

Trumbeak nodded with a businesslike, yet still fascinated air, but I didn't move; all the new questions I had seemed to paralyze me. I just stared thoughtfully at the twin machines, waiting for Koko to keep talking and explain what it was I was seeing.

"I've been working on these for quite some time now," the Land Spirit Pokémon started. "Or rather, restoring them...yes, that would be the right word. As far as I'm concerned, no Pokémon has yet tried their claw at recreating such potentially pivotal machinery, so if I succeed, just think of how the scientific world could benefit! Think of how I could benefit!"

After looking at the table for a moment more, Trumbeak whispered, "But...what are they, even?"

"Not everything is known about the original devices, but they were created long ago, in the time of humans, by one named Colress: a personal idol of mine. He worked in Unova for a time, studying and learning how to draw out a Pokémon's true power by any means necessary. His research did wonders for both the humans' world and the Pokémon's, even if not all agreed with his cause. He made these during his travels to Alola—the N-Solarizer and the N-Lunarizer, which are said to be able to absorb light!" In his excitement Koko nearly knocked the devices off the table on accident, but stopped himself just in time and looked at us expectantly, as if he was waiting for our beaks to fall to the ground in astonishment. Thing was, I didn't know the least bit about "absorbing light", much less how being able to do it was considered such a breakthrough, at least to Koko.

Trumbeak, obviously a bit more educated on the subject than I, asked, "Kind of like a black hole, then? How would those little things be able to do something like that?"

"That information, Trumbeak, I'm afraid is classified; even I'm not yet completely sure of the exact brilliance that allowed Colress to pull off the feat that he did. But you're absolutely right about your black hole hypothesis—heh! If I didn't appreciate your expertise so much I would've loved to see you participate in that exchange program, come to think of it; you'd've benefitted so much from it, and perhaps even brought back some essential information for further exploration!"

I glanced nervously at Trumbeak, who only blushed, giggled a bit and said, "Well, thank you for the opportunity to see these regardless, sir; they're amazing! But, er, I think we should be going now—"

"Oh, of course! I've got some work to get back to as well. You be on your way." With the tiniest sigh, Koko dismissed us, shutting himself back inside the room rather quickly after Trumbeak and I had entered the larger lab. It was then that a thought entered my mind, a question whose answer would likely explain at least some of the weirdness and confusion I had just experienced, so I hoped. I looked back toward the closet's door, and was about to start heading for it when a sight in its small window made me stop.

As if we had never come, Tapu Koko had gone straight back to work, eagerly leaning over the N-Solarizer and N-Lunarizer with an empty vial in one of his claws. Without bothering to look around for unwanted company (like myself, I slowly realized), he brought his free claw up to his thin arm and ran it sharply across his skin, letting the almost-sparkling yellow fluid that drained from the cut run down into the vial. He flinched a little and his eyes grew wide for a second, but other than that he gave no reaction to the wound. The last thing I saw before I had to force myself to turn away was the Land Spirit Pokémon emptying the blood sample into an empty slot in one of the machines; at that point my stomach was turning too much for me to keep staring, and that's not even to mention the possibility of getting caught.

My head whipped back around to where Trumbeak had been, and I opened my beak to say something to her before realizing that she had already left; exactly how long ago, though, I was afraid to know. So, carrying myself quickly yet fearfully, I made my way out of the laboratory faster than a Yungoos stalking his Rattata prey. I thought of countless ideas and questions, but there was one above all the others, the one that I had wanted to ask Koko:

Why talk to us about those machines?

—————

That evening, I tiredly entered the dormitory building with not a question having left my mind...but at the very least I had the chance to sleep on them now.

Yeah, I thought so, too.

I pushed my key into its slot in the door, turned it, and leaned against the wooden portal as if to swing it open. Instead I was met by a door that wouldn't budge, no matter how much force I applied; in fact, I was almost about to abandon all good judgement and launch an arrow quill at the thing when a familiar, friendly voice came from its other side:

"Decidueye? Sorry! ...Er, hold on..." A few moments of shuffling noises later, I tried the door again and it swung open so fast that I almost rammed my face into it as I spilled into the dorm room. Vikavolt, whose legs were sprawled out across the floor in a mad scramble to gather a bunch of Arceus knew what, let out a half-amused, half-nervous chuckle from below me.

Collecting myself, I looked out across a myriad of papers, books, food, and other things that had been spread out on the floor. My friend was rather skittishly attempting to fit all the stuff in a pack beside him, only to start over with an exasperated sigh when his favorite novel or jar of tree sap didn't fit. With nothing else feeling appropriate to say, I asked, "So...what is all this?"

"I'm packing."

"For what?"

Vikavolt looked up at me like I had just come from Ultra Space, clicked his mandibles together once, and answered, "Huh, I thought you knew. I'm leaving for the exchange program tomorrow, and I suppose I've just been too busy to pack until now. I've gotta leave really early, so—"

"Wait, wait, wait. Hold on a second!" I tried to form something to say in my mind, but all that came were jumbled nothings. "You can't...why didn't you...I thought...since when?!"

"I just thought it'd be a good experience, that's all," Vikavolt said quietly. "I couldn't find you or the twins during that assembly, so when it was over, I just went to Tapu Fini and got a document myself. I've been meaning to tell you; I guess I just thought you'd assume..."

At that point I tuned out the Stag Beetle Pokémon's drone to turn to my own worries: Vikavolt, of all Pokémon, was going to a school in Ultra Space? The place with twisted landscapes and darkened, ruined cities? The suspiciousness of the program had always been apparent to me, of course, but now it felt much closer, much more dangerous. I gulped, and when my friend seemed to notice my nervousness he abruptly cut off his speech and asked, "You alright, Decidueye?"

"Yeah, yeah, it's just...you do know what you're getting yourself into, right?"

Vikavolt looked a little hurt. "Why else would I have done it?"

We stared at each other in silence for a time, and my worried, angry expression couldn't help but melt into a more accepting calm after a while. Weird as the situation was, my friend seemed to know exactly what he was doing; even if he got into danger, he'd be able to handle it. It didn't make the program as a whole any less sketchy, but at least I wouldn't have to worry much over Vikavolt, I supposed.

Eventually the Stag Beetle Pokémon took his gaze away from mine and went back to packing, more slowly and steadily this time. "It'll all be fine," he resumed, talking more to himself than me at that point. "I'll leave before sunrise, and the deans'll return with the foreign students, and then—"

"Wait, you mean both schools are exchanging? At the same time? Vikavolt, I've never done one of these things, but even I know that's usually not how it works."

Vikavolt shrugged. "Well, I guess it's pretty obvious that this isn't a usual exchange program. But I really wouldn't bother with worrying. Lunala and Solgaleo aren't, after all, and Tapu Koko seemed pretty eager to talk to me about it earlier today too, come to think of it."

I shivered slightly. "No kidding."

I attempted to work on assignments until Vikavolt finished packing, but between the work's nigh-incomprehensible questions and my own racing thoughts, it's needless to say I didn't get much done. After a while my friend shut his pack, took to the air with a calm buzzing of his wings, and shut off the room's light before landing on the bottom bunk of our bed. Normally I'd've welcomed the merciful darkness to grant me a bit of sleep before the rigor of the next day kicked up, but that was the last thing I was wondering about then. What did lie in Ultra Space...and what did it want with the API?