Prior to Alex jumping in to bond with Guzzlord, he was given warnings by the surrounding trainers.

“Are you insane? This isn’t a Pokémon you can just bond with through your Affinity! This is an Ultra Beast! An alien from another dimension. You’re just going to end up dead if it catches you in its mouth.”

“Technically, Ultra Beasts can, in fact, be trained,” another trainer chimed in. “We’ve had plenty of trainers add them to their rosters. The problem is that they have very specific bonding methods, and Guzzlord is one whose method hadn’t been discovered yet. The furthest anyone has gone is getting them to fight for them, but when it gets hungry, it won’t hesitate to eat its own trainer.”

“Knowing this, are you willing to risk your life on the slim chance that you can subdue this Guzzlord?”

“I have it on good authority that I can do nothing wrong,” Alex replied.

Theoretically, Gothitelle sought him out because of his long lifespan, one that might outlast her own. This meant all Alex had to do was follow his gut on most decisions, even if they carried slim chances of survival. He was confident this asinine decision would still lead to a favorable outcome.

Of course, that didn’t mean he had the right to constantly defy fate and pick fights left, right, and center, but it did mean he could trust his instincts more often while still avoiding the worst-case scenarios. In particular, he had to make these decisions only with Gothitelle around to stop him if necessary.

“What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll take full responsibility for my actions. My Gardevoir will guarantee it,” Alex said.

“Assuming she doesn’t suddenly go on a mass murdering rampage upon your death.”

“She knows me well enough to understand my wishes,” Alex defended.

“Whatever, just let him do it. In the worst-case scenario, we can coordinate a full simultaneous bombardment and kill the Guzzlord in one go before it can heal itself with Swallow. We attack the moment it lands its next hit after consuming this guy.”

“Works for me.”

With the consensus in Alex’s favor, all the trainers stopped attacking and shifted to status moves while preparing their Pokémon’s strongest attacks, waiting for Guzzlord to begin its rampage anew. Instead of the expected continuation of destruction, however, they noticed it had stopped moving after swallowing Alex.

Then it closed its mouth and began to chew.

“Do Guzzlord chew?” one of the trainers asked.

“I don’t think a Guzzlord has ever been recorded chewing before. They’re more like black holes that just suck everything into their stomachs without ever releasing anything. This is clearly new behavior.”

“Please tell me someone is recording.”

“I’m pretty sure all of us are recording.”

“Don’t tell me the secret to bonding with a Guzzlord is being treated like chewing gum.”

“Before this guy, I don’t think anyone was both strong enough and stupid enough to jump into a Guzzlord’s mouth.”

“He was aiming for the top of its head before the Guzzlord just turned and ate him.”

“It has keen senses for a Guzzlord.”

“I think it’s because trainers with the matching Affinity are probably more delicious. Look at it savoring the guy with each bite.”

Suddenly, the Guzzlord took on a disappointed demeanor before doing something it had never been known to do before. It spat Alex out, his body covered in seaweed and gunk dredged from the seabed.

Alex stood with great difficulty, his body clearly suffering from multiple broken bones.

“If you want more,” Alex said in a stern tone, “you’d better do as I say, or I can just leave you here.”

The Guzzlord narrowed its eyes at him defiantly.

“Fine. Suit yourself. Gardevoir, let’s leave.”

Psychic energy suddenly enveloped Alex, yanking him into the sky before setting him down on Mantine. The Pokémon immediately took off, rising out of the frozen vortex.

Guzzlord panicked. It wailed, then lunged after them, climbing the still water as though it were solid, ignoring everything else as it chased them out of the battlefield. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

“Well… that just happened.”

“Crazy, right?”

“Does that mean we can go home?”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m not staying here another second. I think Tapu Fini is about to run out of energy.”

“Every man for himself.”

The trainers all fled the funnel, leaving Tapu Fini alone at the seabed. Once the area was clear, time seemed to resume; the whirlpool churned violently again before slowly collapsing inward.

Meanwhile, Guzzlord sat atop Mantine, sulking at having been left behind by Alex.

“So? Are you going to play nice, or are we going to have a problem?”

“Guuuuuuzz…”

“Very good,” Alex said with a smile as he patted Guzzlord’s side, feeding it a steady flow of Dark type energy.

Apparently, the best place to establish a connection with Guzzlord was deep inside its stomach, a dark void filled with floating junk. It was there that Alex managed to make a deal with the Ultra Beast while his body was subjected to crushing forces that broke his bones. Through the message he received when the connection was established, it became clear that his energy was, apparently, quite delicious, giving him the leverage he needed to control Guzzlord.

So Alex gave it two choices. It could either eat him whole now and never get to taste his energy again, or spit him out and get a bit of it every day for the rest of its existence.

When Guzzlord threatened to keep Alex in its stomach for all eternity, Alex responded by threatening to kill himself, securing the obviously worse outcome.

From there, a bargain began over how much energy Guzzlord would receive daily. In the end, they settled on a small portion of Alex’s energy each day and enough junk to ensure it wouldn’t grow hungry.

Satisfied with the arrangement, both parties agreed, and Guzzlord spat him out.

Now it was Alex’s responsibility to keep Guzzlord satiated, or it would return to its rampage and quite possibly eat him for good this time.

It wasn’t exactly the same as his bond with his other Pokémon, but it was the best compromise he could come up with.

In exchange, Guzzlord would fight for him, an ultimate tank that had nearly defeated a Master ranked Legendary Pokémon and survived an all-out bombardment from dozens of Champion ranked trainers. It was quite the upgrade for Alex.

“Rotom, report my end of the events to the League and tell them I’ll be making my way to Aether Paradise to sort Guzzlord out.”

“Report submitted. No further action required. The emergency alert has been terminated.”

Once Alex got back on the airship, they set a course for Aether Paradise while he explained the situation to everyone onboard. Needless to say, they were all excited at the opportunity to head to the apparent headquarters of the Ultra Beast wormholes.

As for Guzzlord, he was left in the docking bay, contemplating whether to defy Alex and eat the Azure Voyager, since he was too large to fit in the elevator leading to the Pokémon habitat. They didn’t have a Beast Ball for him to reside in, after all.

“Is it okay for us to get a tour of the place?” Alvera asked. “Isn’t Aether Paradise a Champion rank restricted area?”

“It’s fine,” Clarissa said. “Aether Paradise is a man-made island that houses the Aether Foundation, a private, for-profit organization rather than a danger zone. That means plenty of families go there for a chance to get an Ultra Beast of their own if they have the money for it. They’re used to giving tours to weaker trainers, and if something does happen, all responsibility falls on the Champion for bringing his family to an obviously dangerous location.”

“Does that mean we get to go on a tour?” Malia asked.

“That should be fine,” Alex replied. “You’ll all have to behave though, given how dangerous the place is.”

“We’re not children,” Nohea said.

“No, but we have children with us, and if you’re going to add to that, you’ll be staying in the airship,” Leilani chimed in, quieting her children.

“You know, Aether Foundation used to be an Underworld organization,” Nyx chimed in, drawing everyone’s attention as she glanced down at her tablet. “Apparently, it was once responsible for covering the region in darkness and releasing Ultra Beasts to rampage across it. This continued until Lusamine, their president at the time, was arrested. Aether Foundation was then “rebranded” as a conservation facility under Gladion, her son and the current president, before later shifting into a for-profit model after they began selling Ultra Beasts.”

“They also ran early Ultra Beast extraction experiments,” she continued. “Back when wormholes were first discovered, they didn’t exactly have an ethics committee. Some of the earliest recorded disappearances in Alola were blamed on ‘natural spatial anomalies’ when they were actually prototype containment failures.”

“Now they have a device that draws in spatial anomalies all over Alola toward secure containment rooms, where they’re held while the facility uses the wormholes to allow Champion ranked trainers and above to capture and bond with Ultra Beasts. It’s an amazingly profitable business,” Nyx said before looking up to find everyone staring at her. “What?”

“It’s just a bit depressing, that’s all,” Kaia answered. “And we’re about to go there.”

“Hey! I’m just calling it as I read it.”

And so the group flew from Poni Island to Aether Paradise, a man-made island positioned in the middle of the Alola region, where some of the most powerful beings in the world were said to reside. Shockingly, however, what they found instead was a zoo.