There are Pokémon that accept capture after losing a battle.
There are Pokémon that resist their Trainer even after the Poké Ball has closed around them.
And then there are Pokémon that break out through sheer will — body spent, strength gone, and still they push the ball open.
This was the third kind.
Steven had now seen it twice.
Even if he threw another ball and it held, the Sandslash would not obey him. That much he understood clearly. A Poké Ball doesn't rewrite a Pokémon's character or bend its will to a Trainer's. Devon Corporation had always designed them with that principle intact. He suspected Silph Co. operated the same way.
It was something like this: imagine you earned grades good enough to attend the university you wanted, but your parents refused and enrolled you somewhere else against your wishes. Neither side gets what they want. Everyone ends up worse off. The grades are the wild Pokémon's nature; the university is its territory; the parents' decision is the Poké Ball thrown without consent.
The analogy wasn't perfect. But it held up well enough.
A capable Trainer, Steven knew, had to build the relationship — earn it, cultivate it over time. Or, if that wasn't possible, let the Pokémon go. Return it to where it belonged.
He looked down at the Sandslash lying on the cave floor.
He genuinely liked it. The way it looked, the way it had fought — recklessly, protectively, without hesitation. And the Totem aura it carried made it unlike any ordinary wild Pokémon.
But it hadn't shown any intention of leaving this place voluntarily.
"Guchu…"
The Sandshrew colony swarmed in from the sides, clustering around the fallen Sandslash in a tight, anxious ring.
Steven exhaled quietly. "Looking at this from the outside, I really do seem like the villain who wandered into someone else's home and caused a scene."
He allowed himself a small, helpless smile, then turned. "Good work, Lucario."
He recalled Lucario to its Poké Ball, then released Metagross.
"Psychic," Steven said, and held up a Hyper Potion.
"Metagross."
Metagross understood immediately. A faint blue light extended outward and lifted the surrounding Sandshrew gently into the air, holding them in place — not roughly, but firmly enough that they couldn't interfere.
"Guchu?!"
The Sandshrew panicked, scrambling their legs against nothing, unable to pull free from Metagross's grip.
Steven knelt beside the Sandslash. He sprayed Hyper Potion carefully over the bruise on its forehead, then reached into his bag and produced a handful of energy cubes made from Sitrus Berry extract. He eased the Sandslash's jaw open and fed the cubes in one by one.
The effect was gradual but clear. Colour returned to the Sandslash's face. Its breathing steadied. After a minute or so, it pushed itself upright.
Metagross set the Sandshrew down. The colony immediately quieted — watching, uncertain, but no longer panicking.
Steven stood and put his hands on his hips. "Sandslash," he said, with genuine curiosity in his voice, "is there anything that might convince you to come with me voluntarily?"
If there were conditions, he could work with that. If there were none — if it simply refused outright — then he would leave. He wouldn't force the matter.
"Gupah…"
The Sandslash hesitated.
That was enough. Hesitation meant the question was still open.
"Gupah!"
Metagross relayed the meaning: If you can help design an ice castle — I'll go with you.
Steven fell quiet for a moment, looking at Metagross's translation.
"An ice castle."
He glanced around the passage — at the Sandshrew, at the half-excavated ice surface they'd been working on when he arrived. The pieces connected.
So that's what all this was for.
If someone had asked him to dig through rock, Steven would have had a pickaxe in hand before they finished the sentence. Geology, excavation, fieldwork — that was familiar ground. But design was a different matter.
Still.
He reached into his bag and pulled out a field notebook and a pencil.
The only castle he could recall with any clarity was the one in Rota Town — he had passed through the area on a research trip some years back. He began sketching from that memory, then let his own instincts take over. He extended the height, reshaped the proportions, added structural detail.
"Would you need the exterior, or the internal layout?" he asked, pencil hovering.
The Sandslash considered briefly. "Gupah!"
Exterior.
"Exterior. That I can work with."
He kept sketching. After a moment, something occurred to him.
"If it's a castle for Sandshrew, it should look like one."
He adjusted the rooftop — replacing the standard conical turrets with shapes drawn from the ice spines running along Sandslash's back, each one tapered and sharp. Then he reworked the lower battlements, giving the walls the rounded, segmented look of Sandshrew's igloo-shaped head armour.
When he set the pencil down, a complete rough exterior draft filled the page.
Paper, though, was fragile. It would dampen, tear, or simply get lost somewhere in the cave. The design needed to be somewhere the Sandshrew could reference it over time.
"Metagross."
"Metagross."
Metagross had, on a previous occasion, demonstrated a quietly remarkable talent for detailed stonework — something Steven had not expected and had never entirely gotten over. Now, working from Steven's sketch and its own considerable spatial reasoning, it began carving.
The process took time. When it was finished, the cave wall held a precise rendering of the castle's exterior — clean lines, accurate proportions, and, notably, a top-down overhead view included without being asked.
Steven stepped back and surveyed the result. "That's everything." He exhaled. "What do you think, Sandslash?"
The Sandslash stared at the wall for a long moment. Then it nodded, slowly, with the expression of something genuinely satisfied.
"Gupah."
It turned and called one of the Sandshrew over, speaking to it at length in that same low, intent tone it had used to direct the excavation earlier. A handover — instructions for what came next, who was responsible for what, how the work should continue in its absence.
Steven watched quietly.
Noble Pokémon functioned as the anchor of a group, the one the others organised around. But such Pokémon didn't disappear when they left — a successor would emerge from the colony in time. That was how it worked.
"Guchu!"
One of the Sandshrew padded forward, carrying something carefully between its paws: a pale blue rhombus-shaped stone, semi-translucent, catching the moss-glow faintly along its edges.
The Sandslash took it and held it out toward Steven.
He paused. "Is this… compensation? Because you've decided not to come after all?"
"Gupah."
A thank-you gift.
Steven let out a quiet breath he hadn't realised he'd been holding, and accepted the stone.
A thank-you gift and compensation were very different things. The distinction mattered.
He turned the stone over in his palm, studying it. When he looked up, the Sandslash's arm was still extended — and there was something impatient in its expression, a quiet urgency in the way it watched him.
If you don't bring out a Poké Ball right now, I'm going to change my mind.
Steven understood. He reached for a fresh Poké Ball and touched it gently to Sandslash's claw.
The Sandslash dissolved into red light.
The ball closed. It shook once in Steven's hand — and then came the soft, clean sound of the locking mechanism catching.
Capture successful.
"Guchu…"
The colony of Sandshrew looked at the Poké Ball. Then, in something close to unison, they let out a long, collective cry — a send-off.
Steven smiled at them. "You've all got a lot of work ahead of you. I hope the castle is well underway by the time I bring Sandslash back to see it."
"Guchu~~~"
The Sandshrew looked at one another, then turned back to the ice wall with renewed energy.
Steven watched them for a moment longer, then looked down at the Poké Ball resting in his hand.
Alolan Sandslash. Noble Pokémon.
Caught.