Rock 4.16: Control Group
Cuicatl
April 22nd, 2020
You press your hands down on Noci’s back as she descends. It doesn’t actually keep you on her, she’s doing all that for you, but it feels like you should be doing
something. Your finger brushes against the slightly corroded metal from where the lileep had hit her. The Center staff had stopped the spread of the corrosion. You’ll have to fix the surface damage yourself later. Noci has told you it isn’t urgent. It should still be taken care of. There isn’t really a whole lot you can do for her since she doesn’t eat very much at all and can take care of herself. You shouldn’t put off the one thing you
can do for her.
She stops moving abruptly but it doesn’t give you whiplash. She’s gotten good at countering out forces. Maybe there’s a combat use for it. Pushing away nearby opponents? You’ll think about it later. Or just ask her. She’s pretty smart after her evolution. Not the cruel supercomputer people compare metagross to. Just clever.
You slide off of her and reach up to your scarf. It was a little tricky to get the pockets into place but now you have a cool way to carry your pokémon. Lyra says it doesn’t really fit with your casual clothes, but it’s still good for formal days. Like going to meet a kahuna at her own home. No pressure.
Coco forms up beside you and you rest a hand on her back. “Stay close, okay?” She chirrups and you reach your other hand out to Noci. Her arm lowers to meet it and she starts walking you towards the door.
“Over here,” Miss Rodriguez calls out. “I’m in my garage. We can walk down the staircase here to my basement.”
Staircases. Coco can do them but not as a guide. Not like you need the help. You smile and walk towards her. Once you reach the stairs Coco bolts straight down them and waits for you to follow. You have to take them more cautiously, feeling out the steps to make sure you don’t trip and fall.
“Thank you for coming,” Kahuna Rodriguez says once you’re properly inside her basement. “Can I escort you to the couch? Or can your tyrunt do that?”
You turn to Noci to guide you. You’d need to talk to Coco in Upper Draconic in front of Kahuna Rodriguez, and not all the words have good translations. When you sit down on the couch Coco jumps right up beside you and wiggles around as she settles in. Oh. Miss Rodriguez might not want a dinosaur on her couch. They have pretty sharp claws and teeth. She doesn’t mention it, though.
“Can you really talk to dragons?” she asks. “Or is that just a way to hide that you’re psychic?”
You tense up. She knows about that? How? Government records? Did Hala know, too? Is that why he was upset?
“Tapu Lele told me. I haven’t told anyone else.” You relax a little bit. Good. The Tapu would know since she’s the one who made your Z-crystal. And Officer Takeda probably works for her.
The silence stretches on. You should answer her other question. “I
can actually speak Upper and Lower Draconic, especially the hydreigon dialect. My gift just fills in some of the gaps.”
You hear her shift in her chair. “So, dragons have proper languages huh? Two of them?”
“Yes.” More, really. Lower draconic isn’t a single language so much as a lot of sort-of-related ones that change by region and species.
“And tyrunt speak it?”
“She knew some Upper Draconic, the proper language, when she hatched.”
“Huh.” She unlocks her phone with an audible click. Odd. Most people keep it on silent. “Is it mutually intelligible? Very strange that language hasn’t evolved much in sixty-five million years. Ours change in decades or centuries.”
You’ve thought about that. You’d say that she just inherited Upper Draconic from her father, but hydreigon have to learn Upper Draconic. They aren’t automatically born with it. Lower is their instinctual language. “I’ve thought about that. She speaks a variant of Upper Draconic, the formal language used for mythology, history, and politics. I think that it might have come about to speak to gods. As long as the gods were there and speaking the same as they did before then the language wouldn’t have changed much.”
You aren’t entirely sure how old the different draconic gods are. The Split God arrived a few millennia ago. Quetzlcoatl is older than the dinosaurs. Cipactli is as old as the Earth is. The Paledrake of Japan might be even older.
“The dinosaurs talked to gods,” Kahuna Rodriguez whispers. “I take it that your Class V is on the dragon languages?”
You shake your head. “Pokémon myths. As in, the myths that pokémon believe. Not myths
about pokémon.”
“Huh. Shirona might be into that whenever she visits. Didn’t come this winter because of the Blackout but she usually stops by every few months.”
It’s weird to see her just casually namedrop one of the greatest trainers in the world. “Do you know her?”
She laughs. It’s a bark-type laugh. Short and loud. “Honey, we dated once.” What. How. She’s gay? Both of them? And they… “Only lasted a few weeks. She didn’t want to move here full time and Tapu Lele doesn’t like it when I leave for too long. Wasn’t going to work out in the long term so we broke it off. Still get drinks with her whenever she’s in the neighborhood.”
Your brain breaks a little trying to process that. It’s… Shirona isn’t your very favorite, but she’s on the top five list. People say that her garchomp is a sweetheart. A sweetheart that can defeat the god of victory, something so awesome that it doesn’t even make logical sense
. Hearing someone talk about her personal life is very strange.
“I can get you her number if you want. She’d probably like talking to you when she gets the chance.”
“O-okay.”
You put the personal phone number of Shirona Karashina, the world’s fourth strongest trainer, into the contacts of your cell phone. You’ve calmed a rampaging tyrantrum, been healed by a goddess, and
SPOKE TO RESHIRAM but none of that felt as unreal as this does.
You’re quiet for a while as you process that. Too long. You should be more social since you’re a guest and she just did something really, really great for you. “Your tyrunt has been baring her teeth at me on and off this whole time,” she finally says. “Should I be worried?”
“No, she just likes showing off her teeth.”
“Huh.” You can hear Kahuna Rodriguez shift in her chair. It makes some kind of a metallic noise. Not loud enough to be obnoxious, but it tells you the furniture has some mechanical part. “They are very good teeth.”
You can practically feel Coco preen beside you.
“This is going to sound weird, but how does she deal with being handled by strangers? Would she bite me if I pet her?” She sounds fascinated. Excited. Like a kid wanting to pet the neighbor’s growlithe.
You turn to Coco. “Can she pet you?”
The dinosaur chirrups.
“She says yes.”
Kahuna Rodriguez slowly approaches. You can feel the air move as she approaches. Hear Coco sniff something. Probably her outstretched hand. A kahuna would know how to work with pokémon. She spends a long-time petting Coco but you can’t hear and can barely feel her movements. Taking it slow.
“She likes neck rubs and scratches.”
You can feel the subtle movements of the air as she shifts her arms. Then Coco starts a low rumbling purr of contentment. You’re pretty sure tyrunt don’t naturally purr. Probably just picked that up from Pixie. Still adorable.
“Can I touch her teeth?” Miss Rodriguez asks. She sounds… reverent? Like she’s having a little religious experience over petting Coco. It’s kind of strange, but you get it:
dinosaur dragon. You were having a continuous string of those moments before it all just started to feel… normal. Annoying sometimes. Like when she was teething. You still love her dearly and you don’t deserve her. Now you can just go ten minutes without realizing how miraculous it is that she’s alive here and now and with you.
“Coco, show teeth.” She’s happy to do it and it makes it easy to figure out how her teeth are doing after a battle. She’s even used to letting you run your finger along them because you can’t see them. “One finger, be gentle.”
She holds her breath the entire time before finally taking a few steps back.
“They’re magnificent,” she says. “And she’s so well behaved. The only other tyrunt I’ve met wouldn’t have allowed me to touch her at all.”
Most tyrunt are like that. You get why. They lost some of their culture when they were made by test tubes without tyrantrum parents. And, well, dragons don’t like being managed. You can learn to work with them, even to command them, but that trust doesn’t come easily without some kind of an opening. Like being seen as their mother. Or sister.
You feel the couch shift as she sits down at the other end. A lot of trust in Coco there. Then again, she did just literally stick her hand inside a mouth full of serrated teeth. If Coco wanted to she could have easily taken off the kahuna’s hand.
“When I went on the island challenge, they’d just started having some success cloning tyrunt. Not much: they still died after a week or so, but they’d proven it was
possible. My dad owned a jewelry store. Kept some carbink around as part of the display. Helped me get into mineral pokémon. And I thought that maybe, just maybe, someday I could have a tyrunt of my own.
“In undergrad I got my Class V from research into lileep care. They had a few at the university and I helped figure out what temperatures, salinity, minerals, and currents they liked. It was all cutting edge at the time, but now…” She laughs. Genuinely. It’s a good, happy laugh that warms your heart a little for no real reason. “Now we know they don’t even need to be in water full time. But until we got the mineral supplements down we had no idea what we were doing. Just fumbling in the dark to care for the things we’d managed to bring back into the world.”
“Sounds fun,” you say, just to say something. Spending all day in a lab fiddling with water does not actually sound fun. There’s also a creeping dread in your heart that you know where this is going and you aren’t sure you like it.
“Sometimes.” Seems like you were right. “But there were tyrantrum then, you know? They’d managed to evolve one. There was talk that it might even be possible to breed a pair in a couple years. I wanted to get in on the ground floor of fossil care with creatures that aren’t really like modern plants
or animals. They’re… close enough to sponges, I guess, but not quite. A lot smarter to start with. Maybe the first plants with a sophisticated nervous system.”
It sounds cool. It’s not that you don’t care about the Cambrian: there just weren’t dragons. Or giant predators. Well, armaldo. Armaldo are fine. (Golisopod are cooler, you’ve decided.)
“Then I went for my PhD. in paleontology. Did my research on rampardos social structures. Where they were found, what migration routes they could have taken given their legs and food availability, how large their territories probably were, all that. There was actually a lot of debate on what they used the domes for. Dominance displays like tauros and sawsbuck? I didn’t think so. A friend of mine and I did some 3D modeling of the skull and found that they would have so many concussions if they just rammed into each other all the time. With antlers and horns the forces aren’t always going straight into the skull. A rampardos’s dome? With the speeds and weights involved? CTE by the time you’re sexually mature. Assuming you didn’t just drop dead on the spot.”
You have no idea what CTE is but decide its polite to nod and let her continue. You do remember reading about all of this. It’s really cool that she was at the center of everything. Even if…
“I think they hunted. Or maybe they bashed into trees to send fruit down. I actually consulted on the first herd they got going out in some private land in the Central Valley.” Another thing you don’t know but don’t really want to ask about because… “To make a long story short, I talked them into mixing some meat into their diet every two weeks. They ate it. We still weren’t entirely sure if that meant anything since most herbivores eat meat when offered. Had to go through a whole mess of ethics approvals before we could see if they would hunt. Turns out that they will, but only if they’re already pretty hungry. We found that out on accident.”
“It must have been a lot of fun seeing whole herds.”
“Eh. I mean it was, but it sort of shredded all of my research. Did you know they were most comfortable with the biggest male having a harem and bachelors hanging out nearby? We rotated them through the pastures the main herd wasn’t in. Sometimes a female broke off to join one of the other males. There was a second herd forming when I left the project.”
She liked it, right? It sounds like she liked it. “Why did you leave?”
“Well,” you can feel a lot of the easy joy in her voice get held back by tension. “My dad’s health went downhill and he needed me to help with the business. Then Tapu Lele made me Kahuna. Even if I did go back to finish my doctorate, the field’s moved on a lot since then. I’m glad I did the work and got a few publications under my belt. There’s just nothing left for me to do there.”
Her dream died, then. She never got to work with a tyrunt. Then you got one purely by accident, because Kekoa wanted to spite his brother. It’s not fair. She has to hate you, right? For stealing her dream.
“You went quiet,” Kahuna Rodriguez says. Coco nuzzles her head against your side. You pet her neck feathers to show her its okay.
“Are you mad at me?” you ask.
“For what?” She sounds genuinely confused.
“Getting a tyrunt, when you…”
She sighs and you hear her get up. You reflexively tense and Coco softly growls. {Not a threat} you tell her. She stops but you can still feel her head move as she keeps an eye on Olivia.
The kahuna sits down in front of you and gently puts a hand on your knee. It’s warm. Not hot. Just comforting. “No. I’m not mad. I’m happy for you. It seems like you’re doing a wonderful job raising her. Better than I would have. My job as kahuna is making sure that the kids of Alola are living their best lives. If she makes you happy then I’m glad you have her.”
You aren’t sure how to feel about that. It makes you feel good, but you aren’t sure it should? She did everything and didn’t get what she wanted and you just… it isn’t fair. You don’t deserve it. You love her and you want her to stay and you’re so, so glad you met her, but you don’t deserve her.
Olivia squeezes your knee a little tighter. Not painfully. Just… it feels nice. Reassuring.
“Trust me, I loved today. I would love to talk more with you about tyrunt in the future and see Coco again. But that old chapter of my life closed a long time ago. I’m happy with what I do now.” She lowers her hand away but stays close. “Now let’s talk payment. I have an everstone if you want it. For your metang.”
“It wouldn’t matter. Metagross ‘upgrade’ metang themselves at evolution. They could just tear it out.”
You figured that out shortly after Noci immediately agreed to having an everstone implanted. She’s sneaky like that. Just not always as sneaky as she thinks.
“Then I could make a collar necklace for Coco if she’d wear it. Could keep her from evolving before you got your Class V.”
“That would be nice.” You can’t keep it on her for too long before it causes health issues, but two or three months should be fine. That’s enough time to get your thesis done even if things keep going slow. Miss Bell said that maybe you could get a few weeks off soon to get more work done. That would help.
“Excellent. I’ll have it sent to you at the Center when I’m finished. Now, did your friend ever reach an agreement with his carbink?”
“It was just a miscommunication.”
“Oh?”
You aren’t sure if it’s your place to explain, but. Kekoa won’t. So you will. And she already knows you’re psychic. “They didn’t understand human lifespans. When they understood that Kekoa would stop traveling before you died they wanted to stay for a while.”
The kahuna snorts. “Rocks. I’ll never get tired of them.”
Should you ask her about Noci? How to understand mineral pokémon? Noci isn’t really a rock. She’s just… older than she seems. Not even geologically old, or even people old, just older than you. And she’s more computer than fossil or living bolder. And she’s watching you know. It would be awkward to talk in front of her or withdraw her and damage her trust.
You don’t ask. You still find other things to talk about. The conversation goes on for longer than it should since the kahuna’s a busy woman. You still find yourself enjoying it. You’re even a little sad when she gets a business call and the meeting finally ends.
*
Noci sets you down by the beach before giving you some distance. There’s a conversation you’ve been putting off too long. You reach for Leo’s net ball and send him out. Before you could hardly feel his presence. He was quiet and small. Now he’s still quiet for his size but you can still
feel him there. Echolocation or some part of your gift. You know when something big and alive is nearby. And now he’s bigger than you. it’s not even close.
“You been getting used to the new body?” you ask.
“Yes. It is good. Fewer threats.”
Because that’s the first thing he would think of. His voice is still strange. Almost bubbly. Literally bubbly. As in, you can hear the mandibles click and foam as he speaks. It’s nothing like any of your mother’s pokémon ever did. Not even
quite like Ce.
“I’m glad you like it.” And you are. Even if he leaves now, it feels good having helped him out. And he helped you get your second grand trial stamp, too.
“I didn’t believe you,” he says. “When you showed me the fake moving vision of a big wimpod. Said that could happen for me. I only kept fighting because it could scare away predators.”
“I wouldn’t lie to you,” you lie to him. You’ve been doing a lot better with that since Pixie. Since Earthshaker. It’s still hard to accept that your pokémon would still like you if they knew who you really are. You’ve been trying. Really. But you’re still the same person who played carrots and sticks with Pixie until someone came along who could play that game better.
“Wimpod have no talent. Not invisibility. Not mind voices. Not fire teeth. We run. That is all we can do. Now there are many things I can do. It is strange. It is good.”
“What do you want to do with that strength?” you ask. He hasn’t thanked you. He’s a bug. A deep sea bug. It was always more likely than not that he’d leave when he evolved. You knew that. Still… you felt pride hearing him face down caterpie and rattata and lycanroc. Like he’s your child and he’s grown so big. He’s going to leave and… it’s fine. You won’t stop him. Not like you tried with Pixie. He only wants to avoid being hurt. That’s his whole thing. You wouldn’t risk that.
You hear the giant bug shift in place, legs tapping against each other, the sand, and his armor as he thinks. “Your fights are not to the death.”
“No.”
“You can still feed me?”
“Yes.” You smile a little. Maybe this can go okay?
“Sea fights are to the death. I will stay here.”
“Thank you.”
He doesn’t thank you back. He doesn’t like you or Coco or Pixie or Alice. He will stay near you for convenience. You will happily keep him around for his strength. That is all there is to your relationship. It’s… sad, almost, but you’re just so glad that he’s staying. Maybe you’ll become friends. Maybe you won’t. Only the gods know what the future holds.
*
Wind whips through your hair as Noci flies you back to the Center.
{Query: UD_Cuicatl in State:Worry over Unit010_101110110}
It takes you a second to figure that out. “No, why would I be?”
{UD_Cuicatl Messaged State:Worry that Unit010_101110110 would Change Missions.}
Oh. You were. When Pixie had just left…
You don’t want to think about that time. Noci decided the best way to help was to threaten to blow herself up. Stupid, adorable computer.
You are still worried. You don’t know what her real mission is. If she plans on evolving. What she would do after she evolved. The only thing you can do is trust a pokémon that doesn’t think anything like humans. “Yes,” you tell her. No point lying. She might figure it out or threaten to explode with you on top of her or whatever seems like a good idea to her circuits.
{UD_Cuicatl Possesses Command Privileges}
“Higher than a metagross’?”
She doesn’t respond for almost two full seconds. A lifetime’s worth of consideration for her.
{Negation.}
“If a metagross asked you to kill me, you would do it?”
{Terminating UD_Cuicatl Violates Corollary1 = Defend UD_Cuicatl.}
“Whoever gave you that corollary, could they change it?”
A pause. Much, much shorter, but still noticeable.
{UD_Cuicatl Assigned Threat Level 101;
Class100 Units Possess Minimum Threat Level 1000000;
Class100 Unit Could Terminate UD_Cuicatl;
UD_Cuicatl Could Not Terminate Class100 Unit;
Terminating UD_Cuicatl Inefficient}
“Metagross torture their prey.
That’s inefficient.”
There’s an even longer pause. Three full breaths. Why? Is she just ignoring you?
{Unit100_110010 Subordinate to UD_Lila;
UD_Lila Has Affinity Towards UD_Cuicatl;
Harming UD_Cuicatl Violates Subordination;
Harming UD_Cuicatl Prohibited}
You open your eyes in shock only to promptly close them again when a strand of hair whips into them.
“Since when did Lila have a metagross?”
{UD_Lila Subordinated Unit100_110010 100100 Planetary Rotations Ago}
Thirty-six days ago. After Noci evolved. How did you miss
that in the news? It would have made the news, right? It’s not every day someone just up and captures a metagross.
“You could have led with that, you know?” You trust Officer Takeda knows what they’re doing.
{Negation.}
No? Could she not tell you? The pause. She was probably asking her boss for permission to reveal that. Had to wait for the signal to reach… wherever Lila is right now. They said they lived near where you first met them. Could be away for work.
“Okay.” You feel a lot better now. Stress you hadn’t realized you were holding on your shoulders slips away. “Thank you. Is there anything I can do for you, though? You do a lot for me and I want to help you back.”
{Polishing Hull;
Acquisition of Object_ScrapMetal}
You smile. That’s easy enough. “I can do that.”
{Initiating Descent}
You press your palms down on her back as she lowers herself to the Pokémon Center.
Once you’ve gotten off you hear Kekoa clear his throat. He does it by coughing once then twice in a row. Kind of weird. At least it helps you know he’s there. “How did it go with Olivia?”
“She was kind. Offered me an everstone.” You grin. Even show a little tooth for once. You only regret that you won’t be able to see his face. “She also gave me Shirona’s phone number.”
“Bullshit.” You shake your head a little from side to side. Wait. Is that denying it’s bullshit or that she gave it to you? “
The Shirona? Karashina? That one?”
“Yup.” You pop the ‘p’ like Genesis used to when she was feeling smug. Genesis… Fuck. That’s a whole other thing you need to deal with. Or not? Ugh. Fuck. Therapy later. Deal with it then.
“You texted her yet?”
“No.” You haven’t even thought of what to say to someone like her. It might take a few more days.
“Well, good luck with that.” He takes a deep breath. “And, uh, good luck in therapy.”
Right. The thing you’ve been trying not to think about. It feels… weak. Having to go. Saying that you can’t handle things alone. You
are handling things. Alone. But Noci might blow herself up if you don’t ‘debug’ yourself. You’ll go for her. Whatever keeps her happy. Wait.
“Do metang feel happiness?” you ask Noci once Kekoa’s walked away.
{Negation}
Even at your lowest you know that you
could feel happy again, if only for a moment. What would life be like without that? If you could get rid of sadness, too, would it be worth it? “Something like it?”
{Efficiency. Utility.}
“Huh.” You aren’t even going to pretend you understand that.
{UD_Cuicatl Must Initiate Ramming Towards Debugging Session.}
“Thanks.” She’s not letting you skip this one. Oh well. You can work out… all of
that later.
You have to ask the receptionist for directions, but you do make it to the room you’re supposed to meet your therapist in. You wait outside for a few minutes until the time comes, nervously tapping your cane on the ground. Why did you agree to this? What are you getting—
The door swings open. “Cuicatl?” a woman asks. Alolan accent. Mezzo-soprano, probably. That’s not a lot of information to go off of.
You still make a point to smile and turn to her. “Hello.”
“Good to meet you. If you can come in we’ll get the session started.” She follows behind you and closes the door. Now you’re in the room but don’t know where the table or couch or whatever she’s using is. She slips her hand around your elbow and walks you over to a chair that she pulls out. It’s a little demeaning. Whatever. You sit down with no complaints. No need to get things off badly.
She claps her hands and you tense before slowly relaxing. “Let’s get started, shall we? My name’s Dr. Valerie Livens. You can call me Valerie, Dr. Livens, Dr. Valerie, whatever you want.” She led with Valerie. Will she be mad if you use Dr. Livens? “Do you have any questions for me off the bat?”
Lots. What you’re doing here. How this is supposed to help. What’s even going to go on. You can’t really tell her much about your mother since she’s dead. Even if you have memories. Should she know that? You don’t think she’s behind your problems. She’s actually the only person you love who has never hurt you ever, not even on accident.
“No,” you tell her. You’ll have time later. Best to just let her do what she wants. At least until you figure things out.
“Okay. Ordinarily I’d have sent you a whole lot of paperwork before the meeting, but I wasn’t sure how much of it you could fill out. Is it okay if we start by running through it?”
“Sure.”
She asks a lot of questions. Your name, birthday, gender (weird she has to ask, but you suppose that Officer Takeda isn’t a woman even though they sound like one), mailing address, phone number. Basic stuff. Then she tells you that she can’t tell anyone anything you say, except for the times where she can. If kids or old people are getting hurt. You could hurt an adult or a pokémon and she wouldn’t care. Weird rules. You wonder who wrote them. You also aren’t allowed to kill yourself. Well, you can. But she would have to do something and get you sent to jail. Or discount jail. Whatever they call it. At least you know you can’t talk to her about that. Good she tells you that at the start.
Then there are questions about you. About your feelings. Depression? Yes. You think so. Especially after the blissey egg. Anxiety? You aren’t really afraid, are you? Some people tell you that you aren’t afraid enough. Some of these you barely recognize. You aren’t autistic or OCD. What even is a personality disorder? How would you know if you had one?
PTSD. No. Haven’t fought in a war. You’re pretty sure that’s just an American thing, anyway. Anahuac trains its boys better than that. Weird she even asked about that one.
You don’t want to kill yourself, you’ve never thought about killing yourself, you don’t understand why anyone would want to, you don’t understand why anyone would tell their therapist that.
You have to ask more questions about eating disorders. You don’t eat much, but you’d get fat if you did. Yes, you know you aren’t fat right now, but you can’t just let that happen to you. It would be… bad. Unhealthy.
Disgusting. She tells you that you might have one but moves on.
“Tell me about your family.”
Now the classic question comes out. “My mom died when I was born. I used to live with my father back in Anahuac. My twin brother died last July.”
She goes quiet. You overshared. Great. And you’re not tearing up just from admitting all of that. Not so early in the damn session. You’re paying way too much to start crying before you even get anything out of it.
“I can imagine that’s a lot to deal with,” Dr. Livens says. Her voice has dropped half an octave. Filled with concern. Pity. You don’t want or need her pity. “How have you been holding up?”
“It is what it is.” That’s an American saying that means ‘everything is terrible and I don’t know how to fix any of it so I’m not going to try and I don’t want to talk about it.’ Roughly. You’re still learning all the little cultural things.
“It’s okay to feel upset. Or to not know how to feel. Or to feel nothing. There are lots of reactions to grief and they’re all valid.”
You do feel sad. And empty. And guilty. You aren’t sure how to even start explaining all of that to a stranger.
“We can talk about that later on if you want.”
You nod. Maybe you will want to talk about it if you can trust her. Not with your secrets, you don’t really care if those get out. With your heart. Sometimes things only really start hurting if you tell someone about them. And you’re a psychic. You’ve heard stories of empaths or telepaths destroying a life with a sentence or two.
“Is there anything else you think I should know before we begin?”
“I’m psychic.” She can’t tell anyone. It’s not something you’re embarrassed about. She should probably know.
Dr. Livens writes something down on her notepad. The pencil’s movements are almost annoyingly loud in the silent room. “I see. Do you know your score and classification?”
Miss Bell mentioned something like that. You’ve never been tested. Don’t know your score. You do know your classification, sort of. “Telepath. I translate things.”
More scribbles. “I don’t specialize in psychics,” she admits. “A lot of them use their own therapists. Unfortunately, Alola doesn’t really have one. Do you know Lila Takeda?”
“We’ve met.”
“Good. They’re the unofficial social worker for psychics in the commonwealth.”
“They said something like that.”
(You don’t know what a social worker is and your gift isn’t telling you anything useful. Maybe they just don’t have them in Anahuac. Officer Takeda had said they look after the psychics of Alola. Makes sure they stay in line. You don’t know what the difference between a social worker and a cop is if that’s what social workers do as well.)
“Right. You’re not the first psychic I’ve seen. Like I said, I don’t specialize in psychics, but I do try to stay up-to-date on the lit. And I work with a lot of kids on the island challenge. If you think your problems are more like that we can keep working together. If they’re psychic specific problems I might have to see if Lila can bend some rules around so you can see someone from the mainland.”
None of your… problems… really have to do with your gifts much at all. Except maybe the feeling of emptiness in half your mind. Some days you can go hours without thinking about it but then a thought will brush against it and you’ll suddenly remember how much you’ve lost. No. That’s. How would she understand? How would
anyone understand? Even other psychics unless they’d had a twin and lost them.
“I must remind you that I’m not a psychic myself,” Dr. Livens says. “If you want me to know something you will have to tell it to me.”
Fine. It’s not like she can tell anyone else anyway. “Some stuff with my brother. We shared minds a lot.”
For a few heartbeats there’s nothing. Not the scribbling of a pen or awkward shifting in her seat. Dead silence.
“Oh.”
You shrug. What is there to say?
When she speaks again her words are slow and careful. Like she’s talking to a child or a rampaging pokémon. “It might be good to talk to Lila about that. See if there’s any brain damage they can fix. I can at least help with some of the grief responses. And if you’re in Hau’oli on the first Thursday of a month there’s a support group for people who have lost a twins. ‘Twinless twins’ they call themselves. It might help you to hear how other people are handling it. To know that you’re not alone.”
They wouldn’t quite understand. But. Those seem… nice. You mostly trust Officer Takeda. And you need to talk to them about their metagross anyway. And even if the other people wouldn’t get it, they still come closer than anyone else you’ve met. “I would like that.”
“Have you talked to anyone about this?” she asks. “Doesn’t have to be a therapist. Lila, your father, friends, anyone?”
A few conversations with Pixie. She didn’t understand it at all. You shake your head no and you can hear Lila suck a breath in.
“To go through all of that,” she says carefully. “You must be stronger than most. But you shouldn’t have to be.”
What?
She must see the confusion on your face. “Have you heard the expression ‘what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger?’”
“Yes.” In pop music. You’d had to ask Kekoa about that later. The song was wrong. Very wrong. What doesn’t kill you now can become infected or break a limb and kill you slowly. Every dragon and warrior knows that. Only a nation of cowards would blast something so obviously wrong on their radio.
“It’s not entirely true,” obviously, “but there’s an element of truth there. When bad things happen to us our brains adapt. Our behaviors change. They help us survive whatever happened. It makes you strong, sort of.” She takes a deep breath. “But you’re still a child. You didn’t deserve to lose your brother.” If only she knew. “You shouldn’t have had to be strong on your own. Someone should have been there to help you. And I’m sorry they weren’t.”
She’s a therapist. How does she not know the first life lesson anyone learns: “Life isn’t fair.”
“I know. Believe me, I know. Sometimes it’s good to remind yourself that what happened was unfair. It doesn’t change that it happened, but it can change your thoughts around it.”
“Then everything is still exactly the same.”
“No,” she insists. Your patience is running low with this woman’s nonsense. “When your brain and behaviors change, they become good at surviving whatever hurt them. Those changes can also make you less able to cope with day-to-day life. And when the bad situation ends you can be left off worse for it. Like a bone that heals wrong. Part of therapy is rebreaking the bone and changing how you think about the event and what lessons you should have learned. Then you can try and change how you approach things going forward to ways that help you now.”
“What if the bad situation hasn’t ended?” you ask. Alice, Renfield, Searah… you still need to find them. Whatever it takes.
“Then I can help you find your way out of it.”
Fine. Something still bothers you about what she said earlier. “And for the stuff that’s over, you’re comparing it to breaking my leg?” You aren’t sure you need
more pain in your life.”
She laughs. It doesn’t sound like a happy laugh. Or that she’s laughing at you. “That’s the fun part. I can’t break your leg in that analogy.
You have to.” What. “Don’t get me wrong, I can help. Tell you when to push or pull, make sure you’re putting it back together right, comfort you when it’s done. But you have to be willing to put in the effort to get good results from trauma work. If you aren’t, that’s fine, there are probably other paths we could take. I just need to know if you’re willing before we begin.”
Are you? That’s… it’s a lot to process and you don’t know. You’re not above hurting yourself. Mentally. On purpose. Why should this be different.
“You don’t need to decide today. This is just our first appointment of many. I do need you to think about what you want out of all of this.”
What you want. You did want to talk about the egg.
“Is this going to change who I am?”
The response is almost immediate. “No. Just how you approach the world. You’ll still be you. No one can change that.”
She is once again very, very wrong. You’ll get to that.
“I had a blissey egg a few weeks ago. I felt different for a few days.”
“Even those don’t really
change you. They just heal problems in the body. Sometimes bodies just don’t produce enough of certain chemicals and everything gets thrown off. It’s a health problem just like having too little blood. Blissey eggs fix it. Help heal brain damage. That’s it.”
“I felt different.”
“You felt like you would if you weren’t injured.”
You raise a hand to the side of your eye without thinking. No. You know injury. Brains… they don’t work like that. Right? But she just said that losing you Achi could have given you brain damage and. Maybe it’s just healing that? No. You never remember feeling like that before.
“You would still be you.” Dr. Livens’ voice has dropped low. Low and soothing. You lean into it a little despite everything. “Your memories, your likes and dislikes, your personality, your dreams and fears. Everything important. You’d just have more energy. More life.”
You lower your hand and squeeze it against your chest. Your body sinks down into the chair until a third of your back is lying on the seat, the rest awkwardly bent up so your head is upright. It’s all. You don’t know? You don’t know. You don’t know.
“Did any of that feel different to you after you ate the egg?”
No. Maybe a dislike changed. Yourself. But you still hadn’t really…
liked yourself? Just didn’t hate yourself as much. Or it didn’t feel like it was as big of a deal. Is that just
normal? You don’t think most people hate themselves. But most people haven’t killed their brothers.
“Even if you don’t want something as strong as a blissey egg there are other options. I could refer you to a psychiatrist to talk more about what you want and what medications might help you get there.”
“Okay,” you mutter. You might just tell him you want nothing. At least it would end
this conversation.
“Good. I’ll send you some names.”
“You’re still wrong about not being able to change people.”
“Oh?”
You tell her about Genesis. About all the warning signs you had that her family was messed up. How she went pack. How you
told her to go back. How she’d apparently been gay and her parents tried to change that about her. How they plan on doing it by force. Dr. Livens is silent the entire time save for the scratching of her pencil against her notepad.
“I am going to have to report this to Child Protective Services.”
“Good. I already told Officer Takeda and they said they would do the same thing. Maybe more complaints will matter?”
“I hope so.” She doesn’t sound at all confident in that. “Do you blame yourself for this?”
“Duh.” You told her to go back. Kekoa might have talked her out of it but you had to step in and throw her straight into the fire.
“If I may ask, why did you tell her what you did?”
“I’d just talked to Reshiram. Home isn’t always easy for me but she told me to go back. I’d thought that…”
You don’t know what you’d been thinking. How could you have done that to her?
“And is Reshiram a god to you? I’m sorry. I don’t know much about Anahuac.”
“It’s fine.” It’s hard to learn much about Anahuac in this country. Much that’s real, at least. “She is
a goddess. Dragons worship her as the Flamebringer. She’s not really a goddess you pray to. Still very important to worship her when she does show up.”
“And you didn’t even know she was a lesbian at the time?”
“No. I should have, though. I—there were signs, now that I think about it.”
“I see. Do you want my opinion on this, as a professional?”
You suspect she’ll give it whatever you say. “Go ahead.”
“I think that you were in a very stressful situation with The Blackout, believed you were passing on divine knowledge, and had no reason to think things would get this bad.”
“Sure, but—but I still told her to go.”
“I see.” She jots something down in her notebook. “Do you think you deserve punishment for that?”
“Yes.” Clearly.
“Do you believe the universe has punished you enough for it?”
“No.” You haven’t even been hurt at all for it.
“Are you going to do anything, mentally, physically, or socially, to punish yourself for it?”
You’ve already skipped a few meals because of it. “Yes,” you slowly admit. “Not lethally.” Because you don’t want to be arrested. And because you don’t think it deserves death. Does it? They’re going to kill her in the ways that matter. Murderers are executed in turn.
“Why?”
“Because I deserve it.”
“Cuicatl.” You flinch a little from the tone. Exasperated. The first time she’s said your name. “You told me earlier in the session that life isn’t fair. Why do you think its okay to accept the bad things in life that you don’t deserve but then also punish yourself when you think you deserve it? Shouldn’t the unfair universe balance itself out?”
When you disobey, you must be disciplined. When you fail, you must be disciplined. That’s how the world works. If no one else will punish you then you will do it yourself. “Because people will just keep doing bad things if they aren’t corrected.”
You hear her tap the pencil against the edge of the table. Probably a thinking tic. Has she just not had to think for the rest of this?
“I’ve already admitted I don’t know much about Anahuac. I won’t get into your last statement now. I think you might want to think it over on your own. For now I’ll just ask this: if a similar situation happened now would you do the same thing?”
“No.”
“Even if no one punished you for your past choice, including yourself?” You see the game she’s playing. You won’t let her win. You squeeze your arms tighter against your chest and lower your chin. She just keeps going anyway. “Punishment can change behaviors, yes, but I don’t think yours need to be changed here. You’ve already learned a lesson and will act differently in the future.”
“I still deserve it.” The confession comes out as little more than a whisper. Even if you don’t
need it you still deserve to hurt for all the hurt you’ve given to others. For Achcauhtli. For Alice. For your mother.
“Do you struggle with guilt?”
“Yes.” It’s a blunt answer. No need to lie. You’ve done bad things and you feel guilty about them.
“Can you tell me some other things you feel guilty about?”
You start with Pixie. She found a mother and you couldn’t let things go. Had to hurt her one last time before the end. Genesis, obviously, but you’ve already told her about that. Outing Kekoa. Your mother’s death. Killing your brother.
“I’m sorry, can you repeat that?”
“I killed my brother.”
She shifts uncomfortably in her seat. Is she going to arrest you? Was everything before a lie.
“Why?”
“I didn’t mean to. I—” He had a migraine. He wouldn’t share it. You didn’t press him. Then you just left. Right when he needed you the most. It took days to find out he’d even died. You were lucky you didn’t miss the funeral entirely.
“I see.” She drums her pencil on the table a few more times. “A lot of that doesn’t feel like things you did so much as things you failed to prevent. You had no reason to know that Hala was going to do that. You literally weren’t old enough to do anything when your mother died. You didn’t know about Genesis’s family. And having a headache is a perfectly normal thing. It would be a little strange to halt your entire life every time a family member had one.”
“I still—” You break down into tears before you can continue. Somewhere in the sobbing mess you try to tell her that it’s still your fault. That bad things keep happening around you and that at some point you must be the common factor. That even if you didn’t know you should have. Dr. Livens passes over a box of tissues and gives you your space to cry.
Once the tears start to dry out she starts talking again, her voice soft and even. “Sometimes when bad things happen in life and we don’t know who to blame we blame ourselves. That way there’s someone to blame and something to do about it. The idea that we live in an unfair world where things happen for no reason with no one at fault, it’s a hard one to accept. People desperately want control. If you feel like you could have and should have stopped something, it lets you believe you had some control over it. That things don’t just happen to you. That if you act correctly in the future they won’t happen again.”
No. No. No. No. It’s not like that.
“If the shoe were on the other foot, if you had a headache you thought was just a headache and told him to go out of town to do something important, would you blame him for whatever happened?”
It’s not even a hypothetical. He had done that before for sports. For school. On your father’s business trips. He’d gone and you’d thought nothing of it. But you hadn’t died. If you had died—
If you had died then he would have deserved to keep living his life. Because he deserved it. And you—
“No,” you choke out. “I wouldn’t.”
But it’s different. Father wasn’t wrong when he told you that your life was never supposed to have any meaning beyond what you could do for your brother. And with all of that gone. No. He could have gone on. You weren’t supposed to.
But you did.
Because life has never been fair.
“One of the hardest things about sudden deaths is the lack of closure. Not being able to have one last conversation to know what the other side feels about you. To express how you feel about them. The survivors are just left with questions that will never be answered in this life. I never met your brother. I don’t know how he would have answered.”
It his you with terrible certainty, like a heavy weight settling into your gut. He was always nicer to you than you deserved. He wouldn’t want… this. Does it matter? He was wrong in life. Maybe he was wrong in death.
“Do you want to talk about this more?”
You shake your head. No. You don’t. Don’t know if she could help. If you want to be helped.
“That’s perfectly fine. Is it alright if I spend the rest of the session helping you calm down? It would be unfair to stir up your emotions like this and let you go.”
You nod, not trusting yourself to say anything aloud.
“Would you like to send out a pokémon?”
You reach down to your belt and send out Coco and Leo. Noci is still off doing gods-know-what. Coco walks over to you, sniffs, and immediately starts to growl.
{She’s not a threat,} you tell her. {Helping me. I’m just hurt.}
Coco’s tail brushes against your legs and you can hear plop down in front of you. She curls up on herself and rests her tail over your sandals. Leo shuffles awkwardly before stepping forward and leaning in. He curls around your body, arms gripping your torso at all angles, and freezes in place.
{What are you doing?}
{Protecting you.}
Like how you let him hide under your shirt. He’s lending you his armor. That’s. Really sweet? Maybe he can show more love than you’d thought.
“Is there anything you can’t or won’t eat? The Center is serving lunch. I can bring you some.”
“…” You try to speak and nothing comes. Screw it. {I can eat anything.} Whether you will or not? Who knows?
“I’ll be back in a few minutes.”
She leaves and you’re left alone with your pokémon. You love Leo and what he’s doing but he’s not the best cuddler. Too much force, too many weird angles, sharp claws, and hard edges. If Coco could fit on the chair you’d invite her up to cuddle but it wouldn’t really be big enough for both of you. Instead you flex your leg and press it into Coco. She leans into it and huffs. At least she’s here. That’s…
The door opens up. No one walks in. You can’t hear the steps. Instead you tense up when something solid and warm presses against your chest. Oh. How did she know how to find you here? You still reach out and wrap your arms around the metang. {Thank you for coming.}
{Acknowledged.}
You’d think a metal machine wouldn’t give good hugs. You’d be wrong. Her body is smooth and warm. Even if there’s no give she can be surprisingly comforting. You sob and snot falls onto her sleek metal hull.
{Sorry.}
{No Damage Reported}
The door opens once more and someone walks in. Her shoes and stride sound like Dr. Livens’.
“I see your metang found you.”
{She’s a good pokémon.}
“So it seems. I brought you a fish sandwich, not entirely sure which fish, an aspear berry, green beans, a cookie, and some water.” She walks over and sets them down on the table near you. Not in front of you. Noci’s in the way.
{I’m sorry. Can you move a little.}
She pulls back and shifts to floating behind you, an arm still draped down onto your shoulder. When you move your arms up to eat Leo releases you and stands silently by your side. Coco doesn’t even stir to beg.
You prod at the beans. They’re very American. Boiled, salted, not much else in the way of seasoning. You think they’re okay. You eat them first. Then the berry. Then the sandwich. You wouldn’t say the sandwich is bad. It doesn’t really taste like anything. Just a vaguely warm patty of flesh. Are they sure this is even fish? That usually has a taste to it. Americans and their lab meat. Then you pick up the cookie. No. Too big. Too much fat and sugar. You set it back down.
“If you insist on punishing yourself you should also give yourself rewards. You made a breakthrough today. I think that’s worth celebrating. Or mourning. However you want to approach it.”
Did you really? Everything’s… all feeling. No thought. Heavy feeling. Lighter than it was, but still heavy. No. Exactly as heavy. But there’s something pushing up, too, somewhere in your chest. Lightness. Weight. Both at once. You pick up the cookie. Its fine. Lots of frosting to make up for the cookie’s kind of nothing flavor. Once it’s gone you take a few big gulps of water.
Do you feel better? You aren’t sure.
You aren’t sure about much of anything right now.
“Thank you,” you finally whisper. Your voice is hoarse and strained. It sounds like you’ve been crying. You
have been crying. You aren’t supposed to do that around other people but. She can’t tell. That makes it… you don’t know.
“That got a little more intense than I was planning on in a first session,” Dr. Livens admits. “I just saw an opening and took it. If you don’t think my style is going to work for you I can try and help you find another therapist.”
“It’s fine.” You realize you’re being honest. Even if everything is stirred up you don’t feel worse for it. Worn down. No new wounds you didn’t have before. And maybe, just maybe, you can work something out from the feelings.
“Okay. I ordinarily see clients once every two weeks. Do you have any idea when you’ll be in a city week after next?”
“No. Haven’t gotten my VStar assignment.”
“That’s fine. When you get it let me know. We can try and work out when we can meet up. Most sessions will probably be remote, but if you’re in one of the bigger cities I might be able to meet in person. Just depends on where my other clients are.” She clears her throat. “I know this session was particularly hard. If you want to meet next week I can probably arrange that as well.”
“I’ll be in Hau’oli.” VStar usually gives a week between missions. No reason you’d leave the city during that time. Except maybe to visit Pixie. If she wants you to.
“Great. Maybe I’ll be able to see you in my office.” She taps on some computer keys. When did she pull a laptop out. Was that always here? Why was she writing notes on paper? “Thursday at 1:00?”
“Sounds fine,” you say listlessly. Like it’s the most boring thing you’ve ever heard.
“See you then. And it was nice meeting you. Proud of you, too.”
You aren’t sure what she’s proud of. You never told her the things she wanted to hear. You manage to grunt out something. No idea what you were even trying to say there.
“If you need help putting things back together feel free to call me. If I don’t answer and it’s an emergency, call 911.”
Why would you call her first if your life was in danger? She’d just send you straight to the cops herself.
You get the feeling you’re unwanted. She probably has other clients to talk to. You slowly stand up, Noci already lowering herself down so you can rest your hand on her arm. Coco stirs and stands, pressing some of her weight into your leg. Leo remains still.
{Do you want to go back into your ball?}
He considers it for a very long time.
“Do you need protection?”
A ghost of a smile forms on your lips in spite of everything. {No.}
{Ball, please.}
You let him rest in nothingness. He deserves it. And you’ll give your pokémon everything they deserve and more.
