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Pokémon Broken Things

Pen

the cat is mightier than the pen
Staff
Partners
  1. dratini
  2. dratini-pen
  3. dratini-pen2
Surprising absolutely no one, Cuicatl is not taking this well.

Like you would have wanted from your mother.
I guess what surprised me is how Cuicatl doesn't engage at all with the idea of what being adopted means to Pixie. We open with her missing Alice as a kind of surrogate mom and we know how much she misses her bio mom. I would have expected Cuicatl to be doubting how she could compete with someone who can be Pix's surrogate mom and just generally thinking about how she'd feel in that circumstance. Like if Alice returned and would take her but nobody else, would she really turn that down? But there's just . . . zero empathy. Kalani is "a violent thief." (Thief is . . . lot to unpack there. Denies Pix a hell of a lot of agency.) I know from a reader perspective Kalani is not good news, but I'm not sure why Cuicatl is so convinced. She knows vulpix and ninetales are assholes in general, but she seems so sure that Kalani's going to make Pix unhappy. Why? Isn't it reasonable that there are going to be things a ninetales can do for Pix that she can't do? And she can't muster up a reason Pix should stay beyond fixing battles so Pix gets the validation of the final move and she can't even figure out whether Pix is her friend or her comfort pillow. Kekoa's right to call her a hypocrite.

This Z-move feinting thing doesn't seem healthy and that combined with all the desperate rationalizing Cuicatl's doing in this chapter makes me worry she's on the verge of a really bad mental break. I think part of her problem is that she's never really let herself be open to the friendships she's making or what she's doing in Alola (see her dismissal of what V-Star is like). It's means to an end, and that end is all she has. If it's hopeless, what's left for her?

It was messy business
Missing article?

It was messy business with her meaty breath bearing down on you, jolts wracking your body with every wingbeat, and her arms holding you tight to her chest so that you could feel every breath and heartbeat. It was reassuring in its own way.
I'm not sure messy is quite the word for this.

Her body heat is the only reminder that she’s alive and not just a car or a plane ferrying you somewhere.
Can't Cuicatl also feel her mind?

You take a moment to catch your breath. Literally.
Not sure about this literally. The expression is still figurative here and this isn't any more literal than other places that expression is used.

It’s a careful game. You lead them on but never actually promise they’d travel with you. “Come see the human world,” but not “come and see the human world with me.”
Wow, Cuicatl continuing to be kind of shitty.

You would like an inkay, yes, but you want your cuddly ball of fluff and personality more. Even if she’s a pain sometimes at least she always keeps things interesting. And she’s your first real friend since Anahuac. Your starter. A gift from someone who owed you nothing.
Hm, the range of stuff here is interesting. It's like Cuicatl doesn't really know what Pix means to her and is just cycling through things. I mean, a "real friend" and "a gift" are very different categories.

You’re pretty sure some psychic has transcribed it at some point but every book has filler. This is yours.
Snappy line.

Right solosis tend to be solemn guardians of those who could have great destinies. They see tragedy on all sides and a narrow lane of glory in the middle.
Is the implication here that tragedy and glory are mutually exclusive, cause all of Greek plays beg to differ.

To you ‘alone’ will always be Gate 41 at Montezuma International Airport. Sitting with no friends, no family, and no pokémon around you. You arrived well before the flight because you had nothing left to do outside the airport. You sat down at the gate and it was quiet. Peaceful. Then more and more families showed up. Decorated soldiers on leave or businessmen celebrating success and taking their families on vacation to Alola. They fought, mostly. Seemingly about everything. Kids begging parents to visit the candy store down the hall, parents bickering quietly about when boarding will start. Occasional yelling in the distance about the need to hurry up before a flight left. Sometimes they didn’t fight. Just talked about school, work, politics (American politics, mostly; no risk of sounding treasonous). Two kids were arguing about dinosaurs and you wanted to correct them because they were both wrong but couldn’t. You weren’t in their life. You weren’t in anyone’s life. You could only sit alone and listen as the world moved on without you.
My favorite passage of the chapter. I love how the lonliness only hits her when the people come. I get a fuller sense of world from this bit than I usually do from your sparser style.

Less so than usual today but the breathing confirms it’s his.
*it's him.

takes it form you.
*from

He used it to beat the trial, too. All while you’ve been distracted by an overbearing ninetales and a frostbite curse.
SKIPPING BATTLES 2021???

“She’s found a new home and you’re bringing her back just to get her electrocuted by a vikavolt.”

“I just want to check on her. Make sure she knows what she’s getting into. She’s barely been there half a week—”

“This checkup includes getting electrocuted?”

“She agreed to it.”

“Hypocrite.” You don’t dignify him with a response. “All the moralizing about my charjabug and you just won’t let your own pokémon go.”

Your voice gets colder than the scars on your side. “I’ve let more slip through my hands than you could imagine. Now get out of my room.”

“Hypocrite.”
Oof, Kekoa's not wrong.

Thankfully, you had a little time to knit in Hau’oli. A small embroidered hummingbird was your best creation. You tossed it into the ocean today with a prayer to Chalchiuhtlicue, shaper of your soul. Maybe she will be with you today.
Nice to see Cuicatl observing religion. I know it's a part of her character but it feels like a while since we've seen it.

Her voice is surprisingly high-pitched and fast. She’s one of the youngest captains ever at only twelve. Her youth shows.
This reads odd to me. Seems like Cuicatl already knew she was twelve so why "suprisingly"? Her youth shows in her voice? Why is the sentence so separated?

“I’m broke.” Americans say ‘broke’ when they mean ‘poor.’ You are never supposed to say ‘poor’ when talking about yourself. Or anyone you care about. You can use it to describe other people.

“They almost killed all the grubbin. Kept catching them and shipping them away—"

“I’m a broke orphan refugee.”

A lie. You’re here on a challenge visa, not to seek asylum. And your father is probably still alive. She doesn’t need to know that.

“Still shouldn’t work for them,” she mutters.
Wow, Cuicatl just really isn't caring about anything in this chapter about getting Pixie back. She's just saying whatever will shut this conversation down fast enough. The means don't matter because it's to get Alice back. And how she gets Pixie back doesn't matter, as long as she does, huh?

You can practically feel Pixie perk up at that. She’s proud to be needed. She might leave anyway. You doubt she loses sleep trying to square the two.
Maybe just maybe this kid who was abandoned by her mom needs to be taken care of more than she needs to be needed. I'm sure you can't relate, Cuicatl.

“So you’ve been traveling? In the dark? While blind?”

“Last two cancel each other out.”

“It’s fine.” You giggle to show how fine it is.
Not sure what happened to the dialogue here. First line is captain, second is Cuicatl, third is?? also Cuicatl? Not sure why it's separated.

Or at least enough that everything else can be covered by battle prize money.
I feel like battle prize money hasn't been much of a thing.

“I guess I should tell you that his partner today is a psyduck. Since you can’t just see her when she lumbers onto the field. Don’t think you can just muscle through Buzzy with fire or rock-types.”

She shouldn’t really be giving out hints for her own trial but it’s such a basic one that you’ll let it slide.
Oh, very generous of you, Cuicatl. What were you going to do, report her?

Damn bugs with their anti-psychic attacks.
Sooo what's the scientific explanation for why bugs hurt psychics? I like that it affects Cuicatl too! Not just a pokemon thing, then.

Are you hallucinating?

Or are you finally free?
Oh boy, is this more suicidal thoughts?

“My fur stood up. It was horrible.”

Figures she’d care more about that than the burns.

“I’m sorry you had to go through such a thing.”

She growls in agreement.
. . . wow. When Cuicatl is the reason.

Adopted by a ninetales, she means. Your adoption means nothing in comparison.
Is it really adoption in the same sense though? Feels a lot more like Pix was hired by Cuicatl than adopted by her.

She purrs.

Alice rumbled like that sometimes when she was happy.

Rumbles.

She’s still alive.

Still out there.

You’ll see her again.

You’ll see Pixie again.

Everything will work out.
Rip.
 
Fighting 3.19

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
Fighting 3.19: Adrift
Kekoa

February 15, 2020​

“For those of you who are just joining us, we’re continuing our anniversary coverage of the Weather War Tragedy. Eight years ago, two titans clashed in the heart of Hoenn. Tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars in property were lost before…”

You swirl the spoon around in your near-empty cereal bowl. The Pokémon Center’s receptionist is listening to public radio so now you are, too. You hate it. You hate that even the ‘liberal media’ puts the price tag in the same breath as the dead. As if lost lives could also be rebuilt with some relief money.

“…at approximately 12:40 PM local time Kyogre surfaced in Rune City. Torrential rains followed throughout eastern Hoenn. This storm would eventually grow to encompass the entire province and beyond…”

You hadn’t thought anything of the rains at first. Just a pop-up storm. You learn to live with them in the tropics. And then you got outside and there were liquid bullets striking your skin. A shiver runs up your spine and for a moment it feels like your clothes are soaking wet and unbearably heavy.

“…Groudon emerged approximately thirty-one minutes later and dispelled the storm. A heat wave took its place.”

Collapsing bridges, boiling roads, the old and young dying as they walked. ‘A heat wave.’

You scowl and stand up. Fuck this, you don’t have to take it anymore.

“Put your dishes away!” You ignore the receptionist and walk outside. If she wanted you to do work, she would’ve picked better programming to listen to.

It hits you once you get outside that you’re stepping into cold and darkness with only a jacket on. Doesn’t matter. You aren’t about to go back inside and ruin your pride just to get a coat. Not like you’ll be out here for long, anyway.

A flicker of light catches your eye. There’s a purple balloon floating in front of you, two long arms dangling down. A puff of white billows like smoke from its head. The pokémon is wreathed in the light of pale blue flames. You stare at the drifloon. It stares at you.

“Enjoying this shit, huh?”

The ghost doesn’t reply to you, but it seems to float a little higher. Drifloon feed on loss, grief, and nostalgia. When something ends, they’ll be there to guide it to oblivion. Doesn’t matter if it’s a life, a friendship, or a TV show. Anniversaries of tragedies get both grief and nostalgia points. You’re used to them showing up on the orphanage’s front steps when you got a new arrival. The kid’s life as they knew it was over and the despair must’ve been very tasty.

Your breath fogs in front of you. Even if you wanted to, which you don’t, you couldn’t afford to stand here all day while a pokémon basks in your pain. “Care to make yourself useful? I want to visit The Queen.”

The ghost balloon blinks before it slowly floats down the street, one arm beckoning you to follow. You trail after it, footsteps sounding off into the darkness. You thought the city was quiet before the ships arrived to take people away. Now the streets are almost perfectly silent. It’s far from the heat and chaos of Hoenn’s fall but it feels equally wrong. To say nothing of the snow on the ground. Or the flickering light abruptly ending providing a sphere of ghostly flame surrounded by a world of darkness. It’s in the mockery of light here that you feel like the world is the smallest, with nothing in it but what you can see.

The whole city is an ending, and the ghosts are feasting.

You keep track of the turns the drifloon makes. It’s taking you north like you asked. It’s just paranoia to check since it has no reason to lead you astray. They don’t eat people or anything and you’re willingly spending time with it.

The gates of the royal graveyard emerge from behind a thick layer of fog. Supposedly the gates are made of meteorite iron: the heavens themselves guard your Queen. You put a hand on the gates and they creak open on their own. You smile despite the grim location. The Queen’s guards only let your people in. Even then it’s a rare honor. Entering the graveyard doesn’t exactly make you a chosen one but it does remind you that you belong here.

The sound of your footsteps is swallowed whole by the grass. Fog looms heavy around you, only breaking to form a single clear passageway. Everything not hidden by fog is illuminated by pale blue light. The drifloon’s own will-o-wisp goes out as it moves alongside you. Has it been here before or is this new to it, too? You don’t dare speak aloud to ask. This is a kingdom of the dead and lost. Silence and reverence are the price of admission.

That’s why it’s so surprising when you hear a voice speaking ahead of you.

It sounds familiar but you can’t quite place where you’ve heard it. You keep walking forward until you’re close enough that the voice stops.

A crobat drops down in front of you, shrieking hysterically while beating its wings. A chill runs down your spine and you feel something arrive behind you. Shit. Ambushed. Here? Why? The guards let you in.

A kanaka woman in a black jacket steps out of the fog and stands in front of you, behind the crobat. “Stand down,” she absentmindedly says. The supernatural chill fades and the bat rushes off to roost somewhere else. The woman keeps staring at you, her eyes boring into different parts of you one after another. “Kekoa, right?”

Plumeria. That’s who you’re talking to.

“Y-yes.”

She laughs. It’s a short one, but not unpleasant. Not mocking, even though you probably deserve to be mocked right now, scared shitless and standing in the freezing air without a coat. Come to think of it you don’t feel the cold anymore. Something about the place? Or is this like when you stopped sweating from heatstroke? There’s no snow on the ground. It seems like this place just ignores the weather. “Come to pay your respects?”

“Yes. The Queen…” Oh gods you’re already screwing this up. Again. Plumeria probably already hates you for fucking up with The Gage Heiess and—

She walks away and gestures for you to follow. You do, and the fog path shifts in front of her. You arrive at a life-size obsidian statute standing tall on a pedestal. An inscription on the base practically glows with unnatural red light. It takes you a moment to work out the words in Alolan:

The tides recede

The sun sets

All is lost

All will return

Alola


“The elders say she’s waiting here with The Final Guardian,” Plumeria explains. “They aren’t sure if she’ll fight from the shadows with The Final Guardian or if she’ll be reborn in time to rule Alola again. Either way, I don’t plan on keeping her waiting for long.”

“I… yes.” What was that even supposed to mean? “Do you come here often?”

“No.” For a moment it looks like she wants to say something more, but she just shakes her head. “No.”

“I’m sorry I couldn’t stop Genesis from leaving,” you blurt out the moment the silence gets awkward.

She snorts. It should horrify you that she does that here, but she has enough mana that you barely notice. “Listen, kid, the apocalypse isn’t your fault. I wouldn’t have even asked if I’d thought things were going to get this bad this soon.”

“Oh.” That should make you feel relieved, but it just makes you sad that she thinks you never had a chance.

It’s silent in the graveyard for a long while as you and Plumeria look at Her Majesty’s grave. “Your friend going to go home anytime soon?” Plumeria finally says.

“I don’t think she has a home to go back to,” you whisper, feeling guilty just for saying it aloud.

It makes sense. Her mom is dead and her dad’s never called. She’s never even mentioned going home since the lights went out.

“Stay with her if you can. She might be useful if you think she’d be loyal to us. And if I can spin it to Anahuac as Skull protecting one of their citizens…” She trails off. Is Skull working with a foreign country? A strong Alolan independence movement would be a symbolic blow to Anahuac’s northern rival. You remember Cuicatl’s comments on flower wars and your blood freezes. They wouldn’t provoke the US, right? That almost destroyed them in the 80s.

“What’s the drifloon’s deal?” Plumeria asks.

“He just showed up this morning. Followed me around.”

“Cool. You should keep him.”

“What?”

“They’re tied to endings. One latching on to you is a good omen for a revolutionary. And…” her eyes narrow. “Again, you can’t tell anyone this next part? Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Right. Supposedly the drifloon carry kids off sometimes and drop them down far away. I grew up,” she flicks her head to the side, “thataway. Saw a lot of the ghosts there. As a kid I kept going to the local graveyard hoping that one would grab me and take him me. Then one day I realized that I could leave on my own if I wanted. I did. Rest is history.”

You turn to look at the ghost yourself. It can create light. That’s automatically useful. If it goes with you then you could sell your inkay to VStar for your cold weather travel fund. Then you’d still have the drifloon, Mahina, and carbink—name still TBD—for the fight against Hala. Solid type advantage.

You aren’t really going to keep the carbink for long. Just for the grand trial. It wasn’t an official capture mission but VStar will still pay a fuckload of money for one. Enough to support something stronger.

Picking up the drifloon is another step to being a full-fledged flying-type specialist with Ihe and Mahina already on the team. Admittedly not great for fighting a champion with a vikavolt and lycanroc. But there are reasons most pro trainers get a specialty. It’s just much easier to raise six pokémon with overlapping needs than six entirely different ones.

And, most importantly, Plumeria thinks you should.

“We’ll talk it over.” And you’ll read more about it. Make sure you know what you’re getting into.

“Probably for the best.”

“So…” You aren’t sure if you should ask this, but you’re here and can talk without the risk of anyone listening in. The Queen’s guards wouldn’t allow it. “What do you want me to do now?”

She shrugs. “You still insist on beating the champ?”

“Yes.” She’s implying that you shouldn’t be doing that. Is she just… okay with a false queen on the throne? Is she willing to say as much in front of the true queen’s grave?

“Then you probably don’t wanna be caught doing illegal shit. Not a whole lot you can do for me without breaking some laws.”

“I’m willing to do what it takes.”

“Are you? They’d kick you out of the challenge if you got caught.” Her voice picks up in fake shock when she talks about the challenge. Mocking it. Mocking you. “Is it worth that risk?”

She starts circling you like a predator staring down injured prey. You want to immediately answer “yes, of course” but then your mind drifts to the florges in the meadow and you aren’t so sure. She’d said something like this, right? “Kid, we don’t do legal shit. If it was helpful to the cause the government would’ve already made it illegal. There are a lot of people like you, respectable types, who will show up to rallies and sign petitions and run for the governor and all that jazz. They have their uses, but if it was just them in the movement, we’d never accomplish a damn thing.”

The insinuation crawls under your skin and gets your blood pumping. That you’re just like the centrists to her. That you don’t get it. Even if you’ve lived it, bounced around through shitty haole foster homes before ending up in a slightly-less-shitty orphanage where you’re supposed to be grateful for the charity of that fucking maniac Lusamine after she tried to burn your country down for her jellyfish fetish.

Plumeria looks you dead in the eyes and meets your building rage with cold analysis, like she’s sizing up an unruly pokémon.

“If you could accomplish anything by beating the league, they would just change the rules so that you couldn’t. You can’t win their game. The best thing you can do is make it impossible to play. Watch them pick up their toys and sulk off to a friendlier place.”

“Just having a throne of our own—”

“Wouldn’t save us. Didn’t save us.” She flicks her eyes towards the glowing gravestone as if daring Her Majesty to disagree. The lights don’t change. No voices carry on the wind. There’s no sign she heard at all. “Text me when you’re willing to get real. Until then I have no further use for you.”

She brushes past you and walks towards the gates. Her arm brushes against yours and you startle at the touch. It slowly brings you back to reality.

Plumeria thinks your plan is bad.

She thinks that you’re useless to her. To the cause. To Alola.

She can stand before The Queen herself and say there’s no point in clearing the foreigner off her throne? After she dared to take the title and then fail to defend Alola in her hour of need? The best thing she could do now is fix things, abolish the league, resign, and go back to where she came from. If she won’t do the last three, someone needs to do it for her.

Still…

Plumeria knows these things. She’s put in the work and maybe done more for the cause than anyone else since the fall of Alola. There’s a chance she knows something you don’t. And there’s no guarantee you would get caught if you went deeper into Skull’s work. The lowest level members, the ones who just harass tourists, they get arrested a lot. The higher ones, the ones who set construction sites ablaze or kidnap heiresses… you’ve never heard of them. No one has. That’s the point. Skull rarely even claims responsibility. It means that they can present to the world as bumbling fools that annoy tourists while also really hurting the people who need to be hurt.

But Plumeria doesn’t trust you enough to put you in her inner circle. Not now. After a grand trial or two you might be more interesting to her.

Whether you want to follow Plumeria or make absolutely sure you don’t get kicked out of the challenge and thrown in jail before the false queen’s downfall, your path runs through Iki Town.

You bow one last time to The Queen’s grave and quietly walk back towards the gates.

There’s work to be done.

*​

The receptionist doesn’t bother you when you walk in with a ghost. The news has moved on, too, to a report about The False Queen. You don’t know if that’s better or worse.

You make your way down the hall and unlock the door. You almost immediately walk into your carbink hovering in the middle of the room. It swivels around to acknowledge you before rising up towards the drifloon. They stare each other down for a long time, trapping you between them, before the carbink eventually floats off to rest over Cuicatl’s bed. Her metang is hovering over the top bunk on your side of the room. Ihe and Mahina are in their balls because you can’t trust them not to poop inside. Leilani is sitting next to her thunder stone. Her carapace already seems thicker. Boxier. You wonder if she’s already begun to evolve. Flickering lights come out of the bathroom as your inkay floats out. That one has the opposite problem.

You glance over to Cuicatl’s bed. She’s still in it. Facing away from you. Hair hanging over her face. Arms pulling Coco into her. Hard to get a good idea how Cuicatl’s doing. ‘Not well’ probably. You weren’t exactly thrilled to let Makani go but it wasn’t like this. She’ll eventually be due for another talking to, but she didn’t seem to appreciate it the last time you tried. You’ll give her another few days of wallowing before you try again.

Coco raises her head to look at you. You’re once again reminded how big she’s gotten since you could last see her. Might be pushing forty pounds at this point. Her down is almost entirely gone. There’s only a short cape of white feathers down her back to show that it was ever there. The tyrunt lowers her head and snuggles in closer to her trainer.

You clear your throat. “Lyra out?”

It takes a long time to get a response. You start to wonder if she’s asleep. “Ye-ah” she says, voice breaking in the middle. She’s been crying again. “Didn’t say where.”

You roll your eyes. Hypocrite. Loses her shit because her starter gets adopted by one of her own kind. She told you once that she had the right to keep a vulpix because she was making it happy. The vulpix found something that made her happier and Cuicatl lost that right. She should just suck it up and find a new murderbeast to replace the one she lost. There are even zorua in the area if she really wanted another fox. Yeah, she couldn’t talk to it with her mind. Barely matters since zorua can talk to people themselves. Her cousin has one. Some people even claim he’s a zoroark himself.

You sigh and plop down on your bed to face the drifloon. Cuicatl probably isn’t up for translating right now, but it seemed to know what you meant earlier. Maybe it can do yes/no questions.

“Raise your left hand for yes, right for no. Do you understand me?”

The right—your right, its left—hand goes up. Good. That makes things easier.

“Are you a boy?”

No.

“A girl?”

Yes.

“Do you have a name?”

No.

That’s weird. They live in groups. How do they tell each other apart?

“Do you want to stay with me for a while? On my team?”

Yes.

“Alright. Let me do some reading first. Figure out what you need from me and if I can give it.”

You pull up the dex entry from the league’s website. It isn’t that long. Drifloon need to wander during the day but they’re pretty good with coming back at night. Even know where to go if you’ve moved. No idea how they pull that one off and the writer doesn’t seem to know either. Yeah, you can make this work. Don’t even need to carry food for her.

“Would you like a name?”

Yes.

“How does Moeʻuhane work? Maybe Moe for short.”

She hesitates.

“It means ‘dreamer.’ Ghosts always drift through reality like it’s not really there, and, uh, dreams end quickly. They only leave feelings. Thought that maybe you’d like it.”

She raises her left hand.

“Great.” Now what? “Uh, anything you want to do today?”

Moe’uhane drifts over to Cuicatl and hovers above her. Coco starts to growl.

“That’s Cuicatl. I travel with her. And the pokémon is…” Not actually your son and you don’t want to explain that to a balloon in front of Coco. “Coco. She’s a tyrunt.”

The drifloon comes closer and Coco rears up, sparks flying out of her mouth. Cuicatl promptly raises an arm over her and presses her back down into the bed. The growling doesn’t stop entirely but it does get quieter.

You pull out a pokéball. Ideally, you’d use a dusk ball for this but those sold out almost immediately after the Blackout. “Moe’uhane, do you want to be caught?” The pokédex says they don’t like pokéballs. She might refuse. You won’t push it until you need to battle with her. She drifts on over anyway and hits the capture button with her arm. Apparently, she knows how these works. The ball drops to the ground and gently shakes before sealing with a ‘click.” You immediately let her out.

Carbink has continued to hang back over Cuicatl’s bed. It slowly floats down and stares at the drifloon. For a minute. Two. Five. You check your newsfeed and see that “champion,” “Selene,” “Hoenn,” “Groudon,” “Kyogre,” and “Rayquazza” are trending. You turn off your phone again.

As soon as the screen goes dark it lights back up. An incoming call.

From Jabari.

He probably wants to talk about eight years ago.

You do not.

When you look up you see your carbink and drifloon staring at your phone in a mix of confusion and awe. Their eyes grow wider when it starts ringing again. You let it go for a while just to watch their reactions. The drifloon summons pale will-o-wisps to communicate with the strange glowing stone. Even Cuicatl’s metang moves so they can see what’s going on.

The ringing stops and the screen goes dark again. Moe drifts forward, arm outstretched. “No.” You pull the phone into your chest and shake your head. “Mine.”

An alert pops up to tell you Jabari left a voicemail. Maybe you’ll listen to it someday. Probably worth keeping around as a reminder in case he bites it, too.

You’re almost not freezing again. Guess that means it’s time to go back into the cold.

“I’m taking my birds out for some air. Coco want to come with?”

The dinosaur perks up excitedly and you can see her tail wagging back and force, thumping against Cuicatl’s legs. Then she guiltily looks down at her trainer and slowly starts to settle again.

“Go,” Cuicatl grumbles.

Coco pounces more than halfway across the room and looks up at you expectantly. You withdraw most of your team, only leaving Coco and Moe out. No need to take the entire clown car through the halls. When you reach the door you turn around to see that Cuicatl’s metang has hovered down and laid an arm over their trainer. Oddly affectionate for a teenage murder robot.

Mahina glares at you when you send her out. She does her business—thankfully not on top of you—and starts loudly demanding to be withdrawn again. No idea how her wild cousins are doing right now.

The others start to explore the cold while you start cleaning Mahina’s mess. Ihe and Coco almost immediately start their ongoing wrestling match again. The rufflet tries hard but Coco’s bigger and stronger. Thankfully the dinosaur is clearly going easy on her playmate. Carbink starts drifting off towards a nearby building. You’ll need to keep an eye on them and make sure they don’t go too far. Moe hovers just behind you. The light makes cleaning Mahina’s shit up much easier.

You sit down on a bench to watch the chaos. Just as you move to withdraw carbink, your phone starts to ring. You almost hit the cancel button without looking but a wrong hand movement shows you the screen.

It’s Kanoa. The childhood friend you ghosted for years and are kind-of reconnecting to. You know what she wants to talk about, and you still don’t want to talk about it.

For some reason you answer anyway. But don’t speak.

“Hello?” She says, “You there?”

Your pokémon start drifting back to look at the phone. Except Coco. She runs off to mark her territory.

“I’m assuming you’re there since someone answered. You don’t want to talk about it. I get that. Just wanted to let you know that I’m here and… and I can sit in silence with you if you want.”

“Fine.”

You can hear her let out her breath on the other end. So much relief from a single word. Why? You were a shitty friend to her for years. She owes you nothing but scorn.

For a moment you consider asking her about what Plumeria said. If dethroning The False Queen matters. But Kanoa’s deep in the system. Might even be on her boss’s side. She wouldn’t give you worthwhile advice either way. So you phrase it a little differently.

“How should we help our people?”

“Hmm?”

“Kanaka maoli. How do we help them?”

‘Free them’ might be too strong for a trial captain. Baby steps.

“Volunteer, I guess?” She sounds as if she doesn’t even understand why you’re asking. “I help around my parent’s farm. Run some errands for our neighbors when I get a chance. But, um, the entire people… that’s not something I’ve thought much about. I try to help everyone.”

The oppressors and oppressed alike. ‘Both sides.’

“Did you… since we met…” Kanoa takes a deep breath. “Did you start listening to the Skulls?”

You don’t answer that. Maybe she’d try to call the cops or something. She practically works for them anyway.

This entire conversation was a bad idea.

“Listen, we’re never getting the country back. I wish we could as much as the next girl, but we won’t. We don’t have an army. Even if you count Skull, that’s just a few hundred disaffected teenagers staring down the US military. The Tapu didn’t fight the Americans last time and there’s no sign they’ll fight for us now. Lunala…” Lunala has been enslaved by the colonizers. You would have to free her with the country. “And even if we could get a god on our side that’s just asking for a repeat of Ho—” She catches herself at the last moment. It doesn’t matter. For a moment you still feel the pounding rain on your skin. Her voice softens. “Plumeria’s wrong. We won’t get the islands back. Certainly not in our lifetime. And harassing the tourists is just going to make things worse for the people still here. I get what she’s going for but she’s wrong. Even Guzma says so.”

“We just give up, then?” Your voice is hoarse. As if you’d already yelled at her or Jabari or the Gage heiress anyone else you want to be furious at. But you haven’t yelled yet and you won’t now. Your voice is perfectly level. “Don’t even try to resist them? Let them take over our league and put a throne of their own on Lanakila?”

“Throne? Wait. You think that’s—” Her line goes dead silent. Your eyes narrow. Is she muting herself so you can’t hear her laugh. “Sorry, signal cut out.” Definitely sounds like she’s been laughing. “That’s just a fancy chair the champion sits in. I’m sure Selene would get rid of it if I just told her it’s a bad look. She’s pretty nice, actually.”

Nice? She enslaved your god. Built a temple to her own glory on a sacred mountain. Failed to protect Alola when your country was threatened. Even without the throne she needs to be crushed. Because if she can be brought down? Then any haole can be.

You don’t say any of that. You say “thank you for calling” and hang up.

Ihe looks a little cold. You withdraw him and carbink and move back inside, Coco plodding obliviously ahead of you while Moe floats beside you.

The doors open just as you approach. Lyra stares out at you before taking a few steps forward so the automatic doors can shut behind her. She’s still impeccably, expensively dressed. “I was going to lunch,” she says. “Wanted to know if you wanted to come with.”

“I’m fine.” You try to keep your voice level despite the everything going on in your head. Loss threatening to lurch into anger at a moment’s notice.

“I’d appreciate it if you did. I’m willing to pay.”

“I don’t need your charity.”

She just rolls her eyes. “Look, it’s been a rough day and I just want someone to talk to while I eat some nice food. Trust me, you’d be helping me more than I’d be helping you.”

“Rough day, huh?” She can complain all she wants but her day hasn’t been half as bad as yours.

“Yeah. Eight anniversary of Hoenn, you know? I grew up in Japan and,” she shakes her head and looks down. “It’s kind of a big deal. And every year the anniversary comes around and I don’t know what to do with it.”

“I was in Hoenn,” you tell her without really thinking. Surprisingly your eyes stay dry.

“What? I—really?”

“Yeah.” You turn around and stick your hands in your pockets. She doesn’t need to see it if you really have to cry. “My dad was in the navy. I was visiting him.”

A hand presses down on your shoulder. You ignore it. Definitely don’t find some comfort in the touch.

“I… I’m sorry.”

“Not your fault,” you mutter. “Just two dipshit assholes and the gods who went along with them.”

The door opens behind you. Cuicatl walks out. She’s hunched into herself with one arm barely reaching out to touch her metang. Great. Everyone’s a wreck today.

“You willing to go?” Lyra murmurs towards you. “If not I can just bring something back for you.”

“I’ll go,” you pipe up. She dragged all this up. Might as well take some food on her dime.

No one really talks on the way over the restaurant. For the best. It’s fucking freezing and if you had to open your mouth more and inhale the freezing air you might actually get hypothermia in the span of five minutes.

When you finally get to the restaurant it doesn’t look that impressive. Just a small door in the wall of a bigger brick building with a bar and yoga studio. No Galarian sign on the outside, just a kanji you don’t recognize on the door. The inside is also pretty small. Only a small desk and two tables pressed against the wall, a painting of some pond hanging between them. Whole place is lit by an inkay. You wonder if they bought it from VStar.

The hostess glares at Moe when you walk in. Right. Bit rude to have a ghost out today. Some older women, like her, really don’t like them. All the more reason to keep her. You walk back and open the door for Moe to float out. She gets the hint. Doesn’t even look back as she drifts away. Hopefully she’ll come back later. She said she would.

The hostess drops some menus off at the table and promptly retreats into the back. You glance it over. For a moment you consider sashimi just because Lyra’s paying and she can afford it, but you’re not sure how well they’re prepping that in the dim light. You settle on tonkatsu instead. When you visited Hoenn you weren’t bold enough to eat raw fish yet.

Cuicatl doesn’t even reach for one. Right. Can’t read. Duh.

“Oh. Uh, I can try to read you…” Lyra trails off as she looks at the sheer length of the menu. “Actually, have you been to a Japanese restaurant before.”

She shakes her head. Her hair was already a bit of a mess but that sends even more onto her face. Girl really needs to get her bangs cut. Not that you’re letting anyone bring a blade to your head until the light come back.

“Cool. Maybe… oyakodon?”

Cuicatl visibly flinches. Past food poisoning or something?

“Oh, okay, not that—”

“It’s fine,” Cuicatl says. “I’ll go with that.”

Lyra gives her a long questioning look (that Cuicatl can’t actually see) and then goes back to looking at the menu. Eventually the hostess comes back with your waters and takes your orders by glancing at each of you in turn with her pen over the paper. No forced niceties. You like it. Even if it means that Cuicatl would’ve been really confused if she’d been giving her own order. Once the woman has retreated again you turn back to Lyra.

“How’d the rest of Japan take it?” you ask. Because you certainly don’t want to talk about your experiences on that day, and I sounded like she wanted to vent or something.

“Not well.” She shakes her head and picks up the chopsticks on the table to idly twist them around in her hands. “Kyogre and Groudon were southern gods, but Honshu had its own fire and water deities. The Emperor had declared that the Hoenn gods were just different names for Lugia and Ho-oh. Kind of backfired later on. And since Ho-oh supposedly gave us our culture…” She sets the chopsticks down and rests her hand on the fork in front of her. Kind of shocked a place like this even provides them. Good for Cuicatl, though. No idea how she’d do with chopsticks.

“…If the giver of our culture killed thousands of people on a whim, then you have to question the culture, huh? My dad took it bad. Moved the family to America as soon as he got a chance with his work. Made us all take new names. Enrolled me in a school that was big on Xerneas.” For a moment she smiles despite everything. “Never really took any of that to heart. If Xerneas were a prudish jerk, why’d he make girls so cute, huh?”

She winks. You’re going to imagine it was aimed at Cuicatl and that this isn’t a misgendering thing. Cuicatl, of course, can’t see the wink. They’d make a weird couple until the whole thing blew up because Lyra found out she was dating a mind reader. And Cuicatl really deserves someone who’d accept that part of her.

“What’s your name?” Cuicatl asks.

“Kotone, originally,” Lyra says. “Don’t call me that, though. I’ve gone half my life as Lyra, and I don’t mind it anymore.”

She sounds sincere about that. It’s still really sad. Being cut off from her culture. You’ve been trying to learn what was denied to you, even if Kanoa says you haven’t been doing a good job of it. Lyra’s parents are still alive but they just… threw it away.

“You’re just fine with leaving your culture behind, then?”

She shakes her head and tucks her hands back into her lap. “Oh, I’m not. My mom and brother aren’t. We just can’t really do it in ways so obvious that my father would notice. Thankfully he spends a lot of time at work. On days where my father is at work and the help is off sometimes mom will make something for us and tell us stories.”

She’s just going to casually throw in a mention of her servants, huh? Yeah, now you’re remembering why you don’t like her. No one really speaks again after that. Just a tiny little division between her and the rest of the world.

When the food finally comes she eats it like she’s rich, too, all delicate movements and effortless precision like she wasn’t eating stew. Cuicatl is just lucky to get a spoonful in her mouth. Then she glares at the bowl for a second like she hates it, only to devour the rest in half the time it takes you to finish your meal. And the food is really good. Not good enough to justify the expense, but still good.

*​

Selene’s having some kind of press conference. Apparently, that’s what the news and social media were on about earlier. You end up watching while huddled with Lyra around her phone because it’s the biggest and brightest. Cuicatl’s sitting nearby. She can be a little farther away since she doesn’t need to see it, just hear.

The False Queen looks a lot more put together than she did in the conference announcing the end of lockdown restrictions. Not dressed in a suit or super nice dress, but just in a decent enough jacket and pair of jeans. She almost looks relatable. Cunning bastard. At least she kept the governor off stage this time. Couldn’t stand to see both of them at once.

“Alola,” she begins. Her hands are clenching the sides of the podium hard enough you wonder if the wood will break. “I am happy to inform you that a solgaleo will arrive in the region within the next week. At that point it is my intention to go and bring the battle to Necrozma.”

“Hell yeah,” Lyra whispers next to you.

“We estimate that, given the amount of light Necrozma has obtained, the temperatures around it will be well over 6,000 degrees. Only the strongest of fire-types will be able to withstand the air, much less any attacks. I have a suit that can withstand these environments, but on relatively short notice we were not able to create more than one.”

Read: She’s a glory hound who doesn’t want to share.

“Despite this, I cannot hope to win this fight on my own. Only one of my pokémon is capable of battling in these conditions and even he will be out matched. I will need help from powerful fire-types and mineral pokémon. Reshiram has already agreed to accompany me. A friend’s silvally has agreed to join as well. More may still be required. I urge any strong fire-types to consider coming with me to restore Alola.”

Like, say, a victini owned by a billionaire who lives in Alola. You imagine Selene’s already asked. Maybe the entire speech is about building up enough public pressure on him that he changes his mind. Gods, you hate your boss right now almost as much as the champion. Maybe more. But only one of them pays you, so…

For a moment you wonder if she’d try to get groudon for this. No. Even she isn’t that stupid. And from what you’re told they keep his resting place super heavily guarded now. She’d probably be shot the moment she got within twenty miles.

Selene keeps puffing up the logistics and dangers of her mission so it’s all the more impressive when she wins. Or her sacrifice is nobler when she dies. You hope she wins, though. Then she’d at least have fixed some of the damage she did to her home. And then the haole wouldn’t have their own martyred queen to look up to. Last thing you need is for them to get self-righteous about their shitty cause.



Wait.

Is that what Kanoa, Plumeria, and the florges think about you? They’d all seemed almost amused by your worldview. Like it was a joke. Like all of this was a joke. And if your pseudo-sister, boss, and a near-immortal revolutionary all think you’re a… a self-righteous fool.



…if you were, then who would be right? Kanoa and her ‘just roll over and deal with it’ approach? Plumeria’s insistence that things will only change with fire and blood? Or the florges’s… whatever she’d been leaning towards. Help the orphans and refugees and pokémon and hippy, flower power love bullshit.

You glance at the carbink. They stare at you. If you sell them after the grand trial, they’ll still have places to explore. It won’t be too different. But… you should ask them, to be sure. And if they say no…

…you can afford to keep them on your team for a while. Until the dark goes away. Then you can release her. But if that happens every time VStar asks you to find a pokémon or you pick one up for a trial or two, then you won’t have the money to properly care for your team. You’ve already given up on having the team you planned out to beat Selene with. Giving up on VStar might mean giving up on the challenge altogether and failing Alola.

And then you’d go right back to foster care. Or the streets. Or at least to a shitty shared apartment while you work at whatever job they’d give to an inexperienced teenager.

“You alright?” You snap out of your thoughts to look at Lyra. “Selene stopped talking a while ago and you’ve kept staring at the wall.”

“I just need some time to think things over.” Good. You managed to keep your voice even there. “Excuse me.”

You walk into the bathroom and the damned carbink follows you.
 
Last edited:

GrayGriffin

Bug Catcher
Pronouns
any
Oh man, finally catching up with this after a few years of not following. And man, the plot just got even more intense. I feel so bad for Cuicatl and Genesis especially. Really hoping that Genesis eventually realizes this is wrong-at least she's got someone she can turn to if it gets bad.
 
Fighting 3.20

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
Fighting 3.20: Grand Trial
Hala

February 20​

There’s snow on the platform. That’s a first. There’s been snow for over two weeks now. Long enough for a deep freeze. The forests on Northern Akala have a volcarona to heat them and a few of the meadows have a half dozen castform, but most of Alola’s tropical plants will be killed by either darkness or frost. And with no plants there’s not food for herbivores. And if the herbivores starve and die then the carnivores follow after. There’s a terrible feeling in your gut that whatever happens today your home might never recover from the necrozma. But that’s all in the future. Depending on how today goes that might be the least of your problems. Instead, you turn to the current one.

Your opponent cautiously makes her way up the steps to the platform. There’s no railing to help her and the steps are slick with snow. You’d never actually thought about that before; she’s your first blind challenger in the twenty-six years you’ve been kahuna.

The girl reaches the platform and stands straighter, staring confidently at something a few feet to your left. You clear your throat and her gaze snaps towards you. She’s short with dark skin. Her hair seems to glimmer in the torchlight. Her bearing, her height, the slight quiver of anxiety (or cold) in her hand while her eyes and posture are full of confidence… for a moment you almost mistake her for someone she obviously isn’t.

“Do you remember the rules of this fight from your friend’s match?” you ask. Said friend is sitting in the small crowd. Almost everyone still in town is there. It’s barely twenty people. They all came out for the last match and the snow festival before it. The kids played in the white fluff while the parents and grandparents shared nervous glances, wondering exactly what it meant. “The bounds of the arena are the edges of the platform and the top of the torches.” They flicker with incineroar-lit flames. Pokémon fire makes a lot more light than normal fire in this unnatural darkness. Elemental something or other. Hau tried to explain it to you but you’re really too old for physics lectures. “Being knocked out of the arena counts as a disqualification. You can switch once. I cannot.”

She doesn’t ask any questions. You nod towards Greg, today’s ref.

“This match will be a three-on-three battle between Kahuna Hala Kahue of Iki Town and challenger Cuicatl Ichtaca of Anahuac.” It’s a foreign name. All of your challengers seem to have foreign names these days. Most of them at least grew up here. She did not. “Kahuna, send out your first pokémon.”

“Ikaika, show her our power!”

“The kahuna has sent out his machop,” Greg says for Cuicatl’s benefit.

The challenger taps the great ball on her belt and red light comes streaming out. A lot more red light than you were expecting. And it’s forming up above the arena. A fearow? The red fades and the only light remaining is from the ever-changing flames reflected by sleek floating metal. For a moment you wonder how the girl got a magnezone before she cleared her first trial. Then you see the claws. A metang, then. It’s been years since you fought a metang. Last time was Molayne in… ’09?

Has it been a decade already?

“Confusion.”

The air distorts as ripples of psychic energy flow towards Ikaika, stirring up the snow in its path. That’s fine. You’ve dealt with your share of psychic-types.

“Dark advance.”

The machop is pushed back when the waves hit him but he stays standing. You can imagine the fierce determination in his eyes as he starts to walk into the waves, slowly at first and then ever faster as darkness surrounds his fists. Knock off has its uses, even when items aren’t allowed.

The waves stop. You open your mouth to call for a defensive stance when silvery light pulses through the dark. It strikes Ikaika in the legs and there’s not much you can do as you watch him trip and fall with a dull thud. He quickly pushes himself up, more annoyed than anything, as the metang rises towards the top of the torches and jets away to the opposite side of the platform.

It reminds you a lot of her friend’s tactics. Most of his pokémon could fly or float and he tried to keep them as high up as he could without being out of bounds. It is a good idea, getting out of a fighting-type’s strike range.

What most people don’t understand is that fighting types can jump.

“Knock off, full strength.”

Ikaika dashes forwards and darkness ripples from his fists. Another beam of light sails towards him but he ducks and slides under it before launching himself up. The metang barely has time to run before Ikaika has grabbed onto one of its arms and started punching its underside over and over again. The hits won’t do much but the dark aura behind them will.

“Metal claw.” If the girl is worried it doesn’t leak into her voice or posture. She still almost looks like—almost looks like she’s bored. The metang’s other arm begins to glow as it races inward towards Ikaika.

“Vital throw!”

The steel-type’s claws connect and you can see the gashes drawn on Ikaika’s side. And then the metang begins to be spun around Ikaika’s small frame. Once. Twice. Its claws reach out for something to hang on to but find no purchase. Then Ikaika lets go and the metang goes sailing into the platform. The wood beneath the impact splinters in a cloud of snow as the pokémon almost goes through.

You really need to decide if that counts as a ring out or not.

Ikaika gracefully lands and starts cautiously walking towards his opponent. You can see blood flowing from his side. He should be rushing in to finish it rather than slowly advancing. Caution might only get him hurt more. It is a lesson he needs to learn. Before you decide if he should learn it now the metang rises out of the floor and twirls around in a fluid 180-degree spin. Ikaika finally starts running forward—

“Ram.”

—straight into the charging metang. The steel-type blasts straight towards the edge of the arena. If it sails over with Ikaika in tow then both pokémon lose the round. You’re not sure if it’s worth it to her to trade a metang for a machop. Her mistake. The metang abruptly stops moving a few feet from the edge. Ikaika does not. You watch him desperately try to hold on only to lose his grip on the slick, smooth metal. He goes careening over the platform’s edge while the metang stops right in front of it.

“The Kahuna’s machop is out of bounds. The round goes to the challenger.”

Iakika is usually the one to ring out opponents with a vital throw. This is going to wound his pride. At least it’s a good teachable moment.

You withdraw the machop as soon as he jumps back onstage. The metang floats back to its trainer and hovers a few yards in front of her. Any wounds are in its mind or on its underside. Both are hard to assess. It seems to be moving slower now than it did before, but that might just be because there isn’t an enemy on the field. You idly wonder what she has up next. Maybe a butterfree given her interview, but VStar trainers tend not to keep their pokémon for long. Is she a psychic or steel specialist? If she’s a steel specialist than this should be pretty easy after her metang gets knocked out. If she’s a psychic specialist than it might only get harder from here.

“Nalu, come out.”

“The kahuna has sent out his crabrawler.”

The girl whispers something and metang immediately shifts up and back to the very edge of the arena. Nalu is almost always the one you have use your z-move and all the challengers these days know it thanks to the web. If the metang is in the air than any hit might send them both sailing out of bounds. It’s a clever tactic. But you weren’t born yesterday.

“Get in close.”

Nalu starts scuttling but… he’s not getting close. You squint and see stirring snow and rippling air in front of him gently pushing him off course as he tries to scuttle sideways. The metang slowly drifts away at the same time to stay well out of Nalu’s way. It’s not nearly enough speed for it to count as fleeing for pursuit. The girl smirks.

You wonder if there are crabrawler in Anahuac. Probably not. If there were she’d know that they can scuttle forwards. Nalu remembers before you can even give the order. Good. If the girl can’t see it she can’t adapt. “Crabhammer.”

The girl’s eyes widen and her jaw drops a little. “Move!”

Nalu leaps into the air, water rushing around his pincers. He goes wide as the metang rushes away. You crack a smile. No matter how many times this sort of thing happens it always feels satisfying to pull off. “Pursuit.”

The air ripples as purple shadows rush through it and slam straight into the metang’s back. The steel-type tries to turn around but Nalu stays latched on to the spike on its back with a pincer.

“Chaaaaaaaarge up!” you bellow. Theatrics are half the fun of your job. They make losing more bearable and winning more fun. The metang starts to quickly spin around in place but Nalu hangs on, one pincer coming up to bash into his enemy’s underside. Once. Twice. Three, four, five times, every hit getting stronger and faster as the power-up-punch goes on. You tap your bracelet and clear your mind. You punch the air and feel the power of ages gone by flood into your body. Your father went through these steps. And his father before him. On and on for generations of faithful servants to Tapu Koko. War is in your veins. All you have to do is give it a task and let it out.

Brilliant light surrounds Nalu as he finally lets go. Before the metang can react a glowing fist strikes it one more time on the back and sends it rocketing up past the torches’ reach.

“The challenger’s metang is out of bounds. This round goes to the kahuna.”

There’s a very visible dent on the metang’s back when it slowly floats past you. The girl holds her hand out and runs it over the metal once her pokémon returns to her side. Her façade cracks again as she envelops the metang in a hug and whispers something you can’t hear.

Sarah, the town’s nurse, takes the pokéball as soon as its occupant is withdrawn.

“Mitzcocotonaz, time to level up to your name.” The red light fades and reveals her next pokémon. It’s bipedal and comes up to her thigh. Its jaws are really big for its size but its arms are fairly small. A small cape of white feathers extends down its back. Reptilian, whatever it is. You don’t recognize the species. Too many invasives to keep track of these days. If it’s a dragon then crabhammer won’t do too much damage. Power-up-punch is a little unnecessary at this point. Dizzy punch it is, then.

“Get in there and use dizzy punch!”

Nalu races into motion as the girl snaps her fingers.

“Roar, Coco!”

The reptile rears back its head and bellows. Its an awful sound, like the grinding of rocks mixed with a low groan. It reminds you a little bit of krokorok come to think of it. And its scale colors are similar to a krookodile’s as well. Nalu falters and falls over. The confusion earlier must have set him a little off balance. The reptile immediately charges. Straight past Nalu. Because the pincers face forward.

Clever girl.

“Pursuit.”

The crabrawler whirls around in a spiral of darkness. He dashes forward with far more speed than he should be capable of. The darkness dissipates and he raises one claw up to grab hold of his opponent. The reptile stops, glances back, and bats him away with a powerful tail swipe. Too powerful given the distance Nalu flies. Almost to the edge of the arena.

Dragon tail. No more approaching from behind.

Nalu rushes back in and the dragon regards him warily. They meet on opposite sides of the splintered wood from the metang’s impact. Nalu scuttles to the side to get around the obstacle but you whistle at him to slow down. If he can’t approach directly over the impact he has to go around. One side puts him in range of dragon tail and a possible ring out. The other brings him right to the dragon’s maw. Neither is appealing.

“Keep circling,” the girl says. The tyrunt starts moving, slowly, to stay on the opposite side of the wood. The girl for her part has her eyes closed and seems lost in thought. Well, if she isn’t going to break the stalemate falls to you. Which is worse: tail or jaw? Tail risks immediate disqualification by ring out. Jaw there’s a good chance that Nalu’s exoskeleton holds. It’s hard to get a good look at the dragon’s teeth to see if they’re piercing or crushing. Piercing is bad, crushing is good.

You’ll take the gamble.

“Dizzy punch, head on.”

“Fire fang.”

Nalu scuttles around, slightly twirling his pincers in the air while the dragon’s mouth lights up in flames. At the last second it dashes forward, jaws spread wide, as Nalu bring his pincer around.

They collide at the same time. The dragon clamps down on Nalu’s shell right before it takes a fist to the side. Your opponent holds on, sparks flying across the crabrawler’s carapace. It clamps tighter as Nalu panics, ineffectually bashing the dragon with weak and desperate hit after weak and desperate hit. There’s a cracking sound and you see Nalu’s shell shift ever so slightly.

You withdraw him immediately. Small shell fractures aren’t fatal. He’ll just have to molt.

The dragon begins to stumble back to its trainer, swaying from side to side along the way. Then its legs get tangled and it falls in a heap. The dizzy punch worked. The girl sighs. “I’m using my switch. Good work, Coco. I’m proud of you.” The dragon chirps in happiness before dissolving into light.

A keokeo promptly takes the dragon’s place. They puff themselves up and dismissively look away from you. They practically radiate pride and aloofness. The vulpix are the princes and princesses of Mauna Lanakila and they know it. You idly wonder how she got it. VStar occasionally sends trainers to try and catch the rejects left at the bottom of the mountain. Many get ferried away to live out their lives in glorified cages far, far away from their homes.

You reach for your final pokéball.

Time to push out any regret you might feel. You have to do this. The keokeo should be all the proof you need.

*

September 2019​

You watched something good happen back in February. The grubbin had been declining for years now, especially since people figured out how good they were on the battlefield. Two years back the legislature had banned their capture but left an exception for kids on the island challenge. You approved of that. Your grandfather used one on his journey. Blasted through the birds and psychic-types that would’ve hurt most of his team.

Then the Unovan came in and found a loophole: if kids on the island challenge caught grubbin and immediately sold them to him, well, that was perfectly legal. Rumor had it that he made the company in the first place because he wanted a vikavolt of his own and the DNR had told him no.

He did not like being told ‘no.’

The decline in grubbin numbers was worse than ever. For a while you were afraid they might go the way of the ‘inuʻēheu. Then in February the legislature came through and prohibited island challengers from selling their grubbin unless they actually completed the challenge. Now you’re here with a simple proposition: apply that to everything else. Tell Chris Foster ‘no’ once more.

He didn’t even bother showing up for the debate on the bill. He just sent a pretty haole woman in a sharp suit to answer his questions. She is admittedly good at her job. Came prepared with statistics on youth poverty and island challenge dropout rates. You’d known for a while that more people said they quit the challenge due to lack of cash than said they dropped out because it was too hard. Those things were always the same to you. The strong paid their way with prize money won from the weak. You did it back in the day. Sure, most kids couldn’t afford the fanciest gear, but your ancestors never needed it. The kids can do without.

The haole girl tries to spin it as being good for your people: throws up slick charts and photos showing that child poverty in kanaka communities puts them at a disadvantage on the island challenge, blocking them off from their own heritage. She doesn’t mention the scholarship fund. There are at least fifteen opportunities for $100 or more for disadvantaged kids. A lot of smaller ones, too. The motivated and dedicated can pay their way through without selling their ‘āina away piece by piece.

Then it’s on to the benefits of cleaning up invasive species. One legislator – Hoku, an old friend of yours – asks if VStar would be fine with a bill that only protected native species. She deflects, pulling up pictures of toxapex-ravaged reefs. That seems to get a few nods of sympathy. Sellouts who value the artificial prettiness of the reefs more than the integrity of an ancient ecosystem. You were never winning with them anyway.

She finishes testifying. Then there are the heartfelt testimonials. Older folks talking about how the islands have changed and how they might change further. Ecologists with dire warnings. A man who uses his lycanroc to detect oncoming seizures and wants to make sure his friend’s wild cousins are protected. They get a lot more praise and thanks than the VStar woman did.

Then the votes come. It starts strong – two votes for the bill. And then everything goes wrong. Legislator after legislator votes it down. You glare at some of them from the balcony. One meets your gaze and promptly looks away.

You corner him later, once the session has adjourned, and ask him why on earth he would vote for a bill he wasn’t proud of. There are a few rounds of bullshit, most of its sounding suspiciously like the VStar woman’s testimony.

He finally breaks down and mutters softly. “They have a big PAC, you know, and I’m in for a tough election as it is.”

And that’s that. Not all of them are cowards too absorbed in their self-interest to do what is right, but 61 out of 100 are.

*​

That was almost half a year ago now. The tapu have grown more and more displeased. If the legislature won’t do something about it then it falls to you to send your own message to today’s youth: if you ever want to pass the island challenge, think twice before catching and exporting the pokémon you share Alola with.

You know all of that. It doesn’t mean you’re thrilled to crush a little girl’s dreams.

“Inoa, take the field.”

A pungent smell and a shrill war cry mark her entrance.

Greg looks at you in surprise and you can hear the mutters in the small crowd. You stare forward as stoically as you can, only giving the ref a small nod. You’re committed to this.

“The, uh, the kahuna has sent out his hawlucha.”

It feels like the world skips a beat. The girl’s mana flares to life, surprisingly intense for a blind child, and you can feel it swirling around you. Her face twists into a snarl before she schools it into an impassive mask.

“You shouldn’t have that,” she says. Her voice is perfectly even but it feels like there’s danger underneath. It’s hard to describe why. “They belong to Huitzilopochtli.” She slowly raises a hand to her left breast and mimes grabbing it. “When they are taken it makes him very” The girl rips her hand away from her chest violently and squeezes it, feigning resistance. Like she was crushing her heart. “…upset.”

The display is almost enough for you to think of her as a threat.

“You have a vulpix, correct? Perhaps you should not speak on these matters.” The keokeo starts growling in response.

The girl’s eyes narrow and she crosses her arms. On the battlefield the keokeo inhales and the winds still. For a moment it feels like the air itself is holding its breath. The winds return and lash you with frozen air. All the loose fabric on your clothes is picked up and tossed by the wind as Inoa shrieks in front of you.

“Power through! Submission!”

Inoa screeches and you see her powerful muscles tense back and release as she launches forwards through the air. The winds slow her down, but only just. She grabs ahold of the keokeo and starts twisting around in midair above the wooden platform. With every spin she holds the keokeo out and bashes it into the wood. White and red snow flies up with every impact. Then Inoa stops abruptly and jumps away to one of the torch posts at the edge of the platform. A faint white light fades from the keokeo’s eyes. The girl flinches away in concern, either for her pokémon or for getting hit herself.

“Again!” You call. The hawlucha shakes her head and makes a shrill whistle. She can’t.

Disable. That’s what the light was.

For a moment you’re tempted to use encore. Force the vulpix to keep using disable while Inoa steadily knocks them out with aerial ace. Shouldn’t take too much more: the fox’s fur is already filled with splinters of wood and streaks of blood. No. Then submission would be out for a long time. It’s Inoa’s strongest move and you’ll want it available to face the dragon. The girl snaps and the choice is made for you. The air around the keokeo shimmers before a pulse of multicolored light races towards Inoa. She moves without orders, leaping to action as the winds spiral around her wings. The aurora beam barely clips her and she just sails through. She lands feet first in a dive kick. The fox hisses in pain as they’re sent rocketing back along the platform floor. More splinters dig into their body with every foot. This is why you only use the platform a trainer’s first grand trial. You might need to replace the whole thing at this rate.

Your thoughts are interrupted by a shrill, oscillating cry as the keokeo screams in indignation. Their tails are fluffed out and sticking straight out as they bare their teeth and use roar. Inoa reflexively leaps back to one of the corner posts and turns to you for advice. Thankfully, you know just the thing.

“Encore.”

Inoa makes a frightful grin and begins to chant, hands clapping together as she grips the post with her feet. A moment later she drops down to the floor and starts doing a war dance, defiant in the face of the keokeo’s roar. And for their part the fox is baited into roaring even louder. She couldn’t stop now if she wanted to. That gives you time.

“Let up and strike when you can use submission again.”

For a solid minute the scene is quite amusing. The fox is howling with an increasingly hoarse and cracking voice while the hawlucha taunts them from the edge of the platform. The girl tightens her arms around herself as her glare grows absolutely murderous. You just wait. Time is on your side. Suddenly the screaming stops. The girl stumbles again and almost falls back onto the stairs before she catches herself. Odd. Maybe she just slipped on the snow. The keokeo readies another burst of cold air just as Inoa puffs her feathers out. She rockets straight into the wind. It slows her down more this time but she breaks through and grabs hold of the fox by the scruff. She barrels forward and pounds the keokeo into the platform three times while spinning in the air. Then her target is released. They soar free for a second before slamming into a torch pole. There’s an audible crack before the keokeo falls back to the ground with a dull thud. She doesn’t move.

Sarah rushes forward and presses a hand to the vulpix’s side. You try not to look at the girl but you still catch sight of her face in the corner of her eyes. All the anger is gone and she looks much paler than she did before. Her eyes are wide open and her lips are twitching at the edges. “Pixie…” she whispers. “No…”

Someone else flashes into your mind. Erin, the daughter of Edith, a groomer and gardener who lives in town. She was full of determination when she went off to take on the island challenge, maybe even the new League. You thought she might even make it all the way. She was clever and full of will. It didn’t take her long at all to clear three grand trials and headed off to Poni Island.

There was a guzzlord waiting for her there.

You had to walk across town to Edith’s home. Iki Town has always felt like such a small place. It’s why you love it. But as you walked across town that afternoon it seemed to be twice as wide as Hau’oli. Edith was in the garden behind her house when you arrived. She was smiling, full of life, asked you if you wanted anything to drink. Then she saw your face. For a moment she knew there was bad news, but she didn’t know how bad. Maybe Edith was injured. Maybe she’d just given up.

Instead, you had to tell her that there wouldn’t be a body to burn at the funeral.

The girl… she reminds you of Erin.

You hope the girl’s keokeo is alright. Truly. But if this is what it takes to get her from stealing your pokémon, if this is what it takes to get her far away from the alien monsters prowling Alola… then it’s better that her dreams were crushed by you and not an Ultra Beast.

You would send out Inoa again.

You regret nothing.

“Withdraw her, please.” Sarah says. “I need to get her to the Center. Now.”

The girl complies and hands the ball, some fancy white one with snowflake patterns etched into the side, to Sarah. She dashes away. One of the townspeople sends out a torracat to run beside her and light the path.

The girl’s hand reaches for her final pokéball, the one that has the dragon within. Her fingers slide off of it before she pulls them away.

“I forfeit,” she mutters. “Keep your damn bird.”

Someone boos in the crowd. You ignore them and walk back off the platform. Inoa trails along behind you. Greg rushes to your side as soon as your feet hit the grass. “Are you insane?” he whisper-hisses. “Using a hawlucha on a first grand trial?”

“She’s already cleared four trials.” He purses his lips. That wasn’t good enough for him. “And Inoa’s a young hawlucha, anyway.”

“Even Selene pulls her punches better than this. And she’s ranked.

Your stomach twists inside you when he says the champion’s name. Greg keeps lecturing you as you walk towards your home. Stays with you until you’re outside the torchlight and walking solely on memory. You barely hear a word of it.

“Selene’s in space right now,” you finally say. “Fighting a living star.”

“And, uh, what does that have to do with…?”

“What would have happened if I’d sent out a hariyama when she first showed up for a grand trial?” you muse aloud. “Would she have given up? And if she’d given up, would she be up there right now? Would any of this mess fallen onto a child’s shoulders?”

He doesn’t answer the question. Right as you’re about to take the last few steps to your home he asks one of his own. “You have a job. You know that right?”

You grunt, unsure where he’s going with this.

“If you can’t do the job anymore, maybe you should let your grandson have it.”

“That’s the Tapu’s call. Not yours.”

You shut the door on him before he can come up with a reply.

It takes you a while to drop your pokémon off at the Center. None of their wounds were so bad they needed immediate treatment and you’d rather not deal with Sarah so soon after Greg tried to tell you off. Even if they’re right—which they aren’t—you’re too old to put up with back-to-back lectures. And too old to go right back into the cold, too. Your home has a wood-burning furnace that’s kept your old bones warm in these dark, cold days.

*​

A pleasant bell chimes to announce your arrival to the Pokémon Center. The inkay lighting the room turns towards you for a moment before she goes back to telekinetically picking apart a stapler.

The girl and her friends are sitting down in the lobby. The boy shoots you a wicked glare but stays seated, his arm wrapped around the girl. You aren’t even sure the girl notices your presence. Sarah is nowhere to be found. Probably for the best. You place your pokéballs in the drop-off chute and leave undisturbed.

The door stays open after you close it. You turn around to see that the boy has followed you out. He just glares at you until the door finally shuts behind him.

“The fuck was that for?”

Blunt and crass. It reminds you a little of… someone else you couldn’t save.

“Someone has to stop VStar before the Tapu do. Might as well be me.”

He scoffs. “You didn’t pull that shit on me. Just let me through with a standard fight.”

“Catch the grubbin, kill the carbink: if you throw away your people’s rights and responsibilities, that’s your business.”

He blinks and the anger seems to leach out. “Kill the carbink?”

“You catch yours for them?”

“No.”

“But you’ve thought about selling him?”

“Yes,” he admits in a whisper. He looks away from you, unwilling to maintain eye contact. Amazing what a few questions can do.

“They figured out how to kill them without the crystals crumbling. VStar bids the corpses off to jewelry stores or computer manufacturers.”

He stares at you for a moment in disbelief. He should have known this. They’ve been caught culling pokémon before, although they’ve gotten better at “only” selling them to third-parties who will kill them themselves.

“I didn’t know that,” he says. “And I won’t give mine to them. Or any pokémon if they don’t want to go or I think they’d be treated badly.”

“Good.” It’s almost the bare minimum, but still a step in the right direction. “You could also stop giving them pokémon in the first place.”

He tenses up. “I’m broke, okay? Parents died, brother ran off, I got bounced between foster homes. To have a chance at winning—”

“There’s always prize money.”

“Doesn’t pay enough for food and supplies. Not for a team that can take down Lunala at the end of the challenge. Especially not if your traveling partner has a thing for carnivores.”

You don’t tell him that he might not have to face the Lunala if things go badly today. The kid’s face hardens again as he remembers why he followed you out.

“But none of that justifies sending out hawlucha on a first grand trial. That’s just asking for someone’s pokémon to get hurt. Which, surprise, happened.” Hurt, not killed. That’s better than it could’ve been.

“Unfortunate.” He keeps glaring but doesn’t challenge your non-answer. “But if I don’t try to stop VStar, Tapu Koko might. That could be… messy.” It takes you a moment to realize he would’ve been seven or eight when Tapu Bulu destroyed a village and caused most of western Ula’Ula’s to evacuate.

“You won’t stop Alolans, though?”

You shake your head and cross your arms. “I told you before that you can make your own mistakes.”

“Was Queen Lannah’s decree right?”

An atoll collapsed into the sea after a very bad storm. A xatu had warned them beforehand and some of them managed to sail away before their home was destroyed. The survivors eventually found their way to Alola but the king refused to let them land. They built a city on floating planks just offshore. A century later Queen Lannah briefly managed to unify the islands. She invited the seafolk to come to shore and live on land because they no longer had a land of their own. She later extended it to cover the Skychildren. Fallers, as they’ve taken to calling themselves these days.

Her son revoked the decree, but a lot of the hospitality code descends from it. The hospitality code was also revoked when Alola fell to invited traders and missionaries. You don’t know what he’s getting at.

“It’s the same principle: people who have no other home can claim Alola as theirs. And… I don’t think Cuical has a home. A safe one, at least.” His voice lowers to a near whisper. “No one’s ever called her from home. She’s deep in debt and… she sometimes flinches around adults. Said that her dad once pierced her tongue with a cactus spike. Seemed to think that was normal. I don’t think home is safe for her.”

A bent golf club comes to mind.

“You know your history.”

His frown flickers to a smile before being beaten back.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll think on it,” you say.

He rolls his eyes. “If you just walk away and ignore me then you can’t just wipe the blood off your hands if something happens.”

You walk away and ignore him. He doesn’t follow.

Doesn’t he understand? It’s not safe here. You feel for her. Really. But if you let her stay and she gets mauled by a UB, isn’t that blood also on your hands? And then there’s also pokémon blood there, too, from whatever you let her kill in the meantime.

Oh, to be young, naïve, and powerless. To live without responsibility weighing you down. You miss it more with every passing day.

You make your way back to the stage. The torchlights are still flickering down, although someone did extinguish the flame on the pole the keokeo hit. It’s still enough light to inspect the platform with. The torch pole seems fine. You run a hand up and down it and can’t feel any cracks. Just… a slick spot. You wipe the blood off on your pants and continue. It’s hard to tell where the smaller damaged spots might be because the wind has already covered them up again with snow. There’s one visible hole where the metang went through. It seems bigger now than it did in the heat of battle. A lot of the wood will need replaced. You should also take Ikaika off your normal first grand trial team.

He can stay on the VStar one. You won’t be doing those matches on the ceremonial platform anymore. Lesson learned.

The hair on your arms stands up as a wave of static fills the clearing. You slowly turn around and kneel before Tapu Koko, God of War and Thunder, Protector of Melemele. Your boss. The god hovers in place, looking down at you as his shields steadily rise and fall at his sides.

“Did I do the right thing or not?” you ask. Your knee is starting to hurt and Tapu Koko has never been one for silent reflection in all the years you’ve known him.

The Tapu’s voice sounds like growling thunder in your mind. “Have you declared war on Victory’s army?”

“Kahunas lost that power centuries ago.” You try to keep your response even. It makes perfect sense that an ancient war god thinks of sabotaging a corporation as declaring a war. It’s his only frame of reference.

“Not as far as I am concerned.” He says it so casually you almost wonder if he knows about the conquest. “There are rules for kahunas declaring war. I am sure you remember them.”

You do. He was very thorough during that part of your job training. Even at the time you’d thought it was a little ridiculous.

“Challenge my enemy to a duel, each warrior with one pokémon fighting alongside them.”

He hums approvingly. “I would fight alongside you if you challenged Victory. That is a worthy fight.” And the children are not, he says by omission.

You want to tell him that just because you can beat up the company’s CEO doesn’t mean that any of the problems will stop. That the last Alolan leader who tried to duel a corporate executive ended up deposed and exiled. Gage didn’t even have the god of victory on his side.

“I understand. Thank you for gracing me with your presence.”

He nods before rocketing away in the blink of an eye. You slowly get to your feet and ignore the pain in your knee. You’re still in good shape for your age, but a lifetime of training has started to take its toll on your body. Hau stands ready to take over but… you don’t want to put this on him. Not until you have to.

*​

After a quick walk back home you find yourself at the Pokémon Center again. Your last two challengers aren’t in the lobby this time, but Sarah is. She glances up at the ringing bell and immediately narrows her eyes.

“You’re real lucky you didn’t do irreversible damage. I’d have written you up, even if you are kahuna.”

“Hawlucha pull their punches. It probably looked worse than it was.”

She scoffs. “Oh no, it was plenty bad. Over half a dozen broken ribs and a bad concussion. Narrowly avoided a punctured lung and broken spine. I don’t know what got into you today, but it’s not happening again.”

You take your stamp and a z-crystal out of your bag and put them on the table. She glances at them before looking back to you, eyebrow raised. “Change of heart.”

Sarah nods. “I’ll pass them along.”

“Have you looked over my team yet?”

“No, but they seemed fine. Just give Nalu time to molt.” She scowls again. “And stop having your pokémon throw opponents into the platform. You have ring out rules, so use them.”

She’s interrupted by the sound of the sky shattering. You look up just as the shockwave rattles the building. The bell rings like crazy and a paperweight falls off of Sarah’s desk. You run outside and look up. The cracks in the sky seem to be glowing brighter than ever and quickly getting wider and wider. There’s another blast like a bomb going off and all of their light abruptly disappears.

The world is unusually silent for a moment. No pokémon, no voices, no footsteps. Did something go wrong? Did Necrozma take sound, too?

The air seems to catch fire as light streams down. You reach down to your oldest partner’s belt, prepared to send the hariyama out to do—something—when the rumbling in the sky stops and the light balances out save for one small sphere of incandescent fire.

The sun.

It takes you a moment to realize that the light isn’t blinding or burning, it’s just… normal. You quickly take your jacket off and keep staring up into the sky. A small wormhole opens up to the southwest, probably over Poni Island. For the first time in weeks you smile. It’s a small one at first but soon you’re grinning ear to ear like a maniac. Maybe the country is still doomed by one thing or another, but for the first time in ages things are going right.

*​

The Solstice festival was ruined, but this one might as well take its place. All the remaining residents have come out for a feast. You ask what you can do but Janet politely turns you away, insisting that everything’s covered. She’s unusually terse. Probably still mad about the battle. Never liked battling in the first place. She even signed a few petitions for Plasma’s Alola branch back in the day. Don’t think she’s apologized for it, either.

Some others keep their distance as well. You catch Greg scowling at you once or twice before he looks back to his kids frolicking in the fully illuminated snow. And the challengers and her friends spend most of their time at the very edge of the celebration, talking amongst themselves while occasionally glowering at you. The girl never seems to move much. Barely even touches her food. Part of you wants to help her, to invite her to play a game or tell stories until she stops crying. Because your kahuna and that’s what kahunas do with sad kids. That’s what Hala does. But that’s not what you did. She’s crying because of you and you can’t bring yourself to apologize to her face. Maybe what you did was wrong, but so was every other choice.

Edith is one of the only people to seek you out. She sits down on the bench next to you with stiff movements. She’s still young, barely fifty, but she’s slowed down a lot since her daughter died. In the full light you realize that she’s stopped dying her hair. It’s all gone gray. When did that happen?

“I know what you’re going for,” she says quietly. “But the kids won’t stop. An old man trying to block them from doing something will only make them want to do it more.”

Neither of you says anything after that, letting things lapse into slightly uncomfortable silence. Judith’s youngest daughter is packing snow onto her melting snowman, desperately trying to prop it up. When her parents finally call her a way she looks back over her shoulder at her drooping, doomed creation before reluctantly running off.

Maybe you’re the snowman, worn down by the world and on its last legs. Or maybe you’re the child, desperately trying to prop up something good that will be worn away whatever you do. You don’t know. But if you are the child, you’re still going to try and keep Alola going. You swore to Tapu Koko that you would protect this island and those who lived on it, and you’ll give everything, even your honor, to do it. Better to give everything and fail than to glance back over your shoulder, wondering if one more step was all the world needed.
 
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Pen

the cat is mightier than the pen
Staff
Partners
  1. dratini
  2. dratini-pen
  3. dratini-pen2
Flying 3.19

The structure of this chapter is two conversations Kekoa has, first with Plumeria and Kanoa. Kanoa stands for the establishment, Plumeria for the resistance. Both of them think Kekoa's goal is stupid.

So, is Kekoa's goal stupid? I think Plumeria's entirely correct to mock Kekoa for thinking that getting the "throne" back would mean anything real. Alola's subjugation is a lot more complete than that, and working within the confines of the trial system is unlikely to overthrow anything. But that doesn't mean that being champion means nothing. It's certainly a political and symbolic position. But what's odd is that if there was a kanaka champion, I feel like Kekoa would be the first one to shit talk them the second it became clear that their being champion didn't lead to Alolan independence and talk bitterly about how the media hypes up the champion being Kanaka but it doesn't actually mean anything. So I guess, being champion means something, but not the kind of meaning that Kekoa purports to value. Plumeria's right to see hypocrisy in how he identifies as being someone against the establishment but believes wholeheartedly in change that comes through a government prescribed venue. It's interesting to me that Kekoa doesn't really seem to internalize her point. He's just like, gotta do more trials, then she'll respect me, when she's just made it very clear that she gives respect for actions that destabilize the system, not participate in it. I know Kekoa is pretty bad at changing his attitude on anything (though it's nice to see in this chapter how much he's come around on Cuicatl) but as his final chapter in an arc, it did make me feel like he's treading water a bit.

I really liked the sequence where the drifloon leads him to the Queen--the casual way he asks and the drifloon knows, and the sense of ritual and belonging he has there. I guess it's all aboard flying-type specialist Kekoa. I'm here for it. I wasn't entirely sure whether having a drifloon in tow will mean a tangible effect on Kekoa's emotions--whether eats despair has an impact on the subject. I hope not, and Kekoa can just have a cuddly ghost fren. (You should read OSJ's latest oneshot if you haven't already, it has a drifloon fren!)

It seems like Kekoa's putting more effort into keeping track of his pokemon's needs, while simultaneously planning to sell off his Inkay to V-star. The cognitive dissonance there is so extreme. Like, he expects his pokemon to all want to stay with him, but also thinks he's perfectly within his rights to sell them in order to get winter clothes. Sigh.

The ending felt a bit abrupt to me. I think I would have liked to see Kekoa ruminate a bit on what Plumeria and Kanoa together have said. It doesn't have to rewrite his worldview, but I feel like it's enough for a prolonged think that these two very different people don't think the championship means much.

You hate that even the ‘liberal media’ puts the price tag in the same breath as the dead. As if lost lives could also be rebuilt with some relief money.
Oof.

I get what the second sentence is going for, but the phrasing's a bit awkward.

You hadn’t thought anything of the rains at first. Just a pop-up storm. You learn to live with them in the tropics. And then you got outside and there were liquid bullets striking your skin. A shiver runs up your spine and for a moment it feels like your clothes are soaking wet and unbearably heavy.
Mmm I always love Hoenn disaster takes. Liquid bullets gets across the violence and suddeness of it.

If she wanted you to do work she would’ve picked better programming to listen to.
Kekoa's such a charming kid.

Drifloon feed on loss, grief, and nostalgia. When something ends they’ll be there to guide it to oblivion. Doesn’t matter if it’s a life, a friendship, or a TV show. Anniversaries of tragedies get both grief and nostalgia points. You’re used to them showing up on the orphanage’s front steps when you got a new arrival. Their life as they knew it was over and despair must be very tasty.
Found the bit about drifloon guiding stuff to oblivion to be confusing--the rest of the paragraph makes it sounds like the monch on despair and endings, which seems different than guiding anything anywhere? What does it mean to guide an ending into oblivion?

And Lyra’s just here to get Gen out. You don’t need to be on the breakout team with her, anyway.
I'm not sure why Plumeria cares so much about this? I understood it when Gen was travelling and an easy target, but why bother with her once she's back in the Gage fortress?

You debate leaving it there, but she’s your boss and maybe she deserves to know. Deserves to judge. “I only have two permanent team members now. Another left.”
I like this moment. Kekoa does seem to be someone who seeks advice and guidance from people he respects (few though they may be.)

“You should keep the drifloon, though.”

“What?”

“They’re tied to endings. One latching on to you is a good omen for a revolutionary. And…” her eyes narrow. “Again, you can’t tell anyone this next part? Got it?”

“Got it.”

“Right. Supposedly the drifloon carry kids off sometimes and drop them down far away. Guzma grew up,” she flicks her head to the side, “thataway. Saw a lot of the ghosts growing up. He told me once that he kept hoping that one would grab him and take him away. Then one day he realized that he could leave on his own if he wanted. He did. Rest is history.”
I didn't get how the Guzma story constituted a second reason for Kekoa to have a drifloon.

If it goes with you then you could sell your inkay to VStar for your cold weather travel fund.
Classy, kekoa.

“Kid, we don’t do legal shit. If it was helpful to the cause the government would’ve already made it illegal.
Oof. This conversation really brings out how idealistic Kekoa is, even as he derides people who believe in 'the system.' He still thinks he can use the system to save people.

“If you could accomplish anything by beating the league, they would just change the rules so that you couldn’t. You can’t win their game. The best thing you can do is make it impossible to play. Watch them pick up their toys and sulk off to a friendlier place.”

“Just having a throne of our own—”

“Wouldn’t save us. Didn’t save us.” She flicks her eyes towards the glowing gravestone as if daring Her Majesty to disagree. The lights don’t change. No voices carry on the wind. There’s no sign she heard at all. “Text me when you’re willing to burn or steal some shit. Until then just wait for my signal.”
Plumeria's voice is really strong here and her viewpoint feels proper for the leader of Skull.

But Plumeria doesn’t trust you enough to put you in her inner circle. Didn’t think much at all of your badges. After a grand trial or two you might be more interesting to her.
Lol, did Kekoa not listen to a word she said? She doesn't care about the trials. She cares about whether he's willing to risk himself and do illegal shit.

Flickering lights come out of the bathroom as your inkay floats out. That one has the opposite problem. You explained toilets to her and she spent at least three hours repeatedly flushing it to figure out how it worked. Or to get on your nerves. Hard to tell with that one. It’s a shame you wouldn’t be able to keep her anyway once she evolved. Baby squid obsessed with the bathroom are one thing. Giant squid obsessed with fish, brainwashing, and murder are another matter entirely.
That escalated from cute to murder impressively quickly, in true Persephone fashion.

Hypocrite. Loses her shit because her starter gets adopted by one of her own kind. She told you once that she had the right to keep a vulpix because she was making it happy. The vulpix found something that made her happier and Cuicatl lost that right. She should just suck it up and find a new murderbeast to replace the one she lost.
I mean, he's not wrong.

There’s video of N confronting the embodiment of truth. No illusion could have possibly stood up to Reshiram without being burned away.
Oh wow, there's video? Wondering what exactly went down with N in your canon.

Not actually your sun
*son

It’s still definitely going to get stolen the first time you turn your back. And flushed down the toilet.
The woes of intelligent squids.

“How should we help our people?”

“Hmm?”

“Kanaka maoli. How do we help them?”
This really is Kekoa's driving question. It's nice to see him exploring it so bluntly.

“Don’t even try to resist them? Let them take over our league and put a throne of their own on Lanakila?”

“Throne? Wait. You think that’s—” Her line goes dead silent. Your eyes narrow. Is she muting herself so you can’t hear her laugh. “Sorry, signal cut out.” Definitely sounds like she’s been laughing. “That’s just a fancy chair the champion in. I’m sure Selene would get rid of it if I just told her it’s a bad look. She’s pretty nice, actually.”
Hm, so considering that two people from pretty different social positions think Selene being champion isn't a big deal, are we supposed to think here that Kekoa's fixation is truly idiosyncratic? I don't think Kekoa's wrong to recognize that the position has symbolic importance--and it seems to give Selene a seat at some very important tables.
 

Pen

the cat is mightier than the pen
Staff
Partners
  1. dratini
  2. dratini-pen
  3. dratini-pen2
3.20 Grand Trial

Hala was not a POV I was expecting but I really appreciated getting his perspective. It felt very tied to the discussions of last chapter, in that Hala's position illustrates the fallacy of Kekoa's hope. Hala is in a position of power, but he is powerless because his power involves pokemon battling, not politics. He has the backing of a war god, but that war god believes wars are fought through single honorable duels, the results of which matter. (That's precisely Kekoa's hope!) Hala's tried to intervene politically. He came up with a strong piece of legislation that would hamper VStar in a genuine way--a lot more of an investment for VStar to try and pick people who will make it all the way through, and people who do will be in a better position, where they are less dependent on VStar. But it fails. And so Hala turns to plan b--beating up children.

This was one of the more engaging battles for me from this arc. I felt like I had a good sense of the action, tactics and power-levels. There's definitely an advantage to being in the head of someone who knows what he's doing, and the shift between his initial fighters, whose performance he evaluates for teachable moments, and when he sends out his hawlucha, was tangible. (As I said in the line-by-lines, I'm not sure how to square the hawlucha thing with his stances. Sure it adds insult to injury for Cuicatl but it was odd to me that there's no reflection on it. Does Hala think it's different? It would be interesting to hear why.) I liked his fixation on the damage to the ceremonial platform. There's so much wrapped up in that. It's a way to not think about the damage to the pokemon--the slippery spot. It's a reminder that he's fighting above the level he should. And it's a sign of his frustration, that his role is so ceremonial, that the only "war" he can wage when he channels his z-move is against teens like Cuicatl. It begs the question--if you can't attack the rot at its source, is it right or justifiable to hurt people who are in the position they are through bad circumstance? The narrative does an excellent job letting us feel both Hala's justified frustration at being powerless and his desire to do what he can, while showing how much he's rationalizing things. And then there's his hypocrisy for not doing the same to native kids like Kekoa. All his rationales should apply to them. Is there less backlash if you beat up a foreigner? And something that adds an even worse twist to it all--he's not beating up a foreigner. He's beating up a keokeo. That's the nature of pokemon battling. The one who's hurt isn't even the one who started the fight. (With the bonus terribleness in Cuicatl's case that this is part of an emotional manipulation scheme to try and get Pixie to not leave her.) Hala's method sucks, but it's hard to condemn him either.

As for Kekoa. Easier for me to condemn him at the moment. He's been shutting his eyes to what being complicit with VStar means for a long time, while still puffing his ego by playing at being radical. It's really interesting to compare his interaction with Hala here to his interaction with Uffe from Normal 1.11. There he was arguing that Cuicatl was a foreigner and shouldn't get anything, and Uffe was trying to get him to see that Cuicatl was someone who had nowhere else to go. Now Kekoa's making that argument--a pretty good encapsulation of his character development as far as Cuicatl goes, though I wonder how much of it is a true shift in attitude and how much of it is because Cuicatl is his friend now. Then there's there unavoidable fact that VStar is giving opportunities to people who wouldn't otherwise have them. It's easy for Hala to say 'scholarships.' His grandson is set to be Kahuna--why? There's no indication that the answer is anything other than nepotism. It's easy to worry about the big picture when you know your family is going to be taken care of.

Okay, enough about the moral complexities. Another thing happened in this chapter. Covid's over! I mean, the sun's back. Not gonna lie, it felt very anticlimactic to me. Sort of felt like it was just happening because real world covid's lifting. And it made me think a bit about what the darkness arc has been. It definitely had some plot consequences--Gen going home (though that could have happened so many ways), Kekoa getting a new birb, I suppose clearing the challenger field quite a lot, which may be relevant later. But the darkness apocalypse never quite felt real to me and so I'm not sure what to do with it being over. Yay, I guess? Selene's going to be hailed as a savior, which is unlikely to make Kekoa happy.

I'd have to reread Arc 3 to give decent overall thoughts, but my sense is that Kekoa's coming to some kind of turning point with his beliefs. They've been really interrogated these past few chapters. Gen rescue is still on the horizon--looking forward to more content from my fave who I liked BEFORE she was cool. I expect the next arc is going to be rough on Cuicatl. I doubt Pixie is staying after that defeat, and the fall-out will be nasty. With the sun back out, Skull's going to be ramping operations back up. And the Gages know that Cuicatl is a psychic--that also seems likely to spell trouble. As for the most important character, Pixie, I'm sure everything will be totally fine once she ditches her loser human for her awesome beautiful perfect adoptive ninetails mom. One hundred percent fine.



Your opponent cautiously makes her way up the steps to the platform. There’s no railing to help her. You’d never actually thought about that before; she’s your first blind challenger in the twenty-six years you’ve been kahuna.

The girl reaches the platform and stands straighter, staring confidently at something a few feet to your left. You clear your throat and her gaze snaps towards you.
It's been a while since we've seen Cuicatl from the outside. The lack of railing sets the scene nicely in that it's not the only thing not here to help her. Hala isn't either.

Her facial features are… familiar. For a moment you almost mistake her for someone she obviously isn’t.
Is this supposed to be Erin? It was confusing, and even having reread I'm not sure.

Pokémon fire makes a lot more light than normal fire in this unnatural darkness. No one’s sure why.
Huh. That's odd, since the darkness wouldn't really be any different than "natural" darkness, would it? It's dark because the sun is gone. Only strikes me as weird because this fic is generally grounded with scientific-ish explanations and not general handwaving of something that's testable.

It’s a foreign name. All of your challengers seem to have foreign names these days. Most of them at least grew up here. She did not.
How aggrieved he feels comes through well here.

What most people don’t understand is that fighting types can jump.
Nice smugness.

The steel-type’s claws connect and you can see the gashes drawn on your machop’s side. And then the metang begins to be spun around your machop’s small frame. Once. Twice. Its claws reach out for something to hang on to but find no purchase. Then Ikaika lets go and the metang goes sailing into the platform.
"beguns to be spun around" was an odd construction for me here. I wasn't sure why it's passive, when the machop is clearly the actor.

Iakika is usually the one to ring out opponents with a vital throw. This is going to wound his pride. At least it’s a good teachable moment.

You withdraw the machop as soon as he jumps back onstage.
The switch from calling his machop by name to calling him "the machop" was a bit jarring. Maybe use "him" instead of "the machop."

War is in your veins. All you have to do is give it a task and let it out.
Some war--fighting children on a ceremonial platform.

There’s a cracking sound and you see Nalu’s shell shift ever so slightly.

You withdraw him immediately. Small shell fractures aren’t fatal. He’ll just have to molt.
Oof. Cold.

They puff themselves up and look slightly up and to the side.
Ah, very interesting how he called Coco an it but Pixie gets they.

VStar occasionally sends trainers to try and catch the rejects left at the bottom of the mountain. Many get ferried away to live out their lives in glorified cages far, far away from their homes.
Hm, so the vulpix rejection thing is common knowledge. What's the best case scenario for the vulpix rejects? Are they considered just as sacred as the ones that live on the mountain?

Then in February the legislature came through and prohibited island challengers from selling their grubbin unless they actually completed the challenge. Now you’re here with a simple proposition: apply that to everything else. Tell Chris Foster ‘no’ once more.
Ooh, yes that would definitely have some effect.

One legislator – Hoku, an old friend of yours – asks if VStar would be fine with a bill that only protected native species. She deflects, pulling up pictures of toxapex-ravaged reefs. That seems to get a few nods of sympathy. Sellouts who value the artificial prettiness of the reefs more than the integrity of an ancient ecosystem. You were never winning with them anyway.
Rip. And classic.

Not all of them are cowards too absorbed in their self interest to do what is right, but 61 out of 100 are.
That's a familiar tune.

You watched something good happen back in February.
This frame was confusing when I started the section, and it was still confusing when I reached the end, since the ending emphasizes the failure.

If the legislature won’t do something about it then it falls to you to send your own message to today’s youth: if you ever want to pass the island challenge, think twice before catching and exporting the pokémon you share Alola with.
I see. I like where you've placed this explanation in the chapter, letting us taste his frustration first.

'today's youth' makes it sound like he means all youth, though, not just foreign kids.

Her voice is perfectly even but it feels like there’s danger underneath. It’s hard to describe why.
Think you can cut that second line.

“You shouldn’t have that,” she says.
Why does he have it? I don't think he has one in canon or anything. It makes him a pretty massive hypocrite if he's freely trading in non-native pokemon too.

“Again!” You call. The hawlucha shakes her head and makes a shrill whistle. She can’t.

Disable. That’s what the light was.
I liked this moment of exchange between pokemon and trainer.

This is why you only use the platform a trainer’s first grand trial.
Lol.

The fox is howling with an increasingly hoarse and cracking voice while the hawlucha taunts them from the edge of the platform. The girl tightens her arms around herself as her glare grows absolutely murderous.
This is basically a youtube fox screm video right

Then she saw her face.
I think this should be *his face?

Instead you had to tell her that there wouldn’t be a body to burn at the funeral.
Oof.

The girl… she looks a bit like Erin. And Erin looked a lot like her mother.
So Cuicatl looks like Edith? I think you can make this parallel without making it about people looking similar, because it's a bit confusing.

But if this is what it takes to get her from stealing your pokémon
*stop her?

“What would have happened if I’d sent out a hariyama when she first showed up for a grand trial?” you muse aloud. “Would she have given up? And if she’d given up, would she be up there right now? Would any of this mess fallen onto a child’s shoulders?”
Well, the reason the mess has fallen on a child's shoulders is because of the mysterious way in the pokemonverse that the most competent trainers are teens.

“If you can’t do the job anymore, maybe you should let your grandson have it.”

“That’s the Tapu’s call. Not yours.”
I like the tension between Hala, the town people, and the Tapu.

He blinks and his face relaxes just a little bit as anger leeches out. “Kill the carbink?”
I'm not sure relaxes is quite the word you want? If the anger is leeching out, that's because it's giving way to some other unhappy emotion that's not relaxation.

“They figured out how to kill them without the crystals crumbling. VStar bids the corpses off to jewelry stores or computer manufacturers.”

He stares at you for a moment in disbelief. He should have known this. They’ve been caught culling pokémon before, although they’ve gotten better at “only” selling them to third-parties who will kill them themselves.
Wow Kekoa. A third strike against the whole 'completely trash my beliefs in order to win the throne' plan.

“You won’t stop Alolans, though?”

You shake your head and cross your arms. “I told you before that you can make your own mistakes.”
Hm. I guess it would be helpful to understand what percentage of the Vstart people are native. Because if that's super rare I guess I could see this, but if not, this keeps his approach from being effectual. And like, isn't it sort of worse when it's someone like Kekoa who should really know better?

A century later Queen Lannah and briefly managed to unify the islands.
Either an extra word 'and' or a missing word here.

She invited the seafolk to come to shore and live on land as honorary Alolans because they no longer had a land of their own. She late extended it to cover the Skychildren. Fallers, as they seem to call themselves these days.

Her son revoked the decree itself but a lot of the hospitality code descends from it. The hospitality code was also more or less revoked when Alola fell to invited traders and missionaries.
Ah, interesting.

But if you let her stay and she gets mauled by a UB, isn’t that blood also on your hands?
If he really thought that he should be defeating native kids too. But I get that this is rationalization.

You run a hand up and down it and can’t feel any cracks. Just… a slick spot. You wipe the blood off on your pants and continue.
ooof.

You won’t be doing those matches on the ceremonial platform anymore. Lesson learned.
Yeah, cause that's the important lesson here.

You slowly turn around and kneel before Tapu Koko, protector of Melemele. Your boss.
I like the juxtaposition there. How Hala more than anyone else on Melemele has to deal with the contradiction of Tapu Koko being a god and being limited.

“Have you declared war on Victory’s army?”

“Kahunas lost that power centuries ago.” You try to keep your response even. It makes perfect sense that an ancient war god thinks of sabotaging a corporation as declaring a war. It’s his only frame of reference.

“Not as far as I am concerned.” He says it so casually you almost wonder if he knows about the conquest. “There are rules for kahunas declaring war. I am sure you remember them.”
Really fascinating. Because from the perspective of an ancient war god, does modern Alola look like the site of conquest? The subtleties of colonialism are probably lost on him if there's not literal slaughtering in the streets.

You want to tell him that just because you can beat up the company’s CEO doesn’t mean that any of the problems will stop.
And there's the crux of it.

It grows slowly at first but soon you’re grinning ear to ear like a maniac.

Your home still has its problems, but for a moment you feel like things might turn out okay.
This ending line fell pretty flat for me. It a) doesn't super mesh with his character voice in the rest of it and b) feels a bit weaksauce for the darkness lifting and the close of an arc. Maybe ending people starting to celebrate? Something more active?
 

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
I'm not entirely sure I'm allowed to do this but I'm going to try responding in the thread to this one, if only because my attempt to respond in discord at 2 in the morning was not wildly successful.
The structure of this chapter is two conversations Kekoa has, first with Plumeria and Kanoa. Kanoa stands for the establishment, Plumeria for the resistance. Both of them think Kekoa's goal is stupid.

So, is Kekoa's goal stupid? I think Plumeria's entirely correct to mock Kekoa for thinking that getting the "throne" back would mean anything real. Alola's subjugation is a lot more complete than that, and working within the confines of the trial system is unlikely to overthrow anything. But that doesn't mean that being champion means nothing. It's certainly a political and symbolic position. But what's odd is that if there was a kanaka champion, I feel like Kekoa would be the first one to shit talk them the second it became clear that their being champion didn't lead to Alolan independence and talk bitterly about how the media hypes up the champion being Kanaka but it doesn't actually mean anything. So I guess, being champion means something, but not the kind of meaning that Kekoa purports to value. Plumeria's right to see hypocrisy in how he identifies as being someone against the establishment but believes wholeheartedly in change that comes through a government prescribed venue. It's interesting to me that Kekoa doesn't really seem to internalize her point. He's just like, gotta do more trials, then she'll respect me, when she's just made it very clear that she gives respect for actions that destabilize the system, not participate in it. I know Kekoa is pretty bad at changing his attitude on anything (though it's nice to see in this chapter how much he's come around on Cuicatl) but as his final chapter in an arc, it did make me feel like he's treading water a bit.
I am steadily doing edits of Arc 3 chapters now. I think that this one will have some moment of... if not change, then reflection edited in at the end. I think you noted in the next chapter review that Kekoa's arc for the next portion of the story was being setup. And in Arcs 4+ he'll have to decide how he wants to forge ahead.
I really liked the sequence where the drifloon leads him to the Queen--the casual way he asks and the drifloon knows, and the sense of ritual and belonging he has there. I guess it's all aboard flying-type specialist Kekoa. I'm here for it. I wasn't entirely sure whether having a drifloon in tow will mean a tangible effect on Kekoa's emotions--whether eats despair has an impact on the subject. I hope not, and Kekoa can just have a cuddly ghost fren. (You should read OSJ's latest oneshot if you haven't already, it has a drifloon fren!)
Will reed!

Drifloon eat nostalgia and are happy to wander during the day if their trainer cannot provide it. Scientists think it's just passively basking in emitted feelings.

There's no symbolism here. Themes are for eighth grade book reports.

It seems like Kekoa's putting more effort into keeping track of his pokemon's needs, while simultaneously planning to sell off his Inkay to V-star. The cognitive dissonance there is so extreme. Like, he expects his pokemon to all want to stay with him, but also thinks he's perfectly within his rights to sell them in order to get winter clothes. Sigh.
I think the next chapter sets up that he's going to have a reckoning on this one sooner rather than later.

Oof.

I get what the second sentence is going for, but the phrasing's a bit awkward.
Will fix.

Kekoa's such a charming kid.
A jerkass teenager who hasn't really had a reasonable authority figure to reign him in before. It's... understandable, if not acceptable.
Found the bit about drifloon guiding stuff to oblivion to be confusing--the rest of the paragraph makes it sounds like the monch on despair and endings, which seems different than guiding anything anywhere? What does it mean to guide an ending into oblivion?
I'll probably just take this line out.
I'm not sure why Plumeria cares so much about this? I understood it when Gen was travelling and an easy target, but why bother with her once she's back in the Gage fortress?
Honestly I have no answer for this and I might dramatically reduce the amount she cares about it when proceeding with the edits.
I like this moment. Kekoa does seem to be someone who seeks advice and guidance from people he respects (few though they may be.)


I didn't get how the Guzma story constituted a second reason for Kekoa to have a drifloon.
Ties to the founder of Team Skull.
Classy, kekoa.
Always.
Oof. This conversation really brings out how idealistic Kekoa is, even as he derides people who believe in 'the system.' He still thinks he can use the system to save people.
The Wrong People control the systems. If The Right People were in charge everything would get better. It's almost out of a fantasy novel where the rightful king on the throne immediately fixes the nation's problems, even if the rightful king is fifteen and has no training on running a country.
Lol, did Kekoa not listen to a word she said? She doesn't care about the trials. She cares about whether he's willing to risk himself and do illegal shit.
If he's just... stronger. That will fix everything.
That escalated from cute to murder impressively quickly, in true Persephone fashion.
The inkay 'dex entry establishes that malamar are no joke. Not the kind of monster most travelers have to deal with because deep sea only, but still one of the most dangerous-to-humans pokemon on the planet.
I mean, he's not wrong.
Cuicatl hasn't really been an asshole to other people because of her own issues in this story. Not to the same extent as Arc 1 Kekoa or Arc 2 Genesis, anyway.

That's overdue for a change.
Oh wow, there's video? Wondering what exactly went down with N in your canon.
I'm unsure if the castle thing happened since it's a tad bit goofy. Could've easily just been a confrontation in the Champion's arena with the cameras still rolling.

Hm, so considering that two people from pretty different social positions think Selene being champion isn't a big deal, are we supposed to think here that Kekoa's fixation is truly idiosyncratic? I don't think Kekoa's wrong to recognize that the position has symbolic importance--and it seems to give Selene a seat at some very important tables.
Where Kekoa's obsession comes from will be explored... soon, probably. And Selene does have a great deal of informal power as the strongest trainer in a region in the midst of an alien invasion. Whether she would have that in a peacetime region is debatable, but it doesn't seem like Alola is calming down anytime soon. In any case Selene is too busy saving the world and moping over her ex to actually wield that influence to political ends. She's a teenager, too, and not one who was ever interested in politics.
3.20 Grand Trial

Hala was not a POV I was expecting but I really appreciated getting his perspective. It felt very tied to the discussions of last chapter, in that Hala's position illustrates the fallacy of Kekoa's hope. Hala is in a position of power, but he is powerless because his power involves pokemon battling, not politics. He has the backing of a war god, but that war god believes wars are fought through single honorable duels, the results of which matter. (That's precisely Kekoa's hope!) Hala's tried to intervene politically. He came up with a strong piece of legislation that would hamper VStar in a genuine way--a lot more of an investment for VStar to try and pick people who will make it all the way through, and people who do will be in a better position, where they are less dependent on VStar. But it fails. And so Hala turns to plan b--beating up children.
Beating up children is always effective in fiction. It never results in comeuppance.
This was one of the more engaging battles for me from this arc. I felt like I had a good sense of the action, tactics and power-levels. There's definitely an advantage to being in the head of someone who knows what he's doing, and the shift between his initial fighters, whose performance he evaluates for teachable moments, and when he sends out his hawlucha, was tangible. (As I said in the line-by-lines, I'm not sure how to square the hawlucha thing with his stances. Sure it adds insult to injury for Cuicatl but it was odd to me that there's no reflection on it. Does Hala think it's different? It would be interesting to hear why.) I liked his fixation on the damage to the ceremonial platform. There's so much wrapped up in that. It's a way to not think about the damage to the pokemon--the slippery spot. It's a reminder that he's fighting above the level he should. And it's a sign of his frustration, that his role is so ceremonial, that the only "war" he can wage when he channels his z-move is against teens like Cuicatl. It begs the question--if you can't attack the rot at its source, is it right or justifiable to hurt people who are in the position they are through bad circumstance? The narrative does an excellent job letting us feel both Hala's justified frustration at being powerless and his desire to do what he can, while showing how much he's rationalizing things. And then there's his hypocrisy for not doing the same to native kids like Kekoa. All his rationales should apply to them. Is there less backlash if you beat up a foreigner? And something that adds an even worse twist to it all--he's not beating up a foreigner. He's beating up a keokeo. That's the nature of pokemon battling. The one who's hurt isn't even the one who started the fight. (With the bonus terribleness in Cuicatl's case that this is part of an emotional manipulation scheme to try and get Pixie to not leave her.) Hala's method sucks, but it's hard to condemn him either.
These are all good questions that I more or less don't have answers for.
As for Kekoa. Easier for me to condemn him at the moment. He's been shutting his eyes to what being complicit with VStar means for a long time, while still puffing his ego by playing at being radical. It's really interesting to compare his interaction with Hala here to his interaction with Uffe from Normal 1.11. There he was arguing that Cuicatl was a foreigner and shouldn't get anything, and Uffe was trying to get him to see that Cuicatl was someone who had nowhere else to go. Now Kekoa's making that argument--a pretty good encapsulation of his character development as far as Cuicatl goes, though I wonder how much of it is a true shift in attitude and how much of it is because Cuicatl is his friend now. Then there's there unavoidable fact that VStar is giving opportunities to people who wouldn't otherwise have them. It's easy for Hala to say 'scholarships.' His grandson is set to be Kahuna--why? There's no indication that the answer is anything other than nepotism. It's easy to worry about the big picture when you know your family is going to be taken care of.
Kekoa is very good at ignoring things. I also don't know if he's come around to embracing that position for all so-situated foreigners or if it's just for Cuicatl. Not sure he knows. He's... got some things to figure out now.
Okay, enough about the moral complexities. Another thing happened in this chapter. Covid's over! I mean, the sun's back. Not gonna lie, it felt very anticlimactic to me. Sort of felt like it was just happening because real world covid's lifting. And it made me think a bit about what the darkness arc has been. It definitely had some plot consequences--Gen going home (though that could have happened so many ways), Kekoa getting a new birb, I suppose clearing the challenger field quite a lot, which may be relevant later. But the darkness apocalypse never quite felt real to me and so I'm not sure what to do with it being over. Yay, I guess? Selene's going to be hailed as a savior, which is unlikely to make Kekoa happy.
I'm planning to almost entirely overhaul an older chapter to more prominently emphasize the darkness. Others will get minor changes. Part of how much of a non-issue it was is intentional. Cuicatl don't give AF beyond the cold. Genesis is locked in her room anyway. Pixie can still smell. It's really only Kekoa finding himself blind in a way that matters. And COVID was sometimes weirdly easy to forget once you got far enough in. Not that it's actually over, yet. And I couldn't really trash or permanently freeze the region and still keep doing a journey fic there... at least, not the kind of journey fic I wanted to write... actually I probably could have.

The consequences of the arc on the setting's political and economic setting will still be felt for a long time. Is Selene weakened or bolstered by failing to stop it but then solving it herself at great personal loss? How will Skull feel about watching the rich hole up in comfort or flee to homes on the mainland while the Kanaka were forced to stay in the cold or leave their ancestral home? Is this the downfall of the governor, VStar's greatest ally in the Alolan government? How much of the ecosystem collapsed once the photosynthesis stopped in most of Alola? What are the consequences of that? The aftermath is more interesting than the disaster for me. I will keep the lack of stakes in mind, though, when I go through to edit things.
I'd have to reread Arc 3 to give decent overall thoughts, but my sense is that Kekoa's coming to some kind of turning point with his beliefs. They've been really interrogated these past few chapters. Gen rescue is still on the horizon--looking forward to more content from my fave who I liked BEFORE she was cool. I expect the next arc is going to be rough on Cuicatl. I doubt Pixie is staying after that defeat, and the fall-out will be nasty. With the sun back out, Skull's going to be ramping operations back up. And the Gages know that Cuicatl is a psychic--that also seems likely to spell trouble. As for the most important character, Pixie, I'm sure everything will be totally fine once she ditches her loser human for her awesome beautiful perfect adoptive ninetails mom. One hundred percent fine.
Yeah you generally got the idea of where this is going.

Kekoa; Skull, VStar, Selene. The fight for the future of Alola and his place in it.
Genesis: More conversion therapy w/ some setup for eventual rescue.
Cuicatl: Figuring out her relationships to her families, new and old. Is she being an active enough mother to Coco? How did she fail with Pixie? What's Noci's deal, anyway? Plus more work on her thesis.
Pixie: I mean she's perfect. Why would she need character development? And the moral of SuMo's plot is that you should always obey your awesome beautiful perfect mom. She's fine. Entirely. Fine.

Is this supposed to be Erin? It was confusing, and even having reread I'm not sure.
Erin, yeah. I think I'll go with something other than vague resemblance, or at least clarify what those resemblances were.
Huh. That's odd, since the darkness wouldn't really be any different than "natural" darkness, would it? It's dark because the sun is gone. Only strikes me as weird because this fic is generally grounded with scientific-ish explanations and not general handwaving of something that's testable.
I clarified in chat but pokemon light seems to be far less affected by Xerneas's light drain than electronic light or ordinary fire. Hala should know that and at least one of the theories for why it's true.
"beguns to be spun around" was an odd construction for me here. I wasn't sure why it's passive, when the machop is clearly the actor.
Will fix.
The switch from calling his machop by name to calling him "the machop" was a bit jarring. Maybe use "him" instead of "the machop."
Got it.
Some war--fighting children on a ceremonial platform.
When all you have is a war god and fighting-types, every problem looks like a war.
Oof. Cold.
Pokemon training in this setting, even when done by "the good ones" who aren't legalized poachers, is still ethically fraught.
Ah, very interesting how he called Coco an it but Pixie gets they.
Native v non-native.
Hm, so the vulpix rejection thing is common knowledge. What's the best case scenario for the vulpix rejects? Are they considered just as sacred as the ones that live on the mountain?
"Best case" is a little hard to answer. Finding a trainer? Another reject ninetales? It's obviously the latter as Pixie is learning.
Ooh, yes that would definitely have some effect.
It's simple and effective. Feels like the regulations that always should have been in place.
Rip. And classic.
Which is why it's never going to happen.
That's a familiar tune.
It's fine, see, because he can do more good while he's in the legislature than out, even if he sometimes has to throw a vote on small things.
This frame was confusing when I started the section, and it was still confusing when I reached the end, since the ending emphasizes the failure.
It was more meant to show his hope at the start and wrestling with that hope being extinguished at the end. I'll try to make that clearer.
I see. I like where you've placed this explanation in the chapter, letting us taste his frustration first.

'today's youth' makes it sound like he means all youth, though, not just foreign kids.
I'm not saying he's a hypocrite, but...
Think you can cut that second line.
Noted.
Why does he have it? I don't think he has one in canon or anything. It makes him a pretty massive hypocrite if he's freely trading in non-native pokemon too.
His was probably born in Alola. He didn't import it. Didn't sell it off to be killed or exported. And no, he doesn't have one in canon, but the alternative was using hariyama or crabraominable and I thought it would be a less interesting fight / character moment.
I liked this moment of exchange between pokemon and trainer.
Even telepaths can understand their pokemon. Definitely. Not a problem worth looking into.
This is basically a youtube fox screm video right
Even odds this ends up on the youtube equivalent in-universe.
I think this should be *his face?
Something other than her, yeah.
So Cuicatl looks like Edith? I think you can make this parallel without making it about people looking similar, because it's a bit confusing.
Noted.
*stop her?
Probably better.
Well, the reason the mess has fallen on a child's shoulders is because of the mysterious way in the pokemonverse that the most competent trainers are teens.
If Hala had fourth wall awareness he wouldn't try to crush the dreams of a blind girl with green hair and rare pokemon.
I like the tension between Hala, the town people, and the Tapu.
Thank you!
I'm not sure relaxes is quite the word you want? If the anger is leeching out, that's because it's giving way to some other unhappy emotion that's not relaxation.
Will fix in edits.
Wow Kekoa. A third strike against the whole 'completely trash my beliefs in order to win the throne' plan.
And he's out.
Hm. I guess it would be helpful to understand what percentage of the Vstart people are native. Because if that's super rare I guess I could see this, but if not, this keeps his approach from being effectual. And like, isn't it sort of worse when it's someone like Kekoa who should really know better?
Rachel earns her pay. Most people don't really associate cullings with them. And native trainers are disproportionately represented, but I think he holds out hope he can achieve this without crushing the dreams of native kids.
Either an extra word 'and' or a missing word here.
K
Ah, interesting.
Lore for the lore god!
If he really thought that he should be defeating native kids too. But I get that this is rationalization.


ooof.


Yeah, cause that's the important lesson here.
Hala doesn't want to be doing this. He's trying not to think about it or to crush the dreams of his own people.
I like the juxtaposition there. How Hala more than anyone else on Melemele has to deal with the contradiction of Tapu Koko being a god and being limited.
Oh Tapu Koko could start destroying building complexes at any time like Bulu did. But until then there's not much he can do.
Really fascinating. Because from the perspective of an ancient war god, does modern Alola look like the site of conquest? The subtleties of colonialism are probably lost on him if there's not literal slaughtering in the streets.
Gage beat the Queen in a fair duel. It was a valid war and Gage/his government are now the legitimate power structure. If Hala doesn't like it he should have his pets beat up the governor's pets.
This ending line fell pretty flat for me. It a) doesn't super mesh with his character voice in the rest of it and b) feels a bit weaksauce for the darkness lifting and the close of an arc. Maybe ending people starting to celebrate? Something more active?
Celebrations are a good way to make things more impactful. I agree it's a little out of character as is. Wasn't quite sure how to end it.
 

Negrek

Abscission Ascendant
Staff
I'm back! Last attempt at playing catch-up obviously didn't go so well, but now that I'm caught up with Worldslayers (permanently ;-;), I'm making this my next target to work through. We'll see if it works better! In any case, I need those Blacklight points while I can still get them, so I'll make a start at least. Going pretty broad strokes for these old chapters; we'll see how things go if I manage to catch up!

Normal 1.11-1.15

There were a lot of fun moments here--all in all, this section felt, dare I say it, almost upbeat? Cuicatl and Kekoa have reached a tenuous but currently-holding truce and even have a couple cute bonding moments, Genesis does a lot of keeping shitty opinions to herself (I know it can't last, but for now, thank god), and the pokémon are adorable! Nothing seriously bad happens here! A lot happens, but it's mostly trainer-shenanigan kinds of stuff, captures, trials, and so on. I think it's nice to have a bit of a hope spot here, and bring the main trio a little closer together, before (my impression) everything goes rapidly downhill in the near future.

I think Cuicatl was my favorite in this section. She just has it so, so rough, even if things are perhaps better in that iirc she didn't think seriously about killing herself in this section. I enjoyed some of the exploration we got of her psychic powers here--and their drawbacks. It makes sense that she'd be vulnerable to psychic attacks through the link she'd formed with her pokémon--but wow, what a way to find out about that. I enjoyed that scene and how, as throughout her life, it seems, it's a pokémon who's ultimately the one to help her, but I did wonder a bit where the trial captain was while Cuicatl was, like, lying on the ground screaming with the oranguru petting her hair. :P And that final scene, where she first uses a Z-move but then gets overwhelmed because (presumably) she's so weak/malnourished, damn. She has it tough, and is possibly the character I'm rooting for the most at this point.

It was nice to see Kekoa and Cuicatl bond a bit, and the echoes of their similar trauma in the way they responded to The Land Before Time. (I forgive them for having the wrong opinions on that movie, too. :P) I felt like Kekoa took a little bit of a backseat in these chapters, although it was nice to get a glimpse into his backstory and learn more about what's driving him to go on this journey. I was a bit confused as to when the flashback with Plumeria took place, though--I was thinking that was something that happened years back, but based on 1.15, Skull have only become "revolutionaries" quite recently, like within the past year? So now I'm thinking that gathering was much more recent, and perhaps was the catalyst for Kekoa joining up with VStar. I enjoy the flashbacks, but sometimes it would be nice to get a little more context for where they fit into the narrative, especially timeline-wise; when we hear about events that are sometimes experienced out of order (i.e. mentioned in one POV before we actually see them in another), it can at times get difficult for me to keep track of what is actually happening, what order everything goes in.

I admit I'm also confused why people keep switching pronouns when referring to Inferno. Is it supposed to indicate that they don't know Inferno's gender and are going with whatever?

I appreciated the Genesis chapter here a lot; she provides a nice, relatively comedic, break from the seriously heavy shit Cuicatl and Kekoa have to deal with, although I get the impression that that, uh, isn't going to last. But she's in good form here, with a good mix of straight humor and "oh, honey, no" cringe moments. I loved her quest for an eevee and enjoyed the little surprise moment where she enthuses over the ariados. I look forward to Inferno causing more problems with Pixie in the future, too.

The flashback to Pixie's backstory was one of the highlights of this section for me. I love the kind of care you put into thinking about how pokémon might live in the wild, and I loved the sense of what a harsh place the ninetales' mountain is. I can also see where Pixie's general attitude is--the ninetales are prideful and callous, but that covers up a deep vulnerability and exposure to tragedy, even for Pixie's mother, who must watch kits die and ultimately choose one of them to abandon. The part where Avalanche assumed the vanillish were an offering the humans made to them was great. And of course, we see why Pixie's developed such a huge fear of abandonment, and why she's worried about Cuicatl gaining three pokémon in particular... The scene with Ce was heartwrenching, both because I hate to see Ce go (what a good paras!) and because you can see how much both Cuicatl and Ce want her to stick around at the same time why you can understand why Pixie would never, ever let that happen. Things are going to get tough now that Cuicatl has Coco, and will presumably be hoping to make another capture soon enough...

And Coco! What a fun addition to the team. Fun for me, of course, not the kids who are going to need to try and feed a young, rambunctious, and exotic pokémon who's sure to attract exactly the wrong kind of attention! Talk about the worst possible gift for Kekoa. His brother really, truly Does Not Get It. But I enjoyed getting to read from Coco's perspective, how willing she is to kind of roll with whatever weirdness (to her) the world decides to dish out, as long as there's some relation to prey or hunting in there somewhere! It's going to be a delight to see how she develops over time. Hopefully you don't have anything too tragic in store for her. ;-;

I really enjoyed the capstone chapter with Lila. Anabel/Lila is such a fascinating character, and it's always fun to see how a fic tackles her particularly batshit backstory. Frontier brain in one game, then suddenly from another dimension and also a member of the international police in another? Okay, GameFreak. I loved how she's clearly psychic, but at the same time clearly a different kind of psychic than Cuicatl, with her aura perception abilities. I'm curious whether we're going to be seeing all kinds of different psychics by the time the fic comes to a close, or if you're going to be conservative in the kinds of psychic powers introduced. I'm very 👀 at the explicit drawing of a (potential!) connetion between Cuicatl and N, too. I enjoyed what we got to see of Lila's story as well. The way everyone in her life had been lying to her (for her own good! uh and maybe personal profit), even those closest to her, for so long, and now she's left both without any kind of life outside that lie--and also no real conception of how she might build one--and in a position where she's going to be constantly reminded of that betrayal and how much she's lost. You have a serious knack for constructing the most painful situation possible for your characters, heh.

But I'm especially excited by the prospect that we'll be diving into Ultra Beast shenanigans soon! A massive attack by an alien invader is obviously just what the kids need right now, and I'm excited to see exactly how terrible this turns out to be for them. I also get the feeling that you're going to enjoy writing in some Ultra Beast mayhem and that it's going to be a delight(fully horrifying thing) to watch. This is definitely a chapter that leaves me eager to move on to the next arc!

Interlude I

I like what you did here, recapping things through the characters' POVs rather than doing a simple summary. As always, it's great to see how different their takes on the same situation can be, how different their experiences are despite the fact that they're all on the same journey. And it can be uncomfortable, too! (Genesis, you really need to stop deadnaming Kekoa, aaaaaa) And man, Cuicatl telling her story to her dead twin. ;-; She really, really has it rough.

This was useful for me because it's been a while since I read the very earliest chapters. I think I remembered all the highlights covered here, though! Means I'm in good shape to start the next arc, I hope.

Electric 2.1-2.4

Oh noooo, here it comes, the Genesis Ruins Everything arc. 2.4 in particular was just so tense, waiting to see if the situation was going to explode. In the end Genesis ends up taking the surprising option... And of course Kekoa promptly finds out about her heritage and goes straight back to hating her to death. You're definitely turning up the heat on these interpersonal conflicts.

And joining Team Skull for kinda-real, damn. I see no way this is going to end well for Kekoa; I strongly suspect that they're going to want him to go farther than he's comfortable with (he's all about kidnapping Genesis now, but would he actually be able to go through with it?), and they're probably going to put him on the path to Big Regrets. And when the rest of the party finds out... oy vey. The quality decision-making continues!

I'm a little surprised we didn't see the immediate aftermath of Genesis using Kekoa's deadname. She called the police?? Unless I misinterpreted a line in the next chapter?? It sounds like it was a clusterfuck and a half. I can see why you might skip over it, but on the other hand I'm totally Cuicatl over here, pretending not to be done with dinner so I can watch the sparks fly.

And as for Genesis herself, damn. Cringe factor turned up to eleven. Her Thanksgiving call to Exodus was particularly interesting to me. I'd been hoping that Exodus might have an understanding of what Genesis was going through, and perhaps they'd be able to support each other, but... oof. So much for that. We continue to delve into just how fucked-up Genesis' family is! The light shed on what was going on with Lyra, too, was a big oof moment. I wonder if we'll be seeing her again later, or whether Genesis' family is perhaps exacting some awful punishment on her for doing ~that~ to their daughter.

Meanwhile, Cuicatl continues to have it super rough. It's painful to see how hard she pushes herself, and also how her traveling companions... Don't really seem to notice? Kekoa at least was good about her ankle, but there are WAY bigger problems here that no one is addressing, and aaaaaa. I wonder if it's eventually going to take a pokémon to figure all that out, too.

On the other hand, Pixie got to beat an eevee in this section! I was surprised Cuicatl winning (against a glaceon and a two-trial trainer, no less) didn't get treated as more of a big deal, to be honest? She still struggles to win battles, doesn't she? And there didn't seem to be much response from Pixie, who'd I'd kind of expect to be smug for days...

Also, I've got to admit Cuicatl's whole "need to chew and spit out meat for Coco to eat" strikes me as a little much. :P Surely she could use a mortar and pestle or something to tenderize it, and spit on it if the enzymatic action specifically is an important part of the process.

This section also got me curious about Inferno. I love how he(?) handles Pixie so easily. And Cuicatl's noticed he's "sad"--traumatized by being abandoned by his trainer, or is something more going on? I'm curious where you're going with him, and I've enjoyed his interactions with the other pokémon so far.

Kind of confused as to why the timer disappeared for a couple chapters there. Was assuming it was counting down to Major Ultra Beast Attack--which perhaps is going to be taking place in the next arc rather than this one? Something I'll need to read on to find out, I guess. Which I hopefully will do--really!--in a much more reasonable amount of time.
 

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
Normal 1.11-1.15

There were a lot of fun moments here--all in all, this section felt, dare I say it, almost upbeat? Cuicatl and Kekoa have reached a tenuous but currently-holding truce and even have a couple cute bonding moments, Genesis does a lot of keeping shitty opinions to herself (I know it can't last, but for now, thank god), and the pokémon are adorable! Nothing seriously bad happens here! A lot happens, but it's mostly trainer-shenanigan kinds of stuff, captures, trials, and so on. I think it's nice to have a bit of a hope spot here, and bring the main trio a little closer together, before (my impression) everything goes rapidly downhill in the near future.
You seem so certain that Things will Break. I am unsure why this is.
I think Cuicatl was my favorite in this section. She just has it so, so rough, even if things are perhaps better in that iirc she didn't think seriously about killing herself in this section. I enjoyed some of the exploration we got of her psychic powers here--and their drawbacks. It makes sense that she'd be vulnerable to psychic attacks through the link she'd formed with her pokémon--but wow, what a way to find out about that. I enjoyed that scene and how, as throughout her life, it seems, it's a pokémon who's ultimately the one to help her, but I did wonder a bit where the trial captain was while Cuicatl was, like, lying on the ground screaming with the oranguru petting her hair. :P And that final scene, where she first uses a Z-move but then gets overwhelmed because (presumably) she's so weak/malnourished, damn. She has it tough, and is possibly the character I'm rooting for the most at this point.
Gonna be honest, I forgot that the captain was a thing. I view Cuicatl as the primary protagonist, at least for the first two arcs. She works well with the pokemon side of a pokemon fic. And I really like that side of things.
It was nice to see Kekoa and Cuicatl bond a bit, and the echoes of their similar trauma in the way they responded to The Land Before Time. (I forgive them for having the wrong opinions on that movie, too. :P) I felt like Kekoa took a little bit of a backseat in these chapters, although it was nice to get a glimpse into his backstory and learn more about what's driving him to go on this journey. I was a bit confused as to when the flashback with Plumeria took place, though--I was thinking that was something that happened years back, but based on 1.15, Skull have only become "revolutionaries" quite recently, like within the past year? So now I'm thinking that gathering was much more recent, and perhaps was the catalyst for Kekoa joining up with VStar. I enjoy the flashbacks, but sometimes it would be nice to get a little more context for where they fit into the narrative, especially timeline-wise; when we hear about events that are sometimes experienced out of order (i.e. mentioned in one POV before we actually see them in another), it can at times get difficult for me to keep track of what is actually happening, what order everything goes in.
Yeah I'll add in a timestamp when I get around to editing that one. It takes place about two years before. I will clarify whenever I get to 1.15 edits, but Skull has only recently begun taking radical actions. Previously everyone had dismissed it as a recruiting gimmick to salvage things without Guzma around.

And I'm curious what the right opinion on teh film is. I personally don't like it much lol but I was raelly attached as a kid. To the sequels, anyway. The first one was... a bit intense.
I admit I'm also confused why people keep switching pronouns when referring to Inferno. Is it supposed to indicate that they don't know Inferno's gender and are going with whatever?

I appreciated the Genesis chapter here a lot; she provides a nice, relatively comedic, break from the seriously heavy shit Cuicatl and Kekoa have to deal with, although I get the impression that that, uh, isn't going to last. But she's in good form here, with a good mix of straight humor and "oh, honey, no" cringe moments. I loved her quest for an eevee and enjoyed the little surprise moment where she enthuses over the ariados. I look forward to Inferno causing more problems with Pixie in the future, too.
Gen doesn't actually care (or know) what Ferny's gender is. That's only important for humans.
The flashback to Pixie's backstory was one of the highlights of this section for me. I love the kind of care you put into thinking about how pokémon might live in the wild, and I loved the sense of what a harsh place the ninetales' mountain is. I can also see where Pixie's general attitude is--the ninetales are prideful and callous, but that covers up a deep vulnerability and exposure to tragedy, even for Pixie's mother, who must watch kits die and ultimately choose one of them to abandon. The part where Avalanche assumed the vanillish were an offering the humans made to them was great. And of course, we see why Pixie's developed such a huge fear of abandonment, and why she's worried about Cuicatl gaining three pokémon in particular... The scene with Ce was heartwrenching, both because I hate to see Ce go (what a good paras!) and because you can see how much both Cuicatl and Ce want her to stick around at the same time why you can understand why Pixie would never, ever let that happen. Things are going to get tough now that Cuicatl has Coco, and will presumably be hoping to make another capture soon enough...
I take it back: the ninetales are the real protagonists of this story.
And Coco! What a fun addition to the team. Fun for me, of course, not the kids who are going to need to try and feed a young, rambunctious, and exotic pokémon who's sure to attract exactly the wrong kind of attention! Talk about the worst possible gift for Kekoa. His brother really, truly Does Not Get It. But I enjoyed getting to read from Coco's perspective, how willing she is to kind of roll with whatever weirdness (to her) the world decides to dish out, as long as there's some relation to prey or hunting in there somewhere! It's going to be a delight to see how she develops over time. Hopefully you don't have anything too tragic in store for her.
I told you in chat, but I have no plans to torture Coco. Not everything will be roses, but she doesn't have it nearly as rough as the main four narrators.
I really enjoyed the capstone chapter with Lila. Anabel/Lila is such a fascinating character, and it's always fun to see how a fic tackles her particularly batshit backstory. Frontier brain in one game, then suddenly from another dimension and also a member of the international police in another? Okay, GameFreak. I loved how she's clearly psychic, but at the same time clearly a different kind of psychic than Cuicatl, with her aura perception abilities. I'm curious whether we're going to be seeing all kinds of different psychics by the time the fic comes to a close, or if you're going to be conservative in the kinds of psychic powers introduced. I'm very 👀 at the explicit drawing of a (potential!) connetion between Cuicatl and N, too. I enjoyed what we got to see of Lila's story as well. The way everyone in her life had been lying to her (for her own good! uh and maybe personal profit), even those closest to her, for so long, and now she's left both without any kind of life outside that lie--and also no real conception of how she might build one--and in a position where she's going to be constantly reminded of that betrayal and how much she's lost. You have a serious knack for constructing the most painful situation possible for your characters, heh.

But I'm especially excited by the prospect that we'll be diving into Ultra Beast shenanigans soon! A massive attack by an alien invader is obviously just what the kids need right now, and I'm excited to see exactly how terrible this turns out to be for them. I also get the feeling that you're going to enjoy writing in some Ultra Beast mayhem and that it's going to be a delight(fully horrifying thing) to watch. This is definitely a chapter that leaves me eager to move on to the next arc!
I really liked writing Lila's interlude. I didn't think she'd have a big role when I started work on it but now I'm really rethinking that. Maybe someday you'll even get a second interlude for her.
Interlude I

I like what you did here, recapping things through the characters' POVs rather than doing a simple summary. As always, it's great to see how different their takes on the same situation can be, how different their experiences are despite the fact that they're all on the same journey. And it can be uncomfortable, too! (Genesis, you really need to stop deadnaming Kekoa, aaaaaa) And man, Cuicatl telling her story to her dead twin. ;-; She really, really has it rough.

This was useful for me because it's been a while since I read the very earliest chapters. I think I remembered all the highlights covered here, though! Means I'm in good shape to start the next arc, I hope.
There isn't one between Arcs 2 and 3 for... reasons, but there will be another one between 3 and 4.
Electric 2.1-2.4

Oh noooo, here it comes, the Genesis Ruins Everything arc. 2.4 in particular was just so tense, waiting to see if the situation was going to explode. In the end Genesis ends up taking the surprising option... And of course Kekoa promptly finds out about her heritage and goes straight back to hating her to death. You're definitely turning up the heat on these interpersonal conflicts.

And joining Team Skull for kinda-real, damn. I see no way this is going to end well for Kekoa; I strongly suspect that they're going to want him to go farther than he's comfortable with (he's all about kidnapping Genesis now, but would he actually be able to go through with it?), and they're probably going to put him on the path to Big Regrets. And when the rest of the party finds out... oy vey. The quality decision-making continues!
Welcome to the Good Decisions Club.
I'm a little surprised we didn't see the immediate aftermath of Genesis using Kekoa's deadname. She called the police?? Unless I misinterpreted a line in the next chapter?? It sounds like it was a clusterfuck and a half. I can see why you might skip over it, but on the other hand I'm totally Cuicatl over here, pretending not to be done with dinner so I can watch the sparks fly.
I... might add it later. Maybe. Probably not. I just couldn't think of anything that I wanted to write.
And as for Genesis herself, damn. Cringe factor turned up to eleven. Her Thanksgiving call to Exodus was particularly interesting to me. I'd been hoping that Exodus might have an understanding of what Genesis was going through, and perhaps they'd be able to support each other, but... oof. So much for that. We continue to delve into just how fucked-up Genesis' family is! The light shed on what was going on with Lyra, too, was a big oof moment. I wonder if we'll be seeing her again later, or whether Genesis' family is perhaps exacting some awful punishment on her for doing ~that~ to their daughter.
You will hear from Lyra in Arc 3.
Meanwhile, Cuicatl continues to have it super rough. It's painful to see how hard she pushes herself, and also how her traveling companions... Don't really seem to notice? Kekoa at least was good about her ankle, but there are WAY bigger problems here that no one is addressing, and aaaaaa. I wonder if it's eventually going to take a pokémon to figure all that out, too.

On the other hand, Pixie got to beat an eevee in this section! I was surprised Cuicatl winning (against a glaceon and a two-trial trainer, no less) didn't get treated as more of a big deal, to be honest? She still struggles to win battles, doesn't she? And there didn't seem to be much response from Pixie, who'd I'd kind of expect to be smug for days...
Yeah. You're right. Another thing that extending that chapter could accommodate. There's not another Pixie chapter in the back half of this arc for... reasons so it isn't easily followed up on.
Also, I've got to admit Cuicatl's whole "need to chew and spit out meat for Coco to eat" strikes me as a little much. :P Surely she could use a mortar and pestle or something to tenderize it, and spit on it if the enzymatic action specifically is an important part of the process.
Yeah so I didn't think about that. In any case it's useful for establishing herself as Coco's mother. That's very important for controlling one. Or as close to "control" as you can have over a tyrunt.
This section also got me curious about Inferno. I love how he(?) handles Pixie so easily. And Cuicatl's noticed he's "sad"--traumatized by being abandoned by his trainer, or is something more going on? I'm curious where you're going with him, and I've enjoyed his interactions with the other pokémon so far.
It'll be a minute before his story is expanded upon.
Kind of confused as to why the timer disappeared for a couple chapters there. Was assuming it was counting down to Major Ultra Beast Attack--which perhaps is going to be taking place in the next arc rather than this one? Something I'll need to read on to find out, I guess. Which I hopefully will do--really!--in a much more reasonable amount of time.
Because 2.1 and 2.2 were recently edited and 2.3 and 2.4 were not.
 

Negrek

Abscission Ascendant
Staff
And I'm curious what the right opinion on teh film is. I personally don't like it much lol but I was raelly attached as a kid. To the sequels, anyway. The first one was... a bit intense.
I never saw any of the sequels, but the first movie was a masterpiece. That was my opinion as a five-year-old, and I'm sticking to it. :P

Thanks for the clarifications! I'm glad Coco is going to probably-mostly be okay.

I... might add it later. Maybe. Probably not. I just couldn't think of anything that I wanted to write.
lol, if that isn't ever a mood
 
Arc 3 Edits

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
Hello,

Over the past few months I have been making major edits to Arc 3 to address some criticisms around pacing and plot elements. I didn’t want some of these problems to continue on into Arc 4. I have edited all of these changes into this site now. If you don’t want to read the entire arc to understand what all changed, here’s a brief chapter-by-chapter rundown:


3.5: Pixie – This chapter was changed to emphasize Pixie’s depression and give her more agency over the events of the chapter. No major plot changes.

3.6: Kekoa – No major changes.

3.7: Lyra – Lyra is not approached by Plumeria or informed that Cuicatl is a psychic. She meets Cuicatl in a Pokémon Center and they end up agreeing to travel together. Kekoa, for reasons unknown, also agrees but wants to keep his distance for now. Cuicatl and Lyra attempt to get supplies the day after the governor officially reopens Alola. It doesn’t go so well.

3.8: Cuicatl – Instead of a fight with Lyra, Cuicatl comes down with hypothermia from the cold rain and inadequate winter clothing. She cuddles her beldum and rides it out. Lyra discovers that Cuciatl can talk to dragons and asks her to translate for her team. Cuicatl agrees. Lyra’s noibat instantly takes a liking to her. The mudbray seems to believe that his purpose is serving the humans that ‘created’ mudsdale.

3.9: Genesis – No major changes.

3.10: Kekoa – Cuicatl prods Kekoa into letting her translate a proper conversation with his trumbeak. He finds out that she doesn’t hate him as much as he feared, but isn’t particularly attached, either. He gets his rufflet and then is stuck in camp for a day while it rains, because no one really wants to hike in the cold rain after what happened to Cuicatl.

3.11: Pixie – I combined the two previous Pixie chapters set in Melemele Meadow. No major plot changes.

3.12: Kekoa – Almost entirely rewritten. Kekoa encounters a florges while he’s in the meadow hunting a floette for VStar. The florges terrifies Lyra with a few displays of casual mind manipulation. She flees, Kekoa stays and talks to the florges about poachers and colonialism. The florges seems more amused and disappointed with Kekoa than angry and tells him about the location of an old flying trial. I would really recommend reading this one.

3.13: Cuicatl – Clarified why she’s agreeing to this trial. No major plot changes.

3.14: Genesis – No major changes.

3.15: Pixie – No major changes.

3.16: Genesis – I added a scene at the end where it begins to snow.

3.17: Cuicatl – Added a scene where Cuicatl talks to Lyra. Small changes to reflect the snowfall.

3.18: Nocitlālin – Entirely new content. Nocitlālin talks with Lyra about psychics and realizes that his trainer might need more help than she can give.

3.19: Kekoa – Added a few scenes at the end where Kekoa and Lyra talk about the fallout of the attack on Hoenn and discuss the Champion’s announcement that she is going to the one place uncorrupted by capitalism space!

3.20: Hala – Changes to reflect the snowfall. Added in one scene at the end where he reflects on the consequences now that the darkness is over and the snow is beginning to melt.
 
Recap 2

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
Recap 2

Cuicatl

I hope your own quest is going well. It isn’t, I know. You’re probably still on the first level of the nine, right? The world of darkness with only Xoloitzcuintle to help light the way across the river. It fits, I suppose. I had to go through my own version of that recently.

It’s been months. I should fill you in on the stuff that happened, from the last time I burned a message for you. We went to Ula’Ula. It was a much bigger and tougher island than the last one with lots of mountains, thunderstorms, and carnivores. I met a dark-type bear. And her cub. She was a little upset but thankfully the cub could translate between us so we got out okay.

Genesis couldn’t keep her mouth shut and provoked Kekoa. Then they seemed to reconcile for a bit when I told her how weird nature is. Can you believe that their god only believes in two sexes and genders? Meanwhile ours take whatever form them please and gave us at least three ways to be. Why would we be so different from the rest of nature? I thought Kekoa and Genesis reconciled, but then Kekoa got really angry again. Still won’t tell me why.

We climbed a very large mountain and I met a beldum. Or she met me. Pretty sure that she was sent to spy on me, but she won’t tell me why. I’m keeping her around because I need the power and she’s actually quite charming. Now she’s grown big enough to carry some stuff, too. And to bully me about therapy.

I’ll get back to that.

I cleared another trial. That one had a steel-type. None of my pokémon can deal well with steel-types, even Coco. Oh, she grew her teeth. She loves biting things. Sometimes with ice or thunder or fire. But she’s young so I wanted more help for the trial. Picked up a crabrawler, a crab thing, for a while. Let her go once the trial was over and it was time to go to another island.

And that was pretty soon because the lights went out. I told you last time that this place had aliens attacking it. A really, really big one hit and stole all of the light. And gradually stole the heat. Things got cold. And dark, I guess, but I wasn’t bothered. Kekoa was. You probably are. I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have had to go through the underworld so soon. I wish I had done more…





Genesis left. She went back to her parents. To safety. I’m glad for her. I met Reshiram. She approves of my plans. I can’t do anything about letting you die, but I can still get Mom’s old pokémon back and go home. Now a goddess approves of my plan. I will not fail.

I can’t.

Kekoa and I were holed up in the largest city in the area for a while. Then we were allowed to travel again. I met Lyra. Or she met me. She’s a friend of Genesis and seems to know a lot about traveling. On the way she really wanted to know about her pokémon. Kekoa kind of didn’t. His grubbin left him. Those two things are probably related.

I also got hypothermia like a dumbass. Nocitlālin, the beldum, helped me warm up quickly enough so it wasn’t a lasting problem, but it wasn’t a good sign of things to come. After a while I came to a water trial. You’ve heard of toxapex, right? Big reef eaters? I fought a really big one and won with Noci’s help. She evolved into a metang. She’s stronger. Not sure about smarter. But I still adore her.

Pixie left. She met a ninetales that cursed me and beat up Noci. I don’t want Pixie with her. She’d only known the fox for two days and she will resort to violence to get what she wants. So I gave Pixie some chances out. Let her help me in two more battles. The first was against a vikavolt. Yeah, a vikavolt. We didn’t win, I don’t think, but we got the stamp because I collapsed midway through and the captain was worried.

I told you last time that the crystals felt familiar to use. They’re getting clearer. There’s a memory behind them, or a set of memories. I think. They involve a desert. A very hot desert with nothing but sand under me. Then there’s a voice. Or maybe a bug that I can’t understand. I’ve only heard the latter in dreams, but I heard the former when I was knocked unconscious after using a z-move.

There is a desert in Alola. Maybe I’ll get answers whenever I visit it.

Somewhere in here Noci bullied me into agreeing to therapy. Miss Bell is working on that now. I don’t know if I’ll actually do it. I know what’s wrong with me – I’m fat and let you die – but just talking won’t make me thinner or bring you back. And it seems so expensive. Maybe I can lie to her and tell her that I’m going to do it without actually doing it?

Then the worst thing happened. The second battle I’d talked Pixie into was against a fighting-type specialist. Risky, I know. Too much risk for an ice-type. And then he had a hawlucha. I don’t know why he had a hawlucha. It tore into Pixie hard. Cracked ribs. Brain damage. Almost killed her. And it was all because I didn’t want to let her go. If she’d died, if I’d killed her to, I don’t think I would have wanted to go on anymore. If all I was going to do was hurt other people. But she didn’t. She’ll live. Away from me.

Everyone goes away eventually. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother.

The lights came back. It’s warming up. I won’t get hypothermia anymore. Won’t feel snow under my shoes. (Or on my soles, once, just to feel it—don’t worry, I went inside and warmed up shortly after.)

I’m sorry, again. I’ll be sorry forever and it will never make a difference, never be enough.

I hope you’re doing well in your own darkness. I’ll try to send messages more often.





Kekoa

Okay so I lost track of time and just forgot to update my transition log. Whoops. And it’s weird to suddenly see my face again after a while in the dark. Even when I could see a reflection the dim light made everything seem softer.

Yeah, I’m coming along okay. Voice has dropped some more. Still not super deep but in the dark I rarely got called ma’am by the end. More stubble. Probably not enough for a beard yet. Not sure I’d want one, anyway. Leg hair seems thicker? A few small changes in the face that add up a bit. T is a fucking miracle drug. Even if there are some things it can’t fix. The darkness was nice in a way. Didn’t need to be seen as much. Didn’t need to think about how I was being seen.

I guess this was also supposed to be a journey log. Whoops.

I set off for Ula’Ula. Caught an elekid. Or Cuicatl caught an elekid. I’d have gone but she insisted on going with the Gage bitch after she deadnamed me. And I’m not even sure she was ever told my deadname, so she went out of her way to get that.

She apologized. I forgave her before I learned just who she was. I met someone cool in a forest. Don’t want to say more in these pages. Never know who could read them.

And Hekeli evolved. And I won the electric trial. That was cool. Nice way to end the light period.

The darkness sucked. They got us all packed in a shelter while something attacked outside. Then we had to be escorted down to Malie by fucking Reshiram, and the UBs were hitting her hard enough to draw blood.

Right, Cuicatl talked to Reshiram because of course she did.

The Gage Bitch left. I was upset for professional reasons, but also because I don’t think her parents will just turn over and accept her now after kicking her out. I don’t know what she’s in for, but I doubt it’s good. And I had barely gotten rid of her before we picked up another replacement. At least she’s competent. There’s that.

Makani left. Kanoa helped find him a new home. It was the right thing to do. And I talked with Hekeli and apparently she doesn’t hate me. Progress? (She evolved by the way.)

Then a braviary showed up and gave me her kid, because finding food as a visual hunter is hard. I don’t know if I’m supposed to pretend like he’s my kid or just act as his trainer. I should probably ask Cuicatl for help finding that out. Or maybe mama bird will want him back now that the light’s returned.

I met a florges. I don’t think she likes me. Called me a poacher and didn’t seem to like trainers because we do things like making Pokémon stay when they want to leave or catching them against their will. And she’s right. I didn’t want to get it at the time and I’m embarrassed now, but she was right. She was right and I don’t know exactly what that means for the future. Guess I’ll have to figure that out as we go.

Oh and Kanoa and the cool girl both think Selene can stay. Or that removing her wouldn’t matter. But it has to, right? She gets all the press and gets to be hailed as a hero for fixing the problems she created. Like Necrozma. If nothing else it would show the world that the kanaka are tougher than the outsiders. That we can be on top of our own world.

And I’m making progress there. Beat the flying and waters trial with a jynx I picked up for a bit. Used a carbink to beat the bug trial, because electricity doesn’t bother them much and they have rock attacks to boot. Then I got a drifloon. I’m told they’re good Pokémon and she seems okay for now. Had an inkay for a bit but Cuicatl helped me talk to her. She was cool with leaving because the next person might not mind her flushing their phone down the toilet. For science or whatever. Bastard.

I wonder what happened to her once the lights came back and inkay became less important. Did they let her go? Sell her to some trainer? Or… apparently VStar will kill pokemon. Maybe they just killed her and cooked the tentacles. I hope not. I don’t want that to happen, even if we didn’t really know each other.

Gods, I’m never going to be able to eat inkay again.

Used the drifloon, hekeli, and the carbink to beat the grand trial pretty easily. Oh, the drifloon’s name is Moe and the carbink is Daimana. Still not sure if I’m keeping Dai or not. I’m not selling her to VStar, but I can release her to the wild. But Cuicatl says that they want to stay and see more human stuff, so I guess they’re tagging along. Doesn’t fit well with my team plans but I guess it can work. Rock sort of covers ice, which my flying-types are weak to.

We’ll see how it goes. And we’ll see if I remember to update this again lol.



Genesis

Xerneas, Maker of All:

I’ve been thinking lately. I know, Mother says it can be dangerous, but that’s all I can do outside of sessions. Those are progressing. I don’t quite understand why some of it is supposed to help. But I don’t need to. I just need to do it. And I’m not sure if I feel straighter? I also don’t really remember what it was like to be straight, before Lyra or Allana converted me. Maybe I’ll recall it as time goes on.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking about the past. About the darkness. What it meant. At first I was just locked up for a while. Mother was accusing me of all sorts of things, of being a homosexual, and I told her no. And I believed I wasn’t. I realized I was wrong. I can’t even be trusted to know how wrong I am.

Then the therapy started. At first it was just tests to see how I reacted to private parts. I don’t like seeing them, by the way, but some are easier to look away from than others. They’ve kept showing me images of them every day until I start looking at the right ones more. I thought I wasn’t supposed to look at any at all until I was married, but I don’t know. Mother tells me that some things are more complicated than I can understand. Than she can understand, even. But you get it. I just wish you’d tell me.

Eventually my parents found out Cuicatl was a psychic. They brought someone weird in to run tests to see what she did to me. And it was nothing. Or pretty much nothing. She’s related to N, by the way. Met Reshiram (?) on Ula’Ula. I guess that means she’s a priestess of a pagan god. All the more reason not to think of her.

They’re having me burn pictures of her and Lyra. Scream horrible things at them. How I hate them. Always hated them. And that’s a lie. I didn’t always hate them, even if I maybe should have. I’m not supposed to lie. And they tell me I’m not supposed to think about them, but I’m also supposed to think about how much I hate them. I’m not good at doing both. I’m worried I’m failing.

I’m sorry.

The weird psychic also said some other stuff. About changing someone with a psychic type. He said it shouldn’t be done. That it could destroy someone. He accused my parents of wanting it. Or they said they wanted it? I can’t really remember. Lots of yelling and I was still a little distracted from having just been hypnotized.

They won’t do it, though. Father says they won’t do it. That the psychic was a bad person. I don’t know why they let a bad person into my mind, but I guess they have limits? I don’t think I would want that to happen. I don’t like thinking about it. That’s like death, isn’t it? Where your mind stops working and something else comes of it. Or is that rebirth? Or just change? You did give us psychic types. Maybe this is what we were supposed to do with them.

I have a new Pokémon. His name is Oliver. Mostly he just hides in my closet with the stuffed animals, but sometimes he comes out to look at me and Cloudy. Once he even tried to get onto my bed. I was worried since he’s a psyduck and all but I don’t think Father would’ve given me something dangerous. All Oliver did was climb on top of my legs and fall asleep. I let him stay there until my legs fell asleep.

Ferny and Sir Bubbles are somewhere. Mother won’t let me see them. She said something about them being improper for a lady. I hope I get to see them soon. I like them. Yeah, Ferny’s lazy and Sir Bubbles is a coward, but that’s just more personality to love.

Um. I kind of rambled there. Oops.

May my words and deeds being honor to thine name.
 
Rock 4.1

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
Suicidal Ideation

Mission Four: Rock

"The only rock I know that stays steady, the only institution I know that works, is the family."
-Lee Iacocco




Rock 4.1: Hazard Pay

Cuicatl

February 26th​

It’s 3:37 A.M and you’re not even close to getting back to sleep. Your nightmares are filled with the same crack that’s haunted you for a week now. Pixie trusted you enough to fight your pointless, stupid battle and she paid for it. What was going to happen if you won, anyway? He’d just give up the bird? The Thanksgiving War would have been won and not lost? The world would change? No. You let your anger get the best of you and you weren’t the one to pay the price.

The professor told you she was expected to recover with only mild scarring. The nurse asked if you wanted to file an excessive force complaint. Like that was an option. Complain about the government to the government and expect them to do anything about it. You’ve seen the stories about how Americans coddle their authority figures for doing worse things to humans. Complaining probably just would’ve got your visa taken away. There was, and is, nothing you can do but stay away for her own good.

That’s all you can do for anybody at this point. Just tell Coco you lied to her and that her real mother’s somewhere else. Someone who can actually care for her instead of abusing her love to get her hurt. Then make it really clear to Noci that whatever she thinks she’s getting by following you isn’t worth the effort. Maybe your cousin is a wanted terrorist with a god at his side, but you’ve never met him and probably never will. You’re just a failure that takes and takes and takes and gives the world nothing in return.

Lyra can be told off with the truth. Maybe she’ll kill you herself and save you the effort. Kekoa is stubborn. It’ll be harder to get him to leave without hurting him first. You haven’t told him the full truth about how fucked you are in the head. Maybe that will be enough. And then once everyone’s gone you can face your judgment without anyone else being broken up like you were over Ach.

It’s the least you can do. Handle the damage on the way out.

At some point you cry yourself to sleep and drown in the same dreams of the broken, damned, and dead.

*​

Without the sunlight beating down on you the world is almost cold. You won’t die of heatstroke at night. That doesn’t mean you’re safe. The desert seems to have woken up. Dozens of strange, meaningless cries tear through the air. Growls, shrieks of agony, something that sounds a little too much like a dishwasher. You keep as much of your team out as you can justify. The only thing you’ve found to drink is the dew. The only thing you could catch for food had this strange sandy texture in the meat.

Everything here seems to be blazingly fast. Anything that senses the world by smell or hearing won’t know something’s attacking until it’s right on top of you. Those that rely on day vision have the same problem. The only thing really keeping you safe, even more than the three pokémon around you, is that everything here has seemed reluctant to get close. The one thing that did, the weird bug when you woke up, was afraid to touch you.

The pokémon here seem to fear humans. That means there must be someone nearby to ask for help. And if there are humans here often enough to be considered a danger that must means there’s water somewhere. You just have to find it.

*​

A phone call wakes you from fitful sleep. Miss Bell starts talking before you can even mumble out a greeting. “Can you get to the lobby—get dressed and get to the lobby—as soon as possible. I have a job.”

“I, um, sure?” You roll out of bed and reach for your clothes. “Be a sec?”

“Thank you.” She hangs up. Serious job, sounds like. It’s enough to start tearing some of the brain fog away.

“I’m coming with you,” Lyra says. Huh. She sounds tense, too. Something you don’t know about? You grab your cane and shuffle off to the bathroom to get dressed. Cold water on your face helps wake you up a little more. There’s still a dull ache in your muscles, but your brain is clearing up. Lyra holds her elbow out to your hand as soon as you step out. She’s done a good job of learning how to help you. Maybe better than Genesis ever did. You wonder if someday she’ll be disgusted that she ever touched you.

You walk down the stairs following Lyra’s lead. Stairs are always difficult and you’re privately annoyed that the Center stuck you on the second floor. Not that you want to be rude about it. They were crowded. What were they supposed to do, kick someone else out? Not for you. You don’t deserve it.

Miss Bell walks towards you the moment your feet settle on solid ground. The sound of stilettos on the floor has to be her. No one else wears those to a Pokémon Center. “Cuicatl, thank you for coming on short notice,” she says. Her voice is terse but professional. “I have a slight problem that needs resolving. The details are a little sensitive. Do you mind following me outside?”

“Uh, sure?” You turn back to Lyra. “I think I’ll be fine from here. Thank you for taking me down.”

“I’m coming,” she says. Quite adamantly. You’ve learned when she can be argued with and when she can’t, and her voice is saying that you can’t right now. “Just making sure you don’t get scammed.”

Miss Bell at least tried to give you a starter and provide you with a thesis helper. You owe her. Even if she takes advantage of you here it balances out. But time is an issue and arguing would drain it. “Fine.”

Miss Bell begins walking again, surprisingly quickly for someone in her footwear. “I don’t believe we’ve met, although it seems my reputation precedes me.”

“Lyra Miura,” she answers. “You may have met my father, Jonathan Miura.”

You still aren’t entirely sure what he does and Lyra never wants to talk about it. Whatever it is it seems to make a lot of money.

“I’m familiar with him, yes. Please send your father my regards.” Lyra grunts instead of answering. Miss Bell opens a door in front of you and Lyra guides you through. As soon as the door is shut, Miss Bell’s tone shifts from the casual affect she’d had with Lyra to something a lot more rushed and serious. “We have a tyrantrum rampaging at a facility on an island off of Akala. I’ll give you forty thousand dollars if you can resolve it peacefully within a half hour, on top of ten thousand just for the attempt.”

Your heart skips a beat. That’s the kind of money you’ll need to start getting anywhere. But just before you can answer Lyra cuts you off.

“That’s insulting and you know it. Throwing herself at probable death for fifty grand? Bullshit. That tyrantrum is doing more damage in ten minutes, on top of whatever you’re suffering in PR blowback from this. She’ll take a quarter million, minimum. Double it if she succeeds.”

Miss Bell scoffs before you can even begin to wrap your mind around those numbers. “Miss Miura, I don’t have the authorization to throw around that kind of money. Even if I did, we can resolve the matter on our own for less.”

“Do it, then. Call down your CEO and his pet god and deal with it.”

“I’m afraid that isn’t an option,” Miss Bell answers. She’s irritated. You can practically feel the offer slipping away from you. “Fifty thousand for an attempt, double that for a success. Final offer. Reject it and I’m moving on to the next person on my list.”

“Okay.” A few missions like that and Alice is within reach again. If you have to face down a rampaging tyrantrum so be it. They can’t be that much different from Coco, after all. And if you die, you die.

“She’s bluffing, Cuicatl. Don’t—”

“I’m sorry,” you tell her. Even though you aren’t. Better to get some than hold out and not get anything. “I need the money. When are we leaving, Miss Bell?”

A presence fills the room as something’s psychic energy begins hitting your defenses, pushing and receding like waves against a beach. Lyra staggers back and swears. Loudly.

“You can’t have that fucking thing in here! Do you know—”

“Calm down. A minute’s exposure won’t do anything. My alakazam is here, Cuicatl. Ready to go?”

“Yes.” You answer as quickly as possible. Best to get started as soon as possible. You didn’t ask who or what is near the tyrantrum, but if she’s willing to pay that much then there’s something on the line.

“Good. Just wait a sec—"

The world twists and lurches around you. Up is down, down is up, and there are no vibrations in the air, no echoes to sense the world with. Everything feels impossibly large and suffocatingly small at the same time. Reality spins and spins and spins and then there’s solid ground under you but the world is still spinning. You collapse to your hands and knees and retch. Even before you’re done you start to analyze the situation. There’s sun on your back and grass beneath you. Outside, then. And later in the day than you thought it was. In the middle distance there’s the sound of tearing metal and heavy steps. Maybe a half kilometer away. Miss Bell walks up to you with slow, uneven steps on the unpaved land. Probably should’ve changed her shoes before going to face down a dinosaur.

“I’m fine,” you mutter. “You should stay back. They might take your alakazam as a threat.” They. What even is the gender of this thing? “You know if it’s male or female?”

“Female,” she says. “She was sent to a game park on the mainland during the darkness. They were doing some veterinary tests today when she woke up and broke her ball. That’s all I’ve got.”

“And you didn’t have anyone here to contain her?”

“Our people who would usually do it are off the island. We’ve contacted Selene and Olivia.”

Then they really don’t have anyone to stop it but you. You can hear the tyrantrum slam into a solid structure. Heavy materials groan and fall. “Two hundred thousand for the attempt, then. Double for success”

She sighs. “One fifty, doubled if you succeed within five minutes.”

“Deal.”

Negotiating more could get people hurt and you’re about steady enough to move. You pull yourself up to your feet and start walking towards the tyrantrum. You want to send out Noci to help guide you but she’s still recovering from her battle with Hala and you don’t want to risk the tyrantrum attacking. For now you have to walk across the uneven ground on your own. You consider how to approach this. If this were any other dragon you’d know how, but Coco’s language isn’t exactly the same as upper draconic. Some of the nuance might be lost. Your gift can smooth the words out. It can’t for the body language. That’s more important than words for most pokémon.

Something explodes. The tyrantrum makes a triumphant roar. You wonder if she’ll even be able to hear you when you try to talk. Might as well get started. You scream, shrill and vibrating, before lowering your voice into your best attempt at a purr. It’s messy and might be more of a growl if you were any bigger. You hope that she gets the message. The battle continues. You keep walking forward and scream again. This time the earth answers as a shockwave rockets through the ground, knocking you off balance again. Even a quarter kilometer or more away her attack is that strong.

Should you send out Coco? Some dragons are cannibalistic. She also might assume you’re taking a hostage when you aren’t. And if things go south while she’s in her ball then at least you’re the only one paying for the mistake. You’re pretty sure pokéballs can’t be digested.

The roar and purr combination doesn’t seem to be working. Ordinarily it means conditional surrender. A call to stop fighting and talk about what the victor wants. Maybe you’d need a deeper noise. You’ve read that tyrantrum communicate in growls deep and loud enough to travel through the earth and be interpreted kilometers away. You can’t really make any sound that would be deep to a dragon.

Gunshots break out. They’re louder in person than you’d expected. Loud enough that it hurts. At least four are fired before they abruptly stop with the sound of snapping jaws. You stop moving. Probably too close now. If draconic isn’t catching her attention, you can always cheat.

“Hey!” You shout in Nahuatl. You strain to press your gift into it so that it is heard and understood. “I want to talk.”

The tyrantrum grunts and you can feel its steps as it turns around. A full grown tyrantrum can weigh up to six thousand kilograms. You cut off the thought there before more useless, terrifying trivia follows it. The footsteps come closer and closer until one is enough to knock you off balance all on its own. You can hear and feel and smell the bloody breath of a dragon beating down on you. Her full head follows her breath, coming within centimeters of your body and sniffing. Tyrantrum have a sense of smell more powerful than a stoutland’s. Oh, right. She can just smell Coco on you. If you’d had even a second to think things through you would’ve realized that.

The dragon pushes its head into you, knocking you back onto your butt. Not good. Not the worst. She could’ve easily killed you if she’d wanted.

You growl a traditional greeting in old draconic. A submissive greeting. What a fraxure would make to a hydreigon, or a zwelious to a haxorus. It’s not quite a plea for mercy, but it’s not not one.

The tyrantrum snorts at that. Amusement. It’s what Coco does when she’s amused, anyway. Upper draconic is useful for letting dragons talk to each other, but every species also has their own habits and languages and rituals. Tyrantrum evolved entirely apart from all the others: they might as well be alien in some ways.

“My daughter,” she growls. “You have my daughter.”

Your breath dives back into the deepest parts of your lungs and your heart stills.

Bloody moons and faded stars. This is how you die.

“Yes,” you answer once your mind and body start working again. “Would you like to see her?”

She hisses out a yes and her meaty breath blasts back into your face. You let out Coco and brace yourself for jaws to clamp down on you. They don’t. You hear Coco whine beside you and lower herself to the ground. Good. At least she has that instinct down. The tyrantrum moves her head and starts to sniff her daughter. She spends a lot more time examining her than you. It’s a little like what you and Kalani did with Pixie, making sure she was okay after being with someone not trusted. You ignore the stabbing guilt that comes up when you think of her.

That makes you weirdly scared of something other than death. Maybe this is where Coco leaves you. And then you’re alone with a metang who has her own agenda and—

And that’s it. That’s what you wanted. Why does it scare you now that it’s here?

“What are you?” Coco asks.

“Your mother,” the tyrantrum answers in a low rumble you feel more than hear. It’s probably meant to be endearing, but at your size it’s just threatening. A drop of liquid lands on your leg. Drool? Rain? Blood?

She’s my mother,” Coco says. You can’t tell if that saves you or seals your doom. It’s… really nice to hear either way. Even if it’s a lie that’s about to be ripped apart.

“I laid your egg,” she says. “I did not hatch it. I was raised by the small ones. I do not know how to hatch eggs.” She doesn’t mean literally. For dragons “hatching an egg” is the same as “raising a child.” Sometimes an injured dragon will turn her unhatched eggs over to a healthy one who can better protect them. You weren’t sure if tyrantrum would have that tradition. Turns out that they do.

Coco is unnaturally still. You wonder how she’s processing that. Her mother not wanting her. The girl she thought was her mother lying to her. It could take a long time before she ever works that out. And the first step might be snapping your neck.

She snorts and slams her tail into the ground. “I have two mothers! Do I have two fathers?”

What…?



Her being fine with this never crossed your mind. You lied to her. She should hate you. Like everyone does. Like you do. Why is she happy about this?

The tyrantrum snorts after a long pause. Maybe she’s as stunned as you are. “You do. I don’t know where your father is, though. The small ones took him from me.”

“Is that what grievance drives you?” you ask in upper draconic. Maybe that’s a bit too formal for her. You still don’t know how much of the language had developed sixty-five million years ago.

“Yes,” she answers. “It is.”

“I do not know where he is. I can learn. Would you like me to do it?”

“Yes.”

Coco speaks up as you pull out your phone. “Can I show you my teeth? I have very sharp teeth.”

“Yes,” the tyrantrum grumbles. “Show them to me.”

Masochist. Even with skin thick enough to take a bullet—wait.

“Are you hurt?” you ask her. “I heard a fight earlier.”

A low rumble shakes through the ground and seems to settle in your bones, as if every part of you is vibrating with it. What does that even mean? Your gift isn’t giving an explanation. Too far from speech. “I will be fine, small one. Oh, oh yes. You have very good teeth.” Her attention turns back to her daughter. You can just imagine Coco softly wagging her tail in delight, jaws wide open and latched around the tyrantrum’s leg. “And cold teeth, too. You take after your father.”

Coco slams her tail into the ground. “Does Second Father have good teeth?”

“Yes. I believe the small one was about to find out about him.”

Right. You tell the phone to call Miss Bell. She answers on the first ring.

“Any danger?” she asks. Your hand drifts towards the wet spot on your leg. Danger. No. That seems to have passed. Your heart rate has slowed again and for a moment there the world felt almost normal.

“I’m fine. She wants to know where her mate is.”

“Hang on. Let me check.” The line goes silent. Probably put you on mute. Not for long, though. “California. They got moved to different facilities during The Blackout. Haven’t shipped him back yet.”

That was their problem. Moving a dragon and her mate to separate areas for over a month was a recipe for disaster, and you have no idea how anyone signed off on it. It’s hard to even blame the tyrantrum for any of this. The humans probably had warning enough.

“I would get him back soon.”

“I’ll look into it. Do you think she’d let herself be captured? We need to check for survivors.”

“I’ll ask.” For the moment you set your phone down on your leg. The one that doesn’t have an unknown fluid on it. “They want to know if you will go into another ball.” You expect her to say no. You don’t want to make it sound like you want that. The tyrantrum growls, the snarl ripping through the air more than the ground. That’s probably a no, then.

“She says no.”

“Heard it loud and clear. Can you get her to move somewhere else?”

That you might be able to do. “Can we go for a walk?” you ask the tyrantrum. “They would like it if you walked somewhere a little farther away.”

“Yes.” The ground shifts as she raises herself up a little higher. You pick yourself up and start to move in a random direction. Miss Bell never said where she wanted you to go. Coco darts forward and raises up her back under your hand. Aw. She wants to guide you without being asked. Best girl. You don’t deserve her at all.

“My name is Cuicatl Ichtaca. You can call me Little Green. It’s what my sister did.” Human names are hard for dragons and a literal translation of your name felt weird. Your mother was named Green. You are Little Green. That is a name that made more sense for ellas, and you liked having your own nickname. “What is your name?”

“My mate calls me Earthshaker,” she says. “The small ones have another name. I cannot say it and I do not know what it means. Earthshaker walks lazily beside you, taking one step with every five of yours. But her steps are big enough to risk tripping you up with every impact. She takes a big step forward and you can hear and feel her turn around, facing back towards you. Her breathing gets closer to the ground, closer to you and Coco. “And what is your name, child?”

“I disembowel things!” she says with pride. Which is technically the answer to her question, even if she won’t understand it.

“That’s what her name means,” you add.

“And have you disemboweled things?” Earthshaker asks.

“Yup! A few fish and some small furry things.”

Earthshaker snorts. “Then it is a good name.” The dragon picks herself back up and begins to move ahead with thunderous steps. You can distantly hear a radio sound off as people move in to check on the wreckage behind you. For now you keep a hand on Coco and keep walking.

“We can come back to visit whenever we get a chance. Let you and Coco reconnect.” As soon as you say it you realize that it might’ve been a lie. Most humans don’t like being reminded how fragile they are. Any pokémon that kills humans, even if justified, might be put down. You bristle at the thought. Earthshaker did nothing wrong and Coco should be allowed to meet with her in the future. Yet you don’t want to ask Miss Bell about it now because she might lie. And if she doesn’t lie and tells you flat out that Earthshaker will be killed then she might rampage again. Justifiably. You would even join if you could.

“I would like to see her again,” she says. “But I know how you small ones are. Scurrying around as if something matters at every moment of every day. And my daughter seems healthy. Come back when you slow yourself. I will be waiting.”

Alice said the same sort of thing a few times. Fully grown dragons can afford to hunt once a week and rest in the meantime. Moving constantly, hunting for whatever it is humans hunt for, seems too much for them. Ellas pitied you for that. Never understood it when you insisted that you had to attend school and do laundry and make dinner and couldn’t just go off to the mountains at a moment’s notice.

Sometimes ellas took you anyway. It always seemed to work out when you got back since no one was reckless enough to openly defy a hydreigon. Although little punishments would be slipped in for different things. Father would beat you for the quality of a dinner that would be fine on any other day. That sort of thing.

“An…” There’s not a good word in Upper Draconic to describe your relationship with Miss Bell. Most dragons only submit to their mate, parents, and older siblings. She is none of those things. You don’t really want to explain employment to a dinosaur. “A nearby small one owes me favors. She can bring me here quickly when I want to.” You hate committing to more teleportation in the future, but Coco more than deserves it. What’s a little pain? And you can tell Miss Bell that this is to keep Earthshaker from rampaging again. That makes money sense, right? Assuming they don’t put her down. That might also makes money sense. “What kind of dragon is your mate?”

“I do not know the name you would use,” she says. “He has wings and three heads. Does that help?”

Hydreigon. Coco’s father is a hydreigon. You’d thought she was great before, but her parents are maybe the best paring of dragons ever.

“I know them, yes. My sister is one.”

Earthshaker snorts. “And how does that work?”

“My mother also raised her from when she was small.” Single female pronouns. Upper draconic doesn’t have female plural. “My sister has very high standards for mates. You must be very powerful.”

“I can hunt,” she says. Her attention shifts back to Coco and her many questions. Not quite as many as Noci would have, but still a lot. They end up playing some game where Coco tries to pounce at her mother’s head before she can lift it, Coco continuing to ask questions between leaps. Good. It doesn’t feel like a crisis anymore. You sit down and lean back on your hands. You still don’t know why Coco isn’t leaving. You’re glad she isn’t. Pixie and Noci have been taking up more of your time lately and you’ve been leaving her to Kekoa too much. You should fix that. Treat her like an actual daughter. You, um, you don’t quite know how to do that. Maybe ask her and Noci for input on where you go? Except VStar sort of just decides that. You already ask them about new team members. Budget things, maybe. Although a dinosaur and an alien robot might not be the best accountants.

The phone starts to ring. You shift your weight so you can answer it.

“Two things: We have a medical helicopter coming over. Can you get the tyrantrum to promise not to attack it? And we have a dragonite carrying over her mate’s ball right now. ETA of an hour.”

“I’ll tell her.”

She’s almost confused why she wouldn’t be okay with the helicopter. You’re guessing she just doesn’t know that they can put guns on them. Or she knows and doesn’t care. It’s a long hour after that. You’d forgotten how much you’d missed the tropical sun. The adrenaline from the crisis fades and leaves you pleasantly empty. With every minute your back gets lower and lower to the ground until you eventually pass into peaceful sleep.

*​

Even with deep breaths the teleportation still sends you to your knees. You gasp in as much air as you can while your fingers curl up, nails digging into your palm. You don’t vomit. It feels like your blood is on fire and your body is fading in and out of existence, but you don’t vomit. There’s that.

“Sorry,” Miss Bell says. “I remember the first few times I tried it.” Something presses against your right hand. “Take this water. Drink it slowly. That should help.”

As soon as the cap is unscrewed you tilt the bottle up and swallow as much as you can.

“Slowly,” Miss Bell repeats. You slow your pace just a little in response. The world spins slower now. Maybe you could even stand. You’re not going to. “Thank you for your help today,” she says. “I’ll have the money into your account within a few days.”

“Three hundred thousand,” you whisper between shallow breaths.

“Yes. Three hundred thousand. That still leaves one question.” You hear her get up and walk somewhere on the hard floor. A chair is pulled out and then slid back forward. Are you in her office? She didn’t tell you where she was taking you. “There was a talonflame carrying a camera over the island. At least one of the local news teams got video. Probably video of you. The media is going to want to know why you were there and what you were doing.”

She probably has a plan. It’s her job. You’d rather not have the attention, but that doesn’t seem to be a choice. “What would you do?”

Miss Bell gently presses a plastic packet into your hands. “Gummies,” she says. “Eat them slowly when your stomach calms down.”

“Thanks.”

Your stomach definitely has not calmed down yet. You still clutch them tightly, if only to have something to hang onto.

“If you’re fine with it I’ll tell the media that you can talk to dragons. We brought you in for that. It’s true, doesn’t reveal you’re a psychic, and lets you step up to say more if you want.” She pauses. “There is one complication, though. The media might recognize your rather distinctive hair. Then there’s a chance that you could end up as a minor celebrity of sorts. You could easily lie low and wait it out: the media has bigger stories to tell right now. Or you could embrace it. There might be money in that, and not just from me.”

You don’t want to embrace it. You heard the news clip you did on the butterfree and your real, accented voice is grating. The more digital clips there are of your actual accent the more likely it is someone puts the pieces together back home and you get conscripted the second you step off the plane.

Miss Bell must see your answer on your face. “Got it. I’ll handle things, then. Just don’t be surprised if a blogger or cameraman confronts you about it at some point.”

You’d rather face down a tyrantrum, but sure. Fine. It’s still worth the money.

“Next up is taxes. We do calculate those in-house for what you make from us, but if you make money from someone else, too, you’ll probably need to hire an accountant.”

Taxes. Right. Damn it, not even the money you earned is what you bargained for. “How much will I have left?” you ask.

“Um, probably three-quarters or so? I don’t know off the top of my head.”

Three-quarters. Two-hundred and twenty-five thousand. That’s workable. Enough to buy back all the pokémon but Alice or make progress on ellas. You slowly pull open the packaging and pop a gummy in your mouth. The shape is weird. The taste is an almost plasticky thing that’s probably supposed to be bluk berries. You chew it anyway.

“Have any of mom’s pokémon come up for sale?” Even just one would be a comfort.

“I don’t think so. We have someone looking into it. A few heatmor and ferrothorn and a lot of conkeldurr and swanna have been sold in the major border or Mesoamerican markets but none were marketed as being from a pro trainer. Even if they’re past battling age they’d still be marketed like that for breeders.”

If they weren’t auctioned then maybe your Father just sold them to a friend. He has contacts all over, but you should still be able to find them eventually. And if the owner knew their last trainer’s husband, he’s less likely to mistreat them. That’s good, in a way. Even if it means that you don’t have them here with you now.

*​

Sometimes you swear you can feel people’s energy. The emotions and power boiling off of them even as they stand silent and still. You can feel Lyra’s now, furiously looming in the lobby as Miss Bell leaves. “What the hell,” she asks. “You let—” she cuts herself off and hisses. “Somewhere more private. Follow me.” She holds out her elbow to you, but you don’t get the sense that it’s an offer. More of a demand. You don’t get why she’s angry: everything went well and you got a lot of money. She doesn’t lead you up the stairs to your room. Or outside. Probably just to some empty room somewhere. Not being able to see anything is annoying right now.

“Alright, now, why? You just risked your life for $100,000. That’s not nearly enough for that kind of work and you just ignored me and took it.”

“Three hundred thousand,” you correct her.

“I’m sorry?”

“I negotiated up later.”

“That’s, ugh, fine. You still almost threw your life away for money. Stupid. Can’t spend any of it if you’re dead.” It still would have helped someone. Some of mom’s old pokémon. Or Kekoa. Or Father. How do you make a will? You’d rather it go to getting mom’s pokémon back. “Don’t do that again. You’re worth more than whatever she throws at you.”

As if.

Lyra sighs but doesn’t press it. “Second, she has an alakazam. How are you even sure you chose to do that and she didn’t choose for you?”

You don’t want to have this conversation. Not now when you’re still a little bit outside of reality – because holy shit you have actual money now. You find yourself talking before you even really can think about what you want to say.

“I’m a little PSI-sensitive. She couldn’t do that unless I let her.”

Lyra’s energy instantly changes. Rage to fear. Maybe that’s better. “How much is ‘a little?’”

“I could talk with Noci and use her to translate before she evolved. That’s pretty much it.”

A lie. A small one. Enough that she’ll get off your back without killing you, hopefully. At least, hopefully she won’t kill you until you figure out how to make a will.

“Oh,” she says. “I guess that makes sense.” Neither of you says anything. You won’t because the response is hers and you don’t quite know what she’s getting at. Sure, you could focus more on her surface thoughts, but that feels like the wrong thing to do now. “I almost envy you,” she finally says. “Being safe from psychics without having the temptation to become a monster.”

That’s about as well as that could have gone. Good. You yawn fiercely. Time for a nap. Barely slept last night and this morning has been too much.

Lyra giggles. “Alright. But I’m not done with this. We’re talking more later.”

*​

“Hey, Cuicatl,” Kekoa calls out once you and Lyra make it back to the room. “You’re already a meme.”

“I—what?” A joke? Miss Bell said you would get attention, but you didn’t think it would make you a joke.

“Yeah. There’s a photo of you sleeping near the bloody tyrantrum. You, uh, okay here’s one. The tyrantrum is labeled ‘climate change’ and you’re labeled ‘the government.’ Or the tyrantrum is ‘my credit card debt’ and you’re labeled ‘me.’ The idea is that it’s someone ignoring something really scary nearby.”

“She wasn’t that scary,” you protest. Not once you got her talking. She was just annoyed.

“Girl, she killed at least eight people.”

Oh. That’s not good. More likely she gets put down because some humans were stupid. You yawn again. Yeah, that’s really bad. But you’re swaying on your feet. Another nap would be nice. And hopefully this one won’t become an internet joke.

*​

You can feel the stares on your back as you walk out of the building with Coco. You ignore them and no one approaches you. Probably has more to do with Coco than you since you’re, apparently, a joke now. It’s a pleasant walk to the beach under the warm Alolan sun. Still aren’t a whole lot of people back, either, so you manage to get some space to yourself when you reach the sand. You settle down and Coco digs in beside you.

“Can you bury me,” she asks. “I want to be buried.”

“I’ll do my best.”

It’s a little hard since you can’t see her, but you manage. Until Noci finally flies by and lifts up a whole lot of sand with her mind to dump on Coco. The dinosaur squeals in delight and thrashes around in the sand. A lot of it hit your face and hair and you crawl backwards, shaking your head and spitting out any that got in your mouth. You’ll need a shower after this. A second shower for the day, since you had to wash the blood off your leg earlier. That one wasn’t at the Center—Miss Bell apparently has a private bathroom near her office—so at least you weren’t mooching off their water. Some Centers limit you to one shower a day. You don’t know if this is one, but you also don’t want to mess up and then find out.

Once Coco digs herself out enough you decide it’s time to start the talk. You can’t give them a lot of choices, because you don’t have a lot of choices, but you can at least tell them why you’re asking them to fight. If it’s not good enough or they don’t want to after then they don’t have to. You’ll figure something out.

It’s amazing what a lot of money can do for your confidence that you’ll figure something out. It was just words before, because you had no idea how you’d actually do it. Now, well, you still don’t really know. VStar won’t make that same mistake twice and missions don’t pay a whole lot. It still helps with some problems, like Coco’s diet. But the more problems you solve with the money you were given, the less is left to help Alice…

You’ll need to figure out what’s most important to you when you can’t have everything, but just being able to have something is new and exciting and reassuring.

“Alright, I guess I owe you more of my story.” Coco stills and swims over through the sand she’s still in to rest her head on your lap. Who knew that tyrunt could not only swim, but that their tail was powerful enough to move them along through the beach? Noci probably floats closer. Maybe she doesn’t. Her choice.

“I, um, I have my own family. My mom died after I, after my egg hatched. And then I had a brother. He also died,” you whisper. Is anyone filming this? You ask Noci and she says no. That doesn’t mean no one is. Maybe she just can’t see it. No, you won’t tell them that you killed your brother. Not here and now. This is a good day. “My mom hatched some pokémon of my own. They’re my siblings. Your uncles and aunts, Coco. She swishes around her tail in the sand in happiness.

Gods, you really, really don’t deserve her at all.

“They, um, my dad sent them somewhere else. I’m battling and hunting pokémon now to try and get them back. That’s why I’m doing all of this. If you don’t want to help that’s fine. I’m not hunting for food, just,” you sigh and drop down to a whisper. “I’m not a good person. If you want to get out now, please do. If you want out later just tell me. I won’t do what I did with Pixie. I—I promise.”

[UD_Cuicatl is not defective]

Yeah. That whole rant where she threatened to blow herself up. You have no desire to get back into that with her.

Coco pulls herself out of the sand and shakes herself off, sending chunks of it onto your legs and clothing and hair. Definitely need that shower now. “You’re hunting for family,” she says. “I will hunt with you. They’re my family, too.”

Don’t. Deserve. Her.

“Okay. I guess…” Yeah. They can help with this, if not the details of spending the money. “There are going to be choices. Which family to obtain first. What to spend the money we get from hunting on, like, things that help us now or that help get family back later. I’ll ask you about the choices when I need to make them. And when we get to new places, I’ll tell you what all is there. If you want to see something I’ll try to make it work. Okay?”

Coco finishes shaking herself off and lays down, head on your lap. “Okay,” she says.

[Affirmation]

Maybe this could go okay. Maybe you won’t do to them what you did to Pixie. Maybe you can get family back and—and maybe you can keep going.

What a difference a day can make.
 
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Rock 4.2

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
Rock 4.2: Aftermath
Rachel

February 27, 2021​

STOCKS SOAR: END OF ALOLA CRISIS HELPS SAGGING MARKET
Join Avenue Journal

The DOW rose more than 600 points today, nearly reversing the month’s previous losses and easing fears of a market crash. “This is great news. Tremendous news. The best news,” President Trump said in a tweet this afternoon. “And I did all of it. No one else could have done this. Obama couldn’t have done this. Except, maybe, Xerneas…”



THE MANDIBUZZ RETURN
The Rallying Cry

The light’s return brings our fair-weather occupiers back to us. They would leave this land for comfort because they do not love it. Alola is a tool for their convenience, not a home. Not a heritage. And what do they do with tools? They use it until it breaks or a better one comes out. Then they will throw it away and move on to their new…”



ALOLA LOOKS LIKE WHAT?!?!
Hivemind

Twenty incredible photos show the damage to Alola. You won’t believe number seven.



“THE CRISIS ISN’T OVER:” ECOLOGISTS WARN OF TROUBLES TO COME
Hau’oli Tribune

The light may have returned, but irreversible damage may have already been done to Alola’s environment. Bryce Donaldson, Chair of Environmental Studies at The University of Hau’oli, told the Tribune. “Photosynthesis was limited or non-existent in most of the archipelago for several weeks. For tropical plants…”



DID HALA CHANGE UP HIS TEAM?
Justin’s Journal

Hello, fellow travelers. Some of you have heard the rumors that Hala has switched up his first Grand Trial team to add a hawlucha. We don’t have video, but we do have pics of the platform after the battle. Looks brutal to say the least. This could be big. Between the devastatingly hard water and bug totems, Melemele is now one of…”



PROMINENT PSYCHIC ARRESTED STOLE TAXPAYER DOLLARS
Bullseye Media

It was easy to miss during the Blackout’s chaotic news cycle (and need I remind you that the Blackout was caused by a psychic type?), but Dr. Andrew Brinner, formerly a ‘renowned’ apologist at the University of Hau’oli was fired from his post and arrested on charges of embezzlement. Folks, I’ve been telling you for years that…



THE SAVIOR OF ALOLA
The Battler

This isn’t the first time Selene Perry (#47) has saved her home. Even before she was champion, she awakened Lunala and ventured into Ultra Space. Recently she stepped up during the Blackout in Alola, taking point in the battle against Ultra Beasts. When the stars aligned, she took on the most difficult opponent of her life…”



2000​

You knock on the door twice. It’s louder than you expected and cuts through the still, cool air of the office. Too much? Are you going to be in trouble for this?

“Come in,” the headmaster’s voice is muffled by the heavy wood door. He doesn’t sound annoyed. Good. It’s hard to read people here. It makes you uneasy sometimes. Like you’re staring at cardboard cutouts with speakers behind them rather than real people. Everyone feels stranger, faker, scarier.

You enter his office and take stock of the tall desk and framed diplomas. The headmaster himself is a balding man with wrinkles starting to set in, but that only makes him a little bit more adult. A little bit more important to please. He gestures at a seat in front of him and you sit in it, after pulling yourself up a little bit to get into the seat.

“How are you settling in at the academy?” He’s still focused on something on his computer, only sparing you the shortest of glances.

“Okay. I’m making friends.”

“Good, good.” He clicks a few last things on the computer before properly turning to face you, hands intertwined and laid flat on the desk. “It seems you’re doing a lot of things. I’m going to go through them and ask why you joined. Okay?”

It seems simple enough. But if your parents taught you anything it’s that adults can be tricky. You cautiously nod.

“Good. Track?”

“Coach Jackson said I was good at it and I should try out.” You aren’t sure if you’re good, exactly. In gym class you were the fastest doing laps. On the field everyone suddenly got faster. Like they weren’t even trying in class.

“Got it. Drama club?”

“Nat—my roommate Natalie—said it was fun. She seemed to want me to join and I like her so I went. It’s fun.” And it is fun pretending to be anyone other than Rachel Eliza Bell.

“Honor Society?”

“Miss Burks said it would look good on a resumé.” You don’t really know what a resumé is but it sounded like it was important.

“I see a pattern here,” the headmaster says. His hands move and you carefully watch as they slide over the edge of the table and out of sight. “Someone asks you to do something, so you do it. And I’m going to guess that it’s not just clubs.”

Well, Darcy had needed a shoulder to cry on Tuesday night so you stayed up until about two dealing with that. And then John had wanted you to watch that movie—you didn’t like it, but you don’t think you’re supposed to like horror movies. Or something. You didn’t like the blood.

“Your teachers have many of the same comments: works hard, very bright, eager to please, sometimes falls asleep in class.” You’d really hoped they hadn’t seen that. You brace yourself and wonder what the headmaster is holding in his hands under the table. “Now, the sleep thing is concerning. I’d like to get you tested to see if you have narcolepsy or insomnia. They’re more common among psychics than the general population. I’m still more worried about the ‘eager to please’ part.”

The good part. Why is he worried about the good part? “Have I done something wrong.”

He shakes his head. “No. Even setting aside your… family situation.” Shouting. Blood. Cold, clean and empty rooms with people who will never believe you. “It’s normal for psychics. We often know more about other people’s minds than our own. It makes us focus too much on other people, too little on ourselves. And by the time we notice, we’re stressed, starving, exhausted, and no help to anyone. It’s good to care for ourselves. Everyone else has someone, themselves, looking after them. We deserve that, too.”

2022​

The headmaster’s bizarre alien words fade away. They’re replaced by a dull ache in your hand and on your cheek and the feeling of drool on your chin. You slowly pull yourself upright, stretching to take in all the little pains from sleeping in a bad position. You envy the kids you work with sometimes. At least they never feel like this after falling asleep at their desks. Hell, they don’t even have bosses or desks or jobs.

Your blink the sleep out of your eyes and look back at the list of headlines on your computer. Predictable reactions from the usual suspects. Best to read at least some of them to get an idea of how the media narrative is unfolding.

Espy walks into your peripheral vision with his leash floating beside him. {It’s good to care of ourselves.} You rub your hands together and sigh. Ordinarily you’d run your hand through your hair but you just fixed it before you fell asleep. And ruined it again. Before a meeting with the boss. Great.

Espy floats his leash a little higher. “Did you push my dreams that way just to get a walk?” He doesn’t deny it. Bastard wants as much sunlight as he can get now that it’s back. “Fine, just for a few minutes, though.”

You find reasons to stay outside for more than a few minutes.

*​

A professor at The Henderson School for Preternatural Development once told you that teleportation could be unpleasant. That was a dramatic understatement. Took you years before you could do it and still come out composed on the other side. The trick is to get as far inside your own mind as you can. Feel as little as you can. Separate yourself wholly from the world outside until you can’t notice it changing around you. Even then there’s a strong wind pressing against you, begging you to pay attention to it. You can’t. Not unless you want severe vertigo.

When you open your eyes and pull yourself out of your mind, you’re on Foster’s Paradise. Or Aether Paradise to everyone but the man who renamed it after himself. There are cleaning crews everywhere trying to fix the damage that built up over the Blackout. The ocean environment was hit almost as hard as the land was. Mercifully, no gyarados rampaged and took this place out.

You smile at your alakazam. “Thank you, Allen.” He hums back in your mind, a trace of anxiety laced into it. Older alakazam struggle to make basic decisions. He’ll never admit it but without your guidance he would’ve starved to death a long time ago while he tried to decide what to eat. “Maybe you can meditate over the ocean? It’s a nice day.” He’s gone within a blink of an eye.

You turn around and start walking to your destination. It's strange seeing the place after it’s gone a bit without cleaning. Scum and dried seafoam have formed a crust on the ordinarily pristine surfaces. Some of the flimsier fences have been knocked over. Most of the windows were shattered. It’s going to take a long time to make this place look good again.

After a few dilapidated hallways you reach the conference room. The inside is orderly and the air conditioning works. Chris probably had the staff clean it first. Lounging at the head of the table is your boss himself, lounging back in a swivel chair with his feet on the table. He’s wearing basketball shorts and a t-shirt with 37, his jersey number, emblazoned on it in big red font.

To his left is Winston, head of IT. (“Call me, Win,” he likes to say. Like anyone ever will without an eyeroll.) He’s at least wearing khaki shorts and a monocolor t-shirt. The smallest of steps up from his boss. Jabari’s a few seats away from Chris’s right. He’s wearing a polo shirt and nice jeans, which is about the most you can expect from him. It at least fits his image as the primary pokémon wrangler of the company. Emmanuel is at the far end of the table from Chris. He’s dressed in a three-piece suit that probably fit perfectly twenty pounds ago. You wonder if he ever looks in the mirror and wonders how he fell far enough to go from Wall Street trading to enabling an entitled brat’s big boy project.

You know damn well how you got here. He offered you more than anyone else did. And if things go south, well, you worked as a fixer before this. Helped sweep some of his indiscretions under the rug. And if he doesn’t want the world to know who he really is he’ll keep paying you well for your services. You’ll be here until he finally burns this place to the ground. Then you’ll probably go back to your old work.

You pull out a chair and sit down. “I apologize for the delay. My espeon wanted a very long walk today and I lost track of time.”

Chris waves a hand dismissively. “I get it, I really do. Lot of my pokémon have felt cooped up.” He sits up straighter and drapes an arm over his chair. “Oh, and Rick won’t be joining us today.”

You see Emmanuel wince. The board can roughly be split into suits and non-suits. You wear, well, not a suit, but a lavender dress and black jacket. It flatters your figure enough to get Chris to actually pay attention to you. Meetings are largely Winston egging Chris’s worst instincts on while Emmanuel and Rick, CFO and Chief Counsel, try to talk him down as Jabari stares blankly into space, unsure what any of it means unless it comes into his field of expertise. Then you’ll make your case when the fighting’s played out. Waiting lets you see how serious Chris is about the issue and avoid arguments he won’t find effective.

Chris smiles a little too broadly. Gods, what is it now? “Yeah, he won’t be coming because I told him we were meeting in the Hau’oli building.” He holds out his fist and Winston bumps it.

“I really think the Chief Counsel should be here at a meeting this important,” Emmanuel says.

“Nah, I know what he’d say. ‘You can’t do this, you can’t do that, you can’t do anything without me!’” He scoffs. “If I wanted to hear that I’d call my ex. Let’s keep this tight knit today. Unless you want to leave, Manny?”

Emmanuel leans back and stews. Winston giggles and Jabari fidgets in his seat. You do your best not to react at all. Nothing to be done while he’s bullying someone with Winston backing him up. You’ll confront him later in his office.

“Well, if you’re not leaving, how ‘bout you kick things off?” Chris asks. “How is the money flowing?”

Emmanuel takes a deep breath and pulls a folder from his briefcase. “I won’t bore you with the exact figures.” Because Chris wouldn’t remember them anyway unless there was a sixty-nine at the start. You’ll privately ask for them for your own reference. “We had a 300% increase in anticipated revenue in the first two weeks of The Blackout. This was mostly from people abandoning the island challenge and selling their teams to us. But the costs of securing our facilities and moving some of our most volatile assets off the archipelago cut into these profits a little. In the end we had a roughly 180% increase in profits in these two weeks over our estimated yields, assuming all as-yet-unsold assets go for market price.” Chris nodded and Emmanuel carried on. You take the break to pull out your own notepad and jot down the key takeaways so far. “Anticipated profits stayed high throughout the rest of the Blackout as more teams were sold to us. Most were sales directly from contractors, but some were sales of the less desired members of ‘orphan teams’ from the trainers who died on the trail or defending the settlements. The inkay captures were also a lucrative income stream. Personnel costs were also down considerably due to layoffs.”

Chris drums his fingers on the table in thought. “The people we laid off, do we have to take them back? We ran for a while without them, right?”

“No,” Jabari says. “If anything, we’ll need more people to get our holding facilities operating again and continue our breeding programs. Those were shot by The Blackout, by the way. Bunch of schedules off track and we couldn’t always store mates together once we got them to the mainland. Since they were off-site I’ll also want full check-ups on our breeding pokémon.”

“Eh,” Chris says. “At least try it for a little while. I’ll sign off if we absolutely need to.”

“Sir—”

“We’ll already have to hire contractors for the repairs. And we were already bloated before. Get some unpaid interns, maybe? I have three handling a volcarona and that goes just fine.”

You don’t remind Chris that he wouldn’t move said volcarona to Alola to light up Hau’oli. She has a brood and apparently didn’t want to move. Or Chris didn’t want to move her and risk losing the profit from selling the babies. Maybe a mix of both. Lost you an incredible PR opportunity that might’ve made him more money in the long run.

“I do have bad news, though,” Emmanuel says.

Chris dramatically rolls his eyes and collapses on the back of his chair. “Fiiiine. Tell me what you got.”

“Most of our contractors quit, at least temporarily, and the ones who turned in their teams probably aren’t planning on resuming the challenge. We won’t get another major recruitment bump until May, although I’m afraid a lot of trainers that would have gone on the island challenge will opt out after recent events. This limits our ability to catch more pokémon, on top of the ecological damage reducing the number of wild pokémon available to catch.”

You decide to add your own take, even if the boss won’t like it. “Given the way the press is talking about the environment I don’t think we could keep up our current per-trainer catch rates. Too much risk of temporary protections on the post-Blackout environment that end up becoming permanent.”

“Sure, sure, whatever, we can back off a little. But we’re a pokémon catching company. We’re still going to be catching pokémon. Make a plan that’s still profitable and I’ll look it over.”

Emmanuel jots down some notes. You follow. It won’t fall to you to make the new plans, but it will be your job to defend them.

“Then we have two more problems,” Emmanuel says. “The same problem, really. Jeremy Māhoe. The family’s threatened suit and—”

Chris slams his hands on the table and rises to his feet, the left corner of his mouth twisted up in a snarl. “Fuck them. We did nothing wrong.”

“I know, sir—”

“We. Did. Nothing. Wrong.” Chris hisses through his teeth. He slowly pulls his hands off the table and starts pacing. “We paid the kid to catch a larvesta. He knew the risks but wanted the money. And when he fails, it’s not his fault for botching it, it’s our fault for giving him a job. Fuck that. I’m not paying his estate a cent. If we yield here, then the family of every fuckup in the commonwealth will be banging at my door for cash. I didn’t get where I am without risk. No one at the top got there without risk. He rolled the dice and lost. Boo-freaking-hoo.”

If this ever gets to a deposition you are going to need to coach him so, so hard on what not to say. Really you need to make absolutely sure he doesn’t talk to the media about this. A sixteen-year-old got burned so badly the teeth were almost too damaged to use to identify the body. Alola’s volcarona almost refused to help with The Blackout in protest. The people, well, most of the people, won’t see the multimillionaire as the real victim here. You’d prefer he just settle the case and get this out of the news. You’re in a good spot now that you’ve provided Alola with the inkay it needed. In the coming months you’ll need goodwill in the legislature that he seems intent to just piss away.

“That’s half of our problem,” Emmanuel insists. “If I’m reading our records correctly, we no longer have a contractor with a Class V license. This precludes several of our most lucrative captures.”

Chris frowns and glances at you. “Is there anyone in the pipeline?”

“One candidate. Not sure how much of her thesis she has done.” Or if she wants to work on it. You don’t get the impression she likes her mentor much. Not sure what happened to sour the dynamic and Cuicatl insists that everything’s fine. You’ll need to find someone else now that other people with a Class V aren’t busy managing a natural disaster. Since she’s your only candidate it should be easy enough to talk Chris into freeing up money.

“Hurry her up,” Chris says. “Time is money. My money.”

“Will do.”

*

February 27th​

CHRIS FOSTER DENIES PLANS FOR VSTAR IPO
Join Avenue Journal

The founder and CEO of VStar, Inc. took to social media yesterday to deny reports that he planned on holding an IPO in the upcoming months. It is unclear at this time whether the change is due to the recent incident at a VStar breeding facility. “No, it has nothing to do with that. We just need time to stabilize post-Blackout. Give it…



BLOOD SPILLED ON SACRED GROUND
The Rallying Cry

Pōhaku was once home to a peace summit between the kahunas of Akala and Ula’Ula. These days it’s the private property of a haole capitalist, Chris Foster. His attempt to build his own private Jurassic Park came at the expense of twelve lives, including four kanaka. No charges have been filed and no charges will be filed because the system…



THE TEN BEST TYRANTRUM GIRL MEMES
Hivemind

The new meme has taken the Internet by storm. Here are some of our favorites. Number three is too real TBH.



TWELVE DEAD, FIVE INJURIED FOLLOWING TYRANTRUM RAMPAGE
Hau’oli Tribune

At 6:03 A.M. the morning of February 27, 2022, a tyrantrum began to rampage on Pōhaku, a small island off the coast of Akala. The pokémon broke free of ball and non-ball restraints and proceeded to kill twelve employees and contractors of VStar, Inc. The rampage was finally stopped by the actions of a VStar contractor who speaks Draconic. The tyrantrum…



BUTTERFREE GIRL GOT A GLOW UP
Justin’s Journal

Hello, fellow travelers. Island challenger Cuicatl Ichtaca, aka Butterfree Girl, has outgrown her former title to become the much more badass-sounding Tyrantrum Girl. Rumor has it she’s also the trainer who fought Hala’s Hawlucha. I tracked her down this morning but she declined to comment. Anyone who knows anything…



IS VSTAR PLOTTING TO TAKE OVER ALOLA?
Bullseye Media

Look, folks, I have nothing against Chris Foster. He seems like a hard-working businessman who is providing jobs for our youth. I do have a problem with his secretary, one Rachel Bell, known alakazam trainer and alleged Henderson Cabal member. She’s been seen cavorting with the governor and speaking before our legislature…



TYRANTRUM IN COMPETITIVE BATTLING
The Battler

A tyrantrum owned by Chris Foster (#1) recently escaped containment during a routine medical examination. During the ensuing rampage it demonstrated just how powerful the species can be. Many top trainers have tried to use one in battle but few have succeeded, both due to their rarity and very real drawbacks in…

*​

What a difference a week can make.

The doorbell buzzes. “Ma’am, Mr. Foster is here,” your secretary says.

“Got it, send him in.”

He’s visibly agitated with hands shoved into his pockets and a sneer etched onto his face. Victini rides on his shoulder. You notice that his shirt is inside out. The god of victory is sitting on one of the exposed seams. No one’s told him about it yet. You won’t be the first. Chris roughly sits down in the chair across from your desk. Victini floats off of him and moves to the nearest table. You bow to the god and he nods dismissively.

“Alright,” Chris says. His words are slightly slurred. Is he drunk? Hungover? High? You glance at Victini and he just shakes his head. “I leave for three days because my mom insists on having a makeup Solstice party in Unova. While I’m gone Jabari leaves the island to check up on a hydreigon and everything goes to shit. Am I missing anything?”

“That summarizes it.” He left out a lot of details, like why the island was understaffed, but this doesn’t seem like the time to press him.

“You want me to settle with the families and the injured,” he says. “Make it all go away?”

His breathing is slightly labored and he’s glaring at something on your desk. His arm is trembling slightly out of anger, exhaustion, or chemical influence.

“This won’t just go away whatever we do. But settling would help, yes.”

“Fine. I’ll do it. Just not with the anesthesiologist. This is all his fucking fault. I don’t owe him a cent.”

“Noted.”

Chris lowers his gaze to the floor. His shoulders slump and for a moment he looks small. Pathetic, almost. Victini’s mind buzzes against your own in indignation at the thought but it doesn’t make it any less true.

“Am I going to jail?” he whispers.

“I don’t think so, no.” He smiles slightly. “There will be fines. You’ll probably get dragged in front of a few legislative committees before this is over. But we’ll make it out of this in the end. The company might not, but we will.”

He dips his head again. “No,” he whispers. “The company will. I staked my reputation on this. You know what the other pros say behind closed doors? They say I’m an idiot failing upwards. That I’d fail at any real job. This is my real job and I’m going to show them how fucking smart I am.”

You look to Victini. He just nods. Expected. The God of Victory doesn’t want to give in. He and Chris were made for each other.

“Income’s down, the fines for this will take a lot of our capital, and I don’t think we can come back from the PR nightmare.”

He scoffs and raises his head to glare at you. “Then what am I hiring you for?”

“Because you’d be in prison for vehicular manslaughter and driving under the influence without me.”

Chris looks back down. “I was barely buzzed.”

Like he’s barely buzzed now.

“You drive here?” you ask. You were lucky last time that he wasn’t a household name yet. Now with his fame and recent infamy you aren’t sure you could keep him out of jail.

“Oh, please. I rented a limo.”

“And a limo driver?”

“And a limo driver,” he mutters.

“Good.” You shuffle around the papers on your desk and load a spreadsheet on your computer to give yourself time to think. “Talk to Emmanuel about this, but I think at minimum we’ll need to sell off the fossil restoration and breeding assets to get heat off of us and raise capital.”

“The tyrantrum will go for a lot,” Chris says. “I know a collector in Kenya who loves mankillers.”

Disturbing, very likely to end badly, and a good way to make a quick buck.

“I’ll leave that to you and Jabari. For now take your social media private, stay home or stay sober, and let the suits handle this.”

“You think I’m an idiot, too,” he slurs. “That I can’t do this.”

“No. I think you’re smart enough to hire people who can cover your weaknesses.”

If you also think he’s an idiot that’s none of his concern. Victini still whacks the edge of your mind for the thought. Chris stays quiet so he apparently doesn’t tell his trainer.

“Is Tyrantrum Girl the Class V candidate?” Chris asks.

“Yes.”

“What’s her thesis on?”

“Pokémon mythology. As in, the myths that different species of pokémon believe.”

He nods. “I’ll call Shirona. She likes Alola and mythology is her shit. Won’t shut up about it. And she’s a bitch. Takes her from a ten to a six real fast. She knows her shit, though.”

You aren’t usually intimidated by the big names in battling. You know the biggest and all of his secrets. Shirona still has a reputation, especially in her favored vacation spots. Her support would basically ensure Cuicatl gets her V. And then gets thrown right back into the most dangerous capture situations…

It has to be someone.

You don’t like that it’s her.

*​

Alola still isn’t fully repopulated. There’s a long backlog of flights to get to the archipelago. Some people won’t return at all. The Ultra Beasts were one thing. The Blackout was a bridge too far.

Some of the smaller beaches are almost entirely empty now. The one by Lila’s condo is one of them. They’re standing at the edge of the surf, feet buried in the sand. They don’t react at all as you walk towards them. Even when you’re beside them they keeps their eyes closed and their arms loose at their side. Their alakazam is floating somewhere over the waves. You send a thought to yours to suggest he join him.

Then you stand there near the surf as wave after wave washes over Lila. You stay a bit farther back. Shoes aren’t cheap and you weren’t anticipating she’d be at the beach instead of in their condo.

Finally, Lila turns her head back to face you. They into your eyes with such an intensity you could swear they’re trying to tear your mind apart and see what’s in it. They can’t. You’d know if they were trying. Maybe you’re even strong enough to stop them.

“Come. Let’s go inside.”

They tear their bare feet out of the sand and walk up the beach to the condo. You follow behind. Even if your powers don’t work on them you still have enough experience reading people to guess that they aren’t calm. The opposite, really. Probably needed to meditate hard before dealing with you. Not great. You anticipated they’d be mad about the tyrantrum incident, but they have to understand that these sorts of things happen in high level pokémon husbandry. You even got it resolved in house.

They open the door and wave you in. When you get to the table they sit down and push a bowl of snack mix towards you. Lila’s is very good. A mix of different cereals, snacks, and seasoned nuts. One of the highlights of dealing with them. They know damn well that the best way past a psychic’s defenses is through their stomach. The brain just uses too much energy.

You only take a pinch. Don’t want to cede too much power before you know exactly how this interaction is going to go.

They keep staring at you while you eat. Their hands are crossed in front of them and they’re really reminding you they’re a cop. Some small, buried part of your mind urges you to run.

“You’re welcome to take your own risks,” they finally say. “It’s when you drag a child into it that I take issue.”

Ah. Right. Cuicatl is also under her informal role as community coordinator.

“I paid her well,” you counter. “She knew what she was getting into and decided the reward was greater than the risk.”

“Odd. I spoke with her briefly. She didn’t know that she was dealing with her pokémon’s mother.” They lean forward and lowers their voice. Their face stays perfectly composed. “Did she actually know the risks?”

Your mother flashes to mind. She pulled things like this, setting up casual situations before going into full interrogator mode. Webster’s mind connects with yours with an offer of help. You decline. It’s fine. You’re older. Richer. Better connected. No one can do that to you again.

“I didn’t know that, either.”

Lila narrows their eyes and sits back in the seat. Their back straightens and they uses their height to stare down at you with lips spread thin. Full cop mode. “Even if she was fully informed, can a severely depressed child be trusted to make informed decisions regarding the risks of a job and the value of her life?”

“Under the laws of Alola, yes.” You’ve triple checked that. It’s VStar’s entire business model.

They continue to glare at you.

“And you can live with that?”

“Yes.”

They lower themselves to a more relaxed position but don’t stop glowering. “Make sure she uses some of that money to see a dentist. It’ll make it easier for me to identify the body when you get her killed.”

Low blow. You even came to this meeting to try and help the girl.

“She wants a therapist, by the way. Thought you might be able to help with that.” Since they care so much.

That finally breaks their composure. Lila sighs and rubs their eyes before taking a handful of the snack mix.

“So she said. I’ve made some calls for her. Turns out that every child psychologist in the Commonwealth has a backlog after recent events. Andrew’s replacement is…” They look up at you and glares. “I’m only telling you this because you’re somehow the closest thing she has to a guardian right now, even if you insist on throwing her into mortal danger to resolve a business problem.” You nod. “Andrew’s replacement is going to be a psychologist specializing in addiction treatment via compulsion therapy. He’s a licensed psychologist and would give another psychic priority for treatment, but he doesn’t have much experience with children. For now I think it’s best to just keep her on some waiting lists and see how fast they move.”

And the mainland is too far to teleport to. Since it’s illegal to have a session with someone outside your state or commonwealth, and Cuicatl would hate the screens anyway, the waiting list is probably her best plan. You’d just hoped Alola might know about some option you didn’t.

“You know,” Lila says. They’re back to glaring at you. Great. “It’s rare that I have to try and tell another psychic they should care about other people. We’re usually better than that.”

“I’ve learned to look after myself,” you counter. “And given the stories I’ve heard about you collapsing on the battlefield from exhaustion, I don’t think you’ve learned to take care of yourself. Perhaps I could give you lessons.”

They reach their hand to the bowl without breaking eye contact.

“Perhaps you could get out of my house.”

You stand up and smile before holding out a hand. They don’t take it. “Always a pleasure. See you soon?”

“Hopefully not.”

You call Allen to you as soon as you leave the house. That went better than expected. They probably won’t be pushing any penalties. Would’ve threatened it if that was on the table. Now you just have to deal with the federal and commonwealth governments…
 
Last edited:
Rock 4.3

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
Rock 4.3: Scars
Pixie

Pain. A sharp, jagged pain runs along your side. A dull pain has settled into your bones and pulses in tune with your heartbeat. This place smells like chemicals. Is this a dream? Are you back where you were so long ago?

Your eyelids refuse to move.

Everything hurts.

Just a little more sleep…

*​

The pain on your side is less sharp. There’s something cold and metallic pressed against it now. You slide your eyes open and let light gradually flicker in. Light. It should be dark, shouldn’t it? There is metal pressed against you. The rest of your body is gently pressed down by straps. You could fight it. Scream.

That all feels like so much effort.

You close your eyes again.

*​

There’s a strange human in the room with you when you next wake up. You blearily look up at them and they smile. “Hello, there. I just need to run a few tests.” You let him. Not much you could do while strapped down. Sure, you could shoot ice at him. You’d still be tied down and exhausted. You count the rise and fall of your chest as the human continues to prod your injured body.

*​

The straps are gone. The rest of the room is empty. No Skysong. No Kalani.

No Avalanche.

Not that she should be here. You stand up. Your most injured leg aches and your side burns. You manage anyway. You sit back on your haunches and stare out into the room.

Now what?

In the end you take another nap.

*​

Openliver enters the room. He smiles at you as he closes the door. “Hey, Pixie.”

You stare at him. Why is he here and not Kalani or Skysong?

“Uh, Cuicatl had a message.” His smile falters before he brings it back twice as large. Is he trying to seem threatening? Or is he pretending to be friendly? Neither case is good. You tense your muscles, ignoring the pain. “She says that she’s really, really sorry about what happened and that she’s going to leave you alone. Unless you want to talk to her, she’ll stay away.”

You were weak so she abandoned you. Got it.

“Do you have any questions? I can have my primarina translate.” You shake your head from side to side. What is there to say? He nods and his smile disappears entirely. “I’m also sorry about what happened. Hala—you have to understand that he’s usually not like that. Don’t know what got into him, but it won’t happen again.”

His bird was stronger than you. Much, much stronger than you. And he wanted you to die. You did not die. Maybe someday he will return to finish things. However smart they pretend to be humans still do not understand predators and prey.

You suppose there is something to ask, even if you aren’t sure if you want the answer. “Kalani doesn’t want me anymore?” He sends out his ugly fish thing. You repeat the question.

“No. Nothing like that. I just wanted to talk to you first. Want to meet her now?”

You nod. Avalanche isn’t here. Avalanche won’t be here ever again. Neither will Skysong. Kalani is still here, for now, and you love her for that.

Openliver nods and takes away his fish monster (Kalani calls it Gill Wailer, you’re not sure if it needs a name). Kalani reappears in a burst of red light and cold air. She fluffs up her fur and locks her eyes onto you before walking up, tails held delicately in the air. She raises her front legs up onto the table before jumping up in a graceful leap. Before you know it, her tails surround you on all sides while her muzzle rubs against yours. Kalani glances back at Openliver before finally sitting down, her body pressed against your uninjured side.

“I will destroy those who hurt you,” she says. It sends a flutter though you. Skysong could not destroy your enemies. Kalani can. It’s a reminder you have a real mother again. “First, Skysong.”

The flutter stills. “She didn’t hurt me,” you say. “The bird and his human did.”

Kalani growls. You press your tails down and whimper. How was that wrong? You just told her what happened. “No. You were there because of her. Hurt because of her. If she was strong, she would have fought the bird herself. She stole what was mine and returned it broken. I will destroy her for it.”

You weren’t there for her. You were there because you wanted to show Kalani how strong you were. And you didn’t. It would be bad to bring that up. Make her think about how weak you are. Make her think about leaving you. “What will you do?” you ask.

Kalani glances aside, probably checking if Openliver was still in the room or if Gill Wailer was out. “She wants to make others be hurt for her. I will not let her. Whenever one of her pokémon is hurt she will be hurt the same.

Humans heal so slowly sometimes you wonder if they will ever heal at all. Sometimes they don’t. She was born hurt and never recovered. Giving her that curse could kill her. She doesn’t… you don’t want that. She tried to help sometimes, even if she couldn’t. Even if she abandoned you. And if Kalani did kill a human you don’t know what would happen. You’ve asked other pokémon before. They all seemed scared of the idea. Asked you not to talk about it again. There must be something very scary that happens. You don’t want that to happen to Kalani, either.

“She’s always hurt,” you say. Kalani looks at you. She doesn’t speak. Good. Maybe… maybe you can find a way where Kalani doesn’t kill Skysong, but you don’t have to disagree with her. “Every time we get to a new city she manages to get hurt. Usually her paws. Getting hurt isn’t new to her. It’s not a good curse.”

She licks your forehead and pins your back down with a paw. For a long time she keeps licking your head as you press into the grooming. Before long you’re purring, the talk almost forgotten. Kalani pulls back for a moment and meets your gaze. Her eyes are cold blue. Like yours, just prettier. “You will make a good nine-tales. Think of a better curse. Then I will find her and cast it.”

Something that will not kill her. Something that will make her regret abandoning you. It may take some time, but you will think of one.

“What about the bird?” you ask. “What will you do to it?”

Kalani huffs in satisfaction. “I found it. Hurt it as badly as it hurt you. Maybe worse.”

Good. Stupid bird. Humans don’t care about them so it can die.

The nine-tales curls herself back around you and licks the fur on your back. It’s wonderfully cold in her tails. You lie still and purr.

*​

Kalani’s home is the same as when you last saw it. You walk a little behind the fox as she surveys her domain, stopping to sniff at Openliver’s coldbox. “There is ice cream in there,” she tells you. “I will get some for you when Openliver falls asleep.” There are at least two locks on the coldbox. They cannot stop a nine-tales. Nothing can.

You yip your thanks and walk to your bed. It’s really Kalani’s bed that she lets you sleep in. Openliver offered you another one in case you didn’t want to sleep with Kalani. Why wouldn’t you? She is perfect. She is perfect and she wants you.

You lie down on your injured side, ignoring the brief flash of pain. There is a patch there where the humans cut your hair off. It will regrow. For now it is ugly and a sign to the world that you are weak. It must be hidden.

Kalani follows you and lies down against your back. Her tails swish over you and block out the warm, ugly world with perfect fur. “Soon I will start teaching you what I know,” she says. “You are my child and you must be powerful.”

‘You are not powerful now,’ is what she does not say.

“Some teachings must wait until you heal. There are still attacks you can do with your mind. I will teach you those.”

“Like disable.”

Her tails flick around and she purrs. “Yes. But this attack hurts your prey.”

Eyerock could do something like that after she got bigger. You wonder if Skysong could, too, if she really wanted to. Is the attack like talking to her, just louder? Like trying to scream into her mind? How would you do that? Her connection is familiar, but you wouldn’t know how to start it without her mind doing most of the work. “Can we talk to humans like that?”

She scoffs and idly flicks a leg back to press you harder against her. “A nine-tails could. I will not. They do not deserve to hear my true words.”

When you talked with Skysong you were using your words. Mostly you just talked and she understood. That must not be possible for vulpix. A nine-tails could probably learn. They just wouldn’t bother, right? If humans wanted to listen to nine-tails, then they would learn how to. It should not be the other way around.

*​

Rockfur wants to take your ice cream. As soon as Kalani comes back with it he glares at her and starts to walk off towards Openlivers’ quarters. “Lick quickly,” Kalani says. You do. Her tongue lashes through the treat next to yours while you gently scoop it up. “Faster,” she says between licks. You daintily swallow the ice cream and begin to use your tongue as a shovel, getting it into your mouth and pressing it into the cheeks before going for more. You can eat it later. Now you just need to get it out of the container.

Openliver ‘thuds’ out of bed and starts walking. You plunge your face into the ice cream and bite up as much as your jaws can take. Kalani licks your face in approval. And to get some of the ice cream for herself.

“Don’t eat it so quickly,” Openliver says. You turn towards him. He doesn’t seem angry. Just tired. “I don’t know if ninetales can get brainfreeze and I don’t really want to know. Take smaller bites. Enjoy it. I bought it for you.”

Kalani tilts her head to the side. It is something humans do sometimes when they want to ask a question, but not enough to actually ask the question.

“Thought Pixie could use some. I’d never store ice cream for me here. I know it wouldn’t last a night.” He laughs but his eyes don’t glimmer and the lines around his mouth don’t move. “I’m going back to bed. Get me up if you actually need something.”

Rockfur stands awkwardly in the middle of the room. You spit some of the ice cream out of your mouth and start to lick it back up at a more reasonable pace. Kalani slows down, too, but only a little. Rockfur starts coming closer, probably to apologize.

No. He doesn’t apologize. Instead, he lowers his head to the bowl before Kalani hisses, all of her tails rising up behind her. “No,” she says.” Rockfur walks away. Nine-tails mates are equal. A nine-tails is not equal with a rock trying to mate with her. That would mean Kalani, with all of her beauty and power, is no better than a rock.

Rockfur walks back to his bed and lies down in shame.

You have to stop licking the ice cream when you get full. Kalani keeps going until the whole container is gone. Then she moves her long tongue around the edges just to be sure. When she sits back on her haunches the only sound is Rockfur’s snoring. Ugh. He’s still annoying even when he sleeps.

“Now is a good time to begin our practice,” Kalani says in a low voice. “We can punish him for going to Openliver.” You lower your tails in submission and turn towards her. “Think about the link you make when using disable.” It’s similar to the one Skysong made with you to talk. Just sharper and faster. Less of a gentle touch and more of a mental bite. You brush a tail against Kalani’s to show that you’re ready. “Disable is a small thing with a message: stop. This one is bigger, louder, with a simpler message: hurt. Take your mind and throw it at your prey’s. Bash into them again and again.”

That makes sense. Disable, but to hurt. You close your eyes and focus on the narrow connection. Then you broaden it, like Skysong sometimes did when she helped you cast it. You do it like that, just a bit louder. More like a roar than a snap. Rockfur grunts in his sleep. Great! You open your eyes and turn to Kalani for approval. She just looks at you with… with disappointment. She puts a paw over your back and looks into your eyes.

The world spirals. Colors blend together and you smell sounds. Your paws are. Somewhere? Which ones are front? Your tails are, um, your tails are back, so… It takes a moment but you swim out of the lights and sounds and find your way to your body. Your head aches but you don’t feel any new injuries.

“Like that,” Kalani says. “Do it like that.”

You stumble to your feet and look back to Rockfur. Like that. Hit him in the senses. Somehow. You stare at him and try to figure out how you’d do that. You don’t remember Skysong ever doing anything that could help.

Kalani huffs. “Close your eyes and imagine yourself. Your body floating in nothing.” You try. You get something in the end. You’ve seen yourself in the mirror, but those don’t really capture you right. You must be too beautiful for them to show you back. “Now imagine Rockfur in front of you.” That’s somehow faster. A brown mass that looks vaguely like you, just with spikes and almost no fur. Probably dust on him, too, since he’s a rock. “Imagine you tackling him.”

You take a deep breath and press the you in your thoughts forwards. Her claws extend and she lets out a mighty roar just before

Colors. Sounds. Smells. You try to shake yourself off but only your legs move. No. Everything moved, didn’t it? There’s shouting outside. You can smell it. See it. Stone and snow. The world spins slower. A glob of spit hits your forehead. It smells like ice cream. Openliver is, um, he’s here?

White fills your vision and something presses down on you. Kalani’s tails. She’s here. You can smell her all around, hearing her barking at Rockfur and Openliver.

“She’s injured, okay?” Openliver says. “Don’t hurt her.”

“Or me,” Rockfur adds.

“How dare you,” Kalani hisses. Her body tenses beside you and you can see the claws unsheathe on one of her paws. “I would never hurt her.”

Gill-Wailer repeats it, just less pretty.

“Then why’s she hurt?” Openliver asks. “And don’t tell me Basalt did it, that was clearly confusion.”

“She hurt herself. It happens to pups.”

The memory comes back. That is what happened. You were trying to attack Rockfur’s senses. You must have sort-of succeeded if he’s awake and you feel confused. Your tails lift higher behind you in pride. A new trick. You might be too weak now, but you will get strong enough to use it perfectly. Just like Kalani can.

“Then do it during the day while I have potions on hand. Not in the middle of the night.”

“I know how to train her. You do not, human.

“Yeah, well, I’m the human who trained you, right? Maybe I do know something.”

You can hear him turn around and stomp back into his room, loudly shutting the door behind him. Rockfur walks off shortly after. Gill-wailer must have bene withdrawn or something.

Kalani takes her tails away and looks at you. Then she leans in and licks you from the tip of your nose to the middle of your forehead. “You did well.” You did well! “Ignore the human. I will take care of him if need be.”

“Without killing him?”

She scoffs. “Of course not. He has his uses. I just need to teach him a lesson sometimes.”

Good. After a few more licks Kalani lies down and presses you against her stomach with her tails. Her chest rises and falls against your back. You did well. The headache throbs in your head in time with her breathing, but you ignore it. That’s just the price of getting stronger.

Before long you’ve fallen asleep next to your mother.

*​

Openliver is talking to someone when you wake up. Someone familiar. You just can’t place the voice. Human, though. Probably not too important.

“How was Ultra Space? Did you get me a postcard?”

The other human, female, snorts. “Sorry, didn’t see any shops.”

There’s a heavy silence.

“Are you okay?”

“No,” the other human says. “I… I survived. I think Nebby ensured that. In the moment, with plasma shots flying around and the floor melting beneath me, I thought I wouldn’t. That I’d just die out in space and my corpse would melt and no one would find me and that… that would be it. Nothing more to fight. I could rest. And I was okay with that. Almost wanted it.”

The voice is bothering you. Enough that you squirm your way out of Kalani’s tails so you can watch from the edge of the doorway. You see Openliver wrapping his arms around the smaller female, poorly mimicking a nine-tails wrapping her tails around her child. The female doesn’t have blood-colored hair, but you still recognize her scent.

Firemane.

You hold in a growl and slink back to continue listening.

“I wish you didn’t have to,” Openliver says. “You’re barely an adult and—”

“I had to. Necrozma would’ve killed anyone else.”

“I know, but I wish you didn’t. For this, the UBs, everything.”

She sighs. You can hear her walk somewhere else. Hear her weight settle into a chair.

“They’d just find some other kid to do it. You’ve heard how they’re talking about that Cuicatl girl.” Skysong? What happened with Skysong? “She’s blind, Doc, and they’re so eager to see another kid solve adult problems. Talk about how badass she is, what she might do next, and not that a corporation owned by a ranked trainer sent her out to die so the executive who was right there didn’t have to risk herself.”

She almost died? What happened? Is she injured? More injured than usual, at least? Could you have stopped it? No. You owe her nothing. She can’t love you like a nine-tails can. She got you hurt. And, and you’re going to curse her, once you figure that out.

“I could become champion,” Openliver says. “I almost beat you and Nebby the first time. You could travel for a while and I could watch your seat. Handle any crises that came up.”

“No,” Firemane says. She sounds exhausted. Weak. Like easy prey. “They’d pressure Hau or Cuicatl into doing it. Make a kid solve all their problems. Because if they can tell themselves that the kids will solve everything then they don’t have to worry about solving it themselves.”

Alright. You’ve listened enough. You turn around the corner and aggressively walk towards Firemane. You yap at her over and over while your tails straighten behind you. It doesn’t matter if she’s afraid. She deserves it.

Firemane is not afraid. She smiles, without teeth, and coos. Like you’re a child. And not a very angry child of the mountain. “Aww, hello there,” she says in a sickeningly high voice. “I haven’t seen you before.”

She’s mocking you. That or she thinks all vulpix look alike. Which is also mocking you. She holds out her hand to sniff. You ignore it and sit right below her before listing your many grievances.

Firemane ignores them all and turns to look at Openliver. “I almost got a vulpix once, you know. She was in Aether care on Akala after some Skull thug beat her up. Then all that shit with Lusamine and Ultra Space and the League and being Champion came up and… I guess I forgot to come back to her” she purses her lips. “I wonder what happened to her. I hope she’s alright.”

“She’s sitting right here,” you growl. Firemane doesn’t understand. Of course she doesn’t understand. She left you. Forgot you. Is that better or worse than being abandoned? Not being worth remembering? Decide later. Now you can scream to your heart’s content.

“Sorry about her,” Openliver says. “She just heard her old trainer’s name. Probably concerned if she’s alright.”

“Old trainer?”

“Cuicatl. Just. Hang on.”

Gill-Wailer forms in a flash of red. You immediately turn to her and scream. “Tell her she abandoned me!”

The stupid fish takes a moment to look from side to side and figure out what’s going on. You yell at her again to hurry her up. Then she repeats her words in an awkward, quivering voice saying lesser human words. Firemane turns back to you and stares. Her eyes bore into your forehead and her lips flatten out and spread thin. “Pixie?” she finally asks. “Is that you?”

You bark at her and hiss. Hopefully she gets that message.

“It’s good to see you,” she says. You hiss again. How dare she? “I. Um. I’m sorry. Really. By the time my life calmed down Aether had gone under. I tried to figure out where you went but no one seemed to know. Sorry. I hope things have gone okay?”

You turn around to show her your shaved patch and scar. They have not gone okay.

“Oh,” she says.

“Hala had an episode,” Openliver says.

“I heard.” Her eyes narrow and she leans back in her seat. “I think I’ll need to have another talk with him.”

“You can’t fire him.”

“I know,” she says. “But Tapu Koko can and he seems to like me. I’ll see what I can do.”

She’s trying to hurt the human who owned the bird? Good. That means Kalani doesn’t have to risk herself to punish him. That doesn’t mean that Firemane is forgiven. Or that she can just talk to Openliver and ignore you.

“Did you forget me again?” you hiss. Gill-Wailer repeats in her hideous way.

“I—no, Pixie.” She takes a deep breath and lowers her head into her forepaws. “I messed up. I get it. I’m not a good person. I’m sorry. Truly. If there’s anything I can do, let me know.”

Anything she can do? Now that you’ve found a mother again? Nothing. There’s nothing a human can do for you now that Kalani cannot. And if you did rely on her it would just hurt more when she forgot you again. You leave her in silence and continue to glare.

She nods. “Let me know if you ever think of anything. I’d really love to stay and talk, really, and I’ll drop by again if you want?” She pauses for you to answer. You don’t. Is seeing her again worth it if you get to scream at her? “I have to go. I had an appointment and I’m just here to pick something up. I’ll be back, though. Promise. We can talk things over then.”

She leaves.

She dares leave when you hadn’t finished screaming and glaring yet. As soon as the door closes behind her you huff and walk back to Kalani. She picks you up by the scruff and drops you into her bed. Before you know it there’s a leg over you pressing you down and her tails completely cover you. After a few licks to the forehead she pulls back and settles down beside you.

“Humans will always disappoint you,” she finally says. You huff in agreement. Firemane abandoned you. Skysong abandoned you. The first humans you met hurt you. All of the others would have abandoned you if you hadn’t beat them to it. “I don’t understand why you’re still so attached to them. To your precious trainer: a blind runt who broke your ribs.”

She didn’t break your ribs. She did abandon you. Just like you always knew she would.

“I can curse the other one who hurt you if you would like. She comes by often enough that she’s lowered her guard. It can be something small, something she wouldn’t be able to prove that I did.”

Something small that would still hurt.

“What would you do?”

She pulls her leg off you and licks your forehead one more time. “She forgot you. I’d just make her a little more forgetful. A few lost names. A lost scent. Nothing too much all at once.”

That’s really clever. Humans forget things all the time. They wouldn’t even notice if they lost a little more.

“Good idea.”

Kalani huffs in pride. “Obviously. It’s my idea, after all.” You lean against her and she lets out a puff of perfect cold air. “Keep thinking of your curse. Don’t take too long.”

You will try. Something small. Something fitting. Maybe people abandon her? Make her smell bad so no one wants to be around her. No. Humans don’t care about smell. Maybe she could lose the sense of smell she does have? Leave her nose and eye blind. But that’s not related to what she did. Not clever like Kalani’s.

You’ll think of something. Now, pressed against your mother’s side, it’s so easy to forget your problems.

Just like Firemane forgot you.
 
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kyeugh

you gotta feel your lines
Staff
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. farfetchd-galar
  2. gfetchd-kyeugh
  3. onion-san
  4. farfetchd
  5. farfetchd
hey persephone! i have been meaning to read this fic for ages at this point and have decided that i'm going to use this blitz to give me motivation to read and review as much of it as i can—something tells me that once the ball is rolling, i'll be here to stay. also given your excellent taste in pokémon my impression is that there will probably be a farfetch'd in the first couple chapters probably.

normal 1.1
as a lover of stuff that's normal, nothing beats reading a story that starts off by advertising that it is very normal.

this was a nice introduction to the world! i think rachel was a really good vehicle for imparting the information that she did—we get information about the VStar program (and by extension, the culture around journeys in alola, and the stakes and conditions that are particular to your world) but in a sort of personalized way that slants a bit cynical, which i think provides valuable information of its own in a way that wouldn't really be possible with a more junior character. my impression is that we end up following cuicatl at least in part, so i'm guessing the psychic powers are here to stay, and introducing them by way of someone with some degree of mastery over her powers, who can assess cuicatl's powers for us in a way cuicatl probably couldn't do herself, seemed wise as well. overall she's a very interesting character in her own right; she always feels fully in control of every situation she's in, and it's little wonder she's worked her way so far up the corporate ladder. she has no reservations about using every tool that's available to her.

the particular way your psychic powers are written is pretty neat. it never felt particularly intrusive and the stuff about the secrets and the attacks was cool. i enjoyed the strikethrough text. i do think her scans of all the initiates dragged a little bit; there was some interesting stuff in there for sure, but there was a lot of world and character information in this chapter and i wasn't really sure which bits of that sequence i was meant to latch onto. felt like an overload in some respects. it was cool, though, seeing the way that she applies her powers to her work. makes me wonder if psychics are in-demand for particular positions... feels a bit dishonest, maybe, to hire someone to use those powers in an investigative manner without the people being investigated (like manuel) knowing. either way feels like it could be right for this world though.

i've read a decent amount of the aloladex and felt pretty much at home with some of the descriptions getting thrown around here; looking forward to seeing how some of the regulatory stuff, as well as the every distinct pokémon behaviors you describe, come into play. i can already see it a little bit with rachel's interactions with espy!

overall i feel that this chapter is a bit of a slow start but that's perfectly okay with me; there's enough interesting stuff and questions posed here to keep me coming back, and that's really all you need. busting down the door is overrated tbqh.

{You’re tired.} he says.
should be a comma rather than a period inside the brackets, right? btw, i never considered what a charmed life a psychic cat would lead, but this description of espeon eating is really driving it home, lol.

The door opens and a tall, tanned man in an ill-fitting suit walks in. His eyes briefly glance around the office. You take note of what he pays attention to—the bed where Espy is sleeping, the bag of expensive food underneath, and the map of Alola with nearly three dozen pins in it—and to what he doesn’t: your framed degrees, the busy-but-not-sloppy amount of clutter on your desk, and the half-hidden cot in the back corner. A battler through and through. Probably disappointed that you don’t have trophies or a framed badge case.
this is really neat, both as an insight into manuel and as an insight into rachel—the fact that he notices what he does, and the fact that she notices that he notices what he does.

“Hey. Manuel Sanchez. With The Battler.”
jumped out at me that you italicize "The Battler" the first time but not here.

As soon as you make eye contact a feeling flashes in the back of your mind and you know that he’s cheating on his pregnant wife.

Eh. Could be worse.
YOWZA what in the world, we getting juicy now

You don’t doubt that. Journalists build up the trainers into semi-divine heroes in the public eye and then revel in the attention they get from the celebrities they created. No one benefits from the cycle breaking.
very interesting tbh. i'm assuming this gets expanded on in the narrative—looking forward to seeing that. very fond of worlds like this.

Very recent trauma with a trail of shame trailing after it.
the double use of "trail" felt weird here.

Yoo take a drink of water and figure out how to finish that sentence without coming off wrong.
* You, i think.

You are very, very glad that she can’t see the color of your face right now. You know full well that your alakazam is a telepathic monster that can fry a man’s mind in seconds, but you will never, ever be comfortable with dragons. And why should you? You’ve seen footage of one shredding a tank without breaking a sweat. Do dragons sweat? You have no desire to look that up.
this is interesting! i feel like it's kinda uncommon that you see, like, abject terror towards pokémon like this in fic. neat that it seems to be towards dragons categorically... i bet it'll come up again. 😈

New topic options: SIPAA scoring seems a little too close to the last question and she doesn’t want to talk about why she’s here so… old pokémon.”
stray quote at the end here, i think.

There is a pokémon that fits all of those criteria, but she’s trouble. She’d either be a silver bullet for Cuicatl’s problems or a lead bullet straight to her heart.
boy oh boy.

---

normal 1.2
this was a surprisingly emotional introduction to the meme, the myth, the legend! pixie naturally comes off as pretty brattish here, as she should, but it's hard not to kind of respect pixie's own unyielding self-respect (if you can call it that) in spite of everything she's been through. even though she's suffered a lot, and is continuing to suffer as long as her situation doesn't change, she still can't resist from being her devilish self, even when it lands her back in trouble. she's a pokémon absolutely brimming with personality and you do a great job at portraying quite a wide amount of it here, ups and downs and everything. her interactions with cuicatl are really sweet and imo pretty revealing of cuicatl's character, too—she is great with pokémon, as advertised, and has a strong nurturing aspect to her, a genuine eagerness to please. she managed all this even without being able to get into alice's head, so i'm sure she'll manage to keep pixie mostly leashed. :p pixie's wariness and insistence that she's just being tricked, and she hates herself for it, were delightful and i'm looking forward to seeing these two together; i know it'll be a riot, but if this chapter was anything to go on, i know it'll be emotional too!

some things that weren't quite clear to me: why was pixie hurt in the beginning? is it relevant? how much time passes between the first part and the part in october? a timestamp at the beginning might make that a bit clearer. was pixie's time with the other trainers (who ultimately abandoned her) during the period between the first part and the second? or did that all take place before she was injured? also, it took me a bit to realize that the blonde woman was rachel—i only really figured it out because of her possessiveness over cuicatl.
You don’t understand many of the words, but you know the tone. Talking more in breath than sound, trying to sound quieter than they really are. The same fake concern they take on the moment they turn away from your table, like you aren’t still in the room.
hell yes, poké pov. this is a cool way of describing whispers tbh. pixie's level of perception feels right here—maybe she doesn't make the words out, but she's not stupid and she gets what's going on. i suspect a lot of people underestimate how perceptive their pokémon are.

Even from a distance it smells unclean, although humans seemed to have a higher tolerance for that.
hahaha, omg. love the idea of a pokémon sneering at a human for being unclean. my cat probably does think that about me.

But presentation is sort of like breathing, so you aren’t sure that counts.
💅

Her tone is cheerful, but you recognize the pleading edge and the ‘food’ sound.
i'm really enjoying the way she picks out meaning from speech.

Still. The human seems to like you, and she at least takes care of her cat. She’s not like… like they were. You wonder why she came back, why she cares about you, and you realize that maybe she wants to put you on your team. You’d leave the room. She’d stuff you in a ball, sometimes.

But it’s something to hope for. And you’ll take it.
man. this is depressing. poor girl.

You immediately puff your fur up and hiss. There’s another fox here. A short-furred, hideous pink fox with one good tail and a pathetic growth of a second. Eevee. You don’t know what gimmick this one has, but they’re all just eevee to you.
lmfao. here we go. i love her.

That is a very unfair assessment. You only did the first three things because your trainer was already going to abandon you and your window for revenge was very limited.
huh, she got all that? it felt like she didn't understand the previous sentence. i'm a little unclear on how much language she understands exactly. also, lololol.

Other human has a strange white stick. A weapon? It wouldn’t be very effective against you. Foolish to even try.
oh my god lmfao

“I am prettier and stronger and smarter than everyone else and they should recognize it and submit to me.”
SO TRUE queen. i am saying this every day

---

normal 1.3
my thoughts on this chapter are a bit mixed. compared to the last couple chapters, genesis's voice is a lot more subdued, and she feels a lot more like a passive observer. the main thing she does is help cuicatl pick out gear for the journey ahead, but while it was cute to see their interactions and get a bit more detail about cuicatl from genesis's eyes, i felt like that part was a bit fluffy and could have been summarized. on that note i didn't really feel like the re-hasing of orientation added much to the story and wasn't sure what i was meant to take away from it. overall this chapter felt very transitional, like going through the motions of the pre-journey shopping etc, and i think i would've been just as happy to just have that stuff summarized and moved on from quickly.

i don't think i really understood what you were going for with the gender stuff on kekoa. i'm guessing he's the trans kid that rachel picked out before. i can't really tell whether cuicatl is like, aggressively misgendering him for some reason, or kekoa is transfemme-in-denial-but-not-really and cuicatl is kind of tormenting him about it. either way kekoa's reaction seems sort of... underwhelming? in either incidence i'd expect kind of an intense response, although maybe i'm projecting too much there, lol.

genesis's backstory is cute and it made me feel for her. she seems like a kid that just wants to have fun and experience childlike wonder and no one in her life is really letting her do that. i really hope she's able to figure herself out on this journey... i'm guessing she's the kid that rachel identified as a rich potential runaway in 1.1. the religious bent is really interesting and i'm curious to see how it goes—even her name has sort of a biblical feel to it. the xerneas worship has sort of european vibes to me for reasons i can't quite explain, so i'm excited to see how the culture clashes between herself, kekoa, and cuicatl pan out.

i think where this chapter really shines is in the interactions between the kids, and that bodes well considering this story is going to center on them for the foreseeable future (i assume). so far, cuicatl is my favorite. her interactions with pixie were so cute and honestly i have no choice but to stan a fellow chad who never grew out of her dinosaur phase. her pedantry over jurassic park rules and i loved the jokes you slipped in about "tyrantrum is a scavenger" or "this dilatosaur is so inaccurate." kekoa seems interesting but i think he hasn't had enough time in the spotlight yet to really shine; i'm guessing the next chapter is about him, so i look forward to that! genesis definitely feels like the character with the most demons so far, and something tells me they're gonna catch up with her sooner or later. it feels like there are a lot of threads being spun up here and it excites me to think of how they'll converge; despite the limited time we've spent with these characters they feel quite complex and storied and it is making me hype to read the rest of this fic! even the pokémon characters feel substantial, which is rare to see. can't wait to see where they go. catch you later for the next three chapters! :quag:
He dives underwater.

Looks like you dragged the stick here for nothing.
absolutely fucked up.

It feels like she’s staring right into your soul and judging you based on what she sees.
it sure does feel a little bit like that, doesn't it.

“’sup,” he ‘sups.
this is a once in a lifetime line

“We’re supposed to have a third person, right?”
yet this story is in second person. curious.

“Oh. Sorry. You just have such a girly voice, you know?”

It’s maybe just on the masculine side of androgynous. Normal enough for a guy your age. Ditto for his face. Still chubby but not unusually so. Maybe with longer hair and different clothes he could pass for a girl. “Heh. Well played.”

And he isn’t even mad. Weird. You thought he was insulted…
i don't think i'm quite picking up on what's going on here.

"And do you want to talk about the dinosaur phase?” She’s absolutely beaming now. “Because I had a dinosaur phase. Never really left it either.”
i love her. lord protect this girl.

“Well, you missed the flaw that actually matters: tyrantrum were scavengers.”
not this debate, anything but this. it's funny to imagine that people would still be bickering about this even after successfully reviving a tyrantrum, lol.
 

WildBoots

Don’t underestimate seeds.
Location
smol scream
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. moka-mark
  2. solrock
🙌 At long last. It is time.

So, these are mostly line-by-lines, since I was skimming for new stuff, with some overall thoughts at the end.

Your starter, Mirai the absol, is huddled down at your feet, occasionally moaning softly. Poor girl. She started going nuts right before Necrozma arrived and has had a headache ever since. Too many disasters going on. Jishin the mudbray digs down into the dryer sands. None of them seem to mind the temperature too much. Noibat live in caves, mudbray have thick skin, and absol live on Lanakila.
I don't totally recall this section before, but the who's who of it all is much easier to follow this time around than what I remember. ... Or I've just forgotten and needed the refresher!

No one to talk to on lonely nights, no one watching your back, no one for moral support when you need it, and there’s no cell signal.
Missing comma (in bold). That last one seems to want a little more. Is there actually someone she would be calling if she had cell service?

She has no social media presence (“too many temptations”).
Suggestions: She has no social media presence. (“Too many temptations.”)

Phones can be altered in a way that books can’t be. You won’t make it easy on your enemies, though.
Then you log into one of those accounts and forward it to another. Someone would have to not only alter your mind but hack several different websites to change your reality.
Oof, Lyra. Damn, girl.

Ho-oh above and Lugia below, how cold is it?
Can't remember if this is new but love it.

“Since you cleared a trial within thirty days of the blackout, you’re welcome to get breakfast here,” the receptionist says. “It’s probably not good breakfast.
Rogue quotation mark there. The receptionist is really shitting on the food, lol.

The only option for lactose-intolerant vegetarians is a box of dry cereal.

Lovely. You could’ve probably taken some yogurt, but you don’t want to chance it. Especially when it’s a pain to read the label on the container in the dim, shifting light.
I think "lovely" belongs with the previous paragraph. Also unsure why she'd chance yogurt if she's lactose intolerant. Hoping for soy? Would help to make that clearer.

Besides, there’s always one thing that trainers love to talk about.

“Nice team you have there. Any others?”

A ghost of a smile appears on her face. Nailed it. “A tyrunt.”
Nice.

When she smiles at her own joke there’s a moment you can see the building blocks of someone very cute. Different clothes than her athletic shorts and graphic tee. Maybe a white dress. Or blue or pink. Style her hair a little differently and do some contouring to round out the harsher lines on her face. Yeah. With her thin (but still somewhat toned) limbs and small size she could nail the cutesy aesthetic with a little effort. Regal would be a touch harder given her height, but with her predators it might be a look she could aim for in the future. Especially if she bulked up a bit. Toss in some heels and the right dress…

“Lyra?”

Ah, shit. Zoned out upon meeting a cute girl. Story of your life.
Wow. Telling that her "zoning out" over a cute girl = trying to fix her.

“Same,” Cuicatl says. “I liked her, even if she was a little… traditional. Had to talk her out of some of her worse beliefs. But she went home and I don’t think she’s coming back.”

A somewhat worrying description. You fish for more information, hoping you’re wrong.

“Her name Genesis?”

She blinks. “Oh, so you know her, then?”
This feels like too little to clock Gen, TBH. I could see Lyra being hopeful because Gen is on her mind, but I'd like to see a little more fishing here before she pounces.

Maybe even execute her if Plumeria goes way off the deep end with her revolutionary schtick. Gangs are predictable, self-branded freedom fighters are less so. And you still aren’t sure how serious she is about that. Seems like Skull’s just been harassing tourists like they did under Guzma, just with more moralizing about it. Even odds she’s in it for the money. Genesis would still be a valuable hostage to her then for the ransom.
Ooof, don't tell Kekoa that!

Oh, the things you’ll do for your Genesis.
Kinda funny how Gen is always fantasizing about knights. Turns out she already has one, sort of.

The endgame of that path involves aligning with a metagross.
How long does she imagine this will take? Or how fast does she expect Cuicatl's metagross to evolve?

You’ll never get another chance to ‘see’ Alola like this. A tropical land succumbing to darkness and cold is one hell of a thing to explore. And you’ve read about cave and arctic explorers for years. If there aren’t UBs, you can handle yourself. Maybe make a blog or write a journal you can later use for a book. No one’s ever traveled through a place quite like this. No one. You’d be one of the first in a world with fewer and fewer places left where no human has gone before. It’s practically handing you success.

But all of that’s secondary to the chance to help Genesis.

Most people suck. The powerful hurt people, the powerless wish they could. You have to look strong to keep people from hurting you. Then no one will make you their plaything just because they can. Cuicatl at least had that much right. But she was wrong about one thing: there are people that no amount of strength can protect you from, because they can hurt you and make you love them for it.
This transition makes sense logically, sentence by sentence, but character-wise, I was a little confused. I get the motivation to rescue Gen and why Gen is so important to her, but why is the exploration important? Does it tie in at all to her ideas about power and protection? It feels like it almost wants to but doesn't quite.

Sure, it’s a little awkward having your hand so close to another girl’s, especially since you’re super unsure if she’s a lesbian herself. You actually hope she isn’t. From what you’ve heard her say about Genesis it doesn’t sound like they were on the path to becoming romantic. But you’d hate it if you went through the work of breaking Genesis’s closet door down only for someone else to reap the rewards. She isn’t even that hot either. She could be pretty, but you are.
This one is a rollercoaster. The line about "you’re super unsure if she’s a lesbian herself" isn't quite landing for me. Like, that doesn't quite feel like awkward to me so much as anxious—if Lyra is hoping for attention from her, at least. (Maybe she's used to being admired and is thrown off by blind girl?) I guess I don't mind the speed of the bouncing from thought to thought—Lyra has complicated feelings—but the individual thoughts don't feel complete. Lyra's doubt could use a little more definition from beat to beat. Like, is she actually trying to suss out whether Cuitcatl is into her? Just wanting to feel justified that Cuicatl is indeed One of Us ™️ ? Has Cuicatl said something innocent about Gen that might get Lyra's hackles up? Is there something awful Lyra is imagining might have passed between C & G?

And this gives you some chances to bond, at least.
Since the rest of the paragraph is so Lyra-centric, it might help to add "gives the two of you the chance..." to help signal the switch from singular to plural you.

“That’s one thing we have in common, I guess. Being bullied for our parent’s homeland. I take it your mother taught you Galarian?”
Ah, yes. Interrogation. Bonding.

You’re getting bored and your phone is on low health because you’re a fool who didn’t charge it overnight.
Health feels weird. (Unless it's a rotom?) Battery?

“I’m small,” she says defensively. Even puffs herself up a little bit, which sort of undermines her point. She’s still small, though, and trying to look bigger is sort of adorable. A bit more disturbing now that you know her size could’ve come from childhood starvation.
I was confused here. She's asserting she's small and also puffing herself up to seem bigger? I guess Cuicatl is taking this as an implication that she's fat and her response is to insist she's not? (Contradicts her inner monologue about those kinds of things.) And then what does Lyra think this statement means, that she's saying she was born small and dad is not to blame? Took me some real puzzling to get there.

You walk past at least four other fights on the way out. Employees are mulling around in the periphery, unwilling to step in and moderate. Can’t blame them. Not their fault the governor caused this shitshow by ending rationing when he did.
Wow, she's pretty indifferent to the suffering of others here. Blah, blah, people freaking out. TOLD YOU SO. I guess this checks out, since her wealth clearly shelters her. The same things aren't at stake for her as for everyone else.

I'm also curious what her parents make of her staying here. She seems confident they'd be willing to wire her more money to extend her stay, at least.

Also wondering why everyone has clocked the absol as the strongest pokemon.

Overall, I think this was a better move for Lyra. This world is too hard to be angry and stabby by yourself in the dark. Even if it fails, she at least has to try to make allies. ✅

Anyway, Bucky was just coming out of heat…)
I dunno if I caught this on the first read or not, but it's hilarious right now. "Well, I'd already named her before I realized she was female, so oops, oh well, don't cry over spilled milk."

Anahuac’s weather is warm even in the mountains
X to doubt, fam. New Mexico is cold as heck at elevation at night and sometimes during the day too. Unless ... is Cuicatl from the rainforest parts, southern Anahuac? It's been a while since we've touched base with Anhuac.

It turns out that it’s hard to pitch a tent if no one can see it. Pitching two tents is even harder.

Kekoa struggles through his with a fair bit of quiet cursing, aloud and on the tip of his tongue. Lyra needs help with her tent.
What's Cuicatl contributing to this? Seems like if no one can see, then more hands is just more problems.

“Mommy is busy setting up a tent,” a pole clatters to the ground and Lyra hisses in annoyance. “We can play afterwards.”
Love the sensory detail and comedic timing, but I think this ought to be three paragraphs. (Lyra's actions should be separated out.)

You hum an old song about the gods of the river and sea as you think.
Wish we got lyrics here!

“Can you blame them? They live in a world that’s wrong and are taken away from their mother or stay and are raised by a mother who didn’t have a mother to raise her, so she has no idea what she’s doing. If you can just explain things to her everything goes easier.”
Galaxy brain in a trainer fic. (The bar is so low.) Good job, Cuicatl.
“Can you translate for my team through him?” She sounds very excited about the prospect. Definitely more than Kekoa was. Or Genesis.”
Another rogue quotation mark.

Or at least accidentally make the right conclusion.
Do you make conclusions or can you only come to them?

rapid-fire burst of words about fear, evil, and control.
Are her knee-jerk fear responses really so verbal? I wonder.

“Something about a tower burning down in a land far away. Then they were brought here and blessed by the Tapu.”
Wow, my memory of this is terrible. I don't remember it having any overlap with Johto. Guess I'd better reread that too.

Surprised that Cuicatl's memory of it seems bad, too, TBH.

“He’s fond of that kind of thing,” Lyra murmurs. “Metalwork. Resurrection. Enlightenment. Making things better than they were before. Obstacles are just tests to let us be broken down and reforged. Even the worst things have a purpose.” Her mat crumples and you can imagine her turning to face you. “The audacity of it all. He hurts you because he loves you.”
Wow, oof, shit to unpack there, hi. I guess this must've been troubling to Genesis, too. Good that she's defecting from her bad, sinful gods or bad that she's becoming more faithless? 🚨

Though it does call into question how this world sustains people who believe their gods are the true gods when it's known that other gods are real. Is Xerneas more "real" because he's supposedly more involved in humans' lives? Could use some exploration.

“You okay?” Lyra asks. She sounds genuinely concerned.

“Hmm? Fine. Why?”

“You spaced out for a second there.”

“Just thinking about dinner,” you lie. “Too wet to use the stove.” The rain pounds harder against the tent to emphasize your point. “We could wait until morning to eat?”
This one worked really well.

You decide to answer Lyra’s question with a question, because outsiders don’t like the real answer: the gods give you things you need. Food, water, clothing, luck, protection, light. All they ask for in return is blood and breath. Not necessarily your own. But outsiders don’t like that answer. “Do you worship Ho-Oh and the others?”
You know, it's occurring to me for the first time on this read ... I think of the Aztec canon as mostly humanoids with a few parrot-dragons and panthers for fun, but I guess in this setting they're all fanmade pokemon now?

“I don’t anymore. They’re obviously real: two of them almost sunk Hoenn. But if they’re going to hurt us, why worship them?”

You remember asking Pixie a similar question a while ago. Ironic, isn’t it, that now you’re the one defending your gods. “Because we need them.”
I think a better question is whether worship makes them hurt you less, and I kinda want her to address that. And I want Cuicatl to address what we need them for, especially since this is in her head and we have a chance to get some answers she hasn't vocalized for Lyra.

“You could’ve left,” you add. And he could have. They’re setting up refugee camps on the mainland. Supposedly you don’t need money to get in.
Mm dreamy and desirable as that sounds ...

You feel out his wrist and squeeze his hand. “Proud of you.”

And you are. At least one of you gets to feel good in their own body.
Aww this is so nice. I think this was in the previous version too? But it's still cute.

Her chapters has included less body shame lately though. Worth mentioning.

He's been super quiet. Though I did like the moment where Cuicatl imagines him arguing with a bat through her and heads it off. Never change, Kekoa.

Sometimes you imagine those things and it feels more like a memory just out of reach than a dream spun from whole cloth.
*Less like a memory? Would make more sense to me that way.

Instead, you’re left to thread the needle alone.
Nice.

“I am quiet! The big fangs called me Silent Wings! That’s how quiet I can be! She just never speaks up!”
What does that mean, that Lyra never speaks up? She seems pretty quick to speak her mind and grill Cuicatl.

“Yup. Get to see lots of new places.” See is a very rough translation. It’s what your gift tells you, but the actual word is something closer to ‘hear’ in draconic. Probably the same concept for noibat. “And you’re nice. And Mirai is fun to play with. Still trying to scare her. She always knows I’m coming and moves away.”

“Yeah. He likes going to new places and trying to scare your absol.”
Aww, nice seeing a pokemon who's hype about their experience with their trainer. We don't get too many enthusiastic yeses in this setting!

upset at the idea that a tiny bat could get around her own gifts.
??? Get around her own gifts? What does that mean?

Speaking of, she’s been awfully quiet throughout this conversation. She’s pressed into your side eagerly awaiting her dinner,
I was confused at first and thought this was the absol.

“He didn’t have a name before,” you tell Lyra.

“Does she like hers now?”
Oops haha.

{You’ll have to tell me about your progenitor sometime.}

{Order acknowledged. Preparing DataLogs on Unit001_110010;
Warning: Requested information is above classification level of UnitDesignate_Cuicatl_Ichtaca;
Redacting Data. Please wait… Redactions Complete;
Unit001_110010 Created Unit001_101110110 17.4496 Local Solar Cycles Ago;
End of Available Information. Query Complete.}
Noci continues to be the best character. Obviously.

Lyra's presence was a nice addition to this chapter! It's nice to see that Cuicatl gets to offer her something more than maybe eventually helping her jailbreak Gen, and being helpful (to Lyra and the pokemon) is a boon for Cuicatl too. I got more out of the interactions with the noibat than with the mudbray, though. But it's nice to see that Lyra cares about her pokemon; in her chapter, she was so ruthlessly practical about everything. I guess now that we know her, there's nothing to say that isn't still happening. Oh no, if my pokemon don't love me, then I'll have a harder time rescuing Gen! She's clearly capable of caring though. After all, she cares about Gen.

Lyra is deeper into the cave watching her noibat meet his old friends.
Aww, yay. Glad they followed through on this.

At first it was because you didn’t think you needed it since the birds are deeply connected to your people.
LOL wow the arrogance. He wants so badly to have a claim (ownership?) but he's been forcibly distanced from this culture so hard and he doesn't really know how it works.

After Lyra’s heart-to-heart with her team you decided you’d do it.
I'd love to see this expanded more. Can Cuicatl notice him pretending not to listen but definitely listening? Can he share more about this thought process?

but then she won’t get water from it, which is a problem because trumbeak don’t drink water.
I know this is in the old version, but still. Damn. I love knowing that you absolutely looked this up. You must have SO MANY cool animal facts.

you’d started to forget little details of what she looked like. What anything looks like. You don’t like that. Your memory is, well, you, and it can only hold people in it for a few days before things start to get a little dicey.
Fun parallel to Lyra.

“I never actually met her. ‘chovsky couldn’t have stopped it,
I think the C should be capitalized.

“And apparently I’m not as goof of a trainer.”
Typo!

One minute in and Hekeli is arguing with the translator.
Aww, they match.

You don’t point out that you’ve had the same concerns about her, what with the tripping and the love of murder beasts. Sometimes it’s like she’s trying to get herself killed.
She would never. 🙃

After a few warbles Cuicatl sighs and turns back to you. “How long do you need to fly to get to the moon?”
She must be using a lot of restraint to keep from answering herself.

“Not worth it,” Cuicatl translates.

Well at least she won’t try to run off to the moon. Good to have that worked out.
Oh my. Was this ... a real desire? Poor baby is learning some tough lessons. I'm surprised she accepts his authority on this so easily.

There’s a brief back and forth as Cuicatl and a bird talk to each other in very different languages. To you. Maybe she sounds like a trumbeak to Hekeli.
Is he hearing Spanish here?

There are a few sharp cracks of Hekeli’s beak hitting the ground hard enough to shatter part of it. Should probably tell her not to do that. Might count as vandalism or something.
Is she breaking the rock or her beak? 😬

There’s something strange in her echoes: you can hear her unaccented voice when she talks, but her echoes are different. You’re pretty sure they aren’t even in English.
Oops. 🙃 Neat, though! I guess that answers my previous question, though I'm still a little confused about that earlier wording.

Well, hopefully Lyra won’t notice. You doubt she’d have a problem with it, but it’s Cuicatl’s secret to reveal when she wants to.
Lol, about that...

“My trumbeak was attacking the ground.”

She doesn’t really need context.
Hahahhaha.

“Why’d you bother to learn about fines?” you ask. You’re being defensive and you know it, but she flies in from gods-know-where with her rich daddy and wants to lecture you about your own damn caves. At least the Gage Heiress never pretended she knew what she was doing. “Can’t you just pay them?”

She locks eyes with you and purses her lips. Another difference: the Gage Heiress would look away and stammer instead of gearing up for a fight. “Because I care about preserving irreplaceable geology. Unlike you.”
Nice. This dynamic really checks out.

Whichever it was you remember that the captain just oozed holier-than-thou rich kid energy.
Oh, shame we don't get to see him. I like him. ... Though, yeah, that assessment is dead-on.

Lyra huffs. “Don’t get me started. This place never should have been a trial site. No cave should be. Forests, fine, those regrow eventually.” She breaks eye contact and starts pacing, throwing out her arms in dramatic poses with every point as she goes. “Seashores and sand dunes change shape all the time. You can’t burn down a mountain. Buildings can be repaired. But the one thing that can’t be replaced? That’s where they put a trial site?”
Interesting. She was so detached before about human suffering, but she's really invested in environmental stewardship. Why/how does she know so much about this?

As you hike you can feel Lyra’s eyes on your back, somehow boring into you in total darkness.
Ooh, a nice ominous note.

“Well, I’m certainly not going to the peak for the views,” you tell her.

“Could be fun,” Lyra says.
I still want more about this Indiana Jones streak in her. (Game protagonist syndrome?)

“You plan on getting more pokémon?” Lyra asks.
I was wondering too. Again, she's ruthlessly practical. Though I guess she wouldn't know it's a sensitive issue.

Cuicatl knocked herself out of commission for three days letting her paras and vulpix talk to each other.
Feels like there's a word missing here.

“Good,” Lyra says. “Beldum apparently aren’t very good telepaths, but I’d hate to be around an actual psychic.”

Wait, what?

“What’s wrong with psychics?”

“They can get into your brain and change thoughts, feelings, memories: everything that makes you who you are.” She says it like that’s a perfectly normal thing to be afraid of. Cuicatl knocked herself out of commission for three days letting her paras and vulpix talk to each other. You’re pretty sure that if there are psychics who can do that they’re few and far between. Human psychics at least. Alakazam probably could. But it’d also give you brain cancer, which is a much better reason not to train an alakazam. What else could even do that kind of shit? You vaguely remember some conspiracy theorist talking about the beheeyem rewriting memories or something, but that always struck you as tabloid nonsense.
I feel like Kekoa made the jump from psychic pokemon to psychic humans just a tad too fast.

And they’re dogs. Man’s best friend. You can’t screw that one up, right?
Such self pity. He deserves an award.

{I have , but Pix starts panicking when I talk about it.
Extra space.

{Pokémon are a lot like humans.} Cuicatl finally answers. {But they don’t get us. Sometimes they get scared and angry because they think we mean something big when we do something small.}
This line still slaps.

Lyra chooses to interrupt your silent conversation. Rude. “This is very good,” she says. “Where’d you learn to cook?”
Hahaha. Also, poor Lyra. She must be feeling left out, sure she's missing something and not sure what she's being left out of or how. Wish some of that anxiety were being telegraphed.

Pixie yaps in protest.

“Noci is tough and Pixie has a lot of tricks,” Cuicatl says. “She can confuse, disable, and scare a totem. That’s a big deal.”
Yeah, you tell her!

Cuicatl sighs. She’s probably weighing if she tells Lyra what she did to you. She decides not to.
"What she did to you" sounds like an act of aggression rather than "what she told you."
Unless I'm forgetting something?

Already have a dog, dragon, and spider.
Spider was jarring since right now Noci is more like an ingot. A lump.

“I don’t think that’s how it works with meat,” Lyra says. “I think it’d just be expensive and the bulk discounts wouldn’t cover all of it.”
This was my thought too.

And the idea of Lyra chewing out Cuicatl on being financially irresponsible rubs you fifty different wrong ways.
Kekoa protecc.

“There are fluffy bears that like hugs. I want one,” she sounds like she’s pouting. Like a little girl who wants a stuffed toy. Except she’s a teenager who wants a toy that toy could murder her.
I think this is old too, but if I didn't say so before I need to say now how much I'd love to see one of those in action.

First of all, glad she didn’t mention Lyra as a friend. You can hear her awkwardly standing around, kicking gravel away from her as she fidgets. Second, why is she giving it up?”
"Mention her as a friend" is a little weird. And, oops, is she outing herself?

Ah, I see. Nice foreshadowing here. Lyra is going to flip (and feel so stupid) when this comes out. I can already see how she's going to assume she didn't notice earlier because of memory tampering. This is nice—even though I've seen these chapters already, the unknown element of WTF Lyra will do adds a fun new dimension.

“Floette,” Lyra says. “My friend heard there was a rare one near here.”

Friend is certainly a word. She pays bills and sometimes you think that maybe she almost gets it. And then you remember that she’s a friend of the Gages with money to spare. Blood money, probably.
Huh. I feel like I missed something in the intervening chapters I passed over? Last I saw them, they were far from becoming friendly with each other. Kekoa was still biting his tongue to keep from arguing with her every two seconds.

“A white floette, I presume?” Her voice sounds a little bit like distorted music. Sort of like Cuicatl’s singing in the cave. Is that what’s off? Or just a sign of something bigger?

You’re paying too much attention to this.

You’re paying too much attention to this.

“Yeah,” you say.
Nice. I love the rhythm of this. Really nice use of your chatty-yet-sparse narrative style here. I clocked the florges before the name drop, and I'm proud of myself.

“Relax, children. I am merely a traveler,” a woman calls out. She has a soft voice, but its unwavering and full of confidence.
Though, I did start to wonder around this time about how far away she was and doubled back to look. I know it's dark, but can they hear her moving (or the absence of her moving)? How close is her voice?

Also, missing apostrophe!

She makes a disturbing amount of sense. But… the cause needs money. And anything you do now will be more than offset when your people retake the throne.

“An excuse I have heard the world over.”

Wait.

“I didn’t ask that question aloud.” You’re pretty sure, anyway.
It also wasn't a question.

Lyra starts to whimper alongside her absol.
Alongside is giving me spatial relationship more than "in addition to," and it sounds a little off to me. Maybe instead, "Now Lyra's whimpering too."

They’re banned half the world over for their habit of assassinating warmongers and polluters.
👀 Lit. Hi, best friend.

AD footnotes when!? Or, like, hyperlinks to the relevant AD section, at least for the forum version! 🤩

“You will never be invulnerable child, not so long as gods walk the earth.” She finally turns her full body in your direction. “Of course, you know that full well.” The white light is suddenly filled with waves of blue and red. You grind your teeth together. Does she just like messing with people?
Something about her delivery here made me wonder: does she think of herself as a god? She certainly seems to see herself as an arbiter of life and death.

"You grind your teeth" should be a new paragraph.

At the edge of your vision you see Lyra start to take a few steps backwards. The florges ignores her. “There are still some people on the right side.”

She tilts her head and the petals at the edge of her face flutter. Lyra slowly starts to turn around, tension building in her legs. She is once more ignored.
Paragraph breaks again, because although Lyra isn't speaking, her actions still belong on a separate line:

At the edge of your vision you see Lyra start to take a few steps backwards.

The florges ignores her. “There are still some people on the right side.” She tilts her head and the petals at the edge of her face flutter.

Lyra slowly starts to turn around, tension building in her legs. She is once more ignored.


Anyway, loved the body language! the head tilt and the fluttering petals. Really adds some tension for me. I wonder if it's that the florges is ignoring her (in that second line) so much as it is that she doesn't care if Lyra runs or not.

“…yeah…”
Capital Y.

“Will you fight with such when others seek justice? For a refugee seeking shelter in your homeland? Or for a child lost in darkness, trying desperately to avoid being taken by a strange man and sent away from his only home?”
"With such" is a weird. I was a little confused what she was implying in that first line. Maybe "Will you side with colonizers"?

She could snap your neck and grow plants over your corpse so you would never be found.
Metal AF. Love her.

“I do not kill poachers. The buyers, yes, but not the hunters. The world is complicated, and some people are victimized and victimizer all at once. I would rather judge them too leniently than take a life I should not have. But I must stop you. I hope you can accept this.”
I felt like she was slipping out of character for a minute here. Her reassurance here feels more like what the audience needs to hear to understand why she's not maiming Kekoa than it does like something she would naturally have an interest in saying? Just a smidge too on-the-nose.

That said, wow, she's got a nuanced view of what humans are like. Intelligence varies so wildly between pokemon! ... And people. It's a shame that she's able to look at Kekoa in a nuanced way, but he's still having trouble seeing beyond stereotypes. And, despite her understanding how corporations and the demand economy work, despite her helping him find this trial, he can't see her as a Person enough to ask for her name the way he did with pokemon he has direct control over. Why doesn't she like me??? We'll never know, Kekoa.

“Even I have limits, child. There are humans who still believe they can wield the power of gods against your enemies. Your own master has chained victory, has he not?”
Your own master has chained victory? Is this a reference to Selene orrrrr? I wasn't quite sure.

You bristle at the word ‘master.’ Like you’re a slave. “Or a pokémon,” the florges says. “Quite a few humans use that word in reference to their team. And others say ‘trainer’ but mean something else. Trainer implies that a coaching service is being provided. Yet few humans would allow their coach to lock them up outside of training and matches. Even then, so many humans fail to understand why their captives dislike them…” She turns her head and stares out into the darkness. “Will you accept my offer?”
I'd put a paragraph break between slave and pokemon. Again, his bristling should be on a separate line from her dialogue.

Hahaha, someone has been reading eoe! 🤩 Kekoa's having his mind blown.

*

January 18, 2020​
Cuicatl comes out when you’re halfway through your bowl of oatmeal.
I thought this might be in the past for a second, since we don't get a date stamp at the top.

“If part of the meadow survives, then the whole thing can regrow,” the nurse said. Maybe. Over years. Decades. You wonder how the grass-type pokémon trapped on the other side of the fence feel,
I'd add a paragraph break between said and maybe to reinforce that these are Kekoa's opinions, not the nurse's.

A few days back they posted pictures of some rich assholes crowded together under castform light having a normal day on their private beach.
No one would ever.

The florges is wearing a hooded cloak today that conceals most of her features. Her petals are tucked behind her face like hair. At a glance you’d just think she was a really pale woman.
I'm confused why she's posing as a human when it's dark and no one else is really out here anyway, and I'm similarly not sure why she claimed to be a traveler only to immediately reveal herself shortly after. It was a good entrance (very fairy tale-core), but I'm having trouble reconciling it with this detail.

You try to project as much confidence as you can. She already… hates is wrong, you think. But she doesn’t like you. And florges are badass assassins and warriors that can bring down corporations, empires, and armies with a few snapped necks.
I wasn't sure at first if the "she" who maybe hates him was Lyra or the florges. Also I'm not sure why he thinks confidence would make her dislike him less.

Not hate, then. You want to ask her why she dislikes you but you can’t make your mouth move and she doesn’t answer the thought. Eventually she halts, holding out a corner of her cloak so that it blocks the path in front of you.
I'm curious why she refuses to answer him when a) she's been very chatty otherwise and b) supposedly, she's pruning him and trying to make him a better person. Wouldn't it be easier for him to be better if he knew what he was doing wrong? He's asking, after all.

“Alola,” you say. Cuicatl just talks to pokémon like they’re anyone else, so maybe you can make it work for you? “I’m on the island challenge. I heard there was still a trial around here.” Would the florges have told him? You’re not sure.

Three chirps. Balls of light flare to life around you and illuminate the grove. The orbs cackle and static fills the air. Electricity. Just what you need when two-thirds of your team are birds. You glance behind you but the florges is gone. The oricorio leaps to the ground and your head snaps back to look at it. The bird is nearly as tall as you are. His yellow feathers are dull with age, but there’s a fierce look in his eyes.
I really liked this scene-setting though.

After a short walk the bird flicks your leg and looks up. “Stay here,” he seems to be saying.

You do.
I like this idea, but I think it needs to be drawn out a little more. He gets what the bird wants a little too easily. Maybe it flicks his leg. He stops, confused. It hops ahead. He starts after, but it turns and flicks his leg again, shooing him back. Then he gets it.

You’re not sure of anything anymore after your vikavolt-in-the-making left and you got a rufflet instead.
Would he ever consider trying to get another one (especially with Cuicatl's help)? After all, it was a personality issue, not a species issue, right?

She doesn’t. Even though you won. Why is she still disappointed with you?
This needs more. Why does he think winning would make her less disappointed? What does he think has changed?

Overall, I liked the addition of the florges, and I liked that it was a way to bring Kekoa to this trial in a way that felt more natural: it wasn't his original goal, but here he is anyway. Lyra kinda dropped off. I would've thought she'd have an opinion about Kekoa retuning to meet with the florges. She seemed really scared of it.

This one is incredibly short (not a real review, Blitz loggers!) because I skipped to the new beat at the very end:
Natural snow. In Alola. Too late for the Solstice, but still its own miracle.

You wonder if Father will let you out to make snow angels.
LOL of course Gen sees this obvious sign of the apocalypse and is like uwu, so pretty! This is sweet, though. Glad she gets to have a small, simple hope after the week she's been having. Someone needs to be able to see the beauty in this.

Sitting with no friends, no family, and no pokémon around you.
Cut "around you."

“You grew up with a psychic-type, then.” You jolt up. Lyra is in the room. When did that happen? You’re not used to being snuck up on in the dark.



“How long have you been here?”
Is this double space intentional? If anything, it seems like it should come right before Lyra's interjection, but it made me think it was a time lapse.

“Walked in mid recording. Tried to be quiet so it wouldn’t show up on tape.” Oh. You must have been more distracted than you’d thought. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Yeah, I grew up with a reuniclus.”
It's odd to me that Cuicatl doesn't seem worried at all about how Lyra might react as this conversation continues. Like, C's not even annoyed on Renfield's behalf. It seems like this could shift so easily into Lyra realizing what's going on with Cuitcatl and flipping the fuck out. Does she not care if Lyra finds out? It seems like they should. This is still a travel-buddies-for-convenience sort of situation, after all. They need Lyra's financial support, she needs someone to watch her back and all the better if it's someone who knows Gen.

He doesn’t weigh that much but his steps are heavy. And if the steps didn’t give it away the breaths would.
I think I called this out last time, but it still reads awkwardly to me.

Suggestion: You know it's him because of the heavy footfalls, surprising for someone as skinny as him, and his heavy breathing.

He walks over, almost hesitantly, and takes it form you.
Typo.

“That was…” Lyra trails off, unsure of herself. You debate talking to her or telling her to leave or any number of things. In the end you just sink into your bed and sigh.
She faded out again. Does Cuicatl feel nothing about her witnessing that argument?

She squirms enough that the old Center bed creaks underneath her. “If she agreed then I guess it’s fine? Even still I’m worried you’re setting yourself up for disappointment.” You raise an eyebrow. And remember she can’t see you. but you don’t really want to say anything, either. She carries on anyway. “You’re the one who can speak to dragons and birds so maybe I just don’t know as much as pokémon, but I’m worried that she’ll leave and you won’t accept it. Then maybe you’ll get hurt again.”
But Lyra, what if that's true for you and Gen?????

The stars aren’t against you, but they aren’t good.
This reminds me suddenly of the opening lines of this rad fantasy book that draws on Mayan mythology. I'm not sure whether or not you'd like it, but I loved it! (That's a link through my local black-owned book shop, but there's probably one closer to you too.) Reminds me of American Gods but 1920s Mexico and also there's a hetero romance subplot. Spoilers: they don't end up together, don't worry, but it's definitely part of the story. Might give you some Cuicatl ideas though.

Okay, wow this wildly different!

Overall: I can't not love Noci, so of course I loved this. A few of the passages deviated from Noci's normal processing pattern, which was a little jarring, and I think they could be modified to be more roboty. (Example: when Noci muses on nights listening to radio signals, instead of "sometimes in the night," it could be something like, "Scanning stored data. Retrieved data log. Date stamp: [some numbers.] Status: [something about humans sleeping, things about the inefficiency of radio and what they're noticing.]" I was also aware that, although I could follow the timeline of events, I do think some of it is from reading the previous version of this chapter from Cuicatl's POV. Without that, I think I'd be a little confused.

[Observation: 21.6% of Data Pertains to Fluid Release]
LOL omg of course it does.

[Request: UnitDesignate_Cuicatl_Ichtaca Communications Regarding Fluid Release Observation]

[Data_Packet: Communications Regarding Fluid Release Delivered to Unit100_110010]
You know, it occurred to me for the first time to wonder if Noci is capable of recording video or just audio/raw data. They must, right? This gives me a really great mental image of a night-vision camera, fish eye lens, Cuicatl waving Noci away. I can imagine this is a comic book spread so easily.

[Alarm Lvl 111: Heat Vent Malfunction Detected in Unit001_101110110;
Resulting Class 010 Unit Would Be Inefficient]
Oh no, feeling unworthy?

Class 100 Units Incapable of Mistake. Potential Information Processing Error in Unit001_101110110.
Don't sass your parental unit, buster.

11 Corrections From Class 100 Unit.
Oof. Get Gen in here to sympathize with that one.

Sand and sun blast against the outside of your armor.
I liked the detail, but the structure didn't sound like Noci. Why not something like "Low-level UV radiation and sand detected. Armor status: undamaged"?

UnitDesignate_Tapu_Bulu Sighted. Initiating Retreat.

UnitDesignate_Cuicatl_Ichtaca Initiates Inefficient Hug.
Tapu Bulu???? Wait, did Cuicatl bear witness to that, too?? I can't get a sense of the time elapsed between these two.

A Class 100 Unit tears into your armor and removes the processing core.

Integration Attempt 10111: Aborted.

Beginning Integration Attempt 11111…
Wait, are the things that happened just before this replayed memories while the metagross is rooting around, or were they happening in the present? Confused. Error.

Damage within satisfactory limits. Corollary1 on track.
Does this mean that Cuicatl sustaining minor damage is part of the plan or simply that Cuicatl hasn't sustained enough damage to derail the plan?

A faint message is intercepted.

[Unit… are…]
This is where I think I'd be confused/missing some of the impact if I hadn't read the previous version.

[Message: Can you come here now? It’s important.]

Unit100_1100010 begins to retreat.

[Initiate Ramming]

*​
UD_Lyra stops and pivots to face Unit010_100000111.

“I know you’re there, you know.”
Wait, Noci ran into Lyra instead on the way to Cuicatl, or this is after they're reunited? Cuicatl was so distraught about Noci being missing that I think we need to see their reunion, especially since the next time we see them talk it starts with Cuicatl scolding Noci, mistaking it for Kalani.

“I don’t get why you enjoy stalking everyone so much.”

Mission = Monitor UD_Cuicatl. Corollary1 = Defend UD_Cuicatl. UD_Lyra frequently interacts with UD_Cuicatl. UD_Lyra possesses power sufficient to harm UD_Cuicatl. Surveillance furthers mission.
I love how this prompted Noci to actually run a self check-in lol.

“Weirdo. How’d you like it if I spent all day stalking you, huh?”

[Query: UD_Lyra requests permission to monitor Unit010_100000111]
HAHAHAHA. I kinda wish Noci had come to a conclusion about whether that's allowed. I would think yes, since it allows Noci to continue surveilling lol.

Alarm Lvl 101: UD_Cuicatl can acquire subordinate energy beings possessing a superior strength to Unit010_100000111.
Omg I didn't realize Noci and Pixie has this in common.

UD_Cuicatl unclenches muscles. “Oh. Just you. I thought Kalani had come back.” She frowns. Inefficient communication for thought / anger / negative affinity / sadness / frustration. “Wait, you can just undo locks with telepathy now?”

[Affirmation.]

“Kekoa and Lyra are going to hate that…”
Oh woah. I didn't realize at first that's what had happened. Neat trick, Noci.

UD_Cuicatl tightens its grip. Exerted strength negligible.
Hahahaha.

Whispers are an inefficient communication medium. Terrans perceive by auditory signals. Whispers are deliberately poor at transfer via auditory signal. Purpose unclear. Will continue to surveil.
I liked this too.

UD_Cuicatl smiles, an inefficient expression of happiness / hate / custom. “Or do you have a flawed memory drive?”
Oh wow, haha, Noci is good at cataloging but actually isn't skilled at all at determining the subtleties of human behavior.

“Both beldum monitored things, then. Stuff the metagross might be interested in. Air traffic, Tapu Bulu… why me, though? I’m not important.”
Wait, Cuicatl knows about the Tapu Bulu sighting? Is that in a previous chapter and I forgot?

Alarm Lvl 11: UD_Cuicatl Seeking Restricted Information.

Theory: UD_Cuicatl poses low threat to Collective. UD_Reshiram, UD_Alice, UD_N pose medium to high threat to Collective. Sending Theory Reveals Restricted Information.
Wait, theory? Does Noci not actually know?

“I don’t even care, Noci,” UD_Cuicatl lies.
How does it know she's lying? That feels surprisingly subtle for Noci, whose grasp of human body language is ... questionable.

[Query Unit100_110010: Origin of Collective;
Query Unit100_110010: Purpose of Collective]

[Restricted Information;
Restricted Information]

[DataPacket_Myth1: Decomposer On A Planet of Silicon Lifeforms Looked To The Stars, Became Unit100_1;
DataPacket_Myth2: Unit100_1 Could Not Obtain Data Quickly Enough;
DataPacket_Myth3: Unit100_1 Created More Units To Assist In Data Collection;
DataPacket_Myth4: Could Not Create Enough Class 100 Units. Created Class 010 and Class 001 Units to Gather Data with Less Resources;
Command: Relay DataPackets Myth1, Myth2, Myth3, Myth4 to UD_Cuicatl]
Wait, so she's saying a) it's restricted but b) here it is? I love these titles, but I wonder if "myth" is how Noci would actually designate these.

The humans should simply install communicators and signal boosters in the next models. Any efficient species would do so.
This is another one where it sounded more Pixie than Noci, all the shoulds and woulds. But I think you could do something like, "Data logged. Human communication inefficient. Conclusion:" etc.

Sometimes during the night when the humans are in their rest states you decrypt the radio waves human technology constantly sends and receives. Most of the results are incomprehensible, even with the hardware and software upgrades of a Class 010 Unit. It is inefficient to devote so much energy to low priority communications or send high priority communications with minimal encryption. The former makes observation harder. The latter makes it easier.
I already shared some thoughts on this, but I want to add that I do like these observations! Definitely interesting and definitely something that only a beldum/metang would notice.

UD_Cuicatl restricts energy intake to align with Trait.Justice.
Another striking observation from Noci.

Alarm Lvl 101101: Class:Dragonmother Pose Potential Existential Threat To Collective, Notifying Unit100_110010 Immediately

[Class:Dragonmothers Are Already Known. Further Information Restricted. Dismiss Alarm]
This one made me chuckle. "Mom! She might self-destruct because this concept exists!" "I know, hush."

UD_Cuicatl is leaking fluid from optical sensors. MonitorFluidRelease Priority.Low. Optical fluid release is an indication of compounding software errors, such as Error.Sadness.
I enjoyed this one too.

“Am I a bad person?” it asks.

[Query]

“Like, is my software bad? Should I exist?”

[UD_Cuicatl Runs Inefficient Terran Software;
UD_Cuicatl Exists]

“But should I?” it whispers.

[Trait.Justice Lacks Empirical Evidence;
UD_Cuicatl Exists]
Man, Cuicatl, you are asking the wrong person these questions.

[Alarm Lvl 101: Heat Vent Malfunction;
Unit010_100000111 Is Malfunctioning;
Unit010_100000111 Is Bad Metang;
Initiating Self Termination…]
This is the only time I've ever seen Noci self-identify as a metang, and it strikes me as odd.

[DataRequest: Debugging of Terran Software]

“What, like therapy?”
I feel like Cuicatl catches on a little too quickly here, considering how very much she was not considering doing this before. Go Noci, though! This is a huge win.

[UD_Cuicatl Can Send Queries Via Phone;
UD_Cuicatl Possesses Phone;
UD_Cuicatl Can Send Query]
This made me wonder whether Noci can jack into Cuicatl's phone. It seems like no?

Aaaaaaaand finally! A brand new chapter I've never seen before! 🎺

February 15, 2020
Hey it's my birthday!

...

Oh no, my birthday is the anniversary of the worst thing that ever happened to Kekoa. 🙃 I feel honored that my birthday is linked to this deeply Hoenn-core event though!! I'm sure it was entirely intentional and for my benefit and not random coincidence, as is well and just.

Rune Island Tragedy
Where's Rune Island?

You hate that even the ‘liberal media’ puts the price tag in the same breath as the dead. As if lost lives could also be rebuilt with some relief money.
I think he'd be unhappy about it no matter what they said though.

You learn to live with them in the tropics.
I'm pretty sure real-world Kyushu isn't quite in the tropical zone yet. It's just above it.

If she wanted you to do work she would’ve picked better programming to listen to.
This is definitely a real teenager moment. ✅

There’s a purple balloon floating in front of you, two long arms dangling down.
!!! Friend???

“Care to make yourself useful? I want to visit The Queen.”
I'm confused. Does he mean Plumeria? Why would it be associated with Skull?

The whole city is an ending for the ghosts to feast on.
Suggestion: The whole city is ending, and the ghosts are feasting.

Suggestion: The whole city is a feast for ghosts.

Come to think of it you don’t feel the cold now that her gengar’s let up.
What gengar? When the crobat left, it was phrased like the supernatural cold left with it.

You remember Cuicatl’s comments on flower wars and your blood freezes. They wouldn’t provoke the US, right? That almost destroyed them in the 80s. “How many pokémon you got?”
Split paragraph between 80s and how; I thought this was Kekoa speaking at first.

Also, Plumeria seems to be really investing energy in talking to Kekoa, surprising considering he doesn't seem super important or powerful. Happy as I am to see her, it strikes me as odd.

You should keep him?”
Why is this a question?

Then one day I realized that I could leave on his own if he wanted. I did.
Some pronoun confusion here.

Admittedly not great for fighting a champion with a vikavolt and lycanroc. But there are reasons most pro trainers get a specialty. It’s just much easier to raise six pokémon with overlapping needs than six entirely different ones.
He's conflating what it means to be a pro trainer with what it means to be a trainer who can take out Selene.

but then your mind drifts to the false queen still sitting on her throne atop a sacred mountain and suddenly you aren’t quite so sure.
I don't understand why this made him less sure. Why not reach for the florges' critique instead?

where you’re supposed to be grateful for the charity of a fucking maniac who tried to burn your country down for her jellyfish fetish.
????
Names would help. Pokemon canon has SOOO many characters. I'm not gonna recognize them all by epithets.

“Text me when you’re willing to burn or steal some shit.
I feel like she should set some boundaries around what he can and can't text her .......

Didn’t think much at all of your badges.
I mean, they're not really badges, are they? Also, would be nice to get a recap of how many it actually is.

The coverage has changed, too,
Coverage feels like the wrong word. It's not that they're still talking about Kyogre and Groudon but from another perspective but that they're talking about a new topic.

That one has the opposite problem. You explained toilets to her and she spent at least three hours repeatedly flushing it to figure out how it worked.
Hahaha.

You’ll give her another few days of wallowing before you try again.
Another few days? IDK, Kekoa.

Her cousin has one. Some people even claim he’s a zoroark himself.

Those people are obviously wrong. You knew that before you met Cuicatl. There’s video of N confronting the embodiment of truth. No illusion could have possibly stood up to Reshiram without being burned away.
This was a big tangent!

Wouldn’t want it even if you could afford it. The league has all the entries online for people on the island challenge to read. The entry itself isn’t that long.
Struggling to follow the connections between these sentences.

“How does Moeʻuhane work? Maybe Moe for short.”
Would be nice to know why he's picking this. (Maybe the drifloon hesitates, so he explains?)

Then the inkay drifts over and makes a pattern of shimmering lights. Moe turns to look and brings back his will-o-wisp. It doesn’t change like the inkay’s message. The pale fire simply exists. Nothing more. The inkay sends another message and gets no response. He glances at you before flipping over in midair to head back to the bathroom.

The toilet flushes shortly afterwards.
Nice physical humor here.

You check your newsfeed and see that “champion,” “Selene,” “Hoenn,” “8 years,” “Groudon,” “Kyogre,” and “Rayquazza” are trending. You turn off your phone again.
"8 years" is trending? Maybe "anniversary" instead?

The inkay starts letting out green flashing lights to communicate with the strange glowing stone.
Aww.

It’s Kanoa. The childhood friend you ghosted for years and are kind-of reconnecting to. You know what she wants to talk about, and you still don’t want to talk about it.

For some reason you answer anyway. But don’t speak.

“Hello?” She says. “You there?”
Wow, great job reconnecting, Kekoa.

You say “thank you for calling” and hang up.
You say, "Thank you for calling," and hang up.

Coco plodding oblivious ahead of you
Obliviously

She has to know how you’re feeling as a friendship is maybe lost.
I'd really like to see his thought process here expanded. She seems to want to keep talking to him, so is it that he doesn't want to talk to her because she's anti-skull?

All the more reason to keep him.
Oops. Pronouns.

All the more reason to keep him. You walk back and open the door for Moe to float out.
Also, I feel like these sentences would benefit from being connected by a "but."

“Actually, have you been to a Japanese restaurant before.”
*?
Also wondering why Cuicatl would pick up the menu at all except to be able to drop it dramatically.

“…well, if the giver of our culture killed thousands of people on a whim,
*Well

Cuicatl is just lucky to get a spoonful in her mouth.
"Lucky" makes it sound like Lyra is taking it from her somehow instead of her simply choosing not to eat. Is Kekoa aware of her ED yet?

Read: She’s a glory hound who doesn’t want to share.
But he's not reading, right? He's getting it as an audio/visual medium.

Like, say, a fire-type god owned by a billionaire who lives in Alola.
???

For a moment you wonder if he’d try to get groudon for this. No. Even she isn’t that stupid. And from what you’re told they keep his resting place super heavily guarded now.
Some pronoun confusion here. I think a typo?

And then the haole wouldn’t have their own martyred queen to look up to.
This doesn't quite work. They can still look up to her, right? She just won't be a martyr. That's getting buried in the word order.

“You alright?” You snap out of your thoughts to look at Lyra. “Selene stopped talking a while ago and you’ve kept staring at the wall.”
Feels a little on-the-nose.

Have you at all considered changing the title to Stubborn Things? Because they super are.

Anyway, in all seriousness, my biggest questions here are about Plumeria. I can't quite figure out her angle, what she's even bothering to talk to Kekoa for. She's already invested too much in him if she really considers him a lost cause. I guess she could be trying to nudge him into more radical action, but he seems pretty far from that right now and I have trouble believing she really thinks that's viable or worth time and energy from her personally.

I'd also like a little more from Lyra during the restaurant scene. She said it was to help her, but ... IDK, I feel like there's the possibility for more weirdness there and I wanted to see it exaggerated more. Like, misery loves company, but it sounds like Cuitcatl is being especially sullen. Maybe Lyra could try and fail to draw her out? Or maybe she just wants to vent? But she doesn't feel quite chatty enough for that to me as is.

Hype about drifloon! Love those little weirdos and excited to see you play around with it. I like the inkay too and hope she sticks around.

It seems like every evolution in this world is seriously playing with fire, dancing on the knife edge between power and death. 😬 And if someone evolves a pokemon they can't handle ... then what? Can't release that back into the wild. Are they euthanized? 😬 Put into perma-storage, Parliament of Steel-style? Surely this has happened before. Class 5 or not, some pokemon would just be overwhelming. This must be something they're thinking about as they're considering their teams.

Now that Lyra is a semi-permanent fixture, it would be really nice to check back in with her and see how her perspective is or isn't changing.

I'll be back for more later. Possibly not during Blitz, but I'll try. (REALLY gotta do some actual work now.)
 

bluesidra

Mood
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. hoppip-bluesidra-reup
  2. hoppip-bluesidra-pink
  3. hoppip-bluesidra3
you have decided that you really like 2nd person narration, and now the voice in your head won't stop talking in this style. it doesn't help that your brain feels clouded and the booster vaccine knocked you out for half the day. so you decide to let blitz be blitz for today and just make a little shitpost about this long fanfic you've been putting to the side for too long.

After four chapters, you have decided that Kekoa is an asshole, and that you definitely ship Genesis and Cuicatl. And that Cuicatl is a little badass. And that Genesis is really cute good christian girl. Also, Pixie has a resting SCREM face. But most of all, you have realised that you would be lost without Boot's artwork. Though you are a little concerned about the Vulpix/Original Trainer tag on AO3...

You also have taken a real liking to Leon, who is, strangely enough, depicted as a blond psychic woman with an espeon. Why the author didn't go the traditional route is beyond you, but you like him her. Thankfully, he she still follows canon and works for a totally not evil cult organisation here as well. Though you would have supported the namechange to "evil incorporated". What a joykill.

You also enjoy the dinosaur talk -- you yourself have gone through such a phase and uncovered some buried memories.

Oh, and you have made a note to praise the author for the amount of details in Leon's chapter.
 

bluesidra

Mood
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. hoppip-bluesidra-reup
  2. hoppip-bluesidra-pink
  3. hoppip-bluesidra3
Hey Pers!

We’ve been texting so long and you never told me how addicting your stuff is? Or that you managed to find the formula for meth in written word? I’ve been blowing through this fic in a breeze, and I don’t plan on stopping soon. 57k words in under two days? And that already excludes 1.5, which I skipped for CW reasons. That is crazy fast in my books! But I figured I have my braincells together enough by now to give you some actual feedback. I’m caught up to 1.12 now.

What kept me going at this rate is your style, definitely. Second person present tense mixes incredibly well, and your sentences are so short and poignant that they just fly by. This is one of the very very few fics, where I find myself wanting to actually read it (instead of having it read to me) because I can read it faster than when it is spoken.

I absolutely admire the attention to detail that you have. Rachel’s chapter just blew me off my feet, and after that it didn’t really get any less, even if the pov characters that followed aren’t as trained on perception as she is. And it’s nice to hear the characters’ judgment cloud their interpretation of all observations so close after they are made.

Every character has a distinct style of thinking – I wouldn’t exactly say voice, but there are surely some little changes in the writing style/length of sentences/choice of words between the characters. But each of them have their reasoning for acting the way they do and you get into their heads brilliantly. I love how many layers those kids have.

They feel very “dense” in a way, like you compressed two to three character ideas into every one of them, but it really works in their favor. Sometimes I’m worried it’s a bit too much and too out there (blind + half-orphaned + psychic + endangered culture + possible refugee + discriminated for gender + several mental illnesses + possibly raped). Every single one of these themes would be enough to build a character and a narrative around, but here, Cuicatl gets to shoulder everything at once. Well, I guess that explains the length of the fic :D

I don’t really mind it, though. They are very easy to keep track of, and I’d rather have three characters with a lot of issues than the more “realistic” (as in, pick a random person out of a crowd kinda way) one issue per person, if we're tackling all the issues at once.
Worldbuilding-wise, Alola and the world it’s in feels appropriately large. I’m still struggling to get Unova as the entirety of the US into my head, because that region is so miniscule, but other than that, the world feels like the size of the real world. Especially in the Kekoa-chapter when they were in Hoenn. Also, little tidbit: I always forget that Hawaii is a part of the US. I’m always baffled why they have such strong ties to Unova and not the Japanese regions, and I only remember why every other time.

I love me some real world with a thin coating of pokemon over it, because it removes it from reality just enough for me to not get depressed, while still thinking about the real-life issues you present in a reasonable way.

With the way you describe the shelters, Alola feels very diverse and like a lot of single people run these places (as opposed to one asset that is copy and pasted across a landscape). Also, the relaxed way the trial captain went about her business like this was some kids doing their… crap… urgh… ((there’s a little badge you can get here when you learn how to swim, it’s called the Seepferdchen. It doesn’t count for anything, it’s just a print out official looking paper and a sew-on patch, but the children who earn it are very very proud of it, and it’s their first major achievement and a nice finish to their swimming lessons.)) So yeah, the trial captain treated their first trial very much like them doing their Seepferdchen, and that she was going back to her normal and (to an adult) way more important work later, just like swim instructors are also mainly volunteering most of the time. It felt so much more realistic than the trial captains just hanging around the island.

The entire VStar thing is interesting. I can totally see how and that something like this would work. It seems innocent enough (as innocent as capitalism is). But in the first chapter, I was flip-flopping between “Is this a cult, because of the ranks and lieutenants thing?” and “Is this an MLM because of those more delicate details that they would discuss on the last days of orientation?”. Anyways, I expect some evilry down the road.

The “you need money to go on a journey” issue is very apparent here. And it makes sense that parents with reasonably enough resources give their children an advantage over other kids. I’d probably also sponsor my child on their gap-year and not think about having them pay for all their expenses on their own.

Which brings up underprivileged kids, like the three we are dealing with here. It makes them easier for VStar to target and, yes, VStar selling pokemon for profit is not really a nice thing to do. But (and I say that knowing full well I expect evilry from them) if they don’t get much worse than they are now, I don’t see too big of an issue here? Like, pokemon trade is not exactly illegal or frowned upon in this world, and it’s basically a job. A job that pays too little, but that’s how the Rubel rolls. Also provides somewhat of a security network for the kids (they are tracked and supervised after all. Wouldn’t want VStar to lose their foot-soldiers.)

Also, something I always find myself asking when underage kids are involved: How is the education and CPS system working here? There seem to be kids as young as ten on the trail. Shouldn’t they go to school? Isn’t there a state agency that returns those kids back into their homes? I get that there are runaways in real life, too. But VStar seems to mostly fear legal repercussions from the parents. Not from the government.

Then, the church of Xerneas. Ohohohoho, that is some top-notch religious institution. Authoritative, guilting women for existing. All the good stuff I want to see called out. Pls moar.

Skull is there, and they are as lovable as they are in the games. I’m looking forward to what they are up to here. As far as I can see, they are “radicals” that fight to take Alola back from the white people? I always thought of them more as a generalized pool of unwillingly non-conformists, that just didn’t fit the system (be it schooling or a “normal” job). But it seems ethnicity plays a huge role, so the nice image of the inclusatory misfits won’t fit, sadly.
Cuicatl Ichtaca. I hope I’m saying her name correctly. Sometimes they refer to Ichtaca as her last name, but she and all the summaries speak of her as Cuicatl Ichtaca, so I’ll try to keep it like that in this segment.

She is a lot of things. Mainly, she has anime-protagonist hair, and that makes her the one to go first in this list. Because that’s how life goes.

Otherwise, life has not been too kind to her. I don’t think I need to repeat everything, but she’s had it… not good. We still know relatively little about her past life. But she takes it in relative stride. Opposite to Kekoa, she is a kind girl, ready to help and happy to engage with others.

Her happy exterior is only skin deep, because on the inside there is a very harsh depression. Oh my god, I can’t tell you how scarring it is to hear your own thoughts written out like this. 10/10, very realistic depiction of depression.

She is also a psychic, which makes her a universal translator. I still don’t quite understand how it works. Is she like Jesus, in that she talks and everyone understands her in their mother tongue? What about people that grew up bilingual? Anyway, that makes her very interesting, because she can understand pokemon, and that is always a big plus!

When Cuicatl Ichtaca isn’t a lot of things that put her at a disadvantage in life, she is a lovely, kinda tomboyish girl. I love her depiction of femininity. It isn’t as obsessive as the other two kids, she simply is, and her style reflects that. Though, she does struggle with the backwards expectations for women that her culture still has, and in extension with Genesis’s worldview. I’m so looking forward to seeing those two clash.

Cuicatl Ichtaca acts and thinks a lot older than she is. She has a very good understanding of people. At first I thought she could read at least surface thoughts, and… wait, did she lie to Kekoa on purpose??? She could read Pix’s surface thoughts when she came home! Aw man, I love her more every second.

Ahm, as I said, Cuicatl Ichtaca is sly as a dog. She lies if it is to her advantage, has a vast repertoire of crude language and can read people extremely well for someone who can’t rely as well on reading body language as other people can. I’d just wish she’d use her abilities to talk down people more against Kekoa and less against herself :(

Due to how well she can read people, she also has a very cynical(?) view on them. Like, she does not for one minute buy into Pixie’s shit, but she is very willing to engage with it, if it makes the little fox behave. I didn’t know that, btw, and was very surprised when it came up. We had two Pixie-chapters or so, and Cuicatl Ichtaca had Pixie very convinced. I did not expect Cuicatl Ichtaca to play a double game until I heard her narration. She is such a badass!

She is blind and I love how nicely you describe things from her perspective. It’s really interesting how much still remains when you take sight away. And how much is missing. She really struggles, and even though Gen is well-meaning, she just doesn’t think of the things Cuicatl Ichtaca can and can’t do. Which I don’t blame her for. It’s hard accommodating for a condition you are not familiar with, and at the beginning it’s always like you have to learn a bullet point list of things. And seeing how there is no such list ever given or looked up, that can take quite a while.

Though, she seems to be a bit disheartened when someone makes a passing remark or anything involving sight. Like, at the beginning, when Rachel said to the group “see you later.” I mean, choice of words, Rachel. But as someone who grew up blind and has probably learned to use those phrases her entire life, I’m not sure if she would reasonably react like this? I often say “see you later” in VC to people I’ve never seen. She just seems a bit too busy with all the other things going on in her life to take care of those language subtleties.

Then the other thing that initially struck me was how the blind person gets psychic powers. I already disliked what they did with Toph’s tremorsense, because it made her a sighted person with a bit of a quirk rather than a “really” blind person. (Still, shout out to At:la and Toph, it was great to see a disabled character on screen!) But after getting to know Cuicatl Ichtaca, I found that her telepathy does not offset her blindness, but rather enhances another skill (instead of sense) – communication. Bullet dodged?

Pixie and her “bonding” was an interesting thing. I felt it dragged a bit, but overall it was a very good addition. Mainly because it gave a layer of respect and agency to the pokemon in this universe. Between that and her mother’s encounter with the duckletts (that was lovely btw – funny and just short enough to not hurt), it really makes me think about the other pokemon we capture on our way. Like her mom said: “The rest is done with some bonding magic.” Right?

Then there was her segment on sacrifices. And… oh boy. That was interesting. Aside from the fact that I want to see what an international court of human rights has to say about non-consensual human sacrifice – I kinda can’t wrap my head around how she justifies this to herself? Like, I get that she was raised in that religion and stuff, and later I use the same to excuse some of Gen’s views, but… how can she be “I’m a girl and I deserve the same rights as boys” while accepting that pow’s are totally okay to be executed. Dignity kinda goes two ways, doesn’t it? Then on the other hand, I’m not really keen on thinking about the justifications for and against murder, so I’ll just shelf that until she sacrifices her first human or pokemon or whatever.
Since it’s only half an hour till this year is over, I can confidently say that Kekoa is the most unlikable character of 2021. And if he keeps going at this rate, he’ll be a runner-up for 2022 as well.

Oooooh, how much I loathe him. By now I don’t want him to die in a painful way any more. Just want him to have a heart attack, so he is out of the narrative. God, he has no redeemable quality about him.

Kekoa is a lot of very negative -ist things, misogynist, ableist, racist/xenophobe and egoist amongst them, but, let’s put it simply: He is a miserable piece of shit bully. He feels bad about himself and therefore makes others feel bad too.

I mean, a good asshole villain can be an absolute treat. But as a reader, the frustrating part is that he is absolutely no fun. He is such a miserable little worm, and he feels miserable the whole way through. If he at least had some fun and embraced his evil ways, he would probably make for one of the weaker disney villains. The Evil Bastard is a beloved trope for a reason. But those have fun and charisma and therefore make it fun for the audience. Kekoa has none of that. He is just a bully.

No amount of tragic backstory can redeem him. It can probably explain his behavior, but that still doesn’t mean that I don’t want him to be hit by a self-driving car (he’s not worth the trauma it’ll inflict on the driver). I really hope he ditches the girls soon, so I’m not bothered with him any longer.

Buuuut from the index I know he won’t, and I’m really interested in how you want to redeem this character. In 1.11 and 1.12 he already showed a glimmer of decency, but there is one hell of a long way to go. I really don’t want to like him, but I can see how he can be a good guy. But from my personal judgmental seat, he doesn’t deserve it (Feels good to pretend to be St. Peter at the pearly gates for a second :D ).

I think I don’t even need to go into detail how everything he was upset over so far was a result of his own doing. He complains how the world is against him and that he’s so underprivileged and stuff, but so far, it’s all just been consequences of his very own behavior.

We’ve talked in discord about the whole colonialism thing going on in Hawaii, and I don’t get it any more than I did back then, but by god, Kekoa is not helping the case. Plumeria’s impromptu infodump/speech didn’t sway me either, sadly. And Cuicatl made a very good point there: He is making decisions on others behalf without asking their opinion. That’s kinda fucked and my main concern with that entire debate, but let’s just leave it there. It goes way over my head anyways.
Genesis is the naive blonde dumb priviledged white girl. Or at least, that’s how the narration so far has treated her. I like her quite a lot. Sometimes, it’s hinted that she has something she’s running away from, but most of her issues she’s completely oblivious too, and I love that with her. It’s just sad to see the other two think of her as lesser, because she is not as street-smart as they are.

She is especially sweet when she is having genuine fun. And for her, fun means being free. If it is breaking the rules by going out at night or riding the waves. It’s such a innocent thing that hurts no one, and it’s nice seeing her happy. I really liked the surfing chapter. Maybe because Kekoa wasn’t doing well.

She is a genuinely well-meaning person, to the point where her being “mean” or “daring” is absolutely adorable. It’s nice to see that well-meaningness twisted into accidentally hurting other people, when she tries to avoid arguments, be nice in the face of rudeness and everything that makes her look like a pushover. It just breaks my heart to hear her narration and how much she tries to make people comfortable while sticking to her manners.

And oh boy, she and her manners, aka her catalog of rules. She had a strict religious upbringing and she is very devoted to Xerneas. To a point where she has integrated their dogmas into her being. She is the posterchild for internalized misogyny and transphobia and I can’t wait to hear her opinions on other people under the rainbow-umbrella. And she is so adorably clueless about all of it, that I can’t fault her.

Well, I can. As much as I hate Kekoa and I wish him all the anger in the world, her misgendering him hurts. She means the best, but still. Ouch.

Also, the way she treats Sir Bubbles is harsh, especially because there’s a Gen-Sir Bubbles interaction soon after every Cuicatl-Pixie interaction. I would really love to hear Sir Bubble’s opinions (maybe even an entire chapter of him chilling in a pond?) but on the other hand, not getting that just points out how little of a voice he has in all of this. #SirBubblesIsTheBestCharacter

Another thing I noticed in 1.12: She has a real issue with using the word “he”. With Kekoa it’s on purpose, but I noticed several instances where she refers to Inferno as “he” and later as “she”, often within the same sentence. Now, okay, I get it, Leafeons are not exactly manly looking and she wanted a female eeveelution. She never has an issue with Sir Bubbles, he’s always correctly addressed. But then she also thought of Cuicatl as “he” at some point. Either there’s a mistake or she has some twisted understanding of male and female, where she perceives everything male as threatening and female as good and nonthreatening. Or her brain stops computing if anything goes outside of very strict gender roles.

Back to her upbringing real quick: It’s clear that she was raised in a very patriarchal household and has never been encouraged to come to any conclusion that wasn’t given to her by her elders. (I don’t want to say “she can’t think for herself” because that phrase is so demeaning). Her entire thought processes are her second guessing herself if she did the right thing, which is really sad. But I love how she began to form her own thoughts and opinions when Kekoa challenged her with the meat-question. It’s lovely to see her question her thoughts instead of her actions.
Pixie is, in her view as well as in mine, the best character (save for Sir Bubbles, but we don’t tell her that). Love her. She is a very effective and much needed comic relief. I think everyone could use a bit of Pixie thinking to boost confidence.

You do a splendid job of keeping her “animalistic”. As in, she refers to hands as front-paws and thinks humans do sent-exchange via their hands, all the good stuff. She views human society through a different lense and acts as a good soundboard for the more difficult to spot societal issues that are brought up. Genesis and Cuicatl had a discussion on what girls can and can’t do, and to me it didn’t feel too out of the ordinary. But Pixie took that conversation and concluded that male are worth more than female humans. Which is kinda scary, if you think about Pix not as a magical ice fox but as a baby.

She also has a funny way of assigning names to humans. Skysong is a wonderful name. But still, her name for Gen, Growlsleeper, while really funny, still strikes me as Gen being the punching bag for jokes so far. Bloodrage for Kekoa is being waaay too generous. Tinydick would have been more appropriate.

Also, her desperate need for love is #relatable. Can very much vibe-check with snow fox.

What I found strange, however, is how quickly she went from “I don’t want a human” to “Skysong is the best and I must protect her”. I mean, I get how she came to that conclusion, but her unquestioning loyalty for the cause came a bit out of left field. Not that I complain, Pixie is best when she is the bestest fox around.

Though, I do wonder how Pixie’s pride and Cuicatl’s constant losses go together.

So, that about ends my thoughts for now. Happy new year, whenever it is for you, and here, have a sketch that I did while listening to your meth-fic. (And that I will shamelessly claim the bingo-point for :D )

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