• Welcome to Thousand Roads! You're welcome to view discussions or read our stories without registering, but you'll need an account to join in our events, interact with other members, or post one of your own fics. Why not become a member of our community? We'd love to have you!

    Join now!

Pokémon Broken Things

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
I guess I should comment here before things get way out of hand.
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.
Sadly the Farfetch'd thing was a joke. One might show up on a dinner plate eventually!
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.
You do have to establish a baseline before breaking it.
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.
Originally Rachel had a much bigger role in the story. But things changed and I didn't think her arc deserved all the space it was getting. Her role as the opening narrator is something of an artifact now, but I'm glad to hear you think it works.
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.
Psychic powers, from humans and psychic-types, get explored more later on. Cuicatl has some training with hers but she's hardly a master. Maybe she'll learn down the line or maybe she won't. Who knows. (I might.)
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!
Okay so I kind of break my own canon a little. This isn't meant to be a worldbuilding text. I do try to keep Pokemon POVs a little xeno though. You'll see more later.
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.
We can't all start our fics with the POTUS being sent to the Commy Realm.
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.
I have a soft spot in my heart for espeon, even if Pixie doesn't. I had a great deal of fun writing their Alola Dex entry.
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.
She's a people person. Her POV involves thinking a lot about reading other people. It doesn't actually come naturally to me so I'm glad it works for you! A lot of the cast are pretty far up their own asses, so I think she's a fun narrator to start on.
jumped out at me that you italicize "The Battler" the first time but not here.
Typo
YOWZA what in the world, we getting juicy now
Okay so maybe we can break down the door a little bit, as a treat.
very interesting tbh. i'm assuming this gets expanded on in the narrative—looking forward to seeing that. very fond of worlds like this.
It'll get played with more later on. In the chapters about to come out, actually.
the double use of "trail" felt weird here.
* You, i think.
Will Fix.
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. 😈
Cuicatl has an attachment to nightmare fuel 'mons. This will in no way matter down the line.
stray quote at the end here, i think.
Will fix.
boy oh boy.
:screm:
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!
Cuicatl's Patience: Finally, a worthy opponent. Our battle shall be legendary.
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.
Pixie is actually a canon character! Sort of. There's a sidequest in the Ultra Games where you can nurse a vulpix back to health after it's beat up by Team Skull. And then you do not get to keep the vulpix. I was so outraged I immediately dove for my laptop and began writing two novels and a novella about it.
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.
Half the fun of Pixie chapters is describing ordinary things in strange ways.
hahaha, omg. love the idea of a pokémon sneering at a human for being unclean. my cat probably does think that about me.
I don't know why my cat puts up with me, either.
i'm really enjoying the way she picks out meaning from speech.
Pixie is the smartest creature in the universe.
man. this is depressing. poor girl.
BT Marketing: Look, here's a cute fox!

BT Story: We regret to inform you that the fox is sad.
lmfao. here we go. i love her.
As you should.
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.
Rachel is a psychic and might maybe be pushing things along idk rule of funny.. She's also come a ways since the opening scene.
oh my god lmfao
In the red corner, we have an Alolan vulpix! And in the blue corner we have a blind teenager with a stick! FIGHT!
SO TRUE queen. i am saying this every day
Pixie should get a career as a motivational SCREMer.
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 told you this in chat but 1.3 was overhauled late in development to better align with the direction of the story and Genesis's character. As a result parts of it feel weird. I'm going to do some edits today and see what I can do.
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.
Kekoa is trans masc. Cuicatl doesn't know but sensed a weak point.
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.
Genesis wants so little at her core. I'm sure it will be easy to get and maintain it down the road.
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:
Yeah. This fic lives and dies on character interactions and dialogue. If you like that so far you'll probably keep writing it.
absolutely fucked up.
Monsters.
it sure does feel a little bit like that, doesn't it.
It's probably nothing.
this is a once in a lifetime line
One of my greatest achievements tbh. Glad to see it appreciated.
yet this story is in second person. curious.
This fic is actually just Waiting for Godot. It's supposed to be in third person but he never arrives. Everyone goes mad in the meantime.
i don't think i'm quite picking up on what's going on here.
Neither does Genesis, really.
i love her. lord protect this girl.
I'm sure nothing bad ever happens to her.
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.
Down the line I devote a fair bit of attention to how much can really be learned from the revived fossils. They have their instincts, but not their original culture or environment. Is what they do in a modern setting really indicative of what they would do when properly socialized in their original habitat? Who knows. Nothing is resolved and the debate rages on.
🙌 At long last. It is time.
THE STARS ARE RIGHT
So, these are mostly line-by-lines, since I was skimming for new stuff, with some overall thoughts at the end.
No skim only 2%.
WildBoots said:
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!
It was there but I expanded on it a bit.
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?

Suggestions: She has no social media presence. (“Too many temptations.”)
Will fix.
Oof, Lyra. Damn, girl.
Trauma, what trauma? She has no PTSD. Fuck off. She will literally murder you if you suggest psychic-assisted therapy.
Can't remember if this is new but love it.
It's new.
Rogue quotation mark there. The receptionist is really shitting on the food, lol.
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.
Look I'm not lactose intolerant but I know that in some cultures where most people are they still make yogurt. Maybe I'm wrong. I'll consider changing it either way.
But there's no 69?
Wow. Telling that her "zoning out" over a cute girl = trying to fix her.
Look life is a romcom and Cuicatl just needs to ditch her glasses and let her hair down.
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.
Will expand when I get back around to this arc in the edits.
Ooof, don't tell Kekoa that!
*angry Kekoa noises*
Kinda funny how Gen is always fantasizing about knights. Turns out she already has one, sort of.
I hadn't thought about it this way but now I'm going to run with it.
How long does she imagine this will take? Or how fast does she expect Cuicatl's metagross to evolve?
Technically it could only be a week. Or years. Or never. Beldum evolutions occur when the metagross choose to allow them.
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.
Okay so this was like a last minute change because I couldn't get a sequence to work. This chapter had two separate entirely different edits and I sort of had to cobble the best parts together.
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?
Lyra would be furious if she pulled Gen out of the closet kicking and screaming for someone else to reap the benefits. I'll make this clearer.
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.
Got it.
Ah, yes. Interrogation. Bonding.
The best kind of bonding.
Health feels weird. (Unless it's a rotom?) Battery?
I call it low health? Must just be a regional thing.
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.
Will clarify.
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.
I might get into the details of her relationship with her parents later, but for now Word of God is that they feel a little guilty and also she's better than her brother so they let her be pretty independent.
Also wondering why everyone has clocked the absol as the strongest pokemon.
Because her others are a noibat, mudbray, and pyukumuku.
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. ✅
I imagine traveling in the woods alone sucks, in addition to being really dangerous.
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."
Shattering gender norms one shrug at a time.
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.
She's from the equivalent of Southern Mexico. Right on the border of the Maya and Zapotec provinces in Anahuac.
What's Cuicatl contributing to this? Seems like if no one can see, then more hands is just more problems.
She's used to setting up tents without being able to see. I might change what she's doing.
Love the sensory detail and comedic timing, but I think this ought to be three paragraphs. (Lyra's actions should be separated out.)
Will fix.
Wish we got lyrics here!
This would require me to be any good at all at poetry. Maybe when I get around to this again? Currently working through a round of light Arc 1 edits.
Galaxy brain in a trainer fic. (The bar is so low.) Good job, Cuicatl.
Astonishingly she might make contributions to pokemon science by possessing the trait of basic empathy.
Another rogue quotation mark.
Do you make conclusions or can you only come to them?
Are her knee-jerk fear responses really so verbal? I wonder.
Will make some edits.
Wow, my memory of this is terrible. I don't remember it having any overlap with Johto. Guess I'd better reread that too.
You should!
Surprised that Cuicatl's memory of it seems bad, too, TBH
Agreed. That should be expanded.
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.
Xerneas is more 'real' because he's less involved. Less easily understood. With a more primal element. A lot of the mystery gets taken away when god lives on the hill up the road and sometimes shows up to festivals.
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?
So the thing about the Aztec gods is that all the major ones at least occasionally took a non-human form. Some were a lot like Egypt's animal-human hybrids. It makes it easier to think that they could just have pokemon forms in this story. Or maybe they appear one way to humans and another to pokemon. Who knows?
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.
For the Aztecs: so the sun doesn't burn out and the Earth isn't overrun by demons that kill everyone. This has happened four times before in Aztec cosmology and will inevitably happen again. I'll try to make this clearer.
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.
Hmm. I don't know if this is on accident or not. Her last one in Arc 2 very much is. In Arc 3 when there isn't an abundance of either food or choice maybe things changed. Or maybe I was at a better point myself in those times. Curious. I'll think more about it. Her issues aren't over, though.
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.
I didn't really intend for Kekoa to be quiet but I guess it happened. He's not yet comfortable around Lyra. He isn't going to be so hostile this time around, but that doesn't necessarily means he wants to engage.
*Less like a memory? Would make more sense to me that way.
Yeah.
What does that mean, that Lyra never speaks up? She seems pretty quick to speak her mind and grill Cuicatl.
She never speaks up by noibat standards. They can be quite loud when they want to be.
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!
I mean angst is very fun but not every pokemon hates it. We'll explore more of that in Arc 4.
??? Get around her own gifts? What does that mean?
I don't actually remember.
I was confused at first and thought this was the absol.
Will clarify.
Oops haha.
Lyra is one of the better trainers in this story. For better or worse.
Noci continues to be the best character. Obviously.
*angry screms*
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.
She cares about her pokemon. About her Genesis. About some other people. She has a circle of people she thinks of as safe and everyone else is potentially dangerous if she lets her guard down. Get into the circle and she will fiercely defend you.
Aww, yay. Glad they followed through on this.
I thought about having it happen off-screen but it seemed more fun this way.
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.
*sad kekoa noises*
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?
Probably could. Might whenever I get around to more revisions.
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.
Credit to Sugi on this one. She knows a lot more about hornbills than I do.
Fun parallel to Lyra.
;)
I think the C should be capitalized.
Typo!
I wrote all of these edits very quickly. Sorry they're a mess.
Aww, they match.
But was the match made in heaven or hell?
She would never. 🙃
Never.
She must be using a lot of restraint to keep from answering herself.
Look she doesn't know how fast an unladen trumbeak flies. Maybe he does?
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.

Is he hearing Spanish here?
No. I'll clarify that. It meant that the bird and human are speaking different languages from each other. Besides, her most natural language is Nahuatl. She does know some Spanish, though.
Is she breaking the rock or her beak? 😬
She knows rock smash. Don't insult her.
Lol, about that...
I am a messy bitch who lives for dramatic irony.
Nice. This dynamic really checks out.
I like writing Kekoa and Lyra scenes. One of my fave interactions at this point.
Oh, shame we don't get to see him. I like him. ... Though, yeah, that assessment is dead-on.
Maybe someday you'll get to meet the legendary CAPTAIN ILLIMA. Or not.
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?
People aren't shit. Her escapism was learning about nature and thinking about her own journey. And she does want to do exploring. IRL caves are some of the less explored areas on the planet.
I still want more about this Indiana Jones streak in her. (Game protagonist syndrome?)
I'll think about expanding on it in Arc 4.
I was wondering too. Again, she's ruthlessly practical. Though I guess she wouldn't know it's a sensitive issue.
Going into your third trial with one mediocre pokemon is certainly a choice.
Feels like there's a word missing here.
I feel like Kekoa made the jump from psychic pokemon to psychic humans just a tad too fast.
Bleh. Will fix.
Such self pity. He deserves an award.
Cuicatl would beat him and then he'd feel sad enough that he could maybe beat her.
This line still slaps.
sometimes I write cool shit in spite of myself
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.
Would Kekoa notice or care in the dark?
"What she did to you" sounds like an act of aggression rather than "what she told you."
Unless I'm forgetting something?
Okay that was supposed to mean "telling her the same thing she told you" but it came off wrong.
Spider was jarring since right now Noci is more like an ingot. A lump.
But megagross is spider. Will consider revising tho.
This was my thought too.
Shut up. This is fine.
Kekoa protecc.


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.
Combine them to make a bewear protecc?
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.
I'm sure nothing bad will happen.
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.
More hiking happened but I'll consider making things more consistent.
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.
Gold star!
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?
Will add some things in about this.
Also, missing apostrophe!
It also wasn't a question.
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."
Grammar, my weaknss
👀 Lit. Hi, best friend.

AD footnotes when!? Or, like, hyperlinks to the relevant AD section, at least for the forum version! 🤩
AO3 has footnotes without links. I'll consider links for particularly relevant pokemon. Just because you're bullying me about it.
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.
God? No. She's seen gods and wants nothing to do with them. She does see herself as above humanity, though.
"You grind your teeth" should be a new paragraph.
Paragraph breaks again, because although Lyra isn't speaking, her actions still belong on a separate line:
Bleh
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.
She doesn't care. She has things to say to Lyra, but they're less important than what she wants to say to Kekoa.
Metal AF. Love her.
Best girl.
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.
Yeah, agreed.
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.
Florges isn't alakazam or metagross smart. Her cognition is fairly close to human. Just a lot smarter than average. There are humans who can keep up with her, but not many. Especially after millennia of experience.
Your own master has chained victory? Is this a reference to Selene orrrrr? I wasn't quite sure.
VStar is short for Victory Star. The CEO owns Victini.
Hahaha, someone has been reading eoe! 🤩 Kekoa's having his mind blown.
Look I'm not saying that eoe made me rethink the fandom and my own work but actually yeah that is what I'm saying.
No one would ever.

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.
She's a troll and someone might come down the trail, respectively.
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.
Some things he has to work out for himself, I guess. Also lazy writing.
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.
Will incorporate some of them.
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?
It's possible. Unlikely but possible. Too many feelings of inadequacy wrapped up there.
This needs more. Why does he think winning would make her less disappointed? What does he think has changed?
He showed the bond between human and pokemon or whatver GameFreak says.
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.
Hmm. Yeah, I should add a scene with them.
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.
She's easily pleased. Thankfully she always gets the little things she asks for.
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.
She's really not in a good place and kind of doesn't care. Also this scene was a last minute addition. Will patch it up to clarify some things.
She faded out again. Does Cuicatl feel nothing about her witnessing that argument?
Not really, no.
But Lyra, what if that's true for you and Gen?????
Impossible.
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: Might give you some Cuicatl ideas though.
Ooh. Always looking for more references. Although she's more Mexica than Mayan.
Okay, wow this wildly different!
It's almost like it's really a whole new chapter.
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.
Noci had less robotic moments in the first. And some of the musings were meant to signal the difference in thoughts from evolution. Perhaps some could be revised, though.
LOL omg of course it does.
Could be more.
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.
She can record audiovisual and electromagnetic spectrum data.
Don't sass your parental unit, buster.
Noci doesn't even know what sass is.
Oof. Get Gen in here to sympathize with that one.
What's more terrifying: a fundamentalist billionaire or an alien predator?
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"?
Good idea.
Tapu Bulu???? Wait, did Cuicatl bear witness to that, too?? I can't get a sense of the time elapsed between these two.
This is from the other beldum.
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.
Memories. Except for getting torn apart by the metagross.
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?
The latter.
This is where I think I'd be confused/missing some of the impact if I hadn't read the previous version.
There is no previous version. This sequence is still in the water trial chapter.
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.
There was a timeskip. Will add date stamps.
I love how this prompted Noci to actually run a self check-in lol.
She is very self-aware, especially for this story.
AHAHAHA. 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.
It would be.
Omg I didn't realize Noci and Pixie has this in common.
It would mess with Noci's mission if she wasn't as critical to Cuicatl's plans.
Oh woah. I didn't realize at first that's what had happened. Neat trick, Noci.
Psychic-types actually are terrifying.
Wait, Cuicatl knows about the Tapu Bulu sighting? Is that in a previous chapter and I forgot?
Noci mentioned that one of the beldum had been stationed in Haina Valley. She made an educated guess.
Wait, theory? Does Noci not actually know?
She doesn't know how much power a Reshiram has.
How does it know she's lying? That feels surprisingly subtle for Noci, whose grasp of human body language is ... questionable.
Yeah. I'll need to change this.
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.
I thought it was implied that the myths weren't actually the truth. I'll edit to reflect. "Myth" is how the metagross designates them. It has a much better idea of how humans work than Noci does.
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.
Will make this change.
Another striking observation from Noci.
I love the Xeno POVS for moments like these.
This one made me chuckle. "Mom! She might self-destruct because this concept exists!" "I know, hush."
The joys of parenting a toddler instead of an infant.
Man, Cuicatl, you are asking the wrong person these questions.
She's desperate, alright?
This is the only time I've ever seen Noci self-identify as a metang, and it strikes me as odd.
She's trying to communicate to UD_Cuicatl. Might change this to the more standard language, though.
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.
Will add some lines.
This made me wonder whether Noci can jack into Cuicatl's phone. It seems like no?
They can.
Hey it's my birthday!
Huh. Thought you were older fsr.
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.
Totally. That's definitely what happened.
Where's Rune Island?
Sootopolis.
I think he'd be unhappy about it no matter what they said though.
Too much self-awareness.
I'm pretty sure real-world Kyushu isn't quite in the tropical zone yet. It's just above it.
Okay but Hoenn feels tropical? Was I lied to by a children's video game?
This is definitely a real teenager moment. ✅
I think Kekoa does act the most like a real teenager. I think it explains why people are so polarized on him.
!!! Friend???
!!!
I'm confused. Does he mean Plumeria? Why would it be associated with Skull?
No, the actual Queen.
Suggestion: The whole city is ending, and the ghosts are feasting.

Suggestion: The whole city is a feast for ghosts.
I'll pick one.
What gengar? When the crobat left, it was phrased like the supernatural cold left with it.
Because the gengar behind him retreated, too. This was more clear in an old version of this chapter.
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.
She's humoring him. Although this actually did make me think about some things and anyway now I have an entire new plot idea I'm going to weave into the Arc 1 & 2 edits with a few sentences here and there.
He's conflating what it means to be a pro trainer with what it means to be a trainer who can take out Selene.
Similar enough things.
I don't understand why this made him less sure. Why not reach for the florges' critique instead?
Because I'm lazy and this part was c/p'd from a much earlier draft, and then not changed after florges would enter the story.
????
Names would help. Pokemon canon has SOOO many characters. I'm not gonna recognize them all by epithets.
Lusamine. I thought she was important enough to Alola I didn't need to elaborate.
I feel like she should set some boundaries around what he can and can't text her .......
She thinks he's not an idiot.

She overestimates him.
I mean, they're not really badges, are they? Also, would be nice to get a recap of how many it actually is.
It's a typo. He has four.
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.
Good point.
Another few days? IDK, Kekoa.
Word of God: He was a wreck for a long time after Hoenn.
This was a big tangent!
Yeah. I should justify it better in-story.
Struggling to follow the connections between these sentences.
Will bridge.
"8 years" is trending? Maybe "anniversary" instead?
Or neither. Feels unnecessary.
Wow, great job reconnecting, Kekoa.
Look he didn't connect with friends because of personal choices and not because friends make a ton more backstory and characters I have to deal with. Like that friend from his first POV chapter who hasn't called since because I can never find the narrative space.
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?
Basically.
"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?
Good catch.
But he's not reading, right? He's getting it as an audio/visual medium.
Reading her as a person.
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.
What? Is Kekoa's logic not perfect?
Feels a little on-the-nose.
Maybe.
Have you at all considered changing the title to Stubborn Things? Because they super are.
So the title was originally a play on the Facebook motto: "Move fast and break things. If you aren't breaking things, you aren't moving fast enough."
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.
This will make more sense at a later point after I make the edits. Whole new plotline he's involved in.
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.
This is a good idea.
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.
She doesn't, originally, but I think I'll edit Recap 2 so she is around for a little longer. I like her, too.
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.
Look I'm not saying the laws make sense from any perspective.
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.
4.7
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.
I thought about doing second person for the review response but decided not to because I'm lame.
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.
So this tag was a result of autofill and I've since changed it. I strongly doubt there will be pokemon / human relationships here. The only time I've seen a chapterfic do it well was when the pokemon was actually a former human. That was by g-l-s. I am not on that level.
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.
I can't tell if this is a joke or not tbh.
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.
Look how am I supposed to know my writing is addicting? And skipping 1.5 is 100% fine. I told you in DMs that a lot of this is a therapy project. The worst cases will have the skip options, or at least a CN.
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've heard that the character names also don't mesh well with screenreaders.
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.
A lot of the fun of this story is perspective swapping. Different characters seeing hte same things and having different opinions about them.
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've been accused of that before, yeah, but I just have so many ideas and want to do them all at once. And mental problems tend to be comorbid with each other and with problems in life. My own problems might be too much for one character to realistically have tbh.
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.
Unova is not the entirety of the US. Just a province of it. IRL Hawaii has a very large Japanese-American population because the plantation owners needed cheap labor.
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.
Same.
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.
You'll see more of the trial captains later. This isn't really any of their full time jobs.
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.
Nah, it's just a corporation. If they're evil it's for profit, not for the ideological points.
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.
I can accept that some of the pokemon world is socialized. Healthcare, pokemon center stays, etc. I don't imagine food and battle supplies are. And that can get expensive, even in the games.
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.)
Whether VStar is evil or not is a question that hangs over most of the fic tbh. Different characters come out different ways.
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?
CPS exists but journeys are a nice excuse for them to not be funded. "If the kids were really in a bad place they would just leave and go on journeys."
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.
You'll get it. The Yveltal entry of World Myth Encyclopedia also talks about them more.
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.
Skull under Guzma was like that. Plumeria has different ideas.
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.
I've seen different views on this from modern Mexica activists. Some do use first name / last name. Others insist that both parts of a Nahuatl name are the entire name. I think for simplicity's sake I'm going to just go with Cuicatl when I do the latest round of touchups.
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.
A lot of this was in 1.5. I'll try to add more into the 1.6 recap.
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.
I've had suicidal depression. I remember the thought patterns.
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!
I'm gonna need you to get all the way off my back.
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.
FIGHT!
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.
She can read some surface thoughts if they trigger the Broca's Area. Things that people think about saying or fantasize about someone saying.
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?
So many blind fictional characters either have some sort of sense that negates the blindness or have seer powers. In very early versions of this story I fell into that trap. I've tried to change it up in this version.
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?
Cuicatl has to listen to her pokemon. This means that she has to see them as individuals in ways that Kekoa and Genesis don't necessarily have to. Her relationship with her pokemon will always be the most fleshed out of the three.
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.
Aztec cosmology required sacrifice or else the world would end. I can't see them stopping this, however long the Triple Alliance lasted.
This review is starting to lag the webpage, so I'll be brief. It's interesting to see how negative your views on Kekoa are. He'll be around for a while. He does get better over time. Sort of. He's a teenager full of angst and a desire to tear everything down. He reminds me a bit of myself at that age tbh.
Some people didn't like Gen until Arc 3. Some did. Interesting to see what people like in her. I think the innocence is a draw. She's the optimist in a story of pessimists and depressed people.
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
He might get a POV chapter in Arcs 5 or 6. Can't promise anything until then.
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.
Cuicatl was a typo. Her not being able to consistently gender Leafeon is not.
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.
Her challenging her upbringing is her main plot for at least the first four arcs.
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.
Pixie will murder both you and Sir Bubbles for this statement.
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.
Is 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.
Idk feels a little transphobic.
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.
it's A Problem. How she is. She defines herself by who loves her, so anyone she is attached to most be the very best ever.
I already have cover art but this feels like it could be lol.
 
Rock 4.4

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
This chapter depicts conversion therapy in action. It contains homophobia, transphobia, misogyny, classism, and the abuse of a minor. I will provide a summary of this chapter at the start of the next Genesis chapter for those who wish to skip out on this one for very understandable reasons.

Rock 4.4: Conversion 2
Genesis

Putting on makeup will help make you straight. Mrs. Rivers says so.

Mrs. Rivers knows best. You know nothing but sin. You must listen to her if you wish to wash off the stain of homosexuality.

It just… doesn’t make sense to you. Mother used to say that putting too much thought into makeup at your age was whorish. Mrs. Rivers insists it is a way to embrace your femininity and put your soul back into balance. To you it was always just an intriguing, dangerous decoration. It was more normal for your friends at school. Just a different type of clothing. Maribelle called it art.

Once, when you let her into your bedroom, Lyra said that it was like armor.

Purple light reflects off the mirror and your eyes widen in panic. A pulse of static rips up your leg and you hiss through clenched teeth. Even when the electricity fades you can feel the warm metal of the shock collar on your ankle.

Mrs. Rivers closes her book, The Squire of Rust Lane, and clears her throat. You turn around slowly to look at her and Mother’s starmie. Any faster and you might fall between your tight heels and sore feet. “What brought it to mind?” she asks.

It. Lyra. It is an it. A demon wearing human skin. You must not cede any humanity to it lest you be dragged into the cocoon. Mrs. Rivers knows best. You know nothing but sin. You must listen to her if you wish to wash off the stain of homosexuality.

“Putting on eyeshadow,” you answer. “It taught me how to properly apply it.”

It leaned in close to you and devoted all of her focus to your body as it gently moved a brush around your eye. Did it think about kissing you? Was that why it so diligently helped you with your makeup? To further its own perversions?

“Then we’ll skip it next time.” She opens her book back up and you carefully turn around. You’ve been on your feet all day. First it was today’s screaming session. Your voice is still hoarse from that. Then she made you practice your walk with fifty laps around the room, starting again if you stumbled. You did. Thrice. All the while a sermon on fornication was playing through the radio.

Xerneas loves the fornicators. The homosexuals. Even the adulterers. But that love must be accepted. You must purify yourself to accept it.

She flips the page two more times as you apply the mascara and blush.

You turn around to show her and she spares you a glance. “It looks fine. Take it off and apply again, this time without eyeshadow. See if you can get through it with no sinful thoughts.”

As you finish wiping everything off she starts to talk again. “All of these books feel uncomfortably pagan, but I hate this one the most.” You don’t add anything. You are to refrain from speaking unless directly asked a question. To do otherwise would risk the sin of impetuousness. (You aren’t entirely sure what ‘the sin of impetuousness’ means, but you weren’t directly asked if you understood it so you can’t ask. “The lead feels too masculine. Rides a mudsdale over a rapidash, wears trousers (Mrs. Rivers had thrown a fit when she found out that you were allowed to wear pants instead of skirts), and speaks in too common a tongue. This one is going to require heavy rewrites.”

What you can’t tell her is that rewriting it takes away the entire point. Madelyn is a farmer’s daughter who becomes a squire by chance. She doesn’t know etiquette, just ‘common’ things. And at the end of the story her mudsdale is sturdy enough to avoid pitfalls set for the rapidash, her knowledge of crops lets her avoid poisoning, and her clothes and speech let her blend into a crowd when being pursued. She’s different. It’s her whole character. How would you even rewrite it? The other rewrites, they made some sense. Change the female knights to male ones. Princess Wyren is kidnapped instead of her bethroed. The swords are changed to spears and only the men wield them. This one will be weird. You’ll still nod along with her as she goes through the list of changes she made. You’ll tell her why the change is necessary. Why the original was sinful. Or you’ll try. Madelyn is poor, not homosexual. She gets a boyfriend in the later books. Is being poor sinful? Sure, the only two poor people you’ve spent much time with were both—

Green light shines in the mirror. You don’t have time to brace yourself before the shock comes. Your foot clenches up and you stumble and fall. The tube of lipstick in your hand slides up your face and you just barely manage to close your eye in time to avoid getting jabbed.

Mrs. Rivers sighs. She stays seated as you slowly pull yourself up onto your aching feet.

“What made you think about it?”

“I… I was wondering why being poor is sinful.”

She looks at you with an unreadable expression. “I guess I should explain that to you. Wipe off your face and start applying it again.” You turn around and almost giggle at the sight of your face with a stripe of pink running from your eye to your scalp like girlish war paint. Thankfully you catch yourself. Giggling isn’t sinful, Mrs. Rivers says, but it shows a lack of composure. A true woman is always in charge of her emotions and not the other way around. “There is nothing innately sinful about being poor, but it is not something one should aspire to be. Xerneas rewards the righteous with money and power so that they can run His kingdom on Earth and set an example to the sinners. Glorifying poverty is glorifying sloth and wickedness. A noble poor person would manage their affairs in line with spiritual teachings and in time would rise to their proper place in the hierarchy.”

You aren’t sure if you can ask a question. You decide to risk it after balancing better. If you get shocked at least it might not send you to the ground. “Madelyn does rise in the hierarchy for being a good person.”

Mrs. Rivers tuts. “She is given a chance to join the elite and she balks. She values her rags over decent clothing and her vulgar ways over the more enlightened customs of those empowered by Xerneas to rule. This makes her a sinner, and a sinner sent by The Wicked One to corrupt the righteous at that.” She glances back at you and frowns. “Wipe that off your face. You look ridiculous. Three more times with no eyeshadow, then we can move on.”

Once you’ve finished with that you finally earn a bathroom break. A supervised bathroom break. Mrs. Rivers is in the room glaring at you the whole time to make sure nothing improper happens. It makes you rush. By the time you have to get back onto your feet the brief respite makes the whole thing worse.

She leads you to the kitchen. There’s a flight of stairs in the way. It feels a lot like walking down the mountains on Ula’Ula, constantly having to watch your aching feet so that they didn’t trip over a root so that you didn’t trip and fall down a hundred yards face-first.

Then Cuicatl managed it blind, granted, there was a lot of—

Oh shit.

No shock comes. Mrs. Rivers scoffs behind you. “I’m not trying to kill you.” Good. That’s good. Just a few steps more and you can finally breathe on flat ground. Then the shock comes and knocks your right off your feet. It’s only sheer luck that you catch yourself with your hands before your head hits the stairs.

“Now, tell me what made you think of the pagan whore.”

“Tripping. It tripped a lot.”

Mrs. Rivers sighs and shakes her head as you slowly pull yourself up. In addition to your feet your ankle is burning from the pain of repeated shocks. Will that scar? Is it vanity that you’re worried? You’re pretty sure that’s a sin.

Even once you’re down the stairs the kitchen is still halfway across the house. You never realized how big this place was until every step hurt. You manage to get there by settling into a rhythm. An old marching cadence you heard in some movie or another. Focus on the words, not the feeling. Keep eyes straight ahead. Think, don’t feel.

Left, left, left right left.

There are a few ingredients and pieces of equipment laid out in the kitchen when you arrive. You know what half of the machines do and how to operate even fewer. On the trail there was really only a burner, some pots, and basic utensils. Sure, Cuicatl still—you brace your legs just in time to stay upright when the shock comes.

“Again? Already?”

You grit your teeth and steady yourself. You do not want to talk back. You must sound sweet, even if the pain is starting to get to you. “It handled the cooking in our group.”

“Hmm.” Mrs. Rivers walks ahead of you and runs a hand along the counter. “Perhaps I can replace its influence with something better. There are some excellent cooking shows from a time when the world was as it should be. It’ll be good for you to watch some. It might replace the context of cooking in your head from something sinful to something wholesome. In the meantime, we’ll just be cooking bread. Try to keep yourself pure.”

Making bread turns out to be easy enough. You just have to mix some things together, taking care not to kill the part of it that’s living. Part of it is living. You grab the flour to pour it into the bowl as Mrs. Rivers explains. Yeast is a fungus, like mushrooms. You vaguely remember that the paras mushrooms you got were used in cooking. They wouldn’t be alive, though. Or maybe they mushrooms are alive at the start but are killed in the process? Like clawitzer. When you were young your parents took you to a restaurant in a hotel that Eliza’s parent’s owned. They had a tank with clawitzer in it. Each had their larger claw removed. Your father picked out one. You were excited. Ariados were fun pets and clawitzer were pretty much just ariados in the water.

They brought it out a while later. Dead. Cooked.

You asked Mother the next day about being a vegetarian. She said yes. Even joined you a few years later, although Father still eats meat. Your brother does, too. He also wanted to be vegetarian like you once but Father told him that it would cut him out of too many business meetings where they ate steak or clawitzer or milotic eggs. Levi was mad about it. Insisted that it was unfair you got to do something while he didn’t. It’s just part of your roles. He’s the male heir. He gets the company. He has to do business things. You and Exodus don’t.

You’re fine with that. It means you get to decide what to do as long as it isn’t sinful.

“Is killing the yeast bad?” you ask. The question slips out before you realize you broke a rule.

“Don’t be ridiculous, child. Xerneas gave us dominion over nature.”

At least she doesn’t punish you for speaking without being spoken to.

You pour the flour in. The result is lumpy and white with powder here and there. It reminds you of the terrible potato salad from back on the trail. The one you’d had to eat twice your share of because you’d done… you don’t actually remember what you did to Cuicatl to deserve it.

The starmie shines green. You’re too lost in your thoughts to react in time. When you tumble down to the floor a bag of flour comes with you. Your groans are interrupted by coughs as you have to hack it all our of your lungs. Stupid flour. Probably got all over the makeup you had to apply three times.

Mrs. Rivers walks over while you lie on the ground. She towers over you with her arms crossed and a stern look. There’s flour staining her black skirt. You’re torn between being scared of her and laughing. Thankfully you don’t laugh. That would’ve made everything worse. “What brought that on?”

“Something from the trail. She’s, um, it’s in a lot of memories from the trail.”

She shakes her head and continues to stare down at you with disgust. Like you’re mud on her shoes. “I understand that your parents don’t want proper reconstructive surgery, but a simple memory wipe of the last few months would do you a world of good.” What? Is that dangerous? And Father had said he was proud of what you did on your journey. Losing all of that would cancel that out. “I know a psychic who does that. He’s from Russia but speaks good Galarian. All the best psychics are Russian. Laws aren’t so overbearing there. They can actually practice without a mountain of paperwork. I personally recommend wiping everything after puberty in particularly stubborn cases. Like yours. Makes the child more obedient.”

Losing everything? You shiver. Losing years of school and friendships and experiences. Would that affect your mind? Like, would you act like you were ten? Would Levi sort of be your older brother?

“There’s so much red tape on that these days. Bunch of Yveltal-worshippers screaming that we’re the evil ones and the government listens to them. It’s a sign of the end times. All the more important that we get you in the right soon when Yveltal could return at any moment.” She walks away, her own heels clacking against the kitchen tile. “Get up. We have work to do.”

Your parents wouldn’t do that. They love you and it wouldn’t make you straight. And it would be awkward to explain, right? You might embarrass them. They wouldn’t do it.

It’s fine. You don’t have to worry about it. They already told you they wouldn’t do anything with psychics.

No, they told you they wouldn’t do the reconstruction thing. But this is close enough.

They wouldn’t do it. They love you.

The tile is cold against your hand as you press yourself up and slowly, shakily stand. As soon as you have Mrs. Rivers pushes a dustpan into your hands. “If you can’t cook you can at least clean.”

And that’s fine. Cleaning is fun. One of the not-Pokémon Centers on the trail taught you how to sweep and mop. You don’t actually just swish the broom back and forth like they do in cartoons. It’s more about pushing things towards one point. You spent a long time figuring out the most efficient way to do that. Hopefully Mrs. Rivers will be pleased.

She doesn’t say anything as you sweep. You can just take the moment to breathe and focus on the flour on the floor. It’s a little awkward since some of it gets stuck in the little brown space between tiles and doesn’t come out as easy. You also try not to walk more than you have to, but that can also be a little game.

Your mother walks in and stares at you. Then she puts her hands on her hips and turns towards Mrs. Rivers.

“Why is she dirty?”

“She fell while we were working with flour.”

“Really?” she asks. She sounds exasperated and she looks so disappointed in you. “Come on, those shoes aren’t even—” Her attention whips back to Mrs. Rivers. “What’s that on her ankle?”

“A shock bracelet. Negative reinforcement for when she thinks of her whores.”

“And will it scar?”

“Many of my clients find that the scar helps—”

“Xerneas’s Abode, Joanne, we don’t need any marks! That bastard from the university already threatened to call the police. Take it off. Now.”

There’s a strange pressure around your ankle and you can feel the metal fall away. The starmie must’ve done it. Somehow. Can psychic-types just undo locks? That seems dangerous.

Between the memory wiping and lock picking you’re starting to get why Lyra hated the type.

Starmie glows purple. No shock comes.

Mrs. Rivers huffs. “See? One moment without it and her mind already wanders.”

“Vespera, just replicate the shocks in her mind.” A bolt of energy tears up your spine and your eyes go wide. It hurt even more. Now it’s just… gone. No hot metal. No dull pain radiating away. “And stop having her cook and clean.”

“It’s feminine,” Mrs. Rivers insists.

“It’s beneath her.”

“With all due—”

Mother waves her hand and turns away. “Get her cleaned up. Now. I’ll have the help clean up her mess.”

Mrs. Rivers face contorts into cold rage. “As you wish.”

You get that reference!

Wait, is that movie sinful? It’s straight. Probably fine, right?

*​

Mrs. Rivers watches as you shower. The glass is filled with little distortions. Like pebbles at the bottom of a riverbed. You can really only see her silhouette through the pane. Making sure you don’t do anything you shouldn’t. At least the shower gives you a chance to check on things. There’s a small black mark where the bracelet was. Tiny forked paths flow out from it. And there are red spots along the sides of your outer toes. There’s a cut where the nail on your left pinky toe was pressed into the toe beside it. You could pull the loose skin away. Make things even so there’s aren’t any bumps or cuts. You shouldn’t. Even if it doesn’t hurt in the shower, it always starts to hurt when you dry off.

Mrs. Rivers keeps watching as you dry yourself off enough to fit into new clothes. It’s awkward enough that you want to put the clothes on right away, even though you know your bra will feel weird if you put it on while you’re still wet.

You hesitate when you get to the shoes. They’re too small. You can clearly see that they’re too small now that you’ve taken them off and you have the wounds to prove it. Mrs. Rivers notices your pause.

“Well? Aren’t you going to put them on?”

“They’re too small,” you tell her. Her eyes narrow. Is she asking for clarification? Asking you to shut up? Hopefully the former. Mother told her that she can’t hurt you if it leaves a mark and this leaves a mark. “I grew on the trail and they don’t fit anymore. They’re hurting me.”

“I told you to put them on,” she says. Her face is still angry. You can’t tell what type of angry. “And what did I tell you to remember?”

“Mrs. Rivers knows best. You know nothing but sin. You must listen to her if you want to wash off the stain of homosexuality,” you recite. “But—”

“And if I know best and I told you to put them on, why aren’t you putting them on?”

You take a deep breath. She wants you to surrender. It just doesn’t make any sense.

“How is it supposed to help?” you ask. She crosses her arms but doesn’t answer. You think she’s asking you to continue. “Wearing shoes that are too small, learning to cook, walking in heels. I just don’t get it.”

She relaxes. Her arms uncross. You breathe a sigh of relief.

Your cheek flares up in pain. You startle and look at her open hands just in time for your other cheek to get smacked. “You don’t need to get it,” she says with a low and even voice. “You don’t need to think. I get it. I can think my way through this. Your mind isn’t ready yet.” Her dark eyes bore into yours. You want to look away. You can’t. She told you to always maintain eye contact. “I’m starting to wonder how serious you are about all of this.”

“I-I am serious. I want to be straight.”

She raises an eyebrow. “Do you? I don’t think so. Your mind keeps wandering to dangerous subjects. You can’t even take orders without rebelling. Oh, the Wicked One’s talons are buried deep in your heart. Deep enough that you no longer remember why you should remove them.”

You do. You do. You desperately want to escape the cocoon and be good and pure. But you can’t tell her she’s wrong about you. That would break the rules about her knowing best. And you don’t want to get slapped again. That’s never happened before and it hurts enough you don’t want it to happen again.

“Reform is possible, child. I should know. I was once a homosexual like you before I was shown a better way. It took effort. Commitment. But I did it. I’ve helped many others do it. They had will. Do you?”

She turns around and walks out of the bathroom and then the room itself. The door slams shut behind her. You’re left alone to bask in your failure.

*​

The sun set and rose again. Your stomach growled ferociously and then quieted. Now you don’t feel hungry. Just tired and weak. You can get water from the faucet by cupping your hands underneath. There’s no food in here. None for you. Oliver has some seaweed submerged in a bowl of water. You aren’t sure if it would be edible for you even without his germs. He’s not exactly a clean eater and there are chewed up pieces of the grass floating in it.

No. You can’t eat that. Now.

…you’ll think about it again in a few days. It takes a few to die of starvation. You’re still in the clear.

Cloudy hovers just out of reach. You can’t touch him. It would ruin your clothes. You want to hug him. Is that a sin? You must have messed up badly to be punished like this. Mrs. Rivers certainly thought you had. If this is what you have to do to be purified…

Your stomach rumbles again. Ugh. Thinking about food must have woken it up. Maybe drinking more water would help?

You do. It doesn’t.

Oliver is sitting at the foot of your bed hugging an eevee plush. No Pixie around to scream at it. At least Ollie’s gotten closer to you over time. At first he refused to leave his corner of the closet. Then he’d walk to the door every now and then to check up on you. And now he’s even sitting on your bed. He’ll run away if you try to touch him, though.

You don’t know why some people don’t like being touched. Hugs and cuddles are great. Allana you can sort of understand since she had her pride. It took Cuicatl weeks before she stopped flinching when you tapped her shoulder.

You turn to look at the door. The starmie is still there keeping watching. Its light seems fainter. More like a nightlight than a flashlight. Is it dead? Sleeping? Did it just not notice that thought? Best not to risk it.

Happier subjects that don’t involve your whores. Um. Well, the knights are sinful. Journey is too close to one of them. Same with school. Your team is one step removed from your journey but maybe that’s safe? You wonder how Bubbles is doing. It’s been at least a week since you saw him last. Is Fern out in the gardens? He’d like that. Lots of sunlight and plants. Does he think you left him like his last trainer did? You didn’t. Sort of. It’s complicated.

Those aren’t happy thoughts.

Levi. You haven’t heard from him lately. The guards must be doing a better job keeping him away from you. He can’t get your sickness. You know that. He’s the male heir and he’ll need a male heir of his own to keep the family going. You’re less important.

A decoration. And if we don’t act the part they’ll throw us in the trash.

How long has it been since you talked to Exodus on Thanksgiving? At least a month. It was the day before the Solstice when the world fell apart. You never got to celebrate. Maybe another month in darkness. Then fifteen days of training after the light came back. That must mean its February.

You missed your birthday.

Have you also missed Levi’s?

You sit against the headboard and pull the covers up around you. How many celebrations will you miss before you’re straight? How long will you go without seeing Fern and Bubbles? Is it because of you that it’s taking so long? Would a good person have finished already? Mrs. Rivers thinks so. She’s seen a lot of homosexuals.

Your lower your head and close your eyes. Why are you like this?

Ollie waddles to the staircase to get more food. That’s fine. You might as well take another nap. Not as if there’s anything else to do. Before you drift off you see Ollie walking back up the staircase of books you made him. There’s seaweed in his hand. Weird. He likes to eat that in water. Helps him swallow it or something. He walks closer to you until you could reach out and touch him. Then he holds the seaweed out.

Oh.

That’s sweet.

You feel rude for declining but you don’t really want to eat psyduck spit. Not yet.

You shake your head. “Thank you, but I can’t eat it.” He keeps holding it out. “No,” you say. He probably knows that word. You hope he doesn’t think you’re chastising him.

He shoves the seaweed into his mouth and walks away.

That’s not what you’ve heard psyduck are like. Most like to party. Which means they like to break things and hurt people. Was he just raised different? Are their instincts not like that? Or can they learn to overcome their instincts, to be better? Maybe Father was trying to encourage you when he gave you Ollie…

You drift off to sleep and dream of falling farther, farther, farther into darkness. Just before you wake you see The Wicked One below.
 
Last edited:

Shiny Phantump

Through Dream, I Travel
Location
Hallownest
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. sylveon
  2. absol-mega
  3. silvally-psychic
  4. ninetales-phantump
  5. cosmog
  6. gallade-phantump
  7. ceruledge-phantump
good yes I need a refill of sad juice. (By which I mean I'm here to review what were the three latest chapters as of when I started writing this)

4.1: Hazard Pay

And, wow... Not that I liked Hala in 3.20, but... damn. Seeing all the fallout of his little fit of indiscretion here and in 4.3 is solidifying my dislike of him. (As a person, to be clear, not as a character.) You really didn't have to try that hard to break Cuicatl, Mr Hala, have you seen the title of this fic? Look. Cuicatl was almost debatably kinda functional and you broke her. More than previously.

You let your anger get the best of you and you weren’t the one to pay the price.
Poor Cuicatl, blaming herself for all this. I don't know what she was thinking at the time, but it's not like she was the one to, uhh, decide to shatter Pixie. I suppose she could have conceded the Grand Trial earlier, but honestly you'd assume a Kahuna would be better than that. Or perhaps I would assume that, I suppose Cuicatl has no reason to give any of them the benefit of the doubt.

At some point you cry yourself to sleep and drown in the same dreams of the broken, damned, and dead.
There's really next to no description of the dream, but somehow this little handful of words is more chilling than a paragraph or scene. I can almost picture it...

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


What…?
Coco you're the best.

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?
But Coco's right, she just has two mothers. So, really, that makes it not a lie at all.

You still almost threw your life away for money.
Oh, Lyra... For money? You don't know the half of it.

I wonder how that event would have gone had it happened before 3.20, if Cuicatl may have been more cautious with her life... but hey, all's well that ends well?

[UD_Cuicatl is not defective]
Aww, I feel like I owe Noci an apology for suspecting them earlier. Or perhaps I don't. Still not sure what's up with them. They did have other associations, but given the tone of the 4.2 remarks about it, it can't be VStar which is who one would assume to be responsible for everything shady and bad in the world.

Don’t. Deserve. Her.
yesyoudo. Please. Cuicatl. One day you will learn to accept the love of people around you and it will make me very happy.

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.
What a difference indeed...

It's nice to see some of the broken things getting closer to being fixed things.



4.2: Aftermath

I like this chapter. It's nice to see how things are going for these chucklefucks behind closed doors. It's also nice to have some people whose misfortune I can take genuine pleasure in the misfortune of. I don't have to wonder how they'll get out of this, because either they get out of it, or I will watch them burn with quite the amused look on my face.

“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…”
Reading that just dealt me 1d4 psychic damage.

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.
I wonder if Victini also hasn't noticed, or if they just don't want to deal with him either. I mean, they're sitting right on one of the seams. Wouldn't blame Victini for not wanting to deal with him because neither would I, but they've got to be there for some sort of reason in the first place.

“Fine. I’ll do it. Just not with the anesthesiologist. This is all his fucking fault. I don’t owe him a cent.”
His plan was to anaesthetize the Tyrantum for the whole time, wasn't it? Fucking idiot.

“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 savant.’ 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.”
I hold this truth to be self-evident. Except maybe for the savant part that seems a little generous. I guess his battling reputation earned him that part, because it sure wasn't anything else.

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

I mean, really, am I surprised? What is there to be surprised about there.

“You think I’m an idiot, too,” he slurs. “That I can’t do this.”
As the clock strikes midnight, we here the howling of a selfawarewolf gaining it's brief moment of transformation, becoming someone with the capacity for self-reflection for a two sentences before his head retreats back up his ass.

“No. I think you’re smart enough to hire people who can cover your weaknesses.”
How lucky that he can afford to hire people to cover, uhh, everything.

It has to be someone.

You don’t like that it’s her.
Oh? I find that really interesting. I figured Rachel didn't have things like morals or empathy, but it seems I may be somewhat mistaken.

can a severely depressed child be trusted to make informed decisions regarding the risks of a job and the value of her life?
Thank you Lila, I'm glad we have some sane representation in this chapter.

“Under the laws of Alola, yes.” You’ve triple checked that. It’s VStar’s entire business model.
Well, at least I made it to 2022 before dying laughing.

Also, hey, so much for caring about Cuicatl. I suppose that twinge of morality from earlier must have been a special occasion.



4.3: Scars
Oh no.

I really don't know how Pixie is ever going to recover from this. Emotionally, that is, physically it's just six broken ribs. What a mess you've made, Hala. Especially because I still have a hunch that this whole setup with Brattails isn't going to work out all that great in the end, which really isn't likely to make things much better.

You were weak so she abandoned you. Got it.
Pixie sure did manage to turn that message into a totally different thing. I suppose things like "unless you want to" just goes in one ear and out the other. Truly, the gift of selective listening lives strong in her.

“She didn’t hurt me,” you say. “The bird and his human did.”
She doesn’t… you don’t want that. She tried to help sometimes, even if she couldn’t. Even if she abandoned you.
This just makes me so SAD! She's so lost and directionless but she'll still stand up to Kukui's Murdertails when it comes down to this. I hope they can make up sometime. Especially because I'd probably be seeing a lot less of her otherwise.

“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.
I wonder what sort of place Pixie will be in mentally if/when she evolves. Ninetales Pixie sure is an interesting thought...

the female doesn’t have blood-colored hair, but you still recognize her scent.

Firemane.
Is that a reference to how Selene in-game can dye her hair over and over like it's nothing? Given red-haired Selene isn't an option without dye, I would assume that was a dyed colour Pixie saw that first time.

“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.”
I like Selene.

I wonder is she and Kekoa would get along if they met, without the pretense of all his baggage about her position. I feel like they'd get along... decently. Maybe not quite well, but at least decently.

“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.”
I feel kinda bad, given that my first thought here was that Selene really dodged a bullet there. Can't imagine that going well for anyone involved.

“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.”
Yes, I do like Selene. I wonder if Tapu Koko holds Vulpix in spiritual regard as well, because I can see this potentially going very poorly for Hala. Regardless, six broken ribs won't be a good look no matter what.

Also... I can't help but wonder about the word another there.

“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.
Oh. Oh no. This is not going to end well, is it? I feel like there's some significant underestimation of humans going on here. Is this going to be how Sadisttails blows thing up in her and Pixie's faces?

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?
pshht, addiction? I can stop whenever I want!

Anyways off to go read 4.4 now.
 

Pen

the cat is mightier than the pen
Staff
Partners
  1. dratini
  2. dratini-pen
  3. dratini-pen2
Arc Three Edits: Return of the Review

I mostly ended up reading just the chapters with changes, so unfortunately I can't comment on how the new chapters change the overall flow of the arc, but I think the edits were really effective. Lyra gets a chance to be a much more developed character here rather than a loose canon who shows up and snarls. She makes an interesting foil both to in-absentia Gen and to Kekoa, especially with how she reacts to her pokemon. I liked their suprise bonding at the end of 3.19 a lot too.

Florges and Noci chapters were great additions. Noci voice is always a blast to read and he provides an interesting window into Cuicatl. She seems even more open with him than with Pix at times, since she doesn't have to worry as much about triggering Noci. The florges chapter definitely pushes Kekoa in a big way on his role in V-star, his relationship with his pokemon, and his revolutionary ideals. I like where Kekoa ends this arc at a lot. He's finally starting to listen to the things people who have done more work than he has are saying.

Big congrats getting through these! I'm guessing there are some bumps that readers new to this arc will point out on their initial reads that I'm going to miss as a rereader, but overall I think this ties together nicely. Excited to pick up with arc four!

3.7, 3.8, 3.10:

Lyra Joins the Team

So we've got Lyra joining the team instead of trying to kill the team. Nice! Her POV voice feels more logic-focused and transactional this time round, and I think it works. She approaches situations through a framework of analysis, looking for what she can give and what she can get. It ties in well with how she copes with the knowledge that her memories were altered. The Lyra vs Gen question is really put into focus by Lyra taking Gen's position. Functionally, as Kekoa notes, she fills a similar role by having money and resources. But Lyra's a lot more competent than Gen, and a lot less, shall we say, sincere? Lyra's good at training and logistics; she has Thoughts about preservation; and she sticks up for herself. She also knows exactly what she wants out of this and it's not friendship and rainbows. And she definitely has her nasty side: the way she instantly switches into mentally critiquing Cuicatl's appearance when it occurs to her that Cuicatl could be a romantic rival does not bode well. She slides into the team dynamic fairly well in these three revised chapters. The only thing is that I think I wanted a bit more in 3.8 from Cuicatl about her impression of Lyra. Cuicatl's internal monologue is suprisingly empty on evaluating the new team member. I'm liking Lyra as a Kekoa foil a lot here. Their back-and-forth on the cave preservation was pretty revealing of Kekoa's habit of dismissing people once he's characterized them in his mind.

Translation Time With Cuicatl

Love to see the themes of pokemon agency being addressed more and the very eoe focus on names. Lyra wins a lot of points for me for instantly recognizing the potential of Cuicatl's translation abilities and using that to find out what her team wants and needs from her. What I appreciate most is that she tries to respond with really concrete actions. Didn't get to say goodbye? Let's go back there and do that. Mom vanished? Everytime we see a mudbray I'm letting you out. Lyra's clearly not just going through the motions here and looking for her pokemon to say 'Yup, you're great, don't worry about it.'

Kekoa, on the other hand, is dearly hoping for something like that. I'm glad he at least has the self-awareness to see that; he's really come a long way in that regard. But even though he asks a lot of the same questions as Lyra does, there's something pretty shallow about it. He argues to defend Thunderstorm as a name, even though it's no hardship on him to use a different one.

I really enjoyed all the translation scenes. You write great pokemon voices and it's always a treat to get some prolonged exposure there. I also liked Cuicatl's moment at the end of 3.8, realizing that despite her ability to talk to her pokemon, she's taken a lot of things about Noci for granted.

You’re woken up by nightmares. That’s not unusual. The first has been normal as of late: Genesis kicking you over a railing to fall to your death. The second, a particularly dedicated buzzwole chasing you around Route 3, isn’t normal. No idea what your subconscious was doing there. The third… the damn psychic and his alakazam.

2011​
This bit was a little short. Is it intended to be a lead in to the flashback? If it is, maybe just ending on the ellipses.

Then you start journaling. You have to do it on your phone now, since you couldn’t really write on a dark page. That’s not ideal. Phones can be altered in a way that books can’t be. You won’t make it easy on your enemies, though. After you finish writing down yesterday’s events and today’s plans, you email the note to three separate accounts. 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.
Love these practical measures she's taking. Shows how serious she takes this without doing anything melodramatic.

Forty-five, your phone says.
Oh, not super cold yet! But crazy for Alola, yeah. I can't remember getting an exact temperature before, though maybe I just missed it. It's actually really nice to have a reference point.

Unless the psychic-types are working together…
You never can tell with those psychic-types . . .

When you fought a long time ago she’d only had a vulpix against your pyukumuku. Didn’t even use extrasensory or anything, even though it would’ve really helped her. So she’s not a psychic herself. Just has a random psychic-type on her team. That’s fine. Lots of trainers have one.
Lyra making some Deductions over here. I didn't entirely follow the worldbuilding--can pokemon only use extrasensory if the trainer is a psychic?

Just. There are monsters in the world who envy the predators that can hurt anyone, any time. If they can have that power for themselves they’ll gladly take it. Thankfully those assholes usually tell on themselves pretty quickly.
Lyra has a tendency to lay traps in conversations, huh. It's her way of gathering info and protecting herself.

When she smiles at her own joke there’s a moment you can see the building blocks of someone very cute.
Lyra is kind of thirsty.

“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?”
Lol at how quickly Lyra works out that it's Gen from that.

If you can’t do it alone, you’ll need help. Maybe someone in the staff will be sympathetic to Genesis, but probably not enough to defy their notoriously litigious employer. Your dad isn’t pissing off The Rocket’s business partner so some of his associates helping is off the table. The Skulls would just take Genesis as a hostage themselves. 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.
That rewrite feeling where Lyra is poking holes in her pre-write self's logic. I think this all makes sense and is a pretty logical assessment of how screwed Lyra is in terms of allies.

And she’ll be looking for a new traveling partner. Maybe even money to pay for her pokémon’s diets. You can fill both needs.
Very transaction approach!

She answers shortly after. “On visa. Will slay.”

Probably a text-to-speech error there. You don’t correct her.
Lmao. Imagining Cuicatl very seriously saying, "I will slay."

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.
Oof. A big theme in this story. Gen's parents, obviously, but this has resonance for Cuicatl's Dad and Pix's everything.

She isn’t even that hot either. She could be pretty, but you are.
Lyra seems to be getting a bit of herself here. Get Gen out of conversion therapy, then win the war for her heart.

You’d initially thought she had money if she could afford a visa out and tutoring to get her accent almost perfect, but she seems worried every time you talk about the budget.
The accent being perfect is a side-effect of the psychic thing, right? The dramatic irony.

At least you probably have the money to pay a scalper when all this is done. Might need to call your parents to beg for blood money, which you’re loathe to do, but it’s better than freezing to death or being stuck in Hau’oli for a month.
Lyra does fill a lot of the same functions Gen did with the available parental resources.

“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.”
Ooh, some Ho-oh lore and an interesting twist on the phoenix stuff and burning of the tower.

Her words strike something uncomfortable deep inside. Your father… punished you for correction’s sake. But you do not wish to be punished any more. You will only go back once he cannot. Is this proper? He created you and has a right, but you no longer wish to give it to him. Was everything before that…
Had to read this a few times to follow it, though I get why Cuicatl's thoughts are so oblique here. This is hard for her.

She will only go back once he cannot [punish her any longer.] He created her and has a right [to punish her], but she doesn't want to allow him to take advantage of that right anymore. That's how I'm parsing it.

Parents as gods is oof, but I suppose creation is a big justification for both.

“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.”


“Maybe you’re right,” Lyra whispers, barely audible over the rain.
Lyra's sort of agreement there surprised me a bit.

“Maybe you’re right,” Lyra whispers, barely audible over the rain.
*​
“Danielle Lee?” You look up at the receptionist. “The gym leader is ready.”
The flashback felt weirdly placed here.

You scoot closer and give him a side hug. Then you slump down and your head finds itself on his shoulder. This always calmed down Achcauhtli when he was riled up. Maybe it’s weird if he isn’t your brother, but he doesn’t object when you do it. “Your voice has gotten a lot lower,” you tell him. “And you smell different now. It suits you.”

He laughs. Sort of. It’s really just a big exhale with some noise. “Missed my last two periods, too.”

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.
Can't remember if Cuicatl and Kekoa had this moment before, but it's a really lovely one and brings home their closeness.

Not eager to be the translator while Kekoa gets into an argument with a bat.
Amazing.

You try your best at the screech, but Silent Wings immediately tells you that you’re at least three octaves off. You busy yourself with flipping the meat instead of translating his thoughts on your voice.
Rip. Cuicatl's selfconsciousness about her draconic pronunciation is so real as a language learner.

“Does Musei work?” Lyra asks. “It means silent in Japanese. My home’s language.”

“Yes,” Musei rumbles. Probably wouldn’t have picked up on it at all if it weren’t for your gift. “It is a good name.”

You don’t think it fits very well, but it seems to make him happy, so you won’t give your opinions. “He likes it.”
Names! Great to see Lyra immediately switching to something that's as close to Musei's original name as she can.

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.
Makes a ton of sense, love the nuances of translation here.

He likes going to new places and trying to scare your absol.
As one does!

But ‘try not to be really annoying’ would require changing most of her personality and you don’t think you’d want that, even if she could.
where is the lie though, honestly.

Lyra’s been waiting patiently so you finally clear your throat. “He wanted to say goodbye before he left his…” Family? Friends? You settle for something neutral. “…his home.”

“Oh,” Lyra says. It’s a quiet sound with a hint of horror in it. She’d probably never thought about that before. And maybe there were also people she hadn’t had a chance to say goodbye to. “I… we’re getting close to where I caught you. We can stop by if you want?”

Musei trills happily (and at a reasonable volume) on your shoulder. Pixie hisses beside you, annoyed at another pokémon giving you comfort. You set the spoon and spatula down and scratch her ears. {Love you.}

She doesn’t answer.
Not sure Pix is annoyed by Musei here as much as the fact that Musei can visit home and she can't, Cuicatl.

Again, here for Lyra trying to make things better when they're pointed out to her as opposed to just shrugging.

{Can you just make noises sometimes?} you ask Musei. {It’ll make her think you’re translating.

She shrieks yes.
On the one hand, this is funny. On the other, Cuicatl is already making conspiracies with Lyra's pokemon and I do not think this will end well when the truth comes out.

“Just maybe not in my ear,” you mutter low enough Lyra probably can’t hear it.

The mudbray stirs and snorts. “I don’t like lying to her.”

{Then tell the truth.}

You go back to stirring as the mudbray thinks. “I meant about how we’re talking.”

“Do you want to talk to her?” you ask aloud. She once again takes a while to mull it over. A very thoughtful horse.

“Yes.”
A very good horse.

You wait a second for Musei to ramble on about his favorite berries. Haban are the best, but they’re rare so he’ll settle for pechas or bluks. Useful information to pass onto Lyra later.
Musei is a darling.

“No.” You can hear her kick some dirt up a few meters away. “I was my mother’s foal. I didn’t need a name.”
There's something really kind of heartwarming/heartbreaking about that, being able to have a sense of self rooted in your family (and then what happens when that family is taken away.)

“Mother says the mudsdale were made to help humans. They made us big and strong so we could carry things. I’m supposed to help them. It’s what I was made to do.”
Strong Amara energy here.

You make a mental note of the story for later. it makes sense that a domesticated breed
* It

Mom’s swanna grew up on a farm and he sees humans as his servants, not his gods. You’d thought all barnyard pokémon might be like that.
That's because Swanna is mighty and too good for this world.

“You can’t,” she snorts. “One day I went out to graze and she wasn’t home when I came back.” Jishin pauses to kick at the ground, like it took her mother from her. You want to hug the horse but don’t know how she’d react. Besides, you’ll leave that to Lyra. Her noibat’s already a little too friendly with you and you don’t want to give her the idea you’re trying to steal her team. “I think a human caught her. Maybe you’ll run into them someday.”
Jishin 💔

why are you and kint throwing these sad horses at me

{ProgenitorUnit is aware of present mission.}
This is oddly cute.

You’ve received a lot of answers when asking people about their parents, but “it’s classified” is new.
Chuckled at this one.

You still haven’t talked to Hekeli yet. It’s been months since you found out that a psychic translator was within shouting distance 90% of the time and you still haven’t had a real talk with your trumbeak. At first it was because you didn’t think you needed it since the birds are deeply connected to your people.

Now you’re scared of what you’ll find out. It’s cowardly, but deep down you don’t want her to tell you that she hates you. There’s still a false queen to dethrone and you can’t do that without pokémon.
Well, good on Kekoa for recognizing his selfish motivations at least.

Sending her out just to talk is selfish and bad for her health.

But you’ll gladly send her out for longer to battle the totems, a traitorous part of your mind replies.
Yuup.

What color are the Gage Heiress’s eyes, anyway? Green, right? Or blue… she didn’t like making eye contact very much. Neither does Cuicatl. Part of why it’s so easy to forget.
🙃

“And apparently I’m not as goof of a trainer.”
* good

“Uh, she wants to know what’s going on with the darkness? And the cold? And why she’s not getting as much food?”

“An alien ate the light and now it’s getting colder, like it always does at night,” you answer. “Because there’s no light there aren’t as many berries growing. Might have to keep you in your ball for a while. Sorry.”
Couldn't Hekeli have asked Cuicatl this on her own? Or has she literally not been taken out of her pokeball since this began?

“How long do you need to fly to get to the moon?”

You turn your phone on to look, but you don’t have signal in the cave. You vaguely remember hearing it took the astronauts three days? And since trumbeak are moving, dunno, a tenth the speed of a rocket, that’s probably thirty days. “About a month,” you respond. “You’d have to start flying just as the moon reappears and then you’d get there right before it disappears.”

The bird pecks the ground angrily.

“Not worth it,” Cuicatl translates.

Well at least she won’t try to run off to the moon. Good to have that worked out.
Establishing the important things. Kind of want the chapter where dream team Pixie and Mahina fly to the moon and save the day.

“Thunderstorm. It’s because you hit like lightning.”

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. “She doesn’t like lightning,” Cuicatl says. “It hurts.”

“Well, she’s good at making opponents hurt.”

Another crack to the ground.

“She doesn’t like lightning,” Cuicatl repeats.
I like Mahina not being into Kekoa's 'cool' name. Lightning means something different to her than it does to Kekoa and if it's going to be her name, her meaning is more important.

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.
Really cool, and brings more how hard concealing this is.

You doubt she’d have a problem with it, but it’s Cuicatl’s secret to reveal when she wants to.
Uhhh hold that thought Kekoa.

Oh. A reassuring thing. She’s proud you did the thing you should’ve done months ago.
That's what friends are for. Finding the Kekoa/Cuicatl bromance more pronounced on this read-through.

“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 to have the characters drawing these comparisons between Gen and Lyra.

Great. Now she’s insulting the ability of Tapu Koko and his kahuna to pick a trial site.
This is such classic Kekoa. He's always looking for something to get mad about even if it's really a sentiment he should agree with.

“Or a walking stick,” Lyra adds. That is a more masculine option. But since she suggested it you can’t do it for a little while.
Kekoa. Try not being five years old for a moment, please.

Cuicatl didn’t want to spend more time in the cold than she needed to after her brush with hypothermia on Route 2. Because she’s a dumbass who won’t tell other people what’s wrong until she can’t hide it anymore. Anyway, she thought that if she could survive Hokulani then she could survive Pāhili. She was right. She’s doing fine.
I don't remember the hypothermia thing and I just reread?

Hekeli is still learning to fly in the dark. No, that’s not right. She knows how to fly in the dark; landing is another story.
Lol, rip.

You vaguely remember some conspiracy theorist talking about the beheeyem rewriting memories or something, but that always struck you as tabloid nonsense.
This is also very Kekoa. He believes plenty of stuff that could be considered out there, but when it comes from a source he dislikes, it's a conspiracy theory.

“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.”

“I like predators,” Cuicatl says so quietly that you can barely hear it over the wind. “I’d find a way to pay for it.”
Lyra talking so much sense here.

This is the second time Cuicatl's said that phrase.

And the idea of Lyra chewing out Cuicatl on being financially irresponsible rubs you fifty different wrong ways.
Yup. It can be true that Lyra both does not need to worry about money and that she is better at fiscal responsibility than Cuicatl, but that doesn't make it feel right.

It’s raining when you wake up. You groan and pull yourself awake as you think about all that means. The rufflet pecks you for waking him up. Thankfully it’s not a hard peck like last night.

“You up?” you ask. In case that didn’t also wake Cuicatl up.

“Yes,” she says. “Looks like we might not be able to hike today.”
This reads like Cuicatl and Kekoa are still sharing a tent. I'm guessing the whole Kekoa sleeps in his own tent; Lyra and Cuicatl share thing was a change that was harder to catch everywhere.

3.12 Who's That Pokemon? It's . . . White Florges!

I love your pokemon spotlight chapters. White Florges pops up and just starts dumping truthbombs on Lyra and Kekoa. It's good content. I understand Lyra not being in a position for it to sink in--this is everything she most fears and she's petrified. But Kekoa really should be taking notes. Yet in classic Kekoa fashion his focus is more on whether the florges, as an abstract embodiment of revolutionary spirit, approves of him, and not the points Florges is actually making.

Lyra runs off during the encounter--I get that Kekoa doesn't care, but it was a bit weird that the rest of the chapter went by, including a scene with Cuicatl, without Lyra being addressed at all.

“How’d you know we were children?” Lyra asks. Huh. Good catch. Not that you’ll tell her that.
Lyra's always on alert.

“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.
I was a bit confused here, maybe because I'm hopping between the new chapters. Is the 'friend' Kekoa? Or someone Lyra paid?

You’re paying too much attention to this.

You’re paying too much attention to this.

“Yeah,” you say.
Uh oh.

“They aren’t poachers.”

“Because poaching is illegal, and they’ve made enough well-placed donations that they aren’t illegal,” Lyra says. Great. Now you’re arguing with two people. Or you could just let it slide.
Lyra's fun because she's got the insider knowledge without the illusions.

“Is that not the mentality of the poacher?” the woman asks. “Society gives them a way out of destitution, if only they sell out the world in which they live. An ingenious trap. When all the exploited have is their heritage, persuade some to betray it. Then use that as an excuse to steal it under the guise of conservation.” She sighs. “If only your kind would use that cleverness to better ends.”

“Your kind?”

Unimportant.
Kekoa is getting told this chapter.

Florges. A white florges. They’re banned half the world over for their habit of assassinating warmongers and polluters. Some Middle Eastern nation lost its shit and started firing on people when white petals showed up in a crowd. They’re the ultimate revolutionaries, and one is standing right in front of you.
Didn't they go into the field trying to find one? Not sure why Kekoa's so surprised they did. Oh, florges as opposed to floette. That took me too long.

Love the details here.

“Can you not tell the difference between those who can harm you and those who will? Do you believe you must be invulnerable to be safe?”

“Fuck you,” she growls. It somehow sounds like a plea for help. Damn it, you don’t want to have sympathy for her.

“You will never be invulnerable child, not so long as gods walk the earth.”
And now Lyra is getting told.

But sometimes humans, like plants, need pruned to properly grow.
That checks out so much for a florges mindset.

“Will you fight with such when others seek justice?
"with such" is confusing here.

Or for a child lost in darkness, trying desperately to avoid being taken by a strange man and sent away from his only home?”

It takes you longer than you’d like to admit to realize she’s talking about the floette.
Rip.

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.
white florges is wise

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…”
white florges also read eoe

Maybe it’s a scam: literally freeze your people out of the market, then buy all the land and stay hunkered down in their bubbles. Keep it all when the sun comes back. Maybe Selene’s even in on it.
This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of last chapter when Kekoa called Lyra's fears about psychics tabloid nonsense. Meanwhile he's over here thinking covid the moon being eaten is a real estate scam.

You remember her lecturing Lyra about paranoia and you scowl. “We’re not the same.”
When you need to say "we're not the same" Kekoa . . .

Even though you won. Why is she still disappointed with you?
Face palm.

And if they did… you know you should care more about that but you really don’t. The only thing they could take from you is pain.
Welp. That's not really true though, is it. If he took away the memories from her mom, that could be considered taking away something that contributes to Cuicatl's pain, but would she accept that given the choice? I think she's not really thinking through what it means to lose memories. Even something like her brother's death--would she want to forget that? It would be a kind of false absolution in her mind, wouldn't it?

“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.”
I see a bit of a parallel between Pix and Gen here. Pix is choosing a parent who is likely bad decisions over being with Cuicatl; that's uncomfortably close to Lyra's situation with Gen. Lyra seems pretty confident so far that if she could get Gen out Gen would come, but would she be able to accept it if Gen wouldn't? She'd probably keep trying, even though it had bad consequences for Gen, and that's what Cuicatl's doing.

3.18 Inefficient Software

Noci POV best POV let's gooo. I can definitely see the effects of Noci's upgrade in this chapter. His POV voice is a lot more sophisticated in analyzing Cuicatl's irrational human impulses and finding ways to counter them in order to advance the mission. Realizing that if he mimicked Cuicatl's suicidal impulse for having inefficient software, she'd get horrified and back off was scarily smart and begins to bring home how terrifying metagross must be, if metang can work out that kind of complexity. Noci pushing Cuicatl to seek therapy (all for the sake of the corollary mission, of course) is a wonderful combo of wholesome and not, which is really Noci all over. This chapter it finally hit me that Noci's heating malfunction is one of the reasons he's so warm and huggable. It's interesting how both Noci and Pix are baffled by Cuicatl holding herself responsible for her brother's death and in their different ways are trying to get her to move beyond it.

(The way you summarized this chapter in your edit post made me think that Noci realizing Cuicatl needed more help than he could give was connected with the Lyra conversation.)

[Observation: 21.6% of Data Pertains to Fluid Release]

[Query: Fluid Release Data Sufficient?]

A pause of 0.24 seconds recorded. Value exceeds maximum observed lapse in 100 Class Unit communications.

[Request: UnitDesignate_Cuicatl_Ichtaca Communications Regarding Fluid Release Observation]

[Data_Packet: Communications Regarding Fluid Release Delivered to Unit100_110010]

[MonitorFluidRelease_Priority.low]

Unit001_101110110 Has Gathered Sufficient Data On Fluid Release.
I am dying at a metang and metagross having an awkward conversation about observing humans pee. Maximum observed lapse in 100 unit communications indeed, lol.

UnitDesignate_Cuicatl_Ichtaca Initiates Inefficient Hug.
It's Super Effective!

Alarm Lvl 101: UD_Cuicatl can acquire subordinate energy beings possessing a superior strength to Unit010_100000111. UD_Cuicatl may only have six subordinate energy beings. Replacement inefficient for Primary Mission, Corollary.

“Guess she likes you, I guess. Can’t tell why.”

UD_Cuicatl will not replace Unit010_100000111 if high affinity is maintained. AffinityPriority.high. Will continue to surveil.
Noci's turn to have the Pix paranoia.

“Fine,” UD_Cuicatl concedes. Unit010_100000111 Has Successfully Protected Secrets and Alleviated Suspicions of UD_Cuicatl.
Sure you did, baby.

[MonitorFluidRelease_Priority.low]

“I’m sure Kekoa will be happy about that.”
Amazing.

Theory: UD_Cuicatl poses low threat to Collective. UD_Reshiram, UD_Alice, UD_N pose medium to high threat to Collective.
A very interesting theory. I see Reshiram and Alice in terms of raw power, but why N as a threat?

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;
Such an efficient origin story.

Terrans possess Trait.Justice. They believe that some actions incur future ‘deserved’ consequences independent of the natural results of an action. Source of trait unknown. Empirical evidence is lacking. Sometimes Terrans will shape actions based on perception of ‘deserved’ consequences.
Humans are odd.

Optical fluid release is an indication of compounding software errors, such as Error.Sadness.
It is a bad software error.

“If my software is inefficient enough that it just hurts everyone, including me, would it be a bad thing if it stopped running?”

Termination of UD_Cuicatl Results in Failure of Corollary1.
Oof, Cuicatl.

UD_Cuicatl possesses Trait.Empathy. UD_Cuicatl possesses affinity for Unit010_100000111. UD_Cuicatl has not attempted to directly harm Unit010_100000111. Conclusion: UD_Cuicatl does not seek termination of Unit010_100000111. UD_Cuicatl will relate potential termination of Unit010_100000111 to potential termination of UD_Cuicatl.

[X] Communicate

[Alarm Lvl 101: Heat Vent Malfunction;
Unit010_100000111 Is Malfunctioning;
Unit010_100000111 Is Bad Metang;
Initiating Self Termination…]
Wow, that was some pretty sophisticated thinking from Noci. That upgrade is showing.

Terrans possess dedicated software debugging units. Efficient.

UD_Cuicatl has not been flagged for debugging. Inefficient.

[UD_Cuicatl Possesses Critical Software Errors That Threaten Further Operations;
UD_Cuicatl Requires Software Debugging]
I'm with Noci on this one.

[UD_Cuicatl Can Send Queries Via Phone;
UD_Cuicatl Possesses Phone;
UD_Cuicatl Can Send Query]
So pushy.

3.19 Wait . . .

Really enjoyed the changes to this one. The florges conversation combined with the Plumeria + Kanoa one finally makes Kekoa take a harder look at his cause. I like where this chapter leaves him towards the close of the arc a lot more now, and I'm excited to see where he goes from here. Of course, he's not entirely rejecting his old ideas. And he's still not willing to question working for V-Star too much. The scene with the inkay felt important. Kekoa realizes that yeah, he should probably ask the pokemon he's caught before selling them off. But asking means the answer could be no. And if the answer keeps being no, then there goes his income. Doing the right thing here has real costs, and Kekoa doesn't think he's in a position to pay them.

As a kid I kept going to the local graveyard hoping that one would grab him and take him away. Then one day I realized that I could leave on his own if he wanted. I did.
Think something got scrambled here?

Plumeria thinks your plan is bad.

She thinks that you’re useless to her. To the cause. To Alola.
A call-back to the florges would be nice here. Kekoa thinks about her in the ending segment, so it would be good to see that.

“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.
Disaster bonding!

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.
Ohh boy. That's an interesting bit of lore. I see how Lugia and Kyogre could both stand for the sea, and Ho-oh and Groudon for fire. Maybe the differences would be justified as an earth/sky aspect. Very inconvenient when other people's gods decide to fuck shit up.

“…well, 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.”
I like the bit of complexity that Rocket mob boss dad is getting. Explains how he fell in with Gen's family.

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.
This strikes a nice balance between Kekoa finding some things in common with Lyra and the big gap still between them.

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.
Yes, Kekoa, I'm sure that's the real reason :rolleyes:

For a moment you wonder if he’d try to get groudon for this. No. Even she isn’t that stupid.
She?

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.
Who does that sound like--

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.
Just started cackling at that wait. Ladies and gentlemen, is this a revelation?

Floette are people? They’re sentient, yeah, it makes sense. She’d insisted you were a poacher, even if you were doing it for good reasons.
I feel like kidnapper would be the more apt word for taking sentient beings away from their homes.

If you sell her she’ll end up in some building with toilets to flush and places to explore. It won’t be too different. But… you should ask her, to be sure. And if she says no…

…you can afford to keep her 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 then you won’t have the money to properly care for your team.
News at seven: area boy discovers that respecting the autonomy of pokemon makes your life more difficult.

The additional scene works well to close off the chapter! We get a larger sense of how Alola is reacting, and some more aftermath of Hala's decision, in terms of him getting excluded from the moment. Reading this reminded me how much I enjoyed this chapter. Hala's such a stubborn old man, and you really do feel where he's coming from.

She even signed a few petitions for Plasma’s Alola branch back in the day. Don’t think she’s apologized for it, either.
Says so much about Hala that he thinks an apology is in order for that.

Maybe what you did was wrong, but so was every other choice.
🙃

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, revealing that it’s all gone gray at some point.
Nice touch with barely fifty being young.

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.
Mmm, both of these are compelling metaphors, and I like the way he feels both too old and too naive at once.
 

love

Memento mori
Pronouns
he/him/it
Partners
  1. leafeon
I read a bunch of this a while ago but never wrote a review. I am resuming reading from around chapter 1.6 to refresh my memory. This post is a bit shallow, I think, but I wanted to focus on just getting something out since I failed at that last time.

My biggest complaint is that a concerning number of chapters appear to center characters other than Pixie. As the strongest, prettiest, and smartest character, Pixie should be the center of attention at all times. Please remedy this as soon as possible.

Aside from that glaring issue, I remember wanting to comment on Genesis' fuck up in chapter 1.7 as an example of where the narration felt, at points, very on-the-nose. In particular,

Like you’re the one being attacked.

Crap. Shouldn’t have said that. Couldn’t have. You. You wouldn’t. You’re a good person. And you’re not a racist!

She can recognize, even in the heat of the moment, that she's defending Lusamine because she identifies with her and that what she said was racist and indefensible, but she still managed to be immature enough to say it. It didn't totally track to me. Felt like you were giving up the game a bit—laying out her character flaws in a way that felt like an authorial statement of intent. There were a few other places in the narration where I felt similarly, but I cannot remember where they were.*[note about this in the next paragraph] I think I am generally more tolerant of Pixie's cognitive dissonance because she comes across as younger and demonstrates little self-awareness.

(*There's another example of something similar-ish here:

He croaks, which honestly could mean anything, and you keep on moving, basking in your brilliance.

"basking in your brilliance" feels more like an ironic dig by the author than sincere, psychically close narration. It *is* somewhat amusing, but it's also somewhat dissonant.

You swallow it down and vow to never do a racism again.

This is another example; the memey language is also a bit jarring)

Speaking of Pixie, I really like her perspective. Partly because of pro-vulpix bias, I'm sure, but also the way her insecurity shines through (need for constant affection, refusal to admit defeat, staying quiet even when she's melting because she's supposed to stay quiet in the harness, etc.). Really makes me want to give her a big hug and tell her that she really is the most amazing ice fox to have ever lived and that she's so cute and lovable etc etc. I think Cuicatl handles her pretty well, in the sense that she reassures her but doesn't actually go as far as to feed into her delusions.

“Besides, vulpix are the best foxes and I am very smart for a human so I know not to leave one for an eevee.” You try to pour as much disgust as possible into those words.

Okay actually never mind disregard that last sentence I said. I did guiltily enjoy Cuicatl indulging Pixie in this chapter, though.

But you deserved it. For the mama’s girl dig. And just in general you deserve a few trips here and there. Remind you of your place. Might make you prettier. You almost just drop down and collapse into the mud and let your face hit the earth and wallow there forever. They could just hike faster and

No you have a right to be mad ;_;

You pause and take a breath, emotional pain swelling and subsiding all at once. Sometimes you need to push your head above the surface and breathe. Sometimes you need to push someone else down to do that. Everyone else does it when they need to. Hell, she does it to you non-stop with her girl jokes. Can't say she doesn't deserve it.

When will the cycle of violence end. Gonna be hard to repair their relationship after this scene.

You want the sun to rise and the rains to come as much as anyone else but that can be done with volunteers and war captives, right?

You know I'm not sure that's really any better

“Okay,” he finally says. “I’ll take the deal.”

Oh okay they kind of resolved this easier than I expected

Ce intercepts the water gun and doesn’t care at all because she’s a paras.

I thought Sir Bubble had used Bubble, though

Pixie curled up in the shade, four paras around her, and one sitting on her head like a hat.

At first I thought this was saying Pixie had a paras on her head, but either way I think it's a funny scene.

The grubbin forms a second later. You deliberately puff yourself up to make yourself larger and throw your voice down in pitch. “Hello, I’m your new—” A string shot hits you right in the face. Hekeli moves and you can hear a fight break out. You half-consciously withdraw the bug and bring a hand to your mouth to assess the damage. Damn it. Webbing everywhere. Is it water soluble? It had better fucking be.

The contrast between this taming experience and Cuicatl's is great. Good for you, grubbin.

My thoughts on Kekoa overall are that he's an asshole, of course, and while he has sympathetic struggles and backstory, they clearly are not meant to excuse him. I believe that he can be redeemed, though. He is, at least sometimes, capable of recognizing that his behavior is cruel.

“Good night, Pixie. Good night, Cuicatl Ichtaca.”

Relationship development hype. I'm glad she was able to relate to him well enough to relieve some of the tension. And revealing her powers was a brave thing to do, I thought.

But you should probably wait until they like you more before you save their souls. Neither are likely to die in the next week.

Man I would hate it if I had to worry about saving the souls of like pretty much everyone I get close to

Chapter 1.12 is really hammering home how little Genesis has thought about, like, actually completing the challenges and also how little she knows about pokemon. (Do lycanroc eat rocks? Can I get one with a Class II license? Do leafeon eat plants?). RIP eevee, though. I was kind of surprised she didn't try to save it out of stubbornness if nothing else.

Kekoa—Allana—looks up and makes eye contact with Kanoa.

Irritating that she goes out of her way to use the wrong pronoun *and* the wrong name.

Honestly, you’re just looking for enough power to beat the trial and move on to the next one. You’ll figure that one out when you get to it.

You know, something tells me that might not work out so well. I wonder if the leafeon's natural reluctance to train will force her to put some effort in.

Inferno shakes himself off and the few ice crystals that hit him go flying away. The field is bathed in red light as Pixie is withdrawn. There are thin lines of blood on the field where the razor leaf attack hit. Cuicatl turns around and starts walking in the direction of the Center.

I like this description of the aftermath of the battle; gives some strong images and lets the reader fill in the gaps. Efficient. Maybe the second sentence would read better as "Red light bathes the field as Cuicatl withdraws Pixie"—changing it to active voice.

I'm surprised at how well the adoption idea worked out, though—at this point I kind of wonder if it isn't a waste of time to catch things the old fashioned way.

Can you ask to keep… playing? She seems done and you didn’t really understand what was going on. Maybe sometime in the future you can see if you can bring it up.

This bit made me go back and check Genesis' age. This struck me as especially childish/socially obtuse, even for her. I'm not really suggesting you change it right now, I just wanted to mention that it stood out to me. BT gang DND session when

“Jenny just blew fifty bucks on an eevee.”

Okay, kinda suspected that's why the others didn't consider adopting. Money sure can solve a lot of problems.

Her? Him? You don’t want to offend Allana. You don’t want to offend Xerneas.

Again, this reinforces how much it would suck to believe in the shit she believes in. I feel bad for her in a way, but it's also kind of her fault.

She picks some clothes off of her bed and walks towards the bathroom door. “I saw a castform. Once you clear your trial I know where we should look.” Already thinking about that when your friend is hurt? Allana stops with her hand on the doorknob and lets her fingers slide off as she turns back towards you. “Her pride’s hurt. I don’t need to tell you to be nice but.” She sighs and turns back towards the door. “If I’m being a dick call me out.”

Wholesome moment! <3

I actually relate to Genesis insofar as she just doesn't socialize or adult well. I guess she's had a comparatively sheltered life. I wouldn't be surprised if her sexist religious beliefs played into her upbringing not preparing her for much responsibility or adventure. Wish I remembered more of the earlier chapters, because there might have been more on this.

only a charred, bloody, remains

I think this is missing a word.

Accidents happen, after all.

I thought this scene was really effective.

The creature descends again. You feel two, three more blows each followed by cracking and warmth in your body but none of it hurts more than what you just saw.

Was this degree of violence really necessary to capture her? Anyway, her backstory is pretty heartbreaking, and I think you get that across successfully with broad strokes.

There’s a giant (but very pretty) white human-like thing in the center of the clearing.

Throughout the fight scene I never had a clear idea of what this really looks like. It's given the epithet of fluffman, but the initial description here doesn't imply that there is any fluff. Or leaves, which are also mentioned later. Toward the end, I realized it's probably a shiftry. Maybe there's a better way to summarize its appearance. Brown biped with white fluff and leaf-fans for hands? (Pix would say "paws", of course.)

Should you put her down?

It's hitting me that Pix thinks this is a life or death matter—it surprises me a little that Cuicatl never made it clear to her that her life isn't in danger during these trials. Pretty big communication gap. And is there a particular reason Pix doesn't assume that this is like one of the other non-mortal battles Cuicatl has already had her fight?

You were never good for anything.

And now that I think about it, I'm not sure if we've ever been presented with Pix's thoughts after losing a battle; this is the first time in the story that I can recall her facade actually breaking.

No, that’s what the first attack felt like this.

?

“I hope you’re happy.”

There is a part of me that empathizes with Pix's cruel pleasure. It taps into the selfishness I had as a child, I think. But even as an adult, it's not too hard to see the appeal of being the center of the universe.

The man on the screen nods sympathetically but he’s been steadily less sympathetic as the conversation has worn on.

I appreciate how you've shown pretty much as little of this scene as possible while still getting all the characterization/implications across. I think there are a lot of examples of good efficiency in the story.

Should you help? She did betray you. But if you help her now she might realize how valuable you are and kick out Loudspore for good. Worth the risk. You steadily plod over and gently extend a paw to her back.

This paragraph hammers home Pixie's selfishness. She isn't worrying about how badly Cuicatl is hurt, just whether it would be pragmatic to take revenge now. My prediction is that she will slowly start to feel guilty as she sees the negative effect banishing Ce had on Cuicatl, but I am not sure if that alone will spark much change.

I would like to comment on Pix's relationship with her siblings because so little is said about it. How does she feel when sixthborn dies? Is she sad? Does she think they deserved it for being weak? Was she too young for it to register? It doesn't particularly seem like the siblings saw each other as competition until around the "accidents happen" scene. I interpreted this sentence:

The day before you and your siblings would have walked as close to the edge as you could before Avalanche growled and pulled you back or fear of the yawning chasm finally won out.

as implying that the siblings used to play with/dare one another around the edge and so must have been somewhat friendly with one another. But we never see that; the focus remains pretty much entirely on Pix and her mother, so I'm left wondering. I think there could be important implications for her character that I'm not getting.

Prose-wise, there are many places where commas are omitted. Is that deliberate? I think the last sentence I quoted is a good example of why you might not want to do it; when I read "The day before you and your siblings would have walked..." with no comma after "before", it leads me to expect that the subject of the sentence is "The day before" (as in the sentence "The day before yesterday was cold"), and I pretty much have to read the entire sentence before I realize that's not the intent. Prose like that can be tiring because I have to constantly correct my expectations.

Overall, I have been enjoying this story. It feels very introspective and character-driven to me, and I am interested to see how these "broken" people develop. Especially Pixie. I found the summaries on chapters with content warnings to be useful for refreshing my memory on stuff I had forgotten. Hopefully I can make it to the recap section soon; then I won't have to worry about forgetting stuff so much. It'll be like a checkpoint in a videogame.
 

Sinderella

Angy Tumbleweed
Staff
Location
In Guzma's Closet
Pronouns
She/Her
Partners
  1. sylveon-shiny
  2. gothitelle
  3. froslass
  4. chandelure
  5. mimikyu
Hi Perse! Finally getting started on this, and excited as hell to read an Alola story. I also didn't realize this was Pixie's stories, so double excite! Starting with chapters 1 and 2 today.

Right off the bat, there's a lot of interesting things being mentioned. I really like the worldbuilding that starts to kick off in chapter 1--we've got VStar, a company that helps trainers go on journeys. There's a sense of realism in it, down to the presentation about payment plans, apps, and of course mortality rates--love the idea that the concept of going on a journey is deadass roughing it with the chance that you might end up dead to a predator 'mon in the wild. I get the vibe that this is meant to be "Real World with Pokemon In It" and not the other way around. Also, Rachael is an interesting character! The concept of people being psychic (kind of like the Trainer Class in the games, I suppose?) being able to telepathically communicate with Pokemon and having certain, like, abilities? Very interesting all around. I love how she paints herself as pretty cold and calculating, like any businesswoman would, but she clearly has a soft spot--as seen from the way she looks into blackmailing the abused trainer's family, or how she seeks to bring Cuicatl down from her bout of panic.

Chapter 2 was also very nice. We get to get into Pixie's shoes, something I was very excited to do, and I found myself with a lot of questions! WHy's she hurt? What happened to her? I felt sympathetic for her, even in the face of her acting like a brat, because she's clearly Going Through It(TM). The chapter wraps up in a neat bow of Cuicatl and Pixie coming together. Pixie's very not with it, until Cuicatl gets to talking with her, and bless Cuicatl for being so damn patience. I'm sensing there might be some obstacles in store for them, but this generally feels like it'll be an okay match, despite Pixie not entirely feeling so at the moment.

I do question the choice to write all of this in second person. I don't think it's a bad thing at all, but I wonder what the appeal of telling this story through second person is compared to telling it in first or third, considering we moved from Rachel's head to Pixie's over the span of two chapters. Of course, I am only two chapters in, and maybe that will all start to make more sense as I read on. Additionally, I also wonder how big Rachael's role in the story is. She works for VStar, she's the one responsible for bringing Pixie and Cuicatl together, but are we going to see her more in the future? She began the story, so I wonder if she was just the segue into this tale, or if she's going to be reoccurring.

All in all, I'm very intrigued with this story, and am excited to read more :D Until then, I leave you with some line-by-lines!

Chapter 1
The governor’s having a fundraiser tonight and you’ll be there. He’s a nice man. Genuinely likes you. Has a tendency to talk a little too much when he’s lonely and just a little bit tipsy and thinks he can trust someone. And given the way that things seem to be going at home and in the polls, well, he’s very lonely and probably drinking a little more than he should. And it’s your job to be likeable and trustworthy. When the public thinks of your company, they should think of their beloved sports star and hero. When the investors, reporters and politicians do, they should think of the pretty blond girl who either kind-of-flirted with them in just the way they liked or who gave them the kind of compliments they needed. Put a pretty face on your operation so no one ever wants to peel off the surface and look beneath.
I found this paragraph quite awesome from a realism standpoint. If the sport of Pokemon training were something really real, this totally feels like how the life of a higher up in the Pokemon World, or even a big-shot trainer, would live.

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.
COULD BE WORSE. That's fucking cold Rachael!

“VStar helps fund trainers who might not have the means to complete an island challenge, or trainers who just finished an island challenge but can’t afford to keep all of their partners. We help them get rid of excess pokémon and give them to people who want them but can’t get one. Busy professionals and parents, the disabled, or just people who don’t have a team strong enough to go into the species’ natural habitat. Everyone wins.”
Love this concept!

{Espy, can you pay attention to him?} you ask telepathically.

{Treat?} he shoots back, mentally.

{Later. You just had one.}
Telepathically speaking to Pokemon?? Is this with ALL Pokemon, or just psychics? Curious!

“Since I was ten.”

“I meant how many years?”

You crack your smile a little wider. “Since I was ten.”
YES QUEEN, this is how you dodge invasive questions!

His eyes widen. Any half decent pokémon journalist know what alakazam ownership means. It’s why you aren’t going to replace Allen when he dies.

“So, you’re psychic?”

You nod. “Yeah.”
👀👀👀👀👀 PSYCHIC NPC????

Chris Foster? He’s the eight-time-running United States champion, highest ranked trainer in the world, tamer of Victini, and at least the third biggest pain in the ass in Alola.
I just have to say, the name "Chris Foster" fits so ridiculously perfect with how this character is presented. Like a stuck-up jackass who thinks his shit doesn't stink and acts like a tool behind closed doors. Great pick. Also, THIRD biggest pain in the ass??? Who's first and second???

Theoretically you could have your scan bring everything back, but it’d probably take you a week to process and land you in a hospital bed for a few months. If you were lucky. If you weren’t lucky it would land you in a coffin.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF, that's...spooky to know that psychics can risk it all like that. But it makes sense.

Sixth. Young girl. Probably ten, maybe eleven. Abuse. You’d bet she’s getting away from it as soon as possible. Smart kid. You’ll look the parents up so you have blackmail at the ready if they try and take their kid back. Low security risk.
Awwwwww so Rachael DOES have a heart!

Your eyes open wider as it dawns on you. She’s psychic. Probably another telepath. Strong. And not trained in any style you’re familiar with. This definitely shouldn’t be the first you’ve heard of her. You like to think that you’ve met every other psychic in the commonwealth and not a one has ever brought her up.
And I OOP. Main character alert?????

You still feel miserable after a ninety-minute nap. How does that work?
Oh HONEY, let me fucking tell you.

You make a point of taking an aspirin, knowing that it won’t really help but hoping the placebo effect does enough to make you comfortable. Which might negate the placebo effect. Is there a placebo effect where you know what the placebo effect is, so you expect the placebo to make you feel better, which means that it does make you feel better? A placebo placebo effect.
This paragraph made me giggle quite a bit.

Skull defectors
👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀 Did you say....SKULL???????????????

MOOOOOOOOODDDDDDSSSSSSSSS, I'D LIKE TO REPORT PLAGIARISMMMMMMMMMM /j

A wild hydreigon flew within twenty miles of the academy once and they shut down classes for three days. Parents accused them of underreacting.
That's...extremely fucking horrifying to think about, wow.

old pokémon.”
There's a quotation mark here that I don't think needs to be there.

Chapter 2
Talking more in breath than sound, trying to sound quieter than they really are.
This is really small but this is a really cool way to describe a whisper, taking notes!

The nine-tails only keep two vulpix to train.
*keeps

She’s not like… like they were.
Like who was, Pixie???? Who hurt you :(((((

“I’ll take that as a no. What I’m saying is, your shit stops now. No more peeing on pillows, hiding pokéballs in the woods, freezing the ground your trainer is about to step on, letting all hell break loose when you see another eevee, or trying to hurt teammates. Again, are we clear?”
Man, I feel bad being somewhat annoyed with her for these antics, but also, she has CLEARLY been through some shit, so I almost have a hard time being that upset? Pixie, please, open yourself to real love.
 

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
good yes I need a refill of sad juice. (By which I mean I'm here to review what were the three latest chapters as of when I started writing this)
Red Queen Phenomenon. Review as fast as you can but you'll never catch up.
4.1: Hazard Pay

And, wow... Not that I liked Hala in 3.20, but... damn. Seeing all the fallout of his little fit of indiscretion here and in 4.3 is solidifying my dislike of him. (As a person, to be clear, not as a character.) You really didn't have to try that hard to break Cuicatl, Mr Hala, have you seen the title of this fic? Look. Cuicatl was almost debatably kinda functional and you broke her. More than previously.
Okay but he proved a point, right?
Poor Cuicatl, blaming herself for all this. I don't know what she was thinking at the time, but it's not like she was the one to, uhh, decide to shatter Pixie. I suppose she could have conceded the Grand Trial earlier, but honestly you'd assume a Kahuna would be better than that. Or perhaps I would assume that, I suppose Cuicatl has no reason to give any of them the benefit of the doubt.
I think it was shitty to manipulate Pixie to be at the fight at all, and it is a lot of what she's guilty about. She couldn't have reasonably expected things to go as badly as they did.
There's really next to no description of the dream, but somehow this little handful of words is more chilling than a paragraph or scene. I can almost picture it...
And the best part is that I didn't have to write a dream sequence.
Coco you're the best.
SCREM
But Coco's right, she just has two mothers. So, really, that makes it not a lie at all.
Shhh. Don't interrupt the pity party.
Oh, Lyra... For money? You don't know the half of it.
It's not suicide if you get paid.
I wonder how that event would have gone had it happened before 3.20, if Cuicatl may have been more cautious with her life... but hey, all's well that ends well?
Word of God: She would have demanded more information. But after Kalani she wasn't in a good enough place to decline the offer.
Aww, I feel like I owe Noci an apology for suspecting them earlier. Or perhaps I don't. Still not sure what's up with them. They did have other associations, but given the tone of the 4.2 remarks about it, it can't be VStar which is who one would assume to be responsible for everything shady and bad in the world.
Good. Do not doubt best unit. Has your interests at heart. Please give it all of your personal information as thanks.
yesyoudo. Please. Cuicatl. One day you will learn to accept the love of people around you and it will make me very happy.
Okay time to get way to personal for a moment: Cuicatl probably has the most of my issues. Sometimes accidentally. I'm also not good at accepting love. Like, I often wonder why my cat likes me. So yeah. Uh. She'll get better when I figure out how to write people who are better, I guess.
4.2: Aftermath

I like this chapter. It's nice to see how things are going for these chucklefucks behind closed doors. It's also nice to have some people whose misfortune I can take genuine pleasure in the misfortune of. I don't have to wonder how they'll get out of this, because either they get out of it, or I will watch them burn with quite the amused look on my face.
Good... Good... let the hate flow through you.
Reading that just dealt me 1d4 psychic damage.
That's not very much.
I wonder if Victini also hasn't noticed, or if they just don't want to deal with him either. I mean, they're sitting right on one of the seams. Wouldn't blame Victini for not wanting to deal with him because neither would I, but they've got to be there for some sort of reason in the first place.
Does victini actually understand fashion, tho?
His plan was to anaesthetize the Tyrantum for the whole time, wasn't it? Fucking idiot.
Yup.
I hold this truth to be self-evident. Except maybe for the savant part that seems a little generous. I guess his battling reputation earned him that part, because it sure wasn't anything else.
He's ranked number one in the world. Maybe that's because having victory on your side means you can't actually lose.
How lucky that he can afford to hire people to cover, uhh, everything.
Yup. Shame he doesn't listen to them.
Oh? I find that really interesting. I figured Rachel didn't have things like morals or empathy, but it seems I may be somewhat mistaken.
She does. She just doesn't let them interfere with her professional life.
Thank you Lila, I'm glad we have some sane representation in this chapter.
Lila has one of the two brain cells in this story. Everyone else shares the other.
Well, at least I made it to 2022 before dying laughing.

Also, hey, so much for caring about Cuicatl. I suppose that twinge of morality from earlier must have been a special occasion.
She privately feels bad. Not bad enough to actually do anything about it.
Oh no.

I really don't know how Pixie is ever going to recover from this. Emotionally, that is, physically it's just six broken ribs. What a mess you've made, Hala. Especially because I still have a hunch that this whole setup with Brattails isn't going to work out all that great in the end, which really isn't likely to make things much better.
It's fiiiiiiiiiiiiiine. Pixie is fine. The fox is happy. This is a fluffy fic. Comic relief, yay!
Pixie sure did manage to turn that message into a totally different thing. I suppose things like "unless you want to" just goes in one ear and out the other. Truly, the gift of selective listening lives strong in her.
Look if either Pixie or Cuicatl wasn't deep in self-loathing this could be worked out in a conversation.
This just makes me so SAD! She's so lost and directionless but she'll still stand up to Kukui's Murdertails when it comes down to this. I hope they can make up sometime. Especially because I'd probably be seeing a lot less of her otherwise.
Why would I cut Pixie out? If anything I'd just stop talking about the boring humans doing things somewhere Pixie isn't.
I wonder what sort of place Pixie will be in mentally if/when she evolves. Ninetales Pixie sure is an interesting thought...
Heh. Probably a lot like Kalani.
Is that a reference to how Selene in-game can dye her hair over and over like it's nothing? Given red-haired Selene isn't an option without dye, I would assume that was a dyed colour Pixie saw that first time.
Yeah. It's strange to her.
I like Selene.
I lied she also has a brain cell of her own.
I wonder is she and Kekoa would get along if they met, without the pretense of all his baggage about her position. I feel like they'd get along... decently. Maybe not quite well, but at least decently.
Oh I think they could like each other. Just a matter of if he allows himself to.
I feel kinda bad, given that my first thought here was that Selene really dodged a bullet there. Can't imagine that going well for anyone involved.
Pixie had a little less of a complex then. It could've worked, actually. Maybe. By a certain definition of 'worked.'
Oh. Oh no. This is not going to end well, is it? I feel like there's some significant underestimation of humans going on here. Is this going to be how Sadisttails blows thing up in her and Pixie's faces?
I'm writing the chapter where this pans out rn. Will be fun!
Arc Three Edits: Return of the Review

I mostly ended up reading just the chapters with changes, so unfortunately I can't comment on how the new chapters change the overall flow of the arc, but I think the edits were really effective. Lyra gets a chance to be a much more developed character here rather than a loose canon who shows up and snarls. She makes an interesting foil both to in-absentia Gen and to Kekoa, especially with how she reacts to her pokemon. I liked their suprise bonding at the end of 3.19 a lot too.
Yeah. I think your advice (on both alts) played a big role in how I handled Lyra in the edits. Thank you.
Florges and Noci chapters were great additions. Noci voice is always a blast to read and he provides an interesting window into Cuicatl. She seems even more open with him than with Pix at times, since she doesn't have to worry as much about triggering Noci. The florges chapter definitely pushes Kekoa in a big way on his role in V-star, his relationship with his pokemon, and his revolutionary ideals. I like where Kekoa ends this arc at a lot. He's finally starting to listen to the things people who have done more work than he has are saying.
Also largely a response to your reviews lol. And people liking the florges chapter of ADex. Me liking the florges chapter of ADex. Same diff. Really, I got to play with oricorio and florges in one arc. It was pretty great.
3.7, 3.8, 3.10:

Lyra Joins the Team
"I'm not here to make friends." -Lyra on survivor, probably. And I get it re: monologue. A result of some of the chapter being old and some new.
Translation Time With Cuicatl
A lot of the edits were made with EoE on the mind. Names and power dynamics ended up becoming more prominent as a result.
This bit was a little short. Is it intended to be a lead in to the flashback? If it is, maybe just ending on the ellipses.
I messed up in the c/p to the forums. There was originally a whole sequence between them where Cuicatl gets hypothermia.
Oh, not super cold yet! But crazy for Alola, yeah. I can't remember getting an exact temperature before, though maybe I just missed it. It's actually really nice to have a reference point.
I think the exact temp is new. I tried to make it so the temps got steadily colder throughout the arc. Didn't start ridiculous but hit the twenties by the end.
Lyra making some Deductions over here. I didn't entirely follow the worldbuilding--can pokemon only use extrasensory if the trainer is a psychic?
No. But a psychic would've definitely taught her pokemon psychic moves, right?
Lyra has a tendency to lay traps in conversations, huh. It's her way of gathering info and protecting herself.
One of the more fun things to write for her lol.
Lyra is kind of thirsty.
Yeah. As an ace person thirst sequences are a little weird, but sure. Why not. Let's throw that in. They're teenagers, after all. It would be weird if none of them had hormones.
Lol at how quickly Lyra works out that it's Gen from that.
I'll add a bit more length in the future.
Lmao. Imagining Cuicatl very seriously saying, "I will slay."
Cuicatl the Fairy Slayer: Protecting the noble dragons from the evils of balance patches.
Oof. A big theme in this story. Gen's parents, obviously, but this has resonance for Cuicatl's Dad and Pix's everything.
No. No themes. Themes are for eighth grade book reports.
Lyra seems to be getting a bit of herself here. Get Gen out of conversion therapy, then win the war for her heart.
Por que no los dos?
The accent being perfect is a side-effect of the psychic thing, right? The dramatic irony.
I think I said this in an earlier response, but I live for dramatic irony.
Ooh, some Ho-oh lore and an interesting twist on the phoenix stuff and burning of the tower.
I do love me some mythology.
Had to read this a few times to follow it, though I get why Cuicatl's thoughts are so oblique here. This is hard for her.

She will only go back once he cannot [punish her any longer.] He created her and has a right [to punish her], but she doesn't want to allow him to take advantage of that right anymore. That's how I'm parsing it.
That is correct.
Lyra's sort of agreement there surprised me a bit.
Hmm. Yeah. I think I'll change that whenever I get back to Arc 3.
The flashback felt weirdly placed here.
As said above, this was a mistake.
Can't remember if Cuicatl and Kekoa had this moment before, but it's a really lovely one and brings home their closeness.
They did.
Rip. Cuicatl's selfconsciousness about her draconic pronunciation is so real as a language learner.
Made worse because she physically can't talk like a dragon. She's too smol and her vocal chords aren't right.
Names! Great to see Lyra immediately switching to something that's as close to Musei's original name as she can.
Lyra is good person. Sometimes.
Not sure Pix is annoyed by Musei here as much as the fact that Musei can visit home and she can't, Cuicatl.
Shh.
Again, here for Lyra trying to make things better when they're pointed out to her as opposed to just shrugging.
It's almost like people can be fundamentally decent to each other. You wouldn't know it from this cast, but I've heard tales about it before.
On the one hand, this is funny. On the other, Cuicatl is already making conspiracies with Lyra's pokemon and I do not think this will end well when the truth comes out.
Don't worry. Everything will be fine.
There's something really kind of heartwarming/heartbreaking about that, being able to have a sense of self rooted in your family (and then what happens when that family is taken away.)
Good parents? In a Persephone fic? It's more likely than you'd think.
That's because Swanna is mighty and too good for this world.
Obviously.
why are you and kint throwing these sad horses at me
I actually wasn't really thinking of Amara when I wrote this lol.
Chuckled at this one.
[REDACTED]
Well, good on Kekoa for recognizing his selfish motivations at least.
Progress!
Couldn't Hekeli have asked Cuicatl this on her own? Or has she literally not been taken out of her pokeball since this began?
Not very much, no. And no one has explained it to her.
Establishing the important things. Kind of want the chapter where dream team Pixie and Mahina fly to the moon and save the day.
The soundtrack
I like Mahina not being into Kekoa's 'cool' name. Lightning means something different to her than it does to Kekoa and if it's going to be her name, her meaning is more important.
Mahina is no edgelord.
Uhhh hold that thought Kekoa.
oh don't worry it'll be fine
That's what friends are for. Finding the Kekoa/Cuicatl bromance more pronounced on this read-through.
It has been, like, four months in universe.
This is such classic Kekoa. He's always looking for something to get mad about even if it's really a sentiment he should agree with.
He just likes being mad.
Kekoa. Try not being five years old for a moment, please.
He don't wanna.
I don't remember the hypothermia thing and I just reread?
Yeah this was only in the AO3 version fsr. Fixed.
This is also very Kekoa. He believes plenty of stuff that could be considered out there, but when it comes from a source he dislikes, it's a conspiracy theory.
If you told him the capitalists were using beheeyem to keep the working class down with equal amounts of evidence he would beleive it.
This is the second time Cuicatl's said that phrase.
Will fix.
Yup. It can be true that Lyra both does not need to worry about money and that she is better at fiscal responsibility than Cuicatl, but that doesn't make it feel right.
Cuicatl's father handled the expenses. Perhaps giving her money and the power to spend it would be a bit too much autonomy for his tastes.
This reads like Cuicatl and Kekoa are still sharing a tent. I'm guessing the whole Kekoa sleeps in his own tent; Lyra and Cuicatl share thing was a change that was harder to catch everywhere.
One night only for the sake of their second child.
3.12 Who's That Pokemon? It's . . . White Florges!

I love your pokemon spotlight chapters. White Florges pops up and just starts dumping truthbombs on Lyra and Kekoa. It's good content. I understand Lyra not being in a position for it to sink in--this is everything she most fears and she's petrified. But Kekoa really should be taking notes. Yet in classic Kekoa fashion his focus is more on whether the florges, as an abstract embodiment of revolutionary spirit, approves of him, and not the points Florges is actually making.
I thought he might be a bit too dense here tbh. Not sure how it landed.
Lyra runs off during the encounter--I get that Kekoa doesn't care, but it was a bit weird that the rest of the chapter went by, including a scene with Cuicatl, without Lyra being addressed at all.
Will add one in when I get to it.
I was a bit confused here, maybe because I'm hopping between the new chapters. Is the 'friend' Kekoa? Or someone Lyra paid?
Kekoa.
Lyra's fun because she's got the insider knowledge without the illusions.
She knows it's bad. Isn't entirely committed to changing it, though.
Kekoa is getting told this chapter.
3.12: Kekoa gets dunked on nonstop for 5k words. Also he beats up a geriatric bird.
And now Lyra is getting told.
Originally Cuicatl was going to get some callouts but I ended up cutting them. This florges is an equal opportunity critic.
"with such" is confusing here.
Tried making her read like a jurist someone old and opaque.
white florges is wise

white florges also read eoe
white florges has seen some shit
This is exactly the kind of thing I was thinking of last chapter when Kekoa called Lyra's fears about psychics tabloid nonsense. Meanwhile he's over here thinking covid the moon being eaten is a real estate scam.
Okay but only the other team does underhanded stuff.
When you need to say "we're not the same" Kekoa . . .
I'm kidnapping in the name of communism, you're kidnapping in the name of capitalism, we are not the same.
Welp. That's not really true though, is it. If he took away the memories from her mom, that could be considered taking away something that contributes to Cuicatl's pain, but would she accept that given the choice? I think she's not really thinking through what it means to lose memories. Even something like her brother's death--would she want to forget that? It would be a kind of false absolution in her mind, wouldn't it?
It's also not really a credible threat. It would take an actual god to alter her memories on such a scale without her consent.
I see a bit of a parallel between Pix and Gen here. Pix is choosing a parent who is likely bad decisions over being with Cuicatl; that's uncomfortably close to Lyra's situation with Gen. Lyra seems pretty confident so far that if she could get Gen out Gen would come, but would she be able to accept it if Gen wouldn't? She'd probably keep trying, even though it had bad consequences for Gen, and that's what Cuicatl's doing.
It's interesting, isn't it, that Genesis was free for a long time. She didn't exactly run towards Lyra.
3.18 Inefficient Software

Noci POV best POV let's gooo. I can definitely see the effects of Noci's upgrade in this chapter. His POV voice is a lot more sophisticated in analyzing Cuicatl's irrational human impulses and finding ways to counter them in order to advance the mission. Realizing that if he mimicked Cuicatl's suicidal impulse for having inefficient software, she'd get horrified and back off was scarily smart and begins to bring home how terrifying metagross must be, if metang can work out that kind of complexity. Noci pushing Cuicatl to seek therapy (all for the sake of the corollary mission, of course) is a wonderful combo of wholesome and not, which is really Noci all over. This chapter it finally hit me that Noci's heating malfunction is one of the reasons he's so warm and huggable. It's interesting how both Noci and Pix are baffled by Cuicatl holding herself responsible for her brother's death and in their different ways are trying to get her to move beyond it.
Metagross canonically have the intelligence of a supercomputer. I'm going with that. Supposedly metang can also get hit by an airplane and get off without a scratch, so if they also have that kind of durability and similar power... Pseudo legends are terrifying forces of nature in this setting. Metagross is the scariest among them.
I am dying at a metang and metagross having an awkward conversation about observing humans pee. Maximum observed lapse in 100 unit communications indeed, lol.
Some things can baffle even a metagross.

A very interesting theory. I see Reshiram and Alice in terms of raw power, but why N as a threat?
He commands Reshiram.
Such an efficient origin story.
If you can't summarize your cultural heritage in five lines or less you're doing it wrong.
Humans are odd.
And very inefficient.
It is a bad software error.
Whoever programmed humans was bad at their job.
Wow, that was some pretty sophisticated thinking from Noci. That upgrade is showing.
In the dex metang are not smarter than beldum. I thought that didn't make any sense.
3.19 Wait . . .

Really enjoyed the changes to this one. The florges conversation combined with the Plumeria + Kanoa one finally makes Kekoa take a harder look at his cause. I like where this chapter leaves him towards the close of the arc a lot more now, and I'm excited to see where he goes from here. Of course, he's not entirely rejecting his old ideas. And he's still not willing to question working for V-Star too much. The scene with the inkay felt important. Kekoa realizes that yeah, he should probably ask the pokemon he's caught before selling them off. But asking means the answer could be no. And if the answer keeps being no, then there goes his income. Doing the right thing here has real costs, and Kekoa doesn't think he's in a position to pay them.
It's almost like the system is structured in such a way that not cooperating is actively punished.
Think something got scrambled here?
In the first version Guzma went to the graveyard, in later versions Plumeria did. Seems I didn't entirely change the language.
A call-back to the florges would be nice here. Kekoa thinks about her in the ending segment, so it would be good to see that.
I actually wrote this scene waaaaaaay early in development. I think this was originally going to be in 3.8, which was going to be a Kekoa focused chapter. Kinda forgot to reference florges in the edits.
Ohh boy. That's an interesting bit of lore. I see how Lugia and Kyogre could both stand for the sea, and Ho-oh and Groudon for fire. Maybe the differences would be justified as an earth/sky aspect. Very inconvenient when other people's gods decide to fuck shit up.
Singular fire / water dichotomy. In Sinnoh the gods were named Heatran and Manaphy according to the government's religious dogma.
I like the bit of complexity that Rocket mob boss dad is getting. Explains how he fell in with Gen's family.
The one shitty parent not to appear gets actual development.
This strikes a nice balance between Kekoa finding some things in common with Lyra and the big gap still between them.
I doubt Kekoa and Lyra ever really like each other. Maybe they'll come close. Maybe.
I think this was supposed to mean Selene.
Just started cackling at that wait. Ladies and gentlemen, is this a revelation?
Are we the baddies?
I feel like kidnapper would be the more apt word for taking sentient beings away from their homes.
Agreed.
The additional scene works well to close off the chapter! We get a larger sense of how Alola is reacting, and some more aftermath of Hala's decision, in terms of him getting excluded from the moment. Reading this reminded me how much I enjoyed this chapter. Hala's such a stubborn old man, and you really do feel where he's coming from.
I like the version of him I wrote. He's tired. Everyone in this fic is tired.

Could it be that I, the author behind all of them, am tired?
Nice touch with barely fifty being young.
Look, Hala isn't old. Ninety is old.
I read a bunch of this a while ago but never wrote a review. I am resuming reading from around chapter 1.6 to refresh my memory. This post is a bit shallow, I think, but I wanted to focus on just getting something out since I failed at that last time.
Hey, better late than never.
My biggest complaint is that a concerning number of chapters appear to center characters other than Pixie. As the strongest, prettiest, and smartest character, Pixie should be the center of attention at all times. Please remedy this as soon as possible.
There was an old version of this fic that was predominately narrated by Pixie.
Aside from that glaring issue, I remember wanting to comment on Genesis' fuck up in chapter 1.7 as an example of where the narration felt, at points, very on-the-nose. In particular,
Hmm. Yeah, I can see this.
She can recognize, even in the heat of the moment, that she's defending Lusamine because she identifies with her and that what she said was racist and indefensible, but she still managed to be immature enough to say it. It didn't totally track to me. Felt like you were giving up the game a bit—laying out her character flaws in a way that felt like an authorial statement of intent. There were a few other places in the narration where I felt similarly, but I cannot remember where they were.*[note about this in the next paragraph] I think I am generally more tolerant of Pixie's cognitive dissonance because she comes across as younger and demonstrates little self-awareness.
Trust me most people in this story aren't actually that self aware. That was an anomaly.
This is another example; the memey language is also a bit jarring)
Agreed. Sometimes I think I'm writing Gen too young. Trying to go for sheltered, not seven.
Speaking of Pixie, I really like her perspective. Partly because of pro-vulpix bias, I'm sure, but also the way her insecurity shines through (need for constant affection, refusal to admit defeat, staying quiet even when she's melting because she's supposed to stay quiet in the harness, etc.). Really makes me want to give her a big hug and tell her that she really is the most amazing ice fox to have ever lived and that she's so cute and lovable etc etc. I think Cuicatl handles her pretty well, in the sense that she reassures her but doesn't actually go as far as to feed into her delusions.
Most narcissists have a deep well of insecurity under the bravado.
Okay actually never mind disregard that last sentence I said. I did guiltily enjoy Cuicatl indulging Pixie in this chapter, though.
I'm just glad I can't argue with my cat.
No you have a right to be mad ;_;
No. Must self-pity.
When will the cycle of violence end. Gonna be hard to repair their relationship after this scene.
If Cuicatl wasn't Cuicatl, yeah.
You know I'm not sure that's really any better
Shhh.
Oh okay they kind of resolved this easier than I expected
For now.
I thought Sir Bubble had used Bubble, though
An error borne of multiple revisions.
At first I thought this was saying Pixie had a paras on her head, but either way I think it's a funny scene.
I should clarify lol.
The contrast between this taming experience and Cuicatl's is great. Good for you, grubbin.
Not being able to talk to pokemon makes capture very different.
My thoughts on Kekoa overall are that he's an asshole, of course, and while he has sympathetic struggles and backstory, they clearly are not meant to excuse him. I believe that he can be redeemed, though. He is, at least sometimes, capable of recognizing that his behavior is cruel.
Hmm. Yeah, I think that's about how I fall on Arc 1 Kekoa.
Relationship development hype. I'm glad she was able to relate to him well enough to relieve some of the tension. And revealing her powers was a brave thing to do, I thought.
Yeah. Could've gone badly.
Man I would hate it if I had to worry about saving the souls of like pretty much everyone I get close to
I have some sympathy for evangelicals. Not much, but some. Of course you'd be pushy if you thought everyone who didn't accept your beliefs was doomed to agony. You'd have to be cruel not to be.
Chapter 1.12 is really hammering home how little Genesis has thought about, like, actually completing the challenges and also how little she knows about pokemon. (Do lycanroc eat rocks? Can I get one with a Class II license? Do leafeon eat plants?). RIP eevee, though. I was kind of surprised she didn't try to save it out of stubbornness if nothing else.
And deny an ariados her food?
Irritating that she goes out of her way to use the wrong pronoun *and* the wrong name.
Genesis is lovely. Just lovely.
You know, something tells me that might not work out so well. I wonder if the leafeon's natural reluctance to train will force her to put some effort in.
It'll be fiiiiiine.
I like this description of the aftermath of the battle; gives some strong images and lets the reader fill in the gaps. Efficient. Maybe the second sentence would read better as "Red light bathes the field as Cuicatl withdraws Pixie"—changing it to active voice.
Agreed. Will change.
I'm surprised at how well the adoption idea worked out, though—at this point I kind of wonder if it isn't a waste of time to catch things the old fashioned way.
Because money and availability. Shelters don't always have what you want, and the adopted 'mons might have some issues.
This bit made me go back and check Genesis' age. This struck me as especially childish/socially obtuse, even for her. I'm not really suggesting you change it right now, I just wanted to mention that it stood out to me. BT gang DND session when
Cuicatl plays bard. Genesis Paladin. Kekoa goes barbarian and is just there to troll. Will change things re: childishness. She's fifteen. Very sheltered, but still fifteen.
Okay, kinda suspected that's why the others didn't consider adopting. Money sure can solve a lot of problems.
Whoever said money can't buy happiness has never been poor.
Again, this reinforces how much it would suck to believe in the shit she believes in. I feel bad for her in a way, but it's also kind of her fault.
Yeah. About where I come out on her.
I actually relate to Genesis insofar as she just doesn't socialize or adult well. I guess she's had a comparatively sheltered life. I wouldn't be surprised if her sexist religious beliefs played into her upbringing not preparing her for much responsibility or adventure. Wish I remembered more of the earlier chapters, because there might have been more on this.
Her parents are also rich fwiw. And her religious beliefs and home dynamics sort of define some of her later arcs.
Was this degree of violence really necessary to capture her? Anyway, her backstory is pretty heartbreaking, and I think you get that across successfully with broad strokes.
It was not necessary, no.
Throughout the fight scene I never had a clear idea of what this really looks like. It's given the epithet of fluffman, but the initial description here doesn't imply that there is any fluff. Or leaves, which are also mentioned later. Toward the end, I realized it's probably a shiftry. Maybe there's a better way to summarize its appearance. Brown biped with white fluff and leaf-fans for hands? (Pix would say "paws", of course.)
Totem Oranguru. I'll need to make this much clearer.
It's hitting me that Pix thinks this is a life or death matter—it surprises me a little that Cuicatl never made it clear to her that her life isn't in danger during these trials. Pretty big communication gap. And is there a particular reason Pix doesn't assume that this is like one of the other non-mortal battles Cuicatl has already had her fight?
You're right. I'll change some things here, too.
There is a part of me that empathizes with Pix's cruel pleasure. It taps into the selfishness I had as a child, I think. But even as an adult, it's not too hard to see the appeal of being the center of the universe.
It's a lovely fantasy. Alas, it's just a fantasy. Nothing more.
I appreciate how you've shown pretty much as little of this scene as possible while still getting all the characterization/implications across. I think there are a lot of examples of good efficiency in the story.
You haven't seen true efficiency yet.
This paragraph hammers home Pixie's selfishness. She isn't worrying about how badly Cuicatl is hurt, just whether it would be pragmatic to take revenge now. My prediction is that she will slowly start to feel guilty as she sees the negative effect banishing Ce had on Cuicatl, but I am not sure if that alone will spark much change.
That would make sense. It's not quite the approach I took but I think I'll mix some of that in during the edits.
I would like to comment on Pix's relationship with her siblings because so little is said about it. How does she feel when sixthborn dies? Is she sad? Does she think they deserved it for being weak? Was she too young for it to register? It doesn't particularly seem like the siblings saw each other as competition until around the "accidents happen" scene. I interpreted this sentence: as implying that the siblings used to play with/dare one another around the edge and so must have been somewhat friendly with one another. But we never see that; the focus remains pretty much entirely on Pix and her mother, so I'm left wondering. I think there could be important implications for her character that I'm not getting.
I'm an author and I'm too lazy to flesh out more backstory characters. They did play. I'll consider adding more detail there.
Prose-wise, there are many places where commas are omitted. Is that deliberate? I think the last sentence I quoted is a good example of why you might not want to do it; when I read "The day before you and your siblings would have walked..." with no comma after "before", it leads me to expect that the subject of the sentence is "The day before" (as in the sentence "The day before yesterday was cold"), and I pretty much have to read the entire sentence before I realize that's not the intent. Prose like that can be tiring because I have to constantly correct my expectations.
I go through comma overdose periods, and then I have a backlash to that where I just stop using commas for a while. I should really learn the comma rules but that sounds like work.
Overall, I have been enjoying this story. It feels very introspective and character-driven to me, and I am interested to see how these "broken" people develop. Especially Pixie. I found the summaries on chapters with content warnings to be useful for refreshing my memory on stuff I had forgotten. Hopefully I can make it to the recap section soon; then I won't have to worry about forgetting stuff so much. It'll be like a checkpoint in a videogame.
Everything left in the arc isn't terribly reliant on the stuff that came before.
Hi Perse! Finally getting started on this, and excited as hell to read an Alola story. I also didn't realize this was Pixie's stories, so double excite! Starting with chapters 1 and 2 today.
Tbh you can skip everything that isn't about Pix. You won't miss much. Just some boring humans doing boring human things.
Right off the bat, there's a lot of interesting things being mentioned. I really like the worldbuilding that starts to kick off in chapter 1--we've got VStar, a company that helps trainers go on journeys. There's a sense of realism in it, down to the presentation about payment plans, apps, and of course mortality rates--love the idea that the concept of going on a journey is deadass roughing it with the chance that you might end up dead to a predator 'mon in the wild. I get the vibe that this is meant to be "Real World with Pokemon In It" and not the other way around. Also, Rachael is an interesting character! The concept of people being psychic (kind of like the Trainer Class in the games, I suppose?) being able to telepathically communicate with Pokemon and having certain, like, abilities? Very interesting all around. I love how she paints herself as pretty cold and calculating, like any businesswoman would, but she clearly has a soft spot--as seen from the way she looks into blackmailing the abused trainer's family, or how she seeks to bring Cuicatl down from her bout of panic.
I'm way too lazy to make an entirely original pokemon world. "IRL with a change" suits me just fine.
Chapter 2 was also very nice. We get to get into Pixie's shoes, something I was very excited to do, and I found myself with a lot of questions! WHy's she hurt? What happened to her? I felt sympathetic for her, even in the face of her acting like a brat, because she's clearly Going Through It(TM). The chapter wraps up in a neat bow of Cuicatl and Pixie coming together. Pixie's very not with it, until Cuicatl gets to talking with her, and bless Cuicatl for being so damn patience. I'm sensing there might be some obstacles in store for them, but this generally feels like it'll be an okay match, despite Pixie not entirely feeling so at the moment.
There's a canon event in USUM this references. Skull beat her up.
I do question the choice to write all of this in second person. I don't think it's a bad thing at all, but I wonder what the appeal of telling this story through second person is compared to telling it in first or third, considering we moved from Rachel's head to Pixie's over the span of two chapters. Of course, I am only two chapters in, and maybe that will all start to make more sense as I read on. Additionally, I also wonder how big Rachael's role in the story is. She works for VStar, she's the one responsible for bringing Pixie and Cuicatl together, but are we going to see her more in the future? She began the story, so I wonder if she was just the segue into this tale, or if she's going to be reoccurring.
Second person really works for xeno POV and portraying mental health crises. I wouldn't recommend it outside those situations tho.
COULD BE WORSE. That's fucking cold Rachael!
She's seen some shit, okay?
Telepathically speaking to Pokemon?? Is this with ALL Pokemon, or just psychics? Curious!
For her? Just psychics. For Cuicatl? All but dark-types.
YES QUEEN, this is how you dodge invasive questions!
As someone with no social skills it's hard to write someone defined by theirs.
👀👀👀👀👀 PSYCHIC NPC????
There are a few psychics in this work. Three separate psychic narrators in Arc 1, actually.
I just have to say, the name "Chris Foster" fits so ridiculously perfect with how this character is presented. Like a stuck-up jackass who thinks his shit doesn't stink and acts like a tool behind closed doors. Great pick. Also, THIRD biggest pain in the ass??? Who's first and second???
Hala and Plumeria.
OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOF, that's...spooky to know that psychics can risk it all like that. But it makes sense.
i wanted to add limitations to keep telepathy from being absolutely game breaking, like it is in the X-Men comics.
Awwwwww so Rachael DOES have a heart!
Don't get too far ahead of yourself.
And I OOP. Main character alert?????
What tipped you off?
Oh HONEY, let me fucking tell you.
I can also relate to this far too well.
This paragraph made me giggle quite a bit.
An actual conversation I've had with myself.
👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀👀 Did you say....SKULL???????????????
They're in the story. Mostly in the background. Maybe they'll be important later. Who knows?
MOOOOOOOOODDDDDDSSSSSSSSS, I'D LIKE TO REPORT PLAGIARISMMMMMMMMMM /j
Thankfully this one is grey.
That's...extremely fucking horrifying to think about, wow.
Imagine if bears could shoot lasers that could level a building and also had a hair-trigger temper and could fly.
Like who was, Pixie???? Who hurt you :(((((
Team Skull.
Man, I feel bad being somewhat annoyed with her for these antics, but also, she has CLEARLY been through some shit, so I almost have a hard time being that upset? Pixie, please, open yourself to real love.
Yeah sorry no one in this fic is good at accepting love. Maybe they'll learn.
 

Negrek

Abscission Ascendant
Staff
Back at last! Always up in the air how much I'll get through, but for now at least I can clear out the last of "Electric."

Seems like I kind of left off in an awkward place last time; ended on a big "Kekoa NO" moment, while these chapters are much quieter and focused on the group as individuals rather than the team dynamics. Would kind of be an odd arc structure, but the ending here isn't really one you want to build up to; it makes sense to have some quieter chapters to make the emergency at the very end all the more sudden and jarring. Makes more sense to talk about the chapters individually than it usually does.

Cuicatl's chapter is heartbreaking, of course; feels like the darkest we've had from her recently. Big "oh no" moment when I realized the flashback we were seeing was to when she found out her dad had sold her mom's pokémon--really the inciting scene for her entire journey in Alola. So awful to see how her dad treated her and how much she's internalized his disgust towards her. Makes me wonder a little about Achcauhtli and how he responded to his environment. Cuicatl obviously adored him, but he was obviously steeped in a pretty toxic environment, and I wonder how much he managed to escape those influences. (Of course, the whole "don't tell anybody about my serious illness" thing might have to do with him being expected to be a super-awesome warrior.)

I also have to admit that I wonder how you sell a hydreigon. Doesn't seem like something Alice would have gone along with, but how do you make a hydreigon go somewhere it doesn't want to go? Would be a very expensive mistake to spend so much money on a dragon that refused to do what you asked, with the very reason it was so expensive was the power that in turn makes it difficult to control... I also thought it was interesting that Cuicatl only really seems to care about getting half of her mother's team back. She obviously doesn't have as much of an emotional connection to the others, but I guess there isn't the sense that they'd want to stick together or that they're necessarily going to end up in a worse situation if they're sold.

It was fun to see Gen and Cuicatl bonding a bit in Gen's chapter--and oof, tyrunt training is, unsurprisingly, rough. The family dynamic suggested by Gen's meeting with her brother is interesting; I wonder whether her father/brother are generally more supportive of her than her mom, or if only her mom really knows about her relationship with Lyra and the others would be as quick to turn on her if they found out the full extent of the situation. And of course, Gen's decision to slowly parcel out her money to try and avoid awkward questions is very sigh-inducing but understandable. On the whole this was probably the chapter of this bunch that interested me the least, though I imagine it's setting up for a lot of fun stuff down the line.

Very curious why a presumably-metagross is interested in having Cuicatl watched. Part of the group of psychics in general wanting to keep an eye on her, since she's untrained and not in a great mental place? It's hard for me to imagine a metagross caring too much about a primarily-human(?) organization and its concerns, so perhaps it's interested in Cuicatl's translation abilities? Or even helping Renfield find her somehow? Very curious. Nocitlālin's a delight, though--Cuicatl's definitely getting all the best pokémon, heh. I'd love to see a bit more of some of the other kids' pokémon, to be honest, especially Kekoa since they're so important to his arc, buuuuut I definitely recognize the Hella Hella Characters problem that would lead to, heh.

Kekoa's trial is fun; I enjoy the way Kekoa analyzes the battle, the thought put into strategy on each side, and Kekoa's anger at how close the outcome was, especially when Cuicatl found the trial easy. Kekoa definitely has the strongest feel for battle strategy, the most knowledge, and a very smart, analytic approach to battling, but he definitely can't connect to his pokémon the way Cuicatl can. Seems like he's probably going to have to change his approach if he wants to take the throne, meticulously-planned championship team or no. Also, I believe he's the only member of the group to have a Z-bracelet at this point, right? Kinda terrifying, tbh. Gonna be fun to see what he does with that.

Of course, the real highlight of the chapter is what happens right at the end! Loved the way Necrozma's arrival was described, with the sky's cracks dripping light and the way all illumination on the ground gets sucked away. Definitely looking forward to Ultra Beast shenanigans next arc--and more god-catastrophe baggage for Kekoa. :)

Some random notes:

You have to you’re just like him.
You have to... pretend? Not sure what the missing word here is.

“Did you poison her?”
Should be "him," I think.

It’s a basic t-shirt with an orange base and a hydreigon drawn on the front with the word “DANGEROUS” in all caps beneath it.
This is the best thing, omg. And very much feels like the kind of thing you'd find at a thrift shop!

She could have been your weird friend.
Wince. Oh, genesis.

Eventually the waiter asks if you want desert and you say no.
*dessert

Even though you’re on a remote beach northwest of Malie, for once its not raining
*it's.

Maybe you’re parents are atheists and you disagreed on that but you’re named Genesis…
*your, and I haven't really talked about commas at all, since leaving them out seems to be your style, but usually you'd put one before the "but" here!

Ramming Unnecessary.

Initiate Ramming?

[X] Initiate Ramming
GOOD. Cuicatl gets plenty of trouble from her other pokémon already, but I look forward to seeing how a ram-happy beldum will make her life even more interesting.

Then two spectacularly dumb, spectacularly evil fuckers in Hoenn decided to wake some gods up and kick all the frozen methane off the ocean floor.
Yikes. Yeah, that's one consequence I wouldn't have thought of for the Groudon/Kyogre event, but it makes sense. Way to make that catastrophe even more horrifying!

Before her trial You owe her a call when this is over.
Looks like we've got a partially complete sentence here? Maybe just missing a period after "trial?"

I’ve seen a lot of trumbeak and crabrawler over the years and neither looked hurt beyond repair.
Woof, that's a cold way to put it.

And there you have it! Will I be able to make it through "Flying" before the end of Blitz? My hunch is... probably not, but I'll definitely be back a couple more times at least! This is a part of the story I've been looking forward to for a long time.
 

kintsugi

golden scars | pfp by sun
Location
the warmth of summer in the songs you write
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. silvally-grass
  2. lapras
  3. golurk
  4. booper-kintsugi
  5. meloetta-kint-muse
  6. meloetta-kint-dancer
  7. murkrow
  8. yveltal
  9. celebi
It's been 3000 years and apparently I haven't actually reviewed in literally forever. Which was also big brain since I predicted the rewrites, incredible. Smaller chunks since I know if I try to review too much at once the anxiety of trying to make a perfect review will mean I won't see you for another year lol.

3.5 Ancestor Stories
I have a really odd sense of deja vu when I'm typing literally every sentence of reviewing for this chapter, in the sense that I've already typed a review for this chapter, but as far as I can tell, I haven't. Also the chapter is literally pasted twice into the post and there's no discernible difference between the two as far as I can tell, but it was a lot of deja vu.

Pixie falls out of the narration for this one, imo. It's hard because she doesn't really get agency in this sense, but the main source of conflict continues to be Kekoa/Cuicatl, and the fact that most of the chapter is their dialogue happening while Pixie watches doesn't really help with that. And honestly, deep empathy with you on this front; it's really hard to try to set up pokemon narrators in the long-term in trainerfic because the setting more or less strips them from having any sort of decision-making or plot impact in any chapters that aren't battle chapters, which, oof, is an issue all to itself.

I think this could've used with one or two fewer myths, and more focus. I cheat a little because I like all my stories to rhyme, so to speak, but I find that myth as a storytelling device works best when a character is choosing to tell the story for an obvious reason--you get to poke at the character problem in the nearterm; you get to do some worldbuilding; you get to have a feelgood meta message about why we tell stories or whatever. But in general I think meta-stories/telling stories inside of stories works better in a more focused form; there's a specific myth that Pixie chooses to tell her because she thinks it'll help Cuicatl or something. (And maybe she's totally wrong and Cuicatl doesn't get that the moral is that if you're a ninetales you're pretty and smart and instead Cuicatl figures out something lame and stupid like forgiveness or that being an adult means life is real shit sometimes, but it is what it is). As it is it feels a bit more like a reaction video--the myth itself is short and spliced in with quick commentary on it, but it doesn't really feel like there's deeper meaning/importance.
“She trapped you there and you serve her.” Skysong says it’s so quietly that a human might not be able to hear it. But you can because your hearing is much better.
I think this myth was the closest to landing for me--the ones about how beautiful ninetales are are funny, of course, but this one is closest to relevant for the actual characters. Paradoxically I wouldn't actually use this one either since the goal of this chapter seems more to get Cuicatl from emotional Point A to Point B and I'm not sure if looking at the "she trapped you and you serve her" thing is going to help her with that, but it's a good example of a story being told within a story to have relevance to the characters choosing to tell/hear it.

You’ve already made progress. You scared the eevee so badly that its trainer ran away, too.
100% accurate summary yes

3.6 Birthright
I mean this chapter is about pokemon ethics so I can't not like it tbh.

But in general I like that we're finally picking at Kekoa a bit. I can't help but think of it in terms of respect--when he says that the native species of Alola are supposed to be respected, he actually means they're supposed to be had by, you know, the right kinds of people. But it's also a question with no real right answers; Kekoa's "but other people will just exploit them too" is true, even if it's not an excuse for him to do the same. And it's certainly a concept that rings uncomfortable true for a lot of real world situations. In particular I like the layered quandry here; if you're fighting for freedom with people who want to be free from you, what are you really standing for?
The finneon capture is necessary because you need money to take back your kingdom. Makani is necessary because you need power to take back your kingdom. And they’re your people’s pokémon. Your birthright. The ancient kings hunted. The island challenge has been going strong for centuries with many kings and kahunas using vikavolt. Besides…
And honestly it's a tricky answer, since no movement is going to be pure and frankly it's easy to preach when it's not your country burning down; it's easy to boycott working for V-Star until you're starving. Cuicatl's answer of "I'm a predator" also rings kind of hollow and I can see why Kekoa isn't really on board with it--she's not lying to herself about what she's doing, sure, but she's still doing it.

The darkness in this chapter also felt a lot more real, in part because Kekoa's probably the only character to give a shit in the main grou rn, but he's also the most logical one for these thoughts to go to. (Honestly I'm not sure if this chapter was edited for your rewrites so if I'm just complimenting you for changing things to how they were, oops, go me, crit culture is dead). But in general I like Kekoa's visceral response/anger here, and I'm surprised we haven't seen the Skull stuff escalate more than it already has--Alola under attack from colonizers is kind of an abstracted concept (and it's also fun in the sense that it's easy for Kekoa to project whatever he wants onto it), but Necrozma is kind of literally a space foreigner attacking Alola.

I really like the dynamic of Kekoa just thinking Cuicatl will lie to him. It's a take that's both mature and immature: he's mature enough to recognize that he's kind of made her life super shit and this would be a logical consequence of his actions, but he's also too immature to realize that Makani might just want to yeet and it's sort of on him to accept that. But also in general the concept of your pokemon just not wanting to be with you is a hard one to swallow; in a franchise that's steeped in the idea that pokemon are your friends it's kind of a shit thing to hear if your pokemon decides to dip, and I really do get why authors are afraid of writing that for their characters and inadvertently craft worlds with weird implications as a result. For Kekoa I can see why it'd be infuriating, especially alongside Cuicatl, who seems to attract apex predators by sheer luck while he's clawing for everything he can. It's hard to make the mature choice when it seems like no one else has to (or is choosing not to).

Your last bit of drowsiness starts to drain away. That wasn’t part of the plan. You’ve fed him, protected him, everything you were supposed to do. And why would he want to go to the wild when he’s the most vulnerable?
yeah god I texted her and told her she was cute and held the door open for her that one time and why would she want to go date that asshole chad??
But hekeli eats fruit, not bugs.
dropped a capitalization here
{Can we go outside so that I can talk to him? You can repeat the words to translate.}

“Kekoa, can we just… not?” Cuicatl sounds exhausted, even for someone who just woke up.
I like the tunnel vision he gets here--that if he can just talk enough, Makani will come around. The only reason he hasn't is because Kekoa hasn't figured out the right thing to say. The idea that Makani actually just wants to leave hasn't really crossed Kekoa's mind.
It would look like you were just fine with him sending you to foster care for years just because he was sorry enough to give you shit that was rightfully yours anyway.
this detail hit well in a chapter called birthright
“Can’t believe they’re having us work during The Blackout,” you mutter, more to fill the quiet than anything.

“What else were we doing?” Cuicatl asks. “Might as well make money.”
lol
She giggles. Giggles. “It is fun to listen to. And everything is so much easier to use now. I wouldn’t mind if this went on for a bit.”

“And froze out the fucking forests? And your precious dragons?”

“This is why dragons mastered fire, Kekoa. It makes winters much easier.”

“Not your country burning down.”
rip lol
Makani hadn’t been spitting in your face as much, you bought her a thunder stone (which blew through most of your savings right at the start of an indefinite crisis), and then out of nowhere she just turns on you again.
I GOT YOU A ROCK BABY
“But they’re our birthright. One of our strongest weapons against the occupiers, and they’re just stealing them. If I abandoned her, she’d probably fall into one of their hands.”
weapons lol yeah that's respect
“The volcarona refused to shine for a bit, because some kid had just tried to steal a larvesta.”
this is a sick detail
And if they wanted to train one, they’d have to find some kid with talent and a need to get a lot of money, fast. But uh. Cuicatl worships the sun, right? There’s no way that she’d just go and piss off a sun god or demigod or whatever volcarona are over there.
I'm actually unsure how this plays into some of the larger stuff--is there no way to force a powerful pokemon to obey you? Who purchased the hydreigon for a million dollars and hasn't been a high-profile trainer?
“Okay.” You’re pretty sure you got put on mute given the nothingness over the line. You’re vaguely upset. Kanoa jumped to the least important part. He’s safer with you and… and you need power. A lot of it.
the least important part is how makani feels, this checks out
“It happens. A lot. Pokémon, even the ones that agree to go with people, usually want to go back to their own lives eventually. For bugs, a few months can be a lot of time. A year can be far too much to ask of them.”
I do like the life cycle detail here
“And their pokémon hate them, too. They just don’t care enough to notice.”
I like how this isn't necessarily a known answer--but it's an easier one to accept
Cuicatl repeats the question. And gets no answer. Then a lot of very harsh whistles and chirps.

“Hmm. If you could kill him with no chance of harm to yourself, would you?”

“Cuicatl—” {Please don’t put that thought into his head.}

{How would you explain hatred to an insect?}
mood
“Okay. Do you wish that you’d never been captured?”

Another answer. A shorter one.
I like the closer here! Sometimes the best answers are just the implicit ones.
 

kintsugi

golden scars | pfp by sun
Location
the warmth of summer in the songs you write
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. silvally-grass
  2. lapras
  3. golurk
  4. booper-kintsugi
  5. meloetta-kint-muse
  6. meloetta-kint-dancer
  7. murkrow
  8. yveltal
  9. celebi
3.7
It's been 3000 years so I can't pin down the exact differences, but I think this version works a lot better. Lyra seems a lot less prickly/antagonistic in this version, and we're able to see what makes her tick + how her fear of psychic manipulation basically permeates through her entire life. It feels a lot more grounded in a way that I think the previous version was lacking, and it sets up really well for the inevitable shitshow now that she thinks Cuicatl is her best hope at getting what she wants. The meticulous document keeping and the reassurance in having nightmares about Genesis hating her were particularly standout moments for me.

In general I like her throughlines of appearances/power; lines like "[Selene] just embraced facing the world as she is" and "they can hurt you and make you love them for it" are really metal lines in a story like this that's so deeply tied around secrets, trying to grow stronger, facing yourself, etc. I think in my first readthrough it was a lot harder for me to see what direction you meant to take Lyra; she's kind of angry and antagonistic but ends up shuttling along with everyone because it's good drama; here, the sense of character is a lot stronger and the sense of how she's able to challenge Kekoa/Cuicatl in specific ways takes a backseat (for now) in a way that I'm a lot more excited to see crash and burn. It's also fun to get into her head specifically, since she's so much more certain/determined in her fight with Cuicatl and so much more free/happy in her time with Gen--these are aspects that are still here, but it's a lot more couched in Lyra's head specifically, and I think it works well.

Also, characters who just want to explore the pokemon world are cool. I'm sure she's going to have plenty of time doing that since nothing is going to go wrong here.

I liked the convo with Lyra/Cuicatl at the end, which I think is new. It's helpful to get them talking about themselves before shit hits the fan, although in general I think it does on just a hair too long and the setting itself falls out for me--they get in line, they get really engaged in talking, oops all the food is gone. It's the sort of conversation that I think could happen anywhere and the plot takes a backseat, which imo is mostly fine, but some environmental details there might've helped ground things a bit.

I'm not super sold on the covid parallels, especially with the knowledge that they could just take the eagles to mordor take the navy ships anywhere else. If there's an existing refugee handling system in place, I'm surprised anyone would choose to say? Like even the covid deniers would probably have a better time being 100% sure covid is a hoax from the safety of a place where there's guaranteed, literally visibly, no apocalypse happening. The government being cruel and shitty tracks, but the fact that there's actually a way to guarantee everyone's safety and he's choosing to ignore it is borderline cartoonishly evil--it's easy for covid to get walked around because for the most part people are fine until oops they have covid; it's a lot harder to argue that the economy can and should go on in a complete lack of light. I think this is closer to an environmental disaster, where even the shittier politicians pose over the rubble and throw toilet paper into the crowd, but it's not like there were hoards of people chanting that they needed to reopen New Orleans after Katrina or something.

(I think an easy-ish solution here would be to actually lean into the environmental disaster angle--this is our home; we need to protect it; it's dying; we have a patriotic duty to the lands that birthed us and the corporations that were birthed in turn. There are hundred of brave heroes working around the clock to protect what we love about our home, the wild pokemon who need the sun, the plants that are freezing--and you, even you, person who sells pyukumuku-themed ice cream cones a tourist shack, are necessary to keep them healthy and fed so that we can get through this together. also we've redirected rations to the essential brave personnel, so everyday citizens, such as you, person who sells pyukumuku-themed ice cream cones at a tourist shack, will have to do without for a little while. Unsure. I expect the world to prove me wrong within a year but I find it difficult that people wouldn't just choose to fucking yeet if the Navy is offering them trips out (implying there's a safe refugee camp elsewhere) and the alternative is gearing up to starve to death)

But all in all I really enjoyed this one. It's the unique feeling of "oh good, Lyra has friends" and "oh no, Lyra's making friends" that I didn't really get in the first read. Good shit.

line edits, mostly typos:
Nisshoko the noibat lands on your shoulder and gives a reassuring squeal right into your ear.

“Hey, buddy. It’s fine. I really don’t need that.”
In general "X the Y" strikes me as a bit forced--although appreciated, since I remember not knowing what pokemon were going on here. I think something like "Nisshoko lands on your shoulder. A moment later the noibat gives a reassuring squeal into your ear" might work better, but personal preference there.
She started going nuts right before Necrozma arrived and has had a headache ever since.
oh noooo
The internet says the best options in the unnatural darkness are staryu and inkay.

Both are undesirable for the same reason.
I like the tension created here with psychics being good, but later an ampharos is used and seems really effective, and in general I'm not sure why psychics would have an edge on "unnatural" darkness that an electric/fire-type wouldn't.
You’ve heard that her parents kicked her out. If there’s one upside to the kiss – okay, the kiss itself was an upside – it’s that she’s finally away from her toxic parents.
haha! yes! an upside!
The first has been normal as of late: Genesis kicking you over a railing to fall to your death.
the grammar stack of "kicking you [...] to fall" doesn't quite work here. "Genesis kicks you over a railing and you fall to your death" I think works better?
But the old superstitions are hard to break. You still sometimes get weird looks from senior citizens.
This is a good line but since it's present tense told in a story about present tense, I thought this was literally happening--I think "you'd probably still get weird looks from senior citizens, if anyone could even see anyone" or something.
Gangs are predictable, self-branded freedom fighters are less so.
"gangs are predictable; self-branded freedom fighters are less so."
Wouldn’t be the first time a failing politician told a big, dangerous lie. You’ll need to snap up whatever food you can get as soon as it hits the shelves. You send out a few texts to the people you know in Hau’oli (especially the ones whose families probably do their own shopping)
oh nooo. I love how casual this is too
You can’t tell if that was a hastily corrected past tense or just a slip up in her second language. Probably a sensitive subject in either case.”
extra quote on the end here
 
Rock 4.5

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
Maybe check out the bulbapedia entry for Dividing Peak Tunnel.

Rock 4.5: Skitter
Wimpod

There’s an excellent hiding spot nestled into the hot, dry land. A smooth hole bored through the earth with dim lights and small cracks in the wall to hide in. There are exits on two sides, letting you run away whichever way you’re approached from. The two-legs walk through here sometimes, but they’re always loud enough you can hear them coming. Sometimes they’ll chase you around if they see you, but they’re slow and big so you can always avoid them easily enough.

You lazily flick your antennae through the air to taste it. There’s a bad taste there. Danger! You taste the air again to be sure and then pull your body down to hug the earth as you think of a plan.

The invisible ones have returned.

They’re quiet, invisible, and they must clean themselves before they hunt because they leave little taste in the air. You only discovered them now because of the strong winds in your hiding place. For a moment you wonder if you should just stay in your crack and wait it out, hoping they never find you. You’ve seen others try that. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes the invisible ones revealed themselves long enough to use their long, terrible tongues to pull their prey out of hiding and right into their mouth.

You can hear two-legs approaching in the other direction. Even if you cannot smell them in the air, you can definitely hear them. You saw invisible ones before when they were eating. They were bigger than you, bigger than the biggest of your kind you’ve ever seen, but the two-legs are even bigger. Even the invisible ones must have things that eat them. They might not go near things bigger than them. You take a moment to climb to the top of the tunnel so that your back is hanging down beneath your legs. Then you scurry down the top of the hiding place, away from the invisible ones.

When the light from the outside just starts to seep in you find the two-legs. There is a group of three of them. Beside one is a strange creature. It walks on two legs but the taste it leaves in the air is like an invisible one. It sort of looks like one, too. But bigger. Its jaws are much, much bigger. You could easily fit inside them with room to spare.

It raises its head and begins to taste the air. Then it looks straight at you and makes a low, rumbling sound. Danger. Danger ahead. Danger behind. Danger everywhere. Nowhere to run. Nowhere to hide.

One of the two-legs points at you and says something in their strange way of communicating. No tastes in the air, all sound.

“Calm down, Coco. It’s just a wimpod.”

Something snaps into your mind. This two-legs told the creature you are not a danger. You and the things like you, there is a grouping for them, wimpod. The creature is a Coco. How did the two-legs do that? Is it a special trick, like the invisible one’s invisibility or the fire of the many hot creatures nearby? The wimpod do not have any tricks. You run and hide. If you cannot run or hide you die.

The Coco keeps looking at you but does nothing as you keep walking above the two-legs until you are behind them. The two-legs you cannot understand communicate for a while before all three of them start to move again, the Coco in tow. You follow. Maybe the Coco will scare away the invisible ones.

The two-legs who you can understand stops and turns around. It looks up. Not at you, but to something near you. A panicked glance reveals nothing. What is it looking at?! Danger?!

“Do you want something?” it asks.

If you understand it, maybe it understands you. “There are invisible ones. They are dangerous to me. Not to you. They will stay away from you.”

“Yeah, not sure why I thought I’d understand that,” it says. “Safety, maybe?”

{I understand you,} it says without saying anything. {But can’t say that aloud.}

How did it do that? Are these all tricks? Different tricks? The same trick? “Where is the danger you were looking at?”

{I meant to look at you. I can’t see.}

It cannot see. Why? Do they sense the world by sound and taste alone? No, then it still would have known where you were.

“You’re welcome to follow us for a while. But if you’re worried about something that can climb it might be better to just ride on my shoulder or something.”

You look down. The two-legs wants you to crawl onto it to be safe. There is a Coco between you and it. The Coco is very big and could eat you. It is a danger. The invisible ones are a danger. All options are dangerous. The two-legs presses down on the Coco. Holding it back? Attacking it? You know the invisible ones will try to eat you. The Coco might try to eat you. It is less dangerous to take shelter on the two-legs. You slowly scuttle down the side of the tunnel, keeping an eye on the Coco. It watches you but never attacks.

Your front legs reach the ground. The Coco does nothing, just keeps its eyes on you. They’re strange, unsettling eyes, like the ones on bigger land dwellers. Rounded with no lines dividing them. Just a ring of color with a dark hole in the center. What is in the hole? If you were small enough to climb into it, where would it take you?

You sprint the last bit as fast as you can so the Coco can’t catch you. It doesn’t move, just opens its mouth and reveals massive teeth almost as long as you are thick. Your armor wouldn’t save you.

It doesn’t need to. By the time the Coco’s mouth is fully open you’re already climbing up the two-leg’s surprisingly soft limbs to a point near the top. You look down and see the Coco’s mouth spread wide, teeth bared as it looks at you.

{She’s trying to show you how big her teeth are. She doesn’t want to bite you, just likes showing them to anyone she meets.}

Showing them that it is dangerous. That it should not be attacked. “Very smart.” You look down and see something strange. The two-legs is molting, with a red layer of armor peeling away from its body revealing the soft flesh you walked up. There are two mounds beneath you with a new layer of black armor growing out of them. Why is it walking around while molting? Isn’t it afraid? Or are the two-legs really not afraid of anything? Why would they need armor, then?

The molting makes for a good hiding place. You skitter down between the new and old armor and latch yourself onto the new. This means that the invisible ones will not be able to see you. Much safer this way. Then the other two-legs start making loud, booming sounds. Is there a threat? Are they trying to scare something away? Beneath you the two-leg’s body expands and contracts as a long stream of air is released above you.

“Never been groped by a bug before,” it says beneath and above you. “Just glad to know there’s enough to grab down there.”

“Yes. I am secure,” you tell it. “There is enough to grab.”

The two-legs doesn’t answer you. Instead, it responds to another of its kind. “Fine, never been groped by a crustacean before. Happy?” It looks back down to you. “Do you think you can grab onto the red thing instead?” the two-legs asks.

That is less safe. The invisible ones might see your legs. But the two-legs might not carry you unless you do. Reluctantly you flip yourself over and grab onto the shed armor. Then the two-legs begins to move. It does not seem to be any faster than you are despite the much longer legs. It actually seems to be slower. It is still far safer than traveling by yourself. You can hear the Coco beneath you. Why do two-legs travel with Cocos? Aren’t they afraid of being attacked by the other? Even your kind will turn on each other when there isn’t enough food. Other kinds are far more dangerous.

“Why do you let the Coco near you? What if it ate you?”

{She wouldn’t. I’m her mother.}

Mother. Progenitor. Egg-layer. The meanings spring up in your mind. You don’t know what laid your egg. Another one of your kind, another ‘wimpod,’ said that he saw one once. It was bigger than a two-legs and had armor so thick that nothing could pierce it. You thought he was wrong. You have no tricks. You run and hide. You will never live long enough to become that big.

“Why do two-legs look after their eggs? Why do the hatchlings look so different from the egg-layers?”

{I didn’t lay her egg. I just took care of her after she hatched.} Why? Why would it help something that could eat it? How does it live long enough to grow big if it does not understand danger? {Humans do things like that sometimes. Take in another type of creature. Feed them and help them grow stronger. Protect them. Like I’m doing now with you.}

That explains why it is carrying you. It still doesn’t make sense, though. Unless the point is to eat you. Maybe you’re wrong. Maybe you aren’t in danger – it could have just had the Coco snap you up earlier – but you don’t understand why.

“Why? What do you gain?”

{Humans are social. We like being around other creatures. And the pokémon I travel with, they want different things. Coco sees me as her mother. My other pokémon, Nocitlālin, she wants information on humans.} The two-legs, no, the human jerks and you cling tight to the armor to stay on. “Sorry, tripped,” it says. {And you want protection. I could give it to you if you wanted to stay with me.}

More steps bring you out of the tunnel. The temperature rises, the air’s taste changes, and more light bleeds through the shed armor. {Or I could let you go here. Whatever you want.}

The human claims it could protect you. And between it and the Coco it can protect you from all but the biggest of predators. Humans move. They are never in the tunnel for long and you rarely taste the same ones more than once. It would take you to new places with new dangers and you would be relying on it not turning on you whenever it gets hungry.

Or you could turn around and go back into your hiding place. Your hiding place that the invisible ones are still in. That means danger now. Staying with the human is danger later. If it is later you might be bigger and faster.

“Do you want to stay with me for a while?” the human asks aloud.

“Yes.” What other choice is there?

“Good,” it says. “Oh, and I’m Cuicatl, by the way.”

Time passes while you remain still. Stillness is familiar. Common. Why would you waste resources when there is no reason to act? Yet you are still being moved. Away from the familiar. Away from known dangers. Towards unknown ones. You think you made the right choice. Now you have some protection other than running or hiding. Specifically, you have someone else to run to and hide behind.

The two-legs approach others of their kind. Several others. They make their own strange noises you cannot understand. Your two-legs, the Cuicatl, makes noises you do. Asking the others to go ahead while it talks with you. You can feel it lower itself to the ground. The breathing of the Coco stills a moment later. “I put Coco away,” the two-legs says. “She’ll be back later. Just wanted to talk to you alone for a moment.”

“Okay.” You don’t leave the comfort of her shed armor. Why would you?

“Do you have a name?” it asks.

Name. The word hits your mind with strange information. Two-legs classify things like you do. Then they make even smaller classifications that only have one individual. There is no purpose to this. You address no one or everyone. Why learn ‘names’ when the individual might be dead before you meet again?

“No.”

The two-legs shifts around and you cling tighter to her armor. “I was thinking I would give you one so you’d know when I was talking to you.”

It might have a purpose. A strange one. Someone speaking to you and you alone, not to your entire kind. Something to set you apart. Almost like a trick. Like invisibility or talking to other kinds or breathing fire. You don’t know the words for what you want to say. How do you defer other than running away? How do you ask for something other than taking it? The two-legs live in swarms. The wimpod do not.

The two-leg’s paw presses against the other side of the shed armor. “You can come out,” it says. “Shouldn’t be anything dangerous around.”

If she is wrong you would be safer where you are. And it said that you can crawl out, which you could, not that it would attack you if you did not.

“Alright. Are you male or female?”

Egg-layer or fertilizer.

“I can fertilize eggs.”

“Hmm. First boy on the team. Congratulations.”

You have done a good job by being able to fertilize eggs. The other companions around her lay eggs. She will want you to fertilize them. This must be what she gains by protecting you.

“I think I want to name you Oquichtliyoh, or Leo for short. Means that you’re very brave.”

Brave. Not running away. This is wrong and stupid. Running away is safest.

“I always run away.”

“Yes, but, this is something to live up to. Run away from less. Explore more.”

“Not running away is dangerous.” You had thought the two-legs were clever. They are not. How are they still alive?

“Sometimes things won’t attack if they think there will be a fight. At least pretending that you won’t run away can be safe sometimes.” She shifts her weight and exhales. “Do you think you can leave my shirt?”

You slowly, reluctantly poke your antennae out. There are lots of tastes here. Two-legs and others. None seem to be close now. You crawl onto the outside of her shed armor and wait. “I won’t ask you to fight,” it says. “Not if you don’t want to. But sometimes when I find a bug about the same size as you are I might ask you to try and scare it off. Then you’ll get better at making things you can’t run from think they can’t eat you.”

No. Too much risk. “What if it attacks?”

“Then Coco or Noci—you’ll meet her later—will swoop in and save you.”

You do not want to agree. You do not want to risk her anger by saying no. Cleverly, you do not say anything to her.

“Just think about it. Oh, yeah, and if you want to travel with me you’re going to need a ball.”

A ball. A round object.

“Why?”

“Well, it lets me move you more safely.” Safety. Good. “I can let you try one if you want. If you don’t like it, I can try another.”

You are interested in what the two-legs do for safety. You hum to tell her you are willing. It reaches for the large object it carried on its back and opens it up. Inside are small crevasses for hiding in. You should have gone into that. It looks sturdier than her shed armor. It pulls out something smaller than you are. A ball. How will this help you?

“Alright, hold still.”

You still dart to the side when the thing flies at you. It would hurt. It would be dangerous. You can see the ball sprout open and send a web flying out. The edge hits you and pulls you in, like you’re falling backwards. Then—nothing.

Stillness.

Safety.

Motion. Color. Taste. Sound. There are plants beneath you. The Cuicatl is nearby. The Great Light is lower to the ground and all the smells are a little bit different. Time passed while you were still? How?

“What was that?”

“I put you in a ball. You won’t feel anything and you can’t be attacked. Did you like it?”

A perfect stillness. A perfectly safe stillness.

Perfect.

You rub your antennae together and chirp in happiness. “Can I go back in?”

“Later,” it says. “Wanted to feed you first.”

Shelter AND food? Why? What does it gain from you when you cannot protect it?

Not food. It would not give you food and then eat you. That makes no sense.

The Cuicatl moves something with its legs and a stream of colorful petals fall out. No, not petals. They are thin and colorful like a plant but they taste like meat in the air. When you nibble on one it also tastes like meat in your mouth. It tastes good. You eat the first few petals and then dart to the next, scooping them into your mouth with your mandibles and swallowing them down whole.

Meat was rare in your hiding place. When something died it would not be long before something bigger than you reached it. You and the other ‘wimpod’ would rush the meat and eat as much as you could. Then you would be driven away. It was easier to eat the white waste the fliers dropped. It did not taste as good. Did not give energy for as long. It was safer.

You cannot use energy from meat if you die eating it.

“Alright, I’m going to let Coco out to eat. You can stay on my shoulder if you want. Not under the shirt, please. Nothing will attack while Coco is here. Promise.”

You dart up the Cuicatl’s leg and settle near its head. The Coco is not nearly as tall as the Cuicatl. Height keeps you safe. The Coco suddenly appears from nowhere in a flash of red. One moment the taste is not in the air, the next it is.

“That’s what going out of a ball looks like,” the Cuicatl tells you.

Perfect. Predators cannot even taste you while you are in yours.

The Cuicatl lays out the Coco’s meal, which seems even tastier than yours. And a lot bigger. Almost as big as you. The Coco tears into it, occasionally growling at its food or even pouncing at a bigger piece before tearing it apart by clamping down on it with its teeth and shaking its head.

The Coco is horrifying. Nothing will attack while it is around.

When it finally finishes it goes bounding back to the Cuicatl. Its breaths are fast and regular and its mouth is slightly open. It growls something out and looks directly at you. Danger?

The Cuicatl exhales and moves its head from side to side. “No, Coco. You can’t play with him just yet. He’s skittish. Give him a while.”

It closes its mouth and continues to look at you.

“Right, I guess I need to take care of that. Um, Leo, do you mind if I bend down a little bit so I can touch Coco?”

There is nothing you could do to stop her. You would rather not be closer to the monster.

“Alright, this should be fast.” It bends down anyway. You move onto its back to stay farther away from the Coco. “This might feel weird for both of you. Just stay calm.”

A flicker of movement crosses over you. No, not over you. In you? Around you? Like a wind moving straight through your body. It pulses alongside your blood until it finally stills. Stills and tightens, the wind becoming sturdier until it feels like it’s physically rooting you in place.

And then it’s gone. The Cuicatl rises back to its full height and breathes deeply.

“Alright, you should be able to talk to each other now.”

“Hello!” the Coco growls. “I’m Coco. You’re Leo. We’re going to be friends. Do you want to play?”

The words. They make sense. Like the Cuicatl’s. A part of her trick?

This Coco, it wants to ‘play.’ Even the trick cannot tell you what play is.

“What is play?” you ask the Cuicatl.

“Oh. You might not have that. It’s like pretending to hunt or be hunted, but you won’t actually get hurt. Coco likes it.”

You do not want it to hunt you.

“No,” you tell it. “Do not eat me. I taste bad.”

The Coco thumps its tail onto the ground. “I wasn’t going to eat you. I don’t eat friends!”

You must be in the class ‘friend’ like you are in the class ‘wimpod.’ The Coco thinks you are inedible. Maybe it is safe to be around, after all. Until you shed and it eats your armor. Then it will know that you are edible. Probably edible. The invisible ones could eat you and the Coco tastes like them.

“Maybe he’ll want to play later, Coco.”

You will not.

“Oh! Could you get on my head! I could wear you like, a, what’s it called?”

“Hat?” the Cuicatl says.

It thumps its tail again. “Yes. You could be my hat.”

The head is very close to the teeth. It could bite you and then realize you are edible.

“No.”

A strange taste drifts through the air. Almost like rock. A very strange rock. Out of the corner of your eye you can see something large and grey flying through the air. Its armor does strange things to the light, causing it to shimmer against the creature’s surface and bounce off to other places.

“That’s Noci,” the Cuicatl says. “She also travels with me.”

{UD_Nocitlālin signals UD_Oquichtliyoh}

“Don’t worry,” the Cuicatl says in a soft breath. “She only eats rocks.”

Safe. Big enough to scare away predators. Not a predator itself.

It flies closer through the air and fixes its glowing red eyes upon you.

{Query: What are the directives of UD_Oquichtliyoh}

You have no idea what that means. Or how you would answer it.

“Don’t mind her, she’s just really curious.”

Exploration can result in both discovery and death. Curiosity is good and bad at once.

*​

The Cuicatl takes you, the Nocitlālin, and the Coco with her to her cave. There are other two-legs moving around inside. One has a strange flying sphere with long legs hanging down. It also looks at you but does not say anything. You huddle closer to the Cuicatl and it eventually drifts away.

The darkness comes abruptly and not little-by-little. Nothing attacks you. No new tastes approach. You still climb up to the cavern ceiling above the Cuicatl. That makes you safe from attacks from the ground.

{You can sleep in your ball if you want.}

The Coco is curled up against the Cuicatl, squirming around and occasionally pressing its paws into the two-leg’s stomach. The Nocitlālin is floating above the middle of the cavern. Why do they not want to sleep in their balls? Is that not a choice they have.

“That is safe,” you say.

Perfect stillness comes a moment later.
 
Last edited:

kyeugh

you gotta feel your lines
Staff
Pronouns
she/her
Partners
  1. farfetchd-galar
  2. gfetchd-kyeugh
  3. onion-san
  4. farfetchd
  5. farfetchd
1.4 period
i really really liked this one and am in no way biased as a trans.

i'll just get that part out of the way: i really loved the way you went about the gender aspect of this chapter. i'm not surprised by how good it is but i am impressed. i haven't read all that many trans characters, so my sample size here isn't huge, but most of the trans stuff i've read i haven't really enjoyed that much. i feel like there's a tendency to center transness as either deeply tragic or intensely empowering, and whatever the case there's often a strong Weird undercurrent to it. i think the trans experience and gender in general can of course be those things, but especially for someone like me, most of the time it isn't. it's just something weird that i mostly experience in the way it makes me feel (sometimes good, often bad) and the way it grabs my attention in the weirdest ways. i think you really nail that here. i especially liked the way that he'd be thinking about normal stuff and then suddenly he's just Reminded Of Gender by something like his reflection or the sound of his voice and he starts to spiral a little bit. kekoa is a guy that's going through it and has a body he doesn't like but he's vaguely hopeful for the future and he's doing what he can. even though he's a grouchy and pretty assertive, he just doesn't have the energy to fight these fights most of the time. overall it's, like, not this huge character-defining deal, it's just a thing he has to deal with and he has to deal with it privately. it's a whole layer to the world that for the most part only he is really aware of. it all just felt very true to life and to my experience, and i haven't read something like that before, so i really appreciated getting to and was a little enraptured by it.

moving on from that, i thought kekoa's voice was very strong—i think i'd say the strongest human voice in the fic so far—and you did a good job conveying both his level of expertise and his attitude. i enjoyed the way that he'd frequently think of something and then go, eh, i won't be the one to do this, like telling their referee to buck up or running back to apologize to cuicatl. it was a nice idiosyncracy and felt mature and immature at once.

there was a lot of battling in this chapter and i found your style of writing battles unique. they were strategic in a way that sort of evoked the irl metagame but were easy enough to follow and grounded in the environment and in the characters, what with cuicatl's blindness and the way pixie's attack distracted kekoa. a problem i have in battles is that the attacks are sort of vaguely defined in the way that anime magic often is, so it's kind of hard for me to really engage because i don't properly understand the rules and it ends up just being spectacle. like cool, there's stuff going on that i can objectively identify as strategic in world and there's cool lasers and shit, but i can't properly get into it if that makes sense. the way that this style sort of evoked a sense of the rules i am familiar with made it much more gripping for me. i'm looking forward to seeing how that pans out in future, presumably more complex battles.

i also liked the worldbuilding here. it was nice getting an alolan perspective and i thought the stuff about the keokeo was cool. it's interesting to have this dynamic where he sort of reveres this little fluffy diva that his traveling companion is using as a battle thrall. curious to see where it goes. it was cool zooming out on the world too, hearing references to their heritages and anahuac. i got the impression from the comment about the resort that alola remains an independent kingdom...? curious about that, because i feel like i recall from the aloladex that it does have a relationship with the US somehow. autonomous colony maybe?
You don’t say anything as you send Hekili onto the field. What’s the point? She knows her name and what’s about to happen.
the brain on this character is already enormous

But, nope, he’s entitled to win, however little work he puts in.
there's nothing actually wrong with it, i feel like this section would be stronger without this line.

She knows what “up” means, even when other people say it. Clever girl.
i liked this.

“Fake Out!”
i notice you're capitalizing fake out but none of the other moves, is that intentional?

Your starter’s getting pretty big now. Almost the meowth’s size. And her echoed voice has more sounds in it, more little ripples that draw a little more power in than the last and send a little more out. Not quite ready to evolve but she’s made progress.
he sounds really experienced. i wonder if he went to training school or if he just has a sharp intuition or what.

“You owe me six bucks.”
this made me laugh for some reason. i've never actually thought about prize money in terms of usd so it just sounds hilariously low. that gets you what in hawaii, like a single gumball

You turn away from him and walk towards Kiwi’s battlefield. “I’ll take more of your money any time you want.”
feels like the order of these sentences should be reversed.

Once the ice shards land, pyukumuku’s mouth opens and its tongue comes out to flip the fox off
lmfao

“Good job, Pixie.”
oof. i suspected, but still.

Two flashes of red cross the battlefield. The pyukumuku’s trainer crosses the field, smirking the whole time.
double use of "cross" jumped out at me here.

damn it some part of you feels ridiculous even asserting that you could ever be male with your body as it is.
😕

Her world is sound and people are voices and your voice is female so you are too. And. She. Just. Can. Not. Stop. Rubbing. It. In. Your. Cute. Rounded. Face.
😕😕😕

It gets better. It’s getting better. In three days there’s another shot and then another a week after that and on and on forever. This could be your last period.
well, at least there's that. good for him.

Best to not stare into the black screen for a second because that second seldom stays as just a second.
too real.

Keokeo are the watchful guardians of Lanakila and the guides of the dead and dying. They were worshipped as gods in their own right for centuries. Still are by some people. Probably just another dog breed to her.
wow. i wonder if pixie's ego is because of this or if it's unrelated. what am i saying, of course it's unrelated, she just knows her worth.

Kiwi leans back into the bench and crosses her legs. “What’s she like, scale of one to ten?”
omg lol. queen shit

Oh. That’s depressing. Although her people are more desert and lake dwellers so maybe being cut off from the sea didn’t even matter to her.
i always think this. how the hell do people survive in the heartland? surely this is why they drink so much in ohio.

“The one-on-one battle between Kekoa of Ak/ala,”
stray slash?

Weird choice but Holy shit that is the cutest fucking fox you’ve ever seen. Were her eyes always that big? Like, does she physically make her eyes bigger or is

Shit closing window of attack.
the weird formatting here actually rules, i really liked it.

She wants a win? She can take it from you over Hekili’s unconscious body.
looool. rip hekili

---

1.5 until the world moves on
well, that was fucking rough.

i have less to say about this one because there's less going on outside the narrator's brain than the last one, and i don't feel as comfortable relating my experience with the issues, heh. but i wanna say that i think it was really well done, super real and deeply moving without ever slipping into melodrama. the perspective is surprisingly rational despite everything. she's able to assess what she's doing somewhat objectively and identify the negative self-talk as not really herself. but that doesn't make it any easier. i enjoyed the ways that her psychic abilities factored into it too. it's really impressive how hard you make the stuff with achcauhtli in such a short time. just really devastating stuff all around and impressively written.

it was nice getting to see rachel again, i didn't expect to. despite the narration's insistence otherwise, i get the impression that cuicatl isn't particularly discreet about her emotional state, and rachel's psychic abilities probably don't hurt as far as figuring it out goes. her concern feels real, and her respect for cuicatl's boundaries are... respectable. but she's still a bit of a dick here sometimes, snapping at cuicatl from time to time. the frustration kind of feels real, it's like... you're really concerned for the person and are trying to help so that blasé attitude can be grating even though intellectually you know that expressing frustration at someone in that state is the last thing you want to do.

it seems like this trip is going to be really, really hard for cuicatl. i feel like it was already going to be hard enough considering her disability, that seems like a big disadvantage in something like pokémon battling... but of course now we know her mind is working against her in basically every other way too. i wonder how she's going to manage all the walking she's going to have to do on so little fuel. surely this means things get better for her, because they have to, right...?

some more neat little glimpses into the world here. i appreciate that tenochtitlan is tenochtitlan and not mexico city. i'd honestly love to read little vignettes just set in various places around your world, that sounds sick.

anyway this has been a depressing couple chapters with a profoundly depressing capstone so i'm looking forward to the promised vulpix ice cream! really good stuff though, you don't pull your punches and boy can you punch.
It contains a scene where a snow fox eats ice cream. Promise.
oh let's fucking go. ice types eating ice cream gang. (or, well, i guess regice doesn't eat it. but the thought is what counts.)

{Headache. Like yours.}

{Share?} you reply.

{No.}

You get to your feet and give him telepathic and physical kicks.

{You always take mine.}

{I always take one-third of yours. This is my first, so I will keep all of it. Owe you that much. And more.}

You roll your eyes. It took you forever to get the eye roll just right. You send him a quick, compressed guide to migraine survival. He already knows all of it, of course. He’s had one-third of a lot of migraines. It’s more of a passive aggressive thing. You pain share, so can he.

He stands up and takes your elbow to guide you. You immediately recoil.

{You’re really hot.}

{Am I?}

{Yes. Let me share.}

{No.}
this is all extremely cool and feels well thought out and developed.

“Okay. I have a box for heatmor by the door. Can you bring it out to her?”
seems like "heatmor" should be capitalized here since it's the name of an individual.

With one final gesture you point towards your love for him and he belatedly points you towards his for you.
super sweet. it does feel kind of weird for this to happen after you specified that she's slipped out of his mind though

Maybe ten centimeters higher than you should’ve given the crash.
it was a bit hard for me to parse this, i think a comma after "should've" would help.

However ellas stays airborne, mechanical flight is only a small part of it. You’ve never been able to find out how that works in all of your reading and you’ve read everything the library could find on hydreigon so you’re pretty sure if there was an answer you would’ve found it.
is "ellasS" a typo here? also idk if you have an explanation for hydreigon flight later but honestly, if you don't... respect. that design makes no goddamn sense. fuck it.

More importantly, she has a wonderful layer of thick fur just long enough to submerge your fingers in. “Brought you a toy.”
heatmor with fur is interesting but i kind of like it. love the choice of mon here btw. heatmor is very underrated and ant eaters are some of my favorite animals so it's cool to see them blast fire.

Heh. No need to worry. He wants people to rise and fall by their own hand, fine. He can take his own falls.
honestly, fair.

But you can’t just walk into a car and let the gawkers see your limp body flung across the street. That’s not fate, that’s a choice. And there’s no dignity in it
ouch. poignant line.

Everything’s numb. No, not numb. The opposite. You’re feeling everything at once and your feelings haven’t quite decided what to tell your brain.
and this one too. don't think i've ever seen this feeling written out before.

You should’ve been enough. But you weren’t when your brother needed it, which shouldn’t have been a surprise because you’d never been enough before.
oh jeez. i love the way this really recontextualizes the headache earlier (?). i thought the intro was interesting but a bit uneventful and this made me like "ohhh"

Kekoa won't give a shit. Might even be glad.
man. :( i wonder if she really believes this or if it's just her bad state of mind talking.

Pixie started panicking about a male human bleeding from the crotch and now you understand that the dick was you all along. No wonder he hates you.
ohhh. aw. i thought she was misgendering him on purpose, figured out he was trans using her psychic abilities and was just tormenting him or something. this is sad for them both.

She isn’t a fat, useless atlikauitl one day away from killing herself.
jesus.

---

1.6 through the city of fire
this was a nice chill one. it's good to get a break after how intense the last couple were, as promised.

i do think this one drags a little bit in parts. sometimes pixie's narration just feels like it's there because it has to be and ultimately serves to distract from the conversations that are going on. it's still delightful naturally, but i think the conversations between the humans feel a lot more important in parts and pixie's stuff is sorta just getting in the way of it. i liked when she's sort of contributing to the conversation in her way, by interrupting to ask cuicatl questions or what have you. i was less enthused about the part where she's mostly just thinking about it's hot while the humans are talking about stuff.

on that note i didn't really get the part where they're discussing the meal plans, i didn't feel like it illuminated any of the characters or provided any plot information and i'm not sure what would be lost if that scene was removed... maybe i'll eat my words on that.

i thought the conversation between genesis and cuicatl was interesting, there was some good worldbuilding and character moments there and i liked the way it sort of tugged at the tension that underlies their interactions. genesis just has all kinds of awesome stuff to say that seems to be bubbling just below her consciousness at all times. i'm really not looking forward to the inevitable blowout between her and kekoa. i'm hoping she changes for the better but i have kind of a hard time visualizing how that will play out... guess we'll see!

it was nice getting sort of a plan for how the next handful of chapters are going to go. the payment for capture system is pretty interesting and seems like it'll provide some structure to their travels beyond "go do the trials" without having to justify a pokédex filling project that doesn't seem like it would make sense in this canon. if i zoom out on the pacing of this story so far, objectively i think it's a little slow, but honestly i don't mind at all because to me the character interactions are the most interesting part and as long as those keep delivering i'm happy—and they certainly have been. that said, i'm looking forward to them starting their journey properly now—hope to get into it next time i stop by, which will be soon with luck! i'm really enjoying this fic so far, you're a very strong writer and your characters are super compellingly written, i'm having a lot of fun and i'm glad i've finally started to make some progress here. apologies if i fall off the map after blitz—i suspect i'll end up binging this fic kind of soon, but i'll try to leave reviews as i go.
“Want to,” you yip.
awww. bless her.

But then she puts on a paste that comes out of milk when you attack it.
oh my god hahaha

“No problemo,” Nameless responds before clapping his hands together to create a weak shockwave attack.
lmfao. i'm going to laugh at these jokes every time

“That’s actually the problem,” Bloodrage interjects. “Because one of us won’t be seeing anything and I \want to make sure that you’ve at least thought about that before dawn Wednesday.”
stray slash here? kekoa seems sorta socially intelligent. he feels the most aware of this stuff, genesis being genesis and cuicatl missing the gender stuff despite being psychic.

“Well, that brings me to your secondary mission: castform. There are a few in the Alolan Rainforests preserve and the season on them just opened up. We’ll buy them from you for $1000. Limit’s one a trainer but don’t be too worried if you can’t reach that. I’d be impressed if you got one between you.”
wow. this is kind of an interesting system!

They say more words. It’s boring. You decide to ask Skysong a question you thought of earlier. “What’s a mantine?”.
extra period at the end here.

She’s clearly trying to drag this out, so you can afford to get comfortable.
👑



Why is she already trying to replace you? You’ve been a good fox! She’s not going to leave you. She can’t. You’re being nice and everything! Ice foxes are better than fish (they can’t even breathe on land, much less fight there!) and she’s smart for a human so she has to know that, right? Why is she acting like she doesn’t get it. Like she doesn’t love you.
nooooo. why does everyone in this fic gotta be kinda broken. hey, wait a minu

“Well, mantine are like giant bats that live in the water. Since you wanted to know.”
that's one description of them. kinda want to read the mantine aloladex after this now.

You will wear it until it breaks and then scream until you are given one that is even better.
ah... screm.

The icicle tasted very good. It was very mean but went down easily enough. You start taking very big licks out of the icicle corpse before it starts melting in the unbearable heat.
oh my god lol. i feel like the existence of vanilite &co actually would kind of make eating vanilla feel a bit weird. like if there was an animal that tasted like bananas or something

Probably by hiding her white stick while she’s asleep. She hates it when you do that.
holy shit.

This is boring. What even is sewing? And your ice shards are almost all melted. Now you’re hot and wet and this is maybe the worst thing to ever happen to you.
aw. sad how she's sticking it out quietly. i hope this is not the start of a pattern.

“That’s sort of how it works here. Well, same opportunities. But boys get the best ones because xerneas made them stronger and smarter than us.”
oh!!!!!!

You turn towards it and take a few small steps forward, nose to the ground. There it is! On Skysong’s pillow. It’s… salt? Like the ocean? Why did she throw her pillow into the sea? Even by human standards that is very strange.
😟

Skywong leans back and folds her arms.
skywong

“When we get away from the city, can you tell me some of them? I’d love that.”

Love!

“Yes!”
awww. she wants to be loved so bad. bless her.
 

love

Memento mori
Pronouns
he/him/it
Partners
  1. leafeon
It turns out I read a lot of this story, so I have some line-by-line reactions and some notes on the characters because the characters struck me as a big focus.

There’s some color in them but it’s hidden behind a white pattern

"pattern" doesn't seem right

A few thoughts set up a quarantine. “Both words,” she practically whispers. It sends out a signal for you to translate. ‘Both words.’ In Japanese. No accent. Huh. That’s probably her specialty.

Got confused by this bit, don't know if it's just me

You are worse than nothing.

Pix's fixation on the "only 2 pokemon" thing makes more sense after this bit. Realizing it's not a universal rule forces her to admit she was left behind by choice. Cuicatl, of course, does her best to disillusion her gently.

Inferno would be sad. More sad, anyway. Still not sure what his deal is. If you ask you might get close and accidentally take him away from Genesis. It would be unfair.

:(

You want to fight. Insist that you can keep up. Aren’t the weak link. But he’s right. You are. Useless. Might as well admit it.

Shades of Pix here.

You messed up and pressed her too hard too fast. Broke her.

Sorry, Cuicatl, but I'm not sure if there was really a smoother way to go about it.

You’re a master at breaking things and a failure at fixing them.

So close to a title drop...

Like she couldn’t just call back from across the clearing like a normal person.

Fuck I do the same thing, I feel called out

“Yeah, sure. It’s…”

Damn, cut off before giving Cuicatl's number, now I can't call her irl.

“Yeah, well, that’s just how companies work. They need to make a profit so they can exist and pay us at all.”

Flawless logic

She leans away and places her arms behind her. Smiling. Faintly but it still counts. Good job!

The "Good job" greatly amused me, I will not lie. Also, I may just be oblivious, but this is the first point where I started thinking "Hm maybe Genesis is a bit gay"

“So he starved his daughter to make himself look good to everyone else?”

That's an impressively uncharitable viewpoint

“Right, then you killed all you could and stole half their land.”

Ah, and here I thought the tensions were easing a little between them. Welp.

Yeah, well, if Mom and Dad ever loved us they stopped when Levi was born. They had their heir.

Shades of Pix 2?

I think the movie scene highlight's Coco's lack of sympathy for prey and her lack of self control

Cuicatl's father is a bit nasty huh. At least now I remember what she needs all that money for.

“Good. I have to run now. I’ll see you later. Maybe tonight.”

Damn really gonna ditch Cuicatl huh

Wait, spider silk. It’s bulletproof. Could probably block tyrunt teeth. Maybe even tyrantrum bites.

Huh that's actually a really nice thought

Initiate Ramming is the Correct Option in 87.3% of cases.

Words to live by

Toss—a blur shoots out from the floor and stops right on your shoulder as the totem appears and flicks the pokéball to the side with her tail before jumping back and completing the zing zap.

sentence confuses me

It occurs to you that all of your pokémon but Nebby survived. That’s something. Maybe… no, there’s no healing your team under the necrozma’s watchful gaze. A shame. Its bleeding light in at least five places on its wings. Another round and maybe you could have done it.It occurs to you that all of your pokémon but Nebby survived. That’s something. Maybe… no, there’s no healing your team under the necrozma’s watchful gaze. A shame. Its bleeding light in at least five places on its wings. Another round and maybe you could have done it.

There's a little duplication here

the air distorts as a psionic attack flies at the dragon in midair.

I wonder if it's like, a colored beam, or if it's just air distortion

“You shouldn’t go,” Kekoa says, voice firm and almost angry. Why? This is everything he wanted. Even if he’s calmed down a little in the last two weeks, he still clearly doesn’t like her. “Your parents aren’t good people, Gen. Nothing good comes from going back.”

It was interesting to see Kekoa try to justify Genesis staying. He gave it a good try.

“She has a duty to her family.”

Oh boy Cuicatl I don't know about that one (this is going to be a problem when Lyra tries to convince her to rescue Genesis—if she even gets that far.)

He’s worried, but you don’t think it’s for her. The loss of income?

Makes sense as an assumption

There’s fire in her eyes that can’t be blamed on the pyroar’s light. “’Trying,’ were you? Tell me, were they also trying to convert you?”

Jeez this is even worse than I thought it would be

“Genesis Elizabeth Gage, you have always been a terrible liar.”

I wonder—would it even matter if it were the truth?

Aw man, poor Genesis, her parents and beliefs just won't let her be gay in peace. I like how Lyra dropped like every possible romantic hint, and she still didn't get it.

Her upbringing is even more sheltered/parentally-influenced than I imagined. Thinking about it, it's kind of hard to imagine she could have turned out any other way. If I were her, though, I would really be missing Cuicatl—and maybe even Kekoa—right about now.

Their light disappears quickly enough, but it still illuminates about a fifth of the room.

Sentence confused me. Are they producing light or not?

I did not understand much of Jurassic Park the book, big words and the recording was fast, but I think it said that really smart pokémon might not know their language and culture when they came back.

came back from where?

“I’m know the story.”

I know the story

“Skysong sets you down next to her. Your harness presses onto your back a moment later.”

looks like we left some quotation marks here

Chapter 3.5 was copy-pasted twice, it seems.

You wonder how the forests will come out of this. Two weeks with no sunlight and constant cold. Which grass-types will survive? Which won’t? What of the bugs and birds that didn’t evolve for the cold?

This makes me sad :(

Gyarados get testy when too many magikarp are captured in one place.

Explains why they don't get overhunted, I suppose.

Sometimes you have to drown someone else to stay afloat. You know that damn well.

Kekoa is not the easiest person to like. I think this scene underscores a lack of humility. Obviously it's bad when other people catch finneon, but it's okay when he does it because birthright or whatever. And there's no way it's his fault that Makani wants to leave—it must be that Cuicatl wants revenge. To be fair, maybe that isn't completely his fault—like you said, it's a lot easier to get along with your pokemon when you can literally just talk to them, and even if you can, that doesn't guarantee they want to be trained or that they'll like you. I am willing to believe that he does try to treat his pokemon decently but may fail to consider that they might want something he can't provide. Like affection, for example. Keokeo respect aside, I don't think he'd have done well with Pixie. And I'm not sure it's totally his fault that he works with V-star either—I mean, when you need money, you need money. But it would be great if he unlearned his hypocrisy.

And when did you start being able to compare humming?

He's probably always been *able* to compare humming, so I'd suggest something like "And when did you start comparing peoples' humming?"

And okay looks like the conversation with Kanoa supports the idea that it might not have been his fault that Makani wants to leave—although the wording Makani used, saying that he doesn't like him, suggests that... he may also have just not liked him even from the start.

If you can learn to deal with the cold, you can carry on your lives as normal. We even invite tourists to come experience the islands in an exciting new way.

How desperate can you get...

Man Genesis' life really sucks right about now.

I can beat her up for you.

I think offering to beat people up is Kekoa's love language

“It won’t be our blood we shed,” she says. “We’ll start a war. Invade one of the southern neighbors. Provoke a rebellion and crush it. Whatever we need to do.”

Dang that's pretty bad. Cuicatl acts nice most of the time, so it's easy to forget how brutal her culture is. This is also a more honest statement than I would have expected—yes, we start a war on purpose, specifically so that people die, so what?

What. She could have bought you frozen blood at any time? And she didn’t? Why? Do all of them sell frozen blood? Because now you want one whenever you have to sleep inside. At least one per night. Maybe three.

Oh dear. Tactical blunder from Cuicatl?

All kits are taught the story of Ho’olio, the ninetales who almost choked the whole mountain with a mother’s love.

I thought this was a really cool story/metaphor. Obviously, birthing more kits than can be expected to survive is a real strategy in nature, but it seems especially cruel when the animals involved are highly intelligent and likely to form strong attachments. Giving kits away to humans is one strategy, I suppose, but it's still quite harmful, as we see with Pixie.

Damn, florges is woke. Possible new favorite character.

You wonder how the grass-type pokémon trapped on the other side of the fence feel, doomed to starve just a few yards away from warmth and light.

;_;

“Metang? Eyerock is a beldum—”

Didn't realize Pixie was saying this at first

It drifts to VStar—you like them a lot and you’re pretty sure it has no harm on the environment. You haven’t heard about any trainers who died. It’s nice to still have some money to make and be able to help the pokémon move indoors.

Morally questionable move, but anything for Alice, I suppose

After another minute of scratching he puts a paw on top of your hand and presses down. He sniffs you for a second and then curls back up. Fine. No scratches.

</3

“You’ll need more work than I’d thought to get you back to being a proper lady. Come on, let’s get you changed.” You hesitate. You want to stay here and keep hugging Cloudy and try to get Fern to like you again and Bubbles to show you his new evolution. Something bordering on rage flashes in your mother’s eyes. “You will be able to see them again in good time, dearest. Come with me. Now.”

Noooooo

Genesis' parents are so over the top that at this point I'm surprised she hasn't turned out even worse.

Bruises and blood are a far lesser punishment to what the fox could have done.

compared to

“That’s not alarming in and of itself. Most telepaths can, even if their specialization isn’t in language. There’s some debate as to why that is. Two theories are popular but I think at least three more are worth investigating—"

I like Dr. Brinner's tangents. And also that he stood up for Genesis. Woo!

Further investigation has revealed him to be a thief and a drug user, information that will be sent on to the police and his employer.

This is very frightening.

She is insistent that you not meet your leafeon and poliwhirl until her investigation’s over, but

My heart continues to ache for Inferno

The static in the air grows heavier and you can feel strands of your hair trying to push away from your scalp, only to be held down by the water weight from the drizzle.

Did the snow change to rain between scenes? (I think I got confused by the switch from Cuicatl to mom)

Her voice drips with the medicinal fake-sweetness of cough syrup.

I like this simile.

[Observation: 21.6% of Data Pertains to Fluid Release]

Metang only want one thing and it's disgusting

[Reduce Ramming Speed]

Why is this robot character so funny

Unit010_100000111 Is Bad Metang;

This was an unexpectedly wholesome chapter. I thought Noci would be a boring character because they are a robot, and I guess they aren't that interesting by themselves, but the way they interact with Cuicatl is amusing and unexpectedly helpful to her. I guess if your goal in life entails keeping someone alive to spy on at any cost...

“Wait! No! Stop! You’re a good metang, okay? Really efficient. Don’t do that. Please.”

I just wanna say, for some reason I found the "Really efficient" bit particularly cute—just how she's trying to complement her in a way she would actually find flattering.

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 a fucking maniac who tried to burn your country down for her jellyfish fetish.

I don't really know the plot of the games, so I'll just take this literally as my new headcannon.

She brushes past you and walks towards the gates. Her arm brushes against yours and you startle at the touch.

A bit of repetitiveness here

And then the metang begins to be spun around Ikaika’s small frame.

Kind of awkward phrasing

“Fire fang.”

I think she uses thunder fang (it says sparks fly across the shell afterward)

if you ever want to pass the island challenge, think twice before catching and exporting the pokémon you share Alola with.

I'm not sure how beating challengers in pokemon fights is supposed to help with this.

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

Yeah this is definitely the most Coco response possible.

Whereas Pix is very set in her ways, Coco is very impressionable.

The tyrantrum is labeled ‘climate change’ and you’re labeled ‘the government.’

Someone should do fanart of this

She doesn’t… you don’t want that. She tried to help sometimes, even if she couldn’t. Even if she abandoned you.

This felt really important to me. This story has been going on for a long time with what feels like little change in Pixie's mindset, but this is a rare case where she manages to see some nuance. She recognizes that Cuicatl is not a villain, even if she is convinced she left her.

It’s smooth hole bored through the earth with dim lights and small cracks in the wall to hide in.

Is this supposed to be "It's a smooth..."?

Your two-legs, the Cuicatl, makes noises you do.

A bit confused by this one.

There are other two-legs their moving around.

I think you can remove the "their"

--Past this point, we're going out of order

“Under the laws of Alola, yes.” You’ve triple checked that. It’s VStar’s entire business model.

:copyka:

Best girl. You don’t deserve her at all.

If someone leaves me, it's because I failed them. If someone stays with me, it's because they're too foolish to know better.

I like how Cuicatl has to change her strategy against the toxapex to account for Noci arriving later, and then changes her strategy against vikavolt to try to make Pixie feel special. It makes things a bit more interesting.

Balls of woody tails with scant green coverings.

Wasn't sure what this was meant to be.

Sometimes you imagine those things and it feels more like a memory just out of reach than a dream spun from whole cloth.

The "dream spun from whole cloth" metaphor seemed strange to me.

PROMINENT PSYCHIC ARRESTED STOLE TAXPAYER DOLLARS

Noooooooo Dr. Brinner!

“That’s, ugh, fine. You still almost threw your life away for money. Stupid. Can’t spend any of it if you’re dead.”

I would have probably done the same thing for 300k. That much money is a big deal for working-class folk. But gosh, if tyrantrum are that dangerous, then I can understand why Kekoa is concerned Coco is eventually going to kill her.

KEKOA

He thinks his pending victory against the False Queen justifies participating with V-star, which I'm sure is easier to believe if you don't look into how terrible V-star is.

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

Knowing this doesn't immediately change anything because Kekoa needs the money, but regardless, I think it's important for him to acknowledge that he is complicit in some fucked up stuff and being a native doesn't justify it. If he can do that, then he'll probably start being less mean to others and may eventually find a better way to make a difference in the world. I think he's getting there.

“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.”

This felt like a really big deal for Kekoa, actually arguing for a foreigner's place in Alola. His experiences with Cuicatl changed him.

CUICATL

Self-esteem issues abound. Pixie leaving was quite bad for her. Kind of like I said with Kekoa, she might simply not be able to provide Pixie with what she wants. Even if she were to convince Pixie that she isn't bound to abandon her (somehow), she still might prefer Kalani. I can sympathize with her attempts to manipulate Pixie, even if I don't think they're right, because Pixie decided so fast, and it appears impulsive. Cuicatl thinks she's protecting Pixie from herself. This gives her a justification for trying to keep her but also allows her to blame herself when she leaves—it's not that she inherently can't provide Pixie with the sort of companionship she wants, it's just that she wasn't persuasive enough. I wonder if it's more bearable to believe you could have done something but failed than to accept that you couldn't have done anything. If there were anything she could have done to convince Pixie to stay, I have no idea what it is. I guess one thing I might have done differently is asking Pixie what it would take to convince her that abandonment is not imminent, then try to develop a conversation from there.

The Reshiram conversation was interesting. On the one hand, I don't think Cuicatl needs to have a grand plan on how to fix the world or anything, especially not when her personal struggles are so acute. On the other hand, there sure are some problems with unquestioningly accepting the status quo.

PIXIE

It seems like she is bound to prefer Kalani's company for the foreseeable future because ninetales supremacy. I guess that's somewhat understandable; if a human were forced to live with some other weird species they don't understand and then finally had the chance to be adopted by another human, there would definitely be appeal. This feeling might be more baked in to ninetales than to humans, so maybe it really is true that a human can't give a ninetales a home.

GENESIS

Genesis' life at this point is so fucked up that I can't even dislike her anymore. I only pity her. I don't know how she's getting out of this one. I'm sure that if you tell pretty much anyone that they did something wrong and leave them in an empty room for long enough, they'll eventually think of a sin to tell you.

Given that the other gods seem to be real, I wonder if Xerneas is real. That's probably cleared up in the Alola dex.

LYRA

Rescuing Genesis seems like a hell of a task, as the narration acknowledges. Good luck with that one.

HALA

Not a shocking opinion, but I don't like Hala very much.

A keokeo promptly takes the dragon’s place. They puff themselves up and look slightly up and to the side. 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.

If you care about vulpix so much, maybe it would be better not to almost kill one?

But if I don’t try to stop VStar, Tapu Koko might.

She kind of reminds me of Kekoa here—I doubt such small "victories" really matter or even have the effects she thinks they will. Not really sure what Koko's deal is, since I know basically nothing about pokemon lore in general, so there's room for me to be wrong.

RACHEL

She's more evil than I remember her being. She's covering for some very terrible folks. I guess she's trying to help Cuicatl... which happens to also be convenient for her and V-star.

INFERNO

Look I know he's not a major character I just really like leafeon and I need Inferno to be okay because goddamn it somebody needs to be okay here.

This is actually not the first time I have been unreasonably invested in a side character; there's something tragic about the fact that never finding a good resolution is a real possibility for them and that would just break my heart. Plus he hasn't done anything wrong! He's just a cute little leaf cat!

I feel like in these later chapters, in a weird way, the characters have been confronting more extreme versions of themselves? Like, Genesis goes back to her parents, who are even more obsessed with deer cult shit than she is, and finds she isn't meeting their standards; Pixie meets Kalani, who seems even less charitable toward humans (or at least toward Cuicatl specifically) than Pixie, enough to even give Pixie pause; Kekoa confronts Hala, who appears even more bitter toward non-Alolans than he is; Cuicatal... idk if Cuicatl fits into this pattern as well as the others, but I guess you could say that Noci shows her the logical extreme of the "I am flawed and therefore I deserve to die" mindset (your friends might deserve to die too).

Overall, this story is quite a lot to follow, especially for someone who doesn't know much actual pokemon lore. It seems the characters were interesting enough to keep me reading, however. Everybody has a very strong perspective. They are changing, but slowly. I think everyone basically still has the same flaws—Genesis is still brainwashed, Cuicatl is still down on herself and has made no progress on body image issues, Pixie is still narcissistic, Kekoa is actually seriously starting to question things, I think, but only recently. The slowness to change is true to life, I think. It takes time to reconsider deeply held beliefs.

The chronology and perspective shifts in chapter 3.8 threw me off a bit—when the start of the chapter says Cuicatl, I like to think the whole chapter will be from Cuicatl's perspective. Is there is a particular reason these flashbacks are being included in this chapter, as opposed to being in their own chapter or whatever?

Overall a fun story.
 

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
I love you all for writing so much about my fix fic / therapy project, but oh man does it make review responses a pain. I'm not going to do comments to grammar / prose stuff here unless I actually object to the idea that it needs fixed.
Seems like I kind of left off in an awkward place last time; ended on a big "Kekoa NO" moment, while these chapters are much quieter and focused on the group as individuals rather than the team dynamics. Would kind of be an odd arc structure, but the ending here isn't really one you want to build up to; it makes sense to have some quieter chapters to make the emergency at the very end all the more sudden and jarring. Makes more sense to talk about the chapters individually than it usually does.
I'd love to say this was intentional but it's more of an accident tbh.
Cuicatl's chapter is heartbreaking, of course; feels like the darkest we've had from her recently. Big "oh no" moment when I realized the flashback we were seeing was to when she found out her dad had sold her mom's pokémon--really the inciting scene for her entire journey in Alola. So awful to see how her dad treated her and how much she's internalized his disgust towards her. Makes me wonder a little about Achcauhtli and how he responded to his environment. Cuicatl obviously adored him, but he was obviously steeped in a pretty toxic environment, and I wonder how much he managed to escape those influences. (Of course, the whole "don't tell anybody about my serious illness" thing might have to do with him being expected to be a super-awesome warrior.)
At the time it really did just feel like a bad migraine for him. Meningitis is known for escalating quickly. And I can say that he was never mean to her, beyond typical sibling teasing, but he also never really stood up to their father in a meaningful way.
I also have to admit that I wonder how you sell a hydreigon. Doesn't seem like something Alice would have gone along with, but how do you make a hydreigon go somewhere it doesn't want to go? Would be a very expensive mistake to spend so much money on a dragon that refused to do what you asked, with the very reason it was so expensive was the power that in turn makes it difficult to control... I also thought it was interesting that Cuicatl only really seems to care about getting half of her mother's team back. She obviously doesn't have as much of an emotional connection to the others, but I guess there isn't the sense that they'd want to stick together or that they're necessarily going to end up in a worse situation if they're sold.
I plan on addressing that in the next chapter, 4.6, in at least broad strokes.
It was fun to see Gen and Cuicatl bonding a bit in Gen's chapter--and oof, tyrunt training is, unsurprisingly, rough. The family dynamic suggested by Gen's meeting with her brother is interesting; I wonder whether her father/brother are generally more supportive of her than her mom, or if only her mom really knows about her relationship with Lyra and the others would be as quick to turn on her if they found out the full extent of the situation. And of course, Gen's decision to slowly parcel out her money to try and avoid awkward questions is very sigh-inducing but understandable. On the whole this was probably the chapter of this bunch that interested me the least, though I imagine it's setting up for a lot of fun stuff down the line.
Her brother definitely is more supportive. Her father is... better, I suppose. You'll see soon enough.
Very curious why a presumably-metagross is interested in having Cuicatl watched. Part of the group of psychics in general wanting to keep an eye on her, since she's untrained and not in a great mental place? It's hard for me to imagine a metagross caring too much about a primarily-human(?) organization and its concerns, so perhaps it's interested in Cuicatl's translation abilities? Or even helping Renfield find her somehow? Very curious. Nocitlālin's a delight, though--Cuicatl's definitely getting all the best pokémon, heh. I'd love to see a bit more of some of the other kids' pokémon, to be honest, especially Kekoa since they're so important to his arc, buuuuut I definitely recognize the Hella Hella Characters problem that would lead to, heh.
She's drawn the attention of some reasonably influential people and is related to someone with a genuine threat to them. She has the potential to be near more interesting people. That's at least worth throwing a beldum at to them.
Kekoa's trial is fun; I enjoy the way Kekoa analyzes the battle, the thought put into strategy on each side, and Kekoa's anger at how close the outcome was, especially when Cuicatl found the trial easy. Kekoa definitely has the strongest feel for battle strategy, the most knowledge, and a very smart, analytic approach to battling, but he definitely can't connect to his pokémon the way Cuicatl can. Seems like he's probably going to have to change his approach if he wants to take the throne, meticulously-planned championship team or no. Also, I believe he's the only member of the group to have a Z-bracelet at this point, right? Kinda terrifying, tbh. Gonna be fun to see what he does with that.
Cuicatl has one. She just can't reliably use it due to anorexia-induced heart damage. Doesn't always stop her from trying.
Of course, the real highlight of the chapter is what happens right at the end! Loved the way Necrozma's arrival was described, with the sky's cracks dripping light and the way all illumination on the ground gets sucked away. Definitely looking forward to Ultra Beast shenanigans next arc--and more god-catastrophe baggage for Kekoa. :)
Arc 3 is a little light on Ultra Beasts, if only because none of our protagonists could fight one. It still has its own complications. You'll see soon enough.
This is the best thing, omg. And very much feels like the kind of thing you'd find at a thrift shop!
If Cuicatl ever becomes champion her outfit is just burnt ripped jeans and that T-Shirt.
*your, and I haven't really talked about commas at all, since leaving them out seems to be your style, but usually you'd put one before the "but" here!
I actually have no idea how commas work.
GOOD. Cuicatl gets plenty of trouble from her other pokémon already, but I look forward to seeing how a ram-happy beldum will make her life even more interesting.
Honestly feels like the least troublesome team member tbh.
Yikes. Yeah, that's one consequence I wouldn't have thought of for the Groudon/Kyogre event, but it makes sense. Way to make that catastrophe even more horrifying!
Methane deposits, in the ocean and the permafrost, are terrifying IRL as a way climate change could go from "very bad" to "wipes out most multicellular life." I'm glad I found an excuse to write about a partial release event lol.
Woof, that's a cold way to put it.

And there you have it! Will I be able to make it through "Flying" before the end of Blitz? My hunch is... probably not, but I'll definitely be back a couple more times at least! This is a part of the story I've been looking forward to for a long time.[
I believe in you! Still seven hours left!
It's been 3000 years and apparently I haven't actually reviewed in literally forever. Which was also big brain since I predicted the rewrites, incredible. Smaller chunks since I know if I try to review too much at once the anxiety of trying to make a perfect review will mean I won't see you for another year lol.
It's fine! You know I appreciate all of your feedback.
3.5 Ancestor Stories
I have a really odd sense of deja vu when I'm typing literally every sentence of reviewing for this chapter, in the sense that I've already typed a review for this chapter, but as far as I can tell, I haven't. Also the chapter is literally pasted twice into the post and there's no discernible difference between the two as far as I can tell, but it was a lot of deja vu.
Yeah, uh, I think I fixed that? If not I will after writing this review. There was no actual reason for it.
Pixie falls out of the narration for this one, imo. It's hard because she doesn't really get agency in this sense, but the main source of conflict continues to be Kekoa/Cuicatl, and the fact that most of the chapter is their dialogue happening while Pixie watches doesn't really help with that. And honestly, deep empathy with you on this front; it's really hard to try to set up pokemon narrators in the long-term in trainerfic because the setting more or less strips them from having any sort of decision-making or plot impact in any chapters that aren't battle chapters, which, oof, is an issue all to itself.
I tried to give her more agency in the rewritten version of this chapter but it seems I didn't quite succeed. Oh well. Maybe someday I'll get back to serious rewrites of Arc 3 again again.
I think this could've used with one or two fewer myths, and more focus. I cheat a little because I like all my stories to rhyme, so to speak, but I find that myth as a storytelling device works best when a character is choosing to tell the story for an obvious reason--you get to poke at the character problem in the nearterm; you get to do some worldbuilding; you get to have a feelgood meta message about why we tell stories or whatever. But in general I think meta-stories/telling stories inside of stories works better in a more focused form; there's a specific myth that Pixie chooses to tell her because she thinks it'll help Cuicatl or something. (And maybe she's totally wrong and Cuicatl doesn't get that the moral is that if you're a ninetales you're pretty and smart and instead Cuicatl figures out something lame and stupid like forgiveness or that being an adult means life is real shit sometimes, but it is what it is). As it is it feels a bit more like a reaction video--the myth itself is short and spliced in with quick commentary on it, but it doesn't really feel like there's deeper meaning/importance.
Hmm. I was also trying to avoid that. I can't promise I'll get to structural changes maybe ever for this chapter, I just can't with the sheer volume already written and my update write, but this is definitely advice I will keep in mind going forward as it will almost certainly become relevant again.
I think this myth was the closest to landing for me--the ones about how beautiful ninetales are are funny, of course, but this one is closest to relevant for the actual characters. Paradoxically I wouldn't actually use this one either since the goal of this chapter seems more to get Cuicatl from emotional Point A to Point B and I'm not sure if looking at the "she trapped you and you serve her" thing is going to help her with that, but it's a good example of a story being told within a story to have relevance to the characters choosing to tell/hear it.
If I ever do structural edits again I can just move this to a different chapter. I like the myth and reaction a bit too much. Maybe keep it for inevitable arc where Cuicatl decides if human sacrifice is bad or not.
100% accurate summary yes
Brave Sir Bubbles ran away.
3.6 Birthright
I mean this chapter is about pokemon ethics so I can't not like it tbh.
Kekoa's arc began by being about coalition building and now it's just eoe-core. I didn't predict that happening but it did and here we are.
But in general I like that we're finally picking at Kekoa a bit. I can't help but think of it in terms of respect--when he says that the native species of Alola are supposed to be respected, he actually means they're supposed to be had by, you know, the right kinds of people. But it's also a question with no real right answers; Kekoa's "but other people will just exploit them too" is true, even if it's not an excuse for him to do the same. And it's certainly a concept that rings uncomfortable true for a lot of real world situations. In particular I like the layered quandry here; if you're fighting for freedom with people who want to be free from you, what are you really standing for?
Oh wait no it's still definitely about coalition building. This review actually gave me random inspiration for a potential Kekoa Endgame.
And honestly it's a tricky answer, since no movement is going to be pure and frankly it's easy to preach when it's not your country burning down; it's easy to boycott working for V-Star until you're starving. Cuicatl's answer of "I'm a predator" also rings kind of hollow and I can see why Kekoa isn't really on board with it--she's not lying to herself about what she's doing, sure, but she's still doing it.
Heh. I don't think Cuicatl is ready for a real conversation on her ethics yet. She'd take the criticism too hard and ignore any intended constructive parts. There was going to be a throwaway line in the florges chapter where the florges said as much when Kekoa asked if Cuicatl was getting a lecture. Someday, though, we'll get back to her.
The darkness in this chapter also felt a lot more real, in part because Kekoa's probably the only character to give a shit in the main grou rn, but he's also the most logical one for these thoughts to go to. (Honestly I'm not sure if this chapter was edited for your rewrites so if I'm just complimenting you for changing things to how they were, oops, go me, crit culture is dead). But in general I like Kekoa's visceral response/anger here, and I'm surprised we haven't seen the Skull stuff escalate more than it already has--Alola under attack from colonizers is kind of an abstracted concept (and it's also fun in the sense that it's easy for Kekoa to project whatever he wants onto it), but Necrozma is kind of literally a space foreigner attacking Alola.
It was edited, I think. Skull takes up a more active role in Arc 4 on. For now Plumeria's been laying low and making quieter moves while she waited on Necrozma to come and go.
I really like the dynamic of Kekoa just thinking Cuicatl will lie to him. It's a take that's both mature and immature: he's mature enough to recognize that he's kind of made her life super shit and this would be a logical consequence of his actions, but he's also too immature to realize that Makani might just want to yeet and it's sort of on him to accept that. But also in general the concept of your pokemon just not wanting to be with you is a hard one to swallow; in a franchise that's steeped in the idea that pokemon are your friends it's kind of a shit thing to hear if your pokemon decides to dip, and I really do get why authors are afraid of writing that for their characters and inadvertently craft worlds with weird implications as a result. For Kekoa I can see why it'd be infuriating, especially alongside
Cuicatl, who seems to attract apex predators by sheer luck while he's clawing for everything he can. It's hard to make the mature choice when it seems like no one else has to (or is choosing not to).
He is a teenager, you know. And he could've also had a tyrunt by dumb luck if he wasn't petty lol.
yeah god I texted her and told her she was cute and held the door open for her that one time and why would she want to go date that asshole chad??
Ikr?
I like the tunnel vision he gets here--that if he can just talk enough, Makani will come around. The only reason he hasn't is because Kekoa hasn't figured out the right thing to say. The idea that Makani actually just wants to leave hasn't really crossed Kekoa's mind.
And then Cuicatl goes and does the same thing ten chapters later.
this is a sick detail
And a Chekov's gun for Arc 4 lol.
I'm actually unsure how this plays into some of the larger stuff--is there no way to force a powerful pokemon to obey you? Who purchased the hydreigon for a million dollars and hasn't been a high-profile trainer?
I just told Grek Grek / Pen / WB that I'd elaborate more, but I actually realized I might not be elaborating enough so here it goes: you have to break the pokemon in. For most you can do this telepathically or with love bombing or whatever. For an angry hydreigon it kind of has to involve learned helplessness. She might not be a useful battler after but it's still good for conspicuous consumption. And the relatively low price reflects that even then the dragon might not be fully tame.
I like how this isn't necessarily a known answer--but it's an easier one to accept
It's almost like someone might have a point about how trying to fight an unethical system from within the confines of the system requires doing unethical things until you lose the moral high ground. Oh well, I'm sure Plumeria and Florges have nothing to say about that.
It's been 3000 years so I can't pin down the exact differences, but I think this version works a lot better. Lyra seems a lot less prickly/antagonistic in this version, and we're able to see what makes her tick + how her fear of psychic manipulation basically permeates through her entire life. It feels a lot more grounded in a way that I think the previous version was lacking, and it sets up really well for the inevitable shitshow now that she thinks Cuicatl is her best hope at getting what she wants. The meticulous document keeping and the reassurance in having nightmares about Genesis hating her were particularly standout moments for me.
Thanks. This is one of the chapters I think improved the most and it went through a lot of revision stages until I settled on one that I liked. Glad it works, mostly.
In general I like her throughlines of appearances/power; lines like "[Selene] just embraced facing the world as she is" and "they can hurt you and make you love them for it" are really metal lines in a story like this that's so deeply tied around secrets, trying to grow stronger, facing yourself, etc. I think in my first readthrough it was a lot harder for me to see what direction you meant to take Lyra; she's kind of angry and antagonistic but ends up shuttling along with everyone because it's good drama; here, the sense of character is a lot stronger and the sense of how she's able to challenge Kekoa/Cuicatl in specific ways takes a backseat (for now) in a way that I'm a lot more excited to see crash and burn. It's also fun to get into her head specifically, since she's so much more certain/determined in her fight with Cuicatl and so much more free/happy in her time with Gen--these are aspects that are still here, but it's a lot more couched in Lyra's head specifically, and I think it works well.
I found that I liked her as a good foil to Kekoa and Cuicatl. I'm not sure how long she'll be around in the main cast, eventually things will blow up with Cuicatl and I'm not sure that can be easily repaired, but it's been fun writing her for now. She even has another POV chapter soon.
Also, characters who just want to explore the pokemon world are cool. I'm sure she's going to have plenty of time doing that since nothing is going to go wrong here.
Nope. Nothing.
I liked the convo with Lyra/Cuicatl at the end, which I think is new. It's helpful to get them talking about themselves before shit hits the fan, although in general I think it does on just a hair too long and the setting itself falls out for me--they get in line, they get really engaged in talking, oops all the food is gone. It's the sort of conversation that I think could happen anywhere and the plot takes a backseat, which imo is mostly fine, but some environmental details there might've helped ground things a bit.
Yeah. I'll think about that going forward. I am more of a dialogue-heavy writer so sometimes I get too lost in my head.
I'm not super sold on the covid parallels, especially with the knowledge that they could just take the eagles to mordor take the navy ships anywhere else. If there's an existing refugee handling system in place, I'm surprised anyone would choose to say? Like even the covid deniers would probably have a better time being 100% sure covid is a hoax from the safety of a place where there's guaranteed, literally visibly, no apocalypse happening. The government being cruel and shitty tracks, but the fact that there's actually a way to guarantee everyone's safety and he's choosing to ignore it is borderline cartoonishly evil--it's easy for covid to get walked around because for the most part people are fine until oops they have covid; it's a lot harder to argue that the economy can and should go on in a complete lack of light. I think this is closer to an environmental disaster, where even the shittier politicians pose over the rubble and throw toilet paper into the crowd, but it's not like there were hoards of people chanting that they needed to reopen New Orleans after Katrina or something.

(I think an easy-ish solution here would be to actually lean into the environmental disaster angle--this is our home; we need to protect it; it's dying; we have a patriotic duty to the lands that birthed us and the corporations that were birthed in turn. There are hundred of brave heroes working around the clock to protect what we love about our home, the wild pokemon who need the sun, the plants that are freezing--and you, even you, person who sells pyukumuku-themed ice cream cones a tourist shack, are necessary to keep them healthy and fed so that we can get through this together. also we've redirected rations to the essential brave personnel, so everyday citizens, such as you, person who sells pyukumuku-themed ice cream cones at a tourist shack, will have to do without for a little while. Unsure. I expect the world to prove me wrong within a year but I find it difficult that people wouldn't just choose to fucking yeet if the Navy is offering them trips out (implying there's a safe refugee camp elsewhere) and the alternative is gearing up to starve to death)
I like this a lot. I think I will rewrite part of the governor's appeal. It also adds some tensions to Arc 4, the inherent patriotism of those who left vs those who stayed. The governor might accidentally hand Skull their best rhetorical weapon yet lol.
But all in all I really enjoyed this one. It's the unique feeling of "oh good, Lyra has friends" and "oh no, Lyra's making friends" that I didn't really get in the first read. Good shit.
I do love me some dramatic irony.
I like the tension created here with psychics being good, but later an ampharos is used and seems really effective, and in general I'm not sure why psychics would have an edge on "unnatural" darkness that an electric/fire-type wouldn't.
Yeah, uh. Maybe I should have given her an ampharos? At least for the arc. But then that negates some of the darkness related troubles... I'll think on it.
1.4 period
i really really liked this one and am in no way biased as a trans.
Idk you're allowed to be biased. Source: Also a tran.
i'll just get that part out of the way: i really loved the way you went about the gender aspect of this chapter. i'm not surprised by how good it is but i am impressed. i haven't read all that many trans characters, so my sample size here isn't huge, but most of the trans stuff i've read i haven't really enjoyed that much. i feel like there's a tendency to center transness as either deeply tragic or intensely empowering, and whatever the case there's often a strong Weird undercurrent to it. i think the trans experience and gender in general can of course be those things, but especially for someone like me, most of the time it isn't. it's just something weird that i mostly experience in the way it makes me feel (sometimes good, often bad) and the way it grabs my attention in the weirdest ways. i think you really nail that here. i especially liked the way that he'd be thinking about normal stuff and then suddenly he's just Reminded Of Gender by something like his reflection or the sound of his voice and he starts to spiral a little bit. kekoa is a guy that's going through it and has a body he doesn't like but he's vaguely hopeful for the future and he's doing what he can. even though he's a grouchy and pretty assertive, he just doesn't have the energy to fight these fights most of the time. overall it's, like, not this huge character-defining deal, it's just a thing he has to deal with and he has to deal with it privately. it's a whole layer to the world that for the most part only he is really aware of. it all just felt very true to life and to my experience, and i haven't read something like that before, so i really appreciated getting to and was a little enraptured by it.
I am trans and, like, it's just a thing? I can forget about it some days when I stay off Twitter. Early on it was a lot more all-consuming, though. Dysphoria's a bitch.
moving on from that, i thought kekoa's voice was very strong—i think i'd say the strongest human voice in the fic so far—and you did a good job conveying both his level of expertise and his attitude. i enjoyed the way that he'd frequently think of something and then go, eh, i won't be the one to do this, like telling their referee to buck up or running back to apologize to cuicatl. it was a nice idiosyncracy and felt mature and immature at once.
He is a teenager
there was a lot of battling in this chapter and i found your style of writing battles unique. they were strategic in a way that sort of evoked the irl metagame but were easy enough to follow and grounded in the environment and in the characters, what with cuicatl's blindness and the way pixie's attack distracted kekoa. a problem i have in battles is that the attacks are sort of vaguely defined in the way that anime magic often is, so it's kind of hard for me to really engage because i don't properly understand the rules and it ends up just being spectacle. like cool, there's stuff going on that i can objectively identify as strategic in world and there's cool lasers and shit, but i can't properly get into it if that makes sense. the way that this style sort of evoked a sense of the rules i am familiar with made it much more gripping for me. i'm looking forward to seeing how that pans out in future, presumably more complex battles.
I'll keep this in mind going forward.
i also liked the worldbuilding here. it was nice getting an alolan perspective and i thought the stuff about the keokeo was cool. it's interesting to have this dynamic where he sort of reveres this little fluffy diva that his traveling companion is using as a battle thrall. curious to see where it goes. it was cool zooming out on the world too, hearing references to their heritages and anahuac. i got the impression from the comment about the resort that alola remains an independent kingdom...? curious about that, because i feel like i recall from the aloladex that it does have a relationship with the US somehow. autonomous colony maybe?
Alola in this fic is more or less in the legal situation of Puerto Rico IRL. Kekoa sees Alola as an occupied independent nation.
he sounds really experienced. i wonder if he went to training school or if he just has a sharp intuition or what.
He's done some research and talked to people who know what they're doing. This is something he'd been planning for a while.
this made me laugh for some reason. i've never actually thought about prize money in terms of usd so it just sounds hilariously low. that gets you what in hawaii, like a single gumball
Champion Cynthia handed over $20!
😕


😕😕😕
:(
wow. i wonder if pixie's ego is because of this or if it's unrelated. what am i saying, of course it's unrelated, she just knows her worth.
They're related in that humans recognized how awesome ninetales were and made them gods.
i always think this. how the hell do people survive in the heartland? surely this is why they drink so much in ohio.
Am from Indiana. Can confirm.
stray slash?
Supposed to be a voice crack.
1.5 until the world moves on
well, that was fucking rough.
That's rough buddy.
i have less to say about this one because there's less going on outside the narrator's brain than the last one, and i don't feel as comfortable relating my experience with the issues, heh. but i wanna say that i think it was really well done, super real and deeply moving without ever slipping into melodrama. the perspective is surprisingly rational despite everything. she's able to assess what she's doing somewhat objectively and identify the negative self-talk as not really herself. but that doesn't make it any easier. i enjoyed the ways that her psychic abilities factored into it too. it's really impressive how hard you make the stuff with achcauhtli in such a short time. just really devastating stuff all around and impressively written.
Honestly 1.5 is still one of the chapters I'm proudest of, even if it's really dark and I was sobbing the whole time I was writing it. I think there's a stigma against writing suicidal ideation. I've personally never seen it depicted in a way that really captured the competing impulses screaming at you to live or die.
it was nice getting to see rachel again, i didn't expect to. despite the narration's insistence otherwise, i get the impression that cuicatl isn't particularly discreet about her emotional state, and rachel's psychic abilities probably don't hurt as far as figuring it out goes. her concern feels real, and her respect for cuicatl's boundaries are... respectable. but she's still a bit of a dick here sometimes, snapping at cuicatl from time to time. the frustration kind of feels real, it's like... you're really concerned for the person and are trying to help so that blasé attitude can be grating even though intellectually you know that expressing frustration at someone in that state is the last thing you want to do.
Her abilities actually aren't that useful here. She's just good at reading people and at a certain level of emotional distress Cuicatl can't really mask well.
it seems like this trip is going to be really, really hard for cuicatl. i feel like it was already going to be hard enough considering her disability, that seems like a big disadvantage in something like pokémon battling... but of course now we know her mind is working against her in basically every other way too. i wonder how she's going to manage all the walking she's going to have to do on so little fuel. surely this means things get better for her, because they have to, right...?
It's rough at times. Better at times. Even at my worst I still had good days.
some more neat little glimpses into the world here. i appreciate that tenochtitlan is tenochtitlan and not mexico city. i'd honestly love to read little vignettes just set in various places around your world, that sounds sick.
The Aztec empire was never really conquered in this world due to the AU difference of smallpox arriving centuries before the Spaniards. There's still Spanish influence in some coastal areas and smaller islands, and it's the second most spoken language in Anahuac, but there wasn't an actual occupation and genocide or anything.
is "ellasS" a typo here? also idk if you have an explanation for hydreigon flight later but honestly, if you don't... respect. that design makes no goddamn sense. fuck it.
According to all known laws of aviation, there is no way that a hydreigon should be able to fly. Its wings are too small to get its fat little body off the ground. The hydreigon, of course, flies anyways. Because hydreigon don't care what humans think is impossible.”
heatmor with fur is interesting but i kind of like it. love the choice of mon here btw. heatmor is very underrated and ant eaters are some of my favorite animals so it's cool to see them blast fire.
Huh. I've always seen them as having short red fur.
man. :( i wonder if she really believes this or if it's just her bad state of mind talking.
I don't know at this point in the fic tbh. They've only known each other for a week or so.
ohhh. aw. i thought she was misgendering him on purpose, figured out he was trans using her psychic abilities and was just tormenting him or something. this is sad for them both.
Most people seem to assume this and I don't quite know why. It's not like her translation powers would readily pick up on it.
1.6 through the city of fire
this was a nice chill one. it's good to get a break after how intense the last couple were, as promised.
This fic is just a constant wave of intense shit and breather episodes. Kind of happens in a story about mental health. It rarely gets as intense as 1.5 tho.
i do think this one drags a little bit in parts. sometimes pixie's narration just feels like it's there because it has to be and ultimately serves to distract from the conversations that are going on. it's still delightful naturally, but i think the conversations between the humans feel a lot more important in parts and pixie's stuff is sorta just getting in the way of it. i liked when she's sort of contributing to the conversation in her way, by interrupting to ask cuicatl questions or what have you. i was less enthused about the part where she's mostly just thinking about it's hot while the humans are talking about stuff.
Hmm. I'll be doing some small edits on this chapter later today. I'll keep that in mind.
on that note i didn't really get the part where they're discussing the meal plans, i didn't feel like it illuminated any of the characters or provided any plot information and i'm not sure what would be lost if that scene was removed... maybe i'll eat my words on that.
Will also consider adding in a few sentences. A lot of the dynamic is that Kekoa is well read on surviving the trail and Cuicatl has actually been cooking for years.
i thought the conversation between genesis and cuicatl was interesting, there was some good worldbuilding and character moments there and i liked the way it sort of tugged at the tension that underlies their interactions. genesis just has all kinds of awesome stuff to say that seems to be bubbling just below her consciousness at all times. i'm really not looking forward to the inevitable blowout between her and kekoa. i'm hoping she changes for the better but i have kind of a hard time visualizing how that will play out... guess we'll see!
:)
it was nice getting sort of a plan for how the next handful of chapters are going to go. the payment for capture system is pretty interesting and seems like it'll provide some structure to their travels beyond "go do the trials" without having to justify a pokédex filling project that doesn't seem like it would make sense in this canon. if i zoom out on the pacing of this story so far, objectively i think it's a little slow, but honestly i don't mind at all because to me the character interactions are the most interesting part and as long as those keep delivering i'm happy—and they certainly have been. that said, i'm looking forward to them starting their journey properly now—hope to get into it next time i stop by, which will be soon with luck! i'm really enjoying this fic so far, you're a very strong writer and your characters are super compellingly written, i'm having a lot of fun and i'm glad i've finally started to make some progress here. apologies if i fall off the map after blitz—i suspect i'll end up binging this fic kind of soon, but i'll try to leave reviews as i go.
I'm glad you're having fun! Don't worry about reviewing every chapter, anyway. I rarely do and tend to just leave my thoughts on the entire fic or an arc of it as one stream of consciousness review.
stray slash here? kekoa seems sorta socially intelligent. he feels the most aware of this stuff, genesis being genesis and cuicatl missing the gender stuff despite being psychic.
Kekoa has his strengths.
wow. this is kind of an interesting system!
There are a bunch of quests in the Ultra games where you catch pokemon for some reward or another. This fic is sort of an Ultra Sun fic so I try to bring in stuff from the Ultra games. Like a wounded vulpix you nurse back to health.
nooooo. why does everyone in this fic gotta be kinda broken. hey, wait a minu
lol
that's one description of them. kinda want to read the mantine aloladex after this now.
You can! It's on TR. Just search "mantine" in the last few pages.
oh my god lol. i feel like the existence of vanilite &co actually would kind of make eating vanilla feel a bit weird. like if there was an animal that tasted like bananas or something
People eat pokemon in this 'verse. Genesis doesn't, actually, but pretty much everyone else does.
This is fine.
awww. she wants to be loved so bad. bless her.
Pixie is sort of a child. Her issues are a little different than the main cast.
It turns out I read a lot of this story, so I have some line-by-line reactions and some notes on the characters because the characters struck me as a big focus.
Yeah all of it.
Pix's fixation on the "only 2 pokemon" thing makes more sense after this bit. Realizing it's not a universal rule forces her to admit she was left behind by choice. Cuicatl, of course, does her best to disillusion her gently.
:(
Damn, cut off before giving Cuicatl's number, now I can't call her irl.
I just didn't want some random person accidentally getting called.
That's an impressively uncharitable viewpoint
But not an incorrect one.
Shades of Pix 2?
50 Shades of Pix?
I think the movie scene highlight's Coco's lack of sympathy for prey and her lack of self control
Prey are meant to be eaten, not listened to.
Cuicatl's father is a bit nasty huh. At least now I remember what she needs all that money for.
Just a bit.
Huh that's actually a really nice thought
And fitting given her family,
Words to live by
You miss 100% of the rams you don't take.
I wonder if it's like, a colored beam, or if it's just air distortion
Colored beam.
It was interesting to see Kekoa try to justify Genesis staying. He gave it a good try.
But he failed. So sad. Noci, play Despacito.
Oh boy Cuicatl I don't know about that one (this is going to be a problem when Lyra tries to convince her to rescue Genesis—if she even gets that far.)
Hahahahahahahahahah.
I wonder—would it even matter if it were the truth?

Aw man, poor Genesis, her parents and beliefs just won't let her be gay in peace. I like how Lyra dropped like every possible romantic hint, and she still didn't get it.

Her upbringing is even more sheltered/parentally-influenced than I imagined. Thinking about it, it's kind of hard to imagine she could have turned out any other way. If I were her, though, I would really be missing Cuicatl—and maybe even Kekoa—right about now.
She does. It's more prominent later on.
Sentence confused me. Are they producing light or not?
Light doesn't go as far in the apocalypse.
came back from where?
Extinction.
This makes me sad :(
If you're cold, they're cold. Let them in.
Kekoa is not the easiest person to like. I think this scene underscores a lack of humility. Obviously it's bad when other people catch finneon, but it's okay when he does it because birthright or whatever. And there's no way it's his fault that Makani wants to leave—it must be that Cuicatl wants revenge. To be fair, maybe that isn't completely his fault—like you said, it's a lot easier to get along with your pokemon when you can literally just talk to them, and even if you can, that doesn't guarantee they want to be trained or that they'll like you. I am willing to believe that he does try to treat his pokemon decently but may fail to consider that they might want something he can't provide. Like affection, for example. Keokeo respect aside, I don't think he'd have done well with Pixie. And I'm not sure it's totally his fault that he works with V-star either—I mean, when you need money, you need money. But it would be great if he unlearned his hypocrisy.
Kekoa and Pixie would've lasted a week. Two, tops. And the interplay of ethics and money will be explored more after the events of 4.1.
And okay looks like the conversation with Kanoa supports the idea that it might not have been his fault that Makani wants to leave—although the wording Makani used, saying that he doesn't like him, suggests that... he may also have just not liked him even from the start.
It was always doomed, yeah.
Man Genesis' life really sucks right about now.
lil bit
I think offering to beat people up is Kekoa's love language
Oh, absolutely.
Dang that's pretty bad. Cuicatl acts nice most of the time, so it's easy to forget how brutal her culture is. This is also a more honest statement than I would have expected—yes, we start a war on purpose, specifically so that people die, so what?
I mean it's just sort of what her culture does. She wasn't raised to think of it as strange.
I thought this was a really cool story/metaphor. Obviously, birthing more kits than can be expected to survive is a real strategy in nature, but it seems especially cruel when the animals involved are highly intelligent and likely to form strong attachments. Giving kits away to humans is one strategy, I suppose, but it's still quite harmful, as we see with Pixie.
Ninetales morality is a bit wraped.
Damn, florges is woke. Possible new favorite character.
Truly this fic's one hit wonder.
Genesis' parents are so over the top that at this point I'm surprised she hasn't turned out even worse.
Because they barely interacted with her lol.
I like Dr. Brinner's tangents. And also that he stood up for Genesis. Woo!
Dr. Brinner is the best, I hope he stays around--
This is very frightening.
Never mind.
My heart continues to ache for Inferno
I'm glad he has one superfan lol.
Did the snow change to rain between scenes? (I think I got confused by the switch from Cuicatl to mom)
A mistake resulting from edits. It was supposed to be snowing.
Metang only want one thing and it's disgusting
Disgusting enough to confuse a metagross, interplanetary murder machines.
Why is this robot character so funny
Because is best character.
This was an unexpectedly wholesome chapter. I thought Noci would be a boring character because they are a robot, and I guess they aren't that interesting by themselves, but the way they interact with Cuicatl is amusing and unexpectedly helpful to her. I guess if your goal in life entails keeping someone alive to spy on at any cost...
Noci works by dramatic irony. You know what she is and isn't missing and it makes it funny / sad.
I just wanna say, for some reason I found the "Really efficient" bit particularly cute—just how she's trying to complement her in a way she would actually find flattering.
She knows what robots want - efficiency.
I don't really know the plot of the games, so I'll just take this literally as my new headcannon.
It's a good enough summary tbh.
I think she uses thunder fang (it says sparks fly across the shell afterward)
Fire also makes sparks.
I'm not sure how beating challengers in pokemon fights is supposed to help with this.
Yeah tbh I'm not either.
Yeah this is definitely the most Coco response possible.

Whereas Pix is very set in her ways, Coco is very impressionable.
Coco is second best character, after Noci.

Really all of Cuicatl's pokemon are great.
Someone should do fanart of this
lol I'm kind of surprised it didn't happen tbh
This felt really important to me. This story has been going on for a long time with what feels like little change in Pixie's mindset, but this is a rare case where she manages to see some nuance. She recognizes that Cuicatl is not a villain, even if she is convinced she left her.
People change slowly. I'm trying now to show more changes. It's easiest with Kekoa, he's way less abrasive than he was before, and Cuicatl's going to get her moments soon.
I imagine laws governing minors are a bit different in the pokemon world than ours.
If someone leaves me, it's because I failed them. If someone stays with me, it's because they're too foolish to know better.
P much.
I like how Cuicatl has to change her strategy against the toxapex to account for Noci arriving later, and then changes her strategy against vikavolt to try to make Pixie feel special. It makes things a bit more interesting.
Yeah. Pretty soon her team is going to get good enough that battles featuring her will need interesting gimmicks. Might as well start early.
Noooooooo Dr. Brinner!
:(
I would have probably done the same thing for 300k. That much money is a big deal for working-class folk. But gosh, if tyrantrum are that dangerous, then I can understand why Kekoa is concerned Coco is eventually going to kill her.
Yeah. Lyra doesn't really understand how unbelievably large that amount of money is. She definitely wouldn't risk her life for that. Neither would Genesis. Kekoa and Cuicatl would.
He is changing, and he's going to have a reckoning soon. That's a lot of Arc 4 for him tbh.
Maybe neither Reshiram or Zekrom is entirely right . . . ?

I like how you found the parallels between Pixie and Makani. I'm also not sure there's anything she could've done to get Pixie to stay. That doesn't mean she was bad, and it definitely doesn't mean she was flawless. She'll be thinking more about that sort of thing going forward.
She'll be with Kalani for a while, yeah.
There's a Yveltal entry of World Myth Encyclopedia but it's a little mum on whether Xerneas is real or not. And yeah, sucks to be her right now.
It's a bold strategy, Cotton.
Oh yeah he was entirely in the wrong there. But there's also not much he can do. I don't envy him: being in a position where he's supposed to look out for the people and pokemon of the island but not actually having the power to do it.
You just saw a different side of her. Before she was comforting someone who wasn't essential to her business. Now she has to make business decisions where Cuicatl is a serious player. Just different perspectives on the same person.
I love that you love him so much.
I feel like in these later chapters, in a weird way, the characters have been confronting more extreme versions of themselves? Like, Genesis goes back to her parents, who are even more obsessed with deer cult shit than she is, and finds she isn't meeting their standards; Pixie meets Kalani, who seems even less charitable toward humans (or at least toward Cuicatl specifically) than Pixie, enough to even give Pixie pause; Kekoa confronts Hala, who appears even more bitter toward non-Alolans than he is; Cuicatal... idk if Cuicatl fits into this pattern as well as the others, but I guess you could say that Noci shows her the logical extreme of the "I am flawed and therefore I deserve to die" mindset (your friends might deserve to die too).
Hasn't really happened to Cuicatl yet tbh. For the other three, yeah, I like antagonists that are just what the protagonist wants to be. Genesis has devout parents, Kalani is Pixie in ten years, Hala is someone who cares and has power within the league but still can't actually do anything.
Overall, this story is quite a lot to follow, especially for someone who doesn't know much actual pokemon lore. It seems the characters were interesting enough to keep me reading, however. Everybody has a very strong perspective. They are changing, but slowly. I think everyone basically still has the same flaws—Genesis is still brainwashed, Cuicatl is still down on herself and has made no progress on body image issues, Pixie is still narcissistic, Kekoa is actually seriously starting to question things, I think, but only recently. The slowness to change is true to life, I think. It takes time to reconsider deeply held beliefs.
Things do change going forward. Arc 4 is a reckoning for at least Kekoa, Genesis, and Cuicatl.
 

Pen

the cat is mightier than the pen
Staff
Partners
  1. dratini
  2. dratini-pen
  3. dratini-pen2
Less than twenty minutes to deadline LET'S GO

Recap

These are honestly so helpful, even with me having done an arc three reread for the edits. I just cracked up over Kekoa "met someone cool in the forest, can't say more" * slips on dark shades*

It did feel like Lyra wasn't fully integrated into these ones--Kekoa doesn't even mention her.

Rock 4.1: Hazard Pay

Oh wow, this was a big turn-around for Cuicatl and a desperately needed one. She starts at one of her lowest lows in the story, pushed over the edge by her guilt over what happened to Pixie, which ties into her feeling that she destroys the people she loves. Then salvation comes in for the form of Rachel Bell's decidedly non-altruistic offer. I've read the next one, so I know just how much this is Rachel covering her and her boss' ass. But as Cuicatl points out to Lyra, that doesn't change what getting that money means to her. I was really here for Lyra stamping over and trying to bargain with Rachel. It definitely checks out as the way she shows that she cares. It's even more impressive, since she seems to be aware or at least have her suspicions that Rachel's a psychic--the fact she's willing to stick around and argue despite that makes me think that she's grown fond of Cuicatl as more than just a ticket to seeing Gen. (And the fact that she didn't flip out when Cuicatl admitted to being slightly psychic! Wow. Of course, that lie probably means things will be even worse when she realizes the true extent of Cuicatl's abilities.) I also liked that despite Cuicatl's sort-of naivete, when they get on scene she's not afraid to start bargaining.

I wasn't sure what to expect from the Tyrantrum encounter but it turned out surprisingly wholesome. After Pixie choosing to go off with her Not Mom But Better Than You Because She's a Ninetales, Coco sticking with Cuicatl and vindicating her through his full and complete belief that she is Mom was exactly what Cuicatl needed. I loved how practical Tyrantrum Mom is and how she has her priorities straight--making sure her kid is healthy and that he has a good destroyer name. I liked how low-key destructive she was, without any particular intent behind it.

Cuicatl getting this money is really pretty huge. I don't have the greatest sense of the going rate for pokemon, but it sounds like her dream has gone from being basically an empty one, to starting to be within her grasp. I think a little more of that could have come through in the ending segments, but I suppose it's not too surprising that it's taking time for it to sink in for her. This does seem to bind her a lot more fully to Rachel, though. If she can make that kind of money running errands for Chris Mc Evil Dude's emporium of powerful pokemon, I'm not sure she needs to be running around on the island quest. If she can get the V License, it seems like she's practically guaranteed a lucrative position with them. I doubt Kekoa, for one, would be too excited about that.

Cuicatl as meme dragon girl is cute, but the increased media involvement feels like it can go nowhere good for her. The point about her accent being intelligible when she speaks on recorded media is a big red flag for sure. And Gen's parents are already not her biggest fans and they definitely have the reach to make her life difficult.

More soon on the Rachel chapter, which was a ton of fun--board meetings, whoooo!
 
Rock 4.6

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
Rock 4.6: Trial By Fire
Kekoa

March 1, 2020

Your social media feed is filled with one story today. Some billionaire named Peter Steuben fled the island the moment he got a chance. His mansion was left empty. Some poor Kānaka Maoli families from the countryside came to the city during the mandatory evacuations. They stayed behind because they loved the country and couldn’t bear to leave it. At first they were fine in the evacuation shelters. Then the governor closed those to help bail out the hotel business. The families couldn’t afford a hotel room and the wilderness still seemed too dangerous, so they decided to squat in an empty mansion.

The lights came back. One family discovered their home had been eaten by a guzzlord. They refused to leave the mansion Steuben abandoned. He called the cops to have them evicted but scores of Team Skull members sat on the home’s lawn and dared the cops to advance.

For some reason they didn’t. They’ve just barricaded off the property and trapped everyone inside. Trying to starve them out, apparently. You suspect that won’t work out for them. They can have flying types airlift supplies in for as long as needed. And every day it goes on is a day that the struggle of your people is in the news.

Plumeria did great work. It’s illegal, but effective. Between her and the florges you’ve been questioning the hell out of what you’re doing here. If your path has any meaning. You think it still does. There has to be something Selene could do that she isn’t doing. People fawn over her as the savior of Alola. She’s been in press conferences with the governor and the military. If you had a champion who cared to talk about the things that matter, who would show up against the cops and military instead of for them, that would matter. You’ll talk more to Kanoa about it when you see her again. Soon you’ll be within two miles of her family’s ranch and can just walk over to talk.

You turn off your phone and look up at Kupuna. The carbink continues to stare at your phone. They were always supposed to be a short-term ally. You can’t turn them over to die so your only real options left are to keep them on the team or release them. Next trial VStar wants you to do is the fire trial on Akala. Kupuna will be really helpful for that. Then you’ll have to talk to them and see what they want. If they want to go you can have Cuicatl call Kukui and arrange for a release.

*​

March 12, 2020

You linger awkwardly at the edge of the arena while the crowd thins out. Kiawe’s in the middle talking with the eleven or twelve-year-old haole girl who won. You’re just far enough away that you can’t hear what they’re talking about. It gives you time to focus on the captain. Kiawe seemed like a giant in more ways than one when you lived in Paniola. He was always a skilled trainer for his age. Went on to beat the Island Challenge when he was eleven, became a captain at twelve. He looked good, too. Thin and as muscular as any thirteen-year-old. Kanoa had a crush on him. You thought you did. Thinking back on it you’re pretty sure you were just jealous that he got to be a boy. Guys don’t usually do it for you.

He’s still a captain years later. You wonder what he’ll do when he turns twenty and has to give the post up. Go to college? Try to break in to the professional training world? You doubt it. He’ll probably stay at home and handle the family business. When the adults weren’t praising him for his training abilities, they were praising him for his ‘responsibility,’ whatever that meant.

Kiawe pats the challenger on the back and starts walking over. When he reaches you he claps a hand on your shoulder and smiles warmly. “Kekoa, right?” He’s not wearing a shirt and he’s been sweating from the heat.

Come to think of it, maybe you were actually jealous and crushing on him.

“Yeah. Um, Kanoa tell me about you?” You look up to his face. Way up. He’s got to be, like, ten inches taller than you. Turns out that you’re still jealous of him, too.

“Yes, she did. Good to see you again. Nalani still talks about you sometimes.” She’d been the third member of your little friend group with Kanoa. Neither of you were about to tell her what you thought of her brother. “You going to visit Paniola while you’re on the island? I’m sure my family would love to host you.”

They wouldn’t care for you when you were kicked into foster care, but now they want to sit you down for dinner and act like nothing is wrong. Typical. Just like Jabari.

“I’ll see if I can,” you tell him.

“Good.” He removes his hand from your shoulder and steps back. “How are you doing these days?”

“I’m fine.” You don’t really owe him more detail. “This will be my fifth trial.”

“I saw.” He smiles. Not wickedly, because he still seems friendly, but you don’t think the smile means good things for you. “The dances will be a lot harder tomorrow. Kids on their first trial, whatever, the difference is that a hiker jumped in. You’ll be in for it.”

You aren’t sure if making a joke out of your traditions, even for kids, is a good idea. He isn’t kidding about the difficulty spike, though. His matches are almost all filmed by somebody. There are detailed threads online breaking down the differences in dances each time. He has at least twenty differences he can pull from and a bag of tricks for distracting from the changes. Most people can’t tell the difference between the two dances at least two of the three times.

Really, it’s impressive how much attention he’s made challengers pay to old marowak dances. Maybe he can afford a joke match here and there.

“How was the mountain during The Blackout?” you ask. You still aren’t sure if you plan on helping Cuicatl with her capture mission. Might as well figure out how much damage you’d be doing.

Kiawe shrugs. “Fine, really. The volcarona up north provided light and the fire-types on the mountain kept it warm. I spent most of my time keeping Paniola safe.” Oh shit. You really hadn’t thought about the damage there. Figured they were fine since there were two captains living in the town. He winks. “Hey, don’t worry about it. Kanoa and I kept everyone safe. It amounted to some property damage and lost livestock. Nothing that couldn’t be replaced.”

Good. That’s good.

“I won’t be keeping you much longer,” Kiawe says. “I have to get back home for the night. Good luck tomorrow.” He smiles. It’s a little less threatening this time, but not by much. “Can’t wait to see what you’re made of.”

You shoot him your own cocky smile. “I won’t disappoint you.”

“That’s my man,” he claps you on the shoulder one last time before heading off.

My man. Hearing him of all people say it makes your stomach warm. The most masculine boy in your hometown thinks you’re a man. That’s cool, right? Yeah. It feels cool. Your spirits are lifted high enough you barely even notice the hike back down the mountain to the Center.

*​

The beach by the Center is oddly empty. There are still a lot of people who haven’t returned to Alola yet. The tourists are also staying away for now since there are stories of rampaging predators. The plants died and a lot of herbivores are sick or dead. That leaves the carnivores desperate enough to think about attacking humans. It’s fine in northern Akala because of the volcarona. You hope that it’s calmed down a little bit before you get to the southern part of the island. Or that Cuicatl can send the predators away like she did the pangoro on Ula’Ula. Or just catch them. She loses a keokeo and immediately gets to work on getting a golisopod. At least she has the money to support her pokémon’s diet now.

Your eyes wander over to her by the waterfront. Coco and Ihe are challenging the waves. The bird shrieks at the water like he can scare it into staying away. He’s rewarded by a wave crashing over his talons and digging them deeper into the sand. The tyrunt isn’t really fighting the ocean as much as splashing around in it. She swings her tail and a spray of water strikes her trainer on the beach. Cuicatl just laughs.

She’s loaded now but she still wants to work for VStar. You can’t understand that for the life of you. Figured she would’ve gone started soapboxing for Plasma the second she could afford to do it. Instead, she’s going the opposite path as her cousin. She turns back towards you and gestures for you to come on and join her. You don’t really want to take another shower today and you’d have to if salt water got on your legs. Even feeling water running along all your curves is better than feeling crusty all night.

You still have to talk to her. You’ve put this talk off long enough. After a press of a button Kupuna appears beside you. You nod to her and start walking towards Cuicatl. A glance back shows that she’s drifting along behind you. “Hey,” you call out when you reach the edge of the surf. Cuicatl looks towards you and smiles.

“Finally joining us?”

“I’d rather not get wet.”

She nods and turns back to the waves. Suddenly Coco jumps out of them and lunges for Ihe. The rufflet jumps into the air and flutters back before screeching at his surrogate sister. Coco lowers herself to the ground and starts growling at your pokémon. You’d be worried if she wasn’t wagging her tail behind her like a puppy.

“Do you mind translating for me?” you ask. “Beach is clear.”

“Which pokémon?”

“Kupuna. The carbink.” You aren’t sure how much attention she pays to your team. You’d hope a lot but she has her own to manage. And her pokémon are a lot more high-maintenance than yours. Except for Noci. The metang is fine. They’ve even stopped trying to spy on you while you piss.

“I can do that, yeah? She out?”

“They,” you correct her.

She just shakes her head and smiles. “You know she doesn’t care, right? She’s a rock.”

“Yes, that means she has no gender. They/them.”

“Fine. They out?”

“Yeah.” Kupuna flaps her ear tuft into her body as her own little ‘yes.’

“Alright, one second.” Her face scrunches up in focus. Weird. She usually doesn’t need to prepare at all for translations.

“She doesn’t have any idea what sex or gender are,” Cuicatl says. “Doesn’t care what you call her by.” Come on? She’s trying hard to justify misgendering a Pokémon. Cuicatl’s seemed cool about you being trans since the last time you were on Akala, but now you’re wondering if she’s just been acting polite about it. Cuicatl glances in your direction. “I don’t care about trans people. I just think you’re being silly about this.”

“About the carbink?” you ask. She’d better be saying you’re being silly about the carbink and not about being trans. And it’s always a little creepy when she literally reads your mind.

{Yes, about the carbink. And if you’re thinking that loudly about me while I’m right here I will overhear it.}

You’ll let it go for now. Still don’t like how much effort she’s putting in here.

“Whatever. Can you ask if they want to stay with me after the trial tomorrow or if they want to go home?”

“Yeah, give me a second.” She doesn’t say anything else. Probably doing it all in her head for some reason. Not sure why. You already told her there’s no one here. “She’s—they’re confused,” Cuicatl finally says. “They said that you just caught them. Why do you want them to go back already?”

“I caught them weeks ago. Not yesterday.” She’s quiet for a while longer. Coco and Ihe end their hissing match and bound back towards you. Ihe hops to your side and Coco stops right in front of you. Does she want a treat or something? “Don’t have anything. Sorry.” Cuicatl looks over to you. “Was talking to Coco, not you.”

She keeps on looking at you. “Alright, I’ve talked to Kupuna some more and, uh, it might as well have been yesterday for her. For them. They’re a rock. Time works differently for them.”

You look at Kupuna. Really look at her. Her crystals have little nodes of light in them that look like dim stars. Is that just a trick of the light? What even is she, really? Birds, bugs, mammals, you kind of get them. Rocks and ghosts… you should really try to learn more about how Moe and Kupuna think. Could save you trouble down the road.

“Do they want to leave after the next trial, though?”

Cuicatl closes her eyes. If you didn’t know better you’d think she was just relaxing to the sound of the waves. “No,” she says. “They want to stay for a little bit longer. Humans have strange things they want to study.”

Strange things to study. You can work with that. Show them some more electronic devices. Maybe even a TM machine. Just have to make sure they don’t break anything important. So far Kupuna’s been fine observing without touching. Hopefully that continues.

Out of the corner of your eye you see Moe drifting back. You’d trained this morning and given her the afternoon to feed. You wave her over for your evening check in. She can do whatever she wants when you don’t need her, but she always comes back at dusk and dawn. Sometimes she sticks around for a while.

Something seems off about her as she gets close. The colors are a little bit wrong. That might just be the light. No. Up close you can see the real change: she’s a little bit bigger than you were expecting. And if she’s growing, that means that she’s going to evolve soon. Pride fills your heart. She’s doing great. And you helped. You hold out your hand for a high five. “Way to go.”

She stares at it awkwardly before drifting over and nudging her body against it.

*​

March 13, 2020

It’s weird having a trial in front of an audience. The bleachers are maybe a third of the way filled. Makes it easier. Maybe even a good lesson in fighting in front of crowds. You can do this. Kiawe stands in the center of the arena with his arms folded across his chest. Beside him is a tall, fit man in athletic clothing. His assistant, officially. The internet isn’t sure if they’re a couple or just friends. Three marowak surround them. The mime sr. that keeps the arena safe is lurking awkwardly at the edge of the makeshift arena. Just like you were yesterday. The bleachers and surrounding ground are hard rock. In the center of the arena is a wide patch of soft volcanic soil. You don’t know if it was always like that or if years of earthquake attacks have worn it down.

Kiawe raises a hand and the chatter in the stands quiets down. “Good afternoon.” He doesn’t have a mic but his voice carries all the same. “Thank you for attending the second trial of the day. My name is Kiawe and I am the trial captain of Mauna Wela. Joining me are my assistants. The marowak are ‘Ōla’i, Lehu, and Pae ʻāina.” Each marowak raises its bone as its name is called. There’s a light smattering of applause. Kiawe gestures at the man beside him. “And this is Dave.” Someone whoops enthusiastically. Family? A friend? A fan? Dave blushes a little and clasps his hands behind his back. “He’ll be helping me test our challenger.”

He looks towards you and waves you over. You walk to the edge of the dirt with your head held high and eyes locked forward. Cuicatl cheers from the sidelines and you glance her way. Lyra’s just looking at you with a smug smile and her arms crossed. Is that doubt?

You really can’t wait to show her wrong.

Kiawe goes through his usual speech about you. Name, hometown, trials. You use the time to look at his marowak and try to take in the slight differences. One seems to be taller. There’s a tiny crack behind the eyehole in one’s skull. The other one doesn’t have any clear differences. Maybe his flames are a little brighter?

“Alright, onto the trial. My marowak are going to perform a traditional dance. Each round will have two dances with one difference. The challenger has to pick out which marowak was dancing different or, if they all were different, what that difference was. If he gets it wrong, he gets a warm up battle. Oh, and thank you in advance for letting the challenger solve the puzzle on his own.”

It’s not like you could even use the help. Lyra and you don’t hate each other now, might even be sort of friends, but you don’t put it past her to try and trip you up. Cuicatl can’t see the differences anyway. The rest of the audience might give you a wrong answer just to troll you.

“Let’s get on with it, shall we?”

You try to focus on the dance as a puzzle you need to memorize. It doesn’t quite work. The marowak move beautifully, weaving around each other and spinning their bodies and bones in a way that’s almost hypnotic. In the end you get some of the details memorized but not enough. This one’s probably a lost cause.

For the second one you try to focus less on the beauty of the dance and more on the movements. It succeeds, sort of, but there’s just so much going on. By the end you have no idea what was different. You still have a one in four chance of guessing so you point to the kind of generic one.

“You sure?” Kiawe asks.

“Yes,” you lie.

Kiawe smirks and looks over to Dave. “You sure?”

“I’m sure he was wrong,” Dave says. There’s a wave of weak laughter as the assistant walks towards the battlefield. You know it’s part of the show and you had no idea what you’re doing. You still hate being laughed at by strangers. His magmar appears on the dirt as the mime sr. rubs his hands and prepares to put up the barriers. This fight actually doesn’t matter much. Kupuna shuts down magmar pretty hard. You let the carbink out and watch as the barriers close between you and the pokémon.

“Flame burst!”

“Light screen.”

The carbink all but ignores the fire that washes over them as their crystals begin to glow. The air around them glows in response as a weak barrier forms.

“Keep at it.”

Dave has his magmar go for a smog. You don’t like losing sight of the battlefield. It’s still probably worth setting up a stronger screen. Then you order an ancient power. With a light screen up and carbink’s naturally strong armor there’s not a whole lot Dave’s magmar can do to you while Kupuna whittles it down. At the end Kupuna stands strong when the magmar collapses.

Kiawe looks at you intently as the marowak walk back onto the arena. “Withdraw your pokémon, please. The second dance is about to begin.”

Shit. You’d been hoping to keep Kupuna out with their light screen and energy boosts from ancient power. Looks like he isn’t letting you keep those. “Good job,” you tell the carbink before withdrawing him.

The next dance you’re focused from the start. You try to focus less on the pretty, mystical flames and more on the marowak themselves. That helps. The dance is less cooperative than the last one. It’s more the three marowak slowly walking in a circle and performing their own shows with their bones and flames. You can probably rule out all three doing something different, then.

The second time around the change isn’t the hardest to spot. One marowak abruptly reverses the direction he’s spinning his bone from clockwise to counter-clockwise. You’re pretty sure he didn’t do that last time. The slow pace of the dance makes it easy enough to keep track of which marowak did it.

Kiawe nods when you give the right answer. “Good job. Alright, on to the third dance.”

You can barely track this one the marowak are moving so quickly. This one’s probably going to be another battle. Usually with one of the marowak on the third round. On the second dance you get a lucky break. One abruptly lunges away from the group and pretends to be videotaping the other two as they do a duet. Which marowak is that? You take a few steps to the side to get a better view of his skull. There’s not the crack on it. Is he the taller one? Soon enough he jumps back into the fray for another quick dance. You try to keep track of him but it’s nearly impossible with how quickly they’re exchanging positions, bones, and balls of flame.

“Alright, challenger? Which one was different?”

Your gut tells you to point at the tallest one. Kiawe raises an eyebrow.

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

He nods. “Good, because you’re right.”

Relief washes through you. You’ve made it to the totem without taking any real damage.

“I do have one final dance for all of you, though.” The marowak file out of the arena as Kiawe takes a few steps back and to the side. “This one is a bit less traditional. I think you’ll enjoy it all the same. Everyone—” He holds up his hand and lets the word hang in the air. “Give it up for the totem of Mauna Wela, marowak!”

A low rumble comes from behind a boulder near the stadium. The totem jumps up and stands on top for a moment before jumping back off and charging straight into the arena. As soon as she hits the dirt she stops on a dime and stares at you. She’s huge. Almost as tall as you are and a lot broader. Muscles ripple beneath her armored hide. A higher pitch growl rings out behind the totem as a cubone makes his own charge into the arena. It’s a lot less impressive, but the totem still beams with pride as the younger pokémon takes his place. Supposedly the cubone is her baby. He’s not the strongest of supporting pokémon, that’s Kiawe’s salazzle, but his mother always fights harder when he’s on the field. Cubone can also deal with the rock-types that his mother struggles with. Like Kupuna. Maybe it’s best that they got withdrawn.

You let Moe out without a word. Hopefully she can end things quickly or at least put a dent in the marowak. As soon as the barrier slips into place the totem and her son throw their bones in unison. The marowak’s glows with eerie green light. Shadow bone and bonemerang.

“Phantom force.”

Moe blips out of existence just as the bones hit where she was. Mother and son twirl around and press their backs to each other as they wait for the ghost to reappear. That coordination could be a problem. You snap and Moe reappears in a burst of shadows. The totem recoils before lunging in a fiery tackle. Moe bounces off the hit without too much deflation, but you can hear her hissing now.

Trap sprung.

The fire has ignited her core. She’ll be a lot more powerful before she faints. You’ll have to make the most of it.

“Shadow ball.”

Moe’s shadow balls are usually about the size of a softball. The one she forms is almost as big as her and rockets across the field. The totem is sent flying back before she can catch herself by digging her bone into the ground.

“Again.”

Another ball is launched but this time it collides with a dome of white energy. Protect. Shit, you didn’t think she’d be using that with her son on the field. Now she can stall you out.

“Just keep doing it.”

Another two strike in rapid succession. Cracks are appearing in the dome but it hasn’t shattered yet. A bonemerang strikes Moe as she’s focused. It knocks Moe to the side. She seems fine enough. Just a little deflated. Good, you can keep going. Should you attack the cubone instead? It would stop the protects and piss the mom into going on the offense. No. You’re so close to breaking the shield.

“One more! All you got!”

An even bigger shadow ball materializes in front of Moe as the cubone catches his bone and prepares to throw it again. As Moe’s attack streaks through the air the marowak’s shield crumbles. Inside the totem is in a familiar stance. Two legs, back straight, bone held behind her back shoulder. Oh no. As soon as the shadow ball gets into range the marowak swings her bone like a baseball bat and lands a perfect hit. Moe’s own attack crashes back into her and sends her sailing straight into the barrier. It ripples around the hit but doesn’t break. Moe isn’t so lucky as she floats to the ground with a lot less air than she had before.

You withdraw her immediately. She’ll be fine as long as you can get her to food. It’s your strategy that’s in shambles. You got one decent hit on the marowak and wore down her shield. The cubone is untouched. You were hoping that you could get the marowak seriously injured. Now you need to shuffle everything around on the fly.

“Challenger, send out your next pokémon,” Kiawe asks. Fine. You can do this. Here’s hoping.

You release Kupuna without a word. The carbink surveys the field before subtly turning back towards you. The cubone was supposed to be taken care of before they made their entrance.

“Change of plans,” you mutter. “Start with a harden.”

The carbink glows as they channel rock energy into their body to make it even harder to break. They ignore two bonemerangs striking them on each side. This is going to be a long round. Might as well set up first. Another two bonemerangs strike the carbink and they wobble a little in midair.

“Rock polish. Try to dodge.”

This time the carbink’s glow is less uniform and bright, more of a shimmering rainbow just above the surface. When the next bonemerangs come they manage to rise above the cubone’s before the marowak’s clips them. They wobble again but hold strong. Carbink don’t go down easily and bonemerangs aren’t the strongest attacks. Nothing on an earthquake or even drill run.

“Ancient power. Like we’d planned.”

Some of the loose stones begin to rise into the air and revolve around Kupuna in a lazy spiral. A bonemerang sails through and only manages to pulverize some of the stones. It misses the carbink entirely. More stones join the others and form into larger, sharper, clumps. Kupuna is getting faster, too, easily dodging the cubone’s attacks and some of the marowak’s.

The totem seems to get what’s happening. She growls and starts rushing down the field, flames wreathed around her, before leaping into the air. You snap twice and the ancientpower field surges forward to meet her. Several seem to lodge inside her armor or score shallow cuts before the totem connects, blasting Kupuna back into the barrier while she lands on her feet. A bonemerang from the cubone strikes the carbink while they’re stunned.

Doesn’t seem to do too much, although Kupuna’s flight is noticeably more unsteady.

“Keep moving and attack.”

They do their best to right themselves and start flying around the edge of the arena. The totem gets her bearings and prepares another bonemerang when the carbink spins around and shoots out a storm of shrapnel at her. A hasty protect flickers into existence that the cubone dives behind. It barely holds for two seconds. Would’ve been enough for a single hit, but a barrage? No. More stone fragments rip across the marowak’s skin and your pokémon is only getting faster and stronger as the fight goes on. You hadn’t planned on keeping Kupuna long term but, damn, they put in good work.

Cubone charges forward. The stones part around him in waves. Rock slide? Damn, that’s bad news for your remaining team. You try to call but can’t quite do it in time. Kupuna’s attention is still on the totem when her son strikes them with a bone wreathed in darkness that launches them into the barrier. Another strike causes the entire barrier to ripple as the mime sr. does his best to press his hands together and keep the field protected.

Dark energy. Too much knockback. Knock off, then. You can work with that.

“Flail!”

Waves of white light pour off of Kupuna as they vibrate. Each one is an echo of a previous hit she took. And she’s taken a lot of hits this fight. The cubone turns to run but he isn’t fast or agile enough. He trips over one of the waves and gets slammed again and again by the others.

Marowak growls again and summons her flames. Her hind legs flex like a cat about to jump.

“To the side!”

Kupuna starts hugging the edge of the barrier while moving at full speed. Hopefully that makes the jump harder. But this isn’t the totem’s first or tenth or thousandth fight. She leaps towards where Kupuna is headed and slams straight into them. Both fall to the ground amidst a vortex of rock shards. They tear into the marowak but she doesn’t care as she keeps slamming a green-glowing bone into Kupuna’s side. She slows down with every hit as more splinters lodge inside her hide and more cuts bleed more blood, but Kupuna can’t escape either. Eventually they make a low, horrible ringing sound. Their surrender cry.

You withdraw them before another hit can land.

The totem stands back up. She’s quivering all over. She glares at you one final time before turning around and stumbling towards Kiawe. The barrier parts before her and she collapses in a heap on the ground. She growls when Kiawe reaches for her ball. Apparently, she still wants to watch her son fight.

You have three pokémon to deal with one cubone. His confidence seems shaken and he was hit hard by Kupuna’s flail attack. This shouldn’t be too difficult, right?

Cuicatl cheers you on. You look and see that even Lyra is smiling. Happily, this time, not smugly. You’re pretty sure she rolls her eyes when she catches you looking. Hard to tell at this distance.

You send out Ihe. The rufflet makes a war cry and spreads out her wings to intimidate the cubone. He just narrows his eyes in response.

“Tailwind.”

Ihe whines but complies. He hates being on support duty in major fights. The winds start picking up. In the stands you can see people clutching their hats and loose items. The cubone stomps and most of Kupuna’s fallen rocks surge forward towards the rufflet.

“Hold!”

You hate to say it, but you don’t really need him to land an attack. Cubone isn’t strong, but Ihe really isn’t, either. With a type disadvantage it’s best to leave things in the best position for Mahina to finish the fight.

He does his best to hop over the wave of rocks but isn’t quite good enough at flying. Some still snag his talons and batter his thighs. The rufflet loses composure and stops boosting the winds in favor of trying to beat back the rocks with his wings and pull himself free.

You sigh and adjust your plan. A few steps to the side help you get a better view of Ihe’s position. “Pull your left leg back a little.” The rufflet does. “Good, now jerk it up!”

Ihe finally frees himself. Just in time to see cubone running forward. That’s a bad strategy. He could’ve kept throwing down rock slides at range. His mother seems to agree as she slowly shakes her head from side to side.

“Wing attack!”

The rufflet caws and charges forward himself, wings at the ready. He dives in with his beak and takes a hit from the cubone’s club on the back. He just goes in for another peck anyway. The two dance, clubbing and pecking, but the cubone is barely bleeding and Ihe is clearly getting worn down. He spars with Coco all the time, sure, but that’s just posturing. Coco barely even tries to bite him.

He’s outclassed and the winds are already starting to fade. Time to end this.

“Great job, Ihe! Come back now.”

He doesn’t protest as he breaks away from the fight. The cubone doesn’t stop him. You ruffle his headfeathers as he steps through the barrier. Then you withdraw him.

Time to finish this.

“Mahina, let’s go.”

It takes the trumbeak a few flaps to adjust to the winds. Then she lets out her own battle trill. It’s very musical. Almost more like a song. Actually, there might have been the beat from a pop song in there. Will the videos of your battle will get copyright claimed? Questions for later.

“Supersonic.”

Mahina lets out an oscillating high pitch screech that sounds like a mix of dubstep and a dial up tone from an old movie. The cubone flinches back and almost drops his bone in confusion. Good. That should hopefully keep him busy.

“Rock smash.”

The bird races through the powerful winds and dives down to just above the dirt. The cubone raises his bone to defend himself but swipes too slowly and in the wrong direction. Mahina bowls him over with a strong strike to the chest. You think you can make out his armor cracking a little. Good. Cubone are tough but rock smash can wear their armor down.

“Circle back and do it again.”

The cubone tries to throw a bonemerang at Mahina but it gets lost and flies wide in the strong winds. It hits the dirt and doesn’t fly back. Mahina strikes the cubone again and again on the head. The cubone lands a half-hearted fire punch to Mahina’s chest but the bird ignores it entirely. There’s a small spiderweb of cracks on the skull by the time Mahina has to take off to avoid a fire punch to the head.

She’s getting stronger and her supersonic has improved. Maybe she’s close to evolution, too. There are usually a lot of evolutions around this point in a journey.

You slot the normalium crystal into your bracelet and call out to Mahina to get ready. You go through the steps of the simplest Z-dance before feeling energy surge through and out of you, into your starter.

“Fury attack!”

Mahina dives down surrounded by a white aura. You realize too late that the cubone had acted while you were distracted, gathering up the rocks from Mahina’s ancient power and throwing them into the air in a rock slide. It’s too late to stop. The only way out is through. The trumbeak dives through the first layer with a pained screech and lands a tackle that launches the cubone back. He weakly raises his club and another rock slide surges forward. Mahina tries to take off with the tailwind but it just sends her straight into the upper layer of the rock slide. You see at least two shards strike her breast. When the rock slide ends Mahina lowers herself to the ground and looks back at you. She’s done.

Damn it. You were so, so close. The cubone can barely even stand! Like, he has to lean on his club like a cane and everything!

Still… you do have one more pokémon. She won’t be happy about this, but there’s barely any work left to do.

You reluctantly send out Leilani the charjabug. (She’d agreed to stay after she started evolving, unlike Makani). The cubone straightens up and takes a small step forward. Apparently he thinks he can actually wind this.

“String shot.”

Leilani does what grubbin and charjabug do best: spit out wads of silk. The remaining winds carry it right to the cubone’s face and club before he can react. Now he shouldn’t be able to move. It’s over.

At least until embers break through the silk around his hand and the string catches fire. Right. Shit. Fire punch.

“Vise grip. Cut the line!”

The charjabug clamps down on her own string and wiggles backwards away from it as the fire begins to spread. Your fear quickly turns to celebration as the flames spread around cubone’s body until they cloak his head. Dumbass won’t try that again.

The totem surges forwards with her remaining strength before Kiawe finally finishes digging out the cubone’s pokéball and presses the recall button.

“I think this is over.”

The totem reluctantly agrees and lowers her bone to her side. She sends you a murderous glare for hurting her son before she reaches for her own ball and withdraws herself. The barriers fall down. You walk over to Leilani and gently stroke her back. “Sorry about that. Wouldn’t have done it if there was any other option. Or if I thought you’d get hurt.”

She doesn’t say anything at all. You can’t tell if that’s out of anger or its just normal for her species.

You withdraw her all the same.

*​

You’d go out to eat to celebrate, but food inside the National Park is stupid expensive and you want to stay close to your pokémon as they heal. Dinner today is sushi. Almost certainly lab meat sushi given that a Pokémon Center’s giving it to you for free. Still good. Less risk of getting food poisoning, too. You and Lyra tear into yours while Cuicatl slowly and cautiously eats hers. Probably not used to it since she’s from an inland mountain range.

“We should make plans for salandit hunting tomorrow,” Cuicatl says in one of her pauses between bites. “It might take all night.”

Right. The VStar mission.

“What if we didn’t?” you ask. “Didn’t go, not didn’t plan. It’s not like we really need the money.”

Cuicatl puts her half-eaten California roll down and looks over at you. “We?”

You sigh. She’s going to be an ass about this. “You just made three hundred g. Think you could spare some?”

“No.” She seems entirely serious. “Earn your own money.”

“Come on, what do you even need that much for?”

“My mom’s pokémon.” What? “My father sold them. I need over a million before taxes to buy them back.”

Lyra puts her food down and you follow.

“He did what?” Lyra asks.

“My mom was a pro trainer. She died. My dad sold her team for money. I grew up with them and want them back.” She says all of it tersely. As if that makes perfect sense. What even needs a million—right, the hydreigon she mentioned. “I still need to save. Do your own missions and make your own money, Kekoa.”

You sigh and clack your chopsticks together in frustration. She isn’t budging. “It’s not like eight hundred dollars will even put a dent in that. You don’t really need to catch a salandit for them.”

“My Father says that every tajadera counts. And eight hundred dollars was a lot of money to you a month ago. I don’t know what changed.”

“VStar kills pokémon, you know? Hala told me. And for fuck’s sake they just got, like, eighteen people killed. You were there.

For a moment Cuicatl seems to falter. Then her face hardens and she feels around for the fork her food was on. “I don’t care. They have money. I need money. I’ll work with them until one of those things changes.” She takes a bite and slowly chews it while glowering in your direction. “You didn’t care about any of this a month ago. Why are you acting like this now?”

You take a deep breath. One of you has to be calm. You don’t want things to go back to the way they were last time you were on Akala. “I talked to some people. Got my head on straight. It was always wrong. I get that now.”

Cuicatl finishes chewing her next bite. “I don’t care how you make your money. I’m not paying your share until I have my mom’s pokémon back.”

“Perhaps we could compromise for now,” Lyra says. “You told me before that Genesis kept the castform you caught and it counted as a mission completed. Perhaps Cuicatl and I can go on the mountain tomorrow and I keep the salandit. Just say Kekoa gave it to me. That counts as a mission completed and no pokémon are handed over.” Cuicatl huffs and folds her arms. It makes her look smaller and younger than she is. Lyra gently puts a hand on the other girl’s arm. “I can pay him $800, if that helps.”

“Fine,” she grumbles. “Let’s just get it over with.”

Lyra looks at you and flicks her head to the door. It doesn’t make sense that you have to leave with your pokémon still healing there, but you get the hint. Cuicatl’s prickly. Best let someone neutral talk her down. After putting your plate on the counter for dirty dishes you walk outside.

At least the weather’s nice. Warm with a faint breeze. The wet season’s almost over and you can finally have nice, dry days on the beach. Not that you’re getting into the water. That would require a swimsuit. You can’t exactly make that work with your chest as it is.

You still walk out towards the beach. Might as well enjoy the spring weather before it gets ridiculously hot. When you’re just a few steps away from the beach’s edge your phone rings. Could be about your pokémon. You check it just in case and see that Jabari’s calling.

Just what you need right now.

You decline the call and walk over the nearest bench. It’s been a long day. Looking at the beach and relaxing would be nice. Jabari ruins it by calling again. You decline, again. After a few moments of quietly sitting in the wind your phone buzzes. He left a voicemail. Might as well at least listen to the first few seconds before deleting it.

“Hey, Kekoa. This is your brother.” Odd. You thought you told him that you didn’t have a brother. “I’m—I’m still sorry, okay. I’ve been thinking and it was wrong to leave when I did. I don’t think I could’ve cared for you; I still should have found you someone to stay with before enlisting. I’m sorry. I can’t undo what I did. I want to do better in the future. Give me a chance, please? Call me anytime. I can come visit within a few hours if you need me, no matter where you are.” There’s a very long pause. You wonder if he forgot to hang up. “Love you. Bye.”

The nerve.

You delete the message. He hurt you. Even if he’s figured out that maybe shoving a newly orphaned kid into the foster care system and fucking off to kill brown people abroad was the wrong move that doesn’t mean you will forgive him. You tuck your phone back into your pocket and stare back out at the sea. A few tourists come and go around you as you steadily relax more and more of your muscles.

The waves come in. The waves go out. Your breaths get shallower and shallower until you nod off on the bench.

*​

You wake up to someone flicking your cheek repeatedly.

“Finally,” Lyra says. “Was worried you were dead.”

You blearily look around. Everything’s dark. Shit. Slept too long.

“How’d you find me?” you groggily ask.

“Cuicatl’s metang tracked your phone.”

That’s a little scary. You wonder if she can hack phones or just locate them. Not that you have secrets, really. Just a few searches you don’t really want Cuicatl knowing about. Same as any teenager.

Unless she knows about your second phone. But. Cuicatl would’ve confronted you already if she did. So she probably doesn’t know about that.

“How is she?” you ask.

Lyra shrugs and sits down next to you. “Fine. Just don’t try to talk her out of working for VStar again. It won’t work and she’ll get mad.”

“Still don’t get how eight hundred dollars is supposed to pay off a million.”

“It won’t,” Lyra concedes. “It won’t help with the goal. But getting more money makes her feel like she’s making progress. Trust me, Kekoa…” Her voice goes soft and she puts a hand on your thigh. It’s more than a little awkward. Not that she isn’t pretty. Just kind of a bitch. Not your type. “…Kekoa, just let her have this. Please?”

You shouldn’t just let it go. She’s catching pokémon she doesn’t need to sell them to poachers. And she doesn’t care. She said so and she seemed serious. Fits with her whole ‘I’m a predator’ speech she gave back on Melemele, too. Maybe you can’t win this. Not now.

“Fine. I take it she’s not sharing money, either?”

“Definitely not.”

You’ve been helping her not die in the wilderness for almost six months now and she doesn’t care enough to help you out when she hits the jackpot. If you’d won the lottery or whatever you’d be paying her bills. You’d thought you were good enough friends to be at that point.

Without VStar there aren’t many ways to pay the bills. You hate that she might force you back to them, at least for missions where the company won’t kill the pokémon you catch. There’s prize money, sure, but you aren’t guaranteed to win money that way. Might even lose what little you have. What other options even are there?

Suddenly your phone feels like burning lead in your pocket. No. Jabari’s help is still VStar blood money and you’d have to let go of all your pride to take it.

Still… you don’t like the idea of starving. And if Cuicatl’s really serious about all this you need money somehow.

You could at least arrange a meeting.

Just one meeting.

See how it goes.

Yeah.

You can always just go back to poaching if that fails, right?

Shit. Why does being ethical suck so much?
 
Last edited:
Rock 4.7

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
Rock 4.7: Night Shift
Lyra

March 15, 2020

Coco races back downhill towards you and Cuicatl. There’s a large stick in her mouth and she seems to be brimming with pride. “Good job,” Cuicatl calls. She can’t actually see if Coco did a good job, but she sounds absolutely convinced that she did. The tyrunt slows down and keeps pace beside her trainer as you continue to walk up the winding mountain trail.

The dinosaur’s been obsessed with finding her own stick since her trial yesterday. She snatched the cubone’s bone out of the air and then charged forward to try and beat its original owner unconscious with it. Between knocking out the cubone and setting up rocks she’d practically sealed the match. Her trainer had been indulging her more than usual ever since. Even bought her an expensive steak. (Coco ate it in two bites without chewing.)

The Internet is baffled by Cuicatl’s relationship with her tyrunt. They’re notoriously tricky to raise unless, apparently, you can speak to dragons. Cuicatl’s tried to avoid attention but there were a lot of people with tripods or smart phones recording her battle yesterday. The few comments she has made to the press, that she can speak to dragons and is making a book of their myths, have really caught people’s attention. In good and bad ways. You saw at least one long, long thread discussing whether it’s cultural appropriation for a human to write about pokemon mythology.

Mostly the coverage hasn’t been anything Cuicatl would want to read. Lots of memes, racism, and conspiracy theories. Maybe VStar intentionally destroyed their lab so she could be a hero. Or maybe she’s the long-lost cousin of N. That kind of nonsense. You want to keep an eye on how they’re treating her so nothing unexpected comes up, but you don’t really want to tell her what you’ve found. She seemed so disappointed when Kekoa told her about the meme.

Her metang is floating nearby. You know that a metang isn’t an alakazam. Your absol could shut it down quickly enough. It doesn’t matter: every time you see it there’s still an itch beneath your skin. You clench your hands shut and dig your fingernails into your palm, but the feeling won’t go away. Is that the metang itself or just your reaction to it? Does it really matter?

Her wimpod is much cuter. Sure, he’s a crustacean, but Gen convinced you that bug-types could be okay. You have a water-type invertebrate yourself so it’s not like you have room to talk. Leo seems to be getting a little bolder by the day. You even caught him looking through your bag last night in the Center. He ran away when he saw you looking, but you can’t expect too much from a wimpod.

Musei is resting on your shoulder for now. You’ll kick him off and make him fly like a proper noibat once it gets darker. And once it’s colder you’ll send Mirai out. Everywhere being dark and cold was a delight for the absol. A return to normal was a disappointment. Mountaintops are more her scene. She should enjoy tonight, even if you’re going to be on top of an active volcano instead of a pokémon-maintained winter wonderland.

Most places in nature are very active around dusk and dawn. The changing of the shifts. The diurnal and nocturnal pokémon greet each other in passing as they go to and from their dens. Some pokémon are only active in the liminal hours when there’s light enough to see but not so much heat as to be overwhelming.

The heat isn’t really a concern on Mauna Wela. There are a lot of fire-types here. Even the species that aren’t fire-types can at least handle a little heat. There are still a lot of pokémon out and about right now. Fletchinder do one last swoop of the mountain before giving up for the night. A few early mandibuzz share the sky with the raptors. You manage to spot the top of a cubone helmet just barely poking out of a shrub. He’s probably keeping an eye on the mandibuzz to make sure that he doesn’t end up on the menu. Poor guy. You wonder how far away he is from his burrow. Will he manage to get there before the light fades? Will he stay in the shrub all night? Or will he be snatched up into the air and dropped over and over again until he dies?

You’re tempted to stay and find out. You would if you were alone. You went onto the trail to explore, after all. But Cuicatl’s working tonight. And you have a fifth team member to catch. Besides, you’re not sure what you want to see happen.

“There’s a cubone near us,” you tell Cuicatl. “And a few mandibuzz above. Who would you root for?”

“Mandibuzz,” she replies without hesitation. “They’re good pokémon.”

“They are queer icons,” you say. Honestly this far in and you still aren’t entirely sure how she feels about queer people. She’s friends with Kekoa. Then again, so was Genesis and you know how she feels about lesbians. About you. Doesn’t change how you feel about her.

“I didn’t know that,” Cuicatl says. “I guess it makes sense. They’re hermaphrodites. In Anahuac we see them as being between things. Life and death, male and female. If you offer them a bone with a letter attached, they might take it to the underworld. Grass-types are more our, um, ‘queer icons.’” She knows about the hermaphrodite thing. Interesting. You’re pretty sure Genesis would faint if you tried to explain that to her.

The shadows are lengthening around you. There are fewer fletchinder and talonflame above you, more mandibuzz. You can’t really see the sunset since it’s on the other side of the mountain. At least you’ll have a good view of the sunrise when you come back down in the morning.

“How are gay people treated over there?” you ask. You honestly don’t know. One source said that homosexuality was punishable by death, another said that gay marriage had been legal since 400 CE. Hard to tell much of anything about the country from American sources.

“Depends on the place. It’s legal in some of the southern areas. In the Mexica areas, which is most of the country, being gay isn’t seen as manly. Men are supposed to be masculine. If you want to get married to another man you need approval from the priests of war. Usually takes a captive.”

Captives. She means sacrifices. You’re allowed to be gay if you kill people for the state.

“Women can do whatever. If you won’t have kids of your own you’re expected to foster orphans or serve in the temples to make up for it. And trans people are, um, complicated?” She shakes her head. It sends hair onto her face. It’s sort of adorable when it happens. “We don’t let trans men serve in the military, and you only earn manhood by being a soldier. And trans women can’t transition until after their service is over. It’s not something that’s really talked about. I knew they existed but not a lot more. Had to look up the laws after meeting Kekoa. Supposedly those rules aren’t enforced down south. I don’t know.”

You’d thought that sources always exaggerated how big of a deal the military was in Anahuac. That it was some conservative ploy to rally up support for another war when their approval slips in the polls. And they couldn’t really be sacrificing that many people. Maybe a few executed criminals here and there. Big whoop. They execute a whole bunch of people in Orre and Texas and no one ever calls them savages.

Nope. Turns out Anahuac really is that fucked up.

At least she’s okay with lesbians. And since she didn’t know the rules before she’s probably straight. Won’t give you shit or get in your way when Gen comes back. It’s probably the best outcome.

The road you’re on is big enough you can walk side-by-side so she doesn’t fall onto anyone if she trips. In the day the road would be scorching hot to walk on with no shade. It’s pleasant at this hour. You glance over at Cuicatl beside you. She’s not smiling. Or frowning. Getting a read on her mental state is a little hard without being able to tell much from the eyes. You think she’s doing okay tonight. She’d been trending upwards since the tyrantrum incident.

It’s good. You were really worried about her for a while after Pixie left. She took the loss of her starter hard and then locked it all inside. Maybe Kekoa got let in. He didn’t seem nearly concerned enough about it at the time. Said that she just needed space for a bit.

He gave her space and she ended up facing down a tyrantrum without a care whether she lived or died.

She’s doing better. Still not great. Her features were softer in the dimmed lights of The Blackout. These days you can see just how thin she is and how little she’s eating. All while backpacking. You aren’t sure if you should push her. Carla from school is bulimic. Confronting her just led to you getting shut out.

It took Genesis the better part of a week before she noticed that Carla wasn’t eating lunch at the table anymore. She never did figure out why.

You dismiss the thought for now. You’ll be spending a lot of time together tonight unless things go really well. You can make your move later.

*​

You have to get onto a side trail to find a stream. Even then it’s a bit of a walk. The winds blow east on Akala so all of the rain get dropped on the western side of Mauna Wela. The eastern face is dry since there’s no rain left. Salandit live in water so you might need to walk halfway around the mountain before you find a stream with them. That’s fine. You have all night. All of tomorrow night, too, if you need it.

The first stream you come across is shallow and fast moving. Not ideal for a salandit. “Let’s keep going,” you tell Cuicatl. The sun has set but there’s still enough lingering light to see the trail ahead. You keep an eye on the stream beside you as the trail snakes beside it. You want to find a pool where the water slows down.

You have to turn on a flashlight before you find one like that. Thankfully the trail is straight so Cuicatl can keep a good pace behind you without having to feel out the turns with her cane. Coco was withdrawn to avoid scaring off the salandit with the scent of a large predator. Her metang and wimpod are still floating somewhere behind you. Musei is perched on your shoulder. Thankfully he’s being quiet. At least, quiet for a noibat. Mirai walks beside you in her usual silence.

When you do stumble onto a pool you breathe a sigh of relief. The pool is at least six feet across and deep and murky enough that your flashlight can’t illuminate the bottom. Close to the ideal salandit habitat. “Alright, we can set up here,” you tell Cuicatl. She sits down behind you while you get things set up. You’re the one going for a new team member so it’s your show.

You had to use a specialty rod for this. No hook. Salamanders aren’t as durable as fish are and it could cause too much damage. You’re in a National Park and the rules on capture and harassment are pretty strict, even if you’ve cleared the trial. Besides, you’re probably going to have to release a fair few salandit before you find a female. Might as well minimize the damage on the ones you do catch. Instead of a hook there’s a lure ball at the end. You can put cartridges that smell like earthworm’s right next to the ball’s trigger button. If the button gets hit the ball will automatically open and catch whatever hit it. It’s a little more expensive, sure, but it’s a lot more ethical than the alternative.

Eventually a salandit will get bold enough to swim to the surface. For now, you wait.

Mirai cuddles up to your side as soon as you sit down. Musei flies off. There’s nothing on this mountain that can catch and kill her at night so she’ll be fine.

It’s just you, Cuicatl, and your pokémon sitting in silence.

You’ve never much liked silence.

“Your head better?” you ask. She’d had a migraine the day in the tunnel. She wanted to talk to the wimpod but her metang was separated from her by thick walls of rock. She could form a link for the translation but it still took everything she had. You wonder how you were ever stupid enough to miss her abilities. Her accent sounds different on television and in echoes than it does in real life. That means that she’s doing something to mask it. That she’s in your head.

There had been a panicked quintuple checking of records when you figured that out. You couldn’t find any inconsistencies. Even the deep backups, the ones that can’t be changed once they’re uploaded, seemed fine. Nothing there rang false. You’re inclined to believe that she was telling small lies about her abilities, but that she’s not a real psychic. Just talking to Leo without her metang present left her bedridden for hours.

It's fine. You’ve added a few more backups just to be safe.

The things you’ll put up with for your Genesis.

“Yes,” Cuicatl answers. “I feel fine.”

And then it’s back to silence. Should you press her about the eating disorder? Your long-term plans for getting Genesis back will be in disarray if she kicks you out of the group. You aren’t sure how long it will take Cuicatl’s tyrunt and metang to evolve. They’re the only battling pokémon on her team going into the late stages of the island challenge so they’re seeing plenty of combat. Both are getting their share of training and Coco’s getting big. She’s up to her trainer’s waist (your hips) now. Even if her pokémon don’t evolve soon Cuicatl has a bit of fame. If you got more concrete evidence that Gen’s situation was really, really bad you could have Cuicatl go on a talk show. Try to get some public pressure on the family. Eventually they might cut their losses for the sake of the business.

Pushing Cuicatl could lead to her cutting you off. But if you don’t act and she dies or has a nervous breakdown then she’s also of no more use to you.

Cuicatl’s also your friend. Your adorable, terrifying friend. The one who helped you understand your team. Who comforted you after that awful florges tried to fuck with your head. Who needs your help sometimes to keep herself alive and financially solvent. You can’t just let her keep suffering in silence.

But you can’t risk losing her.

“You want a salazzle for the pheromones, right?” Cuicatl asks.

“Yes.” You already told her this.

“Isn’t that manipulating people’s thoughts and feelings? Like psychics do?”

You glance back at her. Her face is calm. Nothing to be read. This isn’t loaded or accusatory, probably. She’s just curious or bored. Sensing out exactly how you feel about her like you were doing earlier with the mandibuzz. You’ll indulge her.

“It’s temporary. Salazzle pheromones just make you seem hotter in the moment. You can do that with lots of stuff: voice, clothing, makeup, posture, colors, other perfumes. Psychics,” and boy is it hard not to fill that word with hate, “can alter memories. Personalities. The core of who you are. It’s different.”

A flash of red light shines through the pond. Something got caught. No guarantee it’s a female, or even a salandit at all, but it’s the first sign of progress. You start to lazily reel it in. No point risking damage to the rod if the pokémon is already caught.

“Why do you want to attract boys?” Cuicatl asks. “Is your family making you marry?”

You stop reeling for a moment and stare at her. “Is your family?”

She shrugs. “Eventually.”

That’s disturbing. How much does she even understand dating for love? Is it all arranged over there? You finish reeling in the salandit as you think of a reply.

“Um. No. I can marry whoever I want. And I don’t want to attract boys; the perfume also works on lesbians.”

“Huh.” Her face scrunches up a little. Did you miscalculate? Is she a homophobe? “I guess that makes sense. Easier to just amplify feelings for girls than to make something that has a reaction in all boys.”

She either entirely missed the point or doesn’t want to bring it up. Two possibilities for the latter: she just doesn’t think it’s worth commenting on or she finds the topic uncomfortable. Or she doesn’t know what to say. Could be any number of things, actually.

She sends out Coco as you get the ball off the hook. Her hand is pressed down at the base of Coco’s neck. Her signal to hold back. The pokémon is remarkably good at obeying that order. She’ll be a pretty good guide pokémon until she evolves. You press the release button on the ball and a salandit appears. It takes one look at Coco and immediately dives back into the pond. That’s fine. You can withdraw it if you need it back.

Coco grunts. Cuicatl shakes her head. “Male.”

Tyrunt apparently have a fantastic sense of smell. Captain Kiawe helped you out and got some scent samples for male and female salandit. The National Park’s visitor center has both in an exhibit and he was allowed to have some shed slime. Really helped you out because males and females don’t really have external sex differences and you do not want to investigate a wild salamander’s cloaca.

You put another ball on and cast again while Cuicatl withdraws her pokémon. Maybe something will want to get caught. In the meantime you break the ball for the escaped male salandit.

You scoff and glare up at the stars. Even with the sun recently set there are a lot of stars up on the mountain. Growing up you always wondered why old cultures put so much emphasis on constellations you could barely see. You get it up here. Why the ancients felt so impossibly small when they looked at the stars, like there must be gods and heroes behind them.

“What if a psychic just didn’t want to do those things you talked about?” Cuicatl asks.

“Why wouldn’t they? They could use it to get what they want and cover their tracks so no one would ever find out. No reason for them not to make that choice.”

“Maybe they’re just a good person?”

You laugh. Can’t help it. Gods, you’re pretty sure this kid has seen some shit and she still says things like that. “There are good people, yeah, but vanishingly few. You’d be lucky to meet one in your life.” You were lucky enough to. It’s not something you count on happening again. “Everyone else is just taking what they can. Sometimes it’s money or power. Sometimes it’s feelings: friendship, love, whatever. It’s all about getting what you can. And don’t bother denying it, you would twist people to your will if you were stronger.” She doesn’t say anything. Mirai awkwardly shifts beside you. Too much? You glance over at Cuicatl. Her face is tight and in the dim light you can’t tell what she’s thinking. “Well?”

She slowly shakes her head and leans back on her hands. “I don’t want to argue about it.”

You leave it at that.

*​

You have no luck on the east face. Three ponds, two males. One pond didn’t seem to have anything in it at all. It’s fine. You weren’t expecting luck on this end. And it hasn’t been unpleasant. Cuddles with Mirai are great and even if Cuicatl’s been quiet she’s still a comforting presence.

When your watch strikes midnight you pull to the side of the trail and call for a break. Might as well have an actual midnight snack. You’re almost to the other side of the mountain so it’s a good breaking point. You pull out two energy bars, one for you and one for Cuicatl. You give her the chocolate one, her favorite, and leave the peanut butter for yourself. They aren’t good, exactly, but they aren’t bad. Just a brick of perfectly palatable nutrients. They don’t take much space, have most of what you need, and you don’t have to cook them. A good enough solution for the backcountry, even if they definitely wouldn’t be your first choice at home.

Cuicatl takes a bit and spends a long time chewing it. By the time that you’re finished she’s maybe a third of the way through her bar. Coco is sitting nearby and looking at her trainer with pleading eyes. Too bad for her that chocolate’s toxic for birds. And probably also dinosaurs. Neither of you really wants to find out so she doesn’t get any. Cuicatl takes another bite, slowly chews it, and then folds the wrapper over what remains. “I’ll finish it later while you fish,” she says.

Her stomach rumbles in protest.

You make a split-second decision. Yes, you’re doing this.

“Let’s stay here for a while. I want to talk.”

“Okay…?” She steadily sits back down and looks at you expectantly. Well, looks to your left expectantly.

“You don’t eat much,” you say.

“I’m small. I don’t need much.” Her face is blank. Her hand twitches and she moves one heel behind the other and presses it into her leg. You haven’t had much experience actually seeing her but you’re willing to bet those are tells of distress. You hate that you have to keep pushing.

“You need more than you’re eating, Cuicatl. You’re really, really thin and—”

“Stop.” The command echoes across the side of the mountain like a gunshot. It’s probably the harshest you’ve ever heard her sound. “Stop,” she says, just a bit quieter. Her eyes are narrowed and her mouth is spread tight. You’ve pissed her off. Great. You were hoping she’d at least listen for a while. When she speaks again it’s in little more than a whisper. “I’m not going to travel with you if you make fun of me.”

Make fun of her?

“What?”

She sighs and presses her boot into the back of her leg a little bit harder.

“I know I’m fat, okay? I’m trying. Don’t mock me.”

How would she even know that? It’s not like she can see other people for comparison. Surely her doctor and family would’ve told her, right?

“No, you aren’t?” Her face darkens even more. It’s sometimes hard to read her feelings through her clouded eyes, but now you could swear there’s atomic fire brimming right behind the cataracts. You cut in before she can say something to end the conversation. “I’m not sure why you think you are?”

She loses her composure for just a second. Probably didn’t expect that question from someone who was making fun of her. Good. She goes back to glaring at something to your right a moment later. “Everyone says it.”

Unless Anahuac has some really skewed standards, you’re calling bullshit on that. “Who is everyone? I haven’t heard anyone here call you that?” You do your best to keep your voice level. To be annoyingly reasonable when she expects a fight.

She turns her head to the side. Avoiding eye contact, maybe. You’re not sure why that matters to her. Curious. “My father...” she finally says.

And there the truth comes out. You already hated the man since you found out what he did to his late wife’s pokémon. Not surprising the controlling asshole found other ways to get his sick kicks. “Cuicatl,” you say. “Have you heard anyone ever call me fat?” You hope that’s a rhetorical question. You’re pretty fit but you understand that a little fat is necessary on the trail. You’ve never tried to burn off the last few pounds. Maybe someone was loud and wrong within earshot of her.

“No,” she concedes.

“Would you like to feel my stomach? I can guarantee there’s more there than on yours.”

She still refuses to look in your direction. You wonder if she’ll accept or if she’ll think this was part of the joke. At long last she moves her legs and slowly stands up. “Alright, where do I go?”

You have to guide her for the last bit. She can walk up to you and sit down easily enough but then you need to lift up your shirt and move her hand to your abdomen. You breathe in a little and hold it just for effect. She presses her fingers further in and slides her thumb around. It’s a little bit intense, holding her hand while she presses hers against your body with your shirt slid up. The emotional charge to it all doesn’t help. You try to ignore it and focus on her face. With every second she spends digging her fingers in the more the anger fades away to shock and confusion. After thirty seconds or five minutes, your brain isn’t really tracking, she pulls away.

For a long time you both sit in silence. You can only imagine what’s going through her head right now. Finding out that something so foundational about her body image was a lie can’t be easy. You can give her time. Until you figure out where her thoughts are you can’t really say anything without risking setting her off.

“I didn’t realize I’d lost that much weight on the trail…” she finally says.

Poor girl. She still doesn’t get it, even after everything.

“I don’t think you did.” Cuicatl looks up at you expectantly. Still not following you. Great. Now you have to put it bluntly. “I think your father was lying to you.”

She looks back down. It’s hard to see her face when it’s covered in shadows at night. You think you can see the edge of her lip pull tighter. Soon her breaths are audible and her shoulders begin to tremor. Her hands clench down hard enough on her thighs that you expect it to leave marks.

Maybe you shouldn’t have dropped that on her when she was already stressed?

“You wouldn’t get it,” she whispers. When she looks back up at you there’s hate in her gaze. “You—” Her voice quivers. Then it gets louder. “You are just a fat, ungrateful American.” Every word is louder than the last until she’s yelling. “You know nothing of family. How could you?”

You rise to your feet as her question hangs in the air. With a flex of your shoulders your nearly empty backpack slides into position. “I’m not going to take this,” you tell her. You do your best to keep your voice perfectly even. “Have a good night.”

“Bitch,” she hisses.

“Maybe.”

You half expect her to keep yelling at you as you leave. She doesn’t. For the best. You don’t really want to draw attention. Anything here that could and would kill her for food is probably asleep, but you don’t want to risk a kangaskhan getting angry enough to scare her off. In her current state of mind she might take risks she really shouldn’t.

If you thought it wouldn’t make everything worse you’d stay behind to make sure nothing attacked. Alas, she’s too angry at you to listen to anything you say. The longer you stay there the more she’d keep feeding her anger until you’d both said things you couldn’t take back.

The die is cast. Nothing more you can do now. Nothing except salandit hunting. You’ll probably just have to catch one or two and hope they’re female. You can go back tomorrow night to release any males. It’s not the ideal, but it’s the best option left to you for now.

You shove your hands in your pockets and keep walking along the trail. Mirai presses into your side as you walk. Something big lands on your head. You’re halfway to releasing Musei when you realize that he’s already out and not reacting at all. Oh. You reach up and feel the hairs on Musei’s back. After a deep exhale you move your hand and pet Mirai’s head around the base of his horn. You don’t need their support. That doesn’t mean you aren’t grateful for it.

If you’ve well and truly burned bridges with Cuicatl you’ll never be able to talk to half of your team again. You weren’t really expecting to be able to talk to them in the first place, but now that you’ve had access to a translator you’ll dearly miss it.

You really shouldn’t have pressed her on her father. Left that for another day. Preferably a day after you’ve freed Genesis. But you did and there’s no undoing it now. You sigh deeply and shake your head. Your new hat squeaks in protest and digs his claws into your scalp. “Musei, please get off of my head,” you mumble. His claws dig in a little more and then he jumps off. The noibat stays in the air and flies loose circles around you. Good to know he cares in his own way.

There’s a feebas in the first pond you come across. For a moment you consider keeping it. They’re a little rare and milotic are intelligent, gorgeous, and very durable. No. It would be cruel to keep him away from water so often while you’re on the trail. You slide him back into the pond and recast the line. Nothing else bites. Oh well. That pond was probably a little too deep, anyway. Better for fish than salamanders.

You walk down the trail to the next one. It’s a little ominous with only your flashlight illuminating it. You have pokémon with you and you know that you’re safe. The only thing here that could really be a threat are talonflame, magmortar, kangaskhan and salazzle. Kangaskhan and talonflame are diurnal and salazzle and magmortar don’t usually bother humans. But everything feels just a little bit more threatening in the dark.

It’s hard to tell the depth of the next pond in the dark. Broad, certainly, and you can’t see the bottom with your flashlight. It’s a little muddy so that doesn’t mean much. Decent odds of finding a salandit here. You cast a ball and wait at the edge. Might as well see what you get. It takes a while for a bite. Long enough that your mind begins to wander back to Cuicatl. It’s your luck that you keep getting stuck with girls who defend fathers they shouldn’t. You still don’t really regret trying to tell Cuicatl the truth. She deserves it. Sickening that a father decided to lie to his blind daughter and feed her insecurities. For what? Control? Dangerous game trying to control a kid when her friend is a hydreigon. You do it completely or you die. Maybe he realized that at some point and pulled out all the stops. How did no one stop him, though? Surely someone had concerns. Surely someone told her…

It’s incredibly sad to think why that might be. Maybe she didn’t have friends to speak of. Maybe she was kept at home all the time like Genesis was. She certainly doesn’t talk about friends much. A few anecdotes here and there have her brother in them. A brother who must have been complicit in his father’s work. You’re worried you pushed her over the edge. She’s already so fragile, physically and mentally. She’s been nothing but kind to you, yet you…

The ball lets out a red flash. You reel it in and let the pokémon out. A salandit. It looks curiously at you for a moment before turning around and diving back into the water. You could still withdraw it. Walk back down the mountain and see what you got in the morning.

You’re not in the mood. You break the ball and don’t recast.

You messed everything up. There will be consequences for you and Genesis, sure, but the real damage will be done to someone less able to handle it. That weighs on your heart in a way you don’t like at all. Especially because it isn’t even your fault. You were trying to do good! It just didn’t work. You can’t be blamed for anything that happens. Maybe nothing happens at all and she gets over it.

Yet here you are, already feeling responsible for things that have not yet come to pass. Stupid heart. Stupid brain. What did you do to deserve any of this?

Something big stirs in the water. You scramble to your feet as Mirai begins to growl. You swing your flashlight’s beam over the water and see something very large swimming near the surface. It almost looks like one of the feraligatr back in Johto. That makes you take another few steps back. You’d heard there was a feral colony in Alola, but you’d thought that was just on Melemele. And shouldn’t they all be in brumation after the unexpected winter?

The figure rises. You can see its silhouette lift out of the water. Slimmer than a feraligatr but just as tall. And from what little you can see its way prettier. Almost perfect. No, of course it’s perfect. Mirai attacks it for some reason as it approaches. Why? You want it closer. Your fingers stumble over each other as you reach for Mirai’s pokéball and withdraw her. The magnificent creature chortles and turns towards you. The world twists. A fog lifts. You blink rapidly and take as many steps back as you can before you’re up against a rock. The salazzle in front of you is nearly ten feet tall. She must be the old totem. Is she mad at you for trying to catch her children? You reach back for Mirai’s pokéball when the totem does something strange. She reaches her hands towards her eyes and rubs them down her face. What? She does it again and looks at you intently. Her eyes glimmer with reflected light in a way that’s perfect.

Too perfect. Salazzle. Are they all like this or is it just the totem?

She does the thing with her eyes again. Is she trying to talk to you? Crying. Is she trying to say crying? Why would you she be crying? You reflexively reach to your face and are surprised to find a moist trail streaming down the side of your nose. Oh. You were crying. She’s asking about that.

“Um. It’s nothing. Just personal stuff.” You aren’t even sure if she understands Galarian. And it’s not like she’s going to tell anyone else, anyway. Might as well give her the truth. “My friend and I had an argument. She’s doing things that hurt her and I tried to get her to stop but, um, she didn’t listen. Now she’s mad and I’m worried I won’t be able to help her or see her again and…”

The totem lets out a slow and almost gentle hiss. Maybe she does understand some of that.

“I’m giving her space now. I don’t know how things will go when I get back and, and–“ Your voice betrays you and breaks. “I messed up,” you choke out. “And I don’t know what happens now.”

The salazzle takes two awkward, shimmying steps forward. She clearly wasn’t build to walk bipedally. She puts a slimy hand on your shoulder and warbles something incomprehensible.

“Thanks for the support,” you mumble.

She says something else in her not-language.

[UD_Moiwahine instructs UD_Lyra to calm down and process the available information.] You know that head-voice. You whirl around and see the damn metang floating at the edge of your vision. [Salazzle have pheromones that interfere with emotions and make prey illogical. Illogical prey make errors. UD_Lyra is currently illogical and prone to error.]

You ignore its message, the salazzle’s message, for a moment. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be protecting Cuicatl?”

[UD_Cuicatl issued Directive: Protect UD_Lyra]

You have Mirai. That’s enough protection. She only has two other pokémon and one of them is a wimpod. Why would she send the damn psychic robot to watch you? Especially now? For a moment you wonder if the metang is sophisticated enough to lie about its orders.

The salazzle snorts.

[UD_Moiwahine states that UD_Cuicatl and UD_Lyra may remain in State:Friendship.]

Fine. Whatever. At least the stupid thing can translate. You turn back to the salazzle. “It was good meeting with you.” Now, how to broach the more delicate subject. “I apologize trying to catch salandit. I won’t do it again.”

She hisses gently but doesn’t move. Aggression? A warning? A desire to play with her food? The metang is a psychic type that’s been directed to protect you. Between it and Mirai maybe you can still get out of this in one piece.

[UD_Moiwahine asks UD_Lyra why UD_Lyra wished to obtain a salandit.]

Do you tell her about the perfume thing? Would she know if you were lying? “I’m a trainer. I want to explore places,” you settle on. “Salazzle can make light and fire and explore in caves and streams. And you smell good… and… never mind. I can leave now. Please?”

She takes a step closer instead and makes a low groaning sound followed by a sharp hiss of air.

[UD_Moiwahine commands UD_Lyra to explain proper caretaking of a salandit.]

What? Is she still going to allow it if you can pass this test? Or will she just let you go? Either way it’s in your best interests to answer. You swallow and do your best to jog your memory so you won’t mess anything. “Well, they’re amphibians so they need to be hydrated. I’d have a spray bottle of water that I’d mist one with a few times a day if I couldn’t find shallow, warm water. When we stay in one place I’d try to fill the bathtub with warm water to swim in.” You haven’t quite told Cuicatl about that yet but she seems cool with pokémon care. Her thoughts also don’t matter if you aren’t traveling together. “They eat small fish and insects. I’d keep a mix refrigerated. Feed a lot once every two days. Give the other day off to digest. Only pet with gloves so I don’t get oil on their skin?” You aren’t sure if she even understands that point. You press on. “Then just make sure they don’t get cold. That should be easy now since Alola is warm and I don’t think Necrozma is coming back.”

The salazzle turns around and gets down on all fours before darting into the water. [UD_Moiwahine commanded UD_Lyra to stay in place.]

Does that mean that she’s getting a salandit? Or at least asking salandit about it? Male or female, then? You never really specified. If it’s a male you can’t really refuse without risking the totem’s wrath. That does lead to something of a wasted team slot. Maybe you can release him quietly when you’re done in Alola? You could probably swing it to the end of the island challenge with five good team members. Not like the salazzle could follow you across the ocean, anyway.”

It takes a long time for the salazzle to come back. Long enough that your heart rate slows down to something approaching normal.

Her silhouette finally emerges from the water just when you’ve started to wonder if she’s coming back at all. You move your flashlight so that she’s illuminated by the edge of it but the center of the beam is off to the side. She’s cradling something, a salandit, probably, in her arms. When she reaches the edge of the pond she kneels down and sets the salamander down. The salandit immediately looks at Mirai. Good odds that it’s never seen an absol before. The size and scythe might make her look scary. “Not a threat,” you tell it. The metang must translate as its wide, wet eyes move to you and take you in. You do the same for it. About average size. Seems to be in good health. No way to tell if its male or female. “Is it—are they a boy or a girl?”

The salandit lets out a tiny, adorable croak.

[UD_Salandit Belongs To Class:Female]

The totem (her mother?) lets out a low groan.

[UD_Salandit Prioritizes Increase In Trait:Strength]

A female that wants to evolve. Or at least grow stronger. You hit the jackpot.

“Thank you.” You aren’t sure which of the salamanders you’re talking to. Or maybe the metang. Neither answers. “Do you have a name?”

The salandit groans.

[Negation.]

“Would you like one?”

A hiss.

[Affirmation.]

“Alright. Subarashī, maybe? It means ‘beautiful’ in my language. I think you’re beautiful, but if you want another one I can come up with another.”

The salandit croaks.

[The Proposed Designation Is Acceptable.]

“Good.” Your hand reaches to your bag and settles on a spring ball. You could talk to her now. Work out any questions. Then again, you’d rather not be talking through a metang. And it isn’t that great of a translator to begin with. Cuicatl’s better and salamanders are probably close enough to dragons. No telling if she’s actually willing to do it after your fight earlier. This might also be the last time you have access to her metang.

Or it might not be. Even if it is you can probably find someone with a primarina or lucario and pay them to translate. Bells, you can even get one yourself without too much hassle. At most you’d be delaying this conversation for a little bit.

You take the spring ball out of the bag. It’s a variant on the net ball. Simulates a warm freshwater pond. As far as you can tell it’s the best fit for a salandit. It was too expensive to use for catching salandit but you figured you could transfer the pokémon to it after capture. Besides, $1500 now is worth it to keep your pokémon comfortable and happy for years to come.

“Ram the button in the middle if you want to come with me.”

The salandit— Subarashī—tilts her head and examines the ball before ambling forward and pressing her snout into the center of it. A moment later she’s gone. You look back up to talk to the totem and find nothing there. She must’ve slipped off at some point without making a splash. She’s not a feraligatr: she’s a stealthy feraligatr-sized salamander with pheromones. That makes her way more dangerous.

You rise up to your feet and close your bag up. Then you glance at the metang. “Can you take me back to Cuicatl?”

[Affirmation]

*​

The sky has begun to lighten by the time you get back to the midpoint of the mountain. The sun hasn’t properly risen and won’t for little while longer. It gives you just enough light to see Cuicatl as you approach. She’s sitting with her legs tucked beneath her chin and her arms tightly hugging her legs. It all makes her seem smaller and weaker than normal. It’s a little undercut by the wary tyrunt wrapped around her. Coco growls as you get closer. You immediately stop. It’s hard to tell how much the dragon knows about what happened. She might just know that you did something to upset Cuicatl. Given the way Coco adores her you can imagine you’ve earned a place on her enemies list. Never good to be on a dragon’s enemies list.

Cuicatl slowly raises up her face. She looks like shit. Her eyes are puffy and there’s snot hanging from her nose. Almost as soon as she lifts her head she buries it back into her knees. Onus is on you to talk.

“Thank you for sending your metang after me.” You aren’t thankful—she shouldn’t have done that—but lecturing her will just make things worse.

She grunts noncommittally. It’s almost like talking to the salamanders earlier. Except this time the metang doesn’t jump in with a translation. That leaves you in a rough place. You don’t want to apologize because you stand by everything you said. It just wasn’t the right time to say some of it.

Instead, you find yourself saying the dumbest thing that pops into your head just to avoid the silence: “I’m not actually American, you know.” Because the part where she called you an American was clearly the worst part of that email.

“I know,” she whispers.

You wait for more. It never comes.

“I caught a salandit.”

She sort of nods. It’s really just rocking her head in place. “Noci told me.”

Was she talking to the metang the whole time? Was she sent less for your protection and more as a spy drone? Does it make a difference?

“I’m sorry,” she mutters. “I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

Your shoulders relax and you let out a deep breath as the tension rolls out. Good. She’s still hurt and there’s going to be work to do, but she probably isn’t cutting you off entirely. “It’s fine. I know why you did it.”

Coco looks up to her trainer and presses her head into Cuicatl’s legs. The girl unwraps one of her arms to pet the tyrunt. “I don’t want to talk about it now,” she mumbles.

“I can give you some time.” You won’t let her suffer indefinitely like Kekoa was willing to, but a few days won’t kill anyone.

“Thanks.”

And that’s it. You sit down against the rockface near her. Not worth trying to get closer, especially with Coco in a defensive position. More time in her general area might help. A quiet show of support.

Cuicatl’s stomach groans and breaks the silence. A little awkward given everything. She freezes up for a moment before slowly relaxing. “Do you have any more food?” she asks.

“Yeah. Two more bars.” You get them out and slowly walk over to her. You keep an eye on Coco the entire time. Specifically, on Coco’s jaws the entire time. You’ve seen her break a crabrawler’s shell and don’t want to know what she could do to your hand. She tenses up as you approach and you stop immediately. “Can you hold your arm out for it? Coco’s being standoffish.”

Cuicatl runs a hand down the dinosaur’s back and the pokémon lowers her head again. “It’s okay. Don’t attack her.” She still holds a hand out. You trust her control over her pokémon but you’re still not sure you would’ve gotten any closer than you had to. As soon as the bar is in her hand you take two big steps back. The tyrunt watches you the entire time with her upper lip raised up to give a glimpse of her teeth.

Your friend eats the food slowly. That’s normal for her. Probably just a consequence of being blind. She does eat all of it. “What time is it?” she asks.

“A little after five. Breakfast should be open by the time we get back to the Center.”

“Let’s go, then.”

It takes some time for her to put the trash away and get her pack back on. Coco stays glued to her side the entire time. Mirai, in turn, keeps a watchful eye on the dinosaur. She could probably handle the tyrunt if she lashed out. Probably. In a formal battle, definitely, but if Coco ignores the rules and goes for a fatal bite…

Cuicatl withdraws her pokémon and slowly stands up. Once her backpack is on she extends her cane. Good. Feels like a loaded bomb was just defused. “I can guide you if you want.” She nods and walks towards you. With a little help she wraps her hand around her elbow. Her grip is weaker than usual. Like her hand would slip off with the slightest bit of force. You look down at her beside you. How much of her height is due to malnutrition? Suddenly even her cuteness feels a bit sinister.

Nature wakes up again as you walk back. The mandibuzz are replaced by fletchinder. A cubone even walks across the trail ahead of you. The same one? Another? As the sun rises over the horizon it shines directly into your eyes.

At least there’s one thing Cuicatl doesn’t have to deal with.
 
Last edited:
Rock 4.8

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
Rock 4.8: Master of the Moon
Pixie

A bird with long, straight wings lands just outside the grass you’re hiding in. Openliver scattered tiny pieces of bread on the ground to bait them out. Ew. Picking worthless food straight off the ground and eating it. A fox would never. And the birds sound so annoying! Even inside Openliver’s home you can still hear them honking outside.

It helps motivate you; this one deserves to be punished.

A faint psychic link snaps into place as you prepare your attack. Rather than trying to disable a move you close your eyes, breathe, and imagine yourself launching forward through the link. Sounds and smells blur together before vanishing just as fast. Pain lances through your head but you press it down and open your eyes. The bird is stumbling around, eyes wide open as it tries to figure out what’s going on.

Kalani swishes her tails and licks your forehead.

Another success!

Other birds fly over to help out their friend. Kalani just knocks them all out of the sky with a lazy blast of cold air. So powerful. You have the best mother.

“That was your best one yet,” she says. “You aren’t flinching so much at the end. If you recover first, you can lunge in for a bite to the neck. Good hunting tool.”

Probably good for battling, too. You don’t really need to hunt since Openliver is a good servant who brings you and Kalani all the food you need. And it’s better than the food Skysong had. Almost all of it is fresh. She only gave you fresh food after she got her stupid rock bird.

Right. Skysong.

You need to find a curse for her. Her food could be stale. It wouldn’t really matter since she hates food anyway. And all the good curses don’t affect her either. You can’t make her ugly or weak because she already is. Her only real strength is her words. Taking her words away wouldn’t do anything since she can speak with her mind. Kalani isn’t sure how to change that.

There was an old story on the mountain about a nine-tales across the sea that turned a human who enslaved her into a pokémon himself. That was the first curse any nine-tales cast. Except Skysong has told you that she thinks pokémon are better than humans. Even the classic is off the table.

Poor Skysong. She’s so pathetic that you can’t find an easy way to make her life worse. Except for Kalani’s idea. The one that would kill her. And that one won’t work at all. Skysong doesn’t deserve to die and Kalani doesn’t deserve whatever the humans would do to her for killing one of their own.

“What are you thinking of, Firstborn?”

You nuzzle in closer to her. It’s only morning but it’s already annoyingly hot.

“The curse on Skysong.”

“Have you thought of something?”

“No.” You tell her the ideas that you’d had and rejected. She pauses in thought at the end.

“I could make her stink,” she says. “That way the other humans would leave her like she left you.”

It might work. Humans are already smelly, especially when they haven’t groomed in a few days. Their noses are so weak they barely seem to notice. Making the stench work could scare them away from her.

Leave her alone.

Her mother and siblings are dead or gone. Her father kicked her off their mountain. Was she entirely alone when she found you? She didn’t seem to like the other humans much at the time.

You’ll think about that curse. It might work, but you aren’t sure if she deserves it. When she finally abandoned you there was someone to love you. Leaving her without anyone is a lot worse. And she’s not even the reason you got hurt.

You grunt without telling her yes or no. Kalani doesn’t press it.

“Try that attack again.”

You do. Over and over. The pain in your head is more than worth the pride in Kalani’s eyes.

*​

Kalani rises as soon as Openliver and his mate have gone to sleep. She walks towards the entrance to the house, flicking you with a tail as a sign to follow. You hear Rockfur’s talons clicking behind you. She walks straight through the flap in the door and keeps going all the way down the steps. Then she whips around and stares into Rockfur’s eyes.

“You sleep at night,” she states.

He nods. Like a human. Was he raised by them? You almost care enough to ask.

“Why are you following me?”

“Where are you going?”

Kalani hisses. It’s disrespectful not to answer the question of your better. Rockfur doesn’t even seem to care.

Kalani ends the staring match and talks first. She must not want to waste her time lecturing the dog every time he does something wrong. “Top of the hill.”

Rockfur nods and turns back around. He stretches out for a yawn right before he goes back through the mini door. All of that for nothing. And Kalani hadn’t even dismissed him! She’s right that he would be a terrible mate.

Kalani walks briskly away from the building and towards the hill. It will be your first time going to the top. That’s exciting. It’s not tall enough for snow. Still good to be higher up. Unless you can’t see anything. There was a small mountain you climbed before leaving Skysong. The winds were fierce like The Mountain but you couldn’t see how small everything was below. It didn’t feel right. And there wasn’t snow. Yet.

All of the snow has melted now. Maybe you could ask Kalani to make more for you to play in? She’s definitely strong enough. Yes, you’ll ask her whenever it gets really hot. At least, really hot for the surface level. You shouldn’t bother her about it every day. She’s an important nine-tales with other things to do.

Kalani walks quickly but you keep up with her. It’s easy walking on grass or dirt. With the sun down it’s not even that hot. There are lots of pokémon scents on the trail. Sometimes Kalani will stop and sniff one before marking over it. There are weaker predators here: rats and bugs, mostly. Also steel jaws and stone wolves.

“Stonewolf,” Kalani says after sniffing one marking. “This one challenged me, once. I bit off the end of his tail and sent him running.”

So awesome! She can fight anything. And she loves you.

“Do not bite stonewolves,” she tells you. “It isn’t worth it. You should freeze them instead.”

Very good advice. When you are a nine-tails you will freeze every stonewolf you find.

As you climb there’s a patch of narrow ledges and jutting rocks leading up a cliff face. Kalani rocks back and pounces up. When her paws hit one rock she leaps again as if she was running straight up. Then she turns around and looks at you expectantly. You glance down and regret it immediately. That was weak. You shouldn’t have acted scared. You can do this, too. Even if it’s been a while since you had to climb like this.

You tense your back legs and pounce up to one of the larger rocks. You have to dig in your claws to stop yourself from sliding right off when you land. It still counts. Another jump carries you to a thin ledge. You press your body tight against the wall and look further up. Kalani is still looking down at you and watching your every move. Seeing if you’re worthy. You are! You’re the best vulpix and she should love you. Another jump closes a quarter of the remaining distance. Another brings you so close…

There’s not another good landing place between here and Kalani. The ledges are too narrow to get a paw on and the rocks would break beneath you. The rest must be done in one jump. It’s so far…

You meet Kalani’s judgmental gaze and find the courage you need. You’re good enough. You can do this! One. More. Jump!

All of your strength fills your hindlegs as you reach into the air. Wind rushes past your fur but your eyes never leave your mother. As you slow down you reach your paws out to the ledge and touch the dirt. And then the air. Your movement slows and stops before you start falling again. No! No. You didn’t make it. You weren’t good enough. You close your eyes and wait for the end.

If never comes.

Strong jaws close around your back and haul you up. Kalani drops you down on flat land. There’s a storm in her eyes and she flicks an ear in annoyance. “I won’t do that again.” She turns around and sets off.

You weren’t good enough for her. She’s not driving you away. It’s fine. More than fine. Next time you’ll make the jump and then she’ll never leave you.

The rest of the climb is easier with only a few smaller jumps to make. You get to the summit in no time. The Hill isn’t nearly a tall as The Mountain. The human’s city lights stretch out beside it and block out some of the stars. There are still more than there were at by the water.

You feel another pang of sympathy for Skysong, she who has never seen the stars. You tried to tell her about them but that’s not the same as seeing the full number and beauty of your ancestors.

Kalani lies down beside you and swishes her tails around. Looking up at the stars with a nine-tales wrapped around you, this is the closest you’ve felt to home since Avalanche took you away. Every muscle relaxes one by one until you’re lying flat on the ground and purring as loudly as you can. Your mother purrs beside you and everything is perfect once again.

*​

You’re woken up by a tail flicking into your side. It takes a moment to blink the sleep away before looking to Kalani. She turns to look up. There’s a glowing bird descending near the base of the mountain. No, not a bird. A bat.

Lunala.

You watch in wonder as the moon itself comes down to earth. She passes so close that Kalani could probably strike her with ice if she wanted to.

“Why is she here?” you ask quietly so as not to disturb the goddess.

“Her human lives nearby.”

Her… human? Even The Moon has a trainer? Some human, Bloodrage, maybe, had said that once. You thought it was a joke. Humans are ugly. Why would the most beautiful light in the sky get near one?

“What human would The Moon go near?”

Kalani huffs. “The one who left you so long ago.”

She can’t mean Skysong. She wouldn’t know about the others since she hasn’t asked and you don’t want to tell her about them. That leaves Firemane.

Kalani cursed Firemane. You yip in shock and turn to stare at her. “You cursed The Moon’s human?”

She continues to stare in the direction Lunala flew. “I fought The Moon once. Her human had claimed The Mountain as her own. Openliver wished to stop her.”

“I thought The Mountain belongs to The Moon?”

“I don’t know,” Kalani admits. “There was a threat in front of me and I fought it. Perhaps if I had won the nine-tales would have been allowed to freeze the entire island and make it our own.”

Kalani fought The Moon and lived. She felt bold enough to curse The Moon’s human. In most battles the pokémon are not supposed to kill. Insult them and things are different.

“Will The Moon curse you back?”

Kalani puffs her fur out and glares at you. “The Moon is wise. She will see the justice in my actions.”

Or maybe she’ll like her human too much. Kalani says that pokémon don’t like their humans. At least, nine-tales don’t. You’ve seen pokémon that do. Maybe you did, even. When it was just risking the anger of humans that was one thing. Insulting The Moon itself is much worse: humans might kill Kalani; the Moon could make her ugly.

“I don’t think you should have done that.”

Kalani growls from deep in her throat. “I did it for you. Why are you not grateful?”

“I am! I’m just worried about you.”

She gives you a long appraising stare. You meet her gaze and get lost in her pretty pale blue eyes. They’re the greatest. Except for maybe yours. Why are you fighting her? She’s so pretty and she loves you.

“I can take care of myself,” Kalani finally declares. “A child need not take care of her mother. I will watch out for you.

With that she envelops you in her tails and presses you against her side. She purrs. You purr back. Maybe you went too far. She fought The Moon before. Maybe her curse won’t get noticed? Or even The Moon will be too scared to fight her over some human. You chose Kalani over your human. It’s the right choice. She loves you enough to spite a god for you.

Maybe that’s the point: if she’ll take on a god for you, then no one will ever dare hurt you because they know she will come for them. And she will win because she is beautiful and smart and strong. And she loves you. That makes you beautiful and smart and strong. You purr even louder. If there was just snow under you then this moment would be perfect.

Another droning rises over your purring. You press your head out of Kalani’s fur to look. There’s something big and blue approaching. There’s something familiar about it. Oh! It’s the huge bug Skysong wanted you to fight. You just threw a few icicles at it and then it surrendered.

The bug flies up to the top of the cliff and stares at Kalani. She stares back. Its mouth is a lot bigger up close. You’re so strong to have beaten this thing. Birds, though… the bird won’t bother you again. That. You’re strong. You are. Even if you need help getting up cliffs. You’ll do that perfectly next time and Kalani will love you forever.

The bug and the fox continue to stare each other down until Kalani wins. The bug turns around in place (like Skysong sometimes did) and jets off into the darkness.

Wait.

Skysong was hurt during the fight with the bug. She was also hurt during the one with that giant thing that had hot water and painful thorns. It happened whenever she used the big moves. Or when she made your disable stronger. Kalani didn’t know that when she said that Skysong never got hurt in battles. If she did know it, she wouldn’t need to cast a curse at all.

“I want to talk about Skysong’s curses,” you tell Kalani. She turns towards you and tilts her head. “Skysong did get hurt in fights. She made me stronger but hurt herself.”

Kalani grunts. “How?”

“Her head hurt. Like when I use the mind attack? And she fainted sometimes.”

Your mother turns away. The grip of her tails against you grows tighter.

“Fainted?”

“Yes.”

“Did she bleed?”

You aren’t sure what she’s asking. Yes, she bled. A lot. Usually when her paw got hurt. It also came out of her crotch sometimes. Not as often as Growlsleeper or Liar, but it did happen. It didn’t happen when she made you stronger. That was just a mind pain, you think. You never actually asked her. That’s probably what Kalani wants to hear: she already knows humans have blood and can lose it.

“No.”

She turns around and quietly stalks back to you. Her head lowers until her nuzzle is almost touching hers. You close your eyes and lean into the touch. A sharp pain flares up in your ribs and you can feel her claws against your stomach. You open your eyes in shock and see hers boring into you.

“Did she break bones?”

“…no.” What’s going on? Why is she mad. Her breath beats down on your face. There’s the scent of blood in her breath. She must have hunted something when Openliver wasn’t looking.

“Did she risk death?” Kalani snarls.

“Her heart was weird, once.” You think that’s a bad sign with humans. You’ve heard that sometimes their hearts attack them and they must fight it off. Somehow. Do they die if they lose?

Your mother shakes her head. It’s very human. Your—your first mother would have flicked her left ear when she meant to say no. “They’re never in danger. That’s the pokémon’s job.” She growls and leans in any closer. “Why do you care so much about this human? Do you want to leave me for her? After all that she did to you?”

“No!” you squeal. Her jaws are a maybe a hair’s length from your eyes. There’s a thin trail of blood on her teeth. Prey. Food. Predators. Danger. “I love you.”

She nips your ear just hard enough to draw blood. “She’s worthless,” she hisses. “Dangerous. Stupid. Ugly. Stay away from her.”

Her tails pull you against her side and press you in. She forcefully sits down beside you and covers you in her fur. Both of you sit there until close to sunrise. Neither of you purrs.

*​

It’s hot the next day. Even for the surface. After knocking out three birds and a rodent your fur feels like it’s on fire. You turn towards Kalani and droop your tails. “Can you make snow?” you ask. She approved of your last few attacks. Maybe she’s forgiven you for… whatever you did last night. She thinks you’ll leave her, even though you obviously won’t because she’s perfect.

Kalani huffs and puffs out her tails. Cold wind blows and the sky darkens. Soon the water in the air freezes and falls to the ground as snow. Snow! You yip in happiness and jump up to catch a snowflake on your tongue in midair. It tastes just like real snow. Kalani watches in amusement as the snow slowly comes up to your ankles and then your thighs. It’s only snowing in a narrow patch, maybe twenty body lengths across, but that’s more than enough to play in. The other pokémon run away from the cold and back onto their dumb warm beach. When the snow is up to your stomach you dive in and try to burrow. It doesn’t feel real with green grass under you, even if you can still get snow surrounding you in almost every direction. The wind groans and the air grows even colder. Suddenly Kalani dives in beside you and snatches you up in her legs, rolling over so that her back is on the ground and you’re held up above the snow. Above her. She splays out her tails behind her so that none are touching.

The snow keeps falling above you.

“You’re the best mother,” you tell her. “Strong and beautiful and cold.”

She huffs in agreement.

“I will never leave you.”

She pulls you tighter against her until your hearts and lungs are only separated by skin.

*​

You stretch out and yawn. Kalani shifts beside you. There are two humans talking in the next room. Openliver and Firemane.

Firemane.

You wiggle your way out from under Firemane and walk towards the door. Kalani doesn’t stop you. Her heart rate is normal and she doesn’t seem concerned at all. If she’s that sure her curse didn’t get caught, maybe you can afford to scream at Firemane again. She tried to say she was sorry but maybe didn’t do it well enough. Are you allowed to scream and the Moon’s human, though? Probably. You did a lot of work against the Mooneater. Maybe most of it. Your screams are terrifying.

Firemane turns towards you when you enter the room. You whine at her and pick up the pace. She says she’s sorry for abandoning you but hasn’t done anything to make up for it. Maybe scratches could work. No, you don’t want scratches from the human who abandoned you.

The Moon’s human.

Maybe.

You stop just out of her reach and scream. She just bares her teeth.

“Hello, Pixie. Good to see you again.”

You stare at her. There’s a good scent near her. Food, maybe. You take a few steps forward and try to rummage for her food. You can steal it and she would deserve it and you would be full. She saves you the trouble by pulling it out of her bag. It’s one of the grain ball things that humans like.

“Got you a malasada. I remember you like those. Just, uh, don’t make it the core of your diet, okay?”

She cannot give you commands. Although she can give The Moon commands? You would listen to The Moon. Ugh. Why does The Moon listen to her? She’s warm and ugly and will abandon the goddess in time. It’s what she does. What humans do. As soon as the food is within reach you snatch it up and walk away to eat it. You find a good spot on the floor, walk around it three times to make sure it’s good, and sit down to eat the food. It’s a little too sweet. Still good. You will accept it as the first of many, many peace offerings. No reason to deny good food just because of who it came from.

When you’re finished you look back towards Firemane. She’s looking at you. Evaluating you. Probably thinking about how pretty you are and how she shouldn’t have left you. Now you’d be the second strongest and prettiest pokémon on her team, after The Moon.

“There was a ninetales taking care of you, right?” she asks. Openliver gives her a strange look. You think that’s how humans show confusion. It’s hard to tell since they’re always confused about everything.

You nod. She can probably understand that.

“Ah, I thought so. Couldn’t remember, though. I’ve been so forgetful lately.” She bares more teeth and narrows her eyes. Her voice is as upbeat as it was before. “You wouldn’t know anything about that, would you?”

You can practically feel Kalani’s attention boring into you from behind. The Moon’s human stares at you from the front. Do you lie to her, and The Moon by extension? Do you tell the truth and risk Kalani getting punished? Do you tell the truth and risk Kalani punishing you?

The goddess or your mother. Time to pick.

Kalani is perfect and she loves you. The Moon has no reason to. You fear her more than Kalani.

You very reluctantly nod.

“Thought so,” Firemane says. “Met up with Nebby, Lunala, later in the day. She saw a curse on my mind. Which, can I just say, kind of dumb to try and get a mind curse past a ghost- and psychic-type of her caliber.”

She called Kalani dumb. Kalani is not. No human has the right to say that about a nine-tails. You stay quiet so Kalani’s punishment does not get worse.

“Anyway, she undid it in a couple minutes. And…” she trails off and closes her eyes. “She cast it for you, didn’t she? Since I forgot you.” After a long sigh she flips which leg is under the other and opens her eyes again. “I get it. Maybe I deserved it, even. I’ll let it slide.”

Openliver starts saying his own meaningless things to Firemane. Apologizing for something he couldn’t have stopped. Fool. You just release the tension in your muscles and slowly sink back to the floor. It will be fine. Everything will be fine.

Firemane accepts his apologies and turns back to you. “Can we talk without the ninetales listening in?”

“Yeah.” Openliver pulls Kalani’s pokéball out and starts walking towards her bed. She scurries away and Openliver hears. “Fuck,” he hisses before sprinting around the corner as fast as he can. He hits the button and red light emerges. Kalani screams in shock and anger but her call is abruptly cut off as the ball catches her.

Firemane kneels down to you and holds out a hand. You ignore it. Kalani would smell Firemane on you and you’re already going to be in trouble. After a few breaths Firemane takes her hand back. “She’s going to do something similar to your last trainer, isn’t she? Or has she already?”

You don’t want Skysong to be cursed. She’s offering you a way out where Kalani doesn’t ever have to know. You nod.

“Which—” She huffs. “Brought that on me. Alright, has she already cast the curse?”

You shake your head.

“Good. The next time they visit maybe Kukui can give me a call? I’ll visit her a while later to get it undone. That way the ninetales thinks she did something without having actually done anything.”

Openliver does a harsh throat sound humans do when they want to be paid attention to. It’s like a scream, just less melodic. “I, uh, really wouldn’t try that. She’s one of the strongest ninetales in the world and has some bad history with Cuicatl. Unless Lunala’s sure she can do something if Kalani gives the curse her all, it’s best to just keep the two away from each other.”

To keep Skysong away from you. That’s… fine. She already abandoned you. You don’t need her. Or want her. She’s just a dumb, ugly, smelly human. You love Kalani a lot more. Just like you told her.

“I think she could fix it.” Firemane frowns and stands back to her full height. “Necrozma did a number on her. Maybe they should just be kept apart.”

That would still stop Kalani from cursing her. That’s good. You don’t even have to do anything. You can even make up a curse or agree to Kalani’s. Good. Now she won’t be mad at you.

Firemane and Openliver talk more. It’s boring. You ignore it. How mad will Kalani be? You didn’t want to say anything. You wouldn’t have said anything. Firemane already knew. If you lied, it wouldn’t matter.

The girl leaves. Openliver sighs and runs a paw through his hair. He glances at you before pulling out Kalani and Gillwailer’s balls. “Guess we have to do this.”

Your mother reappears with the ugly translator. She glares at you and the temperature drops to freezing in between heartbeats. “Come on,” Openliver says. “You brought this upon yourself.”

“Lies,” Kalani huffs.

“Then you didn’t curse her?”

Kalani turns away from him and starts walking back towards her bed. Openliver takes off after her with loud, angry steps.

“Do you know how much trouble you could have gotten yourself in? You’ve toed lines before but never like this. Did you really think that you would—”

Your mother whips around and the room gets even colder. Openliver doesn’t seem to mind even though half his body is exposed and he has no fur. You understand why Kalani fears him.

“I almost defeated The Moon before. The next time I will win.”

Openliver just keeps staring back at her as Gillwailer translates.

“It’s not even about that,” he hisses. “You win, so what? Do you think people will just forget what you did? That there wouldn’t be any more consequences?”

“No one will challenge me if I can defeat The Moon herself.”

Openliver sighs and sits down once he finds out what she said. Then he buries his head in his hands like a one-tails burrowing only her face into snow and believing nothing can see her. “In your world, maybe,” he mumbles. “It would just scare the humans more. They’d get a judge on the case and… and it doesn’t end well for you.”

What is a judge? How strong are they that one could fight someone who defeated a goddess? And what won’t Openliver say? The judge would kill her? Such a small word. Why can’t humans say it?

Kalani growls in defiance. She isn’t scared of the judges, whatever they are.

“Just stop hurting people, please? That’s all I’m asking.”

“You ask me to hurt things all the time,” Kalani responds.

“Not humans. It’s…” Openliver sighs and lowers his paws from his face. He looks defeated. Kalani has already won. “Humans set their own rules. I’m not saying it’s right, just that it is. We’re fragile. And if they see one pokémon able to attack and curse humans without consequences, then some humans will get scared. Worried that other pokémon will do it, too. Keep doing this and they’ll make an example out of you.”

Kalani huffs. “Then I will make an example out of them.

Openliver slowly shakes his head. He doesn’t say anything more. Kalani won. She turns towards you and trots over. In one fluid motion she scoops you up and keeps walking while she holds you by the scruff. She presses through the small door in the bigger door and walks down the stairs to the sand. Then she turns around and walks into the space above the sand and below Openliver’s home. She drops you roughly and stares at her with an ear tilted down.

She wants you to explain.

“She already knew.”

Kalani doesn’t move. That isn’t good enough for her.

“You can curse Skysong! Whatever you want.” That should make her happy. You love her and won’t leave her.

“The Moon will undo it. That’s what her human told you, right?”

And she already knows. So smart. So strong. So terrifying. To her prey.

“Yes…”

Kalani continues to evaluate you.

“Stay here until I come get you,” she says. Then she walks back out from under the house, back up the stairs, back into Openliver’s home. She leaves you alone.

She didn’t hurt you. She loves you. You lower yourself into the sand and feel it get into your beautiful fur. At least it isn’t too hot here. This is fine. You’ll be fine. She’ll remember how great you are and come back at any time.

The Sun leaves the sky. The Moon takes his place. Kalani doesn’t return.

Rockfur does. He walks down the stairs and under the house. He stops near you and walks in a circle before settling down. An open paw tells you that you can cuddle with him. You do not want to. He is a rock. You would smell bad when Kalani comes back for you. You stay in place and keep glaring at him.

He falls asleep. Your stomach hurts. It doesn’t matter. If you don’t complain then Kalani will come back.

Rockfur wakes. The Moon leaves. Rockfur leaves.

It doesn’t matter. It will be fine. You are loved.

You are loved.

Your mother is smart. She will remember you. She will come for you.

You just have to wait a little while longer.
 
Last edited:
Rock 4.9

Persephone

Infinite Screms
Pronouns
her/hers
Partners
  1. mawile
  2. vulpix-alola
Rock 4.9: New Leaf
Kekoa

March 16th, 2020

There’s a beautiful fire on the television.

“Around 2:30 this morning, the looters occupying the home of Peter Steuben charged the barricade around the property established by law enforcement. Following a brief struggle the majority of the occupiers managed to escape. Steuben’s home went up in flames behind them. The blaze was contained by daybreak, but the damage had already been done. Michael Sanderson is on the scene to report on the devastation.”

The news calls it a home. “Mansion” is more fitting. Bastard fled to the mainland and was pissed that people had actually used the place while he’d fled. Skull stepped in and the cops acted like they had nothing better to do in the entire Commonwealth. Now no one gets to use the home.

Plumeria put up a blog post claiming the cops started the fire, but that it wouldn’t be a bad thing if it happened to more colonizer’s mansions. There’s already talk of it happening on Ula’Ula where a billionaire real estate developer evicted all of an apartment complex’s tenants - during the Blackout - so he could bulldoze it and build a beachfront mansion.

And then there’s The Sea’s Queen, the new resort you saw under construction back in October. There’s enough of a framework now that it could go up in flames and really set the construction back.

You’d admired the way Plumeria handled the situation before. Now this? This is on another level of brilliance. Hit the bastards where it hurts and maybe they’ll learn to give up. Maybe you’ll get a fire type if it looks like the island challenge isn’t going to pan out. See what you can do to help.

All of it puts you in a good enough mood that you can almost ignore what’s coming later in the day.

*​

The first sign that your brother is coming is a flock of wingull racing away from the shore. You shield your eyes from the worst of the sunlight and look out at the water. There’s something flying towards you. Something big with broad wings that are red or pink, hard to tell given the glare of the sun off the water.

Some tourists around you are pointing and chattering. One seems excited, one panicked. You ignore them and keep an eye on the approaching flier. Jabari said he would meet you at the beach near the Center. It’s about time for him to show up and you’d figured he’d have some big pokémon or another. He’s a pokémon handler for Vstar as far as you can tell.

Then again, if he was good at his job, they wouldn’t have needed to call in Cuicatl to clean up his mess.

The flier dips down towards the water. The edges of its wings and tail touch the surface and send showers of water up in their wake. Soon the entire creature has entered the water with only its back above the surface. There’s someone with dark skin and short black hair on top of the pokémon. Yeah, that’s him. Showoff. The tourists have taken out their phone and are trying to take pics. Whatever he’s on got a lot less scary once they realized a human was controlling it. Like the human is automatically a good person and in control.

Jabari isn’t and he might not be. You still stand your ground. You’re not scared of him.

As the pokémon gets close you get a better look at it. The thing swims like a lizard with a long tail swishing behind it in s-shapes. The rest of its body seems to be white. Red wings. Oh shit. He really has a motherfucking salamence.

Cuicatl would be so jealous.

The salamence crawls the rest of the way onto the beach and droops its wings as Jabari gets off. The tourists are still taking photos of the thing after knowing what it is. There’s a story about salamence’s arrival on the islands. Tapu Koko was furious that the newcomer had killed one of his beloved braviary. He went to the salamence to put it in its place. In the end he had to run away bloodied and bruised. No one ever objected to the salamence’s presence again. If the myths are right then salamence can fight gods and win.

The tourists think it’s safe. Just a herdier doing tricks or a ride charizard. Your brother thinks he can control one. You don’t know how to feel about that.

He walks over to you with his hands pressed deep inside his pockets. He has a coy smile but there’s anxiety in the lines on his face. He probably wants this to go well but suspects it won’t. You… aren’t sure how you want it to end. It would be responsible to take this help. It feels unfair that you have to. Unfair enough that you almost want to reject it out of spite.

The other thing you notice as he gets close is his height. He’s at least six inches taller than you and has prominent muscles. Doesn’t help that his shirt is wet from the ride over. You hate that he gets to look like that. That he always got to be a boy when he did nothing to deserve it. If he hadn’t been, if he’d had to grow up as a girl, then the military might not have taken him and he couldn’t have run away. Instead, you had to figure things out on your own while bouncing between foster homes.

You bounced around a lot faster once you came out. Turns out that even some of the ‘nice’ families that ‘didn’t have a problem with you’ still didn’t want to risk you transing their own kids. By the time you got to Aether House you’d learned to be careful about who you told.

“Hey,” Jabari says with his stupid deep voice you should’ve had instead. “How’s it going?”

“Fine.” You keep eye contact and make sure there’s no emotion in your voice. A challenge. You don’t need him, so it’s on him to guide this shitshow.

He glances down the beach at the tourists. “You want to go somewhere more secluded? I saw a small island on the way in. Gluttony can take us there.”

It takes you a second to realize that ‘Gluttony’ must be the name of his salamence. You wonder if he has a theme name for his team about the deadly sins. It seems like the type of macho shit he’d be into. And it’s the total lack of self-awareness you’d expect from a brown soldier wrecking brown people’s homelands for the sake of the empire currently wrecking his own home.

You eye the salamence. He’s splayed out on the sand with his wings spread wide. He meets your gaze with a red slitted eye. Underneath his scales you can see rippling muscles. That thing could destroy a small town. Fight a god. You really aren’t sure you want to be on his back.

“If it helps,” Jabari says. “If she was going to kill you, you’d already be dead.”

She. Not he. Bleh.

And it’s not reassuring. Maybe she doesn’t want to kill you now, but that could change in a heartbeat. There are reasons people keep their distance from dragons.

Most people keep their distance from dragons. Cuicatl and Jabari are just fearless or stupid or both. Definitely both for Jabari. Cuicatl’s only stupid in the risks she takes. Fearless, then.

“I’d rather not.” You pause. Do you want to say something more? It would hurt him. You shouldn’t do that when asking for help. He deserves it, though. “Friend of mine met one of your dragons a while back. Wasn’t, uh, a good meeting.”

He winces. “That…” The tourists have moved further down the beach. Are they scared? Or do they just want somewhere private? “I’m sorry,” he says to the wrong person. “Chris was trying to save money on security. It blew up on him.”

“Blew up on a lot of people.”

“Yeah…” His hands are being pressed against the bottom of his pocket with enough force that you expect the jacket to break. “It did.” He sighs and looks back up to you. He’s not smiling anymore. You don’t think he’s angry. Just tired. “I know that I can’t make up for what I did with gifts. It was foolish to try. But we are offloading a lot of fossil ‘mons right now. If you want anything you can let me know.”

You have no idea what kind of fossils he has. Dinosaurs are technically birds and Ihe seems to get along well enough with a tyrunt. Maybe you could make one fit on your team. Then reality hits you. Cuicatl is desperately scrambling to get a Class V license before Coco evolves. Until recently she had no realistic way to pay for a tyrantrum’s food, either. Good odds his gifts end up hurting more than they help. Getting him to help with the food costs and licenses would just bind you to him no matter how bad things got.

“No.” However much you want one, it’s not worth the long-term commitment. And gods help you if the dinosaur doesn’t listen to you. But there is something he can help with that would only bind you until the end of the island. It would mean accepting his charity. That is the entire reason you called him here, though, as much as you hate it. “If you want to help you could cosign some insurance. I want to use a dugtrio against the grass trial and Olivia.”

Rock-types are a major barrier to your birds. The grass trial usually has a sudowoodo or lileep. Olivia will have four rock-types on her side and she knows how to use them. Dugtrio can hit rock-types hard in two ways. The only real problems Olivia could pull out are archen and a ground-type. Your birds can fight the archen in the air. If she brings out a rhyhorn or pupitar you’ll have to improvise. Maybe pick up a grass or water type for a little bit, just to be sure.

Jabari finishes his thoughts at about the same time you finish yours. He sighs and looks down at the sand. “Can I trust you not to break anything with it? Buggers dig through everything.”

What? The premiums on a $20k insurance package are too much for him? You’d thought he’d have more blood money than that. “I promise not to get anyone killed,” you tell him. He winces again. It’s almost funny: a veteran and pokémon tamer brought so low by simple words.

“Should we head to the Pokémon Center, then? I do a lot of work with Vstar’s insurance company. I can probably get you the premium with a few calls. Then you’d just have to fax in some paperwork, and we could go dugtrio hunting.”

“I don’t need your help with the hunting.”

He steps back and nervously rocks on his feet. “I… I know. But I’d like it if you did let me come along. I have a mega gengar that can trap the dugtrio before it can flee. And.” He sighs and looks off to the side. One of his hands idly grips the other arm. “I realized that I don’t know anything about you anymore. That’s my fault and I’m sorry. I would like to get to know you, though. If you’d let me.”

It’s honest. Vulnerable. Nothing that you had ever expected from your military brat big brother when you were growing up. It reminds you of the time after Hoenn. The weeks before he abandoned you. The reminder sends a shiver down your spine.

Maybe…

Maybe he has changed, somehow. That doesn’t mean you forgive him. You can’t. And you still hate him. But. Maybe you shouldn’t? Maybe this is like Plumeria and Florges, where everything you’d thought had just been wrong and you were left with a sense of confusion and purposelessness, unsure of what you should do from there.

Like after Hoenn.

You hate that feeling. You hate it almost as much as the feeling of weight hanging from your chest, of emptiness where there should be something, of phantom pain crawling beneath your skin. You should talk to Cuicatl. Get out of your head and maybe.

Maybe something.

“I’ll think it over while you figure out the paperwork.” That might be enough time. If not you can tell him to fuck off until you’re sure again, one way or another.

Jabari smiles. It’s a small, tired smile. Not nearly as irritatingly fake and chipper as the smile you remember from the last time you met him on Akala.

“Alright, then. To the Center.”

*​

You slip off into your room while Jabari is calling his secretary or the insurance company or something. Neither of the girls are in. Great. You pull out your phone and call Cuicatl. As much as it sucks to talk, you don’t have too much time and you know texting takes a while with her text-to-speech shit.

She answers on the third ring. “Wello?” You blink twice. Right. Accent. Always so weird to hear that.

“Hey, it’s Kekoa. Can you meet me in the room? And, uh, don’t bring Lyra if she’s with you.”

“Yes. Juts a second.”

The o in ‘second’ is too hard. She still sounds a bit better than she did on Route 5 when she told you about her abilities. You nervously pace the length of the room, which is really too small for pacing, until the lock clicks. Coco bolts through as soon as the door is cracked open and races to you. She sniffs your legs before looking up expectantly. Her trainer makes her way through a second later. She’s wearing the hydreigon shirt again. Still can’t decide if it’s too childish or not.

“You wanted to talk?” she asks.

Right. You did. You take a deep breath and resume pacing. “I’m worried I’m fucking up?”

“Oh?”

“My brother visited—I told you that. He’s still here.” You reach the window and turn around. It’s not far enough. Cuicatl lowers herself down onto her bed and Coco jumps up beside her so at least that frees up some space. “He wants to try and hang out more or whatever. I don’t want to. He left me when I needed it and never looked back. Except I think he’s, like, serious about making up. And I shouldn’t have to. He hurt me—”

“Slow down,” Cuicatl interrupts. “It’s stressing my brain.”

You were maybe talking too fast there.

“Okay, so,” you take another breath and process what exactly it is you want to say. When you’re done you turn back to the window and take the six short steps it takes to get there. “He left me for years. Now he’s back. He doesn’t deserve to be my brother, but he is sorry. I… I don’t know what to do.”

Cuicatl hums and idly taps her cane with the tip of her pointer finger.

“Am I fat?” she finally asks.

What? Where the hell did that come from? “Uh, no? Not at all? Why.” And what does any of that have to do with your brother.

She sighs. “My father said I was. And my brother never told me that he was wrong. I…” She tucks her chin into her chest and leans back against the wall. It reminds you more than a little of Jabari just an hour ago. “I don’t know why. He hurt me, or at least didn’t help me. He knew how much it bothered me, and…” Cuicatl takes a deep breath and looks back up. There’s still pain in the twitching corner of her mouth, but her mouth is set, her back is straight, and her eyes seem locked ahead. Confidence, or something like it. “I would still do anything to get him back. Anything. You’ve been alone a long time. And you want to throw your last family away out of pride?”

That’s a lot of shit to take in. First, how did she ever believe she was fat? Second, her brother sounds like a spectacular ass. Her dad, too, but you already figured that one out. The way she flinches around adults or when people suddenly touch her, you’ve seen that before in foster care. In shelters. She didn’t say he beat her, but once she admitted he was abusive in other ways it was easy enough to guess.

And then there’s the bit about Jabari. About pride. About being alone. She struck a nerve and you want to yell at her, but you asked for advice and she doesn’t deserve it. Cuicatl finally gets tired of waiting and speaks up.

“I think you’re doing this to hurt him. Yet doing it hurts you, too.” She glances towards the window. Towards you. “I don’t want you to hurt.”

You want to shut her down. You aren’t hurting yourself. What you’re doing is justified. Revolution is never costless. This is all Jabari’s fault, really.

“Maybe,” she says. She was in your mind, wasn’t she? Damn it. “You’re being loud.” She doesn’t say it like she’s accusing you of anything. Just pointing out a fact.

“How do I fix that?”

She bites her lip and looks away. “I don’t know. I’ve always sort of known how to project and how not to project. Like speaking and not speaking.” Weird. Makes sense. Sort of. Cuicatl looks back towards you and idly strokes Coco’s neck. The dinosaur perks up and wags her tail in response. “Maybe all of that’s true. You still get to choose if you want to have a brother or not. It sounds like he wants to. Ball is in your court.”

“He chose not to.” Threw you away when you needed it the most.

Cuicatl shrugs. “You said he changed his mind. Then you asked me for advice. I gave it to you.”

Your mind races through defenses but settles on one. A childish one. One that you’re almost ashamed to say. “It’s not fair.” She tilts her head, asking you to continue. “He hurt me. He deserves to face consequences. Punishment. He needs to pay for what he did.”

Her expression is perfectly blank. With her cloudy eyes it almost feels like you’re arguing with a corpse or an oracle or something inhuman. Something scary.

“What punishment would be enough?”

You remember a thought you had on the playground in Paniola right after your last meeting. He could give up everything, he could suffer, he could die, and it would never be enough. It would never undo what was done. It would never go back in time and take you out of foster care. Give you someone to comfort you when you needed it. He just needs to burn. Cuicatl must be able to tell, either from your thoughts or your silence.

“In Anahuac,” she says softly, “we believe hatred is a sickness. It burns you up like a fever. It eats everything it is fed like a tape worm and is never satisfied. Debts are settled quickly: money for theft, apologies for insults, blood for blood. If the price is paid, the feud is over and the hatred must go. The criminal may never be trusted, but they cannot be hated.”

She takes a deep breath and presses on. “If the hatred remains, then you are beyond a cure. You must move away so that you are not drawn to violence. If even that does not fix it, then you should volunteer to be sacrificed. It is better to die with honor than to live forever with boiling blood.”

The fuck? Is… is she saying you should kill herself? That’s really dark, even for her.

“The dragons kill what they hate or are killed by it. Nothing lasts long.”

“So, uh, you’re suggesting murder or suicide?”

“No.” The strangest thing is that she’s kept her face neutral the entire time. Maybe even looked a bit wistful in parts. Like she’s nostalgic for the violence. “I am saying that having anger with no end is no way to live. It will burn you or him or everything and will never die out. I like you, and I hope you learn to let it go.”

It’s strange. You’re not sure she’s ever told you she likes you in as many words. You’re… not sure who the last person to say that was. Maybe Manollo. You probably knew that she did. Definitely knew that she did. You’ve hugged. It’s still weird to hear. Enough that it finally gets through to you.

“Fine.” You try to sound dismissive. Sarcastic even. That didn’t reach you. Nothing reaches you. You’re invincible. “I’ll try, just for you.”

She taps the bed beside her, the part not occupied by Coco. Asking you to sit down, probably. No idea why. You awkwardly close the distance and sit beside her. Coco takes the opportunity to lunge forward until most of her body is on top of Cuicatl’s legs and her head rests on your lap. Her tail swishes happily behind her.

Cuicatl leans over and wraps you in a hug. Somewhere between a full body and a side hug, which is a little awkward because her head is resting a little bit above your binder. You hug her back and she leans further in. Her hair is still damp from a shower. Apparently, she’s using new shampoo, too. Scent’s close to vanilla. It’s not bad. Smells pretty good, actually.

You feel a little awkward. She told you some really personal stuff and you immediately turned it back to you. “We can talk more about what you said once Jabari leaves.”

She shrugs, which really just presses her shoulder up into yours. “We don’t have to.” Then she pulls away. Her hands slide under Coco and lift up and away from you. The tyrunt takes the hint and gets off of your lap. “Go see your brother.”

“Okay.”

As you open the door you turn back and look at her. “Thank you for helping.”

“You’re welcome.”

She pulls her phone out of her pocket and turns it on. You take that as your invitation to leave.

You walk the rest of the way to the lobby with your hands shoved into your pockets, trying not to think about what you’re about to do. Jabari notices you as you approach and nods before turning back to his laptop. Still working out insurance, then. You take a deep breath as you approach. Fine. You’re doing this. You clear your throat to get his attention. “I… I would like to go dugtrio hunting with you when the paperwork clears.”

He lights up. It’s not the cautious smile from early or the fake one from Paniola. It’s real. Genuine in a way that’s almost painful to look at.

*​

Jabari probably hadn’t expected to spend the afternoon on the beach. You’ve never really liked them (wet clothes cling to your curves) and that’s one thing that hasn’t changed. He’s wearing his tall riding boots and a garish all-khaki outfit that covers almost all of his body. Good for riding a salamence at high speeds, bad for walking outside under the Alolan sun. He’s sweating buckets beside you but doesn’t say a word about it. Must be torture: even in your sandals, shorts, binder, and tank top you’re feeling the heat.

There are a lot more people on the beach than there were this morning. Almost none of the tourists actually pay attention to either of you now that Jabari’s ridiculous pokémon are resting in their balls. Come to think of it, there’s a little problem in your brother’s plan.

“Can gengar even stay out in this light?”

He grunts. “She won’t like it much, no. I’ll only send her out when we find something a dugtrio might attack.”

Awfully confident that he can control one of the more dangerous ghosts. You wonder how he does it. Like Cuicatl where she tries to make personal connections to her monsters? Some Alolan knowledge that he gets to know but you don’t? You’re really looking forward to meeting Kanoa later. She’s coming over to watch your grass trial and then you’ll get to spend a night or two at her family’s place.

“How do you keep your team loyal?” you ask. Might as well.

He looks over at you. There’s something disgusting in his expression—pity. You could’ve just been asking how he controls dragons. Nothing in that said that you needed help.

“Well, it depends. I helped my gengar through some emotional problems and now she’s quite loyal. Envy can make herself appear human and I treat her as her own person. Listen when she wants to talk, take her feelings into account, whatever you’d do for a friend. Sometimes she needs a little space. That’s fine.”

Cuicatl’s approach, then. Even if it didn’t work for her with her starter. You don’t say anything and he takes that as his cue to continue.

“Machamp just want to be with someone as dedicated to training as they are. I keep up my fitness and find chances for Pride to fight and that’s enough for him.” He does have the deadly sins theme. You wonder what took ‘wrath’ over salamence. What other monsters does he have on his team? “I’ve fought beside my kingambit and shown her that I can be trusted in battle. That was enough for her. I look after Gluttony and Wrath, my vikavolt.” Yeah. Vikavolt’s a good wrath. And you’re not going to ask him for advice on how to get one to listen. “They just stay where there’s food, belly scratches, and interesting opponents. And I buy my tyranitar his favorite rocks. That’s good enough for him. He’s pretty lazy, actually.”

Salamence, gengar, machamp, kingambit, vikavolt, and tyranitar. What the hell? You’d thought Cuicatl’s team was set to be ridiculous, but it turns out that she’s tame compared to your brother.

“You ever thought about being champion with that team?” you ask. You’re not sure that having a military sellout is better than having Selene, but at least you could directly lobby your brother. That’s an improvement. Until you can figure out how to beat him. Maybe he’d take it easy on you? Your pride would be hurt, sure. It would still end with you as champion.

Jabari laughs. Consciously or not he picks up the pace enough that you have to struggle to keep up with his longer strides. “You’re sounding a lot like my CO. When he heard I was retiring he really wanted me to go pro. Thought that Alola should have a military champion with all the bases here.” The actual last thing your nation needs. “You know the champion over in Texas used to be a marine.” You definitely know that. He’s in all of the targeted military recruitment ads that social media throws your way. Apparently, they think you’re a little older than you are. And that you’re interested in joining the military and not protesting the occupation.

“I’ve seen him in ads,” you say. Don’t need to get into all of that with your brother.

He snorts. “’course you have. The Pentagon has this whole team urging retiring pokémon handlers to go pro. They know their target audience loves competitive battling. You agree to cut a bunch of ads with them, they pay all your expenses. Even give you an agent and everything. They want people to know that,” he takes on a funny, overly dramatic voice, “there’s no one stronger than a soldier.”

At least he can laugh about this. And he didn’t take the offer. For some reason. Your pokémon costs are high and you don’t have a tyranitar eating uranium or whatever.

“Why didn’t you do it?” you ask. It’s a good way of finding out his politics. And you’re genuinely curious.

He stops. Your brother looks down at his own shadow in the sand like it has all the answers in life. “I didn’t quit because of you,” he quietly admits. “I quit because I didn’t like what the Navy was doing to me. The details are all classified to the moon and back. Just know that I did missions. On those missions I’d do things I would’ve been horrified by half a decade prior. There are some sick bastards in the world to be sure. I’ve met my fair share. Killed my fair share.” He turns to look at you. There’s something horribly empty in his eyes and a gravity around him that seems to drown out the sun and surf until only darkness remains. “I wasn’t only killing the bastards. One day I went back to the barracks and realized there had been collateral that day and I hadn’t even thought about it. Even had a little party with the squad when we got back. And… I knew I had to get out. I loved the people I served with. I just couldn’t do it anymore. And I couldn’t do their fucking ad campaign and get other kids to do that shit and still sleep at night.” He smiles and the darkness dissipates. There’s still something deeply wrong in his eyes, but he’s at least pretending it’s not. “Plus being a pro trainer sounds like a lot of PR work. I’d get cancelled in a week.”

It's good that he figured all that out eventually. Even if he was a dumbass for not knowing it at the start. If he’d just looked past the propaganda for like, five minutes, he would’ve known the military existed for making the rich richer and terrorizing people like you. You don’t really know what to say to any of it. Sucks that abandoning your brother to go on a killing spree ended in you going on a killing spree? It’s not your place to forgive him for whatever he did.

Something down the beach catches Jabari’s eye. His gaze locks onto the horizon and he looks at it critically, almost hungrily, before reaching down to his belt and pulling out a dusk ball. You can barely see whatever he’s looking at. Something blue in the distance walking alongside the edge of the dunes. A crabrawler, maybe. He releases his gengar, Envy, beside him without a word. She’s barely visible in the bright light. Just a loose cloud of amorphous purple vapors with two red eyes floating in the middle. When she turns to you there’s a moment where a young woman with dark skin stares at you before she flickers away. An illusion. The gengar’s old human form? Something she chose for you? …for Jabari? Ew. You’re going to do your best not to think about what he does with a pokémon made of toxic gas and hatred. The temperature drops around you as she solidifies. Feels like it’s in the mid-50s when it was in the 80s before.

“Are you trying to give yourself heatstroke?” an airy, eerie voice asks.

Jabari doesn’t look back at her. His attention remains glued onto the maybe-crabrawler on the horizon. “Better than walking around Iraq in combat gear,” he mutters.

“Don’t remind me. We are never going back there.” The ghost’s attention moves back to you. It feels like her red eyes are boring into your soul. Maybe they are. The ghost’s form warps like the air over hot pavement and the woman is staring at you again. “And you’re his brother, I assume?” she asks. Her mouth doesn’t move. The voice just comes from where she’s standing.

“Yeah.” You do your best not to sound intimidated. You aren’t. You just wish it maybe wasn’t looking at you like she understood you or something.

She makes a sound somewhere between whistling wind, distant singing, and laughter. “You have your brother’s anger,” she says. “Maybe even more. I would have loved to have fed on you back in the day.” Gross. Probably. And how is your brother angrier than you? His parents died. Sucks. So did yours. He wasn’t shoved off into foster care for years afterwards. The woman shakes her head and flickers back into the shape of a gengar. “A shame that you have another ghost drawing from you. I’m guessing they don’t want to share.”

“You can sense that?” To be honest you’ve never thought about how ghosts see souls and whatever. It’s kind of creepy to think about.

“They’re not hurting you,” she says. “Just feeding on your refusal to move on.”

Move on from what? From the crimes that are still happening to your people? To the system being stacked against people like you at every level? Or…

Hoenn. You’ve moved on from Hoenn. Don’t think about Hoenn. Just put it in its own little box away from everything else. Moe can have that box if she wants. You don’t want it.

“Here’s the plan,” Jabari says. He still sounds deadly serious and is keeping his eyes locked on the crabrawler. It seems like it’s come a little bit closer while you were talking to his gengar. “I mega evolve you and you keep the crabrawler in place. Then confuse it so it starts flailing. That should draw a dugtrio. Then I need you to trap it while my brother battles and catches it,”

The gengar lifts her hands above her body and twists back into the shape of a woman stretching out. This time she’s more solid than before. A black dress made of mist drapes off her body. “Alright. But if I’m doing this for you,” she turns towards you and smiles. Her teeth are blindingly white compared to every other part of her illusion. “I’d like to hear the magic word.”

That’s kind of childish. Easy enough, though. “Can you please help?”

“There we go.” The illusion collapses into mist as she shrinks back down and spreads out into her normal shape. “At the ready.”

Jabari brings a hand to his wrist. There’s a bracelet there tucked beneath his watch. Is that a mega bracelet? You’ve never actually seen one in person before. Not really a thing people do in Alola. Jabari closes his eyes and the bracelet begins to glow. Behind him a cocoon of light forms around Envy. The light glows brighter and brighter until you have to turn away and close your eyes. Then it stops. In the distance something, maybe reality, shatters. You turn around to see Envy looking far more like a haunter with a drown out, floating form. Gaseous arms flow down from her main body.

Down the beach the crabrawler has started to run away from the lights. It doesn’t help it. In a moment Envy has raced through the air to be on top of the crustacean. A thin glowing string snaps into place between them. The crabrawler tries to run but the string stays taut. In desperation it turns and tries to punch the gengar only for its fist to go straight through the edge of the mist.

“We should get closer,” Jabari says. Then he takes off running. He kicks up sand behind him and you’re not sure how he isn’t tripping with his stiff boots and the soft sand. You kick off your sandals and pick them up before dashing after him. You have an old memory of something like this. You don’t remember how old you were or where it happened. Could’ve been in Hoenn right before everything went to hell. You and Jabari were on a beach with massive sand dunes that looked like small mountains. Jabari tried to scale them but kept slipping and falling back. You kicked your shoes off and ran straight up, never staying in one place long enough to sink. Jabari’d called you a gogoat. It was probably meant to insult you, but you were proud of it. Proud to have been better than him at something.

In the here and now he’s still faster than you. He spent years killing people in Iraq and learning to run on sand while you were locked up in foster homes in Alola. And the undeserved height and muscles and testosterone don’t hurt in a race. He doesn’t need to keep to a stupid schedule and always have a refrigerated vial of hormones on hand to get his. It doesn’t mean that he’s more of a boy. You’re still jealous.

As you get close the sand under the crabrawler begins to vibrate before something yellow rockets out. the dugtrio pierces the crabrawler’s armor from underneath and grabs it in a mouth. Before it can vanish beneath the surface a thread lashes out from Envy and locks it in place. Jabari turns to you and nods.

You take out Mahina’s pokéball and… hesitate.

Is this right?

Are you just kidnapping a pokémon for your own gain after telling Cuicatl she shouldn’t do that?

Dugtrio hate, hate, hate being on the surface.

You lower the pokéball.

“Changed my mind. You can let them go.”

The cord snaps and the mole ducks beneath the sand.

“Any reason?” Envy asks. Even mega evolved her voice is smooth and airy.

“Feels wrong to force them to leave their home for a few fights.”

The gengar hums in a low, psychic static as the air around her ripples. “Seems you’ve learned a thing or two. Very well. May I be withdrawn if my services are no longer required?”

“See you later.”

She collapses back into a purple cloud before the light hits her.

“Guess you don’t need the insurance then, huh?” Jabari asks.

“No.” You hesitate again. It couldn’t hurt to get something from him. “Some help with bills would be nice.”

Jabari turns around. He doesn’t pivot like Cuicatl. Still carries himself almost too stiffly. He starts walking back to the Center, back to air conditioning, and lazily motions for you to follow. You hate following an order from him. Still. You were going to go back anyway.

“$1,250 a month seems reasonable for your stage in the island challenge. None of your pokémon are too expensive to care for and that should go a long way towards covering equipment and food bills. Jabari never did the island challenge. You wonder how he knows all that before you remember he works for the journey profiteers.

“I would like that.”

He nods curtly. Almost robotically. Another military thing, probably. “Can you send me your account info?”

“Don’t you have it from work?”

“I try not to mix personal and professional matters.”

Which is probably hard when your brother was sort of your coworker.

Is this wrong, too? Even if you aren’t kidnapping pokémon yourself that money comes from someone else doing it. He’d get it either way, though. It’s not like he’s going to go out and do work he wouldn’t have done otherwise to foot the bill. Probably fine.

For now.

*​

Your phone rings as you get ready to settle in for the night.

Your second phone rings. You put the phone to your ear and step out into the hallway. Hopefully Lyra and Cuicatl won’t follow you or ask too many questions. You can just say someone from the orphanage called. People don’t usually want to talk about that.

“Hey,” you half-whisper. You walk down the hall to an exit door at the side of the building. Can’t be too conspicuous until you’re outside and alone. “Thought you didn’t want to talk.”

“Are you alone?” Plumeria asks.

You answer as soon as you’re outside in the cool, fresh evening air. “Yes.”

“Have a job for you. Nothing illegal.”

You want to make a snide remark about how she said nothing legal would help, but she’s done so much good work lately with the Steueben mansion. It’s not worth arguing. She knows what she’s doing.

“I’m listening.”

“When you get to Heahea I want to talk to Cuicatl. Alone. Ideally somewhere private. See if you can get her to take a late night walk with her pokémon or something, then tell me where she’ll be and when.”

“What do you want to talk to her about?” She’s psychic, but that doesn’t really matter. Plumeria has a gengar that can probably translate for her if she wants. Something to do with Anahuac? VStar?

“It has to do with her home,” she says. “And I think she could be a useful ally.”

“Alright. I’ll help.”

No real downside. If it helps her then it helps the cause. It’s not like she can actually do anything to Cuicatl if she says no without pissing off Anahuac. Nothing to lose and Plumeria thinks there’s something to gain.

“Great. Call me again when you reach Heahea.”

She hangs up before you can get another word in.
 
Last edited:
Pixie Sixthborn Book 3 Announcement

Persephone

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

As you are undoubtedly aware this fic was abandoned a year ago so I could pursue fame and glory as a middle grade novelist. I had quite the backlog, however, and have steadily been posting it. After the resounding success of the first two Pixie Sixthborn books it was inevitable that there would be a third. There was a tiny flaw in the last few entries, though: not enough power fantasy. I was stunned to hear this as Pixie is already incredibly beautiful and intelligent in the books. Eventually I came to realize one simple truth: she wasn't also an unstoppable violent loner. I have corrected this flaw now. I am pleased to announce the third entry in the series: Pixie Sixthborn and the Moon Eater.

Pixie heroically stands on a cliff and screams at a Dawn Wings Necrozma. Kekoa, Cuicatl, and Genesis can be seen in silhouette on a beach under the cliff.
Art by @Chibi Pika

Synopsis: Final exams are over and summer break rolls around—but there's no summer to be found. Follow Pixie Sixthborn on her journey to single-pawedly take down The Mooneater, a gross ugly alien that stole summer away. Will The Mooneater kill Pixie's unneeded 'friends?' Will *gasp* Pixie have her fur roughed up in the battle? Find out in the next thrilling installment of the Pixie Sixthborn franchise. Releases in book form on June 31st. In theaters everywhere Spring 2023.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom