In the Meadow on Melemele, amidst the freshly bloomed flowers of its verdant fields, the last rays of the setting sun outlined the land in sharp light and deep shadow.
Soft wind blew through the plants like the breathing of a sleeping giant. Newly grown roots spread across the fields in all directions, feeding upon the earth, gaining strength and closing their petals in preparation for the night.
There is a routine to the ritual. The dancers unite when they are called, and they perform for their conductors until life has sprouted once more. Off they go then, to rest, or play, or hunt: until they reconvene again. So the land breathes when they dance, and exhales when they do not.
So, the denizens of the Meadow had finished their dance and had begun to wander off. A scant few remained: guests and visitors of the prairie, young girls from the other side of the island in states of wonder and confusion; partners at their side.
One teenage girl marveled at the sights around her. She has not touched the land in the way her counterpart did, but the dance has left its mark on her heart still; her life is one of helplessness and artistry, and she has just found her canvas.
One teenage girl laid scattered from the throes of the rhythm. She was awake, she had opened her eyes, but she did not see, or rather she couldn’t grasp what she– what I? What I was seeing. The girl– me, me who had fallen forward onto the freshly spawned grass and– no, that wasn’t quite right–
I am this girl on the grass. I am me, I feel the weight of my knees and palms on the wet earth but I am also the blades of grass that I rest my hand on, roots piercing deep into the earth–
I was still hunched over.
My head weighed upon my shoulders like it was about to fall off any moment. My vision was blurry, and I could only see a receding glow between squinting eyelids.
While I couldn’t see just yet, I could feel a strange connection– an awareness of the landscape around me, of the individual lives that composed its massive ecosystem. For a moment there, it had been as though I was looking at myself from an outside perspective, where every form of life is equal and the same, all blips in the tapestry of time and so the teenage girl felt– I, myself, I felt like I was just such a small part of it all–
I stretched my hand onto the grass, leaned onto my arm to bring myself up and– dizziness, exhaustion– I stumbled and felt the soft leaves of my starter catching my fall.
“Oddish..?” rang out in a worried tone.
“Uh,” I felt my tongue wetting my lips and I had to focus for a second to remember it was mine. “I’m not feeling too good, Petal…”
I rubbed the top of their head with my other hand and felt their leaves wrap around my arm tightly.
Four leaves held onto my arm. One rubbed gently my wrist.
My mind still swam under the fading understanding of being so many and also just one all at once. There was a torrent of information still threatening to spill out, and as quickly as my breathing sped up, I felt the kind touch of my starter once more.
I focused on the movement, slow and steady. Up and then down.
Inhale, and exhale.
…
Slowly, surely, I returned to myself.
Soft steps upon the grass crunched a little closer to my side. As the context of my situation returned to the forefront, I remembered that I hadn’t been alone - there had been another girl and her Pokemon here all this time.
A squeaky “Spin?” eeped out close and a warm hand awkwardly nudged my shoulder.
“Shit. You alright, Matsu?” Tuula’s voice was tinged in anxiety and an awkward laugh spilled out of her. I had never heard this tone of voice from her before.
“...Not really,” I practically slurred it out. I felt like I needed to remember how my body worked. “I’m feeling… weird. I think the dance scrambled my head.”
“Okay, whoa. Give me a second.” And at that she knelt, put an arm around my waist and another under my shoulder.
My Oddish objected, Tuula snapped something back and I felt Petal back out. A bottle of something was put into my hands and I greedily took gulps of it - augh, flat soda, gross. “Push on your legs,” she told me then.
I pushed and leaned against her and tentatively got to my feet. My legs trembled, but I could stand, and it felt like the fog clouding my brain was starting to disperse.
“Wh-what happened?” I wiped my brow and my eyes with the back of my sleeve - I was drenched, but my vision could finally focus. I opened my eyes.
The once battle-damaged field had been transformed. Flora and tall grass had now overtaken the area entirely; it covered the land like a blanket, leaving us with no clear path that wouldn’t trample on flowers or avoid wading through waist-high weeds. Only a few dozen Grass-type remained active: they floated above the ground or scampered through the bushes as the rest appeared to nestle themselves in piles around nearby trees.
“Well fuck if I know what happened - I was hoping you could tell me! One minute we were doing a flash mob with a bunch of little dudes and the next minute the ground glowed, you and a bunch of other Pokemon floated off the ground like a bunch-a Ribombee,” and she gestured at the sheer overflow of flora around; “and all that shit sprouted up!”
She let her arm fall and snapped her fingers. “What’s that thing you told me about before we did all this? Grass ritual? Did you know this would happen?”
“N-no. I had no idea that, uh–” That I would start floating off the ground, see a psychedelic vision of the universe and then vomit all over my shoes? “–No idea at all.”
Tuula helped me limp toward our camp.
Petal fretted over me as we slowly walked, letting out distressed sounds that I couldn’t help but respond with rubs of their leaves whenever they passed by my arm. Tuula’s Spinda, Love Tax, bounced and stumbled around us with their usual vigor– yet they were strangely silent.
My head was still heavy and my legs trembled but I was starting to feel like myself again.
Then the Normal-type stopped, our camp in sight. “Spin-a spida, Spinda!” cried out Love Tax as it pointed at me.
Tuula stopped and stood confused, then grew a grin, like she’d understood some kind of inside joke.
“You know, LT might be right on this.” She lowered her hand and gave a fist bump to the little Spinda - no idea what they’d told her - and she turned to me with a mischievous grin. “You’re a wizard, Selene.”
“Bwuh– No?? I’m really not??”
“Okay, not a wizard. Probably like– a plant esper?”
“Do not call me that.”
“A weedmancer!”
“Please don’t ever say that.”
She poked me on my cheek with a finger and once more insisted. “Like it or not, I saw you rise up like a Magnemite, dude. That was magic psychic tauros-shit, right there.”
The pink-haired girl put a fist on her hips, satisfied in her argument, until something registered suddenly in her mind– “Augh, fuck! I didn’t record it! No one’s gonna believe me now!”
As Tuula covered her face in her hands and loudly groaned, I pushed myself off and got to my feet, legs feeling a tad less wobbly than before. I would need to make some kind of deal with Tuula, and fast, our camp was right there and I could practically see Hau’s silhouette already– what if word of magic psychic stuff got out? I wanted none of it!
Petal made themself known once more with a worried cry. Slowly kneeling down to their level, I patted their head and soothed their fears.
“I think the worst of it has passed, Petal.”
They rubbed their leaves against my palm and with their worry dispelled, they gave me a happy grin and a starry-eyed look.
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Conflicting feelings rose up inside. On one hand, this was the happiest I had seen Petal in such a long time - they weren’t one to show satisfaction often, perfectionist as they were. This had been the culmination of more than a year of training and a chance encounter with this swarm of Grass-types on this particular route.
On the other…
Petting stopped as they moved away and eagerly signed, head bobbing and weaving with the movement of their leaves: [Again When?]
Which must have meant… “When are we doing it again?”
“I don’t know shit about this stuff,” asked Tuula out of nowhere, her arm locking around my shoulders and pressing the side of my body against hers– “You’re the specialist here, Matsu - when are we doing this again?”
“...We?”
“Yeah, we!” She bumped my hip with hers, and her Spinda ran circles around the two of us as she continued. “Don’t count us out! I wanna be here next time before it starts!”
“Uh– I mean, there’s not gonna be a next time–” and I could see sudden confusion in my starter’s eyes, and so I went to rectify myself, “Tuula, I think I had a seizure at the end there, and then I vomited–”
“Yeesh. You did not miss your shoes there, yeah.” She grimaced. “Though come on, Matsu! You wanna miss out on the plant magic?”
“Uh, I mean–”
How do I tell her that it would be bad if I entertained the thought for too long?
Back in Hau’ula, in my home, in the corner of my room; there’s a tall pile of novels as tall as I am today. In one story, an orphan girl finds herself to be the descendant of a powerful psychic; in another, three siblings are chosen by a secret order to become aura guardians; in yet another, a group of friends are transported to an alternate world in which only pokemon exist–
And so I can’t help but look at the tree line and wonder what mysteries await beyond; what strange and wonderful sights lurk beyond the shade, step into the void and be spirited away from it all–
I frantically shook my head to dispel the bad thoughts.
Stay centered, Selene. Deep breaths.
“Um. Listen, I don’t know anything about plant magic, or whatever.” I gestured to the flora around, “The dance, the ritual– as far as I know, it’s just a cultural thing that some grass types in Kanto-Johto do, and I was doing it alongside my Pokemon because it’s important to them. Clearly I missed something and it’s way more than I thought it was. But what happened to me isn’t– normal. I shouldn’t do it anymore.”
I held up a hand to stop her rebuttal and sighed loudly.
“Or rather, we shouldn’t do it at least until we– until I do some research at home and I know more about what happened.” There. This wasn’t a refusal nor a promise.
Clearly I knew only so little about it and got myself in trouble - I wasn’t scared of it or anything.
I knew this wouldn’t be enough to convince her, though, so I stepped toward her and leaned in covertly, quiet as a whisper.
“Okay but– if you keep this a secret from everyone, I can teach you.”
She moved the remaining distance and put her arm around mine once more.
“Deal.” One of her eyebrows rose up as she gave me a look over. “Are you sure you’re not a stack of grass type Pokemon in a human disguise, or–”
“I’m not a grass type Pokemon!” Tuula tilted her head back and cackled like a Mightyena as indignation burned inside me. “I’m a human! I’m a human type! This is normal for grass types, not for human types!”
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Time passed.
We had been traveling on route 3 for a few days now.
The transition from the Meadow to the Route had been gradual but noticeable; gone were the bucolic grass fields, what stood before us was essentially a faint trail going through craggy terrain and the occasional prairie. Travel markers dotted the path every few hundred feet; simple stone structures decorated in painted carved wood and fluttering ornaments.
Our trek was going to be our longest yet. Route 3 was infamously known as the ‘long way back’ going east from the first Trial site location then curving south back towards Iki Village. For the better part of a week we walked east, watching the pastoral prairie gradually lose its abundant vegetation. To our south, the jungle heart of Melemele loomed once more. It had been a constant in our journey so far; an understanding that to walk off the beaten path was to take a step into real danger and closer to the Tapu’s domain.
Six Trial-goers walking together. Hau, Lilliane and I as one group, and Tuula, Rui and Sawney as another, each having one to two Pokemon out at all times. Despite how awkward it should have been, new dynamics were starting to form and we found ourselves traveling in different pairs constantly.
I caught up with Sawney and his Grubbin, exhausted from their stay with the twins and thankful for having someone to hide behind. I’d find myself cowering under the male twin’s intense aggression and hiding behind the female twin in response.
At nights, huddled together in a tent under the faint light of my phone, I’d spend time with Petal, Oran Juice and Tuula looking up what we could on the grass renewal ritual. I still walked on eggshells around her, though - I understand that mocking and teasing is something that a lot of people do, but I don’t understand it, and so I couldn’t help but wonder if she was just pretending to be my friend and making fun of me in a way I didn’t understand–
Love Tax the Spinda, however, was an absolute sweetheart whose eager affection was indisputable.
I would find Lilliane and Hau often side by side. There had been a thrown-in joke from the other group about kissing in secret that had me frown. Nonetheless. Hau had taken to his secret knitting project under Lilliane’s supervision, though I hadn’t seen any bit of it just yet.
Lilliane I often saw alone otherwise. She had returned to her very prim and proper outfit, her Pokemon at her side, however more difficult it made walking these jagged trails.
Loa the Torracat stuck to the shadows.
We barely saw her, now. Hau assured us he was keeping an eye on her.
A benefit to traveling in such a large group; wild Pokemon gave us a wild berth. If one wanted to challenge the locale population, one needed to visibly separate themself from our group for a time. Hau, Lilliane nor I weren’t too interested, but it’s something that the boys of the other group did from time to time in preparation for the Grand Trial; until they themselves grew tired and longed for the sweet comforts of home.
Still, it was simple enough to see a number of different species hiding in the shadows: there were the usual signs of Rattata burrows dotting the hillside, Mankeys resting in the branch of trees, the nests of Rufflet and Vullaby that we would barely see out of view on the tallest points. None of the Pokemon dared to reveal themselves out in the open for too long.
And so we talked.
“Yeah this sucks. I’m already behind on my dailies, I wanna get caught up on new manga updates but comic pages load so slow here. But hey, that’s a part of the Challenge, right? Travel a bunch, fight lots of trainers, get lost in the wilds with no service, ‘fun’–”
Sawney’s knife cut through the charti with just a little too much force, cutting the starchy root clean in half and stopping onto the cutting board with a loud thunk. The teen sobered up from his rant, looking mareepishly at the pile of mangled tubers in front of him. A few feet away, Hau did not notice the narrowly avoided disaster, whistling a catchy tune. He seemed deeply engrossed in the veggie stew that he had been preparing for today’s lunch.
Pausing my peeling work, I wiped a wet hand on my apron and patted the red-haired boy on the back. “There, there. I’ve not held any hope in keeping up with any of my PokeGear games, honestly.”
“I thought– I thought being a trainer didn’t mean having to sacrifice all my pastimes, you know? Even Spark plays games from time to time. You can’t be training all the time.”
“Your Grubbin?”
“Yeah!” On cue, the little bug type looked up from his spot on the low flat rock, a small pile of cut charti at his side. He crawled up to Sawney’s backpack, gently retrieved the teen’s phone within his large mandibles then propped it up on the bag.
Grubbin’s front facing mandibles are not made to handle delicate electronics - but a Grubbin cannot exactly use a phone with them on the way. So I watched in wonder as this little bug type turned on a forty-five degree angle, extended one little nubby limb, unlocked Sawney’s Xtransceiver and opened up Pokemon Masters.
Keeping one focused eye on the screen, his front leg zipped across the touch-pad as he tip-tapped on Champion Stadium mode and set the difficulty to Master.
“He’s basically better at the game than I am. I just do the pulls, now.” I could barely look away. The little bug was really putting his whole body into it. “I really want that 6-stars Champion-rank May, and he wants that 5-stars Escavalier and Accelgor duo unit so that works well with the current banner.”
“...Whoa, yeah, no, he’s really good.” A thought went through my head– Sawney hadn’t caught any other Pokemon yet, and Spark was his starter, so– “Is it gonna be any easier or harder for him when he evolves, you think?”
The Grubbin’s eye flickered to me for a second then returned to the screen. “...We’ve been thinking about it. We’d need to save money for a Rotom phone at this point, but it’s still so damn expensive… Ideally he could just stay a Grubbin if he wanted, but–” He shrugged and laughed out awkwardly. “What about your guys, though? Your Oddish, no problems about evolving?”
“Oh! No problems at all. Petal is looking forward to it.” Just a couple dozen feet from where we were, my Oddish and Tuula’s Spinda chased after one another. “But I’ve been thinking about it still… The Oddish line gradually lose motricity over their head leaves and gain little arms and that’s nice but – it’s not as good as five independent limbs on their head, you know? At least they don’t seem bothered by it, but still. I’d like them to have their own phone or desktop at some point. It would be a bummer if they couldn’t use it!”
“I thought they evolved into a little grass guy with a bunch of bottom leaves.” He put down his kitchen knife and wiggled his fingers below his head. “Like a Tentacool!”
“Oh, no, that’s Bellossom– their third stage is a split evolution, and last I asked they were pretty set on becoming a Vileplume. So they’d mostly be bigger, have arms and big stiff petals on their head.”
“That doesn’t sound too bad! Take it from Spark and me, as long as they don’t have big face tusks in front of their face at all times they shouldn’t have body problem issues. ”
“Um, well, maybe that is a little reductive–”
And here is where Rui chose to join us after his training; the teen boy in electric blue hair rolled in with his bruised and panting Rattata in tow, a towel across his shoulders. He passed by our kitchen setup and nearly shoved his face into Sawney with a cocky grin and went:
“Are you talking about how you’re going to file your pokemon’s mandibles down again? That’s fucked up man. That’s gotta be emasculating.”
The red-head practically burst red in anger, and he shot back at the cackling teen:
“Yeah, well, fuck you man! You try doing most basic tasks with giant horns in front of your face, you asshole!”