Electric 2.4: Spiderwebs and Lost Souls
Kekoa
[-24:08:40]
Before you take out lunch you kick your boots off and stretch. Downhill was supposed to be easy. Instead it was a thousand controlled, halting steps to keep you from tumbling down. Did bring you to a damn nice lake, though. Perfectly clear water with a few wishiwashi darting below the surface. Mountains reflected in the water. The shit they put on postcards. There’s another group sitting down for lunch about a third of the way around the lake but otherwise you’re alone.
Well, alone with Cuicatl, some Pokémon, and a transphobic piece of shit. Pixie and Coco have already curled up on their trainer as she lies down. Count Cloudy the Pretentious is hovering over the pond, the leafeon is curled up in a sunbeam, and Sir Fucking Bubbles is staring into the water and deciding if he’s man enough to swim in it.
You can see Hekeli flit between branches from time to time. Makani, your grubbin, thankfully ignored you when you sent him out and is busy rooting around in the dirt. Cuicatl told you that your ‘mons would need a reason to stay. Thankfully, he found one on his own. Something changed on Blush Mountain. Not evolution. For the best. Don’t want to deal with Makani the vikavolt quite yet. Might think it’s funny to spit ten thousand volts in your face rather than string. But he seems to get why he should stay. The bug grew up on Akala. Never had a chance of evolving on his own. With you? He can become a terrifying murder bug. Will become a terrifying murder bug.
And the people (and colonizer) are sprawled out in the shade, ignoring the hike the afternoon will bring. Food. You were supposed to pull out food. Canned meat and hummus, raisins that are somehow more dehydrated than usual, and crackers. Bland but cheap and nutritious. Maybe Cuicatl’s thought of something better but she’s never complained. You toss some at the haole thing and gently hand your friend her portion. Then silence. Near-silence. Eating sounds and spitting followed by happy dinosaur noises. Not quite as close to pikipek noises as you’d expect from her feathers and build. Speaking of! You can hear Hekeli’s songs and they’re getting really complex. Plus, her beak is growing out. If she’s not a trumbeak yet she will be soon. Damn shame she won’t be useful in the next trial. Maybe she can come in with a rock smash if the crabrawler you’ll catch later can’t do the job.
You hear barking noises and the sound of snapping twigs behind you. You glance back and—pancham. Two of them bumbling towards you, tripping over tree roots and each other. That means there’s a momma pangora nearby. “Cuicatl,” you say as neutrally as possible, “there are pancham here. Bears. Fighting-types. Momma’s a dark-type.”
The thing beside you makes a dumb “aww” sound and, after a pause, “We aren’t allowed to feed them, right?”
What? No. Gods, no. That’s how you get killed. But if a pangoro’s staring you down you’ll gladly bribe her. Unless she decides she likes your food and wants to take the rest, plus three weak animals and some pokémon. Throw pokéballs, run, and pray? Always an option. Maybe you could trip the asshole and make a break while the pangoro’s eating. No. A bit too harsh. Just a little bit, though.
Cuicatl sits up and gently smiles without showing any teeth. “Hello. Can I help you with anything?”
The pancham stand up on their hind legs and start adorably growling something out. Cuicatl’s just nods and strokes Pixie’s tails with one hand while physically restraining her tyrunt with the other. Girl’s smart enough to know she doesn’t want a fight. At best she loses and her pokémon get hurt. At worst she wins and gets killed by a confused pangoro.
“We’re just passing through on our way north.”
It turns out pancham can make a sound best described as an excited squeak.
“I’m sorry, but you can’t have any. It would make you sick.”
That earns a tiny roar. In the forest something a lot bigger than a twig snaps. For a second Cuicatl’s composure breaks. Then she starts to open her eyes wide and slowly shake her head. “Oh, no. We’re very scared. Terrified. But we’re—poison-types. We eat bad things. Bird shit. It would make you sick.” The sound of snapping branches keeps coming closer. “Promise.”
More squeaks and growls while Cuicatl slowly nods her head. “Not all humans can. Just me. Can’t talk to your—” Heavy breathing at the forest’s edge. A giant bear with a cape of black fur stares down at you. Fuck. Cuicatl recovers much faster than you do. Thank the gods. Her gods. Whichever get you through this. “Well, that’s rude of her. You scared me plenty on your own.” To your friend’s immense credit, it turns out pancham can feel embarrassed by their parents. One of the cubs turns around with a pout and start garbling out something to her mom. The pangoro’s stem twitches in her mouth for a second before her face settles into a smile.
The mother barks at her children, shoots a half-hearted glare at Cuicatl, and heads back the way she came. The pancham clumsily run after her.
No one, pokémon or human, dares to move for several long minutes. In the end Hekeli moves first by dropping down to a nearby branch and making a nervous trill. Cuicatl collapses back down, head hitting her pack, and mumbles some (untranslated) words in Nahuatl that are obviously swears.
“First time meeting a bear without a hydreigon at my back.”
Wait.
What?
“You had a hydreigon?”
She awkwardly shrugs as best she can while lying down with her vulpix on top of her. The tyrunt is still standing where she was, glaring at the forest’s edge. “Mom did. Did I not tell…” She snaps. “That’s right. I was going to threaten to sic her on you in Paniola. You cut me off.” You can feel a little blood come back into your cheeks for the first time since the pangoro drained it out. Just how far did you press her back then? The whole conversation’s a blur. Honestly you only remember her outing you. Sure, you knew that she was mad at you but you’d figured it was just the name thing. Maybe you should apologize. But its damn hard to apologize if you don’t even know what you did wrong. And she wasn’t exactly blameless in that whole fuckup.
Stop. You’re going to say something you’ll regret. Regret after forgetting what you said, anyway. Also, what kind of person just threatens to have their pet dragon eat someone? Cuicatl Ichtaca. Yeah. That’s who. At least her new dragon thinks you’re her father. Probably won’t eat you.
Probably.
“Were you, um, talking to the bears?”
Right. It’s here. And hasn’t been told, apparently. Good call on Cuicatl’s part.
“Yes, I was.”
It awkwardly shifts as its castform drifts closer. “How?”
“I can talk to pokémon,” Cuicatl says like that’s just a perfectly normal thing. Is she going to do the accent trick? Still haven’t quite moved past that. After that you’ve been able to hear a slight accent in your voice but that might just be because that’s how you think she should sound.
“How long?”
“Hmm?”
“How long have you been able to do that?” There’s a hint of betrayal in its voice. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer person.
“Since I was seven. At least. Maybe earlier.”
Coco shakes herself off and plods over to you. How much of this is she following? If it’s just her trainer’s part then does she even understand what the humans are talking about? “Why didn’t you tell us?” the thing asks.
“She told me weeks ago.” It’s rude to Cuicatl. You’ll apologize later. But the look on Jenny’s face makes it absolutely worth it. Even if your friend’s half-snarl ruins the view.
“I don’t tell people if I can help it. Had to tell him to end a dumb fight.”
It wasn’t a dumb fight. She outed you in front of a colossal jackass and you said something that made her think about murder. And if she really wanted to make peace she probably could’ve found another way. Girl’s smart, sometimes.
“Why not tell people?” Its mouth hangs open as she struggles to find words that aren’t its usual level of stupid. “I think it’s cool. And it would help you make friends.”
“N,” you answer for her. “That’s why.”
It’s something you’ve thought about in the last few weeks. Maybe Uffe was right and she’s just another refugee from a collapsing fascist shithole. But she said her mom was from Unova. Someone important from Unova. And her hair has to be natural green. You would’ve noticed her roots by now. Of course, N was Asian. Cuicatl isn’t. Right? How do you do the loud thought thing?
Hey, Cuicatl, was your mom Asian?
{Second person to ask me that in a month.} You flinch more than you’d like to admit. {Can this wait?}
Yeah. It can.
{Cool.}
“The terrorist?” Cuicatl asks, aloud. “Sorry, that was a long time ago. Didn’t follow it.”
“Yeah, the terrorist.” Or freedom fighter. Same difference. ‘course, he went at it wrong. Tried to free the pokémon. Didn’t realize that shitty humans would immediately take them back. You have to take care of the shitty humans first. “They say he could talk to pokémon. Told him that fighting was hell, training is slavery, all that. So he tried to take over Unova.”
“As one does,” Cuicatl says. Her voice is flat but it sounds like a joke. You snort as a sign of support.
“As one does. He failed. Flew away on a fuckoff thunder dragon. Sometimes people spot him but he hasn’t done anything big in years.”
The thing slowly gets to its feet and starts pacing. “But he was wrong. Pokémon benefit from the system. Hilda used her team’s bonds of friendship to defeat him.”
“Hmm.” You turn to Cuicatl and do your best to project your voice in her direction. “Is that right?”
She shrugs. “Sometimes. Coco’s staying close to her parents. Ce wanted food and shelter.” A grimace. Her pace picks up. “Pix likes being appreciated. Pokémon don’t always like it. The social ones like home. Some ‘mons just don’t want to get hurt. Guess neither were right. Not all the way.”
Well, that’s some centrist bullshit. You were expecting better from her. Wait. “If you weren’t staying mum over N, why don’t you tell people?”
Cuicatl pulls her pack to her and puts her arms through the straps. She’s clearly trying to end the conversation by just getting on the trail. For its part the thing has stopped pacing and is just staring at your friend. “Governments. Anahuac would’ve made me a spy, U.S. might deport me and tell Anahuac why.”
“I’m not going to tell anyone,” the transphobe lies.
“Even if you had a filter between your mouth and the place your brain should be, she wouldn’t owe you shit.”
It looks like you punched it again. Or killed a puppy in front of it. Good. You pull on your own pack and get up before withdrawing Makani.
Cuicatl sighs rather loudly. “Can we please be civil? Just for a little bit?”
You snort. For real this time. “Oh, please. Jenny won’t even say my name and you want me to be civil?”
Another sigh as Cuicatl slowly gets to her feet and flicks her cane out. “He has a point, Genesis. If you want to bring him around and save his soul,” you can’t tell if you’re imagining Cuicatl’s cringe or not, “then he has to be willing to talk to you. If you insist on being rude then he’ll never listen and never convert.” {Not that I care about that,} she adds to you alone.
The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.
Hey, missionaries fucked over Anahuac, right?
{They tried. We kicked them out centuries ago.}
Good call.
{Thanks.} “Let’s just head out,” she mutters, aloud.
[-24:01:12]
Cuicatl slowly pivots to ‘look’ around the campsite. “Smells like eucalyptus,” she says. And it does. Pretty strongly, in fact. There’s a big clump of the trees at the edge the clearing. “We could make bug repellant from that and water. Cheap.”
“I’m not lugging more water around than I have to.”
“No,” she looks at you with… disappointment? “We just get the leaves now. Grind out the oil and put that in a bag. Mix with water when you need it.”
That does make sense. Mostly. But. “You know we’re up $600, right? We can buy real bug spray. Even with Alola prices.”
Cuicatl drops her pack and sits down. Her usual routine after arriving at campsites since she can’t set up the tent or hang bags or anything so she’s kind of useless until it’s time to do a few minutes of cooking. “Yes. But. We should also buy another pack or two. More balls and potions. Another tent. Human and pokémon food. Maybe a real pokédex. And I want to make money eventually.”
You turn back to the tent. The poles and fabric that will soon be a tent. Your ugly assistant awkwardly hovers nearby but does move in once you start setting it up. At least its intelligent enough to do some menial labor. “How much money do you really need? Payouts are supposed to increase later on.” Supposed to. Not that you trust VStar one bit. Yours is a marriage of convenience. You need power to save Alola from its false queen, they want you to help them plunder Alola for profit. But nature rebuilds.
All will be well when the kingdom is free.
“Seven hundred and eighty-one thousand dollars.”
The pole you were holding clatters to the ground and you stare at her dumbfounded. You can sort of see the other one doing the same. “Holy shit.” Cuicatl’s looking down at the ground, absently stroking Pixie’s back. “You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
“In deep with the cartels?” Has to be it. You’re pretty sure Anahuac has free healthcare so it can’t be a ‘my brother is dying of cancer’ thing.
That earns a lazy headshake in response. “Nah. They’re more to the north and east.”
“Then what the hell do you need it for?”
“I… I’d r-rather not say.” Is the stutter real? Just something she wanted to communicate? Intentionally or not? Everything she says about her power raises more questions than answers and she rarely gives answers when you ask. Her face tells you what you want to know. Push now and she’ll burst into tears, threaten to murder you, or both. You reach down and pick the pole up. The thing does likewise and you set up camp in silence.
*
“Can you help me gather the leaves?” Cuicatl finally asks, composed, after the food bag is hung up.
“Look…” A few dollars won’t make a dent in the debt. She can’t even make the money here anyway. At best she walks away with maybe a tenth of it. How do you phrase that without being an asshole here? And since when did you start asking yourself that question? Baby doll eyes. The trick Pixie pulled on you in your first battle with her. She made herself small, vulnerable. Stirred up every damn bit of estrogen in your system. Her trainer’s doing that now. Ugh. Fuck her.
“I know.” She sounds tired. Defeated. Manipulative. “I know. But I’m bored and I want something to do. Can I at least have the leaves?”
*
She’s still harvesting eucalyptus. It’s a slow process filled with trial, error, and lots of awkwardly moving her hands around in the general direction of the tree. Her pokémon are ignoring the tree she’s groping and staring up another one. There’s a komala sleeping probably ten feet up. The thing hasn’t noticed it yet. Probably. It is being perfectly quiet, just staring down at the grass between its crossed legs.
You’re bored. You could have hekeli fight the komala. Seems cruel, though. Beating up something for just sleeping nearby. Nah. You’ll save her energy for dumbass haole kids in Malie. Still bored. You could cook but that’s literally the only thing Cuicatl does for anyone. And some translations. Maybe more of those now that the thing in on the secret. Eh. Fuck it. You’ll help her. She turns her head a little bit when you approach. “Kekoa, right?”
“Yeah.” You start picking leaves. She has a quart bag in one hand that she’s putting them in. Once you’ve got your first fistful you stick those in with hers.
“Thank you.”
You grunt out something that was maybe supposed to be “no problem” in your head. Wait. Can she understand that? …
Cuicatl, can you understand that?
“Understand what,” she mutters.
“That grunt?”
She rolls her eyes. “You have to at least try, Kekoa.” The bag is gently pressed into your hands and she starts walking back to the campsite. “Going to make dinner now.”
Did you say something wrong? Not say something you should have? Maybe she was just hungry. You turn back to the tree. You can hear footsteps behind you as Cuicatl’s pokémon go to beg for food, the komala forgotten. Should you have told her about it? She does like cuddling her pokémon and komala would be into that. Then again, komala isn’t exactly a killing machine. Might undercut her rep. Her pokémon would have told her about it, right? Seemed to be important to them. More as prey than a potential snuggle buddy. What will happen if or when she catches a prey pokémon? Or when Coco gets big enough to just snap up Pixie in a single gulp? Eh. You can trust her. She’s probably already drilled into the little dino’s heads that foxes are friends, not food.
Komala, on the other hand… definitely food.
Your phone vibrates with a text. You glance at it.
Kanoa.
Your childhood friend. Current trial captain. She has more important things to be doing now. Yeah, you were really, really close years ago, but you’re so different and. When you met back up outside Lush Jungle, she demanded to know where her brother had been. That. You’re better than that. You were supposed to be better than that. Unlike Jabari, you don’t just abandon family for years, whether or not you’re related by blood. And yet.
She should hate you. But she bought you lunch, gave you her number, even apologized to you when you gave her a brief version of where you’d been. And it hurts, watching her repeatedly run back to someone she should hate. Like she just doesn’t get it.
“How is Route 22 goin?”
“*Route 11”
“Finger slipped”
How do you talk to someone you’ve hurt if they don’t want to acknowledge it? She would be better off without you. Right?
“good. signal / battery low. talk later.”
She replies shortly after.
‘kk 😊”
Before your stomach stops turning there are human footsteps behind you. Definitely the thing. Cuicatl would either have the swish of her cane or the patter of pokémon footsteps or both with her. You stand still and stare straight ahead. Maybe it can take a hint. Or at least not see motion. Wait can Coco actually see non-moving stuff? She has to, right? Something to pay more attention to in the future.
“I, um… I wanted…” A deep sigh. You give it a glance over your shoulder. It’s hunched over, staring at its shoes with its hands awkwardly fidgeting against each other at its waist. Like it’s going to confess a middle school crush or some shit. “I wanted to ask if we could meet halfway. Like, you don’t call me by my name so, I dunno, maybe you could make up a nickname or something that isn’t All— that isn’t your old name.”
“No.” You very deliberately go back to picking the leaves. It steps into your peripheral vision but you ignore it.
“I’m just asking to be able to do what you’ve been doing to me for months!” Gods, it’s pouting. Like it’s the victim here. “Just, please…” What a great argument.
Ugh. It won’t go away if you don’t give it anything. And right now you’d rather have her go away than stay 1000% true to your principles. Fine, here goes. “You’ve got your name in Galar. Here? My kingdom. I call you what I want.”
“Your kingdom? Since when are you royalty?” You see her hesitate. “Unless, um, you are…”
You’re not but you’ve met the princess. Dresses in rags. Lives in the same orphanage you wound up in. Sure, she could probably afford better clothes but it’s all the principle of it. Tattered robes on the princess of a tattered kingdom. The girl who spends more time with the dead than the living. Ghosts. The mournful and angry souls of an occupied nation. What was. What lingers. What stands ready for revenge.
You opt to let the leaf bag fall from your hands and give her a real glare. You flick a hand back over your shoulder. “See that? The mountain in the distance? I’m gonna kick out that haole bitch you put on a throne on Mauna Fucking Lanakila. Then I’m tearing the whole place down. Give the palace in Hau’oli to the real queen. Take back my home from assholes like you.”
That just earns a few slow blinks before it brushes a stray blonde hair off its face. “No, you can’t. That would take a vote or something. Not just a battle with an athlete.”
“Hmph. We can’t take back the kingdom with a battle but we could lose it with one? That right?”
It pointedly looks away from you. “It wasn’t a democracy. That was how things worked then.”
You know that well.
*
In 1888 Elisha Gage strolled into the Palace and challenged the Queen for her throne. He didn’t do it right. He was supposed to first be accepted into the island challenge and then complete it. That would’ve required him being an actual citizen of the kingdom and not some haole leech. The Queen accepted. You don’t know why. He faced the four kahunas and the Queen all in a row to take the throne.
He did that all wrong, too. Bought himself five teams. Brought a different one in to each match, all tailor-made for the win. That wasn’t supposed to happen. No one had ever used more than six pokémon for the royal challenge before. But the rulebook doesn’t say anything about using thirty pokémon! You can imagine his smug face. Like he’s a ref allowing a growlithe to play basketball with an entire country on the line. It also ignored the point. There were no rules in the first place. Just traditions. The people knew what they were supposed to do and they did it. You had a shred of decency.
He won. Barely. Later came out that he’d paid three-point-eight mil in that days’ dollars for his final team. The Queen could’ve told him to go to hell. She didn’t. You don’t know why. He sat on the throne and called in the marines and told them that Alola was part of the U.S. now. All so that some spiderweb dealer could pay less taxes.
Hope he’s happy in hell.
*
You don’t say any of that. You just stare right into its icy eyes and cross your arms. Hope she’ll be happy in hell with Old Man Gage.
It rolls its shoulders and tries to almost look you in the eyes again. “I… fine. Sure. Not what I wanted to talk about.” You snort. Of course. It thinks its entitled to pick everything it talks about. “I just wanted to say that I was mean to you and I’m sorry… Kekoa.”
“Dinner’s ready!” You blink and turn towards Cuicatl. There’s a half-empty bowl in her lap and she raises another spoonful of food to her lips as you watch. Dinner has clearly been ready for a while. She just wanted to sit back and watch the show. Listen to the show. Did she tell it to do that? Doesn’t really matter. The thing has turned around and is walking over to the food with far too little weight on its shoulders.
Her shoulders. Maybe. Ugh, fine. You’ll at least need to pick another name for her. Jennifer is too close to her real one. Janette? Sounds good.
[-23:16:49]
It isn’t raining when you step outside. In fact the sky is almost suspiciously clear for this time of the year. Full moon overhead and the clearing is remarkably bright for the middle of the night. Wings stir at the forest’s edge and Hekeli glides over to perch on your shoulder. She’d hear a pangoro coming and a rattata isn’t enough to take her out anymore. It’s safe to leave her out at night.
As you walk away from the tent to pee movement catches your eye. A dark, slender shape rises up near the treeline. It’s almost as tall as you. No, taller. You finally catch the shape of its—her head and the red markings on her chest. Salazzle. You’re being summoned. The salamander drops down on all fours and raises her tail into the air as a signal before slipping into the forest.
It’s hard to follow the fire-type. The trees block out much of the moonlight and there are way more shrubs in your way than there were on Route 12. If Cuicatl hasn’t heard the noise herself her pokémon definitely have. You really hope she doesn’t follow. She’d understand, of course, but she might get sucked in deeper than you’d like right now.
The forest abruptly breaks into a clearing, another campsite from the looks of it, and you see the woman sitting on a log in the middle. Her hair’s shorter and died black but the tank top, tattoos, and baggy pants let you know that you’re dealing with Big Sis. As if the salazzle wasn’t enough of a giveaway. She flicks her hand towards the ground and you sit. Probably too far away. Might have to raise your voice a little bit. Not that you were sounding stealthy before.
“I got your message a few weeks back,” she says. Like it’s just a normal thing that Big Sis reads reports from someone who isn’t even a grunt. Should you respond? She’s supposed to be pretty casual. She’s also the only one doing anything about the False Queen. A hero here in the flesh. One on one. What would you even say? “The Nahua girl’s interesting.” You know that you needed to tell her about Cuicatl. For a moment you still regret bringing Big Sis’s attention to her. “But not what I want to talk about.”
That’s… not what you were expecting. What else did you even say? Damnit you were tired and a little angry when you emailed Manollo. You’ve forgotten half of it. Running problem today. “I almost have two Z-Crystals.” That can’t be what she wanted to hear, it sounds almost pathetic when you say it aloud.
She blinks twice and slouches a bit. “You really don’t know…?” Don’t. Know. What? Plumeria shakes her head and smiles. “Dummy. Genesis is a Gage.”
Genesis is. Gage. Elisha. The Old Man. The Spiderweb Prince. The Kingdom Thief. She’s his spawn.
Holy. Fucking. Shit.
You knew she had money before but billionaire heiress? To a family that’s somehow worse than most billionaires? Fuck. Honestly, her being a transphobic piece of shit is now waaaaaay down on the list of things to hate about her. It. Hate about it. Definitely not ‘her’ anymore.
Plumeria dismissively waves her hand through the air and brings you a little bit closer to reality. “You aren’t actually in Skull so I won’t give you orders, but. A suggestion: do whatever you can to keep her on the trail and away from her family.”
“Why?” Everything still feels unreal. The words slip from your mouth before you realize how stupid they are. Big Sis has a reason. She always does.
Her expression doesn’t waver. If she thinks you’re a dummy—she did call you a dummy didn’t she—then she’s not pressing it now. “I don’t need her now. There’s some shit that’s about to go down and we’re laying low. Later?” The smile returns. Less friendly this time. “Yeah, I can find a use for her. Much easier to get her if she isn’t being guarded by daddy.”
A kidnapping. You’d have to gain its trust. Regain its trust. Pretend to be nice. Call it Genesis. Act like its human. A friend, even. It’ll all suck so much. But in the end everything will have been worth it when you see the look on her face.
You nod slowly. “I can do that.”
The Skull Boss slowly gets to her feet and looks—up—to meet you in the eye. Shorter than you’d thought. Never been this close to her before. At the Mauna she always sat above everyone else. Her height’s probably why. The shadows around her shoes move and a gengar rises up behind her. Hekeli cries out in shock and flutters into place in front of you. You call her back and she glides to a branch behind you.
“You’re using one of VStar’s phones, right?”
“Yes.”
She slips her hand into her pocket and holds a flip phone out to you. Should you? Yes. You step closer to Plumeria, defender of Alola, and take it. Your hand almost touches hers. Stupid.
The boss turns around and starts walking towards the edge of the clearing. It’s almost. Heh. You’ve gotten used to Cuicatl’s dumb military-types pivots in place. Kind of weird seeing normal humans turn around. “My number’s saved in there. Tell me if things go to hell.”
“Wait, I.” She turns around and glances at you. Shit. What were you saying? “Does this mean I’m in Skull? For real?”
Plumeria turns back around as her gengar’s shadows rise up to engulf her. “Whatever you want, kid.” When the unnatural blackness fades to normal night Big Sis is gone.
You’re left alone with a pikipek—no, trumbeak, a phone, and a mission.