Electric 2.8: The Lessons Not Learned
Kekoa
[-00:03:21]
You meet up with Cuicatl right as she walks away from the nurse’s counter. She’s facing away from you so you can’t read her expression. Win? Loss? Are ties possible? You tap her shoulder and she jumps a little. Shouldn’t have done it.
At least, you should’ve been standing so that you could see her face when it happened.
“How’d it go?” you ask. She smirks and flips open her crystal case by way of answer. A yellow gem sits next to her white one. Good for her. “Wanna talk about it or…?”
She shrugs. “If you really need my help, I guess I can give it.”
“Like you wouldn’t be begging for info if I went first.”
With a gentle shake of her head Cuicatl pivots away from the counter and slowly begins walking towards the door, cane swishing in front of her. “Talk outside?”
“Sure.”
As soon as you’re both out the door Cuicatl stows her cane and sends out her (apparently unscathed) beldum. You shudder involuntarily. She told you that the difference between tyrantrum and metagross is that the former gives lots of warning before biting back and the latter attacks unprovoked with no warning at all. The difference between driving on a busy freeway and driving into traffic on the same road. You’re still unsure why she uses driving metaphors. You want to trust her not to evolve the damn thing twice, really, but you’ve seen her entirely-too-cheerful smile when talking about tyrantrum and hydreigon and you really aren’t sure if you can trust her.
The monster-in-the-making makes for a surprisingly good guide, though. Cuicatl gently places her hand around the eye-guard spike (or whatever it’s called) and the steel-type floats in the direction she’s supposed to go. Seems more natural than using Pixie. Not that anyone should tell Pixie that.
“You end up using them?” Emphasis on ‘them.’ Still aren’t comfortable with her using ‘she’ for a genderless creature.
“No.” She hesitates as the beldum changes angles as you take a fork in the path. “Sophocles used an older trial. Something involving sounds. Grubbin and charjabug as the warmups. Coco took care of both.” You shudder as you imagine that thing’s fire fang closing in around your grubbin, Makani. “Crabrawler couldn’t take down the totem. Had to have Pixie confuse him, withdraw her, and then finish with Coco.”
Risky, forfeiting a round like that. Not that the vulpix was going to do too much against a steel-type. She already had her chance to take down a beldum and it didn’t go well for her. Steel-type. Huh. “Did Coco break her teeth biting actual needles or?”
“Some of them.” She’s pretty nonchalant about that considering that she lost her fucking shit when you preemptively kicked her. Apparently it’s okay when she orders it, though? “They’ll regrow. Tyrunt are like sharpedo: lose teeth all the time.”
“What set did you face?” Not sure if that information matters. Is the totem more inclined to use a set it just ran? Less? The internet is fiercely divided on the question.
“Defensive. Wish and spiky shield. Had to use confuse ray just to get any damage in at all.”
That’s a nasty combination to make a newbie face. Relative newbie, at least. You could easily see it shutting down your crabrawler, although limited offensive moves might let Hekeli stay in without getting blasted down. Makani definitely couldn’t outpace it. At least it’s only a togedemaru. Easiest totem you’ll fight in the entire challenge and it shouldn’t have backup. Probably why VStar sent you this way so early. Easy trial if the road there doesn’t kill you.
You finally make it to where you wanted to go. Cuicatl slows down and feels for the guardrail. Lanakila looms in the distance. You can just make out the stadium on top. The throne. The place where some haole military brat pretends to be the true queen because some professor said so. A kanaka professor at that. Someone who should’ve known better and still went on TV to say that your culture’s backwards traditions are so much worse than the ‘modern’ way. The American way. Then he built a damn sports stadium on the holiest mountain. You clench your fists and take a moment to bask in the fury. This is why you left home. This is what you’ll be fighting for.
“Lot going through your head,” Cuicatl says. “Want to talk?”
Psychic. Duh. You’ll never quite remember and never quite forget that she’s an actual mind reader. “What all did you pick up?”
“Lot of cursing. Something about a queen and a throne? I don’t try to look but you were thinking pretty loud.”
She says it like it’s your fault that you don’t know how to think quietly.
…
Doesn’t matter.
Don’t need to go down that path right now. Just focus on the fury. “During the kingdom you could go through the trials and beat all four kahunas in a row. Then you could fight the queen for the right to rule. They brought something like it back a few years ago. Beat the kahunas or their stand ins, fight a champion who sits on a throne. ‘cept we’re not independent and the champ didn’t even live here a whole week before she started her challenge. Whole thing’s a joke. One I’m going to end.”
Your friend drums her fingers on the guardrail for a few seconds before answering. “Why end it? You could be king and do what you will.”
“Not king.” You sigh. “Champ doesn’t actually have power. Just a throne.”
“Then why does it matter?”
“You wouldn’t get it.”
She raises her hand and the beldum floats back to her from over the guardrail. “Yeah. Don’t think I do.”
[-00:02:44]
Makani, Hekeli, and the unnamed crabrawler materialize on the court. Hekeli the trumbeak hops up and lifts herself into the air. Makani the grubbin doesn’t do anything at all. Least he didn’t use string shot everywhere. Progress. The crabrawler shuffles uneasily and taps his claws together.
“Our second trial is soon. Time to warm up.”
You let Hekeli fly laps around the court for a bit while you focus on the crabrawler. Getting Makani to do much of anything without Cuicatl around is a lost cause. Even if you had her translations there’s nothing useful a grubbin could do to warm up. You throw some punches into the air and the crabrawler follows. He understands punching. Understood the basics of what trainers were and what he was expected to do even before you caught him. Punching things out is what he’s built to do and this isn’t too far out of the ordinary for him.
Still won’t keep him, of course. You have your final team pretty well mapped out.
By the time Hekeli lands back on your shoulder, you’ve started to break a sweat despite the cool mountaintop air.
[-00:01:51]
There’s a plaque in front of the observatory. The plaque itself isn’t eye-catching: a graph with a jagged upward curve. Carbon Dioxide going up, years going forward. It used to be a warning about what humanity was doing to itself. No. What capitalism was doing to humanity. Doesn’t matter anymore. No one did anything.
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. At the top of the observatory’s steps you glance over your shoulder at the faint outline of Lusamine’s island. People didn’t learn from that lesson either.
You like the plaque. In a hundred years when the world drowns and some assholes try to insist that no one could have done anything about it, well, there will be a little graph in Alola to show that there’s lots of blame to go around.
The cool air of the observatory’s lobby rushes out at you when you open the door. There’s a small museum in the lobby. A few displays on space and telescopes. A few poster boards on the graph outside. You ignore it all and press through to the bored-looking receptionist.
She glances up at you and clicks a key, probably turning the computer back on after however long it had been idling. “Can I help you?”
“Here for the island trial.”
“Name?”
The name of the person who has been scheduled for this time slot for four fucking days. That’s what your name is.
“Kekoa Mahi’ai.” Thanks to Kanoa for getting your name changed before her trial. You owe her a call when this is over.
A few more keystrokes. “Alright. Go through the door behind me and take a seat. Sophocles will be out shortly.”
“Thank you.”
“Good luck,” she half-mutters as you walk away.
Yeah. Fine. She can be a little crabby. You’re making her work the day before the solstice. Sophocles is, anyway. You asked for a time and this is what he gave you.
There’s not really a bench or couch or normal furniture in the waiting room. Just metal fold-up chairs. Cost-saving? Part of the aesthetic? Not what you would’ve gone with for an electric trial. Least they could’ve done was tape some glow sticks on the frame and pretend it’s cyberpunk.
You haven’t even sat down when Sophocles walks in. He’s a little bit taller than you. Fair bit chubbier. Hair’s an absolute mess. Some of the captains like to lean in to celebrity. Kanoa said as much before her trial. Then again, she was the most dramatic person you’d known as a kid. Sophocles is either just a teenager who can’t be bothered to play up the image or someone who wants you to think that of him.
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Still an asshole, whatever the case is. He gets an ancient mantle, one that was never supposed to belong to people like him, and then won’t show it any dignity.
You’re so going to enjoy this victory.
“Hey.” He doesn’t extend his hand or anything. “Wanna come back?”
Of course you do. That’s why you made the damn appointment. You just nod and follow him back to a room that does look properly cyberpunk. Big table contraption in the center with electric-types loafing about at the edges. You spot a couple grubbin and the decoy totem.
“Alright. First order of business is summoning the totem. For that we need to power up,” he motions at a strange laser gun-looking device behind him, “this summoning device. And to do that we’ll need to…”
You tune him out. The next part is easy enough. You move some charjabug around on a table. Summon an electrike. Defeat the electrike. Get lots of string on the ground with Makani. Another puzzle. Summon a dedenne (European togedemaru). Defeat the dedenne, get more string out. Makani is looking far more worn than you’d like so you withdraw him after the dedenne is down. There’s string all over the field; he’s done his job.
There’s a final little play with a ‘misfiring’ ray gun, a normal togedemaru, and, finally, the totem.
The totem’s surprisingly small. Looks like she only comes up to mid-thigh. Shouldn’t be too hard to overpower.
“Crabrawler, leer.”
Your pokémon comes out and starts glaring, bombarding the togedemaru with the energy in the air and making her spines more brittle. The totem… she does nothing. Just stands there for a bit. Afraid to cross the webbing? No—she starts applauding. Trying to applaud. Her tiny little hands don’t quite reach so she ends up beating her chest. You know what this is.
Encore.
It’s not the worst thing that could happen. You don’t think the totem can set up. And wearing down defense is good. Gives you time to think. The totem moves, daintily hopping around the worst of the webbing before gently kissing the tip of crabrawler’s head. Your pokémon doesn’t react at all as sparks fly out and race all over his body. Too busy leering.
Alright, so the togedemaru can navigate string shot—duh, Cuicatl said that her warmups were grubbin and charjabug but you were too stupid to put two and two together—and your pokémon’s paralyzed. Speed advantage decidedly on the totem’s side now.
Only good news is that crabrawler stops glaring and starts looking around the arena in a daze wondering where the time went. You snap your fingers. “Advance and rock smash.” He gets that much and starts slowly marching forward, claws smacking into each other as he prepares for a good punch. The totem… giggles(?) as sparks fly through her fur. Zing zap, probably. It’ll just get her wrapped up in string like the electrike.
Right before crabrawler reaches the edge of the string field, togedemaru jumps to the side, yellow sparks obscuring her form as she hits the table and bounces right into your crabrawler, knocking him off balance and into the string. The totem bounces back, first to the table and then right in front of your downed pokémon.
She sticks her tongue out.
Crabrawler hits her in the face.
The totem leaps up and zing zaps him back to the ground again. Still almost no string on her body.
Come on. Be a trainer. Think. If you can’t get up there’s still one option… bubble. Except having water everywhere hurts you more than the totem. What else is there? Leer, no, that just means taking hits. Rock smash won’t land often enough. Pursuit—shit, maybe?
“Pursuit,” you call out as the totem goes for her third zing zap. Crabrawler takes the hit on the chin again. Then darkness starts spiraling around him and with strength he should not have he rushes forward, string falling off behind him. He lands a solid hit on the totem right as she lands.
Hell yeah. Another point for elemental bullshit.
Needles scatter onto the floor as the togedemaru rolls back before stopping herself. Great. The leer’s working. The totem looks almost nervous, none of her earlier confidence remaining. Could be a bluff. Togedemaru aren’t strong or tough but they’re tricky.
“Advancing rock smash,” before you can finish the order the togedemaru starts clapping again. Why? That’s a bad move to be facing if her only move is zing zap. Unless… nuzzle, zing zap, encore. Totems always use four moves a match. What’s her final attack? Iron head? Maybe. Probably.
After a quick false start where crabrawler trips and sparks fly out around him—earning another razzberry from the totem—he lands another quick, shadowy punch. And another. And another. And another. Why? What’s she planning? Wish? You didn’t see one. Spiky Shield? Would’ve been thrown up already. Besides, there are enough needles littering the floor that it can’t be as effective as it was early on.
The totem glows red just as crawbrawler steps back and stumbles around, dizzy from the encore’s end. Oh no. Oh shit.
The totem lunges forward with more force than you’ve ever seen any pokémon use in person. Crabrawler’s sent flying across the floor, through tons of needles and string, before you can even give a pointless order. Fuck. There’s blue blood everywhere and crabrawler isn’t getting up.
You withdraw him and start tossing your final pokéball into the air as you calm your nerves. Reversal. Fucking reversal. Toss. The totem’s taken a bunch of hits. Catch. Plus rock smash and leer had to have hurt. Toss. But reversal. Catch. Hekeli ain’t taking that shit and getting back up. 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. Damnit. Now your hair’s sticking up and the surprisingly heavy little monster knocked you over. You can’t see the match from the floor but you know what you need to do.
“Rock Smash!” You shout it like the words can add any power to the attack. You can hear Hekeli give her best warcry in response and see her as she zooms down, brown aura trailing from her beak—you hear the hit. See the aftermath. Hekeli rocketing back up towards the ceiling, red scratches all over her chest from the needles and one wing slightly bent in a way it shouldn’t be. She does her best with her remaining wing to control her descent after she cracks against the ceiling and somehow you manage to get up and lunge to catch her before she hits the ground. Is that disqualifying? Screw it, don’t care if that’s how you get disqualified.
You glance over, fully expecting to see the totem sticking her damn tongue out again in a little victory pose only to find her collapsed on the ground, static coursing through her needles and eyes closed.
Is that it? Who won?
The totem disappears in a flash of red light and you remember that, hey dumbass, you still have Makani. You gently set Hekeli down on the table and withdraw her. Two pokémon badly hurt. Victory or not it doesn’t feel much like one.
“Don’t think I should use reversal again in early trials,” Sophocles says. You’d honestly forgotten he was here. And when did he get behind you? He holds out a hand. “I can send over your pokémon if you want. We have an instant transporter to the Center in the room.” You quickly put all three pokéballs onto the table and he picks them up and brings them over to the wall. A quick flash later and they’re probably off being healed. “Don’t think it was too serious by the way. I’ve seen a lot of trumbeak and crabrawler over the years and neither looked hurt beyond repair.”
“I also don’t think you should use reversal,” you say, temporarily too ashamed to be furious. “And I hope you’re right.” For his sake. You got warned about excessive force for just pecking too hard. Then he goes and starts shooting fucking togedemaru-shaped cannonballs at low-level pokémon. Heh. Now you’re angry again. Welcome back, rage, my old friend.
He pulls some stuff out of the wall and walks back before handing over a crystal with one hand. “Here’s your Z-crystal. Congrats.” He doesn’t sound overly enthusiastic. Or ashamed. Bastard.
“Thanks,” you mutter before turning around and walking away.
[-00:00:17]
“Kekoa?” you perk up at the call and start moving towards the counter. The nurse doesn’t look too concerned. News can’t be all bad. She gives you a slight smile once you reach the desk and cross your arms. “Your grubbin’s been restored to full health. We’ll need to watch the other two overnight. Then you’ll have to keep your trumbeak’s wing in a splint for a week.”
Could have been much work. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” Her smile broadens. Was probably worried you’d get angry at her for Sophocles’ mistake. “Any questions?”
You shake your head and take Makani’s pokéball off the table. “No. Thank you again.”
“You’re welcome. Come back tomorrow morning for your other pokémon.”
It reminds you of the old meme of a clearly exhausted nurse saying, “We hope to see you again.” Whatever happened to her? Did she quit? Get fired? Maybe you should look it up later.
You walk back over to The Gage Heiress and Cuicatl. The Gage Heiress is ranting about something or other and Cuicatl’s patiently listening. The former at least shuts up for a second when you approach. “No permanent injuries. Ice cream’s on.”
The Gage Heiress had really wanted ice cream. Bugs you about it in almost every city but now, when all three of you passed your trials in two days, it was particularly insistent. And if the boss herself is telling you to be nice to it, well, this is the least you can do.
Cuicatl smiles and slowly gets to her feet while The Gage Heiress jumps right up. Your friend gently picks up Pix’s leash and follows your footsteps and The Gage Heiress’s voice as you walk out the door. The air’s cool, the sunlight’s faded a bit, and there’s a nice breeze. Almost wish you wore a jacket. Not that the ice cream place is too far. Probably caters to people who had the same idea as the blabbering idiot next to you.
The line and all the seating’s outside. The Heiress goes first. Gets leppa like a weirdo. Pays for itself but won’t cover for its poor ‘friends’ like a normal person would if they had literal swimming pools of cash. Then Cuicatl gets a Castelia Cone (her mom’s Unovan so maybe there’s some nostalgia there) and a small pet cup of vanilla for Pixie. A satisfied blast of cold air hits your legs after that’s ordered and paid for.
Honestly you want to go for Chocolate Caramel Cookie Cake but you know that Cuicatl would never, ever let you hear the end of it. You settle for mint chocolate. There’d been a running joke at The Aether House that mint chocolate was the flavor elementary schools used to convince kids that ice cream wasn’t actually good. Never got the joke yourself. Their loss. More for you.
Your traveling partners are sitting at the edge of the porch, legs dangling over the side. The Heiress is too distracted scarfing its ice cream down (isn’t it at all worried about brain freeze? ‘course not, it doesn’t have a brain) to talk and Cuicatl has been quiet around you since this morning. You didn’t even say anything mean to her. Just got upset about someone else. Pix, of course, stops eating her portion in huge bites and starts daintily licking the edges once you start looking at her. You’ll pretend that you don’t see her little ice cream moustache.
Your phone vibrates. A text from Kanoa.
‘How’d the trial go?’
You put your cup down and
[00:00:00]
pick up your phone.
A distant light starts shining over… Poni? Yeah, Poni. Then it starts moving down. Like a funnel cloud. A tornado of light. Except the patterns are all wrong. Almost like a wormhole. Except a wormhole shouldn’t look so big from this far away.
Bright “cracks” start racing from the hole in all directions like the sky itself is breaking. Before you can say anything an ear-splitting boom rushes past you. The shockwave—shockwave!—stirs up dust and you have to close your eyes and cover your ringing ears until it dies down. When you open your eyes again the cracks are still there, bigger now, with one directly above you. That’s not the worst part. All over the horizon you can see little drops of twisted light dipping down from the cracks.
Then things get darker. Literally. At first you think it’s the dust from the shockwave but it comes way too suddenly. The sunlight goes first. The nighttime lights of the shop come on for a moment before they go off as well. No. Not entirely. You can still make out a faint glow around them, but it’s swallowed up almost immediately. Only the cracks still provide light but it’s strange. You can see them easily but the light doesn’t bleed out to illuminate anything else.
Giant wormhole. Shockwave. Stolen light.
This feels like…
No.
No.
When the sirens come on it seems like an afterthought. How could anyone not know that this was an emergency? That…
No.
No.
No no no no no no no no no no no no, NO.
Someone let out another god.
The small part of your brain that’s still functioning is glad that no one can see you hug yourself and rock gently back and forth. No one can see the tears that make what little light there is even blurrier.
Someone let out another god.
“Nearest shelter location’s the observatory.” Because of course you looked, you always look. You don’t tell them that it’s not rated for shit like this because in the year two thousand and nineteen there are still fucking towns without a god-tier shelter because no one ever learns their damn lesson. They’ll have to evac you to Malie when it’s safe. But with the wormholes—
Fuck.
Fuck.
Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck.
You didn’t survive Kyogre and Groudon and motherfucking Lusamine just to die now.
But…
It’s dark.
Which way is the observatory? What happens to your pokémon in the Center?
From the sounds of panicked screams and people tripping all over themselves it doesn’t seem like anyone else has answers, either.