Fighting 3.7: The Real Monsters
Lyra
[12:04:39]
Gela’s leaving.
You can’t blame her. Not really. She likes pokémon well enough, but camping? Not a fan. Even before The Blackout you were getting worried that she’d quit early, go home, and start applying for college. Being trapped in a hotel room for a week and a half certainly hasn’t improved her view of the island challenge.
You’ve pleaded with her. Reminded her that she loathes her mom. Hell, she only hit the trail to get away from the woman. You couldn’t see Gela roll her eyes, of course, but you know she was doing it.
“I survived sixteen years there, I can live a few months more. Especially if I don’t have to see her face.”
And that was that. Nothing else you could do that would get her to stay.
Well, you could’ve kissed her.
That would’ve gone real fucking well.
The waves crash against the beach and the cool water goes all the way up to where you’re sitting. Shit. Didn’t realize you were that close to the surf. At least you have extra underwear at home. And if it’s already wet, might as well stay here longer, lost in your thoughts.
Nisshoko lands on your shoulder. A moment later the noibat gives a reassuring squeal into your ear.
“Hey, buddy. It’s fine. I really don’t need that.”
He squeals again out of either victory or defiance. Then he flies off.
Your starter, Mirai the absol, is huddled down at your feet, occasionally moaning softly. Poor girl. She started going nuts right before Necrozma arrived and has had a headache ever since. Too many disasters going on. Jishin the mudbray digs down into the dryer sands. None of them seem to mind the temperature too much. Noibat live in caves, mudbray have thick skin, and absol live on Lanakila.
Unfortunately, the cold does bother you. Your wardrobe was meant for cool nights at the coldest. Mirai at least has warm fur and a willingness to cuddle. And Nisshoko can help with the darkness. You’d caught her for help navigating caves, but totally dark apocalyptic hellscapes are also right up her alley. You have nothing to provide light. The internet says the best options in the unnatural darkness are staryu and inkay.
Both are undesirable for the same reason.
Even if you did have light, you’d still have another problem: you’d be traveling alone. No one to talk to on lonely nights, no one watching your back, no one for moral support when you need it. And if the worst were to happen, there’d be no one to report your injury. Solo hiking is a terrible idea. But Gela had to up and leave because of a teensy tiny endless night.
You’d contact Genesis. Ask if you were maybe forgiven and if she’d travel together. 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.
You’ve tried to get in touch with her, but… the league doesn’t publish the names of trial winners to make it harder for stalkers and abusive relatives to find them. She has no social media presence. (“Too many temptations.”) You even tried to hire a PI but he wouldn’t take money from a kid. Father refuses to involve himself in what he sees as an internal affair of the Gage family.
So you’re stuck here. Alone. In frigid, dark air.
You dig your feet into the sand for warmth, only to realize that the sand is even colder than the air above it.
[12:12:59]
You’re woken up by nightmares. That’s not unusual. The first has been normal as of late: Genesis kicks you over a railing and you 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
You’re tied up on a couch. A man with cruel eyes stares into your brain while an alakazam meditates in midair beside him. You can feel the man’s crawling into memories and he doesn’t care that you know he’s doing it. You try to avert your eyes, but the feeling doesn’t stop. He doesn’t need eye contact, so you meet his gaze again out of defiance. He smirks. “Your daughter is brave, Mondo.”
Your father doesn’t respond.
“Real shame you couldn’t keep your mouth shut around her.”
Cold panic runs up your spine and you start testing the limits of the ropes around you. You try to be subtle enough that the man doesn’t notice, but he does. And he laughs. He laughs long and hard and you have time to plea to Ho-oh for a fast voyage to… whatever comes next.
“Relax, child. I’m already finished.” What? How— “Try to remember what he told you.”
The man is here because father… you were walking through the forest or—no, it was in this room and—
“Exactly.” The psychic turns to his alakazam and places a hand on the pokémon. “Do be more careful in the future, Mondo. I might not be able to make so clean a cut next time.”
Both pokémon and master disappear in a spiral of twisted space. Your father rushes over with a kitchen knife and starts cutting your bonds, profusely apologizing for doing something you can’t even remember.
*
His cruel eyes bore into yours even once you wake from the dream. It’s almost worse when your waking mind can think it over. At first you thought that he just took a memory. But how can you be sure? He could have given you new ones, made you forget people, even changed your entire personality. And you wouldn’t know. You don’t know. You’ll probably never know.
Usually, you chase that nightmare away by turning all the lights in your room on and staring at the ceiling for hours until you fall asleep again. You can still try it (and you do), but it isn’t quite as comforting when the light barely expands to cover the lampshade.
Screw this. You’re better off just starting your day. You take a very long shower, hoping it washes your worries away.
It doesn’t.
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.
For good measure you update the “Who I Am” document to make sure that nothing critical gets changed. That also gets forwarded onto all your accounts. It’s unnecessary – you haven’t really changed that much as a person in the last month – but it’s reassuring.
You exhale. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Deep breaths. Not working. You fumble for your phone in the dark and turn it on. 6:51 A.M. The Pokémon Center will open up soon. You need to pick up Rigan-ryū, your pyukumuku. She got attacked by something on the way to Hau’oli and you couldn’t really treat the injury in the dark. Nurse said she’d be fine, though. She’d just need a few days. That was acceptable. Not like you’d be doing much of anything.
Might as well get ready to pick up your pokémon.
Appearance can be a shield. When you have to deal with dad’s business contacts, you put on your nicest dress and a half-hour’s worth of makeup and wear them like armor. If you look and act like you’re in control, then the people around you can start to believe it. Now it’s too dark to properly apply your makeup and it wouldn’t be appreciated anyway. You’re left with just your clothes between you and the world.
You pull up the Pokémon Center’s address and begin the walk, Mirai keeping pace beside you. She can’t actually see in the dark, but her disaster sense means that she tenses up right before you’d trip or run into something. Really, anyone who spent any time at all around an absol would learn that they stop disasters, not cause them. But the old superstitions are hard to break. You'd probably still get weird looks from the elderly if anyone could even see anyone. Cold air gets into your slacks as you walk through the eerily quiet city streets. Your jacket fares a little better against the cold, but only just. By the time you reach your destination you’re trying to remember the highest temperature at which you can get hypothermia.
Ho-oh above and Lugia below, how cold is it?
Forty-five, your phone says. It’ll be below freezing in a few days if it keeps dropping like this.
Maybe Gela was right.
You finally reach the Pokémon Center. Only the doors are illuminated by a faint glow from the inside. Inkay light. Great. Just… great. At least they’re government owned. And you’ve just updated your diaries. You swallow and step inside.
The receptionist looks up at you when you enter. “Can I help you?”
“Yes, I’m here to pick up a pokémon.” You flash her your best smile once you’re fully in the light. She glances at, no, beside you. Then promptly looks back to you with a smile of her own. Not too opposed to absol, then. Good. She looked too young to believe the old superstitions, but sometimes you’re surprised by just who pulls you aside and gives you a warning in hushed tones.
You get your pokéball after a few minutes of waiting.
“Since you cleared a trial within thirty days of the blackout, you’re welcome to get breakfast here,” the receptionist says. It’s probably not good breakfast. Pokémon Centers vary in quality, but they’re rarely more than tolerable. Booking a hotel room was an easy choice. Once you managed to find one, of course. It was a very stressful afternoon when you first got back to Hau’oli.
Breakfast is breakfast, though, and right now you’re steadily depleting your rations with every meal. Might as well deplete someone else’s.
There aren’t many people eating breakfast at this hour, even though the Centers are supposedly super crowded. A pair of older teenagers huddled together in a table as far away from the inkay as they can get. And then one girl your age with a vulpix sitting beside her and a beldum floating over her shoulder. You flinch at the beldum, but it’s probably fine. The Pokémon Center’s inkay wouldn’t let someone else’s pokémon assault you, right? Unless the psychic-types are working together…
You recognize the trainer, though. Green hair, dark skin, clouded eyes, and bird-like limbs. Very different from Genesis, but not unattractive. When you fought a long time ago she’d only had a vulpix against your pyukumuku.
You grab your food. The only option for lactose-intolerant vegetarians is a box of dry cereal. Lovely.
From what you remember of the girl she’d been quite clever, even if her vulpix was weak. Figured out how to bait your pyukumuku into extending her innards without being able to see the pattern. Might be worth getting reacquainted. You’ll need new traveling partners, after all, and even if she isn’t thinking about continuing on when this all blows over, she might know someone who is.
She looks up when you pull out a chair.
“This seat taken?”
The girl shakes her head and you sit down.
“I’m Lyra, by the way. We fought way back when in Hau’oli. Your vulpix against my pyukumuku.” Said vulpix starts growling softly before a nudge from her trainer quiets her down.
“I remember you, yes.” Her face is mostly neutral, but she seems a lot more interested in swirling around her spoon in what little is left of her breakfast. Right. Probably doesn’t have fond memories of that loss. “I’m Cuicatl.”
“Anyway, just wanted to check in and see how you’re doing.”
“Fine, I guess.”
Cuicatl goes back to picking at her breakfast. You consider leaving it there, but you have nothing else to do and to be honest you’re a little starved for human contact after however long in your hotel room. Not like there’s anyone more interesting around. Besides, there’s always one thing that trainers love to talk about.
“Nice team you have there. Any others?”
A ghost of a smile appears on her face. Nailed it. “A tyrunt.”
You blink. “A what?”
Her smile grows. It takes her a moment to respond as she chews her food. “A tyrunt.”
“Shit. Between metagross and tyrantrum—”
“And ninetales.” The fox yips in approval.
“—and ninetales…”
She shrugs. “I like predators.”
“Why?”
Her spoon halts right below her mouth. “…why?”
“I, uh.” You might have gotten a little ahead of yourself. 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. “Like, why do you want that much power? Be the very best? Like in the cartoons?”
She scoffs. “Different cartoons in Anahuac.”
Oh. Yeah, maybe a military brat trying to prove she has what it takes, even if she’s blind.
“And…” The smile vanishes and her spoon clatters back to the bowl as she tucks her hands into her lap. “No one hurts the predators. They can go wherever they want without fear.”
Ah. She wants that for herself. It’s impossible, of course. There are people who can hurt her and make her grateful for it, no matter how powerful she gets. But you don’t know how to explain that to her in a way she’d understand.
After all, no one else seems to.
But it’s a good answer and you like her more for it.
“What are your pokémon?” She asks. An obvious ploy to change the subject, but one you’ll oblige.
“You already met my pyukumuku. Then there’s an absol, noibat, and mudbray.”
She raises an eyebrow. You idly wonder who taught her how to do that. “Not going for a theme?”
You shrug. And then realize that she can’t see it. “Sort of.” You take another bite. Dry. Flavorless. At least there are raisins. “They’ll help me explore someday. Except the pyukumuku, maybe, but you can catch a lot of trainers off guard with it.” She winces. “Even some totems,” you say conciliatorily.
“Why do you want to explore?” she asks. A faint smile reappears as she hums. “You get to ask me a why question, I get to ask you one.”
“Well, I’ve always enjoyed going places,” except Japan, “and I’d like to see more someday. Lots of places that no human’s gone, you know? Most of Antarctica and the ocean floor, the interior of the Congo, the depths of Mammoth Cave…maybe I can find something there that no one else has. Do something that’s too big to be forgotten.”
“I wish you luck.” She says it kindly, but there’s a hint of dismissal. She makes no effort to stand and leave, though.
“Any places I should visit in Anahuac?”
Find this and other great novels on the author's preferred platform. Support original creators!
Cuicatl tenses up and puts down her spoon again. “You probably shouldn’t,” she half-whispers. “They really don’t like Americans there.” She relaxes a tiny bit. “And I wouldn’t know what’s good; I’ve never seen any of it.”
When she smiles at her own joke there’s a moment you can see the building blocks of someone very cute. Different clothes than her athletic shorts and graphic tee. Maybe a white dress. Or blue or pink. Style her hair a little differently and do some contouring to round out the harsher lines on her face. Yeah. With her thin (but still somewhat toned) limbs and small size she could nail the cutesy aesthetic with a little effort. Regal would be a touch harder given her height, but with her predators it might be a look she could aim for in the future. Especially if she bulked up a bit. Toss in some heels and the right dress…
“Lyra?”
Ah, shit. Zoned out upon meeting a cute girl. Story of your life.
“Still here. Just thinking.”
Cuicatl nods and goes back to her meal. She’s not a fast eater, though. You have time.
“Planning to stay on the challenge after this is over?”
“Yes,” she replies. “I’m here on a challenge visa.”
Good. “So am I. Friend recently bailed on me, though, and I don’t think she’s coming back when this is over.”
“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.”
Isn’t that relatable?
“Which traditions? There are fundamentalists of all shades.”
“Church of Xerneas,” she responds. Ah. Your least favorite. Even if you’re technically on their membership rolls. “Was really against gay and trans people. Thought I was a pagan. She was making progress, but…” She sighs. “It doesn’t matter anymore.”
“What was her name? I have contacts who might be able to help?” It’s not entirely a lie. You probably know someone who knows someone. Went to one of their schools long enough to have a network going.
“Genesis.”
Your heart drops and your eyes almost pop.
Shit. Shit shit shit. They took her back. And you doubt it was unconditional, either. What now? Put her into conversion therapy on the mainland? They already put their other daughter out of sight and out of mind? You were supposed to have helped free her, not get her locked up until she’s eighteen (or older). Ugh, fuck, you aren’t dealing with this in public. Need to retreat, think, calm down. Figure something out.
“Can we exchange numbers? I have a meeting to get to now, but I might be up for talking later.”
“Sure, my number is… wait do you have your phone out?”
“Yes.”
“Good. My number is…”
[12:17:31]
You pace around the room, careful not to stray too far in the dark lest you hit the walls. On balance you slam your feet into the ground hard enough that you’d definitely get a noise complaint if you weren’t barefoot. Might get one anyway. Mirai watches from your bed, unsure what to do.
That’s fine. You’re unsure what to do. You can’t just go into the Gage residence guns blazing to get Gen out. Her father’s a billionaire in the private security business and he’s probably increased his guards to deal with UBs or looters. Sneaking in with the password won’t work because you don’t actually know the password. One of his staff always let you in. Even if you somehow got to Genesis she might not want to leave. She can be very set in her ways. You remember one conversation where you tried to talk her onto the cheerleading team. She was interested at first until she came back the next day trying to talk you out of it with some nonsense about sin. Wasn’t the first or last time you’d seen her talk herself out of something she wanted or into doing something she didn’t.
“Fuck,” you snarl. “How are you so goddamn stupid?”
You aren’t sure if that question is directed at Genesis or yourself or both.
Your stomach growls and you almost swear at that, too. Word on the socials is that there’s a food shipment in later today, which should make the rationing a little less severe. At least one thing is going your way. You stomp again and huff, face scrunched into some grotesque parody of itself. You hear Mirai climb off the bed and walk over to you. She nuzzles her face against your side and you slowly exhale. Right. This isn’t helping anyone, least of all Genesis.
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 half the time Skull’s just been harassing tourists like they did under Guzma, just with more moralizing about it. Some vandalism and arson you’re pretty sure is cover for theft or extortion. E0ven odds she’s in it for the money. Genesis would still be a valuable hostage to her for the ransom.
The governor is one of Mr. Gage’s golf buddies. Some are half the Commonwealth’s judges. The FBI handles kidnappings but you aren’t even sure if this counts as that since she went willingly. A trump card for later, at least. Although you’re pretty sure Mr. Gage has the president’s personal cell number, so that might not even matter in the end.
It’s just you left. One girl to kidnap the daughter of one of the most powerful men in the world. Even if you succeeded there’s a good chance you’d rot in prison for life. Or the Rockets take care of you themselves for messing up business. Or both. You shudder at the thought.
Doing nothing isn’t an option, though. Can’t be. You’ll think of something, just...
Cuicatl. Cuicatl might have a metagross and tyrantrum someday. You’ve never seen any of the guards with anything close to matching a metagross in battle. Even tyrantrum can probably tank gunshots and crush smaller pokémon. And if Gage does send his daughter to the mainland then it might actually be easier to break her out. If you can get in Cuicatl’s good graces, train up your own pokémon, and figure out what the hell you do after you free Genesis, then you have a path out of this mess.
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.
The endgame of that path involves aligning with a metagross. A potent telepath that likes humans in the same way that torracat like rattata. A game and a meal. But if you can be there for a while, get it to like you…
You sigh and shake your head before running a hand through Mirai’s fur. It’s a little coarse. Overdue for a brushing. Fine. You can do that. Something small to take your mind off of everything else.
Oh, the things you’ll do for your Genesis.
[13:01:17]
A few cargo ships docked in Hau’oli harbor with an aircraft carrier escorting it. The governor announced a press conference shortly after. It’s both important news and a welcome distraction, and you happily tune in. Mirai is still out of her ball and sprawled out, part of her torso resting on your lap as you absent-mindedly brush her.
The press conference is difficult to see when it starts. It’s probably filmed in a dark room, and then you’re seeing it on your dim phone screen. There are two podiums, one with the governor behind it and the other with the champion. Selene’s almost entirely hidden behind her podium and she looks like an absolute mess. Her hair’s clearly been charred in a few places and she’s not even bothering to hide it. She’s wearing a t-shirt with visible mud and there’s either dirt or ash or dried blood on her face. Poor thing. At least she’s not trying to dress up. You remember seeing her at a fundraiser dolled up and looking incredibly uncomfortable in her own skin, eyes flitting around the room and breaths quick. You didn’t really want to be there, but you could at least hide it. It looks like she never learned to slip into a disguise; she just embraced facing the world as she is.
Good for her.
You would never, but good for her.
Selene clears her throat. “Good evening. Earlier this morning, we planned to meet with a solgaleo from a planet several lightyears and dimensions away. He could have opened a hole between dimensions and brought us to the necrozma.” But they failed, of course. The lingering darkness gives that away. “The solgaleo was intercepted and now has to find another wormhole to cross into our dimension and then cross the remaining distance on our plane. We do not know how long this will take. Even when he returns, there is no guarantee we will be successful against the necrozma.”
The governor’s glaring at her. Kid hasn’t learned to sugarcoat things. If anything, it sounds like she’s hedging by playing up the dangers.
“The darkness has not expanded in the last seventy-two hours. The world outside of the Mid-Pacific is entirely unaffected. Since it’s dangerous here and safe everywhere else, the Navy has begun sending ships to evacuate anyone who wants to leave. I encourage you to—”
“Thank you, Miss Perry.”
“I—”
“Moving on, almost all of the Ultra Beasts have been destroyed. No more have arrived after our young champion’s,” he scrunches up his face, “unfortunate failure to stop this calamity.” Is he trying to throw her under the bus? Imply that all of this is her fault? Shit. You knew he was a lonely, desperate old man, but that’s low even for him. “We also received our first shipment of supplies from the mainland today. More will be coming as the navigation logistics get worked out. There is no need to leave Alola. I repeat, there is no reason to leave Alola.”
“Sir—”
“We’re Americans here. We’ve faced challenges before and we can face this one, too. Heroes are working around the clock to keep our home safe and supplied. But they can’t do it alone. They need help. Your help. Every one of us contributes something to our home.”
“Sir—"
“If we are to survive however long this takes we will need people here to hold down the fort, to keep our homes safe and the economy running. Then, when the darkness recedes, we will stand taller and prouder than ever. But if we leave, if we run away, then there will be nothing left to return to. Not only can you stay, but it is your duty. To your family, your commonwealth, and your country.”
“There are still Ultra—”
“Alola is reopening for business. The island challenge and schools will reopen to ensure the good parents of Alola can help our economy. Furthermore, we are lifting the punishing rations and other emergency restrictions so that we may all eat well in our time of need.”
“The emergency is still ongoing—”
“Thank you all for what you’ve done so far and what you will do in the future. May Xerneas bless us all. Good night.”
The feed cuts out.
There’s cheering from down the hall. And outside your window. Are people celebrating this? Why? And what? That they can leave? That food is back? The island challenge? Just the tone of the speech? And didn’t they hear the champion trying to tell them that it wasn’t safe yet? Or see the look in her eyes as she realized she was sharing a stage with a madman?
“REOPEN ALOLA!” Someone shouts outside your door.
You ignore the chaos and start thinking about the important things.
No rationing. Getting any food could be difficult until ships start coming regularly. If ships start coming regularly. 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) and set up alerts for a few shops and news channels.
Then you start thinking about longer term patterns. Namely, is Cuicatl even staying if this is what the island challenge is like now? You shoot her a quick text. You think she’ll stay. She’s blind and only one of her pokémon would actually mind the cold.
She answers shortly after. “On visa. Will slay.”
Probably a text-to-speech error there. You don’t correct her.
If she’s staying, then you need to figure out what you’re doing next. Staying with her would probably earn a lot of goodwill. But it would be dangerous in the darkness and cold, especially if the temperature keeps dropping and the wild pokémon become increasingly desperate. Most of the plants here are tropical. Hard freezes will kill many of them off. No plants means no food for herbivores. No herbivores means no prey for carnivores. Except, of course, for the people and pokémon that come into the wilderness with their own food supply. Cuicatl’s team has serious potential, but it’s still a little weak. She mentioned another traveling partner but supposedly he only has a trumbeak right now. That means that Mirai is by far the strongest pokémon any of you have access to. She’s tough, but not enough to stave off a braviary or salamence. Even a zoroark or particularly large raticate or gumshoos could be a threat. You’d also have to buy winter gear as soon as it becomes available again. Unfortunately, you’d been way off trail on Route 3 when The Blackout started, so by the time you got to Hau’oli all the shops had already run out. Not that they ever carried much in the first place. There’s exactly one mountain with regular snow in Alola and most trainers never even try to climb it.
Everything in you knows that you shouldn’t do it, but everything in you also knows you will.
You’ll never get another chance to ‘see’ Alola like this. A tropical land succumbing to darkness and cold is one hell of a thing to explore. And you’ve read about cave and arctic explorers for years. If there aren’t UBs, you can handle yourself. Maybe make a blog or write a journal you can later use for a book. No one’s ever traveled through a place quite like this. No one. You’d be one of the first in a world with fewer and fewer places left where no human has gone before. It’s practically handing you success. And all of the battle experience you might get. The power. It can’t keep you safe from everything, but a good team can help with a lot.
Maybe even with rescuing Genesis. And that’s what’s really most important, however much you want to explore for the sake of exploration.
Most people suck. The powerful hurt people, the powerless wish they could. You have to look strong to keep people from hurting you. Then no one will make you their plaything just because they can. Cuicatl at least had that much right. But she was wrong about one thing: there are people that no amount of strength can protect you from, because they can hurt you and make you love them for it.
Genesis never understood that. Almost refuses to. When she hurts people it’s because she’s trying to help them or genuinely doesn’t understand the harm in what she’s doing. She doesn’t deserve to be chewed up and spit out by an uncaring world. You owe it to her to get her away from her parents. She deserves it. Deserves to live without people trying to mold her into being heartless, just like everyone else.
If you stay, you’ll get strong yourself. So will Cuicatl. You can get close to her (and her metagross) so that they’ll be on your side when the time comes. You’ll stay. Explore. Train. Live out your dreams and try to save Genesis from your nightmares.
[14:11:40]
Beldum are okay.
Your research showed that they aren’t powerful enough telepaths to voice their thoughts, much less alter those of others. And Cuicatl was right about them being excellent guides in the dark. It’s even pleasantly warm in the chilly air. Your hand brushes against Cuicatl’s while you both hold the beldum. Does she get little flutters when her hand brushes a cute girl’s? You aren’t sure if she’s gay. You actually hope she isn’t. From what you’ve heard her say about Genesis it doesn’t sound like they were on the path to becoming romantic. But you’d hate it if you went through the work of breaking Genesis’s closet door down only for someone else to reap the rewards. She isn’t even that hot either. She could be pretty, but you are.
By the time you get to the store there have to be five hundredth in line or something. And it won’t even open for another hour. Thankfully Cuicatl is staying in the Pokémon Center and you still have some rations, but you really doubt that there will be anything of value left by the time you get there. Dumbass governor lifting rationing. What did he think was going to happen?
It’s a little odd that Kekoa isn’t here. You met Cuicatl’s other traveling partner yesterday. He glared at you but agreed to take you on if you “paid your way.” That later got negotiated to half of expenses. You would’ve fought harder for your share being just a third but it might have irritated Cuicatl. 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.
There are also a lot of little things. She routinely thanks the Pokémon Center staff and cleans up after herself as well as she can while blind. Outside of her phone, cane, and beldum she doesn’t seem to have any fancy accessibility aids. And she’s staying in the Center in the first place. If you had to guess she’s middle class for Anahuac, which is probably working class or lower in Alola. Doesn’t explain the visa and accent, though.
Someone comes out to redirect the line into a different shape. It’s utter chaos in the dark as people shout and jostle to keep their place in line and accusations of cheating – and maybe a few fists – fly. Suddenly the area lights up. It’s a lot brighter than even a starmie could produce. You look closer and see something fairly tall and very bright in the middle of the street. An ampharos, then. There weren’t that many in Alola before the Blackout, and most were on Akala owned by farmers who weren’t eager to sell away their light source. Apparently, some dumbasses tried to steal them from the farmers, only to accidentally get a few sheep killed in the crossfire. Your parents eventually bought one for a couple million a few days into the Blackout. You doubt they’d pay the same price for you.
If a fairly conventional grocery store has one then the government must have sent a few with the cargo ship. That’s good. They probably can’t be used in Pokémon Centers and the like since electronics and powerful electric-types don’t usually mix, but at least some of the larger businesses might get them.
“Any reason Kekoa’s not here?” you ask once the crowd’s noise settles to a dull roar in the background.
Cuicatl grunts. “Thought it was a lost cause. Got in line for clothes instead.”
“Might be right,” you mutter. Or maybe he won’t get clothes, either. The first few supply drops are going to really quickly sell out until rationing is reinstated or a lot of people leave the islands. You’ll probably need to go through a scalper when you need food. But it probably can’t hurt to at least try to get it now. You weren’t going to be doing anything else, anyway.
“I’m not actually from Alola,” you tell her. Might score some empathy. Help smooth things over. Also opens up a chance to fish for information.
“Oh?”
“Yeah. I was born in Japan. Dad moved here for work about a decade back.”
She hums in consideration. “Was it strange to move?”
“Little bit. Didn’t like leaving my friends and my Galarian wasn’t too good at first. Got teased for it a lot by schoolyard bullies. Yours is great, by the way.”
“Ah. Bullies.” She scowls. “I’ve dealt with them. Mom’s American. They didn’t like that.”
You feel a pang of empathy at that. The bullies never really bothered you; you’d already stared down much scarier men at that point. But for a blind child of an outsider, it must’ve been particularly rough. “That’s one thing we have in common, I guess. Being bullied for our parent’s homeland. I take it your mother taught you Galarian?”
Cuicatl nods. “And the radio helped.”
“Feel that. I had Galarian tutors back in Japan, yet American cartoons taught me as much as they did.”
You lapse into comfortable silence as the line grows longer and longer behind you. Probably should’ve gotten here an hour before you did. Or more. Honestly should’ve camped out. But that would really require winter camping gear, and you’d have to camp out in front of a store to get winter camping gear…
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.
One more week stuck in your hotel room and you might kill someone.
“What was Anahuac like?” you ask. You’re getting bored and your phone is on low charge because you’re a fool who didn’t plug it in overnight.
“Well, there are sort of two Anahuacs. The capital and the large cities are really big and elaborate and fairly rich. Then there are a bunch of rural areas that aren’t. I was from one of those towns so I can really only talk about that.”
“Bit like Japan. Although the small towns weren’t really poor or anything. Just not rich.”
Probably. You were really young when you lived out there.
“What was Japan like?” Cuicatl asks. You take the chance to back off an awkward line of questioning.
“I lived in Kogane, one of the biggest cities. It was nice. The city has levels, sort of like a rainforest. There was the ground level. Then a bunch of the skyscrapers had bridges between them so you could walk across downtown from a hundred feet up. Oh, and there was an entire city built underground, too. Think it was meant to be a bomb shelter during the Cold War. Now there are a bunch of businesses and even apartments down there. We basically have three cities in one.”
“I suppose it’s nice,” Cuicatl says. “Not as cool as a city built on a lake, but still nice.”
“If you say so.”
The store doors open. A massive wave of bodies rushes through but it’s still barely a dent in the line. It takes you five minutes just to get to the entrance. Once you actually get into the overcrowded store, holding Cuicatl’s hand tightly so she doesn’t get swept away by the crowd, the shelves are almost bare. All you can find are a few bottles of bug spray and sunscreen, which are worthless in the cold and dark, and some lip gloss. You think about snagging the lip gloss when a fight breaks out behind you as a blond woman tries to steal from someone else’s cart.
Yeah. It’s not worth going through checkout.
“Total bust,” you tell Cuicatl. “Let’s go.”
You walk past at least four other fights on the way out. Employees are mulling around in the periphery, unwilling to step in and moderate. Can’t blame them. Not their fault the governor caused this shitshow by ending rationing when he did.
It takes a few minutes to get outside and reunite with Cuicatl’s beldum. It dutifully floats over when you exit and lets you put your hand onto it and guide Cuicatl’s there. After a few minutes of quiet walking you can’t hear the fights from that store anymore. By that point you can hear the yelling at another store as an employee on a loudspeaker tries to tell an angry crowd that all the food is gone. Similar scenes are probably playing out across the commonwealth right now.
It's truly Alola as no one has ever seen it before. Just not in the way you or the governor had hoped for.