Content Warning
This is a story about not being okay. There will be attempts to recreate the language of downward spirals, suicidal ideation, eating disorders, internalized homophobia, anxiety, and possibly other things. I will do my best to provide chapter warnings for chapters dealing explicitly with suicidal ideation. If there are other notices you would like me to add, feel free to ask.
Arc One: Normal
"Times of transition are strenuous, but I love them. They are an opportunity to purge, rethink priorities, and be intentional about new habits. We can make our new normal any way we want."
-Kristin Armstrong
Normal 1.1: Prologue
Rachel
August 1, 2019
It’s always fascinating watching your espeon eat, even after seventeen years. He nudges a treat into place with the tip of his claw, steps back, and lifts the treat just a little bit into the air. Then he pulls back his whiskers and brings his mouth around it before swallowing it whole. No crumbs ever touch his fur.
With his food eaten, Espy levitates the crumbs off the desk and into the wastebasket. Then he stretches out, walks in a circle, and gracefully sits down with his tail outstretched and a paw on your hand.
{You’re tired.} he says.
“I could use a nap.”
{Mind tired.}
You pull up your schedule instead of giving him an answer.
Interview with The Battler at ten. That one shouldn’t be too much trouble; just gauge if they’re planning to play hardball are not, and if they aren’t send them up to Chris.
New journey group initiation today. You should stop by that, scan for potential problems before they blow up in your face.
The governor’s having a fundraiser tonight and you’ll be there. He’s a nice man. Genuinely likes you. Has a tendency to talk a little too much when he’s lonely and just a little bit tipsy and thinks he can trust someone. And given the way that things seem to be going at home and in the polls, well, he’s very lonely and probably drinking a little more than he should. And it’s your job to be likeable and trustworthy. When the public thinks of your company, they should think of their beloved sports star and hero. When the investors, reporters and politicians do, they should think of the pretty blond girl who either kind-of-flirted with them in just the way they liked or who gave them the kind of compliments they needed. Put a pretty face on your operation so no one ever wants to peel off the surface and look beneath.
Between the meetings? Email. Hours of email. And maybe a quick nap, if you’re lucky.
----------------------------------------
Your intercom rings.
“Miss Bell? Mr. Sanchez is here.”
“Send him in, Sheryl.”
The door opens and a tall, tanned man in an ill-fitting suit walks in. His eyes briefly glance around the office. You take note of what he pays attention to—the bed where Espy is sleeping, the bag of expensive food underneath, and the map of Alola with nearly three dozen pins in it—and to what he doesn’t: your framed degrees, the busy-but-not-sloppy amount of clutter on your desk, and the half-hidden cot in the back corner. A battler through and through. Probably disappointed that you don’t have trophies or a framed badge case.
“Hey. Manuel Sanchez. With The Battler.”
You stand up and shake his hand. His grip is a little too firm, but you’re just mature enough not to crush him back. As soon as you make eye contact a feeling flashes in the back of your mind and you know that he’s cheating on his pregnant wife.
Eh. Could be worse.
“Rachel Bell. Vice President of VStar.”
You both sit and he flicks out a notepad and a recorder. He turns the latter on without asking permission.
“Alright, so VStar.”
You smile, a little too wide, and tilt your head. “VStar,” you repeat in a high pitch. He’s a cheating bastard who doesn’t really care about the professional world. You can spin that to your advantage easily enough.
“So, uh, Rachel—can I call you Rachel?”
“Yup.”
“Right. What does VStar do? Just to make sure that I’m on base.”
“Of course.” You never stop smiling. “VStar helps fund trainers who might not have the means to complete an island challenge, or trainers who just finished an island challenge but can’t afford to keep all of their partners. We help them get rid of excess pokémon and give them to people who want them but can’t get one. Busy professionals and parents, the disabled, or just people who don’t have a team strong enough to go into the species’ natural habitat. Everyone wins.”
“Right, right. And how many users do you have?”
Not even bothering to follow up on that. Less diligent than even you were expecting.
“Depends on how you define ‘users,’ Manuel. Right now we have 166 trainers currently on their journey with the app. Not all of them are active users. Several hundred trainers traded their pokémon in last year, a few thousand purchased a pokémon through the app.”
“Okay.”
More notes. He doesn’t press into what your vague numbers mean. He’s not normally on the business beat, usually just does puff pieces on trainers in the Americas. Whatever excuse he has, he’s making this almost embarrassingly easy for you.
“So, Rachel, are you a trainer?”
“Espy,” you call.
Your espeon gently rises to his paws before moving from his climbing structure in the corner to your desk in a single, elegant leap. He walks over to you and nuzzles your hand.
“I know the name’s basic, but come on, I was ten.”
Manuel laughs in a way that might be flirtatious appeasement or genuine amusement. Just on the border of being genuine. “I named my growlithe ‘Fuego’ back in the day, so I can’t really talk.”
{Espy, can you pay attention to him?} you ask telepathically.
{Treat?} he shoots back, mentally.
{Later. You just had one.}
Satisfied, Espy walks across the desk and looks at Manuel expectantly. He starts to rub Espy’s ears without asking permission. Espy recoils slightly and his tail flicks in disgust. Espeon aren’t that fragile, but they’re masters at feigning injury if it gets them more treats.
“You bring your pokémon to the office?”
“Of course. We are a pokémon company, after all.”
Espy starts to turn away. Manuel rubs a hand over the pokémon’s back as he leaves.
{Two treats,} you signal.
Espy turns back around.
“How long have you had her?” he asks.
You don’t bother to correct the gender. Espy doesn’t really care, and most people think of all espeon as female. “Since I was ten.”
“I meant how many years?”
You crack your smile a little wider. “Since I was ten.”
It takes him a half second, but he starts to laugh and you join. You’re pretty sure he’s more interested in you and your body than the company right now.
“Is she your only pokémon?”
You shake your head. “I also raise an alakazam. But he’s moving up in the years and doesn’t really like coming to the office.”
His eyes widen. Any half decent pokémon journalist know what alakazam ownership means. It’s why you aren’t going to replace Allen when he dies.
“So, you’re psychic?”
You nod. “Yeah.”
“You in my mind right now?” he asks with a raised eyebrow.
“I’m not that kind of psychic,” you say. Even though you essentially are that kind of psychic. But you really don’t think he’d appreciate it if you went into the details of the SIPAA, General and Specific Forms.
He relaxes. A lot. So much that he consciously corrects it by stiffening a little.
“What kind of psychic are you?” he asks.
You really doubt this is returning to the company, which is probably for the best. He clearly doesn’t have an interest in it anyway.
“Precognition. Get about a half second warning before I get physically hurt.”
“Huh. Take it you’ve never been in a car crash?”
You raise an eyebrow as if telling him off. “No, but that’s because I’m an excellent driver. Not because I’m a psychic. Really just means that I never stub my toe.”
“Oh.” He half-frowns. The kind that’s more unconscious than not. “Thought it’d be more useful.”
“It lets me train my alakazam,” you suggest.
“Yeah. I guess. You battle with them?”
“On the weekends. Chris likes his lieutenants to be halfway decent in a fight.”
He perks up at the casual mention of your boss. Because of course he does. You’re a pretty girl with a brain quirk and an espeon. Chris Foster? He’s the eight-time-running United States champion, highest ranked trainer in the world, tamer of Victini, and at least the third biggest pain in the ass in Alola.
Yeah. Seeing that light in his eyes, you doubt Chris can mess things up too much. Maybe Manuel would even be impressed by the man behind the curtain.
“You know, I think I can set up an interview with him.”
“Really? I had been told that he’s too busy.”
“Of course, but you’re The Battler. I’m sure he can find the time.”
You don’t doubt that. Journalists build up the trainers into semi-divine heroes in the public eye and then revel in the attention they get from the celebrities they created. No one benefits from the cycle breaking. You still have to screen these interviews, just in case hell freezes over and The Battler decides to blaspheme their gods.
You’re still reeling from a Hau’oli Tribune letter to the editor last month calling VStar “Evil Incorporated.” It had taken you two hours on the phone with Chris to talk him down from making that the official name of the company.
This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.
----------------------------------------
It’s an hour into orientation. Sometimes you’ll stay to watch the full thing, make sure that you know what’s being taught and how. Saves you time when the wrong person leaks the wrong thing (that they remembered wrong) and you have to figure out what really happened before you can tell the press what pretty much happened.
First few hours are nothing important, anyway. Here’s a little about Alola and the island challenge. What are tents and why should you use one. Like your food? Try not to get it stolen. Budgeting could maybe be helpful. This predator lives in these places and here is how you avoid it. The basics of life on the trail, with or without VStar.
The sensitive stuff—payment methods and tables, how to stay within the letter of capture limit laws, corporate facilities and affiliates, mortality rates, advancement paths, mission assignments, legal duties to the company—that all gets crammed in at the end.
The room’s emptier than usual. Only eight initiates, most mid- to late-teens. It’s to be expected. October is a garbage month for starting a journey since it’s in the middle of a semester and right at the start of the rainy season. Most of your new trainers come to the April, May, and June sessions. The people who come in October are the over-eager ten-year-olds who can’t wait to get on the trail or teenagers who can’t stay in their home a second longer.
Group isn’t bored yet. Doesn’t pay you too much mind when you sit down in a corner chair. Half of them look at you for a moment before glancing back to the presentation. One girl’s eyes linger for a little until she makes eye contact and immediately turns away.
Okay. Time to start scanning.
A lot of telepaths just read minds like a book. Or as a monitor with code shifting faster than you could ever hope to read. Your talent doesn’t work that way. It’s more akin to sonar. Send out a wave, wait to see what image you get back. It usually just dredges up a secret or two: the thing that there’s the most resistance to you knowing. If you really focus you can get a basic overview of their personality.
Theoretically you could have your scan bring everything back, but it’d probably take you a week to process and land you in a hospital bed for a few months. If you were lucky. If you weren’t lucky it would land you in a coffin.
The first two are boring. A ten-year-old kid whose biggest secret is that his parents wanted him to wait, a teenager who got a girl pregnant and is running from the consequences.
Third kid. White girl, mid-teens, dressed a little too formally for this sort of meeting. Why is she even here? VStar gives structure, but it’s not the most efficient way to go on a journey. And the money can’t possibly matter to her unless she’s a runaway. A quick scan gives you the start of a headache, and not from the strain of your powers: her family is really, really rich. Big Six Families rich. Again, why is she here? She must’ve been cut off from her money, somehow. Was she exiled or did she run away?
Exile is unproblematic, although it’s the type of gossip you’d like to be aware of. You would have already heard about it if the girl did something bad enough that her family would bring hell down upon you for sheltering her. If she’s a runaway her family might give you endless PR and legal hell until you give their daughter back.
Supplemental scan doesn’t dig up much. Kid’s kind of flighty, kind of lonely. Kind at her core. Very recent trauma with a trail of shame trailing after it. And maybe something buried. Supports either theory, but her temperament makes you think she’s not a runaway. Minds like hers are allergic to rebellion.
Fourth and fifth are an addict and a kleptomaniac. You’ll consider kicking them out before the sensitive part of the meeting.
Sixth. Young girl. Probably ten, maybe eleven. Abuse. You’d bet she’s getting away from it as soon as possible. Smart kid. You’ll look the parents up so you have blackmail at the ready if they try and take their kid back. Low security risk.
Seventh is… familiar? You try to never forget a face, but it still just eludes you. By the second minute of staring he’s (she’s?) definitely noticed and you avert your gaze. Secret dredging time, then. See what you missed… Trans. Your power doesn’t tell you if they’re female, male, or non-binary, but it explains the just-unfamiliar face: you probably knew them before, but hormones or style changes are throwing you off your game.
The eighth is in her mid-teens? Early teens? Very short and still rather thin, but her features make her look a little older. Deep set eyes, angular face. Native if you had to guess. Jade green hair. If it’s natural, it’s rare but not unheard of. If it’s dyed then you need to ask her where she got it done. Kind of weird colorful dress. Probably wool. Might be handmade. Big thing? She’s blind. Clouded eyes, white cane, whole deal. Can she really do this? You aren’t going to send a kid out into the woods knowing that she’ll get killed by the first predator she can’t see coming.
Still, in case you don’t rule her out, a secret scan can’t hurt.
A moment later alarm bells of panic and despair and random memories and pain rock your mind. The thoughts came back to you after the scan but it’s like they were cut up in a blender, sharpened into daggers and then launched straight back into your brain. An attack? How? She’s…
Your eyes open wider as it dawns on you. She’s psychic. Probably another telepath. Strong. And not trained in any style you’re familiar with. This definitely shouldn’t be the first you’ve heard of her. You like to think that you’ve met every other psychic in the commonwealth and not a one has ever brought her up.
You got her attention. She’s slowly rotating her head to survey the room with either sound or some remaining vision, her foot tapping nervously the whole time.
How do you salvage this? It’s literally never happened before, and that’s not something you can say very often these days. Thought process isn’t helped by the thrum of pain in your head, alternating sharp and dull so you never quite get used to it. You breathe deeply and make your way to the door. You’ll have someone pull her aside later and direct her to your office. Gives you time to figure out how you’re going to approach this.
----------------------------------------
Your alarm goes off at 3:00 P.M. and you swear at the ceiling before awkwardly rolling over in cot and turning it off. You still feel miserable after a ninety-minute nap. How does that work?
Well… part of that’s the mental bruising. A cold and empty memory that keeps resurfacing, feelings of panic when looking at random objects, a slight fog over everything, and random sights and sounds getting turned into metal walls and tinny echoes. And then there’s the absolutely brutal headache. You make a point of taking an aspirin, knowing that it won’t really help but hoping the placebo effect does enough to make you comfortable. Which might negate the placebo effect. Is there a placebo effect where you know what the placebo effect is, so you expect the placebo to make you feel better, which means that it does make you feel better? A placebo placebo effect.
The line of thought definitely isn’t making your headache any better.
First things first. You text the instructor to make sure that the possible Skull defectors gets kicked out before the mortality tables come up. VStar’s mortality rates are lower than the general journey-goer rates, but dead kids are dead kids and it never feels like there’s anything to say, much less anything good. At the end you add a note to send the blind girl up to your office when orientation is over. The room is cold and clean and empty. Deep breaths. The third ceiling tile diagonal from the corner does not want to kill you. You’re in your office, the year is 2019, and are texting. The metal—not metal—walls have light blue wallpaper.
Second: the daughter of Ernest Gage, the spider silk magnate. That one you might have to deal with in person, or at least at the fundraiser tonight. He and his wife will probably be there. It would be rude to get the information directly on such a sensitive subject, but there will be other attendees who love nothing more than swapping secrets. The room is cold and clean and
Third: You pull up the new trainer’s files. Abused girl is Aiko Katou. Mother is a barber, dad is a plumber. Good news is that they can’t really go after the company—the men will never believe you—Bad news is that if the family’s got nothing, they’ve got nothing to lose. Blackmail won’t do much. It might only succeed in letting them know where their daughter went. Still might try and get your hands on Why does the ceiling have teeth? By the kings this headache sucks.
Fourth: Blind girl is Cuicatl Ichtaca. From Anahuac. Fifteen years old. Here on a challenge visa. Explains how you’ve never heard of her. Didn’t report any pokémon at customs. You’ll need to start her off slow or put her with some strong teammates for her protection, but if she’s psychic then she might be worth keeping around. If your interview checks out. Moles can be annoying; a telepathic mole could be a catastrophe of the highest order. The room is cold and. Stop. Breathe. You can’t find anything online about her and it will take you a few days to get anything to leak from immigration services, so that’s the end of that investigation. For now.
Fifth—something brushes against your leg. You look down to see Espy looking up at you, holding his leash in his mouth.
Fifth: Go outside. Take your friend on a walk. Stop thinking about work for a minute. Make new memories. Be calm. Outside is warm and dirty and open.
----------------------------------------
You pull two water bottles and two packets from the refrigerator and place them on the table. “Water, if you’re thirsty. I know those meetings last a while. And I put some gummies there, too. Good to eat every two hours or so. Good for your brain.”
Her hand freezes in midair right before taking the water. It’s only for a moment, and she proceeds on like nothing had happened.
“Hey, it’s fine. You can’t be responsible for things you didn’t know to do.”
She doesn’t answer that. Natural shyness? Nervousness? Poor English? You never realize how much your scans are a crutch until you find yourself without them.
“Who are you?” she asks.
You smile. Uselessly. Doesn’t matter either way.
“Right. I’m Rachel Bell. I’m one of the Vice Presidents for VStar. I handle new recruits, among other things.”
“…and I’m not in trouble?”
“No. No, not at all. Just don’t get many psychics passing through. I try to meet with them individually.”
“I meant for the, um. Did I hurt you?”
Yes. Yes, you did.
“Not very much,” you lie, bringing a smile into your voice. “Napped, took a walk, cleared my head. It’s fine now.” And it mostly is. Espy could help you out a little once he had some sunlight to power him up.
Her head dips a little. Shame, probably. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
“No, no. Don’t worry about it. I’m the one who…” Yoo take a drink of water and figure out how to finish that sentence without coming off wrong. “…reached out to your mind first. Should have asked. Standard for new psychics.” What’s a polite way to ask her about her English skills? Because you don’t actually have a Nahuatl speaker in the building. That you know of. Might be a good idea to check. “You don’t have much training with your powers, do you?”
She gently shakes her head. “No. My mom’s reuniclus taught me a little. I figured some of the rest out. Never met a psychic but my brother.”
“You grew up around pokémon, then?”
Her lips curl into a smile and she makes (near) eye contact as a hundred tiny things change in her expression. She goes from sullen and afraid to absolutely adorable in the blink of an eye.
“Yes. My mom’s team lived near the house. I took care of them. She had a reuniclus, a heatmor, a swanna, a ferrothorn, a conkeldurr,” she really is infectiously cute when she’s excited, with her high-pitched voice and its rapid pace, “and a hydreigon.”
Your heart skips a beat. Her face is the exact same, but all of the cuteness gone.
“A hydreigon?”
“Yes! Her names are Alice, Dorothy, and Ilsa. Alice was first and is in the center so that’s her one name. But she prefers her three names.”
A wild hydreigon flew within twenty miles of the academy once and they shut down classes for three days. Parents accused them of underreacting.
“Uh huh. And, um, you took care of her? Them?”
“She likes ‘ellas.’ She doesn’t know that there’s more than one language and they have different words,” she says. As if this is just a normal thing.
“I see.”
You are very, very glad that she can’t see the color of your face right now. You know full well that your alakazam is a telepathic monster that can fry a man’s mind in seconds, but you will never, ever be comfortable with dragons. And why should you? You’ve seen footage of one shredding a tank without breaking a sweat. Do dragons sweat? You have no desire to look that up.
Focus. You need to change the subject a little. Useful information in those statements? She has a brother, but he’s presumably not here. If Cuicatl cared for her mom’s hydreigon, her mom also can’t be in the picture anymore. Or she was horribly irresponsible. Either way? Dangerous topic. She speaks Spanish and seems to have a decent grasp on English. Cuicatl said she doesn’t have any pokémon on the form. How did that happen? Did it happen? She wouldn’t be the first kid to tell a lie on their paperwork. Okay. Alice. Ellas. How did she find out that Alice liked ellas?
“Can you speak to pokémon?”
“Sometimes. Not with Alice. In her mind, at least. But we understand each other.”
“I see. What all can you do with your mind? I can tell secrets and foresee pain.”
“…secrets?”
She runs a shade paler and you can hear her foot tap against the side of the chair. Nervous tic that you share.
“Not yours. Your shielding is very good. Not trained, but effective.”
“Thank you. Renfield—reuniclus taught me that.”
That wasn’t an answer. But it does explain why it felt so much like the headaches Espy can give you when he’s really, really angry.
“Talking to pokémon is usually telepathy, then. Projecting and reading thoughts. Empathy is sensing emotions. There’s usually some overlap, but not always.”
She frowns. “I think I just have telepathy. Do people usually only have one thing?”
You shake your head. Right. She can’t see that. “Sometimes. You don’t see things before they happen? See things you shouldn’t? Move things with your mind?”
“I don’t see anything.”
Poor wording. Anne would’ve torn you a new one if she’d heard. But Cuicatl doesn’t look too offended. She’s even smiling, just a little. But not nearly as brightly as before.
“But you can’t do any of those things?”
“Right.”
You give her a chance to follow up. She doesn’t. Just shifts in her seat and idly taps a foot on the floor, soft enough that she probably doesn’t even know she’s doing it. Whatever rapport you built talking about her pokémon, it’s gone now. Time for another subject change.
“What brings you to Alola, then?”
“I wanted, um, to go on a journey? And Unova didn’t want to take me. I don’t have much money so a girl in the Pokémon Center said I should come here.”
There’s a shred of truth in there, but she’s an awful liar. Don’t even need your telepathy to see through that. New topic options: SIPAA scoring seems a little too close to the last question and she doesn’t want to talk about why she’s here so… old pokémon.”
“Did you bring any of your mom’s team with you?”
She freezes up. Full deerling in headlights. Shit shit shit shit abort abort abort.
“Hey it’s—”
“No, I didn’t.” Speech is off. Breathing is erratic. Approach and escalate? Keep quiet and seem callous? Response depends on the type of breakdown you’re seeing.
…the kid has to be alone here. Half an ocean from home, at least one parent out of the picture, apart from her pokémon for maybe the first time…
She shouldn’t have to have panic attacks alone.
You get up from your seat and move around the desk to kneel beside her. Then you put a hand on her shoulder and press down a little bit. “It’s alright,” you whisper, “we can get you new friends and a new pokémon.”
The waterworks open in full. Before you can decide if you should hug or not, Espy jumps into her lap. Kid didn’t mention owning a dog, fox, or cat, but she’s still a gentle petter. Holds out her hand for a second for Espy to sniff. Then gently pets the ears and runs her hand back in slow, light strokes.
You take the moment to think as Cuicatl’s breaths get steadier. You remove your hand from her shoulder to avoid smothering her. Homesickness? Trauma? Other mental illness? Kid needs emotional support in any case. Ideally something intelligent enough for her to talk to, social enough to cuddle, and fluffy enough to pet. Difficulty of care and bonding shouldn’t be problems if she kept herself and a hydreigon alive. Maybe something a little difficult to distract her. Eevee would work. Not big enough to be a good guide, though, even when fully evolved.
…
There is a pokémon that fits all of those criteria, but she’s trouble. She’d either be a silver bullet for Cuicatl’s problems or a lead bullet straight to her heart.
You put your hand back on Cuicatl’s shoulder and she flinches from the touch.