Normal 1.3: Almost Natural

Genesis

July 27, 2019

It’s raining.

That means it’s good weather for catching poliwag. You said that you’d wanted a water-type because you were in shock and don’t even remember why and Father strictly forbade you from getting a popplio. That leaves poliwag and the rain. Even if you sort of asked for this, you wish it wasn’t raining. The day is more than miserable enough.

Stefan stands to the side under an umbrella, watching as you cast the lure again and again. Sometimes he critiques your form. Mostly he doesn’t bother. The first few bites are magikarp. He does come forward and help you take those of the line before throwing them back. Then he steps away and takes the umbrella with him, leaving you out in the rain.

You finally reel in a blur of blue sticking to the top of the pond. It doesn’t struggle too much on the line or in its lure ball. And then it’s yours. Stefan walks back to the car before you can let the frog out for bonding time. It’s okay. You’ll have time for that later. When you’re alone. You grab a stick on the way back to the car. Stefan gives you a funny look, but it’s important. You just don’t want to explain right now.

It’s a quiet ride into the city, only the sound of rain on the windshield and the occasional car sloshing by to distract you. That’s fine: you don’t feel like talking, anyway. You’ve already reasoned, begged, prayed, and cried to no effect. Father won’t be moved, and Stefan is on Father’s payroll. There will be no moving him.

The car comes to a stop outside the Pokémon Center. Stefan walks around to open your door.

“You can register in there,” he says. “Then I’d take a ferry to Hau’oli. VStar is having orientation in a few days, and they can help you get money.”

Implying that you could be away for long enough that you’ll need to make money of your own. You stare straight at the door and nod. He leaves without either of you saying goodbye.

*

The nurse says that the poliwag is a boy. She politely doesn’t mention the damp stick you’re carrying, even when you take the multiple choice test on the computer so you can be a trainer. It’s all really basic stuff. She told you all of this many, many times over and you remembered enough to ace the thing.

When the rain clears up you go around to the pools out back and let the poliwag out. He looks up at you unblinking and ribbits. You kneel down and brandish the stick. He runs. “Wait! Come back!” Too late. He’s already in the middle of the pool, glancing at you from the surface of the water. Fine. You can break your plans. You very visibly throw the stick into the trash before walking back, hands raised in surrender. “I, um, dub thee Sir Bubbles? I had a whole ceremony planned, but…”

He dives underwater.

Looks like you dragged the stick here for nothing.

*

October 1, 2019

The sanctuary is dead silent when you enter. You step through the rows of pews, descending towards the altar. The head of Xerneas greets you at the far wall, shifting rainbow antlers illuminating lifeless wooden eyes. Probably for the best. It can already be unsettling, having your creator and god staring down at you. If it blinked… that would be too far.

You needed to come here. Today is a big day, after all, and Xerneas is one of the few beings left that will listen to you. Maybe the only one who knows you aren’t lying. But it takes you ages to think of something to say.

“Lord Xerneas, my creator…”

Always a good start. Now more stuff.

“Thank you for giving me life. And please help Mother and Father understand what happened. And… maybe luck is too much to ask, but I would like to keep living and… I’m very thankful for everything.”

The eyes stare back, unblinking, as the rainbow lights shimmer above them.

“May my words and deeds bring honor to thy name.”

*

You should pay attention to orientation.

You want to pay attention to orientation.

You are not paying attention to orientation.

Partially because she already told you most of this and you remember some of it, despite you being you. You’re thinking about things that don’t matter. You’ve already read every scrap of writing in this room a bunch of times. There’s not much to read, anyway. Just a few notices and inspirational quotes. It’s like a sparsely decorated school room. Even the chairs are similar, as you’re painfully reminded every time someone drags their chair forward or back.

And there’s a girl in front of you, just at the edge of her peripheral vision. She has nice hair. It falls down to her shoulders a lot of loose, shiny spirals. Green but not the bright, ugly, obviously dyed green. Almost natural. Maybe it is. Not the weirdest thing about her. That’s the colorful, maybe home-made dress. Might be a thing in her culture. Whatever that is. She has dark skin. You didn’t get a good look at her eyes since, well, they’re milky white. That was a lot bit distracting. Like staring into the dead eyes of Xerneas with color swirling throughout.

The intimidation is a little undercut by her height. Her feet don’t even reach the ground when she’s seated. At first glance you thought that she was a tween kid eager to rush onto her island challenge, but her face—the parts you remember apart from the eyes and hair—seemed older. Nice cheekbones. And there’s some muscle on her arms that you wouldn’t expect from a kid. Between her size and blindness, she’s still delicate. Maybe too delicate to go into the wild.

You wonder if she’s in the same boat as you, going along with the least bad option.

A woman in a very nice suit walks in midway through. Odd. Everyone else you’ve dealt with here was dressed in business casual or casual casual. Her eyes wander around the room, settling on each person in turn. You squirm and go back to looking at the series of stars and triangles you’ve wrote down in your notebook. Just one look from her makes you deeply uncomfortable. It feels like she’s staring right into your soul and judging you based on what she sees.

You can feel it when she moves on. You glance up in time to see the woman recoil as if in pain and bring a hand to head. What? What happened. The girl in front of you must feel it, too, because she’s looking around now. The woman quickly exits the room and the girl eventually goes back to resting her head on an arm and staring forward.

The girl probably doesn’t see the point of taking notes. Maybe you should for her. It would get you to pay attention, maybe. You can at least try it.

*

There’s a breakout session at the end where you finally get to meet your traveling companions. Girls, probably. It would be inappropriate to put you with boys.

You’re the first to arrive at the meeting room because you finished your lunch quickly, without talking to anyone. You don’t know any of them and what are you even supposed to say? Best to stay quiet and not ruin things. Although now that you’re in a room with nothing but you and a ticking clock you’re starting to wonder if you should have stayed. Was that expected? Were you being rude?

You glance at the clock. No, you’re a little early to the meeting but still on time.

The door opens and a boy enters. (A boy! Why are they letting you travel with a boy?) He lets the door slam shut behind him with a loud noise somewhere between a click and a clack.

“’sup,” he ‘sups. Then he plops down into one of the firmer chairs, letting his back sink in and his legs sprawl out.

You squirm in your seat. What was his name? He was a few rows over, but you didn’t think you would be with him because he’s a boy and you’re a girl and this is really inappropriate. Should you offer to share your name? That seems like a good idea. And he’s been quiet long enough that it’s awkward.

Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.

“I’m Genesis.”

He glances at you before rolling his shoulders back and somehow sinking even deeper into his chair. “Kekoa. Nice to meet you, Jennifer.”

“Genesis, actually—”

“Jennifer.”

He stares at you as if daring you to challenge him again. You break eye contact first. Fine. Guess you’re stuck with him. That’s just how your month has been going.

“We’re supposed to have a third person, right?”

“That’s what they said.”

The clock keeps ticking.

“You have a pokéball on your belt…”

“A pikipek.”

“Ah.” Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick. “I have a poliwag.”

“Cool.” It does not sound like he thinks it’s cool.

“So why are you here?”

“Why are you?”

You don’t want to answer that, so you don’t. And he doesn’t want to talk, so that’s that. He goes back to looking at an old flip phone.

There are footsteps outside and a strange grating noise. The door opens and the blind girl walks in, the woman in the suit behind her. “See you tomorrow,” the woman says before walking away. The girl just stands in the doorway. There’s something almost sad about her expression, but she shakes her head and starts to smile. Maybe you just imagined the earlier look: you’ve never been great at reading emotions.

“Is there a chair somewhere?” she asks.

You give her directions.

It turns out that you are not very good at giving her directions, but she does eventually sit down.

“Hello. I’m Cuicatl Ichtaca.”

“Hi! I’m Genesis.”

“Kekoa,” the boy says. You finally realize that you never got his name before. “Good to meet you, Kiwi.”

Her smile falters before coming back stronger than before. “That’s not even close and you know it.”

“Don’t give a shit.”

You think Cuicatl rolls her eyes but it’s… unsettling to look at. She won’t know if you’re making eye contact or not, so you look away from her face. “She like this to you, Genesis?” she asks.

“He, thank you very much.”

“Oh. Sorry. You just have such a girly voice, you know?”

His voice is a little high. The rest of his body is maybe just on the masculine side of androgynous. Normal enough for a guy your age. Ditto for his face. Still chubby but not unusually so. Maybe with longer hair and different clothes he could pass for a girl.

“Fuck off.”

You flinch at the profanity. He didn’t sound serious, almost joking, but the words themselves paint a different story.

“Where are you from?” you ask Cuicatl. Crap that was probably not the right question. She’s going to think you’re some kind of a racist, which you’re not—

“Anahuac.”

“Oh. I know about it. A lot of your people come here. Not here specifically, I actually haven’t met many, but on the mainland. Um.” You stop before you can dig deeper.

She puffs up a little. Which is bad. She’s angry. But it’s also kind of cute.

“My mom was Unovan,” Cuicatl interjects.

Oh. Definitely here legally. That’s good.

“Then you’re a citizen?”.

“…no. Here on challenge visa.”

Maybe not legally. You’ll have to do the talking if any cops show up. Which they shouldn’t, because you aren’t going to do any crimes. Except for the crime she already did.

*

VStar gave you an advance to buy boots and you know just the place to go.

Princess Square Mall is easily the best place to shop in the entire commonwealth. It’s got everything from the Gracidea flagship to the usual big box stores, plus literal miles of halls lined with their own quirky shops. You make… made a point of coming here most weekends to try and look through at least three new stores knowing full well that by the time you visited them all some would’ve closed and others opened in their place and you’d have to do it again. You got some good stuff out of it, though, like a stuffed altitlama made with real altitlama wool and a blue snow globe with a faintly glowing horseshoe on the side. No idea why the latter cost as much as it did.

Kekoa powerwalks ahead and ordinarily you’d match him but you have to stay back and help Cuicatl along. He sometimes glances back and slows down a little bit, which clashes with his aloof meanie vibe. Eventually you get to Shaft’s Outdoor Supplies and Kekoa finally stops to turn towards you.

“I’m just going to go ahead and get this done on my own. Leave you girls to do your shoe shopping.”

“Then why are you going alone?” Cuicatl asks.

“Letting you two have your estrogen party in peace.”

“So why aren’t you coming with us?” Cuicatl asks. “If it’s a girls thing…”

Kekoa shoots her an absolutely murderous glare. “I’m flipping you off,” he says before turning around and storming off. He is not actually flipping her off. Cuicatl just has a cute, dumb smile plastered on her face.

“Asshole,” she says.

You shouldn’t giggle but you do.

“So, um, what are you looking for? In boots? I can look for you.”

She doesn’t even take a full second to think it over. “Waterproof, well-fitting, don’t make me look too stupid.”

Okay. You can work with that.

“Do you have a personal style? What clothes do you ordinarily wear?”

It occurs to you too late that she might not know that. Thankfully, she does.

“I guess you would call them dresses, like what I’m wearing now. Sometimes more athletic clothing. Pick whatever colors you want.” Hmm. She has long hair that’s clearly well cared for. Isn’t wearing much makeup, but that might just be because she can’t apply it. In any case, definitely not a tomboy. Some outdoorsy-but-still-femme look, then. Hiking boots and whatever she’ll be wearing on the trail probably satisfies the outdoorsy bit, so you’re mostly concerned with the femme half. Ideally, you’d get something dark green or very dark blue to go with her hair, but a quick talk with an employee (a talk that Cuicatl seems oddly despondent during) reveals that you’re really color and style limited at her size in the kids section. You settle on a pink pair without laces so that she doesn’t have to fumble around to tie them.

“They sound nice,” she says when you tell her the description. Her face is guarded so it’s hard to tell if it really does sound nice. Or if she cares about style at all. She rises up on the balls of her feet and then settles down and tilts her shoes to the sides. “Fit well enough. Should be fine after a little breaking in.”

And that’s that. Even before the two-thirds discount new trainers get on supplies, hers are just barely over fifty dollars. Yours are about three times as much, but after the discount they still fit within budget with some money left over. Black, kind of shiny, waterproof because Cuicatl thought that was a big deal. A size up from your old shoes, too. Apparently, you’ve grown. You’d be comfortable wearing your boots in a city, which is kind of a must because you’re going to have to break them in before going out on the trail. Orientation made a very, very big deal about that, up to showing some blister photos that look like they came right out of a presentation on a disease that requires genital amputation.

*

You decide to have a movie night for your first night sharing a Pokémon Center room. You’re doing your best to ignore that you’re sharing a bedroom and bathroom with a boy but at least Cuicatl’s here so he’s outnumbered.

Kekoa fiddles with the screen of your phone for a second before putting it on the pile of stuff he haphazardly threw together. Then the movie starts to play on the small screen. Not really big enough for three people to crowd around, but Cuicatl’s sitting a little farther away since she he doesn’t really need to watch.

“You have your own account?” you ask to kill time as the company logos roll.

He snorts. “Yeah, no. I’m sure someone pays for this, but I don’t know them and no one I know knows them.”

That’s kind of theft, isn’t it? At least, not using it as intended. Are you doing something wrong by watching.

The logos stop and the screen shifts to a cage being moved in the rain by a bunch of men with guns. Then something goes wrong and the thing in the cage kills some of the men with guns before getting shot itself. What. This is violent. You definitely aren’t supposed to be watching it.

“What kind of movie is this?” you ask.

“A damn good one,” he answers.

Again with the vulgarity.

“Seconding,” she adds.

You frown. “Your parents let you watch this kind of thing?”

He looks at you like you’d just asked whether water was wet. “No. My brother let me watch it once while my parents were out since I was going through a dinosaur phase. Now, I, uh, kind of watch what I want now.”

“People don’t really care about sex and violence in movies in Anahuac? They’re a part of life. No reason to keep kids from knowing real things exist. And do you want to talk about the dinosaur phase?” She’s absolutely beaming now. “Because I had a dinosaur phase. Never really left it either.”

Kekoa snorts. “You would, dragon girl.”

They’d talked about trainers at dinner. You didn’t have much to say, but they got into a long argument about what type was most reliable on the battlefield. Cuicatl had gone all in for dragons. You’d mentioned water-types because she had thought they were the best. You couldn’t really defend the point, though, when Cuicatl started arguing with you. When she realized that she’d gone back to arguing with Kekoa.

“Hey,” Cuicatl answers Kekoa. “it’s not my fault that we used to have birds that were four meters tall, then we didn’t, then we brought them back, and now no one seems to care that we have four-meter-tall birds again! Oh, Genesis, the dinosaurs in this movie shouldn’t have as many scales as they do. Except the aurorus, which should have spines and frills. But the dilatosaur shouldn’t have frills. Or venom. They were grass-types. And the pyroclaptors should be half the size. And none of them are actually from the Jurassic. Other than that, perfect film.”

Kekoa leans forward and makes a show of turning the volume up, even though it’s already as high as it goes.

“Fucking nerd.”

“Please watch your language.”

He flips you off. Cuicatl just ignores you. Okay, then.

She folds her arms and leans back into the wall. “I don’t see what the problem is with liking things. Especially cool things.”

“Well, you missed the flaw that actually matters: tyrantrum were scavengers.”

“You shut up!” Cuicatl practically screams. “That is one scientist’s theory based on snorlax of all things. Sure, tyrantrum could have scared off smaller predators, but then why would they need the neck muscles if they weren’t going to hunt? And what was killing all the prey they ate? Claptors weren’t big enough in most of their home range and the crocodiles would’ve just dragged the food into the water. Maybe other tyrannosaurs, but if smaller tyrannosaurs were killing giant armored herbivores then why couldn’t tyrantrum do it?” She huffs and crosses her legs before glaring in Kekoa’s general direction. “Such bullshit.”

They continue like that for hour, with Kekoa asking short dumb questions and setting Cuicatl off on adorably angry tirades about tyrantrum’s typing (maybe a dragon-type, but definitely not a dragon), tyrantrum-pyroclaptor nest arrangements (the raptors didn’t eat the tyrantrum eggs, they ate the mammals that came for the eggs, duh), and whether blaziken would beat a pyroclaptor in a fight (blaziken one-on-one, but a pyroclaptor would never fight alone so that doesn’t matter). He immediately changes the subject whenever she gives a substantive answer, so he’s always winning the conversation with very little effort. Like Mom. Except Cuicatl doesn’t seem to hate it?

You stopped paying attention to the actual movie almost immediately. It would be rude to leave the room, but that doesn’t mean you should watch something like it. At some point you fell asleep entirely. You don’t know if your new partners ever stopped their bickering.