I woke with a lurch, my balance spinning out of control as I winced from the psychic pain of the light entering through my eyelids. I groaned, waving a hand around to get the blanket off of me. Sleeping in a full bed was still weird to me, having made due with sleeping bags, hammocks, piles of cloth, and the occasional air mattress throughout most of my life, and I wanted out. My vision blurred as I lifted my head from the pillow, and I hastily caught myself with my hands before I fell over. It wasn't my first time having a hangover, but they'd never been that bad. 'Gerald said something about sugar making hangovers worse right? Fuck, how much of the candy did I eat yesterday?', I thought at a glacial pace.

Toma had already weaved a "good morning!" pictogram web, but he gave me a wave from his corner on the roof anyway. I tried to roll my eyes, but it was too painful. Finally, Kawami stirred from the chair she had flopped herself across. With a spasm of her forewings, which were distinct from the Crobat's newly grown hindwings, she pushed off of the cushion and across the room before catching herself in the air on her hindwings to place herself right in front of me on my bed. With a now fully formed set of teeth instead of lonely fangs, she grinned like an idiot. "Good morning Kawami. I know it's an alien concept to you, but I feel like shit and don't wanna move." She pouted, but was content with the idle scritches I gave her as I continued to collect myself.

'What did I do yesterday?', I asked myself. Everything before the boat ride was still clear, too clear, if anything. 'Then I got drunk with Gerald, set up that useless camp, and then all the stuff with Ilima.' That was when the memories started clicking back into place. 'Ilima paid for my stuff, I tore down the camp, went to the pokémon center, got a room, and trained for the trial for a bit.' The things I said while drunk, upping the challenge from Ilima and all the quips I made made me wince. 'I was talking like Kathy.' As I remembered Kawami's incredible progress with Quick Guard however, my mood improved slightly and my petting grew faster. 'Then I smoked the trial, Kawami evolved, Ilima and I talked about when I'd fight him for the petal and some other shit before he left, and we celebrated in my room before I passed out. When did we schedule that for?'

I hummed absentmindedly, before realizing the song I was humming was stuck in my head. I frowned. "Toma, could ya get my phone?", I asked. Toma rolled his pattern eyes, since his spider eyes couldn't. Belatedly, I realized my phone was still in my pockets when I fell asleep. Taking it out, I found I hadn't put Ilima's number into my phone yet. "Gimme the stupid business card Toma.", I grouched, less polite than my previous request. I typed the trial captain's number into the numpad, brought the phone to my head, and waited through four ear splitting rings before he picked up.

"Ilima speaking. Who is this and what can I do for you?", Ilima greeted me through the aging phone speaker. "It's Kau'i. What were the things we scheduled yesterday? The memories left with the alcohol.", I explained. "That's no problem.", he said, "The day after tomorrow, that's this thursday, the twenty-third, at 1:45 PM at the Pokémon Trainers' School is our fight for the orange petal. Then from monday to sunday, the twenty-seventh through the second, is Trial-goer Boot Camp, also at the Pokémon Trainers' School." "I signed up for that?", I sighed. He defended the event, "It's exclusive to a promising set of new trainers. You'll make connections and it's the perfect opportunity to learn to use your Z-Moves."

Ilima continued, asking, "Why ask me all this at two in the afternoon?" "I just woke up.", I growled, recognizing the celebration lasted longer than I first remembered. "This is, like, my least favorite part of being a trainer. Scheduling things and all this bullshit.", I complained. Ilima laughed, saying, "In my experience, trainers have the least busy schedules of any profession besides authors and other pure creatives that don't need equipment. Almost anything a trainer does is an immediate interruption of whatever they're doing or can be done at any time." "Lucky me.", I oozed sarcastically before hanging up. That song was still stuck in my head. I would be staying in bed a while longer. "Bring Waiola up here, she's joining the trash pile.", I said to Toma.

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Later that day, I walked down the street with an air of nonchalance, looking down at my phone as I neared the dropoff point Eva had set for me. Her texts had been far too straight-to-the-point for her to have only done this for me, so I guessed she'd taken on the role of the woman on the inside after Plumeria and I left the Team. I ducked into an alleyway, aiming to enter a mostly vacant office space from the side door Eva had directed me to, when I ran into someone else.

Both of us stopped when we noticed the other and reached towards our hips. Then, I recognized his face. "Evander?", I questioned. "Kau'i?", he returned. "What're ya doin' here?", I asked. "That's my line.", he quipped. I paused before I responded again, taking in the situation. Evander had been the leader of the Melemele strike team, and there had been no word of Tapu Koko being stolen successfully or ultra beasts on the island. Now he was here, at the dropoff for supplies from Team Skull for ex-members. I relaxed my posture. "Eva sent your stuff here, didn't she?", I asked flatly. Evander finally put the pieces together as well. "Yep. Alright, let's go. Do you wanna have your Golbat do lookout or should I handle it?", he moved on like that misunderstanding never happened. "My Crobat can handle it, yeah.", I answered smugly. Evander gaped, just a little.

Kawami was released from her ball, hovering with ease just over my head. "Keep watch, okay?", I told her. Finally, keeping herself up with her hindwings, she set one forewing down at her side and saluted with the other. I laughed and rubbed her head. "Congrats on being able to salute in the air, Kawami.", I said sincerely, before gesturing to Evander with an expectant smile. "I'm not doing the bowing thing. I don't have to spice up my life of standing in front of a door all day anymore, thank Arceus.", he said tersely, opening the door without holding it open for me. 'Chivalry found dead in downtown Hau'oli, more at nine.', I thought to myself as I pushed the door on my way in.

"She evolved just recently then?", Evander asked, referring to Kawami. "Yeah, yesterday during Ilima's trial.", I answered as we entered the stairwell to avoid running into other people in the building. "So that's what you've been doing huh? Takin' the island challenge? With a Poison-Type team you should be able to beat Hala pretty easily, that's good progress for less than a month into the season.", He said, impressed. "I also did Poni Island already.", I corrected him, seeing as he clearly thought I only just finished my first trial. He quirked an eyebrow as we entered the fourth floor hallway, before saying, "Guess calling you a prodigy all those years wasn't wrong. All of Poni Island's trials?!"

"Well technically no. Mina's trial is stupid, I have to beat all the trial captains for flower petals and come back before I can face the totem. I did fight Hapu after, but that was more of a grudge match.", I explained. "Still, most people take a whole month if not longer to finish the Vast Poni Canyon trial. Just getting there is a pain, not to mention facing that mean old Kommo-o. Also, a grudge match? What do you and the little kahuna have to beef over?", he continued. "What don't we have to beef over?", I said rhetorically. "That doesn't answer my question.", he bickered. "No, it doesn't.", I agreed unhelpfully as I finally pulled open the door of the small office our stuff had been stored in.

Around the room were stacks of cardboard moving boxes as well as a few odd large items or packages all labeled with the names of the ex-members that owned them. Two boxes were labeled with my name while five boxes and a chair had Evander's name on them. "This is way too much shit to just pick up and walk away with.", I thought out loud. Evander had the same defeated expression I did. "My money should be in here, we could rent a storage unit.", I said after staring at the boxes for several silent seconds. Evander moaned in anguish. "I have a place, but you need to find your own space for your own shit at some point.", he eventually griped. "Alright. I can help you move it, I don't expect your Ghost-Types will do a good job hauling stuff.", I offered. "Sure.", he sighed.

Over the next few hours, with the assistance of Toma and Kawami, we moved all our stuff out of the office building and into a tiny apartment tucked away where the shadows of towers covered the lowest common denominator. We got some odd looks dragging the webbed up conglomerate of boxes down the street, but with the cover story that I was helping him move for some pocket change for my island challenge, we were left alone long enough to get everything to Evander's apartment.

Evander gave me an ultimatum once we were done, "If you don't get somewhere else to put your shit, in a few days I'm dumping it back in the garbage." "I got it.", I assured him, "I'll buy you lunch for the trouble, and if you need some pointers on stealing I can do that too." "I've got a job dammit, I don't needa be stealin' for my food.", he said spitefully. He was clearly not doing great, but I decided to not bring it up and make it even worse. I grabbed his number so I could call him when I came back to move my stuff out, then left to get some sleep for the night.

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As I walked out to the training grounds, I saw a Meowth slip away from my peripheral vision. Because of the limited ground space in Alola and particularly in the middle of Hau'oli, the training grounds were set up with one field on each of several floors with open air flow like a parking garage. The floor we entered was empty, so I set Waiola and my bag down and grabbed my textbook to check my notes. The next step my team needed to take was obvious, get Waiola up to speed with the rest of the team.

Both Toma and Kawami were now fully evolved, while Waiola was just barely above the newbie level in spite of her incredibly clutch performances against Mina and Hapu. Her role was more than just a reliable source of poisoning from Poison Gas and consistent damage from Dragon Rage, she would be the most controlling member of the team. Where Kawami would undo our enemy's progress, Waiola would stop it before it could start. Before she could do that though, she'd need to get stronger.

"Tomorrow's our fight with Ilima, I want Waiola to hold her own. Toma, your poison is closer in style to hers, I want you to help her train. Waiola, get Dragon Rage working consistently and work towards Smog and Sweet Scent. I'll be helping you through the process. Kawami, you've earned some more relaxed training. Go around, find the Meowths Nanu has trailing us with your echolocation, and give 'em a good scare with Screech. Everybody ready?!"

Kawami offered a much less refined salute than the one she gave the night before, then rushed out of the open building to catch one of our cat tails. Waiola was hesitant to begin, but Toma's cheerful attitude was unbeatable, and she eventually gave in. "Start with the basics, yeah? Toma, explain how you use Acid Spray and what getting it working was like." Toma launched into his explanation, occasionally weaving a picture to help him along. Waiola nodded along, her eyes never meeting Toma's as she looked away from him with a mask of pride. When I noticed Toma's pictogram was now completely unrelated to poison or even an analogy that could be tied to poison, I interrupted him.

"Let's move on to practice battles. Waiola will think through her smoke moves while she practices Dragon Rage. Toma, any ideas on how to give Waiola targets to test her moves without you needing to take direct damage?" Toma smiled, scratching his armored chin with a mandible. I knew he loved to apply his skills in new and strange ways, which is why I gave him that challenge, but even I didn't expect what he did next. In a flourish, he spat out the web constructs he used for Infestation and connected each tiny web spider to himself with a thin thread. Then, he waved his arms back and forth, and the constructs followed along. "That is amazing, Toma! Alright, here's the deal: you can do whatever you want to avoid Waiola, Shadow Sneak, massive webs, whatever, but you can only attack her through the puppets."

After that, I counted them in and the skirmishes began. Toma brought himself up to the roof with a thread before Waiola could hit him with an Ember, and the Infestation began to rain down. Tiny spiders made of webs surrounded the Salandit, and she was pushed to improvise. A Poison Gas poured out of her skin, her fire lines glowing as she tried to push back against the tide that Toma was sending at her, but the Corrosive mixture was only able to melt through a few of Toma's puppeteer strings before she was overrun. She tried to burn the things off by flashing heat throughout her body, creating a brief Ember all over her, but the onslaught just kept coming after that. Eventually, I called off the first round.

"Okay, that was some good stuff Waiola, but you're not quite there yet. Do you know where you went wrong?" Waiola just pouted at my question. "If you don't wanna fight, we can quit and you can stop getting stronger.", I offered rhetorically. Waiola scoffed at the idea and started paying attention again. "Your poison isn't strong or fast enough. If you can work it up to Smog, you'd melt those puppets before they ever got to you. Your control, what you'll excel in down the line, also lacks. If you could use Sweet Scent the waves would come slower and you might even be able to catch Toma slipping. Remember, this isn't just you versus the puppets, it's you versus Toma. And when you fight Toma, he'd shrug off your attacks, even Ember, so work up your heat for a stronger Fire-Type move or hit him with Dragon Rage to punch up. This is the perfect training regimen to get you up to speed, that is, if you actually give it your all."

I was pretty proud of that lecture, and Waiola was properly fired up after it. Letting Waiola stew for a second, I whispered to Toma, "Don't go so hard from the beginning, she needs general fighting experience too. Give her enough to clear with that full-body Ember or good movement and keep upping the pressure from there." Without a doubt in his eyes, he nodded along. "Alright, let's go another round!"

We continued these skirmishes for hours, Waiola's gas shifting in power and smell with each attempt she didn't take frustrated pot shots at Toma with Dragon Rage. By the fifth time I had to lift my head up from my studies on Ilima's pokémon to shout, "Keep your blood pumping!", the determined scowl she wore was stuck to her face. After almost an hour, Kawami came back with a devilish smile to report her success in scaring one of the Meowth up close before leaving again. This too repeated over the course of the day, each new scare coming quicker, then slower for a time while the Meowth seemed to coordinate around Kawami, then quicker again. After the sun set, Kawami returned and I asked her to stay and watch the last skirmish between Waiola and Toma.

Toma once again backed away into a Spider Web to pour out an Infestation of puppets while Waiola was already busy washing the field in an invisible cloud of Sweet Scent. Toma never bothered to cover himself in the darkness of Night Shade as the aroma lulled him into a false sense of security. The smell in the room got Sweeter and Sweeter as Waiola danced around the wimpy first waves of marionettes until she finally was satisfied and switched tacks. A grimy grey smoke rolled off her scales and out of her mouth, stopping the slow march of the Infestation. Toma's control threads tensed, and the faux-arachnids jumped through the Smog to get a chance to claw at the salamander before she melted them.

Waiola was ready to go at that point, pushing the Smog out of her mouth to clear the way as she rushed towards Toma. This was the farthest she'd gotten by a wide margin, successfully setting up Sweet Scent to inhibit Toma's frankly stupid ability to avoid contact with his opponents when he could set the field, dealing with the first wave while occupied with Sweet Scent, properly switching over to a powerful enough Smog without much downtime, and getting in close.

Where Toma probably should have run, his intoxicated mind instead decided to send as many puppets as possible at the approaching lizard. Showcasing incredible presence of mind, Waiola continued to surround herself in Smog to shield from the horde while she breathed in and spewed forth a gout of Raging Draconic flames. Toma hopped out of the flames, his surprise at being caught by the attack evident on his face, before he was hit with another attack. Too busy scurrying around listlessly, he made no more puppets and was hounded by the little princess until he collapsed. I clapped.

"That's the fight! Excellent job Waiola!", I congratulated. Waiola was shaken for a moment, expecting more struggle, her face still on edge, before reality hit and she slithered in excited circles. I picked her up, Kawami standing on my head, as I gave her the attention she would never admit she needed.

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Ilima stood at the other end of the concrete battlefield. A small crowd of students on their lunch break watched from the sidelines while they ate their meals. A straight-laced young girl barely older than me that seemed to be copying all of Ilima's style choices, and in a genuine manner unlike Copy Kathy, held her hands up for our attention. Ilima's protège would be our referee for this battle. He had the impression of someone just about to be an adult, but apparently he was about to age out of his captain position, so he was training up the girl to take on the mantle while he moved on to focus on whatever else he did. I wasn't clear on the details.

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"This will be a single battle, each trainer may use up to three pokémon and switch twice. No Z-Moves will be permitted for this match, otherwise, standard Alolan battle rules apply. Upon her victory, the challenger Kau'i will receive the orange petal from Captain Ilima. Upon his victory, Captain Ilima will receive the right to revoke his previous reward to the challenger from their prior bargain. Are these terms acceptable?", the captain-in-training said.

"Fuckin' narc!", I shouted over at Ilima upon hearing the reward he would get if I lost. That got a few chuckles and noises of agreement from the crowd, but the referee was frowning. "Is that a rejection of the terms?", she asked. "No, I agree, just stating facts.", I clarified. Even Ilima laughed a little at that. The referee looked to her mentor. "I also agree to the terms, though I'll be using only two pokémon.", he stated confidently. She collected herself, and began the countdown, "Three. Two. One. Begin!" "Waiola, make 'em feel small!", I taunted, throwing my first ball in. "Your favorite motif, Smeargle.", Ilima said cryptically.

I had expected something straightforward to start off, a Komala or maybe a lower skill Gumshoos if he had used three pokémon. Instead, Ilima was opening with what was typically the ace of his team regardless of the level. In keeping with our strategy, Waiola immediately Faked Out the painter pokémon, causing her to flinch. The Smeargle didn't just stand around as she flinched though, her tail slipped limply from her fingers as she tensed into a runner's stance. The Smeargle was Moody, and her stats were in flux from moment to moment. Waiola might be able to deal with her, given the low attack abilities of Smeargles, but I wasn't going to risk it. Her Dragon's Rage would be a useful tool against any bulky Normal-Types down the line, so I raised my hand and switched her out.

Seeing what she saw as an annoyance be switched out brought Smeargle back into stability, holding her brush tail again in a relaxed posture as she Focused her mental Energy. Clearly Ilima had trained some control of her Mood swings into the pokémon. I hoped Toma would be able to capitalize on the pokémon's weak offense, maybe even pull away with a Fell Stinger boost, so I reached for his nest ball in my pocket. I sent him out before the referee could call me on wasting time, and the fight began anew. Smeargle's eye thinned to slits, tracking Toma's every moment as he spun around the field through webs and shadows to cut deeply into her when I called for a Fell Stinger, but she did nothing to retaliate.

Her tail flexed, her arms bulged with vascular motion, and she stood in an inadvisably wide stance. Her eyes never once left Toma, Locked Onto him, until Ilima shouted, "Now!" With a vicious grin, she laid into Toma with brutal Tail Slaps. Paint splattered the field as, with 3 quick and 2 strong brush strokes overflowing with Technique, Smeargle turned Toma from a blank canvas to a broken impression of himself. Then, Smeargle sat down criss-cross-applesauce to look over her work. In one move that I hadn't bothered to prevent, Toma was out of the fight.

I wasn't going to let that happen again, so I sent in our problem solver. Kawami was over the field in a snap, and in another snap she had Infiltrated her way right into the Smeargle's lap and Bitten down on her side without any input from me. The Smeargle sprawled out on her back, fainted yet still smiling and satisfied with her performance art. Taking her place on the field, a Gumshoos stood with his stubby arms at the ready for a tussle, an anticipatory intensity rolling out of him.

I called a codeword for our strategy, and they were off. Kawami flitted through the air as the two exchanged introductory attacks that never hit until she slid in and gripped him in her Poison Fangs. Sternly, the Gumshoos wrestled Kawami to the ground and bit back with a Hyper Fang. His body shuddered from the nasty poison my team was all too equipped to deliver, but he showed no signs of letting up. A Crobat's damage just couldn't match a Gumshoos's at our level of play. Again, I raised my hand and switched out the pokémon on the field. Gumshoos was quite obstinate about the interruption, and ran in Pursuit after the red light that now comprised Kawami, ripping a chunk from her digitizing form. In spite of how alarming that move was, Kawami seemed to have scraped by without fainting, as evidenced by the flickering glow around the scuffed ball's button.

Waiola reappeared, anxious to fight, or she was just generally anxious, or both. All of the above were plausible with the tsundere scamp. She was still less powerful than the rest of the team, but I needed her here. "Punch up!", I ordered her. Putting on a brave face while the Gumshoos nearly hacked up a lung, she thought of her friend who got one-shot by these enemies and threw that righteous Dragon's Rage at the Gumshoos. He pushed through the flames even as they seeped into his skin before striking the unassuming salamander in his passionate Pursuit. Waiola was crushed by the weight of the mongoose as he also went unconscious from the pain of his poisoning. I smirked.

"Salandit was unable to fight before Gumshoos. If that is all, I believe Captain Ilima has won.", the student announced. The crowd stirred, but Ilima hushed them with a simple gesture. "Kau'i, if you would?", he asked, opening the floor to me. I smiled wider and pressed the button on that greasy old poké ball, releasing a still conscious Kawami back out in the open. "Kau'i still has a pokémon able to fight, she wins!", the captain-to-be declared, bringing the crowd to a mixed cacophony of support and dissent. Ilima and I met at the center of the field with Kawami at my side. "My petal, please." , I said in an uptight Galarian accent, to which Ilima acquiesced, grabbing one of several dozen petals from a simple pouch in his butt fanny pack. I couldn't help but think, 'It would've been way easier to just steal the petal.'

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I meandered through Hau'oli the next day, looking for something to do to pass the time. We'd done some training after healing up from the fight with Ilima, but I did not want a third day of nothing but training and fighting in a row. The version of me that was busy doing shit for Team Skull all the time would've screamed her head off at the me of that moment, but luckily she had been supplanted by time.

I could also have traveled to Iki Town to fight Hala for the Melemele Grand Trial, but I wasn't gonna throw myself into that too recklessly, given Hala's reputation. He was known to go easy on newbies, but he was still a capable trainer and Master of the Fighting-Type. Even if all of my pokémon resisted Fighting-Type attacks, he had every ability to shut me down anyways. And so I waited around for Ilima's stupid boot camp and tried to find something else to do.

Waiola was laying across my shoulders and around my neck, providing extra body heat that just made me sweatier than the walk would've already made me. I passed down another street of expensive hotels, small businesses, and fancy brand stores when I saw a bustling to my right. Some sort of impromptu fair was running, turning a small brick lined road into a consortium of classic pop-up stalls. Lemonades, hot dogs, corn dogs, and deep fried foods of all kinds flew down people's throats as they browsed through jewelry, knick-knacks, and "local specialties" no one living here had ever touched. A banner was strung up between the buildings that had the misfortune of lining the street that day, plastered with the logo of the company that had shilled out to get this event going.

This was a pickpocket's wet dream, but I had a feeling being too bold stealing here would lose me the good grace Hapu had convinced the League, the captains, and the kahunas to give me. I sighed and mixed into the crowd, only grabbing a few wallets, and only from a few shithead tourists just about to reach the end of a food stall line. They'd freeze the cards when they realized they hadn't just forgotten their wallets somewhere, so I'd get myself some nice things while the opportunity still existed.

I moved to the line of an authentic taco truck, waiting patiently to get my food. I'd never had tacos when I was living the orphan life, but a few grunts refused to go without eating tacos every month at the least and I had been treated to a faithfully constructed version of the dish many times. I was excited to try the "street tacos" that so many of the grunts from other regions swore were a superior form that couldn't be fully enjoyed without getting them straight from a man who only cooked in a truck trailer. I moved to grab my textbook, to go over the next steps for my team again while I waited, when I noticed someone out of the corner of my eye.

Maybe some Team Skull members wouldn't've recognized him as he was, but I did. That claw marked jacket was what he wore when he first joined, long before he ever became an admin. Team Skull Admin Gladion was searching through the crowd with an annoyed expression, looking for someone. I grabbed Waiola off my neck and pulled my hood up. I was pretty sure he was looking for Evander, his boyfriend, and not me, but I wasn't taking any chances. Of course, the act of pulling on my hood was what caught his attention, and, with a flash of recognition in his eyes, he came up to me. I wasn't going to abandon the tacos!

"What do you want, Gladion? I'm trying to get food.", I hissed. "Kau'i, long time no see.", he greeted, a hint of desperation in his voice. He expected something from talking to me, but he wasn't here for me. "Do you want me to announce who you are to everybody or are you gonna be normal?", I said, my temper thin. Our relationship had always been strained, since I never wanted the rumors of us being rivals to spread while he let it all happen. I guess the admin having an overwhelmingly one-sided "rivalry" with some talented girl who just never shaped up was a good narrative. Those thoughts were just making me more infuriated with him when he hadn't done much of anything to me today, so I focused up. "Or as normal as you can get.", I added on top of the lengthy silence that had both of us lost in thought.

"Do you know where Evander is? He never came back to Po Town after the plan.", Gladion said, deciding to ignore all the baggage between us. I liked Evander a great deal more than Gladion, so I wouldn't give him up to Gladion without talking to him about it. "Nah man. We were in different teams for the plan, you know that. As far as I know, he could be anywhere.", I fibbed. All of that was true, it just left out that I had met up with him, had his phone number, could've gotten in contact with him through Eva or Plumeria even without that, and had plans to go to his apartment to get my stuff and have lunch with him tomorrow. Gladion sighed.

"Tell me if you see him, will ya?", he said intensely, the years of integrating with thugs clear in his otherwise upper-class speech. "I might, if I had a way to call you.", I replied, again sticking to technical truths. Gladion groaned and pulled out his phone. "Number.", he demanded. I recited it, and felt a buzz in my pocket. Gladion had sent me a single period. "Can I order my tacos now?", I asked, pointing to the truck we were now right in front of. He huffed before walking away to continue his fruitless search. How well did he even know his boyfriend? He wouldn't be caught dead in a place like this.

"Tacos please, whichever one's got beef.", I requested. The cook reached out a hand for payment, and I passed him one of the debit cards, since I wouldn't be able to use those anywhere I'd put the card in the machine myself. A few minutes passed before I was waved back over. "Make sure you squeeze those limes on 'em.", the man said as he handed over my order, knowing this must've been my first time eating this kind of food. It was great advice.

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I called Evander in the morning, receiving a curse from him on the other end. Apparently he was working the night shift and I had stopped him before he could get some sleep. I told him quickly about Gladion, and that I'd be over before noon so we could get lunch afterwards. "We can talk about Gladion over food, I need rest. My Rotom will let you into the apartment.", he had rebuffed me when I tried to push for more details about the situation between the two.

I found myself walking to a storage rental place I had been recommended. Apparently it was where alot of Team Skull members put their stuff, because it was absurdly secure for how cheap the rent was and because the management didn't ask questions. When you're friends with thieves and a thief yourself, you begin to appreciate good locks, and apparently this place somehow had alarms for intrusions using type energy. No one bothered to ask how they could do that with such low prices, and I wouldn't be the first.

I took one step, then another, and another. I turned down an alleyway, and what I was hearing didn't change. 'I wish Gladion wasn't so desperate.', I thought, taking note of the second set of footsteps following me down the empty alleyway. I rolled my shoulder innocuously, signaling my pokémon covertly. Gladion continued to follow me, and when we reached the middle of the alleyway, I turned to face him. "Gladion, long time no see.", I mocked. How he thought I wouldn't know he was trailing me, I didn't know. I had been stealing things from people in as covert a fashion as I could for years, my team knew how to check my back. It wasn't a skill I had much use for lately, but I had an inkling it might come up.

"You know where Evander is! I know it!", Gladion yelled at me. Overall, it was a terrible interrogation tactic. He was always assuming something; Assuming he'd talk with Guzma when he first got to Po Town, assuming the plan would succeed, assuming all of this would just work out. Even when he was right, it pissed me off.

I pointed up at the roofs of the buildings on either side of us, to the crowd of black cats watching us. Then, I began my speech, "Ya know, Hapu never trusted me all the way. She asked her pal Nanu to keep an eye on me, the Meowth are his way of doing that. I've had Kawami practicing her tracking by chasing them down these past few days, and when I got her to tell them I could offer up a Team Skull Admin on a silver platter..." A venomous smile bubbled up and onto my face.

Gladion reached for a poké ball, but I held up a hand, the smile turning to a toxic scowl in a flash. "No need for that.", I cautioned him, "Just turn around and walk away. If Nanu wanted you that bad, I doubt he would need the Meowth to tell him where you are. Just leave me out of your stupid love troubles and your stupid Team, and we're done." "Why do all this then!?", he shouted at me. "One of my favorite things I learned from Poison-Types," I explained, "show you're a threat, and suddenly people take you seriously."

Gladion looked like he wanted to argue, like he wanted to scream, but he didn't have anything useful to add. "I'll walk first then. You have my number if you ever wanna call, shithead.", I said playfully, turning around again to leave the alleyway and get back on route to the storage rental.

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My team and I finished moving my stuff out, and I was now treating Evander to the promised lunch while we talked. "He really did that?", Evander asked, an olive stuck to his lip. I finished sipping from the plastic Trubway cup before speaking, "Yeah, he did. Now, you still haven't explained what led up to this whole thing. You must've had a reason to cut contact completely instead of just plain leaving the Team like I did. Why'd'ya do it?" I bit into my jalepeño bread monstrosity while he explained, a blended mess of sauces dripping onto the paper wrapping.

"We had a big argument before the plan. Well, not really an argument, it's complicated. He kept me at home with him for a whole month before the plan, and maybe a week before I just needed to do something other than sit around and kiss. So I pushed him to let me work, and he didn't, and I insisted he let me work, and he didn't, and then we screamed at eachother, and I stormed out telling him to have me handle Melemele. He kept going on about how we had no chance of actually capturing Tapu Koko, but that we still had to try so we could waste Hala's time and whatnot, and I didn't want his plan to fail, so I offered myself up to take the fall for it. I did sound pissed as hell when I did that though, so I don't think it came off as the romantic gesture I was hoping for."

"Hmm.", I hummed through my sandwich. I swallowed the congealed mass of ingredients and breathed out before continuing the conversation. Evander flinched when he smelled my breath, but I ignored it. "And leaving the Team, why do that? It sounds like you were pretty on board before it happened, hell! You had a front-row seat to the planning of the plan! Why only in the middle of it did you change your mind?"

"You did the same damn thing!", he retorted, offended. "The girl who helped raise me took a Fire Lash to the fucking face from my years long mentor after giving an impassioned speech so good she got to be the kahuna over it!", I recounted furiously. "Damn! Really!?", he exclaimed. I looked through his eyes at his soul as I shouted, "Yes!" "Alright, alright, yeah, I'll tell you.", he conceded. The girl at the counter was giving us a weird look, but no one else was in the store, so I didn't care.

"When we went to capture Tapu Koko, or I guess to fail to capture Tapu Koko, I led the group so we didn't run into anyone on our way there. The Ruins of Conflict aren't like the other ruins, you can't really get there without going through Iki Town. That was what Gladion used to sell Guzma and Plumeria on me leading the Melemele team; My Ghost-Types could scout ahead and get everyone to the Ruins without being seen."

"So anyway, I go in and Hala is already there, meditating. I get the whole group inside, we try to fight him off, and he just trounces all of us. I think at one point he fought a pokémon himself since his pokémon were all busy. And after he beat us, he had us all tied up with rope and gave us a lecture on ultra beasts. Says they're dangerous, how he fought one off years ago and it nearly got away, all this shit, and I'm still mad at Gladion for all his bullshit."

"So I find this out and I'm cursing myself for being such an idiot. Gladion always said he didn't know too much about ultra beasts, and I thought that was just because nobody knew that much, but it turns out he just made this whole plan off of practically nothing! And part of me thinks that's incredibly impressive, and the other part wants to pop his cute little head like a water balloon!"

Then he finally stopped ranting, breathing in like he'd forgotten how. The last of my sandwich clung to my cheek as I stared at him. "If I had a nickel for every time a kahuna explaining the dangers of ultra beasts got a Team Skull member to quit, I'd have three nickels.", I said offhand. "Six actually, some of the other grunts on my team also quit with me.", Evander corrected before taking a rejuvenating sip of soda. "I think you should talk to Gladion.", I stated. Evander choked on the soda, cleared his throat, and asked, "What?"

I argued my case, "I'm not a... romance person... but you've been in a shit mood every time I've seen you lately. You clearly still care about Gladion, even if it's different now, I mean you called him cute while talking about popping his head open." "I did, didn't I?", he mumbled. "You maybe shouldn't keep dating, I don't really know, and you probably shouldn't tell him where you are either at this point, but you both still have alot that needs talking out. Give him a call, clear the air, try to be... normal about things. It'll make you feel better, and it'll definitely make him feel better. He's almost worse than when he first joined, after his mom got arrested. He's confused and needs something to steady him.", I told him.

Evander looked at me for a while, thinking over what I'd said. "Are you gonna eat that?", I interrupted his train of thought, pointing at the half of a sandwich turning cold and wet in front of him. He pushed it over to me and stood up. "I'm gonna think it over. I'll text you if things change, cause if they do you probably deserve credit at this point. Thanks for the meal Kau'i, I'll see you around.", he said. With a considering expression weighed down by exhaustion, he left the Trubway to get some rest in his apartment. I finished the rest of his sandwich, which was more subdued in its flavors than my own, and walked out of the restaurant myself after snatching a box of cookies by the door.