Rock 4.7: Night Shift

  Lyra

  March 15, 2020

  Coco races back downhill towards you and Cuicatl. There’s a large stick in her mouth and she seems to be brimming with pride. “Good job,” Cuicatl calls. She can’t actually see if Coco did a good job, but she sounds absolutely convinced that she did. The tyrunt slows down and keeps pace beside her trainer as you continue to walk up the winding mountain trail.

  The dinosaur’s been obsessed with finding her own stick since her trial yesterday. She snatched the cubone’s bone out of the air and then charged forward to try and beat its original owner unconscious with it. Between knocking out the cubone and setting up rocks she’d practically sealed the match. Her trainer had been indulging her more than usual ever since. Even bought her a steak. (Coco ate it in two bites without chewing.)

  The Internet is baffled by Cuicatl’s relationship with her tyrunt. They’re notoriously tricky to raise unless, apparently, you can speak to dragons. Cuicatl’s tried to avoid attention but there were a lot of people with tripods or smart phones recording her battle yesterday. The few comments she has made to the press, that she can speak to dragons and is making a book of their myths, have really caught people’s attention. In good and bad ways. You saw at least one her long, long thread discussing whether it’s cultural appropriation for a human to write about pokemon mythology.

  Mostly the coverage hasn’t been anything Cuicatl would want to read. Lots of memes, racism, and conspiracy theories. Maybe VStar intentionally destroyed their lab so she could be a hero. Or maybe she’s the long-lost cousin of N. That kind of nonsense. You want to keep an eye on how they’re treating her so nothing unexpected comes up, but you don’t really want to tell her what you’ve found. She seemed so disappointed when Kekoa told her about the tyrantrum meme.

  Her metang is floating nearby. You know that a metang isn’t an alakazam. Your absol could shut it down quickly enough. It doesn’t matter: every time you see it there’s still an itch beneath your skin. You clench your hands shut and dig your fingernails into your palm, but the feeling won’t go away. Is that the metang itself or just your reaction to it? Does it really matter?

  Her wimpod is much cuter. Sure, he’s a crustacean, but Gen convinced you that bug-types could be okay. You have a water-type invertebrate yourself so it’s not like you have room to talk. Leo seems to be getting a little bolder by the day. You even caught him looking through your bag last night in the Center. He ran away when he saw you looking, but you can’t expect too much from a wimpod.

  Musei is resting on your shoulder for now. You’ll kick him off and make him fly like a proper noibat once it gets darker. When it’s colder you’ll send Mirai out. Everywhere being dark and cold was a delight for the absol. A return to normal was a disappointment. Mountaintops are more her scene. She should enjoy tonight, even if you’re going to be on top of an active volcano instead of a pokémon-maintained winter wonderland.

  Most places in nature are very active around dusk and dawn. The changing of the shifts. The diurnal and nocturnal pokémon greet each other in passing as they go to and from their dens. Some pokémon are only active in the liminal hours when there’s light enough to see but not so much heat as to be overwhelming.

  The heat isn’t really a concern on Mauna Wela. There are a lot of fire-types here. Even the species that aren’t fire-types can at least handle a little heat. There are still a lot of pokémon out and about right now. Fletchinder do one last sweep of the mountain before giving up for the night. A few early mandibuzz share the sky with the raptors. You manage to spot the top of a cubone helmet just barely poking out of a shrub. He’s probably keeping an eye on the mandibuzz to make sure that he doesn’t end up on the menu. Poor guy. You wonder how far away he is from his burrow. Will he manage to get there before the light fades? Will he stay in the shrub all night? Or will he be snatched up into the air and dropped over and over again until he dies?

  You’re tempted to stay and find out. You would if you were alone. You went onto the trail to explore, after all. But Cuicatl’s working tonight and you have a fifth team member to catch. Besides, you’re not sure who you would want to win.

  “There’s a cubone near us,” you tell Cuicatl. “And a few mandibuzz above. Who would you root for?”

  “Mandibuzz,” she replies without hesitation. “They’re good pokémon.”

  “They are queer icons,” you say. Honestly this far in and you still aren’t entirely sure how she feels about queer people. She’s friends with Kekoa. Then again, so was Genesis and you know how she feels about lesbians. About you. Doesn’t change how you feel about her.

  “I get it,” Cuicatl says. “They’re hermaphrodites. In Anahuac they’re always between things. Life and death, male and female. If you offer them a bone with a letter attached, they might take it to the underworld. Grass-types are more our, um, ‘queer icons.’” She knows about the hermaphrodite thing. Interesting. You’re pretty sure Genesis would faint if you tried to explain that to her.

  The shadows are lengthening around you. There are fewer fletchinder and talonflame above you, more mandibuzz. You can’t really see the sunset since it’s on the other side of the mountain. At least you’ll have a good view of the sunrise when you come back down in the morning.

  “How are gay people treated over there?” you ask. You honestly don’t know. One source said that homosexuality was punishable by death, another said that gay marriage had been legal since 400 CE. Hard to tell much of anything about the country from American sources.

  “Depends on the place. It’s legal in some places. In the Mexica areas being gay isn’t seen as manly. Men are supposed to be masculine. If you want to get married to another man you need approval from the priests of war. Usually takes a captive.”

  Captives. She means sacrifices. You’re allowed to be gay if you kill people for the state.

  “Women can do whatever. If you won’t have kids of your own, you’re expected to foster orphans or serve in the temples to make up for it. And trans people are, um, complicated?” She shakes her head. It sends hair onto her face. It’s sort of adorable when it happens. “We don’t let trans men serve in the military, and you only earn manhood by being a soldier. And trans women can’t transition until after their service is over. It’s not something that’s really talked about. I knew they existed but not a lot more. Had to look up the laws after meeting Kekoa. I know the rules aren’t different down south. I don’t know how.”

  You’d thought that sources always exaggerated how big of a deal the military was in Anahuac. That it was some conservative ploy to rally up support for another war when their approval slips in the polls. And they couldn’t really be sacrificing that many people. Maybe a few executed criminals here and there. Big whoop. They execute a whole bunch of people in Orre and Texas and no one ever calls them savages.

  Nope. Turns out Anahuac really is that fucked up.

  At least she’s okay with lesbians. And since she didn’t know the rules before she’s probably straight. Won’t give you shit or get in your way when Gen comes back. It’s probably the best outcome.

  The road you’re on is big enough you can walk side-by-side so she doesn’t fall onto anyone if she trips. In the day the road would be scorching hot to walk on with no shade. It’s pleasant at this hour. You glance over at Cuicatl beside you. She’s not smiling. Or frowning. Getting a read on her mental state is a little hard without being able to tell much from the eyes. You think she’s doing okay tonight. She’d been trending upwards since the tyrantrum incident.

  It’s good. You were really worried about her for a while after Pixie left. She took the loss of her starter hard and then locked it all inside. Maybe Kekoa got let in. He didn’t seem nearly concerned enough about it at the time. Said that she just needed space for a bit.

  He gave her space and she ended up facing down a tyrantrum without a care whether she lived or died.

  She’s doing better. Still not great. Her features were softer in the dimmed lights of The Blackout. These days you can see just how thin she is and how little she’s eating. All while backpacking. You aren’t sure if you should push her. Carla from school is bulimic. Confronting her just led to you getting shut out.

  It took Genesis the better part of a week before she noticed that Carla wasn’t eating lunch at the table anymore. She never did figure out why.

  You dismiss the thought for now. You’ll be spending a lot of time together tonight unless things go really well. You can make your move later.

  *

  You have to get onto a side trail to find a stream. Even then it’s a bit of a walk. The winds blow east on Akala so all of the rain get dropped on the western side of Mauna Wela. The eastern face is dry since there’s no rain left. Salandit live in water so you might need to walk halfway around the mountain before you find a stream with them. That’s fine. You have all night. All of tomorrow night, too, if you need it.

  The first stream you come across is shallow and fast moving. Not ideal for a salandit. “Let’s keep going,” you tell Cuicatl. The sun has set but there’s still enough lingering light to see the trail ahead. You keep an eye on the stream beside you as the trail snakes beside it. You want to find a pool where the water slows down.

  You have to turn on a flashlight before you find one like that. Thankfully the trail is straight so Cuicatl can keep a good pace behind you without having to feel out the turns with her cane. Coco was withdrawn to avoid scaring off the salandit with the scent of a large predator. Her metang and wimpod are still floating somewhere behind you. Musei is perched on your shoulder. Thankfully he’s being quiet. At least, quiet for a noibat. Mirai walks beside you in her usual silence.

  When you do stumble onto a pool you breathe a sigh of relief. The pool is at least six feet across and deep and murky enough that your flashlight can’t illuminate the bottom. Close to the ideal salandit habitat. “Alright, we can set up here,” you tell Cuicatl. She sits down behind you while you get things set up. You’re the one going for a new team member so it’s your show.

  You had to use a specialty rod for this. No hook. Salamanders aren’t as durable as fish are and it could cause too much damage. You’re in a National Park and the rules on capture and harassment are pretty strict, even if you’ve cleared the trial. Besides, you’re probably going to have to release a fair few salandit before you find a female. Might as well minimize the damage on the ones you do catch. Instead of a hook there’s a lure ball at the end. You can put cartridges that smell like earthworm’s right next to the ball’s trigger button. If the button gets hit the ball will automatically open and catch whatever hit it. It’s a little more expensive, sure, but it’s a lot more ethical than the alternative.

  Eventually a salandit will get bold enough to swim to the surface. For now, you wait.

  Mirai cuddles up to your side as soon as you sit down. Musei flies off. There’s nothing on this mountain that can catch and kill her at night so she’ll be fine.

  It’s just you, Cuicatl, and your pokémon sitting in silence.

  You’ve never much liked silence.

  “Your head better?” you ask. She’d had a migraine the day in the tunnel. She wanted to talk to the wimpod but her metang was separated from her by thick walls of rock. She could form a link for the translation but it still took everything she had. You wonder how you were ever stupid enough to miss her abilities. Her accent sounds different on television and in echoes than it does in real life. That means that she’s doing something to mask it. That she’s in your head.

  There had been a panicked quintuple checking of records when you figured that out. You couldn’t find any inconsistencies. Even the deep backups, the ones that can’t be changed once they’re uploaded, seemed fine. Nothing there rang false. You’re inclined to believe that she was telling small lies about her abilities, but that she’s not a real psychic. Just talking to Leo without her metang present left her bedridden for hours.

  It's fine. You’ve added a few more backups just to be safe.

  The things you’ll put up with for your Genesis.

  “Yes,” Cuicatl answers. “I feel fine.”

  And then it’s back to silence. Should you press her about the eating disorder? Your long-term plans for getting Genesis back will be in disarray if she kicks you out of the group. You aren’t sure how long it will take Cuicatl’s tyrunt and metang to evolve. They’re the only battling pokémon on her team going into the late stages of the island challenge so they’re seeing plenty of combat. Both are getting their share of training and Coco’s getting big. She’s up to her trainer’s waist (your hips) now. Even if her pokémon don’t evolve soon Cuicatl has a bit of fame. If you got more concrete evidence that Gen’s situation was really, really bad you could have Cuicatl go on a talk show. Try to get some public pressure on the family. Eventually they might cut their losses for the sake of the business.

  Pushing Cuicatl could lead to her cutting you off. But if you don’t act and she dies or has a nervous breakdown then she’s also of no more use to you.

  Cuicatl’s also your friend. Your adorable, terrifying friend. The one who helped you understand your team. Who comforted you after that awful florges tried to fuck with your head. Who needs your help sometimes to keep herself alive and financially solvent. You can’t just let her keep suffering in silence.

  But you can’t risk losing her.

  “You want a salazzle for the pheromones, right?” Cuicatl asks.

  “Yes.” You already told her this.

  “Isn’t that manipulating people’s thoughts and feelings? Like psychics do?”

  You glance back at her. Her face is calm. Nothing to be read. This isn’t loaded or accusatory. She’s just curious or bored. Sensing out exactly how you feel about her like you were doing earlier with the mandibuzz. You’ll indulge her.

  “It’s temporary. Salazzle pheromones just make you seem hotter in the moment. You can do that with lots of stuff: voice, clothing, makeup, posture, colors, other perfumes. Psychics,” and boy is it hard not to fill that word with hate, “can alter memories. Personalities. The core of who you are. It’s different.”

  A flash of red light shines through the pond. Something got caught. No guarantee it’s a female, or even a salandit at all, but it’s the first sign of progress. You start to lazily reel it in. No point risking damage to the rod if the pokémon is already caught.

  “Why do you want to attract boys?” Cuicatl asks. “Is your family making you marry?”

  You stop reeling for a moment and stare at her. “Is your family?”

  She shrugs. “Eventually.”

  That’s disturbing. How much does she even understand dating for love? Is it all arranged over there? You finish reeling in the salandit as you think of a reply.

  “Um. No. I can marry whoever I want. And I don’t want to attract boys; the perfume also works on lesbians.”

  “Huh.” Her face scrunches up a little. Did you miscalculate? Is she a homophobe? “I guess that makes sense. If it’s girl pheromones it wouldn’t get all boys and no girls”

  She either entirely missed the point or doesn’t want to bring it up. Two possibilities for the latter: she just doesn’t think it’s worth commenting on or she finds the topic uncomfortable. Or she doesn’t know what to say. Could be any number of things, actually.

  She sends out Coco as you get the ball off the hook. Her hand is pressed down at the base of Coco’s neck. Her signal to hold back. The pokémon is remarkably good at obeying that order. She’ll be a pretty good guide pokémon until she evolves. You press the release button on the ball and a salandit appears. It takes one look at Coco and immediately dives back into the pond. That’s fine. You can withdraw it if you need it back.

  Coco grunts. Cuicatl shakes her head. “Male.”

  Tyrunt apparently have a fantastic sense of smell. Captain Kiawe helped you out and got some scent samples for male and female salandit. The National Park’s visitor center has both in an exhibit and he was allowed to have some shed slime. Really helped you out because males and females don’t really have external sex differences and you do not want to investigate a wild salamander’s cloaca.

  You put another ball on and cast again while Cuicatl withdraws her pokémon. Maybe something will want to get caught. In the meantime, you break the ball for the escaped male.

  You glance up at the stars. Even with the sun recently set there are a lot of stars up on the mountain. Growing up you always wondered why old cultures put so much emphasis on constellations you could barely see. You get it up here. Why the ancients felt so impossibly small when they looked at the stars, like there must be gods and heroes behind them.

  “What if a psychic just didn’t want to do bad things?” Cuicatl asks.

  “Why wouldn’t they? They could use it to get what they want and cover their tracks so no one would ever find out. No reason for them not to make that choice.”

  “Maybe they’re just a good person?”

  You laugh. Can’t help it. Gods, you’re pretty sure this kid has seen some shit and she still says things like that. “There are good people, yeah, but vanishingly few. You’d be lucky to meet one in your life.” You were lucky enough to. It’s not something you count on happening again. “Everyone else is just taking what they can. Sometimes it’s money or power. Sometimes it’s feelings: friendship, love, whatever. It’s all about getting what you can. And don’t bother denying it, you would twist people to your will if you were stronger.” She doesn’t say anything. Mirai awkwardly shifts beside you. Too much? You glance over at Cuicatl. Her face is tight and in the dim light you can’t tell what she’s thinking. “Well?”

  She slowly shakes her head and leans back on her hands. “I don’t want to argue about it.”

  You leave it at that.

  *

  You have no luck on the east face. Three ponds, two males. One pond didn’t seem to have anything in it at all. It’s fine. You weren’t expecting luck on this end. And it hasn’t been unpleasant. Cuddles with Mirai are great and even if Cuicatl’s been quiet she’s still a comforting presence.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  When your watch strikes midnight, you pull to the side of the trail and call for a break. Might as well have an actual midnight snack. You’re almost to the other side of the mountain so it’s a good breaking point. You pull out two energy bars, one for you and one for Cuicatl. You give her the chocolate one, her favorite, and leave the peanut butter for yourself. They aren’t good, exactly, but they aren’t bad. Just a brick of perfectly palatable nutrients. They don’t take much space, have most of what you need, and you don’t have to cook them. A good enough solution for the backcountry, even if they definitely wouldn’t be your first choice at home.

  Cuicatl takes a bit and spends a long time chewing it. By the time that you’re finished she’s maybe a third of the way through her bar. Coco is sitting nearby and looking at her trainer with pleading eyes. Too bad for her that chocolate’s toxic for birds. And probably also dinosaurs. Neither of you really wants to find out so she doesn’t get any. Cuicatl takes another bite, slowly chews it, and then folds the wrapper over what remains. “I’ll finish it later while you fish,” she says.

  Her stomach rumbles in protest.

  You make a split-second decision. Yes, you’re doing this.

  “Let’s stay here for a while. I want to talk.”

  “Okay…?” She steadily sits back down and looks at you expectantly. Well, looks to your left expectantly.

  “You don’t eat much,” you say.

  “I’m small. I don’t need much.” Her face is blank. Her hand twitches and she moves one heel behind the other and presses it into her leg. You haven’t had much experience actually seeing her but you’re willing to bet those are tells of distress. You hate that you have to keep pushing.

  “You need more than you’re eating, Cuicatl. You’re really, really thin and—”

  “Stop.” The command echoes across the side of the mountain like a gunshot. It’s probably the harshest you’ve ever heard her sound. “Stop,” she says, just a bit quieter. Her eyes are narrowed and her mouth is spread tight. You’ve pissed her off. Great. You were hoping she’d at least listen for a while. When she speaks again it’s in little more than a whisper. “I’m not going to travel with you if you make fun of me.”

  Make fun of her?

  “What?”

  She sighs and presses her boot into the back of her leg a little bit harder.

  “I know I’m fat, okay? I’m trying. Don’t mock me.”

  How would she even know that? It’s not like she can see other people for comparison. Surely her doctor and family would’ve told her, right?

  “No, you aren’t.” Her face darkens even more. It’s sometimes hard to read her feelings through her clouded eyes, but now you could swear there’s atomic fire brimming right behind the cataracts. You cut in before she can say something to end the conversation. “I’m not sure why you think you are?”

  She loses her composure for just a second. Probably didn’t expect that question from someone who was making fun of her. Good. She goes back to glaring at something to your right a moment later. “Everyone says it.”

  Unless Anahuac has some really skewed standards, you’re calling bullshit on that. “Who is ‘everyone?’ I haven’t heard anyone here call you that?” You do your best to keep your voice level. To be annoyingly reasonable when she expects a fight.

  She turns her head to the side. Avoiding eye contact, maybe. You’re not sure why that matters to her. Curious. “My father...” she finally says.

  And there the truth comes out. You already hated the man since you found out what he did to his late wife’s pokémon. Not surprising the controlling asshole found other ways to get his sick kicks. “Cuicatl,” you say. “Have you heard anyone ever call me fat?” You hope that’s a rhetorical question. You’re pretty fit but you understand that a little fat is necessary on the trail. You’ve never tried to burn off the last few pounds. Maybe someone was loud and wrong within earshot of her.

  “No,” she concedes.

  “Would you like to feel my stomach? I can guarantee there’s more there than on yours.”

  She still refuses to look in your direction. You wonder if she’ll accept or if she’ll think this was part of the joke. At long last she moves her legs and slowly stands up. “Alright, where do I go?”

  You have to guide her for the last bit. She can walk up to you and sit down easily enough but then you need to lift up your shirt and move her hand to your abdomen. You breathe in a little and hold it just for effect. She presses her fingers further in and slides her thumb around. It’s a little bit intense, holding her hand while she presses hers against your body with your shirt slid up. The emotional charge to it all doesn’t help. You try to ignore it and focus on her face. With every second she spends digging her fingers in the more the anger fades away to shock and confusion. After thirty seconds or five minutes, your brain isn’t really tracking, she pulls away.

  For a long time you both sit in silence. You can only imagine what’s going through her head right now. Finding out that something so foundational about her body image was a lie can’t be easy. You can give her time. Until you figure out where her thoughts are you can’t really say anything without risking setting her off.

  “I didn’t realize I’d lost that much weight on the trail…” she finally says.

  Poor girl. She still doesn’t get it, even after everything.

  “I don’t think you did.” Cuicatl looks up at you expectantly. Still not following you. Great. Now you have to put it bluntly. “I think your father was lying to you.”

  She looks back down. It’s hard to see her face when it’s covered in shadows at night. You think you can see the edge of her lip pull tighter. Soon her breaths are audible and her shoulders begin to tremor. Her hands clench down hard enough on her thighs that you expect it to leave marks.

  Maybe you shouldn’t have dropped that on her when she was already stressed?

  “You wouldn’t get it,” she whispers. When she looks back up at you there’s hate in her gaze. “You—” Her voice quivers. Then it gets louder. “You are just a fat, ungrateful American.” Every word is louder than the last until she’s yelling. “You know nothing of family. How could you?”

  You rise to your feet as her question hangs in the air. With a flex of your shoulders your nearly empty backpack slides into position. “I’m not going to take this,” you tell her. You do your best to keep your voice perfectly even. “Have a good night.”

  “Bitch,” she hisses.

  “Maybe.”

  You half expect her to keep yelling at you as you leave. She doesn’t. For the best. You don’t really want to draw attention. Anything here that could and would kill her for food is probably asleep, but you don’t want to risk a kangaskhan getting angry enough to scare her off. In her current state of mind, she might take risks she really shouldn’t.

  If you thought it wouldn’t make everything worse, you’d stay behind to make sure nothing attacked. Alas, she’s too angry at you to listen to anything you say. The longer you stay there the more she’d keep feeding her anger until you’d both said things you couldn’t take back.

  The die is cast. Nothing more you can do now. Nothing except salandit hunting. You’ll probably just have to catch one or two and hope they’re female. You can go back tomorrow night to release any males. It’s not the ideal, but it’s the best option left to you for now.

  You shove your hands in your pockets and keep walking along the trail. Mirai presses into your side as you walk. Something big lands on your head. You’re halfway to releasing Musei when you realize that he’s already out and not reacting at all. Oh. You reach up and feel the hairs on Musei’s back. After a deep exhale you move your hand and pet Mirai’s head around the base of his horn. You don’t need their support. That doesn’t mean you aren’t grateful for it.

  If you’ve well and truly burned bridges with Cuicatl you’ll never be able to talk to half of your team again. You weren’t really expecting to be able to talk to them in the first place, but now that you’ve had access to a translator you’ll dearly miss it.

  You really shouldn’t have pressed her on her father. Left that for another day. Preferably a day after you’ve freed Genesis. But you did and there’s no undoing it now. You sigh deeply and shake your head. Your new hat squeaks in protest and digs his claws into your scalp. “Musei, please get off of my head,” you mumble. His claws dig in a little more and then he jumps off. The noibat stays in the air and flies loose circles around you. Good to know he cares in his own way.

  There’s a feebas in the first pond you come across. For a moment you consider keeping it. They’re a little rare and milotic are intelligent, gorgeous, and very durable. No. It would be cruel to keep him away from water so often while you’re on the trail. You slide him back into the pond and recast the line. Nothing else bites. Oh well. That pond was probably a little too deep, anyway. Better for fish than salamanders.

  You walk down the trail to the next one. It’s a little ominous with only your flashlight illuminating it. You have pokémon with you and you know that you’re safe. The only things here that could really be a threat are talonflame, magmortar, kangaskhan and salazzle. Kangaskhan and talonflame are diurnal and salazzle and magmortar don’t usually bother humans. But everything feels just a little bit more threatening in the dark.

  It’s hard to tell the depth of the next pond. Broad, certainly, and you can’t see the bottom with your flashlight. It’s a little muddy so that doesn’t mean much. Decent odds of finding a salandit here. You cast a ball and wait at the edge. Might as well see what you get. It takes a while for a bite. Long enough that your mind begins to wander back to Cuicatl. It’s your luck that you keep getting stuck with girls who defend fathers they shouldn’t. You still don’t really regret trying to tell Cuicatl the truth. She deserves it. Sickening that a father decided to lie to his blind daughter and feed her insecurities. For what? Control? Dangerous game trying to control a kid when her friend is a hydreigon. You pull it off completely or you die. Maybe he realized that at some point and pulled out all the stops. How did no one stop him, though? Surely someone had concerns. Surely someone told her…

  It’s incredibly sad to think why that might be. Maybe she didn’t have friends to speak of. Maybe she was kept at home all the time like Genesis was. She certainly doesn’t talk about friends much. A few anecdotes here and there have her brother in them. A brother who must have been complicit in his father’s work. You’re worried you pushed her over the edge. She’s already so fragile, physically and mentally. She’s been nothing but kind to you, yet you…

  The ball lets out a red flash. You reel it in and let the pokémon out. A salandit. It looks curiously at you for a moment before turning around and diving back into the water. You could still withdraw it. Walk back down the mountain and see what you got in the morning.

  You’re not in the mood. You break the ball and don’t recast.

  You messed everything up. There will be consequences for you and Genesis, sure, but the real damage will be done to someone less able to handle it. That weighs on your heart in a way you don’t like at all. Especially because it isn’t even your fault. You were trying to do good! It just didn’t work. You can’t be blamed for anything that happens. Maybe nothing happens at all and she gets over it.

  Yet here you are, already feeling responsible for things that have not yet come to pass. Stupid heart. Stupid brain. What did you do to deserve any of this?

  Something big stirs in the water. You scramble to your feet as Mirai begins to growl. You swing your flashlight’s beam over the water and see something very large swimming near the surface. It almost looks like one of the feraligatr back in Johto. That makes you take another few steps back. You’d heard there was a feral colony in Alola, but you’d thought that was just on Melemele. And shouldn’t they all be in brumation after the unexpected winter?

  The figure rises. You can see its silhouette lift out of the water. Slimmer than a feraligatr but just as tall. And from what little you can see its way prettier. Almost perfect. No, of course it’s perfect. Mirai attacks it for some reason as it approaches. Why? You want it closer. Your fingers stumble over each other as you reach for Mirai’s pokéball and withdraw her. The magnificent creature chortles and turns towards you. The world twists. A fog lifts. You blink rapidly and take as many steps back as you can before you’re up against a rock. The salazzle in front of you is nearly ten feet tall. She must be the old totem. Is she mad at you for trying to catch her children? You reach back for Mirai’s pokéball when the totem does something strange. She reaches her hands towards her eyes and rubs them down her face. What? She does it again and looks at you intently. Her eyes glimmer with reflected light in a way that’s perfect.

  Too perfect. Salazzle. Are they all like this or is it just the totem?

  She does the thing with her eyes again. Is she trying to talk to you? Crying. Is she trying to say crying? Why would you she be crying? You reflexively reach to your face and are surprised to find a moist trail streaming down the side of your nose. Oh. You were crying. She’s asking about that.

  “Um. It’s nothing. Just personal stuff.” You aren’t even sure if she understands Galarian. And it’s not like she’s going to tell anyone else, anyway. Might as well give her the truth. “My friend and I had an argument. She’s doing things that hurt her and I tried to get her to stop but, um, she didn’t listen. Now she’s mad and I’m worried I won’t be able to help her or see her again and…”

  The totem lets out a slow and almost gentle hiss. Maybe she does understand some of that.

  “I’m giving her space now. I don’t know how things will go when I get back and, and–“ Your voice betrays you and breaks. “I messed up,” you choke out. “And I don’t know what happens now.”

  The salazzle takes two awkward, shimmying steps forward. She clearly wasn’t build to walk bipedally. She puts a slimy hand on your shoulder and warbles something incomprehensible.

  “Thanks for the support,” you mumble.

  She says something else in her not-language.

  [UD_Moiwahine instructs UD_Lyra to calm down and process the available information.] You know that head-voice. You whirl around and see the damn metang floating at the edge of your vision. [Salazzle have pheromones that interfere with emotions and make prey illogical. Illogical prey make errors. UD_Lyra is currently illogical and prone to error.]

  You ignore its message, the salazzle’s message, for a moment. “Why are you here? Shouldn’t you be protecting Cuicatl?”

  [UD_Cuicatl issued Directive: Protect UD_Lyra]

  You have Mirai. That’s enough protection. She only has two other pokémon and one of them is a wimpod. Why would she send the damn psychic robot to watch you? Especially now? For a moment you wonder if the metang is sophisticated enough to lie about its orders.

  The salazzle snorts.

  [UD_Moiwahine states that UD_Cuicatl and UD_Lyra may remain in State:Friendship.]

  Fine. Whatever. At least the stupid thing can translate. You turn back to the salazzle. “It was good meeting with you.” Now, how to broach the more delicate subject. “I apologize trying to catch salandit. I won’t do it again.”

  She hisses gently but doesn’t move. Aggression? A warning? A desire to play with her food? The metang is a psychic type that’s been directed to protect you. Between it and Mirai maybe you can still get out of this in one piece.

  [UD_Moiwahine asks UD_Lyra why UD_Lyra wished to obtain a salandit.]

  Do you tell her about the perfume thing? Would she know if you were lying? “I’m a trainer. I want to explore places,” you settle on. “Salazzle can make light and fire and explore in caves and streams. And you smell good… and… never mind. I can leave now. Please?”

  She takes a step closer instead and makes a low groaning sound followed by a sharp hiss of air.

  [UD_Moiwahine commands UD_Lyra to explain proper caretaking of a salandit.]

  What? Is she still going to allow it if you can pass this test? Or will she just let you go? Either way it’s in your best interests to answer. You swallow and do your best to jog your memory so you won’t mess anything. “Well, they’re amphibians so they need to be hydrated. I’d have a spray bottle of water that I’d mist one with a few times a day if I couldn’t find shallow, warm water. When we stay in one place I’d try to fill the bathtub with warm water to swim in.” You haven’t quite told Cuicatl about that yet but she seems cool with pokémon care. Her thoughts also don’t matter if you aren’t traveling together. “They eat small fish and insects. I’d keep a mix refrigerated. Feed a lot once every two days. Give the other day off to digest. Only pet with gloves so I don’t get oil on their skin?” You aren’t sure if she even understands that point. You press on. “Then just make sure they don’t get cold. That should be easy now since Alola is warm and I don’t think Necrozma is coming back.”

  The salazzle turns around and gets down on all fours before darting into the water. [UD_Moiwahine commanded UD_Lyra to stay in place.]

  Does that mean that she’s getting a salandit? Or at least asking salandit about it? Male or female, then? You never really specified. If it’s a male you can’t really refuse without risking the totem’s wrath. That does lead to something of a wasted team slot. Maybe you can release him quietly when you’re done in Alola? You could probably swing it to the end of the island challenge with five good team members. Not like the salazzle could follow you across the ocean, anyway.”

  It takes a long time for the salazzle to come back. Long enough that your heart rate slows down to something approaching normal.

  Her silhouette finally emerges from the water just when you’ve started to wonder if she’s coming back at all. You move your flashlight so that she’s illuminated by the edge of it but the center of the beam is off to the side. She’s cradling something, a salandit, probably, in her arms. When she reaches the edge of the pond she kneels down and sets the salamander down. The salandit immediately looks at Mirai. Good odds that it’s never seen an absol before. The size and scythe might make her look scary. “Not a threat,” you tell it. The metang must translate as its wide, wet eyes move to you and take you in. You do the same for it. About average size. Seems to be in good health. No way to tell if its male or female. “Is it—are they a boy or a girl?”

  The salandit lets out a tiny, adorable croak.

  [UD_Salandit Belongs To Class:Female]

  The totem (her mother?) lets out a low groan.

  [UD_Salandit Prioritizes Increase In Trait:Strength]

  A female that wants to evolve. Or at least grow stronger. You hit the jackpot.

  “Thank you.” You aren’t sure which of the salamanders you’re talking to. Or maybe the metang. Neither answers. “Do you have a name?”

  The salandit groans.

  [Negation.]

  “Would you like one?”

  A hiss.

  [Affirmation.]

  “Alright. Subarashī, maybe? It means ‘beautiful’ in my language. I think you’re beautiful, but if you want another one I can come up with another.”

  The salandit croaks.

  [The Proposed Designation Is Acceptable.]

  “Good.” Your hand reaches to your bag and settles on a spring ball. You could talk to her now. Work out any questions. Then again, you’d rather not be talking through a metang. And it isn’t that great of a translator to begin with. Cuicatl’s better and salamanders are probably close enough to dragons. No telling if she’s actually willing to do it after your fight earlier. This might also be the last time you have access to her metang.

  Or it might not be. Even if it is you can probably find someone with a primarina or lucario and pay them to translate. Bells, you can even get one yourself without too much hassle. At most you’d be delaying this conversation for a little bit.

  You take the spring ball out of the bag. It’s a variant on the net ball. Simulates a warm freshwater pond. As far as you can tell it’s the best fit for a salandit. It was too expensive to use for catching salandit but you figured you could transfer the pokémon to it after capture. Besides, $1500 now is worth it to keep your pokémon comfortable and happy for years to come.

  “Ram the button in the middle if you want to come with me.”

  The salandit— Subarashī—tilts her head and examines the ball before ambling forward and pressing her snout into the center of it. A moment later she’s gone. You look back up to talk to the totem and find nothing there. She must’ve slipped off at some point without making a splash. She’s not a feraligatr: she’s a stealthy feraligatr-sized salamander with pheromones. That makes her way more dangerous.

  You rise up to your feet and close your bag up. Then you glance at the metang. “Can you take me back to Cuicatl?”

  [Affirmation]

  *

  The sky has begun to lighten by the time you get back to the midpoint of the mountain. The sun hasn’t properly risen and won’t for little while longer. It gives you just enough light to see Cuicatl as you approach. She’s sitting with her legs tucked beneath her chin and her arms tightly hugging her legs. It all makes her seem smaller and weaker than normal. It’s a little undercut by the wary tyrunt wrapped around her. Coco growls as you get closer. You immediately stop. It’s hard to tell how much the dragon knows about what happened. She might just know that you did something to upset Cuicatl. Given the way Coco adores her you can imagine you’ve earned a place on her enemies list. Never good to be on a dragon’s enemies list.

  Cuicatl slowly raises up her face. She looks like shit. Her eyes are puffy and there’s snot hanging from her nose. Almost as soon as she lifts her head she buries it back into her knees. Onus is on you to talk.

  “Thank you for sending your metang after me.” You aren’t thankful—she shouldn’t have done that—but lecturing her will just make things worse.

  She grunts noncommittally. It’s almost like talking to the salamanders earlier. Except this time the metang doesn’t jump in with a translation. That leaves you in a rough place. You don’t want to apologize because you stand by everything you said. It just wasn’t the right time to say some of it.

  Instead, you find yourself saying the dumbest thing that pops into your head just to avoid the silence: “I’m not actually American, you know.” Because the part where she called you an American was clearly the worst part of that email.

  “I know,” she whispers.

  You wait for more. It never comes.

  “I caught a salandit.”

  She sort of nods. It’s really just rocking her head in place. “Noci told me.”

  Was she talking to the metang the whole time? Was she sent less for your protection and more as a spy drone? Does it make a difference?

  “I’m sorry,” she mutters. “I shouldn’t have said what I did.”

  Your shoulders relax and you let out a deep breath as the tension rolls out. Good. She’s still hurt and there’s going to be work to do, but she probably isn’t cutting you off entirely. “It’s fine. I know why you did it.”

  Coco looks up to her trainer and presses her head into Cuicatl’s legs. The girl unwraps one of her arms to pet the tyrunt. “I don’t want to talk about it now,” she mumbles.

  “I can give you some time.” You won’t let her suffer indefinitely like Kekoa was willing to, but a few days won’t kill anyone.

  “Thanks.”

  And that’s it. You sit down against the rockface near her. Not worth trying to get closer, especially with Coco in a defensive position. More time in her general area might help. A quiet show of support.

  Cuicatl’s stomach groans and breaks the silence. A little awkward given everything. She freezes up for a moment before slowly relaxing. “Do you have any more food?” she asks.

  “Yeah. Two more bars.” You get them out and slowly walk over to her. You keep an eye on Coco the entire time. Specifically, on Coco’s jaws. You’ve seen her break a crabrawler’s shell and don’t want to know what she could do to your hand. She tenses up as you approach and you stop immediately. “Can you hold your arm out for it? Coco’s being standoffish.”

  Cuicatl runs a hand down the dinosaur’s back and the pokémon lowers her head again. “It’s okay. Don’t attack her.” She still holds a hand out. You trust her control over her pokémon but you’re still not sure you would’ve gotten any closer than you had to. As soon as the bar is in her hand you take two big steps back. The tyrunt watches you the entire time with her upper lip raised up to give a glimpse of her teeth.

  Your friend eats the food slowly. That’s normal for her. Probably just a consequence of being blind. She does eat all of it. “What time is it?” she asks.

  “A little after five. Breakfast should be open by the time we get back to the Center.”

  “Let’s go, then.”

  It takes some time for her to put the trash away and get her pack back on. Coco stays glued to her side the entire time. Mirai, in turn, keeps a watchful eye on the dinosaur. She could probably handle the tyrunt if she lashed out. Probably. In a formal battle, definitely, but if Coco ignores the rules and goes for a fatal bite…

  Cuicatl withdraws her pokémon and slowly stands up. Once her backpack is on she extends her cane. Good. Feels like a loaded bomb was just defused. “I can guide you if you want.” She nods and walks towards you. With a little help she wraps her hand around her elbow. Her grip is weaker than usual, like her hand would slip off with the slightest bit of force. You look down at her beside you. How much of her height is due to malnutrition? Suddenly even her cuteness feels a bit sinister.

  Nature wakes up again as you walk back. The mandibuzz are replaced by fletchinder. A cubone even walks across the trail ahead of you without fear. The same one? Another? As the sun rises over the horizon it shines directly into your eyes.

  At least there’s one thing Cuicatl doesn’t have to deal with.