Mimi didn't know much about fathers, especially since the only ones she knew of were failures: Tar and Mud impregnated hostesses but pushed away responsibility; Slasher disappeared after hearing his son would die in seven years and only returned after the champions defeated the Tapu; she suspected Malu was not as kind to Kalai as their mother had hoped; and her own father abandoned his family for the greater pleasures of the Otherworld. Someday, she'd confront him. She would travel to the Otherworld, explore her fatherland, and perhaps come to understand its appeal.
Nothing could excuse leaving your family behind. Slasher Null seemed to finally realize that. On the way to Aether, Gladion recounted his father's stories—rescuing trapped monsters, exploring the world, escaping a high-security prison after being falsely accused. Mimi's favorite was when Slasher snuck out of Kanto after escaping aforementioned prison by hiding in an empty musical instrument case.
Lusamine and Slasher were laughing over an inside joke when Mimi and the champions passed by the kitchen. "Gladion!" Slasher beckoned his young adult son and offered him a chalice half-filled with sparkling liquid. "You brought friends! I was beginning to think your coworkers were your only friends."
Gladion chuckled and took a handful of crackers. "You're not wrong, Dad. The five of us are working together on a project, so we're essentially coworkers. We're researching properties and potential functions of soulheart. Can we interview Alila?"
Slasher's dark eyebrows lifted almost to his silver-blond hair. Mimi found that most older men who frequented the Cog had receding hairlines, but everyone else in Alola seemed to do fine. She guessed something in the food served by the Cog damaged hair. "I have a hypothesis for your next big project," Mimi whispered to Jun as Slasher led the group upstairs.
"I'm excited to work on it. I'll make sure to credit you, too."
"Cog food makes hair move backwards on men's heads."
Jun looked at Mimi in dismay. "I, uh, think it's more than the food, Mimi."
"You're right. Gold is a tacky color."
After the third flight of stairs, Slasher opened a trap door in the ceiling. A rope ladder dropped down, and he tugged it to test its strength. "Come to the nursery if you need me. Lusamine and I will be with Emma."
Val grabbed Gladion's arm as Jun began climbing the ladder. "Emma is your baby sister? She sounds precious."
"Her full name is Requiem, and she is a nightmare."
Sin grunted and pushed between Val and Gladion. "All babies are."
"That's because people make life a nightmare for them," Mimi argued as she climbed over Sin. At the top, Jun helped pull her up. He also helped Val and Gladion but ignored Sin, who huffed and puffed as he squeezed his bulky shoulders through the attic's entrance.
A metallic hominid clinked as it turned in short, jerking motions to face them. She balanced on the tips of her toes. The iron skirt of her dress was spherical and dense; as a fairy, Mimi could feel the iron's vibrations like heat on her hands and neck. Electrum adorned the metal like fingernails. The body of her dress resembled rusted copper, a soft contrast to the dark iron. Electrum lashes framed her opal eyes as Alila blinked and curtsied haltingly. She creaked and jerked, but held a tiny metallic hand out when Gladion and Jun reached to catch her.
An opal-and-copper disc behind Alila's head split from the bottom into semicircles that formed a pretty bow that Mimi wanted to touch. Val cooed at the doll-like figure. Gladion genuflected before the jewel of Alola. "Hello, Alila. My name is Gladion Null. My father created you." He smiled. "It's like you're my sister, but you're much quieter than Requiem."
The attic lit up, but no one had moved. It must have been a delayed motion sensor, but then Slasher pulled himself up into the attic. His hair color was closer to Gladion's, a pale yellow like the custard in the Cog's cream puffs that probably caused receding hairlines.
Slasher walked through Mimi and sat beside Gladion. Instead of the doll-like Alila, a pile of gears and pieces of soulheart lay before him.
This is a memory, Mimi realized. Alila was showing them her memories.
A little boy with Slasher and Gladion's coloration followed his father into the attic. "Dad, you said you'd play ball with me today!"
Gladion winced. "I almost forgot about that."
The younger Gladion tugged his father's sleeve. "Come and play, Dad! You always try to fix that scrap metal but you need a break and I want to play."
"I'll play with you later, son. The sun isn't going away anytime soon," Slasher murmured without looking away from the gears he was welding together. "Don't touch that, Gladion, you'll cut yourself. This isn't a playground for children. Go play with Hau."
"He's four years old and takes naps," 6-year-old Gladion complained. "Besides, I want to play with you."
"Later, son," Slasher repeated. "The sun isn't going away..."
"I wish I could kill the stupid sun," muttered Gladion, both the child and the adult. "Then you'd finally stop ignoring me."
The memory faded. Alila creaked into a deep curtsy and remained as though waiting for an order.
Mimi didn't know much about fathers, but it seemed like they were all failures—not because they wanted to be evil and miserable, but because no one was perfect. Kalai wasn't the perfect brother. Mimi probably wasn't the perfect sister, either, but she tried, and she knew Kalai was trying, too.
Jun put a hand on Gladion's shoulder. "I'm sorry. I had a lonely childhood, too."
Alila creaked as she straightened up. Instead of the attic, they found themselves in the heart of Alola's forest. A little boy declared himself the hero of the forest and leaped off a low branch. Pale brown and white wings flapped to slow his landing.
Mimi glanced between the hazel-eyed boy's thin, beautiful wings and the man's heavy, burned feathers. Jun is half-shadow now, Mimi remembered Sin's joke that Jun losing his wings meant he lost part of his magic, too. Energy had flowed through Juniper's pale wings, and losing that connection must have been like having an arm amputated.
"Stop playing around, Jun," an older woman reprimanded the child with a gnarled cane. "You need to show Hala and Kukui you have potential so they'll choose you to be a champion. The Deciduspawn family depends on you to bring honor and rubies to support your siblings and cousins so they can have a better life."
Young Jun nodded, earnest. "Yes! I am Juniper Deciduspawn and I will be my family's hero as well as Alola's!" A boy his age ran by, and he called out, "Dartri, let's race to the oak—the loser has to do the winner's chores!"
Dartri grinned at the challenge and took off, his darker wings not as refined as Jun's. The matriarch beat Jun with her cane again before he could follow. "I told you to stop playing around. You are Juniper Deciduspawn, Decidu's spawn and Decidu's pawn."
"Did you just repeat my name three times?"
"It's important. Remember your stories? Anything repeated three times is important."
Jun stared forlornly after Dartri. "I know training to be a champion is important, Grandmother, but I want to play, too."
"Stop. Playing. Around." Juniper snarled at Alila as his grandmother yelled at his younger self. The memory vanished as Alila cowered from Jun. Sin turned away from them as Val reached to console Jun—and then hesitated. Mimi understood. She valued her own privacy, too. "Tell us how to defeat the ultra beasts."
Kill the sun, Alila repeated Gladion's words in a piano-like voice.
"That's useless," Jun snapped.
"Wait," Gladion said. "I said that because I wanted my father to acknowledge me. Maybe Alila means we need my father's assistance to defeat the ultra beasts, like we needed my mother to help us cure Hau."
Not Slasher Null, Alila said the name with solid chords, nor Lusamine Silvale Null. This name was a trill instead of a chord. You need to find the ancient sun chief of Alola.
"Solga Steel," Jun exclaimed. "The Steelspawn family was descended from him, but they all perished last epoque during the first floods."
"Solga was the chief three hundred years ago," Val said. "How are we supposed to find him?"
"We're dead," Sin lamented.
No, Alila said, and neither is he. Her voice's deceptive cadence unfolded the next memory, which brought them to an umber island of sand dunes and kopjes, and a grand alter that led to the sun.