The tall man looked down at Kaili once the youth's footsteps had disappeared into the creaking of the hedge maze.
"Indeed. You are a trial-goer, aren't you?" The man's eyes swept across him, as if searching him for something. "Must say I'm surprised you didn't simply fight them with your pokemon. Not much of a Trainer are you? Alas, I said I'd reward you. Tomorrow, when you have finished your grand trial, come to Hano Grand Resort and I will take you to see a wondrous place."
Kaili fought the instinct, the desire, the need to tell the guy he wasn't going to check out his basement or go anywhere with him. But he could simply not go to the resort. The man would have no reason to actively look for him. So the young man just nodded, not making eye contact with the creep.
With an unsettling smile, the tall man pulled packaged gloves from his pocket. Removing the plastic, he gently worked them onto his hands before stashing the plastic in his pocket and turning to the slowpoke.
"Come here little one" The man pulled his coat aside so as to kneel without pushing it into the dirt. The Slowpoke simply looked at him puzzled for a few seconds. For a moment it looked like the slowpoke was frowning at the man before its expression softened and its head tilted slightly. The man stepped forward a little more, scooping the pokemon up under its front legs and lifting it in a strange way. It looked almost like the man was putting on a show of holding the slowpoke close despite wanting to peg it hard back at the ground and wipe its drool off his coat.
"Thank you again young man." The man nodded to Kaili before walking away into the maze.
Trying to push the situation from his mind, Kaili turned back toward the Ruins of Life. A small path wound amid some totems to a field in front of a cave up ahead. As Kaili reached the first of the totems, a voice sounded in his mind.
"So-" The woman's voice felt like it came from behind him.
Turning, Kaili watched as a woman hopped down from the rock wall to his right. She wore a strange black singlet top with a pattern cut out of the bottom and pants that were both baggy and form fitting at the same time. Her pink hair was braided into four tails, but her pissed off expression was the most striking part of her appearance.
The girl's mouth moved slightly as if chewing gum, the tattoo's up her neck and along the left of her face twitching as she did.
"So" She strode up to him with an aggressive swagger. "You'd be the one Gladion was talking about?" Her eyes swept him down and then up again, similar to the tall man but somehow less… intimidating. "Hmph, you don't look like anything special to me."
The young man didn't flinch as she approached, not even blinking as she grabbed his singlet. He felt her fist connect with the scales beneath the clothes as she seized him. But if it hurt or surprised her, she didn't show it.
"I'm Plumeria. I help keep Team Skull together. I'm like a big sister to all these numskulls. You have realized what idiots all these guys are, right?" The flicker of pride was only just noticeable beneath her attempts to sound intimidating.
"Yeah I've noticed" The young man scoffed, reaching up to peel her hand off him. She simply snarled at him before a pain started slightly echoing through his head.
It was as if she was covered with shadows of herself, each stepping back several feet before turning in his direction. But she didn't back away. The feeling of shadows lingering behind her seemed to drill into his brain.
A thousand times, the words echoed in his ears. "But don't you think some dummies are cute in their dumbness-" Amid the cacophany of her voice, he only just heard the words that matched her lips; "I saw what happened." there was a strange growl in her tone. But she didn't back away.
He had to fight the urge to grab his head, the urge to smash against something in hopes of passing out. He had to fight the voices to hear what she was really saying. Among the "You picking on my cute, dumb brothers and sisters is really annoying me!"'s was the lone sound of her voice softening. "You scared them. But you were scared too weren't you?"
It felt like he'd been stabbed just behind the eyes, watching as the world seemed to turn ever so slightly red before returning to normal. The girl, Plumeria, seemed to almost study his eyes. "What happened when you touched Faba?"
There was a golbat behind her, he had to attack, he had to- to force the image from his mind. Had to force it down to at most a strange echoing thought. "Who?" Kaili twitched, doing his best to maintain his composure.
Plumeria stepped back, not lining with where the shadows of his thoughts said she should be, but instead pacing back and forth in front of him. "Faba, the tall guy! He was picking on my brother and sister and you stepped in. You grabbed his sleeve and flinched."
He could hear the distant echoes of her voice shouting commands to a golbat. A distant cacophany, only drowned out by the strange red dimming of reality again.
"I- Nothing" The young man stretched his back, helping himself stand as tall as possible. But there was a look in Plumeria's eyes.
"Guzma doesn't see it. He doesn't want to. He likes the Aether Foundation too much! I need proof." She suddenly marched up to him again, pulling herself uncomfortably close to his face. "I need you to find proof the Foundation isn't what they say they are! Before Guzma does something silly and gets everyone hurt."
Reality seemed to dim red for a second again as Plumeria's voice once again slammed in its thousands into his head. "You're pretty strong. I'll give you that. But mess with anyone in Team Skull again, and I'll show you how serious I can get." But Plumeria wasn't talking. She simply turned and strutted up to the hedge maze. Without looking back she slipped between the hedges and left Kaili once again alone.
Alone in a sudden crushing silence.
Pulling himself together, the young man turned back toward the path through the totems. At closer inspection they almost looked like they could be used as tiki stands. A notion that didn't surprise him given the fire trial on this island. Continuing up the path slowly revealed a large open field that could be seen from below. Strangely; the only grass in the area was a small spreading in from the path. Everything else was bare earth.
A slow beeping sound approached from behind, growing faster the nearer it drew. Kaili stepped into the centre of the clearing and turned to see Lillie and the Professor Burnet strolling up the path he'd just been on. It seemed everyone was in his wake today.
"Kaili!" Burnet's voice echoed in his mind, but the strange beeping didn't. The woman was holding a small device that looked like an old walkie-talkie, with a small display screen showing a lot of information in green as it beeped excitedly.
"Lillie got lost again, so I brought her here. Heard there was a trial on today!" The professor chuckled, Lillie blushing as she did. "Now, I'm sorryto abandon you dear but I have to go. The Masked Royal has a match, and there's no way that I'm missing it!" There was a sly excitement in her voice. If Kaili couldn't see her face, he'd swear she was drooling.
"That Masked Royal… Who do you think he looks like under that mask, anyway?" She giggled to herself, pointing the device away from Kaili, ignoring as the beeping slowed before she walked away.
Kaili silently shook his head, trying his best not to smile at the woman's goofiness. At least if there was someone in Alola who didn't recognise that man's chest it's a good cover to have his wife act like that. Anything to avoid thinking about the notion that he must wear that mask to bed sometimes…
As Burnet disappeared down the small hill, Kaili looked over at Lillie. She wore a pair of strong leather boots that looked a size too big for her and didn't match the dress. But he suspected that was the point. "I thought you came here yesterday? Did you leave your phone?"
"Oh! I heard yours and Hau's trials are today and I wanted to watch! Mr. Hala's one is apparently always a big deal and has a crowd. But Ms. Olivia keeps it quieter, you have to know it's happening to show up!" She was so eager, a far cry from the last few times he'd seen her. For a second he looked around hoping to see Ivy, but he didn't tell her it was happening today. If she would even come after what happened at the fire trial.
He was about to ask if she knew where Olivia was, only for an echo of conversation to ripple up the path toward him. Looking over, he saw the native woman leading two teens about his age to the clearing. His heart skipped a beat suddenly seeing Ivy chatting excitedly to Hau. He expected her to look away when she noticed him, but the cheery girl simply beamed more, waving one of her pompoms excitedly in the air behind Olivia.
"Good to see you again then, Kaili." the older woman nodded, stopping in front of him at the centre of the clearing. Lillie stumbled away, skittering to the side of the clearing as to avoid Hau and Ivy, only for the two cheery teens to approach her anyway. He found Olivia gripping his wrist in a sudden handshake. A quick glance toward his hand and then along the sleeve of his trenchcoat lead to her giving him the slightest smirk.
"All right, then! You've completed the trials of all three captains here on Akala Island. Now you face the grand trial of the kahuna—me! Get ready for your hardest Pokémon battle yet on Akala!" She stepped back. "Hau has elected to go second. He said something about you probably not liking sunset specifically."
Stepping away so that the two stood on opposite edges of the clearing, Olivia took a distinct battle stance.
It was as if she was waiting for him to make the first move. Resigned to going into battle blind, the young man reached under his coat to tap one of the pokeballs. A flash of light resulted only in a small hole appearing in the ground several steps in front of his feet. He knew she preferred rock pokemon. That was clear from the festival when he arrived. The problem was what ones was he going to fight.
With a smirk and a slight nod, Olivia picked one of her pokeballs from her belt. Tossing it in the air, she tapped it with her hip. The ball reattached to her belt as a flash of red light released her pokemon. The pokemon was a strange grey and black beetle thing with a row of, he could only call them feathers, emerging from each side of its body.
Something was off. He could see the pokemon, and something about it seemed almost overlayed on itself. Looking at Olivia, the air around her seemed almost to overlap itself. He was finally snapping. He had to be.
The creature scuttled forward, using the strange feather-like appendages to push itself despite them clearly not being legs. Kaili's eyes were suddenly drawn to Olivia's feet, she was tapping as if anxiously, but the strange pokemon stopped when her heel hit the dirt, and lowered itself slightly into the dirt as she dropped the right side of her foot into the ground.
Kaili had no way of instructing his pokemon. He didn't even know what he'd sent out. This was 'Sneak', he'd never even see it, or found out what league battle moves it knew. His best hope was if it dug under Olivia's pokemon and burst out, perhaps spiking the enemy with a shard of stone.
And as soon as he thought it, Kaili saw the ground just to the right of Olivia's pokemon open and a Larvitar burst out. Sneak had used a Larvitar shell, he didn't realise it actually was one. The larvitar's horn was covered with a sharp cropping of rock which easily sliced into the enemy. As soon as it was hit though, the pokemon disappeared in a flash of red light.
Olivia's left eyebrow was raised. "I didn't even see you send the order."
Kaili shrugged, glancing over at the crowd of three. Hau was whispering to Lillie, pointing at Olivia's feet. Ivy meanwhile was on her feet with two massive bushy pompoms shaking stupidly just below her breasts. The young man had to force a laugh down with only a smile.
Olivia's next pokeball spun on her finger before she let it roll down her side to her hip. It clasped back to her belt as another pokemon appeared in a flash of light. The pokemon looked almost like a plant. But not any plant he'd ever seen before. It had a green base with four small feet, a thin yellow trunk and a green head that looked almost like a pot or vase, with the worlds ugliest yellowing fern growing out of the top.
Sneak did it again, burst from the ground to stab the strange pokemon, almost exactly on cue. But the strike glanced easily off the pokemon's hide. One of the fern leaves lifted and suddenly unleashed a torrent of water like a firehose. Knowing what he did about Larvitar, and unwilling it to be killed, Kaili's hand raced to the pokeball at his hip. The water had only managed to clip the side of Sneak's chest when he vanished in a flash of light.
He'd not seen Olivia's feet move once for that order. Either he was wrong about how she was giving orders, or that was such a common tactic, the pokemon knew what was coming.
His hand moved slowly toward Kladenets ball, only for the ground under his feet to seem to shake. It was massive. He felt like the world was being ripped apart, but at the same time a massive rush of air almost knocked him backward. He could feel shadows of himself stumbling back. The young man staggered on the perfectly calm ground, tapping instead another ball.
In a flash of red light, Tiny stood between the young man and the strange pokemon. Tiny's fake pikachu head wobbled happily as it skittered across the ground toward the pokemon.
"Just win" Kaili whispered, looking away. He knew what Tiny was like. He waved for Ivy's attention, drawing her eyes away from the fight for the briefest second. There was a snap and a loud smashing sound followed by a flash of red light.
Olivia smiled, sauntering forward two steps, her hips swaying rhythmically. A bead belt came down surprisingly hard on one side, hitting a pokeball and releasing another opponent in a flash of red light.
"Now, I know what you're like, Mr. Kaili. I've heard from the trial captains." She smirked.
The pokemon standing in front of her looked almost like a werewolf, only restraining itself from charging Kaili down by focusing its brutal stare on Tiny.
A pressure started to build in the young man's head. The overlapping air around Olivia seemed to build. Growing stronger and stronger as she started to do some silly mock-flexings. He almost wanted to laugh at her. But Hau had grown silent. The crowd were focusing on Olivia and her pokemon. Could they see the air as well? Could they see the strange smoke building around Olivia? Did they wonder why the pokemon seemed to be eagerly breathing in the smoke?
All at once, there was a massive sound. The werewolf pokemon throwing back its head in something between a roar and a howl. The arena ground shook, rattling individual dirt grains as massive stones erupted from around them like bamboo shoots. Huge chunks from the mountain around them seemed to be cleaved free, sliding down in a horrifying rain of rock.
Had there been any heat, he might think he stood at the brink of a volcanic eruption. The ground shook with each stone erupting or smashing down. Massive gusts of wind threatened to knock him back, were he not so heavy on his own.
Glancing over, he could see Ivy leaning against Hau as the young man covered Lillie's ears with his hands and leaned over her protectively.
"Tiny! I want to see it this time." He shouted over the crashing sounds. Amid the cloud of dirt, he could only just make out the silhouette of a massive dark hand as it seized the wolf around the neck. The black hand was larger than either pokemon, and tossed the wolf around easily. When the smoke cleared, Tiny stood atop the wolf, only prevented from ripping its throat apart by the flash of light from Olivia's pokeball.
Aside from the fake pikachu head being ripped and its stuffing leaking onto the ground, it didn't look as if Tiny had been hit at all.
And finally Kaili understood why some people would put up with the stupid 'Z dances'. Especially if that's the result.
