Flying 3.19: Adrift
Kekoa

"For those of you who are just joining us, we're continuing our anniversary coverage of the Rune Island Tragedy. Eight years ago two titans clashed in the heart of Hoenn. Tens of thousands of lives and billions of dollars in property were lost before…"

You swirl the spoon around in your near-empty cereal bowl. The Pokémon Center's receptionist is listening to public radio so now you are, too. You hate it. You hate that even the 'liberal media' puts the price tag in the same breath as the dead. As if lost lives could also be rebuilt with some relief money.

"…at approximately 12:40 PM local time Kyogre surfaced in Rune City. Torrential rains followed throughout eastern Hoenn. This storm would eventually grow to encompass the entire province and beyond…"

You hadn't thought anything of the rains at first. Just a pop-up storm. You learn to live with them in the tropics. And then you got outside and there were liquid bullets striking your skin. A shiver runs up your spine and for a moment it feels like your clothes are soaking wet and unbearably heavy.

"…Groudon emerged approximately thirty-one minutes later and dispelled the storm. A heat wave took its place."

Collapsing bridges, boiling roads, the old and young dying as they walked. 'A heat wave.'

You scowl and stand up. Fuck this, you don't have to take it anymore.

"Put your dishes away!" You ignore the receptionist and walk outside. If she wanted you to do work she would've picked better programming to listen to.

It hits you once you get outside that you're stepping into cold and darkness with only a jacket on. Doesn't matter. You aren't about to go back inside and ruin your pride just to get a coat. Not like you'll be out here for long, anyway.

A flicker of light catches your eye. There's a purple balloon floating in front of you, two long arms dangling down. A puff of white billows like smoke from its head. The pokémon is wreathed in the light of pale blue flames. You stare at the drifloon. It stares at you.

"Enjoying this shit, huh?"

The ghost doesn't reply to you, but it seems to float a little higher. Drifloon feed on loss, grief, and nostalgia. When something ends they'll be there to guide it to oblivion. Doesn't matter if it's a life, a friendship, or a TV show. Anniversaries of tragedies get both grief and nostalgia points. You're used to them showing up on the orphanage's front steps when you got a new arrival. Their life as they knew it was over and despair must be very tasty.

Your breath fogs in front of you. Even if you wanted to, which you don't, you couldn't afford to stand here all day while a pokémon basks in your pain. "Care to make yourself useful? I want to visit The Queen."

The ghost balloon blinks before it slowly floats down the street, one arm beckoning you to follow. You trail after it, footsteps sounding off into the darkness. You thought the city was quiet before the ships arrived to take people away. Now the streets are almost perfectly silent. It's far from the heat and chaos of Hoenn's fall but it feels equally wrong.

The whole city is an ending for the ghosts to feast on.

You keep track of the turns the drifloon makes. It's taking you north like you asked. It's just paranoia to check since it has no reason to lead you astray. They don't eat people or anything and you're willingly spending time with it.

The gates of the royal graveyard emerge from behind a thick layer of fog. Supposedly the gates are made of meteorite iron. The heavens themselves guard your Queen. You put a hand on them and they creak open on their own. You exhale and smile despite the grim location. The Queen's guards only let your people in. Even then it's a rare honor. Entering the graveyard doesn't exactly make you a chosen one but it does remind you that you belong here.

The sound of your footsteps is swallowed whole by the grass. Fog looms heavy around you, only breaking to form a single clear passageway. Everything not hidden by fog is illuminated by pale blue light. The drifloon's own will-o-wisp goes out as it moves alongside you. Has it been here before or is this new to it, too? You don't dare speak aloud to ask. This is a kingdom of the dead and lost. Silence and reverence are the price of admission.

That's why it's so surprising when you hear a voice speaking ahead of you.

It sounds familiar but you can't quite place where you've heard it. You keep walking forward until you're close enough that the voice stops.

A crobat drops down in front of you, shrieking hysterically while beating its wings. A chill runs down your spine and you feel something arrive behind you. Shit. Ambushed. Here? Why? The guards let you in.

A kanaka woman in a black jacket steps out of the fog and stands in front of you, behind the crobat. "Stand down," she absentmindedly says. The supernatural chill fades and the bat rushes off to roost somewhere else. The woman keeps staring at you, her eyes boring into different parts of you one after another. "Kekoa, right?"

Plumeria. That's who you're talking to.

"Y-yes."

She laughs. It's a short one, but not unpleasant. Not mocking, even though you probably deserve to be mocked right now, scared shitless and standing in the freezing air without a coat. Come to think of it you don't feel the cold now that her gengar's let up. Something about the place? Or is this like when you stopped sweating from heatstroke? Hopefully the former. Ironic to die in a graveyard. "Come to pay your respects?"

"Yes. The Queen…" Oh gods you're already screwing this up. Again. Plumeria probably already hates you for fucking up with Gen and—

She walks away and gestures for you to follow. You do, and the fog path shifts in front of her. You arrive at a life-size obsidian statute standing tall on a pedestal. An inscription on the base practically glows with unnatural red light. It takes you a moment to work out the words in Alolan:

The tides recede

The sun sets

All is lost

All will return

Alola

"The elders say she's waiting here with The Final Guardian," Plumeria explains. "They aren't sure if she'll fight from the shadows with The Final Guardian or if she'll be reborn in time to rule Alola again. Either way, I don't plan on keeping her waiting for long."

"I… yes." What was that even supposed to mean? "Do you come here often?"

"No." For a moment it looks like she wants to say something more, but she just shakes her head. "No."

"I'm sorry I couldn't stop Genesis from leaving," you blurt out the moment the silence gets awkward.

She snorts. It should horrify you that she does that here, but she has enough mana that you barely notice. "Listen, kid, the apocalypse isn't your fault. I wouldn't have even asked if I'd thought things were going to get this bad this soon."

"Oh." That should make you feel relieved, but it just makes you sad that she thinks you never had a chance. "I also didn't travel with Lyra."

She hums while lost in thought. It's not as melodic as when Cuciatl does it. "She offered?"

"Yes?" Did she not get that in the report?

"What do you think about her?"

"She's not much like the other Skull members I've met. Seemed calm enough when we talked but then she attacked Cuicatl out of nowhere." Was that too blunt? She is your superior, but Plumeria was asking and you shouldn't lie to her.

"She isn't like a Skull because she isn't one," Plumeria answers. "We just have the same goals here. Once the business with the Gages is over I doubt she'll stay on our side for long." She frowns. It's still a little strange whenever you can see facial expressions these days. "I made a mistake that set her off against your friend. Sorry. I've talked with Lyra about it. Shouldn't happen again." For a moment her eyes settle on the drifloon before moving back to you. "Your friend going to go home anytime soon? It'd solve that problem."

"I don't think she has a home to go back to," you whisper, feeling guilty just for saying it aloud.

It makes sense. Her mom is dead and her dad's never called. She's never even mentioned going home since the lights went out.

"Stay with her if you can. She might be useful if you think she'd be loyal to us. And if I can spin it to Anahuac as Skull protecting one of their citizens…" She trails off. Is Skull working with a foreign country? A strong Alolan independence movement would be a symbolic blow to Anahuac's northern rival. You remember Cuicatl's comments on flower wars and your blood freezes. They wouldn't provoke the US, right? That almost destroyed them in the 80s. "Opposite's true, too," Plumeria continues. "Try to stay away from Lyra. Bad look if she kills a foreign national. And Lyra's just here to get Gen out. You don't need to be on the breakout team with her, anyway. You've got, what, two trials behind you?"

"Four," you say with a hint of pride. "And the unofficial flying trial."

She shrugs like it doesn't really make a difference. Her eyes flick back to the drifloon. "That yours?"

"It's not mine," you correct. "Just tagging along." You debate leaving it there, but she's your boss and maybe she deserves to know. Deserves to judge. "I only have two permanent team members now. Another left."

"What was it?"

"A charjabug."

She smirks. "Don't take it hard, kid. They're stubborn SOBs. Guzma had to go through five before one stayed with him." A pause. "Don't tell that to anyone."

"That's…" The old sense of failure weighing on you lessens. It doesn't go away entirely, but if Guzma couldn't do it on the first try, well, you're in okay company. Hell, even Cuicatl couldn't keep her starter. And she could talk to the thing. "Thank you."

"You should keep the drifloon, though."

"What?"

"They're tied to endings. One latching on to you is a good omen for a revolutionary. And…" her eyes narrow. "Again, you can't tell anyone this next part? Got it?"

"Got it."

"Right. Supposedly the drifloon carry kids off sometimes and drop them down far away. Guzma grew up," she flicks her head to the side, "thataway. Saw a lot of the ghosts growing up. He told me once that he kept hoping that one would grab him and take him away. Then one day he realized that he could leave on his own if he wanted. He did. Rest is history."

You turn to look at the ghost yourself. If can create light. That's automatically useful. If it goes with you then you could sell your inkay to VStar for your cold weather travel fund. Then you'd still have the drifloon, Hekeli, and carbink—name still TBD—for the fight against Hala. Solid type advantage.

It's also another step to being a full-fledged flying-type specialist with Ihe and Hekeli already on the team. Admittedly not great for fighting a champion with a vikavolt and lycanroc. But there are reasons most pro trainers get a specialty. It's just much easier to raise six pokémon with overlapping needs than six entirely different ones.

"We'll talk it over." And you'll read more about it. Make sure you know what you're getting into.

"Probably for the best."

"So…" You aren't sure if you should ask this, but you're here and can talk without the risk of anyone listening in. The Queen's guards wouldn't allow it. "What do you want me to do now? If I won't be getting Genesis out?"

She shrugs. "You still insist on beating the champ?"

"Yes." She's implying that you shouldn't be doing that. Is she just… okay with a false queen on the throne? Is she willing to say as much in front of the true queen's grave?

"Then you probably don't wanna be caught doing illegal shit. Not a whole lot you can do for me without breaking some laws."

"I'm willing to do what it takes."

"Are you? They'd kick you out of the challenge if you got caught." Her voice picks up in fake shock when she talks about the challenge. Mocking it. Mocking you. "Is it worth that risk?"

She starts circling you like a predator staring down injured prey. You want to immediately answer "yes, of course" but then your mind drifts to the false queen still sitting on her throne atop a sacred mountain and suddenly you aren't quite so sure. "Kid, we don't do legal shit. If it was helpful to the cause the government would've already made it illegal. There are a lot of people like you, respectable types, who will show up to rallies and sign petitions and run for the governor and all that jazz. They have their uses, but if it was just them in the movement we'd never accomplish a damn thing."

The insinuation crawls under your skin and gets your blood pumping. That you're just like the centrists to her. That you don't get it. Even if you've lived it, bounced around through shitty haole foster homes before ending up in a slightly-less-shitty orphanage where you're supposed to be grateful for the charity of a fucking maniac who tried to burn your country down for her jellyfish fetish.

Plumeria looks you dead in the eyes and meets your building rage with cold analysis, like she's sizing up an unruly pokémon.

"If you could accomplish anything by beating the league, they would just change the rules so that you couldn't. You can't win their game. The best thing you can do is make it impossible to play. Watch them pick up their toys and sulk off to a friendlier place."

"Just having a throne of our own—"

"Wouldn't save us. Didn't save us." She flicks her eyes towards the glowing gravestone as if daring Her Majesty to disagree. The lights don't change. No voices carry on the wind. There's no sign she heard at all. "Text me when you're willing to burn or steal some shit. Until then just wait for my signal."

She brushes past you and walks towards the gates. Her arm brushes against yours and you startle at the touch. It slowly brings you back to reality.

Plumeria thinks your plan is bad.

She thinks that you're useless to her. To the cause. To Alola.

She can stand before The Queen herself and say there's no point in clearing the foreigner off her throne? After she dared to take the title and then fail to defend Alola in her hour of need? The best thing she could do now is fix things, abolish the league, resign, and go back to where she came from. If she won't do the last three, someone needs to do it for her.

Still…

Plumeria knows these things. She's put in the work and maybe done more for the cause than anyone else since the fall of Alola. There's a chance she knows something you don't. And there's no guarantee you would get caught if you went deeper into Skull's work. The lowest level members, the ones who just harass tourists, they get arrested a lot. The higher ones, the ones who set construction sites ablaze or kidnap heiresses… you've never heard of them. No one has. That's the point. Skull rarely even claims responsibility. It means that they can present to the world as bumbling fools that annoy tourists while also really hurting the people who need to be hurt.

But Plumeria doesn't trust you enough to put you in her inner circle. Didn't think much at all of your badges. After a grand trial or two you might be more interesting to her.

Whether you want to follow Plumeria or make absolutely sure you don't get kicked out of the challenge and thrown in jail before the false queen's downfall, your path runs through Iki Town.

You bow one last time to The Queen's grave and quietly walk back towards the gates.

There's work to be done.

The receptionist doesn't bother you when you walk in with a ghost. The coverage has changed, too, to one of the president's rallies. You don't know if that's better or worse.

You make your way down the hall and unlock the door. You almost immediately walk into your carbink hovering in the middle of the room. It swivels around to acknowledge you before rising up towards the drifloon. They stare each other down for a long time, trapping you between them, before the carbink eventually floats off to rest over Cuicatl's bed. Her metang is hovering over the top bunk of yours. Ihe and Hekeli are in their balls because you can't trust them not to poop in the room. Flickering lights come out of the bathroom as your inkay floats out. That one has the opposite problem. You explained toilets to her and she spent at least three hours repeatedly flushing it to figure out how it worked. Or to get on your nerves. Hard to tell with that one. It's a shame you wouldn't be able to keep her anyway once she evolved. Baby squid obsessed with the bathroom are one thing. Giant squid obsessed with fish, brainwashing, and murder are another matter entirely. Trading her in for the payout will just be speeding up the inevitable.

You glance over to Cuicatl's bed. She's still in it. Facing away from you. Hair hanging over her face. Arms pulling Coco into her. Hard to get a good idea how Cuicatl's doing. 'Not well' probably. You weren't exactly thrilled to let Makani go but it wasn't like this. She'll eventually be due for another talking to, but she didn't seem to appreciate it the last time you tried. You'll give her another few days of wallowing before you try again.

Coco raises her head to look at you. You're once again reminded how big she's gotten since you could last see her. Might be pushing forty pounds at this point. Her down is almost entirely gone. There's only a short cape of white feathers down her back to show that it was ever there. The tyrunt lowers her head and snuggles in closer to her trainer.

You clear your throat. "Found a pokémon I might take in. You up for translating?"

It takes a long time to get a response. You start to wonder if she's asleep. "N-no," she says, voice breaking in the middle. She's been crying again. "Later."

You roll your eyes. Hypocrite. Loses her shit because her starter gets adopted by one of her own kind. She told you once that she had the right to keep a vulpix because she was making it happy. The vulpix found something that made her happier and Cuicatl lost that right. She should just suck it up and find a new murderbeast to replace the one she lost. There are even zorua in the area if she really wanted another fox. Yeah, she couldn't talk to it with her mind. Barely matters since zorua can talk to people themselves. Her cousin has one. Some people even claim he's a zoroark himself.

Those people are obviously wrong. You knew that before you met Cuicatl. There's video of N confronting the embodiment of truth. No illusion could have possibly stood up to Reshiram without being burned away.

You blink. You met Reshiram a few months ago. Almost forgot that with everything else going on. Maybe she could talk some sense into Cuicatl again. Not that you have any idea how to contact her. You sigh and plop down on your bed to face the drifloon. It seemed to know what you meant by The Queen. Maybe it can do yes/no questions.

"Raise your left hand for yes, right for no. Do you understand me?"

The right—your right, its left—hand goes up. Good. That makes things easier.

"Are you a boy?"

No.

"A girl?"

Yes.

"Do you have a name?"

No. That's weird. They live in groups. How do they tell each other apart?

"Do you want to stay with me for a while? On my team?"

Yes.

"Alright. Let me do some reading first. Figure out what you need from me and if I can give it."

You can't afford a pokédex, of course. Wouldn't want it even if you could afford it. The league has all the entries online for people on the island challenge to read. The entry itself isn't that long. Drifloon need to wander during the day but they're pretty good with coming back at night. Even know where to go if you've moved. No idea how they pull that one off and the writer doesn't seem to know either. Yeah, you can make this work. Don't even need to carry food for her.

"Would you like a name?"

Yes.

"How does Moeʻuhane work? Maybe Moe for short."

Yes.

"Great." Now what? "Uh, anything you want to do today?"

Moe'uhane drifts over to Cuicatl and hovers above her. Coco starts to growl.

"That's Cuicatl Ichtaca. I travel with her. And the pokémon is…" Not actually your sun and you don't want to explain that to a balloon in front of Coco. "Coco. She's a tyrunt."

The drifloon comes closer and Coco rears up, sparks flying out of her mouth. Cuicatl promptly raises an arm over her and presses her back down into the bed. The growling doesn't stop entirely but it does get quieter.

You pull out a pokéball. Ideally, you'd use a dusk ball for this but those sold out almost immediately after the Blackout. "Moe'uhane, do you want to be caught?" The pokédex says they don't like pokéballs. She might refuse. You won't push it until you need to battle with her. She drifts on over anyway and hits the capture button with her arm. Apparently, she knows how these works. The ball drops to the ground and gently shakes before sealing with a 'click." You immediately let her out.

Then the inkay drifts over and makes a pattern of shimmering lights. Moe turns to look and brings back his will-o-wisp. It doesn't change like the inkay's message. The pale fire simply exists. Nothing more. The inkay sends another message and gets no response. He glances at you before flipping over in midair to head back to the bathroom.

The toilet flushes shortly afterwards.

Carbink has continued to hang back over Cuicatl's bed. It slowly floats down after the inkay laves. The ghost and rock just stare at each other again. For a minute. Two. Five. You check your newsfeed and see that 'Hoenn," "8 years," "Groudon," and "Kyogre" are trending. You turn off your phone again.

As soon as the screen goes dark it lights back up. An incoming call.

From Jabari.

He probably wants to talk about it.

You do not.

When you look up you see your carbink, drifblim, and inkay all staring at your phone in a mix of confusion and awe. Their eyes all grow wider when it starts ringing again. You let it go for a while just to watch their reactions. The inkay starts letting out green flashing lights to communicate with the strange glowing stone. Even Cuicatl's metang moves so they can see what's going on.

The ringing stops and the screen goes dark again. Moe drifts forward, arm outstretched. "No." You pull the phone into your chest and shake your head. "Mine."

There's a tugging on the phone as the inkay's eyes glow pink.

"No," you repeat while staring her down. The glow fades and the phone goes still.

It's still definitely going to get stolen the first time you turn your back. And flushed down the toilet.

Being a trainer is great.

An alert pops up to tell you Jabari left a voicemail. Maybe you'll listen to it someday. Probably worth keeping around as a reminder in case he bites it, too.

You're almost not freezing again. Guess that means it's time to go back into the cold.

"I'm taking my birds out for some air. Coco want to come with?"

The dinosaur perks up excitedly and you can see her tail wagging back and force, thumping against Cuicatl's legs. Then she guiltily looks down at her trainer and slowly starts to settle again.

"Go," Cuicatl grumbles.

Coco pounces more than halfway across the room and looks up at you expectantly. You withdraw most of your team, only leaving Coco and Moe out. No need to take the entire clown car through the halls. When you reach the door you turn around to see that Cuicatl's metang has hovered down and laid an arm over their trainer. Oddly affectionate for a teenage murder robot.

Hekeli glares at you when you send her out. She does her business—thankfully not on top of you—and starts loudly demanding to be withdrawn again. No idea how her wild cousins are doing right now.

The others start to explore the cold while you start cleaning Hekeli's mess. Ihe and Coco almost immediately start their ongoing wrestling match again. The rufflet tries hard but Coco's bigger and stronger. Thankfully the dinosaur is clearly going easy on her playmate. Inkay starts to twirl towards a nearby building, carbink trailing behind her. You'll need to keep an eye on them and make sure they don't get too far off. Moe hovers just behind you. The light makes cleaning Hekeli's shit up much easier.

You sit down on a bench to watch the chaos. Just as you move to withdraw inkay and carbink your phone starts to ring. You almost hit the cancel button without looking but a wrong hand movement shows you the screen.

It's Kanoa. The childhood friend you ghosted for years and are kind-of reconnecting to. You know what she wants to talk about and you still don't want to talk about it.

For some reason you answer anyway. But don't speak.

"Hello?" She says. "You there?"

Your pokémon start drifting back to look at the phone. Except Coco. She runs off to mark her territory.

"I'm assuming you're there since someone answered. You don't want to talk about it. I get that. Just wanted to let you know that I'm here and… and I can sit in silence with you if you want."

The phone glows pink and you glare at inkay until she stops trying to steal it. Gods help whoever VStar sells her to.

"Fine."

You can hear her let out her breath on the other end. So much relief from a single word. Why? You were a shitty friend to her for years. She owes you nothing but scorn.

For a moment you consider asking her about what Plumeria said. If dethroning the false queen matters. But Kanoa's deep in the system. Might even be on her boss's side. She wouldn't give you worthwhile advice either way. So you phrase it a little differently.

"How should we help our people?"

"Hmm?"

"Kanaka maoli. How do we help them?"

'Free them' might be too strong for a trial captain. Baby steps.

"Volunteer, I guess?" She sounds as if she doesn't even understand why you're asking. "I help around my parent's farm. Run some errands for our neighbors when I get a chance. But, um, the entire people… that's not something I've thought much about. I try to help everyone."

The oppressors and oppressed alike. 'Both sides.'

"Did you… since we met…" Kanoa takes a deep breath. "Did you start listening to the Skulls?"

You don't answer that. Maybe she'd try to call the cops or something. She practically works for them anyway.

This entire conversation was a bad idea.

"Listen, we're never getting the country back. I wish we could as much as the next girl, really, but we won't. We don't have an army. Even if you count Skull, that's just a few hundred disaffected teenagers staring down the US military. The Tapu didn't fight the Americans last time and there's no sign they'll fight for us now. Lunala…" Lunala has been enslaved by the colonizers. You would have to free her with the country. "And even if we could get a god on our side that's just asking for a repeat of Ho—" She catches herself at the last moment. Her voice softens. "Plumeria's wrong. We won't get the islands back. Certainly not in our lifetime. And harassing the tourists is just going to make things worse for the people still here. I get what she's going for but she's wrong. Even Guzma says so."

"We just give up, then?" Your voice is hoarse. As if you'd already yelled at her or Jabari or the Gage heiress anyone else you want to be furious at. But you haven't yelled and you won't now. Your voice is perfectly level. "Don't even try to resist them? Let them take over our league and put a throne of their own on Lanakila?"

"Throne? Wait. You think that's—" Her line goes dead silent. Your eyes narrow. Is she muting herself so you can't hear her laugh. "Sorry, signal cut out." Definitely sounds like she's been laughing. "That's just a fancy chair the champion in. I'm sure Selene would get rid of it if I just told her it's a bad look. She's pretty nice, actually."

Nice? She enslaved your god. Built a temple to her own glory on a sacred mountain. Failed to protect Alola when your country was threatened. Even without the throne she needs to be crushed. Because if she can be brought down, then any haole can be.

You don't say any of that. Instead you say "thank you for calling" and hang up.

Ihe and inkay look a little cold. You withdraw them and carbink and move back inside, Coco plodding oblivious ahead of you while Moe floats beside you. She has to know how you're feeling as a friendship is maybe lost. And the sick fucker loves it.

Maybe you'd prefer having your phone get flushed. It seems to be bringing nothing but misery today.