Pokemon Retold: Ultra Sun contains themes of mental illness, addiction, racism, abuse, some violence, and some references to sex. While none of these are the primary focus of the story or meant to shock or harm anyone (it is still rated T after all), they may still upset or offend some people, and that is understandable, but if you are known to have difficulty with such topics, I would recommend reconsidering reading this story.
Prologue Trust Nobody but Yourself
She pressed her nose to the window of the sleek boat, peering out across the gentle waves of the ocean. She could see an enormous island off in the distance. It didn't sparkle with lights like it was inhabited, but she knew it had to be, for she knew the island was Melemele Island of Alola. There were three other main islands that made up the Alolan archipelago, but she couldn't see those just yet. Even so, just seeing the one made her heart flutter with excitement. Her mother had told her so much about the unique and vulnerable pokémon native to the region.
"Lillie!" Gladion jumped into the seat next to her, rocking her in place. She caught herself with a squeak and looked over at him curiously. He now had his face pressed to the window. It wasn't often she saw him so excited. Her brother could be quite reserved. "Look! We're almost there! Finally…"
From across the passenger area, their mother and father snickered as they watched their children bounce. They had told them time and time again to fasten their seatbelts and be careful, sea pokémon could still bump the boat, but had given up now that they were so close to landing. Lusamine spoke softly to them. "It's beautiful, isn't it? The Alola Region is a very pretty country. It's also very vulnerable. I knew as soon as they said they were going to be allowing outsiders to visit again, I had to bring Aether Foundation here. The people there need the traffic, but the wildlife needs protection from everything migrants and tourists can bring."
"What do you mean?" Lillie asked innocently. She twirled around and sat against the white leather of the seat, her feet dangling. She wasn't very tall yet… She supposed she still had time to grow, she was only twelve, after all. Her mother eyed her with amused, bright green eyes as she observed her daughter. It always made Lillie feel so special when her mother looked at her like that. It was a look she often reserved for pokémon Aether Foundation was caring for.
"Well, thirty years ago, Alola was overrun with foreign pokémon," her mother explained. She animatedly moved her hands as she talked, her long, blond hair rippling with every movement. Lillie's hair was very similar to hers, but hers was much shorter and somehow, thicker. Her mother had straight, perfect hair. Lillie wondered if she'd ever look that pretty. "Gumshoos and Yungoos specifically really ravaged Alola's ecosystems, and it was making these local, very powerful pokémon—the Tapus—very upset. And understandably, Alolans themselves. So, they made the heavy decision to close down their borders…" She paused and pursed her lips. "Alola is very different from Kalos or any of the other regions we've stayed at before, Lillie."
Abruptly, her father laughed and playfully grabbed Lusamine's leg with his left hand. His entire burly hand could nearly wrap around her thigh. Compared to Lusamine, Mohn looked cobbled together. He didn't care for Lusamine's fancy clothes. He wore a white T-shirt, faded, stained green pants, and tattered sandals to top it all off. He looked as if he could have used a shave and a haircut as well. But nobody ever said anything about it, least of all her mother. Lillie kind of admired her father for that. He was very comfortable with himself and it made talking to him easy. "Oh, c'mon, Lusi. Let 'em just enjoy the sights before you go givin' 'em all the scary details, would you?"
"Mm," Lusamine smirked and coyly side-eyed him. "I know. I'm very scary. That's why you married me. I scared you."
"Yep, scared me right into it," Mohn laughed loudly as he patted their mother's thigh. "My scary Lusi."
"Gross," Gladion craned his neck around from the window just to stick his tongue out at them. "Guess you're not wrong, though. You both are feeling pretty scary right now with all that mushy crap."
"Aw, Gladion!" Lillie laughed and gently pushed his shoulder. "It's not that bad! It's nice!"
"Maybe for you," he fired off his tongue at her this time. "You're a girl. You're supposed to like that kinda stuff."
"Oh, and boys are immune?" Lusamine interjected interestedly. She looked Mohn up and down. "I had no idea! What a fool I've been…"
Mohn rolled his eyes. "Nah, you tell 'em, Gladion. Don't let 'em get you, don't be tamed!"
"Dad!" That finally pried a few giggles from Gladion, all the while Lillie and Lusamine were already besides themselves.
They felt a lurch as the watercraft started to slow. Gladion tipped over from his unbalanced position and unceremoniously crashed into Lillie on his way to the cabin floor. "Ow," he whined and sat back up. Lillie scowled at him, but a smirk betrayed her amusement. "That hurt."
"Thought boys weren't supposed to show pain?" Lillie taunted him.
"I am not! Didn't hurt." Gladion defended himself hotly.
More laughter.
Those were good times.
Lillie and Gladion oohed and awed at the yawning, posh halls. The building was so much bigger than she ever could have imagined. She knew her mother was having a floating structure built to serve as Aether Foundation's main headquarters, but after about a year in the smallish Aether House on Ula'Ula Island, it had been hard to imagine it would be larger than that. But Aether Paradise put that house to shame. It certainly lived up to its name. It had space and space to spare, an entire, cavernous floor designed for pokémon that needed a place to stay while they recovered or were researched, and tons of labs. Her mother had eagerly given her two children a tour. Mohn had lagged behind, offering comments from the peanut gallery as he went, but his jovial additions were welcome. Her mother played off his words smoothly, like she knew all his jokes and just how to work with them. They both worked so well together. It made Lillie feel so whole whenever she listened to them.
Of course, Gladion was less understanding. He complained often about their father's bad jokes and out-of-place remarks. Lillie just rolled her eyes at him. Despite being older than her, he seemed so much less mature. Lillie prided herself on her maturity. It made her feel accomplished like their mother. She wanted to be just like Lusamine.
Their mother brought them to the center of some walkways overlooking various terrariums designed to hold pokémon in the future. Some were grassy, with live trees growing inside; others were entirely made of water with naturalistic, sandy shores built within; another looked almost like it was meant to be a desert. She was leaned over the banister staring at one when her mother started talking.
"Alola has much more leeway for research than other regions ever did," she said. "That's why I wanted to bring our headquarters here. While other regions are concerned about maintaining the status-quo when it comes to battling or whatever else it is they do… Alola forgoes most common law practices for simply listening to the will of the Tapu pokémon that reside on each island."
"In Galarish," her father piped up, "Alola's got very few laws and that makes it easier for Aether to do its job."
"So, you're gonna do illegal stuff?" Gladion asked bluntly with a sly grin.
"Well, compared to other regions, I suppose so," their mother snickered. "Like having more than forty pokémon in a single structure or being able to have more than just observational experiments. Aether is just concerned with conservation and helping pokémon. Don't worry, son, we're not going to do anything harmful."
Gladion looked almost disappointed. "Man, that's lame. If I knew there were no laws, I'd do all kinds of crazy stuff!"
"You will do no such thing, because even if Alola has few laws, you're still under my laws," their mother swiftly corrected him. She sauntered up to him and rubbed his head, ruining his perfectly combed, blond locks. He irritably batted at her hands and spluttered in annoyance. "Behave yourselves. Oh, look, I almost forgot, we've received our first pokémon for rehabilitation for today."
All four of them peered over the banister now. They watched as some employees dressed in simple, white uniforms carried a couple cages with Slowpoke inside of them toward one of the coastal terrariums. Lillie grimaced when she realized neither of the pokémon had tails. She looked down and then squeezed her eyes shut. The sight made uncomfortable quivers run up her spine, and her knees felt weak. "Why… why don't they have tails? Don't tell me Alola does that, too…"
"There are still some bad people in Alola, I'm afraid," her mother sighed softly. "These pokémon had their tails removed to be sold for high prices, likely to tourists, since they're illegal everywhere else but not here in Alola. These pokémon will be taken care of until their tails grow in, and when we feel it's safe to release them, we'll do so."
Daring to open her eyes again but unable to look back at the pokémon, Lillie glanced at her brother. He looked weirdly frozen as he stared at the sight below them. His hands were gripped so tightly to the steel banister that the skin had gone stark white there. "Glad, you okay?"
"Huh?" he blinked fervently and looked startled. Settling his gaze on her, he nodded. "Yeah, I'm fine."
"Thankfully, Alola has been really kind to us," their mother started again. "They are grateful to have us here. I met with their local leaders—the Kahunas, they're called—and they explained that they appreciate the extra protection. I wasn't expecting that. After Team Plasma in Unova, most regions have been wary of pokémon activists." She looked down sadly. "So sad that one bad thing can ruin something for so many people. Human greed got the better of Team Plasma. They had good intentions. I hope that through science and with Alola's help, we can win the hearts over of those in other regions, and create more ethical guidelines regarding pokémon battling, breeding, and all of that. Lillie? Gladion?"
Both her children jerked their heads to look at her. In unison, they asked, "Yes, Mum?" It had been so long since they lived in Galar, but that moniker for their mother stubbornly stuck like glue.
"I hope one day you'll follow in my footsteps and carry on Aether long after I have to step down," she said, "but I hope you both are also in it for the right reasons. So, while we're here in Alola, between school, I want you both to really think about what Aether does."
"Oh, Lusi, they're thirteen and fourteen, they've got plenty of time to think about that," Mohn snorted from the other side of their mother. She rolled her eyes exasperatedly at him.
"It's never too early to start thinking about the future."
"Yeah, but it's nice to think about the here and now, y'know?" Mohn peered past Lusamine and at his two children. "You two need to play outside. Meet friends. Get in some trouble. Live a little. You got plenty of time before you get to stress about how much humans suck."
"Mohn!" Lusamine scoffed incredulously despite the grin pulling at her lips. "They had better not."
"Oh, like you were perfect when you were little, huh?" Mohn eyed Lusamine amusedly. "I know that's not true."
"If you need me, I'll be in the ocean," Gladion said as he jabbed an elbow playfully at Lillie's arm. "Too much grossness in here right now."
"Say hi to the Magikarp for me, then," Lillie shot back at him. Honestly, he could be so silly. Lillie thought the way Mum and Dad interacted was sweet.
Lillie carefully pressed her ear to the door so that it didn't squeak and give her away. Her mother had invited someone over from Alola's main islands to meet, but unlike every other time she invited someone over to talk Aether Foundation matters, her mother had told her children nothing about this person or what they'd be discussing. She had been so curious; she just couldn't help herself! So, she was trying to listen in and glean what she could from the conversation. After all, if she wanted to be like her mother and run Aether in the future, didn't she need all the details?
She caught her mother's voice. "That's so fascinating! Alola has so many secrets!"
"Right?" the other voice sounded female. She had a thick accent that made understanding her words difficult, but she sounded like she knew Galarish very well. "Not only do we have some of the most unique pokémon in the world, but we have started studying anomalous pokémon that we believe are from entirely different worlds! Of course, it's all very tentative science… but I thought it would still be a good idea to contact your organization about this. In case you discover anything that may help us with our interdimensional research."
"Naturally! All pokémon, no matter their origins, are deserving of respect and attentiveness from humans."
Pokémon from… different worlds? Like aliens? Lillie frowned. Pokémon such as Cleffa and Starmie had been thought to have arrived from different worlds in the past, but over time, those theories were all debunked. What made these any different?
"You really are so kind, President Lusamine. Of course, if we discover anything more of note at my lab about Ultra Wormholes, we will be in contact to see what your scientists have to say about it."
"That is very kind of you, Burnet. Thank you."
Ultra Wormholes? What on Earth are those…? The silence between her mother and her visitor stretched on, and Lillie bailed, thinking they were about to leave the room. She only narrowly made it out the hallway before her mother stepped out. Feeling the need to share what she had just learned, Lillie eagerly made for her brother's bedroom.
Their chambers were stuffed at the far end of a hall on the Conservation Area. It required a special keycard to even get into, a special keycard only Lillie, Gladion, Lusamine, Mohn, and one of her mother's closest friends and employees, Dr. Wicke, had. Gladion's bedroom was directly across from hers. She stopped in front of his door and knocked. As it was still early on a Sunday morning, she surmised he probably wasn't even awake yet when her knock went unanswered. Rolling her eyes, she tried again, and didn't stop until the door swung open.
"What do you waaant?" he hissed.
"Gladion! You won't believe what I just heard!" she bounced up and down.
"See, you would have still had this knowledge later in the day," he yawned, "so I dunno why you had to come wake me up and tell me about it right now."
"Oh, don't be so mean!" Lillie huffed and pushed past him into his room.
"Hey, you can't do that!" he whined, "this is my room. You got your own."
"I just wanna talk to you!" Lillie laughed. She then eyed his messy bed and the laptop hastily tossed beneath the comforter. She narrowed her eyes, and then cut them at her brother. "Sleeping, huh?"
"I was!" he insisted, his voice teetering on the edge of a panic. "I fell asleep with it on my chest… why are you looking at me like that?" Defensively, he added, "Alright, what do you want?"
She decided not to sit on his bed, now not so sure if she'd want to with the incriminating evidence of a poorly hidden laptop there, and instead she just put her hands on her hips and raised her chin proudly. "I heard Mum talking to someone from Alola's islands about these things called Ultra Wormholes! And pokémon from other worlds!"
"Like, aliens?" Gladion asked as he surreptitiously tried to straighten up his bed and move the laptop to his side table, carefully making sure to keep a pair of earbuds connected to it in the process. "Hasn't Mum proven those aren't a thing?"
"Well, she helped prove ones like Cleffa and Starmie aren't, but these things sound like the real deal! The other lady Mum was talking to said she had this lab for 'interdimensional research.'" She struggled to pronounce the long word properly.
"Yeah… sure," Gladion sounded less than enthused. Flushed slightly red, he pointed at his doorway. "Now, is that all you got? Can you leave?"
"Yeah, I'll let you get back to 'sleeping,'" Lillie taunted as she sauntered out the room.
"I was sleeping!" he shouted after her in an abnormally high-pitched tone. Lillie broke into raucous fits of laughter as the door slammed closed behind her.
She had been sleeping peacefully when the alarms started. They felt like they pierced her ears and stabbed her brain with how loud they were. She recognized it as one of the alarms her mother had taught her and Gladion about before, but in her blind panic as she scrambled out of bed in a white nightgown, Lillie couldn't recall what it meant at all. Her head rattled as all she could think about was the repeated BZRRRRT of the alarm.
Trembling, Lillie barely remembered to grab her keycard and slip into some shoes. She nervously darted into the hall and found an equally as terrified Gladion staring back at her. "What's going on?" she howled at him, competing with the alarms for her voice to be heard.
"I don't know!" Gladion hollered back. He fell into step beside her and they made their way together out of their hall. The automatic door separating their chambers from the rest of Aether Paradise was already sitting open. That gave Lillie an eerie feeling. She and Gladion poked their heads into the Conservation Area uncertainly, then both squeaked in surprise as some employees came skidding past them, bolting for the triangular elevator near the front of the building.
"Everybody to basement, right now!" one of the employees commanded. His voice was deep and loud enough to override the sirens. At his words, other employees scattering in confusion around the room converged on him, squishing into the elevator to go down.
"Can't be a fire," Gladion swallowed nervously, "can't use the elevator in a fire…"
"We should follow," Lillie said, nodding. Without waiting for Gladion's response, she squeezed his arm and dragged him with her toward the platform. Once it reappeared after delivering the employees to the depths of the facility, she and Gladion stepped aboard and she scanned the controls. She found that instead of each floor blinking different colors, signaling what keycard would take who where, they were all a flat green. She knew that meant anyone could access them. So, she pressed the button for the basement, and right away, the elevator descended for it.
As they made their way below, they felt a horrible tremor that made each of them grab for the steel safety bar around the elevator.
"What is going on down there?" Gladion wailed in a tone of voice she hadn't quite heard on him before. That set her knees shaking even before the elevator hit the bottom floor.
There, the labs lay in ruin. Or at least, one of them did. The other three looked singed on parts, but only one of them was blasted open in the front, the metal of its walls twisted outward and wrought. Inside, shrapnel, paperwork, and guts of computers were strewn everywhere. Employees wildly dashed around, but Lillie couldn't tell what anyone was doing. They all looked as panicked and confused as she felt. And that stupid alarm was still ringing in their ears. She thought she'd go deaf before long if it didn't get turned off. Lillie and Gladion exchanged horrified, nervous expressions, and then tried to pick their way closer to the damaged lab.
As they got closer, they saw something even worse. Their mother was on her knees in the middle of the destruction, digging bleeding hands into the floor despite the shattered glass and flecks of metal. Lillie went numb when she discovered as they drew even closer that the siren wasn't the only thing howling. Lusamine was crying out, a horrible, pained sound that seemed like it should have been coming from a pokémon rather than a person. Her face was aimed at the floor and her long hair, frizzy and singed from the apparent explosion, concealed her expression from them.
"WILL SOMEONE TURN OFF THAT FUCKING ALARM?" Lillie flinched as she heard Dr. Faba's voice screech louder than the alarm could ever hope to. Within seconds, the alarm was off, and he brushed past them toward Lusamine. Now, with the alarm off, Lillie's ears rang slightly, but she could hear her mother's anguished screams clearly. Lillie went to move forward, heart pounding, so she could ask her mother what had happened, but her right hand clung to Gladion and he didn't move. Glancing over at him, she found he was frozen in place and pale. He looked like he might be sick.
"Gladion, please," Lillie whined, "let's go check on her."
"Lillie," Gladion's voice was hardly above a whisper and nearly drowned out by a renewed howl from Lusamine. "The… tie… the tie…"
"Tie? What tie?" Lillie traced his gaze and gasped when she noticed Lusamine had a tattered piece of green fabric in her hands. She was clutching it violently, threatening to rip it, even. Her heart plummeted and she understood then. The tie was her father's. He only wore it whenever he was helping their mother with her work. The world shook around her and Lillie looked down to the floor. There were pieces of sharp metal and such beneath her, but she felt so unsteady… she slipped her hand free of Gladion's and dazedly took a seat there.
There was no reaction from her or Gladion right away, even as the truth dawned on them. The half-destroyed lab, the frenzy everyone was in, their mother's screaming which sounded so distant now… Her vision hazed over and Lillie dimly thought she was about to pass out. She closed her eyes and gritted her teeth, trying to fight the sensation.
"Mum…" She was surprised when she heard Gladion speaking. "Mum, please… what happened…? Where's Dad?"
Still, their mother's aggrieved outcry didn't end.
Gladion sounded more and more desperate as his voice wavered. Lillie kept her eyes shut. She couldn't look. "Mum… Mum, please… I'm… I'm scared…"
She heard her mother give a few more pained whimpers as she tried to still her voice. As she quieted, Lillie opened her eyes just slightly, just enough to see that the employees scrambling around her had fallen still, all eyes on her mother. Still holding the tie tightly in her fists, Lusamine shakily staggered to her feet. Thin rivulets of blood ran down her legs and hands from where shrapnel on the floor had dug into her. She didn't turn to face Gladion right away, who was holding out his hand and still pleading with her.
But when she did, she struck him across the face with the tattered green cloth. It didn't seem to hurt him, but he jumped back out of shock. Lillie bolted upright as well, confused and angry. It still hadn't even registered with her properly, the endless, horrible possibilities that could have happened to her father, and here her mother was, striking her brother! She bit at her lip nervously and felt tears pool in her eyes, her throat squeezing uncomfortably tight with emotion.
"Don't patronize me!" Lusamine shrieked at Gladion. He dazedly rubbed the side of his face where she had hit him. "Get away from me! Go back to your rooms!"
"President Lusamine…" Dr. Faba leaned forward to try to console her, but her mother whirled on him too, knocking the tie into his chin and flinging a few drops of blood on his lemon-colored glasses. Looking a mix of affronted and frightened, Dr. Faba gaped at Lusamine as she railed on him.
"I don't want to hear anything from you, Dr. Faba!" she screamed. "It was YOUR science behind this experiment! YOURS!"
Lillie and Gladion were then collected by Dr. Wicke. She ushered them away from the labs and toward the elevator. Gladion moved like an automaton and he looked haunted, his eyes trained on something only he seemed to see, all the while he stroked an angry red splotch on the left side of his face. Lillie followed silently, too, but she kept glancing between Gladion and Dr. Wicke. She had so many questions, and yet, she couldn't seem to translate them into spoken words. She had many emotions, too, but they felt locked away behind some sort of barrier. She was vaguely aware of stinging sensations in her leg, likely from where she had sat down on the shrapnel…
"Are either of you hurt?" Dr. Wicke questioned once they were back in the hall leading to their chambers. She stopped to mess with the control panel next to the hall's door, making it close at last behind them.
"No," Lillie whispered back. Silence from her brother.
"Gladion?" Dr. Wicke pressed in a soft, sympathetic tone. She bent over slightly to meet his eyes. He flinched at that and stared at her dumbly for a moment before responding.
"I'm fine," he mumbled, his hand slowly falling away from his face. "Just stung…"
Dr. Wicke led them to their respective rooms. "Please, if either of you need to talk," she smiled gently, "I'm here." Her pale green eyes were glassy.
"No, thank you," Gladion muttered as he vanished into his room.
"Lillie?" Dr. Wicke put a hand on her shoulder and gently squeezed.
"I don't know," Lillie answered as she sank to the floor, her back pressed to the hallway wall. She didn't know. She felt stupid for not having emotions right away. She felt absolutely nothing, had no words to describe what had just happened, and although her entire head felt congested in the way only crying did, she shed no tears. She felt like a clogged drain. It was an awful, cold feeling.
"Okay… Lillie, I think you should lay down," Dr. Wicke suggested, gingerly helping Lillie back to her feet. "I think you're in shock. Here, let me help you, okay?"
So, help she did. Dr. Wicke helped her remove her shoes and get comfortable in her thrashed bedsheets. When she went to leave, Lillie lashed out her hand and gripped her wrist tightly. Her breathing quickened and she felt even more like a clogged drain. Her throat hurt with the force of the waiting tidal wave of tears. "Dr. Wicke, please… stay for a while…"
Dr. Wicke eyed her sadly. "Of course, Lillie."
The next five years at Aether Paradise made the facility's name sound like a mockery to those operating within it. None more so than Lillie and Gladion. When Mohn disappeared, Lusamine's entire personality flipped like a switch. It took Lillie several months, but she eventually found out through Dr. Wicke that it had been an experiment into the Ultra Wormholes she had heard her mother discussing with the Alolan woman. She had also discovered nobody knew if her father had simply died in the explosion, or if he had been lost to Ultra Space. Lillie honestly didn't know which was worse. She desperately wanted to hope her father was still out there somewhere, but she had to consider the grim possibility that even if he had survived a trip to some unknown world, there were myriad other factors that went into his survivability.
But she didn't like to think about that. In fact, she hated to think about the entire thing. It had taken her so long to figure out what had really happened not because Dr. Wicke was withholding information, but because she couldn't stand to sit down and talk about it. She and Gladion both acted like Mohn had never existed at all, dared not to utter his name, and after a while, it seemed they dared not talk to each other, either. Even when they both would wake up and see each other in their chambers' hallway, they said very little. An indifferent 'good morning' here. A deadpanned 'good evening' there.
Over time, it became more pronounced because of their mother. Lusamine started dressing her children for them even though they were more than capable of dressing themselves. She would take one look at her children whenever they dressed themselves and press her lips to a thin line, and her eyes would flash with anger. "Go back to your room and I'll be there in a moment," she remembered her mother saying one time as she spotted her daughter leaving to head for school. "I'll be there momentarily to clean you up properly, since you're incapable of doing it yourself."
Lillie got the impression her mother hated them before long. She was always furious when she saw them. She would openly admire the pokémon in Aether's care on the Conservation Area, calling them her babies deserving of all the love in the world. Every time she said those words or anything like it, Lillie's fists would clench, and she would look at the sterile, white floor beneath her feet. Her mother never spoke to her or Gladion with such a sensitivity anymore. She never complimented them. When visitors came to the facility, she would viciously instruct them to remain silent unless spoken to. "Children are to be seen, not heard," she had growled venomously when Gladion had shot her a look that suggested he was thinking of talking back one time. At her warning, he had lowered his head dutifully.
He would do that often. Look as if he intended to snap back at her, but then swallow his pride and keep quiet. Lillie hated it every time he did that. It always gave her so much hope whenever he would glare fiercely back at Lusamine and his lips would twitch with the hint of unspoken words. She desperately wanted him to let them fly because she knew she couldn't. As upset and angry as she was at her mother, she was also just hurt. It hurt to know her mother hated them so much now. It hurt even more that she didn't understand why, either; so, Lillie tried her hardest to appease Lusamine, to try to wear everything she said to wear, to do everything she said to do, to be a good little girl and listen to her mother. She hoped that maybe, if she were good enough, Lusamine would go back to how she was before… before it happened.
But that never happened, and one day, Gladion finally could hold back no more. Lusamine shrilly demanded what he was wearing when she noticed a tear in one of his white school shirts, grabbing his arm and pointing it out. It was a horizontal slice across his sleeve. Lillie thought she caught a glimpse of raw flesh under the gash, but Gladion, curling his lips furiously, wrenched his arm free of her grasp too quickly for her to really be sure. To Lusamine, he snarled, "It's just a cut in the shirt, Mum. That's all it is. Everyone in Alola wears clothes with all sorts of rips and stains on them, nobody's gonna care about a tear in my shirt!"
Lusamine arched her shoulders and whipped a snakelike look at them. "Children would be much happier if they simply listened to the adults around them," she hissed. Her hands tightened to fists at her sides and she startled both her children with her loudness as she screamed, "You're both ugly, rotten children! No matter how well I dress you, you'll always be ugly!"
And that was the end of that. She stormed away, leaving them to catch the speedboat to their classes on Melemele Island. The outburst cut Lillie deeply. She looked over herself ashamedly, wondering what her mother could have possibly meant by that. She thought she looked so similar to her mother… did she really look that bad? Or, if she had meant in personality… Lillie sighed. She tried so hard to do everything her mother wanted, but she supposed she just kept messing it up… She and Gladion hadn't been the only one to suffer in Mohn's accident. Why couldn't she just do better to make her mother's life easier? She was so frustrated!
"Stop that," Gladion interrupted her thoughts.
"Stop… stop what?" she asked tentatively.
"Thinking whatever it is you're thinking," he muttered. His green eyes were narrowed at her. In fact, they always seemed narrowed nowadays. She missed his awkward attempts at being cool. She didn't like this new cold front he had. "Because she's wrong, Mum's wrong. Nothing's wrong with you and nothing's wrong with me."
She wished she could've believed him.
In the last year or so at Aether Paradise, Lillie had concluded that no matter how hard she tried, she would never make her mother happy the way she was. Although it had been nerve-wracking at first, Lillie started to sneak around Aether Paradise's lower floors. Her motivations were loose at best; she wanted to overlook Aether's research into these 'Ultra Wormholes.' She wanted to know what else they had done with them and whether there was any hope of bringing Mohn back if he had survived. Dr. Wicke had refused to tell her all the information she would have needed to make such a determination. One might have wondered what made Lillie think she could uncover what a team of trained scientists could not, but Lillie never cared to think over that detail. She was just so desperate for any hope of helping her mother, of appealing to her better nature. It hurt so much to be so hated by her…
She became adept at pickpocketing keycards off various employees. She tried to make sure she targeted different people every time and made sure she only accessed the lower floors when everyone was supposed to be away or asleep. She had the occasional close call with a scientist who enjoyed burning the midnight oil, but her slender build made for easy getaways.
Despite all her knowledge at Lusamine's hand and from learning on Alola, she found most of the research papers too difficult to decipher. She became so frustrated by this one day that, as she scanned a document again to decode its tough vocabulary, she slammed a fist in aggravation against a pillar in the room. She felt a button click under her palm, though, which made her rip her eyes away from the paper in alarm. The pillar turned out not to be a pillar at all as its external shell of metal opened, revealing a glass, vertical tube inside. Suspended inside was a ball of deep violet and blue gas. It sparkled on occasion and had a couple of golden, half-circlets dividing it in half.
The research papers forgotten entirely, Lillie gawked at the tube. Then, the little gaseous ball unfolded, revealing a dark face with beady yellow eyes. Yelping in surprise, Lillie jumped back. That seemed to startle the creature, who fretfully circled within the tube before settling back down. As it and Lillie stared one another down, she realized just how pretty it was. It looked like a small piece of outer space. Then, much more somberly, she wondered what on Earth it was doing trapped in a tube, kept in the dark. She picked her way cautiously back toward it and examined the base of the tube. Tucked beneath a laptop to the left, she discovered a packet of papers. The title was simply 'Cosmog.'
She found this paper much easier to understand. It used a lot of fluffy language, but discerned that the paper designated the creature in the tube as Cosmog, an Ultra Beast from Ultra Space. Although that information was all useful, she gaped in horror as she read one part that described how they believed the Cosmog in their care had the potential to open controlled Ultra Wormholes. However, the caveat was that it could only do so once as the strain of such powers would likely kill it. The paper concluded more research was needed so they didn't waste their one shot at getting it right.
That had been the final straw. She carefully put the papers back where she had found them and put her hand up against the glass, looking the tiny nebula over determinedly. It moved close to the glass and she could see its mouth moving but couldn't hear its cries. "Don't worry," Lillie said softly, "I'm coming back for you. You and I have to get out of here… I can't let my Mum open another one of those things. For all I know, it'll take her, too… and you don't deserve to die for this." It twirled behind the glass and she gave a pained smile. "I'll be back," she reassured it again.
Dr. Wicke was so kind.
The night before, Lillie had come clean to the doctor. In the nearly four years since Mohn's accident, she and Dr. Wicke had grown increasingly close. In some ways, Lillie felt like Dr. Wicke was more of a mother to her than Lusamine ever was… but she didn't entertain those thoughts too much. It was painful to think that way. Even so, when she gathered the courage to explain to the doctor her intentions to save Cosmog and escape Aether Paradise, she had been fraught with nerves. Yet, she was unsurprised when Dr. Wicke only half-smiled at her and weakly agreed to help.
Together, she and Dr. Wicke had hatched a plan. Dr. Wicke had thieved one of Dr. Faba's keycards and brought it to Lillie the morning of her plan. After that point, the race against the clock was on before Dr. Faba realized he was missing one of his master cards. Lillie had wanted one of his because he had free reign over the entire facility save for their bedrooms. Her intentions were to sneak into the labs in the basement early that morning, before anyone got to work, and hide Cosmog in her massive bag. Then, she'd flee for the docks and use one of the Ride Pager pokémon that were typically tied up there to make her way to one of Alola's islands. Whichever would get her away from Aether the fastest.
"Find Professor Burnet or Professor Kukui once you're on Alola's main islands, okay?" Dr. Wicke had reminded her as she handed off the keycard. "They're very nice people. They can help you."
"Okay… Thank you, Dr. Wicke," Lillie said quietly. With that, Dr. Wicke returned to her duties. Lillie heard a door creak open behind her and she jumped. She heard Gladion's voice.
"What're you doing?"
It was five in the morning. What could he have possibly been doing up? She didn't turn to look at him. "Nothing. Just couldn't sleep," she said cagily.
The distance between them felt so vast, an impasse neither of them could begin to figure out how to navigate across. She wanted so badly to turn around and grab his wrists, to spill everything she knew about Cosmog and beg him to come with her, but her better judgment wouldn't let her. Nothing she ever did seemed to change anyone else's minds anyway, so why would it start now? Her brother was as icy as ever in all their interactions, too. What if he turned on her as well and turned her into Lusamine? Tried to stop her? Worse, what if he agreed with Lusamine and wanted them to use Cosmog to try to find Mohn?
It was so painful to not be able to look back at him…
"I don't believe you," he muttered. "But… I'm sure you've got your reasons." She heard his door click again. She wondered what he could have meant by that… That he was sure she had her reasons?
She shook her head. She didn't have time for that.
Down into the depths of Aether Paradise she went. She deftly found her way back to Cosmog's tube. She knew the basement like the back of her hand now. It took her a few tries to figure out what button might have released the creature, but finally, she decoded the release button on the control panel. The glass rose and immediately, the cloudy creature escaped, twirling around Lillie's face. It felt like nothing but a pleasant breeze on her skin. She reached out to grab it, and it felt so strange to have most of its body waft around her fingertips. Only the dark mass in the center of its body was tangible enough to hold, and even then, it was so light.
Her enamored reaction was put on hold, though. Alarms blared to life suddenly and Lillie stopped thinking in words. She shoved the creature into her bag and zipped it up without a second thought, and then she booked it out of the lab so fast, she clipped the doorframe on her way out, knocking over a few books from a shelf. Why was the alarm going off? Dr. Wicke hadn't said anything about that, and she had Dr. Faba's card! Hands shaking violently, when she reached the elevator, she accidentally punched the button for the Conservation Area. She desperately tried to correct her mistake, but there was no way to cancel where the elevator went first. "Damn it!" she shouted in frustration as the steel bars popped up around her and she was brought to the Conservation Area.
"Security breach. Security breach," an automated voice wailed across the intercom, occasionally cutting through the horrific alarms. White flashing lights whirled around the Conservation Area floor. Lillie thought to simply stay on the elevator so it would take her to the docks next, but as soon as it paused at the Conservation Area, she saw employees waiting for her. Some of them ran after her, spurring her out of the elevator so fast she had to jump over the steel safety bars as they were lowering and onto the pathways winding throughout the terrariums.
She had no idea what to do now. Perhaps she could lead them to a corner of the room and then wind her way back to the elevator? Huffing for breath as she skirted around a corner, her feet nearly slipped from beneath her and she heard Cosmog give a plaintive cry from within her bag. "I know, I know, I'm sorry," Lillie apologized distractedly. No matter how confused or turned around Lillie became, though, she didn't dare stop running.
At least, not until she was cut off by some employees standing between her and her exit. She hopped slightly as she came to a stop. Flicking her gaze behind her, she saw a large group of employees waiting for her there, too. They all had soft expressions on their faces and were trying to gently talk her down, but Lillie knew better. She clung to her bag even more tightly. Feeling like a cornered animal more than a girl, she glared at them all hatefully and snapped, "No! I'm not giving him back for you to hurt!"
"They intend no harm on Cosmog." This voice was robotic and new. She jolted in fearful surprise as she turned her head to the source. A man and a woman in otherworldly armor faced her. Was it armor…? She had no idea. Her eyes widened as she took the sight of them in. They wore enormous, gaudy helmets and beneath the armor, they had a teal bodysuit clinging to their skin.
"Hi! My name's Zossie!" the smaller girl to his side eagerly exclaimed. "Now, come on… we aren't going to hurt you or Cosmog, just give it back, okay?"
"No! Over my dead body!" Lillie fiercely shot back.
"Lillie?"
Gladion? Lillie searched for him in the growing crowd of Aether Foundation employees. She spotted him in the far back of those on her right. She also spotted Dr. Wicke hurrying after him as he tried to push his way through the crowd toward Lillie. She grabbed him by the arm and dug her heels in. He fought against her hold angrily. "Dr. Wicke, let me go! That's my sister!"
"Gladion, please," Dr. Wicke said tersely, shooting Lillie a fleeting look and a curt nod.
She felt so bad… but she just couldn't trust him. She steeled her nerves and readied herself to try to run past the group to her left in desperation, but then a harsh blue glow emanated from her bag. She shielded her eyes and heard everyone around her begin to call out. She heard footsteps. She heard Gladion shout her name desperately once more.
But that was all she remembered of that moment because there was a nauseating swirl of violet lights, and then darkness. The next thing she could recall was waking up to the sound of waves gently lapping at the shore and the gross smell of Rockruff-breath as one was licking her face worriedly. It barked in excitement when Lillie squinted against its affections and weakly pushed it away.
The voice she heard next was speaking Alolan, but thanks to the last six years of schooling on an Alolan island, she understood what he was saying perfectly. "Hey, Rockruff, what'd you find? …Oh, by the Tapus!"
Within seconds, she had a man looming over her, shirtless beneath a white labcoat. Right away, memories from what felt like moments ago at Aether Paradise flooded her mind, and she deliriously leapt to her feet and pointed a quivering finger at this man. "Stay away from me!" she snapped vehemently. She realized then how much her entire body ached, how sluggishly she moved. She checked if she still had her bag and was glad to find she did. She wanted to check if Cosmog was okay but didn't want to unzip the bag in front of this strange man. She didn't trust his labcoat and—she paused suddenly. She was on a beach with some grassland nearby, and a house stood just a short distance away… She wasn't at Aether Paradise at all!
"It's okay, it's okay, cousin," the man raised his hands in surrender at her and he had an easygoing smile. He was speaking in Galarish now that he had heard her do so. "I'm here to help, okay? My name is Professor Kukui. What's yours?"
Professor Kukui… Dr. Wicke had told her to look for him. Her shoulders sagged in relief. "Lillie," she answered him in a strained voice.
She had no idea how she had gotten there, but she was so glad. She heard an irritated mewl from her bag and was struck with another wave of exhaustion as the tension eased. Cosmog was okay… Or at least, well enough that it could make noise and be annoyed at being in a bag, she thought with a brief flicker of amusement. As Kukui floundered for a response, Lillie sank to her knees in the sand.
She did it. She escaped Aether Paradise.
Lillie thought about how that was arguably the easiest of what she had to do. Now would come the difficult part. Starting her life from scratch away from what remained of her family. Because as long as her mother wanted Cosmog to find Mohn, and as long as Cosmog was around, she knew her mother wouldn't give it up.
And she knew her mother would never forgive her for what she had just done.
It scared her that she didn't care about that considering how much of her life she had spent desperately searching for her mother's approval…
Her vision faded black and she fainted again.