Chapter 4: Blood and Oranges
As a Psychic Pokémon, you are now gifted with some of the most powerful and enigmatic abilities that the world has ever known. Very little is understood about how Psychic powers work, much less how they are used. You might find the experience to be very new, and that you'll have a lot of trouble actually reaching out with your mind at first, until your subconscious learns how to interface with your psychic side. Your powers might also work differently from how a wild Pokémon would use them; even though you have the same "tools" at your disposal as a wild Abra you might wield them in different ways to achieve the same result. Compare that to how by the time you've started reading this, you've probably already mastered your new tail!
Species Guide Series #63: How To Be An Abra
The day progressed in silence after that. I tried to distract myself by working out and reading further through my species' guidebook, but whenever I put it down I felt my heart sink. Mom spent most of that day at Dad's side, even while he slept. Philomena had taken to heart my lie that Dad was just sick, and she was happy to just distract herself, or so I thought. When she brought me her species' guide – Series #489, How To Be A Phione – she was asking what some of the words meant, and I realized she was looking at theories about whether her water-based powers could be used for healing. They could, in fact, though I told her it would take a long time to learn how to do that properly without hurting somebody instead.
And, admittedly, I didn't really take well to the notion of a nine-year-old using elemental abilities she barely understood to try to fix anybody's boo-boos. But I made sure she knew she was doing a good thing by thinking about her dad like that.
The next morning still felt off. I pulled open the window curtains and looked up into the sky, but despite the brilliant sun and sparse clouds, I felt hollow inside. Something was going wrong in the Hawai Region, and Dad hadn't told me what. Closing the curtains, I turned to head out to the living room and start on breakfast when I saw words written on my bedroom door:
Sebastian, are you receiving this?
The words were written plainly in pink text that slowly brightened and dimmed, as if breathing. I blinked, still groggy after my shower, and reached toward them, touching the door. I didn't feel anything out of the ordinary, other than a strange tingling in the back of my head—
Please respond by speaking aloud.
More words appeared and I startled backwards, spluttering. "W – w – wha—"
"Oh, goodness, I'm sorry," Professor Mangrove's voice sounded in my head. "I was trying not to scare you by speaking into your mind out of nowhere."
"That scared me even more! You can do that?!"
"I… guess," the Mew replied. "I didn't really see how it actually worked for you." The words had vanished from the door. "I was trying to make you see words appear on a surface. I was hoping you were reading a book or something and I could just change the text on a page."
"You people and your books," I grumbled. "I've not even had breakfast yet. Yes, that's what it looked like. You put words on my bedroom door. And doing that to a book would have been even creepier, when I think about it." I sighed. "What do you want, anyway?"
"I apologize, Sebastian," replied Professor Mangrove, and there was a hint of genuine shame in her sweet voice. "I'm contacting you because I'm having trouble reaching your stepfather. His mind's in a bad state; I need you to check in on him and send a message."
"Is he still asleep?" I asked. "He was pretty worn out when he came home yesterday."
"No, he's awake. I think he can hear me talking, well enough to try and respond, but it's all… painful to me. I can't listen."
"Come again? Is he okay, are you sure?"
"I… physically, yes, I'm sure he's alright. His psyche, though… normally, I can let words into my mind and feel them, but right now every message from Adam feels like it's mixed with broken glass. I don't think he means it, but it's… well, it's very difficult to communicate with him directly. I keep having to withdraw and recover."
"I can write down a message if you dictate," I told the Professor. "Just let me get something to—"
"No, I'd rather you not see this, Sebastian," she replied quickly. "There's… well… grown-up things I must discuss with your stepfather."
"Is it about New Lehua?"
Professor Mangrove sighed. "Yes. Did he tell you anything about that place?"
"I've heard the name going around and I'd rather not learn anything more myself. So, what should I tell Dad?" I asked.
"Tell Adam that I contacted Quincy and did a bit of investigating, and that it's not as bad as it looks, and that I'll check back this evening if his emotions have calmed enough," Professor Mangrove said softly. "Also, in case it's a concern for him, let him know that my difficulty communicating with him isn't solely because he's a Murkrow."
"Come again? That affects things?"
"Yes, it's… something we were working on together," Professor Mangrove replied. "Some wild Pokémon exhibit behavior patterns that are very different from the rest; they're far less coordinated in how they respond to events and do not exhibit the kind of 'sixth sense' that others do. We've long entertained the hypothesis that most wild Pokémon can communicate psychically, though not directly, more like they're linked together through a kind of network, but there are these certain Pokémon such as Murkrows and Houndours that operate seemingly 'in the dark' as we have come to – Sebastian, are you snoring?"
"W-wha? Sorry, I…" I shook my head quickly. "Been standing in one place for too long. Anyways. Wild Murkrows are in the dark or something and you can't talk to them. What's up with Dad, then?"
"I think it's just… dark emotions, we'll call it, that are getting in the way," the Professor said. "Tell Adam to think positively."
"Ugh. I'll try. Anything else?"
"Tell him that Quincy still wears a sized-up replica of that terrible bowtie, and that he says the funniest things when trying to operate a keyboard using his new appendages."
"You people still have keyboards, got it. Alright, Professor," I grumbled. "Sorry to be a grouch, I'm pretty hungry and my protein intake relies so much on powdered egg right now that between the rubbery omelets and the kimchi my bedroom's starting to smell like—"
"Right, I've got some things to attend to. Thank you, Sebastian."
Professor Mangrove withdrew from my mind and I finally left my bedroom, grumbling. I craved fresh fish, which was odd because fish had made me deeply ill every time I had eaten it in the past seven years.
I was the first person into the living room that morning and I set to the lighting – first striking a match, then taking a lit candle to each lamp. It was my sixth day in the Hawai Region and I was already starting to envy the Charmanders for always having a handy flame within reach. Around about when I was kindling the hearth, I heard the door to Philomena's bedroom open, followed by the voices of my stepsister and stepmom.
"You sure you can't sleep in a bed, sweetie?" Mom was asking the Phione.
"Nuh-uh," Philomena replied. "I tried in the easy chair and I woke up in the night, too thirsty to sleep again. The book says I'm always drinking whenever I'm resting."
"What if I spun you a web that hung over your tub, so you could rest that way with your body still touching the water? I can spin my silk to last a long time."
Philomena shivered, her body rippling. "Ewww…"
"It doesn't have to look like a web, either. Like a hammock…" the Spinarak was attempting, while I approached to ask what was going on. "Oh, good morning, Seb."
"Everything alright, Mom?" I asked. Philomena shook her jelly head, and Mom sighed.
"Philomena's been having trouble sleeping," she said. "She keeps dreaming she's a human, and when she wakes up it's… a little jarring." The floating creature nodded, looking down.
"You, uh…" I said to Philomena. "I didn't see your room. You don't have a bed?"
"I do," the Phione replied, smiling slightly at that. "It's a big, round bathtub. I run water into it and float right in the middle." Her smile wavered and she looked down again. "Then I sleep and forget that I'm doing that, I start to get up but there's water everywhere and it's really scary..."
I looked over at Mom questioningly, and she nodded. "You… do know that not all Pokémon sleep in beds, Sebastian?" She asked.
"That… er." I was, admittedly, taken off guard by that. "Yeah, I… guess. Sorry, head's in a bundle. Haven't eaten. Is Dad okay?" I glanced over to the kitchen, and Mom followed my gaze and nodded.
While Philomena waited for us to get breakfast around, I told Mom about what had happened in my bedroom – about getting contacted by Professor Mangrove and asked to relay a message to Dad. Mom tutted. "Why didn't she reach out to me? I mean, I'm his wife?"
I shrugged my shoulders before getting a reed straw for Philomena's juice pitcher, giving the powder mix one last stir. "She's spoken to me once before; I walked in on Dad's debriefing back on Saturday so Miss Mangrove said hi. And your hands were full with Philomena this morning, it sounds like."
"That's true," Mom nodded. "Though I don't have hands." I rolled my eyes and Mom snickered. "Anyway, what message did the Professor have?"
"She said that New Lehua isn't as bad as it looks, that she and Professor Beech did some kind of investigation. And that Dad needs to calm down before she can psychically communicate. His emotions are a mess and it's causing interference."
"I'll let him know, Sebastian. Thank you," Mom said, while I measured out the powdered eggs and cheese and started mixing up separate bowls. Mom wound several silk strands around Philomena's pitcher, then skittered up to the ceiling and reeled the threads in enough to hoist the vessel up off the counter, before scurrying to the dining table with Philomena's juice dangling under her. She returned, panting audibly from the exertion; by that time I had mixed up the pancake batter as well and was heating the skillets.
"Can you have her get her own water and mix it herself? I mean, she can move fluids through the air with almost no effort," I suggested.
"The exercise is good for me," Mom replied while she shined one of her sharp mandibles, which she then jabbed into the rim of a can of mushrooms and started to saw around. "Thpeakin of whith," she muffled against the metal, "You gonna thart workin out with Mither Thredrick today?"
"Once I eat," I nodded, while getting the first ladles of pancake batter spooned out. "He wanted until noon to set up everything. Guessing he's rigging up weights for machines."
Breakfast proceeded pleasantly. I brought a plate upstairs for Dad, only to find him getting ready to join us. He was looking better, though he mumbled through a beakful of feathers that it was taking awhile to preen and that he needed to wash his mouth afterwards. He did flutter downstairs not long after that, and took a place at the table. I let Mom tell him about Professor Mangrove's message, and he gave a nod of understanding, muttering that he'd make sure he was ready to speak to Lily that evening.
A couple hours later – after following my species' guide's entire chapter of pre-lifting stretching exercises – I was knocking on the Angelos' door. After a couple moments, I heard rustling inside as someone unlatched the door viewer at what was for me waist height. I crouched down quickly as the viewer opened, and one of the smaller Charmanders looked out at me. She was wearing a lei strung together from purple flowers as well as a wrist charm that colored her tail-flame baby pink, surprisingly since the rest of the Angelos had done away with theirs. This one greeted me in a little girl's voice: "Hi, Mister Seb! Hehe, your belt buckle is funny."
"I, uh… hi," I stammered. "How's it funny?"
"You've not looked at it before?" She asked, while opening the door. I stood up and followed her inside. "Most Machokes wear a belt with a P letter on the buckle; yours has some kind of bug thing on it instead. I think it's a Pokémon. Pan will know. That's my baby sister; I'm Artie."
"Ahhh," I nodded. "Artie? Is that short for something?"
"Artemis," the girl replied. "I don't like that name; Dad says Artemis was a huntress with a big bow and arrow but I don't like those. Pandora likes her name, though. Probably because that person ruined so much stuff. Come on, let's go find Grandpa. He says you need to learn how to exercise." She sniffed haughtily and tossed her head. "I thought boys were born knowing that already."
"We, uh, don't?" I asked, following her.
"AND THAT'S DUMB!" Artie retorted while we headed toward the stairs. "So dumb. Hmph."
"Y… yeah. Where's Leon, by the way?"
"Out with that gross Becky girl. She showed up right after breakfast today to get him. Yesterday too, and they were out all day. All my other siblings went with Dad into the woods, exploring for berries and mushrooms and stuff. Mooooom, Mister Seb's here!" called the Charmander through a bedroom doorway.
"Come in!" Mrs. Angelo replied from inside. Artie and I entered Grandpa Frederick's bedroom, where the spectacled Charmander had pulled out a study desk from the corner and set up stools. I noticed that Gramps did have different furniture than what was in my room – each Charmander's bedroom apparently had a thin straw mat atop a raised stone slab, in place of a bed frame and mattress. It looked terribly uncomfortable.
Based on how Frederick and his daughter had been leaning towards each other and how their tail-flames were crackling, there had been some sort of argument. Both smiled and waved little paws to me, however, and I raised my hand in greeting. "Hi, Seb!" Mrs. Angelo jumped down and ran to hug me as always; I squatted to receive her. "It's wonderful to see you, come sit for a minute. Goodness, Artie, where did you find those carnations, isn't it January? They're beautiful!"
At that, Artie straightened and folded her arms proudly. "I went hunting. For flowers! Found a big patch and put some on a string. Picked up a few seeds too. I'm going to make a flower box and grow them myself!"
I looked over at Artie again as I seated myself on the edge of Gramps's stone bed, which surprised me by how it radiated warmth – judging by the ceramic pipes, it was kept thoroughly heated by flue gases from the downstairs hearth and stove. The thin mattress must have meant little to creatures who weighed less than twenty pounds, anyway. "Not going to ask any Grass Pokémon to help, Artie?" I asked.
"What, to get 'em to grow really fast? No fun," Artie stuck out her tongue. "If I was a Bulbasaur though I'd grow flowers on my back. Maybe one of the really big ones like a Rafflesia. I hear that if you're a Bulbasaur you put a seed in your bulb and when you evolve into an Ivysaur that plant grows on your back and it's part of you forever. I'd love to have a Rafflesia on my back."
"A… er." I looked to one side. "Isn't that one of the huge flowers that smells like—"
"It's a flower so it smells the best!" She interrupted. "Anyways, bye!"
"Don't mind her," Mrs. Angelo assured me after Artie had waddled off. "She thinks her little sister doesn't act like enough of a princess, so she acts like twice one. Those two are thick as they come, though. Should have seen them when they were in school, back in Wyoming," the Charmander snickered. "Some of the faculty were even more scared of them than of me."
"Careful, Lucinda – we're their faculty now," Grandpa Frederick jabbed. Mrs. Angelo laughed.
"Yes, until someone else starts doing the educating and builds a proper schoolhouse and is up to the job. And if they're another one of those big city teachers full of—"
Gramps gently held up a paw. "—We have a guest, sweetie, so don't burst the dam right now. Anyways, Sebastian, you ready to go?"
I nodded, and he gave a thumbs up, hopping from his stool. "Good. Lucinda, not sure how long this'll be, but we'll be back in time for dinner," he told his daughter.
Something in Mrs. Angelo's expression changed and she took her father in a hug. "You be safe, okay?" She turned her head to me, fixing me with that imperative stare I'd grown familiar with. "Sebastian, please, if he starts forgetting where he is or acting confused, you need to get yourselves right back over here—"
The older Charmander sighed, patting her back and easing her away. "I told you, sweetheart, I'm better. Come on, Seb, let's get moving."
As citizens of the Hawai Region, you dwell in the most diverse ecosystem in the world. This atlas details where to go to find temperate forests, tropical forests, jungles, scrublands, perpetual meadows, open plains, rolling hills, wetlands, and even boreal forests and tundras where the land slopes upward toward snowy mountains. Practically every biome group in the world – and the flora thereof – can be found somewhere upon our island paradise, thanks to the hard work of the Grass Pokémon who terraformed and cultivated the land in the years following the Hawai'i Incident.
Now, it's up to you to harness the Hawai Region's natural potential, while also caring for the land as tenderly as our wild Pokémon friends did.
The Hawai Atlas: Introduction
"Thinks I'm still demented and that this is just another spell of lucidity," Gramps grumbled as I followed him out of the house and around to the back. "Stubborn girl. Still, she's got a good head on her shoulders. Or maybe she doesn't and that's why she stuck around to keep raisin' sheep," he chuckled.
"Raising sheep and seven kids," I replied. "And she was involved in their schooling even before all this?"
"I guess," the Charmander shrugged. "My head wasn't much for laying down memories, for the last ten years. But if there's anything I know about that gal, it's that she knows how to get her way and that if anyone ever crosses her, well, Lucinda turns into Lucifer. Wouldn't surprise me one bit if I heard that she drove over to the school every other day to breathe fire at staff who were givin' her kids funny ideas."
"Sheesh," I winced. "Haven't seen that side of her."
"And pray ya never do, Seb, 'cause she breathes actual fire too now!" The Charmander guffawed. "Here's the place. Get down on one knee and lower your head."
"Eh?" I looked over and down at him, but complied when I saw the commanding look in his beady eyes. He immediately clambered onto my back and hooked his legs over my shoulders.
"Now stand up!" He ordered.
I did so, and the Charmander's paws gripped two of my three scalp-ridges. His weight was, at least to me, insignificant. "Not much of a lift," I remarked.
"You thought today would be about lifting?" Gramps laughed. "Nope, today we're gonna make sure your cardio's in order. Lifting comes later, after you show me that your heart and lungs can keep up with your muscles. Now giddyup!" He smacked on my pectorals with the heels of his little feet.
I hadn't gone running since before the disaster in 2031; my body had been too ravaged to ever sustain that level of exertion again. It felt strange, starting into a fast walk and gradually picking up the pace at Gramps's urgings. Soon, though, I was at a sustained jog, with Gramps telling me to keep a steady pace. I felt him straighten atop my shoulders, his body twisting to and fro, surveying the land while I ran. Soon he rose up to stand, hunched forward to keep hold of my scalp. I wasn't sure whether the jostling was affecting his ability to see anything, but he didn't tell me to slow down.
It was after a few minutes of running along a gently winding, cobbled path that Gramps yelled for me to stop. Then, he swung off my shoulders and dropped to the ground, running ahead to a particular tree not far from the road. I followed, and looking up discovered that this was the orange tree that I had promised to uproot and carry. It was taller than me by several feet, with a fairly smooth trunk that was thick enough to grip around with both my hands, and the branches were heavy with ripe oranges. Gramps slithered up into the foliage, having seemingly little trouble climbing, and plucked a fruit from a lower branch, tossing it down to me. "Try it," he told me as he hopped out of the tree, dropping several feet to the ground with an orange of his own.
I struggled to get my nails dug into the skin, and was about to use one of my fangs when Gramps took the orange from me and handed me his own, neatly peeled by his sharp claws. I broke it open and tried a slice, and it was perfectly sweet and juicy; the Charmander nodded appreciatively as well. "Wanted to be sure this tree would be worth having at our place."
I nodded at that, thoughtful. "I mean, this whole island's ecosystem was grown by wild Grass Pokémon after the land was raised out of the sea by Ho-oh and Lugia. Those were two of the most powerful Pokémon in the world, and had been all over since day one, pacifying volcanoes and pushing back tsunamis and so on. You remember any of that?"
Gramps shook his head. "All I really remember for a long time was the pain pills they put me on after I had a bad fall. Those things cooked my brain through. Go on, though."
"Well, starting in October of 2031, Ho-oh and Lugia both headed to the remains of the Hawaiian Islands and re-awakened the volcanic hotspot, nursed it into gentle, constant eruptions that gradually formed this whole landmass. Then the Grass Pokémon began showing up, doing all kinds of weird stuff to the terrain, shaping it and growing plants. We don't know what the Pokémon's motives were nor really how they accomplished all of this, but I don't imagine the Grass Pokémon would have cultivated anything unfit for purpose."
"Purpose," the Charmander thought aloud while we sat and ate. "The books said there's no native animal life here, 'cept for offshore and in Harmony Bay. What good's an orange tree without something to eat the oranges?"
"Don't know," I shrugged. "There's been speculation by – well, by my stepdad – that the Hawai Region's ecosystem is unfinished, that the Pokémon were going to do more to the place, but they all just… stopped and left, halfway through 2036. The biomes are incomplete and unstable, without the right fauna living off them, and that's too complex an issue to solve just by introducing wild animals and hoping some of them don't breed out of control and break things further. That's part of why the Harmony Project was allowed to make use of this island; we're supposed to be its caretakers."
Gramps nodded. "Allowed to make use of – right, I think I remember something about a treaty that was being talked about, with why the U.S. never got its fiftieth state back after Hawaii blew up."
"That was a thing," I replied, while finishing my orange. "After the eruptions mostly stopped in late 2032, several nations all scrambled to get people on the island first and build settlements so they could claim territory. Lugia and Ho-oh were both still around, and they started warning fleets and ships away. Ho-oh even picked some colonists up once and gently flew them thousands of miles back home. So different countries' ships started circling the island like vultures for when the two Pokémon left, then the fleets ran into each other, then there was a standoff and tensions started to get out of control… then we almost got World War Three just like that."
"But we didn't get it?"
"No," I sighed, remembering how Dad's attitude had changed in the aftermath of that event. "The first shots were fired on the morning of November 9, 2032, but no humans were hurt. Ho-oh put himself in the way of a satellite laser, Lugia in the way of a massed drone strike. Both of them were killed that day, trying to protect people from each other. Everybody who watched that happen was just… stunned, horrified, sickened. Ho-oh and Lugia had saved the world, and given how much the Hawai situation was being monitored and broadcast… pretty much the whole world watched them die."
"Ech," Gramps winced, chewing through an orange peel.
"Yeah. It was like humanity's collective heart broke, when that happened. Sure took the steam out of the war, too. A ceasefire was ordered pretty much instantly – on both sides, at several levels of each military. Then a treaty got pushed through a week later that the Hawai Region would be… international sacred ground, pretty much. Like a nature preserve or something, no humans ever allowed to exist."
"Until us."
"Yep. A big uninhabited island in the middle of the Pacific is just asking for international trouble, years or decades in the future. Dad and Professor Mangrove managed to present the Harmony Project as a clever solution, a way to make sure that nobody ever covertly colonizes the Hawai Region or finds an excuse to put their people here and eventually use the place as a military outpost against somebody else. To keep this island from being a political time bomb, it was allowed to be settled by non-humans that will eventually become an indigenous population, one that's supposed to nurture the ecosystem and ward off any human incursions, assuming – hey, you want to go get another orange?" Gramps had eaten both sets of peels and was licking his paws.
"Nn," he grunted, sucking his fingers and claws clean of juice. "Nah, the whole family gets this way about anything sugary nowadays. And nothing else is comin' to eat the scraps. Let's go, Seb. Got a few more miles to go before I'm done with ya today, and a lot of stops to make."
So on I ran. We did stop frequently, but only for short spurts this time around. Gramps halted me fairly often to examine various trees and vegetation we encountered, many with names I didn't recognize. I didn't realize how much distance we were clearing until he asked if I was good to go a few miles further, and I realized I was up for it.
When we returned to the Angelos' house, we headed right upstairs to Gramps's bedroom. I realized this time around that the desk he had set up was taken up mostly by a map he had been compiling, traced initially from pages of the Harmony Project's island atlas. Gramps parked himself at the map and started penciling various locations along the paths we had taken, and I soon realized he was noting down different plant life and landmarks.
"So… when do the weights start?" I asked.
"Day after tomorrow," Gramps replied. "Once I've planned where the barn will have its foundation. And tomorrow we're going into town to recruit some help; reckon we'll need a Rock Pokémon or two to get the gravel fused into a slab. Getting the gravel broken up and hauled to the site will be your job, heheheh."
"Excuse me?"
"Yeah, did you think I'd have you pumping iron, sonny? Workin' out rather than workin'? Liftin' instead of heavy liftin'?" Gramps barked a laugh. "Nah, you're gonna get those muscles into the state they deserve to be in and you're gonna be useful while you're doing it. Were you expecting a gym?"
"I, uh… yeah?"
The Charmander laughed again and clapped his little paws. "Because there are no gyms in the Hawai Region! Even if there were, I bet they'd only be good for participation badges or something just as ridiculous. I mean, how would you even set up equipment for every species of Pokémon?"
This book is unavailable. There are no Tyrogues in the Hawai Region.
We believe that most of the Harmony Project's applicants may still be feeling the trauma of the events that unfolded on July 6, 2036. In the interest of keeping applicants from being cast out or otherwise feeling any prejudice based on belonging to a Pokémon species with an unfortunate legacy, we excluded Tyrogue from the roster of possible species assignments. It is still possible that Tyrogues may be born to future Hawai Region parents; if and when this ever occurs the species' guide will become accessible from this page.
We of the Harmony Project maintain our belief that the Tyrogue who fatally injured Mew did so solely on the orders of the "trainer" holding him captive and forcing him into depraved combat sports.
LM
Library system error page for Species Guide Series #236: How To Be A Tyrogue
Spending time with the Angelos took some of the sting off what I had yet again agreed to, yet again without thinking it through. I stayed around their place because I wanted to see Leon, but he didn't return until late afternoon and when he did, he just stormed alone up to his room with his tail-flame jumping and sparking erratically behind him. Becky was nowhere to be seen. I was at the dinner table with Mr. and Mrs. Angelo when that happened, chatting with them and helping measure and cut the smaller components for the spinning wheel they were building for Mom. It wasn't exactly strenuous work for me; they just always seemed to be working on something and it didn't feel right to converse with them without lending a hand.
From upstairs we heard Leon slam his bedroom door. Mrs. Angelo sighed and tutted, shaking her head. "Fighting already. I don't like that girl," she murmured, before darting a paw to my hand when I had begun to get up. "No, don't go talk to him right now, he needs some alone time. You've never had a girlfriend, Seb?"
"I, uh… couldn't," I looked to the side, awkwardly. "The whole… physical health issue. And stuff."
"I'm not judging, just saying that you've not been down this road. That Becky girl isn't Leon's first girlfriend, either. If you try to talk to him now, he'll just snap at you, then he'll feel even worse for having snapped at his best friend. He'll come out when he's ready to talk, and when he does, be good to him and cheer him up. And don't you say a word about Becky unless he brings it up first. Let him think you don't know anything happened."
Leon didn't come out by the time I needed to go home and get some dinner; I had already had a late lunch there and felt like two meals in succession would be going a bit far. Mrs. Angelo went up to check on Leon before I left and came back with an envelope with my name written on it, though she rolled her eyes as she handed it over. "I let him know that you wanted to catch up and he just put this under the door. Didn't seem like the letter-writing type, but then, everything's different now. No text messages." I hugged Mrs. Angelo and headed home without opening the envelope.
Truth be told, I wasn't quite in the mood to read Leon spewing fire about whatever had happened earlier that day with Becky. I wasn't necessarily jealous of him for already being in a relationship; I just felt… off. Something was putting me on edge; at first I thought it was just because I was still sweaty, since the Angelos didn't have bathing facilities suited for me and preferred spongebaths over risking their tail-flames in a shower. Still, the irritability continued after I had showered in my own bathroom; the sensation persisted and even worsened as I tried to start on one of my schoolbooks, then as I worked with Mom and Dad to get dinner around for the evening. It wasn't until I was holding a platter, gripping it like a game controller for a moment, that I realized: I hadn't done anything contemporarily considered "fun" in a long time.
This was a new problem for me, especially since I was used to spending pretty much every day vegetating and playing video games. There hadn't been much else that I was physically capable of doing, after all, and I'd never gotten used to reading books as a pastime. Prior to being orphaned and maimed in the subway disaster of Eight-Seven I had played baseball, but now that I was a perfectly healthy Machoke, setting up for proper games in the Hawai Region was out of the question – especially given that very few Pokémon on the island were in the same physical class as myself, certainly not enough to form competitive teams with. That was before you even got into the issue of making baseballs, bats, gloves, and netting that could survive the treatment my muscles would give them.
Now that I was on an island with no electronic entertainment, television, radio, nor anything else of the sort I'd have to figure out how to actually entertain myself again. I wasn't sure the libraries even had any novels that would be much fun to read, given that the Harmony Project had so thoughtfully chosen to leave behind humanity's entire recorded cultural legacy.
On top of that I realized that I hadn't heard any music since Saturday, other than the occasional whistling or burst of song. That detail was particularly rankling; I almost wanted to go out and track down a Magnemite and see if they knew how to pick up and amplify radio transmissions right then and there. Then I remembered I lived right next to a pristine tropical beach, and I felt like an idiot for not just going out and enjoying life in the sun and the waves. Maybe I could even take some awesome selfies backdropped by the—
No. There were no selfies in the Hawai Region. There were no cell phones or cellular service or social networks or internet or even cameras in the Hawai Region. There was just me, my friends, my family, Mother Nature, and whatever I chose to do with it. This was going to take some getting used to.
Granted, so did the food. The only fresh produce I'd had since becoming a Pokémon was an orange pulled off a tree, and a couple salads prepared by the Angelos from wild greens. I should have thought to at least bring home enough oranges to make some juice. The kimchi had run out and thoughts of fresh food dominated my mind all through yet another dinner of reconstituted powders and dried, canned, salted, or otherwise preserved fare. The only interesting moment of that meal came when Dad suddenly stiffened on his perch, mumbled something to the effect that he was "receiving and ready to discuss the matter," then fluttered upstairs to his room. We all looked over to him for a moment, remembered it was Professor Mangrove, and went back to eating.
When Dad returned, twenty minutes later, he looked unhappy but at least calmer than when he had returned home the previous day. After everything was put away and Philomena went to "bed," Dad was willing to provide answers on some of the matters that Mom and I were most curious on.
What Dad told us was that the other professors had run an investigation. Cassius Cedar and Quincy Beech had visited a few towns and asked questions about whether anybody had unexpectedly moved out, and the name "New Lehua" had come up multiple times as a destination where some Pokémon were uprooting to. However, none of the townsfolk knew anything further. Professor Mangrove had searched the internet for references to New Lehua and found nothing that would indicate that anybody would want to go there, until she realized that on the Harmony Project's atlas of the island, the very westernmost point of interest was a basic campground bearing that name.
With that as a hint, the Mew had run some further searches, focusing on online discussions among certain applicants to the Harmony Project, and found a statement repeated many times, among tens of thousands of people: "If accepted, head as far west as you can."
As for what kind of people these applicants were, Dad was evasive, though he said it was "some of the types of people we tried to screen against;" applications to the Harmony Project would be thrown out automatically upon certain personality quiz answers or application essay keywords. I hadn't used the application software beyond speaking my name into it, but apparently one of the multiple-choice questions had been "What do you like most about Pokémon?" and one of the possible answers to choose from was about specific physical attributes. I didn't feel like asking for clarification.
"In any case," Dad had said, "Lily says that the things these people are doing are not harming anybody else, and the Professors' roles as strictly passive observers preclude any desire to influence or intervene in the development of Pokémon society on the Hawai Region. If and when we unanimously decide that some event on the island requires our emergency action, we will act." He sighed. "Until then, we'll let things develop as they will, and I've been asked to remain optimistic that the seeds of society will take root and grow into a better shape than when we were humans."
"And I'll…" Dad cleared his narrow throat, shifting slightly on his perch. "I'll stay away from New Lehua, since I'm not used to being amorously advanced upon by three strangers in quick succession and I'd… rather it not happen again. While I am married, some folks… well, some folks seem to interpret me saying so as a challenge, rather than as a hint to approach someone else. But I'm not to judge how my fellow Pokémon choose to enjoy their new bodies."
Dad closed his eyes and tried to hide another sigh. "We're better than ourselves now, after all." Mom nodded, approaching to lay a chitinous leg across his back.
"Anyone else live in that area?" I asked.
"The campsite is about three-fourths of a mile southwest of Pani'au Village," Dad replied. "That's a town about the same size as New Molokai, located a ways up the slope of Entei's Peak, one of the volcanoes that fell dormant after the initial formation of the island. The demographics are similar to New Molokai as well; the majority of the townsfolk are married with children. I plan to stop by there occasionally, or find some other way to communicate, just to ensure the two communities are coexisting peacefully. It sounds like around a hundred Pokémon have chosen to leave their homes and head for New Lehua, and they're all childless young adults, so there's bound to be some cultural… friction," he puffed and ruffled his feathers as if itchy, "with their neighbors."
As I headed toward bed, I remembered Leon's letter, took it from my nightstand, and opened it. Leon's handwriting was shaky and splattered and many words had been scratched out; he had written using a steel quill pen and inkwell and this was obviously his first time using such stationery.
Hey Seb,
Sorry I didn't say hi earlier. You were talking to mom and dad. Becky and I are taking a break.
She's moving way way way too fast, like to the point it's sorta creepy. Like, she wants everything. Isn't interested in anything else, just wants... everything. If you get what I'm saying. Like, I've known girls who try to cut to the chase but not like this, she's just strange. Or maybe I'm just being strange about it, I don't know. I don't know what the norms on this island are now, just following mom's ground rules from before.
I told Becky that that stuff's not going to happen for a very long time and she started getting nasty after that. Started insulting my mom and dad and saying they wanted me to die alone and stuff. Not directly, just tried to sneak it all in as little asides, talking down to me and all that passive-aggressive garbage.
It was already messed up, then her eyes got all sparkly and she started talking about this place she knew about out west, where she said I could be myself and do whatever I wanted and I wouldn't be sheltered anymore and didn't have to care about what anyone else thought. Something about how she talked about it rubbed me the wrong way, and it was like she was trying to get me to run away from home or something. Crazy. Never known a girl to act like that, it just isn't right.
Apparently she skipped out on her family to come here, too?
I told her she was being super creepy and she just got even worse, like saying she didn't imagine the island's only Shiny Charmander would be so boring. I think I snapped at her. Told her that I wasn't going to run out on my folks like she did on hers and that I've never been into girls who are shaped like house pets anyway and that it would be a long time before I was ready to think about anything really romantic with her, even if I was going to do something stupid and have my whole family come down on me.
I told Becky that I was going to give it a week or two, then invite her over to our house to meet my folks and have dinner and we'd see if she could behave herself. I mean I do think I love her, but this isn't Romeo and Juliet. Not turnin' my back on blood for a girl who acts like she only wants one part of me.
So I guess it's off for now. Thanks for reading this, I needed to vent or something. Hope to see you tomorrow, though I expect we'll all be working a lot, given what grandpa's been planning.
Leon
P.S. Sorry about all the scratches, not used to not having a backspace and I only have so much paper in my desk so I can't really just keep starting over.
I sighed. I remembered the trio at the library, and how they'd talked about Leon because he was a different color than every other Charmander. Then I remembered how Becky had been staring at Leon when she first laid eyes on him. Then I remembered how much I wanted to throw up after having had powdered egg in six consecutive meals.
My mood failed to improve the next morning when the running water gave out.
