Chapter 39 – Arc 3 (Ula'Ula Island) Eternal Cycle
"Nope! Don't recognize those names at all!" Acerola triumphantly exclaimed at last. With that, she waved, and turned on a heel, as if thinking her statement would be the end of it. Yet, Selene knew right away Elio wasn't going to let that be. He sputtered for a second, then darted after her, cutting off her path back to the center of the room with the children and skidding to a stop with a squeak of his shoes. Macho followed more reservedly, and Selene swore the Torracat looked apologetic as he mewed to the children giving Elio concerned looks.
"W-wait! So, they're alive? Do you know anything else?" Elio pressed, his eyes wide as saucers. "Please, anything?"
Frowning at him, Acerola crossed her arms. "I said that I didn't recognize those names…" She tilted her head. "Well, there IS a Miki Isono, but she died like forty years ago, so I don't think that's who you're looking for… Oh, but if you are, she was a really nice Johtoan lady! Weird, though, because she was obsessed with Rattata, and thought they were better than people… Not sure why people liked her so much…"
As if he had been stung, Elio recoiled, and looked straight at the ground. "So, you don't know anything, we're still where we were…" He gritted his teeth, and clenched a fist tightly, to the point his hand quivered. "Damn it!"
"Maybe Rattata are better than people, though," Acerola was still musing aloud to herself, idly bouncing from foot to foot. Shrugging after a second or two, she flopped to the ground in the middle of the circle of kids, poked at the Sandygast jokingly, and started on another story.
"That means they're all still alive, though," Selene pointed out to her brother, meaning for it to sound far more excited than it came out as. She was able to sell it a little better when Hau came up to her, pressed a hand to her shoulder, and nodded with a wide grin, easing her yet again. With another pang of guilt, she missed Lillie, too. She didn't realize until then just how much of a little team they felt like. The four of them against the world… even if they often squabbled amongst one another, too…
"Lillie, parents, all alive, we all find then, still! Good news, very good news!" Hau beamed.
Yet, his words started to drown out as Selene realized, with a bolt of horror, that her surroundings were melting away and shifting as they always did at the start of a vision. Her thoughts scrambled, she barely clung on to the reality around her and to Hau and Elio, only enough to say that she needed fresh air and dart for the door out. Wordlessly, as if he almost expected this from her, Nanu opened the door for her to the outside, though it looked more like it disintegrated as he swung the handle, and when she stepped into the route—she didn't seem to be on Alola anymore at all. Nobody else had followed her out either, it seemed. Even Bowtie was nowhere to be seen.
Alarmingly, she didn't have anyone else's emotions replacing her own. Instead of the cloudy skies of Ula'Ula or the waterlogged grassy route, she was in the midst of a small clearing at the foot of a hill of a burning forest, or so she thought, considering that in the far distance, plumes of smoke billowed high into the sky and a hazy orange glow was starting to reach higher and higher into the sky. The ground beneath her started to shake, and, with her heart pounding, she saw streams of pokémon begin to crest the top of the distant hill. Trees bent and were pushed aside as torrents of them tore through the land.
And they rushed right at her, some nearly tripping over themselves as they cascaded down the wooded hillside. When she realized that, she yelped and dove behind a nearby rock, digging her heels into the soil to press herself as close to it as possible. Looking up, she shrieked again as hooved and paws flew over her, and around her, striking the earth again and again in a frenzy to get away from the encroaching blaze.
Apart from the thundering of their stampeding feet, she heard the shrieks and yowls of Absol, frantically sounding the sirens of danger, which seemed to only spur the Sawsbuck, Deerling, Minccino, Gurdurr, Druddigon, Blitzle, Zebstrika—so many—running for their lives around her.
She wondered where she would have gotten such a vision, since it didn't seem like it was Hau she was watching this through, and it didn't even seem to be Alola, but those thoughts were far off and vague. Far too many times did the glinting hooves of a Zebstrika or the claws of a Liepard aim for her face, and she had to duck to avoid being hit. A couple times, she was too late, and her arms were grazed and lashed with cuts. It seemed to carry on for an eternity, that panicky stampede, given that the tangy scent of smoke grew in concentration around her, and it was quickly heating up around her. The howls of terror from Absol grew in volume. The wildfire was closing in.
Just when Selene found herself agonizingly wondering when the chaotic vision would simply end, the booming of racing pokémon finally began to wane. Bringing up the rear of the stampede were the Absol she had heard caterwauling. A group of ten or so ran past, but four lagged behind, limping, and their breathing haggard. Their fur was stained gray with soot and ash, and although one was urging the other three to keep moving, it collapsed to the ground in a heap. Selene lurched, like she wanted to jump out and scare them off into running, to keep going, but her muscles were seized in terror. The fire was still fast approaching, and these pokémon were wild and terrified; for all she knew, any attempts to force them to keep going despite their exhaustion would simply end with the blade on the tops of their heads slicing at her face. More than that, she had all but forgotten this was not real, but a vision. It just felt so real…
The fallen Absol had collapsed to its left side. Selene could see that it was thin, gaunt, its white fur heavily soiled by the smoke, more so than the others. The blade on its head was large and long, though, signaling to Selene he was a male. His three companions circled him in a panic, attempting to nose him to his feet and chuffing at him to rise, but even when the Absol scrabbled to his feet, he would collapse again almost immediately. Finally, when the three began to nose him on his feet for the fourth time, the downed Absol growled in frustration and suddenly swiped the blade on its head at one of the others. The three companions, shocked, backed away, and shared a look amongst one another.
Shaking his head and slamming his blade against the earth, the downed Absol seemed to be telling them to go. To cement his claim, he stretched his head and let out one last shriek of warning, a high-pitched, yowling sound that could be heard for miles and miles. His three companions shrunk away from his volume, but the downed Absol closed his eyes and fell silent after.
Once again, the three Absol refused to leave. They bent their front legs, and then slowly sank to their bellies beside the fourth. They pressed their heads against his worn and toasted fur, and lightly purred. Selene started to pant, finding it difficult to breathe, as the fire started to close in around them. That spurred her to move at last, despite the horrific scene ahead of her, and she jumped away from her rock at last. Although she had a voice in her head screaming at her to run and to never stop, she didn't get far, stopping yet again when she reached more trees that had gone untouched by the fire so far. She stopped because four more pokémon jumped out of the flames and landed beside the Absol. Four she did not recognize.
One reminded her of a Sawsbuck, but broader, and with a steel, cobalt-blue body. His antlers reached at a 45-degree angle from the top of his skull and his eyes gleamed a perfect, metallic gold. Pawing at the earth with dark hooves, he leaned down next to the fallen Absol, and nudged him hard. Selene yelped when she heard him speak; she had not expected to hear a pokémon… speak.
You must get up. You will be swallowed by the fire, he warned the Absol with another sharp nudge.
The three companion Absol bared their teeth at him. One even got to her feet and flexed her claws at him. It was a warning; telling this Sawsbuck-like Steel-type to leave their friend alone, to let him have his peace… Or… Selene frowned. The way the four Absol had stuck together despite other Absol running ahead made her wonder if these four were more than simply friends. Absol formed tight family groups, a survival method they had developed over centuries due to overhunting from humans (who, throughout most of history, believed them to be harbingers of disaster rather than natural alarm systems), and packs of them were often made up of brothers, sisters, and their parents.
Another pokémon, equally as Sawsbuck-like, but sleeker and yellow-green, as if made from plants and designed to run, scuffed the earth in frustration. Her red eyes were glittering with rage. Enough have died today by Reshiram's blaze! she cried.
Virizion, he won't budge, the Steel-type said, shaking his head, and backing away from the Absol. We must move on and protect who else we can. We still have time to clear the next forest over before the fire reaches it.
Virizion… Selene wracked her brain for where she had heard such a name before. Looking over the four new pokémon frantically, she suddenly covered her mouth and gasped. Virizion! That's—that's one of the Swords of Justice! All those pokémon that ran by me… most of them only come from Unova… She swallowed hard and looked around. Among all the questions blitzing through her mind, the most prevalent was: Why the hell am I getting a vision from Unova, of all places?
Yet, if the swift-footed green one was Virizion, then that meant the other three were none other than Cobalion, Terrakion, and Keldeo. Struggling to remember descriptions of them she had read when she had studied up on the current Champion of Unova, Nathan Daniels, she recounted that the tan, Tauros-like one was Terrakion and the Steel-type was Cobalion. Which meant the fourth had to be Keldeo. It was him, the cream-colored equine with a blue horn projecting from his skull, who stepped forward next. He bent his head to the fallen Absol, ignoring the warning growls of his siblings, and touched the end of the blue horn to the dying one.
These four stayed behind and helped us ensure every pokémon in this part of the forest escaped, Keldeo said in a softer, more relaxed tone. A pale blue glow emanated from his horn, and slowly began to spread across the Absol—all four of them. They drove the stampede toward the thinnest part of the river, where it was safe to cross. I think they deserve a little more compassion, Cobalion…
Cobalion backed away and stamped a hoof against the earth. The fire's getting too close. We have to move on. Keldeo, we don't have time for this! They might have crossed to the next landmass safely, but they're spaced out now! We have to get a move on and herd them again!
It was Terrakion who stamped the ground this time. He snorted at Cobalion. Calm down, Cobalion, he insisted. Can't you see? He gestured with a nod toward the Absol. He's knighting them. So that they can help again.
The downed Absol slowly staggered to his feet, and Keldeo took a step back. His horn was still aglow, and so were the Absol, and just like that, they began to change. The glow solidified around them, turning opaque, as if to hardened spheres, at first; then, the spheres began to change shape, becoming more detailed and different from one another.
The shell of the Absol that had nearly died elongated to a more ovular shape, with a straight lower edge, and a sharp projection from the front. Two wings, resembling those of a Mega Absol, projected from either side of the shell, but the shell itself was a radiant golden. The frontal projection was a deep, glinting, onyx black, like the blade from the top of an Absol's head. From the straight opening at the bottom of the shell, a tail, made of golden-orange feathers, slipped free, and a blazing orange mohawk unfurled from the break in the top of the shell.
The second was thinner and a true ovular shape, more like a three-dimensional teardrop, all colored a rosy, comforting pink. From a small crevice, which created a break in the shell about a third of the way down it, two antennae slipped free. The pokémon's body seemed to sit partially outside the bottom of the shell, but was folded so tightly that Selene couldn't hope to make out just what parts…
The third's shell was shaped eerily like a coffin, except it appeared to be a solid shape around all aside from the top of the shell, which fit together more like a downward-folding door over the rest of the shell. Horns poked out openings between the 'door' and the rest of the shell, black and gleaming in the red tint in the air from the nearing blaze. From a hole at the bottom of this one's shell, a golden bell hung free, clanking softly as the transformation took place. This one's shell was colored orange in a way that reminded Selene of a desolate badlands, like red sand.
Lastly, the fourth's shell was more egg-shaped, with a single, two thin projections, one on the front that was smaller, and one on its head, which was large and reached into the air like a proud sailfin. From two slits in the lower flanks of the shell, two bluish, flipper-like appendages slipped free. This one appeared to be pale purple, or perhaps a deep indigo, glinting with iridescence in the moody lighting.
Only then did the blue glow around Keldeo ebb, and he faltered where he stood. There, he huffed, now they can keep doing what they were doing… They would have died of smoke otherwise, anyway… He snorted and shook out his flowing, blue mane. Then, he let out a loud whinny and reared back, waving his front legs. Tapus! he declared. Your bravery, empathy, power, and selflessness were recognized today, and we are grateful… He landed on his front hooves again. But our job isn't over yet. We all still need your help…
The shells unfolded then, and Selene's legs nearly turned to jelly. Of the four shells, the glitzy, golden one came apart in two halves that made up the pokémon's arms, and then mohawk was unmistakable. The pokémon in question was none other than Tapu Koko himself. She didn't recognize the others, but the shelled designs, the similar, small, black bodies the shells hid… The Tapus had come from Unova. They had once been regular, everyday Absol.
Yet, despite the awe-inspiring scene ahead of her, it seemed they had all forgotten about the fire. Trees around them went up in flames and started to collapse. The pokémon ahead of her, Tapus and Swords of Justice alike, scattered, but trees just kept falling, and falling, and falling… Selene tried to outrun them, but she screamed in terror when she found herself trapped as five or so caved in on top of her. But instead of meeting a painful, flaming strike to the head, when she unfurled from her trembling, fetal position upon realizing the brutal hit had never come, she found herself in a vast expanse of darkness.
Or so she thought. Squinting, she found her eyes beginning to adjust to the dimness. It felt cool and damp there, as if she were now inside of a cave. She was standing atop a cobblestone bridge with a wooden center, and pools of water were gathered around it, as were thick, burly, ancient trees. How such trees could grow within a cave, she wasn't sure, but sure enough, there were, along with threading, beautiful flowers and grass growing along the water. Taking in that calming sight, grateful for it in the aftermath of the violent vision beforehand, she was caught off-guard when she looked ahead and found teal eyes glinting at her through the darkness ahead. It made her squeak and she dropped to her knees.
"So, you finally discovered dream jumping, my Mind Jumper…" Tapu Koko said as he slowly moved out of the shadows. His golden shell, she noted, was much dimmer nowadays. The black projection on the front of it, which split in half when his shell was open to create his arms, wasn't nearly as richly black anymore. She realized then that the symbols etched to his shell hadn't been there originally, either, and she noticed that they were chipped and peeling… Were the symbols painted on? Yet, beyond the natural wear-and-tear of hundreds or thousands of years, there were deep gouges in his shell, and he looked… frail. His black body, which, in her vision (and back when he had saved her and Nebby on the Plank Bridge) had been taut and defined with musculature, giving him a powerful stance, was gaunt, and his skin shifted uneasily over his muscles as he moved, as if he were severely dehydrated. Even the mohawk on his head looked thinned out and stood less proudly.
Selene swallowed against a dry mouth and stammered, "Dr-dream… what? I don't… I don't understand…"
He sat down in front of her, lightly digging his sharp hands into the cobblestone, his orange, lower half resting against the floor. She thought she heard him sigh in relief and he closed his eyes. "That was a dream… or a nightmare, really," he mumbled in Alolan. "Me, my brother, and my sisters come from somewhere far away. Unova…" He… chuckled? Selene blinked in bewilderment. It felt so weird to hear a pokémon… chuckle. "Did you know that a pokémon gave that region its name?"
"You… why…" Selene floundered for how to word herself. She just had so many questions! This was madness! Yet, she was enraptured by it, drawn forward, wanting to know more… to get to the bottom of it at last. She had finally made contact with Tapu Koko. She had to get her answers! How could she forgive herself if she didn't? What if she could never contact him again? "Why are you…?"
"Why am I in Alola instead?" Tapu Koko finished for her. He shook his head slowly. "Human conflict in Unova poisoned the pokémon. Two brothers, one of which ruled over the people there, fought so much that their beloved pokémon, given to them when they were babies, split into two. That pokémon did that to appease both of them, which even spawned a third, husk of a pokémon that the humans hated, even though they helped create it… The human conflict drew in Reshiram and Zekrom, and between the two of them, they fought until Unova was in pieces. First, Zekrom laid waste to the land and fragmented it, then Reshiram burned it to cinders…" He took a deep breath. "You saw that the Swords were there to pick up the pieces…"
Blinking fervently, Selene was hanging onto his every word. She knew the story he spoke of already, but not only was she hearing it from a pokémon's perspective, from someone that had lived through it, but it felt like he was about to lay out everything she could possibly need to know. It didn't even occur to her to wonder why he was doing that, though…
"Me, my brother, and my sisters were close with the third piece of that pokémon that split itself apart, though… Kyurem. Kyurem was driven into the mountains of Unova where so many Absol lived. He was scared of us, and we were scared of him, but we learned that he didn't know any better… We couldn't trust him because he could be mindless, eating anything that dared get close to him, but we felt so bad for him… Humans had made him that way. And it was human conflict that nearly burned Unova to the ground. We couldn't let the innocent pokémon in the wilderness to suffer from the human war. That was why we stayed behind and made sure to run all pokémon from that burning piece of the continent to the narrowest part of the river, so that they could jump to a part of the Unova hinterland that hadn't been destroyed yet."
"But that doesn't explain—"
"I'm getting there," Tapu Koko almost amusedly cut her off. "After we finished helping the Swords after they saved us, we were angry. We told them how it was awful that humans had caused so much grief. Cobalion informed us that it was a sad, accidental series of events, but pokémon and people belonged together… We didn't agree. My siblings and I left. We traveled from landmass to landmass, searching for a home big enough for us and for native pokémon to live in peace with each other." With an almost wistful expression, based on how he turned the white markings resembling eyebrows on his face up somewhat, he gave a longing sigh. "We found Alola after some time. No humans and pokémon everywhere that had never graced human eyes. We vowed to protect each island ourselves and for a long time, that's how it was…"
Frowning, Selene nervously interrupted. "I-I'm sorry, there's just… there's a part I don't understand…"
He grunted, as if too tired to verbally respond to that.
"How did Keldeo… do that to you four?" She gave a shaky sigh. "They called it… 'knighting,' you…"
"I don't even understand it fully," Tapu Koko almost purred. He shook out the feathery mohawk atop his head. "Some guardian pokémon, like the Swords, can… choose other pokémon to change, to ask them for help, to ask them to become a guardian. They call it 'knighting.' Keldeo himself was knighted by Cobalion, and they helped him find the strength to use his true powers…" His eyes narrowed to angry slits suddenly. "Though, I heard later that he forgot how to use many of them, due to constant human conflict leading him to abandon the Swords until only recently, with a new human from Unova…"
Flinching under that glare, Selene meekly apologized, "Sorry…"
Calming again, he shook his head slightly. "Don't be…" Getting back to his story, he further explained, "People started coming to Alola years and years after we had claimed it. At first, we were angry at them. Suspicious. Truth be told, most of us wanted to kill them. We thought it would be the only way to save our islands… But then, my sister, Lele…" He paused and snorted. "She begged us not to. Told us that she had observed them and that they seemed as scared and hurt as we had been when we arrived on those islands. We learned they came from Kanto and Johto. Humans were warring there, too, migrating Spearow from there told us, and that was why they had come. They had fled on boats, many of which never even reached an island, in their desperation to get away, it was so bad." He rolled his eyes. "Figures…"
"Tapu… Lele, did that?" Selene asked incredulously. Flailing to correct her slight in case he took offense to her tone, she scrambled to say, "I mean—! I'm just so surprised, because my friend, Hau, you see, he said that—"
"Tapu Lele wasn't always the way she is now," Tapu Koko quietly interrupted. "She was knighted for her empathy, her love for life… Your friend saw what this place has done to her."
It still just felt like a massive puzzle Selene didn't have any of the pieces to. "Tapu Koko, I just… I don't understand, I don't understand, and I don't know what I need to do…"
"Patience," Tapu Koko sternly warned. "At Lele's pleading, we let the humans settle in, but we made sure they understood that here, we did not take orders from them. Humans and pokémon, like Unova wanted it to be, were equal. Nobody had to do anything the other said to do… The tradition of a Kahuna and Captains started naturally… and it was peaceful… but then that… that monster from another world arrived…"
"Monster…?"
"The Beast Who Swallowed the Sun," Tapu Koko shivered, drawing his shelled arms slightly closer to himself. "He was a monster… A mangled mess… Something that shouldn't have still been alive, he was so broken… His body was black, like a dead sun, and these crystals kept falling from him… He screeched like a demon and he shot a green beam at the sun, and drew it in. The sky was darker than any night I've ever seen. Me, Bulu, Lele, Fini—we tried to fight it, but this monster was… something else." He nearly closed his shell over himself. "The Sun Beast and the Moon Beast helped us… they followed it from wherever it came from… They suffered for it, but they helped us, and they granted us the power to give gifts and most of the stuff we can do today, so that Alola and our world might stay safe forever…" Tapu Koko started to trail off, his breathing growing more and more ragged.
Unsure of what to make of what he had said, Selene nervously reached a hand closer to him. "Um… Tapu K-…Koko? Are you… okay…?"
He carried on as if he hadn't heard her. "People in Alola treated us different after that… they feared us and lived beneath us, instead of with us… They feared all pokémon. They treated them as pets or criminals they couldn't trust, requesting they live at the end of leashes, in cages, or outside of their homes altogether. They built more gates and walls. Kahunas quit listening to us and instead groveled to us…" A spark of electricity ran up his mohawk. "Somehow, despite us saving them, despite them having nothing to fear from us back then, they feared us. It felt like they hated us. Then they started to fight each other. They did horrible things to each other. I'd never even considered so much darkness could exist in humans, and keep in mind, I watched a region burn down."
Selene winced. "Humans can be awful…" she whispered hauntedly.
"So, we decided that if the humans were going to be this way, then we would no longer work together. They would work beneath us and we would run these lands…" Tapu Koko sadly shook his head once more. "That was wrong of us. That was where the gifts of powers began. The crystals the Beast Who Swallowed the Sun shed allowed us to give these incredible powers to people, which we couldn't take away without permanently altering their ability to 'perform' the power, and we used it like leverage. Taking away the gifts is a show of power. Everything we do is all about a show of power… And going back to my sister…" He groaned. "Lele felt so betrayed by how people were behaving… she had vouched for them, and then they started doing evil things to one another, for no reason other than they had nobody telling them not to do such things. And even when the humans themselves made their own rules, they rarely followed them… That's why she's the way she is now. That's why we enforce things so harshly… But, my Mind Jumper…" Tapu Koko raspily coughed. "We were wrong. The humans didn't get better. They got worse. My siblings got worse, too. Lele is so afraid of everyone, she lashes out violently at everything. Bulu hates humans with a passion and overreacts to every transgression. Fini is depressed and refuses to even interact with them anymore…"
Standing up and making a sweeping, wide gesture with her hands, Selene desperately shook her head. "What can I do about any of that, Tapu Koko?" she pleaded. "I'm just me! All I can do is look at the horrible things that have happened in people's lives and—and—and talk in dreams, or something, I don't know! How am… how can I fix all of this?"
"You don't," he answered flatly. "You and Hau do…" He closed his shell completely, but he still spoke in a muffled voice. "You show these humans that people and pokémon can work peacefully alongside one another, that we don't have to fear each other so much… Hau will show my siblings that there is a way to fix this… We need your help because we are so disconnected now that the Kahunas don't understand us, and we have no way of telling them our stories… But you can. You have the power to see them, to understand them, and to speak them, and Hau has the power to make others listen…" There was a short stretch of silence. "At least, that was my hope. It has been a long time in the making, and I fear that if this plan falls through, I won't be around long enough to enact another…"
"What… what do you mean?" Selene's heart was thrumming wildly in her chest. Way to not put on the pressure! she thought in near anguish.
"The Beast Who Swallowed the Sun isn't the only monster from other worlds that's paid us visits," Tapu Koko bitterly explained from within his shell. "There is one monster we couldn't fight off. Humans from far off had to come get rid of it… and even they suffered casualties… It was a big, ravenous monster, with a stomach of a blackhole… It attacked near Iki Town years ago… He killed Hau's parents. I could sense that Zekrom had touched that boy in his life. Between my guilt for failing to protect my island, and between believing he had to have a good heart if Zekrom had met with him, I gifted Hau when I was strong enough to do so again… And in recent times, I've fought so many other monsters from other worlds… I don't know where they're coming from, or why… I'm just so glad none of them have been that blackhole-bellied monster… Even so…" He cracked his shell slightly, just enough for her to look into his tired, teal eyes. "I can't keep doing this forever. None of us can. I don't know what the Aether Foundation is doing, just that they have something to do with it. But I know that it's nothing we can stop on our own. Pokémon that go there don't come back. And the Sun and Moon Beasts aren't here anymore. The humans won't listen to us. So, we need you and Hau to make them listen… to make them understand…" He took a raggedy breath. "Or Alola will drown…"
The vision around Selene started to distort and she panicked. "Wait, wait, wait, there has to be more you can help me with than that! What do I—how do I contact you again?! You said I was 'dream jumping'—I don't know how to do that normally! I still don't even really know how to use the normal memory-jumping-thing!" She blinked. "Wait, Hau met Zekrom—?!"
"I'm waking up," Tapu Koko brokenly said. "We may speak again… we may not… we will see, if one of those Beasts doesn't finish me first…"
On her knees in the middle of the rainy, muddied route outside of the Aether House on Ula'Ula Island, Selene found she was not alone. Hau sat in front of her, his legs crossed, looking up at her worriedly. When she blinked at him and staggered to get to her feet, he lurched and jumped up as well, lunging his hands at her shoulders, not daring to touch her for fear of sending her to another vision, but clearly ready to catch her in her unsteadiness. "Selene!" he cried in relief. "You… that one lasted a long time, ae… I was getting really worried… Nanu kept everyone else inside Aether House, though…" He sheepishly smiled. "Are you okay? I just told them that you needed a minute and asked to be left alone…"
Pressing the back of her right hand to her forehead, Selene found that she was sweating profusely, despite shivering from the rain. "I… I spoke to Tapu Koko again…" Selene whispered breathlessly.
Hau perked up at that and smiled. "That's—that's good though, right?" He bounced from foot to foot, Popper clapping his flippers beside him. Selene realized then that Bowtie was sitting astride her left shoulder. Maybe he had been there the whole time… she wasn't sure. She stroked him gingerly, grateful he was still there… She hadn't realized how much she had missed him in the time it had taken for that vision to take place… "So, what'd he say?"
Selene felt her knees buckle and she felt guilty as Bowtie had to flap his wings wildly to take flight as she hit the ground again. "He said you and I have to save Alola," Selene blurted out tiredly. How the fuck am I going to do that? she internally despaired. I thought I had a chance to just save us before… and yeah, maybe stop Aether… but the problems go back so much farther than I thought… Tapu Koko made me realize just how real this is… If he and his crazy strong siblings haven't been able to fix it… She felt tears sting at her eyes. How the hell am I going to?
"He… what?" Hau echoed in a squeaky voice.
Selene nodded as her tears began to mix with the slight drizzle running down her face. "Yeah… exactly…"
Rustling nearby made both of them jerk their heads to look. Stumbling out of the tall grass, cursing and kicking at an aggravated, young Crabrawler, none other than Gladion appeared. Selene froze in place, as did Hau, and when Gladion finally got the pokémon to leave him alone, he turned around and stiffened as well. His eyes rounded in shock. "Shit, I went the wrong way," he hissed under his breath, backpedaling away from them.
But not in time to get out of sight before Elio burst from the Aether House. He noticed Selene on the ground first and panicked. "Selene! What happened, are you—"
Squelching from Gladion's shoes as he tried to leave foiled his plans to get away unnoticed by Elio. Drawn to the noise, Elio froze as well upon spotting Gladion—who seemed to, on a frightened impulse, throw the Ultra Ball containing his Type: Null. Gladion narrowed his eyes at them all. "I'm not here for a fight, I just went the wrong way, I didn't even want to come across you guys, I swear! Leave me be, and I will leave without a fight."
"You!" Elio barked, taking a protective step in front of Selene. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"I just told you, idiot," Gladion spat back. Null growled in agreement. "But I'm leaving now, okay? No need to get all worked up…"
Selene just put her face in her hands. Guiltily, she wanted to kick herself for fearing what this interaction might bring. She had pushed Elio, she had told him his aggression was what was needed, but as his eyes darkened to something unrecognizable and he curled his lips and rounded on Gladion so fiercely, she just felt like… she didn't know him. In the aftermath of her earlier vision, that was incredibly frustrating, and she felt a rush of self-loathing for it all.
She should have kept her mouth shut. Telling Elio that they 'needed' his aggression had opened the door for someone she didn't know to take his place. That, or she had to contend with the fact that this was just really how he was—and she wasn't sure if she was ready to accept that, either. Not that she faulted him for his desire to protect them—absolutely not, that was what had made her feel they needed it in the first place. Part of her just wasn't sure how far he would go in his fervor to preemptively keep them safe, and it frightened her to think that someday, these islands would push him to do something unthinkable.
And she would have nobody but herself to thank for that.