Chapter 50 – Arc 4 (Poni Island) An Open Mind

So, before we get into this, I'm just gonna put this PSA: I don't know how the law works that well. I'm not going to pretend I know how the law works that well. And I'm not going to read through hundreds of pages trying to explain it to me just to write a fanfiction. I've tried to use the best of my knowledge and common sense to write the stuff with Interpol, but like :shrug: I'm not gonna worry about it. If it seems awkward or like that probably shouldn't be allowed, hey, I'm sorry xD

Waking up earlier than she expected the following morning, Selene groggily blinked as a voice pulled her from her slumber. After a few confused, blank seconds, she realized it was Gladion. Still staring at the ceiling of their hostel room, she hesitated to get up. Despite not glancing at her phone or looking outside, based on how dark it was still in that room, she knew it had to be very early dawn.

"Plumeria, please, calm down… What's going on?" A long stretch of silence, presumably as Plumeria answered him on the phone. "He… what? …That fucking bastard."

Then, Lillie must have woken up. "Glad…?"

"Huh?" he sounded like someone had snuck up on him. "Oh, Lillie… Sec, Plumeria." He took a deep breath. "Yeah?"

"What's going on?"

Peering over the banister of her bunk as surreptitiously as she could, Selene could only just see Gladion press a button on the touchscreen of a phone and sighed. "It's Plumeria. She called on your phone. You were asleep. I picked up."

"What'd she want…?"

"Said she wanted to tell you that she spoke with Acerola, like you asked, about Elio. Well, she asked about Guzma and Lusamine, too, but still. Acerola has no idea. Says she can't get a read on any of them at all. She thinks her power doesn't, uh… extend that far. But, aside from that, she…" He stopped and licked his lips anxiously. "She's fighting with Makua… Says lots of people are leaving Po Town and not coming back. Makua's quit taking his meds and even threatened her with his Skarmory already, 'cause she got frustrated and snapped something at him."

"I don't… I don't understand. Acerola can't get a read on them…? And—what's she want us to do about Makua?"

Grimacing and side-eyeing the phone, Gladion whispered, "I think she just wanted someone to talk to 'bout it…" Clearing his throat, he spoke up, "U-uh, something about how… Acerola kinda… experiences everyone's lives? Like, I'll admit, I don't understand it super well. But what I picked up from Nanu over time was that Acerola, when she's given a name, kinda remembers all their life experiences. It's like she's a filing cabinet, but, um…"

Selene had to fight back a morbid gasp of amusement as Lillie raised a brow and incredulously asked, "But for souls?"

Flushing a little red, Gladion nodded. "Yeah. Guess so… That's why she's so all over the place." He grimaced. "Was a little freaky to learn that, I'm not gonna lie. That girl has no idea who she actually is, that's why she acts so all over the place. Anyway, she does get some memories for an Elio Maan Isono, but they're not, well, him, him. Guys that have been dead for centuries or some dude from Hoenn."

"Right…" Sighing, Lillie smiled weakly, then yawned, "If you give me the phone, I'll go talk with Plumeria…"

"Thanks… Still a little bitter at her and Skull, for, well, everything. Don't think I'm exactly a good shoulder for her to cry on at the moment."

Lillie snorted in amusement. "Oh, no, feelings. Anything but those."

Frowning disapprovingly, Gladion thrust her phone back at her. "Yes, anything but those. I've felt enough last year to last me a lifetime. Take it."

Laughing, Lillie immediately apologized as she snatched the phone and vanished out the room, but Selene saw the way Gladion's lips pulled into the slightest of smirks as she giggled. That was when Selene decided to make herself known. She tried to casually announce herself with a noisy yawn, and then started off the bed. Before she had finished climbing down, Gladion cut his eyes at her.

"Saw you. Eavesdropping isn't cool."

Blinking, Selene snorted and then covered her mouth. "I'm sorry, eaves-what?"

Jolting in surprise, he gave an uncomfortable laugh then, too. "Your Galarish is so good, sometimes I forget it's not your first language. Eavesdropping, uh… it's like spying. But usually, not as bad." Shaking his head in annoyance, he still seemed flushed as he muttered, "Still. Not cool."

Cocking her head and putting her hands on her hips, Selene coyly asked, "Why? Afraid I might have caught you not being Mr. Cool and Collected?"

That smirk playing at his lips pulled bigger. "Oh, whatever," he chuckled, sitting down on the edge of his bunk. "Still. Did you hear what I said about Acerola?"

Expression turning more serious, Selene somberly nodded. "Yeah…" I mean… it's good that she didn't go, 'oh, yeah, Elio's dead,' but at the same time… If she just can't check the next world, then… Selene's gaze dropped to the floor. She wanted to believe Lillie's fervor, the determination to find a way to retrieve him, but hadn't that been what Lusamine had gone mad trying to do for Mohn? That woman had had an entire organization of talented scientists working at her disposal and had destroyed herself (and so, so many others…) in the process, still without result. It burned like a bullet to the chest to even think that Elio was just gone forever, the same as it had every time it crossed her mind in the weeks following that fallout aboard the ill-fated Aether Paradise, but… how much worse would it hurt to believe he was alive, only to discover he wasn't, and she had been chasing his ghost? What if she built up a beautiful picture in her mind of finding him and running up to him, of returning to a domestic life with him and her parents, only to discover such a goal could never be realized?

She just felt so guilty. She wanted to follow Lillie's lead in hopes of learning otherwise, but mostly, she was just looking forward to talking with Tapu Fini, and hopefully discovering more about Alola that might help her finish putting together the puzzle Tapu Koko had lain before her. She wondered if he would have spited her for that, for holding the hope of seeing him again at an arm's length, and moving on with Hau, Lillie, and Gladion…

"Why do you look like that?"

Gladion's voice wrenched her from her stupor. At her Deerling-in-headlights stare, he patted the bed beside himself stiffly. "Sit." She was amused by his awkward cough following such an order. He sounded so gruff and blunt, but clearly was nervous. Still, she adhered to his request, taking a seat beside him slowly.

"I just…"

Before she could say anything, he pressed a hand to her shoulder, clasping it firmly. Selene immediately seized up, steeling herself instinctively against a vision that wanted to play. "Gladion?" she almost squeaked.

"Uh… I talked to Makua some, before I left Po Town. I'll admit, he wasn't making a ton of sense. He's… been a wreck since Guzma…" Gladion winced. "Well, according to Plumeria, Acerola said she doesn't know what happened to Guzma either, but she had a hard time with him because they weren't totally sure of his last name… He acted like he'd rather die than tell them that." Uncomfortably laughing at that, he cleared his throat and continued. "Anyway, that's not the point. Makua knew Kahuna Kaua really well. That guy that, uh, supposedly had your same powers."

That certainly grabbed her attention. Training her blue eyes onto him as if she wanted to bore a hole through him, she urgently pressed, "Yeah? What'd he say?"

Still clinging to her shoulder, he uneasily said, "He said, uh… that Kaua always told him that he struggled with that ability until he learned to want to know others' stories… He said, 'Kaua always told me that he was a wreck with that power of his until he learned not to be scared of it.' Something about how it was hard, because at first, all he got were these scary, depressing stories. It made him not want to learn about anyone else and he tried repressing the ability, but… that just meant he only got scarier visions whenever they did happen…"

Hanging onto his every word, Selene swallowed hard. "Really…?"

"I guess… What I gathered from it, is that if you try to use it a little more, and just let yourself have different visions without pushing them away… You might not always get the doom and gloom you've been getting and you might learn more about everything. At least, 'doom and gloom' is what I assume you've been getting. Every time I saw you before we went to Po Town, you looked like you'd seen fifteen ghosts."

She wanted to snort and ask him, "Why fifteen in particular?" Yet, at that statement, Bowtie slunk up on them. Honestly, Selene hadn't a clue where he had slept for the evening, but he swept across the floor in front of Gladion, touching a silky wing to his leg, and making him give a small jump. Cursing under his breath, Gladion hung his head, and shook it.

"Anyway," he growled, rolling his eyes as he settled back on Selene, "I just… wanted to tell you that." Withdrawing his hand uncertainly, he clasped both of his in front of himself, and sat upright, stiff as a board. "And also, he said Kaua always mentioned that whenever he wasn't afraid of it, that's when he got more than just memories. That's when he was able to start looking into dreams and stuff like that…"

He always seemed so nervous. Yet, focusing on what he had just said, she had several thoughts racing in her mind. First of all, she could totally understand what Kaua had said (if the old Kahuna had actually said that, of course… Somehow, remembering the battle they had nearly had with a drugged-out Makua, she didn't feel his word meant that much if he wasn't sober). The shock of discovering she had powers in the first place, then the assaults of violent, depressing visions, seemingly at random, it had been so… so overwhelming… With a wince, she remembered Elio's disturbing vision with the Ekans, and instantly felt the rush of shame that always came with that. Shame for reacting to it as she had. Banishing the thoughts quickly, she clung to what Gladion had said instead. Another thing she found fascinating about it: he had been so moved by her that he had gone out of his way to try to talk to Makua, a man who had assisted in the kidnapping of his own sister—the catalyst to the avalanche of events aboard Aether—and she just wondered why…

In fact, despite his fury toward Lillie (which she understood a little better, in hindsight) at that one time outside of Konikoni, every time she had been with Gladion, he had seemed so quiet, but she got the sense that he wanted to be helpful, to just do something good for himself and those around him. Smiling to herself almost sadly as she mulled that over, she glanced at Null, still sprawled across the bed behind them and asleep.

"Thank you, Gladion," she said as she stared at the pokémon. And with that, she confidently put her hand on his shoulder, just as he had done to her a moment ago, and closed her eyes.

It didn't take Selene long to recognize where she was in this vision. The faux marble flooring, the stark, white walls, and gray table separating her from a nameless Interpol officer—she was in some sort of interrogation room, aboard one of the Interpol police boats that had swarmed Aether Paradise as it capsized. Gladion's hands were locked in handcuffs to that table, where hers should have been. Looking to her left and right through Gladion's eyes, she realized this was not a lone interrogation. Dr. Faba was at another table further to the left of this long, empty room, and Dr. Wicke on the other side. In Gladion's mind, she could tell he had believed during this interrogation they had all been brought together because they simply didn't have enough rooms for private interrogations. After all, they hadn't been the only people aboard Aether Paradise; Interpol boats spent hours picking up survivors from the sinking island, with intents on interrogating each and every one of them. Gladion had only been separated from Dr. Faba and Dr. Wicke by distance.

So, when another nameless officer set his elbows on the table and started to pry at Dr. Faba, Selene heard Dr. Faba's responses. Apparently, the officer had slid some pictures across the table at him.

"That's the newest Type: Full design," Faba expressionlessly muttered. His hands were handcuffed to his table, the same as Gladion's, but unlike Gladion, who was tense, handcuffs taut, and had his knees pulled close to his body, Faba's arms and legs were loose and uncoiled. His head hung somewhat, and he appeared to be staring at the floor vacantly. Without ever looking at the picture, he explained, "Type: Zero is what we called it. Because it was as if we were starting from 'ground zero,' from the ground up, with Miki and Inaba's help."

Selene felt her lip curl. Well, Gladion's lip. "You say that like they were helping because they wanted to," he sarcastically spat. The officer at his table snapped his fingers and said something to try to pull Gladion's attention back, but Faba's bizarre response to Gladion's spiteful words silenced everyone else in the room.

"It's all on me, I did it all! I started it all!" Faba yelled, slamming his hands against the table. His handcuffs jangled. Panting for breath even though he hadn't been moving much, he barked at the officer across from him, even though his gaze flicked to Gladion momentarily, "I'm the one that started it all… I fucked up that fucking experiment way back when, with the Ultra Wormholes, back when we were investigating some strange happenings on Alola with Professor Burnet. Mohn disappeared, and that was all she fucking wrote!" His arms suddenly fell slack, and he buried his face between them, against the table. Selene felt a private wave of dismay as she realized she actually felt some empathy for the cold, heartless Dr. Faba as he started to convulse, suggesting he was crying. Fracturing under the pressure. The dead, vacant visage from before had been just that—the husk Lusamine had left him as. Muffled from the table, Selene barely heard him say, "I'm a mess. I've got nothing left." A long pause and then Faba started to pull himself back together. "I hope she's happy now…"

The officer across from his table beckoned the one at Gladion's. They exchanged a few whispery words and one of them disappeared from the room, returning a few moments later with a Kadabra at his hip. The pokémon was directed toward Faba in a language Selene knew Gladion didn't understand, but she, herself, should have recognized: Kantonian. She only caught a few stray words, Gladion's untrained ears failing to understand much of them, but in the end, she understood that the Kadabra was being asked to try to soothe Faba. Before they continued, Faba's officer sat down at the table, and warned him, "You do not have to talk. You still have rights to a lawyer, and you do not have to consent to anything—"

"Fuck all of that," Faba spat. "I'm done. Please. Please. Let me talk. Please."

Swallowing hard, Selene found herself looking down at the table in front of her, anything to break eye contact with Faba. She could feel Gladion's abject disbelief to hear Faba sound so… destroyed.

When the officer tried to speak again, Faba said, "No. I'm going to talk. I need to talk. I have to get this all off my chest, it's been a long time coming, a-and… and I didn't even realize just how deep it all ran…

"I developed the science behind the initial experiment that opened a wormhole between this world and another. Yes, others figured out the math, and Professor Burnet assisted with calibration, but for the most part, it was essentially me. I developed the generator grid that powered the hydraulics of Aether Paradise. An engineer of course devised the exact layout, but I was the one that came up with the idea. A boat will capsize if too much weight is on one side, so the same theory was applied to Aether Paradise. Hundreds of redundancies kept hydraulics powered that would automatically adjust Aether Paradise's tilt to keep it from capsizing, keep it afloat… Mohn died. Arceus himself only knows how many died in the sinking of Aether Paradise… You do not know how long I will hold that with me."

A hot, angry flash of irritation swelled in Selene's chest. Gladion's voice poured from her mouth, "What are you talking about? I'm not stupid! I knew you and Mom were together after Mohn was gone! You didn't care about him! No more than you care about anyone else!"

Flinching at Gladion's words, Faba rasped, "You're wrong… At the time, I didn't care. I thought… I thought, so what? A victim in the name of science. Yes, it sounds so messed up, and it is… I thought, 'I'm going to do something so great for this world, it'll be my name that helps humanity rise above.' It was so, incredibly selfish and ambitious." He gave Gladion a pathetic half-smile. "To this day, I still believe, if what Lusamine had actually wanted to do from the start came to fruition, it would have been worth it. But this…" he trailed off, quavering. In near anguish, he jerked his hands against the handcuffs, then frustratedly leaned forward against his table again. After a few shuddery breaths, he whispered, "I am a wreck. I am a mess. Whatever it is you are looking for in me, Interpol agent, I hope you find it. Because I don't know what I have left to give, not anymore… From the start, I believed I was doing something great. Certainly, I was having some fun along the way… and admittedly, it felt almost like a game. Until I saw people bleeding red for our cause, it didn't even strike me that this was real. Mohn really died for this. Lusamine really lost her mind. Gladion and Lillie really lived some fucked up lives as a result of this. For Arceus' sake, I watched one of my experiments maul that girl's leg, it would have killed her if not for her friends!"

Selene felt her teeth clench. She could tell that Gladion was furious—but not for the reason one might have expected. To her shock, she realized that he was angry because he wanted to disbelieve Faba, to call him a Furret just trying to weasel his way out of trouble, but that he had an inkling of doubt that Faba was lying anymore. Just as the man had said, he had lost everything. What was there to lie for anymore?

"The moment… the moment I knew everything was so, so very wrong… was when that boy approached me on Aether Paradise. He was drenched in sweat, covered in dried seawater, his Incineroar looked like it was hardly clinging to life…"

Elio? Selene thought hollowly.

"At first, I was angry. I remembered him punching me aboard Aether Paradise the one time. Then, I remembered… I remembered why he had done that. He was fiercely protective, that boy. He meant well. He had just finished wiping the floor with many employees and their pokémon when he arrived on Aether Paradise this time. I could see in his eyes that he was going to do what he had come there to do—find Lillie—no matter what…" Faba sounded as if he might burst into tears again, but he kept a lid on himself. "In that moment… I saw what I had once been. Before I had met Lusamine. Before I became involved in Aether. I wanted to do something great and would have done anything to get there, but I had become someone else's tool, a cog in the machine. I didn't even realize the real misery I was helping her cause, or… or how I had helped exacerbate the situation in messing with Lusamine's head when I knew she was so vulnerable…" He scoffed, defeatedly. "I knew if I told that boy, Elio, where Lillie truly was, he would die. That Type: Zero would have been sent in on him, and he would have died. I gave him my keycard and told him she was down below, when really, we were in the office on the highest floor. I was hoping he would stay down there. I was hoping he would stay there, stay alive, and then once all was said and done with, I could get him to leave without a fight…"

Thoughts that were not Selene's own played in her mind. Gladion's, quick and panicky. Is he telling the truth…? I… I always thought it was Faba that helped drive Lusamine to where she went… Was it really her that dragged him under? He was always an asshole, that much is true, but… there's nothing exactly inherently wrong with being an asshole, now, is there? Selene realized her tongue felt dry as sandpaper with disbelief. Deep inside, she felt another pang of empathy, a part of herself wanting to mourn with Faba despite every fiber of her being telling her that was ridiculous. More of Gladion's thoughts blazed through her mind. But still, why? Why would he fucking, sleep with her after Mohn was presumed dead? How could he have watched Lillie get mauled like that without saying a word? He said it felt like a game… Did he really lack empathy for everyone else until he saw Elio like that? A hot flash of anger. Just how arrogant is he if that's what snapped him out of it? But then… the anger subsided. Regardless of what snapped him out of it… if he's done and is willing to talk, he's going to help with the investigation, and…

In that moment, Selene understood why Gladion was so standoffish, stiff, distant. Below the guardedness that had been beaten into his head, there was a positive man, one that wanted to help others, whether it be injured pokémon, good people, or people that he saw had even the slightest potential of being good. She could tell that this upbeat desire was starved in Alola, that he had been forced again and again to repress it and assume the worst of most people, just to survive. Yet, his instincts were screaming at him that it was possible Faba had been led on, the same as so many others had. Even so, her jaw clenched, and more thoughts that were not her own played out. He's not your sister or something, and he even helped put all this shit into motion, like he said, it was all him, he thought harshly to himself, so what the fuck do you care? He dug his own grave. Let him lay in it, then!

That was where the vision ended. Selene blinked fervently as she returned to reality. Tense and staring at her with wide eyes, Gladion shifted away from her immediately. "U-uh, what did you…?"

Taking a deep breath, Selene smiled at him warmly. "Nothing really big. Just a little bit of Interpol questioning you, some…" And I figured you out, I think. For as mean as you can sound, you just want to help. She fought off the sadness that wanted to wash the smile off her face. That's why you always got so mad at Elio… You wanted to help but didn't know how… Just like me.

A pillow abruptly hit the floor in front of Selene and Gladion. Both jerked their heads up and saw that Hau had sat up on his bunk across the room. "Ae," he yawned obnoxiously, "you two are loud," he huffed in Alolan. Rubbing his face, he lazily smiled. "What're we talking about so early?"

"Nothing," Gladion replied immediately, shrugging. He stood up and, without so much as glancing at Selene again, patted his side. "Null, by me."

Selene jumped out the way for the pokémon, considering the way he seemed like he would shove her out the way if she didn't. He followed Gladion out the room, the latter closing the door behind himself with a click. She watched him go with a little pang of confusion. Why had he left so suddenly?

Another pillow. This time it hit her shin. Puffing her cheeks in annoyance, Selene, grabbed both of them from the floor and tossed them back at Hau. Bowtie flared his silky wings and flew onto the bunk above her own, a shadow spreading across the banister as he peered over it. Hau laughed and caught the pillows, but not in time to save himself from being thrown onto his back against the mattress. "Stop throwing those at me!" Selene childishly called at him, breaking into giggles.

"Ae, you stop makin' eyes at Gladion!" Hau laughed, remaining under the pillows he had caught against his chest. He laughed harder when his Umbreon peered over him curiously and stepped onto his abdomen to sniff the pillows curiously. "Oof! Ho'ololi!"

The Umbreon flicked his ears and jumped from the bed. Noticing the shadows from Bowtie's wings spread across the floor, he immediately flattened himself, and wiggled his tail in preparation for pouncing on them playfully.

"I am not making eyes at him," Selene shot at Hau, crossing her arms tightly.

"Ae, we have a saying here," Hau said as he set the pillows to the side and got out of the bunk, stretching.

Scornfully eyeing him, Selene dared to ask, "And what's that?"

He beamed at her as he headed for the door, likely to go use the restroom and get ready for the day, as Selene knew she should do. "Whatever helps you sleep at night," he cheekily answered.

He left before she could say another word. Which was fine because all she could do was flush red and roll her eyes, anyway.

When Lillie, Gladion, and Hau eventually returned to the room, she had managed to regain her composure, and Lillie proudly announced that they were going out that day to catch a ferry to Poni Island. Remembering what Gladion had said earlier, Selene couldn't help but look at Lillie interestedly. Her determination had already been inspiring, and how someone so good—her and Gladion both, really—could come from someone as terrible as Lusamine really did have Selene's mind turning over. Then again…

She tried to remember that Gladion's message from earlier had essentially been him imploring her to keep an open mind about people, to learn the stories of others properly. What if there was more to Lusamine's story than her egregious actions? The thoughts made Selene's mind swim and she had a hard time keeping up with conversation with her friends.

For as cramped as Alola could feel, there were so many people, so many stories, to be learned and understood, and she had been a fool to think before that she understood it all so well on her own. Maybe that was why Kaua had developed his 'gang' in the first place. Maybe it hadn't even been a gang back then. Maybe he had just wanted to gather people that helped him understand all he saw, so he could help others in Alola learn from what he knew.

Privately, she was so, so glad that Gladion had opened her mind to that. She truly felt ready for what lay in store for them ahead on Poni.

Whether Faba is actually guilty or not of all he did is up to reader interpretation, so don't actually pitchfork me for that scene :D

I do imagine he's quite bitter with Lusamine for realsies though. That little scene was pretty strongly inspired by "I Hope You're Happy Now" by Carly Pearce ft. Lee Brice.

Also Gladion/Selene, Gladion/Selene, Gladion/Selene, Gladion/Sele-