4

The Coffee Incident... Tapu Lele In the Crosshairs... Youngster Joey and Captain Mina

Professor Kukui and his vigilante cabal of Pokémon trainers were not the only ones interested in stopping Moon Child's rampage.

General H. G. Peckerham of the Alolan Air Force opened a classified email at his desk while holding a large cup of coffee in one of his meaty paws. He took a sip as he read the first line. The first line said, "11-year-old has captured Tapu Koko—monsoon and tidal waves currently rocking Melemele—1st estimates are 150 dead, 4000+ displaced."

General H. G. Peckerham spat the coffee onto the laptop screen and dropped the mug into his lap where the coffee began to burn his penis. He screamed and rose to his feet, which knocked the desk over and sent the laptop crashing to the floor. Now he not only had a lightly scalded penis, but could not finish reading the rest of the email, which had been interesting enough to set in motion a chain of penis-burning events. Peckerham howled with fury. His bushy grey eyebrows quivered. It was bad news for Moon Child, who had just made a powerful inadvertent enemy.

Meanwhile, Moon Child was soaring along the coast of Akala Island, making Rotom tell her where Tapu Lele was located.

"Er, why do you want to know, friend?" Rotom asked.

"Why do you think, Rotom? Tell me: what kind of animal is Tapu Lele?"

"She'zzzz a Pokémon!"

"Exactly. And what is my favorite thing to do to a Pokémon?"

Rotom's electronic face turned into a frown. "Give it a very wide berth, of course."

"Wrong!" Moon Child thundered. "Catch it!"

"But friend!" Rotom protested. "Remember what happened on Melemele when you caught Tapu Koko?"

"Everybody cheered my name and then a siren went off."

Rotom flickered unhappily. "All right. Let me Google it." Rotom disappeared for a few seconds while he connected to the internet. Then he came back, looking less happy than ever. "I found out where Tapu Lele lives," he said.

"Yes!" Moon Child pumped her fist. Rotom did not tell her this, but she reminded him momentarily of Bastian, the main character from The Neverending Story, cheering atop Falkor like a corny little bastard as the two sailed through the sky.

"She lives in the Ruins of Life, to the south." Rotom made a buzzing sound and tried to be accidentally caught by a wind current that would rip him out of Moon Child's hand and send him plummeting into the ocean, where he would never be coerced into locating victims for her again. Unfortunately Moon Child's grip was strong, and Rotom remained where he was.

"Charizard! To the Ruins of Life!"

Charizard loosed a guttural roar and swooped leftward. While Charizard and Rotom and Moon Child headed toward the scene of their next crime, Youngster Joey was back at the evacuee tent city on Melemele, making a new friend in Captain Mina, the sleepy-eyed artist from Poni Island. They had been organized into the same squadron of the R.A.T.T.A.T.A. army.

"I feel like we have very similar interests," Youngster Joey told Mina as he flipped through her sketchbook. Every single page was an elaborate drawing of a pot leaf.

"What do you mean?" Mina asked. Joey lifted up his shirt and showed her his giant pot leaf chest tattoo.

Mina thought about this for a while. While she was thinking, Officer Jenny came running over waving a handgun.

"Get away from him!" she screeched. "I've known him ever since I was just a Lass Jenny! Homewrecker! Get away, go!"

"Whoa," Mina said.

Youngster Joey leapt up to restrain Officer Jenny, but she had already effectively restrained herself by catching one foot in the fabric of someone's tent, tripping, becoming tangled, flying past Joey and Mina, and rolling all the way down the hill to the beach in her tent cocoon. Her service revolver fired random shots in all directions as she tumbled.

"Was that your mom or something?" Mina asked.

"Nah. She's just some cop that follows me everywhere."

Mina's eyes grew large. She took her sketchbook back and snapped it closed. "I have to go wash the paint out of my hair now," she suddenly informed Youngster Joey, and took off running for the Pokémon center. Joey sighed and began to roll a joint. The storm hadn't yet begun to break. Over the water, sickly green-yellow thunderheads crashed together and reformed. It seemed like everything here was going bad at the same time. Part of him hoped that Professor Kukui's next deployment orders would station him someplace far away.