8
The Shit Nobody Gave... Tie Her Up!... Dwayne's Prosthetic Nightmare, Pt. II
Lillie agreed with Hau that Moon Child was up to more shenanigans, so they acquired a Charizard from the R.A.T.T.A.T.A. motor pool and set off for Akala. They touched down on the southern rim, near Heahea, planning to ask around and find out if Tapu Lele was okay. The plan hit a snag when they discovered that many people did not even know who Tapu Lele was.
"That annoying pop singer?"
"No, Tapu Lele, the guardian deity of Akala Island. The Pokémon that lives in the Ruins of Life."
"Oh," said the woman they were talking to. She shifted her bag of groceries from one arm to the other. She felt uneasy about talking to a pair of children dressed in sleek black combat uniforms. "Yeah, I never really got into Pokémon. But my daughter likes it."
Lillie and Hau went into the Pokémon Center across the street and asked Nurse Joy.
"A Tapu Lele? I don't think anyone's ever brought one of those in before."
"Well," Lillie said, "there is only one of them. She lives on Akala Island and presumably does some pretty important stuff."
"Honey, if she isn't helping me pay my student loans, then she's not doing a damn thing for me."
Lillie and Hau left, discouraged.
"Maybe it's okay for Moon Child to catch Tapu Lele, then," Hau opined. "Since nobody even gives a shit about her."
That was when they saw Lt. Surge and Captain Mina come blasting down the street at twelve miles per hour in a pair of rattling golf carts, apparently drag racing. Surge was alternately laughing and sobbing, and, as they watched, he took a nine-volt battery from a box on the passenger seat and threw it at a man jogging on the sidewalk. The battery hit the man in the face and he cried out.
"Stop, in the name of Albert Hofmann!" Mina shrieked. Surge was still in the lead. Lillie and Hau turned their heads slowly to watch the carts go past them and head deeper into Heahea's downtown district.
"I think God has turned His eye away from the Alola region," Lillie said. "Permanently."
"Raichu!" Lt. Surge's voice bellowed from the end of the street. "Don't let her look at my dong! Raichu! She's gonna look! I'm embarrassed!"
"No, God has nothing to do with this," Hau said. "This is pure Moon Child right here."
Lillie gaped. "You think Moon Child is to blame for that naked man in the golf cart?" But before she had finished asking, she had realized what a silly question it was. Of course Moon Child was to blame. Hau was exactly right—this reeked of her dastardly influence.
"Damn," Lillie said softly, and clenched her fists in front of her. "Okay. You're right. No matter how convoluted the chain of events leading to that man in the golf cart, it obviously began with something Moon Child did. But what can we do? How do we stop her?"
Hau shook his head. "We have to catch up to her and… I don't know, tie her up or something. Maybe put duct tape on her mouth so she can't give commands to her Pokémon anymore."
It wasn't precisely a good idea, but it was a better idea than General H. G. Peckerham's, which was to completely annihilate Melemele Island with a series of airstrikes, and it was much better than Dwayne's idea to replace his missing prosthetic hand and forearm with an identical prosthetic hand and forearm. Dwayne should have known better than to defy Moon Child's will so brazenly.
"You're as good as new, Dwayne," Dr. Matthews said, manually curling the wooden fingers at the end of Dwayne's replacement arm. Dwayne had gone straight from the scene at the Ruins of Life to Heahea's public hospital and commissioned a replacement arm from Dr. Eugene Matthews, a tall, ancient being with a wild wiry shock of black hair and thick Coke-bottle eyeglasses. An hour after Dwayne checked in, his new arm was fully installed and ready for action.
"Thanks, yo," Dwayne said earnestly, and shook with Dr. Matthews using his organic hand. "That kid cut me to the bone, dawg!"
"Well, 'dawg,' I'm sorry to hear that. Have you considered filing a police report?"
"No cops!" Dwayne screamed. "What do you think I am, homie? A numbskull?" He shoved Dr. Matthews against the wall and then took the elevator down to the lobby and left the hospital. As soon as Dwayne stepped out onto the street, Moon Child swooped by on Charizard and ripped his arm off again.
"Nooo!" Dwayne howled, staring in miserable disbelief at the stump of his new wooden arm. It had been amputated at the elbow again, just like last time. He looked up into the sky to watch the departing Charizard and witnessed Moon Child throw the arm once more over the cliff onto the rocks lining the beach where his previous wooden arm now lay.
"This is a dream," Dwayne said. His voice broke and a hot tear ran down the side of his nose to disappear into his Team Skull bandana. "There ain't no way this is really happening to me. This is just a bad dream, yo."
Just then, Lt. Surge came around the corner in his golf cart, screaming and bouncing up and down on the seat in a frenzy of terror over the possibility of Mina looking at his dong. Surge threw a battery as hard as he could at Dwayne. The battery hit Dwayne in the head and knocked him out. He fell limp against the door of the hospital, slid to the ground, and began to have a bad dream about Moon Child stealing a third prosthetic arm from him.