III. Alola I

"I'll be honest. I was hesitant to battle you, Rhia, given your condition, but you handled your Pokémon skillfully!" Cheered a dark-skinned woman in pink revealing clothing. "A little bit recklessly, but you definitely deserve this Rockium-Z."

The girl called Rhia opened her eyes as she felt a weight enter her palm, her reverie ending. "Oh. Thanks"

"If I could ask, why are you doing this?" The woman said. "You're afflicted, right?"

Afflicted. That word was nine letters of pure pain, once she had found out what it meant for her. That word nobody had bothered to tell her what it meant until it was too late, and she was four years older than she should be when a normal person would have started.

And one and a half years since my world ended…

She swayed, trying to think of an answer that wouldn't make this woman (Olivia?) pity her, but also wouldn't make her seem heartless. Back and forth, back and forth. If she did this enough, she could almost feel her feet on the boats at home again.

"I need to go somewhere" she spoke at last. "And I cannot without enough Z-crystals, as per the laws of the region currently."

"Well, where do you need to go?" Olivia asked, her face clouded with concern. Rhia could already figure out the thoughts playing in the Island Kahuna's mind. She'd probably heard them all before, too. It was nice of those that were being sincere to care, and nice of those who faked it to give her some time to think about what her next plan was. She closed her eyes again, turning on her mental autopilot born from working in a shop since a young age.

She had six z-crystals now, and needed at least eight to get to her final destination. The Vast Poni Canyon was heralded as the last test for trainers, holding at least one trial and was the location of the last grand trial until several years ago. After this Zuneckol pandemic happened, Professor Kukui began cordoning off the region with trial gates and forced trainers to have a specific number of z-crystals to get past them.

So someone had to go on an adventure alone, and someone got lost, and now we're in this mess. She thought spitefully. She didn't disagree with the move on principle, but it had forced her to actively fight her way to her goal as opposed to just going towards it, and what had once possibly been a daylong adventure was now approaching a year's worth of travel, and the longest time she'd ever spent away from the Seafolk.

And even longer from Lucia...

"Well, I need to get back to the shop. Be careful!" Olivia called out, already retreating. Rhia waved, and breathed a sigh of relief to accompany her on her return journey. Olivia was at least kind enough to heal her Pokémon for her, so she didn't have to worry about impending death for the near future. At least she had all six of them this time…

Her thoughts consumed her until the sun began to set, lost in the planning that had become a necessity until it consumed the parts of her psyche that surrounded the Lucia-shaped gap in her, and spread out towards the rest of her life like a second disease. She turned towards the sunset, basking in the empty glow until the time was right.

"Dear Lucia," She narrated, pulling a postcard out of her purse and staring at the glossy image of her lost friend, forever smiling back at her in her lopsided way. Her platinum blonde hair that shifted to pink halfway down was being blown in a wind long since past, and even four years since writing couldn't dull the sparkle in her blue eyes. In her arms was a Basculin, a small green fish Pokémon with a blue stripe and threatening fangs. Rhia stopped, gathering her thoughts and planning what she would say. She'd done this twice before, now, but seeing her again still tore her up.

"Hi Lucy, it's me again. I just beat Olivia, so I guess I've caught up to this memory of you now. It's been ten months on the road for me now, so I've been making really good time. I've been asking everyone I've met if they remember you or have seen you, and some of them actually do. You must've left a really big impression here, or done something really bad. You better not have gotten yourself arrested, you hear? If I find out I've gone on this and had four Pokémon lose themselves for you just to find out you're in jail, I won't be happy, you hear me?"

"...nah, who am I kidding. I just want to see you again and know that you're alright. Your parents don't talk about you much anymore, so it's probably not that anyways." She smiled, a hollow grin full of wistfulness and longing. "I still wish something could've changed back then. I wish I could've gone with you, and maybe you would still be here today, instead of being somewhere deep in Poni island for two years. I just miss you and I wish we could be back in Seafolk village arguing over which Pokémon to design our boat after instead of me being out here, putting the lives of Pokémon at stake to figure out where you went.

I think that's all I have to say. I want to be back in town before dark, and I'm already pushing it, so I'll just send you home now." Indeed, the sun was barely in the sky anymore, and the wind was starting to pick up as Rhia raised her hand to the falling star and carefully let the postcard fly into the sea.

Dear Rhia,

Hi! It's Lucia! Did you miss me as much as I miss you out here? Good news! I just got my Rockium-Z, which means I'm about halfway done with my trials, and then I can be a real Seafolk Shopkeeper! This also means I get to pick what Pokémon we design our boat after! (Pelipper. Totally.) Aaaaaanyways, I'm still travelling with Lillie and Hau, and they don't come close to you, but it beats being alone. We also ran into this weird kid called Gladion working with the local thugs. He seemed like he could use a hug or a lollipop or something, but he didn't seem like he was really with them, you know? He was just kinda there. Maybe he's a fanboy? Hau sure took an interest in him, anyways. We also tackled the Lush Jungle, and got attacked by a huge totem Lurantis. It was actually really scary, that bug was bigger than I was! Then we ran into this guy with these huge green glasses, I think his name was Faba? He offered us a tour of the Aether Foundation (that big floating building we've passed a lot on our way to sinnoh, remember? It turns out they actually do use Corsola to keep it afloat, apparently). But that's about all I can fit into a postcard, I have so much more to share with you once I come home! I wish you could see it with me, but at least you're safe, right?

Take care,

Lucia

PS: I don't know when this will get to you, I caught a Wingull around here and told it to go find Seafolk village, but I don't know how good this one can fly yet. If you read this and you aren't Rhia, could you make sure it gets to her? Thank you!

Notes:

Yay, more characters! I promise this does come together eventually. Soonish, even. I'm still not used to longform so this kind of plays like a collection of short stories right now. Anyways, here's our first confirmed-to-be-afflicted character, Rhia. It's short for Rhiannon, but I ended up going with Rhia since Stevie Nicks sadly doesn't exist in this universe. Also, I can do és now, so anyone who's put off by that is safe now. This chapter took longer than usual to write, since the flashback portion wasn't in the original script for this chapter, but I wanted to flesh it out a bit more. The downside? I had zero notes on Lucia as a character. So I looked at what I didn't have - a hyperish, actually completely relaxed character, and went with that. It sorta worked? This chapter was a bit of a mess to write, honestly, especially Rhia's part, but the lack of clarity and weird sentence choices might make you feel as confused as she does. Maybe that's a bonus?

Enjoy!