Rock 4.9: New Leaf
Kekoa
March 16th, 2020
There's a beautiful fire on the television.
"Around 2:30 this morning, the looters occupying the home of Peter Steuben charged the barricade around the property established by law enforcement. Following a brief struggle the majority of the occupiers managed to escape. Steuben's home went up in flames behind them. The blaze was contained by daybreak, but the damage had already been done. Michael Sanderson is on the scene to report on the devastation."
The news calls it a home. "Mansion" is more fitting. Bastard fled to the mainland and was pissed that people had actually used the place while he'd fled. Skull stepped in and the cops acted like they had nothing better to do in the entire Commonwealth. Now no one gets to use the home.
Plumeria put up a blog post claiming the cops started the fire, but that it wouldn't be a bad thing if it happened to more colonizer's mansions. There's already talk of it happening on Ula'Ula where a billionaire real estate developer evicted all of an apartment complex's tenants - during the Blackout - so he could bulldoze it and build a beachfront mansion.
And then there's The Sea's Queen, the new resort you saw under construction back in October. There's enough of a framework now that it could go up in flames and really set the construction back.
You'd admired the way Plumeria handled the situation before. Now this? This is on another level of brilliance. Hit the bastards where it hurts and maybe they'll learn to give up. Maybe you'll get a fire type if it looks like the island challenge isn't going to pan out. See what you can do to help.
All of it puts you in a good enough mood that you can almost ignore what's coming later in the day.
The first sign that your brother is coming is a flock of wingull racing away from the shore. You shield your eyes from the worst of the sunlight and look out at the water. There's something flying towards you. Something big with broad wings that are red or pink, hard to tell given the glare of the sun off the water.
Some tourists around you are pointing and chattering. One seems excited, one panicked. You ignore them and keep an eye on the approaching flier. Jabari said he would meet you at the beach near the Center. It's about time for him to show up and you'd figured he'd have some big pokémon or another. He's a pokémon handler for Vstar as far as you can tell.
Then again, if he was good at his job, they wouldn't have needed to call in Cuicatl to clean up his mess.
The flier dips down towards the water. The edges of its wings and tail touch the surface and send showers of water up in their wake. Soon the entire creature has entered the water with only its back above the surface. There's someone with dark skin and short black hair on top of the pokémon. Yeah, that's him. Showoff. The tourists have taken out their phone and are trying to take pics. Whatever he's on got a lot less scary once they realized a human was controlling it. Like the human is automatically a good person and in control.
Jabari isn't and he might not be. You still stand your ground. You're not scared of him.
As the pokémon gets close you get a better look at it. The thing swims like a lizard with a long tail swishing behind it in s-shapes. The rest of its body seems to be white. Red wings. Oh shit. He really has a motherfucking salamence.
Cuicatl would be so jealous.
The salamence crawls the rest of the way onto the beach and droops its wings as Jabari gets off. The tourists are still taking photos of the thing after knowing what it is. There's a story about salamence's arrival on the islands. Tapu Koko was furious that the newcomer had killed one of his beloved braviary. He went to the salamence to put it in its place. In the end he had to run away bloodied and bruised. No one ever objected to the salamence's presence again. If the myths are right then salamence can fight gods and win.
The tourists think it's safe. Just a herdier doing tricks or a ride charizard. Your brother thinks he can control one. You don't know how to feel about that.
He walks over to you with his hands pressed deep inside his pockets. He has a coy smile but there's anxiety in the lines on his face. He probably wants this to go well but suspects it won't. You… aren't sure how you want it to end. It would be responsible to take this help. It feels unfair that you have to. Unfair enough that you almost want to reject it out of spite.
The other thing you notice as he gets close is his height. He's at least six inches taller than you and has prominent muscles. Doesn't help that his shirt is wet from the ride over. You hate that he gets to look like that. That he always got to be a boy when he did nothing to deserve it. If he hadn't been, if he'd had to grow up as a girl, then the military might not have taken him and he couldn't have run away. Instead, you had to figure things out on your own while bouncing between foster homes.
You bounced around a lot faster once you came out. Turns out that even some of the 'nice' families that 'didn't have a problem with you' still didn't want to risk you transing their own kids. By the time you got to Aether House you'd learned to be careful about who you told.
"Hey," Jabari says with his stupid deep voice you should've had instead. "How's it going?"
"Fine." You keep eye contact and make sure there's no emotion in your voice. A challenge. You don't need him, so it's on him to guide this shitshow.
He glances down the beach at the tourists. "You want to go somewhere more secluded? I saw a small island on the way in. Gluttony can take us there."
It takes you a second to realize that 'Gluttony' must be the name of his salamence. You wonder if he has a theme name for his team about the deadly sins. It seems like the type of macho shit he'd be into. And it's the total lack of self-awareness you'd expect from a brown soldier wrecking brown people's homelands for the sake of the empire currently wrecking his own home.
You eye the salamence. He's splayed out on the sand with his wings spread wide. He meets your gaze with a red slitted eye. Underneath his scales you can see rippling muscles. That thing could destroy a small town. Fight a god. You really aren't sure you want to be on his back.
"If it helps," Jabari says. "If she was going to kill you, you'd already be dead."
She. Not he. Bleh.
And it's not reassuring. Maybe she doesn't want to kill you now, but that could change in a heartbeat. There are reasons people keep their distance from dragons.
Most people keep their distance from dragons. Cuicatl and Jabari are just fearless or stupid or both. Definitely both for Jabari. Cuicatl's only stupid in the risks she takes. Fearless, then.
"I'd rather not." You pause. Do you want to say something more? It would hurt him. You shouldn't do that when asking for help. He deserves it, though. "Friend of mine met one of your dragons a while back. Wasn't, uh, a good meeting."
He winces. "That…" The tourists have moved further down the beach. Are they scared? Or do they just want somewhere private? "I'm sorry," he says to the wrong person. "Chris was trying to save money on security. It blew up on him."
"Blew up on a lot of people."
"Yeah…" His hands are being pressed against the bottom of his pocket with enough force that you expect the jacket to break. "It did." He sighs and looks back up to you. He's not smiling anymore. You don't think he's angry. Just tired. "I know that I can't make up for what I did with gifts. It was foolish to try. But we are offloading a lot of fossil 'mons right now. If you want anything you can let me know."
You have no idea what kind of fossils he has. Dinosaurs are technically birds and Ihe seems to get along well enough with a tyrunt. Maybe you could make one fit on your team. Then reality hits you. Cuicatl is desperately scrambling to get a Class V license before Coco evolves. Until recently she had no realistic way to pay for a tyrantrum's food, either. Good odds his gifts end up hurting more than they help. Getting him to help with the food costs and licenses would just bind you to him no matter how bad things got.
"No." However much you want one, it's not worth the long-term commitment. And gods help you if the dinosaur doesn't listen to you. But there is something he can help with that would only bind you until the end of the island. It would mean accepting his charity. That is the entire reason you called him here, though, as much as you hate it. "If you want to help you could cosign some insurance. I want to use a dugtrio against the grass trial and Olivia."
Rock-types are a major barrier to your birds. The grass trial usually has a sudowoodo or lileep. Olivia will have four rock-types on her side and she knows how to use them. Dugtrio can hit rock-types hard in two ways. The only real problems Olivia could pull out are archen and a ground-type. Your birds can fight the archen in the air. If she brings out a rhyhorn or pupitar you'll have to improvise. Maybe pick up a grass or water type for a little bit, just to be sure.
Jabari finishes his thoughts at about the same time you finish yours. He sighs and looks down at the sand. "Can I trust you not to break anything with it? Buggers dig through everything."
What? The premiums on a $20k insurance package are too much for him? You'd thought he'd have more blood money than that. "I promise not to get anyone killed," you tell him. He winces again. It's almost funny: a veteran and pokémon tamer brought so low by simple words.
"Should we head to the Pokémon Center, then? I do a lot of work with Vstar's insurance company. I can probably get you the premium with a few calls. Then you'd just have to fax in some paperwork, and we could go dugtrio hunting."
"I don't need your help with the hunting."
He steps back and nervously rocks on his feet. "I… I know. But I'd like it if you did let me come along. I have a mega gengar that can trap the dugtrio before it can flee. And." He sighs and looks off to the side. One of his hands idly grips the other arm. "I realized that I don't know anything about you anymore. That's my fault and I'm sorry. I would like to get to know you, though. If you'd let me."
It's honest. Vulnerable. Nothing that you had ever expected from your military brat big brother when you were growing up. It reminds you of the time after Hoenn. The weeks before he abandoned you. The reminder sends a shiver down your spine.
Maybe…
Maybe he has changed, somehow. That doesn't mean you forgive him. You can't. And you still hate him. But. Maybe you shouldn't? Maybe this is like Plumeria and Florges, where everything you'd thought had just been wrong and you were left with a sense of confusion and purposelessness, unsure of what you should do from there.
Like after Hoenn.
You hate that feeling. You hate it almost as much as the feeling of weight hanging from your chest, of emptiness where there should be something, of phantom pain crawling beneath your skin. You should talk to Cuicatl. Get out of your head and maybe.
Maybe something.
"I'll think it over while you figure out the paperwork." That might be enough time. If not you can tell him to fuck off until you're sure again, one way or another.
Jabari smiles. It's a small, tired smile. Not nearly as irritatingly fake and chipper as the smile you remember from the last time you met him on Akala.
"Alright, then. To the Center."
You slip off into your room while Jabari is calling his secretary or the insurance company or something. Neither of the girls are in. Great. You pull out your phone and call Cuicatl. As much as it sucks to talk, you don't have too much time and you know texting takes a while with her text-to-speech shit.
She answers on the third ring. "Wello?" You blink twice. Right. Accent. Always so weird to hear that.
"Hey, it's Kekoa. Can you meet me in the room? And, uh, don't bring Lyra if she's with you."
"Yes. Juts a second."
The o in 'second' is too hard. She still sounds a bit better than she did on Route 5 when she told you about her abilities. You nervously pace the length of the room, which is really too small for pacing, until the lock clicks. Coco bolts through as soon as the door is cracked open and races to you. She sniffs your legs before looking up expectantly. Her trainer makes her way through a second later. She's wearing the hydreigon shirt again. Still can't decide if it's too childish or not.
"You wanted to talk?" she asks.
Right. You did. You take a deep breath and resume pacing. "I'm worried I'm fucking up?"
"Oh?"
"My brother visited—I told you that. He's still here." You reach the window and turn around. It's not far enough. Cuicatl lowers herself down onto her bed and Coco jumps up beside her so at least that frees up some space. "He wants to try and hang out more or whatever. I don't want to. He left me when I needed it and never looked back. Except I think he's, like, serious about making up. And I shouldn't have to. He hurt me—"
"Slow down," Cuicatl interrupts. "It's stressing my brain."
You were maybe talking too fast there.
"Okay, so," you take another breath and process what exactly it is you want to say. When you're done you turn back to the window and take the six short steps it takes to get there. "He left me for years. Now he's back. He doesn't deserve to be my brother, but he is sorry. I… I don't know what to do."
Cuicatl hums and idly taps her cane with the tip of her pointer finger.
"Am I fat?" she finally asks.
What? Where the hell did that come from? "Uh, no? Not at all? Why." And what does any of that have to do with your brother.
She sighs. "My father said I was. And my brother never told me that he was wrong. I…" She tucks her chin into her chest and leans back against the wall. It reminds you more than a little of Jabari just an hour ago. "I don't know why. He hurt me, or at least didn't help me. He knew how much it bothered me, and…" Cuicatl takes a deep breath and looks back up. There's still pain in the twitching corner of her mouth, but her mouth is set, her back is straight, and her eyes seem locked ahead. Confidence, or something like it. "I would still do anything to get him back. Anything. You've been alone a long time. And you want to throw your last family away out of pride?"
That's a lot of shit to take in. First, how did she ever believe she was fat? Second, her brother sounds like a spectacular ass. Her dad, too, but you already figured that one out. The way she flinches around adults or when people suddenly touch her, you've seen that before in foster care. In shelters. She didn't say he beat her, but once she admitted he was abusive in other ways it was easy enough to guess.
And then there's the bit about Jabari. About pride. About being alone. She struck a nerve and you want to yell at her, but you asked for advice and she doesn't deserve it. Cuicatl finally gets tired of waiting and speaks up.
"I think you're doing this to hurt him. Yet doing it hurts you, too." She glances towards the window. Towards you. "I don't want you to hurt."
You want to shut her down. You aren't hurting yourself. What you're doing is justified. Revolution is never costless. This is all Jabari's fault, really.
"Maybe," she says. She was in your mind, wasn't she? Damn it. "You're being loud." She doesn't say it like she's accusing you of anything. Just pointing out a fact.
"How do I fix that?"
She bites her lip and looks away. "I don't know. I've always sort of known how to project and how not to project. Like speaking and not speaking." Weird. Makes sense. Sort of. Cuicatl looks back towards you and idly strokes Coco's neck. The dinosaur perks up and wags her tail in response. "Maybe all of that's true. You still get to choose if you want to have a brother or not. It sounds like he wants to. Ball is in your court."
"He chose not to." Threw you away when you needed it the most.
Cuicatl shrugs. "You said he changed his mind. Then you asked me for advice. I gave it to you."
Your mind races through defenses but settles on one. A childish one. One that you're almost ashamed to say. "It's not fair." She tilts her head, asking you to continue. "He hurt me. He deserves to face consequences. Punishment. He needs to pay for what he did."
Her expression is perfectly blank. With her cloudy eyes it almost feels like you're arguing with a corpse or an oracle or something inhuman. Something scary.
"What punishment would be enough?"
You remember a thought you had on the playground in Paniola right after your last meeting. He could give up everything, he could suffer, he could die, and it would never be enough. It would never undo what was done. It would never go back in time and take you out of foster care. Give you someone to comfort you when you needed it. He just needs to burn. Cuicatl must be able to tell, either from your thoughts or your silence.
"In Anahuac," she says softly, "we believe hatred is a sickness. It burns you up like a fever. It eats everything it is fed like a tape worm and is never satisfied. Debts are settled quickly: money for theft, apologies for insults, blood for blood. If the price is paid, the feud is over and the hatred must go. The criminal may never be trusted, but they cannot be hated."
She takes a deep breath and presses on. "If the hatred remains, then you are beyond a cure. You must move away so that you are not drawn to violence. If even that does not fix it, then you should volunteer to be sacrificed. It is better to die with honor than to live forever with boiling blood."
The fuck? Is… is she saying you should kill herself? That's really dark, even for her.
"The dragons kill what they hate or are killed by it. Nothing lasts long."
"So, uh, you're suggesting murder or suicide?"
"No." The strangest thing is that she's kept her face neutral the entire time. Maybe even looked a bit wistful in parts. Like she's nostalgic for the violence. "I am saying that having anger with no end is no way to live. It will burn you or him or everything and will never die out. I like you, and I hope you learn to let it go."
It's strange. You're not sure she's ever told you she likes you in as many words. You're… not sure who the last person to say that was. Maybe Manollo. You probably knew that she did. Definitely knew that she did. You've hugged. It's still weird to hear. Enough that it finally gets through to you.
"Fine." You try to sound dismissive. Sarcastic even. That didn't reach you. Nothing reaches you. You're invincible. "I'll try, just for you."
She taps the bed beside her, the part not occupied by Coco. Asking you to sit down, probably. No idea why. You awkwardly close the distance and sit beside her. Coco takes the opportunity to lunge forward until most of her body is on top of Cuicatl's legs and her head rests on your lap. Her tail swishes happily behind her.
Cuicatl leans over and wraps you in a hug. Somewhere between a full body and a side hug, which is a little awkward because her head is resting a little bit above your binder. You hug her back and she leans further in. Her hair is still damp from a shower. Apparently, she's using new shampoo, too. Scent's close to vanilla. It's not bad. Smells pretty good, actually.
You feel a little awkward. She told you some really personal stuff and you immediately turned it back to you. "We can talk more about what you said once Jabari leaves."
She shrugs, which really just presses her shoulder up into yours. "We don't have to." Then she pulls away. Her hands slide under Coco and lift up and away from you. The tyrunt takes the hint and gets off of your lap. "Go see your brother."
"Okay."
As you open the door you turn back and look at her. "Thank you for helping."
"You're welcome."
She pulls her phone out of her pocket and turns it on. You take that as your invitation to leave.
You walk the rest of the way to the lobby with your hands shoved into your pockets, trying not to think about what you're about to do. Jabari notices you as you approach and nods before turning back to his laptop. Still working out insurance, then. You take a deep breath as you approach. Fine. You're doing this. You clear your throat to get his attention. "I… I would like to go dugtrio hunting with you when the paperwork clears."
He lights up. It's not the cautious smile from early or the fake one from Paniola. It's real. Genuine in a way that's almost painful to look at.
Jabari probably hadn't expected to spend the afternoon on the beach. You've never really liked them (wet clothes cling to your curves) and that's one thing that hasn't changed. He's wearing his tall riding boots and a garish all-khaki outfit that covers almost all of his body. Good for riding a salamence at high speeds, bad for walking outside under the Alolan sun. He's sweating buckets beside you but doesn't say a word about it. Must be torture: even in your sandals, shorts, binder, and tank top you're feeling the heat.
There are a lot more people on the beach than there were this morning. Almost none of the tourists actually pay attention to either of you now that Jabari's ridiculous pokémon are resting in their balls. Come to think of it, there's a little problem in your brother's plan.
"Can gengar even stay out in this light?"
He grunts. "She won't like it much, no. I'll only send her out when we find something a dugtrio might attack."
Awfully confident that he can control one of the more dangerous ghosts. You wonder how he does it. Like Cuicatl where she tries to make personal connections to her monsters? Some Alolan knowledge that he gets to know but you don't? You're really looking forward to meeting Kanoa later. She's coming over to watch your grass trial and then you'll get to spend a night or two at her family's place.
"How do you keep your team loyal?" you ask. Might as well.
He looks over at you. There's something disgusting in his expression—pity. You could've just been asking how he controls dragons. Nothing in that said that you needed help.
"Well, it depends. I helped my gengar through some emotional problems and now she's quite loyal. Envy can make herself appear human and I treat her as her own person. Listen when she wants to talk, take her feelings into account, whatever you'd do for a friend. Sometimes she needs a little space. That's fine."
Cuicatl's approach, then. Even if it didn't work for her with her starter. You don't say anything and he takes that as his cue to continue.
"Machamp just want to be with someone as dedicated to training as they are. I keep up my fitness and find chances for Pride to fight and that's enough for him." He does have the deadly sins theme. You wonder what took 'wrath' over salamence. What other monsters does he have on his team? "I've fought beside my kingambit and shown her that I can be trusted in battle. That was enough for her. I look after Gluttony and Wrath, my vikavolt." Yeah. Vikavolt's a good wrath. And you're not going to ask him for advice on how to get one to listen. "They just stay where there's food, belly scratches, and interesting opponents. And I buy my tyranitar his favorite rocks. That's good enough for him. He's pretty lazy, actually."
Salamence, gengar, machamp, kingambit, vikavolt, and tyranitar. What the hell? You'd thought Cuicatl's team was set to be ridiculous, but it turns out that she's tame compared to your brother.
"You ever thought about being champion with that team?" you ask. You're not sure that having a military sellout is better than having Selene, but at least you could directly lobby your brother. That's an improvement. Until you can figure out how to beat him. Maybe he'd take it easy on you? Your pride would be hurt, sure. It would still end with you as champion.
Jabari laughs. Consciously or not he picks up the pace enough that you have to struggle to keep up with his longer strides. "You're sounding a lot like my CO. When he heard I was retiring he really wanted me to go pro. Thought that Alola should have a military champion with all the bases here." The actual last thing your nation needs. "You know the champion over in Texas used to be a marine." You definitely know that. He's in all of the targeted military recruitment ads that social media throws your way. Apparently, they think you're a little older than you are. And that you're interested in joining the military and not protesting the occupation.
"I've seen him in ads," you say. Don't need to get into all of that with your brother.
He snorts. "'course you have. The Pentagon has this whole team urging retiring pokémon handlers to go pro. They know their target audience loves competitive battling. You agree to cut a bunch of ads with them, they pay all your expenses. Even give you an agent and everything. They want people to know that," he takes on a funny, overly dramatic voice, "there's no one stronger than a soldier."
At least he can laugh about this. And he didn't take the offer. For some reason. Your pokémon costs are high and you don't have a tyranitar eating uranium or whatever.
"Why didn't you do it?" you ask. It's a good way of finding out his politics. And you're genuinely curious.
He stops. Your brother looks down at his own shadow in the sand like it has all the answers in life. "I didn't quit because of you," he quietly admits. "I quit because I didn't like what the Navy was doing to me. The details are all classified to the moon and back. Just know that I did missions. On those missions I'd do things I would've been horrified by half a decade prior. There are some sick bastards in the world to be sure. I've met my fair share. Killed my fair share." He turns to look at you. There's something horribly empty in his eyes and a gravity around him that seems to drown out the sun and surf until only darkness remains. "I wasn't only killing the bastards. One day I went back to the barracks and realized there had been collateral that day and I hadn't even thought about it. Even had a little party with the squad when we got back. And… I knew I had to get out. I loved the people I served with. I just couldn't do it anymore. And I couldn't do their fucking ad campaign and get other kids to do that shit and still sleep at night." He smiles and the darkness dissipates. There's still something deeply wrong in his eyes, but he's at least pretending it's not. "Plus being a pro trainer sounds like a lot of PR work. I'd get cancelled in a week."
It's good that he figured all that out eventually. Even if he was a dumbass for not knowing it at the start. If he'd just looked past the propaganda for like, five minutes, he would've known the military existed for making the rich richer and terrorizing people like you. You don't really know what to say to any of it. Sucks that abandoning your brother to go on a killing spree ended in you going on a killing spree? It's not your place to forgive him for whatever he did.
Something down the beach catches Jabari's eye. His gaze locks onto the horizon and he looks at it critically, almost hungrily, before reaching down to his belt and pulling out a dusk ball. You can barely see whatever he's looking at. Something blue in the distance walking alongside the edge of the dunes. A crabrawler, maybe. He releases his gengar, Envy, beside him without a word. She's barely visible in the bright light. Just a loose cloud of amorphous purple vapors with two red eyes floating in the middle. When she turns to you there's a moment where a young woman with dark skin stares at you before she flickers away. An illusion. The gengar's old human form? Something she chose for you? …for Jabari? Ew. You're going to do your best not to think about what he does with a pokémon made of toxic gas and hatred. The temperature drops around you as she solidifies. Feels like it's in the mid-50s when it was in the 80s before.
"Are you trying to give yourself heatstroke?" an airy, eerie voice asks.
Jabari doesn't look back at her. His attention remains glued onto the maybe-crabrawler on the horizon. "Better than walking around Iraq in combat gear," he mutters.
"Don't remind me. We are never going back there." The ghost's attention moves back to you. It feels like her red eyes are boring into your soul. Maybe they are. The ghost's form warps like the air over hot pavement and the woman is staring at you again. "And you're his brother, I assume?" she asks. Her mouth doesn't move. The voice just comes from where she's standing.
"Yeah." You do your best not to sound intimidated. You aren't. You just wish it maybe wasn't looking at you like she understood you or something.
She makes a sound somewhere between whistling wind, distant singing, and laughter. "You have your brother's anger," she says. "Maybe even more. I would have loved to have fed on you back in the day." Gross. Probably. And how is your brother angrier than you? His parents died. Sucks. So did yours. He wasn't shoved off into foster care for years afterwards. The woman shakes her head and flickers back into the shape of a gengar. "A shame that you have another ghost drawing from you. I'm guessing they don't want to share."
"You can sense that?" To be honest you've never thought about how ghosts see souls and whatever. It's kind of creepy to think about.
"They're not hurting you," she says. "Just feeding on your refusal to move on."
Move on from what? From the crimes that are still happening to your people? To the system being stacked against people like you at every level? Or…
Hoenn. You've moved on from Hoenn. Don't think about Hoenn. Just put it in its own little box away from everything else. Moe can have that box if she wants. You don't want it.
"Here's the plan," Jabari says. He still sounds deadly serious and is keeping his eyes locked on the crabrawler. It seems like it's come a little bit closer while you were talking to his gengar. "I mega evolve you and you keep the crabrawler in place. Then confuse it so it starts flailing. That should draw a dugtrio. Then I need you to trap it while my brother battles and catches it,"
The gengar lifts her hands above her body and twists back into the shape of a woman stretching out. This time she's more solid than before. A black dress made of mist drapes off her body. "Alright. But if I'm doing this for you," she turns towards you and smiles. Her teeth are blindingly white compared to every other part of her illusion. "I'd like to hear the magic word."
That's kind of childish. Easy enough, though. "Can you please help?"
"There we go." The illusion collapses into mist as she shrinks back down and spreads out into her normal shape. "At the ready."
Jabari brings a hand to his wrist. There's a bracelet there tucked beneath his watch. Is that a mega bracelet? You've never actually seen one in person before. Not really a thing people do in Alola. Jabari closes his eyes and the bracelet begins to glow. Behind him a cocoon of light forms around Envy. The light glows brighter and brighter until you have to turn away and close your eyes. Then it stops. In the distance something, maybe reality, shatters. You turn around to see Envy looking far more like a haunter with a drown out, floating form. Gaseous arms flow down from her main body.
Down the beach the crabrawler has started to run away from the lights. It doesn't help it. In a moment Envy has raced through the air to be on top of the crustacean. A thin glowing string snaps into place between them. The crabrawler tries to run but the string stays taut. In desperation it turns and tries to punch the gengar only for its fist to go straight through the edge of the mist.
"We should get closer," Jabari says. Then he takes off running. He kicks up sand behind him and you're not sure how he isn't tripping with his stiff boots and the soft sand. You kick off your sandals and pick them up before dashing after him. You have an old memory of something like this. You don't remember how old you were or where it happened. Could've been in Hoenn right before everything went to hell. You and Jabari were on a beach with massive sand dunes that looked like small mountains. Jabari tried to scale them but kept slipping and falling back. You kicked your shoes off and ran straight up, never staying in one place long enough to sink. Jabari'd called you a gogoat. It was probably meant to insult you, but you were proud of it. Proud to have been better than him at something.
In the here and now he's still faster than you. He spent years killing people in Iraq and learning to run on sand while you were locked up in foster homes in Alola. And the undeserved height and muscles and testosterone don't hurt in a race. He doesn't need to keep to a stupid schedule and always have a refrigerated vial of hormones on hand to get his. It doesn't mean that he's more of a boy. You're still jealous.
As you get close the sand under the crabrawler begins to vibrate before something yellow rockets out. the dugtrio pierces the crabrawler's armor from underneath and grabs it in a mouth. Before it can vanish beneath the surface a thread lashes out from Envy and locks it in place. Jabari turns to you and nods.
You take out Mahina's pokéball and… hesitate.
Is this right?
Are you just kidnapping a pokémon for your own gain after telling Cuicatl she shouldn't do that?
Dugtrio hate, hate, hate being on the surface.
You lower the pokéball.
"Changed my mind. You can let them go."
The cord snaps and the mole ducks beneath the sand.
"Any reason?" Envy asks. Even mega evolved her voice is smooth and airy.
"Feels wrong to force them to leave their home for a few fights."
The gengar hums in a low, psychic static as the air around her ripples. "Seems you've learned a thing or two. Very well. May I be withdrawn if my services are no longer required?"
"See you later."
She collapses back into a purple cloud before the light hits her.
"Guess you don't need the insurance then, huh?" Jabari asks.
"No." You hesitate again. It couldn't hurt to get something from him. "Some help with bills would be nice."
Jabari turns around. He doesn't pivot like Cuicatl. Still carries himself almost too stiffly. He starts walking back to the Center, back to air conditioning, and lazily motions for you to follow. You hate following an order from him. Still. You were going to go back anyway.
"$1,250 a month seems reasonable for your stage in the island challenge. None of your pokémon are too expensive to care for and that should go a long way towards covering equipment and food bills. Jabari never did the island challenge. You wonder how he knows all that before you remember he works for the journey profiteers.
"I would like that."
He nods curtly. Almost robotically. Another military thing, probably. "Can you send me your account info?"
"Don't you have it from work?"
"I try not to mix personal and professional matters."
Which is probably hard when your brother was sort of your coworker.
Is this wrong, too? Even if you aren't kidnapping pokémon yourself that money comes from someone else doing it. He'd get it either way, though. It's not like he's going to go out and do work he wouldn't have done otherwise to foot the bill. Probably fine.
For now.
Your phone rings as you get ready to settle in for the night.
Your second phone rings. You put the phone to your ear and step out into the hallway. Hopefully Lyra and Cuicatl won't follow you or ask too many questions. You can just say someone from the orphanage called. People don't usually want to talk about that.
"Hey," you half-whisper. You walk down the hall to an exit door at the side of the building. Can't be too conspicuous until you're outside and alone. "Thought you didn't want to talk."
"Are you alone?" Plumeria asks.
You answer as soon as you're outside in the cool, fresh evening air. "Yes."
"Have a job for you. Nothing illegal."
You want to make a snide remark about how she said nothing legal would help, but she's done so much good work lately with the Steueben mansion. It's not worth arguing. She knows what she's doing.
"I'm listening."
"When you get to Heahea I want to talk to Cuicatl. Alone. Ideally somewhere private. See if you can get her to take a late night walk with her pokémon or something, then tell me where she'll be and when."
"What do you want to talk to her about?" She's psychic, but that doesn't really matter. Plumeria has a gengar that can probably translate for her if she wants. Something to do with Anahuac? VStar?
"It has to do with her home," she says. "And I think she could be a useful ally."
"Alright. I'll help."
No real downside. If it helps her then it helps the cause. It's not like she can actually do anything to Cuicatl if she says no without pissing off Anahuac. Nothing to lose and Plumeria thinks there's something to gain.
"Great. Call me again when you reach Heahea."
She hangs up before you can get another word in.