Fighting 3.6: Birthright
Kekoa
[12:10:30]
You're woken up by an insistent chittering, punctuated by an occasional spark of electricity. What? You groggily open your eyes to see, well, nothing. There's a weight on your chest and the angry clacking of mandibles in front of your face. Another spark illuminates your grubbin before the world is cast back into darkness.
"Did I forget to feed you?"
He hisses. Probably a no, then? Honestly you have no idea how much he understands of what you say.
{Can I have some help?} you think down to Cuicatl. You're met with a phantom feeling of a brush through your hair. Is she dreaming?
Makani seems to get the same idea. The weight crawls off your chest and skitters over to the edge of the bed. A few moments later there's more mandible clacking and the sound of sparks below you.
"'m awake" Cuicatl groans.
More insect noises. A surprisingly complex language for a literal bug.
"I'll tell him."
{Your grubbin would like to talk to you,} she says / thinks.
{Go figure.}
You can almost feel her eyeroll through the link.
{He says he's close to evolution. He wants you to let him go now so he can bury himself.}
Your last bit of drowsiness starts to drain away. That wasn't part of the plan. You've fed him, protected him, everything you were supposed to do. And why would he want to go to the wild when he's the most vulnerable?
{Tell him that he'd be safer with me watching over him until he evolves again.}
A breath's break. A single clack. A hiss and two clacks.
{I tried.} Cuicatl sighs, aloud. {But he doesn't like you or your trumbeak.}
Hekeli you can almost understand. She's a bird. Vikavolt famously don't like them. But hekeli eats fruit, not bugs. They've never really had problems in the past so it shouldn't be an issue.
{Tell him again.}
Cuicatl goes silent for a little bit. Then Makani starts chattering again, much louder, and apparently rising towards you. You reach for the ball at the side of your bed and withdraw him. It sounded like he might be about to attack, and there are better places to hash this out, anyway."
{Can we go outside so that I can talk to him? You can repeat the words to translate.}
"Kekoa, can we just… not?" Cuicatl sounds exhausted, even for someone who just woke up.
You consider this for a long time. She's had a rough time as of late. Makani isn't going anywhere. Maybe… you can just wait for tempers to cool.
"Fine."
[10:17:41]
There's a pier near the naval base that stretches out all the way to the reef. Ordinarily it would be filled with life and bathed in sunlight at this time of day. Today it's eerily quiet, the only sound coming from the raindrops and another VStar group or two fishing in the darkness. You shiver and adjust your raincoat. You weren't packing for cold weather when you left the orphanage. What cold weather clothing you could find for sale now seemed far, far more expensive than you would expect. Double-layering shirts helps, but your arms are only covered by a flimsy raincoat and a thin sweater.
The darkness is even worse. You missed a foothold going down the bunk's ladder today and almost bent your ankle. You're surprised it doesn't happen to Cuicatl even more than it already does. And it's not normal darkness, either. Even when you close your eyes there's usually some light passing through the eyelids. Now there's nothing even with your eyes wide open. Just some vibrant tears in the sky that refuse to let any light come down to you. It's like the necrozma's taunting your culture. Your ancestors got here by starlight and now it's gone and made its own twisted reflection of constellations. Scratches of light on the ceiling of the world.
And the darkness makes it feel like you're cut off from everything else. Like there's only you and the occasional sound. Nothing to see. Nothing feels real unless you touch it. You can't tell if it's better or worse that this god wants humanity to suffer slowly.
The bastard keeps dropping the temperature every day.
You wonder how the forests will come out of this. Two weeks with no sunlight and constant cold. Which grass-types will survive? Which won't? What of the bugs and birds that didn't evolve for the cold? Hekeli demands to come inside as soon as she's taken care of her business and Makani… well, apparently Makani hates you. If Cuicatl is to be believed. You still aren't sure about that.
Maybe it's Cuicatl's power lust coming through. All three of her pokémon are powerhouses. Tyrantrum and metagross (because of course she's going to evolve the damn thing, whatever she promises you) are some of the strongest pokémon to ever live. Keokeo fight like a living blizzard, slipping in and out of their storms to disrupt the opponent or freeze them solid. But some people don't want just power: they want all the power. If Makani leaves you, it might go to her. Then she'd have another nuke in her arsenal.
And she's unstable now because of the oricorio. Hurt. Maybe lashing out and hurting you to feel better herself. It makes sense; you imagine that the encounter really, really sucked for her. Hearing your parents berate you would be… it would be something. There would be bad feelings, of course, but at least you'd be reminded what they sounded like.
Did Jabari keep home videos? He had to have, right? Somewhere. No way he threw those away when he enlisted since, you know, his parents had just died. But if you asked for them there would be strings attached. It would look like you were just fine with him sending you to foster care for years just because he was sorry enough to give you shit that was rightfully yours anyway. And also a tyrunt. You wonder if he knows that you gave it away. Probably. He does work for VStar and Cuicatl has been talking to them about her Class Five. Someone probably caught on and told your brother. But at least he hasn't shown himself recently. Just a text asking if you were alright. He got a one-word answer before you blocked him.
Cuicatl starts reeling something in. She says that she'd never fished before ("not with a rod, anyway," whatever that means), but she can at least reel it in well enough. You still have to cast because you don't have an idea how to explain it to her in the dark. Not that you're that good without being able to see what you're doing. Hit a buoy at least once.
She lifts up the pole and Pix starts growling. Cuicatl sighs and hauls the fish onto the pier where it starts madly flapping. "Magikarp." A red flash briefly illuminates the docks. "Coco, Pix, you want it?" There's increasingly frantic thrashing sounds, the faint light of sparks, and the smell of ozone before the fish goes still. Cuicatl hands you the rod to cast again as her pokémon start devouring their lunch.
You would complain. Gyarados get testy when too many magikarp are captured in one place. But that's the first one she's had killed today. And the last one slashed your hand up pretty good while you tried to hold it down so she could get the hook out. Probably should've just captured it with a spare ball and released it into the water, but pokéballs aren't free and neither of you has a clue how long you'll be out here today. Finneon usually hug the reefs. You're gambling on one coming just a little closer to the shore in the chaos.
Once you've cast you hand the rod back to her. She continues to sit in silence, although Coco gets withdrawn as soon as the munching sounds stop. One thing you didn't consider is that your part of the dock smells like fish blood now, and it probably will until the rain washes it all into the ocean. Then it might scare away the finneon. Great. Just great.
"Can't believe they're having us work during The Blackout," you mutter, more to fill the quiet than anything.
"What else were we doing?" Cuicatl asks. "Might as well make money."
"It's fucking dark outside. Dangerous to walk in."
A gust of wind blows a splatter of water into the side of your raincoat. Pixie hisses beside Cuicatl.
"Kekoa, I don't really… see the problem there."
Ugh. Stupid puns. "Yeah, well, you've ben training for years. Most of us are still tripping over our feet."
She giggles. Giggles. "It is fun to listen to. And everything is so much easier to use now. I wouldn't mind if this went on for a bit."
"And froze out the fucking forests? And your precious dragons?"
"This is why dragons mastered fire, Kekoa. It makes winters much easier."
"It's not funny when it's your country burning down."
She sighs, barely audible over the waves and raindrops. There's a tug on your fishing pole so you have a convenient excuse to end the argument. Even if it gets away halfway through and you have to put on new bait. The pole is just being loaned for free, but you did have to pay for the bait. Paying to work during a slow-motion weather war. Imagine that.
"I don't know why you're mad at me," Cuicatl says when you sit back down. That's probably a lie. She's a fucking mindreader. "Doesn't work like that," she mutters, confirming that it does, in fact, work like that.
Why are you mad at her? Because she's trying to take your powerhouse away. Makani hadn't been spitting in your face as much, you bought him a thunder stone (which blew through most of your savings right at the start of an indefinite crisis), and then out of nowhere she just turns on you again.
"Makani."
"I thought you wanted me to respect the pokémon here. But it's fine for you to ignore them, then?" She sounds more tired than angry, but there is a spark of defiance in her voice. The kind that typically precedes someone getting mad. Had to learn that shit when dealing with orphans and state-stolen kids with more issues than you.
The answer to her question is simple enough. "Foreigners keep coming here to catch grubbin and get themselves a vikavolt. Got so bad that they almost went extinct on this island." VStar was a big part of that. It was the first thing you learned about the company. If you didn't need to kick out the imposter queen you would want nothing to do with them. "But they're our birthright. One of our strongest weapons against the occupiers, and they're just stealing them. If I abandoned her, she'd probably fall into one of their hands."
The imposter queen herself has one. That will not help the desire overseas to steal every last one of them from your people.
"Even if that's…" Pixie cuts her off with a series of barks. "Alright, alright." A flash of red light briefly illuminates her silhouette. "Sorry, she doesn't like the rain. Just. I'm only telling you what she told me."
"You're a telepath. Can't know what you said to her to make her attack me."
"Kekoa," her voice is much, much harder than before. "You don't trust me at all, do you?"
"I—" Do you? She's going through a lot right now, and you've insulted her dead brother and mom. It's natural that she'd want revenge. Still, you've been traveling with her for three months at this point. You'd trust her not to poison you. To keep you safe. But for Makani to just turn on you… you're not a bad trainer. A bad person. You were making progress. Cuicatl turning on you only barely makes sense, but it's the only thing here that makes any.
"Second, I really thought you cared about pokémon. More than I do. Set rules on me for what I could and couldn't do. But… I don't know anymore. You get mad that your grubbin wants to leave. Won't really parent Coco." Because she's a dinosaur. A very cute dinosaur that you'll take on walks or cuddle, but not your child. Besides, she's Cuicatl's pokémon. "And then that movie a few days back. You like it, right? But it's about how it's bad to capture wild finneon. But you're here doing that, now. I just don't get it."
The finneon capture is necessary because you need money to take back your kingdom. Makani is necessary because you need power to take back your kingdom. And they're your people's pokémon. Your birthright. The ancient kings hunted. The island challenge has been going strong for centuries with many kings and kahunas using vikavolt. Besides…
"You're here, too. Just let a magikarp get shocked to death and eaten. And if Coco asked to leave, would you let her?"
Another bite on your line. She doesn't respond as you reel it in, taking a moment to let out Hekeli as the fish gets close. It flops onto the pier, flopping wildly but not as much as a magikarp. The flashlight shows—finneon. It can't really move too well with a hook in its mouth. Its water guns are sloppy. The hardest part is having Hekeli hold back enough that it doesn't get too badly hurt.
You don't think about the finneon having a family. A movie studio made that story up. Finneon are dumb. And you'd eat them if they tasted better. Your ancestors would have eaten them, too. It's fine that you're doing this.
"Got the first finneon," you tell Cuicatl.
"Kekoa, I'm a predator," she says. Probably to answer your last question. And for a moment you'll pretend that the tiny blind girl that needs help casting for fish could be a predator. "I was practically raised by one. And predators can tolerate prey. Respect them. But the predators will starve if they do not eat the prey. If I need to catch finneon or kill magikarp to feed myself or my pokémon, I will. That's how nature works." Sometimes you have to drown someone else to stay afloat. You know that damn well. "And for Coco, I don't want her to leave. I'd try to keep her happy with me. Since I'm her mother and…" She trails off. "I never really had a mother. Just scattered memories."
"Memories?"
"Her reuniclus had some stored ones. I've seen a few. Enough that I love her. Miss her. Maybe understand her. But she died a long time ago. I don't remember her myself."
Shit. That's way better than home videos. You would kill for that. For a tenth of that.
"But if Coco really wanted to leave, I wouldn't try to make a dragon stay where she doesn't want to be. That would end badly for everyone."
It doesn't clear up a whole lot. She sees herself as a predator. A tiny, helpless predator. {Fuck you.} A tiny, helpless predator who polices other people's thoughts. And seems to really, actually see her dragons—hydreigon and tyrunt—as family. That's… strange. You'd read interviews of battlers saying stuff like that, but it was never something you really saw for yourself. That was something PR firms made up to make their clients sound like folk heroes. The orphanage had an oranguru and porygon that helped take care of the kids, sure, but you were never as close to them as you were to the, y'know, people.
"Maybe you should talk to someone else about this," Cuicatl mutters. "I don't know much about your birthright."
[12:23:47]
The rain stopped. At least you can make the call outside. If you ever make it. You've unlocked the phone, held your hand over the number, and watched it lock again three times now.
Kanoa.
You've spent weeks practically ignoring her, texting her as little as possible. And she's busy. You don't need to take her time. She doesn't need to talk to someone who abandoned her. She deserves better than that. But you want to talk with someone who would understand. She's a trial captain. Her boss's boss is Tapu Lele herself. She would know what to do, right? Even if you don't deserve to hear from her.
Fuck it. She probably won't answer. Might as well.
She answers on the second ring.
"Kekoa! So good to hear that you're safe." She pauses as you steel yourself to talk. "You are safe, right?"
"Yup. Just holed up in Hau'oli. You're the one who's been on the front lines."
Has she? Probably. Sounds like something they would have trial captains doing.
"It's been rough," Kanoa responds, a little shakily. Then false joy is pumped right back into her voice. "But things are actually calming down over here. We have a little bit of light and heat again. I was worried we wouldn't until everything was over, since, uh…" Her voice dips back to something more natural. "The volcarona refused to shine for a bit, because some kid had just tried to steal a larvesta."
"Holy shit." That kid's fucking dead now, and everyone's better off for it. If they'd actually succeeded… volcarona are emissaries of Pele and gods in their own right. A lot of people would've burned. "Why?"
"VStar."
Shit. You knew they'd crashed the grubbin population and generally didn't give a shit about the ecosystem, but poking a volcarona is low for them. How much money would they have had to offer? Several thousand. Maybe a million. Then they would've had to either find someone with a Class V or train one.
And if they wanted to train one, they'd have to find some kid with talent and a need to get a lot of money, fast. But uh. Cuicatl worships the sun, right? There's no way that she'd just go and piss off a sun god or demigod or whatever volcarona are over there.
Right?
"You still there?" Kanoa asks.
"Just thinking about some stuff."
"You work for them, right?"
"I—"
"Kind of figured between the weird island-hopping thing and, um, not really having much money. Unless your brother is paying for—"
"He very much isn't." You wouldn't let him.
"Just checking." And judging. She's definitely judging. Fuck her. Never been through half of what you have, yet she thinks she can judge. "Look, I know you don't want to go back. But I've been talking with my dad, and we think we can send you some money."
No. If anything, you owe her. Hell, she'd be justified refusing any help you offered, just like you'd thrown away a tyrunt. You had chances to call or write and you didn't.
"Why?"
"Because I care about you, dumbass." She shouldn't. She really, really— "Do you really need that spelled out for you?"
"Kanoa, I ignored you for years. Just. It's okay to let me go."
"Well," she says, still sounding far too cheery. "You're the one who called me."
"Right. I need some advice."
She hums for a second. Lower pitched than Cuicatl's humming. Not quite as melodic. "About what?"
"Pokémon stuff."
"Well, that I can do. Ask away."
Kanoa was raised by ranchers. Probably set to take over from them once she retires from being a trial captain, another job that requires knowing shit about pokémon care. She should know this. And won't be too biased.
"I have a grubbin."
"I remember."
Right. You did use that in her trial. To pretty good effect, at that. "He didn't like me at first, but he's been getting better. I bought a thunderstone to try and evolve him."
"Right."
"Then last night he got really, really upset with me. Starting chittering and trying to bite me. My friend is—has a psychic-type." Technically true, although you're pretty sure the beldum can't actually talk to people or pokémon with its mind. "She says that Makani, the grubbin, wants me to bury him in the woods with the thunderstone."
"And you don't want to?" She doesn't sound as judgmental as you were fearing. That's good.
"Yeah. Things were going okay and it's dangerous out. And if he does stay with me until he evolves, I can return the thunderstone, since they don't use them up like raichu or jolteon. I don't see why he can't just travel with me for a while."
"You could just go back in a couple months to unbury the stone. I don't think vikavolt keep them after they evolve. Hell, the DNR would prefer you do that. Keep any wild grubbin from unexpectedly evolving. Although… lemme check something."
"Okay." You're pretty sure you got put on mute given the nothingness over the line. You're vaguely upset. Kanoa jumped to the least important part. He's safer with you and… and you need power. A lot of it.
"Still there?"
"Yeah."
"You aren't supposed to release charjabug on Melemele. Just have him sent over and I'll let him out back once the darkness ends. I can rent my own thunderstone from Olivia. Maybe for free, 'cause Liv's a big softy. Despite being a rock trainer." She snickers at her own joke. You wonder how many times she's told it. Is this really the first?
More importantly: "Once the darkness ends? You sound like it'll be soon."
Kanoa groans on the other end. "Can you forget I said anything?"
"Soon, then?"
"They're going to try something soon. But don't get your hopes up. They've been trying shit for a while with no luck."
Right. You're still talking about the false queen and the colonial government. Really, you shouldn't have any faith in them doing something helpful.
"Alright. I'll forget you said anything. But—" You don't have to do this. You can hang up. It'll be fine. "I'm not really worried about the thunderstone. It's just. Shit, I don't know."
"Feels bad that one of your pokémon wants to leave?" She says it softly. Almost knowingly. A little judgingly. Like she's talking to a child.
But she's not wrong.
"Pretty much."
"It happens. A lot. Pokémon, even the ones that agree to go with people, usually want to go back to their own lives eventually. For bugs, a few months can be a lot of time. A year can be far too much to ask of them."
"That's not really it. More that there are a fuckton of haole kids who do this every year, no problem, but I can't…" Can't even figure out what, exactly, it is that you can't do.
"And their pokémon hate them, too. They just don't care enough to notice."
"Oh." That. That makes sense.
"No one really taught you to live with the ʻāina, did they?" Kanoa half-whispers. She's not wrong, exactly. Your mom was an accountant. You visited Kanoa's family a lot, but that was years ago. And in the meantime, well, most of the time you were staying with haole in the cities. But once you got to the orphanage and sort of joined Team Skull you started getting lessons about the myths. You should know enough to make things work. "Don't sweat it. Next time you're on Akala I'll swing by to give you some tips."
You want to scream that you don't need it. That this is your fucking country and you know how to live in it. How to use it against the conquerors. Plumeria and the other Skull leaders taught you the myths at the base of Lanakila. You know enough. More than the ten-year-old haole brats who waltz through your islands without having a pokémon turn against them. But she doesn't sound angry at you. She doesn't hate you. For some reason.
She must sense something wrong. Maybe you took too long to answer. "Again, don't worry about it. Hanohano taught me a bunch of stuff I didn't know over the last year." She pauses. "Oh, he's the totem oranguru you fought."
"Thanks."
You aren't sure for what.
"Don't—hang on." She puts you on mute again. You pointedly do not think about anything that was just said. "Sorry, something came up over here. Take care."
"You too."
"Bye."
[11:17:55]
It's a little hard to find places that are both warm and a little private. Thankfully, Tatty left and Mist and Titania are downstairs for lunch. You have a little bit of time to talk to Makani now.
"Hey, Cuicatl?"
She grumbles/groans something below you. Was she sleeping? Why? It's the middle of the day. Weird time for a nap.
"You up for translating between me and Makani?"
Cuicatl yawns and you can feel the bunk bed subtly shift. One hell of a stretch, then. "Sure. Let me just…" Let me just yawn again, apparently. "You trust me again?"
"Yeah. I talked to a friend and I don't think you were lying. I was just… anyway, I'll send Makani out now."
"Go ahead." You can imagine her eyeroll and smirk. And maybe you deserve it. Or should at least shut up and tolerate it.
You draw your legs back to you and press your back to the wall. Then you send Makani out at the other side of the bunk. Gives you some warning if he attacks.
"Hey. We need to talk."
Cuicatl repeats your words. Makani says nothing because he's a bug.
"Cuicatl can translate anything you want to say." He still doesn't take you up on the offer. "Look, I… I am going to make sure that you're buried with a thunder stone. But—" He starts chittering and hissing.
"Please hear him out," Cuicatl says. He does, mostly, although you can still hear a slight hiss.
"But there aren't vikavolt on this island, so I have to send you back to Akala. Where you're from. And for that I need to wait a little while before they start shipping pokéballs between islands again. As soon as I can, I'll send you over and a friend will let you go."
He chirps thrice and clacks his mandibles.
"He's okay with that, but he'll start biting eventually if you don't do it."
"A lot doesn't…" Depend on you. But how are you going to explain the situation to a bug when you barely understand it yourself? "That's fine. I can live with that."
{Proud of you.}
She says it like a mother talking a stubborn toddler into sharing his toys. You file it away for later, not wanting to immediately start another fight right after the last one ended. Besides, there's still one last question you want to ask. Even though you maybe shouldn't.
"Makani, do you hate me?"
Cuicatl repeats the question. And gets no answer. Then a lot of very harsh whistles and chirps.
"Hmm. If you could kill him with no chance of harm to yourself, would you?"
"Cuicatl—" {Please don't put that thought into his head.}
{How would you explain hatred to an insect?}
She looks down on bugs, too. Hypocrite.
Makani starts answering. Cuicatl pauses for a bit and you hear her shift beneath you.
"Okay. Do you wish that you'd never been captured?"
Another answer. A shorter one.
"He doesn't hate you," Cuicatl says. She does not translate exactly what Makani's answers were.