Rock 4.14: Hypnotized
Pixie

The door above you swings open. Probably Openliver or his mate. You dig a little deeper into the cool sand and wait. But the footsteps aren't loud and rough like a human's or even Rockfur's. Your ears perk up in surprise. Mother doesn't usually come outside during the day unless a human is with her. Too hot.

Yet she walks daintily off of the steps and looks towards you. Her stance is relaxed. Not angry. She ducks under the human's home and walks over to you. You tense up for a bite or scratch or freeze. It doesn't come. Instead, she gently picks you up by the scruff of the neck and carries you out from under the house, up the stairs, and into the building. She carefully sets you down on the entry mat and looks at you. "Shake," she quietly tells you. You do. It doesn't get all of the rough sand out of your fur but it gets out most. Her eyes narrow a little and you stand very still. She turns back around and motions for you to follow.

Kalani walks to the human's litter room and jumps up onto the sink. She's too big to sit in it, sadly. It's a lot of fun to sit in the fox-sized hole and then scream at the humans when they summon the water. Then you can also drink fresh water from it.

Instead Kalani opens a drawer with her mind and pulls a strange device out. Wait. You've seen those before. They're loud and hot and terrible.

Oh no.

After plugging the device's tail in Kalani jumps down with the rest in her mouth and aims the hot end towards you. She bites at a particular angle and hot air blasts out. You hiss in indignation as it ruffles up your fur and sends the sand flying away. You could have cleaned it yourself! You didn't need this.

In the end your fur is unnaturally fluffed up and hot and it takes everything you have not to scream at your mother, even knowing it would get you put back under the house.

Once she's taken the device's tail out of the wall, she picks you up by the scruff once more and takes you to her bed. There she throws her tails around you and starts licking your fur back into shape.

"I hated doing that to you," she said between licks. "Never make me do it again."

You think she's talking about putting you outside and not the air bath. Although the air bath happened because you were outside. "I won't," you promise.

"Good."

She purrs as she continues cleaning up your fur. Cool air wafts from her tails and you can feel the heat of the dryer and outside slowly fading away. Before long you're purring, too. Everything's okay. She's not mad at you anymore. She still loves you. You're still capable of being loved.

You can hear Rockfur walk over to Kalani's bed and stop. Your mother just moves her tails to press you even closer to her. "You let her in," Rockfur says.

"She learned her lesson."

You did! You aren't sure what lesson, exactly, but you learned it. Don't say bad things about Kalani to gods? Even if they already know what you're saying? That sounds right. Kalani lets out a puff of cold air and you purr in happiness.

"You shouldn't have done it," Rockfur says. "It's too hot out there."

Kalani barks at him and slowly rises to her feet, tails puffed up and spreading out behind her. You can finally see Rockfur. Just as ugly as ever and not reacting to Kalani all. He must be really, really good at acting like he isn't scared. "What would you know about vulpix?" your mother asks.

"I was there when we found you by the mountain. You always whined about how hot it was."

"Not how I remember it." Mother huffs.

"You screamed every time we went to the water."

"I was warning the water not to get my fur wet."

Can she even scare the water away? So strong. She could teach you lots of things.

"You wouldn't leave the room when we went to the fire mountain."

"Would have made it too easy for Openliver. Fire melts ice into water. And water beats fire. Obviously."

It is obvious! Finally, someone sees things your way.

"You peed on the floor for moons after we moved here."

"Marking my new territory."

Rockfur doesn't answer that one. Kalani won. She's strong and smart and she loves you again.

"You wanted a kit. You got one. Why do you send her away?"

Mother hisses. "She is my kit. She will be powerful and beautiful and smart and obedient like me. When she is not I will not let her be my kit. It will make her learn."

The stupid dog just chortles. "You? Obedient? When?"

"Whenever the orders aren't stupid. I would never give a stupid order."

Rockfur walks away wagging his tail like he won. He didn't. Kalani told him. And she called you powerful and beautiful and smart! And she would know since she is those things. So much better than being around humans who don't even praise you even though you're much better than them.

And you will be obedient. You will. Then you will always be her kit and she will always love you.

In the evening she takes you out to hunt.

"You know disarming eyes," she says, "and how to take a trick away. Now I will teach you how to make things sleep."

She explains that you can send out thoughts with your eyes. Like Skysong does with her mind. Sometimes these thoughts can make you seem like you're not a threat. Sometimes they can make opponents forget things. You can do both at once: make their body think you aren't a threat and their mind forget to stay awake. Make them sleep. Or at least make them tired.

"I can make them sleep. You can only make them tired."

That makes sense. She's a nine-tales. She's a nine-tales who could fight The Moon and live to tell about it.

She takes you into a patch of tall grass and lies down. You crouch in wait beside her. After a few breaths of watching she points at a distant rattata. "Make it sleep when it gets close." You wait. And wait. And wait. The winds are carrying its scent to you so it can't notice your presence. Until the winds change. The rattata freezes up. You bolt out of the grass before it can run. It has to see your eyes! While you, uh, think about making it tired! The rat does stare at you for a breath before it turns around and dashes away. No. No! What did you do wrong?

Kalani creeps up beside you and gently flicks a tail into your side. "You don't know what you're doing," she says.

"No! I do!" You're her daughter and she loves you and you don't want to go back under the house.

There isn't anger or amusement in her eyes. Just the cold gaze of a hunter. "How would you know if you've never been shown?"

Probably the same way she knows: being perfect.

You look into her perfect eyes. So deep. So much better than yours. You want to look at them forever. But… it's getting so hard… to keep… your eyes…

A paw runs over your head and ruffles your fur up. You look up in surprise to see Kalan—Mother. New Mother. Her face is relaxed and her body taut. Playful. Oh. She just did what the humans call 'a joke.' You were supposed to learn from that. How she did it. Um. How did she do it? By being perfect with perfect eyes?

"Did you learn?" she asks.

No. But you should have. "Yes."

She chuffs. "Let me try again. Weaker. Slower."

Her eyes shine brighter. Brighter and deeper? You try to think harder about it but the thoughts don't come. The thoughts don't come. She said it was like keeping thoughts away?

…no. Too hard. Need…you're…safe…

…sleep…

A paw swats your ears. Your eyes flutter open before falling shut. You get swat again. Harder. You look up long enough to see Mother staring down. Mother… hypnosis. Right. Nothing important. Sleep..

This time a claw digs into your cheek hard enough to stain a patch of fur red. "Get up."

The pain floods your body and wakes you up. Soon you're staring into your mother's hard eyes and waiting for her next instruction. You displeased her. You shouldn't do that. She doesn't like being angry with you.

"Did you learn?"

"Yes." You think you did. It's about making thoughts go away. Or something. You think you can maybe do that. Skysong had her tricks with words. Sometimes when she threw her mind against hers you could make your enemies forget more things or lose them for longer. Or when she had her shiny rock thing power you up. This is… like that. Sort of. Mostly. You can do it.

"A game: we do it to each other. Last to fall asleep wins."

Just like that? She's so strong… No. You can do this. She will love you. She does love you.

You yap to tell her you're ready. Then her eyes bore into yours and push… so… deep… No! There's… there's a trick! You don't press back. Not like she is. You stare into the black of her eye and pull. You can feel something snap between you as the attack lands. Mother blinks in confusion and you smack a tail against the ground to wake yourself up. She can't put you to sleep anymore. As long as you can do it to her, you win! Just… pull again. Or push. Make her forget. Everything. What did she say about threats? Oh, right. You aren't a threat. She can sleep. It's fine. You wouldn't hurt her. You love her and you wouldn't hurt her. Mother's tails droop down towards the ground before she violently shakes herself awake and looks away from you.

"You're a smart kit," she says. "Naturally. I picked you."

Your fur freezes and your heart warms. Yes! You are smart! You did it! She loves you so much. A nine-tails loves you and Mother—and Avalanche was wrong. When you get back to the mountain you'll tell your birth parents and siblings how you're the daughter of a perfect nine-tails that fought the moon. And even she says that you're smart.

"Let's go find more prey to hunt, Firstborn. I grow tired of Openliver's food rocks."

You catch the scent of a one of a long-ears in a bush. Kalani circles around to the opposite side and screams, long and harsh and loud. The long-ears rushes out straight towards you. Your tales flare out and you stare into the long-ears' wide, terrified eyes. You press out calm, forgetfulness, sleep. When she tries to run you send a beam of cold air through the air and freeze her paw to the ground. Then you circle around, look in her eyes, and make her calm. She slowly stops struggling as much. Eventually she stands entirely still and shivers. Long-ears are coated in tons of ugly, curly fur and they're still cold enough to shiver.

One of your old trainers had a long-ears. A buneary, as he insisted on calling it. Showered her with love that should have been yours and kept her around when she let you go. You learned enough of their language to know that they have nothing worth saying. The long-ears opens her mouth and begins to talk. "Please, you have enough food."

Prey shouldn't beg. There's no point.

"Your human—"

She's cut off by Kalani lunging out from behind the bush and snapping her neck with a single awesome bite. You can't eat the skin—too much fur, you might choke—but the rest of the long-ears' meat and blood is delicious. And you did the hunting! Part of the hunting. The hard part.

You go to sleep filled with pride and good, warm food.

Openliver is holding a 'team meeting' on the beach. You are not part of his team but Mother takes you anyway, tucked under her tails and away from the sun and warm air. The sand is still too hot beneath your paws but there's nothing you can do about that. The other members of his team make their way over. Rockfur sits as close to Kalani as Mother will allow him. Gillwailer is at the edge of the water with only his head and neck fully above the waves. Static hovers over the water, his weird claw arm things spinning around in circles. Even this far away his lightning still warps Mother's fur. Sleeper is taking deep, throaty breaths somewhere down the beach. You don't think she's asleep but who knows. She's almost never awake. Hasn't even talked to you or asked Kalani where you came from. Finally, Bigwings lands with a big thud and a pulse of wind that manages to muss up your hair through a blanket of tails. You don't know if he can't land softly or just chooses not to. Rude either way.

"Good. Everyone's here." Mother snorts. Because obviously you could all see that. "Onto this week's business. Gillwailer repeats that in some language you can't understand. Bigwings or Sleeper's maybe. You don't think Static can actually talk.

"We have a tournament coming up in two weeks. I'll just be announcing except for the end, where we'll face the winner in a three v three. It's the Stanford Invitational. The one where we fought the avalugg, walrein, and weavile last year." You recognize one of those. Weavile. Redcrests. Cowards that hunt vulpix. You bet Mother enjoyed tearing it apart and eating its innards. "Good odds we rematch him. Some solid psychic- and ghost-type specialists in the mix. No dragons, not many steel-, fighting- or fairy-types. They're academics, not serious trainers.

"First, anyone really want to go?"

Sleeper makes a choking sound that Gillwailer says means 'no.' Bigwings just looks away from Openliver. Static does nothing. Rockfur walks forward and sits down near his trainer. Kalani just swishes her tails.

Openliver looks towards you and Mother. "Sina will be there." Mother growls with a rolling sound at the end. A warning. A warning to a trespasser. "I'm going," she says. "Firstborn will, too."

You look forward to helping scare this 'Sina' away.

"Nalu?" Openliver asks. The stupid, ugly thing makes a high-pitched trilling sound and claps her flippers together. So annoying.

There's more rambling from Openliver before he and Gillwailer go closer to the shore to talk to Static. Sleeper finally starts growling in his sleep again and Bigwings takes off to go do whatever it is he does. Mother and Rockfur start walking back. You do your best to keep pace beside Mother, even though her legs are a lot longer than yours. "Who is Sina?" you ask.

"No one important." Oh. You'd thought that she was from her reaction. "She has a nine-tails. Hate her. So smug. Thinks she's better than me, even though she mated with an eevee."

You retch in shock and almost lose your breakfast. What? What kind of nine-tails would do that? How does she handle the smell?

"I like her mate," Rockfur says. Both of you ignore him because he's talking nonsense. "Smart. Gentle. Powerful when she wants to be."

"Eeveefucker," Kalani growls.

Rockfur doesn't deny it. You're going to need to stay far away from him in the future. Don't want that getting on you.

Openliver lets you out of your ball inside a soft room. It looks a little like the ones your trainers stayed in when they were traveling, just fluffier, bigger, and with a single lovely bed instead of four tree-beds. Kalani instantly jumps onto it and sprawls out her tails. You leap up behind her and lean into her side. The bed is soft enough. It's good that Openliver is treating you with the respect you deserve.

"Hey, that's my bed you know."

Kalani glares at him before letting her face settle back down on her bed.

"I brought you yours."

She makes no move to acknowledge him.

"And before you suggest we can share, last time we did that you froze the bed on purpose so I had to move to the couch."

"My bed," Mother barks. "Mine."

Rockfur walks over to his bed on the floor and sits down in it. Good. He doesn't deserve to be on Mother's bed. He could get eevee fur on you.

Openliver doesn't bother you until night falls and he gets into his sleeping falsefur. He stands at the side of the bed and stares down at Kalani. "You aren't sleeping here," he says.

She growls. You bark at him to back her up.

"You can sleep in your bed or in your ball. Your choice."

Her howls of protest are cut off as she dissolves into red light. Openliver wearily looks down at you.

"That was hers!"

He rolls his eyes. Doesn't even have Gillwailer tell you what you said. Rude!

"Freeze the bed and I'll withdraw you, too."

He tucks himself under the covers. You curl up beside him and wait for him to go to sleep. He's not as good as Skysong. Takes up too much space. Sometimes he growls in his sleep. Skysong let you sleep on top of her stomach. When Eggbreath wasn't stealing it. Then she moved to sleeping on her side, letting one of you curl in the crook of her legs and one get hugged. Sometimes you'd sit on top of her like that but then she'd move in her sleep and you'd fall off.

You wonder how she's doing. It's been nearly two moons now. Has she forgotten you entirely? Picked up an eevee? Mother hasn't asked you about cursing her lately. Good. She knows The Moon would just undo it. Even if she has gotten an eevee that's a curse in itself. So is forgetting your beauty. Not that she ever knewhow pretty you are. Her biggest flaw.

You eye Mother's ball on the bed. Once Openliver is deeply sleeping you move over and nudge the button with your nose. She reforms on the floor in a pulse of light. Her eyes twinkle at you in thanks before she slowly, carefully, raises herself onto the bed and curls up around you.

Openliver wakes up a while later to a frozen bed. He's just lucky she didn't pee on him for good measure.

You get withdrawn, too, after that. As you bury yourself into the snow of your ball's world you plot ways to get back at Openliver for this.

The door opens and an unfamiliar human walks in. Female. Young adult. The equivalent of a nine-tailed vulpix. Her hair is purple. Like poison. You don't like it. Poisonhair greets Openliver and they say meaningless human things to each other. Then Poisonhair looks at you. No, at mother.

"Eggshell really wanted to meet you again. No idea why after last time. You up for it?" Mother slowly nods yes while spreading out her tails and raising her fur in a threat display. "If you're sure."

She presses into her scarf and several pokémon appear. One is a nine-tails. A little bigger than Mother. Not as pretty. Extra size must be fat. The others are four strange vulpix and an eevee. A cold eevee. One that at least knows it isn't as good as a nine-tails so it tries (and fails) to copy you. It isn't smart enough to know that just makes it look even worse next to the real thing.

The vulpix are tainted. Their fur is shorter than it should be and almost blue in color. It has weird spiky chunks that would look out of place on any pokémon, but are especially terrible on what should have been the prettiest kind. The nine-tails, Eggshell, which is probably the worst name ever, walks over and extends her snout towards Mother. They sniff for a moment before they both pull back. And scream. They raise their heads and let out the loudest, highest whine they can to assert their dominance. Rockfur covers his ears with his paws and the eevee step back.

"Girls!" Openliver calls. "Hotel. You can't be this loud."

Both immediately turn and continue screaming, this time at him. How dare he interfere in a border dispute?

"Should've done this outside," Poisonhair says.

The nine-tails round on her next, this time shifting to a series of barks about how terribly hot it is out there. That at least interrupts the screaming for the time being. Mother clearly won. No need to continue.

Eggshell evaluates you with a careful stare before turning back to Mother. "Who is she?"

"My Firstborn."

Eggshell chortles. "Awfully old for a newborn." When Mother doesn't respond she sticks her forepaws up on the bed and presses her snout into your side. You rear back and hiss. She pulls away quickly. Good. She'll learn. You aren't hers.

"Not even your real daughter. Did you just pick up the first stray you came across and take her into your den?"

Mother bristles but doesn't answer. "She's more powerful than your kits."

"A seven-tails that can fight a two-tails. You must be so very proud."

"She's a pure vulpix. Not polluted like yours."

Eggshell hisses in fury before composing herself. Then she tilts her head to the side and fixes her stare back to you. "Then she's a reject. Someone else's waste. Like feces left to roll in the wind. And you would make her your Firstborn."

Mother's eyes narrow.

"You're a reject, too."

"As are you."

Rockfur softly barks. "Girls, could we—"

Both nine-tales immediately begin screaming at him. This is not his territory to dispute. The eevee takes the moment to walk closer to Rockfur and sit down, ignoring the screams coming his way. Is it ugly and deaf?

Eggshell dissolves into red light. The half-eevee tense up before darting over to their ugly father while Kalani sits on her haunches and licks a forepaw in satisfaction.

"This was a bad idea," Poisonhair says. "I have no idea why they keep wanting to meet up when they just do this."

"No kidding," Openliver mutters.

"Kalani's the only other Alolan ninetales she sees for months at a time and they just instantly get into each other's faces."

"She is unworthy to stand in my presence," Kalani says. Gillwailer finally pulls herself out of the bathroom to translate that. Both humans stare at Mother like she said something wrong.

"Then why do you always want to see her?"

"To remind her of that."

"You're both weird," the eevee says. As if he isn't the weird fox. "I love my mate, but I don't understand things like this."

"Which is why she deserves better," Mother says.

The eevee continues to stare at her. "Wait. Is all of this because of the reject thing?"

"No."

The eevee keeps yapping along anyway.

"You were told that you're not good enough so you spend actual centuries insisting that you're better than everyone else? Because you had a bad feeling once as a kit?"

The water vapor in the room freezes in place and begins to fall as snow. Kalani spreads her tails out and gets back on all fours. Then she lunges, jaws open and ready to tear out the eevee's throat. At the same time the eevee's fur hardens into icicles and a faint barrier shimmers around him. Rockfur lunges as well—towards Mother, not the eevee?

Mother gets tackled by Rockfur but barely loses her stride, blasting him right in the face with the widest ice beam you've ever seen. He gets thrown back and she turns towards the eevee. With a faint hum the energy in the room shifts and the barrier grows brighter. What is she doing? The… the reverse disable? Like the smelly bird did to you?

Your ribs ache and you suddenly become very aware of the patch over your scar where the fur hasn't fully regrown. No. You don't want to think about that bird.

Mother is firing a terrifyingly bright beam of moonlight directly at the shield with the eevee and her disgusting halflings behind it. The shield holds strong for a few seconds but you can already see thin spots forming on top.

Red light races across the room and the attack stops. The shield drops a few breaths later. Another pulse of light shoots out and—Rockfur disappears? Not the eevee? Even though he started it?

The ugly vulpix have wide eyes and ears slicked back. Fear. Would Kalani have killed them once she finished with the eevee? You don't know. You're not supposed to kill the kits of a dead nine-tales. Someone has to inherit that territory, after all. But you aren't on the mountain. Neither Kalani nor Eggshell needs to worry about who inherits their non-existent territory. And the dead fox would be an eevee, not a nine-tales. They can't leave anything worth inheriting.

The humans are staring at the wall while the eevee turns his back on you and comforts his kits. Even though you could definitely kill him while everyone is distracted. But if Mother wants him dead it would be wrong to steal her kill. You follow the humans' gaze to the wall. A coating of ice stretches across a large part of it. Must be some of Mother's ice beam that Rockfur didn't block with his face. There's a hole in the middle that punches through the entire wall. Kalani did build a new, better layer of ice behind it. An improvement. Not that the humans will understand.

Someone insistently knocks on the door and Openliver swears.