Rock 4.18: The Price
Dr. Valerie Livens

April 31, 2022

The phone rings and you groggily look towards it. Who calls you at 6:30 AM on a Sunday? You're not a teenager anymore, not even in your twenties, but you still cherish sleeping in on your days off.

Cuicatl Ichtaca.

Great. You try to blink the drowsiness away and sit up. She was a little too curious about the rules around reporting suicidal ideation. You don't think she's in a stable headspace either. Could be an emergency.

"Good morning, Cuicatl."

"Hello." Her accent is definitely thicker over the phone. She did mention that when you told her most appointments would be virtual. And she sounds like she's half dead.

"Are you having an emergency right now?"

"Yes."

She explains and your heart drops. It's an emergency all right. Just not hers.

Four teenagers and a cop sit in the lobby of your practice. You share a glance with Lila. Their face is taut and stern, but there's a storm of emotion in their eyes. They're carrying the weight of the world on their shoulders and pretending that they're not.

Cuicatl gave you a one word greeting when you walked in. Now she's sitting in an armchair with her arms and legs tucked in to make herself as small as she can. Her tyrunt is curled up at the base of the chair and keeping a wary eye on everyone else.

The two girls you don't recognize are sitting on the couch. The blond, probably Genesis, is staring into space with a vacant, horrified look. The Asian girl is pressed right up against her with an arm wrapped around in a hug, whispering quiet reassurances in her ear. It looks like a scene where someone found out a loved one died. If only it were just that. Truth be told you aren't even sure how to go about this. You'd seen the documentaries on old psychic reorientation practices but thought was just a relic of a more brutal, more rigid psychiatric system.

The boy, Kekoa, is sitting in a wooden chair and gripping the arms so tightly you wonder if he might snap them. His face is as tense as his body and there's pure, unadulterated rage in his eyes. Can't blame him. You just hope he doesn't actually break your furniture in misplaced anger.

"Genesis?" you ask. She moves her head a fraction of an inch but there's still no recognition in her eyes.

"She won't be able to talk for a while," Lila says. "Shock and lingering psychic damage."

Lyra visibly flinches at that announcement.

"I see." Not really, but you should at least act like you do. "Would anyone like to go first?"

"Cuicatl's your patient," Kekoa tersely says.

You turn towards her and take a step forward. You drop down your voice a little. She looks like she's going through her own crisis. "Would you like to go first? It's okay if you aren't ready."

She weakly nods and unfolds her limbs. Her tyrunt follows her into your office and then jumps up onto the couch next to her. Cuicatly idly runs a hand through the dinosaur's neck feathers. Looks like you won't need to send out Wiggles after all. You wonder if you could justify getting the tyrunt classified as an emotional support pokémon. She'd probably be the first of her kind to hold the designation. Might even be able to go through service training to act as an official guide tyrunt.

"It's okay if you don't want to talk, physically or otherwise." She stopped talking aloud last session when things got too bad. Some kind of selective muteness? If she doesn't want to talk that's also genuinely fine. She struggles with guilt and you don't need her thinking she's wasting your time. "I can just be here for you."

{I'm not the one hurting.} Another point to the selective muteness theory.

"You clearly are, maybe even physically. Even if you're not hurting the most of anyone you can still have your hurt addressed. Besides, you talking about it with me does nothing to hurt Genesis further."

The tyrunt presses her head into Cuicatl's chest and the girl wraps her arms around her.

{I keep feeling like I could have stopped this.}

"How so?"

{I… don't know. I just feel like I could have.}

Ah. She would pin the guilt for this onto herself. It does seem to be a common self-destructive pattern for her. "You already alerted the international police and child protective services. It's their job to prevent things like this, not other children's."

"And they didn't," she says bitterly, aloud.

"And they didn't. But the blame rests on them, not you."

"Americans. I should have never trusted your government."

You have a theory you don't want to press yet. She was very reluctant to talk about her living family, even if she thought she was being sly by deflecting to the dead ones. You don't know why she ran to her mother's country, alone, after her brother's death. Most people would take solace in their remaining loved ones after enduring such a devastating event. There's a pattern there. Her apparently low self-esteem, reluctance to talk about her father, escape to Alola, a few missing teeth. Then the predators. You've met her type of trainers before, the ones who seek physical power at personal risk to gain some sort of feeling of control. If you're right then her government's police and CPS failed as well. If they have CPS down there. The only website you could find was in Nahuatl. Everything else you found was probably just rumor and propaganda. You doubt they actually drown children as sacrifices to the river goddess.

"Remember what we talked about last week? About holding yourself responsible for things as a means of control."

She frowns. {Yes.} Hmm. Did even the vague mention of her brother send her back to muteness? You're going to have to walk on eggshells about that unless the session is specifically on the topic.

"Do you feel like you're in control right now?"

She shakes her head no. Then the tears start falling. Not full sobbing yet but you imagine she's close. You have to be careful now.

{I thought about what you said.} You nod before realizing she can't see it.

"And what are you thinking about it?"

{That… that you might be right. But I still feel responsible? Even if…}

Even if it isn't actually her fault. Can't bring herself to saying that yet.

"Most people like to think we're rational creatures. That our thoughts affect how we feel and act. Studies have shown it's almost the opposite. That our feelings determine how we act, and then our mind spins a narrative to justify it all after the fact." She doesn't have a response. "The point is, knowing something is true is only half the fight. Usually the easy half."

She goes quiet for a long time but never starts sobbing. Her tyrunt gets progressively cuddlier until her full weight must be resting on the girl's lap. She barely seems to notice. Is she telekinetic on top of her telepathy? It isn't a question you want to ask now but you jot down a note for later.

{What should I do about it?}

"It's going to sound corny."

{Yes?}

"Self-affirmation helps. People tend to start believing the things they hear, and especially the things they say. Starting your morning with a list of statements about things not being your fault could help. So would repeating it when you're stressed."

She nods. Good. You won't have to sell her on that.

"The question is, are you willing to say that even once?"

She shakes her head softly from side to side. "It feels like letting go," she whispers.

You consider your follow up. Push forward? Let that stand. In the end you decide to gently prod. "Letting go of what?"

"I don't know." She lifts her arms up and gestures out to both sides. "Him. My responsibility. Like I shouldn't be able to just… do that. It's not that simple."

No. No, it's not. Even if it could be. But she's talking again. You'll take that as a sign she's doing a little better. "What would happen if you just did it?"

She folds back in on herself. "Nothing," she finally says. "It would rock my world and no one else would even notice. Like… there was this moment in an airport in Anahuac when I realized that nothing in my life really mattered to the world." That's disturbingly close to a suicidal line of thought. "And I could move on and no one else would care, but I would." Her voice hitches and she finally sobs. {If I don't care about him, who else would?}

"Would you like to discuss that now or leave it until next session?" you ask softly. She's already going through a lot and it feels like she's just made progress, whether she realizes it or not. This feels like a natural break point, but if she wants to keep going you will.

{Next session. Head hurts too much to do this today.}

Ah. You'd wondered about that. What she described sounded dangerous, even with your minimal knowledge.

"I'm sorry."

She grunts. {It's fine. Officer Takeda got me part of a chansey egg. Their alakazam helped me put stuff back together. And the pokémon I was fighting stopped when they figured out I was human. Trainer probably didn't want to kill someone. I wasn't even in there for five minutes.}

It was still risky. And there's a fine line between bravery and despair in those situations. Between risking your life because you believe your cause has tremendous value and doing the same because it's more socially acceptable than killing yourself. You'll want to talk about this when she feels better. Not much point pressing now while she's already in a bad place, physically and emotionally.

"I'm glad you're okay."

Cuicatl just shrugs.

"If you would like to go back into the lobby—"

"Wait," she croaks out. "Um. When we were in her mindscape, Genesis kissed me. And it felt… good? I liked it. Maybe kind of a lot." She blushes and starts talking a lot faster, even with her strained voice. "She thought we were dating for some reason. I told her we weren't. Then she asked me out. Her mind was really a mess and she wasn't acting like herself so I told her no. I don't want to take advantage. And I don't even know if I'm gay or bi or whatever."

You smile in spite of everything.

She crosses her legs, earning a startled yelp from Coco as her headrest moves out from under her. "I don't know what I'm doing," she admits.

You snort. And then immediately freeze up. Shit, she'll take that badly. "I don't mean to be rude. It's just… psychic conversion therapy, institutions failing this badly, I don't deal with that every day. A girl flustered after an ill-advised kiss? You aren't the first, last, or fortieth client I've had in that position. Even if yours is the first that happened in someone else's head."

Well, an actual kiss between two people in someone's head. You've had clients dealing with awkward revelations that a friend or stranger daydreamed about kissing them.

Cuicatl faintly smiles back. It's wonderful to see, especially with everything else going on. "It is small, isn't it?"

"Hey, I can deal with small today. Does it cause you any distress, wondering if you're attracted to other girls?"

She shakes her head. "No. It's a normal thing. I'd even thought about it before yesterday. Just no one was going to kiss the blind American with an overprotective dragon so I didn't worry about it."

A lot there to unpack but you aren't ruining something that makes her feel good right now. You'll deal with that and any impacts on her self esteem in a later session.

"Is it a different type of attraction than you feel for boys?"

"Yes. No?" She sighs and uncrosses her legs, once again earning a wide-eyed look from her lap dinosaur. "I like voices and smells and people who can sing. Genesis can't sing but she's very earnest and willing to change when a lot of people won't." Her smile turns into a scowl again. "Maybe too willing."

You finish jotting down her exact words on her lack of a love life back in Anahuac. Gives you time to think about how to best end on a better note. Don't want someone with suicidal tells leaving your office in distress.

"I don't think you did anything wrong, for what it's worth. You didn't initiate, you told her she was mistaken, and you don't want to do anything until she stabilizes. Very responsible of you."

Her scowl relaxes. Not quite smiling again. Closer to neutral. You'll take it.

You idly wonder if she's used to people praising her.

"I guess. Just feels like she deserves someone better.

And you really should have seen that coming. "I think you can trust people to know who they like. Just give it some time and if she's still interested once things have settled into their new normal, go from there."

Genesis is curled up asleep on the couch when you leave your office with Cuicatl. Lyra is hovering nervously nearby as if something might go catastrophically wrong at any minute. Kekoa seems to have relaxed just a little but his face is still contorted into glowering rage. Lila isn't present.

"The cop had to leave," Kekoa says. "Asked Cuicatl to intervene if Gen starts glitching again."

Glitching?

"I can do that," Cuicatl says evenly.

Kekoa sucks in a deep breath. "Her parents got pardoned by the governor. Some shit about family decisions staying in the home."

That's not unexpected. You just hadn't thought it would happen quite so quickly. "There are still federal laws," Lyra murmurs. "They could get them on that."

Kekoa scoffs. "With this president?"

He's right even if you wish he wasn't. You're surprised the jail even took them into custody in the first place. If Lila hadn't rolled up with an alakazam and metagross they probably wouldn't have humored them at all.

"Can you avoid telling Genesis outside of a controlled setting?" you ask. "I'd need to talk to Lila about how stress might affect her at this point."

"Can do," Lyra sounds off.

Kekoa grunts but doesn't say no.

Cuicatl silently lowers herself onto the couch on the other side of Genesis from Lila.

"Who would like to go next?" you ask.

Kekoa and Lila share a long look. "Fuck it, guess I can," he finally declares before getting up and stomping into your office. You close the door behind him but he doesn't sit down, instead angrily pacing the length of the room. You take your seat and pull out the abridged intake forms.

"For today I just need you to sign some confidentiality documents. Basically, I can't tell anyone anything about this session unless you sue me over it or I believe you are an immediate danger to yourself or others."

He snorts. "Yeah, yeah. You're not a cop but you have to work for them. Sure. Whatever. I'll sign."

After a quick, forceful signature he goes back to pacing.

"Is this where you ask me about my mother or some shit? Because she's rotting on the Hoenn seafloor with my dad."

"I think it might be helpful to talk about that eventually if you want, but no. There's clearly something more immediate."

"Got that right." He stops pacing and whirls on you. "Fuckers almost killed two people and they'll get off with nothing. Not even a slap on the wrist. Meanwhile a kanaka kid can get arrested for wearing a black shirt to school. And anyone who tried to give them a fraction of what they deserved would get the death penalty for daring to look at them wrong."

Almost killed two people? Cuicatl didn't make it sound that bad but it's possible, even probable, she was downplaying it. Disclosing that would be a breach of confidences. You jot the words down on your pad to add to Cuicatl's increasingly long list of topics for future sessions.

"So, what, now you're just going to tell me to deal? Take up yoga?"

"No, Kekoa. I'm not going to tell you to do that. Although yoga is quite good for managing physiological stress reactions. I can help you figure out what you want to do to make a fairer system. Or I can help you figure out how you can best care for your friends. To take your feelings and be helpful with them."

He shakes his head and gives a dry, humorless laugh. "You can't make this system fairer. The haole can poison the water, brainwash kids." He huffs and finally sits down. His legs are still tense like he might spring back up at any moment. "I grew up in foster care. Wound up in an orphanage a while back. You know how many families get their kids ripped away for the crimes of being poor and brown? And when CPS sees this shit, that's when they decide to be cautious. What the fuck."

You nod in agreement. What the fuck indeed;

"Point is, you can't fix this shit. It's all rotten. The only way is to burn it all down and let the rightful owners of the land make their own nation."

He looks at you with a challenge in his eyes, daring you to disagree. You sigh internally. Alola learned nothing from the debacle with Aether and Skull. Working with kids on the island challenge means you deal with a lot of foster system kids who want some independence. And then half of them crash and burn with no support structure, no guidance, no money. Then you end up with a whole bunch of angry kids who don't want to crawl back into foster care but can't keep up with the challenge. When they get evicted from the Centers it's so damn easy for someone like Guzma or Plumeria to snatch them up. If the government had just dealt with any of this they wouldn't have a violent arsonist recruiting hundreds or thousands of kids to her cause. Now the commonwealth will throw half of them in prison and funnel frustrated kids into the real gangs.

You hate that it's so predictable, so preventable, and yet it Just. Keeps. Happening. And now it's happening right in front of you. Again.

"It sounds like you have a strong idea of what you want. I won't try and talk you out of it, but I will ask you to wait a few days to plan and ask the people you care about for input."

"They wouldn't get it." He tilts his head. "Cuicatl might."

How far do you want to push this? If he thinks you aren't on his side, he'll stop listening to anything you have to say.

"If you're doing this for Genesis, I would also think about the help she actually needs. A lot of people can… do what you want to do. There are fewer who can help her when she's just lost trust in her family."

He lowers his head. From what you can see of his face he almost seems… sad? "We didn't really get along. She misgendered and deadnamed me—I'm trans, by the way." He looks back up as if daring you to challenge him.

"And Kekoa is your preferred name?"

"Yeah."

"Pronouns?"

"He / him."

You nod and jot it down on your pad. "If we make this a more regular thing I will need your legal name, but not right now."

"Sure." He goes back to looking at his feet. "She was an ass to me, I was an ass to her right back. Cuicatl was trying to keep the peace. Neither of them needs that stress right now."

"You could ask Cuicatl about that," you offer. Genesis might need a bit before she can offer cogent answers.

"I could." He sighs and meets your gaze. Now he just looks weary. Exhausted. Like all the rage finally sputtered out. "Look, breaking things is easy. Fixing them is hard. I wouldn't even know how to start helping them through, like, what even the fuck is this? I'd rather burn the world down until it's finally safe for them to live in."

"You could always learn to be better at helping your friends. I can assist with that."

A lifeline to a gentler future, should he choose to take it.

Instead, he turns away and looks into the corner. "Maybe someday."

Kekoa walks out slouched over with his hands shoved deep inside his pockets. Genesis is still asleep with Lyra nervously fidgeting next to her. Cuicatl is on the other side of the couch with her eyes closed and mouth slightly ajar. Lila did tell her to keep an eye on Genesis, but you can't be mad at her for sleeping after taking (allegedly near lethal) psychic damage herself.

"Do you want to talk, Lyra?"

She looks up at you and it takes a moment for the words to apparently click with her. She tersely nods and slowly stands. She stretches out to her full height, arms raised above her head and standing on the balls of her feet. Seems like she might've been in one position for too long.

"Kekoa, can you wake up Cuicatl when Genesis wakes up?"

"Sure," he says in a tone that doesn't really inspire confidence. Then he sits back down in his previous chair, away from the girls on the couch. "She might be drowsy. Can we wake her up to send out her metang."

Lyra flicks a finger to something above you. When you look up you see the metallic underside of the pokémon pressed against the roof over your door. Right where you'd be least likely to see them. A bit creepy to say the least.

"They do that," Kekoa says. "A lot. Just be glad they haven't tried to watch you piss yet."

Oh my.

Lyra finally reaches you. Her arms are hugged against her chest and she looks like she's a stiff breeze away from passing out. Not the most conductive mood for a session. You'll focus more on comforting her unless she really does want to talk today.

Once she's settled down on the couch you send out Wiggles. He puffs himself out in his own stretch before turning to look at the couch. When he sees a client there he waddles over and jumps up with a hop to sit next to Lyra. "You can hug him if you want. He likes physical affection."

She cautiously holds out a hand towards his fur. You can see her eyes widen when she feels how soft it is before she almost rushes to press more of her body against his. Wiggles puffs up a little and closes his eyes. He's very pleased with himself. As he should be. Farmer's market is tomorrow. You'll let him pick out a dozen apples for his services.

"If you want to talk, and you really don't have to, I'll need you to sign some forms."

"Confidentiality, medical disclosure, past history, all that?" she asks.

Seems like she's been in therapy before. That could be good or bad, depending on how things went with that therapist. "Just confidentiality unless you want me to disclose something to a doctor."

"I don't."

You hand her the clipboard. She quickly glances over it and signs. And then she just keeps cuddling Wiggles in silence for a few minutes. That's fine. Whatever she needs. Not every day is a good day to critically interrogate feelings. Sometimes you just have to feel them in a safe place.

"When I was eight," she finally says, "my father told me something he shouldn't have. A psychic came over with an alakazam and took—something. At least the memory of what I was told. Maybe more. It's impossible to know." She takes a deep breath and presses even harder into Wiggles' side. "Since then I've kept multiple journals backed up in multiple places of everything. Just to make sure that nothing else was changed. Or if it were to be changed at least I would know what I lost."

A bit paranoid. Still not the worst coping mechanism. It's just journaling with more steps at the end of the day, and that has its own benefits.

"I tried to get Genesis to do it, too, but she stopped after she caught her mother reading her diary. She doesn't have any of the backups and more was taken from her than was taken from me. I barely even felt it happen and she…"

The girl starts sobbing and goes limp against the wigglytuff's side. You take the opportunity to jot down a few notes so you remember the details. There's nothing to say here that's reassuring, true, and not something she's likely heard before. You've dealt with survivors of childhood assault. Never childhood mental assault, but you assume the feelings of insecurity and helplessness are just magnified. You hope that's what she's already been to therapy for.

"Sometimes she glitches," Lyra whispers. "She'll be talking or moving and then she just freezes in place. It only ends when Cuicatl's metang or the officer prod her telepathically. Or maybe Cuicatl herself does it. The officer kind of made it sound that way. And it's hard to imagine Cuicatl fighting psychic-types in someone else's mind if she's as weak as she claims."

Damn it, Takeda. You don't go assuming someone knows a girl's secrets. However close they are.

"How do you feel about that?" you ask. "I imagine you have your reasons to dislike psychics."

Lyra nervously brings a hand to her mouth and bites down on a nail. It doesn't look like she does that often. Probably just a reaction to extreme stress. "She lied to me for months about something she knew I would've wanted to know. She's had countless chances to screw me over, but. I keep checking my journals and I don't think she's done anything. And she helped Genesis. When we found Cuicatl afterwards, she was pale, feverish, and muttering something about sand over and over again. Didn't seem to realize we were there."

She takes a deep breath and puffs herself like the wigglytuff beside her. When she speaks again it's no longer in a whisper but in a wavering voice at normal volume. "She saved Genesis and I owe her for that. And unless this goes away soon Genesis will need Cuicatl or someone like her nearby. As long as that's the case I'll tolerate her. The moment it's not I'm taking Genesis and running before she decides to start throwing her power around for real."

You raise a questioning eyebrow. "Why do you assume she would abuse that kind of power?"

"Because anyone would. How could you have the ability to make people anything you wanted and then not use it?"

"Moral codes. Religious beliefs. Fear of legal penalties. Love for one's friends."

She shakes her head. "No one really cares about that. If they think they can get away with it they will. And clearly psychics can get away with almost anything."

You want to dispute the last part. It's a little difficult given what just happened. "That's a dim view of humanity."

"It's a realistic one." She huffs before sitting up away from Wiggles and crossing her arms. "People are petty, cruel, and unable to look past themselves. Except Genesis…"

She bonelessly collapses back onto Wiggles. You want to explore her prior statements more because they indicate a problem that will inevitably hurt herself and others. Today probably isn't the best way to seriously challenge her worldview. Emotions are too high and she doesn't seem at all willing to relent.

Lyra chokes back a sob. "I'm not sure if she still remembers me. When she saw me again she gave Kekoa this weird look and kept staying close to Cuicatl. She just glanced at me for a moment before moving on."

"She seemed content with you comforting her earlier."

She looks away. "I think she wanted Cuicatl to do it. I sort of butted her out because…" She scowls. "She doesn't deserve it. She was only there for a few months. I put in years comforting her. Getting to know her. Being her only friend. It's not fair that she wants her."

You get the feeling she's talking about more than just who whispered nice things to Genesis today. That's another looming catastrophe. How long before her paranoia leads her to believe that Cuicatl changed some things herself while she was in Genesis's mind? How much will she lash out?

You really, really hope that Lyra stays in therapy after this. You don't care if it's with you, she just needs someone helping her work through her trauma responses before someone gets hurt.

It's probably best to move on from talking about Cuicatl before she gets herself worked up. "What will you do if your friend can't remember you?"

She presses her chin down into her chest and her hair falls over her face. "I'll stay by her side. She needs the help. And in time we can make things work again. I still know what she likes and dislikes better than anyone else. Maybe better than her after—" She cuts off, unwilling to admit the possibility that Genesis has severe brain damage aloud.

"I'm glad that you're willing to be supportive of her. Going back to pushing Cuicatl away, do you think you can do what's best for Genesis, even if it's not what you personally want?"

She sits in silence for several minutes. That's fine. You go back to catching up your notes to the conversation's current point.

"I'll think about it," she finally says.

You doubt you'll get anything better than that today.

The lobby is markedly different when you walk out with Lyra. Genesis is awake and at least looking around the room a little. Cuicatl is sitting next to her with her tyrunt sprawled out over her lap, resting her head on Genesis. Kekoa is pacing tight circles in the corner of the room. Lila has returned and is sitting in the armchair Cuictatl was previously using.

You can practically feel the hostility radiating off the girl beside you when she sees Genesis and Cuicatl pressed against each other. Even if it's tamer than what she had been doing before.

You share a look with Lila and they nod. It's time. You walk towards Genesis and hold out a hand. "Do you want to come back into my office with me? Officer Takeda wants to see how your brain is doing.

The girl weakly nods and slowly, laboriously rises. You have to withdraw Wiggles as much as you would love to have him comfort Genesis. "I'm sorry," you tell her. "But he's a little hypnotic. Can't have him interfering with the scans."

"I get it." Her voice is weak and breathy. Little more than a broken whisper. Is that trauma? Brain damage? Some mixture?

Lila sends out their alakazam. They'd explained before that you won't get brain cancer just by spending a few hours around one. It still unnerves you, just a bit. From Genesis's widening eyes it seems like she's scared too, just of something else.

"I promise that I won't hurt you. I just need to have my partner see what damage was done and what can be fixed."

"O-okay." Her breaths are still a little fast and her eyes are wide, but she's agreeing. Lila takes that to be enough. You wouldn't have. Genesis slowly relaxes and slips into a trance as Lila and their alakazam do… whatever they do.

After two endless minutes Lila curses under their breath. "I'd been worried about this."

"Oh?" You assume they're talking to you. If they wanted to talk to her pokémon they could do that telepathically.

"Fucker didn't have an alakazam, just a beheeyem and kadabra. And beheeyem are mostly just memory manipulators. It's like—like knives. You're going to get a cleaner cut with a very sharp knife than a dull one. He had blunt knives and made a mess of things. He didn't finish the changes. Her sexuality is… mostly intact. Memory's shot and her stream of consciousness is being disrupted. Not even sure he intended to do that. I don't think I can get the memories back. Those things are slippery enough at the best of times. Give her a few weeks to heal from the other damage and I might be able to fix the mental seizing."

You understand half of that. Psychology and Psychic Studies are related fields, but half of the things psychics can do have no good explanation when you're just looking at the brain of the affected party. Mental seizing isn't even a concept you were aware of.

"Then Cuicatl—bless the kid, she tried, but her mental defenses are all serrated memetics and emotions swirling around in a vicious loop. She stopped the surgery but probably did some harm herself." She gives you a very pointed look. "We're not telling her about that. She did the right thing and she'd take it way too hard if she found out."

That sounds about right. You don't like keeping secrets from clients, but this feels like it could be too much for her. "Agreed." You aren't sure if you should ask, it might violate confidences, but it does feel like something you should know. "How much danger did she put herself in?"

Lila taps their foot and the alakazam turns to stare at you. When you meet his eyes you can feel his mind boring into yours. "She's pretty strong. Just not well trained. Metang also aren't great telepaths. To be frank, she should have died. Only thing that saved her was experience linking to other minds thanks to her twin. I managed to get her fixed up. As long as she takes things easy for a couple weeks and doesn't try anything like that ever again she should be fine."

"Did she know that going in?"

Lila sighs and puts their head in their hands. "I don't know. She was out of it pretty bad at the time and I was stretched thin fixing her, helping Genesis, making sure the Russian didn't escape, arresting the Gages, and dealing with a false positive on the UB alarm. I do know she has a history of putting her life in danger without really thinking things through. And she has a very annoying enabler."

You're curious but you shouldn't press. If Cuicatl wants you to know then she can tell you.

Genesis stirs and looks around the office like she's never seen it before. Lila promptly withdraws their alakazam. You give Genesis a friendly smile and she relaxes a tiny bit. "Good afternoon. My name is Dr. Valerie Livens. I'm available to help you today."

"With what?" she croaks out.

"Whatever you want. Helping sort through old memories, processing recent events, planning out what to do next. I'm a licensed psychologist. Not a psychic."

She glances towards Lila. "I'm just here to keep you from locking up. Pay me no mind."

"Locking… up?" she looks and sounds like a house of glass cards. Like she would fall apart and shatter into pieces if you breathed on her the wrong way.

"Sometimes you seize up in place and don't move until a telepath prompts you to. I'm not sure you notice it happening."

Genesis shakes her head.

"Unfortunately, today's session can't be fully confidential due to the presence of a third party. I still promise not to tell anything to anyone without your explicit permission. And I'm sure Officer Takeda can make the same promises."

You glare at them. This is a therapy session, not an interrogation. If they turn around and passes this off to the DA or their supervisors, you'll be extremely upset with them. Upset enough to reconsider your friendship.

"I can, yes."

"Do you know what you want to do today?" you ask her.

"No. I… don't."

"Let's start with the basics of what you remember then. Can you tell me your name?"

"Genesis Elizabeth Gage."

You glance at Lila and they nod.

"Date of birth?"

February 3, 2004."

Sounds about right.

"Do you remember what happened?"

She looks down towards her clasped hands in her lap and squirms. "My parents wanted me to be straight," she says. "And I let them do it. Until I didn't."

Her voice is surprisingly even for the weight of what she's saying.

"Cuicatl showed up to help. I… I mostly remember her. I think. I don't think I did until she showed up. Then she did something with sharp air and sand and…" She blushes. Deeply. "I thought she was my girlfriend and kissed her." She rushes the last part out. A sharp contrast to her slow and low cadence before it. "Does… does she hate me? I don't… there aren't many people…"

She doesn't continue her sentence. She doesn't move at all. You're not even sure she's breathing.

"…left," she picks back up. So that's what the 'glitching' looks like.

"She's stayed with you, hasn't she?" you reassure her.

"She was there when I woke up. But she had to leave—" Her eyes flick up towards Lila as she remember something. "Is she hurt? She sounded like there was an emergency."

"She'll need bed rest for a while."

"Good." She lowers her head again and her voice slows back down. "I didn't want to hurt her."

"She chose to help you."

Genesis bites her lip. "What happened to my parents? Or the psychic. How—"

She locks up again. Lila closes their eyes and Genesis unfreezes. "—did I get here? Cuicatl said something about knowing someone and…" She's still breathing. Her face still twitches. She's not glitching, just genuinely confused.

"The psychic is in a prison with safeguards against his abilities," Lila says. "He's been charged with sexual assault of a minor via preternatural ability. I think he's getting locked up for a long time."

So that's who's taking the fall. Interesting.

"Your parents agreed to give back your pokémon and possessions. I don't think they'll be bothering you again." It might be your imagination but for a moment you think you see a flash of something cruel in Lila's eyes. What did they do? Do you care? You just hope this doesn't come back to bite them. "Your team are being checked over at the Pokémon Center. Oh, and your psyduck evolved. He was worried about you and wanted to help."

Genesis smiles. It's a nice flicker of warmth in a gloomy atmosphere. "I'm proud of him."

"You can tell him yourself in a few hours. It seems like all of your pokémon are in good health. They're mostly just being held as a precaution."

You're guessing the pokémon's ownership was disputed. You've heard of at least one abusive parent who tried to claim they were the actual owners or guardians of their child's pokémon. It would be an easy argument to make if you could afford a high-power lawyer and the child in question had brain damage.

And then the glimmer of happiness is gone. "Are they going to prison?"

Lila winces. "They were released from jail a few hours ago. I doubt they get charged with anything."

Genesis scrunches up her face but doesn't look too surprised. "And will my siblings be…" She locks up. "…taken away?"

"I think Child Protective Services will have to conduct a more thorough investigation this time. Someone leaked the report of their welfare check on you." You're willing to bet 'someone' means 'Lila.' They're really burning all their professional bridges, aren't they?

"I'm worried about them," Genesis murmurs. "They were talking about 'fixing' them, too."

Oh shit. And they've just learned there aren't any real consequences for doing it.

"I will make sure that the right people here that."

"Didn't stop them last time."

Lila looks away in shame. You know that's going to eat at them for a long time. You're still not entirely sure how they didn't find out about this. You gave them a heads up yourself.

"Can I ask you something?" Lila asks.

Genesis hesitantly nods.

"Did they use a psychic-type on you before the surgery? There was some bruising around the pain processing area of the brain. It seemed old. Like it had healed and scabbed over lots of times."

"They had a starmie. When I thought about Cuicatl or…" She trails off. Still breathing. Just staring very intently at the floor. "Someone else. I think… maybe the girl outside on the couch? I don't remember her name or how I know her. She seemed familiar. Like I should know her."

"That's definitely assault with a pokémon. Probably a few other crimes."

It doesn't matter. The charges won't stick. They have to know that, too.

"The third one," Genesis says. "The boy. Allana? No, Kekoa. He's. I remember dating him. We were on a balcony and we…" She freezes and relaxes. How often does this happen? Can it occur while she's asleep? That would be really dangerous. But Lila left her asleep and unsupervised so she must think that's safe. "…we kissed and I realized he was a… a transgender?"

"'Transgender person' is usually preferred."

"Right. Then. A transgender person. And I hated him and that's why I got kicked out. Because I'd kissed another girl." She frowns. "No. That's. He's a boy. Xerneas would want him to be happy."

That's a good sign, at least. Maybe she can heal things over with Kekoa. Even if she wildly misremembers their relationship.

"But then I think I camped with him. And Cuicatl was there. So it would've been after I got kicked out. If I hated him I wouldn't have gone camping with him and—" She huffs in pain or annoyance. "I hate this."

"You could always just ask him what's true. Even if you've lost people you could regain their friendship."

"Why would they want to explain everything over and over again?" Her clasped hands separate and turn into fists. "It's not fair to them. Why would…"

"Because they care about you."

She goes still. Not as unnaturally as her glitches. Just a girl weighing something immense.

"I'm not sure my parents cared about me," she admits in little more than a whisper. "Just what I could be. My sister—"

She starts sobbing incoherently. That's fine. Sometimes you just have to let it all out. And she has more to let out than most.

When everything is said and done only you and Lila are sitting in your office. Each of you has a bottle of cheap wine in hand because, fuck it, why not?

"I got fired," Lila admits. "Intervening in a domestic political matter. Ignoring a potential UB. Failing to stop this." They sigh and sets the bottle down. "I had customs checking against the names of every psychic we knew who they might hire. Gages found out. Had the guy approach by boat and then teleport to the shore."

"I'm sorry. That must be tough."

"Losing the job?" They snort. "No, I hated that fucking job and everyone who got me to do it. Now I finally have to walk my own path. For better or worse. Failing her… two people almost died because I didn't consider everything. I'm not sure how to live with that."

"The only way we can live with any mistake: do what you can to fix it, learn from it, and then move on."

They pick the bottle back up but don't drink from it. "I threatened Gage after he was released and I was fired. Told him that if he ever tried to hurt his daughter again, I'd sic my alakazam and metagross on him and see what was left of his mind and body in the morning. Think he pissed himself when he realized I was serious."

That's quite the image. It's a little cathartic after everything he's done.

"I thought about just doing it then and there. Make him suffer. Still thinking about it."

"You would stop him from hurting anyone else, but that would be the last person you ever helped." Hopefully she takes the message better than Kekoa.

"I know, I know, gods do I know. It's why I won't. But if he dies screaming it's still a better fate than he deserves."

"I agree. I just don't think you should do it."

They throw their head back and drink more than is probably healthy. Which means you're still sober enough to be judgmental. You take a few gulps of your own, ignoring the barely tolerable taste and the burning of alcohol in your throat.

Once you've both set your bottles back down they look up at you. "Do you think the kids will be okay?"

You think about it. Cuicatl's crushing guilt and terrible self-esteem. Kekoa's insistence that he can't help anyone except through violence. Lyra's paranoia and anxiety. Genesis's empty and fractured mind.

But there are glimmers of hope. Cuicatl came close to admitting that something wasn't her fault. Kekoa knows his friends need another kind of help. Lyra's at least willing to stay by Genesis's side, even if Cuicatl is there. And while some of her core memories are lost, Genesis can make new ones.

You could see things going either way for any of them. Cuicatl fully collapsing into guilt and getting herself killed or coming to terms with her past and bravely marching into the future. Kekoa resorting to a self-destructive spiral of violence or staying as a vigilant protector. Lyra entering a life-or-death struggle with Cuicatl for no reason or finally finding peace with her trauma and being a supportive friend. Genesis breaking down and becoming trapped in her loss or setting out to find new things.

"I don't know. They could be, with time and effort."

Left unspoken: until then, they won't be.