11.18.2016

  THE END IS UPON US NOW - REPENT

  TOWO CANTO IX - TIME CRAFTED SHADOWS DESECRATED SPIRITUAL PHYSICAL WHAT WE HAVE WROUGHT AND CONTINUE TO ... ABSENCE OF GOOD WE ARE ALL ONE HOLLOW ONENESS DARKNESS HOPE LIGHT IMITATE FOREVER

  Whatever message the creator had attempted to get across had been thwarted by poor planning: the cardboard square they had scrawled it on had too little space to host it, and they had abbreviated the quote to the point it lost its coherence. If Sun squinted, he could see at the very bottom there had been another attempt to replicate the words in (an extremely dubious) Alolan. The ultimate result was more of an attempt to evoke the atmosphere of the original quote than to reproduce it faithfully, and Sun did not tend to commit texts of religions he did not follow to memory, so its meaning, if it even had a meaning, would be lost on him.

  He pressed his knuckles into Kukui's shoulder. "Where did he get that date from?"

  In response, Kukui covered the boy's brow, mumbling for him to avert his eyes. But it was far too late to scrub it from Sun’s mind, and he chuckled at how much it seemed like a poster promoting a blockbuster film or something. Don't miss it! - the end of the world, coming to a theater near you. How thrilling!

  At this point, he'd take anything to distract him from the sun boring down onto him over the flat roofs of downtown Hau'oli. It may have only been nine in the morning, but his forehead and underarms had already collected a discomforting layer of moisture. He fanned himself with one hand.

  The trinket strung around his fingers had an uncharacteristic heaviness to it, as if it had been crafted from the purest gold, and not from wood so finely whittled he thought one might be able to prick their finger on its corners. Ilima had even gone through the trouble of carving Sun's full name into it at the top, right above the four jagged triangles symbolizing the four islands.

  Sun Kamalei Freberg Alaka'i, island challenger, 2016.

  The Alaka'i was a fairly recent addition; the result of a quick stop in to Hau'oli Town Hall. It was an addition and not a replacement because, just like how his mother had kept his father's surname even after he left them, Sun had decided he'd retain his last name, too. He could be a Freberg and an Alaka'i. The marriage of past and future.

  Even if it did lack the slickness of Mizuki Kazakami or Hau Leokū.

  But today, something about the amulet troubled him. Knowing his was one of only five granted.

  Sun had assumed Ilima would be kind to the challengers. He had assumed he would be willing to forgive all their trivial little slipups and silly errors. That all the bluster at the start about separating the wheat from the chaff was just that: bluster.

  Sun had been wrong.

  And no amount of maybe or what if would be able to lift this weight off his chest. If there was something embedded deep inside him and Mizuki and Hau granting them some pizzazz the others lacked, he was blind to it. He wasn’t intelligent, or athletic, or cool, or well-liked. He wasn’t even good.

  But the longer he thought about it, the more he justified it to himself: Ilima had given them an out. For all the challengers knew, the preliminary would be a one-time thing - after all, Ilima seemed to have been the one to make the decision to reinstate it, and he was close to aging out of the Trial Captain position entirely. They could have had a chance to start anew with a whole year's worth of additional experience.

  If they didn't take it, didn't they only have themselves to blame?

  A horn blared from across the horizon, commanding the attention of all present. Kukui's fingers idly tapped Sun's shoulder, tap tap tap. Sun chanced a look back at the Enraptoran doomsday sign, which the ocean breeze had pried from its precarious position and left on the ground face-down. Families with young children and dull-eyed office workers and gaggles of giggling teenagers whirled by, crushing it underfoot. Bits of morning sun danced upon the crests of waves near and distant.

  The usual ferry came at noon, but was almost always choked with tourists now that the summer months were upon them, so Professor Burnet preferred to hop on with a friend of hers from university who owned a small research vessel. Saved them all a lot of time and money. The only downside was that their ship didn't have clearance to dock in the ferry terminal building, and had to settle in alongside the other boats - fishing trawlers, speedboats, yachts, even a gargantuan commercial cruise ship.

  As agonizing as the wait for the ship to pull into port may have been, it was the sort of agony one forgets the moment it ends. In his case, the sight of Burnet dressed up in her tie-dye T-shirt and sweatpants, her luggage in one hand and her other in the air, was all he needed to erase that pain.

  As soon as her feet touched solid ground Kukui sprinted up to her and wrapped his arms around her, and the two teetered together there at the edge of the water, soaking in the moment, their lips brushing. Sun couldn’t hear what he whispered to her, but she pressed her forehead into his chest in response.

  The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

  Once the two had pulled apart, Sun led them into the blessed shade under the marina building's overhang. Burnet slumped against a structural post, letting out a weary sigh.

  "It's never been this busy before," she said, holding her hand to her forehead. "You don't know just how grateful I am to finally catch a break from it all. Anomalies have been up 400% the past two months..."

  If anomalies start becoming routine, then they aren't exactly anomalies anymore, are they?

  "Yeah. It's certainly been a real challenge for us these past few weeks," she said, rubbing the back of her head. She closed her eyes once more, leaving in her silence only the sweet sound of the waves lapping at the docks. When she reopened them, she flashed the two a faint, almost apologetic smile. "But I want to hear about you guys! What have you been up to these days?" Her eyes skirted past them, darting around the area, searching for someone... "...What about that girl you told me about? Or did you leave her back at the lab?"

  Sun and Kukui exchanged glances. The air grew as charged and heavy as it had been during Tapu Koko's visit.

  "Sun," Kukui directed, "tell her what happened. Tell her the truth."

  The accusatory tone to his words annoyed Sun - this wasn't his fault. If he had known they would try to pull her away from them, he'd have warned her, every time. Every single time.

  "Lillie's not staying with us anymore," he said. "She's over with the Children of Starlight. They invited her to come with them, and she accepted."

  Burnet stopped. Gave a nervous chuckle. A cautionary chuckle.

  "You must be playing some kind of trick on me. Aren't you?"

  Sun shook his head. Kukui suddenly found his sandals absolutely fascinating.

  Her lips curled into an O. "You... you're serious?"

  "Serious as I’ll ever be," Sun said, wincing.

  Burnet's face fell, and a skin of darkness slid over her eyes.

  "Kukui," she said. "Kukui. We need to talk."

  "How in the flying Farfetch'd could you let this happen?! I trusted you!"

  "Burnet," Kukui said, holding his palms in the air. "Please, I..."

  "You know what those people intend to do to her," Burnet said. "You know what they are."

  What they are. Something about that combination of words pricked at Sun's brain, and if it hadn't come from the lips of the woman he considered a mother, he might have stepped out and challenged her right there and then. The tone she used would be more suited to a discussion of hostile aliens or craven monsters than his best friend's family.

  By now they had traded the morning heat for the dreary chill of the ferry terminal, and the two professors stood in front of the restrooms, backs arched in confrontation. They'd directed Sun to sit in the main waiting room while they conversed, but he instead lurked around the corner, cupping his hand to his ear. The mousy-haired receptionist trained her eye on him from behind the front desk, but he did his best to quell his broiling self-consciousness. This conversation was too important to go unheard.

  Burnet settled her hands on her hips. "Aren't you the one who's always on about helping the people who need it the most? And you're just going to sit on your behind and twiddle your thumbs while they try to brainwash an impressionable child? A child, Kukui. You cannot let them do this."

  Kukui put a finger to his lips, his eyes darting down the corridor. Sun swiftly ducked to the side, escaping his notice. "Pipe down. They could be anywhere..."

  "Let them hear me," Burnet snarled. "Let them. This is too important not to say. I don't know if you understand this, Kukui - " in spite of her previous words, she looked over her shoulder " - I don't know if you understand this, but every second she's in there is a second she's in danger. End of story. If you don't do something, I swear, I'll march in there myself and get her out of there if I have to. If they want her in their fold, they'll have her over my dead body."

  How she would plan to accomplish this, Sun had no idea. No one outside the Children knew the exact location of their complex; only that it lay somewhere on the northern side of the island. Even Mizuki had only ever given out vague hints, and she couldn't tell east from west, so he doubted their reliability.

  Besides, why did she care so much in the first place? She'd never met Lillie. Did she even know her name?

  "I don’t disagree with you, but that wouldn't be wise," Kukui was saying. "You don't know what they might be willing to do to the rest of the island if provoked. Hala -"

  "Has put up with them for far too long," Burnet asserted. "I understand he wants to keep the peace, but it's downright shameful to Melemele that we've allowed them to proselytize here and grow their numbers for so long. Is it not already bad enough that we've got to deal with Team Skull here as well?"

  Well, Sun thought bitterly, the Children wouldn't be the only ones proselytizing.

  Burnet swayed and shifted on her feet. "And, one more thing. Sun’s friend. She's involved in this somehow, isn't she?"

  A hollowness opened in the pit of Sun's stomach. He touched the tip of his tongue to the roof of his mouth to rid it of its newfound sliminess and gulped.

  "I feel bad, almost, for allowing her around him," Burnet continued. Her voice had taken on an almost staticky intonation. "I don't care what his mother said. I just don't see how it's possible someone could be brought up in that kind of environment and come out even halfway normal."

  "Don't blame Mizuki for this," Kukui said, as if reading Sun's mind. "She's just a child. Hala and I wouldn’t have trusted her with one of our Pokémon if we didn't truly believe she had good qualities! She's always been a loyal friend to Sun."

  "Her loyalty is worthless when, ultimately, she serves her father's will. And Sun hasn't told you what he's told me she's said to him."

  Irritation flickered inside him, subsuming his hollow feeling. If he had wanted Kukui to know about it, he would have told him himself!

  "Burnet," Kukui said sternly, "he's having a difficult enough time as it is. For his sake, leave her out of this."

  Burnet quieted, and the two stood close to each other, staring down at the linoleum tile and their feet. After a moment, her fingers fumbled for Kukui’s, and as they entwined them she pushed her head into his chest. Sun leaned in to catch any stray words, and bent himself for so long his upper back punished him with a dull ache.

  Kukui was the one to breathe into the silence. "I'll go talk to Hala tomorrow."

  Burnet let go of his hand, stepping back. The authoritative stance she assumed seemed to shrink the height gap between them.

  "No," she said. "No. I will talk to him, and if he doesn't demand her safe return from Tenshiro right this second, then mark my words: there's going to be hell to pay."