I REALLY love the new paradox pokemon a lot

Lillie’s wearing a new outfit today. She’s ditched the old Sunday school getup that she had before (that her mom picked out for her apparently?) and has on a new set of…well, they’re kinda schoolgirl-ish clothes, but way cuter. A nice skirt and blouse. She seems way happier. More confident. I guess getting kidnapped by your own family will do that. Or will it? I’m not really sure. Gladion stopped by earlier that morning to drop off the Sun Flute, saying that we would need it along with the Moon Flute in order to summon the legendary beast that would take us to Lusamine. I tucked it into my bag. Hau made a comment that Lusamine must be pretty generous if she would be willing to loan us an ancient artifact. Lillie just sorta looked at her feet. Gladion snorted.

We took the same chartered boat we arrived in over to Seafolk Village, the main establishment on Poni Island. It’s on these floating docks with house-boats tethered to them. It actually reminds me a lot of Pacifidlog Town, which I stopped by when I visited Cadence in Hoenn—both towns that seem to be built into the sea itself. I know Pacifidlog is built on the back of a Corsola colony. I wonder if it’s the same here? Even though it’s a super low-key town and doesn’t seem to be a tourism hub (not a lot of money coming in and out of Seafolk Village, I’d imagine), people here seem super chill, sure of themselves. I really dig it. Hapu met up with us later in the day for some fish and chips (a hearty dockworker’s dinner, she said proudly) and told us our next step was to head to the Poni Wilds. Lillie said she was tagging along and was excited to see it. Hapu said that no one could call Lillie lily-livered! Lillie didn’t get the joke. Hapu seemed flustered. Nervous lesbians.

We rode some Mudsdale that night along the Ancient Poni Path for Hapu’s home. Her grandmother plied us with fried plantains and some sort of salty canned meat cooked up in a fried rice, with malasadas for dessert and Salac Berry ciders the entire time we were sat at the table. I talked with Hapu and her grandmother about our journeys, how helpful Hapu had been lending Vera and I some Mudsdale to cross Ula’ula’s unforgiving terrain. How I looked forward to sparring with her someday! I looked over to Vera to see if she had anything to add, but she was sitting on the sofa in the living room, petting their Meowth. I think she was too drunk to hold a good conversation anyway.

Next morning we woke up to a note from Hapu that she had gone to the Ruins of Hope down Poni Breaker coast. Her grandmother was awake, and made us some egg and salted meat breakfast burritos and strong coffee. When we had eaten and our bags were ready to go, she took our Ride Pager and registered her Machamp. Said he could push boulders for us if need be. We talked about being swept up by strong, muscular men until we reached the coal-black sands of Poni Breaker Coast. The shore stretched as far as the eye could see and then some. Vera elbowed me and said that there was probably a better way to get to where we needed to go than walking, or even riding a plodding Mudsdale through the wet sand. She paged a Sharpedo over and jumped on. I gave chase not long after. We raced around the dark waters of the bay, laughing and chasing each other. The jet streams from the Sharpedo stirred up the sands beneath, revealing glimmering bits of Nuggets and Star Pieces. We dove for them until we were exhausted, then jetted down the coast so that we weren’t too too late to our meeting with Hapu.

When we got to the Ruins of Hope, we found ourselves faced with some sort of….ancient puzzle. Huge stones were blocking our path, but there were gaps in the bridge that looked like they’d fit the stones perfectly. I took this as an opportunity to page that Machamp that Hapu’s grandmother gave us. He swung me into his capable arms and shoved the boulders around until we had clear passage to the back room. Hapu was kneeling in front of a shrine, apparently communing with the local Tapu. When we approached she told us that she had been selected as the new island Kahuna, to replace her dad’s old man, who passed away a few years ago. I offered my congratulations and said that I’d hold her to that battle that we talked about! She grinned that lesbian grin and said that we’d best be heading to Exeggutor Island to find the Moon Flute. Lillie appeared from behind her and said that the Tapu hadn’t made itself available to her and offered no insight as to how to cure Nebby, so that she wanted to tag along with us to see if maybe being near the flutes would do something.

Hapu arranged a boat for us to Exeggutor Island. I hadn’t actually seen one of these in person before, and boy let me tell you, these sentient palm trees are fucking HUGE. And apparently they’re part Dragon-type, too?? They were thrashing around when we got there, the whole lot of them. And no small wonder, since they were being chewed on by a horde of Pinsir! After bargaining with her for ten minutes to get her help, I finally convinced her to chase them off. In thanks, one of the Exeggutor actually gave us a boost to the highest part of the island, which was super helpful since it looks like the path climbing up had long since crumbled. We grabbed the Moon Flute. I couldn’t help but feel like I was gonna be smitten—smote?—I don’t know, given some kind of reckoning by some sort fo deity for just…taking an ancient artifact.

But nothing happened, nor did anything really happen until after we had picked up Lillie from Hapu’s place and headed down the road to Vast Poni Canyon. A row of Team Skull grunts were squatting across the length of the entire row, arms locked, demanding to know where Guzma went and why we had taken him. From above us we heard a deep, raspy voice command them to stop. It was Plumeria, the Skull admin with the bad pink and yellow ska hair. It was interesting to see the grunts react to her presence. It was a mingled fear and adoration, one that I’ve seen many of my younger sibs look upon me with. She was the big sis of the team! She chastised them for trying to chase us away when we were only trying to help find Guzma. They scattered once she told them to find something more productive to do with their time, then pressed two Poisinium Z’s into my hand. Plumeria paused as she passed Lillie, and apologized for treating her the way she had. Lillie nodded curtly, but once Plumeria walked away I saw Lillie smile. Boy oh boy does she ever continue to give me Kio vibes. Speaking of! Where is my sis? I should send her a message. Give her some heads up about what might be happening with this whole Necrozma deal and Ultra Beasts and legendary Pokemon and…whatever else is waiting for us. I’ve gotten pleasantly numb about it to be honest. The edibles that I bought back at Seafolk Village might have something to do with that. I barely registered fighting the Ultra Recon Squad and their Poipole again. They asked if they’d fight Necrozma when it inevitably came, and soon. I said sure. Like I had a choice.

Vera and I led Lillie and our Mudsdale down through the deep, winding Vast Poni Canyon. There were layers and layers and layers of stratified earth, which had to date back several hundred thousand years. When was Alola founded? Somewhere around three thousand years ago? Had to be longer, right? I don’t know, it was weird to think about how long this island had been around without humans, and was I even supposed to be here, were these legendary creatures trying to tell me to just like. Fuck off back to the mainland. Vera kept us moving at a steady clip deeper and deeper into the canyon. She was quick to tell me about little holes and caverns hidden behind rocks or brush, and instruct me to go through and see what was in there. I don’t know if she just wanted to find what was there and keep it for us (or herself) or if she was trying to keep me kind of present and engaged, but it kinda worked. By the time we got to the trial, I felt energized enough to tell Lillie some dirty jokes. She laughed at some of them.

I guess Vera’s reward for keeping a sharp eye out was that she caught a Jangmo-o, a scaly little dragon that thumped its tail against the ground and rattled its scales at us as we approached it. It called for help often—and successfully—but Vera finally caught her in a Luxury Ball. I think she’s still mulling over what to name her. But this nameless Jangmo-o quickly evolved into Hakomo-o, so it must have been right on the brink of evolving when she caught it. I was prepping my team to enter the trial site when Vera firmly put her hand on my arm and said that she’d take the lead on this one, and let me know that I’d be invaluable as backup. I think she could tell I was still not 100% present. And to be honest, I was happy to take a back seat and watch this Hakomo-o violently flinging the attacking dragons away from us. This thing had a dangerous glint in its eye and was unafraid to make its presence known, rattling its scales every chance it could to warn oncoming Pokemon. I was apprehensive about it being a good fit for Vera at first, but really it seems like both of them want to be left alone and will give people plenty of warning about it.

The Hakomo-o battled the totem Kommo-o with all its might, and I swear to you this, the timing couldn’t have been more dramatic, but as this Hakomo-o was down on the ground after taking a direct hit from the totem, it evolved into a Kommo-o as well, locking arms with the totem. Both of them were rattling their scales so loudly that we all had to cover our ears. But in the end, Vera’s Kommo-o overthrew the totem and sent it scurrying for the canyon. We took our Dragonium Z’s and took a moment to sit and rest. It had been a long, grueling day of hiking. We were ready to head back to town, but needed to catch our breath for a moment. Lillie handed out some malasada. I ate mine while I watched my sister cleaning the scales on the Kommo-o, which rumbled contentedly, even though she was keeping a close eye on Vera.

Lillie has her own place to stay in Seafolk Village. Vera said she couldn’t sleep, and was going to spend some time with her new teammate, trying to figure out her name before we headed back to Vast Poni Canyon tomorrow to make our way up to the Altar of the Moone. Why do they spell it like that? Why couldn’t they just say “Altar of the Moon?” I shouldn’t make fun of other languages. I can’t speak another language! I should call Ren. I’m not sure what tomorrow brings. Should I call Mom and Dad? Of course not, that’d just worry them. I think I’m going to pop a few more of these edibles and take a walk along the beach. Clear my head. I mean, what else can I even really do?