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The mug idly squeaked under his hands, gentle sponge rubbing all the marks from a long day of coffee down the drain. Even with the cleaning, he knew it wouldn’t last long- the coffeemaker was already bubbling away again, the scent of Burnet’s strong brew filtering through the air as he glanced up and away from the sink, eyes resting on the dark shape just outside the kitchen window.
They still had no clue who the girl was. She’d shot out of an Ultra Wormhole nearby, crash-landing into the ocean just off of Kukui’s little stretch of the shore and bobbing right back up like an apple in the odd pod she refused to leave. Burnet’s questions hadn’t been answered- the girl could hear them through the pod, he knew that much, but she only stared past them with wide eyes, clutching the oddest phone or Rotom-dex or Rotom-camera? he’d ever seen close to her chest.
Even as it grew dark, despite Kukui’s efforts to bring her into their house for just a night, she’d hunkered further into the pod, stared defiantly at him until he’d finally gone back into the house. He’d seen her eating something- it looked like an apple of some kind, but she’d eaten it straight through, without bothering about eating around the core. What she didn’t seem to have…
A warm hand pressed against his back, gently slipping up to hook an arm over his shoulder. He closed his eyes, leaning back into the body pressing into his back and taking a deep breath.
“I’m worried about her too,” Burnet murmured, just as perceptive as she’s always been and really, how did Kukui get this lucky? “Alola never gets too cold, but we’re supposed to be dipping a bit in temperature, and she’s in shorts and a T-shirt. I’m worried she’ll catch a cold.”
He hummed in response, opening his eyes again to look out the window. In the rising moonlight, he could see the pod, moonlight reflecting softly off of the weird energy barrier that covered the girl. There was no movement he could see inside- if he looked closely, he could see a darker shape curled up against the moon, still and unmoving.
“I’m more worried about her supplies,” he muttered back to his fiancée, nudging the side of his head against her cheek before leaning back forward to finish the scant dishes. “I saw her eating an apple, but I don't know what she has in that pod. She might not have water- and as long as she refuses to leave, we can’t get her any.”
Burnet made a considering noise at that, turning away from him- the coffeemaker finally stopped bubbling and spitting, a sign that it was ready to dispense the liquid in it.
“Should we put a bottle or two out there? Maybe some food? She’ll need more than just apples- we have some malasadas and some Slowpoke tail in the fridge, I think, and apples in the bowl in case she likes those and runs out…”
Kukui listened to her speak, smiling into the mug as he turned the sink off and set it into the rack to dry. “We have to make sure that no sand gets onto the food,” he told her, but Burnet was already flapping her hand at him as she ducked into the fridge.
“We have plastic baggies for that,” she called as she rummaged through the fridge, “and the wild ‘mons around here know better than to eat food that are in baggies. Besides, we don’t have to take it out now- we can wait for morning, when she’s awake and more willing to talk to us.”
And… that was his second worry.
Kukui sighed, drying his hands off as he turned to lean against the counter.
“What if she can’t understand us? She could hear us- she was reacting to words- but she didn’t ever reply. It could be because she’s a Faller from a different region- Sinnoh, maybe? I know that Unovan is close enough that we can understand each other, but Sinnohan, Hoenni, and Johtonian are distinct enough to be impossible to work around.”
“We know some words of each,” his fiancée reminded, pulling the creamer out from where it’d been haphazardly shoved and pouring a healthy dosage into the mug she’d filled. “We’ll be able to work
something
out. I mean- the only one we don’t know for sure is Paldean, but Paldean is close enough to Unovan which is close enough to Alolan.”
“True that,” he muttered, tilting his head in acknowledgement. “We’ll work it out.”
At that, Burnet looked up at him, and the determination blazing in her eyes was enough to almost take his breath away as she nodded at him.
“We’ll work it out,” she repeated, both soft and fierce in the same breath, and Kukui felt his stomach swoop in that familiar dizzy exhilaration it always did. He couldn’t help his smile, a smile he just knew was goofy beyond belief as butterflies threatened to escape behind his teeth. Burnet smiled back, all sharp teeth and soft love as her features softened, before turning and taking a sip of her coffee.
Still smiling, Kukui glanced back to the window, and the girl from another world just beyond it. She still hadn’t moved, curled up tightly in her pod, and he felt his smile drop just a bit at the sight.
“Come look at this.” Burnet had moved, and as he blinked, turned to walk to the table, she tapped at a paper with the butt of a pencil. “I saw it on the back of the pod, when we were moving it over. It seemed to be a logo- one I’ve never seen before.”
It certainly did look like a logo. A six-petaled flower with pointed petals, a thick stamen in between the petals and a diamond (?) nestled neatly into the very center of the logo.
“...Huh,” Kukui muttered, squinting at it. “That definitely is a logo, but not one I’ve ever seen before. It almost looks like a lotus, but… again, not one I’ve ever seen before.”
Burnet hummed agreeingly and graciously avoided pointing out the redundancy, circling it loosely on the paper.
“Either way, it’s a start. It means that we can, hopefully, start to get a lock on where the Faller came from.”
“It’s a start,” he repeated back, leaning down to press a quick kiss to the top of Burnet’s head. She pressed into the contact, and his last glance of her as he shrugged his professor’s coat back on to go back into the lab was a smile on her face, even as she stared down consideringly at the paper.
It wasn’t cold, but it was chillier than Bee had felt it on Lental before. She drew herself up further into a ball, wiggling in place to get to a more comfortable position. The Neo-One was made for exploration, not for sleeping, and her back was feeling the difference now.
Her research camera was quiet, only the sound of ambient lab noise from the other side making it through the connection. No one was there- it made sense, it was dark wherever she was, which meant that it was likely dark where the lab was.
Even though she didn’t know where they were in relation anymore.
Just the memory of what had happened was enough to chill her to the bone, and she shivered, curling up a little tighter and hugging the camera closer to her chest.
The split in the sky just above the Lental Reef had gotten everyone curious, and at first she hadn’t even been meant to go. But Todd had volunteered that it should be safe, and Mirror had agreed, and then she was in the Neo-One with Phil and Rita clamoring over each other and Mirror half-heartedly trying to calm them both down. There hadn’t been any of the usual Pokémon in the area- almost none, in fact- and the water had been acting odd below the Neo-One. She’d thought nothing of it- she should have, though.
Nothing had happened, despite photo after photo being diligently snapped of the split- not until Phil had suggested to try throwing something at it. She’d had her supplies, all neatly organized in her bag- fluffruits enough for a thousand expeditions, Illumina orbs of all colors, her photo album for quick and easy storage- and it had been no trouble for her to grab one and chuck it at the hole in the sky. She’d missed the first, and the second, but the third had connected.
It had all happened at once. It was like the sky exhaled, and then-
Phil had screamed as the arm burst through the sky, dark and sharp and claw-like and scrabbling for purchase among the clouds. Rita had shouted something, and Mirror and Todd were both saying something, and all Bee could do was raise her camera and-
snap a photo.
It clicked softly, a perfect picture of the arm of a beast she’d never seen before and a quiet beep of confirmation that it had been sent to the computer at the lab, and the claw ripped out of the sky with a faint bellowing otherworldly roar and then-
the Neo-One had started beeping as the hand crunched around the pod but had stayed secure and Rita had started screaming now and Todd’s voice was raising and Mirror’s voice was panicked in a way she hadn’t heard since she and Phil got chewed out for testing the un-tested shrinking function of the Neo-One and then she’d been lifted up and pulled through-
She hadn’t looked at what was outside the pod, not too closely, not without her camera buffering the view for her. It was- confusing, and twisted, and static through the lens, and the Neo-One was shuddering as those claws dragged it further into the sky(?) and her family’s voices were glitching and cutting out and then a roar and the sensation of being flung and then the sky had broken around her-
The water was familiar. She knew water, and as bubbles cleared around her and schools of Magikarp and Finneon darted away and her family’s voice stabilized into a slightly glitchy but still hearable tone, she’d relaxed. This was- she knew this. It was one of the oceans in Lental, it had to be. The beast must have teleported her- she’d seen Pokémon do that before!
Then the Neo-One had bobbed up to the surface.
Beach stretched as far as the eye could see, fading into thick forest and vegetation the further inland she saw. A mountain rose above it all, and a sick feeling had bubbled up in her throat at the sight.
The only jungle or forest near the ocean was Founja, and the mountain was farther inland than this one seemed to be. The plants were also the wrong color- instead of the usual deep, glossy green of Founja, these plants and trees were brighter, almost tropical. There weren’t any tropical forests or jungles in Lental, though. Not that she’d heard of.
Mirror was still talking, but her attention was stolen by the sounds of a motor whirring. She’d turned in place the best she could, blinking at the boat approaching with a winch attached to the end and a woman shouting in a language that seemed familiar and unfamiliar at the same time to her. The winch had gotten attached to the Neo-One, and she’d been pulled onto the shoreline by the woman and a darker-skinned man working together to get the pod onto the sand, and then they’d started talking to her.
Bee could make out bits and pieces. ‘Where’, ‘who’, ‘how’, ‘name’- those were repeated, quickly and then slowly. Her throat was tight with anxiety and her family’s words were ringing through her head, so she’d just- not answered, stared past the two at the ocean waves beyond them.
They’d set her up next to a wooden house with a porch, a layout so close to the base in Lental that it made her feel sick. The man had stayed outside, talking at her- she could make out ‘inside’ and ‘home’, but she’d just shook her head, curled back into the seat and stared at him until he finally turned and left. She wasn’t- she couldn’t leave the Neo-One. Not until she knew where she was.
Todd had muttered something at the man’s voice, something about the region of Oa’i and language, and he hadn’t been in the mix of voices since. She’d eaten a fluffruit- it was sweet and light, but not really filling- and watched the sun slowly set over the horizon.
Now, a chill had descended over where she was, and exhaustion swamped her bones but she just- couldn’t get to sleep.
The lights had shut off in the house a long while ago.
Blinking, Bee shifted again, stretching out the best she could in the Neo-One and readjusting in the seat. Normally it was so comfortable, but… now that she was trying to sleep in it, it felt like it was trying to jab knives into every muscle in her body.
Idly, she pulled another fluffruit out of her bag, biting into it. It dissolved on her tongue like pure sugar, crunch quickly melting into nothingness, and with a bite in the pit of her stomach she thought of the big meal that Todd and Mirror had cooked together the night before, thick stew and rice and fluffruit and spice mixing into a curry that was the best thing she’d ever eaten. Phil had teased her for how quickly she’d eaten, but he’d also gotten seconds, and Rita didn’t even look up from her bowl until she was coughing and hacking around food that went down the wrong pipe and everyone was laughing.
She missed them.
Swallowing the lump in her throat with another bite of fluffruit, Bee stretched, did her best to get comfortable.
The sand crunched outside the Neo-One, footsteps, and she couldn’t help the panic leaping into her throat as she bolted straight up in the pod, head whipping to the direction and-
The man who had talked to her before held his hands up, a seemingly-universal gesture of peace as he stopped moving. He was holding things, she realized- a bottle of water, a bag that held things she couldn’t make out in the darkness around her in the other hand.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he lowly said, soft words she couldn’t understand still managing to convey his intent. Feeling her heart slowly calm down, Bee shifted in place, feeling heat slowly creep up her cheeks and ears as he took a couple slow steps further.
“Mind if I sit here?” He gestured to the sand next to her, and she looked down, back up- her head tilted as she thought through the words, and then the movement.
Was he… asking to sit?
She nodded, curiosity warring with the need to get as far from the stranger as possible, and he smiled, turning to sit down next to the pod.
“I know that this is all- scary. Wherever you came from, it’s probably a lot different than here.”
She glanced at the man, drawing her knees up to her chest as she watched him sit. His feet were swaying back and forth, the same way that Mirror’s would as he lounged on the beach and the same way that without fail got Todd to tease the man mercilessly as both Phil and Rita snickered at each other, trying to match their feet to the rhythm of the professor’s. That lump ripped back into her throat, and she swallowed dryly, looking away and blinking long and hard to wipe the burning at the edge of her eyes away.
“...Here. Water and some food- it’s a malasada and an apple. You haven’t eaten or drunk anything in a couple hours.” A hand gently knocked against the side of the Neo-One- Bee flinched away from the noise, eyes squinting shut- when no other noise came, she peeked an eye open, looking at the noise and…
The bottle of water and the bag were balanced on the edge of the Neo-One, leaning against the shield between her and the world. The man wasn’t looking- he was looking out at the ocean, humming a quiet tone to himself as he watched the waves crash on the shore.
…She was hungry. And thirsty. The fluffruit hadn’t been enough to fill her up- and, maybe…
The man was unknown, but he hadn’t tried to hurt her, even when she didn’t answer his questions. Maybe… maybe he was okay?
The energy of the Neo-One hummed cooly against her hand as she reached out, slowly making her way through the energy field to grab the water. She wasn’t quite sure how it worked- Mirror had never explained it to her. All she knew was that it kept stuff out but let her throw stuff from inside out of the pod, and she could bring stuff inside the pod with her.
The water bottle snagged on the shield, but she managed to pull it inside. The logo wasn’t recognizable, a tall blue mountain in front of an orange sun, but did that really matter when it was just water?
The bottle cracked open easily, and Bee didn’t wait before taking a sip of it.
She could feel the man’s eyes on her, but she couldn’t make herself look, staring at the bottle as the water sat on her tongue.
It tasted… different. She couldn’t name what about it was different, but it was, almost- more crisp, a little deeper in flavor than the bottled water she was familiar with. It tasted wrong.
The burning in her eyes returned with a vengeance, bright and painful, and she couldn’t hold it back this time. Swallowing the wrong water down, she felt water slip over her cheeks as her vision blurred.
“It’s not right,” she whispered, voice hoarse and choked as she blindly slapped the cap back onto the bottle and roughly twisted it on. “It’s not right.”
The energy field around her hummed, and she jerked in place- through the tears in her vision, she could see the man’s hand, pressing against the energy field. He was looking at the blue hexagons shimmering into view against his palm, curiosity clear as he looked at where he was touching before looking up at her.
Bee swallowed, blinking the blurriness in her vision away and looking back at him. His eyes were… not soft, but not hard either. He tilted his head, eyebrows furrowing, and then-
“Are you okay?”
Okay.
That was one of the first words she’d understood past the basic ‘w’s.
The tears came back, quicker this time, and Bee felt the water bottle drop out of shaking hands as she wiped the wetness over her cheeks away. Blindly, she shook her head, sniffling as the research camera fell against her knees. The strap was tight against the back of her neck, but she didn’t want to move it, not when it ensured she couldn’t lose it.
He sighed, barely-heard past her sniffling, and it was quiet for a long moment.
“Not good with kids,” she heard him mutter, soft and quiet, before something gently rapped against the shield. She looked up, wiping her cheeks dry, and-
He’d moved, standing a couple feet from the Neo-One and holding his arms out.
“Do you want a hug, kid?”
It was a universal gesture, one that she’d seen from Todd when she came back from a long expedition trip or from Mirror after she brought Rita back to the house with scraped knees and faces sore from smiling or from even Phil after he had a rare nightmare and wanted someone to sit with him until he could fall asleep again.
The research camera hung heavy around her neck, a reminder of what she couldn’t reach. She…
Before Bee could decide against it, she was smacking the button on the inside of the Neo-One that closed the shield down. She could come back for her supplies later.
The tears were coming out faster as she awkwardly shoved herself out of the chair, legs gone numb with her position protesting the quick movement, but she didn’t care. She- she didn’t know where she was, and she didn’t know who the man was, but…
Sand crunched under her feet, and then she was wrapping her arms around a solid torso, white professor’s coat so similar to Mirror’s as she pressed herself closely to the man’s stomach and she was crying as solid arms wrapped back around her, warmth soothing past the pain in her chest and in her head as she hiccuped into his jacket.
“I got you, don’t worry,” he muttered, pulling her closer. “I got you.”
“I want to go home,” she choked out, hiccups in her throat making it hard to speak. “I want to go home.”
“...I know, kid. I know you want to go home . I’m sorry.” The man was quiet, barely audible over her own snotty tears, and all Bee could do was press herself closer, squeeze her eyes shut against the all-encompassing knowledge that she wasn’t home, couldn’t go home yet.
She didn’t know how long they stood there, but her legs had started to go weak, her tears had started to run dry. The bone-deep, soul-crushing emotion had cooled off, simmering low in her chest and dizzying in its strength, and she couldn’t muster a response as she felt strong arms shift, before the ground wasn’t touching her feet anymore. The world twisted around her, and her mind spiraled into darkness, and the last thing she could feel was movement.