It must be Moon's sense of morbid curiosity that compels her to catch the daytime ferry to Aether Paradise from Heahea city; it's no sooner than the ship docks and she has both feet on the Very Large Floating Structure that the nervous churning in the pit of her stomach makes itself fully known. But as much as she's helpless to stop the trepidation that grows with every step, she can't seem to bring herself to turn back either.
It's not like it isn't inevitable, this visit. Moon figures that it's her responsibility to follow up on the Foundation, if not as champion of Alola, then as someone who'd been there when— well. Perhaps she's giving herself too much credit. The tale of Nebby and Lusamine, of Nihilego and Ultra Space, isn't entirely hers to tell; she hadn't been there for the start of it. So if it makes Moon nosy, for wanting to be there for the aftermath of it all, then that, too, must be inevitable.
Closure. That's what she's here for, even if she'd only played a facilitatory role at most.
Unlike the two occasions prior that Moon has come, today she can afford to tarry. Since winning the title, Moon has had nothing but time. It's as liberating as it is underwhelming: the freedom to choose when she'll go about her duties, when she'll train her pokémon, even whether or not she'll sleep in a few extra hours in the morning has become boring, and quickly. Though, for now Moon luxuriates in it. From the docks, she finds her way to the elevator and starts from the bottom up.
The basement area of Aether Paradise is just as she remembers: blues and greys in muted tones, clinical to the point of being just shy of creepy. She runs into Wicke, turning down the corridor, and does her best to suspend judgement as the woman launches into an explanation of Lusamine's condition and Lillie's decision to leave for Kanto. She does her best not to look as hollow as she feels afterwards, as she follows Wicke into Lab B and loses hours losing herself in binder after binder of a lost man’s research.
When she finally emerges on the conservation deck, the blue noon sky has washed itself in lurid oranges and purples, the light of the setting sun throwing smatterings of shadow across the hall. And, though Moon damns herself for it, she has to concede that it’s all as breathtaking as the first time she’d come: the sprawling walkways, the fences of pristine white and inlaid gold, the lush greenery just spilling over the edges. The rescued pokémon, playing happily on the grass and in the water.
She lets herself wander for a while, thinking of nothing in particular until she happens on Gladion in the centre of it all.
There’s a part of her— the small, fond part of her that she usually keeps in reserve for Hau and Lillie— that wants to quip something like, ‘Fancy seeing you here,’ but Moon holds her tongue and quashes the urge. It’s a stupid thing to say; of course she'd see him here. She'd heard, she can't remember from where, that he was to be acting president in Lusamine's stead during her absence.
So in lieu of an immediate greeting, she joins him, wordlessly leaning against the railings by his side, and hopes he doesn’t mind that it takes her more than a moment to murmur, "It's been a bit of a while, hasn't it?"
She could have been anywhere in the world. She could have done anything with her life, now. She was free that way, but it did come with a certain kind of price. Everything haunted her in vivid but broken detail. Pieces of this, pieces of that. Nihilego. Lusamine required a return to normalcy. She was done being limited again. She’d come so close. What exactly she’d come close to didn’t matter much. With all her capability she didn’t belong anywhere but at work.
With this in mind she had vanished into the aether, contacting no one directly for some time, biding her time while trying to figure out any sense of a plan, but she’d been dramatically and brilliantly cautious. But she needed to know things she couldn’t find on her own this time.
By these metrics she developed a short plan, with no end game. Only a way of beginning. From a phone she’d rigged to be untraceable and undetectable by other devices, to pinpoint her location or see who was calling, she dialed an old and familiar number she would never, ever forget.
And it rang for a moment, and then he picked up.
“Hello, my son,” she said evenly. “How is Paradise?”
lillie had only been at poni islands a couple of hours, and she had already made herself known to the locals of seafolk village. something seemed weird: not even two days ago, lillie was presented as a fragile being; a girl who stumbled at her own shadow -- and now, with the help of her heroic friends, she had evolved into a confident bliss; or some would say, a z-formed edition of herself.
there was a sparkle in her eyes that had been trapped for years: an overwhelming aura that resembled that of nebby; a rare sight of beauty enraged within the galactic twist. she sure was something different, and everyone could tell.
lillie grasped onto the straps of her pink rucksack which contained cosmoem. she grunted; ever since nebby had “evolved”, it seemed to of gained some weight, but lillie didn’t mind.
she was at the foot of the wooden platted docks, lost in thought as she gazed blankly at the water. the thought of her mother, the thought of cosmog, and the thought of getting stronger all raced through her mind, “i can do this -- i have to. for me, for nebby .. for my mother ..” she thought, before she was snapped out of thought due to the sound of foot steps which creaked at the vintage wooden decks. lillie stood still, she wasn’t really phased by the approaching figure. she continued facing the water, expecting it just to be another one of the villagers.
A simple shrug and nervous laugh was all Lucas could muster as he and Gladion came out of a meeting with their science teacher, Professor Colress as he slammed the duo’s group project right in front of them at the start. Initially confused as to why, the teacher soon began his hour long rant on why the two of them had to pull their weight or risk dragging the class down with their insignificant project.
Calming down afterwards, he gave them an extended deadline of two weeks to come up with a new project before apologizing for his behavior but the damage was done as Lucas found a new found fear of the teacher while Gladion merely nodded as they left.
“Same here. Guess we should get started eh? Not a fan to go in back there again.”
((I’m too tired to make an entire plot, so here is my opinion on crests.))So, I’m going to base it off the original series bc that’s my favorite.Red would have the crest of courage, Green the crest of friendship, Fire the crest of either sincerity or hope. Leaf would be the crest of love, if we add the johto kids, I’d say Ethan has the crest of light and Silver would have the crest of kindness.
Litten - What conclusions do people jump to about you?
“Hmm... Honestly? I really don’t know. I’m not the kind that really focuses on what other people think of me, so...” Candice trails off, head tilted slightly to the side as she considers the question. “Well, people who don’t know me are often quite surprised when they find out I’m a Gym Leader. Maybe I don’t look the the sort of person who would work hard enough to hold a position like this...?” She finishes her explanation with a shrug and a light chuckle.
Froakie - What is your sense of style?
“Comfortable and simple! I wear a lot of blues and whites too. They go really well with ice-type Pokemon!”
What immediate, drastic change would you take in life?Red tilted his head at the question, contemplating just how to answer this. To him, he had already made a drastic change in his life, leaving Kanto and flying to entirely new region was a pretty grandeur decision. Using his index finger he pointed directly to his chest, then opened his palms upwards in front of him. and twisting both hands couple times ending with the palms pointing forward and then bending them back to his chest. Roughly translating to, I already have.
“Okay so. Sit the fuck down kids and lemme tell you about this big project I have that I’ve dubbed ‘The Pokedex Project’ – creative, I know. I started it when I was fifteen, and the big goal of it all is for me to travel around every region imaginable, gather up all of the information that the professors there have gathered, and be able to put them all into a comprehensive databank. Since I was never really... y’know, given credit for working my ass off to complete the Kanto Pokedex, I figured, go big or go home, y’know?”
