I was never drinking those Jynx drinks again. That and I was kicking Faba in the balls if we were ever alone. With those and the specialist thing, it had been a good week for personal promises. I didn't need pain medicine to think weird things, but it certainly helped. Even with the meds though, my hands hurt like hell. My right hand was in an extra layer of bandages to keep both the surgery stitches and the cut from Faba's Teleporting coffee mug from reopening, but I wasn't supposed to move either of them much.

  While I felt that cut vividly, I was pretty numb to the Psychic that had broken my hands the whole time. It still hurt like hate fucking Giratina, but the adrenaline made a hell of a difference in how much I really felt it. With my seething rage at Faba, which was further fueled by him sticking around me, that adrenaline was still running thick even when they were trying to put me under for surgery, which necessitated a rescheduling to later the next day. I'd taken the nurses advice, got my hands pretty much glued in place, and gone on a walk down Route 1 to clear my mind.

  Pretty much everything beneath the skin was in the wrong place after the attack, and that had been done without once tearing anything apart except for some of the skin on my knuckles. If it wasn't the most awful thing I'd ever felt with my body I'd be tempted to say it was impressive. Even through the numbness, the sensation of being scrambled like a jigsaw puzzle was gut-wrenchingly vile.

  Now my hands were different. Long stitches that would be scars ran up the backs of both hands, from the base of my wrists to the webbing between my ring and middle fingers. Just under half of my nails sat askew on their beds. The creases of knuckles and palms didn't line up where they should, and arteries weaved differently than I remembered. Rather than being comfortable, reliable, and grippy, my reconstructed hands felt tender, unresponsive, and slippery. I hoped that was all temporary.

  If I had been out in the wild when this happened without a pokémon to heal me or transport to a pokémon center or hospital, I would have definitely lost my hands completely. Now, I was in recovery. Massive mitts that kept my hands still and slightly splayed, check-ups, and absolutely no involved training. I was pushing the nurses to let me paw through my notes as part of my treatment, and it worked without fuss. What were they gonna say? No? Not with my tried and tested blend of pitiable and intimidating they wouldn't.

  I guessed I was lucky this happened when it did. Kumī needed lots of battles to get up to speed with the team, and my team could do skirmishes without me easily. Kumī may have been a wild pokémon, but it was practically a non-combatant. The only trouble was making sure people didn't think they were wild pokémon hanging around the training grounds. I got out when I could, but the drugs made me sleep like a brick and just being outside my room drew attention from my medical team, so I was paying some kid to stand around and act like he was training them.

  Normally I'd keep any cash I scored to myself, it was getting rarer and rarer in people's wallets after all, but I had had a harmonious windfall. Because injuries like mine meant I couldn't go out and do trainer things, and most trainers needed to do trainer things to feed themselves and their teams, I was benefitting from the system being helpful for once! I got paid a small chunk every day I was stuck in the hospital.

  It had already been a few days, and I desperately wanted to just get back out again, but my hands, sadly, were still fucked. The prognosis was looking up for a while, despite how serious the situation was, but it was looking more and more like I would never make a total recovery. The whole medical team agreed, I'd likely have some mix of sensitivity, twitches, tremors, numbness, stiffness, and nerve pain in my hands for the rest of my life.

  'Eat food!', Toma repeated through his pictograms. He was right, being hungry and high made me a mess. "Call.", I told him, and he lowered my phone down so I could poke around the screen with my nose. I had moved this number to the top of my favorites for my own convenience. The phone didn't even ring before it was picked up.

  "What, Kau'i?", Mikala asked. "Food.", I said, distilling down the conversation. She sighed, then asked, "Wings again?" "Lemon garlic and whatever that second hottest one was, yeah.", I responded immediately. "You could just call them yourself. It's a pizza place. I'm just ordering exactly what you ask for every time as soon as you hang up.", Mikala complained. Normally I would've just smiled and not given an inch, but I couldn't hold in my laughter under the meds' influence. She hung up on me that time.

  Forty minutes later, I had taken over for Joey in the training grounds nearest to the hospital and was eating with Mikala. I'd gotten her to order me food from Scolipizza at least once a day since I woke back up. While I ordered practically the same thing every time, lemon garlic wings and the spiciest wings I thought I could stomach in that moment, Mikala grew increasingly desperate for a variety to emerge from the boxes of burgundy and purple cardboard.

  "Pasta.", I observed. She nodded slowly, as if wary that I could be right, and said, "It looked better on their menu online." While Waiola lifted another wing to my mouth with her tail, something simple to train her to control where her poison was concentrated, Mikala pushed a disposable fork through the sickeningly gray Clauncher scampi. Why they'd needed to freeze and reheat the meat when Clauncher were native to Alola was beyond either of us. I pushed her the box of lemon garlic wings.

  We ate in companionable quiet, occasionally interrupted by me swallowing the mouthful of spit my burning mouth had created. We watched our teams practice, and for once Mikala wasn't taking notes. It was because of the excessive wing sauce on her hands, but still. Kumī was as bad as ever at fighting, but Waiola and Toma made for good teachers. Mikala was encouraging more exchanging of strategies between her teammates after seeing how much my team seemed to benefit from it.

  "What pokémon are you looking for next?", I asked, slurring through my numb lips and breaking the silence. "You remember what we discovered during our care guide project?", Mikala said rhetorically. "You actually think Kingambit is real?! And you're gonna train one?", I sputtered skeptically. She replied smugly, "Maybe not, but if it is... well, Minior aren't exactly the most reliable of sweepers, so I think they'll play very well off of eachother." I could tell by her face she was more proud of this plan than even her pompous tone implied.

  "Is this what you've been planning out while you live the Leech Life on the back of my superhuman training abilities?", I questioned her between bites of habanero something or other wings. "Something like that.", she responded noncommittally. My throat was dry from both the spice and the fact I'd mostly been drinking via intravenous saline, so my groan came out extra anguished and scratchy. "Are you allergic to answering questions normally?", I begged her. She smiled and asked back, "Are you addicted to asking questions?" "Touché.", I conceded.

  I subvocalized an order for Kawami to give me room to speak clear of the spicy wing, then let out the pent up trainer ideas that had been stewing in my head. "Waiola, Kumī, you need to reach Kawami and Toma's level.", I stated to my fresh-eyed teammates. Waiola brushed me off pridefully, but Kumī didn't mind the truth. "Kawami, Toma, you still need to adjust to your roles in battle.", I continued, addressing my closest confidants. They were both excited to mend that gap. "And all of you need to practice being more Poison-Type.", I concluded.

  "There's one solution to all of that that just so happens to not require me to use my hands.", I declared smugly. Mikala had cleaned her hands during my speech and was taking notes again. "Toma and Kawami, keep fighting Waiola and Kumī until you're evenly matched. No pokémon centers, don't hurt anyone too bad, otherwise...", I said, and smirked, "no limits." Waiola slinked reluctantly over to Kumī to begin scheming, but their inexperience was showing. Kawami snuck up on Waiola and took her down with a single Crunch, and their gauntlet began.

  Mikala waved to Evander on my behalf as he approached. We were both bored of only having the other to talk to after so many days, so I'd gotten Nanu to give my fellow ex-grunt an escort of Meowth to keep Gladion from pulling something while he went to meet us. Kumī was growing steadily, but we could only watch the same fight so many times before getting tired of it.

  The Ghost-Type specialist opened the gate and sat down with us on the other side of the training field. "Evander, this is Mikala, she's Ilima's replacement. Mikala, this is Evander, he's that stupid Team Skull admin's boyfriend.", I introduced the two. "I already told you we broke up Kau'i.", Evander said darkly. "Congrats.", I replied, half-sarcastic. They shook hands and began awkwardly staring forward at my team's training.

  Waiola was sending spiraling puffs of burning gas, Flame Bursts, towards Kawami and into Toma's Spider Web while Kumī acted as her vanguard. While Toma maintained his webbing in the dark of Night Shade his Infestation of spidery constructs kept the pressure on his opponents, and with Kumī so close holding off other attacks Waiola couldn't use her Corrosive Smog to melt aways the tiny things.

  Kumī took lunging Bites out of Kawami when she tried to attack, but it wasn't much. Waiola's Sweet Scented fumes had made Toma and Kawami more sloppy than usual, but the gap in experience was still too much. As Kumī missed another of its Bites, Kawami Infiltrated their formation and took out Waiola with a passing Wing Attack. Toma took the opportunity to eliminate Kumī with a Fell Stinger from above.

  With the round over, Kawami and Toma brought their unconscious teammates over to us for recovery. Evander looked at me with shock. "You're training this hard when you're injured?", he asked. I explained, "This training doesn't need my input at all, and it's getting my newer pokémon up to speed fast. Waiola's too prideful to give up and Kumī will keep going whether it's hard or not, so the brutal style suits them. Kawami and Toma would do the same in their shoes."

  "I never trained like that.", Evander commented coldly, then reiterated, "Never." Mikala joined in, "I wouldn't expect you to. It's a very Poison-Type approach to training." "It is!", I said proudly, "Grit and survival and desperation! Trying anything and everything to get ahead! That's the fuckin' Poison-Type!" They were both looking at me with narrowed eyes, but Mikala was still taking notes so I took it as a win.

  From the pocket of my jacket my phone started buzzing, and Toma helpfully lifted it out and put it on speaker. "KAU'I WHAT ARE YOU DOING WITH EVANDER!?", Gladion shouted, his voice coming out crunchy through the phone speaker. I replied acidly, "We're just hangin' out. It had nothing to do with you until just now." He was silent for a while, and I looked to Evander, who was watching me and the phone carefully. "Bullshit.", the admin finally decided.

  "Please, explain.", I requested. "You...", Gladion started, "you ruined the Poni Island mission. You're close with Kahuna Hapu." I interrupted him to say, "We're pretty much sisters. Also she wasn't the kahuna at the time.", not because I cared about the correction but because it would annoy him. "YOU'RE SCHEMING TO TAKE DOWN TEAM SKULL!", the phone crackled angrily. I snorted, "Scheming?! I'm glad you think so highly of me." Mikala tittered and Evander closed his eyes, trying to keep a scowl off of his face. His texts had painted a picture of how not well their talk had gone.

  I gestured with my head from them to the phone, seeing if they wanted to say something. Mikala cleared her throat and said clearly, "No schemes are required to dismantle your organization, it would fall apart from a light breeze." "Who... was that?", he petulantly pushed. "Mikala," she said, "successor to Ilima and future Trial Captain." Gladion raged non-distinctly on the other end.

  I spent the effort to mute our end of the call, which stung the inside of my finger, and turned to Evander. "Was he always this angry?", I asked. He looked haunted as he answered, "No, but he was close. I think he just doesn't have a direction anymore, he lost the drive of the plan, so he's focusing on me." I nodded. "The plan that led to Tapu Bulu being imprisoned?", Mikala questioned us. I just unmuted the call.

  Gladion had been going the whole time, pausing halfway through sentences as he put his jumbled thoughts into jumbled words. "Gladion!", I shouted into the microphone. "WHAT!?", he screamed back. "You're right.", I said. Everyone went quiet, and I rolled my eyes at the two with me in person. "I'm going to release Tapu Bulu, and I already have a group of grunts on the inside to help me do it. Nanu's helping too. There's nothing you can do about it.", I lied blatantly.

  "I have one idea...", Gladion said, "I'll stop you." I hung up. "Now you don't have to deal with Gladion.", I told Evander, grinning mischievously. "Is any of that true?", Mikala insisted. "What? No," I said, "just giving him a direction. If what I just said gets Team Skull to start infighting, all the better, but what am I gonna do about an island guardian being trapped in a town full of trainers imprisoning him?" I got more strange looks.

  "You could do exactly what you just said you would do.", Mikala answered my rhetorical question. Evander joined, "You're the closest out of anyone to Eva, and she's the inside man for the ex-grunts right now. You even coordinated with Kahuna Nanu to let me meet up with you today. You could do all of that." It was my turn to give them a weird look.

  "I'm not Red, okay? I don't dismantle evil organizations in my free time. I'm a little girl. That's not happening.", I told them bitterly. "You could actually do something about it though," Evander shouted, incensed, "make up for what we did!" "I'm not a hero!", I shouted venomously, "I don't do things for people! I have my own problems! I am a homeless! orphan! If I don't do well as a trainer, my life will continue to be shit."

  "This is just like the specialist thing.", Mikala stated derisively. I choked on my fury, tapped on my phone, at significant cost to my nerves, and called the second number in my contacts. "You've reached Scolipizza, how can I help you?", some teenaged sucker droned through the speaker. Mikala glared at me, and it was almost as good as my own glare. Almost.

  Just as the nurses had said, a man entered my room at exactly two pm. "Kau'i, hello.", he greeted me, taking a seat in the rolling chair next to my bed. "Physical therapy time?", I prompted. "Not quite," he replied, "this first appointment is to gauge the range of motion in both of your hands and arms and how we'll be addressing that." "So only pretty much physical therapy.", I joked. He chuckled. "I'm Doctor Kit, I hope we get along well.", he finally introduced himself. He knew not to try to shake my hand.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  "So I've looked at your charts. I have all the records of your injury both before and after surgery. You're really lucky, usually such a powerful attack from a wild pokémon would go from the outside in, but because of the nature of the Psychic that injured you all of the parts of your hands were still present when you were admitted for surgery. Still, full reconstructive surgery is nothing simple.", he monologued.

  Dr. Kit rolled the tray table next to my bed over so it was in front of me, then placed a set of red and green wooden blocks and two bins of matching colors on the table. "First test, dexterity.", he announced. I offered my hands to him so he could remove the more stiff and thick wrappings, then I got to work. The blocks were sized so I didn't need to squeeze them to hold them as I lifted them to the matching bin, and light so I wouldn't struggle there either.

  Still, my hands where so stilted, jittery, and stiff that I struggled to hold onto the blocks with any consistency, and the incoherence between my skin and muscle made everything slip rather than grip. I didn't resort to pushing blocks with one hand and scooping them into the other, but I came close. Dr. Kit noted my results and moved on.

  Next was a stress ball. "Just squeeze?", I asked him. He nodded and said, "Don't overexert yourself, but yes, just squeeze." I squeezed. It was pathetic. The ball deformed around my fingertips, but I couldn't muster enough force to push at all deeply into the foam. The same was true for both hands.

  The doctor pulled out a strange device next. "The same thing as the ball," he explained, fitting the rings on my fingers, "but in reverse. Pull against the elastic and try to spread your hand out." Finally, he fixed the cuff of it around my wrist. The weirdness of the device gave me no sudden boost in strength, and it went about the same as the stress ball for both hands.

  "Final test, just give me your hands and I'll move them very slowly in different places.", he declared, pulling out a set of protractors. "I'd love to give you my hands," I said, "these ones are awful and I think I'd like a new pair." We both laughed at my joke while I lifted my hands over to him for the test. "Tell me as soon as it begins to hurt.", he instructed, cradling me. I acknowledged, "It always hurts, but I know what you mean."

  He started with the left wrist, which had lots of pain points at weird angles but was mostly functional when he worked around them. He jotted down the angles after each distinct motion. Then the palm, pokey in places but it wasn't very flexible in the first place. The thumb was supposed to be a monolith of muscles, but now it jerked and twitched as the doctor assessed its ranges.

  The other fingers were less interesting. I couldn't touch my palms with any of them and they universally refused to splay far from their neighbors. The stiffness was most apparent in the fingers, since they were supposed to be such precise instruments. All but the pinkie didn't bend much at all after the final knuckle. Each of them shuddered while Dr. Kit tried to move them in smooth and steady motions.

  Then the doctor repeated the process with my right hand, noting minor differences in how they'd ended up after my surgery. He paid special attention to my right palm, where Faba's stupid mug had cut me. It made my whole right hand less strong and flexible after reconstruction. I mentally redoubled my promise to kick the Assistant to the Junior Branch Chief in the balls.

  "Okay. I have all that I need from you. I know you're taking your island challenge right now, but please do check in regularly. No one expects you to travel back to Melemele for that. Once you leave, just talk to the local physical therapist wherever you are and my office will send them your patient data.", he explained. "Got it.", I said.

  "That is all I need from you, but you still need something from me. These are yours.", he said dramatically, placing a few items on the table. Another stress ball, tweezers, and some kind of gloves. "Toma, do you mind?", I requested. Toma grabbed the items off the table with string from above us. Dr. Kit looked up in shock, only to see Toma giving him a polite wave while he packed the things in one of my bags.

  After gathering himself, he told me, "Those are for exercises. If you think you're falling behind in your progress in spite of your adventures, use those." I smiled at him and said, "I'm pretty sure I already had all those things, except the weird gloves, but thanks." "You should be back out in the world in the morning, once the hospital has processed these papers.", he informed me, gesturing to the notes and forms he'd filled out over the visit. Then Doctor Kit rose from the rolling chair with his stereotypical doctor's bag and said, "It was good meeting you Kau'i, good luck."

  Ilima had almost refused to tutor my pokémon at all, but when I explained that the money I was using was the pay from my hospital visit, he eased up. It had taken just over a week in hospital and a few days out of it, but my hands were finally in good enough shape to be actively training. I could form a most-of-the-way closed fist! With both hands! The dates lined up, and just after a quick sandwich I didn't bother to buy with my morally upright money, I joined Ilima and Mikala at a private training field further into Hau'oli which he apparently owned.

  "Hello Kau'i, I'm pleased to see that you're on time.", my move tutor greeted me, "Do you have the Ariados of the hour with you?" A Smeargle was already at his side, ready to join in the teaching. He wasn't Moody like the one we'd fought for the orange petal, Ilima trained many Smeargles. "Of course, I'm not gonna waste my own time and money.", I brazenly responded. I looked back to Mikala, but she just stood back taking notes. She wasn't my friend at the moment. In the here and now she was Ilima's mentee. I released Toma before it got awkward.

  "Toma, hello! Me and my team will be helping you learn Baton Pass and Substitute today.", he said smoothly, and Toma glowed. I'd gone out of my way to make this a surprise for him, since he was surprised so infrequently, being the sleepless lookout for our little crew, and because he loved surprises. His buggy eyes sparkled at Ilima while his pattern face gave me a grateful and beaming smile.

  "First on the docket, please demonstrate both moves to the best of your ability.", Ilima requested. Toma nodded excitedly, then focused intensely on Baton Pass. I readied Kumī's level ball for a switch. Baton Pass was a move that required me to be just as on the ball as my team so that whoever switched in had time to receive the Baton before it dissipated, which was why I needed my hands in decent shape.

  Just like in the fight against the Hakamo-o in Vast Poni Canyon, Toma's Baton slowly formed into a translucent mirage rather than a solid stick. He tossed it up and disappeared, and I sent Kumī out to catch it. The Baton Pass broke apart in the air before he could. Kumī didn't seem bothered by it, but I was more than a little disheartened. We'd spent almost a month on this one move, and it wasn't even consistently at the level it had been under stress at the beginning of the process.

  I switched Toma back in and told him, "Time for Substitute." I would let Ilima break the news into digestible chunks, these weren't my moves to teach. With a force of effort, Toma spat up a knot of webs the size of his thorax in front of him. Ilima's Smeargle flicked his painterly tail at Toma, and a stream of Razor Leafs struck his Substitute and shredded through the webbing easily.

  "Okay, that should be enough. I know where to point you to make progress.", Ilima said to us, "Smeargle, Substitute please." At the command, Ilima's Smeargle drew a classic Substitute doll in front of himself with a few stamina draining strokes, then spread his arms and basked in the sun for a moment, using Synthesis.

  "That is what a proper Substitute looks like. The two forms that best hold the energy of the move are those of the doll and of the user.", Ilima instructed, "As for Baton Pass, its ease of use varies with how much it's transferring. The move is hard to use without any buffs to transfer, easier with a light buff that can be freely condensed, harder again as the buffs get more numerous, and easier again as the pressure of even more buffs compresses itself."

  He continued, "This Smeargle knows Heal Pulse, so I want you to form Substitutes repeatedly and try to Baton Pass them to another pokémon. When you use these moves together, it's best to form the doll-shaped Substitute to match both yourself and whoever the Substitute passes to. Is that all clear?" I nodded, Toma nodded, and I gave the go ahead to begin.

  Over the next several hours, Toma honed both Substitute and Baton Pass into a useful state. Even though we'd been practicing Baton Pass on and off for nearly a month now, Substitute came much more naturally to Toma's skill set. He'd cobbled together some version of the move in the fight with the Vivillon even without my input, whereas I'd had to coach him through that first lucky use of Baton Pass.

  Toma spat up a fully formed Substitute doll made from his webs, then began his Swords Dance. Ilima wanted us to practice using Baton Pass in that awkward middle stage to prove he actually had the hang of it. He had also given the pokémon a lunch packed full of leppa berries to keep their type energy flowing, but both Toma and his Smeargle were still drained from it all. My hand nearly seized up in pain as I threw forward Waiola's luxury ball in time for her to receive the Baton from Toma.

  The doll stood dutifully in front of Waiola on her entrance. Ilima gestured to the Smeargle, and Waiola raked him with a powerful Scratch to demonstrate the successful transfer of Swords Dance's attack boost. Finally, the trial captain's shoulders relaxed and he declared, "Toma is now fully trained in the use of both Baton Pass and Substitute. Congratulations." I smiled, tapped the buttons on each of my poké balls gently, then ordered, "Team, hug 'em for me!"

  Ilima tried to get away from us, but he'd taught his protège too well in the art of observation. Mikala had caught my intentions and blocked Ilima in just long enough for Kawami to get on his head. After that, it was all over. Toma wrapped him gingerly in thread, Waiola clung to his chest, and Kumī carefully pooled around his feet. It had taken way too much time to get Kumī to not touch people with the parts of it that hurt to touch. Mikala walked me back to my room at the pokémon center as Ilima was unspooled. I'd pushed my hands way too hard.

  "This has been a great distraction," Mikala started, "but I have training to do without you. Don't you have other friends?" "It'll be fun!", I shot back, gesturing widely to the beach. "Why train at the Melemele Sea anyways?", she grouched, squinting her bookish eyes. "To get you some sun.", I deadpanned. I'd had Kawami sleep through the day as her species is supposed to do so she could scout out a secluded patch of coastline for us. Apparently Professor Kukui had his dinky little lab somewhere in the area.

  "TOMA!", I called suddenly, "CHANGING ROOMS!" He uncurled himself from around my midsection and pushed off my back to get to work. In a short few seconds, two circular curtains of silk hung from threads in the middle of the beach. I entered the closer of the two, pulling out towels and a mismatched top and bottom. "I didn't bring a swimsuit!", Mikala shouted over to me. I passed Kawami a one-piece suit and a towel and told her, "Airdrop."

  I hear the swish as they fell. "Agh! What is this thing!", Mikala cried. "You gonna wear it or not?!", I yelled over to her. She let out an aggrieved sigh, and I helped Toma pull down the curtain I'd dressed in while she continued to gripe as she changed. When she finally left the impromptu changing room, she glared daggers at me. "A boys leotard? You didn't have anything better for me?", she interrogated me.

  She didn't look bad in it, the square shape of it fit her short hair and tall forehead. I put on a nonchalant grin and walked behind her to take down the other silk sheet. "I have what I'm wearing and that. I also have a pair of swim trunks, but no second top. What did you expect? I don't buy things.", I rambled to her without facing her.

  "What's the actual reason you picked the beach?", she asked, walking next to me down to the surf. I looked from her down to the poké balls I'd clipped to my hip and rubbed them gently, conscious of the twisting of my thumb. "Gonna work on learning Toxic with Waiola and Kumī.", I explained, "They should pick it up faster than my other pokémon, and it's a pretty obviously important move for a Poison-Type specialist to be able to teach. If I go the move tutor route, Toxic will be my money maker."

  She bent down, laying out her towel a few yards from the water. My finger slipped going through my therapy exercises, the nail biting into the tip of my thumb. I laid out my towel. "How does the beach relate to teaching Toxic?", she asked, curious. She was always curious. "Melemele Sea is full of Poison-Types, and Toxic is meant to make concentrated poison, it can't be dispersed like other Poison moves. We practice in the shallow water and all the gunk gets cleaned up naturally by the Tentacool and Mareanie.", I explained properly this time. Mikala rushed to get her tablet to take more notes.

  I released Waiola and Kumī while she was away. "You're both gonna be learning Toxic.", I told them, receiving excited stares, "Almost every pokémon can learn Toxic with enough practice because almost every pokémon is at least a little toxic. They've got stomachs and guts and can vomit, you Poison-Types are just better at all that. What we need for this is a distilled shot of what makes you toxic at your cores."

  "Kumī, for you I think that means your nastiest parts. You can digest almost anything and make it clean, but you get dirtier doing it. Take that waste that builds up in you, gather it together, and spit it out. Waiola, for you that means your fluids, your corrosive blood. Don't heat it up into a gas, don't let just a little out, let all the blood parts filter through and launch out just the accumulated venom."

  "I think you guys will get the basics pretty fast, so the main thing is to start slow and work up until you've mastered the move.", I concluded. Mikala had been writing nonstop since she'd retrieved her tablet. I purposefully rolled my eyes at her as I walked with Waiola and Kumī into the thin stretch where the waves lapped at the sand. You'd think from just looking at them that Waiola would fare better in the water than Kumī, but because of her Fire-Type it was the other way around.

  "Okay Waiola, first attempt.", I said, lying on my belly to get on her level, "Get your blood flowing through her jaws, you know how to do that." She nodded fiercely. "Good. Now use those pores your blood seeps through for Poison Gas or Poison Fang to separate the normal blood and the toxins. Carefully push the gunk through without letting it mix back into your blood.", I instructed.

  Waiola concentrated, but her poison didn't. She shook her head and opened her mouth, showing her regular toxic blood had pushed through her pores along with the more dense poison. "That was close. Keep trying. You can spit the failures into the water as revenge.", I reassured her, giving her a chaste pat on the head. I got up, moved, and crouched down next to Kumī.

  "Now it's your turn. You feel all those undigested bits and pieces? They should be all over you, really mixed in to keep them at low concentration.", I directed it. It gave a low effort thumbs up. "Well we don't want low concentration anymore, so bring all the really bad stuff together, right at the back of your mouth if you can so I can see it before you launch it.", I ordered.

  He gurgled, then opened his mouth to show me the wad of evil he'd gathered. "You brought along a bunch of less poisonous shit when you pulled that together.", I observed, "Break it apart and try again." Kumī didn't mind the effort, and began working on his second attempt right away.

  I coached them through the move again and again until both Waiola and Kumī could use Toxic to a bare minimum standard. Mikala wrote copious notes from the sidelines, occasionally dipping into the water to cool off. From there I focused on Kumī, since Waiola was competent enough to make progress without me. Both took turns spitting their Toxic bundles into the sea, getting progressively faster as they grew accustomed to the move.

  "You might already be the best person in Alola for teaching Toxic without a TM.", Mikala commented. She'd snuck up on me while I focused on Kumī. His Toxic wasn't coming out fast enough. I finally responded, "No way. Plumeria's got more pokémon and I'd bet all of them know Toxic, she's also a Poison-Type specialist. Hell, Ilima could probably do better than me, not to mention all the professional move tutors the Battle Tree employs."

  "Ilima hates teaching Toxic to his pokémon, something about there being no consistency between how different pokémon use the move. As for the Battle Tree, the move tutors there specialize in powerful attack moves, nothing like Toxic gets taught there.", Mikala informed me, then looked up from her notes at me. I walked over to my towel and began drying off. "And, for my sanity, by Plumeria you mean the woman who admitted you have a better grasp of the Poison-Type than she does, right?", she added.

  "Okay so those were bad examples," I sputtered through the tobacco scented towel, "but there's got to be someone in Alola who's better than me! Salandit and Grimer learn Toxic naturally, and they're not even done learning it yet!" She glared again when I emerged from the towel and I looked away. "When did we get here?", she pushed. "Like an hour ago?", I replied, confused. "You taught Toxic to two pokémon at the same time to a battle ready state in an hour!", she shouted, pushing my shoulder. I backed away.

  "How'd you do it?", she pressed. "It's about biology.", I said, suddenly nervous. I started getting snacks out of my bag. "What about biology?", she continued, neck craned over her tablet. "Everything processes something to live. We eat waste, we create waste. It's about identifying that densest source of poison and focusing it outwards, so for Waiola that's her blood and Kumī it's digestive byproducts.", I obliged. She didn't look at me.

  "What would a Minior's be?", she pondered out loud. "Minior?", I dribbled, separating the rotten and fresh berries, "What do they eat? How do they eat?" "Atmospheric dust. It accumulates into their shells.", Mikala rallied back, excited and matter-of-fact simultaneously. "Then the shell and the outer layer would be the area used for Toxic. The nubbins too.", I decided, unusually jittery. I stared at Mikala's brown eyes as she recorded what I'd said. My hands hurt. I slowed down.

  "Team Kau'i!", I shouted, "Food!" They all came running, Toma from his network keeping out pokémon from the land and Kawami from the water where she had done the same. Mikala backed off to take notes of her notes. "Waiola, Kumī," I said, affecting a smile, "I think after this, you guys can actually beat Kawami and Toma." Waiola's eyes glimmered with anticipation from her position on the fringe of the group. I helped myself to a pecha berry. We ate fast.

  With food done, I began packing up. "Mikala, I should get going. Gotta get some rest, then start training for my grand trial fight with Hala.", I said, towel under my arm. "Oh.", she replied, stirred out of her focus, "Then I should get changed and give you back this stupid thing." "Uh, yeah.", my mouth oozed. Toma was more tactful than me and threw up a curtain for Mikala. I took a swig of water from a bottle on my bag and returned Waiola and Kumī to their balls to rest.

  "Here.", Mikala said, handing me the leotard and towel, "Call me the next time you're training like this. We're friends regardless of if you're in the hospital." "I should focus on preparing for Hala, like I said. It won't be like this.", I brushed off. "Okay, well if something is then you have my number and should use it.", she stated. I nodded, then offered a weak, "Bye.", and left without her.

  Team Information:

  Kawami- Crobat (Poison/Flying Type, Female She/Her, Hasty Nature +Spe/-Def)

  Abilities: Inner Focus, Infiltrator

  Moves: Supersonic, Astonish, Absorb, Hypnosis, Poison Fang, Wing Attack, Confuse Ray, Bite, Air Cutter, Curse, Frustration, Screech, Swift, Quick Guard, Crunch, Cross Poison, Tailwind

  Toma- Ariados (Bug/Poison Type, Male He/Him, Jolly Nature +Spe/-SpA)

  Abilities: Insomnia, Sniper, Swarm

  Moves: Poison Sting, String Shot, Absorb, Constrict, Spider Web, Infestation, Scary Face, Shadow Sneak, Acid Spray, Swords Dance, Fell Stinger, Baton Pass, Night Shade, Substitute

  Waiola- Salandit (Poison/Fire Type, Female She/Her, Lonely Nature +Atk/-Def)

  Abilities: Corrosion

  Moves: Scratch, Poison Gas, Fake Out, Ember, Dragon Rage, Smog, Sweet Scent, Flame Burst, Toxic

  Kumī- Alolan Grimer (Poison/Dark Type, Male He/It, Relaxed Nature +Def/-Spe)

  Abilities: Gluttony

  Moves: Poison Gas, Bite, Poison Fang, Acid Spray, Toxic