New voicemails:

  You have two new voicemails from Unknown Caller.

  Unknown Caller called June 14th, 2016 at 4:37 AM:

  Length: 1 minute, 24 seconds

  Transcript (auto-generated):

  "Hi professor we got your son he's here at the compound if you want to get him. But you'll have to fight us for him. He's been very very bad. But it's okay you won't have to worry too much he's okay physically I mean. Yeah um okay bye see you over here hopefully. Bye."

  Unknown Caller called June 14th, 2016 at 4:40 AM:

  Length: 1 minute, 53 seconds

  Transcript (auto-generated):

  "This is Mizuki by the way just so you know I don't want you to be confused and think I'm trying to scam you Lily's here too. Not right here in the room with me but I'll make sure to say hi to her for you so don't worry. We'll get to see each other again when this is all over hopefully soon. Yeah okay bye again."

  The morning following the unfortunate incident at the Verdant Cavern, at an even six o'clock, Professor Burnet Alaka'i rolled up to Kahuna Hala's house in the Iki Town square, her husband in tow, and gave his front door one solid, hardy knock. A cordial knock, to test the waters.

  A moment passed. Another. And three more knocks came. Strained, this time. As vast as Burnet's patience may have been, it was far from infinite, and even at this early hour it had suffered too many trials for one day.

  Finally, with all the strength she could muster into her little fist - all the rage that had come to broil in her since awakening to those two accursed voicemails - five BANGs. The ultimatum.

  Kukui's hand hovered over his wife's wrist. Burnet took initiative, twining her fingers with his - possibly to prevent herself from breaking down the door - and the two stood there out in the austerity of the early morning, maintaining an outward calmness, until after too many bated breaths the kahuna finally answered the door.

  "Many apologies for the delay," Hala said, and then went on to explain: he himself had not gotten a wink of sleep since his grandson had returned from what had been meant to be his trial, along with a fellow challenger he'd picked up along the way. The duo had told him of what they'd gone through: a gang of what they believed to be Raticate had attacked them unprovoked and dragged them somewhere deep in the Cavern, and they'd had to navigate back on their own - sans Sun, who'd ran off for reasons unclear to them.

  Why, exactly, had it happened? Where was Sun now? Where had their beloved trial captain been, if not watching over them? Neither had a clue.

  Now, having scrubbed themselves clean and changed into sets of pajamas, Hau and Astelia lay on the big sofa in the great room, doing a very poor job of feigning sleep. As they eavesdropped on the exchange happening over by the door, they whispered to each other furtively:

  "Did you hear what she said?"

  "Something about Sun."

  "Something about a cult, I thought?"

  Cult - at their young age, the two had only a hazy definition of the word, informed by hazier memories of faraway incidents years prior. It had something to do with religion, they thought. A bad religion. A bad religion with bad followers like those awful people who had frozen a whole city in Unova.

  This precipitated another question, the most important question: "is Sun okay?"

  True to their nature, as the conversation wore on, the professors offered their share of hypotheses; and through these hypotheses the children were able to piece together a rudimentary story. After Sun had run off, he'd headed deeper into the Cavern and had been... the word the professors used was 'abducted' ... by the Children of Starlight. And Mizuki - Mizuki Kazakami, who'd been Sun and Hau's bestest BFF since kindergarten! - had sent the professors voicemails to taunt them, because somehow she was culpable in this. Even masterminding it.

  Of course, Hau discarded the latter idea immediately. If Mizuki was doing something like that, it must have been because someone, likely her father, was forcing her to. Either that, or she and Sun had gotten into some stupid argument and she'd lost her temper at him, and she'd see reason once she'd calmed down. She always did.

  But ultimately no answer or theory seemed to fully satisfy anyone, and at last the professors and Hala came to an agreement: one person needed to answer for this, and his name was Ilima Ma'amau.

  Inside Hala's great room was an old Kalosian ornamental grandfather clock, which had been a gift from some old colleague of his and had stood in the corner collecting cobwebs for at least twenty-five years prior to Hau's birth. The moisture collecting under the floorboards over time had caused them to rise, and the footsteps of anyone, no matter how light or small, would shift them enough to rattle the clock and cause it to chime prematurely. But it was also scheduled to strike every hour and half hour, and its chime denoting six-thirty was what Hau and Astelia pretended roused them from sleep - not the professors coming over to languish beside them on the sofa.

  Burnet sat straight upright, keeping her palms on her kneecaps. She grinned from ear to ear because she was perfectly fine and composed, and really, everything was perfectly fine and dandy with her and nothing at all was amiss. Nothing at all!

  Hau, sensing the tension brewing between them, nudged Kukui with his elbow.

  "Hey, Professor," he said, his voice faltering. "Do you want to come see the new move Lālā learned? I found it weird, because it's not Grass or Flying-Type at all."

  Kukui nodded, grateful for the distraction. "Pokémon don't always learn moves exclusively of their Type. They wouldn't have as many options to defend themselves if they did. That's one of the beautiful things about them, you know - they're hardy. They'll take on anything you throw at them."

  "I know that," Hau said. "Just, out of all the Types, I wasn't prepared for her to learn a Ghost-Type move. But I was pretty bummed once I saw how weak it was, so I don't know if I'll be using it a lot. I'll show you if you come outside." He motioned to the big windows on the far wall, which a periwinkle light had come to pass through, and rose to cross the room.

  "There's a use case for everything," Astelia called after him.

  "Never said there wasn't," Hau said before disappearing out the door. Kukui followed him, but not before casting one last sympathetic look at Burnet on the couch.

  Burnet sighed, leaning back, and reminded herself of her breathing exercises. She had played the flute all throughout middle and high school, but it seemed seven years of training to control her breathing meant nothing in the face of her anxieties. Munchie still had yet to regain his appetite... Kukui still had yet to regain his backbone...

  Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale.

  With her composure fortified, she decided to extend a hand to the girl beside her on the couch, who was currently engrossed in chewing on a lock of her thick brown hair.

  "So."

  The girl turned to her, wide-eyed, and brought a hand to cover her mouth as she spat out the clump of hair.

  "So?"

  "I don't believe we've met before," Burnet said. "I'm Professor Burnet Alaka'i. As you've likely guessed by now, I'm Kukui's wife." She considered quipping about being the brains in their relationship, but did not wish to speak ill of Kukui behind his back to someone she presumed looked up to him. "What's your name?"

  The girl brightened, reciprocating Burnet's smile. "Oh, I'm Astelia. Astelia Makala. I live a few blocks from here."

  She did not accept Burnet's hand, leaving the professor reaching out to her in vain for several moments more. Finally Burnet sat back, her smile weakening, and pretended she hadn't done so at all. She looked around, scanning the room around them... cleared her throat.

  "Um, where are your parents?"

  "On vacation," Astelia said. "They're always going on vacations without us. Right now they're on a cruise in Northern Galar - they went 'cause tickets were half-price 'cause the cruise company couldn't get anyone to go otherwise." She scoffed. "Well, of course no one wants to go on a cruise to a frozen sea. No one except my parents, that is."

  "Perhaps they simply wanted a change of pace from the weather here," Burnet offered, thinking back to the record heat wave Alola had suffered this past spring.

  "If that's what you're looking for, there are better places than Galar for sure," Astelia said. "But they're always doing things like that. They're either at work or they're overseas or they're at work overseas. I can't remember the last time we even ate dinner together as a family." She shook her head. "But that's probably my secret. I get a ton of time to train, and they don't bother me so long as I keep my grades up."

  "Oh? You're a Trainer?"

  "Of course I'm a Trainer! For my birthday last year I got a Slowpoke but I didn't really want a Slowpoke. So I went out to the cliffs and caught myself a Bagon instead!" Astelia's words seemed to grant her a new vitality; her grin grew wider with each word she spoke. "You know Bagon's a Dragon-Type, right?"

  "Yes, I - "

  "Everyone who knows anything knows Dragon-Types are the strongest. Plus the coolest too, but I guess that's all subjectivity. You have to be really strong inside to handle a Dragon-Type." Astelia sprung to her feet. "Strong inside your heart! It's like, like - have you ever battled with a Dragon-Type before?"

  "Against one, you mean?"

  "Alongside one," Astelia said.

  "Oh. Well, in fact I ha - "

  "That's right, you haven't. Well, you know the proxy system, right?"

  Burnet had written her doctorate thesis on the proxy system. But instead of answering, she sighed, reclined back in her seat, and cupped her chin in her hand.

  "You know how it's like, when it's a Water-Type you've got a big pillar of water inside you, and you have to hold it steady? And like, fire when it's a Fire-Type, and stuff? Well, when it's a Dragon-Type it's like a big raging dragon inside you, but at the same time it's your best friend! So you can't be like, 'grr, I'm going to DRAGONSLAY you' - you know? You can't slay the dragon inside you because you are the dragon inside you. Does that make sense?"

  "Mm-hmm."

  Astelia thrust out her fist. "Did you hear me say, 'dragonslayer'?"

  "Mm-hmm."

  "Yeah! Like I told you, I've got to tame it. I want to tame it and myself but I talked to my brother about it and my brother said I won't be able to tame it because I don't know myself. But I do know myself. I'm pretty knowledgeable about myself and about a lot of other things."

  As Astelia proceeded to rattle off these other things - the life cycle of a Cutiefly, the number of hearts a Clobbopus had, the meanings of anomie and tedious and homicide - she failed to notice Burnet flop over on the couch, eyes half-lidded, mind surrendered to her worries. As beautiful as it was to see a child so passionate about so much, she hadn't fortified her mind for this. She required a certain strength and all that strength was spent.

  She took out her phone, opened her voicemails, and stole a glance at the two from this morning. The sound of Mizuki's gravelly voice, her plaintive tone...

  "We'll see you again when this is all over. Hopefully soon."

  The sheer naivete of the statement - the innocence of her. Burnet’s heart ached for the little self-martyred girl: all she wanted was to hug her and hold her and tell her everything would be all right, all right. There would be an after, and all of them could make the after even better than the before.

  "What's going to happen to me now? Where am I going to go? I don't have a mother anymore."

  "We've been talking about it with your social worker, Sun, and we thought we might be able to take you in. We could let you stay with us in the lab, and you could keep going to 'Ale. But it all depends on you. We aren't going to do anything unless you give us the OK."

  "But... you're never going to replace her, are you? And Kukui. You can't..."

  "No, no. We don't mean to replace anyone. You should feel free to view us in any way you want to."

  And he had looked up at her, hands clasped together as if in prayer; and for the first time in all her time seeing them his big beautiful gray eyes held hope.

  "I just want everything to be okay in the end. I want you to make everything okay."

  "I can't promise that for certain, Sun. But I can promise I'll do the best I can for you."

  "Um, Professor? Are you okay?"

  Without realizing it, she had wrapped her arms around Astelia, and the tears burst forth from her. Silent tears, but tears full of the vulnerability she had spent all morning trying to suppress. She swiped at her own face in vain, her cheeks growing warm.

  "Ah... um, I'm so sorry; I don't know what's come over me, I..."

  Astelia lowered her head and shoulders, seeming not to know what to do with her hands. Burnet could hear her breathing quicken and become shallow, uneasy. Finally, as a noncommittal reciprocation of her affection, she settled on kneading Burnet's upper arm.

  "It's okay, Professor," she said at last, her voice a whisper. "It's been a long time since my mama's held me. So I get it."

  And Burnet no longer cared she was weeping.

  The minute Ilima Ma'amau padded up the little steps and under the wooden arch denoting the entrance to Iki Town, a clade of girls ages fourteen to eighteen materialized as if out of thin air and, for lack of a better word, squeed.

  "Ilima!"

  "Ilima! I love you! And only you!"

  "Please sign my forehead, Ilima!"

  "Ilima! Please unblock my number! I swear it wasn't my fault, really! I just get so exciiiiiiited!!!"

  Ilima did not always treat his fan club with such frigidity. But his other worries took too much space in his mind for him to even consider risking the headache of sparing them a glance in their direction. Not to mention he'd been exhausted even before undertaking the whole endeavor of seeing Paulo home safe: while the operation to reattach the chipped piece of tooth had ultimately succeeded, the boy was delirious with shock and fatigue, and the Pokémon Center he currently took refuge in was located at the opposite end of the city from the one he'd received the surgery at. Corralling him home had been like corralling Meowth.

  Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.

  "Ilima! Please notice me!"

  "Ilimaaaaaa!"

  A one-track hivemind, they were. He increased his pace.

  A summons from the kahuna was not to be ignored, he knew, but he was far from excited to see Hala again. When Ilima's initial trial captain application had been brought before the final committee for review - a committee composed of all the current kahunas, in addition to several other leaders of the Alolan community - Hala had been the sole vote against him. One vote hadn't been sufficient to deny him the position, but it had started the two off on the wrong foot, and Hala's standing in Ilima's mind had never recovered.

  Now, he had never received an official explanation as to why Hala had voted against him, but Ilima had long suspected he meant to make him suffer for the sins of his father. Edwin Ma'amau was a controversial figure among the locals on Melemele - would the people have elected him, some wondered, if his connections to Tenshiro Kazakami were more publicized? The Children of Starlight had been unpopular on the island since their arrival, but, unwilling to rock the boat, neither the local government nor the Alolan public had ever seen fit to do anything about them, even as they successfully wormed their way into Melemele society, quintupling their number in just five years.

  Ilima never worried about it. His father had held a seat in the UWF's legislature for almost a decade at this point, and was not even close to holding the title of its most corrupt member (if Ilima were a believer in justice - oh, the whistles he'd blow) . No matter what that girl had claimed, the Ma'amaus were not cultists by any measure. If Ilima believed in anything, he believed in human supremacy, and he had never been very good at pretending otherwise.

  Perhaps that was the true reason Hala disliked him, he considered: Ilima had never been interested in viewing him as an equal.

  Or as a person.

  Another wrinkle - he had put his bag down somewhere and forgot to take it with him. He'd called the Pokémon Center he'd taken Paulo to to see if the staff had found it at one of the tables there, but they'd reported they'd come up empty. A pity. He kept his valuables on his person in anticipation of this very scenario, however, so he still had his wallet and Pokémon with him. There was only one item in there he now regretted not doing the same with, as although it was replaceable, it would certainly be a pain in the behind to get his hands on more of it.

  He reached Iki Town Square at seven o'clock, and found the aftermath of Hau and Kukui's sparring match atop the wooden heiau platform: to the surprise of no one, Hau's Rowlet had defeated Kukui's Rockruff quite soundly, and the Puppy Pokémon lay curled up in a ball at one end of the platform. The Rowlet's expression seemed chiseled into its face, as if it had lived a hundred years longer than it had.

  (Strange, he thought, that Hala would even allow them to battle on the platform. To Ilima's understanding, it was intended for more sacred rituals.)

  Ilima considered greeting them, but the two were ensconced in a conversation, and he saw little benefit to interrupting them. Instead he snuck past them to the Leokūs' lodge, and rapped on the door twice with the back of his knuckles.

  The door opened to reveal - not Hala, but a conspicuously red-faced Burnet Alaka'i - whom Ilima had never met in person but recognized from the myriad of pictures Kukui had shown him upon their very first meeting.

  "You must be Captain Ilima," she said, leaning in the doorway. "I apologize for having you come here at such an early hour, but..."

  Ilima could not prevent disdain from marring his expression. "Where is Hala."

  Burnet froze. Raised her hand to her cheek, and wiped it... took one slow blink.

  "He, er... somebody called him.... someone called him away," she stammered. "There's been an emergency in Hau'oli, I believe. A sighting of Tapu Koko...?"

  "He called for me," Ilima said, "and couldn't be bothered to stick around until I arrived here?"

  "He's a man of many duties," Burnet said. In her head, she justified Ilima's standoffishness: he looks tired, there are bags under his eyes; perhaps it's too early in the morning to ask anything substantial of him; perhaps he's nervous because he thinks we're here to tell him off.

  But on the other hand, she too had heard the rumors about him. He belonged to the cult, didn't he? How far did his devotion reach? Deeper than his loyalty to Melemele, to Alola? To those five kids who trusted him with their lives?

  An image appeared in her mind - black and white, and edged with distortion like a decaying film reel - of a girl on the other side of the island, with the full conviction she was doing the right thing and with no idea of what the right thing would do to her; and another, an image of a little boy on his first night without his mother, crying out into the dead of night.

  And one last reel, much more lucid and intense than the other two: her hands around the trial captain's neck.

  The image wouldn't come true - newly bashful at even thinking of it, Burnet offered Ilima an affable little shrug and ushered him into this house that wasn't hers.

  As the great clock struck eight, Kahuna Hala rushed back into his house to deliver the news: Tapu Koko was enraged. Even more than before.

  Though none of them knew of the boy lying still in the chamber where the Totem Raticate dwelled - and none of them would ever come to learn of him, as the famished creatures of the night had snatched his remains away - they knew the Tapu had paid a visit to Verdant Cavern, and based on the restlessness of the Rattata hordes, Ilima had a pervasive suspicion Sun may have felled their leader.

  Their leader?

  "My Totem," Ilima explained to the others. "Or - the Totem. I would prefer not to consider it mine, as I have little power over what it and its subordinates decide to do, but my fellow captains tend to disagree. I inherited them from the previous captain, and I choose not to interfere with their affairs. Whatever 'city' they have constructed for themselves runs autonomously."

  ( Autonomously - the children cursed him.)

  "Tapu Koko has a vested interest in the Totem's welfare. My theory is that if something ever happened to the Raticate, the Rattata would spread out and take over the rest of the island. By distracting them with endless Berry-hunting, the Raticate are able to keep them weak and contained."

  Burnet raised an eyebrow. "And are you sure your trial is safe for the kids?"

  Ilima met her loaded question with a loaded answer: "As safe as any trial is."

  Hau sat up, antsy. "So can you tell us what you think happened to us?"

  "I should have warned you not to enter the Cavern prematurely," Ilima said. "That was my fault - I believed erroneously I would be there earlier than I was. The Raticate are quite protective of their territory: they likely scented some food on you. Did either of you have food on you, or eat before going out? Especially anything containing Berries."

  Hau and Astelia exchanged glances.

  "Like, how soon did we have to eat beforehand? It takes a while to walk there from Iki," Astelia said.

  "A couple of hours, maybe," Ilima said, his gaze so intensely fixed on Burnet the latter began to break out in a sweat.

  "Oh," Astelia said, casting her eyes downward. "Well, I had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich before leaving. Mixed Berry jelly, I think."

  Ilima nodded. "Jelly would be more than enough to send them into a frenzy."

  ( Mixed Berry jelly, Hau thought, rolling his eyes. To think he could do nothing wrong and someone else could come along and ruin it for him. And without even intending to, no less.)

  Burnet, already tiring both of this conversation and of Ilima's ogling, rose to her feet.

  "Well, all of that is well and good, isn't it. But that's not truly what we want to inquire about this morning." She looked across the room, at all of them - Hala, Kukui, the cool-headed Ilima - the kids.

  The kids.

  Burnet steeled herself.

  "Ilima, where is the location of the Children of Starlight's compound?"

  Ilima stepped back, narrowing his eyes.

  "I don't see how that's relevant to this discussion. Don't attempt to derail."

  "No. You know exactly how it's relevant." Burnet looked back at the kids - for them, she'd keep this clean. "For your sake, I suggest you give me a straight answer."

  Ilima settled himself down atop the wicker bench, crossing his legs. His dagger-eyes still fixed on her.

  "I do not have the right to give you that information," he replied simply.

  "You're protecting them," Burnet concluded. "If you want to prove your loyalty - if you want to prove why anyone ought to trust you with the safety of their children - you should be willing to tell me where my son is. Is that so difficult to understand?"

  "I have no involvement with the Children at this level," Ilima said, placing a hand on his heart - as if it meant anything. "I have no reason to protect them. Any rationale I could give for why they have done this would be pure conjecture on my part. I consider myself a neutral party."

  Burnet closed her eyes, held out her hand, and snapped her fingers. "Fine, then. Call Mizuki Kazakami. You have her number, don't you?"

  Ilima's mouth opened. The others mirrored him - Kukui in particular, who put his hands on his head as if embarrassed at Burnet's actions.

  "What? She's the one who called me first. She's the one with the information I want. When I called her back this morning, she didn't pick up. I think there's a greater chance she'd answer a call from a so-called neutral party."

  Ilima sighed, fished his smartphone out of his pocket, and tapped on his list of contacts. Once he reached Mizuki's his index finger hovered over the 'Call' button, and he looked back up at the gathered jury, eyes full of shadow.

  "I hope you understand what you are doing," he hissed through his teeth.

  Burnet did not waver. "I understand."

  Hau leaned over, squinting at the phone screen. "How often do you call her, that you've got her in your contact list?"

  "She's the one calling me," Ilima said, his finger still indecisive. "I don't recall ever having to use this myself. If she's awake right now, it'll likely alarm her I'm actually choosing to call her."

  He cast another look back at Burnet - 'still sure?' - and earned himself one last command.

  "You'll keep calling her until she picks up. You can do that, can't you?"

  Ilima smirked. "Whatever you say."

  His finger fell almost limp onto the button, sending the aural blast of the dial tone out to the ends of the room. Kukui grimaced - at what, Burnet had not the foggiest. Hala occupied himself with wandering around the room, and as he neared the grandfather clock's corner, it shifted towards him and tolled as if in sympathy. What Burnet could see of his slits of eyes held a very vacant expression, and when he looked in their direction, his gaze did not linger.

  Burnet shifted her attention back to Ilima, wagging her finger at him. "Is it on speaker? Put it on speaker. We all need to hear this."

  "It's already on speaker," Ilima said, resigning to his apparent fate of being her lackey. "Now be quiet. She's picking up, I think."

  Another moment passed, and no one so much as breathed - as if to do so would alert Mizuki to their presence. By this time, even Hau, in ruminating on it, had to concede it was likely she had made some very bad decisions... some decisions that could mean she would lose her coveted spot in his circle of friends. Astelia seemed a nicer replacement by the second... although she was in the grade above them, which would mean she couldn't have classes with them, but, ah, they'd keep in touch...

  He wouldn't interfere with this. He'd pretend he wasn't listening, and so would Kukui and Astelia. It was out of their control, and out of Burnet's too, he thought. But the professor was a good professor, and in professor school they taught you not to let things be. So he'd heard.

  "Helloooo? Ilima? This is Ilima's number, right?"

  Ilima forced a smile. "It is indeed."

  "Why are you calling right noooow? I don't want to - " an obnoxious yawn " - I don't wanna talk noooooow. Call back later."

  "It's important," Ilima said, not taking his eyes off Burnet. The professor beamed at him, strode to his side, and leaned down, talking into the phone speaker.

  "Mizuki. Mizuki, we don't have to do this - "

  A groan interrupted her.

  "Ilima! Who's this? I thought you were going to talk to me. I don't want other people listening in on us!"

  Burnet's face fell.

  "I want to negotiate with you," she said, suddenly feeling her control over the situation slip through her fingers.

  Breathe. For the love of the Tapu, remember how to breathe, Burnet.

  Inhale. Exhale. Tether herself back to reality.

  "Well, I already told you my - I told you our terms! Our terms! So talk to my dad if you have any issues with them. Goodbye!"

  Under no circumstances would Burnet face Tenshiro. For all the faith she had in her oratory skills, surely Tenshiro had not gained his followers by being poor at rhetoric. A one-on-one talk between the two, she feared, would end with Sun safely stuck at the compound and her shunted home with copies of their religious tracts.

  "They're your terms, aren't they? You sound so... disturbed. Even right now, your voice is..."

  "I'm suffering for everyone's sins. Not yours. Not yet. Haven't gotten around to them. But all the people I'm closest to, I'm paying for. That's all it is."

  Burnet, sensing an emotional in, a thread to pull on, forced her head down and shouted into the speaker.

  "Whose sins? What are you paying for?!"

  "Well, there's one person I'm thinking of right this second. His name starts with an I and ends with a -lima. He's caused my family lots of pain, you know!"

  To Burnet's great shock, Ilima fell for the bait. "Oh, sure. And what is this pain you speak of?"

  "Ah-ha! You thought I was talking about you! You're so self-conceited, Ilima. No, I have to focus on the people most close to me at the moment. Can't get into the nitty-gritty too soon. I'd lose a lot of blood that way."

  Familial blood, Burnet concluded at once. Tenshiro had trapped the poor thing in a dark, dark relationship - tied to the cult, dependent on them for all the love she could ever hope for... an innocent angel, caught in a gilded cage...

  "In fact, you're about to help me a lot. You must have some real issues sleeping at night, 'cause that's some heavy-duty stuff in your bag. So heavy-duty, in fact, that I searched up the generic name, and apparently it's AGAINST FEDERAL LAW TO POSSESS?"

  Ilima froze.

  "Mizuki," he said, suppressing a swallow, "that bag is not yours. That medication is not yours. It - it was - "

  A cover story. A cover story. The others were staring at him with such rapt attention - the kids, the professors, and Hala, who must not have had any regrets about voting against him now - but surely he could salvage this.

  "You were the one who always led the big 'Drugs Are Bad' assembly! Don't you remember the guest speaker, the guy who said Mary Jane ruined his life? I'm pretty sure I saw him smoking a blunt on the blacktop afterwards. But it's beside the point, really. There's people who need to suffer for their sins. But I like them, so I'll suffer instead. Like Lillie."

  "Lillie," Burnet said, snapping to attention. "Yes, Lillie... tell us, how is she?"

  "She and I got into a fight - a 'fight'. She says she doesn't want to argue with me but that's all she does. I've done everything for her and still nothing's good enough for her. Screw her. I'll pay for that too."

  Ilima angled himself down, trying to wriggle his way into having control over his phone, and glad to steer the conversation away from his personal belongings. "You haven't had any sort of odd interactions with her as of late, have you, Mizuki?"

  "Every interaction with Lillie's an odd interaction. Is that what you mean?"

  "It is not," Ilima said. "I am referring to her blackouts. Her episodes. Have you witnessed them yourself?"

  "Hmmm?"

  Mizuki quieted, and Burnet listened for any stray snippets of chatter in the background, a hint at a location, a situation; a hint of Sun. But only silence passed through. Made sense - the people of the compound must be asleep at this hour. How much rest did they get, knowing they had nothing in the way of personality or self-actualization?

  How wonderful such an existence must have been: to be what lies between the gaps, living life as clockwork. How transcendent it must have been to believe in justice as a universal constant and not something to be clawed and bled for.

  As Mizuki piped up once more, Burnet's eyes settled on Ilima.

  "Never seen them, but I've heard a lot about them. She's embarrassed of them. She doesn't like to feel not in control. Who would? But, Ilima, you saw one, didn't you? Dad told me you saw one!"

  If Ilima had a choice in the matter, he'd run away. The situation couldn't be salvaged now. How stupid had he been to keep his 'insomnia medication' in his own bag? He hadn't been home in his own room for almost three days now; he'd been sleeping over at friends', and had no issues doing so. The only saving grace was Mizuki had inferred it was for his own personal use. Through this she had planted the seeds of a cover story; once he got his phone back, he would let it be.

  The moment Burnet found out what he'd done to Lillie (or for Lillie, really, but she wouldn't see it that way) he was finished. If he didn't tell the truth, Mizuki would offer up some distorted facsimile.

  He looked around, his brow creasing, and let out a tortured, world-weary sigh.

  "If you really must know," he began, "my rationale for bringing her to Tenshiro in the first place was - "

  "Your rationale for WHAT?!"

  "My rationale," Ilima continued, turning to shoot Burnet a glare, "for bringing her to him was because of an encounter I had with her in Hau'oli Cemetery." (He let the adults absorb this, let them accept it: it certainly wouldn't be the first odd occurrence to happen there. It'd make what came next much more palatable.) "I saw her have a sudden shift in personality. As if something had taken possession of her."

  Burnet closed her eyes and crossed her arms. "There you go. I knew you'd end up going right back to your programming..."

  "I am 'on' nothing of the sort. She displayed a marked shift in both her demeanor and her speech patterns. Showed callousness - " Ilima's eyes flicked to Kukui - "towards a Pokémon. If you'd been there, you'd understand. Something has gone very, very wrong in that girl's head - "

  "Yeah," came the voice from the phone. "Ishmael! Ilima knows all about it from my dad. He was at the ritual with us!"

  Burnet lifted her chin. "Starlight programming."

  Ilima whirled back towards her. "Who does it help to discard everything I say here? To not even dare to take it into consideration? You’re mistaking stubbornness for strength, Miss Burnet Alaka'i."

  "Silly Ilima," came the rebuke from the phone. "That's what being a kid means. If you don't want to be powerless, don't surround yourself with people who want to diminish you! Usurp them!"

  The retort lay unspoken on Ilima's lips: I haven't been anything resembling a child in a very, very long time.

  "I think that's enough for this morning. Don't call me later, Ilima. I've given you enough life advice for one lifetime. Use it well, 'cause you're lucky you've got a long, long life ahead of you! Goodbye!"

  And it was done. Burnet grabbed the phone, raised it, and shook it at him. Her expression wasn't smug or disappointed, per se, but some disturbing mixture of the two. Ilima flinched, certain of her response.

  "I don't care what you have to say to me."

  "I don't have anything more to say to you," Burnet said. "You are free to leave here. I suggest you do so as soon as possible."

  She tossed the phone back at him, watching him scramble as he almost lost his grasp on it. Whether she felt any schadenfreude at the prospect of him doing so was unclear: she wasn't looking at him anymore. No one was.

  Hala had left the room. Through the open doorway, Ilima spotted him in his office, attending to another matter. When had he gone over? Had he heard a word of their talk?

  By habit, he tried to grab his bag strap to hold it tighter to him - but, oh, right. Hell if he was going to slink back to the compound for it. At this rate, with the trajectory Mizuki seemed to be taking, it'd be safer in the hands of some Team Skull ruffian.

  "Wait. I lied. There’s one more thing - actually two more things."

  He turned back towards them, bowing his head.

  "First thing: she needs to 'suffer for your sins', she said. She's eleven years old. I hope you think about those words every night of your goddamned life."

  Ilima closed his eyes and nodded.

  "Second: you're going to suffer for your sins, too. If you don't tell us where the compound is - "

  "The old community center," Ilima said. "Beautiful, isn't it? Built with an evil man's money, home to the arbiters of justice. It's inherited, isn't it?"

  Burnet raised an eyebrow. "Inherited?"

  With all the schadenfreude his undersized heart could muster, Ilima chuckled.

  "Inherited. Good things can't be born from evil things. That's the official position of the Children of Starlight on the matter: evil will only ever beget more evil."

  He shut the door behind him.