Chapter Three - True Companions

Shoto always treaded up the steps to the ruins with dread and awe weighing down his legs. The first day he'd been able to walk after he arrived, his pokemon prancing about like puffed up cocky fools who think they can protect him, even though they both failed and suffered for it, nearly tripped him up the whole way there. Which hadn't helped the sensation.

Hala of course had laughed it up. He hadn't been the inspiration of Fatgum for nothing, after all. "Relax boy, don't eat yourself up before the tapu does," he had said.

And it hadn't helped much, barring the fact that he had come to the conclusion that he hadn't been being laughed at, only invited to laugh along. Still, he'd been brought to the tapu anyway, as a former curiosity of Selene's had brought her to be.

She stayed there, he realized now. At the time he hadn't noticed, still blinded with pain and jet lag and fear, so much fear. But nowadays he would be the one dragged around to bring her food or make sure she hadn't wasted away in the night. No one could get her home, and he wasn't interested enough to try. So they sent him on his days off.

This is what he explained to Midoriya Izuku this time as the two of them ascend the stairs, Bakuko at Izuku's heels and Alphonse and Fjorm racing ahead. Unlike the then terrified Shoto (he'd been near a reshiram thank you!), Izuku didn't even seem phased.

"After coming back from Ultra Space," he said, taking a sip of water. He hadn't talked this much in a long time. At least not to other people. "Selene took a turn for isolation. She let her brother take the championship crown, supposedly, while she retreated back here, stayed by the tapu. She moved out here."

"I see…"

"She's fine usually. Doesn't pray much, dances at sunset once every two weeks. She sings a lot. You'll hear her soon. She uses it to train her Pokemon in the mornings."

Izuku was nodding eagerly as he scribbled. How he could do that as he walked Shoto had no idea. "And it's lunchtime so she'll be free to explain anything."

"Likely yeah." Shoto shifted forward. "Just so you know, she'll probably seem a little weird. The tapu talks to her like she's a kahuna. It weirds out tourists."

"I've seen Uraraka-san in conduit with giratina." Izuku's voice was pure candid cheer, even as Shoto's eyes grew wider and wider with every passing word. "It'll be fine."

"You've what."

"Her story, not mine. I was just an observer. Anyway is it across this bridge here?" Izuku raised his hand from his notebook to point with his pen.

Shoto swallowed the questions boiling in his gut. "Yeah," he said instead because after all this really was none of his business. He was just doing for others as Alola wanted people to do. He could always figure it out later.

Or not. It was safer to not. He had finally belonged here.

"Bridge is still pretty new so we should be good."

He got another megawatt smile for his approval and it stung some part of him he couldn't explain. Then Izuku paused and returned his notebook, reaching into his back to pull out another pokeball. He released a snoozing blue seal into his arms.

"Poppy had a late night last night," he confided over the pokemon's head. Bakuko scoffed by her trainer's foot, scratching an ear. "No thanks to you," Izuku added to the fire type. Bakuko puffed up and stood on her hind legs, nose in the air.

Shoto made a face, glancing at his own two errant troublemakers. They both mewed at him, ever so innocent. Liars. Izuku laughed at the undeniably pouty looks both pokemon had and they set across the bridge.

Shoto swallowed, pointedly looking away from the sharp rocks and the crashing sound of the waves.

"Not a fan of heights?" Izuku adjusted his grip on Poppy, looking completely at ease despite all the creaks beneath his bright red boots. Shoto twitched every time he heard it, thinking not of creaking bridges but crackling flames.

"People tend to make their own truths, little coal. Make your own here and now, and maybe you'll see what I do."

"Not really, no," he admitted before he could control his tongue.

Izuku shifted. "I'm so sorry-!"

"Don't be, Hala has me bring supplies and such every now and again. Everyone does it around here. It's good practice I guess." Shoto pointedly looked towards the mouth of the cave. "Just… don't let me look down."

Down towards not the wash of the sea but his blood on the floor, dripping over his sister's voice, his mother's shouts.

"Just look at me." Izuku said, stepping forward once more. "Or in my direction, I mean. Okay?"

"I'm fine." Shoto didn't have the heart to say he'd been just fine before Izuku had come around and would be fine after, something in those eyes made the words die in his throat. "Thanks."

"Mm." If he was offended, he didn't show it.

They crossed the bridge, Shoto busying his mind with the weight of the supplies on his back and with the chatter of the boy just ahead of him. At some point, they had crossed, leaving only the gaping ruin maw to stare them down.

As soon as they got a few meters away, Shoto held out his arm. Even his pokemon stopped, though sulkily. "You know the rules," he told Alphonse, who scoffed and almost nudged a toe forward out of sheer spite.

"Rules?" Izuku tried to do a delicate balancing act of using his popplio as a writing surface. Said water type squirmed with irritation.

"Yeah. She has to acknowledge us first so Tapu Koko doesn't think they can fight every human who comes here with a mago berry. If she doesn't, the tapu fries you through the mouth of the cave."

"Really?"

Shoto had at least expected concern or disgust or something normal. Midoriya Izuku just sounded fascinated, a trait only suitable for the most reckless of people. "Not always but usually. Best not to take your chances."

"Duly noted." The interest hadn't quite left Izuku's face and Shoto was going to get away from it and preserve his life.

He turned back to the mouth of the ruins and called. "Selene! Are you awake?"

There was no answer at first, but Shoto expected this. She tended to get absorbed in whatever she was doing. Or she was in the back with the tapu's conduit, singing for it as she often did.

"Selene," He called again. "Come on, before your malasada get cold."

"I'm not Hau, autumn boy." Someone responded. Alphonse and Fjorm tensed up and growled, their many tails up stiff. "Do appreciate a spicy one though, now and again."

"Stop responding every time I mention a malasada and I may believe you." He kept himself disinterested, but his pokemon did not, shooting forward for attention like he didn't brush through their fur every night with expensive brushes. He ought to check in with his sister soon, see how she was doing up at the top.

Izuku looked between them as the girl approached, her long dark hair buried under a straw hat. She walked slowly, like the world was in her way rather than the other way around, her sandals clapping lightly against the earth.

"You have a friend autumn boy!" She cried, clapping her hands and lowering her head a little. As she completed her makeshift bow, Izuku caught a glimpse of storm-grey eyes sparkling with gold. With streaks that flickered and changed with every movement every one of them made. "Who is this? You don't have friends."

The words would have been caustic out of any one else's mouth, like Touya's even, but from her they almost sounded pleased. As if only she had monopolized his time for so long and had come to anticipate it as a matter of course.

Shoto made no indication that he even cared. "Do my pokemon not count?"

"Pokemon are anything but friends," she said, kneeling down to greet the two yapping foxes. "Hello you two, giving your boy any trouble?"

"Always," Shoto shot back before he could quite control his mouth. It was hard to not be flippant around Selene, she asked for nothing else. Not much on manners or on human conventions, they were all lucky practicality caused her to wear clothes. But it was all so refreshing, even if a little disturbing.

He stepped closer and set the pack down, wiping sweat off his neck from the midday sun. "Provisions again," he said as his pokemon clambered over her and pawed up her legs.

Selene merely flicked them off, unphased. "Thank you much. So," she looked back up at Izuku, who straightened like he had been-

Nope no need to think of that. Not at all.

"Who are you, greenie? You don't smell like islanders."

Izuku blinked and shook his head. "Not at all. I'm from Johto, Miss Selene."

"No miss, I'm eighteen." She sat down, her hair slapping the sand as she crouched, leaning into the bag to examine her goods. "And I thought I knew that smell. Bro and I are Kanto ourselves. Elio's on Ula'Ula though, acting like he's hot stuff as the champion and Koko likes him a teeny bit. So why are you here?"

"Just to relax." Izuku was smiling, though his quilava was making a face like it was going to slap a better answer out of him herself. "See the sights. Get a break. I took my scholarship exams a few weeks ago."

"Did you now?" And interest filled the young woman's voice. "I'm supposed to take them for university even though I've been disavowed. Mom's orders. It's very boring, isn't it?"

"Some necessary things are boring," Izuku replied with a small grin. "But yeah it's horrible. We got like, three breaks and a lunch that tasted like trainer MREs put on a stove."

Shoto made a face to imagine it and Selene laughed hard. "Oh now that's a hell I don't want to relive. Better you than me, greenie."

Izuku smiled back and set his notebook down. Poppy was stirring awake now and Izuku took to stroking his face and getting through the irritable grumbles of his new pokemon.

"I'm sorry, there's just no fun sleeping during the day if you don't have to," he told him and the seal bwarked his reply. Shoto picked up Fjorm and put her in his lap. She curled up there without a sound until he stroked her fur. The cold chased up his skin as she started to purr and churr. Alphonse pawed at his other hand and Shoto sighed, scratching him under the chin.

"I spoil you two."

"Someone in that house has to and they sure won't spoil themselves." Selene only looked fonder if possible, finishing her examination and calling out a black and pink bear that towered over their heads twice over sitting up, never mind standing. He knelt with a low groan and let his trainer kiss him fondly on the cheek, before moving to carry the items on the ground. Selene spun her hat around her finger, humming some tune that sounded older than Shoto's hometown.

Then she glanced back over at Izuku. "So, what are you really here for, greenie? You're a trainer, now a tourist. What are you here for?"

Izuku looked at her, looked at Shoto. Looked at her. Then he shrugged and replied with, "Giratina." as if it was no big deal at all.