Chapter 21

Years later…

Avery knew she wasn't supposed to be here.

There were a lot of places she wasn't supposed to go. Military sections of Starfall, with their distinctive psionic resonance. Classrooms of anyone past their first year certifications. More than 100 meters from Starfall, where the Repel field grew weak enough for wild Pokémon to get close and potentially threaten her. Her mother's office when she was hard at work.

For a growing Mew, Avery was very good at learning all the rules. Unfortunately, she wasn't the best at following them.

It wasn't entirely her fault. She had help, in the form of another young cat. One who had far better coordination in the air than she did, and could fly with the speed and confidence of an adult. Whenever they were close to getting caught, Aine was there to nudge them around the wall, or safely inside a ceiling panel.

Avery might not be as skilled in the air as other cats, but she made up for it in her mental mastery. Aine could help hide their bodies, but she could do nothing to conceal their thoughts. That was where Avery came in.

But of all the bold plans they had ever attempted together, today's was perhaps the boldest of all. Together, they'd snuck into the hangar, past the watchful sentries and even Starfall's attentive Persona. Granted, Avery's powers weren't strong enough to hide from the ship. But she wasn't quite brave enough to admit that an AI might also be helping them.

"Try something else? Maybe those other buttons. You aren't pressing any of them." Aine was smaller and younger by size—like all the native cats, she learned quicker and better than Avery could. But she didn't seem to mind that her friend was a bit slow. Especially when they went out on adventures, and they got to put their skills to use.

Avery floated a little closer to the projection map, with its complex representation of the world and its continents. "I just need to give guidance instructions to the computer. I'm trying to remember where to go."

"Remember?" Aine repeated. "Like you've ever gone outside Starfall before. You've never been to the orbital outpost, can't lie to me!"

"I ain't!" she shot back. The trouble was, arguing with her friend took focus away from the little jumper's mental interface. It responded only to conscious commands, and only when sent with the discipline it expected. Simply being a cat wasn't good enough, nor was tapping on the designated places.

"I've never been to orbital nothin'. Been to Alola a few times. I was gonna go with a friend right before I… He was gonna take me when we both graduated."

"He." Aine brushed up against her from the side. The smaller cat was less careful about her grooming than Avery, with a coat that got matted and bunched up where she didn't give it the requisite attention. Often Avery helped her with that, though not today. They had more important concerns right now.

"A male promised to take you on a trip? Come on!" She floated through the projector map, sticking out her tongue in the air. "You're barely even weaned, Avery. Who are you giving a litter?"

"No one!" She curled up in the air instinctively, wrapping her tail around herself. With her anxiety and lack of focus, the screen switched off again, map vanishing. Exit lights illuminated, directing them towards the passage out. "Not a cat, anyway. I never… we didn't talk about it like that. We were friends. He was too shy to ask for anything else. Or else he didn't want me because of how broken I was. Don't remember."

She landed on the floor in front of the main computer, her head resting against the projector. There were no buttons here, no levers or dials or other manual controls. A cat used their thoughts as their first and final instrument.

"I didn't mean it like that." The cat landed next to her, and licked at her forehead consolingly. She felt the warmth through that gesture as more than a little moisture on her fur. Reading social cues from someone who shared their emotions with you was always easier than the alternative. "No one cares you had to be transformed back into a person, Avery. I wouldn't even know if we didn't grow up together."

Liar. But this lie was for her benefit, so she could politely ignore it. She was only trying to help. Cats knew because she learned and grew much slower than the natives. No real kitten would spend three years repeating kindergarten. Mew weren't an ancient myth to her anymore, or wild Pokémon. They were way beyond any civilization she'd come from. Quinn had obviously been wrong about his time travel. He had brought them to the future, into a world she could barely understand.

Lucky for her she found a friend who also wanted to take her time learning everything, and didn't mind if she had to take more years to grow up. Being small wasn't so bad.

"Intruders," said a voice through the screen in front of her, polite, almost apologetic. "You should be aware that the guard will change in another three minutes. When they return, your flight will surely be noticed. If you wished to leave unseen, you must do so promptly."

Avery sat up and lifted into the air again. "Thanks, Sinnoh. Don't distract me this time, Aine. I'm gonna make it work."

The other cat followed her into the air. "Thanking the ship. Thank the food processor too next time."

"I wouldn't, because Sinnoh still makes me eat kitten food five days a week. Maybe when they're a little nicer with my—"

She was getting distracted again. Despite the supreme mental powers of her new species, smallness did have disadvantages. But this time, she was determined. Avery remembered her childhood visit to the region, thought about the cruise brochure she'd covertly peeked at on Quinn's desk. Those memories endured to her present moment, though somewhat changed by the intervening years.

Almost no cat wanted to listen to her stories of that life before, believing it some kind of hallucination, or recurring nightmare. Hearing that version of events repeated over and over for years meant her memories usually had her floating in them now, sometimes with a tail or other Pokémon features. Other things just didn't make sense, like the time she'd been saved from a wild Beartic by Baast before the cat evolved.

Like a degenerate Pokémon could ever threaten her, even if she was still growing! Thinking too long on those memories only produced discord and discomfort.

But she could remember Alola, its islands and warm sands and rainforests. That was where she would find him.

"Course identified to Minor Island Group HF-1-1-4. Departure clearance granted. Please find a comfortable seat for local transit."

The craft spoke in Sinnoh's voice, a gentle, gender-neutral companion to every cat no matter what they were doing or where in Starfall they wandered. Including on clandestine missions on "borrowed" jumpers.

"You did it!" Aine squealed in delight, embracing her in the air. "You did it, you did it, you did it! How?"

"I've been there before," she said. "Though I think it might be a different version of Alola now. Don't think I'll go to any of the resorts I did the last time I was there."

The floor shook under them, and the jumper lifted. Long ago, Avery had been helpless aboard this craft, confused and amazed by what she felt while it traveled. Now she knew exactly what it did, producing its own local gravity anchor for any cat aboard, adjusting their reference frame so they levitated relative to the ground, instead of the mass of the planet below. Without it, she would've smacked straight into the wall as they moved.

Instead, she dropped gently to the cushion, and spread her weight there. "I remember doing this once before. Spread out, gravity comes back when we jump."

"We're leaving!" Aine squealed. She didn't land on the cushion next to her so much as bounced off of it several times, smacking her tail into Avery as she went. "Actually leaving! Without marines, without our parents…" She landed next to Avery's head, grinning back at her with tiny, sharp teeth. "Are you sure it's safe?"

Avery shrugged. "We're not kittens! If someone tries to hurt us, they have to fight two cats at once!"

"And if they're too scary, we could just fly away! So fast that even my mom couldn't catch up!"

"Transit lock achieved. Stand by."

Avery tensed, preparing for the awful pressure. She was right to worry—gravity struck her like a physical blow, crushing her into the cushions. For a few seconds she couldn't move, could barely even breathe. Her powers didn't work, because she wasn't anywhere. To teleport was to pass through dimensionless space. Even a well-meaning machine like Sinnoh could do only so much to ease the blow.

Then it was over. Light returned, and she lifted off the cushion. She caught herself, but Aine was too slow to do the same. Aine bobbed up past her, smacking against the padded ceiling. Avery caught her in her own powers, tugging her down so she didn't keep slamming around the cabin.

She moaned, rubbing at her temples with both forelegs. "That was bad, Avery! You didn't say it was like getting squished! Like being a kitten all over again, waking up like I was gonna suffocate."

"Sorry." It was her time to lick at her friend, on the back of her head and neck. "It's over now, though."

"Vessel arrived at nearest coordinates," Sinnoh said, gentle as ever. "Would you like to land? A number of sites are available."

"I would like…" She hesitated. She could tell things to Sinnoh and expect them to help, but they might not be so willing if she explained the exact reason for her choice here. The jumper would follow more automatically, without needing to argue her point.

"What now?" Aine asked, tilting her head sideways. "We came all this way, I don't wanna go back without seeing it for myself!"

With that thought, the walls turned transparent. Maybe they were screens, projecting what was really on the other side. Avery was still shaky on many aspects of Firstborn technology.

Either way, they had the desired effect. Suddenly they were high overhead, with verdant islands stretching away beneath them. An enormous rainforest covered much of it, with plains on one side, and empty beaches in the far distance, on a coast of crystal blue water.

No sign of resorts, or any other human settlement. She could make out tiny figures down there—Pokémon, enjoying their time in the sun as only wild Pokémon could.

"Woah. A beach. With water. We gotta go out there!" With Aine's thought, the external door began to open, like the iris on an old camera. Only open air waited outside, no sign of any simple way down. This was the landing craft.

“I need to find people,” she thought to the ship. “The one I'm looking for might not be here now, but he would've left a sign for me. A structure.”

The map projection reappeared, only this one was much more zoomed-in. It displayed only the Alola islands, with a dense grid showing many thousands of tiny dots. They blurred together at a distance, but Avery could always get closer, squinting down at the incredible diversity of life here.

"One crew lifesigns detected. One Sinnoh outposts detected. I do not believe this matches your search request. Expanding search parameters."

Aine floated over, watching from Avery's shoulder. She bobbed up and down there, stretching her tiny paws. Claws emerged from the tips, before sinking back inside again. "What are you looking for? The safest spot?"

She wanted to lie—but closing herself off would be just as obvious as the deception while still in contact with her. "Probably not safest. But most interesting. That male I told you about. He told me to come here to find him. But I don't know how long he was waiting for me. Probably… not this long." How long had she lived in Starfall, anyway? Time was very confusing when you were a cat, and could sleep for days between lessons sometimes.

Avery hadn't repeated kindergarten three times because she was fast. But she doubted very many in Blueberry's highest STEM degrees could've passed those classes first time either. Being a Mew was hard.

"Structure detected. It's on the peak of the tallest mountain there, near the caldera of the volcano. Atmospheric conditions are not suitable for landing."

Avery grunted in frustration. "So what are we supposed to do, give up?"

"Bubble?" Aine suggested. "Can you do bubbles yet?"

She whimpered, ears pressing flat to her head. "No…"

"Perhaps it would be better to return at a later time," Sinnoh said, gently. "It would be easier to make a second trip if this first one is not noticed. Either secure the assistance of an adult, or return when you are more capable."

It's here, I know where it is. But if she asked Metis to go with her, she already knew what kind of answer she would get. I have to hide this. Make it feel like we left for another reason.

"My mom told me about a… beach outpost," Avery said, growing more confident with every word. "We should fly there instead."

"That would still subject you to heightened scrutiny," Sinnoh said. "Instead, perhaps you should return to Starfall. I could provide transit vouchers for the public carrier. Your mothers would be less concerned to discover you had avoided class in a supervised environment. They will probably still punish you, however."

"I know," they said together, at almost the same moment. "Kitten food for a week," Avery muttered, downcast. "But if we get to go to the beach first… worth it."

And when she was older, she would be back.