Kukui's Curse

Chapter Seven-Fight

Lillie picked herself up off of the floor and whimpered, holding her sore throat.  Moon and Hau watched as the creature returned, but it returned a thousand times worse.  He was taller, stronger, and had two rows of teeth instead of just one.  The creature growled evilly and focused himself on Lillie.  Lunala screeched and grabbed the monster by the remains of his lab coat, scooping him up to the rafters.  It struggled in the bat's grasp, and Lunala cried out one more time.  The kids ran as fast as they could to Moon's bedroom, and Lunala dropped the professor to the ground, scooping up Hau's rowlet and Rockruff before diving into the room.

Moon slammed the door behind Lunala and locked it, while Hau and Lillie began to move the dresser.  "Trade places with me," Moon ordered Lillie, and the small, pale girl pressed her back against the door, keeping it shut.  She whimpered every time the huge creature banged his body into it, which caused her to jolt forward.

Lillie shrieked as ten huge claws stabbed through the door on either side of her.  She pushed her feet into the floor as the wood pounded against her back, causing a typhoon of pain course through her.  "Professor Kukui quit it!"

The wolf broke through the door, knocking her to the ground, and Lillie found herself pinned under the horrible wererock.  "Professor! Professor," she screamed over and over again as the wolf snarled in her face, and she let out a few whimpering cries for help.  "Daddy, come back," she sniveled and sobbed, covering her eyes in fear, and the wolf stopped in his tracks at the word.  "Come back to me," she whispered on the edge of her breath before sniffling and crying once again, and the fur began to shed from Kukui's skin once again.  He crawled away from her as the fur fell away to his normal, dark skin and he grunted as his bones shifted and contorted back to that of a human.  The red color in his eyes faded away back to brown and he coughed up a horribly painful ball of a black, tar-like substance.  She shivered violently and curled up in a ball, and Kukui looked over his arms.  The lab coat that was in tatters was way too big for him now, and he looked at the stretched out, ripped up fabric in confusion.

"What happened," he asked in a panic, looking up at Moon and Hau.

"It's trying to get into our heads," Hau panicked, shooting Kukui in between the eyes with a foam bullet.  The man jumped and held his head in pain with his hand, and Moon rolled her eyes.

"No, Hau," Moon sighed as Kukui held his head.

"What are you talking about, Hau?"

"It's a long story," Moon explained, and Kukui looked through the window at the rain that poured hard through the night.  The trees nearly lied on their sides at the hard wind, and he looked back at the bulletin board.  Without his glasses, it seemed like nothing, but after he found them in what remained of his pocket and slid them on his face, he saw the pictures of himself and the Lycanrock scattered frantically over the walls.

"I can see that," he whispered, nodding a little.  He looked to Lillie, who cried on the floor still.  He scooted to her on his knees and took off the remains of the coat, throwing it to the side.  "Hey, it's okay, Lil."

"You can open your eyes now," Moon encouraged, and she slowly pulled her gloved fingers down her face to see him.  He smiled at her and without a second thought, she jumped up from her position on the floor to his arms, holding him tight.  He hugged her back and pet her ponytail as she smeared eyeliner on the side of his face.

"You really did save me, didn't you?"  Moon and Hau nodded, and he smiled.  "And after I thought you were a wimp, Lillie!  Maybe you really will be a good trainer, huh?"

"Trainer," Hau and Moon screamed in shock.

"You still want to be a trainer, yeah?"  Lillie pulled away from him and shook her head, laughing.

"Of course not!  I had to come up with something to tell you."  He smiled and laughed back at her, pulling her down on the floor to roughhouse.  After a little bit of silence, the man grinned.

"Hear that?"

"What," Lillie asked quietly, and he held his hands up and curled his fingers over.

"It's The Masked Royal, back at it again with the R.K.O. to Crasher Wake!"  She giggled and squealed as he held her down, and Moon and Hau dropped their weapons, joining the dogpile on top of him.

"Not under Cool Guy and Bat Girl's watch!"  Lunala rolled her eyes and glared at Moon, who looked up at her Pokémon.

"I didn't choose the name!"  Lunala squeaked at her fussily and tucked her head under her wing, coddling the other three critters under her wing to sleep.

"Oh my God," Moon's mother cried out as the drenched woman slammed the door shut.  "Moon, what happened to the door?  And why are you all painted up like that!"  Kukui stood to his feet and brushed his arms off, smiling at her.

"Well, let's just say it was a long story."  He looked to the three and winked at them with a smile.  "Don't worry, I'll fix it up for you."  Moon's mother nodded a little bit as she looked around the house.

"Right."  The woman passed by the four and went to her own room to sleep, and when they heard the door close, they looked around themselves.

"I want a good explanation for all of this for real," he began in the strictest voice he could conjure, and Moon began to pick up the fragments of the door as Hau found the broom and the dustpan.

Lillie took his hand and led him to the billboard, pointing to the picture she had drawn of his wound from Rockruff.  "It started with a little scratch."