Shiny Phantump
Through Dream, I Travel
A oneshot written for the Weird and Wonderful oneshot contest, where it won second place in Ditto Flight. The original contest version had some serious "submitted one minute before deadline" grammar errors/typos, which have been ironed out for this release. I've also made some tweaks to help it flow better, I think. (If anyone's curious, a completely unedited version is included in a spoilerbox at the bottom of the thread.)
The lore explantion included with the submission was:
In Sun and Moon, with the box legend in your party after becoming champion, you can visit the Altar of the Sunne/Moone in the night/day and find a wormhole. It lets you go visit an entire alternate universe corresponding to the other game version, time-flipped and with a different altar and lake. This serves exclusively to allow you to find and catch this parallel universe's Cosmog from the Lake of the (your game version), even though there's no Cosmog in your universe to appear there. Stranger still. It'll ultimately evolve into the box legend you already had.
Despite only serving that one purpose, it's a fully, 100% explorable parallel universe! It's weird! It otherwise recycles the flags from the main game world leading to logical inconsistencies where people claim you've already done daily events that day, gotten items from them, you can have your Gladion tell to go to Aether to pick up a Null, get a Null from parallel Gladion, and then have your Gladion ask you how the Null he gave is doing, and you can even defend "your" champion title in a parallel universe. But I've always seen that as a game limitation.
What else could be here without those limitations? And what is that Cosmog, anyway?
Content warning for the subject of death.
It’s strange to think that, on the other side of that wormhole is a world almost exactly like this one. Almost, but with some obvious differences. You know what the big one is, but you couldn’t have recognized that one right away. The first tell that you hadn’t just looped back into your own universe at the exact place you’d left would be the time. Your travel only took a few seconds, but when you arrived it was the dead of night. The second would be the altar’s regalia. This was not your Altar of the Moone, but the Altar of the Sunne.
Nebula, the Lunala you’d helped Lillie raise, asked you to wait for a while, in case this world’s own Solgaleo or Lunala sensed her arrival and came to check what was happening. You used the time to pull your phone from your purse and see if it could connect to this world’s internet. The one bar of signal strength that the altar got from the cell tower set up to service the area around the dragon trial isn’t great, but it’s one bar more than you’re used to getting from atop Lanakila. You felt that was pretty good for an alternate universe.
It took a few tries and connection timeouts for you to successfully look up ‘altar of the sun alola’ and get a wiki page to load. It was a short page documenting largely the same history you’d have known from back home, except that the followers of Solgaleo here were the royal branch family, instead of Lunala’s. You didn’t tell Nebula that the main branch had been the ones to worship her here. You thought she already had a bit of an ego. The main point of interest on the wiki page was what wasn’t listed, instead of what was: The incidents that had occurred during your island challenge weren’t there at all, the page gave the image of an altar that had been inert since old times.
You suspected this world didn’t have its own Nebula based on that information, and indeed no Solgaleo nor Lunala came to greet you. That would make things more difficult to answer the basic questions about what this world was, its relationship to Ultra Space, and how it had become linked to your own. You wouldn’t be able to answer them all. Maybe that means you’ll be back to learn more someday in the future. That would be nice.
Your bank card would be no good here, and spending cash felt like a bad idea to you when it wasn’t part of this world’s economic system. But trainer cards don’t have as much security in them, so you decided to crash at a centre until the morning. Even if you weren’t tired, you wouldn’t really be able to talk to the people of this world until they woke up.
The receptionist at the center Nebula dropped you off at didn’t seem to think anything of your presence. No name or face recognition. You didn’t know exactly what that meant yet, all you knew for certain was that this world didn’t have a Champion Selene.
It’s easier to say with the power of retrospect that you should’ve begun developing suspicions at that point, but you’d assumed that no version of you had existed in this world without noticing you were making an assumption. As if your championship was an inevitability from the moment you were born, and its absence meant you must never have been born at all.
It probably didn’t help your reasoning that you were running a sleep deficit from the swarm of challengers all trying to get a shot at the crown before you called the end of the season. You’d hardly be the only champion to have to deal with that problem. Stopped you being restless and awake through this world’s night because of the time jump.
You woke up next morning with a clearer head and a resolution to commune with the Tapu. Tapu Koko in particular had liked you from the start of your journey, when they’d saved you and ‘Nebby’. You got yourself a coffee from the centre’s café and then asked Nebula to teleport you to… Mahalo Trail.
That bridge is an emotionally charged place. It seems ironic that you decided to sit there of all places to finish your coffee, legs dangling out over the rapids below. But it didn’t feel that way to you, you had a lot of good moments with the one in your world. It was where you’d met Lillie, and the two of you had a few important conversations here, especially in the days before she left you to go to Kanto.
The differences between this world’s bridge and the one you shared those moments on are subtle enough that most people wouldn’t sense anything amiss right away, but you’d spent more time there than anyone else you know of, so you spot them immediately. The planks are closer together, and this in turn partially conceals that they’re held aloft by steel chains and not rope. The railings are still ripe, but rise taller than the original ones did and the cross-hatching of ropes between the bridge and top guard rope is denser.
The bridge back in your world is as identical as possible, a loving recreation of the historic bridge as authentic as possible. This one is subtly stronger, designed to make sure what happened there could never happen again. Which is funny, because none of these measures would have prevented the original’s collapse. Nebby very literally tried to create space between themself and the Spearow circling them. No metal chains or safer rails would make a bridge withstand suddenly needing to be several feet longer than it is because a Cosmog distorted reality around it.
You weren’t sure if things genuinely happened differently here, or if they just didn’t understand why the bridge collapsed, but taken in combination with the way this world was missing its Solgaleo or Lunala, the range of possibilities was wide enough to frighten you. That was the moment you realized the kinds of things you needed to be looking up online to find out what was wrong with this twin world.
A search for ‘mahalo trail bridge collapse’ yielded more news articles than you’d expected, from bigger outlets than should’ve been covering it. You feel sick to your stomach as you read the headline. As you see the words. ‘Young woman dead.’ As you see the accompanying photo. Of your face.
That’s why nobody recognized you as Champion Selene. Before it even began, your journey was… over. Because some girl you didn’t even yet know lost control of a species you wouldn’t yet have recognized as important, and didn’t have the spine to handle a rope bridge and a few Spearow on her own. And no one had saved you. You must have been horrified, realizing what had become of you in this world.
You certainly weren’t keen on communing with Tapu Koko anymore.
The articles were missing something, though. You opened them and skimmed through a few, some made mention of a witness, but none of a Cosmog. The bridge’s collapse was assumed to be structural in nature. That made it impossible to track what might’ve happened with this world’s Nebula. But there was someone who should know.
The most recent contact in your phone was Lillie. You called her, only to be told by an automated message that her number could not be reached, and asked you to try again later. You tried her brother’s contact next. This time, someone picked up.
Gladion picked up with the same tired, dispassionate tone he usually does with people he doesn’t recognize. You introduced yourself as a faller, and gave him your name. He asked you a few pointed questions about where you’d even heard that word, and you must’ve answered to his satisfaction because he chose to believe you.
You asked him where to find Lillie. He told you to go to the peak of Mount Lanakila and ask for an off-docket match.
So that’s what you did.
The Elite Four had left for the day already. Knowing you, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference if they hadn’t. Might’ve slowed you down, but there’s a reason you’re a champion instead of them, and you were prepared to fight with a single-minded ferocity the likes of which you hadn’t wielded since your first trip to Ultra Space. You head straight up the stairs to the peak of Mount Lanakila, to the champion’s seat.
You lock eyes with me.
A challenge from one trainer to another.
I must have looked like I’d seen a ghost. You looked worried about me. We took a moment to size up the familiarities and differences. This version of you was older now, obviously. There’s a scar running down your nose to your cheek, one you’d later tell me you got protecting your world’s version of me. I don’t look like someone who needs protecting anymore. I’m stronger than that. I’m not a weak little girl who’d need to endanger someone else for help dealing with a Spearow. That much is obvious from looking at me.
You called me by her name. “Lillie.” I don’t use that diminutive nickname anymore. It doesn’t sound right for the person I am. I corrected you, and you were transparently saddened by it. I am Lillian Mohn.
You introduced yourself as Champion Selene of another world. You don’t have to explain what it means. You know that Nebby took me from Aether, and therefore that I’m a faller in my own right. I already know what it means. And it makes intuitive sense that there is a world where everything went right and you’re champion instead of me. I attended the funeral. I heard about your potential. It just makes sense, the fact that I am here because I took this opportunity from you.
We both reached for our leads in unison. You took your starter, the Primarina who you named Setsuko. I lead Polaris, who stares down the other fairy with pride as his Snow Warning kicks in. You immediately started calculating around the durability granted by Aurora Veil and the damage potential of Freeze Dry and realized you‘d lost the initiative. You pivoted to your Mismagius, who you named Morgana. Polaris does know Aurora Veil, and fanned out his tails as he got to raise one for free.
You called for Mean Look, thinking you could weather the storm from a more defensive Ninetales and prevent Polaris passing advantage to an ally. You wanted to limit my strategic possibility space, increase your ability to plan ahead once you knew what was coming. That’s what makes you tick. You live in a world of statistics measured per-hundred-battles, of strategic guarantees, and logical inevitabilities.
Your face contorted for a moment as I called for Sheer Cold instead of Blizzard or Freeze Dry. Like you’re insulted that I’d use such a move in the most important battle of my life. But I don’t live in your world. There’s no such thing as safe in my world, and watching you realize that as your plans destabilize proves the move’s value even as it fails to connect. There’s no such thing as a safe moment in front of Polaris and I.
You weren’t willing to cede your plan over to the fear of a Sheer Cold connecting. You called Perish Song, becoming committed to the trap. I didn’t see a point in trading Polaris for a bit of Blizzard damage, especially when you’d probably just Pain Split it off. I call Sheer Cold again. No hit yet.
When you called Thunder Wave, I realize that Morgana probably knows a hybrid Hex set and not a pure Perish Trap set with Pain Split. Polaris can’t get an attack off, and Morgana laughs at him. He snarls back, his pride wounded.
With the precise timing of someone who’d done so a thousand times before, you pivoted the moment before the song’s enchantment took effect, cutting it close enough that I didn’t have time to react to the dropped Mean Look trap. I recall seeing the satisfaction starting to settle on your face at your success. But Polaris does his best work when his back is to the wall and his ego is on the line. Your Lurantis was barely out of the ball before he landed a Sheer Cold. I didn’t even catch their name before they were enveloped in a maelstrom of bitter ice. Crystals formed on their skin for a brief moment before their ball’s automatic recall pulled them back. Polaris fainted with a marked contentment at the trade.
I took the loss of your grass type as a cue to use Ophelia. You draw a premier ball, even though all your other team members were caught in pragmatic balls. I already suspected what your fourth team member was. After all, we both got the same starter, so what’s one more similarity. A Silvally, eyes and crest a steely grey, emerges. You called them Hayahito. I wish I could say why, but I guess you’d already know.
They looked at Ophelia, dimensional twin to their own teammate, then up at me, then back and forth again. Both of us almost recognizable as people they know, but neither of us quite the same.
Maybe I should have given them more time to adjust before calling Hydro Pump. But there’s no point in regretting it now. Even as the move was still rolling over them, they readied a multi-attack and fought to move against the current before leaping into a strike the moment the pressure let up.
They made sure to attack and stay near Ophelia’s flank without being overtly instructed to do so. Maybe your team members sparred with each other sometimes, or maybe they just had good instincts, but that made it hard for Ophelia to hit them. I called an Aqua Jet out straight ahead to reposition and create space, you called Pursuit to keep the flank position, even if it didn’t hurt too much.
I called Dazzling Gleam, since the burst could hit a whole radius around Ophelia. Despite the type disadvantage, I’d been hoping the threat would force you to tell Hayahito to back off and give us space. As she reared up on her tail, though, they started channeling a multi-attack before even getting your call to confirm it. The blow toppled Ophelia, but not before her own attack connected.
Hayahito was visibly drained, but standing. Panting through their beak while their eyes burned determination to keep fighting. I know what it took my brother to evolve his Silvally, and what that implies about the two of you as partners.
Ophelia, by contrast, isn’t getting up. I recalled her, and sent out Vela. He disappeared into the shadows just as quickly as he appeared. This late in the day, the shadows on top of Mount Lanakila are long, and he has no trouble dealing a quick, decisive blow to the back of Hayahito’s head without revealing himself.
I’ve been trying not to lean too hard on Vela in my championship matches. Mimikyu do best with occasional battling, if their disguises get broken too often it starts to stress them out. But fighting you, I pushed away any thoughts like that. I needed everyone to win, to prove we did deserve to be there at the mountain’s peak even with you here. Ha, I think I was a little afraid of you at the time. Didn’t want you to be better than me.
You pulled Setsuko back out for the first time since your lead. Your Primarina. I called for Swords Dance. You called Moonblast, channeling the light of the rising moon and sending Vela skittering back out of his shadows with the head of his disguise trailing behind him.
There’s not much point in pretending you can issue calls to a Mimikyu who just had his disguise broken. I’ve raised him to have good instincts in a fight, even when he’s furious. He throws a vicious shadow claw into Setsuko’s flank, and you call for Sparkling Aria. It can consistently hit someone as slippery as Vela, but it’s not strong enough to secure the one hit knockout that you really needed if you were to get Vela off before he brought his wrath down on Setsuko a second time. Primarina just aren’t built for physical assaults like this, her good constitution let her shrug it off once, but there aren’t many who get third chances against Vela.
They’d have one-shot Morgana if you pulled her back out, so you’re forced down to your fifth partner. You and I had both still kept one team member back, and you were the first to be forced down to your last trick. I’m proud of that fact.
You called out for Nebula.
I knew that name. I remembered giving it to a sweet-looking little Cosmog. Something I thought deserved a chance, before it… You know… Before it ended your life and changed mine forever.
I hadn’t seen it since it disappeared that night, much less known that it could evolve.
But it was The Moon Herself that answered the call. Your world’s Nebula was now a Lunala. She whispered to me in my mind.
Lillie? It’s me, Nebby.
I’d never have recognized her as that Cosmog if she didn’t tell me. She looks so different now.
This is unnecessary, she told me, Call off this pointless battle.
I… called out to Vela. And he pounced. His claw raked down Nebula’s wing. Her retaliation was swift and overwhelming. Vela’s ball triggers its automatic recall before her Moongeist Beam even dissipates. Then she locked eyes with me, furious.
You understood why I did it, even if Nebby didn’t. That you would have been champion if you’d lived meant that I should be the worse champion. That I was still weaker than you. You didn’t think it was true, but you could tell I did. So you gestured to the open field, and I drew a master ball from my bag.
Nebula didn’t think I could handle her. I had to prove her wrong. Aphelion emerged from the ball, their deep voice rumbling in a way that shook our bones.
(After the battle, you’d admitted you’d fought your own UB-Black in your own Ten Carat Hill. But it had never even crossed your mind to try to catch it, much less train it. The UBs you had caught seemed too unstable and predictable to train even without the sheer power UB-Black had, and you’d never made the connection to the old myths of the lightless star, Necrozma.)
Your hand shot to your pocket to retrieve a z-crystal, and I mirrored the gesture. Our Black Hole Eclipse exploded out towards Nebula before settling above her head, an emptiness trying to swallow her whole before you could finish getting your Neverending Nightmare to connect. Aphelion creaked and groaned, trying to float back and forth to avoid flailing tendrils woven from grudges older than any of us there. Aphelion’s Black Hole Eclipse swallowed Nebula whole and burst, the arms of her Neverending Nightmare frantically writhing, battering them to the ground. Then, quickly as it started, two z-moves from two of the most powerful species on earth went silent as their users collapsed.
Neither of them rose again.
When I drew my own premier ball, you just pointed to it instead of drawing Morgana’s own. You asked what type it was. I said normal, not quite admitting that we hadn’t managed to evolve them into a Silvally at all yet, even though you probably guessed as much anyway.
“Pursuit?”
I shook my head. Crush Claw, U-Turn, Protect, Toxic. Immune to Hex, but with nothing that could take out Morgana in three turns.
You extended your hand and started to cross the arena.
“Perish Song.”
A draw.
You were grinning when we shook hands at the center of the arena, even though you hadn’t managed to win. Or because of it, maybe. When we were talking afterwards, you told me there really weren’t many people in your world who could challenge you. Apparently, the other me didn’t really want to be a strong trainer that badly. Almost didn’t become one at all. It’s hard to wrap my head around that.
You told me a lot about her, your team, your world. That was when you asked for my help finding out what happened to my Nebby after I lost them. You told me how the Nebby you knew had been drawn to places of spiritual power, and even if I hadn’t seen them since losing track of them that day on the bridge, which was enough for us to start reasoning our way towards putting the Lake of the Moone on the short list of places they could’ve ended up.
I made you go check those places on your own. I didn’t want to be there when you found that Cosmog. I’m not eager to see them again. But you still told me where you’d found them, pulled me into planning what to do with them. It’s a champion’s responsibility to help deal with powerful forces of nature like that, after all.
Now, the plan is to have Nebby look after our world’s future Lunala, until they grow up. I’m certainly not going to do it, and nobody’s seen either of our world’s past Lunala for so long that I’m not sure my world has one to teach them anymore. Yours didn’t. Your Lillie brought up Nebby as best she could without any members of their species to help.
I guess that means I’m probably going to see that version of you again, when you report in on that process. That’s something to look forward to. And I know another version of you saying you forgive me doesn’t necessarily mean you’d feel that way when you’re the one it actually happened to, but it was nice to hear before we parted for our own homes anyway. I’d like to think it counts for something, at least.
I know, I should probably come visit you more often, but… It’s hard, sometimes. I didn’t really get the impression that you’re the kind of person who’d appreciate flowers, but it’s rude to visit a burial site without leaving something, so I hope it’s at least alright.
I’m sorry about everything.
I’ll see you later.
The lore explantion included with the submission was:
In Sun and Moon, with the box legend in your party after becoming champion, you can visit the Altar of the Sunne/Moone in the night/day and find a wormhole. It lets you go visit an entire alternate universe corresponding to the other game version, time-flipped and with a different altar and lake. This serves exclusively to allow you to find and catch this parallel universe's Cosmog from the Lake of the (your game version), even though there's no Cosmog in your universe to appear there. Stranger still. It'll ultimately evolve into the box legend you already had.
Despite only serving that one purpose, it's a fully, 100% explorable parallel universe! It's weird! It otherwise recycles the flags from the main game world leading to logical inconsistencies where people claim you've already done daily events that day, gotten items from them, you can have your Gladion tell to go to Aether to pick up a Null, get a Null from parallel Gladion, and then have your Gladion ask you how the Null he gave is doing, and you can even defend "your" champion title in a parallel universe. But I've always seen that as a game limitation.
What else could be here without those limitations? And what is that Cosmog, anyway?
Content warning for the subject of death.
Message From A Better World:
It’s strange to think that it was mostly happenstance that led to you being the one assigned to investigate the new wormhole that had opened itself at the Altar of the Moone. Interpol refused to let someone who wasn’t already a faller anywhere near it, much less through it. Anabel was busy on another continent, you’d worked with them successfully before, and it was the off-season for championship challengers. That left you with time for weird things like this.
It’s strange to think that, on the other side of that wormhole is a world almost exactly like this one. Almost, but with some obvious differences. You know what the big one is, but you couldn’t have recognized that one right away. The first tell that you hadn’t just looped back into your own universe at the exact place you’d left would be the time. Your travel only took a few seconds, but when you arrived it was the dead of night. The second would be the altar’s regalia. This was not your Altar of the Moone, but the Altar of the Sunne.
Nebula, the Lunala you’d helped Lillie raise, asked you to wait for a while, in case this world’s own Solgaleo or Lunala sensed her arrival and came to check what was happening. You used the time to pull your phone from your purse and see if it could connect to this world’s internet. The one bar of signal strength that the altar got from the cell tower set up to service the area around the dragon trial isn’t great, but it’s one bar more than you’re used to getting from atop Lanakila. You felt that was pretty good for an alternate universe.
It took a few tries and connection timeouts for you to successfully look up ‘altar of the sun alola’ and get a wiki page to load. It was a short page documenting largely the same history you’d have known from back home, except that the followers of Solgaleo here were the royal branch family, instead of Lunala’s. You didn’t tell Nebula that the main branch had been the ones to worship her here. You thought she already had a bit of an ego. The main point of interest on the wiki page was what wasn’t listed, instead of what was: The incidents that had occurred during your island challenge weren’t there at all, the page gave the image of an altar that had been inert since old times.
You suspected this world didn’t have its own Nebula based on that information, and indeed no Solgaleo nor Lunala came to greet you. That would make things more difficult to answer the basic questions about what this world was, its relationship to Ultra Space, and how it had become linked to your own. You wouldn’t be able to answer them all. Maybe that means you’ll be back to learn more someday in the future. That would be nice.
Your bank card would be no good here, and spending cash felt like a bad idea to you when it wasn’t part of this world’s economic system. But trainer cards don’t have as much security in them, so you decided to crash at a centre until the morning. Even if you weren’t tired, you wouldn’t really be able to talk to the people of this world until they woke up.
The receptionist at the center Nebula dropped you off at didn’t seem to think anything of your presence. No name or face recognition. You didn’t know exactly what that meant yet, all you knew for certain was that this world didn’t have a Champion Selene.
It’s easier to say with the power of retrospect that you should’ve begun developing suspicions at that point, but you’d assumed that no version of you had existed in this world without noticing you were making an assumption. As if your championship was an inevitability from the moment you were born, and its absence meant you must never have been born at all.
It probably didn’t help your reasoning that you were running a sleep deficit from the swarm of challengers all trying to get a shot at the crown before you called the end of the season. You’d hardly be the only champion to have to deal with that problem. Stopped you being restless and awake through this world’s night because of the time jump.
You woke up next morning with a clearer head and a resolution to commune with the Tapu. Tapu Koko in particular had liked you from the start of your journey, when they’d saved you and ‘Nebby’. You got yourself a coffee from the centre’s café and then asked Nebula to teleport you to… Mahalo Trail.
That bridge is an emotionally charged place. It seems ironic that you decided to sit there of all places to finish your coffee, legs dangling out over the rapids below. But it didn’t feel that way to you, you had a lot of good moments with the one in your world. It was where you’d met Lillie, and the two of you had a few important conversations here, especially in the days before she left you to go to Kanto.
The differences between this world’s bridge and the one you shared those moments on are subtle enough that most people wouldn’t sense anything amiss right away, but you’d spent more time there than anyone else you know of, so you spot them immediately. The planks are closer together, and this in turn partially conceals that they’re held aloft by steel chains and not rope. The railings are still ripe, but rise taller than the original ones did and the cross-hatching of ropes between the bridge and top guard rope is denser.
The bridge back in your world is as identical as possible, a loving recreation of the historic bridge as authentic as possible. This one is subtly stronger, designed to make sure what happened there could never happen again. Which is funny, because none of these measures would have prevented the original’s collapse. Nebby very literally tried to create space between themself and the Spearow circling them. No metal chains or safer rails would make a bridge withstand suddenly needing to be several feet longer than it is because a Cosmog distorted reality around it.
You weren’t sure if things genuinely happened differently here, or if they just didn’t understand why the bridge collapsed, but taken in combination with the way this world was missing its Solgaleo or Lunala, the range of possibilities was wide enough to frighten you. That was the moment you realized the kinds of things you needed to be looking up online to find out what was wrong with this twin world.
A search for ‘mahalo trail bridge collapse’ yielded more news articles than you’d expected, from bigger outlets than should’ve been covering it. You feel sick to your stomach as you read the headline. As you see the words. ‘Young woman dead.’ As you see the accompanying photo. Of your face.
That’s why nobody recognized you as Champion Selene. Before it even began, your journey was… over. Because some girl you didn’t even yet know lost control of a species you wouldn’t yet have recognized as important, and didn’t have the spine to handle a rope bridge and a few Spearow on her own. And no one had saved you. You must have been horrified, realizing what had become of you in this world.
You certainly weren’t keen on communing with Tapu Koko anymore.
The articles were missing something, though. You opened them and skimmed through a few, some made mention of a witness, but none of a Cosmog. The bridge’s collapse was assumed to be structural in nature. That made it impossible to track what might’ve happened with this world’s Nebula. But there was someone who should know.
The most recent contact in your phone was Lillie. You called her, only to be told by an automated message that her number could not be reached, and asked you to try again later. You tried her brother’s contact next. This time, someone picked up.
Gladion picked up with the same tired, dispassionate tone he usually does with people he doesn’t recognize. You introduced yourself as a faller, and gave him your name. He asked you a few pointed questions about where you’d even heard that word, and you must’ve answered to his satisfaction because he chose to believe you.
You asked him where to find Lillie. He told you to go to the peak of Mount Lanakila and ask for an off-docket match.
So that’s what you did.
The Elite Four had left for the day already. Knowing you, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference if they hadn’t. Might’ve slowed you down, but there’s a reason you’re a champion instead of them, and you were prepared to fight with a single-minded ferocity the likes of which you hadn’t wielded since your first trip to Ultra Space. You head straight up the stairs to the peak of Mount Lanakila, to the champion’s seat.
You lock eyes with me.
A challenge from one trainer to another.
I must have looked like I’d seen a ghost. You looked worried about me. We took a moment to size up the familiarities and differences. This version of you was older now, obviously. There’s a scar running down your nose to your cheek, one you’d later tell me you got protecting your world’s version of me. I don’t look like someone who needs protecting anymore. I’m stronger than that. I’m not a weak little girl who’d need to endanger someone else for help dealing with a Spearow. That much is obvious from looking at me.
You called me by her name. “Lillie.” I don’t use that diminutive nickname anymore. It doesn’t sound right for the person I am. I corrected you, and you were transparently saddened by it. I am Lillian Mohn.
You introduced yourself as Champion Selene of another world. You don’t have to explain what it means. You know that Nebby took me from Aether, and therefore that I’m a faller in my own right. I already know what it means. And it makes intuitive sense that there is a world where everything went right and you’re champion instead of me. I attended the funeral. I heard about your potential. It just makes sense, the fact that I am here because I took this opportunity from you.
We both reached for our leads in unison. You took your starter, the Primarina who you named Setsuko. I lead Polaris, who stares down the other fairy with pride as his Snow Warning kicks in. You immediately started calculating around the durability granted by Aurora Veil and the damage potential of Freeze Dry and realized you‘d lost the initiative. You pivoted to your Mismagius, who you named Morgana. Polaris does know Aurora Veil, and fanned out his tails as he got to raise one for free.
You called for Mean Look, thinking you could weather the storm from a more defensive Ninetales and prevent Polaris passing advantage to an ally. You wanted to limit my strategic possibility space, increase your ability to plan ahead once you knew what was coming. That’s what makes you tick. You live in a world of statistics measured per-hundred-battles, of strategic guarantees, and logical inevitabilities.
Your face contorted for a moment as I called for Sheer Cold instead of Blizzard or Freeze Dry. Like you’re insulted that I’d use such a move in the most important battle of my life. But I don’t live in your world. There’s no such thing as safe in my world, and watching you realize that as your plans destabilize proves the move’s value even as it fails to connect. There’s no such thing as a safe moment in front of Polaris and I.
You weren’t willing to cede your plan over to the fear of a Sheer Cold connecting. You called Perish Song, becoming committed to the trap. I didn’t see a point in trading Polaris for a bit of Blizzard damage, especially when you’d probably just Pain Split it off. I call Sheer Cold again. No hit yet.
When you called Thunder Wave, I realize that Morgana probably knows a hybrid Hex set and not a pure Perish Trap set with Pain Split. Polaris can’t get an attack off, and Morgana laughs at him. He snarls back, his pride wounded.
With the precise timing of someone who’d done so a thousand times before, you pivoted the moment before the song’s enchantment took effect, cutting it close enough that I didn’t have time to react to the dropped Mean Look trap. I recall seeing the satisfaction starting to settle on your face at your success. But Polaris does his best work when his back is to the wall and his ego is on the line. Your Lurantis was barely out of the ball before he landed a Sheer Cold. I didn’t even catch their name before they were enveloped in a maelstrom of bitter ice. Crystals formed on their skin for a brief moment before their ball’s automatic recall pulled them back. Polaris fainted with a marked contentment at the trade.
I took the loss of your grass type as a cue to use Ophelia. You draw a premier ball, even though all your other team members were caught in pragmatic balls. I already suspected what your fourth team member was. After all, we both got the same starter, so what’s one more similarity. A Silvally, eyes and crest a steely grey, emerges. You called them Hayahito. I wish I could say why, but I guess you’d already know.
They looked at Ophelia, dimensional twin to their own teammate, then up at me, then back and forth again. Both of us almost recognizable as people they know, but neither of us quite the same.
Maybe I should have given them more time to adjust before calling Hydro Pump. But there’s no point in regretting it now. Even as the move was still rolling over them, they readied a multi-attack and fought to move against the current before leaping into a strike the moment the pressure let up.
They made sure to attack and stay near Ophelia’s flank without being overtly instructed to do so. Maybe your team members sparred with each other sometimes, or maybe they just had good instincts, but that made it hard for Ophelia to hit them. I called an Aqua Jet out straight ahead to reposition and create space, you called Pursuit to keep the flank position, even if it didn’t hurt too much.
I called Dazzling Gleam, since the burst could hit a whole radius around Ophelia. Despite the type disadvantage, I’d been hoping the threat would force you to tell Hayahito to back off and give us space. As she reared up on her tail, though, they started channeling a multi-attack before even getting your call to confirm it. The blow toppled Ophelia, but not before her own attack connected.
Hayahito was visibly drained, but standing. Panting through their beak while their eyes burned determination to keep fighting. I know what it took my brother to evolve his Silvally, and what that implies about the two of you as partners.
Ophelia, by contrast, isn’t getting up. I recalled her, and sent out Vela. He disappeared into the shadows just as quickly as he appeared. This late in the day, the shadows on top of Mount Lanakila are long, and he has no trouble dealing a quick, decisive blow to the back of Hayahito’s head without revealing himself.
I’ve been trying not to lean too hard on Vela in my championship matches. Mimikyu do best with occasional battling, if their disguises get broken too often it starts to stress them out. But fighting you, I pushed away any thoughts like that. I needed everyone to win, to prove we did deserve to be there at the mountain’s peak even with you here. Ha, I think I was a little afraid of you at the time. Didn’t want you to be better than me.
You pulled Setsuko back out for the first time since your lead. Your Primarina. I called for Swords Dance. You called Moonblast, channeling the light of the rising moon and sending Vela skittering back out of his shadows with the head of his disguise trailing behind him.
There’s not much point in pretending you can issue calls to a Mimikyu who just had his disguise broken. I’ve raised him to have good instincts in a fight, even when he’s furious. He throws a vicious shadow claw into Setsuko’s flank, and you call for Sparkling Aria. It can consistently hit someone as slippery as Vela, but it’s not strong enough to secure the one hit knockout that you really needed if you were to get Vela off before he brought his wrath down on Setsuko a second time. Primarina just aren’t built for physical assaults like this, her good constitution let her shrug it off once, but there aren’t many who get third chances against Vela.
They’d have one-shot Morgana if you pulled her back out, so you’re forced down to your fifth partner. You and I had both still kept one team member back, and you were the first to be forced down to your last trick. I’m proud of that fact.
You called out for Nebula.
I knew that name. I remembered giving it to a sweet-looking little Cosmog. Something I thought deserved a chance, before it… You know… Before it ended your life and changed mine forever.
I hadn’t seen it since it disappeared that night, much less known that it could evolve.
But it was The Moon Herself that answered the call. Your world’s Nebula was now a Lunala. She whispered to me in my mind.
Lillie? It’s me, Nebby.
I’d never have recognized her as that Cosmog if she didn’t tell me. She looks so different now.
This is unnecessary, she told me, Call off this pointless battle.
I… called out to Vela. And he pounced. His claw raked down Nebula’s wing. Her retaliation was swift and overwhelming. Vela’s ball triggers its automatic recall before her Moongeist Beam even dissipates. Then she locked eyes with me, furious.
You understood why I did it, even if Nebby didn’t. That you would have been champion if you’d lived meant that I should be the worse champion. That I was still weaker than you. You didn’t think it was true, but you could tell I did. So you gestured to the open field, and I drew a master ball from my bag.
Nebula didn’t think I could handle her. I had to prove her wrong. Aphelion emerged from the ball, their deep voice rumbling in a way that shook our bones.
(After the battle, you’d admitted you’d fought your own UB-Black in your own Ten Carat Hill. But it had never even crossed your mind to try to catch it, much less train it. The UBs you had caught seemed too unstable and predictable to train even without the sheer power UB-Black had, and you’d never made the connection to the old myths of the lightless star, Necrozma.)
Your hand shot to your pocket to retrieve a z-crystal, and I mirrored the gesture. Our Black Hole Eclipse exploded out towards Nebula before settling above her head, an emptiness trying to swallow her whole before you could finish getting your Neverending Nightmare to connect. Aphelion creaked and groaned, trying to float back and forth to avoid flailing tendrils woven from grudges older than any of us there. Aphelion’s Black Hole Eclipse swallowed Nebula whole and burst, the arms of her Neverending Nightmare frantically writhing, battering them to the ground. Then, quickly as it started, two z-moves from two of the most powerful species on earth went silent as their users collapsed.
Neither of them rose again.
When I drew my own premier ball, you just pointed to it instead of drawing Morgana’s own. You asked what type it was. I said normal, not quite admitting that we hadn’t managed to evolve them into a Silvally at all yet, even though you probably guessed as much anyway.
“Pursuit?”
I shook my head. Crush Claw, U-Turn, Protect, Toxic. Immune to Hex, but with nothing that could take out Morgana in three turns.
You extended your hand and started to cross the arena.
“Perish Song.”
A draw.
You were grinning when we shook hands at the center of the arena, even though you hadn’t managed to win. Or because of it, maybe. When we were talking afterwards, you told me there really weren’t many people in your world who could challenge you. Apparently, the other me didn’t really want to be a strong trainer that badly. Almost didn’t become one at all. It’s hard to wrap my head around that.
You told me a lot about her, your team, your world. That was when you asked for my help finding out what happened to my Nebby after I lost them. You told me how the Nebby you knew had been drawn to places of spiritual power, and even if I hadn’t seen them since losing track of them that day on the bridge, which was enough for us to start reasoning our way towards putting the Lake of the Moone on the short list of places they could’ve ended up.
I made you go check those places on your own. I didn’t want to be there when you found that Cosmog. I’m not eager to see them again. But you still told me where you’d found them, pulled me into planning what to do with them. It’s a champion’s responsibility to help deal with powerful forces of nature like that, after all.
Now, the plan is to have Nebby look after our world’s future Lunala, until they grow up. I’m certainly not going to do it, and nobody’s seen either of our world’s past Lunala for so long that I’m not sure my world has one to teach them anymore. Yours didn’t. Your Lillie brought up Nebby as best she could without any members of their species to help.
I guess that means I’m probably going to see that version of you again, when you report in on that process. That’s something to look forward to. And I know another version of you saying you forgive me doesn’t necessarily mean you’d feel that way when you’re the one it actually happened to, but it was nice to hear before we parted for our own homes anyway. I’d like to think it counts for something, at least.
I know, I should probably come visit you more often, but… It’s hard, sometimes. I didn’t really get the impression that you’re the kind of person who’d appreciate flowers, but it’s rude to visit a burial site without leaving something, so I hope it’s at least alright.
I’m sorry about everything.
I’ll see you later.
It’s strange to think that it was mostly happenstance that led to you being the one assigned to investigate the new wormhole that had opened itself at the Altar of the Moone. Interpol refused to let someone who wasn’t already a faller anywhere near it, much less through it. Anabel was busy on another continent, you’d worked with them successfully before, and it was the off-season for championship challengers, so you had time for weird things like this.
It’s strange to think that, on the other side of that wormhole is a world almost exactly like this one. Almost, but with some obvious differences. You know what the big one is, but you couldn’t have recognized that one right away. The first tell that you hadn’t just looped back into your own universe at the exact place you’d left would be the time. Your travel only took a few seconds, but when you arrived it was the dead of night. The second would be the altar’s regalia. This was not your Altar of the Moone, but the Altar of the Sunne.
Nebula, the Lunala you’d helped Lillie raise, asked you to wait for a while, in case this world’s own Solgaleo or Lunala sensed her arrival and came to check what was happening. You used the time to pull your phone from your purse and see if it could connect to this world’s internet. The one bar of signal strength that the altar got from the cell tower set up to service the area around the dragon trial isn’t great, but it’s one bar more than you’re used to getting from atop Lanakila. You felt that was pretty good for an alternate universe.
It took a few tries and connection timeouts for you to successfully look up ‘altar of the sun alola’ and get a wiki page to load. It was largely the same history you’d have known from back home, except that the followers of Solgaleo here were the royal branch family, instead of Lunala’s. You didn’t tell Nebula that the main family had been the ones to worship her here. You thought she already had a bit of an ego. The main point of interest on the wiki page was what wasn’t listed, instead of what was: The incidents that had occurred during your island challenge weren’t there at all, the page gave the image of an altar that had been inert since old times.
You suspected this world didn’t have its own Nebula based on that information, and indeed no Solgaleo nor Lunala came to greet you. That would make things more difficult to answer the basic questions about what this world was, its relationship to ultra space, and how it had become linked to your own. You wouldn’t be able to answer them all. Maybe that means you’ll be back to learn more someday in the future. That would be nice.
Your bank card would be no good here, and spending cash felt like a bad idea to you when it and its serial numbers wouldn’t be part of this world’s economic system. But trainer cards don’t have as much security in them, so you decided to crash at a centre until the morning. Even if you weren’t tired, you wouldn’t really be able to talk to the people of this world until they woke up.
The receptionist at the center Nebula dropped you off at didn’t seem to think anything of your presence. No name or face recognition. You didn’t know exactly what that meant yet, all you knew for certain was that this world didn’t have a Champion Selene.
It’s easier to say with the power of retrospect that you should’ve begun developing suspicions at that point, but you’d assumed that no version of you had existed in this world without noticing you were making an assumption. As if your championship was an inevitability from the moment you were born, and its absence meant you must never have been born at all.
It probably didn’t help your reasoning that you were running a sleep deficit from the swarm of challengers all trying to get a shot at the crown before you called the end of the season. You’d hardly be the only champion to have to deal with that problem. At least it stopped you being restless and awake through this world’s night because of the time jump.
You woke up next morning with a clearer head and a resolution to commune with the Tapu. Tapu Koko in particular had liked you from the start of your journey, when they’d saved you and ‘Nebby’. You got yourself a coffee from the centre’s café and then asked Nebula to teleport you to… Mahalo Trail.
That bridge is an emotionally charged place. It seems ironic that you decided to sit there of all places to finish your coffee, legs dangling out over the rapids below. But it didn’t feel that way to you, you had a lot of good moments with the one in your world. It was where you’d met Lillie, and the two of you had a few important conversations here, especially in the days before she left you to go to Kanto.
The differences between this world’s bridge and the one you shared those moments on are subtle enough that most people wouldn’t sense anything amiss right away, but you’d spent more time there than anyone else you know of, so you spot them immediately. The planks are closer together, and this in turn partially conceals that they’re held aloft by steel chains and not rope. The railings are still ripe, but rise taller than the original ones did and the cross-hatching of ropes between the bridge and top guard rope is denser.
The bridge back in your world is as identical as possible, a loving recreation of the historic bridge as authentically as possible. This one is subtly stronger, designed to make sure what happened there could never happen again. Which is funny, because none of these measures would have prevented the original’s collapse. Nebby very literally tried to create space between themself and the Spearow circling them. No metal chains or safer rails would make a bridge withstand suddenly needing to be several feet longer than it is because a Cosmog distorted reality.
You weren’t sure if things genuinely happened differently here, or if they just didn’t understand why the bridge collapsed, but taken in combination with the way this world was missing its Solgaleo or Lunala, the range of possibilities was wide enough to frighten you. That was the moment you realized the kinds of things you needed to be looking up online to find out what was wrong with this twin world.
A search for ‘mahalo trail bridge collapse’ yields more news articles than it should, from bigger outlets than should’ve been covering it. You feel sick to your stomach as you read the headline. As you see the words. ‘Young woman dead.’ As you see the accompanying photo. Of your face.
That’s why nobody recognized you as Champion Selene. Before it even began, your journey was… over. Because some girl you didn’t even yet know lost control of a species you wouldn’t yet have recognized as important, and didn’t have the spine to handle a rope bridge and a few Spearow on her own. And no one had saved you. You must’ve been horrified, realizing what had become of you in this world.
You certainly weren’t keen on communing with Tapu Koko anymore.
The articles were missing something, though. You opened them and skimmed through a few, some made mention of a witness, but none of a Cosmog. The bridge’s collapse was assumed to be structural in nature. That made it impossible to track what might’ve happened with this world’s Nebula. But there was someone who should know.
The most recent contact in your phone was Lillie. You called her, only to be told by an automated message that her number could not be reached, and asked you to try again later. You tried her brother’s contact next. This time, someone picked up.
Gladion picked up with the same tired, dispassionate tone he usually does with people he doesn’t recognize. You introduced yourself as a faller, and gave him your name. He asked you a few pointed questions about where you’d even heard that word, and you must’ve answered to his satisfaction because he chose to believe you.
You asked him where to find Lillie. He told you to go to the peak of Mount Lanakila and ask for an off-docket match.
So that’s what you did.
The Elite Four had left for the day already. Knowing you, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference if they hadn’t. Might’ve slowed you down, but there’s a reason you’re a champion instead of them, and you were prepared to fight with a single-minded ferocity the likes of which you hadn’t wielded since your first trip to Ultra Space. You head straight up the stairs to the peak of Mount Lanakila, to the champion’s seat.
You lock eyes with me.
A challenge from one trainer to another.
I must have looked like I’d seen a ghost. You looked worried about me. We took a moment to size up the familiarities and differences. This version of you was older now, obviously. There’s a scar running down your nose to your cheek, one you’d later tell me you got protecting your world’s version of me. I don’t look like someone who needs protecting anymore. I’m stronger than that. I’m not a weak little girl who’d need to endanger someone else for help dealing with a Spearow. That much is obvious from looking at me.
You called me by her name. “Lillie.” I don’t use that diminutive anymore. It doesn’t sound right for the person I am. I corrected you, and you were transparently saddened by it. I am Lillian Mohn.
You introduce yourself as Champion Selene of another world. You don’t have to explain what it means. You know I’m a faller, that I already know about ultra space and other worlds. And I do. It makes sense, intuitively, that there is a world where everything went right and you’re champion instead of me. I attended the funeral. I heard about your potential. It just makes sense, the fact that I am here because I took this opportunity from you.
We both reach for our leads in unison. You reach for your starter, the Primarina who you named Setsuko. I lead Polaris, who stares down the other fairy with pride as his Snow Warning kicks in. You’re already calculating around the durability granted by Aurora Veil and the damage potential of Freeze Dry as you conclude you‘ve lost the initiative and pivot to your Mismagius, who you call Morgana. Polaris does know Aurora Veil, and he fans out his tails as he gets to raise one for free.
You call for Mean Look, thinking you can weather the storm from a more defensive Ninetales and prevent Polaris passing advantage to an ally. You want to limit my strategic possibility space, increase your ability to plan ahead now that you know what’s coming. That’s what makes you tick. You live in a world of statistics measured per-hundred-battles, of strategic guarantees, and logical inevitabilities.
Your face contorts for a moment as I call for Sheer Cold instead of Blizzard or Freeze Dry. Like you’re insulted that I’d use such a move in the most important battle of my life. But I don’t live in your world. There’s no such thing as safe or guaranteed in my world, and watching you realize that as your plans destabilize proves the move’s value even as it fails to connect. There’s no such thing as a safe moment in front of Polaris and I.
You’re not willing to cede your plan over to the fear that a Sheer Cold connects. You call Perish Song. You’re fully committed to the trap now. I see no point in trading Polaris for a bit of Blizzard damage, especially when you’ll probably just Pain Split it off. I call Sheer Cold again. No hit yet.
When you call Thunder Wave, I realize that Morgana probably knows a hybrid Hex set and not a pure Perish Trap set with Pain Split. Polaris can’t get an attack off, and Morgana laughs at him. He snarls back, his pride wounded.
With the precise timing of someone who’d done so a thousand times before, you pivot the moment before the song’s enchantment takes effect, cutting it close enough that I don’t have time to react to the dropped Mean Look trap. I can see satisfaction starting to settle on your face at pulling off the trap. But Polaris does his best work when his back is to the wall and his ego is on the line. Your Lurantis is barely out of the ball before he lands a Sheer Cold. I didn’t even catch their name before they were enveloped in a maelstrom of ice butter enough that even from your stand, you cover your eyes and take a forced step back. Ice crystals form on their skin for a brief moment before their ball’s automatic recall pulls them back. Polaris faints with a marked contentment at the trade.
I take the loss of your grass type as a cue to use Ophelia. You draw a premiere ball, even though all your other team members were caught in pragmatic balls, and I suspect I already know what your fourth team member is. We both got the same starter, too, so what’s one more similarity. A Silvally, eyes and crest a steely grey, emerges. You called them Hayahito. I wish I could say why, but I guess you’d already know.
They look at Ophelia, dimensional twin to their own teammate, then up at me, then back and forth again. Both almost recognizable as people they know, but neither of us is quite the same.
Maybe I should have given them more time to adjust before calling Hydro Pump. But there’s no point in regretting it now. Even as the move was still rolling over them, they readied a multi-attack and fought to move against the current before leaping into a strike the moment the pressure let up.
They made sure to attack and stay near Ophelia’s flank without being overtly instructed to do so. Maybe your team members sparred with each other sometimes, or maybe they just had good instincts, but that made it hard for Ophelia to hit them. I called an Aqua Jet out straight ahead to reposition and create space, you called Pursuit to keep the flank position, even if it didn’t hurt too much.
I called sparkling aria, since the burst could hit a whole radius around Ophelia, hoping the threat would force you to tell Hayahito to back off and give us space. As she reared up on her tail, though, they started channeling a multi-attack before even getting your call to confirm it. The blow toppled Ophelia, but not before her aria burst into its energy-sapping spray.
Hayahito is visibly drained, but standing. Panting through their beak while their eyes burned determination to keep fighting. I know what it took my brother to evolve his Silvally, and what that implies about the two of you as partners.
Ophelia, by contrast, isn’t getting up. I recall her, and send out Vela. He disappears into the shadows just as quickly as he appears. This late in the day, the shadows on top of Mount Lanakila are long, and he has no trouble dealing a quick, decisive blow to the back of Hayahito’s head without revealing himself.
I’ve been trying not to lean too hard on Vela in my championship matches. Mimikyu do best with occasional battling, if their disguises get broken too often it starts to stress them out. But fighting you, I pushed away any thoughts like that. I needed everyone to win, to prove we did deserve to be there at the mountain’s peak even with you there. Ha, I think I was a little afraid of you at the time. Didn’t want you to be better than me.
You pulled Setsuko back out for the first time since your lead. Your Primarina. I called for Swords Dance. You called dazzling gleam, calling the light of the rising moon and sending Vela skittering back out of his shadows with the head of his disguise trailing behind him.
There’s not much point in pretending you can issue calls to a Mimikyu who just had his disguise broken. I’ve raised him to have good instincts in a fight, even when he’s furious. He throws a vicious shadow claw into Setsuko’s flank, and you call for surf. It can consistently hit someone as slippery as Vela, but it’s not strong enough to secure the one hit knockout that you really needed if you were to get Vela off before he brings his wraith down on Setsuko a second time. Primarina just aren’t built for physical assaults like this, her good constitution let her shrug it off once, but few are those who can score third chances against Vela.
They’d one-shot Morgana if you pulled her back out, so you’re forced down to your fifth partner. You and I have both still kept one position open, it was your last trick.
You called out for Nebula.
I know that name. I remember giving it to a sweet-looking little Cosmog. Something I thought deserved a chance, before it… You know. Before it ended your life and changed mine forever.
I hadn’t seen it since it disappeared that night, much less known that it could evolve.
But it was The Moon Herself that answered the call. Your world’s Nebula was now a Lunala. She whispered to me in my mind.
Lillie? It’s me, Nebby.
I’d never have recognized her as that Cosmog if she didn’t tell me. She looks so different now.
This is unnecessary, she told me, Call off this pointless battle.
I… called out to Vela. And he pounced. His claw raked down Nebula’s wing. Her retaliation was swift and overwhelming. Vela’s ball triggers its automatic recall before her moongeist beam even dissipates. Then she locked eyes with me, furious.
You understood why I did it, even if she didn’t. That you should have been champion, if you’d lived, meant that I should be the worse champion. That I was still weaker than you. You didn’t think it was true, but you could tell I did. So you gestured to the open field, and I drew a master ball from my bag.
Nebula didn’t think I could handle her. I had to prove her wrong. Aphelion emerged from the ball, their deep voice rumbling in a way that shook our bones.
You’d fought your own UB-Black in your own Ten Carat Hill, but you later admitted it had never even crossed your mind to try to catch it, much less train it. The UBs you had caught seemed too unstable and predictable to train even without the sheer power UB-Black had, and you’d never made the connection to the old myths of the lightless star, Necrozma.
Your hand shot to your pocket to retrieve a z-crystal, and I mirrored the gesture. Our Black Hole Eclipse exploded out towards Nebula before settling above her head as an emptiness trying to swallow her whole before you could finish getting your Neverending Nightmare to connect. Aphelion creaked and groaned, trying to float back and forth to avoid flailing tendrils woven from grudges older than any of us there. Aphelion’s Black Hole Eclipse swallowed Nebula whole and burst, the arms of her Neverending Nightmare frantically writhing, battering them to the ground.
Neither of them rose again.
When I drew my own premier ball, you just pointed to it instead of drawing Morgana’s own.
You asked what type it was. I said normal, not quite admitting that we hadn’t managed to evolve them into a Silvally at all yet, even though you probably guessed as much.
“Pursuit?”
I shook my head. Crush Claw, U-Turn, Protect, Toxic. Nothing that could take out Morgana in three turns, even if we were immune to Hex.
You extended your hand and started to cross the arena.
“Perish Song.”
A draw.
You were grinning when we shook hands at the center of the arena, even though you hadn’t managed to win. Or because of it, maybe. When we were talking afterwards, you told me there really weren’t many people in your world who could challenge you. Apparently the other me didn’t really want to be a strong trainer that badly. Almost didn’t become one at all.
You told me a lot about her, your team, your world. That was when you asked for my help finding out what happened to my Nebby after I lost them. You told me how the Nebby you knew had been drawn to places of spiritual power, and even if I hadn’t seen them since losing track of them that day on the bridge, I directed you to our Lake of the Moone.
Now, the plan is to have Nebby look after our world’s future Lunala, until they grow up. I’m not going to do it, and nobody’s seen either of our world’s past Lunala for so long that I’m not sure my world has one to teach them anymore. Yours didn’t. The other Lillie brought up Nebby as best she could without any members of their species to help.
I guess that means I’m probably going to see that version of you again, when you report in on that process. That’s something to look forward to. And I know another version of you saying you forgive me doesn’t necessarily mean you’d feel that way when you’re the one it actually happened to, but it was nice to hear before we parted for our own homes anyway. I’d like to think it counts for something, at least.
I know, I should probably come visit you more often, but… It’s hard, sometimes. I didn’t really get the impression that you’re the kind of person who’d appreciate flowers, but it’s rude to visit a burial site without leaving something, so I hope it’s at least alright.
I’m sorry about everything.
I’ll see you later.
It’s strange to think that, on the other side of that wormhole is a world almost exactly like this one. Almost, but with some obvious differences. You know what the big one is, but you couldn’t have recognized that one right away. The first tell that you hadn’t just looped back into your own universe at the exact place you’d left would be the time. Your travel only took a few seconds, but when you arrived it was the dead of night. The second would be the altar’s regalia. This was not your Altar of the Moone, but the Altar of the Sunne.
Nebula, the Lunala you’d helped Lillie raise, asked you to wait for a while, in case this world’s own Solgaleo or Lunala sensed her arrival and came to check what was happening. You used the time to pull your phone from your purse and see if it could connect to this world’s internet. The one bar of signal strength that the altar got from the cell tower set up to service the area around the dragon trial isn’t great, but it’s one bar more than you’re used to getting from atop Lanakila. You felt that was pretty good for an alternate universe.
It took a few tries and connection timeouts for you to successfully look up ‘altar of the sun alola’ and get a wiki page to load. It was largely the same history you’d have known from back home, except that the followers of Solgaleo here were the royal branch family, instead of Lunala’s. You didn’t tell Nebula that the main family had been the ones to worship her here. You thought she already had a bit of an ego. The main point of interest on the wiki page was what wasn’t listed, instead of what was: The incidents that had occurred during your island challenge weren’t there at all, the page gave the image of an altar that had been inert since old times.
You suspected this world didn’t have its own Nebula based on that information, and indeed no Solgaleo nor Lunala came to greet you. That would make things more difficult to answer the basic questions about what this world was, its relationship to ultra space, and how it had become linked to your own. You wouldn’t be able to answer them all. Maybe that means you’ll be back to learn more someday in the future. That would be nice.
Your bank card would be no good here, and spending cash felt like a bad idea to you when it and its serial numbers wouldn’t be part of this world’s economic system. But trainer cards don’t have as much security in them, so you decided to crash at a centre until the morning. Even if you weren’t tired, you wouldn’t really be able to talk to the people of this world until they woke up.
The receptionist at the center Nebula dropped you off at didn’t seem to think anything of your presence. No name or face recognition. You didn’t know exactly what that meant yet, all you knew for certain was that this world didn’t have a Champion Selene.
It’s easier to say with the power of retrospect that you should’ve begun developing suspicions at that point, but you’d assumed that no version of you had existed in this world without noticing you were making an assumption. As if your championship was an inevitability from the moment you were born, and its absence meant you must never have been born at all.
It probably didn’t help your reasoning that you were running a sleep deficit from the swarm of challengers all trying to get a shot at the crown before you called the end of the season. You’d hardly be the only champion to have to deal with that problem. At least it stopped you being restless and awake through this world’s night because of the time jump.
You woke up next morning with a clearer head and a resolution to commune with the Tapu. Tapu Koko in particular had liked you from the start of your journey, when they’d saved you and ‘Nebby’. You got yourself a coffee from the centre’s café and then asked Nebula to teleport you to… Mahalo Trail.
That bridge is an emotionally charged place. It seems ironic that you decided to sit there of all places to finish your coffee, legs dangling out over the rapids below. But it didn’t feel that way to you, you had a lot of good moments with the one in your world. It was where you’d met Lillie, and the two of you had a few important conversations here, especially in the days before she left you to go to Kanto.
The differences between this world’s bridge and the one you shared those moments on are subtle enough that most people wouldn’t sense anything amiss right away, but you’d spent more time there than anyone else you know of, so you spot them immediately. The planks are closer together, and this in turn partially conceals that they’re held aloft by steel chains and not rope. The railings are still ripe, but rise taller than the original ones did and the cross-hatching of ropes between the bridge and top guard rope is denser.
The bridge back in your world is as identical as possible, a loving recreation of the historic bridge as authentically as possible. This one is subtly stronger, designed to make sure what happened there could never happen again. Which is funny, because none of these measures would have prevented the original’s collapse. Nebby very literally tried to create space between themself and the Spearow circling them. No metal chains or safer rails would make a bridge withstand suddenly needing to be several feet longer than it is because a Cosmog distorted reality.
You weren’t sure if things genuinely happened differently here, or if they just didn’t understand why the bridge collapsed, but taken in combination with the way this world was missing its Solgaleo or Lunala, the range of possibilities was wide enough to frighten you. That was the moment you realized the kinds of things you needed to be looking up online to find out what was wrong with this twin world.
A search for ‘mahalo trail bridge collapse’ yields more news articles than it should, from bigger outlets than should’ve been covering it. You feel sick to your stomach as you read the headline. As you see the words. ‘Young woman dead.’ As you see the accompanying photo. Of your face.
That’s why nobody recognized you as Champion Selene. Before it even began, your journey was… over. Because some girl you didn’t even yet know lost control of a species you wouldn’t yet have recognized as important, and didn’t have the spine to handle a rope bridge and a few Spearow on her own. And no one had saved you. You must’ve been horrified, realizing what had become of you in this world.
You certainly weren’t keen on communing with Tapu Koko anymore.
The articles were missing something, though. You opened them and skimmed through a few, some made mention of a witness, but none of a Cosmog. The bridge’s collapse was assumed to be structural in nature. That made it impossible to track what might’ve happened with this world’s Nebula. But there was someone who should know.
The most recent contact in your phone was Lillie. You called her, only to be told by an automated message that her number could not be reached, and asked you to try again later. You tried her brother’s contact next. This time, someone picked up.
Gladion picked up with the same tired, dispassionate tone he usually does with people he doesn’t recognize. You introduced yourself as a faller, and gave him your name. He asked you a few pointed questions about where you’d even heard that word, and you must’ve answered to his satisfaction because he chose to believe you.
You asked him where to find Lillie. He told you to go to the peak of Mount Lanakila and ask for an off-docket match.
So that’s what you did.
The Elite Four had left for the day already. Knowing you, it wouldn’t have made much of a difference if they hadn’t. Might’ve slowed you down, but there’s a reason you’re a champion instead of them, and you were prepared to fight with a single-minded ferocity the likes of which you hadn’t wielded since your first trip to Ultra Space. You head straight up the stairs to the peak of Mount Lanakila, to the champion’s seat.
You lock eyes with me.
A challenge from one trainer to another.
I must have looked like I’d seen a ghost. You looked worried about me. We took a moment to size up the familiarities and differences. This version of you was older now, obviously. There’s a scar running down your nose to your cheek, one you’d later tell me you got protecting your world’s version of me. I don’t look like someone who needs protecting anymore. I’m stronger than that. I’m not a weak little girl who’d need to endanger someone else for help dealing with a Spearow. That much is obvious from looking at me.
You called me by her name. “Lillie.” I don’t use that diminutive anymore. It doesn’t sound right for the person I am. I corrected you, and you were transparently saddened by it. I am Lillian Mohn.
You introduce yourself as Champion Selene of another world. You don’t have to explain what it means. You know I’m a faller, that I already know about ultra space and other worlds. And I do. It makes sense, intuitively, that there is a world where everything went right and you’re champion instead of me. I attended the funeral. I heard about your potential. It just makes sense, the fact that I am here because I took this opportunity from you.
We both reach for our leads in unison. You reach for your starter, the Primarina who you named Setsuko. I lead Polaris, who stares down the other fairy with pride as his Snow Warning kicks in. You’re already calculating around the durability granted by Aurora Veil and the damage potential of Freeze Dry as you conclude you‘ve lost the initiative and pivot to your Mismagius, who you call Morgana. Polaris does know Aurora Veil, and he fans out his tails as he gets to raise one for free.
You call for Mean Look, thinking you can weather the storm from a more defensive Ninetales and prevent Polaris passing advantage to an ally. You want to limit my strategic possibility space, increase your ability to plan ahead now that you know what’s coming. That’s what makes you tick. You live in a world of statistics measured per-hundred-battles, of strategic guarantees, and logical inevitabilities.
Your face contorts for a moment as I call for Sheer Cold instead of Blizzard or Freeze Dry. Like you’re insulted that I’d use such a move in the most important battle of my life. But I don’t live in your world. There’s no such thing as safe or guaranteed in my world, and watching you realize that as your plans destabilize proves the move’s value even as it fails to connect. There’s no such thing as a safe moment in front of Polaris and I.
You’re not willing to cede your plan over to the fear that a Sheer Cold connects. You call Perish Song. You’re fully committed to the trap now. I see no point in trading Polaris for a bit of Blizzard damage, especially when you’ll probably just Pain Split it off. I call Sheer Cold again. No hit yet.
When you call Thunder Wave, I realize that Morgana probably knows a hybrid Hex set and not a pure Perish Trap set with Pain Split. Polaris can’t get an attack off, and Morgana laughs at him. He snarls back, his pride wounded.
With the precise timing of someone who’d done so a thousand times before, you pivot the moment before the song’s enchantment takes effect, cutting it close enough that I don’t have time to react to the dropped Mean Look trap. I can see satisfaction starting to settle on your face at pulling off the trap. But Polaris does his best work when his back is to the wall and his ego is on the line. Your Lurantis is barely out of the ball before he lands a Sheer Cold. I didn’t even catch their name before they were enveloped in a maelstrom of ice butter enough that even from your stand, you cover your eyes and take a forced step back. Ice crystals form on their skin for a brief moment before their ball’s automatic recall pulls them back. Polaris faints with a marked contentment at the trade.
I take the loss of your grass type as a cue to use Ophelia. You draw a premiere ball, even though all your other team members were caught in pragmatic balls, and I suspect I already know what your fourth team member is. We both got the same starter, too, so what’s one more similarity. A Silvally, eyes and crest a steely grey, emerges. You called them Hayahito. I wish I could say why, but I guess you’d already know.
They look at Ophelia, dimensional twin to their own teammate, then up at me, then back and forth again. Both almost recognizable as people they know, but neither of us is quite the same.
Maybe I should have given them more time to adjust before calling Hydro Pump. But there’s no point in regretting it now. Even as the move was still rolling over them, they readied a multi-attack and fought to move against the current before leaping into a strike the moment the pressure let up.
They made sure to attack and stay near Ophelia’s flank without being overtly instructed to do so. Maybe your team members sparred with each other sometimes, or maybe they just had good instincts, but that made it hard for Ophelia to hit them. I called an Aqua Jet out straight ahead to reposition and create space, you called Pursuit to keep the flank position, even if it didn’t hurt too much.
I called sparkling aria, since the burst could hit a whole radius around Ophelia, hoping the threat would force you to tell Hayahito to back off and give us space. As she reared up on her tail, though, they started channeling a multi-attack before even getting your call to confirm it. The blow toppled Ophelia, but not before her aria burst into its energy-sapping spray.
Hayahito is visibly drained, but standing. Panting through their beak while their eyes burned determination to keep fighting. I know what it took my brother to evolve his Silvally, and what that implies about the two of you as partners.
Ophelia, by contrast, isn’t getting up. I recall her, and send out Vela. He disappears into the shadows just as quickly as he appears. This late in the day, the shadows on top of Mount Lanakila are long, and he has no trouble dealing a quick, decisive blow to the back of Hayahito’s head without revealing himself.
I’ve been trying not to lean too hard on Vela in my championship matches. Mimikyu do best with occasional battling, if their disguises get broken too often it starts to stress them out. But fighting you, I pushed away any thoughts like that. I needed everyone to win, to prove we did deserve to be there at the mountain’s peak even with you there. Ha, I think I was a little afraid of you at the time. Didn’t want you to be better than me.
You pulled Setsuko back out for the first time since your lead. Your Primarina. I called for Swords Dance. You called dazzling gleam, calling the light of the rising moon and sending Vela skittering back out of his shadows with the head of his disguise trailing behind him.
There’s not much point in pretending you can issue calls to a Mimikyu who just had his disguise broken. I’ve raised him to have good instincts in a fight, even when he’s furious. He throws a vicious shadow claw into Setsuko’s flank, and you call for surf. It can consistently hit someone as slippery as Vela, but it’s not strong enough to secure the one hit knockout that you really needed if you were to get Vela off before he brings his wraith down on Setsuko a second time. Primarina just aren’t built for physical assaults like this, her good constitution let her shrug it off once, but few are those who can score third chances against Vela.
They’d one-shot Morgana if you pulled her back out, so you’re forced down to your fifth partner. You and I have both still kept one position open, it was your last trick.
You called out for Nebula.
I know that name. I remember giving it to a sweet-looking little Cosmog. Something I thought deserved a chance, before it… You know. Before it ended your life and changed mine forever.
I hadn’t seen it since it disappeared that night, much less known that it could evolve.
But it was The Moon Herself that answered the call. Your world’s Nebula was now a Lunala. She whispered to me in my mind.
Lillie? It’s me, Nebby.
I’d never have recognized her as that Cosmog if she didn’t tell me. She looks so different now.
This is unnecessary, she told me, Call off this pointless battle.
I… called out to Vela. And he pounced. His claw raked down Nebula’s wing. Her retaliation was swift and overwhelming. Vela’s ball triggers its automatic recall before her moongeist beam even dissipates. Then she locked eyes with me, furious.
You understood why I did it, even if she didn’t. That you should have been champion, if you’d lived, meant that I should be the worse champion. That I was still weaker than you. You didn’t think it was true, but you could tell I did. So you gestured to the open field, and I drew a master ball from my bag.
Nebula didn’t think I could handle her. I had to prove her wrong. Aphelion emerged from the ball, their deep voice rumbling in a way that shook our bones.
You’d fought your own UB-Black in your own Ten Carat Hill, but you later admitted it had never even crossed your mind to try to catch it, much less train it. The UBs you had caught seemed too unstable and predictable to train even without the sheer power UB-Black had, and you’d never made the connection to the old myths of the lightless star, Necrozma.
Your hand shot to your pocket to retrieve a z-crystal, and I mirrored the gesture. Our Black Hole Eclipse exploded out towards Nebula before settling above her head as an emptiness trying to swallow her whole before you could finish getting your Neverending Nightmare to connect. Aphelion creaked and groaned, trying to float back and forth to avoid flailing tendrils woven from grudges older than any of us there. Aphelion’s Black Hole Eclipse swallowed Nebula whole and burst, the arms of her Neverending Nightmare frantically writhing, battering them to the ground.
Neither of them rose again.
When I drew my own premier ball, you just pointed to it instead of drawing Morgana’s own.
You asked what type it was. I said normal, not quite admitting that we hadn’t managed to evolve them into a Silvally at all yet, even though you probably guessed as much.
“Pursuit?”
I shook my head. Crush Claw, U-Turn, Protect, Toxic. Nothing that could take out Morgana in three turns, even if we were immune to Hex.
You extended your hand and started to cross the arena.
“Perish Song.”
A draw.
You were grinning when we shook hands at the center of the arena, even though you hadn’t managed to win. Or because of it, maybe. When we were talking afterwards, you told me there really weren’t many people in your world who could challenge you. Apparently the other me didn’t really want to be a strong trainer that badly. Almost didn’t become one at all.
You told me a lot about her, your team, your world. That was when you asked for my help finding out what happened to my Nebby after I lost them. You told me how the Nebby you knew had been drawn to places of spiritual power, and even if I hadn’t seen them since losing track of them that day on the bridge, I directed you to our Lake of the Moone.
Now, the plan is to have Nebby look after our world’s future Lunala, until they grow up. I’m not going to do it, and nobody’s seen either of our world’s past Lunala for so long that I’m not sure my world has one to teach them anymore. Yours didn’t. The other Lillie brought up Nebby as best she could without any members of their species to help.
I guess that means I’m probably going to see that version of you again, when you report in on that process. That’s something to look forward to. And I know another version of you saying you forgive me doesn’t necessarily mean you’d feel that way when you’re the one it actually happened to, but it was nice to hear before we parted for our own homes anyway. I’d like to think it counts for something, at least.
I know, I should probably come visit you more often, but… It’s hard, sometimes. I didn’t really get the impression that you’re the kind of person who’d appreciate flowers, but it’s rude to visit a burial site without leaving something, so I hope it’s at least alright.
I’m sorry about everything.
I’ll see you later.