Pokémon Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Path of Valor

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Heya, coming back to this to try and close the distance with this story's current events a bit more with…

Chapter 90

Spoiler: Line-by-Line

"Seriously?"

Tessa looked at the paper that Nickie nudged across the floor to her. It had crude doodles of spiked rings.

"Yeah!" Nickie's tails wagged asynchronously. "Look, this bandanna you leant me is nice. But it's not my style." She nudged at the blue cloth with her snout.

Well, that would explain a thing or two about Nikki's current fashion sensibilities. Though I wonder if this means that we'll ever see her get to rock a choker at some point.

"Not your... style?" Tessa picked up the paper. "So you'd rather wear—"

"Spiked collars and anklets!" Nickie's tails wagged faster. "I had spiked wristbands back home. They were great. I'd love something like that here." Her eyes sparkled. "And then maybe I can grow out my hair so it covers up one of my eyes a bit. Gimme that 'heartthrob' look." She swished her tails to the side and stuck a foreleg out in a pose accentuated by the sparkling of her icy pelt.

Oh, so even back in the human world, Nickie was going through a punk phase.

Tessa blinked. "Huh."

The vulpix frowned. "Something wrong?"

"I guess I... thought you'd go for softer accessories."

"Oh." Nickie's ears folded. "Well, I—" She brushed her forelegs together. "Now that you know the truth I thought... I could be more of my, y'know, authentic self around you."

I distinctly remember that Nikki had a similar character arc earlier in the story, I wonder just how much of each characters' overbroad life events were repeated/echoed in their AU!GL incarnations' experiences.

"Hmm?" The realization set in a moment later for the riolu. "Ah!"

She lightly hit her head a few times. "Stupid, stupid!" Tessa folded up the paper. "Of course you should do that."

Can't tell if this is an allusion to Tessa remembering how Nickie wasn't able to be herself back in the human world or else if there's another story here that we'll see sometime down the road.

"Then you'll help me find a place that sells these?" Nickie regained her earlier enthusiasm.

"Totally."

"And maybe some fur dye?" Nickie looked back at her right flank. "I was thinking some pinks and purples..."

Tessa walked over and slung an arm around Nickie. "I'm sure we've got the funds for it."

Oh no, she's becoming an OC-

Nickie: "Hey, if there can be out-and-out fusions in this story that people take seriously, I can have a dye job, okay?!"

As the name implied, Herbrides' Hilltop Mall sat on a decently sized hill toward the center of the city. The entrance offered a view of grain and wheat fields beyond city limits, along with the rows of tan-colored buildings fanning out in all directions.

That BGM is reminding me that I have this game rotting in my backlog right now and I should really get around to it once writing, reviewing, and XB3FR stop making me make glub glub noises.

Inside, however, the white floor was so pristine that Yuna could see an outline of her reflection. Though the dragapult had to admit she liked how the floor sparkled under the sunlight spilling in through the mall's glass roof.

"So, what d'ya think, Princess?"

Nikki clapped Yuna on the back as she passed her by. The toxtricity ran a hand along the top of a neat, rectangular bush planted in a pot in the middle of the floor.

Yuna: "I... uh, never really saw you as the mall type, really."

"It's, um, something?" Yuna waited until Igneous walked past before continuing forward. She glanced over her shoulder. Scarlett had on some sort of cloak to hide her face, while Shimmer was disguised as a fire-type ponyta.

Also, is this literally based off the Alive Mall, just not overgrown, or is this just a generic mall whipped up here?

Truthfully, she still wasn't sure why Nikki insisted on dragging her here. The whole reason part of the resistance was in Herbrides was to sweep the city itself. Cid mentioned something about the distortion that swallowed up Tulpise spreading south, and that was all Seifer needed to demand they move out.

I mean, on the positive side, that probably helps with booking cheap hotel rooms right now, since I imagine that if that news is public that the Herbrides have likely cleared out considerably.

"You don't really think the empire's going to spawn in this mall, do you?" Yuna wondered, keeping her voice down. Plenty of folks were heading in both directions. A fact that Shimmer and Scarlett both seemed spooked by.

"Of course not." Nikki adjusted her leather jacket. "But we needed a change of scenery." She walked backward. "C'mon. A week of nothing but artificial light and Cyril's dumb outpost is so boring."

"I guess." Yuna did find the natural sunlight refreshing after another week of mind-numbing training exercises. "Though we could get sunlight outside, too."

"Sure, sure." Nikki dismissed her with a wave. "But then we wouldn't get to take you to your first mall!"

Nikki: "Which I'm honestly kinda shocked that you've managed this all this time, since foreign royalty going on spending sprees isn't exactly a rare thing."

This was about Yuna? The dragapult's head swiveled left and right. There were glass windows with two and four-legged mannequins draped in cloaks and jackets. One store displayed wooden shelves lined with trays of assorted baked goods. The store next to it had big glass containers full of wrapped candies and chocolates.

It was kind of like the market in Saint Zygardesberg. Except the shops were stacked into multiple floors instead of lining a single street.

Oh, so their markets haven't yet reached the stage of "multi-story arcade" yet. Honestly a little surprising given how many dragonmons can casually fly, but I suppose that's decently on-brand for pre-industrial life.

"Wait a tic," Reshiram piped up. "How are you supposed to buy anything? You don't have any radians on you."

Yuna passed that concern along to Nikki. The toxtricity snickered. She flicked her right hand out. A tiny plastic rectangle popped up between her fingers.

"Since when do you have a credit card?" Scarlett slithered past Nikki, stopping by a fountain and eyeing the marble primarina statue spitting up water. The brionne scattered along the fountain's rim also spat water. And were those coins glistening on the floor?

Cue the theme song:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d8ZZjObnOt4

It was weird, yet Yuna found all the sparkling coins and rippling water relaxing. She could've stared at the bottom of the fountain all day, but Nikki's voice caught her attention.

Oh, she has a treasure hoard back in Aeon, doesn't she? Since I can see that mesmerized look at those coins there. :V

"Since I swiped it outta lover boy's hair." Nikki stuck her hands up by her mohawk and wiggled her fingers while making a kissy face.

Arms crossed, Igneous rested against one of the stone brionne. "And what happens when Cyril realizes he has a bunch of new charges on his credit card?"

"Nothing." Nikki tucked the card back into a small, zippered pocket on her jacket. In a hushed voice, she added, "Dude illegally mints his own radians. He won't care."

Wait, radians are a cryptocurrency in this setting? Or does Cyril literally have a mint pressing counterfeit bills in the basement of his burger joint?

Igneous' brows twitched in irritation while Nikki continued past the fountain. Gulping, Yuna followed.

"At least it's better than outright shoplifting?" she offered with a nervous smile.

I'm going to die of laughter if you actually wind up doing a reference to that one Proud Family sequence.

"Niiice. Looking at the bright side." Shaymin nodded his tiny head in her subconscious. "I dig it. Say, they got any good eats around here?"

What does it matter? You're a spirit! Groaning, Yuna shoved the Sages out of her head. "So, what exactly are we going to do here? I'm not, like, looking to buy food or clothes."

"No duh." Nikki picked up the pace. "C'mon. Map said it's back here on the third floor." The toxtricity pointed toward a moving staircase in the far distance. She pushed her way past an older simipour and simisage. "Stand aside, geezers!"

So... arcade or movie theater?

Yuna muttered an apology as she floated after Nikki. She swerved past an inteleon, whose sobble child on their shoulder promptly began crying and turned invisible. She weaved under the large frames of a couple of garganacle, nearly crashing into a painting canvas with a smeargle sitting beside it. Yuna floated ahead, flashing Smeargle a nervous grin. They shook their head and returned to... painting a portrait of a plusle and minun couple sitting on a stool next to the canvas and holding hands.

Wait, Sobble can do that canonically? .-.

Why is this so... nostalgic?

"Because of thine market trips back home?" Rayquaza wondered.

Maybe? The market did bustle, yes. But the ash choking the skies over Saint Zygardesberg made it tough to appreciate her time there.

"Perhaps it's Giratina's memories, then."

... Wait, implying that Tessa managed to go back with Nickie to her world at least on one occasion? Since that would certainly be one way for a mall like this to be nostalgic to her.

Reshiram's thought sent a chill down Yuna's ectoplasm. She barely avoided an elderly espathra moving much slower than surrounding foot traffic. For a moment, the pristine white floors turned to a dirt road. Instead of a toxtricity shoving people aside, a familiar black-haired girl waved Yuna over before jogging down the dirt road toward a small wooden building with some sort of toolbox outside it.

"Let's craft some smoke balls together! They'll totally help us look for the pokémon causing those storms!"

Huh, guess she really is seeing Giratina's memories there, since that's straight outta PLA.

"Keep up, Yuna!"

Scarlett's voice snapped the dragapult to attention. Nikki was already heading up the escalator, with Igneous and the dragonair about to get on.

"Sorry!" Yuna squeaked. She decided to fly higher up, over everyone else, to keep pace with the others.

"I'm right, aren't I?" Reshiram cut in.

Yuna: "... No comment." >_>;

Yeah, sure. But Nikki said we're here to have fun. Yuna reached Igneous and Scarlett. So drop it, okay?

Sighing, Reshiram retreated from her mind. Yuna hovered up the escalator. The others got off at the third floor. Nikki walked a few meters away, toward a flashing neon "GAME BUSTERS ARCADE" sign above open glass doors. She stood with her hands proudly on her hips.

Yeah, I had a feeling that they were going to something like this. That's definitely something you don't see in many malls anymore.

"Seriously?!" Igneous' head leaf and tails simmered. "You dragged us here for a damn arcade? We're not a pack of kids, you know."

"Oh, step off your high rapidash." Not turning around, Nikki waved the grovlazzle off. "You're never too old to let your inner child out for a spell. Think of it like a team-building exercise."

And it'll be time to see the groaner bland name counterparts you came up with for different games inside.

She finally looked over her shoulder. "Speaking of high rapidash, where's Pillow Prince?"

Yuna's eyes widened. Right, Shimmer. He was with them before. What happened?

"Tch." Igneous crossed his arms. "Right when you ran off, he said Demerzel contacted him. So, he left."

Yuna: "Oh for crying out-!" >.<
Nikki: "Wait, but isn't that a good thing? Since with all due respect, but Pillow Prince didn't strike me as the type to handle games well unless he won all the time."

Scarlett frowned. "I thought Gene had gotten rid of that whole connection."

"He kept a part of it." Igneous pinched his brow in annoyance. "He still wants to keep tabs on his mothers, apparently. Tried to tell him it was a bad idea, but he wouldn't listen."

Well, I suppose that's a sign that this casual day out at the mall isn't going to stay a casual day out at the mall for long.

So, the ponytales was off to meet with Demerzel, then? That was... not going to bite them, was it? The look in Igneous' eyes suggested it wouldn't, but it made Yuna nervous anyway.

Narrator: "It will absolutely come to bite them."

"Well, forget him." Nikki stepped toward the others, rubbing her hands together. "This evens things out perfectly."

"For what?" Scarlett wondered, looking between Nikki and the arcade. Though the door was open, it was quite dark on the other side.

"For a little two-on-two air hockey action." Nikki punched the air while her mohawk flared up with excitement. "Since Princess has to learn the ropes, I'll take her. And you two can be together." A wry grin spread over her face. "Y'know, since you've been spending soooo much time together~"

Yeah, I figured that Nikki would take Shimmer's absence in stride, though no group game of Mario Kart Arcade GP?

Igneous' head leaf caught fire, which he immediately snuffed out. "Why should you get decide?"

"Aww, what's the matter?" Nikki was at Igneous side in an instant. She noogied his head. "Afraid of getting your ass kicked in a friendly competition?"

Nikki has a lot of experience with pressing buttons to get her way in life, doesn't she?

"Knock it off!" Igneous shoved her away. "The teams are—"

Scarlett's tail wrapped around the grovlazzle's leg. "You don't have a problem with me not having limbs, do you?"

The simmering returned to his head leaf. "N-Not at all." Igneous clenched his fist. "We can... kick their asses just fine."

Well, that's going to be a sight to behold from Team Igneous' end.

Nikki's grin widened. "Now that's the spirit! C'mon!"

Before Yuna could say anything, Nikki had her by the arm and was running for the arcade entrance.

Ah yes, time to find out if "no limbs" or "no experience" is the bigger handicap in air hockey.

Herbrides. Why did it have to spread toward Herbrides? was all Seifer could think to himself as he walked along a side street. Cyril was beside him, in the guise of a dark-type zoroark. He held a small rectangular radar.

Oh huh, that's definitely different from how I remembered Poshley Heights' music sounding, but it's not a bad remix.

"Still nothing." Cyril tapped the screen with an illusory red claw. He shifted his weight mid-step. "All clear on the ground to the west. We'll keep going clockwise."

"Understood," Widget said through the X-transceiver line. "We're good, too."

Seifer quickened his pace. The tan roads and tan buildings could practically melt together.

Whelp, I'm just going to take this as a confirmation that fun and games at the mall is going to come to a screeching end shortly.

"Y'know, never did get why so many houses on the outskirts are circular," Cyril said, taking his eyes off his radar and casually moving ahead. "Makes 'em look a bit like bunkers."

"Simulates the hills," Artemis responded. He was slithering a few paces back of them, sticking his head up. Enjoy the cool breeze, perhaps? The air was rather stuffy in the outpost. "At least, I think it does," the milotic mumbled.

"And people actually pay decent money for these?" Cyril walked past a couple of the domed houses, eyeing them skeptically. A dolliv tending to a small petunia garden in front of their house shot the zoroark a nasty look.

"Ah-ha, whoops." Cyril rubbed his fake red hair. "Might've gotten a bit too loud."

Snerk. This fic's sense of humor never ceases to entertain.

Seifer locked eyes with Dolliv. Their eyes instantly widened. Seifer started walking faster.

"Oh, Commander Seifer! Lovely to see you again!" Dolliv waved.

"Move," Seifer hissed to Cyril in a whisper. Putting on the fakest smile he could muster, he turned and waved a forehoof to Dolliv. "Good morning, Tunie. Your garden's still as radiant as ever. Apologies I can't chat. I'm on the clock."

... Oh right, Arboliva has a midevo. I honestly completely forgot since Smoliv and its evos are just kinda forgettable to begin with. ^^;

Ignoring Artemis' bewildered expression, the keldeo hoofed it forward. A granbull and an alcremie with two milcery children playing together in a fenced yard looked over and waved. Seifer nodded respectfully, continuing forward.

"What's the rush, Seif?" Cyril said, breaking into a jog to keep pace with Seifer's trot. "Where's the fire?"

"We have to find somewhere hidden." Seifer's eyes darted around. These people weren't supposed to be home! They should've been out and about on a nice morning like this!

Can't tell if these are all people from the Radiant Guard or if Seifer grew up here once upon a time.

"Heeeeey!" Artemis sounded annoyed. "C'mon, you're both faster than me on the ground!"

Seifer turned left toward a dustier road. A minute of trotting would reach city limits. The homes here were spaced apart, but there was a grass wall dividing them. It was good enough cover.

"I need an illusion," the keldeo said.

Okay, yeah, this feels like Seifer's hometown right now, since I'm guessing the implication is that these bunker-homes aren't exactly cheap since those sure sound like hedges there.

Cyril caught up with him. "Ser... iously?" He hunched over, taking deep breaths. "Thought we had this discussion earlier."

"That was before I realized where in this city Gene sent us." Seifer shrank back nervously. "My family's got a vacation home in this neighborhood. People aren't recognizing me because of my old position. They're neighbors."

Well, I was in the right neighborhood (har har) with my guess, at least.

Eyes widening, Cyril stood up. "Ohhhh." Then his shock turned to annoyance. "Well, why didn't you mention that before? I could've told Boss Kitty not to send us here."

"We were in a bit of a hurry and it's a big city," Seifer mumbled.

"Then forget it." Cyril put his hands on his hips. "Boss Kitty, you there? Change of plans. You've gotta cover the ground here."

Wait, it is? I was under the assumption that Herbrides was basically a backwater from its first appearance in the story.

"It might be too late for that."

Seifer jumped at Artemis' voice. The milotic pointed a ribbon back. "There's a cobalion and terrakion heading this way." His eyebrows drooped. "Your uncle and father, if I'm remembering right."

... That actually makes me wonder just how close Seifer is to the royal line of succession, since Justine is also a Muskedeer and this family relation can't but help but make me

a bit.

The keldeo's blood ran cold. He shot Cyril a pleading look. Sighing, the zoroark snapped his fake red claws. Blue light surrounded Seifer. It faded to reveal a fairy rapidash guise.

"Okay," Seifer whispered. "Now we continue on like nothing—"

"Oi, you three! What's going on over there?"

Oh, they are related to Justine, aren't they? Since this music just screams "work in the legal system" right now.

Terrakion's sharp voice drew the trio's gazes. Seifer's heart leaped into his chest as Terrakion and Cobalion marched toward them. Deep breaths. He had Cyril's illusion. And the zoroark had proven himself a capable liar on many occasions.

"Just out for a stroll." Cyril stretched his arms up. "My friend here wanted to grab a photo by this grass wall." He slung an arm over a startled Artemis' horn. "He's from Venish. Never left the place before that whole insanity." Cyril lazily traced a circle with an index claw.

Watch as these two just casually see through this lie in like 5 seconds.

"Quiet, you!" Terrakion stomped a forehoof down. The dirt shifted under everyone's feet. "This ain't some touristy loitering spot, Zoroark. Whatever you're up to, better fess up."

Seifer's breaths came in short gasps. His uncle never was the patient type. Had he really seen through Cyril's lie?

I mean, if my guess as to his background is right... er, yeah, he really did.

For his part, the zoroark rested his hands behind his mane. "It's also not some restricted area, bud."

"Bud? Do I look like your cellmate?" Terrakion's eyes narrowed. "It's Greyson. Commander Greyson."

Do these two have a history with each other, or...?

Wait, what? Oh, if only Seifer had real psychic power. He could reach out to Cyril telepathically. Because something was wrong. Greyson was a retired Stoutland Yard chief. He never worked for the Radiant Guard.

Oh, so my guess as to the guy's background was right after all.

"That so? My bad." Cyril raised his hands innocently. The small smile on his face betrayed the tense look in his eyes. "Don't keep up much with the news. Wasn't aware Her Eminence had named a new commander."

"Two new commanders." Greyson jerked his head in Cobalion's direction. "Or, one new and one returning. Picking up the pieces from that useless waste of space that got the boot."

Seifer: "(... Either they're stringing us along, or a lot has changed back home since we were last here.)"

The fake rapidash did his best not to flinch. Seifer's father and uncle were his replacements? Of course. Why look for new blood when Isola could just turn to Seifer's family? If she truly was some nefarious body snatcher, it would even let her keep a close eye on them just in case.

I mean, if my guess about Justine being in your family is right, Seifer...

What was Seifer supposed to do here? He had to say something before this got out of hand. "A-Apologies. We actually got a bit, um, turned around." Seifer stepped to Cyril's side. "And my friend's too proud to ask for directions."

"Fat chance," Greyson scoffed.

Cobalion wrinkled his nose. "Agreed. Something reeks about this. No sane fairy would pal around with some lying, low-life zoroark."

Cyril: "Oi, bub! Chill it with the stereotypes there!"

Cobalion: "It's not a stereotype if it reflects basic expectations of our society."

Seifer suppressed a wince. Memories of his father cursing out assorted species at the dinner table flickered through his head.

So does Radiance just suck to live in if you're any non-Fighting-type species that takes an L to fairies or something? Since I certainly didn't see the hate-on for Zoroark coming here.

"Excuse me?" Cyril growled. He kept his expression as neutral as possible. "I'm not looking for trouble, dude."

"That's Commander Tobias, you ruffian." Cobalion stood up straight, as if to emphasize the half meter of height he had over Cyril.

"Uh-huh." Cyril's tone somehow stayed even. "Well, I hate to disappoint, but this 'lying low-life' is nothing but a humble mechanic."

Lol. Lmao.

Artemis: "(Would this be a bad time to bring up his counterfeiting operation-?)"
Seifer: "(Yes!)" >_>;

"Then what's a grease mankey doing out in the nice part of Herbrides, huh?" Greyson said. Red energy sparked around the terrakion's forehead. "I say we take 'em all in for questioning."

"I wanted to make a day trip here with my boyfriend." Cyril put his hand on Seifer's back. The fake rapidash almost lost his composure. What was the zoroark thinking outing their relationship? If anything broke Seifer's illusion...

He's not and he's getting hot and bothered. Since knowing that one of these two is ex-Stoutland Yard gives me vibes that they're going through an impromptu interrogation at the moment.

"And I've been living with him since the attack on Venish." Artemis tapped the ground by Cyril's feet with his tailfins. "So, I'm third-wheeling."

Greyson eyed the milotic with a look of disgust. "I ain't buying it. You?"

Tobias shook his head. "As I said, no decent milotic or rapidash would slum it with a zoroark." The cobalion's eyes narrowed. "Much less court one."

Cyril:

Seifer: "(... Yeah, in retrospect, I should've brought Cyril up to speed about Radiant class mores, huh?)"

Artie: "(I mean, I kinda forgot all about them by virtue of being a janitor for like a decade.)"

For a moment, Seifer thought there was genuine hurt in Cyril's eyes. But he quickly masked it with his stoic expression. "So, what, you're bringing me to a station because I'm a zoroark?"

"No." Tobias rolled his eyes. "Because you're a zoroark looking and acting suspicious. And these two are clearly accomplices. Now, quiet down and start walking. Or do I have to slap a muzzle on you, runt?"

Aaand I see that these two are pulling out all the stops to murder their sympathy with the audience. Which probably doesn't bode well for their mortality in this story.

However, before anyone had the chance to respond, Seifer caught a streak of orange out of the corner of his eye. "Down!" he screamed, shoving Cyril to the ground. A giant fireball struck the dome-shaped house to their right, blowing the roof open. Rubble struck a blue Protect shield that spilled out from Seifer's horn in the nick of time.

These two must have quite a bit of money to burn, since those repairs aren't going to be cheap.

... His black, ridged prosthetic horn.

Seifer's eyes slowly widened.

Seifer:

"S-Seifer?!" Tobias gasped. The keldeo glanced back to see Artemis coiled around a dazed Cyril. His illusions had failed, leaving his cosmic fur on full display.

"What is the meaning of this, boy?" Greyson said.

Seifer: "Oh boy, this day just had to go and get more awkward right now. Well... uh..."

"More fire!" Artemis shouted. Though he spat streams of water, they couldn't stand up against the fireballs. They struck other domed houses. Screams rang out. Two gogoat and several skiddo ran out of one building, while a tropius and fidough sprinted out of another.

"What did you do?" Tobias bellowed, leveling his glowing Sacred Sword at the trio.

Bells rang out from the sky. Multiple birds appeared out of seemingly nowhere, with wartortle and raichu perched on their backs.

Wait, the space pirates are actually back to do something again in this story? Since I can hear that BGM right now.

"Avast! Ahoy! Yo ho! Yo ho! Our time tis finally here!" a kilowattrel sang.

"We'll plunder like mad!" a pidgeot added.

"There's booty to be had!" sang a swellow with sparking wings.

"Fer the Blackskull Buccaneers!" the wartortle and raichu all sang in unison, before leaping from their fliers back and raining Hydro Pumps and Thunderbolts on the group from above.

Well, that was unexpected. Though I'll heavily take the under on those guys not being smeared across the ground the next time we check up on Seifer's end of things.

"Do you ever think about the day you were born?"

From their position atop the roof of the shuttered Herbrides Crowne Minister's office building, Widget glanced at Gene. The shadowy mewtwo's tail crinkled.

"Seriously?" His Malice Crystal dimmed. "Who leads with a question like that?"

"I do, apparently," Widget responded. He looked down at his golden talons, curling and uncurling them. "I was... curious. Since you were built. Like me."

Gene: "Look, I already had a 14k word special going into this at length a couple years ago, so I'd rather not have to repeat it all right here and now." >_>;

Pinching his brow, Gene walked over and leaned against the yellow brick chimney. "No. I don't."

Oh, so he's literally

-ing right now, huh? o<o

"Oh." Widget's cheek bolts turned once. "Okay." The cosmic silvally curled his fish tail slightly. "Sorry, I shouldn't have—"

"Don't guilt trip me, Squirt." Gene crossed one leg over another. His eyes remained shut. "I don't think about it because there isn't much to it. Doing a bunch of stupid tests for stupider human scientists." He clenched his fist. "Then Giovanni captured me when I was supposed to be fully released from stasis. Everything after that's a huge blur until Nova took me in."

Widget: "Wait, but I thought you said that you had at 14k word special that was all about-" .^. Gene: "Which we're not going to get into right now, thanks." >_>;

"Right." Widget nodded slowly. "Do you suppress those memories?"

Gene shook his head. Widget watched his Malice Crystal darken. "I don't have to. Nova suppressed them for me."

I feel as if I should be more worried about how casually Gene is lying right now. Unless if by his standards, the things that we saw in the special are a blur to him since they're a handful of moments he recalls over heaven-knows-how-long time-wise.

The silvally's starcloud swirled around slowly. "All the Eterna energy treatments?"

"In a sense." Gene repeatedly ran a finger up and down the Malice Crystal. "Giovanni... did something to me. He made me so... empty inside. To better function as his 'weapon.'"

Related, or unrelated to him being Dark Matter back in the GL AU?

At the mention of 'empty,' Widget swore he saw some sort of black crystal sphere looming behind Gene. And it... tugged on a part of him. His scaly hide was itching.

That doesn't bode well at all for how well Gene's got that all under control at the moment.

"Nova and Miraidon... sealed that part of me off," Gene continued. He held his hand out and strange black shadows swirled around his fingers.

The itchiness in Widget's scales got worse. He wasn't sure whether to say anything about that sphere. Surely it was an illusion, right?

Narrator: "It was absolutely not an illusion."

"It's something called 'shadowing.'" Gene dispelled the energy. "Nova never told me why he and Miraidon knew how to do this. Though I'm betting the latter being one of those Overseers has something to do with it."

"Shadowing?" Widget's scales thankfully weren't crawling anymore.

Huh. I wonder if that's where Gene got his Dark Matter part of him from

"It's when you seal away a pokémon's spirit," Gene explained. "Normally, doing so turns pokémon into vicious beasts driven by their most negative emotions."

Except Widget wouldn't classify Gene as vicious. If anything, that applied to Necrozma. "You don't seem that way," he mumbled.

"Because Miraidon and Nova had a loophole." Gene placed his hand over his heart. "They sealed off that... thing Giovanni put into me to make me empty. Since he'd done that not long after I was 'born,' I never got to develop my real spirit. But sealing that thing was enough to turn me shadow.

Wait, wait, wait. Did you just casually imply that Giovanni had access to Dark Matter? In a mainline universe (which, granted, was built off the ruins of a PMD universe built off the ruins of another mainline universe)?

"It's why I look like this." Gene pushed off the chimney. Lazily walked toward Widget with his hands resting behind his head. "And how my real heart or soul or whatever you want to call it was able to safely grow on its own."

Widget shifted uncomfortably. The explanation didn't sit right with him. "If that part of you is sealed, why do you remember stuff you did for Team Rocket?"

"Sometimes that thing tries to force its way out," Gene admitted. He looked at his hands. It was subtle, but they were shaking. "To convince me to give into despair and emptiness... and become a weapon again."

So... the solution is to constantly keep a stash of MDMA handy for Gene to dive into and push those negative thoughts away?

"Wait." The cosmic silvally's crest fanned out. "Doesn't that sound a bit like the reincarnated soul stuff?"

Shrugging, Gene lowered his arms. "I don't try to read into it."

Widget's gut squirmed. "So, um, is the reason you don't act all that serious—"

"That's me trying to keep it at bay." Gene pointed at his glowing Malice Crystal. "And it worked... until last week. I was too desperate in Wyndon... and drew on some of that thing's power."

Oh, so there's actually a reason beyond emotions for Gene to put up that joker front that he has, though I suppose it makes sense given what you established is lurking inside him just last chapter.

His shoulders sagged. "It's been tugging on the back of my mind ever since. Whispering the same tired things about emptiness and hatred."

The mewtwo shook his head. "Why are you grilling me on this, anyway?" He sized Widget up. "Is this about the other week? Are you still stuck on that?"

There wasn't any point hiding it from Gene. "Yes!" Widget squawked. His starcloud and cheek bolts dimmed. "I just— I don't understand." He shook his head. "I can't understand."

It might have made sense to have Gene refer to what's going on here a bit more explicitly, since I'll admit that I drew blanks on what he was referring to there.

Gene: "... Run it by me again as to why you're still hung up on this again?"

Grimacing, Widget's talons dug into the stone roof. "The day the emperor turned me on... he was so happy. I thought... he was proud of me." His head crest drooped. "I did everything he told me to. Because he said it would make me a hero. That it would make everyone proud of me."

"Uh-huh. Cuz we know the emperor's such an honest guy." Gene tilted his head. "I thought you talked to a bunch of birddogfish in one of the mystery dungeons and it put you at ease. Why the backsliding?"

"That was before Yuna went and just... just dropped a mental Draco Meteor!" Widget responded. His starcloud flickered erratically. He squeezed his eyes shut. "I thought— no, I believed the emperor had tricked me, yet I still chose to listen. But what if that's not true?"

Oh, it's this theme from Chrono Trigger. Interesting usage here.

Gene: "Then it'd mean that you made some bad life choices, changed your mind, and then made better ones? It's not super uncommon in stories, so what's the hangup there?"

He took a step toward the shadowy mewtwo. "You said it yourself last week." Widget was sure Gene thought him pathetic, but pressed on anyway. "There was nothing biological about me before Leo intervened. What if... what if everything I did wasn't my choice? Simply lines of code instead?!"

Oh hey, this is basically Robo's dilemma from Chrono Trigger. Dunno if that influenced the song choice at all, but it's a cute parallel.

A pained grimace spread over his feet. "The moment I woke up on Chakran, Leo had already shared his power with me." Widget shook his head repeatedly, like he was bucking off a small feral who'd latched onto his neck. "Everything that's happened since... how can I be sure?"

Gene remained still. "Sure of what?"

"That these are really my choices?!" Widget's voice cracked. His gold talons scraped the stone beneath them. Blurry blue and purple light melted together. White fur painted over his cosmic form. Forelegs gave way to reshiram wings. "That I want to fight these battles? That Leo didn't just... rewrite the emperor's code? Or... or stuff some old, dormant soul into my body?

"Even the stuff you were saying about some force of emptiness felt... familiar for some reason."

I hadn't considered that angle at all, but now that Widget mentions it...

Widget glimpsed at his new wings. So white and fluffy. Was this... another one of his transformations? Why was it showing up now?

So he used to be

once upon a time? Or is this one of the perks of being a bootleg llama god?

Pushing those specific thoughts aside, the reshivally sank to his belly. "How can I know?" He folded his new wings over his head. "How can I trust myself... when I don't even know if I've always had a soul?"

Gene: "... You'll have others to give you a stiff smack and set you straight if the worst comes to pass? (At least it'll be a hell of a lot easier with you than with me...)" ^^;

Silence followed. Widget slowly slid his wings off his head. White fur brushed against rough, dirty stone.

"There more to your rant or you done?"

Widget looked up. Gene had pivoted away from him. His yellow-tipped tail curled and uncurled in irritation.

I... am not convinced that that was the best choice of words in response, Gene.

"I thought... you understood," the reshivally whimpered. "Or maybe you remembered something about Nova you could tell me."

"Well, sorry to disappoint." Gene shrugged. "Yeah, Nova was better at this stuff than I was. That's what made him an effective leader, I guess. While yours truly just wings it."

Nothing about that reassured Widget. Then again, it sounded like Gene didn't care.

Widget, remember that Gene literally just went through an entire spiel about how he has to put up fake indifference and devil-may-care-ness in order to suppress the influence of Dark Matter or whatever that is that's sharing his body. Are you sure that he doesn't care right now? Or just that he doesn't think he can indulge this safely?

"It's funny." Gene stopped curling and uncurling his tail. "I'm plain trash at the whole 'leader' thing, yet thanks to Princess I've ended up with a resistance that's at leastten times as big as Nova's."

There was an obvious question to ask: why didn't Gene try and better his leadership skills? Yet Widget kept his beak shut. He'd poured his heart out to Gene. Selfish as it sounded, Widget didn't want to make this about the shadow mewtwo.

Something something imposter syndrome. Something something lying to everyone about multiple things that could cause an existential crisis of morale.

Surprisingly, Gene floated to Widget's side and sat down beside him. "Guess there's one thing I can offer." He put a hand on Widget's right wing. "Nova always told me that it's just as easy to worry about the future as it is to get caught up in the past."

Widget picked his head up. Where was Gene going with this? "If you're going to tell me to live for the present—"

A finger to Widget's beak shushed him. Gene shook his head. "Should you live in the present? Yeah. I do." He pulled his hand back. "Still gotta look to the future, though. One step at a time."

Widget: "B-But what good does it do if someone can just swoop in at any moment and permanently make me someone else?"

Gene: "(... Yeah, I dunno if I have a good answer to that. Though let's just not say that out loud to him right now...)" ._.;

Gene tapped his right temple. "If we let the fear of an unknown future bury us, then we're not living."

He pointed at Widget. "In your case, if you let this paralyze you, then it doesn't matter how you were made or if you have a soul." His Malice Crystal flickered. "At that point, you're letting everyone and everything around you control you. And how's that any different from what you're worried about?"

The reshivally blinked once. Twice.

It... made sense. In a twisted sort of way.

Widget: "... Isn't this just deliberately living in denial?" .^.
Gene: "I prefer to think of it as acknowledging that the future's always uncertain and that it doesn't make sense to worry about it until it's a bit more tangible."

He exhaled loudly, blowing a couple of pebbles by his beak toward Gene's foot. "I suppose." Widget pushed himself to a sitting position. "Might need to work on your pep talks, though."

"That was recycled material." Gene waved Widget off dismissively.

Gene, why would you just go and say that? Though does that mean that he told Nova a version of this once?

"Then your recycling skills need work," Widget deadpanned.

"Like your stand up skills?" Gene countered, a smirk forming.

Widget couldn't help but smirk back. "Touché."

There we go, that's probably a bit more effective as a mood-lifter.

Then a flash of orange caught his attention. "What the heck?" Widget pushed Gene away. "H-Hey! Someone's shooting fireballs at the street!"

Oh, so that raid's affecting all of Herbrides right now, huh?

"The hell?" Gene whirled around. Fireballs appeared out of seemingly nowhere, striking building rooftops. Laughter filled the skies. The shadowy mewtwo's tail crinkled. "You can't be serious."

"What is it?" Widget tried to sense what was shooting the fireballs, but came up empty.

"It's the pirates." Gene hovered into the air. "They must be cloaking their ships."

"With what?" Widget's new tail turbine whirred to life, sending him up next to Gene. "I can't even sense them!"

... They struck a deal with Paradox and are taking part in whatever it was that he wanted Xander to get up to, huh?

Gene tapped his right antennae. "Attention resistance, we—"

"Well, well, well, if it isn't mon least favorite kitty cat!"

Widget squawked. Embers crackled around his tail turbine. "Was that Gilbert on our comm line?!"

Yeah, in retrospect, letting them casually hang around your base in the Qliphoth was probably a bad idea, huh?

"Damn it, are they stealing our signal? How?!" Gene's yellow-tipped tail lashed at the air. "Where the hell's Cyril?"

More building rooftops caught fire. People flooded the streets. "What do we do?" Widget said.

"Start blasting, of course!" Gene blindly slung a Shadow Ball in the direction of where the fireballs were forming.

Widget swallowed hard. He had no idea why the pirates were here. Or how they were here, for that matter. But Widget knew the resistance had to get rid of them quickly, before the whole city got swept up in chaos.

I think you're a bit late on avoiding the whole 'whole city got swept up in the chaos' part there, but I suppose that'll be a story for another day.

Alright, made it to the end. That one definitely slammed the door shut on the lull that we've been in for the past couple chapters in this story. I certainly wasn't expecting it to be Gilbert and the gang to be the ones who did it either, even if I remain wholly unconvinced that they're not raising their hell without someone helping them out here. Also, Seifer's family sucks hard, but you did a good job at making a memorable (and

-worthy) first impression of them. I suppose that it's only to be expected given that early on in the story, Seifer wasn't all that different.

I honestly had trouble spotting any real flaws in this chapter aside from a couple parts where I thought that references to past events might have merited spelling out a bit more clearly (especially the one that Gene refers to in his exchange with Widget) since this story's getting a bit up there in length and is usually fairly event-dense, so some more reminders for people jumping in after a while would be welcome.

But all-in-all, I thought that this was a good kickoff to a new arc. We'll see where things go in the next few chapters, but thus far things look promising @Ambyssin , and I'll be looking forward to getting a better look of Herbrides and its current minor problems with massive property damage sometime soon.

 

[Ambyssin]

Chapter 99: Soulful Lament​

"Do you ever think about him at all?"

Tessa dabbed her muzzle with a cloth napkin, then set it next to her empty plate. Next to her, Nickie's left ear flattened.

"Think about who, Nero? Just because I complimented his thighs doesn't mean—"

"No, silly." The riolu chuckled. "That friend of yours back home." Her aura feelers twitched. "Or, uh... maybe he wasn't your friend anymore by the end?"

"Oh." Nickie looked down at her remaining tart. The icepix's snout wrinkled. "Yeah. A few times." She looked at the ceiling. "If he was here, he'd be bouncing off the freaking walls. The guy'd be so jazzed. He was, like, unhealthily obsessed with pokémon."

Tessa raised a brow. "So there are pokémon in the human world?"

Nickie's tails puffed up. "Uh, well, yeah. It's, y'know, kinda complicated." She laughed nervously, then scarfed down the rest of her tart. Crumbs littered her white snout.

"Sometimes I wonder what would've happened if he was here instead of me." Nickie looked at Tessa. "And then I tell myself it'd be a disaster. He'd treat everyone around him like dirt and think himself the most important guy in the room."

She turned up her nose. "Before I disappeared, I told a couple of buddies that Shane outed me to my dad. I hope that spread through the school like wildfire. Maybe it'd be the wakeup call he needs."

Tessa's aura feelers throbbed. Despite Nickie's even tone, there was a lot of emotion behind her words. "I see." The riolu rubbed her shoulder. "That bad, huh?"

Nickie saw Tessa's expression and her ears folded. "Shit." Her tails curled up. "I, uh..." She bit her lip. "That wasn't supposed to sound so harsh."

She scooted next to Tessa, who squeaked with the icepix's tails brushed against her waist. "It's not all bad," Nickie said. "I got to meet you, didn't I?"

"Me?" Tessa's aura feelers stuck up. "It's only been a couple of months."

"Yeah." Nickie leaned over. "Still enough time to think you've been one of the best things that's happened to me."

Blood rushed to Tessa's cheeks.

XxX​

With newfound hindsight, Reshiram's revelation seemed so obvious. Vegna had Bahamut's journal memorized. He commanded multiple Sages. His focus had been squarely on Necrozma since he showed up at the outpost. Hell, the fact that he got to the outpost meant he had to have formed a rift between the regular and reverse worlds. And the thing he told her a couple of weeks ago...

"Continuing down this path will lead you to discover several horrible truths. And without that tenacity... the weight of those truths will crush you."

Maybe one of these could've been a coincidence. But taken together, there was only one logical explanation.

Yuna wanted to be mad. What did Vegna have to gain by sitting on this secret?

The dragapult scooched toward the edge of the bed. "Why?"

Vegna's look practically screamed "elaborate."

"Why hide it like this? Especially after coming to us for help?"

The dusknoir's eye glowed blue. "Yes, why hide being the soul of a large dragon of light worshiped by half the world and scorned by the other half?"

If he was trying to spin this back on Yuna, she'd have none of it. She curled her golden claws around her blanket. "This isn't some courtroom debate. I want answers."

"Me too." Reshiram looked more hurt the longer the conversation went on. "You told my wife you hated her big mouth."

"And you went behind my back and eloped," Vegna growled. He tilted his head right and shook it, sighing. "Which is... irrelevant. You want answers? I told you, it all goes back to selfish vengeance."

"Revenge." Yuna curled and uncurled the tip of her tail. "On Eternatus?"

"On Isola." Vegna held his right hand up. Blue Will-O-Wisp embers crackled around his fingers.

"What?" Reshiram's tail turbine matched Vegna's embers with some of its own. "If you want revenge on her, why work for her? And wouldn't that, y'know, give you a motive to do Grim Reaper killings?"

"The body snatcher is the one who killed Chiron and Leo," Vegna said, locking eyes with Yuna. "My memory of that day is... spotty, but I'm sure of it. I have evidence."

The Will-O-Wisp embers congealed into Bahamut's journal, which Vegna held in his hand. It flipped open to show the word TRAITOR scrawled in red ink, along with jagged scribbles and puncture marks suggesting the writer had stabbed the pages with a pen repeatedly.

A gush of hot air from Reshiram's tail turbine rippled the part of the blanket dangling off the side of the bed. "Traitor? You don't think—"

"That one of the Sages is related?" Vegna's eye dimmed. "Clearly I do."

"But how?" Reshiram squeaked.

"They never sealed themselves away in a Needle." Vegna shut the journal, which dissolved into gold light his hand absorbed. "For a time, I thought perhaps it was the former Sage of Justice. After all, there was no logical reason for a keldeo to be around Radiance."

"Couldn't you say the same thing about an articuno, moltres, and zapdos?" Reshiram pointed out. "None of them were Sages, yet they're in the Radiant Guard."

"Which is why my focus shifted to Isola," Vegna said, tapping his right index finger against his left arm. "I suspect she's the reason. Just as I suspect she unsealed Keldeo and allowed her to procreate. If Isola does have a Red Chain fragment as the clown prince suggests, it would all make sense."

"Well, we've pulled a lot of Needles," Yuna mumbled. "I know Necrozma got Suicune and Zygarde. Scarlett seems to have Latias. And you have three. So that leaves—"

Vegna held up two fingers. "Two. There should be two Needles remaining. Diancie, Sage of Heart. And Enamorus, Sage of Beauty."

"What about Latios and Zeraora?" Reshiram asked. "And Victini, too?"

"Already with Necrozma. And Victini most likely had their needle corrupted and broken already."

Yuna gulped. Then... there wasn't much left keeping Eternatus tethered to the reverse world. "Okay. Two potential Needles. But one of them might be the body snatcher. Then we'll just end up learning who it is by process of elimination after pulling the next Needle, won't we?"

"By then, I fear something terrible might happen," Vegna growled. "Considering there are multiple people trying to expose Isola."

He looked down, eye dimming. "Not to mention that if one of them is the body snatcher, then there's really only one Needle remaining."

Vegna lifted a shaky hand and examined all the gold cracks in it. There were more there than the other week. "One Needle... keeping this fragile body together."

Yuna pinched her brow. This was a problem. One that also came with the extra uncertainty of Yuna not knowing whether getting to the bottom of this was her desire... or Yaldabaoth exerting their influence.

"So you... intend to recombine with Necrozma?"

Vegna was silent.

Yuna crossed her arms. She needed a slightly different angle. "Eternatus can't be destroyed. Necrozma wants to destroy it. Do you still feel that way?"

"I do not."

The dragapult wished she found that reassuring. "If you recombine, then will Bahamut lay off?"

"I cannot say," Vegna responded. He turned his head toward the door again. "I'm unsure whether or not Necrozma's single-minded obsession with destroying Eternatus will win out over me. My body is... far stronger than my spirit."

"But it's the only way to stop Bahamut, right?" Reshiram poked his wing-claws together nervously.

"I was trying to work with Gene to find alternatives," Vegna explained, flicking his right hand. "If we destroy Necrozma as it is now, my spirit will fade when the final Needle is pulled. I had suggested he take a blessing from Leo, but he is... unwilling."

Leo. Yuna thought of the cosmic arceus as she also stared at the door.

Another thought tickled the back of her head. "Did you sense Chiron? Is that why you put me in your class?"

Vegna sighed. It lingered for several seconds. "Do recall that I never even met you until you came to the academy. But I did sense... familiar traces from meeting your parents on their prior trips. So, yes, I admit I arranged to get you into my class so I could see you for myself.

"And when I did, I thought that parts of your aura brought Chiron to mind. But other parts... reminded me of myself."

That was probably Yuna's distortion powers. Giratina did say Bahamut stole them somehow.

"It's not the same. Neither you nor Leo." The dusknoir shook his head. "Perhaps you both reincarnated. I'm unsure. Either way... I don't consider either of you family, if that's what you're worried about."

There was plenty Yuna was worried about. Enough to not find any solace in Vegna's words. The end of her tail twitched with irritation. "How did this all happen?"

"It's complicated," Vegna whispered.

She rubbed the brim of her triangular head. "Then make it make sense."

Another sigh. Vegna folded his hands over his closed stomach mouth. "As I said... my memories of the day I lost Chiron and Leo are fuzzy. But I think... that was when I learned many of the same things you heard from Giratina."

Before Yuna could make a remark, Vegna held up his right hand. "I don't remember specifics of my past life like you claim to." He lowered his hand. "There are... vague recollections. Of struggling to understand the world around me. And the world, in turn, not understanding me."

His hands balled into fists. "Frustrations giving way to isolation giving way to yet more frustrations. A vicious cycle feeding into itself."

The dusknoir tucked his head down. It was... shameful? Yuna couldn't quite peg his body language.

"And then I woke up alone. A giant dragon of light." Golden embers drifted off the exposed cracks in Vegna's arms. "I wandered the universe — or, as it turns out, the distortion world — seeking an end to my loneliness. But the same pitfalls that befell my past self happened here.

"I did not understand the places I visited." Vegna shook his head. "And I did not communicate well. But this time I had power." He held up a clenched fist. "I could make my frustrations known... through force."

Yuna's tail slowly curled throughout Vegna's explanation. "Just how many places did you attack in your travels?"

"Too many. It felt good. It felt right." The dusknoir bowed his head shamefully again. "I could blame Giratina's powers, but in the end it was still my choice. And, perhaps, I might've continued down that path... had I not met the Overseers."

Reshiram's tail turbine crackled like the engines in Cyril's workshop. "You were on Chakran when they were around?"

Vegna nodded. "And when they abandoned our world." He folded his hands over his stomach mouth again. "But I met someone there. And it was like... looking into a cracked mirror. I couldn't shake the feeling that this person... was a happier me. Similar struggles, yet he found friends and family to support him.

"Something about that made me snap." The dusknoir squeezed his hands together. "I lashed out at him. He defended himself... with a power that split my soul from my body."

"Wait, what?" Yuna leaned forward and almost fell off her bed. "But then—"

"He pulled me back together," Vegna said. "But, yes, I ended up learning that power from him. And using it on myself." He shook his head. "After Chakran, I thought that... the only way I could be like that Overseer was to make my home. I didn't create the life that would inhabit your home, but I brought about conditions to allow life to evolve."

"Then put yourself in charge of what resulted," Reshiram said, shifting around uncomfortably. "And I was part of that."

"You guys described Bahamut as a bit of a control freak." Yuna tapped a gold claw against her core. "Do you think that was because of Giratina's powers?"

"I think it was both of us," Vegna responded. He waved Yuna off. "Regardless, all my controlling tendencies couldn't stop Eternatus from showing up. Along with everything else that followed."

Yuna tried to recall what Igneous had told her about that final entry in Bahamut's journal. "You were... tired of emotions weighing you down. So, you split your soul from your body."

Vegna pinched his brow. "I had once believed... that I was meant to pass away, like any other person. That being struck by Eternatus had 'cursed' me with immortality."

"But you don't believe that anymore." Reshiram sounded sure of himself. Must've been that truth sense. "Because of Giratina?"

The dusknoir nodded slowly. "Yes. But at the time, I viewed my spirit as a burden. So, I sought to cast it off. Except when I emerged as a soul... fear took hold. I didn't want to disappear."

"Then is some of the other stuff true?" Yuna wondered.

"I did find and pull Zekrom's Needle," Vegna admitted. A blue glow took over his eye, but quickly faded. "The necromancy stuff is true as well. However, that was because this body proved fragile from the beginning. Not after pulling Zekrom's Needle."

He held his hand up to expose the gold cracks along it. "All the necromancy acts were attempts to preserve my body and keep it from crumbling. It's why I became an executioner for Radiance. To use those spirits to preserve my body." Vegna lowered his hand. "I only transferred to the Ministry of Justice after suspecting Isola had a connection to the one who took Chiron and Leo away from me."

With a grunt, Vegna pushed himself off the floor. "That is, to the best of my knowledge, the whole truth."

"I see." Yuna sat up straight, then immediately asked a question that sprang to mind. "Do you regret what you've done?"

Vegna braced his left hand against the wall. "If this were a court of law... I'd have argued that Giratina's influence drove my actions. That I never intended to cause so many problems." He looked down. "And so much harm."

"That doesn't answer my question," Yuna growled, trying to stop her tail from lashing at the dangling edge of Leo's covers.

"I regret it," Vegna said. "I wish I'd never had such terrible power. Perhaps if I could go back to that distant life... I'd do things differently."

Reshiram flew up to Yuna's left on the bed, between her and Leo's plate. "Well that's, y'know, good. It's a start." He looked between the two ghosts, tittering. "Maybe if you hold onto that mindset, when you become whole that'll—"

"You should try to destroy Necrozma as it is right now," Vegna said. He floated closer toward the door. "I— we've done too much harm. If you and your allies do possess great power from the distant past, then it should be possible. It is... the most pragmatic option."

"No."

She didn't think she could make one word sound so forceful. But given Reshiram's dumbfounded expression, that's exactly what Yuna had done.

The dusknoir looked over his shoulder. "What?"

Yuna dug her claws into the fibers of Leo's wool blanket. "I'm so tired... of people telling me what I should do. What's 'best' or 'most pragmatic.'"

Reshiram curled up his wings. "It did sound like something Bahamut would say."

She pointed at Vegna. "This is your fault, too. You don't... get to take the coward's way out here. You're helping us fix this." The dragapult tapped her right index claw into the palm of her left hand. "Whether that's as Vegna or Bahamut or something else entirely doesn't matter to me. I won't let you just disappear.

"So, yeah, I guess you were right. I don't forgive you or respect your decisions or whatever."

"Yuna."

"Don't." Yuna held her left hand over Reshiram like she was ready to squish him. He abruptly shrank back toward Leo's plate. "If that's everything, you can go." The dragapult flicked her right hand lazily toward the door. "I'm going to wait for my son to get back. And I don't need you around for that."

At first, Vegna held his ground. Then his eye dimmed and he turned back toward the door.

"Perhaps there's... more of her in you than I thought."

The dusknoir opened the door and floated out. He didn't bother shutting it.

"Well that, uh..." Reshiram twirled a lock of fur with a wing claw. "I guess that could've gone worse?"

"Save it." Yuna glared at him.

"I wasn't, um, looking to criticize or anything." Reshiram shifted his weight uneasily. "I know this stuff's upsetting, but it feels like it's making you more upset than before."

"You think I don't see that?" Yuna plucked Reshiram off the bed.

"Whoa! H-Hey, easy now!" The tiny dragon flailed between Yuna's claws.

"How do I know this anger is mine and not Giratina's?" Yuna held Reshiram up in front of her face. "What if they're trying to isolate me from everyone so I'll give up and let them take over, huh? How can I trust my thoughts and wishes here are really mine?"

"... Yeesh," a new voice interjected. "Maybe I should've looked for some whiskey or vodka to bring."

Squealing, Yuna let go of Reshiram. "N-Nikki! H-Hi!"

Reshiram hit the bed and bounced off it with a nasally yelp. He faceplanted onto the carpeted floor then hastily got to his feet, shaking out his messy fur.

"I'm okay!" he declared.

Yuna recalled Reshiram into her core and shimmied backward so she could prop her triangular head against the wall. "How, um, long have you been standing there?"

The toxtricity walked inside, pausing to kick the door shut with her right leg. "When you told Crotch Fuzz to 'save it,'" Nikki replied, shrugging. "Guess you're drifting into existential shit again, huh?"

"O-Only toward the end." Yuna's long tail crinkled. "I was talking. With Vegna."

"About?"

"Abouthowhe'skindasortamaybeactuallyBahamut."

It came out so fast it sounded like one word, but Nikki must've parsed it out because her mohawk shrank. "Oh. Ohhhhh shit." She looked back at the closed door. "Is that, uh, good or bad?"

"Dunno."

"Should we be upset?"

"Yeah."

Nikki threw the door open, leaned into the hallway and stuck her middle finger up. "How's that?"

Nickie reared up on her hind legs. She tried to lift a foreleg but tumbled backward with a yip.

"W-What was that?" Tessa was trying not to laugh.

"I wanted to flip that fopdoodle off!" Nickie kicked at the air with her legs. "God, I miss having hands."

"It works." Yuna chuckled into her right elbow.

"Good." Nikki shut the door again while rummaging through her right jacket pocket. She pulled out two small glass vials. "Was gonna keep both of these for myself, but I think you need the other more than I do."

She tossed it to Yuna, who barely managed to catch it after bobbling it between her hands. The dragapult held it up and squinted at the pink gas inside. "Wait. This is—"

"Salazzle vapors. From Twiggy's sister." Nikki strutted toward the bed, tossing her vial to herself.

Yuna kept staring at the pink gas swirling around inside. "Why though?"

"To take the edge off."

The bed fwumped when Nikki flopped down on the edge of it. A meeping Yuna shuffled closer to Leo's plate. Her tail shot into her torso.

"Heh. Never gettin' tired of that." The toxtricity pointed to where Yuna's tail had been seconds ago.

Yuna kneaded her tail out of her torso, pouting. "Is this what you meant when you said you needed air or whatever?"

Sighing, Nikki pushed herself back until her waist spikes plinked against the metal wall. "Yeah. It's the Seifer stuff."

The dragapult straightened up when Nikki actually used Seifer's name. This really was serious.

"I know I don't... get memories like the rest of you," Nikki said, turning her vial back and forth in her fingers. "Still, hearing about Seifer made me think for a bit. You said I fought against Zodiark in the past. But I clearly lost."

She closed her eyes. "So, they must've killed me, right?"

The icepix lay unmoving on the gray and blue, stone ground. Blood stained her fur.

"I... don't know."

"Your face says otherwise."

Yuna jolted. Nikki was leaning over and looking at her.

"I saw you," the dragapult admitted, brushing her right hand over her core.

"Figured." Nikki pulled away, mohawk shrinking. "I don't gotta know the details or anything. Just that... it's gotta go different this time, right?"

"Right. Yeah. Sorry."

"For what?"

"Trying to hide it." Yuna fidgeted.

"Eh, it's whatever." Nikki waved her off. "You were looking out for me. And I pressed you on it."

They both shared a look. The toxtricity's mohawk went pink again for an instant before she looked away and coughed into her hand. "So, uh—"

"C-Can I, um, just ask you one thing?" Yuna blurted out. She was leaning forward, hands pressed down on Leo's blanket.

Nikki opened her mouth, then shut it, then opened it again. Maybe she'd planned on giving a smartass response and abruptly reconsidered. "Yeah."

"What would you do if, y'know, Giratina ends up taking me over?"

Yuna expected the silence that followed. Nikki leaned over. Still clasping her vial, she rested her head on the backs of her hands. A soft, rhythmic thumped filled the room from Nikki tapping her foot against the carpet. She had to be thinking it over, then.

"I guess... I'd fight to get you back."

"And if it's not possible?"

"Screw that."

Yuna's ectoplasm constricted. "Huh?"

Nikki sat up. "After all the shit's that happened to us, you're really going to say something's not possible?"

"I, uh— it's a hypothetical?" Yuna's voice cracked.

"Doesn't change my answer." Nikki swung her legs onto the bed, facing the dragapult in the process. "I'd fight to get you back. Even if it means pissing those Overseers off."

She looked down and mumbled, "Hell, that might get 'em to come to me faster."

Yuna imagined Nikki charging toward some angelic light... only to get vaporized by a giant white laser. She cringed. "I thiiiink I get the picture."

Hell, maybe Nikki really was onto something. Vegna mentioned an Overseer who split his soul from his body the first time. Perhaps he could split her off from Giratina.

Maybe it wasn't a complete lost cause, then. Yuna had a fighting chance. And someone willing to fight for her.

Nikki stuck her vial in front of Yuna's face and waved it. "So, how 'bout it? Dunno about you, but I've had enough existential shit for one day. Hell, for the whole month."

Yuna lifted the vial in her hand. "I, uh, guess so?" She closely examined the pink gas inside. "What exactly should I do here?"

"Pfffbt. That's easy." Nikki brought her vial over by her face. "Y'just do this." She popped the cork off and heavily inhaled. The pink gas flowed into Nikki's face. There were probably nostrils there Yuna couldn't see between the toxtricity's scales.

At first, nothing seemed to happen. Then Nikki reclined. A shiver ran from her head town to her legs. By the time Nikki was slumped against the wall — her waist spikes wedged in a crack between said wall and Leo's bed — her feet were twitching and her mohawk frazzling erratically.

"N-Nikki?" Yuna waved a hand in front of her face. She squealed when Nikki grabbed it and squeezed her palm repeatedly.

"Squiiiiishy," Nikki said.

"H-Hey now," the dragapult squeaked.

"I'm fiiiiiine." Nikki let go. Her arms flopped by her side. "Just enjoying the colors."

Yuna wanted to ask what Nikki meant, but paused when she saw pink spreading over Nikki's sclera. She looked down at her own capped vial.

"Hey, so, as the guy who used to date a salazzle, maybe we ought to consider not using th—"

Yuna booted Reshiram from the back of her mind and popped the cap off her vial. She didn't have nostrils, so she simply leaned over and let the vapors splash onto her facial ectoplasm.

For a moment, she wondered if there wouldn't be any effect. Then the gas seeped into her ectoplasm.

The vial slipped from Yuna's grasp and dropped onto the bed. All around Yuna, the gray metal walls rippled and wiggled. Bright reds, greens, and blues danced around one another, twisting into yellows, oranges, and purples. So many colors swirling around and around and around...

"Feels good, doesn't it?"

A hand on Yuna's leg made her ectoplasm tighten and quiver in a way she'd never experienced before. She looked at the arm and saw streams of purple and yellow trailing off it. They molded into icepix that ran around the arm. Around Yuna's leg.

Ten. Twenty. Thirty. So many icepix. Spinning. Circling.

The arm turned to something heavier. Scales that smothered her jiggling ectoplasm.

Yuna fell onto her back. A thunk suggested something hit the ground, but she was long past caring.

XxX​

"It's not usually this quiet here, is it?"

Vince's question disrupted the soft echo of Leo's golden hooves against the metal floor. The cosmic arceus made his way down the hall. "It's late. Everyone must've hit the hay."

"Where are we going?"

"Quiet." Grishi shushed Vince. A whimper followed from the purple koraidon.

"Still dunno why you're here, B-T-dubs." Leo looked over his shoulder. The zorotwo was levitating Vince alongside him. "We made it back. Shouldn't you go home?"

"Grishi could go home." He rolled his eyes. "Sit and twiddle claws. But Grishi knows that dumb thing to do when everything in danger."

He held two claws up to his eyes, then pointed them at Leo. "So, Grishi do responsible thing and keep eye on Leo and friends. Grishi be adult in the room."

"We are adults," Leo said, continuing forward.

"Then Grishi be mature adult."

"Whatevs." Leo reached his door and abruptly stopped. His chest tightened. His starcloud mane and tail pulsated. "H-Huh?"

"Oh no. What's wrong?" Vince sounded like he was trying to worm out of Grishi's psychic grasp. "Are there Whispers here?"

"No." Leo lifted a foreleg and placed it on the door. "I sense... my power. But that doesn't make sense. What—"

The moment he opened the door he saw one of his plates lying on the carpet next to the bed.

A bed with a dragapult and a toxtricity practically tangled together like a pretzel. Their limbs twitching and torsos shuddering.

Leo blinked once. Twice. He cleared his throat.

... Nothing. Did they even hear him?

The cosmic arceus waved a foreleg. A hand made of dirt popped out of the carpet, grabbed the plate, and chucked it toward Leo, who caught it in his starcloud mane.

He silently stepped out of the room and shut the door.

"Change of plans," Leo declared. The plate melted into his mane. A fiery orange dribbled down his wheel like someone spilled paint on it.

Grishi and Vince exchanged looks. "What's wrong? I thought we were going to your room," the purple koraidon said. "And did you just get another plate?"

"Leo taller now." Grishi held two claws close together. "By smidge."

"My mom's in there. With Nikki." Leo wasn't sure how he was keeping a straight face. "Who I might need to start calling my other mom."

Vince stared back blankly. "What."

"I dunno. They're stoned out of their minds." Leo repeatedly moved his head in a circle. "Maybe they won't remember any of it. Either way, I'm out."

He pushed past Grishi and Vince. "H-Hey, wait! Where are we supposed to go, then?!" Vince said.

"Find the orbeetle in the hangar. He'll set you up with a room."

"What hangar?!" Vince finally got out of Grishi's grip. The purple koraidon started after Leo. "And where are you going?"

Leo quickened his pace. "To take a long, cold shower."

"Why?"

"Why do you think?" And the cosmic arceus stomped into a rift of his own making.

XxX​

Widget did not like lying in a "loaf" position. Even switching to miraivally mode didn't help him out. And the carpet was itchy. Why did they even have to sit on the floor like this anyway?

"So, that's the situation." Gene set a handless cup of tea down on the table at their feet. "Unstable world. Threat to the universe. We could some extra muscle, especially if things keep going south on this side. What do you say?"

The shadowy mewtwo extended his right hand. The two urshifu sitting across the table exchanged looks.

"You said there are a bunch of strong pokémon with this 'resistance' of yours?" Lin asked, a brow raised.

"They're Aeon troops." Gene kept his hand extended. "Mostly dragons and other reptiles."

The other urshifu leaned forward. "So, that include any of them big muscular dragons with the circular plates?" He traced his paws in circles.

"I think he means kommo-o," Widget offered, though he wasn't sure why the urshifu considered that important.

"More than a few," Gene said.

"Any of 'em ladies?"

"Xiao." Lin smacked his brother's shoulder.

Gene shrugged. "I'm sure there are—"

"Ya got a deal!" Xiao grabbed the shadowy mewtwo's hand and enthusiastically shook it. His yellow tail crinkled up in pain.

When the handshake ended, Gene pulled his throbbing hand back and nursed against his stomach. "Great. Welcome aboard." He got to his feet. "We'll give you time to get whatever affairs you need in order, then come back to bring you to our base."

Lin crossed his arms. "What about the dojo, Xiao? And the village?"

"We bring the students, of course!" Xiao got to his feet. "You saw the news on PV. Things are going sideways. Looking out for our people means getting 'em somewhere safer than this nutty kingdom."

"That's... true." Lin stood up, arms still crossed.

"Heh." Xiao rubbed his nose. "You just don't wanna admit I'm right."

"Perhaps keep your thoughts about kommo-o to yourself next time." Sighing, Lin shook his head. "When should we expect you back?"

"Hopefully in a day or two." Gene gestured for Widget to stand. "We're heading over to Blightsmuth next."

"That's on the other side of the kingdom," Lin said. "It'd take at least two days by rail."

"Well, guess it's a good thing we'll be flying." Gene pet Widget's back.

The miraivally's thrusters coughed out smoke. "I beg your pardon?"

"You heard me." Gene stretched his arms up. "And weeeee should probably get going. C'mon, bud."

"Seriously?" Widget watched Gene float over the bamboo floor toward a wooden double door. "Isn't this a bit fast?"

"We're on a tight schedule." Gene snapped his fingers.

Widget bowed his head apologetically at the two urshifu. He shifted back to his cosmic form and trotted after Gene. They stepped through the double doors and descended wooden stairs to a wooden bridge over a small pond with lily pads and bamboo fronds scattered around.

"We have to go back to the base," Widget said.

"Not without new recruits." Gene floated across the bridge, nonchalantly resting his hands behind his head.

"This isn't about getting us numbers." Widget marched after him. His starcloud neck ruff rippled with every step. "You're avoiding Cyril."

"I'm not."

"Puh-lease."

Widget caught up to Gene, who was leaning against a sign reading "Unseen Fist Dojo." He jabbed a gold talon into the shadowy mewtwo's thigh.

"You're trying to recruit new people not long after telling your friend to his face that his boyfriend was as good as dead," Widget said. "It comes off as trying to replace Seifer. It's insensitive. You should know better."

Gene raised a brow. "Really? You're going to lecture me on this?"

The cosmic silvally's crest drooped. "He's been with you for ages. He needs you right now."

"Nah." Gene pushed off the sign. He walked across the dirt road. "I'm the last person he wants to see right now. So, better to do something productive. Better to find us some new recruits." He punched one hand with another. "Nikki lived with Shredder and she's plenty tough. So, the guy must know a thing or two."

Widget squinted. "Which is why you want to go to Blightsmuth?"

Gene turned back, smirking. "Exactly."

"Great." The cosmic silvally sat down. "Then have fun."

"Oh, for pity's sake." Gene pinched his brow. "You're digging your heels in? Really?"

"Yes." Widget held his head up. "Send me back to the base. I won't enable your bad decisions."

They silently stared each other down for several seconds. Eventually, Gene relented. With a lazy flick of his wrist, he spawned a rift. Widget spotted the hangar on the other side.

"Be my guest." Gene gestured toward the rift. "Don't come crying to me when it doesn't go how you're hoping."

Chuffing, Widget marched toward the rift. He paused with one foreleg on the other end to look at Gene.

"I hope you'll reconsider."

He waited for a few seconds. When Gene didn't respond, Widget finished stepping through the rift. He found a few skorps staring at him.

"Oh, uh, hi." Widget awkwardly waved a foreleg. "Anyone seen Cyril around?"

"Medical bay," one skorp said.

"Thanks." Widget trotted toward the hangar door.

Maybe Cyril already had other people with him. Regardless, Widget wouldn't rest until he knew the zoroark was okay.

 

[Spiteful Murkrow]

Heya, originally I was hoping to come back to this over the weekend, but that didn't quite pan out for me. Well, now's the next best time to get another chapter under my belt, so let's jump right back in with…

Chapter 91

Spoiler

Well, shit.

That's another world they're gonna tell me to stay away from. But what was I supposed to do? You hear all this yapping about bonds between humans and pokémon. So I can't stand by and watch some kid harass an ogerpon cuz he thinks he's entitled to be her trainer cuz he likes her so much.

This was Tama doing Tama things, wasn't it? Since it definitely feels like Bahamut in outlook, but a bit less unhinged.

The worst part was it was like an awful look back at the distant past. Cuz I'm not sure I'd have acted much different back when I was human.

Sometimes this omniverse stuff's a bitch.

Nevermind then, this is

speaking here.

Leo ran into the hanger not long after Noctum and Valkyrie. It was a mess of skorps darting about between computer consoles, several pointing and waving their mutant incineroar hands.

Tune's reminding me that I really ought to get around to grabbing a copy of Rift Apart. Especially since I have a PS5 now.

"What's the matter?" Noctum wondered, looking between the skorps and Cid. The orbeetle's spots flashed asynchronously with the funny sensors attached to them.

"What isn't the matter?!" Cid responded, staring at Cyril's "big board" of computer screens. "This is a nightmare! I can't get a hold of anyone who's over in Tulpise. I just keep hearing that annoying chatot pirate."

Told you that letting him hang around Cyril's burger joint was a bad idea.

The cosmic arceus trotted up to the dragons' sides. Both of them flinched. "Isn't this thing supposed to be a secure magical line?!" the garchomp hissed. "What gives?"

"M-Maybe Gilbert stole an X-transceiver the last time he was here?" Noctum tapped his index claws together. Valkyrie gently smacked the back of his head with her right elbow fin. "Hey, it was a suggestion!"

On the one hand, that would be fitting and not exactly hard to imagine, but the fact that it's explicitly brought up and shot down like this seems to be pointing at a far more ominous answer.

"Tough. There isn't a Gene or Cyril around for me to slap." Valkyrie crossed her arms. "Why the hell do they even let that pipsqueak and his crew show up here if they're against us?"

Valkyrie: "And if this turns out to be because of some sort of 'keep your enemies closer' tripe, so help me..." >_>;

"Technically it's not Gilbert's—" Noctum saw Valkyrie's death glare and shrank back. "Never mind."

Well, at least he read the room. Eventually.

Rolling his eyes, Leo approached the small computer array. "So, like, what's really the sitch? Cuz why would you complain about pirates if you weren't trying to reach the teams in Herbrides?"

Cid wobbled as his levitation momentarily faltered. "Right. Quite perceptive." The orbeetle pointed at a skorp. One of the larger monitors brought up footage of some kind of heavy machinery embedded in a craggy brown environment.

Leo's eyes widened. That rippling static in the center...

Wait, is that another one of Paradox's Paradox 'mons?

"We got us an anomaly, eh!" the skorp who pulled the footage up exclaimed.

"Where are we looking at?" Valkyrie said. Heavy metal thuds followed from her running up behind Leo.

"Iron Island," Skorp said. "Think it's part of that there Sinnoh region."

Sinnoh, huh? I wonder if this means we're about to crash Riley giving away that Riolu egg to Dawn/Lucas.

Sinnoh. Sinnoh. Why was that name familiar? "Wait." Leo stood up straight. "Isn't that on the same planet we found the last anomaly on? The one with that Indigo Plateau place?"

"It's not just that." Cid motioned at skorp. "Next recording."

What came up was blurry. A rush of purple and navy blue slammed into a large, upright sandaconda that was practically a living brown twister. Sandaconda slammed into a rock wall. Boulders and scraps of machinery crashed down on it from above.

Noctum: "I... take it that that's not supposed to be there?" .-.
Cid: "Not at all since Sandaconda apparently are not native to anywhere close to that region."

The footage flickered a few times. When it steadied, purple, armored legs and fiery blades vanished into the static. Instead of a sandaconda, there was a tiny orange pixie at the base of the rubble. Leo's starcloud tail curled up. Had he seen those big V-shaped ears before? Why did they make him think of wheels?

Ah yes, just getting in a

appearance and Gates reference in there.

"That big ol' sandaconda matches one of Cyril's descripterinos for a Paradigm lieutenant!" Skorp boxed the air in front of him. "But looks like some ceruledge gave her the ol' one-two and made off with her power!"

Wait, what.

No, it couldn't be just "some ceruledge." It was a Whisper. It had to be. And if they couldn't reach his mom and her friends...

Ahh, yeah, okay, that makes a bit more sense. Even if that's some convenient timing there... unless if that clash is what caused the anomaly.

Leo stepped toward Cid. "Are those empire dweebs at the island already?"

Three of Cid's spots glowed. "I don't think so. Why do you—"

"Don't wait up for me." Leo turned around.

"Whoa, hey!" Noctum reached for the cosmic arceus. "What are you doing?"

"Going there."

"Hang on." The cosmic charizard frowned. "We have to come up with a plan. You can't go rushing in looking like that."

I mean, he could, but it'd be an absolutely terrible idea and draw a ton of aggro, so... yeah. Let's see what Leo rolls as a disguise.

"Then I won't." Leo concentrated on two of the plates nestled deep in his spirit. His body squashed and stretched, molded by the energy he drew out of the plates. Bright light filled his vision.

"A heracross?" Valkyrie gasped. "Since when can the kid transform?!"

I mean, if llamagod can canonically mess with a phone to turn it into a custom PokéNav, going around in different guises feels like it should be plenty doable, even if IIRC Arceus can't canonically do anything involving Transform.

Leo's opened his chitinous elytron. Wings buzzing, he hovered into the air. "If we make a plan, the empire's going to storm the island. We don't have time. I'm out."

He wouldn't wait for anyone's protests. Leo slashed the air with his pronged horn. Warm sunlight spilled out from the rift. Leo shot through it, though he didn't immediately close it behind him. Might as well let the others have a shot at it.

I am not convinced that this isn't going to end terribly in short order. Especially since I can't remember the last time we actually saw Leo actually fight in this story.

The anomaly rift sat a couple of dozen meters away, amidst the wreckage of a bunch of machinery. Black bands and plating from conveyer belts to his left. Broken remains of lifts and platforms to his right. There were even a few hard hats and worker vests poking out from piles of dirt littered around the rift.

Well, that got morbid and dark quickly. .-.

Leo beelined for the pulsating static sphere. It grew a bit with every pulsation, chewing away at steel beams, pistons, and other wreckage. He glimpsed the orange pixie from earlier. Those two dragons would totes take care of her. No way they didn't follow him.

Leo, you know what they say about assuming...

The heracross flew into the static without a second thought. It brought him into a tunnel of bright lights and swirling, distorted colors. Leo saw jagged, island-shaped crystals in the distance. Sparkling lines crisscrossed far in the distance, too blurry to get any other features from.

He was in that Ginnungagap place again. Like with the first anomaly they'd flown through. That's fine. All Leo had to do was fly through this tunnel, and he'd reach the dimensional mystery dungeon on the other side. Easy pe—

"Ohhhh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!"

I mean, not that Leo wasn't obviously tempting fate there, but things sure blew up a lot faster than I expected. Time to see what the damage is:

Was that... a flailing toxtricity ahead of him?

It was! It was Nikki! And judging by the big, spectral wing reaching out to grab her...

"Mom!" Leo shouted, surging toward her without a second thought.

Leo: "What on earth are you doing here?!" O_O;

Air hockey truly was a strange game. Yuna was often transfixed on all the tiny holes in the white table shooting constant air streams. Large enough to lift the red plastic puck millimeters off the table, but small enough not to do anything else.

"Ten to nine," Nikki declared. "Game point, baby!"

I take it that we've gone chronologically back in time for this scene. For whatever reason, I don't recall too many such moments in this story in spite of it now being almost half a million words long.

Igneous was leaning so far forward he was practically climbing onto the table. He struck the puck with his green handle. It banked off the gray wall, but Nikki intercepted with a quick swipe. The puck zigzagged back to Igneous' side. Holding her handle in her mouth, Scarlett slid it forward, but only clipped the side of the puck. Igneous missed his ensuing swipe, but course corrected to pin the puck in the corner.

Every click and clack of the puck satisfied Yuna in a way she couldn't put to words. She'd have to see about coming up with some sort of similar game for the taverns in Aeon when this was all over.

Nikki: "You could just... you know, import an air hockey table."

Yuna: "That'd be kinda hard since we don't exactly have a functioning power grid." -_-;

"C'mon, Twiggy." Nikki's mohawk sparked. She ran her handle back and forth rapidly at the center of the table. "No camping on the puck! Only pussies camp!"

Igneous gently tapped the puck, then slammed his handle into it. The puck beelined by Nikki's handle. "Shit!"

Well, he stopped camping the puck, at least. >:V

"Eep!" Yuna swiped right with both arms. She got the side of the puck. It banked backwards. Her ectoplasm shriveled. She quickly relaxed when the puck struck the corner of the goal and bounced back. Yuna gave it a hearty smack with her handle. It banked off the wall just past midfield.

"Gow eeh!" At its middling speed, Scarlett easily intercepted the puck. Nikki blocked her shot. Scarlett missed the counter, but Igneous swiped his handle all the way to his right, practically knocking the dragonair over in the process.

Boy, you really got into this sequence. Though did you play a game with friends or something to get this choreography down? Since something about the order of events feels surprisingly taut.

When the puck clacked off a wall, a distant rumble followed. Scarlett's neck bauble flickered. She looked up, as did Yuna.

"Did you guys hear that?" she said.

Oh, so we're going back a full chapter in time chronologically for this scene. I guess that's a sign that things went really pear-shaped at the mall while Seifer was having his family and space pirate problems.

A couple of more clacks. Nikki lightly shoved Yuna, who watched the lights rattle in the ceiling.

"Um, guys?" Yuna's tail crinkled. "I think we have a prob—" "Don't interrupt!" Nikki growled. More clacking followed. "Yeah!" Igneous said. "This is important!"

Priorities™️, though I find it hilarious that Igneous is also getting sucked up into this. Guess he's not as above it all as he thinks.

The next rumble was louder. The pachirisu twins who were watching the group from the next-door ping pong table exchanged panicked expressions, then leaped off and headed for the exit.

Scarlett spat out her handle. "We have a problem!" She grabbed Igneous with her tail and pulled his head up. "The whole pace is shaking!"

One last clack sounded, followed by a crunchy "What a goal!" from the speakers overhead. Igneous and Scarlett's goal flashed with blue light.

Yuna: "Oh my god, Nikki, are you kidding me right now?!"

Nikki: "What? Not my problem Twiggy left the goal open."

"Winner! Winner!" the same crunchy announcer voice declared. A small spotlight shined on Yuna and Nikki from the box-shaped scoreboard above the table.

"Ha!" Nikki pumped her fist. "Suck it, Twiggy! Loo-hoo-seeeer!" She made an L with her hand and pressed it against her forehead.

This girl's really into her air hockey for her to just blow off all those ominous tremors. Though what's the over/under of the arcade literally having to blow up to snap her out of this?

"Like hell you won!" The grovlazzle's head leaf caught fire. He stomped over to the toxtricity. "You saw that. Scarlett grabbed me! The goal doesn't count! Redo!"

I see that Team Bastion has their priorities in order right now.

"Guys, seriously?!" Scarlett cried.

"Aww, boo hoo." Nikki rubbed her cheeks as if she was crying. "Cry me a river. Scarlett was being gentle with y—"

Yuna heard the crash seconds before a part of the ceiling collapsed. She thrust her hands forward. Two gray, shadowy legs shielded her friends from the rubble. Screams erupted all around her as the arcade patrons and staff made a beeline for the exit.

Yuna: "I can't believe you two!"

Nikki: "Look, you could've spoken up about the whole freak earthquake in the background earlier."

"What the hell?!" Mohawk frazzled, Nikki hopped back onto the ping pong table.

The dust settled and showed a giant metal... claw? It had multiple colorful arcade cabinets ensnared in its grasp. And there was an electabuzz with a magmortar-esque cannon in place of their left arm riding on it.

"We got the cabinets! Hoist me up, mateys!" Electabuzz shouted.

Ah yes, so the space pirates also took the occasion to hit up the mall themselves. Though I'm surprised they're prioritizing the arcade over stuff like jewelry stores.

As fast as the claw appeared, it shot up through the hole in the ceiling.

"Wait, mateys?" Igneous sprinted toward the hole. "I don't see anything!" He tapped the side of his head. "Gene, someone just made off with arcade cabinets from the mall! What's going on?"

Yuna heard distant crashes and rumbles that mirrored those that preceded the giant claw. She also flipped on her X-transceiver.

"—need to explain anything to vous, kitty cat! Why wouldn't we take ze advantage for a fresh place to plunder?"

Igneous: "Please tell me we're not seriously having to deal with featherface causing us problems over being salty over a cage match. That was like 50 chapters ago!"

"No way," Yuna whispered. She flipped her X-transceiver off. "It's the pirates! And they're in our X-transceiver line!"

"No fooling?" Nikki leaped off the ping pong table. "Then we've gotta regroup with the others."

Yuna: "Seriously, why on earth do they keep getting in our way? They're literally nuisance antagonists!" >.<
Scarlett: "That... makes me feel as if we should be worried more about if anyone else is using them as a smokescreen right now." .-.

"How?" Igneous volcarona wings burst out of his back in swathes of fire. "Gene's not responding. It's like he can't even hear me!"

More crashes sounded in the distance. "Ahh, forget that!" Scarlett's white wings unfurled. She flew toward the hole. "It's not safe inside! Let's go!"

Igneous and Scarlett were first through the broken ceiling. Yuna hovered in place while Nikki ran up the wall and along the ceiling, her feet surrounded by blue electricity. When the toxtricity was through the hole, Yuna darted after her.

The back part of the mall was concrete. Which was a good thing, since most of its glass ceiling wasn't there anymore.

Yuna: "Boy am I glad that I don't need to use my feet to get around, since all those glass shards look like a recipe for some nasty cuts." 😬

"The hell is this?!" Nikki's mohawk undulated wildly. "Giant claws shooting out from nowhere?!"

Flashes of gray metal peppered the air in front of them. Assorted large electronic appliances vanishing alongside the metal claws gripping them.

"They're hiding their ships." Igneous looked around. He gripped his red honedge in his hands. "That has to be it."

IMO, Nikki's line would work a little better if it was punctuated to sound more agitated. Though I can already tell that Iggy's brilliant plan is going to be to hitch a ride on one of the claws up to Gilbert's ships, huh?

"With what? A freaking zoroark armada?" Nikki strummed her gills. "I say we shoot straight over where the roof was and see what happens."

Igneous held the honedge up. "Or we have Starlene sense them." He glanced at the dragonair.

Boring, but practical. Assuming that it works.

"R-Right!" Scarlett's neck bauble glowed pink. Starlene appeared. Her electronic wings glowed in time with Scarlett's bauble.

"Uhh..." The latias frowned. "I'm not getting anything." She wrinkled her snout. "No way they can block psychics. These are pirates, not the empire!"

That... feels like a sign that they cut a deal with said Empire, just saying. Like maybe I'm biased since one of my own stories has a plot beat that's not all that dissimilar, but...

Swirling blue ice emerged right in front of them. "Move!" Yuna yelped.

The quartet all broke off in different directions. When the Blizzard buffeted the stone part of the roof, everything slowed to a crawl around Yuna. It was like someone painted the whole world around her in a purple crystal glaze. And an unseen clock loudly ticked in her head.

She'd seen this before. When she dodged Leo's attacks while training with him. Why could she move normally? Is this... from Yaldabaoth?

First paragraph IMO works better as two smaller ones. Though I hadn't even considered the possibility of that being the party that the space pirates teamed up with.

Yuna couldn't call out to her friends. They were barely moving. But what she could do was fly away from the Blizzard. After a couple of seconds, the crystal tinge vanished. Everything moved normally again.

"H-Hey! Princess, what are you doing?!"

The dragapult turned. Scarlett struggled to juggle her own flight with Starlene levitating Nikki. She glanced up and saw another Blizzard forming from nothing.

"Malpirg!" Yuna shouted. Shadows twisted in her hands, and then Reshiram appeared in gouts of blue fire. He gathered a giant orange fireball and spat it into the Blizzard, blowing it apart in a torrent of steam.

Huh, I wonder if the 'Malpirg' there means anything, or if that's just something like Bayonetta-speak lifted from the game.

"Watch over them!" Yuna ordered, then returned to focusing on the destroyed roof.

Blue flickered in the corner of her vision. Yuna rolled away from an Ice Beam in the nick of time. Like before, everything took on a crystal tinge and slowed to a crawl. Yuna seized her opportunity, flying toward the shattered glass roof. She glanced at the mall. Her shadows tugged on her long tail.

"Yes, I see it." Yuna gulped as the time crystal thingy stopped. She'd have to come up with a better name later. Because there was an anomaly in the mall! The pirates couldn't have made it... could they?

Yuna, if you have to ask yourself that question, they totally made it.

No, she didn't have time to consider the why. Yuna tapped the right side of her head.

"— a fool's errand to interfere. Zese snobby so-and-sos could use ze excitement!"

Yuna's tail lashed the air. The line was still down. How was she supposed to get a hold of Leo like this?!

"Ice Beam from above!"

Igneous' shout alerted Yuna. She rolled right. The crystal time stasis took over again. Curiously, Yuna noted Reshiram moving at full speed. "Fire! There!" The dragapult pointed toward the empty space where the Ice Beam formed.

Oh, so this time dilation effect doesn't work on spirits. Interesting, though I wonder if it's pointing towards anything.

Reshiram immediately spewed a Blue Flare. When the time stasis faded, a blue barrier flickered in and out of existence. The flames barely poked through it. Startled shouts came from the other side.

"It's their ship!" Reshiram said, tail turbine crackling. "Or, uh, a ship. I dunno. This is conf— eep!" He frantically darted left and right as Ice Beams and a massive Blizzard rained down from above.

Well, that would explain why everyone was having such trouble getting a psychic read on the space pirates earlier.

"Help! I'm allergic to grog-scented ice!"

Just how drunk was the 'mon that spewed that one out?

Yuna reached her right arm out. Reshiram returned in a stream of light. "Nikki!" she shouted.

"A bit busy!" The toxtricity batted Ice Shards away with her lightning guitar before they could strike Scarlett. Yuna shot toward her.

"Whoa, hey!" Nikki gasped when Yuna wrapped her up in her large tail. "What's the big idea? At least buy me dinner first!"

"Cut the jokes! Anomaly in the mall," Yuna said. She took off away from a flummoxing Scarlett. "I can't reach Leo."

Yeah, being in an entirely different dimension has a way of doing that. ^^;

"Then rift us back to the outpost!" Nikki squirmed in Yuna's grasp. The dragapult wasn't bothered, speeding past Ice Beams before they could even prove a problem. She flew through the empty space between the hallways on the third and second floors.

"It's growing... and fast!" Yuna realized. "We have to see what we're dealing with."

"What about Twiggy and Scarlett?" Nikki tried to look up.

They're going to wind up leaving them behind, aren't they?

Yuna paused and looked back. Flames swept overhead, striking against the same blue barrier as Reshiram's attack earlier.

"Someone has to try and help people out here," Yuna mumbled. "We're already disjointed."

Yeah, I knew it.

Nikki didn't offer a counterargument, so Yuna took that as her cue to fly into the static. Bright, multicolored lights flooded her vision. Her ectoplasm was tugged in six different directions. Grunting, Yuna lost her grip on Nikki. Arms flailing, the toxtricity fell through the open air.

"Ohhhh shiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit!"

Oh, so this is the part where they run into Leo.

Instinct took hold. Yuna stretched her right arm out. A spectral wing appeared to catch Nikki. It wrapped protectively around her like some grotesque, oversized scarf.

"Mom!"

Yuuuup, here we go.

The dragapult's head whipped around. A heracross sped toward her. But that voice...

"Leo?!" Yuna rubbed her eyes. A familiar cosmic arceus replaced the heracross. "What are you doing here? Did you come through Tulpise?"

"No!" Leo galloped toward her, despite the lack of ground. In a flash of blue and white light, he shifted to a large altaria and snagged Nikki out of the spectral wing.

"Whoa, hey!" Nikki almost fell off his back in surprise. "The kid's carrying me now?!"

Yuna: "Nikki, are you seriously complaining right now?!" >_>;

Yuna flew after him. Unexpected arrival or not, she still had to find the mystery dungeon on the other side. And this bright, flashing tunnel had to be pointing them in the right direction. "How did you get here then, Leo?"

"Anomaly showed up in Eternatus' Earth!" Leo said. "And it spat me out here."

This was bad. If it sent him into the same Ginnungagap tunnel as the Tulpise anomaly, then they were connected! "Was yours growing quickly, too?"

Oh, so Mystery Dungeons do have the potential to connect to multiple locations in this setting.

"Yeah!" Leo flapped his wings, moving right. "Head's up! There's big— agh!"

The altaria banked left. Yuna followed his flight path. The bright lights made it hard to discern what he was dodging until she got close and saw big blue circles for herself.

"Right! No, left!" Nikki yelped. "Wait— gaaah!"

There was a loud pop followed by an explosion... of blue juice?

I take it that they just splatted a giant Oran Berry.

Yuna slowed up. The juice splattered against the light of the tunnel and dissolved into blue smoke. The dragapult sped forward. Her facial ectoplasm rippled.

"Blueberries?" Yuna cringed. More giant blueberries floated haphazardly inside of the tunnel. Leo, covered in blueberry juice, struggled to maneuver around them. "Watch out!" She surged forward. "Rayquaza, go!"

Huh, not quite what I was expecting, but still a blue berry, I suppose.

An emerald arrow torpedoed through the tunnel, passing Leo by and ramming through blueberry clusters. Rayquaza stopped his Dragon Ascent charge and looked back at the blue mist. "Tis not the manner of treachery I expected when I awoke this morning, Princess! Why art these oversized fruits attacking us?"

"I dunno!" Yuna pressed onward. With a bit of concentration, dragon energy sparked in her horns. To her delight, dreepy-shaped blue blasts shot out of her horns, popping a couple of blueberries and letting the juice-stained Leo and Nikki fly past.

"It's gotta be cuz of the mystery dungeon." Leo flapped his damp wings, flicking blueberry juice all along the tunnel.

Yuna: "I'm sorry, but since when do Mystery Dungeons ever do stuff like this?!"

Nikki: "Clearly there's a first time for everything!"

"Ugh, seriously?!" Nikki was still desperately trying to wring juice out of her jacket. "The hell's on the other side, Dieticianopolis? I got my antioxidants already, damn it!"

"We shall find out soon enough!" Rayquaza declared. After a brief recharge, he Dragon Ascented ahead. Blueberry juice filled the air, then evaporated against the harsh light of the Ginnungagap tunnel. "I see a distorted rift up ahead! Tis the dungeon for sure! Tally ho!"

I think that you have a small verb tense error in Nikki's line there. Though are we about to see them head out into a macro universe or something like that?

The path ahead was clear of any giant blueberries. Which was enough for Yuna to recall Rayquaza in streams of black and emerald light. Leo flew toward the dungeon. Yuna was ready to head after him when a ripple in the bright tunnel wall caught her attention.

"Hmm?" The dragapult looked to the tunnel wall on her right. Everything outside remained a swirl of blues, purples, and smudgy gray shapes in the distance. But there was one blur darting quickly around the tunnel wall.

A purple, white, and black blur.

"No, no, no! C'mon, shrink! Shrink!"

That voice... it's Vince!

Wait, what has he been up to all this time anyways?

Even though the rift was still a few hundred meters away, the tunnel was pulling her toward it. Yuna fought against it, her tail undulating rapidly as if she were a fish swimming upstream. It had to be the real Vince out there. Not just one of his projections. And that meant real answers! If she could just reach him...

God, this tug was strong. Yuna was getting tired. The lights were getting brighter. "C'mon, I just—"

"Stupid anomaly! Cut it out!"

Wait, are we about to see Yuna and the gang barge out into Overseerland or something like that?

No, she couldn't let this chance slip through her fingers! Focus!

Roaring, the dragapult's arms stretched out into Giratina's large, black wings. She slammed the red spikes into the tunnel wall. Light filaments exploded all around her. A burning pain shot through her wings.

"Rrrrgggh... you won't... get away!"

I'm not convinced that this isn't a wildly terrible idea, but if nothing else, you can't say that Yuna isn't a determined one.

Keeping her left wing buried in the light wall to stop her descent, Yuna forced her right wing deeper into it. The pain was awful. But she had to endure. Fight it for that chance at grabbing the Overseer.

Bit by bit, the wall parted, until Yuna's wing finally burst through. Rough scales grazed the black ectoplasm. Gotcha!

A surprisingly high-pitched scream rang out as Yuna coiled her wing around the rough scales and yanked the wing back through the wall and into the tunnel.

So Vince screams like a little girl. Duly noted.

And there was the purple and white koraidon, eyes wide with terror. His legs kicked at the air.

"No, wait, stop! What do you think you're doing?!"

"Getting us... some backup!" With one last snarl, Yuna ripped herself off the light wall and hurled Vince through the remaining Ginnungagap tunnel beneath her as hard as she could. He tumbled away from her, screaming pleas for Yuna to send him back. Instead, the dragapult watched the fuzzy rift a hundred meters below her swallow Vince up.

Well, that's one way to get help with everyone's mall problems... unless he wound up going to Iron Island instead, in which case

She fell through the rift not long after. Sky blue light spilled over her. It faded quickly to a bright blue sky and yellow sun reflecting off a giant white and blue dome.

Yuna threw her arms over her face. Talk about one heck of a glare! "Guys?" she called out, still blinking rapidly to adjust to the light.

"Down here, Princess!"

Your video link is dead in this section. What exactly did this link to originally?

After several more seconds, Yuna spotted Nikki waving to him atop the white dome. She stood under an impromptu shower supplied by a pelipper. Leo, judging by the golden glint in his eyes. Vince was next to them... however, he was now on all-fours for some reason. His dewlap had deflated, his feathery crest looked far less impressive, and his tail was curled up to resemble a wheel. He refused to meet anyone's gaze.

Oh, so Yuna meant backup for the anomaly. I didn't catch that one at first. Though it looks like she's gotten Vince stuck in Limited Build so... yeah, probably not going to accomplish much other than just carry the gang around.

Yuna quickly confirmed there was a fuzzy rift above her, though it blended in quite well with the bright sunshine. Then she flew down to join her teammates. "Good to see you're both okay."

"And juice free," Leo said. He stopped spitting up water. Nikki stepped away to take off her leather jacket and wring it out over the dome. "That was hella disgusting. Remind me to stay away from berries for a while."

I can already see everyone getting weirded out when Leo just

s at the next bowl of berries he sees at the mess hall.

"Uh... sure." Yuna rubbed the back of her neck. Oversized fruit was weird, but far from the worst thing they had to contend with.

"So, uh, what's with the plus one?" Leo pointed a wing at Vince. "That's Vince, right? Why does he look like he'd be featured in an ad for low testosterone?"

Wait, meaning that he was already stuck in Limited Build before Yuna dragged him along kicking and screaming?

Yuna did not want to acknowledge that comparison. She knew Leo was watching EV programs during their down time. But what channels?

"This is a nightmare," Vince mumbled. "I'm hallucinating." The purple and white koraidon squeezed his eyes shut. "I just gotta wake up. Wake up and— eyowch!"

Nikki had whipped his right flank with her soggy jacket. Vince stumbled forward. His feathery horns curled up.

Vince: "Okay, nevermind, this isn't a dream!"

Nikki: "I'm gonna need to whip him a few more times to snap him out of it, aren't it?"

"Yup, not dreaming." The toxtricity resumed wringing water from her jacket. "How'd you find him?"

"He was outside the tunnel in Ginnungagap," Yuna explained. "Figured this was a good chance to finally be face to face with someone who knows what's going on."

Vince shrank back. He shook his head rapidly. "You idiots! Do you have any idea how bad this is?!"

Yuna: "No, but you're here, so start talking."

"Tch. Yeah." Nikki waved her right arm dismissively. She put her right index finger against her head. "We've already had it drilled into our skulls a dozen times. 'Dimensional cataclysm.' 'The end of life as we know it.' Blah, blah, blah. Frankly, it's about time at least one of your weirdo secret society decided to pull their weight around here."

"You don't get it!" Vince's dewlap puffed out. He stepped toward Nikki. "I was keeping the anomaly in check! Because this one was growing out of control! And there's a real chance it does some serious damage and ruins me helping you guys behind the scenes!"

This moment is brought to you by:

Since... yeah, "heroes inadvertently making things even worse" is one of the most "Squaresoft plot" things imaginable.

He looked toward the rift. "I have to go back. I—"

"No." Yuna hovered higher in the air. "If this anomaly's really growing that fast, then we need you here."

Vince shrank back again. "It won't work." His horns curled up further. "You dragged me in here. I don't have most of my powers. I'm—" He looked down at his webbed feet. "I'm just a koraidon here."

So Overseers get depowered inside of Anomalies. Not fully sure what would cause that, but duly noted.

"The hell's that supposed to mean?" Nikki's mohawk sparked. "Are you an Overseer or aren't you?"

"There's a protocol!" Vince said. "Higher-ranking Overseers can keep some of their powers when they enter worlds on their own. But most of the time, if we want to be at our best, we have to coordinate with the gods to gain access."

He walked away from them, looking out at the sprawling blue surrounding the dome. "But that didn't happen. And I'm a very junior overseer."

I'm assuming that's a "gods of a given universe", unless if there's definitive Legendaries even amongst Overseers. Though I take it that this is basically the equivalent of negotiating with an author to allow for a crossover chapter.

"What about Leo?" Yuna gestured to the pelipper. "He can still change his form and everything."

"Because some of his power is in this realm by accident," Vince exclaimed.

Right, his plates. Yuna looked out over the water. This dome was practically in the middle of the ocean. Where were they?

... I'm super slow after the whole "giant blueberry" thing earlier, but between that and the mention of them being in a dome in the middle of an ocean, I know exactly where these guys are right now:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7EG1MPGfGbU

Having put her jacket back on, Nikki crossed her arms. "So, you're saying you're useless, then?" She rolled her eyes. "Puh-leeze. If I can find ways to make a difference, then you can."

Yuna was tempted to say something to Nikki, but her ectoplasm rippled. Her tail tugged on her lower half. The dragapult spun around. Leo was already looking in that direction, flapping his wings slowly.

"It's... some sort of small battlefield?" Yuna floated over to Leo. It wasn't a large arena, but it was just as white and sparkling as the dome. There were some humans scattered around. One standing at the edge of the battlefield had hair that practically looked like an onion.

Ohai, Kieran. Though I suppose that explains the teaser for this chapter, and that I should update the background music, since we're technically in a different part of Blueberry Academy than I initially assumed:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGcvhrbCoLE

Her ectoplasm rippled again.

"It's them," Leo said.

"Huh?" Yuna followed the pelipper's gaze until she found a ceruledge standing on the opposite side of the battlefield. Sunlight glinted off the two crystals jutting out of his head. One resembled a ghostly blob and the other was just a jagged black box with a smirking face.

Wait, isn't this literally just a Ghost Tera Hat?

"That's the Whisper." Leo pointed a wing at Ceruledge. "I saw them go through the rift in Eternatus after defeating a Paradigm member."

A Whisper with two of Leo's plates in its possession. And one that had defeated a Paradigm member, to boot?

As Ceruledge raised his blades and let out a triumphant laugh, Yuna looked back at Vince and Nikki. They stared at her with perplexed expressions.

What do I do? We're not prepared for this!

Yuna: "... Okay, in retrospect, not bringing Igneous and Scarlett along with us was a terrible idea."

Alright, made it to the end. I definitely wasn't expecting things to wind up going to Blueberry Academy at the end, though I take it that you had some fun with Indigo Disk around the time when you were piecing this chapter together, and it's definitely a memorable change of pace. I feel as if there were a couple moments that went a little over my head, but if nothing else, peaceful days are over, and now it's back to our regularly scheduled programming of stuff blowing up, and I'm all for it.

I honestly did not find a whole lot of things to complain about in this chapter beyond a couple nitpicks here and there. Like maybe it'd have been nice to see a bit more of the space pirate end of things this chapter, but I take it that the focus on Leo and Yuna was very deliberate, so I can't really begrudge you for going that route.

Feels good reviewing this story again, @Ambyssin . It'll probably take me a while to catch up, especially with NaNoWriMo rounding the corner, but I've been having fun with things, and I'm looking forward to seeing where things go from here.