Pokémon Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Hands of Creation

[Namohysip]

Finale ~ Part 1 -- One​

She tapped her chin with a pencil, nervously deciding on one option over another. Agonizing over every word, every single circumstance, all down to a simple multiple-choice test. God, she hated tests. She’d been telling herself that for months now.

A gentle wind blew past her, fluffing up her fur. The breeze of a nearby lake carried the scent of petrichor and wet stone.

This was it. The final question. And that was probably the answer. Silently, she penciled in her choice, flipped the page over, and saw it was blank. She sighed.

“Finally,” she muttered. She fiddled with her claws, pensive, and then said to herself, “Then… let’s do one last review, I guess.”

And, after a few more days and a few minor corrections, she was satisfied with her answers.

“Alright. I’m done!” she called to the sky.

The rock her papers rested upon swallowed the test. She turned around to see a man wearing a tan brown suit smiling at her, offering a formal bow.

“Thank you for taking the OGC-I. Your results will be given to you in two weeks.”

“Thanks.” She shifted uncomfortably. “How’d my partner do?”

“He finished three days ago,” the man said. “Did you want him to pick you up?”

“Yeah, uh, thanks.”

Two weeks. That’s all she needed to wait. Then… maybe she could finally make a world of her own.

<><><> ​

The vortex of gold drained completely into the serpent atop the ruined stone spire. Left behind were dark clouds and a sunless sky. The sun didn’t matter anymore, did it? Because that serpent… it radiated more than just Shadows now. It had bits of everyone’s power. Shadows, Radiance, even divinity itself.

Owen had no idea how he was supposed to take that on. All he knew was that he was the only one who could try.

“Right.”

He tensed his wrist and flexed the fingers of his right hand. The Hand of Creation—the singular one he’d been able to grasp and keep from being stolen by the serpent in the sky—manifested fully. A javelin solidified in his palm, which he grasped as one end extended into a great, dynamic-length golden whip.

He still had the soul bullet. He saw it bobbing right near his palm. But… this, too, was not Alexander. It was something else.

Still. Just in case, he held onto it.

He dimmed his flame and beat his wings, ascending higher and higher, spiraling close to the base of the tower to avoid entering its peripherals.

Thankfully, despite its ethereal appearance, its body had some substance to it. Owen could Perceive it, even if he had no idea what those twitches or undulations could mean for its mood or intent. But at least it couldn’t hide from him or catch him off guard by leaving his view.

This was close enough. Owen brought his arm back and silently hurled the javelin side of his Hand forward. It flew silently, not even a whistle, but its golden glimmer must have caught the serpent’s attention. It ducked and rolled out of view.

Not good enough. Owen flicked his wrist, sending a wave down the javelin through the whip-end, and the javelin careened in a sharper arc into the tower. Still, it missed, striking the tower’s stone top instead.

Owen sent a pulse of energy through anyway. A flash of light ran down the Hand like an electric current. Golden energy shattered the top of the tower, its shrapnel cutting into the serpent’s body. Something bled from it and quickly closed up; when Owen flew around the tower to get a better look, he saw the last glimpses of golden motes of light returning to the serpent’s body.

“Just too slow, as always.”

Owen flinched. It could talk?

“Who are you?” Owen shouted. “You’re… you can’t be Alexander. He—”

“Shut up.”

The serpent opened its mouth. In the back of its maw, crackling black-and-white energy surged forth. Owen narrowly pulled a Protect in front of him, but the attack itself sent him flying back into Kilo Village’s ground level. Rocks and dirt covered him in a newly formed pit.

“You have lost the right to speak.” Its voice echoed even from on high. It permeated the world itself just like the song had.

Owen sensed a building that still had good enough structural integrity. He tried to search around for a Teleport, but he’d lost that essence. So much for that…

“Alexander, the ‘real’ one? Nothing but a husk at this point, but don’t worry. I’m already sending my tendrils into the Voidlands to gather him and those pathetic souls up. He is nothing…

“At this point, I am more ‘Alexander’ than he will every be!”

Owen groaned, finally climbing out of the pit, pushing heavy boulders out of the way. The blast had cut his scales. Thankfully, he healed quickly, wounds sewing themselves shut with threads of silver.

“Then, you’ve—”

“I said shut UP!”

Another blast rained down. The distance let Owen prepare, though he still flew out of the way and dodged the worst of the blast. A solid beam of black and white plasma—concentrated Chaos matter—left a fissure through the ground that Owen could not see or Perceive the bottom of. He could only see, distantly, the faint orange glow of magma at its depths. A glow that was getting brighter.

“Without me, you’ll have nobody to listen!” Owen taunted.

He had to buy time. How in the world was he supposed to tackle something like this?

And it worked. The serpent, closing its mouth, stopped the blast.

The deep, horrible grinding of stone on stone caught Owen’s attention.

“No…”

The serpent had struck Heart HQ. In that single blow, the red heart and symbol of Kilo’s accomplishments collapsed into the fissure; notebooks, depleted orbs, and unused technologies fell with its building into the planet’s molten insides.

“How easy it is to destroy so much progress,” the serpent said. “You didn’t defend it well at all. You weren’t prepared for a god. A TRUE god.”

Owen flew higher, trying to get to the same height. When he got too high, the serpent blasted just above him, forcing Owen to duck.

“You don’t deserve to stare at my level,” he stated.

Owen growled but allowed this. He tried to scan for weaknesses, but the serpent’s body was still changing. Morphing. What was he becoming?

First was the head, clad in gold crystals and two pupilless, rainbow eyes like shattered glass. The serpent had stolen Necrozma’s golden face. Trailing down from that body was some mixture of his neck and Alexander’s, splitting off into two arms that resembled a Hydreigon’s smaller heads, clad in brightened, purple Shadow essence.

In its chest was a swirl of Chaos energy enclosing a dark red core. Owen remembered this thing from his visions long ago—Diyem’s true form, the red eye in the dark void. Surrounding the cage that contained his true body was a crumbling, golden wheel—once Leph’s, now adorned by its new ruler. The serpent’s clawed feet and long tail trailed in a spiral.

Necrozma. Leph. Alexander. Diyem. A fusion of four essences…

But Owen had no Alloy to fall back on this time.

“The winner in all of this… will be Alexander. I’ll adopt that name. The old one, of course, has no use for it anymore.

“Tell me, failed Usurper. Do you think there’s any point in fighting out here?”

“You aren’t trying right now,” Owen said. “That means you don’t think it’s easy.”

The serpent snarled at that, but it was with a sick glee that flickered in his prismatic eyes. “I’m waiting to see you break,” he said. “Waiting for you to see that all you worked for was simply taken by the victor. All or nothing; all FOR nothing. What a wonderful gambit!”

He roared with laughter.

A few stars in the sky seemed abnormally bright. Brighter than usual.

“Oh, and don’t YOU think of trying anything!” he suddenly declared, pointing at the lights. “I know… what up to.”

Owen gasped. Overseers. Were they stepping in? But if that was the case…

“You think it’s a lost cause?” Owen whispered.

“You CAN’T kill me,” Alexander said, spreading his wings and arms wide. “Feel the spirits within me. Analyze their suffering. They are normal… they are just fine! I am just the new god after the old ones fell!”

He pointed at Owen.

“And this Usurper is threatening the new order!”

“What?!” Owen pointed his javelin at Alexander. “They saw everything! They aren’t going to let you be the new god, not when—”

“You don’t understand Overseers at all. But I have absorbed two of them. I know. And I know… that I am just fine.”

Owen flinched. That… didn’t make sense. The Overseers would stop Alexander if they could, right? He ran it through his mind. They saw him as a danger just as they’d seen Alexander as one because they were in danger of ruining the natural order of the world—one where Star and Barky managed it, maintained its flow of souls and suffering. Right?

But… they were both dead now.

“Turned out better than you expected, didn’t it?!” Alexander goaded. “The world under my command is fine. In the Voidlands, which the Usurper cast me into, I brought order from a world of purple ash! I built a city in a forest with no leaves! What has this Usurper done than merely climb out of his own mess?! Defy your rule to create a world of ruin that I then fixed!?”

Owen took in a shuddering breath. He didn’t dare make a move now. There was no way they would be convinced, right? He had to defend himself.

“It wasn’t just me,” Owen said. “I was speaking for all who still wanted to live! How can you fault mortals for wanting to survive?! How could I have known the extent of this darkness? Or how he”—Owen jabbed a finger in Alexander’s direction—“would have taken over that ruin? Look at his history!”

“Oh, please.” Alexander waved a wing dismissively.

“What he’s done! Who he’s killed and what he did to make that city of his!”

“You fool.” And then, suddenly, Alexander’s Chaotic body dimmed. The frazzled energy, like a raging inferno, instead settled into something closer to a gentle candle flame. His voice, while still booming, was unnervingly normal. “Subjugating dissent to maintain order is evil, sure… but it is not an Overseer matter. To them, I am maintaining order in a chaotic world. In the Voidlands, the suffering I caused… was minimal compared to the reality itself.

“And now?” Alexander spread his wings, displaying that dark core in his torso. “Now, all is well. I shall rule. And you shall fall.”

“No, that’s…” Owen’s wings drooped, only held up by his updraft. He wondered if he even deserved to be at that height. It was a flashing thought—was it Shadows, or…

“You have fought on the wrong side of history, Owen,” Alexander said. “Power means everything. And the Overseers hold the ultimate power over all worlds, but are bound by their own rules and regulations so they do not become tyrants themselves. And the rule is simple: If the souls do not suffer, if they have their freedoms in the cosmic sense, then they do not interfere.”

“But what you’re doing is wrong,” Owen said. “You—I know what you’re doing. You want all of this for control!”

“What I want doesn’t matter,” Alexander said with a chuckle. “Don’t you get it? The Overseers don’t care about good or evil, those subjective little things that nature itself has no concept of. They only regulate trapped and suffering souls. Worlds too far gone. And this, now? I saved them.

“Will you disrupt the new order, Usurper? And earn the ire of the Overseers once more?” The metal of his face distorted into a gnarled smile. “Will you try again for another thousand years of suffering? All because of you? All for your… ‘hope’ of an ideal world that will NEVER exist?!”

Alexander pointed at Owen.

“Overseers! Strike him down, and end this nightmare FOREVER!”

<><><>​

Five stations—and a sixth destroyed—overlooked the ruins of Kilo. Each one held a pair of Overseers, all analyzing different things about the ruined world as they readied beams of great energy to annihilate it.

The Overseers had many methods to destroy a dying world. It was already weak and ready to collapse, so taking it out of its misery, so to speak, was a trivial matter.

Ho-Oh stood in the ruins of the sixth station. Miraidon, who had been eager to take out the world to free all the spirits within, had been retaliated against early. It was a warning from Kilo’s new god. But even that god, Ho-Oh suspected, could not stand up to five of them at once.

His wing ached. His beak was cracked. And, while he wasn’t sure, he was pretty sure he was dying from internal bleeding from divine wounds.

No matter. Death was an inconvenience to an Overseer. His time in this world wasn’t meant for much longer anyway.

More annoying was the prattling on of the other five stations that had created a group call to communicate their next plans as Kilo’s new god shouted at them.

“This guy is a total nutcase!” rumbled one of the Overseers. “He really thinks we’ll see all that, and then side with him?”

“That Charizard is the world’s last line of defense. He seems to hold just one of the divine catalysts of this world. If he loses that, it’s over.”

“Usurper against Usurper. Hmph, well, nobody wins, no matter who is the victor. Let’s destroy it before this gets worse.”

Ho-Oh couldn’t get his speakers to work. His camera was shot. The Overseers were gods of gods, but even they were subject to the limitations imposed upon them by the reality they visited. They had, with the help of this world’s Worldcore, conjured bodies and attached their celestial observatories to the outer shell of this tiny reality. But being in the world, being of material, meant the material could be destroyed.

“Hello? Can anyone hear me?” Ho-Oh called.

“This is a complete mess,” said an Overseer, once again unaware of Ho-Oh.

“Ah, this must be camera button!”

“Aaaaagh!”

“Oh, come on!”

“Put that light down!”

Ho-Oh was blinded by the sudden appearance of a new camera on the feed. Completely white. Searing.

“Aha ha! Whoops! Guess it's one of those cameras. Lemme just... this button...” It disappeared, replaced by a generic icon.

Ho-Oh, still seeing stars in his eyes, clenched his beak. Well. Time to restart things, at least. He briefly shut off his connection and tried reestablishing everything. He glanced at Kilo’s readings. The feed still showed Dark Matter, usurped by Alexander’s disembodied will, pleading for the Overseers' favor. No doubt, he was using Necrozma and Hecto's absorbed insights to make such keen arguments.

Fortunately, Overseers were equipped with common sense.

At least, Ho-Oh hoped so.

“Ah! Hello?” Ho-Oh called upon seeing the connection return.

“Who is that?”

“Wait, that’s Station One! Are you alive?!”

“Unfortunately, just me. The other two might have been absorbed or lost to space. This is… Ho-Oh, currently. Id S-JS407.”

Ho-Oh brushed a feather over a sensor. Thankfully, it still worked, and a little green icon flashed on his screen.

The Overseers grunted or hummed in agreement.

“Glad you’re safe. Hopefully, we can find the others soon.”

“I wanted to speak up about your decisions regarding Kilo,” Ho-Oh said. “I think you should hold off on taking any action.”

“Hold off?!” One of the camera feeds took center screen, showing a gruff Nidoking and a Salazzle reading a book in the background. “I’m not letting that world spread! That thing’s a monster! We should wipe it all out, harvest the souls, powerless, and sort them out! Standard procedure for a failed—”

“It is not,” Ho-Oh said calmly, “failed.”

“This looks pretty failed!” Nidoking snarled. “And I’m not about to get absorbed into some world-eating catastrophe!”

“Right now, I am the expert on this realm,” Ho-Oh said. “And I say we’re acting too quickly. To annihilate them now would be a total violation of this world’s autonomy. We should focus on containment first while they sort themselves out.”

“Containment? They damaged a station! That’s far beyond what we can contain!”

“I agree. Things are too risky. That single drake is nothing compared to that corrupted amalgamation of all souls.”

Ho-Oh winced. He was glad his camera wasn’t working.

Ho-Oh wasn’t sure how to sway all the others after witnessing their station get destroyed. It had already called for backup automatically. Of course they would assume it was time to annihilate it all.

Maybe they were right. But… surely they couldn’t strike now. They at least needed to wait for Owen to distract Alexander for that to work. Maybe, from there, they would have a better idea of the situation.

“I like Ho-Oh's thinking.”

The voice came from the formerly blinding camera feed, now just an oscillating icon when he spoke.

“He’s got a better handle on this than us. And I bet that handle includes Owen having a plan.”

A plan…

That was right. He did have a plan.

“Even this,” Ho-Oh said, “was predicted as a worst-case scenario. Owen hasn’t yet put forward that final plan. If anything, we need to wait for that to play out. Once that happens, we can make the call. Annihilate, or let them sort themselves out.”

“I still don’t like this,” Nidoking growled. Several other Overseers nodded. “They’ve already met the necessary criteria to justify an expedited annihilation. We wait for a distraction and then strike.”

“C’mon, can’t we give him a chance?” GL asked. “Pleeeease?”

“That… is that supposed to be your argument?”

“My camera’s off, but I'm doing puppy-dog eyes!”

“You can’t even—” Nidoking sighed. “Whatever. We have to wait either way.”

“The new god is waiting for an answer from us,” Ho-Oh said. “I think that’s what his speech is implying. How do we tell them… to handle it themselves?”

The Overseers hummed thoughtfully, hemming and hawing.

Ring ring ring… ring ring ring…

“What is that?” Ho-Oh murmured.

“A telephone?”

“Telephones don’t sound like that…”

“Oh wow! An old-timey rotary phone! That stuff’s older than me!”

“I… I think someone is trying to get into this call. But I’ve never heard—”

Ho-Oh’s breath hitched. The icon of the new caller…

“It’s the Top Overseer of this corner of the Overworld,” Ho-Oh said. “Oh, by all gods, what… would require them here?”

“Don’t make them wait!” Nidoking urged.

Someone quickly answered it. The icon was without a camera feed. The voice that followed was a little posh and high-pitched for Ho-Oh’s tastes, but nonetheless filled with gentle confidence.

“I heard from GL that there was a problem?”

“T-T-T-Top Overseer Xenon! Soooo good to see you.” Ho-Oh tittered. “We, ah, I’m sure you don’t remember me, we—”

“Oh, your tone is familiar! We can catch up later! This is urgent, yes?”

“Right! Right. Yes. Yes! Um. Where were we…”

“How do we tell the Usurper god and the Usurper Usurper we aren’t deciding for them?”

“Ahhh, such a classic tale.” Xenon giggled and sighed like he’d been told their new crush found them cute. “I’ve looked over the reports of this place… and I took a moment to read everything new from your stations. I’ve seen something like this play out before—isn’t that right, GL?—but not quite… like this. Oh, how interesting to see it happen… I must stay for the answer.”

“Um, Xenon, w-with all due respect,” Nidoking said, “we… need to do something, or they’ll enter a stalemate. They don’t want to make a move while we’re here, but we can’t leave them alone…”

“Ah, yes, of course. I’m so sorry. Well!” The speaker clapped. “Think of it like you’re a neighbor. You have the window lights on and you’re peeking outside. How do you tell those in the street you want to let them resolve things without you?”

A beat. Then, a Baxcalibur suddenly spoke up. “Well, one way to give the impression you don’t want anything to do with something is to, well, turn out the lights. I guess for us, that’d be… turning off the camera feeds? That should dim the stars on the realm’s shell. Then, nobody would be ‘watching’ even if, you know, we have other sensors.”

“Shutting the windows.” Ho-Oh nodded. “That works.”

“Exactly!”

Ho-Oh faced the world of Kilo with an anxious sigh.

“Well,” he said. “Good luck.”

The light went out. Xenon giggled quietly before signing off.

<><><>​

Owen stood, breath held, as he awaited the worst. Alexander had put them into an impossible position. Owen knew Overseers had to maintain order. But now, Alexander was the new order. They were too late. What did that mean? Was he now the one to be stopped?

Alexander slowly turned to Owen, smirking. “Any last words?”

Owen clenched his claws around the last Hand of Creation not in Alexander’s possession. “I’ll fight them, too, if I have to,” Owen conceded. “Because this world is not yours. And the world you want to craft… has no right to exist.”

“Powerful words,” Alexander said. “Such a shame that’s the most ‘power’ you’ll have.”

But then one of the Overseers’ stars flickered out. Closed like a window at night. And then another, and another, until only the tiny stars of the false sky lit up the night.

“What?”

Gone. The Overseers were no longer watching.

“They… abandoned this world?! Are they insane?!”

But while Alexander stared at the sky in befuddlement, Owen’s chest swelled with relief and hope.

“No,” he said. “I think you forgot just what it means when Overseers stand down, ‘Alexander.’ They’re always watching once they know a place like this exists.”

Alexander’s body crackled along its entire length, literally boiling with anger.

“It means, maybe for you or me”—it was for Owen—“that the Overseers trust this world to take care of itself. So, are you ready to fight me, New God of Kilo?”

“I am more than just its god. I am ALL of it, now! I AM Kilo!”

“Sure. Alexander or Kilo, which one do you want?”

Alexander simmered again. Something shone behind him—a shooting star. Owen chose not to acknowledge it.

“Fine. You’ve made your choice.” Alexander uncurled from the top of the tower, spreading his wings wide. “I will make sure that your spirit is kept in the very darkest depths of my new world. You will never know light again.”

Owen pointed the tip of his javelin Alexander’s way. He took in a slow, steady breath. Alexander was searching for an opening. Owen gave him none, keeping the rest of his stance defensive. The whip-end of his javelin circled him in a spiraling cage. Even with just one Hand, it was enough to fend away a direct attack… if he kept his guard completely up.

But as things stood… Owen wasn’t sure how to go on the offensive.

So, instead, he broke the stare down with a small exhale. “Alexander.”

“Stalling won’t get you anywhere.”

“Look behind you.”

A wave of Chaos energy rippled from Alexander’s head, down his faux spine, and back up to his head again. “Do you think I’m stu—”

A shooting star blasted through Alexander’s head, splitting it apart into countless threads of the Hands of Creation. Owen reached toward the shooting star and caught it with his chest, clutching it with his arms and wings.

It burned and probably broke a few ribs. While he recovered and his single Hand mended the wounds, he stared in disbelief at what he couldn’t believe his Perceive to see.

Eon. He was alive.

He wanted to say so much, even as Eon smiled up at him, laughing.

“I’ll explain later,” Eon said.

And that was fine.

“What’s going on here?” Eon asked.

“That thing absorbed everyone in Kilo. I think… I think they’re in that.” He pointed at the caged, red sphere in the center of the serpent’s abdomen.

Eon glanced at the sphere, then down at the blazing ruins of Kilo Village and all its surrounding fields. Then, he locked eyes with Owen, floating further away. Something warm glowed in the tattered bag around Owen’s shoulder. Barely anything in it was useful at this point, but as he dug through it…

Alexander’s head was mending itself back together.

Owen felt the marble Xerneas had given him. The Mega Stone. Probably best not to lose that. He considered his options and the chaos of battle. Owen dropped the bag into the blaze far below.

Then, he popped the Mega Stone into his mouth, swallowing it whole.

“…Really?” Eon squinted.

“If the Overseers aren’t interfering,” Owen started, “then the spirits within Alexander aren’t suffering. Instead, they must be… no, they can’t be inert. I think they’d take issue with that, too. So they must be… living somehow, not realizing they need to fight back. They might be trapped and have no idea.”

“Do you really think a cheap shot like that,” Alexander hissed, “will stop me?”

“I have to fight him out here,” Owen said. “Eon, find somewhere safe. If he sings, it’s over. I only have this one scarf. Didn’t think Ghrelle would be the one to…”

Owen didn’t even know how he’d created the first one. It’d been out of sheer improvised will…

Eon nodded slowly, his skepticism melting into resolve. “I understand what you’re getting at.”

“Wait—you do?” Because he sure didn’t.

“It’s like how we beat Star back at the lab,” Eon said.

The Jirachi pressed his forehead against Owen’s. Alexander was nearly fully formed, though it seemed his eyes were trying to piece themselves back together as a crystal structure.

“I wish I could say so much more,” he said, “but I’m sorry for that stupid play back with the Tree.”

Owen smirked. “Wouldn’t expect anything else. And… you’re about to do it again, aren’t you?”

Eon pushed away. He and Owen shared a smile. For a fleeting moment, it was like they were two thousand years younger. So much had changed since then.

Some things didn’t.

“I’ll do my best,” they both said.

The Mega Stone inside Owen’s body shattered, unleashing a swirl of prismatic energy throughout his flesh. His flame shifted to the black-and-white spark of Chaos. More fire erupted from the sides of his mouth. His scales blackened. But then, the lighter colors of his belly gained the rainbow sheen of the Mega Stone’s life energy. He could hardly contain the power—but he’d need every bit of it to go on the offensive.

This was it.

“What are you—uff!”

Eon had Teleported directly into that cage within the serpent’s torso. There, his body instantly dissolved, but the mote of light within swirled as a single speck of light. It did not go out.

“What did he do?! What are YOU planning?!”

“A way to beat you,” Owen said. “Same way we’ve beaten all the gods! You may want to be a tyrant… but if there’s just ONE person to resist you, you’ll never have that control!”

“One, against all of me! Owen, you idiot…”

He opened his mouth. Owen’s eyes widened—he’d gotten careless and lost his defensive stance. Alexander had been waiting for this. He haphazardly tried to evade instead, spiraling his single Hand around his body.

Ten arcing beams of light fell upon Owen on all sides. Energy. Something Owen normally couldn’t Perceive. But as Owen frantically beat his wings to gain distance—a pointless effort against someone with the whole world inside him—he realized something.

I see them?

They weren’t quite solid, but they weren’t invisible to his Perceive. Divine energy? Distortions in the wind? Owen didn’t have the time to figure it out, nor did he think it was important. All that mattered was that the blasts coming his way were clear as the night sky.

He twisted his body through the air, dodging nine of the ten blasts with ease. The final one was too hard to maneuver around and he brought his single Hand forward to clash against it. The force dislocated his shoulder and sent him spiraling down tens of feet.

Deafening booms rattled Owen’s head. Ethereal metal on metal. The pointed end of his whip stabbed into his shoulder; threads of gold pulled his arm back into place and healed it.

That attack…

It was massive. Just a glancing blow that he had to deflect was enough to nearly pull off his arm. But for something with nearly every Hand, and nearly every soul—the living and beyond—he had deflected it.

Not only that, but as he reached toward it, faint traces of that power seeped into Owen. He could Mimic this. He could Usurp this. Steal bits of that power back.

And Alexander—or was it Kilo itself?—had been bargaining with the Overseers. If he’d gained true control of that much power… someone with Alexander’s will would not have stooped to bargaining.

What was going on? By all accounts, Alexander should have vaporized Owen already. He’d only stood up to him symbolically, to maybe appeal to the Overseers to assist him. But instead, they turned away.

It wasn’t abandonment…

The Charizard breathed in slowly, Chaos flames escaping with every exhale.

Leph had demonstrated the opposite… and Owen, too, knew the secret of the Hands of Creation.

They weren’t “power.” Even just a single Hand was enough, with the right skill, to access all the world’s exploits, all of its latent power, all of the “reality-grasping” the Hands could do. More Hands meant less skill was needed for its power, but a single Hand and complete knowledge was just as good.

Owen was far from a true expert. He was not a native god. He was just a Charizard. Mostly.

Yet this god, this self-proclaimed Alexander, did not simply kill Owen where he stood. Even his silly little scarf had been enough to counteract a song that destroyed the world.

Before, Owen had faced Alexander on blind hope and raw stubbornness. Now, it paid off.

There was still a way out of this.

“You were saying?” Owen challenged.

Alexander stared, befuddled for only a moment. Then, his twisted metal jaws morphed into a cackling grin. His laughter was like a roaring fire doused with ice.

“So that’s how it will be?!” Alexander declared. “Fine! FINE! I accept your challenge, you eternal thorn in my side.

“I suppose even I can acknowledge, begrudgingly, that a meal tastes better when you have to work for it.”

This was ridiculous. This wasn’t Alexander or Nevren or any other foe he’d faced. He was… all of them, and none of them. And then some. Was this everyone? Everyone’s negativity, coated in a rotten wrapper that was Alexander’s tainted will?

“Give it up, Diyem! I… I know you’re not Alexander!” Owen shouted. “I know you can come back!”

“Oh, shout all you want, fool. But I am done denying the world’s truth! I, with nearly every Hand, and all the souls of the world, am already the writer of the new world!”

“Not until you take away mine.” Owen snarled. “They’ll wake up. And you will wake up with them!”

“Oh, prattle on, prattle ON!” Alexander spiraled skyward. Owen followed him, never letting Alexander get behind his position.

“This world can still be fixed! It’s not too late! Even if we have to start from zero all over again… we’re still here!”

“And I say zero is enough!” Alexander said. “Go ahead, Owen, with your SINGLE shred of divinity. Fight the rules of the world that I now dictate! Which of us will win in this crumbling theater?

“Let’s see you beat the odds… OF ONE THOUSAND TO ONE!”

Owen vs. Kilo. Art by Chibi Pika

<><><> ​

Author’s Note: Special thanks to my beta readers, soliloquy, Ambyssin, and Sparkling Espeon as always, but a specific special thanks to Ambyssin for fine-tuning the dialogue of “GL” for his current and future appearances during the finale.

 

[Namohysip]

Finale ~ Part 2 – Ten​

“Wow, uh… that’s a new look you’ve got there, buddy.”

A strange, four-legged, llama-thing stood before her. It had golden hooves, a strange, spiked ring around its torso, no mouth, and striking green-red eyes.

“It’s Arceus. And… it appeals to me.”

“So that’s what Arceus is supposed to look like…” She stared.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“How are you talking?”

“What?”

“You don’t got a mouth.”

“Don’t question this. We’re starting by making a world like the one we used to live in. We shall use it as a template.”

“Aww, a template?!” She stomped her feet. “That’s so boring!”

“It’s practice. And… we didn’t score well enough to make something for ourselves. Not without intense scrutiny by the Overseers. We’re better off starting simple, with… a familiar world with familiar rules. One that has existed before, one we can modify slightly. And Arceus is the god of these kinds of realities; there are many like it. The Top Overseer of this realm said it would be a good fit.”

“…Fine. You did score higher… Dumb two-month test. I scored fine! They couldn’t have cut it down to a month? Or at least a few break points in between?”

“We’ve had far worse tests.”

“Whatever.” She waved him off. “…Fine. If you get to be Arceus… I’ll be Mew.”

He stared at her with a hint of somber regret. “…I miss home, too, Star. But maybe we can make it again.”

Star made a small noise like a lizard’s chirp.

But Arceus looked sternly at her. “I’m not your Pokémon anymore, Star. We’ll have to… cast that aside from now on. That life was eons ago.”

“It’s still my first,” Star said quietly. “Can I still call you—”

“I am,” he said, “Arceus, now.”

They stared at each other in tense silence. Eventually, Star let her shoulders droop.

“Okay.”

<><><> ​

Eon awoke with a sharp gasp. Beneath his body was dirt and grass. Above him, beautiful clouds. The problem was the sky beyond: red like blood.

He sat up and floated a little higher, feeling strange and off. His head felt light. Something was tugging at his rear—what? A tail?

He had a—

He was a Mew again.

Eon looked himself over, pinching his pink skin and inspecting his fine, fine fur. He looked left and right for any sign of a person.

A simple dirt road. To the left was a hillside with the entrance to a cave within. To the right was a great pale green field and, further along, a forest of bushy trees.

Hot Spot’s exterior, before the cave had blown up from Dark Matter’s attack.

And that meant Kilo Village was nearby, right?

Eyes following the path, Eon flew higher, as far as his levitation off the earth would allow for such bursts of speed.

Up ahead, a strange spire of darkness pierced a ring of gray clouds. The sky reddened with a crimson mist. Various colorful shapes—Pokémon of all kinds—milled about around it in a large city dotted with geometric, obsidian buildings and glimmering yellow lights.

That wasn’t Kilo Village at all!

The closer Eon flew, the more details came into view. The yellow lights were indeed for windows, though Eon wasn’t sure what to make of it all. Cipher City? But on the surface? All the Pokémon seemed to be walking leisurely, a few flying away from the city, while others were heading to the central pillar—a great, black spire with a strange black-and-white energy forming at the tip.

It was some great weapon charging up… That orb of energy was already the size of a large Pokémon, and it was growing.

Not wanting to be detected, Eon dipped to a lower altitude and searched for a Waypoint. Did those still exist?

Yes! There was one just ahead at the end of the road.

“Okay. Okay, but what now?” he murmured. “I can’t be a Mew. That would draw a lot of attention… Oh, great, talking to myself again, gotta stop that…”

He scratched his head with both tiny paws, trying to massage his brain through his skull like it would help him think. Blend in, blend in. He could probably act like someone he knew, or transform into an entirely new person, but was he good at acting anymore?

Admittedly, the whole ‘transform into people he thought of’ thing was a long-ingrained habit at this point. Eon had forgotten how to do it voluntarily. But as he thought about people, his reflexes to ground himself or prepare for a sudden shift in center of gravity only made him wobble in the air. He had control over it again.

Perhaps this little ‘reset’ within the new world also restored the damage to his transformation ability…

And now he had choice paralysis. Great.

Eon crossed his little arms, pinching and appreciating his mortal-Mew skin again after so many years. Who to be, who to be…

There was only one person he could safely replace without risking an encounter with that same person that might cause a scene. All things considered, that was probably also the best person to get some sway from within. If Owen was fighting outside… Owen also had to fight inside.

Time to be Deca, one last time.

Eon focused. His pink skin and fine fur hardened into orange and cream scales. His tail thickened and shortened; his feet and claws became sharper and reptilian. His face shifted as he quickly adjusted to his new jaws, tongue, and teeth. Tentatively, he took a few bites of the air, spat a few flames, swished his tail, and popped a few joints that felt like they’d Transformed a little oddly.

Reflexively, he searched for a blindfold… but he didn’t need one anymore. Something about that made him sad; he didn’t know why.

If need be, he’d shift his form again. Jirachi, Charizard, maybe even Mew again. He had options.

Exhaling through his nose, Eon stepped onto the Waypoint and vanished for the corrupted Kilo Village.

<><><>​

Life in Cipher Village was mundane for Mu. Every day, she left Hot Spot Cave with her parents happily cheering her on for another good day as a Heart. She’d walk down the path, step on the Waypoint, and appear in front of the central spire of the city.

Obsidian buildings dotted the streets in the cardinal directions while a relaxing red and purple sky, as it always was, lit the world around her. The flame on her tail, perfectly orange and yellow, provided some extra light that reminded her of something nostalgic yet foreign.

She exhaled, content. Her morning was strange, filled with odd dreams and a strange, urgent sensation that she still couldn’t shake away. Still, once she was in the village, everything felt normal again. She could go about her day as normal.

The Charmander marched down the road toward a big, black heart on the southern side of town. There, after climbing the stairs and weaving past many larger Pokémon, she hopped on a miniature stairway that allowed her to get closer to eye-level with the bulletin board.

Unfortunately, there were very few jobs left to take. Mu sighed. “Another fuel day,” she said plainly.

“Aww, yer kidding!”

Down below, a Trapinch, Axew, and Chikorita overheard Mu’s mumblings. All three were looking up at her.

“Oi, maybe yer eyes ain’t right!” Trapinch said.

“They are!” Mu growled back. “Bulletin board’s empty! All that’s left are dumb jobs in the forest for lost items and stuff; who cares about those?!”

“W-well, items can be important,” Axew said, poking his claws together.

Chikorita, standing between both Axew and Trapinch, puffed out a sigh and nodded.

“Who are you guys, anyway?” Mu asked.

“Gahi,” Trapinch introduced himself. “Fastest Trapinch in th’ world!”

“Not a high bar, Gahi,” Axew said. “My name’s Demitri. And this is Mispy—she has trouble talking, but she’s our leader!”

“How does she lead if she can’t talk?”

“She’s the smartest,” they both explained.

Made sense.

“I think all we have is refueling,” Mu said simply. “Unless something comes up, that’s all we’ll be doing.”

“Aww…” Demitri’s shoulders sagged. “Okay…”

“Hey, it’s not so bad! How about we, uh, just all do it together?” Mu asked. “It’ll be less boring that way.”

“May’s well. Let’s find a fuel room.”

Mu hopped off the elevated platform and stepped outside, weaving past a Tyranitar’s thigh that dwarfed her. On her way out, a black-slime Goodra caught her attention.

“Whoa…” It was Diyem—the leader of the Black Hearts. His dark slime made his whole body look more like tar than the normal purple of a Goodra; the only thing bright about him was the lavender, heart-shaped marking on his chest that had inspired the building’s shape.

Now that Mu thought about it, the building’s aesthetic didn’t meld well with the rest of the town… and that Goodra was…

“Hey!” Gahi headbutted Mu on the side.

“Gah! Really?!”

“Yer holdin’ us up!”

Mu stared at the dark Goodra, who in turn noticed her. She quickly turned away and went down the stairs to the main street.

“What, holdin’ out fer some new mission?” Gahi said, clicking his jaws.

Demitri picked at his tusks until Mispy pulled his hand away with a vine.

“Um, well, it would’ve been nice,” Demitri said, feebly defending Mu.

Mu glanced behind her. She felt like something was wrong. And, indeed, her suspicions were correct: Goodra Diyem was staring at her from the top of the stairs.

Quickening her pace, the Charmander cleared her throat and marched into the nearest crowd, hiding behind the thighs of a passing Nidoking.

Occasionally, when she looked back, she could still see the Goodra staring from the top of the stairs. Was it at her? Something else?

She eventually found herself running with no idea why.

“Hey, hey!” Gahi shouted, catching up to her just before being stomped on by a nearby Luxray, who offered a halfhearted apology. He wriggled back and continued trotting.

“What?” Mu growled as Gahi waddled to her at alarming speeds.

“What, what? What you!”

Demitri and Mispy struggled to weave past the crowd. What was it, rush hour? All the people were giving Mu a headache; she couldn’t tell limb from limb. This place was so packed.

“I—let’s just go in, alright?” Mu said hastily.

When Mu looked around, she saw that one of the buildings had “Fuel Station” on its signpost. After diving between the legs of a passing Infernape and then sidestepping a group of Igglybuff, Mu scaled the stairs and raised a hand. “One group room, please!”

The bored-looking Simisage on the other side of the counter stared at her, then at the incoming Trapinch, Axew, and Chikorita behind her.

“Sure.” She tossed a pass card from behind the desk. Mu hastily caught it, read the number, and headed for the stairs.

“Third floor,” Mu told them.

Demitri groaned.

Thankfully, the stairs were less cramped. The only hard part was climbing them when they were so small.

“Mu?”

Mu froze. A suffocating sense of familiarity suddenly hit her. She felt like she was falling out of her own body. An instant later, she caught her breath and landed back within herself, spinning around.

It was a Milotic with scales that reflected the ambient light of the hallway like a rainbow. She was somehow brighter than everything else.

She knew her name without introductions. “Zena,” she whispered. But the word felt foreign on her tongue. She didn’t usually call her that, did she?

Despite having never met her, Mu trusted this Milotic with her life.

Mu marched up to her. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Who are you? What… what’s going on here?”

“I’m Zena,” Milotic said, her voice smooth and deep.

It reminded Mu of the ocean. As a Charmander, she should’ve been afraid, yet all she wanted to do was cry and ask if everything would be okay.

“Oi, oi!” Gahi shouted. “Let’s get inside already!” He tapped his big, orange head against the door.

“Oh, are you refueling?” Zena asked.

Mu nodded.

“I’m sure there’s room for me,” she said. “Let’s all go.”

Mu looked at the other three for approval. They seemed transfixed by Zena, briefly, before coming to their senses.

Mispy nodded. She brought a vine to a button next to the obsidian-black door, which slid open.

Inside was a bare room with a large sigil and geometric shapes scattered around the middle. Smaller, less complicated sigils connected to it on all sides of the room. There were six in total, enough for all of them, so they headed inside.

Routinely, they sat in one of the six outer sigils, and Zena pressed a ribbon to close the door.

Mu was still paranoid. She took the sigil closest to the window that overlooked the streets. Thankfully, they were very low windows, even for someone of her stature.

“I’m turning it on now,” Zena said.

“Okay,” the others replied.

After pressing one more button, the whole room shifted to a deep, red color. A low, droning rumble filled the room and drowned out their breathing, their words, even Mu’s thoughts.

It was harder to breathe. The sigils on the ground lit up as lights flowed from them into the main sigil beneath. That energy funneled… elsewhere. Helped power the city, or something. Mu didn’t understand. Paid well, though.

Even if it didn’t feel right. Mu quietly channeled her power into it, but occasionally, playfully toyed with its flux, which caused the lights to flicker.

She noticed that the others were doing the same.

“Oh, you guys play with your energy, too?” Mu asked.

“Yeah, kinda feels weird not to,” Demitri said. “Like… I don’t know.”

“Huh. Yeah, so do I,” Gahi said, clicking his jaws. “Weird…”

Silence. Muddled thoughts buzzed in Mu’s head, briefly surfacing past the rumbling drone of the room.

“You guys give out a lot of energy,” Mu remarked, noticing how bright their lines were. “Hey, what if we did a flux all at once? That’d be pretty funny, right?”

Zena tilted her head. “I… suppose so. Sure.”

Mu’s heart fluttered. Some inner part of her was telling her… she had to do this. Was someone telling her to? She couldn’t hear it, yet she felt like someone was calling her.

“Okay, follow my lead.”

Something was driving her to do this. Something told the others to do the same. Why? None of this felt right…

But as the lights rippled in darkening and brightening waves, the whole room’s light flickered the same way. Darker and brighter. Outside, in another building across the street, other windows were lighting up the same way.

“Hey, let’s follow that rhythm,” Mu said. “Looks like other souls are doing the same—”

—break the flow! Can you hear me?!—

Mu’s blood turned to ice. For a fleeting moment, she knew something. She knew something devastating. And it was gone. She couldn’t remember what.

“Owen,” Zena whispered.

“Huh?” When Mu turned, she saw tears already falling from Zena’s face.

The Milotic cleared her throat, wiping her eyes with her ribbons. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t… I don’t know what came over me.”

“I felt it, too,” Demitri said, holding his chest. His eyes were grave. “It was like… something really important was happening and I’m forgetting all about it.”

Mispy, too, was troubled. Even Gahi, boisterous as he was, clenched his great jaws.

Boom!

Something black darkened the world outside. As Mu turned to face the window, a shooting star flew past the glass, startling her enough to fall out of her sigil. The lights dimmed completely.

“What was that?!”

“It looked like a yellow… star thing!” Demitri struggled to a sitting position after falling on his back.

All of them went up to the window.

The great, central spire had suddenly been struck by something. Mu didn’t know what. When Mu searched for the yellow star, she saw nothing of the sort. Instead, it was a Charizard flying through the air, which caught even more of her attention. She pressed her cheek against the glass like it would help her see outside.

“Dad?” Mu whispered.

Wait. That made no sense. She was adopted; she didn’t know her parents…

But down below was something more alarming. Walking down the street, staring directly at her, was the same dark Goodra that ran the place. Diyem. And when they made eye contact, he walked again toward the entrance of the building.

He was coming. She didn’t want that. She didn’t know why, but she had to follow her instincts.

“We have to get out of here,” Mu suddenly said.

“Huh? But I thought we were doing silly stuff with the building!” Demitri said. “Why don’t we mess with it a little more?”

“Why?” Mispy suddenly asked. Her tone wasn’t accusatory or exasperated. Instead, Mu sensed that Mispy was just as analytical as Mu was trying to be.

“Why,” Zena repeated. “This is all strange. But I agree. I… want to disrupt this building somehow. I feel like that’s what I should be doing, somewhere… deep down. Isn’t it strange? We’ve… been doing this all our lives, haven’t we? It was how things were. Right?”

Mispy looked at the sigils again, brow intensely furrowed.

It finally clicked, yet the realization was like cold water injected directly into her chest. “No,” Mu whispered. “It… it isn’t. That… doesn’t feel right… Why…”

Mu lost her balance when the ground rumbled. Zena, nearby, caught Mu with a ribbon.

“What was that?” Demitri whimpered.

“Diyem’s after me,” Mu said. “Or… or he’s after someone else?”

—Can’t do anything, fool! Fall—

Mu saw a Charizard with black and prismatic scales weaving between spires of light. Wounds covered his form, each one from a glancing blow.

And then the vision was gone.

When Mu had returned to her senses, everyone else had a firmer look in their eyes.

“That Charizard with the rainbow belly,” Demitri said. “We know him.”

“Same,” Mu said. “Zena?”

The Milotic nodded. “He’s… he’s someone important to me. How could I forget? How did I forget? I don’t know… what relation we had, but…”

Mispy trotted to the window, smushing her face against the glass wall. Not sure what it was for, Mu tried the same. Then Zena. Demitri toyed with his horns and awkwardly stood nearby, while Gahi grunted in pain when his exoskeleton struck the glass.

“Him,” Mispy said.

Flying through the sky was a Charizard—normal colors, yet ever so familiar. He was roaring something at the civilians below but the glass was soundproof.

The ground rumbled again. Fights were breaking out. What was going on? Unrest everywhere—in the streets, Pokémon were emerging from buildings looking dazed and agitated. Lights in the building were dimming. The great obsidian spire in the middle of Kilo was losing some of its dotted lights.

“Let’s get outta here,” Gahi said. “I wanna talk ter that Charizard. He’s too familiar.”

“We can’t go down, though,” Mu said. “That—that Goodra, I don’t think we should get close to him. If he goes, he might… do something—bad? I don’t—I don’t know, but it’s—it’s vibes, it’s just vibes, okay?”

“Vibes?” Demitri asked. “I think I understand, but…”

Zena, meanwhile, channeled water throughout her body. The sheer power behind it warped the light around her; an updraft lifted her ribbons. Gahi, on instinct, nervously stepped back until he pinned himself against the wall.

Then, the Milotic blasted the window with a beam of water as thick as her head. The deluge quickly flooded the floor, up to Mu’s ankles, then her thighs, and soon she was treading water and hoping it wouldn’t sting too badly when it reached the flame of her tail.

“Zena, harder!” Mu shouted.

The glass cracked but didn’t break.

“Hold your breaths!” Demitri cried as the ceiling got closer.

Gahi gurgled frantically. Mispy wrapped vines around his body and lifted him higher.

The window cracked more. The door into the room creaked.

Mu felt Mispy’s vines around her chest next. She was trying to grab everyone and then grasped Zena’s tail for leverage.

As it turned out, it indeed stung. Her flame went out, emitting copious clouds of steam instead, as the water shock nearly forced her to gasp. She squeezed her eyes shut and endured the pain…

Underwater, every sound was muffled and loud. The crack had crossed the whole window pane. The pressure was soon going to overwhelm it, but then…

The door opened. The current pulled all of them back; Mispy’s vines squeezed her tight. Mu hoped her insides would stay there. Though her guts held in place, Mu was losing confidence in Mispy’s vines against the water’s current. And at the doorway, taking the full deluge of water, was a Goodra radiating a dark aura.

He really IS after me!

Mu tried to scream only for bubbles to emerge. That was enough; the others recognized the dire situation, even as the Goodra marched inside, the massive current having no effect on him.

When the water was low enough that Mu could touch the ground, Diyem loomed over her. His expression was like stone. No emotion at all, yet completely, utterly focused on the little Charmander before him.

He reached forward. The others were still gathering their bearings. Diyem’s slimy grabber was inches from her face… when the strange, light, heart-shaped mark on his chest brightened.

Diyem froze.

For what felt like an eternity, Mu dared not take a breath, and Diyem did not advance an inch closer.

“NO!” Zena cried.

She spat a beam of water so intense it slid Diyem backward a few feet.

Then, she slammed her head against the glass. The cracks grew wider; the window bent outward.

Zena slammed her head into the glass again. Shards cut into her scales. Blood—a strange, pastel rainbow as Mu knew blood to be—trickled down her forehead. Her coils rolled up as if to spring herself forward.

Diyem approached them again, once again reaching toward Mu. This time, the heart in his chest had dimmed. He showed no hesitation.

Zena slammed a third time. And, finally, the window gave way. Her body’s momentum carried her, slicing parts of her body on the way out. Mispy, still holding on, carried the rest of them out at once. Mu knocked her head against the glass with a sharp crack!

Something must have hit Mispy, too, as they all went tumbling down. The last thing Mu saw through tunneling vision was a Charizard flying toward her from above.

<><><>​

CRASH!

Owen was missing most of his right shoulder. Several stones stabbed into his back and out of his belly. In front of him, a meters-wide and even longer fissure lay where he’d been blasted into the ground from a grazing blow.

He dug his claws into the dirt and tried to channel his Grass energy, but that part of him had been stripped away. Instead, he had to roll and try to find a place to hide: any possible way to regain his footing. Stoles jutted from his back and front as divine tendrils of his single Hand’s filaments pushed them out to sew his body shut. His scarf couldn’t heal fast enough; even more energy was needed.

Golden light replaced the flesh and bones of his shoulder for now. He staggered to his feet, holding it with his good hand, and stared skyward.

“Give up! It will be so much easier!” Kilo roared. It was the name Owen had chosen for the thing. He was not Dark Matter. But he was not quite anyone else, either. And he refused to give that thing Alexander’s name… even if he carried his will the same way.

He’d tried calling out to the souls inside. Tried gaining any form of resonance. As far as Owen could tell, there was no response. Had Eon failed?

“Oh, what am I saying?” Kilo said in a singsong way. “It’s always fun when my catch fights back.”

The sky twisted with equal parts black and white, jagged, and fuzzy lines of static. That was the sign of another attack. Exhausted, at his limit, Owen saw the incoming lines and rolled out of the way. He kicked off the ground and beat his wings, narrowly dodging the rest of the volley.

Below him, even more of the world’s former earth lay in ruins. Buildings reclaimed by the earth had turned into a frozen sea of mud and dust. The Chaotic energy burrowed deep and dug out magma and dirt alike, churning what had once been a stable, tiny planet into a messy blend of insides and outsides.

Some holes had gone directly down, perhaps to the very core of the world, while others were interrupted by the sturdy roots of the ever-encompassing Tree of Life. Even now, Kilo avoided destroying that. Perhaps its destruction was too much, or something was holding it back. Owen didn’t have the time or energy to think deeper than that.

Another volley was coming. This one was slower, carving lines across formerly beautiful fields and crossing a river of water, instantly turning it into an explosion of steam. Owen felt the heat even where he stood; superheated water would hurt, even with his new Dragon element.

He had to think. As Owen weaved between these slower attacks—always wary of cheap shots—he used the steam to obscure his presence. He kept his power low, refused to let his aura flare, so Kilo wouldn’t be able to sense him.

Another volley rained down. Owen didn’t have to move at all—wide shots, scattered and wholly inaccurate. And… weaker?

There was no way that was all of Kilo’s power. Owen expected more. Yet as they rained down, the explosions—while earth-shattering—were softer. Rather than hundreds of volleys, Owen only counted ten or so, yet with even less accuracy.

Owen dared to creep past the rubble of some destroyed, molten rocks, brown, ashen dirt, and fallen, splintered trees. The scent of ash and rot filled his nose with every advancing plume of smoke. That same grime tarnished his body, yet the prismatic light of life shined past it.

Kilo’s body pulsated and crackled, solar flares bursting from and reentering his body. The core of his body—Dark Matter’s cage within his torso—pulsed and flickered like a dying Luminous Orb.

Owen clutched his single Hand of Creation.

Now was the time to fight.

<><><>​

“Everyone, you need to fight back!” Eon shouted. “Wake up! None of this is real, none of this is how things are!”

He spread his wings, carrying Owen’s voice and likeness, as his orange flame nearly dwarfed Mu’s unconscious body in his arms. He held her gently, hoping she would wake up, as a crowd gathered around the main square of this mockery of Kilo Village.

“Don’t—don’t you recognize me?!” Eon shouted.

He recognized them. So many of them. He saw a Riolu standing atop a Drampa, and behind him was an Oshawott and Cacnea. An old team of a time long gone, led by Manny.

He saw Team Alloy, of course, with Mu replacing Owen in this strange reality.

He even saw a Treecko standing alongside a Sceptile. The Sceptile crouched down. “What do you think, Mom?”

The Treecko hummed, arms crossed. “He does seem awfully familiar,” she admitted. “What is your name? You… I know you.” She held her chest, perhaps without realizing it.

Eon opened his mouth awkwardly. “Err, I’m—”

“This disturbance will stop.”

A Goodra shouted from the top of a building—the same one Zena had burst from. He jumped out the broken window and landed with a heavy, wet THUD. The crater he left behind was three times his width, and the earthquake itself knocked nearby Pokémon off their feet.

“H-Heart of Hearts Diyem,” greeted Zena. “We… were…”

“All of you. Return to your refueling stations. The world relies on your power. Have you forgotten?”

“I think it’s everything else that they’ve forgotten,” Eon said, standing firm. He spread his arms and wings to address the crowd. “Doesn’t everyone here seem familiar to you? Don’t you remember being stronger, being—”

Eon sidestepped just in time to dodge a humming beam of darkness thrown by Diyem. The Goodra’s claws dripped with Shadows.

“Just stay put,” Diyem hissed. For once, his stonelike expression showed a few cracks of desperation. “This disturbance… will ruin everything again. Don’t you understand?”

What? Was Diyem speaking in code? The way he was phrasing that, his intonation…

Diyem unconsciously brought a hand to his chest, tracing the heart-shaped mark. “…This is how things are now. Accept it. Or else.”

“Or else,” Eon repeated with an exhale. It didn’t sound like a threat from Diyem. He was warning about something. He was afraid of something. But what?

The rest of the crowd seemed conflicted. Confused. Some of them looked at one another. Many had their eyes on Eon to say something. Several more were curious about Diyem.

Diyem spoke with slightly more urgency. “Don’t—”

The great, obsidian spire vibrated behind them. All of the lights that dotted the landmark suddenly dimmed.

“What?” Eon whispered.

Then, from where each bit of light had been, spears of a strange, dark substance jutted out into pointed tendrils. Eon was just deft enough to dodge one that was about to jab into his chest, but several other Pokémon were less fortunate. The tendrils pierced straight through them and then split apart like hooked barbs, tugging their bodies against the spire.

Heads cracked and bones broke unceremoniously against the stone pillar. They wailed as light drained from their bodies and into the black pillar. Shadows crept through their veins and rotted their bodies, yet it was not quite enough to kill them. They continued to scream.

“What is this?!” Eon cried.

Team Alloy, Zena, and many that Eon knew were faster. They dodged, deflected, or even resisted the piercing blow. It had even gone for Diyem, who parried the tendril with a black Protect swirling with gold. The heart on his chest brightened.

“Look at what you’ve done,” Diyem hissed, sprinting away and urging with his arm for Eon to follow.

At first, Eon wanted to stay behind to help the Pokémon caught. Their cries overwhelmed him. His eyes darted from one to the next, each one bleeding strange, pastel fluid from their wounds that siphoned into the black tower.

“Now, NOW!” Diyem roared.

Eon took a few more steps back. Two black spears, one left and one right, reared up at him. “No—” Eon held up his wings as a shield uselessly.

Green arrows deflected the spears, breaking them in several places.

“Come!” called a canine dappled in black and green hexagons. Behind him were three just like him.

“Hecto! You’re—”

But he already ran. Realizing now was not the time to talk, Eon flew after them. “I’m sorry!” he cried back to the Pokémon still being drained on the pillar. “We’ll think of something! H-hang in there!”

Useless words. This wasn’t working. What were they supposed to do? He only hoped Hecto would provide some answers…

This strange, twisted world was all some inner fabrication. None of this was supposed to be, and yet the people in it, what they suffered, were very real. It was representing something else. Eon just needed to figure out what really mattered in its conjured symbolism.

<><><>​

“Still resisting… still fighting…”

Owen rolled out of the way of another downpour of light. He didn’t know who Kilo was speaking to at this point.

“Everything always has to be so pointlessly complicated. Everyone needs their own little will, their own little needs, when it all would be so much easier if they followed their routine. MY routine. MY orders. Yet upstarts like you… are a plague…”

He wasn’t paying attention. This was his chance!

Down below, ash and smoke obscured much of the world. There was probably no life remaining there, save for… well, he wasn’t sure if Jerry would have survived this kind of onslaught, though he hoped for the best.

This was as close as Owen had managed to get. Within Kilo’s core, beyond that strange, spiraling cage that covered the eye of a great red storm, little golden flecks of light drifted around a vertical pupil of darkness. And from that pupil, filaments of darkness latched onto several of those lights, pulling them in.

Before Owen could get a better look, another volley fired at him from above and ahead. Owen dodged it easily, even regaining more stamina than he was losing at the rate Kilo fired.

Was this his best shot?

Owen’s fist clenched around his single Hand of Creation. Within it, the soul bullet still pulsed. He’d never seen it do that before.

It was resonating. That had to be it. It… was tied to Alexander’s emotions. His personality. Yes! This… It was exactly as Kilo had said. He was ‘more Alexander’ than the real Alexander would ever be.

Another volley came. One grazed his cheek, sizzling the scales into molten carbon. Threads of gold stitched his face back together. The claw on his necklace tapped his chest with the wind.

Now or never.

Owen swung his arm back. He aimed the spear at Kilo’s torso, just above the cage around the storm. The remainder of the javelin’s whip wrapped around his arm.

And he hurled it as hard as he could. Unerring, the javelin self-corrected its flight, homing in on its target—

“Child’s play.”

A portal appeared in front of the javelin. It passed through.

Owen couldn’t react in time. Something punched him through the back.

Sticking out of his chest was that same javelin. The soul bullet sizzled within, ready to burst.

And for a moment, Owen heard the cries of countless spirits inside Kilo’s body.

 

[Nekodatta]

So I caught up on the last 30 or so chapters I had left and the only thing I can say is HOLY SHIT.
Um... I'll probably do a much more in depth commentary later lol
But one thing I want to say is that I really love how well you've used foreshadowing. EVERYTHING has a payoff, EVERYTHING that gets referenced will be used up again. Really, you did what I can only hope I will manage to do.

Spoiler: Spoilers

You made Barky having a second brain in his butt be fucking heartbreaking. His sacrifice is maybe one of my favourite scenes in this last arc, amid many, many others.

Or Jerry being literally the Last One Standing because of his scarf and giving it back to Owen.

MY BOY JERRY SAVED THE WORLD.

I don't really know what else to say to convey how masterfully this story was crafted.

 

[Namohysip]

Finale ~ Part 3 – Hundred​

“That should do it,” Arceus whispered.

A beautiful, nearly incomprehensible swirl of expanding lights ballooned out before them. Star whistled in wonder, leaning closer.

“It won’t be the most glamorous reality. I think only a few scattered worlds, and only one will truly develop… but that’s precisely why it is intended to be a starting world. We can… learn with this. Nothing too crazy and unpredictable will happen, so long as we do not interfere too much.”

“So we just… watch, right?” Star asked. “Watch it start, end, and… learn from that?”

“Just as we were trained,” Arceus confirmed, nodding. “We may occasionally step in. That’s part of the test for us. And if all goes well…”

“We can make our own things! Follow… our own paths… as gods!”

Arceus chuckled faintly. “You’re growing into this.”

“I’m getting used to it.” She twirled around, chasing her long, long tail. “This body’s pretty nifty, too.”

“Always indecisive. I’m not surprised you warmed up to something that can freely change forms.”

The universe expanded in front of them. A world of Pokémon once more…

“But we’ll make it better,” Star said.

Arceus’ gaze darkened faintly. Yet, despite this, he nodded.

“A place where… tragedies like what happened to us won’t happen here. Can we at least do that?”

“It’s… beyond the scope of this test, Star,” Arceus said. “You know that.”

“But…”

“We can do that next time. But…” He sighed. “We can’t just let it all go the same, no. So, I suppose, if you want to pick one of those moments to step in…”

Star watched the reality expand.

“I will let you try,” Arceus conceded.

Star touched her chest, nodding.

“Thank you.”

<><><>​

“Hecto! Do you remember yourself?” Mu asked desperately.

“Yes.”

Seven. I have secured a building to the east.

One. We are on our way.

Three. Confirming, we are on our way.

“Most of my copies are still resisting in smaller ways across the false world,” Hecto said. “But we are fighting.”

“How’d you remember?” Mu asked.

“This was a clumsy, hasty cover-up. Dark Matter is still trying to get full control over all the souls he had suddenly acquired. Unlike prior Divine Decree-like memory alterations, my Overseer training was able to detect and counter this kind of trickery more easily.”

Or, shamefully, he was more vigilant about it now.

“What can we do now?” Eon asked. “We need a way to resist all of this. Where are the others?”

“Most of them are… already under his spell. But even the slight resistance we’re providing is enough to snap them out of it.”

“It’s that pillar. That’s what’s absorbing everyone’s energy, right?” Mu gulped. “What if we attack it?”

“It’s a risk,” Hecto said. “But it may be the only risk we can afford at this point. It might badly hurt everyone, even cause a Lockout for those we hurt too badly—this is all unprecedented.”

“It’s heartless to say,” Mu said, “but even if we hurt some of them, it’s better than everyone.”

Hecto nodded gravely. He stopped running and turned around, facing the spire several blocks down. Dark Matter was no longer chasing them. Had they escaped? Or was he merely focused on channeling that energy?

“Diyem…” Mu rubbed her forehead. The headache forced her to her knees. She must have been remembering everything.

Such a strange anomaly. Even here, Mu resisted the tricks of the reality around her. The Overseers would have a great interest in her properties.

Eon, still a Charizard, got on all fours to get to her level. “Are you okay?” he asked.

“Thanks, Da—I mean, uh…”

“Oh—right. Sorry.”

Eon closed his eyes. Scales fluttered off his body and dissolved into flecks of light. He shrank and shrank until he was just a pink little Mew that made Hecto’s heart ache. He hid it well.

“Better?”

“…Really, dude?” Mu said.

“What?”

“She just died.”

“I—this is my true form! Also, I’m a guy, it’s different!”

“It is different,” Hecto confirmed.

“Ugh, not you, too.” Mu rubbed her forehead.

The ground rumbled, reminding them all of what they had to do.

“What next?” Mu asked Hecto. “If this is all fake or whatever, what do we do against it? Fake superpowers?”

“Unfortunately, we don’t have that kind of manipulation,” Hecto said. “The most we can do is disrupt the abstractions still present. A false reality still has anchors to keep us all ‘on the same page.’ A grain of truth. If we can find that ‘truth,’ we can strike it, and the damage will be real.”

“Then let’s find Brandon,” Mu said plainly. “Reshiram’s all about seeing the truth, right?”

“And he’s human,” Eon added. “Strong human spirits seem to defy a lot of these things…”

“I agree.” Hecto nodded. “Alexander is a Pokémon. Dark Matter is tied to a Worldcore meant for Pokémon. Humans are just barely outside of that sphere. It may be able to handle them less readily.”

“They’re also stronger,” Mu added.

“That is also true.”

Eon hummed, crossing his arms. He kept pinching his skin.

“Are you well?” Hecto asked.

“Huh? Oh—sorry. I just, uh. Haven’t been able to…” Eon paused. “It’s nice to be normal again.”

“You’re Psychic,” Hecto said.

Everyone stared. Once again, his attempt at joking failed. He’d get it one day.

One. Search for Reshiram. He may be able to burn through the veil.

Eight. We have Reshiram with us. He is with another resistance group.

One. Requesting location.

As the information came to him, Hecto said, “I found Reshiram.”

“Oh! Well, alright!” Mu sprang back to her feet. The following vertigo left the Charmander stumbling into Eon’s side as he lowered himself to catch her.

“This way.” Hecto dashed through the streets. Distantly, the screams of countless innocents being absorbed into the obsidian pillar haunted him.

<><><>​

This was a new kind of pain, one Owen hadn’t experienced before in all his lives.

Well, no. It was reminiscent of… one death. One where Star’s Hands of Creation had ripped a broken Alloy asunder to save them from madness.

Now, it was just a single Hand of Creation singing his very spirit. His javelin, his weapon made of that Hand, had passed through a wormhole conjured by the Necrozma element of Kilo. The exit had been right behind him. The movement was so swift—Owen had fallen for it out of desperation—that he had no time to parry the strike.

Blood trickled from his mouth. It was a lot harder to heal himself from divine damage when he had to rely on the very tool that had pierced him for that healing.

“The struggles of this body are… fleeting and temporary. I’ve already found a short-term solution to keep them in line.” Kilo slowly turned, the motes of light swirling chaotically within his torso. Waves of energy created solar flares along his rippling, buzzing body of Chaotic static.

“Then… they are fighting back.”

“Pointless gestures. You cannot shout at a storm to make it stop. Their resistance will be their last disgraceful act.”

The soul bullet boiled in Owen’s chest. Would it hurt him? He had none of Alexander’s traits. It should… be fine. But it was also such a wasted effort. All of that planning, so much investment into a single, precious bullet, just for it to fail…

No. Not like this.

“Eon!” Owen cried. “Eon, I need a little help here! Just one big burst, that’s all I need!”

Kilo roared with laughter. “Gods! Do you really think he can hear you anymore?! He’s GONE!”

Owen exhaled shakily. He could feel the soul bullet about to burst. He channeled extra power into the Hand of Creation to keep that energy contained.

“Eon!” Owen shouted again. “…Zena! Demitri, Mispy, Gahi… anything! Strike the core!”

But nobody answered.

“Goodbye, Owen. Finally, this will all be settled.”

Over a hundred Hands of Creation arose from behind Kilo’s back.

<><><>​

They’d found Reshiram. A small army of other Pokémon had already gathered around the white dragon. Among them were Manny with his team of Yen, Doll, and Elbee, though save for Yen, a Drampa, all had been reduced to their smallest forms. Hecto could feel the power radiating from each; their size was a mere illusion.

Also leading the charge was a Snivy leading a suspiciously familiar quartet of Pokémon—a Charmander, Chikorita, Axew, and Trapinch. A whole army’s worth of Pokémon were standing behind the diminutive Pokémon.

“You know, Mom, I wonder why you’re a Milotic,” Mu said to Zena. “Everyone else that used to be a big threat to Dark Matter got devolved.”

“I’d truly want to avoid those days,” Zena said. “Maybe that’s why.”

“I suspect it is instead some kind of threshold,” Hecto replied. “There is a point where you are strong enough to warrant being suppressed… but if you are even stronger than that, perhaps you don’t.”

“I’m not that much stronger than another Guardian,” Zena said. “Was I?”

“Hmm…” Perhaps his theory was wrong. “It doesn’t matter. We should mobilize for the spire. All we need is one good hit to see if it works. From there, we shall proceed accordingly.”

“Uh-huh.” Mu crossed her arms. “What does proceed accordingly mean?”

“Whatever you want,” Hecto said flatly. “I’m sorry. I’d make more plans, but we do not have the time. Follow your instincts.” Because, clearly, that’s done better than his lifetimes of knowledge for some reason

The little Snivy cleared her throat.

“Oh, hi, uh… Trina, right?” Mu asked.

Trina nodded.

“Oh, hey,” Gahi said. “You, uh… do I remember you?”

Trina frowned slightly.

“Hey, don’t get offended,” Mu said. “Memory erasure’s brutal.”

“I’m not. I’ll channel that into more energy to kill our new god.”

Zena smiled at that.

“Hey, I wanna do that!” Gahi said, wobbling closer. “Yer in an army, right? I’ll, uh, we’ll take orders! Yeah?” He looked back at Demitri and Mispy, who seemed completely confused.

“Wow. Embodiment of willpower immediately begs for a leash,” Mu mumbled to herself.

Hecto adjusted the scarf-like extension of his neck.

Nine. I’m seeing a strange bundle of black strings coming from the obsidian tower.

One. What do they lead to?

Nine. I can’t tell. They fade into the aether.

Hecto didn’t know what to make of that. He filed it away for now.

“Trina!” called a Swampert. He sprinted over and saluted the Snivy. “Everything’s ready! We can assault from all sides once you give the word!”

“Wonderful. Do it now.”

“N-now? Right now?”

“Yes. We have no time! Did you hear me?” Trina spun to face Reshiram.

The Dragon of Truth’s tail revved to life. Flames scorched the dirt black. “Didn’t fight well enough out there,” he said. “I’m gonna use Blue Flare on weak points that I see. Even if it makes no sense, I want my squad to strike where I mark! That understood?!”

“Yes, sir!”

Even Mu chimed in on that one. Hecto suspected it was because she was permitted to destroy things. Hopefully, that was just because she was technically still very young.

He wasn’t sure how ‘absorbing the negativity’ of a populace fed into that, though.

One. We are ready.

Ten. We need you to move quickly.

“Sorry to rush you,” Hecto said, “but I think time is a factor. Reshiram, please mark everything you can.”

“Happy to help.” Reshiram stomped his foot on the ground. The great, whirring engine within his tail blazed to life. Manny hopped onto Yen’s back, and then the rest of his team followed. The Drampa followed the Reshiram through the skies, leaving Hecto behind to scout from the ground.

Seven. I’ve found a strange rift.

One. A rift?

Seven. Yes, it’s in the shape of a wound. Owen may have left it.

One. I’ll come to investigate.

Seven. Here’s where it is . . .

“Is something wrong?” Zena asked Hecto.

“…Come with me.” Hecto marched in the opposite direction from the obsidian spire.

“What? But what about the others?”

“This is another front. And I think you’ll want to be here for it.”

<><><>​

From one near-miss to another, Owen had expected this one to be his last. Yet, when Kilo’s onslaught suddenly came to a fizzling halt, and as Owen narrowly struggled to dodge the much slower Judgment-like rain of divine spears, he felt a shift in the air.

Kilo had suddenly doubled over as if stabbed. The lights within his torso shifted like a brewing storm or a pot of water about to boil over.

“Khh—”

Hesitation came later. Owen had to act.

Still skewered, Owen forced himself forward, pulling his Hand of Creation paradoxically further out of his hands as he did. But it remained tethered to him, and that was all that mattered.

He willed the javelin in his chest forward, clearing his wound completely. But it wasn’t enough to reach the core of Kilo’s body. Fine. Whatever. No plan ever went perfectly.

All he had to do was focus on the soul bullet at the very tip of the javelin.

“What? NO!”

Too late.

He squeezed his hand. The javelin exploded outward like a great, long flower, the bullet at the tip of its stem. It burst with blinding, silver needles that struck through both Owen and Kilo at once, raining upon his body harmlessly, save for a faint tingle that swam through his bones.

In seconds, that feeling faded. Instead, his ears rang with the pained, anguished screech of Kilo as every needle carved through his body like water through cotton candy. It melted the crystals into molten gold; every part of his Chaos body touched by a silver needle spewed with black-and-white fog. One eye had been completely disintegrated, raining diamond dust from its empty socket. That missing eye was surrounded by melted crystal and sizzling Chaos energy.

The core of his body was strangely less damaged. While it still had signs—cracks along the cage and a core that pulsed irregularly like a twitching eye—it wasn’t nearly as tattered as the rest of him. That was a clue. While Kilo, this lingering will of Alexander, held its clutches around the world, he still did not have full control over it. He had not yet assimilated everything into him.

He doesn’t have them yet. And now he never will.

“You… WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?!”

Owen yanked his hand back. He tugged at the portal in front of him, which tugged at the string behind him, and therefore the javelin that had stabbed him in the back. Its flower-like opening closed as it siphoned out of his body, through the portal, and finally back fully into his palm.

With a swing, Owen flicked the blood off the whip-javelin.

Kilo wasn’t dead yet. But those wounds cut him deep.

Thanks for the assist, Nate.

He was heard.

Owen wordlessly pointed the javelin at Kilo and smirked.

The taunt was effortless. Kilo roared and lunged at Owen, portals now dissolved entirely. Owen weaved to the left and jammed the javelin directly into Kilo’s throat. A staticky, wet gurgle interrupted Kilo’s cry. Owen pulled the javelin out at an angle, watering the wastes below in Chaos.

But flecks of Kilo’s blood landed on Owen instead. It stung, though not badly. He heard faint thoughts, scattered and confused, not from a spirit, but from echoes of their presence.

What’s going on?! one said.

Is that some rift?

The world’s ending! The sky’s falling!

Dad… keep doing that! It’s working!

That last voice he recognized. His heart fluttered.

“ANSWER ME!” Kilo roared, his throat healed. He made a slow, easily read tail whip that Owen weaved under. The tail erupted with hundreds of Hands of Creation, a few nicking Owen’s cheek. His flesh split open; he sewed it back together.

Weaker, but still deadly.

Owen didn’t answer Kilo. Instead, he feinted a throw at his chest; Kilo opened a portal for nothing. With a burst of speed, Owen weaved around the portal and shifted his javelin into a blade for slicing. He carved a wedge out of Kilo’s hip and spun around.

Another pained, frustrated cry. Owen even sensed fear.

More blood spilled onto him. And this time, he caught a glimpse of the world within…

<><><>​

The sky had torn open with great gashes of miasma. Once gray clouds were now punctured with golden light, and past that light, bright white stars.

Each Hecto stared at the sky to a different rift. Occasionally, sparks shot through the rifts and struck the ground, shockwaves leaving his mind frazzled. Memories of the outside world—so distant, yet so recent—flooded back, and then the inner world clawed it all back into the depths.

Through many pairs of eyes, Hecto watched it unfold, barking orders once he realized what those rifts were.

“Go to them! Escape! Shout at the resistance outside!” He rarely raised his voice. Yet, if there was any time for such a thing, it was now.

South of the great obsidian pillar, Reshiram rained down a barrage of flames onto countless seemingly pointless spots in town. With full faith, those on his back and part of his fleet fired upon those markers. Every impact shattered more of the world, leaving strange cracks in the air. Rather than reveal dirt or stone behind the ruins, they instead saw a clear, starry sky.

Team Alloy punched through smaller cracks, making them larger. They tried to dive directly into them, only to pop back out as if they’d been slingshot back. Yet, each time, they seemed to get stronger, clawing back more of their power. At one point, the trio had gone to their second forms—and then, shortly after, their third.

The same happened to Manny’s team, to Trina, to just about everyone except Willow, who instead kept multiplying.

The veil slowly lifted. When Hecto looked at his paws, they were transparent. Everyone else was losing their form. The illusions of the false reality slowly dissolved… and despite this, their fighting was getting stronger. The buildings’ lights dimmed. The obsidian spire cracked and crumbled.

Zena disappeared into one of the rifts… and did not return.

<><><>​

When Owen peered into the world, a Milotic’s ethereal head slammed into his face instead.

Taken aback, Owen flipped away and dodged past the pained flails of Kilo.

“Zena?!” he cried.

“Owen!” Zena desperately called. “Owen, we’re trying to fight—do you—”

But she was pulled into the core. Her spirit curled into a ball of light, shrinking into a speck in the storm.

“Oh no you don’t!” Owen grabbed his javelin and plunged it into the core, spotting where Zena had gone. The core was ethereal—he couldn’t stab it or poke it. It wasn’t his fight. Still, he managed to grab Zena.

“Ah! Owen!”

Owen quickly pecked her on the cheek. “For good luck. Tear it all down!” He shoved her back into the core.

Kilo roared and blasted Owen with a beam of Chaotic light. Owen, knowing it was coming, weaved out of the way, spiraling around his body. Kilo was slower. Energy was destabilized.

He just had to wait until Kilo tired out.

<><><>​

Zena went flying out of the rift like a flung spaghetti noodle. Eon caught her, but she was so heavy that she ended up flattening him into the ground.

“What happened out there?” Hecto immediately asked.

Zena perked up, slithering over and past Eon, who seemed to have stars in his eyes. “He said to tear it all down. What we’re doing is working!”

“That’s all the feedback we need.” Hecto nodded.

One. The disruptions are working. Focus all efforts into striking the illusion’s weak points and the obsidian tower!

As the news spread, tensions and spirits rose. The entire world—or those strong enough to be awake for it—was at a fever pitch.

<><><>​

Kilo wailed in agony. He flailed his wings, which had extended into whips with countless Hands seeping out of his Chaotic form. Black and white trails of energy discolored the sky. One of them nicked Owen’s Protect shield… But rather than send him flying, all it did was knock him back a few feet.

What?

“How… are you doing this? What’s… happening in my world…”

Owen took a small risk. He dashed closer and held up part of his Hand as a shield. Then came the desperate strike.

The ethereal ring rattled his head but didn’t knock him away. Instead, he held his ground, beat his wings just a bit harder, and broke past the next wave. He readied his javelin and pierced through Kilo’s upper abdomen, cracking his crystal armor.

“AAAAAAAGH!”

He’s so weak!

And yet… the damage healed itself just as easily as before. Even with his offenses evaporating, Kilo was still immortal. Owen had no idea what kind of damage he could deal to that, even with his powers fighting against itself. It wasn’t enough…

But Kilo was unstable. He felt pain. He could make him lose that confidence. Maybe that would help those imprisoned?

“It’s because you were never meant to control the world,” Owen taunted. “And now the world is clawing its way out of you!”

“Don’t be… don’t be FOOLISH!”

Owen parried the reckless blows. This shook Kilo even more. Maybe there were other retorts, other counters. It all evaporated the moment Owen blocked a direct attack.

“What… what are you?!”

“Nothing to you. I didn’t get any stronger. You just lost what you never deserved in the first place.”

Kilo drifted back.

“This isn’t my fight alone,” Owen roared, pointing his javelin at Kilo. “Now let the world return to its natural order!”

“I AM that natural order!” Kilo blasted Owen again. Another spiraling beam of black-and-white energy headed directly toward him. Not taking any chances, Owen drifted to the side and let the beam graze him—but it was an easy deflection.

Should I?

Kilo’s crystalline body parts buckled.

I need to.

Owen plunged into the beam. He pumped his wings harder than before, propelling with Shadows, with Radiance, with Life, with any energy he could muster. His wings grew to double their size from the ethereal extension; his tail flame blazed with a multicolored spiral. He shaped his Hand-enforced Protect into a pointed cone.

And in moments, he stabbed through Kilo’s mouth, split open his face, and knocked his crystal pieces asunder.

A fizzling, half-gurgling wail left Owen’s head ringing. He narrowly blocked a few more pummeling strikes. His shield cracked.

“Tsk.”

But Kilo didn’t notice. Instead, his face disfigured, slowly patching itself back together, his one working crystal eye darted around his forehead. Searching.

What’s he doing?

Suddenly, a portal appeared—one large enough to take him.

“Hey!”

He wordlessly fled into it—

“AUGH!”

And just as quickly, the portal spat him back out. Embers and cutting gales twisted around his body. Owen flew forward, catching a glimpse of the other side.

There, he saw two humans accompanied by a squadron of Pokémon. One wore a blue coat; the other had striking red, spiky hair. Ho-Oh and Lugia stood among them.

“Yeah, take that, you monster!” Michael cheered. “Owen warned us exactly about this!”

“Could’ve come a little sooner, though,” Wes added.

Kilo snarled, closing the portal. He opened another.

“Why bother?!” Owen shouted. “Portals to that world always go near strong auras. You can’t win! I warned everyone!”

“We’ll see about that!”

He flew into it. And once again, he was blasted back, this time by great spears of electricity tinged with Chaos.

Tapu-Koko stood on the other end, glaring briefly at Kilo, then at Owen, as if they were both nuisances. Owen tittered nervously.

“Now!” shouted a human wearing a torn jacket. One hand was clutching his forehead as if he was losing control of himself. “Silvally! Use Chaos Multi Attack!”

Claw-shaped energy waves sliced Kilo into three pieces, barely stitching themselves back together with stray Hands of Creation. The portal closed.

Another opened, once again. Kilo was about to fly through. Suddenly, he halted mid-flight, staring at the other side.

Two humans stood on the other end. One had a blue jacket and a Blastoise standing behind him. The other had a red cap and a Charizard hovering beside him.

Kilo closed the portal.

Owen managed a cheap shot with a dragging javelin sliding across Kilo’s back. The serpent roared again and swiped at Owen; he parried it, but noted that the strike was stronger than before. Was Kilo regaining his composure?

“Fine… if you have… if you have THAT world covered… I’ll just find ANOTHER!”

“I wouldn’t do that!” Owen warned.

Kilo opened his last portal. Instantly, a beam of white light tinged with sacred flames and a few Shadow Ball spheres struck the serpent all at once, sending him flying into the molten planet’s remains.

The portal’s fading visage revealed to Owen the Overseer Ho-Oh, a Necrozma giving him a farewell salute with his upper right wing, and another figure he couldn’t see behind the two.

When the portal closed, Owen followed the smoke trail that Kilo had left behind. Halfway there, Kilo shot out of the lava, cooling rock dripping off his body. His crystal eyes were back in working order.

He laughed. At first, it was slow, but then it slowly transitioned into maniacal rumbling. Owen remained defensive.

“Then I’ll just wait it out,” he hissed. “They don’t want to destroy this world… but you can’t kill me. You can’t… kill me!”

He blasted Owen again. In response, Owen crossed his arms and spiraled the Hand in front of him.

“Ghh—”

But this time, it knocked Owen out of the sky. Kilo slipped into a portal that siphoned him just in front of Owen. Four wings clamped onto the Protect shield and drove him into the earth, tens of feet under, before flying out.

He’s… he’s getting his strength back!

“Something wrong?” Kilo asked in a low chuckle. His misshapen face was right next to Owen’s cheek. Then, he pushed away.

Uh oh.

Owen quickly burrowed out of the way and upward. Where he had once been, the ground was nothing but molten rock.

“Only a brief… growing pain. That’s all it was! ALL IT EVER WILL BE!”

Owen winced. The power was coming back too fast… but even then, his movements were slow. He could not mask the energy that still crawled around him, trying to escape. Spirits flailing defiantly… trying, desperately, to escape. Yet they still didn’t have enough power.

Kilo roared with laughter. His head arched backward. Another beam of Chaos charged at the back of his throat…

<><><>​

Hecto didn’t understand. Reality as they briefly knew it was falling apart. Kilo Village, the buildings, the Black Heart building —all were becoming nothing but cosmic dust in a storm of red winds and lights. Almost everyone had dissolved into more of those motes of light, blending into the winds, yet Hecto, standing on Reshiram’s back as he flew over the groundless storm, still heard their defiant shouts.

Only the strongest remained. He saw Giratina, Dialga, and Palkia all fighting in tandem. Over Dialga’s shoulder was Rayquaza; twin Dragon Pulses pummeled the obsidian spire—the one thing that remained intact at the eye of the storm. A Decidueye flew behind Giratina, landing on her serpentine back, firing volley after volley of arrows into the spire. He chipped at bits and pieces, but it was like a chisel to a mountain.

Standing at the base of the spire, at the little free ground that remained, was Diyem. He only watched. The purple heart in his chest shone brighter than ever. Occasionally, he spoke. His words did not carry past the shouts, yet it didn’t seem like he intended to talk to any of them.

Who was he talking to?

“Yo, Thousand-Eyes!” Reshiram shouted at Hecto.

“Hundred eyes, but go on.”

“World’s falling apart! Seemed like it was working. Now it’s getting… getting hard to breathe!”

Hecto noticed it too. Every breath was becoming harder than the last.

“Kilo might be learning how to contain us more efficiently,” he said. “It’s now or never. We must destroy that spire.”

Reshiram let out one final gasp. He let blue fire rain down upon the obsidian eye of the storm. Most of it dissolved… except for a single patch that blazed, the fire burning away at an illusion.

A single, red eye sat at the base of the spire, exposed from a constant barrage. It was precisely where Diyem had been standing.

“There!” Reshiram shouted. “That’s—”

And that was all Reshiram could do. A wave of darkness, faster than he could react, pierced through his chest.

Hecto was in free-fall. He twisted his body and narrowly landed on the ground, but the cells that made up his body couldn’t take it. He collapsed into himself, lifeless flat, green cells sliding off of him, while his head dissolved into a single, one-eyed Core.

Just above him was Diyem, looming, towering, glaring at him.

“Overseer,” he greeted.

Hecto tried to respond. He didn’t have the strength.

Diyem raised his hand, still crackling with his last Shadowy beam. It stayed there, frozen, as the lavender heart pulsed in his chest.

Reshiram’s blue flames trailed through the air on invisible strings, connecting Diyem to the eye in the obsidian tower. A few of the strings broke, burning away. But not all of them.

Crack!

Diyem’s eyes widened. A stray ember unveiled Sera’s illusion. She’d been there the whole time—the ghostly Zoroark’s claws jammed into the crystal eye. On the other side was Mu, still just a Charmander, yet with Chaos flames that melted the gem.

“C’mon, c’mon!” Mu gasped, taking another breath.

“Oh, shoot!” Sera cried. “Illusion’s down! Ru—”

Diyem swiftly blasted Sera with the strike intended for Hecto. She narrowly dodged, but the beam singed her red-white mane, eating away at it like fire on paper.

“Diyem, don’t do this!” Sera commanded. “You’re… you’re better than this! You were doing so well! Please, just… just let us end this, and we can save everyone! We can save you!”

Diyem slowly turned around as she spoke. His shoulders slackened. The invisible threads continued to move his limbs.

“It’s too late for me,” Diyem whispered.

He fired another blast at Sera, but it was a feint. When Sera dodged left, Diyem quickly shot another even further to the left, striking her square in the chest.

Sera couldn’t even gasp a scream when her body dissolved into yet another mote for the storm. As she fell back, her eyes had trailed upward…

For some reason, she smiled. And then the storm claimed her.

Hecto tried, again, to speak, but once again he’d been reduced to nothing but an observer. His body was close to weightless. He was helpless. Always, always helpless.

There was still Mu. There was still—

Where was Mu? All he saw was a green tail vanish into a portal where Mu had once been.

Diyem must have realized it at the same time, as suddenly, he was darting his eyes about, defensive. Then, at once, he and Diyem both thought to look up.

A strange fusion of a Meganium, Flygon, and Haxorus flew above them. Ruby-red gemstones adorned their forehead. They pointed at Diyem, enveloping him in a restrictive, psionic barrier.

Zena charged a Hydro Pump from the skies. Even with Diyem’s restraints, she was too slow.

No… not like this.

Diyem would fire first. Migami tensed, vines curling and writhing, Psychic barrier stretching.

I refuse to watch… another tragedy!

Diyem raised his arm. The psychic barrier snapped—Migami split into three and rapidly dissolved into the storm.

This time, I act!

With the last of his strength, Hecto jumped—and landed in Diyem’s eyes.

It did almost nothing. Almost. In annoyance, Diyem used his other hand to grab Hecto, squishing his body like a grape. He popped, horrible pain briefly overwhelming all other senses… and then, no pain. His bodiless spirit floated in the air… watching, silently, as his one split-second delay allowed the Hydro Pump to crash down upon him.

Diyem growled; the pressure kept his body pinned in a defensive squat, but it wasn’t harming him at all.

And then, another flash appeared from behind Zena. A Treecko and a Charmander—Mhynt and Mu—dived toward Diyem, both of them holding a single Leaf Blade, side by side. Mhynt produced the blade, refined its edge, and aimed it at something below. Mu provided the Chaos, the energy that defied the world, and the searing will that Mhynt had once lost.

Diyem was helpless.

They had a clear shot!

Hurry…

They landed. The blade… missed.

Utterly.

They sliced the air between Diyem and the red eye, striking neither in the process. The Chaos flames disappeared; the Treecko and Charmander, without any of their strength, began to dissolve with Zena.

It… how did they…

Hecto wanted to cry and shout, yet lacked the body to do either.

Yet Mhynt and Mu did not. Instead, Mu stood straight, offering a high-five to Mhynt, who tilted her head curiously. She humored it, swiping at Mu… only for her to dodge and taunt.

And then they both disappeared.

And all the shadowy strands that controlled Diyem lay in tatters on the ground.

<><><>​

“Agh—GH… GHYAAAAAAAAAAGH!”

Owen had been busy dodging blows, waiting for an opening. His strength was waning. Even the Mega Stone’s energy felt like it was running on fumes by now. The planet lay below them as nothing but a molten blob with islands of stone. Ocean steam and water vapor clouded the distant horizon.

But suddenly, Kilo could not focus. His body flailed, firing pointless shots of Chaos Owen’s way. He still couldn’t find an opening. But amid it all, he knew Kilo was… struggling again.

Owen didn’t want to take any chances. He burst forth, trying to dodge a few whipping tendrils, but had to back away several times.

Not yet. Just, just a little more! Where? Where’s the opening?

“HEY!”

Clang!

Owen didn’t recognize that sound. It was like a stone had hit crystal.

Suddenly, Kilo turned around, befuddled and insulted.

An Aerodactyl, covered with burns, bruises, and bloody cuts, panted as bits of rock dribbled from his mouth.

“You forget about me?!” Jerry fired another set of rocks at Kilo.

Who had his back turned to Owen.

Owen dashed through. Kilo prepared a blast for Jerry, remembering Owen a second too late.

“NOW, IDIOT!” Jerry roared. He dive-bombed for Kilo, who suddenly stopped caring about the Aerodactyl.

Owen slammed into Kilo’s core. Briefly, he glimpsed its inner reality.

<><><>​

Diyem stood alone in front of the obsidian spire. The red eye stared back at him. Its dark tendrils tried to reach out to Diyem, yet a strange, radiant light from his chest dissolved any attempt at reconnection.

You will die if you strike me, the eye told him.

Diyem knew that was true.

They will never bring you back.

Diyem… didn’t know that for sure.

They will call you a monster again, and history will repeat. You will suffer.

Perhaps he deserved it. Perhaps that was his role.

You can save them.

Diyem’s breath hitched. His fist clenched. He felt a new presence in the air, an ever-familiar, warm, defiant presence.

Despite the pain, Diyem smiled.

<><><>​

The world was so slow. One second lasted for minutes. Kilo slowly turned, trying to grab Owen, trying to pull him away. Jerry gnawed at Kilo’s armor, ripping inconsequential pieces away before going for the eye, yet Kilo completely ignored him. Kilo knew Owen was the true danger.

And Owen realized what had to be done. The last strength that was needed to free them all… and the warning Forrest had given him. That he could not, should not, shoulder it all on his own.

He didn’t think Forrest had intended for this to be where it would come into play again.

But did that matter? This time, Owen found the answer for himself.

The little claw on his necklace tapped gently on his chest. He took one breath, just as Kilo tried to grab Owen’s back.

Diyem, Owen thought quietly, sending it into the inner world. This is for you. With my Radiant Bestow…

Take my Hand.

<><><>​

A golden bolt of lightning struck Diyem from above. Intense, burning fire coursed through him, yet there was no pain, and no fear.

It coalesced into his right hand, replacing the Shadows. He recognized this weapon. The javelin and the whip: Owen’s Hand of Creation.

Are you sure?

Diyem smirked. “I’m beyond all doubt.”

Impossible.

But rather than answer, Diyem let the eye watch. He brought his arm back; the red iris quivered. He pointed the javelin at its pupil; the iris darted like it could dodge.

It could not.

And he plunged it into the core, shattering it completely.

The world went white.

<><><>​

Owen didn’t hear much after he’d Bestowed his divine power. Kilo had grabbed him, shouted things at him, threw him higher into the air.

He didn’t move, didn’t resist. He couldn’t. Everything was… heavy. And when Owen saw, in his peripheral, tunneling vision, his lower body, his arms, his tail, he saw golden motes of light trailing off his body.

Right, Owen recalled peacefully. When someone with divine power… loses it all… they disappear.

Gravity took over again. Owen was falling. Kilo was no longer fighting Jerry or Owen, but instead was fighting to keep his core contained. Golden beams of light were emerging from all parts of his body, from his core most of all. Golden armor crumbled away.

I took Star’s power. That meant… I was a god, wasn’t I?

He smiled with only a hint of bitterness.

After all this time, I’d become a god anyway…

The great world’s serpent flailed, swiping at Jerry, who was already so far away. He swiped at Owen, merely passing through. Owen faintly wondered what Kilo was saying, but only briefly. He just smiled at Kilo, waving at him. At everyone within his reality.

Kilo shouted curses instead.

And as Owen’s vision began to close out entirely, as even thinking became a bit too difficult, as he drew one last breath to appreciate the air, he saw Kilo’s body explode in all directions in a rainbow of fire.

He saw his mother in a void, smiling proudly. She reached toward him.

Remember, she said, to follow me.

Her words confused Owen.

But then, when that vision faded, he saw a shockwave blow past his ethereal body, blasting away the storm and the dark. He saw the false sky and false stars crack like a great dome of glass.

In one final, brilliant second, the great dome of the world’s boundary shattered.

And then, Owen disappeared.

 

[Namohysip]

Finale ~ Part 4 – Thousand​

Arceus held Star’s tattered soul in his Hands. She twitched and whimpered, crying little apologies a thousand times.

She didn’t know what to say to him. His warnings, from ages ago to now, had all come to pass. Now she could barely move, could barely look at him, after what had happened.

It came so easily. Happened so fast. First, she was being rescued by so many people, so many heroes. And then the sky had torn open, and Arceus and his divine might had destroyed it all utterly.

She had barely saved the souls of those who had rescued her. But everyone else on the island had been annihilated. The kind of destruction that would banish them from their home reality, never to return. Irreversible and absolute.

“Why?” Star whispered.

“I’m sorry,” Arceus said.

It was a better response than last time. At first, he’d said ‘because they hurt you.’ For someone who had so stubbornly cast aside his old life as a trainer’s Pokémon, Arceus was still terribly loyal to her. Loyal to the point of destruction.

“They didn’t deserve that,” Star said.

Floating around them, pained and confused, deprived of their senses, was a sea of lost souls. Their ethereal presence clung to their bodies for some semblance of being, but that was the best they could hope for.

“We… we turn them in,” Star said. “The Overseers… will…”

This kind of slip-up was not the standard of proper gods. The Overseers would surely tell them to leave this world behind. They would put a proper god in its place.

“We failed,” Star whispered.

Arceus winced.

She stared at the sea of souls. Arceus, meanwhile, took in a slow breath. From a faraway place, appearing seemingly in the aether, was a swarm of Unown. Star watched them, mesmerized, until she realized what it meant.

“Arceus?”

“Perhaps… perhaps not yet.”

<><><>​

Anam felt like he’d awoken from a long, long dream. His body was heavy, with slime coating it thickly, as if he’d been resting away from the water for days. When he tried to lift his arm, he took a layer of grass with it, ripping it from the dirt.

The sun beamed into his eyes. He squinted and groaned, ripping his other arm from the grass, then his back. He wanted to clean himself, to get it off, but something else caught his attention.

While he was on the grass, up ahead was the Endless Expanse. That great salt flat perfectly reflecting the sky. Nobody else was around save for one figure.

A Charizard with a black flame. His wings were folded and his back faced Anam. But he knew the subtleties of his body anywhere by now.

“Diyem!”

The Goodra laughed, running into the water, not caring about the sting of the salt against his wounds. He’d only just realized he was still covered in them. He didn’t know where they’d come from.

He splashed in the water, tripping a few times. The grass fell from his body in layers, cleaning him, yet also doubling, tripling that salty sting. He powered through it, grunting, stomping through the water.

“Diyem!” he called again.

This time, he got a response. The Charizard’s shoulders slumped, and he exhaled.

“Anam,” he greeted.

He sounded different. Anam had never heard him like this before.

“Diyem?” he asked.

He turned around. His eyes, it was his eyes, too. They were… peaceful. And he was smiling. Two things that never happened.

Yet, in his heart of hearts, Anam knew it was Diyem.

Finally, Anam was close enough that he stopped, hesitated, and then lunged for Diyem in a reckless hug.

He collided, feeling his cold, shadowy body and rough scales. He heard the sizzle of positivity burning him.

“Oh—”

Anam quickly backed away. Diyem chuckled to himself, which transitioned into a raspy cough, producing huge gouts of ethereal smoke.

“I’m sorry!”

“It’s okay. It’s okay.” Diyem coughed a few more times, took a shuddering breath, held it, and then exhaled. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Huh?”

“Anam…” Diyem took one more breath and seemed to return to normal after that. He spread his arms. “Do you see this place?”

“Um…”

His head swiveled. It seemed normal, save for… the lack of people. But at the Endless Expanse, that wasn’t too surprising. He looked at the ground again, then the perfectly blue, unblemished sky.

“No clouds?” Anam asked.

“Look more closely. What’s missing?”

Anam turned around. He flinched—it was gone. That grassy field was gone.

Diyem groaned. “The sun, Anam.”

“But but but the grass went away, too!” Anam cried.

“That… Right. I suppose that’s also true.”

The sky was perfectly blue and unblemished, yes, but when Anam took a second look, he realized the sun, that source of light just seconds ago, was missing.

“I don’t get it. Where’d it go?”

“This is just a dream, Anam. A vision. Your wounds… are wounds to your spirit.”

Anam looked at his arms and belly. The cuts were… healing.

“But it looks like some force is helping us recover. Or… helping you recover.”

Diyem’s body wasn’t hurt, but… now that Anam looked, now that he squinted, he could barely see the reflection of the sky through him.

“Diyem?” Anam whispered.

The Shadow Charizard exhaled again and turned around. “They killed me, Anam,” he said. “Or… no. They didn’t kill me. Owen entrusted the last of his power, that final Hand of Creation, to the part of my psyche that had not yet been taken over. To ‘me,’ the one you call ‘Diyem.’ That I’m here at all is thanks to you, Anam.”

When Anam thought back, he could remember seeing through Diyem’s eyes in a strange, twisted version of Kilo Village that the Usurper had conjured. He remembered begging Diyem to do something else, to save the world. He remembered the shadowy strings that drove him to do otherwise. And… everyone else banding together to break that world and cut Diyem’s strings.

“I remember,” Anam said, recognition flooding into him. “But… you won! You did the final blow! So you—”

“I struck my own heart, Anam. My core.” Diyem turned to face Anam again. He was even more transparent. “I… I wanted to see you one last time, Anam.”

“One last…”

“And I need to give you a warning.”

“What? Wait, this—this is too fast! I don’t understand! You won!”

“This is how it should have gone, Anam… except for one flaw. One… small, terrible flaw.”

Anam wanted to cry. He knew what Diyem was saying. He was going to die, and everyone else would get to live without him. Those horrible things the core said to Diyem would come true. He’d be deemed a monster. Diyem wouldn’t get the salvation he deserved, not even his name.

“I will return,” Diyem said. “I wasn’t killed in the right way. I don’t know if there is a right way… but the negativity I held, the suffering and pain in that Hand, the fabric of reality… when it struck the core, when it destroyed me, I was not obliterated. I was dispersed. And I will gather again in the Tree of Life.

“I don’t know if it will be in a year, or ten, or ten thousand, Anam. But I can feel it happening, even now, ever so slowly. And I don’t think ‘Diyem’ is going to be the one in control.”

As Diyem spoke, Anam’s vision blurred with tears. He didn’t know what to say this time. It was said with such finality, in this strange place, with such confidence…

But what hurt most of all was how Diyem smiled peacefully through it all.

“You can’t smile,” Anam sobbed. “That’s not right. You never smile.”

“I’m already dying,” Diyem answered with a laugh, which once again became a rasping cough. “What harm is a smile?”

“I don’t get it! I-if… if you’re going to disappear, if you’re becoming evil again, that means—”

“There’s still hope.”

Anam gasped. Was this really Diyem? No, it definitely was. Yet… for him to say that. For Diyem to say that, it had to be true.

“The world will heal. The world will forget. But maybe… the world will become a better place on its own. And maybe, whoever confronts me next time, they will find the answer. The way to truly defeat me.

“You did win, Anam. But good never wins forever, and evil never does, either. It is always a struggle. But you, and everyone alive today, you all won that battle. And… for letting me enjoy that victory, that warmth, for seeing your smiling faces, seeing you make the world so beautiful for all those centuries, Anam…”

Diyem never cried, not like this. Not with such a vulnerable smile. The Charizard draped his arms and wings over Anam, who stood there, stunned.

“I can’t express how I feel,” he whispered. “I truly can’t, Anam.”

“Why can’t you…”

“Don’t focus on all the bad that remains. Please, Anam. For me.”

Anam sniffled as a reply.

“Realize how much you’d dispelled. How much more you can do to help,” Diyem went on. “I… I will watch. I will be with you, I’m sure. We’d been together for so long that I’m sure, in some small way, we’ll…”

The sizzling returned, and it was much louder. Diyem pulled away; even like this, he couldn’t take that kind of pain for long.

Yet, he only smiled again, staring at Anam. His eyes were drinking every second he had to simply be there. Anam couldn’t help but do the same.

And finally, Anam found it in him to smile back.

“Did I do well enough?” Anam asked. “Did I make the world better for you?”

Diyem sighed and, as if relenting, nodded. “Not just for me, Anam. It was never just for me.”

“I guess not.” Anam reached for Diyem again, but thought twice about it. Instead, he clasped his own hands together and held them to his chest. The still waters rippled, each little wave larger than the last. The world was shifting. The dream, fading.

“Then for as long as I can, I’ll keep doing it,” Anam resolved. “I’ll make this world ready for your return. Okay?”

Waves became white water. Droplets rose from the ground and formed a fine, obscuring mist. Anam couldn’t see more than ten feet out.

“A good answer,” Diyem said. “One I’d expect from you, Anam.”

Diyem reached for Anam, placing a hand over Anam’s clasped ones. Then, he brought a claw to Anam’s chest. A cold, faint, dull pain spread into his heart, but that was all. Diyem pulled away.

“Do not wait for me, Anam,” Diyem said gently. “Please. Live your life. And when, one day, you meet your end, find a beginning without me. Do not… let my weight keep you chained. Find your path. You and I have already done so much.”

Anam wanted to object. Yet, some tiny, tiny part of him understood what Diyem meant.

So, he hoped Diyem understood when he replied, “But I’ll check now and then anyway. And… a-and when this is all over, when you’re beaten for real… f-find me! Okay?! You better!”

Diyem laughed loudly, a single defiant roar of a laugh. He managed to suppress his cough. “You’ve grown a spine!” he declared. “Good. You can keep it.”

His wings folded down. The mist made it hard to see him. Anam couldn’t even see his own hands anymore.

It was getting hard to think.

“Then it’s a deal,” Diyem acquiesced. “One day, I will wake up. Alexander’s will is certainly going to be the dominating force. One of feral destruction, one that only wants oblivion of all. But, in that future, if I am defeated… if I am truly defeated, for good, and that answer to my demise is found… I am sure I will come to my senses.”

Anam was floating. Diyem’s voice felt so distant, yet so clear.

And if I do wake up from that nightmare, Anam, I will remember to say…

The white mist became white light. All other senses dissolved. Anam couldn’t feel his body. The dream slid into its warm end.

Thank you.

<><><>​

The death of a god was surprisingly peaceful.

For quite a while, Owen only drifted in nothingness. It felt like forever, but realistically, he suspected it had only been a minute or so from his perspective.

He took a breath. To his surprise, it worked, or at least, some hollow replica of it worked. He opened his eyes, though that made no difference. He shook his tail. It worked, though he was still weightless. Every movement felt slow, but not labored or tired. It was just… off. Different.

But despite that, he still felt warm. And for a while, he merely closed his eyes and enjoyed that warmth in the void, reflecting on all that had happened. He’d won. That, he knew for sure.

Everyone else was safe.

Movement became easier. He started with his fingers, then his tail and toes. He tried to stand, but that wasn't meaningful here. He beat his wings. That didn’t propel him anywhere. Could he even tell?

But then, he heard faint crying and murmurs. From his current perspective, it was ‘below’ him. With a thought, he descended. There, Star was burying her face into Barky’s back, the two of them looking fine yet faded.

“You’re alive,” Owen said. “…I think.”

Both, startled, gasped. Their eyes met the Charizard’s.

“Owen?!”

“Hey.” Owen tittered, waving at them. “I don’t know how this all works, you know, out in this void, but at least I can see you two…”

“B-but but you’re here, that means…” Star sniffed, rising off Barky’s back. “It means you lost. Even after everything… everything we tried—”

“No, no, I won!” Owen held his hands up placatingly. “I saw it as I was fading away. It’s over! We beat Alexander, and the crazy thing he became afterward, or something, it’s all over!”

“What? But then, why are you here?”

“It was Diyem,” Owen said. “He was resisting Alexander’s takeover. I gave him the final Hand I had… and he destroyed his own core with it.”

At that, Barky was taken aback. “By his own hand,” he whispered.

“Diyem…” Star winced. “Then where’s he in all this? Or, well, what happened?”

Owen looked around. It was hard to tell where anything was. “I don’t know that part. I faded away just as he ripped apart. I think now, Nate’s probably putting everything back together. I think that was my Plan D… or E. Either way, it’s fine. I know it.”

Owen beamed at them. They did not return the expression.

“That’s good, you know,” Owen reminded them.

Star broke down again, burying her face into Barky’s back.

Owen winced. He could only guess why she was like that, but instead looked at Barky for the answer.

“We’re failures, Owen,” Barky finally answered. “I’m happy you were able to save our world. But… we are lost souls now. This is it.” Barky stared at the void, tilting his head upward. “We have no idea which way is ‘closer’ to our world, and which way will send us beyond. If we stay here… we will surely fade all the same. We’re simply too far from Kilo. From the rest of our reality.”

“W-well, we can find our way back!” Owen said.

“Oh, sure,” Star said, slamming her fist into Barky. It had no impact. “Pick a direction! Only three-sixty degrees around, and three-sixty degrees up or down! How are our odds?!”

“We don’t even know if our problem is directional,” Barky murmured. “This could be a true void. One where we drift until we’re found…”

The Charizard winced again. Right, when she phrased it like that, it was hard to put it all to chance. Maybe that was why they’d been so paralyzed to go anywhere at all.

“It will be a Lockout,” Barky said. “Maybe they’ll forget about us and assume they saved the world on their own. We don’t know what a Lockout truly does in Kilo, do we? It never happened. We’d never implemented a way for that to happen in this world. What happens if it somehow does would be… undefined behavior. And usually, when that happens, a universe will just try to make it as if that never happened. As if we never existed. Or they’ll assume we all went missing, like what happened to Quartz in the human world.”

“Maybe it’s better that way,” Star sniffled. “We’ll go away. They’ll forget about us until maybe they die, and they wonder, and maybe they’ll know about us after they leave… But you know h-how that is. Enough time passes, and… we won’t be the same. They won’t be the same. It won’t matter…”

“Guys…” Owen turned his head away.

“Don’t you ‘guys’ me,” Star said. “When I was alone out here, I thought maybe I deserved it. When Barky showed up next, I knew I deserved it. Alexander’s rise to power… Eon and I fighting Barky, all because we forgot the original conflict… Us getting Necrozma and Hecto in this mess…

“We never should have become gods.”

Owen flinched. “Never… become gods?” he asked.

Barky sighed sadly. “…The life cycle of a soul is a very… dynamic thing,” he said. “You’re still young, Owen. You are still in your infancy. Still your first life, even if it’s a lot longer than average. But after we died, a long, long time ago… we came to terms with our first lives. Our first, mortal lives, just like you.

“To be honest, it’s blurry. It’s been too long. And I don’t think the body I have now, in this world, can remember all that happened so long ago. Yes, even as a god.”

“You… used to be mortal?” Owen asked.

“Nearly everyone has,” Barky said. “It’s the life cycle. You’re born, created, you ‘start,’ and then you learn. You die. And maybe you choose to live again, or explore other worlds meant for the dead, in the Overworld. Or…”

Star sniffled. She was calmer. “Or you try to make a world yourself. S-something that we studied for. We tried to be responsible. We tried to do it right. Even worked off a tried-and-true template.”

“But we were mortal once. And we can’t shed the flaws that come with it.” Barky looked at Owen with more humility and apology in his eyes than he’d ever seen before. “I only wish I’d remembered, or realized, all of this before. But upon becoming this world’s god, I’d… I’d deluded myself into thinking that’s how I’d always been.”

“It’s an okay practice,” Star murmured. “Thinking you’re an immortal god and not some… some poser helps you act the part better. Helps you run a world better. Me, all my mortal flaws that I kept… ugh, God, that was what started all of this in the first place!”

“I… I don’t know what to say,” Owen said. “Only that… it makes sense.”

A flicker of Barky’s pride returned. He gave Owen an incredulous, insulted stare, but then quickly hid it by looking away. Star didn’t react, at least not openly. But Owen Perceived her tension.

“A lot of people on Kilo idolized you two,” Owen said. “I mean, I didn’t really, you know, believe in you for a while, when I lost my memories. But I know a lot of them turned your ideals into those books. Mew, for freedom and self-determination. Arceus, for duty and collective well-being. But… those really were just personalities you had as mortals, right? Or some echo of it. You were still… flawed people, just like the people you created.”

Owen tentatively drifted closer. Neither backed away. He gently placed a hand on Star’s back, and then, after checking if it was okay, sat atop Barky, and set Star on his lap.

“And I think about all the people who wanted to rule Kilo instead of you. Alexander, who wanted power for power’s sake. Turn us into puppets to be his soldiers. Nevren, who wanted control, and would’ve tried to take away all our wills to do it, if he wanted. Eon, who… well, I don’t think he had a vision at all. He just wanted change, and… and wanted me back.

“Star, you just wanted to fix things. Maybe it was for your own pride, or your guilt, but you had guilt. Barky, you were selfish, you had such an ego that you could not be wrong, could not be defied, but… I don’t remember you ever overwriting anyone’s will. Sure, you had Divine Promises. You had the Guardians. But… neither of you forced your wills onto people in the way Alexander or Nevren might have.”

Star sniffed. “Except when I took over your Core,” she admitted.

“Er… right, well… that was… I think that was intended to be temporary, right?”

“Yeah.” Star nodded. “It was. But I still don’t like that I did it. I… I really put everything backward when I tried, didn’t I?”

“And,” Barky grumbled, “when I tried to take your powers by force when I saw hints of you distrusting me again. In a dream, without giving you all the information.”

Owen needed a moment to recall that time. It felt like nearly a decade ago, but had it only been last summer? Barely a year…

Well, longer, thanks to his extra time in the human world.

“And also the whole thing with Eon trying to make you a weapon, and I greenlit it,” Star added, wiping her eyes. “That was kinda messed up.”

“Okay, okay.” Owen held up his hands. “I get your point. You all messed up. Like I did. What I’m trying to say is… you recognize that. And now that you don’t have divine power anymore, why not… go back and own up to it?”

He saw the reluctance in their eyes.

“Or are you just gonna run away while we move on?” he said. “Trying to… get away with it, thinking we’ll forget about you?”

Another wince.

“Do you think that’ll work out for you?” Owen asked. “Even if we forget, you won’t. And those memories will be forever.” He spoke more firmly this time, finding his momentum. “And I think you know by now that the biggest punishment you can put on a soul is regret. You can’t go back and try again. You can only go forward.”

“Regret leaving, huh?” Star murmured. “What do you think?” she looked up at Barky. Rather than reluctance, she now seemed conflicted.

“I… don’t know,” Barky said. “I don’t know where I’d belong in my own world. How am I supposed to move forward with that?”

“Yet, you aren’t trying to leave,” Owen said.

Barky’s gaze trailed down.

“You can try again. Less power, less divinity. Maybe… trust mortals more. I don’t know what the world will do about you if you return, but we can take it from there, right?”

Barky scoffed. “A vague assurance. But that’s always how you operated when you had no information. Not very becoming of a tactician.”

“When you don’t have information, you can only hope, and prepare,” Owen countered. “Star?”

The Mew looked down as well, playing with Barky’s fur.

“How do we even go back?” she finally asked. “This is nice and all, but we’re floating in a void, Owen. With no way to tell which way to go.” She curled until her knees were against her chest. Her long, long tail curled around her body three times over. “Even if I wanted to go back, how would we? Just pick a direction and go? You really think that’s enough?”

It was better than nothing, but Owen agreed. He’d done everything before with at least some plan, some contingency. To put it all on blind hope now wasn’t right.

Tap, tap, tap. Owen felt something on his chest when he leaned back. Yet, when he felt for it, nothing was there.

Remember, a voice whispered like a warm campfire, follow me.

Owen held his chest and closed his eyes. It was a void, so it was hard to tell, but his Perceive still worked at the edge of existence.

That meant his other powers might, too.

Found you, Owen called back.

“I know the way,” Owen said, holding something invisible below his neck.

“Huh?”

“Follow me, okay?” Owen asked.

Star frowned. Barky straightened his stance.

“I trust you,” he said. “Star?”

“Oh, uh—sure. Okay.”

It was faint, ever so faint, but in the empty void, it was like a candle in the dark.

Owen tilted upward about halfway from his original position, and then turned left a third-rotation’s worth. He moved forward, following the trail…

They hadn’t realized it until then, but it had been getting ever slowly colder. As they followed Owen through the void, minute by minute, hour by hour, that cold was slowly replaced by the faint warmth of a rising sun.

<><><>​

A gentle breeze flowed through Sera’s mane as she stood atop Hot Spot’s hills.

The horizon was so much further, now. She could see the whole of Kilo Mountain stretching to the left and right, as well as the spire that had been formed from Necrozma’s assistance during the great time barrier.

Winter was melting completely into spring. Over about a moon, confusion and relief had given way to clarity and energy.

The first thing many people did was cry, sigh, and marvel at the miracle they’d seen. It was a nightmare that got hazy near the end, but those who had the dream remembered the same vivid details. They remembered fighting and falling into a great darkness, and they remembered rifts in a strange facsimile of their home ripping open, and a strange Charizard fighting on the other side.

The past half-moon led to rescue squads forming up to trek into all parts of Kilo to find everyone who had been lost and scattered. Kilo Village itself only seemed to have people who lived there. Everyone else who had been rescued from other parts of Kilo were not in the village.

But as the Hearts had fanned out, a pattern had emerged. Everyone had woken up where they lived the most.

“Oi!”

A speedy Flygon spiraled out from Hot Spot and landed next to Sera, kicking stray blades of grass into her ghostly mane.

“Ugh, whaaat?” she complained.

“Yer nappin’ too long! We gotta go on another scoutin’ trip!”

Sera groaned and sat up, running her claws through her mane to pick out a few stray twigs. She blinked and pulled out, next, a whole Fletchling, who chirped angrily at being disturbed.

“Go away,” she said gently in feral.

The Fletchling flew away once Sera let go.

“How long were you asleep?” Gahi asked, incredulous.

“I dunno, just a nap. Feral Pokémon like snuggling up to me, I guess.”

She hopped up and stretched, losing her balance. She fell into Gahi’s arms, who pushed her back to her feet.

“Yeah, well,” Gahi said, “nap time’s over, yeah? Time fer another exploration. Got an assignment fer us at the Hearts. The others’re already headin’ over.”

He turned around and bent down. Sera hopped onto Gahi’s back with practiced ease.

Soon, Gahi took off with Sera, picking up a few others along the way. They spotted Mu gathering fruits with Amia and got them both. Shortly after, they spotted Demitri and Mispy on their way to the restored Hearts HQ.

They landed in town.

The central spire still obscured most of the main teleportation platform, not that it was functional anymore. Buildings had been partially rebuilt, and some of their walls had warped in strange ways. Most of the residents resigned themselves to accepting this rather than unbend and unwarp them. The ground had cracks that weren’t there before. Tremors happened more frequently.

It didn’t take long for Palkia and other scientists to determine that Kilo itself was falling apart—on a geological level, and rapidly. They had “only” a few decades to enjoy it as a singular landmass. In time, new volcanoes would sprout from different parts of the island, eventually forming into an ever-disparate archipelago in the vast ocean.

And vast was an understatement. Palkia assumed the world was still a sphere—and, reasonably, that seemed to be the case—and calculated its size from its new, much greater horizon line at sea level. And according to that, the planet they had awoken to had ballooned to a size not even Gahi could fly across in a day.

Finally, they landed at the top of the stairs at Heart HQ. Within, the walls lost much of their detail, becoming only a solid lavender interior with strips of red. All the papers and documentation they used to have were gone, replaced instead with blank papers to be filled once more.

Some already were. The map of Kilo had been preserved in Anam’s office. There, the Goodra sat in the back of his room in his little indoor lake. In the middle of his chest was a great, black heart-shaped mark that felt cold to even look at. Despite this, though, the Goodra smiled often.

“Sera!” Anam spread his arms for a distanced hug.

Sera humored him and returned the gesture.

“And Anam and Gahi! Thanks for coming!”

“Yeah, that’s everyone,” Gahi said.

A few familiar faces had returned from their recent expeditions into Kilo. Zena had arrived, along with Hakk, Mew Eon, and Mhynt, and the rest of Team Alloy. Save, of course, for Owen, who was still missing along with Star and Barky.

Also in the room was Jerry, sitting against the wall and looking over some notes. With one set of wing claws, he scribbled something down and passed it to another Pokémon, who took it out of the office to send somewhere else in the facility.

“This is… a peculiar set of people,” Sera said with a frown, glancing behind her to nod at Amia. “Lots of people who were close to…”

“Does that mean we found him?” Amia asked nervously.

Zena tensed, but then took a breath. “Anam says it’s only a familiar energy signature. Not any guarantees,” she said. “But it also happens to be along the way to another village we’ve yet to return to, so it’s a good spot to go regardless. He’s sending us out to investigate. If anybody can spot him, we can.”

Zena’s feather-tail fanned out and compressed. Even though she’d lost her Guardian powers, she kept faint echoes of her aura sense, and much of her old strength. That was the case for all Guardians, Sera included. They didn’t know where the power went, only that nobody seemed to have it anymore.

“Mhm. So, do you guys want to go?” Anam asked. “It won’t be long. And, Zena, you…”

Zena shook her head. “I’m really fine. You don’t need to worry about me. I’ll go, but I won’t get my hopes up.”

Mhynt eyed her skeptically. “I have to ask,” the Treecko said. “I don’t mean to do it so publicly, but… how do you… stay so calm about losing Owen? If we were still that close, I’d… be devastated. In some ways, maybe I still am…”

But the Milotic didn’t look offended. “Owen was happy as he faded away,” she said. “The Overseers can’t find him. It means he must still be somewhere, perhaps sealed away, perhaps… lost. But he did what he wanted to, and I know he doesn’t regret it. Even if I won’t see him again… even if we change so much by the time we do, that we’d be different people… I’ll be happy for him.

“Besides, he’d be very upset if I wallowed in loneliness again the moment he disappeared.” Zena giggled. “Maybe he can hear me right now. Wouldn’t that be cruel, suffering alone, and he can only watch?”

“Looks like his overthinking rubbed off on you,” Hakk said. “Well, whatever. Good for you, I guess.”

Mhynt absently leaned against Hakk, looking thoughtful. “Sorry for asking. I was just… worried you were bottling something up.”

Anam hummed, hand to the black heart on his chest. “It’s okay, Mhynt.”

“We’ll find him,” Mispy said. Then, nudging Demitri, she whispered something.

“Oh, that’s true,” Demitri said. “You know, he can’t be nowhere, right? And if the Overseers have a good look at what’s beyond here, then they’re either in that human world, or they’re just waiting for us to find them again. That’s the running theory, right?”

“Been hearing that one for a while from everyone,” Jerry grumbled. “Just scour the land! We’ll find ‘em eventually. And hopefully they aren’t on the rest of the planet that suddenly popped up, either.”

“Hey, how did that happen?” Sera asked. “You were the only one who witnessed it. You still won’t talk about it?”

“It’s like I said!” Jerry stopped writing and glared at her. “I was flying around, my wings were getting tired, and the whole sky was lit up with gold. Spirits just flying down and around aimlessly. Then the giant Tree started glowing, weird stuff happened, and I found a patch of land that wasn’t on fire. D’you have any idea how exhausted I was after all that ‘the floor is lava’ flying during Owen’s fight?”

“And then you fell asleep… and woke up with a pile of berries in front of you,” Mhynt summarized. “A shame Reshiram’s truth sense isn’t as strong anymore, or I’d see if that’s really what happened.”

“Oh, so now I’m a liar!” Jerry raised his wings in the air.

“Not a liar. It’s just very fantastical without understanding how you survived.” She smirked. “I guess I’m jealous. Out of everyone in the whole world, you were the only person to never die.”

Jerry huffed. “Came close a few times… Was just a head. Maybe I deserve life.”

“Who knows?” Mhynt glanced at Zena. “Maybe Owen loved Jerry more than anyone else.”

“Ohh no, do not sic her on me,” Jerry said, glancing uneasily at Zena.

“Oh boy.” Mu sighed. “I’m gonna go ahead before this gets ugly.” She could still warp around Kilo—though, it seemed she couldn’t go beyond it. She vanished moments later, likely to scout the area on her own.

Zena curled her ribbons into cylinders. “Then I guess I’ll have to compete with you upon his return,” she said. “It’s only fair, isn’t it? You took advantage of your element against Owen, so I should do the same against you.”

“Oh, come on! That was like, a whole world ago!” Jerry protested.

Mispy laughed, followed by a few others, as they planned for another expedition. Spirits were high; Sera felt at ease. Even if Owen, Star, and Barky were all missing… it was going to be okay.

Though… she did still miss him. And that would never go away.

Will we find you this time… Dad?

<><><>​

“It’s kinda crazy how good Angelo’s memory is.” Sera flipped through several comic books that had been stacked and slipped into bags while she sat atop Giratina’s back.

“I think it’s ‘kinda crazy’ how I’ve been reduced to a supply carrier,” Giratina said.

“Hey, most Guardians lost flight!” Sera said, leaning back to relax. “Including me. These wings hardly work, and I’m still trying to get a handle on Void Shadowing again. And, you know, probably something I oughta avoid.”

Dialga and Palkia ferried the rest of the team through the skies. By now, it was close to evening. It was strange how the sun worked. The edges of Kilo used to be a whole section of the day apart. Now, everyone experienced the same amount of light at the same time, no matter where on Kilo they were. Was that what a larger world meant? It was like magic to Sera.

“Would be nice if you still had your warping power,” Sera added, glancing at Palkia.

“Oh, it would, wouldn’t it?” Palkia said with a faux-dramatic sigh. “I could always teleport us a mile forward, if you like. You’ll only need to afford me a moment to vomit afterward.”

“Yeah, yeah, I get it.”

“No need to complain.” Dialga leaned forward. Demitri was squeezing Mispy as if that would help him not fall off. “We’re nearly there.”

The green plains got closer and closer. To the north was Trina’s old place, where she and many other mutants made their homes once again. When they were revived, they seemed sane again—merely more battle-hungry than the average person. Battlehearts were already common, though; they blended in well. Gahi was staring at the forest thoughtfully.

“Gonna visit again?” Sera snarked.

“Sh-shattap!” Gahi protested back.

Sera raised her arms, smirking.

Below them was another small town, buildings half-warped and twisted in the curved streets. It didn’t look like that before.

“Man, everything’s still Dungeon-warped,” Sera said. “The further out you go, the stranger it becomes. I sure hope the ‘lands beyond the sea’ aren’t all twisted…”

“Something to discover later, I suppose,” Palkia said. “Oh, I’m so excited to see what awaits us beyond our small island! It’s a whole world to explore! A true, planet-sized world!”

“One thing at a time, Palkia,” Dialga said gently.

They made landfall. Sera sniffed around and looked to the others as they dismounted. Out of everyone, Zena was making a beeline for one of the buildings.

“Uh, Zena?” Sera called, running after her.

The others fanned out to check on the inhabitants. Already, several curious Pokémon were coming out to inquire, leaving most on information duty to tell everyone about what happened when the world reformed.

But Zena entered one of the empty buildings. Seeing nobody there, she glanced up and slithered to the rooftop. Sera hopped and followed her.

“Oh!”

And waiting for them was Mu, sitting down with a scarf in her hands.

“Sis?” Sera asked quietly.

“This is his,” Mu whispered.

That pink scarf… It was faded now, but Sera recognized it instantly. Owen had worn it during the battle against Kilo.

“Oh, Mu…”

“Where is he?” Mu hissed, twisting the scarf. “I looked everywhere for him. Is he… is he out there, in that big world? I can’t warp there. I can only warp around in Kilo. What am I supposed to do?”

Sera glanced nervously at Zena, who now had a more pensive look. And, for once, Sera saw genuine hurt in the Milotic’s eyes. Sure, Zena was fine without Owen, but… of course she would miss him, too.

Part of her wanted to tell Zena it was okay to show some emotion about it. The other, though…

“Sis, it’s… it’s gonna be okay. You’ll see him again someday, right?” she asked. “And even if not, you… you gotta be happy for him. He gave us this whole world. How can we be sad about that, right?”

“Because he’s not here!” Mu snapped, glaring at Sera. There were no tears. Her mouth was dry. She must have been on the roof for a while… “Stop all these stupid ‘it’ll be okay’ lines! You guys may have lost your powers, but I know you’re all hurting!”

The ghostly Zoroark had no counter.

Zena stared at the village to find something else to distract her.

“It’s not fair,” Mu said. “He did everything for this world. Sure, he messed up, and things got bad because of it, but if he didn’t… wouldn’t everyone have just died?! He was just keeping us alive! I wouldn’t be born if it wasn’t for him!”

She hugged the scarf to her chest.

“I didn’t even get to thank him. For raising me, taking care of me… Even if I was born from Dark Matter, he still just…”

Mu snapped her head to Zena.

“How can… how can you be so calm about this? You were always mad, always upset, about… about unfair things, about the gods making decisions mortals should’ve made on their own, not be pushed around by divine rules. So how is this fair?! Huh? Some rule the gods made is why Dad’s gone!”

“H-hey, Sis, c’mon. He’ll be back,” Sera assured her.

“It’s already been too long,” Mu snapped back. “I don’t know where all that divine power went, but I’m glad none of the gods have it! Because they’ll just make another dumb rule, and…”

She squeezed the scarf so tightly that absorbed tears leaked from it.

“I just wish he was back.”

The wind blew. Treetops danced slowly all around the small village.

“I wish you wouldn’t keep it all bottled up,” Mu said. “I’m afraid that if one day, someone really disappears, it’ll just… be numb. That nobody will react, they’ll all say, oh, he was ready, oh, it was their time to go. No! That’s not fine! People need to be sad, angry! He deserves people getting angry about what happened to him! I don’t…”

Zena slithered close to Mu, picking her up in her ribbons. Mu held the scarf close, while Zena held Mu closer.

“Just be sad. Just… be honest,” Mu begged. “I don’t understand how you go on with your smiles and blank faces…”

Sera took a seat at the edge of the rooftop, looking at the sky. It was so bright, not a single cloud or distortion. She remembered when the sun scared her. That fear was gone now. It hadn’t been very long, yet the Voidlands and its reddish purple clouds were a distant memory. Was that another blessing of the new world?

“If things were different,” Zena said gently, “maybe I would be upset. Crying, shouting at the heavens for what they did to a world’s hero. But… I know better. I didn’t realize you couldn’t feel what I did. Owen’s coming back. He feels… closer every day.”

“You just say that to feel better,” Mu muttered.

“No, Mu. I really do. I’m not that hopeless.” Zena gently set Mu down again. “It’s a deeper feeling. But I know he’s coming. Sera… don’t you?”

“Uh, not really,” Sera admitted bluntly. “But my connection to him is… it’s sorta weaker. I only recently got to know him again. You’re more recent.”

Sera glanced down at the village below. She spotted Mhynt exiting a resident’s house, waving at the occupants as they thanked her.

“Hey, Mhynt!” Sera called. “You feel Owen getting, like, closer every day, or some poetic stuff like that?”

“Is that the feeling?” Mhynt asked. The Treecko kicked off the ground and landed, in one bound, next to Sera on the roof. “Not specifically. But I did have this… poetic feeling that I shouldn’t be worried.”

She glanced at Mu, who seemed equal parts confused and skeptical.

Zena gently held the Charmander’s shoulders with her ribbons. “Mu, don’t forget… you’re partly Dark Matter. You may not notice this subtle hope.”

“Don’t give me that,” Mu growled. “I… I can feel good vibes just fine!”

“But you can only feel our hurt, is that right?” Mhynt tested. “Unlike most of us… you retained your powers. And that might mean you also retained its side effects, the same ones Diyem had.”

Mu sighed irritably again.

“Okay then. How close does he feel now?” Mu asked. “Is he gonna just… fall from the sky right now, making me look like an idiot?”

Another wind blew.

Zena and Mhynt both turned their heads to the sky in the same direction. Sera did the same a moment later, though she didn’t see anything.

“…I guess not,” Zena said, followed by a sudden giggle.

“Don’t do that!” Mu pounded her fists against Zena’s scaly body, doing no damage. “I thought I was gonna be an idiot!”

“Too late for that.” Sera smirked. When Mu threw a rock at Sera, it went straight past her and into the illusion she’d conjured to offset her position.

“Okay, then explain why you both looked at the same spot!” Mu demanded.

“It’s where I feel him,” Zena explained.

“It’s a literal direction?” Sera asked. “Wait… Hang on! Can’t you do some math stuff to figure out how close he is if you take where you feel him from different spots, or something?”

“Triangulation,” Mhynt confirmed. “You know, we could do that.”

“What? We can get numbers on this thing?!” Mu hopped to her feet as Zena gazed at the sky again, tilting her head. “Who’s the biggest nerd in the world? We can have him measure the—hey, PALKIA!” Mu sprinted off the roof, landing with a tumble, and ran toward the Spacekeeper just down the road.

Mhynt chuckled. “That was very clever, Zena,” she said. “Just giving her that hope…”

“Yeah, uh, I guess it can help buy some time,” Sera said. “But Palkia’s not exactly good at lying. You’ll want to tell him to be in on it for his sake… until they find Owen.”

Mhynt nodded. “I don’t doubt he’ll return. But I have no idea when, or how…”

Zena blinked, her serene smile suddenly becoming one of polite confusion. “I wasn’t lying,” she said. “Mhynt, you were looking in the same direction. I thought you felt him, too?”

“I caught your signal and played along,” Mhynt replied. “I have good intuition.”

Zena stared at them all, then at the sky again. But then, the sea serpent’s posture rose significantly as if something alarmed her.

“Zena?” Sera asked.

Far away, the outline of the Tree of Life glowed faintly brighter with prismatic light.

Zena’s gaze slowly followed something invisible high in the sky. Down, down, down—

A pillar of light erupted from the earth, only a few hundred feet away from town. Immediately after, two other columns erupted beside it. Shockwaves of wind toppled Sera off the roof, landing roughly in the village streets.

“Oh, come on!” Mu shouted from afar.

Just can’t be satisfied, huh, Sis? Sera dusted herself off. The others were already running to the impact site.

Past a few trees, over a small hill, and finally into a clearing, Sera met up with the others. Even Mu managed to make it despite her stature.

Three Pokémon sat in the glade, awash with golden light that peeled off their bodies in golden spheres. Soon, those lights faded, and the wind died down.

Arceus. Mew. Charmander. The former two were unconscious, as if still in a long slumber. The Charmander was rubbing his head, sitting up groggily.

“Owen?” Zena whispered. Sera didn’t dare speak.

The Charmander saw something on the ground. Curious, he picked it out of the grass. It was a necklace with a claw as its charm. As he picked it up, the claw disintegrated. The Charmander stared at it for a few seconds and then smiled fondly. He whispered a thank you to a feral name she didn’t recognize.

Mew and Arceus stirred faintly. They were fine, but still totally out.

Finally, Charmander noticed them. He stared at them all with a confused, blank expression.

“Oh, Owen, don’t joke,” Zena begged. “Not amnesia again. Please.”

His blank expression held for a few more seconds. Then, he cracked a smile. “Oh, alright.” He stood up, looking at his claws with a faint frown.

Mu threw a rock at his face. Owen crossed his arms. A Protect didn’t form, and the rock shattered on his nose, giving him a nosebleed.

He staggered back and sneezed blood. “Guess I deserved that one,” he said. But the annoyance was short-lived. Covered with blood yet smiling through it, he said, “Glad to be back, guys…”

Mu cried out, tackling him to the ground. The others closed in shortly after, and Sera joined them.

It was quiet, but Zena finally let her tears flow. Relief and joy cascaded over pent-up sorrow. Sera didn’t need to read emotions to tell.

If only because, through blurred vision, she felt the same way.

 

[Namohysip]

Finale ~ Part 5 – Countless​

“Okay, you two. I think we’ve had enough tears.”

“But… you’re the one crying.”

“Yeah, well… I know how you feel, too. But, please… reach out to the Worldcore.”

“Huh? What for?”

“I’m going to seal your memories of this conversation. Just for a little while.”

“Owen…”

“Tomorrow’s a big party. I want you to enjoy it.”

Silence.

Then, “Thank you, Owen.”

<><><>​

A great Goodra with a black heart-shaped mark on his chest walked toward the Tree of Life. The black mark felt colder as he approached, residual feelings of quiet guilt coming from some faraway place. Beside him was a Charizard with a rainbow flame: Owen, the Emissary of the Worldcore. He had evolved quickly over the months as the Worldcore’s power diffused into him as he’d interfaced with it.

Not even Owen seemed to fully understand, or disclose, his true relation to the world. Anam didn’t want to pry. The world had been saved, Owen was happy, and so Anam was happy for him.

Still…

“So, um,” Anam said, “why did you want me to come here?”

“I had a surprise for you,” Owen said. “I was nearly done with looking into the future for some preparations. But while I was doing that, I had some side projects that I wanted to finish. And this one was for you.”

“A side project, huh? But… I’m not even gonna be here that much longer,” he said. “The boat’s almost ready!”

“I hope you’re going to the going-away party,” Owen reminded.

“I am! I mean, I was, until… um, this.”

“Oh, right. Sorry.” Owen tittered. “Guess a lot of things are all coming up really fast. I’ve been talking to a lot of people lately…”

“You know, you’ve been really busy,” Anam agreed. “You’d think after the world was saved, you’d get to relax some…”

“Soon,” Owen promised. “I just didn’t want my checks on the Worldcore to be put off. Dark Matter could return in a year or in ten thousand, but I wanted to know for sure.”

“And… you can’t tell us,” Anam said.

Owen shook his head. “I need to be careful what I say and how I say it. Things like that can influence the future I saw. The ‘future’ I see is just a simulation of ‘what could happen’ if I never checked.”

“Mhm, I remember.” Anam nodded. “Which means, even looking at it at all risks changing it. For better or worse. Just like when you saw into the future for Alexander, right?”

Owen’s expression faintly darkened, but that was all. He still didn’t like talking about him, even after the tyrant’s hollow, mindless soul had been harvested by the Overseers and taken away.

“Sorry,” Anam said.

“Huh? Oh—no, it’s okay. Anyway, c’mon. I need to show you this!” Owen turned around, picking up the pace.

They soon entered the Worldcore’s chamber beneath the Tree of Life. As Anam entered it, he felt a strange resonance from the ball of light at the tree’s base.

“What’s this… feeling?” Anam mumbled.

“Oh, good, so it worked,” Owen sighed. “I was about to ask you if it looked pretty as a cover in case I messed it up.”

A fragment of the Worldcore flaked off the sphere, falling in front of Anam. It congealed and twisted into the shape of a little black blob. Quickly, a purple cloth covered its body with haphazardly drawn eyes. A Goomy disguise…

“NATE!” Anam cried. He plucked him off the ground and pulled him into a tight hug, spinning round and around. Nate pressed against Anam as well, black tendrils thinly wrapping around his body in a hug.

I missed you.

“Oh! You’re talking like the Unown again,” Anam said. “You must still be part of the Worldcore, like, um, fully…”

I can only exist with your will. Once you leave, I’ll become the Worldcore again. But don’t worry. Seeing you is nice, but… I don’t regret becoming what I used to be. Sapience was nice, but I think I need a break from it for a while…

“I don’t really know how you can think that way,” Anam admitted, placing Nate on the ground. “But… but I’m glad you’re glad. Maybe we’re just different spirits after all.”

Owen nodded. “I happened to find where ‘Nate’ was as part of the Worldcore’s spirit. But it could only ‘wake up’ if it was around someone who wanted to see that part again. The Worldcore runs on wishes and the desires of Pokémon… and now that the Hands of Creation were diffused into the world, everyone can, in their little way, tap into the Worldcore.”

The Charizard stared at it, looking wistful. Pensive.

“People are going to make miracles happen with that, one day,” he murmured.

“What?” Anam asked.

“Oh, sorry. I was talking to myself again.”

Anam giggled. “You do that a lot.”

“I should probably stop, or I’ll look even crazier.” Owen scratched the back of his head.

For some time, Owen tended to the Worldcore, doing some final checks and finishing touches, though he’d been doing that for a few days to pass the time until holiday celebrations were over. He didn’t want to give any news just yet.

“I’m still so happy to see you again,” Anam whispered. “It—it’ll be a while before I can visit again. Are you okay with… um, not being ‘Nate’ for a while?”

I don’t mind. I’m only this Nate for you. It’s not the same with anyone else.

Anam tittered. “I don’t really know what that means, but if you’re happy, that’s all that matters,” he said.

“I wanted to make sure I could manifest you for Anam before he left,” Owen said. “Everything’s ready, right?”

“Yep.” Anam sighed. “Fliers came back and confirmed a landmass to the north that’s full of water. I think I’d do well there as a first stop. And maybe we can leave some hope against Dark Matter there, too.”

“You know, I’ve never been on a ‘ship’ before. I think those were only made by crazy hobbyists before. Not like there was anything out there to take a boat to.” Owen thumped his tail on the ground. “Even in the human world, I mostly went in big, metal birds whose wings didn’t move.”

“I’m so excited!” Anam wiggled his arms near his chest. “Will you be coming with us?”

“Mm… maybe not,” Owen admitted. “I think I want to take a break from… everything for a while. Who knows? Maybe I’ll pick up berry farming like Dad always wanted.”

“Aw, well, that’s just as good,” Anam said. “…Okay. Let’s go to the party. And um, Nate… Thanks for manifesting again.”

Nate beamed in reply, then disappeared into the Worldcore. Owen felt a small wave of contentment radiate from its luminous presence. Then, it gently drifted away to calm slumber.

“…You really do make him happy, Anam,” Owen said. “One day, I think that compassion is going to be passed along to someone who needs another miracle.”

Anam giggled, “Thanks. But, um, can I still talk to the Worldcore for a little bit?”

“You, er, won’t be able to do much without me, and I want to head to the party…”

“I know. I just wanted to make sure Nate—as the Worldcore—still felt… loved. Not just ‘Nate,’ but all of Nate.”

Owen smiled faintly. “When you’re ready, call out to Alex; he’s always around. He can help you get back to Kilo Village quickly. What should I save for you at the party?”

“The Ludicolo Pecha Cobbler!” Anam cheered.

Owen laughed, spreading his wings. “Alright. I’ll see you.” And when he crouched to fly… he disappeared.

Anam settled against the edge of the Worldcore chamber, smiling at the great sphere. In some small way, the way the Worldcore’s stars twinkled felt like a smile back.

<><><>​

A whole world away, a single connection remained to the world of humans and Pokémon. Palkia sat on a chair far too small for him. A receptionist at the front desk offered the occasional warm smile to Palkia, as if he were somehow not the strangest thing to walk into the office. Distantly, Palkia heard Pokémon outside sparring, and the whirrs of laboratory equipment and humans discussing test results and lab procedures.

Palkia quietly read the newspaper and requested some archives. He already knew that Quartz Isle had been completely removed from the knowledge sphere of humanity. Everyone who’d died there was assumed missing. One of the greatest tragedies of the world, and one that could hopefully be repaired…

There were also more recent stories of certain powerful trainers talking about a curious black-and-white energy, hard to contain and control except for the most talented trainers. Apparently, the power was fading with no sign of preserving the phenomena beyond brief, fleeting studies. Palkia wondered if Owen had intentionally only planted hints of that energy for that purpose. For the best. Chaos energy need not be harnessed.

The glass door to Pokémon HQ Lab slid open. A Charizard with a prismatic flame entered.

“Hello!” greeted the receptionist. “You must be with Palkia.”

“Uh, yes. Thank you,” Owen said, then awkwardly marched to Palkia.

“You could have been more discreet about this,” Owen muttered.

“Ah, my apologies. I thought that tearing a rift through the dimensions was the baseline,” Palkia said, looking out the window where a gaping rip in spacetime warped the light.

“Well, I plan on cutting it off after this is done,” Owen said. “But… I hope this is what you want, Palkia. Are you sure?”

“Just one conversation. It’s all I will need to tie up some loose ends,” Palkia explained.

“…Okay. I’ll trust you.”

“Thank you.”

A few minutes later, the elevator down the hall opened. A middle-aged woman with graying hair, a man with red spikey hair, and a woman with long blue hair approached. The man with spikey red hair stared in awe at Palkia. The woman with blue hair shared the same expression.

“My goodness… the Legendary Pokémon of space?” asked the blue-haired woman. “And… you can talk?”

“Ah, yes. Hello,” Palkia greeted, gently placing the newspaper down. “I am visiting from Owen’s world.”

Owen waved sheepishly.

“Oh, Owen!” the graying woman said. “My goodness, you look different! Is your flame okay?”

“Oh, yeah, uh, side effect,” Owen said. “Palkia here is the Palkia of my world, not this one. He wanted to send a message.”

Palkia nodded. “Your name is Lily, yes?”

“Oh, yes.” She nodded. “And this is my son, Michael, and my daughter, Jovi. We all work here at Pokémon HQ lab.”

“Wonderful to see you three,” Palkia replied. “I’ve come to send a message specifically to all of you. It’s about Michael’s namesake—his father.”

Their expressions instantly shifted. Michael and Jovi’s, to curiosity and disbelief. Lily to somberness, but also the light of hope.

Palkia’s chest tightened. This was rare.

“He is well,” Palkia said. “As you know, time has shifted considerably in our world. We were only able to reestablish a connection to this world recently, and it is tenuous. It will close soon. When Owen told him of your lives today, he was relieved that you were able to move on.”

“I… I see,” Lily said, nodding. “It’s been decades. I’m sorry, I don’t know what to say…”

“Do you need a moment?” Palkia asked.

“No, I’m okay,” Lily said.

“I wanna hear more,” Michael surged.

“Yes, yes!” Jovi added. “Is he a super cool assistant now? What Pokémon did he become?!”

“He became an Alakazam!” Palkia cheerily replied.

“Yesss! That fits perfectly!” Jovi said.

“You barely remember him!” Michael protested.

Lily only smiled. “…But… he has moved on, hasn’t he?” she asked.

“I’m afraid so. For us, it has been a very long time. More than centuries. The gap in time between the two of you must be… incomprehensible. And for that, I apologize.”

“I understand,” Lily said, sighing shakily. “I’ve moved on, myself. Decades, you know. And he would hate if I’d let myself drown in sorrow at his loss…”

“Wonderful. I’m sure he will be proud of all of you for that,” Palkia said, smiling. “He is my assistant now, but unfortunately, he would not survive the trip into this reality. The best I could do was send a message on his behalf.”

Lily nodded. “That’s okay. It… feels like I truly got to speak to him one last time,” she whispered, putting a hand to her chest. “It’s strange. I feel lighter…”

“Um, is your heart acting up again?” Jovi asked.

“No, no, I’m fine,” Lily promised.

“Well, tell Dad, thanks for the Eevee!” Michael said. “Oh, and how is Emily? Is she still alive?”

“Oh, Michael!” Lily lightly smacked his shoulder.

“Yes, actually!” Palkia replied, once again with cheer. “We went through quite a bit of changes, due to various divine interventions and the like, but she is happy and well.”

“Good, that’s good,” Lily said.

“Well.” Palkia slapped his knees and stood up to his full height. His head struck the ceiling. He quickly crouched. “…Thank you for your time. That’s all I needed to deliver—ah, we will not be visiting again. But I am happy on his behalf that you are well. Please, live a good life without him. As you have been.”

“…Thank you, Palkia,” Lily said, staring at him for a few more seconds. She looked like she wanted to say something else. There was a look in her eyes. Her smile was warmer than before. Palkia wasn’t sure why. “Take care of yourself.”

What an odd request. “Of course,” Palkia replied.

He slowly walked himself out of the lab.

“…Mom?” Jovi asked, her voice more distant. “What’s wrong?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, Jovi.”

The rest, Palkia would never hear. The door closed.

Owen, silent all that time, followed him. He exhaled softly. “Palkia?” he asked.

“I’m satisfied,” Palkia replied. “We may put the connection to rest.”

“…Okay.”

They stepped through the rift, returning to the Tree of Life. In the dark, as a secret known only to the Worldcore, Palkia silently wept.

<><><>​

Ludicolo Café was hosting a party today, celebrating Trina and Gahi finally “making it official.” The Serperior, dignified as always, had invited all her mutant subjects, while Gahi had brought his immediate friends and family over.

That left Ludicolo Café completely packed with mutants who were told to be on their best behavior.

They did what they could.

Working at double time, the titular Ludicolo and several other Pokémon in the kitchen churned out dishes for many hungry partygoers. The smell of cooked food and sweet drinks filled the air, accompanied by laughter and rowdy jabbering.

On one table, Sera and Mu bet on who could handle the spiciest dish before going for the Rawst smoothie. Mu slathered a burger with Cheri concentrate. Sera countered with a bowl of rice infused with Tamato flakes.

Ultimately, nobody came out a winner.

Nearby, Demitri and Mispy sat with Owen, Amia, and Alex.

“I gotta ask, what made you finally decide to stop courting and call each other mates?”

“I jus’ felt like it!” Gahi replied, puffing out his chest.

Trina sighed, though she smiled. “Yes, he decided this was the day he would ask me officially,” she said. “Maybe it was because Owen finally told him off for trying to see our future together.”

Owen tittered nervously. “Telling you would change it,” he said. “That’s the way the Worldcore works. Besides, that’s a huge waste of energy…”

“Well, either way, we got lots ter thank yeh fer,” Gahi said. “Guess doin’ this part on my own ain’t too bad…”

The Charizard rubbed the back of his head. “It… really wasn’t too much work during the reconstruction.”

“Y’know, what did you do, anyway?” Sera asked. “I don’t think I ever asked.”

“I think it’s more accurate to say,” Trina said with a dramatic pause, “that you didn’t pay attention.”

Sera rolled her eyes.

“It was mostly Nate. It’s been so long, and we’re still sorting out everything,” Owen admitted. “But… I guess the gods losing their power, and all of it going into the world’s energy instead, is the big one. Now, if another crisis comes along, another big superpower or godly opposition… I think it’ll be easier for Pokémon to rise against them and bring order back.”

“Making our reality its own reality helps, too,” Zena added. “Owen, try this.” She offered a sandwich with three meats in between.

While Owen tested the new meal, Zena went on, “I heard that this might be one of our last big celebrations before Anam leaves. I hope he can make it…”

“He’ll be here,” Owen assured them. “He just had to see someone first.”

“There you go, being cryptic again.” Sera sighed. “Look, mister I-See-The-Future, tell us or don’t!”

“Sorry, sorry!” Owen laughed, holding his hands up placatingly. “I guess it’s become a habit. No, it’s just an old friend that he’s seeing. Anam should be here soon.”

Owen’s gaze trailed to the corner of the café. There, an Aerodactyl was hard at work, wearing a party hat while grumbling about the noise. A half-eaten plate of food steamed next to him, while a half-done pile of papers sat center stage.

“And how are you doing, Heart of Hearts?” Owen called.

“Stop calling me that,” Jerry growled. “As soon as the paperwork goes through, I’m abolishing that title.”

“Alright, alright. But you can take a break from paperwork for a day, you know.”

“This ain’t for Kilo. This is all the approvals I got handed for all the outbound ships.” Jerry turned a page, putting the signed paper beneath the rest of the pile. “So while all of you party, I’m hard at work making sure that all goes smoothly.”

“I dunno, just get Hecto to do it for a day!” Mu encouraged. “He loves paperwork! That’s, like, an Overseer thing, isn’t it?”

Jerry didn’t acknowledge her directly, but he did eventually push it aside, adjusted his party hat, and returned to his meal.

“Oh, look at you, all grown up,” Sera cooed.

“Wh—don’t talk to me like I’m your grandson or something!”

“Oh, it’s even better. I’m, like, your ultra-great grandmother, you know.”

Jerry squinted. Then, he tilted his head up, putting some pieces together. His eyes flashed with horror. He stared at his papers again. “Gonna have Uxie erase that one.”

A Smeargle entered Owen’s Perceive range as the party continued to buzz. “Hey, everyone,” Owen raised his voice. “Quiet down a little if you can. Angelo’s coming.”

Respectfully, they did so, and soon, the Smeargle slipped into the café and waved sheepishly.

“Yo, Angelo!” Mu called.

“Ah, h-hello,” Angelo shrank again. ADAM jittered behind him.

“Sudo give me food,” the Porygon-Z requested.

“Hey, that was almost a normal sentence. Good job!” Mu snickered.

The two had become an unlikely duo. With Valle gone, ADAM had been a bit lonely. But perhaps by pure chance, or perhaps a will of fate, he happened upon Angelo as he was recreating lost comics from the Old World’s destruction. ADAM was apparently a master of replicating things, and since long ago he’d apparently memorized every page of Owen’s comic book collection, their combined efforts had restored a great deal of lost media.

But something was off.

“Angelo?” Owen leaned forward. “Did you get shorter?”

Angelo’s hat-fur stood straight up. “A-ah! No! I haven’t changed size at all!”

“…Angelo, what happened?”

Angelo froze. Others murmured, but knew that the chronically nervous Smeargle didn’t want too much attention. They began talking amongst one another, only subtly paying attention as Angelo slid into a seat next to Owen, placing an order for himself and ADAM.

“…It’s Willow,” Angelo confessed.

“Willow?!” Owen blinked. “I haven’t seen her in months!”

“She’s been warping around to avoid you. And everyone. As Hoopa. She—er, they, now, I think? Depends on the day—said something about… wanting to ‘cause problems on purpose.’ But I found that I could appease her by drawing something inappropriate of you all for her every full moon.”

“…And if you don’t, she shrinks you an inch,” Owen guessed.

“She is trouble,” ADAM said firmly. “I have deleted her from my special permissions group.”

“I checked the future about Hoopa, and… Willow is only a small amount of trouble,” Owen assured. “I hope.”

“Please forgive me. If I get too small, I won’t be able to make comic books!”

Owen pinched his brow. “I’ll talk to her,” he said, pinching the hat above Angelo’s head and tugging upward. Worldcore, answer me. Like clay, the Smeargle’s original size was restored.

“Thank you,” Angelo squeaked.

The ground rumbled with the footfalls of some huge creature. It was close enough that the party in the café quieted down enough for everyone to pay attention.

Outside, a Torterra marched up to the Café and stopped. Latias, Latios, and Aster split off from the tree atop his back in multiple directions.

“Reconnection Program Deliveries!” Aster cheerfully called, barging into the bar. He flickered in multiple tables, placing letters in front of people’s plates, before bowing at the entrance and kickflipping onto Forrest’s back. Latios and Latias roosted on his tree. When Forrest moved a little longer, he dissolved into the aether.

Lavender barged in next with a small stack of letters, giving them all to Sera with flourish.

She poked through several of them. “Klent’s doing fine, always good to see him trying to find love in the afterlife… even if he’s a total dork. Aww, look! Papa Luxray learned how to write!” She made several growls as she read through each one, already preparing return writings. Sera had a lot of Reconnection letters thanks to her reincarnation circumstances; it was a wonder how many of them must have awaited her return…

While most who had died at the recent apex of the Hands of Creation’s crisis had the choice to return to help in the New World, or pass on, those long gone remained on the other side of the aura sea. Some, such as James, who walked among the living, also regained mortal lives in Kilo. But, for those who had family alive and dead thanks to the machinations of the great war of gods… a bridging program had been set up for everyone’s sake, at least for a little while.

Hakk sighed and reluctantly opened his letter, reading it over. “Gods, separated for a thousand years and she manages to nag me from beyond the grave,” he muttered. “I wish she—what the, you got a letter?”

“I did,” Mhynt whispered, cutting hers open with a tiny Leaf Blade from her finger. “…Ah! My parents!”

“Hey, congrats!” Owen smiled. “Another reconnection!”

“Man, Aster’s really putting in all the work to find ‘em, huh?” Gahi said with a faint smile. “How long ‘til the rift ter the aura sea closes up, anyway?”

“Well,” Owen said, sighing, “still more than a year, at this rate. Even with the world repaired, Kilo’s remnants were torn apart on… a cosmic scale, I guess you could say. I think even after the rift closes, this part of the world is cleaved beyond the sea. I had to enchant your boats to even get out…”

“Nothing can break in from the Overworld, though, right?” Gahi asked.

“I’m its guardian. I won’t let anything get past from the outside if I can afford it,” Owen assured. “…But while that rift is up, I’m glad people with latent power can traverse the rift to make those connections. It’s only fair, right?”

“Heh, fair. That what we callin’ it?” Gahi mocked. “Jus’ seems like takin’ advantage o’ some luck.”

“Er, well, it’s that.” Owen cleared his throat. “But, well. If a god causes a problem, then gods can stretch their powers a little to fix it. Carefully. That’s not abusing, right?”

“Sure it ain’t.” Gahi jabbed Owen with his elbow.

Demitri and Mispy were reading over their own. Demitri was already writing an essay back, while Mispy seemed satisfied with only a few simple words.

Sera smiled, looking through a few letters she’d gotten. “Seems like every day, we’re getting fewer letters from the recent dead and more from long-gone souls…”

“Yeah, apparently, the ones from way back then were a lot harder to find, and many were dormant or asleep, so they were harder to sort out,” Owen said. “Helps with closure for people who were lost in the Voidlands…”

Gahi leaned against Trina without thinking. “Wonder if I should do some o’ that,” Gahi said. “Kept most o’ m’speed…”

“You just can’t sit still, can you?” Trina said. “Well, unfortunately, you need to be dead to help with that one, Gahi.”

“I could do more deliveries on this side!” Gahi protested. “C’mon, I mean, if I ain’t gonna go ter the world beyond yet, I’m gonna at least fly aroun’ Kilo!”

“You know, why aren’t you flying around the world?” Demitri asked. “That seems… like your thing. You always said you wished Kilo was larger so you could fly more.”

“Well, it’s gonna get larger,” Gahi defended.

“…Scattered,” Mispy reminded.

Even now, bridges had to be built to connect the archipelago that Kilo was rapidly becoming, though those, too, would be temporary at best, and fleeting at worst.

“Yeah, well…” His wing wrapped around Trina. “Found somethin’ I like more.”

“Oh, Gahi…” Demitri looked like he was going to cry.

“Don’t gimme that!” Gahi threw an empty cup at Demitri. Mispy caught and ate it.

“Heh. Well, you guys enjoy that,” Hakk said. “My folks… I didn’t really get along with them, so I’m hoping they don’t write me too much. To be honest, I’d prefer if they didn’t…”

“Yeah, that’s more like it!” Gahi leaned over for a high-five.

Hakk confusedly answered the call.

“Yeah,” Gahi asserted.

Zena quietly wrote on her own, smiling faintly. “Even though I can’t hear them anymore,” she said, “my parents were always an idle little support in my mind as the Water Guardian. They were… quite faded by the time we met, Owen. I think too much time as a Guardian Spirit leaves you in a state of torpor. But they seem to be in much better, er, spirits across the aura sea.”

She folded her letter for delivery.

“I suppose I will miss my old powers,” Trina admitted, shrugging with her vines. “Being mortal again, having to eat and sleep… You couldn’t have left us with a few of those properties?”

“Sorry, I didn’t really know how to plan that out with Nate,” Owen admitted. “The Hands of Creation needed to be distributed evenly across the world, across all life. Legendary Pokémon will still be powerful, but what they were capable of before… and what Dark Matter was able to do by hijacking just a few of them… It was catastrophic. We can’t have that again.

“Besides, you kept some of your power. Your aura remembered a lot of it. You can still probably hypnotize people to calm them down.” Owen nodded, but then glanced at Gahi. “…Why did your heart just flutter?”

“Oi, no breakin’ privacy!” Gahi growled.

Trina chuckled lowly. “Our interests are our own,” she said, wrapping a tail around Gahi’s body.

“Whoaa.” Sera raised her hands, not touching that one. “Alright, Dad, how else are you gonna make this awkward before I go back to the chocolate shop and tell Sugar how weird you are?”

“Well, since you asked,” Owen said with an entertained smirk, “I don’t think anybody should leave until—”

“Ahh, sorry we’re late!”

Blipping into the shop was a Mew, followed shortly by a second Mew.

“We didn’t miss too much of the party, did we?” Eon asked, tittering as he scratched the back of his head. “Star and I were just, uh, you know, training our psychic powers and stuff. You know, me having them again, and her having them a lot weaker…”

“Isn’t Jirachi also psychic?” Mu questioned.

“You’d think that, but the feeling is different,” Eon said.

“Yeah, Mew have way more pure Psychic energy,” Star said, nodding sagely. “I still beat him, though.”

“We’ll see about that,” Eon mumbled.

A wallflower, Celebi Rim flew past the others and smiled at Eon. It was still a little awkward between the two of them, but at least they could smile and put their codependent past behind… For the most part.

Owen understood that well. It was a lot easier to smile with Eon… but it was much harder today. His flame dimmed the longer he stared at Eon and Star, and then looked away when he noticed Demitri eyeing the fire.

The distinct plap of Anam’s slimy footfalls announced his late arrival, too.

“There he is. Finally!” Sera said. “Must’ve really been catching up with your buddy, huh?”

Anam panted, hands on his knees. “Yeah, sorry,” he said. “Oh! That smells really good!”

“Yeah, grab what you want,” Owen said, raising an arm. “People have sort of been passing in and out of the party at this point.”

Sera nodded. “You just missed Gramps. He showed up, ate a whole table of food, and then left to check on something else…”

“Guess being the Voice of Life is pretty busy in times like this,” Mu hummed.

“Not the only one eatin’ a whole table of food. An’ the table.” Gahi gave a sidelong glance to Mispy, ready to flee, but it seemed she was satisfied just knowing she made Gahi nervous.

“Y’know, that’s true,” Mu said. “Mispy, how come you’re fatter than usual?”

Sera vanished in an Illusion. Owen sputtered. “M-Mu, you don’t just say that!”

“Oh, c’mon! She’s always been big, not like it’s a problem for her species, with how she does her healing! And she kept that even after World Revival.”

Owen couldn’t find his words, glancing apologetically at Mispy, who seemed more entertained than anything. He knew why.

“W-well, it’s… because… It was the thing I wanted them to mention,” Owen explained. “Right, Demitri?”

“Huh? Oh, that’s right!” Demitri nodded. “We wanted to mention it when everyone was here, but…” He leaned against Mispy. “Um… well… after everything that happened, one of the gifts we had when everyone was revived was…”

Eon and Star leaned closer with interest, each one floating on their own Psychic bubbles as an elbow rest.

“Egg,” Mispy said, giggling.

A beat.

“EGG?!”

The bar erupted with surprise and celebration that lasted into the night.

<><><>​

“Ugh, yeah, that place was a little too noisy,” Hakk muttered. “Yeah, I’ll be back,” he had said to Mhynt before leaving the bar.

It wasn’t that he disliked anyone there. But he liked the quiet. He could only handle so much before needing a break from it all… Maybe he’d plunge back in later in the night when energy levels were down.

A few blocks down, Hakk took a seat by the road, leaning against a rock still pleasantly warm from the afternoon a few hours prior. He rummaged through his bag and pulled out a small, mechanical puzzle, tweaking it a few times. Click, click, click.

Pokémon passed by, talking about the latest rumors and news. A bridge had collapsed between the Pyrock and Central landmasses again, with repairs already underway to restore the connection for the ever-expanding distance between the islands. Word of the former Heart of Hearts leaving in a few days to explore the watery continent to the north. Of other ships being constructed to explore other landmasses that had appeared in the World Revival…

Everything had been so slow and calm, and then, as history tended to go, it all moved so quickly right after.

But he could look at the sky and remember the stars were still there. Real stars, a real moon… real everything. At least, Owen claimed as much. He had no reason to lie about that sort of thing, and he was pretty sure he had a good read on that.

A Pidgey landed on Hakk’s head.

“Eh?”

He crossed his eyes to look at the bird staring right back at him.

“Hey, kid. Careful, my head’s cold. And my back’s spikey.”

“Spike-y,” he echoed.

“Yeah, spikey,” Hakk replied. He fiddled with his mechanical puzzle again, careful not to move his head too much. The Pidgey slid down his shoulder. Hakk stretched his neck awkwardly, keeping that arm still now, trying to solve it one-handed.

“Oh, you get back here!” shouted another bird—this one, a Swellow. She quickly flew over, and the Pidgey squawked and flew instead to a heavy-set Tyranitar next to her, perching on one of the spikes on his head.

“Spike-y!” Pidgey declared.

“Hey, that’s a new word!” Tyranitar chuckled.

“I’m so sorry,” Swellow said. “He didn’t bother you, did he?”

“Nah, it’s whatever.” Hakk shrugged. “I think my clicking had him entertained.” He held up the strange machine.

“Oh, I’m sorry. He’s always so fascinated with shiny things, you know how birds can be sometimes…”

“Heh…”

“What is that, anyway?” Tyranitar asked.

Pidgey flew to Hakk again, staring at it. Humoring him, Hakk lowered the machine.

“Well, ever since most tech kinda didn’t work the same in the Revived World, a lot of my old career was kinda shot. So, I got into mechanical replicas of a game I was, uh, programming. Voidland stuff.”

“Oh, I’m so sorry…”

“Nah, nah.” Hakk waved to dismiss them.

Pidgey hopped again and pecked at a few of the blocks. He seemed fascinated by the clicks and the clacks.

“Heh, you really like it, huh?” he asked.

“I’ve never seen him so interested in something before…”

Click, click, clack, click…

Hakk blinked. The puzzle was solved.

“What the…”

Hakk gently took the puzzle and reset it. “Heh, your kid’s… pretty good at it,” he said. “Well, I can configure it to make new puzzles, even add extra blocks to make it harder.” He set it down again, and Pidgey continued along.

“It’s a simple game, but uh, you know. I made it for an old friend who was a Class-D… D’you know what that is?”

“I do, actually,” Swellow said. “That Pidgey used to be one. My mate and I, we could not have children ourselves. We decided to apply for parenting in the Reincarnation Program.”

“The… the what?” Hakk asked. It was like his heart stopped.

Click, clack. Click, clack.

Pidgey was so focused on the puzzle that he didn’t realize the tears rolling down his beak.

“Oh… dear, I think he’s having an episode,” Swellow whispered.

“Mm, I’m sorry, kiddo.” He reached for the puzzle to return it to Hakk. “Let’s go home so you can calm do—”

“NO!” Pidgey cried. The shrill tweet was enough to startle Tyranitar into letting the puzzle go.

“The Reincarnation Program…” Hakk whispered.

“Mm. Many Void Shadows had their memories so deeply buried that giving them new lives was… the easiest way to give them the stimulation needed to reawaken them.” Tyranitar nodded, reciting knowledge he’d learned from others. Knowledge Hakk knew by heart. “Apparently, some authority figure named Xenon came up with it. Well, whatever it is, we have a kid, and we can help him remember… And until then, we’re his new parents.”

Hakk tried to breathe. It was hard. He was afraid to ask. It wouldn’t even mean anything. “What’s his name?”

Tyranitar and Swellow recognized the desperation in Hakk’s eyes. No words had to be exchanged. They understood him.

“I don’t want to get your hopes up,” Tyranitar said. “We followed the Program’s recommendation, suggesting names to see if we’d get a positive response. You know, if it stirred things. But it’s not foolproof. So it’s not…”

Tyranitar awkwardly shifted his weight.

Swellow answered. “We named him Zephyr, after the wind. He loved to fly, even so young.”

“Zephyr.” Hakk echoed it. He laughed. At first, it was a small, short laugh, like it entertained him. But he couldn’t stop. He leaned back, covering his eyes, enough to break Pidgey out of his trance when those laughs became little chokes.

The icy Sandslash inhaled a great, sharp breath. “Ugh,” he said, trembling, wiping his eyes. “Keep it.”

He pushed the puzzle into Pidgey’s talons.

“Keep it,” he said again.

Pidgey, oblivious, beamed, looking at Swellow for approval.

“Well, what do we say, Zephyr?”

“Thank you!” Zephyr said. Then, carrying the puzzle in his talons, he flew onto Tyranitar’s back.

“What’s your name?” Swellow asked.

“Oh my—my name’s Hakk,” he said. “I was… I was gonna head out to sea in a few days, part of the exploration crew. But now, I dunno…” He sniffed. “A lot suddenly changed.”

“Well, if you change your mind, or if you want to… you know, see us…” Swellow scribbled something down and offered him a card. “Here, it’s our address. We’re nearby.”

Hakk handled the precious treasure. He nodded. “Thanks,” he said. “I… I gotta go. I’ll see—I’ll, thanks.” He waved awkwardly, then stumbled his way down the road. The family did not pursue.

As he wandered down the streets, he spotted Mhynt speedwalking toward him.

“Hakk! Finally. I was worried.” Mhynt sighed, shaking her head. “I really shouldn’t be, sorry. Force of habi—”

Hakk embraced her, pulling her close.

“I found him.”

After a brief, stunned silence, Mhynt squeezed him tight.

<><><>​

Eon and Star flew together to their little home in Yotta Outskirts. Over the year, they had grown a little closer. Star was, admittedly, lonely after Hecto elected to focus on other things with his Overseer duties, unable to feel as attached to Star in the same way after all that happened. She didn’t blame him… and she was glad to still work professionally with him.

She knew Hecto well enough to sense they were still friends. That was good enough.

And while Barky was hard at work repairing Destiny Tower in another splitting landmass, Star was done with divinity. She didn’t need all that. Barky could salvage that power for himself, or Leph, or whoever would need to take up the mantle with whatever remnants of divine power remained.

She was… done.

In a way, she didn’t know what to do, especially with…

“Hey, Star?”

The Mew blinked. “Uh, yeah?”

Eon sped ahead, stopping in front of her. “Something… bothering you? You seem more off than usual.”

She sighed. She floated around the other Mew and into their home’s window—between herself, Celebi, Lavender, and Eon, none of them used the door. Lavender preferred sleeping outside, changing his element if it rained or snowed.

“…Eon,” Star said. “How do you feel about your life here?”

“Huh? Oh, um… well, it’s getting better. Things are sort of… awkward with everyone.” He looked around, but then sighed. “Even Rim and I aren’t that close anymore. It feels like she’s trying to move on and be ‘Celebi’ again and make the world a better place, and I’m holding her back. I don’t know, maybe that’s just me, but… it almost feels like I finally got to be normal, and everyone else grew up. I’m still behind.”

He laughed slightly.

“But it’s been peaceful. Gods, so much better than before. I’m happy for that much, and that we can still be friends, it’s… it’s better.”

Star smiled sadly, curling up in her nest with her tail over her face.

She couldn’t settle for long. She raised her head just as Eon settled into his bed.

“…Eon… do you think you haven’t atoned enough?”

“O-oh.” Eon gulped, looking at his paws.

“…Barky’s finding his way to atone. There’s gonna be a big meeting tomorrow with all the Legends, too, and I bet Owen’s gonna give us something to help the New World. But… do you think that’s enough?”

The wind blew through the window. It was chilly this evening. Celebi and Lavender would be home soon.

“…Not really,” Eon whispered.

Star closed her eyes, understanding.

“…I felt the same way,” she said. “And I wanted to do something about it. And… well. During that meeting, I have a feeling… I’m going to have to do something big. In fact, I feel like I already know I do. Is there… hey, yeah!”

“What?”

Star suddenly slapped a paw to Eon’s forehead. He crossed his eyes as if that’d help him look better.

“You have it, too,” she muttered. “This is Owen’s energy… That scalebag sealed our memories! But… only a little bit, just yesterday. Not a strong seal, either…”

Eon reached up and removed Star’s paw.

“I trust him,” Eon said. “We have a meeting tomorrow. I bet it’ll be clear then. Okay?”

Star groaned. “What did I agree to? And why did…”

“You’re gonna get yourself worked up, Star,” Eon assured. “Whatever it is, Owen did it so we could enjoy the party. That’s probably it, huh?”

“He would. And I bet he wanted to get one up on us for all the times we…” Star sank into the nest. “Whatever. Now we’re even.”

“What was all that talk about atonement, again?” Eon raised a brow.

Star buried her head deeper into her bed.

Eon chuckled, curling up.

Muffled, Star said, “Good night, Eon…”

And slowly, they drifted off to sleep.

<><><>​

Owen didn’t sleep in the traditional sense any longer.

Unlike the Legends, who had largely lost their immortality, and unlike the Guardians, who also became mundane save for a few small perks, Owen’s spirit was still strongly linked to the Worldcore. Alex could sleep, and Owen could do the same, not out of necessity, but to let the night go faster. However, disturbance to the Worldcore would stir him from that slumber.

This was one such night.

The first disturbance in a long while.

Owen stood in a replica of the Endless Expanse, where the ground reflected the stars. Walking through this abstract landmass was an Absol, but Owen knew it was not his true form. The power Owen sensed from this creature, simply arriving at the edge of reality to commune with its core… An Overseer. And a strong one.

“Hello, Usurper,” greeted Absol. “My name is Xenon.”

“Hello, Xenon,” Owen greeted back, tense. His flame, however, was steady.

“You must already recognize that I am an Overseer. I’ve come here to make sure things are in order after all that happened.”

“Mhm. What have you seen so far?”

“I see a world where the gods have lost their power to you. Fell into their own Worldcore, as it’s called, yes? So, if something were to happen to this world… if an invader were to come in and—”

Owen sensed energy. A distraction. This Absol was about to strike him. He was faster. In an instant, a thousand golden spears of light erupted from all sides, all pointed at Xenon, several so close they cut the fur of his neck.

But they went no further.

Xenon froze, eyes just barely wide. Then, that frozen expression cracked into a grin, and then a laugh. He leaned back and laughed—startling Owen enough that he hastily pulled the spears that would have impaled him back.

“That was awesome!” Xenon cheered. “You spared no precaution! Wonderful, just wonderful!”

He clapped his paws before melting into light. Owen withdrew the golden spears into the ground with an embarrassed grunt.

“That would have eviscerated me! Yet you could tell I was only bluffing.”

“Wh—What if I killed you?!”

“Oh, details, details.” The light faded, revealing a Mewtwo instead. “Hah!” He pointed at Owen. A golden sheen that coated Owen’s body Protected the strike, but the area behind Owen had been turned into a new fissure, water flowing into the gap.

Owen flinched a split-second later, realizing what had happened.

“Passive protection, very clever, very good.”

“Can you please say… please next time?” Owen groaned. “What is with you Overseers and—”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry. It’s really part of the procedure, but I’m done now. Promise. Scout’s honor! Ah, wait, you don’t have that here.” Xenon cleared his throat, then morphed into light again.

Finally, a Mew appeared. A bit larger than average. Owen had the sense this was his true—preferred?—form.

“I am a Top Overseer. Some time ago, when this world was nearly fallen, I observed what happened with your upheaval, and have been keeping tabs on this place ever since. Just to make sure all was well.”

“Mostly,” Owen agreed. “But…”

“But, but, but. Yes, I understand; new crises are always inbound. But what’s important is your conquering of this one, and the ability to plan for the next, yes?”

Owen nodded.

“That power you demonstrated…” Xenon crossed his little arms. “Can that be turned inward?”

“No,” Owen replied firmly. “Not again.”

“Good answer.” Xenon nodded. “Then within reality itself, not here at its edge, that power is…”

“Evenly dispersed. When the next crisis comes… everyone can fight back. I can help, but… I don’t want a corrupted tyrant to rise again. That includes me.”

“And externally, a wonderful defense from outside invaders… And what of you, then?”

Owen glanced away. “I spent a thousand years tied to the Worldcore. My spirit is… permanently part of it, like Nate and Alex. But Nate’s always been there, and Alex is more like an avatar…”

“And you?” Xenon asked. “You seem different. Not as loosely coupled as Alex, yet not as submerged as Nate.”

“Yeah. I’m… somewhere in between,” Owen said. “Right now, all of Kilo is still under something like a Dungeon veil. They were always a bridge to spirit worlds, so maybe that’s why I can still have a body. Without Dungeons, I think I can only watch from the Worldcore.”

“And you knew this would happen upon your return,” Xenon said. “A trapped soul. You know, we Overseers specialize in freeing your kind, if you help us.”

Owen smiled faintly, shaking his head. “I want to stay. At least until Diyem is free.”

“I figured.” Xenon smiled anyway. “You know, Dungeons may eventually fade entirely. You’ll be trapped in the Worldcore again.”

“I can make… Dungeons to stretch out, if I need to,” Owen said. “But I’ll be fine. I went through ‘watching’ before.”

Xenon tilted his head, smiling at that. There was a fascinated glint in his eyes. “Well! That’s all I needed to check on,” Xenon finally said. “Thank you for humoring me, Owen. Oh, but, if you ever feel the need to stretch your limbs, give me a shout, yes? This power would be awfully helpful for our endeavors. You know, heroism in other realms.”

“A-actually,” Owen added. “About that. While you’re here… Can I ask something?”

“Hm?”

“Let’s say, hypothetically, something… bad is coming. Really bad. Something I don’t think I can interfere with reliably and fix internally. If I… got something external—another soul, something we did before with the one called Manny—would you be able to help with selection?”

“Hm? Selection? What, some quiz?”

“Well, no, I mean, if that helps, but—” Owen shifted awkwardly. “Just some help. Even just one person to tip the scales. Would I be able to reach out to Overseers for that?”

“Of course! In fact, that’s one of our specialties.”

“Good.” Owen sighed. “Then… I’ll keep it in mind if we ever need outside help. Did, uh, did you have any other questions?”

“No. I’m satisfied.” Xenon beamed. “This is all so interesting. I’ll visit now and then, see if you’d like to attend a thing or two, but otherwise… Thank you, Owen, for doing what you did. It was quite a mess along the way, but you figured a way out that the Overseers could not.” He offered a light bow. “We have learned a great deal from this to prevent future tragedies from happening at the start.”

Owen smiled faintly. “Maybe Overseers aren’t so bad,” he said. “…But would it kill them to be more personable?”

Xenon giggled. “I think the same thing.”

He vanished. Owen sighed, laughing faintly.

That was a few worries down. Just… one more pressing matter to go.

<><><>​

The day after, Owen had gathered all the Legends of Kilo to the Tree of Life. He wanted to bring them to the Worldcore chamber, but… a lot of them were too big to all fit at once. The outside would have to do.

Dialga and Rayquaza were at the far end of the crowd, murmuring to one another about what it could all be about. Reshiram and Zekrom were similar, while Kyurem—Ghrelle, still a little down on herself after all that happened—sulked near the corner of the clearing.

Xerneas appeared to be half-asleep, leaning against Yveltal, who humored the need. Owen understood; Xerneas had been working around the clock with a new batch of Reincarnation participants lately. An endless job. Maybe Owen could appoint some others to help, like Alex, for all of this…

As Owen thought of Alex, he also glanced at the Hydreigon in question. The tireless Voice of Life—avatar of the Worldcore, and direct partner to Xerneas in the New World—smiled while quietly murmuring to Amia. Her hair had become blue, truly, this time. And while she was still not quite the same Amia before her Voiding, she was similar enough that she and Alex had rekindled a deep friendship. They were happy with that.

Though, curiously, Amia, still a Gardevoir, had manifested some of Manaphy’s powers in the New World. The incident between Palkia and Giratina was something everyone agreed never to acknowledge.

Emily wore a scarf around her neck of one of the ships that were going to head into the outer continents, as one of the main leaders for outer exploration.

And, of course, there was Star, Barky, and Eon, alongside Rim, Aster, and Leph.

“Gathering all of us at once hasn’t happened in a while,” Barky said. “I… hope things are well.”

“They will be for a while,” Owen said. “But I wanted to give you the major findings as a group before we tell all our friends. I’m not sure how to break the news.”

“You seemed a little tense at the party,” Star said. “It’s not bad, is it?”

Owen shrugged nervously. “…I’ll start with the good news,” he said. “As long as we can appoint the right New Legends, and you all can retire in peace, we’re looking at generations of peace. Kilo is probably going to be forgotten, along with all of its scars, and the world will be able to heal from all of it. Kilo Village itself is probably going to fall into ruin in a few centuries as the islands pull apart more, but by then, mostly nomadic Pokémon and researchers will remain. Everyone else would have moved to the outer continents.”

“Is that… bad?” Aster asked.

“No. Just a natural conclusion. As far as abandoned civilizations go, I think it’s one of the best ways for it to happen.”

Amia nodded to herself. “And the outer continents… Did you get any information about them?”

“I won’t say where they are, or what happens specifically in each one,” Owen said. “But, broadly, we’re fine to let people explore them as they want. It’ll be okay. In general, the less you Legends step in, the better—that goes for New and Old Legends, for those of you who want to stay as Legends after all this.”

“And how about me, specifically?” Leph asked. “I don’t… I mean, I will if I have to—”

“I checked for you specifically, Leph,” Owen said with a soft smile. “You don’t need to be the New World’s god. So, if you want to stay mortal…”

Leph shook faintly, nodding. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Don’t be. You didn’t ask for this.”

Some silence fell as Aster comforted her. The Mewtwo, meanwhile, asked, “And me?”

“You, uh, well, what do you want to do?”

“Wherever Leph goes, I wanna go, too. I’ll stay mortal! Besides, the new mortal stuff is fun!”

Owen nodded. “Follow your heart, Aster. This world… will not need Legendary Pokémon nearly as much. Even the New Legends that might start appearing—and I do mean appearing—in the new continents, those spontaneous creations from the Worldcore? They’re more like forces of nature at first.

“Some Legends that never existed in Kilo will start existing here. And it’ll be up to all of you to find them and teach them about… living. That way, one day, if you see them… they’ll at least be able to understand and communicate with normal Pokémon when the time comes.

“I think that cooperation will be necessary, way down the line. Best to instill that when they’re still young.”

“Oh, so exciting. A new Palkia!” Palkia clapped his hands, but then suddenly paused. “Ah, but that confirms it, then, doesn’t it? Our forms now, they’re largely… echoes of the past. For there to be New Legends, the Old Legends shall die?”

“We’re mortal,” Dialga clarified. “Of course we’ll die.”

“Yes,” Owen confirmed. “Though I can’t figure out your lifespans, I don’t see any of you in the future just a handful of centuries later. And any kids you have seem to reflect your old species.”

“…That raises several questions of what futures you saw,” Giratina deadpanned. “But I assume you will not tell us, so that future is not changed.”

“You’ve become awfully cryptic lately,” James added. The Decidueye remained perched atop Madeline’s head, skillfully adept at the positioning.

Owen tittered nervously.

Giratina stared at Palkia. “You will not.”

Palkia raised his hands disarmingly. “I had no intent! I am married to science.”

“Somehow worse,” Dialga muttered.

“Well, that’s the good news,” Reshiram said. “C’mon, lay it on us. Bad news time.”

“Right, uh…” Owen cleared his throat. “Bad news is, I’m still sensing flecks of darkness deep inside the spirits of some of the New Legends as they were formed. Specifically, the ones that Dark Matter had infected their corresponding Old Legend here.”

Owen’s gaze trailed to the other Legends that had been trapped in the Voidlands, but focused on one. “Darkrai… When you find yours, you will have a lot of trouble getting him to see the light. He’s going to cause a lot of trouble—do what you can to coordinate something to prevent him from doing too much damage.”

“O-oh… Because—because I was captured by Alexander, is that it?” asked Darkrai nervously. “Oh, no…”

“We will do what we can,” Cresselia said with a firm nod. “Thank you.”

“Dialga.” Owen faced him next. “Dark Matter corrupting you was weak, but it left your successor vulnerable to some kind of dark madness. And Rayquaza, so close to Dialga, I think recreation led him to being vulnerable, but… maybe not to darkness. He might just be disagreeable, like many New Legends, if we fail to contact them.”

Owen looked skyward. “We’re in a true universe now. Things outside of my view, things I didn’t check thoroughly beyond our atmosphere… That might be trouble, too. And that could be bad, since Rayquaza is meant to be our defense against that sort of thing. So, just to be sure… make sure he knows to hold back against mortals.”

“I don’t quite understand the reasoning,” Rayquaza said, “but I’ll try to teach him a gentler touch, of course.”

“…Am I lost?” Kyurem suddenly spoke up.

Owen exhaled softly. “…Do as much as you can,” he said, “to give New Kyurem hope. Maybe, with the right nudge, New Kyurem will… I don’t know. Be better. But it’s not hopeless. Okay? Can you remember that?”

Kyurem rested her head on the ground.

“Hey, listen, I know you were sort of…”—Reshiram awkwardly shifted his weight—“messed up a ton by Dark Matter, even as Ghrelle, but… we still gotta do what we can, alright? For the New World and all that.”

“…I understand,” Kyurem said. “I will do what I can to atone.”

“Hmm, perhaps I should also be careful,” Yveltal hummed. “I never got corrupted directly, but… of the Legends, I certainly had a turbulent past.”

“Not the only one,” Xerneas admitted, looking down in half-shame. “Mm…”

“I’m not sure what others were touched by darkness,” Owen said, “but I saw a lot of problems crop up as ‘omens’ when Dark Matter returns. Warnings. But don’t worry—Alex and I have plans for what to do when that happens. We’ll try to weaken it, but… we might get some help for fending them off.”

Alex nodded. “Maybe Overseers. Maybe something else. I’m, um, I’m still thinking about that. But… there is one thing that still sticks out, even after all our planning.” He poked his head-hands together nervously.

“One last thing…” Star took in a slow breath. She’d been tense for a while.

“Star?” Eon asked.

“It’s that thing I told you about,” Star said. “Owen… I think I’m ready for the memories to be returned.”

Owen tilted his head. “Wow, I’m bad at sealing things. You’d think I’d be better at it, considering… you know, personal experience.”

“I still feel a little bit of Dark Matter,” Star explained. “And… I think it’s in me.”

Owen flinched.

“The origin point of Dark Matter,” Star said. “Those experiments done on me in the human world. It came from me, and when Barky created Kilo, that darkness embedded itself in the Worldcore. So, if I’m around, Dark Matter will only get stronger.

“That’s true, isn’t it?” Star asked.

“That… that’s exactly right,” Owen said. “Star, how did you… know that? You even know a part I didn’t realize until just now…”

“Call it instinct,” Star said with a sad smile.

“Right…” Owen sighed, then clicked his claws. A faint light burst off Eon and Star’s foreheads. Recollection flooded them…

But in the end, it was just a repeat of what Star had just said.

“You know,” Owen said, “I thought I’d get back at you for all the times you sealed my memories, but I guess you’ll always be the master of it.”

“What a legacy.” Star giggled, holding back tears.

“Can someone fill us in?” Reshiram spoke up. “I don’t get it. If Star being around is gonna be a problem, what do we do?”

“Every piece of negativity Star feels will accelerate Dark Matter’s revival—and possibly make him even stronger,” Owen said. “The world isn’t prepared for that yet. And the one thing I can say, looking into that future, is… if we want to make sure Dark Matter has the best chance of being defeated—that Diyem can truly be freed…”

“I have to go away,” Star said shakily. “I… have to disappear, and take that catalyst of Dark Matter with me.”

Stunned silence followed. Not even Xerneas had something grim or disparaging to say.

Then, Amia spoke up. “But you’d chosen to return. That’s not fair. Maybe we can find another way…”

“I’m not accepting that,” Eon said. “There’s gotta be a way we can atone. I mean—Star can… No. That I can atone for, too. I saved her once, and then I perpetuated the same tragedies! I… I’m just as responsible for Dark Matter’s rise as Star is.” Eon pointed at Owen. “You can’t be the only one paying for this!”

Owen winced. “I’m just saying the truth,” he said. “There’s… I don’t know another way around it.”

Eon’s fists clenched. Star and Aster exchanged a look. They hadn’t been too close; Star enjoyed everyone in a shallow way, but… Owen wondered, deep down, if somehow Star knew this day would come. That her return would be superficial. Eon’s defiance… it was weaker than usual, too. Even for himself.

They were both pitiable. Regrets still gripped them. It would follow them until Dark Matter returned… Would sending Star away really be the right choice? Expelling her from Kilo and the New World, for her to let everyone else fix it for her in that far future?

“There’s,” Alex said quietly, “one more way.”

All eyes turned to him. Alex shrank back, staring at the ground.

“If Star experiences nothing… If she’s put in stasis—reincarnated, her spirit held until the time is right… She can face Dark Matter again. She would be the key to undoing his binds to the world. But… it would require her to not be held down by the traumas of the past.” Alex closed his eyes. “I don’t know how feasible that is.”

Palkia tilted his head. “Hm? Well, reincarnation need not preserve the memories. Not for a time, at least,” he suggested. “Sera was such a case, yes?”

The Legends murmured, conferring in smaller groups.

“I can facilitate this,” Xerneas spoke up.

“I as well,” Yveltal confirmed.

“She’s not going alone,” Eon said quickly. Perhaps too quickly. The gravity of what he’d said sank in. But to Owen’s surprise, he steeled himself anyway. “…She needs someone by her side. And everyone else has ties to the New World’s setup. I… I don’t. Jirachi’s powers were the most depleted when the Hands scattered, and I don’t trust myself with anything else anymore. I’ve made too many mistakes. Maybe I need to atone the same way.”

More murmurs. Palkia spoke up again, “Owen, you struggled against that amalgamation until Eon was able to embolden you, correct? It’s a long shot, but from everything I’ve observed, it appears that a ‘human element’ is required for a Pokémon to surpass their limits. I think… a true, pureblood human is required to maximize the chances of Dark Matter’s defeat. And while I would consider volunteering myself… I am far from a pure-hearted human. I must fade into history.

“But you know Eon more than anyone else. Should he also be wiped of his memories and allowed a fresh start… would you deem him a hero?”

“Yes,” Owen said without hesitation. It squeezed his chest to say so. “Yes. And if we send him in before he has time to be corroded by centuries… I know he will be that hero again.”

“Owen…” Eon bit his lip. The others shifted their weight, lowering their heads as if in respect.

Eon vanished and reappeared in front of Owen, embracing him. He was so small.

The tiniest part of Owen wished for the old days when he was helping his idiot trainer with his math homework. When all they had to worry about was the next battle, the next victory, the most recent loss.

But time marched on. Clawing back the past only drowned the present.

“It doesn’t have to be immediate,” Owen said. “Why don’t you… take a few days to get everything in order?”

“…No,” Star said. “Every day we take is another day Dark Matter gets stronger, right? Me dreading this… Dark Matter might manipulate me into fleeing. Hiding. Making him stronger all over again.”

She squeezed her eyes shut.

“I cannot leave the Tree. I have to get it over with now. The reason I remember it now… I just know it—Dark Matter is already trying to pull me back.”

“As emotional as it is,” Brandon said, crossing his wings, “I think she’s right. This sounds awfully familiar, Owen. We can’t delay it like how Necrozma delayed the world’s end.”

Giratina rumbled angrily to herself.

“Something wrong?” Dialga asked.

“Nothing. I was not expecting… to feel upset today.”

“Oh, what’s that I hear? Giratina going soft?” Reshiram hummed.

A black portal appeared beneath Reshiram, swallowing him whole. It spat him out rump-first on a boulder a few meters away.

While Reshiram muttered curses, Star and Eon laughed to themselves through their tears.

Slowly, though, Star said, “What about Barky? He’s still…”

Do not worry, Star.

All of them looked skyward at the voice. While everyone had become much weaker, Barky still retained some divine power, after all that had happened.

They saw a vision of Arceus standing atop Destiny Tower, still half-constructed, as he stared at the sunset. Tears streamed down his face, but he otherwise held his usual, dignified pose.

Leph and Aster are not burdened with our own problems. We must face them, and not run away. And this time, we have taken away the tools that we had used to make it worse. You are atoning in your own way… flinging yourself into the future to stop Dark Matter where he shall rise.

I will follow you, taking the long way there.

The wind blew over the forest. At the same time, a separate gust blew the god’s fur atop the tower.

When you save the world of Dark Matter, and when you manage to solve the world’s troubles from it… climb the tower. And I shall happily join your side again.

Partner.

The vision faded. Star sniffled hard, holding in bawls, and then nodded firmly at Owen and the others. Eon did the same, holding her hand.

“You’re dismissed,” Owen said to the other Legends. “Say your goodbyes, and… well. We can continue preparations for Dark Matter’s return… far in the future.”

One by one, the Legends nodded and thanked Star and Eon for their sacrifice. Alex vanished to tend to other matters. The Charizard with the flame of life led Star and Eon into the Tree’s Worldcore Chamber.

He asked them to wait as he reconfigured a few things for the new plans. He didn’t have time to look into the future to determine if this was the correct path or not.

A part of him, deep down, knew he didn’t need to. This was Star and Eon’s choice. And, like Barky, Owen knew he would also take the long road to find them again.

Faint pitter-patter caught Star and Eon’s attention.

A single canine Zygarde stood at the entrance to the chamber.

“Oh… Hecto.” Star gulped, nodding.

“Greetings.” He bowed. “The Overseers have finished their scouting. We are satisfied with the current conditions of this world. The top Overseer sends their regards. We will be leaving now. And… on a personal note… Star.”

“Y-yeah?”

“…We had… a good run. You were a wonderful experience, even if I was not myself for a time. I appreciated my time with you, and my feelings were true.”

“Oh. No, yeah, I loved you, too. We had a really good run, didn’t we?”

“Yes. And so, it… pains me to say, I must break up with you now. As per my occupation, I must move on to a new world to assist with a new crisis. Necrozma encouraged me to inform you of this.”

“Oh. Y-yeah.”

A beat.

“We were… still together?”

Owen cringed. Eon’s eyes bugged out. Hecto… just stood there.

That was pretty bad, Star, Barky commented.

“Perhaps Xenon was right,” Hecto commented. “I need to be more personable. And perceptive.”

“Hey, can we try this again?” Star asked Owen desperately.

“There’s no need. I would expect nothing less of you, Star. You have always been… easy-going. And that you treated me so kindly even after we ‘broke up’ without me realizing means… Something. I will think about this.”

He took a step back.

“Goodbye.”

And off he went. Owen rubbed the back of his head. “Well, at least he managed to get a word in,” he said.

“Yeah, I don’t think I mind reincarnating now,” Star admitted.

Then, looking at Eon, there was another awkward pause. The two Mew laughed, contagious enough that Owen laughed with them. The Worldcore glimmered above, and a gentle, ethereal thrum told Owen all he needed to know.

“It’s ready,” he said. “Thanks for waiting. Are you… sure there’s nothing more you want to do? Once you go in there… the next thing you experience will be rebirth, Star. And Eon, it will be as if you’d been summoned anew. Just like Manny. But you won’t have peace—to you, it will be like waking up to a new battle, new problems. You won’t get the peace we’re about to enjoy.”

Despite that, Eon smiled. “I’m ready,” Eon said.

“Yeah. I’m ready.” Star breathed deep. “It feels ‘right.’ It feels like I’m finally making up for what happened.”

She floated below the Worldcore; Eon followed.

Trails of light landed in the hands of both Mew. They held it firmly as their bodies became rapidly translucent. At first, they seemed startled, but then, somber and accepting. Motes of light flaked off of their bodies and siphoned into the Worldcore.

“I’ll do everything I can to make this right,” Eon whispered. “Even if I forget it all… the spirit won’t forget, right? It never does…”

“I can’t erase my regrets forever,” Star replied. “But if I can atone before I remember it all again… maybe it’ll be okay. Maybe, without Dark Matter whispering in my ears… we can beat him.”

“Owen… will I ever see you again?” Eon asked. He didn’t look; his eyes were already closed. They were drifting off to a great slumber.

“I’ll be there,” Owen said. “I dunno what I’ll look like, or what I’ll be, by that point. I might just… be a helpful voice, or a force in Dungeons, by then, for all I know.

“But I’ll be there. I’ll watch after you both. Deal?”

Eon smiled. That was his answer.

“Do you think the world will be alright?” Star whispered.

But Owen couldn’t quite answer in time. Eon and Star dissolved into light, their forms shapeless and malleable. There was no telling what they would become when they were born again.

Owen stared at the Worldcore as it dimmed. He closed his eyes and expanded his senses across all of Kilo’s archipelago. He saw Pokémon celebrating, playing, sparring, and preparing. Countless Pokémon were readying for the New World. He saw new Pokémon being born and old Pokémon passing on. He saw momentary peace in the present and patches of strife in the future.

That was how it would always be.

Owen quietly spoke to the Worldcore. Perhaps Star would hear him.

“People live and die; relationships form and break; the only thing that lasts longer than the gods is the persistence of change. What we can do is adapt to that flow, gently nudge it the way you want, and fight for the outcomes you need.

“Grasping for the past hurts, but knowing the past is necessary. So even if you forget about the past now… when you need it most, I think you’ll remember what has to be done. Once people can accept the transgression of that past, they can march, and fight, and hope in the present, all for a brighter future they may not see.”

The lights dimmed completely. Owen had never seen that before. The darkness radiated a content satisfaction with his answer. The only light remaining was his prismatic flame.

“…Right,” Owen said. He clapped his hands together and rubbed old scales onto the ground. “Let’s get to work.”

The holder of life’s flame marched out of the cave, burdened by the past, wading through the present, and quietly aware of the future. But despite those binds, and despite all he’d been through, he could still smile and let that grin reach his eyes.

The world was in the hands of all within it. Even in the world’s most dire moments, with all lost and spirits drowned in darkness, so long as just one soul remained fighting, a single act of defiance could spark the return of fire and light.

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Author's Note: Thanks for reading. The Epilogue will be coming at a special time -- Friday, September 19th in my time, on the 8th anniversary of this story's original publication to the web!