Pokémon Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Hands of Creation

[Namohysip]

Finale ~ Prelude – Zero​

A girl stood in front of a large tree with a single flat stone at its base. Nervously, she sat down and read the very top of the thick stack of papers: Overseer Godhood Certification – Intermediate.

All she had to do was take this test, pass, and she and her partner could finally make a world. Their dream.

“Well,” she whispered. “See you in two months.”

A pencil manifested from nothing. She turned the page.

<><><>​

“This can’t be happening.” Eon stared at the screen, fully understanding everything, yet not understanding at all why it took place. “They… they had him, it was all—”

“Usurpers aren’t finished until they are eradicated completely,” Miraidon said gravely. Koraidon and Ho-Oh had left to mobilize some other force. “I think I understand what happened. When the original Usurper had attacked your god—Arceus—it must have predicted that Arceus would escape the same way the other god, Mew, had. I didn’t think that primordial force would have any sense of planning, but… maybe it did.”

Alarms blared. Miraidon pressed several buttons and checked screens. Eon felt an oppressive atmosphere in the air, even at this remote observatory.

He felt like he was being watched.

“But it moved that dark essence from the sea into the new god… And then, manipulated that new god into following Owen somewhere isolated. In that environment, it bought time, and then… Ugh!” She slammed her paw on one of the machines. “We waited too long. We should have annihilated things immediately! This has gotten far out of hand!”

“Wh-what now?”

“We’ve already gotten some enforcers on the edge of this world. The gods at least granted us this failsafe. We’re going to annihilate everything.”

“N-no, you—”

“Your right to live has ended. I’m sorry,” Miraidon said to Eon with no room for negotiation.

“Please, I—”

“It’s out of my hands.” Miraidon pushed herself away from the cosmic desk, exhaling firmly. “I’m sorry. It’s done. My role is over.”

“Then… at least send me back,” Eon said. “I… won’t be the sole survivor. I want to be with them.”

“…A meaningless sentiment,” Miraidon said. “You’ll all wind up in the same place anyway. Don’t you want to hang out here, guide them once they’re processed?”

“…No. I’m sorry, I can’t. I’m the last person to deserve that kind of… survival. Please. Just… just send me back.” Eon winced, staring down. “You obviously can.”

Miraidon gave Eon a serious look. Belittling, even. Eon was sure she thought he was a fool. But he held his ground. He refused to exempt himself from his home’s fate. Not when everyone else was still there.

“Fine.” Miraidon sighed. “It’s the Overseer way to respect a native’s wishes…”

She pressed a few more buttons and then said, “Go into that chamber. I can reverse it.”

Jirachi nervously floated toward the strange, cosmic sphere. A hole widened for him to fly through, and it closed moments after.

“So I just… stand here?” he asked.

“Yes. One moment.” Miraidon glanced at a screen. “…Hm?”

“What?”

“There’s still…”

The chamber rumbled. The outer walls warped, and small white cracks formed in the cosmic walls.

“Uhh, that’s bad, right?” Jirachi asked.

But just as the white light of the device enveloped Jirachi, he saw something break through the walls of the Overseers’ station, pulling Miraidon outside by force.

Narrowly, Jirachi escaped.

<><><>​

Golden motes of light outnumbered the stars in the night sky.

Jerry stood, completely dumbfounded, with Owen dying at his feet. One by one, strands of golden filaments—were those the Hands?—flew away from Owen’s body, even as he stubbornly clung to one with an ever-weakening grip.

At the center of town, and Jerry had to crane his neck to see the top, was a spire of stone with a serpent of black and white fire coiled at its apex. That wasn’t a Pokémon anymore, was it?

All of the motes of light were siphoning toward that serpent, like bubbles atop a whirlpool. It wouldn’t be long until every soul in Kilo was within it.

And then what?

Jerry couldn’t deal with this. This was Owen’s deal, this was the gods’ deal, why was he the—

The scarf.

Jerry cursed, squeezing at the fabric, then at Owen, still clutching onto his spirit as it drained from his body.

“Don’t die on me yet, you overgrown scalebag,” Jerry hissed, pulling the scarf off his neck. He shoved it onto Owen’s arm, quickly tying it around. “I guess I’m returning the favor!”

Jerry felt… vulnerable again. The air’s harsh, oppressive atmosphere sank into him, even with the strange song completed. He wasn’t melting, at least… Maybe it was just paranoia.

Owen’s golden filament of light—the last one on him, the one that had been clutched in his hand—stabilized. Those hollow eyes glimmered with life again.

Suddenly, the Charizard gasped in a deep breath as if reclaiming his spirit.

“Get up, get up!” Jerry hissed.

“Y-you’re alive,” Owen whispered. “…I’m alive, what—”

“Do not take that scarf off,” Jerry commanded. “It… you made it to counter Ghrelle’s song. It saved me. So now, I’m—”

“Go and hide,” Owen urged.

“Oh, sure, I’ll find a spot,” Jerry hissed. But he stretched his wings for a takeoff anyway. “What’re you gonna do?”

Owen smiled faintly. He didn’t answer. He didn’t have to.

“…Better make it work,” Jerry said. “I’ll… find something to do.”

And as Owen turned to face the serpent in the sky, summoning his javelin-whip of light, the Aerodactyl found a building to hide within. Quietly, he tried to think of what, if anything, he could do left…

But for now, he had to see what Kilo’s last hope had in store.

<><><>​

The dim glow of nighttime mushrooms colored the rocky walls of the cave. Mixing with this light were flickering embers of orange and yellow. Mu lay belly-down in the middle of these flames, enjoying the warmth; they licked at her scales and washed over her back. The flame at the end of her tail got hotter, brimming with energy. She rolled over to sear her back next.

Wait. What happened? Wasn’t she—

“No resting on the fire, Mu.”

“Wh—huh? I wasn’t!” She rolled away and quickly hid beneath her bed of leaves. Some of them turned black from the fire, but they didn’t burn.

“Ngh.” She felt heavy. Everything felt bruised. Something was wrong.

A blue-haired Gardevoir peeked into the room, her white dress aglow from the mushrooms and the fire. She sighed, smiling. “You’re lucky we got you that special Rawst bed, or we’d need to replace it every night!” She laughed, but then walked over, patting her on the head.

“Yeah…”

Another voice whispered from the other room. “Amia, is she okay?”

Mu saw the burning shoulders of her Hydreigon father. A vague image flashed in her mind of that very same Hydreigon hunting her down—no. No, not the same. His eyes were… kinder.

No. No, this was all wrong. This was all wrong!

“It’s very late, Mu. Get some rest.” Amia reached for her—

“No!” Mu spat a flame at the Gardevoir’s face.

“Ah! Mu!” Amia waggled a finger sternly at her.

“No, this is wrong!” Mu cried. She scrambled out of her bed, bolting past Amia and under her floating father. Father, it wasn’t her father, right? No, she’d lived her whole life here, it—no. No, what was wrong? What was wrong?

What do you think you’re doing?

Mu lost her breath and her ability to run shortly after. She knelt as the world around her curled into a tight, dark ball.

Do not defy your new world.

The tight ball got more and more oppressive. She couldn’t breathe.

Do not deny reality.

She balled up her fist and heard Amia say something. It was all muddled. Her body acted without her will: “Okay, Mom.”

Her mind felt muddled again. In the corner of her eye, she saw a dim, black flame. Then her consciousness went dark.

 

[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.

 

[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.