Sand Continent ~ Isle of Light

[Namohysip]

"I am... somewhat certain of some matters related to it," Joule replied with a hum. "One thing curious to know... is that I have recently had scattered memories of crawling about, feeling angry or confused or scared... and then struck down like a feral! How awful! I thought they were dreams, really..."

 

[Negrek]

"Wait, for real?" Nate said, but Rocky talked right over him.

"That's so cool!" Rocky leaned forward, flame blazing. "You can kinda feel what it's like to be a shade? I don't even really remember what it feels like to be a shade! I wonder if you ever got to see what I was thinking about." He screwed up his face in concentration. "Can you hear what I'm thinking about... now?"

Hi, Joule! Mudkip wants to go to the moon, did you know that? Outer space is really fun! he thought mightily.

Nate reached into the item bag and pulled out the shade he'd brought from Chip's lab, now occupying Rocky's old jar. "Can you see what I've got in here?" he asked Joule, holding the container high.

 

[Namohysip]

"Well, er... no. Not quite." Joule made what might have been a gesture to clear his throat, though it sounded more like glass falling on stone. "In any case... yes, I do believe I see that. That's one of the Shades with Chip, is it not? Oh... he's quite adorable." Joule drifted over the jar and looked inside.

He did not appear to hear what Rocky was thinking.

"But to be clear... I cannot see what a Shade sees. All of my... dreams... feel like a Shade living a brief life before being killed. Sometimes hours, sometimes days, a few for many weeks, those dreams 'lasted'..."

 

[Negrek]

"Really? That sounds kinda grim. And they die each time?" Nate wished he could find a nice spot to stare at and think, but all the sand around here was so bright it felt like it would cook his eyeballs out if he looked at it for long. "Do you think that might have something to do with your, uh, lifeyness? That you picked up from Maple? Like, I know she's supposed to guide souls to the afterlife and all, err, or she would if she had anybody to guide, so maybe you're kind of picking up on some, like, Voice of Life stuff?"

And always being killed, huh? Not starving or drowning or simply dying of shade-y old age. "Do you know what kills you in those dreams? Regular pokémon, I'm guessing?" Nate remembered that fucked-up rattata Karat had been trying to round up ages ago. They'd never actually figured out what that guy's deal was, had they?

Nate held the jar out in case Joule wanted to take it. "We can let this guy out if you want a closer look. He's pretty friendly."

 

[Namohysip]

"Yes. I actually suspect that this was the fate of the Shades that you killed..." Joule hummed, thoughtful. "I do wonder... does that mean, possibly, that all of your companions could be..." He trailed off. "Well... no. Perhaps not..." He leaned toward the jar, nodding. "Yes. Of course. Please, I'd like to see it. Perhaps I could learn more. I don't really know how that could have happened--perhaps I simply became... destabilized."

 

[Negrek]

"The shades we killed?" Nate said. "I mean, I think there were one or two near the beginning, but... I mean, unless there was somebody going after them later on that I don't know about..." He unscrewed the lid of the jar and stuck an arm in, and the shade inside raced up to his shoulder. It sat there with tendrils flicking until Nate reached back and gently removed it, holding it out to Joule.

Rocky stepped up next to the necrozma, pulling a large purple berry out of his bag and offering it to Joule. "His name's Wiki. You can give him this if you want. He'll like it."

 

[Namohysip]

"How adorable," Joule said, taking the berry in one hand and then the Shade in the other. The Shade sat, docile, in his palm. "Would you like this?"

He offered the berry to the Shade, who nibbled at it a little, and then made a gurgling noise.

"Er... does that mean he likes it? I--GNK!"

The Shade suddenly twitched toward Joule while he was distracted and landed on his prismatic chest. It appeared to be burrowing into him. Joule, looking startled but not pained, was trying in futility to pull the Shade back out. "What--is it doing?"

 

[Negrek]

Nate watched Joule feed Wiki the berry, still preoccupied. The guy hadn't exactly answered what he meant about Team Spectrum killing shades. Rocky was prattling on in the background. "I named him! Because wiki berries are the ones he likes to eat the most. That's a good name, right? I figured to sound right it had to be something to do with food, so--whoah!"

Nate stared in alarm as the shade started fucking burrowing its way into Joule's chest, exactly like the creepy parasite he looked like. But that didn't make any sense, Wiki hadn't even tried to infect anybody, and he wasn't aggressive--he acted perfectly fine around Joule, what the fuck was he--

Rocky's eyes widened. "I think he's gonna--" But Nate cut him off with a sharp gesture.

"I dunno, uh. I mean he came from you originally, right? So maybe he's kinda... going home?" Rocky was watching with his hands nervously balled up under his chin, tail lashing in wide, agitated arcs, but he didn't say anything. "Stay calm," Nate said. "It don't hurt, right? Maybe we should just let him do his thing. See what happens. We're here if something goes wrong."

Which wasn't going to be a lot of help if Joule turned all shadowed and wild again, even if he'd probably be a lot easier to deal with in this form. Imagine trying to explain that one to the team. "Oh, yeah, I took a shade out and handed it to Joule and it infected him, so now he's running around trying to blow up the planet again. Sorry about that." Or imagine explaining it to Maple. Jesus.

Nate watched, tense, to see what would happen.

 

[Namohysip]

Joule nervously watched as it disappeared, and then his whole body seemed to rattle with a weak shudder. Then... Joule chirped, coughed, and said, "Ah--excuse me. Don't know what came over me just then..."

He pat where the Shade had been. No mark. He squeezed his claws. Hummed. Joule looked a tiny bit brighter.

"...That Chip has been prodding at me to see how I reacted to various food items," Joule hummed, possibly not realizing he'd just spoken in first person.

 

[Negrek]

Nate and Rocky exchanged a look. "Oh, yeah?" Nate said. "And what did he find out, huh?"

"How do you feel?" Rocky asked.

 

[Namohysip]

"...A little better," Joule admitted, tapping his chest thoughtfully. "Mm... Yes. Shades... I understand completely, now. Shades are fragments of me... Fascinating. Much like Bean, or Cola and Arceus--goodness, we've had a lot of that lately, haven't we?" He rose a little higher. "Perhaps I should gather the rest of the Shades now that I know!"

 

[Negrek]

"Don't seem like a bad idea, necessarily, now that you know," Nate said slowly. "So, ah, is Wiki, like, gone, then? Or is he kinda rattling around in there somewhere?" He made a circular motion at Joule's prismatic chest.

Rocky looked away, tail still switching back and forth.

 

[Namohysip]

"...Wiki... yes." Joule nodded. "Yes, I do remember going by that name, very briefly. Ah... Interesting. It's all coming back to me, now. Er, all... three or so months of it, at least..."

Groudon rumbled over to them. "Does that mean I can go home now?" he asked, his voice shaking the very earth. "I've been here for weeks."

"...I think I can recover on my own, actually, Groudon. Thank you very much for all of the sunlight." Joule patted himself on the chest, then looked to Nate. "I think 'Wiki' and I have reunited. To say that he is gone is... incorrect. There just isn't much of him that I can draw upon." He chuckled, putting a claw to his, well, it was probably a chin. "How interesting! I do feel like I am both. Well! Let's not waste any time here. I'd like to reunite with the rest of my... sibling-selves, if I may."

Casually, he clawed at the air, much like pulling something from a drawer, and a portal appeared. "Would you care to accompany me?"

"Gah!" came Chip from the other side of the portal.

 

[Negrek]

"Oh? Well, that's good, I guess," Nate said. "Handy? Maybe?"

He smirked when Chip yelped from the other side of the portal. Sounded like it was about to be another normal one for the guy. "Sure. Let's go see what's up."

He started towards the portal, but his shade didn't come with him. Nate looked back. Rocky hadn't moved.

"But what about me?" the familiar said. "And all the other familiars. Are we all supposed to go back into you?"

 

[Namohysip]

Joule paused, looking behind. "Well," he said, but then paused. "...Hm. That is quite awkward, isn't it?"

An uncomfortable silence followed that was only punctuated by the heavy steps of Groudon wandering around the isle.

"I don't really know how to answer that right now," he replied. "But I'm certain it will work out!"

 

[Negrek]

"Oh." Rocky said. "Well, y-yeah, of course. I'm sure it'll be fine." In the silence that followed, Nate could hear the faint, fitful crackle of his energy flames.

"Come on," he said, prodding the familiar in the leg. "Ain't you like the king of assuming it's all gonna work out in the end?"

Rocky drew himself up and took a deep, unnecessary breath. "Right," he said. "Right. It'll be okay." He smiled weakly. "We've figured everything out so far! And saving Joule in the first place was way harder than this."

Nate watched Groudon stomping off to do groudon things. The sunlight overhead was still blinding, and it was starting to drive him woozy, and tired, and hollowed-out inside. "Why don't we go see how you feel after merging with Chip's shades, at least?" he said to Joule, and started towards the portal again.

 

[Namohysip]

"Certainly!" Joule slipped through the portal, where Chip had caught at least a few of the details.

"Er, and where's Wiki, exactly?"

Joule turned his head at the sound of his name, but then remembered. "Ah, right--I am Wiki now, yes."

"Oh. ...Wait, you're merging with all the Shades?" Chip shrank away. "But I still have so much research to complete..."

"Well, I felt quite good reuniting with Wiki. I would not want to perform a disservice to the other Shades that are probably feeling similarly lost."

"But my research..." He sank further.

 

[Negrek]

Nate hopped through the portal after Joule, then waited a moment to make sure Rocky came through, too. He did, still with that forced smile on his face. Nate watched him warily.

"Chip, are you really feeling sad about getting a chance to see what happens when a shade reunites with its, uh, what'd you call it? Sibling-self?" Nate said. "I bet you could study a fuckton of things about it. Like is there some kind of energy released when the shade, like, fuses in there? Will Joule still be able to do the tricks you taught to the shade? Is he gonna want to eat berries and shit now, like does he pick up tastes from the shades? All kinds of shit like that."

 

[Namohysip]

This, as it turned out, lifted Chip's spirits tremendously. "Well, when you put it like that... okay! Okay, just give me some time and I'll get my notes! Besides, there are still plenty of Shades in the Reverse World that I can investigate!"

"Oh, are there?" Joule hummed.

Chip froze. "E-ehh, did I say that? I must have misspoke! Er, anyway, I'll be right back!"

Soon, Chip returned with all of the Shades that Chip had acquired. By now, several of them had become Ultra Shades for the team, such that everyone on Team Spectrum was aligned with one, plus Maple's. In total, there were only seven Shades left under Chip's care, all of them squirming about confusedly before, one by one, they noticed Joule's presence.

 

[Negrek]

Nate settled in to watch, keeping half an eye on Rocky all the while. The familiar sat down cross-legged on the lab's floor, staring at the shades with a blank expression on his face.

"I guess it's kinda convenient we ended up coming out here to the lab," Nate said to Joule while they waited. "I was talking to him about this earlier... Anyway, I dunno if you remember at the end of that fight we had, you did that kinda really huge Blacklight bust attack up into the sky? Well, uh, I've been talking to some pokémon who're tight with the moon"--god, why did his fucking life have to be like this these days--"and they say they think you might've kinda, like hit it. With your attack. And there's still some kind of darkness up there. So I was thinking maybe... Maybe you accidentally sent some shades to the moon. Which probably if you did, we should, like, go get them, you know?"