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Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Guiding Light [COMPLETE]

Cutlerine

Gone. Not coming back.
The problem there is that Shane is rather … dense.

Sometimes I feel like the story has reviewed itself for me already. :V

Anyway, you are determined to keep pushing the boundaries of that T rating, huh? :p When you've got Espeon snorting stardust, you've probably passed that point, honestly. Back to the point, I open with that because it feels appropriate; these couple of chapters push a lot of characters to their lowest ebb in a while, I think, and that forces them to have quite a few conversations that have been a very long time coming. To finally get that payoff is pretty satisfying, I have to say. You've got Gallian finally starting to talk instead of yelling and trying to beat people up; Tessa challenging him over his blatant assholery (like, I know why he did it, but that doesn't excuse that he did it); Shane putting away his dream of being a hero and in the process finally actually becoming the stuff of which heroes are made. The fact that it's taken them all so long to figure out things like 'Gallian has an issue with lucario' is kind of telling; it's a good thing they have someone in Decidueye who's a bit older and wiser and can help them towards these conclusions.

Shane's especially impressive here, I think. He's come so far; he actually wants to be proven wrong now, and he wishes not for glory but for peace. There's a lovely irony to the fact that in the moment where he at last puts aside the goal of being a PMD protagonist, he becomes one in more ways than he knows: yes, there's the whole thing about disappearing, which is of course traditional for a PMD protagonist, but there's also the fact that the main characters of those games tend to be reserved, aware of their limitations, and essentially kind-hearted, and just now, Shane is actually starting to become these things.

Moving on, I wonder if his blasé attitude to his evolution has to do with already having undergone a way more dramatic change in shape before? He does have that moment of excess energy, but other than that he pretty much just doesn't care, which made me consider the fact that that first transformation must have been much more traumatic than this one.

Something that these more conversation-heavy chapters bring to the fore is an occasional woodenness to the way characters interact with and react to one another. Like this:

Silvally's words irritated Espeon.

or this:

Gallian was taken aback by this.

It kind of reads like stage directions rather than the actual action itself, you know? You could have something like 'Espeon's tail twitched in irritation' or whatever, and that would make these exchanges feel much more lively.

There's also an odd moment during the part where Shane is reliving one of Solgaleo's memories that looks to me like you rearranged part of the story but left a bit behind by accident. After he realises he's in Solgaleo's memory, he looks at his reflection and is surprised to see that he isn't a ninetales, which strikes me as kind of backwards. Were those bits the other way around before, by any chance?

This time I only have one typo for you:

his thoughts trailed off as he looked into Suicune's soft eyes.

'His' needs to be capitalised here.

Yeah! Really nicely done. Things are looking positive for Team Radiance as people, even if their prospects as fighters against an overwhelming force are a little bleak; they've got old friends and new, all kinds of people banding together to join the push against Prisma, and that's a great place to leave off here. I'm looking forward to finding out what you have planned for the next leg of their journey.
 

Ambyssin

Winter can't come soon enough
Sometimes I feel like the story has reviewed itself for me already. :V
Then I guess we're done here! :p

Anyway, you are determined to keep pushing the boundaries of that T rating, huh? :p When you've got Espeon snorting stardust, you've probably passed that point, honestly.
Aha ha... ha... *nervously tugs at collar* Someone did describe Espeon's situation to me as GoT-lite. But we're done with that bit, I swear! :oops:

Back to the point, I open with that because it feels appropriate; these couple of chapters push a lot of characters to their lowest ebb in a while, I think, and that forces them to have quite a few conversations that have been a very long time coming.
That was the intention, at least for the Tessa/Gallian half of things. When I actually got around to drafting the episode I realized it'd be a good time to address things like Espeon's bitchiness and so I ran with it.

To finally get that payoff is pretty satisfying, I have to say. You've got Gallian finally starting to talk instead of yelling and trying to beat people up; Tessa challenging him over his blatant assholery (like, I know why he did it, but that doesn't excuse that he did it); Shane putting away his dream of being a hero and in the process finally actually becoming the stuff of which heroes are made.
To steal a Pokémon related tagline... "It all comes together!"

The fact that it's taken them all so long to figure out things like 'Gallian has an issue with lucario' is kind of telling; it's a good thing they have someone in Decidueye who's a bit older and wiser and can help them towards these conclusions.
Glad I was able to get that across. My hope was that I could make Totem Decidueye a lot more level-headed to contrast with some of the other Totems we've seen (and will be seeing). Because if they were all excessively quirky, it'd hurt the story in the long run.

Shane's especially impressive here, I think. He's come so far; he actually wants to be proven wrong now, and he wishes not for glory but for peace. There's a lovely irony to the fact that in the moment where he at last puts aside the goal of being a PMD protagonist, he becomes one in more ways than he knows: yes, there's the whole thing about disappearing, which is of course traditional for a PMD protagonist, but there's also the fact that the main characters of those games tend to be reserved, aware of their limitations, and essentially kind-hearted, and just now, Shane is actually starting to become these things.
You flatter me. I say that because I wasn't necessarily thinking of that irony/meta subtext as I was writing out that scene. Perhaps I shouldn't have said that and instead gone with a, "Just as planned!" but it's too late now. XD

Moving on, I wonder if his blasé attitude to his evolution has to do with already having undergone a way more dramatic change in shape before? He does have that moment of excess energy, but other than that he pretty much just doesn't care, which made me consider the fact that that first transformation must have been much more traumatic than this one.
That's a good guess since, yes, his first transformation was so traumatizing that he (still) can't consciously remember what happened.

Something that these more conversation-heavy chapters bring to the fore is an occasional woodenness to the way characters interact with and react to one another.
Aw, nuts, I wasn't even aware of that. Looks like I'm going to have to keep my eyes peeled as I revise this stuff.

There's also an odd moment during the part where Shane is reliving one of Solgaleo's memories that looks to me like you rearranged part of the story but left a bit behind by accident. After he realises he's in Solgaleo's memory, he looks at his reflection and is surprised to see that he isn't a ninetales, which strikes me as kind of backwards. Were those bits the other way around before, by any chance?
Yeah, I'm not really sure what happened there, but I've cleaned it up and tossed out some unnecessary bits that I think muddled everything up. Thanks for pointing that out.

Yeah! Really nicely done. Things are looking positive for Team Radiance as people, even if their prospects as fighters against an overwhelming force are a little bleak; they've got old friends and new, all kinds of people banding together to join the push against Prisma, and that's a great place to leave off here.
Hey now, they're finding a way to get things done on the battle side of things. or the author's just a dummy applying video game logic to these things: look at the big, badass attacks the bosses have while you're stuck with crummy pea-shooters. This chapter will have a little more to expand on that stuff. As in, some actual strategizing on the part of our heroes.

I'm looking forward to finding out what you have planned for the next leg of their journey.
In a word: ridiculousness. I've mention that episode 13 is just going to be inherently weird. Nonetheless, I hope you're able to enjoy it. Thanks again for reviewing!

XxX

Chapter 62: Unwanted Improvisation

~Hidden Land~

Lapras' hollow-eyed form glided slowly across the tube of water floating in midair. Each awkward movement of his flippers furthered the cracks in his shell. A small chunk dropped off of his back and fell into the water. The current pushed it toward the edge of the Sea of Time, where it dropped off the water tube, falling into the expansive abyss of swirling yellow clouds below. Lapras moved his flippers forward again and a tiny amount of blood trickled out of the new hole in his shell.

"Ugh. This is infuriating! Move faster, you worthless hunk of flesh. Our destination is finally in sight."

Black ley line chains stuck out of Lapras' back, streaming up toward Necrozma's arms. Necrozma slowly rotated his arms in small circles, as if he were operating the paddles for a kayak. Each revolution of his arms made Lapras' flippers glide forward and back, pushing them closer to the floating island at the end of the water tube.

Thick yellow clouds obscured the island. They were identical to the clouds lingering far below the water. There was one lone landmark Necrozma could make out, however. Far off in the distance, two rows of pillars emerged from the top of the yellow clouds, facing one another. In between them, multicolor light trickled through the clouds, projecting the familiar Relic Fragment rune into the air.

"The Rainbow Stoneship. So, it bears my light after all," Necrozma hissed. Drool trickled out of his mouth and he lapped it up with his tongue. "Dialga, you miserable thief. Instead of trying to help me, you took my light to fortify your own domain. You used me… just like everyone else. But that's okay… heeheeheehee… soon, you'll have the chance to make up for it."

He gripped the chains with his claws and spurred them. "Hya! Faster, Lapras!" he shouted. Lapras moaned, his lifeless head bobbing downward and then jerking back up. He gave a powerful thrust of his fins, propelling himself forward through the water. "I can feel the forcefield coming," Necrozma announced. "We can't slow down now."

Necrozma's three red eyes flashed, drawing forth a wall of bright crimson energy with the Time Gear's silhouette floating in its center. Necrozma spurred Lapras' makeshift reins, ignored the resulting squeal, and pitched forward. Lapras' head reached the barrier and passed through it, orange light flowing across his body. Necrozma tightened his grip on the chains, curling his wings around his body.

To his relief, he passed through the barrier completely unharmed. "Heeheeheehee! Yes… excellent! It worked!" He looked up, noticing the Hidden Land's primary floating island drawing closer. He maneuvered Lapras further along the water, passing through the island's cloud covering in the process.

A thick, dense tree line lay several yards ahead of Necrozma. The trees' leaves all glowed with ethereal blue light, creating a haze that hung between the tree line and cloud line. Necrozma frowned at the sight. He could sense energy radiating from that area. No doubt, if he tried to fly over the Hidden Land, it would prove a painful experience.

"You just think of everything, don't you, Dialga?" Necrozma sneered. "Anything to protect your precious tower after Darkrai ran afoul of it."

His gaze fell to the stone archway sitting in a rock wall at the edge of the island. There was a small grassy knoll in front of it, though the grass itself was crabby and looked as though it'd been trampled on. Some withered bushes sat around it, dried remnants of berries clinging to their dying branches. Necrozma maneuvered Lapras' reins, steering him through the water until they reached the end of the Sea of Time.

Lapras fell out of the water tube and struck the ground hard. The cracks widened even further in his shell, shattering it completely. Necrozma tugged hard on the chains and they disconnected from Lapras' back, taking all of his colors with them. Lapras' life energy rushed toward Necrozma, who slurped it up gleefully. Necrozma looked down, watching as gray blood pooled out around Lapras.

"Ooooh. I'm no doctor, but I think you might want to have that checked out," Necrozma sneered. "Here, let me get that for you." He raised an arm and dark energy crackled around it. Black crystals swarmed Lapras' body, covering him from head to tail. "There. All better!" He floated past Lapras' body, keeping his gaze fixed on the archway leading into the forest. "So, if I want to reach Temporal Tower, I'll need to take the long way," he said. "Fine. There are undoubtedly plenty of wild Pokémon in here. So, I'll unravel them and take their lay lines to use on you, Dialga!"

However, the instant Necrozma glided underneath the archway, he froze. His red eyes flashed and his jaw fell open. "W… what the–?" A weak cough escaped his mouth. The air around him began to distort. Hexagons of blue light flickered to life. Necrozma attempted to turn around but found himself unable to move. He tried flexing his claws to no avail. Even his jaw, hanging open limply, couldn't be closed properly. His gaze remained fixed ahead of him, seeing nothing but a wall of blue hexagons surrounding him.

Necrozma wanted to scream, but only a small, high-pitched squeal escaped his gaping mouth.

XxX​

~Temporal Tower~

"I've got him!" Dialga declared, his fierce eyes brimming with blue energy. He stood in the center of the Temporal Pinnacle. Blue lines raced out across the floor in different directions, forming strange glyphs and sigils that Mewtwo didn't recognize.

By 'him,' you mean Necrozma, yes? Mewtwo said, raising a skeptical brow. He gazed out into the clouds swirling around the tower. Their presences had multiplied since Dialga had started channeling his powers over the time stream.

"Correct. It looks like this time stasis bubble might work after all," Dialga said, taking deep breaths. Mewtwo sensed his life force spiking. Though Dialga could wield control over time, it seemed that doing so for extended bursts proved costly.

How long do you think you can keep this up for? I do have some berries that I brought along, but I'm not sure how much good they'll do for your stamina, Mewtwo said.

"I'm doing alright," Dialga said, exhaling calmly. "I'm manipulating time over a very small area. This isn't too bad. The problem stems from not having done this in quite a while. But, as Latias said, desperate times mean desperate measures." He turned his hardened look on Mewtwo. "Do not tell her I said that. If I let her know that she was right, it's going to go right to her head."

Understood, Mewtwo said, uncrossing his arms. What does this mean for the Hidden Land, then?

"I'm drawing on its ley lines to stabilize the time energy," Dialga said. He dug his left foreleg into the floor. Blue energy swirled around it, striking the floor and spreading out to add to the growing rings of light surrounding Dialga. "As we speak, the dungeon area is probably morphing. Wild Pokémon will be springing up left and right."

Mewtwo floated up to the edge of Temporal Tower. Which is where I come in.

"Don't go anywhere," Dialga ordered, fixing his gaze on the runes in the ground. "If you get too close to Necrozma, he might be able to sense your life energy, even trapped inside the time stasis bubble. The last thing I want is for him to find sudden motivation to try and break free."

Then what would you have me do? Mewtwo asked, eyes flashing blue. I won't just float by idly, you know. Wouldn't he sense the new Pokémon the ley lines are making?

"He will. But they're all artificial… all they have to offer him are ley lines, not life energy," Dialga said. "Just hang on. I want to be confident that I've repelled Necrozma before I send you in there to clean things up."

Mewtwo crossed his arms, scowling. Hmph. The world's strongest Pokémon… reduced to nothing but a glorified maid. This is degrading.

XxX

~Hidden Land~

Necrozma's view of the dungeon entrance had completely faded. The light tiles had gotten so close to him that they blurred together in his limited field of vision. He tried to force himself forward, but none of his muscles responded. Around him, small clouds of dust hung in midair, neither floating upward nor drifting toward the ground. Droplets of water sat still on moss clinging to the inside of the stone arch. Even the thick yellow fog indicating the start of the Mystery Dungeon wasn't moving.

Everything was frozen. Including him.

Though he couldn't move his body, Necrozma's mind still worked. Even with his viewpoint greatly restricted, he had a strong idea what was happening. The strange light tiles, the total paralysis, and the parts of the environment around him coming to a complete standstill all pointed toward one conclusion: time had frozen in the gate. And he was stuck right in the middle of the temporal anomaly.

Another muffled cry escaped his open mouth. Necrozma attempted to shout Dialga's name in frustration, but he couldn't produce anything more than a grunt. He immediately gave up trying to progress further against the time energy holding him in place. Instead, Necrozma relaxed his muscles. Or, rather, sent the mental signals for them to relax. His frozen state even prevented him from achieving this simple goal.

Necrozma remained suspended in midair with no knowledge of exactly how much time had passed. He tried to mentally count out the seconds, but with each attempt, sharp pain struck his head from all sides. Dialga had such strong control over time in this pocket, that even thinking about the concept was a struggle for Necrozma. Instead, his mind went blank, as if Necrozma were trying to lull himself to sleep despite being trapped in stasis.

His red eyes suddenly flashed. Necrozma's body violently lurched backward. The hexagon tiles behind him shattered like glass and he fell back onto the grassy knoll. Wisps of blue energy streamed off of his body and he thrashed his arms and wings about, hissing madly.

"Skrrreeeeeep!" Necrozma shouted, rising shakily back into the air. He was hunched over and panting heavily. "So… you don't intend… to back down… with making me work for it… huh?" he muttered. "You're so eager to hold onto the light you stole from me. Is that it?" Necrozma floated back from the dungeon entrance and glanced up at the sky. "You think you can get away with this? I alone saved this world from crisis. I gave this world its past, its present, and its future."

The red eye in his forehead glowed brightly, as did red patches under his chest armor. Necrozma slammed his arms on the ground, digging his claws into the dirt. He opened his mouth wide, drool trickling down his tongue. "My stardust is here... on your island... iN yOUr ToWeR! eVeRYtHinG hErE iS nECroZmA's!"

He enveloped his arms with his wings, breath coming in ragged gasps. The glow faded from his third eye. After a minute, he floated back into the air. "Fine… you win, Dialga," Necrozma said. "I cede this round to you. If I'm to take Temporal Tower for my own, it would seem I'm going to need to get creative!"

Necrozma floated back until he was at the edge of the floating island. He turned around and looked down toward the yellow clouds swirling far beneath him. A frown crossed his face. There was one thing that came to mind, of course: the Hourglasses. They had his light. Even just getting one of them could offer enough Z-Power to get around Dialga's stupid forcefields.

But he already knew for a fact that the Dawn Hourglass had been shattered. Undoubtedly, Shane and his fake friends were trying to find them. He could try and face them, sure, but if they were to use their Z-Power– no, his Z-Power successfully, that would be it. His tiny spirit fragment would be flung from Lunala's body.

"So, it has to be the Dusk Hourglass, then," Necrozma concluded. "I just have to find it… and stay out of sight!"

He gave a powerful flap of his wings and soared away from the floating island. Necrozma tucked his wings in and summoned an Ultra Wormhole below him. He flew inside the portal, which promptly faded from existence.

XxX

~Temporal Tower~

Well? What happened? Mewtwo asked, eyeing Dialga skeptically. The runes and light had faded from around Dialga, who sat on his haunches, catching his breath.

"Necrozma tore himself back from the time bubble," Dialga said. "He appears to have left the Hidden Land."

So, do we consider that a success? Mewtwo asked.

"I would say so, yes," Dialga said. "Trying to keep Necrozma restrained indefinitely would've put a significant strain on the time stream. The longer I was forced to use that time stasis bubble, the greater the risk of ley lines running out of control and potentially damaging Temporal Tower."

I would have prevented the damage if that were to happen, Mewtwo scoffed.

Dialga shook his head. "I believe even your powers would struggle to rein in ley lines. You've never had to control them, correct?"

Mewtwo casually flicked an arm. I'm the fastest learner on the planet, I assure you.

"Well, it's a moot point," Dialga scoffed. "Now then, I believe you have some work to do in the Hidden Land." He gestured in front of him with a foreleg.

Mewtwo hovered forward. I'll be done in ten minutes… tops. He sped off, disappearing into the vortex of yellow clouds.

XxX

~Treeshroud Forest~

"This is beyond disappointing. You had all that extra power and multiple Nihilegos backing you up and you still couldn't finish the job!"

Static raced up and down Zero's body even as she walked along the cobblestone path inexplicably positioned in the middle of two lines of trees bearing orange, autumnal leaves. Milotic slithered slowly behind Zero, keeping her gaze trained on the ground.

"They had backup… a lot of backup," Milotic whispered.

"Backup that was amateurish," Zero spat. Her left arm momentarily disappeared, taking her scepter with it. It then flickered back into place. Afterimages popped up around Zero. Milotic noticed one out of the corner of her eye and shrank back further.

"She's right, you know," Dragonite scoffed. "Your divide and conquer strategy was a decent idea, but the execution left something to be desired. You should've made sure to keep all of Team Radiance within your sight. That way you could stop them from using any Z-Moves."

"It goes beyond Z-Moves," Serperior growled, bringing up the rear of the group. "It's Silvally. The guy's a battling machine. Every time I tried to use one of my stronger attacks, he was right there to counter me. And his constant type-changing makes him a nightmare to deal with!"

"I'm not interested in your excuses," Zero sneered. "You'll just have to do a better job the next time you deal with them. Might I suggest recruiting some cannon fodder of your own? If Team Radiance is going to hide behind worthless bystanders, then we can sacrifice a few wild Pokémon for our cause." She narrowed her eye. "If only the Pokémon in these dungeons were actually real... then we could put them to good use."

Dragonite crossed her arms. "Well, it doesn't matter. We're already at the end of the dungeon, we won't find any wild 'mons here."

Zero nudged her mask. "Pity."

The group reached a point where the cobblestone path started to widen. Zero stretched out her free arm, her lone eye narrowing in suspicion. "This isn't right," she growled. "I'm not getting even the faintest trace of the Time Gear."

"Look over there," Milotic gasped, pointing her bladed tail forward. "The middle of the clearing's been completely drained of its colors."

"It's not just that. There are leaves that are just floating in midair," Serperior said. "It's like time's all… not working and stuff… but just in that small patch."

Zero slammed her staff into the ground, jolting Serperior and Milotic to attention. "That means the Time Gear's already gone!" she snarled. "That patch of frozen time will spread until it's taken out this entire dungeon."

As soon as she finished saying that, the gray patch of land in the middle of the clearing widened slightly. A gust blew through the area, sweeping leaves off their branches. Several of them drifted into the strip of frozen time. They all lost their orange coloration and immediately froze in place. Milotic and Serperior backed away uneasily.

"How could the Time Gear be gone?" Milotic wondered. "Everyone who lives in the Grass Continent knows not to take any of them from their respective dungeons. We're the ones who want to change the flow of time."

Zero tightened her trip on her scepter. Her paw flickered, with more afterimages appeared up and down the scepter. "It would seem… that someone doesn't want the Time Gears falling into our clutches. And they're willing to risk messing with the flow of time just to see to it that we don't get them." She nudged up her mask. "But who took this Time Gear? Was it one of the gods attempting to intervene?"

"I think it was a guild. Or multiple guilds," Dragonite said. "We know for a fact that the Horizon Guild was talking with the Expedition Society about everything you were doing. I wouldn't be surprised if Ampharos learned you're after the Time Gears and decided to act preemptively."

Zero turned to face Team Captivate, her lone eye brimming with blue flames. "So, even as I attempt to work around him, he's still making alterations to whatever crazed plan he's drawn up to try and stop me. That arrogant moron. He really thinks he can replicate his success in working around Dark Matter. The gods have instilled him with a perverted sense of self-importance!" She raised her free paw and tiny red cubes gathered up in it. "How else could a buffoon who can't even navigate his hometown manage to put together such an ingenious plan? There's divine trickery at work here, I'm sure of it."

"What does that mean for us, then?" Serperior said. "If Ampharos managed to trick Dark Matter, then he must be thinking, like, five steps ahead of us already!"

Dragonite whirled on her teammate. Blue lightning crackled in her eyes. "You would dare doubt Mistress Zero like that? What is wrong with you?"

"Nothing!" Serperior insisted, raising her tail in self-defense. "I was curious, that's all."

"… I'll admit, I hadn't expected them to actually take the Time Gears out of their respective dungeons," Zero said, catching Dragonite by surprise. "I have an idea of how we can get around this… unfortunate roadblock. But it's going to require some finesse."

The ladies of Team Captivate all leaned in with interest. "What did you have in mind?" Milotic asked.

Zero's eye glowed blue again. "Well, if we're going to make this work, we'll have to recruit some outside help."

Dragonite frowned. "Bah! I'm more than capable of doing whatever it is you need."

"No, Dragonite," Zero said, holding up her scepter. "If this plan is going to work… we'll need a real pal on our side… if you catch my drift."

A grin wove its way onto Dragonite's face.

XxX

~Pokémon Square~

Hoopa and Latias floated away from the limestone-filled central plaza, toward a dirt road heading north. Round, dome-shaped houses lined the street, most of them covered with a layer of leaves and large sprouts. No one else was out on the streets, although Latias could see luminous orbs flickering inside some of the buildings, indicating Pokémon were indeed inside them. After passing their fourth pair of houses, the road narrowed and sloped upward. Rows of trees sprouted up from the ground on either side of the path.

"Hoopa thinks you look like an old lady with those bags under your eyes."

Latias tucked her head into her chest and rubbed her eyes. "Hoopa, can you just do me a favor and be quiet? We're here on important business. These are old friends of mine and we really need their help. So, I'd appreciate it if you didn't act like your usual self."

"Tch. What are you worried about? Hoopa's charm is infectious. Hoopa can help smooth things over with these 'Team Go-Getters' characters," Hoopa scoffed. He floated further ahead of Latias and rolled onto his back, resting his hands behind his head. "When was the last time you saw these two, anyway?"

Latias froze, wings sticking up. "Uh… well…" She tapped her claws together. "I think I went to Swampert's hatch day… six months ago?"

Hoopa snickered. "Yeah, Hoopa's sure they're gonna be real open to working with us." He opened up a ring portal next to him and pulled out a donut. "Maybe Hoopa will stay silent this time. If only because Hoopa thinks this is gonna be entertaining." He took a large bite out of the donut and held it up to look through it at Latias.

"I've been busy. As have they. I'm sure they'll understand," Latias said, before whispering under her breath, "I hope."

The duo emerged into a spacious clearing where the trail turned into cobblestones. The road sloped downward, coming to a stop by a pond full of sparkling water. A small cliff face sat in the distance, with three waterfalls feeding into the pond. There were also three small rock platforms in the middle of the pond serving as stepping stones to get to a rock island in the center of the pond.

"Oh, good. They're already here," Latias chirped. "Hi guys!"

On the central platform, a Blaziken and a Swampert turned around to face Latias. Blaziken noticeably had an X-shaped scar running across the bridge of his beak, while Swampert's three large fins were bright red instead of the expected black. Both of them had a maroon bandanna around their necks, each with a rusty rescuer's badge clipped to it.

"Latias, hey!" Swampert greeted, his nasally voice causing Hoopa to sit up and tilt his head in surprise. "Great to see you again!"

"Yeah, it's been ages," Blaziken agreed, his voice deeper but scratchier than Swampert's. "Would it have killed you to send a letter or two?"

Hoopa smirked at Latias while nervous sweat droplets formed in her neck. "Aha ha… ha… I would've, but things have been very busy over in Lively Town."

"For six months?" Blaziken said, eyebrow raised skeptically.

"Um… maybe?"

An awkward silence ensued until Blaziken leaned over, laughing and smacking his knees. "Ha! C'mon, Latias, lighten up. I was just ribbing ya!"

Hoopa tilted his head to the other side while Latias sighed in relief. "That's good to hear," she said.

"Wouldn't you have known he was joking, being an empath an all?" Swampert said, a goofy smile plastered on his face.

Latias dropped out of the air and faceplanted into the ground. She quickly floated back up, dusting herself off. "Yes, I should have. Sorry, I'm just under a lot of pressure. I've been jumping back and forth between different continents so much, I'm starting to think I may have time traveled." She ran her claws through her neck-feathers.

"Pffbt, don't be ridiculous. You're not that special," Hoopa scoffed. He turned to face Blaziken and Swampert. "So, you're the guys who stopped that meteor from squishing us all, right?"

Blaziken smirked. "You got it. Team Go-Getters, at your service!" He put his hands on his hips and winked at Hoopa.

"… meh. Hoopa's seen better."

Blaziken nearly fell back into the pond in disbelief. "Jeez, Latias, where did you find this guy, huh?" Swampert asked.

"He's a fellow recruit for Team Gaia," Latias sighed. "The Expedition Society… has some interesting characters."

"See? I told you we had a good reason never to make a guild here," Blaziken quipped. "All the rescue teams work independently and we don't have any problems to speak of."

Swampert frowned. "What about the time when–"

Blaziken threw his arm around Swampert's neck and let out an overexaggerated laugh. "Oh, Swampy, you're such a kidder!" He put on a serious expression and stood back up. "We should really get down to business, though. What did you want to see us for?"

"I'm here to ask for your help," Latias said. "I'd like you guys to come with me to the Horizon Continent."

Blaziken whistled. "That's an awful lot of flight time."

"Hoopa can get you all there instantly," Hoopa boasted, spinning one of his rings in his hand.

"Uh, Whiscash warned me about going through strange portals with gods," Swampert said, poking absentmindedly at the ground. "Besides, what could be so important that you need us to go halfway around the world?"

"It's a bit of a complicated story. I can use my sight-sharing to give you two the quick and dirty version, if that's alright," Latias replied.

"Sight-sharing?" Swampert parroted, shooting Blaziken a worried look. "That doesn't hurt, does it?"

"Of course not. I'm quite well-trained at it. Latios and I do it all the time," Latias insisted.

"I don't see a problem with it," Blaziken said. "If it saves us time, then let's get to it."

Latias nodded. Her eyes brimmed with blue energy as she filled Team Go-Getters' minds with her recent experiences in the Horizon Continent. After several seconds, she cut off the mental link and floated back from them. "So, uh, yeah. That's the situation," she said. "Any questions?"

Swampert's arm shot up into the air. "Yeah, I've got at least ten! Want me to write them down?"

Blaziken facepalmed. "We don't exactly have time to stand here all day and play twenty questions, you know." He rubbed the bridge of his beak. "What exactly are we going to do in the Horizon Continent? Look for the missing Dawn Hourglass?"

"Yes," Latias said. "Err… sort of." She fidgeted with her satchel's strand. "See, we kind of need to coordinate with Team Radiance, first."

Swampert and Blaziken exchanged confused looks. "Team… Radiance?" Swampert said.

"They're the explorers I'm working with in the Horizon Guild," Latias explained.

"Huh. Can't say I've heard of them," Blaziken said. "Must be a pack of rookies." He elbowed Swampert in the ribs. "Bring back any memories, buddy?"

"Sure, of course they do," Swampert said, with a nervous laugh. "Who could forget that time you accidentally drop-kicked Absol into a snow bank on Mt. Freeze?"

Blaziken looked away, biting the tip of a talon in embarrassment. "Aha ha… ha… I thought he was a Sneasel!"

"Guys, focus!" Latias said, snapping her claws. "We need to get going. You can meet Team Radiance for yourselves when we get to Cosmic Cavern." She looked over her shoulder. "Are we good to go, Hoopa?"

"Pfbt. Hoopa's good to go whenever." Hoopa raised his hand up and shouted, "Alléhooparing!" The ring portal immediately formed behind him and he bowed gracefully.

Sweat drops trickled down Blaziken's head. He leaned over toward Latias and whispered, "This guy's not seriously gonna do that every time he makes one of those portals, is he?"

Latias' ears drooped. "You'll get used to it."

Blaziken shook his head. "Something tells me I won't."

XxX

~Cosmic Cavern~

There was a fire pit set up on the opposite side of the cave from the tunnel leading to the hot springs. Luxeira, Gallian, Zoroark, Espeon, and Tessa sat around a small, crackling fire. Behind them, Totem Decidueye perched on a rock. Dusk was also lying atop the rock, still heavily-bandaged. Sticky floated behind Luxeira, casting wayward glances at the tunnel across the village and poking his nubby arms together.

"I thought your companions were following us," Sticky said. "What happened to them?"

"I think they hung back to talk," Tessa said, shrugging.

"They picked a lousy time, then," Sticky harrumphed. "We've got important information we need to pass on."

"Relax, Sticky," Luxeira said. With her helmet and uniform removed, she had a fairly youthful appearance about her. Her blue fur was vibrant and her orange eyes looked lively. "The sun only set a short time ago. It's not too late into the evening, yet."

"What do you suppose they hung back for, anyway?" Zoroark wondered, poking at the outer rim of the fire with a long stick.

"Beats me," Tessa replied. "Silvally's hard to get a read on, sometimes." The moment she stopped speaking, her aura feelers quivered. Tessa looked over her shoulder at Espeon. "Hey, did you just sense something?"

"Yeah," Espeon said, ears twitching. "It felt a bit familiar, but–"

A ring portal opened by the entrance to the Cavernous Depths. Latias and Hoopa flew out of it. Everyone besides Tessa, Espeon, and Zoroark reacted in complete surprise at their appearance, almost to the point of ignoring Blaziken and Swampert as they stumbled out of the portal.

Swampert put a hand up to his mouth, his face paling. "Let's… uh… let's not do that again," he said before belching loudly.

Blaziken's feathers bristled. "Good gods, Swampert. What did you eat last night?" he asked, waving a hand in front of his face.

"Uh, wouldn't that be this night? Since, y'know, we just jumped backwards half a day," Swampert said, chuckling nervously. "Or… did we move forwards? Gah, now I'm confused."

"All right, what's the meaning of this?" Totem Decidueye called, taking off from his perch and landing in front of Latias and Hoopa. He looked off toward the village's houses and confirmed no one was outside to witness the portal. "I'm the Totem here and I would like an explanation as to why you're barging into our home."

"It's okay, sir," Tessa said, sitting up from the fire pit and waving Latias over with a paw. "Latias is with us."

"And the other three?" Totem Decidueye asked, ignoring the confused looks Blaziken and Swampert gave him.

"Uh… they're with us, too," Tessa said, albeit a lot less confidently.

Totem Decidueye lowered his outstretched wing. "Fair enough. Though I would ask you take care of whatever business you need to quickly. It's been a trying day for us and I'd like the village to return to some semblance of normalcy."

Latias nodded. She beckoned Blaziken and Swampert to follow her over to the fire pit. "I got Espeon's message. You guys have two Dawn Shards?"

"Yeah," Espeon said. "We got the Sizzle Shard from Gallian." She jerked her head in the Absol's direction, causing him to look down guiltily. "And we found the Subterranean Shard in the Mystery Dungeon here, though we had to fight off Milotic and a couple of Ultra Beasts to get it."

"Well, I'm glad you're all okay," Latias said. She noticed the shocked looks she was getting. "O-Oh… right… where are my manners?" Latias hoisted up her satchel to show off the Expedition Society badge pinned to it. "I'm Latias. I normally work with Team Gaia over at the Expedition Society, but I've decided to help out the Horizon Guild… or what's left of it, anyway."

"And Hoopa's her boss, making sure she does a good job and doesn't slack off," Hoopa said, patting Latias' left wing. She turned around and gave him the stink eye. Hoopa shrugged her off, snickering loudly.

"And your friends over there?" Dusk asked, shakily pointing a forepaw at Blaziken and Swampert.

"Heh…" Blaziken rubbed the tip of his beak. "We're–"

Tessa sprang to her feet fast enough to make Espeon squeak in surprise. "You're Team Go-Getters," she gasped, pointing a paw at them. "I can't believe this!" She turned to Espeon. "Team Go-Getters is really here! This is, like… I've had dreams about getting to meet you guys, but I never actually imagined this'd really be happening. Oh, I have so many questions! Like how did it feel to meet Rayquaza and–"

A pink glow formed around Tessa's snout, clamping it shut, and Espeon fixed a stern look on her. "I'd have expected that reaction from Shane, not from you," Espeon said, shaking her head. "I'm starting to think he's a bad influence."

"Wow," Swampert said, whistling, "I didn't realize we had fans."

"Yeah, seriously," Blaziken said, laughing. "I'd have charged for autographs!"

Tessa sat back down, blushing badly. "Aha ha… sorry about that. Got a bit carried away," she said. "It's just, my dad always told me stories about the explorers that saved the world in the past. You guys and Team Poképals always stood out to me. I sent you fan mail and everything."

"Well, I certainly can't fault your tastes," Blaziken said, laughing. He paused for a moment. "Oh, wait, you're that Riolu?" He scratched his chin. "Huh… small world. Look at you… all grown up and stuff. I dig the scarf, too."

Tessa's face flushed and she twirled the edge of her bandanna around her digit. "Thanks," she whispered.

"No problem. From what Latias told us, you've been through quite the ordeal of your own," Blaziken said.

"Yeah. Pokémon getting turned into vicious alien monsters? I'm not sure what I'd do in that situation," Swampert said, shuddering. It was at that point he noticed Sticky out of the corner of his eye. "Ah… Blaziken! Look, that's one of the aliens, isn't it?"

"Relax," Gallian huffed. "Sticky's about as harmful as a wet blanket."

Sticky tilted his head in confusion. "Wouldn't a wet blanket hurt if you hit someone with sufficient force?"

"Yeah. Just like it hurts to step in your Toxic Spikes," Gallian said.

Squeeeelch!

Everyone in the group fixed their attentions toward the tunnel leading to the hot springs. Shane froze in the tunnel's mouth, a forepaw hovering in the air. Water dripped off of him, puddling up on the ground.

"There you are, Shane," Tessa said, standing up with a look of concern. "What was the hold up all about?"

"And why are you soaking wet?" Espeon added. "Guuugh… I can smell that wet fur all the way over here." She waved a forepaw in front of her snout.

"Yeah, well you can thank the big guy for that one," Shane huffed, flicking his head to the side. His wet mane smacked against his neck, flinging water onto the cave wall. Silvally sauntered up to his side, equally soaked but grinning broadly.

"Eyyyyyaaaaaaaaagh!" Swampert shouted, jumping back in surprise. "Is that another one of the aliens?"

"No, that's… um… Silvally," Latias said.

"Pleased to meet you," Silvally chirped, his fish tail wagging excitedly. "Making new friends is always great."

"Uh… likewise," Blaziken said.

"You still didn't answer our questions, you know," Espeon piped up. "What happened to you two?"

Shane's ears stuck up and a blush took over his face. "Oh… um… well…"

"Poor Shane here got hit with a late case of the evolution high," Silvally said. "So, I kicked him into one of the hot springs. I figured it might burn off that excess energy."

"Shane?" Swampert said, looking at the Ninetales and scratching his chin. "Does that mean you're human?"

Shane's ears drooped. "Um… it's a bit complicated, actually." A beat followed, and then Shane asked, 'Wait, are you human?"

Swampert shook his head. "I'm not… but Blaziken is. Or… err… he was. We're Team Go-Getters. I guess if you came from the human world, then you don't really know about us."

"Of course I know about you," Shane said. "You stopped all the natural disasters that Gengar brought onto the world, including that big meteor."

Blaziken whistled. "Huh. The kid's done his homework. Not half-bad."

Tessa flicked a paw at this. "Please. You should've seen him when I first found him washed up on the beach. Stumbling around… spouting crazy things like he'd hit the spiked berry juice too hard."

Espeon and Silvally chuckled at this. Meanwhile, Gallian and Zoroark exchanged looks. Both raised an eyebrow in amusement. "You two sure that's all that happened?" Zoroark asked, a smirk on his lips. Tessa glanced quizzically at Zoroark, while Dusk immediately caught the gist of his comment and faced Shane and Silvally, blinking in surprise.

"Well… not exactly," Silvally said, drawing wide-eyes looks from everyone besides Shane and Tessa. "I got blasted into the water by a Psychic. That was quite surprising."

Latias spun around, brow furrowed. "That's impossible. Sure, Ninetales can manifest psychic powers, but none of them can actually use the move Psychic," she said. "Are you sure he didn't just hit you with Extrasensory?"

"It was Psychic," Silvally replied. "Read his life force if you don't believe me."

Latias' eyes flashed blue. She hovered backward, gasping in surprise. "E… Espeon," she said. "Give me the Sizzle Shard, please."

"Uh, are you sure that's a good idea?" Espeon asked.

"Yes. This is very important," Latias said, an eager look in her eyes. Espeon levitated the Sizzle Shard to Latias. She grabbed it with her own telekinesis and thrust it in Shane's face. "Touch this, if you would."

Shane looked at the Sizzle Shard and whimpered. "Do I have to?"

"You did it for the Subterranean Shard, yes?" Latias said.

"Only because I was disoriented at the time," Shane said. He shot a quick glance at Tessa, who had a worried look on her face. Nevertheless, Tessa nodded toward him.

"You'll be okay," she mouthed, offering him a friendly smile.

Shane closed his eyes and touched the tip of his snout to the Sizzle Shard. All at one, his muscles tensed up. The wind rushed out of Shane and he collapsed onto his knees, gasping loudly. Silvally was down beside him in an instant. "Shane? Shane! You're doing okay, buddy. Just breathe. C'mon… deep breath in… deep breath out." He reached his foreleg up and rubbed Shane's back.

Shane's pupils shrank. The scene of the cave dissolved all around him. Shane suddenly found himself floating in midair surrounded by the star-filled vista of outer space. He opened his mouth to say something, when two blobs swirled into existence in front of him. After a few seconds of static, the blobs revealed themselves to be a Chikorita and a Fennekin. Each one had a striped, blue and green scarf sitting around their necks. They both stared back at Shane, looks of intense determination on their faces.

'What the… what am I seeing here? Another experience I had as Solgaleo?' Shane wondered. A flash of violet light caught his attention. Shane looked past Chikorita and Fennekin, where a smoldering purple eye sat in the middle of the starry sky, staring back at Shane.

hALfWaY tHeRe nOW. DoN't DiSaPpOInt mE!

The purple eye disappeared, only to be replaced with a silhouette of Solgaleo's face. Then, the scene surrounding Shane vanished in a swirl of black and blue, leaving him kneeling on the ground, making dry heaving motions. Shane stumbled to his feet with a dazed look in his eyes.

"Uh, are you feeling any better?" Silvally asked.

In response to this, Shane belched loudly, launching a stream of superheated air forward. Latias squealed in surprise, nearly dropping the Sizzle Shard as she flew out of the way of the attack. Shane promptly shut his mouth and went cross-eyed looking at his muzzle. "I… uh… excuse me?" he said.

Everyone in the group collectively jaw-dropped. "Wait, since when can the ice-type Ninetales use Heat Wave? What kind of sense does that make?" Blaziken wondered.

"Aha ha… yeah… that's… um… kind of where the 'it's complicated' answer to the human question comes into play," Shane said, laughing nervously. He scratched at the back of his head. "Would you guys believe me if I told you that Solgaleo's spirit is trapped inside of me?"

An awkward silence ensued, until Gallian punctuated the group's disbelief with a stern, "No."

"How badly did you get roughed up in the Depths?" Zoroark asked.

"It's the truth," Shane said. "When Necrozma dragged me into this world, he must've stuffed Solgaleo's spirit inside of me. If we gather up the pieces of the Dawn Hourglass, then we can bring him back." He opted not to say anything else on the matter, hoping his teammates wouldn't pry.

"I believe him," Tessa said, paw raised in the air. "We've seen a lot of weird stuff in our time together. I'm not entirely sure I like the implications behind all of it, but I can't think of a reasonable alternative."

Latias nodded. "That would explain the strange vibes I got from your life energy, Shane. Err… no offense."

"None taken," Shane said. "For all I know, I could still be wrong. My gut's just telling me I'm not." He slowly closed his eyes. 'But what was up with that odd memory I just saw? No, I can't dwell on it right now. My teammates need me focused.'

"Understood," Latias said. "Then, I guess we should figure out where we go from here." She floated over to the campfire, followed by the four Pokémon that were standing by her.

"Yeah, uh, about that," Silvally said. "Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful you've brought reinforcements and everything… but why exactly should we be taking orders from you?" His head titled to the side. "Or Ampharos… assuming he's the one directing you to do this."

Latias flinched. "Err… wait, what do you mean by that?"

Silvally sat down on his haunches. "It's just… Ampharos isn't here. He doesn't know what we've been doing. I'm sure you've looped him in and everything, but I don't trust his judgment on this matter."

"I… uh… sorry," Latias squeaked, tapping her claws together. "Was I coming off as too bossy? That wasn't my intent at all. I just… I want to help however I can, but they still need me overseas. So, I thought I'd coordinate things for you. Y'know, alleviate the stress of planning?"

"I don't think you were too bossy," Silvally said. He glanced at his teammates. "Look, I can't speak for them, but after what happened with Metagross, you'll have to forgive me if I'm a bit hesitant to have a powerful psychic bossing me around."

"That's… understandable," Latias said, biting her lower lip. "I'm sorry. I won't overstep again. So… um… would you like me to help you strategize?"

Silvally nodded. "That'd be great."

Latias gave him a tired smile. "Okay. In that case, we have these two Dawn Shards in our possession. That leaves the Seaside Shard in Sunset Shoals and the Scalebound Sh– OW!"

Latias tucked her head into her chest and rubbed her mouth, squeaking loudly. "What's the matter, Latias?" Swampert asked.

I bit my tongue, she said, using her telepathy. There were a few snickers amongst the group. "As I was saying, with this many of us working together, I think it might be wise to split up and tackle the remaining shards in separate groups."

"No way," Shane interjected. "What about strength in numbers? More of us together means an easier time dealing with whatever gets thrown at us. Because, let's face it, we're not just going to be able to waltz into the next Mystery Dungeon and take one of the shards for ourselves."

"You don't necessarily know that," Silvally said. Shane turned around, looking at Silvally in disbelief. "Okay, you're right. With everything that's happened to us, I'm expecting to have to swim away from a tidal wave if we go to Sunset Shoals," Silvally conceded.

"Well don't jinx us, you dummy," Tessa said, shoving Silvally playfully. She then wiped her wet paws against the rock.

"See, that's why I think we need to split up… at least a little bit," Latias said. "If something bad happens to you guys, then you need allies who can come in and bail you out." She glanced toward Luxeira and Sticky. "I was thinking that you two could go with Team Go-Getters. You're not the strongest battlers, from what I've seen, while Team Go-Getters don't really know about Ultra Beasts. So, you guys complement each other."

"I can go with them, too," Dusk offered, raising a forepaw. "Now that I've seen what the problem is, I don't want to sit on my ass hoping things will work out. I've got to do something."

Totem Decidueye turned to Dusk in surprise. "Are you sure that's such a good idea? You're not exactly in the best shape after this afternoon."

Dusk looked at the medicinal leaves on her back and winced. "O-Oh yeah," she whispered.

"Not to worry. I can have that patched up for you in a jiffy," Latias said. She raised a glowing paw and bright light sparkled underneath the bandages. Dusk blinked in surprise and looked toward her back. Blood still stained her fur, but she was able to move around without any pain or difficulties.

"Hey, that's much better," she gasped. "Wow… y'know, I had always heard you Legends were big, intimidating types who didn't care for us mortals."

Latias' expression wilted. "I'm… uh… not really much of a Legend, according to the others," she said, tapping her claws together.

"Yeah. You should see the names they call her when they see her in person," Hoopa heckled.

"Dude, seriously? Have some tact," Silvally said, fixing a disapproving look on Hoopa.

"It's okay," Latias said. "I don't care about what they think anymore. This is about doing what's right." She turned back to Team Paradox. "Anyway, I thought you two, Dusk, and Team Go-Getters could head to Rem Canyon."

Gallian's brow furrowed. "Hang on, is that really a good idea? Rem Canyon's hardly an inviting place for explorers."

"Relax, kiddo. Swampert and I have seen our fair share of inhospitable dungeons," Blaziken said.

"That and these guys collectively have a pretty big weakness to water-based attacks. Sunset Shoals wouldn't be a good fit," Latias said. "That's where you two and Team Radiance come in."

Gallian looked away from Latias, pouting. "Aww, c'mon, what's the matter? Afraid of your fur getting a little wet?" Zoroark teased. "Didn't we always talk about taking a trip to Circadian Coast for some quality time… alone?"

"Th… that was ages ago," Gallian said, face going bright red. "Besides, we're not going there to sightsee."

"I know. I'm just teasing," Zoroark said, chuckling. "I see your ordeal over the last few weeks cost you your sense of humor."

Gallian scowled. "I didn't think it was very funny."

"What are you going to be doing, Latias?" Shane asked.

"Running more errands," Latias said, rubbing her eyes. "I've actually got the Dusk Hourglass right now, so Hoopa and I need to stay on the move. Plus, we have to check on things overseas. But you can contact me on my Expedition Gadget at any time."

"You sure you don't want to stay and hear what Gallian and Team Paradox have to say? It sounds pretty important," Tessa said.

Latias looked around nervously. "Well… um… I suppose I could spare a little bit of time."

"Excellent!" Hoopa said, floating down to rest between two rocks. "Wake Hoopa up when something interesting happens." He turned over onto his side and promptly began snoring.

"He's… he's faking, right?" Shane gasped.

Latias sighed. "No. He's just that good at falling asleep." She turned back to Team Paradox. "But don't let that stop you guys. Whatever it is you have to tell us, we want to hear out."

Luxeira scooted toward the fire, nodding. "Right. I'll try to sum things up as best I can, but I don't want to leave out any important details." She glanced at Sticky. "The first think you ought to know about us is that we're not experienced at this exploring business… at all."

Gallian whirled on them. "Wait, seriously?"

"Yes," Luxeira said. "In fact, the day we lost our home to the Lightless Black – the one you call Necrozma – was shortly after we had joined the Ultra Recon Squad. It was supposed to be a simple mission for training purposes. Neither of us could've possibly seen what was coming…"

End of Episode 12

XxX
Next time: after, like, nine months, we're finally getting another special episode!
 
Last edited:

Ambyssin

Winter can't come soon enough
Two disclaimers before we start here. First off, this special episode is another flashback. However, after the mixed reception of the first special episode, I'm not doing a first person flashback again. So, you guys (the audience) will get more details than what Team Radiance gets in-universe. Secondly, I strongly recommend anyone playing a drinking game with the rule "take a drink every time the world 'ultra' appears," put that rule aside for these next several chapters. Otherwise, I can't guarantee your liver will survive. :p

Anyway, here's the next chapter. Enjoy!

XxX​

As best I can describe it to you all, Ultra Space is… a network. A highly-chaotic and unpredictable network squeezed between universes like your world and the one Shane claims to come from. I couldn't tell you terrestrials how large it is, because nobody's entirely sure. Heck, I don't even know where the terms "Pokémon" and "Ultra Beast" came from. They just existed when I hatched and I accepted them without question. Now, my superiors believed that, at some nebulous point in the distant past, all of reality was simply one contiguous void of Ultra Space… and it remained that way until a small ripple of energy gave way to the creation of the first universe.


Since then, more worlds have popped up. And each time it happens, Ultra Space contorts itself to accommodate the changes. This is what led to its current architecture: a vast, expansive realm where time and space do not flow properly… punctuated by Ultra Wormholes sporadically appearing and disappearing with no discernible pattern to them.

These portals can lead to one of two possible destinations. First is a full-fledged universe like yours, housing one or more galaxies with several large planets. Second is where Sticky and I hail from: a pocket dimension. Simply speaking, it's a small habitat nestled within a gap in Ultra Space. Pockets can be entirely empty or have Pokémon, Ultra Beasts, or some combination of the two living inside them. I even heard rumors of other creatures residing in these pockets, but never had the chance to see it for myself.

Ultra Village was one of the pockets where Pokémon and Ultra Beasts lived and worked side by side. We were a fairly large community, but everyone always went out of their way to acknowledge one another when walking the streets. Still, we all knew that Ultra Space could bring unexpected challenges to our village. For example, unlike your world, we lacked a natural light source. Ultra Village was one of the pockets that didn't have a Solgaleo or a Lunala living amongst us. We realized we might have to take extra steps to keep our home safe… leading to the formation of our Ultra Recon Squad.

I don't exactly know where the concept came from. Supposedly it originates from an Ultra Space pocket that is completely off-limits to all Pokémon and all but a select few Ultra Beasts. Regardless, our community was visited by a group of Pokémon dressed in harnesses and jumpsuits like the one you saw me wearing. They offered to help us fortify our light source, the Ultra Village Core, in exchange for us joining their network and establishing an Ultra Recon Squad command center.

Even though I wasn't much of a battler, I heard all about the Ultra Recon Squad from my parents. So, naturally, when I evolved from a Houndour, the first thing I thought about was trying to join. I studied hard and passed the entrance exam with flying colors. My first week on the job was supposed to be the start of something exciting. A bold new beginning, if you would. I had no idea it would instead turn out to be the start of a gigantic nightmare…

XxX

Special Episode 3: The Edge of Reality

Chapter 63: Doing the Jitterbug

XxX

~Ultra Village, Northern District~

A series of neat, uniform, white domes sat in evenly spaced out rows, with the last set of domes sitting near a purple forcefield that stretched up high into the sky. Ripples of bright pink energy raced through the shield, emanating from the tip of a large, silver, needle-like tower standing proudly in the distance. The tower had three large, circular rings surrounding a brightly-glowing area near its apex. No other building was nearly as tall as this tower. The closest ones were right nearby; rectangular prisms that barely reached a quarter of the tower's height.

It was this tower that Luxeira remained fixed on. "Somewhere up there… the Recon Squad members are protecting the Ultra Village Core," she said. "And, starting today, I'm going to be one of them."

"Are you talking to yourself again, Lucy?"

Luxeira hopped up, barking in surprise. In the process, the white gym bag slung over her neck launched skyward. Its contents spilled out all around Luxeira, leaving her staring at the ground in embarrassment. "I… uh…" She glanced up at the door to the dome she had just walked out of. Standing in the doorway was a Mightyena whose fur had a copper tint to it. He wore a neon-orange vest that ran down to his hips and a bright yellow hard-hat with spaces for his ears to poke out.

"Forgot to zipper the bag, huh?"

Luxeira moved cautiously, grabbing the strewn papers in her mouth and shoving them back into the gym bag. "You don't have to rub it in, Silus."

Silus smirked. "I'm not rubbing anything in. On the contrary… I'm proud." He held his head high. "You must've had a lot of fun last night if you're this jumpy. Normally, you're unflappable. No one in the district can match your poker face."

"That's… um," Luxeira whispered, face beet-red. She finished stuffing her belongings back into her bag and zipped it up tight. "I'm just nervous about today, okay," she said, tugging at the loose-fitting gray jacket around her torso.

"What for? You were born for this job, Lucy," Silus said. A worried look overtook his face. "Wait, you didn't get reassigned to the combat unit at the last second or something, did you?"

Luxeira shook her head. "No. I'm still joining the surveillance unit. It's just… uh…" She opened her bag back up and produced an envelope in her mouth. "My assignment," she muttered, her voice muffled. "I don't know who this Sticky fella is, but the paperwork says he's a Poipole." Luxeira stuffed the envelope back in her bag. "I specifically requested to be partnered with another Pokémon. What am I supposed to do? I really want this job… but not if I'm going to be stuck with a UB as my partner. Do you think they made some sort of mistake and will let me change it?"

"I think," Silus leaned over and pecked Luxeira on the forehead, "that you're overthinking this. You've been talking about the Ultra Recon Squad nonstop since we moved in together. This is definitely what you want to do. Go out there, explore strange worlds, and save the day. Y'know, all that jazz. When you're done, I'll be waiting for you." He leaned closer to her and purred loudly before whispering, "After all, we didn't get to finish our little game last night because someone got a bit too excited."

Luxeria's face reddened once more. She stepped back from Silus, adjusting the bag around her neck. "Y… yes. That's, um… a discussion for another night." Luxeira turned around, glancing back to give Silus one last look. "You… uh… you take care of yourself. And the house, too."

"Ha! What, you think I'm going to throw some crazy party while you're away?" Silus said, laughing.

"I wouldn't put it past you," Luxeira said, reassuming her usual stoic expression. "Even if I'm on the surveillance unit, I still have to train regularly." She smirked. "I bet I'll have Flamethrower down pat within a month. So, you won't want to get on my bad side."

"Ha! Like you'd really burn off my fur. You looooove it," Silus said, smirking back at her. "Better hurry. Don't want to be late on your first day."

Luxeira nodded and waved goodbye. She proceeded down the street, offering a friendly nod to a pair of Xurkitree tending to a broken street light. "Morning, Miss Luxeira," one of the Xurkitree said, waving one of its limbs at her. "Is today the big day?"

"It is, Xurkvy," Luxeira replied. "Wish me luck."

"Ah, you don't need any luck. You'll do fine," Xurkvy replied, before turning back to the broken street light.

'He's right. I've got nothing to worry about,' Luxeira thought. 'After all, I was in the ninety-eighth percentile across all Ultra Space pockets on the SUQE. They're going to be falling head over heels for me at the base. I'm sure they'll understand that I can't work with a UB from the get-go.'

Luxeira approached a small, square, orange barrier manned by a hot-pink Blastoise with an onyx shell and cannons. He wore a white jumpsuit with a black harness sitting over it. A red visor sat over his eyes, but Luxeira grinned when he offered her a warm smile. "Hey, there she is! Our newest recruit. Surveillance unit, right?"

"You know it, Tentor," Luxeira replied, blue tail wagging slowly back and forth. "Any advice for the new girl?"

"Ha ha! Just try not to lose your breakfast on your first Ultra Warp Ride. Happened to me during basic training and the other officers still haven't let me live it down. Ol' Magnum is still calling me 'Barfolomew' every time he sees me," Tentor said. He turned to his right and pulled on a red lever. The barrier disappeared, revealing a silver, metal road proceeding through a block of larger, rectangular buildings.

"Magnum?" Luxeira asked, raising an eyebrow. "Like… Commander Magnum?"

"Yeah. Real swell guy… or 'swole guy,' if you wanna get punny. Maybe a bit too enthusiastic for my liking," Tentor said, scratching the back of his head. "That big, booming voice of his always catches me by surprise." Luxeira tilted her head to the side. "You, uh, do know what our squad's commander looks like, right?" Tentor asked.

"I… uh… well, I certainly heard some things. Like how he suplexed a Guzzlord," Luxeira said. "I just figured people were making that stuff up."

Tentor shook his head. "Nah, it's all for real. The guy's a Buzzwole after all. What'd you expect?"

Luxeira's face blanched. "He is?" she squeaked. Images of a burly, muscular bug towering over her flashed through her mind.

"Yeah. That isn't a problem, is it?" Tentor asked. "After all, you'll be meeting plenty of UBs working this job."

"Nuh-no, of course not," Luxeira said. "Well… I, uh, better get going. Don't want to be late." She trotted through the security checkpoint, moving into the city's central district. As soon as Tentor was safely out of sight, she bit her lip. 'The commander's a Buzzwole. Of course it has to be a Buzzwole. Damn it! Why didn't I do the proper research ahead of time?'

Once again, she envisioned a Buzzwole towering over her, wearing a black leather vest and holding an empty pitcher. But this time, Luxeira wasn't standing on the street. She was in a hallway. Lockers lined either side of her, while a cluster of different Pokémon stood behind the Buzzwole, pointing at Luxeira and laughing.

"Oops. Sorry about that, li'l puppy," the Buzzwole said. "I just wanted to make sure the school egghead looked the part!"

Luxeira shook her head, dispelling the memory. 'No, that was a long time ago. I can't think about that anymore. I'm not some dorky kid. I'm a Houndoom. And soon I'll be a full-fledged Ultra Recon Squad officer. Everyone in the northern district is rooting for me. I'm not gonna let them do–'

Something hard and sharp pricked her left flank. Luxiera yowled and hopped forward, eyes tearing up. She whirled around, an angry look on her face, only to freeze. Laying on the ground in front of her was a small Poipole. His central head-needle had a tiny tuft of blue fur clinging to it. Luxeira turned to look at her hip.

"You inconsiderate klutz!" Luxeira barked, causing the Poipole to float into the air frightfully. "I spent an hour grooming my fur to get ready for today and you totally ruined it! Why the hell weren't you watching where you were going?"

"I… I'm so sorry," the Poipole muttered, fidgeting with the backpack in his arms. "I lost track of time, see, and I thought I was late for something incredibly important. I was floating so fast, I must've lost control."

"What kind of explanation is that?" Luxeira sneered. "I swear, if you got poison–" She cut herself off upon seeing a familiar silver envelope protruding from the Poipole's backpack. "Hang on… that's an official assignment from the Ultra Recon Squad. Which means… you're Sticky, aren't you?"

Sticky abruptly stopped fidgeting. He locked eyes with Luxeira, and then looked down at his backpack. "Oh… oh my," he whispered. "Don't tell me… you're Luxeira? My, uh, Houndoom partner?"

A glare overtook Luxeira's features. "For the next few minutes, maybe. The second we walk into headquarters, I'm requesting a change," she said, jets of smog shooting out her nostrils. Luxeira turned around and marched down the street, keeping her gaze fixed squarely in front of her.

"W-Wait, wait, wait!" Sticky cried, flying after her. "I'm very, truly, sincerely sorry about crashing into you. Aren't first-day jitters to be expected? Surely you must be a little bit nervous about this, right?"

"Hardly. This is what I've dreamed of doing for quite a while," Luxeira said, refusing to meet Sticky's gaze. "I'm not going to have that experience ruined by some clumsy, careless UB who can't even float straight."

Sticky stopped flying and winced. He watched Luxeira walk down the street, a frown on his face. "But… but… you can't just avoid UBs working for the Ultra Recon Squad. We're an integral part of the organization!" He flew after her, again. "I promise… I'll make it up to you. Want me to give you my rations for today? Err… not that I really know how food gets handled at headquarters or anything. I just thought I'd offer."

"You're not changing my mind," Luxeira huffed. "I don't have a problem with UBs. I just don't want to spend every waking minute with one. Especially not a messy, poison-spewing dweeb like you."

The duo reached another security checkpoint. This one was manned by a pair of Celesteelas that appeared buried into the ground. Only their heads and part of their necks stuck out of the ground, with their tiny eyes positioned about a foot above Luxeira's head. Their arms floated next to their heads, however. They both extended one of their arms to block the pink barrier sealing off the entrance to the tower. "Halt. Please present proper credentials," they declared in unison.

Luxeira opened her bag and produced the envelope with her assignment. Sticky did the same but fumbled his envelope. It fell to the ground and the papers spilled out in front of him. "S-Sorry. So sorry," he mumbled, floating down to pick everything up.

'Ugh, this guy's a basket case. I'll be the laughing stock of the whole Ultra Recon Squad if I'm stuck with this sad sack,' Luxeira thought. One of the Celesteela guards gave her permission to pass, so she broke into a run, not bothering to look back and see if Sticky was behind her. She trotted up to a large, white, metal door with a red circle in the center of it. The red circle spun around, leading to the door's halves retracting into the wall.

Luxeira proceeded inside, only to freeze up after taking a few steps. She was standing in an expansive circular room. There was another set of electronic doors like the ones she entered to her left. The metal floor gave way to glass in the center, showing off gears and circuitry Luxeria assumed were helping to power the building. Painted on the glass was the Ultra Recon Squad's logo: a golden semicircular arch with a circle inside it.

What it stood for, she had absolutely no idea. Nonetheless, Luxeira assumed it had to be important. It was emblazoned on the glass desk sitting on the other side of the room, as well as the sliding glass doors leading to white, sterile-looking hallways with elevator doors inside them. Her gaze returned to the desk, where she spotted a charcoal-gray Beheeyem floating behind it, a white jacket fastened securely around his body. His back was turned to her as he stared up at a series of LED screens, most of which contained fluctuating lines and bars Luxeira wasn't entirely familiar with.

Luxeira approached the Beheeyem, noting a placard at the front of the desk reading, "Relay Station Coordinator, Tham."

"Um, excuse me?" Luxeira said, tapping a forepaw on the glass. "Can you help me? I'm–"

Tham turned around and looked down at her, an unreadable look in his eyes. "New recruit? You're seven minutes early. Impressive," he said, glancing to one of the screens which displayed the time in the bottom right corner. Luxeira wagged her tail, beaming. "The other recruits were here twenty-three minutes ago," Tham continued, not making eye contact.

Luxeira's expression deflated. "O… oh. Is that bad?"

"I suppose not," Tham said, uninterested. "They were all combat unit recruits, after all. Eager to kiss-up and impress. I see them all the time." He levitated a series of papers up in front of his face. "Let's see here… ah, yes, Miss Luxeira Blue from the northern district. Impressive test scores." Tham pointed his right arm at Luxeira and the papers fluttered down toward her. "Try not to let it go to your head. It's one thing to answer some multiple-choice questions. It's another to actually get out in the field."

"Oh, I know, sir," Luxeira said. "This is what I've dreamed of doing for quite a while. There is, however–"

"Wait a second. I'm here! I'm he– eeeeeeeeeere!"

Luxeira turned to her right just in time to see Sticky crash into her torso, slamming her against the desk. Sticky fell to the ground, stars filling his vision. "Oooooooogh. I think I came in too fast," he groaned.

Tham glanced down at them, his eyes betraying no amusement. "Well, this is certainly convenient," he said. "You're Mr. Sticky Purple, from the eastern district, yes?"

Sticky didn't get the chance to answer, as Luxeira kicked him away with her hind legs. She popped back up to her feet, smoothing her gray jacket with her snout. "Don't pay any attention to that klutz. Actually, I wanted to ask you about something, sir. See, he's been assigned to be my partner…"

"I'm aware," Tham said. "I've got your basic training assignments right here." He waved two folders in front of her.

"No, no, you didn't let me finish," Luxeira growled. "On my application, I specifically requested a Pokémon partner, not a UB. I would like to know why that request was not upheld and how I can change it. I'm not working with that fool."

Sticky floated up to her, rubbing his head. "It was an honest accident, Luxeira."

"Quiet, you," Luxeira snapped, glaring at Sticky.

"Yes, you did request a Pokémon partner," Tham said. "However, you two were the only applicants for the surveillance unit to get accepted. So, we have to work with what we've got." He dropped the two folders on his desk and nudged them toward Luxeira and Sticky with his telekinesis. "Either you accept the assignment and join us… or you walk away and take your chances the next time we put out hiring applications." He turned his back on the two of them. "Though, I've been told that the Commander doesn't look highly upon reapplicants who once rejected an employment offer from us."

Luxeira's face stiffened. She looked at Sticky, who flinched under her gaze, and then at the file with her name and picture on it. She scooped the file up, leering at Sticky. "Just stay out of my way, partner. Unlike you, I want to make a name for myself here."

Sticky sighed and grabbed his folder. "I do, too," he whispered.

"Those folders contain temporary ID badges, along with your boarding assignments, a map of headquarters, your personalized orientation schedules, a list of required medical tests to complete within your first week, and your contracts, which both of you are expected to sign today," Tham explained.

"Those IDs will only get you through that door," he pointed to the glass door on his left, "and up to the seventh floor. There, you'll be given your official badges and escorted to the washrooms for decontamination. We can't risk any outdoor dust and debris getting near our equipment, after all. Following that, you'll suit up and begin orientation and basic training." Tham turned back toward the LED screens. "Dismissed," he said, waving them off with his right hand.

Luxeira walked toward the door with Sticky following her. "Look, this doesn't have to be permanent, you know," Sticky said. "I'm sure we can work out an arrangement that makes us both happy while we're cadets. And then, once we've assumed ranks as officers, we can ask to be split up."

"Oh, I firmly intend to do that," Luxeira said. She held her blank white badge up to the scanner. It turned green and the glass door slid open. Sticky went inside with her.

"What exactly is it that's causing the problem here?" Sticky asked. "I think I have a right to know if we're going to be working together."

"You're clumsy and careless," Luxeira said. "I want a partner who's competent and won't put me in harm's way."

"It's just first-day jitters," Sticky said as the two moved into a bright-white elevator. As soon as it started moving, Sticky dropped to the ground, leaning against a wall for support. "I'm sure you're nervous about this too, right?"

"Hardly," Luxeira huffed, sticking her snout up. "I told you already… I was born to be here. If I'm nervous, it's because you're giving off too much nervous energy. And constantly repeating yourself isn't helping your case."

Level seven reached. Please disembark.

The elevator doors slid open and Luxeira marched out of them. Sticky hovered back into the air and followed after her, dragging his bag along with him. "Once we get out into the field, I'll be fine, I assure you," he said.

"You'll have to excuse me if I don't believe that," Luxeira said. "What'd you even get on the SUQE, anyway?"

The duo approached a dark green Bronzor floating behind a desk bearing a small printer. Present for photo ID, the Bronzor requested, turning to face a greenscreen.

"Sixty-fifth percentile, but what does that matter?" Sticky said, floating up to photo area.

"Sixty-fifth? Are you freaking kidding me?! What an absolute joke!" Luxeira spat, causing Sticky to tense up just as the Bronzor flashed brightly. They swiveled toward the printer, where a small ID popped out, containing Sticky's panicked expression on it.

ID ready, the Bronzor declared, levitating the plastic card to Sticky, who looked at it glumly.

Luxeira marched into the photo area and shoved Sticky aside. "Yeah, the numbers don't lie, pinhead. We're not going to work out," she said, snout pointed at the ceiling.

Sticky frowned. "And just what's that supposed to mean?"

Luxeira initially remained silent, looking coldly at the Bronzor, who proceeded to take her photo. Her ID printed out and she walked over to scoop it up before the Bronzor could. She clipped it to her jacket immediately, and then turned to Sticky, saying, "It means that I lead and you follow. I was in the ninety-eighth percentile, so I'll be damned if I'm going let you hold me back."

Please proceed to the changing and bathing facilities. You are wasting my time, the Bronzor said, its tone completely neutral. Luxeira approached a glass door and touched her shoulder to the scanner. It turned green and the door slid open. Luxeira walked forward, moving down the hall. Sticky trailed behind her. They proceeded in complete silence until they saw electricity crackling from around the corner.

"Is this your idea of a joke?! You can't do this to me, Commander! I'm not getting lumped in with a bunch of bush-league scrubs!" a harsh female voice shouted, making Sticky wince. More electricity surged down the hallway.

'C-Commander? Magnum's here?' Luxeira thought. She cautiously approached the corner and peered out around it. There, she found a Buzzwole standing tall with his arms crossed. A harness sat across his rippling chest muscles. In front of him, barely standing as tall as his waist, was a yellow-furred, two-legged cat. Her torso, legs, and coil-like arms had black fur, while a yellow, scarf-like ponytail trailed down behind her, touching the floor. She wore combat boots and a white vest with the Ultra Recon Squad's logo stitched into the back.

"Haaaaa ha ha ha ha! I admire your enthusiasm, Seraph!" Magnum said, his booming voice making Luxeira press up against the wall. "That's the kind of attitude that sells ultra justice phenomenally!" he shouted, flexing his large arms skyward. "Unfortunately, it's also the kind of attitude that gets you written up on fifty-seven separate citations for excessive force in three weeks. Financially speaking, we ultra-can't afford to cover your 'episodes' if we want to keep the lights on in this place."

"Excessive force? More like excessive farce!" Seraph spat, lightning gathering in her fists. "What a load of Tauros! I take care of threats efficiently and effectively. I'm the best damn combat unit member you've got here. You can't do this to me!"

Magnum laughed enthusiastically, flexing as he put his hands on his hips. "Actually, I ultra-can! I'm the Commander, here, after all, so what I say goes." He then leaned down and said, "Don't think of this as a temporary reassignment, Seraph. Think of it as an opportunity to expand your justice repertoire to include knowledgeable justiiiiice!"

"I'm not going to babysit newbies," Seraph huffed, crossing her arms and tapping a foot on the ground impatiently. "I deserve to be out there kicking ass and taking names! The combat unit will be a total wreck without me."

"Luxeira, shouldn't we get a move on? We're going to be late," Sticky said, fidgeting nervously.

"Oh… hey! Perfect timing, cadets!" Magnum thundered, pointed a flexed arm at them. "Right this way… right this way."

Luxeira and Sticky froze, exchanging startled looks with one another. They turned into looks of panic upon seeing the ire on Seraph's face. "U… us, sir?" Sticky said, pointing at his face.

"Aha ha ha ha! Why, yes, of course!" Magnum replied, returning his hand to his hip. "You're the two surveillance unit recruits, right? Let's see here…" He reached his right hand up, flexing in the process, and a file materialized in it from the gemstone on his harness. "Ah, here we are. Sticky and Lucina!"

Luxeira had to steady herself to avoid faceplanting in disbelief. 'The Commander doesn't even know my name?' she thought. "Um… it's Luxeira, Commander Magnum, sir."

Magnum checked down at his file and then threw his head back in a hearty laugh. "So it is! What an ultra-unfortunate slip of the tongue on my part. Forgive me, cadet, I've got a lot of new names and faces to learn, but you can bet that the Mighty Magnum will work ultra-hard to learn them all in time! Now then…" He patted Seraph on the back, sending her stumbling toward Luxeira and Sticky. "Meet your new teammate, Lieutenant Seraph. I have the utmost confidence she'll get you two through basic training with ultra-flying colors!"

He swung his arm around, flexing and giving the trio a thumbs up. "I'll see you cadets at orientation. In the meantime, enjoy the decontamination showers. And yes, Seraph, that includes you, too." Magnum turned and walked off down the corridor, back muscles tensing and relaxing with each step.

"Err… um… a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Lieutenant Seraph," Sticky greeted, holding an arm out toward her.

Seraph swatted Sticky's arm away. "Alright, listen up, dweebs!" she shouted, spooking Sticky into floating at attention. "Rule one: you don't talk unless I say to talk. Rule two: you don't move unless I say to move. If you can't follow those, then I'm gonna kick your asses so hard your grandkids will feel it in their rears. Do I make myself clear?"

"C-Crystal, ma'am!" Sticky shouted, far too loud for the trio's close proximity.

"Ma'am?" Seraph fumed. "Do I look like my whiskers are graying to you, cue ball?"

"No, sir! I mean ma'am! I mean… uh…" Sticky looked about the room in a panic.

Seraph turned to Luxeira. "And what are you looking at, mutt? Never seen a Zeraora before? Well, take a good look, because if I find you ogling me during training assignments I'll drag you up to the Commander's office by that wiry tail of yours." She stormed forward, shoving Luxeira aside in the process. Seraph walked about ten steps before turning around. "Well? What are you two standing there gawking for? You heard the Commander… to the changing rooms yesterday."

"B-But you, um, you told us not to move unless you said it was okay," Sticky mumbled.

A lightning bolt raced by Sticky's right shoulder. He ducked his head down, squealing at an octave Luxeira didn't think he could reach. "I don't have a shred of patience for smartasses. Quit floating there and march, cue ball!" Seraph shouted, pointing down the hallway. "Or… I guess… whatever the levitating equivalent of marching is."

Luxeira furrowed her brow and walked forward, not making eye contact with Sticky. The trio approached two gray doors sitting opposite one another in the hallway. Sticky flew into one of the doors, leaving Luxeira and Seraph standing outside the other. "Don't you think that was unnecessarily harsh?" she said. "I mean, the guy's a total screwball from what I can tell. But there's no reason to yell at him like that."

Seraph turned her icy gaze on Luxeira. "Yelling? Bitch, please. I hardly raised my voice at the guy," she scoffed, shoving the changing room door open and marching inside.

Luxeira followed her, looking around at the lockers. Seraph approached one and pressed her paw to a scanner on the door. A click sounded and the door swung open. Seraph removed her vest and slung it inside. She leaned over and shook her torso, whipping her ponytail back and forth. "This is great. Just great," she growled. "Hey, word of warning, newbie, the surveillance unit jumpsuits chafe you something fierce. If you don't want a sore rear and groin I suggest you invest in a good silk cloth to wear underneath your uniform."

"Don't try to dodge the issue by offering up 'friendly advice,'" Luxeira scolded. "I raised a valid point. And we need to talk about it now."

Seraph turned around, crossing her arms over her chest and raising an eyebrow at Luxeira. "That so?" she said, clicking her tongue. "Hey!" she suddenly shouted, snapping her claws. Luxeira stiffened, biting her lower lip. "My eyes are up here, newbie. If you're gonna call me out, at least have the guts to do it face to face instead of trying to check me out. Besides," she turned back around and leaned over, as if she was taunting Luxeira to try something, "I don't screw cadets. Especially not surveillance unit nobodies."

Luxeira squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. "Drop the attitude, Seraph," she barked, embers licking at her teeth. "I busted my tail off putting my application together for this place. I'm not about to let some juvenile feline ruin all my hard work with a few temper tantrums."

A smirk crossed Seraph's face. She pivoted to her right, swishing her ponytail to the side and leaning against her locker door. "Look, newbie. I get you're trying to be all big and stuff, but you can drop the act. I've already seen everything I need to know about you."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Luxeira growled.

"You project a confident, composed demeanor to try and compensate for the fact that deep down you're incredibly insecure and rely on others giving you compliments to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside," Seraph said, her smirk broadening. "You didn't join the Ultra Recon Squad to help anyone. You did it to make yourself look better."

"Oh, that's plenty rich, coming from the likes of you," Luxeira said, stomping a forepaw on the ground.

"Ha! The fact that you pounced on that so quickly tells me I'm right," Seraph said, rubbing the bridge of her nose. "Face it. If you were really in this to explore worlds and help others… you'd be in the combat unit. But you chose the surveillance unit. That tells me you're in this only for vanity." She pulled a towel out from her locker and wrapped it around her torso. "You think you're all that, but the reality is you're more than happy to have someone stand over you and bark orders. Because that's all the surveillance unit is. Heck, I'll bet my whole month's salary that you're actually a botto–"

Luxeira growled loudly, snorting out smoke tufts. "I'm not about to stand here and take that from you!" She pawed at the ground.

Seraph slammed her locker shut. Lightning crackled through the door. "You really want to do this here, hotshot?" She grinned mischievously at Luxeira. "Normally I'd be thrilled to tangle with a sweet girl like you, but like I said, I don't go for surveillance unit losers. Now, you'd best get moving or you're going to be late. And I know that'd just chap your ass." Seraph sauntered off, ponytail swishing across her waist.

Luxeira frowned. 'Deep breaths, Luxeira. So, maybe this isn't the start you envisioned. But you can't let it get you down! This is your dream and nothing will stand in the way of that.' She looked at the folder she'd received and then proceeded toward a locker in the corner of the room. Luxeira's frown deepened when she saw the dent in the door and the cracked screen on the paw scanner.

She sighed loudly. 'Why me, universe? Seriously, who did I piss off to end up in such a lousy situation?' Luxeira pressed her forepaw to the scanner. To her relief, it identified her paw and the locker door swung open. Luxeira removed her outfit and stuffed it into her locker along with her bag. There was a brand-new towel sitting neatly on the little shelf at the top of the locker. Luxeira took the towel in her mouth and closed the locker. She walked off in the same direction she saw Seraph go.

A line of sliding glass doors sat before her. One of them had a red light on the ceiling above it, while the rest were green. Luxeira walked up to the first door. She hung her towel on a hook and watched the door slide open, revealing a small white capsule with water jets stationed all around it. Luxeira hesitantly stepped inside.

Germ-bearing lifeform detected. Beginning decontamination process.

"Wait, what?" Luxeira said, looking around the room. She turned around and saw the door shut behind her. "Hey, hold on a second! Don't I get to decide when to start this thing?"

As if to respond to her, the shower jets all turned on simultaneously, blasting Luxeira with piping hot water jets from all directions. Being a fire-type, the temperature wasn't what startled her. Rather, it was the intensity of the water. It struck her hard enough to knock her to the floor with a loud whine.

"Ow… ow! Stop it… that hurts!" she barked, kicking at the water with all four legs. The shower jets continued pumping out water for a solid minute, until they abruptly shut off. Luxeira lay in a puddle on the floor, fur sopping wet and breath coming in short, ragged gasps. She poked her eyes open and hesitantly staggered to her feet.

Initial rinse complete. Deploying antimicrobial body wash.

"Antimicrobial… huh?" Luxeira gasped, crouching low to the ground. The water jets suddenly retracted into the walls, only to be immediately replaced by a series of white, cylindrical nodules. Before Luxeira could get her bearings straight, each nodule fired a pressurized stream of soap at her. Luxeira yowled in surprise as the soap pelted her wet fur. The instant it made contact, the soap expanded, until Luxeira was covered from head to tail in a thick layer of sudsy bubbles.

"Gack… augh… g-get this stuff… off me!" Luxeira wheezed, trying to shake herself off to no avail.

Please try to remain still. Excessive movement will compromise the decontamination process.

"I'd like to see you come in here and take this," Luxeira growled, spitting suds out of her mouth.

Well, that's just rude.

Luxeira's tail shot up. "Wait… is someone actually controlling this all manually?" She looked up toward the ceiling. "I swear, if there's a camera filming me–"

Us computer programs have feelings too, you know.

"Seriously?" Luxeira groaned. She looked up again, expecting the computer voice to answer her. Instead, the soap dispensers retracted back into the wall.

Antimicrobial body wash deployed. Commencing proton scrub.

Several wall panels opened up and mechanical arms launched out of them. Each arm bore an electronic scrubber rotating rapidly. Luxeira stared at one of them, eyes widening. "Get that thing away from me! Help! Somebody help! There's a deranged computer trying to kill me in here!"

One of the arms Luxeira wasn't watching contacted her left flank. Luxeira tried to jump back, but another arm appeared on her right. In a matter of seconds, the scrubbers boxed her in and proceeded to run along her body, rubbing in the soap. Luxeira vibrated from the scrubbers' intensity, fangs chattering together. A scrubber went up toward her forehead and she immediately slammed her eyes shut. It then ran over her face, dredging up nauseous feelings in the pit of her stomach.

While the nausea persisted, two of the scrubbers proceeded down her belly. She yipped in fright and her legs gave out. To her complete surprise, the scrubbers supported her weight, keeping her upright while they did their job. Luxeira squeezed her eyes shut even tighter, whimpering loudly as the scrubbers completed their work. After another two minutes, they retracted into the wall. In trying to regain her balance, Luxeira slipped and fell on her belly, her vision growing hazy.

"Oooooogh… is it over?" she groaned, putting a forepaw up to her muzzle to stop herself from puking.

Negative. And please try not to throw up in here. We'd have to restart the entire process.

Luxeira scrambled to her feet, nearly slipping a second time. "Well, what do you still have left to do?"

Engaging second rinse cycle.

"Oh crap," Luxeira whispered. She dug her paws into the floor as best she could and tensed up her legs. Hot water blasted her from all directions again, cleaning off the remnants of the soap. The water persisted for a minute before stopping. Luxeira stood in the middle of the steam-filled room. "Now are we done?"

Negative. Stand by for light-speed drying cycle.

"Wait, what does that even me–"

More wall panels opened up, revealing glowing orange thermal plates. Intense gusts of heat struck Luxeira from every angle. Her fur tingled for a few seconds, before her entire coat poofed up, making her look like a blue cotton ball.

Decontamination process complete. Please step into the sterile changing room and don your designated uniform.

Luxeira was surprised to see the opposite wall in the shower open up, revealing a plain white room. She stepped out into it, eyes blinking rapidly as they adjusted to the bright lights. 'Wait, was the point of the towel, then?' she wondered, glancing back over her shoulder as the door closed.

"Pfffbt… that's a good look for you, newbie. Suits you nicely."

Luxeira turned back around, a growl rumbling in the back of her throat. Seraph sat on one of the room's two gray benches. She had on a white, full-body jumpsuit, black combat boots, and a gray, helmeted visor. A harness sat over her shoulders, with a sapphire gemstone in the center. Only Seraph's claws and the lower half of her face were visible.

"Let me guess," Seraph said. "You moved around a lot, didn't you?" She shook her head. "Pro tip: decontamination showers are easier the more you stay still. But I can see how a nervous pup like you would jump around a ton." She pointed to a small space in the corner. "Electronic groomer is over there. You're gonna want it if you have any hope of fitting into your jumpsuit."

"Did you wait around just to taunt me?" Luxeira said. "Because it's not working. I was just… caught off guard by how intrusive that decontamination shower was."

"Aww, boo hoo," Seraph said, rubbing her paws over her visor. "If you think that's bothersome, you're not cut out for this line of work. Getting on a rabid Xurkitree's bad side, for example, could put you in the medical wards seizing up for the rest of your life."

Luxeira walked past Seraph, holding her snout high. "Your petulant little attempts to unnerve me won't work, Seraph. I'm here to do my job and do it well. I don't care what you think."

"You'd be wise to heed my advice, newbie. Or you're gonna have a record-short tenure here," Seraph warned. She exited the room through another glass sliding door.

Luxeira gnashed her fangs. 'I'll show her,' she thought. 'I'm gonna be the best damn surveillance unit cadet this Ultra Recon Squad has ever seen! And no clumsy Poipole is going to stop me!'

XxX
Next time: basic training turmoil.
 
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Cutlerine

Gone. Not coming back.
I like the opening to chapter sixty-two! Like, it's quite satisfying to see Necky actually encounter a problem that he can't immediately solve by murdering it. Keeps things interesting, especially since at this point, with the revelations about his identity past and without any of his opponents posing him a serious threat, he isn't quite as intriguing a character as he was before. If he showed up, you knew exactly what was going to happen, you know? Whereas here, he finally picks on someone his own size, so to speak, and has to back down and come back with a bigger gun. Nicely done.

And we finally get to see Prisma again! I was just about to say that it's been maybe a little too long since we last checked in with her; sure, everyone's been talking about her, but I think it helps a lot to sharpen our sense of the urgency of Team Radiance's mission if we have more contact with Prisma than just some brief tussles with her underlings. I'm glad she's running into some stumbling blocks, too; that both the bad guys and the good guys are struggling to keep up with each other is rather satisfying.

I'm not familiar with Team Go-Getters, though since I never used any of the default names that's possibly to be expected. Saving the world from the meteor suggests which game they appeared in, though, so I guess they're those guys. Hm. Not sure I remember them at all, honestly; I'm pretty sure that was the PMD game I only played once because on my second playthrough one of the pieces of mail that arrives to start a plot quest just never showed up and the game never progressed. Anyway, it seems a little odd that they're completely unaware of the whole impending apocalypse situation; you've dropped a lot of hints previously that its effects are being felt all across the globe. Perhaps it's the fact that there's no guild here, and so this place is pretty isolated?

I quite like what we've seen of the special episode so far! It's cool to compare Luxeira's induction into the Ultra Recon Squad to Shane and Tessa's into the Horizon Guild; this one is much better paced, and there's a lot less walking around meeting people who aren't yet narratively necessary. People only show up when the story needs them here; everything is organised around the structure of Luxeira's developing story – which is itself a fun one! I can see its antecedents in a million and one cop movies, but there's nothing wrong with that; the special episodes are a great opportunity to do fun little side projects like these.

Necrozma's three red eyes flashed. A wall of bright crimson energy appeared before him. A Time Gear's silhouette hovered over the water. Necrozma spurred Lapras' makeshift reigns. Lapras squealed and pitched forward.

This is one of those moments where there could be more variation in sentence length – this series of short, swift sentences, several of them following the formula “A X did Y [preposition] Z”, loses some of its impact to its structure, I think. Also, that should be 'reins', not 'reigns'.

The trees' leaves all glowed with blue ethereal light,

I can't put my finger on the precise rules of adjectival order that I'm thinking of here, but I feeel pretty strongly that 'ethereal' should come before 'blue'.

Necrozma maneuvered Lapras' reigns, steering him through the water until they reached the end of the Sea of Time.

Reins/reigns again.

"I believe even your powers would struggle to reign in ley lines.

This is clearly just the chapter of reign/rein confusion. :p

"Like the ones in these dungeons that are merely clusters of ley lines smashed together because the gods can't do their jobs properly."

I think at this point you can be sure that we already know Zero's opinions on Horizon dungeons; trying to squeeze them into this sentence, where they really don't fit, reads really awkwardly.

She turned around and gave him a stink eye.

Is it usually the stink eye, rather than a? I'm actually not sure; it's not a thing people say over here.

A pink glow formed around Tessa's snout. Espeon used her telekinesis to forcibly shut Tessa's mouth. She gave Tessa a stern look.

This is one of those instances where I think you could stand to be a little subtler with your narration; I think at this point you can rely on your reader to be aware of what Espeon's doing from the description, and just say something like A pink glow formed around Tessa's snout, forcing it shut, and Espeon gave her a stern look. Your writing is definitely clear enough to support that kind of thing!

"Heaven forbid something bad happens to you guys, you need allies who can come in and bail you out."

Sometimes a sentence like this has an implied if in it, but in this case I think it's just missing one.

He leaned closer to her and purred loudly before whispering,

Can hyenas purr? I wouldn't have said they could, but like, I guess I wouldn't know. They sure can make a lot of noises, so maybe.

This one was manned by a pair of Celesteelas.

This is a bit tricky to visualise – these two are thirty feet tall, which makes it difficult to see how they're interacting with a houndoom and a poipole.
 

Ambyssin

Winter can't come soon enough
Oh dang, it's been awhile since I've actually had to put a review reply in an update. You sneaky dickens, you. XD

I like the opening to chapter sixty-two! Like, it's quite satisfying to see Necky actually encounter a problem that he can't immediately solve by murdering it. Keeps things interesting, especially since at this point, with the revelations about his identity past and without any of his opponents posing him a serious threat, he isn't quite as intriguing a character as he was before. If he showed up, you knew exactly what was going to happen, you know? Whereas here, he finally picks on someone his own size, so to speak, and has to back down and come back with a bigger gun. Nicely done.
Oof... y'know that hadn't occurred to me until you pointed out. I was going for this being a sobering reality for Necrozma that he can't just march into the god of time's domain and not expect something to happen. Dialga might be a bit on the lazy side, but when he actually does something, it's frightening. But you're right. Nobody likes a boring villain who does the same things over and over again. Hopefully the stuff you see him do in Episode 13 will be enjoyable.

And we finally get to see Prisma again! I was just about to say that it's been maybe a little too long since we last checked in with her; sure, everyone's been talking about her, but I think it helps a lot to sharpen our sense of the urgency of Team Radiance's mission if we have more contact with Prisma than just some brief tussles with her underlings. I'm glad she's running into some stumbling blocks, too; that both the bad guys and the good guys are struggling to keep up with each other is rather satisfying.
That's the idea. There's basically this massive scramble involving several parties (Zero, Necrozma, the Expedition Society, and certain gods) trying to outflank each other while not actually confronting one another. My hope is that, if I've done this right, you're honestly not sure which parties will actually prevail.

I'm not familiar with Team Go-Getters, though since I never used any of the default names that's possibly to be expected. Saving the world from the meteor suggests which game they appeared in, though, so I guess they're those guys. Hm. Not sure I remember them at all, honestly; I'm pretty sure that was the PMD game I only played once because on my second playthrough one of the pieces of mail that arrives to start a plot quest just never showed up and the game never progressed
So, to explain a bit, Blaziken and Swampert were chosen because the Rescue Team games actually got an accompanying manga, Ginji's Rescue Team, which starred a Torchic as the human (Ginji) and a Mudkip as the partner. So, I based the team (and their personalities) off the manga. The only thing is that they never made a name for their team. So, I took the name Team Go-Getters, which was from the anime special used to promote the Rescue Team games. The Team Go-Getters from the anime is Chikorita, Squirtle (the human), and Charmander. I would've gone with them, but good lord you would not believe how many PMD fics employ the Charmander line in a major role. I didn't want to do that, so I went with the manga canon. I did the same thing for Team Poképals. Infernape (the human) and Feraligatr (the partner) are the stars of the Explorers of Flame manga.

Anyway, it seems a little odd that they're completely unaware of the whole impending apocalypse situation; you've dropped a lot of hints previously that its effects are being felt all across the globe. Perhaps it's the fact that there's no guild here, and so this place is pretty isolated?
Yes, that's the intent. The Air Continent isn't quite as interconnected with the other ones, so they're not as up to speed with what's happening.

I quite like what we've seen of the special episode so far! It's cool to compare Luxeira's induction into the Ultra Recon Squad to Shane and Tessa's into the Horizon Guild; this one is much better paced, and there's a lot less walking around meeting people who aren't yet narratively necessary. People only show up when the story needs them here; everything is organised around the structure of Luxeira's developing story – which is itself a fun one! I can see its antecedents in a million and one cop movies, but there's nothing wrong with that; the special episodes are a great opportunity to do fun little side projects like these.
Great! My idea with making this was that, since I showed off established teams with good chemistry in the first two special episodes, this time I'd show a team that was just as dysfunctional as Team Radiance was out of the gate. Possibly moreso, since Shane and Tessa weren't outright insulting each other at the start.

This is one of those moments where there could be more variation in sentence length – this series of short, swift sentences, several of them following the formula “A X did Y [preposition] Z”, loses some of its impact to its structure, I think. Also, that should be 'reins', not 'reigns'.
Drat. Okay, I switched it up a little... I hope.

This is clearly just the chapter of reign/rein confusion. :p
I legitimately didn't realize the difference, so thank you for pointing it out.

I think at this point you can be sure that we already know Zero's opinions on Horizon dungeons; trying to squeeze them into this sentence, where they really don't fit, reads really awkwardly.
Ah, that's my bad. I was more trying to suggest that she can't use the 'mons in Treeshroud Forest because they're artificial constructs and not living creatures. I changed those lines up a bit.

Can hyenas purr? I wouldn't have said they could, but like, I guess I wouldn't know. They sure can make a lot of noises, so maybe.
I don't know either, I just put purr because "sensual growl" sounded weird in my head. <.<;

This is a bit tricky to visualise – these two are thirty feet tall, which makes it difficult to see how they're interacting with a houndoom and a poipole.
Whoops, good point. Made some changes so that they're partially underground and not towering over everyone.

Our sci-fi escapades continue. Oh... and you might want to check the author's notes at the end for some additional goodies! ^^

XxX

Chapter 64: Mission Implausible

~Ultra Village Recon Base, Tenth Floor~

"Rrrrgh. Sticky, will you please just float behind me if you're not going to move any faster?" Luxeira growled. "It's awkward enough trying to walk around with this helmet. You are not helping."

Sticky turned around, only to bump his head against the glass wall. He floated back from it, adjusting the visor over his eyes. "Hang on. There's supposed to be a way to deactivate this cursed contraption," he said.

Luxeira sighed loudly. "There's a button on the left side of your helmet. Did you read the instructions at all?"

Sticky turned toward her. "There were instructions?"

Luxeira stormed past Sticky, baring her fangs. "This is why I lead and you follow," she said, scanning the white, electronic doors on her left as she walked. Eventually, she found one claiming to be an entrance to a briefing room. Luxeira pressed her new ID to the scanner. The door clicked and slid open, allowing her to step inside. Sticky barely managed to float in after her before the door slid shut.

"Ah, Sticky and Lucina… ultra-perfect timing! We were just about to get started!"

Luxeira looked around the room, where several Pokémon were sitting around a glass, rectangular table. However, with the room's dim lighting and all the Pokémon wearing black or white jumpsuits like hers, Luxeira couldn't immediately identify their species. Instead, she focused on Magnum, who stood at the head of the table, an electronic screen behind him broadcasting a digital map with several different colored dots on it. On his right were an Entei, a Raikou, and a Suicune. They each had matching red jumpsuits on, the shoulders bearing gold badges with the Ultra Recon Squad's logo. Like Luxeira, they wore helmets with special visors that covered their eyes.

"Ha! See that, newbie? Commander can't even get your name right," Seraph heckled. Unlike the other Pokémon in the room, she stood in the back corner, leaning against the wall.

Luxeira marched toward the empty chair at the far end of the table. Sticky floated after her, waving at the different combat and security unit recruits who looked at him. "Stop it. You're embarrassing both of us," Luxeira hissed in a whisper.

"I feel just fine," Sticky said, settling beside her.

"Well then. Allow me to properly introduce myself," Magnum said. He flexed his arms skyward, pointing his thumbs at his head. "I am the Mighty Magnum! Commander of Ultra Village's branch of the Ultra Recon Squad." He held an open palm up toward the group. "Please, hold your applause until the end of the presentation."

Sweat drops trickled down Luxeira's neck. 'Does the Commander really need to shout like that? We're not even five yards away from him.'

Magnum paced back and forth at the head of the table. "I myself did not grow up in Ultra Village. Rather, I am here so that I may guide you fine Pokémon and Ultra Beasts." He flexed his right arm and slammed it down on the table. "There's a crazy, ultra-chaotic network lying beyond your world. Yup… Ultra Space can swallow up innocent creatures at a moment's notice! That's why the Ultra Recon Squad must be ultra-ready to leap into action, spreading justice where we travel!"

An Arcanine and a Beartic whooped and hollered, smacking the table with their limbs. Beside them, a Chestnaught thumped his chest while a Pheromosa rolled her eyes at Magnum's antics. "Alright, alright, settle down, all of you," Magnum exclaimed. "Enthusiasm is great, but I don't need it wrecking my ultra-conference table." He coughed a couple of times and turned to his right. "I'd like to introduce the three folks who will lead you all through basic training. They're three of our branch's highest-ranking officers!"

"A pleasure to meet all of you. I'm Anthus and I help oversee the security unit," the Suicune greeted, waving his left forepaw at the cadets. "I look forward to seeing what all of you are capable of."

Entei stepped up beside Anthus. "My name's Phygen. If you're a combat unit cadet, then you can bet you'll be working with me. I expect a lot out of you… but don't go overboard or you'll end up like that gal in the corner." He pointed a forepaw over at Seraph.

"Blow me, Phygen," Seraph huffed, turning her nose skyward.

"That's Captain Phygen to you, lieutenant," Phygen barked. "And, unlike you, I prefer committed relationships."

"That's enough, both of you. Seraph, I ultra-expect better of someone on probation," Magnum scolded. Luxeira turned to Seraph, only to find her scowling at the nearby trash bin.

"Err… right," the Raikou next to Phygen whispered. "I guess that just leaves me. Hi, everyone. Name's Tori. Been on the surveillance unit since I came to this base from my world. I've heard good things about you all and can't want to see you in action."

"Excellent intros, captains!" Magnum thundered, flexing in between each clap he gave them. "So, I'd like to take this opportunity to talk a bit more about basic training. Despite you all being assigned to different units, you will all complete the same regimen so we can be ultra-sure that, not only can you fulfill your assignments, but we can count on you in the event of an emergency."

Luxeira stiffened. 'Hold on. I knew I'd have to train, yeah. But is Magnum saying I may actually get called on… to fight?' She gulped down a mouthful of spit. 'This training better work wonders, then. I can barely cough up a fireball.' Over her shoulder, she could feel Seraph studying her intently.

The Pheromosa on Luxeira's left threw up her hand. "Like, question, Commander Magnum. We're supposed to get these medical tests done in our first week. When are we, like, going to have the time to do that if we're doing basic training?"

"Not to worry, cadet! We're not here to overtax you to the point of exhaustion. You have late afternoons and nights off for these first couple of weeks," Magnum said. "You will, however, be required to take an overnight surveillance shift before you can clear basic training."

"O-Oh dear," Sticky whispered. "I've never pulled an all-nighter before."

Luxeira looked at him. "Seriously? I suppose you never went to any parties then, either?"

"You mean, like a birthday party? With cake and games?" Sticky wondered.

"Forget it, pinhead," Luxeira groaned, letting her head fall onto the table. 'Keep it together, Luxeira. Everyone's watching you now. Including that stuck-up hussy.' She glanced at Seraph, who was filing her claws with some sort of metal rod. Seraph flashed Luxeira a toothy grin before returning her attention to her claws.

"Any other questions?" Magnum asked. Silence followed. "Spectacular! Now… go out there and give those basic training assignments the ultra-workaround! Haaa ha ha ha ha!" He stomped out of the room, leaving the captains at the head of the table. Tori immediately caught Luxeira's gaze and trotted over to her. Luxeira sat up, holding her head high.

"H-Hello, Captain," Luxeira greeted.

Tori smirked. "You can relax, cadet. No need to get all stiff and formal with me. I think you'll find I'm a pretty flexible 'mon," she said, chuckling. "You're Luxeira, yes?"

Luxeira nodded. "Yes, ma'am. I've been looking forward to this for a while. So, what's our first basic training assignment going to me?"

"Oh brother. What a kiss up," Seraph scoffed, walking over. "I see your fur is as matted as ever, Tori."

Tori tapped her helmet and her visor disappeared, revealing an unamused look on her face. "Seraph," she said icily. "I saw the report from Commander Magnum on my desk this morning, but I sincerely thought it was some sort of prank."

"Nobody wishes that were truer than me," Seraph huffed. "Look, neither of us want to do this. So, why don't you let me go about my business and you can just sign off on the forms ending my probation."

"I could," Tori said, smirking, "but I think you could do with a little dose of humility. So, I'll be keeping you with these cadets for the duration of their basic training."

Lightning crackled down Seraph's wiry arms. "Fine then." She shrugged and shook her head. "Don't come crawling to me when I overshadow these two and make them run home to their mommies and daddies."

Tori didn't flinch. "If that's the case, then I look forward to seeing you handle the Gravi-Mill's max difficulty package."

Seraph's smarmy grin promptly vanished. "Max difficulty? Are you kidding me?"

"If you want to get off probation quickly, then you're going to follow my orders," Tori said, a gleam in her eyes. Luxeira couldn't help but grin at Seraph's displeasure. That moment of joy quickly came to an end, however, as a question lingered in her mind.

"Um… what exactly is a Gravi-Mill?" she asked.

XxX

~Ultra Village Recon Base, Ninth Floor~

As it turned out, the Gravi-Mill was a spherical chamber housed in one of the base's numerous training rooms. The room itself was a glass bubble protruding from the main tower, offering up a panoramic view of Ultra Village. Various workout equipment lined the room, including treadmills, ellipticals for two and four-legged Pokémon, multiple weight machines, and free-standing barbells and dumbbells. The Gravi-Mill machines had treads reminiscent of a treadmill. However, as soon as Tori fiddled with the control panel outside each machine, gravity inside the sphere intensified. Luxeira found herself struggling to move her limbs.

"Not every world you end up in is going to have the gravitational force you're used to," Tori explained, pacing in front of three Gravi-Mills as her charges tried to run along the moving treads. Seraph was the most exhausted, her jumpsuit thoroughly soaked with sweat and her legs pulsating with each step she took. Nevertheless, she was outperforming Luxeira and Sticky, as evidenced by the projection screen behind the Gravi-Mills showing that Seraph had run the farthest.

"Let's go, you three. You never know when you're going to have to run from an aggressive UB during a mission," Tori said. She looked disapprovingly at Sticky, who was under the lowest of the gravity settings but having difficulty running on the treadmill.

"With… all due respect… ma'am," Sticky wheezed, "why can't… I just… float?"

"The gravity you're subject to on assignment may be too intense for you to float properly," Tori explained.

"What exactly… would we be doing… that would have us… in weird gravity?" Luxeira asked, flanks heaving as she ran.

Tori raised an eyebrow. "Huh. And here I thought you were all studied up on the surveillance unit," she said, to Luxeira's momentary panic.

"I… I am! I know we go investigate strange ultra aura signals… but that's all the information I could get," Luxeira said, trying to look away from Seraph's derisive grin.

"Oh… right. We do tend to keep our work a bit under wraps," Tori said, chuckling. "I can give you guys a brief rundown."

"Don't need it," Seraph scoffed. "And these two… won't be around… long enough… for it to matter."

In response to Seraph's insult, Tori walked over and upped the gravity level on Seraph's pod. Seraph collapsed onto the treadmill, which pushed her into the wall. "Dick move!" she groaned, rubbing her neck.

Tori ignored Seraph and turned to Luxeira and Sticky. "The surveillance unit, as the name implies, investigates any abnormal signals we detect from nearby worlds," she explained. "But we're also the Ultra Recon Squad's first line of response to distress signals." Tori noticed the confusion on her trainees' faces. "From time to time, other worlds or individuals with the means to broadcast messages through the Ultra Space network will send out requests for help. The surveillance unit is the first to respond to them."

"So, what? We go to the world… scope it out… and send info back for the combat unit?" Luxeira asked.

"Pretty much. You're like the set-up crew… and us combat unit members are the star attraction!" Seraph boasted, nearly slipping as she got back on the treadmill.

Tori shook her head. "Except you're part of the 'set-up crew' until further notice. That must sting, huh?" she said, flashing her large teeth at Seraph.

Seraph growled her displeasure and focused her efforts on staying up with the treadmill. Luxeira smirked, satisfied with Seraph's unhappy predicament. "Still… surely not every distress signal we get is a hostile situation, right?" Luxeira asked.

"Good hypothesis there, cadet. You've got a decent head on your shoulders, I can tell," Tori said, prompting Luxeira to flash a toothy grin of her own at Seraph. "When situations are hostile, we call in the combat unit. Otherwise, we provide the rescue to the party that needs it. Sometimes that means we bring fallers back to base to try and help them out," Tori explained.

"Begging your pardon, captain, but what exactly is a faller?" Sticky asked.

"Seriously? How do you not know about them?" Luxeira gasped.

"Yeah, what heavy rock were you living under, cue ball?" Seraph sneered.

"No, it's not just that. There are questions about fallers on the SUQE," Luxeira said. "Did you just guess wildly on all of them?"

"Um… maybe?" Sticky mumbled.

"Baaa ha ha ha ha! Seriously?!" Seraph roared with laughter, not even caring that she tumbled off the treadmill and slammed into the wall of her pod.

"Enough, Seraph," Tori barked. "Luxeira, why don't you loop your fellow cadet in? We're all about helping each other on the surveillance unit."

Luxeira wrinkled her snout, but obliged. "Fallers are individuals from full-scale universes that are unintentionally sucked into an Ultra Wormhole, carried through Ultra Space, and deposited in another world. They tend to suffer from varying degrees of memory loss and disorientation. Other possible symptoms include radiation poisoning, vision or hearing loss, paralysis, and, rarest of all, transformation into another species entirely."

"Nice work, cadet," Tori said, nodding approvingly. "It's the surveillance unit's responsibility to take in fallers, ensure they're in good health, and try to return them to their world of origin. And if we can't, then we try our best to set up a new life for them in Ultra Village. That's always considered a last-ditch option, but one we need to keep in mind."

"So, when exactly will we be taking one of those missions?" Luxeira wondered. Her legs burned and she was finding it increasingly hard to keep up with the treadmill. Much to her surprise, however, the treadmill slowed to a stop. Luxeira collapsed onto her belly, tongue lolling out of her mouth as she panted heavily.

Tori stood by Luxeira's control panel. The Gravi-Mill sphere opened up while Tori stepped back from the panel. "Well, I prefer to take a paws-on approach with my cadets," Tori said, walking up to Luxeira and offering a foreleg. Luxeira lightly bit down on Tori's thigh. Tori helped Luxeira stumble back to her feet. She produced a water bottle from one of the large pockets on her jumpsuit. "Open up," Tori said.

Luxeira obliged and Tori squeezed the bottle, squirting a stream of water into Luxeira's mouth. "Thanks," Luxeira said, rubbing her snout. "What do you mean by paws-on approach, though?"

"I mean that we'll be heading out on our first assignment in just a couple of days," Tori said, walking over to Sticky to offer him some water as well.

"Hold up… seriously?" Seraph said, staggering out of her pod and dropping to her knees to catch her breath. "These two… grade-A dorks… won't be ready… for an Ultra Warp Ride."

"Well, if that's the case, then consider me excited," Luxeira said, smirking defiantly at Seraph. "I'm ready and willing to help as many folks as I can."

Tori turned around, a smile on her muzzle. "That's exactly what I want to hear."

"That's exactly what I want to hear," Seraph repeated mockingly, her voice squeaky. "Pah. She doesn't really mean that."

Tori sighed and shook her head at Seraph. "The more of an attitude you give me, the longer you can expect to be working with us," she said. "It's not going to kill you to try and show a bit of team spirit."

Seraph staggered to her feet, arms hanging down by her hips. "I'm not… about to give you… the satisfaction," she growled. "Let's just get a move on, already."

XxX

~Ultra Village Recon Base, Fifth Floor~

Luxeira proceeded down the rounded metal corridor. Her jumpsuit and helmet were gone, replaced by a silk dress she enjoyed lounging around in. She was returning to her new room after enjoying a solitary breakfast. The past couple of days had been filled with more physical training, interspersed with important lessons by Tori. Luxeira had learned how to operate equipment like her harness and visor and how to read ultra auras and signals received on the base's computer systems. Then she had used a virtual training station to practice navigating through Ultra Space in preparation for her first Ultra Warp Ride, which would be happening very soon.

Of course, her stomach was doing backflips. She hoped a nice bowl of oatmeal with a cup of hot tea would settle her nerves. But her thoughts kept drifting to Seraph. She had taken every opportunity to throw in a snide remark or a disapproving look at everything Luxeira did. Clearly, she was actively trying to get Luxeira to quit. Sometimes Tori was quick to jump in, but other times it was just the two of them together. Each time, Luxeira tried to muster up the courage to fire something back, but her nerves kept getting in the way.

'If I actually knew how to hold my own in battle, you can bet I'd show that hussy what's what,' Luxeira thought. 'Ugh. I just need to forget about her. Maybe once we're actually on a mission, Seraph will settle down.' Luxeira nodded. 'Yeah, I bet that's it. She's just got a bad case of cabin fever. Like when Silus broke his leg and was cooped up at home for a month. He made me want to pull my fur out, but we got through it.'

Luxeira finally reached her room. She tapped her ID card to the scanner on a white door. It turned green and the door slid open. Luxeira paused in the doorway, frowning at the lack of light in the room. "Seraph, are you still sleeping? C'mon, we've got to report to the surveillance unit staging room in thirty minutes." She touched her snout to the light panel on the wall. Bright white light flickered on in the room.

Luxeira turned around, only to bark in surprise and backpedal into the corner. "W-What the hell, Seraph?!"

In front of her, Seraph stood, arms raised in the air and mouth opened wide, revealing her fangs. She held the pose for a couple more seconds before she broke down laughing, falling onto her back and kicking her legs wildly in the air. "Baaaa ha ha ha ha! Oh man, did you see your face? Priceless! Absolutely priceless!"

"Were you trying to scare me to death? What is wrong with you?!" Luxeira snarled, snorting tufts of smoke from her snout.

Seraph rolled to her feet, grabbing her helmet from her bed in the process. "Just wanted to see how nervous you were before your first mission. And the answer is… very." She plopped her helmet over her head. "Now I'm definitely looking forward to seeing you in action." Seraph strode confidently toward the door, but not before turning to say, "Try not to lose your breakfast on the Ultra Warp Ride. No one will ever let you live it down."

Luxeira watched Seraph leave the room, whistling jovially to herself. She gnashed her teeth together. 'Keep it together, Luxeira. Today's about showing what you're made of. You're going to go out there… explore a brand-new world… and impress Captain Tori. None of Seraph's dumb jokes will matter once you show her up out in the field. She's been reprimanded so much, she's bound to do a poor job as a surveillance unit member, right?'

She froze with her open mouth hovering over her jumpsuit. 'Wait… if she actually is that bad, won't she just end up making problems for me?' Luxeira pushed that thought from her mind and proceeded to the corner of the room. There, a set of mechanical arms helped to put on her jumpsuit and helmet. Once she suited up, she threw her harness onto her torso. It buckled into place, adding weight to her shoulders and chest that nearly made her fall over.

Luxeira stumbled about until she had properly regained her balance. Then she set off from her room, proceeding through the glass hallway. Outside, she could see some Pokémon emerging from their homes onto the streets of Ultra Village's central district. 'Remember, you're doing this to help these folks,' she thought.

She reached the elevators and rode one up to the building's second-highest floor. After disembarking, Luxeira found Tori and Sticky standing next to a grated metal door. "Ah, good, you made it. Sometimes the elevators can be finicky letting cadets up here during basic training," Tori said, beckoning Luxeira over. "This here is our staging room. When you're on duty, you hang out here and wait to receive your assignment from higher-ranking officers."

Tori touched her ID card to the scanner. The metal grates retracted into the floor and walls, allowing the trio to pass. "FYI, I've gone ahead and put in a preliminary name for your unit. You two okay with going by 'Team Paradox?'"

Luxeira's muzzle stiffened. "That sounds intimidating, doesn't it? Why'd you pick it?"

"I thought it fit. After all, you, Sticky, and Seraph are practically polar opposites of each other. In other words, it's paradoxical that you're all working together," Tori said, grinning at her own lame joke. Sticky chuckled awkwardly until Luxeira shot him a scathing look. "In any event, that's how you guys will receive your assignment pages. They should pop up on your visors, complete with coordinate details and where in the room you should report for the appropriate Ultra Warp Ride."

Beep beep beep beep beep beep!

Sticky flailed about in midair. "Ah! Bright! The screen's too bright!" He grabbed hold of his helmet with both arms and tried to pull it off.

"The brightness calibrator is on the right side of the helmet, Sticky," Luxeira groaned. "I told you to read the instructions."

Sticky stiffened. "I, uh, must've missed that part," he muttered, fidgeting with the knob on his helmet.

'Liar,' Luxeira thought. 'I'd better take care to stay close to Tori and keep this guy around Seraph. That's the only way I see this first mission going smoothly.' She focused on the information displayed in her visor. "So, this is an… wait, what kind of signal is this?" Luxeira wondered. "It's really garbled and doesn't match any of the patterns we saw yesterday."

"That's a good question," Tori said, scrunching up her snout in thought. "Some of the fragments look like a proper SOS signal, but this is rather unclear." She turned to a Nihilego and a Gengar sitting next to each other on a couch and looking through a magazine. "Hey, are you two seeing this? What gives? Are we having reception issues around the base?"

"Not at all," the Nihilego replied. "I was able to tune into the new 'All My Stakatakas' with no problems. And that just ended five minutes ago."

"What could this mean, Captain?" Sticky wondered.

"… tch. It means you scrubs aren't going to be taking this mission," Seraph scoffed. She was perched on a chair, filing her claws and doing her best to look as bored as possible.

"On the contrary. I think this would be a great test of the cadets' abilities to improvise under pressure," Tori said. Luxeira nodded confidently, while Sticky's face blanched. "Relax, you two. Seraph and I will be with you every step of the way."

"Pfbt. Speak for yourself," Seraph said, rolling her neck to the right so that it cricked loudly. "I don't want to spend forever in some unknown pocket dimension while these two babies fumble about. I'll take the lead. They can watch how a real specialist gets things done."

"You'll do no such thing, unless you want another citation to add to your record," Tori said, her thin tail rapping against her side. Seraph briefly glared at her, but ultimately stomped toward the door. "Come on, you two. Time for your first real Ultra Warp Ride."

Luxeira took a deep breath and followed Tori out of the staging room, trying her best to look as calm and composed as possible while her heart rate steadily picked up. Tori guided the two cadets along a hallway until they reached a steel-plated door. She used her ID to open the door up, revealing a railed walkway on the outside of the tower. Sticky floated through the door and threw an arm up over his head.

"G… goodness! We're quite high up," he said, trying his best not to look over the railing at the buildings and roads far below him.

"What do you have to worry about, cue ball? You float," Seraph scoffed from her vantage point at the top of a set of metal-grated stairs. "Hurry it up, newbies. You're wasting my time with all your gawking."

'I'll show her who's wasting time,' Luxeira thought, taking another deep breath. She stomped up the stairs, stopping to take in the base's rooftop. It was a gigantic metal platform. Stationed all around it were pitch-black, four-legged, mechanical lions. The one closest to her was on, its electronic eyes glowing bright red, like every emergency exit sign in the building.

"Is that what we're using for the Ultra Warp Ride?" Sticky wondered, staring transfixed at the machine.

"Correct! Meet S0L30," Tori declared. "We were supposed to partner up with a Solgaleo and a Lunala, but our branch never managed to get into contact with any free ones. So, our lab team configured these as a substitute." She patted the artificial Solgaleo's foreleg.

"You're just going to use some machine to rip open an Ultra Wormhole? Isn't that dangerous?" Luxeira asked.

"Ha! See, what did I tell you? These two don't have what it takes," Seraph said, swishing her ponytail to the side.

Growling, Luxeira climbed on S0L30, fastening herself into one of the seats. "I'm ready to go, Captain," she declared.

Tori nodded. "Excellent. You two get on, too," she said, looking at Seraph and Sticky. "Sticky, I'll want you in the middle. That seat has a stabilizer for levitating 'mons."

"Much obliged," Sticky said, floating up and strapping himself into the appropriate seat. Seraph rolled her eyes and hopped into the front seat, until a scathing look from Tori made her shuffle back into the second seat. Tori then positioned herself in the front seat. A holographic screen appeared in front of her.

"Everyone ready?" she asked. Tori didn't wait for any responses before she said, "Activate Ultra Warp Ride!"

S0L30 stomped each of its mechanical legs on the ground. Steam vented out of its joints. The machine rumbled, whirring to life as it lifted its mechanical head up. Its eyes flashed and a red, compass-like insignia appeared between them. S0L30 grew brighter and brighter until a ball of red light launched over the heads of Team Paradox. It rose about ten feet into the air before expanding into a red, checkered portal.

Luxeira stared up into portal, watching the energy swirl around overhead. 'So, that's an Ultra Wormhole. On the other side of that thing… lies all of Ultra Space and countless other worlds!'

"Try not to let go, newbies. You'll go flying off through Ultra Space if you do," Seraph heckled.

"Knock it off, Seraph," Tori barked. "Alright, crew. We're setting out into the Ultra Wormhole. Brace yourselves!" She leaned over against S0L30's back and pressed a button on its right shoulder. S0L30 crouched low to the ground and sprang up, its momentum carrying it through the portal.

As soon as swirling red energy surrounded Team Paradox, they all felt an immense gravitational force suck S0L30 upward, pulling it further from the base. In a matter of seconds, Ultra Village disappeared before their very eyes, replaced by a vast purple expanse. Luxeira clamped her muzzle shut and a mask phased into existence, supplying her with air.

'My goodness… the virtual reality machine can't prepare a 'mon for something like this,' she thought. 'Look at this place!'

S0L30 ran forward, its paws striking nothing but empty space. Instead, small jet nozzles on its feet produced bursts of air that steered it forward. As it moved, Luxeira noticed massive crystal clusters floating about in limbo. Far in the distance, she could even see bright fireballs soaring through Ultra Space like comets. Other quadrants had solar flares erupting from orange stars, with each flare taking various geometric shapes.

"Can you guys hear me?" Tori asked, oxygen mask muffling her voice as it transmitted through the speakers in Luxeira's helmet.

"Yeah, yeah, we've got you," Seraph scoffed. "What's the hold up? Let's get moving, already."

"You're gonna have to give me a moment," Tori said. "The SOS signal is pretty weak. I'm having trouble localizing it."

As soon as she finished saying that, a purple Ultra Wormhole exploded into existence right next to S0L30. Luxeira and Sticky gasped as a trio of Nihilego floated out of the wormhole, passing directly over their heads and into a second purple portal to their left. "Goodness!" Sticky gasped. "I thought Ultra Warp Rides were the only way to safely pass through Ultra Space."

"Not if you're a UB," Tori said. "Which reminds me, you can ditch the mask, Sticky. You should be fine, here."

"R-Really?" Sticky muttered. He deactivated his mask and, to his surprise, found himself able to breathe perfectly fine. "Oh. Well, that's embarrassing," he muttered, rubbing his head sheepishly.

"Oh, brother," Seraph scoffed. "What kind of sorry excuse for a UB doesn't realize they're safe in the Ultra Space network?"

"Quiet down, everyone!" Tori barked, shutting Seraph up immediately. "This is so strange," she said, "I can't seem to pinpoint this signal. I'm… I'm not even sure there's an Ultra Wormhole that can get us to wherever this signal is coming from?"

"How heavily are you filtering out the background noise?" Seraph asked.

"I'm at max noise reduction," Tori exclaimed. "Hang on… there's one more thing I can try." She once again braced herself against S0L30. The machine broke into a sprint, dashing past several different-colored Ultra Wormholes. "If we can find a clear space, we might be able to get a better signal."

Luxeira kept her paws tightly wrapped around her grips, jostling about on S0L30's back. 'Okay, I can see why they were warning me about puking,' she thought, stomach gurgling every time she bounced around. 'Keep it together, Luxeira. You know Seraph is just waiting for something to go wrong. Don't give her that satisfaction!'

"Hmm… this is odd," Tori said. "Guys, check your visors. I think we're only about one light year away from the signal's origin point, but I'm not seeing any evidence there's an Ultra Wormhole we can generate."

"… tch. You're just not trying hard enough," Seraph sneered. She tapped her visor with a claw and it glowed red. Seraph growled in annoyance. "Is this supposed to be some sort of joke? This signal's weaker than the mild salsa they use in the cafeteria on taco nights."

"It's not a joke," Tori insisted. "Hang on… I'm going to radio base and see what we should do." Tori tapped the side of her helmet. "Tham, this is Captain Tori with Team Paradox. Do you copy?"

"I read you loud and clear, captain," Tham said, voice sounding through everyone's helmets. "What's the problem? My tracker's showing you stopped in the middle of an Ultra Warp Ride."

"Well, that's the problem. We're one light year from the distress signal's origin… and I'm not sensing any spikes signifying there's a world we can access," Tori explained. "I know it's been awhile since we've done this, but I may need to employ S0L30's dimensional shears and force a tear in Ultra Space."

"Hmm… that's rather risky," Tham said.

"Are we even sure this signal's the real deal? It could be a prank," Seraph said.

"From what I can see… there are multiple lifeforms stranded at the signal's origin point," Tham said. "Hang on, let me contact Commander Magnum and see what he has to say about all of this." The line went silent, leaving Team Paradox sitting atop S0L30's back for a couple of minutes. Then, the speakers in their headphones crackled once again. "Alright, the Commander says you're free to use the shears. Just don't go overboard," Tham said.

"You know me. Caution's the name of the game," Tori said, chuckling.

"It's not you we're worried about, Captain," Tham said.

"Very funny, chrome dome," Seraph spat. "Why don't you go back to your lame-ass TV screens, huh?"

"Quiet, Seraph," Tori said. "Thanks, Tham. You've been a big help, as always."

"My pleasure," Tham replied. Everyone's speakers then went silent again.

"Alright, we're going to employ the dimensional shears," Tori said. "You cadets might want to shut your eyes. Tearing open the fabric of reality can leave some unexpectedly bright lights."

"Wait, we're doing what now?" Sticky asked.

Tori didn't respond, focusing her attention on S0L30's head. It split apart, revealing a mechanical arm holding a device that greatly resembled a welding torch. The dimensional shears extended forward, with Tori operating them from her control panel. A brilliant blue flame shot out from the shears. It traced a line of blinding white light through Ultra Space.

"Whoa!" Sticky gasped. "That's extremely bright!" Luxeira had to resist the urge to snap at Sticky for not listening to Tori.

After a few seconds, Tori turned off the dimensional shears. They retracted into S0L30's head, which then closed up. The fiery line rippled for a solid minute before splitting apart, revealing a jagged tear with a checkboard pattern matching the Ultra Wormhole that the group had traveled through.

"Phew… it looks like it worked!" Tori said. She pressed a button on S0L30's controls and it dashed forward, using bursts of air to shoot itself into the makeshift wormhole before it sealed itself up. Luxeira braced herself, gritting her teeth as white light raced around her on all sides.

Then, as suddenly as the light appeared, it completely vanished. S0L30's glowing eyes created two red beams that seemed to stretch out infinitely, growing progressively dimmer the farther they went. "W… what the?" Sticky gasped. "What's going on? Who turned off all the lights."

"It's not just the lights," Tori whispered. She lifted a paw up from S0L30's controls, only to recoil in surprise at how easily it shot up. "Just as I thought… no resistance. There's no gravity to speak of here. Everyone, keep hold of S0L30."

"Forget all of that. There's nothing here," Seraph growled. "Like… literally nothing. No people… no places… this is a damn void! I can't believe you got tricked into coming here. Ugh… this is so stupid!"

"That's enough out of you, lieutenant," Tori shouted, electricity sparking around her helmet. "I want you to stay quiet or I will write you up for insubordination!"

"Hey, did you guys hear that?" Sticky said, head shooting up. "Captain, there is someone here." He shook his head. "But I can't localize the direction of his voice."

A flickering orange light drew Team Paradox's attention toward their right. "Over here!" a loud, gruff, female voice shouted.

Luxeira couldn't help but smile. "Well, well. Seems it wasn't a trick after all," she said, wishing she could turn around to see Seraph's surprise, before realizing it wouldn't be possible with Seraph's visor, helmet, and oxygen mask. "Can we steer S0L30 over to them?"

"Of course," Tori said. She focused her attention down and began operating S0L30's controls.

"Question, captain," Sticky said. "I understood those voices perfectly. Is that normal?"

"It is when we're dealing with other Pokémon or Ultra Beasts. We mostly seem to share a common means of communication, as far as we know," Tori explained. "There could be exceptions, of course, but I haven't seen them. Try not to think too hard about it. You'll just give yourself a giant headache."

"Pfbt. He's already got a headache from how big and bulbous his head is," Seraph scoffed.

"My head's proportions are perfectly normal for a Poipole," Sticky muttered dejectedly. S0L30 trotted through the dark, empty void. The flashing orange light grew progressively larger, until Team Paradox could faintly see some outlines huddled around a large black crystal. The crystal weakly radiated an array of different colors.

S0L30 came to a stop a couple of feet away from the crystal. "I'm Captain Tori from the Ultra Village branch of the Ultra Recon Squad. This is Team Paradox. Can you tell us who you are?"

"Scanners are showing Zorua, Fennekin, an ice Vulpix, and a fire Vulpix," Luxeira reported. "Let's shine a little light on this situation."

Seraph smacked her helmet, groaning loudly. "I should've stayed in bed this morning."

S0L30 pivoted to shine its headlights on the distressed Pokémon. In doing so, Team Paradox saw that they all wore similar white jumpsuits and helmets. "Wait, you're with an Ultra Recon Squad, too?" Sticky gasped.

"You're darn right we are!" Zorua declared, revealing herself as the source of the loud voice the group heard earlier.

Fennekin waved at the group. "I'm Flint," he said.

"I'm Sherbet," the ice Vulpix greeted, her voice trembling a bit.

The fire Vulpix shoved Sherbet lightly. "Show some backbone, girl. These are fellow Recon Squad 'mons." He turned back to Team Paradox. "Ignore her. I'm Cole, by the way."

"And I'm Captain Vixen," Zorua said, puffing out her chest. "Together… we're Team Foxtrot!"

"Seriously?" Seraph groaned, burying her head in her paws. "Okay, I really should've stayed in bed this morning."

"Quiet, officer," Tori said, her scathing look hidden behind her mask and visor. "So, Team Foxtrot, huh? Not familiar with you folks."

"We're from Axiom City. It's a pocket world located fifty-three light years from this spot… or so we think," Vixen explained.

"Ohh… the big-toothed lady doesn't believe us, does she?" Sherbet squeaked, her tails drooping.

"Don't worry your tails off, Sherbet," Cole scoffed. "Here. I'm pinging you our base's coordinates."

Tori nodded as the information displayed on her visor. "Axiom City, huh? I think I did a couple of missions in tandem with your branch when I was first starting out." She tapped the gemstone in her harness. A tether shot out, connecting to S0L30's back. Tori hopped off the machine, floating in front of Team Foxtrot. "What exactly happened to get your team stranded out here, huh?"

"Ugh, it was the absolute worst!" Cole growled, snorting embers out from his mask. "There we were, returning from a scheduled delivery to Ultra Deep Sea Gamma Seven, when a Cosmog pops up during our Ultra Warp Ride and flings us off our Solgaleo and into this void dimension!"

"It's positively awful. We haven't the slightest idea what's going on here," Sherbet said, tails curling around her flank. "For all we know, up is down, down is up, and yes means no!"

"Girl, what are you talking about? There's literally nothing here except this crystal we found floating in the middle of this place!" Cole barked, gesturing to the large, smooth crystal the foxes sat on top of.

Seraph raised her paws. "I don't like the look of that thing, captain. It's giving off an ultra aura."

"We're already aware of that," Vixen said. "But the signal's extremely weak. We think we might have found an injured UB that crystalized themselves to avoid further harm."

"How do you know that thing isn't hostile, huh?" Seraph asked, eyeing the crystal suspiciously.

"It hasn't budged in the slightest since we found it," Flint explained. "And we have no idea how long we've been trapped here since, well, there's nothing around here. No time or movement or nothing." He looked down at the crystal. "I figured if it were hostile, it would've tried attacking us by now."

Tori placed a forepaw on the crystal. She leaned over, adjusting her visor to get a better look at Team Foxtrot's strange discovery. "The ultra aura isn't just weak… it barely crosses the threshold frequency to get picked up by our scanners. If there is a UB in here, it's completely comatose." She pushed back from the crystal. "In which case, we have an obligation to rescue this poor soul."

"And if there isn't a living creature inside it?" Luxeira wondered.

"Then we'll have our lab team run a scan to figure out why it's projecting an ultra aura," Tori said. "Usually inanimate objects exposed to Ultra Space show trace radiation levels. This is more in line with what a living creature would have… barely."

"That was my thought, exactly," Vixen declared.

"Nuh-uh! You're just saying that because the big-toothed lady said it first," Cole accused.

"C'mon, Cole. Don't cheese off the captain like that," Flint said, ears twitching. "Especially when these folks are kind enough to respond to our signal."

"Hmph. We wouldn't have needed their help if that stupid Cosmog hadn't been messing around in Ultra Space," Cole growled, his tails lashing out in different directions. "I swear, when I get my paws on that little ball of mischief and find out what universe they're from… Flamethrowers are gonna fly!"

'Funny. I have the strangest sense of déjà vu right now,' Luxeira thought, glancing at Seraph.

"And what are you looking at, newbie?" Seraph huffed. "Take a picture, why don't you? Your visor's equipped with a camera."

"That's enough arguing from everyone," Tori ordered. "I'm gonna tether the crystal to S0L30, here. You four hop into the side pods and we'll get everyone back to our base. You should be able to get home from there after we file an incident report."

"You're not gonna write us up, are you? We have a perfect record at our branch," Sherbet said, her voice ripe with worry.

"Relax, you four are fine," Tori said. "Now come on. The less time we spend here, the better in my book."

Team Foxtrot all leaped off the crystal, landing on seats that had popped out of S0L30's torso. Its tail sprouted a grappling hook that launched back and embedded into the crystal. Seraph stiffened in her seat. "Hold the phone, the ultra aura just spiked for a second. Something's definitely stirring in there."

"What are you talking about? I didn't see any spikes," Tori huffed.

"I'm serious here, captain," Seraph growled. "We need to ditch this thing."

"That's against protocol, lieutenant," Tori fired back. "Now, strap in. We're heading back to base." She fiddled with S0L30's controls and the dimensional shears popped out of its head. They tore open a rift in the lightless void. S0L30 braced itself and lunged into the rift, disappearing from the empty world with the crystal in tow.

XxX
Now that you're at the end, let's show off a couple of spiffy art prizes! I will be putting them into the "Just for Fun" section as soon as I stop being lazy and move the boss descriptions to their appropriate chapters. :p

drawing_prize_for_ambyssin_by_wolframclaws-dcmcbkn.png

Tessa, the marked Lucario by @canisaries (https://www.deviantart.com/wolframclaws)

FLdx6jJ.png

Necrozma, Devourer of Light by Cresselia92

Next time: a prismatic puppeteer presents... "La Follia d'amore."
 
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Namohysip

Dragon Enthusiast
Hey Amby! I navigated all the way down here with a blindfold. I'm finally starting! The following is a review for the Prologue and Chapter 1.

So, as is tradition, I always said that I was going to review your stories by episode until I catch up. However, just this once… I’m gonna review the prologue and first chapter, because, as we all know, those are the most important chapters. It’s what introduces the reader to the story and—more importantly—the make-or-break for most of them sticking around to begin with.


So far? I like what I’m seeing! But I can’t quite place exactly why specifically. There’s a bit of lightheartedness to it, and I’m getting some Explorers vibes from the way Tessa is presented at the start. I have vague ideas about things to come, though I know very little in terms of actual spoilers. But I know Tessa is one of the squad, and she’s got problems. So far, though? She just seems like a Riolu that can’t quite get things right.


The star of the show, despite Tessa being the main perspective for most of chapter 1, is Shane. I feel like this can be overused a lot, but I think you executed Shane’s predicament well. It’s so meta. And that’s hard to execute while still being taken seriously, or in general, for me to enjoy it. It’s just the right balance of Shane being aware of the history of the world he’d entered, while still not making it a reference-fest. I particularly like how Shane’s own preconceptions of his circumstances is leading him into those very circumstances—a self-fulfilling prophecy of sorts. I thought that was a clever way to get the ball rolling.


Minor nitpick: As someone who generally works with shorter chapters, I felt that the moment Tessa knocked Shane out could’ve been the end of a chapter. But that’s just me, and the chapter as it is feels just fine. Perhaps that’s because I’ve had to deal with 15k+ word chapters in the past, so now suddenly your chapters feel short.


Now then, onto some quote feedback and snark, as is forum tradition:


What is the essence of one's being?

Quarks?

What magic ingredient fills us with life?

Adenosine triphosphate?

And sets us apart from plants and bacteria?

Lack of cell walls?

You’re giving me Bulbasaur? I wanted Riolu!

This was a pretty good way to establish how we're starting the story. Not the Pokemon world yet--human world! Normal human world, in fact! Quick and easy.

The taste of iron filled up his mouth, and the scent of motor oil assaulted his nostrils.

You know, it's kinda funny. I've never actually watched or read a show or book that started off in this way, where the hero runs into lethal trouble and then wakes up in a new world, and yet I feel like this opening has been done a thousand times. Still. If it ain't broke, don't fix it!

"Sure am! I'm Growlithe. Say, aren't you Lucario's daughter?" he responded.

Random thought whenever I see stuff like this, but, for towns with a high population, how exactly does this work when there's more than one of a species running around? "Oh, which Lucario?" and all that is probably rampant in civilizations like these.

She scooped up a handful of sand and gently poured it onto the back of her head.

This... that's never coming out. Ever. Like, ever ever. Even a bath isn't getting that sand out. I feel like this should be mentioned throughout the entire story, every so often grains of sand just falling for no reason from her head. Because it will never completely get out.

Unless you're modest-natured, of course, which will make you one heck of a Lucario when you evolve.

I'm more of a Jolly or Timid sort of guy for them. Speed > offense. Still, appreciate the competitive nod~

"Huh… well there was that one Ninetales in the Air Continent.

Ohhhh if that one is still around, I hope you retconned Ninetales to be Alolan. It fits too well.

Tessa looked up at her assailant, eyes freezing on the black crystals covering Espy's chest and shoulders.

...How old are they? I'm pretty sure with the cards and all that, these are possessed versions of Umbreon and Espeon from Infinity. Like, so, if I have my timeline correct, the Dark Matter incident happened some time before Tessa was born. I'm imagining that Tessa is at least a teenager. and perhaps she wasn't born instantly after the Dark Matter incident ended. And while I suppose it's not explicitly stated how old they are in the games, they were quite seasoned explorers and researchers, so I imagine they'd've been at least middle-aged, right? Or maybe prime-ish.

'I should've refused to help him. But I didn't. Because I'm an idiot! A weak... pathetic idiot who can't even stand up for herself!' Tears welled up in her eyes.

Okay, Tessa. We get it. Ya hate yourself. But please, girl, I don't know how long you can last if that attitude persists. At least to the point where I'm reading it every other screen.

___

Well! That was fun. You bet I'm gonna continue~
 

mgrgfan

Active Member
Hello there! I'll attempt to review the Chapter 1. Even though stories about accidental travellers aren't quite my kind of a boat (didn't stop me from writing one such, by the way), I'll try to do my best.

First of all - your descriptions of the world are pretty good. I really like them.

I really liked the "Rollout" moment. I think I have a soft spot for on occasional event like this.

The interactions between Riolu/Tessa and Eevee were really nice. I think Tessa is my favorite character so far.

I think I can kinda relate with Tessa on her tendency to screw things up.

And her (and not only) reactions to the Shane's words and actions are really cool! Since, you know, they make sense.

This whole "Ultra Beast Infection" thing seems really interesting... and scary.

And, thankfully, as of end of this chapter, Shane isn't as much of a... metagamer, as he looked like in the middle of it.

The writing itself is fine, with right balance of dialogues, thinking and action.

Overall, I think this story is very interesting. I'll read it completely, when I get some more time.
 
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DeliriousAbsol

Call me Del
Trying to catch up! Still got a bit to read, but here's my reviews so far.

Chapter 58


Wow, that sibling battle! I was expecting a better, fluffier outcome once the prism virus had been eradicated from Gallian, but nope. He's still point-blank terrified of Tessa. (I'm assuming terrified?)

The dungeon was pretty trippy. Kinda like... I dunno... Mega Man? Mario? It reminded me of a side-scrolling platformer, nontheless. Pretty cool!

I'll admit it took me an embarrassingly long time to realise Decidueye had spirit-shackled Gallian. It wasn't until the arrow vanished, and I was like 'ahh...'. Not that him not moving wasn't a clear enough hint or anything. I'm just that slow sometimes.

Bonus #12

Wow, those 'letters' were a real deep insight to our main protagonists. Really nice insight that lets you know just how they're feeling. Explains why Shane was like he was early on, and shows Tessa does see him as a friend. Really well written and moving.

Chapter 59

Okay, this was an absolutely amazing chapter!

I'd really like to know what Latias meant about a possessed Lunala previously visiting Dialga's domain. I've either missed/forgotten something, or poor Lunala isn't very good at keeping pesky ultra beasts out of her faculties.

The battle with Milotic was fun and suitably chaotic. Splitting everyone up so they have to deal with their own battles in smaller numbers. I think Silvally's group handled Milotic pretty well. Her attacks were brutal and had that 'final boss' feel, especially with the rime she was spewing out.

I was relieved to see Gallian pull himself together, although I wasn't expecting him to pretty much mince a nihilego in the process. Then he took on that wall of frozen water... I guess he handles getting his fur mucky worse than Shane does, huh?

As for Shane... wow. All I can imagine is he was having some kind of mental conversation with Solgaleo when he grabbed that hourglass shard? Then he goes and evolves! I'm itching to see how he, and everyone else, handles that! (And if it will come with even more fur-soiling comedy goodness! I mean... Alolan Ninetales is pretty elegant! And very... very... shimmery.)

One more thing...

She looked down and noticed her left foot encased in a thick layer of ice.
"What's the matter, Tessa? Getting cold feet?" Milotic quipped.

Good grief, Milotic. Trying to be punny. Go sit in the corner and think about what you've just said.
 

unrepentantAuthor

A cat who writes stories
Hi Amby. My bad for taking so ****ing long to read and review another chapter. I'm certain you won't have to wait so long between reviews from now on.

Unfortunately, this review might not be worth the wait, depending on what you're looking for in it. I have some problems with chapter three, and I'm going to address them in order of their occurring to me to mention. Most of the early points are personal nitpicks, but some of the later ones are quite serious. I hope you will find the feedback useful.

he soon found himself gulping down saliva.

This is just a very odd way to put that he's salivating. I had the mental image of him drinking huge amounts out of a container, and that's nasty, man.

Shane harrumphed. "Now let's stop lollygagging

These are pretty odd and archaic words considering that Shane is a modern American human and so is most of your audience and neither would likely use these words. I'd expect them to indicate that a character was an old-timey sort.

Cause that expression could make an Ursaring blush

He's not a native, so this is a pretty artificial expression for him to use.

Shane suddenly gripped Tessa'

The use of the word 'suddenly' reduces the suddenness of the action in the mind of the reader.

Hey… waaaaaaaait a second.

I dislike the use of vowel reduplication to indicate that a word is drawn out, as opposed to narrating that it is so or italicising, or just leaving it to the reader. I usually feel the same way about writing out accents, but you've done a decent job so far so it hasn't bothered me. The point is that the emphasis should be on what is being said rather than on how something is said.

You wouldn't happen to know any suspicious-looking Nuzleafs, would you?"

I think it's bizarre for Shane to assume that Nuzleaf from SMD would reflect whatsoever on other nuzleaf, that the accents would connect these characters, or that this is a sensible question to ask in any case. I also think it's absolutely mental of him to keep treating this experience as if it has anything much to do with his videogames.

I mean, he's clearly not in a game — what, does he think Nintendo abducted him and put him in some kind of hyper-advanced VR pod that rewrites his brain so he can experience what it's like to be quadruped and have a tail all while blasting him with 'graphics' equal to his vision and providing him with conversations that pass the Truing Test all while simulated in real time?

In fact, every time Shane makes specific references to the game franchise, it really bothers me. It reminds me that for some reason, there are canonically both our human world with PMD videogames and an actual PMD world where humans from our world have been transported in order to participate in the same stories as portrayed in the videogames made in the world they're from. Are the games based on this reality? Or do our games create this reality? In either case, Shane is both deeply irrational and unintelligent for approaching things with the attitude he has right now.

"Whoa, whoa, take it easy," Shane coaxed.

This is when I realised that you use specific speech tags a lot. There were a whole bunch this chapter, and they really distracted me from the actual dialogue. I think they're often unnecessary.

Shane laughed. "Ha! That's a good one. I've stared at Riolus on my computer screen for hours and the only way they look different is if an artist decides

Shane is a moron and it's really frustrating.

On the other hand, it's hilarious that he's clearly image searched riolu countless times. Dude is fixated. Makes me wonder which websites he frequented, wink wink.

Wicked awesome!

Also odd wording.

Fact: the recruits are Riolu and a human.

NICE. Guildmaster Metagross was an absolute delight this chapter. Instantly my favourite thing about the entire fic so far, and I loved every second he was in focus.

Don't underestimate my sheer enjoyment of Boss Metagross. He's the best. The best.

Guess you'll just have to learn about Horizon dungeons the old-fashioned way

A huge amount of time was given over in this chapter to back-and-forth about what Shane does or doesn't know and how Horizon dungeons work. I infer that you were trying to explain this stuff to your readers through inline exposition, but I found it uninteresting and unnecessary. You would have done well to cut the whole of that stuff out and resolve it by granting Shane brief inner monologues where he goes 'oh okay things are different to the games I've played'. As it is, it's not worth the space it takes up. It's also a bit hard to swallow Tessa's confident assertions about foreign lands when so far she's been shown to be wholly ignorant of overseas territories.

I don't have a specific quote from the dungeon encounters, but I quite enjoyed the pikipek encounter and the yungoos/trapinch encounter. It's good to see more underused pokémon! I'm always glad to see some different faces, and these ones were entertaining.

I swear this fic won't be following a constant pattern of alternating plot/interactions and battles between chapters. These are just easy breaking points for the earlier chapters.

No need to apologise for your own fanfiction, in my opinion. I'm going to keep reading and reviewing based on its own merits and not on promises in author's notes.

I realise this may seem like an almost entirely negative review. I am sorry for that, but I think you need to receive this sort of feedback and this chapter was mostly exposition, so there's less actual story going on. Still, I'll be sure to read more of Guiding Light before too long. I hope to see more of Guildmaster Metagross and other undersaturated pokémon in future chapters!
 

Namohysip

Dragon Enthusiast
Huh. Didn't realize until I actually checked the chapters that Episode 1 was only the prologue and two chapters. Oh well! Time to get to reviewing this chunk. Or, well... chapter 2. Since I already reviewed chapter 1. Don't worry, I won't clog up this place with chapter-by-chapter reviews when you're over 60 ahead! This just happened to be a short episode.

I'm sure by now it's pretty clear that when I review stories, I'm mostly focused on how the story, pacing, and characters pan out, rather than the actual mechanics, since I feel like that's what people are always going for anyway. Nah. I think you've got mechanics down well enough that we can get to how the actual macro-writing goes.

This was a pretty good "Let's get started" episode. Shane was introduced to the world of Pokemon; some basics of the new region were given; some mystery--between the Eon duo and Shane's brief "episode" of a flashback in chapter 2 with "accident," and so on--established an overarching plot; and finally, we have a look at a clear short-term goal, which is to become a member of the Guild. You have very basic groundwork in place. As far as the plot is concerned, I'm liking how it's getting set up. I'm most curious about why Shane is here in the first place, but I also feel like that's the most hidden question for a while, so I'll just keep that on the backburner.

I have a vague theory that Absol is Tessa's father. Pretty sure that's the same egg group.

Hmm, as for Tessa herself? I'm noticing that she's a bit less... mopey in this chapter compared to chapter 1. While a little jarring in my opinion, it's a welcome change regardless, because now she's at least a little more tolerable. She can start moping again when I actually know what's wrong with her; otherwise, it all feels unjustified. So I'm glad to see her actually picking up Shane's slack!

I sorta like both of them equally now--Tessa because she's less of a mope, and Shane because he's starting to be a little too thick. By now I feel like he should've caught on. Hopefully that "accident" episode sobers him up at tad.

Now then! Onto snips.

Sweat pooled in his tuft of hair. It collapsed, plastering slimy fur against his eyes.

This is why furred creatures typically don't sweat in this way.

Ice is, like, the most garbage-tier of all the types.

Bug, Shane. You're thinking of Bug.

"And why would I do something like that? We're not friends."

Thank you, Tessa.

For all we know… no, for all anyone knows, there could be dozens of humans-turned-Pokémon running around here that don't have legends about them.

Again, Tessa, thank you.

"I don't know how to explain it. You give off a good vibe," Shane said, giving her a big smile.

Shane, my man... what in the world is giving you this impression? Not to be Lucarioist, but she radiates a negative aura. He's smitten, isn't he?

His chest tightened and he clutched it with a forepaw. 'Accident?' he repeated. His jaw locked up. Sharp, pointed, invisible edges dug into his hide.

Ahh yes, the first bit of mystery. Pretty sure that's either a memory of the crash, or he's literally dying and this is all a dream. If it's the latter, I'm going to be extremely displeased, but something tells me it won't be, or if it is, there's a twist that makes it 'real,' particularly with all that madness in the prologue post-crash.

Well! See you after episode 2, probably.
 

Ambyssin

Winter can't come soon enough
Alright, reply time. @Namohysip, @unrepentantAuthor, I already got you guys elsewhere.

First of all - your descriptions of the world are pretty good. I really like them.
Glad to hear it. I was making an effort to improve them with revisions.

I really liked the "Rollout" moment. I think I have a soft spot for on occasional event like this.
You're not the only one. Though I've definitely been chastised for putting slapstick into a non-visual medium.

The interactions between Riolu/Tessa and Eevee were really nice. I think Tessa is my favorite character so far.

I think I can kinda relate with Tessa on her tendency to screw things up.
I was trying to make some of her thoughts relatable.

And her (and not only) reactions to the Shane's words and actions are really cool! Since, you know, they make sense.
People really seem to like their interactions and I'm still scratching my head trying to figure out how that happened. XP

This whole "Ultra Beast Infection" thing seems really interesting... and scary.
Great, because that's what I'm going for!

And, thankfully, as of end of this chapter, Shane isn't as much of a... metagamer, as he looked like in the middle of it.
A big recurring thing in this story is Wrong Genre Savvy, I admit.

Overall, I think this story is very interesting. I'll read it completely, when I get some more time.
Don't feel like you have to. Reading shouldn't be a chore. In any case, thanks for reviewing! ^^

Wow, that sibling battle! I was expecting a better, fluffier outcome once the prism virus had been eradicated from Gallian, but nope. He's still point-blank terrified of Tessa. (I'm assuming terrified?)
You are correct, his disaster sense was going wild in that battle and it still had problems after.

The dungeon was pretty trippy. Kinda like... I dunno... Mega Man? Mario? It reminded me of a side-scrolling platformer, nontheless. Pretty cool!
I will admit the crushers and buzz saws were distinctly Mega Man in their inspiration. The actual aesthetic, with the star-shaped crystals, is a shoutout to Eternal Star Halfmoon from Kirby Super Star.

I'll admit it took me an embarrassingly long time to realise Decidueye had spirit-shackled Gallian. It wasn't until the arrow vanished, and I was like 'ahh...'. Not that him not moving wasn't a clear enough hint or anything. I'm just that slow sometimes.
It's fine. It wasn't a super huge contributor to the battle or anything. ^^;

Wow, those 'letters' were a real deep insight to our main protagonists. Really nice insight that lets you know just how they're feeling. Explains why Shane was like he was early on, and shows Tessa does see him as a friend. Really well written and moving.
Glad to hear it. I fun with it... depressing subject matter aside.

I'd really like to know what Latias meant about a possessed Lunala previously visiting Dialga's domain. I've either missed/forgotten something, or poor Lunala isn't very good at keeping pesky ultra beasts out of her faculties.
So, yeah, if you go back to the boss descriptions with the Ultra Tapu Lele fight, you'll see that Darkrai destroyed Temporal Tower by trapping Lunala (and Solgaleo) in nightmares and siccing them on the Hidden Land. They summoned a bunch of UBs to attack en masse aaaaand the Tower began to collapse.

The battle with Milotic was fun and suitably chaotic. Splitting everyone up so they have to deal with their own battles in smaller numbers. I think Silvally's group handled Milotic pretty well. Her attacks were brutal and had that 'final boss' feel, especially with the rime she was spewing out.
Hooray, someone thinks Team Radiance put up a good fight. :V

I was relieved to see Gallian pull himself together, although I wasn't expecting him to pretty much mince a nihilego in the process. Then he took on that wall of frozen water... I guess he handles getting his fur mucky worse than Shane does, huh?
This was meant to be Gallian's jolt back into reality. As for the fur stuff, well, the Nihilego juices were rancid so he wanted them off ASAP.

As for Shane... wow. All I can imagine is he was having some kind of mental conversation with Solgaleo when he grabbed that hourglass shard? Then he goes and evolves! I'm itching to see how he, and everyone else, handles that! (And if it will come with even more fur-soiling comedy goodness! I mean... Alolan Ninetales is pretty elegant! And very... very... shimmery.)
Well you'll have to read on to see what happens. :p

Good grief, Milotic. Trying to be punny. Go sit in the corner and think about what you've just said.
I don't think you should scold a sea serpent with an axe for a tail... might not end well. Thanks for reviewing! ^^
 

RocketKnight66

404: Consistent Schedule not Found
Finally, I have returned... to continue where I left off! I probably shouldn't take this long to read the conclusion of cliffhangers. ^_^;

So anyway, Chapter 55; The aftermath of Tessa's evolution... talk about a rollercoaster of emotions. Shane's freaking out and running around to help in literally any way he can. Which includes licking because of more weird visions, apparently. That, coupled with his conversation with Tessa later really shows how much he cares about her. As a friend, of course. Don't want to make things awkward now, do we? Our little Vulpix has certainly come a long way, huh?

Tessa was really struggling to come to grips with her new form, I see. For more reasons than one. I was surprised by the mark on her paw, that's for sure. The thoughts and memories that brought up were painful to sit through... it's hard for me to get over just how much crap she's been through. Being called a failure by her mother is just another horrible thing to add to that list. But hey, she did it. She proved her wrong, right?

The conversation between her and Silvally was sweet... I love how he's always there for her. And the stuff between her and Shane was pretty cute, I got a few chuckles out of that.

That Salazzle seems to know something about Gallian, I guess we'll be seeing what that's about soon.

So anyway, another nice chapter. I think things might be finally starting to look up for our little band of heroes! I'm probably wrong again, aren't I?

Gah, it's too late for me to read another one tonight. I'll be sure to read the next chapter tomorrow, then. Looking forward to the conclusion of Episode 11.

'Why can't something good happen to Tessa for once? She deserves it, damn it!'
Oh hey, it's the perfect quote to describe how I feel about her! I just want her to be happy, okay?! ;_;
 

Ambyssin

Winter can't come soon enough
So anyway, Chapter 55; The aftermath of Tessa's evolution... talk about a rollercoaster of emotions. Shane's freaking out and running around to help in literally any way he can. Which includes licking because of more weird visions, apparently. That, coupled with his conversation with Tessa later really shows how much he cares about her. As a friend, of course. Don't want to make things awkward now, do we? Our little Vulpix has certainly come a long way, huh?
Well, he gets points for trying, that's for sure... even if he has made things very awkward. Since that's what he specialized in.

Tessa was really struggling to come to grips with her new form, I see. For more reasons than one. I was surprised by the mark on her paw, that's for sure.
Good, you're supposed to be surprised. Since it is a bit out of left field and, combined with her momentary hallucinations, shows there might've been some foul play at work with her evolution.

The thoughts and memories that brought up were painful to sit through... it's hard for me to get over just how much crap she's been through. Being called a failure by her mother is just another horrible thing to add to that list. But hey, she did it. She proved her wrong, right?
You're certainly correct. Though... how her mother ends up reacting to it may be another story entirely. I can't spoil anything, though.

The conversation between her and Silvally was sweet... I love how he's always there for her. And the stuff between her and Shane was pretty cute, I got a few chuckles out of that.
See, they are all growing closer! :V

That Salazzle seems to know something about Gallian, I guess we'll be seeing what that's about soon.
You might've missed the tell that indicated what was going on.

So anyway, another nice chapter. I think things might be finally starting to look up for our little band of heroes! I'm probably wrong again, aren't I?
Well, if I told you, that'd spoil all the fun!

Oh hey, it's the perfect quote to describe how I feel about her! I just want her to be happy, okay?! ;_;
You and several others, I believe. But I'm not spoiling how this is gonna end. Anyway, thanks for reviewing! ^^

XxX

Chapter 65: A Matter Most Dark

~Ultra Village Recon Base, Third Floor~

The return Ultra Warp Ride proved uneventful for Teams Paradox and Foxtrot. Once they touched down, Seraph leaped off S0L30 and attempted to grab the crystal despite it being much larger than her. A stern set of orders from Tori made her stop, however. Tori instead assigned Sticky and Luxeira to use a motorized platform to bring the crystal down to the medical bay on the third floor with Team Foxtrot in tow. She then dragged Seraph off to fill out the required paperwork, much to the latter's outrage.

Sticky and Luxeira sat in the medical wing's waiting area. Despite the bright white color scheme of the entire base, the metal floors and walls were somehow even whiter. It was likely a result of the extremely powerful LED lights used reflecting off the pristine glass tables positioned between white chairs of different shapes and sizes. Sticky constantly leaned over to rub his eyes with his hands.

"I don't see how anyone could work in these conditions," he said. "There's bright… and then there's uncomfortably bright."

Luxeira kept her gaze fixed on the double doors across the room. Medical staff had escorted Team Foxtrot and the crystal through the doors without giving her an explanation about what they'd be doing. Thirty minutes had passed since their arrival and no one had emerged from the doors to give any sort of update.

"Um, Luxeira? You… uh… didn't respond to my comment," Sticky said, laughing nervously.

"Quiet, Sticky," Luxeira growled, eyes locked on the red light above the double doors.

"I was just trying to strike up some idle chatter," Sticky said, tail drooping. "This is all rather boring. I didn't thing there'd be this much processing between individual assignments, that's all."

"This is an unusual circumstance, from the look of it," Luxeira said stoically. "Besides, with your track record so far, you'd find a way to knock all our paperwork into a shredder and ruin it."

Sticky winced and turned away from Luxeira, poking his arms together. "I didn't bungle up this mission," he whispered dejectedly.

Luxeira ignored him and continued staring at the door. 'What if Seraph was actually right? What if we need to be worried about what's inside that crystal?' She gnashed her teeth together. 'Tch! Listen to yourself, Luxeira. You were hoping to see that skank bomb this mission and get told off for it. You don't really think she's right.'

"You seem like you have something on your mind," Sticky said, leaning his head over so it fell in Luxeira's line of sight. "I'm happy to talk about it, if you want."

"I'm fine," Luxeira huffed, pointing her snout up.

Sticky slumped back in his chair. "You know… you say you don't hate UBs, but your behavior indicates otherwise. Were you involved in some sort of altercation in the past?"

"I'm not talking about this," Luxeira said, slapping a forepaw on the arm of her chair. "And if you know what's good for you, you'll keep your mouth shut."

"I'm trying to be flexible, you know," Sticky said. "If you keep all this stuff bottled up, I can't imagine you'll go on to be very popular here. You could even end up like Lieutena–"

Luxeira turned to Sticky, her visor disappearing in a flicker of static so she could stare him down. "You want to know what my problem is?" she said. "The UBs in my old school liked to pick on me… a lot. They called me 'Luxeira the Egghead.' And for what? Because I sat on the sidelines reading books during phys-ed... and I preferred to spend my days in the library, getting lost in a good book. Well, I don't think it's fair."

She huffed out embers and watched them fizzle out as they drifted toward the ceiling. "Us Pokémon were here first. You UBs came later. We're all different… but because you cretins are so much stronger, you think you can push around an innocent pup," Luxeira said, her tone bitter.

"Oh," Sticky whispered, fidgeting. "Look, I'm sorry you had to go through that. But don't you think you're projecting just a smidge? You're complaining about bullies… but what about the way you're treating me?" He floated up in front of Luxeira. "One bad incident shouldn't sour your perception of all of–"

Luxeira turned her visor back on. "I'm not talking about his anymore," she said.

"I just want to help… that's why I'm here," Sticky said.

"I don't need your help," Luxeira said. "My life is great. I've got a wonderful mate, a nice house, and a job that I'm mostly excited about." She cast an annoyed look at Sticky as she enunciated "mostly," sending him shrinking back into his chair. "As I said, this conversation is over."

Luxeira hopped off her seat and was about to walk away when the red light above the door switched to green. A white Blissey in a pink jumpsuit walked through the doorway. Team Foxtrot then proceeded out behind her in a single-file line. "I finished my workups," the Blissey announced. "These four are all set to return home."

"Told you there was nothing wrong with us," Cole scoffed. "Otherwise, we wouldn't have made it through an Ultra Warp Ride in one piece."

"C'mon, Cole, be nice to the nurse. She's just doing her part," Sherbet said. She turned to the Blissey and bowed her thanks.

"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Who do we have to talk to about paging our Solgaleo to go back home?" Cole said.

"Hang on a second," Luxeira cut in, walking over to Vixen. "What happened to the crystal you guys found?"

"Beats me," Vixen said, shrugging. "Your medics carted the thing off to a separate wing."

"Actually, I overheard one of the medics say something interesting," Flint said, tail wagging excitedly. "He mentioned a 'lightless black' and I got curious, so I ran the term through our search engine. Tell me… you guys ever hear of the Radiant One?"

Luxeira frowned. "Can't say that I have."

Vixen whirled on Flint, a look of surprise on her face. "And just when were you going to mention your find to your captain, huh?"

"Aha ha… sorry, cap! It kind of slipped my mind while I was getting checked out," Flint said. Vixen fell over in disbelief. "Anyway, it seems like the Radiant One is a codename for some kind of super-rare Ultra Beast. Or, rather, one of several codenames. 'Lightless Black' was linked with it… but there's also 'Blinding One.' Apparently, the folks in Ultra Megalopolis itself came up with that one!"

"Ultra Megalopolis? Get out!" Cole gasped, ears sticking up. "Just how important is this Lightless Black thingy anyway?"

"It must be pretty critical… because all the files I tried to pull up require high-level security clearances," Flint said, chuckling nervously.

None of Team Foxtrot noticed the worried look on Luxeira's face. 'Classified files? Seraph may actually be right here. I've got to ring up Captain Tori on the double!' She pressed a forepaw to her helmet. "Captain, can you hear me? It's Luxeira.''

"Oh, funny timing there, cadet. Seraph and I are heading down to the medical wing," Seraph replied through the helmet's radio. "How is Team Foxtrot doing?"

"They cleared their physicals and they're in the waiting room with me," Luxeira said.

"Great! You can tell them their Solgaleo is on the rooftop," Tori said.

"No need. I heard it for myself," Vixen said. "You really ought to turn the volume down on that thing. C'mon, team. It's back to base for us!"

"Wait!" Sticky shouted, floating up from his seat. "You're not supposed to run around the base unsuper–"

Team Foxtrot sprinted out of the medical wing, leaving Sticky floating there, a defeated look on his face.

"–vised. Never mind… forget I said anything."

The doors to the medical wing slid open and Seraph marched through them, sleeves rolled up and an unamused look on her face. "Way to let those fuzballs run off on you, newbie," Seraph said. "You're just lucky Captain Tori was there to escort them away."

"Save the lecture for another time," Luxeira growled, stomping a forepaw on the ground. "We've got a problem, here."

Seraph's eyes narrowed. "What kind of problem?"

"Team Foxtrot overheard some of the medical staff talking about that crystal they found. From the sound of things, I think we may have stumbled across a weakened Lightless Black," Luxeira said.

In the span of a second, Seraph was up in Luxeira face, cupping her paw around the Houndoom's snout. "Is this your idea of a joke, newbie? Because I'm not laughing," she spat.

"I don't understand. What's the problem?" Sticky asked.

"The problem is that you Ultra Village bumpkins don't know what a Lightless Black is or what it's capable of," Seraph growled. "Hell, all I've heard are stories, myself. There are only, like, a handful of them in all of Ultra Space. And if the rumors are to be believed, Lightless Blacks are under constant surveillance by Ultra Recon Squads."

Seraph released Luxeira's snout. Luxeira rubbed it, an annoyed look on her face. "And this is an issue because…?"

"Because, if you're right, it means one of two things," Seraph said, holding up her paw with two outstretched digits. "One… that a Lightless Black was critically wounded without any of us knowing. Two… that we've stumbled on an unregistered Lightless Black. Either way means the biggest shitstorm imaginable is about to blow into town."

Seraph tugged at her left whisker. "I'm talking the most important brass from the most important URS branches all congregating in this base. And then there'll be hearings… and meetings… and new policies drafted… and so much red tape put up it's gonna suffocate us!" She kicked at the nearby garbage bin. "No wonder those Team Foxtrot nobodies got the hell out of dodge."

"But isn't this discovery exactly what Ultra Village needs to put us on the map?" Sticky said. "That all sounds like it could attract a lot of attention to us. If we get the credit… we could be famous!"

Luxeira swatted Sticky away with a foreleg. "Seriously? That's what you're gravitating toward? How about the fact that we found that poor thing in a coma… in some sort of empty void? That raises a lot of alarming questions, don't you think?"

"Which is exactly why I want definitive proof that we found a Lightless Black and not just some freaky-deaky crystal," Seraph said. "Stand aside, I'm going into the medical bay." She marched toward the door, rolling up the sleeves of her jumpsuit, when the door slid open. The Blissey nurse was back, holding a clipboard in her hands.

"Oh… Lieutenant Seraph. You're not due for a check-up."

"I'm not hear about a damn check-up," Seraph said, jabbing a claw into the nurse's clipboard. "I'm here about that crystal you were delivered. I need to see it… stat."

The Blissey frowned. "I'm sorry, but we're still running tests on–"

"Did it sound like I was asking you? That was an order, damn it. Now, stand aside," Seraph barked.

"Last I heard, you'd been put on probation," the Blissey nurse said, her expression souring. "You have no right to order any of us around."

The blue tuft of fur on Seraph's forehead glowed with electricity. "Stand aside right now, or I'm gonna–"

"Gyyyyyaaaaaaaaaaah!"

A huge fireball spilled out from a hallway behind the nurse. She turned around, dropping her clipboard in shock as the charred, bloody remnants of a Sawk slid down from the blackened wall. Seraph's eyes widened. "Outta the way, outta the way!" she shouted, shoving the nurse into the door.

Luxeira stood in the middle of the room, heart pounding in her chest. 'Oh no… something's gone wrong! What am I supposed to do? I wasn't trained for this! I–'

"Newbie!" Seraph thundered, standing in the middle of the scorched part of the hallway. "Don't just stand there, gawking. This is a Code Red! Sound the alarms! Start evacuation procedures! We have to get everyone to safety right this sec–"

Another explosion wracked the medical wing, taking out a portion of the ceiling in front of Seraph. A glass table fell through the hole, shattering on impact. Plaster and debris piled up in the middle of the ruined hallway. Seraph tried to look up through the destroyed ceiling but couldn't make anything out through all the smoke.

"Like hell I'm letting you get away," Seraph said. She crouched low and lunged forward. Her body turned into an electric current, racing forward, pinging off the rubble pile, and shooting up to the next floor. Luxeira and the nurse ran out the main door. After a moment of indecision, Sticky floated after Seraph, keeping his distance.

He found Seraph on the next floor, shaking soot off her face. She placed a paw against the side of her see-through helmet.

"This is Lieutenant Seraph of the com– surveillance unit, Team Paradox," Seraph said, speaking into her helmet's communicator. "I'm requesting immediate assistance. We have a Code Red! Repeat: Code Red! An injured Ultra Beast has blown up the medical wing and is trying to run rampant through the base. We think it might be an unregistered Lightless Black. I need Commander Magnum and the captains down here, ASAP!"

Static came out of her helmet's speakers. "Are you kidding me? Communication lines are down now?!" she shouted. Seraph looked around and, despite all the smoke and frayed wires, determined she was in some sort of large supply closet, with the broken remnants of shelves on the walls and powdered cleaning solvents spilled out on the floor.

"Show yourself, Lightless Black!" she yelled, raising up her paws. The black streaks of fur on her arms glowed blue as lightning gathered in her claws.

The room suddenly darkened. Seraph looked over her shoulder to see a ball of dark-purple energy forming between two racks of supplies. "Take this!" she cried, firing streams of electricity from her paws.

"gYaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAgH!"

A heavily-distorted cry of pain forced Seraph to her knees and nearly made Sticky fall to the ground. Seraph shut her eyes, gritted her teeth, and squeezed her helmet in a vain attempt to make the shouts stop. While she was incapacitated, the energy ball flew up into the ceiling. Next thing Seraph knew, the room was rumbling. More shelves toppled over, flinging boxes onto her. One of the shelves knocked Sticky against the wall, keeping him hidden from Seraph, who was preoccupied vaporizing cases of detergent with her lightning.

Seraph looked up, where cracks splintered through the ceiling. "Damn it… no!" she said. Seraph jumped into the air, turning into a lightning stream and shooting toward the hole that the mysterious creature had made. She reformed to catch her breath, then launched herself upward just as the rest of the ceiling crumbled.

Seraph emerged from her lightning-dash, digging her claws into the wall to brace herself. She looked to her right and found the smoldering remains of a metal door. 'You've gotta be kidding me! Those things are supposed to be resistant to our attacks. What kind of UB could do something like this, huh?'

Just as Sticky succeeded in floating out of the rubble, Seraph lightning-dashed from her spot on the wall into the hallway, where she found the black crystal slowly moving forward, hovering inches off the ground. It dragged its two metallic arms along the floor, making loud scraping noises that had Seraph's ears reflexively curling up inside her helmet. Sticky saw the crystal and opted to hang back inside the destroyed room, glancing out into the hall.

"Hey, you!" Seraph shouted. "Hold it!"

The crystal immediately stopped. "… jUh?"

"Yeah, you heard me!" Seraph said, punching her balled-up paws together. Electricity surged down her arms. "You just ran amuck in our base. I'm not about to let that stand, Lightless Black!"

"… nECrOZma… lIgHtLeSS?" the crystal muttered, swaying back and forth. "… wHeRe iS mY lIgHt?"

Seraph smirked confidently. "Oh, I've got light for you, buddy. Right here!" She lightning-dashed forward, popped up in front of the crystal, and punched its right arm. The limb shot off Necrozma's body and rolled across the floor, where it came to a stop in front of a bewildered turquoise Sceptile.

"W… what's going on here?!" the Sceptile gasped. Before Seraph could respond, Necrozma's arm shot into the air, socked the Sceptile in the jaw, and knocked him into the ceiling. He was out cold before he could hit the floor.

Seraph didn't bother yelling at Necrozma. She sheathed her arms in electricity, ready to pummel Necrozma from point-blank range. Instead, Necrozma hovered up until his head plinked against the ceiling. Seraph pointed her arms up, shooting two electric beams at him. They struck what appeared to be his chest. But rather than damaging him, the multicolored lights hidden underneath his black exterior glowed brighter.

"… yOu hAvE… lIgHt," Necrozma muttered. His dislodged arm shot back into the empty socket on its body. "… yOu wIlL gIvE iT… tO mE…"

"It just… absorbed my attack?" Seraph whispered, lowering her arms and ceasing the flow of electricity. "Just… what are you, huh? We helped you… and now you're blowing up our base? Give me one good reason I shouldn't blast you into pieces!"

"… hElP… mE?" Necrozma said, resuming his swaying missions.

Seraph crouched low to the ground, black shadows swirling around her arms. Necrozma jerked violently to his right, flinging his arms to the left. Two spheres of swirling purple energy shot toward Seraph. She pounced, snuffing out the energy balls with her pitch-black fists.

"nOoOoOoOoOoO!" Necrozma shouted, drifting backwards and aimlessly flailing his arms about. He swiped upward with his right arm and two more purple spheres shot toward Seraph, who lightning-dashed out of the way. "yOu wOn'T hElP mE. nObOdY wIlL."

'Come on! What is taking so long to get some help down here? Did the elevator system go completely offline with the communicators?' Seraph wondered. 'Guess it's just going to fall to me, then.' She hopped off the ground, somersaulting in midair to kick off the glass wall. Her scarf-like tail hardened into iron. But just as she was ready to club Necrozma in his chest, a quartet of white, thread-like needles speared her back.

Seraph went off course and crashed into the ground, hissing in pain. She reached a paw back, expecting to yank the needles out, but they had mysteriously vanished into thin air. Seraph whirled back around, expecting another attack to be flying her way. Instead, Necrozma drifted clumsily down the hallway.

"Hey, get back here! I'm not finished with you!" Seraph said, preparing to lightning-dash once again.

"sIlEnCe!" Necrozma said. He thrust his left arm backwards, sending two more purple spheres drifting toward her. Growling, Seraph vaporized them with two well-aimed lightning bolts. "yOu… I cAn fEEl iT," Necrozma continued, slowly rotating until he was upside down. "hAtReD… iN tHe dEpTHs oF yOuR sOUl."

"You're damn right I've got something to hate… it's you!" Seraph said. "Now, get out of my sight! Focus Blast!" She raised a paw over her head. A bright red energy ball popped up and Seraph hurled it forward.

"… JuH?"

Necrozma floated to his left. Though he managed to skirt the attack's trajectory, he couldn't completely get out of the way. The energy ball detonated, taking out the glass wall.

"GyAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAaAeEaRgCh!"

A klaxon horn sounded off. Red emergency lights popped out of the floor and ceiling. Seraph rolled her eyes and ran forward, waving away smoke. 'Oh, sure. Now the alarm sounds. Because heaven forbid someone breaks the expensive glass.'

Upon reaching the spot where Necrozma had previously floated, she found a large hole in the metal wall on her right. Most of the smoke was funneling out from it. She tried to get rid of it with her arms.

"What the hell is going on down here, Seraph?"

A gust of chilled air blew away all the smoke in the area. Seraph looked to her left to find Anthus, Phygen, and Tori emerging from a doorway. Tori had a look of horror on her face. "It's not me!" Seraph said, gesturing to the hole in the wall. "It's that god damn crystal I told you to leave behind. The thing's alive! And I think it might be an unregistered Lightless–"

"NyYyYyYyYyYaAaAaAgH!"

The three captains raced through the hole in the wall, with Seraph hot on their heels. Sticky cautiously floated forward, rubbing his arms together nervously. His superiors had entered an empty cafeteria. Overturned metal tables lay strewn about on the floor, along with trays, paper napkins, and plastic cutlery. "What the heck was that awful screeching sound?" Anthus asked.

"Up there!" Phygen said, pointing his snout toward the ceiling. Necrozma floated overhead, flapping his arms about wildly. His forehead had partially shattered. Above his triangular core sat an eyeball with shadowy-black sclera and a sinister purple iris. The eye looked at the captains and flashed red.

"lIe… LiE… lIiIiIiIiIiIgGgGgGgGgGhHhHhHt!"

Necrozma swung his arms around from left to right, shaking them angrily. Three glowing circles appeared around him, each one bearing a sigil of a winged heart, with demonic horns and piercing eyes in their centers. Three bright flashes of light filled the room, sending Seraph stumbling back into the hall while Sticky floated away from the destroyed wall.

"What the heck?!" she growled, throwing an arm up over her eyes.

"Seraph! What seems to be the problem here?"

Commander Magnum strutted down the hallway, with an anxious Luxeira behind him. Three cries of pain immediately drew Seraph's attention back to the room. "No… the captains!" Seraph shouted, staring in horror as they struggled feebly inside Necrozma's alchemical circles.

"Seraph, what is the meaning of this? Why is there a Lightless Black floating in the middle of the room?" Magnum asked. "And… why does he look ultra-messed up?"

Necrozma screeched and raised his arms skyward. Heavy, black chains wrapped around each of the captains and shadowfire shrouded their motionless bodies, turning their fur pitch black. The eye in Necrozma's forehead focused directly on Seraph and pulsated dark red.

"de… DE… dEsTrOoOY!"

Necrozma pointed his right arm at Seraph. Anthus shot toward her like a bullet. Too stunned to properly react to the situation, Anthus hammered Seraph in the chest. Icy air engulfed her body, freezing her solid from head to toe and knocking her toward the edge of the hallway, where the glass wall had already been blown apart. Sticky and Luxeira both moved backward in opposite directions, silently praying Necrozma couldn't somehow see them through the wall.

Magnum darted to his left, stretching out an arm to keep Seraph from careening out of the base and plummeting to her death. Necrozma shouted loudly and, before Magnum could look up, his world ignited and flames spread across his body. Magnum stumbled around the hallway, with a comatose Phygen laying at his feet, still wrapped in heavy chains and doused in shadowfire.

Luckily, Phygen's flames thawed Seraph out. She looked up at Necrozma, who floated there, eyeball staring her down and Tori's body rotating helplessly around him like a moon going around a planet. Necrozma pointed his right arm forward and Tori's body flew toward Seraph. She lightning-dashed into the cafeteria to dodge. Tori struck the ground in the hallway, releasing stored up electricity that zapped Magnum and knocked him onto his back with a dazed look in his eyes.

Necrozma waved his arms back and forth, muttering garbled gibberish.

"What the heck is wrong with this thing? Has it completely lost its mind?" Seraph said. Necrozma responded by putting both hands in front of him and yanking them backwards violently. Seraph heard movement behind her and looked over shoulder. Her expression blanched and she dropped to her belly. Seconds later, the three captains flew over her head. They settled back around Necrozma and resumed orbiting him.

"I will not let this injustice stand!" Magnum bellowed, staggering into the ruined cafeteria. "We must subdue it… ultra-quickly!" He raised his arms skyward and flexed. Red light sheathed his arms and Magnum charged down Necrozma, winding up to strike him.

"hYecH," Necrozma said, floating aimlessly to his left. Magnum's punch only succeeded in connecting with Anthus' chains. Ice encased Magnum's arm, freezing it solid and making it drop to the ground, dragging the rest of Magnum down along with it. "kYaShAcK!" Necrozma said. He raised his left arm and Phygen shot up toward it. Necrozma grabbed hold of Phygen with both hands and drifted forward.

"Grrr… take this, you monster!" Seraph shouted, lunging for him while dark energy raced down her paws. She succeeded in slipping past Tori and Anthus before they could levitate forward and block her path.

"HaAaGh!"

Necrozma swung Phygen's body like a furry, oversized club. He connected with Seraph's skull, shattering her helmet and sending her reeling across the ground. Luxeira gasped and jumped forward, bracing herself. Once Seraph collided with her, she barely managed to dig her paws in and bring their forward momentum a stop before they went sailing out of the building. Meanwhile, Necrozma turned around and swung Phygen wildly at Magnum. This time Magnum avoided Necrozma. Using his tiny wings, he went momentarily airborne, preventing Anthus from crashing into him.

Magnum shrouded himself in green energy and lunged at Necrozma. The green blur slipped past Tori and struck Necrozma in the side. Magnum shoved Necrozma as hard as he could, sending Necrozma floating backward, still tightly gripping Phygen's body. Though Necrozma faced Magnum, the eye had rotated back so Seraph and Luxeira were in its line of sight. It flashed violet, then Necrozma floated in their direction.

"Trying to run from the Mighty Magnum is an ultra-huge mistake, villain!" Magnum said, flexing his arms out while green energy encased his body again.

"Luxeira… Seraph… run! The Lightless Black's coming for you!" Sticky cried, waving his arms about frantically.

Seraph shakily lifted her head up, revealing the bloodstained fur around her face. Her eyes widened at the sight of the approaching Necrozma, with Magnum charging him down from behind. She grabbed Luxeira around her harness and dived to her left, taking the Houndoom with her. Seconds later, Magnum hit Necrozma from behind. But he didn't succeed in pushing Necrozma forward. Instead, Necrozma whirled around, beaning Magnum with Phygen.

Magnum hurtled back into the cafeteria, but Necrozma didn't let up. His eye flashed red. Necrozma hefted Phygen above his head and slammed him into the floor. Two streams of fire raced out on either side of Necrozma. Sticky turned and floated down the hall, shouting in terror. His teammates were less fortunate, however, as their half of the hallway quickly led to a dead end. Luxeira jumped toward the oncoming flames, wincing as they ran across her suit.

Seraph limped up to Luxeira, arms shaking and fur matted with blood. Luxeira expected to get chewed out for daring to come back and investigate what was wrong, but a quick glance into Seraph's eyes showed not her usual fiery demeanor, but one of pure terror. "Th… thanks for the save," Seraph whispered, her gaze fixed on the floor.

"What are we going to do about this guy?" Luxeira said. "I can't battle to save my life!"

Seraph grimaced. "You've got supplies, right? I could use a pick-me-up…"

"Gotcha," Luxeira said.

"GyRgHuIlK," Necrozma blabbered. He yanked his arms up and Phygen shot back toward him. Necrozma retreated into the cafeteria, the captains orbiting around him even faster.

"C'mon, newbie!" Seraph growled, grabbing her left shoulder in pain and, much to Luxeira's shock, eyes darting about the room in desperation.

'If she's this shaken up about all this, then what chance do we realistically have?' Luxeira thought. The medical kit dropped out of her harness. Seraph threw it open and grabbed the corked syringe inside it. She jabbed it against her thigh, briefly wincing in pain, and pressed the plunger. In an instant, the fatigue drained from her eyes and her wounds stopped bleeding.

"What should we do?" Luxeira asked.

"Go get the cue ball… and make sure he didn't ink himself or whatever it is Poipoles do when they get scared," Seraph said. "I'm going to make this thing wish it was never born." She crouched onto all fours and darted into the cafeteria.

Luxeira scrambled down the hallway, fur standing on end as static electricity rushed out from the wrecked cafeteria. 'I started the evac procedures… because that's the standard policy,' she thought, searching the halls for any signs of Sticky.

"Get down, Seraph! He's about to throw Tori at you!" Magnum's voice carried from the cafeteria, eliciting a wince from Luxeira.

'But now I wish I'd been more like Seraph and not listened! We need reinforcements,' she continued, her frown deepening. She tried her helmet's communicator, but static greeted her. Luxeira located Sticky, curled up in a tiny ball in front of a locked doorway. "Come on, Sticky," she said. "You can't just stay crouched down there. We've got to offer support for our superiors."

"Th… there's… I… nothing," Sticky said, clicking on his visor to hide his terrified expression.

"We have supplies," Luxeira said. "C'mon. You've got to get up. We…" She stopped and took a breath, trying to steady her trembling voice. "The people of Ultra Village need us."

Sticky poked his head up. "R… right…"

Pained screams drew their attentions back toward the cafeteria. Luxeira sprinted forward, Sticky trailing behind her. But she screeched to a halt when Magnum's limp body struck the ground in front of her. Luxeira reared up on her hind legs, barking in surprise.

"Oh no," Sticky said. "The Commander… is he dead?"

"No!" Seraph hollered, ducking underneath Necrozma's attempts to strike her using Anthus as a club.

"hOiGhT fSsShK!" Necrozma snarled. He released his grip on Anthus. His eye flashed bright orange and looked straight up at the ceiling. Necrozma pointed his arms down at the ground. Four orange circles formed in the floor, each bearing the same winged heart rune Seraph had seen earlier. The circles bubbled and the floor underneath them fizzled.

Seraph's nose twitched. "Is… is that metal burning?" She looked down. "Holy shit… that's lava! He's summoning lava!" She looked up to see Phygen hovering over Necrozma, glowing brightly and spinning rapidly.

"KzZaAbB sYuUoH!" Necrozma screamed, hoisting his arms up toward the ceiling. The four circles erupted into columns of lava. Seraph backpedaled out of the room with a yelp, shoving Magnum through the busted wall in the process. Luxeira and Sticky looked at the lava, their jaws dropping in terror. Above Necrozma, the ceiling melted. Molten metal dripped onto the ground around Necrozma, burning holes through the floor.

"Gimme another med pack!" Seraph shouted, drawing Luxeira's attention. She stumbled over to Seraph, stealing glances back at Necrozma, who had succeeded in burning a hole in the ceiling large enough for him to fit through.

"G… guys? He's doing something else!" Sticky said.

"Then fire an attack at him!" Seraph barked, yanking another syringe out of the new med pack and jabbing it into Magnum's abdomen.

"B… but I… uh…" Sticky stared down Necrozma, who paid him little mind and instead clasped his hands together. Tori hovered over Necrozma and spun in place, lightning crackling around her.

"fRaCkLe!" Necrozma yelled. He thrust his hands toward the ground. A massive lightning bolt descended from above, shearing the ceiling.

"Get up! Move!" Sticky shouted. Seraph looked over her shoulder at the oncoming shockwave and jumped at it. She punched the ground with both fists. Pillars of plasma shot up, safely diverting the shockwaves. The plasma raced forward and struck Necrozma. But he didn't so much as flinch from the attack. Instead, the eyeball simply rotated around wildly, before coming to a stop and flashing blue.

"Thanks for the Helping Hand, Seraph… aha ha ha!" Magnum said, his normally thunderous laugh lacking its usual punch. "Let's rush this guy in tandem. He's not ultra-bright, so I doubt he can focus on both of us at once."

Necrozma swayed back and forth, raising his arms up again. This time Anthus hovered over him. Five blue circles appeared in the air around the cafeteria, all containing a winged heart. Necrozma brought his hands to his sides and the circles erupted into tornadoes of frozen air.

"Agggggh!" Seraph howled, halting her charge. She threw her arms up to keep slush and ice from battering her face.

Magnum jumped in front of her and spread his arms out wide.

"Go! Attack him now!" Magnum said. Seraph zipped forward, lightning-dashing through the frigid winds.

Necrozma was in the process of floating up to the next floor with the limp captains in tow. His eye looked down and spotted Seraph shooting up toward him. Necrozma raised his left arm and Anthus shot toward Seraph. She was prepared this time, however, and changed course. Seraph lightning-dashed onto the wall and rebounded off it. She rematerialized, fists turning pitch black.

"Now I've got you! Suck on this Throat Chop!" Seraph roared. She swung her fists around, hammering Necrozma in what appeared to constitute his face. Black crystal shards broke off his body, dropping to the ground along with the three captains. Necrozma hovered away from Seraph, flailing his arms about and hissing angrily.

Seraph landed safely on the ground. "C'mon, guys! We've got to free the captains quickly before–"

"UwAvPsQoP gYaRnNGH!" Necrozma hollered. The unpleasant sounds of scraping metal echoed through the cafeteria, making Seraph's eyes water. Through her blurry vision she could see the crystalline parts of Necrozma's body moving around, briefly exposing his triangular core. Necrozma pointed his hands down and made a yanking gesture. The three captains flew back toward him, offering no resistance.

"Aww, come on!" Seraph hissed. She readied herself to attack Necrozma, only to notice him contorting into a grotesque, crystalline sphere. The captains then surrounded Necrozma from all sides, forming a ball of swirling ice, fire, and electricity. "What the heck?" Seraph gasped.

The ball landed on the ground, forcing Seraph back to dodge a fireball racing toward her. She rifled off a burst of plasma from her paw, but it struck Tori's chains and deflected into a wall. The giant ball revved up and then raced forward, looking to flatten Seraph.

"vRrRrOoOoOoOoOoOm!"

"Out of the way!" Luxeira shouted, tackling Seraph to the ground just in time to avoid Necrozma's ball. It didn't stop, however. Its momentum carried it to the edge of the room, where it proceeded up the wall and disappeared through the hole in the ceiling.

"Wh… where is it going?" Sticky said, floating up toward the wrecked ceiling. "Ah! It's already up on the seventh floor and it's revving up again!"

Seraph's eyes widened and she leaped to her feet. "No! This is worse than bad! That monster's heading for the Ultra Village Core!"

"No way, that thing's supposed to be highly protected, isn't it?" Luxeira said.

Seraph lunged at the wall, digging her claws in to get a look up through the hole. "Commander, we've got to stop this thing! If it gets to the core… it could destroy it!"

"Not to worry. The core is ultra-fortified," Magnum said.

"But he can spew lava, Commander!" Seraph said. "The core's in a heap of trouble!"

"What happens if the core gets destroyed?" Luxeira asked.

"It could set off an ultra-devastating chain reaction that could atomize this entire city!" Magnum said. He stomped off after Seraph, who shot up through the whole in the ceiling. "Come, Lucina! There isn't a moment to lose!"

Luxeira raced toward Magnum, not even bothering to correct him. He scooped her up in his massive arms and leaped upward, easily reaching the next floor. Sticky floated at the head of the group, stealing glances back down at them to monitor their progress. "He's broken through to the eighth floor!" Sticky shouted.

Seraph lightning-dashed up through the next hole in the ceiling, with Magnum soaring up behind her. She banked off a wall and continued sailing upward, while Magnum had to stop so he could reangle himself and jump again. Seraph managed to catch up to Sticky, who floated a fair distance away from Necrozma's rolling ball.

"C'mon, you dunce! You have to slow it down! Attack it!" Seraph growled, rematerializing in the middle of a conference room and leaning against the table to catch her breath.

"I… I'm trying," Sticky said. He pointed his head at the spinning ball and shot a tiny ball of orange acid toward it. It harmlessly struck the ball, bouncing back in Seraph's direction. Her eyes widened and she rolled to her right, watching as the glass table she was resting on dissolved in the acid.

"Seriously, dude?!" she groaned. Having caught her breath, Seraph lightning-dashed upward.

"I'm not much of a fighter," Sticky said, following her. Necrozma burst through yet another ceiling with Seraph and Sticky hot on his tail. They had arrived in a room bathed in red light from warning signs stationed throughout it. Various computer terminals lay dotted around the room, with four of them surrounding a gray cylinder in the center. Heavy steel plates hid whatever was inside the cylinder.

"pReOaWrRRrrRRrr!" Necrozma growled, spinning his ball around faster and faster in midair. The ball broke apart, with Necrozma shooting the captains at Seraph and Sticky. Seraph sprinted forward. Phygen grazed her backside, burning off her ponytail and leaving behind a tiny yellow stump between her shoulder blades.

Tori collided with Sticky, slamming him back into one of the computer screens on the wall and destroying it. Lightning raced across the wall from Tori getting lodged in it like she was an oversized tack. Likewise, Anthus and Phygen were stuck into the floor like pegs, venting wind and fire, respectively.

Seraph lunged for Necrozma, who floated in midair in a daze. She pushed a red energy ball right into Necrozma's exposed eye. The resulting blast sent Necrozma reeling. His spinning form collided with one of the central computer consoles, destroying it along with the metal pipe extending out of it. White gas began filling up the room.

Danger! Core ventilation system compromised, a mechanized voice declared. System functioning at seventy-five percent. Diagnostic recommended.

Magnum finally made it up into the room, dropping Luxeira to the ground. She dashed over toward Sticky but had to tread carefully due to the static Tori gave off. Necrozma floated back into the air and raised his arms up. Magnum halted his charge in order to dodge the incoming captains as they floated back to Necrozma.

"LuWeK," Necrozma whispered, thrusting his arms out to the side while his cracked head rotated around in a circle. The captains smushed up against one another, forming a circular wall that Necrozma ducked behind. The wall floated toward Magnum, brimming with ice, fire, and plasma. Magnum retreated, while Seraph charged around it, trying to find an opening.

"pOiGhT!" Necrozma shouted, popping up from inside the wall and waving his right arm. Three purple, meteor-like energy balls shot toward Seraph. She raised her paws up and blasted them apart with her lightning. But before she could attack Necrozma, he ducked inside the wall again. Her lightning plinked off Tori's chains, instead striking one of computer terminals lying on the wall and blowing it apart.

Core paneling deactivated.

Seraph and Magnum both froze. They turned their horrified gazes on the center of the room, where the shielding was retracting into the ceiling. "Crud! The core's completely exposed! We have to shut it down, now!" Seraph said.

"pEeKaAbOooOOo!" Necrozma yelled, poking his head and arm out to toss three more energy balls. Magnum flew into their path and sliced them cleanly in half with a glowing arm. He tried to smack Necrozma as well, but Necrozma ducked back into the wall and Magnum instead punched Tori. Electricity surged through his arm. He dropped to the ground, frantically massaging his injured arm with his good one.

"Lucina! Head to the terminal over there," Magnum said, pointing weakly toward a lone red console in the corner. "It's the emergency lockdown system. Turn it on and enter one-three–"

"Duck and cover!" Seraph said, blasting two plasma streams toward Necrozma, who had popped up from the wall, gathering purple energy over his head. Her attack was fast enough to strike him right in the eye, which spun about wildly. Necrozma nonetheless hurtled his large meteor forward.

"Someone stop it! It's heading for the emergency lockdown terminal!" Luxeira cried. She opened her mouth wide, but only coughed up a single fireball which fizzled out before reaching Necrozma's attack. Seraph zipped across the room, sliding in front of the terminal and spinning around to shoot lightning bolts at the meteor. Seraph's jaw slackened as her attacks failed to destroy it.

Plasma gathered in her paws and she lunged for the meteor. She swung her arms at it, only for the meteor to suddenly explode, tearing Seraph's jumpsuit to smithereens and jettisoning her right into the computer terminal she was trying so desperately to protect. A yellow and blue explosion erupted around the terminal.

"Seraph!" Luxeira gasped, breaking into a clumsy run toward the other side of the room. Magnum, on the other hand, immediately leaped into action. Green energy shrouded his body and he charged Necrozma down as fast as he could possibly manage. Necrozma ducked behind his wall again, but Magnum didn't slow down. He collided with the wall at top speed, forcing the captains apart and sending them crashing to the ground while Necrozma reeled back through the air.

"NyArGhAiIgGhHt!"

A heavy thud echoed through the room. Seraph poked her weary, bloodied head up. "N… no," she whispered. "The core… it…"

Luxeira froze and turned around. Behind her, Necrozma lay amongst the remains of another computer terminal. A broken pipe vented cooler fluid into the room. About a foot above him sat a large crack in the glass containing the core's raw light energy.

Alert! Alert! Reactor system compromised. Unable to engage emergency shutdown.

Inside the fragmenting glass, the core's light spiraled about wildly. The room started shaking. Computer monitors fell from their hinges, with one striking Sticky right in the back of head and knocking him out. Luxeira tried to heft Seraph back to her feet but stumbled and fell to her side. "No… this can't be happening!" Luxeira cried, eyes darting about the room. "We have to shut that thing off! We–"

Necrozma hovered into the air, sputtering about as he moved. The eye in his forehead rotated around, staring into the core of light. "lIgHt… LeIgHt?" he grunted. "WaNt… tAkE…" Necrozma spun around and struck the core with both of his arms, digging his claws into the glass and splintering it further.

"No… stop! You mustn't touch that!" Magnum shouted, lunging at Necrozma. But a massive swarm of golden light erupted around Necrozma, blasting Magnum into the ceiling. Rather than bouncing off it, Magnum's large frame broke through the metal grates, leaving a large hole. The hole slowly expanded, until a S0L30 unit tumbled down from the roof, slamming into the floor in front of a dazed Luxeira.

She finally managed to stagger back to her feet, only to freeze in terror at the sight of Necrozma. His arms had penetrated the glass and his own core was flashing brightly with each surge of light rushing down his body. "I fEeL iT… pOWeR rEtURning… thOughts becoming… clearer!" A surge of light repaired the damage to his head, hiding the eye underneath a fresh layer of black crystal.

"Yes… yes! I… am… Necrozma!"

"N… newbie," Seraph croaked, reaching a bloody paw up and tugging at Luxeira's jumpsuit. "W… we… have to… go…" She pointed shakily at the S0L30 unit lying in front of them. "The core… it's gonna blow…"

Danger! Danger! Reactor levels critical! Manual shutdown required!

Necrozma backed away from the core, his black arms still pulsating with light. "What's going on here?" he said, his voice much deeper and more coherent. Necrozma looked around the room. "Wait… the Ultra Nexus… it's gone?" He raised his hands up and looked at the core. "I… I'm free? I'm finally free?!" Necrozma dug his arms into the core once again and resumed siphoning its light. "I must get my light back! I want my power back… now!"

A surge of golden light shot out from the core. It soared over Luxeira's head and blew a large hole in the wall. She scrambled toward the other end of the room, grabbed Sticky in her jaws, and sprinted toward the S0L30 unit. Seraph was leaning against it, frantically typing commands into the system.

Luxeira howled in fright as more tendrils of light shot out of the core, blasting more holes in the wall. Necrozma withdrew his arms. "What's going on here? Where is that infernal racket coming from?!" he said.

Danger! Danger! Reactor levels critical! Manual shutdown requ–

It all happened in the blink of an eye. Seraph hammered S0L30's ignition, opening an Ultra Wormhole underneath the massive machine. Luxeira lunged for it, landing on its back just as it disappeared into the Ultra Wormhole. At the same time, they heard a massive explosion, followed by a loud cry of pain.

Luxeira looked back at the closing wormhole. She saw the remnants of the room she was in vaporizing before her very eyes. Seconds later, a solar flare shot through the Ultra Wormhole. The bright light died away, revealing Necrozma's limp body flying toward them like a black, flaming comet.

"Seraph! Steer us left! Left!" Luxeira shouted, grabbing Seraph by the shoulders and jerking her to the left.

Seraph wasn't fast enough on the uptake, however. Necrozma careened into S0L30's backside, destroying the machine in a large blast of napalm and scrap metal. The force of the blow sent Team Paradox and Necrozma hurtling through open Ultra Space. Thick purple crystals encased Team Paradox's unconscious bodies, leaving them completely unaware of their situation.

Alongside Necrozma, they fell into a nearby Ultra Wormhole. They spiraled through the portal, which shot them out into a mist-covered series of cliffs and waterfalls. There, they all careened toward the ground. The members of Team Paradox landed with a splash in a waterfall basin, while Necrozma hurtled toward a cliff, shedding off fragments of his crystalline body as he fell. Only his core was left when he struck the ground and created a giant, rainbow explosion punctuated by a single, bloodcurdling scream.

XxX​

Lightless Black, Necrozma
So long was Necrozma's fractured spirit imprisoned in the Ultra Nexus that most of his life energy withered away. But his alchemically-forged body refused to crumble. The result is an empty, mindless husk that carves a path of wanton destruction, desperately seeking light to mend a broken soul. Unbeknownst to his foes, a terrifying dark power forms the foundations holding his core together.

XxX
Next time: fall-weather friends.
 
Last edited:

RocketKnight66

404: Consistent Schedule not Found
Alright, time to finally wrap up reading Episode 11!

Right off the bat, we've got another of Shane's dreams. And, well... it was rather unsettling, especially near the end. Geoff made me feel pretty uncomfortable, honestly. I'm also kinda beginning to question just how real these memories are, what with "Remember your true self" becoming a recurring line and all.

Speaking of unsettling, how about whatever happened to Espeon! I mean, that trauma really isn't letting up. And then we get this pleasant little mental image...
Something immediately seemed off with Espeon. Her eyes were bloodshot and her white, hollow irises constricted. Espeon's tail twitched and erratically jerked back and forth. As she stumbled forward, Shane got a closer look at her face and gasped.

'Is that blood on her snout?'
Geez Espeon, just what are you drinking? And how much of it?
And then to top it all off, she seemingly disappears... definitely a confusing situation that I'll be curious to learn more of.

And then we have Zero and Dragonite confronting Mesprit, subsequently wiping the floor with her and nabbing the time gear. So much for the Explorers characters not being targeted, am I right? No one is safe from Mr. Necky's Wild Ride!

Speaking of Necky, he's off being silly again, basically playing with puppets and quoting Explorers. I'm not even remotely surprised.

I don't really care much about Team Fang to be honest, but we did get a look at Metagross in his current state. And, well... it's certainly something to behold. The fight with him is gonna be a fun one when it happens, that's for sure.

I liked seeing Wigglytuff and Chatot again... it was really interesting to see Chatot in particular, seeing that he's showing visible signs of aging, and he even has a kid now. Meanwhile, Wigglytuff is being Wigglytuff, what more can I say there?

Lapras wasn't so lucky, getting kidnapped and then proceeding to get possessed. And the way that happened...
They connected with Lapras' shell, splintering it. Lapras' eyes widened. He opened his mouth to scream, but nothing came out. His eyes blanked and the colors on his body darkened.
...Oof. More pleasant imagery, I see. My dreams tonight are probably gonna be a load of fun.

And with that, another episode concludes. A pretty interesting end, and I'll be looking forward to the inevitable madness that awaits Team Radiance in the next one.
 

Namohysip

Dragon Enthusiast
The following is a review of Episode 2

Alright. Time for episode 2! Based on the table of contents, this consists of two chapters and a… bonus? I’m not sure if that’s a standalone or not, but I’ll cover that when I run through. I have a better time reviewing if I open with off-the-cuff quotes and then follow up with an "overall impression" review. So that'll probably be my style going forward.

"Oh, that's Crabrawler's Café. It's the main spot for Pokémon to gather and hang out,"

So, I’m guessing the specialty is good old tropical punch?

__

I thought it was a little interesting that this chapter started with what’s effectively a cold open. I’m not exactly sure why, though. The above segment that had no real chapter associated with it was transitional, but it still… fit? Oh well. It’s a minor thing anyway.

"Honestly, how can anyone back in the human world like Vulpix more than Growlithe? It's not even a contest."

Growlithe tilted his head. "I beg your pardon?"

Tessa stepped forward and cupped a paw over Shane's mouth. "Err, don't listen to him. He's, uh, new around these parts."


This is a classic exchange, isn’t it? Shane is still being dense as always, but so far it doesn’t seem to be very consequential. I’m waiting for it to actually bite him on the butt, though. At some point it’s gotta, since you had already told me in advance that he’s gonna be dense for a while.


I’m also noticing that the Braviary has a particular accent. I don’t really know what I expected.

"If you're in a group of Pokémon of the same species you just make eye contact with the one you want to talk to," Tessa said. "Did your 'brilliant human mind' not think that one up?"


Okay yeah but what about if you need to address a group or a list of people when they aren’t present or something? Ah—it looks like Shane more or less covers it, though that still makes it pretty awkward to list people as a group. “Thin Lucario, Lucario with tufts, one-fang Lucario…” Goodness, that sounds even more complicated than just doing names!

__

Metagross. That’s an interesting Guildmaster. His dialogue, uh, format is a little weird, but I understand why. I’ll let gimmicks like these slide since they’re so popular to do anyway, and it doesn’t really detract from anything. I call it shorthand.

Warning: continued dwelling on your family will impair your path to success in this guild.

Ho boy. Pulls no punches, huh? Despite being so quirky I feel like this Metagross has the most sane personality of the major players so far.

And second, everyone knows Mystery Dungeons out here don't work like them kooky ones they got overseas."

Huh. You know, the sad part is, I’ve no idea how the normal Mystery dungeon overseas would work, either. Pretty much every fic implements them a little differently! So now I’ve got two versions of Dungeons to worry about. Oh well. At least we’ll find out how the first ones work soon, or whatever odd properties they’ve got.

"The Land Spirits decide when to change them. When I was a pup, my parents told me they can terraform the whole continent using their signature move: Nature's Madness."

Ahh, there’s some world building to explain it! So they aren’t quite Mystery Dungeons at all—just huge areas. It’s a lot calmer, but that makes me curious about Shane’s own questions about what they actually did, if that was the case. But you know, that’s a good thing, since even though Shane is dense, he’s also acting as a sort of surrogate for someone familiar with the old games to question the new mechanics.

"Vulpix! Yungoos are very sensitive about their hair,"

What an odd detail to bring up, but it’s funny anyway.

__

And then onto chapter 4, we have…

Yungoos immediately raised up his forepaws. "I yield! I yield! Enough… enough… youse two passed da test."

Tessa's stance slouched. "Wait… this was a test?"

A cocky grin flashed across Shane's muzzle. "Ha haaaaa! See, what did I tell you, Riolu?" He confidently swaggered up to Tessa. "Nothing. To. Worry. About," he declared, jabbing her back with his forepaw for each and every word.

Tessa's expression fell. "I… I don't understand. Weren't we supposed to fetch a looplet for the guild?"

So, overall this story has been a little slower in pace in terms of how much actually “happens” as far as the story is concerned, and how many words are coming across. However, in this one instance? I’m kinda surprised at how quickly this reversal happened. I’d’ve expected at least a sentence or two of Tessa and Shane being suspicious, or something along those lines, until the two Guild members flash their badges. Prior to that? I don’t know, it seemed too quick for them to trust them, especially when they were running off the adrenaline of a fight, and then suddenly stopping.

__

Moving on, I don’t have any specific quote to grab from, but I like the general dynamic going on between the Guild staff. They’re familiar with one another, and I can see that, and in general, Shane and Tessa are just getting worked into the fold, in a way.

__

…Did you just call Bruxish a triggerfish? It’s actually based on the Hawaiian state fish, called the—oh. Wait. Upon some quick research, it’s… also known as a triggerfish. Hm. Carry on.


'No! It's not true. Tessa's wrong. I'm not here by accident. Null's situation is just… a coincidence. That's all.


FINALLY! SOME DOUBT! Goodness, that took way too long, but at least we’re starting to see some cracks in the confidence so Shane gets himself some proper depth.

____


I’m seeing in your author’s notes/comments that you’d make the next few battles longer, but honestly, I don’t think that’s necessary just for the sake of making them longer. I suppose that’s just a matter of taste and style, though.

However, that was everything for episode 2! And overall, I feel like the pace was a little slower in terms of, in retrospect, what actually happened in the story. Shane and Tessa joined the guild and met some of the members; they met Null in particular who, just from general meta knowledge and what I’ve seen around the forums, is important. And then some bits of mystery and world building. All important, yet I feel like it went by slowly for everything that happened in between, particularly the battle with Trapinch and Yungoos. Before I realized they were just Guild members testing Tessa and Shane, I thought it was going to be a second outlaw fight, which I felt was a bit too much filler. Even after it was revealed that it was a test, the bulk of the battle was just that—another battle.


But! I’m particularly interested in these sides that are coming in. I can’t really get a feel (aside from Null) on who will be important, who will be extras, and who will just be supports or otherwise. They’re all being introduced so quickly that I can understand why you don’t put names to most of them. Looking forward to finding out more about them!

Seems there’s a bonus chapter after this one. If I have anything substantial to say, I’ll make it its own thing. Onward!
 

AmericanPi

Write on
Hi, I'm here for the Week 2 challenge of Missing Mod Madness, which calls for a review of a fic with at least 20 chapters. I read Episode 1 (so the Prologue, Chapter 1, and Chapter 2) so I'm going to go ahead and give some thoughts.

Bear in mind that 1.) I greatly prefer one-shots over chapterfics, at least in terms of Pokémon fanfic, and 2.) I don't know anything about Pokémon Mystery Dungeon aside from the basics of "human wakes up in a world populated exclusively by Pokémon without any memory of their past life other than the fact that they were a human, and joins an organization of some sort that explores mysterious dungeons". I tend to largely stay away from writing and reading Pokémon chapterfics these days due to not having the amount of time and energy I want to fully enjoy them. However, I'd say that this was as good of a fic as any to introduce me to the unfamiliar world of PMD fanfics. I understood enough of the worldbuilding, lore, and plot despite not knowing anything about PMD, and you did a great job in using the first episode to make me want to keep reading.

To be more specific, I love how there's a clear, easy-to-follow plot that's fun even for someone like me who knows nothing about PMD. We have Shane figuring out how to get home and Tessa figuring out how to overcome her fears of joining the guild, which may lead to her discovering where her mother went. Both plots start with Shane and Tessa going to the guild, and after reading the first episode I'm definitely curious about how Shane and Tessa's journeys will go down. Overall the plot was easy enough to follow, and you've done a great job in setting up multiple arcs: Shane, Tessa, and Espy and Umbry.

Firstly there's Shane adjusting himself to the PMD world as a human-turned-Pokémon who actually remembers his past, which is super interesting because you left so many questions about Shane's situation that readers will want answered as they read on. Is he dead in the human world or just in a coma, and what was up with the flashing lights that bombarded him before he washed up on the beach? Shane's arc will be interesting because I have a feeling that he will stop being such a silly dudebro fratboy once he gets his rude awakening that his situation is more than a dream (and even if it is a dream, he may still be in very real danger). Shane's character is amusing yet realistic, because who wouldn't mess around when they think they're in a lucid dream that isn't real? Tessa's reactions to him are honestly golden.

Secondly there's Tessa, whose past is intriguing. It's clear that the topic of her parents is a touchy subject to her, but I'm wondering what happened to Lucario, her mother, and Incineroar, her father. I know that both parents are missing and Lucario is gone because of some guild business, and you did a great job in setting up this mystery of what happened to Tessa's parents. At first I wasn't sure about Tessa's character, because she seemed like another one of those very insecure, timid, and clumsy female leads (Bella Swan, anyone?). But it's clear that there's a reason for Tessa's personality (her past regarding her parents), and her insecurities were written in a nice way that made me sympathize with her. You did a great job in setting up Tessa's arc of becoming a more confident Pokémon and finding out what happened to her parents.

The third plot seems to be something far more overarching and sinister. Espy and Umbry seem to be a part of some kind of conspiracy/evil organization, and I'm definitely really curious about what they're doing and what all this "infected" business is about.

The only piece of criticism I have is that it felt a little abrupt to me when the point of view switched from third-person Shane to third-person Tessa, and then turned into a third-person limited omniscient kind of POV where we know Shane and Tessa's thoughts but no one else's. I'm not sure how to improve this, but just a thought. Maybe you can establish the fact that this story follows both Shane and Tessa, as well as their thoughts, closer to the beginning?

I know that you're on a roll with this fanfic, so keep up the excellent work! Even though I'm not sure if I'll return to this, you have a great fic in the making and I hope you continue to write.
 

The Walrein

Well-Known Member
Hello Ambyssin! I imagine you've already got loads of reviews for the first several chapters, and a lot of what I wanted to say about them has already been covered by other reviewers, so I thought I'd do something a little unusual and have my first review for this fic cover Special Epsiode #1 instead.

There's a disclaimer I have to make before continuing on: It's going to be difficult for me to be an objective reviewer, here as Guiding Light just has a lot of elements that strongly clash with my personal tastes. Although I like character-driven, action heavy fantasy adventure stories, I can't stand the cheesy, cartoonish tone, and I dislike most of the characters (especially Shane). In particular, this chapter was what convinced me that Guiding Light wasn't going to be the sort of story I could enjoy. Nevertheless, I'm hoping it'll still be useful to explain why certain elements in this chapter didn't work for me, and I'll try to keep the intended tone in mind with my criticisms.

So to start off with, the narrator. This may be one of my personal preference things (and even somewhat hypocritical, given the number of characters with unusual styles of speech I've written), but I found Braviary's accent rather annoying and distracting from the narrative. I guess part of it is that I'm not sure if it's ever explained why he has that accent - is there some island where everyone speaks like that? - so it feels a little arbitrary. Also, I don't find Braviary to be a particularly sympathetic character, largely due to his complete lack of empathy for Prisma in this chapter and his refusal to call her by her correct name. Given the previous chapters' focus on the (admittedly much more unsympathetic Shane), this special episode wasn't as much of a change in pace in that department as I would've liked.

In the words of the great Dr. Eggman, "Time for a change of pace!"
The name's Braviary. I'm the intelligence expert and assistant to Guildmaster Metagross here at the Horizon Exploration Guild. Course, that weren't always the case. Back in my heyday, I was part of one of the guild's top exploration teams: Team MIB. What's the name mean? Why, Metagross, Incineroar, and Braviary, of course.

I liked the detail of MIB being confident enough to name themselves after their evolved form's initials instead of their current ones. It's cute, and it helps characterize their younger versions.

"Thanks, Mets," I said with a yawn. "Now then, uh, someone want to remind me where we're heading for this here job?"

I'm not sure how Rufflet could've prepared properly without even knowing where the team was going to, and it's a little hard to believe he'd have no idea about it given how important the mission is to MIB. This might have been exposited more naturally by just having Rufflet explain in narration what the mission was, or having the team explain it to another character who asked where they were going.



"Looks like you lot lucked out. The isle's going through one of its dry spells."

Torracat and I shared a Sharpedo, while Metang lay atop the other one, clutching it's big ol' fin. They sped across choppy morning waters toward a fairly large island. Sure, I didn't have Keen Eye. But I didn't need it to see the basic features: clusters of jungle brush, a rocky spire jutting into the sky, and a waterfall streaming out from the rock, giving rise to a river that dumped into the ocean.

I turned to Torracat. "If'n ya don't mind me asking, boss, just why's the place called Stormcracker anyway?"

Torracat glanced at Metang. "Yo, Mets. Give Rufflet the rundown."

Affirmative, Metang replied in that flat robot voice of his. This island is positioned directly in the migratory paths of Zapdos and Thundurus. Each Legendary Pokémon expels excess electrical energy while migrating. The energy gathers up around the island, forming torrential storms that can fall for weeks on end.

I could already feel my eyelids growing heavy again. Metang just had that effect on me. Guy could take any subject related to exploring and make it as boring as sentry duty at the guild.

Sorry Rufflet, I'm going to have to disagree. This is an interesting tidbit here. However, it does feel like a bit of a waste to include this bit and then not have the island exhibiting its distinctive feature throughout the whole mission.

"Great, then let's head inward," Torracat said, and led our team forward into the jungle. There were no paths for us to follow. So, we was dipping and ducking jungle brush and hopping over tree roots that were taller than Torracat. Of course, them giant tropical leaves weren't no problem for Team MIB. With my Wing Attack, Torracat's Flamethrower, and Metang's Confusion, we easily cleared a path forward in the direction of that huge rock at the center of the island.

I'm probably nitpicking here, but I'm not sure flamethrower and wing attack make much sense as moves for clearing away foliage. I guess the frequent rainfall might mean that most of the jungle would be too damp for fires to spread out of control easily (although I wouldn't bet my life on this, like Metang apparently is), but that same dampness would hinder setting things alight, and I'd guess that any obstacle substantial enough to need to burn away would end up taking quite a while to do so, more than just cutting through it would. Granted, I've never been hiking in a jungle myself before, but I've never heard about using fires in jungles to make trails before. And it seems like it'd be kind of painful and ineffective to ram your wings - presumably one of the more fragile parts of your body - into thorny vines and such.

"Eyyyyaaaaaaagh! My keister's cooking! My keister's cooking!"

This is probably my dislike for the cartoonish tone talking, but it still seems unrealistic for Rufflet to be more concerned with getting off a funny line about his 'keister' rather than the pain he must be feeling and the fact that he's plummeting to the ground.

"You've gone and made quite a ruckus, haven't ya, Runt?"

Riolu looked up at Feraligatr, gnashing her fangs together. "Grrr… how many times I gotta tell ye, cap'n. I've got me a name. It's Prisma! Not Runt!"

She called herself Prisma? That didn't make a lick of sense. I figured the gal had a touch of the crazy. Probably too much time under that hot sun. Still, I didn't given it much thought, considering my current predicament. "Hey, what's the big idea?" Torracat barked. Ever defiant, my boss was, even in a lousy situation for the team. Too bad this was one of them moments I wished he kept his yap shut. "Tell your friend to release my partner right now."

I realize that the parts about only a few pokemon using names besides their species names is a plot point, but I feel like it really highlights the weirdness of the whole thing about all Pokemon using their species names instead of having given names. I might be being a little hypocritical here because I've also used that trope, but specifically drawing attention to it erodes my sense of immersion.

Course, it weren't so quick that we didn't hear Feraligatr shout, "Runt, you bleeding moron! You just cost yourself rations for the next two days."

A loud smack echoed through the air. Torracat and I glanced back to see Prisma on her knees; a paw gingerly held up to her face. Frankly, it served the varmint right. Trying to get the jump on us for no good reason. It was mighty stupid of her to buy into my little act and let me go.

So, this is my single largest point of contention with these chapters. I really dislike the way Prisma's relationship with Feraligatr is handled here. Almost everything he says to her is an insult or threat, and it seems really heavy-handed and inauthentic as a portrayal of abuse to me. I'm not sure why Prisma would be so vigorous in her dedication and defense of her captain given this treatment; Stockholm syndrome's a thing and all, but that requires the captor showing the captive at least some kindness.

Additionally, it just feels like really excessive foreshadowing for Prisma eventually switching sides and joining the horizon guild. We can probably already guess that the Riolu shown here is the same as the one Braviary was looking at in the drawing at the beginning of the chapter, so all this does is remove any suspense there might be in wondering how Prisma is going to wind up joining the guild.

Furthermore, if the mistreatment was more subtle, it also wouldn't make Rufflet's utter lack of empathy for Prisma's situation seem quite so bad. Although, maybe it was your intent to have Rufflet/Braviary be unlikable that way? I'm not really sure.


"Ha! You sound like you've never seen a Mystery Dungeon. What sort of pathetic rescue team are you hacks?" Feraligatr sneered. "Runt! Mareanie! We're setting out for the inner caverns. We'll leave Bisharp to take care of these three." Feraligatr gave Bisharp a reassuring pat on the bat. Then he grabbed hold of Prisma like she were an old doll and dragged her into the bushes. Mareanie followed along after them. Metang tried to turn and hold 'em off, but that Bisharp blocked our path. He disappeared into the shadows. Before we could realize he was using Feint Attack, he popped up in front of Metang and wrangled his arms. Weren't nothing Metang could do to Bisharp. He slammed Metang into the ground, and a loud CLANG rang out through the clearing.

I'm not sure what Feraligatr accomplishes here by having Bisharp deal with team MIB on his own rather than just having his whole crew beat them down. Is he going for the whole 'let the heroes do all the work finding the treasure and then steal it from them later' bit? I didn't get that impression from the scene where he appears again in Chapter 12.

"Gimme a sec here," I said, adjusting my position to better read the makeshift sign. "Says here:

'My days be numbered, my mind be fuzzy.
Adventures are done, though I've sure had plenty.
Got loads of treasure, but can't trust me crew.
Left directions here for the good eggs, though there were few.
If ye're one of me buddies looking for yer treasure's share.
Prepare me favorite brew to get yer cut fair and square.'"

I like the rhyme, even though it feels a bit cheesy to have someone actually including their accent in their writing like that.

Negative. Given these rocks are displaying energy signatures, I hypothesize they are figurative representations of the berries used to prepare such juices, Metang elaborated. Perhaps, if we are to interpret Torracat's recipe onto these rocks, we can solve the riddle.

I'm not really sure what mechanism is supposed to be powering this little puzzle apparatus. Some sort of magic? Is it using similar technology to the pokenector, maybe?

"Grrrrraaaaaaaaaaaaggggh!" that big ol' bug roared. "Treeeeaaasssuuuuuureee… muuuuuust proootteeeeeeect!"

"I knew it! We done triggered the curse!" I panicked. "Oh, real nice work there, boss. Yer gonna get our souls trapped in here for all eternity!"

"Whoa, the Armored Adventurer was a Golisopod? Who would've thunk it?" Torracat gasped. "Actually, that name seems like a dead giveaway. I can't believe we didn't realize it sooner."

"That's what yer focused on?" I yowled, ducking a swipe from the massive bug. "This thing wants to slice us to ribbons! It's his undead spirit or whatever."

"Well, it's types are bug and water, so you're the best guy to deal with it," Torracat declared.

"Then help keep me safe, doggone it!" I squawked. Golisopod's spirit let out a roar. The spikes on its right arm extended into glowing blue blades and it ran forward. It hurtled its arm around and slammed Torracat, knocking him back into a pile of gold.

The Armored Adventurer's zombie-like drawn out words were just a bit too much for me to take seriously. Combined with MIB's dialogue, the tension of the battle is really deflated.

On a side note, 'panicked' seems like an awkward choice for a speech verb.

He sank down to the ground, swirls in his eyes. I realized all too late that I shouldn't have stolen a glance at him. Next thing I knew I'd done been plucked out of the sky and clubbed across the chest with a Razor Shell blade.

Similarly, having a stunned character have actual visible swirls in their eyes like they were in a cartoon seems excessive even for the tone of this story.

"That's not true!" Torracat shouted, running past us. A Hydro Pump stream raced past the two of us moments later. And then out of some coins exploded Mareanie, on the receiving end of one nasty blow from Metang. That proved enough to knock that varmint's lights out. For a moment I wondered if one of our Reviver Seeds would turn traitor. But nothing happened to Mareanie, thankfully.

This does bring up a question, though: If reviver seeds are so useful, and so common that even a non-veteran team can pack ten of them, why didn't any of the scavengers have any? Are they just too poor, or is it just really difficult for non-guild pokemon to acquire them? Anyways, having reviver seeds 'know' who their original owner and work even when physically separated from the same seems like it removes potential tension you could have in battles from 'Oh crap, we just lost our reviver seeds! Now we really can't let ourselves get hit!'.


"RUNT!" Feraligatr snarled as Metang tackled him to the ground. "What are you standing around for? I swear, when this is over I'll slash you up and leave you for dead on the beach, just like I found ya!"

There was something about the abuse of Prisma: I didn't mention earlier: It just makes Feraligatr seem really dumb having him carry it on even at the exact same time while another pokemon is making a plausible appeal for why she can change sides, and Prisma is clearly questioning her loyalty. Why did anyone ever even agree to follow him in the first place?

Before I could explain anything, the wall above Feraligatr collapsed. Giant chunks of rock fell to the ground, burying him alive. The cave started shaking and more debris rained down from the ceiling.

Huh, wasn't expecting the villain to actually get crushed to death. Seems a bit incongruent with how previous villains were treated.

So, those were my thoughts. I know I was largely negative, but I do think that your prose is pretty well-written. It has a nice flow and it's easy to read. In addition, despite having three battles in a row, your action-writing ability is good enough to make it not seem like it was too much (despite my dislike of the sort of cheesy tone your fight scenes have). I can definitely see why so many people like this story.
 

Ambyssin

Winter can't come soon enough
I'd rather start off with the negative stuff, which this fancy reviewing game has brought quite a bit of, I'm afraid. I guess it's "madness" for a reason. @Namohysip I covered yours elsewhere, already.

I thought I'd do something a little unusual and have my first review for this fic cover Special Epsiode #1 instead.
I have no qualms/shames in saying this was probably the worst episode you could've covered. It's easily the worst one I've written and one that I imagine I'll either need to completely rewrite or considerably change, but I honestly think I'll have to wait until the full story's done because if I went back to it now it'd probably frustrate me to such a large degree that my current progress would stall and I'd really like that not to happen right now.

Although I like character-driven, action heavy fantasy adventure stories, I can't stand the cheesy, cartoonish tone, and I dislike most of the characters (especially Shane).
Understandable. This was the last episode that strongly had those vibes before things tapered off and took a drastically darker turn, but it's a failure in pacing on my part that the early episodes were too frustrating for people to read through to get to the good stuff. It probably needs culling/fixing but I'm honestly not even sure how I'd begin to approach that at this point. :(

So to start off with, the narrator. This may be one of my personal preference things (and even somewhat hypocritical, given the number of characters with unusual styles of speech I've written), but I found Braviary's accent rather annoying and distracting from the narrative.
Yeah, the POV was a huge mistake and I don't know what I was thinking doing it.

I guess part of it is that I'm not sure if it's ever explained why he has that accent - is there some island where everyone speaks like that? - so it feels a little arbitrary.
It is shown later that others from his hometown have a similar accent to him.

Also, I don't find Braviary to be a particularly sympathetic character, largely due to his complete lack of empathy for Prisma in this chapter and his refusal to call her by her correct name. Given the previous chapters' focus on the (admittedly much more unsympathetic Shane), this special episode wasn't as much of a change in pace in that department as I would've liked.
That was intentionally done to foreshadow a later plot point about the guy. A much later plot point, to be fair. <.>;

I liked the detail of MIB being confident enough to name themselves after their evolved form's initials instead of their current ones. It's cute, and it helps characterize their younger versions.
I'll take it!

I'm not sure how Rufflet could've prepared properly without even knowing where the team was going to, and it's a little hard to believe he'd have no idea about it given how important the mission is to MIB. This might have been exposited more naturally by just having Rufflet explain in narration what the mission was, or having the team explain it to another character who asked where they were going.
The idea was moreso that he wasn't entirely awake yet, but I guess I didn't show that well and might have to change it in the future.

Sorry Rufflet, I'm going to have to disagree. This is an interesting tidbit here. However, it does feel like a bit of a waste to include this bit and then not have the island exhibiting its distinctive feature throughout the whole mission.
Perhaps if I redo this episode I could put that into effect somehow.

I'm probably nitpicking here, but I'm not sure flamethrower and wing attack make much sense as moves for clearing away foliage.
They're not good ideas at all. Team MIB isn't exactly perfect at this point.

This is probably my dislike for the cartoonish tone talking, but it still seems unrealistic for Rufflet to be more concerned with getting off a funny line about his 'keister' rather than the pain he must be feeling and the fact that he's plummeting to the ground.
Ugh, I was trying to remove stuff like that, but must've forgotten that particular moment.

I realize that the parts about only a few pokemon using names besides their species names is a plot point, but I feel like it really highlights the weirdness of the whole thing about all Pokemon using their species names instead of having given names. I might be being a little hypocritical here because I've also used that trope, but specifically drawing attention to it erodes my sense of immersion.
I can probably remove that bit because it comes up far more naturally in a later chapter where Rufflet and Prisma are actually talking. Far more organic and makes this part retroactively redundant.

So, this is my single largest point of contention with these chapters. I really dislike the way Prisma's relationship with Feraligatr is handled here. Almost everything he says to her is an insult or threat, and it seems really heavy-handed and inauthentic as a portrayal of abuse to me. I'm not sure why Prisma would be so vigorous in her dedication and defense of her captain given this treatment; Stockholm syndrome's a thing and all, but that requires the captor showing the captive at least some kindness.
It... uh... it's not supposed to be an abusive relationship. It's really more like forced servitude, hence the "life debt" thing. It's basically a "follow my orders or I will kill you" scenario and since Feraligatr is a bigger, stronger Pokémon, Prisma was more or less helpless and didn't (initially) think Team MIB could really take Feraligatr down, so she continued to side with him until it looked like they stood a chance of winning.

Furthermore, if the mistreatment was more subtle, it also wouldn't make Rufflet's utter lack of empathy for Prisma's situation seem quite so bad. Although, maybe it was your intent to have Rufflet/Braviary be unlikable that way? I'm not really sure.
It was. Rufflet/Braviary isn't good at reading those kinds of situations and that does factor in later in the story.

I'm not sure what Feraligatr accomplishes here by having Bisharp deal with team MIB on his own rather than just having his whole crew beat them down. Is he going for the whole 'let the heroes do all the work finding the treasure and then steal it from them later' bit? I didn't get that impression from the scene where he appears again in Chapter 12.
It was just kind of poor video game logic. "Stall the rescuers so we can go search the cave in peace," but Team MIB circumvented that by busting into the caves.

I like the rhyme, even though it feels a bit cheesy to have someone actually including their accent in their writing like that.
I had to do it. Bit of a homage toward what inspired this stuff in the first place.

I'm not really sure what mechanism is supposed to be powering this little puzzle apparatus. Some sort of magic? Is it using similar technology to the pokenector, maybe?
Magic

The Armored Adventurer's zombie-like drawn out words were just a bit too much for me to take seriously. Combined with MIB's dialogue, the tension of the battle is really deflated.

On a side note, 'panicked' seems like an awkward choice for a speech verb.
Yes, I still need to go back and remove all drawn-out words and the couple of bad speech verbs I missed, but that'll have to come when all's said and done because that'd be a huge time sink.

Similarly, having a stunned character have actual visible swirls in their eyes like they were in a cartoon seems excessive even for the tone of this story.
Damn it, I thought I'd gotten rid of all of those. >.<

This does bring up a question, though: If reviver seeds are so useful, and so common that even a non-veteran team can pack ten of them, why didn't any of the scavengers have any? Are they just too poor, or is it just really difficult for non-guild pokemon to acquire them?
Outlaws aren't just going to waltz into a Kecleon Shop and buy them, which is exactly what Team MIB did.

Anyways, having reviver seeds 'know' who their original owner and work even when physically separated from the same seems like it removes potential tension you could have in battles from 'Oh crap, we just lost our reviver seeds! Now we really can't let ourselves get hit!'.
That is also something I should consider for the future.

There was something about the abuse of Prisma: I didn't mention earlier: It just makes Feraligatr seem really dumb having him carry it on even at the exact same time while another pokemon is making a plausible appeal for why she can change sides, and Prisma is clearly questioning her loyalty. Why did anyone ever even agree to follow him in the first place?
The idea is that he's not very smart, just physically tough and can hold that over Prisma's head. His flunkies aren't terribly bright either, though I likely didn't show that off enough.

I do think that your prose is pretty well-written. It has a nice flow and it's easy to read. In addition, despite having three battles in a row, your action-writing ability is good enough to make it not seem like it was too much (despite my dislike of the sort of cheesy tone your fight scenes have).
Well, you were about a chapter off from the action scenes getting progressively more violent, but c'est la vie. I can't please everyone here, though I know full well at this point that the early episodes are fatally flawed despite my revision attempts... and that apparently killed a lot of people's willingness to offer any feedback on the later stuff. Sorry it all wasn't to your liking. :(

Right off the bat, we've got another of Shane's dreams. And, well... it was rather unsettling, especially near the end. Geoff made me feel pretty uncomfortable, honestly.
Good, it was supposed to make you uncomfortable, as bad as that is to say. The bonus I'm posting this weekend should do the same thing in some regards. ^^;

I'm also kinda beginning to question just how real these memories are, what with "Remember your true self" becoming a recurring line and all.
I wonder... *thinking emoji*

Geez Espeon, just what are you drinking? And how much of it?
Not drinking... she was snorting the PMD equivalent of cocaine.

And then to top it all off, she seemingly disappears... definitely a confusing situation that I'll be curious to learn more of.
Some answers in episode 12... or, rather, someone confronting her over this behavior.

And then we have Zero and Dragonite confronting Mesprit, subsequently wiping the floor with her and nabbing the time gear. So much for the Explorers characters not being targeted, am I right?
Did I say that? Oh, yeah, I totally did. *turns around to show fingers crossed behind his back*

Speaking of Necky, he's off being silly again, basically playing with puppets and quoting Explorers. I'm not even remotely surprised.
Well, in the midst of all that seriousness you should've seen something quite alarming that he's already beginning to act on.

I don't really care much about Team Fang to be honest, but we did get a look at Metagross in his current state. And, well... it's certainly something to behold. The fight with him is gonna be a fun one when it happens, that's for sure.
Oof, Virgil's not gonna be happy to hear that one. As far as Metagross, we'll see what ends up happening.

I liked seeing Wigglytuff and Chatot again... it was really interesting to see Chatot in particular, seeing that he's showing visible signs of aging, and he even has a kid now. Meanwhile, Wigglytuff is being Wigglytuff, what more can I say there?
While I haven't exactly specified how much time has lapsed since Explorers, it's long enough for this kind of stuff to happen. Wigglytuff's role is being kept to a bare minimum as he clashes to heavily with the current tone of the fic if I'm going to keep him in-character.

Lapras wasn't so lucky, getting kidnapped and then proceeding to get possessed. And the way that happened...
I did say that alchemy was going to play a predominant part in later episodes and now you're seeing exactly how! Fun, right? XD

And with that, another episode concludes. A pretty interesting end, and I'll be looking forward to the inevitable madness that awaits Team Radiance in the next one.
Oh, trust me, you really want to check that episode out. It's quite important. ;) Thanks again for reviewing!

I'd say that this was as good of a fic as any to introduce me to the unfamiliar world of PMD fanfics. I understood enough of the worldbuilding, lore, and plot despite not knowing anything about PMD, and you did a great job in using the first episode to make me want to keep reading.
Glad to hear it. The hope was that I could explain the PMD stuff well enough for people not as intimately familiar with the spin-off series to get into the fic anyway. So far I think it's worked in that department.

To be more specific, I love how there's a clear, easy-to-follow plot that's fun even for someone like me who knows nothing about PMD. We have Shane figuring out how to get home and Tessa figuring out how to overcome her fears of joining the guild, which may lead to her discovering where her mother went. Both plots start with Shane and Tessa going to the guild, and after reading the first episode I'm definitely curious about how Shane and Tessa's journeys will go down. Overall the plot was easy enough to follow, and you've done a great job in setting up multiple arcs: Shane, Tessa, and Espy and Umbry.
Interesting to hear. Some of the other early feedback has noted the slow pacing or lack of originality in this opening... both of which are things I fully admit are true. But if it could entertain, I'm satisfied. ^^

Firstly there's Shane adjusting himself to the PMD world as a human-turned-Pokémon who actually remembers his past, which is super interesting because you left so many questions about Shane's situation that readers will want answered as they read on. Is he dead in the human world or just in a coma, and what was up with the flashing lights that bombarded him before he washed up on the beach?
This is actually an ongoing thread throughout the entire story and, even this far along, readers still don't have a definitive answer as to exactly what happened and why. Nobody's been able to guess it correctly, either, so I'm hoping the result will shock and surprise.

Shane's arc will be interesting because I have a feeling that he will stop being such a silly dudebro fratboy once he gets his rude awakening that his situation is more than a dream (and even if it is a dream, he may still be in very real danger).
This is true. It just... uh... probably should've happened sooner, but the thing about Shane is that he has a certain condition and I'd rather not discuss it publicly. <.<;

Shane's character is amusing yet realistic, because who wouldn't mess around when they think they're in a lucid dream that isn't real? Tessa's reactions to him are honestly golden.
Glad to hear it. People really enjoy their interactions, to my continued surprise.

At first I wasn't sure about Tessa's character, because she seemed like another one of those very insecure, timid, and clumsy female leads (Bella Swan, anyone?). But it's clear that there's a reason for Tessa's personality (her past regarding her parents), and her insecurities were written in a nice way that made me sympathize with her. You did a great job in setting up Tessa's arc of becoming a more confident Pokémon and finding out what happened to her parents.
Yeah, my revisions to the first couple of chapters played up the insecurities and repetitive thoughts a lot more as Tessa isn't just skittish, she's flat-out depressed. Except, y'know, the PMD world doesn't really have the field of psychiatry, so to a fellow 'mon she just seems very glum.

The third plot seems to be something far more overarching and sinister. Espy and Umbry seem to be a part of some kind of conspiracy/evil organization, and I'm definitely really curious about what they're doing and what all this "infected" business is about.
That's something I've gotta stay tight-lipped on, but Pheromosa parts were mentioned in Espy's brief encounter with Tessa.

The only piece of criticism I have is that it felt a little abrupt to me when the point of view switched from third-person Shane to third-person Tessa, and then turned into a third-person limited omniscient kind of POV where we know Shane and Tessa's thoughts but no one else's. I'm not sure how to improve this, but just a thought. Maybe you can establish the fact that this story follows both Shane and Tessa, as well as their thoughts, closer to the beginning?
Yeah, you're right. The narration style I would up going with has caused me quite a few headaches but I'm a bit too far in to suddenly try and change it. That's about the earliest part of the fic where I can transition it, since it's the first time they're together and that chapter's already way too long. ^^;

I know that you're on a roll with this fanfic, so keep up the excellent work! Even though I'm not sure if I'll return to this, you have a great fic in the making and I hope you continue to write.
I'll certainly try. Thank you for reviewing! ^^
 

Namohysip

Dragon Enthusiast
Episode 3! Let’s go. From what I can recall last time, they just got into the Guild, met Null and various others, and that’s the gist of it.

A broad smile crept onto Shane's muzzle. "Go ooooooon…"

Not gonna lie, all things considered with how Shane is, this is the most appropriate response to being told he was summoned by a disembodied voice to the world of Pokémon. +1 likeability point to Shane.

__

So, overall, I thought that brief interlude in the E3 cold open was a good one. Dialogue heavy, yes, but that’s sort of the point, isn’t it? And while on the nose, I finally have a firm idea of what Shane is here for, at least in the general sense. There’s still the nebulous question of how he’s supposed to do that… but I suppose I can rely on Shane to figure that out. Oh, wait. I shouldn’t do that. Tessa. Yeah, I’ll rely on Tessa to figure that out.


Tessa's muzzle went agape. 'Wait. He actually thought this through? Could it be Vulpix is actually listening to me?'

I know you mentioned that you were concerned that Shane wouldn’t really show any sort of development, but it seems like, in some way or another, he’s at least showing a little bit of growth, y’know? So that’s good. I’m actually satisfied with the gradual progression. Too bad he’s still an idiot, based on what follows immediately afterward….


Chapter 5 was a bit of a nothingburger, unfortunately. Except for the nuggets of development between Shane and Tessa, I didn’t spot anything particularly important except for the beginning and ending scenes. Everything in between was basically another rando mission, accompanied by a joke-rival encounter.

…I will admit, though, it was quite entertaining anyway.


"You could say that. My team's having some… growing pains,"

Roll credits.

Lunatone called, waving the string of pearls at them.

Wait but how


This is sort of a total potshot, but why do I feel like this whole scene with Solrock and Lunatone is just one big foreshadow? I can't think of any other real reason why this would be included, because it seems so inconsequential compared to all the other randos we've encountered so far.

___

And that’s the end of the episode! To be honest, I’m not sure if this one was shorter or what, but I definitely went through it faster than past episodes. But at the same time, it feels like even less happened in the last chapter than before. Another random outlaw mission, Shane learning a bit of lore… I’m glad you mentioned in the notes that things will be “expanding” soon!

Looking forward to it.
 

Ambyssin

Winter can't come soon enough
@Namohysip I got you covered elsewhere.

XxX

Bonus #14: As the Autumn Breeze Blows

~Glyphic Falls, Hidden Laboratory~

A long, protracted sigh sounded through the room. The metal dome encapsulating the area trembled, golden light particles shining off its panels and reflecting onto the cold, steel ground. Golem dropped the quill he was holding onto a slab of rock and rubbed his temple with a groan. He turned and stomped toward the far side of the room.

The God Killer sat behind a dim orange barrier, with a winged heart sigil glowing faintly in the center. He draped his four wings across his crystalline chest, scratching at his topmost spike with his upper right claws. Golem stopped in front of the barrier, tapping a foot impatiently on the ground. "Well, what is it, God Killer? Out with it… you're interrupting my work," Golem said, narrowing his eyes.

Behind the barrier, the God Killer winced. The pointed tendrils of light on his head retracted and the glow in his multicolored eyes dimmed. "Why do you keep calling me that?" he said, increasing the speed with which he traced his claw around his chest spike. "I told you before, my name's Nicky. If you're not going to address me by name, then at least call me Light like all of your assistants."

"Pah… fine," Golem said, waving his right hand dismissively. "What's the problem, Light?"

"I want to go outside," Nicky said, brushing his lower left wing against the barrier. "You said I'm allowed to spend four hours every day on my own. I'd like to use those four hours… now."

Golem turned away from Nicky, rubbing his right eyebrow. "I thought I told you this morning… today's not going to work. I'll just… erm… I'll add those hours onto another day. For now, you have to stay here."

Nicky's wings flared with yellow light as he pressed them up against the barrier. "Please, Golem… I'm going stir crazy sitting in here. I just want to fly around and stretch my wings. What makes today so special that you have to keep me in here, huh?"

"Well… erm… that is," Golem stammered, electricity pulsating from the magnet-like rock formation on his head. "Today is the first day of autumn," Golem finally said. "The start of each season is… an important day for normal Pokémon and their families. I'd go so far as to consider the start of autumn to be the most important." He walked away from Nicky, waving him off with his right hand. "I can't have you flying around out there… drawing undue attention onto yourself."

"That's a weak-ass excuse if I've ever heard one," Nicky huffed, his ethereal tail thumping against the barrier. Golem hopped up, trying to keep a neutral expression on his face. "You already monitor where I go when I'm out," Nicky continued, holding up his right leg to show off the metal band melded onto the crystal spike jutting out in front of him. "I'm not going to go near any towns. I just want to fly around… maybe go for a swim."

"A… absolutely not!" Golem said, whirling back around and stomping toward Nicky. "There are wild 'mons in the water. They'll see you! And wild birds fly through the air! They'll all be out taking in the first day of autumn." He crossed his stubby arms as best he could. "I'm sorry, but you can't do it. You'll need to stay here."

"I thought you said I was here to help Pokémon," Nicky said, slumping over onto his side and whipping his right wings into the barrier. They bounced off it with a loud pair of plinks. "How can I help them if you won't let me out of your lab, huh? Isn't it important that I learn about your holidays or celebrations or whatever?"

Golem tapped his right claws against his side. After a half-minute, he slumped over. "Fine, you win," he said. Golem knelt down awkwardly and traced a diamond shaped rune in the ground, and then a star symbol in its center. The barrier surrounding Nicky faded. Golden light spilled through the room, forcing Golem to turn away.

"Thanks, chief," Nicky said, slowly sitting up while being cautious of the ceiling.

"But you'd better stay out of trouble!" Golem said. "So help me… if that sensor picks up any funny business…"

"Yeah, yeah, you'll detonate this stupid anklet and reduce me back into a tiny Growlithe," Nicky said, lazily stretching his right leg out. "I promise, no wormhole-opening or anything like that. I'm just going to take in the sights of autumn in this world for myself."

"Mmmm… fair enough," Golem said, stroking his rocky beard. "I'm holding you to that." He walked up to a crystal positioned next to his rocky desk and pressed his right hand to it. The dome's metal panels began to disappear, until there was a large hole in the center of the ceiling. Nicky slid across the ground. When he reached the middle of the room, he shot into the air, leaving the lab behind him.

Within a few seconds, Nicky had flown over the highest waterfalls in the area. He flapped his four wings, propelling himself forward and dispelling the haze in the area. The craggy rocks and raging rapids of Glyphic Falls quickly disappeared, replaced by a long, winding river surrounded by stretches of mud. Off in the distance, Nicky spotted a faint purple glow.

He followed the light source, slender body and tail whipping up and down like a gigantic worm as he flew. It didn't take long for Nicky to discover the source of the light: a forest of trees whose leaves glowed purple. Nicky paused his flight, using psychic powers to levitate over the trees. 'What a curious sight,' he thought. 'I don't think the leaves themselves are purple. It looks more like light is striking them from the northeast.'

Throwing caution to the wind, Nicky descended. A few startled squawks drew his attention. On his right, a pair of Trumbeaks screeched to a halt in midair. The half-dozen Pikipeks surrounding them also stopped, staring in awe at the large light dragon floating above the trees. "Oh… hello!" Nicky greeted, offering the best wave he could manage with his upper right wing. His rainbow eyes brimmed with light and the glow around his body intensified.

The flock of birds turned tail and flew off, exchanging frightened chirps and chitters. Nicky's head tendrils retracted slightly. His eyes and wings dimmed. "Ah… guess I came in too strong," he whispered. Nicky glanced at his spiked chest and sighed. Golem told him he would be beloved by all Pokémon, but he found that hard to believe when he looked so frightening.

He shook the thought from his mind and continued forward, inspecting the trees as he flew. It was only a matter of seconds before the trees abruptly gave way to a cliff face. Nicky stopped flying and righted himself so he could get a better look ahead. Large, puffy gray clouds sat in front of him, obscuring his view. Though he could see the occasional snow-covered tree poking out from gaps in the clouds. The clouds stretched up like a tower, growing progressively darker toward the top.

'I wonder what's up there,' he thought, flapping his wings to move forward. Nicky didn't get far, however, before blistering cold wings sent him racing backwards, right wings held up over his face and stomach. 'Tch! Guess I really must be a dragon if the cold's bothering me that much,' he thought.

Nicky was just about to turn and leave when a glimmer of light caught his eye. He turned to his left, where a stream of purple light funneled out from the clouds, striking the leaves of the forest down below. Nicky guessed that the stormy mountains were the source of the purple glow. Wanting to test his hypothesis, Nicky ascended higher. His multicolored eyes swirled about, the yellow spots expanding and pushing the other colors away. Nicky spread his wings apart and yellow light streamed down from his body.

The storm clouds swallowed up his light, but to his surprise, even more purple light trickled down into the forest. The leaves erupted in a bright purple glow. Nicky cut off the light trail, the colors in his eyes swirling back around until they took up equal amounts of space. Satisfied with his discovery, Nicky turned and flew off toward the coastline.

'This world is so strange. Clouds that sit in place, constantly summoning snowstorms and reflecting light. Purple forests. And let's not forget the sentient Pokémon,' Nicky mused. 'This place is pretty much Shane's fever dream.'

The thought made Nicky stop over open waters. Waves gently rolled below him, carrying frothy white water with them. Sunlight struck his body from above and bounced off, bathing the surrounding ocean in an array of different colors . Nicky floated closer to the water, gazing at his rippling reflection distorted by each passing wave.

'The first day of autumn,' Nicky thought, as his mind started to wander. Had things not gone the way they did in his former life, he would've been back at school, starting off his senior year. The year where he would've been a top dog on campus. A year that everyone seemed to look forward from the moment they stepped into high school. He thought of all the events senior year would've brought: pep rallies where his classmates would cheer for him instead of vice versa, a chance to captain the swim team, senior prom, and, of course, graduation. The mental image of walking onto a stage in a cap and gown sent a shiver down his spine.

Nicky's reflection disappeared from the water. He blinked his rainbow eyes and frowned as two silhouettes appeared under the glow of his light… two human silhouettes. One with distinctly broad shoulders and a short, military-style haircut, the other with a thinner, frailer physique.

Now, sweetie, I'm sure there are loads of fun times ahead of you. But right now, you need to focus on your grades. You've already got colleges keeping a close eye on you, but that won't mean anything if your grades aren't up to snuff, a woman's voice echoed in Nicky's mind.

"My grades are as good as they get, Mom," Nicky growled, his eyes turning red. His tail and head tendrils darkened.

If that was the case, you'd have gotten scholarship offers at the end of junior year like all them boys on the football team, a man said, his voice stern. It's that needy little friend of yours, Shane. He's sucking away the time you should be using to build your future.

"I'm not just going to spend every waking minute studying and swimming, Dad. I get to have a life," Nicky said, long tail lashing out at the surface of the water.

What have you even gotten out of being that kid's friend, huh? his dad asked. Let me answer that… a whole, heaping helping of nothing. The kid's a screw-up!

Now, George…

Don't, Margie. I know you and Estelle are friends, but you gotta admit… their son's a lost cause at this point, George said. I don't know what's wrong with him, but it's not worth getting involved in. Seriously, son, why do you still hang around him? It's because of those stupid video games you playing together, isn't it?

Golden sparks raced around Nicky's head. "Those… games… aren't… stupid!" he shouted. A ball of light formed in front of his face and he was prepared to hurl it into the water, when he glanced at the band around his leg. With a wince, he dispelled the light, which raced back into his body. His eyes returned to their normal mismatched glow.

He lowered his head, gnashing his crystalline fangs. Technically speaking, his parents weren't wrong. His friendship with Shane had amounted to nothing. Shane was too blind and too self-centered to see how miserable he was as the weeks went on in high school and his classmates picked on him more and more just for associating with Shane. And when he reached out to Shane in a last-ditch effort to find some semblance of comfort, Shane brushed him aside, too worried about a pointless, menial job.

Nicky plunged into the water. All around him, water-types of various shapes and sizes swam away, save for one tiny Goldeen with forest-green lips who remained in front of Nicky, staring at him in awe.

"What do you want?" Nicky barked, water fizzing around him as his yellow glow intensified. A Seaking swam up beside Forest-Lips and shoved her away from Nicky. They took off swimming, Forest-Lips turning to steal glances at Nicky as they went.

Nicky sank deeper in the water, his body lighting up the ocean. Rocky crags lay far below him, with some venting out bubbles and others containing clusters of coral or seaweed. Nicky watched a school of tiny blue fish swim along a gap in the rocks. Their formation resembled an even bigger fish.

'All of these Pokémon have homes. Families and friends that care about them,' Nicky thought. 'And what do I have?' He looked down at his chest spikes and the tips of his wings. The best answer he could come up with was power. Power he didn't entirely know how to control. And with that power came constant surveillance at Golem's hands. Nicky knew exactly what Golem was: a control freak, just like his dad. He shut his eyes and flutter-kicked his legs, heading for the surface.

Nicky broke the surface and rose up into the sky. The water on his body evaporated instantly, leaving behind a stream of rainbow mist as he ascended higher and higher. He flew up toward a cloud and burst through it, vaporizing it with the light his body gave off. Nicky turned around, flapping his wings to stay in place. He stared down at the ocean and the donut-shaped continent below him.

A flurry of questions ran through Nicky's mind. What if Golem lied to him? What if killing the gods wouldn't make him appreciated? What if, instead, it made him an outcase, just like back in school? Nicky clenched his upper wing digits into fists. Red and violet swirled around his eyes.

'Stop thinking about Shane,' he told himself. 'He ruined your life. I hope he's just as miserable back in school as I was before I ended things.'

Something caught the corner of Nicky's left eye, bringing his train of thought to a screeching halt. He looked to his left and spotted an island floating even higher in the sky than he was. It had an inverted pyramid shape to it. Yet, despite the high altitude, cherry blossom trees sprouted up, their bright-pink petals sticking out against the darkening blue backdrop signifying the edge of the stratosphere.

His curiosity piqued, Nicky flew toward the island as fast as he could, flapping his wings and whipping his tail up and down to propel himself forward. The higher he climbed, the thinner the air grew. Yet, it didn't bother him. He wasn't short of breath or lightheaded. Nicky figured his new body's psychic powers were the culprit.

It didn't take long for the island to come into full view. Beyond the cherry blossom trees, the island had fields of crisp, green grass punctuated by sunflowers on its eastern border and moonflowers on its western border. A lagoon sat in the center of the island, flanked on each side by a statue. The one on Nicky's right depicted Solgaleo, standing proudly and gazing off into the cosmos. On Nicky's left was Lunala, wings spread wide.

'What is this place?' Nicky wondered, swooping down toward the island. He had just barely touched town when a loud hum caught his attention. Nicky turned to his right, flaring out his wings. "Hey, who goes there? Show yourself!" Nicky said, shining brightly in an attempt to scare off whatever had made the noise.

"Huh?"

A deep yet feminine voice carried from behind a thicket directly in front of Nicky. The large cluster of bushes rustled and Nicky fluttered back in surprise as Zekrom's head poked out from a gap between two bushes. Nicky frowned, unsure why Zekrom looked so oily.

"Ahh!" she shouted, to Nicky's confusion. "What the–? How the–? You're that new guy… the Guiding Light! How did you find this place?"

Nicky cocked his head to the side. "I was out for a fly and–"

"Oh, never mind that," Zekrom said, then disappeared back into the bushes. More frenzied rustling ensued, punctuated by Zekrom saying, "No, Latios… we can't do that right now. We have company!"

'Did I… interrupt something?' Nicky wondered, head tendrils curling up.

After another few seconds of rustling, Zekrom said, "Well, obviously you couldn't sense him… you were busy!"

A pause ensued.

"C'mon… quit messing around. And wipe your face off or you're going to embarrass the both of us," Zekrom hissed. Another round of rustling took place, until Zekrom finally stepped out of the bushes, her pitch-black scales slick as if she had lathered herself in grease. This time, a Latios flew out beside her, sweat dripping off his belly and the feathers on his head and face disheveled.

"Uh… hi," Latios said, stretching out his wings. "I think we met once or twice before. You're… um… you're that guy! The one who got the sun and moon to shine down on us again."

"Yeah… that's me," Nicky said, tail brushing against the soft grass. The sensation sent a pleasurable chill up his spine that he fought to hide. "Am I… um… did I interrupt something?"

Latios glanced at Zekrom. "Well, you kind of–" he started, only for Zekrom to silence him with a sharp elbow to his ribcage.

"You're fine, Light," Zekrom said. "Latios and I were just taking in the first day of autumn together… somewhere far away from all the normal Pokémon."

"I see," Nicky said, colors swirling about in his eyes. He had seen enough movies and TV shows to know what was happening. "Forgive me for being blunt, but do you two have a thing going on?"

Zekrom's wings flared out in surprise. "Ugh… see! I told you," Latios said, punching Zekrom's shoulder. "We can't hide anything from him. The dude's psychic! He probably sensed an energy spike and that's why he came flying over."

"Latios, sweetie… could you show at least a little tact?" Zekrom said, frowning as she put her hands on her hips.

"Wait… but you're both Legendary Pokémon," Nicky said, rubbing the back of his neck with his upper left wing. "How does…" He shook his head. "Aren't you two supposed to be celibate or aromantic or whatever? At the very least, Zekrom should."

"What are you talking about?" Latios said, brow raised.

"Latios," Zekrom said, placing a hand on his right wing. "Light's not from our world, remember? He's just… confused, that's all."

'In more ways than one,' Nicky thought. "Look… I can see I'm bothering you. I'll just…" He hovered higher in the air. "Guess I'll just head somewhere else."

"No, no, you don't have to leave," Zekrom said, hopping into the air and grabbing hold of Nicky's lower wings.

"But what about–" Latios began, before Zekrom shot him an icy look saying back off.

"I don't want to be a burden," Nicky said, the glow around his body dimming as the blue and indigo in his eyes grew more prominent.

"I insist," Zekrom said, tugging on his wings and drifting down toward the ground. "It's the first day of autumn, after all. Whether you're from this world or not, nobody should have to spend it on their own." Her feet touched down on the grass and she pulled him in the direction of the bushes. "Come on… let's go sit somewhere comfier and chat."

"O… okay," Nicky stuttered, shooting Latios a worried look. He simply shrugged and followed Zekrom along. Nicky remained tense, worried he had stumbled into some sort of mean-spirited trick.

"Fact of the matter is that Latios and I are lesser gods. Or lesser Legends, if you'd prefer," Zekrom explained as she guided Nicky through the bushes and into another field of soft green grass that tickled the tips of Nicky's toes. "We weren't involved in creating the world. We're just… incredibly powerful Pokémon that work to keep the world safe from serious threats."

"Unlike the immortal gods, our lives our finite," Latios said, scooping up blades of grass in his claws. "So, we find mates to settle down with and have kids of our own to carry on after we've passed away."

"Does that mean there are other Latioses flying about? Because you're the only one I've met," Nicky said. The threesome approached the edge of the floating island, at which point Zekrom sat down, dangling her legs over the edge and putting her arms in the grass next to her tail to brace herself. Latios sunk down into the grass, sighing as he rested his head on the island's edge. Nicky awkwardly sat beside them, draping his legs off the island and folding up his wings as best he could. Some of his initial apprehension subsided.

"No," Latios finally replied. "I'm the only Latios until Zek and I decide to have kids. Once we do… we can only have one Zekrom and one Latios. I'm not really sure why that is… something about the balance of power in the world and all that nonsense. But, as long as I get to start a family with this lovely bundle of scales, I ain't complaining." He nudged Zekrom's left leg with his head.

"Quit teasing, Lala. I told you, we'll start our family when I'm ready," Zekrom said, crossing her arms over her chest.

Neither of them noticed Nicky tuck his head down. Colors swirled rapidly in his eyes and he gnashed his crystalline teeth together. A brunette with healthy tan skin, a black t-shirt, and gray short shorts appeared in his mind's eye. She reached out toward him, as if she was going to tussle his nonexistent hair.

I always get a kick out of seeing you so flustered, Nicky, the girl said, voice echoing in Nicky's head. A growl rumbled in the back of Nicky's throat, with red and orange light flaring on the tips of his head tendrils, wings, and tail.

Latios and Zekrom looked up toward him. "Something wrong, Light?" Zekrom asked, worried.

Nicky blinked several times. "Hmm?" He looked down at the other dragons and shook his head. The red and orange rescinded in his eyes. "It's nothing," he said, slouching over and draping his wings across his lap. "Just… still a bit confused by all of this, that's all. I had this fr–" He paused, crystalline jaw clenched. "There was this guy I knew, back in my old world. Only one that was convinced Legendary Pokémon could… y'know…" He whistled and tapped his lower wing claws together. Latios' and Zekrom's expressions blanched.

"I guess I'm a bit weirded out to learn he was actually right," Nicky said, leaning back. "But, whatever, it's not worth dwelling on." He looked over his shoulder. "So, what exactly is this place, huh? Some sort of grotto for Legends to go on dates in?"

"Not quite," Zekrom said, chuckling. "This is Celestial Island. It… um… it used to be Solgaleo's and Lunala's home."

Nicky sat on that statement. "Never heard of them," he said. "Wait… are they the bat and lion with statues by the pond?"

"Uh… I don't know what a 'lion' is… and Lunala's no Crobat… but you're right about the statues," Latios said. "They were the gods who originally brought the light of the sun and the moon to our world. That is, until there was an accident."

Zekrom's shoulders sagged. "Groudon, Kyogre, and Rayquaza struck up a conflict, generating a torrential storm. Ho-Oh went in to try and stop it and shield the normal Pokémon from its wrath… but she was overwhelmed," she said. "Solgaleo and Lunala appeared and saved Ho-Oh from being torn apart by the storm. But," she lowered her head, "they didn't make it out."

"That's why the world was dark, then?" Nicky asked, tilting his head up toward the edge of the stratosphere.

"Yeah. When Solgaleo and Lunala died, light stopped reaching the planet," Latios said.

"Truthfully, we owe you a huge debt of gratitude, Light," Zekrom said, gazing down at the clouds drifting beneath the island. "When autumn started last year… Pokémon were huddled up in their homes, miserable and afraid. Latios and I…" She trailed off and looked at Latios. "We were honestly wondering if we would ever get to experience another day like this."

"It was worse than that," Latios said. "We weren't even sure how long the world could last shrouded in darkness."

"That's why we were all so grateful when you met us that first time," Zekrom said. "You didn't just bring day and night back to the world, you gave Pokémon their joy and happiness back." She put her right paw on Nicky's left leg. "We wouldn't be out here celebrating the start of autumn if not for you."

Nicky stared down at Zekrom's arm. The silhouette of a girl's arm superimposed itself over Zekrom's. His head tendrils flared up with red light. "Don't touch me!" Nicky shouted, thrusting his wings apart. Zekrom barely managed to pull her arm back and hover into the air in front of the island to avoid Nicky's wings. Nicky sat hunched over, head tendrils twitching as he panted loudly.

Latios and Zekrom fixed confused looks on him. "Suh… sorry. I don't like being touched," Nicky said, rubbing his left leg with his lower left wing. Even though they seemed sincere, Nicky couldn't fully trust them. Rebecca kept popping up in his mind, living proof of what would happen if he let his guard down. An awkward silence fell over the trio, with Zekrom eventually settling back down between them. When Nicky finally worked up the courage to speak again, he asked, "So, what exactly is so special about the start of autumn, anyway?"

"You mean nobody told you?" Zekrom gasped. She leaped off the island, tail whirring to life with blue sparks. Zekrom waved Nicky and Latios on. "In that case, we ought to show you. Come on, guys!" She turned around and shot forward, a trail of blue streaming out from her tail.

"Where's she going?" Nicky asked, floating into the air.

"The Tree of Life, I imagine," Latios said. He tucked his arms into his chest and zoomed after Zekrom. Nicky blinked, concerned they were leading him toward a trap. But he forced those paranoid thoughts from his mind and flew after them. Within a half-minute, he had caught up.

"What's this Tree of Life thingy about?" Nicky shouted over the roar of the wind.

"You'll see," Zekrom called back, winking. Her tail turbine spun even faster and she shot forward again, with Latios racing after her.

Nicky's body brightened as he released a powerful bust of telekinesis, jettisoning himself forward. The high-speed flight was exhilarating. An excited chill ran down his spine. Nicky figured this was how Rayquaza felt speeding around the planet. "How far do we have to go to get to the Tree of Life?" Nicky asked.

"Not much farther," Zekrom said. "Celestial Island moves through the sky. Even if you couldn't feel it, we moved quite a ways west during our conversation." She pointed her right arm ahead. "It's right down there. See the aurora? It's coming from the Tree of Life."

The sky had darkened all around them. Three green, wavy, luminescent lines carved through the air ahead of them. Far below them sat a shimmering, multicolored tree, its branches filled to the brim with fluorescent leaves proudly displaying a wide assortment of hot and cold colors. "Wow," Nicky whispered.

"Race you down there!" Zekrom said, then shot toward the ground like a large black bullet.

"Oh, you're going down!" Latios declared, tucking in his wings and diving ahead.

"H… hey! Wait for me!" Nicky said. He whipped his tail around in a circular motion and sped off after them. His body glowed brighter and brighter as he increased his speed. Nicky flew past a bewildered Latios and then shot ahead of Zekrom. But he failed to realize just how fast he was approaching the ground. Unable to expel enough psychic energy to stop his momentum, Nicky struck the ground, kicking up an explosive plume of soil.

Latios and Zekrom touched down near the impact crater, trying their best not to laugh. "Pffft… nice landing there, Light. Need some flying lessons? I'm always available," Latios said, puffing out his chest.

Nicky popped his upper half out of the crater, head dimmed and covered in soil. A clump of dirt sat across the bridge of his crystalline snout, with a tiny daisy poking out of it. Nicky stared cross-eyed at the daisy and shook his head violently, tossing off all the dirt and restoring some of the glow to his body. Latios, meanwhile, broke down laughing, dropping from the air and banging his right paw against the ground.

"Latios, seriously? This is the Tree of Life… not game night at Temporal Tower. Get up… you're embarrassing me," Zekrom said, hoisting Latios back into the air by his wings.

"Are you three quite finished with your little routine?"

Latios and Zekrom turned around, both as stiff as arrows. Nicky, still half-positioned in his impact crater, turned to his left. Xerneas stood at the base of the brightly-glowing tree, glancing at the trio over her left shoulder.

"Who's she?" Nicky asked, too awestruck to notice his friends' jaws drop in unison.

"How could you not know who Xerneas is?" Latios gasped. "She's the guardian of the Tree of Life! She's the very essence of grace and elegance! She's… uh… like, the embodiment of nature… or something?" Zekrom gave Latios a scathing look, at which point he realized what he had just said. "O… oh, but she could never hold a candle to you in the looks department," he said, laughing nervously.

Xerneas cleared her throat and the three dragons tensed. "I'm glad to see you all having so much fun," she said, her voice as soft as fresh linens. "I'd hate to put a damper on it, really, but I am in the middle of something quite important. And I doubt you three are here for an urgent visit, given your lax behavior. So, may I humbly ask for a few minutes of peace and quiet? We can talk when I'm finished."

"O… of course," Latios said, face bright-red. "Go right ahead! S-sorry about all the ruckus."

"Thank you," Xerneas said, turning back toward the Tree of Life.

'Finished? Finished with what… exactly?' Nicky wondered.

As if to answer, Xerneas reared up on her hind legs, antlers and forelegs brimming with multicolored light and pink fairy energy. Xerneas lowered her forelegs. The instant their tips struck the soil, intricate patterns of circular light swirled out all around her. On either side of Xerneas, bushes bloomed with flowers and berries. Behind her, a pair of fresh saplings sprouted out from the soil. And in front of her, the light rushed up the Tree of Life, making the swirl-shaped sigil in its bark release a bright flash.

"Whoa," Nicky said, shielding his eyes with his upper right wing. "What's she doing? I've never seen anything like it before."

"Geomancy," Zekrom said, wrapping her right arm around Latios and pulling him into an embrace. "To be honest… I don't know exactly what it does, either. But every time I'm around Xerneas and she uses it… I feel positively full of life."

The light died down and the three dragons looked up. An unseen force propelled the Tree of Life's leaves high into the sky, where they then blew off in every direction. "The reason why the first day of autumn is so important is because of the Tree of Life," Latios said. "During spring and summer, leaves full of magical energy grow on the tree. When autumn starts, Xerneas uses her powers to release the leaves so the autumn winds can carry them throughout the world. Then, the leaves settle and disperse their energy during the winter, restoring any damage that ley lines might've done to the earth over the course of the year."

Nicky frowned. He had no idea what ley lines were, but he was too worried he'd make his new friends upset if he asked.

Satisfied with her job, Xerneas turned and walked toward the dragons. "There we are. All done," she said. "Now then… what did you need me for?"

"Nothing," Zekrom said. "Light isn't from around here and he doesn't know why the beginning of autumn's important. So, we brought him over here to see it for himself." She gestured in Nicky's direction. Xerneas turned to him, to which Nicky could only stare back blankly.

"Uh… hi?" Nicky said. He realized he was still slumped over against the impact crater and floated out. But that just made him concerned that the height difference was awkward, so he sat cross-legged on the ground and bowed his head respectfully. "A pleasure to meet you… again, I guess," he said. "I hope this won't sound rude, but I've never seen a Pokémon like you before."

Xerneas giggled, brushing a foreleg across the ground. "It's quite alright. I mean, we've met a couple of times prior. Despite that, I can safely say I've never seen a Pokémon like you before," she said, jabbing a blade-like hoof into Nicky's leg.

Nicky looked down at Xerneas' leg and saw a silhouette of the same human arm as back on the island. Red and orange momentarily strengthened in his eyes, before he snapped to attention. "Aha… well… it's complicated," Nicky said, silently willing himself to keep it together.

Xerneas' X-shaped pupils constricted. "I can't even begin to imagine," she said. "Still, I'm not sure if I ever got the chance to properly thank you in person from restoring light to our world." She gazed up toward the full moon lighting up the night sky. "After all, were it not for you, I wouldn't have been able to send off the leaves without a hitch. So, please," she bowed graciously to Nicky, "accept my heartfelt thanks."

Nicky glanced at Latios and Zekrom, who were exchanging an affectionate nuzzle. Without thinking, his tail unfurled behind him and struck a tree, splintering it but not outright toppling it. The others tensed up, looking to Nicky for an explanation. "S… sorry 'bout that. I'm, uh, not too good at keeping this sucker still," he said, mentally cursing himself for losing his cool again.

"Latios. Zekrom. May I ask you to return to your homes?" Xerneas said.

The two dragons exchanged concerned looks. "Uh… I guess we can go," Zekrom said, hovering into the air. "Take care, Light. You too, Xerneas."

"It was fun hanging out, dude," Latios said, waving to Nicky as he took off after Zekrom.

When the dragons were gone, Xerneas stepped in front of Nicky, a heavyset look in her eyes. "Did… did I do something wrong? If it's about the tree, I can fix it," Nicky said, glancing at chunks of wood strewn behind him.

"It's fine. I'll tend to it later," Xerneas said. "It's you I'm worried about." She sat down on her haunches. "I'm not psychic, but I like to think being in tune with the planet makes me pretty observant."

Nicky raised his right brow. "Meaning?"

"You bear a heavy burden," Xerneas said. Silence followed that statement, with Nicky and Xerneas staring one another down.

"I'm fine," Nicky said, blue and violet expanding in his eyes. He barely knew this Pokémon, so he was confident he'd scare her off if he told her what was on his mind.

Xerneas sighed. "My apologies. It is not my place to pry into your personal life when we are so poorly acquainted," she said. "It's just…" She traced a hoof through the dirt. "You did such a good thing for us… without even knowing who we were or what our world is like. I figured the least I could do is try to help you feel better."

The well-tanned girl flashed through Nicky's mind again, smiling at him. "I'm fine," Nicky whispered, his eyes almost entirely a mix of blue and purple. "Don't concern yourself with me."

"I don't believe you're fine," Xerneas said. "And it would be unfitting of me as the embodiment of the Tree of Life to turn my back on you."

Nicky flinched. Was Xerneas really telling the truth? Did she really want to help him? Before he could dwell on it further, Golem's scowling face lingered in his head. Nicky shuddered, his eyes returned to their usual, mismatched color scheme. "I'm sorry," Nicky said, bowing his head. "I really can't stay out here much longer."

Xerneas frowned. "You're going back into hiding, then?" she said.

Nicky glanced at his anklet. "I don't have a choice," he said. Before he could float into the air, Xerneas got up and trotted to his side.

"I'd like to see you again," she said, the jewels in her antlers sparkling.

"Why?" Nicky said.

"You strike me as someone who could really do with a friend right now," Xerneas said, offering a warm smile. "If you'd like, we can meet somewhere different."

"Don't you have to guard this place?" Nicky asked, still worried he was being played.

"I can get Yveltal and Celebi to look after it for a bit," Xerneas said.

"You don't have to do that just for me," Nicky said.

"But I want to," Xerneas said, inching closer to him. "How about tomorrow?"

Nicky considered the offer. His heart fluttered at the realization the doubtful thoughts in his head were wrong. Slowly, yellow and gold grew in his eyes and his body's glow intensified. He looked down at Xerneas and said, "How does going to Celestial Island sound?"

"I think it sounds lovely," she said, returning his look with a smile.

XxX

~The Tree of Life~

Xerneas sat at the base of the tree, staring up at the green barrier surrounding it and, by extension, her. Under the shield's glow, the Tree of Life lacked its usual mystifying aura. She knew nothing was wrong with it, yet the sight of it failed to bring a smile to her face like it usually did.

Perhaps it wasn't just the tree's lackluster appearance that had her down. Her mind drifted off to a scene from a few days ago, in which Latias and Hoopa appeared before her, saying the Guiding Light had returned. He had possessed Lunala and sought to consume the spirits of all Legendary Pokémon. Latias begged her to follow Hoopa to a hidden location, where she would be safe until the Expedition Society figured out how to free Lunala. Xerneas politely declined the offer, too concerned about leaving the Tree of Life behind. Celebi, on the other hand, accepted. He flew off into one of Hoopa's portals without so much as a goodbye.

With a nod, Xerneas concluded that was the source of her unhappiness. In the years since Dark Matter's last attack, she had struck up a friendship with Celebi, something she had refused to do for multiple prior generations. So, she was heartbroken to see him drop everything and leave her behind without a second thought.

A ripple of light snapped her out of her thoughts. Xerneas looked ahead of her, toward the Road to Primeval Forest. The wall of trees distorted, with a glowing crack appearing in the center. Black claws grabbed the edges of the tear and ripped them further apart, creating a gap in the air wide enough for Necrozma to fly through. He flew forward, shrouded in black mist, only to bounce off the barrier. Necrozma thrust his wings apart, dispelling the shadows.

"Xerneas," Necrozma said, his voice cold and distant. "It's been awhile. I see this place hasn't changed much. And... you're alone. Guess that means... heeheeheehee... Celebi wasn't as close of a friend as you were hoping."

"Light," Xerneas said, stepping closer to the barrier. "I figured you would come sooner or later. A god and the Tree of Life… both enticing to someone gobbling up spirits."

Necrozma floated there, saying nothing. He wrapped his wings over his torso to hide his twitching arms. After a minute of silence, he said, "The Tree of Life… isn't good enough to bring my real body back. It is a shadow of what it once was… just like you."

Xerneas narrowed her eyes. "The Tree and I have never been better," she said.

"Lies," Necrozma said, shadows swirling around him. "We both know it bears only a fragment of its former power, thanks to Dark Matter." Necrozma opened his wings up and floated closer to the barrier. "All those spirits… ripped from its branches… lost for all eternity. Once again, you failed at protecting something that mattered." He raised his right arm up, staring at his claws as he flexed them out. "I shouldn't be surprised, honestly."

Xerneas' antler-gems pulsated with light. "Your belittling won't work," she said. "If you won't release Lunala, then I will do everything in my power to free her."

"More lies," Necrozma hissed, striking the barrier with purple energy balls that harmlessly bounced off. "All you gods know how to do is pile lie on top of lie until you manage to get exactly what you want." His words sent a chill down Xerneas' spine. She tried to turn away, but Necrozma drifted to his left, staying in her field of vision. "Why have you all gone to such great lengths to purge me from the world's history?"

Xerneas silently channeled energy down her forelegs. Two cracks opened in the ground and pillars of pink, sparkle-filled light shot up under Necrozma. "You told me… all the gods told me how grateful they were to have light restored to this world!" Necrozma said, dodging and blasting the barrier with a purple beam. "So, tell me why! Why do you refuse to speak the truth? Why have you all hidden my accomplishments from countless generations of Pokémon?" he continued, barrier swallowing his attack.

Hooves slammed the soil yet again. More pink light pillars erupted around Necrozma. One struck his back and slammed him against the barrier. "Release Lunala!" Xerneas said, narrowing her eyes.

"How wonderful it is to see you go to great lengths for a Pokémon who wouldn't exist if it wasn't for me!" Necrozma snarled. "Where were you when I pleaded for help!" He rolled past pink balls of fairy energy. "I told you gods about Golem… about his plans for me. You all ignored me!" He thrust his right wing forward, shooting black meteors that plinked off the barrier.

"We had a mental link!" Necrozma said, ramming the barrier at top speed. "Did that mean nothing to you?!" He scraped his claws against the barrier while Xerneas gathered more energy in her forelegs. "I deSErVe aN aNSweR!"

Xerneas tensed up, the fairy energy in her forelegs disappeared. She looked into Necrozma's third eye. "Light," she whispered.

"I dON't aCKnoWlEdGE tHAt nAmE aNYmORe. I aM nECrOZma, DevOUrEr oF lIGhT!" Necrozma shouted, banging his right arm on the rippling barrier.

"Light, you need to stop this. Release Lunala," Xerneas said, antlers flashing erratically. "You are trifling with a power you can't possibly hope to control. It's consuming you!"

"AnSWeR! mY! QuEStIoN!" Necrozma said, bashing the barrier with every word. The ground shook all around Xerneas. "You have Geomancy… you embody the essence of life. Why didn't you help me? You could've repaired my core! But you sat back and did nothing! YoU AlL sAT bAck And dId NOtHinG!"

"I didn't have a choice!" Xerneas said, slamming her hooves into the ground. Pink fairy energy struck Necrozma from above. He bounced off the ground and landed on his stomach, wings spread apart. "I didn't have a choice," Xerneas whispered, tucking her head in and stepping back from the barrier. "Please, Light. Don't make this any harder than it has to be."

"Any harder?" Necrozma said, rising back into the air like a mummy from its coffin. "AnY hARder?!" he shouted, third eye glowing bright. "You had a choice! You chose to sit by idly–"

Xerneas winced. "I had no choice. I had orders–"

"Orders… from Arceus?" Necrozma said, wrapping himself up in his wings to still his shaking limbs. "No… heeheeheehee… it was still your choice. You chose to blindly follow Arceus' words. It was your decision! You didn't question him… you yielded to his whim! You said I was important!" He rushed the barrier and slammed up against it. Purple shockwaves raced out, vaporizing the nearest tries. "You told me I mattered but that was just a lie… wASn'T iT, ReBeCCa?!"

Silence followed. Necrozma clung to the barrier, breath coming in ragged gasps. Xerneas stared him down, white light swirling around her body. "Who's Rebecca?" she said.

Necrozma backed off the barrier, arms trembling. Thorny vines sprouted from the earth. He released a crimson shockwave, vaporizing as many vines as possible, but it wasn't good enough. Vine after vine slammed him against the ground. They piled on top of him until Xerneas stomped a hoof on the ground.

"I'm sorry, Light," Xerneas said, staring down the pile of vines and the pink mist evaporating off them. "All us gods were told to ignore you… for the sake of this world's survival. I had to put personal feelings aside." She looked down guiltily. "Arceus was right… I never should've let myself get close to you. It clouded my judgement… and almost made me lose sight of what's most important: keeping this world stable."

The vine pile trembled. Xerneas stepped back, X-shaped pupils dilating in fear. She gathered up more fairy energy in her antlers. A terrifying screech rang out and the vine pile exploded. Necrozma floated black clumsily, blood trickling down the tears in his wings. The winged heart in his chest flickered erratically, as did his third eye.

"YoU," he whispered, tears dripping out from his armored eyes. "You are not doing anything but propping up a farce." His arms involuntarily shot out to either side. Necrozma wrapped his darkening wings around his body. "This world… and all who inhabit it… is nothing but a cover… for Arceus' recklessness… for the lives he extinguished in a fit of blind rage!"

Xerneas reared up, but Necrozma rushed forward. "YoU aRE a MiSTaKE!" he snarled, wings turning light blue again as he slammed his arms into the barrier. "EVerYtHiNG hERe Is a MiStAke!"

He floated upward, avoiding the vines sprouting up beneath him. "I will be back… and I'll make you see how worthless you really are!" Necrozma said, an Ultra Wormhole forming up behind him. "I'll take your antlers and rip them off your head one by one until you know exactly how hopeless I felt when my light was stolen!" Drool seeped out of his mouth. "By the time I'm finished… heeheeheehee… you'll be begging me to take your spirit!"

Xerneas made one last attempt at blasting Necrozma with a light pillar, but he was already through the Ultra Wormhole. The instant the portal closed, Xerneas' legs gave out and she collapsed onto her side, racked by shudders. Tears streamed down onto the soil beneath her head.

XxX
Hopefully you enjoyed this bonus. I thought it was well past time Necrozma get a bit more depth added to his character. For anyone who's confused, Zekrom and Latios are not the same ones that appeared in previous chapters, they're ancestors. Hence why Zekrom is a girl in this bonus.

Next time: we head back to the present, where Team Paradox fills in some gaps and Totem Decidueye comes to a shocking realization.
 
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