Sun found his desk devoid of anything at all when he went to collect his project. His immediate suspicion was Lillie and Gladion. He wouldn't return to Lusamine empty handed.

"Lillie?" Sun called curiously. "Gladion?" He stepped out into the corridor and pressed his ear against their bedroom door, listening intently.

"-He's gone, Gladion. You can see it." Sun knew Lillie was talking about him, but didn't understand her meaning. He was still there. He was still himself, wasn't he?

"So you have given up."

"Gladion, I have not given up. I'm just telling you, the longer we take the harder this will get for us. He's completely convinced. I'll admit, I used the Trainer ID-"

"-you did what?"

"-and he switched back almost immediately."

"Lillie, that's why I didn't want you to use the Trainer ID! We had to wait until it was safe, until we could get him away from her-"

Sun's blood boiled with anger. Why? Why were they so insistent on detaching him from his mother's side? He smacked the door handle downward with force and kicked the door open, making a dramatic entrance. The noise made Lillie and Gladion both turn to the doorway in shock, seeing Sun glance across the room before marching in, sweeping his fringe to the right by habit.

Gladion had taken the plans again after Lillie had put them back because he wasn't quite done yet. He still had some ideas on how they could figure out what they were themselves without having to ask Sun. This was a mistake.

"Gladion, give me my-"

"Sun, calm down, we were-"

Sun had a complete lack of patience for anyone who'd get between him and what his mother told him to do. He wasn't going to listen to Gladion, not at all. Sun closed the gap, Lillie watching nervously.

"We were just-"

Sun swung at Gladion's jaw. Gladion hadn't expected it and took the hit head on, yelling in pain as it connected. Sun stole the plans he had written back from Gladion, who shook off the surprise attack and flung himself at Sun in retaliation, Lillie trying to get between them but being pushed aside by Gladion.

"You, Sun, you-" Gladion roared at him, incensed by Sun's attack on him. Gladion reached out through Lillie's attempt to block him and tried to rip through whatever the schematics detailed. Sun held them back, close to his chest.

"Lillie, stop him," Sun said as he leaned away from Gladion. Lillie tried her best to stop her brother but Gladion shoved her harshly and made her stumble back before gripping Sun's wrists and forcing his arms apart. "Lillie-" Sun cried as Gladion took the drawings and the notes, tearing them to pieces.

"You need to stop," Gladion demanded as he ripped them apart, "Helping our mother get to those demon Ultra Beasts!" Gladion threw caution to the wind. That was his suspicion, and to him that was the truth. He'd chance a guess.

Sun looked like he was about to cry. What was Gladion even talking about? Lillie was watching, shocked. "Gladion, stop it, please," she tried to reach him through his anger.

"Lillie, he-" Gladion began, but Sun's sadness and fear became anger quickly. Sun went to attack Gladion in retaliation but Lillie was able to hold Sun back. "-he's not even- he's just a, just her pet now. Fuck him. He's not my friend and he's definitely not my fucking brother!" Lillie had to tug Sun away from Gladion to stop him from fighting back.
"Gladion, stop it, you're upsetting him-"

"Good! I don't want to speak to him and I don't want to look at him! I hate him!" Gladion scowled at Sun, raising one hand awkwardly in his strange pose he would sometimes strike. "Mother may love him, but I fucking don't! He's dead to me!"

"GLADION, SHUT UP!" Sun and Gladion both stood stock still at Lillie's scream. "You-" she stopped herself. "Come on, Sun. I'll talk to you." She wanted Sun to calm down. She and Gladion had agreed to try and make Sun as comfortable as possible until they had a chance to fix him, and Gladion had clearly just gone back on that pact. Gladion watched them as they left, sticking by his word. Sun was dead. Sun was dead and that thing had replaced him, and if Gladion couldn't save him, he'd destroy what was currently controlling Sun's body.

Lillie manoeuvred Sun back towards his room, Sun halfheartedly trying to get back at Gladion for so cruelly destroying his creation that he wanted to show his mother. "Sun, Sun," she placated, aware she was already falling into the prepared role of his sister. "Sun, calm down. You can just redo it, right?"

"Yes, Lillie, but... but mother wanted to see it, and-"

"Sun, she'll understand," Lillie lied. It seemed likely that Lusamine would forgive Sun and just go after Gladion. She was feeling a twinge of possessiveness again and knew to not let it get to her. Resisting whatever it was that made her feel that way was important to remaining good herself.

How had she begun to feel this way? Was it just protectiveness over Sun or something more sinister? Nothing had changed except Sun, right? She hadn't been exposed to the mysterious machine that had turned the boy in front of her into her brother, or at least she didn't think so. The fear came from it being impossible to tell until she had seen the device, Faba remaining tight-lipped on its nature. There was another possibility, one she didn't even want to consider.

Whatever had changed her mother - for she hadn't always been that way - was changing her too. She was in denial over it, she-

"Lillie, I don't like him," Sun confided in her.

"That's fine, Sun, just... I think it's best if you two keep out of each other's way for now. I'll tell him off, but I think it'd be for the best if you didn't tell mother." Lillie knew she was in the best possible position, growing closer to Sun and sidelining Gladion so she could have full access to him. If anyone was going to save him, it'd be her. "We're still friends, Sun, right?"

Sun nodded enthusiastically. "Yes, of course!" He hugged Lillie, surprising her. "You've always been very nice to me! Not like him..." Sun backed off, smiling at her. Her heart missed a beat. Arceus, she'd give anything to have him back for so much as ten minutes so they could kiss and touch and-

Sun thought he saw a sheen of gold light pass over Lillie's eyes but put it up to the lighting in the mansion and how it made some things sparkle strangely. "I'd better go back to mother," he told her and Lillie's heart missed another beat, her brow almost invisibly lowering in distaste.

"Sure, Sun. But can we talk later?"

"Yes, Lillie," Sun replied with a grin and turned to leave. Lillie felt like she had to say something.

"Sun?!"

"Yes?"

"I love you..."

"I love you too, Lillie."

It wasn't the right kind. Lillie shivered.


Sun returned to where he belonged. By her side. Explanation had passed - there was not much to say besides Gladion had stepped in yet again to scupper what Sun had done and try to drive him and his mother apart. Sun was deep in thought. Bitter and angry about Gladion's attitude toward him.

"Not to worry, Sun, my sweet child." Lusamine stroked his face with her lithe fingers, making Sun blush. "They are only delaying the inevitable at this point." She turned her hand outward and ran the backs of her fingers down his face before cupping his chin, admiring him. "No matter what, we'll find a way."

"Yes, mother," Sun agreed.

"That's my good little boy, hmm?" Lusamine smiled. "Willing to help with everything. Not selfish. Not a liar. Not ugly. Perfect."

"Perfect," Sun echoed, his voice barely a whisper. He was allowing his eyes to wander up and down Lusamine's body, affixing his sight briefly to her long, slender legs. The energy building between them told him it was good to do so.

"What's the matter, Sun?" Lusamine brought her hand up to his cheek and watched his eyes slide back up to her face with amusement. She reclined in her chair and crossed one leg over the other, purposefully drawing his attention back to them, pointing the heel suspended in the air downward like an obsidian sword.

Sun was mesmerised, eyes clouded over with animalistic lust. Her hand was still resting on his face, and she felt the little shakes of excitement that ran through his being. Oh, it was too easy. Too easy. "Sun?" she inquired, as if she wasn't trying to make him want her.

"Mother, I-" he couldn't finish the sentence, his mouth too dry.

"Oh, come here, you," she invited and drew him in to kiss him. Sun eagerly responded and met her lips with his own, meshing his hand with hers and resting the other on the chair's armrest. He leaned into her, and she rewarded him with the feeling of her free hand beneath his white shirt, tickling his chest. Sun pushed harder, and Lusamine felt that familiar unease that came with Sun's desire for her. Not enough to make her reconsider.

He had moved in front of her chair and now climbed up onto it with her, on his knees, his legs on either side of hers, their hips nearly touching, on the same level. The chair rocked backward a degree from the additional weight of Sun and his insistence to have more of her, pushing against her body with his own. Lusamine was blushing now, and she thought it most unbecoming.

But Arceus, it felt fucking good.

Lusamine slowly reduced the passion in her end of the kiss, hoping Sun would follow her lead and calm down. While it took him a little longer than she may have predicted, he still did so, panting from the effort he had made, a bright blush and a big smile on his face. "Mother," he gasped. "Please let me do more for you. Please, let me do everything you want."

He placed his head against her collarbone and purred. Lusamine loved that sound. Loved it. It told her he was her loyal pet, belonged to her, that the collar around his neck that he had suggested was only fitting for him. "Sun, mommy's got a lot of work to do," she reminded him. Sun sagged against her, like a deflating balloon.

"Please, mother, just let me do more," he begged.

"Sun, baby, be patient," she told him, making him shirk further, ashamed of his lack of self discipline. He pressed into her neck with his head, again like an animal against its favorite scratching post. Lusamine gasped as she felt his warm, wet tongue lick her neck lightly, making her skin tingle with excitement. "O- Oh, Arceus, Sun, don't do that," she said, but secretly hoped he would again. She had hardly made her tone scolding.

Sun picked up on that need and licked her again, this time taking longer and covering more space. "Arceus, Sun- S-u-un..." his tongue was now tracing her jaw, lovingly taking his time. She wanted to make him stop but didn't want him to stop. What he was doing was disgusting, yes, and if someone was to come in now she would die of shame, but she felt so good. "Baby, st-stop," she mumbled pathetically. Sun had descended back to her neck and was licking it in a slow, indulgent pattern that lit her up with bliss. "Sun, you're-" she tried to compliment him but couldn't even finish that sentence.

Lusamine was finally enlightened to how weak she was being, letting the boy take charge. She grasped his neck, only softly, but enough to make him stop, and hung out her tongue before pressing it against his. Both of them were engulfed in pleasure at the fuzziness of the feeling. "Mother, I love you," Sun panted. "I love you so much~" he moaned, his eyes glowing with adoration, half shut from the sensual moment. "I'll be your perfect son, I will be, I am, I am," he ranted between gasps. "You're so beautiful and kind. I only want to be with you, only want you to tell me what to do, only want you," he said. The indoctrination had rose through every single gear until it had broken completely and he was nearly thinking of himself as an extension of her, her body and her will - everything he was and had become.

Lusamine nearly burst with a flaming explosion of desire and forced him to press against her, hard. He wriggled ecstatically as she lay kisses on every inch of him she could reach. "Sun, baby boy, good boy, sweet boy," she rambled in a fervour as she molested him. Sun loved it.

"Hnngh-" he moaned, his eyes rolling upward, "mother, MOMMY-"

"Oh, Arceus, Sun!" Lusamine stood, rising out of her chair and holding Sun in her arms before placing him back down on his feet. "Sun, do what you want to mommy. Show her how much you love her," she challenged and was now glad to see the crazed, possessive look in Sun's eyes. Only he could sate her, and only he could go far enough to do so.

Sun seemed overwhelmed by her request and fell to his knees in supplication to her infinite beauty. The insane twitch across his body grew even more frantic and he tried desperately to recapture some sort of command over himself, having given in to the hunger. His frame was wracked with tremors, and Lusamine briefly wondered if something was wrong.

"Sun?" He blinked in response to her question, still struggling to contain the electric energy that he was conducting. It was a side effect of the procedures that had been done to him - he had been drugged while thinking of her, so now to him she was a drug.

"Mother, I- I don't know what to do," Sun admitted nervously.

Lusamine's face showed only a sort of dry amusement. "Start wherever you like, Sun. Do whatever you want." She sat back into her chair, Sun still in a begging position in front of her. "I'm waiting."

Sun was still frozen in place. Lusamine began to feel a little concern. Maybe it was hurting him. Gradually Sun leaned further forward, submitting himself to her. "Um..." he mumbled, but didn't have words to continue the sentence with. "Uhn..."

"Sun, honey, it's fine if you don't want to do anything. Mommy still loves you, okay?" At that remark Sun moved closer to her legs which he had been so captivated by earlier. Lusamine crossed one over the other again and rested her hands on her knee, pointing her foot at him. "You don't need to fret, mommy- oh..." she had been cut off as Sun was licking the tip of her angular heel, entranced by his actions. Lusamine wasn't a foot fetishist by any means, but she was admittedly curious as to how Sun could make this feel good for her.

Sun meanwhile was drowning. His head was filled with a droning buzz that told him the same thing on repeat,'more, more, more-' he had to do better, push further, submerge his mother in the same metaphorical bathtub of ecstasy he occupied. He was warm, too warm, he was sweating. It wasn't even her body he was tasting, suckling on, kissing and licking, but the black heel on her left foot. In an effort to segue into something else he performed one long, sloping lick that ended where her black and white leggings began, at the base of her ankle. Lusamine took her hands from her knee and rested one elbow on her armrest, in turn resting her chin on the hand supported by it, looking increasingly perversely interested in Sun's antics.

Sun slowly and respectfully removed the high heel from her foot, and Lusamine allowed him to do so, letting her little boy experiment as he pleased. Whatever he would like to do for her. So long as it wasn't for him, and was purely for her enjoyment and her love.

Now he had more freedom, and used it well. He wasn't particularly masterful and indeed the whole sensation was strange to Lusamine, but she could get used to it, she knew. Every part of her was as perfect as every part of his redesign, so she knew he'd have no complaints as he worked at the sole of her foot. She caught sight of his face, bright red from self-awareness.

Arceus, she loved him so. She wanted to baby him in her arms and hush him as he tried to tell her how much he loved her, wanted to lay beside him naked under silky sheets for hours on end, wanted to protect him in a way she had never wanted to protect anything else. "Do you like your mommy's feet, Sun?" Lusamine asked him.

"Y-Yes, mommy," Sun replied hastily. He had been licking between her toes before she spoke. "But I like... I like all of you."

"Is that so, Sun?"

Sun had stopped servicing her foot entirely now to continue the conversation. While she was irritated by his inability to multitask, she hadn't felt much from the experience. She'd be happy to let him test it more later, but right now Lusamine just wanted her special boy to make her feel good.

"Yes, mommy," Sun said, his gorgeous green eyes hiding nothing at all from her in the same way Gladion's did, and meeting her directly as opposed to Lillie's eyes which always darted away under her glare. Green was a beautiful colour for him. Just like the white skin he wore. Thinking about the skin made Lusamine feel an odd sensation - horror at the fact the skin was essentially hers, lab grown and baptised over Sun's old body to rebirth him, and a sort of eroticism at the same time knowing he was always smothered in her very being without even knowing. He really was her.

"What's your favourite part of me, Sun, baby?" She teased him, watching as he rose into a kneel and his head became level with her stomach. The way she sat prevented him from looking up her dress, and she could tell he wanted to. No matter what - if he couldn't give an answer or named any part of her, it'd be good to know so she may tease him further in the future.

Sun didn't even need to think. "Your legs."

Lusamine smirked. She ruffled Sun's hair and scratched at his scalp gently, eliciting a moan from him. Unbelievable... he had come out exactly as she wanted. There was so much more to do with him, so much to exploit, so much knowledge to access, he was a bottomless pit of potential discoveries, findings, feelings and pleasures.

"So, how about I go back to work," Sun's face visibly fell. "And you..." she pointed, making small circles in the air with her fingertip, "You can sit under the desk and spend as much time with my legs as you like." She giggled but hid it behind her hand, at least trying to appear composed. She pulled her chair up to the desk, trapping Sun in the space beneath the top surface and her chair. Unable to see his expression as she tugged her leggings down for him, she found imagining it was enough. He finished taking them off for her.

As she got back to work, Sun set about his own newfound purpose. He was huddled under the black desk with nothing before him but his mother's smooth, gorgeous long legs. He placed his hands on her thighs. They were unbelievably soft, utterly blissful to touch. Sun squeezed the flesh gently and while her legs were slender there was just enough there to feel it out, to lose his sensibility against. He ran his hands up and down their surfaces, so damn smooth, so soft, so beautiful... this was the epiphany of his mental conversion, the object of his desires multiplied by his own personal tastes, burning in him and setting him alight with lust. He stroked her inner thighs and moaned aloud at how good it all felt.

Lusamine was enjoying the service, because it wasn't just some masturbatory experience but instead something more sensual, more thoughtful. She didn't give Sun any kind of feedback, only keeping him trapped between her legs. Sun's hands wandered further up her legs, to the waistband of her white panties. Lusamine twitched as he hooked his fingers under the waistband and slowly removed her underwear, but then resumed tending to her legs with squeezes, strokes, teases and touches.

He licked all the way up her thigh culminating in a kiss near her clit and she had to fight a desire to close her legs and pin his head against her sex until he had satisfied her. She shifted her legs closer to each other, feeling Sun between them.

"Mommy likes that," she lay her free hand on the back of his skull and her legs wrapped around his head. He gasped as she squeezed him between her thighs.
The feel of her smooth legs pushing his face into her flesh and the escalation of his lust to near unthinkable levels was overwhelming to him. He didn't even think about the need for oxygen until his lungs were burning - but at the same time, he didn't want to disappoint his mommy.

She let him go when he thought he could take no more - heaving for breath, gasping aloud, trying to recover from his near asphyxiation at her soft body. She looked at him with some concern as he choked and spluttered. When he was done he looked up at her with a smile, and she responded in kind, and they continued, more gentle now.


Sun crawled out from under the desk and got up, stretching as he did. Lusamine was as captivated by him as ever. Smart enough to help her in everything she did. Obedient enough to accept her every request and follow her every whim. And, with the exception of that damaged arm, utterly perfect.

Noticing his blonde hair was a bit messier than usual, Lusamine pushed it back into place, Sun as was common twitching in response. "Mother," he mumbled, catching Lusamine's attention. It wasn't just some self-indulgent moan but a lead in to a question.

"What is it?" She finished combing his hair and tapped him on the nose with her index finger, startling Sun a little. When he concluded immediately after that it was a friendly gesture he laughed. Naivety was a part of his personality, to the point where Lusamine had a suspicion he had some sort of learning difficulty or mental handicap. Even if he did, that didn't matter at all to her. Perfection was possible in all things. He was proof.

"Um, I... What's an Ultra Beast?"

Lusamine didn't know what to say. The best thing to do would be to tell him what he wanted to hear. "Sun, sit on my lap." Sun did so. He wasn't tiny by any stretch of the imagination, but something about him made him very comfy to have up against her. The way that he curled into her, made himself vulnerable to her and her alone. How his fingers locked around her hands should she allow him to hold them, and then how his digits would rub back and forth childishly against her skin. "You see, Sun, for a long time I have been studying Ultra Space. You know what that is, yes?"

"It's a dimension parallel to ours, accessible only through a Wormhole where the two sides of our dimension and Ultra Space intersect," Sun replied, in a monotone voice. He was excellent at relaying information.

"Yes, Sun. Inside the realm of Ultra Space reside the Ultra Beasts. Pokémon far beyond what we know of here."

"There are Pokémon in Ultra Space?!" Sun sounded like Christmas had come early. Lusamine knew it'd be easy to convince him that Ultra Space was a good thing, easy to bring him onto her side. "What are they like?"

"We only know of seven, Sun." That wasn't strictly true. The Aether Foundation were only meant to know about three Beasts. These were Ultra Beast Zero One, code named Symbiont, Ultra Beast Zero Six, code named Blade, and Ultra Beast Zero Seven, code named Glutton. However, Lusamine and Faba had pulled strings in the past - a message to Team Plasma here, a large sum of money there, and had bribed their way to every single file that the Interpol currently had on the UB's. They knew all seven. "Symbiont, Beauty, Expansion, Lighting, Blaster, Blade and Glutton."

"Are those their names?" Sun asked. "They don't sound like Pokémon."

"Unfortunately those who discovered the Beasts were not the most creatively disposed, Sun." Lusamine tutted with distaste. 'Symbiont' was no name for a Beast as perfect as hers. "I have taken it upon myself to name one of them, Ultra Beast Zero One... Nihilego."

"Nihilego," Sun repeated. "Do we know what they look like? Are they friendly?"

Lusamine dodged that question, answering with her own. "Do you know what Nihilego means, Sun?" Kanto was not the most culturally cultivated region, and its people were not known for their knowledge of old Sinjoh words. Sun was precocious, but she wondered if he could ever be completely stumped.

"It's a portmanteau of the Sinjoh words'nihil' meaning 'nothing,' and 'ego' meaning 'I am,'" Sun replied, destroying that particular idea. "It can also be taken to mean, 'I wish to not exist.'"

"How do you know that?"

Sun twitched. Lusamine inwardly kicked herself. Of course he wouldn't remember how he knew that. "Um- I- I-"

"Nevermind." She stroked Sun's hair to take his mind off of her question. It had distracted him however, and for that she was thankful. "Sun, I want to reach Ultra Space. I have protected Pokémon and shown them my love for my whole life. Now I want to protect the Ultra Beasts in the same way."

"Have you ever seen one?" Sun asked.

"Only one, my sweet child. Nihilego itself. Several times, in fact. Once when-" she bit her lip and suppressed that memory, her body tensing in response to it - Sun felt the stiffness in her muscles and snuggled closer to help her relax again, recognising something about that memory must be bad. Lusamine placed a finger under his chin and raised his head so she could kiss his forehead, thankful for his awareness. She started again, skipping directly to the second time. "Another when we were trying to find it once more, and it blessed me, and me alone, with its love."

"What did it do to you?" Sun asked. He sounded cautious. He wasn't sure exactly what his mother could mean by that, and she was speaking in a way he wasn't used to. She didn't have enough breath to finish her sentences, giving little gasps between phrases. He wondered if she was stressed by the memories.

Lusamine leaned forward in her chair, placing her elbow on the desk while her other arm remained around Sun. She picked up her datapad and after a short time of entering pass codes and her clearance details showed him an image. "This is Nihilego, Sun."

It wasn't quite like anything Sun had seen before. It was primarily white and appeared to be an aquatic creature, but Sun could tell this Beast was not borne of water. The longer Sun looked the more similarities he could see with one person in particular. "It looks like Lillie."

"No, Lillie looks like Nihilego." Sun wasn't sure what to make of Lusamine's response. "Now, Sun," she zoomed in on the image and Sun's perception shifted. "Nihilego is made of lots of tiny little sentient pieces of sharp material, like living rock, and each piece generates venom." Sun could see each individual shard now. Lusamine thought back to when the Beast had arrived on the Paradise in front of Sun and he had ripped it in two with his Carbink. As the memory came to her, Sun spasmed in her lap. "Sun?"

"I'm okay," he mumbled. The memory would have come to him if he had been allowed to recall it.

Lusamine gave him a reassuring squeeze and resumed her speech. "Nihilego gave me some of that venom." Sun shifted uncomfortably at the revelation that his mother had been exposed to alien poison. "It has kept me beautiful, made me strong, and I want to repay it. I want to protect it. I want to save it."

Sun was perturbed by the information, but reserved judgement. "And I've seen it twice since then." She refrained from mentioning both times had been in Sun's presence. "It wants to be with me. I'm certain of it. I want to be with it."

"What about the other Ultra Beasts?" Sun asked. "Are they friendly?"

Lusamine ignored the second question again. "I will gather them. And I will love them all." She didn't sound like herself. She glared at Sun. "Will you help me?" Her hold on him was becoming uncomfortable and Sun tried to shift but she held him still.

"Y-yes," Sun said.

"Yes what?"

"Yes, mother."

"Come, Sun. I should show you something."


The trophy room had been prepared.

Deep below the mansion it lay, where she kept the most beautiful specimens trapped in blocks of ice forever, where she could admire other beings that had been frozen in time similar to how she felt she had been after exposure to the venom.

Sun might just have reacted negatively to seeing all the cute Pokémon encased in ice, so a simple button press concealed them all in black cases before they arrived. All except one, the smallest, the most central of them all, vapor cascading off its surface. In this block of ice was something very special.

"Hold my hand, Sun." Lusamine was walking faster than usual as she approached it, excited to admire it once again. Sun was keeping pace despite her strides being much wider than his, and neither had to slow down for the other.

They stopped in front of the block.

"Is that..."

Inside the ice was a cluster of white shards, splayed out to be displayed as a group. They had been collected from parts Nihilego had left behind after Sun had damaged it.
"Those are Nihilego shards," Lusamine breathed. "Aren't they beautiful?"

His earlier concerns forgotten, Sun agreed, coming very close to the ice to observe each shard. "Wow... they're all symmetrical. There's probably some reason as to which parts it uses where," he analysed. "It's interesting."

"That it is, Sun." Lusamine wasn't truly listening - even that observation from Sun would have been news to her, but she was preoccupied twisting an important looking implement built into the machine that was keeping it frozen. "Would you like to touch them?"

The concern came back instantly. "I- I don't know... is it safe?"

"I'm here, Sun. Of course you're safe." Her voice was still scaring him. She didn't sound right at all. Like she was possessed or distracted or disturbed. "Baby, you don't need to be afraid of it. It's lovely. It's beautiful, like you or me." Her pronunciation was dull and blunt. Her voice normally sounded like a sword wrapped in soft silk, whispers of sharpness on the edges of her syllables, but that quality was gone. The ice was receding, somehow engineered to descend directly downward and not spill a drop of water. It stopped when the shards were halfway free, and Sun saw the filaments tremble, alive like he was, but perhaps not sentient. "Touch the tips, Sun. Let it bless you like it blessed me. I want you to feel what I felt when it showed me its love."

Sun didn't want to go anywhere near it until he knew exactly what the venom did. He hesitantly reached out to the largest shard and ran his finger across it gingerly. He could feel it writhe insidiously in response, which didn't help his image of the creature.

"Sun, just let it inject you. Put your finger on the tip and push down." That was an order, not a suggestion, so he had to follow it, didn't he? Sun lay his finger onto the sharp tip and tensed the muscles of his arm, giving the appearance he had pressed down. Lusamine's grin was horrible, a hungry, devout and soulless expression. "Do you feel it, Sun? The... the power? The fire?" she said, and pushed down on it herself enthusiastically, drawing blood that ran off Nihilego's component.

Sun noticed every shard was reddish near to the tip.

"Sun, when it gets into your brain, it, it feels so good, baby, so good." Lusamine placed her hand flat over her heart. "Oh, Sun, baby, you know why we have to find it now, don't you?" Luckily Lusamine was far too high on the venom to pay attention to the fact that Sun wasn't answering anything or making any comments on the effects of the alien compound. She twisted the device again and the shards began to vanish under thick ice, quaking in denial as the bitter cold consumed them. Sun thought he may have heard them screeching. "Sun, my sweet, cute little boy..." she lurched forward suddenly and grabbed one of the points at the front of his collar, dragging him along. She was pulling him back up the hidden passageway to her bedroom.

Nihilego was pulling at the strings of her mind in turn. The symbiotic nature of its existence allowed it to still manipulate her from beyond the veil of Ultra Space, allowed it to control her emotions. Before they had gone into the trophy room to see it, love had been in Lusamine's mind. Now the black venom shooting through her veins and choking her brain was converting that into something else. A familiar rage she struggled against even while free of Nihilego's influence, refusing to believe her 'sweet beast' had anything to do with it and making those emotions her own personal villain instead of blaming the obvious cause.

When it had first encountered her, it was furious at being dragged into the strange, painful place that was her world, and attacked. It found just like any Beast, it could touch her in the same way through its venom, and then things became very interesting for it. All Nihilego knew of was self-preservation, a survival instinct. Infection was permanent. There would always be dormant Nihilego residue in the body that would alight to further exposure or emotional trauma. The more residue, the stronger the effect. Sun had no connection to it, none at all, so he wasn't feeling the same kind of excitement Lusamine was.

"Mother, I can walk-" Sun protested but his words fell on deaf ears. He was scared. He didn't know how he should feel or how his mother wanted him to feel. "Mother, please, let me go," he called, but again she ignored him.

They reached the top of the concealed staircase together, Lusamine dragging Sun along. She gave a yank on the collar as they reached her bedroom and threw Sun to the ground in front of her from the motion. Her eyes had changed colour. They were gold now. It didn't look right. "Sun," she moaned, getting on her hands and knees in front of him, "my little pet, my little boy, my little experiment, you..."

"Experiment?" Sun asked. That cut right through Nihilego's influence. Lusamine felt heat in her chest and that flame rise to her face. She'd made a mistake.

"I didn't say that," Lusamine denied, the venom addling her brain enough to the point where that statement seemed like a reasonable response.

"Yes you did-" Sun was cut off by something he very much did not expect.

Lusamine slapped him across the face, hard and fast, a blur. "LISTEN TO WHAT YOUR MOTHER TELLS YOU, SUN!" Sun whimpered and put his hand against the point where she had hit him, curling up and hiding away from her. "What are you doing, you insolent little brat? Look at me when I'm- LOOK AT ME!" She seized his forearm and he screamed in fear as she forced him out of his defensive reflex. A small part of her told her to stop. Sun was good, Sun was smart, Sun was kind but Sun needed to be taught a lesson to love Nihilego like she did how Nihilego was the perfect organism how it had existed as long as the universe and its venom had controlled billions of hosts across thousands of dimensions her thoughts were muddled and who was she and she hated and hated and there was nothing but incinerating fire raging through her bones-

"Mother, I'm not a bad boy, I'm not, I'm good, I'm-" Sun begged her, forgetting the pain. His mother was good, he was sure, he'd just done something bad.

"- YOU ARE DISGUSTING! YOU'RE PATHETIC!" Lusamine roared, hitting him again. Sun took it this time as if nothing had even happened, which impressed her a little. Not enough to make her love him though, oh no. He was just like Lillie and Gladion, not worthy of her love, not worthy of her touch only Nihilego only only only only only only only only only onl-

"Mommy," Sun was still completely devoted to her through his fear and pain. "I'm sorry, I'll be good, I'll be a good boy," he pleaded, but Lusamine was lost to the alien's promises and words, and how it had tore apart her humanity again so easily. It knew how. It would again and again, until it could spread.

"DO NOT CALL ME YOUR MOTHER, YOU AWFUL CREATURE!" She hit him again in the exact same place and again Sun did not flinch. What had earlier impressed her now angered her. He had to be in pain to learn. Why wasn't he hurt? Pain was a rule. It hurt to allow Nihilego into her and it hurt to be apart from it. It always hurt, but it was good. It said she had to know it truly, had to be with it, and then the pain would stop. Everything would stop.

"M... mother," Sun mumbled, and was rewarded with a fourth smack. She was good. She was. Why was she hurting him? Had the Nihilego done it to her? Was this what Lillie and Gladion meant? He wanted to run. Sprint away to home- home- to his mother- his his his his- what was happening to him? He couldn't think anymore, it was impossible, his head was hurting-

"WHY CAN'T YOU OBEY ME?" Lusamine screamed at him, looming over him even though she was still on all fours as he lay on his side.

"M..." Sun only knew one thing and that was that Lusamine was his mother. "Mother, please..."

A fifth hit finally found a volume of agony that was impossible for Sun to shut out. He yelped and felt himself begin to cry, his sight blurring. As he lay there, crying to himself, he felt her moving around him. Taking pause from expressing his discomfort through crying, he looked to see the source of the noises, and saw Lusamine was stripping off beside him.

"No," he whispered, quiet enough so he was the only one to hear the words. "I don't want to. I don't want to..."

If it was a prayer it wouldn't have been answered. The Tapus of Alola had rescinded their blessings on him after his disappearance from the Island Challenge months ago, and Arceus had more pressing concerns than the begging of a lost, scared, confused boy about to be viciously raped by the person he now loved the most. As Lusamine's hand fastened over his neck and pressed hard, making him gag, Sun knew the only divine truth here was Nihilego's.

The truth was hell.