…
Yukari opened her eyes, and gasped. Recovering from her haze, she recalled what had happened.
The Lunarian response to her incursion into their barrier was far harsher than she had anticipated. Sure, she had expected a strong response, given the Lunarians wished for complete isolation from the impurity of the Earth below. But her purpose was relatively benign: she had been seeking a way to throw a barrier between Gensokyo and the rest of the world, in order to safeguard the youkai living there from the outside world. Testing their barrier would enable her to examine its construction and its weaknesses, so that she could build her barrier to similar specifications with patches to weaknesses built in.
But the Lunarian military brass was filled to the brim with irritable war hawks. And these hawks authorized the raw, overwhelming force of their elite forces to reign havoc over Yukari's youkai army. Many youkai were killed as a result, at the cost of only a handful of rabbit soldiers and no Lunarian civilians. Yukari lie on the ground, bloodied, and looking up at the bright moon above.
A large, shadowy figure looked over her and into her eyes.
"...Starlight," Yukari said weakly. Her faithful winged enforcer and child, who had stayed behind in order to look after Gensokyo in her brief absence. The old Lunala helped her up and used its power to heal her wounds.
But looking after Gensokyo was not the only reason why Starlight had not taken part in the assault on the Lunar Capital. It didn't want to worry its mom by telling her this fact, but it was dying. After 2000 years, it was almost out of power, having willfully cut itself off from Ultra Space and the Ultra Radiation which usually fed its kind to hide its secret from her, and subsisting almost entirely on faith and the power of night. It was hard by outward appearances alone to tell that it was on its last legs, which helped it keep its secret about its impending mortality. But it had been loyal to its master and mother for two millenia, and it would be damned if she died now.
Starlight's wide, graceful and glistening wings cradled and shielded Yukari, as the two of them looked up at the moon from which she had been banished from.
The mood in the Lunar Capital was one of celebration and rage. Celebration that the youkai had been defeated and beaten back so easily, and rage because the populace had demanded further punishment to put the invaders squarely in their place. There were demonstrations in the streets, with the citizenry burning effigies of Yukari atop spears and carrying posters calling for the death of the youkai.
It was a mood which the hawkish Lunarian military had cultivated long and hard within the populace, rallying them against the enemies below to cover up their own corrupt deeds. And now the time had come for them to unleash their new, ultimate weapon upon the surface, a weapon whose power was so great it could rip a hole into the Earth itself.
The Photon Geyser weapon itself was mounted within a space station that orbited the Earth. From here, the station commander contacted Lord Tsukuyomi himself, with each seeing a projected image of the other from their respective locations.
"The checkouts and system tests have been completed," the commander said. "Shall we fire the weapon?"
Tsukuyomi raised his hand. "I grant you your permission," he replied.
Toyohime and Yorihime stood in the corner of the room, with Yorihime whispering to her sister, "fools. They know not what kind of horrific power they are about to unleash."
Toyohime looked around. "Where is Eirin? Wasn't she supposed to be here?"
"She said she had some things to take care of regarding Princess Kaguya," Yorihime said. "Personally I think she was just trying to boycott the weapon firing. I don't blame her; she voted against the weapon's completion and firing the same as we did."
None of this, of course, was heard by the station commander. After the hologram turned off, he turned around and gave the order to his men. "Commence primary ignition."
The weapon and the moon were now very close together, clearly visible from Japan below. Once the proper keys were entered, the cannon began to take in light, the fuel with which it powered itself. This light was absorbed both from the sun and the day side of the planet, darkening the sky and creating confusion and panic in that part of the world; the event would be immortalized in the many religions across the world as a shadowed day, with everything from Polynesian cultures to the Arab world having their own explanation of the event.
As the light gathered, it shone like a sinister star in the sky above Gensokyo. Yukari looked up, and understood what was happening: the Lunarian's dreaded weapon was about to be fired, and would wipe out all of Japan once it did. And it was all her fault, and there was nothing even she with her powers could do to halt or mitigate it.
As Yukari looked down and contemplated her final moments, Starlight looked down at her, and gave her that look. Yukari knew what it meant to convey.
"Starlight," she pleaded, "you can't do it! I forbid you from doing it! You will die!" But unknown to her, death mattered not to Starlight, for death would soon embrace it anyway. Rising up, spreading its wings and letting out its cry, Starlight took to the air, shooting straight up to the star of evil above.
"No!" Yukari shouted reaching up. "Come back!" COME BACK!"
Minutes after it had begun charging, the light ball at the mouth of the cannon had reached its full size, the temperature near it an atomizing 10,000 degrees. Troops, both Lunarian and Rabbit, in their sharpest outfits with spit-shined leather boots, stood in-line and turned to face the weapon.
A single pull of a lever fired the mighty energy ball at once, careening down toward the surface and whizzing past the naval vessels parked in the space and uppermost atmosphere above Japan.
Slicing through the clouds and up into the exosphere, Starlight came to a halt right in front of the incoming blast. Gathering the very last bits of its power, it fired a powerful Moongeist Beam to try and deflect the attack. The blast, however, was merely slowed, being far stronger than Starlight's beam. The blast beat through the beam and inched closer to Starlight's body, with Starlight struggling and ultimately failing to repel it.
That's when it made contact.
In an instant, where Starlight and the Photon Geyser's blast met, the sheer amount of energy pouring into Starlight's body prompted the opening of an Ultra Wormhole, which Starlight and some of the power retreated into. The rest of the blast exploded spectacularly, blowing back out into space and toward the near the explosion were instantly vaporized, their crews not even being able to perceive the sensation of having the atoms and molecules which made up their bodies be forcibly torn apart and blown into space dust. On the surface of the Lunar Capital, the light intensified, and with it came searing heat and ultraviolet rays which scoured the surface, scorching and setting fire to wooden buildings, melting metal roofs into slag, and warping street tiles. People caught outside when this happened were struck by the light like millions of superheated arrows, collapsing to the ground with blood curdling screams as their bodies were cooked alive.
Elsewhere, within her private quarters, Eirin was busily taking care of young Kaguya, when a deafening explosion rocked the walls. Eirin immediately knew what had happened, and without hesitation she took Kaguya under her arm and ran into a supply closet. Inside, she and Kaguya huddled up against the far wall atop a pile of boxes. Within moments, the deadly light crept under the door crack, causing Kaguya to shriek and bury her face into Eirin's bosom. Eirin herself shielded the little princess with her arms, in her head cursing the brashness and recklessness of the military which was now surely decimated while her face bore only an expression of wide-eyed terror.
After a few minutes, the light faded, and the two emerged into the outside world. What they saw horrified them: the city was ablaze, charred corpses littered the streets, and smoke and haze covered the sky and choked the narrow alleyways. Seeing the destruction which the weapon's blowback had wrought, Eirin resolved right then and there to escape, and to never return.
Grabbing three bottles of Hourai Elixir along with her research notes, Eirin dragged Kaguya through the streets of the burning capital toward her personal ship. As she did, maneuvering through the rubble and debris, Kaguya heard a murmur coming from underneath the wreckage. She tugged at Eirin's sleeve and pointed at it. "Yagokoro-sensei," she squeaked.
Eirin came over to where the murmur was coming from. Shifting away metal pipes and concrete blocks, she discovered a rabbit soldier, crouched in the corner facing away from her and sobbing. Reaching over slowly, Eirin patted the rabbit softly, prompting her to yelp and turn around, backing against the destroyed wall in fear.
"Hah, hah, who are you?" the rabbit gasped.
"Fear not, little one," Eirin said to her. "It is I, Yagokoro."
Hearing that caused the rabbit to hiss, "you're not gonna force me to fight again, are you?! I've had enough of this hell! Can't you see around you, the death and destruction your hubris has created?!"
"I do," Eirin affirmed, "but I assure you I am equally appalled. I voted against the weapon which created this. This destruction is unforgivable. And because of that, I am leaving."
"Leaving where?" the rabbit asked.
"To the surface," Eirin said. "We will be away from this hellish place there. And they will not come for us, either."
The rabbit had heard bad things about the surface from the propaganda the military put out, but she did not wholly believe the surface, even with its impurity, could be that bad compared to the constant war, torment and oppression rabbits like her endured here, where they had been subjugated by the Lunarians to fight their trivial battles. Now, one of the founding members of the Lunar Capital wished to defect. This could be her chance to turn her life around.
She grabbed Eirin's arm. "Please, I beg you, take me with you!"
After some consideration, Eirin said, "alright. Come with me, little inaba. I shall take you to a better place." She led the rabbit and Kaguya to her ship, where she fired it up and took off just as the hangar it was in collapsed in on itself, headed straight for Japan. While en route, she learned that the rabbit was none other than Yorihime's prized rabbit commando, Reisen. Eirin gave her the moniker Udongein, to help her distance herself from her tumultuous past.
On the surface, soon after Starlight took off to deflect the blast, the sky ignited, turning night into day and casting blinding light down into Gensokyo, forcing Yukari to avert her eyes. In the village, people ducked into their shacks. In the mountains, tengu and kappa dove into their caves. Once the light died down, Yukari looked up at the sky.
"Starlight…" she mumbled.
She collapsed onto the ground.
She began to weep.
High on emotion, she screamed at the sky, mourning the loss of her longtime companion, and her child, her grief inconsolable as she cursed the Lunarian generals who, in her view, murdered her child. And across the valley, the youkai were deeply impacted by the anguish coming from their leader, and the loss of such a powerful icon of their kind.
Five hundred years later
"Yukari-sama!" Ran chirped as she brought Yukari's tea to her room, only to find the door locked. Knocking on the door, she heard nothing, so she opened the door slowly, walking into her room.
"Yukari-sama? Your tea is ready," Ran said.
The room was dark, and Yukari was hunched over sitting on the side of her bed, the curtains drawn and sobbing quietly. Yukari sometimes acted like this, although Ran didn't quite know why; Yukari was such a charismatic and cunning leader, Ran couldn't understand what could possibly get her master this mopey.
"Please," Yukari murmured. "Leave me alone."
Ran bowed, placing the tea saucer on a table before quietly excusing herself.
Yukari contemplated the loss of Starlight long into the night, as she often did whenever the thought crossed her mind. She obsessed over it, in a PTSD-like fashion. She wondered what she could have done differently to save Starlight and not force it to do what it did. She blamed herself for everything that had happened on her watch, and it hung over her like a shadow. She hid it bravely in public, but in private these demons and shadows would haunt her, holding her back from her full potential due to the sheer guilt and despair it wrought on her mind.
...
Starlight's eyes flashed.
The first thing it saw was sand. The first thing it heard was ocean waves. The first thing it felt was the tropical sun's rays beating against its surface.
As light was absorbed into it, Starlight found the power to push itself off the ground… it looked at the claws with which it did so. They were crystalline. They were fierce, black and sharp. Two large spires stuck out of the back of each one.
As it gained the power to move around, it found its way to a pool of water. There, it caught its first glimpse of the grotesque shape it had been twisted into.
...the Photon Geyser. It must have merged with the Photon Geyser's power. That was why it appeared this way. Deep down, it could tell that the fusion was incomplete, leaving it a mangled, spiky mess of dark prisms that would terrify any being that laid eyes upon it.
Starlight shook its head, afraid and ashamed of what it had become.
Once it gained enough power, Starlight looked around the place it had found itself: a deserted island in the middle of the ocean. Starlight could feel it: it was in a different realm from the one which it called home. Somehow, it managed to pass through an Ultra Wormhole which had led it to this place. Without sufficient power, it could not return there to try and find its home, leaving it stranded here for a while.
Starlight eventually gained enough energy to experiment with any new powers it had gained. For all the abilities it lost - its Moongeist Beam, its ability to capture bad dreams, to cut through the air with crescent wings - it discovered one which replaced them: the ability to refract light. By twisting the wavelengths in the air, it could create illusions, make itself invisible, make itself seem larger or smaller than it really was. Eventually, it discovered it could rearrange its body and twist light to assume the form of other living things, an ability it came to use to hide from Pokemon trying to attack it, although most stayed away anyway.
A month passed, and Starlight made a little fortress for itself on the island, dug out of the ground in a place where it could absorb the most light possible, lined with coral shards and weathered stone. It spent most of its days meditating, feeding off of the sun's rays and soothing the pain the darkness of night brought it. It lived this way until one day, when it sensed a presence approaching the island. Probing their mind, it realized it was a man, coming to investigate a rumor others throughout Alola had told him. Starlight realized the man would probably try to kill it in its current state. So reading his mind further, it formed an image of what this man considered the ideal woman to be his queen, and assumed this form. Starlight then stood on the shore, awaiting the prince who would be rewarded with a beautiful maiden.
