Chapter 25: Recollection.
Moon grunted as he woke up on a bed, after a moment, he coughed and then looked around, Sarah instantly fell on top of him in a quick hug. Cynthia, Erick, Petra, Lillie, and Gladion were all also in the room.
"You're okay," she whispered into his ears. "Thank goodness."
Moon grunted as he pushed her off of him. "Where are my Pokemon?"
"They're all here." Cynthia said calmly. "I must commend you Moon, I can't believe you befriended Mew. It's not often that people befriend two legendary Pokemon."
"Manaphy...Cyrus took her...where is he?" Moon growled.
"Um…" Gladion muttered. "Cyrus, Dan, and Lavender all retreated into the ultra wormhole, Manaphy and the rest of the crew went with them."
"THEY WHAT?!" Moon roared, everyone in the room flinched.
"Moon, please...everything will be alright." Lillie said calmly. "We're going to stop them."
"Will someone please let us out of here." Lusamine's voice shouted from somewhere.
"WHERE ARE YOU!" Moon shouted.
"I am handling the situation with Lusamine and the rest of Aether." Cynthia said firmly. "You need to rest assured that I can handle this situation Moon, can you do that for me?"
"She killed Edelgard! She KILLED HER!" Moon snarled. "She abused me and my team of Pokemon. And she gave Manaphy to Cyrus!"
"I know Moon." Cynthia replied. "Just please...I will handle this situation."
Moon slumped back down, feeling Sarah take his right hand and hold onto it. He looked up at her, seeing a face of worry and disappointment in her eyes.
"Moon, are you good?" Erick asked. "We found you in a pretty bad shape...like...the laboratory was ready to collapse on you.
"She killed her…" Moon muttered. "Edelgard...she killed you...I'm sorry."
"Moon?"
"Kill...Kill...Kill." Moon hissed. "Bring them down to fiery depths of hell and hang their heads from Enbarr's gates."
Sarah looked at their friends, all of whom seemed very concerned at Moon's sudden change in behavior.
"Well, we'll explain the little details of how we'll go about this then." Erick said, turning to Cynthia, "I think it's best that you take care of Lusamine and Guzma first."
"Kill those who took her away...people who harm Pokemon are disgraceful...burn them…"
"And...please...find a way to make whatever happened stop." Petra added.
Cynthia sighed before walking out of the room, Lusamine and Guzma were both in the opposite room and they both looked annoyed.
"What the hell is wrong with you!" Lusamine snarled.
"Don't even start with me." Cynthia snapped back. "You BOTH are in massive trouble."
"That insane kid of yours tried to KILL US!"
"Yeah, because you snapped his artificial heart," Cynthia replied flatly. "Cyrus knew what the heart could do if it was broken properly, he could utilize Saturn's son in a manipulative way and now you're looking at the aftermath."
"This is dumb." Guzma growled. "What are we in trouble for."
"I really don't like how you decided to handle this. You both are looking at several charges of war crimes and Pokemon abuse."
"You can't prove anything."
Cynthia rolled her eyes before sighing. "You can't be serious?" she asked. "Not only do I have Moon, who Saturn has taught me to catch when he's lying, but I also have the accounts of your son and daughter. Frankly, I think you both should stop and consider everything."
"Like what?"
"Seriously? You've killed a Pokemon, a baby one to say nonetheless. You've tortured a child and his own Pokemon, not to mention your laboratory has several more records of you torturing and experimenting on different Pokemon by injecting them with chemicals, freezing them for an ice collection, and even doing an experimentation of colorations with Lancer, which I have deliberately left out of telling Moon for obvious reasons. Let me explain to you that Moon is one fearsome kid, and not to mention that he is probably very intent on sending you down."
"And you're okay with that?" Lusamine snarled.
"I've been fighting the likes of Team Galactic for nearly twenty years at this point. Twenty years of death and destruction throughout the region that I'm supposed to protect it's not something I want to discuss with you. I've been worn down to the very brim...so...you think about your choice...you will either give us resources and information and I will drop a few charges, OR you both can walk in there and let Moon kill you."
"You're nuts."
"I'm not nuts," Cynthia replied. "I'm just so sick of everything going wrong with Team Galactic, and I'm certainly disgusted by your actions, you claim yourselves to be an organization, dedicated to the likes of helping injured and suffering Pokemon, and on the surface, you used that image to give and receive. But below all that, you tortured and experimented on innocent Pokemon and have developed insanity inducing pokeballs that have torn apart the likes of an innocent child. Do you have any idea just how insane you truly are?"
"But it's not that-"
"Your own children ran away with Pokemon that you experimented and tortured." Cynthia snarled. "You took the Cosmogs back, only to go right back to what you were doing! And worst of all, you have now put the entire world in danger by allowing Cyrus to take a Dark Ball and go against Necrozma!"
Lusamine's eyes widened. "How did you know that…"
"The Ultra Recon Squad provided enough information for me to know just how deadly things have gotten. You disgust me Lusamine, and I'm certain that once word of this gets out, you won't be welcomed anywhere."
"What about our daughter Lavender?"
"I can most likely say that your daughter is a lost cause." Cynthia replied. "Apart from the whole affair that was going on with your marriage or whatever at the time...Lavender is probably a lost cause for you. If she chose Cyrus over you guys, there's not a chance she'll give up easily."
Lusamine snorted as she placed her hands on her hips, "So, you don't think to much about-"
"ARE YOU EVEN SANE?" Cynthia shouted. The champion of Sinnoh furiously pointed her hand to a one sided glass mirror that allowed them to see into the room, Sarah was basically on the verge of tears as Erick and Petra were consoling her while Moon had stood up and was writing a bunch of nonsense on the walls.
Kill them! Kill Her! Why? Edelgard! Failure! Subspace! Necrozma! Manaphy! I'm sorry! Kill! Kill! Kill! Cake is a lie! Where are you! It's me! Kill! Kill! 5G towers cause viruses! Kill! I'm sorry! Manaphy! Where are you? Kill Cyrus! Edelgard? Where are you? Sarah?
Friends? I am Ferdinand von Aegir! Kill Cyrus! Dancing Coffin Meme is fine! Strength in action! You're irrelevant! Comply! If I must! Manaphy! Edelgard! I failed! Sarah? Where are you? I need help! Can't communicate! Can't think! Only kill! Kill those who take and mistreat! Destroy those who treat Pokemon horribly!
"You have driven that child insane." Cynthia scolded. "He was once a sweet and caring child, and now you've driven him insane. Not to mention that his girlfriend is now in distress over what you did."
"If his heart is artificial, it would be simple to change him back right?"
"Not after what you did." Cynthia scolded. "My hope is that maybe getting Manaphy back will snap him back to normal...in order to do that, we need to find a way to get into Ultraspace."
"Moon...please...speak to me."
"They killed her...They kill her!" Moon grunted. "I must kill Cyrus and get Manaphy back."
Sarah looked at her friend while holding onto Shaymin.
"What...what am I supposed to do?" she cried.
"Moon is distraught over losing Manaphy Sarah, you must keep strong and focused, he is going to need you to help comfort him."
"Kill…"
"How do we help get Manaphy back?"
"If you want to get Manaphy back, the best way would be to enter Ultraspace and stop Cyrus and Necrozma. To do that, we're going to need the help of Solgaleo and Lunala." Dulse said, twiddling with his moustache.
"I believe I read that there's an altar dedicated to the two legendaries on Poni Island." Gladion said. "My mother was doing research on them...with the Cosmogs now evolved into Cosmoem, there's not telling what'll happen."
"Speaking of which." Lillie said. "I'd like for you two to take Nebby and Nebula with you. I'd feel much safer with them in your hands.
"Cos!" Both gemlike Pokemon cooed.
"Moon, come on." Sarah said, grabbing his hand as he sat staring at his Pokemon and muttering a bunch of things to his Pokemon. Fabby, Sapphire, Genji, Lancer, and Mew were all staring back at him with confused looks on their faces.
Moon turned to face her, his eyes looked dead and expressionless, something that scared her just a little.
"Where are we going?" he grunted.
"We're going to Poni Island, hopefully we can find something there that can get us to Manaphy."
Moon gave a halfhearted smile. "Of course." he said with a dead tone. "Shall we get going?"
"Hold on!" Lillie handed them a flute with a sun symbol engraved onto the front. "This is one of the flutes that you may need to play to awaken the power of the legendary Pokemon on your adventure."
"Aren't you going to come with us?" Sarah asked.
"Well...I think my mother has finally seen the error in her ways...a bit too late though if you mask me." Lillie sighed. "Considering everything that's happened. I think it's best if I stay here...before she gets taken away…"
"If she decides to help Cynthia maybe she'll be spared just a little but...it's not the time to deal with that...you two take care of Nebby and Nebula."
"Erick, Petra?"
"We'll stay here and help clean up." Erick sighed. "Aether is going to need a lot of renewal and help if it's going to get back up and running as a base but the people here are going to need some work."
"Well...let's get going then." Sarah said, shaking her head.
"Howdy Moon, Howdy Sarah." Hapu walked up to them as they got off the boat
"Hey Hapu." Sarah replied. "How's everything going?"
"Eh, it's going alright." Hapu replied, "I got word that you were coming, is there anything I can help you with?"
"Well, we were hoping you could hopefully tell us about how we could possibly get the help of Tapu Fini, maybe so we could get into Ultraspace."
"Ultraspace huh?" Hapu said, placing a hand on her chin. "That's quite the topic...the legends of the Sun and Moon may be able to help you...I've heard that the flute of the Moon is found on Exeggutor island. But, in order to go there, you usually need the approval of the Kahuna, which we don't have currently on Poni Island."
"You don't have a Kahuna?" Sarah asked.
"Haven't had one for years now...my grandfather was the last one we had." Hapu sighed. "I suppose we could ask Tapu Fini if you'd have permission to go there...considering that this thing sounds like a big deal, I can only assume that it's important to you."
"Of course…" Sarah replied.
"Well, you all can come follow me to the ruins after stopping at the Pokemon Center, I'd assume your team is very tired from the whole journey here."
"Right, we'll meet you there."
After about twenty minutes, the couple exited the Pokemon Center back onto the docks of the town.
"Right...so...where are these ruins exactly?" Moon grunted as Mew floated around him.
"According to the brochure I found inside, they are located to the west near a giant canyon." Sarah replied. "Let's get going-" She was cut off by Moon brushing past her and walking across the west side over to a battlefield where Ruby and Echo were standing in front of an Aipom with the Darmanitan from before behind them.
"You're pathetic." Ruby snarled at the monkey, who had several burn marks and bruises all over its body. "You can't honestly expect to stand up to the likes of stronger trainers if you can't even beat basic Pokemon, let alone my Darmanitan."
"Ai- Pom Pom!" The purple monkey grunted as it struggled to lift itself off the floor of the battlefield.
"You can't honestly expect us to believe that we should keep you?" Echo sneered. "That's just stupid talk, especially when we gave you enough chances."
Moon pushed past them and picked the Aipom up in his hands before turning to face them with an angry stare.
"Is this some kind of stupid joke?" he hissed at them. "You haven't let this poor Aipom take a break by the looks of things and you've been hurting it over and over with your own powerful Pokemon.
"The strongest Pokemon require the strength and endurance to carry forth in battle, no matter how many times they get kicked, they gotta get back up. If they stay down, they're pathetic and weak." Echo replied, shrugging him off.
Sarah finally approached him, he simply handed Aipom to her and turned to face them.
"You can't honestly tell me you just beat your Pokemon senseless?" Moon gritted, evident that he was struggling to keep in some sort of rage behind him. "That's just wrong on so many levels...you could kill them if you weren't careful!"
"And?" Ruby asked. "If they die in the process, it's their own fault for being weak."
Moon twitched as Mew floated back over to him and patted him on the head.
Both trainers raised an eyebrow at the sight of the legendary.
"Oh, what's this?" Ruby sneered. "Did you get sick of losing so much with your pathetic Baby Pokemon that Manaphy left for you that you decided to go and catch an unbeatable legendary.
"Oh dear." Shaymin's voice sighed to Sarah. "You may want to back up here."
Moon's face was shaking red with anger. "What?" he gritted, clearly trying to keep in a straight up shouting match.
"Are you deaf? Do you suffer from a short attention span?" Echo asked. "Jeez, no wonder Manaphy decided to help you, you're just a pathetic trainer who needed help and guidance. Clearly you learned that you don't have to-"
Moon ignored them and took out Lancer's pokeball, releasing the green beedrill from its home. The beedrill glared back down at its old trainers.
"You still carry that stupid thing around with you?" Ruby said, fighting down the urge to laugh.
"Poison jab!" Moon hissed.
Lancer's drills flashed the purplish color as he charged at his old trainers. Darmanitan quickly hopped in front of them and readied a fire punch, but Lancer pierced through the Pokemon blowing it across the battlefield and through an fenced off area where the Fire type splashed into the water.
Ruby and Echo both stood there with wide eyes as Lancer returned to Moon's side.
"WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT FOR?" Echo snarled.
Moon snorted. "Your first reaction wasn't even to go help your partner? It was to just sit here and yell at me? That's all I needed to know. I'm done dealing with the likes of you." Moon turned to walk off, before Ruby forcefully grabbed him and turned him around.
"Are you stupid?" he snarled. "You can't just cheat your way through a battle and then walk off."
"I didn't cheat, I merely made an example. Your Darmanitan recognized that you were in danger and hopped in front of you to save you because it cared about you. However, it just got defeated in one blow by the same Beedrill that you thought was too weak to handle for your own team." Moon hissed back. "I suppose that next time I see you, that Darmanitan won't be with you anymore huh?"
"You cheat-" Moon punched the boy across the face, and then shoved him off the docks into the water.
"Until you both learn to care for your Pokemon, I don't want to see your faces ever again." he hissed. "Don't you ever beat such poor and innocent Pokemon to death with your training."
"You can't just-" Echo started.
"You still haven't gone and helped your Darmanitan." Moon muttered. "Some friend you are to your trainer huh?" Ruby got out of the water, coughing and hacking, probably from inhaling so much sea water. Moon simply returned Lancer to his pokeball before walking away.
Sarah watched him go, horrified by everything that had just happened.
"What...what happened to my friend? Why?" She asked, "I need...I need to find a way to help snap him out of it." she looked down at the Aipom in her hands, who was looking up at her with a smile. She felt a wave crash on her foot before turning away from both Ruby and Echo.
My apologies for the fact that this chapter is short, I know, it seems like my chapters keep getting shorter, but I've honestly found myself in a constant struggle with this story. I don't want to drag on long indulging battles every chapter as I find myself utterly annoyed by it as battle scenes are never a good struggle with me, and the character development just doesn't serve the longest of chapters that my Earthbound Story keeps going off of. So, I guess it would probably be in the norm to expect short chapters from now until the end, I'll probably extend the final fight with Necrozma and Cyrus to be as long as I can possibly manage, but I've just found myself in a more reconcile with myself. In frank terms, I probably should've just done 2,500 - 3,000 words per chapter to begin with, as I find Pokémon to not be as easy to right for long drawn out chapters since I struggle to find a mix between character and battle. I do really apologize for this. Anyway, for whatever reason, someone decided that we should require mandatory work in my school system after letting us do nothing for like a month and half, so now my schedule of writing is probably going to worsen. At this point... Well...anyway...I'm not sure if I'll have the next chapter to Exeggecutor Island up next week as my schedule is thrown into haywire...but...I hope you all enjoyed this chapter...it was honestly not easy for me to just keep writing this out...I'm not even discouraged about writing this story, I do enjoy writing it. Well...in any event, that's all for today's chapter. PKMN Teams: Moon Wolfe: Fabby - Ninetales Sarah Jones
Sapphire - Lucario
Jade - Dartrix
Sammy - Furret
Genji - Greninja
Silver - Weavile
Lancer - Beedrill
Gojira - Tyranitar
Sparky - Jolteon
Pandora - Absol
Fluffy - Mew
Nebby - Cosmoem
Angel - Gardevior
Snowy - Glaceon
Scar - Incineroar
Candy - Corsola
Bellatrix - Mismagius
Flora - Lilligant
Delta - Dragalge
Lyn - Baby Kanga
Techno - Porygon Z
Pikaboo - Mimikyu
-Shaymin
Nebula - Cosmoem