Chapter 27: Altar Above All

The boat that carried Moon and Sarah to Exeggutor Island parked by the docks of the harbor town. The two stepped off the boat and began their trek back towards Vast Poni Canyon while Fabby, Sapphire, and Angel walked behind them. Along the way they passed by an adobe clay built house.

"Such interesting architecture." Sarah commented. "This place truly does try to capture that whole 'Natural Terrain.' aspect."

"It's simplistic." Moon replied.

The door to the house opened as Erick and Petra walked out of the house, followed by Sunny and Ares.

"Oh there you two are." Erick said.

"Hey Erick," Moon replied.

"Not insane anymore? Great to know." Erick replied. "We came to accompany you both to the altar of the sun and moon in the center of the canyon...you do have the twin flutes right?"

"Yeah, we also still have the Cosmoems as well.

"What Pokemon do you have on you?"

"I have Fabby, Lancer, Sapphire, Genji, Fluffy, and Nebby."

"I have Angel, Snowy, Scar, Lyn, Grace, and Nebula."

"Didn't Lillie call Nebula something like Eclipse all the way back in chapter two?" Erick asked.

"Um…maybe…"

"Wait...why do you still have Lyn?" Petra asked.

"She's a strong little baby." Sarah replied.

"Well...we're just going around here...walking around a canyon." Moon said as they walked through a cave. "How's life at Aether been?"

"Less than perfect." Erick muttered. "Everytime we think we've cleared the place out, we find another freaking laboratory with more crap."

"How mad was that woman?" Moon muttered. "I mean...we all know there's screws loose in Cyrus...but Lusamine?"

"It appears that she was holding onto Mew for quite some time." Erick said. "Records and surveillance have shown it being a part of Aether as far as two years back."

"Oh, speaking of Aether...what happened to Faba?" Moon asked.

"You uh...You killed him." Erick replied. "We found his body crushed under that Steelix."

"Not like that's a bad thing though." Petra added quickly, noticing Sarah's look of horror. "He was about five times worse than Lusamine...and...in all honesty...he was kind of a creep."

"I will admit though." Erick said, "They were testing all sorts of crap that we thought had been destroyed during the raid on the Plasma Frigate, though, it seems Lusamine had contact with Ghetsis and the evil Team Plasma before we stopped them and she switched to Cyrus."

"What sorts of things were they testing?" Sarah asked curiously.

"Well...for one thing...it seemed like they were testing battle armor." Erick replied. "They had a whole arsenal of developmental armor for certain Pokemon, Tyranitar, Leavanny, Flygon, Volcorona...and...for some odd reason...Zekrom and Mewtwo."

"How were they testing armor on Zekrom and Mewtwo if they didn't have access to them?"

"Who knows."

The five pokemon walking behind their trainers looked at them as they walked onwards.

"Such a crazy life sometimes." Sunny sighed. "I just want to go home and take and nap."

"So much for you being Erick's go to knight Pokemon." Ares replied. "You become worse."

"You all had an adventure back then." Angel asked. "How did you manage?"

"Petra just captured a few Pokemon while Erick just caught a lot." Ares replied.

"We've got many things to do." Fabby sighed. "I'm scared though...what if Cyrus does the same thing again? What if we can't get Manaphy back and we're forced to walk the path of evil?"

"Whatever happens, we'll have each other." Sapphire replied.

"Speaking of happenings, have you guys thought about what's going to happen once your journey ends?" Sunny asked, tilting his green head to the side.

"What do you mean?" Angel asked.

"I mean...only one person can become Champion." Ares said. "Unless Moon and Sarah are fully committed to each other, if one of them wins the Alola League, it may be time that you guys part ways."

Fabby looked between Sapphire and Angel. Lucario and Gardevior seemed to suddenly be aware as to what the end of this adventure meant.

"I...I guess we never really considered the possibility." Sapphire replied. "I had always assumed that we'd...continue to travel together after this was over."

"I...I guess you're right." Angel replied. "We've been together...for so long now...and now...our journey is almost at its end."

"But...But...you two are like...like the glue!" Fabby cried. "You two were the main connection that kept us all together...we can't just separate! What about Genji and Candy? Silver and Flora? The two of you?"

"Whatever Moon and Sarah decides to do I guess." Angel said.

Fabby looked down at the ground.

"Is something wrong?" Fabby flinched up and looked around.

"Who...who said that?"

"That...that's not important...is there something troubling you...young Ninetales?"

"I...what? Isn't it a little too late for this?"

"Perhaps...but I've been watching you...you, Moon, and Sarah."

"Why would you watch us?"

"That is not important...perhaps we watch a lot. We usually reveal ourselves to the Pokemon first."

"What...who...what are you?"

"Technically, I am a Pokemon like you."

"I don't understand."

"Well...we look for talented trainers and their team of Pokemon. Just know that we could see a bright future where your trainer and his friend do not separate. But we can't be sure just yet, you are forbidden from trying to communicate this to your trainer."

"But I can't communicate with my trainer."

"Then this should be rather simple for you."

"Fabby?" The silver Ninetales blinked back into existence as Angel and the rest of the Pokemon were looking at her with confused expressions.

"I'm...I'm okay...I...I just had the strangest dream. I was talking to someone...they said they were looking at Moon and Sarah for something...he said something about offering a future for them."

"Are you sure you're feeling okay?" Sapphire asked.

"I'm...yeah...I'm feeling alright."

"It's quite strange...stuff just keeps happening...like...can't we just do crap."

"I wonder what that was all about?"

Dan and Lavender stood in position inside of a glowing dark city.

"This is the greatest day of my life!" Lavender said. "Soon we'll rule all of Alola."

"I'm so glad you decided to stay with us instead of going back to the shitworks that was your messed up family." Dan replied.

"I didn't really like being a part of those assholes anyway." Lavender replied, "Guzma was always gone doing shit and getting in trouble and Lusamine wanted to hide me from her shitty kids. Didn't even acknowledge my existence until she needed me to help get those damn Cosmogs back. With you though, I've found acknowledgement and a purpose."

"That's true…"

"So uh...just out of curiosity...what do we do if those two little bitch keepers show up and beat us?"

Dan snorted. "I doubt those little bitches will stop Necrozma...especially since they'll be showing up with Five Pokemon a piece."

"How do we know they'll even have those two Cosmoems? What if Lillie didn't give them up?"

"We know they have them. Manaphy served her use until they somehow figured out what we were doing...and speaking of that little twerp." Dan took out the dark ball and released the water legendary from it's confinements. The small pokemon glared up at them almost as if behind that deadly stare, it actually looked disgusted by the mere sight of them.

"So, if they want to stop us, they gotta go through us, Azelf, Uxie, Mespirit, Cresselia, Heatran, and only then will they have a shot at dealing with the Ultra Instinct Necrozma?"

"Pretty much." Dan replied. "I doubt anything can stand in our way at this point."

There was a sudden loud screech as a black shot of light shot above overhead, entering a large blue wormhole that tore into the sky.

"Looks like it's about that time huh?"

"Seems so? Are we fighting?"

"Hell yeah we are!"

"So...many...freaking...stairs!" Moon grunted. "I...hate...these...stupid...freaking...stairs!"

"Jesus you're so freaking lazy." Erick muttered.

"Says you." Moon muttered.

"If you struggle to climb simple stairs, how do you expect to do things later in life?" Petra asked.

"You two went through more shit than this." Moon muttered.

The four of them arrived at the top where they found a giant glass panel on the bottom that showed a sun and moon on the center.

"Alright, we've arrived at the altar of the Sunne and Moone." Sarah heaved. "This is where we needed to come and do the things."

"So, we need to...play the flutes to summon Solgaleo and Lunala?" Moon asked. "I don't know the first thing about playing a flute."

"Well, according to the legends, the Flute chooses the heroes, but you will need to play the flute to contact that of the legendaries." Petra said. "I think it is best that you two go on. After all, it is your legendary Pokemon that you are rescuing, Moon."

"Yes, that is fitting." Moon replied, taking the Moon flute out of his backpack as Sarah took out the Sun flute.

"You need to both stand on the respective symbol." Erick said, moving his sunglasses up. "Then play the flute."

"Is there a specific tune that we need to play?" Moon asked. "Are we gonna need to do some Zelda Majora's Mask like bullshit? Let's play the song of time and go back three days prior?"

"You really need to lay off the references and analogies."

"This song is dedicated to the power of the heart…" Moon continued. "Listen to the Bolero of Fire!"

"Seriously...you make references to games you've never even touched! Like...what? And also, that doesn't even work! Sheik plays that song on a harp!"

"Light us a way, Moon!" Sarah called over from the sun panel. Angel stood next to her of course. Sapphire and Fabby were on either of his sides.

Both Moon and Sarah both blew into the flutes, some weird musical notes blew out at first, before a small little melody began to form.

Out of nowhere, two bursts of light emerged from their backpacks as the two Cosmoems generated in front of them.

"Keep playing!" Petra called as both Moon and Sarah started to slow down their less than feeble attempts. Clearly it was some sort of magic helping them.

"Cos!" Both pokemon floated around the small glass pane on the floor, they soared around and around like a little dancing couple...without arms or legs. The two protostar pokemon suddenly had streams of light emerge from the little pond that surrounded the circular altar where they floated. They connected with the streams of light and their bodies began to expand.

Nebby grew to form a more bat-like body with gold edges that formed around the edge of her wings. Her face grew smaller and she received a small little neck with glowing red eyes and golden purple horns around the top of her head.

Nebula started to expand into a tall pearly white looking lion. The main body formed to look like a lion with his mane being the same white color but with a sun like mane with hints of yellow and orange sprinkled around it. Its body appeared to be made of metal and it had a dark blue mask like face with light blue lights to seem to function as eyes.

Moon and Sarah both lowered the flutes from their mouths and looked at the two legendary Pokemon before them.

"What is your wish?" Nebby asked as she floated over top of the altar.

"You two have helped us time and time again. Let us show our gratitude." Nebula continued.

"Well you could start by-" Sarah was cut off as the sudden rumble of earth began to shake the ground continuously. From up in the sky, a large tear of a bluish wormhole opened up and a jet streak of black shot out of the hole. The streak soared into Nebula blasting Solgaleo across the ruins.

The dust settled revealing a creature that looked like it was made of shining black prisms. The creature had two blood shot eyes, absolutely massive arms and small legs and was levitating in front of a damaged Solgaleo. There were several parts just sticking out with sharp pointed spikes at the end.

"Necrozma." Moon grunted. "This was the supposed monster Pokemon that Cyrus was after...and given that it's here now...I can only assume that means Cyrus captured it."

"Victini, V-Create!"

"Meloetta! Relic Song!"

A small rabbit like Pokemon with tiny wings and blue eyes with a giant orange V on its head soared into Necrozma while the flames on its ears grew. Another Pokemon with an olive green body, white legs and face, with a green music sheet like hair and blue eyes with a grown portion that looked like a headset microphone fired several musical notes from her mouth.

The music notes surrounded Victini as it slammed into Necrozma at full force. Or...so it had seemed, smoke cleared and Necrozma held Victini in its firm arm. The small rabbit pokemon struggled to break free from its hold.

"A foolish miscalculation!" Necrozma hissed. "Did you honestly think that would work?"

Nebby suddenly fired a blue laser beam from her mouth blasting Necrozma backwards. Nebula got up from its blow into the cliff and charged into Necrozma while his body was surrounded by what appeared to be a scorching hot fire.

Necrozma got up from its little crater that was created from Nebula's forceful Sunsteel Strike. It's left hand began flashing multiple colors before a rainbow colored beam shot from its hands. The beam blasted the Sun and Moon legendaries backwards on top of Victini and Meloetta.

"Fabby, Flamethrower! Sapphire, use Aura Blast!"

Fabby fired a blast of fire from her mouth, while Sapphire charged a blue beam of aura flames from in his paws before launching the beam at Necrozma, The prism legendary quickly dodged the two attacks.

"Now Angel, use Shadow Ball!"

Angel fired the same purple sphere of light from her hands. The ball exploded onto Necrozma's prism like armor, but the attack looked like it didn't do a thing.

"Spare me the trouble, children." Necrozma hissed. "You are not worth my time, Master Cyrus requires that I take back what was rightfully mine." It glared cold heartedly at Nebby and Nebula, now fully evolved and shaking on the ground.

Sunny and Ares both fired a trail of lightning and seeds that exploded onto Necrozma's prism armor, Fabby used Fire Spin to surround the creature and trap it in a fiery tornado while Sapphire and Angel launched an Aura Sphere and Psycho Sphere at the same time. The five attacks collided with the colossal prism Pokemon. Once again, it didn't do a damn thing.

The giant Pokemon simply spun around, sending another prismatic laser attack all over the place. The rainbow colored beam of light shot down all Five Pokemon leading to Necrozma to once again charge at Solgaleo and Lunala this time, golden light surrounded the creature as it exploded into both creatures. Then, a streak of gold light shot back through the wormhole, there was no sign of it, or Nebby and Nebula.

"Looks like it got what it came for and then retreated, just like Cyrus." Moon scowled. "Guess we don't have a choice now, time to go into Ultra Space. Erick? Petra? You coming?"

"Perhaps it would be more beneficial to try and find a way to seal the wormholes permanently." Erick replied. "That was what the Ultra Recon Squad was helping Cynthia work on."

"I can't just leave Manaphy trapped in Ultra Space with Cyrus. Not after everything that happened with Edelgard." Moon fired back. "I don't care, I'm going after Cyrus, I need to get Manaphy back."

"I'm coming with you Moon." Sarah said quickly. "We need to go together."

Moon nodded as the two of them returned Sapphire, Angel, and Fabby to their poke balls.

"Good luck you two." Erick said calmly. "May the odds be ever in your favor."

"Can't you just give us some of Victini's victory energy and allow us to win the fight?" Moon asked.

"Sorry, but the plot of this story doesn't allow it." Petra replied.

Sarah sighed as she grabbed Moon's hand and they looked at the large wormhole in front of them. "No matter what happens," she said. "We do this together, for all of us."

"You got it Sarah." Moon replied. The two then set foot through the Ultra Wormhole, hoping they ended up wherever they needed to go.

That's all for today's chapter, I hope you enjoyed it. Seeing as how we just went through and Ultra Wormhole, why don't we do an Omake dedicated to that?

Omake number 10; Roria's Heroes, While travelling through the Ultra Wormhole, Sarah ends up separated from Moon, she lands herself in a very strange universe.

"Gah!" Sarah grunted as she was spit out of the large blue wormhole into the ground. She got up and brushed herself off before looking around, she was in some weird looking forest with a bush and pathways. She saw a campfire and looked over it carefully, only to be met with a strange sight.

Moon was sitting over a notebook writing something down. By the looks of things, it appeared to be a different Moon than the one she called her boyfriend. For one thing, around the campfire, he had a few different Pokémon. He still had Fabby, Sapphire, and Genji. However, he also had a pale looking Sunflora dancing around, an Archeops sat perched in a tree, and a female Wobbuffet stood motionless around him.

The sudden rustling of the bushes saw Petra come out, followed by Ares. Unlike the Petra she was used to, this Petra was wearing a dark blue T-shirt and black sweatpants. She sat down next to Moon on a tree stump while Ares went to talk with Sapphire.

"How about, I'd rather have a buffalo take a diarrhea dump in my ear?" Moon asked.

"To AVGN for this story," Petra replied. "Plus, the way you're going characterizing yourself for Bound By Earth, that line seems very out of character at the moment."

"Yeah, I guess you're right." Moon muttered. "Grrr, writing this story is so frustrating, and here I am sitting here talking to you about it."

"Hey, it's not a bad story." Petra replied. "People do read it, and you get feedback every now and again."

"I suppose you've got a point." Moon muttered. "Plus, I've got that whole friendship going on with Phoenix, so I guess it'd be a crime to leave this story high and dry."

"Maybe you're thinking about it too much, just go with what comes to mind, that's what makes your writing so good, you don't really think about what you've written until it's been posted, then you get all 'dammit, now that I've read it, it sounds freaking awful.' only to then receive feedback and positivity from others. You come here all the time to talk to me about what people think huh?"

"Yeah, I suppose so." Moon replied. "Well, back to the plot of this, we need to find Team Eclipse and rescue our parents and Tess."

"It'll be hard with Jake on their side now." Petra replied. "Especially since they now have access to the most Bullshit team I've ever seen."

"Yeah, Leftovers Vaporeon with Max defenses and Acid Armor plus Aqua Ring, Zebstrika with an electric gem, Scope Lens Unfezant with Super Luck and Focus Energy, Guts flame orb Ursarang with Bulk Up, His Mega Gengar, and a freaking Moxie Scrafty to top it all off. Seriously, what the hell?"

"I mean, this is called Hardcore Pokémon," Petra replied. "And you've got quite the team to take it on."

"I know, I know, but everywhere you go, there's a trainer with five competitively created Pokémon, F.E.A.R Strageties, Megas, Hell the gym leaders even have freaking Legendary Pokémon on their team. Everyone in this godforsaken game is out here ready to kick our ass. WE NEEDED LEVEL 40 POKEMON TO BEAT GYM 2!" he shouted.

"Which is why you've built a team to basically counter all the stuff you've got, Drought Ninetales with Life Orb, Mega Lucario, Battle Bond Greninja, Solar Power Sunflora, Flying Gem boosted acrobatics Archeops, and Wobbuffet is just an annoying Pokémon in general."

"I suppose so," Moon replied. "I guess that means we've got to go in. Let's go ahead and keep moving." The two stood up, returning their Pokémon to their Poke balls, then they left the area after putting the campfire out.

"Must've ended up in an alternate dimension or some crap." Sarah muttered. "Back to the Wormhole."

I don't expect you to be familiar with what this Omake is about, but basically, someone made a Hardcore Pokémon game. This game basically takes everything you know about Pokémon and turns it up by fifty. Trainers think like competitive players with large scaled, well diverse teams of Pokémon. The game goes out of its way to put you through hell. Early game trainers have Dragon Rage, or evolved Pokémon at unexpected times. The first Gym leader has level 18 Pokémon. But in between the events of the first and second gym, you need to have level 40 fully evolved Pokémon to take it on. On top of that, the gym leader has a legendary and Mega Evolution before you have access to them and the game continues to get harder.

I played this game alongside Petra while I was in development of Bound By Earth, during this time, I was frustrated with a lot of stuff and considered dropping Fanfiction Writing, but she encouraged me to keep writing, and that's pretty much how she became a character in my stories. While Petra and I have since grown distant from those days, we still have chatted every now and again. I don't know if she still reads any of my stories, if she does, that's incredible and I hope she enjoys them.

Anyway, if you're wondering what happened to this Hardcore Pokémon game, I'll give you one guess, yeah, I wish Nintendo was like Sega, who actually encourages Fan-made projects...I guess that's one positive thing I can say about them.

Onto a more important matter, I wanted to talk a bit about this story. I do not wish to write about the post game with Team Rainbow Rocket and the two new Ultra Beasts, if you want to see that, you should follow A New Dawn. Instead, this story will end with the champion battle/epilogue, then I'll probably jump into a new Pokémon story. I was thinking maybe writing Erick and Petra's adventure in Unova if you wanted to see that. Or maybe I'll write a direct sequel to this story, who knows. I never really expected this story to grow...but I guess somethings come back to surprise me.

Next chapter will be the final fight with Cyrus I suppose, that may take a while to write so I'm not sure if I'll have it up by next week, we'll have to see.

Either way, I hope you enjoyed this chapter, you can leave a review if you want or just say Nice chapter, both are greatly appreciated.

PKMN Teams:

Moon Wolfe:

Fabby - Ninetales
Sapphire - Lucario
Jade - Decidueye
Sammy - Furret
Genji - Greninja
Silver - Weavile
Lancer - Beedrill
Gojira - Tyranitar
Sparky - Jolteon
Pandora - Absol
Fluffy - Mew
Nebby - Lunala
Joker - Aipom

Sarah Jones
Angel - Gardevior
Snowy - Glaceon
Scar - Incineroar
Candy - Corsola
Bellatrix - Mismagius
Flora - Lilligant
Delta - Dragalge
Lyn - Baby Kanga
Lucky - Togekiss
Techno - Porygon Z
Pikaboo - Mimikyu
Grace - Shaymin
Nebula - Solgaleo

See you all next time.