Chapter 54 – Arc 4 (Poni Island) Rewrite the Stars

Although stepping into Tapu Fini's lair had been nerve-wracking at first, Hau only able to remember how hopeless and beaten he had felt when he had met her aggressive, defensive sister alongside Mallow all those months ago, it quickly dawned on him that she was nothing like her kin. Selene had told him how she had witnessed the tale of the Tapus actually hailing from another region—Unova, to be exact—and that they had once inhabited the body of ordinary Absol. Watching Tapu Fini's continued story play out above Selene's head like a sandy hologram, while an ethereal, feminine voice narrated for them, he had felt a stirring deep in his chest. The same when he had solemnly realized he had to pick a side, to stay on the ground or taste the flames of the sun, after he and Selene had argued so much time ago over her usage of him to contact Tapu Koko again. Except this time, it wasn't solemn. He didn't feel defeated, used, or apprehensive.

Truth be told, he was done feeling such a way. When he had turned and told Selene he was with her, it was not the same empty nothings he had told her in the past, where he had given her such sincere words while privately hoping one day, he might believe them. This time, he did believe them. He had been burned before, he had walked through hell and back, and he would do it again if it meant everything that had happened wouldn't be in vain. Whether that meant his own suffering, Popper's death, Mallow's practiced patience with him, the hopelessness Tapu Fini had endured, the forced faithlessness of Hapu, the dissolving, broken Skull Gang—it didn't matter. It would not be for nothing, if there was anything he had to say about it.

Despite how energized he felt, though, as he stepped back onto that dark, stony pathway lined by colorful seashells, he bent down and scratched his Umbreon on the head. The egg he had acquired all that time ago—had it been on Akala Island?—had hatched into an Eevee, which, during the couple of months he had spent with Mallow, had evolved into an Umbreon. Despite how fiercely, dangerously hopeful he felt, he did not lose that soft, gentle façade he had adopted over the years. He hugged the Umbreon then. "I'm glad you're okay, Ho'ololi," he told him in Alolan, stroking its chest. When he broke the embrace, the Umbreon bent down in a playful position, his tail waving rapidly, all as the golden rings at different points of his body lit up.

Yet, his private fervor came to a halt as Gladion followed him outside, prompting Plumeria to uncertainly pick her way over to them from where she had been standing a distance away. "Learn anything?" she asked, throwing the entrance of the den cautious looks here and there.

Shaking his head, Gladion spoke first, cutting Hau short. "Well, yes," he admitted, "but… it's way over our heads."

"Ae?" Hau jumped up and blinked. "What?"

Affronted, Gladion just looked at him. "You can't tell me you're seriously agreeing with going out there, going to that Altar, and messing with all of this?"

Shaking his head, Hau replied, "And you're not?"

Gladion scoffed in sheer disbelief. "You were there at Aether Paradise when it sank," Gladion shot back. "Hello? Earth to Hau? Do you remember how quick that spiraled out of control?"

Wincing, Hau clamped his mouth shut, pressing his lips to a thin line. Ho'ololi jumped up at his side and the Umbreon's hackles raised at the tension in the air. "How could I forget?" Hau asked, deathly calm as he narrowed his eyes up at Gladion like daggers. Slowly, he put his hands in his pockets.

"My sister, everyone else, Selene—" Gladion cut himself off and groaned in frustration, plucking at some of his hair. "I am not letting them go out on some suicide mission again, understand?"

Null, from Gladion's side, took a deliberate step toward Ho'ololi and gave a mechanized, warning growl. The Umbreon's rings only glowed again as he flexed claws against the craggy earth.

"Hey, both o' you," Plumeria snapped, barging between them. "Chill. Everyone, just chill." Shaking her head, she demanded, "What the hell happened in there?"

They were interrupted when Hapu, shortly followed by Selene and Lillie, exited the den. Hapu pushed through them all, soon chased by Lillie. "Hapu, wait," Lillie called, "wait—this, the Altar of the Sunne, do you know how to get there?"

"I don't know what mess y'all've gotten into," Hapu said, batting away Lillie's hands, "but I ain't part of it. Follow the Vast Poni Canyon deeper in. Stick to the left cliffs… Hey. I can register my Mudsdale as a Ride Pokémon for ya. He—"

"No," Gladion interjected, flatly cutting Hapu off. He crossed his arms and settled a pointed gaze on Lillie. "Lillie, no."

Recoiling, obviously having not expected that, Lillie bewilderedly blinked and sputtered, "Wh—Gladion, 'no' what?"

"We're not going to that Altar, we're not doing this," he said firmly, arms still crossed. "Whatever problem lies out there"—he pointed vaguely at the sky suddenly—"is not ours to solve. We're just us! An organization that was regularly researching and building up to something like this couldn't even handle it! We're not gods!"

Selene glanced uncertainly to Hau, who still felt fiery pangs of determination in his chest, yet he hadn't a chance to say a word. Because it was Lillie who got into her brother's face and fiercely curled her lips. "No, we're not! Nobody is! Nobody ever will be! If that's the case, Gladion, then who do you suggest solves these problems? Who do you suggest saves Elio? What about Guzma? What if we"—she gestured rapidly between them all—"finally have the tools to fix this and we're the only ones who are even entertaining the idea of giving it a shot?"

"Why is that our problem?" Gladion hissed impatiently. "Look—we got fucked six ways to Sunday just trying to stop our own mother! And you want to go have a tea party with some monster from another world?"

"What the hell do we even have to lose?" Lillie demanded, shaking Nebby's Nest Ball in his face. At that remark, Hau's nerve suddenly seemed to dissipate. He jolted in surprise. Did Lillie feel… like she was at the end of some rope? But how, when he felt like they were at the cusp of something great? Calming down some, Lillie sighed. "Glad, do you really want to keep going like that? Fighting just to get by and accepting it as it is? Abandoning people who we might be able to save, just to protect your own skin?"

He looked down. "You aren't doing that out of the goodness of your heart, Lillie, don't pretend you are," he quietly told her. "Not for Nebby, Elio, or even potentially Guzma."

Hau could practically feel the group around him collectively wince. Conviction wavering more and more, he adopted his more usual response to such situations: keeping his mouth closed very, very tightly.

"Glad, that's cold," Plumeria icily warned.

Gaping, Lillie didn't seem to have a reply for that one.

"Don't look at me like that, I didn't say it was a bad thing," Gladion said, shaking his head. "Lillie, please. What good is killing ourselves to try this going to do?" He reached his hands forward and clasped them to Lillie's left, covering Nebby's Nest Ball. "I know you miss him. I know. But you—you're—you're starting to sound like Mom, and I'm just… I'm just worried—"

"—I am not her—!"

"—Hey, I didn't say you were, but this is exactly how we sounded before we went running off to that fucking island, you're not—"

"Just stop! Let me go do this!" Lillie spat fiercely, wrenching away from him. Locking eyes with him, her voice broke some as she said, "Like… like you said. It's not a bad thing. Glad, even if… if I want to go a different path than you, it's not a bad thing. I need this. I can't live thinking I missed this. I can't put anyone else in danger, asking them to do it for me." She was clearly tearing up, clutching Nebby's Nest Ball close to her chest, Elio's Ninetales sympathetically rubbing against her legs. "Glad, I can't. I have to do this. For me and for them… What's wrong with that?"

"Hey…" Selene whispered softly, finding an in to the conversation. She sympathetically looked between Lillie and Gladion. "Who… who says this is going to go as poorly as last time? Who even says it's all true? For all we know, Tapu Fini is remembering wrong, or Koko gave me the wrong stones, or—" Selene cut the tension with a terse laugh. "Like… Like Lillie said, back in the cave, after you left, Gladion… We'll all be together for this one. You all can't lean on me; we have to, and we will, lean on each other. We'll back out if it starts going south."

He didn't know how Selene's words seemed to always ease him, but Hau gently smiled to himself, and found the courage to move forward then. In Alolan, he affirmed with her, "Ae, together, this time." He put his hand over his heart. An unspoken promise of solidarity, acceptance, and understanding. "We've been through worse… We've learned… And if what Tapu Fini said is true, we'll… we'll have a Sun Beast or Moon Beast to help us. Who knows what we could learn out there."

"I just think this is something that should be left to professionals. Just because Mom and Faba were a bunch of quacks doesn't mean everyone that worked at Aether or all their research is," Gladion sighed. "Hell, I'm technically the inheritor, I could go work on putting the pieces back together and within a few months, have some teams that—"

Lillie impatiently stomped a foot. "It's already been a couple of months; we don't have another few months!"

"Gladion…"

He paused and looked up at Selene. "Yes?" he apprehensively asked.

Giving him an understanding, compassionate look, Selene softly smiled. "I promise. She'll come back. I… I know I didn't do so well with Elio…" Grimacing, Selene closed her eyes. "But I promise, at the first sign things are going poorly at the Altar, we'll get out of there. I won't try to be the hero. Because, as you said, we're not gods—I know I'm not… I've… I've learned. I promise."

When she opened her eyes again, Hau saw her face light up with encouragement that Gladion seemed to finally accept. Something about her ability to connect with him really rubbed Hau the wrong way, though, and he made it a point to go right back to staying very quiet. Guiltily, he knew that was bad; it was a good thing that Gladion's nerves had been eased. Yet, once again, the same as he had felt watching Selene and Elio interact when they had first arrived in Alola, he was starting to feel like there was something between Selene and Gladion he would never be able to touch or understand. For as much as he saw her as a friend and deeply appreciated her company, as it was something he had not often had in his life prior to her arrival in Alola, she seemed to always find someone else to latch closer to…

He shook his head. Such a thought was not an important matter right then. Plastering that grin on his face, he gave Gladion an equally as encouraging nod, even if it was a far cry from Selene's genuineness. "Ae. We'll be careful." Turning to Lillie, Hau nudged her with his elbow. "Right?"

Lillie took a little too long to respond for Hau's liking. "Yeah," she agreed in the end. "Yeah."

"I've already been dragged into every crazy scheme my friends have come up with until now," Plumeria snidely remarked, trying to weasel her way into their pow-wow, "I might as well come with y'all on this one."

"Hapu?" Selene called, craning her head to look over their group. The girl was standing a good distance away from them, hands on her hips, a begrudging expression on her face, glowering at the seashells around them as if they were to blame for her current predicament.

"You bunch're contagious," she huffed in annoyance, crossing her arms instead.

Grinning, encouraged by her waning defiance, Hau teased her, "Ae, does that mean you're coming with us?"

Huffily raising her chin and turning away from them, Hapu almost petulantly remarked, "Maybe."

"You'll decide on the way there?" Selene cheekily added, catching onto the fact that, as much as Hapu wanted to cling to her faithlessness, her meeting with Hapu had piqued her curiosity. She wanted to go, even if she didn't want to admit it.

Hapu said nothing else as she stormed away from the Ruins of Hope. Temporarily forgetting all about his irritation with Gladion, Hau clapped his thigh to encourage Ho'ololi to follow him, and he, Plumeria, and Lillie all started after Hapu. Yet, just before disappearing around a bend and out of eyeshot of Selene and Gladion, he tossed a look over his shoulder. Just then, he saw Selene take Gladion's left hand into her right and give it a reassuring squeeze.

"I wouldn't wish anything like what happened with my brother on anyone," he strained to hear Selene say. "I know I shouldn't make promises… but I promise she'll be okay."

"I'm coming with you," he dully snorted in forced amusement, shaking his head. "You act like I'm staying behind. I still think it would be better to try and put Aether back together and handle it. But if she and you are both going, then so am I."

With a satisfied smile, Selene pulled away from him, acting as if she intended to follow the others, but she stopped when Gladion called out to her. "Wait!"

"Huh?" She expectantly blinked back at him.

"I… I just…" He gave a deep, resounding sigh. "Thank you…"

With that, Hau decided he really didn't need to hear anymore.

Elio had seen the Aether Foundation's unhinged nature up close all that time ago, but that was unmatched by Lusamine, as she were now. As soon as she had passed into Ultra Megalopolis, he had stroked Lunala's face, and climbed astride the beast's back. There was simply no time to wait for Dr. Colress to come fix his helmet, and without that, no way for him to communicate with Dulse or Zossie, who both shouted at him to wait.

"Elio Isono! You do not have the capability of ordering that beast to attack, nor do you have any weaponry of your own to use to defend yourself! Get back down here, immediately!" Dulse barked.

But he didn't. Ignoring him, he fitted into a complex, mechanized harness on Lunala's back, designed to hold him in place no matter what. She gave her ethereal bellow and zoomed into the sky, overlooking much of the dreary, metropolitan city. The glaring lights of Megalo Tower silhouetted him against the darkened sky as the Mother Beast, Lusamine herself, approached him, her dark, swirling body blotting out much of what light did pass by them. Frustrated by his inability to speak to her, Elio gritted his teeth, and flipped up the glassy visor that protected most of his face. "Lusamine!" he mouthed at her, tilting his head desperately, pleading with her with his eyes. "Don't do this," he added silently. It won't help anything… It doesn't have to be this way… You and I spoke, I know this isn't really you…

Of course, her next words could have fooled him. "You should've stayed back in the Ultra Deep Sea and let the blood drain from your throat," Lusamine wickedly growled at him, her gleaming eyes narrowing to bladed slits against her pale face, and the inky hair that framed it. "Now, you're ugly, broken, voiceless…" More Nihilego began to hang in the air around him. Elio felt Lunala give an uneasy lurch below him, looking around anxiously. Suddenly, Lusamine roared, "Whether you die right now or later, it doesn't matter, but there's no room in my world for someone so ugly and imperfect, not in the world of my and Nihilego's love!"

Dozens and dozens, if not hundreds, of smaller, white, glassy Nihilego around her clanged and called with their support, as if a hivemind of unconditional support for their new queen…

…Their new Mother Beast.

I'm not giving up on you that easily… Closing the visor back over his face, Elio directed Lunala into a sharp dive as a couple dozen or more Nihilego rushed at him, then shot Power Gems after him. Clinging tightly to Lunala's body as the wind began to whistle and blaze past his body, Elio jerked her to the right and left to avoid the blasts of rock, knowing exactly just how deadly they could be, feeling an uncomfortable tingle over a scar on his neck. At the last second, he jerked her reins up, forcing them back into a steep climb toward Megalo Tower, the force of the action momentarily leaving him feeling like he might be crushed by the weight of the gravity.

Lusamine and her Nihilego were also headed straight for it, but he sighed in relief as he noticed others of the Ultra Recon Squad were rallying to help him. He saw Solgaleo with riders jump from rooftop to rooftop, other Lunala stealthily move high in the air, disguising themselves as part of the abyssal darkness, and even Naganadel were being lined up along the ground in front of the Megalo Tower. Others of the URS used their weaponry, crafted from what he would have called Z-Crystals back in Alola (as well as other various parts of different beasts), from the ground, pelting the Nihilego swarm with various bullets, arrows, and combustions. While people in Elio's homeworld utilized pokémon to fight for them, the Ultrarians didn't have such a luxury, what with the only domesticable creatures in their lands being the glass cannons, Lunala and Solgaleo, as well as the difficult to train Poipole (and its evolved cousin, Naganadel); instead, they had used the stolen fragments of The Blinding One's body, combining them with carved remnants of slain beasts much like the attacking Nihilego now, to create fantastical weapons people from Elio's world could have only dreamed of in fiction.

Yet, none of it seemed to matter. Whenever someone tried to attack Lusamine directly, one of her subservient, smaller Nihilego would take the blow, no matter how deadly, for her. Some were merely aggravated by the beams of Solgaleo's fire or Lunala's moonbeams, others were momentarily stunned by Xurkitree-hewn ammunition, while those less fortunate shattered or were destroyed by the impact by grenades developed from Blacephalon heads and the like. And just as Dulse had warned him, without his voice, Elio also had no real way of ordering his own Lunala to attack, only able to direct her through harsh movements of her reins and different placements of his feet in her harness's mechanized stirrups.

He wasn't sure how long this high-flying, deadly game of Meowth and Rattata went on for; he only knew that it felt like an eternity. Knowing he had no hope of attacking or doing damage to her, Elio didn't try. Instead, he simply kept pushing Lunala to get as close to Lusamine as he could manage, until he could see her glittery, bloodlusting gaze in the shrouded darkness of her hair, to try and silently plead with her some more. He couldn't utter a word, but he could give her looks, and he could be persistent. Truthfully, he didn't want to give up. Fighting her wasn't working. His only other hope was to convince her. He hadn't spent months in Ultra Megalopolis, suffering yet another culture shock and dealing in the aftermath of his horrible throat wound, just to let Lusamine waltz right in and disturb The Blinding One, to put other worlds—his sister's and Lillie's world, in particular—at risk. They had narrowly avoided leading Lusamine right back to them when she had first injured him, it had only been through another field team's answer to Dulse's distress signal that they had been able to escape that confrontation. Ever since, he had been working with Dr. Colress to create a helmet that would allow him to communicate again despite his irreparably damaged vocals, working to learn as much about the Ultrarian world as he could, training alongside this Lunala—all for the hope to quell the threat of The Blinding One escaping its prison and wreaking havoc among world after world, all for the hope of returning home once all of that was said and done.

Yet, every time he got close to her, every time he gave her those pleading looks, willed her to understand… the more it started to sink in that she wouldn't. She couldn't. There was nothing left of that woman he had spoken to, in tears, back in the Ultra Deep Sea, the home of the parasitic Nihilego. He had learned enough about them to understand there was no reasoning with Lusamine anymore, not in this advanced stage of homogenization. There was no more Lusamine. There was just the Mother Beast now… He knew that. That was how Nihilego functioned. The brainless beast was motivated simply by the desire to survive and reproduce, its methods involving locking on a host and poisoning it until it became dependent on the venom, like the universe's most addicting drug. Typically, they settled for other beasts—sapiens had never been recorded as a host of Nihilego's parasitic behavior. Sure, there had been incidents of stings and attacks, but never anything as advanced as what Lusamine was currently experiencing.

In essence, Elio realized with a gut-wrenching wave of despair, the Mother Beast was simply carnal instincts given sentience. She had no morals, she had no attachments, she only knew survival, locked in the throes of her ideology from her last living days prior to being absorbed by the original Nihilego that had chosen her as its host. Her ravings of a beautiful world and her proclamation of love for Nihilego were simply the ramblings of her waning ability to think for herself, echoes of what was, essentially, a dead woman; if they could simply fend her off for a day, maybe two, she would lose her desire to chase The Blinding One for its 'beauty.' She would begin to drift aimlessly like any other Nihilego, serving as the beast's food source and home for its offspring until she was no more at all.

Yet… Quietly, Elio realized there was no way they would hold her off for that amount of time. More and more of her subservient, normal Nihilego were vaporized by the Ultrarians' own weaponry and their tamed beasts, all while the Mother Beast merely kept pushing forward, undaunted by them, closer and closer to Megalo Tower, until Elio felt as if he and Lunala's backs were practically pressed against the structure. The blinding, white light shining past his and Lunala's frames threw odd patterns and colors over the Mother Beast's partly glassy body. Briefly glancing over his shoulder and panting madly for breath, Elio realized he and his Lunala were hovering just in front of the brightest part of Megalo Tower—the very top, where he knew the original source of such power lay in wait, poised for the moment its confinement weakened just enough.

Squinting against the brightness, even in his visor, he turned back to look at Lusamine. This is it, isn't it? he thought to himself as he stroked Lunala's neck gently, recognizing there was nothing they could do now. They had given it their all. The Mother Beast had proven that the Ultrarians had never been equipped to handle such a challenge. Lusamine had come to Ultra Megalopolis expecting a war—expecting to win said war—and, well… she had.

"Get out of my way," Lusamine hissed at him maliciously, somehow full of resentment despite how deadpanned she looked. More beast than woman. "Final warning."

Still heaving for breath in the aftermath of the hours and hours they had spent struggling, Elio hugged Lunala's neck tightly. She gave a defiant, even if tired, growl at Lusamine while Elio slowly shook his head, No.

"Have it your way."

With that, a black, glassy tentacle lashed at them both, sending them careening through the thick glass of the tower behind them. The initial pain was lost on Elio, only able to think about how weak he felt all over as he collapsed to a bitterly cold floor, and the lights of Megalo Tower dimmed and began to flicker. Vision checkering with double images, Elio groaned as he tried to stand up, noting that Lunala was crumpled to the floor just beside him. Shattered glass was scattered around the floor. But in the harsh luminescence of that room, a dark figure sat in the center of it, large, thick arms neatly tucked against what Elio knew to be a face, even if it didn't look like one upon first glance. All that gave the implication of eyes were two small, red and blue Z-Crystals embedded in a digital display.

Animalistically, the Mother Beast flared her tentacles widely around herself, bashing more and more glass until the tower's lights were practically strobing. She shrieked a cry at The Blinding One, insisting him to fight, and Elio saw, through what felt like a series of still photographs each time the lights flashed on, as The Blinding One rose from its cage and then rocketed at her.

Grabbing at Lunala, Elio encouraged her to get up and hopped onto her back again. Through more still images, as the lights repeatedly turned off and on, Elio saw The Blinding One, even in its broken, incomplete state thrash the Mother Beast. One flash of light saw her crash back into the top of the tower, blowing out more of its windows and making the structure lean uncomfortably far to the left. Another showed her attempting to stick venomous needles into The Blinding One's crystalline body, only for the next glimpse to show her needles sliding off its body like water from a Psyduck's feathers, then her once again bodied against the tower as if she were nothing. Panting wildly as adrenaline flowed, Elio urged Lunala out of the tower, watching from a distance as the Mother Beast and The Blinding One waged their personal war. Unsurprisingly, the Mother Beast's Nihilego underlings, although they tried to interfere, they were easily dealt with as well.

It was just the way in which they were dealt with that left Elio trembling and clutching at Lunala's shoulders for dear life. The Blinding One, dark and crystalline like a dead sun, would latch its talon-like fingers onto their glassy bodies, then smash them together, brutally shattering their bodies and then appearing to… inhale the light glinting off their shards. With every one, its ferocity grew, until Megalo Tower finally quit its chaotic flickering, and Elio could see the Mother Beast pinned beneath that dark beast on the top of the tilting Megalo Tower.

"I… know… world… with… more light…" the Mother Beast shrieked at The Blinding One through fitful gasps, seeming as if she were having trouble putting together words. Feeling a bolt of terror at her words, Elio sprung back to life. He nudged Lunala with a heel and they zipped closer to the warring beasts. From his new angle above them, above the tower, he could see the Mother Beast's eyes were unfocused and rolled nearly into the back of her head. And by the sounds of it, her carnal interest in self-preservation was winning out over the dying throes of Lusamine's desire for a beautiful world for herself and her 'love.' "Far… away… Alola…"

Pressing claws to the Mother Beast's head, The Blinding One gave a mechanical, inorganic grating sound, like metal plates scraping along one another. Then, it robotically uttered in a deep, deep voice, pronouncing the words like they were foreign and difficult, "You… all… will pay for the pain… caused." The Blinding One's cadence was so deep and sinister, he felt it rattle his chest and bones. Then, it began to squeeze in with those claws…

In a sheer, blind panic, his blood running cold as ice, Elio pushed Lunala into a steep dive again. This time, they struck The Blinding One, right on its head. Stop! Elio thought frantically. No! Not—you can't just shatter her like the others!

For his transgression, Lunala howled as her right wing was snatched in some of those powerful claws, and she was launched at the sky, Elio barely managing to cling to her frame. Clenching his eyes shut, he failed to see the tear in reality open around them, failed to notice them traveling through a wormhole, all while the Mother Beast fled after him in a desperate attempt to flee the battle she knew she would not win. But it seemed they had all underestimated The Blinding One.

Its outrage was not over, as it followed both of them into a different world, one where the sun warmed the earth, and the moon could still shine in a star-spangled night sky.

Releasing Nebby onto the pedestal at the center of the Altar, Lillie took a deep, shuddery breath. He looked so peaceful, even if he was unresponsive… It evoked an odd sense of calm, looking at his resting, dark face, surrounded by starshine, encrusted by golden rings. Bending down, she gently pressed a palm to one such ring. "I know you probably can't understand what's going on right now," she whispered to him, "but… I hope this helps you… And I hope you'll forgive me, for how selfish I've been…" Smiling bittersweetly, she stood up and wiped her face. She jolted in surprise as an all-too familiar Absol padded its way in front of her and behind Nebby. The disguised Tapu Fini only purred when Lillie noticed her and brushed up against Nebby as well. Even without Selene there to help translate, Lillie thought she understood her just fine: I hope you'll forgive me, too.

They had found the Altar of the Sunne, through Hapu's help and guidance, after spending the rest of the day and partly into the night trekking deeper and deeper into the Vast Poni Canyon. Its name certainly wasn't a lie, Lillie sarcastically thought; they were tired, they all were. Had it not been for Hapu's Mudsdale, it was unlikely they would have even made it there at all that day. The sturdy, strong equine didn't mind the sharp, jagged rocks that lined much of the canyon's dry floor, nor was he bothered by the weight of carrying a few of them here and there, as they took turns resting. Upon their arrival, Gladion and Plumeria both had suggested they wait until the next morning to try anything, so they could at least stop and eat some of their packaged food and regain their strength—and while Lillie understood their trepidation, there was something about being next to the Altar, about looking over its proud, reverent stone body, that made her fingertips and feet ache and burn with need. Back when Tapu Fini had been talking to them all through Selene, after she had held up Elio's Z-Power Ring, she had felt a blazing fire course through her veins, momentarily making her worry if she might burst into flames from the inside out. But just as quickly as the urgent feeling had come, it had gone again, leaving her feeling amped up and determined.

Satisfied that Nebby was in the appropriate place, Lillie scurried back to a square of weathered stone surrounded by intricate patterns of water on the left of the Altar and took a deep breath. She had been hellbent on this moment, she had pushed so hard for it—they were finally here, so they were going to do what they had come there to do.

…Even if it meant she and Gladion had argued so vehemently over it. He was only silent now, plucking idly at his hair, because she had told him she did not care what he had to say about it. Selene had tried to interfere, and with a single, warning glare from Lillie, she had apparently decided discretion was the better option here.

Selene awkwardly stepped to one on the right, casting Gladion and Plumeria, tiredly seated beyond the Altar's stone boundaries, an apologetic look. "Glad, should I—?"

Before she could finish, Gladion dipped his head defeatedly, giving a small nod and waving her off, while Plumeria surreptitiously tried to snake her arm up to pat him reassuringly on the back. As if silently telling Selene, "Go ahead, I don't care." Feeling a twinge of guilt, Lillie looked down at the bracelet adorning her left wrist. No. No, I know what I'm here to do. He'll get over it, she told herself fiercely.

Yet, before either Selene or Lillie could take off their respective Z-Power Rings and set them at their feet, as Tapu Fini had suggested they needed to do sometime during their trip there, the Absol galloped past them and rushed at Hapu. She had been waiting a distance away from the Altar, staying well of its sacred, weathered stone pathways alongside Gladion and Plumeria, but Tapu Fini was apparently having none of it. Grabbing Hapu by her right hand, she dragged the stout girl onto the Altar, and, confused, Hapu's Mudsdale followed suit.

"H-hey, cut it out!" Hapu exclaimed, only a couple of seconds before Tapu Fini let her go right in front of Nebby. With that, Tapu Fini rapidly reverted to her true form, rising to hover just a little taller than Hapu, and slowly, the pokémon pressed a hand over her heart. Giving a purring, encouraging noise, she gestured at Hapu, as if asking her to do the same. As if the circumstances were finally dawning on her, Hapu's jaw dropped, and she looked around like a cartoon character. "You—me? Right now?" Licking clammy lips, she started to rapidly shake her head no. "No, no way, you're—you're not a god! An'—an' I didn't even do the Dragon-type trial, on the way here! We skipped it, remember, you talked the Kommo-o into lettin' us past! There's—"

The earth suddenly shook. The water in the intricate channels and pathways around them started to stir and leak from its channels, like a scene out of Jurassic Park. Looking down at it, Lillie felt a wave of dread.

"Ae! Look out!"

Jerking her head up, she saw a gash open in the sky, just above the Altar, warping and distorting reality about it in a terrifyingly familiar way. Lillie froze, Elio's Z-Power Ring clutched tightly in her sweaty, right palm.

"What the—? We haven't even done anything yet, why—" Cutting herself off, Selene gritted her teeth. "We don't have time!" she yelled at Hapu, Tapu Fini, and Lillie. "Lillie, drop the Z-Power Ring!"

Lillie didn't have to be told twice. She dropped the Z-Power Ring in the water, Selene dropped hers, and just like that—

Nebby began to glow.