The drooping trees of the swamp blocked out lots of rays of sunlight, but nonetheless, outside of the dungeon was probably much more in line with what the starry figure needed. She stirred just a bit with the tiny beams shining through onto her folded wings, but quickly, the Coalition was locating a big enough clearing for her whole form and getting her into the middle of it. Once the sun hit her, the glittering stars reflected in her form twinkled brighter and her eyes fluttered open again, still tired but not quite so… downtrodden.
"Ah…!" Lunala breathed, her form shifting around a little bit.
Even the sun seemed to flicker for a second, their surroundings seeming far more shady than they were moments before, but just as quick, things went back to normal. The lunar Beast unfurled and floated up into the air again, just like a celestial body suspended in space, and a gentle smile graced her face once again while she stretched her wings.
"… Thank you," she said softly, flexing her fingers for a second. "This feels a lot better…~"
Raijin, on the other hand, was quickly darting up to her again and throwing his arms around her in a hug, which the celestial Beast returned, her wings practically swallowing his form up inside of them. His glow flickered too for a second, Lunala apparently absorbing the brightness of every light source that was available to her.
"Long time no see, huh?" Lunala said gently. "Last time I saw you in the flesh was at the crater when you were still pretending to be poisoned." She chuckled. "And I think you were a few centimeters shorter back then, too.~ I'm glad you're still hanging in there and doing well."
"Lunala…!" the Xurkitree said softly, as if he might cry if he were capable. "W-what happened? You're not supposed to be dark like that…! The last time I saw you and Necrozma, you were still bright, but Azure says you two were flickering…!"
"I'll show you everything, don't worry," Lunala replied, turning loose. "Ease up, okay…? I can feel your currents going haywire. Anxiety won't help you or anyone else."
Raijin twitched for just a moment, then eased up as he too turned loose. "R-right…"
Lunala's eyes fell on Astrid next, and the Dartrix couldn't help fluffing out again. This Beast wasn't unfamiliar if she had been comprising half of Necrozma's form, and Astrid knew she had nothing to worry about, but nonetheless, being faced by an ethereal goddess from another dimension nonetheless made her feel… quite small, like a grain of sand on a giant beach. Lunala smiled, and oddly enough, Astrid noticed something touching her senses and calming her nerves- likely the starry one's intervention.
"And there's our chosen one," Lunala said, tilting her head to the side as she studied the leafy avian. "Finally, I get to see you all up close and personal. You know, we got scared over you a few times, but honestly, it's pretty easy to tell we made the right choice."
Astrid blushed a bit under her feathers. "W-well, I'm glad," she said softly.
Lazuli chuckled, giving the Dartrix a pat on the back with a wink. Astrid only blushed harder at the gesture.
"And I get to see your comrades too," Lunala noted, her eyes travelling around the bunch. "What a lovely bunch of Pokémon. You all know who I am and I'm at least familiar with all of you, so I don't guess there's much need for an introduction there, but I'm glad to have all of you in our corner, too."
"Well, we're glad to see you in one piece after what your emissary was tellin' us y'all were dealin' with," Rush piped up, smirking. "Say, we just call you Lunala, or are you more of a 'Your Majesty' or somethin' like that?"
Rozen gave the Scrafty a funny look for such an inquiry while Dren and Lazuli apparently thought it a valid question from the way they perked up and looked at the starry Beast.
Lunala, on the other hand, chuckled in amusement. "Oh, heavens, no! Just call me Lunala- all those honorifics just take up time when you're saying them and I really have no need for such. Sure, I might be the strongest one in this circle when I'm not fatigued after a many months-long standoff, but we're all comrades here, no?"
Rush laughed too. "Heh, I like you, Lunala!"
Rozen rolled his eyes again at his partner's antics, but Lunala nonetheless was giggling happily.
"Say," the starry one piped up again, getting a little more somber, "out in the open isn't really an ideal place for dealing with what I need to show you all, so how about I open a wormhole back to your base? I might be worn out, but that's definitely something I can manage."
"Hell yeah," Rush excitedly agreed, getting another eye-roll from the Audino next to him.
"Oooh! We get to see one of those?!" Lazuli exclaimed, clapping her hands together.
"Sheesh, it's been forever since I've seen one that wasn't threatening…" Raijin's voice trailed off.
Astrid gave the Xurkitree a glance, and he returned it, not needing words to know they were both thinking the exact same thing- between Sunken Cavern, Bramble Peak, and Luminous Grotto, the wormholes that had appeared in their vicinity had definitely not been something they had wanted to see.
With a gentle chortle, the air next to Lunala cracked like glass and opened up, the wormhole practically beckoning them all in. Lazuli and Rush both got wide-eyed grins at seeing it, while Dren and Rozen were merely surprised, and Cinder gave a small but startled squawk. Adnea blinked, not fazed much one way or another.
"… My, that is quite a strong energy signal," the Orbeetle noted, still stoic as ever.
"Well, sheesh, let's go!" Lazuli declared, making a dash for it almost as quick as it had appeared.
"Hey! Don't you run off all by yourself!" Rush cried, darting after her.
"H-hey! Watch your landings!" Raijin called after them both. "Don't trip and bust your heads on the other side…!"
The Scrafty and Azumarill were already vanishing into it before they could heed the warning, Lunala getting a slightly amused look as they did. Rozen haplessly shook his head, and Adnea rolled her eyes.
The rest of them followed along shortly. Astrid and Raijin made the jump together again, the Dartrix grasping one of the prongs on her comrade's tail as they both descended on the other side, and Lunala came close behind, after which the wormhole shut. Sure enough, Rush and Lazuli had gone sprawling on the ground, but quickly picked themselves up and tried to play it off as though it had never happened. It was definitely an odd experience, Astrid had to note, having the swamp become a tiny blip on one side while getting dropped into the base's front room on the other, but without the threat of getting dragged into enemy territory hanging over her head… it wasn't bad at all. Had she not been paying attention in order to mentally catalogue everything, she might not have noticed, but once she did descend on the other side, she felt… energized, as if she'd just come out of a long nap.
"A'ight, so what's goin' on?" Rush asked, turning to Lunala. "You got a lot to say, I'm sure."
The celestial one sighed, her eyes drooping a bit. "Well…"
Shortly, she was sharing some memories with them that explained things far better than words could.
There was no physical exertion going on to warrant the gleaming dragon's furled up claws and hunched up position as if trying to avoid a strike from above, but the force threatening to blow them away outside of the force field was utterly crushing. The cannons of Celesteelas and the explosions of Blacephalons boomed, the sky crackled with the lightning bolts of many Xurkitrees, the slashes and punches and kicks of Kartanas and Buzzwoles and Pheromosas threatened to break open the shield, but so much more frightening were several other figures. Whether Necrozma was flickering or not, there was another light source aside from the attacks and glows of Void's many underlings- a bright fireball overhead, but one that belonged to a certain Mega Charizard Y as a result of her Drought activating instead of to Solgaleo as anyone else might suspect. Azure might not have been fond of the harsh sunlight from Zariel's miniature sun, but it only made the glinting of his claws all the more apparent, and the ever-immoveable Knox had several eyes keeping watch.
The one that would've unnerved the Light Trio enough on her own, however, had a perfectly content look on her face, and by the will of whom was impossible to tell. Perhaps she had the overall shape of a normal Delphox, but the colors were all different- her ordinarily yellow head, furry 'vest,' and tail were colored a deep but vibrant purple, her cheek patches and furry frill on her chest were dyed a pale blue instead of white, her ear fur and flame-shaped patches were bright cyan instead of dark orange, and the rest of her crimson fur was tinged with purple. The flame on her wand had stopped resembling natural fire altogether, instead looking like a purple cloud of poisonous gas that just happened to have the same general shape of a flame. Around her head was draped a glassy 'hood,' from which also draped six tendrils- all of them with black cores seeming to float in the middle, two of the tendrils forming into what looked like hands at their ends with two orangeish-pink eyes slit into the black cores where the 'palms' would be, while the other four ended in a cross-shaped spike. Where Void ended and Salem began was impossible to clearly discern, the Nihilego and Delphox merged into a single entity. A golden glow surrounded the fused figure, radiating a powerful aura that spread to her comrades too.
The purple eyes of the Delphox stared into those of Solgaleo, a wide but blank grin plastered on her face. "It always nice see you again," said an uncharacteristically nonchalant voice- Void's tendencies, but Salem's vocal chords.
The hulking feline was still standoffish and bared his fangs, but at the same time, his eyes looked… frantic. "Salem…!" he breathed fairly pointedly, staring back at her. "I know it's not your fault, but…!"
He crouched, becoming cloaked in a harsh burning light not unlike the actual sun itself in other worlds. Still, from the look he wore, it was taking every bit of energy he had to muster up the strength, and sooner or later, he'd run out. He pounced for the fused figure in a Sunsteel Strike, but a smirk graced the Delphox's mouth and a Reflect went up in front of a Protect, and even from Knox too, a Wide Guard added to the mix. Solgaleo's meteoric force might have been impressive, but even so, he wasn't breaking through.
"Oh, save it," the Delphox's borderline snarling voice returned- definitely that of Salem herself. "I've found my happiness, and anyone who wants to get in my way is gonna get burnt down.~ You'd think you'd get the message after all this time that I don't give a fuck about you anymore, but… I guess not.~"
When the shields around the fused figure dropped, she gave her wand a flippant twirl before the cloud around it blazed like fire, dousing their surroundings in purple fog. The Delphox's already combative nature, combined with the Nihilego's boosts, combined with Zariel's Drought was easily swaying things to Salem's favor.
"TELL 'EM, BOSS~!" Zariel roared happily from above, maw full of embers.
"Oh, I will," Salem laughed, casting a toxic purple Flamethrower.
Solgaleo would've pounced away from it, but several Reflects went up that boxed him in, making him completely unable to retreat as two Flamethrowers- one from Zariel and another purplish one from Salem- rained down on him.
*Solgaleo!* Lunala cried frantically.
*I'm okay, I-!* he cried back, haphazardly standing up.
He shook his head, noticing something else- pure disorientation and a terrible stinging sensation. He opened his eyes, and there was Salem, shrouded in a cloud of smog, along with Void's hand-bearing tendrils gently touching the sides of his face. The two eyes in their palms didn't have much expression, but the ones in Salem's head sure did- taunting, wild bliss. Solgaleo's eyes shot wide for a second and he backed away, albeit with haphazard, stumbling steps while a low but disjointed growl escaped his mouth.
Salem's mouth was moving, but it was obviously Void making the words come out. "Come to Void."
The hulking feline's eyes went wider, and he shook his head some more as if trying to get ahold of his senses. The fused figure took a step closer, one tendril hand gently caressing his face in what would've been a cutesy, friendly gesture in any other context. Solgaleo's jaws snapped again, trying to Crunch the hand touching him, but Void ripped her hand back right as a Wide Guard from Knox went up that nullified the bright Beast's move.
From within the shield, Void held both arms up, her pink eyes getting a good look at the horde of her underlings surrounding them.
"STAND DOWN, EVERYONE!" Salem thundered with a smirk, her own voice having something of a metallic boom to it that made it even louder.
All at once, the barrage on Necrozma's shield ceased. Their gleam still flickered, but the surroundings became much dimmer without the cannon fire and energy bursts added to the mix.
"Oho, did she do it?!" a metallic voice cried.
"She's got 'im! She has to!" another cheered.
"Show those bitches who the real boss is, Void!" added another.
Nonetheless, if there was a break in the barrage, Necrozma wasn't wasting their time. With another metallic growl, Necrozma pointed one of the claws on their top set of wings at the fused figure, the air around their claw growing even darker than the rest of the surroundings as a myriad of photons of light gathered at the tip- a Photon Geyser. Salem turned to face it with a wild grin, not even caring as the shield around her from Knox faded out. She Protected herself as the beam came crashing down, though evidently she couldn't help flinching for the searing brightness that threatened to scar her eyes if she didn't shut them. Void's tendril hands shot up in front of her face, the pink eye slits peering back instead with a hollow, unfaltering stare as the aura surrounding her fused figure flared brighter.
"You done well to hold out so long, Necrozma, but it Void's turn now…~" more oddly sweet words left the Delphox's mouth.
Salem's shield cracked like glass, but the Photon Geyser fizzled out before it could bust through. Void's tendril hands left Salem's face, one gently resting on Salem's chest in half of an embrace while the other reached out again and gave Solgaleo a light pat on the cheek.
"… Void want see your power, Solgaleo.~"
The moment her hand touched him again, something in the hulking feline seemed to snap. He blinked a few times with a blank look, then his eyes narrowed, then his gaze fell on the gleaming dragon with his fangs bared.
The gleaming dragon's maw fell open in horror. *No, no, NO…!*
Solgaleo's form turned mostly white and gold with the glow he was shortly surrounded in, a mix of his own light and the Nihilego's boosting aura. He crouched down to pounce, his claws tearing streaks into the ground in what greatly resembled bubbling aggression. The gleaming dragon, specifically Lunala, put up a Wide Guard around themselves, but Solgaleo couldn't have cared less, for he pounced with the force of a falling star, becoming cloaked in a fiery blaze like the sun again. Necrozma's shield didn't stand a chance in their weakened state.
"NO…!" a panicked cry left the gleaming dragon's mouth.
It was no matter. Solgaleo rammed into the crystalline pieces making up the dragon's skull, and a metallic, ethereal gasp came from the Blinding One as the pieces dissociated from each other. The rest followed suit, the light comprising their form flickering and seeming to pour out all at once as one shape seemed to rip out of the gleaming visage- Lunala's dimmed form, her expression absolutely horrified.
"Necrozma!" she screeched in panic as the prism pieces clattered to the ground.
The next thing she felt was Solgaleo's paws on her wings, his snapping jaws mere centimeters away from her face as they too went falling to the bottom of the crater. The stars in her wings were flickering and burning out too, just like Necrozma's body had been.
"You can't be serious…!" she breathed faintly.
Nonetheless, Solgaleo was down on energy too, that much she could tell, even if not quite as much as her and ignoring it in favor of acting aggressive due to the poison… She summoned up what little left she could muster, blasting him point-blank with a Moongeist Beam to get him off, then opened a wormhole directly underneath herself that closed almost as fast as she'd created it in the first place. It wasn't ideal, but she had to get away…
She just… had to… get away…
Ultra Space turned into a little blip on the other side, then vanished altogether.
At seeing them, Astrid's feathers stood on end and Raijin froze. The rest of the Coalition had wide eyes too.
"So… she…" Raijin stammered.
"So that's… what Salem and Void do…" Astrid's voice trailed off.
"Holy shit, even I saw that," Rush noted. "Damn, Lunala, guess me bein' a Dark-type don't matter to you. That's one hell of a way to see a psychic vision for the first time…"
"Oh, of course typing doesn't get in the way for an overseer of Ultra Space, at least not for simple things like that," Lunala brushed it off. "But, you all can tell… Ultra Space is Void's now. She's got Solgaleo, she's got Necrozma, and I doubt either one of them are up and fully functioning yet, but… reclaiming it all and stopping her is going to be one hell of a job."
They all got very uncertain looks, Astrid's eyes twitching as if not quite deciding whether they wanted to look angry or distraught. Having Arashi stranded on Ultra Space was bad enough, but if Necrozma too had fallen… The possibilities were horrifying.
Raijin apparently thought so too, for he stumbled backwards as if someone had just jabbed a knife into the front of his head, leaning against the wall with one arm as if he'd collapse otherwise. "No…" he said, voice distorted in despair. "No… No… No…! Urgh, do we even stand a chance now…?! That's the strongest Beast in all of Ultra Space…!"
Astrid honestly had to wonder the same thing. She scurried to her comrade and carefully grasped one of his tail prongs with one of her feet, and fairly quickly, he was clutching her up in his arms like a scared child grabbing something cuddly. Her heart felt like it would tear right out of her chest for how it was racing, and she could easily feel the erratic pulsing of her comrade's currents. The idea of having the gleaming dragon staring them both down in hostility made them feel utterly hopeless. The Dartrix tried not to look quite as frightened as she really was, and though her comrade lacked the ability to get wide-eyed or frown, it was fairly easy to pick up on his apprehension.
Lunala's eyes too drooped, a tired sigh escaping her mouth. "Well… Necrozma's my friend, and Solgaleo may as well be my brother, so I can't just ignore them. We'd have to go to Ultra Space and confront Void before she can get another move over on us, and I could get us there, but… Raijin, you know what's standing in our way."
The Xurkitree shuddered, voice even more distorted. "Megalo Tower…"
The rest of them perked up.
"'Megalo Tower?'" Rush inquired.
"Void's stronghold," Raijin softly answered, tensing up. "It's her base, but above the ground floor, it opens into a dungeon with 30 floors and she'll hide at the top if trouble comes her way… The ground outside is guarded by multiple Stakatakas on all sides, Celesteelas are always circling it from the air, and it's straight up and down on the outer walls, but even if you wanted to try climbing it or flying up to the top from the outside, there's a thick cloud of her smog that would make you stop if you somehow managed to take all the guards out of the equation… And that's not mentioning that the walls inside have a ton of poisoned semi-feral Stakatakas hiding in them that are hard to distinguish from the regular stones, so you're basically guaranteed to get ambushed by a highly aggressive creature that can't understand a word you speak…"
That… definitely sounded worrying. Some unsettled looks travelled around the bunch.
"If I may pose a suggestion," Adnea piped up, looking to Lunala, "could you perhaps simply open a wormhole to the place Void is hiding?"
"I can try, but I'm going to bet that it won't work so simply," Lunala replied. "If Void has any sense, and she does have sense, she'll probably have Necrozma holding a barrier around the top so that I can't cleanly warp in… Even if I tried right now, I'm not in any condition to be fighting, and her underlings are still in prime condition. This isn't something we can be reckless about."
"Then let's map things out and go from there," the Orbeetle suggested. "If that's where we'll find Void, then one way or another, we'll need to break through, and we should consider every possible angle."
Lunala nodded, finding such agreeable.
"We should go see Delphi and ask her what she sees…" Astrid said softly. "So we can have an idea…"
"And I'ma go see if any of our pals are in town currently and have a talk if they are," Rush noted, crossing his arms and looking contemplative. "We can't infiltrate this poisonous bitch's territory alone from the sounds of it."
Those two propositions were definitely agreeable as well, and Lunala's smile started to spread a bit more. Raijin finally turned loose of the leafy avian, though he set her on the ground again with a jerky movement as if he didn't truly want to let go, and they both gave each other a nod before turning to go back out the door.
"You two," the winged Beast piped up, casting Astrid and Raijin a glance, "when you get back, you come help us map out our strategies too! An insider's touch and an overly cautious mind are valuable for things like this!"
"Will do," Raijin quickly affirmed.
Astrid only gave her a nod without a word.
"Uh, h-hey!" Cinder chimed in suddenly, making a few scurrying steps towards the Starstorm duo. "If you guys are going to see Delphi, do you mind if I tag along?"
At the inquiry, Lazuli started grinning and stifling a giggle, to which Cinder in turn shot her a glare that shut her up. The Starstorm duo shot each other a glance again, then looked back to the Fletchinder.
"I don't," Astrid answered.
"Neither do I," Raijin concurred.
"Lovely," Cinder said, oddly pointed for such a simple saying.
Shortly thereafter, Adnea and Lunala were retreating upstairs to the Orbeetle's study, Rush was venturing out, and Astrid, Raijin, and Cinder were on their way to Soul Aria.
"Um, Cinder, there's probably something I should tell you now that we have a way to open wormholes," Raijin piped up, tapping his fingers together.
The Fletchinder shot him a look. "Oh? What's that?"
"W-well, I'm not sure how it would work for a different species, and you'd probably notice it before it became a problem, but… wormholes can actually be used to force an evolution if you jump through a lot of them in a short amount of time. You don't want to evolve, so just… don't go sprinting through like, ten of them in rapid succession, okay…?"
That certainly got the attention of the two smaller figures, and Cinder definitely looked alarmed at the idea of suddenly evolving by no will of his own.
"Oh, gods above, thanks for telling me that," Cinder said. "That's good to know."
"… How does that work, though?" Astrid wanted to know, studying her comrade. "So I could just ask Lunala to open a bunch of wormholes when she's feeling better, jump through them all, and become a Decidueye…?"
"Well, wormholes carry a lot of energy to them- you probably figured that out already," the Xurkitree noted. "Basically, if you fall through one, some of that residual energy gets left on you, and if you accumulate a lot of it, if you can't handle it, then your body starts to melt and reform into a form that can handle it. Apparently it's supposed to be insanely painful though, like you can actually feel yourself starting to melt, so it's not like you won't see it coming… but still. It's miserable. Those evolution spots you have on this world, for all the terrible luck we've had involving them, seem like a much better idea."
Astrid blinked, caught off guard by the evidently horrendous process. "So… it's… a-ah, and here I was thinking that it might be a good idea, but that sounds awful."
"If you do that, I am definitely not joining you for more reasons than one," Cinder remarked, shooting the Dartrix an apprehensive glance.
"Well, if you wanted to, thankfully we've got Lunala instead of a Cosmog or Cosmoem," Raijin mused. "She could make it go a lot faster and easier than it otherwise would. Opening multiple wormholes and expending all that energy needed is just as miserable for the little nebulas as it is for the one evolving."
Astrid laughed- not in amusement or happiness, but a sardonic laugh at the sheer irony. Here was another method that was fast and easy… but apparently exorbitantly painful. "Hell, I just might ask her anyways after getting impaled the last time I evolved. Definitely wouldn't be the first horrific thing that's happened since I got here."
"At this point, you may as well just ask Delphi if she can see how you die," Cinder sarcastically remarked. "With your luck, anyway."
The Dartrix fluffed out a bit, but didn't say anything in protest.
"Say, Cinder," Raijin piped up, "what're you tagging along for, if I may ask? Is something bothering you?"
Oddly enough, despite the words that followed, the Fletchinder seemed to get flustered about something and his feathers fluffed out. "J-just wanting to admire another cool Fire-type is all! Y'know, she can be all mystical and predict the future and all that with her fire, and I just burn stuff with mine… I just like seeing that sort of thing, okay?!"
Astrid blinked, a bit unsure about the sudden standoffishness, but Raijin, on the other hand, didn't seem as convinced.
"Well, I believe you, but you look pretty-" the Xurkitree started, but was cut off.
"Keep prying and you are gonna feel like you're melting once I hit you with a Flamethrower!" Cinder squawked, fluffing out even more and staring firmly at the ground.
They dropped it without another word.
. . . . .
Megalo Tower 0F- Base
A set of eyelids belonging to a very tired body fluttered open, something feeling… off. Off, but… oddly pleasant. The myriad of glowing blue eyes on all sides, however, was definitely something out of the ordinary, and Arashi gave a startled jump at seeing so many quite literally boxing him in. As he moved, they moved, following his movements for just a second before the grey bricks they were set into started to stir themselves and lifted up off the ground on four legs. Not knowing what else to do, Arashi scurried out from under the living rampart, not particularly wanting to stay boxed in by an unfamiliar organism.
He scanned his surroundings- the same glassy, oddly aquatic-looking surroundings that he'd seen before getting swooped up by Remi. His own reflection on the floor was very different than what it had been before, matching that of a Greninja instead of a Frogadier, for which he was definitely happy albeit less prone to celebrate it on account of not knowing what was going on in the strange dimension he was utterly out of place in. What was more, everything was far darker than he'd remembered it being, the only light coming from the glows of the crystalline shards in the rocky fixtures, Knox's glowing eyes and edges, and the glowing of a Cosmog's cube stuck to the wall.
"You awake now," came a sweetly metallic, soft and gentle voice.
He looked up to find the source, which was a fragile, pale blue figure perched atop the living rampart, resting propped up on her arms with her legs and the rest of her tentacles flowing out behind her, and had she possessed visible eyes, she would've been staring straight at her non-native company. One of the bricks on the Stakataka was marked UB08A-2301, telling Arashi exactly who was before him- Void and her bodyguard.
The Nihilego floated off the edge of her blocky perch and closer to Arashi, holding one of her tentacle arms out to gently brush his face. "You look really different. Void a little surprised, but Void like it."
Her touch stung, but nonetheless, the Greninja couldn't help his grin that followed. "Well, I'm glad- we both like it, then! That process was pretty miserable, but all things considered, I guess it wasn't so bad after all!"
She touched the tips of her tentacle arms together in a little happy clap. "Good. Remi say you cause trouble, but Void not have to worry about that, right?"
He blinked, slightly fuzzy on the details, but nonetheless replied, "No, of course not!"
"Good."
The Nihilego swayed in the air a bit, seeming to think about something for a second, but even if Arashi's memories otherwise said that she was a threat… he just wasn't feeling it. She was… captivating, charming, someone he would've jumped straight into Raijin's Discharge for if another wormhole opened up and dropped some hostile company. No, if anyone tried to touch this wonderful creature, he would slice their touching appendage off before they could harm her. He couldn't explain it, but he didn't protest it in the slightest.
"Hey, Void, can I ask you something?" Arashi inquired swiftly but amiably.
"Go ahead," Void gently replied.
"How come it's so dark now…? And where did Remi go?"
The Nihilego floated closer, giving him a touch again. "It dark because Solgaleo and Necrozma not recovered yet. Void try potions, Void try Reviver Seeds, but they so exhausted that that not even work well, so Void have them resting where Void keep Cosmogs and Cosmoems. And Remi with Salem right now, taking care of things for Void." She swayed some more, turning and floating the opposite way for a second as a shudder went down her form. "Squad Glimmer's Guzzlord start acting erratic like her enlightenment wear off, and she try Crunching her teammates in panic, so Void send Salem take care of it and send Remi just in case, because Guzzlords very difficult when they not under control. Void not go herself because Glimmer is Xurkitree… and that remind Void of Six-Seven, so Void get angry."
Another shudder went down her form, as though she might to strangle someone with her tentacle arms if any suitable victim was within reach.
"Sheesh, you're that mad, huh…?" Arashi asked gently, taking a few steps towards her.
"Yes. Void very mad. Void not sure what Void rather do- have Remi break Six-Seven's spikes off and stake him to rock in desert with them, have Salem melt his cables, or have Knox crush him fast and get it over with… or do all three. Void get Void's revenge… one way or another."
She shuddered again, and Arashi paused for a second. Hearing something so savage coming from someone using such a sweet voice was fairly unsettling, but nonetheless, Void's anger was understood easily enough. One of her own had tried to undermine her- Arashi would've been mad too in her position.
"But that not important right now," Void carried on, turning back to the Greninja and hugging herself. "Void have questions that Void want ask you." She floated back to the unmoving Knox and reached on top of his walls, taking hold of something that Arashi easily recognized- a black scarf with a badge bearing the moniker 'Team Starstorm.' "Remi say it come off you once you change form. This yours, right? You and Astrid have team together?"
His face lit up at seeing it, and he scurried closer again, reaching up to touch it but pausing for just a second. "Yeah, that's us, alright!" he easily responded without missing a bit. "She has one just like it with her name on it. She's the 'star' part and I'm the 'storm' and-…" He paused again. "… And she's not here right now, so I'm not sure what that means for Team Starstorm if our members are worlds apart…"
"That mean there no 'Starstorm,' right?"
The Greninja smiled with drooping eyes, letting out a hapless chuckle. "Well, when you say it that way, it sounds pretty depressing."
"But it true," Void nonchalantly brushed it off. She floated closer, gently brushing his face with her other arm and getting a wince in return. "And you not like that, do you? You not have Astrid, and Astrid not have you."
He shook his head. "No… We haven't been apart since we first met after she got sent to my world, and now it feels weird to be alone…"
"Tell Void something else," she said, circling him for a second. "What is it you want in life? Some of Void's underlings want purpose, some want power, some want love, some want never be alone, some want feel accepted, some want peace in life… Void give them all those things. Void give them purpose to live, Void give them power, Void become someone they love, Void make sure they not alone, Void accept everyone, Void make universe where there no fighting if everyone listen to Void… So what it be for you?"
Arashi chuckled, mulling it over as the words left her. "To tell you the truth, Void, all of those things sound great," he acknowledged. "On my world, I wanted to become a famous expeditioner, someone that makes the world a better place and has tons of exciting adventures, and I wanted some friends to do it with that I could always trust to have my back…"
"Oh, that no problem for Void," the Nihilego said nonchalantly, twirling one of her longer front tendrils with one arm. She would've looked like a little human girl twirling her hair if her off-world company had any reference for such, but as it was, she just looked peaceful and relaxed. "Void have idea… but Void want info first so Void know what work. You tell Void everything and do what Void say, and Void get your team back together better than it was. Once Void done, you have Astrid again, and Void have Astrid. That what important on your world- Astrid."
He grinned. "… I'll do whatever it is you want, Void. I definitely can't turn that down, aha!"
"Good, Void know you can't. Talk to Void. Tell Void about where you come from, tell Void about your team, tell Void about Astrid. Tell Void everything."
He did so for some time, rattling off the details of their escapades together while the Nihilego listened to every word.
She'd get what she wanted, one way or another.