Chapter 57 – Arc 4 (Poni Island) A Light That Burned the Sky

Truthfully, Lillie couldn't have told anyone where she became so devoted to Elio, or what had occurred to make her feel the fate of Alola was on her shoulders, but that was exactly how she felt. Losing Nebby to this Necrozma had finally sunken in, too, as she watched Elio argue over whether or not to bring her and Selene (he might not have been speaking, but his actions shouted louder than any words of his could hope to), and she was starting to feel the pangs of anger and confusion at having lost him so suddenly. Maybe she had left Aether originally for herself, but that wasn't to say Nebby hadn't been such a significant part of her life through it all…

And that beast. He had taken Nebby, entirely against his will, taking advantage of his weakened state post-evolution, and she had only been able to watch as his lifeless body was used like a puppet by the dark, crystalline monster. Then… he had left… and then Elio had the gall to simply jump on that flying beast of his and try to run away, without saying a word! Or, well, trying to, anyway… It didn't matter! The point was, he had tried to leave, just like that!

Well, she wasn't having it. She had promised herself she wouldn't be the helpless bystander anymore and despite ordering Ninetales to help throughout the fight, she still felt like one now. Snatching up the exosuit Dulse had tossed at her, she internally vowed to change that. A fire burned deep inside her as she clung to Elio and clenched her eyes shut, heeding Dulse's warning, as they plunged into the whirling mass of colors that formed the Ultra Wormhole Necrozma had fled through.

Lines were in the sand.

This was their moment.

She was ready.

In fact, she was so adrenaline-fueled that, once they reached the other side, she almost failed to notice something: Selene had hardly said a word throughout all of this. Briefly taking in the sight of a barren, darkened world with intimidating skyscrapers that disappeared into darkness at their tops, and a leaning, flickering tower in the distance, Lillie only became aware that something was wrong when Selene grabbed her arm unexpectedly. Seizing up at the sudden touch, Lillie gave her a puzzled look and just shook her head. "What is it?"

Squeezing her arm more, Selene's face appeared to grow paler by the second. Finally, she quavered, "Lillie, I… I can't… My Z-Crystal…"

Blinking in confusion, Lillie impatiently tapped a foot and pulled against Selene's grip. "What about it? Everyone's got stolen back there," Lillie huffed.

Holding up her trembling left wrist, Selene gestured with her chin toward her wristband. Indeed, the crystal that formed her Z-Power Ring was gone. "I can't, you know… see into your memories, or anyone's, I don't think… and my memory, it's so fuzzy… I know who you all are, but…"

That was a much more sobering remark. Lillie felt some of her fervor ebb as she swallowed hard, and her green eyes widened, as what Selene was trying to convey dawned on her in full. "What do you mean your memory is fuzzy?" she asked in almost a yelp.

"Um, Lillie, Selene, right?" Zossie's voice pulled their attention back to ahead of them. Along a steel-plated path, Zossie stood, her helmet's visor retracted to reveal glittering, sunset-colored eyes. Behind her, a distance away, a group of a couple dozen or more people stood gathered, most of them resembling her. They had hair of all colors, but their eyes were all the same in that they were pink or white in the center, with a pale color surrounding the colorless iris. They all bore the same white and black getups that she, Selene, Elio, Dulse, and Zossie donned. A suave, blond-haired man in a flowing grayish-white coat was fiddling with Elio's helmet while Dulse spoke with a man who, in different circumstances, might have amused her with his lengthy, obscenely blue mustache. To his side, a woman with windswept, indigo hair and a sour expression stared at her own feet. Her left hand was clasped around something and Lillie could see her muscles flexing nervously, as if she were squeezing away her stress on whatever it was.

"Yeah…" Selene weakly replied, looking as if she were seeing through Zossie. She looked completely spaced-out.

"That's us," Lillie affirmed more confidently, gnawing her lower lip as she took in Selene's appearance. This is a really horrible time for you to go getting amnesia on us, Selene… Lillie thought desperately. Not that it's your fault… Shaking her head, Lillie realized that if simply removing that Z-Crystal from her Z-Power Ring created such a dramatic result, then nobody in Alola had ever truly understood the 'gifts' the Tapus bestowed upon them. Swallowing against bile rising in her throat, a more dreadful thought snuck in: the Tapus' violent removal of those 'gifts' had been even more pointless than they had originally thought. Shaking her head, she tried to push that out of her mind… "MY NAME IS NECROZMA. I AM A GOD OF LIGHTS AND MAGIC." In her momentary, internal search for something else, she entertained a passing thought: was it possible the crystals just… were inexplicable, and their efforts to understand them at all were futile? Including the ways the Tapus and Alolans themselves had handled them?

"I remember talking to you a long time ago," Zossie giggled almost sadly, casting Lillie an almost apologetic look. "Me and Dulse… We told you how you wanted to keep our world as far from yours as possible."

"I… I remember," Lillie replied slowly. Guiltily, she sighed. "I know… I didn't do a very, uh… very good job at keeping Nebby away from—"

"Don't be," Zossie cut her off, forcedly chipper as ever. "But… do you remember how Dulse and I told you back then that our ancestors lost so much trying to contain The Blinding One before?"

With Selene giving her the most Deerling-in-headlights stare she had ever seen, Lillie nodded nervously. "Yeah, I… I remember." She grimaced, looking past Zossie and at the scientist messing with Elio's helmet. That was Dr. Colress, she remembered—and the woman standing just behind him was Rosa.

"Dulse and I… We were the ones that contacted the Aether Foundation first. And found Dr. Colress. We asked him if he could create something that might help The Blinding One, so that when the Megalo Tower"—Zossie gestured vaguely to the massive, crystalline tower in the distance, whose lights blinked in and out of view and occasionally threw the city into pitch-black darkness—"failed, we could calm The Blinding One down… Because the way our ancestors caged him in the past won't work anymore. Thousands gave their lives to cage him the first time, because they had to build Megalo Tower as he was fought. We'd have to do that again…" Looking over her own shoulder, Lillie winced at the sheer sorrow in Zossie's voice. "We… can't do that again… But Captain Phyco… Do you see the man Dulse is talking to?"

"Blue mustache?" Lillie asked, a little puzzled.

Snorting in unexpected laughter, Zossie grinned as she looked back on Lillie. "Yeah, that's him. He—well, he agreed to our plan before, but he kept telling the rest of the URS that we just needed better weapons, better understanding of The Blinding One's crystals, and we'd be able to take him on. We know how to build the Tower better now—his plan is to drive The Blinding One back into the Tower, or to kill him… We—"

Zossie's explanation was cut off by a familiar, deafening roar that made Lillie flinch and her knees wobble. The lights of Megalo Tower, far off, blacked out and showered the city in inky darkness—all except for a single, golden figure, which Lillie could only assume was standing atop that ailing monument. Squinting, she could tell this was Necrozma, still in Nebby's stolen body. With another bellowing roar, the lights of Megalo Tower strobed, creating frightening, flashing images of Necrozma stretching open its leonine jaws. From that impressive maw, a blazing beam of light flooded and struck one of the skyscrapers. The windows shattered consecutively, creating a morbidly musical sound, as the building started to crumble and buckle beneath the sunny onslaught.

The lights of Megalo Tower stabilized just as the skyscraper started to collapse. Zossie's eyes rounded to saucers as she scrambled over to the main group. Sharing a terrified glance with Selene, Lillie grabbed the other's hand and practically dragged her along, running to Elio's side. He was staring at the crashing building in an almost trancelike state, and Lillie practically yelped in surprise as he… spoke. Actually spoke. "There it goes…"

Before she could ask any questions about his sudden ability to speak, though, it was the blue-mustached man that raised an accusatory finger at Dulse and Zossie. Somehow, he screamed just above the sound of shattering glass and crumbling cement, "Do you see what you're defending? You're asking us to leave that thing to do what it wishes!"

"That is not what I am asking, Phyco, and you know that well!" Dulse snarled back, taking a deliberate step forward. They all lurched as the building in the distance finished crashing to the ground. A wave of dust and debris rose, leaving the gathered group to only brace themselves as bits and pieces were flung past them. Lillie closed her eyes and huddled with Selene as she weathered the brutal gust. When it ended, she waited a few seconds before slowly starting to unravel from Selene, listening to Dulse's voice strain as he growled, "I am just saying that if we do what you want, we are guaranteed that fate! Our goal is to not allow The Blinding One free roam, that is unacceptable, I know that! Attempting to capture it in the way the Alolans do or trying to speak to it—"

"We can talk to it, sure!" Phyco hissed, cutting him off. "But that doesn't matter! Because the beast does not care what we have to say! Dulse, what you want simply will not work."

"We haven't even tried it!" Zossie cried, desperately looking up at Phyco. "Somehow, the Alolans were able to force him back here, so clearly what they were doing was working! And Phyco… Phyco, even if we win it your way… We… We won't have learned anything…" Frustratedly stomping a foot, Zossie shouted at him, "We still do it, even today! All of our weapons are made from Ultra Beasts we've killed! We still use The Blinding One's crystals to power them! It doesn't fix anything! If The Blinding One doesn't finish us, something else will for how we behave! It's—it's wrong, Phyco!"

"No!" Phyco savagely roared, shooting a look at the woman beside him. "Soliera—I'm tired of this arguing."

Her fist tightened over what Lillie had noticed her holding before, and with a flick of her wrist, a blue glow crept up her arm and blades spilled out between her fingers, all in a practiced motion. Icy daggers with serrated edges glinted between her fingers in the flickers of light from Megalo Tower.

Phyco himself reached for something in his pocket as he warningly glared at Dulse and Zossie. The other people in suits around them all shuffled uncomfortably until they were behind him and Soliera. "Now, stand down, and assist us, or… or we will have to deal with you two later."

"Is that a threat? Seriously? With all that's going on, you want infighting on top of it?" Elio asked in a trembling voice. Looking up at him, Lillie wanted to say something, but found her voice felt trapped in her throat. Something about the way he spoke was off, like there was an auto-tuned edge to it. It sounded almost just like him… almost… Why did that scare her so much? Even more than the way he was glowering hatefully at Phyco?

"It's a promise," Soliera piped up, cutting her eyes at Elio. With that, Lillie noticed that they were glowing an icy, bitter blue.

"Wait…!" Selene panted. Staggering some, she pushed Elio and Lillie out of her way, getting in the middle of the fray. Pointing up at the tower, she flicked her gaze between them all, looking panicked, confused—…lost, Lillie thought nervously. "Th-that—… uh, The Blinding One, I can't remember what he called himself in Alola, but back… back there, he said… he said he was going to kill everyone here, right?"

Sharing a fleeting look, Elio and Lillie both nodded like bobbleheads. What are you getting at? Lillie thought impatiently.

Gritting her teeth in frustration, Selene spat, "Then why isn't it?!"

"Why is it not what?" Dulse asked, blinking.

"If he wanted to kill you all, he'd have done it," Selene panted. She abruptly wrenched a Poké Ball out of some pocket beneath her exosuit and pitched it. Bowtie, giving his new surroundings a surprised survey, appeared beside her. "He leveled a building, for fuck's sake! If he wants you dead, he'll just kill you and be done with it, right? Back at the… the…"

"Altar?" Lillie offered, realizing Selene was struggling to think of her words. That was the cause of her frequent pauses.

"Yeah, that. At the Altar, he had, er… Ilima, Ilima in his hands. He could have killed him right then. He kept telling us he wanted to. So why didn't he?"

"You say him leveling a building is evidence that he's not murderous?" Phyco sarcastically pressed, curling a lip. "Your logic is so sound, whoever-you-are. Sure, we evacuated the aboveground buildings, but that is still so—"

"Watch it!" Elio barked at him fiercely, warningly. Glaring hateful blue daggers, it was clear that Elio did not intend to tolerate any more sarcasm or spite from Phyco that day. Fittingly, the other flinched, recovering by closing his mouth with an audible, annoyed click of his teeth.

"If you want to stand here and argue, do it," Selene told them, "but if that… Blind-… Necrozma! Necrozma, that's it. If that Necrozma is just saying all of that without actually backing it up, then… then he can be reasoned with. If he wanted to, couldn't he just level all these buildings and even kill us, just like that? Why wouldn't he if that's what he wants? It doesn't make sense…" Shaking her head, Selene growled, "So, I'm going to go up there and try to talk to it."

"Selene, wait for us," Elio tried to say, starting after her. "You can't—!"

Cutting her eyes at him, Selene shook her head. A sense of urgency crept into her words that Lillie had never heard from her before—a desperate twinge, as if pleading for the other to understand. Almost… like a cry for help. "No, I have to go now," Selene insisted. Tugging on Bowtie's shoulder, she bolted for Megalo Tower.

"She told me her memory was feeling fuzzy," Lillie explained as she darted up beside Elio, grabbing him on his shoulder. She feared he'd go running, too, and leave her behind, if she didn't anchor him in place. "She—she's acting strange, we should probably—"

"Fuzzy?" Elio echoed, giving her a pointed stare.

"Yeah… Necrozma stole all of our Z-Crystals back there, remember? I guess he got Selene's too, the one that was in her wristband, and she—"

"Mm, well that's simply no good," Dr. Colress drawled, butting in the conversation unceremoniously. Sighing, they all turned to look at him as he tilted his head. "This Necrozma fellow, its crystals, they possess energy similar to that which gives pokémon on our world their typing. The Ultrarians typically reserve these crystals for use with items, such as their weaponry—like how Miss Soliera has a most interesting, handmade switchblade. It is derived from carved pieces of Kartana and imbued with the essence of what I believe Alolans would call an Icium-Z. Due to that power, her blades can inflict devastating freezing effects. However, if you remove the crystal, its effects will remain for a short while, but eventually will disappear altogether."

Elio impatiently clicked his tongue, then in that mechanical edge, demanded, "And what does that have to do with Selene?"

"Well, simple. The Alolans—and their Tapus—had a bad habit of imbuing living beings with these crystals. They discovered that cutting it into a specific shape allowed that crystal's energy to affect living creatures. Kahunas and Captains are gifted a crystal cut into a diamond with slightly uneven edges, allowing them to call upon that essence whenever. However, after enough exposure, it becomes a more permanent part of them—but if the crystal is removed and taken far enough away, that essence is permanently lost. This can have adverse effects on mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing, to my understanding. Pokémon rarely suffer these effects as they are only imbued with the power from these crystals fleetingly. Same with Island Challengers, who typically only use crystals cut into a straight-edge diamond-shape. It is not easy for them to absorb that power themselves for more than a split second." Pushing up his glasses, Dr. Colress shot Elio a winning smile. "Put more simply, your sister is a lot like Miss Soliera's blades. Removing her crystal removed her Mind Jumping ability, or at least, it is fading. The memories and the like she made with it are fading, too."

Everyone was just gawking at him.

"What? I was keeping up with the events in Alola the entire time," he snorted at their disbelieving stares. "So, I know about all your little powers and the like."

Incredulous, Lillie scoffed, "What so many people couldn't figure out over… over centuries, did you just—?"

"Well, it's not tried and true science just yet," Dr. Colress explained, waving a hand flippantly. "I still have yet to test most of that. However, preliminary testing of these crystals I have done over the last couple of years plus direct observation suggests as much."

"Years?" Zossie squeaked. "But we only just—"

"Do you really have time to grill him?" Rosa unexpectedly shot at them, her voice tinted with anxiety. "Go fucking deal with Necrozma, you idiots! The girl that'll be an amnesiac soon has more sense than all of you combined…"

Feeling strong hands on her shoulder, Lillie gasped as she was turned around forcefully. Once again, she was face to face with Elio. Meeting his tense, blue gaze, she exhaled in a little bit of relief. "Lillie?" he asked.

"Y-yeah?"

Unexpectedly, he hugged her. "I missed you so much. I love you so much. I've had so much to say… So much I wish I would have said or done before…"

Hugging him back, the conversation with Dr. Colress forgotten almost immediately, Lillie felt her eyes sting as she clung to him. "I missed you too… and I love you, too." Gnawing her lower lip, she reminded herself what they still had to deal with, and so she added brokenly, "Now, come on, let's go, we're not done yet. We're in this together. Let's go help Selene…"

Somehow, she knew he had felt the need to say that before they approached the tower.

As she was running toward the tower, Selene suddenly felt the earth give way below her. At first, she screamed and covered her eyes, but then… she was gently lowered onto the ground. In stark contrast to the bitter cold she had felt before, a comfortable warmth spread around her. When she dared to move her quivering hands away from her face, she found Bowtie curled around her, his eyes wide beneath his hood. More pressingly, though, was that in front of them, Necrozma was seated on his hind legs, panting as foamy, sickly saliva dribbled freely from his jaws. Beneath the black, crystalline structures that had enslaved his body, Nebby's tired, red eyes bored into Selene.

Sucking in a fast, frightened breath, Selene shakily and slowly started to stand up. Glancing around herself anxiously, she gasped as she realized they were high, high off the ground. The structure below them felt unstable, too—when it lurched, she yelped and dropped back to her knees. Bowtie clung to her tightly, chirping fearfully. She had hardly ever heard him make noise after his evolution into a Decidueye, so to hear him sound so panicked was just… sad. Vaguely, she was aware they were atop the fabled Megalo Tower.

Or at least, she thought she didn't remember him making such noise, and thought they had to be atop that tower… Ugh, everything was so fuzzy and thick, thinking felt like trudging through deep mud… She didn't know why, but she felt as if she were drowning in her own mind, losing track of what was what. It was why she had bolted away from Elio. Despite how painful it had been to turn away from him yet again, she had been terrified that if she didn't go then, she wouldn't remember her logic for too much longer…

"YOU WANTED TO TALK TO ME."

Freezing, Selene just gawked at Necrozma. Those dead, pink eyes closed. "YOU WANTED TO TALK TO ME," he repeated when she failed to say anything. His voice, commanding, deep, and loud back in Alola, now sounded softer, even if it still reverberated in her very bones. The aggression she thought she remembered him having was gone… But that couldn't have been misremembered, could it?

"They… they're scared of you down there," Selene forced, making her mouth cooperate at last. Sharply inhaling, deciding to trust her ebbing memory, she added, "You… you told us all you'd kill us." Blinking fervently against tears—why was she crying? Was it the stress?—she begged, "Why? Why haven't you just done it, then? You destroyed that building like it was nothing. You—"

"THERE IS NO POINT."

"…What?"

Necrozma hung his head tiredly. "THESE ARE NOT THE SAME ULTRARIANS. I BELIEVED THEY WERE… I WAS WRONG."

Breath hitching in her throat in disbelief at how forlornly he said that, Selene dared to ask, "But… but then why did you destroy the building…?"

"I WAITED FOR YEARS IN THIS TOWER…" He answered slowly, carefully. But not once did she catch that angry, murderous edge she had sworn she heard back in Alola. "I WAITED FOR YEARS IN THIS TOWER, DREAMING OF THE DAY I WOULD ESCAPE AND MURDER THOSE THAT DID THIS TO ME."

Hugging Bowtie, Selene said nothing, waiting uncertainly for him to continue.

"THAT NIHILEGO THAT MERGED WITH THE WOMAN ATTACKED ME. IT BROKE ME FREE OF THE TOWER. BUT THEY WISHED TO HARM ME…" His deep, rumbling voice that made her bones ache began to ebb, until he spoke in a gentle voice that sounded almost melodic, almost… sorrowful… "I once traveled between worlds in my own body. I was golden and complete, and I had thousands of those crystals attached to me. I admit to you, and to nobody else, that I do not know what I am or where I come from… I know that I require light to live, and I know that I had something so many others wanted from me… but that is all I know. I was frightened by how badly some wanted my crystals, so I would give them away as they grew, in hopes I would be left free. I could defend myself if needed, but… It still did not feel good to be hunted at all given times…"

"Why are you telling me this…? Why me, and nobody else…?" Selene managed to squeeze out, voice trembling and barely audible.

"Because soon you will not remember," he answered her matter-of-factly. Looking up so that his dead eyes met hers, she swore his expression was nothing short of apologetic. "Nobody… has heard my side of the story before… and not only will you not remember, but you wanted to talk to me…"

Although she had a million questions, starting with the frightening implications of him saying she wouldn't remember soon, but a morbid curiosity kept her from asking any of them. Instead, she just remained silent… Privately, hearing him say all of that, she was curious to know what his story was. Swallowing her fears, her anxieties, and her wants, she nodded slowly. "Okay… Tell me."

"My crystals used to grow continuously on their own, new ones with different abilities… I was able to use them all. I knew nothing about the rest of the world. My first memory is of an Ultra Wormhole and the location it brought me to… I knew how to use my crystals, but I did not understand the world around me very well. But my crystals would occasionally shed. It was not long before others of different worlds knew of me, my crystals, and what they could do…

"Many were grateful, or surprised, or scared of these crystals… They revered me. They thanked me. They cowered beneath me. I did not know what to make of these responses, but I understood that my crystals were coveted. I did not mind giving the ones that shed from my body.

"Yet, then I stumbled across this world… Ultra Megalopolis. In the past, they called it Ultrameer… It was much bigger than this single city, though this was the center of their world, and back then, it was sunny and lively here. Warm, too…

"Ultrarians were fearful of me and readied weapons at first sight of me. This had only happened a couple of times before and those people were quickly appeased by my gifts… But I noticed something was off about these weapons. These weapons were hewn from the bodies, scales, skins, and claws of various Ultra Beasts, the creatures that call Ultra Space home. I had seen weapons made from parts of dead creatures before, of course, but the Ultrarians seemed to have a particular fondness for this. I even had the grim experience of watching them strike down a beast and carve each shred of its body for use, primarily for weaponry, though some for food. As usual I offered them some shed crystals… That seemed to calm them down, and I believed that to be the end of it.

"It wasn't. I spent that night in Ultrameer and found myself surrounded the next day. They had managed to power some of their weaponry with my gifted crystals. Despite my best efforts to defend myself, their weapons were injuring me, unlike any other weapons I had come across before… They were hurting me quite badly and they used this to their advantage so they could come close enough to me to break yet more crystals off me.

"I came to realize that's what they wanted. They wanted more of my crystals. They were using them to alter their morbid weapons. That was when I realized, if I did not fight back with my full strength, I may very well end up like the Buzzwole, Kartana, Xurkitree, or other Ultra Beasts that made up their war supplies. So, I fought… and I fought… and I fought… And yet, the more crystals they pried from me, the more they could fight, the worse they hurt me… And no matter how many of them I gravely injured or even dispatched, they did not stop… Nor could I get away, somehow, they stopped me every time…"

Looking up at the darkened sky, a multicolored prism of crystals hovered above Necrozma's head. It glinted in the flickers of Megalo Tower. With a rumbling sound akin to a purr, Necrozma moved to touch his nose to the prism, and began to glow a bright, sunny yellow all over, forcing Selene to briefly look away as he continued to speak. "This is nowhere near as many crystals as I once possessed, but it is all the ones I could recover utilizing the crystal your friend had… His was one imbued with electricity and telekinesis. I believe he was using it to boost the power of that little beast of his."

Gasping in awe as the light began to fade, Selene almost didn't believe her eyes. In place of the sickly, possessed body of Nebby that had been in front of her before, a bipedal, draconic beast flared its two sets of wings and hovered proudly. Its entire body was ethereal and bright, like golden plasma molded into the shape of a dragon. Its eyes, however, caught her attention as they looked down on her. They were made up of crystals, like the ones that had been inside the prism beforehand, almost looking as if they were stitched together there. "This is who I really am… Yet, even with these crystals I recovered… I cannot hold this form for long. It is using a lot of the Solgaleo's energy to do this, as well as the crystals… If I had my full number of crystals, it would be no problem to hold onto it…

"However, back in the days of Ultrameer, the Ultrarians injured me so badly that I quit growing new crystals. Realizing that, I transformed to this form to try and save myself. I tried to flee… They hooked me with crystal-infused weapons and anchored me to this realm. I still don't entirely understand how they managed that. But they injured me until I could no longer hold this form… Then, they carved enough crystals from me to prevent me from doing it again…

"They were going to kill me… In a final stand to save myself, I siphoned away all of the light from this world's sun and the nearby stars. I drowned them in darkness… And then I razed as much of Ultrameer as I could using my newfound power. I knew I did not have that power for long and if I left them alive, then they would try to kill me again and most certainly others, based on their weapons, and I knew they had the ability to traverse Ultra Space… I admit I lost myself. I lost myself much, much worse than I did today. I leveled cities. I killed every Ultrarian that dared meet my gaze. In the end, when my energy was running low, when much of their world swam in blood, there was just one place left: Megalopolis.

"It was there that the few who remained of the Ultrarians bested me. They injured me so badly that I turned black, like a dead star, losing this form. With no more light to steal, and no more crystals to generate the light I needed, they were free to cage me away in that horrible tower. They behaved as if they respected me after that… and yet, they still kept me locked away, and they feared me…" Necrozma appeared to shiver, and Selene swore his expression was so sad, despite his godly form. "They pushed me into a state of purgatory, somewhere between dead and alive, and yet they behaved as if I was the monster… I was left with just two crystals to myself… They used my stolen crystals to power their remaining city, continued to imbue their horrific weapons with my body… I've lost track of time. But that is how I have been living for so long…" There was a long pause. "I caused so much death and bloodshed, even broke this world, ultimately, for nothing. I was still caged and injured anyway, whether I had left them alive or the sun in the sky would not have mattered. The lives of those Ultrarians were lost for no reason… Along with my anger, I have lived with shame, shame with myself for feeling guilt. Despite knowing everything they did to me, I have been guilty, thinking of how I slaughtered so many without it making a difference… Isn't that pathetic? They were all trying to murder me and skin me alive, and yet I feel the guilt.

"But today, when that woman merged with the Nihilego broke me free, all I could think of was how much hate I had for those Ultrarians. How I regretted not destroying this final city of theirs and running them extinct, too. How I was furious with myself for daring to feel guilt and sorrow for them. But I also needed light… The woman merged with the Nihilego provoked a fight from me, so I followed her… Well. You know the rest." She swore he chuckled as he gave her a softer look. "Yet in spite of all that hate, at them and myself, I could not bring myself to do more than yell and scream this time… The Nihilego that attacked me bore the worst of my anger… Indeed, even the Solgaleo I merged with, too, he misses one of those humans that was back in your world, and I feel guilt for knowing I am draining his life and denying him his freedom, as the Ultrarians did to me…"

A sudden growl from him made Selene perk up in alarm, giving him a round-eyed glance. But he just shook his head. "It is frustrating. To feel like so much suffering was for nothing. Even more so, I feel ridiculous. As powerful as I am right now, I could destroy this entire city if I so pleased, and despite all I have suffered… I cannot do it. I destroyed an empty building of theirs, but that was all I could manage. Just like how I held a defenseless human in my claws, and I could have crushed the life from him so easily back in your world, but I couldn't. And these crystals I recovered… I could keep them, but what good would it do? I cannot produce any more. Others will just wish to steal them again, will just hurt me for them again, will just hurt others over them again. The universe wishes me death and harm, and yet, despite my anger and hurt, I could not do the same in return… and am ashamed of what little of it I did cause."

"What are you… getting at?" Selene breathlessly asked, struggling to keep up with him. It felt hard to understand right then…

"Perhaps it would simply be better for me to end myself before giving others the chance of tormenting me or themselves again…" With that, Necrozma shrunk in another glowing lightshow. When that was over, Nebby, in his Solgaleo form, was collapsed beside Necrozma, unconscious. Necrozma was back in his black crystalline form. A pile of Z-Crystals spanned the roof of the tower in front of him, sliding somewhat whenever it leaned. Weakly pushing against the ground with black claws in an attempt to stand (or at least, Selene assumed that was what he was doing; honestly, she had a hard time making out what was what on this broken form of his), Necrozma then shakily pushed one of those crystals toward Selene. "You should take that."

Picking it up slowly, Selene whispered, "Wh-why…?"

"…So that you do remember, today…" Necrozma replied after momentary hesitation. "I… I don't want to simply disappear… I know I said you would not remember, but… I want you to remember, now… If nobody remembers, then what was it all for…?"

Swallowing as the meaning of his words sunk in, Selene clasped her hand around the crystal. Picking it up with shaking hands, she clipped it back into place in her wristband, and Bowtie also took a few uncertain steps forward. Reaching out with a silken wing, Necrozma shakily returned the gesture, all while Selene inhaled sharply as memories overwhelmed her senses on every front. Everything all fell into place in one moment as her senses dulled and her mind felt so much sharper than before. All in that instant, she understood that everything they had dealt with in Alola, from the twisted culture surrounding the Z-Crystals down to the grim fear the Ultrarians had of Necrozma, was simply a horrible misunderstanding. All from its roots, it had been just that, hadn't it? The Ultrarians' misconceptions of Necrozma, the Alolans' misunderstanding of Solgaleo, Lunala, and the Z-Crystals, the tilted relationship between Captains, Kahunas, and Tapus—Selene scrambled to her feet. Blinking away the visions she was experiencing, she returned to reality just in time to see Necrozma tearing open one last wormhole. "Wait!" she shouted. "Wait! If all that's true, that—that just means people don't understand! We can clarify it for them, we can make it all better!" Nobody should have to… have to disappear!

As he drifted toward the wormhole, Necrozma scoffed. "I don't even understand what I am or what my place is in the multiverse. How can we possibly explain it for them? …It does not matter. This way your world goes back to normal, too, and so do your lives… Even so. Thank you, for talking to me, and for holding onto my memory. I will go elsewhere for my final leave, so you don't have to remember that part of it. I hope you remember me in my true form, instead of this broken, dead husk…"

Just like that, he was gone, in a flourish of light. Glittering stardust wafted off the portal as it closed behind him, showering around Selene and Bowtie. Selene sank back to her knees under the sparkling aura, watching as the speckles of light gleamed with the surges of light from the tower below her. Bowtie caught a few on his wings, but they faded as soon as they touched him. He cast Selene a concerned, almost pleading look. As if he were asking her to tell him he had misunderstood what they had just witnessed.

"I…" Selene's mouth felt like sandpaper, her tongue like cotton. "I guess he's right, in that everything can go back to normal now… Aether's been taken care of, more or less, Necrozma's not a threat…" She glanced at the unconscious Nebby. "Nebby's back, even if he's exhausted…" With quivering hands, she looked down at the group of crystals clustered upon the tower. "Those are everyone's Z-Crystals…" Breath starting to hitch as she felt her eyes sting with emotion, Selene looked at her scattered reflection across them, each one feeling like it was giving her accusatory stares, as if demanding her for more. "The only thing left is for Mom and Dad to be released from Interpol, if possible, b-but even then… We… We won…" Shaking her head as a rising panic made bile gather in her throat, Selene cried out to Bowtie, "B-but why don't I feel like I won?! This all goes so much deeper than anyone knew!" In disbelief, she looked up at Bowtie, eyes wide and round. "What am I supposed to do with all of that? I was supposed to do something with this power, am I really just a living bookshelf, for everyone else's stories?"

She almost didn't notice Bowtie looking up and past her, not until she felt pressure on her right shoulder. Jerking to look at the source, Selene gave Elio a blank stare, then Lillie, Zossie, Dulse, and others as they fanned out around her. While Lillie darted over to the fallen Nebby, Elio got to his knees next to her and gave her a sad smile, all teary-eyed, too. "I was so worried," he told her in that creepily robotic edge, even though the obviously intended emotion was still there. "Are you alright…? Where did it go? We only got up the tower just as you finished… There was a psychic barrier preventing us up here before that… It kept pushing us back down the tower…" His voice trembled.

"Yeah, though Dulse and Zossie stopping to brawl with Phyco and Soliera didn't help," Lillie weakly laughed from somewhere else on the roof.

"The Blinding One has escaped again?" Dulse asked, ignoring Lillie, his usually stern voice lacking its usual conviction and instead full of anxiety.

Abruptly hugging Elio, she could practically feel his relief as the tension left his muscles and he tightly hugged her back. Whimpering, she told him, "He's—Necrozma's—gone… He's not going to be a problem anymore, I don't think…" "I… I don't want to simply disappear…" "He… he said he c-couldn't bring himself to actually hurt anyone, because he knew nobody here was responsible for what he was mad about, but that… that he felt he would always be hunted, or kept in captivity, and he… he gave all the crystals back, let Nebby go, and… and he left… to… to…"

"To what?" Zossie pried, sounding both curious and like she didn't want to know the answer. Selene didn't have it in her to reply. She just clung to Elio and cried, waving away Zossie without ever looking up at her. "To—to what, Selene?"

"Hey, hey, it's okay," he whispered to her, rubbing her back in attempted, soothing circles. "I… I think I understand… If that's the case, then… we can go home, now…" Hollowly, he tried to further calm her down, "Whatever's left, I'm sure we can handle… It'll all go back to normal soon enough…"

Closing her eyes, Selene shook her head, even though it was buried against Elio's chest. "Elio, you don't even believe that. There's no 'normal' anymore… Not after everything we've all been through…"

A long pause. "No… you're right." Forcing a tired laugh, he muttered, "I should really stop treating you like you can't handle the truth. You can see it better than I can, after all… But even if it is changed forever, now we can start getting better." He gently pushed her off him and tilted her head up by pushing on her chin. Giving her a slight, sobering smile, he said, "Come on. Get up. It might be over with Necrozma, but we have to go back to Alola and make sure everyone's okay there, now."

Truthfully, despite her frayed emotions, Selene found herself a little shocked by how calm he was being. This wasn't the Elio she remembered, the frantic, frightened boy that lost himself trying to be everyone's protector (…under her own instructions, a tiny voice in the back of her head reminded her). Yet, instead of feeling that insurmountable guilt she had always experienced before, this time, Selene just felt a fragile semblance of peace. They were different people, neither of them responsible for the other, and while they hadn't enjoyed the time away from one another, it seemed that they had needed it. They had needed it to learn more and accept more about themselves individually. Elio had apparently grown more confident and finally achieved his protective desire in the line of work the Ultrarians had put him through—Selene had seen that in her visions, even if she hadn't had the time to reflect on it at first—and Selene, herself, had finally accepted the gift Tapu Koko had given her, learned to forgive, and learned that the world was not as black and white as she had once believed.

It was easy to condemn the way the Alolans lived. It was easy to condemn the way the Ultrarians lived. It was easy to condemn the Tapus, the Skull Gang, the Kahunas, Kukui, Aether, Interpol—anyone and everyone had something on their hands they were guilty of. Selene had set Elio down on his warpath in the past; Hau had sunk Aether Paradise, which ultimately killed many people and pokémon alike; Lillie had left Gladion behind at Aether Paradise in her eagerness to get away; Gladion had hurt others over his anger at what he had endured at the hands of his mother; Elio's past fervor had gotten Lillie kidnapped by Aether… The list could have gone on forever. Truth be told, there was no correct way of navigating everything happening in Alola (or even beyond it, in the case of Ultra Megalopolis). The hardest thing Selene had learned to let go of from her past in Kanto was the stoic belief that there was an objective 'right' and 'wrong,' accepting that it was a scale, and personal to everyone, rather than absolute truth.

Taking a shaky breath, Selene grabbed Elio's arms, and allowed him to help her stand up. Bowtie rejoined her side as she met her brother's gaze. "…You're right," she yawned, following with a shuddery breath. "You're right. We're not done."

"But—but wait, what happened to The Blinding One?" Dulse butted in, him and Zossie walking up beside them. While Elio had seemingly understood Selene's implication right away, she wasn't surprised that the Ultrarians were less keen to deciphering her meaning. Lillie watched from a distance, where she was stroking Nebby's head. He had regained consciousness, but didn't move, likely thanks to exhaustion.

Glancing around at everyone on the roof, Selene took a deep breath, steeling her nerves and emotions. "I'll show you."