Recommended songs: "Seven Devils" by Florence The Machine and "Medicine" by Daughter .
Be sure to revisit Chapter 1. I've made numerous revisions and enhancements to it. Also, read the expanded notes at the end.
Before you read Chapter 2, I'd like to thank Vulaan Kulaas for granting me permission to use "Shattered Prism, Lost Hope" as the basis for this entire story. You will see that fanfiction reused throughout this chapter. I was inspired by that one-shot to expand upon Necrozma's story, but I also felt a need to incorporate it here. And before you try to report this, please note that I have actually PM'd the author for permission before I wrote the story. I'd be more than happy to share screenshots with you or any moderator who asks for it.
Thank you for your understanding. And now...
"Look at him, taking in all of that glorious light for himself. Why should we have to live only off of the light the Blinding One chooses to give us, whenever he does?"
"I know, right? We'll just take a small amount of light, enough for us to make our machine. He'll never know it's missing!"
"And we'll go down in history as the ones who evolved Ultra Megalopolis to a higher plane! Or better yet, the ones who figured out how to control The Blinding One!"
"Quiet! Do you want to wake him up? Now, help me out with this!"
A sharp pain wakes me from my slumber. I look down in shock to find that my crystal was broken, and that light was pouring out of it like a flood.
"Who… who DID THIS?" I look around in fury, only to find a group of humans holding strange tools, a look of terror on their faces. Upon a closer look, I see one of them trying to hide the broken crystal.
"YOU!"
"Uh, it's not what it looks like, oh Blinding One! We were just returning your crystal to you! Here!" An enraged roar leaves my mouth as the humans run away in fear. As I struggle to give chase to them, the pain only gets worse as I use the light I have left to eviscerate those humans. I look at my crystals turning black and can feel that my brain prism was being exposed from the lack of light protecting it from harm.
Everything was collapsing around me: my light, my crystals, my brain prism, my hope...
The only thing I had left was pain... and rage...
As I return to the world from which I came, the humans warily approach me. Do they only see a Solgaleo that they know and trust? A barrage of lasers will make them see otherwise! The humans flee the streets, as I expect them to. As I roar in satisfaction, two of those accursed suits stand before me. The ones who examined me, day in and day out. I see the determination and fear in their eyes as they slowly approach me.
"Necrozma, release Solgaleo and come out right now! Can't you hear its cry for help?" The man puts his arm in front of the woman to stop her from speaking any more.
"Soliera, allow me... Necrozma, listen to me! I know that you think this will relieve your pain and restore you to the Blinding One. But what you're doing is madness, not to mention wrong! Leaving not one, but two worlds in complete darkness? Is this what you really want?" I ponder the man's words for a nanosecond before roaring.
"You humans only think for yourselves, without thinking about how it affects others. Now, you must face the repercussions of your avarice! Now, you and the rest of the humans will feel the same pain that I do!" The man sighs, disappointed that I will not listen to him. As if I care.
"...You leave me no choice, Necrozma. Soliera, now!" Barriers quickly form around every street, blocking me from reaching the humans who fled into the surrounding buildings.
"Now you only have one way to go, Necrozma. And that is through me, Captain Phyco, leader of the Ultra Recon Squad!" Phyco calls out his Poipole, who quickly falls at the first strike from my claws. I look up to see the tower that I was imprisoned in, the tower that tortured me in isolation for so long, the tower that was a monument to man's arrogance and greed! No more! This tower will fulfill one final use for me before I tear it asunder for good.
I leap over Phyco and his Poipole and run towards the tower, with Solgaleo's claws proving most useful at climbing it. As I reach the top, I see the prison where I was held, and the ruins of the countermeasures the humans installed to try to contain me. Now, the place where I suffered will be the place where I triumph!
My brain prism separates from Nebby before I consume every last ounce of light it holds. Nebby has served its purpose, but now it is time. It feels so satisfying, having the light fill every fiber of my being like it did before. My roar reverberates throughout every last corner of this world. Now that I am free and restored back into my true form, it is time for the humans to pay for their betrayal. They expect me to use my light to revive this world? I think not!
"Listen well, you pathetic human vermin! Hear my woe, of the suffering I had endured from your ancestors! Can you even begin to imagine how I felt being betrayed by the beings I had protected for so many years, being broken and stripped of my light because of their greed?! …NO! DO NOT EVEN ACT LIKE YOU KNOW OR CARE! You cannot even begin to comprehend the agony I suffered, ravaging different dimensions to bring me some form of relief! Your ancestors took my light from me, and now your world will forever be denied the same thing as I once was. You will never know the warm caress of sunlight, or the beauty of a sunrise and sunset, as you made me suffer for so long! And now... I will sit back and smile as you do the same!"
My telepathic voice blazes across the darkened world, my eyes coldly looking upon the humans that I knew cowered in their buildings. Like that would protect them from my wrath, how cute. I look down, my now golden form burning into this eternal darkness I have damned their descendants to live in for the rest of their pathetic existence! My wings scorch and melt through the shields that once tortured me as though they were nothing. Beams of light strike nearby buildings, causing pieces of the buildings and the tower to fall to the ground. A smile spread across my mouth, for I at last felt complete once more! Nothing can take this from me! Not even the pitiful Solgaleo that fused with me could even hope to break free of my control!
And yet, why do I still feel pain? To my horror, I notice that the light is still leaking out of me like it did before, in the same spot where I was injured long ago. What is worse is the pain deep inside of me, throbbing in various places. Namely, everywhere. The light that was briefly satisfying is now a constant source of torture, far worse than all of the pain I endured put together! My crystals are violently shifting around in their positions, threatening to collapse despite my best efforts to stabilize them. I thought that I was finally free of suffering in this form!
Footsteps echo across the ground, and I look down to see what was going on. Could there be a human foolish enough to actually challenge me now? My eyes narrow, a growl tearing from my throat as I saw who was here. It… it cannot be! It was that human whelp; he must have followed me to free his precious Nebby! Why... why can he not leave me alone?
He calls out his Hawlucha, both of whom are determined to save his world from me. They caught me off guard once before, but this time, they will all fall before my true power! Even if I am in pain from this tainted light, I can still use it to crush this boy!
"No... no… no… NO! YOU WILL NOT TAKE MY LIGHT FROM ME, NOT AGAIN! I WILL NOT LET YOU, FOR I WOULD RATHER DIE!" The boy and his Pokémon cry out in pain, clutching at his skull as my voice tore through his mind. If he thinks I'll let him break me, then I will gladly prove him wrong!
"I dare you to try to take this away from me! This lie… lie… LIIIIGGGGHHHTTT!"
As I roar to challenge the boy, I felt everything within me was heightened by the light: my strength, my speed, my defense... and my pain. The boy and his Hawlucha are amazed, as they should be by my presence. I strike with my lasers, only to find that they do not make contact with his Pokémon. What is going on? I look around, only to see that the Hawlucha moved behind me! Or was he there this whole time? No, it does not matter! Neither does the stinging pain I now feel in my leg. A strike of my claws, and the Hawlucha falls. But to my surprise, it transforms into a Zoroark, who grins at me before fainting.
One by one, the boy's Pokémon fall before me, for my power is too great for them to handle.
However, as the battle rages on, it takes a lot more effort than it should to finish off his Pokémon. My attacks are not generating as quick as they should be, I cannot dodge the boy's attacks as effortlessly as I used to, and this blasted pain is getting worse by the second! As he calls out his last Pokémon, a Decidueye, I try to make this quick so I can properly heal. Before I can fire a laser from my mouth, I fall to the ground from a sharp pain. It pains me to look down and see that the source of the stinging pain was actually paralysis. Of course! That Zoroark must have struck when it was behind me!
Between the light throbbing all over and the paralysis coursing its way through me, I... I cannot do this anymore. I want this pain to stop, but not at the cost of my light. I look at the boy with hatred for what he has done, but he only looks at me with concern. My look of hatred turns into one of desperation. As I move to finish off this boy, something holds me back.
I look down to find an arrow, pinning my feet to the ground so that I cannot move any more. What is going on? This arrow should be nothing before my power! No, it must be something else. And then it hit me...
It is impossible...
It cannot be...
Nebby?! That accursed Solgaleo somehow found a way to resist my control!
"He... help me..."
"Silence! You are nothing but a worm beneath me! No one can hear you!"
"No... but you can... HELP ME!" Those words came from Nebby deep within, but they also came out of my mouth.
As we argue, the boy strikes a pose with his Decidueye. Are they going to attack? Heh! Even with all of this pain and resistance, I can still endure whatever they attack me with. A barrage of ghostly arrows comes towards me. I try to move out of the way, but the combination of the arrow, Nebby and this paralysis keeps me still. The last thing I hear before the attack hits is the boy, who stands with his Decidueye, both of whom are looking sad.
"I'm sorry, Necrozma. I hope that if we meet again, I can show you the true light... and you won't have to suffer anymore..."
"No... why… why am I broken once more? What… did I do wrong?"
I could only lay in disbelief, watching in horror as my once golden crystals turn black again. The pain I felt in that prison tore through me once more like an old friend, all while I felt every last drop of light eagerly leave my body.
"Wh... Why?! All I wanted… was to stop my pain. Was that too much for me to ask?"
I feel something burning in my eyes as Nebby separates from me.
"No... do not... do not leave me... please..."
Nebby slowly walks away from me without looking back, and I was powerless to stop it.
Have I not been punished enough, is five hundred years not enough to sate fate's cruel appetite? I was not the same Pokémon, and I knew that I never would be again. The burning sensation in my brain prism increases, and I feel it running down the side of my bloodied face and pool onto the ground. I have no choice. I… must escape.
Using the last of the pitiful strength I had left, I form an Ultra Wormhole that was only big enough for me as I drag my broken, sorry self across the ground. My breaths came out in choked gasps, blood staining the white floor as the whelp focused on the other Legendary who collapses before him.
I made it in without caring where I land, for anywhere would be better than here. As I see the end of the wormhole, I see Pokémon fleeing in the snow. I fall out of the sky, unconsciousness claiming me before I smash into the ground before me, a large crater forming where I now lay motionless.
All I see is a white blur, cold seeping into my body as snowflakes gently land onto my mangled form. I groan, for the cold seemed to magnify my injuries to the extreme. Where was I? It is quiet here aside from my labored attempts at breathing; how long have I been unconscious? Hours, days, weeks? I look around, only to find no Pokémon or human nearby. The effort to keep myself conscious was immense as memories float towards the surface of my mind, phantom sunlight awash over the form I had once again lost.
No one is coming to save me...
I am truly alone...
I do not care about restoring myself back to my true form anymore...
For all I wanted to do was sleep and never wake up again.
Soft, crunching footsteps lie at the cusp of my hearing, is it something ready to drag me down to the fiery pits of the underworld? Faint beeps draw my attention upward, where I see a strange man in the distance, repeatedly tapping away at his wrist. Could this man be the one to set me free from this pain? He is not getting closer, so he could not be where those footsteps were coming from. The footsteps stop, a blurry form leaning over me as I look down.
N-no…
It cannot be!
It was... the whelp!
I must have landed somewhere in his world! I can only surmise that he came here to end me for good.
I let out a gargled, bitter laugh from the irony of it all, seeing him flinch brought me a twisted, sick joy that quickly fades as he pulls his ring closer to my face. The light emanating from it… it was a short burst of relief from the pain. I take every last drop of light that I could, for I do not know if I would ever have it again. Satisfied, he pulls out a strange purple bottle from his bag. What… what is he doing? Even if I tried, I knew I was unable to move an inch as he sprays a part of me. I tense up as the pain fades a bit, but I could not help but get angry as well.
"No! I… would.. rather die than be with you!"
"Let… me die!"
"Do not make me be with the one… that crushed me!"
"If… If I cannot get any more relief from my pain after all these years…"
"Then what is… the point of me… living any longer?"
I can feel myself slipping away, possibly for the last time as the whelp's hair blows in the freezing wind. The boy's gray eyes look into my own as the snow begins to fall harder around us. A frozen wasteland, devoid of almost all life with a dim mockery of sunlight… a fitting place for once such as I to finally leave this wretched life.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Or so I thought.
Again, special thanks to Vulaan Kulaas for giving permission to use the one-shot! Vulaan left the original story with an open ending, one where Necrozma either lives or dies. For obvious reasons, I chose to have Necrozma live.
Chapter 3 will mark a major change in Necrozma, as evidenced by the title, "Salvation." As I have said before, Necrozma is not evil, and the next chapter will prove it.
I figured that the citizens of Ultra Megalopolis would see a Solgaleo first before noticing Necrozma's crystals. Phyco and Soliera confront the player outside of the Megalo Tower, so they are the last line of defense/voice of reason before Necrozma climbs to the top of the tower. Since the whole Ultra Megalopolis was basically a giant hallway that led to the tower in the game, the barriers serve a purpose here, shielding the citizens from Necrozma.
Part two deals with Necrozma's revenge: to leave the humans in eternal darkness for what they did to him. In his brain prism, it's only fitting since they left him darkened and in pain for so long. However, as Phyco points out to the player, Necrozma's injury renders him unable to properly handle the light he absorbed. Instead, it leaves him in agonizing pain. I chose to have his crystals shake to illustrate that he cannot fully control his new form.
During the battle, the player sends out a Zoroark who created a Hawlucha illusion to distract Necrozma while Zoroark used Fling to inflict paralysis. I was going to use Toxic, given its popularity in the game for battling Ultra Necrozma. However, since both Lillie and the Ultra Recon Squad asked the player to help Necrozma, poison just seemed too inhumane. I decided to have Nebby speak in order to show how it's fighting Necrozma from within. And yes, the player speaks as well. More so than he ever has in Ultra Sun/Moon.
At the end, we see Necrozma slowly giving up on life, his plan (and himself) ending in shambles. To me, it would make sense that the Pokémon and the humans in the area would flee at the sight of a giant Legendary falling out of the sky. Yet none of the trainers (other than Colress) on Mount Lanakila acknowledge that he landed, which I found strange.
Finally, I'd like to address one particular comment. This guest comment was directly copied, with no edits.
From a guest called "Please no": "There's thousands upon thousands of fics like this one out there. When I read the summary I thought I finally found a Necrozma fic different to the others where we'd finally see its softer side (which the games make very damn obvious) but boy was I wrong. Please reconsiderar the story's direction"
There are not thousands upon thousands of fics like this one. When you search for Necrozma specific fics, there are a handful, maybe a few hundred or so across all sites at most. Also, you are judging this based only on the first chapter without seeing the whole picture that the author has envisioned. Think about it from a logical standpoint: if you were imprisoned and condemned to a lifetime of pain by people who were close to you, you would be pretty angry. And even if you were able to calm down, it will take a while before you can trust and forgive humans. The physical wounds may or may not heal, but the emotional and psychological ones take even longer. The game does make clear that Necrozma was a kinder being as the Blinding One, but he became wild and mad when the people of Ultra Megalopolis permanently broke him. He only calms down when the player encounters him at Mount Lanakila. As for Necrozma's softer side, you will see that if you stay tuned.
In regards to having me "reconsiderar" the story's direction "Please no," please, no. I already have the plot summary written from start to finish, and I have no intention of changing it to your wants. If you want to reply to this, please create an actual account and PM me instead of hiding behind a guest account, for that is all I will say to you here. And be sure to use spell check when you write.
As for everyone else, as always. Let me know what you think by leaving constructive suggestions, not destructive aggressions. Thank you.