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"Empty"

From within its tower, the Primogenitor watched the sky.

It was not a big, bright blue sky occasionally populated by clouds as they appeared on Shiron and Kuron. No, here in the Primogenitor eldritch realm, the sky was nothing more than a cluster of viewpoints into the realms beyond.

They were each tiny glimpses into the worlds and dimensions beyond and took up miniscule portions of the sky. In some of these glimpses, the Primogenitor would see life it already knew to be familiar. It could see the increasingly barren world that Shiron was becoming as well as the lively and thriving Kuron. Humans and Pokémon would be wandering about their daily lives without notice of the Primogenitor watching them from afar.

Then in other portions of the sky, it would see lives that belonged to neither Shiron nor Kuron.

It would see entirely different dimensions that held no connections to Shiron and Kuron. They only lived alongside Shiron and Kuron, just as the two worlds already did to one another, completely unaware of one another.

In those other dimensions and in those worlds within those vast, seemingly endless and infinite dimensions, it saw life. No matter what dimension they resided in or their appearance or form, they were all connected by one choice alone. Whether they were of great worlds that had accomplished tasks so advanced and almost incomprehensible that they rivaled the very gods in their achievements, or were of a simpler mindset and held a lifestyle similar to that of ferals, they all held the one trait

They all despised their shadows.

There were exceptions, of course. Sometimes there were worlds where the shadows ruled the lands, or perhaps the shadows lived peacefully amongst the world's denizens. The denizens were very strange creatures, taking on forms that the Primogenitor could not quite call human, animal, or Pokémon, something that it couldn't define. However, the shadows there were happy. Peaceful, even. Never once did they frown nor raise their voices against their hosts.

The Primogenitor wondered why it didn't leave behind Shiron and Kuron and go to those worlds. However, after a moment's pondering, it realized why.

Departing from this realm would not solve the plight of Shiron's shadows. If the Primogenitor left them behind, they would continue to suffer in silence, no one ever to liberate them.

They would suffer just as the Primogenitor once did long ago.

It knew it couldn't leave when that was so. Perhaps it could leave behind this realm and go elsewhere when the shadows of Kuron and Shiron were freed, but not now.

Almost all of Shiron's shadows would be free soon. The Primogenitor only needed to remain close to be there for the shadows and help see that the dimension would fall to them.

It was then that the Primogenitor saw a strange image within the dimensional sky. It looked up at it to see that it was a glimpse into Shiron, deep within the Pledge Mountain Fellowship's very entryway. Everywhere in sight, the Primogenitor could see corpses strewn about it, having fallen from the war that ravaged the mighty castle. There were some corpses, when the Primogenitor gave them a second glance, that were actually alive and were only slumbering. The three legendary Fellowship members were amongst those that still lived. They were locked in a deep sleep, the blights within their souls numbed and comatose.

But they were not what caught the Primogenitor's attention the most. Though their state was surprising, given that they were legendary creatures that were not supposed to be subdued so easily by mortals, they were not the strangest sight amongst all of the bodies. It was a seemingly ordinary body that lay in the midst of all the other slumbering bodies.

It was a Cubone.

Though it lay upon the ground just as motionlessly as every other husk in the chamber and did not take in a single breath, the Primogenitor knew that it was not quite dead.

There was something stirring within its soul. Something that did not lay numb like the legendary beasts' souls.

Before the Primogenitor could get a closer look at the Cubone, a ripple went over the glimpse, washing it away as a glimpse of a Torchic and a Piplup in the midst of a heated argument in another realm so similar to Shiron took over. The Primogenitor snorted as it turned away from the uninteresting sight and focused its mind's eye upon the very Cubone that it had seen.

That Cubone was the original Dimitri.

Why had he been like that? The last the Primogenitor saw of him from what the Cubone's blight communicated was that he was devouring everyone in sight so that he might be able to regain power and eliminate all of the threats. However, it had also been sure that Shadow Dimitri would be taking care of the true threats: Dimitri's personal army that was desperately trying to find a way to the Primogenitor's realm. Shadow Dimitri was supposedly on their side now, even if the Primogenitor could not directly sense the Sableye.

But the Primogenitor did not need proof to know that the blight within the Cubone spoke the truth. The dragon had chosen to believe the fragment within the Cubone. It had even seen Shadow Dimitri devouring everyone in sight through the eyes of his followers.

Everything had been going so well. Its greatest enemies, the very ones who could kill it with the power of the fragments within their souls, were now one of its greatest allies. Perhaps even greater than the legendary beasts he had stolen from the mortal realm all those centuries ago.

Yet now there the Cubone lay in the Primogenitor's mind's eye, dead but dreaming. He was somewhere within a void, drifting aimlessly.

The Primogenitor tried to connect itself with the fragment within the Cubone. If the Cubone was not yet dead, then perhaps it could still communicate with its very essence.

Original and Shadow Dimitri's essences were both fading into nothingness, but thankfully for the Primogenitor, the fragment's was not. It was still conscious, if barely so. It was the weak force that the Primogenitor had felt stirring within that seemingly dead Cubone's body.

The Primogenitor connected its mind with the fragment. It wanted to know what was occurring within the Cubone's body and why he appeared so lifeless now.

However, just as the channel formed between the two, something abruptly cut off the process. The Primogenitor could no longer see the Cubone nor feel any hint of presence within the former human. It was as though something had been lodged deep within the channel. The Primogenitor tried to force the connection again, but all that would await the Primogenitor was darkness.

And yet, the Primogenitor was persistent.

It continued reconnecting to the Cubone over and over again. Even after so many failures, it continued to do so until finally, after what felt like an eternity later, the shadow captured a glimpse of the Cubone.

The former human was no longer a Cubone. He was now a Marowak.

Somehow, despite the two Dimitri's souls dwindling away, the body had gained the power to evolve, perhaps through the power of the plague. However, unlike with the Pokémon that evolved through synchronization, the Marowak did not hold any plagued traits. It only bore the appearance of a normal Marowak.

The sight of this should have alarmed the Primogenitor. If the human had evolved, then that meant that he could still pose a serious threat and destroy everything the shadows had ever worked for. However, there was something that the Primogenitor took solace in that brief moment it had connected with the Marowak.

There was no life within the Pokémon.

There was no Original Dimitri or Shadow Dimitri.

They were both gone, not a trace of either of them to be seen.

And after many more attempts to connect to the body through a mental synch, the Primogenitor soon realized that the plague within the Marowak had ceased to exist as well.

That Marowak was nothing more than an empty shell.

The Primogenitor wasn't sure how he had evolved, but it did not matter anymore. The Marowak was completely lifeless now. It posed absolutely no threat and would lay there in the halls until its body finally withered away into dust.

Dimitri was no longer a threat.

The Primogenitor would have reveled in this glorious thought, but then it felt something abnormal and alien within its realm. It was something far into the distance, bringing with it an unpleasant atmosphere it could feel even from so far away.

It looked out toward the source, and immediately realized what the anomaly was.

It was a portal bringing forth a Zoroark, Umbreon, Mienshao, Luxray, and Candlelight Rem.

The Primogenitor did not know what to think when it saw them leap out of the portal and descend into its realm. They weren't supposed to be able to come here to this realm. The Primogenitor specifically remembered that it had destroyed every single portal in Shiron that led to here, as well as refuse to allow its followers to make portals. It should have been impossible for those Pokémon to come to the realm.

And yet, there they were, in its realm and undoubtedly ready to come kill the shadow.

The Primogenitor hadn't planned for this. It had honestly thought that any resistance would have perished back in Shiron by the claws of its followers. And yet, here were five of them, including a fragment of Rem himself. They had somehow found a way here despite everything, and they would not stop until they had vanquished the Primogenitor, or died trying.

They had to have known that they were going to die if they killed the Primogenitor. They had to have figured that out by now. So why did they bother coming here? Why did they bother entering the Primogenitor's realm when they knew that only death awaited them, whether they won or lost?

Perhaps they truly were bent on stopping the Primogenitor. Perhaps the miniscule amount of unplagued Pokémon left upon Shiron and all of the other denizens of multiple dimensions were worth giving up their lives for.

But in the end, it did not matter. The Primogenitor knew it could not let them win. The shadows needed to be freed, and the Primogenitor refused to even think that it was going to let these puny Pokémon stand in its way.

The Primogenitor dreaded the thought of what had to be done next. And yet, there were no other options, now that its followers had been unable to stop the Pokémon and they were within its realm.

The Primogenitor had to kill these five itself.

The Primogenitor had to fight with all its might.

For its shadow brethren, it had to fight and protect the future of their world that was soon to be formed.