Chapter 212 (Patreon)

Hope had out her most recently evolved Pokémon, Decidueye, as we traveled northward. What was once the rather ball-shaped Rowlet was now an owl almost as tall as Lillie with a natural, leafy hood and wings it could use to fire out feathers like arrows from a bow. It leapt from tree to tree as we walked through a forested meadow. There was an ever-present gloom of fog drifting between the area’s red flowers, but it seemed that Decidueye worked to keep us safe from anything that might have lurked within that mist nearby.

“And outside of Decidueye, Tangela also evolved,” Hope said as we walked. “All it took was some practice with Ancient Power, which was easy to get done in the desert. He’s a Tangrowth now, but Steenee decided to put off her own evolution until later. Let me tell you, it was a bit of a hassle leaving and entering the desert so many times to change around team members and to grab an Everstone, but in the end it was worth it.”

I nodded along in complete agreement. If Hope managed to get all of her Pokémon time to train with Tapu Bulu, then her team’s overall power had likely skyrocketed to a completely new level. Even just managing those two evolutions was a major improvement, and as I watched how serious Decidueye was as he moved between trees, I could tell Hope was in the process of quickly catching him up to her team’s elite.

“But don’t get too impressed. Decidueye might look cool, but he’s just playing up being a ninja because it’s fun,” Hope said.

There was a squawk, and Decidueye missed where he intended to land on a branch. The Pokémon fell to the ground in a messy heap of feathers. He did his best to shoot to his feet and look as serious as he did before, but when he returned to jumping between the trees, all I could see was a frazzled Rowlet pretending to be much more competent than he actually was.

Hope laughed with a bright smile on her face.

“As for us,” I started, “you’ve already seen Mimikyu—”

“Yeah! A Ghost Type! You go, you!” Hope interrupted, jostling my arm. “I’m glad you managed to get over that fear. You know Decidueye is a Ghost Type, too, and you’ve hardly given him a second glance!”

She laughed at my nasty side-eye, and I shook my head while I resumed my pace from before. As it stood, Mimikyu was hiding in my shadow, which I was surprisingly fine with. It would have been rather hypocritical of me to be totally fine with Phoebe’s Banette but not him. He deserved better.

(I was still a little afraid, though. Fears didn’t disappear just like that.)

“I blame Phoebe,” I said, sighing. “She’s the one that went way overboard scaring me with Ghosts. That, and everything back on Sea Mauville kind of built up in my head over the years. Honestly, it doesn’t take a ghost to slip something into my backpack without me knowing. Or out.”

Ahead, where she was leading, Lillie’s ears went red. She drastically picked up the pace to make distance between us, and I laughed.

Of course, while I didn't directly say it, I still remembered her confession back in the ice cave of how she stole berries to feed my Pokémon. I’d been counting, and none had gone missing. Still, she could have just asked.

“But back to the topic of Ghost Types,” I continued, “I met with Acerola outside the old Megamart, but I didn’t battle her. Since she’s likely strong enough to become a member of the Elite Four—”

“A girl as young as her? Man,” Hope said.

“I know. It’s funky. But since her Ghost Type team is so strong, it made sense to me to wait until you were around. Our match will probably be one of the last things we do on this island at this rate. Well, depending on how everything else goes.”

Hope smiled as the path beneath our feet transitioned from a boardwalk of wooden planks into a dirt road. Where we were previously elevated over a field of flowers, we were walking through a proper forest. Mist still remained around us, blocking our immediate view, but according to the maps we’d checked, the Lake of the Sun and Moon wasn’t that far from the Ula’ula Meadow we just passed.

“So Lillie, what’s so special about the Lake of the Sun and Moon, anyway?” Hope called out. “You’re the one who’s done all the research on it. Tell us about it.”

She put her hands on the back of her head to relax as Lillie started to explain.

“The Lake of the Sun and Moon—or the Lake of the Sunne and Moone, as it’s written in older texts—is actually more of an ancient temple than anything else,” Lillie said, slowing down just a bit to let us catch up. “If it was just a lake, it’d probably be open to the public, but the ruins of the temple take up practically the whole zone. Overall, it's a cultural site that few are allowed to see.”

“Wow. Just how big is it?” Hope asked.

“Big enough!” Lillie replied. “I want to go in because of all of the legends referencing it, especially the ones involving ‘the beast that calls the moon’ and ‘the beast that calls the sun.’ What we’ll find there, I don’t know. All I know is that this place is important to Nebby somehow, and...”

I couldn’t see her face, but Lillie suddenly paused and craned her neck upwards. Hope and I moved to stand behind her, but we paused as well when we saw what she was looking at.

A massive pillar of stone stretched up over a slowly moving surface of water. A grey brick bridge connected it to the forest’s edge. On that pillar’s face was an opening big enough to support the passage of even the largest of Pokémon. It was hard to describe just how imposing it was, especially since it loomed over even the tallest tree of this forest.

“W-wow,” I said hoarsely. “That’s way bigger than I thought.”

The moment was ruined when Hope snickered at my side. When I sent her an exaggerated glare, she merely shrugged and stuck her tongue out.

We moved on.

Around the sides of this perfectly-circular lake were sections of glimmering water, where waves calmly lapped along the shore. At regular intervals, there were more of these towers and bridges—a total of seven, including the one we were approaching right now. They formed a ring with stone walls connecting each of them, and they blocked our line of sight to whatever waited for us at the lake’s center. However, the structure itself was elevated over the surface via stone supports, and the unusually calm waters drastically picked up speed as they passed under the walls and rushed towards the center.

“Should we... go in?” Lillie asked as we waited at the very edge of the bridge.

“Hold on. Mimikyu, can you—”

The Ghost Type popped out of my shadow with a cheer, and he made an exaggerated show of looking around. We’d informed Professor Kukui we’d be heading here, as he was our point of contact for things like this. According to him, Hope and I as well as Lillie had permission to enter as needed. However, before we headed in, we had to ensure the local guards were aware of our presence.

Looking around, I couldn’t see any Pokémon here save for a small group of Cutiefly and Ribombee flitting over the water in the distance. Yet, Mimikyu seemed to notice something as he cheerfully waved at a spot of darkness in the woods. When I tried to check whatever he saw, all I saw was a figure fading into the depths of the woods.

It was far too close to the path for us to have missed it. From its position, it had likely been following us all along and none of us had noticed.

I shivered.

“Let’s head in,” I said.

Lillie nodded and ran forward a few feet before slowing to a cautious walk. She looked around in awe despite that, and Nebby poked his head out of her pack to glance around as well.

As for Hope and I, we followed her over the bridge. Hope returned Decidueye since there were no trees nearby for him to leap between, but I left Mimikyu out as he returned to my shadow.

“Good job. Thank you.”

His claw extended out and formed a thumbs up that slowly sank into the floor. We kept moving, taking a full minute to pass over the bridge and enter the temple itself.

Just past the towering opening in the pillar, there was a passage that connected to a circular corridor. Built within the walled ring, it served as a corridor that curved off in both directions. From here, I could see two of the other entrances, but the curve of this place made it so that I wasn’t able to see any more.

What truly drew my attention was a massive, wooden double door built into the interior wall. It was situated directly across from the opening we passed, blocking our continued path inwards and being at least two stories tall.

I simply could not imagine anything having the strength to open it up.

“Was this place sealed? Or were these doors opened by some kind of ancient mechanism?”

My voice pierced the silence that permeated these halls. There had been absolutely no noise before I had talked. The only sounds were our quiet footsteps and the regular intake of breath. It almost felt like I had disturbed something sacred, so I quickly shut up and no one saw fit to reply.

Lillie made a much greater effort to stay quiet as we properly approached the massive door of wood. It was long-rotted but still mostly intact, with cracks and holes covering its surface as it continued to protect whatever was sealed within.

Lillie laid her hand on its surface.

We waited.

Nothing happened.

“What now?” she asked.

Nebby answered for her.

Not even a second after she spoke, Lillie’s pack opened back up, and Nebby twisted around to peer at the door. Unexpectedly, he squirmed and popped out, rushing forward to head towards the door.

"Ah—Wait!" Lillie shouted.

Nebby did not wait; he was charging through the air. None of us had time to react before he pressed himself into one of the door’s cracks and squeezed through to get to the other side.

“Nebby!”

Lillie failed to grab him. Her arm was simply too wide to reach into the same crack Nebby had somehow squeezed through. His body was much more amorphous than a human’s given we had bones, and that fact made Lillie’s expression turn to one of utter panic.

“I’m going after him!” she shouted.

“Hold on, why don’t we plan something out, first?!” I yelled.

She was already booking it down the corridor, and Hope and I hurried to follow. More wooden doors stood opposite to the other entrances to this place, and Lillie made her way to the one to our immediate right.

This wooden double door didn’t have anywhere for us to pass through, but there was a crack that went up its whole length. The base of that crack widened, forming a large enough gap for Lillie to squeeze through but not Hope or I.

“I’ll be back with Nebby. Wait here!”

We couldn’t stop her. She was too focused on saving her friend and was gone in seconds.

“Really, Lillie? Ugh, Nebby could have teleported us in. Hope, do you think this counts as trespassing?”

“Sorry, Alex, but she didn't break any laws this time. Lillie’s technically still with us and has permission to be here otherwise.”

I let out a grumble and returned to running further down the corridor. Hope followed as we passed one door, then the next. What annoyed me was that the circular shape of this place meant we would have found a way inwards if we had traveled left instead of right.

The entrance we eventually located was one of the wooden doors, except it had collapsed downwards into a pile of broken planks and human-sized splinters due to rot. It shifted under our weight as we climbed over it, forcing us to move slowly to not accidentally get impaled. By helping one another, we gradually made it over, but upon landing on the other stone, my ears were assaulted by a constant roar.

An open sky. Seven thin bridges stretched out from the sealed doors to connect to a platform in the center of this “lake.” I was now hesitant to call this place a lake because there was a hole where water should have been in the center. The rushing of water from underneath the temple turned out to combine into a circular waterfall. There was only blackness beneath this impossible construction. The only thing holding up the central platform were the bridges; there were no supporting pillars.

I hated this. It shouldn't exist. Yet, we had no choice but to push forward.

“Let’s move quickly,” I said.

“...Yeah,” Hope mumbled.

Thankfully, the sound that served as a constant reminder to the fall beneath us quieted down as we reached the edge of the bridge, stepping off of it and onto the center platform. Around us was an overgrown garden that somehow still had visible dirt paths and foliage that somewhat kept to its pre-planted zones.

What caused my hair to stand on its ends, however, was the noise. While I should have been hearing the waterfalls, this place was silent as the interior halls.

“Wow,” Hope breathed. “I’m getting the sense we aren’t supposed to be here. No human should.”

For the second time today, I shivered.

“I know what you mean,” I replied with a grimace.

A quick look around let us find what we were looking for; Lillie was ascending a series of steps that led up a raised, stone altar. At the very top of the altar—at the very center of the platform—was Nebby. He floated in place and stared directly into the sky, as if enthralled.

“Come here, Nebby,” Lillie whispered nervously, holding a hand forward. “Let’s move back and give this place a proper exploration. Together. And safe.”

Unusual to him, Nebby did not react to the sound of Lillie’s voice. He kept his eyes locked firmly upwards, and at my side, Hope nudged my arm to get my attention. I followed her point to stare at whatever both she and Nebby were now looking at, and that sight caused my breath to be caught in my throat.

It was perfectly noon. The sun was in the dead center of the sky.

Recognizing that fact seemed to intrinsically change the atmosphere around me. I could not understand why, but it felt as though nothing was moving at all. Everything had gone even more silent than the silence from before. Lillie did not approach any further, the sound of permanently spinning water did not reach my ears, and even my breathing seemed to completely disappear.

I failed to notice it at first, but a glow started to emanate from the altar itself. Previously unseen runes glowed a blue glow. Lillie’s eyes widened as she stood right over that glow’s edge, but she made the quick decision to hop forward and pass through the shining ring, joining Nebby in the center of the floor.

A shadow passed over the sun.

Like an eclipse, the sky was plunged into a midday night.

What dawned on me in that moment was that there was no eclipse set to come up. News of major astronomical events tended to be shared around as those periods were important to certain species of Pokémon. Here and now, there was no doubt in my mind that what was happening was not natural.

I was proven right rather quickly.

Whatever covered the sun peeled away and drifted downwards like a discarded cloak. Behind it, the sole celestial body that hung in the sky was not the sun, but the moon. It remained in the perfect center directly above the open sky of this place, and in an instant, it was midnight.

To put it lightly, I was afraid.

I’d always considered Legendary Pokémon to have different tiers of strength. Generally, their innate level of power was tied to their rarity or the domain they ruled over. Legendary Pokémon like Latios and Latias were relatively “common” for Legendary Pokémon, and they didn’t have quite as much strength. Meanwhile, other Legendary species were a bit stronger than them, with the Alolan Tapus fitting into that category.

However, there were a few key Legendary Pokémon that stood above all others: those were the Legendary Pokémon that ruled over core aspects of reality. These species were species that lived, breathed, and mandated strength, turning the impossible into the possible, and myth into truth.

The beast that peeled off of the sun—the beast that called the moon—represented a power that commanded the world. Comparable to the likes of Groudon, Kyogre, or even Rayquaza, it drifted down from the sky towards where Lillie and Nebby were frozen in place. My eyes could not look away from the bat-shaped nebula that looked like the night sky.

Why is it here?!

The Pokémon was as long as a truck. A spiderweb of white covered its chest. Along its tail and the tips of wings were golden blades, and a pair of piercing red eyes stared unerringly towards where Nebby sat.

“Lunala,” I whispered.

For a brief moment, I felt the weight of its existence focused towards me.

I could not move. I could not blink. I could not even think about breathing. Shadows licked up my body, and I could feel even Mimikyu shivering beneath my feet.

Then, as quickly as that feeling had come, it all faded away. The portion of Lunala’s attention directed towards me disappeared when the Legendary Pokémon put all of its focus towards Nebby.

I fell to my knees. Hope somehow managed to crouch to pat me on my back. Mimikyu slowly left the floor to press himself against my arm. Despite how cold he was, he was a comfort.

“N-nebby? Who is t-that?” Lillie asked, backing up from the Pokémon descending from the sky.

Opposite to how Lillie was shaking where she stood, Nebby had nothing but a smile on his face.

It happened quickly. One second Nebby was excitedly bouncing in place over the center of the altar, the next he was lifted into the air. Nothing physical grabbed him—it was more like an invisible, telekinetic grip. Lillie shouted, but it did nothing to stop whatever was happening. He was brought all the way up to Lunala’s face—

And then the giant bat happily rubbed against him, like a greeting between dogs.

Hope and I were left stunned, and Lillie struggled to come up with any words.

“Hah... W-what? Is... Is that your mom?” she asked.

Nebby was still floating from the power of the Legendary Pokémon, and he happily shook his head to say “no.” Lillie’s face twisted up like it usually did when she was deep in thought and it was a full minute before she spoke again.

“So... she’s your sister?”

A deep rumbling left the throat of the Legendary Pokémon. It was almost a laugh. As for Nebby, he bounced in place. I was pretty sure that was meant to be a “yes.”

Nebby was lowered back down to the floor, and Instead of bringing him back up, Lunala leaned down to rub against him once more. The sheer difference in size made the sign of affection almost appear comical, but no one was laughing. We remained silent as Nebby and his “family member” quietly talked, and then they both turned to face Lillie.

“Don't—!”

My body froze up again as Lunala pulled back. A moment later, it brought its wings straight out to its sides, then, the Legendary Pokémon glowed.

The darkness of its wings and chest turned to a pure white light. Its golden blades shifted to the exact position needed to become a perfect circle. On Lunala’s head, a red crack appeared and opened up into a third eye. Cloudy shadows that drifted out of its body resembled obscuring fog over the night sky.

I felt as if I was staring at the full moon. No, I was staring at the full moon. I took in every detail of it, my mind running a mile a minute. Even the smallest of insight I could garner from it could help me improve my Pokémon’s Moonblast—

Yet I was more worried about Lillie.

The celestial body given form remained directly in the air. Lunala made no noises; it was as quiet as the middle of the night as it glanced upwards. The midnight moon above us seemed to gleam under its gaze, and only a second later, it shone.

“No!” Lillie cried.

That was the only sound in the area before Nebby was struck by a blinding beam.

I was finally able to move. Hope was finally able to move. Lunala was focusing on this pure-light attack as both Hope and I charged forward to reach Lillie—and hopefully, Nebby.

The attack truthfully didn't last long. It was only a second at most. It illuminated the entire area and turned everything white, and when it faded back away, there was no moon, there was no night sky, and Lunala was gone, replaced by a spiderweb of cracks in reality itself that curved in on themselves into nothing at all.

When we finally arrived at the top of the altar only a few seconds later, Lillie was on her knees, clutching something to her chest. Her hands were kept so tight her fingers were pale. Even with that, I looked around. Nebby was nowhere to be seen.

“Is he—”

I couldn’t finish that thought.

“Are you alright?” I ended up saying.

I crouched at her side. When I caught a glimpse of her face, Lillie seemed to be in shock.

She shakily stood up.

Slowly opening her hands, Lillie revealed what she was holding: something that looked to be a tiny galaxy that fit in the palm of her hand. It was enclosed by a glassy surface surrounded by golden bands that reminded me of the blades on Lunala’s wings.

“This is Nebby,” Lillie whispered. “I... He... evolved.”

Looking closer, at the very center of that enclosed galaxy was a sphere of pure darkness. On that sphere's surface was a set of closed eyes and a few stripes of blue and pink. He looked to be asleep, with his expression locked to one of slumber. However, he wasn’t moving. When Lillie stood up, the only change within were the stars; they appeared to shift as if we changed the angle of the night sky.

“He’ll be okay,” I said. “I promise.”

Nebby—no longer a Cosmog, but now a Cosmoem—opened his eyes for the shortest of moments.

He smiled, locking eyes with Lillie, as if solely to reassure her.

Once that instant had passed, he fell asleep once more, and Nebby dozed off to rest in a cocoon that seemed to contain an entire universe.

______________________________________________________________________________

Lillie did not want to remain in the temple for any longer than necessary, so we quickly made our way out. Rather than squeezing past any doors, we climbed over the same pile of wood Hope and I had used to enter the central garden.

As we exited, a few things were made clear. First off, Nebby was completely asleep. In his state as a Cosmoem, he did not respond to any commands or any prodding. Other than that brief instance when Lillie first showed him to us, he did not stir in the slightest to anything at all.

Second off, only Lillie could carry him. He could be sent in and out of his Beast Ball just fine, but he didn’t exactly seem okay with either Hope or I holding him when Lillie tried to pass him over as a test. Lillie said he felt lighter than air, but when she tried to hand him to me to see if he'd react, Nebby had slammed right into my hand and hit the ground.

Overall, he was heavy enough that there was only a single thud when he landed. A dent was left in the stone floor, and he didn’t even bounce.

Yet, Lillie was able to scoop him right back up with ease. There wasn't even a scuff on his surface.

There was only one more thing we noticed about his newly evolved form, and that was that there was a faint, innate suction to his current body. It was hard to notice, but he seemed to passively draw things closer to him at all times. A few drifting particles got close and were sucked right up. The strangest part about this was that it wasn’t just matter he was drawing in, but when held at the right angles, it almost looked like he was sucking in light.

"Do you think Nebby will be okay?" Lillie said as we walked onto the bridge that led out of the temple.

"He'll be fine,” I said. “He’s just growing up.”

"And if you think about it, it's kind of like what Bug Types go through," Hope offered. "He's just in his Cascoon phase. Soon enough, he’ll evolve into a beautiful Beautifly!"

Lillie frowned at Hope’s words, her face scrunching up in thought.

“But Silcoon evolves into Beautifly, not Cascoon,” she said.

“Eh, close enough,” Hope said with a shrug.

Thankfully, that silly moment was enough to make Lillie giggle a little bit, though it was slightly forced. Still, Hope sent me a wink at that minor victory, because any positive emotion was a good thing.

While I knew that this was positive overall, we had still been subjected to the presence of a true Legendary Pokémon, and I could tell that Lillie was stressed out of her mind at the seemingly comatose state of Nebby.

“I want to go to the Altar of the Sun and Moon,” Lillie declared.

“Aren’t we here?” Hope asked.

“No, this was the Lake and the Temple. The Altar of the Sun and Moon is on Poni Island, which we’re heading to next. To go there...” Lillie frowned as she thought. “I have to beat Ula'ula’s Kahuna. Then we can head to that island next.”

“We might be a bit ahead of schedule if we rush.”

“That’s... that’s fine. I want Nebby to be okay sooner rather than later,” she said.

We reached the edge of the bridge, stepping off the stone and into the forest. Lillie still held Nebby in her hands, and, seemingly not willing to put him in his Beast Ball, she moved him into her jacket’s pocket, out of sight but still close by.

A second after stepping off the bridge, something unexpected happened; Kartana suddenly slipped down from a hiding spot within the trees.

“Wait, hold on, when did you leave?” Hope asked, shocked.

“I hadn’t even noticed you were gone,” I said.

Kartana resumed its vigil behind Hope’s shoulder, as noticeable as ever. It was like it never left despite somehow being absent the entire time we were inside.

Hope and I exchanged a bewildered look, and for some reason that was enough to make Lillie laugh. She laughed and she laughed and laughed, and she even wiped a few tears from her eyes.

“Sorry! But it makes sense if you think about it,” Lillie said.

“Yeah?” I said.

“After what happened with Tapu Bulu...” Hope started.

I ended up chuckling, too.

“I guess it makes sense that Kartana wants nothing to do with a Legendary like Lunala,” I finished.

To think we might have got a sort of warning all of this would happen if we just noticed Kartana was gone. That little detail felt silly, and I started to laugh, too.

“Man, what a day, huh?” Hope said.

“I know what you mean,” I said, shaking my head. “How many people could claim to experience what we just went through? Heck, how many people actually know Lunala exists?!”

The mood might have been a bit somber, but this was a step in the right direction. Evolution meant Nebby was developing, and I knew no event like that had happened in the games. From here, we needed to continue our journey through Ula’ula Island, too. Nebby might be asleep, but he was now one evolution away from reaching his final form. While he rested and grew, we would head to Po Town next, and in Po Town, Lillie would face the Kahuna, and Hope and I would face Guzma.

================================================================================
Author Note:

How the central altar appears in the games.
Lunala Full Moon Phase

Cosmoem is only four inches across.

Now for something completely different:
Last year, I wrote roughly twenty chapters of a Celestial Forge fiction set in the Warcraft universe. I've gone back to it several times, but I've never properly touched it up in a way I’ve liked. If I edit it into a more passable state, would people be interested in reading it? It wouldn’t interfere with this or the upcoming Pokémon fiction since so much is already written. I would only post new chapters when they get done rather than follow any regular schedule.

Pokémon mentioned in this chapter:
Cosmog / Cosmoem / Solgaleo / Lunala
Kartana
Rowlet / Decidueye
Steenee
Tangela / Tangrowth

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