Chapter 5: Impact

DAWN OF THE FINAL DAY

-24 HOURS REMAIN-

---

Morning was far too quick to arrive for Kafei’s liking. The Eevee clenched his eyes tightly closed as a narrow beam of light from the window crept across his face, threatening to rip him away from the bliss of sleep. He’d only just gotten back home after weeks of being away, not to even mention everything that had happened last night. If ever there was a morning where he deserved to sleep in a little, Kafei thought, this was it.

Only when he heard a soft rustling come from beside him did Kafei finally relent. He let out a quiet groan and cracked open his eyes. The room’s other straw bed, which had been scooted back over to nearly merge with Kafei’s own, rustled slightly as Anju slowly climbed to her feet. She let out a soft yawn, and began to stretch a bit.

“Can’t afford to sleep in just this once?” Kafei asked.

“I really shouldn’t,” Anju said. She nodded towards the window. “It already looks to be a bit later in the morning than we’d usually get started for the day.”

Kafei rubbed the sleep out of his eyes with a paw as he turned to look. Now that he was waking up a bit, he supposed the sun was noticeably higher than it usually was when they would wake up in the mornings. The two of them had already slept in a little, it seemed.

He perked up an ear at the sound of heavy, rushed footsteps pounding down the hallway outside. Confused, he glanced towards the door. Some of the inn’s guests were clearly up already, by the sound of it. But for the noise to be so loud… What had them in such a hurry on a morning like this?

Kafei gave a quiet yawn of his own, before shaking his head to try and wake himself up. If Anju was going to get up, then he supposed he should follow suit. He could let himself relax tomorrow, when the festival was properly underway.

He turned to look at Anju, who had taken a moment to quickly get her fur straightened up a little. She didn’t seem to be in any rush to leave just yet, though, her eyes still silently locked on him.

Kafei sighed. There was probably no point in putting this talk off any longer.

“…I already said it last night, but… I’m sorry. It was… stupid to run off like I did, over nothing more than an evolution stone.”

Anju fidgeted in place for a moment, thinking through her words. “I… I-I do understand why you did it,” she said quietly. “We put a lot of time and effort into setting things up for the festival tonight, a-and then that thief… you didn’t want that thief to ruin everything. I just…” She shook her head. “I just wish you would have said something first, at least. I-If I’d at least known where you’d gone…”

“I know.” Kafei grimaced down at the floor, mentally chiding his past self. “I was just… so angry when it happened. All I could think of was finding the thief and getting the stone back. But I’d lost his trail, and it was already getting into the evening… by the time I accepted that I had to give up for the night, it was fully dark out. I started to get angry at myself for letting my guard down in the first place, and even though I knew you had to be worried, I just… couldn’t bring myself to just come back empty-pawed.”

Anju slowly stepped up beside Kafei. “I-It’s… unfortunate that we’re going to have to wait to evolve together and… b-become mates, like w-we’d planned. But…” She leaned in to nuzzle Kafei’s side. “But the stone is replaceable. Y-You aren’t.”

Kafei exhaled deeply, a bit of the pressure in his chest slowly easing away. After a moment, he returned Anju’s nuzzle. “…I missed you.”

“I-I missed you too.”

She was too good to him, sometimes. It would likely be a while before Kafei would fully forgive himself for this whole situation. But in the meantime, the fact that Anju was still as forgiving as ever made things feel just a little bit better, at least.

Kafei gently pulled away from the embrace, and met Anju’s gaze with his own. He opened his mouth, ready to speak…

…Only to be jolted out of his thoughts by the sound of a door being loudly slammed elsewhere in the inn, followed by another hurried set of footsteps running down the hall.

The couple both jumped a bit at the noise. Kafei let out a sigh, glaring at the door in annoyance. “…What in Termina is going on out there?” Even if it was the Eve of the Festival today, he couldn’t remember the last time they’d had to deal with pokemon like this.

Both Eevees shared a look, silently agreeing to go out and check on things. They stepped out of their room and quietly made their way down the hall.

Out in the lobby, they found that Runia was already up too, and had taken up position behind the front counter in Anju’s absence. Before Kafei or Anju could ask her anything, though, another pokemon hurriedly stormed down the stairway from the second floor, throwing open the inn’s entrance and bolting away like his life depended on it.

Kafei cocked his head in confusion as he watched the pokemon leave. He glanced over at Runia. “…Any idea what’s going on?”

The Snowshrew visibly winced a little. She fidgeted in place for a moment, hesitating over her words, before finally saying, “You two, um… you might want to look outside.”

Kafei cocked his head a bit at that. Why be so vague? But after exchanging a concerned look with Anju, Kafei let out a sigh and opened the inn’s door.

Outside, things almost looked normal, at a glance. Nothing about the town or its buildings themselves appeared to be out of place, and the streets were just as lively with pokemon as one would expect for the eve of the Festival of Time. But upon a closer look, it was clear that something was off. The pokemon hurrying about looked to have far more dire concerns than the impending festival, and many of them seemed to be heading for the eastern gate out of town.

A handful of the owners of the nearby shops stood just outside their respective buildings. Most of them wore forced smiles, as if trying to maintain an air of professionalism and normalcy as they loudly proclaimed they were still open for business. But few of the hurried passersby paid them any mind.

Kafei also noticed several pokemon who appeared to be simply standing in place… and staring up at the sky, fear and panic in their eyes. Still confused, Kafei followed their lead and looked up.

…Oh.

Yesterday, the moon had been… noticeably larger in the sky than usual. Two, perhaps closer to three times as large across by the last time Kafei remembered looking last night. Enough to stand out, enough that you couldn’t simply pretend it was your imagination… but Kafei had scoffed at the rumors that the moon was outright falling. Who could truly believe that? The idea sounded blatantly absurd, on its face.

But now, with the moon stretching halfway across the sky as it loomed ominously over Clock Town… it was impossible to deny any longer.

Anju stepped up beside Kafei, letting out a quiet gasp as her eyes found the same thing. Kafei briefly glanced over at her, feeling a pang in his heart as he watched the same fear overtake her face. He reached over to settle a paw on her back, before turning to stare up at the moon once again.

---

A little earlier that morning, when the noise in the streets below started to really pick up, Medli slowly began to stir from her perch atop the Stock Pot Inn’s roof. Even after a couple days in Clock Town, she still hadn’t grown any more used to this sort of wake-up-call.

Groggy as she was, she didn’t immediately pick up on how different the tone of the tumult was, or the distinct sense of pressure in the air.

When she happened to look up at the sky, however, she was quickly jarred awake.

For a long moment, she could only stare up in horror and disbelief. Her breathing quickened, and she instinctively tried to shrink in on herself, huddling herself with her wings.

A sudden loud noise from the streets below startled her, and shattered what little calm she still had. In an instant, she bolted into the air, and began to fly panicked circles over the inn’s roof. Her silence gave way to a frantic, barely coherent string of “WhatdoIdo? WhatdoIdo?”

She’d been afraid of the moon’s approach ever since she’d first taken notice of it two nights ago. But even as scared as she’d been, she never thought it would get this bad so quickly. They’d be lucky if they even had a day, at this rate…

After several minutes, her flight gradually began to slow. She took in a series of deep breaths, trying her best to calm down somewhat. She knew that flying around in circles like this wasn’t going to help anything. But what else was she or anyone else in Termina even supposed to do about something like this? Who could she try and turn to right now?

Medli wasn’t sure why her first instinct was to rush over to the dojo. It wasn’t as if anyone could just… punch the moon away with sheer brute strength. Perhaps she hoped the pokemon there would be brave enough to offer a calm idea, or perhaps it was simply because it was a place that she’d wound up spending a lot of time at while she was here. Either way, she supposed the reason didn’t matter.

When she eventually arrived, she was immediately struck by how… empty the dojo was. The last two days, this place had been bustling with pokemon, all ready to train and hone their skills. Now… not a single pokemon could be seen in the main sparring room. Unused Substitute dolls and durable iron targets all sat in their usual spots, waiting for visitors who might never come. It all felt… eerie to look at, after seeing how the dojo usually was.

Only when Medli looked around deeper did she find anyone else here. A door near the edge of the sparring room led to a small, private room where the dojo master seemed to live. Large scrolls bearing fancy writing decorated the walls, along with an ornate shield engraved with some kind of symbol that Medli didn’t recognize.

On the far side of the room, the Lucario who owned the dojo sat alone on a plain mat on the floor. He appeared to be deep in meditation, his legs crossed and his eyes closed. Medli silently hovered closer, unsure whether or not to interrupt his concentration.

“…I am sorry, little bird” the Lucario suddenly spoke up, catching Medli slightly off-guard. He slowly cracked open his eyes, a somber look on his face. “I do not think we will be able to continue your training today.”

“I-I… suppose not,” Medli replied quietly. She fidgeted in the air for a moment, unsure what else to say.

The Lucario let out a sigh. “It is truly a shame. You were making respectable progress, especially for a beginner. With more time, I believe you could have become a talented fighter.” He turned to glance out a nearby window. “Unfortunately, no amount of training could have prepared us for this.”

“What… What do we d-do?”

“I fear there is little that can be done,” the dojo master said. “If this were a matter that could be solved through strength or technique, I would happily do all that I could. But this… I’m afraid that only the Legends could save us, right now.” He shook his head softly, his eyes drifting closed as he returned to his meditative stance. “I wish there was more that could be said. I… am sorry.”

Medli shivered, continuing to hover silently in place. Her beak opened and closed, but she couldn’t find a single word to say.

Eventually, she turned and fluttered away. She didn’t stop to think about where she was going, or what she was supposed to do when she got there. She just needed to get away.

As she left the dojo, it didn’t take long for the flow of the crowd to guide her towards the west gate out of town. There, a sizable number of pokemon all huddled together, desperately shouting at the two guards currently stationed here. The crowd were all desperate and scared, clearly looking to the guards for some kind of answers, but their voices all melded together into an unintelligible mess.

“Please, calm yourselves,” a Gallade guard called out over the din of the crowd. “I understand how you all feel, but working yourselves into a frenzy like this will not help anyone.”

“The mayor is discussing whether or not to evacuate the town as we speak,” the other guard, a Rhydon, spoke. “When a decision is reached, we will be sure to let you all know. In the meantime, if you are going to leave on your own, we ask that you do so in an orderly fashion.” The crowd was far too panicked to heed the Rhydon’s words, several of them pushing past the large rock-type as they rushed out into Termina field. Neither of the guards made a move to stop them, remaining unflinching and stoic as the rest of the frightened pokemon crowded around them.

Medli perched on a nearby sign, her heart sinking lower and lower as she continued to watch the chaos unfold. They were planning to evacuate the town… but where exactly did they plan to go? If… if the moon really crashed down, there would be nowhere safe in Termina to hide.

But then… was there really nothing that could be done? Were they all simply doomed? Was there nothing to do but just… curl up and wait for the inevitable?

Medli shuddered. She… she couldn’t accept that. She just couldn’t. At the very least… she needed to understand why this was happening.

She was certain Lunala had to be connected somehow. After what she’d seen the other night, and the research she’d done yesterday, that was the only thing that made sense. But there had to be something she’d missed. Some detail that could explain why the Guardian of the Moon would do something like this.

With a small shred of resolve taking root in her heart, Medli nodded silently to herself. She gently lifted off, turned around, and began making her way to the library she’d looked through yesterday.

---

Near the edge of the Stock Pot Inn’s balcony, a Mareep stood alone, his head resting on the guardrail as he stared down at the street below.

Things were only getting more frantic down there, as the morning had crept along and more and more pokemon awoke to see the horrifying sight that loomed overhead. Countless pokemon, both locals and tourists alike, rushed towards the town’s exits in hopes of finding safety. Whole families looked to be fleeing together, parents leading their frightened children along while trying their best not to break down themselves.

Dan knew he should probably be down there too. He should be just as panicked as everyone else. But instead, he just felt… numb.

None of this felt real. Surely all of this was just… just some twisted nightmare. Any minute now, he’d wake up back at the ranch with Willow and Epona, and everything would be fine. It had to be.

But as desperately as Dan wished that were true, he knew it wasn’t. This… somehow this was reality.

How had things gone so utterly wrong so quickly? Just two days ago, everything had been normal. His most pressing thought had been how their little family was going to spend the Festival of Time together. He’d even made something of a new friend in Runia. He hadn’t been sure if they’d ever cross paths again after the festival was over, but for the time being he’d found himself enjoying her company, for the most part.

Now, seemingly without warning… he’d woken up to find the world was ending. And all he could do was sit here and watch it happen. Alone.

He should have gone back to Romani Ranch as soon as Willow and Epona failed to come back on time. At least then, he’d know what had happened to them. He supposed it still wasn’t too late to try, just yet. But as much as he wanted to just go home and look for his family… he couldn’t help but be terrified at what he’d find.

Would they even be there? Were… were they even still alright?

…Did it even matter, if the moon was about to crush them all anyway?

For several long minutes, the Mareep stood in place, silently stewing in his thoughts. Eventually, he heard the door to the balcony creak open behind him, and a set of quiet footsteps slowly made their way closer.

“Hey, Dan.” The Mareep recognized the voice as being Runia’s, though it lacked her usual pep. “How, um… How are you holding up?”

“…Okay,” he muttered, not bothering to turn and face her.

An awkward silence followed. “I, uh… I see,” Runia eventually replied. The Snowshrew slowly made her way over and took a seat a short distance beside Dan.

It took several moments for either of them to speak up again. Dan could feel Runia’s gaze on his side, but he continued to just stare blankly down at the street below as if she weren’t there.

“So, uh… it’s looking like the inn’s not going to be very busy today,” Runia eventually said. “A lot of the guests are, um… looking to flee town now, because of… yeah.” She scratched the back of her head awkwardly. “And Anju thinks the last few pokemon with reservations… probably won’t bother to show up and claim them anymore.”

Dan gave a slight shrug. “…Makes sense.” He couldn’t say he was surprised. Probably not much demand to stay at an inn when you weren’t sure it would still be there by morning.

“On the bright side,” Runia said, “it uh… it does mean that my schedule’s a lot more free today!” She let out an awkward, strained laugh. “Just in time for the Festival, too. We could… even hang out together, and stay up to celebrate at midnight. You know, if you want.”

That finally got Dan to face Runia for the first time since she’d come up here. The Snowshrew had a forced smile written across her face, though it seemed to grow a little more genuine after he turned to look at her. For a moment, Dan could only cock his head at her in puzzlement. Eventually, he quietly replied. “More like stay up to watch the moon fall.”

Runia winced slightly at that, but she quickly shook her head. “Hey now. We… we don’t know it’s going to hit us yet. Maybe… maybe Lunala is just trying to freak us all out, y’know? Who says the guardian of the moon isn’t allowed to have a weird sense of humor?”

Despite everything, Dan couldn’t help but let out a quiet chuckle at that. He couldn’t understand how she could try and stay positive right now. But… he supposed he couldn’t blame her for not wanting to accept the situation. “…Tryn’a look at the bright side, huh?”

Runia gave a half-hearted laugh. “It’s… something I’m good at, I’ve been told.” She turned her gaze skyward, her smile wavering slightly but not vanishing completely. “I just… when there’s something I know I can’t do anything about, I don’t like dwelling on it, y’know? Better to focus on the things you can do, and make the most of the time you’ve got.”

Make the most of the time you’ve got… Dan could understand that mindset, he supposed. But not dwelling on things you have no power to change… he wished that was as simple for him as it sounded. “Is it strange that… even starin’ down the moon like this… ah still feel more worried about what happened to sis and Epona?”

Runia shook her head again. “I don’t think it’s that odd. They’re your family. Of course they’d be at the front of your mind at a time like this.” She turned her head to face back toward the inn, though the distant look in her eyes made it clear the building wasn’t her focus. “I mean I’m… kinda in the same boat, to be honest. Things back on Snowhead weren’t… the best, when I left. So I can’t help but worry about how everyone back home are faring, especially now.”

Dan tilted his head a bit. “Didn’t know things were bad up there in the mountains.”

“There’s… a really nasty mystery dungeon up on one of the neighboring mountains. It’s been getting more volatile lately, and it’s making it warm enough that all the snow is melting on Snowhead. Some folks were even saying that if the problem isn’t solved, the dungeon might agitate that mountain enough for it to… well, erupt. Which would force all of us up on Snowhead to abandon our homes, and try to find somewhere else to live.”

Yeesh. No wonder she hadn’t brought it up to him before. “Ah’m, uh… sorry to hear about that. Sounds rough.”

“Like I said, it’s… another situation I can’t do anything about.” Runia gave a slight shrug, trying her best to appear unbothered. “It’s part of why I came down to Clock Town like this. The folks back home can figure out what to do just as well without me there. All I’d probably do is just get in the way. No sense just standing around and dwelling on what might happen.”

The Snowshrew looked up at the sky again. “It’s the same with this. Maybe the moon’s gonna fall, or maybe it’s not. But if it does, I don’t wanna spend the time I’ve got left just cowering and waiting for the end.”

She reached out a paw towards Dan, a lopsided smile settling on her face. “So… want to join me, and try to make the most that we can out of this Festival Eve?”

Dan silently held her gaze for a while, unsure what to say. A part of him still felt she sounded crazy, trying to ignore the moon overhead. But at the same time… there was a certain sense to her words.

If he was doomed to die tonight regardless… Dan supposed he’d rather not spend his final hours alone.

“…What do you have in mind?” Dan finally asked.

Runia pumped an arm triumphantly, before quickly catching herself and smiling sheepishly at Dan. “Well, it seems like there are still a few other places around here that are determined to stay open. We might be able to give some of those games from yesterday another try. And after that… I thought I might ask Anju’s grandmother for more of her stories. With all the interesting stuff she’s got lining those shelves, I figure she’s got to have quite a few stories to share. And it’ll probably help keep her mind off things too.”

Dan remembered Pearl reciting some of her stories for him a couple times, during some of their visits to the inn when he was a little younger. He was pretty sure he’d fallen asleep once, due to being way too tired at the time. But all the same, he remembered them being entertaining.

Runia nudged the door open, gesturing for Dan to follow as she stepped back inside the inn. The Mareep took a couple steps forward, before pausing. He turned to glance back at the ledge behind him. He pictured Romani Ranch in his mind, along with his sister and Epona.

…Whatever had happened, it… was probably too late to do anything about it now. It stung to think about it like that. It almost felt like he was abandoning them, somehow. But… what else could he do?

“…Ah’m sorry, sis.”

Dan shook his head, taking a deep breath to calm himself before he followed Runia back into the inn.

---

Kafei hurried along the streets of East Clock Town, weaving around the panicked crowds as best he could. With the entire town in an uproar like this, shorter pokemon like him had to be careful just to not get trampled underfoot.

The Eevee paused briefly in an alcove to catch his breath. He glared up at the sky. If looks could kill, the defiance burning in his eyes would threaten to set the moon itself ablaze. As it was, however, there was nothing Kafei could do to even slow the looming sphere’s descent. And the worst part was, he knew it.

He wanted to scream. To curse his luck as well as every Legendary he could think of. Just when things were potentially going to start returning to normal, now the world was literally ending.

There was nothing to do, nowhere to hide. He… he was going to die. His family, everyone he knew was going to die. Anju… Anju was… going to…

Kafei shook his head, hastily trying to blink away the tears that had begun to well up in his eyes. He took a deep, somewhat shaky breath. Crying would not solve anything.

All he could do for now was keep moving. Keep himself focused on something productive. Anju and her grandmother would be safe back at the inn for the time being. But there were a couple other pokemon he still needed to check on right now. He needed to see his family.

Thankfully, his destination wasn’t too much further away. After stepping out of the alcove and starting along the busy street again, it only took a few more minutes to reach the building he was looking for. He glanced up at the ornate plate over the entrance, before pushing the door open and stepping inside.

The interior of the mayor’s manor was fairly well decorated, though not as extravagant as some might expect. A couple of well-cared for potted plants, and an decorative rug or two, but nothing all too fancy. Kafei had always been glad for that; he generally preferred the simpler things.

As he stepped further into the lobby, he perked up an ear at the muffled sound of shouting from a different room. He glanced to the side, realizing that the noise was coming from the main meeting room. He could hear a couple of different raised voices, each trying to drown out the other, though he didn’t recognize either of them.

He shook his head, turning his gaze elsewhere. As he looked around the rest of the room, his eyes settled on a simple family portrait hanging gently on the wall. The colors had faded only slightly over the years. Kafei had to admit, whatever pokemon had done the painting had done a good job.

Near the center of the portrait stood an Umbreon, his face calm and stoic. A younger Kafei stood just beside him, the young Eevee impatiently waiting for the painting to be done. And next to the two of them…

“Kafei!?”

The Eevee flinched in surprise at the familiar voice loudly calling out his name. Before he could react, a Purugly had rushed up to him with surprising speed for her size, wrapping one foreleg around him and pulling him into a crushing hug.

“Oh, you have no idea how worried your father and I have been about you. No one had any idea what might have happened to you. We were starting to fear the worst.”

Kafei squirmed in the Purugly’s grasp. “Mother…”

“I’ve been this close to hiring a private investigator to go out and look for you, you know. If things hadn’t gotten so crazy today, I probably would have done it by now.”

“Mother, stop.” Kafei knew she was going to overreact as soon as she saw him again. It was part of why he’d been so reluctant to come back here. But she’d grabbed him so tightly now that he was almost struggling to breath.

The Purugly finally loosened her grip, allowing Kafei to slump to the floor as he tried to catch his breath. Just as he was about to look up at his mother, he felt a paw swat the back of his head. Not hard enough to hurt, but enough to jolt him out of his thoughts.

“What were you thinking, just up and disappearing like this!?” the Purugly asked, her tone having turned harsh and scolding. “You didn’t tell anyone what was going on. For all anyone knew, you could have been dead!”

Kafei’s ears folded down slightly with guilt, but he didn’t back down. “I’m sorry. I know I shouldn’t have left you all in the dark, and I will explain what happened in a minute. But don’t you think there are some other important things to talk about right now?”

For a moment, the Purugly kept up her scolding, motherly glare. But then her eyes began to soften, and she let out a sigh. “Yes… Yes, I suppose you’re right.”

She sat down on the floor in front of Kafei. “This whole morning… oh, it’s been awful.” She glanced towards the meeting room, shaking her head softly at the fact that the full-throated argument in there was still in full swing. “The town guard is insistent that there should be a full evacuation. Some of the Festival organizers are pushing back; they say that the situation’s being overblown, and that the Festival should go on as planned. And your father is stuck there right in the middle.”

She pulled Kafei into a much more gentle hug. “Oh, Kafei… I was really beginning to worry that… I’d never get to know what even happened to you.” She took a moment to compose herself, before continuing. “We need to start getting ready. If the town is going to evacuate, you’ll want to have everything prepared to leave as soon as possible.”

The Purugly slowly got to her feet, and began to walk over towards another part of the manor. Kafei, however, remained right where he was. He stared down at the floor, deep in thought.

“…I’m not leaving,” he quietly spoke up.

His mother halted in place, glancing back at him in confusion. “What?

With a quiet sigh, he stood up. “I said, I’m not going to leave town.”

“If this is about Anju, she can come along too. We have more than enough resources-”

Kafei cut her off with a shake of his head. “It’s not that simple. Anju… that inn is her home. It’s been passed down through her family since her great-grand parents’ days. She won’t just leave it. And even if she would, her grandmother’s not in much shape to travel long ways, either.”

“Kafei, the moon is falling!”

“Mother, where do you think you’re going to go? Do you think anywhere else in Termina will be any safer than here?”

The Purugly held his gaze. She opened her mouth as if to speak, but no words ultimately came out. After a moment, she deflated. “Alright. Alright, I understand. Just…” She leaned down to nuzzle the top of Kafei’s head. “J-Just stay safe, Kafei.”

“…You too, Mother. You too.”

---

When Medli reached the library, she found it nearly abandoned. She couldn’t say she was too surprised; given the current danger looming over Clock Town, not many pokemon were probably in a mood for reading. Even the librarian was completely absent.

On the bright side, this meant that Medli didn’t have to worry about accidentally causing noise and disturbing anyone else. So when she reached the section where she’d found the book on Legendary pokemon yesterday, she began pulling down every book from the shelves that looked like it might hold some promise. After picking a book to start with, Medli hastily flipped through its pages until she found a section on Lunala and Solgaleo.

At first, she still couldn’t find any new information that would shed any light on the moon’s approach. It was all the same story she’d read before; no one seemed to know much else about the pair of Legendary pokemon, or where they or the beast they’d defeated had come from. It was all beginning to look like a dead end, once again.

But the more Medli read on, the more her attention started to hone in on the so-called Light Devourer itself… and the odd crystals that had broken off from its body after its defeat.

The books claimed that the crystals each held intense elemental power. They shimmered all the more brilliantly when exposed to light, and may even have recharged their power using it; an unsettling similarity to the beast that had spawned them. And the crystals were not without side-effects, either… some of the pokemon who found them experienced painful headaches after keeping the crystals too close for too long. In some cases, they even reported hearing what almost seemed like voices from the gems.

All of this, Medli had read yesterday. It was unnerving, to be sure, and it raised a number of concerning questions. Did the crystals have minds of their own? Were they… somehow extensions of the Light Devourer’s own consciousness, even after its apparent demise? Medli couldn’t know. There were questions to ask, but there still just wasn’t enough to go on.

There was one other detail, though… something the book from yesterday had almost glossed over. The fact that each and every one of the uncovered crystals, along with the pokemon that owned them, all began to go missing after a while…

…just a few months before the first mystery dungeons began to form around Termina.

Medli had seen a couple of mystery dungeons, back in Great Bay. She never dared go anywhere near them, afraid of what manner of horrors might lurk in such awful places. But their appearance was always distinct enough that it was hard not to look at them.

One dungeon was at the top of a raging waterfall once known as the Lanayru Falls. But that dungeon’s strange distortion caused the deluge of water to unnaturally twist and spiral through the air as it plummeted down, which led to the location being redubbed the Spiral Falls.

Another dungeon was on a small island a short ways out to sea. Ever since that dungeon had formed, an intense, undying lightning storm had enveloped the whole island, and a growing portion of the surrounding ocean as well over time. It’d come to be known as the Stormy Sea, and every seafarer in the bay knew to stay far away from it.

There was one thing that all dungeons had in common, as far as Medli knew. They were all shrouded with the same unnatural, smothering darkness, stretching as far out as the dungeon’s entrance. Even if you tried to bring a light source up to one, the thick dark haze would barely budge. It was as if the light itself were being blocked out, or…

…Or perhaps absorbed.

Medli shuddered. This… this still didn’t properly explain the moon’s sudden descent. But Medli couldn’t shake the feeling that this trail was somehow connected.

And that terrified her.

---

The flow of time is constant. Unyielding. It does not stop or slow for anyone or anything… not even the end of the world itself.

Every pokemon in Termina watched as the minutes continued to tick by, somehow both too slow and far too fast. Before anyone knew it, day had given way to night.

All the while, the moon continued to draw inexorably ever closer. By nightfall, it nearly blocked out the whole sky over Clock Town. Even the ground started to tremble at the stellar body’s approach, as if Termina itself were just as afraid of its demise as the pokemon that lived upon it.

The only thing that most of the inhabitants of Termina could do was to try and keep their minds off the impending doom overhead. For the small group that still remained at the Stock Pot Inn, that took the form of a quiet gathering in Anju’s grandmother’s room.

Pearl had already planned to make a special dinner to celebrate the festival that night, and despite the current circumstances, she intended to stick to that. Originally, it would have just been her, Anju, and ideally Kafei, but the Espeon didn’t mind preparing a little more to accommodate Runia and Dan as well.

It managed to be a relatively cozy little dinner, all things considered. Pearl’s cooking was still delicious, and Runia helped ensure that the conversation never quite dried up. Mostly by either sharing tales from up on Snowhead, or by asking Anju’s grandmother about some of her other personal belongings. A number of the items on her shelf, like the time flute that Pearl had shown the other night, had apparently been found inside of mystery dungeons by her grandfather.

Anju and Pearl both openly enjoyed the extra company. Kafei seemed to be a slightly more private sort of pokemon, though he warmed up a little over the course of the evening too. Dan, for his part, had thankfully cheered up a bit. He was still relatively quiet, but it seemed like he’d managed to take his mind off things at least a bit, which is all that Runia was hoping for.

“What about that one?” Runia asked, pointing out a small, oddly pale white flower on Pearl’s shelf.

The Espeon levitated it down, holding it in front of her face to take a closer look. “This one… I believe this one was from a dungeon called the Silent Grove.”

Dan shuddered a little. “Ah know that one. It’s down by the path towards Woodfall. We pass close enough to see the entrance every time we come to town from the ranch. That whole place… it’s like the color’s drained out of everything there. Every flower, every tree… every blade of grass in there’s like that.”

Runia tried to visualize the scene in her head. “Ooh. It sounds kinda neat, actually! Almost like the whole forest is just drawn in black and white.”

Dan gave her a slightly befuddled look. “Er… ah guess that’s one way to look at it. But having grown up raising crops… seein’ that place always gives me the heebie-jeebies.” He shook his head. “Then again, ah don’t know if ah’d feel much different about any other dungeon. They’re all weird like that, it sounds like.”

Pearl gave a soft laugh. “Yes, the dungeons are quite peculiar, aren’t they? Nobody can quite seem to agree on where they came from, or how they work.” She paused, twirling the flower in her mental grasp. “This little thing should have wilted ages ago, if it were from any normal place. But somehow, it’s stayed the same all this time. Faded as it may be.”

“Huh.” Runia cocked her head a little as she took a closer look at the pale bloom. “Makes me kinda wonder what else you’d find if you could make it all the-”

Another small tremor cut Runia’s words short, startling her and the rest of the group as the whole room briefly shook. A few of Pearl’s various mementos tumbled down from her shelf.

The Espeon’s smile faded as she looked at the small mess. “I wish all this shaking would stop.” She slowly levitated the flower and the other items back to their respective places. “The least the moon could do is leave my poor memories here alone.”

Anju’s ears folded down a bit. “G-Grandma…”

Pearl let out a quiet sigh, before turning to give Anju a small, lopsided smile. “It is alright.” The gem on her forehead glowed as she pulled the time flute down from its place, and let it rest on the floor in front of her. “I still have faith… Dialga is always watching over our land. He will protect us.”

Anju still looked concerned. After a moment, Kafei silently settled a paw on top of one of hers. She glanced over at him, before shakily nodding to her grandmother.

A short silence settled over the group, as Pearl continued to look down at the ancient instrument in front of her. But eventually, she picked it back up. To the others’ surprise, she floated it over towards Kafei. “I think… I would like you to watch over this, for the time being.”

“Hm?” Kafei’s eyes widened slightly. “Why me?”

“You are the one who got it back from that awful thief,” Pearl said. “If it weren’t for you, I would have lost it altogether. And…” She stared at the flute for a moment, her expression hard to read. “…I simply have a feeling. If there were any time for Dialga to heed the flute’s call… it would be now. I don’t have the energy to stay up all night for the festival, anymore. Perhaps the flute may do more good in your paws, right now.”

Kafei hesitated. But after sharing a silent look with Anju, he decided to accept. “Alright. If you’re certain.” He carefully took the flute from the Espeon’s hold, and stowed it away in his satchel for later.

The conversation slowly shifted back to normal, after that. Runia tried her best to direct things back to lighter subjects. But the occasional tremor ensured that none of the group forgot the looming terror that still hung over the entire town.

---

Medli had thrown herself fully into research in the library, in an attempt to keep her mind occupied. If she let herself stop, let herself think about what was going on outside, she was certain she would break down. At least this way, she felt like she was doing something productive.

The occasional tremors that had started to shake the ground knocked many of the books down from their shelves, leaving the library’s floor a cluttered mess. As the night drew on and the tremors slowly grew more intense, a few of the bookshelves themselves even started to topple over. Medli had to move herself further away from the shelves, afraid that she might get suddenly crushed beneath one otherwise.

She’d started to switch her focus to books about mystery dungeons. There was a lot unknown about them, since most pokemon didn’t dare to set foot in one at all, so Medli wasn’t initially sure if there would even be much information out there. But she did manage to find a few books delving into the subject.

As it turned out, she was not the first to suspect a connection between the Light Devourer and the appearance of mystery dungeons. There was no hard evidence that she could find, but a handful of the dungeons had formed suspiciously close to the places where some of the crystals had been kept.

She found a full map of Termina that displayed all of the known mystery dungeons across the land. There were eighteen listed in all; if they really were tied to the strange crystals, then perhaps they each corresponded to a type as well.

Though Medli knew the map was at least somewhat outdated. She’d heard that some dungeons had slowly expanded their boundaries over the years, pushing further into their surroundings. And the map also still showed a dungeon on Iron Island, a few miles off the coast of Great Bay, which caused Medli to frown thoughtfully. The pirates… nobody in Great Bay had any clue how the pirates had done it, but they seemed to have dispelled the dungeon that used to be on Iron Island, so they could set up their own base in the remains there instead.

It was at least somewhat reassuring to think that it was possible to revert a mystery dungeon back to normal. But of all the pokemon to have managed to do it… she wished it hadn’t been them.

Then again, perhaps they weren’t the only ones. It wasn’t as if Medli had seen much outside of Great Bay.

Medli kept on looking through the books as long as she could, only taking breaks for essential things like eating. Hours and hours passed. Over time, the fatigue and stress started to wear on her, and she dozed off, her face buried in the last book she’d been going through.

She was eventually jarred back awake as the ground violently shook again, knocking over another nearby bookshelf with a massive noisy thud. The Swablu instinctively bolted into the air, her heart racing as she slowly remembered what she had been doing.

A few moments later, the clock tower outside began to loudly chime out the hour. One, two… the bell rung out a full twelve times, signaling that it had already turned to midnight. Medli groggily glanced in the direction of the library’s clock, but it was too dark now to properly make out the time.

A melancholy thought occurred to her. If it was midnight, now… then she supposed the Festival of Time had technically arrived. Under different circumstances, pokemon would probably be… cheerfully celebrating out in the square. Maybe… maybe a few pokemon even still would. Just to try and make the most of however many hours they had left.

The Swablu reluctantly glanced towards the library’s entrance. How close had the moon come by now? Did she… did she even want to know? She could just stay in here… go back to sleep, and wait for the end to come. But was that any better?

After a moment’s deliberation, Medli shook her head. She took a deep breath to try and gather whatever courage she could, before she started to slowly flutter towards the door.

Outside, the world was deathly still. Medli couldn’t see a single soul wandering the streets around here. Likely, almost everyone in town had either fled, or had taken shelter in their homes.

As Medli nervously looked up, the sight that met her left her barely able to breathe. The moon had come so close that it nearly blotted out the whole sky. She could see hints of the craters and valleys that marred the moon’s surface with her bare eye, from here. It would almost be beautiful, if it weren’t so deeply chilling.

This… might be one of the last things she would ever see.

She slowly drifted her gaze across the moon, as if looking for any sign that it might stop short of impact. Nothing on its surface really stood out all that much… but when she happened to look over the Clock Tower in the center of town, she noticed something that made her heart nearly stop.

The same massive, bat-like figure that she’d seen through the telescope the other night… Lunala herself… was hovering high above the clock tower, gazing down at the town below that was about to be crushed beneath her moon.

Medli couldn’t believe her eyes. She blinked and shook her head, but the Legendary pokemon remained right where she was. The fact that she had come here, mere hours at most before the moon’s collision… There was no mistaking it anymore. Lunala had to be the one responsible for this.

But if that was the case, then… why? And… was there any chance that someone could convince her to stop? She didn’t look to be more than a few dozen feet above the top of the tower, any flier brave enough to try could easily go up and talk to her…

Before Medli could think better of it, she’d started to flutter up towards the Clock Tower’s peak. She had no idea what she was doing. Lunala could probably smite her out of the air without any effort if she wanted to. But then… it wasn’t as if there was much for Medli to lose, now. If she was going to die anyway… she wanted to at least get some answers.

Slowly, Medli climbed higher and higher. As she drew near enough to see Lunala more closely, she realized the massive Legendary was facing the other direction, her head angled down slightly as she gazed across the land below. It was a slight relief to know that the imposing figure still hadn’t spotted her yet, though Medli knew she’d have to get Lunala’s attention sooner or later.

“U-Um… excuse m-me?” Medli timidly spoke up, too quiet to catch the Legendary’s attention. She tried again, a little louder. “Um, L-Lunala…?”

Lunala jolted slightly in surprise. She whirled around to face Medli, her piercing red eyes draining Medli’s courage away in an instant. For just a moment, Medli was sure she was about to be struck down by the Legendary’s divine wrath. But once Lunala got a good look at the tiny Swablu, she dropped her aggressive stance, realizing that Medli was no threat at all. “Hm. Just a resident of the town, I suppose.”

It took all of Medli’s effort to merely continue to hover there, trembling silently under Lunala’s gaze. Even now that the guardian of the moon had lowered her guard, Medli still felt as though she was staring right into her soul. Medli helplessly tried to open her beak a few times, but she couldn’t manage a single word.

“I am sorry, tiny one,” Lunala said. “But if you are here to ask me to stop, you are wasting your time.”

“B-But…” Medli tried her best to push down her fear. “B-But, everyone in T-Termina…”

Lunala’s wings seemed to droop ever so slightly, and she turned her gaze back to the town below. “…It is a shame. But there are matters at play you do not understand.” She scowled down at the clock tower. “This problem has been left to fester for far too long already, and I will not allow it to go any further.”

Medli tilted her head slightly at that. But before she could ponder it for long, something caught her attention from out of the corner of her eye. A distant white form, coming from far out to the east. It was barely a speck at first, but it appeared to be closing the distance with a frightening amount of speed.

After a moment, Lunala noticed it too. A bitter scowl crossed her face. “Wonderful,” she muttered. “It was only a matter of time…”

A loud roar pierced the air, and the distant form picked up speed. Medli felt a shiver run down her spine. She fluttered backwards a short distance, afraid to get in the way of whatever was coming.

The shimmering blur abruptly came to a halt a short distance away from Lunala, a faint trail of fire flickering in the air behind it. The pokemon, a regal metallic lion straight out of the same books Medli had pored over all day, glared angrily at Lunala. “You cannot seriously plan to go through with this!” he yelled.

“I have made up my mind, Solgaleo,” Lunala said to her solar counterpart. “Inaction has only allowed this problem to grow worse. If something is not done soon, this world will not be the only one at stake.”

“But we have not reached that point yet. There is still some time-”

“You can sense him down there just as well as I can,” Lunala interrupted. “Necrozma is regaining its strength, bit by bit. No doubt thanks in part to those… things it left behind. They’ve practically infested this world, slowly sapping away its light to further spread their distortion. And what have this world’s inhabitants done about it? Nothing!”

Medli flinched at the lunar guardian’s outburst, unable to contain a frightened squawk as she tremblingly hovered in place. Unfortunately, the noise drew the two Legends attention back over to her for a moment. Solgaleo looked on the Swablu with a hint of pity in his eyes, while Lunala’s piercing red gaze seemed to stare directly into Medli’s soul.

“Do any of you even grasp what is truly going on?” Lunala asked. “I doubt it. You all simply ignore the problem, and hope that if you leave the wretched things alone that everything will be just peachy. And the few who do have enough spine to deal with them, seem to think that that beast’s wretched shards are just pretty little toys!” Lunala’s glare grew even more intense as she spat those final words.

Medli tried to open her beak to respond, but she could barely manage to even breathe under the Legendary’s soul-piercing gaze.

After a few moments, Lunala shook her head with a faint ‘tsk’, and turned to face her counterpart again. “Face it, Solgaleo. This world is already doomed. If we’d waited a few more years to return, we’d have probably found a cold, lightless husk. Better to give them a swift and painless end, and make sure Necrozma never gets the chance to do this anywhere else again.”

Solgaleo remained silent, returning her glare with a resolute one of his own. It didn’t seem like either of them were going to back down.

Lunala glanced back over at Medli one last time. “Go on home, tiny one. While you still have some time left.”

Medli shuddered. The last of her courage finally failed her, and she turned and dove out of sight as fast as she could.

Her heart was pounding, and she could still barely breathe. She’d finally gotten her answers, somewhat; she didn’t have the full context behind what the two Legends had said, but she’d gathered enough. Her guesses seemed to have been on the right track.

But knowing why this was happening… didn’t make her feel any better. In fact, she felt almost nauseous as she fled towards the ground.

She… she wanted to do something. Anything! She wanted to stand up to Lunala, try and find some way to get her to stop this. But she just couldn’t… How was a weak little Swablu like her supposed to stop the Guardian of the Moon on her own?

On her own…

Medli looked around. The streets were completely lifeless. Even if anyone else had been out in town at this late hour, she wouldn’t be surprised if Lunala’s appearance would have scared them all back into their homes anyway. She hardly knew anyone in Clock Town. The dojo was probably a lost cause. The only pokemon she could think to turn to…

The ground loudly rumbled as another tremor tore through Clock Town, dislodging a loose piece from a nearby building’s roof. Medli glanced back up at the clock tower. She took in a deep, steadying breath, before turning and flying as fast as her wings could carry her towards the inn.

---

The mood in the Stock Pot Inn had grown increasingly somber as the night drew on. Pearl had long since retired to bed. The rest of the group had moved to Anju and Kafei’s room, half-heartedly continuing to talk as they tried to stay awake. Runia had done her best to try and keep the conversations lighthearted, between stories from her home on Snowhead and asking for stories from the others. But even she could only delay the inevitable so long.

By the time the clock tower struck midnight, no one had any words left to say. They were only staying up as a formality now. Fatigue had taken hold of each of them, but each of them knew that if they went to bed… Termina likely wouldn’t be there by morning.

Eventually, Kafei cleared his throat. “I… appreciate the attempt to offer some company. But…” He shared a look with Anju. “I think the two of us would rather spend the final hours on our own.” Anju gave a short nod, one of her paws shakily holding onto Kafei’s as she sat right beside him.

“Ah… t-that’s fair,” Runia said. She couldn’t really blame the couple for wanting some privacy right now. She’d probably want the same, in their place.

As Runia slowly got to her feet, she turned to glance over at Dan. The Mareep had sunken into near-despondency again, hanging his head as he stared down at the floor. “Do you, er… want to be alone too?” Runia asked “Or, uh…”

Dan slowly shook his head. “…Might as well stick together.”

Just as Runia and Dan made to leave the room, a new voice calling out from the direction of the lobby caught the whole group by surprise. “Kafei!? Kafei, are y-you… still here?” the voice yelled.

Kafei cocked his head a bit, questioning who would be looking for him now of all times. But after a moment, he realized the voice sounded a little familiar. He and Anju got up, following Runia and Dan out of the room just in time to see a Swablu fluttering down the hallway towards them.

“Medli? What in the world are you doing here?” Kafei asked. Anju gave him a curious look, silently asking him who this was. Dan and Runia, meanwhile, eyed the newcomer as if trying to remember if they’d seen her before.

“K-Kafei… the moon… Lunala… I-I saw…” The Swablu stammered out her words, still panicked and trying to catch her breath.

Kafei couldn’t help but let out an annoyed huff. “Yes. It’s hard not to notice. The moon’s about to-”

“N-No!” The Swablu frantically shook her head, small tufts of fluff falling from her wings as she hovered in place. “I-I saw her… L-Lunala’s over the clock tower right now! She… S-She and Solgaleo are arguing about bringing down the moon!”

That certainly caught the group’s attention. They silently exchanged a series of looks.

“But… why would Lunala even want to do something like this?” Runia asked. “The two of them saved Termina ages ago, didn’t they? Why come back just to doom us now?”

“I-I’m not completely certain. B-But I think…” Medli stopped short as another tremor caused the whole inn to shake violently. She looked around, panic in her eyes. “T-There’s not enough time! I-I’ll explain on the way!”

Anju shuddered. “On the way? What… w-what do you expect us to do?”

Medli hesitated slightly, coming to softly rest on the floor as she stopped flapping her wings. “I-I… I wanted to try and convince her to stop. But I was too scared… I couldn’t try to face her alone.” She gestured to Kafei. “And you were… the only one in town I could think of to ask.”

Kafei was barely listening, having turned towards the window as he pictured the scene in his head. Lunala was just waiting atop the clock tower while she brought the moon down? Just… gazing out over everything she was about to destroy? The thought made a faint growl start to rumble in Kafei’s throat.

He knew he wouldn’t stand a chance against a Legendary pokemon. None of them would. But at least this way, he could feel like he had some agency. If he was doomed to die anyway, he was prepared to go down fighting.

He took a deep breath, his eyes hardening with a calm and steady resolve as he turned to face Runia again. “I’ll do it. I have some words for Lunala, right now.”

The hurt look that he saw on Anju’s face made his heart waver for a moment. But… she was just as doomed as the rest of them, if the moon wasn’t stopped. If there was any chance they could succeed… he would take it. For her sake.

Runia, meanwhile, had gone uncharacteristically silent, a pensive look on her own face as she took in the whole situation. After a moment, she seemed to come to a decision. “I’ll come too,” she chimed in. “Whether or not it comes to a fight, having a third pokemon along couldn’t hurt your case, right?”

That was finally enough to snap Dan out of his own silence. He glanced back and forth between Kafei and Runia, his eyes widening a bit in disbelief. “You two… aren’t serious, are you? That’s… a Legendary pokemon out there! You can’t-”

“We know,” Kafei said bluntly. “But if we do nothing, the moon’s going to crush us regardless. We have to try.”

The Mareep didn’t respond at first, a distant look in his eyes as he stared down at the floor. Eventually, he let out a long sigh. “A-Ah guess… we don’t have much to lose, do we?” He raised his head to meet the others’ gazes.

It seemed they were all in agreement. All except Anju, at least. She had folded down her ears, trembling slightly as she leaned against Kafei’s side. “T-This… this is a b-bad idea,” she whispered, barely loud enough for him to hear.

Kafei turned to look at her, feeling a stab through his heart as he met her gaze. For a long moment, he mulled over what to say. “…I will come back. Promise.”

Anju sniffled. She tried to twine her tail with his, as if fearing to let him go. “…Y-You’d better.”

Another tremor shook the inn, even stronger than the last few. “W-We should hurry!” Medli squawked. “I-I don’t know how long Lunala will even s-stay up there.”

One by one, Medli, Runia and Dan all started down the hallway. Kafei spared one last glance back at Anju, before resolutely moving to follow the others.

As the group emerged from the inn, a massive roar suddenly tore through the chilling silence of the desolate Clock Town. The four pokemon all looked up. High overhead, Lunala and Solgaleo’s argument looked to have turned into an outright battle. Lunala swooped and dove through the air high over the tower, firing balls of shadow at her counterpart as he sprinted on thin air after her, his body cloaked in radiant flames.

For a long moment, the four pokemon below could only stand and stare. Kafei was the first to snap out of it, shaking his head and glancing around at the others. “C’mon. We have to hurry.” The rest of the group shakily nodded, and they all began making their way towards the center of town as fast as they could.

---

It took only a couple of minutes for the group to reach the clock tower at the center of town. Thankfully, the tower’s main door had been left unlocked; Medli doubted that any of them would have been able to break it down, as sturdy as it looked.

The interior of the clock tower was quite a sight to behold. Medli had never seen the inner mechanisms behind a clock before, much less at this large of a scale. Under different circumstances, she might have liked a chance to take a closer look, but right now they all had much more important things to focus on.

Stairs led both up and down from the base floor. The group hurried towards the former, three of them climbing as quickly as they could while Medli flew along beside them. Along the way, she tried her best to explain what she’d managed to piece together about what was going on; her theories about the Light Devourer, its shards, and everything Lunala herself had said. But as nervous as Medli was, she could only hope the others managed to understand her stuttering mess of an explanation well enough.

The climb was quite exhausting. The stairs seemed to go on and on forever, and by the time they reached the upper floors, the three ground-bound pokemon among them were all beginning to run short of breath. But finally, they managed to arrive at the top of the clock tower.

As they pushed open the final door and stepped out onto the tower’s roof, the sight that met them wasn’t encouraging. Solgaleo was visibly injured; his metallic coat was battered and scuffed, and he was limping with one of his legs as he stood on the tower’s roof. Lunala hovered a moderate distance overhead. She looked somewhat worse for wear as well, but in the end, it was distressingly clear who had won the fight.

“You… are as strong and agile as ever,” Solgaleo panted, his eyes still defiant as he looked up at Lunala.

“And you have not gone soft either,” Lunala replied. “I have sometimes feared that you may have lost your edge, after all of our years of roaming the cosmos. But this… it reminded me of our first time sparring, back when things were simpler in our old home world.”

Kafei gritted his teeth, as he and the others stood perfectly still just in front of the doorway. He had hoped, when he saw the two Legends were fighting, that it might have given them an edge. But it seemed they weren’t so lucky.

“I hope I did not harm you too much,” Lunala continued. “But you left me no choice. You may not like it, but this is the only way to be certain…” She cut herself short as she finally noticed the newcomers out of the corner of her eye. She turned towards them, her piercing eyes narrowed in a chilling glare. “…I believe I told you to go home, tiny one. Not to go search out your friends.”

Medli, Runia and Dan all shrunk back a bit under Lunala’s gaze. Kafei was the only one who managed to hold his ground, though even he couldn’t help but shudder slightly at the massive Legend’s anger. “Did you think nobody was going to notice you up here? That we would all just sit back and wait to die?”

“I may have,” Lunala said bluntly. “You creatures certainly don’t seem to have paid much thought to anything else that’s going on around you.”

Kafei scowled at that. He was about to open his mouth to respond, when Medli hastily fluttered out in front of him. “P-Please!” she called out. She tried to look up at Lunala, only to quickly avert her eyes towards the floor, unable to meet the lunar pokemon’s imposing gaze. “Y-You two managed to stop the Light Dev… e-er, Necrozma before! Even if it and its crystals are still causing problems, s-surely you can find a better way to deal with it?”

Lunala blinked. Her expression slightly softened into a quizzical stare as she looked down at Medli. “Hm… so there are still some of your kind who have paid attention to the past. Perhaps if there were more like you…” She shook her head. “But it is too late. Something must be done. If no-one else has the spine to do it, then I will.”

“What gives you the right!?” Kafei yelled. “You say that Necrozma is a threat that has to be stopped. But here you are, about to end a whole world of innocents! What makes you any better than it!?”

That certainly got Lunala’s attention. Her whole body bristled, and she flared her wings, slowly floating down until she was nearly touching down on the tower’s roof. She leaned in as close as she could to stare straight down at Kafei. If her earlier glare had been hostile, the look in her eyes now was almost sharp enough to kill. “…I suggest you do not speak of things you know nothing about. Unless you would prefer to watch the coming impact from the moon’s surface, instead.”

Kafei didn’t back down. He returned the glare with one just as fierce, only slightly undercut by the faint trembling of his legs and tail. Medli floated off to the side, shivering with concern as she glanced back and forth between the two.

After a moment, Runia stepped up, her arms raised in a conciliatory pose. “A-Alright, let’s try to cool down a bit. Surely we can all try to be civil and talk through this?”

Lunala’s face was still thoroughly unamused as she turned to focus on the Snowshrew. Eventually, she let out a sigh. “There is nothing to discuss. Even if everyone on your world understood the threat Necrozma poses, I doubt your kind would have the courage or the strength to do anything about it. I refuse to simply rest on my wings and wait for Necrozma to slowly recover its former power.”

Dan hesitantly took a few steps forward. “But… why can’t you just wait? If the two of you could beat it before… couldn’t you just do it again, even if it did recover?”

It had seemed like a reasonable suggestion, at the time. But from the way Lunala glared down at Dan, she clearly didn’t agree.

“And risk our lives… our very existence on another battle with that beast!? Not to mention risking other worlds, should we fail? No! Unacceptable!”

With a strong beat of her massive wings, Lunala launched into the air, pushing the quartet of smaller pokemon back towards the doorway in the process. She flew up and up, flaring her wings out again as she turned her gaze on the moon above. Her eyes flashed with energy, and the moon visibly rumbled slightly, picking up even more speed as it continued on its collision course.

“This conversation is over,” Lunala called out. “I am solving this problem right here, and right now. I will ensure that monster never poses a threat to anyone else again.” She closed her eyes, and shook her head. “If one more world must be sacrificed to achieve that… then so be it. I will be the one to bloody my wings.”

She shifted her attention down to her counterpart, who had not moved from his spot since the group had arrived. “Come on, Solgaleo. Do not make me try and carry you out of there.”

The solar lion slowly got back to his feet. His face was somber as he glanced back and forth between Lunala and the group in front of him. For just a moment, Kafei and the others hoped he might still try and do something. But their hopes were quickly cut short.

“I… am sorry,” Solgaleo spoke, his voice quiet and subdued. Without another word, he turned to walk away, limping slightly as he went. He walked right off the edge of the clock tower’s roof, his feet shimmering with light as he continued along thin air, slowly gaining altitude along the way.

Before long, both of the Legends had nearly vanished into the distant night sky. The group could do little but stand there and watch them leave, the last of their hope disappearing with them.

Kafei scowled up at Lunala as she flew towards the moon. He focused his energy into a series of shimmering stars that began to orbit around him, before he defiantly launched the whole bundle up towards the moon. The Swift stars climbed and climbed, but one by one, they petered out and dissipated into dust long before reaching their target. Undeterred, he conjured another Swift, and another, until Lunala was little more than a speck in the sky.

The Eevee stomped a paw on the floor. His eyelids squeezed shut as he tried to force down the wave of despair that threatened to overtake him.

All around him, the cold reality was setting in for the others as well. Dan had frozen up, standing still as a statue as he stared up at the moon. Runia was trying to reassure him, though she looked to be on the verge of breaking into panic as well. And Medli, after a minute of frantically flying about, had broken down on the floor, sobbing into her wings.

“M-Merciful Lord D-Dialga… p-please, we need m-more time…”

Kafei perked up an ear at Medli’s quiet words. His thoughts turned to the flute that Anju’s grandmother had given him. He’d nearly forgotten it. He wasn’t sure how much he believed the stories about the flute’s supposed powers, but…

He hastily let his satchel drop to the floor, picking through it until he found the flute. He pulled it out and set it on the ground, leaning down to examine the instrument for a moment.

“O-Oh right! The flute!” Runia quickly took notice of Kafei’s actions, and rushed over to take a look of her own. “This thing is supposed to be able to call on Dialga’s own power, isn’t it?” Without thinking, she picked up the flute from in front of Kafei, holding it up to her face to take a better look.

Kafei frowned, one ear twitching in slight annoyance. “What are you doing? Do you even know how to play that?”

Runia blinked. “Oh! Uh, sorry. Probably should have asked. But, I mean…” She tilted her head at Kafei. “Do you know how to play it? I just figured, y’know… you wouldn’t be able to hold it right.

Kafei glanced down at one of his paws. She wasn’t wrong. Pearl could play the flute using her telekinesis to adjust the notes, but he didn’t exactly have any way to do the same. Runia’s claws probably weren’t ideal for the task either, but she was at least better equipped to handle the flute than he was.

That didn’t make it any less nerve wracking, however, having to simply stand there and watch as Runia tried to work out the Song of Time through sheer trial and error. It took nearly a minute just for her to find what sounded like the right first note, and her pace barely seemed to improve from there. All the while, the moon continued drawing ever closer.

Dan and Medli both came over to investigate before long. Medli cocked her head a bit, clearly confused. “W-What…?” Runia quietly shushed her, before continuing on with her attempts.

Suddenly, just as Runia managed something that sounded vaguely close to how Pearl had played the song, the flute began to glow. She pulled away in surprise, looking down at the flute in her grasp with eyes full of surprise. “I… I did it?”

The glowing rapidly intensified, spreading out to all four gathered pokemon as they all exchanged startled looks. Before any of them could so much as raise a question, a bright flash of light enveloped the group.

When the light faded a moment later, they were all gone.

---

Runia had no idea what was happening. She felt like she was in freefall, tumbling head over tail through the air as she plummeted endlessly. But she couldn’t feel any air rushing past her; it was all very strange.

The surroundings were even trippier. All around her was an immense, white void. There was no solid ground to be seen in any direction – only a vast number of light blue gears, slowly turning away despite not being connected to anything.

She could see Dan, Kafei and Medli all falling right there alongside her. The latter appeared to be trying to slow her fall with her wings, but no matter how hard the Swablu tried to fly, it didn’t seem to change anything.

A flash of pink caught Runia’s attention out of the corner of her eye. She turned her head, and managed to spot a small, fairy-like figure. The fairy appeared to giggle, swooping and flying all around the group as she continued to watch them fall.

Runia tried to speak, but no words came out. Probably another effect of this strange void.

Suddenly, the fairy perked up in surprise. She raised her head, as if to look at something off in the distance. Whatever she saw, it made the playful smile fade from her face. Runia tried to reorient herself to look, but it was difficult in this odd pseudo-freefall.

Before she could manage to see anything, she found herself enveloped in light once again.