Chapter 36: Suddenly Jaded

The needs of the many. The needs of the few. They matter not before the Benefactor.
~Qliphoth Proverb

Yuna was falling.

The barrier was gone. Soft, golden light fizzled out around her. There were no more poisonous tendrils. The aerodactyl voodoo doll was gone, too. Somehow, she had done it, but God was it exhausting.

She was so tired. Yuna didn’t think this kind of fatigue was possible for ghost-types. Yet even as damp, musty air rippled through her ectoplasm, all Yuna wanted was to curl up for a nice, long nap.

Yuna had just enough energy left to hope her crash landing was a soft one before her eyelids fluttered shut.

Green fields gave way to rocky crags with small brooks weaving between them. Chiron flapped her wings, frowning. She could sense Lugia nearby. So, the Sage hadn’t moved from where Bahamut had detected her.

Lugia ignored his summons. Bahamut was very clear; his summons required prompt response. No Sage could disregard one longer than ten minutes. Lugia had broken that rule. And after she had a string of cancelled sermons in defiance of Bahamut, Chiron could tell his temper was bubbling to the surface. She had suggested he take some time to meditate and leave Lugia to her. But she was quite surprised at how quickly and precisely Bahamut located Lugia.

Chiron descended further into a brown valley, trying to push that thought aside. The brooks grew larger, joining together and running into a crescent lake. The familiar shape brought a smile to the lunala’s face. She hadn’t seen this one before. Perhaps Chiron would ask Bahamut about it later.

Her smile quickly faded when she found Lugia on the lake’s eastern bank, lying in the mud with her tail lazily dangling in the water. Dirt and grime caked her once-pristine, white feathers.

Chiron didn’t have time to consider a proper greeting because Lugia locked eyes with her. “Come to lecture me? Then go on.” Lugia lazily raised her left wing and flicked it, flinging mud into the water with splashes and brown rings. “Tell me I’m a screw up. A freeloader. Or whatever colorful language Bahamut was using back at his base.”

The lunala bit her lip. So, Lugia’s strategy was guilt tripping. A firm approach wasn’t going to work. Chiron would attempt a soft touch, instead. “He’s worried about you.” She folded her right wing over her chest. “We’re all worried about you. You haven’t been yourself lately.”

Silence. Then a bitter laugh. Lugia rolled on her back, burying herself deeper in the muck. “Ha! Worried about me? That’s a good one.” She smacked the muddy ground with her right wing. Chiron drifted back to avoid mud splatter.

Chiron clutched the Soul Dew around her neck with her wing claws. It was one thing for Lugia to play hooky, but it was another to belittle Bahamut and his work. Sure, Chiron had only been here a few months, yet it was long enough to conclude the golden dragon truly cared about the world.

“That attitude isn’t helping your case.” The lunala’s words were firmer. “We are concerned, because this behavior is… unbecoming of someone in your position.”

“My behavior?” Lugia sat up. Chiron had gotten through to her. “That is rich!” She scooped up a ball of mud with her right wing and hurled it at Chiron. Rolling her eyes, Chiron teleported to her right, then watched the mud sail into the lake with a brown splash.

So, Lugia wanted to act like a hatchling? Fine then. Chiron could treat her like one. Her third eye flared to life. A purple glow surrounded a squawking Lugia’s wings and pinned them to her side.

“You have a responsibility to this planet and its people,” Chiron exclaimed. “I may not understand all your customs, but I know you were trained to be better this. Do we not teach commoners to talk out their differences? To use words and not claws and fangs?”

She stared Lugia down. The silence lingered long enough for Chiron to wonder if Lugia was opting for the silent treatment.

“… this isn’t what I signed up for.” Lugia turned away, plapping her head down in the mud. “It’s not fair. We speak of things we’re not allowed.” She put her left wing on her neck. “I wanted to help people, but as the years go by, it feels less like helping and more like sacrificing my life and my freedom!”

Chiron’s third eye faded into her forehead. She folded her wings over her torso, unsure what to even make of that. “Explain.”

“What does it matter to you?” Lugia swung her tail back and forth, sloshing around more muck. “Our rules don’t apply to you. You didn’t even bond with your Soul Dew, did you?”

“I… didn’t.” Chiron traced her folded wing across the gem. She needed to get Lugia to open up more, but she couldn’t tell the truth. None of the Sages could know the lunala had fled Eternatus. It was too dangerous. For her and for them.

“You all… have a long apprenticeship period before you accept Bahamut’s light, right?” Chiron tightened her wings around her torso. “It doesn’t feel right for me to accept such power after only a few months here.”

And there’s no telling how his light might react with my Malice.

Lugia laughed at that, however. “Well, congratu-freaking-lations.” She flung more mud with her tail. “Then you’re free of his control.”

Chiron narrowed her eyes. “Excuse me?”

Lugia sat up. There was a faint rainbow glimmer underneath the layers of mud on her belly. “See this?” She pointed to the glimmer, muck dripping off her outstretched wing digit. “Why do you think you were able to find me so fast? The Soul Dew binds us to Bahamut. So long as I have his light, he’ll always know where I am.”

The lunala’s wing claws twitched.

He’ll always know where I am.

He’ll always know…

Always…

“There’s nothing you can hide from me, child.”

Chiron squeezed her eyes shut and blinked rapidly. That nagging presence quickly faded from her mind.

“And even if that wasn’t the case, Zygarde can keep tabs on everything with that whole ‘I can split myself into tiny invisible cells’ thing,” Lugia continued, thankfully unaware that Chiron had zoned out for a moment.

Somehow, Chiron must’ve opened some sort of floodgate, because Lugia wasn’t stopping. “And, y’know, maybe I’d be okay with it… if commoners actually liked what I had to offer. But my sermons have some of the poorest attendance of the Luminous Sages!” She raised her filthy wings and smacked them into the muck. “People just don’t get what the Sage of Harmony is. Heck, sometimes I’m not sure what it means.”

Bits of mud trickled off Lugia’s body. Wait, were those tears carrying the mud away?

“I just—” Lugia sniffled loudly. “I gave up my love for this. I gave up the chance for a family for this.” She lay back down with an unceremonious splat. “How is it fair that we have to teach about things we’re not allowed to have? Especially when Bahamut can have them.”

Chiron relaxed her wings a bit. “Bahamut told me… those things would make it harder to protect the planet.” She looked down at her wavy reflection in the lake. “Didn’t your predecessor warn you of this?”

“I thought he was overexaggerating!” Lugia threw her wings up and smacked them against her flabby belly. “The rules sounded comically strict. But I guess they don’t apply to him, because I’ve seen the way he looks at you. How you two will sneak off to the mountains in the north or the Armour Archipelago. How you’ll cuddle together to the point where you practically melt into one another!”

She pointed her tail at Chiron. “Don’t deny it, I’ve seen it! I didn’t even know Bahamut could glow that shade of red!”

The lunala’s forehead and ethereal wings reddened. “I… that’s…”

Lugia rolled onto her belly and crawled through the mud. She got up to her wings and knees. “I want what you two have with Cece. I want it so, so badly. You have no idea how touch-starved I’m— waugh!“

She slipped off the bank and into the lake with a large splash. Chiron teleported back several meters, watching with a frown as brown expanded around the splash zone and a wet feather odor permeated the air.

Her gut tightened. Chiron had always been under the impression that the Sages loved their jobs. She never thought that any of them might’ve had regrets. Might have—

“He’s unsatisfied, is he? Then you’ll dispose of him. Permanently.”

Rippling water snapped Chiron back to attention. Lugia surfaced, brown water cascading down her wet, dirty feathers. “Who am I kidding?” She sighed. “Maybe if I beg and plead enough, Bahamut will let me find a replacement.”

Chiron drifted down toward her. “C… Can I ask you something?”

“Whatever.”

The lunala flinched. “Who’s Cece?”

Lugia blinked. Her cheeks flushed despite the soggy feathers. “Reshiram. His name was Cecil when he was a commoner. He was a hydreigon and I was a salazzle. My apothecary used the courier group he worked for. I met him when he crashed into my shop and… we fell so hard for each other. Then we both got scouted for Sage apprenticeships.”

She bit her lip. “I… shouldn’t tell you this. But the truth is that… Bahamut wanted us to end our personal relationship.” Lugia pushed and pulled the water around her with her wings. “I couldn’t stand the thought of it. Neither could Cecil. So, right before our christenings, we eloped.”

Chiron’s crescent tail twitched. “Does… does Bahamut know?”

“I’m not sure.” Lugia stared at her muddled reflection. “But throughout our time as Sages, we’ve rarely had the opportunity to work together. Sometimes I wonder if he does know, and is punishing me for it.”

Chiron’s heart sank. A part of her didn’t want to believe it. Bahamut was nothing but patient and caring with her since her crash landing. But the things Lugia said reminded her so much of…

She had to do something. She had to make it right.

“… take a week off.”

Lugia looked up. “Bwuh?”

“Take a week off… to be with Reshiram,” Chiron repeated, firmer this time. “I know a nice private grotto by the Crownelands’ southeast coast.”

Lugia still looked unconvinced. “You really think Bahamut will let that fly?”

“Leave him to me.” The lunala winked at Lugia. “If he looks at me the way you think he does, he’ll come around.”

More silence. Then, Lugia shot out of the water faster than Chiron thought possible for a massive bird. This time, there was no escaping a surprise shower… or the wet, slimy hug that followed.

“Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you!” Lugia buried her head in the crook of Chiron’s neck. “I’ll make it up to you, I swear!”

“You can… start by… not squeezing… so tight,” Chiron wheezed.

The moment Lugia released her, everything went white.

It was times like these that made Chiron wish her wing structure was more flexible like Lugia’s. The best she could do while seated in the special chair that Bahamut had carved for her was rigidly have her wings pointed in front of her, so she could gingerly hold the tiny, sleeping star cloud in her claws.

Motherhood. Chiron still found it so surreal because it shouldn’t have been possible. Neither she nor Bahamut were meant to procreate. And yet, here she was. With this little bundle of joy that could teleport around and “Pew!” his delight at everyone’s confusion.

“So, you got a name for the tyke yet or what?”

Chiron looked up from her son. Lugia sat opposite her on an absurdly large recliner, tossing a green grape into her open mouth.

“We do, actually.” Chiron smiled warmly. “Leo.”

Lugia paused in the midst of pulling a grape out of the ceramic bowl in her lap. “Leo?” She blinked. “Huh. I was expecting something more… mystical.”

The lunala giggled. “Leo is a constellation of stars from the Milky Way. It was Bahamut’s favorite constellation when he lived on Earth.” She lifted her head a bit higher to look at the doorway behind Lugia, which was filled with golden light. “Isn’t that right, dear?”

Rainbow, pupilless eyes looked back at her. “You told me that, in time, he would turn into something resembling a pyroar. And Leo was named for a mythical creature that resembled a pyroar. It seemed logical to me.”

Chiron resisted the urge to roll her eyes. Of course he’d brush that off. Heaven forbid Bahamut admit he liked anything about Earth.

“Fair enough.” Lugia resumed tossing grapes into her mouth. “So, why’d you call me here?”

“I have a request for you.” Chiron leaned over and nuzzled Leo, who cooed happily in his sleep. “We would like you and Reshiram to be Leo’s aunt and uncle, in a manner of speaking. Help us raise him and, if something were to happen to both of us, parent him in our stead.”

Lugia’s eyes widened. She misjudged the arc of her grape toss and it bounced off the tip of her snout. A psychic force caught the grape before it could hit the floor, then threw it out an open window.

“I just cleaned these floors,” Bahamut growled. The light behind Lugia rippled.

“S-Sorry.” Lugia grinned sheepishly. “But, like, are you sure about that? I mean—”

“… tch. You’re the one who bemoaned your inability to have a family,” Bahamut cut in. The gold light in the doorway dimmed. “Consider it a… concession, on my part.”

Chiron frowned at him. They had discussed how they were going to explain things, but Bahamut decided to go off script. “What he means to say is that you’re my friend, Lugia. I know how much family means to you, so I want you to be part of Leo’s life.”

In a blink of light, Bahamut was at Lugia’s side. She almost tossed the bowl of grapes up in surprise when his gold light spilled over her. “But make no mistake. Your responsibilities as Sage of Harmony still come first.” He pointed his right upper wing at her. “We are trusting you because we believe in you. Understand?”

“Y-Yessir!” Lugia saluted with her right wing. “I’ll be the best, least-embarrassing fake aunt in the world.”

While Chiron giggled again, a groaning Bahamut smacked his face with an upper wing. His golden glow brightened even further, and everything faded to white.

“Oh, my aching head.”

Yuna’s vision came back to her quicker than her previous dreams. Though she wanted to fester over why she saw two this time, the soft feathers and scales brushing against her ectoplasm calmed her nerves.

What had she been doing again?

… Oh, right. Qliphoth. Poison swamp. Reshiram flying off the handle because his wife, Lugia, was trapped in some daemonic barrier with an egg. Then she freed Lugia.

Hadn’t she been falling?

Whatever. Yuna was comfy now. And less tired. That was all that mattered.

Maybe five more minutes with this feather blanket…

When Yuna blinked the last stars from her vision, however, she found herself clutching the egg Lugia previously held and staring at a blue belly with pink flame patterns that immediately brought salazzle to mind.

But salazzle don’t have feathers.

Then Lugia’s head popped in, only there were flame marks on the blue spikes that were supposed to surround her eyes.

“Hello!” she chirped.

“AAAAAAAAAH!”

“AAAAAAAAAH!” Lugia tossed Yuna into the air and flared out her wings. “Why are we yelling?! Is that how this planet thanks people who save its inhabitants from plummeting out of the sky?”

Yuna steadied herself in midair, making sure she held onto the egg, and looked in abject horror at the scaly flaps fluttering on either side of Lugia’s tail.

(Art by PC-Doodle)

This was wrong. Very, very wrong. And yet, Lugia seemed blissfully unaware, tilting her head at Yuna. “Although, I guess you broke me out of that crazy nightmare I was in.” She gave a thumbs up. “So, I suppose we’re even, Drakloak.”

“But I— wait, drakloak?!” Yuna looked around in a panic. She soon found her elongated tail and two nubby feet that hadn’t been there before. “Ohmygod I’m a drakloak!” Yuna pressed her hands — there were little ridges in her ectoplasm denoting the beginnings of fingers — firmly against the egg. “When? How? Why?”

“Thine efforts in dispelling that foul barrier did the trick, Princess.”

Rayquaza drifted down to Yuna’s side, applauding with his tiny hands. Lugia looked at him, eyes sparkling. “Oh, wow! A chocolate noodle! And it talks!” Her tail wagged. “Is this a chocolate planet? Can I eat the ground?” She bent over and sniffed the mud, only to recoil. “Nope. Definitely not chocolate. Bummer.”

Yuna’s shoulders sagged, though she remained vigilant of the egg. I think I see how she and Reshiram fell for each other.

Yet the way Lugia acted was… quite different from the visions Yuna had. And Lugia still hadn’t acknowledged her salazzle features.

“Wha—” Rayquaza flinched. “Dame Lugia, dost thou not remember thine comrade at arms? I’m Sir Rayquaza!”

“Lugia? Rayquaza?” She frowned. “I think you’re mistaken, choco-noodle.” Lugia pointed her right wing at Rayquaza. “Rayquaza’s green and I only just got scouted to apprentice Lugia. The name’s Jade and I… I…” Her eyes slowly widened.

Yuna’s shoulders sagged further. She’d seen this routine before. Cue the freakout in three… two… one…

Jade flailed her wings about. “Why do I have wings?! Salazzle don’t have wings!” She ran— well, waddled awkwardly back and forth in a panic. “And why are they white? What happened to my gray sca— ack!“

She slipped on a patch of mud and faceplanted into the muck. Jade quickly lifted herself up and looked at her muddy wing, blinking rapidly. “Well, that’s a slight improvement. But I can’t take mud baths forever! It’ll ruin my complexion!”

All Yuna could do was stare at the… lugia? Salazzle?

“Salugia?”

Reshiram! Yuna winced. This entire time, she’d forgotten about him. He wasn’t even lurking in her mind. Though once Yuna recalled what had happened before the barrier went down, a mixture of guilt and trepidation crept through her.

Still, she was his wife. Maybe he could help?

Sighing, Yuna recalled Rayquaza and summoned Reshiram. He stood opposite the muddy salugia, poking his claws together.

“Jady?” he whispered.

There was a glimmer of recognition in Jade’s yellow eyes. “C… Cece? Is that… you?”

Reshiram slowly nodded. “I go by Reshiram now, but yeah.” He slowly smiled. “It’s me.”

They stood staring silently for a moment. Then Jade flung herself at Reshiram, wrapping her wings around his torso and burying her face in his chest ruff.

(Art by Ferdy.)

“Oh em gee, look how big and fluffy you are!” She rubbed her face while Reshiram raised his wings, face and tail engine turning deep red.

“J… Jady?” His eyes darted around in a panic.

“Ah, if I died and wound up in marshmallow hell, then I accept my fate!” she chirped.

“Hang on.” Reshiram squirmed a bit. “Ma… ybe we oughta… have a chat first?”

Yuna was conflicted whether to intervene or not. It sounded like Jade didn’t have her memories of her time as Lugia which, if true, would make explaining things much harder.

She was about to fly down when she caught a glimpse of a silver streak. Then she heard hollers in the distance. Yuna saw Nikki hightailing it away from the capsized ship with Artemis in hot pursuit. A silver geyser had erupted from atop the ship, splattering silver fluid everywhere.

“Princess, look! The poison in the swamp is disappearing!”

Yuna glanced behind her, trying to ignore Jade somehow overpowering Reshiram and belly flopping into the mud with him. The glowing purple fluid in the swamp dissolved away, leaving dark green water. Pink lily pads and gray reeds popped out of the water as if the poison was smothering them. It still stunk, but it was closer to mildew than rotten eggs.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t just the poisonous veil that lifted. Dozens of pained cries rang out in unison. Yuna’s tail crinkled. She tightened her grip on the egg.

Ah… the skorps! The drakloak looked around and found their burnt, mangled bodies in a cluster by a small hole in the ground. Probably the spot where the broken Needle was.

“Well, erm, if thous art screaming, then thous art not Phantoms. Tis a good thing, yes?” Rayquaza laughed nervously.

Except I have no way of healing them! Yuna countered.

And Yuna wasn’t the only one aware of the skorps’ cries. A thunderous bang sounded by the silver geyser. Within a matter of seconds, a large pink sphere surged toward her, until it slammed into the ground right by Jade and Reshiram. The force sent both tumbling through the mud and into the swamp behind them.

The pink sphere faded to a more modest glow, revealing Gene. Gone was his usual, lackadaisical smirk. In its place was an intense glare with eyes that were blue and hollow. The Malice Crystal in his shoulder crackled with black electricity.

He turned and took one look at the skorps. “Who did this?”

Yuna’s ectoplasm quivered. His voice had dropped several octaves to a chilling baritone. The sort of guttural growl Yuna might expect from an enraged salamence.

Gene raised his right hand. All three fingers crackled with dark energy. “Who did this?”

Yuna almost lost her grip on the egg, but curled her tail around it. “Reshiram! I’m sorry, I couldn’t control him! His wife was hurt and—”

“Silence,” Gene hissed. Yuna squeaked. The mewtwo lowered his arm and turned to the skorps. He raised both arms, then shot out short bursts of soft, pink light. They washed over the skorps, taking their burns with them.

“Heal Pulse?” Rayquaza gasped. “This entire time, he’s known Heal Pulse?”

Gene lowered his arms, then Phantom Warped past Yuna. He thrust his right arm into the air. The swamp water rippled and out popped a soggy Reshiram with a pink glow around him.

“How dare you,” Gene snarled. “They were innocents. You had no right to attack them.”

Reshiram went bug-eyed. “Wait! Th… this is all a misunderstanding! Please, I—”

Dark energy crackled around Gene’s left arm. It was time for Yuna to take action. She darted toward the mewtwo. “Hang on! We need to talk this out before anyone does anything else rash!”

Glare intensifying, Gene raised his left hand. “… weapons don’t talk. They act.”

Staring down some sort of Malice-induced attack, Yuna held up the egg. Black shadows brushed her arms and tail. “We are not your enemies. Stand down. Now.“

The glow in Gene’s eyes faded. There was a flicker of recognition, then he hastily stepped back, lowering both hands. A loud splash drew a flinch from Yuna. She turned around to find Jade climbing into the grass and Reshiram surfacing after a second splashdown. His wet hair obscured his face, but Yuna swore he was trembling.

“Yeah.”

Yuna barely heard Gene’s whispers. She looked back at the mewtwo, who crossed his arms tight. His black, yellow-tipped tail lashed at the air. “I guess… there’s a lot to talk about.” Gene blinked slowly. “In more ways than one.”

He turned away from her just as Noctum dropped off Quetzal a few meters away. Seifer, Nikki, Valkyrie, and Artemis weren’t far behind him.

“Oh, thank goodness!” Skorp hopped off Noctum’s back and skittered toward the other skorps. “You’re all okay, eh! You had me worried plum sick!”

“Princess!” Noctum’s violet flame grew, then shrank. He was covered in silver fluid from head to toe. “Are you okay? What’s with the egg?” He shook his head. “No, wait, dumb questions. Look at you!” He thrust his arms apart. “Congratulations!”

Nikki lacked Noctum’s enthusiasm. “That’s your evolution?” She tried forming a square with her hands. “Dunno what’s up with the spacy egg, but I could eat a fancy dinner with a side salad off that block you call a head!”

“Hey, come on, show her some respect.” Artemis jabbed Nikki’s side with a ribbon. “Those spikes on your head look like PV antennae, but you don’t see me teasing you over it.”

Nikki scowled. “Well, they’re cool antennae,” she grumbled.

Yuna ignored Nikki. Though as much as drakloak wanted to accept Noctum’s hug offer, she took one look at his soggy apron and frowned. “What happened to you?”

“Oh, this? It’s okay.” Noctum waved her off. “We were under attack from a mutated garbodor, but Gene blew the top off the ship and tossed Exodes into a vat of antitoxin.”

“Which blew her up along with the tank,” Seifer grumbled, trying to shake the silver out of his sopping hair. “Garbodor turned back to normal.”

“So did the swamps.” Valkyrie scanned the water surrounding the island. “Somehow.”

“Yeah, sure. Just look at me!” Seifer lowered his head. “I’ve never been so humiliated.”

“Really?” Gene spun around, a brow raised. “You’d think losing your cushy military job is way more humiliating than a little antitoxin bath.”

Quetzal puffed out his feathers. “What?” He whirled on Seifer. “Her Eminence fired you?!”

Utter horror spread across Seifer’s face. “I, uh—”

“Oh.” Gene scratched his head. “You didn’t tell him? Whoopsie-doopsie. I thought everyone here knew already.” He laughed nervously.

Valkyrie glared at Gene. “Seriously? How callous can you be?”

“Doth we tell her about the outburst we just witnessed?” Rayquaza whispered. “Tis worrying how quickly he snapped back to his joking self.”

No. Yuna already had enough of a headache. Plus there was something… alarming about how the mewtwo reacted to the brief flare up of her weird shadowy powers. Or was it the egg’s doing?

“Well, aha ha, how about this, gang?” Gene wrang his hands together. “We get all the skorps and trapped crew members squared away, then we can have us a big ol’ team talky fun time.” The big smile on his face was anything but sincere. “I’ll make us a campfire… oh! And we can have s’mores!”

“S’mores!” Jade hopped in front of Gene. “Where do I sign? I’ll take ten! No, twenty! No, thirty!“

“Whoa, whoa, time out.” Nikki held her hands up in a T. “Who’s the oversized pelipper with the bad salazzle costume?”

“Hey!” Reshiram snorted out dragonfire. “That’s my wife you’re talking about!”

Whistling, the toxtricity looked back and forth between Jade and Reshiram. “Damn, dude. What’s your secret? Cuz she’s way outside your league if you ask me!”

Reshiram’s response was a cross between a squeal and a balloon forcibly deflating.

Yuna groaned. “Look, can we just do what Gene says for now? I’m tired. I want out of this swamp. And standing around taking pot-shots isn’t going to…” Her voice trailed off upon realizing half the group wasn’t listening to her. “Seriously, guys?!”

Noctum’s face was ripe with worry. Yuna didn’t have to ask what the problem was, because the black charizard spoke up first.

“Your egg’s hatching.”

“Bwuh?” Yuna blinked a few times. No, the drakloak hadn’t misheard that. Noctum called it her egg. “No, no. You’ve got it all wrong. This is Lugia’s—”

The salugia raised her right wing. “Jade.”

Yuna rolled her eyes. “Okay, fine, this is Jade’s egg. She was holding it while she was trapped in the barrier!”

“I was?” Jade pointed at her face. “Huh. Maybe that’s why it showed up in my nightmare.” She tapped her tail against her right hip repeatedly. “No idea what its deal is, though. Besides, it’s clearly reacting to you, not me. Look at it glowing all white like my beau’s new, fuzzy pelt!”

Reshiram squeaked again while white light crept into Yuna’s vision. A white glow had, indeed, swallowed up the egg… and was creeping up Yuna’s arms. Out of an abundance of caution, the drakloak set the egg down on the grass.

Four small, gold-tipped, dark blue hooves emerged from the light. The deep blue spread upward to a slender neck, then a head with a long, wispy mane resembling a starry sky. Then the rest of the light faded to reveal a dark blue torso with faint a faint red glow in the middle and tiny, blue dots. Almost like a miniature solar system. It had a small tail that, like its mane, ended in a wispy star cloud.

Yuna stared at her reflection in the weird, yellow wheel around the hatchling’s torso. It didn’t take long, however, for the hatchling to open its blue and yellow eyes on its black, mouthless face.

“Hi, Mom!” he chirped. His star cloud tail wagged.

“M-Mom?!” Yuna’s arms trembled. “N-No, I think you’re mistaken.”

“You hatched me, though.” The cosmic… pontya-like thingy tilted his head. “So, you’re my mom!” He wagged his tail his tail again. How was a literal newborn so articulate? “Do I get a name? Huh? Huh? Huh? Do I?”

“Uh… uhhhhh…” Yuna looked at the others, but they were equally confused. Except Gene, who turned away from them.

“Wait, hang on! Something came to me.” Despite not having a mouth, his sparkling eyes gave off a joy Yuna could barely describe.

“And that is?”

(Art by: https://twitter.com/JungaBeast)

“Leo! Call me Leo!”

Yuna’s head pounded. She opened her mouth to respond, but her vision went fuzzy and, next thing she knew, she was out like a light.