Chapter 69: A Nice Dream

Entry 2172
Like clockwork, the nightmares are back again. I doubt the years of this planet sync up with Chakran, but it certainly feels like this is around the time where those wretched Overseers abandoned me. Ignored my pleas for help and left this universe to Eternatus’ whims. Sometimes my dreams are full of zygarde burying me under onslaughts of their Thousand Arrows. Other times, I’m writhing in pain from that idiot necrozma’s spirit severing strike.

It’s so obnoxious. I should be past this all by now. With each successive generation, the Sages are getting more adept. I truly believe that the more Sages I go through, the better a chance we have if Eternatus comes for this planet.

The new Cresselia didn’t take over that long ago, but I’m going to need her to help get rid of these nightmares so I can get some decent rest.

Noctum crouched beside Valkyrie on the deck of the pirate ship, glancing between Gene and various pirates who had stopped to listen to their chatot first mate bicker with the shadowy mewtwo floating opposite him.

“We both know you can make things disappear and appear however you want!” Gilbert waved his colorful wings around haphazardly. “You say you made your treasure go kaput? I think you are full of it!”

“I’ll say it ’til I’m blue in the face because it’s true.” Gene tapped his right temple. “Get it through your thick skull. The treasure’s gone. We tossed it in a small rift while you guys were busy getting zapped.”

“All me, baby!” Nikki hollered from the other pirate ship, raising her lightning guitar, then brandishing it at the pirates who growled at her. “What? You want more of this?”

Two azumarill in front of her backed away, floppy ears folding against their heads.

“Thought so.”

“You can return to Larkharr and we’ll forget this ever happened, or keep being a nuisance until I blow up your ships.” Gene cracked his knuckles. “I don’t think your captain will look favorably upon the latter.”

“And yet… you are still here.” Gilbert leaned forward from his perch, his one good eye squinting. “If you really tossed ze treasure away, you could’ve opened another rift and gone prancing back home.”

Noctum thought Gilbert would buy Gene’s act. But apparently the blowhard chatot was more than just a big mouth. Or beak.

The black charizard considered opening a rift of his own and trying something on Gilbert to get the pirates to stand down, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. That last pulse that made his gut rumble was the strongest one yet. Whatever Yuna was doing, it was creating some sort of ripple effect. They had to get the pirates to leave peacefully, or they’d cause problems for Team Bastion.

“You got me.” Gene rolled his eyes and lazily held up his hands. “I sensed a civilian ship out in the debris. At first, I was buying time for them to escape.”

Valkyrie tensed. She remained silent, but the look on the garchomp’s face said it all. What was Gene thinking? At this rate, the pirates would head for the lustrous ore for sure.

“Oh-ho! Another ship.” Gilbert rubbed his wings together. “Perhaps scavenging ze ruins for ze valuables.”

“I thought that, too. Hence the ‘at first.'” Gene’s yellow-tipped tail lazily swished back and forth. “Until I backed off from the fight long enough to take a li’l psychic gander.” He pressed his right index finger to his right temple. “Want to take a guess who the pilot’s calling?”

The shadowy mewtwo traced the Eterna Empire sigil in the air.

Gilbert’s feathers puffed out. “You are mocking me.”

“Why do you think I called for a ceasefire?” Gene countered. “I’m not heartless. You’re an obnoxious prick, but the more groups standing in the emperor’s way of total control of Eternatus, the better.”

Noctum held his breath. A raichu and an emolga pirate whispered to one another. Maybe they were buying Gene’s claim?

“A Needle? Here?“ Yuna looked ahead, past all the stands and placards in the room, to the gray doors at the other end. Firmly shut, with a CLOSED FOR MAINTENANCE sign planted in front of them. “You’ve got to be kidding me.” The drakloak smushed her hands against her cheeks.

“Nay, tis far from a jest, Princess.” Rayquaza loudly yawned. “This drowsiness hath filled mine head with thoughts of Dame Cresselia.”

Yuna wasn’t sure whether to find this news upsetting or relieving. There were a lot of moving pieces to think about with this kind of revelation. How the Needle wound up in Kalidron IV of all places. How it got connected to the collider in the first place. How so many people could blindly miss something that obv—

No. Breathe.

The whole point to these anomalies was that they made zero sense to begin with. The Needle could’ve made the rift, which in turn hid the Needle… or sucked it into this dimension. Or something.

“Did I hear you right? Did you say Needle?”

Cyril walked up to Yuna’s side, hands in his sweatshirt pocket. The drakloak nodded.

“Did you feel anything when you reached into the pink light?” Cyril asked.

“Uhh—” Yuna was so caught up in the flickering light show, she hadn’t thought about it. “I guess now that you mention it, the pink did feel a bit… solid.”

“I wonder if the Needle broke.” Reshiram yawned. “And you fixed it.”

But how? All the drakloak did was touch the pink light. Yuna glanced at her Soul Dew… and saw a thin line of black shadows swimming around its edges.

And here she thought she was getting better control of them.

Maybe if she tried speaking to her shadows like she did with the Sages?

Hello? Yuna squinted. Can you hear me? It’s been long enough. We need to talk!

… Silence. Because of course it couldn’t be that simple for once.

“Well, if there is a Needle there, then where is it?” Widget wondered.

“Oh, you can’t sense it?” Leo curled his fake dreepy tail around part of Widget’s head crest and dangled himself in front of the silvally. “C’mon, big bro, you just gotta concentrate.”

“I’m trying to keep up appearances,” Widget hissed in a whisper.

Yuna’s X-transceiver crackled.

“All right. What did you guys do? I’m getting some sort of funny reading down in the collider room. It’s… not quite the same as the pink.”

Cyril scratched his head. “Oh, that? We think it’s the source of the pink. We can take care of it… provided you’re willing to let us down there.”

“Absolutely not. Out of the question,” Liza said. Yuna could practically hear her shaking her head in disbelief. “If something goes wrong—”

“We can handle it,” Cyril cut in. “We got our own reading on it. And we’ve dealt with these things before. They’re the reason we came to LaRousse in the first place.” He chuckled. “Besides, we did sign the waiver.”

Yuna had to admit, Cyril was a good smoothtalker. He’d have made an excellent spy if he lived in Aeon.

“To be fair, he’s had, like, centuries of practice,” Reshiram said. “And he’s technically telling the truth. Just a truth that leaves out some details outside our control.”

An annoyed sigh bubbled through Yuna’s X-transceiver. “Fine. I was trying to repair the data I recovered from my beldum, but it’s taking more time than I thought. I’m going to keep working on it. Jim can let you through to the collider. Just play along with his act, okay? It’ll make it easier for everyone.”

“Can do.” Cyril rested his hands behind his blue, shaggy hair and lazily paced back and forth by the door.

Yuna briefly wondered if she should ask the Sages what Cresselia was like, so she wasn’t caught off guard this time. One of the doors behind her opened before she got the chance, however. Jim hovered through, looking at the team.

[Hello. Are you my new best friends?]

Liza said to play along. Which meant…

“Uh, sure.” Yuna hesitantly bobbed her head.

[Friendship request… accepted?]

Jim’s red eye swelled up in a way Yuna didn’t think possible for a beldum.

[Oh, happy noises!]

Jim spun around excitedly, playing scratched, crackled sounds resembling a cheering audience. They shot toward the other end of the room. [We have so much to best friend about! I can show you my thinking spot… oh! Or my favorite piece of peeling plaster!] they chirped. [How do you feel about tacos, new best friends? Because I think they are the beedrill’s knees, but if you do not like them, I will not like them with you.]

“How about we christen the friendship by going to the collider?” Cyril said, laughing nervously.

[Ah, yes, a splendid idea!] Jim floated up to some sort of strange black pad next to the shut door on the other end of the room. [Liza did say some friends needed help. And here you are! My best friends!]

Yuna began to wonder if Jim had a limited attention span. The beldum, meanwhile, pressed their metallic head against the pad. A blue light ran across the pad. Then the whole pad lit up green and several loud clicks and clangs echoed through the room.

[Follow me, best friends,] Jim said, pointing their eye at the opening doors.

On the other side was a fairly spacious viewing platform. A few rows of theater-style seats lined each side of the doorway and the floor abruptly dropped off to reveal a large glass dome covering a circular room with a stone floor and two giant metal cylinders opposite one another.

The Needle sat in the exact center of the room, topped with a pink gem surrounded by faint, white halos.

Cyril yawned. “Man. Seeing that thing’s got me craving a nap all of a sudden.”

Even Cyril now, too? Yuna bit her lower lip. It couldn’t be the Soul Dew’s light protecting her, because the other Sages were just as sleepy. Her shadows, then?

Delightful.

“The Sage is Cresselia,” Yuna whispered.

[Your chariot awaits, best friends!]

Clanking metal and hydraulic whirs jolted Yuna to attention. Jim was on their right, having opened up a doorway that blended in seamlessly with the black wall. The beldum gestured to the stairwell. [Just follow the steps and you’ll be there before you know it.]

“Not coming with?” Widget asked, heading for the stairs.

[I’m not fond of needles.] Jim laughed nervously. [Especially giant magical ones stuck into the floor. But I will be with you in spirit. And visible through the glass.]

A steel-type afraid of needles? Yuna shook her head. It was far from the strangest thing she’d heard today. She floated after Widget and Leo, opting to simply drift down through the gap in the middle of the stairs. The drakloak reached the bottom first, but her tiny ectoplasmic arms weren’t strong enough to get the big steel door open.

After Widget held it open, Yuna hovered forward, taking deep breaths. Now that she wasn’t looking at the room from above, she could appreciate the array of wires funneling out the back of the giant metal cylinder. There were also huge glass tubes full of flowing water. It was interacting with the collider, but Yuna couldn’t fathom what the water actually did.

Yuna returned her attention to the Needle. She had done this three times before. All she had to do was touch it. Then everything would go white and she’d get another one of Chiron’s memories.

The only thing was that now she was in another dimension.

Yuna looked over her shoulder. “Leo? Pay attention, please. When I pull the Needle, there’s a chance you’re going to have to, uh, talk with Mr. Anomaly to send us home. Is that okay?”

“Yep!” The fake dreepy saluted her. “I’m ready!”

Satisfied, Yuna took one more deep breath. “Right then. Here goes.”

She reached for the Needle. Though she still couldn’t wrap her hand around it, Yuna could touch more of the Needle as a drakloak than she could as a dreepy.

… It also made the jolt of energy that followed much more surprising.

“Shh. Shh. Please, Leo. Mama’s doing her best.”

The cosmog gently wrapped in Chrion’s wings continued to bawl his eyes out. No matter how much the lunala bounced him or swayed him — both tall orders with her crescent wings — he kept crying and squirming. Her ectoplasm was damp. Who would’ve thought one tiny starcloud could make so much water?

Chiron floated around a big, lunala-shaped chair in her living room, stealing glances at her front door.

What was taking her so long? Chiron had stressed how important this was. She had run out of options to get Leo to calm down. And her own lack of sleep was making it hard to think straight.

She tried passing Leo off to Bahamut while she warped away to take a nap. But she couldn’t stop thinking of Leo while she was away. Not even one of Shaymin’s strongest herbal teas did her any good.

Chiron didn’t know how normal pokémon handled parenthood. And she had escaped Eternatus! Something like this should have been a breeze for her.

“It’s okay, Leo.” Chiron rocked him faster. “Auntie Cresselia should be here any—”

Knocks came from the front door. Chiron’s telekinetic burst to open the door nearly ripped it off its hinges.

Cresselia floated there, eyelids heavy and rings dimly pulsating. “Hi, Chiron. I got yooo—aaaaaawhm.”

Blinking rapidly, she tucked her head down to rub it against her pink, nubby hands. “Mmm. Sorry.” She hovered inside. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yes!” Chiron fought to hide the desperation in her tone. She sank down into her chair. The cushions whoomfed from the sudden pressure. “Please, you have to help me with Leo. He just won’t fall asleep. I can’t get him to stop crying.”

“Leo?” Cresselia yawned again. “Oh, right. How is the little guy?”

Chiron opened her wings slightly. They were thoroughly drenched. “He cries so much I wouldn’t blame you for thinking he knows Fake Tears.”

“Haaah.” Cresselia drifted further into the living room. Despite the fatigue, her expression was soft. “And you want me to put hi— eeeaaaaawhm.”

She stopped floating and shook her head. “You know I don’t actually know Hypnosis, right?” Cresselia rubbed her cheek.

“But you’re the Sage of Dreams.“

“Yeah. I bring good viiiiaaaaaiiiyyybes.” Cresselia yawned the final word into her nubby hand.

Chiron looked down at Leo. The cosmog’s crying had quieted. Eyes still watery, he looked curiously at Cresselia.

“Well, you’re already having an effect,” Chiron said, lowering her voice to try and keep Leo calm. “Can’t you just try something?”

“Hokay.” Cresselia slowly bobbed her head. “Tell your hubby I did you a solid.”

She closed the remaining distance with Chrion. Her dim rings slowly lit up brighter and brighter.

At first, Chiron closed her eyes and tensed, worried the brighter light would upset Leo. But the cosmog’s tiny whimpers faded entirely. Chiron peeked an eye open to find Cresselia leaning over. Tiny, twinkling crescents showered Leo. Like fairy dust… or dandruff from a pokémon that wasn’t showering.

Leo stopped squirming. The erratic twinkling in his starry pom-poms calmed to a gentle, steady pulse completely in sync with Cresselia’s rings.

“Peeeeewwwaaaaaaawhm.”

It was an impressive yawn for such a tiny starcloud. Then again, given what his crying sounded like, Chiron shouldn’t have been surprised.

Cresselia yawned herself. Her head bobbed over slightly before she abruptly jerked it back up, blinking rapidly. She continued dusting Leo in tiny crescents until the cosmog’s eyelids fluttered once. Twice. Three times.

Leo’s eyes shut. His pom-poms folded against his starcloud body. Soft, warm breath tickled Chiron’s wing membrane.

Her first instinct was to thank Cresselia — or, at the very least, sigh in relief — before she caught herself. The lunala couldn’t undo Cresselia’s hard work.

To her surprise, Cresselia took Leo in her nubby hands. “Quite the restless one,” she whispered. “Got some really strange vibes.”

Chiron frowned. Did Cresselia think something was off about Leo? “If you saw something, you should tell me.”

“See? Naaaaaawm.” Cresselia tilted her head so she didn’t yawn right in Chiron’s face. “Just kinda got that vibe. Like Leo couldn’t sleep because of bad dreams.”

“Everyone has nightmares now and then.”

“Not that many.” Cresselia drifted across the living room toward a small makeshift wooden crib. A gift Shaymin and Victini had put together, as two of the only Sages reasonably small enough to build one.

“What do you mean?”

Cresselia’s snout twitched. “It was like pancakes.”

Chiron resisted the urge to groan. Of all the times for Cresselia to be obtuse…

“Nightmares on top of nightmares. An endless stack.” Cresselia carefully set Leo down in the crib, wrapping a sky blue blanket around the cosmog. She tilted her head up to yawn again. “Sorry.” She rubbed her mouth, then turned back to Chiron. “In my training, I was told piled up nightmares come from somewhere outside a person’s mind.”

“Like from another person?”

“Bingo.” Cresselia hovered toward a long, tan couch with worn out fabric on its cushions and more than a few patched up holes that gave away its favorite user. “You and Bahamut don’t let the tyke out of your sights, right?”

“That’s… correct.” Guessing what Cresselia was implying, Chiron bit her lip. “You think it’s one of us?”

Cresselia slowly lay herself down on a part of the couch that wasn’t patched over. “Have you had any bad dreams lately?”

The lunala stiffened. She hadn’t slept much given her constant fretting about Leo. But what was she supposed to tell Cresselia? That she was still haunted from her time in the Paradigm? That her dreams were full of scenarios where Eternatus found their planet and brought ruin upon it in an effort to reclaim her for Matriarch?

“I, uh—”

But when Chiron looked over at the couch, Cresselia had already nodded off.

She sighed in relief. A bullet dodged for now. Yet it looked like she wasn’t going to be able to keep all her secrets buried for much longer.

“If you keep pacing like that, you’re going to make me start slithering.”

Igneous stopped walking and leaned against a railing. Artemis sat coiled on a cushion by a table, eyeing the grovlazzle skeptically.

“What’s got your tails twisted? It sounds like the pirates are about to back off,” the milotic said. “Valkyrie will be back safe and sound and you two can do whatever.”

“It’s not that.” Igneous curled his claws around the railing, gazing out the glass wall toward the dimly lit, closed arena. “It’s the Team Bastion side of things. We totally lost contact with them. What if something happened?”

Artemis stiffened. “Uhh…” He tapped his tailfins against the cushion. “We have no more of those space barriers, so we can’t do anything until the others return. So, I’m trying not to play worst case scenario.”

Igneous tightened his grip on the railing. “That’s easy for you to say. You don’t…” His voice trailed off.

“Don’t what? Have freaky mutant powers?”

It sounded stupid saying it out loud, since Igneous did this to himself. Was it the powers filling him with unease? This hadn’t happened to him before.

“Yeah. I just… have a bad feeling.”

“Like an absol sense?”

The grovlazzle looked over his shoulder. Scarlett slithered across the metallic floor, offering polite nods to a few individual patrons who had glanced at her arrival.

“You know most absol have to train themselves to hone it, right?” Scarlett said.

Igneous frowned. “What? Isn’t that just an instinct?”

“Plenty of absol live in Blightsmuth.” Scarlett stuck her beaded tail out. “I’d trust their word over your gut.” The dragonair glanced at her tail and abruptly pulled it back, face reddening. “Err, not that I’m implying anything bad about you! Or your gut! I’m sure it’s a very fine gut! Good at, y’know, digesting!”

Before Igneous could retort, however, a pillar of golden light burst up from the arena. Artemis hastily uncoiled. “What the—”

Igneous turned around, Leaf Blades igniting. “I knew it!” He dashed forward without a second thought. “Someone get Seifer!” He sprinted toward the stairs leading to the arena’s walkway. “Gene! Gene, I think an uninvited guest just broke through your base’s barrier!”

It started as another rumble in Noctum’s gut. Stronger than the ones before it. The black charizard couldn’t help but look over his shoulder. And that’s when he saw the pulse of golden light far in the distance. It faded away long before it got anywhere near them, but caught enough of the pirates’ attention that many were looking anxiously at Gilbert.

“Gilbert! Some landlubber be setting off flares!” a togetic shouted from the ship’s murkrow’s nest. She levitated a fancy looking telescope over her left eye.

The chatot’s note head stuck up. “Excuse moi?”

“The scallywag be telling the truth!” a raichu proclaimed. “One rock ain’t worth it!” He headed for the ship’s steering wheel while several pirates voiced their agreement.

They were leaving, then. That was it. All Noctum had to do was play along with them. His Malice Crystal pulsated under his armor as he thought of Cyril’s outpost. A rift opened up behind him and Valkyrie.

“Right. So, uh, you guys can go back.” Noctum tugged on Valkyrie’s arm. “And we’ll do the same. Sound fair?”

“Gene! Gene, I think an uninvited guest just broke through your base’s barrier!”

A giant rainbow energy beam cut through the darkness of the planetary debris and struck the main mast of the ship opposite the one Noctum and Valkyrie. Several pirates fled away from the ensuing explosion. Nikki jumped ship to join the two dragons, mohawk sparking.

Gilbert’s feathers puffed out. “Oui! Oui! We are making with ze retreating! Zis is your problem now!” He pointed a wing at Raichu. “Engage ze rift drive!”

Noctum was about to question how the pirates had access to their own rifts, when Valkyrie shoved him toward the portal he opened. It vanished a second before he could pass through it, however. Then the ship’s deck abruptly vanished from underneath Noctum’s feet.

The second Igneous had the space, his volcarona wings appeared, quickly carrying him the rest of the distance toward the empty arena. A couple of rotom-powered mops had fled toward the far end of the large, circular platform, giving the hunched over dusknoir in the middle plenty of space.

Igneous’ breath caught in his throat.

Vegna?!

How was this possible? Even with the knowledge of Vegna’s necromancy, Igneous couldn’t make it add up. The dusknoir shouldn’t have been able to get here. And what was with the golden cracks running up his right arm? Why did he look so haggard? He’d even abandoned his cloak and golden skull gauntlets!

The grovlazzle hovered in place. What was he supposed to do here? He couldn’t approach Vegna. What if Vegna came here chasing him down? He was a wanted criminal in Radiance’s eyes. Sure, he got the makeover, but Vegna might have been able to see through it.

Fortunately, Artemis must have followed Igneous’ instructions quickly, because Seifer jetted right past him. He stopped shooting Hydro Pumps from his hooves and landed on the arena, galloping the rest of the way.

“Vegna?” Seifer called. He sounded as shocked as Igneous. The grovlazzle hastily dropped down onto some metal stairs leading up to the arena. He ducked down to avoid Vegna’s gaze.

“Inquisitor?” Seifer tried again. “What are you doing here? Did you get swallowed by distortion or—”

“Mewtwo. Where… is Mewtwo?” Vegna sounded as if he was struggling to breathe. Which made no sense given he was a ghost.

Wait, no! That didn’t matter! Why the hell would Vegna know about Gene?!

“M-Mewtwo?” Seifer said. “How do you know about him?”

Igneous almost facepalmed. So much for trying to keep that under wraps. The grovlazzle peeked up from his hiding place in time to see Vegna grab Seifer’s snout and pull the keldeo down to eye level.

“You must… get him. Get Mewtwo.” His fissured right arm trembled. “He must know… that we are in danger.”

Well, yeah. There was the whole dimensional crisis. And the empire, to boot. Was Vegna investigating that?

Seifer pulled his snout out of Vegna’s grasp. “I don’t understand, sir.”

“An old enemy… has returned,” Vegna rasped. “And Mewtwo… is the only one who can save us… from certain death.”

Noctum grabbed Valkyrie, but had to dodge a large blast of distorted energy before he could safely set her down on a large chunk of debris. Gene tossed Nikki down by them a few seconds later.

“We have to leave. Now.” Gene eyed the direction of the attacks nervously.

“Yeah.” Nikki held up her hands. “I had my fun kicking pirate booty. But I ain’t pressing my luck any further. C’mon, dork, open up the rift again.”

But Noctum couldn’t tug on that power in his gut no matter how much he tried. “It’s not working,” he said, purple tail flame nervously crackling.

Gene’s own Malice Crystal sparked… but nothing happened. His eyes widened. “Get back!”

A psychic pulse sent the trio tumbling back across the debris field. When Noctum steadied himself, he found Gene struggling to hold a blue Protect barrier against several crystal tendrils that had spawned out of nothing. The shadowy mewtwo dropped the shield and Phantom Warped through the tendrils, only to abruptly fly up to dodge a flurry of glowing rock shards.

“What’s going on?” Valkyrie tensed up. “Is this the empire?”

Nikki shuffled back from them, pointing to Gene’s left. “Unless they’re hiring giant Phantoms, then this ain’t the empire.”

Gene floated opposite a giant… blob of distortion. The most Noctum could make out were faint crystals forming some sort of vaguely humanoid shape. But way too big to be a human, if Sigurd was anything to go by.

(Art by @SparklingEspeon)