Chapter 71: Going Against the Flow

The Renegade stole a fragment of the Universe when he destroyed the Great Harmony. Though the Matriarch tried to reclaim it, the Renegade displayed unmatched ferocity. He clawed away more of the Universe in every clash against the Benefactor.

Our faith in the Matriarch and Benefactor cannot waver. For they are the keys to reuniting the Universe. The Renegade’s wish for the Benefactor’s destruction cannot come to fruition.

~I Pilastri dell’Eternità

Gene hadn’t experienced a pain like this in a long, long time. A time he had all but purged from the recesses of his mind.

But smashed up against the side of a planetary fragment, right arm trying to brace broken ribs, the debris field flickered in and out. Visions of a bubbling volcano and an enraged dragon of light came and went.

The shadowy mewtwo shakily conjured a Protect shield, but it could not withstand the giant, electrified fist that smashed into it. Driven further into rock and concrete, several snaps sent the air rushing out of Gene’s lungs.

He needed to concentrate. He had to mega evolve! If Gene couldn’t muster a second wind here…

“Why?” He could barely get the word out. Were his lungs filling up with fluid? “Baha… mut…”

The Phantom’s wraiths twisted around one another. “I have no name,” they said. “I am power absolute.”

Even distorted, their voice was cold and empty. In a way that reminded Gene of a time in his life he’d spent decades trying to forget.

Gene tried to retort, but all that escaped him was a weak cough.

“Finally.” Emerald light shimmered atop the Phantom’s crystalline outline. “One mistake erased. Next is Eternatus.”

“Yo… wro… ng.”

A faint rainbow shimmer flickered underneath the Phantom’s jagged crystals. “You will not get a second miracle, Mewtwo. Begone.”

The emerald orb burst into Thousand Arrows. Gene shut his eyes. If he could just draw out one last spark of power. Phantom Warp away to buy himself more time.

His body violently lurched. Instead of the green arrows piercing him endlessly until nothing remained, bright light flooded in through his eyes. His head struck dirt and dry, itchy grass.

Eyes opening, Gene coughed something up from his windpipe. Though blurry, a red snout, puffy black circle, and white feathers hovered over him.

“It worked! Maxie, grab the healers! He’s in worse shape than I thought…”

Gene tried to reach for Koraidon’s face, but the only thing he had the strength left to do was close his eyes.

Where the last anomaly was orange, this one was a soft, soothing blue. Crystals undulated like waves far in the distance, shielding Yuna and Leo from the immense distorted static the drakloak recalled seeing last time.

There was also a distinct lack of ground. Instead, giant spheres and prisms full of nothing but water were scattered about haphazardly. One spherical waterbed was clearly larger than all the others. Something sparkled in the middle of it. Leo’s was firmly fixed on the little sparkle. That meant it was another one of the plates they found before, right?

Given how wet this place is, it’s gotta be water, Yuna figured.

“Oh, wonderful! You’re all right!”

“GAH!”

Still on edge from the earlier battle, Yuna shot forward. She entered a water sphere without so much as a splash. It was damp, yes, but the water wasn’t seeping into her ectoplasm like it was supposed to. The drakloak hesitantly turned around and spotted the silhouette of a familiar braviary floating with his legs crossed. He waved to Leo, who waved back with a foreleg.

“Hi, Mr. Alder!” Leo’s starcloud tail wagged. “Oh, and you brought Mr. Purple Kora guy, too!”

Yuna poked her head out of the water and, sure enough, a neon purple and white koraidon was behind Alder. He stood on all fours. His feathery crest and black dewlap looked considerably less impressive than before.

“It’s Vince,” the koraidon reminded them. “And yeah, long time no see.” He looked around. “Figuratively speaking. We’re just projections, so all we can tell is that we’re in some sort of anomaly core.”

“But why are you here?” Yuna asked. And how did they even manage it, for that matter?

“Ah, right. Fair question.” Alder rubbed the back of his head with his right wing. “Well, when you lot got close to the anomaly core, your friends back home lost contact with you. Your orbeetle teammate got worried and reached out to me, so I went into meditation to probe for anomalies and find you guys!”

“And Kora reached out to me.” Vince walked out from behind Alder. “I was, uh, trying to keep a lid on things for you guys. Sorta. Kinda.”

Now that she was sure she wasn’t in danger, exhaustion had set in for Yuna. And with it came little patience for the duo’s explanations. The drakloak shut her eyes and rubbed them. “If you were helping us in the background then say it.”

“Err, right. Sorry. I just—” Vince tittered. “I could sense that Red Chain fragment you had from out in Ginnungagap. So, hoping it could counter any damage from the anomaly, I sent a pulse of energy through the core to reawaken your fragment.”

Yuna’s eyes shot open. “That was you?!“

Leo’s mane and tail dimmed. “Mom?”

Vince likewise tucked his head down. “Y-Yes, I realize now I didn’t entirely think that one through.”

Dragonfire embers pooled around Yuna’s ectoplasmic throat. She was caught between just spewing Dragon Breath at the projection or trying for the kind of tongue lashing Yiazmat used when an Aeon soldier stepped out of line.

Neither option won out, as Yuna blurted out, “You just made everything worse!”

“I know!” Vince flinched. “But I wanted to help. Really, I did!”

Yuna’s nubby hands clenched into fists. She was poised for another outburst, when Alder zipped in front of her, spreading out his wings.

“Now, now. I’m sure there’s plenty to be said about all of this.” The braviary glanced over his shoulder. “But we shouldn’t let that delay sealing up the anomaly.”

Leo shot Yuna a worried look. The drakloak’s anger kept simmering, but then she remembered what Valkyrie said was happening on Kalidron.

“Right. Gene.” She tucked her head down.

“He’s okay,” Vince offered, a nervous grin on his white snout. “Kora and I worked together to break through whatever was blocking rifts from opening where Gene was and pulled him through to Chakran.”

Yuna hardly found that notion comforting. For all she knew, Gene lost his tail in the process or something. She quickly turned away from the others. “Let’s go, Leo. You want your plate, right?”

Silence. Yuna’s tail curled up. “Leo?”

“Uh, right!”

Figuring Leo was following, Yuna pushed herself through the sphere of strangely gelatinous water once again. She tucked her head down, trying to push everything that had happened out of her head so she could calm down for Leo’s sake.

But it wasn’t working. She couldn’t stop seeing that masked freak. And her shadows trying to force their way out of her. And the Phantom that had struck fear into even the typically stoic Valkyrie. Wielded Saint Zygarde’s attacks. The very Sage she unexpectedly had visions of during the Seekerskorch fight. Which meant that Phantom was the one who pulled Zygarde’s needle.

“So long as you continue making the wrong choice, we will remain inextricably linked.”

The Butterfree Effect’s words echoed in her head. She thought she saw their masked face inside the nearest water prism. Yuna forced herself through it, though. And those distorted words gave way to Xeromus’ raspy, hacking laughter.

“The choices you make don’t really matter.”

Her teammates. The monks. Jaeger and Vince. All of them were sure that these anomalies had to be sealed. It was obviously the right thing to do. So, why was it hurting so much to do this? How much worse were things going to get if Yuna did continue seeking out anomalies?

She pushed through another water sphere.

Xeormus was on the Butterfree Effect’s side. They were both supposed to be in the wrong, yet they were saying the opposite of one another. Did that mean one of them was telling the truth?

The sparkling had grown closer. Leo had already entered the giant water sphere. The cosmic arceus walked through the water and Yuna reluctantly followed him. Wondering what this plate would do to him. And what would happen when they returned home. Would they be immediately thrust back into danger? Would Yuna have to see her teammates getting hurt again?

She couldn’t shake the dread lingering over her. And it only got worse once she glimpsed the text scrawled on the bright blue plate.

The rightful bearer of a Plate draws from the Plate it holds.

Lies. Anger began to bubble in Yuna’s gut. Walking Wake’s spout crystal and Chernabog’s fist crystal… both came from the plates. From Leo’s plates. She was sure of it.

Her shadows pushed against her back. Yuna didn’t know if her anger made them feel even worse than with the last plate or if they were making her anger grow. And she didn’t care.

As Yuna watched Leo’s wheel shine brightly — and the giant water sphere coalesce into that strange pattern of circles and symbols she’d seen the cosmic arceus make before — all she could think about was how empty this supposed victory had left her.

Noctum shuffled uneasily around Widget, looking between the silvally and the others. “We don’t… have to carry him to make sure he comes back with us, do we?”

Nikki waved him out. “Doubt it.”

The black charizard frowned. “This isn’t going to hurt, will it?”

“Oh, it will.”

Noctum’s tail flame shrank. “She’s joking, right?” He glanced around the room, laughing nervously. But the only one who could dispute her claim was out cold.

“Duh.” The toxtricity rolled her eyes. “It’s kinda like teleporting. Except you disappear slow enough to see it happening.”

Noctum looked down at the floor, trying to picture what that looked like. He came up blank, however. I really hope she’s not screwing with me.

A few metallic thumps rang behind Noctum. By the time he looked over his shoulder, a metal door coated in scorch marks had fallen off its hinges and clanged against the ground. Noctum glanced at Cyril to gauge his reaction to this short human lady. He seemed unphased. Someone Team Bastion had been working with, then?

Cyril raised his hands innocently. “We did ask permission, remember?”

The lady approached the nearest collider wreckage. Her black boots sloshed against large puddles that steadily grew larger thanks to water streaming in from broken tubes behind the mess of chipped and broken metal cylinders.

“God.” She sounded like she’d just sprinted across Aeon Castle. She wiped sweat from her head, but Noctum wondered what good that did when she looked as oily as any litwick. The human had pulled her orange jumpsuit down to her waist but sweated through the blue tank top underneath.

A tired sigh escaped her lips. She looked at Cyril. “You’re not really a ranger, are you?” Her gaze fell to Noctum, Valkyrie, and Nikki. “Hell, you’re not from here period.“

“Welp.” Cyril scratched his fake blue hair. “Guess the torracat’s outta the bag.”

Blue light shimmered around him. A cosmic zoroark emerged, still scratching his wild, blue-purple mane. “But you gotta admit, Liza, it’s a good thing we were here.”

Liza whirled on the two beldum that had appeared in the doorway. “God— if you knew he was a zoroark you could’ve said something!”

[A zoroark? Dewott in tarnation?!] One beldum’s eye was as wide as Liza’s. [Sorry, sheriff. This here cowpoke’s headspace was full of that there corrupted data.]

Liza slumped over until she simply collapsed on her back. In the puddle. By the big, broken collider.

Noctum opened his mouth to say something when Liza’s hands shot up.

“Don’t. I’m grounded.”

Noctum closed his mouth and stepped back. He didn’t know enough about machines, away. The black charizard practically welcomed the awkward silence.

“Seven and a half,” Liza mumbled.

“Beg your pardon?” Cyril said.

“Seven and a half years!” Liza threw her hands over her face. “That’s how long we’d gone without a breach event until today. The collider was what let us stop them from happening. Everyone knows that.”

“Yeah, uh—” Cyril shuffled in place awkwardly. “That’s… probably more our universe’s fault. Kinda in the midst of some sort of crisis with interdimensional rifts.”

“Oh ho, great. Wonderful!” Liza was… laughing? Noctum took a step back, glancing at the shrinking anomaly core. How much longer would this take? Didn’t Valkyrie tell Yuna she had to move quickly?

“Yeah, sure. You guys get to go home.” Liza was still laughing. “Meanwhile, I’ll be pulled into hearing after hearing. This could take months. Maybe years considering everyone who contributed to this project!” She squeezed her hands tighter against her face. “Not to mention what it’s going to take to rebuild this thing! Oh, I’m so, so screwed! My life is over!”

Noctum’s heart sank. From what he heard, it sounded as if Team Bastion had left the pervious dimension on good terms. But that dimension had been in turmoil when they arrived. This time… it sounded like the trouble began after they started doing things. And now they were leaving Liza behind to deal with the mess.

“Time’s up.”

“Huh?” Noctum looked at Nikki. The toxtricity’s legs disappeared and her torso was slowly fading out. His tail flame grew. Or, at least, the thought it did. Because it wasn’t there anymore.

They couldn’t leave things off like this. It wasn’t right, even if Noctum only showed up at the tail end. “Cyril,” he muttered, hoping the cosmic zoroark had something to salvage this.

“Here.”

Although his legs were already halfway gone, Cyril tapped his X-transceiver. Liza’s jumpsuit dinged. “I started recording the moment shit hit the fan,” Cyril explained. “It’s not much, but it should at least help deflect the blame.”

Liza slowly sat up, tugging at her jumpsuit. She looked at some screen strapped to the jumpsuit’s arm. “It’s… something, I guess.”

“Well, hey.” Nikki was only a head and neck now. “If they still give you shit, then tell them to pound sand. No one’s forcing you to stay here.” She blinked. “I, uh, think?”

Liza looked around at the group, then glanced back at her screen.

“… Maybe it’s time I gave Tate a call.”

Noctum didn’t know who Tate was, but judging by Cyril’s expression, it sounded like a good thing. And that was enough to settle the black charizard down. His teammates vanished one by one, including the unconscious Widget. He was the last one fading away.

Which meant he was the only one who glimpsed a blue-white ninetales emerging from the same door Liza’s beldum were in, holding a sign in their maw reading “WILL FIX COLLIDERS FOR BELLY RUBS.”

A blue-white ninetales… with what looked like one of Bahamut’s Soul Dews sparkling in their chest.

The doorbell — a single electronic buzzer — prompted Sticky to immediately flip several switches on the black wall’s red panel. Once the lights behind him were off, he pressed the red button beside the panel. The doorbell shut off and purple light flooded the room.

Sticky turned to the poipole floating in the doorway. “I have the report you wanted, Mr. Sticky, sir!” She saluted him, nearly dropping the tablet she was carrying.

The naganadel resisted the urge to facepalm. “Then get on with it.”

“Oh. R-Right.” Poipole’s tail crinkled up in embarrassment. And were those bits of paint dribbling up in her needles?

… Maybe Sticky was beginning to pick up the emperor’s intimidating aura, after all.

“The Kalidron Collider’s chief engineer lost the other collider signal,” Poipole reported, not venturing further in from the doorway. “The rift’s been sealed. Judging from the footage she sent, the rebels were present. And engaged with a Phantom that matches the emperor’s description of Necrozma.”

When Poipole didn’t continue, Sticky stuck his right arm out. She remained in the doorway, however. “The tablet, Whatsyourname.” Sticky twirled his right hand, an unamused look on his face.

“Y-Yes! Sorry, sir!” Poipole hovered into the dark room and thrust the tablet into the naganadel’s outstretched hand. Even with the shaky, low-quality footage, Sticky recognized the mewtwo rebel leader. And on the defensive against Necrozma’s vicious attacks, no less!

“Interesting.” Sticky gently gave the tablet back to Poipole. That seemed to ease a bit of her tension.

“This is a good thing, right?” Poipole didn’t retreat to the doorway. “Necrozma’s actively antagonizing them. The emperor can use that.”

“Perhaps.” Sticky crossed his arms. “Or that Phantom’s trying to play us for fools.”

Poipole looked down. “I hadn’t considered that…”

Sticky waved her off. “Did the engineer get a readout on any energy signatures?”

“Sort of?” Frowning, Poipole clasped the tablet against her torso. “She detected strange spikes in energy, but her ship didn’t have the equipment to properly analyze them.”

“Of course.” Sticky pinched his brow. He supposed he should’ve seen that coming. The small survey ship they gave her wasn’t designed with that in mind. An unfortunate oversight. But he had enough to bring to the emperor.

“Dismissed.” The naganadel turned back toward the darkened end of the room.

“But—”

“Dismissed.”

Sticky swung his stinger behind him. A squeak, followed by an abrupt fading of the purple light, told him that Poipole got the message. After waiting a few seconds to make sure she was gone, Sticky hovered back to the wall. He closed the door, then flipped the switches on the panels.

White lights clicked on, revealing several gray metal arms holding fully mechanical, purple and red type: full parts in place. Approximating them to match the design that popped up on the desk next to Sticky. He hovered toward it, glancing between the design and the in-progress build.

(Character design by Goldmills.)

TOP SECRET
Light Rebellion Decimator Unit: Iron Enforcer

Sticky tapped the desk. Several digital marks and buttons appeared on the screen. The naganadel typed away furiously at them.

“If at first, you don’t succeed…”

Upon returning to the gray and black hangar Cyril had converted into an “operations room” for him and Cid to use together, Yuna stared blankly at the rows of computer monitors stacked atop one another. The emptiness— no, this heaviness was familiar. But the reason why kept slipping from Yuna’s mental grip just when she thought she latched onto it.

The drakloak was vaguely aware things were happening around her. Cyril shambling toward a beat up chair and flopping down on it. Leo hopping around the others excitedly, encouraging them to watch as he melted into a puddle and sloshed across the floor. Cid buzzing about, panic strewn on his face.

That last one had everyone else’s attention. The orbeetle gestured wildly at the screen while a few of his spots glowed. He was calling a couple of people down, but their names were muffled.

When Yiazmat appeared in the hanger doorway, however, Yuna knew exactly why this was so familiar.

This was how she felt when Yiazmat told her she was adopted.

… No, it was worse. That had the emptiness, but not this heaviness.

Yuna realized she was staring at Yiazmat. The dragapult remained frozen in the doorway. Her eyes darted between Yuna and the others. And, though she was trying to hide it, Yuna knew something was unsettling Yiazmat. The tiny undulations in her tail were just a more controlled version of what Yuna did when she was nervous.

“What is it?” Yuna said. She tried to block out the heaviness, if only for a short while.

“The monks were able to rescue Mewtwo,” Yiazmat said. “He sustained heavy injuries. They say it’s too risky to transport here from their planet.”

Yuna’s neck prickled. Yiazmat was withholding something from them. “And?” Yuna couldn’t think of anything better to say.

Yiazmat’s eyes darted around again. “They said you’d returned. Thought you would all want to know.”

This was bad. The dragapult’s tone lacked that sense of certainty Yuna was accustomed to.

“Your Highness?” Even Noctum knew something was wrong.

“I shouldn’t—” Yiazmat drifted back in the doorway.

“Mom.” Yuna wasn’t sure how much longer she could keep her headache at bay. “Whatever it is, say it.”

Silence. Yiazmat’s eyes darted around again.

“Mom,” Yuna growled. Her shadows pulsated deep within her. She had to keep them down. Just a bit longer.

“The Phantom that attacked Mewtwo… is Bahamut.” Yiazmat leaned her head against the doorframe. “Or, rather, what is left of him after he took his own life.”

And there it was. Yuna’s metal dam parted and the headache flooded in. Heavier and heavier. Like someone was stacking a hundred Leos on her head.

“The hell do you mean ‘what’s left of him?'” Nikki scoffed. “Either your god turned himself into a Phantom or someone else did.”

“It seems… he believed that becoming undead would make himself invincible,” Yiazmat replied.

“How?” Noctum’s voice cracked. “How can you be so sure?”

Yiazmat tucked her head down. “We have his journal. It’s unmistakably his. And it’s—” She stopped herself and braced harder against the doorframe. “What’s written there is nothing like what we teach our people about him.”

Which was her mother’s roundabout way of saying Yuna was right. Bahamut was a daemon. Someone who’d become so monstrous, he thought the only fitting course of action was to make himself a Phantom.

If he was the one attacking her teammates, then he was the one who pulled Zygarde’s Needle. So, even if Yuna stopped searching for them entirely, they were all going to get pulled.

Chiron would continue to claw her way out of wherever she was buried in Yuna’s spirit. It was only a matter of time before the Phantom sensed Chiron. And what would happen then? Would what the Phantom do to her? To her teammates?

Was this just more of that chaos the Butterfree Effect said she created?

Yuna pulled the Red Chain fragment from her ectoplasm and chucked it at Cyril without even thinking. Then she raced toward Yiazmat and the doorway. The dragapult stiffened. “Yuna—”

She pushed past Yiazmat. The drakloak’s head rang. Muffled whoever was calling out to her from the hangar.

Yuna flew faster. The hallway was a blur of gray metal and the blacks and purples of deep space beyond glass panels. She flew past closed doorways. Rooms Gene had already assigned to some of the others. Yuna hadn’t gotten one, though. She needed somewhere unoccupied. Or empty.

A couple of more turns and Yuna found an open door. The room inside was small. Nothing but a cot with lime green linens and an old wooden dresser with a clock that, given the blank screen, didn’t even work.

That didn’t matter. Yuna shot through the doorway and slammed onto the bed, like she was a little dreepy getting fired into a pillow fort.

But Yuna wasn’t a hatchling. She was an adult. And she was in far too deep.

The Needles sealing Eternatus. Paradox’s ambitions of an Eternatus free to ravage the universe. The Phantom looking to pull the Needles for… some strange reason. Bahamut’s dead wife hiding within her spirit.

Then there was the other side of the coin. The anomalies, which were practically interdimensional mystery dungeons. Two of them held these mystical plates that apparently belonged to Leo. And the monks were sure that these had to be sealed. Leo did the sealing, sure. But Yuna could go into the cores, too. So, she was clearly tied to them. As was the Butterfree Effect.

All of this piled onto the drakloak’s shoulders in the span of a month. Yuna thought, because she had allies, that she could handle it.

She was wrong. Learning she was related to the Butterfree Effect — and this mysterious Phantom was born from Bahamut’s remains — proved too much.

All of these swirling thoughts had given her such an intense headache. Yuna couldn’t help but bury her head in the pillow and groan. An exhausted, raspy groan that didn’t last for very long.

The drakloak rolled on her back and stared up at the ceiling. “I’m so tired.” She held her hands up. “I’m not ready… for another mission.”

Her ectoplasm undulated. Yuna’s left arm bubbled and twisted into a black wing with three red spikes.

“Ahhh!” Yuna shook the new limb around like a sandile had bit her arm. It wouldn’t go away. The red spikes were pristine enough for Yuna to see her horrified reflection.

“Make it stop, make it stop, make it sta—bishaaaahn!“

Yuna smacked her right hand over her mouth. Her eyes darted around frantically.

That was not her voice.

The wing turned back into her left arm. Yuna folded it against her side and buried it in her ectoplasm. She glanced at her Soul Dew. The shadows had wrapped themselves around it. No wonder none of the Sages had butted in.

She lifted her hands up again. “What’s happening to me?” Tears glistened in her eyes. This couldn’t be Chiron’s power… could it? “Why am I losing control?”

“Losing control of what?”

Squeaking, Yuna sat up. A concerned Nikki stood in the doorway. The toxtricity considered that enough of a greeting to waltz into the room and plop herself down on the other end of the bed.

Yuna couldn’t muster an answer to Nikki’s question. She had to change the subject. “Why did you follow me?”

“Wasn’t gonna at first,” Nikki replied. “But there was, y’know, a faraway look in your eyes. The more I chewed on it… the more it reminded me of how I looked after getting to see Scarlett again in Scale City. And, well, then I heard a scream.” She shrugged. “Thought maybe you’d gotten hurt.”

The drakloak scooted away. She grabbed the pillow and pulled it over her chest. Yuna doubted it could stop the shadows, but she could at least try to hide them.

“Sorry. Hearing the news about the Phantom just… made me upset.”

Nikki raised a brow. “I thought you’d already given up on the whole Aeonism stuff.”

“I did!” Yuna squeezed the pillow tighter. “But, well…” What was she supposed to say to the toxtricity?

Then again, Yuna had already admitted she thought she was Chiron.

“I’m afraid of what will happen as more Needles get pulled.” Yuna lowered her head onto the pillow. “What if the Phantom senses Chiron inside of me?”

Nikki scratched the back of her head. “Uh, it’ll get pissed off? Or, uh, more pissed off than it was before.”

Yuna’s face sank into the pillow slightly. “You heard what it did to Gene. And how it might be invincible!”

“It got the jump on us.” Nikki crossed her legs. “And nothing’s really invincible. We just haven’t found its weakness yet.” She punched her right hand with her left. “The way I see it, the more Needles you get, the better shape we’ll be in to kick its nonexistent ass into next century.”

Sniffling, Yuna blinked tears from her eyes and looked up at the toxtricity.

“Aww, c’mon.” Nikki frowned. “No waterworks. That was supposed to be encouraging!”

“How?” Yuna rubbed her face against the pillow. “How can you still want to fight after hearing that?”

Nikki stared back blankly. Had she really not considered it? Yuna was going to continue, but Nikki’s blank look melted away. She leaned back, resting her head on the wall.

“Well, I never worshiped Badumbut.” The toxtricity chuckled at her own lame insult. “And I’d like to think you’ve known me long enough to tell I’m too stubborn to quit. Even if the going gets rough.”

Yuna curled her hands around the pillow sheet. It was true. And they were only a day removed from Nikki throwing a fit at Yuna and Gene because she got pulled aside from fighting Chernabog.

“What’s this really about, Princess?” Nikki tapped the air with right foot. “Way I see it, something else must’ve happened to you over there. You’re making freaking Chompy look like the life of the party.”

“I don’t want you to get hurt because of me, okay?”

The drakloak winced. She blurted it out, but hadn’t meant for it to sound that harsh. Yuna squeezed the pillow tighter. “Sorry.” Her tail curled around the other end of it. “But you’re, y’know, my friend. And I’m afraid—”

“Because of the Phantom?”

Because of the Butterfree Effect. And my powers.

The shadows still had an iron grip on the Soul Dew. Yuna didn’t dare lift the pillow. And even though she wanted so badly to say her thoughts aloud, they got trapped in her ectoplasmic throat. She kept her gaze down, watching her tail twitch erratically.

“The Red Chain fragment reactivated inside me,” Yuna mumbled. “And then the core… spoke to me. Told me that I’m dangerous. Unstable.”

Not a lie. But not the whole truth, either. At least Reshiram wasn’t around to pester Yuna about it.

“So, you think you’ll hurt me?” Nikki pointed at her gills. “Pretty sure I’m the one who got puppetted by that daemon a ways back.”

“Maybe not directly,” Yuna said, trying not to get upset at Nikki’s self-deprecation. “But from drawing in stronger Phantoms. The core said that spark of Red Chain power will make me a magnet for even tougher ones.”

“So?”

“We’re already outmatched by Bahamut’s Phantom,” Yuna said, fidgeting with the pillow sheet. “How can we possibly handle whatever the anomalies throw at us next?”

That finally got Nikki to lean forward. She silently scratched her chest. The toxtricity must’ve finally run out of comebacks.

“Ya got me there.” Nikki shrugged. “But what’s to say that core wasn’t screwing with your head?” She traced her right index finger around her right horn. “Y’know, kill your motivation so you give up.”

Yuna flinched. Guess the white lie didn’t quite work. Time for a fallback…

“I don’t want to lose you.”

Nikki raised a brow. “Dang. Tugging on the heartstrings, huh?” She leaned back again, strumming her gills. “Well, I don’t want to lose you, either. But if we don’t win, then the universe gets destroyed, doesn’t it? So, we lose each other anyway.” The toxtricity shrugged. “Way I see it, better to go out swinging than running away.”

Knowing full well Nikki was right, Yuna melted into the pillow a bit. “I just wish it didn’t have to be me. I’m… cracking under all the stress.”

Nikki pivoted slightly left. “Well, that’s what we’re here for.” She jerked her head toward the doorway. Noctum stood there, cradling Leo in his arms. The cosmic arceus tilted his head. Yuna instinctively gripped the pillow tighter, as if that would somehow hide the shadows better.

Even though Nikki was saying all the right things, it wasn’t enough to make Yuna ready to leap back into the fray. Because that was how things were going so far. Every time they finished dealing with one problem, another one would pop up right away. Dividing up the team’s resources hadn’t helped with this, either. The moment they fixed one anomaly, another made its presence known in a big way. How much longer until Cid shoved Noctum aside and told her something big needed her attention?

To say nothing of the whole “shadows and Butterfree Effect” issue. Yuna still wasn’t sure if she even wanted the others to know the truth. Add it all up, and she just wasn’t ready for another mission yet. She needed more time to ease that pressure trying to pop her head like it was a balloon.

Her gaze silently fell toward the floor. An ugly gray carpet with some white stains on it. Cleaning solution, maybe?

“Can I at least get a real break, then?” the drakloak muttered.

“What do you mean by ‘real?'” Noctum wondered.

“Somewhere without rifts or Eternatus or… any of this.” Yuna gestured around wildly. An image fitting that description quickly popped into her head. “Somewhere like… home.”

“Home?” Nikki frowned. “Y’mean like—”

A small rift opened behind Yuna. “I’m going to Aeon Castle. Alone.” She looked at Noctum apologetically. “Because I deserve a break. So, if the monks come calling, tell them I’m not available.”

She didn’t wait for her friends to respond. Yuna rolled backward into the rift and shut it behind her.