Chapter 83: Inner Daemon

On the Third of the Original One’s Children
Despite my fervent investigations, I have failed to piece together the mystery of the so-called Renegade Pokémon. The legends surrounding it are few and far between. About the only conclusion I’ve reached is that it’s a divine pokémon possibly related to Dialga, Palkia, and the Original One, Arceus.

There are vague, scattered allusions to a creature that lurks in the shadows. Those who cross its path seem unable to comprehend its form. There are no depictions of it. Even stranger is that at some point in the past it simply… vanished. As if it never really existed to begin with.

Those descended from the ancient Sinnoh people claim the second Hisuian hero befriended this legend, just as she befriended the Original One. Following that, there are no further records of its existence. Did it disappear entirely?

I know he was there. Because of the photos that changed in Grandmother’s house. Was he involved with this hero? Did he choose to stay in that time?

Grandmother thinks I’m letting my research consume me. Just like his single-mindedness drove him away from Celestic Town. But we’re not the same. I’m a scientist. Any risks I take will be thoroughly calculated.

I’ll solve the mystery of this missing legendary pokémon. And then, humans and pokémon alike can reach even greater heights!

The air was cold and harsh. It tore at Yuna’s inner ectoplasm.

But it was dry.

Yuna’s head shot up. Tan and dull brown swirled around her vision. This didn’t make any sense. Wasn’t she supposed to be underwater?

The drakloak rubbed her eyes. When she pulled her hands away, she found herself lying on a neglected stone floor. Signs of a struggle peppered the area. Scorches here. Chunks of ground missing there. Stone columns ended abruptly with their top halves destroyed. Had they once held up a roof? If they did, they’d become nothing but misshapen spears jutting toward the sky.

Yuna picked herself up and hovered forward. Red and purple swirled overhead. How did she get here? Was she dead? Like dead dead? What about everyone else?

Stairs led to more of the same broken stone floor. But now there were piles of rubble lined up on either side of her. Not pillars, that was for sure. Statues, maybe?

These were definitely ruins, then. But of what? Had she sunk into an underwater cavern?

The air at the other end of the destroyed hallway briefly contorted. Enough for Yuna to catch it. She tensed up, rubbing her hands along her belly. Did she dare appro—

Wait.

Yuna ran her hands along her belly once. Twice. A third time. The drakloak looked down.

The Soul Dew!

It was gone! Her chest was bare for the first time in almost two months. She looked left, then right, then back down the stairs.

Nothing. No twinkles or glimmers or anything to suggest it was here with her.

Maybe she really was dead, then? And she bonded with her Soul Dew, so perhaps she was inside it…

“Rayquaza!” Yuna called out.

Nothing.

She cupped her hands over her mouth. “Reshiram? Cresselia?”

Still nothing.

Yuna’s tail undulated wildly. “Is anyone out there?!”

This time, when the air across from her rippled, tiny black globules dribbled out. They splattered against the stone floor like raindrops.

She recognized that inky darkness. Swallowing hard, Yuna floated forward. The closer she got, the more black blobs dripped onto the ground from thin air. A black puddle spread across the floor.

It covered half the raised end of the hall when Yuna reached it. She got about a meter away from its edge and went no further.

Those were her shadows. What else could they be? Had they claimed her instead of the Soul Dew? Is this what they saw while inside her?

Yuna wouldn’t make any headway like this. Maybe they’d listen to words? “What do you want?” She looked around hesitantly but refrained from asking another question.

To show you the truth.

“Gah!” Yuna grabbed the sides of her head. “H-Hey! Don’t do that!” Though she couldn’t put “that” into words.

Do what, answer your question?

“That!” Yuna gestured at the puddle. “Some ‘not telepathy but inside my head’ thingy!” It was the best explanation she had.

The puddle rippled.

This is our only way to communicate.

Yuna flinched. This “voice” was strange. A part of Yuna told her it was supposed to be deeper, yet it wasn’t. She couldn’t even tell if it was male or female. Yuna was sorely tempted to turn away, knowing full well it wouldn’t get her out of her situation.

But she was here. The shadows were “talking.” If they were going to come to an understanding, it was now or never.

Hesitating at first, Yuna managed a shaky, “What do you want to show me?”

The puddle rippled faster and faster. Shadows congealed together. Yuna half expected some monstrous daemon to emerge… but what formed was small. Even smaller than her. Two legs, a bit of an oversized head, and two head… baubles?

… No, aura feelers.

“A riolu?” Yuna tilted her head. The inky riolu mirrored her gesture. “I was hoping for answers.”

You do not recognize her? Then you must focus.

The puddle rippled even faster. All around Yuna, enormous trees painted themselves over the spear-like pillars. A dusty forest trail spilled out atop the stone floor. And the inky riolu darted about in a frenzy.

Yuna hovered back, uncertain whether to expect an attack. Riolu hopped, rolled, and slid. The drakloak had no idea why. “Am I missing something?”

Focus. See the whole picture.

Ectoplasm rippling again, Yuna squinted. Giant, fluid-filled arms swung wildly at Riolu. The faint, hulking outline they were attached to brought that one bewear teacher from the academy to mind.

Riolu’s inky black form jumped off an arm and thrust her hands in the bewear silhouette’s direction. It staggered briefly, but managed to grab Riolu with its right hand and slam her into the ground.

The forest scene flickered like a light at Cyril’s outpost that needed changing. Riolu squirmed underneath the giant hand. Their featureless face didn’t move, but Yuna swore she heard screams echoing from everywhere and nowhere at once.

Bewear’s silhouette faded in and out. There were two people behind it. One was a bigger riolu— lucario, then. But the other…

Butterfree Effect.

There was no mask this time, yet their face was featureless. Lucario tried to approach Bewear, but Butterfree Effect stopped it. When it whirled on Butterfree Effect, they produced a spherical orb that sucked Lucario up in a stream of light. Just like the Soul Dew did to the Sages.

Bewear slammed Riolu into the ground again. And again. Each time, Yuna heard screams from all directions. Painfully familiar screams that grew quieter with each blow.

The final time Bewear slammed Riolu down, she lay still. Butterfree Effect gestured forward. Bewear raised its arms up, then swung once more.

Everything dissolved away the moment Bewear’s fists would’ve crushed Riolu to death. The destroyed hallway was restored. Inky black tendrils hoisted Riolu’s battered form into the air.

Yuna stared at Riolu. And the longer she did, the more her ectoplasm quivered— no, tightened. Like her body wanted to collapse in on itself.

“Stop.” The drakloak squeezed her eyes shut and shook her head. “I don’t— none of this helps me. I don’t even know what this is!”

The black puddle bubbled.

Then what of your visceral reaction?

Yuna squeezed her hands together. “Because you showed me someone getting hurt! I… I…” She looked for anything else to stare at besides the puddle. “I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

Her ectoplasm tightened again. Yuna’s neck and torso twisted.

You are remembering.

The drakloak stiffened. “Please stop,” she whispered.

We will not. You remembered the wish you made when you were at your lowest.

Yuna’s torso tightened further. She was practically an ectoplasmic rectangle balancing precariously on a stick. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Black sludge rose out of the violently rippling puddle. Growing higher and higher until there was practically a hill of black slime casting a wide shadow over Yuna. Spectral wings emerged from either side of the beast. Pristine crimson spikes illuminated two tiny red dots poking through the cylindrical head of… whatever this was.

(Art by PhantomRadea)

That is not what you told us last time.

Her body finally shot into her rectangular head. Yuna drifted back, coaxing her torso out with shaky breaths.

This had to be the source of her shadows. And given the shadows reacted every time Butterfree Effect showed up…

“You’re what they’re addressing.” Yuna pointed a trembling arm toward them. “You’re Yaldabaoth.”

The red dots flickered.

No, they’re more like blinking eyes.

That is one of many names.

Yuna couldn’t stop herself from shaking. “Well that’s… too much of a mouthful. So, I’m calling you Chaos.” Since Butterfree Effect kept insisting this thing was some sort of chaos magnet.

Do what you must.

A pang of guilt struck Yuna’s chest. She quickly shoved it down, though. Why have sympathy for the shadows when they were causing such a gigantic headache?

Chaos’ wing-spikes flashed. Within seconds, Yuna found herself floating where Chaos’ blobby form was, looking across a brighter, sunnier version of the ruined hall. Butterfree Effect’s silhouette was in front of her, hunched over with arms spread wide.

“Giratina, strike her down!”

There was another human silhouette. And as Yuna felt herself lunging forward, the silhouette stretched and squashed. Unraveled into a familiar dragapult with a fierce expression.

The illusion shattered. Yuna dropped from the air with a yelp, landing on the stone floor. “What? Mom?!” She picked her head up and rubbed her eyes. Was that supposed to be a vision? No, that wasn’t possible. This was a mind game.

And that phrase Butterfree Effect used. Giratina. Was that… one of Chaos’ other names? Their species, perhaps?

Her gut told her the latter, which scared her even more. Why would she have a gut feeling about that?

Chaos’ ooze rippled. A slimy wing extended toward her.

Up?

“No!” Yuna was going to smack the wing when she realized how stupid that was with their size difference. Remaining on the ground, she scooted back. “Stop it! Stop showing me these things! I don’t want to see them! They don’t— they can’t mean anything!”

Silence. Black drops dribbled into the puddle from Chaos’ extended wing. Their red eyes dimmed. They folded the wing against their sludgy body. Chaos looked down guiltily.

There is no way to make this gentle.

Yuna looked at her tail. Anything was better than meeting Chaos’ eyes. “Am I dead?”

No. We are protecting you.

“I see.” Yuna grabbed her tail and brought it toward her torso. “Am I still drowning in the river?”

We are protecting you. But our powers are limited as they are. Time is fleeting.

Yuna didn’t pick herself off the ground. So, it was shielding her now, but not when she needed it against Shiva’s attack? The drakloak groaned. Was she going to give Chaos the benefit of the doubt?

Silence. None of Chaos’ intrusive thoughts. They weren’t pressing her, despite the claim they only had so much time.

She took a breath. Then another. Yuna had plenty of questions, but if time was truly an issue, she needed one that got to the heart of the matter.

“Why are we… together like this?”

Yuna looked up expectantly. Black slime dripped and trickled into the puddle beneath Chaos. It bothered her even though she’d been around plenty of the goodra line in her life. Chaos leaned forward. Blinked their tiny red eyes a few times.

We are together… because we are one.

Flashes of red light blinded Yuna.

She lay in the dirt. Bones broken. So much pain.

Air. She needed air. Breathe, damn it! She couldn’t die like this! Not with so much to live for!

Her vision blurred. Air wasn’t getting in. The pain— oh, God, the agony.

She was going to die. She wasn’t strong enough. She’d failed.

A shadow was there. She tried to reach a mangled blue arm out. Nickie…

Yuna jerked upright with a sharp gasp, trembling from head to tail. “I said no more mind games,” the drakloak squeaked, glaring at Chaos.

We have no choice. You must understand the truth.

Yuna’s ectoplasm pulsated. “I don’t— this doesn’t make sense. I’m not a riolu. I’m a drakloak!” Her gaze fell to her twitching tail. “I’ve nev— I’m not a riolu.”

You were when you made your wish.

Chaos extended their goopy left wing. Their wing spikes glistened with ethereal light.

A new silhouette padded toward her. Pointy ears. A little tuft of hair. Six fluffy tails.

She sat beside her. Wrapping an arm over an icepix’s shuddering form.

“We’ll fix this, Nickie,” she promised. “I can’t imagine what it feels like. But you’ve worked with me despite that pain.” She extended her paw toward Nickie. “I wish I could be that strong.”

Yuna smacked her cheeks. Glared at Chaos once again, but they only tilted their head slightly. They didn’t do that? She returned her gaze to the icepix silhouette. It stretched and pulled itself apart into something much more familiar. A specter that drew a visceral snarl from Yuna.

Xeromus.

You wished to protect those you treasured most.

The silhouette squashed back into an icepix. Riolu appeared at her side. Their snouts brushed together. Yuna’s head pounded once again. Her ectoplasm quivered.

This is… all a trick. I— what— why—

You wished for a second chance.

Chaos plucked Riolu off the ground as Icepix poofed out of existence. Black and red light swirled around Riolu.

We heard your dying pleas. Too much of your soul had faded from its mortal coil. So, we gave you ours to fill the void.

She raced through the dark sky. Headed for the vortex over the tower. Temporal Tower.

She still had time. She could still stop it, right?

The scent of blood drifted over her.

Nickie and Nero. Others too, like a latias and a zoroark. Unmoving. Covered in gashes.

“NO!”

The lucario, volcanic arcanine, and spiritomb standing opposite the bodies looked right at her. Then they looked back.

Butterfree Effect turned. The crimson glow of the chain swirling around behind them cast an eerie shadow across the tower.

“You cannot stop me this time!”

Screams of pain filled her ears. Six bodies were wrapped in the Red Chain. Five had red wheels that matched the dimming golden one around the belly of the one screaming loudest: Arceus.

“I am the only one worthy of wielding the power of the legends themselves! Now witness the dawn of a new world! A perfect world free of all suffering!”

With a furious roar, she pried apart the air itself. She dove through the reverse’s distortion, lunging to tear apart the Red Chain.

Yuna violently lurched backward, forcing the vision away.

“ENOUGH!” she pleaded, jerking her head back and forth. She hunched over, tail shriveling up into her torso.

“I’m Yuna.” Her voice was so tiny. “I don’t— that stuff is—” The drakloak shuddered. “Your memories and mine are different.”

The spirit never forgets. We are one. Now and forever. That was your wish.

“That’s not my spirit!” Yuna looked for a rock — hell, even a pebble — to throw at Chaos. “And it’s not… it’s not…” She kept stumbling over her words until her voice trailed off.

“Continuing down this path will lead you to discover several horrible truths. And without that tenacity… the weight of those truths will crush you.”

The drakloak lay there in silence. Taking shuddering breaths and blinking small tears from her eyes. She wasn’t sure how long the silence lingered as she repeated Vegna’s words in her head. Yuna didn’t even care to think about why Vegna knew to tell her something like this.

Everything about this was horrible. She thought the flashbacks with Chiron had prepared her for this, but she was dead wrong.

How deep did this go? How many memories did Chaos have? Was she… nothing but a tiny, insignificant blip to them? Doomed to be swallowed up into an endless memory abyss?

Yuna scraped her hands across the stone floor. She wanted this to end so, so badly. To wake up back in Aeon. Before the stupid treaty. Before Eternatus. And before this whole dimensional cataclysm.

Yet without even thinking, she whispered, “Help me understand.”

Chaos slowly raised their right wing. The spikes glistened. Faint red light traced circles and triangles in the air. A familiar pattern. One Yuna watched Leo produce in every anomaly core. Then Chaos struck the pattern with their wing. It slowly rotated until it was upside down to how Yuna remembered.

Reverse.

The drakloak blinked slowly. “Reverse what?”

The reverse. A realm on the opposite side. We are the guardian of the reverse.

Picking herself up, Yuna stared blankly at the upside-down sigil. “That…” Blank stare turned to scowl. “That has to be the single most unhelpful explanation. And that’s really saying something given all of this!” She gestured around.

Chaos’ goopy body melted somewhat into the puddle.

You were not this… difficult last time.

“Because apparently I was dying!” Yuna snarled, rubbing her hands back and forth along the floor. “I was… dying…” She looked down, blinking slowly. The thoughts of icy river water suffocating her ectoplasm filled her head.

“I… am dying.”

Fighting back tears, Yuna forced herself to look at the rune Chaos had drawn. More ripples ran along their puddle, up to Chaos’ bulky head. They grabbed the red sigil with their right wing and squeezed it into a red orb. Then they cracked it open like an egg for cooking.

Home has two sides to it.

Chaos lifted one half of the orb up.

Aeon and Radiance dwell in the reverse world. A realm that should not bear life, much less countless civilizations.

Yuna rubbed her eyes. “That can’t be right. Because—”

Eyes flashing, Chaos lifted the other half of the orb up.

The Qliphoth is the regular world. It is where all life should reside, be it humans, pokémon, or something else entirely.

Chaos brought the two halves close together, yet they never touched.

Both sides are linked. However, they are not meant to interact directly with one another.

They touched the halves together. Tiny red sparks shot out in all directions. Chaos’ eyes dimmed slightly.

Eternatus’ act of absorbing planets… is an attempt at restoring balance to itself. To the universe.

Yuna sat there, repeating the statement to herself. The earlier heaviness hadn’t left her. And this was another weight on the pile. “But the Qliphoth… is some mix of people born within and those from home. And those people can’t return outside because they’re dead.”

Incorrect assumptions from those who did not witness the dawn of this universe. Since the beginning, Eternatus has returned life to the regular world, where it rightfully belongs. Those you thought dead have merely attuned their souls to the regular world. And without the energy you call Malice, their spirits cannot withstand the reverse world’s energy. Thus, they erode into Whispers.

But her allies had gone back and forth between Eternatus and the reverse world. “That can’t be right,” Yuna mumbled. “Like, why would the reverse world be so much bigger? To where Eternatus could get sealed with the Needles?”

The difference in size is a result of the universe’s broken creation process. And our allies have always had protection against corrosion. From us. From the Creator. Or from other blessings.

Other blessings? Yuna squeezed her tail tighter. Much as she wanted to press that point, she feared she didn’t have the time.

Still, this flew in the face of everything Yuna thought she understood. Then again, Widget mentioned a video message Nova left behind for Gene. One that claimed Eternatus was necessary for the universe to function properly. Something the emperor echoed… and Widget believed while he served the deoxys.

She shifted uneasily on the stone floor. “If this is all true, then…”

Destroying Eternatus is tantamount to destroying the universe. And the reverse world will die with it.

Chaos brought the two halves it was holding fully together. There were sparks for a few seconds, which gave way to distorted tendrils that stitched themselves through the orbs.

Aeon’s patron — the dragon of light — forced a permanent union between regular and reverse. This is why the planet is falling apart. We must sever this union.

“… By pulling all the Needles.” Yuna grimaced. “Except Necrozma wants to pull them all to destroy Eternatus. If we break the union and strand him in the reverse world, then Eternatus will be safe, right?”

Chaos squeezed the orb and it faded into red mist.

The husk can travel between regular and reverse, just as we do. It still endangers us all.

Right. All the rift making. Yuna looked at her hands. At least now… she could try and link this back to what was familiar. “That power… I have it because I’m Chiron. You were a part of me then, too, weren’t you?”

Silence. Chaos somewhat melted into the puddle again, which told Yuna the answer was somewhere between “no” and “it’s complicated.”

A tremor ran across the ground. Yuna braced herself against the floor. Was Chaos’ protection from the river failing?

“I have to know,” Yuna said, even if part of her screamed to just end this conversation.

Chaos straightened up. Inky blobs peeled themselves off Chaos’ goopy body.

Many giratina are violently protective toward the reverse world. We once struggled to control our instincts, to the point of attacking the Creator. For that, we were branded the Renegade. And, like many of our kind, the Creator sealed most of our power within the reverse world.

We were shunned. Isolated. An all too familiar fate.

The blobs squished themselves together into a copy of the Butterfree Effect.

One day, we met a human. Lost and confused. He claimed he was torn away from his time.

The copy turned to Chaos and extended a hand.

He paid attention to us. He wanted to see us reach our full potential. We were… happy to have someone acknowledge us. So, we followed his plan. We tore a rift in the sky. Our siblings, Time and Space, blamed one another and quarreled. The human wanted us to work together to stop them. To prove our combined worth to the Creator.

Another human silhouette rose from the puddle and stood in opposition to Butterfree Effect. The one that briefly turned into Yiazmat when Yuna was charging at it in an earlier vision.

But our creator instead called upon a different human. She and her partners stopped the fight before we could. This enraged the human we trusted. He used our gift to him to summon us. Demanded we kill her. But we saw the good in her heart. And her partners stood valiantly against us.

The human continued to demand we kill her. He betrayed our trust. So, we fled. The human branded us a traitor. We were alone once again.

Chaos flicked their right wing. Butterfree Effect disappeared, leaving the girl. She turned to Chaos and tilted her head.

The girl found us. Comforted us. She taught us how to work with a team. How to protect without lashing out. We made up with our siblings and the Creator.

They slowly lowered their head and shook it.

But the human that betrayed us returned. Determined to surpass all of us, including the Creator. We sensed he had breached the boundary between worlds. With the girl’s blessing, we gave chase.

The girl’s silhouette collapsed. Small black blobs floated in the air between Yuna and Chaos.

We followed him to other worlds. Each time, we joined with that realm’s giratina to try and stop him. Each time, he slipped away. Over and over. Until the human reached a world inhabited only by pokémon.

The black blobs squished themselves together. Riolu landed on the edge of the puddle.

Though we searched, we could not find the human until the moment we met you… and heard your dying wish.

The ground trembled again. This was… a lot to process. If she and Chaos were really the same spirit, did that make this her past? Did she have several pasts… all spent trying and failing to catch Butterfree Effect?

Yuna pushed herself into the air. “How does this tie back to Chiron?”

We saw it for ourselves, remember? The human forged a new world. We attacked the human. Disrupted his new world’s creation. The result… was a backwards, incomplete world. With life split between the regular and reverse.

There was nothing we could do to fix it. Our power — the power of the Renegade — was taken from us after we finished disrupting this universe’s creation.

Chaos extended their right wing. Several black globs dribbled down. A new human rose from the edge of the puddle. Ran inky hands through shaggy, unkempt hair. Yuna heard nothing, but the way the human was gesturing and stomping around, they were clearly angry. Punching the air. Knocking things off invisible furniture.

They tossed a black blob on the ground in front of Yuna. It vaguely resembled one of those handheld gaming device thingies she’d seen Cyril carry around on occasion.

The human suddenly jerked backwards. Black tendrils pried themselves free and sucked the human up. The black slime swirled around until it resembled a silhouette of Bahamut.

The new, broken world drew in an isolated soul so full of resentment and anger toward everything around him. Despite all our training, this stranger’s violent temperament… overpowered our will. He seized our power over the reverse world. In effect, the dragon of light became the Renegade Pokémon of the newly-made universe.

Yuna frowned. Something was off about that. It sounded so… vague compared to everything else Chaos told her. And their tone. Yuna still had trouble parsing it, but she had another gut feeling.

They’re… uncertain?

Chaos didn’t appear bothered. They watched Bahamut’s silhouette fly around, lashing out at the air with his wings and tail. Yuna followed the silhouette, too. The ringing in her head was back. Maybe she was rushing to conclusions about this part of Chaos’ explanation?

Then Bahamut was… like her. A past life cut short. But instead of a dying wish… his wrath twisted him into the thing Chaos used to be before that human girl helped them?

“So the reason he kept attacking the planets he visited…” Frowning, the drakloak crossed her arms. “And the reason he wants to destroy Eternatus above everything… is because he thinks he’s protecting the reverse world.”

Chaos nodded slowly.

He embodies our kind far more than we do. His irrational drive to claim as much power as possible to strike down Eternatus… is built on the foundation of a violent desire to protect his domain.

They caught Bahamut with their right wing, absorbing the black slime.

However, thanks to Eternatus wounding him, he lost the power to control the reverse world. We escaped. And reunited.

That had to refer to the Darkest Day. Bahamut’s light… must have been how he did all this crazy stuff in the reverse world. And if that power was supposed to belong to Yuna… then it was no wonder she bonded with the Soul Dew when Chiron didn’t. That was her power all along!

But then… what did that mean for her relation to Chiron? It certainly didn’t sound like Chaos had an answer for her.

Yuna looked down at her tail. “Mom said she found me sealed in a crystal.” Did that mean Chaos searched for her until she hatched? “Wait, what about how sick I was as a kid?”

Chaos lowered their head slightly.

“Don’t tell me…”

Your illness was a result of our reunion. You remained sick while our broken soul healed. Even though you recovered, we remained dormant until recently. Recuperating from our time within the dragon of light.

It took a moment, but Yuna recalled the strange temple inside Eternatus. The fight with Runerigus and the shadowy wings that came to her in a time of need…

The ground shook again. Chaos’ inky puddle rippled faster.

We are out of time.

Relief and dread battled it out in Yuna’s head. She still had more questions! How was she supposed to try and free herself from drowning with this weighing on her conscience?!

We must fully combine. You must shed your drakloak guise. We shall become one in mind, body, and spirit. Then we can fully wield the power of distortion. The power you call your “shadows.”

Chaos clapped their wings together. Two cards appeared in front of their wing spikes. One with an orange and yellow sun, the other bearing a blue and purple crescent moon. Each had a mixture of letters on them. “XVIII” for the moon card and “XIX” for the sun card.

We will also allow you to put these to use. They’ve lingered deep inside your soul all this time.

Yuna stared at the cards. Chaos’ demands played on loop in her head. After several seconds, she shriveled up.

“No,” she instinctively mumbled. She couldn’t agree to that. Not if it meant getting battered by the tsunami of Chaos’ memories… or past selves.

And certainly not if it meant Yuna would fade away. She couldn’t leave the others! Especially not Noctum and Nikki.

The icepix’s soft tails brushing against her side. A tingle down her spine.

You speak nonsense. You already fear transforming into Chiron. But that shall not happen. Instead, we will hold memories of our time as Drakloak Yuna.

“That’s not good enough!” Yuna firmly squeezed her arms against her side. “I’m… I’m not ready! I can’t—” She shook her head. “I can’t disappear! Whether that’s becoming you or Chiron or something else!

“The past doesn’t matter! I’m me! I’m Yuna! We have to find another way!”

The ground rumbled again. Purple fissures traced across the floor, barely skirting Chaos’ puddle.

We are out of time. There is no other way. We must combine.

“I said no!” Yuna surprised herself with her intensity. “This… this is still my life—”

We cannot stand up against Zodiark like this.

Zodiark? Was that… Butterfree Effect’s real name? Or their name back when they were the human Chaos was chasing after?

It didn’t matter. Yuna had made up her mind. “I understand what you’re saying, but I can’t go. Not like this.”

The drakloak curled her hands up. “I refuse… to merge.”

Was it selfish? Maybe. But Yuna needed time to come to grips with everything. She couldn’t disappear after learning all of this.

The ground shuddered again.

“Give me… a bit more power,” the drakloak said. “Enough to fight the Whispers.” She looked down. Guilt and concern wrestled in her head.

Very well.

What?

Yuna glanced at Chaos. They were halfway sunken into their puddle.

“You’re okay with this?”

We remain bound by your wish. We shall not hurt you.

Yuna bit her lower lip to keep from making a snide remark. “All right.” She took a calming breath. “Then let’s… work together. In parallel. Not as one.” Her tail rippled. “Okay?”

We shall assist, but it is only a matter of time until you yield to the inevitable.

Chaos’ head sank into the puddle. It rippled faster and faster.

Yuna doubled over in pain. Her chest… it was on fire! Was the Soul Dew doing something to her real body?

The burning got worse and worse. Yuna screamed. Jagged, amber crystal burst from her chest ectoplasm.

The puddle rose from the ground like a large wave heading for the shore.

… That shore being Yuna.

“What are you doing?” Her new chest crystal spread light across her body. “Stop! Stop! I said no merging! STOP!“

BISHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHN!

The black wave crashed over her, flooding her world in darkness.

Gene’s tail lashed at the air. They had numbers on the Whispers and this was still a problem?

He Phantom Warped just south of midfield, avoiding a wall of shadowfire. The shadowy mewtwo already learned the hard way those flames were dark-type. For some stupid reason.

“What are you waiting for? Hit him!” he growled. Flames gathered in his right hand. Gene hurled the Fire Blast, figuring that bug-shaped crystal on Ifrit’s head had to symbolize “fire gud.”

Black flames swirled around midfield. Ifrit’s dark whirlwind knocked aside the five prongs of Gene’s Fire Blast. Quetzal retreated toward Gene.

“I’m trying!” the orange zapdos squawked.

“No you’re not!” Gene had another Fire Blast ready and hurled it at the dark moltres. He glared at Quetzal, who formed a spinning air cone around his beak and charged toward midfield.

Ifrit folded his wings, dropping to the ground. The Fire Blast sailed overhead. He threw up his wings, blunting some of Quetzal’s Drill Peck. But Ifrit still skidded across the scorched ground.

“You’re pulling your punches!” Gene’s Malice Crystal sparked. “Don’t try to deny it! You still see your friend and not some mindless murder bird who wants to gouge your eyes out!”

“Th-that’s—” Quetzal jumped high enough to avoid a furious Air Slash barrage that sliced up midfield’s ruined grass. “Ifrit doesn’t resort to gouging eyes! That’s barbaric!”

Gene swapped fire for lightning. He pointed his right hand downfield and let the sparks fly. Ifrit rolled out of the way.

“You want to do the ‘I know you’re in there’ schtick? Then do it!” Gene pursued Ifrit. The black moltres couldn’t gather up enough shadowfire to strike. Instead, Gene broadsided Ifrit with his spoon. Ifrit skipped back across the ground, toward the northern end of the field.

“Did you really have to hit him that hard?” Quetzal said. His feathers puffed out when Gene leveled the spoon in his direction.

“Hey, uh, not to interject or anything.” Koraidon’s voice carried through Gene’s X-transceiver. He glanced up. In the nosebleed section of the eastern stands, Jade was fleeing an Air Slash bombardment from Shiva. The weird stoic human remained atop the psychic articuno’s back.

“How much longer do you think you’ll be? These Team Rocket people have stolen a lot of pokémon with their, err, giant meowth machine. I think they might fly the coop soon.”

Gene gnashed his teeth. Damn it. Yuna vanished five minutes ago and everything since then had spiraled out of control.

“I’m handling it,” the shadowy mewtwo said. “Just gimme a minute or two.” He concentrated on the Malice Crystal in his shoulder, drawing in as much of the energy as he could.

“This is no way to treat a lady!” Jade cawed, trying to outfly a furious tornado spiraling through the stands, flinging seating all around. “Cece! Undisappear yourself and heeeeeeeeelp!”

“Your friend is gone,” the trainer on Shiva’s back said. “They were boring. As are you. Nothing but dodges and quips. Do you even have a reason to be here?”

Jade turned around, stunned. Gene took the opportunity to fire a small Shadow Ball at Shiva. It provided a temporary distraction, with the masked articuno stopping to snuff the ectoplasm out with more pink eye lasers.

The salugia didn’t press her opening, though. Gene was ready to chew her out like he did to Quetzal when a thunderous boom split the air.

Red and purple energy streaming from his Malice Crystal into his torso, Gene shot up high above midfield. “Tell me the big robot didn’t just do something awful!” he cried.

“The robot didn’t make that sound,” Koraidon said. “Something emerged from the river. I think it’s Yuna!”

Shiva turned toward Gene. “What?” The trainer finally sounded something other than disinterested.

Gene was ready to take advantage of the opening when a jagged purple rift split the air underneath Shiva open. There was a roar, followed by a spectral wing slashing Shiva from below. An off-pitch warble escaped the masked articuno’s beak as she buckled in midair from the strike. The trainer visibly struggled to maintain his grip.

“Impossible,” he said.

Shiva swept pink eye lasers beneath her. However, the spectral wing vanished. A dragapult appeared over Shiva’s head. She punched the air furiously and large, gray, ectoplasmic legs pummeled the unsuspecting articuno, knocking her into the stands, then swatting her toward the northern part of the ruined battlefield. The trainer lost his grip and was soon in freefall toward the uneven ground.

“Someone catch him!” Gene shouted, still a bit stunned at what he was seeing.

“On it!”

An orange streak surged across the burnt, torn-up grass. Quetzal abruptly stopped in the perfect spot to catch the trainer.

Gene spotted Ifrit preparing to hit Quetzal from behind. The shadowy mewtwo had all this energy charged up. With Shiva occupied, he had no qualms about changing targets.

Gene cupped his hands in front of him. Focusing on that hateful energy burning inside his chest, he pushed it along his arms… then unleashed the devastating red and purple beam. It swept across the ground, torching the remaining grass away and leaving a trail of black ooze behind.

“Holy hell!”

Nikki barely managed to escape to midfield from the beam, carrying the unconscious pikachu that had given her problems before under her shoulder. She stared dumbly at Gene’s attack.

It was tough controlling the beam. But the thing was large enough to swallow the squawking moltres up. Shattered crystal fragments tumbled across the scorched field.

Gene’s arms were on fire. He thought they’d melt right off his shoulders! Gene barely managed to cut the beam off. Black vapor rose off his arms, which he rapidly shook out.

“He’s down!”

Running up the field, Nikki tossed Pikachu next to Ifrit, whose head crystal had shattered. The two foes lay side by side in an unconscious heap.

That’s one. Gene turned. So, what about the other?

Shiva flew around the eastern stands, frantically shooting pink beams from her eyes. All the while, the dragapult weaved through the beams, blasting dreepy-shaped bolts straight into Shiva’s face. Shrieking, the masked articuno whipped up a furious Hurricane.

(Art by Adam)

“Not this time! Drilpa ozongon!“

Dragapult— no, Yuna clapped her hands together. The jagged, amber crystal in her chest crackled with the same static as the rifts they conjured.

Mega Rayquaza torpedoed his way through the Hurricane, snuffing it out like it was nothing but a stiff breeze. His Dragon Ascent collided with Shiva. Before she could crash through the stands, another shadowy wing caught her by the balloon-shaped head crystals and dragged her through the air toward her downed allies.

“Now flock off, Feather Face!”

The wing squeezed the psychic articuno like an oversized stress ball. Her head crystal shattered. Shiva’s body lurched. Static streamed out of her, heading roughly in the direction of where Gene recalled the vault was.

Though part of it briefly congealed into something resembling a face. A human face.

“Welcome back, Yaldabaoth.”

The rest of the static went away. Yuna flew after it, looking over her shoulder at the others.

“Yuna?” Jade descended from the nosebleed section, an uncertain look on her face. “You evolved? But what’s with your chest? Where’s the Soul Dew?”

She turned away from Jade and tapped the side of her head. “Whoever has Leo, get him ready to seal the anomaly core. I’m coming to get him.”

“H-Hey, wait!” Jade flew toward her. “What should we do about all of this?” She gestured around her.

But the dragapult didn’t respond. She opened a rift behind her, flew into it, and sealed it up.

Path of Valor Almanac
“Drilpa ozongon” is “great winds” in Enochian.

Chaos is the mythological void within the area of cosmogony. Ancient Greek myths consider Chaos a primordial deity or a void state existing before the universe’s creation. Christian theology depicts Chaos as an abyss formed when God separated heaven and earth during the creation of the world in the Book of Genesis.