🌙Moon – Chapter 8; it’s filler

Read from the start

Characters: Pearl, Hau, Lillie, Faba, Wicke, Lusamine, Acerola

AN:

a little pre hiatus gift frm me

aka i have no internet or proper setup so all my choices are to write or code orz

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The air on the dock wasn’t the humid, hot summer variety that Pearl and Hau were used to. It was cool and crisp, almost artificial. The dock was completely covered, and the surrounding architecture was all bleached white.

“Well this certainly is… something.” Pearl said as she looked around. She didn’t quite know how to feel about the artificial island, because while she was impressed by the size of the docking area alone, something about it felt… off. Of course, Pearl had never been a fan of minimalism, so she pinned her unease on the lack of clutter.

“Well, this is just the docking area. Let me show you to the REAL paradise!” Faba said in response, as he motioned for Hau and Pearl to follow him through the port.

It was moderately busy, with Aether employees scurrying about. There were also a few pokemon helping, who’s colors formed a stark contrast against the otherwise pure white building and uniforms.

The three came to a stop at the elevator, which appeared to be in use. Faba was impatient, but when the elevator came down, he seemed a bit shocked to see who came out.

“Wicke! My, I wasn’t expecting to see you here!”

In the elevator was a woman with dark purple hair, with a name badge that, indeed, said Wicke.

“I wasn’t expecting you either! Weren’t you in Akala negotiating? Who are these two?” Wicke replied, her expression one of interest as she examined the two young trainers.

“Hm… ahhh… things didn’t go quite as planned. But I did find some island challengers who wanted a tour!” Faba said as he pushed up his glasses.

“Would you be so kind as to escort them, Wicke? I am rather busy and could use this time wisely.”

“Of course! You can go ahead on your way.” Wicke said with a smile, waving Faba off as he made a rather speedy exit.

“Now, what would your names be? How old are you?”

Hau nudged Pearl a bit, cueing her to speak first.

“Oh…! I’m Pearl”

“I’m Hau! We’re uhh… both 15?”

“Yea! Hau’s older.”

Wicke smiled at the two kindly.

“Oh, wonderful! We don’t get a lot of older challengers, so I hope you’ll be able to understand the work we do better.” she said, and turned back towards the elevator. “I was just up there, but I’d love to show you two Aether Paradise’s ‘main event’”!

Pearl and Hau were interested, and they both got better vibes from Wicke than they did from Faba, so they nodded and followed her into the elevator.

Wicke clicked a button labeled ‘Paradise’, and the door soon closed as the elevator went up.

When the elevator door opened, the three were met with another blast of air – but this time, it felt a bit more natural than that of the docks. They stepped out onto a viewing platform, and what they saw was quite the sight.

It seemed to be exactly what it’s name entailed – it was a ‘paradise’. Trees, water, hills, and plenty of pokemon going about. It was all enclosed in a glass dome, where Pearl could see the sky and the ocean outside.

“This is Aether Paradise! It’s meant to be a home for pokemon that can no longer live in the wild. While our main goal is rehabilitation, some pokemon simply cannot recover, so they can safely live their lives out here!” Wicke explained

“Ohh, I see! What kind of pokemon live here?” Pearl asked in response.

“All sorts! Come down these steps, I’ll show you two all our friends!”

So, Hau and Pearl followed Wicke down from the viewing deck and onto a raised walkway that sprawled like a maze through the lush enclosed world.

Wicke explained the pokemon they passed, and their stories, as they walked by. Many, if not most of the pokemon were in Aether Paradise because of some kind of human interaction – whether it be poaching attempts or released imprinted pokemon.

“I never thought it was this bad… I was always told humans and pokemon lived together in harmony.” Hau muttered, shaking his head.

“Unfortunately, sometimes reality can be cruel.” Wicke said with a downed look, but quickly perked up. “But that’s why we do our best to help them here!”

Suddenly, something behind Pearl and Hau caught Wicke’s attention. She was about to speak, but was interrupted.

“I couldn’t help but overhear! You always do such a wonderful job at tours, Wicke.”

Pearl and Hau turned around to see a woman in a white dress with long platinum blonde hair – like Lillie’s. Actually, she did have quite a resemblance to Lillie, Pearl thought, but she didn’t say anything.

“I hope you two are enjoying my paradise. All those poor pokemon… the imperfection of humanity that hurts them… it’s all rather emotional.” the woman said.

Pearl held her hand up about halfway to speak, but Wicke spoke first.

“Yes, quite…” she responded. “Pearl, Hau, this is Aether Paradise’s CEO and founder, Lusamine.”

“It’s nice to meet you!” Hau said, lifting his hands up behind his head.

“Nice to meet you too.” Pearl said, though she was a bit more reserved than Hau. Something about her tone of voice hit Pearl like she was against cheese grater – it just sounded ingenuine. Pearl always had trouble reading tone when not obviously positive, but she couldn’t shake a bad feeling.

“You two are island challengers, if I’m not mistaken? I do hope you’ll enjoy Aether’s facilities arou-” Lusamine started to advertise, but was quickly cut off by what could almost be described as a rumbling, followed by a bright flash of light.

When her vision cleared, along with everyone else’s, Pearl looked past Lusamine to what seemed unbelievable – it was almost indescribable. Somehow, reality had torn apart – but not in the way Pearl was used to. 

There was a light-filled hole in the open space just above the lifted pathway. And like something out of a horror movie, Pearl and Hau watched in disbelief as… something emerged out of it.

It was unlike anything the two had ever seen before. It definitely wasn’t a pokemon, that’s something Pearl was sure about. It looked like it was made of glass, but moved with the flexibility of gelatin. 

Still… Pearl reached for a pokeball and called out Cherry.

Lusamine was shocked as well, but seemed more startled that Pearl called out a pokemon to try and combat the strange creature.

“Pearl, what are you DOING?!” Hau yelled out, attempting and failing to pull her back.

“I dunno, something? This whole thing screams alien invader, I’m not trusting this thing!”

“Pearl, this isn’t a movie! We need to get out of here!”

Pearl gave Hau a bit of a defiant sneer and yelled out anyways.

“Cherry, use… uh… razor leaf?” she commanded, though she was a bit hesitant. If this thing was a pokemon, she had absolutely no idea what type it was. It kind of reminded her of her mother’s tentacruel, with its tentacles and all, so she took the chance on it being weak to grass.

But it was futile – Cherry was rather slow, after all. The creature quickly lashed out a tentacle that broke like glass on contact with Cherry, then oozed some kind of liquid, which was enough to make Cherry faint.

Rushing to her pokemon, Pearl looked on in horror at the creature, as it seemed to almost ‘dry up’ after only a minute or so of exiting the hole. Its glassy body cracked severely, before it broke into hundreds of pieces, leaving some kind of noxious ooze on the ground.

And, as soon as it had appeared, the hole in reality vanished.

Everyone seemed absolutely shellshocked, except for Lusamine to an extent. It was almost incomprehensible what had just happened, and everyone needed a moment to gather their thoughts – especially Pearl.

Eventually, Hau broke the silence.

“Oh my god, I’m texting Lillie RIGHT NOW.”

“…Lillie?” Lusamine muttered under her breath, before quickly changing to an expression of authority.

“You will not be texting anybody about this. Whatever happened just now will stay between the four of us. Something just happened that no human was supposed to see…”

Pearl, Hau, and Wicke just looked confused. But ultimately, Lusamine’s tone was a bit scary, so they agreed not to say anything – at least for the moment.

Lusamine whipped out a small microphone, and soon her voice echoed across the entire dome.

“I’m calling for an emergency biohazard team on Paradise square E 2. Non-staff visitors, please leave immediately.”

Wicke’s expression grew concerned, and she softly patted Hau and Pearl’s shoulders.

“Let’s get going.”

The two friends were escorted out of the Paradise, and Pearl kept looking behind her at Lusamine, who was standing still facing the remains of the creature.

Wicke called for a water taxi to come pick up Pearl and Hau and return them to Akala, and they both remained relatively silent through the ride home. But once they returned to their hotel room… 

“HOLY SHIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIT.” Pearl sighed as she flopped down onto one of the beds, covering her face with her hands.

“I KNOW, RIGHT??” Hau replied, equally as frustrated. “There’s no way Lillie ISN’T hearing about this… not like she’ll believe me. I think she’d probably be more convinced if it came from you, Pearl.”

“Mmm, maybe I’ll wait until tomorrow. That whole thing kiiiinda killed my vibe.”

“Yea, no, I understand. Let’s just, uh, take it easy.”

For the rest of the night, Pearl’s internet search history was filled with frantic searches about strange glass creatures and holes in reality. She didn’t find anything, which only made her unease worse. Still, she eventually tired herself out at around 3am.

Pearl was still feeling out of it in the morning, while Hau had mostly gotten over it, citing that Hala always said it was best to move forwards instead of dwelling.

Pearl wanted to call her parents, but she was terrified of how seriously they’d take it. They only let her go to Alola because it was the only region without a history of organized crime, but… a strange otherworldly being was something else entirely.

Luckily, Pearl’s mood turned around when she received a text from Lillie.

>Good morning Pearl! You didn’t send anything last night, are you okay?

>>yea i’m good! just had a bit of a funny day at a place called aether foundation

I meant a lot to Pearl that Lillie was looking out for her, if now feeling that it was slightly overbearing.

But after Pearl sent her response, it appeared that Lillie read the message almost immediately – yet didn’t respond. Pearl just assumed she was busy or Kukui called her away for a second, but that thought came up again.

She does look a bit like Lusamine… Lusamine’s reaction… it’s got to be a coincidence, right?

Pearl’s train of thought was cut off by the buzz of her phone, as Lillie had finally responded.

>Oh, Ok.

>I was going to go to Ula’Ula Island to study, would you like to come with me?

>>of course!! i think my next challenge stuff is there anyways 😀

>Ok! We can meet at the professor’s lab, then.

Pearl made her way to Burnett’s lab, where she saw Lillie already waiting outside for her. The two met with a hug, and as Pearl moved to go inside the lab, Lillie stopped her.

“Oh, it’s ok! I already have everything I need, we can get going now!”

“Huh? Nah, I just wanted to say hi to Burnet and Kukui!” Pearl replied.

Lillie’s face grew a bit concerned.

“Well… they don’t really want outside visitors right now. Yesterday afternoon they got some kind of wild breakthrough that they’re closely monitoring and they said they didn’t want interruption.” she sighed.

“But I wanted to do some research of my own! On Nebby. There’s a library in Malie City that supposedly has lots of good information on myths and legends.”

“Oh, neat! We can head there, then! I’m not too worried about speeding through the trials there.” Pearl replied.

She grabbed Lillie’s arm, and the two went off to the ferry.

They both had a fun time reading through a list of tourist attractions in Ula’Ula together on the ferry, pointing out things they wanted to see together. But most importantly, they got their directions to the library Lillie had been wanting to visit.

The city was a bit maze-like, but Lillie and Pearl found their way through eventually. They didn’t quite believe the library building was a library at first, it was so big. And on stepping inside, they were both blown away. 

Truly, it was some kind of mega archive of information. The ceilings were tall, and books were lined all the way to the top. The two were pretty overwhelmed, but Pearl went and asked a librarian for help.

The librarian directed them to the very back of the top floor, where archives on various myths and legends were kept.

It was a bit darker than the rest of the library, simply because it was so out of the way. It also seemed a bit dustier, and Pearl and Lillie were the only ones in the section.

“Wow… some of these books look really old…” Lillie said in awe as she examined the shelves. 

Because they were alone and out of the way, Lillie let Nebby out of her bag for a little bit.

“Who knows, maybe Nebby can find a good lead…” she said to Pearl with a slight laugh.

So, the two went scanning the shelves. A lot of the books were either KanJohtonan based of Sinnohan based – the former as immigrants from the twin nations founded Malie, and the latter as Sinnoh was known for its deep folklore.

Pearl found it a bit disheartening that there was nothing related to Rayquaza at all. She’d always wanted to know more about her mother’s past, but had learned from Zinnia that she was incredibly averse to any form of written record, always preferring word of mouth history. The thought distracted her, until Lillie exclaimed.

“Ah-ha! The Sun and Moon: An examination of Alolan folklore!” Lillie said happily, as she pulled out a dusty book from the shelf. 

Nebby returned to her bag, and the two made their way to a desk to read over the book.

It appeared to be published around 150 years ago, and was written entirely by hand. The handwriting was entirely cursive, and there came the duo’s first problem.

“I… can’t read this.” Pearl said with a frustrated sigh as she looked over the old pages.

“Yeah, I’m having trouble as well… this seemed like the perfect book too, what a shame.” Lillie replied.

As she went to close the book, the two felt someone move close behind them, which made them both jump.

“I can probably read it!” a girl’s voice said.

“WAUGH! What??” Pearl yelped, jumping and turning around.

“Hey, shh!!” Lillie shushed in response. 

The exchange caused the girl behind the two to let out a giggle, with a sly face on.

She was rather short, with lilac hair and a raggedy dress.

“Sorry! I didn’t mean to spook you.” she said. She moved in between Pearl and Lillie to take a look at the book, almost carelessly flipping through the pages.

“Uhm… excuse me, but shouldn’t you treat a book so old more carefully?” Lillie nervously asked the stranger, a bit ruffled at how forward she was.

“Nah, it’s fine! I know this one, my ancestor wrote it!”

“…What?” Pearl interjected.

“Yea! My name is Acerola, I’m, uh… descended from old Alolan royalty! My old old old old old man wrote this, methinks.”

“How did you even know what book we had?” Lillie asked, almost having enough of Acerola’s strange behavior.

“Might’ve been watchin’ ya, nobody visits this section much ‘cept for me.”

“But I didn’t see anyone…?”

Lillie just looked confused, while there was a certain vibe Pearl got from Acerola that she couldn’t quite explain. Still, Pearl appreciated her over-willingness to help.

“Well, it’s cool if you’d be willing to help. I’m Pearl, and my friend Lillie here wants to find out more about like… strange and or otherworldly things.” Pearl said.

“Hmm… I think this book might have some things like that? You’re not talking like, aliens, are you?” Acerola replied.

“At this point, we’ll kind of take anything we can get” Pearl shrugged in response.

With Acerola’s help, Lillie and Pearl went through the old book. A lot of it was about the Island Tapu Guardians, and while interesting, wasn’t quite what Pearl was looking for. But something specific caught Lillie’s eye – a copy of a glyph illustration, colorized.

The illustration featured what didn’t quite seem like a pokemon she could recognize – with a lunar shaped head and wings. The body was colored with purple and dotted with white, almost to indicate a night sky. It was all incredibly stylized, of course, but Lillie called for Acerola to pause.

“What’s this say?” she asked, pointing to the written text near the illustration.

Clearing her throat, Acerola begun reciting;

While investigating Poni Island, I was able to receive esteemed access to ancient ruins built by some of the first people of Alola.

It appears to be dedicated to the moon… but I also keep seeing this odd creature in glyphs, which makes me think it’s not actually the moon after all. 

I asked a descendant of one of Alola’s first people, and they recall the creature is called ‘Lunala’, and could also transform into a creature similar to a pyroar. Apparently, it came out of holes of light for brief visits. Could this be a new legendary pokemon?

The last line hit Pearl like a brick. Was Lunala Nebby? Nebby couldn’t be a legend, could they? Every legend Pearl had met – her mother, Aster, even herself… seemed nothing like Nebby. Pearl didn’t doubt that Nebby was intelligent, but Nebby moreso acted akin to a bratty child, and never once appeared human. And that’s not even mentioning the ‘holes of light’ line, as Pearl recalled her experience the day prior.

Lillie also appeared to be in deep thought, but the two were brought out of their minds by Acerola.

“So? Did that help?” she asked.

Lillie thought for a minute before gaining a determined look.

“Yes! This… I think this is exactly what I need! Thank you so much!” she said to Acerola with a smile.

“I’m glad! And would you look at how late it’s gotten, I better head out. Nice meetin’ y’all!” Acerola replied, stepping back. With a wave, she hopped down the library stairs.

“So…” Pearl started.

“What was your breakthrough today?”

Lillie smiled confidently.

“Well, it’s expanding on some things I already know about Nebby, but…” she paused.

“I think Nebby has the potential to become Lunala, somehow.”

Next Chapter