FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 16

After the intense white explosion faded, Mewtwo had his hand extended outward, grunting as he collapsed forward and caught himself, just as Keldeo was sent flying past him for the unicorn like pokemon to get slammed into the icy walls behind him.

Mewtwo's focus turned back to Vane, the Sablye had changed, and the powerful psychic was fully aware of what kind of transformation he had undergone. Somehow, the Sablye had -made- a mega gem...and he crushed it.

Before them stood a Mega Sablye, cradling the giant purple gem he held up with both hands and just snickering rapidly to himself. His body was melting, but for some reason, turning into more of the goo that splattered across the ground as the Mirrors above them slowly started to rapidly rust. Decay spread through the metal and simply ate it; crumbling bits and pieces had begun to fill the air like the dust in a volcano.

"Hehehehehe, you see it!?" Vane shouted, his voice suddenly much more focused, "You see!? The poison my world goes through! We simply wished to better our world and you abandoned us to this poison! Now you will die with us!"

"You only wish to have a new world to power yours!" Jack's voice shouted out. Rook and him had appeared in the champer's entrance, having finally gotten close enough for Enzlo to pinpoint where Jack wanted them to go within the fortress.

Jack suddenly easily broke free of the purple lasso of psychic energy Enzlo had around him, and he jumped up before the Abra even really could shout out at him.

"Flashfire Frost!" His eyes sparked red and blue as he snapped his fingers towards the mirrors, blue flame leaping to life from where his claws clicked and they coated over the mirrors. Just after, the flames made the sound of rapidly cooling water and encased the decaying Mirrors in ice that kept the shape of the flames that had just been covering it. Even still, it seemed as if the oozing black color of the creeping decay continued to eat along the edges of the frames, turning the bright golden color to a sickly looking red rust. The glass of the mirrors themselves hadn't seemed to begin getting eaten yet though.

"Whaaaaaat are you doing!?" Vane shouted, along with Enzlo, though his first word wasn't as long as the Mega Sableye's.

"Doing what I believe I need to do now..." Jack said a little after he landed on the Mirror. He looked down upon the ice covered glass, the jagged edges of the flame shaped ice made it hard to see, but he could make out the image in all the bits and pieces...he smiled as he saw the image in it, but then lifted up his hand and a long purple claw formed out of dark purple energy that flowed off his arm to extend out a few feet.

"Sorry for this..." Jack sighed and then he slammed his fist downward, the black energy of his claw pierced through his ice and the Mirror itself for the blade to poke out through the back before the energy exploded through the ice to shatter it, and the Mirror, into pieces.

Stunned silence filled the cavern. He broke it. The legendaries, were stunned because it was the sheer audacity of it along with what felt like an impossibility, Vane because it was ruining his plans, and Enzlo because he was torn on what the heck was going on. Rook just watched Jack as the Weaville leapt off the crumbling pieces as it fell from where it'd been floating to the next mirror, and he again plunged his shadow blade into it, the energy exploding out through the ice like a moment of dark veins before it all shattered apart.

As he jumped onto the third mirror his body suddenly locked into place with a purple blue glow around his body. "Hehehe please guys...this has to happen. The decay is already there." He smiled lightly, his head only slightly turning as best it could towards both Mewtwo and Enzlo.

Noticing how Enzlo was locking Jack down, Rook reached up and he swatted at the Abra's head, and the Abra made a surprised and astonished sounding noise, "Please -what- the -heck- is going on!? Since when can he just BREAK them?"

"He's not breaking them." Rook told them sternly, and his muzzle tilted at the shattered pieces of ice, "Look at what he's doing."

Mewtwo pointedly looked, his eyes narrowed to focus on the piles of shattered ice that the other two mirrors had already been reduced to. Several pieces of the mirror's frames that once been either already taken over by decay or just starting to be had now become sludgey black balls of tar trapped in the ice, while the rest of the mirrors were safe...

"I understand. Do it." Mewtwo nodded, and he released his hold on Jack then as well, and the Weaville simply plunged his sword in again.

"Wait what?" Several of the other legendaries said in surprise.

"Jack! Why are you -stopping- it?!" Vane shouted, letting go of the giant gem he had been holding. It clattered to the ground.

"Because destroying them means destroying this world, not the barrier." Jack stated, landing on the last mirror. "The mirror -is- this world. I'm breaking them in pieces so that they're easier to put back together, and whatever parts won't decay."

Vane laughed at him, "That means little! It's already taken hold!"

"It was always here Vane, or should I say Vale? Vane was just the name Mistress Chandelure set to you as a ghost in this world. It was for your own vanity. Fitting." Jack shrugged lightly at the Sableye.

Hearing the other name made the Sableye pause, that grin on his face unchanging though it was obvious he was somewhat stunned, "Wait...that's..."

"That's right Vane, she gave you a new name, to attempt to let you live a new life, even changed it as little as she could for you and let you roam about as free as you wanted. She didn't -have- to do that you know. She knew what you refused to accept."

"Don't..." Vane's voice shook. He already had lost the will to fight. Besides, he realized it, his body was melting, he was decaying so rapidly.

"That the journey over the barrier -had- killed you, and somehow, your spirit had gone through anyway. You knew this, and your human mind just couldn't comprehend it. The world responded to you, to your death, and as you felt yourself float upon the wind...you grasped a stone. You unwittingly sent your energy into it, made it your anchor, and you were turned into a ghost type, and went mad. Karmen found you, only her voice kept you somewhat sane, but then Ruli killed her, of course, that's after she tried to kill him."

"She succeeded in it." Epa's own voice suddenly entered into the conversation. She floated in past Rook and Enzlo at the entrance of the tunnel, and the Lycanroc shuffled away as just after her the other Eeveelution leaders followed after her, spreading out around her steadily with eyes looking about at the deity like pokemon. They were clearly in a bit of shock from the legendaries there.

Epa received a short nudge from Enzlo and he shared to her what he already knew of what'd been said and done so far for them and she nodded, "I appreciate it Enzlo but I already gathered as much, you have all not been particularly quiet."

"Where is Ruli...or Axel...?" The Umbreon Elder looked to Rook for answers, "We were last told he went with you into the blizzard."

"He..." Rook paused. "Is still over there...uh..." He folded his ears back as he saw the bubbling purple puddle. At some point between his last word and then, Vane's body had boiled down into nothing. His purpose was unfulfilled as the mirrors remained.

"Axel is dead." Jack said, snarling. "My final act as...well...as the Devil I was..."

The Weaville gasped as he suddenly felt his arms and legs get bound up and he was lifted up from the ground. Epa's eyes glowed brightly as Jack looked down at her, blue and reddish eyes looking away shortly after as he said, "I completely understand your hate of me...elder...but would you at least let me finish explaining?"

"No! I will not!" Epa shouted, ducking and then filing her head up, as she flung Jack upwards towards the ceiling as hard as her psychic power could, which was actually fairly decent, a good 200 or so mile per hour chuck.

Jack slammed into the ceiling, the ice cracking out from the impact and he just simply stuck there for a short moment, limp, before he peeled and slipped off and then fell down towards the floor, but just before he impacted he was caught again by Epa's energy and she lowered her head.

"Enough!" Rook barked before she could follow through on the motion again, "You didn't hurt him anyway." He sighed.

"Hehehe." Jack's eyes peeked open as he floated, his body was scratched up, but he seemed unperturbed. "My pain receptors are frozen...I feel nothing...you can break and shatter me if you wish, but I hate pain."

"Not something someone like you should claim immunity to!" Enzlo shouted from atop Rook's head.

"Oh my gosh yes I know everyone has reason to hate me I know..." Jack snarled again. "See though...ya can't even kill me...I'm like Rook now."

"What...?" Enzlo gripped at Rook's ear and pulled on it, pointing at Jack with his other paw, demanding, "Is he talking about...now..." He snarled at the Lycanroc.

"Enzlo...I can't explain that."

"I can!" Jack shouted, lifting a claw into the air from where he was still hanging from Epa's hold. "Hehe, we're of the Corsova! Enzlo is no longer part of it, Tod kicked you out to save you!"

Enzlo froze for a few seconds as he stared at Jack, and Rook balked, "A-at my request!"

"What?!" Enzlo shouted, and he started pulling on Rook's ear again, hard. The strength Enzlo had for an Abra was surprising, the Lycanroc whining as he tilted his head back.

"It was to keep you from having to fade away like he has to!" Rook said it quickly in defense.

"Don't remember what he said in the vision?!" Jack shouted. "'I'd rather never get my companion pokemon than see you make this mistake that is unfair.' I know -you- don't remember or know of it but it's a conversation Rook had with his soul on the boat while you snoozed in your head! He showed me in the Reality Projection! Tod always knew that as a human -his- soul had to fade away in this world. If he fades away, YOU go with him! So...Tod kicked you out of the clan! You might say you were a part of us, I'll let you do that because you -were- a far better member than me, but you're no longer a part of it! When I die, Rook won't fade, cause I -already- broke that rule! He's no longer my companion pokemon! Rook's soul loops upon itself so he can exist without me!"

"How...much time did you guys spend there...?" Enzlo asked to Rook as he was receiving the information mostly as they thought of it themselves instead. He certainly didn't remember being kicked out of the clan...but he figured based on what Jack said, that Tod had simply blocked out the memory for the Abra before he threw him out of the Reality Projection. The Abra had found that comment to have been somewhat strange...even had felt a little bit blindsided by the comment himself when Tod had said it. It had stung to hear his human say such a thing, even if the event itself had actually already passed.

"A lot..." Rook sighed, "As much as we felt was needed anyway."

Suddenly in the middle of Jack's chest the red energy core in his body burned bright, and blackish veins started to spread through his chest from it. Now the Weaville did actually wail out in pain, as everyone in the clearing stared at him as the veins clawed their way through him from the core, spreading along his white furred chest until it was half covered in black lines, the skin around the core had become sickly looking.. The red glow dimmed quickly and Jack sighed as he slumped in the air, panting.

"S-sorry...body uh...body eating itself...soul too powerful." He panted, his voice had gained the echoing quality once more. "Look...too much to explain...too little time...take the mirror pieces that aren't corrupted by decay and remake new frames out of whatever you can. While the pieces are still frozen the barrier is still in place but they'll only stay frozen while I'm still alive. You'll need to fix them back together quick after. That will keep the barrier from falling apart." He went silent.

As no one actually said or did anything for a solid ten seconds though Jack just sighed, "Or just stand there and watch as I slowly get eaten by my own soul and then the world falls apart anyway, that's fine." He looked at Rook, "Rook, please do what we discussed we'd do.."

"Right..." Rook said, and he approached the pile of ice covered mirror pieces of the first mirror, and he reached into his mane to pull out a Rock Blade. With a short and quick motion, Rook sliced the air in front of himself above the shards, and a thin black line appeared in the air above it. Stabbing his sword into the ground next to him he then seemed to grab the line with his paws and then stretched it out, revealing a white portal of light beyond the line. To Rook...he saw another world on the other end, to everyone else, just whiteness, a blank opposite to the void of darkness.

"Hey! Ya hear us?" Rook shouted at the portal.

For a long moment, the legendaries started on in amazement at seeing the "gate" be created so easily, but shortly after Rook's call many voices all started to shout back at once. The multitude of voices cascaded into the ice cave, unintelligible to all but the legendaries, and Enzlo, who had the mental capacity to divide them all.

"Ah! No! All of you, be quiet!" Rook barked, growling loudly, "Only -some- of you are going to get to talk but first you're all going to listen very carefully to what I'm saying. Assuming by now that all of you are keenly aware of what's going on- I said be quiet!" He barked it again, his eyes glowing a bright purple upon the white portal in front of him, his mane of fur made a rattlesnake like noise as it shook and quivered..

The noise from within the portal was quick to suddenly become silent then, and Rook growled as he continued, "As I was saying, your world is dying, duh if you don't know it. You guys...a whole lot of you don't deserve what's coming...-some- of you do." Rook growled deeply, "And you know who you are..."

"I'm going to reach something out to you, and you're welcome to take it as you do, but if you -think- you're "Welcome" here, you'd be wrong." The Lycanroc continued. "At the same time...you do not deserve to suffer the final fate of the actions of your ancestors."

"My name is Rook." The Lycanroc said as he pulled his sword back up out of the ground, as in his grasp, it molded from a sword form into that of a handle at the end, and then he thrust it forward into the white portal. "Grasp the handle, and I will pull you through."

A single voice called back, "I know your name...why should we trust you?"

Rook just grinned, "Cause you're out of options, and I'm offering you my hand and a way out of your spiraling despair of the inevitable end that was bought for you in the past. If you're not aware, you've lost this 'war'." He drooled out the word to show how absolutely ridiculous it made it sound. "You lost the moment we left nearly 20,000 years ago. Do you accept it or not?"

No one answered back, but Rook felt the contact upon his weapon even through the portal. Many hands were grasping onto it all at once from several different points of contact; this portal he had opened in front of every group or individual human he could sense on the other side of the mirror. To him, only a single portal, but to them, many at once at different points in the world.

"For those that haven't yet, this is your last chance, counting down...five..." Rook somewhat snickered as he felt several more hands, "Come one guys, ya seriously think I'm doing any trick? Why would I bother literally opening the door for you?"

"Four." He felt several more and rumbled.

"Three...two...one..."

And then he yanked, and with the end of his weapon, came a sudden string of humans that seemed to pour out into a pile over the next several dozen seconds, one at a time tumbling out upon the cave floor to flop over a top each other into a wriggling, confused pile, wearing disheveled clothing torn and some bloodied, looking near starved and weak.

Their bodies were quick in reaction, as they all began to rapidly seem to melt as they steadily pulled themselves apart from each other from the resulting pile, their flesh shifting and morphing and those that had enough energy watched their arms and legs shifting and changing, some having their clothing simply fall off their now smaller bodies or tearing apart as they outgrew them. They turned into several different species, too many that Rook wanted to really pay attention to as he turned his blade in his paw and turned back to the portal, slipping the back of the sword back up across the cut portal and it seemed like it zipped back up, and then the cut he had made in space above the mirrors sealed up with the sound of electric static.

"Hehe..." Rook giggled, turning back towards the pile of humans that had just turned pokemon. "So...who wants food?"

There was a mix of annoyed glares and desperate, gleaming eyes with the sound of several growling stomachs. Rook grinned slyly.

"Hehe, follow me, all of you, -DON'T-...." The Lycanroc made his eyes wide as he fixed his glare on all of the humans turned pokemon in a wide, sweeping stare to all of them, "stray, don't speak, don't even acknowledge anything that is said to you by anyone but myself, that Abra," Rook pointed at Enzlo, who straightened up in surprise while looking around at the multiple faces looking at him, "Or Mewtwo, who I'm trusting is willing to be the voice of the Legendaries for us?" The Lycanroc ended it as a question in his voice, eyes raised in thought towards him. As a human made legendary, Rook hoped he'd be at least -somewhat- impartial.

The powerful psychic sighed and he rolled his eyes, nodding, "Ya, sure." He hated this honestly, but he knew Rook had a point.

"Jack will keep explaining all the rest to the rest of you while I, Mewtwo, Enzlo, and the Eeveelutions will handle these new pokemon." Rook was pointed in telling them they were pokemon.

"I will follow you." Epa stated, eyeing all the humans rapidly herself, her eyes narrowed firmly in thought. She clearly didn't like this either. "This goes far beyond what we agreed to..." She glared over at Enzlo, the Abra stammered again but Rook responded instead.

"Enzlo's plan is still here, it's just now a much different end." Rook told Epa. "So please. Let Jack down...he's going to die anyway, he's got like...two days left."

"By this time in maybe less than 45 hours I'll look like a shriveled bean..." Jack chuckled darkly from where he floated, the eyes of the humans turned pokemon all stared up at him in surprise, awe, and even to Jack himself, disgusting reverence... "I -was- going to use this to tear through the world while I could, and leave a huge crater like wound on the land in my wake. Even if you guys brought Rook in front of me, like this, me and him would've just battled it out for hours until I ran out of energy but...I like this better. For what it's worth...I never meant this to be where everything went..." He sighed, before he was suddenly just let go and fell to the ground with a grunt.

Epa suddenly stood up, something that caught the elders by surprise. Epa's fur was bristling, as she snarled towards Jack and hissed. The Espeon suddenly turned and stepped twice in retreat before she began to float again, but still kept rapidly gaining distance as she departed back down the tunnel. The other Elder's watched her march away so suddenly. She didn't even send any kind of mental order she just stalked off.

This caught Rook off guard too. "Uh...well...I guess she's not coming after all...?"

________________________

"So this is how this is going to work," Rook began to explain to the assembled, and so far very passive and quiet humans turned pokemon as they sat in front of him, all quickly eating piles of berries and food that had been given to them about an hour later in one of the regions larger buildings. This particular building was actually the main guild hall for the region. It was spacious and had a chimney and campfire in the middle, with several other rooms off to the sides where supplies were stored along with several of them being guild member lodgings.

Mewtwo stood just somewhat behind the Lycanroc, watching the gathered pokemon sternly and Enzlo was sitting upon Rook's shoulder's once more as the Lycanroc kept explaining what was going to happen to them. Basically, their minds were going to be erased of all knowledge except what was considered "general life skills and knowledge", erased of the knowledge that they were once human. They will be aware of this being done like others there would be, but unable to recall it being done to themselves, ever, and could either choose a name of their own, or eventually have someone else suggest one to them that they could accept. A group of Eeveelutions would be assigned to 'guard' and watch them for a time, to insure that they mingled naturally into the pokemon who were already in this world; none of the pokemon would be told new humans had been brought into the world, and they would be free to go wherever they wanted in the world and interact with it in anyway they wished otherwise.

A few of them became upset when told that they would need to forget they were ever human, but Rook carefully explained to them that this plan was to force the pokemon of this world to accept them. They would -appear- as and -think- they themselves were just normal pokemon. "It is the only way for you to actually -have- a new life here." Rook pushed.

Enzlo and Mewtwo then both gave the gathered human's knowledge of the already established laws of the markets, the kinds of things available to them, laws established around battling, and other means of getting resources.

And thus, they were given a quick snap of the finger.

___________________________

"So much happening all at once..." Ruli said softly with a smile, as he sat upon the slowly melting snow of the blizzard. It was the middle of the day, the sun was bright, it was warm...

And yet here his mate lay...quiet...empty...

They hadn't been fast enough...when Ruli had seen it, felt it happen, as Jack's rage finally pierced into Axel's soul and the Weaville's hate and despair completely overtook even the hopeful and optimistic Eeveelution...who then gave up his energy that Jack used to make his blizzard larger still...

"Why couldn't I even feel rage when I saw him..." Ruli pondered to himself, thinking back at when he and Rook had found the Weaville in mid stabbing of Enzlo. He just kind of snickered and shook his head, "Perhaps it just was because what we found was so...unreal to me..." Ruli looked down upon Axel's bodie beside him. "Damn it..."

The Mega Lucario suddenly slouched forward to hold his head in his paws, crying out yet smiling, "Stupid...stupid...you stupid good hearted fool...this should've been me...you told me to go on that ship..."

"You're far more pokemon now than human Zane." A voice lightly, but warmly said, and Ruli pulled his head up to see the star shaped legendary that floated down in front of him.

"Jirachi..." Ruli said, somewhat surprised, and his heart pounded, "Why are you...here?"

"Hehe...cause...Rook's heart is pure too." He chuckled, and he held out his tiny hand to let a small yellow spark float down to Axel's body. A wish.

And suddenly Axel's body jerked as he took in a sudden and forceful breath of air and shot up, eyes wide and shouting out "WHA!!!!" He was quick in jumping up to his feet, crying out as to him it was like he was being jump started out from the moment he'd been brainwashed. "JACK! He's here! He's-!" He was cut off as suddenly Ruli tackled him, crying.

_______________________

Just a few moments earlier. Jirachi had pulled Rook aside after his talk with the humans turned pokemon. The legendaries were welcoming him, the Bright Star, back into their fold. He'd fulfilled the plan...in maybe a slightly different way...but he'd still done it, and they wanted to give him what most pokemon who fulfilled such services for Arceus received. A wish.

But knowledge of what had happened made that an easy one for the Lycanroc.

"That's my wish..." Rook stated firmly. "Bring Axel back."

"Are...are you sure...I mean..." The wish pokemon looked upon Rook firmly, "You know what you have to do if you use this one wish for that..."

Rook just nodded, "I did it before...I can do it again."

Jirachi smiled then and he giggled, "I figured...Bright Star."

"Not that anymore, and if I ever was, just leave those memories locked..." Rook huffed, folding his arms. "Now I'm just Rook."

_______________________

The next day.

Jack's body now looked halfway...blank. The white and blue fur of his body was overtaken by the pure black that slowly spread from the beating red core in his chest, like poison through his own blood that now covered down to his waist and along most of his arms and had began crawling up his neck. He'd experience a sharp and sudden pain every few hours where it slowly ate across more of his body. This was an inevitable death. Unlike Rook's, Jack's soul was not strong like a pokemon's, it could not loop upon itself like he had made Rook's do in his experiments upon him.

Currently, the Weaville sat in front of Epa with Rook sitting beside him. The weasel looked very weary, his body burning in pain as it was slowly being consumed by his soul. Epa had just called the both of them into her den, now that they'd finally gained a moment without others hounding them for questions or for directions on what it was -they- were trying to accomplish, Epa now had words of her own to give.

"I've seen this scheme the both of you hold in your heads."

Rook folded his arms and huffed, "Not much of a scheme...it's just a plan. What do you dislike about it?"

"The sheer "ridiculousness" of it?" Epa snarled, her head snapping between the two of them rapidly, "I mean seriously!? Here I am with the DEVIL in my den-!"

"Oh will you shut your all knowing arrogance for once? Blasted Psychic-" Jack's interjection was just as forcefully cut off as rudely as he tried to interrupt her by Epa's psychic energy, easily wrapping around his snout and shutting his lips sealed, resulting in muffled noises as he began shouting increasingly vile things.

"The plan you see in our heads is something that's -already- been done Epa...look again." Rook pointedly said then, looking at Epa's eyes, and then upon the gem upon her forehead, where the Lycanroc knew her species channeled their psychic energy. At Rook's words, even Jack's head snapped back to Rook, unable to speak his desire for explanation, and the Lycanroc gave a knowing grin.

Epa's attitude quickly softened, as she saw the new knowledge the Lycanroc gave to her. "Oh..."

The Espeon took a slow, deep breath. "The Eeveelutions are with you then. Though I still don't like it."

Rook gave a light smile, "I didn't really like it when I found it out either, but...it's the best plan we have."

____________

"What do you mean it's "already been done"?" Jack growled out to his Lycanroc about an hour later after he managed to get them away from Epa and other pokemon, hiding away within a cave that the Lycanroc himself had carved out of the icy mountain. The legendaries and others were now busy in preparing new frames for the mirrors, finally affording them another moment to talk.

"You're actually keeping something from me." Jack realized, his eyes going somewhat wide in surprise. "This all already happened hasn't it...?"

Rook tilted his head with a grin, "Your plan...in a different reality, came through just as you thought it would. Only difference was, I saved Enzlo, while you and Tod faded." The Lycanroc reached out to pull at his own toes as he continued explaining, "Vane did exactly what you knew he was doing, he corrupted the mirrors, they slowly decayed and, without you there to freeze them and stop it, they shattered and broke, one after the other. Five out of the Seven Mirrors were shattered, and it left only two...the Espeon and Umbreon's Mirrors, Mirrors of Light and Darkness."

Rook looked out across the landscape in front of them, over the forest beyond that was slowly melting off the snow that had covered the tops of the trees from Jack's blizzard. "Rifts began to rip open across the world, nature decayed and became dead around them and...things that looked like pokemon but weren't began to pour out of them. Their power levels were somewhat normal, but they did not pull back in battle and went to kill, feral in nature and mind. The residual hate and spite and anger of all towards our world."

"Allowed in through my actions..." Jack seemed to add in, to which Rook snickered.

"Yes...you allowed them in, but no, they weren't there because of you. They were always here. They are always there, even -before- your ceremony. They will always be trying to get here, and always be trying to destroy it. I know that now." Rook said lightly. "They have to...they have to be allowed to try...just as I am here to stop them, and just as everyone else is here to stop them too. They are here even right now..." Rook looked down. "Decay...Elements in rage...Demons and Angels, Warlords and Saints. Everything is here."

Rook looked up, "In another reality Enzlo didn't survive too...I discovered these truths on my own...and I...decided to end it all..." He frowned deeply. "I turned on this world...just like -you- believed I might. I turned on the "god", I became a monster as I raged against them, and laughed and grinned my way through rivers of blood as I slaughtered all who stood in my path...I destroyed everything, everyone...shattered all the Mirrors, and when they were all gone...I was swallowed by that darkness too. Darkness wins that one."

"My greatest fear...as the Bright Star...was that my purpose was never in my own control. When I discovered it to be true...I felt...cheated. I demanded my existence, challenged my god to it, and lost. I thought I would be flung...but instead I was reborn." Rook paused, trying to think on how to say this to Jack. "I was given existence...but it was as -your- companion. I was there to help -you- and have a life of my own in doing so, but then your own Elders did something my own god didn't expect in refusing to even see you, which prevented you and me from going on a journey where together, we might have actually just made the world a better place as trainer and pokemon, battling in leagues and helping others built a different, far more 'normal' feeling life...and instead we had this huge mess...but in it...I was shown the even deeper truth." Rook sighed and took a breath, "That -your- existence...is what -fueled- mine. That god had never been my "creator"..." The Lycanroc looked at Jack pointedly.

Jack stared at Rook, "You..."

"I've only ever been your pokemon Jack...I'm Rook...not the Bright Star. My power -is- his, but -he- no longer exists. He was ripped by that god, and his power placed into me, and then I was just...given to you. Now I have to take the Bright Star's place...or rather, return to his duties."

"You keep saying "that god" Jack stated, swallowing as he tried not to focus on what Rook had actually just told him. "What are you talking about...?"

Rook grinned again as he clasped his hands together. "I'm gonna have to try and tell you about a lot of things that I myself don't really understand quite as much hehe, but I will try to...but to make it make sense, start with the bases of the Corsova."

"Skip those I know those." Jack growled.

"Hehe right, yeah. Now, take those bases, and flip them."

"You mean...oppose them?"

"No, just flip them. Flip their meanings."

"That's..." Jack paused a moment, "That's not possible."

Rook lifted an eyebrow, and he peered at Jack, "It isn't?"

The Lycanroc giggled and he rumbled, "Energy and life are all around us, they mix and intermingle to create things. Everything is all around you. The opposites of the Corsova's teachings exist at just the same time as their own do. Therefore...it is not hard to understand that chaos controls itself by allowing itself, while order controls itself by forcing its order upon itself. Both statements mean the same thing, something is controlling itself. The secret to any existence is that there are two. We exist between chaos and order, their forces mix into ours to create it. There was your world...and there is this one. Where now one is gone...the other remains, because instead of bringing the whole of that world here...I simply brought -some- of it...and its core..." The Lycanroc looked at Jack's chest where that beating core was.

Jack listened to his pokemon speak and something actually ended up making sense to the Weaville. His world was gone, consumed. His knowledge of the teachings of the Corsova told him it was his fault. In leaving the clan, he strayed, and his power, his control over the fate of that world, skewed it onto a path that ended in death for all, his revenge in being denied his wishes by those who felt they had full control on him split upon all those -they- had control of after all. He destroyed a world, let it be consumed. Rook saved the last of its people.

As the last remaining human Corsova member of that world...he was all that remained of it. Tod was gone...faded...his soul submerged into the energy of this one. Rook and Enzlo were here, but they were pokemon. Them being of the Corsova only allowed them deeper understanding of what their world was, but for someone like Jack.

Jack already knew what it all meant, "I'm now the engine of the other world..."

"That's right, and as it's connected to -this- world by being in it already." Rook continued.

"When I die it doesn't matter if the mirrors are put back together like I told them...Rifts are going to start appearing anyway, as that darkness, the hate and anger and everything...seeps into here anyway through the little slips and cracks that my own soul can make. Our worlds have still become two different mirrors...one in which there is everything, and another in which there is nothing...but hungering void." Jack sighed and he slumped. "I wish you were a psychic type, you could just let me -know- what I need."

"He doesn't." And then from the side of the cave, where the light touched the the shadow cast by the light upon the cave wall, Riley's shadowy body pulled out from the stone, though he was for some reason keeping his back to Jack. "I do. I already know it all too..."

"So does Ruli." Rook said lightly.

"And...?" Jack said softly, looking first at his pokemon, then to Riley, whom he remembered was the boy who had battled him in the lab, and the knowledge of what he had done to him... "Why tell me all this? I'm going to die anyway right?"

"No, you're not." Riley rolled his eyes, and he reached into the pouch he held. He pulled out a red, squarish device.

"A...pokedex?" Jack pondered, his eyes narrowing at the archaic kind of thing. Or rather at least, such devices were usually kept on phones themselves now, digital rather than separate databases. Perhaps that was a mistake...trainers without cell service wouldn't be able to get information on pokemon...

Jack quickly threw the thoughts invading his line of thought away before he huffed, "Explain..." He said, the edge of "How does this help me?" obvious.

"Jack remember, I told you, it already happened." Rook sighed, but he explained, "Just uh...start writing your knowledge of pokemon into it firstly while I keep explaining." The Weaville grunted but he began doing what he was told quite willingly. He had a feeling on what this was meant to accomplish.

"So, I told ya about those other realities-"

"Let me, he needs to hear it from someone that isn't going to coat it with sugar." Riley snarled at Jack, though his words were directed at Rook, whose eyes looked up and rolled in thought before he nodded.

"Yeah actually you're probably right, go for it."

Riley's body exploded out into a wide expansion of purple clouds with red eyes to block out the light from outside the cave, leaving only Rook's glowing purple eyes, Riley's red ones, and Jack's blue in the darkness. All the eyes surrounded Jack's face as Riley's voice boomed.

"YOU BLOODY GREMLIN YA NEARLY TORE APART ALL OF OUR REALITY!!! PUT YOUR DAMN KNOWLEDGE IN THAT POKEDEX SO YOU CAN LIVE ON AS A GHOST TYPE IN THE NEW WORLD ROOK'S GOING TO MAKE!!! YOU KILLED ME AND THAT'S WHY I CAN'T CONTROL MY RAGE RIGHT NOW, THIS IS THE RAGE I HELD AT YOU AS YOU KILLED ME!!! I'LL ADMIT YOUR LOOK OF STUNNED HORROR IS GREATLY SATISFYING!!! I HONESTLY CAN'T STAND LETTING YOU LIVE YOU DAMN MURDERER BUT ROOK'S RIGHT YOUR DESTINY WAS NEVER ACTUALLY IN YOUR CONTROL EVER SINCE THEY DENIED YOU!!!"

Jack just stammered, his mouth hanging open and Riley ended his rush of words just in time for lances of pain to rush through him from his chest. He dropped the pokedex to the ground where it clattered, but thankfully the thing wouldn't break so easily as Jack shook in pain as the black lines inched across more of his body. Riley's own body quickly sucked back to his Marshadow form as Jack shook and then rolled onto the rocky ground, before Rook's paw scooped down to catch the Weaville as he went through the pain.

When it finally faded, Jack ended up laughing, "Holy shit! Hahahahah! Dude! I don't really think anything I did to -you- compares to having your own soul ripped apart! Again, for what it's worth, it's not what I wanted!" He just laughed again. "But that's besides the point. I'm sorry." He suddenly went still, and he blinked up at the ceiling, his paw reached for that pokedex as he brought it back up, and he quickly returned to what he had been doing with it. He smiled, but tears started to flow from his eyes.

Rook and Riley continued to explain everything to him.

The person he had killed...the people he had harmed...the pokemon he had abandoned...

He understood it now...in the original reality this world experienced...he had succeeded in his goal to shatter those five mirrors and forced a stalemate between his world and this one...an eternal war of light versus dark as the elements the other mirrors held in order went spiraling into chaos, resulting in a world where pokemon battled the very forces of nature itself to survive what they themselves represented. Brutal storms became normal, and they adapted and evolved to suit it, building homes underground or in more fortified ways. Rifts appeared at points around the world where life was overtaken by decay, and strange black creatures resembling pokemon with green eyes appeared that would kill other pokemon on sight...Wraiths, they came to be called. The guild organizations that already existed here became more army-like, set up posts close to rifts and kept these creatures from over-running the world by going into the Rifts themselves and destroying them directly, but something about the Wraiths just made them keep reappearing deep inside the Rifts too.

The Rifts themselves could actually be explored, somehow taking on maze-like qualities that changed every week or month depending on the rift. Not all the creatures inside them felt the same in power either. Treasures began to appear in them after a few years for some reason, gems, pieces of magical cloth, seeds of power. It became a profession to be a Rifter, someone who delved deep into the Rifts and gathered treasures within them, but you had to get back out before the Rift closed and scrambled itself, or else you became "lost".

With the five mirrors that held order on the five elements they represented shattered, the world itself would've torn itself apart, if not for Enzlo, whose considerable power alone allowed him to monitor those elements for the world. In doing so, he locked himself into a cage of sorts where he controlled the rage of the elements. He was further locked into time by Dialga

Rook who in that reality had only just been following Enzlo's directions, stepped into a portal...to be set upon a different path where he was judged by Palkia, Dialga, and Giratina, before being set upon a quest through realms. He was reluctant to share most details to Jack, but explained that it had been a very, very long journey in which he visited multiple other realms of reality to find a new source of power for this world. However, in this journey, the wording of such a mission was not the actual need his world required, and it was something he came to realize only very far into it.

It didn't need power. It needed an Anchor. Something to keep it held in place among the torrent of Chaos that was the plane their reality was hovering so close to being consumed by. So that when they inevitably did dip into it, they could survive through the Anchors.

So instead that's what he found. In fact...he had already found several hundreds. Rook had connected bits of his soul to those of other worlds close to, and far from, their own. Worlds similar to theirs filled with pokemon, others of war where conflict continuously decided who had power, worlds of nature where life and death cycled in loop, of magic and science and the supernatural clashing upon each other. And then he returned to this world, 4000 years into its future with that new source of power, The Anchors, but without actually feeling it until it was needed. Rook sealed up the Rifts, one at a time, and freed Enzlo, who then told him something further, and Rook was sent on one last mission...to save Jack.

For that, this world had to be restarted one last time. And that was where they were now...

In sealing up the Rifts they also ended up igniting a war between pokemon of that original world because they'd come to rely on the treasures the Rifts provided to have a "profession" as Rifters...that was a whole other story...

Jack now understood something he'd never considered as a Corsova. It had never been just his world and this world. It was them. It was these. It was those. They were all there too. The "engine" of that lost world had to decay...but he'd live on with them as something else. Rook...was now the engine of -this- world. And he would never die.

They were giving him this...outside of the eyes and ears of the others...his sworn enemy and the pokemon he'd betrayed...because they already knew no one else out there would understand except maybe Enzlo, the Legendaries, and other ghosts...

For this world to move on, Jack the Devil had to die.

But Jack of the Corsova could go on.

Or perhaps a different name.

"Are you going to be my Lord, Riley?" Jack snickered among the silence suddenly after it had fallen upon them at some point, while he was programming his knowledge of pokemon into the blank pokedex. One at a time, short and quick explanations of their abilities and what to expect of them. Infusing his own knowledge and thereby parts of his own soul upon it.

"Ugh no." The Marshadow huffed, again pointedly keeping his back turned to Jack. As long as he didn't -look- at who killed him, he wouldn't freak out. "Just let Mistress Chandelure have you, she's nice."

___________________

Three days Later.

Jack the Devil was dead, his body consumed, the red core dulled to a white husk and his body black and wrinkled. Consumed by the very void that had run through his soul.

It was buried deep within the base of Mt Frostnip by Rook, who sealed the body up within a small cave deep within the earth so that he would never be disturbed. The location of his body would be kept hidden between those in the know of the events that took place over the last several days. But still, news travels on the wings of the flying types, as they say. Rumors and conjecture among the pokemon who survived the chaos that had momentarily engulfed their world demanded answers, demanded something be done for those who had been slain.

The Eeveelutions and Guild Council both knew they could not just do or say nothing to the world. So it was that something new was rapidly created...a printing press, courtesy of Riley's memory, and then paper was taken to begin making this world's first newspapers.

Now, rather than carry rumors, flying types could carry actual news.

Nether waited with his feet hanging over the edge of the dock as he sat, watching up into the air as several Pelippers had actually just began flkying through the sky, their mouths all filled with dozens of papers that each would carry to every small town of the region, the continent, and beyond. He then looked down upon his reflection in the water as it looked back up at him.

"Nether!" Rook shouted as the Lycanroc finally walked through the bushes, following the path from the nearby town towards the dock that the New Era was docked at.

"About time! I'm so tired of all the meetings!"

"Hehe, you did have a whole lot more of them than I did huh?" Rook snickered lightly. "Becoming the new Admiral for that navy is going to be quite a task."

Nether waved his paw back and forth rapidly, "They gotta -make- the stupid things first before we can even move into that! I wanna get back out onto the open sea! I'm tired of being landlocked where everyone can pin where I am! When they're ready for me they can use our Espeon sailor to contact me. Are ya here to be my first mate or not?"

Rook snickered lightly. He appreciated the captain's single mindedness in his freedom, but he also felt a little disappointed by it. "Come on Nether relax a moment. All the planning is over, at least, everything that you and I are needed for now. I wanna talk with you about something...yes, I wanna be your first mate, but I also wanna do something else..."

This made the Typhlosion smile widely. "Lay it on me."

So it was that Nether was convinced, after Rook told him his plans, and agreed to keep his ship docked, and to suffer the feeling of land under his legs, for a bit longer than he originally thought.

_____________________

About four hours later.

Within the chamber of the Mirrors, the Legendaries gathered together as requested by Enzlo and Rook. The Mirrors now appeared cracked, chipped, but set back together and firmly held by new frames.

"The Mirrors are cracked, but not broken, so that means the barrier between ours and the darkness beyond holds. There's nothing in the human world anymore, nothing but creatures that wish to destroy everything else, things consumed by something else that wants nothing but to consume. An absence of nature. It is something that exists here already." Rook tried to explain, "Decay, Death, War...it is everything that does not exist here that believes it should. We deny its existence, therefore it seeks to destroy us by what it is forced to create in doing so. Creatures bent on destruction, without mercy of life. An opposite to what we are. They will always exist, as they -must- be allowed to."

"I have no doubt that even right now, somewhere in this world, in some caves, or out in the middle of some fields, that tears are being opened, tears through which 'things' are pouring out, and then this world is turning them into pokemon, like a mold with clay. These things have no minds, they have no thoughts." Rook shook his head at the legendaries there, "They are not pokemon, they are merely given that form in this world. As time goes on, more and more of these Rifts are going to open until there are dozens, if not at least a hundred of them."

Rook lifted a paw, "Some of them are strong, very strong, enough to give even some of you legendaries a tough time, others and most are more the level of strength of the pokemon I've met in the guild, or like Pangoro and Infernape and the Eeveelutions. They could all handle them no problem, working as a large team and fighting one or two at a time. The guilds here could also handle most of them without issue, they fight -as- pokemon but are not."

"And their goal is simply...to destroy us...?" Mewtwo asked the Lycanroc

"Our side of existence is now filled with things, while theirs is empty. Where nothing exists, there is no rationality. Nothing desires only more nothing."

"And yet you claim it's possible to pass through the Rifts and...exist there?"

Rook smiled slightly, "Through the mixing of our world and theirs through the Rifts, parts of our world are taken into theirs, where it becomes chaotic energy. In a place where nothing desires only nothing, that energy is molded into the simplest forms of existence that void can force it to become. Walls. Floors. It becomes a maze, never ending. The longer the Rift remains, the wider and deeper it becomes."

Rook closed his eyes and continued, "However, I believe that -something- does still exist in that void. Every week, or every month for some of them, the Rifts seal, before opening back up, retaking new energy and creating entirely new mazes and letting out more Wraiths. Anyone caught inside the Rifts when they sealed were nowhere to be seen in the new mazes, and were "Lost". Whatever is doing this though is on our side, for by sealing and letting these Rifts open back up, it prevents the Rifts from swallowing the entire world."

"And that goes back to where you explained to me about your "Original" world." Mewtwo nodded. "Where you had to find an "Anchor" to seal the Rifts shut before the ever expanding Mazes eventually grew to a size big enough that it could "Swallow" our world."

"So the question comes to, who is sealing the rifts?" Darkrai asked.

"It's Tod." Rook smiled, and so did Enzlo, as Rook already explained this to him. "Only a member of the Corsova can overcome the grip of the void." Rook bounced on his feet and snickered, "Come ooooooon Mewtwo, Mew, you both already see what I wanna do! Let me do it!"

"I'll admit I really like what I see in his head." Mew giggled next to his 'brother', though the smaller cat kind of twisted and coiled in the air rather than floated and stood on it.

"It is very...intricate, but do we really want to go into this with that kind of setup...?" Mewtwo pondered.

Rook made an scoffing noise, "Dude I'm only asking for control in case something needs -done-, you can all keep yourselves busy doing the rest of it as you do. The Eeveelutions and the Council have already seen and agreed! Hehehehe afterall, this was -my- reward."

"What...?" Mewtwo's eyes narrowed.

Rook patted his chest with a closed fist, "I was once the Bright Star. I challenged a god to a contest where if I won, he'd give me a world where challenges were never ending, if I lost, I'd be flung to the void. I lost, but I'm the Bright Star! I NEVER LOSE!" Rook's eyes flashed and began to glow brightly with yellow light as he said the last words loudly, not the typical purple glow he'd shown so far. Rook then playfully shrugged, "But I accept defeat. I can't beat a god of existence. So I made a different deal with them."

For some reason, this made Mewtwo laugh, "Ahahahaha! So you just...? Found a different way to overcome them! Ahahahah! You...Hah! With the Rifts and Wraiths coming...challenges are never ending...hah!" He couldn't help but laugh more.

"And thus the Bright Star was returned, and "His" plan achieved." Enzlo giggled out.

Rook, his eyes still glowing yellow, grinned widely and giggled as well, "Yup, all part of the plan! Whoever's it is doesn't matter! So, ya with me?" He held out his paw to Mewtwo and Mew.

Enzlo floated up and he put his paw out over Rooks. "I'm with him, as his "Chronologicar." I'll help keep track of this new world's "History" and keep things making "Sense" heh."

"I'm gonna handle the world's land." Rook grinned, "That is my element, afterall. So I'll be holding everything in place~" Rook looked out along the other Legendaries, "I'm gonna make a guild, but gonna put Ruli in charge of it, its uh...members I've hand selected hehe, but I myself otherwise am going to become a...delivery person of sorts. I've already talked to Nether, and he's agreed to some additions and extensions to his ship, the New Era, and then we'll begin circling the result of what we create here...delivering what we have where we can."

Mewtwo smiled, "I see what you envision. I like its concept. You say you will work with us to help mold it further, I agree."

"I do too!" Mew added in, but of course he had already said he liked what he saw.

"The rest of the Legendaries are with you as well, I feel. We will continue our duties as Legendaries within your new world." Mewtwo nodded, "I will speak with those that appear to be feeling some lingering doubt~ I am confident they'll come around. You already have your "Uncles" In your pocket anyway haha."

"What are we naming this new world?" Mew asked, while he and Mewtwo placed their hands over Rook's and Enzlos.

Rook wagged his tail rapidly as he murred loudly. He already had a name. "It's called Lumaria. And if you're ready, I already know where the land needs to go~" His paw started to glow yellow as well and the light reached down into the ground of the icy mountain they stood in.

"Do it." Enzlo grinned.

About a minute later, across the sea, or rather even, across the whole world the ground shook. It quivered, broke apart, and began to slowly and steadily move, several feet at a second, the very land itself began to crawl across the water of the oceans and rub against each other.

Pokemon across the world were jostled, wind and air blowing across their bodies and left stunned in awe as the world shifted as it did, landscapes they'd grown so used to seeing upon the land in front of them suddenly sliding past them as the land they themselves stood on moved in opposite directions. Millions across the world stood in strange awe as their land simply seemed to slide from one place to another, like a puzzle box rearranging itself.

The Continent of Penta River Split apart, its five pieces of land flowed out away from each other. Confused pokemon watched on as their neighbors steadily vanished into the distance upon shifting water. Messages were quickly spread by Psychic communication from the voices of Mewtwo and Mew. Don't panic, this is expected.

Four parts of Penta River crashed in upon and joined the edges of the other two continents, and the opposite ends of the Continent of the Wilds and Continent of Origin then collided to form one larger mass all together, the southern and northern parts of Penta River broke apart carefully into a series of islands that would stretch across the ocean.

From where the two larger continents collide, the land upheaved into a series of mountains, while the ocean in the open waters of where the Continent of Penta River once stood rippled and shook, as the land of the ocean floor was pulled upon to create series of new land and mountain, to keep the water levels the same as the borders of the ocean were squeezed together with the land cradled in its hold..

In the end, nobody knew where anyone else was. Yet as they were told again, this was expected, do not panic. They'd be reunited with loved ones shortly, and given new locations opted for setting up new places of living, new cities, places of specific purpose, to make in this new world called Lumaria.

Many were excited when the newspapers began to arrive showing them the thoughts and plans. With the Legendaries assisting, these cities would spring up rapidly!

Thus the history of a new world began, and the story of a struggle to be heard, and of a story of misunderstanding, came to an end.

_____________________________

Epilogue.

A week later.

Nether pondered over the map that laid upon his desk, standing over it with furrowed eyes. "Rook...why does the water have to be all closed off...?"

"The water isn't closed off." Rook huffed at the Typhlosion as he slid by the fire type in his room upon New Era. Rook had decided to let someone else map this new world themselves, although he gave Nether a map he'd already made of the land for his own use.

"It goes north and south freely in its strip, it's just now enclosed by land to the west and east. And there's currents through the entire ocean that will carry the ship well for you." Rook rumbled at the firetype, tracing a finger across the sea how the current traveled. "That's just for helping you coast through it and let the boys have more rest, and for the purpose the sea is going to provide, remember? We're responsible for getting food to them hehe."

"Awwwwww you've shackled freedom..."

Rook rolled his eyes, "I think you and I are gonna end up being the most free out of them. I can't understand how anyone gets fun and enjoyment out of being in charge of so much. I wanna help people, but I don't want to be in charge of them!"

"I'm the Admiral." Nether pointed out with a grin.

"That means little as you've said yourself. The captains of the ships will take care of themselves or fall victim to the sea, if I recall your own words correctly." Rook smiled at Nether as he teased him. "Besides, most of them will likely end up being Vaporeons and they'll answer mainly to their Elder anyway." Rook chuckled while shrugging further, as Nether frowned as he realized the more than likely possibility of that being true. "You were given the title more as a platitude by them for your assistance and deal for getting your freedom back. They don't actually intend to give you any decision power and they actually never expected you to want it anyway. Least not until sailing becomes more commonplace, it shouldn't take too many years." Rook chuckled lightly, murring..

Nether smiled again then and he nodded a little, it was true, he didn't want that responsibility, it'd be quite a bit of time before any kind of large navy was ready to go anyway. By the time it was actually ready, some other system of control would already be in place to keep it going without him. Turning himself more so to stare at Rook as the Lycanroc was beside him at the desk. "So...what about what you told me a few days ago?"

"Oh, I'm still very serious about that..." The Lycanroc smiled at the fire badger and nuzzled him along his neck. "I wanna be with you Nether, I like your love of freedom, but I want to have a little purpose in it."

The captain smiled, "I'm perfectly fine in removing "pirate" from my definition to "provider" hehe, and have the others agreed to join us?"

"Yes." Rook swished his tail, "They'll join us on the day we set sail for that though, they have final things to finish up and will meet us back at the lighthouse. Are we almost ready for where I told ya to get us to though?" Rook smiled.

"Almost, just another day of travel there..." Nether said, looking at the spot in question that the Lycanroc had pointed out on the map, a small little island just south of the jutted out land where they had been anchored about four days ago. Rook had told the Typhlosion he had a kind of surprise for him to see there, and so Nether had his boys swim New Era there.

______

The next evening.

Nether stepped out upon the soft grass of the little island, where Rook already stood looking out behind towards the mountains. Nether could already see something pointedly about this particular spot of land...

The mountains beyond going eastward, as they stretched out into the distance, were arranged in such a way that the tips distinctly formed the head of a large wolf howling up into the sky but only when viewed upon this island did they line up in such a way. With several mountains closer to the ocean forming the head's teeth, while beyond those first mountains, the larger ones that resulted from Mt Frostnip colliding with that of the Lucario clan's gem filled mountain ranges had formed the head, tipped upwards and opened up for the teeth to altogether form the howling muzzle. The mountains farther away were so large that here, from nearly a third of the world away, their tips were visible and framed the head of the wolf quite visibly. A picture...built through mountains to be shown upon the air of the landscape miles away from them, where the place itself was actually quite...pleasent. A small, lonely island out upon the water between the arms of two other parts of land.

Nether came to stand beside Rook as he was gazing upon the scenery of this special space, the fire type was shocked.

"Remember when you had explained to me that you disliked the bland look of green of the land, the constant look of mountains, that you instead were enthralled by the endless blue of the ocean, where you'd never know what lay beyond. What do you think of the way I can make the land look?"

"It's graceful..." Nether whispered lightly, his eyes roaming across the tips of the mountains in their pictured arrangement. He understood why this small bit of land was settled where it was now and why Rook told him to come there. A little out of the way, not many would bother to come here even though it was easily in sight of the shores and beaches just on the horizon. It appeared as nothing but a lonely island set in the bay between two other parts of land. Not many would be aware of this sight. Nether had ever thought that land could be changed into becoming such a thing and then look so natural around the rest of the world.

Rook continued on, "Well...you know the world isn't as endless as the ocean makes it seem, but I wanted to give you one in which you could continue to sail, and continue to have your desire." The Lycanroc smiled lightly. "To me, when I first met you Nether, you represented someone who came up to his greatest enemy, that nearly killed him, and learned how to control it, or rather, made friends with it. I felt I looked at the water the same way you did then, but uh...when I realized your fear when I accidentally confirmed it that night, I understood it in a different way. My biggest fear was being forgotten...my biggest enemy was water, which was the ocean, and it did actually have the power to make me become forgotten if I died upon it...yet I did not fear it the same way you did. You...are strong Nether. Instead of running from what scared you...you decided to live on it. I had to learn how to live upon what scared me..."

"It is as dark as the void at its bottom." Nether said then, his eyes looking to Rook beside him. "You've told me...you've gone on some kind of crazy journey...thousands of years. You did it for us."

"No. I also feared being forgotten...I did not want to die, so I was willing to do whatever I was told...I feared it for a long time without really seeing it. I feared it in a far different way than you did, or maybe do even now." Rook said carefully, looking upon the symbol in front of them. "What you see here represents the...deeper roots that I realized I owed myself to. I made this so that I won't forget them." Rook smiled lightly. "I'll bring others here, Ruli and Enzlo and Riley eventually, but I wanted you to see it first.

"Now that you're in control of this world..." Nether said lightly, "Are you worried about becoming...too still?"

Rook shook his head, as he pulled Nether with him to point up into the night sky, where stars had begun to shine as the sun was setting.

"The night sky always shifts as our world moves, but some stars don't move too much." Rook smirked, as up in the night sky Nether's eyes beheld how several brightly colored stars shined brighter than the rest, as from this specific spot as well, another symbol was visible, this time in the sky and in the ocean below it as the stars reflected off its surface.

"No. Nether, I don't fear becoming still, for you are the Unestinquisable Flame, and I trust you to guide me upon these seas. I tried to help channel the currents with the earth as best I could, but I'm only aware of so much when it comes to water hehe."

Nether closed his eyes as after what he saw somewhat made his heart ache and he gripped at Rook's paw with his where the Lycanroc's arm had wrapped around him in pulling him along.

The stars in the sky sparkled down upon the sea, creating one half of a flame that was upon the sky, and another half that seemed to dip down into the darkness of the ocean below it...creating a sea of endless stars that stretched out across the distance. Yet another way that Nether had failed to ever really look at things around him. If stars could glow so far out in space...they could glow in the depths of the sea.

These two scenes were just a pair among many that Rook had crafted with this world. Many other pokemon around the world were already exploring eagerly, also already finding places of wonder, oasis hidden in jungles and lightly grassy deserts, and incredible places with views of the world beyond that beckoned them further. Pokemon from the Continent of Wilds had unwittingly created wonders of nature that no one of the Continent of Origin or Penta Rivers had been aware of. Forests of trees that glistened in silk crafted over decades of wild spider like pokemon, deserts and fields and marshes etched between mountains where they long made their homes.

Others still were beginning to find the first of several Rifts, discovering a joy for battle as they fought against the Wraiths that formed from within them that had started to invade, weak for now as the creatures tried to find their grip upon their newly forced forms.

The once millions of wild pokemon that had existed upon the Continent of Wilds were forced to encounter those of the Continent of Origin. The Wild pokemon continued to strike and fight, instinctually trying to defend what they viewed as their own territory, but unlike the Wraiths, the "Wilders" were only feral. They still only fought to exhaustion and were treated as such, for now left alone once they fled and allowed to keep whatever lands they desired otherwise, while the rest of the intelligent pokemon worked together in beginning to build new towns and cities. This would come to affect the world in a far different fashion down the line, Rook knew.

"And uh..." Nether began lightly, opening his eyes to look first at the stars again and then back to Rook. "What about...your power?"

"That's all under control now. For the most part. I doubt I'll have any accidents like we had before."

"Well nah, not about those, that was a blast of a story to tell the villagers while the rest of you were off apparently rearranging a world and...what did you tell me?"

"Mapping a galaxy..." Rook snickered.

"Yeah...that." Nether's head hurt. "What I meant was more about how are you going to go about using it?"

Rook looked down a moment in thought to that, "I...guess I'm just gonna keep myself to a set limit...if someone esle figures out how to beat me. Good on them hehe. I have weaknesses, water is still a big no hehe."

"And that all technically happened and also technically -hasn't- happened here." Rook snickered further, playfully. "Don't think about it too hard." Inwardly the Lycanroc thought about how he didn't want to have to remind himself about a dreadful reality he knew had still happened...one in which he killed even Nether, and in the end, when he had finished and had been consumed in darkness, Rook lived on because of what Jack had made him, his existence fed upon his own soul to light up the dark, where he found someone else, and later others, who -seemed- as lost as he was...Actual existence was never possible for something like him; even if he demanded it...he lost...and had been flung...

But the legend of the bright star remained untouched.

Rook understood that now. His loop, that power Jack had instilled in him needed its ending...this was that ending...the power of the Bright Star needed a powerful origin, that power now rested in his control. The reality of Rook's need for his journey would, in this instance, never come to pass. That journey had only simply led him back to the end, there were answers to giving himself unlimited power, but there was no answer to having unlimited power for a world...and of learning allegiance to those powers outside this one that he -knew- could just destroy it...rather than help it as they decided to instead..

But there were some ways of assistance either way. He could totally just do it again, just like he had told Jirachi before he revealed to Mewtwo and Mew and Enzlo that he already had a more permanent solution.

"How did Mewtwo and Mew take that final bit of news?

"Rather gracefully, actually. Telling them the journey had already been done and failed had really upset Enzlo at first, until I told him that it's original mission was failed, but there were other options I found instead." Rook shrugged lightly, knowing what Nether was referring to. Besides the Rifts now being a constant, public menace; one that was already well known and prepared for now by the guilds, there were now other..."Visitors" falling into their world. Rather, Rook had told the psychic legendary pair, that: "It's more than likely that we're going to have otherworldly visitors, but they will accept the rules of this world before they're allowed to come here, and will appear as nothing more than as pokemon to all here while they're around. They'll come and go and life can just continue as normal, they won't be able to affect anything permanent unless I allow it anyway."

What Rook had kept to himself was that some of those visitors weren't entirely all friendly pokemon or people, but they wouldn't kill, unless pushed to...

The Mega were back; within Rifts even then, new Mega Stones coalesced from the void beyond it. Souls once lost to the void...returned to a world that survived their rage. Once again coalesced into gems, their power to wield for those that found them and were deemed capable of wielding it.

And by overcoming the rage of souls once lost now shown what they cannot have. To show that they understood the capability of the power being given to them...

This world would unwittingly follow Rook's very simple ruleset. Among them were several things, but one kept in his head more constantly.

To kill is not a necessity, it never is.

One should never be willing to do to another what one is not willing to have done to themselves, and one is never required to accept the will of another upon themselves, no matter what that other person says.

You make agreements with each other, you work together, or you don't get along at all. Simple as that. But you never kill, and no one ever has control of you.

If you won't get along, one of you will eventually get used to the other being there or find somewhere you don't have to see them.

Pokemon fight all the time anyway. Use it to build yourself!

Here there is Freedom, but there is no control....

'At least...not for everyone...' For something else Rook understood now too for a creature like himself, and even then it made him take a slow sigh of bitter sweet annoyance.

Someone always had to be in control for things to stay making sense.

There were always two, and his shadow still needed his help.

_____________________

But that's a different story, for now. This one is over.

The beginning of one story is also its own end in this case, while being the beginning of about three others; Axel and Ruli's continued life together and a new mission together involving the Rifts as they appeared, Riley's new influence upon this world as he does eventually become a new Lord among the ghost types, and Rook and Nether's ship the New Era as they deliver tons of food to cities around the seas of this new world Rook had created. All of them have large impacts going forward.

Rook always had full control of this story, he tried to be suspenseful in building his power, but how do you really offer the story of a powerful soul? Of an idea that becomes aware that it itself is an idea and then demands existence from its creator? To be crushed by the sheer weight of reality you can't comprehend so you instead create a story to loop upon yourself and create your own existence, just so you can stick it to that god that you're still around! As a pokemon, to evolve into a living galaxy in order to survive the endless void you found yourself tossed to...how do you tell that story?

I suppose you tell bits and pieces of the journey he took.

I wanted to show Satoru's world anyway~

(End of Mystic Remnants. This story will be continued as the story of Revitalisation, as well as parts of its "Original" journey, starting with the very first world Rook dropped into, where he was forced to learn a lesson. "Not all is ever as it seems.")