Thalassa was one of the few people who slept that night. After so many moonless nights, Romulus seemed as bright as the sun, but Thalassa was content. She contributed to a scientific achievement so real that it was visible in the night sky.
She dreamed of that columned cave again. This time, it was as clear as Jin's last dream about Azelf. She felt the icy touch of the water that filled the imprint on the floor. Her socks were soaked. It smelled faintly musty. Dripping water wasn't the only sound. She heard distinct scratching on stone. The claw used to mark the tallies on the wall was absent from its bowl. Uxie was as clear as the water. It marked a tenth strike on the most recent line. Then it turned to Thalassa.
'You have done well.'
Thalassa heard the distinct rumble of thousands of stampeding feet. The water remained perfectly still as the ground trembled. Dazzling light surrounded Uxie. The sound wasn't in the dream. It was in the real world. Even as Thalassa awoke to hear the voices of hundreds of frightened Pokémon fleeing the sewers, she heard one distinct voice over them.
'Continue to pursue knowledge. Your battle is not yet over.'
Her feet were cold. When they touched the floor, her socks squelched. She glanced sharply down. She was no longer dreaming, but her socks were wet. She pulled them off and sniffed them. They smelled distinctly of the musty cave. If she told anyone that the Uxie of the heavens spoke to her through a dream, let alone that it seemed as if she impressed it, they would think she had the Mars madness. She wondered if she did. Yet her wet socks suggested she didn't only speak to Uxie, but somehow set foot in its celestial domain.
There were more pressing things to think about. Panicked Pokémon filled the streets. The remaining pets of Ironville woke their Trainers in fear. Zorua jumped on Nyx's head.
'Zorua! I'm already awake! I can hear them! Now what's going on?'
'I think it's that thing I told you about...'
Sirens blared from speakers. Blue and red lights woke everyone who was still asleep. Rudolph's voice followed.
'A dangerous Pokémon is on the loose! Citizens of Ironville, head to emergency shelters immediately!'
Local police were already out on the streets. Elderly residents were led to the shelters first. Rudolph gave his orders from his bunker, deep in the bowels of Mars below the Town Hall. Despite their argument, Luke immediately accepted his offer of guaranteed safety in the bunker.
Damson was up on the roof. Burly security guards seized him. Before he had the chance to make a snide remark, a needle sank into his arm. He was sedated. The guards carried him to the nearest shelter. Zeph's eyes welled up when he found his friend unconscious. Tariku said it was how it had to be. Damson was a danger to everyone otherwise. Koji said nothing.
Nessie and Megara were ushered to a shelter, but they both sobbed. Alec was missing.
Nyx pulled on her skates. She zipped past the policeman in the corridor. He couldn't keep up. He had to ensure Firmino did as he was told and helped to guide the evacuated citizens. Before he got the chance to speak, he slumped to the floor. Sonnet held the mug that knocked him out. Firmino blinked.
'Uh...'
'You looked like you needed an excuse to get past him, so I thought I'd help. What is going on here?'
Nyx glanced back at Mercury.
'You better get photos of this.'
He followed her on his skateboard. He ducked to avoid a lunging security guard. More police screamed at Nyx to stay back, but she shoved past. She already felt the chill of masses of Shadow Pokémon auras. The 'dangerous Pokémon' wasn't the only reason people were marched into shelters. They couldn't see that the local police attempting to subdue it used Shadow Pokémon. They desperately tried to trap it in a playground. It was exactly what Zorua expected, because it was what happened to its mother. Resentment and hatred swelled until Joshua's murdered Zoroark was reborn as a Hisuian Zoroark.
Not that it looked like Zoroark. Many of the police officers trembled violently. Two fainted. Zoroark produced such a hideous and horrifying illusion of death that it terrified even those who were afraid of nothing else.
Attacks barely seemed to scratch it. It towered over everyone. Alec was there, hiding in the sand pit and waving to Zoroark to attempt to calm it down, but it ignored even him. Nyx tried to speak to it. It only screamed incoherently back. Zorua scurried under the trembling legs of the police force to reach it. When it hurtled over their heads and slammed into the wall behind Nyx, it was unconscious. Zoroark attacked it. It was out of control, like a Shadow Pokémon in Reverse Mode, but it wasn't a Shadow Pokémon.
Battling it, even without Shadow Pokémon, was no use. Attacking did nothing but enrage it. Thalassa couldn't get past the security guards who filled the corridor by the time she went out, so she ran out onto the roof and took off on Charizard. She saw Zoroark and the auras below. She tried to speak to it. The force of its pained scream almost threw her off Charizard. They hit a wall.
A security guard was hurled over a shoulder. Another emerged from the shadows to seize Altair upon receiving Rudolph's approval of a '20-11' that could be blamed on Zoroark. Caroline's Slowbro froze the guard with its psychic power.
'Sir! Sir! Caroline Frasier's seen it!'
'20-11 her! Blame it all on the Pokémon!'
Altair ran on. He dodged another lunging guard. Hope, still wearing the Pawniard onesie she slept in, punched a guard who charged at Osbert.
'20-11 them all!'
'Shadow Pokémon!'
Altair reached the playground. Hope caught up to him. There could no longer be any doubt that Rudolph's administration was crooked. Two Interplanetary Police officers who could see auras – Altair who inherited the ability from Leon and Hope from Wish – saw every Ironville PD officer in the vicinity using Shadow Pokémon to contain Zoroark. It was clear they intended to kill it.
'Get back!' Altair roared, 'All of you!'
He pointed at the growing group as Thalassa landed beside Nyx.
'Including you! Stop trying to talk to it! Get to safety!'
'Poor Zoroark...'
Thalassa's eyes welled up.
'He must be in so much pain... but what's going on? He's not a Shadow Pokémon, but he's acting like one...'
'No.'
Nyx shook her head as she sprayed Zorua with Revive.
'It's not that...'
She glanced down at the tattoo on her left arm, of Volo clutching the Holy Book as he looked up at the space-time rift he had Giratina tear open. An identical rift gaped in the sky over Mt. Coronet. Nyx recalled the song that the lyrics on her tattoos were from.
Grandma, I ripped open space and time,
Let the banished child free,
The Lord Pokémon are frenzied...
Zorua nodded. 'He's frenzied! The lightning from the rift hit him! Like it hit the Noble Pokémon in Hisui!'
'You're right.'
They were flung into the wall by a chilling wave of Bitter Malice. The police and their Shadow Pokémon became a flailing pile. Nyx saw the movie about Volo, but her grandma's stories painted the most vivid picture in her mind. She recalled how Akari, the hero summoned from the future by Arceus itself, quelled the frenzied Noble Pokémon by pelting them with balms made from their favourite foods.
No-one knew Hisuian Zorua and Zoroark better than Nyx. She skated back to Pip Pip Piplup. Cinderace kicked through the window. The burglar alarm blared until Sonnet smashed it. His mug shattered.
'What a shame. I'll just use one of these.'
He picked up a kettle. It hurtled at the security guard who charged in. He fell onto his back. Pheromosa knocked him out with a swift kick to the forehead.
'I'm with you,' Mercury said as Nyx swept all the mushrooms on the shelf into the cart she grabbed, 'But what are we actually doing?!'
'Making balms!'
'Balms...?'
His own recollection of the movie and Muirne's stories lit up his eyes.
'Oh! Like in Hisui!'
Sonnet placed a mortar and pestle on a plastic garden table.
'Precisely!'
There was no time to ask Sonnet how he knew that. When Callerya, Jin and Firmino found them, they fetched more mortars and pestles. They watched Nyx smashing the mushrooms and tying the balls up in parcels, then stuffed their pestles with mushrooms to make more. Mercury piled them up in a laundry basket. They all heard a barking voice over a headset, but no-one noticed Sonnet slipping away.
They used every mushroom in the store. Zorua and Zoroark returned to Nyx with a trolley pilled high with chocolate. The laundry basket overflowed. Once every square of chocolate was used, they emptied the basket into the trolley. Nyx skated back out with it.
Most citizens were safe in shelters by then. Unconscious police officers and security guards littered the roads. A swing from the playground flew over the roofs. The blinding glow that surrounded Zoroark began to move. Ironville PD were overwhelmed. Hope tried to battle Zoroark. Altair tried to calm it using a Pokémon Ranger's Capture Styler. They were wounded and knocked out. The Styler was destroyed.
'If you can't throw in a straight line, don't even try to help me.'
Nyx's words were for Firmino, who certainly couldn't throw in a straight line. Jin grabbed an armful of balms and took off on his Charizard. Thalassa followed. Nyx skated straight towards Zoroark with the trolley. She felt the chill of Bitter Malice before it blew at her. She couldn't throw anything. Her arms were frozen. How did Akari throw anything at a frenzied Avalugg? Nyx was sure she actually heard Muirne's voice, reminding her that Akari rolled to dodge attacks so they hit her back and barely affected her. Once Cinderace burned the Bitter Malice away, Nyx grabbed a balm and tried to roll to avoid the next one. It worked. Before Zoroark attacked again, she hurled the balm. Jin and Thalassa hit it from above. Zorua launched a balm with its tail. Callerya observed Nyx's roll and copied her. Her aim was perfect. Zoroark's booming roar shook the ground and surrounding buildings. It was weakened.
'Feraligatr! Use Crunch!'
The others were free to hurl balms while Firmino commanded Feraligatr to attack. Zoroark snapped out of its daze. It fought Feraligatr off. The waves of Bitter Malice intensified until they were suffocating. A hideous illusion of a mound of wounded skin inflicted physical pain on all who saw it. Nyx and Callerya tried to keep their eyes on the ground. Jin and Thalassa dropped their balms on Zoroark's head without looking at it. Mercury covered his eyes with his camera. He felt bad that he wasn't throwing anything, but Nyx told him to take photos. Besides, like Firmino, he couldn't throw in a straight line.
Zoroark was dazed again. Jin and Thalassa landed to snatch more balms. Nyx and Callerya pelted Zoroark incessantly until Feraligatr could no longer hold it back. Callerya lost hope that this would work. They were almost out of balms. Zoroark rammed a church so forcefully that it collapsed. The light emanating from Zoroark dazzled in all directions on the shards of stained glass windows that rained down. It produced an illusion of the shards impaling it in which the light turned to gushing blood. Setting eyes on it made everyone feel like they were brutally slashed apart by the razor-sharp shards. Even Nyx could hardly bear the pain. Thalassa's Charizard crash-landed on a roof. There was only one balm left. Zoroark reached out to destroy it.