Insert Song / Fixer / Soraru ver.

"Bang."

Zayn's hair instinctively lashed toward the bullet.

It pierced through.

His heart beat faster than his head could turn. A thud exploded.

Then another.

And another.

A note rolled out of Ulysses's sleeves as she fell, stretching out across the earth.

We thought you'd love a memento.
\(•3•)/
Poetic justice ftw <33

Zayn crushed the note under his feet. Tears burnt his eyes, as they did for his sister. So this was the outcome of everything? After reviving them, they just died like that? Why couldn't they just be left alone?

"It'll be your turn soon." Loralei stuck out her tongue as she flipped her purple hair. "The mortal man is rooted in morals, but those too shall pass."

Yvette turned to Marshadow. "Return me my Singularity! I want to—"

"You lost it like you lost your mind? Poor, poor nothing." Loralei twirled her hair. "I've a new album. No more Pidove."

Zayn clenched his teeth. "Sage, please do it. I don't care anymore. If we're going to die, we might as well abandon all morals."

Sage pulled him into an embrace. "Are you sure? You're not thinking clearly."

"I am," Zayn mumbled. "I want justice."

Sage glanced at Karma as she began to open her mouth. The scar on his wrist ripped further apart, cracked his flesh. Shadows exited from the scar and shot like moonlit arrows toward Karma's shadow.

Kill yourself with your fucking voice.

Karma flinched, then a smile curled on her lips when the shadows just bounced off the earth like balls. "Sage, don't you understand? It's useless. My shadow's song will make you kill yourself."

Marshadow stepped to his side and enveloped them both in protective penumbra. "This is bad. At this rate, the shadows in the Umbrage Zone are gaining power. You need to stop trying to control them, Sage. The more the shadows consume the island, the stronger they become."

"How else can we stop her? Look, I took the pill and I don't know what it's supposed to do to me."

"What pill?"

"The... It was a trick, wasn't it?" Sage shut his eyes tight. "Damn it!"

Sage opened his eyes and glanced at the monotonous sky. This was the end. There was no true salvation after all. How could he actually think that was Sayo? Of course the shadows were manipulating him!

Something shifted among the clouds. Sage nudged the Gloomdweller Pokémon and pointed to the sky. Marshadow mewed and gazed skyward. His eyes bulged.

"Even the skies are cracking."

"No, the cracks were always there. They just became more apparent thanks to the void-fire."

"How much time?"

"Forty minutes."

The penumbra slid back into the earth and time flowed again.

But Sage knew not what to do. He watched as Karma's Dark Aria swung into action, lyrics melded together in a lightning rap, and eyes grew bloodshot.

Heck, what was he to do? He had to prevent blood from spilling again. He needed something, needed help. But what? From whom?

How was it possible to fight such a malice that caused Mei to shriek in an instant without even harming herself? No, there was no need for self-harm. The song had the potential to kill its listeners.

Sage controlled Mei's shadow and goo flooded her ears incessantly. It had to work. It just had to.

Titan, Zayn and Yvette, even Marshadow, were already covering their ears. Nothing seemed to be happening, all placid. Could it truly have worked?

Karma stomped her foot and screamed. No, she was belting. Whatever that high pitch could mean, Sage wouldn't want to be privy to it.

His clothes shook. Glancing around, he realised it was the same for the others. Titan gripped the Flame Boomerang as he returned Sage a glance.

This is all just a story, isn't it? But the first player to die only appeared at the end of Zayn's draft. So why now? Why would she even be here again?

Titan blinked as he got to Sage's side. "You think this has to do with the app?"

"If this is all just a story, about every Chekhov's gun is shot, right?" Sage said.

Titan frowned. "Our profiles. We still don't know what they mean."

Karma screeched. Poké Balls exploded. All Pokémon except Marshadow had bloodshot eyes.

Blade, Shrike, Heatmor and Durant circled around Sage and Titan. Mei faced Mimikyu as Zayn confronted Klefki. Vivillon fluttered to Yvette's face and she shrieked.

Karma stopped singing and plastered a smile on her face. "Have fun."

She made a U-turn and as she headed toward Noryuku Academy, her figure vaporised.

This should be the last of her, Sage thought as he faced Blade and Shrike.

"As trainers, we shouldn't hurt our Pokémon, right?" Titan whispered.

"What do you think?" Sage shot him a look.

"If we can come up with some plan without anyone getting hurt..."

Yvette's agonised scream rang in the air. Her swats were useless as Vivillon sent vibrant powder her way in hopes of paralysing her.

Zayn glanced at Klefki, then at Mei who was stepping away from Mimikyu. As he slid toward her, he barely dodged a flurry of Shadow Balls.

"Do you think they only attack when we move? They are quite... still," Zayn said. His eyes found their way to Yvette. "Maybe not."

What do we do? I can't risk using Shadow Scar more than I have to. Sage gritted his teeth. He scanned his surroundings again and his eyes bulged. "Titan! What're you doing?"

The boy, with an outstretched hand, now stood inches away from his Heatmor. The Anteater Pokémon breathed fire into his face, but he simply shrugged. There was no scar, no scream, nothing. It's like Titan absorbed the heat and the pain. He stroked Heatmor and grinned.

"It's me," he whispered and gazed into those bloodshot eyes. "Don't worry. You won't be abandoned anymore."

Heatmor blinked and the crimson in his vision seemed to fade a little.

"That's right," Titan said. "Control the rage. Raw power is nothing short of self-mutilation lest you control it."

His tender smile was met with least resistance, which drew surprise from the others. Was that it? Establishing a close connection?

Heatmor grunted. Those piercing eyes now softened and regained composure. On seeing the change in Heatmor, Durant seemed affected and his compound eyes returned to normal as well.

"H-How?" Zayn blinked.

"His hand..." Mei noticed the soft, scarlet glow and turned to Yvette who was trying to make peace with Vivillon but to no avail. "It's absorbing the blood."

"This..." Sage released a breath. A message popped up on his phone.

「Inukai's Stygian Wrath has been activated.」

What? Sage thought.

"Release." Titan's voice was serene. Red shot up from the eyes of their Pokémon and formed a homogenous flame in the sky. Sage wondered the strangeness of how the island, and whatever happened on it, retained its colour, but not the sky. The island seemed to protect them. From what?

Hostility grew absent when his thoughts returned to the situation at hand. Heir Pokémon regained their original personalities. Even Vivillon began to communicate and accept Yvette.

It seemed, the shadows' plans were successfully thwarted.

Or so they thought. For as soon as the blood-fire dissipated into a mini fireworks display, the cracks in the sky grew in numbers. Clouds became misshapen, the air cut up in numerous ways.

This was the true punishment. The fall of the world into eternal darkness.

Twenty minutes left.

Titan glanced at his phone and gasped before showing everyone the screen.

Name「Titan」
Username「Inukai」
Status「Alive」
Aura「Break」
『Stygian Wrath』
"Sometimes, you add;
sometimes, you nullify."

Something was missing. That meant, using the... whatever it was must have helped.

"Titan," Zayn spoke. "Nullify the void-fire!"

"Huh? Is that even—"

"Just do it!"

Titan bit his tongue and concentrated on the void-fire, his palm readying some kind of attack, some fiery pulse to annihilate the destruction of the world (and the island).

Five minutes passed and nothing happened.

"It's not working!" Titan cried.

"Mei," Sage turned to her. "Try yours."

She looked at her phone.

Name「Mei」
Username「Sayo」
Status「Alive」
Aura「Fairy」
『Azure Geomancy』
"Stars are bound to collide;
some collapse."

"This sounds ominous," she said slowly. "Are you sure?"

Sage Shrike nodded. It was possibly the only way. After all, there were tiny flickering lights in the void-fire, when he squinted, which could have been stars.

Mei stole a breath and activated her power at the void-fire.

At once, two messages popped up.

「Inukai's Stygian Wrath has been activated.」

「Sayo's Azure Geomancy has been activated.」

A ball of light stirred awake from Titan's palm just as the flickering lights coalesced into a single entity. Then, the world shook.

"Everyone, close your eyes!" Zayn said.

When their eyes reopened, their surroundings were just water. A vast sea where land seemed to reconstruct themselves gradually in the vicinity.

"We did it," Yvette breathed. "The world... it's building itself again."

"No, is this the new world?" Zayn blinked. "What about the rest of them?"

"They weren't supposed to be here," she said. "It was supposed to be our family only! But now..."

Marshadow who had been quite the observer stepped in. "This feels different, strange even. Has the Umbrage Zone spit the world out of its mouth?"

Titan and Mei looked beyond the horizon. They had lost those powers, pretty much. And Titan's last chance was to add something. What could he add to nothing? He didn't know how to answer that.

Even as the world seemed to restore itself, they seemed to be the only people and Pokémon left.

Just then, Mei pointed to the clouds and the rest of their friends soon touched down onto the ground.

"But how?" she squealed. "How did you all stay alive? And the void-fire?"

"It's... the Aura Trio protected us. There were sparks coming from the cracks in the skies," Jade said.

"And there was something else," Gin added. "Beyond the cracks... lies the Distortion World. Tarocchi and Lysandre decided to stay in there."

"Distortion World?" Sage blinked. "What?"

Gin nodded. "It's different. The people who died were all there. We even saw Viola. And the floating platforms were white, there was a freshness to the air that flowed through the cracks. It was strange, not like the rumoured Distortion World."

Zayn asked, "And Giratina?"

"Sipping tea with Arceus." Nick snorted. "Who would've thought?"

Strange. Sage thought.

A sensation ran over his veins.

You took the red pill. You have seen the true identity of this world, haven't you? The words seemed like his thoughts, but he knew they were from the shadows that disappeared from the face of the earth. Why, he wouldn't be surprised that he couldn't growl in response.

He could only stare at the people and Pokémon around him with a snigger as his parting shot. The shadows were now inside, after all, and he was now Sage Shrike of the Umbrage Zone.

Nearby, Marshadow quaked in fear and gestured at everyone to notice the boy whose brown hair darkened and nails blackened as shadowy energies spread out of his digits. A similar fear ricocheted in the foreground.

Sage Shrike smirked as his scar cracked open. "Time to build a world!"