Chapter 62: Calling Down the Moon — Lunala, the Moone Pokémon!
Mammon set Cosmoem down at the very center of the altar, then stepped back.
"Mammon, are you certain this will work?"
Caitlin held the Sun Flute, eyeing him with genuine curiosity.
When Mammon had asked her to come help play a flute, Caitlin had been a little baffled — and when he'd explained it was for Cosmoem's evolution, she'd been even more baffled.
A flute. A Pokémon evolves because someone plays a flute. The world was deeply strange.
"Of course. You still don't trust me?" Mammon shrugged. "It's a bit mystical, I'll admit, but this is the method passed down from ancient times. Either way — just try it."
"All right."
"Mm-hm~"
Caitlin and Lillie exchanged a glance. Lillie gave the elegant young woman a small, polite smile, then both of them turned and moved into position — Caitlin toward the right, Lillie toward the left.
Lillie watched Caitlin's back as she walked away — poised, refined, clearly something to Mammon —
She and Mammon are close in a way that's… not normal, are they?
Lillie filed the thought away quietly and continued toward her spot.
She hesitated for a moment at the edge of the shallow water, but thought of Nebby and stepped through anyway, taking her place in the center of the marked area.
The world fell utterly still.
Cold moonlight pooled down around her, blurring her reflection on the water's surface. A sky full of stars. The only sound in the entire altar was the faint chirping of insects.
Just one melody, and Nebby can evolve.
Lillie steadied her breathing, glanced right — and saw Caitlin, already raising one arm in a ready signal from across the altar.
Lillie nodded back. She lifted the Moon Flute to her lips.
The music rose into the night.
The Moon Flute and the Sun Flute wove together, their melodies spiraling and harmonizing into something that smoothed every anxious edge from the mind — something ancient and tranquil and deeply, thoroughly right. The sound filled the Altar of the Moone completely.
They'd agreed on the piece beforehand, though they'd never rehearsed it together. And yet the two of them played like they'd done this a hundred times.
"Beautiful."
Mammon stood with his arms folded, fingers tapping softly against his sleeve, a smile on his face as he watched the two golden-haired girls play.
He was also watching the altar.
As the flutes played on, something was happening. On the great cliff face at the far end of the altar — carved into the stone, the ancient moon sigils — light was beginning to bloom. Energy poured into those markings in waves, filling them slowly, brighter and brighter, until the entire face of the cliff blazed with it.
Lillie and Caitlin both noticed. Their eyes went wide — but neither of them stopped playing.
As the final notes rang out, the moon sigils filled completely. A resonant crack — and the carved moon split open down its center.
BOOM.
A massive beam of energy erupted outward, aimed directly at Cosmoem in the center of the altar.
The ritual had begun.
"That's—"
The shockwave hit like a wall. Wind tore across the altar, sending Lillie's golden ponytail and her skirt snapping sideways. She threw her arm up to shield her face, squinting into the torrent of energy through the corner of her eye.
This is the energy Nebby needs to evolve? It was enormous. Lillie didn't have a Trainer's frame of reference, but she could guess — energy like this, she suspected not even a Champion-tier trainer could tank a direct hit.
And yet Nebby was drinking it in like a sponge, gulping down every last drop.
Nebby…
Lillie's heart was surging. She'd done research before coming here — scoured what she could find about the Altar of the Moone, even though so many of the old texts had been lost. But what remained all said the same thing: this altar shares a deep connection with the legacy of a legendary Pokémon.
A legendary Pokémon.
Nebby was a legendary Pokémon all along?
The seconds stretched on. The altar's energy was visibly fading now — the beam thinning, the light receding. But what was left on Cosmoem was radiant. An incandescent glow wrapped around it like a second skin, a cocoon of sheer blazing light.
"Here it comes."
Mammon watched that ball of light drift upward into the sky. The curve of his smile deepened.
Thought so. The Altar of the Moone — of course it would be this one.
The glow kept climbing. Kept intensifying. For one searing instant it lit up the entire sky above them, too bright to look at directly —
The three of them all turned away at the same moment, eyes stinging.
"Ma-shee~"
A resonant cry rang out across the heavens, high and slightly hoarse, and then the brilliance began to fade.
Lillie looked up first.
And stopped.
Suspended in the sky beneath the crescent moon was a Pokémon unlike anything she had ever seen.
Deep purple, with sweeping wings edged in arcs of gold. Its head was small, crowned with a patch of deep blue across which constellations shifted and moved in slow, constant patterns. With its wings spread wide it looked like a full moon given form — and though its shape called to mind a bat, there was nothing cold or unsettling about it. Everything about it radiated elegance. Nobility. A beauty that didn't ask for your attention — it simply arrived.
"Lunala." Mammon looked up at the newly evolved Moon Pokémon and said its name quietly.
Beside him, Tapu Fini and Tapu Lele both wore expressions that were unmistakably warm — genuinely, wholeheartedly happy.
"Beautiful~"
Caitlin breathed the word like it had surprised her. And it had — this was a Pokémon of extraordinary, singular grace.
Lillie just stood there. Head tilted back. Staring.
The moonlight was still cool and soft. Lunala dipped its head — a slow, deliberate motion — and beat its wings once, gently.
A breath of wind touched Lillie's face. Her vision blurred for just a moment, and when it cleared, Lunala was directly in front of her.
Those eyes — deep and vivid as amethyst — held a gaze of absolute tenderness.
"...Nebby?"
Lillie reached out, hesitant, her hand stopping just short of contact. She whispered the name like a question.
Was this Nebby? Was the small, wriggly, endlessly curious little creature she'd carried for so long really — this?
"Ma-shee~"
A soft, resonant cry. Lunala leaned in close, wings curling slowly inward, and gathered Lillie into a gentle embrace.
Every movement was unhurried. Full of care. It remembered. It had always remembered — this girl who had held it so gently, kept it so close, loved it so quietly and steadily.
It really is you, Nebby~
Lillie pressed her lips together. Carefully, she rested her head against Lunala's chest. A coolness against her cheek — and yet warmth filled her completely.
You grew up, Nebby.
"Now that's a sight."
Mammon let out a soft, genuine laugh. He watched the two of them — Pokémon and trainer, or whatever Lillie was — and felt something settle warmly in his chest. This was the good part of all of it. This right here.
Though—
His eyes lifted to the horizon.
Two shapes were coming in fast.