Lillie faced Sun and Lusamine at the back of the Aether Paradise, the blades of the sleek, glistening white helicopter slowly spinning as it waited for its passenger to board it, gently fanning the air around them. A female Aether employee hoisted a small suitcase in one of the two forward facing seats inside the cabin before coming out and walking back towards the inside.
“You’ll do fine,” Sun said to her. “All you really need to do is be yourself.”
“That’s a little bit what I’m afraid of.” Lillie’s remark brought her mother forward to her, and she gave her a gentle hug.
“You haven’t been that you for ten years now,” she said. “The new you is going to do wonderful. Now come on, the pilot isn’t going to wait forever.”
Lillie slipped her arms around her mom’s back, giving her own embrace. “Thank you, Mother.”
Lusamine stepped back, leaving her daughter alone again. Lillie without anymore hesitation, turned back and stepped up into the cabin, sitting next to her luggage and placing her messenger bag beside it. A male Aether employee closed the sliding door so that it ran flush with the rest of the helicopter’s body, quickly stepping aside to join Sun and Lusamine.
The blades of the helicopter spun faster and blew its winds into the three of them harder, and they watched as the aircraft lifted off the pad and began to tilt forward, pushing itself off into the direction of Ula’ula Island. Lillie kept her eyes out the window until she could no longer see the top of the Aether Paradise. She then closed her eyes in meditation, comforted now only by the muffled chops of the helicopter’s blades directly above.
Lillie’s eyes remained closed for what only felt like a couple of minutes, but she shot them open as she felt a sudden shift downward. From the left window, she could already see Mount Lanikala quickly passing by. Turning to the right, she saw as the helicopter turned left, revealing more of the southern coastline that they were soon to pass over.
The speed of the helicopter went down as well, and Lillie continued to look down as she saw the front of the Aether House still very far down below. The helicopter continued floating level above the ground as began riding over the base of the mountain, the ground climbing high, threatening to run up to her. The elevation suddenly dipped back down to reveal a landing pad nestled in the mountainside, a golden logo resembling a trident with diamond-shaped tongs painted on its center.
Lillie gripped her bags tight as the helicopter began to come down, the tail aimed safely away from the mountain’s face, though with mountain on every other side, Lillie’s hold refused to let up. Soon, she could see the surface of the pad looking level out her window, and with a gentle bump from below, she knew that she had landed.
Outside, two Aether employees, both male, ran to the helicopter, the first opening up the door, the first one offering her hand.
“Welcome, Miss Lillie!” Lillie took the second employee's hand as she stepped down to the pad, the first one now going into the cabin and pulling out her luggage. “We can show you to your room if you want.”
Lillie straightened out her hair as the helecopter’s blades tried to whip it about. “That’s nice of you to offer, but I would like to go and meet with her straight away.”
“Very good! We’ll take your bags to your room and see you there whenever you’re finished.”
With a motioning arm, the second employee let her lead the way to a stairwell in the upper right corner of the pad, and her and the other two employees briskly walked to it before descending the tall, steep stairwell. As Lillie straightened her hair again upon reaching the bottom, she walked up towards a small gated square platform sitting atop a single railway that ran into a tunnel and down into the mountain.
A female employee standing by it unlatched the door and opened it for them to step onto. Once all three of them were in she closed the door and stepped aside.
The second male employee walked over to the touch panel display at the side of the tram and pressed the down icon and with a whir, the tram came to life and slowly lurched down into the tunnel, a piston beneath them tilting the platform so that it remained level even on the hill.
The passageway was well lit enough for Lille to continue standing as the tram snaked its way down. Lillie could only focus on the furthest point in the track that she could see, hoping to see the end of it sooner than later. With another turn, she finally spotted the end of the track, which sunk a bit into the ground so that the platform would be flush with the floor. The tram finally came to a stop at the end of a small three-story atrium, whose windowed walls revealed several office spaces as well as a cafeteria at the other end.
Lillie stepped off the platform and began walking slowly to the elevator at the other end. “And where are they now?”
“They’re in the employee café, Miss Lillie,” the first employee replied. “They both like to sleep in, so they tend have their meals with the two kids a little later when it’s less crowded.”
“And how have Amy and Noah been taking to them?”
The first employee paused to smile. “Wonderfully. Twilight is practically a mother to them, and Spike a brother.”
Lillie suddenly felt more confident to pick up her pace. “That’s good to hear.”
The Aether employees also quickened their steps as she made her way forward.
Twilight spooned the last of her oatmeal into her mouth as Spike licked loose egg yolks off of his plate. Amy tilted her cereal bowl until all the milk and leftover soggy crumbs had all been drunk, and Noah just finished the last bite of his bagel.
All four looked to be in chipper spirits, Twilight and Spike in particular being well-rested following her reunion as well as having a tasty, hearty breakfast with the two kids. Neither of them even seemed to mind as a male Aether employee walked inside through the sliding metal doors, looking at him once he stopped across the table from them.
“Sorry if I interrupted your meal, but Lillie from the Paradise branch is here.”
“Oh!” Twilight honestly looked a bit surprised that she wasn’t there to greet them. “Well, we’re ready for her!”
With an acknowledging nod, he stepped aside to leave through the other end of the room. Lillie couldn’t get more than a few feet into the room before she was met with hugs at her legs by Amy and Noah.
“Lillie!” Amy cheered. “You’re back!”
“You have to meet our new friends!” Noah shouted.
Lillie couldn’t help but find her spirits lifted immensely. “That’s precisely why I’m here. If you would be so kind, I’d like to talk to them in private for a while.”
“Come on, can’t we stay?”
“Yeah!” Amy whined further. “We just got down here!”
Lillie’s face, though pleasantly delighted, didn’t show other signs of change. “Please, just let me have some alone-time, and then I’ll let you have them back. Sound fair?”
“Children!” The Aether employee called, leaving the sliding door open for them to come through.
The children began to back walk backwards, knowing that their childish charm could not break through her. “Okay…”
“It’s alright, you two. You go and play with each other. I hopefully shouldn’t be long.”
Twilight’s words helped pick the children’s feet up, and they both jogged through the doorway, allowing the employee to leave and the door to close. Lillie turned back to face Twilight and Spike, and with the three of them alone together, the silence proved deafening.
Feeling the pressure building, Lillie diffused it by quickly sitting down across from them and taking her bag off her shoulder.
“I… apologize. I haven’t actually seen a… pony in person yet, and I’m still trying to take it in.”
“I can completely understand.” Twilight then reached her hoof forward. “Twilight Sparkle. It’s good to finally meet you, Lillie.”
The concept of a handshake suddenly felt foreign to Lillie, but as she reached forward instinctively, she remembered to grab a hold of the alicorn’s hoof and give it a gentle shake. “Likewise. And, Spike, was it?”
“Yep. Nice to meet you, Lillie!” Spike took Lillie’s hand as she presented it, shaking her hand more energetically.
Lillie hardly had to manage a smile as she sat back down and calmly tucked a stray hair behind her ear. It was actually appearing to go well. “You two sound to be having a pleasant morning.”
“We are actually. My oatmeal was excellent, and Spike actually slept very well last night.”
“And Sun let us talk with Rainbow Dash and Pinkie Pie last night!” Spike blurted in. “That was cool!”
“But I’m sure you already knew that.” Twilight looked to Lillie, who she could tell was biting the inside of her lip, something clearly troubling her. “Lillie? Is something the matter?”
“I…” Lillie straightened her hair again, regaining the composure she had for a moment lost. “…have to apologize again. I have to imagine you know why I came here.”
Twilight, her face already a bit hardened due to Lillie’s visible nervousness, simply nodded. “You’re here to talk about why exactly our friends and I are here.”
“Right.” Lillie pulled out a small stack of paper-thin plastic sheets from her bag. “What I want to show you both is very confidential, and it cannot leave this room.”
“Why not?” Spike asked. “I’m sure all the people here probably know about it.”
“I don’t think that would be the case if they’re not as high ranking as she is,” Twilight whispered back. “Not to mention, Amy and Noah.”
“Oh, yeah… good point.”
Lillie began by sliding over several plastic sheets, each showing vibrant pictures of a Pokémon on it. The top sheets Twilight looked at showed what appeared to be a large white jellyfish with large tentacles and a translucent dome top and a black anthropomorphic bundle of chords bound together into long, flexible limbs by white holiday lights, along with a spikey white top resembling a head. Each sheet had a name in the upper right corners reading NIHILEGO and XURKITREE.
Spike quickly overturned the creepy image of a thin, feminine-looking insect with two large wings appearing from the back of its head like long-flowing hair, and looked at another image of a large, round black dragon with a massive gaping mouth with a pair of claws extending from it. On the sheet read GUZZLORD.
“What…” Twilight glanced at the sheet Spike overturned, which read PHEROMOSA. “What are these things?”
Lillie took a quick glance around, the room still empty save for the three of them. “This was the first time we tried interdimensional contact. Or at least, my mother did..”
“What do you mean your mother?” Spike asked. “Is she the one who runs this show?”
“And what do these things have to do with us?” Twilight glanced back through each image.
“I simply want to lay all of my cards on the table here,” Lillie responded. “It will also give you a little context for what we were trying to do that caused you to come here.”
Spike and Twilight put their sheets down, intent on listening.
“Many years ago, when I was still a child, my mother… and father began studying wormholes and looking for Pokémon on other worlds than our own. They found them, the Ultra Beasts instead. My father… left the Foundation and my mother grew obsessed with finding and setting the Ultra Beasts free onto Alola until some friends of mine and I were able to stop her.”
“Let me guess,” Spike said, “your mom couldn’t give it up after all that, could she?”
“…Not exactly. My mother came to her senses and my friends helped contain the Ultra Beasts that managed to escape. Years later, we revived our interdimensional studies and tried to seek out other worlds in a more… safe and humane matter.”
“But why our world?” Twilight sounded calm, but there was audible hurt in her voice too. “Why did you target us?”
Lillie ran several more loose strands of hair back into her hairline. “We never targeted your world. After nearly five years of searching through the cosmos, yours was the first we came across. Our purpose at the time was simply for reconnaissance, but something went wrong and it ended up opening a doorway to our world and pulled you and your friends into it.”
“Hold on, reconnaissance? How would you even manage to do that?”
Lillie looked around the room, waiting for the words to properly form her response. “They live back at the Aether Paradise, but we’re close friends with two very special Pokémon called Solgaleo and Lunala who have the power to observe the far reaches of space, and we channel that power to see what they see.”
“So, like astral projection!”
“Astral… projection?”
“It’s a concept where the soul leaves one’s body and travels outside of it while leaving their body behind. Skilled unicorns and alicorns have tried the practice themselves, but it’s considered extremely dangerous, as improper return to ones body can cause permanent paralysis, brain damage, or in a handful of cases, death.”
“I see…” Lillie quickly pulled out a blank sheet of paper from her bag and a pen from her labcoat and began scribbling what she could remember.
“But if that’s all you were doing,” Twilight asked, “how did these Pokémon take us out?”
Lillie stopped writing and massaged her neck. Twilight could tell that this was going to be the toughest question for her to answer today. “It pains me to say it, but we’re still trying to figure that out.”
Twilight and Spike couldn’t help but look betrayed, and it very much hurt Lillie to see their faces then.
“After Solgaleo and Lunala discovered your world, they somehow lost control and went berserk. We’ve done numerous tests with them to try and find out why it all happened, but we can’t find anything. And… I wish I could tell you why and find a way to make everything better for you, but…”
Lillie slumped over the table, supporting her head with her hand, which also blocked Twilight and Spike from seeing her eyes. After letting out a single sob, she quickly wiped her eyes and nose with her hand and let in a heavy sniffle.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “This hasn’t been easy for you, I know. It’s just that I was there when it happened and I can’t help but feel shameful about it. I want to make it up to you, though. What if I took you to the Aether Paradise? It’s out on the ocean, so you could go outside whenever you wanted to, and it has pretty much everything you can get here and more. I can even allow you to meet Solgaleo and Lunala if you wanted.”
Twilight and Spike looked to each other, surprised this option was never available before. “You could really do that?”
Lillie began to smile again. “I sure can. All I’d have to do is call in a helicopter to pick us up and we’d be on our way.”
“Sorry, what’s a helicopter?” Spike asked.
“It’s a machine that will fly us over there. It might take a while to get a confirmation for one, and it might take longer for it to get scheduled to come, especially on such short notice, but in any case, you’ll have plenty of time to say your goodbyes to Amy and Noah.”
“That’s very considerate of you,” Twilight said. “Thank you.”
“I only want to make you as happy as I can while you’re here. Is there anyplace here I can take you before I go and get a confirmation?”
Twilight put her hoof to her chin. “You wouldn’t happen to have a library on site, would you?”
Lillie couldn’t help but blink, the question seeming almost foolish coming from such a smart pony as her.
The sliding door opened up, and Twilight stepped inside the disarmingly small room with glistening eyes to the sight of fifty-foot bookshelves along every part of the walls, each one filled with books of various widths, heights, and spine colors. Ladders on revolving tracks extended five feet up to each next level of shelf, though each ladder was on a different part from each other.
Regardless, it looked stunning to Twilight. “Wow. This place never ceases to amaze me. Is this where you keep all your books?”
“Not at all.” Lillie stepped up beside Twilight. “This is what we call the Regional Wing. The books in here relate to the geography and topography of all the regions of the Pokémon world, all the cities and towns within them, their history, the Pokémon that live in them. Things like that.”
Lillie’s descriptions made Twilight’s ears twitch with anticipation. “We have three other libraries just like this one, one that focuses on individual Pokémon, their anatomy, their histories, their types, and the history of those types, and two wings dedicated to nonfiction and fiction books for recreational reading.”
Spike put his arms to his sides upon seeing Twilight’s enraptured expression. “Uh, Lillie? I don’t think Twilight’s going to want to leave if you keep talking about all these books.”
“That’s no problem. The Aether Paradise has a single library that’s larger than all four of the Aether House wings combined.”
Twilight collapsed, Lillie immediately kneeling to her aid.
“Oh my!” Lillie gasped. “Is she okay?”
“Oh, yeah.” Spike nonchalantly crossed his arms. “You probably just overloaded her with knowledge. Give her a second, she’ll wake up.”
“Alright. Okay.” Lillie stood back up and walked to the ladder just to her left.
Twilight came to, and with an electric whir closeby, she looked to see Lillie reaching out to the right, the ladder moving to the right on its own until she put her hand back onto the rung, the ladder stopping just right of the center of the back. Climbing up, the next up ladder quickly rolled over to Lillie, stopping directly above her and allowing her to climb up to it.
“Whoa, cool!” Spike commented. “How are you doing that?”
“Weight and motion sensors.” Reaching through one of the rungs, Lillie pulled out a red book, the spine a bit tattered and discolored. Turning to the cover, she smiled at the title, “The Wonderful Kanto Region.”
Getting what she wanted, she climbed back down to the floor, the chosen book held tightly in her arm. She took one step forward, but then stopped, looking shyly at the book. “Twilight, you wouldn’t mind showing me your… magic, do you?”
“Not at all, Lillie.” Twilight stood back up and began charging her horn.
Lillie held the book out and allowed Twilight to lift it out of her hands and float it in front of herself and Spike, the residual tingle on her fingers making her giggle unexpectedly. She quickly flipped through the pages, most of which contained pictures and little text. She read through several words as her flipping slowed, wanting to savor what was written.
“The Kanto Region,” Twilight said aloud. “Why did you pick this book out?”
“Memories.” Lillie walked behind her and Spike, looking over their shoulders. “My mother fled to the world where the Ultra Beasts live and even fused herself with one of them. After my friends and I saved her, she still had remnants of the Ultra Beast inside her, and it caused her to fall ill.
“My friend, Professor Kukui sent me to Cerulean City in the Kanto Region to meet with a man named Bill, who had also fused himself with a Pokémon, but successfully separated himself from it. It was the first time I was away from home, on my own...”
_____________________________________________________
11-year old Lillie stepped out of a bus station, wearing a white hoodie and formal knee-length skirt, clutching the red straps of her backpack tightly, the unfamiliar urban jungle casting doubt into her mind. She pulled out an Alolan Pokédex, browsing through it until she received directions for the home of the man Kukui named Bill. With nothing else to do, she began to walk, following the thick, bright line on her screen.
Upon getting past the first block, she was so preoccupied in her Pokédex that she didn’t notice a woman in her mid to lower-20’s walking out of a Poké Mart carrying a tote bag filled with whatever wares she had purchased. The two collided with each other, and when Lillie looked up to see who she bumped into and the slightly offended face she made, she shied away back into her Pokédex with a frightened yelp
“I’m sorry, miss! I wasn’t paying attention to where I was going!”
“Hey, hey!” The woman’s voice still sounded angry. “Get a hold of yourself, it was just an accident.”
Lillie glanced back up and got a fuller look of the woman, who had long red spikey hair tied into a ponytail, leaving more on top for long, spikey bangs. Her clothing consisted of a snug athletic yellow tank top, a pair of dark skinny jeans, and red skateboard sneakers.
The woman’s expression softened at the sight of her Pokédex. “You came here all the way from Alola? Color me impressed.”
Lillie tried to sidestep around her, though the woman kept her eyes on her. “I’m… sorry, ma’am, I have to go and see Bill!”
“That’s fine, but let me treat a new, aspiring trainer to lunch first!”
“Oh, I’m… I’m not a trainer… yet.”
“Really? In that case, let me treat a new friend to lunch first!”
“You’re not going to take no for an answer, are you?”
“Nope!” With Lillie now standing beside her on the sidewalk, the woman wrapped her arm around Lillie’s back and escorted her down the road. “So who do I have the pleasure of talking to?”
“Uh, Lillie… My name is Lillie.”
“Lillie, huh? Glad to meet you, Lillie. I’m Misty.” With her free hand, Misty grabbed Lillie’s left hand and gave it a shake. “So, you like sushi?”
“Uh…”
It didn’t matter what Lillie had to say, because Misty was taking her wherever she led her.
_____________________________________________________
“Turns out she was the city’s gym leader.” Lillie continued, “which was really nice, because I honestly couldn’t think of anyone better to befriend and show me around than her.”
“Gym leader?” Twilight asked. “They don’t do a trial challenge like they do here?”
“No. In every other region, trainers partake in gym battles and earn badges to gain entry to face the Pokémon League.”
“And this Bill guy?” Spike asked. “What about him?”
“He lived way north of the city, but he thankfully had someone drive me to and from his house and workplace from the downtown area. Most of my days were spent working with him with samples of my mother’s DNA that I had brought with.”
_____________________________________________________
A middle aged man with medium-length brown hair wearing a blue shirt and tie and brown pants looked down into a microscope, observing a drop of blood that was held between two slides. Turning to his ancient-looking computer, he typed in several keys followed by a scramble of text on his screen. On the top half of the screen above the randomizing characters, he received the following message: HMN – 91% PSN – 6% RCK – 3%.
“So what do we do now?” Lillie asked.
Bill pinched the bridge of his nose before facing her.
_____________________________________________________
“He said that it wouldn’t be extremely difficult to cure my mother, as she had far less of the Ultra Beast’s DNA inside of her than he feared, but that they could only do so many tests and have so many failures before they ran out of the samples I brought. It was very frightening for me… but each passing day, I was thankful that I had run into Misty coming out of that store.”
_____________________________________________________
Lillie dove into the pool, the water that got into her nose and mouth salty like the seas. With the few lights that were on in the ceiling, it wasn’t able to illuminate the bottom nearly thirty-feet below. She quickly came up, spitting as much of it out as possible. Misty, sitting on a tiled pathway leading from the front to the back side of the gym, couldn’t help but laugh, even as Lillie breathed hard from fright as she paddled her head above the water.
“Kind of weird that a girl from Alola wouldn’t be used to the taste of the ocean.”
“I’ve never done much swimming back at home.” Lillie didn’t seem ashamed to admit this.
“No fooling? Then what have you been doing all your life down there?”
Lillie shook off the wet sheets of hair the hung over her face. “Not nearly enough.”
“Wanna’ talk about it?” Misty leaned forward and offered Lillie her hand.
Lillie paddled over until she was close enough to grab a hold, allowing Misty to pull her up with one arm and sit her down beside her. Lillie pushed a couple of stray hairs back over her head as she composed herself.
“So, what,” Misty asked, “were you raised on a desert island over there or something?”
Lillie couldn’t help but chuckle. “It’s not a terrible guess. I have lived a very sheltered life, and its only just recently I’ve really had any desire to experience the wonders of the world.”
“Though, I’m sure that’s not the real reason why you’re here though, right?”
Lillie paused for a moment before she shook her head. “I’m sure you know about those portals that opened over in Alola.”
“Yeah? What about them?”
Lillie paused again, wanting to word herself carefully. “My mother was attacked by one of the creatures that came out from there.”
“Oh, shit!” Misty’s mouth and eyes went wide as she realized what she had let slip. Ah… I mean–”
“It’s alright, Misty, I’m not that sheltered. My mother is ill back at home, and this is the first time I’ve been away on my own, almost… like a real trainer.” The fact it came out so subconsciously left Lillie rather invigorated. “You know what? My mother isn’t the only reason why I’m here. I came because I want to become a trainer. To experience a life that I refused myself on Alola. Once I help find a way to cure her, I’m going off on my first Pokémon adventure!”
Misty was way ahead of her. She stood up, surprising Lillie, and she pulled out a tiny blue flashlight from a tiny pocket on the bottom half of her bikini. Kneeling down and sticking the light in the water, she quickly clicked a button on it, flashing strobes of light to the bottom of the pool.
Lillie stood up to face her. “…What are you doing?”
“Give it a moment.” Misty stood up and took a step back. Lillie focused her sights on the pool, noticing a couple of bubbles rising up where Misty flashed the light. Before Lillie could spot a shape rising out from the depths of the pool, something shot out of it and landed on the tile at Lillie’s feet.
The sudden appearance of the creature shocked Lillie, but she soon recognized it from its form; a brown starfish fitted with some kind of golden brace with a red gem in its center. “Oh, a Staryu!”
Misty didn’t seem impressed, but appreciated her knowledge all the same. Kneeling back down, she looked down at the Staryu. “Why don’t you take my friend on a little adventure?”
“Adventure?” As she tried to figure out what Misty had meant, she suddenly felt a shove from behind that knocked her into the pool.
The Staryu hopped into the pool and swam up beside Lillie as she coughed up more water. “Misty! What did you do that for?”
“Just hang on tight and hold your breath!”
Staryu floated just ahead of her and Lillie did as she was told, the realization of what was soon to happen now dawning on her. She suddenly felt a sudden tug and she gasped as hard as she could before her head was submerged. Holding on with just her fingertips, Staryu quickly jetted around in the water.
Lillie’s initial fear of the dark water eased down as she saw, even underwater, the bands of light that shone downwards to the bottom from the top. It was the deepest she had ever been in the water, and it was an experience like no other.
_____________________________________________________
“Eventually, Bill and I managed to formulate a cure that would eliminate the Ultra Beast still inside of my mother that we could send back to her in Alola.”
_____________________________________________________
Bill placed a large plastic bottle containing clear pill capsules filled with a dark-brown substance onto the surface of a small pod, the label on bottle reading Charbia+. Sliding the pod door closed, he returned to his computer and began inputting code into it, Lillie watching over his shoulder. After a final set of keystrokes, the pod began to whir, a light inside shining bright.
The whirring grew louder as the lights brightened even more before the bottle of pills began to evaporate into rays of green light that flew up into the pod’s ceiling until there was no trace of it. Once the bottle had completely disappeared, the machine and the lights in it died back down. Before it could shut off, Lillie’s Pokédex pinged. Pulling it out, she saw that she had gotten a single message from Wicke: “Got them. ;-)”
With everything settled, Lillie could do nothing more than give Bill an eternally grateful hug, which he was surprised to receive but quick to return.
_____________________________________________________
“My business in Cerulean City had come to an end… but my time in Kanto had not.”
_____________________________________________________
Misty relinquished her tight hug over Lillie as they stood on the western limits of the city. The sun was setting behind Lillie, providing a warm, yet melancholy glow over the city she had made her temporary home.
“I hope to see you soon,” Misty said. “And by see you soon, I mean challenge you at the gym.”
“I look forward to nothing else,” Lillie eyes were full of tears.
“And take care of that Staryu for me.”
“I will.”
Lillie walked back to Misty and gave her one final hug, quickly pulling away before running to the west, passing the arrowed sign leading her toward Mt. Moon.
“Bye!” Lillie cried out, quickly getting out of Misty’s sight as she ran down a hill.
_____________________________________________________
“After I had defeated all of the gym leaders there, I managed to reach the Pokémon League, being beaten only by its champion. My time in Kanto was one of the greatest experiences I’ve ever had. I returned to Alola and the Aether Foundation stronger and wiser than ever before. It inspired me to join my mother’s side to help Pokémon all over Alola, and when Sun stepped down as the Alolan Champion to work for Aether, the three of us agreed to resume our interdimensional studies and continue looking into worlds beyond.”
Twilight stood entranced by Lillie’s tale, only for her investment to be shattered by Spike’s loud snoring as he slept on the ground, curled into a ball. With a gentle kick to his thigh, Spike shot awake, brushed himself off, and stood to attention.
“I think I understand why you found us now,” Twilight said. “Thank you for telling me this.”
Lillie nodded graciously. “The Pokémon world is indeed amazing. Our only wish was to discover and explore other amazing worlds, or… find something or… someone to share our world with.”
The last bit came out awkwardly, but Twilight was very much gladdened by the gesture. “Though I wish it was under better circumstances, I would very much like to see more of your world, Lillie. In fact, if you can reunite my friends and I and safely return us home, one of the first things I would like to do is suggest diplomacy between our worlds.”
Now it was Lillie’s turn to be stunned to near silence. “You… you mean that?”
“I do. I think you humans and us ponies have a lot that we could offer each other, and I have no doubt that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna would agree.”
Lillie let out a burst of squealing laughter as she sunk to her knees, leaning forward to grab a hold of Twilight’s neck and Spike’s waist and pulling them close and tight for an embrace.
Spike gurgled for air. “I think she may be offering us too much!”
“Just let her have this moment.” Twilight rubbed Lillie’s back with her arm, though Lillie’s hold refused to let up.
Lillie quickly let them both go and shot to her feet. “Come on. I’ll take you back to play with Amy and Noah and I can go call for that helicopter!”
“And maybe when you’re done…” Spike nervously pressed his index claws together. “…you can join us? Maybe you can show us some of your Pokémon.”
Lillie would not stop beaming. “I’d love nothing more than that! Come on, let’s go!”
Lillie stepped aside to let Twilight and Spike out first, leaving herself alone. After wiping an emotional tear from her eye, she shook both of her fists, mouthing out a jubilant “yes” before leaving the room to follow the two.