Chapter 1

View Online

Starlight Sailor stretched her wings, drifting casually through the æther. She should probably be heading back to Planet One soon, not to mention Equestria. Yes, she certainly should. And she would, at any moment. Because she certainly wasn’t lost. No, bat ponies like her were never lost, not strong and noble members of Luna’s personal guard. Never.

She looked around, searching for any star patterns that might be familiar enough to guide her journey home.
Æther was tricky stuff, the substance that permeated the universe, dense enough for planets to float in but soft enough for a bat pony to glide through without having to flap very much, gliding almost effortlessly if she wanted to, or racing much faster than she could in the air—heavy atmosphere of Planet One.

She’d been doing a little of both that evening, on her one day off-duty day for the week.

There was a reason she was such a low-ranking member of the night Princess’ guard, and that was that her navigation skills left everything to be desired. She wasn’t the fastest flier or the most skilled fighter, but she was faster than the most skilled and more skilled than the fastest. She had what it took to compete with most of the other guards in one way or another… but none of this helped a pony who had literally gotten lost in her own backyard, once.

Of course, she had been half awake and living in a new house, so she didn’t think that particular instance should count against her. Unfortunately, even without that incident, she was still left with an abysmal track record for getting lost. And this disqualified her from being trusted to track down and rescue the Lunar Princess, should she ever need it.
The depths of space, it must be said, are not the best place to be lost. On the other hand, the whole experience was so familiar to Starlight that she was hardly bothered by it. She knew which way she’d been flying, all she had to do was turn herself around and fly until she saw something she recognized.

She let out a sharp breath of æther as an asteroid struck her in the flank. It was a small one, and though it hurt, she didn’t expect anything to be broken. Spinning around in a sharp circle at the impact, however, certainly threw off whatever it was that she had in place of a sense of direction, and the sound of the æther rushing past her ears told Oher that she was being knocked far off course.

She opened her wings and tried to steady herself, and after a moment or two she succeeded. She looked around, in what she knew was probably a vain attempt to get her bearings, and found, to no surprise of her own, nothing she recognized. She wasn’t far from where she’d been a few seconds ago—the stars all looked the same, she couldn’t have moved more than a light-year or two.

There was one thing, though, off in the distance that she hadn’t noticed before. It looked like a planet, with its green and blue hues visible from even this far off. It might have been Planet One, although Starlight doubted it. If none of the star systems looked familiar, and yet home was within view, then Starlight was an even worse navigator than she’d always thought—and nopony could be that bad.

She flapped her wings, pushing herself towards the planet. She wanted it to be Planet One, but the closer she got, the harder it was to convince herself that her hopes were anything but vain. She couldn’t make out any landmasses that looked at all like Equestria.

It was about the same size, though, and the same shades of blue and green and gray made its surface—which was probably a bad sign, to be honest. There were only three known habitable worlds anywhere near Planet One, those being its own moon, and the small, single-biome planets, the desert and the arctic worlds that the dragons called home when they weren’t resting on Planet One in the middle of their migration.

She spied a landmass that looked somewhat like Equestria—she’d given up all hope that she was anywhere near home by now, but there was still the chance of running into some friendly and helpful locals who might be able to point her in the right direction, and even failing that, it might be a decent place to stop for a rest before heading back out.

Her wings strained from the pressure as the planet’s atmosphere greeted them, and she spotted a large mountain range that might have been the seat of some civilized creatures’ government. She headed towards it.

As she got closer, it became apparent that there were no artificial structures on any of the mountains, but that there were some small buildings not far from their base. She flexed her wings, and set herself gliding for them.

What she saw was not the bright, colorful sights of an Equestrian town. In fact, what she saw was not what she had expected at all.

There were not a few small buildings, but many large buildings that had been toppled in some great wave of destruction, like some natural disaster, or some terrible beast had brought a once-great settlement to its knees. Rubble littered the ground like overused cliché’s littered the Canterlot Library.

On the far side of the ruins were some small wooden huts, with hairless, bipedal creatures strolling in and out, gong about their daily business, which seemed to mostly consist of fishing off the few small piers that stuck out over the sea, along with building and repairing their huts.

She hovered in the air above the wreckage, realizing that these creatures may need more help than she did. She pulled a scroll from a satchel that sat inside her armor, and read the spell written on it. There was enough magic in the air, to her relief, that she didn’t need to find a unicorn to make it cast, but the feeling of the spell working on her was… off. She’d felt the strange energies being used on her before—the power that some alien races used to fuel their own spells. Unicorns in Equestria used them purely for research and demonstration purposes. Was that all the magic that was available on this world?

She descended slowly on the fishing village, and landed on the thatch roof of one of the small huts.
The creatures were humanoid—a fairly common type of beast in the universe at large—clothed in what was little more than torn rags.

There were three of them, out in the bare lawn in front of the house. Two young children, playing a game of throwing a ball back and forth between themselves, and a woman, her back turned to Starlight as she rubbed a block of soap into piece of clothing sitting in a bucket of soapy water.

One of the children noticed her, up on the roof, and turning to get a better look at her, smiled and reached out one hand, as if to touch her. It let out a soft cooing sound that the spell Starlight had just cast didn’t translate, and was she guessed that the child was too young to have any mastery of language. The other child turned to see what its sibling was looking at, and reached out its hand as well.

“’Thulhu!” it cooed happily.

The woman noticed the children staring, and turned slowly to see Starlight standing on her roof.

“Pardon me, Ma’am,” Starlight began, “I was wondering if you knew the way…”

The woman clutched her arms over her chest and let out a scream like none Starlight had ever heard before. Starlight jumped into the air, then caught herself and stretched out her wings, hovering to keep herself from falling back down onto the thin, fragile roof.

“No, please, no!” the woman begged, still protecting her chest—the location of her vitals, Starlight guessed. “Please, spare me! Please, I have children!” The woman was frantic, she soon began sobbing.

“Ma’am, I don’t want to hurt…” Starlight tried to console the woman, but to no avail. She was rocking back and forth now, having wrapped her arms around her knees and clutching them close to her.

“Please, leave us, please! I only ever wanted a family! Please, don’t hurt us! I can’t leave them, spare me, please! My husband will be coming home soon, please, leave us be!”

She obviously wasn’t getting any answers or help here. But Starlight Sailor’s sense of justice wouldn’t let her leave. She glided slowly, gently town to the ground and stood, her posture firm, in front of the woman, so that they were looking into each other’s eyes.

“Who did this to you?”

But the woman wasn’t speaking anymore, only sobbing, her eyes closed tight, waiting for the death she was so sure Starlight was about to deliver.

“Why are you so afraid of me?”

If the woman heard her, she made no sign.

She left the woman where she was and walked over to the older of the two children, the one who’d made a sound that as probably a word.

“Do you know why your mother so afraid of me?” she asked gently. She felt a small touch on her flank, and turned to see the smaller of the two children stroking her fur. She smiled and turned back to the older child.

“Grownups don’t like Pokéthulhu,” the child said, stumbling to pronounce the syllables, breaking them down into parts.

“And what are Pokéthulhu?” Starlight thought she might be pressing her luck, trying to get that much information out of a child so young.

“Pretty,” the child said simply.

Reactions were about the same throughout the village. Adults were frantically terrified of her, and children showed no fear, but had no useful information.

She took back to the skies, not wanting to stir up any more trouble in that small town. Perhaps there was another establishment nearby that might be able to explain what had happened back there, or give her directions home, or, preferably, both.

She wasn’t far from the village when she saw a small group of travelers heading towards it. There was a man, young enough to travel on foot, with a darker complexion than Starlight had seen on any of the creatures so far, though not nearly as dark as her own fur, and two young ones walking beside him. A dark-haired boy wearing red hat with a blue jacket, t-shirt and jeans, and a girl, slightly taller than the boy, with fiery red hair. These two were older than any of the children she’s met in the village, perhaps they might know the situation well enough to explain it to her.

She noticed a small, yellow creature, hovering in the air over the boy’s shoulder. It might have been a mouse, if mice came the size of bowling balls, and that bright of a shade of yellow, and with tentacles hanging from their faces.
It might have been cute, without them.

She landed in front of them.

The adult flinched back from her, but held his ground. He shot a cautious look at his two travelling companions.

“No way!” the young boy in the hat exclaimed, “I’ve never heard of a Pokéthulhu like that before! Pikathulhu, attack before it runs away!”

The yellow creature jumped off the boy’s shoulder and let out a cry that the spell didn’t translate. Its tentacles glowed with a bright light, and a bolt of lightning arched out from it, flying straight towards Starlight.

Starlight may not have been one of the Night Princess’ elite guard, but she was one of the guard, and she wasn’t chosen for her looks.

She jumped straight into the air, and with a few flaps of her wings she was high above the creature’s attack. It blew through the spot where she’d been, tearing up ground beneath her.

Instinct took over, and Starlight dove straight back down towards the ground in front of the creature, her hooves pointed straight for its stomach. It tried to doge out of the way, but she struck her hoof out up and to the side, making contact and sending the creature into the air, the impact softer than she expected.

The creature landed on its back a few feet away with a dull thud, but moments after landing it swung itself forward and back onto its feet.

Its tentacles began to glow, sparks jumping from one to the next, crackling loudly as it charged for its next attack.
Starlight didn’t give it enough time to prepare. With a flap of her wings she was at its side, and another strike from her hoof connected with the creature’s cheek, knocking it to the side. Its concentration broken on whatever dark magic it had been using, it lay stunned on the ground.

Starlight drew a small blade from the saddlebag resting on her flank, and placed it against the creature’s neck. She didn’t know what she’d do if the creature’s owners valued its life little enough to call her bluff.

“Care to explain why you had your pet attack me?” she growled.

“It can talk?” the girl asked, as though this hadn’t already been established.

“Get on my good side, I might even sing for you. Now, if you want your pet back alive, I suggest you explain what grievance you have against me that caused you to resort to violence so that we can talk this through like civilized sentient beings.”

The boy pulled out a small, round object from a pocket in his clothing and held it out.

“Pikathulhu,” he said, “Ikch talloc eeth.”

A beam of red light shot out of the object—a ball, it looked like from a distance—and struck the yellow creature Starlight was holding, enveloping the thing. Starlight jumped away just as the thing began to shrink until it had disappeared, and the beam retreated back into the ball.

He put the ball back in his pocket.

"That's it," he said, drawing out another ball. "I don't want to catch this one anymore. It hurt Pikathulhu." He raised the ball above his head. "It's going to die now."

Starlight realized that this tactic might have worked a bit too well. She jumped to the air and, batting her wings, began to rise straight up, keeping her eyes on the trio. If whatever came out of that ball could fly or use magic, she might have to stay and fight. If not, she'd take off till she was out of sight and find someone else to ask her questions.

The adult grabbed the young boy's arm, frantically, pulling it down.

"Randy," he said, "wait. This thing just spoke, it's a person, you can't just kill it."

The boy, Randy, looked at his grown companion with a look that was almost disdain. "Titus, people die every day, every hour, every minute. But what they don't do, what they never do and get away with, is hurt my friends."

"It could help us with Dark Priest Wormwood's quest."

The look Randy gave his friend showed exactly how much he cared about Dark Priest Wormwood's quest.

The girl spoke up. "It could help you win Elder Badges," she said. That gave the boy pause. "It just bested Pikathulhu in a fair fight, and you don't have anything stronger than him. If nothing else, Pikathulhu

Randy looked at Starlight, considering. Then he lowered his arms, still holding the ball.

"You hear that?" he said. "There's two ways this could go down. I kill you, or you come with me and help train my Pokéthulhu. What'll it be?"

The boy was clearly an idiot, and not extraordinarily mentally stable. There were really two ways that this could play out, Starlight reflected. He could stop trying to kill her, or she could leave or fight her way away from whatever he could throw at her. But perhaps, for now, it was best to let him think he was in charge. No need to make enemies when she might be able to get what she wanted by compliance.

"If that's all you wanted," she said, "you only had to ask. I'd be glad to help you."

Randy's entire countenance changed. He put the ball on his pocket and pumped his fists on the air.

"Awesome! By the time we get to New Sunnich City, I'm going to have the strongest team around!" He continued the path the friends had been walking, smiling giddily to himself and continuing to babble about the same sort of thing.
The man and the girl followed behind him, and Starlight fell in line with them.

"I wouldn't blame you for flying of right now," the girl said.

"I think I'd prefer you did," the man said, trembling ever so slightly.

"Do either of you know the way from here to Planet One?"

Neither of them did.

"Then the three of you will do for company until I can find someone who does."

Their names were Titus and Sonia, respectively. Both of the children insisted that Titus was mad, although he seemed perfectly rational as far as Starlight could tell. Occasionally he would get a distant, far off look, and when asked what he was thinking would simply say; "Whether today would be a good day to die" and refuse to elaborate. it wouldn't take him long to get out of this sort of mood when he got into it--one would simply have to engage him in conversation before he became his usual cheerful, jovial self, planning what to make for dinner and making sure his young companions' needs were met.

How quickly he could transition from these dark humors was more disturbing, perhaps, than the moods themselves.
What seemed to bring the moods on, it seemed, were the Pokéthulhu. One of the creatures would jump out of the trees and attack them, and Randy or Sonia would call out one of theirs from the small objects Starlight had seen when Randy had first attacked her to do battle with it, or they would meet another child wandering through the woods who would call forth their own Pokéthulhu for the children's to battle, and while any of that was going on Titus would curl up in a ball, sometimes weeping, sometimes not, always totally silent, until the creatures were put away again. No attempt to run, or hide. He assumed to believe, every time, that death was imminent, and that he was powerless to stop it.

But engaged in conversation, he seemed an entirely normal person. Caring, motherly, strong, and totally rational.
Starlight could begin to understand Titus, though, when she asked her new acquaintances what exactly the Pokéthulhu were.

"Only the coolest thing ever," Randy exclaimed proudly. "Creatures from outer space or from other dimensions who come to Earth to feast on the souls and the bones of the innocent. Sonia and I are Pokéthulhu cultists, we catch Pokéthulhu in our shining dodecahedrons and battle them against each other for sport."

"Mankind used to be the most powerful race on the whole planet. We had cities and schools and hospitals everywhere, gleaming brightly as light reflected off the steel and glass. Then people discovered the spells to summon the Pokéthulhu to Earth, and started using them as weapons.

"But we couldn't control the Pokéthulhu. We'd summon them from far off one or two or three at a time, and they'd kill enemy armies and drive the survivors mad with their evil. Eventually though, they started coming to Earth on their own. One or two at first, then hundreds, then thousands.

"We couldn't fight them. Couldn't stop them. The age of man has..."

"Now Pokéthulhu rule the Earth," Sonia said. Where Randy had been boasting and Titus had been mourning, Sonia was stating a fact that, for better or worse, was how the world worked. She seemed indifferent to it. "The ones we capture only obey us because we mind rape them with magic as soon as they're caught, wiping out and replacing their original personalities with ones that we design ourselves."

It was settled, then, that as soon as Starlight found her way home, she would speak with Princess Luna about getting some military support for Mankind. Randy had him training his Pokéthulhu in the art of armed and unarmed combat, and as she taught them as little as she could while still making it look like she was helping, she noticed that despite all their powers over water and fire and lightning, none of them were very physically strong. A few troops of enchanted and armored bat ponies would be more than able to send away these alien forces back to their own worlds. Further alliance with the ponies could be profitable for both sides, as soon as Man was nourished back to its full strength.

She would stay with them as long as it took to get back to New Sunnich City, which after Titus had calmed down he explained was one of the three last cities in the world, the rest of mankind living in small fishing villages scattered throughout the land--where the wild Pokéthulhu left them alive perhaps only to keep their food source in stock. If no one in New Sunnich could tell her how to find her way home, she'd set out and try to find Planet One by herself.

She didn't expect that anyone would. Mankind seemed to have no spells or technology related to space travel, from what she could gather from Titus, who didn't even remember their being any such things before the series of events that he referred to as the fall.

She told them what she was. She told them about Planet One, and about Equestria. She told them about working for Princess Luna, about flight practice and fighting drills and flying in formation as her team escorted the Princess from one town to the next.

She told them that whatever happened here, life and goodness would never be extinguished from the universe. She told them that help was coming, she told them about friendship and magic—not the cheap stuff they and their Pokéthulhu used that could only break down and destroy and harm, but real magic that could transform and build and uplift and strengthen—and she told them all that she could think to say about hope.

Randy yawned and rolled his eyes when she talked about it. Sonia gave her a small smile and asked a few questions.

Titus would weep openly, and say “Thank you, thank you, thank you,” over and over and over. Once, when she stopped talking, he wrapped his arms around her and cried into her fur, saying “thank you, thank you, thank you. I hope you’re right. Please, please be right…”

She placed a hoof on his back and rubbed it, firmly. “I am right. Never give up on hope, Titus. There’s always hope.”

And she believed it, even when they found a human screaming in the woods, lying on her back, as a creature from Starlight’s nightmares held her in place, wrapped in its tentacles, dragging a white beam of light out of that human’s mouth and sucking it up into its gaping maw.

What they were seeing wasn’t a soul, though Starlight could see how the humans would assume that. Starlight had seen real souls, wandering around with Princess Luna in the Dreamlands, where the departed go to await whatever it is that comes next. They were never transparent or formless. In some way they seemed more solid and real than any living thing Starlight had ever seen.

But none of that was a reason not to save the girl, and Starlight tensed her muscles and drew her knife, ready to leap out of the bushes and attack.

Randy put a hand on her crest and held her back.

“Don’t bother,” he said. “If we try to catch that cthortle now, it’ll fight back extra hard to defend its meal. If we wait until after it’s eaten, it’ll be tired and full and easy to fight.”

Starlight didn’t bother to dignify that reasoning with a response. She dove forward with the handle of her knife in her mouth, and sliced one of the tentacles holding the monster’s body on to the human’s face clean off.

The creature shrieked, tearing one of its tentacles from the humans face and lashing out in Starlight's direction. She jumped back and slashed at the end of the tentacle with her knife, taking out a large chunk of flesh, leaving it spewing pale green goo. It was only later, as she was washing the goo out of her fur, that Starlight realized how lucky she was that such a creature didn't have blood that was pure acid.

The thing pulled its tentacle back and slid slowly off the human's face, rolling down his body on its twisted, spiral shell. It fell to the ground, standing on the many tentacles it had left.

It let out a sound that might have been nothing more than air rushing in and out of its mouth to dry and dull the pain of its severed limbs, but that sounded for all the world like a gruff, sinister laugh.

Starlight observed with surprise how well the creature could jump without firm limbs or arms. It was almost over her head when she reached out with a wing and batted out of the sky and into a nearby tree. There was a satisfying crunching sound as its shell broke and the beast let out another chortle, this one louder and more pained. It tried to drill its way into the dirt with what was left of the shell, but too big of a chunk had fallen out for it to be used to move the dirt. Starlight strode over to the now pitiful beast's side, and, digging her knife straight into the new hole in its shell, put the thing out of its misery.

Randy was angry with her for killing the cthortle. Apparently they were a particularly powerful type in battle, and after scolding her for it, he dragged Sonia off to see if they could another one in the woods.

While they were gone, Starlight sat down next to the recuperating human, waiting for him to awaken. Titus sat down next to her.

"Why bother?" he asked.

"Saving her?"

"No, not..." Titus looked up to the sky. "I mean, saving anyone. Man is a dying race, kept alive by foreign powers as a food source that they could just as easily exterminate and find something else to feed on. Why do we keep trying to survive? Why don't we just lie down and die? I could run out into the forest with a sword or a gun and kill as many pokéthulhu as I can before they get me and have done with it. It'll all amount to the same thing."

Starlight put a wing behind his back. How could she explain to someone so lost that hope could never be taken from you, only given up. She could say it, certainly, but that would hardly convince him of it. For a long, silent moment, she could think of nothing to say. Then...

"Because you're worth saving."

She was hoping a profound, impassioned speech would start pouring out of her mouth after that, but no more words came to her. She said nothing.

Eventually, Titus spoke up.

"Dark Priest Wormwood's a madman. Everyone knows it. I guess that makes me a madman, too. He says... If mankind had never learned about the Pokéthulhu, we never would have called them here. If we'd never called them here, they never would have found us. So learning, most people say, must be the problem. If there's any chance left for man to take back his world, most people say the only thing we can do is ignore them and hope they go away, or just accept that it's all over and try to enjoy what time we have left."

"But not you and the priest?"

"Not the priest, no. Wormwood says that if we study the 'thulhu in their natural environments, we can learn enough about them to find a way to make them leave, or pacify them, or something. He says we can bring back the age of man. That's why he sent out Randy to complete the Pokénomicon."

"And you believe him?"

...

"I want to. I keep sending back to him information and Pokéthulhu that Randy and Sonia capture, hoping that maybe one day he will find out something we can use. I don't know that it'll work, but I'm still fighting for it. Isn't that mad?"
Starlight pretended to consider it for a moment.

"No," she said after a moment, "it’s not. Don’t worry if it looks impossible. If the world looks broken to you, reach out and fix it.”

“You’re the only one who’s ever said that to me. People stopped believing that the world was theirs to change after we lost to the ‘thulhu.”

“Then you need to start believing it again, or you’ll never be able to save it.”

The girl awoke a few hours later, though she was still week and would be for a while yet. They escorted her to the next village on their way to New Sunnich city, where she stopped to finish recuperating.

The rest of the journey was fairly uneventful. There were more fights with wild and domesticated Pokéthulhu, but not much else.

When they arrived at New Sunnich, Starlight was the first to realize what had happened. She could smell the soot and smoke and blood before they crested the hill that blocked the city from her acquaintances’ view. None of them seemed to notice it, and Starlight chose not to call it to their attention—no need to upset them when the world itself would do that in a few moments time.

The scene before them looked much like the first city she’d seen when she arrived on the world of Man, except that the wreckage was fresh. So fresh, in fact, that some… thing was still in the process of destroying it, while humans ran, screaming, for their lives.

“Kabuto-Sathla,” Titus whispered, paralyzed.

The creature before them defied description. It was large enough to dwarf and destroy the tallest buildings of the city, but too small to see clearly. It had limbs and teeth and blades that bent at angles that shouldn’t be, that existed and didn’t exist at the same time. The whole thing was wrong.

“I never understood how big it was,” Randy said, quietly. “I mean… I read about it when I was studying Pokéthulhu lore. But I never really…”

“Pi-pika,” added Pikathulhu, from its traditional spot on Randy’s shoulder.

“There’s so many people. Running. Screaming. Dying. It… it doesn’t care who they are. It would kill anyone. If we’d gotten there before it was summoned, one of those people dying down there could be Titus... Or Sonia… Or me.”
Randy clenched his fists, and looked at the ground, only it didn’t help, because the screams of the people were getting closer and couldn’t be blocked out. Tears started to fall.

In that moment, Starlight understood that Randy was just now realizing what he was saying. That made sense, she supposed. It sometimes takes quite a lot for children to realize the blindingly obvious, especially when it concerns their own mortality. Her sister’s children had a habit of flying so close to stars that it was a wonder they had never been burned alive. Perhaps Randy had been shocked into realizing what evil really was.

“I can’t do it,” Randy announced. His friends turned to look at him, partly to show they were listening, mostly to take their eyes off of what was happening down in the valley. “The smart thing to do would be to leave. But there’s too many people getting hurt right now. And darn it, I really wanted to see New Sunnich. So I’m going to stay here. And I’m going to fight. I’m going to make sure that no one else has to get hurt.”

He drew a handful of shining dodecahedrons from his pockets and called out his Pokéthulhu, one at a time. Bulbasarnath. Scuttle. Charnelmander. Lengufairy. Cthonyx. With Pikathukhu, that made up his entire team. Sonia called out her own as well, her eldrip and ichtypus and pentacrule.

Starlight lead them in battle. Everyone who could attack from a distance stayed on the hill. Everyone who couldn’t followed her straight up to the monster’s side.

At the end of the battle, lengufairy, cthonyx and pentacrule were dead. Eldrip was wounded to the point that it would never fight again. Starlight was covered in bruises and scrapes, with a worrisome gash on her right foreleg.

None of this could be said of Kabuto-Sathla. It hardly seemed to be harmed, not matter how hard they attacked it. But somehow, eventually it decide that it had had enough of all of this, and fled back to whatever weird dimension it came from. Their thousand pinpricks may not have killed it, or weakened it enough to capture, but they had put it through enough pain to make it go home to lick its wounds. As proof that they had won, the remains of the city was littered with many of the beast’s limbs.

They stayed behind for another few days, helping the survivors build small huts to stay in. None of them seemed to understand the distinction between a Pokéthulhu and a perfectly sane and rational alien, so most of Starlight’s service wound up being to search the wreckage of the city to collect anything they might still be able to use. There was more than she would have thought, and she hoped the survivors would be able to stay alive until they could make a better life for themselves.

Randy and his friends asked around for anyone who might know the way back to Planet One, but as suspected, anyone who might have known was gone.

“It’s time that I should be going. It’s become obvious that no one here can help me find my way home. I’m sure I’ll find my way back.”

“And you’ll be back here, won’t you?” Titus asked. “With help?”

“I’ll bring back an army. We’ll subdue the Pokéthulhu and help mankind rebuild their world.”

“Thank you for your help with Kabuto-Sathla,” Randy said, with a look that seemed to be looking past and beyond her. “I… thank you.”

“I’m just glad I could help.”

And she took to the air. Then the sky. Then the stars.

Starlight Sailor never returned. Perhaps she never found her way back to her world. Perhaps she never found her way back. Perhaps a wild ‘thulhu caught her, up in the atmosphere.

Randy and Sonia caught Titus looking up to the stars many times for years after she left, wondering when she would return. It wasn’t long, though, before they became too busy to spend much time wondering. Elder badges stopped being important after the loss of New Sunnich. They had a quest to complete.