When I was growing up, one of the lessons my father taught me was that if I wanted to make the world a better place, I should put the needs of others before my own, especially the needs of those who cannot take care of themselves. Yes, it was that very selflessness that drove him to create the Aether Foundation and dedicate his life to protecting Pokémon that could no longer protect themselves. There was a phrase he used to say to himself each and every morning, to remind him of what really mattered:

Without others, I am nothing.

He passed away knowing that he was loved by many, that he had lived a fulfilling and wonderful life. Those daily words of his grew to define him, to spread into each and every action he took. It was why I was so worried that I would not be able to live up to his reputation as the president of his beloved Aether Foundation. I had never once been forced by my father to succeed him; his only concern was that I grew up knowing right from wrong and that I was happy doing what I did, and by all appearances, that is exactly what happened. I even adopted his daily self-reminder, mouthing the words in silence before the mirror every morning.

The years flew by, and I got married to a lovely, intelligent man. We had two children, and for a while afterwards it seemed that there was no limit to how good things would become, no limit to how happy I could be. My children were the embodiments of curiosity and awe, looking both adorable and precious as every new Pokémon they came across renewed their wonder for the world around them. Even things that had become mundane to me, like the rain, were occasions of joy and discovery. It all felt so perfect.

Then one day, my husband was taken from me. He was taken from me by creatures that defied comprehension, that upended all understanding. Even the best efforts of the International Police could not prevent those monsters from robbing me of my greatest love and shattering the ideal world that had so magically formed around me. It was all I could do to not lose myself entirely when my son and daughter asked why their daddy wasn't coming back. It had been my duty as their mother to make their lives as beautiful as possible... and here I was faced with something that was undeniably ugly! It was a tragedy beyond my control, a lance of chaos that pierced my heart and threatened to undo the beautiful world I had tried to create! I had... I had never felt such hatred for anything in my life as I did for those abominations.

From then on, I devoted myself to studying these alien monsters that would come to be known as Ultra Beasts. The incident that took my husband would prove to be far from the first instance of this world and theirs being joined together for a fleeting moment, as I learned that the monsters came and went through portals we called Ultra Wormholes. In secret, I set aside an entire floor of the artificial island created to conserve the Pokémon of the Alola Region, the Aether Paradise, solely for the study and experimentation of anything having to do with the Ultra Beasts. I worked day and night to uncover the truth behind them, and began an initiative to create a Pokémon whose sole purpose would be to kill each and every last one of them.

Unfortunately, it was not meant to be. The Type: Full project was a complete failure, with all three subjects having to be suppressed and put in cryogenic suspension forever. One night, I found myself all alone in the deepest level of Aether Paradise, looking at the creatures that could never have hoped to live up to the task of slaying the Ultra Beasts. We had based them on the Alpha Pokémon, the one said to have created the entire universe from nothing and that possessed limitless capabilities - we had essentially attempted to recreate a god and failed miserably at it. I thought I was going to fall into despair that night, as even my best efforts had all come to naught thus far.

But then... it was as if my thoughts echoed across dimensions. Before me and me alone, a portal opened again - one that looked exactly like the ones the Ultra Beasts came through, the Ultra Wormhole. I was prepared to fight whatever came forth from it, and what emerged was something I had never seen before: a creature like a jellyfish, an unsettling shade of white tinged with blue. It flickered in and out of existence, and before I knew what was going on, it appeared in front of me and enveloped me.

It had come to answer my call and teach me the truth behind the Ultra Beasts.

In the embrace of this being from another dimension, my mind was filled with a thousand thoughts at once, all racing to express themselves. They were never meant to be here, and they never meant any harm. What blame could anyone lay upon them for being forced into a world so alien? They were only trying to defend themselves. They were attacked for simply existing, hated for being rejected from their home through no fault of their own! In their world, all was at peace, a perfect order that remained undisturbed for generations until the boundaries between dimensions were disturbed and some of them fell through the cracks. Compared to their home, ours was a horrifying wasteland of chaos and misery. In their world, all living beings roamed free and were not brought low by others, were not made to serve against their will! How could anyone blame them for lashing out against a world that was very literally out to get them, to subjugate them and experiment on them until despair had consumed them?

As quickly as it had come, the creature disappeared, warping the space around it as it vanished from my sight. I fell to my knees, unable to focus on any one thought for longer than a second.

My rage against them had been completely misplaced this entire time. I was trying to hunt them when all this time I should have been protecting them! They were just like the Pokémon that I had committed my life to protecting under the veil of the Aether Foundation, and here I was actively trying to end them. I was an agent of the chaos that these sweet beasts were trying to make sense of!

No longer, I said.

The next day, when I looked at myself in the mirror, my father's phrase echoed in my mind as it had for many years by now. I had grown so accustomed to it that it began to feel like a reflex, as easy and as mindless as breathing.

Without others, I am nothing.

Those were the words that had guided me ever since my father died. It had been the unwritten motto of the Aether Foundation itself, as by "others" it also meant Pokémon as well as humans. But for so long, I had once thought that the Ultra Beasts were not part of this, that they were mindless monsters who could only bring ruin to our world. How foolish of me to think that - and all it took was a single close, personal encounter with one of them to change my mind. If they were still slipping away from their home, that had to mean that some of them were still out there in Alola, desperately searching for a way to return to their former way of life.

Their world... I figured it must have been a world of beautiful order, a still and solemn perfection where there was only love and nothing else. A world that was a far cry from this one, where nothing remained beautiful and anything could turn ugly in the blink of an eye. How I longed to become part of such a world! It was on that day that I thought of a name for the emissary that had shared the truth of the Ultra Beasts with me in its loving embrace: Nihilego. It was the one that inspired me to think not of myself, but of the innocent ones that only wanted someone to love them. I swore that I would find a way to go to that world, to leave this rotten place behind and join those lovely creatures in their realm of harmony.

My children began to grow up as all this was happening. I couldn't believe I was ever so fond of them in the past, as they were constantly upsetting me with their propensity for doing whatever they wanted to. I made sure those little ones knew their place. They wore what I wanted them to, acted how I wanted them to, lived how I wanted them to. I told them that as long as they did as I said, that they would remain beautiful forever just like the Ultra Beasts, and that they would always be under the protection of my love. Really, it was all an exercise in futility. They never did learn what I wanted to teach them, and despite my best efforts to rip the chaos out of them they would always find a way to undermine my authority. The more I tried to rein them in, the more they pulled away from me, until my son decided he was going to go his own way and stole one of the Type: Null specimens, making off for somewhere in Alola. I was better off without such a rebellious sort, and I thought that my daughter would at least remain under my control. She had a proper sense of obedience.

At least, that's what I had thought. Even she would come to betray me. In the months following my son's disappearance, I had thoroughly scoured the history of Alola and came across a Pokémon that was capable of crossing dimensions. After much searching, the child of the stars, Cosmog, was finally in my possession. I intended to learn just how it could travel from one universe to the next, and in doing so open the Ultra Wormhole once again and finally allow me to see my sweet beasts once more. But before I could harness its power, my daughter stole it away from right under my nose. She who had been so fragile as to break down crying from seeing even a single injured Pokémon had the gall, the audacity to take away the one thing that could fulfill the goal I had so feverishly pursued! If there was one good thing about her escape, it was that its seemingly miraculous circumstances proved that Cosmog was truly capable of giving me what I wanted.

The Aether Foundation's greatest endeavor then began: the conservation of the Ultra Beasts. The labs that were once devoted to finding a way to slay them were now repurposed to finding a way to contain them, because until I had Cosmog in my possession once more, I could not possibly hope to send them back to where they belonged. So began the development and completion of the Beast Balls, which were specifically designed to contain the Ultra Beasts in a manner like the Pokémon of this world. Indeed, they were so well-suited to their unique biology that everything else that was not like them would reject the Beast Ball, demonstrating the incompatibility they had with this awful world. Using the Beast Balls, the next time I was alone with Nihilego I would bring us even closer together than we had been in the past.

Unfortunately, that time would not come so easily to me. That accursed child, that trainer who was new to Alola and taking on its island challenge, would become a thorn in my side. They spoke little, preferring to let others talk in their stead. It was infuriating to see their incessant smiling as they broke into my Aether Paradise and attempt to stop me from using Cosmog to open the Ultra Wormhole after Team Skull had brought it back to me, along with my useless daughter. I knew that my sweet beasts shared my fury, and once the Ultra Wormhole was open they would be able to freely unleash that fury upon the world that frustrated them so. So despite all those efforts to stop me, I harnessed Cosmog's power and opened not just one, but several wormholes to allow the Ultra Beasts to come and go as they pleased. Finally, I would be able to go to their world, and in doing so leave behind this corrupted, forsaken place I once called home.

It was everything I had expected and more. Ultra Space was a true paradise, with even the very air thick with a sweet and alluring taste. When I arrived, Nihilego came to greet me, many of them in fact. One of them in particular stood out, and once it touched me I knew it was the one that I had encountered on that night so long ago. It told me that it wanted to be loved by me. It expressed a desire to remain at my side, and that was when I used one of the Beast Balls to bind it to me forever. Once that was done, the other Nihilego spirited me away, and I thought we would live in harmony with each other for the rest of eternity.

Yet it was not to be! Somehow, that accursed trainer and my daughter followed me, only to try and take me away from my paradise, from the perfect world I had finally found. My daughter, she actually stood up to me and tried to talk down to me... but it didn't matter. I told her that it didn't matter who or what you were, that if you weren't beautiful enough you didn't deserve my love! I told her and her poisonous friend that they would regret coming here, that by Nihilego's power I would make them suffer. I released it from the Beast Ball and reached out to embrace it once more, to join ourselves together and exact our vengeance on anyone that would oppose us.

We had... finally become one. Nihilego was as much a part of me as I was of it, and I thought I was unstoppable as I rose to strike my enemies down. That trainer stepped in to fight me, and we clashed without holding a single thing back. But... their power was beyond us! Even after giving all I had, I was still defeated by that horrible little child! I screamed, consumed by my rage. I wouldn't let that trainer stop me! No. I couldn't! It didn't matter that all my Pokémon had lost! I myself still had Nihilego's power, and I was going to kill that repulsive daughter of mine if it was the last thing I did! I lunged at her, and before I could understand what had happened waves of light struck me. I looked up and saw that a massive Pokémon had attacked me. I thought I could continue, but its blast began to rip me apart from the inside out. The bond that my sweet beast and I shared was coming apart, somehow unraveled by the strength of that Pokémon that rushed in as a savior.

I felt Nihilego's essence being torn away from me as we separated, and with it my entire frame of mind was peeled back, exposing what I thought was long gone. No longer was I... the woman who would give everything to be with the Ultra Beasts.

As I fall to the ground, I remember who I was really meant to be. I was supposed to be a selfless servant, a tirelessly loving mother not only to Pokémon, but to my actual flesh and blood as well. I had once devoted myself so much to putting others before myself, but looking back on all I've done just proves that I had thrown it all away by being so selfish.

I hear someone calling out to me. It's a girl's voice, a very familiar girl's voice. She's calling out to me. I open my eyes and see Lillie, the daughter I had once loved so very much, on the verge of tears. There are... so many things I want to say to her - that yes, I was terrible to her, that all the abuse I had made her suffer made me unworthy of being her mother, that what I have done is beyond forgiveness. But I feel... so very weak, as if I could fade away at any moment. I cradle her face with what little strength I can muster and speak her name, the first time I've said it without enmity in a very long time. She holds my hand and nods. I don't know why. Perhaps she has accepted that she has brought this tragedy to an end. Perhaps she is thinking about how relieved she must be now that such a reprehensible woman is going to die. Or maybe... maybe she can see beyond the surface, and she has accepted my repentance that has come too late.

I don't have much more time. If this really is... our last moment together, then I want to show her how much I still love her. She has become such a lovely young woman, hasn't she?

It looks like she wants to say something, but I stop her with a finger to her lips. And I say to her:

"When did you... start becoming beautiful?"

My hand falls, and now I am fading away. As I fall into the blackest abyss, I accept that this is my fate, to die a hollow shell of the woman I once was, hated and reviled by those I once loved. My father's words ring out to me one last time, passing judgment upon me and my actions.

Without others, I am nothing.

I'm sorry, everyone. Those words... those words could never have been more true.

A/N: After playing through Pokémon Moon and learning Nihilego's name, I felt like I had to write something about it given its connection to Lusamine. While she turns out to be alive in the end, I do like to think that Lusamine thought she was going to die after her final battle. I have a feeling that were it a less optimistic series, she most certainly would have died on-screen. I'm also not 100% sure on the sequence of events before the game started, but I tried my best to piece them together. Thanks for reading this and your reviews/favorites are very much appreciated.