Shadowing Practice: The Darkest Story in Pokémon: Lillie - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

Meet Lily, a Pokemon trainer from the Alola region

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Meet Lily, a Pokemon trainer from the Alola region

that happens to have one of the most tragic origin stories in the entire franchise.

At first glance, you may be thinking,

what is going on with Lily?

And a lot, this girl is traumatized.

From having a really chaotic family with an extremely abusive mother,

to Lily being scared to even interact with Pokemon in general,

she has a lot on her hands.

But to understand all this,

we have to go all the way back to the Alola region before everything got out of hand.

Originally, Lily's life wasn't messed up at all.

She actually came from a relatively normal family,

with two loving parents and a brother known as Gladion.

All of them really did get along.

Lily's mother's name is Lusamane,

and her main job is being the founder of the Aether Foundation,

a pretty normal organization meant to research and protect the Pokemon of the Alola region,

and her husband is the co-founder of the Aether Foundation at first everything was really going fine.

Until one day Moan, Lily's father,

made a scientific breakthrough and discovered the existence of Ultra Wormholes.

These are entirely new dimensions that contain beings known as Ultra Beasts,

extremely powerful Pokemon, I don't know,

I don't really consider them Pokemon,

where these entities resigned and throughout Moan's discovery,

he ended up getting into an accident where he opened up an Ultra Wormhole and one minute Moan existed,

and the next minute, Lily's father disappeared,

only leaving behind a Cosmon.

This was the single event that changed Lily and her entire family's life forever,

since it was never the same again.

Lily's mother was obviously experiencing massive grief after this event since she just lost her entire husband,

so Lusamine decided to devote a lot more time researching Ultra Wormholes so maybe one day she could bring her husband back.

After many long attempts of trial and error,

Lusamine was successful in opening up an Ultra Wormhole where she was expecting to be reunited with her husband,

but rather she was met with an Ultra Beast known as Nihilego.

This Pokemon ended up attacking her,

injecting Lusamine with some poison before dipping back into Ultra Space,

and from this point forward,

Lusamine was never the same again,

since Lusamine Lusamine was now a completely different person,

only obsessed with Nihiligo and the Ultra Beast,

making this her only life mission.

She no longer cared about her family or her husband.

Her two children, Gladion and Lily,

really felt the effects of this,

because aspects of Lily's life,

all the way down to the clothes she wears,

were meant to represent Nihiligo since Lusamine really only cared about this Ultra Beast.

And if I were Lily,

I would be furious since my entire identity is meant to represent the that destroyed your entire family.

Now, even though Lusumene was the only one to have contact with this Ultra Beast,

that is not the same for the Pokemon anime,

since there are multiple timelines for Lily's life,

mainly being the anime versus the games,

and both of them are still messed up.

In the Pokemon anime, Lusumene never comes in contact with Nihiligo,

so that's why she isn't as crazy or obsessive in that show,

since the one that got attacked was Child Lily.

When they were doing experiments in the Aether Foundation,

Lily happened to be roaming the halls,

and Nialego came out of ultra space and decided to abduct Childhood Lily,

trying to bring her back to Nialego's home.

Everybody was really shocked, even Gladion watching his own sister get kidnapped,

and she would have been done for if Cell Valley didn't come,

attacking Nialego and saving Lily's life.

This event was extremely traumatic for Lily,

and Faba, one of the head scientist decided to wipe her memories so that she would forget everything that happened.

To take it a step further to know how much of an asshole this character is,

it rewards Sal Valley by putting a muzzle on it and naming it Type Null.

Since Type Null is a legendary Pokemon that was artificially created with the sole purpose of taking down Ultra Beast.

I think this Pokemon design is really sick,

but technically Type Null is a de-evolution since it's literally just Cell Valley with a big muzzle.

At this point, Lily and Gladion were going through a lot,

so they did the only reasonable thing, which was running away.

Gladion decided to leave the Aether Foundation with Type Null since he realized this Pokemon was being mistreated,

treated, and Lily had found out that her mother was abusing Cosmog to try to open up more wormholes,

so she ended up stealing Cosmog and running away with this Pokemon,

nicknaming it Nebby, so they could try to start their own Pokemon journey.

And with that, this takes us to the start of the Pokemon Sun and Moon games,

and the start of the Pokemon anime when Ash enters the Alola region.

Because of everything that has happened to Lily,

she has an extreme fear of touching Pokemon,

and in the Pokemon games,

she just has really low self-confidence.

Within the Ultra Sun and Moon timeline when she's traveling around the region,

Nebi is also getting jumped by a bunch of random Pokemon,

and Lily really does struggle to protect this Pokemon,

but she's trying her best to get over all of her fears and insecurities.

Lusamine, on the other hand,

is still going insane, going down a really dark path,

and when Lily tries to reason with her mother,

Lusamine ends up disowning Lily,

saying that she has no children since they all ran away and rejected her love.

Lusamine's version of love with Pokemon is preserving them,

and she has one of the most messed up Pokemon collections ever,

where in her laboratory, she freezes Pokemon alive to try to preserve their perfect beauty.

I never thought I would see something like this in the Pokemon franchise since this looks straight out of a horror film.

She eventually ends up dipping to continue on with her evil plans and somehow captures Cosmog again,

finally cracking the secret to opening up Ultra Wormholes.

Everybody around Lusamine is pleading for her to stop trying to go to Ultra Space,

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but this is all too little too late,

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since she is successful in using Cosmog's power,

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and she ends up going into the Ultra Wormhole,

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dipping from our current reality,

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and is now off somewhere in Ultra Space.

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This girl really left her kids behind with no parents now,

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and even more trauma.

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Lily spends the rest of her time trying to figure out what happened to her mother,

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and how exactly they can save her since she still has a soft spot for her mom

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and ultimately wants her to be safe.

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Gladion is also in the same camp

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and the story ends up progressing with the main character

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and Lily eventually playing a flute to end up evolving Nebi into its final form Lunala

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or Sogaleo depending on the game you play.

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So now that they're able to open up Ultra Wormholes and save Lily's mom.

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Lily pleads with Lunala to open up an Ultra Wormhole since she wants to save her mother,

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and she has no idea

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if she's even alive since this is the second family member to go into Ultra Space and never come back.

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So Nebi decides to do just that.

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And this is where the timeline splits,

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because in the Pokemon Ash anime and in the base Sun and Moon games,

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we end up entering Ultra Space and meeting Lusamine there,

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but in the Ultra Sun timeline,

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when Lunala opens the portal,

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Lusamine immediately falls out into the real world, extremely beat up.

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Lily is really shocked, but before she can even process anything,

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Necrozma, one of the strongest Ultra Beasts ever,

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starts emerging from the portal,

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ready to reign terror on the Alola region.

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Lusamine ends up regaining consciousness and tells Lily to run away,

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since when she entered Ultra Space,

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base, Necrozma was infuriated with rage,

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going on a complete rampage,

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and this Pokemon is way too powerful for anyone to handle.

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Lily understands the situation that they're in,

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and ends up locking in with Lunala to challenge Necrozma.

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These two end up having a heated fight.

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Nebi is throwing hands and shooting beams at Necrozma,

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and Necrozma seems to be holding their own,

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but they're pretty evenly matched.

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Lunala ends up flinging Necrozma into a cliff,

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and while this Pokemon is trying to to recover,

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Lunala launches its signature move,

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blasting a beam of energy at Necrozma.

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Everyone thought the battle would have been over,

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but Necrozma was still standing,

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and decided to activate its Trump card.

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While Lunala was trying to charge up its next attack,

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Necrozma ends up pinning this legendary Pokemon onto the ground,

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then ends up absorbing all of Lunala's energy,

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fusing with this Pokemon turning into Ultra Necrozma.

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The cast at this point is absolutely cooked.

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Lily is obviously the most hurt since their only chance of winning and one of her best friends just got absorbed,

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and when all hope seemed lost,

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the main characters of those games decide to step in and try to show this Pokemon who's boss,

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and obviously you, the main character,

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ends up saving the day,

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defeating this Pokemon and bringing peace to the Alola region.

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The way these events play out in this timeline are fine,

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but in the Pokemon anime,

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it does get a little more interesting,

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and we do end up getting closure on what happened to Lily's dad.

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As we know, Lily is extremely scared to touch Pokemon,

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like she does not mess with these creatures,

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and when Ash first meets Lily,

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he notices this, and everyone's really trying to help her come over these fears,

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and Lily doesn't really know why she's scared of Pokemon,

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since Faba did wipe her memories of her getting attacked by an Ultra Beast when she was a kid,

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so Lily really does have internal turmoil on why she feels like this.

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As the anime progresses, as Lily slowly gets more and more comfortable with being around Pokemon and interacting with them,

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but one day she ends up encountering Gladeon and Type Null,

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and this triggered an effect in Lily's brain to start slowly remembering her traumatic past,

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since she was brainwashed to forget it,

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and she's spending a lot of time processing what's going on,

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and why Nyaleego attacked her when she was younger.

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Gladeon gets pissed off since her sister is going through all this,

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so he decides to confront Faba himself,

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And by confrontation, I just mean Gladion tried to jump this man,

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and it's well-deserved since Faba is a bum.

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But Gladion's Pokemon are no match, getting one shot.

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And to make matters even worse,

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Faba's drowsy ends up hypnotizing Gladion.

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He falls to the floor,

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and Faba steals Typeknot from Gladion.

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While this is all going on,

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Lily is walking through the city with Ash and slowly regaining some of her memories,

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remembering all the fun times she had with her family.

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But the gang is still really confused on why Lily lost her memories in the first place.

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When Gladion wakes up, he wants to hunt down Faba since he stole his Pokemon,

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and they decide to end up pulling up to Lusamine's house,

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and these two end up having a pretty deep conversation where

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Gladion does call out his mother for being a bit of a neglectful parent,

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because even though in this timeline she doesn't know about Type Null or that Lily got her memories wiped,

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Lusamine is still Lily's mother,

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and she's pretty absent from their life and should take some responsibility for her literal children.

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To make matters even worse,

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Lily ends up getting kidnapped by Faba since he realized Lily's getting her memories back,

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and brings out his Hypno again to try to brainwash Lily to forget her past.

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If it wasn't for Ash and Pikachu jumping into the mix and stopping this from happening,

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Lily would've been memory wiped again in another Genjutsu.

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Faba's Alakazam decides to use Psychic on everybody,

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freezing them in place and flinging Lily up into the air,

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and now I know this Alakazam is not trying to do

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what I think it is by throwing Lily up into the air and dropping her onto the ground trying to kill her.

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Regardless, Gladeon pulls up and gets Type Null back,

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releasing it from its Pokeball,

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and Type Null ends up evolving into Salvalli,

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jumping straight at Alakazam and saving Lily.

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And when Lily did end up seeing this Pokemon,

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she fully regained all of her memories now.

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Since Salvalli was the one that saved her when she was a kid,

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Salvalli ends up getting reckless and defeating Fava,

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and Lusumene ends up hugging Lily and crying for all the hell that she's put her through,

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wanting to actually be a good mother starting now and be a happy family with her and Gladion.

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Everything did seem to be going fine,

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until Faber crashed out, he ended up kidnapping Nebi and opening up an Ultra Wormhole,

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summoning Nihiligo, bringing back the Ultra Beast that terrorized their family.

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This Ultra Beast ended up swooping down and tried to kidnap Gladion,

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but Lusamine ends up getting in the way,

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sacrificing herself for her children and gets kidnapped by Nihiligo,

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dipping into Ultra Space.

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Obviously, Lily and everyone else is really shocked and wants to get their mother back,

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so they end up going through a bunch of shenanigans to try to go back to Ultra Space,

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and they eventually do end up opening up a wormhole,

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but when they meet up with Lusamine again,

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she ends up fusing with Nihiligo.

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This is kind of similar to what happened in the base Sun and Moon games,

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and Lily does try to talk no jutsu her mom out of Nihiligo,

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saying stuff like, mother this isn't you and you'll step into the light,

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and for a second I generally thought this was working,

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but Nihiligo wasn't having any of that and took full control of Lusamine,

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so Ash put in the work using his Z-move to defeat this Pokemon and bringing back Lusamine back to Earth.

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Now from this point forward,

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Lily, Gladeon, and Lusamine were able to start bonding as a family,

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since all their problems seem to be gone,

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but there is still one more missing family member, which is their dad.

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In the Pokemon games, Moan is just a random NPC that passes by the Aether Foundation one time,

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but nobody reminds him of his past life,

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since it seems like he has no memory of being a scientist or going to ultra space,

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and Lusumin decides that as long as his life is happy,

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she won't remind him.

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But in the Pokemon anime,

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we do find out what happened to Lily's dad when he got trapped in ultra space.

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The minute he landed there,

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a Nihiligo ended up saving him and opened up an Ultra Wormhole back to Earth in a random snowy rundown cabin.

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Nihiligo used their powers to awaken Moan,

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but the one thing is,

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Moan had now thought that the Nihiligo that saved him was his daughter known as Lily.

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Moan ends up spending years in this cabin thinking that he's living a regular life with his daughter,

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but in reality he's just chilling in a cabin with an Ultra Beast that is just LARPing.

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In Pokemon Journeys, a Magurna

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that Lily's dad used to own ends up giving them a tip that Moan may actually be alive.

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Their entire family ends up traveling through a winter biome

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and they do end up meeting up with Lily's dad

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and the whole family is shocked to see that this guy is alive

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but the one thing is he has no memory of his past life.

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He does not recognize Lily or Lusamine or Gladion

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and this really sends Lusamine down a depressive spiral since the

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husband she's devoted her life to trying to find does not have any memory of her.

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Moan ends up inviting these strangers into his house,

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and they do try to remind him of his past life,

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but nothing's really getting through to him.

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Moan does mention that he's living with his daughter,

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and that the visitors can take a look,

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which is really strange to everybody else,

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since Lily is Moan's daughter.

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And when they end up going to the other room where Moan's new daughter would be,

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they end up meeting the Nihiligo that is posing as Lily.

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They all try to play it cool,

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but Nihiligo gets caught off guard and decides to attack Lily.

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Ash ends up jumping into the mix and saving Lily last minute,

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and they end up calming down the Nihiligo,

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and eventually, Moan does regain his memories of his past life.

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He remembers many years ago falling into the portal and getting saved in ultra space,

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but now he's reunited with his family and he can finally start his life again,

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making up for all the lost time this dude has had just chilling in a random cabin,

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everybody is extremely happy, even Lusamine is crying, except for Nihiligo.

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Since Nihiligo had spent so much time with Moan pretending to be his daughter,

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but this Pokemon realizes that all good things must come to an end,

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until Lily stops Nihiligo, and acknowledges that this Pokemon is just as much as part of the family as she is,

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since Nihiligo saved Moan's life,

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and that she's willing to fully accept this Pokemon.

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They end up showing a really good visual representation of two Lilies here,

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and the family decides to catch the Ultra Beast,

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Nihiligo, and finally be fully reunited as one big happy family.

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Lilies' story is honestly one of the best ones in the entire Pokemon franchise,

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and I really wish they continued to make more characters like this,

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but for now, I've got a video on your screen explaining even more Pokemon lore,

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so click that.

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Thank you so much for watching!

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Shadowing Practice: The Darkest Story in Pokémon: Lillie - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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Shadowing Practice: The Darkest Story in Pokémon: Lillie - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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About This Lesson

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What is the Shadowing Technique?