Lusamine

"If you're not beautiful enough to be worthy of my love, then I don't NEED you!"

- Lusamine

Lusamine is the main antagonist of the 2016 video games Pokémon Sun and Moon. She serves as the president of the Aether Foundation.

Biography
Lusamine is introduced as the president of the established Aether Foundation, an organisation that takes care of injured and hurt Pokémon, and later revealed as the mother of Gladion and Lillie. At first, Lusamine is shown to be a "good lady with good intentions", and is first seen when the player and their rival, Hau, arrive in Aether Paradise, the base of the Aether Foundation, as well as an artificial island. They first come across Lusamine when she is seen comforting a few Pokémon before greeting the player and Hau, whom she discusses the purpose of the Aether Foundation with and says she will "shower all Pokemon with love" in a motherly sense.

After talking with the two, a mysterious portal appears, and an Ultra Beast known as "UB-01" appears from it, shocking everyone. Lusamine, however, seems pleased. UB-01 then disappears and Lusamine bids farewell to the player and Hau as they leave for the next island.

After the rise of the villainous organization Team Skull and the kidnapping of Lillie, the player's companion and good friend, Hau, the player and a Team Skull member named Gladion head to Aether Paradise, where Gladion claims that is where Lillie must've been taken. He states that he wants to keep her and Nebby, a small and vulnerable Pokémon she's been trying to keep hidden, safe. Once they arrive at Aether Paradise, they're confronted by several Aether Paradise members who reveal their true intentions, along with their dark side. It was revealed that Team Skull had been working with the Aether Foundation, who had been sponsoring them. After the player, Hau and Gladion discover the experiments the Aether Foundation conduct, they head to Lusamine's chamber where they find her talking with a frightened Lillie. Surrounding Lusamine are several frozen Pokemon, preserved perfectly as part of Lusamine's "collection". She asks the player what she thinks of her collection, showing a slightly evil grin on her face. Upon arguing with Gladion and Lillie, she reveals to the player and Hau that they're her children, accusing them of stealing Type: Null (an artificial Pokémon created by the Aether Foundation that Gladion stole) and Nebby from her. Picking up a chest that Nebby is trapped inside, she questions how many Ultra Wormholes (portals connected to the Ultra Beasts) she will open before unleashing Nebby's power, opening a few portals around the Alola region. Lillie exclaims that if she uses too much of Nebby's power, it will die. Lusamine doesn't seem to care though, and and goes to her office. Soon after, Guzma enters the room right before another Nihilego enters through a portal. At that moment, the player is forced to fight Lusamine while Hau battles Guzma and Gladion fights the Nihilego. After Lusamine battles the player, she, Guzma and the Nihilego proceed to travel through the portal into Ultra Space, disappearing in there after it closes.

She had been obsessed with the mysterious "Ultra Beasts" after her husband ventured into the Ultra Space (where the creatures reside) and vanished. Lusamine dressed herself to resemble one of the Ultra Beasts known as Pheromosa, and also dressed her daughter Lillie in clothes that looked a lot like Nihilego (UB-01). When Lillie and the player reach Ultra Space, they come across an insane Lusamine. She recalls that Lillie once was "adorable" to her, and notes that she has now "turned ugly" due to her befriending the player, and then proceeds to place accusations upon the player. Lusamine sends out Nihilego and reaches her arms out above as it fuses with her, becoming "Lusamine-Nihilego", then battling the player with her Pokémon. After being defeated, Lusamine-Nihilego is seen to be furious. Before she is able to crush the player with her bare hands, Lillie calls out the Sunne Pokémon Solgaleo/Moone Pokémon Lunala (depending on the version), who then blasts Lusamine-Nihilego with their special power. Lusamine then detaches from Nihilego and returns to normal.

Lusamine collapses to the ground, visibly tired. Lillie rushes to her aid and seemingly forgives her mother, whom wonders when her daughter had "started to become beautiful".

It was later revealed that Nihilego emitted neurotoxins that had gradually corrupted Lusamine. When Lusamine was intoxicated, she acted as if Nihilego was her own child, and loved it more than Gladion and Lillie. Lusamine's obsession with the Ultra Beasts may have stemmed from trying to find her lost husband according to what Gladion speculates post game. However, Nihilego's neurotoxins amplified it, to the point of insanity. After her defeat, Lusamine fell into a deep coma.

It was mentioned in the post-game that Lusamine had traveled to Kanto with her daughter, Lillie, to seek more treatment and redeemed herself afterwards.

In the anime
Lusamine's only appearance in the anime so far is in episode 8 of the Sun and Moon series, where she was shown in a picture along with her children Lillie and Gladion. She is at work right now.

Trivia

 * Lusamine is the first female villainous team leader in the main game series, as well as the first female main antagonist.
 * Lusamine is similar to seven other villains:
 * Ragyo Kiryuin from Kill La Kill. Both are obsessed with beauty, become fully devoted to creatures from other worlds, and they are abusive towards their daughters. The only obvious difference is Lusamine never sexually abused her children.
 * Yellow Diamond from Steven Universe. Both are power hungry, are represented with the color yellow (Yellow Diamond with skin and Lusamine with hair), are leaders of a powerful organization (the Gem Empire and the Aether Foundation), seek to destroy the world, have no compassion or empathy and are willing to betray their subordinates to get what they want.
 * Father Balder from the Bayonetta series. Both of their colors involve white and gold, they are the parent of a protagonist in their respective games (Lusamine is the mother of Lillie and Gladion and Balder is the father of Bayonetta/Cereza), are both driven to evil from another entity (Nihilego intoxicates Lusamine, while Loptr slowly corrupts Balder).
 * Sofia Lamb from the BioShock series. Both are obsessed with creating a world where there is only them and the others.
 * Finé from Senki Zesshō Symphogear. Both Finé and Lusamine have similar designs (white-skinned with long blonde hair in hime cuts, and yellow eyes) and clothes (short dresses with stockings and high heels). Both are self-centered, sadistic to an extent, abusive to the teenagers in their care (though Finé and Chris are not blood-related) whom they throw away when they become useless to them, and whom eventually turn on them and play a crucial role in their defeat; both are obsessed with the idea of another world (Lusamine with Ultra Space and Finé with the world she will rule), head scientists of a large organization that secretly dabble in unethical experimentation, started their research and thus descent into villainy because of the loss of a loved male figure (Lusamine her husband and Finé the god she worshipped), become fused during their final battle with the protagonist(s) (Lusamine with Nihilego, Finé with the three complete relics of Durandal, Nehushtan, and Solomon's Cane), and harness control over their series' mascot monsters (Lusamine Pokémon, Finé Noise).
 * Nergal from Fire Emblem: Blazing Sword. Both lost their spouses beyond a portal to a realm of powerful beings and undertook some very amoral research in order to rescue them. They both went completely insane and forgot their original goals but still wanted to open the portal in order to unleash those powerful beings into the world and obtain their power. They both manipulate the leader of a criminal organization to serve their ends.
 * President Haltmann from Kirby: Planet Robobot. Both are wealthy presidents who serve as the game's Big Bad and are among the darkest villains in their respective series. Both have an antagonistic relationship with their daughters and extremely tragic pasts, in which they lost their loved ones to an alternate dimension while conducting experiments. Both of them intensively studied the boundaries of their respective universes to get their loved ones back, but were eventually controlled by the same thing that took their beloved away (Nihilego for Lusamine, Star Dream for Haltmann) and eventually grew to treat it as their loved ones. By the end of the game, both fuse with the thing they valued so much, which then serves as the game's final boss.
 * Lusamine mentioned to Hau that although she looks young, she is over 40 years old. It is possible that she could have absorbed something (such as an elixir) that would make her look young, such as "eternal youth".
 * During the second battle against Lusamine, all of her Pokémon except Bewear have an angry facial expression instead of their usual expressions.