#blame dialga and celebi for that one | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

nelvana · 4 years

Text

In which the god of space is met

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which part of a curse is broken Previous: In which the dungeon of space is explored

Warning! This chapter has descriptions of blood and stronger depictions of violence! Reader discretion is advised.

Dialga gasped as they hit the ground, landing on their side, but they barely felt that pain. This fall was barely a pinprick compared to the deep claw marks in their skin, dented and torn armor, and bruises that would only grow to feel worse when this encounter was over. But even that was nothing, nothing compared to how their throat throbbed from their yelling and screaming, to how their pounding heart ached and cried out for their friend. Tears clouded their vision, making the dark caverns appear fuzzy and almost dream-like in how the light refracted in the water in their eyes.

How had everything gone so wrong?

The beginning started out alright, as alright as something like this could go. Once all those from Team Galaxy and allies had jumped through the portal, Dialga paused, and then went right away to readjusting the portal for themselves. They wished that it would be as simple as to allow everyone to skip the dungeon, but there was no sense in arguing against how their powers connected for portal making; it was simply easier to transport themself and Celebi, and arguably Ceebee as well, but they knew she would want to stay with her friends, directly through, but taking mortals would cause problems.

“Well… here we go,” Dialga had murmured to Celebi, who still fluttered beside the larger pokemon.

Celebi had simply nodded, but to Dialga’s surprise, then they smiled softly.

“I am glad to be fighting for the world’s balance by your side,” Celebi told them.

And that, that alone gave Dialga so much more confidence. Maybe things could be alright. They could bring Palkia to their senses, and finally, finally Dialga and Celebi could enjoy the future together without any worries. Dialga smiled back, thanking their partner and returning the sentiment, before stepping through their portal. Once Celebi was safely across, Dialga closed the portal behind them.

At the back of their mind, Dialga worried about how long it would take the others to complete the dungeon, and what state they would be when they did come out, but Dialga knew that they had promised to help weaken Palkia until the group arrived, and they were committed to that promise.

How had everything gone wrong? How had it all gone so wrong so fast?

Palkia… was not open to negotiation, as expected. Part of Dialga had still hoped though, hoped that they had not been too late for that option to be completely gone. Palkia was, at first, furious to see Celebi and Dialga arrive, blaming them for bringing back the “anomalies”. However, afterwards they offered the pair a chance to team up, to destroy the “anomalies” together and “fix” the world’s balance. Trying to explain that Palkia was wrong, trying to negotiate, only brought the space god to the conclusion that Celebi and Dialga were enemies to them again, and thus Palkia charged into battle, starting the actual fight far sooner than Dialga would have hoped for.

Palkia wasted no time in utilising their signature move, as they glowed, glowing pink and orange before releasing a pink crescent-shaped blade of energy from their arm at the pair, tearing apart the cavern and space around it to utilize the attack. Dialga growled, acting swiftly to counter the spacial rend with their own signature attack, charging up a beam of energy and blasting it at their sibling’s attack, reversing time and repairing the damage of the area in the process.

“I’ll back you up,” Celebi had told them quietly.

The pixie pokemon darted away so fast that Dialga couldn’t keep track of where they had disappeared off to; though this didn’t worry them, they knew they could trust Celebi. Sure enough, it hadn’t been long before several whirlwinds of bladed leaves were sent out at Palkia, scratching the hide of the legendary, who let out a sharp hiss.

The battle only started well. It only started that way. Palkia only seemed to grow stronger as their body glowed a stronger and stronger burning red-orange and the parts that didn’t grow began darkening as they lose control over themself to going primal.

Plus, typing wise, Dialga only had dragon-type moves for super-effective damage against Palkia, and their best move for that was their roar of time, which often missed the target completely. Celebi, unlike Ceebee, did not know dazzling gleam, and could only deal neutral damage to Palkia. Palkia themself, however, knew just the right moves to counter both Dialga and Celebi. Dialga resisted many types, but was severely weak to fighting-type moves, so Palkia made sure to make use of the aura sphere attack, which never missed. Palkia didn’t have any type advantages on Celebi, but the size of any attack coming from the space god was hard to dodge and dealt immense damage, and though Palkia already seemed slightly distracted in the heat of the battle, they still seemed to know enough to choose the right moves to target the mythical with.

Celebi and Dialga had put up a good fight, but now, Dialga weakly wondered if that really mattered in the end.

Celebi was dead. Their body, discarded just across the room in such a direct way that while Dialga lay prone on the ground they could not turn their gaze away no matter how much they wished to. It had been a swift end, gored by Palkia’s teeth, leaving their corpse in an almost unrecognizable state from being bitten from something so much larger than them. What could be recognized as the same green that had once been bright, were dulled and wilted, like a leaf in autumn.

Dialga’s throat felt like it was swelling up as they gasped out another sob. Celebi died, died to Palkia as they had to Primal Dialga in the dead timeline; by the teeth of a primal after opposing them.

How Dialga had been so happy for Celebi’s second chance when the meteor had been destroyed. Guilt constantly ate away at them once they were aware of themself again for killing their friend in the other timeline, despite not being in complete control of their own actions, and Dialga had vowed to make things right for Celebi again now that time had been altered. Celebi had not lived as long in this timeline as the other, but would they have been happier? To have less days where they could see bright colors and the warmth of the rising sun, than to have more days in a dark world of despair? Dialga didn’t know, and they would never know for sure now.

Did Celebi know that they wouldn’t make it out of this fight? Dialga was certain that the pixie had attempted singing the perish song, right before being cut off by their untimely death and failing to set up the move. It was hard to piece together the exact memory now between the pain, but if that were the case, Dialga supposed it could have been a good strategy, only as a last resort to knock out the legendaries, but it would have killed Celebi in the end anyway. They didn’t even get that sacrifice now.

Suddenly, Dialga was torn out of their thoughts as Palkia shoved their upper body weight onto them, pinning them to the ground. Dialga hadn’t even felt the willpower, much less the energy, to get back up again before then, but if they were to try, they had just lost their window to do so.

“How the mighty have fallen,” Palkia hissed, leaning down to Dialga’s face to utter their twisted words. “You tried to STOP ME! And you have FAILED! Don’t worry, dearest sibling… I will FIX everything, FIX what you wanted to DESTROY. You may hate me now, but you’ll understand later, you’ll SEE! YOU’LL SEE! I am only trying to do what is RIGHT! I will SAVE us all!”

Dialga could only choke out a weak cough in response. They wanted to argue, but their heart ached and their throat was still sore and Palkia’s claws digging into their neck didn’t help.

“SAY SOMETHING!” Palkia demanded, “is that it? You’re just going to GIVE UP?” they snapped, digging their claws deeper into Dialga’s skin. “FINE. That makes this easier for me. You will thank me later for this.”

“They won’t thank you! You aren’t fixing anything!” Ceebee cried out, flying out from the shadows as she rounded the corner to enter the room of the fight.

“You brought OTHERS here?” Palkia shrieked at Dialga, who could only desperately stare out at the other celebi, the shiny one not their Celebi but the next celebi generation afterwards.

Ceebee didn’t react to the corpse of Celebi, though she seemed already aware of it despite not even looking at it. She knew Celebi was dead the very moment it happened; had she not been brought back to existence then this would have been her birth in this timeline. So, she stubbornly did not look down at the body, as to not scare herself at the sight.

As the rest of the group entered, however, it was hard not to look at their fallen ally. Dialga’s stomach only seemed to twist further at the audible reactions of horror, and how the concern and fear and confusion was all brought together only to see Dialga pinned against the very pokemon they were supposed to beat.

“YOU BROUGHT THE ANOMALIES HERE? HERE, in MY domain?” Palkia roared.

“They aren’t… anomalies,” Dialga wheezed, doing their best to lift their head defiantly.

Palkia let out a low growl, watching as everyone entered, though fortunately, the legendary did not attack them straight away, and only studied them for a few moments, unintendedly giving them time to take in the scene in front of them instead of being caught off guard by being involved in battle right away.

“You will be stopped,” Dialga continued, twisting their gaze to stare Palkia in the eyes.

Palkia laughed, “by WHO? These MORTALS and ANOMALIES you have brought with you?” they sneered, turning to meet Dialga’s gaze again.

“By them, yes. By them or by Arceus. You know that they will not stand for this, you are destroying the balance that holds space together,” Dialga responded, baring their teeth boldly.

“By ARCEUS?” Palkia repeated, something unfamiliar crossing their expression. “Do you REALLY think they will come to help YOU? Arceus will never arrive here! You know WHY? You know WHY Arceus cannot come to stop ANY of us?” they yowled, “Arceus is DEAD!”

Dialga paled, and they could already feel their throat tighten again and head spin.

“You’re lying,” they managed to hiss back.

“I’M NOT! WHY DO YOU THINK THEY NEVER SHOWED UP WHEN YOU SENT THE WORLD INTO DARKNESS FOR CENTURIES?” Palkia cried out, their rage melting momentarily into something far more desperate and mournful. “I SAW IT MYSELF AND I WAS THE ONLY ONE AND I COULD ONLY WATCH AND DO NOTHING!” they howled, eyes welling up. “YOU DON’T KNOW ANYTHING! ARCEUS IS GONE AND I’M THE ONLY ONE TRYING TO FIX THINGS!”

For what felt like ages, Dialga could only stare blankly back at Palkia. The illusion vision they had been warned about… had already happened, long in the past it seemed. How could Dialga have not known before? In hindsight, it made sense, it made sense that that was why Arceus had never helped fix things in the dead timeline, but Dialga still could not wrap their head around the idea. Arceus had always been there, the only being to have come before them being Mew themself. Legendaries of their kind had never died before at any point in history, and the idea that something out there could kill gods of this power sounded both impossible and terrifying.

And yet, and yet, the raw tone in Palkia’s voice, the heartbroken look in their eyes… Dialga knew they were being honest, that this wasn’t something they had been tricked to believe as a strange result of beginning to turn primal.

“How… How did they die?” Dialga asked quietly, finding themself looking at Palkia with a far gentler expression than they had in a long time. “Why didn’t you tell me? I could have helped.”

Palkia turned away, screwing their eyes tightly shut in an attempt to rid them of the tears that had sprung up during their outburst. They swallowed a breath, hiccupping slightly as they seemed to consider what to say. As they did this, the weight pushing Dialga lessened slightly, making them wonder if maybe this could be it, if they could turn things around.

Finally though, Palkia looked back down at Dialga, and though it was hard to see at their angle, Dialga could make out their sibling’s face turn into a scowl.

“You cannot help. Not anymore. I will deal with this… You are fortunate you cannot die… at least not by me, not that I would want that, I still need you, but… I at least need you out of my way for now, which I can do,” Palkia grumbled.

With that, Dialga felt dagger sharp teeth sink around their throat. They struggled feebly for a few moments, eyes widened in horror, but it didn’t take long for their eyes to shut and body to go limp as darkness overtook them.

Palkia stood up, stepping back from their unconscious and wounded sibling and looking down at their handiwork. After simply staring at Dialga for a few moments, they opened a hole in space below the god of time, dropping them into the void and sealing the tiny portal behind them, sending Dialga off to some unknown place in the Spacial Rift. There were a few quiet gasps from the group, though Ceebee was quick to assure them through telepathy that Dialga had not been moved far.

Finally, Palkia turned back to the group, licking the blood from the lips, smearing the crimson liquid on their face instead of cleaning it in a few spots. Their orange eyes were sharp as they stared down at the group, and glowed dimly in the darkness of the cave.

“I suppose…” Palkia began, “…that having you here isn’t THAT bad. I can REMOVE the ANOMALIES easier here MYSELF. Especially seeing as my own allies seem to have FAILED me.”

At being mentioned, the Lake Guardians cautiously floated out from another corridor and into the room. The ditto trudged along much slower behind them, dragging themself across the ground to join the others. It was evident they had been here for awhile, as at the very least, Ditto could not enter the Spacial Rift on their own and would have had to have been brought here by Palkia before all this, though whatever the quartet had been doing before entering was beyond the party.

“We apologize, Master Palkia,” Uxie told them, “we failed to locate them before they arrived here, but we returned as quickly as we could to help you; as you know. We were unaware that they would come here to disturb you…”

Palkia narrowed their eyes, “…I will give you three… you three and that THING you’ve gotten another chance to help me make this RIGHT. This time. But you better not fail me here.”

“We will not fail you, Master Palkia,” Azelf assured them, bowing slightly towards the legendary.

“Good,” Palkia growled back, barely glancing at the trio floating beside them.

Turning to focus on the group again, Palkia let their gaze wash over the eight pokemon momentarily before smiling and speaking again.

“There are… MORE of you than I need to REMOVE. Though only…” They trailed off, eyes darting from ‘mon to ‘mon, and then a second time as if Palkia had forgotten how to count. “…only four of you that are here are PROBLEMS.” They focused their gaze on Ceebee for a moment. “I suppose now that that other celebi is gone, YOUR existence isn’t as PARADOXAL. So, let’s save some trouble, Celebi, Torchic, Absol, and Duskull, if you wish to LEAVE now, no harm will come to you. If you choose to stay and fight with these ANOMALIES, we will be forced to REMOVE you with them,” Palkia offered.

Keahi, though with shaking legs after what zie had already witnessed, stepped forward and held zirself high, glaring against the powerful being with only a stubborn determination that burned in zir eyes.

“We’ll never leave them! They are our friends, not anomalies, and we will prove it to you!” zie yelled.

Tsuki stepped up beside the torchic, “they are not what causes the imbalance of the world, you are. We will fight you to fix the disasters that have befallen this world.”

“Y-Yeah! We didn’t come this far to just give up here!” Edgar added, voice wavering slightly, though he did not back down. “We aren’t going to abandon our friends!”

Ceebee’s expression hardened, “what you’re doing here is wrong, Palkia. You may not see it, but your ‘help’ is only tearing everything apart further. We’ve already seen it firsthand.”

The four of them stood in front of their remaining allies, staring defiantly up at Palkia and their own allies. They were well aware of the risks, but they knew that before coming here. Seeing Dialga and Celebi both fail to come close to beating Palkia had certainly hammered that home, but at least that pair had weakened this legendary. They weren’t going to suddenly turn around now, even with the stakes displaying so horrifically in front of their faces. Behind them, the other four felt a newfound confidence at being backed up.

Palkia snarled back at them, “you are all FOOLISH! I offered you a chance to SURVIVE and you choose to stay and DIE? You will all DIE for the wrong side? Dialga is foolish too; they have lied to you. I am FIXING everything! You are all only RUINING what I am trying to FIX! All for what? FRIENDS? You are FOOLS! I offered you a chance and you THREW IT AWAY!” they snapped, and then seemed to calm slightly. “Fine, you’ve made your choice. We will offer no mercy now!”

“We expect that, and will offer you none either,” Ceebee growled, eyes and antennae already glowing with intent.

First [ARC 1]: In which the human is transformed First [ARC 2]: In which a present is prepared Next: In which part of a curse is broken Previous: In which the dungeon of space is explored

11 notes · View notes

catflowerqueen · 4 years

Text

This is for you, @citrus-chickadee

Party Crashers Part 1

“My Dear, are you all right?”

The Grass-type blinked, the sight of Celebi waving a hand in front of his face dispelling his thoughts. “Hm? I’m sorry… did you say something, Celebi?

Celebi sighed in exasperation, crossing her arms and plopping down next to him. “I asked if you were all right,” she repeated. “You seem more distracted than usual… even considering what day it is.”

Grovyle winced at the reminder, briefly flicking his eyes in Dialga’s direction. Ever since the dark future had changed, he and Celebi were welcome guests in Dialga’s home. The Temporal Pokemon had even become a part-time employer of sorts, strange as that was given their history together. But today they weren’t there to receive any jobs; today was—or would have been, if she hadn’t disappeared—Laura’s Birthday, and it had become a tradition for Grovyle and Celebi to visit Dialga on the Temporal Tower Pinnacle to try and cheer him up. Despite everything that had ended up happening, Dialga still blamed himself for Laura’s ultimate fate.

Usually one or two members of the Sableye Gang came as well, but today they were all busy with other tasks. Dos, Trois and Seis had legitimate excuses, at least. Dos always honored the day by placing a new portrait in the Memorial Garden near Laura’s grave, and he had gotten a late start on painting this year’s addition due to a recent illness. Trois and Seis couldn’t make it because they were busy fixing their house since the roof had collapsed after a Castform decided their front yard would be the perfect place to teach his kids about weather changing moves—despite the fact that New PIT Base had training grounds conveniently located near the guest housing—and one of them became a bit too enthusiastic about the move Hail. But the other three—along with Dusknoir—weren’t there because they were trying to avoid the sadness.

Dusknoir was always conveniently “busy” whenever this date came around, and this year he had decided that it was absolutely vital that he go on a week-long scouting mission to—of all places—the Oran Forest. Cinq, Un, and Cuatro insisted they go with him to “protect him from danger.” Again, this was the Oran Forest they were talking about. If those guys weren’t doing this as an avoidance tactic, then Grovyle would eat nothing but Grimy Food for a week. In any case, it would probably be a few more days before they returned.

“Sorry, Celebi. I was just… thinking,” Grovyle finally replied.

Celebi giggled. “I can see that, my dear… What were you thinking about?”

Grovyle hesitated, looking towards Dialga’s depressed form again and weighing whether it was really worth it to upset him even more over what was probably a stupid question. In the end he decided that his desperate need to know the answer—even if the chances that it would be favorable were likely very slim—far outweighed the probability of pain. So he went ahead and asked, “I was just wondering… Dialga, are you really sure that Laura isn’t ali-with us, anymore? Somewhere out there?”

Dialga, who had perked up slightly at being addressed, winced and slumped even lower to the floor. He didn’t give a verbal response, but it was pretty clear from his body language that the answer was “yes.”

Celebi frowned, feeling troubled. “My dear… you haven’t thought about that possibility in years. What makes you think of it now?”

Grovyle shrugged, “When I went to Laura’s grave this morning to pay my respects, I was interrupted by this really weird visitor.”

“Oh? Weird in what way?”

Grovyle frowned, concentrating on bringing the memories back to the forefront of his mind before explaining, “Well, at first he didn’t realize where we were and tried to pick a fight with me over the flowers I’d picked for her,” he paused here to roll his eyes in remembered annoyance, “but then once he realized that we were at a grave… and especially once he realized whose grave it was… he was completely devastated. Like we all were, at first, you know? As if… as if he hadn’t known she was gone and it was a fresh wound.”

“That is strange,” Celebi agreed. “I mean… we’ve spread that story around enough that he should have heard it from somewhere…”

Grovyle nodded before furrowing his brow, realizing something. “Actually… he might not have.”

When Celebi—and Dialga, if only briefly—looked over in surprise, Grovyle explained, “I didn’t even think about it at the time, but… he was a celebi. He might not have heard it if he came from far enough in the past,” Grovyle paused and frowned as he suddenly realized something. “Which… actually makes how he behaved after I told him the story even stranger.”

“HOW DID HE BEHAVE?” Dialga asked, his attention riveted for some reason upon hearing the visitor’s species.

“He seemed…relieved. As if… well, as if he was worried that she had actually died from something like… I don’t know… age or illness, I guess. Something common.”

Celebi shot up into the air. “Wh-what?” she spluttered. “B-but that doesn’t make sense! I mean… okay, if he was from far enough in the past, then, yes you’re right, obviously death by ‘disappearing as a result of changing the future’ wouldn’t have crossed his mind… but it was still a grave. So why would he feel—” she came to a screeching halt as she realized something else. “…Actually, if he was from that far in the past… how would he even know who Laura was to get upset that she’s no longer with us?”

“That’s what I was thinking,” Grovyle admitted. He frowned thoughtfully for a moment before theorizing, “I suppose he may have been thinking of a different Laura, but…”

“WHAT DID HE LOOK LIKE?!” Dialga suddenly demanded, derailing Grovyle’s train of thought.

When Grovyle didn’t answer—being too startled by the wild look in Dialga’s eyes and how forceful the question had been—Dialga calmed his tone slightly and tried again. “LET ME CLARIFY… DID HE HAVE ANY SORT OF DISTINGUISHING FEATURES, OR DID HE JUST LOOK LIKE AN AVERAGE CELEBI?”

“…He was wearing a few odd accessories, but otherwise he looked normal,” Grovyle finally answered. He felt slightly confused when it caused Dialga to seem crestfallen, but before he could think of something to cheer him up he remembered another detail and added, “Well, unless his odd eye color would classify him as a different type of shiny celebi than Celebi here.”

“His eye color?” Celebi asked, cocking her head in amusement at the possibility that Grovyle had now been acquainted with two shiny pokémon of her species.

“Yes. His eyes were golden.”

Dialga pulled in sharp gasp before sitting straight up. “GOLDEN?” he repeated frantically, his eyes widening when Grovyle nodded in assent. “BUT THAT WOULD MEAN…” he trailed off, his gaze moving towards the Time Gear pedestal. He frowned and began to “mutter” in thought. “BUT IF IT REALLY WAS HIM, THEN WHY WOULD HEARING ABOUT HER MANNER OF DEATH MAKE HIM RELIEVED? UNLESS…”

He trailed off again and let his eyes become distant. Grovyle and Celebi glanced at each other, feeling slightly worried and wondering if they should go to the Oran Forest and fetch Dusknoir to help them decipher his master’s odd mood… or to help them subdue the Temporal pokémon if it turned out he was going crazy again. But then they jolted when Dialga finally came back to the present, threw back his head… and laughed. They then seriously considered going to get Dusknoir, since the laugh sounded far too joyous given the date.

“GROVYLE… CELEBI…” Dialga suddenly said, turning back towards them and causing them to jump. “I HAVE A JOB FOR YOU.”

Grovyle and Celebi blinked in confusion before their eyes widened in comprehension. “A… job? As in… right now?” Grovle asked, stunned.

“Is… is something wrong?” Celebi wondered aloud, sounding very concerned.

“NO, NO… NOTHING IS WRONG. ABSOLUTELY NOTHING…” Dialga paused to smirk. “BUT IT IS STILL VERY IMPORTANT THAT YOU DO THIS.”

“…Okay…” Celebi said, still sounding unsure. “What do you need us to do?”

Dialga nodded happily and jerked his head, opening a dimensional hole to his right.

“I NEED YOU TO TAKE THIS DIMENSIONAL HOLE BACK TO THE PAST AND OBSERVE WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE IN THAT TIME PERIOD.”

Celebi cocked her head and placed a hand near the edge of the hole. She closed her eyes in concentration, focusing on finding out the date it would lead them to. When she had it, her eyes snapped open in shock.

“But this is… today’s date about four years after Team Rainbow took the Time Gears to Temporal Tower!”

Grovyle’s jaw dropped. “Wha…?” he turned to Dialga. “Why would you want us to go to then?” he demanded.

Dialga smirked again and gave a shrug. “I TOLD YOU: I WANT YOU TO OBSERVE WHAT LIFE WAS LIKE. FOUR YEARS SHOULD BE ENOUGH TIME FOR THINGS TO HAVE SETTLED DOWN SINCE THE CRISIS AT TEMPORAL TOWER, BUT THAT DOES NOT NECESSARILY MEAN THAT YOU WON’T FIND ANYTHING… INTERESTING, TO REPORT.”

Grovyle frowned. He didn’t like how suspicious Dialga was acting…

“BESIDES… LAURA IS NOT THE ONLY FRIEND YOU LEFT BEHIND WHEN YOU DRAGGED MY FAITHFUL SERVANT DUSKNOIR BACK TO THAT DARK FUTURE, CORRECT?”

Grovyle’s eyes widened. “Paula…” he whispered before looking away, slightly shame-faced. “That’s right… she’s probably missing Laura too…”

Celebi slapped her forehead. “I can’t believe I never thought of travelling back to see her before! She probably thinks we’re dead as well!”

“EXACTLY,” Dialga said, giving another grin. “WHICH IS ALL THE MORE REASON TO GO BACK FOR A QUICK VISIT.”

Grovyle glanced back at him once more with a frown before sighing and rubbing his temples. “…Okay, I give in.” He straightened up, transitioning into serious mode. “Do you want us to go now, or do we have time to pack first?”

“Oh, my dear, you’re so paranoid!” Celebi chided, rolling her eyes. “Why would we need to pack if we’re merely going to observe?”

“It’s always good to be prepared,” Grovyle cautioned. “Besides, I don’t know if you’ve forgotten, but the last time I went to the past I was labelled a wanted criminal.”

“I’m sure they would have repealed that by now.”

“You don’t know that… and there’s also the fact that—h-hey! Wait a minute!”

Celebi, tired of Grovyle’s attempts at making excuses, grabbed his arm and dragged him towards the Dimensional Hole. “Don’t worry so much! I’m sure everything will go splendidly!” she assured before—and without any warning—shoving him in. She waited until his surprised yelps and screaming faded away before turning back towards Dialga with a wide smile.

“We’ll give you a full report when we get back!” she told him before she remembered something. Her smile became mischievous when she added, “Oh! Make sure that you thwack Dusknoir and the sableye on the back of the head for being such sillies again this year if they return before us, okay?”

Dialga chuckled. “I WILL BE SURE TO DO THAT. HAVE A GOOD TIME.”

Celebi gave a salute before flying into the dimensional hole. Dialga watched as it flickered and closed, and then he settled down near the pedestal to allow the new memories of the past that had just become available to him to catch up and merge with the ones already in his head. He gave a soft, happy sigh as the image came to mind of a treecko with brilliant, rainbow-colored eyes smiling at him in greeting when he descended to the Hidden Land to see how she was coming along with repainting the murals…

“I HOPE LAURA WILL LIKE HER SWEET SIXTEEN PRESENT…”

--------

Grovyle groaned as he sat up, feeling sand shift beneath his claws (and internally wondering if that meant he’d ended up travelling back to a beach yet again), and shook his head to dispel the fog caused by the time travel. He looked around, locating Celebi—who, annoyingly, didn’t seem to have suffered any ill effects from the time travel like he had—and shooting her a weak glare. But she was too busy admiring the waves (well, that answered that question…) with wide, excited eyes to notice, so he quickly gave it up and settled for a soft sound of annoyance.

This caught Celebi’s attention and she turned to him with a big smile on her face. “My Dear Grovyle! You’re finally awake!” she exclaimed with glee before flying up and twirling in the air. “Isn’t this beach just amazing?” she gushed.

Grovyle chuckled minutely at her antics. “Yes, it is quite nice… but you’ve seen beaches like this before, remember?” he reminded her gently.

“Well, yes… but those were future beaches. This is a past beach! Just think: Laura and Paula may have played on one just like this when they took breaks from their exploration work!”

Grovyle tilted his head thoughtfully and looked more closely at his surroundings. “Actually… I think this is the beach they played on,” he said. “It looks like the one near Treasure Town, at any rate. What’s more…” he trailed off, looking up and squinting into the distance “…that outcrop of rock over there looks distinctly like a sharpedo, does it not? So that must be Sharpedo Bluff, where Laura, Paula, and I stayed for a while before retrieving the Time Gear from Treeshroud Forest.”

“Oh?” Celebi asked, flying a bit higher to get a closer look. “You’re right! It does look like a sharpedo! So that means that the Wigglytuff Guild must be nearby! That’s where Paula will be… right?”

“Most likely,” Grovyle agreed. But then he frowned slightly as a few other possible scenarios flitted through his head. “It’s been a few years, though, so she may have moved on by now.”

“But they’d probably know where she went if that was the case, yes?” Celebi asked, coming back down to hover at a more reasonable level. “Besides… the other members of the guild are your friends too, right?

Grovyle’s frown deepened and he crossed his arms, shifting over to look at the waves. “…I wouldn’t really call us ‘friends,’” he told her truthfully. “The only other member of the guild I really had the opportunity to talk with was Wigglytuff.”

Celebi pouted briefly before grinning again and tugging his arm. “Well now’s your chance!” she insisted.

Grovyle shook his head in amusement as he allowed her to lead him. “Now who’s the impatient one?” he teased. Celebi blushed and declined to answer.

Grovyle shook his head again and barked out a short laugh before something along the path caught his eye. “Hold on a moment, Celebi,” he requested, stopping in place. “This wasn’t here before.”

Celebi obligingly dropped his arm, turning back to look at what he’d seen. It appeared to be a building. It was a bit on the small side, but that just gave it an air of coziness. There was a colorful sign in front that read: “Rainbow’s Palette.” Celebi tried to look in the windows, but each one was blocked by blue-green curtains.

“Is it a shop?” Celebi wondered.

“It appears so,” Grovyle mused. “There’s a clay ‘SORRY, WE’RE CLOSED’ sign on the door…”

“Oh, I didn’t notice that,” Celebi said, floating closer to investigate. When she had affirmed the shop’s “closed” status, she headed back to Grovyle’s side… or at least, she was about to before she noticed another small structure slightly behind the shop. She tested the door, but it was locked. “Oh well,” she mentally shrugged. “We can always come back later.”

She zoomed back towards Grovyle and tugged on his arm again. “Come, my dear! The guild awaits!”

----------

Grovyle stared at the grate at his feet and swallowed nervously. He didn’t think the guild members would be hostile towards him or Celebi, but there was always the chance that they blamed him for Laura’s disappearance…

“Celebi… I think it would be best if you stayed behind me.”

Celebi rolled her eyes, but did as he said. Even though he was too stubborn and prideful to admit it to her face, she could tell that he was nervous. If letting him take the lead would give him some peace of mind, then she would gladly do it.

Grovyle stepped onto the grate. He took a breath and opened his mouth, preparing to call down and ask permission to enter the guild, but his words quickly died in his throat when the gates suddenly opened. He frowned, his deeply ingrained paranoia beginning to rise at how easy that had been. He cautiously poked his head around the corner of the door frame and scanned the enclosure for any danger. When he saw none, he glanced back at Celebi and silently jerked his head, indicating that she follow. She rolled her eyes again.

Grovyle cautiously climbed down the ladder, his frown deepening when he reached the bottom and saw that the second floor was empty.

“…Something’s not right here,” he muttered quietly. “I know it’s midday and most of the apprentices should be out exploring… but even so, the guild shouldn’t be this empty…”

“…Do you think something’s wrong?” Celebi asked in a whisper. When he nodded, she frowned. “But Dialga said that everything was fine!”

“He may have been referring to the ‘big picture,’” Grovyle reminded her. “It wouldn’t be the first time that he—did you hear that?”

“Hear what?” Celebi asked, blinking as she watched Grovyle crouch low to the ground and slink over to the second ladder.

“I thought I heard something moving on the floor below us,” Grovyle explained, peering down the hole. “But it’s too dark to see…”

Grovyle suddenly nodded decisively and stood up, moving towards the side of the ladder. “Be prepared for anything!” he warned before foregoing the ladder in favor of leaping directly down the hole—thereby putting him in the optimal position if he needed to immediately launch an attack once he reached the bottom. Celebi—slightly startled by the sudden leap—quickly flew down after him.

---------

The members of the guild, meanwhile, who had all assembled on the bottom floor of the guild for Laura’s “surprise” Sweet Sixteen party were hurriedly scrambling to find good hiding spots so that they could surprise the Birthday girl as much as possible when she and Paula finally made it over. They weren’t actually anticipating being able to surprise her very much, though, since they’d told her repeatedly of their plans over the past few days. But it had been a necessary evil considering that the last three times they’d tried to throw her a surprise party without warning her first she’d freaked out and either fainted, attacked them, or attacked them and then fainted—which was never a good way to start a celebration.

“Are you SURE it’s them, Diglett?” Loudred asked in as quiet a voice as he could manage.

“Who else could it be?” Diglett whispered back as he popped out of the ground and hurried to get into position. “Everyone in town knows that today is Laura’s Birthday and that we’re throwing her a surprise party.”

“Meh heh heh… Including her,” Croagunk snickered.

“Shush!” Chatot ordered. “I think I hear them!”

There was silence for a few moments, and then the guild heard a light “THUD!” followed by a… soft fluttering sound? They could just barely see the outlines of two pokémon in the dim light, and when the one in front took a cautious step forward…

“SURPRISE!” they all shouted, jumping out of their hiding spots as the lights flicked on. “HAPPY—GAAH!”

They were cut off by a sudden barrage of attacks and had to immediately duck back into their hiding places to avoid getting hit.

“You really think I’d fall for something like that?” they heard a gruff voice—which, while it did sound sort of familiar, definitely did not belong to Laura or Paula… especially considering it was male—demand. “That has got to be the worst trap ever—and trust me, I’ve seen some pretty bad ones.”

“Uh, My Dear? I think you need to take another look around… I really don’t think this was a trap,” came another voice. This one was feminine, but it didn’t sound like it belonged to Laura or Paula either…

“What do you—” the first pokémon began sharply before breaking off. There was a momentary pause before, “—oh,” he finished lamely, presumably because he’d finally gotten a good look at the room and seen the party decorations, which were now likely ruined from his attack. “Uh… My apologies?”

“Wh—Your APOLOGIES?!” Loudred demanded indignantly, though he still stayed hidden in case the crazy party crasher decided he wasn’t through attacking yet. “You just ATTACKED us!”

“It was a misunderstanding, I assure you.”

“Hm… Seems like you cause a lot of those whenever you travel back to this time period, don’t you?” his companion giggled.

“I—Last time was not my fault Celebi, and you know it!”

Wigglytuff frowned. “‘Celebi?’ ‘Time traveling?’” he repeated. Then he blinked as he realized why the voice sounded familiar. “Friendly-friend Grovyle! Is that you?!” he asked, his voice full of hope as he sprang up from his hiding place.

“WHAT? GROVYLE?” the others repeated in shock, jumping out to see for themselves.

Sure enough, there, standing near the foot of the ladder and glaring at his companion—who appeared to be a… shiny celebi?—was Grovyle. The same Grovyle who had first become known to the guild for his theft of the Time Gears. The same Grovyle who hadn’t actually been stealing them, but was, instead, trying to collect them to save the world from becoming paralyzed. The same Grovyle who wasn’t supposed to exist anymore because of the fact that the world had been saved from that paralyzed future!

Grovyle dropped his glare and slowly turned to face the room. “Er… Yes,” he said, gulping and giving a somewhat nervous wave. “H-hello Wigglytuff. It’s… good to see you again.”

“Hello everyone! My name’s Celebi!” Celebi suddenly introduced herself with a big smile. “It’s so nice to meet you! My Dear Grovyle has told me so much about you!”

“It’s nice to meet you, too, Friendly-friend Celebi!” Wigglytuff greeted, running over to shake her hand. “Paula told us all about you too!”

“Oh really? Did she say nice things?”

“Of course! She told us all about how you helped her, Laura, and Grovyle find the Passage of Time and—”

“Squawk! W-wait a moment, Guildmaster!” Chatot interrupted, wings fluttering in agitation. “Aren’t you the least bit curious as to how these two are here when they’re not supposed to exist anymore?!”

“Hey, hey! Or why they didn’t come back sooner to let us know they were alive?!” Corphish added.

Celebi took the liberty of answering. “Well the first answer is a bit complicated, and the second is, ah…” she cringed in embarrassment and began twiddling her thumbs nervously. “…W-well, it took a lot of time to rebuild and get the two opposing histories to stabilize with each other, so we just, uh… never actually thought about it until today! Tee hee…?”

“Well, golly!” Bidoof exclaimed, seeming oblivious to the dumbfounded silence afflicting the others. “What makes today so special?” he wondered.

Grovyle—who had been staring perplexedly at Celebi’s interactions with the denizens of the past—glanced over at him and quirked his lips into a sad grin. “Well, there were a few reasons,” the Grass-type said vaguely, deciding not to tell them that today would have been Laura’s Birthday for fear of making them upset, “but the main one is that Dialga—”

“Oh my gosh! Dialga is involved?” Sunflora suddenly panicked. “He’s not going crazy again, is he? Eek! That would be terrible!”

“No, no, no! It’s nothing like that!” Celebi assured. “He just thinks that enough time has passed since the crisis at Temporal Tower that things should be settled down here, and he wanted us to come observe how everyone was getting along and make sure you were all doing fine.

“Phew…” Sunflora sighed, feeling greatly relieved. “You had me worried!”

“Meh heh heh… You seem very close to Dialga, considering that he spent ‘years’ trying to kill you…” Croagunk mused.

Grovyle winced. “I suppose it is a bit odd when you put it that way,” he agreed. “But… well, it’s complicated. When Celebi said that we had been doing a lot of rebuilding, she wasn’t just talking about the tangible things.”

“Besides, Dialga isn’t really so bad when he’s not being influenced by darkness,” Celebi added. “He even suggested that while we were here we should pay a visit to some of our old friends!”

Wigglytuff cocked his head. “Oh, oh? You mean like Paula and—oh! This is perfect!” he suddenly exclaimed clapping his hands together with excitement. “Here we were all thinking that there wouldn’t be any surprises today… but you two will be the best surprises ever!”

Grovyle blinked and shared a glance with Celebi, “I beg your pardon?” he asked, feeling a rising sense of trepidation.

“Oh my gosh! You’re right, Guildmaster!” Sunflora gasped, clapping her leaves to her cheeks when she came to the same conclusion as Wigglytuff. “She’ll never see it coming!”

Suddenly it clicked with the remaining guild members. “OH! RIGHT!” Loudred exclaimed before turning towards Diglett. “How much time do we have before they’re supposed to GET here?”

But before Diglett could answer, the ringing of a bell echoed through the guild, signaling that someone was at the gates.

“…Apparently none! Everyone, get into position! It has to be them this time!”

Grovyle and Celebi looked on in befuddlement as everyone began scrambling for a hiding spot. Corphish noticed them and scurried back over. “Hey, hey! What are you two doing? You’ve got to hide!” he chided, pushing them down to crouch behind the ruined food table. “Now stay there and keep quiet!” he ordered, rushing off to dim the lights again before hurrying to find his own hiding place.

The duo from the future was left bewildered, sitting in the dark, and Celebi leaned over to whisper, “Grovyle, is everyone in the past always this strange?”

“If they are, I certainly didn’t encounter it last time I was here,” he whispered back.

“Shush! No talking!” Chatot ordered, causing them to quickly silence. Although, that might have been due more to the fact that they could hear quiet voices coming from the floor above them. Voices that seemed very familiar…

“…maintain that I wouldn’t have fainted if they hadn’t been acting so weird leading up to it.”

“Okay, fair point. But still… did you really expect that they would just let an excuse to party slip by?”

“Considering that I outright said I didn’t want one? I kind of hoped they would.”

“Oh come on, you know deep down that you enjoy that stuff just as much as they do.”

There was a pause, and Grovyle could practically hear the grin in the voice when the second speaker interpreted her companion’s silence as an unwilling agreement and said, “But anyways… you won’t attack them this time, right? I mean… they did warn you they were going to do this.”

“…I can make no promises that if they all jump out and yell ‘Surprise!’ I won’t—”

Just then the lights came on and everyone, except for the duo from the future, who were still trying to puzzle out the identity of the voices, jumped out and yelled, “SURPRISE! HAPPY SWEET SIXTEEN, LAURA!”

“Laura?!” Grovyle thought, stunned, but feeling a sudden surge of hope pouring through his soul. “Did they just say—?!”

He shot up from his hiding place, and his jaw dropped at the sight of Paula standing slightly off to the side of the ladder, sheepishly rubbing her neck under the scowl of the familiar-looking treecko who was standing beside her.

“Did they just say Laura?!” Celebi, who had also shot up at the mention of Laura’s name, gasped in joy.

At the sound of the voice the treecko stopped scowling at her partner, who was now slack-jawed with shock, and whipped around, her rainbow-colored eyes wide with a strange, yet perfect, mixture of disbelief and hope.

At the sight of her eyes—eyes which he would recognize anywhere—Grovyle drunkenly staggered forward a few steps. “L-Laura…?” he whispered hopefully, tears threatening to fall.

“G-Grovyle…?” the treecko—Laura!— whispered back, just as hopefully, as she too took a few timid steps forward, tears forming in her own eyes and slowly rolling down her cheeks.

At the sight of his long-time partner crying—actually, finally, crying—what little composure Grovyle had left completely shattered and his tears overflowed. The salty liquid blurred his vision as he ran forward and scooped Laura into his arms, twirling her around in joy before hugging her tightly. “Laura… you’re alive! You’re really, actually… alive!” he laughed out in a happy mantra.

“Grovyle, Grovyle, Grovyle!” Laura chanted back just as joyfully as she fiercely returned the hug.

---------

Eventually the duo calmed down enough to be able to at least partially focus their attention on something besides each other, and the group sat down to catch up and try to figure out how this miraculous reunion was possible. Of course, Grovyle was still reluctant to let Laura out of his sight, so he made to sit as close to her as possible and hold one of her hands so tightly that it was just shy of being labelled as a death grip. Despite being at an age when such displays of affection were usually very embarrassing, Laura wasn’t complaining. Instead she was reveling in the contact.

“I just can’t believe you’re really here…” Grovyle murmured for the tenth time, giving Laura another tight hug. “You even got your eye color back!”

“Yeah… and that’s not the only thing she got back… Grovy. Meh heh heh…” Croagunk mentioned mischievously.

Grovyle cringed at his old nickname and scowled down at Laura in betrayal that she had shared it with her friends… before he blinked suddenly in realization and his eyes widened at the implications. “Wait a minute… you got your memories back too?” he exclaimed incredulously.

Laura nodded. “Most of them,” she clarified. “I’m still missing a few, but considering who I am…” she trailed off with a shrug, as if to say that the situation wasn’t unusual or worrisome in the slightest.

Grovyle immediately noticed the jewelry she was wearing and couldn’t help but ask, “Isn’t that the bracelet you told me was a gift from your goddess? It looks a little different, but…”

“Yeah, it’s the same one,” Paula confirmed. “Apparently it was still stuck in that keyhole in Relatia’s Cave when she found it.”

“I finally found the letter you left there for me as well,” Laura added.

“It was still there? How odd,” Grovyle murmured, frowning in thought.

“Why is it odd? You already admitted that I was right about the cave!”

Grovyle winced in embarrassment and scrambled for something to save face, “Ah, W-well… uh… that may be true, but… um…”

Corphish couldn’t take it any longer. He understood that this was a very emotional time for everyone and that it was only natural that Grovyle and Laura would want the chance to talk since they hadn’t seen each other in years—not to mention the fact that Laura now had more of a context to work from—but he had a very important question to ask that had been pressing on his mind from the moment he saw Grovyle and Celebi in the world of the past. “So… hey, hey!” he suddenly blurted out. “I know you said the answer was complicated… but I’ve just got to know! What did happen to that whole ‘pokémon from the future have to disappear when they change the past’ deal?”

Celebi looked over from where she was sitting beside Grovyle and Laura and fondly watching their interactions. “Well… we did disappear. But only for a few moments,” she explained. “We were surprised too, but Dialga told us that someone who was ‘higher than himself’ brought us all back.”

“Wait… everyone got brought back?” Paula asked with a frown. “Including the pokémon like Dusknoir and the sableye?”

“Yes. They were all still alive—if only barely, considering what we had just gone through—when you and Laura changed the past, so they got brought back too,” Grovyle affirmed, causing mixed emotions among the assembled.

“…How are they doing?” Laura asked quietly, looking up at Grovyle with worry.

Grovyle gave a sad, soft sigh, “As good as can be expected considering that we all thought you were dead.”

Laura winced and opened her mouth to apologize, but before she could get the words out Loudred interrupted with, “Wait, wait, WAIT! You thought she was DEAD? Why would you think SHE was dead when EVERYONE ELSE—including the BAD GUYS—came back?”

“It isn’t as if that was our first assumption,” Celebi defended. “When Laura didn’t reappear on Temporal Tower’s Pinnacle with us, at first we figured that she had just reappeared in the past. But when we asked Dialga, he said that you hadn’t, Laura… and then when he couldn’t see you anywhere in the future… we had no choice but to assume the worst.”

“So… where were you all those months, Laura?” Paula asked, confused. “If you weren’t here… and you weren’t there... then…?”

“…I don’t know,” Laura admitted quietly, biting her lip and still feeling upset about all the worry she had caused everyone. “The only thing I remember about that time is what I told you when I woke up after you and Bidoof found me on the Beach.”

“…Could you repeat it for those who weren’t there at the time?” Grovyle asked, a brow raised expectantly.

“Uh… It was something about colors and… loneliness? I think?” Paula obliged. “There was more, but…”

“‘Colors and loneliness?’” Grovyle repeated in surprise. “Hm… That sounds a bit like Dusknoir’s original theory...”

Chatot blinked. “Squawk! What?!” he demanded. “Dusknoir’s theory? Since when do you listen to him?!”

Celebi ignored him, choosing to question a different part of Grovyle’s thoughts, “But didn’t Dialga say that was unlikely?”

Grovyle shrugged, the motion a bit awkward considering the precious bundle he was still holding in his arms, before replying, “Dialga isn’t perfect. For example: He didn’t even bother to double-check Laura’s possible location, and it turns out that she did show up back in the past. Okay, granted, it apparently took her a lot longer to reappear than it did us, but still… and then if you take into account what I told you about that meeting with Palkia…”

He trailed off when he heard a small “Um,” from his lap and looked down to see that Laura was frowning up at him.

“What was Dusknoir’s theory?” she asked.

“He thought that, considering you aren’t actually from the paralyzed future—a fact which, along with your age, you neglected to tell me!—you had been transported back to where he originally took you from,” Grovyle explained, still feeling somewhat annoyed, even years later, that she had kept what he considered vital information from him.

The guild members and Paula’s eyes widened and their jaws dropped at that bit of knowledge, but Laura simply blushed in embarrassment. “W-well it didn’t seem that important!” she weakly excused herself.

“It didn’t seem important that during our entire journey you were just a little kid?” Grovyle asked incredulously.

“You were a child for part of it too!”

“It didn’t seem important to mention that all your knowledge about time and theories on the world of the past came from PERSONAL EXPERIENCE?!”

“Well it’s not like I experienced it for very long…”

“It was still experience!” Grovyle hissed in exasperation.

Laura opened her mouth to retort again, but she was cut off by Sunflora frantically waving her leaves in a “stop” motion and saying, “Oh my gosh! Wait a minute! Laura, what did Grovyle mean when he said you weren’t from the paralyzed future?!”

Laura’s face drained of color and she stammered, “I… uh, w-well…”

Upon hearing Laura’s distress, Grovyle took a deep breath, calming himself down before explaining, “Apparently Laura wasn’t actually born in the pokemon world; she was born on Earth—the human world.”

Unfortunately, he was drowned out by the voices of everyone else exclaiming, “WHAT?! LAURA YOU WERE BORN IN THE HUMAN WORLD?!” with jaws dropped.

“But was Dusknoir right, Laura? Did you end up back home?”Celebi quickly cut in, anticipating that someone would soon ask a frantic question demanding further explanation.

At Celebi’s question Laura’s face took on an uncharacteristically hard look—complete with a bitter scowl—and she turned away, crossing her arms. “That place is not my home,” she said emphatically. “Yes, I may have been born there, and, yes, I may have spent the first few years of my life there… but that place has never been my home!”

Grovyle looked down at her, several choice memories suddenly coming to mind like pieces of a puzzle, and his eyes widened with a sudden, horrifying understanding. “Laura…” he tentatively began, “were your guardians really that bad?”

Laura sighed sadly, dropping her arms and glancing back up at her old friend. “Grovyle,” she quietly said, “life in the paralyzed future was a paradise in comparison.”

Everyone stared at her in horror, but, upon seeing that a few mouths were opening and correctly assuming that their owners were about to ask for more information, Laura quickly continued, “In any case… I don’t think I went back there. If I had, then Relatia would have told me when she visited here during the whole fiasco when the Time Gears were losing energy.”

Grovyle nodded in agreement. “Yes, that does make sense—” he suddenly paused as her words caught up with him. “Wait… WHAT?! That goddess of yours actually came here?! When did—? Wait. What was that about the Time Gears losing energy?!”

Laura winced, “Uh… It’s a long story. But you don’t have to worry about it! She and Mason assured us that the problem was fixed, so…”

“Who the heck is Mason?” Grovyle demanded.

“Oh!” Laura exclaimed, her eyes lighting up with happiness. “Right, you wouldn’t know him! He’s—”

But she was cut off when there was a giant flash of light in the room, leaving a familiar, golden-eyed celebi in its wake.

The celebi’s eyes roamed around, and a huge grin split his face when they finally located Laura (internally questioning why she was holding the hand of a strange—yet vaguely familiar—grovyle, but deciding he could wait until later to figure out the reason since she didn’t seem to be upset or in danger). “Surprise!” he yelled, opening his arms for a hug. “Happy Sweet Sixteen, Laura!”

“Mason!” Laura cried out in delight, all but wrenching her hand from Grovyle’s to accept the invitation of the celebi’s open arms.

Grovyle, for his part, was stunned that the sudden presence of this stranger had so quickly and effectively cut short his reunion with his old friend—who he’d thought had been dead for the past four years or so—and began to feel pangs of jealousy gather in his heart. Pangs which only grew stronger when Croagunk playfully elbowed him, teasing, “Meh heh heh… In answer to your question, Grovyle… he is Mason.”

(By the way, Mason was, indeed, the celebi that Grovyle alludes to fighting with earlier in the day. The reason he’s so upset about the flowers is that his plan for Laura’s birthday present was to make her a giant bouquet of Treasure’s Desire flowers. In preparation for that, he planted a bunch of seeds and time-traveled far into the future, so that he could ensure that the flowers would be the pinnacle of flowery perfection. Unfortunately, when he finally reached the spot where he’d planted the flowers... he found evidence that they’d been cut. He tracked down the source and found--you guessed it--Grovyle. This, among other things, is why he spends many of the next few chapters in a state of annoyance with him--and Grovyle has his own reasons to be annoyed with Mason, in turn, as soon as he figures out who he is. Laura, meanwhile, is mostly oblivious to their annoyance with each other (or is at least pretending to be), in part because they’re trying to hide their animosity from her. Celebi is genuinely oblivious, and wouldn’t really care one way or the other. Mainly she’s just distracted by the novelty of the situation and getting to explore everything the town has to offer, though. She may or may not be the one to let slip to the others about Duskull’s relationship to a certain Dusknoir. I’m still undecided on that front, though, as that bit of information might be better served coming to light/getting mentioned by someone at a later time I have in mind.)

#pokemon mystery dungeon #explorers of sky #the world's treasure #writing #fanfiction #spoilers #massive spoilers

3 notes · View notes

askthepokemutants · 5 years

Photo

Yoshi: She never seemed to care about the Knights under her command, often sending them into situations that would've gotten them hurt or worse, myself included sometimes. And when Victini started burning Unova.... she didn't seem to care... And don't get me started on her style of fighting-it's just.. fucked up, alright? Despite how mortified I was when I heard she died... somewhere deep down, I'm happy she’s dead...

Reid: Haarsh...

Cassidy: Considering I-I had to stop you... I don’t believe that-

Yoshi: Listen, at that point, just learning someone else died when I could’ve done something hurts...

Reid: Look at that... something we can agree on...

Yoshi: ... Let me finish... Like with Ilumia, Nelda would send squads out to dangerous places and often they either didn’t come back or came back in worse shape than when they left, which is part of the job of a Strident Knight obviously, but the thing is-especially if she went with them-she’d come back... different? I couldn’t ever grasp it at first, not until we fought with Team Machine during that year you and the other Trio members vanished, Reid...

Reid: Hmm...

Yoshi: During that battle, we suffered a lot of losses-especially Unova and Orre’s Knights-the Orre Knights lost their original leader-and the Unovan Knights, um... the only ones who came back were Nelda and myself...

Reid: What?

Lugia: Ooh, she’d work wonderfully with Giratina...

Cassidy: W-what-

Lugia: It’s no longer important~

Yoshi: ... Ookay... anyway...

Yoshi: It was... weird... normally Banette can’t open their mouths or their soul would drain out, but not hers... I’m just glad Ace wasn’t able to go on that mission... I couldn’t imagine him being a part of whatever amalgamation she was...

Lugia: Oh my...

Reid: That... sounds disturbingly... familiar... different, but still...

Lugia: You know, it reminds me of Dusknoir-maybe she was a reaper of souls and decided to ignore that duty.

Reid/Yoshi/Cassidy: What???

Lugia: I mean, it’s a thing, it’s part of Giratina’s job and all-

Reid: Please stop... Legendary Pokemon roles are just confusing...

Yoshi: And so is this reaper nonsense, besides, she’s dead, so it’s not like it matters...

Cassidy: M-maybe we should change the subject before you g-get-

Yoshi: You’re right, Cassidy... I still have a question to ask Reid.

Reid: Sigh... shoot..

Lugia: ... [Are they willingly being ignorant right now or do they just... not that I could blame them-especially Reid-if he knows as much as we do... that Proxy of Celebi’s is a problem... I envy them there... but maybe I should focus on my personal goals and-hmm... but still... this Banette...]

Giratina: And I have to admire this one’s soul... Annika was merely to distract this Banette, but... look at this beautiful soul... brimming with the lives of so many-many burned away by Victini... victims of missions that failed that she led... so many that are filled with pain, regret, hatred... but they were never allowed to become ghosts themselves... isn’t it fascinating, Dialga?

Dialga: No.

Giratina: It is to me... she single-handedly collected the population of a small island... she assisted in the genocide without even knowing it... ah.

Diagla: ...

Giratina: If only Annika was this thorough in Hoenn... hahah...

Dialga: Contact me when Father re-

Giratina: Father wants us to stay here... eventually they’ll want to talk about something... important...

Dialga: ... Another meeting?

Giratina: No. Just you, me and Palkia...

Dialgia: ... Why...?

Giratina: ...

Dialga: Are you listening? Gira? Stop gawking at that Banette’s disgusting soul and-

Giratina: What kind of timeline are we heading down, Dialga? Something feels... wrong?

Dialga: ... You know I do not speak of timelines and their futures.

Giratina: ... Right... then we wait.

<Previous

#A12: SteepedinDarkness #guardianoftheshadowyseaslugia #Reidchu #YoshiDewott #CassidyLapras #GodofReverseGiratina #GodofTimeDialga #NeldaBanette

6 notes · View notes

antialiasis · 6 years

Note

What ever happened to the other TQftL one-shot? I know one of them ended up as chapter 76, but the other one? I remember you posted the first few sentences from it on the quest blog since those were non-spoilery (which the server ate years ago along with a bunch of other good stuff), but is this still a thing or did plans change or something? This has been bugging me for a while now.

One-Shot A ended up as the first scene of chapter 75, the one with Mitch! One-Shot B was parts of chapter 76. Technically later there was a third one, ‘chaletwo.docx’, about Chaletwo and Mew shortly after Chaletwo’s creation, half of which became the inspiration for the final scene of chapter 76 and the other half of which (unfinished) never made it in as I deemed it unnecessary. I talk about that one a little in the chapter 25 commentary that’s going up tomorrow.

I think you may actually be referring to the QftLverse creation story that I wrote, though, because I did post an excerpt from that, but I don’t think I ever posted an excerpt from One-Shot A (it would’ve given too much away, I think). That would be this thing here. I was originally going to make that an extra at the end, but ultimately I pretty much just fit the really relevant information into chapter 76, so I didn’t feel it was needed.

I guess I can post the rest of that, though, for the hell of it! It’s a poor attempt at mythical writing last edited in 2008, so please excuse the general badness, but. (Serious spoilers if you haven’t read the fic.)

“Far, far backin the mists of time, there was no world. There was just chaos and, in itsmidst, an egg, or something like an egg in any case.

“And the egghatched, and out of it came Arceus, the Original One. And two others he made tospring out from himself, Dialga and Palkia, and with them came the fourdimensions of existence. And the third sprang out of him too, Giratina, and itbrought about the law that everything must perish.

“And when thedimensions had come into being, a little grain of potential began to expandinto the nothingness to fill it; and thus was formed the universe with all ofits laws and elements; and because the dimensions never ended, so it is stillexpanding to this day.

“But whenArceus saw the universe, he could see more potential, and wished to createLife. And he created by his will a being into the universe and named it Azelf.And it had will as he did.

“But Arceusshook his head and said: No, this will not do; and he used his knowledge andexperience from the previous creation to create another being and named itUxie. And it was wise, but it still lacked.

“So Arceusagain shook his head in despair and said: No, I must try again. And he createda being and called it Mesprit, and it could feel emotions as he did. But it wasstill lacking, and Arceus was exhausted.

“And theOriginal One had nearly given up when he realized what he should do. He toldthe three living beings he had created: I am unable to create a living soul;for Dialga and Palkia are not living, and none of you has the full makings of asoul. But I was selfish: I worked alone, and now my power is exhausted. No, youshall instead create a living soul: work together, and you shall manage what Idid not. For I was a fool.

“And the threebeings nodded, and they linked their paws in a circle and closed their eyes toconcentrate. And together, they created the perfect being that had a fullliving soul: it had knowledge, will and emotion all in one. It resembled thembut was still different, and the warmth of its heart gave it a light pink colorunlike their cold blue.

“And it openedits eyes, and they were brilliantly blue; and Arceus told it: Welcome to theworld, young soul; I shall call you Mew, and you shall be the Creator. Youshall now be able to create living beings from yourself, for you havecreativity and imagination; and the first you shall create shall be thePreserver who will protect life from evil and destruction, and then you shallcreate many beings like yourself to watch over your creations, while you shallcreate other beings who will be mortal and eventually die. And to the threebeings who had made it he said: Well done, and now I shall entrust you withwatching over Dialga and Palkia for me, for I am exhausted and will now go tosleep.

“And Arceuswent to sleep, and Mew rose up and began to create the Immortals; and the firsthe created he called Celebi, and Celebi could travel through time to help guardlife from evil. And many other Immortals Mew created, and many Mortals hecreated as well, and the Immortals would each watch over a portion of theMortals.

“But theImmortals grew arrogant, and began to rule over the Mortals to make them dotheir bidding. And their selfish thoughts manifested themselves in a being,Darkrai, which injected their malice into Arceus’s dream as he slept. And hewoke up, knowing that a nightmare of such evil could only be born frommalicious feelings, and saw what the Immortals were doing.

“FoolishPokémon! he said: he was angered that they had not known better, and grievedthat they could harbor such emotions, and afraid for what this might mean abouttheir intentions. Were you not created to watch over and help the Mortals, notto enslave them and make yourselves superior to them? With this action, youhave forgone your right to immortality.

“And Arceus’sanger, grief and fear shattered his soul, and they manifested themselves in abeing: Chalenor, the Destroyer, the True Immortal, whom even the Immortalscould not harm. While the soulless and powerless Arceus returned to sleep forall eternity, Chalenor would teach the Immortals that they should have to knowweakness and fear death.

“Chalenor’spresence, expressing the last will of Arceus, would slowly strip all Pokémon oftheir power, bit by bit, and then make them destroy one another until only one wasleft, who would become a new Creator and start the cycle anew. But because theMortals were mortal, the generations passed one by one, and slowly but surelythey grew to resist the draining of their powers; but the Immortals did notevolve and remained as vulnerable as they had ever been: their immortality wastheir curse.

“But theImmortals blamed Chalenor for their fear, and they tried to attack him manytimes; but they would always fail, because Chalenor was a True Immortal.

“So manycycles passed; but when Arceus’s soul had shattered, it had planted a seed of asoul in the depths of the Destroyer’s heart: he began to feel the sufferingthat he brought upon the Immortals, and to long for the company of another, butthe Immortals feared and despised him, and in his eternity of life, the livesof the Mortals seemed to pass as merely a drop of water in an endless stream.

“Chalenor waslonely, as no being since has ever felt loneliness.

“But then, atlast, one of the many incarnations of Mew – for the Creator’s first work wasalways to honor his predecessor and create another Mew – felt pity forChalenor. They talked and began to understand one another, as no being sincehas understood another being; and Chalenor felt joy and calm and love for thefirst time. But the thousand years that Mew was destined to live passed like abreeze, and though Chalenor wanted to save Mew from the fate of hispredecessors, he was unable to control the effects of his power, and Mew’s strengthwas drained day by day.”

I’m actually kind of impressed with the degree to which this thing is still accurate, for being last edited in 2008; I didn’t think I’d realized Chalenor’s emotive color-changing thing was rooted in being made of Arceus’s out-of-control emotions until later than that. But as the actual events are told in chapter 76, I ditched the bit about Darkrai that didn’t really add much of anything beyond hey look here’s how Darkrai comes into it, there’s more intentionality to Arceus creating Chalenor (the myth makes it sound like Chalenor just sort of happened when his soul shattered, although it does go on to say his presence was “expressing the last will of Arceus”, so it may just be a more mythlike way of saying the same thing), and Mew isn’t literally the first person ever to sympathize with Chalenor because come on, really.

The “and they understood each other MORE THAN ANYONE EVER” is a bit over-the-top too (and not really accurate, actually, what with them each managing to conceal their massive issues from one another), but I think we can chalk that up to the mythical writing.

(But they absolutely were the bestest BFFs.)

(Also why does the myth go on this long. Why does the myth go into Mew and Chalenor’s personal relationship and not just stop at Chalenor developing a soul. I guess the reason I cut it off so abruptly there was that I realized oh whoops this myth shouldn’t actually be going this far along the timeline at all, this is One-Shot B material now, let’s stop.)

#tqftl #actual writing #Anonymous #MAN #looking at this again though #ten yeeeeears I sat on all this

7 notes · View notes

wanttoshine-a · 6 years

Text

DUSKNOIR INFORMATION : About page !!!

POKEMON BASIC INFO:

National № - 477

Gender - Male

Full name - Kháron

Species - Gripper Pokemon

Height - 2′5m ( 8′2″ )

Weight - 110kg ( 242,508 )

Abilities - Pressure

Level - ???

Moves :

Ice Punch

Shadow Sneak

Shadow punch

Will-o-Wisp

BASIC INFORMATION – HUMAN:

Full name: Kháron

Nickname/s: Dusknoir

Gender: Male

Age: 40-ish

Height: 2′10m ( 6′88″ )

PHYSICAL DESCRIPTION:

Always wears a scarf, a large coat and gloves.

Pale skin, grey hair and red eyes that give the impression of him being albino.

His ‘human eyes’ don’t work at all, he sees through the one on his forehead.

Body full of scars.

Constantly cold to the touch, dead looking.

Literal ghost in most verses.

PERSONALITY :

Comes across as very charming, maybe even humble at first. Used to seem very selfless and eager to help, yet doesn’t bother to keep that front as much nowadays.

Has serious anger issues.

Paranoid.

Sarcastic and proud.

Very curious and inquisitive, though usually will resort to manipulation instead of outright asking.

Is more prone to help when needed nowadays but it’s honestly on a case to case basis, really.

Doesn’t like his things being touched, can become enraged if the his mental order is disrupted even a little bit.

HISTORY -

PAST -

( Pre-Game )

When Kharon was first hatched as a duskull, he was reborn into one of Dialga’s Temples, one of the most influential ones dedicated entirely to the Time Goddess and taken in by the ghost types who ran it.

Indoctrinated since he was a young kid, he was never really well versed in the art of getting in and out of Giratina’s realms, nor the in depth information about soul’s travels from one realm to the other. He focused instead wholly on Dialga, gathering information about anything and everything and her temple’s protection.

It was then when Dialga first manifested in the temple, her abilities confined and fluctuating in a way that made this locations the easiest to access. It was here when the corrupted Time Goddess (unknowingly to the pokemon that listened) started gathering her followers, making them run errands here and there that would inevitably lead towards the Frozen Future.

She took Kharon and a few others ‘under her wing’; those who were strong enough to fight and blinded by faith to the point of almost mindless servitude.

Finally realising their mistake as time started slowing and even stopping in certain areas some pokemon tried to rebel, which was when Kharon was forced to make a choice: those pokemon or Dialga. Dazzled by pride and trust he was manipulated into picking the legendary, hence becoming her henchman.

FROZEN FUTURE -

( In-Game )

Fights and rebellions were everywhere at first; yet by the time those arose and other legendaries realised what was going on it was already too late. Almost every single one was slain or succumbed to the harsh conditions and by that time there was nothing left to Kharon but Dialga.

The sweet and persuasive Dialga he first met was all but gone as she gave into the Darkness, becoming abusive, demanding and cruel. Punishments that never used to be directed at him start happening more and more often and the blame is always, always put on him. He believes her too… after all she didn’t use to be this way when he wasn’t failing her, right?

Things stay like this until yet another rebel group comes along, Grovyle with them. They keep things under wraps for quite a while so the dusknoir is completely blindsided when he learns not only of the human they’ve somehow recruited but the fact that there’s a celebi amongst their ranks.

He ends up having to go to the past in an attempt to stop the plan to change the future, where he’s suddenly forced to remember how things used to be, when he start to doubt for the first time in who knows how long. But he has to survive, he has to. He’s no longer what awaits for the dead now, and even as a ghost time he’s scared. But even more than that; Dialga told him to.

It isn’t until he’s forced back to the past and gets a real chance to talk to Grovyle that his fate is sealed, forcing his hand against the master he had been trying to please for so many years.

PRESENT / CHANGED TIMELINE -

( Post-Game )

There’s no real rush of relief once he’s back, finding himself lost and purposeless for the first time in his life and feeling guilt weighting heavily on his shoulders he retracts to a small little cabin in an isolated place, devoting himself fully into the studies he vaguely recalled loving back before everything went wrong.

That’s pretty much all he does until Celebi and Grovyle come knocking on his door one day and asking him for help to track down the one he says started everything. Although very reluctant to agree, the ghost feels like he’s heavily indebted not only to the world but specially for Grovyle and ends up trailing along.

He sometimes hates him, sometimes uses him as a replacement for Dialga but at least it has forced him to get out of his self imposed isolation and it becomes clearer and clearer that he’s mainly avoiding to confront most of his issues, making coexistence complicated sometimes.

#long post #about dusknoir #about #about page #🥀 ⌈ ᴵ ᴷᴺᴼᵂ ᵂᴴᴬᵀ'ˢ ᴵᴺ ᵞᴼᵁᴿ ᴴᴱᴬᴿᵀ ⌋ ➠ ❪ dusknoir ❫#🌱 ⌈ ᵂᴴᴼ ᵀᴴᴱ ᴴᴱᶜᴷ ᴵˢ ᴮᵁᶜᴷᵞ? ⌋ ➠ ❪ ooc ❫#(( here #i may delete it later depending ajsda #also may have typos or something idk ????? i wrote it all in one go ))

6 notes · View notes

inikavulpixelreviews · 7 years

Text

Let’s Talk About Pokemon - Dialga and Palkia

483: Dialga

Now at the cover Legendaries, we meet Dialga, a deity-like dragon with power over time. And unlike Celebi, it actually has a time motif. Though apparently that came with a price, because Dialga is quite a bit of a mess in terms of its design. Yeah, it could've used a removed detail or two to streamline it down a bit. It's not so messy that it's hard to read but it's definitely busier than it aught to be. And it really makes the thing a nightmare to try and draw.

But it's cool that we actually get a clocky dragon. Albeit, it's more like a sundial than anything. It's got tons of arrow-shaped markings on its body, but the main time motif it has is that fan-flare-thing on its back and the swept-back head. So supposedly if Dialga stood toward the sun, the back end of its head could tell you the time as the shadow cast on its tail fin thing. That's probably not exactly how sundials work but it gets the idea across, I like it.

Dialga could've been so much better if the design was just a little bit easier to digest. Because I hardly see this aspect of Dialga talked about, and I can't say I blame anybody that would’ve missed out on it because Dialga has far too much going on with one creature.

A side-note more than anything, but I dunno about the typing either. It makes sense given the appearance, but Psychic feels like a type more suited for a time-based Pokemon more than Steel does.

Personal Score: 8.5/10

A flawed gem, if you will.

484: Palkia

I know Dialga already gets a much better rap than Palkia does, and I hate to just be contributing to a Pokemon already down on its luck, but I can't say I can personally come to Palkia's rescue all that well here. While Dialga certainly had the time motif going on, albeit it can take a while to even realize its there, Palkia has nothing really communicating its control over Space. The... round shapes? It has wings? It vaguely kind of sort of looks like a space ship if you squint your eyes hard enough? Yeah I got nothing. I can't say I got the perfect answer to how you make a dragon look like the embodiment of space, but Palkia sure ain't it. Such a thing would almost demand a much more abstract design. Not something as regular looking as a bipedal dinosaur. I guess it's passable enough as just a cool dragon? But any dragon can just look cool. We could've had a weird space-dragon but eh.

And of course, one of Palkia's hitching points is the bizarre typing. Steel/Dragon Dialga at least makes sense because it's covered in metal plating and clocks tend to be made of metal, but why the flippin egg is Palkia Water/Dragon? Because... Pearls? I have heard the theory that time is rigid and uncontrollable, therefore Steel, and Space is able to be manipulated and is fluid, hence Water. Eh. I don't buy it. If there's any type Space usually communicates, it's Psychic. Even if it would wind up giving the two dragons the same typing. But it’s weird how they’re not, really? Does Roar of Time or Spacial Rend sound like they’d be Dragon moves to you?

Personal Score: 6.5/10

I like ya Palkia, but I don't love ya.

Overall:

I get why they're on the unpopular end of cover Legendaries. Their designs are kinda nondescript “let's make a cool dragon deity thing” which didn't turn out the best it could've. The whole Time and Space theme between the two feels like it asks for something more eldritch and weird.

[Archive]

#Pokemon #Pokemon Reviews #Dialga #483 Dialga #484 Palkia #Palkia

10 notes · View notes

rebirthpyre-archive · 8 years

Text

It’s Timeline time mfs.

Under the cut because it’s heckin’ long.

~~> Yuki and Daiki begin and complete the events of Pokemon Conquest.

There are many time anomalies, including the existence of The Legendary Pokemon Mewtwo. Eventually Aurora’s Twin Warlords, when trying to observe these anomalies, vanish without a trace. Aurora is taken over by Lady Oichi, who in history books ruled in their places for the rest of her life.

Many years Pass

~~> Pokemon Rangers begin.

Solana and Lunick return to their duties with nothing special occurring, they are given clearance to go to regions outside their own.

~~> The Red/Blue/Yellow/Green/Firered/Leafgreen and Ruby/Sapphire/Emrald/ORAS adventures begin. The events of Shadows of Almia begin. The Go Leaders begin their initial adventures together.

Red, Leaf, Blue and Yellow are all ten, give or take. Red and Blue become Champions and soon after Red flees to Mt. Silver. There is backlash from shutting down Team Rocket, due to one leaving and the other having become distant from everyone Leaf deals with this backlash almost solely on her own.

Brendan and May are 15, setting out to take on Contests and Gym Battles/Research respectively. They end up saving Hoenn from Groudon and Kyogre, at the cost of the Red and Blue orbs being absorbed into their bodies.

Candela, Blanche and Spark are all become apart of the beginnings of the Go Project. Still young, they set out on a jounery together to find themselves.

Two years pass

~~> The Heartgold/Gold, Soulsilver/Silver and Crystal adventures begin and about two-three months after begins the events of Pokemon Colosseum. They end near the same time.

Crystal and Gold (twelve) leave New Bark town after encountering an odd Redhead (fourteen). Lyra (ten) leaves a few months later. Crystal eventually becomes the Champion of the Indigo League, a title she will keep for decades to come.

In Orre the Snagem Hideout is blown up, leaving citizens in shock and awe. Teaming up with Rui, (fifteen), Wes (seventeen) begins snagging Pokemon from Cipher and eventually lands the organization's bigwigs in jail. Wes begins assisting the Pokemon HQ Lab in preparation for Gales of Darkness.

Red is brought down off Mt. Silver. Seeing the effects of the events in Kanto and Hoenn Champion Crystal devises a plan to stop anyone else from climbing up a frozen mountain. The Regional Saviors are formed, The Secret Base is created in the Ilex Forest. The current group is formed of Crystal, Gold, Silver and Lyra, Red, Blue, Leaf and Yellow, Brendan and May (Wally is also invited) and Wes and Rui. Pokemon Rangers Solana and Lunick, as well as Top Rangers Kate and Kellyn are given clearance to come to the base whenever they’re free from their ranger duties.

One year passes

~~> The Diamond/Pearl/Platinum and Black and White adventures begin. The events of Guardian Signs also begin.

At age twelve a young noble named Hikari sets off on her journey. Beginning to call herself Dawn, Hikari mistakes Twinleaf Town’s own Lucas and Barry as her bodyguards; setting off on her journey with them. They take on Team Galactic and gain the favor of Giratina, Dialga and Palkia. Despite this all, none of them challenge the League. They remain close friends and soon after the events on Spear Pillar are invited to the Secret Base.

15-16 year old Touko and Touya leave Nuvema Town and become wrapped up in stopping Team Plasma’s plan. While Touko becomes Zekrom’s Hero of Ideals and the Unovan Champion, her brother bonds with and becomes the Hero of Kyurem. Touko steps down as Champion shortly after taking the title, she’s been convinced by her brother to search for N.

Dawn, Lucas, Barry, Touko and Touya, Ben and Summer all receive invitations to the Secret Base.

Yuki and Daiki appear one night in the middle of the Secret Base. Nobody is certain how they got there, but everyone blames it on Celebi. Yuki and Daiki are welcomed to the Secret Base and allowed to stay as long as they wish or until they manage to return to their own time period, whichever comes first.

1 year passes

~~> The Go Project begins in Kanto. It has yet to spreed. Team Valor, Mystic and Instinct are all formed and begin accepting members.

1 year passes

~~> Pokemon Black and White 2 and Pokemon X & Y occur.

Nate and Rosa both begin work relating to the ‘disappearance’ of Kyurem for Interpol and Team Plasma respectively. After two years N returns to try and stop Ghetsis, as do Touko and Touya. Team Plasma is effectively dismantled by the shared efforts of Nate, Rosa, N, Touko and Touya.

X’s Family Returns to Kalos, allowing him and his childhood friend Serena to meet up again. Although the two travel separately for the most part they become a driving factor in one another’s adventures. Having had connections to Yveltal and Xerneas since their early lives the two are drawn to stop Team Flare and Lysandre from using Yveltal’s Cocoon for purposes of mass destruction. X becomes Champion and eventually helps train Serena to take him on at a later date.

Nate and Rosa, X and Serena are all invited to the Secret Base. N is as well.

Two years pass

~~> Around this time Michael’s Father Coilean Finn passes away, at the time thought to be of illness.

Wes and Rui are in Johto when they get the news. They return to Orre and it’s quite awhile until Wes leaves again

One year passes

~~> Gale of Darkness begins to unfold.

During one of Wes’ absences from Orre Professor Krane is kidnapped by Cipher. With no one else to send Michael is given a Snag Machine that Krane built and walks out into the fray. At ten years old he, like his ‘brother’ before him, takes down Cipher’s Leader and purifies any Shadow Pokemon he could find.

Without asking Crystal, Wes drags Michael to the Secret Base.

~~> Team anomalies begin to occur again, bringing Sun, Moon, Lillie, Gladion and Hau from the future, about a year after their adventure. As with Yuki and Daiki it is found that Dialga and Celebi are unable to intervene and send them back to their own times.

#☾ the strategy memo (headcanons)#☾ the circle of rebirth (world building headcanons)#death mention #((this was a mistake #i've been working on it since 9:40 something #it's now 11:10 #but it's done hoLY FUCK))#siilverveiins

7 notes · View notes

lovepmd · 8 years

Text

Pokémon Mystery Dungeon Timeline EXPLAINED!

Once upon a time, a Pokémon named Zoroark and his human partner set out to train Zoroark in the art of illusions. During their journey, the human and Zoroark found a Pokémon named Xatu. Xatu told the duo that there will be a betrayal among the two. As Zoroark transforms into more and more forms, he slowly began to lose his mind as the emotions of the wild Pokémon battle with his own for control, and his faith in humans, and thus his partner, was shaken. The Zoroark witnessed his human partner capture a Gardevoir, which the human striked up a friendship with much more quickly than he did with Zoroark. Jealous of the attention Gardevoir was getting, along with his fractured mental state, Zoroark fled from the group and lead them into a cave. At the end of the cave, the human and Gardevoir met a Pokémon named Ninetales. Curious, the human grabbed one of Ninetales’ tails, causing it to lay a curse on him. In his stead, Gardevoir stepped in and takes the curse. The Zoroark began to fear his human when, seeing his chance, the human abandoned Gardevoir and fled, not knowing that Zoroark feared this same scenario happening to him. Ninetales noticed Zoroark, and asked if he had any business in his cave. When Zoroark responded with a negative, Ninetales banished him. Zoroark realized that the human now has his undivided attention with Gardevoir gone, but he didn’t feel any satisfaction. Along their travels, the two witnessed a horrifying transformations of two Kyurem into Black Kyurem and White Kyurem at the hands of cruel humans. Zoroark was finally driven to hate his human partner after the human attempted to battle the curse out of the two Kyurem instead of simply capturing them. Zoroark watched the human be defeated and fled the scene, becoming just as bad as the evil he’d feared. Zoroark lead the Kyurem to a human town, and solidified his hatred of humanity by taking a perverse glee in watching the Kyurem kill the humans. Zoroark made it his goal to kill every human he possibly could. He managed to transform into a Psychic-type and worm his way into the Kyurems’ minds and convincing them to serve him and call him “The Master.” The three made their way through the world, killing any humans they came across and leveling any and all of their monuments, recruiting as many distrusting or outright hateful Pokémon as they can. Pokémon were manipulated into rebelling against their masters. Eventually, Legendary Pokémon get involved with the incident, that would soon be dubbed “the Great Pokémon Rebellion.” As each Pokémon finds their sides of the Rebellion, the world’s balance is thrown into turmoil, and mystery dungeons begin to crop up en mass. Eventually, the Master’s army’s hatred and bitterness of humans, and the humans’ own hatred of the Rebels, manifested into a force ultimately dubbed the Dark Matter. The Master found the Dark Matter’s core, and convinced it to eliminate humans. The Dark Matter, never intending to go through with the plan the Master had in mind, agreed. The Dark Matter began to enact it’s plan of uprooting the Tree of Life, sending the world catapulting into the sun. A human and their Mew partner attempted to fight against the Dark Matter, but the damage was done, and the Dark Matter was only rendered dormant by their efforts. The world had returned to its orbit, but the Master, infuriated by the Dark Matter’s treason, sent his forces against the human and Mew, refusing to believe that a human could do good or that a Pokémon could be friends with a human, as well as needing a punching bag. The human and Mew, fearful of their fates, fled to a place that lay beyond the reaches of time and space, believed to never return… In response to the crawling chaos that the world had been consumed by, Arceus, the Lake trio, and the Creation trio all worked together in an attempt to quell the Dark Matter’s remaining agents and save the world’s remaining humans. They saw that they’d stepped in too late, watched every remaining human die before their eyes, and lost their will to continue fighting. Eventually, they sent out the truth that all of the humans are dead. The Master, convinced that he had fulfilled his purpose, withdrew and/or released his soldiers and allowed the Pokémon in the world to live in peace, and the memories of the Rebellion faded into mere legend. The Pokémon managed to recoup and build towns ironically similar to human settlements. The mystery dungeons, originally believed to have disappeared after the end of the Rebellion, sprang back up in full force. Dialga and a Celebi crafted the Time Gears and Temporal Tower in an attempt to stop, or at least slow, the flow of the mystery dungeons. This failed, and the world became dependent on these artifacts as a side effect. A few other legendaries, inspired by this, built their own domains and artifacts in the world to see if that could slow down the spread of the mystery dungeons, but these plans failed, too. The Pokémon Exploration Team Federation was founded to create guilds, which were used to train Pokémon to explore and possibly chart patterns in mystery dungeons. One of their most esteemed guilds was the Wigglytuff Guild. Due to its reputation, Pokémon flocked to join the guild and were either rejected outright, gave up on the training, or convinced themselves to pull through. One of the Wigglytuff Guild’s apprentices, Bidoof, met a Mythical Pokémon named Jirachi and wished to have new apprentices at the guild. Unbeknownst to him, this wish had the very sinister consequence of the Master coming out of hiding and taking the form of a Darkrai. Due to a combination his insanity and Darkrai’s powers, the Master came up with a plan to make a dark world for him to rule over. Darkrai attacked Temporal Tower, causing it to collapse and the flow of time to stagnate. A shiny Celebi managed to go through time just enough to find a human who existed during the Rebellion, and yanked them through time to her own. In the dark future, they met a Pokémon named Grovyle. Grovyle explained to the human that he’s searching for the Time Gears in order to prevent the very future they’re in from happening. Grovyle and the human found a strange rock while trying to find Celebi. Grovyle wondered what it could be for, until the human solved the puzzle and put the stone into a Groudon statue. A telepathic voice from the statue then informed them of Celebi’s wherabouts. The duo advanced through the dark world, unknowingly being pursued by a Pokémon named Dusknoir and his six Sableye companions. Eventually, Grovyle and the human encountered Celebi, who informed them of what’s going to happen when they went back in time. Dusknoir and the Sableye caught up to them and attempted to attack, but they escaped through the Passage of Time. This is when the events of Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky happened. We’ll just skip that to save time. Many centuries later, when the events of Explorers of Time/Darkness/Sky had become a mere legend, a Pokémon named Lucario discovered another region that had been relatively peaceful since the Rebellion. Unfortunately, Lucario was rather vain and a little narcissistic. So, when the Pokémon questioned him on who he was, where he came from and what he’d done, he greatly exaggerrated the tales. Soon after his stories were over, he asked the Pokémon of the land why they’d hadn’t heard of him and his Team Pearl. That’s when the Pokémon revealed to him that they were ignorant of the Exploration Team Federation, exploration teams, and guilds. Indeed, they only knew of the mystery dungeons and lived in fear of them. But the Pokémon of the new region weren’t just afraid of the mystery dungeons. There had also been the recent rash of natural disasters. Seeking to fix this, Lucario and the rest of his Team Pearl formed the Pokémon Rescue Organization. This organization sought to save Pokémon from the natural disasters and mystery dungeons by funding rescue teams. Unbeknownst to them, all of their theories were wrong. None of the things they’d theorized were to blame for the natural disasters. Indeed, the Gardevoir who was cursed in the place of her human master sensed that the Master was afoot, and had come up with another mad scheme. Realizing what must be done, she went through the spirit realm to find a human who existed during the Rebellion and proposed that she wipe their memories of their life. Due to the Rebellion’s effects on humanity, they agreed. This is when the events of Red/Blue Rescue Team happened. We’ll just skip that. A rough estimate of eight years later, three Pokémon brothers, all named Slowking, discovered a set of areas in a region entirely ignorant of the Rebellion. In truth, this place had thrived as a Pokémon haven, free from the reach of humans for countless eons. One was a beach, another a volcano, the last a grassland. The Slowking brothers started up the Adventure Squad Association, dedicated to exploring this new region. This is when the events of Blazing/Stormy/Light Adventure Squad happened. We’ll skip that. After a good three decades, humans had become nothing but myths. A few Pokémon found a new region, which had the appearance of a society regressing into more animalistic tendencies due to isolation. In order to address this problem, the Pokémon formed the Institue for Doing Innovative Operations and Travels, or IDIOT, whose purpose was to allow these feral Pokémon a chance to see the outside world. They were successful, so IDIOT’s focus shifted to allowing friends to form alliances with each other for whatever the purpose may be, and rebranded themselves as the Helping Adventurous Pokémon Prosper Institute, or HAPPI. Despite HAPPI’s positive reception, Pokémon were still bitter. The Voice of Life, embodied in the form of a Hydreigon, saw that this negativity was going to lead into the premature awakening of the Dark Matter. Due to said awakening being early, this incarnation of Dark Matter was simply called “the Bittercold.” Hydreigon took to the time stream to find a human from who was pure of heart, before the Rebellion corrupted everything. Unbeknownst to him, the Master was the one who triggered the awakening with the very first feeling of hatred, with the hopes that he’d get a second chance with the Dark Matter. This is when the events of Gates to Infinity happened. SKIP IT! The Master learned from his mistake last time, and decided to be patient to get his second chance with the Dark Matter. Only about a year later, the opportunity presents itself. Little did he know that two old foes are going to return… Now, we’re here in Super Mystery Dungeon. If a new Mystery Dungeon comes out, I’ll have to expand the timeline… Or this whole thing could be jossed with the next release…

#submission #text #fanfic #long post #niiice

21 notes · View notes

catflowerqueen · 5 years

Text

Bag Swap AU, Alternate Ending

A slightly happier/less angst filled alternative ending to the bag swap AU (at least in some regards. In others it may actually be worse. It really depends on your personal perspective about these sorts of things):

This one is slightly more likely to happen in the version that takes place before the expedition, if only because in that version Uxie has more of an idea of her true identity via his brush with her mind and actually told her that she was probably a worshipper of Relatia—which Grovyle then confirmed, especially in regards to how close she apparently was to the goddess, even if he has no idea about the whole Rainbow Child thing. So she is more likely to try attempting this because she actually thinks it has a slight chance of working. On the other hand, she also has even less of an idea about what she is doing because she made more actual escape attempts while with Grovyle in this version, so she didn’t get quite as close to him before the reveal as she did in the other one—I’ll give more details shortly in another post.

Anyways, while everyone is splitting their time between searching for the Hidden Land and searching for a way to ensure that the pokemon in the future get to keep existing even when time is changed, Laura decides she is going to try and contact Relatia. Does she have any real idea of what she’s doing? Not really. But she may ask Grovyle a few pointed questions, and then ask if Uxie or Torkoal or someone knows a way to contact the Golden Child, who apparently still in this world, and may have some sort of idea about what to do. …And even if he can’t actually contact his goddess, he still may know something anyways. They may actually even briefly take Dusknoir and the Sableye out of prison in order to get their help—which they would readily provide, considering the circumstances.

And they do manage to find him. And it also turns out that he is very shocked to see her, for perfectly understandable reasons. It’s rather hard for him to keep quite about her identity, but he pulls through and attempts to walk her through the process of contacting their goddess. He is not entirely hopeful about the chances of success, considering that he already tried contacting her Relatia when time first started going out of whack, but now he has even more of a stake in getting this whole situation fixed because he isn’t entirely sure how Laura came to be in this world and, thus, can’t be certain that she won’t disappear if this method doesn’t work.

A tense few days later, when everyone is prepared to just bite the bullet and go with Plan A, and she shows up.

Her emotions are a mix of things and extremely hard to pin down, but primarily is joy at the fact that she was finally able to come here, because she has been looking for a way through for ages now. Though she doesn’t quite get into the reasons why just yet, as she has more pressing matters to attend to. So they put the time gears in their proper place with no fuss—because even a Dialga in the starting throes of madness is no match for her power—and she easily fixes the problem in regards to the pokemon of the future disappearing, though she is a little bemused by it all for the fact that this is not generally the way in which she employs this particular method—which has been outlined in an earlier. I forget which one.

Then we start getting into the good/slightly angsty stuff. Relatia expresses confusion about the fact that everyone was so worried about Laura disappearing when that was never actually a danger with her—or, at least it shouldn’t have been, if not for the fact that Laura is who she is, no matter the circumstances of where and when she was/is born—since she isn’t actually from the pokemon world. She was born in the human world—and the reason why Relatia was so frantic about finding her was because she isn’t the first of her servants to be kidnapped from Earth to be taken to the pokemon world, and Laura was a small child at the time of her kidnapping. Everyone but Dusknoir’s group is surprised at this, because he was the one who did the kidnapping both times. Relatia is not happy about this, but is willing to let it go for now since she blames Dialga far more for what happened.

But Dusknoir, surprisingly, is not willing to let it go—and Grovyle, even more surprisingly—is actually willing to back him up on this when she starts going on and on about how happy Laura’s parents will be when she tells them the good news about their daughter finally being found. Dusknoir is extremely adamant about the fact that Laura never, ever is put back in their custody—and once Grovyle realizes the implications behind Laura never actually using the term “parents,” only “guardians,” he also vehemently agrees. Which is when everyone finds out that Dusknoir was actually basically Laura’s pseudo-father-figure all this time, which gives them all a lot of mixed emotions. Relatia isn’t entirely sure what to do with this information, especially when Dusknoir also brings up some stuff about the Little Imp’s situation, but ultimately decides that, at least for now, it is probably best that Laura stay in this world while she gets to the bottom of things. She also suggests that Grovyle and Dusknoir’s group (who she is feeling marginally warmer to, or at least willing to trust them on this matter given Grovyle’s corroboration) hang out here in the past for a while and help rebuild things a bit since they have first-hand experience for the things that went wrong in the paralyzed future. She or Dialga can take them back to their own time later, if they actually feel like going.

The others grudgingly admit that it would be a good means of probation/rehabilitation for the group… and also grudgingly admit that they don’t feel quite as upset about their involvement in the whole debacle since survival instincts are a strong thing, and even if fixing time was the right thing to do, it isn’t unreasonable that they would have fought to preserve their own experience. And never having actually experienced the paralyzed future and all its intricacies, they aren’t sure that they are really in a position to judge. Also… it’s clear that they all adore Laura, and Grovyle at least tolerates them/respects them/understands them, even if he doesn’t necessarily like them—at least in Dusknoir’s case. He actually has good relationships with many of the Sableye, even if they could never actually be on the greatest of terms, so they are more willing to just let it go.

That, and they’re all still reeling from all this information on Laura’s past and the struggles that not even Grovyle knew about.

Given all this, Darkrai may or may not actually decide to reveal himself. It probably depends on how close he has been watching all of this recent drama. But if he does just decide to hang around Treasure Town and watch further, then Laura is definitely going to catch him at it eventually. …Though even in that case, he still may opt out of actually telling anyone what he did. He’s a complicated guy, after all, and his reasons for the sabotage were equally complicated.

There will definitely be interesting reactions from everyone if he does pop up, however, especially depending on which route he goes from there.

As for the situation with Laura and where she eventually ends up… probably Relatia is going to deem it best that she stays in the pokemon world for now, since she has some major infrastructural overhauls to do back home in regards to Laura’s situation specifically and that of the Rainbow Children in general. Laura will likely pick the past world because, unfortunately but understandably for Grovyle—this is where she actually has memories of. But Grovyle will probably visit a lot either way, and will likely bring Celebi.

When Laura eventually regains her memories after turning thirteen, she has a lot of conflicted feelings about the situation in general—especially where Earth and her parents are concerned, given that it was only now, after someone literally kidnapped her—multiple times, even, and during multiple lives—that Relatia had any inkling that things actually might not be that great for her Rainbow Children as they grew up. And she’s also annoyed that she took so long to see the issues for herself.

Some of that latter part will likely be discussed a bit in Déjà vu, especially near the end.

#pokemon mystery dungeon #explorers of sky #the world's treasure #spoilers #fanfiction #what if...?#bag swap #procrastination at its finest

1 note · View note