Pokemon Mystery Dungeon 2 (c) Nintendo, Chunsoft and GameFreak
No Room for Compassion
"And before I leave, I would like to call two of you in particular forward. Miranda and Chlora?" he addressed the breathless crowd in front of him. He had them all fooled, utterly, utterly fooled. It had been so easy. Grovyle had made no contacts in the past, and had played the part of a hardened criminal very well. And as for his partner…
The crowd parted, and the two leaders of Team Calliope, the two newest Guild recruits, came forward.
Miranda, the Charmander, wore an expression that made him feel slightly uneasy for a moment. But no, if she had regained her memories, she would have known better than to approach him, would probably be running the other way entirely. She would have known who he was, and what his goal was. Far more likely that she has recognized that something was amiss – he'd suspected she had been taking her words for more than their face value for some time – but didn't know what it could be, and or what to make of it, and had resigned herself to the idea that she would probably never find out what. And she very likely never would. But she wouldn't be given time to forget.
Her partner, Chlora the Chikorita, merely looked downcast. She was the far more trusting and impressionable of the two, something he had used to his advantage. To her, she was saying goodbye to a hero, an idol, someone to look up to. Well, she'd find out her mistake soon enough.
They stopped in front of him. So naïve, so trusting.
Chlora sighed, "So I guess this is goodbye, then."
After a moment's hesitation, her partner nodded in agreement, "Yeah… Thanks for saving our lives and such." Another hesitation. "And for stopping Grovyle from stealing the Time Gears and from causing the planet's paralysis." Poor fool.
"Oh you two," he chuckled at their obliviousness, "This is not the time for farewells. Not yet."
A buzz of confused talk erupted from the crowd around them. Chlora blinked, and Miranda's eyebrows contracted.
Before anyone could react further, he reached forward and seized the two roughly around the middle and dragged them into the Dimensional Hole, thundering, "You two are coming with me!"
There were cries of shock and outrage before the gateway to the Dimensional Hole closed behind him, and they were hurtling forward through time, back to the future. His future. Their future.
Miranda recovered first, fighting tooth and claw to break free of his grip. Knowing her efforts were futile, he spared them no more notice than it took to briefly send two surges of power – one down each arm – to his hands. Both forms went limp as the sleep-inducing effect overpowered them.
He exited the Dimensional Hole into the darkness of the collapsed Temporal Tower. Grovyle, still bound and gagged, was being held tightly by his two escorting Sableye, who were awaiting Dusknoir's orders. Several more underlings of Dialga's deputy were scattered around the room, where they had been preparing for his arrival.
Grovyle's eyes widened at the sight of his precious cargo. Good, he thought, Grovyle can wonder why I brought these two. Leering at the grass type, Dusknoir turned away and examined the two he had just caught.
How helpless and small they looked, lying unconscious in his hands! For a moment, he considered the fact that he probably could have left them in the past, to obliviously live out their own lives…
But no. The former human could regain her memories at any time. And her partner possessed the Relic Fragment, and in any case would not have consented the kidnapping of Miranda, let alone what would come after. She might even have endeavored to discover the truth. It was better to take care of these potential problems now, and prevent them from ever happening. Far better than what would happen if he had to deal with Dialga's rage for having let them escape, then being forced to return to the past and hunt one or both down again. No, far better to stop it from happening in the first place.
Still, as he looked down at their somehow diminished forms, an unfamiliar feeling rose in his chest, one that made him want to return them to the Wigglytuff Guild in the past, and disappear, until the events of today were – to them – nothing but a bad dream or a hallucination.
As he realized what the emotion was, he shoved it back with a much more powerful feeling of disgust. There was no room for such sentimental nonsense! Quashing the emotion until no trace of it remained, he dropped the two carelessly on the floor, his interest in them gone.
"Take them to a different cell from him," he said flatly, indicating Grovyle, "I have to report what has happened to Dialga. When I return, I expect the execution chamber to be ready." Grovyle's expression became stony.
Dusknoir turned away. After his report to Master Dialga, he would oversee the procedure, and then this whole tiresome affair would be over and done with. He still had Celebi to capture and kill, of course – and with the information she possessed, she could be more dangerous than ever before if not caught – but he suspected that much of her confidence would desert her when she discovered what had happened to her friends.
And besides. The immediate danger would be gone. Over a thousand generations since the collapse, and no Pokémon or human had ever gotten so close to reversing it. And now he would ensure that no one ever would again.
That was his task, for now until eternity.
There was no pity in it. No sentimentality. No compassion or weakness.
Only purpose.
A random short story idea I had while writing Chapter 8 of Spanning Time Saturday.
To give everyone a very brief update on how Spanning Time is going, I've chosen to make finishing it my NaNoWriMo project this year, and so far it's been very effective in helping me make progress. Chapter 7 was quickly finished so I could start counting words with Chapter 8, and Chapter 8 is quickly going on being about halfway done. This development, however, means that unfortunately, Spanning Time will probably not be updated until November is over. Additionally, Chapters later than 9 may require massive amounts of fine-tuning, depending how much the lack of settled plot impacts them.
In any case, hope you enjoyed, and see you all in December, most likely.
Any comments and critiques are appriciated.