Chapter 1

"Treecko?" she said, in her high-pitched 5-year-old voice, "Promise me we'll be together forever?"

"Promise," he said. Sky could understand him, even though she was a human girl. She had many special abilities, the Dimensional Scream, understanding Pokémon speech, and was incredibly able in battle, or at least she would be.

Treecko and Sky hugged, and Treecko blew out the candle that dimly lighted the room before walking out, closing the door behind him.

He sighed and leaned against the door, wanting to hear if Sky was still awake, and walked away when he only heard her soft breathing through the thin door.

"What are we going to do now, Dusclops?" Treecko said. Dusclops was reading a book on the floor, and seemed to be reading more for information rather than entertainment. "We're going to have to go soon," he continued.

"I know," Dusclops said, "She can't live in this world of darkness forever." He closed his book and started to walk around the room, though for him, it was a little more like levitating, since he was a Ghost-type.

"I'd hate to lose her to the corruption of darkness," Treecko said softly. He looked at a picture of sky and her parents, Elisa and Jack, which was propped up on the coffee table. Her parents had sacrificed themselves to send her to training, and they left Treecko as her guardian and trainer.

"Don't worry about Sky," Dusclops replied, "She'll never give in to darkness, much like you."

"You on the other hand…," Treecko joked, and they both laughed. "But let's keep our heads on the positive. At least Celebi said that the Passage of Time will be ready when we are," he said.

"Too bad of what'll happen if we change history," Dusclops sighed. Treecko knew what he meant.

"Well, the important thing is not how long you live, it's what you accomplish with your life," Treecko said.

~Many Years Later~

"'Night Sky," Grovyle said as he blew out the candle lighting the room. He walked out and closed the door. Dusknoir was, as usual, reading a book on the floor, or at least pretending to.

"You know, she doesn't need you to baby her all the time. Sky is eleven years old. She can do things on own," said Dusknoir, not even looking up from his book.

"I'm not 'babying' her. I'm ensuring her protection, like Elisa and Jack told me to," Grovyle said proudly.

"At her age, the People would allow her to drive this thing called a tractor," Dusknoir said, and he held up his book to show a picture of a complicated machine. "She and her friends would be driving it around in some place like the Tiny Meadow, obviously when no Pokémon are around, even without their parents watching them. You wouldn't even let her think of doing that."

"Well, I-I just…" Grovyle started, but Dusknoir cut him off.

"The People sent her to us so we would train her and prepare her for going to the past," Dusknoir said, starting to get louder, "You haven't been doing a very good job!"

"Dusknoir, you shouldn't be raising your voice!" Grovyle whispered, trying to shut him up.

"You want me to be quiet?!" Dusknoir rebutted, raising his voice even louder. "You just don't want to wake the eleven-year-old girl that you've turned into a Mary-Sue-ish baby! What do you think she's going to say?" Dusknoir was full out yelling now, and Sky began to creep out of her room and open the door slowly. "Oh, I know," Dusknoir said, and he mocked a young girl's voice, "'Oh Grovyle, Grovyle! Get this bad Pokémon away from me!"' He started to walk towards Grovyle. "Because YOU have always been the sweet, loving guardian, forcing me to be the harsher, meaner one! I'M always the one who makes her eat vegetables! I'M always the one who has to give her bad news because you can't bring yourself to it!" Dusknoir grabbed Grovyle and pinned him to the coffee table.

Grovyle looked up as much as Dusknoir's grip would allow and saw the picture of Sky with her parents. He remembered something about when he was given the baby Sky.

"You know Dusknoir," Grovyle managed to say, "when Sky was just a baby, I was the only one taking care of her. I trusted you to help me with her, but obviously, I made the wrong choice," he grunted.

Sky was now fully out of her room, but neither of the Pokémon noticed her. She stood and watched them fight, horrified of what the Pokémon she had trusted for so long was doing to her best friend. She wanted to scream out and tell them to stop, but all she could do was stand there, speechless.

Grovyle tried to look up at Dusknoir, and said, "Celebi even tried warned me that this would happen, but I trusted you so much that I didn't bother to listen to her. I thought that you wouldn't be corrupted, but it looks like you have."

Dusknoir knew that everyone, even himself, was disappointed in him. He wanted to just leave, wander out on his own, but he didn't think he could just leave Sky by herself with Grovyle. He also knew he had nowhere else to go, and with more Pokémon and People becoming darker and darker, he wouldn't last very long on his own.

Dusknoir held Grovyle up and said, right to his face, "Sky really doesn't deserve you."

"Hopefully you can make those little feelings of yours go away then," Grovyle said menacingly. He and Dusknoir had started a small fight to see who could win over Sky's affection, and Grovyle was winning without even trying. This would make him the all-time victor.

Sky quickly ran back to her room and closed the door so that it would only be open a crack when she saw Dusknoir throw Grovyle onto the floor. Dusknoir then stormed out of the little house and into the forest, and Sky scuttled over to Grovyle to see if he was hurt.

After a few days, Sky and Grovyle never spoke of Dusknoir again, and they got back into their usual routine, minus Dusknoir of course. By the time a month had passed since the fight, Sky was as fully trained as she would get, so the two of them got as many supplies as they would need, and headed off to find Celebi waiting near the Passage of Time.