A/N: For those who started reading this story when I first posted it: yes, this is the chapter I posed as the first chapter. As I wrote my next chapter I realized to my horror its events had to take place before this, and so I changed the order, making it the first chapter and changing this into the second. For this week's new content, read the first chapter. Don't worry, updates will come in chronological order from now on. For those who are reading the story for the first time and just got here, don't worry! You're reading it in the right order. Carry right along.
Pokemon and the pokemon franchise are copyright gamefreak, Nintendo, and everybody else who might own it at this time. I do not claim any ownership thereof, and make use of their universe through the terms of fair use. Please don't sue me.
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Chapter 1: "Out of Step"
"I was neither living nor dead, and I knew into the heart of light, the silence." T.S. Elliot
I never felt such unimaginable pain as the moment I passed through the gateway, the shortcut; The place time ceased to flow. David told me that Palkia had never tread there, and so distance had no meaning. He told me Dialga could not travel there, because there it had never existed. I told him those names didn't mean anything. They were derived from ancient myth-cycles, and had no basis in reality. He asked me if I was sure. I couldn't answer.
I remember being torn from my body, like a hand pulled from a puppet. That much didn't hurt. It was painless, really. The most painless form a torture anyone has endured. Worse than the pain though, was watching everything that made me drifting away, worse because I'd seen it once before. I watched my mind blowing away in the solar wind, each ember a memory, every memory a story. I think I would've drifted away like that, the way many others have, forever been drifting sparks on the wind, or some will-of-the-wisp dancing by the light of marshfire to lure travelers away to watery graves. But Sparks was there, confident and complete in a way I wasn't. He knew what he was the way I once had, the way I didn't anymore. He'd never been anything else. Hadn't lived for more than a year like a wild animal, had a daughter… Sparks soared around me collecting all the pieces, and dutifully replacing all the ones that drifted away.
I don't know when all the pieces of my mind began to coalesce. Maybe they never did. I'll always wonder what I might've lost to the unyielding maw of the void.
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It would be somewhat inaccurate to say that Alvin walked, or that what he walked along was a "path". Likewise, it wouldn't be quite true to say that the pichu Sparks walked with him, since of course there was no gravity here except when people imagined there to be. Alvin didn't think much about that as he walked though, taking in every impossible sight. This world was a horrible reflection of the one he knew, a non-physical illusion of every human and pokemon dream. "So much for David waiting for me on the other side." He muttered to himself, or at least thought that he did, as he soared between dissonant hovering islands in the void.
There was no sound, but Sparks heard him, and protested from somewhere at the level of his shins. "If the mew could be here, I'm sure he would've been." The pichu protested. But then, Sparks had taken to David immediately, for reasons his old friend barely had any time to explain. It was only natural he would come to his defense. "I'm sure he did everything he could. He did say this way of going places wasn't safe."
Alvin nodded, but he didn't answer. The pichu was right, but that wasn't why he didn't say anything. The road he'd forged of his own hopes and preconceptions actually led somewhere. How could a pathway he built as he arrived have a destination? That it was his destination he knew without thinking about: The only piece of concrete matter he had seen thus far. It was a lake, stretching out with crystal clear water unsupported on all sides except the shore, and the dock, water gently lapping at its saturated planks. And the dock wasn't empty, either. Alvin could see a distinctly human outline sitting there, or thought he could. A man, hair gray, propped on a folding chair on the edge of the pier and holding a Super Rod in between his hands. "E-excuse me?" Alvin squeaked, taking his first tentitive step onto the sand, looking out at the old man, voice faltering as he realized that the man was actually sitting in a wheelchair, and one of his legs left no shadow in the water. Alvin was just as David had left him: He looked the same as he had his last day as a trainer, when he'd discovered the ruins of a device he shouldn't have and had become a pichu. With one exception: His hair was as yellow as Sparks's fur was now, a side effect of that transformation that had left its mark, even twenty years later. He still acted a little like a pichu, too. But nobody would fault him for that, not here.
The man answered surprisingly briskly, his voice coming into Alvin's mind in a way that wasn't spoken, but wasn't telepathic either. It was impossible to describe, impossible to imagine, even. But Alvin knew he would be seeing the impossible when he stepped outside of the world. "Twelve years, that's pretty impressive. But then, nobody's ever made it here before, so I suppose anything would be a record." He laughed weakly, the fishing rod swaying a little as he did so.
Alvin stared blankly, but the man did not turn around, and afforded him no glances of his face, no hints at who or what he might be. "I… I don't understand. Twelve years? What do you mean?"
"Twelve years between your arrival and meeting you. Relative to time in the reflection when you arrived, of course. Since the real world doesn't have time. That's why we'll never have this conversation, and why we've already finished it. But you're not ready to understand that, are you?"
Alvin had been a genius once, but complex temporal mechanics were too much for him to stomach. He shook his head, and the old man seemed to see him do it, because he kept talking. "Well I'll indulge you then. You're the first one of your kind to come here and speak to me. I know you've got stories of how angry and unpredictable I am, but they're not true. Your an intruder in my home, and I haven't killed you yet. So not a monster." Alvin nodded in agreement, sitting down on the edge of the dock and pulling Sparks protectively into his lap as the old man went on, seemingly oblivious to him now. "The Elder Ones thought they would send you into the future, didn't they? Thought they knew all there was to know about bending space. But they're blind as well as stupid."
Alvin stammered out a response, looking up suddenly. Was the Man talking about how he had gotten here, minutes ago? "B-but… how do you know what happened? David and I were alone!" No energy came from Sparks as he said this: Sparks had no body with which to shock him. But he was clearly annoyed, and Alvin hastily corrected. "Except for Sparks. But it was just the two of us! Nobody else could've seen! David would've known!"
The man chucked at being interrupted, glancing briefly over his shoulder. Alvin didn't get a good look at him, only searing red eyes, wide and unblinking behind the folds of a wispy gray face. "Your Elder friend probably knew about me: How couldn't he? They all know that every action produces a reflection, but they usually don't care. I rarely leave my tomb, and they know they couldn't survive any better here than I could there. Antimatter and matter don't mix well. We're reflections forever: The same way you can never touch what you see in a mirror. Of course I wasn't paying much attention when it happened: One sum of energy in the universe is much like the next. But when I felt you stumble into my space, I went back to see where you'd come from. An interesting pioneer. Human only by technicality: Now the first survivor outside of your universe. Or… two survivors. But I always knew there would be some pokemon who would make it here… maybe that's why you made it."
"What you're saying doesn't make any sense." Alvin said then, rather definitively. He stood up, still clutching Sparks in his arms. The pichu did not struggle, though he did shake his head a little, clearly indicating that what Alvin was about to say shouldn't be said. He said it anyway. "Sparks and I are both made of matter, so this place can't be antimatter, or we'd have mutually annihilated when we arrived. I may not be an expert on temporal mechanics, but I was a scientist back home! I understand physics! Fairly well, I like to think. You don't make any sense: What you're saying can't be true." And he folded his arms, nodding knowingly. "So tell me the truth! I'm not stupid!"
There was silence for a second, broken only by the sound of harsh reeling from the Super Rod, as though the man had given up and was collecting his line. Alvin took advantage of his silence to continue.
"And where are we, anyways? I thought this place was mostly nonphysical, so how come I have a body? How come you have one? Why is there a dock here, and why are you fishing when you know perfectly well there aren't any fish?" He took as step back then, expecting some sort of reprisal. Maybe the stranger would answer by tearing his mind apart. Whatever he was, Alvin could feel how massive he was: Powerful. Somehow, he belonged here in a way Alvin never really would.
He was right to expect a response. Alvin took another few steps back, onto the sand, as the man suddenly turned his wheelchair around, spinning it quickly. He'd been right: One of this man's legs was missing, a ragged stump fresh with blood, and some sort of thick black pus his mind could not identify. His face was harsh, wrinkled and framed by grey hair. And those eyes: Wide and staring and deep red. Nothing human in them at all. He could not tell if the man was angry or pleased with what he had said, until he leaned back in his chair and looked away, expression downcast. "You're right about one thing." He said, after a long pause. Alvin didn't move, frozen. Injured as he obviously was, he knew he had no recourse to defend himself it that became necessary. Nowhere he could run that was far enough to be safe. "None of this is real. I have a body here, a real one: But you don't, and I think it's merciful you don't have to see mine the way it really looks. Maybe if we had time: An infinite future stretching out as long as your universe continues to exist, I could show you what I look like. But… as you can see, I've felt better. No, there's nothing you can do: The outcasts don't even know they've done this to me. Probably don't even realize I exist. But damage the reflection, and you damage the original."
"But… but you said there was no time here. Why don't we have an infinity? Couldn't you… teach me anything you wanted. We could sit here for millions of years if we wanted, like you said! Of course there's time!"
But the old man was shaking his head, slowly, almost sadly. "I don't expect you to understand why yet… you're so young. Still an infant, despite all you've learned. Even if you're less of one than most of your species. I'll try and explain it in as simple a manner as you can: All life lives in the reflection, you and every other pokemon that's ever existed. None of them have developed the capacity to bypass the normal flow of time: It's heavily engrained from the moment you're born: Subconscious. Much as you could not conceive of a universe like the real one that you reflect, so your mind is forced to invent something as close as possible, or go completely mad. I don't quite understand this scene you've placed me in, but… I expect it's cultural, maybe even mythological."
Alvin's eyes widened at that last. The old man was right, this /was/ mythological! He hadn't understood the significance before, but now that it was pointed out to him, it was impossible to miss. "You're…" He muttered, pointing with one hand. "You're the fisher-king!"
Only silence answered him for a moment, the man's expression blank. That changed quickly though, and Alvin somehow knew he'd gone back at a previous time and observed his world somehow, learning what those words meant, because when he answered, his description was accurate. "The king reflects the land. If one is damaged, both suffer. A surprisingly apt conclusion for your subconscious: I'm surprised you've learned so much about me in only twelve years. But… that's the reason we don't have much time. Time might not flow here, but your mind believes it does, and dutifully marches on at the same pace as the universe you come from. You'll only be able to return to the normal flow of time at the moment your mind believes it to be. If we wait much longer, you won't have much of a world to return to. Wait longer than that, and you'll die, right along with me and the rest of the universe. Because of course: We're already dead. When your world dies, so do we." He sat up straight then, cracking his knuckles before taking both hands on the wheels of his chair. "So let's put an end to this pointless conversation. You've burned another few years talking to me, and it'll take another few getting to somewhere thin enough for you to break through." He started rolling forward, past him into the sand, and through it into… open air. "Come with me, child. Let's see what we can do about keeping the universe together."
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Somewhere infinitely far away, but somewhen getting closer and closer as the seconds passed, Isabella Irongate sat in the last row of the tiny classroom, trying to seem as though she was paying attention. There were only two other students in the classroom with twenty-odd seats, one younger and one older brother, both sitting near the front. Her eyes paused as they fell on Donny, lingering briefly on his back with an expression of considerable disdain. Donny was always sucking up, no matter what adult happened to be nearby, and his brown-nosing got him more of her father's attention than she ever got. It didn't matter who happened to be around: so long as they were an adult, he was on his best behavior, and everyone had a positive word to put in about Donny to their father.
As for Isabella, or Izzy as she vastly preferred to be called, she could care less about this lesson. It didn't matter that her father had built this little school-building specifically so his children could get an education, it didn't matter to her that he'd hired a few of the best teachers in all of Kanto to be their exclusive instructors. The whole mess was dull to her. Except for the lessons about the natural world. This was the only interest she shared with her father, who had once been a trainer himself. She was the only member of her family who had the least interest in pokemon aside from him, and it was an interest her father's ample fortune supported, just as it did with every interest any of them ever had. He didn't have the time to love and care for his children, not really. But he had more than enough money to keep them entertained. Enough money to keep them well cared-for and get them anything they ever wanted. They lived on their family's private island: a small stretch of land that'd been in their family for at least three generations, the home of every modern convenience. The compound was built into the side of the unnamed island's single volcanic cone, a collection of business and leisure structures dating back as early as the island's history. Isabella enjoyed living in the compound almost as much as she enjoyed exploring many of the sealed structures that older generations of her family had once lived in. The best part about it, though, was using them as somewhere to hide. "Abra." She whisered, prodding the sleeping Psi-pokemon on the desk beside her. Ophelia twitched slightly, but it was likely the Abra had heard her thought more than felt her prodding. The eye was quizzical, and Izzy nodded in reply. With a light flash, the teacher rising a few seconds too late to try and grab her, the two of them vanished.
They reappeared moments later, a flash of light and spreading dust in one of the smaller buildings, dirt scattering across a deserted stage. This was the building she came to most often when she was getting away from her brothers. Not even the butler, the head of all her father's servants, could find her. Of course, it was also condemned: the oldest of any of the structures on the island. But Izzy was only seven, not really old enough to properly understand the danger. Her dress tore a little as she slipped past a broken display towards the piano, and her bright orange hair caught on a bit of exposed wire. With a grunt and a weak mew of pain, she pulled away, stumbling backward until she smacked into an old piano, which clanged dissonantly as she fell on her face on the nearly rotted boards. Izzy was a big girl. For a few moments, she resisted the desire to cry. That was as long as she lasted, though, and soon she was sobbing, barely sitting up, clutching the piano for support. Ophelia was always so good about bringing her somewhere safe! She didn't blame the Abra though… she was probably already asleep somewhere by her feet, already forgotten all of this. There would be no use blaming her.
Izzy wasn't sure how long she sat there, crying. If anyone asked her, they were unlikely to get a correct response. Children were, after all, very bad about telling time. What she knew, what she would remember for the rest of her life, was what stopped her. She thought it was her Ophelia at first, trying to amuse her by playing the piano… but when she looked up, there was nobody touching the keys, and Ophelia was clearly asleep next to a rusting harp with its case half-ajar. She might've thought the Psi-pokemon was somehow using telekinesis to play the keys. But if that were true, where had her Abra learned how to play? Izzy was already well into the education someone of her class "deserved", and was forcibly familiar with many classical composers and what they'd composed. As she stood up, climbing onto tiptoe to slide the cover off of the keys with both hands, she watched them play themselves in a slow, haunting rhythm she had heard several times before. Izzy climbed up onto the bench, which strained under her weight, and began to play along as best she could. She'd only played it a handful of times though, and had to strain to remember. Fortunately, the keys depressed whether or not she put her fingers on them. As she played, the music grew much worse, but also much stronger. Whatever force was playing did so with only a light touch, so faint and quiet she probably would not have heard had she not been sitting beside it. Izzy was not quiet as she played, and what had once been only a pale echo soon grew into a haunting chant, as the long unplayed instrument filled the decrepit hall with one last symphony. What Izzy did not notice, was that as she played, she also began to change.
It was a subtle change at first… her limbs got a little longer, a little of her babyfat born of indolent habits and young age melted away. The next change was a little less subtle, and it was the one that caused her to stop playing, and fall nearly onto her back on the stage. Her dress lifted up behind her, nice and slowly. At first she ignored it, thinking it Ophelia… but that thought did not last long. She stopped playing as she felt it, the stretching, lengthening sensation of her spine, a sudden heat as soft pink spread across the gradually broadening surface of her tail. That was when she fell sprawling on her back… but the music played on, as loud as it had been when she had been helping. The child whimpered faintly, genuinely afraid for the first time since she had arrived, reaching out behind her to feel the tail that was unmistakably hers. It was long… nearly as long as she was, with a slight bulge at the tip.
Fortunately, the transformation nor the music progressed much further than that. She barely felt it as nearly all the coloring pigment dissolved from her eyes, leaving them deep blue. She didn't notice, because a doorway had appeared in the piano. Izzy had no other way to describe it, a shimmering outline opening however briefly on the rotten wooden surface, glowing a deep purple that did a much better job of illuminating the dilapidated stage than the few stray rays of afternoon sun did through the broken windows. She balled one hand into a feeble fist as she saw the surface begin to ripple, knowing on some instinctual level that something was about to come through, and she wished she had the time to make it to Ophelia's resting place, and escape this sealed chamber before it did.
Her fear proved to be unfounded, because what came through the doorway was unmistakably… a pokemon trainer? He didn't look much older than her oldest brother, though he was far less well coordinated as he stepped through, tripping over a bit of fallen wood and falling face-first on the ground a few feet from her. His bright yellow hair was soon deep brown with dust, the same color as most of Izzy after falling twice to the ground.
Alvin rolled over, brushing the cobwebs from his shoulders as he did so, and sitting up, checking on what he held in his arms… a pichu! In that instant, the rest of Izzy's fear dissolved, just as the boy flipped open his pokedex for light: the doorway he'd come through had vanished, leaving the light it had provided missing. He ignored the little chunk of plastic as it spoke, staring openly at Izzy.
"Mew, the New Species Pokemon. So rare that it is still said to be a mirage by many experts. Only a few people have seen it worldwide."
"Y-you're… you're the eddie?" He asked, sliding a few feet back from her in shock. "B-but… but you're just a child! A… strange, partly-pokemon child…" What happened next he didn't expect, though his reflexes were quick enough to prevent it from hurting him. Izzy took a rusty screw in one hand and threw it at him, hard. Alvin raised an arm to protect Sparks from being struck, but what he could not intercept was the sound of her shouting.
"Half-pokemon? I wasn't half anything until just now! It's your fault! You and your magic piano and your climbing out of nowhere! I don't even care that you've got a cute pokemon! Change me back right now! My daddy… my daddy's got all sorts of people who work for him! If you don't make me better, they'll… they'll get you!"
Alvin's face fell, but at prompting from Sparks, he let the pichu down onto the stage, and began to speak as his friend darted across the stage to her. "I'm sorry, little…" He trailed off a moment, then his eyes widened a little and he continued without much interruption. "… Isabella. I promise I didn't know what He meant when He said He was making an eddy for me to land in. I thought it was a thing, not a… a person. Sorry, I… I don't understand most of what He says. I should've realized when he told me it was named Isabella." Alvin grinned sheepishly, even as Sparks gently rubbed his head on the girl's leg, which had been scratched and wounded in her fall. The gesture worked, though the child was still scowling at him.
"It's Izzy. Isabella's what my daddy calls me; nobody else." Her tail relaxed behind her as she reached out to the pichu in response, petting its head gently with one hand. "So can you fix me or not? I'm not apposed to have a tail, nobody is. If my brothers see, they'll laugh at me. They laugh at me enough for my hair."
Alvin shook his head, standing up shakily. "I wish I could, Izzy, but I didn't do it to you… do I look like I could give you a tail?" He spread his hands, palms-up. "I'm just a trainer, see? Just like…" He trailed off, eyes falling briefly on the Abra. "… just like you. I can't do anything special. And all I've got is Sparks there… but I wouldn't ask for anybody else." Alvin reached down briefly, catching the Pichu as he scurried back across the room to him, him and lifting him gently onto his shoulder.
Izzy's face was devoid of anger now, eyes wide and deep blue as nobody had ever seen them before. A wide smile spread across her face, as though Alvin had just paid her a great complement."You… you really think I could be a trainer one day? My brothers… they say I'd never make it as a trainer. They say I'm… I'm too soft, cuz' I'm a girl. That's not fair! Girls ain't soft just 'cuz they're girls! Donny just… doesn't want me to be like Dad, cuz' he's afraid I'll steal his attention away. Well he's my dad too!" Izzy whimpered then, but Alvin was on his knees beside her before she could cry, running a hand through her hair.
"Shh… Izzy, right? You're the prettiest little trainer I've ever seen. I'm sure one day you'll be even stronger than Sparks and me. You've just gotta keep learning, that's all. Keep learning more about Pokemon, because that's what makes the best trainers. You'll have to talk to your dad about the tail, though. Maybe doctors can do something about it. If he's got lots of people who work for him, I'm sure at least one of them is a doctor." Alvin stood up properly again, letting go of the now-grinning child and looking around in confusion. "Where are we, anyways?"
But Izzy did not get a chance to answer. She didn't, because at that moment, Alvin and Sparks vanished, an abrupt implosion of air not so much like a teleportation as it was a soap-bubble popping; something that shouldn't exist vanishing in a shower of purple and green sparks.
A/N: If it's not too much trouble, I'd petition anyone reading this to write a review, even if it's just a few lines. It's the reviews that keep me writing, same as ever. Soon as I get a handful or two, the sooner I write my next chapter.
