Ezra woke up with a jolt.

Sitting up, he instantly noticed he was no longer in the grandiose Hall of Origin and as he got to his feet, he noticed a chill in the air that had nothing to do with the cold. He glanced around, taking note of the oddly shifting sky, the undulating floor and strange thickness to the air that made it slightly difficult to breathe. Wherever he was, humans probably weren't common.

"Alright," he said aloud. "What's all this then?"

A light chuckle caressed his ears, shortly followed by a voice. Ezra felt something immaterial brush over him and he felt an involuntary shiver course through him.

"You take kidnapping in stride. Most others would be freaking out about now."

"MissingNo.?" Ezra mused. "Didn't expect to run into another one of you so soon."

"You've heard of us?" the voice asked in surprise as a form took shape. A kabutops skeleton barely held together by an oozing black substance clattered to life in front of the boy before swiping at him with one of its claws.

Ezra didn't move and the claw stopped a hairsbreadth from the boy's neck.

"You won't defend yourself?"

"If you wanted me dead, you'd have killed me before I could have done anything about it," Ezra said, pushing the scythe away from his neck. "What's with the theatrics?"

"You're no fun," MissingNo. grumbled, stepping back before it began pacing around the child. Stopping behind the boy, it then casually draped its forelimbs around the boy's shoulders. "So, tell me about yourself. Us glitches have so little to do around here and the windows of interaction are ever-so-small and hard to pinpoint."

"That's a shame," Ezra said, idly running a finger along the bones resting on him before lifting it in his hands, turning it this way and that. "I'm sure there's a place for you in one of these worlds."

"Would you say that if you were dead? Figuratively speaking."

"Humans kill pokémon, pokémon kill humans. Pokémon kill pokémon, humans kill humans," Ezra said with a shrug. "We all die at some point whether we want to or not. I'm not all too pleased with being kidnapped, mind, but you haven't gone out of your way to make me miserable or harmed me, so there's that going for you at the moment."

"The way you touch a glitch without consequence or care makes me think attempting to kill you would be fruitless," MissingNo. said. "Arceus knows to make its playthings durable and everlasting so they don't burn out. Consider me extremely jealous of that."

"Oh?" Ezra asked with a small grin. "You don't have a playmate or lover of your own?"

"Glitches don't work like that, child," the kabutops replied as it withdrew its appendages from Ezra's body. The boy turned to look at it and blinked as he reappeared within the Hall of Origin.

"Ezra!"

The boy turned to see Arceus getting to its feet and within seconds it had embraced the boy and started nuzzling him fretfully.

"Are you alright? Where'd you go? What happened?"

Ezra grabbed Arceus' face with his hands and grinned. "I'm fine, sweetie. Really. Just met with a MissingNo. and we talked for a bit."

Arceus stared into Ezra's eyes and blinked slowly. "A MissingNo.? So it wasn't the one from before?"

Ezra sighed and caressed Arceus' jaw lightly. "No. They seem really lonely though, always eager to find ways from their...weird...glitch dimension place and maybe settle somewhere. Or conquer it and plunge it all into chaos. I was getting conflicting vibes from it."

Arceus stared at the boy, mildly bemused. "You're taking it quite in stride."

"Why waste effort freaking out or worrying about it? So long as they find a way to be happy..." He shrugged and kissed Arceus' nose. "Maybe I'm stupid like that. Naive, or a hopeless romantic who only wants or expects the best from people."

"If only it was that simple," Arceus grumbled. "My job would be so much easier."

"You'd never survive in such an environment," Ezra said with a smirk. "You'd probably go mad from boredom and start conflicts yourself just to spice things up."

"I only did that
once!"

Ezra snickered, kissed Arceus again and scampered off with a giggle.


Arceus and Ezra landed on the shore of Lake Valor in the Sinnoh Region and took stock of their surroundings.

Not seeing anything in the immediate vicinity, Arceus then looked out towards the island in the center of the lake thoughtfully.

"What is it?" Ezra asked, following its gaze.

"Just making sure Azelf is alright," Arceus replied, touching the surface of the lake with a hoof, causing the entirety of it to become smooth as glass. Ezra leaned over Arceus' side to peer into the depths of the water curiously. Numerous water-types darted around the lake bed and Arceus let out a satisfied snort before touching the water again, restoring it to its default state.

"Does it have something to do with the Time Crash?" Ezra asked, stroking Arceus' neck lightly. The Alpha Pokémon nodded, idly leaning into the caress. "I'd be worried too."

Arceus suddenly perked up and glowed, transforming into a human, which caused Ezra to unceremoniously fall to the ground. Ezra sat up with a scowl to see Arceus looking towards the west, towards a line of trees. Getting to his feet and brushing himself off, Ezra picked up the sounds of someone approaching.

"-something there!"

A boy burst through the trees and looked around, blue eyes alight with curiosity. He was wearing a red beret, black vest over a white shirt, a red scarf around his neck and a simple pair of jeans. He scratched his head as he looked around before he saw Arceus and Ezra and walked over to them.

"Are either of you pokémon trainers?" he asked. Before either could respond, an irritated voice rang out from the trees.

"Hareta! You know you can't just go running off like that! Hareta!"

Ezra and Arceus watched in bemusement as the boy whirled around and sped off with a burst of speed.

"Curious," Arceus mused. Ezra glanced at him with a smile.

"I saw it too," he said, crossing his arms. "He was also raised by pokémon."

"And nobody has sat him down and properly educated him," Arceus said, nudging Ezra with an elbow. Ezra glowered at him and stuck his tongue out.

"Hey!"

The boy was back, this time with a green-haired girl wearing a black shirt and short pink skirt trailing along behind him. Upon seeing Ezra and Arceus, she bowed low.

"I'm sorry if Hareta was bothering you," she said, turning a glare that had no sting behind it on her companion. "He's..."

"A child of the forest, I know," Arceus said. "Or at least primarily raised by pokémon." His voice then got a tad darker. "A practice I thought was abolished centuries ago."

"Hareta has the weird ability to befriend just about any pokémon he comes across and uses that to help Professor Rowan with his studies near Sandgem Town," the girl replied. "My name is Mitsumi. I'm also one of Rowan's assistants."

Arceus looked like it wanted to argue the point, but it glanced at Hareta, who was deep in conversation with a pair of bidoof and a bibarel and didn't say anything.

"His pokéise is almost perfect," Ezra noted, watching the boy's hands as they moved in time with his speech.

"Po...kayce?" Mitsumi asked blankly.

"It's part of how pokémon talk to one another," Ezra explained. "They're much more animated than people realize."

Mitsumi stared at him, then at Arceus curiously. "Are you two friends of Rowan? He primarily studies evolution, but I'm sure he'd be interested in that as well, or at least send it to the expert on it."

"Never heard of him," Ezra said cheerfully. Arceus shrugged.

"Nothing more than hearsay."

Hareta finished his talk with the local pokémon and wandered over. "The pokémon here say you're strong," he said, looking at Arceus, who kept its face neutral. It knew its creations wouldn't tell anyone about its disguise, but it sensed that this boy - much like Ezra - had a strong intuition about people.

"I am," it said, "But Ezra here is the one currently learning about pokémon. Perhaps you'd like to battle him?"

Ezra shot him an alarmed look and Arceus merely flicked its eyes down at Ezra's waist and clapped a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"That'd be fun!" Hareta said, pulling out a poké ball before running back a couple dozen yards with Mitsumi following suit.

"I don't have any pokémon," Ezra murmured, taking his place on the other side of the impromptu field. His hand brushed against his belt and he blinked as his fingers met the surface of a poké ball.

"Try not to destroy the lakeside," Arceus said, before going halfway between the two trainers. "This will be a one-on-one battle. Are both sides ready? Send out your pokémon!"

"Deoxys, come on out!" Hareta said, hurling his ball into the air.

Arceus blinked in surprise as the DNA pokémon materialized on Hareta's side of the field. It had been a more recent discovery and one Arceus wasn't completely familiar with.

Ezra threw his own poké ball and an absol coalesced before him. It glanced back at Ezra and nodded before barking a challenge at its opponent.

"Begin!"

"Constrict!" Hareta ordered. Deoxys' limbs unrolled into two distinct strands of red and green before it lunged at absol.

"Agility!" Ezra called. He studied Deoxys curiously, taking note of its limbs before grinning.

Absol dodged its opponent, ducking underneath its grasp before leaping away, landing low to the ground, tail lashing in excitement.

Hareta stroked his chin before punching forward. "Zen Headbutt!"

Deoxys' head glowed and it moved towards absol, who dodged with contemptuous ease and Mitsumi shook her head.

"It's too fast for Deoxys to hit," she said. Hareta glanced at her before grinning.

"Not a problem; Deoxys, Agility, then Constrict!"

Deoxys' entire body slimmed down and it abruptly vanished from view, kicking up a cloud of dust as it did so.

Both Ezra and absol's eyes went wide before Deoxys reappeared behind the Disaster pokémon, swiftly ensnaring it with its tendrils.

"Crunch!" Ezra said, flexing his fingers. "Then Agility again!"

Absol wiggled its head and bit down on one of the limbs holding it, causing Deoxys' grip to weaken as it flinched. Kicking free, the absol then blurred out of view.

"Night Slash!" Ezra ordered.

"Bind!" Hareta commanded.

The two pokémon collided, kicking up a cloud of dirt. When it cleared, the two pokémon were twined together, with Deoxys using its limbs to hold absol's glowing horn at bay. The two strained against one another, but neither could really affect the other.

"That's enough!" Arceus said. "It's a draw."

Hareta and Ezra relaxed before recalling their pokémon. Ezra stared at the absol in his hand for a moment before tucking it away. Walking over to Hareta, the two boys exchanged handshakes.

"We should do this again sometime," Hareta said. "You seem to like pokémon a lot. That absol was very fast."

"I was surprised by Deoxys," Ezra said. "How did you meet it?"

"I saved it from Mars," Hareta said, and Ezra stared at him blankly. "The Team Galactic commander, not the planet."

"What did you say?" Arceus said, stepping forward. "Team Galactic is here?"

"I've run into them a few times here and there," Hareta said.

Ezra reached out to Arceus, but it moved out of his reach and growled to itself. The boy noted the danger signs and grimaced before turning to Hareta and Mitsumi.

"I'm sorry, but neither of us are huge fans of Team Galactic," he said, watching as Arceus stalked towards the trees. "We really have to go, but I hope we meet again."

Bowing, he then took off after Arceus, who teleported as soon as they were out of sight.