AN: And so as promised, the first chapter of the year; chapter 07. Chapter 08 will be released next week with 09 a day or two after. Please leave a review and enjoy the story.

Chapter 07 – Anomalies


Pewter City – Saviors HQ Main Entrance

The sun began to set as soon as we entered Pewter City that day. Expecting to see at least a good amount of people walking around this time of day when walking to the HQ we only saw Savior members patrolling the area, there were no people or Pokemon nearby, only guards.

The entrance of the Pewter City Saviors HQ entrance wasn't anything different from the one back in Unova, marbled dark walls and floor, reception desk up front, a couple of chairs in the waiting area, and an elevator and stairway next to the reception obviously leading to different floors appropriate for each Savior member; Medical for the injured, offices to write up a report on previous missions, Training VR for the Saviors to train for upcoming missions or to improve their skills in certain areas, and much more.

"Is this where you work?" Espeon asked Brent as he walked over to the reception desk to sign us in for the meeting we had to attend to today. "Pretty grim in here… could us some plant life and come color… how about some Pokemon Red, eh?"

"It may not look like much, but this place has the best people you could work with both personality wise, and work efficiently." Brent had finally approached the deck and signed his name on a clipboard he was given by the woman behind the desk and gestured both me, Lisa and Espeon to go to the elevator to.

Walking up to the elevator with Brent pressing the button to call for the elevator, the entrance of the Saviors building doors burst open…

"Hey, wait up!" A teenage boy roughly about 16 or younger shouted as soon as he entered the building running as fast as he could to the elevator we stood outside from. He wore a black suit and tie with a Savior's 'S' emblem badge attached to the tie. His hair was the same hair color as Brent's, the only two differences was his hair was less short and combed. He stopped and began to gasp for breathe looking up at us with a smile.

"Thanks…phew, didn't think I'd make it…" He said gasping for more air noticing the elevator doors opening. "I take it you three are here for the meeting about your next mission?"

"Excuse me but uh, who are you?" Lisa asked him as he lifted his head standing up straight with a smile.

"My name is Rick Meadows, Rank 03 of the Saviors Science department of the Kanto Savior's Branch. Shall we?" His smile remained as he gestured all of us to enter the elevator before him, and we did as Rick followed behind pressing the button to the meeting room floor.

"I was told by Hillary Turner to find and escort all of you to the meeting once you entered Pewter city, but of cause we missed each other."

"Wait, hold up!" Brent crossed his arms, "I have worked here for a couple of years now, and I don't ever recall ever seeing you before." There was a short pause as Rick remained silent before smiling once again.

"As I have mentioned before, I work within the science department of the Savior's, I don't get out that often as seen when I ran like a madman for the elevators." Rick reached into his suit pocket and pulled out a piece of paper. "Your names are as followed; Zack Raines from the Unova region. Lisa Rivers from Sinnoh, and Brent Jackson from of cause here. Anyone I am missing from the list?"

"Yep, me." Espeon laughed in a comic tone alerting Rick to Espeon speaking.

"Well now, this should make things interesting." Rick kneeled down to Espeon and reached his arm over to her head to stroke it.

"Watch this, Espeon's gonna make some kind of joke at him or yell, at least something." Brent said quietly as he nudged us with his arm. Once Rick touched Espeon's head….. she smiled.

"Aw What the heck!?" Brent gritted his teeth as he glared down at the two. Espeon allowed Rick to stroke her head down to her neck.

"I like you, Rick. You remind me of me from when I was an Eevee; carefree and happy. You shall endure a world
without a harsh nickname from me too you."


Pewter City Savior's HQ – Meeting Room

The meeting room was like your average room for obvious meetings; large table in the middle with a set amount of chairs around it, a large projector up front with a bunch of slides awaiting to be viewed.

Sitting together at the side of the table was Lisa to my left and Espeon to my right, Brent sat next to Espeon drinking from one of the cups of water set in front of everyone in the room.

Besides us were other Savior members I didn't know, Rick however was sat next to the projector sorting out the slides occasionally glancing over at the door now and then.

*Creak* The door opened with about 4 people walking inside the room, one of the 4 I knew from before I joined the Savior's; Hillary Turner, one of 5 founding members of the Savior's and leader of the Kanto branch. She much like Clark Stone had gray hair, She wore a black suit similar to Rick's, but she had multiple badges pinned to her suit.

"Welcome everyone for today's meeting." She greeted to all of us with a smile. She then turned to Rick, "Rick, start up the projector."

"Yes ma'am." He replied with a short quick nod before starting up the projector with the rooms lights turning off leaving us in the dark.

The projector started up revealing the first image or multiple images in one showing landmarks within the Kanto region, but one image in the center caught me, Lisa, Brent's and Espeon's attention… it was the same first creature we saw that attacked us.

"This creature," Rick began before walking beside the projector, "They have been appearing within multiple locations not only within the Kanto region, but multiple regions."

"It first started as a rumor, creatures being sighted, heard, and engaging in attacks in small villages, to towns, to cities, and finally to other regions spreading like wildfire. These creatures we have named 'Anomalies' have appeared almost everywhere but in small groups of 3-6. They are aggressive when approached, but as of now no known reports have stated if the Anomalies kill any living being it defeats."

"The Anomalies emit a strange mist-like gas that surrounds them concealing their identity to others. This was proven to be true when Savior members Zack Raines, Lisa Rivers, and Brent Jackson fought and defeated one in the presence of multiple civilians all stating that they never saw any creature in the park."

Rick pressed one of the buttons on the remote and the slide changed to a new image; it was an image of a portal of some kind, dark purple like water.

"This image you see before you we believe is the origin of the Anomalies that have been appearing lately. About a few months ago an agent from the Savior's within the Kanto branch had entered the portal yet left seconds after entering claiming he wasn't inside the portal for a short time, he was inside that portal for months."

"After multiple tests we discovered that this portal is a portal to a realm where one can access multiple timelines both past, present and future."

"So this portal doodah… is that why these Anomalies are appearing all over the joint?" Brent asked as Rick pressed the remote again to change slides to a new image.

"It is possible, but since the discovery of the portal and non-stop monitoring of said portal, no anomalies have yet emerged. Look at this…" as if on cue the projector revealed the next image; it was an image of the same white ball thing we saw back in Cerulean cave earlier today.

"We believe that these sphere Anomalies are in fact the power source to the humanoid Anomalies, a battery to be precise. About 2 weeks ago during a test run, a team of solider engaged in combat with the sphere. The sphere upon being attacked was surrounded by the humanoid Anomalies to defend the sphere for unknown reasons at the time. The sphere was then shot by accident when a solider missed his aim and hit the sphere instead causing the sphere to fade away in a similar manner of a defeated humanoid Anomaly. Unexpectedly, not just the sphere faded away, but unharmed Anomalies began fading away as well."

Rick pressed the remote switch again to return back to the image of the portal and asked, "But what about this portal you see here? Why is that of any importance to the matter at hand? Zack, Lisa and Brent, do you remember when you entered the cave in Cerulean to encounter angry people protesting to the police to help an injured child?"

"Yes, but when we left we found no one outside. Even the police told us after that there was no protest today." Lisa spoke up with Espeon following quietly beside me, "Damn right."

"I did some research on that cave immediately after knowing that an Anomaly was located within and crossed matched the details of the report to an interesting find. In the year 1981 a boy by the name of Thomas Riley was declared missing. The civilians that knew the boy tried all they could to search for him, but no one would've thought to look inside the Cerulean caves if it weren't for cries for help from within."

"But why did the police officers refuse to allow the citizens desperately searching for Thomas Riley to enter the caves might you ask? In the year 1974 a tunnel collapsed within the cave injuring multiple miners and killing at least 2 of them. After the incident, approximately 5 officers were stationed outside the cave entrance for 1 month refusing anyone entrance. I believe that 1981s Thomas Riley's timeline and 1974s mining accident existed at the same time within our own timeline. And I believe that these other Anomalies are affecting other timelines apart from our own."

The lights flickered on stinging my eyes a little. The projector shut off as Hillary walked up to Rick, "This is why we have called you three to this meeting today. This mission we ask you to enter the portal and stop the Anomalies appearing throughout the multiple timelines it has spread to before the worst should happen."

"Ooh, time travel. I'll get my scarf and call myself a doctor… doctor Espeon is in da house. " Espeon laughed raising a few eyebrows from the others after realizing that she can speak.

"Wait a sec, how can we defeat the anomalies in multiple timelines, isn't there like about countless moments in time that the Anomalies have spread to? We'd never put a dent in the number they might have spread to already!" Brent had a point about that. How would we know fight 10, 100 or perhaps 1,000,000 would prevent them from spreading?

"You leave that up to us. All of us are in this together. You focus on fighting the Anomalies while we focus on finding the origin and perhaps the Anomaly controlling all of them." Rick paused allowing Hillary to speak up,

"Tomorrow the mission begins for you where we instruct you on your mission further, and also meet up with your comrades for HQ communications when you are on missions should a problem occur. With that, I declare this meeting over. Please get some rest for tomorrow, and I wish you the best."

Before we left, Hillary turned to us four as we stood up and said, "About the mission tomorrow, we have discovered during past tests about the time portal; it will either lead you to timelines both past, present and future. You must not alter the timeline in anyway; your presence within a certain timeline must remain nonexistent. The smallest change in the past can have dire consequences in the the present, be careful or there may not be a present to return to."


Savior's HQ Guest Area

With the meeting over we decided to head on over to the guest area where we would be calling it home for the next… well, whenever the mission was finished.

It was just me and Espeon waiting by the soda machines until Brent returned with our room keys from one of his superiors in the office floor of the building. Lisa however went down to the entrance floor to use the phone booth to call her superiors and report in that she made it to the meeting today. I did want to go down stairs to call my mom about my mission and how long I might stay here for…

"So uh, Zack? I've been meaning to ask…" She asked quietly, "This um… time travel thingy we'll be using tomorrow; D-do you think we could change… change the… paszzzuure!" Espeon slurred her words towards the end lowering her head and sighed deeply before coughing, it was then when I noticed that she was crying, so I bent down to her level.

"Espeon, what's wrong?" She looked up at me before wiping her tears from her face with her paw, "Please, you can tell me. Why are you crying?"

"Z-Zackary…" she spoke through a small hiccup, "If you lost someone dear to you, someone so precious… what would you be willing to do to undo that? Pray to Arceus or a Pokemon that can control time and space? Or even go back in time maybe, cause… we now have that opportunity…" It was obviously clear to me that this was about the time portal, perhaps she wanted to use it somehow and maybe go back to a bad moment. I was about to tell her, to explain to her that we couldn't alter the timeline to save someone we cared about, or the present will change.

"I know we can't change the past, I'm just saying it just sucks that we can't do anything to alter it." Espeon wiped away the last of her tears and sighed with a smile, "As soon as I heard the word 'time travel' during that meeting I thought I had a chance at change… it looks like I'll have to carry out my original plan on searching still…"

Confused I asked, "What do you mean searching? Does this have something to do with someone you lost before we met?" Espeon yawned and cracked her neck.

"I-I don't want to… to talk about it yet… t-there is something else I would like to talk to you about, about me… I just need time to think about it, I want to be ready for what I am going to tell you. Can you wait until then, Zackary?"

I nodded and smiled at her, "Sure, whatever it is you want to talk about, I'll be ready to talk with you about it." It had taken a while to notice, but when I first met Espeon and how she acted towards people and Pokemon around her, she seemed carefree and happy, but deep down I knew something was bothering with her, not just one thing but multiple problems. She seemed scared when she wanted to talk to me about speaking again. 'Whatever it is she wants to talk to me about, I hope I can help her.' I thought at the time as we stopped and notice the sound of the bell from the elevator as both Brent and Lisa appeared from the elevators.

To be continued...


Trivia:

There was a fourth member included into the story to go with the trio travelling through time, this character was female with red hair up to the shoulder, red stripe shirt and blue shorts was going to play a major part to the story, but she was replaced with another character that will appear in a future chapter.