Hey guys! Sorry this took like two weeks. I had a bunch of problems with getting it finished, including the finished chapter accidentally being deleted and having to rewrite it from scratch. Hopefully that never happens again, seriously...
After a brief explanation of what exactly the Orbs were and why Saturn and his organization, Team Galactic, would want them, Gardenia and Ryan bade Ash and May farewell. Gardenia also told Ash that it would probably be at least a day or two before she'd be ready for a Gym Battle, given the present circumstances.
"So am I the only one who thought those statues looked kinda familiar?" May asked, as she walked down the road alongside Ash, the two of them now heading to the Eterna Pokemon Center.
"...Now that you mention it, yeah." Ash answered, putting a hand to his chin. "The one with two legs looks like the thing I saw in my dream last night..."
"Really?" May replied. "I think I saw the four-legged one in mine...I wonder if that means anything?"
"What did they say their names were, again?" Ash said, scratching his head as he thought back to Ryan's words. "Parukia?"
"Pi-ka?" Pikachu responded in disbelief.
May giggled before correcting. "No, I think it was...ah...Dialga and Palkia. I don't get how we could've had dreams about them, though, if we've never seen them before..."
"I dunno..." Ash remarked, just as confused as she was.
By the time the two of them had found their way to the Pokemon Center and checked themselves in for the night, the afternoon sun was beginning to set, and so the two simply decided to remain in their room and wait out the rest of the day.
They spent a little while discussing the events of their dreams again, but quickly found that they were still without answers. During the course of this, Ash had removed his hat and placed it atop his pack on the floor, and May had done the same with her bandana.
The two were about to simply let the subject drop when, suddenly, there was a knock on their door.
"Uh...come in." Ash spoke hesitantly, looking at May and then the door in confusion. It wasn't someone they expected to see, to say the least.
"Hey, guys!" Chance greeted happily, letting himself in before shutting the door behind him. "What's going on?"
"Chance?" Ash replied in disbelief.
"Hey, what are you doing all the way out here?" May greeted warmly.
"Ah...well..." Chance responded slowly, glancing back at the two of them nervously. "That's kind of complicated. Listen, nobody else is in here, right?"
"No, just us and Pikachu..." Ash answered, nodding in the direction of his Pokemon partner, who was sitting on the floor, across the room, watching the exchange intently.
Chance nodded. "Well then...I guess I should turn it over to my other half for now..."
Before Ash and May could ask what he meant, his eyes flickered for a moment and then began glowing an intense aura of light blue.
"Piiika..." Pikachu growled suddenly, its calm disposition of a moment ago now gone. It dropped down onto all fours and glowered at the boy, electricity sparking from its cheeks.
"Pikachu? What's wrong?" Ash asked worriedly.
"It is all right." Chance spoke, to both Ash and Pikachu, it seemed, though his voice was different now, deeper and more controlled, and with a touch of reverb to it.
"...Chance...?" May uttered nervously.
Chance looked right at her, the aura emanating from his eyes seeming to pierce straight through her being. "Chance is no longer present. Greetings to you, humans. I am Darkrai."
It took Darkrai a while to explain to them the complicated relationship he had with Chance.
The two of them had met quite a while ago, around a year, possibly longer, though neither of the two seemed to remember for sure. He had come to Chance in his dreams one night, as he had usually done with humans at the time, but after looking into his mind, he was impressed with the knowledge he had of Mount Coronet and the Sinnoh creation myths, and so, through his dreams, Darkrai had proposed a deal with him. Darkrai would continue to dwell in Chance's subconscious mind, helping him with his research, and in return Darkrai would, as he put it, 'get to see the world through a human's eyes.'
"But what does all this have to do with us?" May asked, after both her and Ash getting over the initial shock that they were indeed speaking to a Pokemon that their Pokedex had identified as a pseudo-legendary, and who was inhabiting a human's body.
He turned his piercing gaze back to her, as he always seemed to do whenever answering a direct question. "I know things about Mount Coronet, and about Dialga, Palkia, Giratina, and the Lake Guardians. I do not remember where I learned these things, I simply...do. That is how I knew that something was wrong."
"Wrong?" Ash chimed in.
Chancerai nodded, turning his piercing gaze back to Ash. "Although my statement about wanting to see this world through human eyes was not false, it is not the reason that I asked Chance to share a body with me. He was the first person I had encountered whom, I thought, would have the greatest chance of helping me out of the people who actually possessed the knowledge to do so."
"A few months after joining with him, I finally told him the real reason why I asked this partnership of him. Ever since just a short time before our meeting, humans had been attempting to summon Dialga and Palkia, and use their powers for their own selfish plans. They still are. I needed a human's help to figure out who these people were and what exactly they planned to accomplish. Ever since then, we have been secretly working against these humans, who call themselves Team Galactic, and I believe we are now at the final juncture."
"Team Galactic?" May echoed.
"Are those the guys who stole the Orbs from the statues earlier?" Ash questioned, recalling the golden 'G' emblazoned on Saturn's uniform.
Chancerai nodded. "Yes. That is why I am here. Now that they have acquired the Orbs, they now only need the three Lake Guardians, and they will have all that they need to summon the Titans of Time and Space."
"The Lake Guardians?"
"The three Pokemon that watch over Lakes Verity, Acuity, and Valor: Mesprit, Uxie, and Azelf respectively. If you bring them to the top of Mount Coronet, a place called Spear Pillar, and channel their powers through the Adamant and Lustrous Orbs...then it is said that you can call forth Dialga and Palkia themselves. Team Galactic aims to do this, and use their powers to reshape the universe in their image, with themselves as the rulers of us all."
"What?" Ash and May exclaimed in unison.
"Well, you've got a way to stop them, don't you?" Ash asked hopefully.
Chancerai was silent for a moment before continuing. "I believe so. I do not think there is a way to prevent them from gathering the Lake Guardians at this point, but if we can get to Spear Pillar before they complete the summoning, there may be a way. It is a slim chance, of course, but if I did not think it was a viable option, I would not be telling you all of this now."
He paused for a moment before explaining. "As you have seen with Chance, I can use my power over dreams to dig into a being's psyche, and draw out whatever I choose, including feelings. Now, tell me. What do you believe to be the strongest single feeling in the universe?"
Ash opened his mouth almost immediately to answer, but closed it just as fast when another thought entered his head. He turned to the side to glance at May, sitting beside him on the bed, and she was looking back at him with the exact same look in her eyes.
He turned back to Chancerai, who was still watching him intently. "...Love." May silently squeezed his hand as he delivered their answer.
Chancerai nodded approvingly. "Indeed. Dialga and Palkia have hated each other since the beginning of time, and that is why the very concept of controlling them even exists in the first place. If they were united in their stand, nothing in the world could even hope to control them. But...if we can teach them how to care for the other, how to truly feel what the other is feeling...Team Galactic would have no chance of carrying out their plan."
"What are you saying?" May asked cautiously.
"I am proposing this. If we are able to reach Spear Pillar before they summon the Titans, then I believe that I can project your connection with each other over to Dialga and Palkia. If I am successful, their scorn for one another will disappear, and they will be free to deal with Team Galactic as they please."
Ash and May's eyes widened in disbelief for the umpteenth time that afternoon. "I - I don't know..." May began.
"Chance tells me that you two share a bond that is truly something special. And I have observed this, as well." The two of them stared back at him in confusion. "Who do you think was the one showing you those visions of the Titans?"
It took a moment for it to finally click, though May was the one who spoke up first. "It was you! You were the one giving us those weird dreams!"
Chancerai nodded yet again, a slight smile present on his face now. "Yes. They were warnings. We were not entirely sure until today of how far along Team Galactic's plans were. I was planning to continue showing you those visions in order to avoid having to explain all of this to you...but...well, here we are."
"So, hold on...what about yesterday? I think we left Floaroma Town...but...me and May can't remember anything after the Floaroma Pokemon Center until right outside Eterna Forest." Ash explained, recalling the haziness that seemed to surround his memories of that time period.
"Ah...so you actually remember that?" Chancerai replied, sounded impressed. "Perhaps this will work out after all. That was a preemptive attempt by Team Galactic to simply tear Dialga and Palkia from their pocket dimensions by force, but as far as I've been able to tell, it was a miserable failure. But even so, playing with time and space never comes easy, as you've experienced."
"So then." Chancerai announced a moment later, a sense of finality in his voice. "Will you agree to help us? You are free to choose, though I am not sure we will able to find another way to stop them without you."
Ash and May were silent for a long while, allowing their minds to fully digest what they had just been told. Pikachu finally bounded over to them from across the room, looking up at Ash from his feet.
"What do you think, buddy?"
"Pi-ka." Pikachu nodded without a second thought, knowing full well the depth of Ash and May's bond with each other.
Ash's face lightened at his partner's faith, and he turned to look at May. She was staring back at him with that knowing look in her eyes, and that familiar grin on her face.
The two of them looked back to Chancerai together, and nodded in unison. "All right."
Chancerai smiled back at them. "Thank you. Then we will leave here tomorrow morning for Spear Pillar. Until then..."
His voice seemed to fade away, and so did the aura surrounding Chance's eyes. Before they knew it, he was looking and speaking normally again. "Sorry I didn't tell you guys about Darkrai sooner...I guess I just didn't think you'd believe me. Anyway, I guess I'll see you tomorrow."
He waved goodbye to them, and left, again making sure to close the door behind him as he went.
Just a note, I did have to rewrite this after finishing it once, so if anything seems a little off, it's probably my laziness or failure to recreate it from the original.
Please R&R!