Chapter 10: Trapped in the Past
Uugh…My head and my throat felt fuzzy again. Why did I keep falling asleep on hard surfaces? I slowly pushed myself up from the gray granite floor and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes, then snapped my eyes open with shock. My heart began to race. It was really dark, but I could still make out the dark-blue starless sky…the cracked ground…the withered trees...the rocks floating in midair.
And I screamed.
No, wait; it wasn't a high-pitched girly scream like "EEK!" Far from it. If I were to ever scream that high, I was pretty sure it would rip my vocal chords or something. No, I yelled at the top of my lungs, "AAAAAUUUUAAAAUUUAAAAGH!"
Guess what? Big Amy and Chikorita were still asleep (for once) next to me, and it, naturally, woke them up. What do you know? They panicked at the top of their lungs too.
"Not again!" shouted Chikorita in dismay.
"How did we get here? HOW?" Big Amy wailed. Poor girl. I remembered how she never wanted to go back to this dark future world ever again. She was against it so badly; she panicked when Dusknoir showed up to take them back. The whole point of Team Pecha's first major adventure was to prevent this world from ever existing. So what happened? Why was it still back? Unless…
"Maybe…maybe Zoroark pulled us into another dimension. Maybe he wants us to see what his ideal world would be like," I suggested.
"Don't you mean Darkrai's?" asked Chikorita.
"Yeah. Darkrai's. Or maybe they're related or something. Or maybe…!" I gasped as a better idea came into my head. "Maybe we're on a completely different paralyzed planet, and he's just trying to fool us!"
"Oh yeah! You might be right…but…how do we get out?" whispered Big Amy, finally calming down.
We sat down to think, but none of us could come up with any ideas. My brain kept going back to the possibility that this was actually Big Amy's past. Only one way to find out. "Hey, Big Amy. Remember when you and Grovyle and Chikorita came back from the future and spent the night at Sharpedo Bluff?"
"Yeah. Why?"
"There was this song—well, poem—I mean, chant—or whatever it was that he performed. How did it go again…?"
She thought for several seconds before realizing, "Oh yeah!" We then chanted at the same time,
They say that one day, a spaceship flew by,
Dumped seven people, and went back to the sky,
"and then…uh…uh…" I groaned. We both forgot the rest of it!
"Oh yeah! I remember, kind of! We did that two years ago!" Chikorita pointed out.
"We only said it once, so I kind of forgot," explained Amy.
"But I don't have any excuse!" I complained. "I mean, I wrote the whole thing in only one day—"
I realized what I was about to say, and clamped my hands over my mouth right then. At the same time, ironically enough, the sound of a spaceship emerging out of hyperspace and slowing down drowned out whatever my friends were going to say. We looked up. My jaw dropped. It was the Axiatomic Link.
Big Amy and Chikorita immediately ran to it, shouting, "Hey! Help! WE NEED HELP!" and I ran after them too, though my thoughts got ahead of me again. Why was the Axiatomic Link all shiny and new? We were just in the old, rotting version. Where were Grovyle and Samus? What about Zoroark, Sylux, and the meanie-butts? Where were we, anyway? By the time the ship came to a stop, we were close enough to throw ourselves at the door of the ship, so we did.
What the heck?
We went right through the ship wall and landed back on the ground again! Was the ship a mirage? A hologram? I didn't remember any mirages in the dark future. Then I glanced at my hands—my whole self, actually—and gasped. So did Big Amy and Chikorita. We were the ones who were translucent, not the ship!
Before they could freak out, the door opened and we saw Auto's robot security guards kick out the same seven people we saw before, right through us. Next came the convoluted pieces of equipment. With growing horror, I realized that my whole other paralyzed planet theory was completely wrong. "Run for it!" shouted a really frightened Chikorita. I wasn't sure if it was really necessary, but just in case Chikorita's worries were right and they could see us, we did what she said.
How many times had we been shocked today? I lost count. I mean, I probably shouldn't have been so easy to scare, but Big Amy and Chikorita's constant shouting was starting to become contagious. At that rate, we were definitely going to faint before long. I decided I'd better be careful.
I could just catch a few phrases of what the six scientists were complaining about…and that little Amy Purima's wail just as the ship left the planet to never return. I didn't want to look back. When we were a safe distance away, Big Amy asked me, "What's going on? That's not what we saw."
"Yeah, weren't they dumped on that asteroid rock place and suffocated?" asked Chikorita.
"Okay, okay! Calm down and let me explain. I think I've got it now. Zoroark is making us see what happened in the original timeline before you guys changed history at Temporal Tower and all that. Either this is all just some nightmare or mass hallucination…or…Big Amy…We're inside your head!"
"INSIDE MY HEAD?" she panicked.
The next thing we knew, someone from behind us shouted, "Extraterrestrial interlopers!" We jumped and turned around. It was Dusknoir.
"AAAAAAH!" That time, we finally did faint. Either his black hole beam was that powerful, or all that shouting finally caught up to us. Maybe it was both, though I strongly suspected the latter was way more true, to tell you the truth.
"You think it will really work this time?"
"It better. We spent four years working on it."
"Are you sure it was four years? I lost count. You can't really tell time on this accursed rock."
"Sure I'm sure. See how tall that little Amy is now?"
My eyes flew open at the sound of my name. Who was talking about me now? Big Amy woke up at the same time, and then I wondered which one of us they were talking about. We looked around. Apparently, the three of us were lying on an open plain. The opening to a cave was in front of us, with the six scientists inside, working on their Dimensional Scream experiment on all sorts of incomprehensible devices. Behind us was a shriveled up forest, but it was still pretty thick. And were we really asleep for four years, or did this weird place warp four years into the future? I glanced at my hands again and decided that since I hadn't aged any, the latter was true. We were still translucent, though.
A little girl about five years old suddenly ran in front of us. She had shoulder-length brown hair, bright green eyes, and a long brown dress of some sort. She looked like a short version of Amy Purima—Wait. She was Amy Purima! I groaned. Oh, great. Now there were three Amys. When will it end? Was my name not unique or special anymore? Before I could go any further on my imaginary soapbox, she shouted at the forest, "Finally! I win!"
"Hey, no fair! You were already halfway here!" A Treecko leapt out of the forest, sailed right through us, and collided right into the little Amy. They looked like they were trying to pummel each other in a cartoonish cloud of dust. Actually, the little Amy would escape for second, then the Treecko would quickly catch up, and then they'd pummel each other again. I blinked. Wait a second. I didn't remember Kana Amara having these kinds of problems with Treecko. What was going on in here? I soon had my answer. It was the crucial difference that defined her as a character different from battle-ready Kana.
"But I can never beat you in anything, Treecko! That's not fair, either!"
"You just need to practice a bit more!"
"But I don't wanna fight you!"
"Why not?"
"Because…because…" She paused, and a pang went right through my heart. She reminded me so much of how I was before the age of 12, when I could never find the words to explain why I couldn't stand certain high-adrenaline things other kids seemed to love. If I was her, I would've told him about how I had a natural, deep-seated aversion to fighting. Sadly, I couldn't even if I wanted to; it looked like no one here could see or hear us. "LEAVE ME ALONE!" she finally shouted, running away.
Treecko just sat there with a shocked expression on his face. "Amy…What did I do wrong now?" He looked like he was about to cry too. "I just don't get her…Why?" he whispered to himself.
Chikorita finally woke up too. "Poor guy…" she sympathised.
I clarified to her, "I don't know about you, but my storytelling instincts tell me that they're supposed to be really good friends. I think we're just getting a bad first impression."
"Isn't that…Grovyle?" Big Amy gasped.
"I know it is," I assured her.
We could then hear the scientists saying things like, "Y'know, I wish I knew what Lizard Boy was really saying. I mean, what the heck is 'Treecko Treecko Tree!' supposed to mean? Lucky Amy…"
"Told you. Languages are easier to learn for youngsters."
"Hey, no slacking off, people! We're almost done. Just think about it! If this works, we'll be one step closer to being able to go to the past and stop ourselves from ever being kicked off the Axiatomic Link."
"Not just that! We should buy this year's sports almanac and go back into the past. We can place super-high bets because we'll know who'll win each game, and we'll be rich! Rich!"
"Wouldn't that be ripping off of that late 20th century film, what was it again, uh…Back to the Future, Part 2…?"
"Hey, at least we know for a fact that it'll work, you know? Or do you want to try the lotteries instead…?"
As they continued discussing things like that, I realized that these guys really did want to use that technology for their own greedy selves, and I shuddered. Chikorita wanted us to follow Treecko, so we did.
The 5-year-old Amy was sitting in the back of the cave, angrily scribbling something on the rock wall. Treecko tentatively crawled up and whispered, "Amy. Amy. I'm sorry."
"Never make me do that again, okay? You have to promise!" she seethed.
He shuddered, and croaked in a small voice, "…Okay. I promise."
We looked at what she was drawing, and my jaw dropped. It was a clear series of drawings depicting such things as a Pecha Berry, a red bow, and even a Pecha Berry house. (It made Big Amy and Chikorita gasp, "We live there!" at the same time.) What spooked me the most was how rounded and smooth the edges of the drawings were. I mean, no normal 5-year-old should ever be able to have that level of control. It even rivaled mine, and if she was rivaling me, an 18-year-old, that was really saying something!
"Wow. You're really good at this!" whispered Treecko in awe. "How do you do it? And why do you like that stuff, anyway? You don't see many Pecha Berries around here…"
"I keep telling you. I don't know…" she replied in dismay.
Treecko picked a random crayon thingy and tried drawing some kind of tree with his left hand just like Amy. He frowned. He tried with his right hand. It was better, but not by much. Finally, he scribbled out the whole thing and threw the black crayon down in frustration, huffing, "Okay! You win! You win!"
Meanwhile, Big Amy was staring at the drawing the whole time. She stood in front of her past self, fingering the lines, almost as if she was in a trance, which concerned me. "Uh…Big Amy? You okay?" I asked.
"I…I think I…remember this…" she whispered.
Chikorita practically groaned, "Of course you remember it. This is your past!"
"No, I mean…it feels even deeper than that…"
Suddenly, we heard voices from outside. Evil-sounding voices. My heart sank. When Big Amy and Chikorita gasped, I knew that they recognized those voices. They were the voices of Dusknoir and his Sableye lackeys. I couldn't believe that they were here already.
And of course, that was when they crashed in, captured everyone, and trashed the place, paralyzing us with fear. We could only watch, and it never occurred to us that we could just walk right through the chaos unfolding in front of us. It felt so real. The whole time, we were fervently hoping that they wouldn't see us.
Samus and Grovyle materialize from out of nowhere in the middle of a barren plain in the dark future world. They look all around, taking in the withered trees, the floating rocks, and the grayscale environment all around. Samus is utterly bewildered, while Grovyle recognizes the place at once with an air of unease. Oddly enough, Samus suddenly has her orange Power Suit back on.
Grovyle: Good. We're in.
Samus: Wh-what is this place?
Grovyle: This, Samus, is what a paralyzed planet looks like. And if I'm not mistaken, this is the original Planet Portania, when Temporal Tower collapsed in the past and time stopped, creating this dark future.
Samus: Whatever it is, we'd better hurry. It won't be long before Sylux finds out where I've gone.
Grovyle shushes her as he sees a giant flagship emerge from the dark blue sky.
Samus (squinting): Hey, isn't that…the Axiatomic Link?
Grovyle: Let's go.
They run up there to get a closer look and hide behind a rock as the ship lands and kicks the seven people out, along with the mess of scientific equipment. Grovyle sees the little one-year-old Amy amidst the mess.
Samus (totally shocked): What in the world…? I thought they were kicked out on an asteroid to die of asphyxiation! Why are they suddenly here? Wait. No way…Miss Omniscient was right!
Grovyle (paleing): No way. No…freakin'…way. Please tell me this isn't what I think it is.
Samus: What? What are you talking about?
Grovyle: This. Is. My Amy's…past! I know it is! And that means…*gasp*…NO! This is terrible!
Samus: Grovyle! I'm in the dark here!
Grovyle: The two Amys and Chikorita are somewhere in here. They're being forced to live through the events of our past! And if MY Amy gets to that…horrid…part…where her parents get executed—
Samus: Hang on a second! She was an orphan too?
Grovyle: Yeah. Wait, what do you mean, "too"…?
She immediately clamps her hand over her mouth.
Samus (glaring at herself): Never mind. Forget I said anything.
Grovyle: Right. Anyway, if she gets to that part…*erk!*
Samus nods knowingly, with a serious expression on her face.
Grovyle (starting to panic): …I can't let her! I can't! We have to find her and get her out of here! NOW!
We ran after them, with Treecko trailing behind us. It escaped me as to how a 7-foot floating ghost with six little 1'8" followers carrying six adults and a little kid in heavy-looking bags could manage to run way faster than even quick little Treecko. Maybe Primal Dialga scared them into gaining super-strength or super-speed. I wouldn't know. I remembered myself writing this exact event 1½ years ago (about October 2008), and now I was seeing the results right in front of my eyes. This was getting pretty weird.
Naturally, I ran as fast as I could (with Big Amy on my head, desperately urging me to go "Faster, faster!") with Chikorita moving her four legs as fast as she could next to me. I had no idea how far it was to the stockade; it wasn't even in sight by the time one of those sharp pains shot through my ribs. What was it again…? Oh yeah. A side stitch cramp.
"Your legs…are too long…" huffed Chikorita. Then she suddenly screamed, "I HATE THIS PLACE!" I think what she really meant was that she hated this place because she would always end up running too fast for her endurance to handle.
"Wh-what do you mean, Chikorita? Didn't you and Big Amy—run to mystery dungeons—all the time?" I gasped.
"Yeah, but the truth is…haha…we would always walk the moment one of us got tired," answered Big Amy. "Hey! Faster, Little Amy! Faster!"
"IT REALLY HURTS DOWN HERE, Y'KNOW?" I shouted, clutching the spot on my chest where that side stitch cramp was.
Luckily, I survived, mostly because I suddenly remembered that all I had to do was breathe in though my nose and out through my mouth. When I did that, the pain went away, at least a little. Finally, we arrived at the giant forbidding fortress-stadium with torches lit all around it. Dusknoir and his lackeys entered the gaping maw of a pitch-black entrance. The stockade. We caught our breaths and Chikorita gulped, shaking with fear.
"They can't see us, remember? Now GET IN THERE! I wanna see what's gonna happen!" demanded Big Amy, shoving my head forward. We ran into the tunnel just as the iron double-doors snapped shut behind us. We were in darkness. Before we could panic, though, we saw a light emit at the end. We followed the tunnels to its source and emerged in the middle of a circular stadium with three columns in the center. It was exactly as I imagined it; reminiscent of a similar stadium from Star Wars Episode II. Three spotlights were trained on the columns. Then the stadium entrance gate shut behind us.
All six Sableye tied six of the people up, two to a column. To our right, Dusknoir ripped the bag off a really frightened little Amy Purima. And in the stands behind him was the one and only 17' 9" tall Primal Dialga, glaring down on the action, complete with piercing red lights from his eyes and the jewel on his chest. Bright red, just like Auto's single glowering eye. It was the first time I'd ever seen Primal Dialga in real life, and no DS game could ever capture the deep sense of dread and horror I could feel emanating from him. We shivered.
My friends watched the action in stunned silence, and so did I. At the same time, the music from when Sheena and Kevin saw "Damos" betray Arceus came into my mind, and I realized this must've been exactly how they felt at the time. My heart raced even faster. I didn't know if the coming conversation would sound just as cheesy as when I first wrote it, or if it would be really, really terrifying.
"Extraterrestrial interlopers! Master Dialga charges the six of you of attempting to alter history!"
I stared. Then I mentally smacked myself in the head. Of course Dusknoir's vocabulary would now consist of SAT-caliber words! I first wrote this scene a year before I came up with all those different speech patterns in Amy, Chikorita, and the Echoes of Time.
The scientists whispered in confusion. Obviously, none of them could understand a word that Dusknoir was saying. But I could understand because I still had the translator device I managed to buy in Gaijin City still stuffed in a convenient pocket inside my Amazing Shrinking Backpack.
"Hmm…Curious. They do not understand me. But you, miniscule one…you comprehend my vocabulary, can you not?"
The little girl shivered and stared in confusion. At only 3'3", she was hopelessly tiny compared to him. "Uh…yes?"
"Then elucidate to them my exact quotations!"
"Huh—wha?"
"Tell them what I just said!" he bellowed, smacking her down. Hard. We gasped, and so did the six people tied to the columns.
"Ow! Okay, okay. Uh…Master Dialga charges you of at—attempting to, uh…alter history?"
Dusknoir smiled as the six scientists frantically discussed how anyone could discover their experiments like that. "Very good." He then turned to the people and said, "You are to be executed immediately."
"You are to be ex—execute—I mean, executed, imme…diately," said little Amy, stifling sobs.
The six of them started demanding explanations from Dusknoir. He did. "Master Dialga presides over the entirety of our humble Planet Portania. By attempting to alter history, you have violated his sole ultimate law. This is merely the retribution you so reasonably deserve." The young Amy managed to translate all that, but she had to ask for clarification on what the words meant, and endure a lot of beatings for her efforts.
"Any…last…words?" She broke down crying, and I didn't blame her. I mean, I would too, if at 5 years old I had to comprehend SAT-caliber words and translate them to my parents (and their friends) in only, like, a few seconds, or get spanked with capital punishment if I wasn't fast enough!
I don't remember everything they said, but what Jean Purima whispered stuck out in my mind the most acutely, despite how quiet it was. "I'm so sorry, Amy…I'm so sorry." My heart lurched. She might've been addressing little Amy Purima there, but for all I knew, she could just have easily been addressing me too.
"Okay! We ready!" shouted the six Sableye, sharpening their claws, grinning sadistically.
"Good. Monitor them shrewdly. And do not avert your gazes until their consciousnesses have ceased to exist!" He then turned to little Amy and…I think he smiled, but it looked like his eye just twitched. "That applies to you too, miniscule one."
"Wheh-heh-heh!"
The six of them moved forward, giggling in sadistic anticipation. As the little Amy Purima shouted, "No, NO! STOOOOOP!" a sharp pang ran through my chest, and I think Big Amy was holding her mouth, trying to muffle herself from shouting the exact same thing.
Chikorita desperately asked me, "They're going to find a way out, right? Just how we did with Grovyle, right?"
I had to tell her the truth. "No. They're all going to die…and it'll be horrible." I just remembered, with a stroke of horror, that this was the very first time I ever killed off a character in a story I wrote, being re-enacted just for us. Only this time, not two, but six people were going to die at once.
Big Amy took a step back and said, "Wait a second…this all…feels so familiar…" I saw that some sort of recognition was creeping into her eyes, and I realized I had to get them out of there at once. I picked them both up and, ignoring their protests, turned to charge right through the gate that surely must've been as easy to pass through as the Axiatomic Link.
BZAP!
I fell back, my head throbbing. It hurt so badly, the two of them fell out of my arms. "What the heck…?" I examined my hands again. We were still translucent. I touched the bars. A streak of dark electricity zapped my finger. At that moment, I heard a soft "Muahahahaha…" booming down from out of nowhere. Something, or someone, for some reason, locked us all in here, forcing us to watch too.
"Don't look, guys! Don't look!" I shouted, grabbing them both and hugging them as tightly as I could, trying to turn them away from the ghastly scene that was about to happen. But Chikorita squirmed out of my grasp, whining, "I wanna see! I wanna see!"
"Chikorita, don't!"
But I was too late. It didn't matter anymore. At least I could protect Big Amy, who seemed more willing for once.
"Commence…now!" boomed Dusknoir.
I squeezed my eyes shut just as all six Sableye starting the slashing. It was way worse than I ever imagined it to be. The blood-curdling screams were the worst part. I might've been able to shut the gory events out of my eyes, but I couldn't cover my ears; my arms were tied up hugging Big Amy and covering her ears. If the Sableye were initially surprised by the whole concept of bleeding, I didn't catch it. They quickly recovered, and I suspected that this was the event when they first developed a sadistic taste for execution.
Chikorita was fascinated by the sight, but only for the first few seconds. Then even she hid behind me, saying things like "What kind of red juice IS that? I-I don't like it!" and finally, could no longer keep the scream out of her throat. Big Amy started screaming too, and at first, I didn't know why. After all, she's not seeing or hearing it at all. With a pang, I realized the horrible truth: We were too late to prevent this section of her memory from being completely unlocked. She could still see it through the eyes of the young Amy Purima. While I never screamed, even I couldn't keep the tears out of my eyes for long. This was the kind of thing that could kill anyone's innocence, no matter whom or what they were.
After what seemed like an eternity, they finally finished, and I could only open my eyes after they opened six trapdoors underneath the lifeless people, dropping them in. After the chutes closed, Primal Dialga nodded at Dusknoir, and then left. Dusknoir pushed the young Amy forward and laughed evilly, "Now, miniscule one…It's your turn."
"NOOO! Let me go! Let me gooooo!" she shouted, but it was no use. The ropes were bound too tightly, and before we knew it, they already tied her up to the middle column. As Big Amy and Chikorita began to panic, my heart sank again. Was it not enough? Did we have to live out her execution too?
"AMY!"
Of course. I just remembered. It was Treecko coming to the rescue! We saw him scampering down the steps of the stadium and leapt toward the center. He glowed in midair, blinding all of us, especially Dusknoir and the Sableye. It was the first time I ever saw a Pokémon evolve in real life, and he moved too fast for me to catch what it looked like.
The ropes had suddenly been slashed. There was Grovyle, in an awesome heroic pose, with a really stunned Amy Purima in his arms. So dashing! So valiant! So much like Link from The Legend of Zelda or…someone like that! I vaguely wondered if Chikorita was swooning at the time. It was another of those moments where it was only one second in reality, but felt like it should've been 10 seconds in a dramatic movie.
"Treecko?" she gasped in shock.
"No time for talk. Let's get you out of here now."
He slung her on his back and carried her out of there as fast as possible. Dusknoir cleared his eye from the light and bellowed, "Find them! FIND THEM!"
We just sat there, completely stunned. Too stunned to move. We didn't move when they opened the doors and charged right through us. Finally, all of our tears started to flow at once. I realized with a pang that because I wrote all of this, if it weren't for me, none of this would've ever happened. Guilt racked through every pore of my skin. I had no choice but to admit the truth.
I didn't want to let go of Big Amy as I sobbed, "I'm so sorry, guys! I-I swear, if only I'd known how horrible this really was, I'd never have…I'd never…"
Chikorita tried to console me even though she was crying just as hard. "It's n-not your fault, Little Amy…you wouldn't have known…I mean…the device doesn't show…that red liquid that—"
"But, Chikorita! It IS my fault!"
"Huh? What do you m-mean?"
"The game…it—it only shows everything that happened between you and Big Amy! All of this…everything that happened before that's happening now…"
"Before I lost m-my memories…?" asked Big Amy.
"Yes. Before you lost your memories. Guys, I am a real storyteller! The game never explained what happened to you before, and how you could possibly be a human from the future, so…everything that's happening here…I wrote it! The Axiatomic Link, them getting abandoned here, this execution, everything…I made it all up!"
Neither of them said anything, so I continued on, "But you're right too, Chikorita. I didn't know it would actually happen in real life…to you. I thought I was just writing a logical story! I didn't know you guys would be real. I didn't know we'd ever become friends! I swear, if only I'd know it would be this horrible…I never would've wrote this at all! I'm sorry, guys! I feel so bad! Go ahead and hate me if you want, but I swear…I've never, EVER, meant to hurt you guys like this…ever." I broke down after that.
Again, silence. After what felt like another eternity, Chikorita patted me with her leaf and whispered, "…Little Amy? I don't hate you."
I blinked. "Huh?"
Big Amy added, "I don't hate you either, Little Amy. You might've made this happen to me…but it all still makes perfect sense. Now I know why Grovyle didn't want me to remember. But…at the same time…I don't think there are any memories that are ever worth forgetting. None." How true. Just like that line from Fruits Basket.
"And the most important thing of all? You are a good person. When you said you never meant to hurt her, I could feel that you really meant it. Could you, Big Amy?"
"Feel it? I knew it. I forgive you, Little Amy…because that's what friends do. See, from the day we first met…I'll admit it. You might only be the second alien we've ever met…but you're the only one I've ever been able to fully understand. I've always wanted to be friends with you too."
"Me too, Little Amy. Me too."
I sniffed. "Thanks, guys…"
We didn't say anything anymore. We just hugged each other, crying in relief. I was so thankful that they didn't hate me—they could've had a completely different reaction. It didn't matter that they were considered fictitious in my home dimension. They were here, they were real…and I swore we'd be friends forever no matter what.
My tears clouded my eyes so badly, I never knew exactly when the scene changed all around us. Before we knew it, we were in the middle of a dark-gray forest. Grovyle and the little Amy Purima were in front of us, leaning against a lone tree of some sort. It occurred to me that the little Amy was crying too, though we never heard it because we were so loud. Apparently, she recovered and asked, in that same hiccuppy voice, "W-who are you? How can you b-be Treecko?"
"Calm down, Amy, calm down! I just evolved. Us Pokémon can do that. I'm not sure why, though…I'm supposed to have defeated one more opponent before it was supposed to happen…"
I knew why, of course. When I wrote The Heroes of Time, I thought that Treecko's evolution would symbolize the radical change in which the character of Kana—I mean, Amy—went through when the executions occurred. I hadn't stopped to seriously think about how it would be possible though. Maybe in the heat of the moment?
"Wh-why did he kill Mama and Papa? And tried t-to kill me too? We d-didn't do anything…"
"They're guilty. You're not. Nevertheless, Primal Dialga thinks you'll continue what they did, so he wants you gone too."
"It's n-not fair…"
Grovyle looked really uncomfortable. I could tell he wasn't used to anyone crying for this long for any reason. Or maybe it was his new height in comparison to Amy Purima (they were almost the same height now, though he was still a little shorter). He cleared his throat awkwardly and suggested, "Well! If it'll make you feel any better, I guess I'll have to look after you from now on."
"R-really?"
"Uh, yeah. It's not like we have any choice, you know what I mean?"
"Thank you so much!" She hugged him really hard, accidently slamming him into the tree. He just went, "Ack! Can't…breathe…"
It was the only heartwarming moment I've ever felt since we arrived in this creepy place. "Aww…" said Chikorita, sniffing.
Just then, little Amy Purima suddenly let go. Her eyes were wide open in shock. For a second, I thought I saw a view of a green forest that I remembered seeing all the time on the title screen of Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time. There was a glowing Time Gear spinning in the middle of it. But just as quickly as it came, it went. "Amy? Amy? What's wrong?" asked Grovyle, seriously concerned.
"Did you see that?"
"See what?"
"A forest! Some spinning blue thingy! Actual color! Didn't you see it?"
"No…Are you okay?"
"I'll show you! Here…this is what it looked like…"
I was surprised to find that she was carrying paper, crayons, and some pencils in her dress pocket. She sat down and started to draw what she saw. As I analyzed her technique, my eyes grew wider and wider. First, she lightly sketched the contour lines of the Time Gear and forest with the pencil. Then she went over the final lines more heavily. Finally, she colored in the basic shapes with the crayon, and not only that, she also added shading with different pressures from the crayons. If I never had access to coloring on the computer…that was exactly how I would color my pictures too! What the heck was going on in here?
Big Amy was also speechless. She pulled out her Time Gear picture, compared them, and found that they were exactly the same (though her copy was much more worn away).
Suddenly, we heard voices from around us saying things like, "Oh my gosh! It's a Time Gear!" We looked around. Pokémon of all shapes and sizes (but mostly Grass types) emerged from hiding and came out to meet Amy Purima and Grovyle. A Masquerain addressed the group, "Everyone stand back! Let me handle this."
As he turned to face them, Amy Purima shrank back and whimpered (Who wouldn't, when faced with a floating eyeball—I mean, eye-patterned 4-winged dragonfly dude?) while Grovyle immediately sharpened his Leaf Blades. "Whoa whoa whoa! Hold on. Let me introduce myself. My name is Masquerain, and we…" he turned around and gestured at the Pokémon "…are the Planetary Investigation Team. I'm sure you're familiar with the legends of the Time Gears? We've heard the rumors, but we never knew it was true. Who are you?"
"I'm Grovyle…and this is Amy Vee Purima."
Everyone was shocked at how that—"one who didn't smell like a Pokémon"—could have three names. Masquerain shushed them again and asked, "So. Well. Uh…Amy Vee Purima…uh…how is it that you saw that a Time Gear used to be here?"
"I-I don't know. I just saw it right here. What's so special about it?"
Masquerain examined the drawing and said, "Hmm…why don't you two come with us? We'll explain everything."
Confused, but figuring they had no choice, Amy Purima and Grovyle decided to follow Masquerain and the rest of the Pokémon back into the forest. We would've followed them, but a very familiar voice stopped us.
"Amy! Chikorita! And…that other Amy!"
We turned around. It was Grovyle! He was running toward us as fast as he could, and I jumped. For a second, I wondered how he could suddenly see us. But then I looked from him to the other Grovyle over and over again, and realized that this Grovyle was translucent just like us. But Big Amy and Chikorita didn't register that fact as quickly as I did. "AAAH! How can you see us?" they shouted.
I had to explain about how this must've been OUR Grovyle, since he was translucent just like us. A few seconds later, to prove my point, a translucent Samus just arrived too. "I swear…" she was muttering, "If someone doesn't give me a rational explanation on how the heck this twisted world works, I'm going to go insane."
Grovyle reached us, caught his breath, and began speaking really quickly. "Okay. Here's the deal. Zoroark hit the three of you with Dark Void, right? And he missed me, right? Well, right now, all three of you are asleep in the real world. And all three of you are also, at this moment, in a…what's that word again, Samus?"
"Space Pirate laboratory."
"Right! You're in a laboratory, where Zoroark and his pirate punks are running all sorts of tests on you."
It felt like he lifted a lid from over my head. This was exactly like that one episode in Ben 10! But experiments? My teeth chattered, "Wh-what kinds of tests?"
Samus explained, "To tell you the truth, I really have no idea. It must be related to those unknown energy particles you were emitting. But knowing Space Pirates, it can't be good."
"Then why are you guys here?" asked Chikorita.
"Sylux was going to execute the two of us. But then Grovyle managed to get us out of there."
Grovyle waved a Luminous Orb at us. "Heh. Oldest trick in the book. Works every time."
"And then my Power Suit suddenly came back on. I'm not sure why. Anyway, I was able to hack into a computer and send an SOS message for Adam to pick us up. See, I found out that we're all on the Space Pirate Homeworld right now."
The Space Pirate Homeworld from Metroid Prime 3: Corruption, huh? Even though I kept making cultural references like these in my head, at least I had the common sense to not blurt them out loud. After all, no one here in the 26th century would understand them at all, especially not my friends. I also realized that Grovyle and Samus were calling each other by their first names. I guess they really earned each other's respect by now, which, to tell you the truth, made me feel a little jealous.
"Samus here was going to make a run for it, but I convinced her to look for you guys. Luckily, we found you in the next two seconds. You all were asleep in the lab, and Zoroark and those punks…grr…" His fist clenched, and I blanched. Something really bad must've been happening to us.
Right then, Samus explained everything. "Amy Vee Purima. You never lost your memories. They were simply suppressed. Right now, they're drilling into those memories, un-suppressing them, and transmitting them to you, Chikorita, and the kid. They're trapping you in here. So we found a hidden external device that allowed us to enter your heads and get you out. Only thing is…I'm not really sure how to get out."
I answered, "I think I might know. If this is anything like that Ben 10 episode, they've probably hidden the exit in a place we'd least expect it." Then I clamped my hands over my mouth again. Dang it! What did I tell myself about not blurting out cultural references?
But luckily, no one seemed to notice my gaffe. Chikorita asked, "But how come we're warping so randomly? One moment, I see those people dumped out here, the next, they're all in this cave, and—"
Grovyle thought hard and admitted, "Hmm…it does seem pretty random. We're trying to figure it out ourselves."
Personally, I didn't think it was random at all. Those warp points were always where I'd naturally make such a warp if I were telling the story. But before I could explain, Grovyle said, "Hey, Amy?" I perked up. "No, not you, human! I meant the Jigglypuff! Amy Purima? Are you okay?"
We all turned to look. I realized with a shock that she was still looking uncharacteristically glum, and that she never said a word throughout our entire conversation. Uh-oh. "…I hope so. That…" she shuddered.
Grovyle blanched. I realized they were talking about the execution scene, and I stammered, "Sh-she didn't see or hear anything! I made sure of it, I swear!"
"NO!" He pounded his fist on the ground, hard. "That was why I didn't want you to remember these memories. I'm…too late." He looked so crushed, and the sight dropped a weight on my heart. I failed him. I failed her. I failed them all…again.
To be continued…
Coming up next: We see young Amy and the past Grovyle join the Planetary Investigation Team and go on an insane 5-year-long adventure across the dark future world to find the locations of the Time Gears. All the while, we try to find a way out of this crazy place. Can we find it? But with all this talk about Zoroark and the meanie-butts experimenting on us, I get the feeling that we're only coming Out of the Frying Pan…