This entire part that I've been working on is one of my favorite parts of the game so I've working on this more than usual.
Enjoy.
PMD 2: A Novelization
Chapter 25: Determination
Alex and his partner arrived at what appeared to be a run-down structure of some sort. Alex wasn't sure what it was but he tried to convince his mind that it was a simple set of ruins… and not a tomb.
"Well, there's been no branching paths since Grovyle left us. Just one way. So Grovyle must have gone through here." Eve pointed out as they found the entrance. "Lets hurry and catch up with him. I hope he's not going too fast for us to catch up…"
Alex took a moment to repack at a Kangaskhan statue that was conveniently next to the entrance before they rushed into the ruins and proceeded down as fast as they could.
The pokemon that were in the ruins turned out to be predominantly steel-types. One that was particularly bizarre was had what looked like a red cap and a massive angular nose, a blue body and a black mass under the nose that looked like a mustache. Eve said it was called a probopass but Alex, for some reason, felt he wanted to give it a different name that was more Italian. He got an odd look from Eve for that and they just decided to move on once they had taken out the probopass barring their way.
Another resident were poison-types called muk… which were little more than massive piles of sludge. Alex attempted to fry one and in its surprise, it belched up a horrid-smelling cloud that Alex had to turn from and let Eve finish off the muk while he kept his stomach from turning up its contents. After the air cleared around his head, they proceeded.
"Ugh… anything that doesn't remind me of Team Skull… please…" he groaned, still feeling queasy.
They ran across other residents of the ruins and little changed as they went down.
They didn't go too far before they arrived somewhere they could take a moment to rest.
Alex was silently praying they'd catch up with Grovyle soon. The moment there was a split in the road before them, they could easily lose their only ticket to answers and a way back home. Neither of them knew what lay ahead and they wouldn't be able to find Grovyle unless he stayed on this straight road.
"C'mon, let's go." Alex said and Eve didn't argue as they quickly proceeded deeper into the ruins.
More residents of the ruins stood in the way and the team of two slammed their way through them all. Draconic shelgon, which looked like off-white, egg-shaped hides with legs and eyes, attempted to stand up to them but their combined attacks quickly took down the dragon-type whenever one appeared. They were running as fast as they could and took out all opponents as fast as possible.
They did not have to go far.
They arrived at a large chamber that seemed to be empty except for a few rocks.
"Grovyle hasn't moved on through here, has he?"
Then Alex noticed him on the ground several feet away.
"Over there!"
They started towards Grovyle, who looked like he was unconscious. However, it turned out he was awake.
"You two! Stay back!" he grunted. It sounded as if he were struggling with someone but neither of them could see an enemy in the room.
"W-What's wrong, Grovyle?" Eve said, she couldn't withhold some concern in her voice.
"There's an enemy here…" Grovyle said, his voice still strained and he managed to get an eye open again and glanced in their direction.
"It's right next to you!" he yelled.
Alex looked where Grovyle was looking and saw nothing…except a rock on the ground before him.
Has he gone insane?
"Where?" Alex said, looking around wildly for the enemy.
Then a voice spoke or rather several voices all at once.
"You DARE trespass on OUR domain? And without APOLOGY?"
Alex looked for the source and his and Eve's eye fell on the cracked stone directly in front of him.
"What? This-?" Alex started, confused.
"WHO do you THINK you ARE? To LOOK upon US and withOUT paying the PRICE!" the voices said and both Alex and his partner jumped back as a cloudy figure erupted from the rock. The face was distorted and was shifting in appearance so Alex couldn't see a clear face in the swirl of colors, which were primarily a sickly green and purple.
"We… are… SPIRITOMB!" The rock-haunting ghost declared, its voice continuing to sound like many speaking at once.
"You're the one holding Grovyle?" Alex said, somewhat freaked-out by the bizarre spirit. Alex could tell his partner was just as freaked-out from her expression.
"HE also trespassed OUR domain. We are 108 in NUMBER and we will HAVE our JUSTICE! PREPARE for your PUNISHMENT!" Spiritomb bellowed and advanced on them, cackling.
Eve stepped up and Alex zapped the spirits while Eve supported him.
The spirits fired a strange beam at Eve and she staggered back, her eyes rolling. She attempted to attack but Alex had to jump aside to avoid her as her attack flew wide of its target and almost hit him!
Alex quickly zapped Spiritomb again.
Declaring its intents to punish him for his insolence, Spiritomb lunged forward at Alex and Alex moved to evade but the attack was odd in nature and Spiritomb appeared to shift as it moved. Alex ended up getting hit despite his attempts to evade.
"Give me just a minute here…" Eve moaned as she staggered about "I'm waiting for the room to stop turning…"
She must be confused… Alex thought and moved away from Spiritomb as Eve swiped out at empty space.
The ghost chased after him and Alex unleashed another blast of electricity at it.
"Just go away, already!" Alex yelled as Spiritomb cackled and the voices seemed start muttering to each other chaotically.
Alex attempted to swat the rock with his tail but this didn't seem affect the collection of spirits much and Eve was still trying to get her head on straight again.
Spiritomb lunged forward again and Alex, again found the spirits seemed to move to hit him.
"Enough!" he yelled and unleashed a strong blast of electricity that hit all around him.
Spiritomb screeched and the rock bounced back several feet. The sound seemed to shock Eve so thoroughly that she shook her head, recovering and turned to look at Spiritomb.
Spiritomb was howling and moaning as if in agony.
I didn't hit it that hard… did I?
Then the room shook a moment before Spiritomb seemed to get sucked back into its rock!
The rock shifted, as if it was looking around. Something flew out of Grovyle's prone form and into the rock. It looked at Alex and then hopped as if he had scared it.
"Eep! R-run! Run away!" a tinny voice squeaked from the rock. It then bounced away hurriedly.
"What was that all about?" Alex said, somewhat exasperated.
"It ran away-ouch!" Grovyle groaned, getting up and wincing as a joint audibly popped.
"Are you okay Grovyle?" Eve said, hurrying up to him.
"Yeah… I'll be fine…" Grovyle muttered, flexing his limbs about, several more popping. Then wiped his nose as Alex approached.
"Tricky, cunning little creep…" he grumbled "Possessed me… I didn't realize it was there until it shot up my nose…"
Alex and Eve both cringed as that didn't sound pleasant at all.
"You were in that position for a while?" Alex said.
"Yeah…" Grovyle muttered twisting a shoulder around "I'm just a little stiff…"
"So it was a bad pokemon?" Eve said, glancing in the direction Spiritomb had ran off in.
"No… there's plenty of pokemon here in the future like that…" Grovyle explained, twisting around and working out more stiffness "Just bitter from the darkness… it lost control because it got so angry."
Then, noticing they were having a civil conversation he asked:
"So… does this mean you two finally trust me?" he said, looking at them. Eve looked unsure.
"Uh… maybe?" she said, the uncertainty in her tones "I'll admit, I still don't really trust you…"
Grovyle's hopeful look was replaced with that old annoyance. He huffed out a breath.
"Right… I'm off." He said blandly and started for the exit. Eve quickly stopped him though with a cry of "Wait!" and he turned around to listen, his arms crossed.
"I don't really trust you but you're the only one who can explain to us what's going on. We've been in a state of confusion ever since we got here and we just can't figure it out ourselves. So please, Grovyle, could you explain to us?"
"And if my explanation is a big pack of lies?" Grovyle said acidly. Alex gave him an unamused look… he doesn't need to be sarcastic.
"I won't take your words at face value… I'll consider them first and decide." Eve answered.
Grovyle considered her words and his scowl lessened.
"Alright… c'mon…" he said, dropping his arms to his sides and heading for the exit. They followed.
o0o
They left the ruins and Grovyle led them at a more considerate pace until they found a small cove that was evidently secure enough for him.
"Right… this should keep us hidden from view…" he murmured and then joined them inside the cove.
"So, how did the planet end up paralyzed?" Eve asked first. Grovyle sat down before beginning.
"That started some centuries or so back, in your time, with the collapse of Temporal Tower. Temporal Tower gives structure to time and keeps it going properly. There's a legendary pokemon called Dialga that watches over the tower and kept time in order; however when the tower collapsed, Dialga lost all sense of self. Now he's little more than a feral presence… Primal Dialga. The only thing Primal Dialga is concerned with now is preserving itself. I went back in time to stop all of that from happening."
"Wait a minute, weren't you trying to stop time by stealing the time gears?" Eve cut-in, confused. Grovyle snorted, shaking his head.
"You must be kidding… no, I was collecting the time gears because they're needed to prevent Temporal Tower from collapsing. If I can get the time gears to the top of Temporal Tower and install them there, it should reverse the collapse of the tower and prevent time from stopping. The fact that time stops where the time gears are removed is only temporary. Once they're put in at the tower, time would return to normal everywhere."
"What about all of what Dusknoir told us, about you being a criminal… and trying to bring about the end of the world?" Eve said. Alex felt she was trying to cling to her previous beliefs but as he was listening to this explanation, he found it all lined up so far even if he couldn't be sure of everything…
"Lies…" Grovyle responded to the question bluntly "What else? After all, Dusknoir is just a pawn that obeys Primal Dialga… he was sent after me to stop me from preventing the tower's collapse."
That evidently caught Eve off-guard and it shocked Alex but he found himself accepting it… it made sense even though it hurt to think that the Dusknoir that had saved them was doing this.
"Dusknoir… the same Dusknoir that saved us? He's sent by…" Eve shook her head as words failed her.
"I know it's hard to believe-" Grovyle said calmly.
"I can't believe it!" Eve burst. She looked ready to cry again.
"I find it a little hard to believe too…" Alex murmured "but it makes sense…"
He moved to comfort her but Eve abruptly stood and started for the direction they had come from.
"Where are you going?" Grovyle said, an eyebrow raised.
"I'm going to go ask Dusknoir. See if this is really true" She said. Grovyle jumped up and Alex stared in disbelief. They all knew what waited back that way.
"Are you crazy? You're just heading for your own death doing that!" Grovyle said incredulously.
"Then how am I supposed to know if this true or not?" she protested.
Grovyle groaned, rolling his eyes.
"Didn't I already ask you about this? You said you'd listen and not take the words at face value! You said you'd judge for yourself!" he said, stepping towards her until he was standing over her. She backed away, intimidated as she was reminded of her own words.
"It's times like this that you need to buck up, and just work with things as they are! Times like these, you need to just move… no time to be afraid or feel uncertain of what might be waiting..." Grovyle paused after this, looking away from them… and Alex got the feeling he was remembering something… he only spent a moment though before he was back to business.
Grovyle turned and started walking off towards a forest up ahead; this tore Alex away from his thoughts.
"Where are you going?" Alex asked Grovyle. Eve straightened up though she was still trying to straighten out her thoughts. Grovyle stopped and turned as he explained:
"I'm heading for Dusk Forest… it's just up ahead. There, I can find Celebi. She helped me go back last time and we agreed to meet there if I ended up coming back without completing my mission." He glanced at both of them "Come along if you want… but you need to make up your mind now who you're going to believe. We won't get anywhere if you can't trust me." And with that, Grovyle marched off towards the forest.
"What am I supposed to believe?" Eve murmured sadly as Grovyle faded into the darkness "I'm just so confused…"
Alex approached her and placed a paw on her shoulder.
"I don't know if all of what Grovyle said is the truth either but we can be sure one thing is true:" Alex said with a firm expression on his face "Here in the future, time is frozen. We need to focus on going back to our own time first before we can fix anything. Focus Eve… Grovyle is right: there's no time right now to be afraid of being wrong about him and besides that, we've faced situations like this before…" he gave her an encouraging smile as he finished. He was, of course, thinking of the waterfall and quicksand back in their time. They had been afraid of what waited on the other side then too but they had had the bravery to just charge in and trust in what they thought, true or not.
Eve listened… and after a moment, she looked up.
"Alright… I understand Alex. Wrong or not, let's go with Grovyle and find Celebi." Alex was glad to see she still trusted him and turned to start after Grovyle. She called after him though, and Alex turned to look at her again. Eve put on a determined face.
"Alex, let's get back to our own time!" she said, hardened determination in her voice.
That's the spirit I'm used to hearing from you, Eve. Alex thought, feeling he could be proud of his partner.
He nodded again, content with her attitude and they ran to catch up with Grovyle.