The orb in her hands lit the maze admirably, enveloping Hero in a sphere of light, barely battling off the darkness that surrounded her. Time seemed to crawl; goosebumps rose on her skin as she counted the seconds, one-onethousand, two-onethousand, three-onethousand. She had spent her time in a lot of caves, but none of them made her crave the sky as much as this one did.

One law of mazes was that if you continue turning right at every intersection, you'll eventually make your way around to the back, and therefore the exit. Same law goes for turning left. Hero knew this. She chose right, and so every time the path split, that's the direction she turned.

Her plan blew up in her face when she hit a dead end.

She stared at the wall. Seconds later, something horrible happened, and she was sure of only one thing—she'd been in here for only a minute.

So why did the Luminescence Orb flare and go out?

Everything was black.

Pure black.

Oh my Arceus, oh my Arceus! Bile rose in Hero's throat, her heart pounding painfully in her chest. She dropped the orb, hearing glass tinkle as it shattered. She began to grope at the walls. It couldn't be a dead end! She couldn't be standing here in the dark, in a gigantic maze harboring a Time Gear, trapped at a dead end!

She felt a scream rising in her throat. Her foot stepped on a shard of glass; she felt bright pain, then wet blood. Her knees hit the floor.

Flash!

A dimly lit maze, three Pokémon standing in a clearing—a Lopunny, a Gardevoir, a Medicham. And then, an—an apple, a Perfect Apple, if Hero wasn't mistaken, rolling straight out of the wall, and a Wigglytuff emerging after it. The four Pokémon tentatively approached the wall, reaching out and touching it. It shimmered like water. An illusion! They looked at each other and stepped on through.

Flash!

Hero fell back, gasping. She lay on the floor of the maze, still completely blinded, as her rapid heartbeat settled. She had a migraine.

Peace started to settle over her. Unsteadily, she got to her feet and crawled in the direction of the dead end. She closed her eyes, anticipating the wall that she was sure to walk into—

Nothing. She crawled on through. She didn't knock into a thing. And the light… the light was slowly starting to return, the tunnel growing ever more illuminated, all by itself—no orb. Soon she could make out the contours of the walls, and the ground, which was starting to angle downward, bringing her deep, deep into the earth.

By the time that the tunnel ended, Hero could see quite clearly, in fact.

It emptied out into a small room, perhaps five feet by five feet. The walls were brick, intricately carved with hieroglyphs—Unown glyphs and footprint runes, if she was correct. She wished Grovyle was here, for the umpteenth time. He would be able to read them. The room was supported by four pillars, and in the center of them was a small pedestal, notched with familiar grooves.

Pleasure began to spread through Hero, warming her from the inside out. The Time Gear. She'd found it—without Grovyle. She almost forgot the pain in her foot. She took several excited, limping steps forward, her fingers reaching out to brush the pedestal—she wanted to see it—she wanted to see the beautiful world that this had once been—

So you have come.

Hero's arm froze, her hand just centimeters away from the pedestal. Where had that eerie voice come from? It wasn't out loud—it had been in her head. Was it a psychic Pokémon? She dropped low to the ground, baring her teeth.

I knew you would be here eventually, exploiter of time. And I have never been wrong.

"Who are you?" Hero ventured, speaking loudly. She drew herself up, glaring around. "Show yourself!"

I once had a body, but that was long ago, whispered the voice. I was all and I was nothing. I was myself and I was all others; I was the shapeless one, I was the stealer of faces. You knew me as I knew you.

"You're making no sense," she snapped. "I've never met you. Now show yourself, you coward; make this a fair fight!"

A fight? The voice wheezed with laughter. Is that what you want, Hero? Just another fight in the never-ending string of violence? Another enemy you can surpass? Another foe you can bring down? Are you afraid of the unseen?

"I'm not afraid of anything."

Then why do you deny that you know me? asked the voice regretfully. I knew you long ago… long before this world had ended and when we were still in the time of light…

Hero froze.

"Do you mean…" Hero swallowed. "Did I come here before? In the past? …Before the world was paralyzed?"

Indeed, now you remember. You came and we fought; you bested me and I allowed you to retrieve my treasure, the glory of this place. The Time Gear.

"We did it," Hero breathed. Then she yelled, "YES! WE DID IT! We managed to go back in time! We came here! We got the Time Gear!"

Mm.

"Does this mean that we're going to succeed?" Hero looked around eagerly, as if somehow the voice was crouching on the ceiling or in the shadowy corners. "Does this mean that Grovyle and I will go back in time and save the world?"

I know not. But you came here when I still had a body; and you conquered… you obtained the Gear. You spoke of your plans to return it to Temporal Tower. You spoke of your plans to face the lord of time and save him from his impending madness.

"Impending… madness?"

Yes, even as we spoke, that day long ago, the world was unraveling; it was coming apart at its seams. Dialga's palace was crumbling even at that very moment, its foundations coming apart; as it did so, it ripped apart the foundations of the world itself.

"Paralyzing it," Hero finished grimly. "Does that mean we… didn't finish? We didn't put all the Time Gears in place in time? …We didn't save the world?"

I do not know. Many things are shifting. Monumental events are taking place. Nothing that happened in the past is for certain anymore; something has come that is changing everything. A dark force stirring… the lord of nightmares… the Pitch Black Pokémon…

"Lord of nightmares? Well, I definitely know who's the lord of all my nightmares," Hero growled in a guttural voice. "Dusknoir. That monster. If anyone is more 'pitch black' than him—"

Who is Dusknoir?

"What?" Hero cried. "You were just talking about him, you…" She trailed off, ice cold chills running up her spine. She whispered, "But… if it's not Dusknoir, then… then who…?" Silence. "Hello?" No reply. "Helloooo?"

The voice was gone.

(LET ME APOLOGIZE SINCERELY FOR THIS RIDICULOUS WAIT. I will make What Happened Before my first priority and work on nothing else until it is finished. Soooorryyyy!

Cookies for anyone who remembers who the guardian of Limestone Cavern is!)