So this chapter took a little while. My apologies, but midterm season has arrived and that really eats up my time.
"BEWARE THE SHADOW, LITTLE FURRED CREATURE!" Sol screamed and sat up suddenly, her eyes wide like a crazed animal's. Her breath came in short gasps and her gaze darted about before landing on her own legs stretched out on the sand before her. She poked them with a finger as if to check if they were real, then stared at her hand as if it was something miraculous.
If it had been anyone else seen doing this, Jak would have been a lot more concerned. But Jak compared to some of the other things she had seen Sol before, this was nothing.
Yes, Jak could remember, and it was only then she realized just how much she had forgotten, and how much of an idiot she had been for believing things could have happened any other way. For a moment, the two sets of memories, the false one and the one with Sol, sat side by side, each as clear and real feeling as the other, and Jak could examine them both equally. What a fool she had been! How could she have forgotten her alpha?
Then the false set began to fade. Not completely, but enough so that details became foggy and she had had to concentrate hard to recall even the main events. But Jak didn't care about them. Why would she concern herself with lies?
"I'm alive!" Sol shouted in delight and jumped to her feet. "Grovyle can go screw himself! I won and I'm alive!"
"Owwwww..." Eevee groaned, holding a hand over an injured cheek.
"What?" Sol spun around and noticed the three other Pokémon for the first time. "What happened?" she asked, then looked up and down the beach. "And how did I get here?"
"That doesn't matter!" Eevee exclaimed and hugged Sol tightly. "What matters is you're back!"
"I'm 'back'? What's going on here? And why is it so damned cold?"
"The lost heroine returns, both in the physical realm and in the memories of its citizens!"
"Uh... what?"
"Sol! It was horrible here without you! And no one could remember, not even Jak and Ren... Everyone thought I was crazy and everything was going wrong, but now you're back!"
"Again, what? You may think you're explaining things, but all you're doing is freaking me out."
Jak heard shouts from down the beach. She turned her head and saw a large number of the guild's and town's Pokémon running across the sand towards them.
Jak hissed in distaste. "Your return has not gone unnoticed."
"You did fall from the sky in a ball of light... I suppose people would notice something like that."
"I fell from the sky in a ball of light?! Would someone please explain to me what's going on? And is that snow on the ground over there? Just how long have I been gone?"
"Too long." Jak said. With her true memories restored, the Charmander saw everything she had done and said in a new light. A touch of shame filled her, but she quickly shoved the feeling to the side and did her best to ignore it. What was done was done, so there was no use thinking about it.
"What was that light-" Chatot began, the first of the Pokémon to arrive. He cut himself off upon seeing the Riolu. "Sol! You're back!"
"So I've been told. But would someone mind explaining just where I'm back from, exactly?" Sol asked, rubbing her head and grimacing. "My mind's a bit fuzzy right now... I remember Dialga taking us to the bottom of Temporal Tower, then everything's blurry and weird, and now I'm here and it's apparently winter."
The rest of the crowd of Pokémon reached the group, asking about the light from the sky, and then they all yelled and exclaimed upon seeing Sol. It would have appeared that everyone else's memories had returned as well.
Jak tried to put herself between Sol and the crowd and keep them back. The last thing Sol needed was to be swarmed by a bunch of Pokémon who, fifteen minutes ago, didn't even believe she existed. But they ignored Jak's warning growls and rushed by her to crowd around Sol, each grabbing for her and yelling different questions all at once. Sol's eyes were wide and confused as she was bombarded by it all, not fully understanding what was going on.
Jak roared and shot a pillar of fire into the sky. The Pokémon quieted and stared at the Charmander.
"Back. Off." Jak growled menacingly.
The Pokémon didn't move, but it gave Sol the opportunity to slip out from the center of the crowd and get herself from space.
"Everyone, please calm down," Eevee said. "Yes, Sol's back, but she doesn't know anything about what happened. She needs some time to sort everything out before she answers any questions."
"I think it's me who needs to be asking the questions. Just how long was I away?"
"A little over three months."
Sol blinked slowly. "Oh."
"Where, like, were you?" came a voice from the crowd. Jak guessed it was Sunflora.
"I... I don't know," Sol said, her brow furrowing as she thought about it. "Somewhere and nowhere at the same time..." She sighed, then shook her head. "I just don't know."
"Well, there's no use in standing around here," Chatot said. "Apprentices, back to the guild! Everyone else, go back to Treasure Town! If anything of importance is found out, I'm sure you will hear of it!"
It took some prodding, but eventually Chatot was able to get the Pokémon moving back to where they came from. Sol didn't say anything and just stared at the ground, lost in thought. Eevee stayed close by her side with Ren nearby.
Jak watched Sol's expression closely. She was pretty good at reading people, a life in the wild had required quick judgement of others, and she could tell something was bugging her.
"Now," Chatot said, turning to Sol. "I expect a full report on everything as soon as..." he looked carefully at Sol, then at the other members of Team Wanderers before choosing his next words. "As soon as you're ready."
Sol nodded looked up and nodded at him. Chatot nodded then left for the guild.
Sol looked up at the sky for a moment, then shook herself free of whatever thoughts circled in her mind.
"It's bloody freezing out here. Let's get to the guild."
"Oh, about that..." Eevee said. "Don't get mad, but I sorta got kicked out of the guild..."
"WHAT?!"
"It's a long story. Things weren't easy while you were gone."
"So what now?" Sol sighed.
"We can stay in Sharpedo Bluff."
"All right, but I want an explanation on just what's been going on here without me."
...
Sol sighed and covered her face with a hand. Hearing Eevee's version of events was far from uplifting, and Jak felt a twist of guilt. Jak growled softly to herself in annoyance. She couldn't change what she had initially thought of Eevee's claims so it no longer mattered. She had stood by him in the end, anyway, even if it was Ren that convinced her to do it.
"You know what? Maybe it's a good thing that happened?" Sol said finally. "This is the second time they've turned on you. To Hell with them. Let's just stay here at Sharpedo Bluff and freelance. It's nicer than the guild anyway and it'd serve them right."
"But I've always wanted to be a member of the guild! It's been my dream for as long as I can remember!" Eevee said. "And it's not their fault they couldn't remember. Even Jak and Ren didn't believe me for a while."
"Nice to know I'm so easily forgotten," Sol muttered under her breath, barely loud enough for Jak to pick up. "Fine, we'll join again. But can we at least let them be the ones to ask us? Then we say no and let them grovel for a bit?"
Eevee tried to give Sol a serious look, but the corners of his mouth twitched up in a smile.
"Just a little bit."
"One should not act so childish when one is proven right. It only serves to burn the bridges others may be willing to repair."
Sol rolled her eyes. "I see you haven't changed, always trying to ruin my fun."
"Now you know what's been going on here, but..." Eevee hesitated before breaching the topic. "What happened to you? When you woke up you screamed something about a shadow...?"
Sol's brow furrowed as she considered the question.
"I don't know. It's really weird. I remember leaving Temporal Tower, then things get fuzzy... something about a black splotch? Then there's this feeling of forgetting where I'm doing as I'm doing it, then there's this... twisting, I suppose, and the next thing I know, I'm standing on the beach with you all staring at me as if I just rose from the dead. I don't even remember saying anything about any shadow."
"These inquiries pave the path to insanity, demanding answers for things that should never even have questions. It is not our place to comprehend things rife with paradoxes and contradictions, and nor will understanding ever be in our grasp no matter how long we try."
"Really? And here I thought the ever philosophical Ren would jump at the chance to ramble on about nonexistence and what not."
"A wise Pokémon knows there are boundaries to intelligence and what Pokémon can comprehend."
Sol looked off at nothing, taking on a far away look. "Anything can be learned as long as it is the right people looking."
Eevee gave her an odd look, then glanced at Jak and Ren. Jak just shrugged. Truth be told she had already lost all interest in this conversation. Questions about questions? How was that important? There were other, relevant things to talk about, and Jak didn't like wasting words on frivolous things.
"This one is glad you are back, but believes we should decide on our next step."
Sol shook herself back to the present.
"I don't know. Eevee wants to go back to the guild, and I'm fine with that, I suppose..." Sol sighed, then shook her head. "I don't think I'm up to jumping back into the apprentice role right now, taking jobs and fighting Pokémon..."
"We don't need to do anything right now, though," Eevee said. "You're back and that's good enough for me."
Jak rolled her eyes. Idleness only weakens a pack. But she wasn't concerned, though, because she knew it was only a matter of time before Sol was itching to do something. She had the attention span of a Pichu on a sugar rush. Jak gave her two days max before Sol found some type of danger to throw herself into.
Her thoughts were interrupted when a loud bang echoed from down the stone corridor to the Sharpedo Bluff cave system. Jak shot to her feet, as did the others.
"What the Hell was that?!"
"There shouldn't be anyone else down here..." Eevee said.
Sol slowly approached the passage with Jak following a step behind. She peered inside, then carefully entered. There was no sign of anything that could have made the noise. They passed by a room, bed neatly made and shelves filled with odd items from impossible twisted tree roots to odd, sparkling stones. This was Eevee's room and nothing seemed out of place to Jak.
"This place is looking quite a bit more lived in," Sol said, mostly to herself and continued on.
Next they passed Ren's room, smaller than the others and sparsely furnished with a bed, a small chest at its end and a desk, books orderly linded up in a row. It was immaculately clean in within, everything in its proper place. Jak was often tempted to go in and dump everything on the floor.
They still hadn't found anything, so they moved on. They passed Jak's room next, as messy as Ren's was clean. She didn't bother with any furniture besides a bed, having thought if she hadn't needed it in the wild then she didn't need it now. Her belongings were scattered across the floor haphazardly. Jak was never bothered by this. If she needed something, then it would be out in plain sight without any need to go rooting around in drawers or the like looking for it.
"Did a Voltorb explode in here?" Sol asked.
"No."
"How can you be sure?"
Jak hissed in annoyance and shoved her forwards down the hall.
Sol chuckled quietly but kept moving. They approached the next doorway and Sol looked around its edge. She stared inside for a moment, face blank, before saying anything.
"Well that's weird."
Jak looked inside and had to agree with her assessment. Jak had passed by this room many times when she had explored deeper into the caves, and every time it had been empty. But now, shelves were set up along the wall, a bed sat in the corner with a chest at the end, and a large table stood in the room's center.
On the table rested a white staff, blades retracted. Jak had almost forgotten about it completely, and only then did she realize she hadn't seen a trace of it since Sol and Eevee had left for the Hidden Land. Beside the staff was a note, though the writing was unlike anything Jak had ever seen before. Instead of Footprint runes, it was covered in a collection of seemingly random lines, loops and circles.
It seemed to make sense to Sol, however, who picked it up and examined the markings.
"What does it say?" Jak asked.
Sol scanned the page for a moment longer.
"It's... from Dialga."
"What?!" Eevee ran in with Ren.
"Yeah. He says that it was him who brought me back, and he thought the least he could do was bring my stuff back too." She stopped for a second before continuing. "He also says I need to watch out for someone called Palkia. Didn't Lapras mention him? He doesn't say why, just that it's best if I don't know. Something about my past and my people."
Sol frowned and traced a line of text. "The way he words that bit... 'It is safer if the reasons, if the knowledge of your past and your true people, remains unknown'... What does he mean, my true people?"
"A certain group of humans, maybe?"
"... Maybe," Sol said, unconvinced. "But it's still really weird."
"I've heard of Palkia," Eevee said. "He's the Spatial Pokémon, Dialga's counterpart."
"What would he have against me?"
"I don't know."
"Jak thinks you should take the advice. It is smart to avoid Pokémon who can destroy you with ease. That is how Jak survived."
"I'll agree with you on that," Sol said. She walked over to the chest and looked inside, the closed the lid. "This is still really weird, and also kinda creepy. Do you think it'd be rude if I didn't sleep in here tonight?"
"I think Dialga'd get over it pretty quickly."
Sol sighed then looked up at the ceiling. "I'm not looking forward to tomorrow. I really don't like explaining things to people, and this is getting really unbelievable. The Temporal Pokémon deity just furnished my room. No one will have doubts about that."
Eevee raised an eyebrow. "After everything that's happened, you think that's what people are going to have questions about?"
Sol laughed. "Good point."
Just so everyone knows, I plan on switching up a bit of the post game events, like leaving some events out, adding some in, tweaking the story line. This is mostly because I found the post game to be just a random collection of missions with basically no ties to each other until you reach the Darkrai plot line. If you have any thoughts on this or anything else, feel free to leave a comment.
Responses to reviews:
Never before have I received such a positive response to someone getting punched in the face. Glad you all enjoyed it!
Mister L: As unexpected a twist as that would be, Eevee is not a Ditto or a Mew. Thanks for the heads up, and I've fixed the mistake. You'll be getting answers to Eevee's backstory soonish. I've got it all planned out and all will be revealed in later chapters.
ckrier.3000: I'm always happy to welcome new readers! I'll do my best to keep with that 'masterpiece' status :)
