The years passed with their usual heavy stride.
Duskull and Treecko continued to explore the surroundings, and sometimes went even further.
The environments changed very little, with that deadly gray hood suffocating them.
But one day everything changed.
Duskull and Treecko had just gotten up and were helping Camilla make breakfast.
That morning, the woman was not feeling well: she had slept badly, her neck ached and her head was spinning.
Julian was getting dressed, ready to drink his Seed tea and cultivate his small vegetable garden, helped by the two boys: in fact, Treecko had learned Rain Dance to water the plants, while Duskull knew Sunny Day to mimic a star that never rose or shone.
"Thank you for everything you do for us." Camilla had thanked them, sitting in the armchair, sweaty and looking suffering.
Treecko walked over to her: her hair was faded, studded with silver threads. Camilla was now fifty-four years old and her life of fatigue had made her age prematurely, and the same could be said of Julian, who had seen his once rather dark mustache and hair dyed pure white.
"You don't feel well, Camilla?" Treecko asked, caressing her face and wiping her sweat.
"Oh, don't worry, it's just accumulated fatigue."
She started to get up, but a retching made her sink back into the chair. Alarmed, Duskull ran to call Julian, and from there everything whirled in a whirlwind of disbelief: Camilla was pregnant!
It was her very last chance, the one that hadn't happened in thirty years of marriage.
Nine months of anticipation, hope, worry and euphoria followed.
Treecko couldn't wait to meet the baby, while Duskull had... a strange feeling.
Maybe it was his Ghost Pokémon instinct, but Duskull feared that unborn child. He feared the upheaval it would've brought into their lives.
Beatrix came to the world while everyone was sleeping.
Julian, Duskull and Treecko helped Camilla, and luckily the birth was resolved with incredible ease.
The baby girl had fire red hair and two beautiful blue eyes.
Given the advanced age of the parents, the two Pokémon tried to relieve them of as many tasks as possible: Treecko gave her the bottle while Camilla cooked, and Duskull got up at night if she cried.
It was nice to see Camilla asleep in the rocking chair with Beatrix in her arms, or Julian putting her on his shoulders and holding her by her feet.
In those moments, Duskull and Treecko felt part of a real family, and the feeling of being surrounded by unbearable stillness faded in their hearts.
Beatrix was a healthy and lively little girl, who ran trotting behind her darlings as fast as she could.
None of them, however, was ready to expect what would've manifested with her growth: her incredible thirst for adventure, curiosity, discovery.
She was definitely beyond her very tender age.
Over the years, Treecko had evolved into Grovyle and Duskull into Dusclops. The Luminous Spring, where Pokémon once evolved, was practically out of order due to the temporal anomaly, so Pokémon evolved totally randomly, based on genetic propensity: those who had three stages could get to the last, stop at the intermediate one or even never evolve.
One day, in search of new places to explore, they had come to the Stillsand Cave, which was located in the northern part of the Dark Wasteland, but had never been noticed as it was covered by what were once quicksand, and now it was simple accumulation of sand without color and without wind to animate it.
They had leapt ten meters and landed on a soft bed of silver dust.
"Huh? Am I wrong or did your backpack make a sound?" muttered Dusclops.
Grovyle touched it with his paws, but found nothing strange in it, so the two went on.
While they kept the Ground-type Pokémon that populated the Cave at bay, Dusclops became hungry, so he searched in Grovyle's backpack for apples, as his was full of Seeds.
"Uh? Weird…" he commented again.
"What's up?"
"… Nothing. Let's continue."
There was something wrong with it, but he didn't understand what. Was it possible that Grovyle didn't notice?
When they reached the end of the Cave, they noticed that the road continued in a narrow rocky corridor. They stopped to catch their breath.
"All right, Grovyle, now open that backpack."
"Why?"
"Haven't you noticed that something is wrong?"
The Grass Pokémon examined it, turning it on various sides.
"I don't think so. It's not even unstitched."
Dusclops put a hand to his face.
"Empty it."
"Uff, fine. What a paranoid you are." muttered the sixteen-year-old.
As soon as he put a paw deeper, a familiar hood of a sweatshirt was trapped between his fingers.
"Surprise!" Beatrix shrieked, between embarrassed and cheerful.
"BEATRIX!" the two boys shouted at the same time.
The four-year-old girl was placed on the ground; Grovyle immediately began to scold her:
"How did you come up with the idea of hiding in my backpack? Mom and dad will be very worried!"
Beatrix pouted.
"But I'm bored at home! It's fun with you!"
"No, it's dangerous! Dusclops and I must be free to move and fight!"
"But I want to be with you!"
Grovyle softened and caressed her head.
"We too want to be with you, Bea, but at home, on the lawn, with a nice snack in front of us!"
"What do we do now?" Dusclops asked.
Grovyle didn't have time to answer, because Beatrix ran off towards the end of the corridor.
"NO!"
"That little girl is a mess!" exclaimed Dusclops, who didn't know whether to admire or be angry with her.
Beatrix ran for a good part of the Stillsand Pit, and only halfway through the dungeon Grovyle was able to catch and put her in the backpack. No one knew how she managed to avoid the Pokémon that lived there.
The three thus reached the shore of the Underground Lake.
From the beach of fine gray sand extended a lake with still waters, engulfed by the deepest darkness, framed by stalactites and stalagmites.
"Who are you?"
An unknown female voice.
"Um... We came here by chance, now we take our leave." Grovyle answered, still struggling with Beatrix, who got out of the backpack and took a handful of sand between her fingers.
The little girl lay down with her cheek pressed to the sand, as if she were suddenly very tired. This strange behavior lasted for five minutes, at the end of which the lively and chatty little girl of all time returned.
Meanwhile Mesprit, guardian of the Underground Lake and Spirit of Emotions, had revealed herself to their eyes.
"Ooh, how beautiful!"
Mesprit set her eyes on the child, and blushed a little.
"Thank you."
"Where is the big snowflake?"
Mesprit frowned at her, anyway feeling a thorn in her heart.
"What?"
"The big snowflake. I saw it there, but it shone."
The child pointed to the deepest point of the cave with her finger, but to no avail. There was nothing down there but eternal darkness.
Beatrix, who for obvious reasons had never seen snow fall, had nevertheless discovered it in children's books that mum and dad bought her the rare times they went to nearby villages to exchange their products with others not available to them, or to trade for money.
"How did she see it?" Mesprit thought to herself.
The pink Pokémon squeezed an arm and looked down, melancholy.
"If you are referring to the Time Gear, it hasn't been here for a long time."
Those words sparked the interest of Dusclops and Grovyle.
"What are Time Gears?" the Ghost Pokémon immediately asked.
"They are mechanisms that allow time to flow correctly. I have no idea what happened to them, most likely they were destroyed along with Temporal Tower. This world is condemned to eternal immobility..."
There was a moment of painful silence, then Beatrix drew Mesprit's attention:
"But who broke the Time Thingies?"
"Nobody knows... The Pokémon that rules time is Dialga, but nobody has ever seen him, in fact I think he's still on top of what remains of the Tower..."
Dusclops and Grovyle looked at each other, then took Beatrix by the hand, even if she would have liked to stay longer and talk to Mesprit.
"We were pleased to meet you, now we go back." Grovyle told her, and she raised her little hand in greeting, sadly.
As soon as the Pokémon entered their house, Camilla ran to hug her daughter.
"Are you crazy, Bea? You're too young to walk around like that!" the woman scolded her.
"But the two of them go where they want!"
The redhead puffed her cheeks in anger, and this time it was her father who replied:
"But the two of them are older than you!" Julian said softly, touching her nose.
"Boo!"
This reunion was followed by a nice restorative dinner and a restful sleep, but from that fateful day the thought of the Time Gears didn't stop for a moment to torment the two young Pokémon.
They researched, documented themselves, and noticed that other Pokémon and some humans were looking for information like them.
Meanwhile, Beatrix was growing, and with her the desire to follow Dusclops and Grovyle in the dungeons and bookstores, in the hostels, in the headquarters of the research teams.
She was seven years old and her parents educated her at home, with the books they could obtain and which the two explorers sometimes brought home.
But she remained convinced that her best education was out in the field. Possibly close to Grovyle.
She liked being with Dusclops too, but the bond she had with the Grass Pokémon was... special.
One day she and Dusclops were sitting on the lawn in front of their home, on the mat for picnics.
Grovyle had walked around alone, but neither of them knew where, so Pokémon and child had served themselves some delicious sandwiches and started to eat. Blessed were the ones who could count on a well-organized garden.
At one point, while Dusclops was sipping some Oran Berry juice, Beatrix approached him. She was very serious.
"Dusclops, can I tell you a secret? But don't tell anyone."
"Promised." the 25-year-old answered as he wiped his mouth.
"When I grow up, I want to marry Grovyle!"
Dusclops, who was chewing on another piece of sandwich, nearly choked on it.
"Ah..." he just replied.
Beatrix was so funny, with her childhood fantasies and innocent desires... Yet Dusclops perceived her as a danger all the same, and couldn't understand it. He loved her, yet that human child had always communicated a sense of very subtle discomfort to which he had never been able to give a name, and this seemed ridiculous to him, because it was the same cub he had sometimes changed the diaper or tucked up.
"And you, Dus? Don't you have a girlfriend? " Beatrix asked, mischievously.
"What are you saying!" he drew back, a little shocked.
"Come on... Miss Corsola from the Desolate City Emporium looks at you in a way…"
Bea laughed amused, rolling on the tablecloth, and Dusclops watched her; if there was one thing he didn't think about, it was love stories, and least of all with the owner of the store.
No… It wasn't exactly like that, but how could he explain it to that little girl? He couldn't, it was his own thought, and yet his brain refused to register it one hundred percent.
After a while, Grovyle returned.
"Where have you been?" Beatrix asked, hugging him.
"With Mesprit. I got some news about the Time Gears."
"What have you discovered?" Dusclops asked him.
"Mesprit has two twin brothers, Uxie and Azelf. They both guarded a Gear in the past."
"Where they live?"
Grovyle shook his head.
"She didn't want to tell me. She's probably suspicious, and I don't blame her."
"But the Gears are gone, why wouldn't she want to tell you?" Beatrix intervened.
"Trust is something rare nowadays..."
"Oh…"
The little girl saddened.
For quite a while, the three set aside the talk about the Time Gears and resumed helping Camilla and Julian with the vegetable garden and exploring the dungeons, this time also with Beatrix, who carried a large backpack so that her companions could fight without hindrance.
However, none of them had forgotten the trio of Guardian Pokémon, and it was Beatrix who brought the topic back to light on her tenth birthday.
"I want to go find Uxie and Azelf." she said resolutely, after eating the frugal cake prepared for her by her mother.
"And where? We've been looking for them for three years, but we haven't found them…" Dusclops commented, then hit Grovyle with a zinger:
"We have known Mesprit for six years and you are the one who sees her the most, is it possible that she still doesn't trust us?"
"I certainly can't force her to tell us something she doesn't want!" protested the gecko.
"What if..."
Beatrix had had an epiphany.
"Let's go to Fogbound Lake."
So they did, even if Dusclops didn't understand why they had to go back there, between those walls of perennial fog so thick as to seem tangible.
However, they were unable to enter the Foggy Forest, because they were stopped by two figures floating in midair, very similar to Mesprit.
The first, with the yellow head, had his eyes closed, while the second, with the blue head, stared at them with hatred.
"Go back!" the latter said, in an imperative tone.
"Are you Uxie and Azelf?" Beatrix asked.
"We would like to know more about the Time Gears. Please!" Grovyle added.
"No, no one will have to name them anymore. NO ONE!"
From Azelf's aggressive tone, Grovyle concluded that what Mesprit had drawn up years ago was true… The Gears had been destroyed by someone.
"Who destroyed the Gears?" Dusclops wanted to know.
"We don't know, the coward never revealed itself!" Azelf growled, clenching his fist.
Uxie put a hand on his brother's shoulder:
"Take it easy."
Flying closer to the three scouts, Uxie explained the situation to them:
"Please excuse us, but we don't feel like locating our zones to you. After the terrible theft we have suffered, we prefer to live in peace, for what it's worth. You accidentally found out about our sister Mesprit, but that's the end of it."
And so saying, the twins walked away, not without some glances at the group.
Sighing, the trio went home.
Beatrix wasn't about to give up though, and neither was Grovyle; the only one who seemed to have strong doubts was Dusclops.
"Will be right to try to fix a world that is now rotten? What if we killed it for good?" he wondered, distressed by the idea of death.
At dinner time, the three asked Camilla and Julian their opinion on the time factor.
"Well... I too would have liked to see the Sun that caressed my ancestors' face rise, but I enjoy the little things I already have." the woman answered.
"We are too old now, but if you young people want to try to change this world, I don't see why we should stop you!" Julian concluded.
Grovyle and Beatrix looked at each other: those words sanctioned their new mission.
And Dusclops… continued to be worried.