Beatrix and Grovyle split between helping at home and their new mission. Between Beatrix's aging parents and the reticence of the Guardian Pokémon, another two years passed without significant progress.
One day, the girl became convinced of one thing:
"Grovyle, I'm pretty sure one among Uxie and Azelf lives in the Foggy Forest, but where the other is I have no idea. We have to get help from Mesprit."
Hesitant, Grovyle accepted. That day Dusclops stayed at home to help Julian and Camilla, so the two of them left for the Underground Lake.
The Ghost Pokémon saw them leave, but shook his head. He was less and less convinced.
Once there, the two cry out in a loud voice for their friend.
This appeared, very surprised to see them there.
"My brothers have been clear with you... You will no longer have any information." she told them sternly.
At which, Beatrix got down on her knees and begged her:
"Please, Mesprit, perhaps there is still hope for this sick world."
"And what would it be? You may not have grasped that the Time Gears no longer exist, and that Dialga can no longer do anything to get things right!"
From anger, Mesprit turned to tears. She was truly the Being of Emotions.
Grovyle put a paw to his chin thoughtfully.
"Mhmm... It's strange, however, that the Time Pokémon lets everything go to pieces in this way... After all, he himself should be on a warpath to make the passage of time resume..."
"Maybe he gave up too. Perhaps the absence of time has weakened him. Maybe he got sick…" Mesprit murmured darkly.
"Or maybe..." Grovyle went on with the thought.
"!"
A flash crossed his brain. Was it possible that Dialga was...
Meanwhile Beatrix was still kneeling.
"Please, Mesprit... Tell us where your brothers are... Is it true that one of them lives at the Fogbound Lake?"
The pink Pokémon hesitated: on one hand she wanted to help and advise them, on the other she was tired of always being on the alert.
"Alright then. Yes, Uxie lives at Fogbound Lake. Azelf is at Crystal Lake, beyond the Crystal Cave."
"Hooray!"
Beatrix jumped up, thanked Mesprit and then ran towards the mouth of the cave.
"Wait for me!" Grovyle yelled, and started to follow her, after a ceremonious nod to the guardian.
"Just an instant!" she called him, before disappearing behind a rocky ledge and returning with a disc in her hands.
"This is the TM Dig. Learn it, it will be very useful."
Grovyle accepted the gift gratefully, happy to have established that friendship with Mesprit.
"Thank you." he told her, in a warm tone.
Azelf was furious when he saw Beatrix and Grovyle in his lair.
Again, Dusclops was absent.
"How did you get here? You have solved my riddle?!" he wanted to investigate.
"Yes, with our intuition." Grovyle answered, not wanting to get Mesprit in trouble.
"Intuition or not, I see that you are hard on the uptake. Go away, here there are only immobile and opaque crystals."
There was pain in the voice of the little Pokémon, who had known the brightness of that place in ancient times.
"Azelf, we're here because we need to know something about Dialga."
Beatrix's voice seemed almost impertinent, so the Pokémon Willpower replied, trying to hold back the resentment:
"Dialga is our older brother. We were born with the purpose of giving wisdom, emotions and will to living beings, including our siblings. We are their advisors, their confidants. Lately, however, Dialga has been unamenable. He's unrecognizable, he just doesn't seem right in the head. I'll make it simple... Our brother is crazy, he doesn't even speak correctly anymore. The shock for the destruction of the Gears he forged has plunged him into the abyss and even we are unable to help him. It almost seems that he doesn't recognize us, he has frightening outbursts of anger. Here, now you know everything. Are you happy?"
Azelf's voice too had choked towards the end of the speech, and he too had let a tear run down his cheek.
A long silence followed, after which Beatrix reached out to the suffering Pokémon.
"Azelf, you must have faith in us. This world has brought out the worst in us, Pokémon and humans. We would like to try to create a better world as much as possible."
Beatrix was wholehearted, she didn't even look like a twelve-year-old girl.
"It's too late." murmured Azelf, who didn't have the courage, the daring to open up to hope. It now seemed to him an outdated luxury.
"We will go to Dialga."
Beatrix smiled at him, caressed his face and hugged him. Grovyle was proud of his partner.
A few days later, the duo headed to Uxie.
The latter was also surprised to see the explorers in his habitat.
"You have passed the statue?!" he asked them.
Beatrix nodded, and Grovyle asked him if it was possible to reach Dialga, and how.
Uxie's eyes opened a little, revealing topaz-yellow irises.
"It's not possible. Due to the temporal anomaly, any communication with Temporal Tower is precluded. My siblings and I are able to fly to Dialga, but Pokémon that are unable to fly cannot go there alone."
"Could we count on you?" Grovyle asked hopefully, "Our comrade Dusclops is a Ghost type, so he might be able to levitate up there. I will fly with Dusclops, while you could carry Beatrix..."
Uxie sighed, then made telepathic contact with her siblings; trembling moments followed, where there was a great fear of seeing that crucial plan rejected. However, at the end of the telepathy Uxie smiled: their plan had been approved!
"In the morning we will come to pick you up. Be sure to rest and take whatever items you may need. Good luck!"
Grateful, Grovyle and Beatrix took their leave of the Pokémon Knowledge and returned home.
When they were gone, Uxie resumed communications with Azelf and Mesprit:
"Were we wise? Can we trust them?" asked the blue Pokémon.
"I trust them! They took the trouble to face the dungeons we live in over and over again, it seems to me that they care!" Mesprit answered him.
"Maybe…"
Uxie smiled: he trusted them too.
Even that day Dusclops had refused to follow Grovyle and Beatrix.
While the two were grappling with the dangers of Steam Cave, the Beckon Pokémon had decided to return to the place where he was born and where he had lived until the age of six.
He then asked the Porygon who had already helped him the first time to return to the hostile Frozen Island, passed the Dark Ice Mountain Pinnacle and found himself in the place where it all began.
That immobile forest, albeit anything but hospitable, had the flavor of nostalgia for him.
And now, that Beatrix and Grovyle had made up their minds to restart time, what would've become of that wood? Would it have regained its former glory or would it have sunk into darkness for good?
Dusclops walked, finding his old lair.
Inside the furniture had remained intact, no one occupied the house at the time, but surely some Pokémon had entered to raid the little food that was stored in the cupboard and in the jars. It was only natural, given the desperate conditions of that world.
Dejected, Dusclops left his former home and started walking again.
He didn't realized that he had entered a forbidden zone, because it was highly dangerous.
The Pokémon avoided the thick of that forest, and he himself had never visited it as a child.
"Heh Heh HEH! Look who's here, the son of those two!" chuckled what appeared to be a multitude of reverberating voices.
Dusclops abruptly turned from side to side.
"Who's there?" he screamed.
"HEH HEH heh! Look ahead of YOU!"
Dusclops looked ahead, but saw only a chipped stone.
"But that..."
"Do you know it? That's right, IT'S an ODD KEYSTONE! OUR KEYSTONE!"
Dusclops had read that Spiritomb was a highly unpredictable Pokémon, so much so that it was sealed in those small rocks.
"Come outside!" he screamed again.
"Oh, but WE are MANY! One hundred and eight, for PRECISION. And your PARENTS are the LATEST additions to our COLLECTION!"
Dusclops didn't understand, even if he felt he was close to solving the mystery that hovered around the death of his parents.
Spiritomb popped out of the Keystone, revealing his bizarre and creepy appearance.
"See those ICE pillars? If you position yourself at the CENTER of them, a VERY POWERFUL electric discharge starts, separating the body from the soul! This is how we ABSORBED the souls of your beloved parents!"
Dusclops turned abruptly to Spiritomb.
"So, are my parents' souls inside you? And their bodies?"
"UH-UH-uh! We don't need the bodies, we buried them deep in the FOREST, nearby! UH-UH-UH!"
Spiritomb, as he laughed, was hit by a powerful Shadow Punch of Dusclops, which left him stunned. The young adult took advantage of the hesitation of the spirit jumble to go into the woods, where he actually saw two piles of raised ground.
Those rough tombs were made of soil as hard as steel, as thick and durable was the ice that set it. It was as if his parents had been cryopreserved.
Above those piles, planted with a branch, was the cloak that his father used to wear.
Dusclops removed it from the graves and examined it: it was old and worn, with torn edges.
Instinctively, he tied it just below his ears. Immediately after, an unnatural light enveloped him and a process he knew well took place: that of Evolution.
Grovyle and Beatrix were surprised to see Dusclops in a completely different form.
"Have you evolved again? You're not bad at all!" the Wood Gecko Pokémon complimented.
Dusknoir, as he was now called, had a majestic and sinister appearance, with his red eye and the giant mouth drawn on the belly.
Oddly, he had no objection to carrying Grovyle to the Temporal Tower, nor to trying to make Dialga think.
Indeed, he too aspired to meet him.
The top of the Tower was all cracked, with several missing bricks and some half-broken columns.
The trio of Guardians called out Dialga, and two eyes as red as blood appeared from the deep hole where once stood the throne of the Time Pokémon.
"GRRRRR!"
A monstrous figure, more than five meters tall, emerged from the darkness. It was dark blue, tinged with orange, and his pace toward the unwelcome intruders was menacing to say the least.
"Dialga, please listen to us. These Pokémon have come here to confer with you." the trio of Guardians interceded.
"GRRRR!"
It was just as Azelf explained: Dialga had now become Primal, focused solely on himself.
The first to come forward was Grovyle, who bowed ceremoniously in the presence of Time:
"Oh, great Dialga, I know this situation is hurting you more than anyone, but please send us to the past, where we can collect the Time Gears and bring them here. If they exist in the future, there will be no reason why they have to disappear into the past. By doing so, time will start to flow again."
Beatrix jumped: she had never considered that hypothesis, Grovyle had never told anyone about it, it was a total novelty.
Dusknoir also looked troubled, and trembled.
Dialga screamed, then clawed at Grovyle with heavy steel claws, and he fell back.
"GROVYLE!"
Beatrix ran to support him.
"I'm fine, don't worry."
"FOOL! HOW CAN YOU ASK ME TO GIVE THE DEATH BLOW TO THIS PLANET?! EVERYTHING MUST REMAIN AS IT IS, OR THE DELICATE BALANCE OF THIS WORLD WILL IMPLODE ON ITSELF!"
Dialga was not speaking, but telepathically communicating.
Beatrix looked at him, filled with pain.
"Dialga..."
The giant Pokémon turned to her:
"I RECOMMEND YOU TO GO HOME. YOUR FATHER IS DYING. HIS LIFE OF FATIGUE IS COMING TO AN END AND SOON HE WILL BE ABLE TO ENJOY THE DESERVED REST..."
Beatrix's sapphire eyes filled with terror: was her beloved father dying? He was only sixty-eight!
Although she… she had to admit that he had always worked himself to death.
Now dripping with tears, Beatrix begged Grovyle to go back and he appeased her.
The trio of Guardians so sadly brought the unfortunate group of friends back from the Tower.
What Beatrix and Grovyle didn't know was that Dialga had sent a telepathic message aimed solely at Dusknoir, simultaneously closing the communication channel with the others present.
"COME TO THE TOWER AS SOON AS POSSIBLE." it had been his peremptory order.
Dusknoir hadn't been able to immediately fly to Temporal Tower: Dialga's words were true, Julian had passed away a few hours after their return to home. The harshness of his life had extinguished his weary heart.
Beatrix threw herself at the foot of the bed to cry, invoking her beloved father, while her mother caressed her gently, even though she was a well of sadness herself.
Grovyle and Dusknoir had retired to their rooms, locked in their mourning, immersed in hundreds of different thoughts.
Those painful scenes were followed by a short funeral attended by humans and Pokémon from nearby villages who had gotten to know him, and Julian was buried not far from Delcatty and Sceptile.
A week after the funeral, after days spent consoling Beatrix and Camilla and running the garden and trades, Dusknoir flew back to Temporal Tower with the excuse of bartering in some Kecleon Shops.
"FINALLY. I WAS WAITING FOR YOU." Dialga welcomed him, again by telepathy.
"Why did you want to see me again?" he wanted to know, on the defensive.
"BECAUSE YOU LOOK DIFFERENT FROM THE TWO FOOLS WHO ACCOMPANIED YOU. YOU DON'T WANT THINGS TO CHANGE, I CLEARLY PERCEIVED IT. YOU ARE LIKE ME."
"I... Am like him?" Dusknoir thought, and in a flash he was reminded of all the doubts he had always harbored about the Time Gears and the ideas of Grovyle and Beatrix.
He had to admit that he was right.
Not even he wanted time to start moving again, because by now the world had stopped for a whole century, and such a sudden change could have had unspeakable consequences on the planet's life forms.
Dusknoir was barely thirty, he absolutely didn't want to die so young.
"HELP ME TO KEEP ORDER IN THIS WORLD. SPREAD THE WORD THAT THE HUMAN BEATRIX AND THE POKEMON GROVYLE ARE CONSPIRING FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF THE PLANET. SEARCH FOR VALID ALLIES IN THE VILLAGES. CAN I COUNT ON YOU, DUSKNOIR?"
Dusknoir looked intently into Dialga's eyes: the pact was signed.
Along the way, Dusknoir actually did some bartering with the Kecleon, as not to make Grovyle suspicious.
While he was having dinner, the Gripper Pokémon asked his companions if they weren't afraid of dying.
That argument made Camilla fade, already hit by the grief she had suffered.
"Of course I'm afraid, but I like to think I'm useful to others!" Beatrix said, serene.
Hearing this, Camilla got up from the table and went into her room, from which soft sobs came.
Dusknoir slammed his fist on the table.
"Well, Beatrix! Your mother has lost your father and you speak of sacrifice so lightly! What makes you pose as heroes of this world?" he said angrily.
The girl, frightened by his sudden outburst, sipped her vegetable soup without saying a word.
When she had retreated into her room, Dusknoir confronted Grovyle:
"You are getting into something bigger than you and I don't intend to be a part of it."
Grovyle took note of it, and went to sleep without saying anything.