Tearing the Heavens

by Cepel

A young soldier from a once great family is thrust into the future and ends up in an unfamiliar and bizarre world, where his presence can cause complications both ancient and modern. He inadvertently becomes a trainer through mere misunderstanding and sets off in a journey to discover his own self and where he stands in a world that isn't his own.

77. Rules, Shadows, Thieves

Dead?

Steven had seen the portals and temporal anomalies that Celebi had left behind. Extensive years of research into such anomalies had driven him ever since Riven had disclosed what had happened to him, from electromagnetic readings and the study of spectra to what amounted to several quarters of advanced quantum mechanics coursework. Still he had questions that seemed to never end, constantly conflicting with one another at every finding.

Celebi's portals had defied anything he'd ever seen; a clean, nearly imperceptible hole in time and space that closed itself as quickly as it formed. A surgeon's cut instead of the haphazard explosion of reality that had surrounded the anomaly that brought his human trouble magnet to the present.

If there was one thing he could believe immediately, it was that this was most definitely not Celebi's work. Crude, far more crude. Almost like someone had torn through the fabric of space with as much force as possible in an act of desperation. A human thing to do, not a legendary pokemon's.

But how? How was a legendary pokemon dead? There were rumors that they couldn't be killed. Men and women with greater ambitions had tried and failed miserably, capturing and restraining them at best and only briefly at that. The rampages that followed were quelled only by the immense bravery of the hued Heroes and the strongest trainers in the world, even then not being enough to prevent a massive loss of life. His own experiences of the ash clouds, torrential rains, and deadly droughts brought about by the weather pokemon still hadn't left him.

And now a pokemon that could literally rip a hole into time and space was dead. Not injured. Dead.

"…What?" He managed to stammer out, his mind still tripping over itself. Gale and Will wore similar expressions of utter shock, the information being received but not quite processed.

"Celebi? What's going on he-" Gale tried to ask, words cut short as Riven rushed up to meet her, embracing the girl like he'd seen a ghost. He gave her a fierce kiss, and she found herself disoriented at the sudden display of affection. His arms shook, eyes shut as pure relief covered his tanned skin. She didn't have time to look at him before he squeezed her tight, as if in fear she would disappear.

"I never thought I'd see you again," he whispered. Tears of relief streaked down his face, upsetting the dust and dirt on his skin. "You're… you're real. We're not in a different dimension. We're back… we're back."

Rough fingers brushing against her cheek, Gale couldn't quite manage what to say. Lost wasn't quite the word for what she was feeling.

Will wondered if someone had kidnapped Riven and swung just a little too hard on the knockout hit. Dimension? Twitching in disbelief at witnessing that Riven's tear ducts did, in fact, have a functioning purpose, he peered behind the pair at the white doppelganger. Hasei, as he called himself, had looked away, his lips upturned in a nasty snarl. He turned to attend to the two unconscious on the floor, apparently eager to focus elsewhere.

"Uh… um, hi. I'm glad to see you too, Riven, but weren't you in the hospital?" Gale squeaked amidst the hug, unsure of whether to hug him back just as fiercely or slide out of his grip. She decided to wrap her arms around his armored body, if only to calm the trembling. Why was he acting like he'd been gone? And why were they in armor? "We just got here and there's this about a dead legendary pokemon and dimensions? And you look so…"

Staring at his left eye, she stopped dead, blinking several times to see if her own eyes weren't tricking her. She hadn't gotten a good look at his left eye from the angle he'd stood up in, but seeing it now was obvious. She held the left side of his face, turning it to her.

"What? Is there something wrong with my face?"

"With your eye!"

"My eye? It doesn't hurt. Is there something in it?" Waved a hand in front of it. "No. All good."

"Your brown eye! The dark colored one. It's blue! Your heterochromia is gone… How is…?"

Riven pulled back slowly. Memories came in a trickle and piece by piece the world he used to be a part of came to him. The younger trainee still looked like he'd found an eel in his soup. "Oh, the eye. Forgot about that. My condition got corrected when me and-" He gestured to Hasei. "When we got uh, split. Lined all the genes the way they were supposed to be. No defects anymore. Upside is I don't have to wear uncomfortable contacts anymore. Does it look weird?"

Her feelings and her logic had a quarrel and her logic won out. "That's not the p—"

"What the hell are you talking about?" Will blurted out, cutting Gale off. "How exactly did you get a genetic trait, 'fixed'? More like what fixed you? Or is this an Origin thing?"

"No?"

"Then what is it?"

"I'm getting to that!" Riven fired back. "Can you wait a damn minute?"

"It's fine! It's fine! Take your time," Gale soothed instead, smiling nervously and waving her hands. "We're just missing a lot of information here. Steven called us here with limited details and then…" She bit her lip, and uncomfortably glanced at the paler twin behind Riven. "Care to fill us in?"

"Yeah, if someone lets me do it first." Will rolled his eyes. Riven stood strangely still, as if he were seeing past them into some unknown. A pensive frown appeared on his face. "Gale, remember that psychic guy we talked to before? Kept talking in riddles?"

Gale and Will exchanged glances. Steven arched a brow. "The one that talked about a prophecy? He was scared half to death just looking at you. You said there was some prediction psychics kept mentioning to you. Something about a harbinger? Uncovering treachery, blah blah?"

"Yes. Yes! The Harbinger prophecy, exactly!" Riven smiled and held her by the shoulders, the joy evident on his face as he pumped a fist in the air. Hasei released a breath like he'd been holding it in for days."Means we're in the right timeline! That's good. Really good. If it wasn't I'd be very afraid right now."

Everyone save for Hasei were looking at Riven like he'd grown a third head.

Steven interjected, attempting to get a straight answer out of him. "Who was right? Timeline? What? You could've ended up in a different timeline?"

"Dunno. We weren't quite sure how time worked, and we weren't sure if what we did back there would carry into the future or we'd be caught in a loop. There was a chance that we'd end up somewhere in a future that had no Origins and no Harbinger prophecy or Team Galactic won, or something wackier than that. Wait, all the teams got defeated proper, right?"

"By the hued heroes, yeah," Will confirmed. "Ruby, Sapphire, Black, White… etc. Far as we know there haven't been any other world ending events. Err, yet."

Rubbing his chin, the time traveler nodded to himself. "Good. Good. So time flows in a line… but in zig-zags and pauses. It all makes sense now."

"It does?" Gale questioned, scratching her head.

There was a loud hmph in the back.

"Of course it does. Time goes in a straight line; while zig-zagging, cutting, breaking off, reforming back together, and jumping through loops. Perfectly straight when you put all the pieces back together. Moving forward, by going back. Simple enough." Hasei replied, shrugging with his hands. He noted the way everyone, including pokemon, were now staring at him like he'd also grown a third head and another set of arms. He ran a hand through his white hair. "It's so simple, why do you still look confused?"

"I suppose because time travel is confusing," Steven offered dryly. "I'm genuinely surprised you didn't accidentally create a religion."

Riven smacked his forehead with a palm. "Shit, that's what we forgot! We should've. That'd have made our lives infinitely easier if we shit the bed and ended up in the feudal era somewhere in the ass end of Johto. Imagine their faces!"

"Wait, time travel? Religion? What the fuck is going on here, dude," Will repeated to himself, electing to sit on the nearby bed. He took a deep, steadying breath before exploding in a frantic tirade. "Steven, what the fuck is going on here? Why are there two Rivens and none of them seem to be talking sense?"

"What do you mean?" The twins replied in sync. "I am talking sense."

They both looked at each other and scowled. Gale felt a shiver crawl down her spine.

"SEE?!" Will cried. "I'm definitely not the crazy one here! What. Is. Going. On."

"I already told you," the two Rivens responded once again.

The former champion rubbed his temples. "Okay, stop. Everyone, stop. You two, stop… whatever it is you're doing. Synchronized talking is never not creepy." They both opened their mouths as Steven held up his hands, stressing. "One at a time, for our sanity. Please."

The Rivens frowned. They seemed to communicate who would go first with a few eyebrow raises and hand gestures. Rock, paper, scissors. There was growling and Hasei crossed his arms in defeat when he played scissors into rock. The original smirked and turned back to face everyone else.

"Right then, where are we? Location? Continent? Uh, landmass? Place? Time?"

"Early morning, uh, Castelia City." Gale answered. "One of the largest cities in the world? Big skyscrapers? Lots of people?" Passing sirens went off in the distance. "Really loud even at night?"

"Unova… right. Been a while, let me think." Riven went quiet, the curiosity in his face replaced by a concerned squint after he took a moment to take in his surroundings. Darting his focus to the now steamless cups of coffee and tea Steven had brought, he patted his chest, pressing down on it and taking in a deep breath. No bruised ribs. Right. "I remember. Hospital. I got shot, didn't I? Before all this. The gym leaders… Feels like a haze. A far off dream… Prepared for this… How long?" He asked Steven, scratching his head. "How long has it been since I was…?"

"Seventeen minutes," Steven replied, checking the time on his watch. "Enough for my drinks to get cool. Celebi promised some deviation but it said within five minutes. What happened, Riven? To result in all… this."

"Seven-seventeen? Minutes…" Riven whispered to himself, clicking his tongue. He barely paid attention to what Steven had asked, instead sauntering over to the window. "Hard to believe… The curtains and the city are exactly the same. Clouds just drifting a bit further to the right… It really is the same night. That's seems impossible, but I know it isn't. That's frightening. To me it was—"

He went quiet again, still staring out the window. His friends gave him a perplexed look, catching the grimace on Hasei's face. The two Rivens seemed to exchange an unspoken message, sighing briefly as they shook their heads.

"Wait, hold on just moment." Will interrupted, glaring at Hasei as he did, "can you answer the question of what the goddamn hell happened here before going off on some other bizarre train of thought? Gale asked a question that got completely ignored, you just ignored Steven, and I had absolutely no idea that you two finally decided to stop playing around and get together. Finally! To make it worse, last I know, Riven was in the hospital, and now there's two of them and apparently a legendary pokemon, of y'know, legend, is supposedly dead!? Then the prophecy thing and timelines and the timey wimey bullshit. And why the hell are you so tan?"

"Yes, let's do our best to answer that one first," Hasei muttered in the back with a tiny snort. "Tanning usually happens when you spend a lot of time in the sun. Plenty of it among bloody deserts and islands. The Felir sure love their tropical islands. You should have a clear understanding how bad the sun cooks your skin, since you almost baked in one."

"I have a clear understanding that you'll definitely piss me off," Will shot back. "Whoever you're supposed to be. What are you supposed to be?"

"A purple Sawsbuck that lost its way home."

Will was not nearly as amused as Hasei sneered.

"That purple Sawbuck can turn around and fuck right off then. We still don't know what a Felir is, or anything you two have said in the past two minutes," Will pointed out crossly. "Deserts? Islands? Hello? The nearest desert is north of us and miles and miles across? Where the hell were you? We know Riven can't teleport."

Not-Riven grunted the way adults did when speaking to children in a daycare. "Forgot how tedious explanations are…. Cerul, maybe you should start at the beginning. I can see the gears spinning in their heads but going nowhere. Are you quite done examining the drapery enough to speak?"

"Huh, what? Oh, yeah. I think I'm good." The original Riven gulped in more air than he probably needed, as if finding what he was about to say equally as tiring. He let go of the curtains he'd taken a sudden fascinating interest in. "I…" He bit the fingernail on his thumb. "I kind of got taken through time. Again. But you probably guessed that already. There was a small chance we could've ended up in another whole stream of time entirely or temporally displaced into a solid object—that would've been completely screwed for a number of reasons…" He almost trailed off on a tangent until he caught himself going off the rails again. "I know, I know. I almost did it again. Stop looking at me like that. Where was I? Time travel. Right. So it was by a Celebi, obviously, like I said. It wasn't supposed to be complicated. Of course, that probably doomed me from the start, now that I think about it."

He laughed awkwardly in exchange for a lot of pitying looks.

"Err, sorry…?"

Will and Gale stood in grim silence while their respective pokemon glanced up at them, heads in full tilt. They were very sure that whatever hijinks their trainers were getting up to were not the norm for most humans, and thus decided that it was better not to think about the headache that resulted from wondering such thoughts. Especially ones involving time travel and teleporting. What Evie was mainly concerned was the rising annoyance she could detect coming from her trainer, and whined in alarm.

Slowly, the ambient air in the room swirled to a stiff breeze, an involuntary response formed by the emotion of a very irritated girl. An absolutely bone chilling glare emerged on Gale's face as she turned to Steven.

"Please explain."

There was a very certain and very dangerous edge to those two words and no sensible man ever heard that tone used in a way that promised happy times. A lesser man would've blanched and started preparing his will. Steven, to his credit, remained largely stoic despite the papers strewn about his desk suddenly blanketing the room from the gust. One hit him in the face. He peeled it off and set it gently back down on the table.

"It was only supposed to be a five minute endeavor, he'd have been back here in time for you both to arrive. I was getting very nervous when he didn't. Honestly, I didn't know where to start when you two arrived. I'm truly sorry about this. I—I don't have much else to say in my defense," Steven admitted, his eyes downcast.

For several moments the two Origins mulled it over until Will blew out a breath and sighed with resignation.

"You know, I completely expected something that stupid to happen to Riven but this… This is a big deal. Come on now, time travel with a Celebi? You came all the way to Unova after the lockdown for this? And the risk! Going back in time never ends well for anyone, and I damn well know that a baby Electrike has a larger attention span than Riven. There's no way he'd sit still. What were you trying to do, rewrite history? Isn't that—well isn't it super dangerous? What if it unborns us!"

He desperately patted himself down just in case parts of his body were disappearing.

"That was never the intention, and I don't think you were ever at risk of getting 'unborn', Will. Celebi said that it only wanted to show him something. I didn't expect- " Steven shrunk slightly in his chair, a flash of guilt running along his frown. "I didn't expect this. I'm sorry."

Riven tried to protest and say it was fine but the younger man scowled at him, growing increasingly more irate the more he heard. It was reckless, honestly. Especially coming to Unova with everything going on. Reckless usually wasn't a word Will would use to describe Steven, but things had to be said and he was frankly in dire need of a verbal lashing. He pointed at the former champion.

"You should've known something like this would happen. It's never this simple when it comes to legendaries. Only five minutes? You were there when Kyogre and Groudon went Mankeyshit. When goddamn Rayquaza came down from the sky like a god and told them to stop their lover's spat. Or when it and Deoxys nearly blew up LaRousse! I saw the news on that, all of Hoenn did. Can't trust legendaries, especially ones that can travel through time. That's what the legends and myths always say. If a god comes along to offer you something, you should say no. And bringing a Johtoan legendary to Unova, aka poacher central? How did this even happen? To you of all people?"

The former champion's shoulders sagged, electing to take a sip from his now lukewarm tea. Will was right, and he felt like a fool for believing it could have been a simple endeavor. "I made a mistake, I realize that now." He winced, noting the battered state of Riven's armored tunic and the wear from what had to be glancing blows of claw and sword alike.

"A Celebi approached me before the Unovan lockdown, citing dooms and prophecies up and down if I didn't follow its heed. I tried to get it to leave while it pestered me for weeks and tried to follow me to board meetings. I didn't have much of a choice unless I wanted to throw the whole region into a frenzy because I was in possession of a legendary time traveling pokemon. Those legends also have another warning, too. If a god comes along you can't just reject what it wants, or else bad things happen regardless of what you do. Having to continuously trim the plants in my office was honestly getting ridiculous too, and it was costing the company several hundred every few days because the plants in the lobby and in the gardens were growing out of control. We had to cut down a tree five times! It didn't want to leave. I was at my wit's end, I had to do something."

Will shook his head and crossed his arms in disapproval. Steven had the right idea of heeding the call. The myths were never kind to whatever unlucky sod happened to cross a legendary pokemon's path. Still though… "A Celebi, a notoriously reclusive pokemon, sought you out? Or did you find it? Where? In a fairy tale forest somewhere in the depths of Fortree? Celebi aren't even from Hoenn. What would one be doing there?"

"I didn't find it…" He paused and sighed. "I never left Rustboro, actually," Steven replied weakly, scarcely believing what he was saying himself. "It appeared in my office and I nearly had a heart attack from the sheer shock of seeing a pokemon of legend just floating there. I don't think I've been surprised like that since my trainer days. That was-it's been a long time."

Gale and Will tried to put that scenario together and failed. Steven frowned, acknowledging exactly how absurd the whole thing sounded. "I know it sounds insane."

"Being around Riven that isn't saying much, but a recluse traveling to a human city where anybody would go nuts at trying to capture it in a region it doesn't belong to? It's kind of a stretch, Steven," Gale pointed out.

"Yes, the idea of normal and believable has been thoroughly abused at this point, but it did show me something that I couldn't deny. I've been following this ever since Will changed and Riven showed me his memories. I can't rule anything out."

Long, sleepless nights were common for the former champion, the thoughts of what came before eroding away any chance of sleep he might've hoped for. What had happened to mankind if they were once, in fact, biologically superior to even most pokemon? And why was the gap between Riven's era and the others so vast, yet multiple civilizations had appeared and vanished all within a short period of two thousand years? How many reiterations of mankind had occurred? Most importantly, why? The endless questions consumed him to the point of insanity. He needed answers. Celebi had provided an opportunity to quench the thirst that plagued him.

He took it.

"Nothing about it seemed right, or correct. Time travel was, is, something I fear mankind could corrupt, but this was an opportunity that couldn't be ignored. Am I a hypocrite for saying that? Yes, that I don't deny. However, something pushed that Celebi to do what no Celebi in its right mind would ever do. The psychics are starting to act up along the world, even Meta has been behaving strangely. Whatever it was that Celebi saw, it was of more importance than its own life or safety."

"What could have been more worth than a legendary's life?" Gale asked, finding the idea incomprehensible.

"An entire society. And what they represented, created, and influenced the world with. They could have brought back Origins into the world full scale. That either could have elevated humanity, or broken it," Riven replied grimly. His air of time-addled lunacy disappeared, replaced by a more serious tone.

"Celebi are said to loathe suffering and catastrophic events—especially human ones. Human emotions are much stronger, more focused to psychics. Celebi are particularly sensitive. Human hatred and anger are so much deeper than a pokemon's. We're capable of such terrible things; it's no wonder why Mewtwo exploded the way it did." He paused. "Regardless of what it wanted, it showed him Naueilh. The city of Origins, whose ruins lay in the sand of the Mauville desert to this day. Celebi took me there, to find out what had killed their society and why there's barely a trace of them, how everything went wrong. I can't say I wasn't curious. It's not really his fault and yes, it was… is that important. Celebi could've probably made him do it if it wanted to."

He hummed, stroking his chin.

"Couldn't pass it up regardless of the fact. Mainly because it didn't really give me a choice in the matter before it dunked me twenty thousand years in the past in an oasis that had no business being in such an unforgiving desert. Will and I can attest to how dangerous Mauville's desert can be to anything alive."

His friends didn't seem so convinced. Not until he pulled out his holo caster, now far more ragged, weathered, and worn, with dozens of chips and scratches marring its surface. Several cracks ran down the protective casing and a deep depression in the casing looked like a stray arrow had smashed into the thing at one point. The holo caster probably got thrown into hell, chewed up and spat back out for all they knew; it was a miracle it still turned on. As if embarrassed by their staring, he fumbled to remove the barely intact casing. He brought up a picture that he took on his first day there, standing outside the city's high walls—walls that were nowhere near as puny as the primitive defensive walls of medieval era cities and holds. Rota had nothing on this, whether in size or intricacy. Fractals and ancient designs ran across smooth cut stone and marble—just coming up to a gate like that would drop any jaw.

Scrolling through more pictures, his friends became more and more amazed at the architectural complexity. Spires as tall as some of the skyscrapers in Castelia serving as vertical farms, housing a litany of wild pokemon that made their nests in those nooks and crannies. Beedrill, Aipom, and grass pokemon thrived in there, no doubt lending their abilities to help the crops grow. It was like an entire ecosystem!

And the nighttime photos could've passed for Black City at night. Everything just… glowed! Showing them more photos of the general populace and the surrounding structures had them in awe. It was like a ancient fantasy city come to life! Gale and Will's eyes were bursting with amazement.

"This was in a desert? No way it's… The same desert that almost killed us?" Will breathed out. "Where I became-"

"Yeah, the very same."

"You lived there?"

"When I wasn't visiting the rest of the world, yeah. There was some kind of glow-y shield that blocked out most of the heat so it wasn't a blistering hellhole, but the place was still a desert—not exactly known for crisp spring mornings. Many who lived there weren't pale for a reason. I spent quite some time outside. The city was remarkable, if you could get past the uncomfortable location of it."

"Explains the skin tone. Arceus' balls what happened to it? The ruins are tiny compared to what it was! No way this was it. Can't be. The desert couldn't have swallowed it up completely, right?"

"No, I don't think it could. It was too large for just nature to overtake with so little ruins left. And to be fair, it was a lot more pristine then. Time and disuse wears things down quickly, and ten millenniums is a very long time," Riven smiled slightly, his arms crossed. "Looks like the only thing that survived was the shrine. You opened the generator room, actually. Heh, Akos and Yeuv would've never let us strut in there and take the power sphere for the entire shrine-"

He paused abruptly and instantly dropped to his knees. He held his head, groaning.

"Uh, Riven? You okay?"

More pained groans.

"What's happening? Why's he-"

"Headache?" Steven asked, but Riven continued, rubbing his head continuously.

Gale blinked. "Uh, should we get him some migraine medicine or something? Is he sick?"

"Not physically. Medicine won't help," Hasei put in, peering over like he was looking at a struggling drunk. Took a sniff for good measure too, and wrinkled his nose. "This happens a lot. It's not a regular migraine. More like someone driving a stake through the front of your brain. He should be fine."

He waved a hand as they all turned to glare at him.

"That usually kills people."

"It does?" Hasei found that surprising, somehow. He eyed Riven with a half turned head. "How very interesting."

Will and Gale both felt like tearing their hair out. Was he messing with them? Will glared at him so hard he thought he might just combust. "No big deal then. Right, because that's totally normal. Is this somehow related to you both being dark types? Freaky side effect?"

Riven was now laying down on the floor, gripping his head and beginning to twitch. Gale and Steven were starting to distress just a little. The pokemon were just as bewildered and Quil seemed to back away as if fearing the migraine was contagious, Evie followed his example, raising a paw to her snout.

"Pretty much," Hasei confirmed flatly. "His mind's kind of a scrambled egg right now so sensitive memories make the dark aura flare up sometimes. Only seldom involves screaming." He craned his neck to see Riven struggling, rubbing his chin. "Hmmm, his breathing is increasing. That may not be a good thing."

"May not be a good thing?"

Hasei shrugged indifferently. "I'm not a doctor."

"Some help you are," Gale grumbled as she gave him a very pointed look. As Riven began positively hyperventilating, he was whispering to himself in an unintelligible dialect or some kind of gibberish no one could quite make out. Will started to panic.

"Uh, w-will it pass? He's freaking out, dude."

The twin scratched his chin, "I'm not sure, sometimes it comes and goes but not usually this bad— Oh. That's definitely not good."

Suddenly, Riven went slack, his face in his hands as he cursed. He choked, his fists clenching as wisps of black energy crawled up his hands.

A wave of anguish like a giant's hands crushing them into its palms fell on the room, an explosion of negative emotion stirring up uncomfortable memories in each and every person and pokemon present. The last breath of a loving father. The mangled sight of a dear friend killed by strangers. The grim reports of the hurricanes, typhoons, and eruptions that had followed Kyogre and Groudon—and the bodies that weren't found.

Pain they had thought had subsided years ago came surging forth like a fresh wound.

Hasei, on the other hand, clicked his teeth in annoyance. "My apologies, it seems that I lied. This one is pretty serious. One sec."

A hand rose.

White light engulfed the twin's armored gauntlet, bringing it down with so much force that it sounded like an explosion instead of a slap. Riven had ended up across the room face down with a rapidly swelling face. The crushing veil of emotion lifted as suddenly as it had appeared, leaving the others in the room glued to their spots, cold sweat running down their faces. Hasei casually leaned against a wall, shaking out the hand that delivered the slap.

"Now look at the mess you've made, primary. Stupid prince, leaving everyone else to pick up the tab as usual. I'll fix this." His eyes glowed red and a force tugged at the others' cores, reaching inside their minds and stripping away that newfound grief as quickly as it had come. The twin hissed into a growl as a flow of Other coalesced and absorbed into his skin. "You're all welcome, by the way."

Glowering spheres of flame that were a second ago burning brighter than a blowtorch now fizzled and sputtered in Will's hands. He examined his hands for a brief moment, then whirled about the room, wondering where the wilderness and the dampness of the route where he'd lost Nez had gone. Gale nearly fell to the floor as she felt her knees lose their strength. She wasn't in her father's house on the plains on the eve of his death, but back in the hotel room. In the present. Steven wasn't in a graveyard anymore, watching officials lay the victims of Groudon and Kyogre's tantrums to rest.

A dream made real? They weren't asleep, were they? No, a pinch confirmed they were wide awake. Ghosts put victims to sleep before giving them nightmares… this was…

Will's mouth felt dry, almost as dry as when he'd been dying of thirst. He tried to swallow, but found himself at a loss for words. That feeling was gone, but their bodies remembered it. Gale used a panicking Evie to right herself, still wobbling on shaky legs while Steven held a broken teacup in his hands, watching the blood trickle down onto the table, stunned.

"What was that?" Steven asked, voice breaking. Beads of sweat dripped down his face, slicking strands of steel-grey hair to his face. "His dark aura's gotten stronger?"

"Training something you neglected all your life tends to make it stronger, yes. His dark aura isn't pathetic anymore," Hasei answered, cracking his neck and shivering a bit as the residual goosebumps subsided. He pointed at Steven with a finger, his movements exactly like Riven's. "Let this be a cautionary tale about hanging around negative empaths that aren't espers and have control issues," he replied with strained difficulty. His eyes were still glowing a faint, ominous red.

"If you knew what it was, why didn't you stop it earlier?"

"Because I didn't know if it was a full blown aura spike. Had to let it play out. Can't smash his head too often, he'll lose the only braincell his brain and body fight over every day. On the bright side, if he starts influencing people like that again, rattle his brains to get him to stop. Just, you know, don't do it too often. Might just beat some sense into him. That'd be terrible."

Will noted the red side of Riven's face and grimaced. That was a rattle? Slap like that probably would've knocked someone's teeth out regularly.

"Don't be afraid to hit a little harder than usual," Hasei assured, noting the younger trainee's bewildered expression. "Origins are made of stronger stuff."

"Dark types are empaths?" Gale asked instead, surprised. She saw Riven beginning to stir in the corner, cringing after Will when she saw the slap side of his face. "I… thought psychics were?"

Riven stumbled to his feet, swayed, and crashed into the wall. Evie huffed in amusement, barking something offensive in Mightyena.

"Evie, that's not nice! How hard did you hit him? Can you go help him up, girl?"

The Mightyena whined petulantly and was quickly convinced with a bribe of Pignite bacon and those delicious cream stuffed snacks they sold in downtown Black City. Gale sighed.

"Quick attack might've over done it. But it'd be less fun for sure." Hasei shrugged. "Anyway, some psychics are empathic, like Gardevoir and Gallade, sure. But many of them read minds and at times, objects, not emotions. And some dark types, like primary and I, can see, feel, and consume negative emotions to power ourselves. I'm sure some of us at least had Pressure, given the presence of panic they instilled on the battlefield. I'm not entirely sure, though. Abilities can be random with Origins compared to pokemon. We call the ability Emotion Eater, a subtype of dark aura. The ability to influence negative emotion and consume it to raise our strength. Normally we'd be able to do everything if we were still joined. However, thanks to our condition… both of us can see and feel them around us, but only he is able to influence, and I am able to consume."

"So you ate our emotions? While he… made them stronger?" Will questioned, his lips curling. Hasei affirmed it with a dip of the head. He paused and from the look on his face, Gale and Steven knew exactly what the guy was thinking. "Negative emotions… Oh jeez, what if it was something super lustful instead? You could eat that also?"

Hasei's eyelid twitched. "Yes…?"

Will turned to his Typhlosion and feign retched, the both of them sticking out their tongues in synchronized squick. "That sounds disgusting. What if someone's into feet or something weird?"

"Ignore him," Steven said dismissively. Hasei obliged eagerly, disgusted for a moment.

"Yes, I ate those negative feelings he influenced on you. He remembered something that caused him pain, distress. Unable to channel it correctly, he projected it onto all of you in an area and increased the potency. The suddenness of it caused your minds to respond and reflect that in a feedback loop from hell because you're not used to fighting back invasive mental attacks. Subtler ones more so. Once the loop establishes itself, it seems impossible to break unless something on the outside corrects it. That something being me. I just fixed it, temporarily."

"Temporarily?" Gale asked. "How often does this happen?"

"What? His inability to control his birthright? All the time. I've been doing it for him since he was seven," Hasei admitted, almost hissing it in contempt. He pulled up his sleeves, revealing fading black circuitry snaking up his forearms.

"I have prevented many instances like what just happened, trust me. I'm used to it at this point. But now that we're not connected anymore, it doesn't stay inside if he doesn't control it because the part used to rein in that loop belongs to me now. Our ability split and now there's no counterbalance. So that bubble he builds bursts then comes outside. Like a bomb. Used to be so weak that his dark aura couldn't influence someone else unless they were hypersensitive like psychics or he got extremely emotional, but our brush with time travel gave us plenty of room to grow. He was at a child's level of control and a teenager's level of power with an adult's body. Not the case anymore, as you've just experienced. I'm not sure how his condition will react in this time and place, I just know that it won't be pleasant should it remain unchecked."

He squinted at the window.

"Forgot that the modern world has easily ten times the amount of people the old one did. Lots of people, lots of problems and a lot weaker mental strength. The Other flow is a solid stream here, nothing like the wilds and country side, or an Origin city."

"What's the difference?"

"Origins are much stronger for one, harder to crack. Regular humans in comparison leak negativity like a sieve and literally no one trains themselves in how to suppress it anymore like the Unpowered of Naueilh. Living alongside powerful psychics has that effect. Today, however… they see one decapitated head and everyone starts screaming. Really, it's just a head and some blood? No big deal. The Unpowered would barely flinch at that." Yeah, the way he said that so casually didn't come across wrong at all. Hasei barely seemed to notice. "Anyway… Theoretically, Riven should be at his strongest in a city. And I as well, if we were complete anyway. He was so weak with his element before that it was never a problem—for the rest of you."

It didn't click before, as she was still processing the sudden appearance and disappearance of emotion she'd felt, but Gale sucked in a breath as she realized what Hasei was saying. Riven's ability hadn't been a problem much before aside from scaring the daylights out of people at times because he hadn't trained his abilities at all. That much she'd known given his disdain for them. His awakening state had been rather brutish as well from what he'd described, using his abilities to hack and claw his way forward like an uncaged animal. His strength increased to a frightening degree and his abnormal healing capability did as well, but there was no technique or refinement in it. A strong, but inexperienced Origin specializing in physical strength, not unlike most dark types. Will could probably do the same with his fire, and her with her wind—some of the operatives that catalogued their observations speculated that Will was also physical based, while she was more special focused. The methods were different, but largely the same when handled recklessly. Lose control, awaken, and put everything into large, destructive attacks, or explosive, hard-hitting physical ones. It explained the ridiculous strength Riven displayed when awakened. He wasn't exactly doing anything out of the norm.

In retrospect, most of his opponents had been human. If he tried to fight a pokemon doing that, well, he wouldn't last too long with an Origin's very finite internal energy reserves. With the scarily quick healing to offset poor defensive ability like most dark types… Riven had been fighting on a suicidal strategy. She recalled the Petalburg situation and grimaced. Any other type would have died in some of those situations. Gods, she didn't understand it before as a regular human. As an Origin, trying to handle more than you could chew could be disastrous. Their energy reserves were precious.

And that wasn't counting how he'd been suppressing his own ability with the Diancie stones. How could anyone know what their limits were if they barely knew where to start?

Riven's luckier than he thought, Gale concluded. Dark types really are unnatural.

He'd mentioned he'd been able to see and sense negative emotions before, but now? Now he could influence them. Surely as her abilities to control wind grew from barely being able to generate a breeze to a small, raging funnel of cyclone winds after intensive training, his had grown also. His ability wasn't dark aura then. It was similar, but… more focused? How did Origin abilities even compare to those of pokemon?

Her head seemed to spin. Come to think of it, she didn't even know what her unique ability was. Whatever it was, she guaranteed it had nothing to do with emotions, given her element. Riven's, on the other hand, wasn't a good match at all for his mental state; like giving someone covered in oil a burning stick and telling him to juggle it.

In what could have been an undeniable useful ability to any other megalomaniac hell bent on deceiving and cheating his enemies like Cyrus or Giovanni, was now squarely attached to an emotionally unstable child soldier that hated what he had become and what he was since Gale could remember. Elementals weren't nearly as tuned to the mind and body compared to psychics and darks, and likewise the mental types weren't as dependent upon weather or other states like elementals. Sure if she didn't control her wind correctly she'd probably carve everything in front of her into tiny pieces and possibly conjure up a miniaturized tornado, but her mind wasn't breaking apart at the seams from doing so; it was always more of a physical strain. Which… well, it made sense.

Gale chewed on her lip some more. "What kind of area can this go off in?"

"Depends on the nature of emotion he's feeling and how much control of it he wants to exert. Worse case scenario? His mind goes kaput and a whole stadium gets it. When he receives the reverb his brain will most likely turn to scrambled egg if he's got no regulator on. And you're looking at the one that used to be it. Diancie stones can help… but not by much, and that's a band-aid, not a solution. Ticking time bomb. Fun," Hasei stated.

"And he's going to be hanging around a bunch of gym leaders that are more wound up than a spring coil for a month or two?" Will outlined with worry. "I'm sure that'll go right as rain."

"Along with operatives that are known to be haunted by things they've seen," Steven added with a small frown. Hasei nodded again. "This is going to be a problem. I'll see if I can procure some more Diancie beads. Maybe get in touch with Korrina's grandfather to send me some of those crystallized fairy remains from the Tower of Mastery. Fashion it into a wooden bracelet so it doesn't directly contact the skin."

"'N-no beads or fairy," Riven assured drunkenly, using a very unwilling Mightyena as a support. "I'll get… under control. Gah—I can still feel the—" He started to hold his head again and the room almost panicked in alarm. Both of his eyes started to glow a faint blue. Hasei rushed over, placing a finger on Riven's forehead. His eyes returned to normal, and he shook his head, holding it with a hand. "Shit. Almost did it again."

"I can't keep doing this for you, primary," his twin replied seriously, teeth grit. "Especially not in the city. You need to get this under control, quickly. Before the Challenger Rush. Or like the others said, it will end badly if something triggers your memories again."

"I know, I know," Riven nodded in understanding. "I've got several weeks. Promise."

"For the other leaders' sakes, you better. You have to keep up the charade of Nathan the gym leader, remember? Won't work if you remake them live their traumas again like they're fresh. And there will be many after what the Sayres pulled. You'll just break them again and multiple regions will be short gym leaders. Don't fuck it up."

Riven waved a hand. "Brain soup and catatonic gym leaders, yeah, I got it."

Hasei half sighed, slouching in slight exhaustion.

"Well then, given the little show, I assume the rest of you have figured out how our ability was supposed to work, correct? What influencing emotions and consuming them actually entails? It's meant to make us stronger, and by doing that, we need to be able to target where to go, where to inflict maximum pain. The strongest emotions are linked to memories, and strongest of all are the worst experiences of a person's life. Extract it from someone's mind and use it against them. Think about it clearly. There was a reason the Remnants didn't teach us to use our abilities. And why they lied to us, made us believe we didn't have any powers. They knew what it would create. Could create. Knowing a person's pain and the aspect of that pain is much different than being told about it. Even that is dangerous, as you've seen."

"Knowing it? Not like giving directions," Will went on, "but like… seeing through someone's eyes to get there? Experiencing it?"

"Visualization without being invasive like a psychic. Subtle, silent, deadly. Befitting of a dark type." Hasei nodded gravely. The former champion froze.

"Memory visualization. In the worst way possible."

Realization dawned, scaring them all half to death.

Gale stared in mortification as she recalled the memory she had felt, and all the underlying thoughts and whirlwind of emotion she'd felt that day her father died. He knew what she had felt, sharing it in every sense of the word. No, not sharing it. Taking it and repurposing it. Her darkest memory exposed like a nerve. He'd seen it all, no memory visualizer needed. What could he do to others if he learned to control it like Hasei? If he were that much more of a rotten—

His Nightmare.

Will and Steven had drawn the same conclusion, staring in abject horror at the part of Riven that used to be his mental tormentor. Will's fists ignited in synch with Quil, causing the air around them to shimmer. Hasei stood deathly still, keeping his hands perfectly neutral to avoid getting burned to a crisp. His expression was grim and subdued but there was no telling how depraved he could be with someone's deepest darkest secrets, and what kind of damage he could do with them. A Nightmare, in its truest form. A predator of the subconscious mind and its deepest recesses.

And he'd eaten their thoughts too, converting it into selfish power.

"What exactly did you see?" Gale asked apprehensively. A breeze kicked up around their ankles, circulating unbeknownst to her as her emotional state grew more unstable. Hot air blanketed the room from the interaction with the heat both Will and his pokemon were giving off. "B-both of you?"

Riven and Hasei regarded them warily. Riven cursed under his breath and took a chipped knife out of a compartment in his armor, embedding it into the ground point first. "Arthur Pendragon and the Galarian Knights of the Round Table. A well known legend, and a tale of adventure and sacrifice. One of your-" He paused, uncomfortably, glancing away. "-one of your favorite legends. Galahad must've looked dashing in that armor, if only he could take me away from these plains."

"-riding over the hills on his white flamed Rapidash." Gale's eyes went wide, her jaw slack. He held out his hands, palms facing forward.

"You always thought that—"

"The book was enormous in my hands," she finished as her gut coiled in on itself. "My father read it to me instead. Hasei, did you see what I did?" Gale looked like she was about to be sick. The twin grimaced, hesitating. "Did you see it?!" She demanded. Even now he could see the discomfort and revulsion she was feeling; it was a cloud of blue and green that undulated around her head like a bloated snake.

"You read a part of it to him on the day he died," Hasei replied solemnly. "As a parting story, one last time. After emergency services told you that by the time they'd get there, he'd be gone. Lived too far from Lavaridge. You kept reading, even after he stopped moving. The pages still crinkle from dried up tears. Book's underneath in the cellar, locked in a chest with his belongings. You… you don't like talking about it much. And you won't ever get a Rapidash."

To this day she didn't want to hear that story again. There was no way he could've known that before this. She hadn't told anyone. Not Riven, not Flannery, not even Emile or Kyne, even if they knew it was a sore spot for her. Gale heaved like she'd lost the ability to breathe. Evie came to her, rubbing her snout against her trainer's leg as she excused herself to go the restroom, nearly tripping over her own feet to get away. Riven and Hasei watched her go, wincing.

"What about me?" Will asked quietly. Fire waned in his fists. "Nez. Did you—"

"Every detail," Riven replied, staring at the floor, shoulders sagging. "The smell was… I'm sorry, Will. I didn't know how bad it was. How it feels to lose a pokemon. And what it made you do. Pushed you to do. All just to relive some of that in Black City, on the night of the raid. With the chaos and the fire in that building."

"I still have nightmares. And when it gets dark I—" The younger trainee tried swallowing the golf ball in his throat that had formed but found he couldn't. Quil lowered his head, thinking about his lost teammate with palpable sadness. He let out a high pitched whine, butting his trainer with his head. Will gently scratched the Typhlosion's head. "I-I think I'm going to go outside for a little bit too. I need to… I need to think. I'll-I'll be right back. Come on, Quil."

As he left, Riven saw steam rise into the air, a faint sizzle of water evaporating on skin. He turned to see Steven glaring at him, his gaze hard.

"Don't," he warned. "I've seen them enough. In my sleep. You don't need to remind me."

The twins agreed, respecting his decision. They stayed quiet for a few minutes, the sounds of the city filling the room as silence stretched on. The steady stream of water coming from the restroom stopped. Gale and Will reentered the room, still shaky but more composed than they had been earlier. They sat across from the Rivens, watching them with visible discomfort. Steven got up and whispered to them both, no doubt trying to make sure if they were okay. He returned to his seat, entwining his fingers and resting his chin against his hands.

"Are you afraid of me, Gale?" Riven asked, swallowing. "Like Amy was?"

"I'm terrified, but I won't run," she answered quietly. "Just… please don't remind me. Again. If possible, I'd like to forget it happened."

"Okay." Riven agreed, nodding. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to. For any of you."

"We know," Will whispered. "That's the terrifying part, Riven, you did this on accident. Imagine someone who did it on purpose."

Riven's face twisted with guilt.

"How long have you been able to do this?" Steven asked seriously, his eyes narrowing dangerously at Hasei. "And more importantly, can we trust you, Nightmare? Riven may not be able to control it, but you can, so you say. It also strengthens you, and I've seen what power can do to a man. That is what you are now, isn't it?"

"I am flesh and blood." Hasei nodded reluctantly. "Yes. A man."

"Then that makes you, this, dangerous. To anyone. Everyone. Unless we can trust you, and from what you've been relative to what you are now, we have very little reason to confide in a more unhinged version of Riven himself."

Crossing his arms, Hasei exhaled sharply. His teeth were grit together, his mouth turned up in a snarl. His hands clenched and sharpened needles of darkness pierced his skin. Steven stood his ground, unwavering like steel.

"Steven don't-"

The Nightmare hissed at Riven, causing him to back off. "No, he should ask. Everyone should. I knew this would happen eventually. Truth is? I can't guarantee anything. But I can say that you can trust me to be enough Riven to care about all of you the way he does, and realize that abusing this ability is something I don't intend to do, even if I could influence emotions like Riven can. I can't fight something that was decided for me."

"Decided for you?" The former champion's brow furrowed. "What does that mean?"

Hasei clenched his jaw even harder. His teeth seemed to sharpen and his eyes darkened to a shade of crimson.

"I may just be a copy now but I'm not a monster, Steven. Despite what you want to believe I was. I won't use this against any of you. Or innocent people. I, unlike him, can control what I consume, yes, and let me assure you that I wouldn't wish this on anyone. Anyone at all. Who wants to feel other peoples' pain down to the details and all the horrible things that come with it? Not just see. And to repeat it to your friends, people you love? So they look at you like you're a fucking monster and push you away? No."

He eyed Gale. She glanced away.

"It's worse for me than you realize, because these feelings aren't mine, they're his. Almost all of them, his. None of it is mine! Except for everything you claim me to be. The anger, the hate, the loathing, the insanity? The predator inside. I'm finally out but I'm still caged inside. Still just a beast in a world of white and black. There's colors now but everyone is still blind. You criticize the deranged and let the true monsters walk around out there unchecked. All for a misguided notion of trust. If I could, I'd trade away this ability in an instant. But that's the world's cruelty, I can't. What I wouldn't give to be an elemental, or as ordinary as you, Steven. You all got to be your own people, not me."

A hollow laugh came, followed by a wave of pure, unrestricted rage as Hasei's anger, a red hot blaze, began to affect his counterpart. Riven winced in pain.

"H-hasei, stop!"

Anger billowed and grew, building into a net of emotion, enveloping the area into an embrace like a titan's grasp, squeezing and squeezing until-

Wind blew, and Hasei dropped.

Papers scattered about the room in a frenzied spiral. A spiderweb of cracks spread along the window panes as the wind pressure from the attack slammed against them. The dark origin gasped on the floor, coughing and heaving for breath. A feral snarl followed as Evie tackled him into submission, dangerously close to the exposed flesh of his throat. Teeth bared, the Mightyena challenged him to try it. Anger slid off like a layer of dust.

Gale stood over him, wind moving her hair about unnaturally. Her eyes glowed a faint grey. "Not angry anymore?"

The man shook his head frantically, hacking out a strained phrase that sounded like no ma'am. She ordered Evie to get off of him so he could breathe properly. The knuckles on her right hand were torn from directly striking the crystal weaved rings that made up his armor.

"You did say if Riven tried it to rattle his brain. Since you're him, that rattle enough for you? Or should I vent the air around you next time? Choking in an air bubble without oxygen isn't fun." She suggested evenly. He shook his head again slowly, still wheezing for air. She offered a bloody hand to Hasei, hauling him to his feet and back to the bed beside Riven. She'd definitely come a long way from that time she'd broken her hand against the tree. And she was clearly not happy about the situation with her memories.

Gale stood in front of them, her expression flat and impassive. Her hand was still dripping onto the floor, staining the carpet. Hasei squirmed, trying to get a word out to apologize once he'd recovered to a normal rate of breath.

"I'm—"

"Quiet," she commanded, silencing him with a glower. "I don't care if you're the scariest thing this side of the damn region. Shut up and let me look at you. Both of you. Or I'll throw you both out the window without any bird to save you. I'm exhausted and my patience is running out. I don't want to think about what that ability of yours can do. Either of you."

They stilled to a statuesque state, scarcely daring to breathe after the display she'd shown moments ago.

She knelt in front of them, noting the tan of Riven's skin and the lighter shade of Hasei's, likely a product of not months but years of exposure to harsh sun. Whatever had happened to split them, it must have happened much more recently. Recently enough that Hasei wasn't nearly as sun touched. Examining Riven further, she ignored the black lines of circuitry that pulsed beneath, just like the similar patterns of grayish white that were no doubt faintly flowing across her body now—the unique mark of an Origin. Her attention focused on his armor.

Like Steven, she'd deduced that the scuffs, dents, and scratches his armor displayed weren't byproducts of a few months either, or with tussles against small, harmless pokemon. There were even marks she recognized that looked strangely like bullet impacts. When she shifted her attention to Hasei, her blood seemed to curl in on itself the closer she got to him. Everything about him unnerved her, and it wasn't just because he looked, breathed, and responded like the man she grew to love. Like an inverted twin that had stolen his face and body. Knowing what he was before and how much potential he could have if he wanted to be a twisted manipulative bastard scared her. Now more than ever she understood why Amy had turned tail and ran the moment she saw Riven's eye go red several years ago.

That wasn't important now, though. The armor was.

Examining the cuirass, she found the similarity between the tan and the state of the white twin's armor. Both had been around for significantly less time, given the lack of wear on his armor compared to Riven's. Which meant that Riven hadn't been gone just a few months. The relief in his voice was real enough. He'd been there a long time.

"How long were you gone? Really gone?" The girl asked. "How many years?"

His subsequent smile was melancholic and sadder than anything she had ever seen, except in a mirror. Riven had brooded and angsted before, but he never looked like that.

"Six equinoxes I got to see the leaves in Nauielh's spires fall. Year after year. Wondering if I'd find my way home in the next month. Or in another year. Feeling more and more hopeless as time went on." He exhaled sharply. "They were the longest years of my life, Gale. At least Kalos was in the same time period. If this travesty of time travel didn't work, I'd never see this era again. I'd never see you, or Will, or Steven or have a pecha smoothie again. I'm so relieved this worked, because I don't know what I would've done if it didn't. I would've been another ghost… lost in the sands of time, just like them. The Naueilhi. The Vertans. Everyone from my era. Gone. Not even dust to remember them by."

He held up his fingers, imagining sand slipping away through them. He had the face of a young man, but his voice betrayed him. He stared—a far off look in his eyes, seeing past solid wall into some unknown.

Rather than feeling like she should've been comforting him, Gale was finding herself growing increasingly angry at Celebi for stranding him there. Outside, the window panes of the hotel began to rock back and forth with the sudden gusts of air that slammed into the sides of the building. But that anger dissipated when she accepted that being angry at a dead legendary was rather pointless. She gave Hasei a cursory glance to check if his emotional state wasn't causing Riven to influence her. He pulled back his sleeves to show the lack of circuitry visible on his arms, and shook his head slowly. Good, it was her own anger then.

Damn it.

What was she going to gain by being angry anyway? What use would it be to a legendary that probably could have folded her up into eights if it wanted to even with a type advantage. Will seemed to share the sentiment, shaking his head with a grimace. Steven looked like someone had twisted his insides into a knot, the guilt tearing him up.

"It's not your fault, Steven," Riven reminded, his ability to see emotions keenly in the minds of the others. They were hyper aware that he knew now, they'd have to amend that by training with a psychic at some point. "You couldn't have known or controlled that Celebi. The same way a bunch of lightning Origins and every weapon they had couldn't stop it from getting squashed like a bug by Yveltal."

"Yveltal?!" Steven stammered. "That's what killed Celebi?"

"Oblivion wing," Riven said. "Celebi got hit by two of those. It's a miracle the first one didn't kill it. I can't say the same for the people on the ground it hit. There was nothing but black skidmarks left when they hit the ground. Evaporated flesh and bone like it wasn't there."

Steven's mind raced.

"But how? It woke up? Why were you in ancient Kalos? Where?"

"Somewhere near modern day Anistar. Went to go see the capitol of the electric class out of curiosity. Ran into a hungry legendary carrion bird of destruction instead."

"And then Celebi…?"

"Tried to stop it. About as well as a Durant taking on a Tyranitar. Bought us about a few minutes." Riven raised a fist above a flat palm. Then brought it down. Smush.

Steven flinched. "Was that its natural wake up cycle?"

"No," Riven said. "The electric class of Origins, the Teiy, kept extensive records of both Xerneas and Yveltal's awakenings. Occupational hazards. The last time Yveltal had woken up it reportedly destroyed a good portion of ancient Kalos and nearly made it to the coast before Xerneas stopped it. Wasn't due to wake up for another few centuries, at least. So someone either stupidly or maliciously pulled a team Flare, woke it up, and let it loose."

"And it flew to this capitol?"

"Teiy-Seng. Yeah."

"Why?"

Riven rubbed his nose. "Well, imagine you're a very hungry raptor that just woke up from hibernation. And instead of flying around a gigantic expanse of land looking for scraps, there happens to be a large plot of land packed with lots of very energetic lifeforms inside. Like a Staraptor coming across a field of plump Raticate, fat and juicy. If a normal type is regular beef, then fire and lightning Origins are like—"

"Prime cut A5 Miltank steak," Will said, shivering. "How did they survive it waking up before?"

"They spread out and ran like hell until Xerneas decided to step in and stop everything from getting consumed. Good strategy until you're caught with your pants down. Then it's a real bad time. And we were most definitely not ready. We had to try and fight it off with whatever we could and get as many people out of there as possible. I'd say fight but it was barely a fight, really. More like a sorry attempt at trying to stop a rampaging Rhydon with a paper straw and two left feet. Remember how I said my aura makes sensitive psychics go nuts if I go into full awakening? Yveltal's aura makes mine look like a bad joke. It covered a mile or more at least. Forced me to my knees, and I'm resistant to my own typing. Regular people couldn't stop screaming in horror."

"Never mind your type, that's one of the strongest legendaries on the planet. How aren't you dead?" Will wondered. How many weight classes was that? At least several in the cosmic scale of power rankings he'd totally charted in his head from reading one too many comics in a center corner filled with pancakes.

"Same way you can take a fire ball to the face and be fine where others would have severe burns. I was the only one that could halfway move through the sludge of an aura Yveltal exerted and it wasn't focusing me at all. Barely seemed to notice my existence through its hunger. Made it to Celebi's body to see if it was still alive."

"I'm assuming it wasn't, considering how you got here."

"Not for very long. I don't think I've ever seen something survive much longer after getting half its body blown off, so, uh-no. But there was something interesting left behind." He held up an imaginary object in his hands. "A crystallized core. Happens in legendaries too, Steven. Perfectly spherical, and packed with power that'd put our own incomplete crystallized forms to shame. Sound familiar? How many other spheres of power have been involved with the legendaries in the past decade or two?"

Steven's eyes widened. "The orbs of the weather trio and the timespace orbs. You think they're dead legendaries?"

"Maybe not dead exactly, but a large part of their power pools inside them. I'm guessing the stronger legendaries remove them somehow, since I don't think there's really anything that can kill those damn things. Pokemon and people crystallize incompletely when our power goes haywire, our bodies can't handle the energy efficiently, killing us and turning us into a different form that can handle the strain. Not legendaries. Their bodies are incredibly strong, easily able to handle the energy expenditure. No positive feedback loops, or messy crystallizations. I'm guessing they amass power, store it, and shape the cores over the course of their lives."

"Where is the core now?" Steven asked. "Can I see it?"

"Unless you can travel millenniums into the past without the Celebi that killed itself, no," Hasei put in. "The core was used."

"To travel back here?" Will guessed. "I mean, the legendary orbs had some power of the legendaries themselves, so if Celebi could time travel then…" He whirled his fingers, insinuating. "Y'know, what I mean."

"Good idea, and the first Riven and the others thought of. Unfortunately, it'd also be an excellent way to die," Hasei countered. "Or end up in a different dimension in some hellscape, assuming you survive the absolute chaotic mess of a trip in the first place."

"I don't get it. Explain it like I'm five?"

"Do you want a picture book too?" Hasei teased. "There must be some crayons around here somewhere. What's your favorite color? Red, green?" Will flipped him off.

"Traveling through time requires precision that most computers can scarcely handle now. I've seen some of the models," Steven informed. "And there are dangers to such passage, I'm sure. Celebi did it on an instinctual level, as do most legendaries most likely. If they had used the core to try to travel back, their chances of returning to precisely this year, within the hour, and in the same location would more than likely be nearer to zero than a fraction of a percent. Returning should have been impossible, just like being able to split a person into two surely is. But since you're both standing here, that's not the case anymore. Suggesting that is true, how did you make it back, get split apart and what does this core have to do with it? What could have done this?"

"An act of divinity," Riven said sardonically. "Though I think you all should see how for yourselves when you have the time. Plenty of 'video' in there to make it easier to understand, if words don't do justice."

"How-" Will started, for a moment. His mouth fell open as a light shimmered in the center of Riven's chest—a ring of dark blue surrounding a void of black. A pebble sized crystal emerged from it, splitting into three pieces that lost their glossy black sheen, reverting into plain pieces of clear-cut lattice. Quil and Evie traced the tiny white crystals spinning in the air with fascination.

Accept-me-yes?-no?Answer-soon-time-fleeting-reconnect-to-mind.

Yes?

Gale, Will, and Steven barely had time to utter a question as the crystals shot into their chests, absorbing into their skin through their clothes. Red orange shimmered in the center of Will's chest, greyish white in Gale's, and a pure white in Steven's. They staggered back in surprise.

A crystalline etching was grafted onto their skin, as if it had grown out of their sternum. The skin was largely undisturbed with no signs of redness or inflammation. Weird. Really weird.

"What is this?" Steven asked, poking at the bump with a finger. There was no pain, and if not for the fact that he'd seen the implantation happen, he'd have hardly noticed it was there. Pulling on it felt like trying to pull out a fingernail. Will was trying a bit harder.

"Stop pulling at it," Gale directed at Will. "I doubt you'll be able to take it out. It's stuck."

"It would hurt immensely even if he could," Riven pointed out. "Trust me. You don't want that to happen. Fuses to the bone. You'd rip out your sternum along with it first."

Will's eyes went wide and stopped fiddling with it. "W-what is this thing?"

"Naueilhi invention. That, is Kras'vi." Hasei replied, tapping a finger at the crystal weave fibers that covered his forearms. "Remembrance, in english. A subsidiary of Caas'vi—the crystal it's made of—which you can see on our armor. In Naueilhi, it's often referred to as Creation's offspring; these little crystals are a basis for nearly everything in their culture, from armor and weaponry to architecture and fashion. It's a little ridiculous, though, all the glittering hurts the eyes. Normally, Caas'vi amplifies an Origin's abilities, as well as pokemon's. It's the reason the Naueilhi were so powerful, and why they could do things like building floating cities and creating an oasis in an unforgiving desert. Superconductors and insulators."

Yup, Steven's back straightened immediately. Mention superconductor and insulator to a material scientist and they'd start frothing at the mouth. Surprising that Steven hadn't clambered over in a mad craze to go lick the things for some insight. He coughed deliberately, tried to seem nonplussed, but failed as his foot started twitching. He was curious.

"Ahem. Where did these crystals come from? I've never so much as seen anything of the sort."

"That's because they'd be impossible to synthesize with modern day techniques. It'd take an infinite energy source that had to be suspended inside a sealed chamber or it'd break down reality itself," Riven said. He held up his holo caster, showing them all a picture of a black chunk of crystal surrounded by red and blue sparks. "The Creator. Its housing chamber? The machine Will and I stumbled across, which also means that this thing, reality ending capability that it has, is also lost, somewhere in this world. Think about that for a little."

Jaws dropped. Riven whistled casually. "But since we're not dead yet that's not really all that important. I'm sure it got contained somehow, or the Naueilhi opened a rift with it and threw it in after it, otherwise we'd all be dead. Energy source is cool and all but it's not nearly as interesting as what the Offspring crystals could do."

Hasei gave Steven a knowing smirk as the man's interest seemed to be bulging out of his brain. Any more and Riven was sure it'd burst. Riven laughed, making sure to calm the rock enthusiast down before he cut the thing out of his chest to stick it under a microscope as fast as he could.

"Those little crystals can also function as memory constructs if worked on by psychics. The Offspring crystals change properties based on who manipulates them. The reworked psychic crystals—Kras'vi— can record memories and the surrounding information of that memory. Like augmented reality, but with all five senses from an outsider's perspective. Vivid and real, like you were really there. Almost seems like magic. I requested it made so I could avoid overly long explanations. It'll save us time," Riven explained with a wave of the hand. "Viewing it has no effect on the outside world; days spent in there would be seconds out here. It beats recordings in terms of detail, but not accessibility because they are mentally assigned by the user and can't be shared once linked. Making this was impossibly expensive like you wouldn't believe and I was very privileged to even have access to something like this. And this little beauty kicks your machine's ass ten times over, Steven, try not to drool."

Easy for him to say that, considering the guy was nearly twitching in excitement. "How do we activate it, or well, remove it? For uh, practical reasons."

"Reasons that have clearly have nothing to do with research?" Gale teased, watching the man cave as his cheeks flushed.

"Clearly," he replied shamelessly. Riven shook his head, amused.

"As for removing it and activating it—it's pretty simple. Think about it and it'll respond," he explained. "It just pops into your head, almost on instinct. Threw me for a loop the first time I experienced it." He demonstrated by closing his eyes. Reaching behind the armored tunic, he pulled out a black sliver. With another thought, it disappeared back into his chest with a faint chime.

"You can remove them for now. Don't watch the memories inside right now, either. You could watch the whole thing, but you'd be so flayed mentally that it'd knock you off your feet. Sensory overload is a thing even with Origins and psychics. Just know that most of what I saw in my time there is chronicled by yours truly. The crystals also respond to the typing in cells, which is why Steven's is white and both of yours are differently hued. You'll be seeing these crystals a lot in that construct. And lots of colors. The people of the Nauer sovereignty were obsessed with them. Class segregation and what not, blah blah."

"What exactly, will we be seeing in there?" Gale asked, zipping up her uniform. "Will it be like Steven's machine? And its… effects?"

Riven raised an eyebrow. "No, it shouldn't leave any residual traces behind. I also made sure not to include the battles."

"Battles?" Gale jumped immediately. "You fought again?"

Riven's expression sobered, and old pain flickered across his eyes. "Had to. And this isn't the place to talk about that." He swallowed uncomfortably. "I want to talk about what happened with me and Hasei. Remembrance crystals are what allowed Hasei's personality and mine to split without destroying my mind. If someone was a mind surgeon, then these crystals would be the perfect set of surgical tools to use. The psychics are the masters of the mind, after all. Us darks just abuse it in contrast."

"Okay, so that explains the mind part," Will said. "At least I think it does. But what about the Celebi core and the whole body thing. How'd you clone a body in six years? I know scientists have cloned stuff before, but it's either not perfect or takes a really long time. And another thing, why isn't he all… 'rrrgh death, feed me!' Last I checked he was a total psycho. This guy here just seems like a snarkier, angrier you. He reminds me of Evie."

The Mightyena growled at him, realized she was doing exactly what he'd said, and huffed in annoyance instead. Quil tried to pat her in reassurance and received a mouthful of teeth to the paws.

Gale was wondering the same, however. If this was indeed Riven's Nightmare given form, then why wasn't he… well, insane? If anything he seemed more mellow than Riven, barely ever raising his voice in anything other than dull surprise or sarcastic remarks except for the earlier outburst with Steven. Even his reaction had been rather tame and reined in. The one they were familiar with was much more… expressive, often psychotically so. She pursed her lips, refusing to freeze when Hasei kept staring at her. That crimson glare was the same, though. Gale had to remind herself to control her emotions. Her expression softened.

"I know Will put it bluntly but why aren't you—you know, all…" She trailed off.

"Psychotic?" Hasei guessed, tone level. "Demented grins all around? Ghastly laughter? It's okay to say it—you're afraid of me, Gale. Even Steven, though he's trying his best to hide it." Steven's blank expression held, the flow of emotions around him didn't. "I can see it in the Other around you. Don't bother hiding it, you weren't exactly timid almost obliterating my diaphragm earlier so why start now. It's the eyes isn't it? Everyone thinks they're spine-chilling. People often forget to how to use their lungs when I look at them." He scowled at them all. "Will has red eyes too. Why are mine so different?"

Maybe because his pupils were tiny and eerie as heck? Gale winced. Okay, when he glared like that—well it was like trying to stare at a Banette and trying not to freeze in terror, actually. "Something about them does makes your skin crawl. I can't explain it. It's like looking at a ghost pokemon. Sorry."

"I suppose ghosts do often feel similar to what I am." He frowned. "I'm not a natural being, and one born of hatred and negativity, just like ghosts, it's expected, I guess. Regardless, that part you're talking about is still there. I just won't go and bring it out because I'm living in an adult body now and I'm not twelve."

"What does being twelve have anything to do with it?

"Do you remember when you were twelve, Will? That kind of things you'd say? Actually, what things most trainers at that age think and say?"

Thinking about it from the top of his head, the younger trainee wrinkled his nose. "No idea."

"Bullshit, your Jolteon is fucking blue," Hasei pointed out flatly. "Maybe you still are twelve. I'm asking the wrong person, i should ask someone with brain cells to spare, instead."

Will's face flushed. "Piss off. This isn't about me, but I see your point. And Seren goes fast, he has to be blue."

"Whatever helps you sleep at night, William. Getting to the point, I was created by a seven year old that was raised as a child soldier and used as a funnel for negative thoughts; being emotionally stable was impossible," Hasei scoffed, aiming a sidelong leer at Riven. "No small wonder I came across as a psychopath with no filter. I acted out because I had the maturity of a child and since primary over there ignored his abilities for so long, it was like never going through puberty or learning what not being a dick is. Until Remembrance and a more knowledgeable mind used aspects of Riven's personality and traits to round out the edges and complete my psyche. Transferred the resulting consciousness over to another body and there I was. My core is still Riven. For all intents and purposes, I still am him, understand?"

"That's what you meant by your existence being decided for you," Gale gathered. "But why did you even need to have your own body? Couldn't you both coexist?"

"No." Hasei touched his hair, the strands so white and lacking in pigmentation that it'd give a paint can a run for its money. Were it not for the skin tone, he could've been mistaken for having albinism. "Remember how Riven's hair was turning white? It was a sign of our struggle. A Nightmare's existence taxes the body if there is a rejection from its primary, and like all of you, Riven was scared to death of me, regardless if he would've admitted it or not. That caused… friction between us. I wanted to experience the world, and he stubbornly refused to let me. Especially during more-" He eyed Gale and shook his head, "-intense moments."

Will gaped, adding two and two together. Gale gave him a furious glare, her patience wearing thin when he started pointing at her and Riven frantically. "Yes, Will, we had sex. We're adults, big deal. Moving on."

The young man was still sputtering when Hasei shrugged, continuing.

"He'll understand in a few years. Anyway, Riven's lack of training meant I was weaker than I should've been, but I was growing too, surely. When he got sent to the past, he came to a rough realization that he needed more than just his team to survive in a world where Origins are the norm. You think the pokemon out on the deep wild routes are strong? I mean, the Remnant army ran from them for a reason, you know. They were so much nastier back then. Pokemon grow in response to challenge. Origins provided exactly that."

He smirked as the others' eyebrows climbed. "

"Powerful pokemon everywhere," Riven chimed in. "Couldn't ignore the power difference anymore. Traditional fighting kept getting my ass handed to me because pokemon used to fighting powerful Origins with power armor means you have tons of incredibly strong ones running around where you otherwise wouldn't unless you trekked through Victory Road. Each of them were more than capable of tearing any one Origin apart, me included. My damn team had trouble with them, to say nothing of how I fared. I got stronger, but so did he. Eventually it came to a head. My Nightmare was too strong, too dominant to be stuck inside. And it wanted out. Got mind splitting headaches, more of my hair turned white, and his thoughts were starting to mix with mine. My awakening became harder to use, and I nearly killed one of the Naueilhi school instructors. It only got worse as time went on."

He flexed his right hand, darkness solidifying into razor sharp claws of black. A moment later, they splintered and faded away into mist. Hasei nodded grimly.

"Again, my fault. Or at least, the childish version of myself. If something drastic wasn't done soon, I would have killed us or left our brain so damaged we'd remain in a vegetative state, useless to anyone. Obviously, that wasn't ideal and thinking about it now seems logical not to do. My previous reiteration, however, was incredibly selfish. Again, childish preteen stupidity. And given that prospect, came the impossibility of giving me a body to inhabit. After all, how can you just create something like that? Traditional cloning is far beyond anything the Naueilhi could do with their lack of understanding of basic science, much less machinery. They did, however, have the Offspring crystals-"

"-but thousands of years of doing the same thing means innovation wasn't really high on their priority list," Riven added with a hint of venom. "'If it's obviously broken, then just ignore it!' Idiots. They thought getting brainwashed by a psychic into killing someone was sensible. Can you believe that? That's a capital offense these days."

"Ah, I'm guessing that someone was you?" Gale asked. Riven didn't answer, grunting instead. "Of course," she mumbled, sighing.

"That's why they never bothered to pursue advances in medicine, either. That really pissed off the non-Origin people they called the Unpowered—left their children to die of diseases the modern world cured a long time ago and did serious mental gymnastics to justify it based on their high birthrates compared to Origins. Instead, they thought the legendaries would come back and they could give the Unpowered a chance to become Origins again and do away with diseases that don't scratch our immune systems. But they didn't. So now they had an entire populace that outnumbered them hundreds of thousands to one where cultural disgust of those born powerless was practically ingrained into every Origin either born or made. This continued for decades, because why need Unpowered when an Origin could do anything they could, but better? Those poor, poor, weak Unpowered. What sad existences. At least they reproduce fast, like Buneary! Never mind that tuberculosis could rip through a village at record speeds, if the wild bug pokemon didn't do it first. But what choice did they have, stay with neglectful overlords that don't care about you and have a chance to survive even if you have to live with your head down all your life, or tough it out for a few years until something comes out of the forest and chops you up with certainty?"

He'd almost snarled that out, fists clenched.

"Unsurprisingly, they didn't seem to like talking to each other. At all. Even when they were dying. But given the decades of neglect, I wouldn't blame them. If a kid is neglected by his parents constantly, then he's going to stop trying. And when he grows up, he'll start to resent them."

"And eventually hate them." Steven winced. "Poor communication kills."

"Literally. The ones that stayed didn't trust the class leaders or Origins in general. The others… Many of them left and established other kingdoms, with an intent on finding ways to fight the superpowered humans that believed themselves so above them. Distrust got really bad in the cities, least of all Naueilh itself. And being inducted into an Origin? They only took children, and given the cultural sentiment, meant that once those children grew up, they didn't recognize their parents, or their not so lucky siblings. They shamed them, and eventually, probably watched them waste away in the few decades normal human lives had left. It wasn't a blessing, being chosen. Not for the family."

"That's awful," Gale whispered. "How long had that gone on for?"

"Several hundred years. Was so rooted that trying to argue against the idea had everyone thinking I was insane for trying. The ostracization was the insanity, and nobody could see it as a problem. The Origins were the backbone of the empire, and yet their birthrates weren't going up, and they couldn't convert more fast enough to cover deaths out in the field. Did I mention that regular people weren't even allowed to fight? Origins did everything, including going to war. And in war, people die. By the hundreds, by the thousands. Each death straining the limited resources they had to convert more Origins. Wasn't sustainable. A logistical nightmare corkscrewed with a shitstorm. Delusion of the highest order, and I had to literally bang their heads together to get them to see that."

"A fracturing empire past the foot of decline, already in freefall," Steven put together, resting his chin on his hand. He eyed Riven's clone from head to toe, scrutinizing the work and how perfect it was. Then he noted the two blue irises in Riven's eyes instead of the mismatched blue and brown that should have been there instead. And shuddered involuntarily. The twins were identical in body, facial structure, voice, and mannerisms with the only differences being the pigmentation of the hair, skin, and eyes. One was due to the sun, but the others… How? "Their knowledge of the sciences was severely lacking in that case. If they weren't able to provide the means to manipulate Offspring to clone you and alter some aspects of your genes, then who did?"

Hasei spoke up.

"An enemy kingdom famous for its prosthetics that were made of Offspring crystals instead of metal. When your biology isn't cutting it, you turn to technology, just as the humans of this era did. It's what allowed them to fight Origins who had the advantage of greater natural strength than normal people. Their research yielded a promising method but their knowledge of the human body was inferior to the modern day medical professional, but still much better than most of what the Naueilhi were working with. We were twenty thousand years too early for that, and out of time for traditional cloning anyway. In any other circumstance, their technological advances were equally as useless and we were still right and truly fucked. It was a stroke of chance born from disaster that some very talented minds found a way to split us. A blend of past, future, sheer dumb luck, and impossibility. If any of you were religious, you'd say that it was-"

"An act of divinity," Will finished. "A goddamn miracle."

"Science and medicine can often look like that." Riven arched an impressed brow. "I'm surprised you understood that, Will."

A tiny flick of an ember shot out at him, followed by an easy laugh as the fire fizzled out before it reached the end of the room. "I'm a trainer not an idiot."

Those two often did coincide, but nobody felt like mentioning that. Trainers weren't known for making sensible decisions at the best of times. A morbid thought given everything that had happened in recent years.

Steven wracked his brain for a minute, trying to find a way to fit together all that together and kept failing. The others apart from Will seemed to be trying their best, receiving slight migraines and curled lips from frustration. They weren't doctors or scientists and even they knew something wasn't right here. "O-okay, but how does the Celebi core and the Naueilhi research combine to form-" he gestured at Hasei incredulously. "This? How did you get a body so perfectly identical to you and in such little time? If lack of modern understanding of the human condition was the problem, then how was it solved?"

"Maybe they had like a really good ancient 3d printer?" Will suggested, shrugging. "He's not made out of styrofoam or plastic or anything, though. Are you?"

"I can bleed," Hasei replied crossly. Had Will tried to poke him, he'd break his fingers. "I also breathe air, as Gale so evidently demonstrated when she stopped my lungs from working."

She smiled sweetly at him. Riven shook his head and sent a thought to the crystal in his chest and held it out. "Look into the crystal sometime, because I don't think you'd believe me if I said how lucky we got."

"Try me," Will challenged. Gale agreed. Hanging around with this guy only taught her that impossible and difficult only existed for regular people with normal levels of risk tolerance. Didn't take if you were as mad as a Crobat gorged on psychedelic fruit. Recognizing their looks, Riven sighed.

"If I went down to the store right now and bought ten lottery tickets and said all of them were winners, what would-"

"Bullshit," Will said instantly. Riven didn't even get the chance to finish, still holding up a finger, managing to frown at being robbed. "With your luck, you'd win then the state would call you back saying you owed money. Never try to play the stock market, Riv. You'd get eaten alive. Actually, stay away from the Castelia stock exchange in downtown, probably crash the market the moment you walked in there."

"Don't plan to visit, anyway," Riven replied airily. "I'll stick with the scratch-offs, thanks. Okay, say I showed you the winning tickets and I was right? Hypothetically? How would you react?"

Will lumped in Riven, lottery, and winning, He stopped thinking about it when the migraine started. "I'd tell you to get lawyers. Lots of 'em. Although if I was being sensible, I would stab you and then claim you got mugged. Heard that happens a lot to lottery winners."

Riven gave Will a flat look. "Forget the fucking lottery tickets. Trying to break it down for you but no, alright then. The being responsible for sending us back here and cloning me at the molecular level was a legendary fucking pokemon."

"Could have just said that," Will grinned. "Not that I'm complaining, it's fun taking the wind out of your sails when you get dramatic." Riven gave him the finger, scowling. He didn't miss the slight crack in Gale's face as she tried to laugh. Traitor.

"So legendary pokemon, huh?" Will said. "Who could've seen that one coming. Which one was it this time? Xernie?"

"No, not Xernie. If I was standing next to that, I'd be dead. It was Celebi itself, or at least, some vestige of it. Which ordinarily, sounds crazy because-"

"-Celebi got swatted like a baby Yanma by Yveltal," Gale pointed out. "How's a dead legendary able to do anything?"

"And that's where the lucky part comes in. I never said it was the original Celebi," Riven said cryptically. He crossed his arms. "And I never said it was any living legendary known to man, or any natural one. A legendary core is capable of things some would call impossible, just like the full extent of a legendary's power—we have no way to predict what they can or cannot do. They're remarkably similar. And inside there's information and juicy, juicy memories. A legendary's memories and techniques. But there's too much stuff in there for a regular being. So what we needed to organize and decode it was something calculating enough to understand its secrets without frying itself from the inside out. Something a human mind would never be able to, too much information, too much… stuff."

"A computer," Steven mused. "They can handle it if they're powerful enough. At least I believe so. But… That's a tall order for a world without electronics."

"True, but I happened to know where one might be. The only computer in the entire world that could handle it. Our only shot. And it was a long one. Took a lot of work."

A red block flew at Steven, who caught it with mild surprise. A pokedex. Devon made for sure, going by the design—especially this particular model of pokedex. Riven had stubbornly refused to upgrade, never replaced the pokenav he'd lost either. Yes. He knew this model well; it was the prototype model for-

Oh no. "You didn't," Steven managed, going white. "The A.I.s programmed into these models…"

"Were designed to help understand and console lonely trainers on the road with no human travelers. Gave them a human voice to talk to," Riven recalled. "A never before seen intelligence that could adapt to its owner's personality, with damn near impressive growth potential. Almost human like itself and capable of limited free thought. An engineering marvel, I read once. Charles started getting snippy, always wondered why."

"The Celebi core… you combined them? A legendary pokemon's power and a human based AI?!" Steven nearly screeched uncharacteristically. He made a choked noise, face draining color at record speeds.

"Well, yeah. I mean I didn't do that, but yeah, basically. Is that bad?"

"The fact you're asking that question in the first place scares me. Designing a human like intelligence means giving it the potential to fall to human flaws, and giving it a legendary's power along with it? Do you know what kind of havoc would result if that AI suddenly decided humans were a problem? And backed by a legendary's power, memories, and techniques? A time-traveling legendary, that also has vast control over large forests? Have you seen what kind of root-storms Celebi are capable of? And it can clone people with access to an infinite energy source, par your words? Riven, what the hell did you do?"

That certainly stopped everyone cold. Arceus above, they didn't even think twice about the potential ramifications.

For the first time, Hasei held a look of deep concern as he considered it. If that core also retained the dour, fatalistic personality of that Celebi… "We may have made a small mistake."

"Small?" Steven repeated.

"What if it creates indestructible crystal robots that don't stop trying to kill you?" Will feared, already looking at the exits. Gale frowned.

Riven wasn't as fazed, however. "No way. If Charles had gone full genocidal robot mind, we'd have seen it in the history books by now. So either he didn't, or he's gone or dormant. I don't know. It's been twenty thousand years, after all. If he's still alive and kicking, we'll find out eventually, but whether he's a threat or not isn't important at the moment. I can assure you there's no indestructible crystal robots, either."

He was right, of course. They all hadn't ever heard of a killer Celebi running around turning humans into pin cushions with frenzy plants. Nobody had heard anything about man-made legendaries until Mewtwo came along. Gale was glad for once that Riven was as culturally deprived as a kid from the boonies, all those movies were eating Will and Steven's brains.

While the trainees-mostly Will- were arguing with Riven over the specifics of that particular movie, Steven's mind was running a mile a minute. How? He wondered. How did you transfer a being of code and ones and zeros into…?

Scrambling, the man produced a pocket screwdriver from somewhere inside his coat and opened the pokedex to examine the processor and circuits inside. He went deathly still as it creaked open; belaying the expected wear of a journey most old pokedexes displayed, a spiderweb of crystalline growths covered the insides of the device, branching out in tiny yellow, green, and pink strands of crystalline protrusions that looked disturbingly similar to nerves, culminating in a peak of pinkish lattice at the edge of the case, where it appeared to have been broken off. The ends forked and split in patterns eerily familiar to anyone in the medical field.

Or to a botanist.

Roots, not nerves. Hasei mentioned that different types working on the Offspring crystals produced unique effects. Lightning to simulate electrodes, then used grass and lightning to form roots that converted electrical signals into pulses like a plant. Then finally the Remembrance crystals that could reproduce memories and minds. Celebi were known to be incredibly receptive of emotions as well, and being a psychic grass pokemon-

"The core itself grew these roots within the crystals, repurposing them itself! Accepted the AI, converting mechanical code into a mind of its own… That's-" Impossible. Or so he had thought. Once again, the mysteries of Legendary pokemon continued to confound him. "The core was alive?"

Riven abruptly stopped arguing with Will and shrugged.

"Shit if I know. That's the only conclusion we could come up with, because even the grass types there had no idea. Legendaries, man," he said, resigned. "Nobody knows what they're gonna do next. The beating heart of a Celebi and the heart of a forest and all things depending on it. No one understood life quite as much as grass types and the connections between living things like they did. Celebi are at the root of that all. I think… I think the core wanted it to happen. Somewhere in there, Celebi was still alive. That's what I'd like to believe. It wanted us to succeed. The crystals responded to that desire and made it possible. Charles became Celebi, and Celebi became Charles, with the Offspring crystals forming a new body for it in the process. Well, more like a floating clump of crystal than anything resembling a body. Didn't stop it from using telepathy, though, or manipulate objects with psychic power, even without an organic brain."

"A mechanical legendary. A miracle of the future, the past, and luck," Steven mused breathlessly. He reiterated what Hasei had said earlier in wonder and disbelief. "That is astounding. Assuming that's true… but time travel and cloning an entire human body, cell for cell, compound for compound without growing it from scratch… Where did the knowledge needed come from? Celebi couldn't have had it, and Charles wasn't programmed to know anything other than facts about pokemon, much less chemistry and physics. Or anatomy—the intricacies of it all…" Steven blinked. "I know Celebi could extract and impart knowledge, but you said there weren't any medical professionals there, and I don't think Celebi are renowned healers to any capacity. And no offense, Riven—until recently a computer was your worst enemy. I doubt you'd have been able to give any sort of meaningful advice. Except where the best places to end a life would be."

Riven accepted that. Fair point.

Someone could theoretically pop as much matter and compounds they wanted with an infinite amount of energy, and it would amount to very little unless they knew how those compounds worked together in tandem to form a living lifeform so complex that many supercomputers couldn't begin to understand the sheer number of working parts that had to be just right. Worst case scenario Charles could create the soup of hydrocarbons, proteins, fats, and nucleic acids that made up an entire person, but it would remain just that; a blob of stuff, not a person. Lots of building blocks and no guide on where to start.

Riven tried not to scowl. "A touch of disaster and dumb luck can be a blessing. We didn't need to find medical professionals, geneticists, physicists or any of the sort because they came to us. By way of one colossal screw up. And they happened to be some of the brightest and most intelligent researchers this world had to offer. You want lottery tickets? Well we pulled all of them. By accident."

The former champion gave him a glare that could freeze metal. Riven smiled nervously back at him, starting to laugh. Feeling a fierce headache coming on, Steven gripped the bridge of his nose.

"Tell me you didn't do something else that's incredibly stupid. Apart from creating a synthetic legendary with an AI that won't stop learning and can apparently bend the rules of reality with the help of an unlimited energy source?" Oh man was talking so casually about something scientists could have only dreamed of a few years ago downright scary.

"Us do something stupid? No, not us. We got there the correct way, through our dearly departed Celebi. Someone else did something incredibly stupid."

"Shame. It couldn't have happened to nicer people," Hasei added dryly, placing a hand on his chest in salute.

"Who?"

"Singularity," Riven replied, a vicious grin on his face. Will and Gale blinked, then tried to see if their ears were working correctly.

"They're the ones that screwed up? The same guys that have been running us in circles all this time?"

"Apparently they're not as smart as they think they are. The geniuses that be got a hold of a piece of the Creator, a shard of it that was stable enough to exist without being contained. The Naueilhi used those pieces as that could transport thousands across the world in a blink, called them Creation Gates. One managed to survive twenty thousand years and not end up buried under hundreds of feet of rock. And guess what these absolute idiots did to that thing once they got a hold of it." His grin stretched wider, and laughed as if it was the most hilarious bit he'd ever heard.

"They shot a fucking laser at it! Like shooting dynamite with a pistol a foot away from you. Only the dynamite can bend space and time in really not so great ways. Did I mention those scientists got transported along with military trained soldiers? Those soldiers and the Naueilhi, in their infinite wisdom and prejudice, told them to keep their inferiority in line and they had a disagreement. Pissed off the soldiers and as a result, introduced ballistic weaponry to an enemy kingdom that hated the Origins for reasons I outlined before. Will, Gale, how many times do the ops have you clean, disassemble, and go over firearm safety protocols?"

The two trainees looked at each other, drew their weapons, and stripped them down to the parts with practiced speed. Steven couldn't help but stare, especially at Gale. She noted it and nervously laughed.

"Drill Sergeant Finch didn't let me fire off a round until I could do this in my sleep."

"That's it?" Will said, putting the weapon back together casually. "He made me do twenty pushups if I fucked it up, and kept me there until my fingers started bleeding. I think he likes you."

"Yeah, I don't think so. He's married. To a man, Will."

Will's brain exploded. "Whaaaaat? No way. Really?"

"Mhmm. The other girls told me. During the breaks."

"What?! You guys got breaks?"

"Yup," Gale smugly grinned. "I got Bradley's group."

"The fucking all-stars, 'course," Will grumbled. "Life's not fair, man."

Steven held up a hand, blinking in disbelief. "I'm sorry, I'm not a soldier, I don't really understand. What's the point of this?"

Riven pointed at the two trainees' weapons.

"Apart from their instructors making their life suck a bit more, they've only been training with the ops for a few months. And they can do that. I'm betting Gale's vision and reflexes will make her one hell of a shot with more time, and Will is no slouch either, which I guess is why Yates is going through with it. But the point is that you can teach someone how to be effective with a gun in months. Swordplay? Archery? That takes years of practice, in comparison. And controlling your Origin abilities without killing yourself? Add a few more years, possibly decades. Do the math, time vs training. Bow and blade vs a piece of metal so simple a rock-brained seventeen year old can use."

He gestured to Will immediately.

"You can lose an expendable infantryman, only a few months gone, right? Try losing an Origin that spent decades becoming the weapon they are. Much bigger blow. And all it takes is a piece of shrapnel the size of the tip of your thumb to end them. And ballistic weaponry do work so well on nice, open fields with no cover. Fields that large standing armies were so very fond of in the past. Mash up that, pokemon bred for war, amplification weaponry, war crimes, environmental decimation, and waking legendaries and things get messy enough for dad upstairs to intervene."

Everyone collectively winced.

"Damn it," Steven cursed as he imagined the chaos a battlefield like that would have looked like. "Where did Singularity find this fragment, exactly?"

"Mistralton cave," Riven answered. Nerves shifted to shock, then wry amusement on Steven's face as irony settled in.

"They did our work for us for once. Singularity fought the Swords of Justice?"

"Fought is a strong word. More like… attempted. They drove the Swords back with sheer numbers, and barely managed that. The Swords of Justice should still be licking their wounds, if the timeline fits," Hasei guessed, trying to work the numbers in his head. "Since it was only seventeen minutes for us, I'm guessing it's only been a couple of days since then. Time is so weird."

"How badly did they lose? Any estimates?" Steven wondered. Only idiots fought pokemon that had been fighting humans back for centuries. Those pokemon may not hold the same destructive power as Rayquaza, Yveltal, or Kyurem, but what they lacked for in power they made up for with skill and teamwork. Their sacred sword ended many human lives in previous eras with far too little sense and far too much confidence. The audacity to hunt legendaries for glory. Pure idiocy. He had hoped that when they finally went to go investigate Mistralton that he could reason with them, show the Swords that they sought peace, not violence.

Now it'd be a miracle if they allowed any human near the cave mouth, let alone inside—which inherently ruined several of Steven's plans.

"They got canned, obviously." Riven sounded all too happy to hear his enemies finally got sucker punched where they didn't expect. "Dozens of deaths among their pokemon and only then they managed to drive off Virizion by throwing very powerful fire types at it and drowning the cave in flames. Of course, that means our favorite shady terrorist organization is also actively looking for something they haven't the faintest idea about or how dangerous it is to mess with just a sliver of it. Well, I wouldn't say they don't have a notion now."

"Why's that?"

"Because while the happy accident they caused did launch some people back in time, including the scientists that helped us out, it also killed a lot of people," Hasei replied, filing one of his nails with a nail filer made entirely of some sort of dark glass. It faded into nothing a second later. "From what we were told, a sealed observation room with somewhere between sixty to a hundred people was reduced to about… two dozen? Some of the unlucky bastards ended up fused into walls in different places, or dislocated in separate pieces. After the world stopped going haywire and things returned to normal… well. Someone could very well have lost their lunch bearing witness."

Evie and Quil wrinkled their snouts.

"Which brings up a critical point. Temporal distortions of any kind not caused by legendary pokemon with the ability to manipulate time safely are problematic for the world. That was one of them. The thing behind us is the second one." Riven raised a finger. "Before you ask, we didn't exactly get taken through time like Celebi usually operates. He had Celebi's power, but no idea how to use it. Charles was a human based AI—and Celebi, legendaries in general, don't think like we do. We think in black, white, and gray; they think in blues, oranges, and everything in between. Charles had… issues deciphering it. That restricted a lot of options he had. A lot. All the processing power in the world and ability to learn means a whole lot of jack when what you're reading makes almost no conventional sense. Trying to decode our irrational thought processes is hard enough. Trying to decode thought of something alien? Harder still."

"Like reading a cooking recipe written in hieroglyphics and expecting a five star meal?" Will guessed.

"While drunk and with someone switching all the knives for forks."

"Yeesh. Did Charles have any experience doing something like that?"

"With something as clear as mud, I doubt it," Gale murmured. Judging by the blank stares on Hasei and Riven's faces and the way they shivered thinking about it, no he did not. Say, he briefly had that same expression when she tested drop zone landing with him. She hadn't been sure of that one either, not that she'd ever admit that. She blinked, knowing she was missing something. "At this point I'm afraid to ask, but if he couldn't use Celebi's time travel, what did Charles end up doing?"

Riven scratched his cheek and tried not to shiver.

"Used the Creator to channel enough energy to rip open a hole in space and time, sealed us in a cocoon of Offspring crystals and shot us into the void with scarcely tested calculations and a kick in the ass. Legendary takes you through time? Nice stable, pretty blue passageway, like strolling through a nice neighborhood on a nice day. No bumps, no bruises. You go there on your own with brute force? Lightning and radiation hell, fucking warzone. Steel worked Caas'vi is resilient enough that the cocoon would prevent the unstable passage from breaking us up into tiny little pieces, along with fire, lightning, and ice crystals for insulation from the extreme conditions inside. Layers upon layers of it until our vessel looked like a damn alien spacecraft. Did nothing for the sound, though. I can now say I've been in the world's scariest cannon, and am now a qualified temporal astronaut. I definitely don't want to repeat that. If I ever see another time traveling pokemon, I'm turning around or jumping out the window or off a cliff, I don't care how high up I am. Time travel is bullshit. Spatial travel is bullshit. Both at the same time? No thanks! Think I'm nuts? I'm sane compared to people who think they can control forces like this, they can't. We had to build a super A.I out of a dead legendary to even try to imitate Dialga and Palkia's power. Cyrus was a fucking madman. And an idiot."

Trying to calm himself down, Riven exhaled deeply, settling his shaking hands. Everyone suddenly gained a newfound respect for Celebi. To think people considered it a weak legendary…

"What happened to the cocoon?" Steven asked, peering at the faint outline of distorted air around the portal he knew was there. A layer of fine dust lay scattered about the ground, now spread out everywhere from Gale's wind blast earlier, appearing strangely like grains of some sort of silicate?

"Guess."

Steven studied them warily. They had emerged from the portal without that protection. Meaning… He paled when it came to him. "Exactly how close were you to getting obliterated? This seems rather-"

"Microseconds," Hasei ground out. Steven winced. "If Charles had been wrong by any more than that we'd be atoms, or body parts flying through the portal, ripped apart by the destructive forces inside of unstable time and space currents. It'd be a repeat of Singularity's mistake, and you'd all have hurled your dinners out. The rest of the Offspring got broken down atomically, just a bunch of glass dust now. See the floor?"

He gestured around, pointing out the fine grains that resembled salt more than glass. Steven nodded once, squinting at the portal.

"Hmmm. When I examined the portal that brought you to this world, Riven, the energy signatures and radiation emissions showed signs that it was closing, and it looked nowhere near what this one looks like. The air around is fizzling, shimmering. Is it unstable?"

"Absolutely!" Riven laughed darkly. "So it's not going to get any smaller. It expands because there's a rift exploding with energy behind it. Equilibrium doesn't just apply to heat, you know. Reality itself holds it back as some sort of weird counterforce, and whatever Offspring crystals that survived on the other side are probably just particles now. The energy in there is too great, too chaotic to contain. If all that spills out, then our reality will split at the seams. And then nothing we have in our power to do will stop it. Time travel shouldn't be used by people who don't know what they're doing. Going forward isn't a problem so much, but going back? You have problems. That's why legendaries are very selective about who and what they allow through time, and what they could potentially change."

"Or whose fates they may yet change," Hasei insinuated. "Remove someone from their flow of time, either backward or forward with no way back to settle the difference and it destabilizes time as well, causing divergences and irregular flows of time that don't technically travel straight. Not outright loops, but highly unstable and unnatural paths that give the legendaries a very difficult time regulating. It confuses them."

"Traveling straight by going in zig-zags," Steven summarized, running a hand through his disheveled hair.

"This is… this is fucked," Will put in, crossing his arms. Quil held his paws to his head, complaining about thinking too much. "I take it back, time travel as a superpower kind of sucks."

"You're telling us. Regardless, future sight no longer works, and the mere sight of a displaced person can send psychics using that sight into madness. All they see is a blank void. A vast expanse with no end. And the one who brought that terrible sight a walker between worlds, who has witnessed the end of eras. A bringer of death, of the void. Or so the psychics believe. It's just emptiness, really. They are right about one thing—humanity is not meant to do that. And Origins were not meant to survive. Not once, not twice."

"The Harbinger," Gale whispered. "Or Harbingers… it's not just Riven, is it? It's Origins in general?"

"The time touched, many of whom are Origins, but a dark being predicting the end of times is hardly an uncommon story, right? The dark is the unknown, the void itself. People fear it." Hasei stared down at the floor. Red eyes glittered dangerously with a tinge of sadness. "People and pokemon come up with all sorts of interesting stories in different cultures regarding the end of times. Over centuries, they become something more, from rumor to legend to prophecy. And this one has had over twenty thousand years to do it, passed along generations and generations of psychics who barely recall the original story anymore."

"Cycles repeat," Riven said cryptically. "Think it's a coincidence Absols are being spotted in more regions than normal? They're coming into contact with people sooner, and it's not going well. It didn't in Forina. And I met Haona in Littleroot of all places. I had a feeling the modern world was changing, I just didn't realize how much with how little I knew. The teams, the conflicts, the whole Sinnoh incident, the emergence of so many Origins at once, the Aberrant pokemon… Things are colliding, escalating. There's something going on here, and I'm not sure what it is, or what's behind it. A higher power? Or mere chance? It seems too orchestrated… like someone is playing a game of chess with us. And we just violated two of its rules. Don't piss off the house."

"The two you brought with you," Steven noted gravely. "Removing them from their flow of time and rendering them time-touched like you. Does that affect their consciousness?"

"Oh no. That was something else—Charles brain dumped the entirety of the English language into their brains. They'll be out for some time," Hasei said curtly. "Completely unrelated."

"Shouldn't we at least put them on the bed?" Gale suggested.

"What? No." Both Rivens paled, shaking their heads vehemently. Riven flinched. "No, don't ever suggest that again. Having them get the wrong idea would be a disaster and I don't want to get reamed by a pressurized water spear."

"Or get my eyes seared out," Hasei added. "Or something else seared off." They both shuddered.

Steven arched a grey brow. "They're powerful Origins?"

"Powerful wouldn't really do them justice," Riven mentioned idly. "The blue one nearly destroyed a sector of Naueilh by himself. The other one could kill you with an ember so thin you wouldn't realize you were dead until you hit the ground. We'll get to that later. What's important is that they most definitely do not belong in this era. That draws attention from the psychics and other pokemon sensitive to changes in fate, as if the temporal intrusion threatening to become a reality destroying wormhole hasn't caught the eye of the regulators already. They're going to come here and close it. Forcibly."

He connected the tips of his fingers, then pulled them apart.

Boom.

"Time space trio."

Trio? Not duo. Oh, boy. "Shit," Steven whispered.

"Yup," Riven said grimly. "Hopefully the last one doesn't get involved. It nearly murdered me in a lucid dream. Don't want to see what it can do in the real world."

Everyone swallowed. This wasn't a regular Voltorb used self-destruct or a dragon firing off a hyper beam in a crowded street kind of bad. Heavens above this was potentially region destroying bad. Assuming the worst of course, given the destructive potential they could only imagine. None of them were reported to work well with each other, as most legendaries tended to, so there remained the possibility that they'd start fighting with each other first before closing the anomaly. And the battleground being the densely populated city center at the heart of the Unova region...

Cold sweat broke out on Steven's skin, trying his best not to swear as guilt threatened to tie knots like a fisherman's rope in his stomach. The casualty counts alone would be… And he had led Celebi straight here. What had he done?

His guilt was then sucked away in a flash, wide eyed steel grey darting to Riven's twin, his own eyes glowing slightly red. He mouthed focus—forcing the ex champion's emotions down with a clenched jaw. He breathed out a moment later, his flat expression returning as if nothing had happened. The others had barely noticed, while Riven merely paused for a moment before continuing, allowing it.

"We need to get out of here. Everyone does. I'm not sure how destructive two literal gods might be, but I've reason to believe they won't go overboard. They're nothing like the weather trio, who are as chaotic and homicidal as the skies, seas, and earth. Ever changing, ever shifting. Time and space, on the other hand, have to be stable as a still lake. Regulating something with the potential to destroy reality itself is a tricky business, weather is much safer in comparison. There's leeway."

The Other flow around Steven spiked a boiling, flame red. "By causing thousands of fatalities across Hoenn?" Steven managed bitterly, tampering down on his anger. "That's leeway to you?"

"Not to me. To a legendary? A thousand dead people are nothing to them. I know it's personal for you after Kyogre and Groudon's rampage, Steven, but they don't think like us, remember? But they do understand some form of conventional logic. They recognize that when working with reality destroying forces, precision is better than raw power. I'm confident they won't obliterate Castelia. One thing I know for sure though, is that this hotel will not survive." He aimed a finger at the hazy splotch of air in the corner where space seemed to bend and contort. "I'd say that anything within a block of that thing and anything vertical of that is toast. If there's ever something you could count on trusting me on, it's this. The Creation trio do not play around. Situation gets bad enough, Giratina has to step in to undo massive special and causal shitstorm, and by then things are going to hell in a death spiral and we're all fucked up, down, and sideways."

"Because Giratina will instigate a fight with either of the two, or both," Steven concluded. "Then we'd all be caught in the disaster area."

"Like three brothers who hate each other," Will concluded. "But dad makes 'em work together against their will, or else the town explodes."

Castelia wouldn't survive the results, and neither would many of the most important and influential people in the pokemon world, a majority of whom were gathered in the city at this very moment. One stray attack from a pokemon of that caliber could wipe out entire sectors of the city, if what Riven had said about Yveltal was true. The time space trio were on a completely different level than Xerneas of Yveltal, one stray attack might just take half the city instead.

They wanted to call him crazy. Say he was overexaggerating, but the worry on his face and Hasei's, was clear as day. "How long do we have?" Gale asked frantically, eyeing the portal with apprehension.

"Depends on how fast that portal degenerates. Days, if I'd returned with just Hasei. Ripping those two out of their timeline and destroying their futures turns that into a day at most, two if we're lucky. That kind of violation of natural law is like lighting up a flare in a dark field and screaming like a demented Vigoroth, if the initial bomb of a violation we committed didn't get their attention already. Sticks out like a bloody sore thumb. More rules getting broken gets noticed faster. Good for the world, not good for us."

"Great," Steven muttered, with Gale and Will joining him in their irritation. Will let out a long breath and rubbed his face with a palm.

"So basically, you managed to get some of the world's biggest guns pointed at you and then handed provided them with a mythical target laser. That you put on your own position. Our position."

"About the gist of it, yeah." Riven shifted looks around the room. Even Quil and Evie managed to side-eye him. He held up a finger to protest as Gale cut him off.

"Riv, no. Just—stop talking for a moment. My head is about to explode. This is… too tiring to think about," she pleaded, for her sake. Drain cleaner might've been a good option after all. "Maybe that whole Harbinger prophecy thing the psychics got going on is true after all. Sure looks like the end of days to me… Riven just… why? Why does this keep happening to you?"

He rested his chin on his palm, scratching at the stubble he'd begun to grow.

"I would certainly like to know, so I can finally scratch off those vacation plans I keep postponing indefinitely. I'd like to go skiing some day."

"Woof," Evie barked immediately. Steven and Will's jaws hung open as Gale whirled about to face her pokemon, aghast.

"Evie! Language!"

She snuffed, apparently quite pleased with herself. Gale started scolding her Mightyena, but the more she tried the more her tail seemed to wag as the pokemon launched more and more shots at Riven, with each increasing in creativity and amount of expletives used. Oh man Gale had no idea what the other operatives' pokemon were doing to Evie's language, and it made Riven want to crack up laughing. He was actually very impressed.

"Relax, Gale. She's just mad she has to fight over your affection with me and I'm winning," Riven grinned, as the Mightyena threatened gross violence on his shins. "But she's kind of right, I am a certain kind of idiot. A stubborn idiot. I want this to stop as much as the next guy too. But no. I get stuck with suicidal Celebi, and now instead of everyone else I meet trying to kill me, it's literal gods. Get stuck with the hand your dealt, nothing much to do other than keep on walking. Sorry about the reality ending repercussions but I mean what was I supposed to do, wait twenty of my life times to get back here? We had to do something. Or all of what we did back there was for nothing. If Dialga and Palkia come and fix it without destroying all of Castelia, and the world stays intact, that's a dodged bullet, even if everyone collectively browns their pants when it happens. Me included."

Gale grimaced soberly. He wasn't wrong, but that didn't mean they had to like it. And they couldn't blame a dead pokemon for it, it'd be pointless. Steven understood the frustration, certainly. He just knew he was going for a long, long soak once he was done with this, mind once again in disbelief from the sheer reality breaking insanity of what followed this man and deduced that locking him away would be equally as pointless. Somehow, some way, he'd end up tripping over a world destroying spoon.

A far scarier thought popped into Gale's mind as Steven and Will both groaned tiredly. Her face scrunched and realized that unlike them, she was completely and utterly doomed.

They're not the ones that love this guy. I do. I know I asked for adventure but sheesh!

Most couples went out on adventures, sure. A hike, a far off place. Trainers a little more extreme; maybe beat up a few bad guys here and there, take down scary pokemon and sneak into buildings some time. But no, not her and Riven, their life consisted of being caught up with world ending accidents, time bending pokemon and mercenaries and superhumans and broken children-

Thud.

The window panels cracked just a bit more. Everyone faced the window, then turned to face her. "Sorry, I was just whining mentally. I'm okay now, no big deal. No big deal…" She went for a smile that reassured absolutely no one as the glass gave a final thump. Evie held a paw out in the direction of the window and huffed. The trainee sighed heavily, evening out her hands to slow the winds, the howling dying. Rubbing her forehead with a palm, she wondered if Steven had brought enough migraine medicine for them all, her head was killing her. She hadn't even asked before Steven had fished out a bottle of it from one of his coat pockets and began distributing it like a pack of gum.

"Are we all done having an existential crisis, then?" Hasei said dryly, yawning. "Time is ticking and you all act like almost getting killed by powerful legendaries isn't common. In the past twenty years you've had multiple accounts of sheer fucking idiocy trying to set the legendaries loose and you're surprised Riven pulled something like this? Legendary pokemon don't care, they just act. Humans forget that often, and with aneurysm inducing frequency. We face the consequences, not them. So moping about it won't do shit, we need to act, because that's all we got. Did facing down legends stop Hilbert? Nate? Ethan? May's cousin Sapphire? Or Birch's son? No. It didn't. And they were just trainers, not Origins. Why would it stop us?"

Stunned, the others swallowed, nodding to themselves. Riven exhaled slowly, carefully, eyeing Hasei. His twin inclined his head slightly.

"Hasei's right. Time waits for no one. That being said, any ideas on how to evacuate an entire building and make sure everyone stays away? Without being seen or questioned?"

All was silent for a moment. Then something happened that would've scared the pants off of Lance himself.

Quil raised a paw, a fanged grin stretched across his muzzle.

---

"We are not setting an entire hotel building on fire!"

"We most definitely are."

Gale and Steven both wondered what curse had been placed upon them to have to deal with four positively crazy boys-Quil included- whose solution to the dilemma of getting out of dodge was to set a hotel building on fire. Purposely, and with much devious intent.

In any other situation, it would have been deemed morally reprehensible and criminal in every sense of the word. Today had other plans. From a certain point of view, Will had argued, that setting an entire building on fire was, in fact, not malicious because buildings did not have feelings and it would be malicious instead if they didn't light it on fire to save everyone from certifiable death.

Also, from a certain point of view, they were basically goddamn heroes. And heroes routinely landed in the number one spot for grievous collateral damage and the bane of cleanup crews everywhere. Did Gold go around worrying about property damage while saving the region? Nope. Brendan and Sapphire went without saying—those kids? Tore. Shit. Up. And they were lauded as heroes, man!

It wouldn't do at all to not honor a tested and true tradition of true heroism. Hence, the very aptly named escape plan: Maximum Spice. Quil, as expected was quivering with absolute glee, huffing and bouncing in place just entertaining the thought of turning an entire building into an oversized bonfire. He was even making these really disturbing trilling sounds. His overly excited grunts translated to "for the all father of flame!"

So now the Typhlosion was an arsonist and some sort of cultist. Excellent. Steven, however, was less than amused.

"What do you mean, no? It's brilliant," Riven said uncharacteristically enthusiastic. Which was whoa- scary. "It gives us a reason to evacuate everyone inside without anybody questioning the motive as to why. Big fire agh!" He waved his hands about animatedly.

"Certainly solves the inconvenient problem of not choosing a random abandoned building to meet up in," Hasei agreed, shooting Steven a momentary glance. "And satisfies the horrible moral quandary of letting hundreds of people die through no fault of their own, assuming one cares about that. We wouldn't technically be responsible for their deaths if a legendary decides to level the area. But no, people have to be sensible. That's my only gripe about the modern world, so many rules."

"Not everyone's a damn psycho," Will remarked.

"I bet part of Sinnoh's incarcerated trainer community would disagree on that front," Hasei fired back idly. A collective wince passed around the room. Too soon. "Little children with even blacker hearts. Half grown and still more monstrous than I can ever claim to be. I'm at least a little more sensible about what I want dead, not pretty gym leaders like Gardenia. Even loud well-meaning fools like Wake. Those kids would be better off face down in a ditch."

"Remind me never to let you within a hundred feet of a school."

Hasei chuckled, baring his teeth at Will.

"Boys," Gale reprimanded. They both dropped it. Steven crossed his arms.

"Regardless of intention, we're still committing a crime. Arson is a very serious offense," Steven pointed out sternly, a very grouchy frown replacing his usual face. "Being a former champion and having seen more than enough paperwork involving proprietary damages for two lifetimes, I can say that just thinking about what we're planning to do is raising my blood pressure. And it's wrong." He reluctantly agreed however, after mulling it over. "I'll have to apologize to Alder at some point, this is just cruel."

"What part, the building or the paperwork?" Gale asked, amused.

Steven paused, no doubt having difficulty arguing that one. The girl smirked. "How do you even know that this explosion is even going to happen at all? It didn't happen the first time you came into the world, right?"

"You're dodging the plan while trying to find an excuse to say I'm wrong, aren't you."

"I don't want to commit arson if I don't have to!"

Riven rolled his eyes, and sighed heavily.

"Okay. Listen, the reason it didn't happen last time was because it was the Creation duo doing it themselves then. They fucked up, but it's fine they fucked up. Why? Because they create stable portals that correct themselves. No threat to reality, everyone's good, world isn't going to end, nobody cares. So what if a few superhumans got away, no big deal, they'll die out in a few thousand years, whatever. At least that's what was explained to us by Charles—time travel has a lot of rules, and last time they didn't necessarily break any major ones," Riven answered. "Us, though. Different story entirely. Said the world's correcting forces would be on our asses if the time jump worked. He deciphered that much at least. Synthetic legendary, remember?"

"Right. Synthetic legendary." That really left a bad taste in Steven's mouth. If it was a repeat of the Mewtwo fiasco everyone was screwed. And nobody had a clue where Charles had gone. He didn't nearly share their amusement and banging his head into a wall until he stopped feeling anything felt like the most proper course of action. "Imagine how much attention a legendary, let alone two, would generate if they leveled the entire city block. Assuming they don't erase Castelia off the face of the earth, like you said. Yveltal almost disintegrated a city from what you mentioned. A legendary pokemon acting up would generate attention the same way that this backwards criminal solution is going to draw law enforcement like Venomoths to a light. Especially in the current state of affairs. Same building gets obliterated from space the next day? They'll think it's one of the many criminal elements of the region doing something nefarious, like messing with Kyurem again. With the Plasmas back in activity, public sentiment is going to get worse. I don't like it."

With all the gym leaders currently in the city, Steven was completely correct. The UFOs would be on a swivel for sure more so than usual. And the public reaction after… There was no going around that, but what other choice was there? He was reluctant about it, but it was a risk they had to take, he grudgingly admitted. It set his teeth on edge.

"Don't have to like it. Attract attention, sure. Public sentiment is already well on its way down a hole. But none of it will be anywhere correctly placed. No one questions legendary activity. Can't. Best excuse in the world, bar none. Logical deduction? Boom, legendaries did it. Checkmate, get fucked, thanks for playing. Works every time." Riven stated, tapping his temple with a finger. He refocused. "Which is why we have the plan, to make sure it stays that way."

"Ah yes, the plan," Steven deadpanned. "I must have forgotten I'm amidst villainous masterminds." I used to be a champion, how far I've fallen…

"Heroic!" Will corrected. "You used to be a lot less snippy, Steven. What happened?"

"Met a walking migraine that's contagious," he thought tiredly. "And its friends. It might elevate itself to meningitis soon enough. I may have to start drinking." Will beamed proudly. The former champion leered at him like he was trying his best to launch a flash cannon with his face.

"Nonbelievers aside," Riven gestured to Steven, "we have Quil here do the honors to satisfy his arsonist tendencies, we get the fire alarm to go off in an empty room on the top floor, leave some stoves on, and then we get out of dodge as fast as humanly possible before the fire gets out of control. Hopefully the fire spreads enough so that emergency services can't go in either and won't be present in case either legendary decide to erase part of the hotel. Or all of Castelia. That'd be inconvenient."

The former champion nearly burst a blood vessel. Inconvenient. Right.

"Thinking about the repair bill scares me," Gale muttered. "Whole hotel gets turned to ash. We're about to destroy someone's life, aren't we?"

"Wealthy hotel owner in Castelia City of all places probably won't miss it," Will reasoned. "They probably got insurance for that. Just a faulty gas line and a careless tenant smoking a cig, no one could've possibly predicted that, huh? Missing building might be harder to explain but easier to wave off, nobody questions a legendary. That's stupid. Well, actually they could but what could they do about it anyway? Like getting mad at a thunderstorm. Gonna sue god for blasting your house? It's better than being dead."

"While pointless, they would actually wonder why it happened at all." Steven interjected. "The conspiracy theorists are going to go wild, for sure. I expect whatever happens won't be subtle."

"A subtle Legendary? On a weekday? That'd be something. As for the little conspiracy nuts, let them go as wild as they want. We got the ultimate defense card," Riven replied smugly. "Which, again, is why this plan is perfect, regardless of the fact we're committing a major crime. Nobody can prove anything, and it can be explained away by accident or negligence, which means nothing leads back to us and nobody dies because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. The UFOs will be just as lost as we are and can avoid most of the blowback from the public using the same excuse. If I get pressed on the subject for some reason… well I was still rattled from a shotgun blast to the chest, so I couldn't possibly have done it if I was across the city in another hotel, say… near Glacen Heights meeting a wonderful lady after a stressful day."

Gale cocked an eyebrow at wonderful, while the suggestion made Steven's eyelids twitch. Next time he saw his father, he'd literally throw him back into the CEO spot. Along with all the money that came with it.

"Why do I keep doing this?" Steven asked hopelessly. Riven shrugged.

"Because we're both stupid, and we both can't stay away from shiny rocks? I'll pay you back later when I get to Nimbasa."

"No need, you'd go broke and the last thing we need is having you break into a local smuggler's lair."

Riven smiled, probably because that was exactly what he had planned to do. Hanging his head in defeat, Steven reached for his phone. In the span of a few minutes, he had reserved a very expensive suite for the entire party at the Highrise Hotel, with a balcony that overlooked most of Castelia at that. The expenditure would've given most regular people a heart attack. Steven shook his head, exasperated. "Stressful and expensive. I'm starting to hate you."

"Think about it this way. Without me you'd be one very rich, and very bored retired champ, so it's not a total loss, right?"

Steven gave him a flat look. He was trying not to get his Armaldo to metal claw Riven into a dumpster at the nearest opportunity but his self control was losing the war. He knew Riven could see it too. The asshat.

"At least that money is getting put to good use, so why not take advantage of the resources at hand?"

Somehow, impossibly, Steven's leer had begun to breach the second dimension.

"Using your friend's money. Tch, someone's been learning some dirty new tricks. And you're a gym leader? That's not very heroic thinking." Will said with a smirk. Riven scoffed.

"Nope. But I never got the harem I was promised, so someone lied first. Or the seventy two virgins I keep hearing about to indulge my every fantasy. Got stuck with a girl almost as nuts as me instead with a sadistic streak a mile wide, how one-sided is that? Honestly, I feel cheated." The youngest Origin grinned from ear to ear while Gale punched Riven. "Ow. How do you hit so hard? I'm wearing armor."

She jabbed at him again.

"Stop being a baby. How about this. Next time we're flying, I'll take you high enough to meet god, then you can go and pick whatever virgin you want, but the trip back down won't be so smooth. Terminal velocity has such a nice ring to it…" she challenged in sing-song. He seized up immediately. "Now he's going to be paranoid every time we fly. Oh, it'll be fantastic fun."

"See? She's crazy!" Riven pointed out, grabbing Gale's wrist mid punch and pulling her into a light kiss. She accepted it with a giggle, drawing eye rolls from everyone. Gross.

"Yeah, you're both short a few brain wrinkles, you're perfect for each other, we get it," Will deadpanned. "So are we doing this or what, because I don't want to see the love Pidgey here suck face for a moment longer. Blegh."

"I agree," Hasei ground out gruffly. "Disgusting."

Riven and Gale frowned, pulling away.

"I still don't approve," the former champion stated stubbornly. Oh, for fuck's sake. This time, Will really did bang his head on the nearby wall.

"We have no other options! How else are you going to evacuate a building quickly enough without anyone seeing you? Teleport everyone out? Even with Meta, Baron, my partner and Gale's we won't be able to teleport everyone out, and everyone would see our face and wonder if it's another UFO trick being used against their will. They really didn't like that mass amnesia, and now way am I landing the operatives in more hot water. This way we can get everyone out with no one the wiser and make sure no one else comes back to get accidentally erased from existence. Sucks to be accomplice to arson but you get used to it." Will said, attempting to reassure Steven. "I did after getting kicked out of at least sixteen centers. Might be more since I stopped counting. I should get a medal."

Steven frowned. "You're barely seventeen. That is not something to be proud of, Will."

"Nurse Joys all over Hoenn say the same thing. Weird," the youngest said, beaming from ear to ear. "So, everyone got it?"

"Just one question," Gale added. "How many stoves are we turning on again?"

Will and his Typhlosion traded grins wide enough to put a Gengar to shame. They didn't quite laugh like two evil masterminds, but it was certainly close.

---

So, long time no see, huh? Been about two years since I lasted updated this and frankly, I've been terrible the past few chapters about sticking to this. Life's been a bitch lately, what with covid and all. Everyone out there is facing some sort of crisis right now, and my family is no different. I work in an essential industry, so I didn't get the quarantine experience, and it's been taxing having to work knowing I could bring home a life-threatening disease to my elderly parents, who I now have to provide for with my income. Life works out that way, I guess. So yeah, not much free time to write and such. Most days I just want to slump over my bed and forget about the day.

I had several drafts of this chapter and most of them I found I didn't quite like. One had too many jokes, the others felt a little off. I feel like this one is a better balance of humor and interaction with the characters than the previous drafts, but I don't know. That depends on you guys. Originally it was about 50k words all in all, so I cut it up to allow for better brain digestion and pace it out a little better. Next chapter will be up in a week. Promise this time.

If it feels as if Riven's journey back from the past is jarring, it's supposed to be. Time travel is weird, but I will try my best to explore it in a side story like I mentioned previously, if anyone would be willing to read that when I publish it soon(soon being a loose term). As the answer to some questions I've gotten, Riven's pokemon are fairly strong now(Baron, Aine, and Haona are about at the elite four level when not holding back). Though they are more specialized in dealing with combat as a result of the time slip up than sport fighting, which will become apparent later.

Anyway, I wanted to talk to you guys about something regarding the story itself and its relation with the fanfics it's based on. As some of you may know, it is based on the universe Pedestal is in, and its corresponding story, Ree Majors' Wonderful Journey. I had found the premises incredibly interesting and wished to write a fanfic based on this back in 2014 when I couldn't contain my excitement.

What I did, in my negligence, is failed to consider Digital Skitty's opinion on the matter and proceeded to do it anyway. It was foolish of me and I didn't expect the traction this story got, and no matter the size of following, be it a thousand readers, or none, it was still an error of me to do so.

I want to say I sincerely apologize for any breach of trust I may have incited over this matter. I didn't mean for it to be used in a way that made it seem like I was taking her material in a malicious way.

However, in my absence, Digital Skitty and I have spoken over the matter. She was immensely kind in dealing with the situation and has requested that any characters not my own be properly credited in the chapters they appear, along with their corresponding stories in the author's notes, as well as maintaining executive input on how they're used so I don't butcher something. I am fully on board with this and have tried my absolute best to be true to the characters she envisioned and welcome her input very much. Anything involving her characters will be consulted with her first prior to posting.

Again, I must state I nor any fanfiction writer gain any royalties or monetary compensation from writing whatever it is we write. I'm just projecting my thoughts onto a word document and sharing it for whomever wishes to kill time. That's it. I'm not a published writer or anything of the sort. I literally just do this for fun and unwind. I gain nothing from this. I am simply a fan of her works that wanted to expand on the premises of her works alongside my own storyline. Should some of you reading this deem the action reprehensible, I understand and do not blame you. Just know that we have come to an accord and I am deeply grateful for the consideration she has shown in light of the situation and allowing me to continue the fic with her guidance.

Thank you all for reading and sticking with this throughout my sporadic update schedule, and should you remain an avid reader, I thank you for bringing some satisfaction to someone who is also having a tough time in life, where every bit helps. It means a lot to me, and I would also appreciate if you would extend that admiration to both the fics Pedestal and Ree Majors' Wonderful Journey, from which this fic's backdrop was inspired.

Allen Pershing is owned and created by Digital Skitty, appearing in the fanfic Ree Majors' Wonderful Journey.

Maya Blair Majors is owned and created by Digital Skitty, appearing in the fanfic Ree Majors' Wonderful Journey.

Champion Zachary, Sela Schaffer, Antoine Pollock, and Nicholas Sayre are owned and created by Digital Skitty, appearing in the fanfic Pedestal.

All other characters within this chapter are created by me or already exist as part of pokemon canon. If I missed one, I will come back and correct it. As well as any typos. I don't have betas, my update schedule would drive them nuts if I did. Wouldn't want to burden someone at 3am when I decide to start brain dumping.

Like I said before, I think I'll also take some more time to streamline the earlier chapters a bit and whip them into better shape.

Thank you for reading and until next you goons.