Disclaimer - I don't own Pokemon or any of its characters; only the idea belongs to me.
Lurking Trouble
Around Northern Ranges, 17th November, 6:30 AM
"Wow!" Goh left out a heavy exhale, "That's some messed up history you have there"
"At first, we were not able to make heads or tails of the situation. After all, when we came to, we were in a completely different world than ours. There were various entities we could not name and some Pokémon we had no knowledge about." Aaron took up to explain the remaining part, "After thinking long and hard about it, we came to a conclusion that it might have been Celebi who had caused us to end up in a different time altogether. So, we decided to get answers from the legendries itself. With the help of our Aura and long few months, we were able to get in touch with Celebi. Apparently even this Celebi comes from a distinct future and not one from this time. It explained to us, a past self of his was forced into performing a time travel, teleporting a tainted one in this era of peace, that a summon was executed. It was around the time the summon was in progress, that Aurora and I happened to wander into the Ilex forest. Since Celebi was forced to perform the time travel, it was not completely in control of its own powers and as a result of which we both were also swooped in as a side-effect, but when the past Celebi had noticed other individuals getting caught in his domain, with as much efforts as possible he had shifted the course of our travel a bit, resulting in us reaching this era only a few months back, while Arioch came here a long time ago."
"Wait" Gary exclaimed, somewhere between the explanation, he had started to take notes and now was trying to make sense of what he had till now. "In short, someone from our time, say Mr. X, summoned your cousin – Arioch, from centuries ago with help of Celebi – the time travel Pokémon. While the summon was in progress, you and miss Aurora reached the Ilex Forest, just in time to be in the diameter of Celebi's time travel domain. Celebi, aware that you are also in his summon domain, tweaked your course of travel which then landed you here just a few months ago, while he delivered Arioch to Mr X, when he summoned him." He scribbled a bit more and then nodded his head.
"I say this Mr X, summoned your cousin around 8 years ago, well what is supposed to be eight years ago. And then they did something to the time clock; disrupting the natural flow of time. I think Celebi just did not wanted you to enter the same time duration as him, maybe it sensed the danger you would have been in if you had all travelled to the same time, but it was being controlled for its power, so the only thing possible for it was to shift your landing time a bit, completely random." Gary theorised
"That sounds valid, considering the events so far." Aurora agreed, Aaron nodding too.
"The first question here should be, does Time Clock even exists in first place?" Leaf asked, she was looking over Gary's shoulder as he continued to scribble theories and possibilities.
"I have not encountered it myself, if I'm being honest." Aaron admitted
"It does" Lucario's sudden interruption had a few jumping in surprise, completely forgetting the Pokémon was also present there.
"And you know that, how?" Tracey asked, a bit sceptical.
"Yes" Lucario answered, "When I was just a small Riolu, my father often used to tell me about a small settlement of various aura precepting Pokémon who used to guard the time. He was proud that one of the major species in the settlement included Lucario's and Riolu's. The time-keeper Pokémon, deity of all, is said to have resided there millennials ago, before it found another territory it had to defend; he left the responsibility of the Clock with the Pokémon there."
"Hey isn't Diagla known as the time-keeper Pokémon? And it's supposed to be in another dimension from ours, it's location in our world is Space-Time tower in Alamos Town, no?" Misty recounted the information she had. Source – of course Dawn, who had animatedly explained their encounter with the Space-Time duo a long time ago.
"But the Space-Time tower was built about a century or so ago, Time Clock dates way back than that." Ash reminded her, "As Lucario said, Diagla left to defend another territory, which could align with it shifting to another dimension – in that long stand-off with Palkia. That would make sense."
"But why would it even leave something so important? Isn't it his duty to keep the time?" Goh asked confused
"It maybe because of some other factor we cannot comprehend at the moment?" Tracey suggested.
"So, all in all we could safely say that the time clock actually exists, huh?" A smirk made its way on Gary's lips as he gave Leaf a side glance. She noticed it and in return only huffed.
"The bet is something being wrong with it, don't get cocky now." Which even she knew was most likely the case if the entity existed, she might as well surrender the bet now when she had time. But she was no quitter, she will see through to the end of it all.
"What I don't understand is, what does Arioch gain from all this?" Misty said, bring everyone back to their original topic. "And what happens when the whole clock actually stops? Won't Diagla be able to restore it since, you know, he is the time-keeper and all."
"Not here I guess, or they have a measure to counter even Diagla." Ash said, thinking of the time he had met the legendary and if anything could help them here, but it all came blank.
"Not only that, but if the world is actually being plunge into chaos and danger, why would someone from this time want to even start such a catastrophe. We don't know what will exactly happen if all the rings stop, so why?" Tracey mused
"That maybe because even if we do not understand the consequences, they do" Aaron said, "There were many tales that circulated during our times. No one was able to get to it, but only hear about it. Even in our times, it was only a Myth, something from the folklores."
"We found one book stating something about it" Misty said, prompting Gary to show them his findings. Gary removed his old and worn-out book and placed it in front of all; surprisingly it was Aurora who easily read through the book,
"The assortment of orbits rest for all masses of land, circumnavigating the sphere of living; only to maintain the harmony within them and assure peace for the wheel of pulse. Beware though, for if the flow is disturbed and the clock shall fail to revolve under influence of thy magical elements; only the counterpart of the disturbed could help till the last orbit ceases. For even after that the crisis push forward - the world shall turn to Ash"
"Is this one of Garrett's?" Aurora asked after she had read the small highlighted para, and then picked up the book and turned it around a bit and confirmed what she had said "Yeah it's his."
"You know that author?" Tracey asked, a bit surprised.
"Yeah"
"How?"
"Because" she turned to the eldest teen and let out a smile "that's my Husband"
"Eh!" The teens exclaimed, not expecting that.
"What are you actually surprised for, the fact that I'm married to the author or that I'm married at all?" Aurora asked, raising an eyebrow at them
"Both!" Gary replied quickly and then bit his tongue for saying it out loud. Misty was about to smack him in his head, but Leaf beat her to it. She hissed something in his ears making Gary go pale and look away. The whole scene made Aurora chuckle at the teens.
"In our times, young ones of age fifteen-sixteen were considered sensible enough to get married." Aaron provided clearing their confusion.
"So even you were married?" Ash asked. When they were in Cameran Palace, he only learned about the Knight Sir Aaron, there was so much other than just his position as Knight that was still unknown.
"Yes" It was Aurora who answered, she made her way towards Ash and placed her hands on his shoulders firmly. The way she was smiling at him reminded him of his mom, full of warmth "And it seems, you are a descendant of his."
"He could be either of your descendent" Misty said, as she was sitting closest to Ash, even she was able to see Aurora's eyes getting a bit moist.
"But I'm not a Ketchum anymore, my descendants won't carry that name" She replied.
"Oh" was all Misty said after that.
"Enough with the talking, now go to sleep. We will start towards the Clock location in the morning" Aaron said
"You know exactly where it is?" Goh asked, surprised and in awe
"We can feel it's dying energy. Afterall it's not very different than a human or Pokémon as it contains it's Aura"
"That's awesome!" Goh was now even more excited for their upcoming journey; there was a whole new mystery lying ahead of them – waiting to be solved..
.
.
.
Some distance away from our heroes…
"Why are we only following the twerps!" James exclaimed, resulting his Jessy covering his mouth, effectively suffocating him.
"Keep it down, James! They will hear us" She snapped at him, louder than he had exclaimed. "And that's what we do! Follow the twerps!"
"But we have been following the twerp and co. for six days now! We should try to grab the Pikachu and make a run for it! But you just decided to follow them without any attempt at taking Pikachu outta nowhere" He argued back
"I did not just decide it, that was after we failed to attack them on the train! We could have been long gone by now." Jessy huffed.
During the train ride from Fuchsia City to Lavender Town the trio had tried to take Pikachu and all the Pokémon on the train, they had an elaborate plan of how they would serve delicious Breakfast with Butterfrees sleep power in it to all the passengers and then swap all the Pokémon and Pikachu and make a run for it; but then they came across some government authorities that were roaming the train. Not wanting to get caught by the authorities they decided to wait to execute their plan. But they never got the chance after that as the twerps had got down on their destination soon after.
"We should've set a trap last night then. It would have got us not only Pikachu but also those two legendary birds in that weird looking Pokéball with the two funny looking people" James pointed out, he also had just the right robot they could use for that.
"Shut it, ya two!" Meowth snapped at them, "We agreed to follow 'em coz we felt its tha time – when the twerp and co goes on world savin' adventure. It's almost tha time of tha year too; our once in a year chance ta be tha heroes!"
"Does not mean we cannot try to steal the Pokémon. Whatever the situation may be, we have never stopped trying to steal their Pokémon. And thinking of it in a hindsight, that has always helped the twerp in its own way, no?" James said, making Jessy and Meowth look at him astounded.
"Wow, you actually said something sensible for once!" Jessy said, then turned straight ahead with a determined look, "Then we will do just that!"
"Let's Go!"
"Wobbuffet!"
Fin
A/N: Sorry for delayed and short update. I'm in process of getting the story and it's timeline together, so the updates might be slow for next few chapters.