Shiloh hovered opposite the celebi, there in the backyard of some small town house. She couldn't describe exactly what about the other Pokémon made him so interesting to her. Maybe it was being about the same size—maybe it was the pleasant mixture of natural smells and ozone from his jaunt through space and time.

Maybe it was those dark eyes, that looked right into hers and seemed to know all kinds of things about her.

"How do you know my name?" she repeated. "Celebi?"

Aspen showed far less surprise by the meeting. She bounded over to the larger Pokémon, nudging against his leg. "Nice to see you again Dominic. How was your flight?"

Dominic, Shiloh thought. Somehow that seemed like a fitting name for a time traveler. There was something subtly familiar about it, even though she'd never met him. "Grim, just like every time I'm here to help save the world. Where's your mother, sweetie?"

"Dreaming," Aspen answered. "I don't know what happened before she found us. Maybe she was fighting Giratina again."

Dominic shook his head once. "That doesn't happen this year. The Reverse World isn't on our list of unsolved problems." He stopped in the air, inches from Shiloh. "You sure you don't know me? It should be the second or third time by now. We saw a movie together, or—what's the year?"

Saw a movie together? The more she heard this time traveler speak, the less sense his pronouncements made. Was he talking about the strategies used by the most powerful Pokémon in the world to stop a spreading, contagious insanity, or a first date?

"I don't know you," she said, wringing her paws together in the air in front of her. "I didn't know very many Pokémon until now. Just the ones I've trained."

"You were a trainer?" Celebi asked, mouth hanging open. But before she could answer, he rested one hand on her mouth, stopping her. "Wait, don't answer that. This has to be quick. We're running out the clock here."

Shiloh might not be able to say anything, but there was nothing stopping Aspen from speaking her mind. "Remember when you sent Mom back in time, and she had all those weeks to train? Could you do that with Shiloh? She really needs the practice. There's this whole... Pokémon are going crazy, and Plasma is hunting for us. Do you already know about that?"

Dominic nodded once. "That's why I'm here. Not—not about taking Shiloh back with me, unless she wants to. I know how often you've talked about wanting to go to the Stark Mountain volcano to train with the heatran, but—wait, that means you still haven't. I guess I won't take you there."

Her head ached just trying to make sense of what the celebi said. He spoke in such strange, looping paths, without a hint of deception or concealment. It felt like the opposite, someone who knew so many incredible things that she could listen for hours and never learn them all.

"I don't want to go back in time!" Shiloh insisted, before he heard something he shouldn't and decided to use his powers on his own accord. The last thing she needed was getting sent back to a time when there wasn't even a professor who could help her. "It's hard enough living in the time I already know!"

Dominic backed away from her, bobbing up and down in the air. He wasn't as confident a flier as Lane. His wings seemed much more directly involved than even Shiloh's own, too. "Offer's open anytime, Shiloh. But you'll already know that when I tell you. List of places is always getting longer—"

The celebi was blushing too! So there was some way to make the strange situation even stranger. Shiloh didn't manage a reply, just nodded awkwardly. He was definitely asking her out on a date this time. Or at least making sure she knew that he would ask her on one.

"If you want to give my mom a message, I can pass it on," Aspen said. "Or I could leave the two of you alone."

"No!" Celebi landed again. "No to that last part. Yes to the first. Message for Lane. When she wakes up, tell her not to forget about anyone. She already has everything she needs to stop the shadow Pokémon. With a winner like Shiloh fighting on her team, how could she lose."

He blushed a deeper shade of green. "Since she's a victini and that's how her powers work. And... yeah."

Behind Shiloh, a door squeaked on its hinges. A girl stood in the doorway, still wrapped in an old blanket. Out in the sun, Shiloh could make out the little pink sylveon pattern running along the rim. "You... can't really be about to run off on me, Dominic," Lane said.

Shiloh got out of her way, floating a little behind the mew. Not that she was scared of Celebi, it was something else. It was hard to think straight around him. If she kept going, she might say something she regretted.

It couldn't have been more than an hour of sleep for the mew. Lane's long pink hair looked even worse than before, and her eyes were bloodshot. She barely noticed the blanket sagging off her shoulder to one side. "You know the rules." Celebi floated up to her head level. "There are places for me to interfere, and places I can't. I'm not trying to be vague to confuse you. I'm trying to follow some extremely confusing bullshit rules without getting zapped back to kindergarten."

Lane yawned, stretching both arms wide. "Right. Say it again, slower this time.

"Don't forget about anyone," Celebi said. "You already have everything you need."

The girl grinned smugly back at him, looking considerably less tired than she had before. "Mewtwo knows how to help the shadow Pokémon! I should've thought of him. It's hard to keep all the different apocalypses in mind at once."

Dominic looked baffled at first, before his wings shifted to a high, angry buzzing. He bobbed up and down, shoving one little hand right in Lane's face. "I can't believe you, Lane! You read my mind! With your kid watching? What kind of mom are you?"

"Shaymin aren't psychic type, Dominic," Lane answered, exasperated. "I've spent enough time as one of them to know that."

Shiloh wasn't sure what part of all this was the strangest—a group of incredibly powerful legendaries all talking in someone's backyard, or so many of them apparently conversing with a human wrapped in a blanket.

"It would be better if you stayed," Lane continued. "You know I could use you right now. Elisa—"

Dominic covered the sides of his head with both hands. "Don't tell, Lane! Learning how awful things are is just going to make it harder to leave."

Lane scooped him out of the air with one arm. Then she bent down, picked up Aspen, and Shiloh too. Her grip was gentle, but so unexpected that she squeaked in surprise. Lane carried them back through the open door and into the kitchen. She sat Aspen down on the counter, but just dropped Shiloh to float under her own power. She managed, narrowly.

"Yeah, that's kinda the point. I know she's still your friend too, even if you're an inscrutable time traveler now." She gestured with one hand, and the door slammed closed. With the other, she waved a carafe out of the coffee maker and over to the sink, where it started filling with water. "One of these days I'm gonna follow you, I know you know that. You're still a Pokémon, Dominic."

"Don't." Whatever playfulness usually existed between them, vanished in an eyeblink. "Interfering with me is one thing. But if you get yourself entangled in time travel, you could end up subject to all the same rules. They're watching you more than most pokemon after the last time, Lane. How much history do you think you can tamper with before you really piss someone off?" He held out his arms closely together, miming a set of handcuffs. "When you're part of time, you're free to create the future you want to see. You don't have to worry about balancing interference with saving the Pokémon you care about."

Shiloh didn't even notice she was floating closer to him until they were only a few inches apart. It was probably the way he spoke—in a way, this Celebi reminded her of her human self. Driven towards goals that others often misunderstood and sometimes questioned. But under all those unanswered questions, she felt a sense of total certainty in what he was doing.

Celebi did want to help.

"To be honest, I didn't read anyone's mind. I just guessed." Lane yawned and stretched, shaking the blanket off her shoulders. She didn't seem terribly concerned that there were Pokémon in the room with her after that. But then, it wasn't like any of them were better dressed. She stumbled half-awake to the counter, then watched as water trickled slowly down, filling the room with that familiar smell.

"Is that such a good idea, Mom?" Aspen asked. "Don't you need more sleep than that?"

Lane shrugged. "You know how long Rest takes, right? Just give me a few more minutes to wake up. And a few hundred milligrams of whatever's in that brown stuff."

"I've already done too much," Dominic continued. "I've told you before—I can go in as blind as you are and help, or I can try to share some perspective, but not be able to do much. This time I chose the latter."

"Hell of a choice this time. All of Team Plasma is hunting me. They have two of my kittens. Will they come for Team Infinity next? You know it can't be a coincidence—the device that originally created shadow Pokémon was in one of their laboratories buried deep in Orre. They come for my nursery a few days later, that's not an accident."

Celebi looked away. "I'm sure that… everything you're seeing is happening for a reason. There is no effect without its cause. No singleton exists, and causes interweave through imperceptible nudges along generations of time. Don't worry about being able to handle them, Lane. You have Victini on your team! You already know how her powers work!"

"If she does, that's one of us," Shiloh said. Hopefully she didn't sound too annoyed with Dominic. He didn't have anything to do with the suffering she'd been through these last few weeks. If she met him without Lane's interference—

That thought made even less sense when she tried to explore it. If she wasn't a Pokémon right now, she wouldn't think he was cute. She would've done the exact same thing she did when she found Lane, and tried to catch him. "I was a trainer. I think I can float pretty good, but that's it. Whatever power I'm supposed to bring, I don't know how to use it."

Why did she care what Dominic thought about her? He was just another Pokémon, like the others in the room. Even so, she watched him closely, the same way she watched the crowd when she performed. "You're one of the fastest learners I know, Shiloh. I'd be surprised if you didn't already know, even if you didn't know that you did."

He floated backwards out of the kitchen, towards the open door. "If anyone asks, I didn't tell you anything useful. If you figured it out, that's on you. I followed the rules, okay?"

Lane poured herself a cup of coffee, leaning backwards on the counter. "Sure thing, Dominic. Same as always. If I somehow save Elisa on my own, you should visit sometime."

"I already did," he replied, as though that were an answer. He zipped out the door, shutting it behind him. Seconds later, the backyard filled with strange noise again, and all the greenery in town started to glow. He vanished in a flash, leaving them alone again.

Lane was silent for a long time, sipping at a mug of steaming hot coffee. "I hope Mewtwo's not mad about Akiko," she muttered. "Dominic's right. I should've got over myself and gone back to him sooner."

Shiloh landed on the counter beside Aspen, stupid bird legs sticking out in front of her, and ears folding behind her head. "I like him."

Lane blinked, looking sideways at her. "That shouldn't surprise me."

If she blushed any brighter, Shiloh would probably light the house on fire.