Exactly 1.2394 seconds after Gality last said anything, February 14
Gality
"Calm down, Gality. You know what happens when you get angry." I went back in the cave and sat back down. "You think irrationally, and then you do things that you regret." I took a couple deep breaths in order to calm myself down. "Think of a plan." I paced around the fire until I thought of an idea. "So, you're still a renegade, running from the law of your old home, so I can't just go into cities in normal civilian clothes." I looked around in my bag, which they had apparently brought with me. I pulled a light brown cloak out of my bag, though I don't know why there was one there. "Well, I'll look odd compared to the rest of the Pokemon, but at least my face won't be showing if I look down. " I pulled the sleeve of the cloak around my sling, and tucked it behind the end. I walked towards the steep cliff near where I woke up, looking out at the town about a thousand feet below. Stevenston, I thought. I could go to the grand library, like I used to do when I was still living in the community. But what would I look for? I started to trek down the snowy mountain on a path that was flat enough to walk down. The plan is to find Jubilee. It may not be my fault, but someone has to get the job done. The white lights of Stevenston started to approach as I got off the relatively steep part of the mountain. Wait, how am I going to get to Herhen, and how am I going to beat Jubilee? My mind lingered on that thought for a moment. How am I? My most powerful moves basically glance off her. I walked into the outer limits of the sleeping city. Gality, do what you're best at. Using your head. I can trap her! I walked into the library, though it closed about an hour ago. I saw the librarian, Fredrick, turn around.
"The library is closed, so leave!" The Gothielle turned around. "Gality! I haven't seen you in forever!"
"Hello, Frederick. I just came here to do some research."
"Take all the time you need! You know how to get out, and if you leave, please lock up behind you. I'm going to go home and sleep!" I nodded and started walking toward the place that I spent most of my time as a child. I walked over to the AAA-FAA history section, and pulled a book off the shelf titled History of the Culture of Dernek. A wall moved out from beside the shelf, and it closed behind me. I walked into the blue room with about a thousand books and a few monitors, which I liked partially because the existence of the room itself was sort of a cliche. I went to the second bookshelf on the right, where all of the books on traps were stored. There has to be something in here that could stop Jubilee! I thought as I started on the first book.
Luke
I pushed the button on the elevator to bring me to the same floor that I was running away from Gality less than a day before. The stairs were currently off-limits as the architects in the base redesigned them after they fully collapsed. I went to the conference room, as I did many days, though it seemed like the air was different today. There was confusion and disorder in the room. It seemed like Steven hadn't slept much, though he wasn't leading this conversation, Red was. "So, we all know what happened yesterday. However, we must keep going. Steven, you knew the most about Gality's tech. Do you think that you may be able to replicate it?"
"I'll try!" Steven walked out of the conference room.
"Cynthia, keep the other Pokemon from freaking out over this. I know some are in shock about what Gality did, and a similar number are scared that he will come back with a vengeance."
"I can do that, Red. Good luck on what you are doing!" Cynthia also walked out of the room.
"Luke," Red turned towards me. "I need you to dig deeper on why he did this. To be honest, I'm not sure if stranding him was a good idea."
"Well, what else were we supposed to do?" Blue asked.
"We couldn't just lock him in here, yes. He could just mind control us, and even if Luke has a device that could block against those attacks, Luke says that it has a limit." Red started to pace around the table. "Back to what I was saying. He seemed unstable when he was fighting you. Leaving instability alone can be a very risky move." The room was silent for a few seconds. "Well, what's done is done."
"I'm going to get on that assignment you told me to work on, Red." I walked out of the conference room and back into my room, where Selena was just sitting on the bed. "Did you drop Helen off at the park?"
"Yes."
"Okay." I walked over to my dresser and pulled out a laptop that I had found in Gality's workshop. I opened it up, expecting to see a login screen, but the entire computer was wiped of its memory. I started if I could find anything left on the computer when Selena sat next to me.
"Are you okay, Honey?"
"Yes, I'm fine."
"Not that. You know what I'm talking about." I closed the laptop and sighed.
"No, not really. I feel like I could've handled the situation better."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, I just basically told him to leave and attacked him as soon as I heard that he mind controlled people. If I hadn't been under Nightmare beforehand, that wouldn't have happened."
"What did that have to do with it?"
"Nightmare shows the person under it their worst fears, on repeat. The worst ones are repeated over and over, and combined if possible. The one that was repeated the most always started with a normal day, then Gality used mind control on you, and made you fight me. I always had to kill you, then go into hiding as Gality took over the entire world by making them all slaves. When Gality just told me that he was willing to control people's minds, it played out similarly, and I didn't want to have it become reality." Selena put her arms around me.
"Was this prompted by you theorizing that Gality used mind controlled Jubilee?" I nodded. "Luke, it was just a nightmare. It won't actually happen." I embraced her in a hug.
"God, I hope so."
Gality
I closed the book titled How to Stop a Psychic, finally knowing what to do. "So, my best bet is to overload the most offensively powerful psychic I have ever seen with more power. Risky, but it's my only real option." I said to no one in particular as I walked out of the room, opening the door with the button. I locked up the library just as Frederick said, and I exited the city as quick as I could, because the sunrise was rapidly approaching. Now, another problem remains, I thought, getting deeper into the forest. How will I get to Herhen?
Luke
After about two hours of rummaging through useless computer files, I finally found something in it. There was a group of 324 different pages of writing, each with different dates. A diary. Why would Gality keep one of these? "Selena, I found something!" She stopped bouncing a table tennis ball off the wall and turned towards me.
"What is it?"
"It seems like a diary. I'll read this first page." I started skimming it, and the first part seems normal. "The first part is normal, but then it says that 'he finally did it. He killed the stupid Gallade, and he is gone forever, buried in a grave.'" Selena was taken aback by that.
"Gality killed someone? Even when he was fighting you, he didn't finish you off when he had the chance." I nodded.
"Seems odd. I'll read through all of this." I sat there for about five hours, just reading about things that Gality did. Some things were standard. Others were heroic, like when Gality and some other Gallade named Thomas, Stephen, and Antonio stopped a bomb from destroying the Herhen region. Others still were disturbing, like when Gality mind controlled a whole city of Pokemon and made them attack each other. "This is a mixed bag of contradictions, Selena."
"What do you mean?"
"Gality followed up some of his most heroic acts with things that I would deem terrible. It seems like he does what he believes is right, because he writes everything like it is heroic. There is one page that is off here. It seems like it was written by one of Gality's friends named Antonio."
"Well, what does it say?"
"Antonio says that Gality is a very intelligent Gallade, and probably the smartest one there. He also says that he would be a good mayor someday, just like his father, only if he wasn't so passive sometimes."
"So, his father is the mayor of the Gallade Community? How come he never told us this?"
"I don't know."
"Well, is there anything else written there?"
"Yes, there is. Antonio writes that 'Gality could outwit Stephen at anything besides detective work, outfence himself with a sword, and beat anyone in chess. It was almost like he was twenty-five steps ahead of the opponent in everything."
"Interesting. If he can think that far ahead, why does he lose?"
"Just like anyone else. He doesn't know everything, and he just doesn't have the pure power that others have." I closed the laptop and laid down on the bed, somewhat tired after staring at a laptop for seven hours.
"So, who do you think Gality is, Luke?"
"I don't believe that Gality is completely evil and crazy. Some part of me believes that the man that rescued me from never-ending nightmares, and saved my life on some of our daily missions is still there."
"Even after he severely hurt you?"
"Yes."
"Well, on that topic, where did you get that mega stone?"
"Oh yeah, I didn't tell you about that. I never intended to use it, so I didn't think that it was worth talking about. Remember our second date, Selena?"
"Of course. It was about a year and a half ago, and the restaurant we were eating at was attacked. We chased after the Pokemon that had done it into a cave."
"Well, I found a rock in there, and after breaking it open, the stone was in there."
"I don't know how I didn't see that." The room was silent for about ten minutes, both of us just staring at the ceiling. "I'm going to go get Helen." Selena got up and walked out of the room, closing the door behind her.
Blue
"So, Red, what did you bring me here for?" I asked as we sat down on a bench in his pond area.
"Well, I had another one of those dream flashbacks last night."
"What was this one about?"
"So, I was batting with a few other trainers against some Insurgent Pokemon. Then, an Alakazam showed up at their front lines, and mind controlled a man with a Charizard. The man told the… he told the Charizard to…"
"It's okay, Red." I put my hand on his shoulder. "You can tell me."
"He told the Charizard to use Flamethrower. At himself. The man turned to ashes right in front of me. The other trainers with me ran, and I had to retreat, as I was being overrun."
"That's terrible, Red. I'm sorry that you had to experience that." We sat there and watched the Magikarp jump for a while, then Red tapped me on the shoulder.
"I have an idea. How about you see how well your new Pidgeot can fly you around. As you can see, I set up hoops on the ceiling just to train your Pidgeot.
"I will do that." I threw out Pidgeot, and looked up to see a starting platform above me. "Pidgeot, bring me up there." Pidgeot did as instructed. I looked at the circle of hoops laid out in front of me. "Pidgeot, I want you to fly me through that squiggle of hoops, starting from the left. Can you do that?" Pidgeot nodded, and took off. Pidgeot went through the first two easily, then Pidegot had to make a sharp turn to get through the next four. That was a problem, however, because it caused me to fall off when we reached the seventh. I fell into the water, seeing Magikarp and Finneon quickly swimming away. I swam to the surface of the water, where Red was waiting on the dock to help pull me up. He did so, and I stood, soaked, on the dock. Pidgeot landed behind Red on the dock. "Maybe we need some work." Red laughed.
"That wasn't bad for your first flight, Pidgeot. Keep working!" Pidgeot nodded, and I retracted him.
"I should go change clothes." Red nodded, and I started walking back to the entrance of Red's room, trying not to get water everywhere.