Chapter 14: Kidnapping Spree, Part 2
The little house looked very inviting. It was made of stone, and had engravings of ivy and flowers all over it. There was a small orchard of Apple and berry trees surrounding it, and as a breeze stirred through them, the leaves made a cheerful rustling noise.
Suddenly the wind picked up, and there was a flash of light. Once the light dissipated, two figures had appeared in front of the house. One was Mason the celebi, and the other, whom he was still carrying in his arms, was Laura.
"We're here, Laura!" Mason called out happily. When he didn't get a response, he glanced down and cringed when he found that Laura was unconscious. "…Oops... I forgot how disorienting that is if you aren't used to it…"
He flew over to the house and opened the door. As he carried her inside, he thought, "Huh… it's almost like she's a bride and I'm carrying her over the threshold…" He immediately blushed at the thought.
Mason laid her down on a bed before pulling up a chair beside her and sitting down. He watched curiously as she curled up into a ball, and he remained silent while she continued to sleep. She began to stir just a few minutes later.
"Laura! You're awake!" Mason exclaimed.
Laura was still a bit groggy. She looked around in confusion, trying to figure out where she was. She looked at Mason, and her eyes widened as she remembered what had happened.
"Mason! What were you thinking?" she demanded, bolting upright. "Why would you kidnap me?"
Mason was surprised. "K-kidnap? I didn't kidnap you!"
"Well what do you call abruptly stealing someone away in front of her friends and without her consent?"
Mason cringed once he realized that she had a point. "Oh… you're right. Heh heh… sorry…" But then he frowned. "Are… are you saying that you wouldn't have consented?"
Laura's anger seemed to deflate. "No," she sighed. "I'm not saying that. I'm glad to see you. It's just… my friends…"
"…Oh…" Mason replied, glancing away. There was an awkward pause before he suddenly looked back and blurted out, "But seriously, Laura! I'm so glad to see you again!" He paused as he realized something. "But… if you were in this world, why didn't you seek me out when you turned thirteen? And why are you a treecko?"
Laura sighed. "It's… kind of a long story," she admitted. Mason listened attentively as she began, "You see…"
"…and so here we are," she ended.
Mason wore a frown. "I see… amnesia…" He sighed and looked at her with sympathy. "I had no idea you'd been through so much. I knew that Team Rainbow had done the world a great service… but I had no clue that it was you!" He sighed again, "In retrospect, I probably should have. It's just so like you." He got a serious look on his face and said, "I need to thank you. And to apologize…" Laura cocked her head in confusion, so he elaborated, "I wasn't able to fulfill my promise… or my duty to call our Mistress to aid you."
Laura took on a look of surprise that melded once again into one of confusion. "You saw the statues in the cave, right?" Mason asked. When Laura nodded, Mason explained, "The one in the middle—holding the orb—depicts Our Lady… our Mistress. The orb in her hands is supposed to glow blue-green—like the Time Gears—signaling that a channel can be opened. But… for some reason, the color turned to black a few years ago. I haven't been able to contact her since." He frowned as a thought struck him, and he muttered, "Come to think of it… does she even know that you're here?"
Laura frowned as well. "…Our Mistress…" her head drooped in sorrow. "She probably hates me…" she uttered.
"What? No way! She adores you. Trust me," Mason assured.
"But why?" Laura asked, not believing him. "I can't even remember her name…"
Mason sighed and rolled his eyes at her stubbornness. "For one thing," he began, "you have the Dimensional Scream ability. For another—"
"You know about the Dimensional Scream ability?" Laura cut in, surprised. "Can you explain something for me? Grovyle said that I need a partner nearby for it to work… but lately I've been having them all on my own…"
"The partner-thing only lasts until age thirteen. After that, you don't need one. Although their presence will make the vision stronger," Mason explained, waving off her concerns. "Anyway, I wasn't finished."
Laura blushed in embarrassment, but Mason took no notice as he continued, "Another, much stronger, reason Our Lady adores you is because you're you." Laura frowned in confusion, and he sighed. "I know you don't understand it now, but it will all make sense when your memory returns."
"It's a poor servant who can't remember her Mistress' name…" Laura mumbled, still upset.
Mason sighed at her stubbornness. "Like I said, don't worry about it. Besides, she can't really complain about your amnesia, seeing as you only got it by doing her will."
Laura frowned, "But… if I could just remember her name…" Laura tried her hardest to remember, but all she ended up doing was causing a massive headache.
"No, Laura," Mason ordered, grabbing her face and forcing her to look into his eyes. "Do not try to force your memories. It isn't good for you—the headaches are proof of that. Just let yourself remember naturally, okay?"
He dropped his hands and Laura nodded. Then she blushed as her stomach growled. Mason laughed, and she blushed even harder.
"I guess I'd better feed you, huh? You might as well spend the night here, too," Mason said.
Laura frowned. "I'm not sure that's a good idea… it's still early, and everyone is probably already worried sick…"
"Hey, you forget that I'm a celebi," Mason said with a smirk. "I can just take you back to the exact moment when we… uh… 'left.' They won't even have time to worry!"
"… Good point," Laura said. Then she smiled. "All right. Where are we, anyways?"
"Oh, we're in the Eastern Forest," Mason explained. "I still can't believe how big it is… I mean, it was already big in the beginning, but now it's huge!"
Laura giggled and Mason grinned. "Seriously, it's so big that I could get lost by taking three steps outside the house," he said. "In fact, this one time…"
The two spent the rest of the day laughing and talking—although, it was mostly Mason who did the talking—and then the next morning, true to his word, Mason prepared to take Laura home. He grabbed her hand and began to travel back to the past, but then he paused.
"Maybe if you close your eyes it won't be as much of a shock," he suggested. Laura nodded and closed her eyes, and then a light enveloped the two. Once the light had dissipated, the two had vanished from in front of his house.
When they reappeared, they were in front of the Wigglytuff Guild. Mason dropped Laura's hand and looked around.
"Wait here a minute," he said, "I'm going to go see if this is the right time…"
He flew off. Laura watched him go… and then she felt the ground begin to shake…
"H-huh? An earthquake?" she wondered. She heard a grating noise that sounded like the gate opening and she spun around. Her eyes widened at what she saw. "What the-?!"
A few minutes earlier… inside the guild…
"AUGH! THAT CELEBI JUST KIDNAPPED LAURA!" everyone screamed out in shock.
"Hey, hey!" Corphish exclaimed. "We can't just stand here and do nothing! Let's go after them!"
"YEAH!" the other apprentices (and Wigglytuff) agreed.
"Sqauwk! Wait a moment!" Chatot interjected. "We need to be rational about this! We don't even know where…" he trailed off as everyone ignored him and rushed towards the exit, leaving him alone. "…they… went… sigh…" he finished weakly. He shook his head and scurried out after them. "Honestly, those pokémon… and even the Guildmaster…!"
Loudred, who was leading the stampede of pokémon out of the guild, threw open the gates and shouted, "Come ON! We've GOTTA rescue Laur—OW!"
That "Ow" was caused by him rushing out and immediately running into someone and bowling the person over, causing them both to fall to the ground.
"Wh-what in the…?" he muttered to himself as he sat up. He looked down to see…
"LAURA!" he exclaimed in surprise.
Sure enough, there she was, sitting on the ground and rubbing her head from when he had knocked her down. She glanced up at him and offered a small smile.
Everyone else made it out, and the moment they laid eyes on her they all gasped in surprise. "Laura!" they exclaimed happily before they all gathered around her.
"Oh my gosh! Where did you go?!" Sunflora demanded.
"Laura! I'm so glad you're back!" Paula exclaimed as she pulled her friend into a hug.
"Okay, Laura!" a voice called from far away. Everyone turned around to see that the voice belonged to the celebi that had kidnapped her moments before. "So it looks like it's only been a few minutes since I—" he arrived at the guild and saw the looks on everyone's faces. "—took… you… um…"
There was a mini-stare down for a few moments. Then Sunflora broke it by screaming, "EEK! KIDNAPPER!"
"Laura! Get behind me!" Paula demanded as she pulled Laura behind her. She prepared a Thunderbolt attack. "Take this, you—!"
Laura cut her off and stopped her attack on Mason by jumping in front of him and screaming, "NO!"
Everyone was shocked.
"But… but he kidnapped you… and…" Paula stammered, not fully believing her eyes.
Laura shook her head. "It's all right. It was just a misunderstanding," she assured. She glanced back at Mason, who was just as surprised by her actions as everyone else. "Mason is one of my people," Laura continued, "and… he's like family to me."
"WHAT?!" everyone demanded.
Everyone went back inside and clustered around Laura and Mason, demanding an explanation. Once Mason had given it, there was an awkward silence as everyone absorbed it.
"So… yeah. I'm Mason, a celebi," Mason said, formally introducing himself to break the silence. "I really am sorry about the 'kidnapping' thing… it's just… I haven't seen Laura in so long…" He glanced at her and blushed. "I guess I just got a little carried away…"
"It's okay!" Wigglytuff happily assured him. "As long as Laura is okay with it, so are we! Any friend of hers is a friend of ours!"
Mason smiled warmly and bowed in gratitude. "Thank you, Guildmaster Wigglytuff."
"My, my, this certainly is astonishing! So you knew Laura when she was a human?" Chatot asked.
"Yes, that's right," Mason replied, straightening up. "Back when we were both humans, we were very close."
"I see! Back when you were both humans…" Chatot paused and replayed that sentence in his head. "Wait… 'both?' Squawk! You used to be a human too?!"
"Oh!" Paula exclaimed, getting a flash of insight. "Is this the guy you kept painting, Laura?" she asked her friend in a whisper.
Laura immediately began to blush furiously. She stole a quick glance at Mason before looking back to Paula and giving a nearly imperceptible nod.
"Golly!" Bidoof exclaimed. "But… why'd you turn into a celebi? Did you get attacked by Darkrai too?"
Mason shook his head. "No… it's kind of… complicated." He glanced at Laura and sighed, "And I can't really explain it until Laura's memory returns…"
"Hey, hey! I have a question too!" Corphish interjected. "If you knew Laura when she was human, then you must have come from the paralyzed future too! So… why haven't you vanished?"
"V-vanished?" Mason repeated in confusion.
"Yeah! You know, when history was changed!" Corphish clarified.
"Oh! R-right…" Mason seemed a bit uncomfortable. "Um… how should I explain this…?" He glanced away, and his eyes settled on Paula. He got a sudden flash of inspiration. "That's it! I'm like Paula!"
"Huh? Like me?" Paula asked in surprise.
"Yes. You're from this world, correct? This 'world of the past.' So even though you'd been to the future with Laura, when history changed you didn't disappear. I'm sort of like that."
"Oh… I GET it!" Loudred said, nodding his head in understanding.
As everyone else made similar comments, Mason sighed in relief. He cleared his throat, and everyone looked back to him. "So, that's how things are. I hope you won't mind if I come over to visit Laura… but now that I've found her, I just couldn't bear not seeing her!"
"Oh course!" Wigglytuff exclaimed. "Laura is your friendly friend too! Everyone here feels the same way!"
"Yes…" Mason said, looking out at the earnest faces. He smiled widely. "I'm glad." He looked over the crowd one more before turning his gaze towards Laura. "Well, I guess it's time for me to go home. If you—or anyone here—have need of me, please don't hesitate to visit me in the Eastern Forest!"
He drifted back and prepared to teleport, but then he paused when he suddenly remembered something. "Oh!" he exclaimed. "Duh! I almost forgot! I need a sample of everyone's aura!"
"Our AURA?" Loudred asked. "Why would you need THAT? Whatever it is…"
Mason sighed. He really didn't want to go into an explanation of the somewhat-complex subject. Instead, he just said, "The area around my house has an aura sensor. If it doesn't recognize your aura, then you'll just wind up lost!" He rooted through the bag on his hip and drew out something that looked like a clear disk. "Don't worry," he assured. "This won't take long."
Mason released some of his own aura into the disk. It began to glow, and then everyone gasped as the room lit up in a flash of gold. When everyone blinked the spots from their eyes, they could see that the disk had become multicolored.
"Download complete!" Mason exclaimed, startling everyone. "Thanks, guys! See ya later!"
Mason began to teleport again, and he gave a lingering glance to Laura before he vanished.
After Mason left, Paula made an executive decision that Team Rainbow had been through enough excitement for a while and would be spending the rest of the day at the beach. Lapras wasn't there—for some reason Dialga had said that he needed him back at Temporal Tower for a few days…—so the two had the beach to themselves. They played around in the water, made sand castles, and then watched the sunset together.
"Wow…" Paula admired in awe. "No matter how many times I see it, it's always so beautiful…"
Laura nodded in silent agreement.
Paula rolled over on her side to look at her friend and quietly said, "I'm glad that you met someone from your past, Laura … but I'd be lying if I didn't admit that I was terrified when Mason just took you away like that. I don't know what I'd do if I lost you again…"
Laura stood up and stretched. "I'm sorry, Paula," she apologized. "I was surprised too. I didn't think that he'd just take me… but don't worry, I—"
Laura cut off and got a strange, dazed look on her face. She weakly raised a hand to her head and groaned. She began to sway, like she was about to fall over.
"Laura! What's wrong?" Paula asked worriedly, jumping up and supporting her. "Are you okay?"
"Ugh… Y-yeah, I'm fine…" Laura, rather unconvincingly, assured her friend. A glance at Paula confirmed that she had not bought it, so Laura sighed and told the truth. "I just… I got really dizzy all of a sudden. I must have stood up too fast…"
"Or you're just tired from the 'kidnapping' thing," Paula theorized.
Laura shook her head. "No, I got plenty of rest when I was at Mason's house."
"What? When did you have time to go to his house?" Paula asked in confusion. Laura just stared at her like she was missing the obvious, and Paula blushed when the answer suddenly clicked. "Oh… he's a celebi. He can time travel. Right…"
Laura gave a weak chuckle, but she was still unsteady on her feet. Paula frowned in worry. "Come on, let's get you home," she said as she began to guide Laura back to Sharpedo Bluff.
Meanwhile… at Temporal Tower…
Temporal Tower was still a mess, but it looked a lot better than it did a year ago, right after the crisis. Dialga, however, seemed just as frantic as he had then. He was pacing around in worry, muttering to himself…
"THIS… IS NOT GOOD," he said, thinking aloud. "I DID NOT FORSEE SOMETHING LIKE THIS HAPPENING… I DO NOT THINK ANYONE DID… NOT EVEN HER… I AM NOT SURE WHAT SHOULD BE DONE…"
Dialga stopped pacing and glanced back at something on the dais on the other end of the tower. He began to pace again at a higher speed. "BUT SOMETHING MUST BE DONE! AND SOON...!"
Dialga bit his lip and looked out towards the horizon. " … PERHAPS I SHOULD CONSULT THE SPIRIT TRIO…" he said in contemplation. "THEY WERE CLOSE WITH THEM, AND THAT BOY HIMSELF PERSONALLY TASKED THEM WITH GUARD DUTY… PERHAPS THEY KNOW SOMETHING… OR WILL AT LEAST BE ABLE TO HELP ME FIND A SOLUTION… BUT IF NOT…" he glanced back at the dais again, and his head dropped in sorrow. "…THEN THIS WORLD IS DOOMED…"