Chapter 4

Quietly Celebi rested in a tree, reflecting, yet again. Delta and Grovyle hadn't left the dungeon yet, so she couldn't track them. Either they had been permanently killed, captured by the Sableye or they were still fighting. She wasn't sure which was worse; suspense or a cruel brief ending to all of her hopes. After all this time she could surely wait some more?

She closed her eyes, trying to not think about what she was doing. Not that anyone would ever know, anyway, but the thoughts she blocked and suppressed would sow seeds of doubt in ever her own mind just when she needed to be loyal to the cause most.

However this time for a second she let herself question what she was doing. Not that it mattered; no logic could stop what she was doing now. Just like Primal Dialga, was her disturbing afterthought.

Although she couldn't deny that they were disturbingly similar. Both cursed and eroded by years of darkness, both slowly going insane and both abandoning ethics just to reach their own ends. Yes, the darkness had gone on far too long.

What she had done wasn't justified anywhere. Just… watching Grovyle grow, watching him become scarred and lonely, watching him live in this crippled dying world and die with it. She could have helped him, and yet she had been spiteful, just wanting him to suffer as she had. There had been something about him being motivated, some lie she had made up so she could gain some scrap of redemption, but that lie had been made of glass, transparent and fragile.

Even then, she had waited until he was suffering so much, leeched so much by the darkness that the notion of giving up his life for her cause was acceptable. To win a war you need to be able to do anything, she told herself. She didn't believe it.

In the end she was a manipulator but also a murderer. What she did was far from selfless, after all the darkness she would just be healed, not gone, not having never existed. She would be there, remembered while the true heroes' plight would have never existed, let alone them be remembered.

Everything was unimportant in the race for light. Anything could be sacrificed, it was worth it. She still didn't believe it.

Celebi stopped thinking about that, with its disappearance the guilt abated.

-

"This place goes on forever," Grovyle sighed, gloomily.

Unfortunately there had been another dungeon beneath. The stakes were higher than ever because they were probably Sableye waiting at the entrance to the pit.

After what seemed like forever they reached the half-way point where they recoiled in horror at what they saw: Sableye.

The fact that the Sableye couldn't possibly be there is what shocked the pair the most. How would they know there was a cave beneath? There had been no clues, unless they had been following them all along, but you couldn't do that in a dungeon. Hiding? No, they would have screamed when Mesprit appeared. Suddenly Grovyle figured it out.

"How did you-" Delta began asking, but Grovyle cut her off with an abrupt reply,

"Dialga."

For a while they stood opposite each other, neither moving with that one ominous word echoing around the cavern. After a while Delta leaned over to Grovyle and whispered in his ear hastily,

"They're waiting for someone. A leader. Dialga?"

"No." he replied, "It'd be Dusknoir." suddenly he realized exactly how serious that was, "We need to move. I don't have any orbs left after that dungeon; we'd have to run for it. They can't follow us once we get inside." he paused at that point, painfully aware that Dusknoir would be waiting there for when they were defeated or the way back, maybe they'd even overtake them and meet at the other end… he tried to forget that for now. "You ready?" he asked, tensing his muscles.

"Yes," she replied and sped towards the entrance to the dungeon, Grovyle following with a momentary delay.

The Sableye seemed hesitant, unsure what to do without someone to lead them. They raced after Grovyle and Delta eventually, but by then it was too late and they were disappearing into the darkness of the dungeon.

What they stepped into seemed less like a desert and more like a cave. There was a Flygon in the room they were in, already far tougher than all of the Pokémon they had met so far. The air was colder and it just seemed so much more serious. Mistakes mattered far more here.

After defeating the Flygon Grovyle asked Delta a question that had been bothering him,

"Delta, if your dimensional screams show us where the Time Gears are why do we need to find them here? Why can't we just go into the past and find them with your abilities there?"

"The past is our one shot," she smiled, sadly, "I doubt we'd be able to come back and who knows what could happen. We need to make sure that no matter what happens we can solve the puzzles and reach them. Even if we were separated we need to be able to operate alone."

Nodding, Grovyle wondered why he hadn't thought of that. They continued for while longer, reaching the ninth floor. It was there they ran into their hardest room so far; a Gengar with two Flygons.

"Be careful," Delta warned Grovyle, sounding extremely worried, "These look tough, use your link moves."

"Why warn me now?" Grovyle asked.

"They'll be waiting for us back there." She replied, grimly, "If you go down and we get back there, weak, defeated, we won't stand a chance. And if we fail we're not the only people who'll have to suffer the consequences."

Grovyle started by throwing a stun seed at a Gengar so he wouldn't have to worry about that one, they could leave it. He had planned to use the stun seed on Mesprit if they encountered it again, but he couldn't afford to fail now. He then quickly defeated the Flygon with a leaf blade; meanwhile Delta was weakening the other Gengar with iron thorns.

Out of the corner of his eye Grovyle saw something flying towards Delta. of course! he thought, their shadow balls,..

It was too late to shield her. Luckily what the Gengar had thrown was an iron thorn it had caught, so she could catch it. Grovyle cursed himself for not being more careful and quickly finished the Gengar off with an abrupt absorb, even though it was a waste since his health was almost full.

The stairs were in the next room.

"You ready?" Grovyle asked Delta, knowing that the next floor would probably be the last one. Either that or the fifteenth, or the twentieth.

"Yes," she replied. After a quick pause she added, "Be careful."

Grovyle didn't reply. With all of his muscles tensed he finally managed to ease himself out of the stairs, calling for Delta to follow. There wasn't anyone hostile there, or they hadn't chosen to show themselves yet.

They found themselves in a stone corridor, it was clear that they'd left the dungeon. Cautiously they peered around the edge of the corridor only to see what they had feared most: Dusknoir. Instantly they stepped back, out of his sight. Grovyle clamped his hand over Delta's mouth in case she might scream. She didn't.

After the initial shock of seeing their worst enemy Grovyle looked again, but this time he realized that Dusknoir and the Sableye were severely wounded; they posed no danger. Whatever had done that to them, however… or they could always be faking.

"Is this far enough?" Grovyle whispered, "We know where the Time Gear is. They look defeated, but we have to consider that this might be a trap, and even if it isn't there's still what defeated Dusknoir."

"We have to." Delta replied grimly, "It's our only choice. There could even be another dungeon after this before the Time Gear, we have no idea. We'd better go, be quiet and we might be lucky, they could not hear us."

Nodding, Grovyle stepped silently around the corner. Dusknoir's head was lifted and looking at him, however it was clear Dusknoir was too weak to attack Grovyle.

"Hah. I knew you'd come eventually. Pretty slow, though, we came through hours ago." Dusknoir laughed, weakly. Probably a bluff,Grovyle thought, to make us less confident.

"No matter," Delta replied, shrugging, "It was never a race." Dusknoir looked at her, as though trying to figure her out. Encouraged by this curiosity she tried to turn it to her advantage, "So what's ahead? What brought the "great and mighty" Dusknoir down?"

"Pah," he spat, "We wounded the thing so badly you'll get past it easily."

Maybe he was trying to distract them from how easily they could kill him then and there, but neither were murderers anyway. Recognizing that they wouldn't get anything out of him they walked off down the corridor.

"Next time we meet," Dusknoir shouted, "You'll be the ones on the floor!"

"Don't tempt me," Grovyle laughed in reply. He began moving off, but Dusknoir called after him,

"Why don't you do it?" Grovyle stopped in his tracks and turned to face him,

"Do what?" the green reptile replied.

"You're so soft-hearted. Remind me how you survived so long?" Dusknoir mocked, "You could kill me here. It would end half of your problems."

"You'd be replaced."

"Ah, but that's not it. You could send a message of warning, a threat to Master Dialga, telling him you wouldn't go down easily. The new henchman wouldn't know you, anyway, you'd gain. Why don't you kill me now?"

Grovyle gave no reply.

"You're so weak. Even Celebi would do it." Dusknoir looked at him scornfully.

"We're not Celebi," Delta chimed in, "You'd rather we killed you?"

Dusknoir fell silent; although Grovyle couldn't kill him he knew nothing about Delta. Still wordless, Grovyle also turned and kept going down the corridor. After a moment of hesitation Delta followed.