-Goodbye by Ramsey-
Chapter 2: Future Sight
They'd done it. They'd defeated every override protocol, and Miraidon had faced his fears and taken on the AI's Miraidon, successfully defeating it and protecting them, and in turn, all of Paldea.
But Juliana's happiness was punctured like a half-filled balloon as she peered over at Arven. He was just learning that his father had been dead for years, and she longed to comfort him. But she also knew that Arven wouldn't want to look weak in front of the present company, so she restrained herself, offering only a wistful glance in his direction.
The time machine had gone dark, but Juliana caught a glimmer of light and ran toward it.
"Again, Juliana?" Arven shook his head. "Do you really have to pick up every shiny thing you see on the ground?"
"Relax," Nemona chuckled playfully. "She's just finding her treasure!"
The shard sparkled like a tera stone, but as she drew closer its luminosity seemed to expand like a white flame.
"Juliana, don't touch it!" Arven's voice rang out from behind, but it was too late. The flames danced around her like a whirling vortex. She searched for any sight of Arven, Nemona, or Penny, but they'd vanished behind the light.
The flames gradually flickered into darkness, and Juliana rose to her feet and squinted. She was in the room with the time machine, but it was illuminated pink once again. There was no sign of her friends anywhere.
Hurrying to exit, she was immediately bombarded by the future pokemon she'd just encountered minutes ago. How was this possible? What was going on?
"Human Presence Detected within the Zero Lab."
Juliana froze, but quickly regained her composure and hid behind some toppled over barrels. She was relieved that the future pokemon had their attention diverted long enough for her to slip out of their field of view.
"Deactivating Sleep Mode."
Professor Turo's AI voice was unmistakable as he herded the pokemon away. Juliana couldn't wrap her head around what was happening. Was this a dream? A nightmare?
When the noise faded, she slipped out of her hiding place.
"You're not an academy student," said the professor as if he'd never left, and Juliana nearly jumped out of her skin.
When her heart began to beat at a normal level, she realized what the AI professor had just said, and she scrunched her eyebrows.
"What are you talking about? You know me, Professor Turo. Arven gave Miraidon to me to look after."
She looked around her body and quailed, realizing that she no longer had her backpack, her Roto phone, or any of her pokemon.
"Arven, you say?" The AI Professor appraised her curiously. "I haven't spoken with Arven in some time. Perhaps I can contact Director Harrington and send him something."
"Harrington?" Juliana was so confused. "You mean Director Clavell."
"..."
The Pseudo-Professor was quiet for so long, shrewdly gazing at her all the while, that she wondered if his programming had malfunctioned.
When he finally spoke, she jumped again.
"I've ascertained that you are from the future. This is why there is no record of you at the academy. And this Clavell must have taken the position some time after Harrington left."
"What?" Juliana's hands trembled. "What year is it?"
The AI Turo said the date all the way down to the minute, and her jaw dropped.
3 years. 3 years into the past she'd gone. Logically it could have been much worse, but her friends wouldn't know her anymore. Arven, Nemona, Penny… she'd be a stranger to all of them!
"Can't I go back?" her voice quavered. Losing her friends was something she couldn't bear.
"Explain how you came to be here, and I will see if it is possible to replicate the conditions necessary to do so."
Immediately Juliana launched into an explanation, telling the professor's robotic likeness everything about their trip through Area Zero. She even told him about the time machine being shut down, the AI Professor traveling to the future, and the fiery, white tera crystal that brought her here.
Professor Turo's face did not change, but after going through each of the facts herself, she already knew what he would say.
"Statistical analysis shows that the odds of our success in recreating such an event are 0%."
Juliana looked around and realized with horror that until she, Arven, Nemona, and Penny would break in and disable each of the four security panels in the future, there was no way to open the door to leave.
"Am I going to starve to death here?" she wondered aloud. "I don't think a human can survive 3 years locked in a place like this."
"You are not going to stay here." The professor said without missing a beat. He pulled out a Master Ball and handed it to her along with a small but durable looking black pouch.
"There is a ventilation system a small person like yourself should be able to get through. It leads to the Access Panel just outside Zero Lab. There are potions and revives in the bag."
Juliana's heart leapt. There was still hope.
"Catch a strong pokemon, and make your way out of the cave. Then use the mountain climbing gear I have provided in the pouch to ascend to the top of the crater."
"Where will I go once I escape?" The cogs were turning in her head. "Nobody knows who I am, and I won't move here for three years."
"There is a woman in Porto Marinada named Renata. She sells local produce in the daily auctions. Find her, and give her this."
He placed a pendant in her hand. It was a shimmering, gold lightning bolt with an ornate letter S in the center.
"What does it mean?" The facets of the gold reminded Juliana of something, but she couldn't put her finger on it.
"She'll know what it means. Tell her your story, and she'll protect you."
"Okay," she said, almost in a whisper. Her whole life had changed in the matter of a few minutes, but she was a Champion. She wasn't about to give up now. She'd do what she had to until she could be with her friends again.
–
Present Day
Arven fell to his knees the moment Juliana had vanished. Nemona raced around the to search for traces of their friend, and Penny scrambled onto her phone to check the system logs, but there was nothing.
"She's just gone." Penny sat beside Arven, dumbfounded.
"She can't be gone." Nemona paced back and forth frantically, retracing her steps over and over again.
Arven couldn't find the words to speak. He'd just discovered that his father had died, and now his best friend - the closest thing he'd had to family in years - was gone too.
He began to weep bitterly. There was no use to holding back. He'd lost too much all at once.
Penny placed a hand gently on his arm. "We'll find out where she went, Arven. We'll bring her back if it takes our whole lives."
Nemona stopped pacing, a fire in her eyes equal to the fervor she held for any gym battle.
"We'll definitely find her," she nodded fiercely. "She's our treasure."
Arven nodded, understanding perfectly what Nemona meant. Juliana had set his life ablaze like a fiery meteor. He wasn't about to give up on her now.
–
Past
Juliana found that if she ran quickly around the pokemon around Area Zero, they wouldn't bother her once she'd gotten far enough away, so she hadn't yet used the Master Ball that Professor Turo's AI likeness had given her. Instead she kept it tucked safely in her pouch.
Her arms shook as she carefully scaled the cliffs of the crater. She'd been climbing for an hour, and she was nearly to the top. To pass the time Juliana thought about what she would do if she had to leave Paldea. She didn't want to. Juliana loved her friends, but she understood that she'd have to wait at least three years to talk with any of them. By that time she'd be 16, the same age as Nemona and… well… she had no idea how old Penny was, but Juliana was probably older than her now.
Finally she reached an outcropping of rock, and Juliana flung herself onto the platform and just laid there for several minutes. The first leg of the journey was done. But without a Roto Phone or Miraidon to help her, the trip to Porto Marinada would be a long one. Maybe she could catch a cyclizar…
–
Present
With heavy hearts Arven, Penny, and Nemona had returned to the school to tell Director Clavell what had happened to Juliana. Arven clutched onto the backpack she'd left behind, unwilling to let it out of his sight for even a second until he could put it somewhere safe. Clavell, and Chairwoman Geeta who had joined them, held their heads in their hands.
"This is a great tragedy indeed."
"She was a champion of amazing caliber," Geeta remarked. "But what can be done? Her sacrifice kept all of Paldea safe."
"That is true," Clavell nodded. "But the knowledge that four students went into the Great Crater and Area Zero, which is strictly off limits, must be kept secret."
"And what are we supposed to tell everyone when they ask what happened to Juliana?" Arven's voice broke.
"Yeah," Nemona chimed in. "How can you expect us to sit and keep quiet? What if she's centuries into the future with the AI Professor?"
"If what you say is true about her merely touching a fragment," the director let out a puff of air, "It is likely that Miss Juliana has neither been sent to the ancient past nor distant future, but is rather in a time period very close to our own.
"That makes sense," Penny began to tap on her phone curiously. "I was only looking to see if her path could be tracked alongside Professor Turo's, but judging by the location and size of the fragment Juliana touched, we can probably go back and analyze the differences in matter and even calculate the trajectory in comparison to the algorithms of the original time machine."
"You can do that?" Arven's head swung toward her sharply.
"I think so."
"Okay," Some of the glow had returned to Nemona's eyes. "And Arven and I can look through the professor's notes that were left in all of the research stations. If she was sent to the recent past, he would have left some record of it, right?"
"Yes," Arven rose to his feet. "He wrote down everything. If she was there any time in the past decade at least, we'll know about it."
"Then it's settled," Chairwoman Geeta beamed at the trio. "We can discuss other matters once our little champion has returned to us."
Arven, Nemona, and Penny raced out the door. There wasn't a moment to waste.
–
Past
Arven had teased Juliana a few times about what a loot goblin she was, but Juliana was grateful for that skill now. It had taken her almost two days to reach Porto Marinada, and the sun was setting for the night. She was exhausted. Her hair was dusty and dirty, and all the money she'd saved up from selling the random things she found looting had been spent on food, but at least she had food to eat.
She trudged up to the auction tables and approached a woman. "Do you know where I can find Renata?"
"She only sells on weekends, but you can come back tomorrow."
"Please, I need to speak with her." Juliana's fatigue collapsed on her all at once. If she couldn't find Renata, she was likely to burst into tears right there on the spot.
The seller seemed to have noticed this. "Okay, it's okay. You can find her in the purple house down the way." The woman nudged her head in the direction of the main road.
Juliana stumbled tiredly toward the northeast corner of the town. A purple striped house with a yellow mailbox nestled against the rock face. This was it. Juliana knocked on the door and waited. Finally, after almost a full minute the door opened. A woman who looked close to the same age as her mother opened the door.
"Who are you, and what do you want?" the woman spoke coldly. She had piercing golden eyes and shoulder length, deep blue hair.
Juliana found herself at a loss for words and simply held out the lighting bolt pendant with a shaking hand.
"Where did you get this?" The woman snatched the pendant and slammed her eyes shut.
"Are you… Renata?"
Her gaze narrowed. "What if I am?"
"Professor Turo told me to find you," Juliana's cheeks flushed. "I-I need your help."
Renata looked back and forth between the pendant and Juliana several times. Then she closed her fist tightly around it and swung the door all the way open. "You'd better come in."
–
Present
Arven quickly learned just how useful Miraidon could be when they worked together. It took a fraction of the time to reach each research station as it had on foot. Unfortunately his father's notes said nothing about Juliana, and it didn't seem like the AI version of him had been keen on note taking.
Nemona busied herself trying to catch every Paradox Pokemon (what Clavell decided to call them) that was still in the caves, so Arven left her to it and went to meet Penny in the Zero Lab. She was still busy analyzing whatever techy stuff she needed to analyze, so he began to comb through the lab.
He'd carefully perused every file and every note within the mess that was his father's desk, but there was nothing to find.
Disheartened he fell onto the bed to rest and let his mind wander. He let Mabosstiff out of his pokeball and let him sniff around with Miraidon for a while, but they kept messing with one of the white boards his father used for equations.
"Mabosstiff, what are you doing buddy?" he called out, but the pokemon merely whined.
Miraidon made a loud grunt right next to him, and it was enough to rouse Arven from the old bed.
"Would you two knock it off?" he rubbed their heads playfully. "Let's see what's got you both so bothered."
There were more equations pinned to the corkboard side of the board, but that wasn't what caught his attention.
"Arven!" Penny came running in. "Arven, where are you?"
He ducked around the trio of white boards, his face pale, but she didn't seem to notice.
"I ran a program to analyze the differences in output from the area of the fragment and compared it to the archived logs of the time machine, and I can tell you with certainty that Juliana's within 3-5 years of the present time. Now I haven't figured out if it's the past or the present, but I should be able to–"
"Past," Arven cut her off. "She was sent back to the past."
"Oh," Penny hesitated. "How do you know that?"
"Because of this." He held up a drawing that had to have been done by his father's AI counterpart. It was a perfect likeness of Juliana, and at the bottom text was neatly written next to the date, 'unknown female visitor, future friend of Arven's'.
"Th-that's Juliana," Penny gaped at the drawing.
"Look at the date," Arven wailed. "She's been here three years. What if she's waiting for us somewhere?"
Penny's face fell. "Maybe she left Paldea. Maybe she died."
He felt the pit of his stomach drop, but he shook his head roughly. "After becoming champion, taking on Titan Pokemon, and saving all of Paldea? Yeah right."
"Yeah…" Penny agreed, "She said she wanted to become stronger. I'd bet she's pretty strong now."
"And pretty old too." Arven's mouth fell open. "She'd be as old as Nemona."
"Wow," Penny breathed, and then she gazed at Arven with bleakness staining her features. "What if she's moved on? Wouldn't she have come to meet us if she'd wanted to?"
"That can't be it," he cringed at the thought. "If Juliana's still here and doesn't meet us, then she's afraid of what we'll think of her. Afraid that she's changed too much to come back to us."
"What if she has?"
Arven glared at the girl. "That will never happen. Juliana is my closest friend, and I'll find her, no matter what it takes."
"Well, I guess we'd better go find Nemona and let her know then."
He nodded, and together they raced from the lab.