The Unown Pokémon

As the pair headed south out of the city and toward the Temple of Alph, Claire commented, "If you take me back home to the exact moment we left, does that mean I'll always be a day older than the calendar says I am?"

The Professor put on a confused look. "You mean to ask if your body is still aging even as you travel through time?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean."

"Well, it's possible the time vortex may have some effect on your aging. Of course, you'd have to be exposed to it for an extended period of time, probably require years.

She stared at him for a moment, waiting specifically for him to look back at her and recognize the look of annoyance on her face. "So the answer is, 'yes, biologically, I'll always be a day older.'"

He shrugged uncomfortably. "Sure, I suppose that's the answer you're looking for."

Shaking her head, she added, "This trip is going to be weird for my sleeping schedule."

"How do you mean?" asked the Professor.

"Well, when we left, it was morning in Solaceon City. When we got here, it was already evening. I skipped seven hours in the day. I'm going to end up sleeping during the day like a vampire."

"Vampires don't really sleep during the day. They can actually move around as they please for the most part." Claire recognized another tangent when he excitedly pointed nowhere the way old men do when they get excited about a story. "Vampires, as the people here call them, are actually from a planet named Saturnyne and they are actually aquatic beings. Interestingly, they were perception filters which are how they escape leaving behind a reflection in mirrors."

Claire interrupted him with, "Are we likely to see any vampires here?"

"Um, my guess is 'no.' But I may have been wrong once or twice before." He pulled out his fat pen with the blue geode again. When he activated it and pointed it in the direction of the Temple, it emitted another series of vibrations.

"What is that thing?" Claire asked, recognizing it from before.

"It's a sonic screwdriver."

She held up her hands. "You're using a screwdriver?" But she knew better than to compare it with any old flathead. "What kind of technology is that? I saw you use it to light up the TARDIS back in Solaceon. Is it a remote control?"

"Remote control of some electronic devices is just one of its uses." The Professor stopped scanning and pulled the screwdriver back to view it closely. "It can also scan for alien life. And good news! No one from Saturnyne in the area." He took a second look at it. "But there is something else here that shouldn't be—something that wasn't here before."

"Well, is it something bad?"

When the Professor took off running toward the temple, she decided, "I guess it's bad." She dropped a pokéball from her waist and watched the red light reshape into the man-sized body of her flygon. "Sounds like we might need some protection here, Indy. You ready?" The flygon gave a reassuring grunt and allowed Claire to climb onto his back as he followed the Professor.

"What are you doing?" the Professor asked with exasperation. "I told you: Johto region only. Flygon is from Hoenn!"

Honestly, Claire forgot in the heat of the moment. But, "What does it matter? They'll start migrating soon enough."

"But we can't interfere with the time stream. Introducing them to new pokémon might threaten the fabric of time!"

"Or maybe seeing an unknown pokémon in use by a mysterious visitor is what prompts the empire to begin expanding."

The Professor looked up to consider that idea. After a moment of appearing thoughtful, he suggested, "You know, I didn't think of that. Hmm!" As if snapping instantly from one thought to the previous, he suddenly dashed inside the temple with Claire and Indy close in tow. The temple was dark, but the flashing moonlight off three swords was more than Indy appreciated as he dove in front of Claire and deflected the samurai weapons.

"Hold back, gentlemen," the Professor yelled to them. "It's just me, the Professor. I'm friends with your emperor. Remember?" He looked at the three and saw the way they retreated a step; they also lowered their weapons in reverence. "Ah, so you do recognize me."

But then one whispered, "She commands the creature."

"The creature?" He looked down at the rumbling pokémon eager to defend Claire if anyone tried to attack her again. "Of course. They still think only royalty can influence pokémon. Or else you're a demon."

"Depends on what they plan to do with those swords."

The Professor nodded sarcastically at that dry joke. "Right. We should get inside." He looked back to the guards. "Are you three the only ones here?"

All three shook their heads. "There are two more squads inside."

Immediately the Professor pushed past them and charged inside the temple. Claire wasn't sure whether to follow at first, but she was getting attached to the idea that she should stick with the guy who had the keys to get back home. The temple was dark inside, but she remembered what the room looked like before; she simply hugged the wall to avoid walking into a rhydon statue while she followed the Professor and his flashlight screwdriver.

"Something's not right here," he mumbled quietly. He swiped the screwdriver through the air again and then read the shaft. "I'm getting Griseous Particles, but where did they come from? That would suggest that something came here from another dimension."

"Is it something dangerous?"

"It kinda depends on the threat," he answered vaguely. "If the interdimensional traveler feels threatened, it could be disastrous. Griseous Particles correspond to a dimension where pokémon with godlike levels of power dwell. But why are they here?"

"Any chance they're unown pokémon?"

"Until I actually see them, of course they're unknown, but you actually meant unown, the colloquial name given to Symbolum abecedarium. Yes, that makes more sense." He spoke so quickly Claire didn't have the opportunity to include herself in the conversation. She was starting to realize his brain was one of those moving at such speeds as to take in the meanings behind the words a little more slowly than the actual words.

Thinking the intruders were unown helped Claire calm down instantly. She wondered for a moment what threat the unown could possibly bring if all they do is create cryptic messages and float around. But the samurai didn't know that. Maybe a single unown wouldn't affect them much. On the other hand, considering how quickly they saw this harmless, skinny man wearing an ascot as a threat, a swarm of unown might give them heart attacks.

Claire moved forward with Indy a few steps ahead, and that's when she saw a stream of unown fly out of the next hall. They moved through the air with a lackadaisical energy until they saw Indy. Judging from the way they formed a circle around the flygon and cycled with great excitement, Indy was the first pokémon they encountered in this dimension. Claire didn't feel threatened in any way, but she did feel the need to drop a second pokéball in order to provide a little more light to the hall.

As soon as her white squirrel appeared from the red light, she said, "Chan, use some of your Flash energy, will you? But don't blind me." The pachirisu chattered and scrambled up her pant leg until he rested on her shoulder. Once comfortable, his cheeks began sparking and produced a directed shine to illuminate the area. That caught the unown's attention; now they began to float in circles around Claire.

"Be still, Miss Claire," called one of the samurai. "I will rescue you."

"No, you won't. You'll stay right there and drop your sword," she demanded. Denyen didn't drop his sword, but he did shockingly lower his blade and relax slightly. Claire wasn't in danger and her face showed that perfectly. "They're just pokémon."

"Just pokémon?" Denyen repeated. "They are wild, dangerous creatures."

"Not all animals are dangerous," she argued. She shrugged her left shoulder to draw attention to Chan, who responded by nuzzling Claire's cheek. "You think he's a threat to me? You've got to learn to see pokémon as friends—not just as tools of war."

"Where'd you come from?" the Professor asked one of the unown. This one looked resembled the letter A with one, triangular eye between its connecting legs. It was always an odd thought for Claire to think of unown as being alive. Spending as much time as they did plastered to walls of ancient ruins, biologists speculated that unown fed off of mosses and various bacteria found in mountain dusts, but no one really knew how they did it or if they even ate at all.

The Professor listened to the soft cry produced by the unown and then said, "How'd you get here?" He listened to another cry and asked, "How long ago?"

"You can understand them?" Claire asked incredulously.

"I speak everything," he muttered to her while listening to the unown. The unown stopped and looked at Claire as if to offer her a chance to speak to the Professor instead. "She didn't mean to interrupt. Finish your story." The unown spoke again while facing Claire, prompting the Professor to insist, "Come now. Even Canadians aren't that polite. Finish your story and I'll talk to her after."

Claire could only guess what the unown was saying, but it sounded like the pokémon was trying to avoid being in the middle of a conversation and offered to give her the Professor's attention. She wished more men were like that.

"You said a rift appeared in your dimension. The rift appeared how long ago?" The Professor listened to the answer, and though she couldn't understand the conversation, Claire could read the sudden look of shock and guilt that crept over the Professor's face. "Oops."

"Oops?" she repeated curiously. "What do you mean by 'oops'?"

"I mean… we may be responsible for the unown's appearance in this dimension."

"How?"

"Well, let's just pretend that the TARDIS, in its effort to cross the time stream and transport through space simultaneously, bumped into the time stream of an alternate dimension. If it picked up a collection of Griseous Particles by accident, then maybe those particles broke open a sort of wormhole into the dimension they came from, connecting the two dimensions for any being with the right sort of size and biology to slip through the streams."

Claire was able to follow the argument, but it didn't make it easier for her to comprehend it. "So tell me if I'm misunderstanding anything here. I entered the TARDIS with you in order to travel back in time and find out the secret of the Ruins of Alph and how the unown are related to them, and in doing so, I accidentally create a wormhole for the unown—which would have been restricted from entering our dimension if we had not taken the trip."

"I see no flaw in your understanding."

"Uh huh." In other words, the very fact that Claire went back in time to find the answer to an age-old question is what caused the question to get asked in the first place. "I was tempted into time travel by something that I ended up causing by time traveling… That's quite the paradox."

"Bootstrap," the Professor said.

"Pardon?"

"The Bootstrap Paradox is the idea that something is never actually created, but rather travels in time and becomes its own reason for time travel. It's a very complicated conundrum and it's best you not think on it else you might fry your brain. Stick to archaeology and leave the quantum physics to me.

"Now, I think that just about concludes our trip." He smiled that goofy grin and started to walk away.

"Hold it," Claire demanded. "That most certainly is not the end of our trip."

"Come again?"

With a scoff, she explained, "I came back here to get answers about the building and we have spent no time examining it. We can't leave yet."

"What else is there to know?"

"How about the human connection to this temple? Is it a religious sight? How do the people here respond to the appearance of the unown? Why do the unown sit back and take up residence? That's not to mention the architecture. This is the only opportunity I'll have to see the Ruins as they were built—before time eroded them into ruins."

The Professor looked at his arm. "I guess we could spare another day or so."

"You aren't wearing a watch."

Doing that fast talking thing again, he said, "Fair point. But if you're going to spend a day studying the sheer cinderblocks and mortar of the grand Temple of Alph III, then I'm going to have to find something to occupy my time." He pointed to the A-shaped unown and asked it, "Any ideas?" The unown's cry made him recoil defensively. "It's an ascot. It's cool. What do you know?" He walked past the unown and pointed to Denyen. "Maybe you can teach me how to be a samurai. I've always wished I were strong and honorable and manly."

"I don't understand what's going on," Denyen uttered.

"I know the feeling," the Professor replied. "I don't know why I keep bringing women with me. They can be so headstrong and asocial."

"Look who's talking."

"What's that supposed to mean?" The Professor looked hurt by her comment.

"You haven't once asked me for my name."

"I don't need to ask. You're Claire, world-famous archaeologist who uncovered the Solaceon Ruins. Everyone who knows archaeology knows you."

Claire suddenly looked a bit flustered. "Really? Everyone knows me?"

"Of course."

Shaking herself of the flattery, she said, "Great. That's not the important part. My point is, despite all your alleged travel back and forth through time, you weren't interested in me as an archaeologist. You didn't show any level of excitement to meet me, and you never asked my name."

"I told you…"

"I think," she interrupted him again, "that you only invited me because you knew I'd say yes. After all, who can resist the idea of real time travel?"

"How does wanting you around play into your sudden theory that I'm not social?"

She smiled a cocky smile at him. "It isn't the social interaction you want. You just want an audience. That's also why you like it in the palace. That's why you'd prefer it if I didn't have my own questions about this temple. You want me just to follow you around like some awestruck floozy."

"That's just mean," the Professor replied. He crossed his arms and bumped shoulders with Denyen. "Just to prove you wrong, I'll stay with Mr. Scary Face Samurai Man and his pointy sword and spend time doing nothing other than relaxing and enjoying the city."

"Good for you," Claire said with her smug little smile. "I'm going to the palace to grab some supplies and maybe a very short nap and then I'll be back." She turned and took Chan's light with her as she hopped on Indy's back and darted back through the temple.

The Professor looked to Denyen's sword and asked, "Can I try that out?"

Concerned about resisting a request from the Emperor's guest but also worried about offering a sharp implement to someone untrained in its use, Denyen stammered, "I'm… I don't… That's probably not a good idea."

The Professor sighed. "Yeah. Grandest city in the region's history and it's totally boring." He walked away from the samurai muttering, "Maybe I'll find something exciting to do."

Late as it was, Emperor Alph found himself sleeping less in his old age. Some attributed it to his divine selection as king of the land, but others attributed it to his regular periods of meditation. Deep in the night, he sat in his private room, resting his body with his mind in a purely meditative state.

"Humblest apologies, Lord Emperor," spoke a male servant from the hall. He kept his head to the floor the entire time, awaiting a response before he spoke again. For an entire minute, he heard nothing from inside the small room. "I have a message from the Lady Empress." He waited for another minute with no response. He tried repeating, "Humblest apologies, Lord Emperor."

"Is something wrong?"

The servant caught only a fleeting glance of the elder prince Jomon before practically slamming his forehead back on the floor. "Excuse me, Lord Prince. Your mother has requested the Lord Emperor's presence."

"Of course." He rapped lightly on the door. "Father?"

Though the lack of response was suspicious, Jomon was taken by the smell emanating from the room. "I'll get him for you."

"Forgive me, Highness."

Jomon slid open the door to his father's meditation room and knew immediately there was a problem. His father wasn't seated in a meditation position; his legs resembled the lotus position, but his torso was slumped sideways with his head touching the floor and his neck on the verge of snapping. The smell of human waste threatened to overpower Jomon's stomach as he neared.

The battlefield taught Jomon the moment a human body relaxes to the point that everything inside leaks out:

Emperor Alph was dead.