A Reminiscence

Chapter Eight

Out of Time

()()()

Later that afternoon, the massive cruise ship was about to take off, with us three standing on the deck and having some light discussion. By this time, we had already gone into our room, which was quite nice; I had to remember to thank Oak for the room later on.

The conversation we were having was quite lovely, and it would have continued to be so had a certain fellow not entered the picture: Jack LeBoure.

We had no idea he was even on the ship, and so we were rapt with attention as Ralph explained one of his many escapades within Special Command, unaware of the annoyance coming towards us.

"So, anyway," Ralph continued, "we realized that the microfilm had been treated with an explosive liquid, so we wouldn't be able to read what was on it without blowing us all to hell, so we had to figure out a way to neutralize it, and that's when Jonathan remembered that Classic Coke might be able to work but could potentially degrade the film itself…"

"Yeah, yeah, fascinating chemistry lesson, buddy," Jack said, pushing into our group out of absolutely nowhere. "How about getting something interesting into this!"

"Oh, for God's sake," I muttered, squeezing my nose.

"Yeah, I guess we're all heading to Unova, huh?" he said, wrapping his arm around Ralph for some reason. "Four peas in a pod, huh?"

"If one of them had blight, yes," I said, glaring powerfully at him.

"Larch!" Anne yelled. "Knock it off! We are not doing this on a cruise ship!"

"Hey, you're a trainer, right?" Jack asked, gesturing at her. "I have seen some crazy shit. Have you ever heard about how I caught a Latias?"

"You caught a Latias?" Anne looked very shocked, which was odd, since Jack liked to make sure everybody knew exactly how he had caught a Latias.

"Indeed I did! Want to hear the story? It's a hell of a tale!"

"Oh, spare me," I muttered. Anne, however, did not sympathize, and walked off with him to listen to the same story he told to everybody else. I sputtered for a moment, but realized there was nothing else to do for it.

"That idiot!" I muttered. "Can he do anything without it involving me somehow?"

"Larch, what's your big problem with that guy?" Ralph asked, genuinely confused.

"He cannot do anything without putting himself upon the most massive pedestal imaginable, and it always involves annoying me for some bizarre reason!"

"I don't think he's trying to be annoying, Larch. He might just be trying to make nice and failing miserably at it."

I considered this for a moment, but before I could offer a response, the ship's intercom blared to life with the voice of the captain, which announced the ship would be departing in five minutes.

"I think we should go to our room," Ralph suggested. I agreed it would probably be wise, so we made haste below deck to the proper room, waiting for Anne, who presumably was still listening to Jack's ramblings, and likely would be for quite some time.

()()()

A bit later, the ship was well under way, treading slowly through the mighty waves of the ocean. Anne was currently recounting what Jack had claimed to her, Ralph listening with rapt attention while I fiddled around on my laptop, hoping to distract myself from Anne's dictation. Regrettably, she was so excited it was impossible to ignore without appearing incredibly rude.

"…And so he's going to try to catch a Latios over the next year," she said, while I groaned inwardly, "because, you know how they're like a pair and he already has a Latias? Well, he wants to have a proper pair of them, and he realized that Latios are much more elusive and difficult to find than a Latias, so it'll be a really big challenge for him, but looking at some of the things he's done in the past…"

"Oh, heavenly father, please spare me of this endless torment," I muttered, looking through what I had produced over the last while: a more specific definition of the translator's function, which would doubtlessly come in handy in Unova, and especially for Silph's engineers. Perhaps it was quite useful for Jack to borrow Anne for a while, since in the time she had been recounting his stories, I was so desperate to ignore all of it that I had heard before that I had produced an almost entirely complete explanation of the translator's every aspect.

Unfortunately, Anne continued on with the story, now talking about Jack's supposed encounter with a Mew at one point. I always did doubt that particular story greatly, as there were enough holes in it to leave a Swiss dairy farm set for life. Thankfully, the transparently fabricated story was interrupted, though not in a way I would have liked: by the loud report of a cannon far off the distance.

"What in the hell was that?" I asked, closing out my program.

"It sounded like some sort of cannon," Ralph said. "Like, a really old cannon."

"Shooting at a civilian ship with an old iron cannon in this political climate?" I wondered aloud. "That would be suicide for whoever is stupid enough to try it!"

"Well, then, who did?" Anne asked. "There aren't any countries desperate enough to try using something like that."

Suddenly, the intercom cracked to life once more. "Attention, passengers," it spoke, "do not be alarmed by the cannon fire and do not panic. The ship that fired it is well out of our range. Thank you."

"Not even in range?" The situation was becoming more and more bizarre the longer we went on. "What is the meaning of this?"

"Let's go and find out," Ralph suggested. We agreed this was wise, and quickly made our way to the observation deck. There, we saw a very odd sight indeed, as did everyone else who was looking there: an old-fashioned galleon, flying a very particular sort of flag.

"That's a bloody pirate ship," I said, absolutely confounded by this development.

"What the hell is a pirate ship doing here?" Ralph said.

"And why did it try to fire at us?" Anne said. "It can't possibly reach us from there."

We watched the ship for a few moments more, and then noticed something: the sails were turning, and it was slowly adjusting trajectory to come straight at us.

"Oh, God, they're coming closer. Everybody, get below deck!" I yelled. The crowd rushed to do so, but in their haste prevented us from doing the same. Soon, the door was closed, with us standing out in the open and the pirate ship approaching at a very alarming rate.

"Well, now what?" Anne asked, standing behind me.

"Uh…get back inside before they fire again?" Ralph suggested. I ran over to the door, but before I could, I noticed that the ship had gotten very close to us, as the wind was at a quite convenient angle, and therefore had a perfect line of fire with the ship.

"Oh, dear."

"Get down!" Ralph yelled, running towards me, low to the ground as possible. A very loud report suddenly sounded, and we ducked, expecting a hole blown into the ship at any moment. Luckily, we only heard a splash, and looked back up in confusion.

"What was that?" I asked. "What happened?"

"They must be using a small type of shot," Ralph explained, "one that couldn't make it to the ship."

"Well, now what?" Anne asked. "If they aren't going to shoot the ship, what next?"

"They might try to board." Ralph looked at the ship, considering what their options were. "I don't know what would happen then."

"I doubt they would be able to take on the ship's security," I said. "Not with the weapons they are most likely using."

We looked further, and noticed a small dinghy had been lowered into the water, with a very bombastically dressed fellow at the helm of it, likely the captain. Once it reached the sea, they began rowing towards us immediately. It soon became apparent we were not the only ones who noticed this, as the ship's security came pouring out, surrounding the only place where the pirates could make landing, a strangely empty lifeboat rack that was fairly close by to us. The captain of the S.S. Anne soon came to us as well, looking quite concerned.

"Captain!" I said. "What brings you out here?"

"You're going to help me figure this out," he said, looking straight at us with thorough impunity.

"What?! How could I help?"

"You saved the Silph Co. building from terrorists and devastated Team Rocket at the same time," he explained. "I think you can handle some pirates."

I thought about this for a moment, and realized he had a very good point.

"All right, all right, make way!" I yelled, pushing through the men, the captain at my side. I pushed up my glasses and began the formulation of a plan. "I'm in control of this situation now, so do as I say. First order of business, find out who those men are."

Several of the security men followed me as I walked over to the lifeboat rack, looking down into the water at the small dinghy. The only people in it were the captain, a large, powerfully built man with a long gray beard, and two crewmates, who had presumably rowed him here.

"What do you want?" I yelled down, hoping for at least a somewhat positive answer.

"We wish to parley with your captain!" he yelled back, in a surprisingly clean voice.

"He is up here. Are you going to try and shoot anybody? I should warn you we are very well-armed up here and you would most likely lose."

"How do you figure that?" He knocked on the side of the ship, resulting in a loud echoing noise. "And what be this ship made of?"

"Steel," I explained, "Quite durable, and yet lightweight at the same time."

"A steel ship!" the captain yelled, quite clearly impressed. "Who's ever heard of such a thing?"

"Quite a few people up here. Would you like to come up to…'parley', was it?"

"Aye!" he yelled. "Let down the ropes and bring us up!"

"Are you crazy?!" the captain of our ship yelled, grabbing my shoulder and pulling me back. "You can't let him up here! He fired on us!"

"That was only to get your attention!" Greybeard yelled up at us.

"Well, there you have it," I insisted. "The only way to make sense of all this is to raise the dinghy, and we have little reason not to!"

"…Fine. Bring him up!" A number of the men ran to the rack and lowered the ropes down to the dinghy, which were quickly hitched up. Slowly and carefully they raised up the boat, the captain standing in the center quite dramatically, his massive frame rising over the edge of the boat like a great vision of the sea. As he stepped off with his crewmates, the security men raised their weapons, ready to aerate him at a moment's notice.

He looked around at them, taking particular notice of their guns. "What sort of weapons be these?" he asked.

"MP5s, I think," I answered. "Now, then, to business. Who are you, exactly?"

"Everybody calls me Greybeard," he answered, "scourge of the Kanto main!"

"Greybeard?" I realized now who he was, and that something very strange indeed was going on. "That is impossible! You died three hundred years ago!"

His eyes widened in shock, looking around at our ship. "Then…my ship has gone forward in time!"

"Absolute nonsense. How can a 17th century galleon initiate time travel?"

"I don't know!" he yelled back. "All I care about is getting back, now!"

The security tensed up, but the captain gestured for them to stand down. "We'll do whatever we can to help. Can you tell me what happened before you came here?"

Greybeard thought for a moment, trying to remember the events that led him here. "The last I remember is that we were sailing the seas…it was about sundown, and then suddenly, I noticed something strange: the green flash, right upon the horizon as the sun set."

"A rare phenomenon indeed," I noted. "Perhaps it had something to do with you being here?"

"I would have guessed as much, considering how it grew bigger and bigger, until I realized it wasn't on the horizon. No, it was surrounding the ship itself with its eerie glow. I tried to rouse my crew, but by the time I did, it was too late, and we were all put asleep by that ghostly glow. When we woke up, we found ourselves here, noticed your ship, and tried to take it over to make sense of all this." He looked around at all of us. "Obviously, we didn't manage to do that."

"It is obvious that the green glow is what sent you forward in time," I said. "But the question is how, and perhaps even why?"

"And more importantly, how do we send him back?" the captain said, glaring at him.

"Come now, there is no need to be confrontational. We can all be friendly, can we not?"

Greybeard narrowed his eyes. "I don't know, can we? Especially considering this new friend you've brought for us?"

He pointed to his left, and when we looked, I very nearly fainted right then and there, since he was referring to none other than Jack LeBoure, who had come back out at some point.

"What the hell is going on here?" he asked, apparently even more bewildered than I was.

"Jack, believe me, you are hardly the first among us to wonder about that," I said. "A more useful question is, what the hell are you doing here?"

"I was looking outside my window just over there," he explained, pointing to a window attached to one of the upper-deck rooms quite close to us, "and noticed you standing there talking to Captain Homeless here. Care to explain?"

"I am not currently at liberty to release this information to civilians," I said, grinning unpleasantly.

"Oh, and I suppose you just know exactly what's going on?" Jack asked, staring me down. My smile faltered, as I realized I had little idea of what could have been responsible, and he might possibly know something to fill in that gap.

"All right, then, I shall disclose the situation to you." I pointed to Greybeard and began my explanation. "This is Captain Greybeard, well-known seventeenth-century pirate, who operated in these very waters."

Jack stared flatly at me, clearly not accepting my explanation of the events. I rubbed my neck and desperately tried to think of a way to present the facts without sounding entirely mad.

"Consider this!" I said, trying to recover. "According to Greybeard, he was sailing along in his ship right out there," I pointed to the galleon still within the ocean, which Jack seemed genuinely surprised by, "and at sunset, he saw the green flash!"

"That's quite a rare phenomenon," Jack noted, sounding slightly more interested.

"Indeed it is, and this particular one might be considered unique, as it actually surrounded his entire ship and knocked out him and his whole crew. When he next woke up, he found himself here in our time period."

"Green light…green light…" Jack mumbled, considering the facts of the incident. "Wait! I think I know what happened!"

"Well? Out with it!" Greybeard demanded.

"Have any of you heard of Celebi?" he asked, or perhaps demanded.

Greybeard, the captain, and myself shared a glance, stumped by his question. I then remembered something I had once read and mostly forgotten about.

"Celebi is the guardian of the forest in Johto folklore, correct?" Jack nodded, and then filled in the rest for us.

"According to the legends, Celebi protects the forest from those who do it harm. More importantly, though, she has the unique ability to manipulate space-time and freely travel to any time period and location at will."

Greybeard rubbed his, well, beard, deep in thought. "If she can travel through time itself, why would she send me forward?"

"And more importantly," I continued, "how might we get her to send you back?"

"We'll be making a stop in Johto along the way to Unova," the captain noted. "You might be able to search for her there."

"Celebi is little more than a myth, though," I pointed out. "The number of people that have believably seen her could be counted on a shop teacher's hand."

"As far as I'm concerned, it's the only option we've got." The captain turned to Greybeard. "If you follow us to Johto, we can return you once we find Celebi."

"If you find her, you mean," Greybeard spat. "As far as I'm concerned, if it's nothing more than a legend, there's probably good reason it's nothing more than a legend."

"Like your buried treasure?" I said. Greybeard lunged at me, getting quite up in my face, as it were.

"How do you know about that?" he demanded, staring straight down at me.

"Simple: it is quite a popular legend. I myself always fancied it as being somewhat a reality, but never gave it much thought. Evidently, it is quite the truth."

Greybeard thought about this for a moment, before conceding the point to me. "Aye, it be the truth. And if it be legend now, then perhaps there's more to this Celebi thing."

"Quite. You shall follow after us until we reach Johto, and then we shall search for Celebi to return you to your proper time period. Jack, would you care to assist?" I turned to him, somewhat fearing the answer, whether negative or positive.

"Eh, might as well," he answered. "Good practice for Latios, at least."

"Very well!" I yelled, walking back over to Ralph and Anne. "I shall prepare myself, and you shall do the same!"

"What the hell was that?" Ralph demanded of me once I reached him. "What's even going on here?"

"To put it quite simply, we are going to help a seventeenth-century pirate captain return to his proper time period by locating a Legendary Pokémon and recruiting her assistance."

"What the hell?" Anne asked, bewildered.

"Come now, Anne, is that any more ridiculous than any of our other exploits? It was only yesterday, after all, that we performed our own reenactment of Die Hard with the largest company in Kanto. In fact, we did better; everybody in the building survived except for Giovanni!"

Anne shrugged, evidently deciding that I had a point. "So…what's the plan?"

"We shall return to our room and I will outline it there. Also, do not be alarmed regarding the pirate ship that will follow after us."

"What the hell?!" Anne yelled, but by that time, I was already making my way back to my room, suddenly feeling very confident about the whole business.

()()()

It was quite a bit later, sundown in fact, when things had calmed down and the ship had gotten moving once more. Greybeard's ship, which I had learned was called Magnolius, was trailing behind us, masts flapping in the wind in the style of old. I myself stood upon the highest deck, watching as we headed into the sunset, occasionally glancing back at the majestic sight of the ship behind us.

"What are you doing up here?" Anne asked, coming up the stairs. I had been up here for some time after delivering a full explanation of the goings-on, and presumably she was getting worried.

"Just…thinking," I answered.

"About what?"

"About all that I have accomplished recently with you two. Every single day, something incredible has occurred. In fact, I daresay that more has happened in the last week than ever before in my life. And yet, I have come out of not only in one piece, but almost better off than I was before."

"You really have done a lot," Anne said, coming up next to me to observe the sunset. "You should be proud."

"Indeed, I am. And it has me thinking; this sunset. We are headed off to Johto in search of one of the most elusive Legendary Pokémon known to man so that we may return a legendary pirate to his correct place in time, and the day is not yet over. Who knows what will happen when the sun rises anew tomorrow?"

"It could be anything, now that we've got them after us." Anne sat down, taking a short rest. "And whatever the hell it is, I'm sure it's going to be interesting."

"What else could it possibly be?" I asked. "If we have any more interesting things happening, we will get into the history books. Assuming I manage to actually deliver my discourse on the translator, I easily would on that merit, let alone all my other accomplishments."

"Maybe we're meant to go down in history," Anne suggested. "You know, great heroes of myth and all that."

"Perhaps." I smiled, and then chuckled a bit. "That would be quite interesting, would it not?"

Anne nodded, and we both watched the sun set together, and for once, I actually looked forward to what the new day would hold, knowing that it would certainly be an adventure.

END OF PART ONE