Chapter 15: How do you Judge Years in a Place of No Time?

Pokemon came and left the clan under Bubbles, but Trey remained there. Gala had left, seeking out a more power-oriented group. There were three others who were now junior to Trey, and yet another had joined and quit. Despite the turnover, some remained with them. Scepta seemed to have some old friendship with the Castform, so she was always there. And Konga remained, teasing and making sarcastic reviews of everyone else. Trey respected his ninja master, and so he would remain.

Over one meal time, a new member in Will the Mawile poked at him. "Hey spacey, what's going on?"

Trey batted his hand away. "I'm just thinking, that's all."

"You seem to be thinking all the time."

"That's because he is more intelligent than you," Bubbles said casually.

Konga snickered, causing Will to blush. "Well it's no good thinking about stuff if you don't do anything about it," the Mawile protested.

"Well there's also the problem of if what you're thinking about can't be addressed immediately," the Grovyle said. "I was trying to figure out how many cycles I've been here. I was keeping pretty good track for a while there, I think, but somehow it's all gotten muddled."

"Careful thinking on that one too deeply," another new member, a Zangoose named Zachery said. "You don't want to end up like Xavier did."

"Who's that?" Trey looked over to Zachery curiously. He hadn't heard of the name.

"He was a Xatu who was one of the first to join Celebi in rebelling against Primal Dialga's mad reign," Bubbles recalled, her eyes somewhat distant as she thought of him. "He argued that Time itself couldn't really be stopped, as time is merely the motions of those in space from moment to moment. I don't remember his arguments exactly, as they were a little over my head."

"He was going to prove this by making marks in the front hall to record the passing cycles," Zachery continued. "It seemed simple and reliable, but on the cycle after he started, it was apparent that it wasn't so. The mark he had made was gone. So he made another mark, and by the next cycle, it was gone too. Xavier grew more and more frustrated until he finally lashed out at some Primals in a battle about the failure of his experiment. His teammates were able to calm him down enough to bring him back to base safely.

"But when they got back, they found hundreds of Xavier's cycle notations all over the front hallway. The poor Xatu lost it at that point and eventually became a Primal himself. Weird thing is," Zachery pointed out the door that separated their clan's area from the rest of the base, "if you go out in the front hall, Xavier's marks are still there. But they are never consistent. The changes from cycle to cycle are inconsistent due to the corruption of Time."

"That is completely illogical," Trey pointed out.

"Well Primal Dialga is not ruled by logic," Zachery countered.

"At any rate," Bubbles said, "we ought to be grateful to Celebi that we can exist in any semblence of routine at all. If the original Dialga alone ruled all aspects of Time, then we would be living under total chaos, or total paralysis, under Primal Dialga. But he didn't; the original Dialga allowed Celebi to have some control over Time."

"She's a time traveler though, isn't she?" Trey asked.

The Castform bobbed in agreement. "Yes, so she did not live by an ordinary routine of day to night. She lived by a cycle of when she was asleep or awake. Thus, she couldn't fully bring the sun back to the sky. But the routine of the cycles, at least, I am thankful for."

No matter how strange it was, they had to agree with that.


Mewtwo looked over the devices he had made one last time. Then he handed them to Sally. "This is a hearing aid," he signed to her. "It goes in your ear. With the operation I gave you, you will be able to hear." Since she had been deaf from birth, her mind didn't have enough structure to translate what she heard. In the guarded space of the abandoned university, he was able to use his telepathic powers to carefully pass on enough data so that she could hear, even understand speech.

Sally looked over the two pieces, so Mewtwo showed her how to place them in her ears. They hooked over her ear so that the main part hung behind it. Once both were in place and on, he said, "And that's how it goes."

She smiled, then signed, "I heard you."

Somewhat against himself, he smiled back. "That's right, you did."

"Mewtwo!" Mew appeared in the room. "How's it going?"

"Everything's working so far," he told her.

Sally pointed to her ears, then hopped around in a little circle.

"Did you want to listen to some music?" Mew asked. "We can let you if you like. The two of us have to talk privately, though." She gave Mewtwo a look.

Sally nodded, so they let the little girl play around with a music program on a computer. In another room (where they could keep an eye and ear out for her), Mewtwo asked, "So what's the deal?"

"Have you noticed that she's growing?" Mew asked back.

"She is a few inches taller," he agreed. "It doesn't make sense. Without time running, there should be no changes to anyone. Some Pokemon have managed to evolve with extraordinary means, but no eggs have hatched. This girl should not be growing."

"And she doesn't remember the sun. It looks like she was born in this era of darkness."

"Which should be impossible." Mewtwo rubbed his chin. "And her talent… I would suspect she's under the influence of Giratina's power."

"We might want to find him and see what he had in mind. Anyhow, I have to go back to the rebel base. I want you to stay here with Sally."

"What? You're not taking her?"

"It's more dangerous over there; you know that. And she hasn't had any training to defend herself, or fight back. But you can handle that."

Mewtwo held up his hands. "Wait, are you sure about this? We've agreed that her Dimensional Scream is important to finding the way to defeat this endless unchanging, but you're going to leave me alone to protect her?"

She gave him a blank look, which he knew now to be the false one when she was playing dumb. "What's the matter with that? In a battle, you're more powerful than me. If this place gets attacked, you'd be better at protecting and hiding her, then finding another safe place."

He checked over to make sure that Sally wasn't paying attention, then spoke quieter anyhow. "But I've been drawn into the darkness before, almost to the point of being irredeemable. You know how it's been badgering me to join the Primals. I could be the most dangerous Pokemon to be around her if I slipped and you want to leave me alone with her?"

"But you wouldn't hurt her," Mew said.

"So long as the darkness didn't get me, yes," he admitted.

She came closer and patted his nose. "And you know personally how dangerous the darkness is, so you work harder to avoid it. I trust you, Mewtwo. And I feel that you are the best one to protect, teach, and train Sally. Celebi and the rebels need me over there; some of them don't entirely trust you. So it's best you stay here and keep the both of you unnoticed."

"You trust me that much?"

"Yes." Her eyes showed no sign of a lie.

Mewtwo looked aside. "You know, I hate myself if I don't live up to your expectations."

"Don't worry so much. Just take it one day at a time. Or one cycle until we can get a day back."

"Fine. Take care of yourself."

"You too, and Sally." She drifted back and waved to him. "But you do have to help me tell her that I'm going."

"She won't like that, but fine."


Trey moved carefully around the column. He listened for the barely there footsteps that were coming through the room. Through that, he was able to stay hidden. Once his mark seemed to be in a good position, he peered around to check. The Mawile was pausing, looking for him. The Grovyle sprang out and tackled him from behind, knocking the Mawile to the ground. "Gotcha, Will."

"Aw 'mon, you made me fail." His eyes became watery. "Could you give me a break every now and then?"

Trey kept his hand on the Mawile's oversized steel jaws, to keep them from snapping at him. "No. You're dead."

"He's right," Bubbles said over the intercom. "You would be dead now. Come on out, you two."

"I've got to train harder," Will said, brushing off his fake tears. He started out for the exit.

"You could work better as a trapper," Trey suggested, brushing his hand along his head leaf. "Find a good spot to hide and…" he sensed that something wasn't right. However, he kept cool and spoke without missing a beat. "…snap those jaws out when a passerby least expects it."

"Maybe," Will said, not terribly convinced. "You'd have to get a team to pull that off."

A team… Trey felt a twinge and noticed the brush of the friendship bracelet on his arm. But right then, he caught sight of a movement. He reacted by diving down, just in time for Scepta the Scizor to miss with her initial strike from behind another column. Trey snatched at her ankles as she went to correct her balance. Succeeding, he threw her into the center of the room; he had an advantage if he was near the walls.

Scepta landed a bit off, making a steel clatter as she landed. Will spun around, keeping his oversized jaws between him and the noise. In a moment, the Scizor twisted about, then rushed at them. Knowing that his leaf blades would do little to her exoskeleton, Trey sent a quickly but accurately aimed Bullet Seed attack at a shoulder joint in that skeleton. One of the small seeds got stuck, impeding the movement of that arm, thus taking one of her deadly vise claws out of use. She went to punch him in the jaw. It was probably a feint to hit something more vital, so he went…

No. Another movement showed that Will had faked his startlement and was going to use Scepta's attack to catch Trey in a damaging cross hit. The Grovyle changed his plans and dug into the ground. Scepta and Will's attacks met in a noisy clatter of steel meeting steel.

That was one disadvantage the Steel types had trying to be ninjas, Trey thought. They risked too much noise using their heftier natural weapons. Scepta was good most of the time, he considered. Will would be sent to another unit, though. The noise wasn't his only problem.

From the vibrations he felt, he concluded that Scepta had knocked out Will. However, Trey suspected that their leader Bubbles was somewhere in the mini dungeon as well. This was too much of an orchestrated attack for her not to be. Or to not have another member in her place. He had to figure out which. He moved through the dirt and came out behind Scepta to strike her wings with Stun Spore. She had to keep her wings moving in a close-quarters battle, or else her body would overheat. If he got her partially stunned, she would have to back off and rely on her less skilled distance attacks.

Trey then snatched an orb from his bag and threw it hard near Scepta's feet. It burst into a plume of fire. She backed up, as expected. A rain shower abruptly started.

Bingo, Trey thought. It had to be Bubbles.

She was small though, and could hide in nooks that none of the others could get into. Trey waited. Scepta threw an Iron Spike at him, low to his knees. Snatching it out of the air, he threw it right back at her ankles. A toss match like this in the clan could go on for many rounds until someone slipped, or…

The weather turned stilfing hot, making the rainwater hiss into steam. Scepta got struck with a fire imbued Weather Ball. That betrayed Bubbles' location. Trey rushed to the side and threw Energy Ball at the Castform. He didn't get to see if it hit, as he got knocked out be another fire Weather Ball.

When Trey woke back up, his first thought was that battles like that were why he respected his clan peers, but did not feel comradery with them like he had with Team Marmalade. If he ever fought against Stacy or Sally, it was a mock battle, for fun, not this serious and tough practice. If he fought with Kip… well, there was a time or two that it was to knock some sense into the Skitty's head after he'd slipped up. Otherwise, he knew that all of Kip's teases, taunts, and boasts were to push the rest into putting forth more effort. The clan took the Guild's methods and removed any friendship from them.

In fact, no one got truly personal here.


Mewtwo had been training Sally… he wasn't sure how long, but it had been many cycles. It was long enough that she was turning into a teenager instead of a child. Eleven or twelve years old, he had to guess. There were some obstacles. Her only psychic power was the Dimensional Scream, which he had to help her endure and understand. Beyond that, she had to rely on physical non-typed attacks. That was something that he only used in emergencies when no other option was available. And being a human, those simple attacks weren't all that powerful compared to what Pokemon could conjure up.

But he had plans for that.

He attached a pair of sleeves to Sally's arms. They had been made with advanced technology that he had found in the university's computers. "I made this armor specifically for you, only for you. It should never fail you."

Once he let go, she turned her arms, then signed, "They are a little heavy."

"You'll get used to it as you build up some more muscles. Now, this keypad here activates the various modes of your armor. We'll start with the regular and offline modes." He gave her the instructions for turning the regular mode on.

It immediately formed a skin tight bright green armor to encase her skin. She looked a little startled, then moved her arms around.

"Nanomachines form the material. They should resist electrical attacks and other things that would disrupt electronics. I'll be adapting your air purifier and hearing aids to match the armor."

She smiled, then signed, "I'll be like a superhero."

That made him chuckle. "That's right, Sally. You'll be a hero to everybody."


Celebi was here today, with her usual mask of cheer and prattling joy. It seemed to encourage the others. But Trey often wondered if they knew that it was an act. To be honest, he only knew because he had been there when Shaelin had died.

There was a moment where he wound up in a room with just Celebi. Bubbles had gone off to find something and the others were sparring. Trey had been reading. He looked over to Celebi, who watched an imitation of a fire in a fireplace. They couldn't have the real thing, as the smoke would never go away.

"I hate this time," Trey said.

"Huh?" Celebi seemed startled, like she hadn't realized that he was there. "Why's that, Trey?"

"We're all living together, but everyone is so isolated.."

"Oh." She thought, then said, "I guess it's a defensive measure. Everybody has lost friends and family, both to death and things worse than death."

"I told Shaelin that I'd support you," he told her. "But you're never around, so I feel like I'm failing my promise to her."

"Oh, well," her pink skin seemed to darken.

"I found it," Bubbles' voice called. She did that to warn of her coming in a room, that is, if she wasn't trying to defeat everyone in the mini-dungeon.

Celebi recovered remarkably quick and was back to the usual bubbly self. Trey went back to reading. Hopefully, that had done something.


Mewtwo and Sally were traveling down a road. He had an orb of Flash following them around, giving them light. While it gave them some risk of being caught, Mewtwo was walking, so his senses could be more alert to any who approached.

"There's a couple of humans coming down the road," he told Sally.

She looked to him, interested. She seemed to be about fourteen now. Although he had encouraged her to keep her hair short, she wanted it to be long, like her mother's hair. She was on the pretty side, although he wasn't all that good of a judge on human attractiveness. Still, she hadn't encountered another human since she was a child. Mewtwo felt that he would have to be careful.

Two young men came running down the road behind them. There was an Asian who had two daggers out, with another short blade hanging on his belt. The other was a tall blond Caucasian who had the build of a kickboxer. "Hold it!" the Asian called out. "Release the girl, Pokemon!"

Crossing his arms over his chest, Mewtwo replied, "She's with me willingly, as my ward."

The two guys paused. "Wait, you speak English?" the Caucasian asked.

"Yes," he replied, letting some irritation show. "Now if you'll leave us be, we have important business to attend to."

Sally signed, "He's my guardian," but unfortunately these two wouldn't know the language of the deaf.

"Wait, we still can't let you go," the Caucasian said firmly. "You Pokemon are the cause for the paralysis of our world and you have to answer for it."

"It wasn't my doing," Mewtwo pointed out. Sally nodded, trying to be helpful. "I don't know who exactly caused all this, whether it be human or Pokemon, but I know the ones who can undo it."

In particular, there was a plan to make Celebi the new Master of Time. She already was a time traveler and knew the secrets of the flow of time. Using the Dimensional Scream, Sally was to confirm how time itself had corrupted. With that information, they would arrange for Celebi to take all of the powers of time, then they fix whatever was wrong while she did her best to remain sane. It might end in the death of Dialga, for which they might have some trouble with Palkia and Giratina. But it was their best hope right now.

"What proof do you have that you're not responsible?" the Asian dared him.

He shook his head. "I know you're trying to trap me. There's nothing I could do to prove it to you. Perhaps the fact that I haven't knocked both of you out flat is proof that we don't mean any harm to you."

"You're bluffing."

Thoroughly annoyed, Mewtwo cast his hand out and blasted a nearby boulder to millions of pebbles. "Would you call that a bluff?"

Then Sally tapped him on the shoulder. "We have to get there before the entrance moves again," she reminded him silently.

"Right, we do." After taming his temper down, he looked back at the two young men. "We really must be moving on. You would be wise to do so yourselves."

The Caucasian came up and tried to grab Sally. "Wait, we haven't heard from her yet…"

Sally punched him in the gut, then shoved him away from her.

"That's because she can't speak," Mewtwo told him. "But she has other ways of letting people know how she feels. Next time we meet, we might not be so polite."

The two men were reluctant to give in, but even armed as they were, they didn't feel like battling against a powerful Pokemon and a girl in a power suit. They went back the way they had come and Mewtwo and Sally went on.

Eventually, they came across a patch of road that was different. It shimmered in a strange way, like a misplaced heat blur. Mewtwo checked it out, then nodded. "This is an entrance to the World Abyss. We'll be heading inside."

"What's in there?" Sally signed.

"Giratina, the Master of Dimensions." He put his hand to his chin, then waved it through the shimmer. "Many eras ago, Giratina was a well-known legendary Pokemon, but for all the wrong reasons. He was violent and loved battling more than anything else. In a time of peace, he wanted war. In a time of war, he caused the greatest number of deaths and even rendered a large area unsuitable for life for decades after. This was before my time, but the legendary Pokemon, with the help of some heroes, managed to capture Giratina. Arceus acted as judge for his trial. At the end of it, he was banished to the World Abyss and imprisoned there."

"Is he a bad Pokemon?" Sally asked, looking worried.

"He was foolish and violent, but not entirely bad." Metwo paused, then added, "I was once the same way, and I was punished as well. Not as drastically, for I never caused the amount of damage and death that he did. But in the time I was imprisoned, I came to see that not everyone is perfectly bad, nor is anyone perfectly good. Still, I feel cheated in that this era of darkness fell right as my punishment had ended… anyhow, we'll be fine meeting with Giratina. He, and others, have been free to come and go from World Abyss, yet he remains in there of his own free will."

She signed an affirmation, indicating that she was ready now. They entered the shimmering spot and found themselves transported into the World Abyss. A strange place, it appeared to have twinkling stars embedded in the floors and the ceilings. The walls were made of a strange material, like an airy wood where the fibers glowed in many colors. It was almost like they had walked into another world.

After thirty long floors, they came upon the final room. It was an enourmous room, but there was no one there. Instead, there was a life-sized marble statue of Giratina in the middle of the floor, standing there and looking contemplative. He has six thick legs and seemed like a tough Pokmeon, even just in this imitation of him.

"Well, this isn't much help," Mewtwo said. He went closer to examine the statue. "He wasn't petrified; this is just a statue. Would you try touching it, though? Your power is a blessing from Giratina. If he wanted to leave you a message, it would be through this."

Sally nodded, then came over and placed both hands on the statue. The vision came rather quickly, causing her to grimace and nearly fall over. Brushing off a twinge of worry, Mewtwo put his hand on her shoulder and waited. It was a long time, it seemed, until she was able to bring her mind back to where they were in the present. She brought her hand up to sign something, stopped, then put her right hand over his eyes.

Immediately, the vision she had seen transferred to Mewtwo.

Giratina was in the room they were in, standing before a large assortment of colored strings. As the Ghost Dragon looked over this, he began speaking. "Sally, listen well… and you too, Mewtwo. I have spent a great deal of time trying to interpret the events occurring to plunge the world into darkness and paralysis. But, as you may see, it's a total mess. We're dealing with multiple time travelers, all with different motives and goals.

"One began the process. I have not managed to identify that one, but it sabatoged Temporal Tower, where my brother Dialga resides. This troublemaker is responsible for many other knots in the time line and I can't make sense out of the actions.

"Then we have Celebi's motions through time. You will discover these when you find her. I sense some power from Mewtwo in these actions as well, which is how I identified him being with you now. There is another working with you in this; you will meet him.

"Then we have Primal Dialga's affects on time. He has come into a paranoid sense of self-preservation, which means that he is actively working to keep history as it is. There are others working with him in this too; be wary of them when you encounter them.

"Finally, to my surprise, I found Dialga prior to the collapse of his Tower causing effects through time. This was likely a last-ditch effort to keep Time from corrupting. Although it seems like a failed effort, don't give up hope. This effort of Dialga's gave me a message; he is trying to use the first time traveler's mess to hide his efforts to clean it up. It also gave me some leeway. And thus, I was able to use some of my power to help him. I did so by reaching into the Dimensional Wastes, where those who try to cheat Time and Space are often lost, to find a soul that remained whole. I found you and brought you back into life.

"I was able to open up enough room for change to allow you to be born and to grow into your talents. What you do with your power is up to you. However, I would hope that you use it to help the original Dialga and Celebi to save this world from the madness it is living under.

"I have done a few other things, primarily to keep Primal Dialga from inadvertently causing the complete destruction of everything. He seeks to kill me and our sister Palkia. If he manages to get rid of either of us, everything falls apart. Thus, I have sealed off Spacial Rift and I will soon seek my own place to hide. Unfortunately, we cannot risk the total destruction to stop him ourselves.

"Should the need come… and if Celebi can do it successfully, we may have to assure that she comes in to replace Dialga as the Master of Time. If there's any way to get through this without killing my brother, please try that first."

Giratina then sighed and lowered his head.

"I hate time travel," he muttered. "It makes things so messy. Sally, I wish you the best. I have done all that I can to help you now. Please save my brother and us all."

Once Mewtwo had seen the whole thing, he took her hand. "Then the next thing to do would be to cross the ocean and meet with Celebi."

Sally nodded, distracted. "We still don't know why it had to be me," she signed.

"At this point, the why doesn't matter. You're here and you have the power that could help save our world." She didn't look too convinced, so he added, "Trust me, I know how you feel. We can't know why we were made the way we were. Going down that path only leads to more questions, not answers. We must make the most of the life given to us. That's what Mew taught me, even though she has existed for as long as this world has."

"That makes sense," she signed. Then she looked him in the eyes and smiled. "We should go across the ocean now."

He smiled back. "Well first, we need to find a boat."