A/N: Been a bit since the last update, since this particular one was a bit of a pain to grind out. Nothing to do with my horrible attention span, no not at all... don't judge me! Anyway... less action-filled than some chapters, shorter than most, but not much bugs me about it so I'm happy. And here, we start getting to where eeeeverything goes to hell... this is gonna be fun! Read on, my friends... read on, and review.

"Note... to self... kill... the Unown." I groaned, lifting my head off of the steering wheel. The first thing I noticed - the truck was still in one piece, so that was good. The second thing was the fact that we - or I, at least - were still alive, so that was something too. And the third thing... "WHAT the hell!?" When I mentioned the truck being intact, I also seemed to miss the part about it being balanced on a giant tree branch... made of stone... "Okay, someone explain this."

"Unown..."

My head snapped around to glare at the window beside me - specifically, the 'A' shaped Unown floating outside it. It was just... staring at me, levitating over nothing. "What do you want?" Surprisingly enough, I got an answer - but something told me it wasn't the Unown that talked back.

A young-sounding girl's voice echoed in my head. "Maybe your name? … oh, David - okay, hi David!" Wait - did it just... "Oh, you don't like me looking in your head? Well, maybe if you'd stop being so loud..." Alright, this one-sided 'conversation' was already getting on my nerves. "Well, EXCUUUUSE me-"

"NO!" I had to stop that sentence right there. "Just... no. Whoever you are, no. Whatever else you might pull out of my head, do not use that sentence." After letting out a sigh, I shook my head. "Look, not in the mood for any games - will you get the hell out here already!?" Immediately the truck's door flew open and a black claw snatched me out by the front of my shirt, holding me up to a very irritated looking Darkrai.

"Do not... ever... speak to Lady Mew like that again. Not even your ignorance excuses it." he snarled, and I swear that eye of his flashed red for a moment. Even the few Unown still hanging around decided to split, and I know I was a bit nervous. "Are... we... clear?!" I nodded quickly, and made a mental note to never tick off the living shadow.

Honestly, it took me a minute to register the first part of what he said. "Wait, back up - did you say Lady Mew?!" As if to answer my question, I noticed a bright flash of light behind Darkrai, who promptly dropped me onto the stone... branch... below us. He turned around and formed those stilt legs of his before bowing to... a floating, pink-furred cat.

Mew was little more than a foot tall, with a tail longer than she was. But she seemed to completely ignore Darkrai, flying right around him and stopping inches away from my face. For almost a minute nobody said anything - I didn't want to tick off Darkrai again, he didn't seem to know what to say, and Mew was just... floating there. Then she finally laughed and said, "… You picked a weird one, Darkrai!"

I heard a derisive chuckle from the shadow, who decided to straighten up. "I certainly did not choose him. Someone more... decisive, would have been my preference. If anything, I was chosen for him." Call me crazy, but something about how he spoke made me think Darkrai had an issue with me. Let alone the fact that he knows a lot more than he thinks I know about.

So, of course, I asked him. "Sorry, that supposed to mean something? If you've got a problem, say so to ME." In response he nearly warped next to my side, that one eye staring at me.

In a completely flat tone, he said, "Very well, David - you are impulsive yet somehow indecisive, know far less than you believe you do, have incredible disrespect for those far more skilled and powerful than yourself... my list goes on and grows by the minute." Darkrai stopped for a moment to glance at the trailer of the truck, where I guessed Aurora and Ghost were still waiting - and probably listening.

He seemed to think about something before continuing. "And you are confusing. Despite these obvious flaws, you have earned the respect of two such Pokémon, and made yourself important enough to warrant my... guidance. So you could say my issue with you is-" I couldn't hold it anymore - I started laughing, cutting him off.

"Are you telling me... you don't like me 'cause you don't understand me?!" His admittedly slightly surprised expression told me all I needed to know. "O-hoh, wow - look, pal, I don't follow myself all the time. Literally, I think my clone over there is just as confused as you are." I joked, pointing at David - the Trainer - still in the truck, shocked. "So get used to it, Sherlock." Honestly, I'd never get over how confused these guys get when I make a reference to something in our world. 'You know, I might just call him that from now on... just to annoy him.'

"That's a great idea!" I looked over in surprise to Mew, who was literally rolling in the air giggling. "Sherlock... I don't know what it is, but it sounds funny!" I just shook my head, smirking - maybe I'd get used to this, as weird as the situation wa-

It occurred to me that we still didn't know what the hell was going on. "Wait, wait - EXPLAIN why we're on a TREE BRANCH!" I shouted, making Darkrai jump back slightly and shocking Mew. "Seriously - I get where we are, figured that out quickly. But the Unown picked a branch?"

"A-Actually, there wasn't a choice..." I heard David speak up finally and turned to look back at him. He'd finally gotten out of the truck, but he was looking down over the edge of the branch. "There... isn't anywhere else." I glanced down to see what he meant, and had to physically shut my mouth.

The Tree of Beginning... was floating. It didn't make sense, even ignoring the fact that it existed, but the crystal/stone tree was floating in the clouds. Over where, I had no idea - the view looked like a map, without the markings or names. "Y-you're kidding, right? I may sound like a broken record here, but... explain!?"

The response I got was less than ideal. "Well, I'm not gonna plant the Tree in dying soil, am I?" Now, it took me a minute to process that. The Tree of Beginning survived off of the entire planet it was in, I knew that. So... if Mew said 'dying soil', then...

"Are you saying my world's screwed?!"

It was difficult to listen through the vehicle's metal, but I managed to catch most of what was being said; I was shocked and in awe when I heard that Mew was outside, barely stopped myself from breaking the wall open when I heard Darkrai threatening David, and smirked in amusement when the shadow's cause for disliking him was revealed. But when Mew herself said, in rather plain terms, that David's world was dying...

"Well, that sucks." I looked back at Ghost, who had his scythe-like arms crossed and an almost thoughtful look on his face. "It's one thing for the kid's home to be destroyed... but he's losin' his world, too? Arceus' got it out for this one, I swear..."

It was true, everything had been going... badly for him since all of this started. At this point, he had literally had everything torn away from him - family, home, possessions... and now apparently the planet he walked on was to be taken as well. '… what does one do with knowledge like that?' I stepped away from the wall and sat down on the metal floor, shaking my head. "And we are here as well... what are we to do? Just... lay down and die? Go along, perhaps, waiting for everything to fall apart?"

Ghost stalked over to me and smacked me with the flat of his scythe. As I simply sat there in surprise, he snapped, "The hell you talkin' about? A Lucario, even thinkin' like that... ridiculous!" The Scyther shook his head sharply. "No, you shut that up right now, and take a listen." With that he walked to the doors and cut them down the middle, letting them swing open. "Ya got to meet Mew, Darkrai, one hell of a newbie, and ya fought Giratina."

Dropping down out of the container, Ghost laughed. "Knowin' you and Dave there, a little end o' the world ain't gonna stop ya. Too stubborn for that, I think." I couldn't help but chuckle myself - he might be right, after all. I stood up to walk over to the Scyther... then everything started shaking violently. "'Ey, what's goin' on!?" Ghost snapped, glaring I assumed at the group outside the truck.

It surprised me when Mew effectively shouted "Hold on to something!" At the same time, I managed to stagger out of the doors and saw exactly what was happening. What hit me first was we were obviously in the air, but second and much more worrying was that strange purple lightning was arcing between the Tree's branches around us. I had seen that before, when I'd fallen into the rift taking me to this world.

However, that didn't matter. I quickly grabbed onto the nearest door, and held on tight. I saw Dave grabbed by Darkrai, who seemed entirely unaffected by whatever this was, and David by Mew. Luckily, whatever happened didn't last long - the tree stopped shaking seconds later, and the lightning seconds after that. Everyone was quiet for a moment, still hanging on to... whatever they'd hung on to, then Mew spoke up again.

"Well, that's another one!" she said almost happily, swirling around in the air. The pink Legend giggled quietly and turned to Dave before adding, "Won't be long now... you've got work to do!"

Confused, he glanced at Mew and asked "At risk of irritating Darkrai again... the hell are you talking about? You know what's going on here?"

Mew stopped mid-roll, surprised. "… You're not the one Mewtwo found? You don't know?" Darkrai answered for us quickly, explaining that he'd been the only Legend - besides Giratina - that we'd encountered so far, and he hadn't had a chance to explain what was happening. "Oh... oh, that's not good - you need to catch up, silly!" she said finally, tapping Dave on the nose with her tail. "Come on - into the Tree! It's dangerous out here..."

She twirled around and started heading off, but I had noticed something about her almost constant cheer so far - it was transparent and forced, almost painfully so. And she was said to be the most carefree of the Legends, with nothing but the most dire circumstances bringing her down. 'Something had her down before this... but what?' With that thought, I followed behind the others - we were all curious what Mew had to say.

"For the last time, where are we going?" I was getting sick of Mewtwo's smug... vagueness. He took every opportunity to be as unclear as possible whenever I asked a question, and it was getting on my nerves. "You really may as well tell me, rather than drag me through a damn tunnel blindly!" That was another thing - after the Eevee had decided to tag along, Mewtwo led me into a hidden entrance to some tunnel system, and we'd been in it for what seemed like hours.

The Psychic finally turned to me and sighed. "Dear Arceus you can complain... very well. I will tell you that you were correct - there is another... 'hero' in this situation, and we are going to meet up with him." he explained, not breaking his stride. "My... mother, you could say, will be instructing him as I have done for you."

Mewtwo seemed about to continue, but something made the tunnel rumble and shake, dust and rocks falling from its ceiling. We stopped in our tracks, his eyes and hand taking on a blue glow as he prepared to stop the cave-in... that never came. As quickly as it had come, the event was gone and the tunnel settled down again. "… that is strange. I deliberately chose a stable area for this... we should hurry." With that he started moving again, this time almost in a flat-out run with his cloak flapping behind him.

As I ran to keep up, holding the Eevee's Pokéball in my hand, I thought about what he didn't say. The Psychic was worried, it didn't take a psychiatrist to know that - but about what? The impending apocalypse for one, that worried me, but he seemed to be accepting that. So there was something else... "What are we running from?" I asked finally, having come up beside him. "This isn't hurrying, this is fleeing - what from?"

He spared me a glance as we ran, and I could've sworn I saw a prideful smirk. "You are perceptive. We are running from something that I quite honestly do not wish to deal with at the moment. It would be a challenge to handle while defending you, and we do not have time to be so distracted." I frowned - there he went being vague again.

"Will you give me a straight answer already!? Where are we going, and what are we running from - the two things you won't answer - cut the bullshit and be straight with me for once." I snapped, idly noting the light up ahead - we were almost out, finally!

Mewtwo chuckled quietly and sped up. "Your first question is about to be answered for me." I followed him through the last stretch of the tunnel, and came to a skidding stop on some kind of stone... balcony, really. The area before me looked like a massive valley, trees and rivers and all, morphed into a bowl entirely surrounded by a circle of mountains, one of which we had just exited.

And in the center of the 'bowl' was something that definitely stood out - a huge stone ruin, with several stone pillars reaching up. The strange part was that the pillars were broken - they were all there, but in pieces and floating around the main area, which seemed to be... another, larger pillar - it was hard to make out details from that distance, though. What distance didn't hide was a single break in the main pillar, replace by some sort of swirling purple... thing.

Mewtwo looked over at me, and let out an almost distressed sigh. "This... is Spear Pillar. Or what is left of it... and this is where you, and your soon to be met allies, will start your work." I glanced over at him - was I finally gonna get some answers? "Yes, you are... there will not be much longer to wait. But we will have something to... occupy our time, until the others arrive..." he trailed off, turning to look back at the tunnel.

I followed his gaze, and felt the ground shudder. It took a minute, but after several minutes, at the edge of where the light edged into the tunnel, something finally moved - something big, and something metal.

When it stormed into the light, somehow everything slowed down, and I had a chance to see what it was; a robotic looking creature, colored both a dark gunmetal grey and a light steely color. The only exception were the hexagon of seven cloudy, dull red crystals where its face should have been. "W-what is that...?" I asked hesitantly, backing up as it seemed to 'look' at Mewtwo and myself.

I looked back to said Psychic, to see him charging a shadowy orb in one hand. Without even glancing at me, he replied with an almost worried 'mental tone'. "Registeel... it's lost its mind. And unfortunately, it seems to have decided we need to be removed from the area... permanently."

Why have the Regis lost their minds? What 'work' are our heroes going to have to do, and just what does Mewtwo know about it all? And am I ever going to do this outro again? Find out next time, on Pokemon: Unstable Transitions!