"...wonder if they're supposed to go in a specific order?" Cynthia said, a pencil tapping down the list of messages one at a time. "Or in groups, at least. Like these ones."

She held them out for Milotic to read. "These ones all talk about Plates. The power of defeated giants, the rightful bearer, gathering power from the Plates, and sharing the power among Pokémon."

Milotic considered that, then flicked her ears.

"I don't really know," she said. "Famously, I don't have a history degree."

"Do you ask your Pokémon questions like that often?" Ash asked. "She just said she didn't know… and I know I can translate it, but you seem to do it when you're trying to work something out?"

"That's right," Cynthia agreed, looking over the messages again. "Sometimes, just by talking about something out loud and trying to explain it, you can come to more realizations."

She tapped one of them. "Like how we really should have tested something with that old flute in the museum back in Eterna. This one even talks about listening for the flute's song and that's quite a clear marker, but there was too much going on."

Then Cynthia stopped. "Maybe we should go back?"

Miraidon kept going for an extra few seconds, though, reaching the top of the hill they were climbing, and Zorua pointed ahead.

"Look," he said.

"Huh?" Ash asked, then cantered up to the top of the hill as well. "Oh – I remember that, they had a model of it in the museum!"

"Ah, we must have reached Alamos Town," Cynthia decided, folding up her notebook and putting it away. "Yes, the Space-Time Towers are famous, though the exact nature of their apparent connection with Dialga and Palkia is not clear."

"That looks like an amazing place," Dawn said, coming up to join them on the hilltop. "It's a whole town on top of a… what's it called. A mesa?"

Cynthia pointed. "Sometimes, places like that were originally settled because they're more easily defended," she said. "But, then again, sometimes they're just settled because wow look at the view."

She smiled. "People in the past were just people, the same as us in a lot of ways. They thought in different ways about some things, because they grew up in a different culture, but being amazed at how pretty something looks is – I think – universal."

Ash had been thinking about something.

"Dialga and Palkia, again," he said. "But not Giratina… do you think it's just because of the Diamond and Pearl clans? Or maybe Giratina's shy and so more people noticed the other two."

"That could be," Cynthia agreed. "But we're-"

She stopped, and chuckled. "If this was a normal year, I'd have said we were unlikely to ever know, but I just remembered who you are! I think we might find out, but I wouldn't want to be sure."

"Can we have a look at the Space Time Towers?" Miraidon asked.

"I guess we can, yeah," Ash agreed. "Does the guidebook say there's anything else at Alamos?"

Cynthia smiled. "I can do you one better – I've been here myself. There's a very nice park, near the Towers themselves, and there's also a Contest Hall."

"Then let's have a look around," Dawn decided. "It's a nice day for it."

Alamos Town was a lovely place.

It wasn't just the park, because Ash thought that before even getting there. It was a place that was open, and airy, and – it was hard to describe, but it felt like the people who lived here had tried not to change anything about it that worked. The town had been built long before the bridge that was the easiest way to connect it to the rest of Sinnoh, and it was still like it had been then.

Or that was what Ash thought, anyway.

"It's like Altomare," Latias decided. "Or, not quite, because in Altomare you have the canals and the streets, but here you just have the streets. And it's a maze, but it's one where you can't get lost. Right?"

"Yeah, because of the Towers," Ash agreed. "You can always look to see where you are."

"Mount Coronet would work like that, if Sinnoh was smaller," Cynthia said. "Unfortunately, it can look very much the same from places two days of walking apart. And that's less help."

"Good thing some of your Pokémon can fly," Milotic said, as they travelled up the road towards the park. "Not me, mind you."

Then Ash stopped, frowning.

"Guys?" he began. "I can smell something weird. Like pearls."

"Do you think it's the Space Time towers?" Pikachu asked.

"That's probably… something to do with space, then," Dawn guessed. "Diamonds means time, and pearls means space."

She considered, reaching up idly to stroke Pachirisu on her shoulder. "Is it just pearls, or can you smell diamonds as well?"

Ash sniffed a few times.

"I can't smell diamonds, not right now," he said. "I guess I should keep my, uh, nose peeled?"

Cynthia nodded, seriously.

"That's a good idea," she said. "It could be just something to do with the Space-Time Towers, but if it's not then we want to be ready for it."

She considered, then returned Milotic.

"I might need you in a hurry," she told the Pokéball. "Come back out if you want, but I think this is best."

Milotic didn't come right back out of her Pokéball, and Cynthia nodded.

"All right, Ash," she said. "Lead on."

Ash led them on, following his nose and taking them up the road to right near the Towers, then turning into the park area.

There, they found a set of stone pillars, with flowers on top and in a section halfway up – or, at least, that was what they were supposed to be.

The pillars looked very wrong, though. They were distorted and bent in all different directions, looking like the solid stone had been twisted like stringy cheese.

"That's a terrible shame," Cynthia said, folding her arms for emphasis. "The Space-Time Towers may be the most famous part of it, but a lot of the buildings and public spaces in Alamos were built or designed by Godey… and I'm not sure what happened here."

"It was Darkrai," a man said.

"...huh?" Ash asked, confused. "Darkrai? How does that make sense?"

He glanced at Pikachu. "I'm remembering right, aren't I? Darkrai is something to do with bad dreams?"

"Think so," Pikachu agreed.

Ash began getting out his Pokédex, but Cynthia pre-empted him.

"Why do you think it's Darkrai?" she asked.

"It's just the kind of thing Darkrai would do," the man replied.

"No, it isn't," Cynthia replied.

The man didn't seem quite ready for that kind of flat denial.

"It must be Darkrai," he said, a long moment later. "Darkrai has often been seen around Alamos Town's gardens, so Darkrai is the obvious culprit."

"No, it isn't," Cynthia retorted. "Has this happened before?"

"I don't see how that matters," the man frowned.

"Who are you?" Dawn asked.

"Oh, I see," the man decided. "You must not recognize me, so you don't know how right I am."

He put a hand on his chest. "I am Baron Alberto."

"Darkrai," Ash read off from his Pokédex. "To protect itself, it afflicts those around it with nightmares. However, it means no harm."

"That's what I thought!" said a woman, coming up to join them. "Alberto, this has nothing to do with Darkrai for several reasons! Tonio's been detecting strange distortions in space and time, which is nothing like what Darkrai can do."

"Uh," Ash began.

"Alice, dear Alice," Alberto said, with a bow. "Your kind heart, alas, makes it hard for you to see the true evil that lurks in Darkrai's black heart. That foul creature was surely lulling us into a false sense of security, only to strike now!"

"And do what?" Dawn asked. "Knock over some pillars? It's a shame what happened, but this isn't much of an evil plan. It looks more like it happened by accident-"

"Space time distortions?" Ash interrupted. "How much is that to do with the Space Time towers?"

"Well… Tonio didn't say," Alice admitted.

"It must be Darkrai making dreams creep into the waking world!" Alberto said. "Already there's a talking Pokémon, how much worse can it get?"

"Dad?" Miraidon asked, slowly. "I have a question I want to ask about that person but I think it would be rude."

Ash wasn't sure if saying that he could actually tell that Palkia was involved would sort anything out, but after a minute of being around Baron Alberto it seemed unlikely.

That made him chuckle slightly.

"What is it?" Latias asked.

"I just thought," Ash replied, quietly. "If I did say I could smell Palkia here, then either Baron Alberto would completely ignore me, or he'd decide that Palkia did it and that I helped them."

"That sounds… funny, but also really likely," Latias winced.

"Baron, I can assure you, if I think Darkrai is causing trouble then I will be able to deal with the situation appropriately," Cynthia said. "I don't think that Darkrai is causing trouble."

"Champion, I appreciate your candour, but you don't know this town like I do," Alberto replied. "It's my duty to keep the town safe from all threats, and Darkrai is a threat!"

A Pokéball flashed at the Baron's waist, and sent out a Lickilicky.

"...just so you know, I'm not involved here," the Normal-type said. "I don't want to fight Darkrai, but I'd rather fight Darkrai than anyone on the Champion's team!"

"Now I think about it, wouldn't it be better to have a Pokémon with Insomnia if you were going to go up against Darkrai?" Dawn asked. "Or Vital Spirit, or an Ability like that, the ones that keep you awake I mean."

"That's a good thought," Cynthia agreed. "Ash, is there any chance that a Hisuian Lilligant will turn out to have been living in the gardens here? It would be helpful."

"Why would you ask him?" Alice said, now very confused. "He's not from here."

Dawn gave a kind of stifled hiccup-giggle.

"Danger," a voice said, and Ash turned.

"Who said that?" he asked.

A dark shadow appeared, in the shade of a nearby tree. A pool of blackness, that rose up into a head with a white plume over a body with the appearance of tattered rags.

Darkrai.

"There is danger here," Darkrai said.

"Then this is exactly where I need to be!" Ash retorted. "I can help, but it'd be great to know what the danger is."

"Is that Darkrai?" Baron Alberto asked. "Lickilicky! Hyper Beam!"

"Nope," Lickilicky declared. "Sir, I respectfully refuse your orders."

Darkrai, however, had left.

"What did Darkrai say, Ash?" Cynthia said.

"Just that we're in danger," Ash replied. "They didn't give me specifics… I asked, but I guess there wasn't time?"

"A threat!" Baron Alberto decided. "Darkrai was threatening us, and is clearly up to no good!"

"Do you think this way about everyone you meet?" Dawn asked, exasperated.

"Oh, I get it!" Miraidon realized. "He's opposite Harley. Or just Harley. Something like that."

They raised a claw to their chin. "Only, it's not meant as a joke?"

"Alberto, this is nonsense," Alice declared. "We already know what is going on."

She began ticking points off. "Tonio was detecting space-time distortions. These pillars are warped in a way that doesn't make sense. Darkrai was warning about danger. So Darkrai is trying to warn us about the space-time distortions."

"Good hypothesis," Cynthia judged.

"Darkrai is trying to scare us, to make us have nightmares!" Baron Alberto decided.

Ash gaped for a moment, then there was a sudden queasy feeling followed by a sensation of weight. His ring lit up with a golden shimmer, and he tasted pearls, then after a moment the lurching feeling went away again.

So did the sky.

"What just-" Cynthia said, then frowned and looked around – including up, at the purple shadows that had replaced the sky overhead. "I'm not sure what's causing that distortion, but it's sphere shaped by the looks of it… Ash, are you all right? Your ring is lit up."

"Yeah, I think so?" Ash replied. "I feel sort of like I'm lifting something, like my saddlebags got heavier… and there's something important that way."

He pointed towards the Space-Time Towers.

"Let's go!" Latias suggested.

Ash stayed slow enough to let Dawn and Cynthia keep up, partly for the company and partly because it felt harder to move than normal.

It wasn't crippling, but it was hard… like running through water, in a way… and that meant that while he could run all the way to the Towers he'd rather get there slower if it meant getting there with his friends.

And not feeling tired.

Alice came along with them, too, then slowed down in amazement as they reached the main plaza in front of the Space-Time Towers.

Ash did, too, because the sight in front of them was… astonishing.

And scary.

Dialga and Palkia were both there, glowing with energy and glaring at one another.

"Now look at what happened!" Dialga thundered. "I thought you would have learned your lesson after last time!"

"Last time – are you trying to blame me for that as well as this?" Palkia replied. "Because, from what I remember, I was if anything less responsible than you were!"

"That's nonsense and you know it!" Dialga said, striking the air with his hoof. "We have been over this!"

"Dialga and Palkia… they're arguing," Alice breathed. "Are they why this happened?"

"Undo whatever you did to trap this place in a world outside of time!" Palkia said, her claws glowing.

"The only thing I did was try to isolate this space from whatever you were doing to the rest of it!" Dialga retorted, fins extending.

Ash knew he should say something, but he couldn't think of what. Neither one of his siblings had noticed him yet, too preoccupied with one another, and it sounded like they were both equally responsible – or neither of them were – and he didn't know how to begin.

Then there was a smell of diamonds and pearls both at once, knocking him back a step as a wave of distortion rippled across Alamos Town. Before he'd recovered, Miraidon made a sort of buzzing noise – then their Electric Terrain spread out across the plaza as they went running forwards.

And changed.

It was a bit like what Koraidon did when she stood up, but Miraidon's version was different to their elder sister's approach. Their neck lengthened, their tail and arms and neck and antennae glowed with energy, and they took off to hover in mid-air with all four limbs well off the ground and their energized tail waving back and forth.

"Aunt Palkia, Uncle Dialga, STOP!" they pleaded.

Dialga's fins and Palkia's claws stopped crackling with energy as if someone had just flipped a switch, and they looked at Miraidon.

Then at one another.

Then at Miraidon.

"...Aunt?" Palkia began.

Dialga, meanwhile, had just noticed Ash, and fell twenty feet out of the sky to go crash into the plaza.

"Ow," he said, absently. "Lord of All, I… that is… you seem smaller than-"

Palkia managed to catch herself before actually hitting the ground, after noticing Ash, but it was a close run thing.

"Dialga told me something was wrong and started blaming me," she said, sounding like she was making a lot of effort to avoid shouting. "I do not think I did anything wrong, especially not making you younger, which would be a thing to do with time and not space. You look younger, not smaller."

Dialga looked like he wanted to dispute that version of events. "I-"

"I'm not your father," Ash interrupted. "I – sorry if that came out wrong, but, I want to make sure we're talking about the right thing. I'm… your younger brother. Youngest, I guess, unless there's another one even younger than me, but I'm not even fifteen yet."

"...what," Palkia said.

"Hello," Mew added, floating up from Ash's back. "I am your youngest nibling, Mew. Miraidon is older than me, and Koraidon is the oldest of Dad's kids."

"What," Dialga said.

He glanced at Palkia, and looked embarrassed. "Um. I think on balance you are not responsible-"

"Where's Dawn?" Turtwig interrupted. "She was just here a minute ago!"

"What?" Ash asked, then turned around completely to look.

No Dawn.

"Where did our friend go?" Turtwig added. "Piplup, Pachirisu, you two are still here, right?"

"Yeah, I'm here," Piplup agreed, coming out of a Pokéball that had ended up in the bushes.

"There was this weird surge before Miraidon ran forwards, and Dawn got knocked backwards!" Pachirisu reported. "I fell off, and now she's not there any more!"

"Was that something that one of you two did?" Ash asked, turning back to Dialga and Palkia. "I get you probably didn't do it on purpose, but if Dawn's missing somehow then we need to get her back, right?"

"There is a lot of time distortion around this moment," Dialga stated. "I can detect it, but it's tangled up with space distortion and I can't untangle it properly myself."

Darkrai appeared in a pool of shadow, then looked a bit nonplussed.

"...danger?" they asked. "Has the danger gone?"

"I hope so, Darkrai," Ash replied. "Except for Dawn being missing."

"Ash, what's going on?" Cynthia asked, all business. "I've got all kinds of questions I'd love to ask Dialga in particular, but that can wait, and we need to know what's being said."

"Dialga said that there's space time distortions going on, and that he can't untangle it properly himself," Ash related. "That might be where Dawn went, but that's a guess right now… and what happened to the sky?"

"I came here because there was a spacial distortion, and I wanted to isolate it from the rest of the world before fixing it," Palkia stated. "But when I got here it was tangled up with time, so some of it had happened in the past, and when I tried to work out what was going on Dialga decided I was responsible."

Dialga coughed.

"...essentially, for me, take what she said, but swap the words space and time around," he said. "And that Palkia decided I was responsible. And that some of it was happening in places that aren't here and – you get the picture."

"So you both came here because of the same distortion," Ash said. "But it's too complicated for you to pick apart alone, right?"

Dialga was silent for a moment.

"I actually think it's worse than I'd originally guessed," he said. "Sister, don't you think? I just noticed, our, um, our youngest brother is supporting the reality pressure."

"So I see," Palkia agreed. "Without your help, Ash, this world would already be collapsing… so I would advise you keep helping."

"If they can't pick it apart, what about the Space-Time Towers?" Alice suggested. "They're made to stabilize time and space, or that's what I was always told. Though they mostly just play music and make a light display."

"I am not sure that that is possible," Dialga said, turning to examine the towers.

His gem glowed, then he took a step back.

"I have changed my mind," he said. "Wow. Who designed this?"

"Godey did!" Latias told him. "Cynthia mentioned it earlier, I remembered."

Ash did his best to keep the humans up to date, and Alice frowned.

"You know," she began. "I always heard that Godey designed the towers after a vision of Dialga and Palkia, right here in the plaza."

"Oh, a paradox, right," Palkia said, relieved. "That's your department."

"I know, I know," Dialga muttered. "Fortunately, that just means we need to run them and it'll solve everything, then I'll send back how it was done."

Cynthia prevented Baron Alberto from interfering, doing so by the simple expedient of sending out Milotic, and Milotic amused herself by casually getting in the way whenever the Baron tried to insert himself into the situation.

With that in place, it took only a few minutes to get the Space-Time Towers activated, and a piece of beautiful, soothing music began to ring out across the square.

Glowing wings and vines of soft, white-gold light spread out across the towers, then into the space overhead, and with every note Ash felt the weight and tension lessen.

It was… relaxing, and energizing, both at the same time. His ring's glow subsided, and Dialga and Palkia stepped back to bask in it.

Darkrai also seemed to be enjoying it, but it was hard to tell.

Then, just as the music faded and the sky returned to normal, there was a little blue flash.

"Hi, guys!" Dawn called. "Long time, no see!"

Ash and the others turned, and Ash blinked at the sight of Dawn.

She looked a little bit taller than he remembered, and she was wearing a completely different set of clothes – a blue outfit with a long red scarf, sandals, and white fluffy socks that came up almost to her knees.

And there was an old fashioned Pokéball on her belt, along with another in her hand.

But what was even stranger was the two Pokémon accompanying her.

One of them reminded Ash a little bit of Miraidon, but he couldn't shake the feeling that he'd once seen a similar-looking Pokémon somewhere else, as well. They were four-legged, sort of cervine, with silvery parts visible underneath a green upper layer and a few sections that were glowing with pink inner light.

The other one was a bit like Suicune, but with a thicker purple mane and walking on two clawed feet instead of all four. Their other two limbs had clawed hands, and that along with their two tails meant that more than anything Ash was reminded of a mixture of Suicune and Koraidon.

"There we go!" said the Suicune-alike. "One close friend, restored to the proper time!"

"You can count on us," the green Pokémon agreed. "Wait – hey, bro, is this the first time Mom and Dad have seen us? I'm not great with pasts."

"You, probably, sis, but I think I popped up for Dad a couple of times," the blue one said, then waved at Miraidon. "Hey, big sib! First time in Ultimate Mode, huh? Big day!"

Ash and Latias exchanged looks of shared bafflement.

"What," Ash said, feeling about as baffled as Dialga and Palkia had been ten minutes ago.

AN:

Yep, it's time for another movie.

And time is the word, really.

It's convenient that this lined up to be chapter 100.