"Dad, you want us to do what?" Arven asked, blinking incredulously. "Delve into the crater just like that? Are you serious?" Turo stopped speaking for a second as Sada stepped into the frame.
"Arven, my sweet boy, yes. We need your help now more than ever; else we might lose Paldea. We're activating Theta Protocol." Turo and Sada stood motionless for a moment, then Arven nodded. "We'll see you in a little bit, honey. Gather your people and we'll see you at the bottom."
Amara hung up the phone as everyone turned to Arven. "Are you good, babe?" Allie asked. Arven shook his head but declared that the six of them needed to get ready to move because of Theta Protocol. "I'm not familiar with your parents' terminology, Arven. What's Theta Protocol?"
"We're moving in to contain an end of the world scenario." He said flatly. "There's a way into Area Zero near Medali. Let's get a move on." He didn't say another word as he tossed Koraidon out of its ball, hopped aboard, and waited. Allie climbed onto the back of Koraidon and Arven started the journey to Medali. Amara and Penny both nodded, and within minutes were on Miraidon's back about thirty feet behind Arven. They heard Trish and Nemona set out behind them and smiled.
"What do you think we're walking into, babe?" Amara asked Penny. Penny thought for a second, then announced she hadn't the foggiest idea, causing Amara let out her held breath. The Goon Squad spent the next two hours wordlessly riding across Paldea, by the time they arrived the sun was low in the sky, but the six of them were undeterred as they climbed off their Pokémon. Arven broke through the gate barring their way and turned to face everyone, "Last chance to turn around before we do something unavoidably stupid." Arven muttered as the six lovers stood at the entrance to Area Zero.
"We're not going anywhere!" Nemona announced as she and Trish stepped forward to the Zero Gate. Penny smiled and nodded her assent, and as Arven stepped forward to enter the keycode, Amara's phone rang again. "Go ahead, professors." Amara confirmed. Sada and Turo relayed the codes to open the gate, and that the Goon Squad would be air dropping into Area Zero. The Goon Squad slipped into the Gate, Arven entered the code, then the yellow marked door opened, and a warp panel activated on the floor.
"Guess that's how we'll get out." Allie noted as she, Arven, and Trish climbed onto Koraidon's back. Amara, Penny and Nemona did the same with Miraidon, and the lovers charged the open door and started their gliding descent into the Great Crater of Paldea.
"Honestly, that went a lot smoother than I expected." Penny noted, though as soon as the Goon Squad hopped from their mounts, both of them immediately recalled themselves to their Poké Balls. "Arven, did something happen down here when you came down last time?" Penny asked. Arven nodded and noted that was when Mabosstiff got hurt, and that Koraidon and Miraidon have counterparts in the Zero Lab that are much less friendly. "That's a bitch. Here's hoping we don't run into them." Amara said as she pulled out Rotom and dialed Sada and Turo.
"Amara, I have your GPS location pinging from the crater, that's perfect. There are four auxiliary research stations set up as you descend the crater. You'll need to visit each one and break the electronic lock to open the door to the main lab. By Cresselia's light, good luck." Amara shot Arven a look, and Arven nodded and started walking toward a white building about a hundred paces away.
"That's station one. There should be a control panel inside. Penny, I'm counting on you to get that lock open because I'm useless without a GUI." They kept walking as Penny pulled out her Rotom and a Poké-C cord and announced that as long as she could interface with the computer system, it would be putty in her hands.
"So, Arven, what were your parents working on down here?" Nemona asked as they walked. Arven shook his head and kept walking. "Cool, I'm going to assume they were building a kinky sex dungeon, since no one has any idea. Anybody else have input?" Nemona chuckled at her own joke as Allie announced that they must be developing a top of the line at-home bottom surgery machine, which elicited more laughs.
"Clearly they were building an end of the world doomsday device that they've lost control of if we're down here on Theta Protocol." Arven grumbled. "Watch it be like a really stupid one to, like a haywire time machine. I'm calling it right here, if it's a time machine I will bottom for all five of you." Arven's mood had soured noticeably, but he still managed to put on a small smile as he looked at his loves.
They arrived at the first station shortly after, and Penny stepped up to the door to check the control panel. "Fuck, no port and it's biometric. Arven?" He stepped forward and offered his retina to be scanned. The panel beeped, then the door opened. "Thank you." Penny smiled and walked inside. The others followed quickly and found her connecting her phone to the control panel. "Alright, Rotom, let's give them hell. What data can you give me?" Rotom chirped and began mining data from the computer system. After a few minutes, Penny flashed a wicked grin. "Arven, your parents' data security is shit." She announced as she punched in a password and unplugged Rotom. "That's the first lock undone. On to the next research station."
Turo popped up on Amara's phone and flashed a sad smile. "Perfect, I've gotten the alert that you entered the passcode successfully. Research station number two is at the lip of the crater." Arven rolled his eyes and turned to leave the station, grumbling the entire time. "Arven, my son. I know you're absolutely livid with your mother and me. I'm really happy that you came." Turo announced. Arven let out a snort and walked out into the sun, after a quick glance between the girls, they all headed outside to collect Arven.
"Fucking mom and dad out here jerking me around about this fucking place. I haven't seen you in eight years and you're going to throw me little crumbs of affection to try to pull me back to get me back on the hook. Fuck you!" Allie put her hand on Arven's back and his anger deflated. "Fuck, Allie. They're fucking awful." Allie smiled sadly at Arven and hugged him.
"I know you're really pissed, like your dad said, but we're here, and for what it's worth, we're your family." Arven smiled sadly as the other members of the Goon Squad all wrapped Arven in a group hug. They all let Arven go and stood in silence for a moment. Before Arven spoke again.
"You're the best family I could ask for." Arven smiled and turned to walk down the path deeper into the crater. "Be on the lookout. There's no telling what stupid shit mom and dad pulled down here." They walked, jovially bantering the whole way down, then Penny held out her arm to stop the group.
"Wild Pokémon, it looks like it's a Jigglypuff." Penny noticed. "The Pokémon down here aren't so alien after… wait." The Pokémon turned to reveal massive fangs and a long tentacle on its head. "What the hell is that thing?" She shouted. Nemona and Amara grabbed Poké Balls from their belt as the mystery Pokémon was joined by what looked to be a Delibird, but it looked robotic.
"Mom, dad, what the fuck did you do?" Arven grumbled in disbelief as Amara and Nemona made quick work of the two mysterious Pokémon. The Goon Squad broke into a brisk jog to the next research station, stepped inside, and Penny got to work patching Rotom into the mainframe. After a few seconds, Penny announced she had extracted the passcode. Turo popped up on Amara's phone again, Arven took the opportunity to take the phone and grumbled "Dad, what the hell are you and mom doing down here?" Turo's silence was deafening. It hung in the air for one, two, three seconds as Arven stared daggers into the screen.
"We'll tell you when you get here." Came Turo's almost autonomous reply. Arven ended the call and passed Rotom back to Amara. Penny typed in the passcode and was granted access to all of the data stored in the station.
"Arven, my love, I have some bad news. Come look at this." Penny waved him over and pulled up Sada's journal entries. "They're called Paradox Pokémon, and according to your mom's journal, they've been pulled here through some sort of centralized temporal distortion." Arven read through the three pages Penny had accessed and let out a loud swear.
"Ladies, pick an order to top me. My parents seem to have built a fucking time machine." He looked to Penny, "Please download this data?" He asked. Penny nodded and started the process to forcibly extract the data to her phone. "Both my parents are dickbags," Arven sang as he clapped three times. Allie snorted and planted a kiss on Arven's cheek. "That did it for you, a one liner song about how my parents are awful?" Arven looked at Allie incredulously.
Allie smiled and kissed Arven again. "It's mostly because I love you." She announced. A moment later, Penny pulled the cord from the control panel and announced they were ready to move to research station three. "Let's get a move on and be careful of more Paradox Pokémon." Allie cautioned the group as she stepped into the sun with the rest of the Goon Squad in tow. The six of them all kept moving, stepping into the darkened cavern to delve deeper into the crater. Amara, Penny, and Allie all pulled out lights to guide the group on their way but ended up putting them away a few paces later as they came upon the massive, glowing crystals set into the walls of the cavern.
"Are these Tera Crystals?" Nemona asked as she touched one. "They're warm," She announced as she pulled her Tera Orb from her bag. She tapped it to the crystal, causing the orb to surge with power. "Cool, free recharge." She tucked the orb away as the crew kept walking.
"Hold." Trish called as two Pokémon crossed the path. "They look like past and future Volcarona." She whispered. The two Pokémon looked to one another, then let out loud cries as they spun to face the Goon Squad. Trish and Allie pulled out their Poké Balls and went to work dispatching them. "How many specimens did your parents pull through time, Arven?" Trish asked as she and Allie recalled their Pokémon. "Is that in any of the research notes you've grabbed, Penny?"
Penny shook her head. "Not yet, and given that they've spent eight years down here, it's likely the answer is more than the four we've seen." Amara thought for a moment, then decided she'd come back after this and nab at least one of each Paradox Pokémon she could find down here. Mostly to fuck with Mr. Vaughn? Elaina asked. Amara gave a yes into her back brain as Arven opened the lock into station three.
"Arven." Turo popped up onto Amara's phone. "Inside the research station you're going to encounter something that will be hard to accept, but we need you to keep going after you discover it. All of Paldea is depending on you and your partners." Then Turo ended the call and the group stepped in to find the station in nearly complete disrepair.
"It looks like there was an explosion." Arven stopped in his tracks, and as Amara followed his eyes, she let out a gasp. Sada and Turo were burned up, battered, and very dead. "Mom, Dad?" Arven walked over to the two bodies and knelt. "They've been dead for a long while. It seems like, so who the hell keeps calling your phone?" Arven stood, wordlessly walked over to a utility closet, and grabbed a shovel. Allie grabbed one as well and the two of them stepped outside to dig. Nemona, Trish, Amara and Penny kept the wild Pokémon at bay as Arven and Allie dug, and after about an hour, Arven carried his mother and father one at a time out of the station and dropped each of them into the holes. Then he picked up his shovel, and he and Allie filled in the professor's graves.
The rest of the Goon Squad gathered around, and Arven looked down at the fresh earth reverently. "I've never been a prayin' man, everyone, but I hope these two find peace. I'll miss you, mom and dad." He turned, dropped his shovel, and started toward research station four. "Let's go. We have to find out who is running around wearing my parents' faces." Penny quickly bade everyone wait as she accessed the mainframe, typed in the passcode, then pulled Turo's notes from the terminal.
"Alright, we're good. Let's move." Arven had a renewed vigor in his step as the Goon Squad made their way to the final auxiliary station. It was a silent trip. Everyone knew what was about to happen, what Arven meant to do. None of them cared. Something within Arven had changed as he dug those graves, Amara surmised. Arven scanned the last biometric lock and Penny walked inside to access the mainframe.
"Arven, you're going to want to see this." Penny waved him over as she gained full access to the station. She pulled up Turo's research documents and held her phone out to Arven. "They did an AI project too, not just the time machine, and I think they built the AI from brain scan and personality data. Your parents are still alive, in a way, just mechanical."
Arven thought for a minute, then asked, "When? When did they build it?" Penny dug through the document and found the project's completion date. She turned Rotom back so Arven could see, and he let out a disbelieving snort. "That's been six years. The AI has to be missing data. It's a shadow of an imitation of my parents." Penny let out a disappointed sigh and Arven wrapped his arm around Penny. "I'm sorry, Penny. I know you were trying to cheer me up, but right now that's a fool's errand. I love you, and I appreciate the thought, really, I do, but let's let the dead be dead, alright?"
Penny hugged Arven and entered the passcode she'd extracted from the mainframe to open the final lock. Amara's phone leapt from her pocket to reveal Sada. Arven looked at the screen coldly before muttering "Machine," as his greeting, causing Sada's face to fall.
"I'm sorry you had to find out this way, Arven. They've been dead for a year now." The mechanized Sada relayed to Arven. "Now, the final control panel is right outside the lab. You have to stop the time machine." Amara nodded, ended the call, and joined the Goon Squad on route into the depths of the crater. he crystals at these depths were massive, and the light radiating from them was almost blinding. Nemona took a second to look downward and gasped. "The crystals have swallowed literal buildings, holy shit.
Amara shielded her eyes as they walked toward the lab at the bottom, then paused. "What do you think we're walking into, Arven?" She asked. Arven shook his head, and the lovers fell into silence again as they found the final control panel. Penny connected her phone, entered all four passcodes, and overrode the lock. "It's now or never." Amara said as the six of them walked one by one into the lab. They found the entire place scattered with research data, and as they looked around, they winced as two robotic shells in the shapes of Sada and Turo stepped out of the darkness.
"Thank you for coming, everyone." Mecha-Sada said. "We've encountered a problem." Mecha-Turo followed along. The synchronized speech from both of them made everyone uneasy, but the Goon Squad stood firm. "We were programmed by your parents, Arven, but unfortunately they made some, adjustments to us." Mecha-Turo grimly revealed. As Mecha-Turo tried to hide his disdain, Mecha-Sada took over speaking. "They disallowed us from turning off the time machine, and now the temporal field is destabilizing. We cannot turn off the power, and we will stop you if you decide to try."
"Then why call us here?" Arven asked, glaring at the two machines in front of him. "If you're just going to try to stop us, why drag us down to the base of the crater at all?" Arven's temper had flared, but Mecha-Turo stayed calm.
"You misunderstand, Arven. We will not stop you of our own volition. We will stop you because your parents programmed a failsafe into our code. We must eliminate anyone who attempts to tamper with the machine." Mecha-Sada gave a sad smile as a look of realization dawned on Arven's face. "You've discovered it, haven't you. You know why you're here."
"You brought me here to kill you." Arven's voice was shaking. "I don't know if I can, but we'll at least try to shut the damned thing down. Where is it?" Mecha-Sada pressed the elevator button, and she and Mecha-Turo entered the elevator. "Please come, the machine is in the basement." Arven followed the two into the elevator as the rest of the Goon Squad looked at each other warily. They linked arms and stepped inside as the door closed. The elevator ride was silent, and the tension only grew as the elevator descended. As the elevator stopped its descent, and the door opened at the bottom, the Goon Squad could feel the raw emotion radiating from Arven. Mecha-Sada and Mecha-Turo both stepped out and began interfacing with the massive machine before them.
Amara took the time to look around, then looked back to the Mechas. "The machine is this whole room, isn't it. This room contains the entire temporal field." Mecha-Sada turned and nodded. Arven stepped forward toward the machine, when Mecha-Turo's voice rang out with a robotic,
"Come no closer. The machine must operate. If you refuse to comply, your lives will be forfeit." Arven drew a Poké Ball and tossed out Mabosstiff. "So, you've chosen death, that's a pity. We were hoping to begin trials on humans exposed to the temporal rift." Mecha-Sada and Mecha-Turo turned to reveal they had been connected to the machine with massive cables. They each pulled out six Poké Balls and unleashed twelve Paradox Pokémon. "Farewell, interlopers. May you find solace in your gods."
Each of the Goon Squad sent out two Pokémon to fend off the Pokémon in front of them. Thankfully, without direct commands of Sada and Turo, they were dispatched quickly by the Goon Squad. As Amara turned to search the machine for a way to cut the power, Mecha-Sada gave a metallic scream, and all Pokémon returned to their Poké Balls. "You will have no Pokémon here. We will end you with the Winged King and Iron Serpent!" The two each pulled a master ball from their pocket and unleashed their own Koraidon and Miraidon. "Kill the interlopers, protect the machine. Kill the interlopers, protect the machine. Kill the interlopers, protect the machine."
Arven tried to toss out a Pokémon, but his Poké Balls had become useless. As the professors' Koraidon and Miraidon crept closer, Amara had a desperate thought, and pulled Miraidon's Poké Ball from her bag. "Arven, we can use these, they're still in the balls your parents used to catch them." Amara called. Arven pulled Koraidon's Poké Ball from his bag and the two tossed Koraidon and Miraidon onto the battlefield.
They recoiled at the sight of their counterparts. Koraidon and Miraidon staggered backward while the Professors' Pokémon crept ever closer to the Goon Squad. It was only when Turo's Miraidon entered striking range that Miraidon leapt in front of Amara and began to transform. After a few seconds of shifting body parts, it let out a loud roar and launched a powerful electric attack at Turo's Miraidon. Following Miraidon's lead, Koraidon wasted no time in letting its true power flare to life. It roared and lunged toward Sada's Koraidon.
The four Pokémon launched powerful attacks toward each other, but after a few seconds, it became clear they were at a stalemate. Amara felt the despair start to wash over her when she realized Koraidon and Miraidon were actively buying the Goon Squad time, so she charged toward the machine with the others a step behind. "Arven, do you see a manual power switch or something?" Penny called as she looked for a port to connect Rotom. Arven noticed it then, a needle and collector poking from the side panel. Arven threw down his pack, pulled out a pastry brush and a bottle of vodka, cleaned the needle, and cut his hand.
As the blood dripped into the collection cup, Mecha-Sada and Mecha-Turo went limp. The LCD panel on the time machine flared to life, showing a video of human Sada and Turo. "Arven, our wonderful son," Turo began. "I cannot communicate how proud we are of you, and now that you're here today to put an end to the research that drove our family apart, we only wish we were there with you to celebrate." There was a pause, then Sada spoke. "Arven, honey, we're so sorry we disappeared into the crater and left you alone. We know there's nothing we can do to make it right, especially since we're likely dead as you watch this. Just know we've loved you until the very end, and only wish we could see the man you've become. The emergency shutdown key is your birthdate backwards. Thank you."
Arven punched the LCD and shattered the front glass, then he typed a sequence of numbers on the keypad as Koraidon and Miraidon chased the professors' Pokémon away. The machine's lights began to dim, and after a moment, the whole room ceased to function. Arven turned and stepped back into the elevator, recalling Koraidon as he walked. Amara recalled Miraidon and followed, leading the rest of the Goon Squad back into the elevator. "Maybe we don't broadcast that we did this." Nemona posited as the elevator ascended back to the lab's main level. "I feel like the league would have our asses."
The six of them all took each other's hands, and as the elevator door opened, they all stepped out and made their way up the crater. "I'm sleeping for a week when we get back to school." Penny announced, bringing the first laugh to everyone's lips since research station three. "And then I propose we use Nemona's parents' money to buy a bed we all fit in and have the greatest cuddle puddle of our lives." More laughs, but Nemona kissed Penny's cheek. "I'm so in. That sounds amazing." The rest of the way back to Station four was quiet, but as they stepped, one by one, into the warp portal to head back to the Zero Gate, Amara called back to her headmates. I think this family of ours is my greatest treasure.