Tearing the Heavens

by Cepel

A young soldier from a once great family is thrust into the future and ends up in an unfamiliar and bizarre world, where his presence can cause complications both ancient and modern. He inadvertently becomes a trainer through mere misunderstanding and sets off in a journey to discover his own self and where he stands in a world that isn't his own.

76. Forward Back and Forward Again

"It definitely looks smaller than it did in the vision. See that? Bits and pieces are missing."

Standing behind a transparent crystalline barrier a few of the Naueilhi scientists had erected for added protection, Riven had zoomed in on the Sigil Stone with his holo caster. They were currently back in the temple Riven had infiltrated previously. The researchers were obviously still pissed with him for having gotten the daylights beat out of them and really only complied because the entirety of the nobility and elder class leaders compelled them to.

Not that they had any issues complying. They were too captivated by Riven's holo caster to give it any passing thought. Glancing behind his shoulder, he saw them all staring very intently at the device.

"Uh… you are looking at the Sigil Stone, right?"

Dull ah-huhs came in response. Weren't people supposed to look at the picture when someone was showing them something, not the camera?

A bunch of soldiers yammered on behind him, squabbling like a bunch of kids who'd seen their first pokeball. Suddenly the Naueilhi didn't seem at all like the mystical genius warriors he'd envisioned at all. No matter the day and age soldiers were still twig eating idiots like he was used to. These just happened to wear fancy crystalline armor and reactive weapons.

"How is it magnifying the image like that?"

"It even saves images in time! Imagine the possibilities in the women's bath!"

"A noble goal indeed."

"And it plays back the span of time captured?! What god blessed you with this magnificence? I could die content seeing the women in the baths with this! And then replay it over and over? The work of gods!" One of the soldiers hailed.

The time traveler suppressed a childish snort. To think that the first thing people discovered upon seeing video recording technology was the capacity for debauchery. You would think a global civilization that mastered evolution, advanced agricultural techniques, and instant repair jobs would be above this.

You'd also be wrong.

Riven was glad he didn't laugh either. Their whispers of awe had become exclamations in volume. Inari, Madam Vouan's daughter—standing directly behind them—clearly heard the exchange because Riven felt the wave of heat from where he was standing. Like the desert decided to cough on you with a nice blast of superheated air in the middle of the day. The deafening blast of her armored fists hitting their skulls like a grenade was not lost on him either.

That would have killed someone. Shit, Origins were terrifying.

They were steel types too, and Riven remembered all too well how Aveena had manhandled him without even trying simply because he couldn't scratch her skin. Inari had dropped all three with a single heated fist.

He tried to pretend he wasn't scared out of his mind, which was harder than it sounded. The fire woman glared at their class leader, Lenro. Her hand still sizzled with heat, rippling the air around her. The large man gave her an understandably nervous smile.

She cursed in a dialect Riven didn't quite make out. "Permission to throw them into the experimentation room, Lord Lenro? I would hate to step on their immaculate uniforms."

"Err… granted," he allowed, shifting uncomfortably away from the heat radiating off her in spades. Probably didn't want to risk melting. "Hopefully they come back with their organs in the right place. And with no 'upgrades'. Putting one of us back together is extremely difficult, might I add. Skin is too hard for normal tools. Be gentle?"

She stared blankly.

"I am not responsible for what our researchers do to them. Or their more… important body parts." She made a snipping gesture with her fingers.

"That's what I'm afraid of." Lenro turned to another soldier, muttering under his breath about notifying families of missing persons and "occupation related incidents" categorized under accidental mutilation.

Inari easily carried them off to another room in the shrine, dragging their bulky bodies along like they were made of feathers. Amusedly, Riven imagined Gale doing that to a bunch of burly operatives when they pissed her off.

A loud siren like alarm shrieked, snapping everyone's attention back to the machine. The lines of light that illuminated the interior flashed red.

Red was easy to understand. It meant a lot of things, one of which was obviously DANGER. The shrine itself had most likely detected that the Creator had been exposed.

A wave of pressure blasted the room as the automated containment system activated, sealing the machine and removing any corruption that had spilled out of the lattice while it was exposed. Small streaks of blue and red lightning flashed in the air around it as the hazy black "clouds" surrounding the crystal dissipated, ruptured space knitting itself together in a vacuum of matter. A faint shimmer was all that remained as the world corrected the anomaly.

Each of the Naueilhi winced and stepped back as they watched the ancient mechanisms work, having never seen them before. The array of light diffracting crystal mirrors and energy conversion systems fascinated even their own researchers, who basically ran upkeep on all the existing crystal technology available. That alone was mind blowing, given how different crystal based systems were to electrical ones and just how many of them there were. Then again, they must have had millennia and more to get used to it and were still stupefied by something older than their civilization. Whatever this was, it was beyond their capabilities. If modern day scientists had seen what Riven had just seen, well… astonished wouldn't do it justice.

This fucking thing was cracking reality itself. Those patches weren't so much clouds as they were holes in the fabric of space. All anyone could see beyond them was darkness and endless flashes of lightning. No other side, nothing.

Someone had thrown a slender rod into a cracked and they watched it disappear. Only it didn't disappear. It got deconstructed down to the molecular level in near milliseconds. Origins had far faster brain processing speeds than regular humans, as well as reflexes, taking in far more information than anyone else on the planet could hope to handle. That didn't factor in a Psychic type Origin's brain power either. Even they could barely perceive how fast that rod got broken down atomically.

As for the colored corruption that the Creator emitted… they still had no idea what the hell caused it. Nor did anyone intend to find out. Being near it was enough to drive someone to tortured screams and an unbearable amount of pain.

A single arc of the colored lightning had rendered one of the fire type Naueilhi soldiers comatose, which was preluded by bouts of hysterical screaming as his element nearly went haywire and almost burned his body from the inside out. Welts appeared on the surface of his skin as it began to redden, as if he'd begun cooking from the inside. And when he started glowing? Every water and ice based Origin blasted him with aqua jets and ice beams. If he exploded inside, everyone was dead.

That's when the blood curling screams really started, and the afflicted soldier's heatwave ripped through the layered ice like it was made of paper.

It took a whole ten psychics to restrain him and another five other people to cool him with ice and water until his body stopped reacting, and that was after the temperature in the room spiked a stifling twenty degrees. His skin was still blazing hot to the touch after his Origin circuitry had stopped flaring. His Origin circuits, normally red in coloration, were a deep, throbbing black.

They weren't making that mistake again. That cloud did horrible things to Origins. After every class leader decided they didn't want to imagine what it did to a psychic or an electric type, they deemed it far safer to observe it from a distance, hence the camera. Riven was glad for it, because what he'd just witnessed would give people nightmares.

Pulling up a picture, Riven showed it to Agneus, then the others. He drew a bright red circle on the screen using the edit photo tool(that fascinated them too), and outlined each fissure and crack in the Sigil Stone.

White eyebrows furrowed as Agneus squinted to see the picture. "This is why you wished to open it again?"

"Yes. I just needed to take a picture, that way there won't be a risk of the corrupting aura affecting anyone. The longer it's exposed the worse if affects the space around it. It's just I swore the Sigil Stone looked larger in the vision of my father. See these? They look like fissures. Imperfections or damage to the rock. It's been untouched for a long, long time, so I doubt any Naueilhi did it. Must have occurred when my father damaged it, which means it used to be stable. Now it isn't. Felc is a rock type, right? What's this look like to you?"

Big, brown, and excessively muscled sneered in his direction. "Lord Felc to you, stranger. I will not be ordered around by someone like you."

Riven rolled his eyes, tapping the picture angrily.

"I'm not part of your castes and might I remind you that I traveled twenty thousand years into the past to do this? Not anybody can just do that on a whim. Just look at the damn picture, dick."

Felc grumbled, the sound coarse like rumbling boulders. "Speak our language, boy."

"Lord Felc. He is a guest," Agneus interjected, shooting him an expectant glare.

Felc grunted in disdain but made no attempt to argue, moving his massive body over to Riven. The holo caster seemed to shrink in his enormous hands, but he examined the image thoroughly, noting every fault he could perceive in the picture with a lopsided scowl.

"Cuts and chips are clean and precise. Different from the wound made by the man's sword, not as jagged. The rest of it is immaculate. Very professional. Time consuming. How?" He squinted harder, his breath rising and falling as he tried to understand how they could cut a crystal that tainted anything it touched. "What did they cut it with? Interesting."

"Hey, dark one," one of the scientists called, peeping from behind Felc. "Can you touch it?"

"Did you not see what just a little bit of that did to that man from before?" Riven referred to the poor guy that had been taken back to the infirmary barracks in an ice block fifty seven layers thick that his skin was rapidly thawing. Shortly after preventing the man from turning into a human bomb, his Origin circuits had started flaring red in irregular bursts of light, as if trying to purge the black corruption like the body would a disease. "No."

Disappointment colored his face."Why not? Maybe it reacts uniquely to your, uh—kind. It looks like a dark element item. Holding one of those gives off the same feeling."

"Ah, really? You know, my foot might just react uniquely and find itself in a place it's not supposed to be, too. Guess what place I'm thinking of in particular?"

The scientist swallowed it and stammered, "I u-understand. Touching is bad."

"Yes, touch very bad." Riven pointed at the guy. "In fact, I'll never do anything for science. Bad life advice. Because if anything in that recording was to go by, something very, very bad would happen if I did. Maybe that's why my people swore off using our element at all. Something terrible happened previously with this thing and I don't think I want to use myself to find out what that is. I don't want to know what it'd do to me. Darkness is volatile too, even more so than fire."

Inari returned in time to hear that and glanced at him blankly. "That is hard to believe. Many hapless idiot initiates of mine have immolated themselves and others trying to achieve eyzoz without proper preparation. The only other idiots who rival that are the Sarrin initiates that try to absorb lightning bolts from the sky. Morons. No offense, Lord Orsen, Lady Miris. "

"Hey! I absorbed one when I was an initiate," the presumed class leader for the lightning class, said. His name was Orsen, and he looked like less of a politician and more of a fighter, covered in light armor trimmed in golden white crystals. His wife, a fair faced woman with hair like a mane of flowing lightning bolts and a matching set of lithe looking armor, snorted in a very unladylike fashion.

"But Orsen, my love, you were an idiot then. All of our young men are idiots. Chasing lightning storms? What kind of male initiation ritual is that?"

The man grinned, laughing sheepishly. "Got your attention though, didn't it?"

Inari rolled her eyes. Riven almost joined her, but settled on clearing his throat instead.

"Excuse me. But that word you said earlier. Eyzoz? Another word Celebi didn't translate for me," Riven muttered, straining to think of the word. "What's it mean, to you all, I guess?"

Agneus spoke this time, a burst of pinkish energy wrapping around him until the circuits on his skin flared a pale magenta, his skin paling until he resembled more of an extraterrestrial than a man. Interesting… he sort of resembled Mewtwo now that Riven thought about it. He didn't feel anything but a slight breeze from the man's transformation, but judging from how everyone else in the room almost fell to their knees from the psychic suppression, he had a mind to guess it was pretty powerful.

"It is a stage of power upon which the Greigas consolidates his energy, bringing power to the skin, bones, and body as a whole. A new level of understanding, if you will. Those in this form strike faster, truer, and harder than a normal Greigas can ever hope to achieve. Many take decades to both reach and control this power, and those who rush tend to destroy themselves from the inside. A lamentable way to die, truly. And dangerous to others."

Will would've called it a berserk skill. Good to know. Least he was learning the language, somewhat.

Although Celebi had basically poured an entirety of Naueilhi language into his brain, he was still limited by human processing power. Even an Origin like himself couldn't process so much at once. Many words escaped him and things like syntax, pronunciation, intricacies common in language and several connotations of words and phrases were missing or came and went rapidly. He switched to English at times while trying to find the right words. His Naueilhi was conversational at best, what with the language dump being more like an encyclopedia being shoved in all at once and piecing together what he could instead of slowly adjusting to it like any other learned skill.

Not to mention their version of contractions were downright weird. In fact, adjusting to the present had been far easier with the uncanny similarities between English and the common tongue back home. Naueilhi was radically different. It made little to no sense. If anything, his world and the trainer world of the future had much more in common than this one did. Sharing a language shouldn't make sense given the generational gap was basically half a million years compared to twenty thousand. There was something strange hidden beneath all that, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Worry about that later.

So the man out of time nodded to himself and snatched the holo caster from Felc's hands, who was now trying to press the multitude of buttons on the device with oversized fingers. How he almost changed the language setting to Kantoan Japanese was beyond him. Like watching an old timer struggle with tech."Agneus, any idea why they chipped pieces off of something like this?"

"I am afraid I do not. As I said before, our founders and ancestors went to great lengths to hide their shame and their pasts. There are no scripts or memoirs of any tampering with the Creator, only that it gave life and built the union we know with its power. We build everything from the pure energy crystals it allows us to fashion in our forges. What they did with it prior to Naueilh's founding is unknown."

"So we know nothing new," Seisora concluded airily. "What a waste of time."

"It was worth an attempt," Aiyum's husband, Lord Leilen, sighed. "Surely this was not to be resolved within a day, otherwise it would have been so long ago. If it was such an easy process to fix, I trust our guest would not have come so far as to travel across something as powerful as time itself to do something like this. These issues take time, Seisora. Assuming they can be resolved at all. One can only hope."

The water Origin remained impassive, glaring at Riven instead. Thank the heavens grass types were reasonable.

"That means we can leave then?" Lord Lenro asked eagerly. "We listened to the man's story, found out we're destined to die, and are no closer to finding out why. I want to go back to my workshop, drink myself pissed and then have a nice, long rest before panic sets in and makes me useless. Summon for me when something of value is found. I want nothing to do with that Creator, either. I vote it stays where it is. It is meant to be locked away, just as ours ancestors intended."

One of the psychics beside Agneus, a young woman named Acala with a scowl etched into her face pointed an accusatory finger at the giant of a man. "This is a grave matter, and you wish to return tinkering with Vertan contraptions and gadgets instead? You're aware they're our enemies, right? And that they're zealots? They defile their bodies with blasphemous technology!"

"Perhaps you may think that, young lady. But I am a tinkerer. I cannot sate my curiosity as to how their technology works!" His grin dimmed. "Hold for a moment. How did you know what I was working on? Did you read my mind so easily?"

"No need, it's denser than the metal you work. At least Felc has a somewhat decent thought once in a while. Metalheads are boring to read."

Felc snorted. Rock didn't like steel much either, it seemed.

"Ah, young Acala! That may be! But if death is that close, then I chose to use my remaining time doing something I like. And I like tinkering with interesting contraptions! Like vertan prosthetics! They're ingenius! Now, good end of days to you all!" Turning towards the exit, he whirled around to face Riven. "Dark one, it was a pleasure meeting a strange fellow like yourself. Time travel must be quite the experience. Truly sorry about your father and mother, she was as beautiful as he was brave. You are…"

The big man struggled to find something appropriate to say. "Uh…Similar… yes."

Riven's eyebrows furrowed so hard they could have dug into his skull. Did he just call me beautiful? Or brave? What…what the fuck? "Uh…"

The huge man must have realized what he said, because he was gone faster than Riven could blink.

"Forget him, traveler."

A pale woman with long white hair huffed with disdain. Her excessively detailed robes seemed to emit a cold mist that caused everyone bar the fire and rock types to stay away from her. Walking snowstorm if Riven had ever seen one. Made Isole look tame. She'd been eerily quiet during the meeting and had sat on the opposite end of Riven's side of the table, focusing him down with eyes like arctic blue lasers.

The leader of the Yater class of ice, Eku.

From the ice types around her, Riven noticed that they were all relatively thin, appearing beautiful in their fragility. And they were just as damn pretty as the grass types were, just blue and white instead of blonde and green. Far more irritable too. Maybe it was a trend with ice types? Or maybe it was the desert. Isole hated Hoenn's climate with a passion. Living here would've pissed off anybody.

With a slight movement of her hands, a cool breeze blew over the room.

"Leave it to Lenro to avoid responsibilities. How he leads a class is beyond me. What he said has some truth, however. There really is no real reason to stand around here if there are not solutions ready. In the meantime… have one of the soldiers take the dark one on a tour of the city while we think fiercely about the end times. I am sure we will come out with something. All of this is much too vague to place any merit on countermeasures just yet. We know our ancestors sealed the Creator with a dark Greigas' touch, but to what purpose? Without any knowledge, it does us no good if we cannot touch it. Exploring other options could yield more answers, correct? We can have the researchers begin to formulate ideas."

The other elders, including Lady Aiyum and her husband, agreed. Many of them looked like they wanted to be anywhere but the Shrine. Seeing the Creator exposed had scared many of them. It radiated a dark, corrupting aura, and from Riven's experience, that hardly felt welcoming and warm. A strange chill remained in the air since it had opened, and it certainly wasn't because Eku was standing in the room.

"He did want a tour. Celebi gave us its word that he can be trusted. I see no harm in allowing him to see our city as long as he stays away from conflict," Caecili the air class leader stated. "We can choose a guide, for now. Once he is accustomed to the city, we may speak more of contingency plans. There is an entire class to be run by each of us, and there are many tasks which must be seen to. Everything must appear normal to avoid widespread panic. Especially from the Unpowered, docile as they are. Now then, who will be the guide?"

The room went quiet, murmurs dying abruptly. "Err… volunteers? Lady Eku? Have you someone in mind?"

The woman gave Riven another one over, and scoffed. She was almost insulted. "And subject a Yater to the unforgiving heat of the desert sun?"

The others nodded grudgingly.

Obvious no.

"Lord Orsen?"

"No lightning types," Riven refused instantly, leaving the man hanging. He fidgeted under the remaining leaders' rather confused attention. "One of you is enough, no offense. He lives in the future too. Total ass. I'll pass."

Over six feet and five inches tall and Orsen somehow managed to pout just like Omy did when he refused to give her treats.

Lady Aiyum sighed softly, "My son can-"

"I nominate Inari," Seisora declared loudly. "She tolerates strangers as well as she does children. This thing is no different. The desert sun does little to a Greigas of fire. There are no excuses to say otherwise." She snapped at him, holding back colorful language from the looks on the psychics' contorting faces.

Madam Vouan gave the younger water Origin quite the icy stare for a fire type. She gave no objection to it, though.

"Thank you for your input, you brash young fool. My daughter is best suited for the role, yes. Her patience, unlike yours, is unrivaled among my class, who pride themselves on brash actions of falsely perceived bravery. Although, I would nominate you close second, Shield of the Oasis, since you were so eager to attack him on your own and managed to get three different elite soldiers from three different classes injured severely. It is good fortune this man here did not kill them, else he nor you would remain breathing. Had you been my own, I'd have you executed for sheer stupidity. But it is not my place to judge your glory chasing. That is Kalasoren's duty. Such a doting father, and to find out you were defeated? Shame, Ehial Praetorian. Shame. Even more so that he neglected to come himself this time. Pride does not lend itself well to idiocy."

The tension in the room could be felt. The others exchanged concerned looks as Agneus and the other psychics focused on Seisora, no doubt reading his mind. His fingers twitched toward his blade.

Don't. A thought rang throughout the water Origin's mind. He grudgingly relented, biting back the verbal acid he almost let out, managing a restrained, "I was outnumbered."

"Not at first. Usui, Genir, and Yuyan were beside you. Briefly. All elite fighters in their respective classes. And is your fighting style not directly suited for that very purpose? To fight multiple opponents? Or are dark Greigas just as if not more resourceful than their bestial counterparts? Good enough to best Naueilh's best fighter? Well, second best now."

Seisora flinched as Vouan smirked, turning to face Riven who was trying to make himself smaller and failing. These people only pretended to tolerate each other. Somehow they had formed an alliance between types without murdering each other. It was either a miracle or someone was holding them back.

The water Origin's jaw clenched, opting wisely to shut his mouth. Riven could make out thinly veiled rage behind those ocean blue eyes, simmering in his ability to do nothing. Getting looked down on by an inferior type to one's own must be severely demoralizing. But Seisora held like a statue. His father was important. And definitely not someone to disappoint or mess with.

"Silence, good. The pup knows its place. Still, I do not object. It would do my daughter well to associate herself more with men instead of clueless initiates who are unable to form a proper fireball. It is doing disastrous things to your hair, daughter. You have such beautiful hair."

"Mother!" Inari hissed. "Have I no say in this?"

Her mother gave her a flat look. Inari's face fell.

"What? You need a break from instructing. Show this dark one the city and our customs. Maybe he can figure out what will lead to our disappearance in ten years. Or not, it makes little difference if it's our destiny to die miserably. However, there must be a reason this 'Celebi' brought him here. The ancient beasts do not act on whims." She looked Riven up and down. And grinned slyly. Riven really didn't like that. Beckoning her daughter over, she whispered something into Inari's ear.

The young woman turned redder than fire, flashing Riven a horrified look.

"Any objections?"

"N-no, mother. I mean yes! I will not-" The woman made herself swallow and breathe slowly. Some of the redness left her cheeks. "No."

Madam Voaun frowned, pouting. "But isn't it nice?"

"Yes, but just because you can do something doesn't mean you should," her daughter replied tersely, her red eyes burning holes into Riven's forehead. He was currently examining a nearby crystal with a puzzled look and a curled lip. It flashed and he flung it across the room. Her mother raised an eyebrow, smile wry. Inari frowned."Restraint is just as important as patience." Some of the other class leaders snickered, turning to leave seeing as how they didn't have to volunteer anyone themselves.

The older woman scowled. "I knew teaching would be too good for you. Such a wasted opportunity. Should've been a leader instead. Like me! Very well, but think on it, daughter." Voaun faced Riven, sighing again with disappointment. Someone had to snap their fingers to get his attention.

"You there, meet my daughter in front of the shrine at noon. For now we will bring you clothes to change into that will reflect your unique class. I have never laid eyes upon the colors that the dark will provide. Our garments represent our classes and types, as you have seen. Would you like it to be armored? I understand soldiers can get… anxious when not sufficiently protected. You seem the type."

Oh yes. Armor was very nice. Riven would never say no to that. Paranoia apparently had other plans because his distrust came back in full force, dispelling his excitement. As usual, if it sounds too good to be true… it probably is.

"Where's the fine print and the line where I sign my life away?"

Everyone blinked.

"Uh, right. Past… should've seen that coming uh…" He scratched his neck and searched for something they'd understand. "Isn't armor expensive?"

Madam Voaun rolled her eyes at the implied meaning.

"You have traveled across the boundaries of time, defeated a man that can equate to a platoon of elite soldiers and this is what you're worried about? Foolish boy. Do not trouble yourself with irrelevant things like cost," she said. "The Felir will take the full bearing of the costs. It is the least we can do after the transgressions of our elemental ancestors. This Rose clan's actions were well beyond reprehensible and thus I will do what I can to right their failures, however small. Now, lightly armored, heavily armored, or cloth? Quickly quickly!"

Oh man, he had choices. Heavy armor was excellent at deflecting glancing blows as well as most puncture based weaponry, but it weighed a considerable amount and made a ton of noise. Cloth was out of the question and would do a fantastic amount of dog shit against anything more penetrating than a dull pencil. The choice was obvious.

"Uh, lightly armored," Riven answered, opting for mobility and mild protection. "It'd be nice to have some protection while still being able to move. Thank you, Madam."

"Oh? You call a fire spitter Madam but refuse to call me Lord? I, who can entomb you in an escapeless prison with but a stomp of my foot?" Felc ground out, his baritone voice rumbling like gravel. Voaun looked at him, nonplussed.

"She asked nicely. And strength doesn't matter to me. One kick from my 'beasts', and you have pulverized organs. See how your rock prison does then. And I have two that can turn a rock type into gravel in three seconds flat. Ever take a solarbeam to the face? Neither did Seisora. Try me, shitweed."

"I don't like you," Felc proclaimed instantly.

"However shall I cope?" Riven yawned as disrespectfully as he could manage. Rock types never were his cup of tea. They reminded him of Ben, and Ben was a manipulative dick. "Well, this was nice. Thank you all for whatever this was, but I'm afraid I must retreat and get the sleep I'm sorely lacking. Please don't stab me while I sleep, or wake me up, because then I might just stab you back. I'm very good with pointy objects."

Powerwalking and about to hit full sprint to get out of dodge, he made it to the long corridor just before the exit of the Shrine when he felt something grip his shoulder. Madam Voaun held him in place. That smile of hers sent shivers of unease down Riven's spine, all cunning and barely concealed danger. For a frail looking middle aged woman, she had the grip strength of an Olympian.

"In a rush, are we? Let us have a moment, dark one. Away from any… prying ears."

"Can I say no?"

"I'm afraid not," she smiled sweetly. Riven didn't like that either.

She led him into one of the adjacent rooms, containing all manner of curious harmonic devices and crystalline structures.

"Is this about your daughter?" Riven asked cautiously. "I won't try to hurt her, if that's what you're worried about."

She laughed in his face. "Boy, I'd be more worried about her hurting you. No, this doesn't concern Inari, but it does concern you. Quite interestingly enough, your story is quite familiar. I'm glad Agneus has a good head on his shoulders. Having you dead would never have given my curiosity the chance to blossom! You see, a long time ago, I met a group of strange Unpowered. Dressed bizarrely and speaking dialects I had never heard of before. One of the Unpowered had an appearance I've never seen before. Such peculiar eyes. They were slanted! Like this."

She pulled at the lateral canthus of her eyes, creating a gesture that would have been horribly offensive to any of Johtoan and Kanton descent. Riven quickly realized that Madam Voaun had no concept of modern day culture, making it utterly pointless to correct her. Not that he cared much anyway.

"Was he a time traveler too?"

"He told me something of the sort. Of course, I never believed him. Until now. It seems he has much to tell you… and I. I wish for you to meet him—well, he will meet you I should say. Seek the Unpowered sector of the city, and please do not tell my daughter of this."

"You'd hide this from your daughter? Why? Seems like a minor issue to me."

"Minor perhaps to you, yes. I love my child, but she is far too noble for her own good. And things are brewing between our people and the mysterious Vertans. They are building interesting contraptions for reasons we don't yet understand. For what purpose I do not know. I need my informants to stay anonymous in case something comes to a head. The less the other class leaders know of my little white ghosts, the better. They believe all Unpowered to be no threat at all, while the Vertans revere themselves as the champions of those unlucky enough to be born without abilities. I believe that underestimating your enemy is the worst thing a leader can do. And so, I prepare. My daughter would likely tell all of Naueilh and be made a laughing stock, as if being an instructor with her level of skill wasn't enough degradation. She cares more about this city than she does of our home. A callous desert instead of the beauty of gentle waves and the salty kiss of the ocean. The curse of the young…"

Shrewd and cautious. Is she really a fire type? Riven scoffed to hide his assumptions, her words confirming his suspicions about the other classes. "So then why don't you tell the other leaders of your suspicions instead, surely they'll believe a class leader of your caliber?"

"Hah!" She laughed sardonically. "As if the other self absorbed wads of yusna could set aside their differences to actually listen!"

"They listened to me."

"Hear, yes. Listen? Hardly. Young man, you terrify them," she replied. "Seeing a man almost kill Agneus—a psychic Greigas that can crush the bones of a man by simply flexing his fist—with but a thought causes anyone to pay attention. There is a reason the psychics rule. And it is all about power. And you, dark one, just upset it. Being able to expose the Creator with your touch only also makes you invaluable. This has never once happened before. The ancestors designed the shrine this way, restricting its functions. Why? No one has a clue! So then why fight an enemy when you can talk to them instead?"

"Certainly easier than fighting all the time, at least. That explains why you all haven't torn each other apart yet."

"Again, that is only so because the psychics wish it that way, dark one. Were it up to someone else, Lenro would have pulverized us by now and Orsen would have conquered most of the known world. Lightning has few weaknesses. Still, it is useful to not worry about Ehial raiders or Keruv battlemasters, so appearances must be kept. Now go, young man. And be mindful for the watchers in white. They do blend in so easily down there."

Smiling slyly, she traipsed out of the Shrine and shot into the sky in a trail of flames. Jet propulsion?! Fire types could fly? Now that was just unfair. The soldiers waiting outside the shrine didn't seem bothered by the grandiose display whatsoever. When the foremost soldier beckoned to him with a hand, Riven's mood soured further.

"Madam Voaun has entrusted us with your protection."

Protection. Sure.

And she arranged an escort? This lady…. Well if someone appeared and beat the shit out of several of my people I wouldn't trust them to do something sensible either.

His shoulder was still warm to the touch from when she had first gripped it, almost uncomfortably so.

After being briskly escorted to his strange crystalline room, he noticed Celebi sleeping in the air in a green ball of light that pulsed at odd intervals. He stared for a moment, shrugging and deciding that legendary time traveling pokemon sleeping suspended in gravity was par the course in his life.

He was so exhausted from everything that rest came instantly to him, practically passing out moments after hitting the bed. Sleeping a full night's rest in a different era was always an experience. The first time he went to sleep after getting transported to Littleroot he'd awakened the Nightmare inside and scared an entire forest.

Luckily, the only eventful occurrence was waking up to a legendary pokemon poking at his face and the alien scenery of a gleaming crystal cityscape shimmering in the desert sun. Waving Celebi away, he rubbed his eyes absently and realized that caffeine wasn't a thing in this time period.

Damn shame.

The city shined radiantly as reflected light coalesced in the sky above. Riven stared blearily out the window, twisting his body to crack his back from the sorry excuse for a mattress they'd provided for him. For an advanced ancient civilization, their beds were not nearly as sophisticated as everything else. Maybe his body just hurt from the beating.

There was a knock on the door and a young boy in a white tunic, an Unpowered, came to his door, delivering food and a bundle of clothing that he struggled with carrying before quickly scampering away. Not once did he look at him in the eyes or so much as lift his head. Riven had slept shirtless, and the scars on his body probably reinforced the image the boy had of dark types. Mismatched eyes also tended to be disorienting to normal people, even though the kid didn't so much as make eye contact to even register that fact. His eyes had been glued to the floor, actually.

Was he afraid of him specifically? Or was it Origins in general he feared?

Everywhere they went it seemed like people made dark types out to be some kind of evil, child eating monsters. But it was different this time. Here they were afraid of not just him, they were afraid of everyone. The colors and swirls of the Other followed each of the regulars, hanging over them like a somber cloud. Without the Diancie beads around his neck Riven could see it perfectly. Fear and resentment swirled around them with hues of blue and violet mist. Beneath all this beauty there was something foul between the Origins and the regulars. All of the Unpowered he'd met here acted submissive, heads down and silent while Origins were prideful and arrogant, eager to prove their worth to the other classes. Competition was a staple here, which only bred confidence and bravado. And where there was competition, there were those who strove to get by through other means. Means that put others down to get themselves up.

Riven stared towards the center of the city, noting the red hazy colors of anger in the sky only he could see. Thin streams of black mingled with it—hate. He reached for the Diancie beads next to the bed.

Getting dressed and eating the strange breakfast, he examined the bundle of clothes and armor the servant had struggled with, marveling at the craftsmanship of the armor. Armored, yet extremely lightweight in its design. A stab of one of his ordinary steel knives didn't so much as penetrate. Interlocking plates of tiny crystals wove into the light fabric of the armor, peeling off heat better than cotton or cloth while remaining flexible enough to have full movement along the joints and extensions. His legs and feet were just as protected as his torso, and thankfully weren't as restricted as traditional plated armor tended to make them. As soon as he put it on the white armor it darkened, turning a deep obsidian that he expected would be horrible to wear under the desert sun.

Luckily he was wrong. It kept heat out surprisingly well for something so darkly colored. Interesting.

Leaving the building he was residing in, he walked towards the Shrine entrance while avoiding the main streets so the rest of the city wouldn't notice him. Some people did notice, however, and stared in disbelief not at him specifically, but the color of his clothing. Young children shouted the word plen over and over. He recognized it as the Nauelihi word for black.

Riven found Inari waiting outside the Shrine, sitting on a crystal rail with her head leaning against her right palm. There weren't any guards outside and she appeared to be alone. Luckily her typing made getting a nasty sunburn fairly hard. Desert sunshine was brutal.

Even so, Madam Vouan must have had full confidence in her daughter to leave her by herself, let alone allow her to pass out in the middle of the day in a city full of people. Maybe Inari was already aware of the fact that he was currently on a rooftop behind her.

She most definitely was not.

She yelped upon Riven tapping her shoulder with a finger. Almost falling over, Inari semi stumbled off the railing, spun around and held up her hands as fire and embers shot out of her fingertips and nearly seared Riven's face off.

The guy had instantly let himself fall back, lying spread on the ground and understandably thankful his face was still there.

"Legendary beasts! How are you so damn quiet!?" She yelled, eyes slightly red. Dark rings hung under her eyes from exhaustion.

"Thanks for almost roasting me!" Riven complained, standing up and brushing himself off. "Please don't do that again."

"Then don't sneak up on me."

"I wasn't really trying. Not hard to sneak up on someone who can barely keep their eyes open. Not much sleep last night?" He examined her face again and cringed. "Or few nights, I should say? Er, weeks? Do you sleep?"

She gave him a flat look, like a younger, prettier, more expressive Voaun despite the evident lack of rest. "Sadly, no. I had to train initiates and write reports after you left to sleep because unlike visitors, we have jobs to do. Then I had to wake up early to guide you thanks to that waterlogged idiot Seisora. You were taking some time so I thought I could rest meanwhile. I teach combat classes for half a day everyday and deal with my whim inclined mother the rest of it. Exhausted wouldn't be accurate to describe what I feel at the moment. Hold a moment, did I sear you anywhere?"

She tried to search for burns but Riven peeled away uncomfortably, insisting he was just fine being slightly singed.

"Thankfully no. You're tired, I understand. Teaching is exhausting and thankless. But I'm here now so… let's get this started? Faster we get this done the faster you can go sleep for real."

"I agree completely."

Inari yawned, picking herself up off the rail and stretching lightly. She wore a different light armored tunic this time, with red flames dancing across the shoulders and back. The sets of armor represented a unique craftsmanship of sleek angles and detailed engravings that differed from the rest of the armor Riven had seen. Each class had their own style, some flowing and light as clothing, while others were riveted and plated like armor. The crystals woven into the fabric of Inari's tunic were much like Riven's own, indicating Felir craftsmanship. Hers, however, gleamed red instead of a coal black obsidian.

Her hair was done up simply, tied in a Ponyta-tail. A medium length blade hung at her hip, its scabbard made partially of sleek metal and clean cut crystal. No nonsense and practical. Her shoes were coated in sand and looked especially worn, her hands calloused and marked with scarred over burn marks. She was exhausted, yet her voice sounded like she could scream a recruit into tears within a minute. She certainly looked the part of a combat instructor.

"Armor fits you," Inari complimented idly, breaking him out of his observations while she pointed at the obsidian color. "Never seen a black color before. It's… quite something. Distracting, to be frank. It's so dark it makes you easy to spot with all this light. During the night it'd be near invisible… How many glances did you get coming here?"

"Too many to catalogue, and I took the rooftops. Air types have good eyes, though. I've noticed colors are important here. Black must not be common."

"Black is never seen in a class armor or color," Inari explained, eyeing the black crystals warily. "These crystals you see react uniquely to our bodies, remaining white if the person who wears them is an Unpowered. Dark ones were thought to be extinct, so no black color has ever been recorded in the history of the united cities or in the classes for that matter. Your colors determine your class, and the brighter they are, the stronger you are seen. Our colors distinguish where we belong. If a Fire element like me was found wearing blue colors, the results would be quite grave. Not that I would ever subject myself to such degradation. Pose as an Ehial? I'd rather kill myself."

Monochromatic wardrobes, huh. He imagined wearing a grey shirt and getting stoned for it. The following wince made Inari laugh.

"Don't worry, you won't get punished if you decide to wear something else. Visitors aren't held to our customs so strictly. Wear blue if you wish, but Seisora won't like it. He might try to fight you again."

"Fuck that man and his bullshit shield," Riven grumbled. "Cheating bastard."

Inari worded out the swears in a thick accent, as if trying to decipher their meaning.

"What do those words mean?" For a grown woman she looked a lot like an innocent little girl asking that. Then again, language barriers were understandable.

"Oh, it's like a… swear word in my, err, the future's language. Well, one means bull dung. But they can be used to describe a lot of things. Like Seisora's combat tactics, for example. If I say something strange, don't fret over it too much. I meant it in a context that they were inherently unfair and frustrating to fight against."

"That shield is the source of many a disgruntled challenger," Inari explained irritably. She focused on his armor, noting the crystals engraved into it. "The colors. They're like the night sky. So black it drowns out light. You come from a powerful ancestry."

Riven looked down at the tunic, frowning.

"I guess." He eyed the flames on her tunic, pursing his lips. "So, uh… question. These classes, how do they function? They're categorized by type and color? Does a family specifically control them? What function do they serve in Naueilhi society?"

God he felt like a documentary reporter. The fact he even compared himself to that would have knocked the Riven of the past on his ass. Shit, he used to be fascinated by televisions. A person's normal could fluctuate quite heavily in the span of a few years.

Inari gave him a strange glance, chuckling. "Naueilh is not our whole society."

"What do you mean?"

She gestured toward the markings on her armor. "Naueilh is merely the focal city of the entire society, Nauer, where every class presents itself from its own respective city. Each class has its own culture and norms, independent in their standing but joined together under the leadership of the class leaders and ultimately under the Sovereign. The leaders of each class come to Naueilh to represent the city states, as well as train elite soldiers and Greigas. Unpowered class inductions also happen here for security reasons."

"Class inductions, huh." Riven recalled somberly. 'One generation sacrifices for another."

Inari's face saddened at the mention. "Yes. Luckily, the other kingdoms are still afraid to openly attack us, so we would eliminate the need for sacrifices in a few generations. Naueilh's location in the middle of a desert also largely discourages spies and infiltrators. Soldiers hardly fight anyone these days overtly, although there are various skirmishes on the borders of the kingdoms, especially on the Vertan borders. Spies are rampant in every class city, however, which is why Seisora was so suspicious of you."

He should be more suspicious of your mother, he thought sardonically. Clever like a Vulpix, bites like a Seviper.

"But is there war?"

"Large scale combat? Not since the unification of the other city states. But we do plan for it. Vertans are up to something, I can feel it. They've been too quiet recently. Somehow they are extremely skilled in detecting our spies."

"Are they normal or Origin?"

"Why would we send those without the ability to defend themselves?" She asked, perplexed. "It's stupid."

Riven tried not to smash his face against the nearest surface.

No fucking shit they spot them so easily. Hold up a crystal to one of them and it lights up like an Arcsmas[1] tree. Good warriors but terrible spies. Voaun clearly has the right idea.

At least Inari's intuition was spot on for the most part. He made his best effort to remain confused.

"But you're sure?"

"Yes."

"Are you certain?"

"…Yes."

"But are you-"

"Ask me again and I'll sear my response into your forehead."

So no war? Riven thought, shifting his hypothesis around in his head. Guerilla warfare yes, but no large scale mobilization? That didn't make a whole lot of sense.

Perhaps their technology and natural abilities served as a deterrent? No sane army would fight against an enemy able to throw lances that could decimate entire city blocks. They'd be torn to shreds. Unless they had something better. Doubtful though. For all intents and purposes, whatever war that was occurring between the kingdoms or societies was a cold one. Wars and violent conflict brought about the last humanity wiping judgment, so what went wrong this time, in a place with little to no conflict whatsoever?

He scratched his head. Then he thought about the synthetic Origin spheres Grimsley had discovered during the raid. Anyone could make a sphere, but to make them functional… Could they have achieved it? The energy expenditure must have not been anything to laugh at, because if Singularity couldn't mass produce Origins like it was running an assembly line, then he doubted these Vertans were able to. They were far from backward, just focused in a different way from modern technology. Explaining it was hard enough, understanding it even more so.

"How much energy does it take to charge a sphere?"

They'd mentioned that the legendaries had retreated, going into slumber for a very long time. That's what had caused a panic among the Unpowered in the rest of the Nauer society. The Sacrifice had been instituted once the leaders had realized the Legendaries weren't coming back any time soon and the classes had begun to stagnate.

Inari had explained that was over hundreds of years ago. Every Origin's death meant potentially losing more potential Origins, and from what Inari had mentioned about the amount of skirmishes in the past between the rival kingdoms against Nauer, the death toll was absolutely not insignificant.

Legendary pokemon could channel untold amounts of energy, far more than any Origin could without immense control. If humans were car batteries, legendaries were nuclear power plants. Rayquaza's mega evolution had released more energy in a few moments than LaRousse did in three months with all its power output. And it had easily charged a sphere from the vision he saw in Gale's evolution sphere. It was a sneeze for them. Rayquaza didn't seem perturbed in the slightest. Mega evolution had been so interesting for scientists partly because of the massive amount of energy released when it triggered.

Inari shrugged, trying to remember.

"I don't know…. about ten experienced Oree-gens, as you call them? That's to be safe with no fluctuations in power and perfect sync. They must all be within the same class too. Otherwise it puts the whole process at risk. It also takes a month for recovery from the strain alone, and during that time those who participated have severely reduced capabilities—the process weakens them considerably."

Ten? Holy shit. Riven blew out a breath he'd been holding. "Month long recovery time plus experience requirement. That's a fairly large bottleneck for progress… How is it that Origins overload then, if the process can be safely done?"

"Because a crystal form is much higher in energy than a human body is. Flesh and blood tend to complicate matters. Poor conduits, our researchers say. Stone and crystal is much simpler. More reactive. Technically only one is needed in a direct transfer, although it is incredibly dangerous to the giver. Almost certain death and if not, a physical state that would make anyone sane wish they were dead. Ten can charge a sphere to bestow abilities more safely, but ten crystallized Origins can charge ten times that. The cost, however, is also death. If done improperly, the crystals themselves explode and have the potential to decimate entire portions of a city. Some crystallization rituals have ended… poorly. This is why the Xenhils are just as exceptionally skilled at repairing structures as the stone and metal class members are at reinforcing them. For a society as large as ours… Well, you understand how unsustainable that process is. Some prefer the safe method, but recovering from the harm it does to the body can be too much when done multiple times. Many can barely stand after the ordeal. Some break mentally from the process, unable to fathom how one could live powerless. Others become so weak they start to get sick, just like an Unpowered can. An illness easily fought off by a child can kill them."

Not unlike influenza among immune compromised patients. There'd been particularly bad outbreaks in Orre and Unova decades back. Thousands dead in a matter of a few weeks. Now it made sense why hardly anyone from his original world got sick. She didn't mention what one to one transfer did to the giver, imagining it was all that agony and more.

Riven scratched his chin, estimating potential numbers. "Fairly serious drawback. You mentioned size of the kingdom… how large is it? In the present, there's evidence of this society, empire whatever it is. Everywhere. Even in places it shouldn't be, entire continents and oceans apart. The language is different from Naueilhi but there are scripts, carvings, murals, ancient artifacts and engravings. They're found across the world. Your classes… they're spread out over thousands of miles in each direction, aren't they? Your kingdom, coalition, sovereignty or who knows what is that big. It's not just a few small cities here and there."

"Indeed. Our cities are smaller than Naueilh, but far more numerous and located far across the world," Inari explained. "My mother and I, as well as our class, come from a region we call Felior, from which our class name is derived from. It is where the first fire Greigas was created, and our customs come from that part of the world. It is very far west, in a cluster of islands with many active volcanoes. Traveling there takes months normally. The Creator allows us to travel the world with the use of the power spheres, as long as there is a link located where we are going."

"Link?"

"A gate that acts like a lesser Creator. We call them Creation Gates. There is one in the center of every city. Some say they contain pieces of the Creator itself, tuned to our element. That is how it recognizes a part of itself."

Instant teleportation.

No doubt very useful for running a worldwide kingdom. If it was one. Sovereign could mean anything. A king. A god. A ruler. Kingdom, empire, or democracy, it didn't really matter. The main issue large kingdoms encountered in the warring years before the training era and modernization was that they got too big. Managing them became almost impossible. Moving supplies, manpower, and occupational forces conventionally became a nightmare once distance increased and communication took weeks. Uprisings in the occupied territories turned into opportunities for foreign powers, which resulted in more battles, overrun positions, and even thinner supply lines. Expanding a kingdom was difficult, expanding an empire was nearly impossible. Too expensive, too time consuming. Unless said empire had instant communication and transportation.

Two in one? Even better.

Still, the machine and its interaction with the Sigil Stone fascinated Riven. How did it create the spheres? And how did it even do the things it did? Logically speaking, someone must have programmed it a certain way. Though from what he could see, there were no computerized components or electrical wiring for that matter. Just crystal, metal, and lots of refractive surfaces.

From what he remembered, however, was that the machine holding the Sigil Stone in the future was barely functional and didn't have the multitude of lights and crystals surrounding it. There was a lot of debris and broken down parts, not to mention the distinct lack of Sigil Stone. The stone had been removed and as for the state of it… a result of age, or damage caused by something? An explosion perhaps, rendering it defunct and heavily worsened from age and wear. And when the sphere he had locked in the groove, it shattered, using the last of its energy to transport Will and Riven out of the desert. That had been a depowered sphere, what if it used a powered one?

"Wait. Charles, open up the international map."

"Anything for-"

The Ai almost gave him lip until he muted it. Inari was astonished his pokedex talked. He waved it off as unimportant.

Riven pulled up the internal map of the world saved inside Charles, which wasn't nearly as fancy as Gale's 3D imaging pokedex, but a static picture was fine enough. "Zoom in on Hoenn." He pointed at Hoenn, placing his finger directly atop Mauville, indicating their location.

"We're here."

"That is…" Inari blinked, astonished. "Is the shape of the world the same in the future? Our maps look identical!"

"That's because they should be. Twenty thousand years is a short time for physical changes in the earth to occur so it's still pretty accurate. Naueilh exists in a place we call 'Ho-enn'. Sound it out the best you can. English is completely different from what you're used to."

She repeated the pronunciation slowly, eyeing the words on the screen with a tilted head. She didn't quite understand them and found the lack of glyphs puzzling. Riven called the symbols "letters" and said they were part of an "alphabet". Both confused her greatly.

"Don't break your mind trying to understand it. The only reason I know your language is because Celebi dumped it in my head. Just ignore the letters there. You said these islands are very far west?"

"Yes." Inari traced her finger along the map, leading it far across the ocean to rest on a cluster of islands half across the world.

Under the name was the tropical region known for its interesting culture and unique subspecies wildlife; the Alola region. Given the volcanic activity around it, a fire city there made sense, because of course it did.

Comparing the relative distance to Alola and Hoenn, that was thousands and thousands of miles of empty ocean. If every city was this damn spread out then the distance the kingdom spanned was massive to say the least. He'd never once been to Alola, so the population estimate was hard to make, but if a few hundreds of thousands could live in the middle of a desert and create a synthetic oasis then anything was possible.

What wasn't hard to estimate was how many had to die to charge enough spheres for a whole generation of kids kingdom wide. There were going to be shortages, and not everyone could be inducted into a class. Seemed incredibly wasteful at first glance, though without the legendaries they didn't have any other options. Considering they prioritized children… some of the older adults never got a chance. They'd be Unpowered their whole lives. Most of those lives being shorter than the average life expectancy of the future, too.

Origins didn't really get sick like other people. Flu and colds were so rare that they almost never happened. Gangrene and dangerous pathogens still claimed lives, but that was a rarity outside of sieges and open warfare. Modern society had worked tirelessly to eliminate mortal diseases from affecting human populations, so who knew how much a ruling class of superhuman people cared about a problem that didn't affect them?

Riven assumed very, very little. Could have been the pessimism talking, but he doubted that too.

Inari elaborated a bit about their society as they walked, fueling Riven's disappointment further. Like every other culture, then came socioeconomic divides and class hierarchy, which further alienated Unpowered and Greigas. The children who were chosen were lucky. Those born didn't even need to worry about living short lives. Their offspring wouldn't either. And being able to defend yourself from threats with fire or highly pressurized wind and water currents? Flinging boulders and shrapnel? Being as resilient as steel? In a world where pokemon weren't afraid to turn any passerby into a meal or nicely sized chunks of flesh, who wouldn't want that?

That also brought another question. One Riven had been very interested in once he heard the conditions for Origin reproduction.

"Inari?"

"Yes?"

"Um, so Origins can only have children with other Origins, right?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Have they tried?"

"Oh, they've tried. No one forbids a Greigas from marrying whomever they wish. Even those without an element. No one sensible does it, however. It is frowned upon, partly because of incompatibility. It benefits no one. A dead end. Quite literally. There will be no heir, no bloodline. A complete waste of time."

"Harsh. What about different classes mixing?"

She looked outright disgusted. "Why would you ever suggest that?"

Touchy subject, eh. She reacted less harshly when talking about normal people and Origins. Some interesting history between the classes then. Riven filed that away in his mind as a peculiar footnote.

"Well, uh… it's-" Riven waved his hands awkwardly. "Say class divides don't exist. How does the typing work when it's two people with different types? With pokemon the offspring usually inherits the female's species and the father's… moves, or abilities I should say. So if… say someone had a child with a female air Origin, what would be the outcome? Not a dual species?"

He tried his damn hardest to remain impassive and sound completely curious. Inari tried to suppress a grin, coming out like shitty smirk instead.

"Had a good time?" She pointed out instantly. Riven hesitated too long to deny it, turning a shade of red even in the heat. "Back in there you mentioned one of your friends was an air element. And that it was a she. Friendship often evolves into something more between a man and a woman. Most definitely when they are close. And you are close."

"It… wasn't like that at first. Then things just happened. I was more than a little wary, or hopeless. Both. I guess. She was more forward about it than I was. Didn't realize what I wanted until I had it. Made it hard to resist when she wasn't wearing anything. Logic stood up and left until instincts were done with the job."

Inari straight up cackled.

"Did instincts do a good job?"

"I'd have to ask her that. I thought it went fairly well."

"I'm sure it did," she said, grinning ear to ear. "So you tried it and are now thinking about the next step. Are you quite eager to make children, considering the question?"

"Not as eager is your mother is, apparently," he mentioned blankly, partly as petty revenge for her laughing at his inexperience. "I guess she doesn't find class mixing as revolting as the rest of you. She was looking at me strangely. And Seisora too. Prospecting woman, isn't she?"

He raised a single eyebrow for heavy emphasis.

"Heavens above…" Inari bumbled, crossing her arms. And shivered. "You heard that travesty she proposed? Do your kind have the ears of a god?!"

"I wish, and no. I Inferred, but now that you just told me I have a feeling she set both of us up so that somehow we'd end up in a bed together after magically falling in love. I can guarantee that's not going to happen. Your mother has an imagination that doesn't add up with reality."

Among other issues too.

"She has… interesting ideas about love and romance. How she became a class leader doesn't make sense to me either, her impulse control is horrible despite her ability to play politics. Many of our class leaders are a strange lot. Except Lady Aiyum, that woman is perfect." Riven snorted in agreement. The instructor sighed and brought a palm to her face. "I wonder if I'd be less exhausted had I not been born to my mother. She keeps pushing me to find a man to… impregnate me. Just saying the word gives me cold sweats. And I'm a fire element. Her justification for you was that you'd leave for the future and I wouldn't have to worry about having a father around. She thinks they're worthless."

Well then.

Okay, granted, some of the fathers he'd seen were fantastic piles of shit. Nera's father came to mind. Genocidal, narcissistic, fanatical dick that he was. Nera was a ruthless bitch, but he couldn't say he didn't feel a shred of sympathy for her. Wasn't her fault he was a cunt and turned her into one too.

A gut feeling told Riven that Voaun didn't just want her daughter to have his child because they'd be a good match. No, the woman was after something.

"That's some logic there," he managed to say.

"Exactly! And with a man I just met? No. I don't want children. At least not yet, and with this end of the world scenario, my mother will just push harder. It's frustrating! I already deal with more children than anyone could want, so then why does she insist?!"

Inari stopped ranting when she noticed Riven standing terrified several feet away from her. Fire was flaring in bursts from her palms and she quickly extinguished it.

"Creator, I am so sorry. What was it you wanted to know about again?"

Riven eyed her hands. "The children… from when a man and a woman love each other very much? How does it look? What element do they receive. You know… that kind of thing. Do you want me to make gestures? I can do gestures."

He held up his hands innocently. She slowly put them down.

Pokemon breeders had extensive knowledge of pokemon breeding patterns, and often bred them to be as combat capable as possible, or as exotic as possible by combining several traits from unique parents. It was also why poachers targeted strong specimens to be sold off—many of them being highly trained pokemon from accomplished trainers.

If the same rules applied to people… someone might be tempted to create an army of monsters. Pokemon were fiercely loyal to their trainers, people were not. Men and women trained from birth to be weapons with traits that made them deadlier than everyone else could cause problems. Serious problems.

Inari didn't seem to worry, tilting her head as if deciding that was an odd question.

"If two Greigas have a child, what comes out can be random. Those beasts you call pokemon have breeding habits, but humans don't. At least there aren't many patterns besides resemblances to your parents. There is one pattern in particular, however. The beasts have dual elements. We do not. There will never be a dual element among Greigas. Never has been. Never will be. It's impossible. We've been trying for decades to no avail. One element, one class no matter the parentage. Mixing them does not produce more powerful offspring, that was the very first project the founders tested."

Now that was interesting. Steven was going to have a field day with this information. Inari continued, gesturing to herself.

"A baby will certainly look like their parents, facially and physically. Everything else is uncertain. My brother is a psychic, and there hasn't been another in my family for generations, even since the founding of the kingdom. He looks like my father, but his other features are that of a Xenhil, not a Felir. White hair, magenta eyes, not black and orange or red. Somewhere along the family ancestry the stars aligned and he's now in an entirely different class. How it happened we're not even sure, he was born to my mother and looks just like a younger version of my father. Certainly no infidelity involved. He can't even visit Felior without permission. Back home he's treated as an outsider, even if he's my sibling, a class leader's son. He considers Felir his home, and so the way he's treated pains him. Family trees grow… bizarre the more the classes mix."

"They're not as bizarre as you'd think." Riven pointed to his mismatched eye and laughed mirthlessly at himself. "Sometimes ancestor's traits come together by chance and produce anomalies. There could be a slim chance of something happening, like my birth defect. People aren't supposed to be born with different colored eyes."

"What was so unfortunate about it?" She asked.

"My parents were important too. Our culture centered around the ruling class having the purest blue eyes they could find, seeing it as a symbol of strength and character, as if the color of our eyeballs meant anything. When I came out… well, they thought my father had cheated."

"Oh," she managed quietly, no doubt sympathetic on behalf of her ostracized brother.

"Mhmm… Didn't do me any good for what it's worth. Happens in the future, too. This and other differences. Usually its eye color or the texture of the hair, sometimes height, not an entire… well, element. What if the parents are different elements? Which takes preference over the other? The female or the male?"

"Sometimes the mother, sometimes the father. Why? Are you worried if you had a child with this woman, that the baby would be…"

She gestured to his entirety, signaling from head to toe. Riven was not pleased.

"-Like me, yeah. I don't want her to deal with all the other… issues, that come with it. Maybe I'm an isolated case but I doubt it. Feeling other's pain—rage, hatred, sadness. Living with beads around your neck that are poison to you is a nuisance. Smaller downsides include scaring off potential love interests. Crazy apparently drives people away, who would have guessed. The girl we were talking about earlier was just unnaturally persistent. Most people run. Psychics want nothing to do with me. They keep calling me harbinger. Who knows what that means. And did I mention that fighting to the death is unnaturally exciting and I have to pretend to hate it so I can convince myself I'm not a lunatic?"

Her lip curled imagining it.

"I believe it… Seisora informed the leaders of your… condition midway through the fight and how it changed. That would unnerve even hardened veterans. Seeing someone recover from deforming injuries is terr- Wait, her? You'd want a daughter? Not a son?"

Inari reversed so quickly that even Riven felt the conversational whiplash. Apparently insanity and recovering from grisly wounds was lower on her list of priorities than a person's preferences for ideal kids.

"I guess my ideal thought of a kid would be a daughter? Boys are troublesome. They get up to things. Are you sure you're not more concerned about half a man's face growing back? I mean that is something that doesn't happen too often. Or ever."

Inari ignored that completely, waving her hand dismissively.

"Of course not. It's a sign that your element works in unnatural and absolutely horrifying ways. So it can't be all downsides? Rapid regeneration at a cost of mental fortitude is a… small price for… uh, power? There are always downsides! Ours is arrogance."

"And mine is deranged insanity. You ever get happy when you stab someone in the throat and see them die? A part of me does, and it scares me, because I know it's there and it feels like I can barely hold it back."

Riven's face was blank. Inari cleared her throat.

"Or perhaps it was simply the rough upbringing you had… from what I heard."

"Heard? Interesting word."

"Agneus told us… He looked into your memories."

"Nearly died doing it too. Serves him right. Insane me isn't very fond of intruders. Not many types can fight back against mental intrusion. Darks do not take to it well."

"So it seems. What he told us was far from pleasant. That kind of environment… Rougher and bloodier than most. That would harm any person, not just you. The mind does strange things when under that much stress. Agneus has gone on about it several times. Before the founders united the territories and wars between the Unpowered still occurred, men and women would return broken and changed. Shells of who they were once. Some couldn't function correctly by themselves and others… became unstable, like there were multiple people living in one body." Riven didn't miss the insinuation. "I'm sure it has nothing to do with your element. At least there's a possibility it might only be a product of your experiences."

"So I'm just regular crazy?"

"…Yes?"

Nodding pathetically to himself, Riven focused intently on a pebble in the street. Inari waved a hand in front of his face.

"And it's just a baby," she said. "Air elements have beautiful eyes, and if the baby looked like you, they could inherit those blue ones of yours. Well, not the strange combination you have there with the brown one—that's actually very strange… But the two blue eyes, I meant. Is she good looking? The girl you're thinking about."

Riven couldn't muster enough manly stoicism to contain his slight smile when he recalled the way Gale always gave him that infuriating but radiant grin of hers.

"Good reaction," Inari said, shoving him lightly. "Then I don't see a downside. It's not like you'll get old and wrinkled quickly."

He went quiet for a moment, Inari thinking she had said something insensitive.

"Did I say something wrong?"

"No it's just… mentioned time. The Unpowered. They barely make it to forty, right?" The woman's grin slipped upside down as her eyes seemed to hollow out, then flare to life again. His bashful smile disintegrated. His instincts told him to get out.

The time traveler steeled himself against said instincts to not to flinch when sparks flared out of Inari's palms, appearing as if fireworks went off inside them.

Did I say something wrong? What did I—She's not going to do what I think she's—

A blazing dagger of orange fire passed through the space his trachea had occupied a quarter of a second before, just coming close enough for the heat to burn his skin.

The first degree burn stung slightly as he instantly backed off, kicking her off of him with a forceful quick attack enhanced kick to the centerpiece of her armor before a torrent of flame expelled out of her left hand and cooked him alive. He snarled back as the Nightmare pushed into his mind, adrenaline and instincts taking over as he wasted no time in running up to her kneeling form and driving a knee directly into her solar plexus.

The force of the blow pushed her upwards off the ground for a few moments, where he was able to tell that it had forcefully released the air in her lungs. It didn't stop her from igniting the ground and raising pillars of flame in retaliation. Just managing to hold up a pokeball, he felt the Nightmare recede, instead remaining completely stunned as to why she went from mildly irritated to hell bent on incinerating him from seemingly nowhere. He also noticed that her movements hadn't been fluid, more or less appearing as if someone had moved her out of her own volition. Stiff. Sloppy. Automated.

The knee forced her lungs to make her breathe, shattering her concentration as her eyes simultaneously dilated and contracted. The sparks snuffed momentarily. Breath ragged a minute later, she stood up.

"The… Unpowered… Did you know… you would trigger the lock? What are you… spy?"

"Spy? Are you joking? That's what this is about? Woman, you almost murdered me over a comment! It wasn't even a question! What is wrong with you?!" He sputtered. "This isn't you. No way. You're being controlled. Nobody climbs to that level of aggression themselves over something so small. Psychic influence?"

What had triggered it before? The Unpowered. Specifically the word. Or was it the context? She'd said it plenty of times! But he hadn't come to think of it…

"I won't-"

Riven wanted to test the theory. IF it was some kind of crazy sleeper agent type mental influence, then uttering the words would be enough. He prepared himself for a fight, feeling adrenaline pump into his bloodstream once more. The Nightmare was itching for a fight, hoping it could tear her throat out itself. Inari read him instantly, holding up her hands in a bid to stop him.

"Don't! I—"

"Unpowered. Tell me about them."

He was fucking right.

As expected, her eyes glazed over again. Just as she was about to process any relevant information about the Unpowered and her reaction to the question, her mind came to a halt. In the brief moment of haziness, Riven lunged at her, knocking her on the head with his fingers encased in darkness. As if a fog had lifted from her mind, she broke out of the psychic induced daze, whispering unintelligibly. "Agneus… the psychics. The l-lock, my mind…"

Her nervous system was suffering some sort of backlash as she held her head in her hands, disoriented. Riven's mouth contorted, settling into a grim frown.

"Psychic backlash. Your brain is trying to process two sets of information and got scrambled. So this is a mental lock and trigger? Psychics in the future do that to weaker pokemon but this... I didn't think I'd ever see it done to people."

Which was horrifying beyond belief because in the future, doing that to a person or trainer owned pokemon was considered a very serious offense with a minimum jail penalty of fifteen years. Some of which lead to life convictions given the nature of what was ordered to be done. The Sayre incident had made psychic lock and trigger techniques infamous for their ability to force weaker willed individuals into killing their own travel mates, which in turn had further fragmented Sinnoh's training environment prior to Nicholas Sayre's sudden death. Usually only the most sadistic and experienced trainers had taken to that as their modus operandi, preying upon scared beginner trainers and their pokemon.

The government had dealt with them first. Mercilessly. And now here it was again, the same procedure, on a woman Riven could definitely tell was nothing but will. She couldn't have willingly done it? Could she?

The class leaders weren't stupid. Any tour guide worth their salt wouldn't give up information to someone they barely knew, especially if it was an important political figures' daughter. Sensitive information, anyway. Why did the Unpowered classify as that, exactly?

He knew that Curians back in his day were a crafty bunch, and part of the reason they controlled the Roses to essentially commit genocide was because they couldn't pull their tricks on the Alteans. They really didn't like that. Psychic pokemon were one thing. Psychic Origins were a whole different beast entirely.

Riven thought that she'd appreciate the fact that he freed her. Except she didn't.

Upon realizing what he'd done, Inari snarled. The fire born woman clutched the collar of his armor, heat roiling off the metallic crystal. "You broke it?! How is that possible?" She let him go, almost flinging him off his feet. "I can see why my mother saw something in you. Just her type, the conniving weasel. Legendary beasts why me? You triggered the protection failsafe and then broke it. I will get a tongue lashing like you have never seen!"

"I didn't know there was a failsafe!" He bit back honestly.

"You didn't?"

"No! Which is why I didn't expect you to almost cauterize my throat!"

Inari eyed him suspiciously. "So… you triggered it… on accident?"

"I obviously didn't do it on purpose, or I would have at least drawn my knives or pokemon. B-but that's not the point!" A finger jabbed in her direction. "The point is that I had no idea the bigshot class leaders had a lock and trigger planted inside your head! Did you?!" She didn't seem surprised, that was concerning. Very,very concerning."You knew you were being controlled? That doesn't anger you at all? Not even slightly?"

"It's not the first time," she replied tersely. "Every class leader's family has mental blocks placed on their person when dealing with unknown parties. It's for security, and now that they are aware it's broken, they will assume I'm trying to do something stupid. Like conspire with the enemy."

Riven had to sit down.

"I am not an enemy. This," he jabbed a finger in the air towards her forehead, "is insane! It triggered through context! That's absurd!"

"Who are you to judge us?" She snapped back. "From my point of view, the deranged one is standing right in front of me. You prance in here, almost severely injure several of our men, spout doomsday prophecies like a madman and you dare criticize our culture?"

"Yes, because it is absolute insanity!" He shouted right back, grinding his teeth together. "Had I less sense, the Nightmare would've ripped you into neat little pieces by now!"

"It certainly would have tried," Inari hissed. She was still angry, though it was more of a smoldering anger than an explosion of aggression like before. She knew she'd just been controlled mentally yet she was more pissed at him than at the psychics that tried to pull something that low on her? What the hell was going on here?

"Inari, they just tried to force you to kill me if I said the wrong word in a certain way. If I were anyone else, I could've muttered a sentence and killed myself. And you think this is fine? How is that fine in any sense of the word?"

"Like I said. This is normal, Riven. It is our society, our culture, our way of life. This is how Agneus and the others keep Nauielhi secrets within itself. But you, an outsider, judging me, is not fine. I will draw a line here. I do not know your goals, or what makes you do what you do, and so I trust Agneus far more than I do you. Do you understand?"

Bewildered beyond belief, Riven pinched the bridge of his nose, nodding slowly. "Sure, whatever you say." He switched to English without thinking it. "And people say I'm crazy… These guys are off their nut."

Crossing her arms, her ember colored eyes focused on a large group of people in white, several meters away. They sped up when they noticed her flames. "Forget about why we do it, now that you broke the lock and there's no danger of me attacking you, why are you so fixated on them in particular? The Unpowered. They're just-"

"Not important? Powerless? Weak? A waste of space? I mean, it's not like they're needed for anything, right?" His voice stung like a Seviper's bite, clearly still shaken about the previous ordeal. "Your superiors seem to think they're important enough to have me accidentally murdered over. You tell me what the problem is, because I haven't a clue."

She stopped herself, sealing her mouth shut before impulsively saying something she shouldn't. Had the mental lock and trigger response not been broken, she would have incinerated him already. She couldn't deny that it was unsettling, despite Agneus having explained it to her previously. She expected a subtle push, not a complete takeover so strong it overrode any inputs she had given her body. Deep down, Riven was right—it had scared her. But… it had to be this way. It had to.

"That's not for me to say. I'm not a class leader, Riven."

"Good, because if you were, I'd have very pointed words to share with you over why they're effectively brainwashing people and keeping them subservient. I'm not letting any of it go. I'd half a mind to walk back in there and gouge that old bastard's eyes out."

Her eyes narrowed dangerously again. "They'll kill you if you try."

Riven scoffed. "I wonder if Voaun would."

It was a petty thing to do, dropping her mother's name like that. But anger brought out the truth, and from the wrath in Inari's eyes, the provocation worked. The area around them suddenly got much hotter.

"My mother put you up to this? Use you to test me with the Unpowered? She's always had problems with the way Agneus and the others manage affairs. Sometimes her antics are borderline treasonous. What does she want from you?"

"Beats me," Riven shrugged. I have no idea what is going on. I'm just a time traveler, lady.

Inari's lips settled into a thin line. A mirthless laugh followed.

"So she's using you too. Why else would she readily offer me up instead of someone else? And that armor, how could I be so stupid? She's always shown those unfortunate people sympathy, and now she wants me to follow that trend against my will and disobey the leaders. You said the lock was horrific, but at least Agneus told me what it would do. My mother has never been so forward. I was right all along."

Hands wreathed in flames, she melted a railing into a puddle of molten metal. Her breathing was strained as she wrestled her temper down. A growl escaped when she turned back to Riven.

" If you think I'll tell you any more of what I think of them then you're wasting your time. I still have more of the city to show you and these questions are testing my exhausted patience. I didn't care for whatever game you and my mother worked out. Remember I am touring you as a courtesy and can leave you stranded in the midst of the city if I wish. Ask my mother if you want more answers to your barb tipped questions, not me. Use me or intentionally infuriate me and I will be the one attempting to kill you out of my own volition. Burns don't heal nearly as fast or as painlessly as cuts and bruises. A bone can be repaired, the skin and muscles can recover but a wound disfigured by flame will never heal the same way again. Keep that in mind before you obey any stupid ideas you or mother came up with. Follow. Me."

He swallowed, stepping in line with her brisk pace. He eyed the cooling metal puddle and shivered. Really wasn't enjoying what was going on here at all.

Making sure to stay a good distance away from Inari, Riven followed her over several glass panels along the city, revealing the large pipes of irrigation water that flowed through them. Riven stopped, recalling how Seisora had ruptured several and controlled what felt like a river as easily as breathing. Several people in white robes and tunics eyed him from the alleyways and behind shop stalls, glancing away quickly, but he caught the stares all the same. No doubt the information about a black hued man would spread like wildfire.

A snap of the fingers got Riven's attention. Amber red bored into him, Inari's eyes probing. The earlier question was still bothering her and it was obvious she was still irritated. He tried not to glance at her fingers in case there were sparks.

"What? Going to try to bite my head off again?" He muttered, face as blank as he could manage. She barely held in her snap.

"I haven't seen a Greigas so fixated on Unpowered. People just glance over them. Why start now? How does this even relate to what you said you're doing here? You're wasting your time."

"I disagree. Already had my suspicions before, the lock all but confirmed them. Someone doesn't want me to look into them. Nobody covers up the unimportant. Ever." He spread his hands. She scoffed sardonically.

"Agneus doesn't want others to inquire about the Unpowered because they are of interest to the Vertans. That's why."

Riven stared for a moment, then smashed his face against his palm. "That's what this is about? Politics? Mother of… " Will not strangle, calm down… Maybe I should let Aine break her legs.

He made himself breathe, wishing he could get the wasted minutes of his life back. Shit, he'd thought there was another reason why they hid information on the Unpowered. But it turns out it was just bloody politics and bullshit misdirection. He forgot that people in the olden times were a thousand times more garbage at diplomacy than a single modern diplomat. Ambassadors usually weren't murdered for accidentally asking the wrong questions. Not publicly anyway.

"Listen, this may be a waste of time to you, but not to me. I don't care about whatever politics is going on here. I care about the state of them and how they interact with other people like us. With you and I and all the other superhumans on this god forsaken planet."

"How they interact with us?" She squinted in confusion. "What?"

"It's hard to explain. Just—those people are important. You don't get it and I get that. This era is a whole lot different than I'm used to. Maybe I care more because I'm from a different time and don't have any prejudices. Besides, their attitudes and behavior are conflicting with the whole perfect city aspect I'm witnessing here. That boy that gave me my clothes refused to look me in the eye. The rest of them walk around normally until a colored tunic shows up, then all of a sudden they walk around like beaten dogs. Why? They're afraid. Some angry, others downright hateful. Happy citizens don't defect for no good reason, yet Agneus deems it such a huge problem that he wants me killed if I ask the wrong question. Why should that be? What am I missing here that all of you have failed to grasp?"

Crossing his arms, he continued.

" In the future, they outnumber Origins millions to one. And several of them have pokemon that can match, if not easily surpass whatever an Origin can throw at them. You can't outpunch a Blaziken even with an awakening either—at least, not for long. Pokemon are too strong! People have used a pokemon's power to do terrible things. Things that brought several nations to their knees. The time I come from still lives in fear from what a group of children did with them. Children, Inari. That mind control trick Agneus pulled on you? They did that too. On groups of close friends! Ripped each other to pieces the same way you almost tried to kill me! Why? Because they were unhappy at the state of things, at the negligence of the ruling government and their inability to act. Childish, but not completely out of reason."

Inari's façade began to crack, picturing that.

" And that was before Origins showed up en masse. A fucking psychic piece of shit almost killed the girl I care the most about, and she couldn't do a thing to stop it. Picture that, Inari. Right now, the overwhelming majority have no idea Origins exist. What would happen if they found out? If the situations were reversed?"

"They would likely feel threatened?" Inari guessed, more or less shrugging. "The weak fear the strong. The strong rule. No Unpowered can hope to stand against a Greigas for long."

"Yes, exactly. Strength can mean a lot of things. The people here know we live long, but imagine suddenly finding out there's a way to live for hundreds of years? What wouldn't they do for something like that? That's why I want to know how they feel, so the past doesn't repeat itself again. Because this time, they're in control. Not us. And suddenly, we're back in the world and they can't control us. We are an unknown to them. What is a human's first impulse when it faces something it doesn't understand?"

"Destroy it," she answered quietly, knowing that feeling all too well. Riven nodded ruefully.

"War ended my era, it can end another just as easily. All because the psychics in control were afraid of the dark. My clan. My people. Because they couldn't—wouldn't understand us. I didn't understand us."

The woman suddenly looked dejected, and Riven felt like he said too much, let his emotions get the best of him. "It must be easy saying that, isn't it?"

"Saying what?"

"The past doesn't repeat itself again. Speaking of the future, past, and present like you have choices. You. Celebi. You have a way out," she explained, summoning a small flame in her fingertips. "We don't. I don't. We're going to disappear… a small plume of embers destined to fade away. I'm just a ghost to you, some phantom of the past. I'm already long dead where you're from. Everything now seems so… pointless. Nothing I do matters anymore. Why should I care about saving the future if there isn't one for us? Who cares about your irrelevant future, where children slaughter each other? I will never see it, my students will never see it. Why should I care?"

He couldn't answer her. Couldn't answer because she was goddamn right. There was a resigned sigh.

"Right now, the others are thinking the exact same thing, so they're busying themselves to forget about it. If this future is like you say it is, then we have no hope. We're dead. You're just here to investigate our destruction, like a scholar gazing back into the eyes of history. Maybe this is why the Xenhils refuse to use their precognition. Knowing fate is a terrible burden. Why would anyone want to know how they will die? Do you realize what your warnings did to all of us?"

We gave them despair, the Nightmare whispered ruefully. The days are ticking by. Hour by hour, their time comes to an end. Because of us. Of you.

Riven's anger had washed away, replaced by pity and unsure of what to tell her. No… no that wasn't right. The Tower of Mastery. The clue of the two keys. The machine. The leftover spheres. Why else would they leave breadcrumbs, riddles, and clues? The two parts of the key, one in Kalos and the other god knows where. They opened something. But what? They hadn't given up. He knew that. But was it really them who did it? And if not them, then who?

"Don't give up. Because your people are the ones that let me find you. There has to be a reason for that, right?"

Troubled red eyes turned to face him. "What?"

He nodded, swaying on his feet from the beads' effect. "It's a bit odd that some bumbling idiot like me five years ago could stumble into a cave and trip over a treasure no person has ever discovered? The same cave that was explored thousands of times already, and that gave out the moment I stepped in it? Or maybe… the moment a certain Origin stepped in it? I always thought it was weird. And then there were the rest of the clues, scattered around the world. The Naueilhi left a confusing, cryptic trail, but I don't know why. Maybe they wanted someone to find something, somehow. A remnant of what was? I- I don't know—to shoot a message across the ages, hoping for something or someone to find it. At least that's what I think. I can't save you… not everyone. I know that. It'd be pointless to try. Heroic, maybe. Fruitless? Certainly. But there's still hope for the future… and the world hasn't forgotten. I haven't, and neither have the people I'm working with. We'll remember you, if no one else will."

"That's not exactly comforting."

"Death never is. I'm sorry."

"Not your fault." Inari nodded dimly. "Legacies are the only thing we can leave behind, I guess. Despite long lifespans, you still die. It's quite sad. Has to happen some day."

She exhaled loudly.

"Though it does make it easier to bear, knowing someone won't forget you. I assume a promise would be out of the question?"

"Those are dangerous to make," Riven replied, regretfully. "I've made a few I haven't kept yet. Don't want to disappoint more people already."

"Then what do you propose?"

"A compromise. I need your help, Inari. Everyone else too. Back home, I'll write a book or something. Even if people think it's fantasy. Or make a mural, I'm terrible at art so I don't know, but I'll make it my mission to make sure Naueilh didn't disappear into the night. Know what? I'll start a log and write down everything I see, so I know it was real. That sound good?"

The fire Origin skeptically raised an eyebrow. She shrugged apathetically. "Don't have much of a choice, do I?"

"Inari, I'm trying very hard not to be an inconsiderate ass, you know. Especially after what happened earlier. It wasn't your fault, I just don't like people trying to kill me."

"I can see that." Her eyes were no longer watery, and she seemed to have composed herself. "I suppose I can help you, even if I'm doomed."

"It's not over until it's over."

Inari snorted loudly hearing that. "Optimism from a dark one. I can say I never expected that."

"Not optimism, just reality. You can give up when you're dead. Anyway, there's a pair of keys back in the future. They open a chest or some kind of treasure. Might be a collection of spheres or—" He thought about the Sigil Stone, grimacing. "—I don't know. One of them has been found. Not sure about the other. Know anything about that?"

"Of course not." Inari replied truthfully. What was he talking about? "Keys to find what, exactly?"

"A vault? Hidden temple? Catacombs? I'm spitting out ideas here."

"I… don't recall any secret temples. Or vaults. We've no need of them. Why place them around the world when anyone can come across them? If we needed a vault, the desert would be protection enough."

Riven held in a half pout. That certainly made sense. Desert did almost kill him the first time. The shifting sands would ensure that whatever was hidden would stay that way and whoever was stupid enough to go treasure hunting would die a very hot and uncomfortable death. Say, the shimmering haze shield really protected against the sweltering heat. Less cook you alive and more drench all your clothes several times over in your own sweat.

Where was he again? Ah, yes. Hidden vaults and stuff. Well, lack thereof.

Maybe they haven't built them yet, he thought. There was a full ten years until doomsday. "I don't know. This time travel business messes with your head. So many questions, and none of them make sense. Yet. All I can say is it's a work in progress. Turns out being a time traveler doesn't make you all knowing."

"And I know even less than you do," she added, shaking her head. "I'm just an instructor. Men don't fall out of time often enough to spread their futuristic wisdom. I can give you advice on how to make a menacing fireball if you'd like. Or tendrils? Do you make tendrils? "

"I do not make tendrils. Know anyone else that might know?"

She shook her head. "A psychic? Managing to get one to speak with you alone and not scaring them off might be impossible, however. None of the Xenhils want to be around you after what you almost did to Agneus. And they are incredibly nosy."

"His fault for using miracle eye on me," Riven cursed under his breath, letting out a curse word in Naueilhi that had just popped into his mind.

The fire Origin seemed to shrug with her hands. "That we can agree on. Solving our doom might take some time. More time than I can personally stay awake for. My outburst earlier drained me even more than I already was. I can keel over right now, on this very floor." She tried to conceal a yawn as she nearly swayed on her feet. "If there are no more questions I can reliably answer, let's forget about this existential crisis of mine. I want to show you the combat grounds and introduce you to my students before I find the next piece of ground comfortable enough to lay down in. But don't tell them about this, or I'll end you myself exhausted as I am. They don't need to know. Someone's final days shouldn't be spent in fear. Or at least, a child's should not."

Her gaze faltered for a moment. Riven decided he wouldn't test it.

"Won't say a word. But is that a good idea? Showing me to them? Trust me when I say that children and I don't mix well."

"Nonsense!" She piped up, uncharacteristically giddy despite the bags under her eyes. "Since I'm their teacher, I give you permission to beat them senseless."

"Great- wait, what?"

---

The answer came shortly when they arrived and just minutes into the combat ground tour did three older students attempt to jump him. Their ambush wasn't at all perfect, interfering with each other to try and nail Riven with flamethrowers, rock blasts, or gusts of air. Even without using his Origin abilities, all three of them were on the ground trying to spit sand out of their mouths in the span of several minutes. Their abilities were developed better than Will's at their age, but their basic skills couldn't compare to years of experience. Shooting a fireball with your fist didn't make you any better at hand to hand combat and even less used to getting the daylights knocked out of you with a solid fist. Fighting Origins was jarring compared to pokemon, although their frailty made up for it.

Try punching out a bulky pokemon with your bare hands? Yeah, good luck. Oh you have super strength? Good for you, they do too. Getting floored by a Machamp will put anyone out until the next day. Fighting against pokemon was hard.

In contrast, fighting people was a lot easier regardless if they could control elements. Riven was barely even winded. "Rock boy is too slow, fire girl is too reckless with her fire, and wind boy sucks at not messing with his ambush buddies' attacks—blowing them all over the damn place. Horrible coordination but a valiant attempt. Bad seven."

"Bahd sehven?" Inari repeated slowly. "What does that mean?"

"Oh, right. Gein hei os. Seven is that number in the language we speak in the future. I forget some Nauer words at times. I meant to give them some type of ranking based on their performance."

"I see. Was it a bad one?"

"Good effort, poor execution. Also, their fighting skills need improvement, specifically hand to hand. This kid's got a glass jaw and he's a rock type."

"A jaw made of glass? Are people born that way in the future? How unfortunate."

"No, no. Not literally. It's an expression. Means he can't take a hit, needs to toughen up or get good enough at dodging so he doesn't end up a corpse."

"Ah."

" Do you teach them how to fight without their abilities? Someone should be, they're horrible."

"Of course not, that's another instructor's job! I only teach element manipulation and techniques. These three are actually some of my best for their age."

Riven held back the urge to facepalm. He switched to English while mumbling to himself. "There's always one useless idiot in the teaching staff."

He stopped twisting the wind boy's arm behind his back and let go. He sputtered grains of sand once Riven stopped rubbing his face in it. Inari sternly eyed her students, all of which seemed determined not to meet her gaze for their supposed failure and that fact that sand grains caked their faces. Amber red eyes held a glint of pride, however.

"Ifo, Cazan, Kali. I'm proud you were the first to take the initiative! You have bravery but lack the capacity to use your useless brains together! You failed to prepare how to attack cohesively and rendered your preemptive strike wholly useless! You remind me of a certain idiot water element named Seisora who tries to do everything himself. Don't be like Seisora. That's why he lost to the same man who just made all of you eat hot desert sand. Put your pride away and work together! Your unit is a team, not a solo act. Seisora only gets away with it because of talent. But talent erodes in the face of an experienced opponent. Example! Kali, excellent fireball!"

"T-thank-"

"Never do it again! Excessive expenditure of energy and endangerment to your allies! You wield flame and destruction given form. Do you want to kill everyone?"

"Ifo! Stop throwing gusts around like an airheaded idiot, it makes your comrades stumble over! And for the love of the creator, fighting regularly is not shameful! He subdued you all without using a single bit of his power. You are Greigas, but remember, if you can't move, if your arms and legs are broken—you are no better than an Unpowered is. Powerless and vulnerable. And that, means death. Vertans have no special abilities and yet they endanger even the most trained Nauelhi soldier with nothing but conventional weaponry and artificial limbs. A beast will have even less compunctions about ending your life than they will, and they eat our soldiers alive no matter how trained they are. Do not forget that."

Riven winced at her criticism and almost felt bad for the kids. Made him wonder how strong the wild pokemon were if they could endanger experienced Origins like Seisora and Inari…

"Now, more importantly, why did you attack him?"

The fire girl with a bruised eye from a misdirected rock throw wiped sand out of her hair and face, hanging her head after the previous criticism. "Because we've never seen black armor before. We thought he was an enemy."

"Vertan!" Cazan, the rock boy, shouted. "They got some traitor Greigas too! They aren't hued!"

The dark Origin threw up his arms.

Clearly amused, Inari raised a black brow, turning the last boy. "Ifo?"

"He looked dangerous, Instructor Voaun. Is he your husband, miss? You looked nervous. And then we saw you smile. We never see miss walk with another man! She always rejects them!"

"Miss has a lover?"

Inari looked like someone had murdered her pet Skitty. Riven held a shitty smirk.

"And he's a dark element! They're supposed to be all extinct! A Xenhil friend of mine said so, got killed off by the first! But he's alive! She dates fossils! With that face, I knew she likes the bad ones, see? They all like the bad ones."

Rock boy shoved wind boy with a fist, cackling maliciously as sand grain tumbled down his face.

With every statement Inari's face scrunched. She pointed in a direction and barked orders, sending all three of them on fifty laps around the perimeter while she whipped them with a whip made of flame.

"If you tell any of the other students your ridiculous gossip I'll make you run fifty more! Once done do one hundred pulls on the mounted bars! Then hand to hand sparring for the rest of night or I'll get Haksel to pound your faces into the sand! He's much less lenient than Gyuni."

As they left, Riven caught the slight grin on her face after they sped up upon mentioning Haksel.

"Reminds me of worse times."

"Worse times?" Inari asked, incredulously.

"Yes. Thinking about it still frustrates me to no end. Happens when you get yelled at constantly while covered in shit and mud every day. Learned early to desensitize my tongue to the taste of blood in my mouth. Quite nostalgic. So you enjoy teaching?"

Inari stared at him like he'd grown a second head. He grinned purposely.

"I'm not sure what monsters you had for instructors, but there's something about teaching the younger ones that you can't get when you're a soldier. It just feels rewarding, despite the childhood ribbing about significant others. Or lack thereof… I'd never be a tight lipped sand eater like Seisora. I don't need to be the best fighter in all of the kingdom, but I sure will train the best. That's something that man will never do. Only ever trains himself. Petulant Ehials. Never seen a class more selfish."

"Heh. You'd be a good gym leader," Riven commented, earning a strange look from the instructor. "Sinnoh could've used you then."

"Gem lee-der?" She repeated badly, trying to sound it out.

"Ah, sorry. They're teachers, like you. But they don't teach people how to fight, they just guide them along the way. We teach trainers how to be better people, only that hasn't been working out too well, lately. Like I said before, normal kids don't go out and kill dozens of people because they want to."

"Why would they ever think of giving children those beasts? If they witnessed the things we have seen them do to some of our scouts and tradesmen…" Inari flinched.

"Right? I mean what were they thinking? Had one good side effect, at least. Stopped most wars from breaking out. Turns out turning kids into uh, beast tamers, prevented most of them from becoming soldiers. Unfortunately, they traded that in return for discipline. It really does not help that pokemon obey their every order and gym leaders are more like advisors than enforcers, much less executioners."

Her eyebrows rose. "That does sound like a problem. You are one as well?"

"Yes, except I'm really new to the whole aspect. The transition was sudden and my previous occupations haven't exactly been suited for the role. I'm kind of horrible at it, and I've been trying to get better but I keep getting sidetracked by minor inconveniences. Like getting sucked into the past. No big deal, right?"

A sheepish laugh came from him. Inari snorted lightly.

"I was bad my first few months too, but I've been teaching for half a decade. Gave me plenty of time to learn from my mistakes… but because of it my students are the best in Naueilh," she stated with utmost certainty, as if daring him to question that. Riven knew better than to question a teacher, considering he was most certainly a bad one. Roxanne was scary too, at times. So he nodded instead. "All you need to do is find your pace and teaching method. It may be some time before you do, so don't be hasty with it. Great things are not achieved instantly."

Another similarity. Strange.

"That saying does irritate me."

"They say that in the future?"

"All the time. Used mostly by saying a certain city wasn't built in a day or some poor bastards didn't get conquered overnight. That kind of thing."

Inari eyed him with a squint. She must've thought that everyone from the future was some sort of head in the clouds nutcase, but honestly, everyone thinks like that when it's not their world. He'd thought the same when he first arrived, and now vending machines and skyscrapers were so commonplace that he guessed his own backwater city would feel foreign to him if he saw it. Altea's appearance was all one big damn lie from what he gathered, but it had been a convincing one to a seven year old.

He returned the squint with a sly grin.

They walked the school grounds for several hours, drawing oh's and ah's from the students when they saw obsidian beside their instructor's ruby armor. Luckily none of them tried to attack Riven again and he was free to observe the way Inari taught the students. Origins training Origins was still an overwhelmingly bizarre sight, being used to trainers running creative drills for their pokemon as opposed to the straight military-esque methods used by soldiers. People training people.

The other instructors taught the students with that same rigid structure, with the exception of Inari and one or two others; an air and grass type. He assumed the slacker air type was Gyuni, who taught the close combat class. Lazy bastard. The kids looked more interesting in talking with their friends than actually practicing.

They paid extra attention in Inari's class, or else got the opportunity to run several miles in the desert heat.

Her classes were founded in precision training as opposed to throwing around huge fireballs or boulders, emphasizing control with each student's respective element, even those that didn't necessarily match with her fire. Less wasted energy, faster dead enemies. Effective and to the point. She ran her kids ragged but they soldiered on regardless, finally allowed to be dismissed as the sun began to set in the sky.

Yanine would have liked her. Nemos would have loved her, even if she was a fire type. Riven smiled sadly.

In a strange sort of way, Inari was a trainer to her kids the same way pokemon were to others in the future. Crazy training regimens were a given. Another similarity of different forms. Two worlds, two different perspectives. One with pokemon, the other without.

Wiping the sweat off her face with a rag, Inari excused herself to cool off, leaving Riven by himself on the empty school grounds. Orange light bathed the crystal city as the sun set, already feeling the sweltering heat dissipate as day transitioned to night.

Focused on the sky, Riven glanced toward the spires. Seeing several bird pokemon circle the spires high above and well away from any human contact made him realize just how similar yet separated the two eras were, both technologically, and socially. It was incredibly jarring. Being from disjointed time periods, it was relatively safe to assume he was one of the few people to be familiar with that sort of feeling. He could also understand why Inari was hiding her blatant anguish about the whole situation from her students too.

How would anyone react if a time traveler from the future dropped by one day and told everyone they were screwed? Scoff, blow him off, and then sit down in despair when you realize they weren't lying. Everyone dies, it's the when part that scares people. Die in sixty years? No problem. Most people don't live that long anyway. But ten? For someone that could live for hundreds of years. And all at once? There's a problem.

Felc and the others had the same air about them also, indulging in other tasks to remove the daunting concern—at least temporarily. People in Nimbasa did the same. Forget about your problems with entertainment and they might magically go away. Or dull the pain. Something to ease the dread. Naturally, people just wanted things to be normal. Except they also hoped someone else would take care of problems instead of actually doing it themselves.

When she returned, Inari had given him an uneasy rundown of the crystal city's districts and areas, giving him advice on where and where not to go. Each class held sections of the city and although the classes were kept regulated by the guard and "protector" ranks, humans did as humans tended to do; thus gangs formed out of kids with too much ability and not much sense. One particular district was the one he guessed belonged to a majority of the Unpowered, given Inari's restrained explanation of it.

Near the wall? Check. Mostly unsupervised? Check. Squalid? Check.

Inari didn't have to know he was going there next to see what he could figure out from there, he just led her on about being concerned with the nicer parts of the city instead. Didn't buy it for a second but it was a good try.

He'd asked her about the transportation methods to the outer city states of each class. Logically it made sense to use custom made crystals within the shrine to teleport to various parts of the world, considering it had teleported both Will and Riven outside the desert upon inserting a blank sphere. As suspected, the Sigil Stone provided the energy for instantaneous travel-however that worked- and used substitute spheres to make up for the expenditure without it. The result of such was a one way inert sphere that was unable to be used anymore. When he asked her how they did it, she refused to answer, ignoring the question until he gave up on receiving an answer.

There were also rules to visiting the other cities. A member of another class could only teleport into a differing class' city with permission from the Naueilh leaders and elders, or else the teleport would be considered an invasion by a different class and thus, be considered a very serious offense.

While united, the people born outside of Naueilh were not nearly as tolerant of other classes as they were here. Like Unovan xenophobia on steroids. Felir and Ehials, the fire and water classes, really didn't like each other. Not because of opposing elements, but because the Ehials were quite arrogant and convinced they were a 'superior' element. For a god damn Water element. The element of flexibility. Cocky. Who would've thought? He imagined a bunch of Seisora's running around in Ehiam and decided immediately he didn't want to go there. Asking Seisora's father for approval would also probably get him murdered.

Inari, in contrast, was amiable enough. These fire types weren't maniacs like the Roses. Right?

"I can't get you into Felior," Inari explained with a frown. Riven almost pouted. "I'm the daughter of a class leader, sure, but I don't have that power. And my mother doesn't usually allow strangers to visit. If you went there you'd be challenged to more duels than you can handle, and just as many women looking for… exotic treasures, which do include other men. Add in your element and even being married wouldn't save you. Fire elements are rowdy at heart."

"You don't seem to be. About as mellow as an air type when you're not trying to kill someone."

"I've learned to be the exception. Trust me when I say that. This is why I have a hard time finding… Never mind, it's not important."

Riven didn't press the issue, he didn't want to think how he'd deal with women trying snatch him violently. Aliac popped into mind and her stunt at his house still left him seething. Had Gale witnessed it his life would be over.

"Which class leader can get me into their city the easiest, then?"

"Lady Aiyum, I suppose. Naueilh is very close to their capital city, Alcalo. Only about a few weeks walk from here. On your map it is merely northeast of our location on this continent, in a dense forest that is so widespread it extends to the coast. They live with the forest and its inhabitants—as unpleasant as that sounds. Bugs are disgusting. The rains are unbearable. And the mud, by the Creator the mud." She twisted her face in revulsion. "The Alcalans are excellent hunters and trackers, at least. Despite their tendencies for dirt, grime, and eight eyed venomous monstrosities. The forests and trees are their playground. Invasions by the Vertan and Felosc kingdoms usually ended horribly."

Riven raised an eyebrow. "What about for fire types like the Felir? The Rosans didn't even try to invade, they just burned everything to the ground instead. Worked a little too well, as you can see."

Inari winced.

"We prefer not to go on crusades to murder everyone we deem a threat, nor do we reduce entire forests to cinders. Wasteful. That Rose clan was nothing but barbarians and cutthroats posing as civilization. Senseless slaughter is looked down upon. Fire is destruction, and thus demands control above all else," Inari replied sternly. "Let that fire grow unsupervised and it becomes an inferno that cannot be controlled. You cannot grow anything on blackened soil. We train soldiers and duelists. Not killers. They are not the same thing."

"Some might disagree with that," Riven shrugged.

"Do you?"

"Yes," he admitted, startling her. "They were the same in my era. Hopefully that isn't the case anymore, but that's being optimistic. I'd like to visit the other cities so I know what the atmosphere around there is like and see what exactly could trigger a worldwide extinction event or be grave enough to anger the most powerful legendary pokemon we know of."

Again, Riven recounted in his head sourly.

"I don't have any more of an idea than you do," Inari said, yawning widely as her eyes began to close against her will. "If you don't have any other things you want to see, then this tour is about done with. You're a grown man, so babysitting isn't part of my duty. There are plenty of places for entertainment here, look around and I'm sure you'll like something. Careful about asking too many questions. Assuming all else fails, you can always fight Seisora again, maybe this time I can see his face when he loses."

"I'll pass. Almost getting torn to pieces once was enough." The dark Origin smiled slightly. "Thanks for the tour, Inari."

"Wait," she said, calling as he turned around. "You're going to the outer edge, aren't you? The Unpowered sector. I can see it all over your face. Still angry about before?"

"No, only slightly more than a little jostled." He attempted to keep his face straight and tilted his head to appear more innocent. "Maybe I'm just drawn to it. Who knows?"

"Stubborn and curious. I know it when I see it, and you reek of both, with a side of stupid. I'm just warning you, dark one, be careful there. Many of the Unpowered in the city are secretive, and believe it or not, they train themselves to be unreadable to psychics. Even class leaders and the Xenhils don't know what's going on there. I've heard stories of spies and men that can whisper with god. There are many oddities in those crystal lined streets."

"I'll make sure to avoid talking to any men who claim to speak with burning bushes," Riven joked, appreciating that she didn't try to stop him. "I do have one last question, though. How many Greigas visit the Unpowered sector on average? Excluding the guards and military patrols."

"In a day?"

"Day, week, month, year. Doesn't matter. Regular people, friends, family."

She shifted uncomfortably, focusing her eyes on something else. A sigh came from her, long and heavy. "Not enough."

"Are they inspectors of some sort? To see the living conditions? Hand out food and the like?"

She nodded. "They also police the sector to stop crimes."

"So the Unpowered come here in the center of the city to work, and not the other way around? Not even family, huh? After they become Greigas… those selected children don't really visit their parents. Do they?"

Another nod.

Sadly, he'd assumed as much. Shame was a powerful thing, but so was vanity. Turning towards the outer edge of the city, he released Aine from her pokeball, the pokemon startling the woman enough to cause her to take a step back. Fire flared at her knuckles, but Aine's muscled form and mischievous grin seemed to deter the woman from acting. She was still covered in bandages too. Sparks went out, and Inari set her hands at her sides.

"Is she… your pet? It is a she, correct?"

"Yes, it's a female. And it's companion, not pet. Very different. Her name's Aine. She's a fire element too. Can you feel the connection? A friend of mine says that two identical types can feel each other. Especially with those they're familiar with. Close your eyes, see if he's right. Might change your opinion of these 'beasts'."

Inari did, losing herself under the heat of the setting sun. A strange tether of warmth seemed to pull at her very core, a faint edge of familiarity. Of kin recognizing kin. Ancient recordings in the library of the Founders made their way back to her mind. The underlying Origin circuitry in her body pulsed, and she could feel a powerful but faint pull of energy bind the two briefly. With time, that bond could strengthen.

Fires burning separately can join together, forming a brilliant blaze.

"Well, was he right?"

"I can- I can't explain it. But yes, I feel something there. Something I don't feel with other Greigas. Does it only happen with the beasts? Why?"

Inari felt dumbfounded as Aine grinned at her, the sides of her beak forming a smile not unlike a human's.

"Nobody knows. People and Pokemon just have a strange connection. One we seem to lack towards each other, unfortunately. Otherwise things would be a lot less fucked with the world…" Through his rambling, Riven didn't notice that the normally composed woman was on the verge of fawning over his pokemon like a schoolgirl.

I want to feel her feathers! They look so soft! Inari eyed the Blaziken warily, desperately fighting back the urge to stick her fingers in the mass of down. "She's beautiful. I've never seen one of them so close. Well, not an adult. Your baby beast was rather endearing too. The small electric one that couldn't stop shaking. Lord Orsen seemed very intrigued."

"That would be Omy." Riven grinned slightly, looking up at the taller pokemon. Aine let out a cheerful cry. "They're amazing companions, once you get to know them. Thank you for the tour and the warning, Inari. But I think I'll get going. And Inari?"

"Yes?"

"Careful with those psychics. I'll give Agneus an earful when I get back."

"Please don't."

"No promises, remember?"

"Yes, yes, off you go then." She gave him an understanding nod, waving him off.

"I like her," Aine said excitedly. "She's one of the good ones! I think she could kick your ass in a fight, trainer! Her control is much better than yours! Haona always says it's terrible, even for a dark type. She said if you tried to have her mega evolve, your brain would explode from the crazy."

He frowned.

"I'm not surprised she'd say that, that prissy mass of fur and attitude. Ration her food, see how she likes it…" Turning around, he gestured to Aine, who was still enraptured with Inari's visibly shrinking form in the distance. "Alright, alright, stare at her longer than that and I'll give her your pokeball myself." Aine stood her tongue out of her beak as she straightened, drawing a smile from her trainer.

"Heh... Let's go. Outer wall of the city."

"Another fight?" She asked, blue eyes wide. Her powerful legs easily carried her into the sky. They glanced back to see Inari look up and wave at them, her form a tiny figure against the ground.

"After the last one? God I hope not. Parts of me still hurt."

Immediately upon landing in the Unpowered sector, Riven recalled Aine, having ordered her to land in a secluded back alley so he wouldn't attract much attention. His armor would attract more than enough but Aine could potentially cause a riot down here if so much as a single person saw her bouncing around. Pokemon weren't the norm here—and from what Riven imagined of the outside world past Naueilh's gates, they weren't exactly friendly.

He peered up at the waning sky.

Dusk was nearly over and soon the delinquents and miscreants would emerge. Most people should have been coming back from working in the inner city, he surmised, watching the main street from behind a building. The white robed multitude of people hadn't noticed him yet, too engrossed in whatever they were doing.

Releasing Efrain, he ordered him to sink into his shadow.

Slums and poor housing districts never change, he recalled, moving through the shadows of the dark streets. He stopped to observe a crystal waterpipe that had dark colored water flowing through it. Murky dirty water, most likely. Least they got plumbing. That's a plus.

Dirt, grime, and fits of coughs echoed throughout the crystal lined streets. He'd already drawn some attention as children chattered and scurried off the moment he made eye contact. When the parents arrived to see the anomaly, he was already gone.

The more time he spent in the Unpowered sector, the more he didn't like. Negativity hung over the area like a cloud compared to the inner city; hundreds of emotions tugged at him from every direction. The Unpowered were miserable.

Beads off, Riven shut away the world as he leaned in, reaching for those colorful streams of Other. He felt it then, all at once.

The slow degradation of not being needed for anything but the most menial of tasks ate away at them. A liability only until they could be inducted into a class, which could only benefit the inducted, not the family that bore them. They were forgotten, not even worth enough to be shamed. Hatred and anger burned inside a person, visceral and so incredibly strong that it took every fiber of your being to resist it.

But indifference and abandonment were cold like an endless void. No fuel, no emotion. Nothing. A great pit of despair and longing. How could the families of the inducted hate their own children, if that was the best that could happen for them. Was it not a parent's dream to see their child surpass them?

And so, they hated the society they lived in, that influenced their children to forget their parents—lowly Unpowered—ever existed.

Recoiling from the surge of resentment, he shook his head, a sharp ache piercing the left side of his brain.

As he walked the crystal lined streets, he noticed something else. There were a lot of sick. For a desert city that was odd.

Origins barely blinked at infections that otherwise put normal humans down—for a few days or forever. The exceptions were gangrene and other infection related diseases, but as for regular illnesses and some of the more serious viral and bacterial—well, it just didn't happen unless their immune systems were compromised by some of the stronger strains or an injury of sorts.

He'd snatched a white garb from a nearby shop, draping it over himself to cover his armor and his face. Riven slouched, facing the ground like any other worker downtrodden on his luck. Fewer noticed him now, rushing past him without so much as a second glance.

A section of the Unpowered sector branched off into some sort of large man-made park that resembled more of a small grove of paradise, with trees and some of the same mounted bars he'd seen in the training grounds, a cascading waterfall in the distance. Surreal, considering it was all manmade—a tourist attraction mixed with a playground for kids. Unpowered kids didn't seem to care about the night as they played around with balls of what felt like rubber, kicking it across the grove and back again.

Parents in white watched them leisurely, on the ground or beside the reservoir the waterfall poured into cheering them on just like they did in the future. Why would they be any different? People were people. Except there were no Poochyena puppies, or cute Torchics chasing Treeckos up trees. Just human children playing a ball game or taking walks through the multitude of greenery.

They played for a few hours, returning to their homes near midnight. Riven retreated to the roofs overlooking the grove, eyeing vagrants and other interesting characters that roamed about. The wall loomed over the sector, dwarfing the trees. Faint crystal shards shimmered under the moon beneath the sky. He remained motionless for a while, watching the lights and the stars behind them. Realizing that nothing of note was occurring, he decided he'd return the next day to see if he'd get lucky.

So he returned. The next day and the next. And the next after that.

A week had gone by and he'd taken to writing down his observations in a crystalline notepad that he'd "acquired" menacingly from one of the researchers. As for the people… Unpowered didn't take kindly to their powered overlords much, and absolutely refused to talk to him whenever he questioned them. Completely irritating. Cagey and more stubborn than a Vigoroth trying to climb a mountain. He'd have better luck trying to convince rocks to grow wings.

Despite wandering around the sector of the city for a good part of that week, he didn't learn much apart from the fact that being an Unpowered generally sucked, which he'd already gleaned from his connection with the Other. He hadn't seen family disintegration tactics this effective since he was seven. And nobody was even getting killed for it.

He thought the division between the rich and the poor was bad. This was something else. He wanted to say it was twisted, but it wasn't even intentional. The Naueilhi weren't trying to be utter dicks, they were accidentally dicks by trying to help, as minimally as that might have been. There were no antibiotics and medicine being developed for Unpowered because all of Naueilhi researchers were Origins, and thus, had no need for them. The regulars never peeped, preferring to get sick and die. They never deigned to tell them what they were dying of! What were the Origin overlords supposed to do? Mind read. Yeah, well, the Unpowered trained themselves to prevent that sort of thing from happening too.

Long story short; Accidental dickery caused the regulars to hate them by providing their kids with a better life and the people in power had no idea what the regulars felt because said regulars never actually voiced their goddamn concerns.

What the fuck. When did something like that ever happen? Usually the ruling class and nobles in general were absolute cockswabs that would do anything to live a life of power and excess despite any concerns or complaints. People who spoke on behalf of the disadvantaged tended to go missing in a dark alleyway. Puzzling hardly covered it.

Riven let out a frustrated sigh, trying to figure his next move before he threw himself off a spire out of a need for something to do.

Speaking of spires…

Out his window he could see Celebi swirling around one of Naueilh's tallest forested spire, a small green light zipping around inside the thick foliage. The legendary pokemon never really did like people, and as long as Riven was in the city, it saw no reason to be among people more than it had to. It'd already declined to power evolution spheres multiple times, after which it got fed up and retreated higher than anyone could possibly reach and coaxing the greenery that coated the spires to grow more than double in length.

Riven couldn't really blame Celebi, either. He'd probably be just as annoyed.

There was a knock on his door, turning him away from the window. Upon opening it, he was slightly surprised to see several Unpowered servants, their heads lowered. Strange, he'd already been given breakfast. And lunch was a few hours away.

"Forgive us, but are you the one known as Riven Cerul?"

"Is there a reason for the visit?" He asked instead, already fingering the knives he'd hidden on his person. His pokeballs were out of reach, sitting on a table nearby.

"May we enter?" The white robed man in front asked.

"I believe I did ask a question first."

"We—"

"Never mind. Forget it. Raise your heads, Unpowered," Riven commanded, suspicious. All the Unpowered he'd talked to were either dismissive or refused to utter a word in his direction. "You're all surprisingly calm for Unpowered standing before a Greigas. Here on behalf of a certain class leader?"

The group of Unpowered lifted their hoods, revealing several faces of different nationalities and ethnicities. Ethnicities Riven hadn't seen whatsoever in Naueilh. Namely the one in the center, who looked like someone that had dropped out of modern day Kanto.

The Kanton, a graying man in his sixties, smiled, stepping into the room. He gestured the others to come in, all of whom were close to his age or slightly younger.

Riven observed each of them, and noted for a split second how they all noticed the pokeballs sitting on his table.

"Voaun's white spies." He noted, speaking in perfect English rather than Naueilhi. "Took you fucking long enough. I waited in the Unpowered sector for a god damn week bored out of my mind."

The group collectively winced hearing him speak. "Our Lady didn't mention you had the mouth of a sailor. Naueilhi makes you sound far more sophisticated."

"That's because I don't know their swear words yet. But I'll get to it all right. Empty your pockets," Riven commanded. "Over there by the table. No sudden movements. Any mental locks I should be made aware of before I succumb to better judgment and stain this room red? One close call too many."

"We're clean," one of the men said, "Swear. Run into a lock already? Who you piss off?"

"Inari, your boss' daughter," Riven replied. Yup, that was definitely the "poor bastard" look on their faces. "Yes, I know, I know. Just my luck. Pockets. Empty. Now."

They obeyed, emptying their pockets of various tools and small daggers used for protection. Each of them subtlety gave Riven's pokeballs another longing look.

"You really are from the modern era, aren't you?" Riven pointed out. "I saw how you eyed my pokeballs. People from this era think they're nothing more than colored balls of metal. Or toys. One even laughed at me for carrying them around. On the other hand, each one of you recognized them instantly. And there's the English part. When Voaun said time travel, I didn't think it'd be within the same time frame as me. Let me guess, year XX19?"

They nodded. "Early winter in the northern hemisphere just about."

"Interesting. Back up to the front of the room, all of you."

As they walked the others shared glances, more than a little surprised. A blonde woman in the back spoke up, shrugging, "our Lady said you were an excellent fighter, she didn't say you were more paranoid than a hunted Pidgey if someone grafted a Braviary's eyes onto it. We aren't armed."

"That's what they all say before they try stabbing you with a hidden stiletto. Nice Unovan analogy, by the way. Those are always interesting. From the drawl, I'd say Driftveil, but the accent is fading." Riven concluded, to which the woman nodded. "Appearance checks out though."

"Yeah, that's my hometown. Unova… Haven't heard that word in decades," she laughed. "Would've liked to see Klay again."

"Decades?" The dark Origin considered that, noting their appearances and similar ages. "How long have you all been here?"

Finally the Kanton Voaun had advised him about spoke up, sucking on his teeth with a minor scoff. "What, you thought we came here old as shit? Been here forty years, give or take. We all arrived at the same time. Rather horrifically, I might add."

Mother of god, forty years? That sucks.

"Ah-huh. You're the leader, correct? That's what Voaun said anyway. What took all of you? Run into traffic?"

"Hah. Allowing a group of Unpowered to use a Creation Gate takes some persuading, my guy. Madam Voaun pulled many strings. Sorry about the delay." The Kanton chuckled. He clapped his hands together."Nevermind the roadblocks, moving on to introductions! No need for aliases, guys. Now if you would be so kind, Riven, to put the knives down?"

"I refuse."

He wiggled the knife instead.

"Okay then… These are my colleagues; Sandra Greenwood, Edwin Finn, Bryce Admont, Patricia Sebans, and Mark Justineau. Like we said before we arrived here at the same time, due to a field test gone wrong. Very wrong."

The guy hadn't introduced himself.

"Field test? So you're scientists? Or the poor bastards that got stuck as test Rattatta?"

"Scientists, but poor bastards wouldn't be out of the question just yet," the dark skinned Mark said. " We were men and woman who pursued the secrets of the world where most would give up."

Riven made a disgusted face. "In other words, scientists with too much ambition and not enough morals. Scarier than any murderer in my opinion." They all shrugged, clearly not denying the statement. "What are you now? Scientists for the Naueilhi?"

"Scientists? Please, we couldn't possibly begin to explain molecular biology, chemistry, and advanced theoretical physics to these people. Not when their technology, language, and understanding is so much different, not to mention impossible to translate. Now we're just spies. Not much science going on here, so we had to change, become useful to someone. Espionage though… It's the most glamorous job regs like us can get in a world dominated by superhumans. Beats being a servant, at least."

"Yeah, I can see that. Who did you work for then? That did-" Riven gestured to them all, "-this to you? I mean I know people accidentally killed themselves with radioactive shit in the name of science but going back in time seems a bit out there. Who's stupid enough to mess with time? Team Rocket?"

"I think they drew the line after Mewtwo killed a whole facility of people and called it quits." Patricia, the brunette and overall youngest of the group, grimaced. "No, we worked for an underground group composed of shadows and secrets that only appeared legit. What a joke. Maybe you've heard of them. Whoever you are in the future. Something tells me you do."

"Who then?" Riven asked again. "The Plasmas? The Flares? Why would anyone be studying time travel? For what purpose?"

"Why else? To find what was hidden or lost," the Kanton sighed. "We worked for a secretive group that recognized our talents. Our drive to find answers. Voaun said we could trust you, and if I'm guessing who you are to be true, then I'd say it was destiny or one hell of a lucky stroke we found you. Or well… you found us."

"I don't follow."

"We worked for Singularity, man. I believe they tried to kill you before, or so I heard before the incident that brought us here. You have to be him. The guy that started most of this, by accident, I think."

Riven tensed and in a single moment crossed the room with a speed no regular human should have been capable of. He held a knife to the man's throat, a low hiss coming from his mouth. He then noticed the others had gone rigid, holding in their breath.

"Relax," the Kanton suggested, painfully aware of the sharp metal pressed against his neck, dangerously close to an artery. "We knew you'd recognize the name. You really are him. I can't believe it. All this time chasing a ghost and we find you here in the most unlikely place in the world. It's almost surreal."

The knife didn't come down. "I'm who?"

"Patient #3056, of Oldale. The miracle man. Scyther swarm attack. You should have been dead. Your blood sample taken from that single encounter changed everything, man. Before we thought of the tales of man wielding powers like a pokemon to be nothing but folklore until you showed up. Both man and Pokemon, perfectly mixed genetically without any overwhelming issue. Either a genetic marvel or a freak of nature. That's the whole reason we're here, why we ended up here. You led us to Singularity, which led us here. Well, most of us anyway."

Riven was more perplexed than he'd ever been. Singularity had been monitoring him? Or rather, his blood? Ever since Oldale? Finally, Riven blinked. "Who the hell are you?"

The man took out a worn identification card, a much younger image of him on the cover. It had sustained damage from years in the elements, the letters mostly faded out. The others presented theirs also. Microbiologists, linguists, geneticists.

"My name is Blake Hisaka, and I used to be a researcher and geneticist for Dr. Lund in LaRousse City. My specialty was pokemon evolution."

Evolution… coincidence indeed. Although Riven hadn't recognized the name, he did recognize Lund from the time they were in LaRousse. "Okay, so you work for an organization that's fine with doing a lot of unethical shit for unknown most likely twisted reasons. What did they order you to do?"

"Madam Voaun told us you came here with a Celebi," Edwin Finn, the linguist, responded. "We didn't have that luxury. Came here the hard and stupid way. Messed with something we shouldn't have."

"No shit? You came here without a pokemon's help?" A feeling of dread spread throughout Riven's body as he saw their aged bodies and their much younger selves in the ID's. "Stranded through time. Mother of… A one way trip? What did you do?!"

"The Director had ordered an experimental test concerning a shard of an unknown object found in a cave in Unova. He said it was crucial to the realization of our dream."

"What dream?"

"Together as one."

"No idea what that means but alright." Riven's brows furrowed. "And uh, where this whole debacle happened… This wouldn't have happened to be Mistralton Cave, right? Wild guess."

"Actually, yeah, that's the one. How did you know?"

"Fuck." Well, looks like Singularity beat us to it already, Riven grumbled internally. Steven's intel was late. Bloody lockdown ruined everything. Though it was fortunate he didn't end up space paste like the rest of them. "What happened to the Swords of Justice? It's infamous for being dangerous to humans."

Blake chuckled, crossing his arms.

"Dangerous doesn't do it justice. Those pokemon put up an insane fight. Legendary pokemon are no pushovers. Killed a lot of Singularity's men and pokemon. They fought off the beasts and made it into the cave, though. I can see why they didn't want anyone going in there. What they found was… irregular. And by irregular, I mean really bizarre shit. Twilight zone kind of stuff."

"They sent excavators in to drill into the cavern floor because of some strange readings they were getting inside. Turns out the excavators had returned partly disfigured, as if chunks of them had been removed perfectly. Split accurately in a way no tool can possibly manage."

"Temporal anomalies," Patricia, the physicist, explained. "The sheer physics of it is mind boggling. Besides, there were too many in one location. Energy readings all over the place. If not for the strange language written on the walls, we'd have thought that Dialga was sleeping in that hell. There were men half merged into walls, still alive but bisected in multiple, random locations. Pokemon were running around without limbs and heads, some only a pair of walking legs. When the crystal shard was finally extracted from the cave, it was brought back to the lab for testing and everything in the cave died instantly, like a power switch being flipped. Whatever we took held up the disturbance and once it was gone… One hell of a portal cut. The Director ordered further testing after the shard and device were separated."

She hesitated for a second, her mouth moving but no words coming through.

"We… thought… We listened, volunteering to supervise the test. It was a mistake."

"The whole project was a mistake. That test was a joke. 'Let's shoot a high powered laser at it and see what happens'," Mark replied sarcastically. "The thing reacted alright. And by that I mean exploding into a nebulous cloud of red and blue lightning that almost flash fried anything at the molecular level. There were fifty of us in that examination room. Ten of us made it through the temporal collapse. And we were on the observation deck. Anyone close to it got vaporized or displaced somewhere through time to end up who knows where."

Red and blue lightning… Riven felt his gut twist. "What color was this shard?"

"Solid black, like obsidian, if it was radioactive and could kill you."

"Fucking idiots," Riven ground out. "That was a Creator shard. The thing that powers all of Naueilh? Makes all the fancy crystals? It nearly turned a soldier into a living bomb and that was with a second of exposure. And you shot a fucking laser at it?"

"We didn't know what it was at the time. Now we do. Voaun told us what it did to one of the Felir boys. Had we known we'd have never been there. Had the shard been bigger…"

The man's implication wasn't lost. The results would've been catastrophic. Riven brought a palm to his head in disbelief. They ripped a hole in time and space on accident. Using a shard of the Creator. If he hadn't seen what the crystal had done previously, he never would have guessed what the shard could have been. Messing with something like that was a bad idea. No small wonder it was contained within a veritable prism of crystal meters thick, with the mechanism of the containment being too advanced for Riven to understand.

"What happened to the ones that didn't get vaporized?" He swallowed grimly. "And didn't come out exactly okay?"

The six shook their heads, many grimacing at the memory.

"Imagine piles of guts, body parts, and pieces of the room fused together," Blake answered. "I don't know how pokemon do it so cleanly, but travel through time and space is horrific without them. Worse still is knowing there's no way back. And so we had to find a way to survive in this world. Because unless we somehow found out how to gather enough energy and blast a hole through reality, it wasn't going to happen. We were stuck, probably until our deaths."

"So you met Madam Voaun?"

"More like met us. We were lucky to have ended up in Felior, only a few miles away from the capitol. Apparently most of Felior had seen the light. And heard the bang. Crazy part is that the lab was in Hoenn. Transferred us thousands of miles through space too. Where the Alolan islands sit. Pure insanity."

Edwin scoffed. "Some luck, eh? Lady couldn't believe her eyes when we tried to tell her what happened. We didn't speak Naueilhi or Felir, but she understood well enough by the damage to the area that what had transported us here wasn't normal. Ever seen a contingent of soldiers vomit because of what they saw? Hardened soldiers, used to death and men shitting themselves."

"That bad?" Riven cringed. "Like a horror movie?"

"One of the graphic ones they can't show on TV, just about."

"Damn. So she took you in despite all that?"

"Yes," Sandra replied, gratitude in her voice. "Hardly questioned it. Fed us, clothed us, and taught us how to act in a world we were unfamiliar with. So imagine our surprise after decades of this and pointless searching for a way out, to hear about someone else that had claimed to travel through time also. We thought it was another of the Director's experiments. When they told us you fought off the Shield of the Oasis… well, wow."

"She said you used pokemon."

"Which meant there was hope," Patricia said, melancholy in her voice. "That we might be able to go back. That the Director had somehow sent a rescue team. That he remembered us."

"We came as fast as we could," Bryce said. "I guess we were just expendable after all. All of this together as one crap. All of it lies. That man doesn't care about any of it, of us. Should've known… Should've known."

Blake stood up, walking over to the table where Riven's pokeballs lay. The dark Origin eyed him.

"May I?"

They'd been glancing at the pokeballs considerably, itching to touch them. Riven nodded slowly.

The older man picked one up gently, as if his touch would somehow break the metallic ball, his eyes beginning to water. He wiped them on a sleeve. "I-it's just as smooth as I remember. It's been so long. I… miss home. I miss Hoenn. My family will never see it. My son will never see the world I grew up in. And my wife will only know the stories. I would've liked to have shown her LaRousse some day."

The others went to join him, each palming Riven's pokeballs. He heard soft sobs follow, some of them crying onto the pokeball in their lap.

He watched them cry, removing the beads around his neck, seeing a cast blue haze around them. They were so incredibly sad, so homesick that it hurt to see them. To go from the past where everything was dead and dying to the future had jarred him. He no longer missed that world, what was there to miss? But to imagine the reverse—to go from a world as beautiful as the modern day's to one of violence and hardship? And know that their children would die never seeing that beauty must have been unbearable.

Suddenly, he wanted to go back home. Not to Altea, where there was only pain, but beside his pokemon in a small house in the rolling plains beyond Lavaridge. Next to a beautiful girl with brown hair and eyes the color of storms. And outside, the familiar yell of a black haired young man and his crazy Typhlosion.

He put the beads back on. They wanted nothing more than to come back home, but what he was about to tell them would break their hearts. It made him angry. This wasn't fate. This was the cruelty of life.

Life isn't fair, Cerul, the Nightmare whispered.

Riven squeezed tighter.

I know.

The six regained their composure several minutes later, setting his pokeballs down on the table before facing him again. Blake wiped away tears and sat down in front of Riven, his hands entwined.

"Sorry about that," he said quietly. "It's—"

"All right," Riven assured. "I get it. And I'm sorry, I really am, but I have something to tell you that you're not going to like."

"Like what?"

The younger man struggled to find a way to put it without being overly dramatic. "Well… uh, in ten years more or less… human life on the planet, or at least the civilization around us as you know it, will be wiped from existence by what appears to be no less than god himself."

"Arceus? What."

"Hard to believe but yes. I'm here to find out why that is, because somewhere soon, someone is going to fuck up catastrophically. Then Arceus is going to give this world ten years."

"And after those ten years?"

Riven gave them a single glance. Nobody needed him to explain that. The group was stunned, to be sure, yet oddly calm.

"Literally god… Legendary pokemon… Our families… sons and daughters they're…" Blake nodded, swallowing the lump in his throat. "What kind of event could displease him so much? I mean, it's god we're talking about here."

"From what happened the first time—"

"First time?" They asked, shocked. "What first time? This happened before?!"

"Where do you think all the Origins came from? The Creator, all of this? No chance in hell from the future, that's for sure. No, tech is completely, wildly different. The founders were part of my old world, the one I managed to escape before I ended up in the future. Looks like some of them made it here, along with the stone they stole off my father's corpse and made an empire, then chose to forget their lies and atrocities out of guilt. My world ended over half a million years ago. Add in a total reset of the human genome as you science people call it and we get to now."

All six of them stared at Riven in utter shock, frozen in place. Singularity really hadn't told them anything, had it? No, of course not. They were just scientists to be used for their talents along and disposed of when no longer useful.

"As for what could trigger something like that. Genocide about does it. Tremendous loss of life and general razing of the landscape. I assume deaths of hundreds of thousands of pokemon too? Not to mention the people of course. To be honest, I've no idea. I've been trying to figure out just what kind of group or power could motivate mankind to do something like that again, but so far all I see is a bunch of nations and a worldwide empire avoiding each other. Not much of a cause for concern… What?"

From the utter silence in the room, you could hear a pin drop. Finally, Blake exhaled loudly, clenching and unclenching a shaky fist, as if squeezing a stress ball that wasn't there. "Madam was right… Remember how I said there were ten of us?"

"Yeah."

"Well, the other four were soldiers. And they didn't much like Greigas telling them what to do."

Riven raised a brow.

"I don't follow."

"They were modern soldiers. With automatic rifles, Riven. Not like Unovan Field Ops or the G-men. I'm talking real military, the guys the regions send when things really fly off the rails." Blake ran a hand through his graying hair. "And Vertas not only hates Nauer and its affiliate city-states, but needed only one thing to make sure their fanaticism could take on fully trained Greigas."

"And that was?"

"Firepower. Origins don't train pokemon. And Vertas has had four decades and four experienced soldiers to train troops with. That nation's strength lies in machinery and augmentation. Meanwhile, our proud empire of choice still uses bows and swords. So what if they're powerful enough to rival pokemon? Every Greigas that dies is a blow to the kingdom, every Vertan that dies is just another Unpowered that can be replaced. And we, god forsaken time travelers, introduced them to the glorified standard of modern warfare. How do you think that'll go for Nauer? This is worse than I thought."

The color on Riven's face drained.

"They're gearing up for war, and I'm afraid that whatever it was you were talking about has a hell of a lot to do with what's about to happen. They're building machinery, weapons, and cybernetics, if you can even call them that, to who knows what end. All I know is they're trying to match whatever the Greigas can do, and they're trying to recruit every Unpowered they can to their cause."

"What's their goal?" Riven asked shakily, his mind racing.

"Some fanatical call to arms," Blake replied. "Got a crystal recording from the last time I was in Vertas. Translated it to English and Naueilhi for ease of use. But uh… It's… a little chilling. Ever hear a recording from Lavender Town?"

"Once. Never want to hear it again. Play it."

The tiny crystal spun in Blake's hands, projecting sound out in a harmonic wavelength across the room. A distorted voice, one could say almost ominous, whispered words he couldn't recognize. Then it began.

"Our purpose… our drive… Make humanity equal, my fellow Vertans. Right what went wrong and cast out those He did not deem worthy, too stubborn to lie down and die like the maggots they are. He judged them once, he thought he had eliminated them. But they persisted, relentless. Blinded by power and abandoned by their supposed gods, who bestowed them with extraordinary abilities and longevity. Gods we will eliminate in time. There is only the machine and what lies beyond our realm. A realm the psychics fear. He who sent us the watchers of clay and stone to spy on them and claim their soon to be graves. Wipe the slate clean. Make us whole. Beware the Harbinger my sweet friends. He comes. He comes.

"Harbinger…" Riven whispered breathlessly. "Fanatical as they come…" So then why did that seem so familiar. That couldn't have been a coincidence. There was… No. Not possible.

Blake shut off the recording, examining Riven skeptically. "I'm not sure what they mean by that, or wiping the slate clean."

"I think you do," the younger man ground out, his hands starting to shake as he felt light headed.

"What do you mean?"

"In the future, there are little to no Origins present. I only escaped my world by a 'statistically miniscule event of chance' that a stable wormhole opened up right below me when the legendaries almost broke the sky. Just like all of you, except with less mangled body parts. I got lucky. So then, you wonder, what happened to the rest? And what happened to everything else? It's gone is what. They succeeded . They wiped the slate. And we're going to witness how they did it. How Naueilh lost the war."

Astonished, Blake looked at the others, concern dawning on their expressions. He went for a joke in poor taste, no doubt seeing the state Riven was currently in and feeling no better himself, pasty white and trembling like he'd been left out on the ice for too long.

"Well then, doomsday huh?" He gave himself a shaky breath. "If it's like that, then all we'd need is an Absol to show up and convince us that the end times are here, huh? That'd be something. Haven't seen an Absol in years."

Riven didn't react, instead walking up to one of his pokeballs. When the flash of light subsided and Haona's white fur materialized, the room went silent. Blake's jaw went slack.

Then Riven began to laugh.

---

"So why are we walking in the middle of the night to a shady hotel in Castelia again?" Will asked, shifting his eyes from one end of the empty street to the other. Since the raid, he'd been hyper vigilant of urban environments at night, especially ones as dark as this part of Castelia. His hands were shaking too.

Quil bristled beside him, sharing his trainer's concern.

Gale strode along beside him, her Mightyena's ears perked up and listening intently for hostiles. "I'm not sure, Will, but it was a call from Steven and since the lock down we haven't heard a thing. He must have some information that's important. Think they'll notice us missing?"

"Yeah, probably. Not much they can do about it, though. We are technically considered special assets. You're even less restricted than I am, honestly. Take a vacation and all the top brass could do is grumble about it. You've already pissed them off multiple times with the constant teleports."

Gale laughed about it, recalling the tongue lashing she got for that particular outing she took to Nimbasa. She'd apologized incessantly, but the UFOs still let her keep her Xatu. As they came to the hotel, she bit her lip in thought. It was a tic she'd developed recently and the cut on her bottom lip still stung from it.

"Think he called Riven in?"

"Maybe, but that dumbass is still in a hospital bed from getting shot earlier. Plus, they have all the gym leaders holed up in central Castelia with enough UFO agents to fight back a small army with. Anyone tries funny business there and they're going to get riddled full of holes or turned into pokemon food. I'm surprised you're not more concerned about him. He's your best 'friend', right?"

Gale didn't react to that on purpose. "I've seen him get hit with worse, Will. I heard there wasn't any blood, just bruising."

"So you did get the scoop from Allen, huh? Explains why you're so calm."

She sighed. "Who said I'm calm? I'm worried he went and did something stupid again while hurt like that. I don't care if he's superhuman, broken ribs can put anyone down for weeks."

Her Mightyena huffed in annoyance.

"Evie, I know you don't like him. Wishing a bus hit him isn't going to make him more appealing."

"She really wished a bus hit him?"

"Yeah. She said 'it'd make him look more handsome'."

"That's hilarious."

Evie certainly agreed, huffing proudly. Gale shook her head. "Let's just go inside. Empty streets give me goosebumps."

"Exactly what a country girl would say."

"I will punch you, fire boy." They both peered at an empty lobby. The concierge sat at the counter, doing a crossword puzzle on a magazine. A Woobat was passed out on the counter, snoring. He eyed them both, surprised and pleased to actually see human contact so late at night. His expression fell slightly as he saw their attire, but the professionalism was still there.

"Strange hours to be visited by two Unovan Field Operatives. Especially with the city on such high alert. How may I help you?"

Will waved his hand. "It's not official business. We're meeting someone here, we just need directions."

Considering the part of Castelia they were in, the concierge knew better than to ask questions, UFO or not. "Certainly, sir."

Gale tapped Will on the shoulder.

"Umm, what floor and what room did he say? I really don't want to stay here, Will. Empty lobbies are unsettling."

"Agreed, I'm trying my hardest not to get the fuck up out of here. He said room 4503."

The concierge smiled slightly. "It is on the fifth floor, and please, do not let the empty lobby bother you. A man gets used to it, though it is a slower day than usual. I suspect it's today's events to blame. Castelia is much more lively."

The two nodded, waving farewell to the concierge and his sleeping Woobat. When they reached the door, they both nodded to each other, their pokemon ready to tear any threats to pieces. Both trainees reached for their pistols, with Will slowly turning the knob on the door. As it edged open, Will pushed it fully open, aiming the barrel of his gun at a bewildered Steven, coffee and tea both sitting on the end table in front of him. Gale had hers trained on him also, with a flaring Typhlosion and growling Mightyena behind them.

"We, uh-"

"See, this is what combat training does to people," Steven said, frowning. "Well, sit down, I suppose. Unless you think the seats have explosives attached to them." The two trainees lowered their weapons and laughed sheepishly.

"Sorry," they both said, moving to sit down.

"It's good to see the both of you again. I heard that Unovan Field Operations had gotten a hold of you. The uniforms look good, if a bit tight." Gale and Will tried not to get flustered. "Tea or coffee? They've both gotten a bit cold, I'm afraid, but whatever you like."

The pair declined, their attention being drawn to the coffee table in front of Steven, where several file portfolios were spread out, many of which were deemed redacted or classified. Very classified from the looks of it. How had he…?

"Steven, what are these-"

Before any of them could react, the world seemed to stretch and an unbelievable pressure cascaded down on them. Colors inverted before their eyes and a skull splitting headache hit them for a little under a second as the air beside them ripped open.

Out of it emerged three men and a woman. The woman and two of the men were unconscious and the third, the one in black with spiked hair whiter than snow, picked himself up, holding his head and groaning.

Gale knew who it was, but she could barely believe it.

It was Riven. Or so it looked like him if someone had bleached his hair and turned both his eyes blood red. There was a sense of otherness to him, and all three of them could feel something feral coming from him, like a wild pokemon.

Instinctually, Gale and Will unholstered their weapons, their guns fixated on the white haired man before them.

"Who are you?" Steven asked, reaching for his pokeballs. He glanced at the three bodies on the floor, noting the long streaked white and black hair of one of the males. Riven had repeatedly dyed his hair to not drawn attention to himself, otherwise it would end up the same way the man's ponyta-tail looked like now. The streaks of white in the hair had become larger and more pronounced. There was no doubt that that was Riven on the floor. "What did you do to him?"

"Oh, him? Nothing, the idiot is just asleep," the white haired man responded. Everyone sighed in relief. He turned to Will and Gale, a brief sadness flashing in those frightening eyes of his. "I'd put those down if I were you. I really don't want to hurt any of you. He cared for you. I cared for you."

"And just who the fuck are you?" Will demanded. "If that's Riven on the ground there with the world's largest ponyta-tail, then what in the hell are you and why do you look like him? He never mentioned having brothers."

"That's because I'm not his brother. I am him," the man responded tonelessly. "Or I was. Hard to explain."

"Was?" Gale questioned, lowering her weapon. "What do you mean?"

His expression softened, gazing at Gale with a sorrow that could be physically felt. "I am Hasei, Gale Serna. You're just as beautiful as I remember, even through his eyes."

Gale would've turned crimson if not for the fact that the blood red irises registered and a shiver crawled up the two trainees' spines. Both Will and Gale paled, knowing exactly who this was. Exactly what it was. How was this possible?

Hasei pointed at the rapidly shrinking crack in space. "Seems like the idiot is finally deciding to join us." Riven, the one in black with way too much hair, stirred with a groan, slowly picking himself up.

Steven bolted upright, beads of nervous sweat forming on his forehead.

"That's… that's not a portal made by a Celebi." He locked eyes with Hasei, noticing a very distinct lack of green. "It's… jagged. Unstable. What happened to Celebi? Why isn't it here?"

Hasei smiled to himself, chuckling.

"What's so funny?" Will asked, traces of sparks and smoke flaring from his hands. The look alike simply shrugged.

Riven finally got to his feet. When he turned, Gale swore his right eye was bluer than she remembered. Like a sapphire, rather than a muddled, azure blue."Steven…" He managed, orienting himself, "Celebi's dead."

"…What?"

---

slight revision to fix errors: 9/5/2020

[1] So, it's not really clear if the pokemon world has something akin to a christmas per say, considering it's based on a religious belief in the date of the birth of christ. Christianity and monotheism don't really appear to be all that important with godlike legendary pokemon and an all encompassing god(being Arceus of course)actually existing physically. Obviously, christmas is celebrated everywhere, so why not change it to something more thematically appropriate? This is also the reason i refrain from using "Jesus Christ!" as an expression for "oh shit", but "oh god" is perfectly suitable. There is a possibility a jesus could have existed in the pokemon world at some point but with the unexplored past and general disjointed geography of the pokemon world, i highly doubt it. The existence of pokemon would also naturally deter some people from believing in a higher existence unless he actually existed... which he does.

The burning bush reference could still be valid not as a religious reference, but one where a person with possible schizophrenia tried to create a cult or religion, believing it to be a call from god. Although, again, with superpowered monsters running around, more people would be quick to dismiss this notion as otherworldy, as a pokemon could have just easily set the thing on fire. Well, whatever, i suppose.

On another note... Okay, so I've been gone for a while. Year plus. I wasn't dead, but my computer was. My shitty craptop that I've had for about five years and my cat finally put an end to it. It was taking literal ages for it to start up regardless but my cat no more. Ran over the cord at mach speed. Computer hit the floor and refused to turn on again. Screen looked like an iphone post gravity treatment. Went to destination fucked and never came back.

So, being the broke bastard I am, had to save up for another computer and figured why stop short and decided to get a gaming computer instead. Which is where I fucked up because being able to play PC games after being on console for so long meant my writing schedule got dumped on by sexy sexy graphics and 60 fps buttery goodness. I swear I didn't spend two weeks trying to learn to mod skyrim.

…Worth it though.

Anyway, couple that with the volatile work schedules I had been getting and writing got DESTROYED alongside my sleep schedule. Did I mention I lost several months of work and revisions on the original chapter I'd been writing so I had to do it again? Yeah. Shit.

And that's not even going into the issues I had with somehow trying to pace the damn thing so it doesn't detract from the modern story. So I went with option B. Riven's time in the past will be explored, but it won't be in the main story. It'll be a side story and will involve more characters in the past and not so much the modern ones. I said I was going to do a catalogue of the different classes and elements they belong to, but I figured it'd be better if I included that in the side story and mention it from time to time in the main one.

Point is, Riven and the new guy, in case you haven't figured it out already, went through some serious shit. He isn't the same person as when he left and neither are his pokemon. You'll see.

Again, forgive my disgustingly long absence and I'm not a fan of posting a "chapter" and hyping everyone up just so they can see the chapter being a few sentences long telling everyone that I'm not dead. That would be disappointing. Disappointing bad.

Regardless, enjoy the chapter and happy fourth of july! Or don't… It's up to you, I guess. But I hope you do!