NSO Chapter 34

I don't own Pokemon.

It was a beautiful morning. Clouds covered the bright sun, providing momentary relief from its scorching rays. Leaves rustled on nearby trees as a mild breeze blew through them, adding to the rare coolness of the day. If it were any more perfect, Tailows would be chirping and rainbows would be everywhere. The atmosphere was thick with emotion, as a school field full of Kingdra High students gathered, some chattering with excitement about the upcoming staycation, while others grumbled about waking up early to get to school on a weekend. However, the greatness of the day couldn't brighten the solemn moods of two students. Cleo and Gayle pushed their way through the crowd of students, each with luggage in paw and claw, as well as a pack on their backs. They kept an eye out for Zenith, but it didn't take long to find him. The Umbreon, with fur so black that it seemed to absorb the light of day, stood out like a sore thumb amidst a circle of female Pokemon, with a proud Sylveon standing beside him, showing him off to her 'clique'.

Cleo growled an insult under her breath at the sight, while Gayle wondered about the muzzle-like object strapped on Zenith's snout. Borrowing Cleo's phone to snap a photo, the Vibrava sent it to Zoey, hoping for an answer.

.

Big Sis (Zoey)

online

Cleo: IMG-4188. png

Cleo: Hey Zoey. Gayle here. Any idea what this is?

Big Sis (Zoey): Sorry, no clue. But if it's any help, that thing might be the way Sylvie's keeping Zenith in his altered state. Destroy that thing, and he'll be free.

Big Sis (Zoey): Hopefully.

Cleo: Thx.

.

Turning back to Cleo, Gayle was about to share her newfound information with the Vaporeon, but was interrupted by the "POP" of a teleporting Pokemon. Mrs Woon the Beheeyem materialised first, before the rest of Kingdra High's teaching staff did the same, appearing behind her. Their sudden appearance took the crowd of rowdy students by surprise, a hush descending upon each and every single one of them. Or maybe it was Mrs Sal's roar of "SHUT UP!" that did the trick. Either way, the students were quiet, allowing the teachers to speak.

"Alright, All Year Fours follow me to the buses," Mrs Sal gestured to her left, where a fleet of buses had hissed to a stop. Their sides opened with a creak, revealing large, empty compartments for luggage. There were words plastered on the side of the vehicles in huge font that read 'Palosand Beach Resort- Once you stay, you won't want to leave!' Students flocked towards the buses in droves, Pokemon shoving others out of the way to try and get the best seats. It was only until they met Mrs Sal's intimidating glare then the huge crowd assembled itself into two neat orderly lines. Cleo and Gayle had been pushed to the end of the line, and could only watch helplessly as Sylvie boarded the bus, followed by Zenith, who bounded up the bus' steps after her. Gayle was hovering in the air to get a better view, looked down to see a Cleo, body shaking and red-faced. Gayle was about to reach out a claw to comfort Cleo, but then realised that the Vaporeon wasn't shaking from anger like she thought, but from sadness instead. Nevertheless, she had to check in on her.

"Hey, Cleo… you okay?"

"Yeah. I'm fine." Cleo's reply was curt, a grim smile on her face. "This just makes it easier for me to beat Sylvie's face into the dirt."

Gayle had no response to that, so she was relieved when the duo's attention was caught by the sound of heavy pants and wheezes behind them. It was Apollo. He was hunched over with exhaustion, beads of sweat forming and evaporating rapidly on his warm brow.

"Sorry… overslept… had to run…" The Charmeleon managed to wheeze out between gulps of air.

"It's fine, Apollo," Gayle patted Apollo's back, her Ground typing allowing her to touch her boyfriend's searing skin. "We're still far from getting on the bus. Should be enough time for you to catch your breath."

By the time the three Pokemon had boarded the bus, the bus containing Sylvie and Zenith was long gone. Sure, Gayle could no longer keep a watchful eye on her step-brother, but at least she could tell Cleo what her mom had told her without the Sylveon eavesdropping on them.

"Whatever happens to Zenith, it … had to happen?" Cleo shared Gayle's confused look at Kelli's ominous and ambiguous message. The two of them were sitting together while Apollo sat with some of his other friends. The noise produced by the rowdy students in the bus provided excellent cover for their conversation to go on undetected.

Gayle shrugged, sympathising with Cleo. "I'm sorry, that's all she told me," The drained, depressed face of Kelli was imprinted on her mind from last night. "But let's not dwell in that for now. Omens can be interpreted in many ways, and not all of them foretell bad things… I hope. Let's just focus on the plan."

"Okay then… I really hope that Zenith's okay."

The Umbreon in question was currently chatting with Sylvie and her circle of friends. When first meeting the Pokemon in Sylbie's clique, he recognised none of them, but names had emerged from the pink, misty depths of his mind as if they had been there forever, reminding him of how he had known them for years.

However, all this was happening on the surface.

Something else was stirring, way deeper beneath the surface.

"Ugh…" Zenith's eyes remained tightly shut as he sat up, rubbing the sides of his head as he willed for the throbbing pain in his temple to vanish.

Hello there, Zenith. I see you're… awake.

The voice of Dialga did not surprise Zenith in the slightest, but the Umbreon's sensitive ears picked up a small change. The voice now came from in front of him, much closer than what he expected, instead of schooling and reverberating in his head like usual. This piqued Zenith's curiosity enough for him to push the pain and the urge to go back to sleep aside for a moment and open his eyes.

His mouth followed suit, dropping wide open as he gawked at the figure before him. Sure, it was just Dialga, the familiar voice in his head for many years, but IT WAS DIALGA. The God of Time, the Temporal Pokemon, and many other titles that Zenith couldn't recall right now. All that mattered was that it was Dialga, here in the...flesh? As Zenith extended a paw, wanting to shake a paw or claw, he realised said paw looked wispy and faint, as if it was made completely out of black smoke. And looking down at the rest of his body, the Umbreon gave a sharp yelp at what he saw.

His entire body was made out of black smoke from ears and feet. It moved around slowly while retaining a Zenith-like shape, allowing the Vaporeon to see through himself. He had no bones or internal organs at all, his insides only containing more smoke.

"What am I? Where am I?" Zenith asked as amused Dialga, finally looking around and noticing his strange surroundings for the first time. He was sitting in a field of… pink rose petals? They looked pretty and were soft to the touch, leaving Zenith with an idd desire to sit in the field forever, enjoying the comfort.

Rise, Zenith. Dialga's voice, although not coming from every crevice of Zenith's head anymore, still radiated power, and he felt himself get up from the petal field to obey the Time God's order, floating into the air as his smoky appearance allowed him to.

Firstly, you're in your mind. And secondly, you are a small part of your subconsciousness.

"A small part? What do you mean?"

Remember when I summoned you into your own mind to rewatch your fight against Zoey and Julley? I materialised you in your own mind as your full consciousness to see the fight. But now, you are only a small part of it. Not to mention a part of your subconscious, which is even smaller.

"So if I'm a small part of subconsciousness, where's the rest of it?"

Dialga pointed a claw behind Zenith, and the Umbreon turned to look, his jaw dropping for a second time. A giant Umbreon towered over Zenith, curling up into a ball in the middle of the rose petal field, sound asleep, but even when lying down, it managed to dwarf Zenith with its enormous size.

"THAT's my subconscious? Then where's my consciousness?" The cloudy Umbreon asked Dialga incredulously.

Yup. Your conscious mind is currently active, but it decides what to do by communicating with your subconscious. An example coming up in three… two… one.

Back on the bus, one of Sylvie's 'group', a Combusken, brought out a thermos filled with boiling water to enjoy. Suddenly, the bus jerked as it hit a bump in the road, throwing the Combusken off balance and the thermos out of her hands, on a flight path towards the Sylveon.

In his mind, Zenith watched as the giant Umbreon that was his subconscious suddenly opened his eyes, leaping into a standing position from its sleeping state, staring blankly into the distance, while barking out a sudden command that caused Zenith to jump in surprise.

"Protect Sylvie!"

Sylvie didn't have enough time to start screaming when she noticed the danger hurtling towards her. A black paw shot past her at blinding speed, grabbing and righting the thermos flask mid-air to prevent it from colliding with its target. The other paw burst any stray hot water droplets so no boiling water from landing on Sylvie, his damaged pain receptors barely registering anything.

Incident over, Zenith's subconscious slowly curled back into a sleeping ball, the vaporous Umbreon turned back to Dialga, now sporting an expression of anger and confusion.

"Why would you let me keep your time powers in this… state? And if that's my subconscious, why am I here instead of there, part of that giant Umbreon?"

Dialga didn't respond to Zenith's questions, but his eyes glowed a bright blue, and the two Pokemon were lifted upwards into the air, soaring closer to the massive sleeping figure that now lay before them.

"So you managed to see everything that happened in reality… interesting, but I guess that being a part of your subconscious allows you to connect to your brain, allowing your current state, as small as it is, full awareness of your senses." Dialga seemed to ponder this little tidbit for a while, before redirecting his attention back to Zenith.

"Zenith, I cannot take back your given powers away even if I wanted to. It was a gift bestowed from me onto you, a Pokemon I have deemed worthy to wield responsibly. But don't worry, Schoff. I'm Dialga, God of Time. I account for everything. Even though I can't remove your powers, I have diminished them greatly, so now that you're only slightly faster than the average Pokemon."

"What's an average Pokemon?"

"You know, like a Ninjask."

"They're, like the fastest Pokemo- never mind that now. Why didn't you just give time powers to Cleo, or Gayle? Give them a better fighting chance to free me?"

"That's a viable suggestion. Tell it to me again when I spend a couple of years hooked up to their minds, knowing how pure their hearts are, their alignment, where they stand on the justice syste-"

"I get it."

"Glad you do. And now for your second question, let us take a bit of a closer look at your subconscious, shall we?"

Before Zenith could respond, a sudden force yanked him forward, even nearer to the giant Umbreon, where Zenith could even reach out a wispy paw to poke it, but his cautious nature prevented him from doing so.

Upon a closer look, Zenith started to notice things about his subconscious that he couldn't when he was a distance away before. Like how the giant Umbreon was made out of little black, furry balls, which writhed and squirmed around incessantly. And as Zenith slowly got closer to examine the balls better, the black spheres closest to him started to… change. They started to vibrate even more violently, slowly mashing and moulding themselves into weird little bean-shaped bodies, which then started to grow front limbs and a head, elongating into a snout, followed by ears, rings and bands. Before the lone, smoky Umbreon knew it, he was looking down at a mass of himself, all twisting and turning their bodies towards Zenith, gnashing their teeth and straining their necks further, trying to grab, bite, get ahold of him. But the creepiest part of the Zeniths were that their facial features were completely blank. No eyes, no nose, nothing. His face was a blank slate, save for a pink ring on their foreheads and a mouth filled with razor-sharp teeth, snapping at the air in his direction.

Wait. Pink rings? Even when literally inches away from a nasty demise, Zenith couldn't help but look again at the aggressive versions of himself. All of his doppelgangers climbing and crawling over each other had pink rings and bands on their bodies, unlike his blue shiny colours. Even though Zenith was still close, but not as close to himself as before, he realised that even though they reached out to bite him, none of them made the effort to jump out and chomp on him, it was like each Umbreon couldn't leave their own spot in the subconscious.

Having seen enough, Zenith floated back to Dialga's side.

"Do you get it now?"

"I think so. Is the reason why I'm separated from the rest of my subconscious... is because I deviated from the rest of it?"

"Close enough. Allow me to fill in the rest of the blanks. You are different from your current subconscious, not only in terms of appearance, but what you are. You still feel affection for Cleo, while the rest of your subconscious is completely under Sylvie's influence and couldn't give a damn about her. You both have contrasting personalities, and are like two magnets of like poles, repelling each other when in close proximity. That's why your subconscious is so hostile towards you. It, or they can't stand being in your presence."

Zenith glanced over his shoulder back at his subconscious. Now quite a distance away, the little Umbreons in the big Dark-type were calming down, curling back into little furry balls and melting back into the giant body of the sleeping subconscious.

"So… what do I do now? How do I get back to 'normal'?"

"Sorry, Zenith. If there's a window of opportunity, you can use it to turn the tides in your favour. But right now, there's nothing you can do besides watch and wait. Only the flow of time can determine your fate now." With that line, Dialga faded out of Zenith's mind, leaving the smoky Umbreon alone drifting through his mindscape. Drifting down on an elevated field of rose petals, he curled up into a ball, mimicking his larger counterpart as he looked down upon his subconscious.

Watch and wait... watch and wait.

Meanwhile, three buses full of 16-year-old Pokemon squealed to a stop outside of the gates of Palosand Beach Resort.