The Clock and the Compass / Chapter 1 / Hourglass Shattered & Map Shredded
Alec blinked as the sun shone through the trees and hit his eyes. His dark brown hair shimmered as the sunlight reflected off of it. He turned around and pulled his house key out of his pocket, locking his front door. With that, he turned and began his commute to school.
The streets of Lacunosa Town, a modern city in the Unova region, were almost always busy. People hurried to their jobs left and right, causing massive traffic jams on the many highways stretching throughout the town like veins, keeping the city alive. Alec was lucky enough not to need to drive to make it to his high school, so he could walk and avoid any clots in the circulatory system of the highway network. Since the streetlights automatically switched off when the sun rose, the sidewalk was mostly shrouded in shadow. He turned off of his front lawn and started his journey to school. His running shoes felt as comfortable as always on his feet, if a little worn.
As the sun rose in front of him, its rays shone down and reflected against his bright violet eyes. He blinked, feeling the fatigue of sleep leave his body as he acclimated to the morning.
The walk to school was relatively short, so Alec briefly had some silence to ponder his plans for the future. He was in his last year of high school, seventeen years old, and almost ready to become an adult. The prospect of college seemed like a good idea, but that would be a large timesink for him and an expense for his mom.
For years, Alec had wanted to be a Pokemon trainer. Living in the city, the only Pokemon he had ever seen there were mangy and feral Pidove and Ratatta. On occasion, a Trainer would have their Pokemon out in public and Alec could catch glimpses and take notes as he passed. One night, he had even seen a wild Zorua prowling around near his house. When it saw him, it yelped and vanished in an illusion before he could approach it anymore or get a good look at it. He was so disappointed that his mom asked him if he was a Zorua later that day.
Last year, he spent the summer interning with a Pokemon Ranger. At the time, it seemed like a good idea on his mom's part to get him out of the house and "build some character" by being outdoors. Alec had found that he really enjoyed Ranger work and all that it entailed. While there, he learned a lot about first aid, living in the wilderness, and most importantly, training Pokemon. The Rangers were super nice and they all taught him cool stuff about Pokemon. Still, being a Ranger was a pretty specialized job and Alec didn't quite have all the skills necessary. A Ranger needed to have a team of powerful Pokemon, and if Alec had that, he would just be a regular Trainer.
Before he left for his internship with the Ranger, Alec's mom had given him a special necklace. It had a long metal chain that hung around his neck, and it held a medallion-like pendant. It was shaped like a coin, with a watch on one side and a compass on the other. It had been incredibly useful out in the wilderness, and Alec wore it religiously. It was the best gift anyone, let alone his mom, had ever given him. His friends liked to joke that he had a tan line where the chain rested on his neck from never taking it off.
Of course, unless you're a powerful Trainer, you can't make any money off of the Gym Challenge alone. In order to make any money, you have to be able to win Contests or battle tournaments with prizes. That takes serious skill and dedication, so only the people who could afford to take years off of their jobs could have any serious shot at making it in the Pokemon business. There were still several jobs involving Pokemon, like being a Daycare worker or Move Tutor, but those didn't scratch the itch of having his own team of partner Pokemon as Alec wanted.
But still, Alec couldn't be a Pokemon trainer if he wanted to put food on the table. Luckily, he'd also always had a passion for science. Besides his dream of being a Trainer, he'd always dreamed of contributing to science in some major way. That was why he wanted to go to college, to get more training to be some kind of engineer or researcher.
Honestly, he'd kind of quit thinking about what he wanted to do after high school. Just ignoring his problems was his running solution for now. Well, his school campus was just around the corner, so he snapped himself out of his thoughts and continued forward. A few students were trickling into the school from the streets, so Alec melted into the crowd and entered the building, ready to start another day.
Alec checked his necklace watch. 11:34. Only 11 more minutes until the bell would ring.
Alec sat in History class, his textbook and notebook spread out in front of him. The ceiling light behind him cast a strong shadow onto his desk, making it nigh impossible to see the textbook without moving his head. The faint scratching of pencils and the shuffling of paper was a constant companion to Alec inside this classroom, faint but always audible.
The room was decorated rather blandly, with white tiled floors and very little decoration on the grey-painted walls, save for a large whiteboard at the front of the room. A map of the region hung on the wall beside him, and a map of the planet hung next to that. A series of events and corresponding dates were scrawled across the whiteboard for the students to copy onto their notebooks.
At the front of the room, his teacher droned on in a lecture, like he typically did. As he talked, Alec's right hand scribbled notes as fast as he could and his left hand held the textbook in place.
"I've already given you all the information that'll be on Friday's test," the teacher said, closing his binder filled with lecture notes with a thump. "Remember, you have an essay on the two clans due the Friday of next week. We have a bit of extra time in today's class, so I'll go ahead and get started with our next unit."
A few students in the back of the room groaned, obviously disappointed they wouldn't be getting free time. Alec silently turned to a new page in his notebook, ready to take in some more information.
"As I'm sure a few of you already know," the teacher said, "the next major event in Hisuian history is the Recreance. You all should start a new section in your notebooks. Documents all agree that it was started by one major event – the power of Almighty Sinnoh striking Mt. Coronet and sending the region's nobles into a frenzy. However, a newcomer came and quelled them. We know very little about the name of Hisui's savior, but a few documents mention that he was also the first known trainer to tame and catch a Zoroark."
Alec leaned forward on his desk. He didn't care much for ancient history, but the Recreance was an extremely interesting event to him. Pretty much any event concerning the influence of Legendary Pokemon was to him. He had read a book about it once. All the villagers of Hisui were terrorized by a rift above Mt. Coronet and space-time distortions throughout their land.
The teacher droned on, voice static and monotonous. "All of the artifacts we've discovered from the period don't describe what happened at all. They all assume that the events of the Recreance were common knowledge, which implies that it was an obvious-to-notice issue. A few sources mention the sky in regards to the Recreance, so it likely had some effect on the astral bodies, like the constellations. Curiously, a similar thing happened regarding the newcomer who saved Hisui. No details are given about his physical appearance or anything else about him, not even his name. The writers seem to have also assumed that he was common knowledge as well. Whether they were crazy or the savior was just very popular, we'll never know."
The teacher inhaled, continuing on. "Additionally, some other sources mention another event occurring at the same time that we call the Desolation. However, some historians simply lump the Recreance and Desolation together, because they both began with some kind of change in the sky. All sources mentioning it agree that the sky played a major part in the Desolation."
Alec didn't quite know why they were studying the Hisuian period. They lived in Unova, on the opposite side of the world for crying out loud! His teacher had given some excuse as to why: "We learn from our history so that we don't repeat our mistakes in the future," or some meaningless saying that history teachers loved to repeat.
Although, he was intrigued by this mysterious trainer. In modern-day Unova, very few trainers were brave enough to catch Zoroarks. He knew they were extremely strong, but also extremely dangerous Pokemon.
His teacher continued to drone until the end of the period about the various exploits of this mysterious hero, and Alec carefully took notes, just as he always does. He knew that anything and everything that his teacher said had a possibility to end up on a test and be the difference between a pass and a fail for him.
"The only primary source of writings we have of the Recreance besides oral legend is the writing of a man named Laventon, who also helped create the first known Pokedex of the Sinnoh region. His given name is unknown as all of his writings and all documents involving him simply refer to him as 'Professor Laventon.' If you turn to page 129 of your textbooks, you'll see his illustrations of the rift that formed above Mt. Coronet."
Alec turned to the page and saw a photograph of what looked to be a charcoal sketch of the summit of Mt. Coronet. Above the peak, a massive swirl of dark shades of gray hung, just behind the clouds. The sketch didn't have much detail, but it still looked interesting to Alec. On the borders of the sketch, he saw some writing in a script he didn't recognize. The margin of the textbook supplied that it was ancient Galarian.
It also translated the writings, which read, "Rift appeared two days ago. Don't have color to draw. Rift is dark blue towards the center and fades into pink. Nothing has come out of it yet."
For the remaining minutes of the class period, Alec listened attentively as his teacher recounted all that happened during the Hisuian Recreance period. All around him, students slacked off and ignored the teacher, knowing that this information wasn't on their upcoming test. Alec, on the other hand, listened anyway.
Toward the very end of his school day, Alec had a free period for studying. He wasn't allowed to leave campus or anything, so he chose to spend it in the library, like always. Simply sitting still on a bench and scrolling on his phone for an hour just wasn't appealing to Alec. No, he liked to be busy. The near-silent whispers of pencils scratching on paper and the rhythmic clicking of keyboards helped calm him and convince his brain to be productive.
He spent the first half of the period doing his physics homework. The worksheet was pretty simple, but it was tedious, so it took a while for him to do it. He just let the clicks of the buttons on his calculator zone him out as he flowed through the assignment.
In physics, they were currently covering a unit on type energy, the mysterious forces that Pokemon used when attacking or using moves. As such, most of the word problems they used took place in the context of battling. Each type had its own associated form of energy, which Pokemon naturally produced. Alec reached into his backpack and pulled out his type chart, which would help him convert between the kinds of energy.
60μ of fire-type energy comes into contact with 45μ of dark-type energy. How much energy is transferred, negated, and lost?
He grinned. This question was easy.
After some time, he dropped his pencil on his desktop and leaned back in his chair, stretching.
That's the last of my assignments for today, Alec thought. He again glanced at his necklace watch. 2:43. Seventeen minutes until the end of the school day.
He carefully put his papers and calculator back into his backpack. After everything was securely tucked away, he looked around the library at the other students. Some just scrolled on their phones, others were typing on their laptops, and the rest were doing worksheets just like Alec had been.
As previously mentioned, Alec couldn't stand just sitting still and waiting for the bell to ring. He didn't have any books to read for fun, so he got up and checked the shelves around him in the library. Thinking back to the picture of the Recreance, he remembered the language written on the sketch that he couldn't read. His curiosity got the best of him, so he checked the section on language. It took him a second or two to locate where the 'languages' section was on the chart of the organization system. After he found it, he made his way over to the shelf.
On the shelf, there were plenty of books, ranging from current languages like Kantonese and Kalosian to ancient ones like Latin and Unown. The Unown one caught his eye, being based on a form of rare Pokemon.
He grabbed the book and returned to his seat. It had a fine hardback cover, with a picture of a question mark Unown on the cover. A handful of Unown of other letters adorned the rest of the surface. He opened the book and started to examine it. The very first thing that he noticed was that the Unown alphabet perfectly mapped to the Unovan alphabet.
The book was pretty interesting, mostly focusing on how all written languages could trace their roots back to Unown. Unovan writing, Alec's native language and the only one he knows, is almost entirely based on Unown script. The only difference between Unovan and Unown letters is the lack of eye shapes in Unovan.
By the time the bell rang, Alec could successfully read a few small passages in Unown script, but it took him a second to recognize each letter. He silently thanked his ancestors for tweaking their letters when they invented the Unovan language, whenever that happened.
As everyone else in the library began to put their things back into their backpacks, Alec stood up, having already fully packed up all of his papers. On his way out the door, he returned the book on Unown script back to its place on the shelf.
Alec knew that he had swim practice later that day. As he left the school, his feet locked into autopilot as he zoned out to return to his house. He hoped to grab a bit of rest before he had to get up and go to practice. His mom would be at work until late that night, so Alec would have to fix himself a snack and then head out on his own.
As Alec left the pool center, the streetlights clicked on, momentarily blinding him. His eyes quickly adjusted and he continued walking. His heavy dark brown hair clung to his head, still soaking wet from the pool. Lacunosa was a small enough town that he could walk wherever he wanted to go, so he ignored the pain in his sore muscles as he headed home.
He knew the route like the back of his hand, so he again fell into autopilot and walked home. His bag filled with his swimsuit and gear bounced against his back as he walked, making a peaceful rhythm that harmonized with his steps. Typically, Alec brought a change of dry clothes with him so he wouldn't have to walk home in his wet suit. His warm hoodie and soft sweatpants felt comforting.
In front of him, the sidewalk was completely empty, illuminated by the streetlights like a stage lit by spotlights. The darkness of the street next to him contrasted strongly against the brightness of the streetlights. Every day, it made Alec feel like he was balancing on the razor-thin line between life and death, light and darkness.
A while later, when Alec was just past halfway to his house, something strange caught his eye.
Two streetlamps down, a strange shape caught his eye. Motionless, it hovered beneath the lamp, illuminated by the spotlight. Even though Alec could only see the figure's silhouette, he could still strangely tell exactly what it was.
Unown, he thought, thinking back to the book he read in the library earlier that day. What was one doing in the city? The book never specified where Unown could be found in the wild, but it implied that they were extremely rare. What was one doing in the city?
He squinted, trying to make out its shape. It turned out to be an 'S' Unown, which greatly pleased Alec that he could figure that out. He grinned to himself and began to carefully approach it. The strange Pokemon continued to float right under the streetlight, barely swaying up and down in the wind, its large eye boring straight into Alec like a drill meeting a plank of wood.
Right as he got close enough to get a good look at it, it quickly spun around to face away from Alec and fled from the streetlight. Briefly, its black body vanished into the space between the streetlights, only to reemerge at the next one. From its new position on the sidewalk, it again continued to stare straight at Alec.
But this time, something was different. Alec immediately noticed that it wasn't the same shape that it wasn't before. No, it must've changed while it went between streetlights. This time, instead of an 'S', it was an 'E'.
Just as he did last time, Alec again began to creep closer to it, desperately wanting to simply touch the strange, otherworldly Pokemon. Unfortunately, his backpack, filled with his heavy swim gear, clanked as he walked. Despite his best attempts to be as quiet as possible, Alec's bag spooked the Unown away again.
This time, instead of turning and running to the next streetlight down, it turned and crossed the street. The strange, single-eyed Pokemon didn't even look to the side as it crossed the street. It just hovered forward across until it reached the other side. Luckily, for Alec as well as the Unown, there were no cars nearby.
Alec set down his backpack on the sidewalk and leaned it up against the wall of a nearby building. I'll be right back to get it, he thought. No one will steal it if I'm only gone for a minute. He checked his necklace watch. 7:23. He would be back soon.
With that, Alec again followed the strange Unown to its new position, making sure to check for any oncoming cars. Curiously, the Unown didn't change forms, still reading 'E'.
Being careful not to stay in the street for too long, Alec hurried across to the opposing sidewalk. The Unown, sensing his approach, once again fled and changed forms into a different letter, being 'K'.
It keeps changing forms to random letters. What's happening? Alec wondered, confused about what a single random Unown would want with him. He'd also never heard about an Unown being able to change letters. The book had been very clear that all Unown were stuck in one letter form.
The chase continued for a while longer, with Alec's backpack long forgotten. He didn't even glance at his necklace watch until it read 7:48. But by now, Alec was long lost. He found himself at a four-way intersection between four tall buildings. Strangely, he hadn't seen a sign of any other people throughout the whole chase.
Just like all the previous times, the Unown just hovered in place, this time in the middle of the intersection. Alec, long having forgotten about his backpack, proceeded into the street. He made sure that there were no cars by turning around in a full circle and not seeing any headlights.
The Unown this time chose to look like the letter 'N'. As far as Alec could tell, there hadn't been any rhyme or reason behind the letters that the Unown had turned into so far.
S, E, K, O, U, T, A, L, P, M, and now N, with some letters being repeated later down the line.
But this time, when Alec reached the Unown, it didn't flee.
It did something a little different.
Right before his eyes, it seemed to unfold. Alec's depth perception betrayed him as dozens of more Unown poured out from behind the one he had been chasing. Hovering around him, they began to spin in a circle and hum a strange buzz that Alec had never heard before. He watched on, shocked, as the Pokemon danced around him, growing faster and faster.
Faster and faster.
Alec looked down, to see his necklace leaning on his chest with the compass side up. Even though it was hanging down vertically, its needle spun wildly, even faster than the Unown. In disbelief, he grabbed the medallion to examine it. He discovered that on the other side, the one with the clock, all three hands spun faster than the compass was.
The strange buzzing produced by the Unown crescendoed even louder, making Alec feel like his head was splitting in two. He squeezed his eyes shut and covered his ears with his hands.
But before anything else strange could happen, he vanished.
Alec still kept his eyes squeezed shut. He saw only black, or rather the insides of his eyelids.
Carefully, he opened his eyes and could barely tell the difference. Whatever surrounded him was as black as night, indistinguishable from the darkness inside his eyelids. Had he been kidnapped? Was he trapped in a basement somewhere, to never escape again?
No, that couldn't be it. His gravity was missing, leaving Alec weightless. The strange sensation reminded him of being at the bottom of a swimming pool. Why was his gravity missing? Well, that didn't really matter right now. Where was he? What had happened at that intersection, with the Unown? Alec deeply inhaled for the twelfth time since opening his eyes. Was he panicking? Yeah, he probably was. His mind was spiraling and he couldn't focus on his surroundings. For a second or two, Alec focused on getting his breathing under control. Who, or what, had done this to him? Would he ever see his mom again?
As he caught his breath and stabilized his mood, he felt the questions finally relinquish his brain from their iron grasp. He was free to think again and maybe to find answers instead of just panicking.
Alec noticed a slight shift in his vision. A slight variation from the endless void of black that smothered his eyes. A tiny tear in the blindfold, letting in a small gleam of light. It was coming from behind him, so Alec tried to turn around. He used a weird-looking combination of kicks and pulls to orient himself around. His swimming training helped greatly in this. It almost felt like treading water.
Behind him stood a ball of light, brighter than the sun. He squinted his eyes, immediately feeling them cry out in pain from the luminance. He tried to shield his eyes with his hands, but they didn't work. They merely hung limply at his sides, unable to be moved at all.
Then the ball of light began to speak to Alec.
"Welcome to my realm, located beyond both time and space. It is good that you are here. I am Arceus."
Now, Alec had never really been much of a religious person. Throughout the world, there were plenty of religions and none appealed to Alec at all. A handful of his friends from school were Arceans and he passed an Arcean Church on his way to and from school, but he never followed the religion. He slowly began to regret that choice as he realized that the main deity of that religion was floating right in front of him.
"What is your name?" Arceus asked.
Alec felt confused. If he had been summoned here by Arceus, why didn't he already know his name? He stared for a few seconds, unable to form words, before collecting his wits.
"… Uh, m-my name is Alec, sir," he said, feeling extremely scared. What did this all-powerful Pokemon want with him? Had he done something wrong? Had he died, standing in that intersection, and was he being judged right now? The incandescent and pristine white light that poured out from behind Arceus made Alec's eyes water and ache.
"Ah, hello young Alec. You are confused, but you need not worry," the almighty Pokemon said. "Alec, soon you will find yourself in a strange world. One much like your own, but different in many ways. I apologize for removing you from your life here but you must trust that it is necessary."
Alec stared, dumbfounded. Arceus stared directly into his soul, unblinking, as if waiting for him to respond. The light framing the god that created the world kept burning into the backs of Alec's eyes but the pain was quickly fading. After a moment, he regained his confidence and spoke up.
"W-what do you mean, strange world?" he mumbled.
"You are clearly still nervous. Allow me to explain, little Alec." Arceus closed its eyes with a hum, as if considering his next words.
"You see, I have a mission for you, but not in your current era. Your new era will be dangerous, and you will have to fight to survive. Looking at you now, I am certain that you are the correct pick, therefore you need not worry."
"Mission? Me?" Alec asked incredulously. "Surely, out of everyone alive, there's not anyone better to send?"
"Ah, we will have to work on that lack of confidence, young Alec. You have little faith in your own abilities and my judgment. Yes, I am certain in my choosing."
"But what do you want me to do?"
"You must decide that for yourself."
Whether the light behind Arceus dimmed or Alec's eyes adjusted, it regardless became easier to look at the light.
"You must leave your previous life behind. While you are there, I command you to do three things:
First, to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
Second, to trust that I will help you along your journey.
Third, to seek out all Pokemon."
Arceus nodded. And with that, Alec vanished, leaving the Pokemon that predated all other Pokemon alone in the void to wait.
And watch.