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The Dark Type	By : Manifest Destiny Category: Pokemon > General Views: 36309 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. Pokemon is copy write by GameFreak, INC. and Nintendo. I make no money from this story, nor do I seek any.

Chapter List
- 21
- 22
- 23
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Arc 3: The Truth
Chapter 22: My Friend, My Folly, My Enemy
—————
Andrea Karson hasn’t stopped crying.
I shared her sentiment, but didn’t mirror her outward reaction. I sat and stared on at the television screen in silence.
We were among the plethora of people stuck—as if the word meant anything to these people—in Azalea Town. The Ilex Forest, the accursed place known in legend as the home of Celebi, has claimed the lives of innocents. An untold number. The prospect was chilling, even to my own admittedly jaded outlook on life. Children have died. More lives have been ruined on her watch.
I shouldn’t be surprised or angry anymore.
But I am.
I feared my teeth might shatter if I clenched my jaw for another minute.
The atmosphere of our hotel room was nothing but constant sobbing, monotone voices from the television, and the kind words coming from Tyler trying to soothe the distraught young woman. Jacob Ostra has been shocked into silence, something I would normally find a pleasing outcome. Not today. He hasn’t said a thing to our troupe since the news began playing on repeat, telling gruesome reports about the unnatural and unseemly Pokémon attacks in the forest.
[“—are the worst wild Pokémon attacks in recorded history in the region, says Professor Samuel Oak of Kanto.”] the reporter said. The face of a gray haired man with a wide face appeared next to some quoted text. A voice played over the picture as the news reporter waited silently.
[“This is a tragic and eye opening incident that my colleagues and I will be investigating at length. Over the past few months, Professor William Elm and I have been conducting research for just this sort of occasion; field researchers were sent to observe local Pokémon habitats and migratory patterns. Unfortunately, our efforts appear to be too late. But we will not let this deter us. If anything, this only proves the importance of our research—’Project Cartographer’, we called it—and it stands to say we need to double our efforts if we are to get a handle on the situation.”]
I had heard this quote three times since the news began to run on repeat throughout the day. “Field Researchers”. It could only mean what Bartholomew Iruni Thomas and Alice Wingborne were talking about back in Violet City. They had left before we had, both headed south. Here, to Azalea Town.
Are they alive, I wonder? Were they swept up in the wind of catastrophe along with the young and old alike that had lost their lives?
Either way, neither one of them have yet returned any of our attempts at communication, to mine and my friends’ worry. I can’t help but feel a pang of sadness, even for people I hardly knew, to think that they have lost their lives to the Forest Guardian’s continued negligence.
I must truly be getting attached here. How unfortunate. I will not remain here. I refuse. No matter what.
“Hey, Cora?”
It wasn’t really a question, merely a call for my attention. I looked up from my chair to Jacob, whose eyes didn’t inspire the optimism as they always had. He stood up in front of the bed in the middle of the room, now the center of attention.
“Yes?” I asked him. He didn’t continue his thought until he managed to get Andrea to stop sobbing into Tyler’s lap. It was clear this was going to be one of his speeches.
“Listen,” Jake started, only to look back at the television for a moment. He pointed a finger at it, “That. Those attacks. Those kinds of Pokémon roaming where they shouldn’t. There were no signs, not warnings. It just happened.” He paused for a moment, taking the time to look into each of our eyes. Testing our resolve. I didn’t blink.
“I just can’t sit here and watch it like I’m a civilian waiting to be told how to deal with it,” Jake continued. “The police, the Pokémon League, the Gym Leaders? They’re all in a scramble. They know about as much as we do. I say we get up off our asses and do something.”
“What can we do?” Andrea asked through her tears. “This isn’t something we can handle!”
“But it can be!” Jake said, suddenly brimming with enthusiasm. “You saw the same reports I did. Everyone’s on the same page with this. If we train hard, get serious, and make ourselves known, we can make a real difference. If we find what’s causing these strange migrations, maybe we can do something about them.”
“What exactly are you saying?” asked Tyler. “You said you wanted to be Blackthorn’s Gym Leader, didn’t you? How does this change anything?”
“Because this isn’t just about our little town in the mountains anymore. This kind of incident can happen anywhere. It can happen to anyone.” He turned to me, looking to hopefully bring me over to his side of the argument, if it could be called that. “Coralis, you know what I’m talking about, right?”
“What do you mean?” I had caught onto Jacob’s accusing tone before he finished his sentence. He spoke to me as if I had been caught stealing. “I don’t—”
“No!” Jake yelled at me, startling all of us in the room. “You know exactly what I’m talking about! I mind my own business as much as the next man, but it doesn’t stop me from noticing things. You showed up in Blackthorn four years ago with hardly anything to your name and a stare that could make a man question his own safety. But I took a chance and tried makin’ what was hurting you a little better. Giving you a place to live, helping you get on your feet, trying to be a friend.” He paused, exhaling through his nose. He braced as if his next line might be his last.
“But you’re not our friend, are you?”
“Speak your words clearly,” I stood up from my chair to meet his gaze. “Say what you mean and don’t dance around it.”
“We’re just a background gig, right? You’ll slip away for a day or two without warning, doing who knows what. Oh sure you’d always come back, but you’d never say where you went. One day after you come back, you suddenly have enough cash for your own place, but I’ve never seen you work a day in your life. You get those phone calls in the middle of the night, talking quiet and quick. You’ve never told us who you really are. Where you came from. It’s always ‘a long story’ to you.”
“Dancing, Jacob,” I warned him, but he was clearly not as thickheaded as I gave him credit for. Perhaps my actions had been too obvious.
“Who do you work for and how can we help?” Jacob asked. Were it not for the years that I had known the man, I might have taken what he said as a joke.
“Explain yourself.” I responded.
“Come on, it’s obvious; you’re into something big. And I think you might know that what you do can help the world around us.”
“Basing what you know simply off observation any my own unwillingness to divulge any of my private affairs with you three, and what you assume I plan to do, you want to supposedly join in my alleged activities?”
“It’s obvious to me you have some troubling issues,” said Jake. He sat down in a chair across the room as I still stood, now the focus of the room. “The way I see it, you managed to find someone who you think can help fix that. So you began coordinating some business in secret. But you’re using us as a secondary means of living so you can have some sort of normal life or something. Maybe a cover. My point is, if you know people who can throw their weight around, maybe we can do it for the good of people. This Ilex Forest fiasco is exactly the thing we can help prevent! We know things like this can happen, so we can take steps to help save people. We just need the means to do it.”
He turned to Tyler and Andrea.
“You guys with me?” he asked. The two nodded in silence. A majority was cast, leaving me the target of the night.
“Listen, Cora. If it’s really important to keep your private life private, then by all means, be my guest and clam up. But if what you’ve got going on with those secret buddies of yours can help people, then by the gods you owe it to those people that lost their lives that you feel so sorry about to do something about it.”
I felt their stares of curiosity and urgency as I stood silently listening to the repeating news reel. The longer I waited, the more obvious it became that I had already decided what to say to them.
“I will try to not offend anyone in this room. My business is, as you say, is my own. My past is my own. What I do, I do for myself, but that doesn’t devalue what we, as a group of friends, have. I have truly enjoyed our travels together, our time in Blackthorn, and you ever generous hospitality and patience with me. I—”
Before I continued with my own speech, the television halted its fourth rerun of programming. Something new started to play.
[“A new report coming to us from Goldenrod City has now been confirmed: Two survivors have been found and are now safely out of Ilex Forest. One Alice Jane Wingborne of Fortree City in Hoenn, and Allan Relmstead of Ecruteak City are now being treated at Goldenrod Central Hospital. They were both declared to be in stable condition, only suffering minor wounds, despite the terrible situation they managed to find their way out of. More updates as they appear…”]
I stood staring at the now irrelevant news playing on the screen after the live update had passed. I was shocked; more so than from when I had learned about the incident proper. Something about that revelation burned in my mind. A light in the dark. They were spared! Two of them! And I knew one of them! The odds in play were too unfathomable; something told me that Celebi’s hand has played somewhere in this game.
“Two souls escaped…” I said, muttering under my breath. “And Alice! Spared from her negligence! Was it her directly? Has she finally felt some compassion in her eons of apathy?”
“Cora? What’re you talking about?” Jake asked.
“It can be done!” I smiled. I knew it now. In the back of my head, I knew I wouldn’t make sense to my friends in the room. But that didn’t matter. Soon, they would understand everything.
“Excuse me, you three,” I said, looking back to my friends. “I promise you, after I make a simple phone call—one that you may overhear—I will explain to you what I aim to do, who I work with, who I am, and where I hail from.”
I pulled my PokéGear out and called one of my subordinates. He didn’t pick up, as is his way.
“Sebastian. A word. Something has happened that I believe will work in our favor. It is all over the news stations, as I’m sure you’re aware. But I need you to go to Goldenrod City and meet with some friends of mine, I will be accompanying them as well. I also have my eye on a new potential ally. Her name is Alice Wingborne, and I believe we can help her as much as she can help us.”
As I shut down my device, the curious looks from my traveling companions were sending my direction invigorated me. They would listen. They would believe.
They would help me get home.
“I think the logical thing to do,” I said as I pulled my chair close to my friends and sat down, “would be to start at the beginning. But first there is a fact you must understand before we continue. I am two hundred and forty-one years old.”
—————
It has been, in reality, two hundred and seven years since I last saw my wife and son. For me however, it has been only five years. I have been ripped out of my time, thrown into a world that forgot me. You three stare at me, questions almost leaping from your mouths, but rest assured that they will be answered in time.
Oh how I’ve come to hate that word; Time. The progression of existence, slowly marching into oblivion.
But I digress before I’ve even started. Here, is how I came to meet the Guardian of the Ilex Forest, Celebi.
—————
I hail from the corner of the world known to you now as the Sinnoh region. There, the winters are harsh; shorter days, bitter cold nights, and heavy snowfall. My son, Benedicto, loved to play in the cold. He used to make small sculptures in the snow. When I would join in, we would try to hit each other with fistfuls of the white powder.
My family and I, my wife Phaedra and my son, lived on the eastern side of the mountains that split our continent. I believe the name of the settlement now is Eterna City, but it didn’t have that name in my time. There the people revered the old legends of my country. The village was an hour’s walk from our modest cottage in the woods, perhaps two in the winter when you had to trudge through the snow.
Living surrounded by trees made for many hearty fires in the cold seasons. It was on an early morning of gathering firewood that I managed to uproot my entire life.
I was carrying a long blade in my hand, useful for cutting thick, low-lying branches. That particular morning had been very peaceful. The cold seemed to pacify the local population of Pokémon, the few aggressive residents that there were. The blade I carried also served for defense whenever the time called for it; a memory of an irate Luxio comes to mind, but I would not recommend using anything metal to put down an electrical beast. For its intended purpose, it excelled. A strong swing would chop the branch off in one attempt, unless the wood was stubbornly dense.
One thick branch caught my eye and I deemed it the last one I needed. I set down the bundle of sticks I had accrued over the morning to finish my task with one more swing. As I reared my arm back, gripping the handle, I felt the short hairs on my neck straighten. A buzzing noise filled the air around me. All other sound seemed to fall away.
Just behind my back, I felt a presence unlike anything I can describe to you. I slowly turned around, needing to see.
Sparkling green gems seemed to be hovering aloft in the air a few feet above the white snow. The anomaly shifted and shone brilliantly in the morning light, humming all the while. I could not pull my eyes from it. Curiosity kept me place and then bravery drove me closer. Then something happened that I’ll never forget.
‘Aidez-moi…’
I halted in place. Words had invaded my head. I hadn’t heard the words, they came into my head on their own. They had a voice to them but they bypassed my ears and drove themselves into my mind. I didn’t understand the words, but they felt afraid.
‘Hilf mir…’
In my years, I had always thought of myself as a confident man. Not on that morning.
‘Tasukete…’
They pulled at me to come closer. These words I did not understand.
‘Ayuadame…’
I instinctively gripped my heavy knife. Fear had begun to creep into me.
‘Bāng wǒ…’
Whose words were these, I wondered? None sounded anything like I had heard in my life.
‘Help me…’
And there it was. Understanding.
“Yes! Hello? Can you hear me?” I called into the cold air, having no idea if the voice could hear me like I had been.
‘Please…’
Cautiously, I moved closer to the flowing and changing emerald rift. I could feel my body start to shake as I got closer to the rupture in front of me. My teeth itched. My eyes watered. It felt like I was witnessing something no mortal should; like it was above me on some very basic level. For a three-dimensional being to observe a four-dimensional object, it pained me to merely be around it. What must it have felt like to be inside? I soon found out, because it was then I decided on my action.
I thrust my hand inside it. Another thing I do not recommend.
It felt as if my arm had been skewered a thousand times by a thousand swords, like my flesh was being ripped and pulled apart in a million different ways. I clenched my jaw and reached deeper, not knowing if I was helping at all.
Then I felt a tiny hand grab my own, clenching weakly.
‘Pull…’
Perhaps against my better judgment, I reached into the ripple in the world with my other arm, pain doubling, and grabbed the small thing calling to me and pulled with all of my might, screaming as I did. The energy coming from the portal resonated throughout my body, shaking my heart, burning my eyes, and blistering my mind. I fell backwards into the snow, clutching something in my arms. It was frail and green; it had long arms, short legs, and a large head. Its body was marked with cuts and bruises. It seemed like it was having trouble breathing.
I should have left it die in the cold.
—————
After rushing my hurt little friend to my home to seek care and comfort, I had ventured back into the wild to retrieve the kindling I had abandoned. When I returned to that spot, the green anomaly still remained, but it was much smaller. It hung in the air like a scar; a tear in the fabric of the world. It still made me uneasy to look at it, but I felt inexplicably drawn to it. Enchanted to stare into its shifting emerald prisms. My eyes watered and I turned away from it. I thought perhaps our visitor could answer me on why this was.
When I returned home I was met with a hectic scene. Before I managed to reach my front door, my son burst forth, calling for my attention.
“Father! The demon is yelling things!” Benedicto called to me.
“Watch your language,” I said, walking in from the snow. I put down the bundle of wood by the door and began undressing my heavy clothes. “No need to be rude.”
“Coralis Odarius! Save me from this monster that screams at me in strange tongues!” My wife Phaedra was usually one to be calm, patient, and kind.
“You must not have been kidding, then,” I told my son.
Entering the main room of our modest cabin had never been so challenging. Dinner plates, chairs, various other hazardous items flew in the air around my wife and our wounded visitor.
“She was well behaved enough, but she just started doing this!” Phaedra called to me. She was on her knees, arms held over her head for protection. Her golden hair was flowing wildly in the ethereal wind. “I don’t understand her; these voices in my head.”
“Come to me, I’ll calm her.” I stood in front of our dinner table, held aloft by unknown means, as it floated toward me. I grabbed the legs, using it as a shield, letting my wife leave the vortex in safety while I took her place at the center.
The being that called to me from her rupture in space was huddled in the corner of the room, shivering, spouting words in many different languages. I could see the few successful attempts my wife made at applying care to her wounds, but some were freshly bleeding. Something else caught my eye about her which drove me to press closer to her; she was in tears.
“Achaicus Erela, please stop this!” I called to her. “You are safe here! There is no need to cry!”
‘No! Please leave me alone!’ she said, in a language I could understand.
“We only want to help you,” I pleaded. I put a caring tone to my voice to soothe her. “My wife, my son, we wish you no harm.”
‘I wanted to go, but she tried to stop me! I’m finally free, I won’t be trapped anywhere again!’
“And we don’t wish to keep you, but you’re hurt, and it’s the peak of the cold season. Please, stop this chaos, Erela.” I held out the hand she had grasped onto in the void, palm up.
“I promise I won’t hurt you.”
She finally looked up at me, shaking and crying, and fluttered on her small translucent wings into my arms.
‘Please don’t.’
—————
I cradled Achaicus Erela—a name from a language my Father had taught me once—in one arm as I helped my wife pick up our dining area. I made sure to be careful of my passenger’s wounds, not moving too quickly or harshly.
‘I’m sorry…’
“You should be, little one,” Phaedra scolded her. “It’s terribly unappreciative to throw a woman’s home at her when she tends your wounds.”
‘I’m scared of your life-mate,’ she said to me, and I suspected, only to me.
I laughed, smiling for the first time that day. “Now, now, let’s put this noisy morning behind us, shall we?”
On our replaced dinner table, I laid my precious cargo down on a clean towel so my wife and I could see to her wounds in full.
‘You called me a name,’ she said to me. ‘I didn’t recognize that language. What does it mean?’
I smiled and calmly ran my hand over her smooth head, “Weeping angel, Achaicus Erela. Do you like it?”
‘The angel part is nice…’
“Then I shall call you Erela, unless you have a name you prefer?”
‘Celebi.’
“Well then, Celebi Erela, you are welcome to stay here under our care until you feel it is time to go.”
I saw the relief spread across Celebi’s face at my kind offer. It was plain to see she was uneasy about the situation, but she put her faith in my words.
Time and time again I dream of this moment. In the dreams I change my fate, and snap her neck. I am happy in these dreams.
And then I wake up…
—————
Yes, as I see you about to ask, I had indeed come in contact with such a legend. The things tales are written about, of which songs are sung, the source of those cautionary tales we tell our children at night; a time-traveling sprite.
My mind never fell to seek fame or fortune at my chance encounter. Even back in my time, courageous men and women sought out the truths behind the myths we grew up on. To bring them down to our level, tamed and real for all to see. To have their own names added to these legends was their dream.
Mine was just to provide for my family. That’s all I’ve ever wanted. They were my dream come true.
They were…
—————
I would do you all a disservice if I held my tongue; by withholding the whole of the story, you may fail to understand. That is far from my intention. I want you to see.
Celebi Erela, as I had named her, was a part of my life that I did truly enjoy. Her arrival in my home brightened up the days that winter. My son had a new playmate. My wife had someone to carry conversation with when I was out of the home. She had become a great family friend, and her advice managed to save my sanity on more than a few occasions.
The most pressing being the side-effects from the efforts put toward rescuing her from her self-imposed predicament; that crack in the universe she had gotten herself stuck in.
I had asked her time and again what had brought her to be trapped in a rift in time. The time I had gotten the most information, she told me.
‘Before that, I was… imprisoned. By people; humans. They wanted to take my power from me and use it for themselves. They had me drugged, I couldn’t think clearly… I couldn’t jump through time. I was hurt. But I got out somehow, I can’t remember what happened. I managed to escape that time, but couldn’t land in a new one. Until you pulled me out, Coralis.’
“It was my pleasure, Erela.”
As I had said the words, my vision blanked, and I was then staring down at Celebi. She was unconscious, lying on a cold stone floor. Chains and shackles binding her to corner of a dark and cruel looking room.
In an instant, the sight vanished, and I was back in my home. Celebi was still hovering in front of my face as if nothing had happened.
‘What’s the matter?’ she asked.
“Nothing, nothing,” I said, hoping to drive away any unneeded concern.
In reality, it had unnerved me greatly. What I had seen was too vivid, too real to have been a mere daydream, or to be blamed on any overactive imagination. I saw it. I was there. I saw her in her most vulnerable state.
I soon learned that particular episode was my one look into the past.
Continuing on into the spring, I would have visions that took over my sense of sight, even invading my ears. I had no clues to go with, no idea what was happening to me. They even started to fill my dreams. Sleep was beginning to elude me. Sometimes, I would see the next day; I would see tomorrow’s sunrise and the minutes that followed. And when that day would finally come, I would fear whether or not I was hallucinating again. I did my best to hide my affliction from my family. I could not bear to hurt them; to give them grief on my behalf. If I were to lose my grip on reality itself, if I were to lose my mind, I would do so privately.
One warm night, I lay awake in my bed. My wife was asleep beside me, her calm breaths being my only thought. Visions of her alone and crying kept me awake. They were frequent now. Some minutes apart.
You may find my next decision to be a bit rash, for even now I curse myself for even thinking it.
I wanted to throw myself into the river. I needed to stop the visions.
All I wanted was peace.
So I stood from my warm bed and left my home, walking into the night. I marched on like a man possessed, for I was. My eyes flashed; day to night with each step. Soon my grip on today would be gone.
I saw the running water, I heard the rapids. I stood on a cliff, prepared to fall into the river’s depths. Relief seemed so close. Until something pushed be backwards onto the grass.
‘Coralis, don’t!’ Celebi screamed in my mind.
She hovered above my chest as I lay on my back, but I could no longer see her. Only the bright blue sky of a day yet to come.
“H-Help me… I can’t see anything anymore, but I see strange things. Every day.” I could feel my eyes burning as I spoke.
‘Why didn’t you tell me you were having visions?’ Celebi placed her hands on either side of my head, their presence soothed me momentarily. ‘I was afraid this might happen. I could’ve helped you.’
“Can… Can you still help me?” I asked. Visions began speeding up. Playing rapidly in my mind as well as before my eyes. “My eyes have failed me. The things I’ve seen— I do not understand. I don’t know what I’m seeing even now! They’re inside my head! What is in my head!?”
‘It’s the future.’
Celebi pressed her forehead against mine and I heard the most beautiful sound. A tone from a bell rang through my mind. It silenced everything, leaving nothing but the presence of Erela holding me in an intimate embrace. My breathing slowed. My sight began to return to the present day. I was looking into the deep blue eyes of my friend from out of time. I didn’t realize I had been crying until she wiped the tears from my face.
‘It’s okay now, I’m here.’ Celebi allowed me to sit up in the grass, but stayed close by. I could tell she was afraid I may try and leap into the roaring waters again.
“What happened to me?” I asked her.
‘When you saved me, you reached into time— literally sifted through the sands of existence. You were lucky to pull out both of your arms when they were still the same ages.’ Celebi flew in front of my face, examining my features with a studious eye. ‘You were exposed to energies you’re not meant to; at least not on your own. You absorbed a lot of temporal radiation. That power has been slowly leaking out of you these past few months. Causing you to see flashes into the future.’
“You said you were afraid this would happen. You knew that this would happen to me?”
‘I wasn’t sure, but I had my own worries. I knew you had been exposed to those energies, but not how much you’d retained. If you’d spoken up sooner about them, we could have worked together and helped you deal with them.’
“So what can be done now?” I asked. “And what about you? Don’t you have to deal with these as well? You were in that rift longer than I ever was.”
‘Oh please, remember who you’re talking to,’ Erela said proudly. ‘Visions into time are like daydreams to me.’
“Forgive my simple mind then,” I said. “My question remains urgent though.”
‘We’ll tackle them together. Your mind is struggling to deal with the flashes of time you’re experiencing. Whenever they come around, just let me know. With my mind with yours, we’ll ride them out until all of the time energy you’ve absorbed dissipates. And it will, I promise,’ she held my hand with both of hers, putting my palm to her small chest. ‘Cross my hearts.’
And gods save me; I believed every word she said.
—————
Do you see it yet? Do you understand?
Some of you may; you’re certainly clever enough. You may already know what has happened to me, and what I’m about to tell you.
All that I ask is that you know that revealing all of this to you has been very difficult for me. My past, much like my own future, is precious to me.
Now, to finish my tale.
—————
“You two look adorable,” my wife Phaedra’s voice drifted past my ears.
Almost two years had passed since Celebi had come into our lives. Despite mine and my family’s urges, she wished to stay hidden from our neighbors and the townsfolk in old Eterna. She called it “reducing her footprint in this time”, something none of us really understood, but we adhered to her wishes to stay anonymous to other humans. The main reason for her extended stay, or so she kept insisting, were my infrequent looks into time itself. As my wife came across us, Celebi had our minds locked in a psychic embrace as we rode out my latest look into tomorrow.
“Once you get acclimated to the temporal displacement of one’s mind, it is a remarkable experience, Phaedra,” I said, borrowing some of the admittedly strange words that Erela used. “I’ve seen the stars; we go to them! Our own Moon, the red planet—”
“Coralis, you’re rambling again,” she said, wearing that expression that told me everything I needed to know. She had need of something, and it was best not to keep her waiting.
Erela and I were tending to the small garden that we had behind the house when the vision came. It had been weeks since my last; the longest time between them yet. As they became less frequent I was both simultaneously excited and remorseful. I had come to enjoy and take interest in the things that I saw. It invigorated me to know that doomsday was not around the corner, and that we continue to endure in the decades and centuries to come. The thought of losing the visions entirely also held the idea that Erela would then leave soon after, her self-imposed obligation fulfilled. Back then that was the only thing I could say that I dreaded; the loss of my friend from an unknown time.
“What is it, beloved?” I asked, adding a flourish as I stood. I took her hand, kissing the back of it. It made her laugh, which made me smile.
“Benedicto says he heard from his friends in town that a terrible storm will be rolling in tonight. I thought you and Erela could fix that leak in our ceiling before we need to learn how to swim in our house.”
“Alright, the garden can wait.” I stood and began following my wife to the front of our house. “This rain will do us all some good.”
‘What can I do?’ Erela asked.
“Your levitation will prove invaluable, I’m sure,” I said. Looking back, I saw that Celebi was frozen in place behind me. Her eyes aglow with green, sparkling energy.
“What’s wrong with her?” my wife asked.
“She’s having a vision of her own. Celebi’s connection to time is inherent, part of her nature.”
“Shouldn’t you help her? Like she does for you?”
“I’ve offered,” I said, “but she insists hers are often private, and tied to her own future. And her mind is much more accustomed to these things than mine ever will be. She can handle it.” As I said those words, I saw tears fall from Erela’s eyes. Immediately, I was concerned. “Erela? Erela, are you alright?”
‘I… Yes. I’m okay.’ She rubbed her big eyes, gathering her composure. Celebi forced a smile ‘I’m sorry about that.’
“What did you see?”
‘I won’t bother you…’ she said, her mental voice still conveying a sense of dread and dismay. ‘Let’s get ready for that storm.’
—————
Erela and I managed to fortify my home for the impending weather just in time. Perhaps we were a bit overzealous if I were to offer an opinion. Extra wooden planks were placed over all of the windows, anything heavy was taken down from high shelves, and even the main structure of the building was enforced by enchanted vines that Erela had conjured from her own power. Her paranoia for our safety had concerned me at the time, but I didn’t inquire further; I merely wrote it off as concern for my family and myself.
My wife, son, Erela and myself were seated on the floor of the main room, huddled around our fireplace. We sat listening to the rain beat down above us when the unexpected reared its head.
A set of frantic knocks pounded upon my front door a few hours after the storm began. As I stood up, I felt Erela’s tiny hand pull me back, urging me to return to my seat next to her.
She spoke to me in private; I could tell from the acute tone in the psychic voice that rang in my mind. Her eyes betrayed her emotions. She was afraid.
‘No. Stay.’
“I have to at least answer the door, my angel.” I undid the various locks on my front door and opened it, letting the elements into my home briefly.
“Coralis Galian,” a man stood on my doorstep, covered in a cloak that whipped around him in the wind. “The mayor has called for any able-bodied man to help the town! The dam upstream is beginning to fail, and the town is in risk of flooding. Can we count on you to help us?”
“Of course,” I said. “I’ll make my way there as soon as I can.” The messenger ran off, in search of the next home to find help. I closed the door and began to prepare.
As I gathered my outdoor gear, including a heavy coat and thick boots, Erela assaulted my mind while she sat in silence next to my son.
‘Please, stay here. They can handle things without you, can’t they?’
‘That is not the point,’ I told her, following her thoughts back to her mind. ‘I need to help because I was asked to. How can I not answer their call? How could I live with myself if the whole town suffered from my cowardice?’
I hugged my wife and son after I finished gathering a few supplies I thought I would need; a length of strong rope, an ax, an extra pair of thick gloves. I ignored Celebi’s constant pleas for my safety and opened my door again.
‘No, don’t go! If you leave now you will never come back!’ She hugged my arm, trying desperately to pull me back.
You see my friends, when you make friends with a time-traveling sprite, you tend to listen when they start to speak up about the future. But here, she broke our own rule. One we made early on in the days of our arrangement: Never reveal the other’s personal future, should we come across it. Doing so could irreparably change the course of history. Or the fact that the knowledge itself is known is what cause that future to come to pass. Believe me my friends, time can be very confusing and delicate.
“What?” I asked her. I couldn’t resist, even then. For her to use “never” chilled me to my very bones. “Never” is definite and absolute. I held my voice to a whisper, to not alarm my family. “What did you just say?”
‘In my vision—the one from earlier, I mean—I saw that you leave today, but you don’t come back tomorrow. Or the next day. You never come back here. You never see your family again.’ She looked up at me, despair painted across her face. ‘I’m so sorry.’
“You cannot be sure,” I said. “I have to go.”
‘I am sure! Please! Don’t abandon your family! Don’t… leave me too.’
“Do not do that to me.” I pulled free from her grip. “Never put that kind of guilt on my shoulders. People are depending on me. That is enough.”
I stepped outside into the inclement weather, leaving my friend in silence.
—————
“I’m trying again, be ready!” I called across the river. I retied the end of the rope to a hefty stone, ready to throw the line across to the other side of the dam.
When I had arrived on the scene, most of the men, and some women, of the town and surrounding area were trying their best to fortify the failing wooden structure. The dam was created to divert the river and allow more land for settling and the planting of crops. If it broke, untold amounts of progress would be undone. Potentially lives would be lost.
I threw the line across the river, watching it sail through the air. I could hardly make out the man on the opposite side of the dam, but I managed to see that he had caught it. I watched carefully for him to secure it on his side. Once he did, I carefully whipped the rope to catch one of the misplaced logs. My aim was to pull it back into place, hopefully bringing integrity back to the wall. With luck, the loop caught on my intended target.
With help from my neighbors, we pulled hard, hoping to set the piece back in place. Unfortunately, the movement only jostled the piece loose. More water broke free from its containment. The rope flew from our hands, leaving a sharp burn on them.
“It’s hopeless!” I heard someone yell.
The dam made an unsettling creak, more of the wood beginning to buckle under the weight of the water.
“What about the town?” I asked, around. “Can it be evacuated?”
“There’s no time! Look!”
The rumble we all felt in the ground seemed to spell doom for us all. But what we thought was the dam breaking free from itself were in fact great vines shooting forth from the ground. They were green, new and full of life. They snaked their way through the beams and filled in the gaps. The vines became one with the dam, making the whole structure a living plant.
A miracle.
Beside me, I looked to find Celebi Erela with her hands pressed into the mud. Glowing green energy pulsed from her, each wave strengthening the new foundations of the dam.
“You came to help!” I exclaimed, kneeling to her. “I cannot thank you enough.”
Erela released her hold on the plant-life and looked up to me. ‘I had to. You needed the help. That was enough for me.’
“Coralis, your Pokémon saved us!” a towns-person called.
Initially, Erela was immediately shy and hid from everyone’s adulations, but on my urging, she accepted the thanks of the people. I could tell in her actions, she was very surprised at the kindness she was receiving from complete strangers.
—————
Erela and I left the new dam and began to the journey home.
I was immensely pleased and proud of my time-traveling friend for overcoming her fear of other humans to help save them. The selfless act didn’t lift her spirits however, the vision she had experienced still weighed heavily on her mind.
‘Cora, I can still feel that future. You don’t make it home.’
“We’re nearly there now, Erela,” I said. The rain was still coming down hard, but any sense of dread had been washed away by the magnificent sight I had just witnessed.
I didn’t expect it at all.
‘But…’ Thunder boomed above us, further exacerbating her anxiety. ‘I’m sure of it. Please, we have to do something!’
“I am. I am going home. That will erase your vision and give me a new future.”
I should have seen it coming.
‘Coralis!’
I could see my home in the distance, partially obscured by the rain. I picked up my pace. Then, in that moment, I felt the need to prove destiny wrong.
‘I’m sorry for this!’
I didn’t think to fight the presence of Celebi’s arms wrapping around my body.
The next thing I felt reminded me of the sensation I had experienced when I pulled Celebi’s helpless body out of that rift in time. Except this time, it was like I was flung forward off of a cliff at an unimaginable speed. Days seemed to play out before me in a bizarre dream, blindingly fast. The days played on without me, bleeding into weeks, months, years, decades.
When Erela finally let go of me, it was a bright and sunny midday. The air around me was hot and humid. The trees all seemed different.
In the distance, my home was nowhere to be seen. At least at a glance.
“Wha— What just happened?” I asked. I walked forward, looking for my home. I stood where my front door should have been. Some stones of the foundation still remained, but weathered and broken down. “Erela, what did you do?”
‘I saved your life.’ She floated next to me. She closed her eyes took a deep breath in. ‘Right now, we’re about two-hundred years ahead of where we just were. Now we missed what would’ve killed you.’
“Two… Two hundred…” I fell to my knees in the grass. “And what of my… my family?”
‘What do you mean?’
“My family!” I yelled at her. “What happened to her? My wife? My son!?”
‘I don’t know. I guess they died—’
“Take me back.” I stood up. “You’ve done it; you’ve saved me, so take me back now.”
‘But I can’t,’ she said, shying away from me a little. ‘I can barely even control what direction I jump in time. I can’t go to a specific date. It doesn’t work like that.’
I stared at her in silence for a long minute.
“I never came home,” I finally said, voice shaking. “That’s what you said you saw, correct?”
‘Yes. I—’
“You idiot!” I screamed at her. “You did it! It was you all along!” I grabbed her small hand, pulling her close. “I never came home because you stole me from my own time!”
‘No…’ I could tell in her voice that she now understood the gravity of what she had done. ‘No I was sure something else was going to happen!’
“Nothing happened! There was no danger in the first place!” I threw her by the arm, but she caught herself with her wings. “You caused the future you saw to happen! Why didn’t you just leave it alone!?”
I fell to my knees, staring into my shaking hands. I couldn’t comprehend it. In an instant I was ripped from my family and home. All because of a paranoid mistake. I cried. I couldn’t hold it back anymore. I pounded the dirt of my old home, screaming curses at the demon that did this to me.
‘Coralis…’ Erela said. She kept her distance. ‘Believe me. I never intended for this to happen.’
“Shut up!” I leapt from my spot on the ground, grabbing her by the neck. “You’ll fix this! Now! Take me home!”
‘Cora! Stop!’ she gasped, unable to physically get free. Her eyes shone, and she teleported a few feet away. She looked on at me in fear. ‘Don’t do that! I said I’m sorry!’
“You can’t possibly think that is enough, can you!?” I lunged at her again, but she floated away. “How can you think this is acceptable? Why didn’t you wait and see that nothing was going to happen? Why didn’t you look more carefully?!”
‘Because… I didn’t want to lose you…’
“What gives you the right to steal me away?” I asked. “Did you think saving those people back in my time allowed you be so— so selfish?”
‘No! I did it because I care about you!’
“Then why did you tear me away from all that I held dear? To know that they are dead and gone, and that I have to live on… What worse fate can you bring me?”
‘I’m sorry…’
Erela tried to come forward and comfort me, but swatted her away. She reeled at the pain I inflicted her.
“There is nothing in this world that I could hate more than what you’ve done to me, Celebi Erela. I hate you.” I said.
Her mouth hung agape. She fought back tears and began to glow.
“No! You don’t get to run away from this!”
But she slipped away in a flash of light, and I was alone in the forest of my previous home.
—————
The immediate days after being left alone in the wreckage of my life was the time I was closest to darkness, my friends. I barely ate; nothing had any taste. My dreams were filled with my family, making the mornings without them unbearable. I didn’t go into the new city, for everything had changed too much. Solitude seemed preferable to everything. Until one day life itself seemed undesirable.
I cannot tell you how long I lived in solitude in those woods, only that one day I decided to leave them. Walking from the land where my family had lived, I retraced the steps I once took before, finding myself at the banks of the roaring river I almost threw myself into when my sanity left me. This time, Celebi was not here to pull me back. I fell into the water and let my breath escape me.
—————
To my initial dismay, I woke up on the riverbank a few miles downstream. I coughed up water for what felt like an eternity. Once I sat up on the muddy ground I saw my savior. A Buizel.
My Buizel, yes. Amé.
She pulled me to safety and revived me, somehow seeing my life as being worth saving. For some reason I didn’t argue the fact and didn’t try to end my life again. She never left my side from that day on.
As I sat in the mud, gently and affectionately stroking the Buizel’s fur, I had a vision of the future. Once again, without Celebi around to help me. So I writhed in agony as my mind was torn asunder by temporal energies beyond my comprehension. A pain I had come to trust in a friend to alleviate.
But this vision did more than wreak havoc on my mind. It showed me things. Important things. People I should meet. Things I should say. It was like a road map. Steps in a grand master plan.
The last thing I saw was myself, opening the front door to my home. Seeing my wife and son again.
Then, I realized that if Celebi’s foreknowledge allowed the future she saw to come to pass, then I would do the same.
I would do what was required of me.
I would do anything.
Anything.
And I will.
But now, the question remains; Jacob Ostra, Andrea Karson, Tyler Nedile, will you help me?
—————
To Be Continued…
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The Dark Type