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The Dark Type	By : Manifest Destiny Category: Pokemon > General Views: 36705 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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
- 38
- 39
- 40
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Chapter 39: Just Us
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As time went on, Iruni felt as if the days that they were spending at his home were passing on by without any sort of change. From beginning to end, the same events seemed to play out in the same way each day. Iruni would wake up, he and Celebi would try and work on training her time travel powers as much as they could, all while the rest of the day was spent killing time until they went to sleep. To make sure that none of his Pokémon lost their competitive edge—and to help make it seem like something was getting done—Iruni had them practice their various moves and battle techniques in his backyard from time to time.
Even with the all of the practice and experiments, each day that went by without any sort of real progress soon began to feel like an incredible waste.
The more time that he spent back home after being a traveling Pokémon Trainer, Iruni felt increasingly more powerless in his current situation. He had wanted somewhere safe that they could stay and be able to focus on the problem at hand, but without any results or any alternatives, Iruni was beginning to feel trapped by his own decision.
Before, no matter what kind of problem that he and his Pokémon came across—even considering the less than favorable encounters and dangerous incidents that they had faced—it had always felt as though there was always some way out. Being on the move out in the world made it easier to envision themselves moving toward a solution.
Now, despite all of Iruni’s insisting and planning, there wasn’t very much that he himself could do to help things along when it came to figuring out Celebi’s powers. Apart from some uneducated coaching and unsure discussion, the most that Iruni could offer when it came to his little experiment was to make sure that they don’t run out of Poké Balls to send into future.
Celebi’s time travel training seemed to be going well except for one crucial aspect; none of the Poké Balls had come back from their time jumps yet. Iruni kept telling himself that if at least one had come back by now, they might be able to make some sort of progress toward their goal and then their situation wouldn’t look so hopeless.
But even if we get a handle on going forward, how do we even try going backwards?
Standing alone in his silent kitchen, Iruni waited impatiently for the next hourly deadline to arrive. Celebi had gone somewhere else in the house after their most recent attempt, leaving the human alone with his thoughts.
How many more? How many will it take?
“I don’t care about what she wants, I was already here!”
Pulling his attention back to the world around him, the sounds of a heated argument had risen to new heights and came crashing through the house. Iruni could only understand one side of the exchange, but he didn’t need the other half of the commotion to figure out what was going on.
“Fine, I’ll go outside!” he heard Rikalia yell, spitting her words viciously. Shortly after, the sound of the door that led to the backyard being slammed shut shook the house.
Iruni winced as a new wave disappointment and worry washed over him. He desperately wished that things were going well on at least one front, but even just their day-to-day life seemed to be getting more and more complicated as time went on. Even though Celebi herself wasn’t directly causing any trouble for anyone in the house, her presence ended up causing conflict almost every day.
He quickly walked out of the kitchen and made his way to the living room, finding the unsurprising source of the disagreement. Atanya stood staring out the glass door, glaring at the now-distant Weavile walking away from the house. Iruni noticed Celebi floating in the air toward the back of the room; the uneasy expression on her face worsened when she noticed that Iruni had come into the room.
“Atanya!” Iruni piled on as much admonishment and frustration as he could as he reprimanded his Pokémon.
Despite his harsh words, the Bayleef turned around to face him as if nothing had happened, offering her usual cheery disposition and awaited further instruction from her trainer.
“I don’t want you to do anything like that again, am I clear?”
Atanya only tilted her head in response, feigning ignorance.
“That is an order! I don’t care where Celebi wants to go; if Rika’s already in the room, you don’t pester her to leave!”
‘Technically, she left all by herself,’ offered Celebi.
Iruni shot a sharp glare at the Time Travel Pokémon, causing her to jump in surprise. “Don’t try and justify this kind of behavior!” he spat at her. “And what were you doing, anyway? Didn’t we have an agreement?”
‘This wasn’t my fault! I didn’t tell Anya to do anything!’
“Well you clearly didn’t try and stop her either! Why didn’t stick up for Rika?”
‘Do I have to? I said I wouldn't mess with her and I haven’t since then!’
“That doesn’t mean sit there and do nothing if someone else is picking on her. You know what’s going on.” Iruni turned his attention back to his Bayleef, “I mean it, Atanya. We’re done with all of this bickering and arguing. Either you go back to treating Rikalia like you would treat anyone else, or I’ll have Karros be Celebi’s caretaker from now on.”
‘Is that supposed to be a punishment for her?’ Celebi asked, initially unconvinced that Iruni’s warning would have any kind of effect. However, she quickly took back her scrutiny after she saw Atanya’s hurt and betrayed expression.
Atanya looked back and forth between Iruni and Celebi, conflicted on what she should do.
‘I guess it is.’
Determined to have the situation resolved, Iruni continued, “After everything we’ve been through, I’d hate to have to send you back to Professor Elm’s, but if that’s what it takes, I’ll just have to tell him that you didn’t work out with the rest of the team.” It was a lie, but a necessary one, he felt. Despite her recent behavior, Iruni still cared for her and couldn’t bear to do such a thing to his Pokémon.
If nothing else, he needed more allies. He couldn’t afford to push willing ones away.
The empty threat worked however, and the uncertainty in Atanya’s expression vanished in an instant. She stood up straight and nodded, accepting her orders with renewed devotion.
Iruni walked past her and looked out into the backyard through the glass door, trying to spot where Rikalia had gone. He sighed, unable to find her.
“When Rika comes back,” Iruni said to Atanya, “I want you to apologize. Is that understood?”
At her affirmative, Iruni smiled and rubbed the side of her head.
“Thank you,” he said, adopting a more kind tone of voice. “It’s more important than ever that we all try and work together.”
‘You and Rikalia really are a match,’ Celebi said to him privately. ‘You both know exactly what to say to get under someone’s skin. I wonder who learned it from who?’
Iruni tried to ignore her as he walked out of the living room, but he could feel her mocking tone ringing in his head from her words. Even though he knew that he should have let the comment slide, he couldn’t hold back from meeting Celebi’s blow with one of his own.
“If it got to you so bad, are you admitting that what Rika said about you and Coralis is true?”
He had already left the room, so he couldn’t see her reaction, but Iruni could feel the immediate burst of anger and defiance that came from their mental connection. Unfortunately, his satisfaction for getting back at Celebi didn’t last much longer than the time it took for him to return to where he had been waiting in the kitchen.
How much longer can we last in this kind of situation? Something is going to snap.
Anytime Iruni would contemplate taking a different course of action, at least one reason or another would come up to dismiss it as an option.
Seeking out Coralis to cooperate together with him seemed like it would be the obvious path to take at first, but the man himself was too unpredictable for Iruni to trust. Coralis had, at the very least, kept his complicated past a secret from Iruni during the few times that he had met him in person. By Celebi’s own account, Coralis would do anything if it meant that he could undo being taken from his own time, so betrayal was almost a certainty if Iruni decided to try work with him.
On top of the potential danger to his own timeline that teaming up with Coralis could bring, Iruni wanted to work with his accomplices, Sebastian and Dalton, even less. The two men had caused Iruni and his family far too much pain and grief for him to even consider helping them achieve whatever plans they might have for Celebi.
Despite his usual hopeful outlook, a grim thought crossed Iruni’s mind: If Coralis ever gets his hands on Celebi’s power, I hope he just takes her just for himself before those two can gain anything from it.
Ruling out Coralis as a potential ally, even if he had good reasons, left Iruni with very little options.
Iruni considered reaching out to Sabrina again, this time with Celebi in his possession. Before, she had only pointed him in the direction of someone else who might have been able to help him. If the Psychic type Gym Leader had any sensitive information herself, Iruni assumed that she would have kept it a secret without knowing if he was telling the truth about being involved with the Time Travel Pokémon. She might come to trust him if he brought Celebi to her in person, but there would be no way to know for certain.
Making a trip to Kanto with Celebi could just as easily blow up in our face as it could be worthwhile. That is, if Sabrina even has anything for us. It could easily just be another waste…
His only other allies—if they could even be called that—could easily prove just as unpredictable as Coralis. Silver and his father—the ex-leader of Team Rocket, Giovanni—had helped him out before, though Iruni doubted that he would be able to reach out to either of them again without the help of someone else, like Sabrina had arranged for him.
If I show up to Silver’s again, with Celebi this time, who knows what would happen. That Sebastian guy could be watching to see if I return there, or hell, Giovanni could’ve been lying and is waiting for someone gullible enough to bring Celebi right to him so he can use her powers…
Once again, Iruni was left with just one person he knew he could trust: himself.
There’s no one else.
The finality of the statement sent a chill running through his body. When Iruni had told Pryce that he wasn’t alone—that he had his Pokémon with him to help with his current situation—he had believed his own words. He still believed them, he was sure of that, but deep down Iruni wished that there was someone else out there that he could rely on.
Me, Rika, Kar, Anya, Kreen, Hada…
The list of names had never felt so short.
Desperate to put his mind onto something else, Iruni looked around the kitchen, not even knowing how long he had been lost in thought. A glance at the clock told him that only a few minutes remained until the next hourly deadline for another practice session with Celebi. Looking down, Iruni spotted the notebook that he had given to Celebi sitting on the kitchen table.
Even though it had been his idea, Iruni hadn’t yet read any of Celebi’s notes on how she had been experimenting with her time travel powers. Since none of the Poké Balls had come back from their trial runs yet, on top of being incredibly removed from the whole process, he hadn’t thought to check up on what she had been writing down.
Maybe there’s something in here.
Iruni opened the notebook and began reading through a page that was filled with Celebi’s unorthodox notes describing how she used her powers as she was attempting her temporal pushes.
[1. (8-9-00) (1:16 PM) Rain like mist, gathering on a leaf.]
[2. (8-9-00) (2:18 PM) A pebble, warm in the sun]
[3. (8-9-00) (3:30 PM) A turn of the page]
[4. (8-9-00) (4:33 PM) A blink, between heartbeats]
[5. (8-10-00) (11: 33 AM) Tomorrow, one night away]
The odd descriptions looked like nonsense to him, but Iruni guessed—and hoped—that they must make sense to Celebi in some way or another. His eyes drifted down to the end of the list to the most recent entries:
[51. (8-21-00) (3:00 PM) A streak, of red and blue]
[52. (8-21-00 (4:06 PM) A home, safe from harm]
[53. (8-22-00) (12:45 PM) A smile, from him]
The moment he’d finished reading the list, as if on cue, the notebook flew out of Iruni’s hands in a telekinetic swipe.
‘Hey! I didn’t say you could read that.’ Celebi floated in the air across the kitchen from Iruni, glaring at him.
“You never said not to,” Iruni said, annoyed.
‘Well, I’m saying it now.’ She turned away from him, holding the notebook close to her chest as if it were some precious keepsake.
“What’s there to hide in there? At this point, I don’t think it’s much of a secret how much you—”
‘I don’t!’
“Really?” Iruni crossed his arms, unconvinced. “If you don’t want me to read your notes, then how am I supposed to help you? I’m going to need to know what you’re doing.”
The Time Travel Pokémon continued to hover in the air silently, clutching the notebook tightly. Celebi refused to look him in the eye.
“Do those notes even make sense to you?” he asked. “I know I’m not the one sending things into the future, but your descriptions don’t paint a very clear picture.”
‘As long as I understand what they mean, that’s all that matters… so don’t read these anymore…’
“Fine, I won’t.” Iruni sighed, not wanting them to spend any more energy on the argument than they already had, and decided to change the subject. “Can I ask you something?”
‘As long as it’s not about these,’ she said, finally turning to face him.
“That night that we captured you; you spoke to me, didn’t you? Out loud in this language, like this?”
Celebi stared at him for a moment before responding. ‘…Yeah, I did. So what? Is that the question?’
“No, I was just making sure I was remembering that right. I was just curious why you’d go through the trouble of learning how to speak.”
‘Does the reason matter?’ she asked. Celebi glared at Iruni, shifting her mental voice to a hurtful, mocking tone. Her words didn’t carry their usual playfulness that tended to accompany her insults. ‘I just did, okay? Do I have to explain every little thing that your mundane little mind thinks to question?’
Iruni felt his temper flare up for a moment, almost letting himself slip into a new heated argument, but held back as best he could. He could hardly believe that after everything that had happened, Celebi still clung to her obstinate, higher opinion on herself.
“Okay, fine,” he held his hands up. “Sorry for asking.”
‘Why do you even care?’ she asked, hostility still in her voice. ‘Are you going to make me teach your other little Pokémon how to talk to you?’
“No, I asked because you sucked at it, and if you had some important reason for learning, I was going to see if you wanted help! But forget it!”
Celebi’s eyes widened in response to Iruni’s raised voice.
“I get that you’re mad or upset that I read your notes, but I didn’t know they were something personal, or whatever other reason you have to keep them secret! If they were so important to you, then don’t leave them sitting out where anyone can read them!”
Karros and Atanya came to the kitchen, likely drawn there by the yelling, concerned expressions on their faces. The two stayed in the doorway, silently watching from a distance.
“We both need you to get better at time travel, and we can’t do that if we’re keeping secrets! I don’t care what the notes are or what they mean to you, but I need to know what they mean for our situation!”
Iruni stopped, catching his breath that he didn’t even noticed he had lost.
Celebi stared at him, her anger seemingly being replaced by sadness. Looking down at the notebook in her hands, she held it out in front of her, showing it off for everyone to see.
‘These are,’ she started, ‘my feelings. They’re my thoughts, my memories, and my dreams. Whenever I use my time powers, I can never picture an exact time, or place, or an amount of distance to travel. I just feel for what’s right. What I’ve been doing is trying ideas and thoughts at random to see if any of them are “one hour in the future”, but we all know how well this has been going…’
Celebi opened the notebook flipping to the current page.
‘For the past few experiments, I’ve been… using important memories. They’re… private, but I still made sure I wrote them down in case they ended up being important tests. I just didn’t want you seeing those. Happy?’ As she closed the notebook and set it back down on the table, she looked defeated, as if she were ashamed of the fact that she had to explain herself to Iruni.
“I’d be happy if we’d have just one come back so we could make some progress, but there’s nothing we can do about that right now.” Iruni looked up at the ceiling, letting his anger and stress slowly fade away. Celebi’s explanation had made sense, at least as far as he needed to know. Iruni knew that he would never understand her time travel powers very well, but having an idea behind her thought process might end up saving them precious time or giving him idea for Celebi to try.
‘By the way,’ Celebi continued, ‘I was afraid…’
Surprised, Iruni looked back down at her. “About what?”
‘I tried to teach myself how to “speak”, because I was afraid of losing contact everyone important to me. I was worried that Coralis might hate me so much that he would learn how to block me from speaking with his mind. So, even if he did that, then I would still be able to try and convince him to let me help him.’
“Do you know if he has blocked you out?” Iruni asked. “Have you spoken to him much since… you know?”
Celebi floated in the air in silence for a moment.
‘Just once… I probably should have tried to reach out more, but I was afraid that would push him away from me, or worse, get me killed… So I just kept close by, checking in on him and his timeline every now and then to make sure he was all right, but I only tried reaching out to him one time.’
“When?” Iruni was thoroughly surprised at how open she was being with him.
‘It was a little before I, you know, sent you down into those ruins. I’d planned on telling him about you; about how your timeline was going to eventually lead to him going home… but he wouldn’t listen to me.’
“Did you tell him about me?” Iruni asked, panic rising in his chest.
Celebi rolled her eyes, ‘No… If I did he would’ve come after you by now.’
“Good.”
‘Yeah, yeah… You know,’ Celebi said, pointing at Iruni, ‘you’re the other reason I tried learning how to “speak”. If you got too used to all that Dark aura you surround yourself with, who knows if I could’ve been able to communicate with your mind correctly and ask for your help.’
“Really? I’m surprised you could ever have trouble reaching out to such a ‘mundane’ mind like mine.” Iruni said, testing her.
‘I’m serious!’ she fought back. ‘Of course I can work around your dimly lit brain, it just makes things harder than they have to be. If it gets a lot worse I might just have to go fully vocal!’
Iruni chuckled, pleased that his jab at her worked.
“Well, I guess if you still want to learn or get better, I can try and help you with that if you want. You’ve got pretty good reasons.”
‘I’ll think about it…’
“Other than our little experiments, have you had any ideas about how to control your powers?” he asked her.
‘Oh trust me,’ Celebi said, ‘I’ll let you know if I think of something. The sooner this all gets fixed, the better.’
“Well, it’s almost been an hour,” Iruni said as he glanced over at the clock, “we should—”
Stopping his thought in its tracks, a low buzzing noise began to fill the air in the kitchen, making Iruni’s muscles tense up. The sound slowly rose in volume until it seemed to drown out the rest of the world.
“What’s going on?” Iruni asked, immediately alarmed that he couldn’t hear himself speak. Unsure that he had even said anything, he looked around the kitchen at his Pokémon, hoping that they were able to hear the strange noise as well. Karros and Atanya had come into the kitchen fully now, both seemingly looking around for the source of the strange buzzing.
‘Look, quick!’ Celebi’s voice rang out in Iruni’s mind as clear as crystal amid the strange humming that blocked out everything else. She pointed somewhere behind him, urging him to turn around as fast as he could to see what could be making that such a bone-chilling sound.
Iruni spun around and froze, his eyes instantly catching sight of the strange anomaly. A small green light flickered near the corner of the ceiling, sparkling like the most brilliant green gemstone. He stood in an uneasy stance, afraid that if he moved his body the light would disappear. Iruni watched as the tiny emerald glimmer slowly grew from just a small pinprick to the size of his fist. Then all at once, the noise seemed to cease in an instant and the green glow faded to reveal that the object was exactly what Iruni hoped it would be:
A Poké Ball.
No longer held aloft by the strange, temporal energies, the ball fell from the ceiling and clattered on the floor.
“Yes! Finally, something to work with!” he said, his excitement causing him to trip as he quickly stepped forward and picked the ball up off of the floor. Iruni caught himself on the countertop before crashing headfirst into it, bracing himself with one arm. Standing upright, he held the wayward Poké Ball up in his hand, showing it off to everyone else present.
‘Which one is it?’ Celebi asked, going to her notebook and opening it back up.
“It’s—” Iruni brought down his arm and looked at the ball in his hand. He stared down at Poké Ball in disbelief and confusion; the relief and renewed determination he had felt at its arrival drained away the longer he looked at it.
‘It’s what?’
“Wrong?” Karros asked, noticing that something wasn’t right.
‘Hey, come on! Which ball is it?’ Celebi asked again.
Iruni looked up, unsure of what to say.
“I don’t know…”
He held up the ball for everyone else to see, making sure that the numbers written on the ball were visible:
[8-28]
“What does this mean?” Iruni asked. He looked around the kitchen, hoping any of his Pokémon could give him some sort of answer. None of them did. “We didn’t mark any of them like this, right? Did you do one on your own?”
‘No, you’ve been the one writing the numbers on them… is that eight hundred twenty-eight?’
“I don’t think it’s that— there’s this dash here too. That looks deliberate,” Iruni pointed out. “This is ‘eight twenty-eight’… Why would I mark one like this? It doesn’t make sense.”
Celebi shrugged, ‘How should I know?’
“A number like this doesn’t fit with what we’re trying to do, so the only reason we’d change it is—” Iruni stopped himself as soon as he realized what he was about to say.
‘What? What is it?’
“…is if this one was sent backwards.”
‘Why would we do that?’ Celebi asked. ‘We don’t know how going forwards works yet!’
“I can’t think of anything else it could it be. We didn’t send one marked like this forward in time yet, so we must’ve sent it backwards,” Iruni offered.
‘And what if it’s just a mistake that we make down the line? What if I tried sending that one forward like usual but it went backwards by accident?’
“Didn’t you say that you already had that under control?” asked Iruni.
‘Hey, I never said I was perfect. I could’ve been messing these up all this time and not know it.’
Iruni sighed, pushing past his desire to argue with her.
“As wonderful of a thought that is,” he continued, “what does this number mean if it’s another ‘forward test’?”
‘This whole “time capsule” thing was your idea, you figure it out,’ Celebi said, trying to rid herself of any responsibility.
“We’re in this together, you know! It’s not just me and my ideas here!”
The Time Travel Pokémon glared angrily at Iruni for a moment, looking as if she were about to continue the argument, but she shook her head and held out her hand.
‘Give me the ball, I’ve got an idea.’
Iruni tossed the Poké Ball up into the air toward Celebi, who caught it in her hands and began to scrutinize the surface of the sphere.
It didn’t take long for her to find whatever she might’ve been looking for, as she soon looked up from the ball and said, ‘Get the rest of the Poké Balls you’ve got and put them on the table.’
“Why?” asked Iruni.
‘I’ve got an experiment of my own. Come on!’
Iruni frowned, but did as he was asked and cleared off the kitchen table to make room for the dozen or so Poké Balls to be placed onto it.
‘Make sure they’re upside down; white side should be on top,’ Celebi spoke up.
“They’re round; they’re probably going to roll around a bit,” Iruni said.
‘Just try, okay?’
As impossible of a task as it seemed to be, Iruni tried his best to carefully place the Poké Balls upside down on the surface of the table. Each ball that he gently set down risked bumping the table and causing the rest to roll and become right side up. When he had finished, a handful had drifted to the left or right somewhat, and one settled right on the seam that split the ball in two. Fifteen Poké Balls sat still and unremarkable on his kitchen table.
“Well?” Iruni asked, gesturing to his few minutes worth of work.
‘That’s probably good enough… Anyway, do you remember what happened when I touched that note that came from the future? Well, you might not since it’s been a few months for you, but still, do you?’ Celebi asked him.
“I think so; there was a spark, right? I remember thinking that it was weird, since you’re not an Electric Pokémon.”
‘That wasn’t electricity; it was time energy. Raw, unfocused, and unnatural. It happened because I hadn’t made that note yet.’
“But I touched that note too—even Rika did—why didn’t any of us get shocked like that?” he asked.
‘Because, I think I literally make that note myself later on down the line. I’ve never tried to before, but since I can create and control plant life—even growing some from my own body if I want to—making paper shouldn’t be that difficult. The fact that it shocked me at all is proof enough.’
“You… can make paper out of yourself? Like from your skin?”
‘Oh don’t give me that look, it’s not that gross. The details aren’t important. Anyway, that paper was—more than likely—once a part of my future self, but since it came from the future, that “paper” is still in me in the present. Get it?’
Iruni winced, “I think so.”
‘So, when I touched that paper, it was like touching a piece of my future self. It’s a very bad thing if the same matter from different points in time touches each other. It causes temporal feedback like that energy discharge you saw. Unlike the contents of that note, just the words themselves, physical paradoxes like the paper itself really don’t mesh well with how reality is put together. Plus Lord Dialga really doesn’t like it when that happens,’ Celebi explained.
“Uh-huh.”
‘Am I losing you yet?’
“I’m just going to have to take your word for it. If there were anyone else I could ask about this kind of stuff, we’d already be talking about how to get your powers set straight. So, this experiment?”
‘Here,’ she floated the mysterious ball back over to Iruni. ‘Take a look at the underside of the ball. It shouldn’t be hard to see.’
Flipping the Poké Ball upside down, Iruni quickly spotted what Celebi wanted him to see. Standing out very clearly on the otherwise clean, white surface on the bottom half of the ball was what looked like a burn mark. He ran his finger over the small ring of melted and discolored plastic, feeling the metal that would usually be hidden underneath the colored outer shell.
“I didn’t see this before. Was it always like this?” Iruni asked.
‘Must have been, yeah. You were probably too excited and focused on the numbers to notice it. Now, try touching that ball to the ones you just put on the table.’
“What’ll that do?”
‘If that ball in your hand is already down on the table, it’ll cause one of those temporal discharges. That will prove if that ball came from the future or not and narrow down when we might send it backward if that ball is already here,’ she explained.
“And you can’t just look into the ball’s timeline, like you can do with people?”
‘You really want me to waste time trying to look into the past of something from the future just to see if it’s sitting on the table right in front of us? This will be way faster. Just try it!’
Iruni eyed the floating green Pokémon curiously, unsure why she was being so insistent about going through with her small experiment. He stared down at the Poké Balls he had carefully tried to arrange and tried to think about what her reasons could be. Pushing aside his questions and worries, Iruni cautiously reached out with the “eight twenty-eight” ball and tapped the other Poké Balls one by one. Suspense and anticipation rose with each ball he tested out, not knowing if anything would happen or not when the two spheres touched.
If this ball already has a burn mark like this, doesn’t that mean—?
Before he could finish his thought, the room flashed brightly and the air cracked with a loud pop. The next ball that he had tapped sent a jolt of energy between it and the one in Iruni’s hand. In the next instant, the two Poké Balls forced each other apart like two matching poles of a magnet; the one in Iruni’s hand flew out of his grip and landed somewhere behind him across the kitchen while the other shot across the table, scattering the other Poké Balls and falling onto the floor.
“Shit!” Iruni staggered backwards until he leaned against the kitchen sink, clutching his right shoulder. He doubled over from the pain, pulling his arm close to his chest. It took everything Iruni had to keep himself standing.
Despite not having come in direct contact with the spark that he had caused, holding onto the Poké Ball as it had been struck sent a shock racing up his arm. His right hand had gotten the worst of the effects; it had gone completely numb and began shaking uncontrollably. The rest of the muscles in his right arm tensed up and relaxed at seemingly random intervals, all while a constant burning sensation pulsed and throbbed from his shoulder down to his wrist. He tried moving his arm and flexing his hand to get rid of the strange searing feeling, but when it didn’t seem to abate right away, fear quickly made him worry that the feeling might spread further throughout his body.
He looked up and glared at Celebi, “You knew that was going to happen, didn’t you? How?”
‘I knew it the second the idea came to me, before I even saw that mark on the ball. I guess future-me and I really do share a brain.’
“Why didn’t you just tell me?” Iruni grit his teeth as the muscles in his arm tensed up again. “I could’ve at least grabbed some gloves.”
‘You should’ve known what was going to happen; you saw it happen to me! That’s how it felt!’ Celebi crossed her arms, floating higher into the air above Iruni as he continued to cradle his arm. ‘As far as the “why”, I thought you could use some firsthand experience about what it’s like to deal with paradoxes like this. You can see how destructive they can be on a material level, right?’
“I guess so, but I don’t see the point of why—”
‘The point is that I wanted to hopefully get it in your head that sending messages to the past like this is a bad idea! The more I think about it, the more I’m convinced that my future self isn’t doing these things on her own. If I had to guess, I bet you’re the one who keeps coming up with these ideas that only end up making everything worse!’
“Really? Because I’m pretty sure that making things worse by interfering with the timeline is what you’re good at.”
‘Don’t try and get smart with me. If it were up to me, I wouldn’t be sending messages backwards through time like this! I never do that! Future knowledge just makes loops and don’t actually do anything! They’re a waste of time! Whatever “eight twenty-eight” means doesn’t actually matter right now because we’ll eventually make up whatever it means ourselves. Spending time deciphering and making up messages to send to the past won’t get us anywhere and you need to understand that.’
“You have no idea if I have anything to do with this, but let’s say you’re right,” Iruni stood up straight, ignoring the pain in his right arm. “If I’m the one coming up with these ideas to send messages to the past, you’re still the one doing it! You really think I’m forcing you to do something you apparently have such a big problem with?”
Celebi hovered in silence, staring at Iruni with defiance in her eyes.
“Until you can prove that it’s me doing this, why don’t you keep your ‘lessons’ to yourself?” Iruni told her. He looked around at his feet and bent down, cautiously picking up the Poké Ball that had come from the future. “You might not like the idea—I don’t either—but that other note from the future helped us in the end. This ball was sent back to us for a reason; we just have to figure out what it is.”
The arc of temporal energy had struck the sphere on the same spot that Celebi had pointed out to him before. This time however, the second bolt of energy had proved to be too much for the Poké Ball to handle. Instead of just receiving another burn, the ball had become severely cracked and now sported a hole in its bottom half, leaving a few pieces of metal and plastic lying on the floor.
As Iruni picked up the parts that had shattered and broken off of the Poké Ball, something fell out from the hole in the ball in his hand. He initially thought it was just another broken piece of the ball itself, but it didn’t fall straight down; it spun and fluttered around before landing softly on the floor.
The ball from the future had been carrying a small piece of paper.
Celebi spotted the item, groaning, ‘Oh great…’
Iruni set down broken remains of the Poké Ball on the floor and grabbed the small square of paper off of the floor. He stood up, looking down at the little note left for him. Two words were written on the square piece of plain notebook paper:
[Use Hadarah]
“That can’t be it,” he said to himself.
Sure that there must be something more to the message, Iruni flipped the small note over but found nothing on the opposite side. He thought that something else might be hidden for him to find and tried to unfold it and held it up to the light, but he couldn’t find anything else. He stared at the two seemingly unhelpful words, desperately trying to decipher what they could mean, until he finally noticed something about them.
“Oh… this is…”
‘Well? Let’s hear it,’ Celebi said. ‘What kind of prophecy are we dealing with now?’
Iruni shook his head, tossing the piece of paper into the air without caring where it went. “Looks like you were right,” he told her.
If Celebi or either of his other Pokémon had said anything to him as he walked out of the kitchen, Iruni didn’t hear them. All that his mind focused on was taking another step forward through his house and out the glass door leading to his backyard. He sat down on the side of the wooden deck and stared staring out at the woods in the distance. Iruni stayed still and listened to the breeze blowing through the trees until his right arm jerked again, the sudden muscle spasm snapping him back to reality.
Clouds had been thick in the sky when he had first gone outside, but the wind had pushed them along its path, letting sunlight stream down unabated onto the land. Iruni winced and closed his eyes, trying to save himself from any more pain. He was relieved to notice that feeling had returned to his right hand; even though it burned and throbbed much like the rest of his arm. He groaned, lying back on the hard wood and covered his eyes with his other arm.
Now what…?
Only a few moments passed before he heard the sound of hurried footsteps approaching him, lightly rustling the grass with each step. Iruni’s first instinct was to lean up and try to see who or what it was that making its way over to him, but he quickly recognized the sound of claws hitting the wooden deck. He stayed on his back, knowing full well who it was that was rushing to his side.
“What happened?” Rikalia’s voice was already filled with concern and urgency.
“Hey,” Iruni said, peeking out at her from under his arm. He gave her a half-hearted smile, “What makes you think something’s wrong?”
“You sounded like you were hurt,” Rikalia said. She pressed him again, “What happened?”
“I’ll tell you,” Iruni started, “but you’re probably going to get mad.”
Rikalia shifted in place, scraping the claws on her feet on the wooden deck. “Did Celebi do something to you?”
Iruni sat up and turned to face his Weavile. The bright sunlight made it difficult but he made sure to look her in the eyes as he spoke. “It’s not about what she did.”
“Do you want me to get your glasses for you?” Rikalia asked before he continued. “Isn’t it too bright out for you?”
“I’m fine. I don’t think this can’t wait either.” He began to tell her about everything that happened after she had left the house, but Rikalia urged Iruni to skip to whatever it was that had happened to him.
“That other stuff can wait; what was it that hurt you?”
“Right, that.”
Thankfully more clouds had begun to move through the sky above them, darkening the world around them and giving Iruni’s eyes some much needed relief as he told his story. When he finally explained what had happened to his arm, Rikalia stepped forward to Iruni’s right side and cooled her paws by coating them in a thin layer of ice. She held his right hand in her icy grip and gently rubbed the rest of his arm with her other hand. Iruni relaxed his muscles and let the cold sensation spread throughout his arm.
“That feels much better,” he told her. “Thank you.”
“I’m going to kill her,” Rikalia said. Her words weren’t hateful or violent; she said them as calmly as if she might state a simple fact.
“Rika…”
“After we’re done and there’s no more danger, she’s mine.”
“You don’t mean that,” Iruni said. She wasn’t looking directly at him—her attention was focused on massaging Iruni’s arm—but he could tell she wasn’t joking. What worried him the most was how determined she sounded.
“Yes I do. She thinks she can do something like this to you and get away with it? No, not anymore,” she told him. “I don’t care what she’s done for us in the past.”
“Then keep listening; there’s more.”
Rikalia looked up at him with disbelief and anger. A growl accompanied her words as her temper finally got the better of her. “There’s more?”
Iruni grabbed both of Rikalia’s paws and turned so he was directly facing her again. He took a deep breath, looking down at the sharp, curved claws in his grip for a moment before speaking.
“Celebi is convinced that it’s been me—in the future—who has been convincing her to send messages back in time to us,” he told her. Iruni looked back up to her eyes, seeing her face flash with renewed fury. He knew he needed to stop her from assuming the worst.
“I know; I was upset at first too, but now I know that she’s right,” he told her. “That ball that came from the future had a message written on a small piece of paper inside of it. It was my handwriting.”
Rikalia opened her mouth to speak, but she stopped short. Her red eyes bored into him as she silently demanded an explanation.
“I don’t know why, or what the message even really means, but I know that I wrote that note.”
The Weavile held his gaze for a moment longer before finally speaking, “…so what? If it really is you then I know you are just trying to help us.”
“That’s not my point, Rika.”
“What do you mean?” she asked.
“I… if I…” Iruni knew what he wanted to say, but the words failed to come to him. He let Rikalia’s hands go free from his grip as he let his gaze shift away from her.
“Iruni…?”
“What if it was me who made it so that we would—” A quick smack across his right cheek shut Iruni up before he could finish the sentence.
“No!” Rikalia yelled. “Don’t you ever think that!”
“But if I’m willing to risk sending messages back to the past, what’s to stop me—”
“I am!” Rikalia reached out and gripped Iruni’s shoulders, leaning close to him as she spoke. “I don’t care what Celebi says, or what kind of messages you might send back in time! You would never do that to us! I don’t believe it! I would never let you!”
“…Rikalia,” Iruni spoke softly. “You really believe that?”
“Of course! Besides, she already admitted that she’s the one who’s messed with our lives so much. Do you really think you could do anything like what she’s done to us?”
“I don’t think I would, but I’m afraid that I could.”
“Then stop!” she demanded, tightening her grip on him. “You’re not like that! Look at how upset you are just thinking about it; there’s no way you would do anything to change our pasts.”
“Then what about the note in the Poké Ball?” he asked her.
“You’re the only one of us who that note could be for,” Rikalia offered as an explanation. “Hadarah doesn’t take orders from anyone but you. That “note” is just you trying to help yourself out. It’s nothing like what she’s done.”
Iruni stared on at her as she spoke, utterly speechless at how quickly and easily she was able to believe in him.
“I think that note is just a reminder,” she suggested, “and those numbers on the ball are probably just be the date that you need to do what it says.”
Iruni smiled at her and leaned forward, lightly hitting his forehead against hers.
“You think it’s just something that simple?” he asked.
“It’s what I think you’d do,” she told him. “Wouldn’t sending some kind of complicated message back in time cause a lot of problems? Remember everything we had to do and think about when Celebi sent us hers?”
Iruni’s smile grew, and he laughed.
“What have I been doing this whole time?” he asked. “I should’ve been asking you what to do this whole time. You’re clearly much better at this kind of thinking than I am.”
“If it were up to me, we’d still be out living our lives,” Rikalia said.
“I know… I’m sorry.” Iruni sighed, dragging a hand across his face. “Why does it feel like there’s no solution to this?”
“What if there isn’t one? What if Coralis isn’t meant to go home?”
“Come on, don’t think like that.”
“I’m not saying that he shouldn’t, or doesn’t deserve to or anything,” she defended herself. “I mean what if he never goes home? What if we never figure out how to get him home?”
Iruni looked at his Weavile, taking a moment to consider her question. “Celebi seemed convinced that we would be there when she eventually got Coralis back to his own time, so—” he started to say, but then remembered that their timeline had changed drastically ever since he had captured the Time Travel Pokémon.
“But it’s different now, right?” Rikalia asked. “What if we don’t end up helping him get home anymore?”
“I… I don’t know.”
Iruni stood up and looked at the house, thoughts running through his mind of hiding away indefinitely. He imagined spending untold months more trying to figure out how to train Celebi’s powers, all while avoiding Coralis and his allies. Iruni thought of his father and sister, who would either be forced to stay away until he resolved everything, or worse, be put in harm’s way once again because he had not—or could not—found a solution.
Taking a deep breath, Iruni closed his eyes and slowly exhaled.
“I don’t know.” He repeated the words, but their meaning had changed. “I don’t think we’ll ever know.”
He opened his eyes and looked over to Rikalia, whose concern and curiosity were plain to see on her face.
“And we definitely don’t know right now, so let’s go take a walk,” Iruni suggested.
“Huh?”
He walked past Rikalia to the edge of the deck and down the few wooden steps. Once he was standing in the grass, he turned around to face her again. “What do you think?”
“About what?” she asked.
“I don’t know what to do, you don’t know what to do, Celebi doesn’t know anything, so let’s go take a walk,” Iruni offered again, holding out his hand toward her.
“Just… the two us?”
Iruni smiled, “That was the plan, unless you wanted to invite someone else.”
Rikalia shook her head and jumped off the side of the deck. She quickly made her way to Iruni’s side, reaching up and taking his hand in her paw.
“I think we should have some time to ourselves every once in a while, don’t you think?” Iruni asked her, walking towards the trees that bordered his backyard.
“Yeah, but is it okay?” Rikalia worried.
“Of course,” he said. Before he could continue assuring his Weavile of his decision, a familiar voice rang out in his head from the house behind him.
‘Hey! Where are you going?’ Celebi called out after him.
He turned around and saw the time-traveling sprite peeking out at the two of them from the upstairs window.
“I think we need a little break from all of this this stuff,” Iruni spoke aloud, as well as telepathically. “It’s pretty obvious that whatever we’re doing isn’t working and I can’t think of anything else to try.”
‘I thought you decided that helping me took priority over your personal life,’ Celebi pointed out.
“Parts of it, yes. Not everything,” he said. He looked down at Rikalia just in time to see her face light up with what he said. “We need some time for ourselves.”
‘What about me, or Coralis?’
“Do you know what to do yet? Have you figured anything out? Do you have the great solution to all of your problems?” he asked, but didn’t give her any time to respond. “No, you don’t. And I doubt you will for the next few hours, so I don’t see any harm in taking a little walk in my backyard. Feel free to work by yourself. You know what to do.”
‘You’re really just going to leave me here all alone? What if something happens while you’re gone?’ Her mental words carried an anxious tone.
“We went over that, remember? If someone comes after you when I’m not around, you run off with Karros, Atanya sends Kreen to find me, and we meet up later at Pryce’s gym.”
‘What if I figure out something about my powers?’
“Then you’re going to have some good news to tell me when we get back,” he said, turning back around to face the woods. Iruni held his free hand up and waved as he and Rikalia began walking again.
—————
To Be Continued…
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- 38
- 39
- 40
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The Dark Type