Ch. 37 - Just Keep Digging (Cooking)

“Ohh! H-hi there, Celebi! Long time no see!” I said brightly. Celebi scowled, putting a little pen behind her even littler ear… or at least resting it between her antenna and the onion-y bulb of her head. She snapped her paw-fingers and everyone around us began moving in slow motion, seemingly ignoring us.

“Don’t you ‘long time no see’ me, Lux! I’ve been tracking you down since…” Celebi paused, squinting directly at me. “Oohhhh hyper beam my butt, I’m too early! Again!”

“Too early?” I asked, tilting my head as Celebi nodded.

“Yeah, you’ve snarled up the temporal flow so badly I don’t know whether you’re coming or go—”

There was a bright flash as Tully and Mew reappeared in the square, the latter dropping an empty pot of chilli to the pavement at her fluffy feet, and the former dropping himself to the ground upside down, wings out as he landed unceremoniously on his back.

“Never again,” Tully mumbled, staring up into space, kicking his feet aimlessly. “I’m never flying again. I’m going to walk everywhere from now on. If Arceus had meant for me to fly that high, I’d have been born as… umm… probably a rayquaza. But I wasn’t. So I’m going to learn Dig and I’m going to live underground. Forever.”

“There, chilli delivery one of three complete!” Mew said, slapping her little paws together and totally ignoring Tully’s anguish, before she noticed Celebi, at which point she did a double-take. “Ooohhhh, h-hey there, Celebi! Long time no see!”

“Don’t you ‘hey Celebi’ me either, you menace! I know you’ve been practising unlicensed time travel! That’s a Pokeworld Legendary Office of Powers Violation and you know it!”

“Oh, don’t worry, I’ve got my permit for it riiigghhhtt…” Mew started to reach her paws into nowhere, then she twisted around in the air and bunched her body. “Cheese it! It’s the fun police!” She shouted, and disappeared in another of her customary flashes. Celebi growled and snapped her finger-paws once again.

“Cheese it! It’s the fun police!” said Mew once more, flickering back into — and out of — view. Celebi slapped her own little paws together, clapping and rubbing the imaginary dirt off them for a few moments before turning back to us.

“Right, now to deal with y—”

“Cheese it! It’s the fun police!” said Mew again, flickering back into — and out of — view.

“—ou. That’s going to get very tiresome, very quickly, isn’t it?”

I shrugged, and opened my muzzle to answer, but Celebi put a finger on my nose and shook her head.

“Don’t talk. Just… just don’t say anything.”

I closed my muzzle again. Then opened it. “She did say delivery one of three.”

Celebi slapped both her paws against her face and screamed into them. “Aargh! You had to say it!”

“Cheese it! It’s the fun police!” said Mew again, flickering back into — and out of — view.

“Augh! I hate it when they make sense! Alright, you’d better tell me the whole story, roughly in order.”

“Are you sure I don’t need some sort of pokelawyer?”

“Seriously? I know you did it, we’re trying to make things better, not worse.” Celebi glared.

“Umm,” I said, “well we were delivering chilli to Kyogre.”

“Cheese it! It’s the fun police!” said Mew again, flickering back into — and out of — view.

“I thought he,” Celebi flicked through several pages of notes from her tiny little notebook and pointed to the now subterranean bird-pokemon, “Tully, just got back from delivering chilli to Rayquaza?”

“Uh huh, but that’s because to make the chilli for Kyogre we had to find Team Rocket, so we had to ask Rayquaza. And she told us they were here.” I gestured around the packed square, at all the slow-moving, oblivious passersby.

“Cheese it! It’s the fun police!” said Mew again, flickering back into — and out of — view.

“Okay, so that’s going to be delivery number two. Arceus damn it, I need to let you Chuckle Unfezants make another one after that, don’t I? But… but three? Why three?”

“I assume the third one is Groudon,” piped up Tully, popping his head up out of a small hole he’d managed to Dig into the ground. “I don’t think you’d want to see what would happen if you left out Groudon. He would not be happy when he found out. And he would definitely find out. Probably from Kyogre.”

“Cheese it! It’s the fun police!” said Mew again, flickering back into — and out of — view.

“AND THAT’S NOT HELPING!” shouted Celebi, giving another short, wordless scream and she clicked her finger-paws. Mew reappeared, floating and slowly turning in space. She blinked for a few moments, cartwheeling through emptiness, then fastened her gaze onto Celebi. She floated closer. She leaned in.

“Cheese it-tuh,” Mew said, right into Celebi’s ear, or close to her head and near one of her antennae at least, popping the ‘T’. “It’s the Fun Po—”

Just as Mew popped the ‘P’, Celebi launched herself with a roar at the fluffy floating feline and the two began scuffling, rolling around in the air, biting and scratching at each other, hissing and spitting. Chompy watched them, sighing, as Guy started laughing, also rolling about in mid-air.

“That makes this all worth it, gen gen gen,” he giggled.

“Ssso, we’ve got to make at least two more deliveriesss,” said Chompy, tapping the blade of her tail against her muzzle thoughtfully. “Kyogre’s easy, because we know where and when she is. Groudon, I’m not ssso sure about.”

“Eh, we can ask Kyogre when we give her her chilli?” I suggested.

“That makes a lot of sense,” Tully agreed, his head popping up once more, but less out of the ground as his Dig progressed. “Which is quite odd, coming from you.”

“Oi!” I shouted, lashing my tail, then ducking as Mew and Celebi rumbled past, popping into and out of view, half-heard swears echoing oddly in my ears as they teleported each other through space and time in their little tiff.

“There’s only one problem wif dat,” said Meowth, piping up, “and dat’s dat you’se stole my two numbskulls away. Can’t make dat stuff without’s dem.”

“Oh, I can fix that,” I said, thinking quickly and then digging deep inside, where a little flame dwelt having oh so recently been taken on more than one journey and seeing a whole host more happening right next to me in rapid succession, “I think I can, at least. Can I get past here? Scuse me, scuse me…”

“What’s you’se up to?” Meowth asked, curling his claws reflexively.

“Nothing much. Bart, I think I need your help.” I pushed my way behind the counter of the noodle-slash-chilli stall. I opened the till, leaned on Bart, reached into the till, snagged some cash and then, concentrating very hard, snapped my paws.

There was a very uncomfortable feeling, like I’d been washed in electric paint then put into a tumble dryer, and the world snapped back into focus. The surroundings had changed in an instant. If I was right, it was yesterday. Probably. Everyone else was certainly gone, so signs were good.

“Uhh, what did you do?” Bart asked, looking left and right as he sized up where we were. We were in a clearing just off the fountain square. It was daytime and a very familiar crew appeared to be working the noodle counter on a very familiar stall just across the way. More importantly, no Mew and no Celebi.

“I got it! I knew I could do it!” I murkrowed, hopping and dancing around in a little circle. “I time travelled! I borrowed Mew’s time travel move! I wasn’t sure I could, but I did!”

“You time travelled? WE time travelled? Oh no, oh no, this is bad, this is really, really bad! We’re going to get in so much trouble!” Bart immediately flexed his claws and dove underground in a spray of dirt. I scampered over to the hole, calling down it.

“No, no, we’re fine! We just have to make sure nobody knows it’s us! And we have to get back before I forget how to do it!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” came Bart’s voice, muffled and slightly echoing, “we can just wait here until tomorrow and then…” he was silent a moment. “WAIT WHAT YOU CAN FORGET HOW TO DO IT? OH NO!”

“Naah, yeah, calm down, calm down. We’re going to put on a disguise and go buy chilli from ourselves — well, from you — and then zap right back to tomorrow, it’ll be fine.” I waved the money I’d stolen — rather, borrowed — over the hole. There came a loud scrabbling out of its depths, which grew louder, until Bart’s head popped up out of it.

“From ourselves!? That’s crazy! I think I’d know if…” he paused, then sighed. “Actually, thinking about it now, the guy who bought the chilli yest-, er, today did look a little weird. And now that I think about it, he had a high pitched voice, walked weirdly and… and could understand us. Ugh. And he, I guess she, no they, us, was, were, a repeat customer.” Bart’s muzzle fell open as he tried and failed and then tried again to parse the sentence he’d just uttered. He shook his head then put his paws over his eyes, trying to block out a serious migraine that was threatening to start.

“Nyeh heh heh heh,” I cackled, hopping around the hole again. “It will have worked! Now we just need a disguise!”

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Bart sighed, slumping on the edge of the hole. “And I know exactly where to get one.” He pulled himself out of the hole, then started ambling across the clearing, up towards the cliffs on the bay, where Team Rocket had their camp.

***

Bart looked up over the counter as he sandslashed the till. A relatively short, somewhat wobbly person was approaching. The same person who’d visited yesterday. They wore a long cloak over their head and body so their face was hidden, but then the sun was pretty strong, so it wasn’t all that weird. Besides, they paid well… even if Bart wasn’t sure how much money it was or how much was actually in the till. Meowth seemed quite upset about that for some reason.

“Hello Sir or Madam, what would you like today?” Bart asked in the friendly manner he’d been told to use.

“Hello Ba-, er, Sir, I am, umm, Lu-, er, Lou, um, Normal… person. Yeah. A-and I would like a pot of chilli!”

“Sure, that’ll be… er, did you say the whole pot? Again?”

“Uh, yes! I… would really like some chilli? I hear you, uh, also make that?”

Bart thought about it. Lux had somehow got Mew to drop the whole gang off here a few days ago before disappearing herself, apparently stating that she’d be back ‘soon’ for the chilli to give to Kyogre, so they’d started working for Team Rocket — he even had a Team Rocket hat! — but the chilli never lasted the whole day. He supposed that they’d all just have to pitch in and make more if Lux appeared now. Yeah, better to sell the chilli again and make a fresh batch if Kyogre was going to get some. He straightened, and nodded, careful that his fake moustache wouldn’t fall off.

“A-alright, that’ll be… uhh, I said a thousand pokedollars yesterday so same again, please!”

“Is this a thousand?”

Bart looked down at a small, very hairy hand holding a bunch of notes and gulped. He reflexively pushed his fake moustache back on a bit harder as he hid how he moved his lips trying to count to big numbers he wasn’t sure he could read correctly in the first place. “Uhhh, yes?”

“Great! Thank you noodle seller for the, uh, chilli! I am a normal human and I really like chilli!”

“I’m glad to hear it, because I am also a normal human who sells noodles. A-and chilli.”

There was a short, somewhat tense, staring contest, before the customer shifted the pot of chilli down and… took hold of it with his lower arms? Maybe this was an evolved human? Yeah, that made sense.

“Here, hold this!” the customer said to himself.

“Ah! What! I’ll fall! You’ll fall!” the customer replied to… himself.

“We’ll do fine!” he said finally, to himself. Which seemed to placate himself.

Humans were weird, Bart realised. Very weird. The customer looked up again.

“Umm, yeah, sorry, arms are tired. I must be going now to my normal human business which I do. With other humans. Yep. Goodbye!”

Bart watched Lou Normalperson wobble off, then he put the money into the till. Phew. That had been so nerve-wracking, he was certain that the human would’ve seen through his disguise, but apparently he’d gotten away with it! These disguises were so good!

He relaxed, sighing happily as the till went ‘ding!’ from his closing it. This was alright. He missed his trainer, but he knew that for her, this whole trip would just be over in one night, so it was… it was like a holiday, a nice break from battling and training.

“Get your snacks here!” Bart called, imitating some of the other hawlucher-kers. “Best noodles outside of Kanto! Hello Sir or Madam what would you like?”

Bart busied himself with work as the strangely wobbly chilli-purchaser disappeared into the crowd.

***

Bart and I sat around the chilli pot. It was heavy, but… not too much to carry, we pokemon were strong. The two of us had escaped the crowds in the fountain park and were now ensconced in a small clearing not too far away. The disguise had been hidden behind a berry bush and we were both back to normal.

“So, you think Kyogre will like this?” Bart asked nervously, clicking his claws together.

“Uh huh! I’m sure she will, if this is made the same as it was before. It certainly smells similar!”

“A-alright then, let’s, uh… let’s go? How are we gonna do this?”

“Straight to Kyogre, I think? One small time-jump the same way Mew did it over to Hoenn, as that… somehow feels easier now she’s done it, I can’t really explain it. Then we’ll give Kyogre the chilli, then head back here to Fiore! And… and then get everyone and head back again, back… to the future!”

“As long as you don’t make us all disappear or something.”

“Yeah, yeah, you don’t have to make a whole song and dance about it. I’m hardly going to change the future with a pot of chilli and become my own grandmother or something.”

I clicked my paw-fingers, and suddenly we were in darkness.

“Umm, wow, it’s sure dark in here,” I said, my voice echoing over the last vestiges of the paw-finger-click. Of course, that was when Kyogre lit up the sigils that were weaved all over her body and the entire cave glowed blue once again.

“You’re late!” she grumbled, yawning and turning over as she stretched.

“Um, sorry, I can… try to go back in time?”

“You didn’t, so you can’t,” Kyogre rumbled, flapping her massive fins in annoyance, sending sprays of salty water everywhere.

“Oh, well… at least we’re here now?” I said, trying to smile.

“Delivery took you so long, I think I get it for free,” the massive wailmer-sized creature said, fixing me with a very direct stare.

“Uhhh, ohhh, y-yeah, s-sure, free is the best price when y-you’ve been made to wait!” I stammered. I wasn’t sure how she was going to have paid me, but right now I wasn’t going to argue.

“Good, good, s’what I thought, otherwise, I dunno, I might have to… drown the world or something. And we wouldn’t want that, would we?”

“N-no, ma’am,” I answered, trying to smile politely and feeling that it was more of a fang-laden grimace of horror. “Sorry for bothering you let’s get out of here Bart thank you very much goodbye see you again!”

I forced out all my words at once, dropped the pot of chilli in front of the legendary, backed up very quickly and then snapped my finger-paws. Between one heartbeat and the next, both Bart and I were suddenly back in Fiore, which was still uncomfortably close to a hangry Kyogre, but now at least with an ocean in between we’d have some warning if she didn’t like it. I hoped.

I took a deep breath, letting out all the tension, then looked up to find Mew and Celebi had stopped fighting. Long enough at least for the former to ask where the chilli pot was.

“Ahh shoot,” I said, “I left it with Kyogre! Ah, it doesn’t matter, I’ll take this one!” I snagged the empty pot that had been used for Rayquaza’s portion, and snapped my finger-paws just as Celebi shouted ‘WAIT!’.

“Eh, I’ll be fine,” I mumbled to myself as I took the pot’s handle in my muzzle. “All I’ve got to do is not be seen as I drop it off, right?” Of course, I wasn’t able to speak all that well with the handle of a pot in my muzzle, but I was talking to myself so I knew what I was saying. “It’s nice of Celebi to worry about me though.”

With a careful amount of sneaking, I slunk right up to Team Rocket’s Noodle Shop. I paused; it… it wasn’t called that, was it? Naahh, but it was probably something close to it, like ‘Rocket Noodle’. I snorted. Carefully putting the pot down, I backed up a ways before clearing my throat, lowering my voice and calling out, “Hey, I uh, returned your chilli pot! It was fantastic!” and then I bolted. When I was far enough away, I snapped my paw-fingers one more time just as I saw yester-Bart amble out to see what was happening.

“Woohoo!” I shouted, as I popped back to the future and saw I’d hit the target. “I’m four for four, baby! Hi four me!” I held up a paw.

“Youuuuuu!” shouted Celebi, pointing a paw my way, shaking with what obviously had to be amazement.

“Yeah, I know, I’m awesome,” I said, preening.

“You… you… you! You blithering idiot!”

I deflated. “What?”

“You took todays pot and sent it back in time! And yesterday’s pot is still here! There! Not here either!”

“Umm…” I said, my mouth hanging open. “Uh, that’s bad?”

“THAT’S SUPER BAD! You’ve got to get it back to Bart!” Celebi looked pretty mad. I looked over at Mew, who giggled. “Don’t you dare encourage her!” the onion fairy continued. “Oh Arceus, now I’ve got to go figure this out! Right, right, right… I can do this. Meowth?”

“Yeah?”

“Where did you even get this pot from?”

“Gee, I dunno nyaa… there was this short dude who just… showed up and sold it to me?”

Short dude, huh? I could do that. “Oh, then that makes it easy!” I said, and paw-snapped without a second thought. I’d fix this, toot-sweet, no fur off my butt. I went a day or so ahead and back over to Hoenn, snagged the now empty pot before the loudly snoring Kyogre — so that’s where tidal waves came from, I reasoned — could wake up again, and then shot back to Fiore, waited until I and Bart disappeared, snagged the disguise, suited up, and then headed back a few more days until I saw Team Rocket drag themselves out of the ocean, after a minor tidal wave washed them towards the shore, caused by their ballistic trajectory that had brought them here in the first place.

“Perfect,” I said to myself, then ate the rest of the now-cold chilli from the pot — it wasn’t too tainted with Kyogre drool and it was getting a bit old, but I was hungry after all — and bedded down for a much needed nap. A few hours later, as dusk had fallen, I approached the cave. it was obvious which one was theirs due to the fire in it, not to mention the arguing and distant sounds of at least one pokemon giving probably James some tough love.

Clearing my throat outside the cave in the semi-darkness, and standing on my hind legs with my cloak completely covering my body, I called out to Meowth. “Ahem, I am but a lone cooking pot seller, and I find myself with one too many cooking pots, I don’t suppose you’d want to buy one from this tinker? They’re cheap. I don’t want to have to lug it back down the hill again. I can see you’re travellers, I mean, you’re out here in a cave after all…”

“Nyaaa… this is… just about perfect for a chilli emergency! How much is it?” Meowth picked up the pot and turned it around and around in his paws, inspecting it. I thought carefully before answering.

“Uh, a thousand pokedollars!” I nodded to myself, that was just the right amount to buy a pot full of chilli for Groudon. “You’ll need to wash it. Funny you should mention chilli, that’s what was made in it! So you can see it’s perfect for that!” I grinned beneath my hood, trying to exude sincerity.

“It’s a steal! Done!”

Money changed paws, and I tottered off into the undergrowth, far enough at least to get out of view, before snapping my paw fingers for a fifth time and landing myself back with Celebi and Mew. I was immediately jumped on by the former as the latter was rolling around and laughing again.

“You idiot! You imbecile! You utter blithering fluff for brains moron! You took the pot from tomorrow and sold it to Meowth in the past so it’s going to become the pot from yesterday! We… no, no, YOU have to fix this! Meowth! Where did that… ugh, no, you already know where it came from… where did it come from originally?”

Meowth scratched his muzzle thoughtfully. “Well, it was sold to me buy this short guy in a cloak. A random tinker was selling their wares…”

I grinned and waved. “That’s right!”

“Augh!” Celebi slapped herself with her paws. “I already know that! We all already know that! Idiots! Idiots everywhere! I need to know where it came from before you had it!”

“Well… nyaa… I bought it from the replacement furball, that was the first I saw of it.”

“And I stole it from him!” I said, it was obvious, really.

“But,” Meowth tilted his head slightly, “it does look a little bit like one o’ those pots that… there was this chick, over in Johto? We was catchin’ those Kanto brats and there was this one chick with her murkrow…”

Celebi narrowed her eyes at Meowth, then disappeared. A few moments later, she reappeared, with a dusty file under her little arms. She landed on a packing crate, then opened the file and flipped through a few pages.

“Was it one like this?” Celebi pointed to a candid photograph of a young-looking girl with a murkrow bent over a cooking pot of some sort.

“Uhh, yeah, yeah, dat’s the one!”

Celebi took a deep breath — which wasn’t all that deep, she was not a big pokemon after all — and pinched the bridge of her nose.

“Fine! Fine! That’s just perfect! This time I will be right back! And you’re coming with me, you furry menace!”

Celebi snapped her finger-paws.