Charity introduced us to the sitting room, then the kitchen, then the small closet under the stairs. There didn't seem to be a single part of the house that she wasn't eager for us to meet. I had to marvel at her boundless energy and enthusiasm, especially since Florence and I were barely watching her bright presentations. I also grew to respect her Slowpoke, since the pink Pokemon managed to follow us continuously despite Charity's high speeds.

I wasn't trying to be rude by ignoring the girl, honest, but Florence was making it impossible for me to concentrate: she kept trying to hold whispered conversations while Charity was talking. She cuffed me lightly around the head when I first whispered back that she should shush, so I decided it was better for everyone's sakes if I just listened to what she wanted.

"You have stalled for long enough,” she told me in a low voice.

"What are you talking about?" I hissed back, trying to keep my interested face on for Charity's sake (the low chair she was currently chattering about wasn't helping my case).

Florence cuffed me again. Wrong answer, I guessed.

"The future. The time you came from. You must have the most useful information in the world, yet you keep it to yourself."

Oh, right. That. I rubbed the back of my head sheepishly as I realized that she had known about that truth for over a day. Everything had just been so confused, so busy, with the battle and then her running off after Celebi and Isaac and everything. I hadn’t had any time to tell her what I was doing there in the first place, not that I knew. "But that's complicated and stuff. I mean, have you ever seen Back to the Futu– oh, wait, guess you haven't. Y'see, I don't want to cause a paradox or something, so I… should be careful about what I say…?"

Florence glared down at me with her hands glued to her hips, the very image of a stubborn preteen girl. I'd seen that look on babysitters before; I knew when to capitulate. Florence was more intimidating than the idea of the space-time continuum blowing up.

"Okay, fine," I whispered as I followed Charity into the next room. "What do you want to know?"

Florence chewed on her lower lip for a moment as we watched the younger girl grab a large book from the shelf she was standing near with an exclamation that her father knew everything about majū. "Why didn't you want anyone to know about where you came from?" she finally asked.

I actually had to think about that for a moment, seeing as I hadn't really considered it before. "Well, you people are super intimidating. I thought if I said I came from the future, the adults would get weird about it. I didn't want to risk getting thrown out of town or something." I sighed quietly, scratching at my ear. "I'd like to go home, you know."

"How?"

"Still figuring that part out. Got any ideas?" I asked, though I seriously doubted that she knew anything about time travel.

Florence ignored my question. "How did you get here?"

I shrugged. "Your green fairy-thing brought me here. Drowzee started it; he, um, ate her dreams, I think." Florence's eyes went wide, but she didn't interrupt. That was good as I was shaky on what had happened already. "Then she told me I had to help her, then she dropped us off here. I'm pretty clueless about what's going on beyond that."

"Your partner ate Celebi's dreams." Florence responded flatly.

"Yeah, sure." I pretended to look interested in the pictures Charity was showing us, hoping to kill the conversation.

"Drowzee in general can eat a majū's dreams?"

"Humans' dreams, too."

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"I do not believe it."

"Well, maybe I'll have him show you later on," I replied snidely. I would have had him prove it right then and there, but he wasn't available. My starter had elected to stay with the adults when we went on our little 'tour'; he'd even had the audacity to wave his trunk at me smugly when I got dragged off. That was how I'd interpreted the movement, at least.

Florence fell silent for half a minute, so I tried to pay attention to Charity again. She was babbling about how Maisy was the best Slowpoke in the world, which made me wonder how she had managed to change topics so quickly.

"How did you find Celebi?"

It seemed our game of Twenty Questions wasn't over just yet. "I didn't, really," I mumbled, sticking my hands in my pockets. "I just got my hands on something connected to her."

Florence raised her eyebrows condescendingly, clearly implying that she doubted that.

"Really!" She still didn't look convinced, so I huffed and pulled the strange poke ball out of my pocket, not thinking about the action. It hadn't gotten scuffed up or dirty from my adventures so far; it still shone a bit, gold and silver as it was. "See? This was the thing he sniffed!"

She stared at the ball, silent, so I looked at it as well. Every time I so much as glanced at it, I remembered first seeing it, and that led to memories of my dad's stern look, and the bad guys bursting in, and everything going wobbly and confused. Things hadn't gotten better since then, honestly. I was still plenty confused, and my position in life had gotten ridiculously wobblier.

Florence opened her mouth (about to make some sarcastic remark, probably), but she was neatly interrupted.

"Hey! What is that?" Charity asked, jumping forward to peer at the poke ball in my hand. I winced, suddenly remembering that poke balls probably didn't exist yet. Whoops.

"Um." I leapt for the first explanation that came to mind. 'It's a device that turns Pokemon into a portable format by changing them from matter into energy' didn't suit the situation, unfortunately. "It's a toy."

"What does it do?" she asked, reaching out to touch the ball. I jerked it back out of her reach, which made Charity pout in a way that I guessed was cute. No – not that way! After all, I knew perfectly well that girls were icky and not to be trusted and sometimes perfectly terrifying.

But back to the point. "It doesn't do anything," I muttered, "it just looks cool." That was true enough, at least.

"How is it useful, then?" Florence grumbled, probably meaning several things with her words.

"It isn't." Another true fact.

"You are weird," Charity stated, rocking back on her heels as she looked at me suspiciously. Her Slowpoke yawned in the background to punctuate the sentence.

"... Yes?" I finally said, wondering if agreeing would make the two of them let me be.

"I like that! C'mon, you two should meet my friend, Joshua. He likes weird people."

"Okay – wait!" Just like that, Charity grabbed both me and Florence by the hands and raced off again.

We did get a quick breather that time, since Charity stopped by the sitting room to ask her father for permission to visit her friend (which he gave quite readily; I wished my parents would be so easygoing). That also gave me a chance to collect Drowzee and add him to the group, just in case. Michael glared at Florence and me, but he wasn’t going to say anything else with Isaac there, so we still managed to get away.

The world had transitioned to full nighttime outside, and it was really far too late for a bunch of kids to be wandering on their own. I wasn't worried about myself (I was a trainer, after all, I could deal with anything!), and Florence could look after herself, but Charity was another case entirely. I didn't get a chance to worry for long, though, since Joshua lived only a block or so away.

Charity rapped on the door and then started bouncing impatiently. I took the opportunity to scope out the house. It was practically squashed in between the two buildings on either side and the shutters needed repairing; it wasn't as nice as Isaac's place by any means. The woman who eventually opened the door was nice, though. She looked harried but approachable, sort of like the lady who lived next door to my family. The next-door lady had to look after four kids all on her own, but she always found time to say hello and give me a mint when I ran into her in the hallway.

"Hello there, Charity Pine," the lady said with a smile. "Is it not a bit late for you to be out?" Her eyes darted over the three of us in the background – Florence, Drowzee, and me – but she didn't look alarmed at the sight of a Pokemon nearby. Well, maybe the constant exposure to Slowpoke made the Azaleans more comfortable around Pokemon in general.

Charity smiled, nodding. "But my father said it was alright, so I am fine! Can I introduce my new friends to Joshua, please?"

The lady sighed and shook her head in a bemused way, but she didn’t say no. "Yes, you may, but you should go back home then, dear. It is late, you know."

"Alright! Thank you, Mrs. Kurt!" Charity chirped, picking up her Slowpoke and darting into the house. Florence followed more sedately and even Drowzee wandered in, but I stayed rooted to the spot for a moment, shocked.

Mrs. Kurt?

If that was a coincidence, I'd eat my own glasses.