"Aren’t you just the cutest little thing?” Brock cooed as he bounced his new Happiny in his arms.

Ash was happy for him. It’d been a little while since he’d had the chance to raise a Pokemon, and it always seemed like those times were when Brock felt the best. Maybe it reminded him of the time he spent raising his siblings? Ash had never asked, and he didn’t think he ever would. Talking about deep stuff like that… it would just bring up memories they’d rather forget.

But Brock’s affection for his newest teammate could only keep Ash’s mind occupied for so long. Especially when they were on their way to somewhere new.

Ash couldn’t see the river from where they were on the path as he led the way, but he could still hear the rushing water and the Water types splashing around in it. Actually, it might even have gotten louder. A small waterfall maybe? Or it could be some rapids… The river must be getting lower.

A few Flying types soared overhead, too far up in the bright blue sky to make out clearly. He could just barely make out the chittering of Bug types in the bushes on either side of the path. So many friends in the making all around him, and hopefully ones that he’d never seen before once they hit their destination!

“Are you sure that map is correct?” N asked from behind him. “We’ve been following the river for a while. At this rate we must not be terribly far from the Valley Windworks.”

There was a pause and a shuffling of paper, probably Dawn double checking the map. “We should be close…”

That’s when he saw it. “Guys, check it out!” He got their attention as he pointed ahead to the giant towers poking above the horizon. “That must be Alamos town!” He felt Pikachu shift his weight on his shoulder, having travelled together long enough to know what was coming next. Ash gave his partner a moment to settle, and then took off, running towards their destination.

More and more of the city came into view. “There may not be a Gym, but I bet we can find all sorts of great battles. Isn’t that right, Pikachu?”

“Pika-Pika!” His starter shouted out in agreement.

But then he had to slow to a stop. The rest of the group caught up to him without problem, and he heard Dawn gasp when she saw what was in their way.

When he had first spotted the towers, Alamos town didn’t look that far away. He figured he might be able to run there in maybe 5 minutes or so. But now? Realizing that the path suddenly went down, leading back to the river… or really it was more of a lake, wasn’t it?

Alamos town was apparently on an island surrounded on all sides by cliffs, jutting out from a lake that the river must feed into. The only way he could see to reach it was a huge bridge… on the other side of the lake. That was going to add at least another hour or so to their trip.

His spirits damped slightly, and Ash could only sigh. “You know, I thought Zoey said that Alamos town was by the lake, not in it.”

“Pika-pi…”

“Kyu!” Mimikyu shouted out.

“An air balloon…?” N muttered.

“Would you all like a lift?” An unfamiliar voice shouted down from above.

When Ash looked up, it was just as N had said. A hot air balloon was sinking down towards them, and he heard Brock get all giggly when its occupants came into view. A Chimchar was hanging tightly onto it, probably the source of the balloon’s heat, and there was a woman in the basket. Long blonde hair led into a blue scarf over a red… hmm… Ash swore there was a name for those, but he’d never paid enough attention to what any of the women in his life said about fashion. They’d probably get mad about him calling it a red sweater, but that’s what it looked like to him.

The woman waved to them as the balloon touched down nearby. “Feel free to hop in! We were just about to go back to Alamos town ourselves!”

Ash wasn’t one to look a gift Ponyta in the mouth, so he ran right on over and hopped into the basket. “Come on guys! This will save us tons of time!” And less time spent walking around the shoreline meant more time he could find opponents to battle! Sure, Staravia might not be in tip top shape, still recovering from the battle with Gardenia, but his new buddy Buizel was definitely raring to go!

Brock couldn’t get himself into a confined space with a pretty lady fast enough, and while N and Dawn hesitated, they joined in all the same. In no time at all, the Chimchar was heating up the balloon and sending them up into the air over the water.

“We can't thank you enough for your kindness!” Brock began showering the stranger with praise. “My name is Brock! Would you do me, I mean us, the honor of telling us your name?”

“My name is Alice,” the blonde answered, though Ash found his attention drifting to the space outside the balloon rather than in it. He could see a few other hot air balloons floating through the air, ranging from a simple tan orb to ones that had Pokemon designs on them. There were a couple of Pelliper swooping down to the water below, a Gyarados making waves from just beneath the surface, and there were some Drifloon off in the distance. Maybe they were friends with the ones from Valley Windworks? N hadn’t been wrong when he said they were nearby.

“A beautiful name for a beautiful woman! The romantic atmosphere of a hot air balloon ride has been dampened a bit by my friends here, what do you say you and I go on a date once we-”

Ash didn’t even need to turn around to know that Croagunk had taken care of his trainer.

“Croa-gunk.”

Dawn giggled nervously, still not used to Brock’s… Brock-ness. “My name is Dawn, I’m here for the Alamos town Pokemon contest!”

“I’m N, and this is Mimikyu.”

“Kyu.”

Ash turned around, ignoring the sight of his collapsed friend on the floor of the basket. “And I’m Ash! This is my buddy Pikachu!”

“Pika!”

“You know,” Ash continued, “we’re moving pretty quick! Do you do this sort of thing often?”

“You could say that,” Alice replied with a smile. “I actually work part time as a hot air balloon tour guide, though most of my time is spent as a music student.”

Before anyone could ask a follow up question she pulled a… leaf out of her pocket? Holding it up to her lips, she started to blow, and an unfamiliar melody began. It was a nice enough song, and the local Pokemon seemed to enjoy it if the way that a flock of Pidgey flew next to them was any indication. When the short song ended, the Flying types took off, and Ash saw Chimchar adjust his flames.

“The Pokemon are nice enough to show me the best air currents to follow if I play them a song,” Alice explained.

“That was beautiful!” Brock exclaimed as he got back up on his feet. “It’s not often you meet someone who uses a leaf as an instrument! Did you learn from a Nuzleaf, perhaps? Or is your talent a gift from the heavens?!”

Alice blushed a bit. “Oh, it’s no big deal, really. I’ve had a few different teachers over the years.”

“A positive relationship with Pokemon like that is nothing to scoff at,” N praised.

As the balloon went above the cliff walls of the island, Ash got a better look at Alamos town. The two towers he had seen before looked to be part of a bigger building, by far the largest one in the town. A forest surrounded it on all sides besides the front, which led into the streets and other buildings. None of them stood out all that much, at least in comparison to the tower building. Just simple white walls and brown roofs going off towards the bridge on the other side of the island.

“Those towers are beautiful!” Dawn commented.

“Mi-kyu.”

“The Space-Time Towers are Alamos town’s pride and joy! A brilliant architect built them one hundred years ago. It’s actually where we hold our Pokemon contests, Dawn.”

“Wow, really? I-”

Ash stopped listening as he felt Pikachu tense on his shoulder. He turned to see those pointed ears twitch, and then he felt it.

The basket they were in shook, forcing them all to grab onto something to stay upright. It was like wave after wave of something as solid as a wall was battering into him. A pressure pushing down on them… or… was this a Pressure with a capital ‘P’?

It wasn’t one that felt familiar. There wasn’t a cool refreshing wind, the sun didn’t brighten and threaten him with heat stroke, the sky stayed clear of any adverse weather…

He needed to focus. What was different in this moment? What sort of clues did he have?

As the basket kept rocking, he adjusted his grip on the lip of it, trying not to fall down.

That gave him his first clue. His movements felt slow, like he was moving through jelly. His fingers looked stretched, warped somehow, until he stopped moving and they suddenly seemed normal again.

What could that be? His eyes darted all over, searching for the source of the Pressure, but nothing was obvious to him. Was it something based on his perception? What had those Legends at the museum controlled? He couldn’t recall if he had ever gotten a straight answer.

But then, as suddenly as it began, it stopped.

Ash couldn’t bring himself to let go of the basket. His chest felt tight, his breathing too fast, his body too alert.

A glance at Brock showed that he wasn’t alone in his concern. The adoration for Alice had been replaced by a grim expression.

“Is everybody okay?” Alice worriedly asked.

“What was that?” N asked.

“I suppose it could have been the air currents, but…” Alice trailed off for a moment. “I’m terribly sorry, that must have been my fault. Why don’t I make up for it by giving you all the grand tour?”

“That sounds great!” Ash quickly agreed with a strained smile.

It wasn’t like they could just leave after experiencing that. The pattern had gone on long enough that he had gotten the memo. It was time to investigate, and hopefully fix the problem before things got too bad.

Though he didn’t have high hopes if that was how bad it was when the source wasn’t even present. It had been strong. Far too strong. Almost as if there was more than one…

Having to deal with multiple at once was always the worst.

----------------------------------------

“Who do those twerps think they are?! Balloons are our thing!” Jessie growled.

“Calm down Jessie, this could be a great sign!” James reassured her. “With the number that we get made, I’m sure we could work out a deal with our supplier. Just think of the possibilities! The twerps would surely pop their balloons as often as they do ours, and then we could get a kickback for each of them! Or maybe we could even go into the balloon business ourselves, skip being middlemen and become entrepreneurs!”

“Ya know, that’s not a bad idea!” Meowth chimed in. “I mean, we’re practically experts already!”

“Waaaabah!”

Jessie lowered her binoculars, putting a pause on her twerp watching to instead inspect their current ride. The Carnivine shaped balloon might not be the most cost effective of choices, what with the long “vines” of dark green material hanging down for decoration, or the intricate detail work to make sure the mouth was properly outlined, but she would prioritize style over cost any day of the week! They had a brand, and if she didn’t ensure that they stuck to it, they would be no better than any lowly grunts in Team Rocket! You didn’t become the boss’ favorites by being boring!

“But, ah…” Meowth continued, “shouldn’t we be thinking about future balloon sales after we discuss what just happened? That was no Gust from one of these Drifloons, ya know.”

“Well, I was hoping we could just ignore it and hope it went away.” James replied. “We don’t always need to be involved do we? We could just let the twerps handle it!”

“Don’t be a moron!” Jessie rebuked him. “The twerps are twerps, we can’t leave everything up to them! What if they fail and the world gets destroyed? The boss would kill us!”

“If it came down to that, I don’t think the boss’ reaction would be our top priority…” James sighed.

“Either way, we gotta do something!” Meowth interjected. “Though I suppose we don’t have a lot of information to work with…”

“We’ll just do what we always do then!” Jessie smirked. “Follow the twerps, wait for something to happen, and then save the day!”

“Waaaah!”

“Shut your trap! We’ll get credit for our hard work this time, right guys?!”

“Right…” Jessie and James agreed halfheartedly.

They all knew it wasn’t true.

----------------------------------------

N was confident that the disturbance they had felt in the balloon had been no mere air current. Alice herself hadn’t seemed to believe her own explanation, and the reactions he had seen around him had been confirmation enough that something was going on.

He just didn’t know what. It had been an intense feeling, but it differed from what he felt when Mimikyu was leaking fear, or what they had felt when Ash was supposedly meeting Suicune. But Ash had brushed it off, or at least given off the impression that he was doing so, which N took to mean that the boy wasn’t interested in investigating.

Not that N would even know where to start if he chose to do so on his own. What was he meant to do? Walk up to random people and Pokemon and ask about the strange feeling? He had been so disoriented that he hadn’t even thought to check if those outside of the balloon were being affected. For all he knew, the town proper hadn’t felt a thing, and asking about it would just make him look crazy.

He got enough strange looks from being able to talk to Pokemon.

So, at least for the moment, N found himself on the guided tour of Alamos that Alice had offered.

“Things aren’t normally quite so vibrant around here, but with the contest coming up we’ve gone all out!” Alice explained as they passed beneath a series of colorful paper lanterns that were strung up between the buildings.

While the city had looked rather dull from the sky, at least compared to the Space-Time Towers, walking through the streets gave a different impression. Even without the paper lanterns, there was quite a bit of color with all of the flowers hanging from window sills. It wasn’t nearly to the level that Floaroma had been at, but it was enough to draw the eye. The structures themselves had an artisanal look to them, something you couldn’t really find in Unova with how modernized the region was, and yet the style was definitely distinct from anything he’d seen in Sinnoh so far. Wavy roofing, highly detailed window designs, carefully laid brick roads that left little in the way of greenery on ground level outside of a few carefully maintained trees. In a way, it felt like its own little cultural bubble, the kind of place that was proud of its heritage, enough so to try and stand out from the rest of the region.

Of course, what really drew his attention were all the Pokemon. A yellow ball with a red and white striped scarf poking out of the top of its head was hanging from one of the flower-filled window sills, a bell-like laugh ringing out as it swung back and forth. “Chingling, Psychic type with Levitate.” Mimikyu said without prompting.

His attention was drawn away from the small Pokemon when another flew in front of it. A stubby grey and black body was carried through the air by four brilliantly colorful wings. Black outlines held the shape for deep reds, vibrant baby blues, and eye-catching yellow-oranges. “Beautifly, Bug and Flyin’ type.”

“You know,” N commented quietly as he walked with the rest of the group, “you don’t need to act like a Pokedex every time I see an unfamiliar Pokemon.”

“Don’ I? Yer lookin’ at ‘em with all sortsa curiosity. If I didn’ just tell ya, you’d be askin’ ‘bout ‘em for sure.”

Well, N was rather curious about all the new Pokemon he was seeing. It was only natural! Pokemon were amazing creatures, and to not be in awe every time he met a potential new friend… well, he couldn’t imagine a scenario where that wouldn’t be the case. Still, though… “I can restrain myself.”

“Uhuh,” Mimikyu agreed, though his tone was full of disbelief, “so ya don’ wanna know what those two are?”

A shadowy appendage slithered out in front of his face, directing him towards a sight he could do without. On one side was a metallic, plate-like Pokemon that fit the description for Bronzor that Mimikyu had given him a while back. On the other side was an obvious Dragon, with how ferocious the little thing was, but he definitely hadn’t seen its kind before. The little thing looked like 80% of its body was just a head, stubby limbs and a tail keeping it upright. The fin and oddly shaped protrusions from its head drew his attention, but the Pokemon didn’t seem to use them for much, putting all of its focus into its bright red jaw, trying to bite down on the Bronzor or spit something out at it.

An explosion overtook the two, obscuring them from vision as the crowd around them cheered.

“Is it really necessary to draw my attention to a battle?” How unsightly. He knew that battles were part and parcel of life under the League, but to do it in the middle of a random street was a bit much, even by a normal person’s standards, surely!

Although he did find himself wondering about the unfamiliar Pokemon. It tickled something in the back of his mind, like he should recognize it. Or maybe one of its evolutions? There weren’t that many Dragon types in the world after all…

“Don’ act like the cogs in yer head ain’ turnin’ righ’ now. Gible, first in the Garchomp line.”

So that’s why it seemed familiar! He hadn’t actually seen a Garchomp in person, but as Champion Cynthia’s ace, of course he’d been aware of it. He really should have noticed the similarities sooner…

But he wouldn’t give Mimikyu the satisfaction of knowing he had been right, so he remained silent, taking his attention off of the battle and to his group once more.

…only to see Ash bump into a giant Pokemon as he made his way out of the street they were on and into a large, open square. A quadruped, its brown limbs supported a green shell. Sharpened boulders jutted out from the far side, and what a lucky thing that was, realizing that if Ash had collided with the other end he would have gone head first into one of them. The other side of the shell supported what looked to be a tree of all things. Was that part of the Pokemon? Did it just happen to have a tree growing on it? Looking more closely, the green of its shell looked like moss, or even grass. Was this Pokemon able to support a full ecosystem on its back? It looked familiar, too. Like it could be an evolved form of-

“Torterra, final form of Turtwig.”

N turned his head to scowl at the ghost on his shoulder.

“Woah! Sorry about that!” Ash apologized, both to the Torterra and its trainer.

“It’s no big deal,” a short, brown haired boy replied. “It’ll take a lot more than that to put a dent in Torterra!”

“Barely even felt it,” Torterra grumbled out in a deep, bassy voice.

“Oh yeah?” Ash’s stance changed into something a bit standoffish. “That sounds like a challenge! Let’s battle!”

“Barely felt it?” Pikachu scowled. “You’ll barely feel anything at all once I’m done with you!”

N could only sigh as the opposing trainer’s friends approached, revealing their own Pokemon, which Mimikyu quickly identified as Empoleon and Infernape, and the square that they had entered turned into a large battleground. Pikachu faced off against Torterra, Brock’s Croagunk went head to head against the Infernape, and Dawn’s Piplup… hmm…

That wasn’t really a battle, even if Piplup might claim so later on. Empoleon looked down, unimpressed as Dawn’s Pokemon puffed himself up, trying to look big in front of a more experienced member of its kind. “I can take you, no problem!” The little Water type asserted, though neither of them made any move to attack.

Even if it was strange, he was glad that Dawn hadn’t let herself be dragged into the senseless violence.

With his normal travelling companions occupied, that left N with Mimikyu for company as usual, but also Alice and her Chimchar.

The blond gave him a considerate look. “Not going to join in on the fun? I’m sure someone else here would be up for a battle.”

Mimikyu snorted.

“I’m afraid battles aren’t…” pleasant, good, acceptable at all, “-our thing,” N settled on.

“That’s an understatement…” Mimikyu muttered.

“Fair enough!” Alice replied with a smile. “We can have a seat and chat, then! You haven’t been very talkative, I don’t know anything about you yet!”

The woman didn’t wait for an answer, grabbing his hand and leading him to a table at the edge of the square, shielded from the sun by a large, yellow umbrella.

The two humans took a seat, with Mimikyu remaining on his shoulder and Chimchar trying to make a chair that was far too large for him work in a way that allowed him to see over the table top. Everyone else in the square seemed engrossed by the battles his companions were engaged in, but Alice focused solely on him. “So battles aren’t your thing, but you’re travelling with a coordinator, a trainer in the gym circuit, and…” she hesitated.

“Brock is working on becoming a breeder, though I doubt he said much of that between his attempts to flirt with you. Sorry about that, by the way.”

“Ouch, harsh…” Mimikyu winced, but N could only shrug. It was true, wasn’t it?

“Ah, haha…” Alice blushed. “It’s fine, I’m used to that sort of thing. I’m sure we’ll run into my more persistent admirer at some point…”

“Stupid Baron…” Chimchar complained in a boyish voice.

N didn’t like the way they said it, but he wasn’t about to pry into what sounded like a mess that was, frankly speaking, not his business. “But I wanted to talk about you,” Alice continued. There was a pause. “And Mimikyu, I guess.”

“I think that ‘urt more than ‘er jus’ forgettin’ ‘bout me…”

Drama queen. “What about us?”

“Well, why you’re travelling with them, for one. Your goals?” Alice shrugged. “I’m just trying to make conversation.”

He couldn’t fault her there. Awkwardly sitting here silently didn’t sound pleasant, especially when the only distraction around was a series of battles of all things. That said, he couldn’t exactly give honest answers to those questions. He didn’t think “I want to overthrow the League, save Pokemon from people, and I’m travelling with Ash because apparently he can bring me to the Legendary necessary to make that happen” would go over well with a complete stranger.

Instead, he settled with “Happenstance, mostly. We ran into them at Jubilife, and things just sort of worked out this way.”

“Really?” Alice quirked a brow. “Your Sinnohian isn’t half bad, but you’ve still got a strong Unovan accent. Why’d you come here?”

What a… curious person Alice was turning out to be. “I wanted to see more of the world.”

“That’s it?”

N nodded.

It was a short explanation lacking in details, but he’d said it and now he’d stick by it. He didn’t know Alice. She seemed like a well meaning person, but that didn’t actually mean anything. She could be an agent of the League, or part of a Pokemon trafficking group interested in rare or foreign Pokemon like Mimikyu. Of course, he didn’t have any evidence to support either of those ideas, but her questioning had him wary.

“Ya know givin’ short answers like that is only gonna make people more curious, don’cha?” Mimikyu pointed out.

He seemed to get Alice’s attention, even if she couldn’t understand his words. She moved her gaze from human to Pokemon, stroking her Chimchar’s fur in a distracted manner as the little Fire type crawled up onto the table.

“Well, what about Mimikyu then? How did you two meet?” Her eyes shone in a strange way when she looked at his friend. Her face showed a blend of familiarity and a deep, burning curiosity.

N didn’t like it. Mimikyu wasn’t leaking terror at the moment, even if he was a bit more fidgety than normal, but even those who had an active interest in the Pokemon didn’t look at him quite like this. Professor Rowan had lacked the familiarity, being all in on a scientific curiosity. The little girl they’d run into in Nimbasa had just been a doe-eyed girl interested in a new Pokemon. Elesa’s familiarity had quickly faded away once she realized he wasn’t a Pikachu.

This was something new to him, and he didn’t like it.

Luckily, she didn’t get much time to interrogate him. A loud crashing sound drew their attention back to the portion of the square turned into a battle arena, just in time to see a shocked trainer recalling his Torterra.

“Hell yeah! You can take your stupid immunity and shove it up your-”

“Great job, Pikachu!” Ash cut off his Pokemon.

A glance to the side revealed that the Infernape and Brock’s Croagunk had already been recalled, though the trainers’ expressions didn’t give away who had won.

And Dawn… looked to be consoling Piplup. Things must not have gone in the Water type’s favor.

Taking the escape from questioning as quickly as he could, N stood up. “Looks like it’s time to move on with the tour.”

Alice side eyed him, likely catching on to his attempt to evade questioning, but she didn’t comment on it. Instead she stood with him as his companions regrouped.

“Pikachu must be really strong to take on a Torterra like that!” She politely complimented.

“You know it!” Pikachu smirked.

“Thanks! That battle was a lot of fun!”

Brock patted the shoulder that Pikachu wasn’t resting on. “A good battle is always fun, but we’ve interrupted your tour! Sorry about that.”

It was odd to see the man interacting with a woman in a normal manner, and it served as a reminder that something was amiss in Alamos. N was certain that he’d still be all over her if it hadn’t been for the oddity earlier.

“Yeah, sorry about that!” Dawn looked a bit embarrassed to have been caught up in Ash’s excitement, even if she hadn’t actually battled.

“Oh, it’s fine! Really, there’s only one place left that we need to check out. Follow me!”

----------------------------------------

Ash couldn’t help the smile on his face as he followed Alice.

Sure, the weird stuff earlier in the balloon was weighing on the back of his mind, and he still had a ball of anxiety churning in his gut, but an awesome battle like the one with Torterra had done a lot to improve his mood! Maury, the Torterra’s trainer, had told him it was the final form of Turtwig! He would never push his Pokemon to evolve if they didn’t want to, but that conversation hadn’t really come up with Turtwig yet, and he couldn’t help but imagine what a powerhouse Turtwig would become if he evolved into that!

Potential strategies ran through his mind as they entered a beautiful garden centered around an artificial pond. A water fountain at the center of it kept water flowing at all times, lily pads on the surface made for quiet escapes the aquatic Pokemon could use to hide away for a while, and everything outside of the pond was so vibrant. Shades of green were everywhere, from the bushes, to leaves of flowering plants, to creeping vines and moss on the pottery around the edges of the pond. Flowers of every color dotted the garden, not letting his eyes stay in one spot for long.

And then there were the Pokemon themselves! He recognized the group of Yanma flying through the air, and the larger, green Pokemon with them must be an evolution he’d never seen before! They dove and weaved between a group of Combee, and a Beautifly was fluttering near the water’s edge!

Pokemon under the water’s surface were harder to make out, and he didn’t quite recognize them, but he knew Water types when he saw them!

And then, to top things off, a group of Pokemon came straight to them! Well, they came to Alice, but he was with her, so close enough! An Azurill, Marill, and Azumarill walked together, probably all from the same family. Right alongside them were a Shinx and what he had to assume was its evolved form, given the only differences were the size and the amount of fur on it.

“Kyu, kyu!”

He turned to see what Mimikyu wanted, and watched N put a healthy distance between the two of them and the new Pokemon. That was odd. Why would they… could some of these Pokemon become the Fairy type, maybe? He wondered which. Would an Electric Fairy or a Water Fairy Pokemon be more advantageous in battles…

Alice didn’t seem to have noticed though, and with how secretive that stuff was, maybe it was for the best. “This whole Garden was designed by Godey, the same architect who designed the Space-Time Towers! He wanted to have a place where he could show off the harmony between humans and Pokemon.”

Ash thought he heard N scoff, but he must have imagined it.

“I’ve been playing in this garden since I was a little girl, so everyone here is my friend!” Alice explained.

A garden focused on Pokemon harmony where they were all Alice’s friends? Ash didn’t need any more info than that. Grabbing the balls off of his belt, he quickly released all of his Pokemon. “Come on out and have some fun, guys!”

Brock and Dawn quickly did the same, and soon they found themselves surrounded by Pokemon. The locals darted off and Pikachu wasn’t far behind them, leaving the rest of their friends to follow after, running deeper into the garden.

“I guess they want to show off the playground. Come on, we should follow after them!” Alice explained as she led the way. Ash kept his eyes on the Pokemon, watching as Bonsly and Happiny trailed behind, Aipom and Pachirisu jumped between stepping stones in the pond, and Buizel and Piplup joined a Quagsire in the water.

So distracted by them, he didn’t notice that the pergola he was walking under was occupied until a Wormadam dropped right in front of his face. Rearing back in surprise, he looked up into the vine covered lattice, only then noticing the dozens of leaf covered Burmy bouncing on String Shots suspended from the top.

Brock laughed. “Guess they wanted to welcome us, too!”

Dawn clenched her fists, and Ash feared she might be thinking about his misadventures through the Eterna forest again…

Not wanting to bring up that mess again, he weaved around the hanging Bug types and pushed on to the end of the path, finding that it went all the way to the edge of the island. He could see that the Pokemon had stopped at a small playground. A set of swings, a seesaw, and various other play equipment was keeping them occupied. As for the humans, an overlook that went a bit over the cliff face gave them a great view of the lake and all the Pokemon swimming in or flying over it.

He felt someone stop next to him, and when he turned, N was there, with Mimikyu on the opposite shoulder. “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” N asked without looking at him.

Looking back out onto the lake, Ash agreed. “Of course! Nature is amazing. That’s part of why I love travelling so much! Everywhere I go, I get to see all sorts of awesome places, cool Pokemon, friendly people…”

“Kyu.”

“You have a point,” N agreed.

Ash wasn’t sure what Mimikyu had said, but it brought a smile to his face anyway. Moments like this were hard to come by, and he tried to enjoy them while he could.

And as expected, it was short lived. The tell-tale sound of Pachirisu’s Discharge drew his attention, and when he and the rest of the group turned to look at the Pokemon, they were in a standoff.

He wished he could say he was surprised that Piplup was at the head of it, but Dawn really seemed to have a knack for picking up troublesome Pokemon…

He took a step towards them, intent on breaking it up before things could get out of hand, but he was beaten to the punch. Alice had pulled out her leaf again, and started up a new song. Like before, it was a beautiful, if simple song… but it felt different.

It felt powerful.

He could feel himself becoming calmer, unnaturally so, especially given the thoughts racing through his mind.

He’d felt a song like this in the past. Back on Shamouti, when he’d had to deal with that stupid prophecy and those dumb, bickering Legends…

A quick glance to Brock confirmed that he had realized the same thing. Alice was a nice woman, but they’d have to stick around her longer than she had probably intended. She could very well be their ticket to solving the issue with their mystery Legend.

As the tune of the leaf whistle came to a close, there was silence for a moment. No Kricketot chirping, no Combee buzzing, he couldn’t even hear the waves lapping at the island or the wind rustling the leaves.

“What a beautiful song!” With Dawn’s words, the silence broke, and the low hum of background noise returned.

Dawn hadn’t noticed it then. Not that he could blame her, he certainly hadn’t noticed the power behind the last Song he had heard. Not the first time, at least.

“My grandmother taught it to me,” Alice replied with a smile.

“Is that so?” Brock interjected, trying to fish for information. “Did she tell you the song’s-”

Whatever he was about to say was cut off by a Pokemon arriving.The white legs and flared waist supporting a green top with a red spike through the center brought the Ralts line to mind, but that was a complete set, wasn’t it? Unless maybe it was a branching evolution path…

“Gallade!”

“What?” Ash turned to N and saw a confused look on his face. A bit odd for him to be the confused one, given that he was the one with the best understanding of what Pokemon were saying. Though even odder was Mimikyu’s reaction. It almost looked like the little ghost was trying to hide away from the Pokemon in N’s hair.

“Is something wrong, Gallade?” Alice seemed concerned.

“Gal-gal-gallade!” The Pokemon frantically said, gesturing back the way it came from before darting off.

N darted after Gallade, Mimikyu bouncing on his shoulder, and the rest of them followed behind, returning their Pokemon.

When Gallade stopped, and they caught up to N, they found a very… weird sight. One portion of the pond was bordered by a series of columns, but two of them were warped. The bases were twisted and mangled, stretched and deformed so much that the columns, made of solid stone, had wilted like dying flowers.

Ash’s mind went back to the disturbance in the balloon. This was definitely a step up from his fingers seeming a bit stretched, but maybe this is what happens if you were exposed to it for a long time? Or maybe it was a more direct exposure, like getting hit directly by an attack. Either way, they’d need to be careful…

“This is terrible!” Alice exclaimed. “Who could have done this?”

“It was Darkrai!” A deep, unfamiliar voice had Ash tensing in an instant and Pikachu’s cheeks sparking dangerously.

Walking out of the shrubs was a strangely dressed man. White pants and long, matching boots met a red shirt decorated in all sorts of yellow detailing that looked like it belonged in a royal court. Pink, finely cared for hair framed a very smug face. Ash was all for making friends with anyone he could, but this guy reeked of trouble.

“Alberto?” Alice called out.

“It appears there have been recent sightings in town…” the man, apparently Alberto, continued without acknowledging her.

Though there were more important things to worry about than this guy’s manners. There was a Legend out and about, and the way this guy was talking made it seem like he was in the know. “Uh, excuse me?” Ash tried to be extra polite. Guys like this liked that sort of thing. “Who’s Darkrai?”

“Darkrai is the Pokemon who wrecked all this havoc, of course!” Alberta gestured grandly, placing one foot on a warped column like he was posing for a picture. “It’s a terrible Pokemon, one who goes around causing nightmares!”

“Nightmares?” That was a new one. He’d heard of moves like Dream Eater before, but he was pretty sure having your dreams eaten meant you didn’t get them at all, not that they’d become nightmares.

There was a rustling in the shrubs nearby, drawing all of their attention.

“Did you hear that? It must be that fiend, Darkrai!” Alberto posed dramatically again, drawing a Pokeball from his belt and releasing an unfamiliar Pokemon. Tall, fat, and pink, it looked like someone had mixed together a Snorlax and a Lickitung.

“Lickilicky, Hyper Beam!” Alberto ordered.

Ash’s eyes widened, and he jumped back. Was this guy insane?!

Nobody could get a word out before Lickilicky opened its mouth, a blindingly bright ball of light forming. Ash desperately tried to cover his eyes in time, but was too slow, his vision going white as the heat seared his skin and a booming explosion rang out, deafening him for a bit. It hadn’t been a direct hit, but even just being this close to the source was going to do a bit of damage from a move like Hyper Beam of all things!

When his vision finally cleared and his ears stopped ringing, he saw N right up in the guy’s face. “What is wrong with you?! You don’t know what was back there and you’re just going to fire off a Hyper Beam?!” N’s face was red with anger, and his hand was clenched so tightly around Alberto’s collar that it was white knuckled.

“Kyu-kyu!” Mimikyu added on, though Ash wasn’t sure which of the men the Pokemon was scolding.

Alberto didn’t look like he felt bad about it. Really, he looked like he was getting as angry as N. “Get your hands off of me, you peasant! I am Alamosian royalty and I will not allow such disrespect! I haven’t a clue why my future wife would associate with the likes of you, but I will not show you such kindness!”

Future wife?

“We are not getting married, Alberto!” Alice shouted at the man.

Ah. So it was like Brock’s… Brockness, but turned up even further. That probably wasn’t good.

“You’ll come to your senses in time!” Alberto assured, but Alice looked like she had sucked on a lemon.

“Now’s not the time for that!” N shouted. “How many Pokemon did you just injure?!”

“I-it’s fine!” Yet another unknown voice called out. A man who looked about Alice’s age walked out of the shrubs, his face as pale as his dress shirt. The white shirt was worn under a green sweater vest, and the brown dress pants and thick framed glasses gave him a bit of a nerdy look. It didn’t help that he had a satchel hanging from his shoulder and a laptop in his hands. “Y-you didn’t hit anything besides some bushes, Baron Alberto! But, um, I’m also not Darkrai!” The man slowly started to regain some color as he made his way towards them on shaky legs.

“Tonio! Are you okay?!” Alice ran towards him inspecting him for injuries.

“You make me sick.” N drew attention back to his confrontation as he pushed Alberto away from him, but the apparent Baron only scoffed and fixed his collar.

N stormed off into the burnt, blackened, and smoking greenery, probably to double check that no Pokemon had been harmed, and everyone else turned their attention to this Tonio guy.

“You’re sure you’re okay?” Alice asked once more when she finished checking him out.

“I’ll be fine! It’s just some mild sunburn, nothing to worry about! Baron Alberto didn’t mean it! Besides, I don't have time to worry about that, I’m investigating a matter of utmost importance!”

“Tonio, was it?” Brock moved in. “I can understand your investigation being important to you, but I think you almost taking a direct Hyper Beam sort of takes the cake when it comes to importance. I have medical experience, why don’t you let me take a look at you, just to be safe?”

“We can do that later, look at this!” Tonio showed them the screen to his laptop.

Ash had never been a technology guy. He knew how to use his Pokedex, he knew how to use his Pokeballs. That was enough for him. So when he looked at the screen and saw a bunch of numbers and a moving graph, he didn’t have a clue what he was looking at.

Tonio seemed to pick up on that. “You see, I was investigating a Space-Time abnormality that I had detected! I traced the strongest point to this spot, and it looks like my equipment is working!” He quickly rushed past them, kneeling down next to the warped columns. Tapping away at his computer, feeling the bends and twists, he mumbling a bunch of science jargon that Ash couldn’t follow if he tried.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure your little doodads and whatzits are doing all sorts of things,” Alberto mocked. “We all know that Darkrai is responsible. If we can take care of Darkrai, the problem is solved!”

That didn’t make any sense, though. If Tonio was right about it being a Space-Time thing, and Alamos had the Space-Time Towers… well, a Pokemon that was all about Nightmares didn’t really fit in there, did it? Though he didn’t quite get what outer space had to do with these columns warping like this…

N came back out of the greenery at that point, still looking super mad, but not mad enough that Ash thought he’d found an injured Pokemon. “And what exactly do you mean by taking care of Darkrai?”

“Well, isn’t it obvious?” Alberto smugly answered. “I mean we-”

“Quiet!” Tonio suddenly shouted. “Here comes another one!”

Alberto frowned and looked ready to start something, but Ash felt Pikachu tense on his shoulders, and then it hit him again. A wall of Pressure slammed into him, and it felt like things had slowed down. Tonio’s computer started going off like crazy, alerts ringing out constantly.

But this one didn’t end as quickly as the first. Ash turned, trying to search their surroundings for the source, and everything looked off. Lickilicky had turned, and now looked even wider than before. Tonio stood back up, and he had suddenly gained quite a bit of height, now being the tallest one in the group by a considerable, but not outlandish amount. N had turned his head, and it looked like he suddenly had a lot more hair hanging down his back.

But Ash didn’t get a chance to look for any other changes, because Gallade suddenly took up a combative stance.

“Gallade!”

Following the Pokemon’s line of sight, the group watched as a large pot was suddenly sheared in two uneven parts by a purplish glow, a grinding sound assaulting their ears as the top end fell to the ground.

And then, the Pressure suddenly vanished.

A quick glance showed that everyone present had gone back to normal, and he no longer felt like he was trying to move through water in heavy clothing.

But they weren’t alone, either.

The sky darkened unnaturally, and a completely different feeling crawled over his skin. It wasn’t anywhere near as oppressive as what he’d come to associate with Pressure, but there was still some uncertain power behind it. He felt drowsy, but he could also feel his nerves turned up to eleven. Like he was about to fall asleep at any moment, but that he was being watched in the shadows. Like something was waiting for him to lower his guard.

This level of intensity… it was familiar. It was a different… flavor than he had experienced in the past, but something he was comfortable enough with that he could think rationally.

Enough that he could notice the strange shadows swirling around on the ground.

“Something’s there!” He tried to warn the others, stepping forward with Pikachu ready to fight at his side.

The shadows stopped swirling, coalescing into a pool of darkness that got denser and darker until at the very center, the blackness became a white hood cast in shadow. The hood rose and rose, revealing itself to have a smokey appearance, donned over a face of pure black, pierced only by bright blue eyes that shone as brightly as the full moon. As the figure rose out of the shadow, a red ring that might be a scarf or a necklace encased its neck, and after that was nothing but the deepest, purest black that Ash had ever seen. No light reflected off of it. So deep was the darkness that its body looked flat, as if drawn on a sheet of paper rather than something physical, tangible, with depth. He had thought that Mimikyu’s shadowy arms were dark, but they practically shone with light when compared to what was before him. Wispy shoulder pads held arms that were not too dissimilar from his ghostly friend’s to the Pokemon’s body. A broad chest slimmed down to a thin waist, and then widened again before cutting off abruptly. There were no legs, or at least none that he could see, and the frayed edges of what might be a dress of some sort floated off the ground. As the last of its form materialized from the inky shadows, a pulse of darkness flowed out, as if its body was the epicenter of a Dark Pulse that washed away the unnatural darkness in its wake. Though even as the normal daytime lighting returned, shining through the gaps in the trees and bushes, Darkrai’s form got no lighter, keeping its disorientingly dark form.

“Do not come here.” A deep voice called out to them. It didn’t come from Darkrai though. It was as if the voice was coming from every dark spot around them at once, the Pokemon’s thoughts made manifest on the world in a way they could understand.

“Kyu-Mimikyu!” Mimikyu broke the spell that left them entranced. N looked confused by whatever his partner had said, but Alberto quickly butt in to gloat.

“It seems I was right after all! Lickilicky, Hyper Beam!”

The light of the Hyper Beam washed away the darkness of the shadows around Darkrai and blinded them for a moment, but there was no cry of pain and the explosion of contact was too far away for it to have been a hit. When Ash’s vision cleared, Darkrai was gone and the swirling shadows were back, darting towards them. It almost looked a bit like Mimikyu’s Shadow Sneak…

This was no time to get caught up in analyzing its moves though. The shadows passed right under their feet, the drowsy feeling growing stronger as it touched him, and then Darkrai was behind them. Materializing out of the shadows once more, Darkrai showed off amazing speed, launching an orb as black as its body at them as soon as its form was whole.

It looked like it was coming straight for Lickilicky, probably in retaliation for the Hyper Beam, but the Pokemon was surprisingly nimble for its size, dodging out of the way and leaving the orb on a crash course…

…straight for him.

Well, that wasn’t good.

----------------------------------------

N watched as the attack collided head on with Ash, expanding rapidly to encase his entire body before just as suddenly collapsing into nothingness, and the boy instantly fell to the ground, limp.

His heart leapt into his throat, fearing the worst.

“Ash?!” Pikachu cried out, more worried than he had ever heard the Electric type before.

“The Moonless Night has afflicted this human, we must get him to safety immediately!” The Gallade called out, kneeling down to pick up Ash’s limp form.

“He’ll be fine, he’s jus’ asleep!” Mimikyu hurriedly assured his lookalike.

Not understanding a word of what the three Pokemon said, the humans quickly gathered around Ash in a panic. Even despite Mimikyu’s words, N felt the need to join them, taking a step towards Ash’s supposedly sleeping form.

“No ya don’! Get back ‘ere ‘n’ talk ta me!” N’s shoulder suddenly felt lighter as Mimikyu jumped off towards Darkrai.

The pitch-black Pokemon had already sunk halfway back into the shadows, but Mimikyu was determined to chase after it for whatever reason. Both sank into the darkness, but there was a marked difference in their capabilities. Darkrai, or the swirling mass that represented him at the moment, smoothly moved away, slinking off towards the center of the island at a speed N’s eyes struggled to keep up with. Mimikyu, on the other hand, managed to move himself to where Darkrai had been just a moment ago before materializing once more, forced into the light.

“You moron!” The little ghost shouted. “How am I s’posed ta ‘elp ya if ya run away?!”

“Mimikyu! What are you-” But before N could question what his friend was doing, he had disappeared once more, popping out of the shadows even further away.

N was torn. On the one hand, one of the few humans he got along with and held some amount of respect for had just been put to sleep by an unknown attack. On the other hand, his… well… his closest friend had just run off in pursuit of some extremely powerful Pokemon he knew nothing about.

But each moment he hesitated gave Mimikyu more time to create distance between them, and Ash had other people looking after him.

“I have to chase after Mimikyu!” N shouted as he bolted off towards the last spot he’d seen Mimikyu in, hoping he wasn’t too late. “I’ll find you all at the Pokemon Center after!”

Several of them shouted something back, but he couldn’t hear them over his pounding heart and attempts to keep his breathing even.

He’d thought that chasing after Mimikyu and the horde of children back in Jubilife had been difficult, but this was on a whole other level. With how far apart they were, it was impossible for his eyes to track the shadows themselves, so his only indication of where his friend had gone was the short spans of time where he was ejected back into three dimensions. He rushed through the garden, along the outside of the Space-Time Towers, and into the bustling streets. People and Pokemon alike jumped back in surprise every time Mimikyu popped into existence, already on edge from the effects of Darkrai’s proximity. Those that managed to escape the shock of his friend’s sudden appearances were forced out of the way as N tried to shove his way through, shouting apologies but not able to slow down and be sincere about it if he wanted to keep track of the chase.

His worry for his friend started to morph into shock as he realized how many consecutive Shadow Sneaks Mimikyu was pulling off. They’d never really pushed his friend to his true limits, but even in this relatively short chase the Fairy type had already surpassed his record.

But then, through his gasps for oxygen as he desperately tried to keep up, he realized that he was catching up. Not because Darkrai had stopped and Mimikyu had finally confronted him, but because the distances Mimikyu’s Shadow Sneak were crossing were shrinking. Mimikyu was shrinking. Normally he could pass for a Pikachu at this distance, but he’d gotten to a point where the head of his disguise was barely off the ground, and the wooden tail was dragging limply behind.

Mimikyu’s disguise appeared out of the shadows one last time before it collapsed into a pile.

“Mimikyu!” N shouted out in worry, falling to his knees next to what to any passerby would look like a damaged, though still cute, children’s toy..

He didn’t know what to do. They’d noticed the shrinking before, but they’d never let it progress this far before. He’d always rebounded with time and rest, but this…

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“Mimikyu, are you okay?!” He hesitantly patted the bottom part of the disguise, hoping to feel something solid beneath it, to get some reassurance that there was anything left of his friend at all.

“Ughh…” He heard a delightful low groan from beneath the cloth. “That sucked…”

N could only sigh in relief as his hand found something. Far too small to be considered normal, or even safe, but Mimikyu was still there.

“You… what was that? Why did you run off?”

There was a pause for a moment, and it was only then that N noticed all the people and Pokemon staring at him. Not that he could blame them, he had just run down the street like a maniac, and with Darkrai and Mimikyu as well…

“I thought…” Mimikyu sighed. “Don’ worry ‘bout it. Let’s jus’ get to the Pokemon Center.”

“Don’t worry about it?” N repeatedly numbly. “How can I possibly not worry about it?” The thought crossed his mind that he shouldn’t be talking to Mimikyu so brazenly in front of all these eyes, but he didn’t care at the moment.

Mimikyu didn’t answer though.

With nothing left to do and worry eating away at him, he gently scooped up Mimikyu's endearingly deflated form in his arms, and started looking for the familiar orange roof. He thought he’d seen one on the way here…

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Ash woke up with a start, swallowing a scream and drenched in sweat.

The world had ended.

First he’d failed to rouse Lugia in Shamouti. The troublesome trio of Legends had caused a storm so strong that all had been destroyed, swept away by the heavy rains or turned to ash.

The world had been destroyed.

Before he could come to terms with his failure, it had all been reset, and he’d been in Greenfield once more, the Hale mansion covered in crystal that constantly grew. He failed to make Molly see reason, and the Unknown used their power to turn everything into her fantasy, wiping away reality as he became little more than a doll, forced to play to her childish whims for eternity.

All of his efforts had been in vain.

Over and over and over again, he let everyone down, failed to live up to expectations and watched as it all crumbled.

As his friends died.

This was nothing new, of course. He’d had all of those nightmares before, especially for the weeks directly after the events they sprang from. Though he’d never had them all back to back before. And that last one…

The last one had been new. A nightmare of events that were entirely unfamiliar.

It was just him and Darkrai, no people or Pokemon around them. He’d been engulfed by darkness, but the drowsiness and unnatural adrenaline were nowhere to be found. He’d still been afraid, sure, but no more than any normal nightmare. The darkness had given way to a vague purple glow, and there was a powerful cry that he had never heard before…

And then he had woken up.

Catching his breath, he tried to gain his bearings. He was… in a bed?

“Pika!”

Pikachu pounced on his face, shocking him a bit when his best friend’s cheek pouches met his skin. He felt his eyes tear up, but he didn’t cry.

“He’s waking up!” A voice that might have been Dawn’s called out, but he ignored it.

“Pikachu, you’re okay!” It was reassuring to see his partner in one piece after all those nightmares.

“Pikachu’s okay? You’re the one we’re worried about, Ash.” He turned to see Brock sitting at his bedside. They weren’t alone, though. It looked like everyone who had been present for Darkrai’s attack was here… although Alberto and his Lickilicky had been replaced by a Nurse Joy and her Chansey. And… was N holding a Pokeball instead of Mimikyu?

His green haired friend was staring intently at the ball, as if it would give him answers if he thought hard enough.

What had happened while he was out?

When he voiced his question, the local Nurse Joy was the one to answer him, worry on her face. “It would seem you had a nasty run in with Darkrai. You’ve been hit by a Dark Void, and have been suffering from nightmares for hours. You're in the Alamos Pokemon Center right now. Are you feeling alright? Are there any strange sensations, any confusion?”

He definitely wasn’t alright, but given the circumstances he was doing pretty well, in his opinion. “I’m feeling fine, thanks, but… Dark Void? What happened to Darkrai and Mimikyu?”

Tonio spoke up from next to a concerned Alice. “Well, Dark Void is what we’ve taken to calling the move Darkrai used on you. Functionally, it seems to be a much more potent version of Hypnosis, but mechanically I’m still going through various-” He grunted as Alice elbowed him. “Well, maybe it’s not the time for that…”

N took over from there, not looking up from the Pokeball in his hands. “Darkrai ran off, and Mimikyu chased after it. He used Shadow Sneak a few too many times…”

It took Ash a moment, but eventually he remembered what that meant for the Fairy type.

But before any more questions could be answered, a frantic pounding on the door drew their attention.

Alice stepped over to open it up. “A Chansey?”

“Chansey! Chansey! Chansey!” The Normal type exclaimed as it squeezed its way past her.

“Oh dear, is something wrong?” Nurse Joy asked as she turned to the second Chansey in the room.

“Something is very wrong, and we’re conducting an investigation to get to the bottom of it. We need to talk, Nurse Joy.” A familiar voice called out from the hall.

Alice stepped out of the way, her mouth agape as the newcomer walked inside. Long blonde hair covered one eye, and a sleek black outfit completed with an overcoat made her instantly recognizable.

It seemed she was expecting them as much as they were expecting her, because she paused before eventually turning to N.

“Why do you always seem to be involved in my problems?”

----------------------------------------

Maybe this Legendary Pokemon stuff wasn’t all that he had cracked it up to be.

Well, Darkrai being a Legend was really just an assumption on his part, but with the way that bastard Alberto and the others had talked about it, the term seemed to fit. Just that short encounter with Darkrai had left Ash in a Pokemon induced nightmare that lasted hours, had left Mimikyu so exhausted that even after two Soft-Boileds from Nurse Joy’s Chansey he still asked to rest in his Pokeball, and now Cynthia had shown up.

And she wasn’t alone.

That smug prick Lucian had slunk into the room behind her, smirking at him as if to say “I told you so” while not saying anything he could actually be called out on.

N didn’t feel safe with them around, especially knowing that Lucian was a Psychic specialist. Were all of his secrets already being pried out of his mind?

It felt mean to do, but N released Mimikyu much earlier than planned, hoping that the few hours of rest would be enough for now. The interference from his friend against Psychic abilities might be his only defense.

Mimikyu groaned in the cutest way when he materialized on the ground in a flash of red light, still looking a fair bit smaller than usual, but definitely a huge improvement from where he had been after the chase.

“There’s no way it’s been… oh.” Mimikyu paused as his false head tilted back, giving him a view of the newcomers. “What are they doin’ ‘ere?”

Cynthia’s eyes went glassy before suddenly clearing up and narrowing. Lucian simply smiled upon Mimikyu’s release

“Ch-ch-champion Cynthia!” Tonio stuttered. “And Elite Four Lucian, of course,” he quickly added on, widening the purple haired bastard’s creepy smile, “I-it’s an honor to meet you!”

“The pleasure is ours.” Lucian replied smoothly.

Nurse Joy was having none of it though. “I am trying to see to my patients at the moment, Champion Cynthia. What exactly is so urgent that you thought it was necessary to barge in here?”

The two Chansey took a defensive position between the two women, clearly intent on backing up their boss.

Cynthia still hadn’t taken her eyes off of him though. “I’m sure you already know the reason. I’m trying to be proactive before things get out of hand.”

“Oh!” Dawn smiled. “You must be here to stop Darkrai!”

Alice frowned. “Darkrai didn’t do anything wrong! It only defended itself after Alberto attacked it!”

Tonio nodded. “Alice is right, Champion Cynthia is clearly here to investigate the Space-Time anomalies!”

Cynthia held up a hand. “Hold on for a moment. What’s this about Darkrai being attacked?” Her eyes narrowed. “And did you say Alberto? As in Baron Alberto?”

Brock spoke up hesitantly. “He did call himself that… and he seemed certain that Darkrai was behind the anomalies, so he ordered his Lickilicky to use Hyper Beam on it. The attacks didn’t land, but I could see why it might upset Darkrai…”

Cynthia sighed, palming her face. “Lucian.”

The Elite Four member’s smile turned brittle. “Yes, Champion Cynthia?”

“You get to deal with the idiot this time.”

The man’s expression became plastic, as if he was very much not okay with that decision, but knew there was nothing he could do about it. Cynthia was one of the handful of people he couldn’t refuse after all. “I shall see it done.” With stiff steps, he made his way out of the room.

N couldn’t help but smile at that. Those smug bastards were perfect for each other. Hopefully they’d keep each other occupied until this whole debacle was over.

Cynthia composed herself. “Now, seeing as I’ve apparently stumbled into the room of experts on recent happenings, why don’t you get me up to date on what you’ve discovered so far? Both in regards to Darkrai and these… anomalies you’ve discovered.”

----------------------------------------

It took a while. Nurse Joy and the Chanseys had left the room early on, excusing themselves with the fact that they still had a Pokemon Center to run. N wished he could go with her, but while N didn’t exactly like involving the League like this, it would probably be considered strange to voice those objections, and the others were all too happy to divulge all the information they could.

By the time the explanation was finished, Cynthia had taken a seat, idly palming her Pokeballs with one hand and resting her chin on the other. “I see…” He tracked her eyes slowly making their way to Mimikyu, who had taken up residence on his lap. “And what are your thoughts on this? You proved to be rather… insightful at our first meeting.”

Mimikyu grumbled something about the Champion “makin’ me figure out everythin’”, but held out an adorable shadowy hand, waiting for N to hand over the notepad and pen.

Alice looked very confused by this turn of events. “I don’t understand. You’re asking Mimikyu?”

“Indeed,” Cynthia replied tersely.

When Mimikyu finished scribbling, he flipped the notebook around for her to see while charmingly asserting “If ya wanna make me do this then yer gonna be the one doin’ translations.”

A glance over the top of the notebook revealed that he had written in Unovan. “Darkrai is innocent, Palkia and Dialga are at fault.”

“Wait, is that Galarian?!” Tonia abruptly stood up in shock. “This is amazing! I’ve never even heard of Pokemon that can write before! I need to study this!”

“I’ll thank you to study this once the matter of the anomalies is settled and I can return to my other duties,” Cynthia side eyed the man.

“Ah, u-um, right!” Tonio promptly sat back down, his face red in embarrassment. Probably to console him, Alice started whispering to him, careful to keep it at a level that wouldn’t distract the rest of them.

He could see Ash trying to sound out the words and read the note on his own, but it was slow going. Their language exchange had always been rather one sided, so Ash hadn’t gotten much practice in Unovan.

Dawn, on the other hand, took one look at it and gave up. “Um, what does it say?”

Cynthia rolled her eyes, but accepted this arrangement, translating it for the blue haired girl before she continued her questioning. “What’s your reasoning for this assessment?”

His loveable friend Mimikyu flipped to the next page before answering. “Darkrai’s only actions have been a warning, even if it was vague, and retaliation to an unprompted attack. Meanwhile the anomalies are in Space-Time, we’re a stone’s throw away from the Space-Time Towers, and two of Sinnoh’s major Legends just so happen to revolve around Space and Time.”

Cynthia translated for the group once more, before Brock chimed in. “I suppose that does make sense. I don’t know a lot about Sinnoh Legends, but the anomalies don’t really fit into what we’ve seen of Darkrai so far…”

The Champion’s eyes were boring into Mimikyu’s disguise though, searching for something, although he had no idea what it could be. “And how do you think we should go about stopping it?”

N suppressed a shudder as he felt a sliver of fear leak out. Did Mimikyu look less cute now?

“What makes you think I know that?” Mimikyu wrote.

Cynthia paused for a moment, not bothering to translate this time as she switched to an accented Unovan, leaving most of the room in the dark about their conversation. “When we first met, you mentioned joint research into Spear Pillar. Was it wrong for me to assume that you have some knowledge of our Legends?”

N felt like there was some sort of subtext to this conversation that he was missing, especially with how tense Mimikyu was getting. It felt like the rest of the room had fallen away to these two, and they were wholly focused on each other.

“I think…” N watched Mimikyu hesitate to continue the sentence. “It would be wise to investigate the towers tomorrow.”

Cynthia blinked. “Tomorrow? But it’s only…” When she looked to the window, she realized that daylight was fading, the sun setting behind the nearby buildings. “Ah. It seems I’ve lost track of time.” She paused for a moment, a contemplative look on her face. “Fair enough, then. We shall investigate the Space-Time Towers tomorrow for answers. Now, if you’ll excuse me,” she stood up, “I need to go make sure Lucian and the baron,” she mocked,” haven’t killed each other.”

They watched her go as she left the room.

“Wow… so that was the Champion…” Alice seemed in disbelief.

“Yeah… and she wants to visit the towers…” Tonio continued, before suddenly tensing up. “Wait, she wants to visit the towers?! I need to clean up! It’s not nearly in a state good enough to present to the Champion!” The excitable man ran out of the room, leaving the rest of them to look to Alice for answers.

She sighed. “Godey, the architect of the towers, was Tonio’s great grandfather. His lab is in the basement, and he practically lives there. I should probably make sure he doesn’t do anything crazy… I’ll see you all tomorrow!”

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“You people have no authority here!” Alberto asserted. “Alamos is its own, sovereign city-state, and as Baron Alberto, it is I who has authority over you!”

“Hmm. Quite.” Lucian answered, his face buried in the book he carried around. “If I may, I’ve noticed several flaws in your logic. Firstly, The League recognizes no such city-state, nor any related claim of sovereignty. Alamos is simply a city in the Sinnoh region, and that is unlikely to change any time soon. In fact, your little tantrums on the matter are becoming quite vexing. Would you be willing to share what exorbitant amount you bribed the Sinnoh Map Company with?”

Alberto looked aghast. “Bribery?! You dare accuse me of such things? And without any proof!”

Lucian didn’t even bother to roll his eyes. “Yes. I’m sure that they just so happened to exclude you from their official map of the Sinnoh region for no reason whatsoever, despite the fact that it’s going to cost them their contract with the League.”

“That is proof of nothing!”

“Quite. Now, the second matter I wished to bring forth was your supposed title of baron.”

“There is nothing supposed about it!” Alberto indignantly stomped his foot. “I am Baron Alberto of Alamos! That is my official position!”

“Of course. Any why, pray tell, is it that a baron of all things is the one causing such a fuss about the issue? My knowledge of such political systems may be a bit rusty, but if I recall correctly, it would make you a low ranking member of nobility. I could understand a king or even a prince trying to start something, but a baron?”

Jessie, James, and Meowth slowly backed away from the door they’d been listening in from.

“I’m not so sure about this plan anymore,” James whispered. “Tricking Alberto was one thing, but now the Elite Four is involved?”

“These costumes weren’t that good anyway, let’s scram!” Meowth hissed, readying to remove his part of their “TV crew” disguise.

“No way!” Jessie quietly argued. “I look great in this outfit, and we’re already here! We can trick some stupid Elite Four member!”

“WAHHHHBAH!” Wobbuffet released himself with a shout.

“Eavesdropping is considered rude, you know.”

The Rockets whipped around, finding themselves face to face with the Champion of Sinnoh.

“So what are you all doing here?” Cynthia asked.

“W-w-we’re here to get the big scoop!” James hurriedly answered. “The people of Sinnoh want to know about what went down with Baron Alberto and Darkrai!”

Jessie and Meowth nodded along, with Wobbuffet just sitting there in a salute.

“The media? Interesting…”

The Rockets swallowed nervously, hoping that somehow the Champion would fall for it.

“Why don’t you come inside then? You can hardly get the information you want without a proper interview.” Walking past them, she opened the door all the way, interrupting the meeting between Lucian and Alberto.

The Rockets looked at each other, sweat dripping down their backs.

Hopefully all the time they’d spent in disguise over the years would be enough to pull this off.

----------------------------------------

Bright and early the next morning, N found himself approaching the Space-Time Towers, taking in how truly massive they are for the first time. Normally he’d be idly chatting with his darling friend Mimikyu, but the presence of Cynthia and Lucian had him more quiet than usual.

Alice and Tonio waved them down from the entrance. “Come on in, everyone!” Alice called out. “We’ll give you the grand tour!”

Walking up the front steps and into the first room only worked to reinforce just how small he felt in comparison to the building. The doorways were so large that small panels had been cut out of the bottom of them, going no more than a fifth of the way up, and those cutouts were easily three times his own height. Intricate tiling left the reflective floor a myriad of colors, the walls were covered in carved murals of Pokemon gathered around human musicians peacefully, and in the center of the giant room was a spire that shot straight through the roof. Each and every detail looked like it was painstakingly crafted by a master artisan, and he couldn’t imagine how much time and effort went into making it.

So lost in the beauty of it, he almost managed to forget who was accompanying him. At least until she spoke.

“This is amazing,” Cynthia commented as she did a slow spin, taking in every detail she could. “I can’t believe I’ve never made the time to visit before…”

Lucian stayed silent, but his eyes brimmed with curiosity behind his stupid tinted glasses.

“I can hardly believe it myself, and I practically live here!” Tonio agreed. “Over here is the Space Tower,” he pointed through an archway towards the inside of the tower, which housed a large contraption he wasn’t quite sure of the purpose of. Large pink orbs were moving around in orbits, but he couldn’t glean any information from it. “And over here is the Time Tower,” Tonio continued, pointing in the opposite direction. The set up seemed the same, but the orbital contraption was replaced by a few giant pendulums capped off with blue metal.

“And in the center here…” Dawn started, “Is this a staircase?”

N hadn’t noticed it before, but the central spire did indeed appear to be a staircase with a patterned wall encasing it.

“Yep!” Tonio agreed. “There has to be a way to the control station after all!”

“Control station?” Ash prompted.

“Well, the Space-Time Towers are actually the world’s largest instrument! The staircase leads to the machinery that makes it all work, and it’s where you insert the music disks!”

“Hmmm.” Cynthia hummed. “This is very interesting, but…” She turned her gaze to Mimikyu. “Nothing is jumping out to me as the solution to our problem.”

N handed Mimikyu his notepad and pen, and the Fairy type enchantingly scribbled out some League language before showing it to... Alice? ”あなたの曲を弾くてください。”

“Play my song?”

A quick glance around the group showed that most of them looked just as confused by that sudden suggestion as he did. Everyone except Brock, Ash, and Pikachu, that was…

After a cute nod from Mimikyu, Alice could only shrug and pull out her leaf, moving it to her lips.

N felt his anxiety and frustration fade away as the beautiful notes echoed in the large chamber. For just a few moments, as the song reached deep inside of him, he felt… at peace.

As the song ended, Cynthia and Lucian shared a look with each other, before Cynthia spoke up. “Tonio, do you happen to have a music disk with that Song on it?”

“Maybe?” Tonio hedged. “I’ve never played a disk with that song, but I also haven’t played every disk we have! Lots of them are parts of the main mural, so I’ve never touched them…” He gestured to a carving of a girl in a tree, surrounded by Pokemon focused on her as she played a leaf whistle. Beneath the mural was a series of multicolored disks, inlaid with even smaller disks that must be the music disks he had spoken of. There must have been close to a hundred music disks in total.

Cynthia sighed before pulling out a Pokeball, and in a flash of red light, her Lucario appeared. Taking a knee before her, Lucario said “Lady Cynthia, how may I be of service?”

“Start collecting these music disks. One of them is of the utmost importance, and we don’t know which.”

Lucario looked to the mural, and upon seeing the huge number of them, simply nodded. “I shall see it done at once.”

“Wait, are you serious?” Alice looked at the Champion in shock. “I don’t really get why you want to play Oración on the towers, but surely there’s a better way to go about it than just trying every disk available!”

“You know the name of the Song? Good. Maybe one of these disks is labeled, that would certainly make things easier. Would you mind helping me search? I’ll need you to show me how to work the machine, as well.”

Confused, but not willing to deny a request from their region’s Champion, Tonio and Alice joined Cynthia and her Pokemon, removing the disks from the mural one by one.

But when N and his companions made to join them, Lucian stepped in front of them, blocking the path. “I think they can handle it between the three of them. Why don’t the rest of us step outside? Enjoy some of this beautiful weather?”

Dawn frowned. “Aw, but I wanted to see the music machine too!”

“I’m sure that can be arranged later, but there’s something I wanted to discuss with you all.” He walked directly through their group, forcing them to move out of the way with a smug smile on his face all the while. N exchanged a nervous look with his friends before they followed after.

If Lucian was making a big deal out of it, it was probably important. Or maybe he was just being a prick. N wouldn’t really be surprised if it was the latter.

And so they stepped back outside, their tour cut short. The people and Pokemon of Alamos bustled around them, probably used to tourists, especially with the contest coming up.

Now that he thought about it, Dawn’s contest had really fallen to the wayside with all of this going on, hadn’t it?

“I have it on good authority that you all are familiar with Team Rocket,” Lucian began. “Is that correct?”

“Team Rocket?” Dawn repeated. “Well, yeah, we know them! They’re a bunch of no good Pokemon thieves!”

“I see,” Lucian adjusted his glasses. “Team Rocket is not known to operate in Sinnoh. Up until recently, they operated exclusively in Lance’s territory. Do you have any guesses as to why they’ve suddenly taken an interest in Sinnoh?”

N shared a look with Mimikyu. This was odd.

Why now of all times to bring up Team Rocket? Cynthia had been aware of their movements in Sinnoh since at least the Hunter J incident. They’d been brought up in the reports made to her. He wouldn’t be surprised if the League was aware of their presence before that point as well, but that was just speculation.

For Lucian to pull them aside for this when they were trying to figure out the problem with the Space-Time anomalies…

Had he run into them in Alamos?

It was the only thing he could think of, unless this was all just a distraction to pull their attention away from his real goals.

But what could they do besides talk? Ash did the heavy lifting in the conversation anyway, freely giving up lots of information about them that ranged from what he thought their current Pokemon teams consisted of, to their strange obsession with his Pikachu.

N didn’t care all that much. Even if their interaction on Hunter J’s ship had given him… mixed feelings, they were Rockets at the end of the day, so if two of the groups he hated the most wanted to throw themselves at each other, all the better. Instead, he tuned most of the conversation out, listening to the start of song after song playing from the Space-Time Towers. The people of Alamos around them looked quite confused by the constant starts and stops, but ultimately just went about their day.

Eventually though, Cynthia came out of the building alone, an annoyed look on her face.

“I’ve left Lucario at the top of the tower with Tonio and Alice. Hopefully they can find the correct disk, but we should discuss other strategies as well.”

As if to mock her, it was as soon as she finished her thought that the Space-Time anomaly made its third appearance.

----------------------------------------

Could it really be as easy as having someone else play a Song?

Part of Ash felt immensely relieved by the Champion’s presence. So many times now, all of the responsibility had been placed on his shoulders to save everyone, but now… she was here and she had a plan and she wanted to come up with backups and…

…and he couldn’t help the sinking feeling that it wouldn’t be enough.

The way that the sky erupted with purple light only made his stomach do another flip. The wall of Pressure slammed into him harder than it had before, its presence stronger in one sense but also slightly different from before. He watched the people and Pokemon around him warp and stretch every time they moved, but there was no slowness, no feeling of trying to move through jelly.

It took only a moment for the purple light to fade away, though the bright blue sky from only a moment ago did not return. Instead it had been replaced by roiling storm clouds, constantly churning, just as affected by the Pressure as they were.

The songs of the towers had stopped.

“Go away.”

Though the voice had no singular source, emanating from the dark corners all around them, Ash turned around, feeling his body stretch in unnatural ways as he did. The brick roads looked normal except in one spot, where the shadows were abnormally dark. They swirled and coalesced, just as they had yesterday, and Darkrai’s pitch-black form rose out of them. It was only then that he felt the drowsiness and anxiety associated with the Pokemon’s presence, but this time it was muted, held back by the overwhelming Pressure pushing down on them all.

In an instant, Cynthia released a Roserade, Milotic, and a Pokemon that had all the markings of a Dragon. Sharp claws, a sleek, but muscular body covered in blue scales, and a jaw that looked like it could snap a Beldum in half drew his attention.

Not to be outdone, Lucian had also released some of his team. A Gallade took the lead, with an Alakazam right beside it, which was followed by another Pokemon he hadn’t seen before. Shaped like a giant bell, its metallic blue body seemed pretty rigid, with not even the pupils of its red eyes moving.

But the split second it took for the strongest trainers in the region to release their Pokemon gave someone else enough time to get the initiative.

----------------------------------------

“Darkrai, wait up! We can ‘elp ya!” N watched Mimikyu jump off of his shoulder and run towards the intimidating Pokemon, his disguise warping and stretching behind him as he went.

Darkrai paused, its glowing blue eyes falling upon the little doll in front of him. “Your charms will not affect me, little Duality.”

N had no clue what that was supposed to mean, but he was fairly certain that a Pokemon like Darkrai having a nickname for Mimikyu was a bad thing.

“I’m not tryna-” Mimikyu shook his false head, “-look, yer tryna stop Palkia, righ’? An’ I’m tryna ‘ave a word with ‘em, so why don’ we work together?”

…Mimikyu was trying to have a word with Palkia? N tucked that tidbit of information away for later as Darkrai shook his head in denial.

“This battle is beyond you. Even with my capabilities....” the pitch-black Pokemon shook its head. “I will do what I can.”

“No ya stupid-” Mimikyu’s protests were cut short as Darkrai took off at speed, and if not for the bright red cowl around its neck and the white hood on its head, it would have been impossible to track its form against the dark sky. Up and up it went, soaring up to the point between the peaks of the Space-Time Towers.

And then it bounced off of nothing, launched back to the ground at an even greater speed, the bricks around its impact erupting in a plume of dust and debris, small bits of broken up stone flying everywhere and shattering a few shop windows. The people of Alamos who were still in the square panicked at that point, running off towards the bridge. He watched Darkrai pull itself out of the small crater it had dug, flying up again with fury in those glowing eyes.

“Leave this place!” The darkness shouted in Darkrai’s facsimile of a voice as the Pokemon launched a Dark Pulse at its target, the inky blackness of the attack flying through the air until it collided with the same empty spot that Darkrai had hit before.

But it made no sense for nothing to be there. It must have been an illusion of some kind, one that broke when the Dark type energy disturbed it. From the empty sky spawned a being that sent a shiver down his spine at just the sight of it, beyond the effects of the Pressure weighing down on him, for he knew with just a glance that this was what the word “awesome” was originally intended to describe.

Lustrous, light pink skin was stretched over corded muscle. What little light was reaching it through the cloud cover made it shine with iridescence, sparkling with every subtle movement. Its form was almost serpentine in nature, with a thick, rounded form flowing from tail tip to its face. But its curved body was separated roughly into thirds, with joints merged into the intersections that attached bulky limbs. Thick, powerful thighs were supported by monstrously large feet that ended in angular claws. Circular shoulder pads housed the most radiant pearls he had ever seen, and from them hung its gauntlet covered arms. Upon its face was a mask of shining metal, two short tusks jutting out from it and a protrusion running from its forehead down its spine to the shoulders before it split off into two segmented wings. Glowing purple accents were spread across its body, pulsing and swirling as if the cosmos were trapped in its veins.

With its presence revealed, what could only be Palkia let out a cry from the heavens that grated on his ears. The cloud cover over the city dispersed at its roar, revealing not a blue sky, but a swirling mass of the cosmos. There was no sun shining down on them, but instead what looked to be thousands of stars like one might experience on a cloudless night.

But he didn’t recognize a single star in this sky.

“Shit,” the Champion cursed. “We need to get everyone out of here, the city won't be able to hold up if they’re about to battle! Lucian, start setting up mass teleportations and-”

“I can’t,” he interrupted morosely.

That made Cynthia pause. “What do you mean you can’t? There are thousands of people in the immediate area, we need to get them out of here!”

He means it is not possible. An old, wizened voice spoke directly into their heads. A quick glance around showed that Lucian’s Alakazam had blazing blue eyes, marking it as the speaker. The presence of the Moonless Night and Mythical Pearl is dampening our abilities greatly, and beyond that, I fear that Teleport, at least as we know it, is not capable of moving between dimensions.

Lucian’s eyes closed in defeat, and Cynthia’s widened in horror.

The Mythical Pearl has transported the entirety of Alamos to a place unknown. We are trapped.

“W-what do you mean we’re trapped?!” Dawn yelled out. “We- there has to be-” Her breaths became shorter and quicker as she started hyperventilating.

Brock held her steady, trying to get her to correct her breathing. N barely noticed the feeling of Mimikyu tugging at his pant leg.

“Get her out of here,” Cynthia ordered. “This place is about to become a warzone. Lucian, if you can’t teleport then-”

MOVE!

N didn’t know who the mental command had come from, nor did he have time to listen to it. A series of psychic barriers were suddenly erected above them, giving everything a purplish tint. There was a flash of light, the sound of shattering glass, and a large explosion. The next thing he knew, he was on the ground, dazed.

----------------------------------------

Dawn tried to keep herself together as Brock roughly scooped her off the ground, half carrying and half dragging her away.

This was too much for her.

She had come to Alamos expecting a contest. Thinking that the worst that could happen would be embarrassing herself in front of an audience and having that broadcast for all to see. It would be mortifying, and her mother would be so disappointed in her she’d cry herself to sleep, but she hadn’t been afraid of dying.

But then they’d gone to that stupid garden and everything started to spiral. Darkrai’s first appearance had been like something out of a nightmare, and she hadn’t even been the one hit by its attack. She couldn’t even imagine what it had been like for Ash.

Ash woke up, though. She’d so stupidly believed that that would be the end of it. The Sinnoh Champion was there after all, surely someone as amazing as that could cover all the scary stuff, right? No need to worry!

Now the sky was dark in the middle of the day, they were trapped in Alamos town, she felt like she was going to be sick and pass out at the same time, and a Legend was destroying the city.

Maybe she was the one who got hit by Dark Void. This was all just a nightmare, and soon she’d wake up in bed, perfectly fine.

“Dawn you need to focus,” Brock calmly called out to her.

He’d led her into the Pokemon Center, looking perfectly calm while she tried not to break down and cry. She barely took in her surroundings, half aware as she took step after step, distracting herself by counting the floor tiles so she wouldn’t be thinking about what was happening. The explosions and shouting she could hear.

She felt padding beneath her, and found that she was sitting in a chair with Brock’s hands on her shoulders. She tried to focus on him.

“Dawn, listen to me.”

She nodded blankly.

“I need to take a look at your injuries, and once I’m done helping you I need to start helping Nurse Joy.”

Her injuries?

“Do you feel any pain?”

She shook her head no, and watched as he knelt down, checking out her leg.

That was a lot of blood.

Was it her blood?

He started to move it around and suddenly it hurt. It hadn’t hurt before, why did it hurt now? She wanted it to stop hurting.

There was a flash of red light, and she felt something soft pressing against her.

She looked away from her leg, away from Brock and the blood and found her team cuddling up against her with worry clear on their faces. She picked up Piplup, holding him tightly against her as she let the tears spill over.

It was all too much.

----------------------------------------

Ash grimaced, dusting off his clothes as he stood back up after the explosion. He should be more aware of attacks heading straight for him, getting caught off guard like that was a rookie mistake.

He took stock of his surroundings. Whatever that attack had been, they’d been spared the brunt of most of it thanks to the quick thinking of Lucian’s team. The brick beneath them was damaged by few pock marks from the debris that had been sent flying, but that was nothing compared to the ring around them where deep craters had been dug up by the impact, the attack having been deflected by the psychic barriers. Light Screen, Reflect, he wasn’t sure and didn’t really care since it had done the job.

Most of them had, anyway. The shattering glass sound that he’d heard was undoubtedly several of them failing to stand up against an attack from a Legend. He couldn’t fault them for that though. Even Pokemon just shy of Champion level were nothing next to a Legend. It was like comparing a school of Magikarp to a Gyarados.

Through his ringing ears, he heard shouting from his right. Cynthia and Lucian were either arguing with each other, or giving commands to their teams. He hoped it was the latter.

Looking to his left, he saw Brock helping Dawn up, trying to lead her away. There was a gash on his forehead, blood dripping down his face, but it was probably superficial. A lot of blood, but not a lot of damage. Dawn though… her leg wasn’t looking too hot. Her right leg was bleeding even more than Brock’s face, and she looked out of it as well. Shock or head trauma? He hoped it was nothing serious, but that was Brock’s wheelhouse, so he left his friend to it.

N and Mimikyu… where were N and Mimikyu?

He did a double take. There was no way they could have gotten far.

“Pika-Pika!”

“I know, buddy.” Ash carefully scratched between his best friend's ears, a bit of relief flowing through him when he found the other duo. Somehow, N and Mimikyu were on the other side of the square, but at least they looked safe.

“Ash!” Cynthia shouted.

When he turned to look at her, he saw Lucian running off, his team going with him. Cynthia had a hand hovering over two Pokeballs, but left them on her belt with a quick glance towards N.

“Are the records Lance and Steven gave me accurate?” She finally asked.

“What records?” Honestly he hadn’t interacted with the other Champions much. Much more than the average trainer, sure, but he didn’t know them all that well.

Up in the starry sky, Darkrai had used Double Team, eight of the pitch-black Pokemon ducking and weaving around Palkia, drawing its attention every which way and firing off Dark Pulses into its back every chance there was.

It didn’t seem to have much effect beyond pissing Palkia off.

“The ones about you and the Legends,” Cynthia clarified. “I need to know if it’s safe to keep you out here.”

Palkia lashed out in anger, a ball of orange light forming in its mouth that fired off with impressive speed. It passed right through one of Darkrai’s doubles, making it vanish in an instant, but the attack kept coming, veering down towards them. That hadn’t been the original course though… some sort of tracking attack then, like Swift? They’d need to do something about it. He saw Cynthia’s Dragon type tense up, preparing to take care of it, but if Cynthia was questioning his abilities….

“Pikachu, intercept it with Iron Tail!”

His partner leapt off of his shoulder with a burst of speed from Quick Attack, gaining considerable height and meeting the incoming attack in midair. His tail shone with a metallic sheen as he spun around, smacking the orb and deflecting it into the ground a considerable distance away. The resulting explosion carved quite a hole into the ground, and debris went flying, but he’d take it.

Legends were strong, terrifyingly so, and he knew better than to just accept their attacks head on. But deflecting them? Giving them just enough of a nudge that they would veer off course? Time and time again, it had proven effective.

Cynthia gave him an appreciative nod. “I’ve sent Lucian to try and limit the damage in the more populated areas. Any ideas on how to-”

A beam of light tore through the sky, striking Alamos and utterly obliterating a building that was in its path. Ash felt his heart sink, thinking about how many could have been inside still, wiped out in just a moment by what he thought was a Hyper Beam.

“Roserade, go check for survivors!” Cynthia ordered. The Grass type quickly ran off towards the remnants of the building, disappearing from sight.

Palkia’s cry rang out once more as Darkrai continued to be a nuisance, but the nightmare inducing Pokemon wasn’t making much headway, and there was nothing it could do as Palkia suddenly dove down to ground level, cramming itself into a street to reduce the number of angles Darkrai could come from.

But the lustrous Pokemon was too large to fit, its arms and wings carving gouges into the buildings on either side of the street, ripping walls apart.

As Darkrai chased after it, Palkia reared its right arm back, letting loose a roar as power built up. The street took on a pinkish glow before Palkia flung its arm forward, a wave of energy flying out towards its opponent. Every part of the building that was touched by the attack vanished in an instant, and as Darkrai dodged out of the way, it flew off into the space above harmlessly.

“Milotic, destroy the building!”

Ash looked at the Champion like she had just gone insane. “What do you mean, destroy the building?!”

“It’s spreading! If we don’t cut it off somehow, who knows when it will stop?” Cynthia ran towards Palkia, her Milotic slithering alongside her.

“Pika!”

Ash chased after her, certain that the constant Pressure had driven her mad, but when he looked at the building, he saw what had alarmed her. The attack that Palkia had just used at first glance made anything in its path vanish. But there was no denying the sight before him. The gouges left behind had taken on a purple glow, the energy slowly spreading, eating away at the building like an acid and leaving nothing behind but motes of light.

And like all things when Legends were involved, there was frightening power behind it. The corrosiveness of a Muk or a Victreebel would slowly dissolve any material tainted by them. Placing a brick in their acids would see it reduced to nothing over the course of hours. But whatever Palkia had just done to this building? It was eating away at it like a hungry Munchlax at a buffet.

Palkia took off into the air again just before they reached the building, meeting Darkrai for another midair clash. With the immediate risk lessened, there was nothing stopping Milotic from carving the affected portion of the building off with a concentrated Dragon Pulse, the beam cutting straight through the walls. When the final connection point was cut, the dissolving portion of the building fell to the ground with a crash, and they watched with bated breath as it vanished into nothingness, with not even dust left behind.

Ash swallowed heavily. “This is bad, if that hits someone…”

“There’s nothing we can do about it.” Cynthia finished, her voice clipped. “If someone gets hit by that attack, they’re gone. But if it keeps hitting the island and there’s too much spread for us to stop it…” her gaze turned to the Space-Time Towers, “if it reaches the towers, we’re done for. You were at Shamouti, right? How quickly did the Song take effect there?”

Ash really didn’t like to talk about the fact that it had happened at all, but there was no escaping it here. “Pretty fast. By the time the song ended everything was fixed except for the mess.” That had been some trashed shrines, a crashed airship, and mild damage from the extreme weather. Here, though…

No, he couldn’t be thinking like that. Not until they were actually out of this mess. “They haven’t tried a new song in a while, do you think they’re okay? Should we check on them?”

Cynthia hesitated. “I trust Lucario, but maybe-” she cut herself off mid sentence, staring off into the distance. When Ash followed her gaze, he felt his stomach sink even further.

Darkrai looked like it was barely holding on. Evading the attacks that Palkia was throwing at it was all it seemed able to do. But every time it evaded that terrifying wave of energy, it sailed through the air and hit the island.

The forest was tinted pink, several of the tallest treetops disappearing before their eyes. Buildings on the other side of the square were fading away, the rot spreading far too quickly. If Palkia was dishing out that attack more often, they would never be able to keep up with separating the infection from the rest of the island.

It still felt like it was too soon. Like his team wasn’t ready to take on something like this. But it was like he had tried to explain to N back in Oreburgh… sometimes there was no choice.

Ash released his team, sans one. Aipom, Turtwig and Buizel shuddered as the Pressure suddenly weighed on them. Staravia… well, he’d had too many situations where someone had a sudden fall to let his one flier get too far out of reach. And with Staravia’s wing still recovering from the Eterna Gym…

With his team looking up at him with unease and fear clear in their expressions, he needed to step up. He was used to this, even if he hated that fact. He couldn’t crack under the Pressure. “Listen up guys, we need your help!”

----------------------------------------

N was confused. He’d just been right next to Ash, hadn’t he? How was he so far away now? This distance must be… what, twenty yards, at least?

“Holy shit.” Mimikyu cursed. “Did I jus’ Shadow Sneak with you?”

N wasn’t sure that such a thing was possible, but he also wasn’t in his right mind at the moment. His ears were still ringing from the explosion and he felt… lost.

“N? Bud? Ya a’ight?” Mimikyu’s shadowy hands gently shook his leg.

Something exploded, and he jolted into alertness, tracing the sound to a plume of dust and debris not far from Ash and Cynthia.

Wait, Ash and Cynthia? What had happened to the others? He wasn’t particularly fond of Brock, but he didn’t want the fool to get caught up in this mess. And Dawn…

He jolted again as a Hyper Beam destroyed a building in the distance.

“Focus, N!” For just a moment, the overwhelming Pressure bearing down on him was washed away by fear, and as strange as it might seem if recalled this moment later, that fear calmed him down. Mimikyu’s unnatural terror was something he was growing used to with time. There was a familiarity to it.

“Mimikyu… this is…”

It was a lot. Was this the true power of a Legend? Or perhaps, what they could be? As he looked into the sky and saw Darkrai struggling to fight Palkia, he couldn’t help but idly wonder if they were truly comparable. They were both Legends, weren’t they? He had assumed as much. And yet the gap between them was so large… How would the Legend of the Stone compare? Did he dare awaken something like Palkia in his home?

“Ah shit, are ya goin’ inta shock or somethin’? I don’ ‘ave any medical trainin’, I need ya to pull yerself together! Stand up, we shouldn’ be sittin’ out in the open like this!”

The shadowy appendages grabbed him by the armpits, stretching more than he had ever seen to force him to stand. He tried to get a hold of himself, to listen properly to Mimikyu’s words instead of just staring off at the battle.

And yet he couldn’t take his eyes off of it. Double Team, Dark Pulse, Shock Wave… no matter what Darkrai threw at Palkia, all those actions accomplished was drawing its attention somewhere else momentarily. It changed where Palkia’s attacks landed. Hyper Beam and two unfamiliar attacks went off into the distance time and time again, slamming into the forest or the city with huge explosions.

There had been so many Pokemon in Alamos. How many of them were getting caught up in this?

“Mimikyu, we have to stop this.” He adjusted his stance, supporting himself on his own two feet, allowing Mimikyu to retract his shadows.

“Alice and Tonio are on it. This stops with the Song, and I dunno if ya noticed, but we can’t exactly do anythin’ ‘bout that from ‘ere.”

“Then what, we just sit back and watch as they destroy everything?” Despite his words, he didn’t actually know what they could do. Not against something like that.

As if to prove his point, a stray one of those pink wave attacks struck the building behind them, rubble falling to the ground as what remained standing started to glow. That was strange. Was it some sort of Poison type move?

“Well I think it migh’ be a bad idea ta try killin’ a Legend through fright,” Mimikyu remarked, and wasn’t that a visual. Would it work? N had a feeling that even if a glance of Mimikyu’s true form was lethal, it wouldn’t do much against a Legend. “-but I’ve gotta idea or two,” his friend finished.

Before Mimikyu could expand on what exactly those ideas were, the Pressure pushing down on him increased.

He fell to one knee, finding it difficult to stand, and when he looked up to see what had caused the change, he felt pale.

He had seen this move only once before in person. Dragon types were quite rare, after all. And while his previous reference had been impressive, it was nothing compared to this.

Giant, glowing rocks rained down from the sky as a Draco Meteor came straight for them. The Deino he’d interacted with in the past had managed eight of the rocks at once, but the number before him now? It was like trying to count rain drops as they fell from a cloud.

“Ah, shit. Really hope this works a secon’ time, eh?”

N’s mind was moving too slowly to piece together what Mimikyu meant by that, and before he could question it, the world went dark.

He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t see. He couldn’t hear. The only sensation present was the familiar shiver of fear he sometimes got from Mimikyu, but turned up to eleven. In a way, it reminded him of their first encounter with Cynthia. And yet, it was different in a way that he couldn’t quite pin down through the terror cloying at his mind.

When he could see again, he was at the foot of the Space-Time Towers, his back against one of the building’s walls.

The square in front of him exploded.

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This wasn’t working.

Cynthia desperately tried to guide her team to prevent the worst hit areas from spreading. She had a responsibility, a duty to the people here to keep them safe. That is what it meant to be the Champion.

But this was far too much for her to handle.

When the League personnel had informed her about the disturbances detected in Alamos, she had been quick to grab Lucian and come marching, or, well, teleporting, down here, totally prepared to blow off some steam by putting a rowdy Pokemon in its place. That’s what it normally turned out to be when she had to see to things herself.

So she had been a bit surprised to find out that she would be dealing with Darkrai, Palkia, and, if the mysterious Mimikyu was to be believed, Dialga as well.

When those names came up in her daily life, it typically meant delving deep into some ruins, inspecting old clay tablets, and trying to interpret ancient writings. Fun, relaxing things. Trying to hold back what she thought might be the aftereffects of Palkia’s fabled Spacial Rend was not what she had planned for in her research into old Sinnoh Legends.

Though perhaps if she knew this was coming, and how difficult it would be, she would have looked into that sort of thing.

Garchomp grunted as she used Dragon Rush to collapse yet another decaying building. Roserade and Milotic were doing their best to help, but they didn’t hold the same destructive potential. She really wished the rest of her team were able to help, but with Lucario in the tower trying to fix this mess, that wasn’t really an option. She loved Spiritomb, she really did, but the conglomerate of souls was better suited to spreading despair than preventing decay. And Togekiss… she kept telling herself that Togekiss wasn’t suited for this sort of thing, but deep down she knew that wasn’t the real reason.

Togekiss was on the list of Pokemon susceptible to Fairy infection, and though she wasn’t sure of where Mimikyu was at the moment, she was terrified of exposing her family to something like that. Perhaps it was an irrational fear. Something spawned by old wives’ tales growing up in a place like Celestic. Her home had a strong connection with dragons, and while she could understand on an intellectual level that there had yet to be any conclusive proof that the Fairy infection was harmful, that didn’t stop her from being afraid. What if it changed Togekiss? What if he hated her for doing that to him?

She was drawn out of those thoughts as the Pressure increased, and her movements seemed to slow, if only by a marginal amount.

It would seem Dialga really had arrived.

She looked to the sky as her team worked, trying to pinpoint where the newcomer was. But instead of the Diamond of Creation, as some of her texts called it, she found a veritable shower of Draco Meteor.

Unlike the concentrated cone that most dragons went for, trying to hit a particular target as much as possible, this was thinly spread over a wide area. It meant that anyone caught up in it would only have to deal with one of the meteors, maybe two at most, but that it would be all but impossible to escape.

Her thoughts went to Ash. She’d sent him to take care of the spread in the forest, thinking that his weaker Pokemon would have an easier time destroying trees and dirt rather than the stone of the city.

Those trees wouldn’t do anything to slow the descent of this attack.

But there was nothing she could do about it. She’d just have to hope that he was okay, and focus on protecting herself. Her eyes fell to Milotic. This was a lot more than they had trained for, but she hoped that a Champion level Pokemon would stand a chance.

“Milotic, Mirror Coat!”

As her Water type took on a sheen of Psychic power, her eyes spotted movement through the hail of draconic power.

Dialga was slender in comparison to Palkia. Its deep blue quadrupedal form seemed more sleek and elegant. Its feet ended in metal capped claws, there was a fanned out metallic frill where the tail met the torso, and it wore a metal mask reminiscent of the one Palkia wore, but instead of trailing down the spine to form wings, this one quickly tapered off into two horns that followed its elongated head. The crowning jewel through, literally in this case, was the glimmering blue diamond encased in its angular chestplate. Glowing blue lines that flowed over its extremities pulsated in a regular pattern, drawing her in with an almost hypnotic power.

Its form was obscured by a falling meteor, and then the world exploded.

The Draco Meteor pelted the city, digging furrows into the ground and leveling buildings. The rocks infused with draconic energy exploded on impact, showering the surrounding areas with shrapnel. Garchomp, eternally loyal, shielded Cynthia with her body, crying out in pain as her back was eviscerated by one of her few weaknesses.

Though with the staggered descent of the meteors, they still had to contend with the rock heading closest to them. Milotic coiled and braced herself, calming waters rushing over her as she activated an Aqua Ring on top of the Mirror Coat. Shining with the absolute limits of her Psychic power, she sprung up into the air with all the muscle she could muster.

With a heavy flick of her tail, the massive meteor was sent back at its origin, flying off into the starry sky above.

The brief moment of contact had ruined her. The Aqua Ring had evaporated in the split second that it had come up against the heat of the meteor. Her beautiful scales were burnt black in a ring around exposed muscle where she had taken the brunt of it. Milotic collapsed to the ground, seizing in a fit of pain as the draconic energy ate away at her.

With a flash of red light, Cynthia returned her. It’s not like she’d be able to contribute much in that state, and there was no point keeping her out just to suffer.

“Roserade,” her friend called out. The Grass type was a mess. Her leaves and petals were covered in black burns and cut in odd places.

Garchomp’s heavy breathing was a constant in her ears. Her starter was struggling to stand, even if she tried her best to hide that fact.

She looked out across Alamos. A surprising amount of the city had been spared any major damage so far, standing in stark contrast to the ruins and rubble made of the area immediately in front of the towers. The towers themselves looked untouched, oddly enough, though she didn’t know if she should chalk that up to luck or something more. N and Mimikyu were backed up against it, though at this distance she wasn’t sure what they were doing.

Cry after cry rang out from above as Palkia and Dialga began to clash in earnest. A look at the action revealed that Darkrai was flagging, unable to keep up with the two of them.

And on top of it all, the city was still being eaten away by Palkia’s power.

Cynthia returned Milotic’s Pokeball to its place on her belt, grabbing another in its stead. In a flash of red light, Togekiss appeared, though his usual smile was nowhere to be seen once he took in the state of the town and his team.

“Togekiss, Lucario is at the top of the tower.” She pointed to its peak. “I need you to figure out what the hold up is and fix it. We need that Song now.”

He vanished from sight with an Extreme Speed.

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His Lady had given him a mission.

He was a Lucario of a noble lineage, not some simple minded creature like Gastrodon, try as she might to reach a level of cognizance comparable to a human. Nay, the gift of Aura, passed on from his forefathers, put him in the position of being most comparable to his team’s shared Liege in terms of intelligence and understanding of the natural world. He fully understood just how important being the Champion of a region was. How the duties and obligations faced by his Lady were of the utmost importance. Yet his Lady oft made light of these duties, calling them “wasteful bureaucracy” and other such dismissive terms.

And so, when his Lady specifically claimed that the duty assigned to him was, as she would say, “life or death”...

…he felt that it was understandable to be quite upset with the turn of events unfolding before him. The presence of the Mythical Pearl was driving his heightened senses mad, there were still dozens of disks which could contain the Song they sought, and to top it all off, the contraption controlling the instrument was no longer functioning.

“I don’t understand, Why would there be no power?” The man contemplated aloud as he inspected the machine. Though he was a reliable knight in many manners, the intricacies of human devices had always eluded him, and so Lucario could do naught to assist in that matter. There was quite a difference between fetching his Lady’s phone and adjusting the mechanisms of what the man claimed was the largest instrument in the world, after all.

And so that left the task of finding the correct disk. However, without the ability to test them, he had little idea of how to accomplish his goal. Evaluating the Aura of the girl before him did not help in that matter either. Knowing what the Song sounded like was of minimal value when they could not be played. And yet, she was their only hope. The man was seemingly incompetent when it came to matters of music, and Lucario had never heard the Song in question. Perhaps, as a student of music, as she had called herself, she might hold some secret wisdom which would aid them.

But if that were the case, she had not yet shown such prowess.

Lucario watched as she reached into a pocket, pulling out a worn and faded photograph. Though he failed to see the point in looking at the side which was traditionally blank… unless, perhaps, it was similar to Lady Cynthia’s research? His Lady occasionally would make notes to herself on the back of photographs, to help her memory of the subject at later dates.

He thought his suspicions might ring true as the woman began inspecting the disks more carefully, sorting through them with a keen eye before suddenly gasping in shock. “That’s it!” She grabbed one from the unchecked pile, comparing it carefully to the back of the photograph. Curious, Lucario investigated for himself. He looked over her shoulder, finding that among the scribbles of humans long past was a design that indeed matched the one on the disk she held.

Lucario would see that the woman was properly reprimanded for not realizing the connection sooner. But they had not time to waste.

The Pressure upon them doubled, and he could feel the passage of time shift around them, the Aura he sensed at all times warping in strange ways he had only experienced with time related oddities like Future Sight. The Diamond of Creation must have arrived.

The woman faltered, and so he took the disk himself, inserting it into the proper slot. Quickly moving the man out of the way, he pulled on the lever which activated the machinery, but to no avail. He tried again, and again, but the power necessary for its operation was not there.

It was then, as he struggled with which step to take next, that one of his allies arrived through a window with a burst of wind as he exited Extreme Speed.

“We need that Song now, the town is being destroyed!” His normally serene friend demanded.

“The machine has no power, it cannot play any song at all!” Lucario rebutted. “We have discovered the correct disk as Lady Cynthia requested, but I have not the means to play the instrument!”

The man spoke up then. “Togekiss! We need your help! Could you bring an Electric type Pokemon here? If we direct the electricity to the right spots, we should be able to get the tower working!” He pointed to two horns sticking out of the top.

Not wanting to waste any time, Togekiss blasted the infernal thing with an altered Shock Wave, drawing out the duration of the single Electric type move known between them. Lucario pulled the lever, relief rushing through him as the machine started to move…

Only for it to slow back down to a halt.

“We need more power, that’s not enough!” The man pointed out the obvious.

“The Pikachu!” Lucario shouted to his comrade. “Cynthia speaks of its exploits! Bring it here!”

Without a single acknowledgement, Togekiss used Extreme Speed to vanish from sight in search of his target.

Lucario could only hope they would make it in time.

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Ash felt dread eating away at him. Not from the Pressure or presence of the Legends around him, but from the failure that felt unavoidable at this point. From his spot in the forest, he couldn’t see much of Alamos, but he felt certain that the spread of the decay was too far gone.

How many had been lost already? Between the Hyper Beams and various Dragon type moves that were being flung every which way, he didn’t know if any spot in Alamos was safe.

His team had put up a decent fight, keeping the decay at bay for as long as they could, but when those giant rocks had fallen, it hadn’t gone well. None of them took a direct hit, so he could take solace in that, but the shrapnel from the splintering trees and the shards of the rocks themselves had left deep cuts in even Turtwig’s shell, let alone the squishy flesh of Buizel and Aipom. Pikachu was the only member of his team still out and fighting. Part of him wanted to just hug Pikachu close and accept their loss, but he knew that he couldn’t stop fighting until the end. So many scenarios in the past had seemed hopeless as well, but he’d scraped by, if only just barely. Surely this would turn out the same, right?

Through the explosions and shouts and Space-Time distortions he barely noticed anymore, a new noise drew his attention. Some sort of whistling? Pikachu had noticed as well, if the twitching ears were anything to go by.

Dropping out of what he could only assume was an Extreme Speed, an unfamiliar Pokemon stopped right in front of Pikachu, its form blurred by the distortions, shouting at his best friend. “Toge-toge!”

Ash didn’t understand a word of it, but he could tell it was important. “Go, Pikachu!”

His best friend hopped onto the Pokemon’s back, and he shared just a nod before they flew off at unbelievable speeds towards… the Space-Time Towers?

He ignored a nearby explosion, even as shrapnel and debris rained down on him, bruising and burning and cutting his skin. Those injuries just blended together with the others in his mind. He was watching, hoping, wishing that Pikachu would make it in time to whatever he was needed for. That it would all be okay. That this would be the last disaster he had to wade through.

Ten seconds. Twenty seconds. Thirty.

Finally, a single note rang out from the towers, and the whole building started to glow.

----------------------------------------

The dim lighting from the starry sky above them was quickly drowned out as the tower behind them began to glow with a golden hue. Heavy notes rang out from far above, and yet he could feel each one resonate inside him. The heavy Pressure that had worn down on him since Palkia’s arrival abated, not vanishing completely but scaling back to a level that was barely noticeable. The panic and shock that had been swallowing him whole faded away, and he felt at peace.

The roars and shouts and explosions that had been assaulting his ears came to a halt. When he looked up into the sky, he saw the trio of Legends staring at the tower, their battle having ended. Palkia and Dialga reflected the light of the towers brilliantly, and Darkrai ate away at it like he did all light.

Was this really all it took? A song? N felt immensely relieved, and yet he failed to comprehend how music could quell titans like that.

“Damn. How am I gonna get their attention from ‘ere?” Mimikyu muttered from beside him. “I normally can’t get very far horizontally, but if I try vertical…”

“Mimikyu?” N probed.

“Ain’ the brightes’ lights s’posed ta cast the darkest shadows? Or was that jus’ a metaphor?” Mimikyu frantically looked around the base of the towers before darting inside the building.

“Mimikyu!” N shouted as he followed his friend inside. What had gotten into him? Someone managed to stop the destruction and suddenly he was worried about his shadow?

The little Fairy type ran right up to the staircase in the middle of the room, still ignoring him. Trying to get his attention, N reached out, grabbing at the disguise-

And the bright light vanished. He was trapped in darkness once more, for just a moment. Was this Shadow Sneak? He thought that was what Mimikyu had said after the initial attack, but he’d been a bit out of it at the time.

Blinding light suddenly assaulted him, and he fell to the ground in shock.

“N?” A surprised voice called out. When his vision cleared, he saw Tonio in front of him. “Where did you come from?” The bespectacled man looked bewildered.

“I don’t…” N started. Wasn’t Tonio supposed to be at the top of the tower? There was no way that Mimikyu had taken them that far in a single Shadow Sneak! He’d still been worn out from his chase of Darkrai yesterday, and he couldn’t imagine that bringing him along for the ride three times now was a simple task. The Ghost type should have exhausted himself and shrunk down to nothingness far before reaching the top!

And while he was thinking about the little terror, where was he?

A deep voice shouting drew his attention, and he followed it out onto a balcony.

“-at once! The people and Pokemon you have brought to harm have done nothing to deserve this!” Cynthia’s Lucario yelled out to the sky.

N almost stumbled when he realized that all three Legends were staring down at the Champion’s Pokemon, floating in the air just a stone’s throw away.

“Please, you have to help!” Alice pleaded.

Darkrai nodded. “They shall see it done.”

Palkia raised its right arm, glowing with immense power.

“Wait!” A familiar voice called out.

N finally spotted Mimikyu. He looked… perfectly fine? How? Even if he had lasted long enough to get them up here, that trip alone should have exhausted him.

“I need yer help ta-”

Whatever Mimikyu had been about to say was cut off as Palkia’s arm swung down. N’s stomach tossed and turned as his vision was filled with purple-ish pink light and the Pressure hit him like it was trying to crush him into a paste. He heard several cries, but the voices blended together and were drowned out by ear piercing roars as he tried to hold his breakfast down.

When everything settled, and he found himself on his knees, everything was different.

The towers were no longer glowing.

The sky was back to its natural bright blue, rather than the starry space from just a moment ago.

The Legends were gone.