Sith Droideka
I! AM NOT! A MORON!
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2010
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Welcome to my first-ever animé fic, started while I was sick and while I have writer's block for Speargun (although Gama's given me some ideas). As such, expect some OOC. Some shipping, I guess, but I won't bothering mentioning pairings. Just go with at least semi-canon pairings.
An official Indigo League van pulled into the Cerulean Gym’s driveway. Police officers had already swarmed the Gym; a Sableye detachment representing the Prime Minister and the League were escorting a body out of the gym. Several shaken gym trainers and the gym leader’s sobbing sisters all waited by the door, some sitting, some standing, as the covered body of the dead Gym Leader Misty was carted away to the morgue.
Prime Minister Max Dark and his bodyguards Fred the Salamance and Balthasar the Metagross stepped out of the League van. They nodded to the Sableye and walked into the gym. Inside, more Sableye and several police officers were busy examining the entire gym from top to bottom. Dusknoir had already arrived and was dressed in his usual cloak of ethereal cloth used by Dialga’s special agents and spies. The Sableye were dressed in the same cloaks, of course, confusing the human police on why they had to work with these strange, well-dressed, and talking ghost-and-dark type pokémon. The water in the large Olympic-sized swimming pool was being drained, leaving behind water pokémon who were flopping around, only to be returned to their pokéballs by gym trainers and police officers.
“What happened?” asked the Prime Minister to Dusknoir as the latter joined the group.
“I assume you heard?” Dusknoir asked. The PM shook his head.
“I was told to come here right away by one of your Sableye. Unfortunately, he didn’t tell me why, and my reports haven’t come in yet,” the Prime Minister responded, glancing all about the room.
“This morning at 10:37 a gym trainer came into the gym for routine maintenance while the gym leader, Misty, was on vacation diving around Sootopolis City, supposedly. However, as he was finishing up his duties, a Spinarak fell on his head. Both the trainer and the spider were startled and the spider quickly returned up into the rafters. Since the gym leader is rather… bug hating after an incident in her childhood, he was surprised to see a living bug in the gym. He followed the spider’s ascent with his eyes, and in the process he saw the gym leader suspended by a noose from a catwalk, covered in various bugs attempting to eat her, to no avail since they all had a tendency to fall off her body at such a high altitude,” Dusknoir explained.
“How didn’t they notice the smell?” Fred complained as he covered his nose in a vain attempt to not detect the lingering scent of death.
“They assumed the smell came from several dead pokémon that have shown up in the water. It seems a can of… something fell into the water and poisoned it long enough to kill a Gyarados and several water pokémon, despite the best efforts of the filter, which had broken down when gym trainers arrived three days ago. First it seems that several Poliwag died from poisoning, and then a rather large Seel, and finally a crippled Gyarados still recuperating from an injury a while back. The stench created by those pokémon decomposing masked the smell of the gym leader decomposing. Plus, the gym leader hasn’t begun to rot enough for her to start falling apart,” Dusknoir explained. The Prime Minister was fascinated, Balthasar was calmly examining the minds of every trainer, pokémon, and officer, and Fred was disgusted but still attempting to do his duty.
“How’d she die?” Fred asked. Dusknoir glanced at him.
“We don’t know. Right now she’s being carted away for an autopsy. Chances are it was her being hanged or hanging herself,” Dusknoir replied.
Balthasar surveyed the gym and also turned to Dusknoir after being thrown out of Dusknoir’s mind by the irate and mysterious ghost. “Did she have any suicidal urges?” he intoned.
“I doubt it. Her annual meeting with a League psychiatrist a few months back yielded nothing, and she certainly displayed no urges or suicidal tendencies according to the gym trainers,” Dusknoir replied.
“Odd, well, I suppose the important thing to know is if Project 3 is still locked away,” the Prime Minister responded.
“Does it even exist here, in this dimension? I mean, this is a propaganda cartoon, after all,” Fred replied.
“For whatever reason, I can sense it,” Balthasar said after a moment of concentration. “And no one has been in it for 15 years, sir.”
The Prime Minister frowned. “Has Cyrus been taken away by Giratina yet, then? And Team Rocket’s resurgence defeated?”
“No.” Dusknoir replied. “As Fred said, this is the propaganda cartoon in some sort of alternate dimension. Every event that happened in that show has happened here, as well. Thus, Cyrus is dead and/or drifting through a new universe, and Team Rocket never fell.”
“Anyway,” Balthasar continued, disrupting everyone’s thoughts about being in an alternate dimension with no known way home, “did the gym leader have a case of depression?”
“Not according to the gym trainers and her sisters,” Dusknoir responded. “Go with him,” Dusknoir said abruptly, gesturing to a Sableye that had just come over to Dusknoir and was awaiting instructions, “and examine the gym leader’s bedroom and study. Oh, and Prime Minister,” he added, “your earlier request to see Master Dialga has been denied.”
The Prime Minister nodded and he, his bodyguards, and the Sableye walked upstairs and into the gym’s living quarters. “What’s your name?” asked Fred to the Sableye.
“Not important, not important, weh-heh-heh,” he responded, and added, “but if you must know, it’s Schwarz. Wheh-heh-heh!”
Fred laughed nervously and switched places with Balthasar, who snorted at his comrade’s fear of Dusknoir’s Sableye, ‘who, come to think of it, are pretty terrifying’, Balthasar thought.
“Oh, and Fred,” Balthasar said aloud (thought aloud?), “Please stop panicking about Schwarz attempting to kill you and eat you. It’s unfounded and offensive and you know it.”
“Sorry,” Fred apologized to Schwarz, who nodded in recognition and walked over to a door with a sign that read ‘Misty’s Room: no nosy sisters and Psyducks allowed!’ Schwarz simply used Shadow Sneak to go beneath the door and unlock the door from the inside and let his companions in.
The Gym Leader’s room was a mess. For starters, the floor was covered with dirty laundry: all strangely similar outfits, too. A Pokégear had been unceremoniously deposited on the desk. The closet was open, displaying all manner of neatly folded (and still highly similar) clothes. The bathroom door was similarly open, with a hamper holding open the door. The bed was unmade, and a pair of keys for the filtration system had been dumped on the bed. The lights were all off, of course, and the window was tightly shut. Hanging on the walls were a great number of things: Lorelei and her twin sister Prima had portraits hanging on the wall. A painting of Wallace the Water champion of Hoenn hung over a dresser, an autographed photograph of Wallace hanging on the wall next to the painting. A picture of the gym leader and the daughter of the Petalburg gym leader had been added right over the light switches. Pictures from all over Kanto, Johto, and some sort of island local showed the gym leader, some black-haired boy, and a tanned man with shut eyes, or, if tropical, a man with pale skin holding a Marill.
“Shall we split up?” Balthasar asked Schwarz, who nodded.
“Wear gloves, don’t disturb too much,” he reminded, and his companions nodded.
Fred examined the closet and the content of her dresser and found nothing of note. He did notice a trophy and several pictures from something called the Whirl Cup, and a set of nice dolls with a tag on them that said ‘give to Jessie if I have the chance’. ‘Now she’ll never have the chance,’ Fred thought sorrowfully.
‘So,’ Balthasar responded, butting into Fred’s thoughts, ‘Jessie was apparently some enemy of hers. Focus on the situation, Fred!’
Speaking of Balthasar, he had been examining the floor for anything of note, of which he found nothing. Besides clothes, there wasn’t much else. However, Balthasar could tell there was something important under the bed, which he psychically transported the item over to himself. ‘Team Aqua’ was emblazoned across a small metal footlocker, which caused Balthasar opened its locks psychically to see what was inside. Inside was a Team Aqua outfit, a pamphlet on the wonders of the sea and the evils of Team Magma, and a membership license. “Schwartz,” Balthasar called out, “this needs to go to Dusknoir.” The Sableye nodded and grabbed the container and phased out for a moment, before returning rather hungry. Schwartz rapidly ate an apple, core and all, and got back to work.
The Prime Minister, meanwhile, was examining the portraits and photographs, and he, too, found nothing of note. He did, however, notice a photograph of the gym leader in a Team Aqua uniform standing proudly next to Archie, the boss of Team Aqua, and Shelly, Archie’s wife and second-in-command. He pondered the photograph for a second before also alerting Schwartz to it, who nodded in acknowledgement and turned back to his examination.
Schwartz had examined the bathroom. For a gym leader’s bedroom, it was rather small, nothing but a shower bath, a sink and counter, and a separate room for the toilet. There were no photographs or portraits, just a painting of a Vaporeon and a Milotic doing… something on the wall (Schwarz couldn’t tell what they were doing). The shower bath was in serious need of cleaning, but had accumulated no bugs as far as Schwarz could tell. In any case, the towels had been hung haphazardly on a towel rack, and the curtain had been drawn back on the shower bath. The toilet room, in comparison, was clean, well lit, and well stocked, although Schwarz had no idea what most of the things in the room beside the toilet paper were. Schwarz continued his examination of the bathroom, but discovered nothing of interest, except for a bandana with an odd, Koffing-like mark on it that he took, along with the photograph that the PM had found, to Dusknoir.
“Done?” Fred asked. Schwarz nodded and lead the group to the study, which had no markings besides a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign. Once again Schwarz unlocked the door from the inside and examined the study.
Compared to the gym leader’s room, the study was the paragon of order and perfection. Various gym papers were neatly organized into stacks on the desk. At the back of the room, two bookcases full of Water-related books flanked a massive painting of Kyogre locked in battle with Groudon, although there was clear bias in that Kyogre looked to be easily winning. Hanging on the sidewalls and on the wall with the door were portraits. From the first gym leader, Aquinas, to the latest gym leader, Misty herself, and flanking the door were pictures of Lorelei and Archie. The floor was clean and clear of papers or clothes. A file cabinet, disguised as an upright Gyarados, was situated in a corner of the room, while in another corner was a large, comfy-looking chair.
Once again, the group split up to examine the room. Balthasar examined the bookcase and found a binder of clippings about Team Aqua, about Team Rocket, and about the exploits of someone named Ash Ketchum. The book topics all had something to do with water, from desalination to the effects of water pollution to aquaculture and hydroponics.
The Prime Minister, being a politician, examined the desk and all its forms, along with the file cabinet documents. He saw that Misty liked requests: mostly requests to visit first Hoenn, then Sinnoh, and now Isshu. Despite all these repeated requests, all of them had been denied. In addition to the requests, there were complaint notices about lack of security against perverts (Officer Jenny won’t let me sic Gyarados on them, she had wrote), letters to various friends, and various forms having to deal with gym maintenance. The final notice, dated July 12, which had been six days ago, and had been a letter written to someone named Gary about gym upgrade requirements. The file cabinet had held more of the same documents as had appeared on the desk, although a letter about Team Aqua in Kanto had apparently been drafted but never sent. The contents seemed to run along the lines of Team Aqua not being a problem in Kanto.
Schwarz had decided to examine the paper clippings in the paper shredder. Using his partial ability to control time thanks to his status as a Temporal Intelligence worker, he reverted the documents back to their original state, but found nothing of interest. The papers were mostly hastily written declarations of love and terrible poetry to someone named Ash. Occasionally, he found one that had different words than usual, but the PM had refused to explain what exactly Schwarz had found. Some documents were things like important government and bank information, and Schwarz also found several shredded credit cards, which belonged to, in addition to the oddly-worded documents Schwarz had found, someone named Daisy. Still, Schwarz had found absolutely nothing of actual interest, except for a certain letter that had been shredded that begun, “Dearest Ash, I have joined Team Aqua…”
Fred had gone about the room, but had found nothing of interest, as usual. However, Fred’s sharp eyes detected something in the corner. He turned to it and saw what had happened to the corner: a web of cracks had extended from it, and a small scorch-mark had appeared.
“Guys,” he said, “the Rocket War happened here.”
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“So you believe gym leader Misty was part of Team Aqua,” Dusknoir asked Schwarz as he relayed the findings the group had found.
“Yes, Lord Dusknoir. I’m sure you have examined the photograph, the kit, and that bandanna already,” he replied. Dusknoir nodded.
“This is conclusive evidence,” he said. “What else did you find?”
The Prime Minister held up the letter about Team Aqua, bagged already, of course. “This letter is extremely suspicious. She denies the existence of Team Aqua in Kanto far too much.”
Balthasar psychically held up the binder of clippings he found. “She’s been keeping track of them too, although that in no way proves she’s guilty of being an Aqua,” he said. Fred nodded.
“And I found this,” Schwarz said, holding up the bagged letter, “a letter to someone named Dearest Ash about her joining Team Aqua. It appears that this letter was drafted about two years ago, and was to be mailed to Hoenn,” he explained.
Dusknoir sighed and commented, “I think she’s talking to her friend Ash. ‘Dearest’ is just a human way of showing appreciation for each other.”
“Oh, and Lord Dusknoir, what is this?” Dusknoir asked, handing the oddly worded letter to Dusknoir. He briefly read it and incinerated it.
“Nothing you need to read,” he replied, thinking to himself ‘it would be terrible if Schwarz decided to add on to his cooking skills, or lack thereof. Good thing he doesn’t know what a quiche is.’ Balthasar and the Prime Minister were confused, of course, since they had assumed that the letter was less than clean, with ‘quiche’ being euphemism for something.
“Anyway,” Dusknoir continued, habitually straitening out his cloak, “someone should tell Misty’s friends about her death before the media twists the facts. I’ll go tell this Ash person,” Dusknoir said, vanishing immediately after that.
Fred and Schwarz sighed in amusement at Dusknoir’s manner of business and turned to face the PM.
“I’ll go tell...” the PM began, before adding, “that May person. She’s from Petalburg, so I’ll go there. I get the plane. Balthasar, Fred, I can handle things right now,” he added as his bodyguards began to follow him. They nodded and he left.
“I’ll go meet Brock; I read about in one of her letters,” Fred announced and he too left the gym.
“I guess I shall go meet this Tracey person I saw on the photographs,” Schwarz said.
“He’s in Pallet Town,” Balthasar said. Schwarz nodded, not even wanting to know how Balthasar knew that, and Schwarz ran off. Balthasar pondered for a moment and decided to go tell Archie. Now, if only he knew where he was…
Balthasar rushed out of the gym and began to use Magnet Rise to soar over Kanto, and, using his psychic powers and his knowledge of aerodynamics and physics, Balthasar rocketed toward Hoenn.
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Max, brother of May, and the son of Norman, the Petalburg gym leader, was training in the gardens of the gym. “Ralts,” he yelled use Confusion!” Ralts followed though, blasting a Slaking with Confusion. The Slaking yawned and used Slack Off, regaining all the health Max had steadily been chipping away. “Poochyena!” Max shouted, incensed, “use Tackle!” Once more, the move had no effect. Finally, Slaking opened his eye after a Bullet Seed by Max’s Treecko and used Façade to KO all of Max’s pokémon at once.
Whatever Max shouted in anger, however, was lost when the massive rumbling of a jet-black VTOL plane the size of a private plane blasted pillars of fire onto the ground, allowing the plane to land. With a fading mechanical whir, the plane fell silent. Slowly, a door opened and out stepped a sharply dressed man with short white hair, a red tie, and a solid black suit. Despite this, Max couldn’t help but feel a little unsettled by the man. Behind him followed a cheerfully flipping pokémon that looked sort of like a malformed, but colorful, duck, whose head was unattached to its body.
Max, curious of course, opened up his Pokédex and aimed it at the cheerful flipping duck. “Porygon-Z, the Virtual Pokémon. This Pokémon was created when a Porygon2 had rather dubious data added to it in an attempt to increase its usefulness. Despite this, the data malfunctioned and caused Porygon-Z to function erratically.”
The man and the Porygon-Z walked up to the front door and knocked on it. Caroline emerged and talked with the man for a little, before she shook her head and said something. The man nodded, and turned to Porygon-Z and pointed at the garden. Porygon-Z nodded (or at least looked like it did) and it vanished, before a buzzing sound in Max’s Pokédex produced Porygon-Z itself.
“HeLlo,” it said, some parts of its word more accentuated due to its constant flipping, “wheRE is MaY, YoUr SiSteR?” it asked.
“Uh…” Max said, taken aback at the pokémon’s sudden speech, “she’s in Ecutreak City, at a contest,” he replied. “Why?”
“GyM leAdER MiSty oF CerUlEan CiTY is DeAd. We ShalL WaRN heR FriEnDs! AnD InVEstiGAte TeAm AQua!” the Porygon replied and vanished. At first, the words confused Max, before he realized Porygon’s meaning. Max decided to call Ash while he recovered from such startling news.
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“WELCOME TO THE JOHTO GRAND FESTIVAL! PEOPLE OF ALL AGES, POKéMON OF ALL SIZES, WELCOME TO THE EVENT OF THE YEAR, BESIDES THE SILVER CONFERANCE!” the crowd roared in response to this announcement, but the roar of thousands of people was drowned out by the roar of a VTOL plane that was blasting pillars of fire down on the contest field. All at once, the crowd started booing, some even throwing things at the plane, and in response the plane shot off an abnormally loud flare that temporarily blinded anyone who had watched it explode.
The plane’s door opened and out stepped the Prime Minister, who whipped out two pistols and pointed them at the security personal. They made no attempt to stop him, so he walked over to the coordinator’s lounge and handed his pistols to a security guard. “Hold onto these, will you? Oh, and you’re being watched,” he said, pointing at a video camera which was now stubbornly following the guard’s every movement.
Inside the Coordinator’s Lounge was a hive of activity. Screens showing the plane landing had caused a large amount of talk within the coordinators, who had previously been planning out strategies. “It’s Team Rocket again, isn’t it?” May asked miserably, viewing the plane.
“No ‘R’,” one of her friends and her main rival, Drew, replied.
“Might be undercover,” Solidad countered, and Drew was forced to concede her point.
“Maybe they’re looking for May for cheating?” Harley, May’s other rival, hissed.
“You lost, fair and square,” Solidad snapped. She had become a fast friend of May, and was already a friend of Harley and Drew when she had met May last year.
“And it was that Team Rocket attack out of nowhere that caused Wartortle to his you with an Ice Beam, not cheating,” May growled.
“Or you’re just trying to justify an actual act of aggression by covering it up with a freak Rocket attack,” someone said. All four turned to see a man dressed in a solid black suit, with a red tie, short white hair, and light blue eyes. “I assume the one with the odd Middle Eastern outfit,” he said, holding up a picture of May in the Wallace Cup, “is you?” he asked, pointing at May.
“Yeah,” May answered.
“Hmm. Well-“ he began, but Drew cut him off.
“Is that your plane?” he demanded. The man nodded, and turned back to May.
“As I was saying-“ the man began again, but was cut off by Drew once more.
“And you’re not one of those perverts, are you?” he demanded.
The man snorted. “She’s what, 13? I’m not a pervert, nor am I a stalker of some kind or a pedophile. And I can tell you’ve had past encounters with these people?” he asked, disinterested. The man did seem to find the attempts to pick up his plane by use of Machamp amusing, however.
“We all have.” Solidad replied, “except Harley.”
“You’d be surprised,” Harley responded.
“Now, as I was saying,” the man said, and after glaring at Drew, he continued, “I have come to inform you that your friend Misty of the Cerulean City Gym is dead, and that I need to speak with you once the Grand Festival is done. Bring your over-protective boyfriend, too, if you have to,” he said, causing both May and Drew to furiously blush and causing Harley to snicker at them.
‘What are they, grade school children?’ the Prime Minister thought, and added, “oh, and I’m the Prime Minister, by the way. You’ll know who I am when you see me.”
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“Brock isn’t here right now,” answered Flint, who was not in anyway confused about why a Hypno wearing a strange shimmering cloak and a Salamance with body armor who was somehow talking were asking for his son. “He’s visiting Lucy, at the Battle Pike.”
“Ah,” the naturally deep-voiced Hypno named Lua responded. “Thank you, Mr. Flint,” she said, and then climbed onto Fred’s back in preparation for flying to the Battle Pike.
“So? Where’s the Battle Pike?” Fred asked Lua, who had agreed to come and help Fred in his quest to find Brock.
“Supposed to be in Hoenn, but according to the memories I extracted from Flint, or rather memories of Brock’s tales to Flint, it’s somewhere near Fuschia City,” Lua responded. After a short flight, which Lua thoroughly enjoyed due to her hobby of dragon riding, Lua and Fred had touched down at the Battle Pike.
“Stop!” a woman yelled as she ran up to meet them, “do you have an appointment with the Pike Queen! Well, strange quadruped flying man and short man with large nose! Answer me!”
“I am female!” Lua shouted, but Fred was just hopelessly confused about how no one noticed that he was a Salamance who could talk.
“So what? Do you have an appointment?” the woman demanded.
“Yes. Go away, pest,” Lua snapped, using Psychic to convince the woman that Lua was right, allowing the two to walk into the Pike. After dealing with guards, wild pokémon, mazes, and holographic trainers (which meant that Fred did all the work while Lua convinced the guards they were expected. They emerged in the battle arena but still found no one.
“Where are they?” Fred asked, frustrated and slightly tired.
“In the office right there,” Lua said, pointing at a door.
“That says ‘Rec Room’, Lua,” Fred replied.
“Same difference,” Lua said dismissively, and they opened the door to the Rec Room. Only two people were inside: a man with tan-brown skin and dark brown hair who, if Fred and Lua could see him, would appear to have constantly shut eyes. The other person was a woman with vaguely Asian characteristics; she did not, however, have shut eyes. They were both holding hands and watching a movie, joined by numerous pokémon, especially a Croagunk who Fred and Lua recognized.
“Tim!” they both cried at once.
“Hey Fred, Lua,” he croaked, “How’ve you been?”
“Same as ever,” Fred said. “Why are you here, though?”
“I was testing an illusionary cloak,” he said, and in a heartbeat Tim appeared to be wearing a cloak of solid gold. “Unfortunately, attempting to turn the cloak into Temporal Armor threw me through time and space, and I ended up outside a Pokémart in Sinnoh. I tried several times to return with the cloak, but to no avail. I decided to wait and see if any coalition forces passed through, and in no time at all I met a talking Meowth. I figured he was the best bet I had to get home, so I followed and helped work for that Meowth and his band of clowns, of which the only ones I knew were the Wobbufett and Seviper, who had also fallen through time and space and were trying to find a way home.”
“Who’d they work for?” Lua asked.
“Wobbufett worked for Cresselia. Seviper’s part of the Coalition, so we were comrades; since the leaders were gone he had simply decided on infiltration, much like I did, although of a different group,” Tim replied.
“What’s the Seviper’s name?” inquired Fred.
“Chris,” Tim said.
“I wondered what happened to Chris,” Lua mused, “he was very popular.”
“Especially with the ladies,” Fred sulked.
“Meh-heh-heh-heh. Well, anyway, Chris and I decided to split: he would watch those clowns, and I would watch this ladies’ man right here,” Time said, whacking Brock’s arm, something he didn’t notice since he was actually holding hands with a girl.
“Still, that was like a year ago, right?” Fred asked. Tim nodded.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t become bored. Watch,” he instructed.
For a few seconds, they waited, until Brock suddenly declared, “that woman is the pinnacle of all beautiful ladies in the world!” In response to his outburst, Tim used Poison Jab on his arm.
“Thank you, Croagunk.” Lucy said, before turning to Brock and saying, “you said you wouldn’t act this way!”
“OK, OK, fine,” Brock stammered, sitting up. “Second most beautiful in the world, with the first being you, of course!”
“They’re going out for dinner soon,” Tim continued, “so I suggest you tell him what you came here for soon. I need to stay around this idiot for a little longer, at least until time stops here.”
“Won’t that take a while?” Fred asked as Lua walked over to Brock to deliver her news.
“Two weeks at most,” Tim responded.
“WHAT!” Fred roared, causing Brock and Lucy to realize that a Salamance and a Hypno had somehow snuck in.
“Look! A quadruped man with wings, a tail, and a long neck!” Brock declared, before adding, “or a Salamance.”
“And a short man with a large nose,” Lucy proclaimed, “or a Hypno,” she added.
Lua counted to ten backwards before turning to Brock. “Listen up,” the Hypno said, “we came to inform you that your friend, the gym leader Misty, has-“
“Told Ash how she really feels?” Brock guessed.
“Nah,” Tim added, “they just came to tell you that she doesn’t burn water anymore.” While Brock and Lucy couldn’t understand what Tim had said, many of the pokémon in the room snickered at the comment.
“Actually,” Lua said, “she’s dead.”
“Why’d she turn red?” Brock asked, confused.
“Brock,” Lucy said softly, “he-“
“SHE!” Lua shouted.
(“Just like Lexi,” Tim commented, “so self-conscious. How are they, anyway?”
“Good,” Fred added, “Although they miss you.”)
“Er, right, well, she said that Misty, your friend, is dead,” Lucy finished. Brock was silent for a moment, before suddenly wiping a tear out of his eye and proclaiming that he had to speak to Ash.
“Take care!” Tim called, “I’ll find a way to cheer the big oaf up!”
“…Right,” Fred said, and he and Lua left the Battle Pike and took off to head back towards Cerulean.
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Ah, don’t you love the fresh smell of Ms. Ketchum’s buns?” asked Professor Oak as he, Gary, Tracey, Delia, and Agatha settled down for dinner. Tracey and Gary snickered at the comment, causing Agatha to whack them over the head with her cane, while Delia and Oak had no idea why the two were laughing.
“Get your minds out of the gutter, boys, or I’ll send Gengar to your dreams!” she snapped.
“Y-yes Grandma,” Gary said. Tracey nodded in fear.
In a short while, all five people were eating. Agatha in particular was impressed with Delia’s cooking. Suddenly, there was a knocking. “Bulbasaur, could you get that?” Oak called.
Bulbasaur rushed into the front hall and opened the door. In walked a Sableye wearing an odd cloak. He looked left and right, nodded to Bulbasaur, and hovered up to the dining room. “Good evening,” it said, “I have come to deliver a message for a Mr. Tracey.”
“For starters,” he asked, “how good is this ‘quiche’ that Miss Daisy makes?”
“After Ms. Ketchum modified the recipe,” Tracey responded, “it was delicious!”
The other four people in the room were perplexed. Agatha was wondering how this Sableye had acquired the clothes of a Temporal Intelligence agent. Oak was wondering how the Sableye had learned to talk. Gary was wondering why it had come all this way to ask about a quiche made by Tracey’s girlfriend. And Delia was wondering if the Sableye knew a good recipe or two that they could swap.
“Oh, and second-“ the Sableye began.
“How did you get that cloak?” Agatha demanded.
“This one?” the Sableye asked, referring to his cloak.
“Yes,” Agatha hissed, before handing her cane to him. The Sableye studied it for a moment before handing it back. Agatha was a member of the Antimatter Lords, and now Agatha knew that the Sableye, named Schwarz, was a member of the Temporal Intelligence Network. Seemingly satisfied, Agatha leaned back in her chair.
“Anyway-“ Schwarz continued.
“How’d you learn to speak Human?” Oak asked, excited.
“I’ve always known,” Schwarz said, and continued, “So you see, the-“
“Why did you come all the way to talk about a quiche?” Gary asked. Schwarz’s eye twitched.
“WILL YOU JUST LISTEN!?” Schwarz shouted, cowing everyone except Delia.
“Know any recipes?” Delia asked Schwarz.
“Hmm? Oh, sure. Here ya go,” Schwarz said, handing Delia a recipie collection, and continued, “Gym Leader Misty of Cerulean City-“
“Admitted her feelings to Ash?” Tracey asked.
“Dearest Ash?” Schwarz asked.
“My son is named Ash… well, Ash Ketchum, not Dearest Ash,” Delia said.
“I’m pretty sure she means Ash Ketchum. Dearest is something people-“ Gary said.
“Lord Dusknoir already told me,” the Sableye responded. “Anyway-“
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Agatha asked. Schwarz nodded, Tracey was horrified, Gary was shocked, Oak was surprised and jumped up to confirm what Agatha had said, and Delia blinked a few times.
“Oh… she was going to make such a nice daughter-in-law,” Delia said as she burst into tears. A Mr. Mime rushed up to help her.
“So then I says,” the Mr. Mime said, “what’s happenin’ to you, dame? And then she says-“
“Oh Mimey,” Delia sobbed, “why do these things happen?”
“And then I says, these are the facts of life, dame. Let’s go put you to bed and find those killers. And then she says-“
“B-bye Tracey and Sa- Samuel and the others, have a g- good night,” Delia said.
“And then I says, they’ll rest easy with Detective Mimeson on the case. And then she says-“
“Come on, Mimey. Let- let’s go call Ash.”
“And then I says, sure thing, I’ll go call the dame’s son.”
Schwarz, confused, watched as Delia, escorted by Mimeson, left the room. “Is he always like that?” the Sableye asked out loud.
“His name is Noir Mimeson, he thinks he’s a detective in 1920s America, and his worst enemy is the Dust Mafia,” Agatha replied, “and I don’t think he got all the noir stuff right, either.”
“You know,” Tracey and Gary said together, “I’m gonna go call Ash.”
Schwarz shrugged and turned to Agatha. “Hey, AM-L lady, can you tell me why the Viridian Forest has a spatial rift in the middle of it?”
“Name’s Agatha, Schwarz, and the rift is just one problem that’s arisen as of late…” Agatha said ominously.
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The doors to Archie’s office in the Team Aqua Water Pokémon Restoration Center (TAWPRC) outside of Lilycove City slammed open as a massive Metagross with a fine, light armor of shimmering Ariados-Silksteel hovered in. Archie was sitting in his desk, pretending to be doing paperwork but in reality watching “Galactic: A Drama”, a play about Cyrus and Cynthia’s ill-fated romance (which was sued for libel and slander by both Cynthia, Solari Akagi on behalf of his missing/dead grandson, Team Galactic, and apparently Giratina). “ARCHIE!” someone yelled from another room.
“YES DEAR?” Archie yelled back.
“ARE YOU WATCHING ‘GALACTIC’ AGAIN OR ARE YOU DOING YOUR WORK?” the other person yelled.
“Uh… DOING MY WORK, SHELLY!” Archie called, turning the play to mute as he did so. And then he noticed Balthasar, who had decided to clean the rust off of the doors as he waited for Archie to notice him.
“Archie of Team Aqua?” Balthasar asked, speeding menacingly across the room and right infront of Archie’s desk.
“Actually, I’m from the Team Aqua Water Pokémon Restoration Center, TAWPRC for short, and I-“ Archie smugly replied.
“I have no time for your smugness,” Balthasar growled, and he produced a picture of Misty. “Recognize her?”
“Leader of TAWPRC’s branch in Kanto,” Archie replied. “She’s very dedicated.”
“Did she help you with Kyogre?” Balthasar asked.
Archie shook his head. Shelly, his wife, walked in and added, “Misty had no hand in acquiring the orb, although she did help with the expedition to find Kyogre by Captain Stern. What she has done for us is research the Kyogre myth and how we could beat Groudon once and for all.”
Balthasar chose to say nothing. You would think they wouldn’t be so obsessed with the sea.
“Anyway, after the Kyogre fiasco, we discovered what went wrong, thanks to Misty’s team in the Ruins of Alph,” Archie said, his confidence growing. “Turns out we were using artificial orbs that drain the willpower of their subjects and cause the legendaries to take control of us.”
Shelly added, “if the legends hadn’t snapped us out of the daze, well, that kid and his Pikachu and… Lance… why was he in Hoenn anyway? Well, anyway, chances are Archie and Pikachu would have begun a duel to the death in the skies over Sootopolis with both losing their sanity, to the point that the Elite 4, Wallace, and Steven would have had to seal in the battle between Kyogre and Groudon while Rayquaza would have to be awoken to stop the two raging deities. Chances are Steven and, I don’t know… Norman would lose their lives, too, until Celebi would fix everything.”
Balthasar once again said nothing. Finally, he said, “that was overly specific. Now, back to the topic at hand.”
“Which is…?” Shelly asked.
“The Great and Glorious SEA!?” Archie declared boisterously.
“Um… no. Actually, Misty’s dead,” Balthasar said.
“WHAT!” Archie and Shelly said, shocked. “Why didn’t we hear?” Shelly asked. As if on cue, a massive, walrus-like pokémon swam into a fountain by Archie’s desk and roared to signify its arrival. Archie grabbed a paper around the Walrein’s neck, read it, and stumbled back to his desk.
“He’s right,” Archie said simply. “Thanks, Aqua,” he said to the Walrein, who barked happily and swam out into a massive aquarium complex behind Archie’s desk.
“Was it Maxie?” Archie demanded of Balthasar.
“We don’t know,” was all Balthasar said, and as quickly as he burst in, he was gone.
“Maybe we should call that Ash guy she liked to talk about?” Shelly asked.
“Yeah,” said a dazed Archie. “Let’s do that.”
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Ash, Dento, and Iris were once again walking through Isshu, this time past Sanyou City. Jessie, James, and Meowth had attacked twice today already (yesterday they had attacked five times more) and in no short time of all Ash, Dento, Iris, Kibago, and Pikachu had all fallen into a hole.
“It worked! I told you, Jessie!” an effeminate man with magenta hair said from the bushes.
“I knew it would from the start!” a woman with dark red hair snapped back. They were both dressed in their black uniforms with a red ‘R’ emblazoned across the front: proof of their demotion from special agent to common grunt, although they did not know it.
“Listen up, you two!” their final companion, a talking Meowth, said, “we need to go catch Pikachu!”
All three waited for Wobbufett to pop out and respond, but he didn’t reply, of course, forcing Mime Jr. to fill in for him. “That’s right!” he declared.
Before Team Rocket could act, however, a deep voice from behind them said, “going somewhere?” The Rockets gulped and turned around to face a Dusknoir with a seemingly flowing cloak. In no short time at all, they had Thunderpunched into a nearby forest, off-setting their attempt to catch Pikachu (again) by 12.34 minutes.
Ash, Dento, and Iris meanwhile had succeeded in crawling out, only to come face to face with a Dusknoir. Dento fainted and fell back into the hole (“It’s a hole in one!” declared Meowth) while Iris asked Ash how a Sinnoh pokémon was in Isshu, besides Pikachu, Meowth, and Jame’s pokémon, of course.
“I don’t know,” Ash replied. Dusknoir sighed and shook his head, before turning to face Ash, Iris, and Dento, who were just now crawling up back out of the hole. Team Rocket had snuck to another bush, but was waiting for Dusknoir to leave.
“This may come as a shock to you-“ Dusknoir began.
“I have to save the world again?” Ash asked.
“No.”
“His pokémon have all evolved through months of training?” Dento asked.
“No.”
“He’s going to become a Frontier Brain?” asked Iris.
“No, but I believe he had the chance,” Dusknoir replied.
“Brock finally got to date a girl?” asked Ash.
“No- actually, I don’t know,” Dusknoir said thoughtfully.
“Ash has become the posthumous Champion of the Indigo League?” Dento asked. Everyone stared at him, including Team Rocket, Kibago, and Pikachu, although not Ash himself. “What?” Dento asked defensively.
“Definitely not, although it does have to do with death-“ Dusknoir replied.
“Team Rocket’s finally dead?” Ash asked, partially filled with hope, partially with horror.
“No we aren’t, twerp!” Team Rocket called from the bushes, which was answered with a Thunderbolt from Pikachu.
“Drake has died?” Iris asked, “or Shago?”
“Who? Oh, never mind, I don’t know that either,” Dusknoir angrily replied.
“Pryce turned out to be a crazed man who used Ho-oh and Lugia to kidnap children and turn them into slaves, used two feathers to make a custom pokéball that could control Celebi, and took on Ho-oh with a Delibird all to rescue his two lost Lapras and reunite them with their offspring?” Dento asked. Once again, everyone, including Ash, stared at him.
“Well, actually, that did happen, just not here. Different universe. Anyway, what actually happened was-“ Dusknoir said.
“I got dozens of phone calls from… Brock, Tracey, Gary, my mom, Misty’s gym, Archie of Team Aqua, May, and Max?” Ash inquired.
“Uh… yes?” Dusknoir stated. Ash frowned and answered Brock’s call.
“Hi Brock. What? Why would? Wha-? You’re wrong!” Ash said, turning off the call. He pressed the button for Tracey and reacted the same way. The same thing happened with Max and Gary as well.
Ash pressed the button for Archie’s call. “Hello, Archie of Team Aqua? Oh, the… TAWPRC? Well, let me guess, you’re going to lie and say that… what?! She’d never do that!” Ash turned the call off and answered May’s call. “Hi May. Liar! You-you’re being a liar! If Archie says- I don’t believe you. No, no, no.” Ash said, and once again he terminated the call.
“Hi Mom. No! Stop- stop it! That’s a lie! Erghh! Hi- hi Mimey. Bye Mom,” Ash said, and he pressed his last call: Misty’s gym. Ash simply held it by his side, and all, even Team Rocket say, “We regret to inform Mr. Ash Ketchum that his friend, Gym Leader Misty Waterflower of Cerulean City, has been found dead this morning. Please don’t let it impact your quest. Sincerely, the Temporal Intelligence Network.”
Ash turned the phone off and pocketed it. Then he sat down and he and Pikachu began to cry. Dusknoir observed the scene, shrugged, and vanished. Team Rocket would’ve attacked, but instead they decided to join Iris, Kibago, Ash’s pokémon, and Dento, and Ash’s friends’ pokémon in mourning Ash’s second-longest-known human friend.
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Many kilometers away, Dawn and Kenny could tell something was wrong. They had met up with Zoey and were currently staying the night in a Hoenn Pokémon Center, in Lilycove City. Team Aqua grunts, dressed in formal black outfits, lead by Archie, who had dressed similarly, had held an oceanic funeral where they had sent a commander’s uniform, a portrait of Gym Leader Misty of Cerulean, ceremonial ashes, and a spare license drifting into the sea. Most everyone in Lilycove had watched a rare Team Aqua funeral, in honor of a fallen comrade in a far-away region. Dawn’s Pokégear had buzzed with a call from Brock that had quickly answered who, exactly, Team Aqua was burying (Dawn and her friends couldn’t tell from their cliff top perch). And meanwhile, to the far east, time had frozen in Mossdeep City. The wind did not blow; a massive tidal wave had halted in its tracks. A space plane being launched was forever frozen, its astronauts’ and operators’ faces displaying their last expressions while the space plane’s engines did not roar nor send the plane into space. And in the heart of the city, the gym, the psychic twins forming the gym leader team were forever frozen in their effort to beat a particularly stubborn challenger.
So there you go. All advice, criticisms, complaints, questions, etc. allowed.
And don't take this as the strict future. As they say in the fic, this isn't in continuity with Speargun, and I hope I shall not spread any spoilers.
Chapter I: Aqua
An official Indigo League van pulled into the Cerulean Gym’s driveway. Police officers had already swarmed the Gym; a Sableye detachment representing the Prime Minister and the League were escorting a body out of the gym. Several shaken gym trainers and the gym leader’s sobbing sisters all waited by the door, some sitting, some standing, as the covered body of the dead Gym Leader Misty was carted away to the morgue.
Prime Minister Max Dark and his bodyguards Fred the Salamance and Balthasar the Metagross stepped out of the League van. They nodded to the Sableye and walked into the gym. Inside, more Sableye and several police officers were busy examining the entire gym from top to bottom. Dusknoir had already arrived and was dressed in his usual cloak of ethereal cloth used by Dialga’s special agents and spies. The Sableye were dressed in the same cloaks, of course, confusing the human police on why they had to work with these strange, well-dressed, and talking ghost-and-dark type pokémon. The water in the large Olympic-sized swimming pool was being drained, leaving behind water pokémon who were flopping around, only to be returned to their pokéballs by gym trainers and police officers.
“What happened?” asked the Prime Minister to Dusknoir as the latter joined the group.
“I assume you heard?” Dusknoir asked. The PM shook his head.
“I was told to come here right away by one of your Sableye. Unfortunately, he didn’t tell me why, and my reports haven’t come in yet,” the Prime Minister responded, glancing all about the room.
“This morning at 10:37 a gym trainer came into the gym for routine maintenance while the gym leader, Misty, was on vacation diving around Sootopolis City, supposedly. However, as he was finishing up his duties, a Spinarak fell on his head. Both the trainer and the spider were startled and the spider quickly returned up into the rafters. Since the gym leader is rather… bug hating after an incident in her childhood, he was surprised to see a living bug in the gym. He followed the spider’s ascent with his eyes, and in the process he saw the gym leader suspended by a noose from a catwalk, covered in various bugs attempting to eat her, to no avail since they all had a tendency to fall off her body at such a high altitude,” Dusknoir explained.
“How didn’t they notice the smell?” Fred complained as he covered his nose in a vain attempt to not detect the lingering scent of death.
“They assumed the smell came from several dead pokémon that have shown up in the water. It seems a can of… something fell into the water and poisoned it long enough to kill a Gyarados and several water pokémon, despite the best efforts of the filter, which had broken down when gym trainers arrived three days ago. First it seems that several Poliwag died from poisoning, and then a rather large Seel, and finally a crippled Gyarados still recuperating from an injury a while back. The stench created by those pokémon decomposing masked the smell of the gym leader decomposing. Plus, the gym leader hasn’t begun to rot enough for her to start falling apart,” Dusknoir explained. The Prime Minister was fascinated, Balthasar was calmly examining the minds of every trainer, pokémon, and officer, and Fred was disgusted but still attempting to do his duty.
“How’d she die?” Fred asked. Dusknoir glanced at him.
“We don’t know. Right now she’s being carted away for an autopsy. Chances are it was her being hanged or hanging herself,” Dusknoir replied.
Balthasar surveyed the gym and also turned to Dusknoir after being thrown out of Dusknoir’s mind by the irate and mysterious ghost. “Did she have any suicidal urges?” he intoned.
“I doubt it. Her annual meeting with a League psychiatrist a few months back yielded nothing, and she certainly displayed no urges or suicidal tendencies according to the gym trainers,” Dusknoir replied.
“Odd, well, I suppose the important thing to know is if Project 3 is still locked away,” the Prime Minister responded.
“Does it even exist here, in this dimension? I mean, this is a propaganda cartoon, after all,” Fred replied.
“For whatever reason, I can sense it,” Balthasar said after a moment of concentration. “And no one has been in it for 15 years, sir.”
The Prime Minister frowned. “Has Cyrus been taken away by Giratina yet, then? And Team Rocket’s resurgence defeated?”
“No.” Dusknoir replied. “As Fred said, this is the propaganda cartoon in some sort of alternate dimension. Every event that happened in that show has happened here, as well. Thus, Cyrus is dead and/or drifting through a new universe, and Team Rocket never fell.”
“Anyway,” Balthasar continued, disrupting everyone’s thoughts about being in an alternate dimension with no known way home, “did the gym leader have a case of depression?”
“Not according to the gym trainers and her sisters,” Dusknoir responded. “Go with him,” Dusknoir said abruptly, gesturing to a Sableye that had just come over to Dusknoir and was awaiting instructions, “and examine the gym leader’s bedroom and study. Oh, and Prime Minister,” he added, “your earlier request to see Master Dialga has been denied.”
The Prime Minister nodded and he, his bodyguards, and the Sableye walked upstairs and into the gym’s living quarters. “What’s your name?” asked Fred to the Sableye.
“Not important, not important, weh-heh-heh,” he responded, and added, “but if you must know, it’s Schwarz. Wheh-heh-heh!”
Fred laughed nervously and switched places with Balthasar, who snorted at his comrade’s fear of Dusknoir’s Sableye, ‘who, come to think of it, are pretty terrifying’, Balthasar thought.
“Oh, and Fred,” Balthasar said aloud (thought aloud?), “Please stop panicking about Schwarz attempting to kill you and eat you. It’s unfounded and offensive and you know it.”
“Sorry,” Fred apologized to Schwarz, who nodded in recognition and walked over to a door with a sign that read ‘Misty’s Room: no nosy sisters and Psyducks allowed!’ Schwarz simply used Shadow Sneak to go beneath the door and unlock the door from the inside and let his companions in.
The Gym Leader’s room was a mess. For starters, the floor was covered with dirty laundry: all strangely similar outfits, too. A Pokégear had been unceremoniously deposited on the desk. The closet was open, displaying all manner of neatly folded (and still highly similar) clothes. The bathroom door was similarly open, with a hamper holding open the door. The bed was unmade, and a pair of keys for the filtration system had been dumped on the bed. The lights were all off, of course, and the window was tightly shut. Hanging on the walls were a great number of things: Lorelei and her twin sister Prima had portraits hanging on the wall. A painting of Wallace the Water champion of Hoenn hung over a dresser, an autographed photograph of Wallace hanging on the wall next to the painting. A picture of the gym leader and the daughter of the Petalburg gym leader had been added right over the light switches. Pictures from all over Kanto, Johto, and some sort of island local showed the gym leader, some black-haired boy, and a tanned man with shut eyes, or, if tropical, a man with pale skin holding a Marill.
“Shall we split up?” Balthasar asked Schwarz, who nodded.
“Wear gloves, don’t disturb too much,” he reminded, and his companions nodded.
Fred examined the closet and the content of her dresser and found nothing of note. He did notice a trophy and several pictures from something called the Whirl Cup, and a set of nice dolls with a tag on them that said ‘give to Jessie if I have the chance’. ‘Now she’ll never have the chance,’ Fred thought sorrowfully.
‘So,’ Balthasar responded, butting into Fred’s thoughts, ‘Jessie was apparently some enemy of hers. Focus on the situation, Fred!’
Speaking of Balthasar, he had been examining the floor for anything of note, of which he found nothing. Besides clothes, there wasn’t much else. However, Balthasar could tell there was something important under the bed, which he psychically transported the item over to himself. ‘Team Aqua’ was emblazoned across a small metal footlocker, which caused Balthasar opened its locks psychically to see what was inside. Inside was a Team Aqua outfit, a pamphlet on the wonders of the sea and the evils of Team Magma, and a membership license. “Schwartz,” Balthasar called out, “this needs to go to Dusknoir.” The Sableye nodded and grabbed the container and phased out for a moment, before returning rather hungry. Schwartz rapidly ate an apple, core and all, and got back to work.
The Prime Minister, meanwhile, was examining the portraits and photographs, and he, too, found nothing of note. He did, however, notice a photograph of the gym leader in a Team Aqua uniform standing proudly next to Archie, the boss of Team Aqua, and Shelly, Archie’s wife and second-in-command. He pondered the photograph for a second before also alerting Schwartz to it, who nodded in acknowledgement and turned back to his examination.
Schwartz had examined the bathroom. For a gym leader’s bedroom, it was rather small, nothing but a shower bath, a sink and counter, and a separate room for the toilet. There were no photographs or portraits, just a painting of a Vaporeon and a Milotic doing… something on the wall (Schwarz couldn’t tell what they were doing). The shower bath was in serious need of cleaning, but had accumulated no bugs as far as Schwarz could tell. In any case, the towels had been hung haphazardly on a towel rack, and the curtain had been drawn back on the shower bath. The toilet room, in comparison, was clean, well lit, and well stocked, although Schwarz had no idea what most of the things in the room beside the toilet paper were. Schwarz continued his examination of the bathroom, but discovered nothing of interest, except for a bandana with an odd, Koffing-like mark on it that he took, along with the photograph that the PM had found, to Dusknoir.
“Done?” Fred asked. Schwarz nodded and lead the group to the study, which had no markings besides a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign. Once again Schwarz unlocked the door from the inside and examined the study.
Compared to the gym leader’s room, the study was the paragon of order and perfection. Various gym papers were neatly organized into stacks on the desk. At the back of the room, two bookcases full of Water-related books flanked a massive painting of Kyogre locked in battle with Groudon, although there was clear bias in that Kyogre looked to be easily winning. Hanging on the sidewalls and on the wall with the door were portraits. From the first gym leader, Aquinas, to the latest gym leader, Misty herself, and flanking the door were pictures of Lorelei and Archie. The floor was clean and clear of papers or clothes. A file cabinet, disguised as an upright Gyarados, was situated in a corner of the room, while in another corner was a large, comfy-looking chair.
Once again, the group split up to examine the room. Balthasar examined the bookcase and found a binder of clippings about Team Aqua, about Team Rocket, and about the exploits of someone named Ash Ketchum. The book topics all had something to do with water, from desalination to the effects of water pollution to aquaculture and hydroponics.
The Prime Minister, being a politician, examined the desk and all its forms, along with the file cabinet documents. He saw that Misty liked requests: mostly requests to visit first Hoenn, then Sinnoh, and now Isshu. Despite all these repeated requests, all of them had been denied. In addition to the requests, there were complaint notices about lack of security against perverts (Officer Jenny won’t let me sic Gyarados on them, she had wrote), letters to various friends, and various forms having to deal with gym maintenance. The final notice, dated July 12, which had been six days ago, and had been a letter written to someone named Gary about gym upgrade requirements. The file cabinet had held more of the same documents as had appeared on the desk, although a letter about Team Aqua in Kanto had apparently been drafted but never sent. The contents seemed to run along the lines of Team Aqua not being a problem in Kanto.
Schwarz had decided to examine the paper clippings in the paper shredder. Using his partial ability to control time thanks to his status as a Temporal Intelligence worker, he reverted the documents back to their original state, but found nothing of interest. The papers were mostly hastily written declarations of love and terrible poetry to someone named Ash. Occasionally, he found one that had different words than usual, but the PM had refused to explain what exactly Schwarz had found. Some documents were things like important government and bank information, and Schwarz also found several shredded credit cards, which belonged to, in addition to the oddly-worded documents Schwarz had found, someone named Daisy. Still, Schwarz had found absolutely nothing of actual interest, except for a certain letter that had been shredded that begun, “Dearest Ash, I have joined Team Aqua…”
Fred had gone about the room, but had found nothing of interest, as usual. However, Fred’s sharp eyes detected something in the corner. He turned to it and saw what had happened to the corner: a web of cracks had extended from it, and a small scorch-mark had appeared.
“Guys,” he said, “the Rocket War happened here.”
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“So you believe gym leader Misty was part of Team Aqua,” Dusknoir asked Schwarz as he relayed the findings the group had found.
“Yes, Lord Dusknoir. I’m sure you have examined the photograph, the kit, and that bandanna already,” he replied. Dusknoir nodded.
“This is conclusive evidence,” he said. “What else did you find?”
The Prime Minister held up the letter about Team Aqua, bagged already, of course. “This letter is extremely suspicious. She denies the existence of Team Aqua in Kanto far too much.”
Balthasar psychically held up the binder of clippings he found. “She’s been keeping track of them too, although that in no way proves she’s guilty of being an Aqua,” he said. Fred nodded.
“And I found this,” Schwarz said, holding up the bagged letter, “a letter to someone named Dearest Ash about her joining Team Aqua. It appears that this letter was drafted about two years ago, and was to be mailed to Hoenn,” he explained.
Dusknoir sighed and commented, “I think she’s talking to her friend Ash. ‘Dearest’ is just a human way of showing appreciation for each other.”
“Oh, and Lord Dusknoir, what is this?” Dusknoir asked, handing the oddly worded letter to Dusknoir. He briefly read it and incinerated it.
“Nothing you need to read,” he replied, thinking to himself ‘it would be terrible if Schwarz decided to add on to his cooking skills, or lack thereof. Good thing he doesn’t know what a quiche is.’ Balthasar and the Prime Minister were confused, of course, since they had assumed that the letter was less than clean, with ‘quiche’ being euphemism for something.
“Anyway,” Dusknoir continued, habitually straitening out his cloak, “someone should tell Misty’s friends about her death before the media twists the facts. I’ll go tell this Ash person,” Dusknoir said, vanishing immediately after that.
Fred and Schwarz sighed in amusement at Dusknoir’s manner of business and turned to face the PM.
“I’ll go tell...” the PM began, before adding, “that May person. She’s from Petalburg, so I’ll go there. I get the plane. Balthasar, Fred, I can handle things right now,” he added as his bodyguards began to follow him. They nodded and he left.
“I’ll go meet Brock; I read about in one of her letters,” Fred announced and he too left the gym.
“I guess I shall go meet this Tracey person I saw on the photographs,” Schwarz said.
“He’s in Pallet Town,” Balthasar said. Schwarz nodded, not even wanting to know how Balthasar knew that, and Schwarz ran off. Balthasar pondered for a moment and decided to go tell Archie. Now, if only he knew where he was…
Balthasar rushed out of the gym and began to use Magnet Rise to soar over Kanto, and, using his psychic powers and his knowledge of aerodynamics and physics, Balthasar rocketed toward Hoenn.
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Max, brother of May, and the son of Norman, the Petalburg gym leader, was training in the gardens of the gym. “Ralts,” he yelled use Confusion!” Ralts followed though, blasting a Slaking with Confusion. The Slaking yawned and used Slack Off, regaining all the health Max had steadily been chipping away. “Poochyena!” Max shouted, incensed, “use Tackle!” Once more, the move had no effect. Finally, Slaking opened his eye after a Bullet Seed by Max’s Treecko and used Façade to KO all of Max’s pokémon at once.
Whatever Max shouted in anger, however, was lost when the massive rumbling of a jet-black VTOL plane the size of a private plane blasted pillars of fire onto the ground, allowing the plane to land. With a fading mechanical whir, the plane fell silent. Slowly, a door opened and out stepped a sharply dressed man with short white hair, a red tie, and a solid black suit. Despite this, Max couldn’t help but feel a little unsettled by the man. Behind him followed a cheerfully flipping pokémon that looked sort of like a malformed, but colorful, duck, whose head was unattached to its body.
Max, curious of course, opened up his Pokédex and aimed it at the cheerful flipping duck. “Porygon-Z, the Virtual Pokémon. This Pokémon was created when a Porygon2 had rather dubious data added to it in an attempt to increase its usefulness. Despite this, the data malfunctioned and caused Porygon-Z to function erratically.”
The man and the Porygon-Z walked up to the front door and knocked on it. Caroline emerged and talked with the man for a little, before she shook her head and said something. The man nodded, and turned to Porygon-Z and pointed at the garden. Porygon-Z nodded (or at least looked like it did) and it vanished, before a buzzing sound in Max’s Pokédex produced Porygon-Z itself.
“HeLlo,” it said, some parts of its word more accentuated due to its constant flipping, “wheRE is MaY, YoUr SiSteR?” it asked.
“Uh…” Max said, taken aback at the pokémon’s sudden speech, “she’s in Ecutreak City, at a contest,” he replied. “Why?”
“GyM leAdER MiSty oF CerUlEan CiTY is DeAd. We ShalL WaRN heR FriEnDs! AnD InVEstiGAte TeAm AQua!” the Porygon replied and vanished. At first, the words confused Max, before he realized Porygon’s meaning. Max decided to call Ash while he recovered from such startling news.
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“WELCOME TO THE JOHTO GRAND FESTIVAL! PEOPLE OF ALL AGES, POKéMON OF ALL SIZES, WELCOME TO THE EVENT OF THE YEAR, BESIDES THE SILVER CONFERANCE!” the crowd roared in response to this announcement, but the roar of thousands of people was drowned out by the roar of a VTOL plane that was blasting pillars of fire down on the contest field. All at once, the crowd started booing, some even throwing things at the plane, and in response the plane shot off an abnormally loud flare that temporarily blinded anyone who had watched it explode.
The plane’s door opened and out stepped the Prime Minister, who whipped out two pistols and pointed them at the security personal. They made no attempt to stop him, so he walked over to the coordinator’s lounge and handed his pistols to a security guard. “Hold onto these, will you? Oh, and you’re being watched,” he said, pointing at a video camera which was now stubbornly following the guard’s every movement.
Inside the Coordinator’s Lounge was a hive of activity. Screens showing the plane landing had caused a large amount of talk within the coordinators, who had previously been planning out strategies. “It’s Team Rocket again, isn’t it?” May asked miserably, viewing the plane.
“No ‘R’,” one of her friends and her main rival, Drew, replied.
“Might be undercover,” Solidad countered, and Drew was forced to concede her point.
“Maybe they’re looking for May for cheating?” Harley, May’s other rival, hissed.
“You lost, fair and square,” Solidad snapped. She had become a fast friend of May, and was already a friend of Harley and Drew when she had met May last year.
“And it was that Team Rocket attack out of nowhere that caused Wartortle to his you with an Ice Beam, not cheating,” May growled.
“Or you’re just trying to justify an actual act of aggression by covering it up with a freak Rocket attack,” someone said. All four turned to see a man dressed in a solid black suit, with a red tie, short white hair, and light blue eyes. “I assume the one with the odd Middle Eastern outfit,” he said, holding up a picture of May in the Wallace Cup, “is you?” he asked, pointing at May.
“Yeah,” May answered.
“Hmm. Well-“ he began, but Drew cut him off.
“Is that your plane?” he demanded. The man nodded, and turned back to May.
“As I was saying-“ the man began again, but was cut off by Drew once more.
“And you’re not one of those perverts, are you?” he demanded.
The man snorted. “She’s what, 13? I’m not a pervert, nor am I a stalker of some kind or a pedophile. And I can tell you’ve had past encounters with these people?” he asked, disinterested. The man did seem to find the attempts to pick up his plane by use of Machamp amusing, however.
“We all have.” Solidad replied, “except Harley.”
“You’d be surprised,” Harley responded.
“Now, as I was saying,” the man said, and after glaring at Drew, he continued, “I have come to inform you that your friend Misty of the Cerulean City Gym is dead, and that I need to speak with you once the Grand Festival is done. Bring your over-protective boyfriend, too, if you have to,” he said, causing both May and Drew to furiously blush and causing Harley to snicker at them.
‘What are they, grade school children?’ the Prime Minister thought, and added, “oh, and I’m the Prime Minister, by the way. You’ll know who I am when you see me.”
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“Brock isn’t here right now,” answered Flint, who was not in anyway confused about why a Hypno wearing a strange shimmering cloak and a Salamance with body armor who was somehow talking were asking for his son. “He’s visiting Lucy, at the Battle Pike.”
“Ah,” the naturally deep-voiced Hypno named Lua responded. “Thank you, Mr. Flint,” she said, and then climbed onto Fred’s back in preparation for flying to the Battle Pike.
“So? Where’s the Battle Pike?” Fred asked Lua, who had agreed to come and help Fred in his quest to find Brock.
“Supposed to be in Hoenn, but according to the memories I extracted from Flint, or rather memories of Brock’s tales to Flint, it’s somewhere near Fuschia City,” Lua responded. After a short flight, which Lua thoroughly enjoyed due to her hobby of dragon riding, Lua and Fred had touched down at the Battle Pike.
“Stop!” a woman yelled as she ran up to meet them, “do you have an appointment with the Pike Queen! Well, strange quadruped flying man and short man with large nose! Answer me!”
“I am female!” Lua shouted, but Fred was just hopelessly confused about how no one noticed that he was a Salamance who could talk.
“So what? Do you have an appointment?” the woman demanded.
“Yes. Go away, pest,” Lua snapped, using Psychic to convince the woman that Lua was right, allowing the two to walk into the Pike. After dealing with guards, wild pokémon, mazes, and holographic trainers (which meant that Fred did all the work while Lua convinced the guards they were expected. They emerged in the battle arena but still found no one.
“Where are they?” Fred asked, frustrated and slightly tired.
“In the office right there,” Lua said, pointing at a door.
“That says ‘Rec Room’, Lua,” Fred replied.
“Same difference,” Lua said dismissively, and they opened the door to the Rec Room. Only two people were inside: a man with tan-brown skin and dark brown hair who, if Fred and Lua could see him, would appear to have constantly shut eyes. The other person was a woman with vaguely Asian characteristics; she did not, however, have shut eyes. They were both holding hands and watching a movie, joined by numerous pokémon, especially a Croagunk who Fred and Lua recognized.
“Tim!” they both cried at once.
“Hey Fred, Lua,” he croaked, “How’ve you been?”
“Same as ever,” Fred said. “Why are you here, though?”
“I was testing an illusionary cloak,” he said, and in a heartbeat Tim appeared to be wearing a cloak of solid gold. “Unfortunately, attempting to turn the cloak into Temporal Armor threw me through time and space, and I ended up outside a Pokémart in Sinnoh. I tried several times to return with the cloak, but to no avail. I decided to wait and see if any coalition forces passed through, and in no time at all I met a talking Meowth. I figured he was the best bet I had to get home, so I followed and helped work for that Meowth and his band of clowns, of which the only ones I knew were the Wobbufett and Seviper, who had also fallen through time and space and were trying to find a way home.”
“Who’d they work for?” Lua asked.
“Wobbufett worked for Cresselia. Seviper’s part of the Coalition, so we were comrades; since the leaders were gone he had simply decided on infiltration, much like I did, although of a different group,” Tim replied.
“What’s the Seviper’s name?” inquired Fred.
“Chris,” Tim said.
“I wondered what happened to Chris,” Lua mused, “he was very popular.”
“Especially with the ladies,” Fred sulked.
“Meh-heh-heh-heh. Well, anyway, Chris and I decided to split: he would watch those clowns, and I would watch this ladies’ man right here,” Time said, whacking Brock’s arm, something he didn’t notice since he was actually holding hands with a girl.
“Still, that was like a year ago, right?” Fred asked. Tim nodded.
“Don’t worry, I didn’t become bored. Watch,” he instructed.
For a few seconds, they waited, until Brock suddenly declared, “that woman is the pinnacle of all beautiful ladies in the world!” In response to his outburst, Tim used Poison Jab on his arm.
“Thank you, Croagunk.” Lucy said, before turning to Brock and saying, “you said you wouldn’t act this way!”
“OK, OK, fine,” Brock stammered, sitting up. “Second most beautiful in the world, with the first being you, of course!”
“They’re going out for dinner soon,” Tim continued, “so I suggest you tell him what you came here for soon. I need to stay around this idiot for a little longer, at least until time stops here.”
“Won’t that take a while?” Fred asked as Lua walked over to Brock to deliver her news.
“Two weeks at most,” Tim responded.
“WHAT!” Fred roared, causing Brock and Lucy to realize that a Salamance and a Hypno had somehow snuck in.
“Look! A quadruped man with wings, a tail, and a long neck!” Brock declared, before adding, “or a Salamance.”
“And a short man with a large nose,” Lucy proclaimed, “or a Hypno,” she added.
Lua counted to ten backwards before turning to Brock. “Listen up,” the Hypno said, “we came to inform you that your friend, the gym leader Misty, has-“
“Told Ash how she really feels?” Brock guessed.
“Nah,” Tim added, “they just came to tell you that she doesn’t burn water anymore.” While Brock and Lucy couldn’t understand what Tim had said, many of the pokémon in the room snickered at the comment.
“Actually,” Lua said, “she’s dead.”
“Why’d she turn red?” Brock asked, confused.
“Brock,” Lucy said softly, “he-“
“SHE!” Lua shouted.
(“Just like Lexi,” Tim commented, “so self-conscious. How are they, anyway?”
“Good,” Fred added, “Although they miss you.”)
“Er, right, well, she said that Misty, your friend, is dead,” Lucy finished. Brock was silent for a moment, before suddenly wiping a tear out of his eye and proclaiming that he had to speak to Ash.
“Take care!” Tim called, “I’ll find a way to cheer the big oaf up!”
“…Right,” Fred said, and he and Lua left the Battle Pike and took off to head back towards Cerulean.
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Ah, don’t you love the fresh smell of Ms. Ketchum’s buns?” asked Professor Oak as he, Gary, Tracey, Delia, and Agatha settled down for dinner. Tracey and Gary snickered at the comment, causing Agatha to whack them over the head with her cane, while Delia and Oak had no idea why the two were laughing.
“Get your minds out of the gutter, boys, or I’ll send Gengar to your dreams!” she snapped.
“Y-yes Grandma,” Gary said. Tracey nodded in fear.
In a short while, all five people were eating. Agatha in particular was impressed with Delia’s cooking. Suddenly, there was a knocking. “Bulbasaur, could you get that?” Oak called.
Bulbasaur rushed into the front hall and opened the door. In walked a Sableye wearing an odd cloak. He looked left and right, nodded to Bulbasaur, and hovered up to the dining room. “Good evening,” it said, “I have come to deliver a message for a Mr. Tracey.”
“For starters,” he asked, “how good is this ‘quiche’ that Miss Daisy makes?”
“After Ms. Ketchum modified the recipe,” Tracey responded, “it was delicious!”
The other four people in the room were perplexed. Agatha was wondering how this Sableye had acquired the clothes of a Temporal Intelligence agent. Oak was wondering how the Sableye had learned to talk. Gary was wondering why it had come all this way to ask about a quiche made by Tracey’s girlfriend. And Delia was wondering if the Sableye knew a good recipe or two that they could swap.
“Oh, and second-“ the Sableye began.
“How did you get that cloak?” Agatha demanded.
“This one?” the Sableye asked, referring to his cloak.
“Yes,” Agatha hissed, before handing her cane to him. The Sableye studied it for a moment before handing it back. Agatha was a member of the Antimatter Lords, and now Agatha knew that the Sableye, named Schwarz, was a member of the Temporal Intelligence Network. Seemingly satisfied, Agatha leaned back in her chair.
“Anyway-“ Schwarz continued.
“How’d you learn to speak Human?” Oak asked, excited.
“I’ve always known,” Schwarz said, and continued, “So you see, the-“
“Why did you come all the way to talk about a quiche?” Gary asked. Schwarz’s eye twitched.
“WILL YOU JUST LISTEN!?” Schwarz shouted, cowing everyone except Delia.
“Know any recipes?” Delia asked Schwarz.
“Hmm? Oh, sure. Here ya go,” Schwarz said, handing Delia a recipie collection, and continued, “Gym Leader Misty of Cerulean City-“
“Admitted her feelings to Ash?” Tracey asked.
“Dearest Ash?” Schwarz asked.
“My son is named Ash… well, Ash Ketchum, not Dearest Ash,” Delia said.
“I’m pretty sure she means Ash Ketchum. Dearest is something people-“ Gary said.
“Lord Dusknoir already told me,” the Sableye responded. “Anyway-“
“She’s dead, isn’t she?” Agatha asked. Schwarz nodded, Tracey was horrified, Gary was shocked, Oak was surprised and jumped up to confirm what Agatha had said, and Delia blinked a few times.
“Oh… she was going to make such a nice daughter-in-law,” Delia said as she burst into tears. A Mr. Mime rushed up to help her.
“So then I says,” the Mr. Mime said, “what’s happenin’ to you, dame? And then she says-“
“Oh Mimey,” Delia sobbed, “why do these things happen?”
“And then I says, these are the facts of life, dame. Let’s go put you to bed and find those killers. And then she says-“
“B-bye Tracey and Sa- Samuel and the others, have a g- good night,” Delia said.
“And then I says, they’ll rest easy with Detective Mimeson on the case. And then she says-“
“Come on, Mimey. Let- let’s go call Ash.”
“And then I says, sure thing, I’ll go call the dame’s son.”
Schwarz, confused, watched as Delia, escorted by Mimeson, left the room. “Is he always like that?” the Sableye asked out loud.
“His name is Noir Mimeson, he thinks he’s a detective in 1920s America, and his worst enemy is the Dust Mafia,” Agatha replied, “and I don’t think he got all the noir stuff right, either.”
“You know,” Tracey and Gary said together, “I’m gonna go call Ash.”
Schwarz shrugged and turned to Agatha. “Hey, AM-L lady, can you tell me why the Viridian Forest has a spatial rift in the middle of it?”
“Name’s Agatha, Schwarz, and the rift is just one problem that’s arisen as of late…” Agatha said ominously.
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The doors to Archie’s office in the Team Aqua Water Pokémon Restoration Center (TAWPRC) outside of Lilycove City slammed open as a massive Metagross with a fine, light armor of shimmering Ariados-Silksteel hovered in. Archie was sitting in his desk, pretending to be doing paperwork but in reality watching “Galactic: A Drama”, a play about Cyrus and Cynthia’s ill-fated romance (which was sued for libel and slander by both Cynthia, Solari Akagi on behalf of his missing/dead grandson, Team Galactic, and apparently Giratina). “ARCHIE!” someone yelled from another room.
“YES DEAR?” Archie yelled back.
“ARE YOU WATCHING ‘GALACTIC’ AGAIN OR ARE YOU DOING YOUR WORK?” the other person yelled.
“Uh… DOING MY WORK, SHELLY!” Archie called, turning the play to mute as he did so. And then he noticed Balthasar, who had decided to clean the rust off of the doors as he waited for Archie to notice him.
“Archie of Team Aqua?” Balthasar asked, speeding menacingly across the room and right infront of Archie’s desk.
“Actually, I’m from the Team Aqua Water Pokémon Restoration Center, TAWPRC for short, and I-“ Archie smugly replied.
“I have no time for your smugness,” Balthasar growled, and he produced a picture of Misty. “Recognize her?”
“Leader of TAWPRC’s branch in Kanto,” Archie replied. “She’s very dedicated.”
“Did she help you with Kyogre?” Balthasar asked.
Archie shook his head. Shelly, his wife, walked in and added, “Misty had no hand in acquiring the orb, although she did help with the expedition to find Kyogre by Captain Stern. What she has done for us is research the Kyogre myth and how we could beat Groudon once and for all.”
Balthasar chose to say nothing. You would think they wouldn’t be so obsessed with the sea.
“Anyway, after the Kyogre fiasco, we discovered what went wrong, thanks to Misty’s team in the Ruins of Alph,” Archie said, his confidence growing. “Turns out we were using artificial orbs that drain the willpower of their subjects and cause the legendaries to take control of us.”
Shelly added, “if the legends hadn’t snapped us out of the daze, well, that kid and his Pikachu and… Lance… why was he in Hoenn anyway? Well, anyway, chances are Archie and Pikachu would have begun a duel to the death in the skies over Sootopolis with both losing their sanity, to the point that the Elite 4, Wallace, and Steven would have had to seal in the battle between Kyogre and Groudon while Rayquaza would have to be awoken to stop the two raging deities. Chances are Steven and, I don’t know… Norman would lose their lives, too, until Celebi would fix everything.”
Balthasar once again said nothing. Finally, he said, “that was overly specific. Now, back to the topic at hand.”
“Which is…?” Shelly asked.
“The Great and Glorious SEA!?” Archie declared boisterously.
“Um… no. Actually, Misty’s dead,” Balthasar said.
“WHAT!” Archie and Shelly said, shocked. “Why didn’t we hear?” Shelly asked. As if on cue, a massive, walrus-like pokémon swam into a fountain by Archie’s desk and roared to signify its arrival. Archie grabbed a paper around the Walrein’s neck, read it, and stumbled back to his desk.
“He’s right,” Archie said simply. “Thanks, Aqua,” he said to the Walrein, who barked happily and swam out into a massive aquarium complex behind Archie’s desk.
“Was it Maxie?” Archie demanded of Balthasar.
“We don’t know,” was all Balthasar said, and as quickly as he burst in, he was gone.
“Maybe we should call that Ash guy she liked to talk about?” Shelly asked.
“Yeah,” said a dazed Archie. “Let’s do that.”
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Ash, Dento, and Iris were once again walking through Isshu, this time past Sanyou City. Jessie, James, and Meowth had attacked twice today already (yesterday they had attacked five times more) and in no short time of all Ash, Dento, Iris, Kibago, and Pikachu had all fallen into a hole.
“It worked! I told you, Jessie!” an effeminate man with magenta hair said from the bushes.
“I knew it would from the start!” a woman with dark red hair snapped back. They were both dressed in their black uniforms with a red ‘R’ emblazoned across the front: proof of their demotion from special agent to common grunt, although they did not know it.
“Listen up, you two!” their final companion, a talking Meowth, said, “we need to go catch Pikachu!”
All three waited for Wobbufett to pop out and respond, but he didn’t reply, of course, forcing Mime Jr. to fill in for him. “That’s right!” he declared.
Before Team Rocket could act, however, a deep voice from behind them said, “going somewhere?” The Rockets gulped and turned around to face a Dusknoir with a seemingly flowing cloak. In no short time at all, they had Thunderpunched into a nearby forest, off-setting their attempt to catch Pikachu (again) by 12.34 minutes.
Ash, Dento, and Iris meanwhile had succeeded in crawling out, only to come face to face with a Dusknoir. Dento fainted and fell back into the hole (“It’s a hole in one!” declared Meowth) while Iris asked Ash how a Sinnoh pokémon was in Isshu, besides Pikachu, Meowth, and Jame’s pokémon, of course.
“I don’t know,” Ash replied. Dusknoir sighed and shook his head, before turning to face Ash, Iris, and Dento, who were just now crawling up back out of the hole. Team Rocket had snuck to another bush, but was waiting for Dusknoir to leave.
“This may come as a shock to you-“ Dusknoir began.
“I have to save the world again?” Ash asked.
“No.”
“His pokémon have all evolved through months of training?” Dento asked.
“No.”
“He’s going to become a Frontier Brain?” asked Iris.
“No, but I believe he had the chance,” Dusknoir replied.
“Brock finally got to date a girl?” asked Ash.
“No- actually, I don’t know,” Dusknoir said thoughtfully.
“Ash has become the posthumous Champion of the Indigo League?” Dento asked. Everyone stared at him, including Team Rocket, Kibago, and Pikachu, although not Ash himself. “What?” Dento asked defensively.
“Definitely not, although it does have to do with death-“ Dusknoir replied.
“Team Rocket’s finally dead?” Ash asked, partially filled with hope, partially with horror.
“No we aren’t, twerp!” Team Rocket called from the bushes, which was answered with a Thunderbolt from Pikachu.
“Drake has died?” Iris asked, “or Shago?”
“Who? Oh, never mind, I don’t know that either,” Dusknoir angrily replied.
“Pryce turned out to be a crazed man who used Ho-oh and Lugia to kidnap children and turn them into slaves, used two feathers to make a custom pokéball that could control Celebi, and took on Ho-oh with a Delibird all to rescue his two lost Lapras and reunite them with their offspring?” Dento asked. Once again, everyone, including Ash, stared at him.
“Well, actually, that did happen, just not here. Different universe. Anyway, what actually happened was-“ Dusknoir said.
“I got dozens of phone calls from… Brock, Tracey, Gary, my mom, Misty’s gym, Archie of Team Aqua, May, and Max?” Ash inquired.
“Uh… yes?” Dusknoir stated. Ash frowned and answered Brock’s call.
“Hi Brock. What? Why would? Wha-? You’re wrong!” Ash said, turning off the call. He pressed the button for Tracey and reacted the same way. The same thing happened with Max and Gary as well.
Ash pressed the button for Archie’s call. “Hello, Archie of Team Aqua? Oh, the… TAWPRC? Well, let me guess, you’re going to lie and say that… what?! She’d never do that!” Ash turned the call off and answered May’s call. “Hi May. Liar! You-you’re being a liar! If Archie says- I don’t believe you. No, no, no.” Ash said, and once again he terminated the call.
“Hi Mom. No! Stop- stop it! That’s a lie! Erghh! Hi- hi Mimey. Bye Mom,” Ash said, and he pressed his last call: Misty’s gym. Ash simply held it by his side, and all, even Team Rocket say, “We regret to inform Mr. Ash Ketchum that his friend, Gym Leader Misty Waterflower of Cerulean City, has been found dead this morning. Please don’t let it impact your quest. Sincerely, the Temporal Intelligence Network.”
Ash turned the phone off and pocketed it. Then he sat down and he and Pikachu began to cry. Dusknoir observed the scene, shrugged, and vanished. Team Rocket would’ve attacked, but instead they decided to join Iris, Kibago, Ash’s pokémon, and Dento, and Ash’s friends’ pokémon in mourning Ash’s second-longest-known human friend.
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Many kilometers away, Dawn and Kenny could tell something was wrong. They had met up with Zoey and were currently staying the night in a Hoenn Pokémon Center, in Lilycove City. Team Aqua grunts, dressed in formal black outfits, lead by Archie, who had dressed similarly, had held an oceanic funeral where they had sent a commander’s uniform, a portrait of Gym Leader Misty of Cerulean, ceremonial ashes, and a spare license drifting into the sea. Most everyone in Lilycove had watched a rare Team Aqua funeral, in honor of a fallen comrade in a far-away region. Dawn’s Pokégear had buzzed with a call from Brock that had quickly answered who, exactly, Team Aqua was burying (Dawn and her friends couldn’t tell from their cliff top perch). And meanwhile, to the far east, time had frozen in Mossdeep City. The wind did not blow; a massive tidal wave had halted in its tracks. A space plane being launched was forever frozen, its astronauts’ and operators’ faces displaying their last expressions while the space plane’s engines did not roar nor send the plane into space. And in the heart of the city, the gym, the psychic twins forming the gym leader team were forever frozen in their effort to beat a particularly stubborn challenger.
So there you go. All advice, criticisms, complaints, questions, etc. allowed.
And don't take this as the strict future. As they say in the fic, this isn't in continuity with Speargun, and I hope I shall not spread any spoilers.
Next Chapter: What does Agatha know? How many crazy theories can Dento come up with? Will Wobbufett return? All this and more, on Shall We Weep for Time?
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