The next morning, there are puddles all over the town in the places where not long ago, rain fell and washed the blood out of the earth. Right now, the blood-colored mud and pale silver rain combine in the earth and the Slowpokes wallow in them, ignorant of death and fear. Their classification as psychic type still baffles me. Aren't psychic types supposed to have high mental abilities? Yet somehow, the creatures rolling around just feet away from me in the dirt are more apathetic to the world than any other being I've ever seen.

What if they're the smartest Pokemon of all? Perhaps they evolved to be so intelligent that giving up just seemed like the best option.

I bite my lip, tears returning to my eye. Half of me is begging to give in while the other half berates myself for even thinking about it. If I give up now, they died for nothing.

Reginae asks, "So, are we going to get out of here or what?"

Sunny hops up and down by Ten and D'spinas, both of whom are quiet. While I'm used to D'spinas saying nothing, Ten's silence is another kind of disturbing. He never saw a death while he was on the team.

I sigh. "I don't know. I was just waiting for someone."

"He's not coming back," Ten grieves.

Time turns in my hands. As if I was standing there myself, I see this place about a week ago. A red-haired boy leads a gang of savage looking Pokemon through, kicking away a tailless Slowpoke as he does so. He turns back to his team and swears in a voice that sounds like it's underwater and reversed. The Quilava, oh so familiar, begins savagely beating up one of the other Pokemon on the team, a Zubat so small that it's barely distinguishable from the grass. It squeaks and covers itself, crying for mercy.

"I wasn't waiting for him," I tell them. Silver is gone. I won't have to fight him this time. Disturbed by the images that still flash across my mind, I pace into the forest. The trees close in around us, the shimmering red and gold leaves forming a canopy of dappled light and shadow. These trees are some of the quickest to turn, but just the knowledge that it's already fall is somewhat disturbing. Has it really been that long?

A lumberjack waves to us. "Ey!" he calls, "Mind catchin-"

"Your Farfetch'd," I call back, giving him a weak thumbs up. "We're on it."

"Ashley, has anyone told you you're a little terrifying?" Sunny asks.

I shiver, glancing away.

"I didn't mean it in that way!" Sunny insists, seeing that she's hurt me. "I just meant... I can't believe you can see the future like that. It's so cool!"
"I can't see the future," I tell her. "I can only see the past. Generally things like that are best left where they were in the first place. Bringing them up does more harm than good."

"But-" she opens her mouth before I cut her off.

"It's... it's not really a superpower." I insist. I'd trade all my 'abilities' just to see my team one more time. I'm terrified of myself and who I am, what I could become, what I've done...

"It is if you can use it to help people!" she blurts out. Reginae rolls his eyes but there's a conviction between the two of them that seems powerful. I wonder if they've discussed something like this before.

You could save an entire world.

There's a shuffle of grass and D'spinas appears with a Farfetch'd writhing in the grasp of her drills. She has one around its stomach and another just under its neck.

"We got one!" Ten calls.

"There we go," I say, snatching the angry duck away with a slightly confused smile.
"Sure would be faster with five Pokemon," Ten says quite loudly, hopping along after the second one.

My hand clenches in my bag around Clay's Pokeball. I push it back in, wiping my hand on my pants like its been contaminated by the mention of his name. "I don't think so," I say apathetically.

D'spinas drags over the other Farfetch'd and I sigh, the first one still thrashing beneath my grip. We return them both to the lumberjack, who withdraws them both with a broad grin. "Thanks, kid! Any favors you need?"

I stare at the dense foliage. "Well... do you have any HMs?"

"I just so happen to have HM01, if you're interested in cuttin' down trees. The forest is practically impassible without it." He holds out a silver disk with his bare hands. I try to look grateful, seeing as the disk is already scratched up. Hopefully it still works.
"That's very kind of you."
He nods. "No problem. Always there to help a fellow trainer." With that, he pockets his Pokeballs and strides away confidently.

"Well," I say, "Do you think it will work better if I blow on it?"

D'spinas shrugs and the others look generally puzzled, but Ten calls, "I say you sell it on the HM black market instead and make a few thousand dollars."

"Yeah, I'd kind of prefer to stay out of illegal activity. If Celebi's heir is arrested for unauthorized HM sales, I'm pretty sure Red wins." I withdraw D'spinas and click the disk into the Pokedex, followed by her Pokeball. It begins buzzing, heating up as it tries to read the mangled drive.

D'spinas emerges by herself and without a command, proceeds to slice down a small tree nearby. It tilts over, saddened by its own ineffectiveness, and crashes to the ground. "Fifty damage," she says as she passes the still body of what once was a tree, albeit a small one.

"We can forget it when we get to Blackthorn." I promise her, although she hardly looks upset about the ordeal. I don't know if fifty damage is an upgrade or a hindrance to her.

One of her drills wheels through the air and comes down in a violent slice. She blinks, pleased by the effectiveness of the technique. "That assumes I get to Blackthorn."

"I got Khrys there last time." I'm really assuring myself more than anything, and she knows it. Her eyes reflect my troubled face a thousand times over. I look small and scared.

Her antennae twitch. A drill starts going and stops again. "And you lost."

Indignation floods me and I withdraw her at once, my cheeks burning red from the memory of pain. I recall the second he died, the way the fire consumed him without a second thought and there was nothing, not even a corpse, for me to hold.

Bronze's strong arms close around me, phantom limbs thick in the remembrance of when I lost everyone and everything.

I pocket the Pokeball.

Reginae is off on his own with Sunny, the two of them discussing in great length the varieties of natural plants found around the forest and the lore surrounding it.

"See, there's rumors that Celebi herself is related to certain plants, like most Grass-type Pokemon. No one's had Celebi DNA to test it, but the most popular theories are onions and leeks-" He stares up, "Hello, Ashley. We were just..."

"Grinding! We were definitely grinding." Sunny chirrups.

"Are you sure? I heard something about Celebi being descended from onions." The two of them give each other a nervous stare. "Anyhow, as Celebi, I can neither confirm nor deny that rumor."

"Speaking of Celebi." Reginae says, staring at the tiny wooden shrine just meters away from us.

I hardly looked at it last time I passed. I was so panicked at the thought of Bronze's death at Silver's hand (thank goodness the punk didn't show up again- by far this has been the best change in the timeline thus far). Now, upon looking closer, I can see that the entire thing is intricately carved. Eeveelutions, legendaries, and the creatures of the forest abound, all of them working together to depict a story that only someone with extremely good eyesight and heavy intuition would be able to discern.

Staring closer, things begin to look familiar.

Maybe it's not just intuition. Maybe the story needs context.

I read at a violent pace from left to right. A Cyndaquil grows into a mourning Typhlosion, a Vaporeon with nine tails stands alone among his kitsune sisters, an Ampharos clutches a golden orb on high and becomes immortalized in the history of another world...

Gold?

There is no color.

Look closer.

A Nidoking learns to love. A Crobat sees in more ways than one. A Butterfree flies all of them on his back to a place where the trees flicker in and out of existence and the wind is tinted with the sweet smell of home.

There are dozens of figures standing about, three of which are unfamiliar. I recognize a warrior Lucario with aura blazing, as well as two Pokemon I've never seen before. One seems to be holding a flower of some sort while the other appears to be made entirely from diamond.

They're holding hands.

The same golden sphere from before now reflects an entire world within, and the orbs are worlds, there are worlds within those worlds, an endless cycle of light and fire and air and water and-

Time.

I don't realize I'm sobbing until I hear the Togepi chirping. In my hands, the egg has cracked and a small Pokemon is staring up at me. Her eggshell glitters in green dust. Her innocence, so perfectly conveyed in a single glance, grasps me from my vision.

"Ashley!" Reginae calls, "What's wrong?"
"They're alive. They're all alive!" I cry happily, and I want to swing the Togepi around but decide against it. "Holy shit, they're all alive!"

"What the heck is wrong with her now?" Reginae asks Ten, who has hopped up to the proceedings with interest.

"They're all alive?" Ten asks, excited.

"All of them. Ten, the team is still out there somewhere! They're in another world! I'm sorry, everything just made so much sense for a second and I-" I sit down, taking the Togepi with me. "I can't breathe." I wipe the tears off my face with my hand, the gurgling noise in my throat slowly receding. "Oh my Arceus."

There's a prolonged silence across the team as everyone begins to cluster around. It dawns on me that they've never seen me this happy before.

"So," Sunny asks, "What are we going to call the Togepi?"

She's tinted pink, perhaps by the fading sunlight, and she's definitely spiny enough. "Rose," I say. "We'll call her Rose."

Rose chirps happily in my grasp, and a warmth rises within me that hasn't awakened since two years ago, maybe more, when Shell was born. He's out there too. I'm going to see him again.

The Pokegear begins ringing wildly with calls from Elm, all of which will soon be accompanied by voicemails asking me to return to New Bark and show off the Togepi.

I might not be ready to save the world yet, but last time has at least taught me how to save a single life.

I let it ring.