Chapter 13
Warm and inviting, the heat of my pile of blankets was dragging me down, causing my entire body to feel as though it was made of lead. Slowly, my eyes pushed open, revealing the gentle glow of the small light in the center of the room. It was silent right now, save for the muted breathing of Zori, who was still entrapped within his dreams.
The night before had been filled mostly with my extensive note taking, and the Zorua’s continued entrancement with his top. I couldn’t pretend to know what it was about the top that captured his attention, however, as to me it looked just like any old spinning top, albeit in the shape of a small brown Pokemon. He’d continued to make it spin for several hours, and then abruptly decided that he was too tired for both the illusions, and the top, and went to sleep. Thus, he had left me alone to my own devices, which meant me spending a total of about thirty minutes more just organizing and going over my notes, making sure everything was in impeccable order, before I drifted off to sleep as well.
Rising from my bed of blankets, I blinked the dark spots out of my vision, holding still so as not to fall over. I pulled a clay cup from the corner of the room, which I had filled with water just before I’d gone to sleep. Drinking heftily, I glanced around the room once more, before realizing that Mew was nowhere to be found.
I set the cup down by the trapdoor, so I could remember to refill it later. As I did so, Zori twitched slightly, before looking over at me.
Smiling, I said, “Good morning, Zori. Did you sleep well?”
“Yeah,” he answered, slowly rising to his paws. “Those illusions really took a lot out of me, though. I’m glad I had that top.”
I blinked. “What does that top have to do with your illusions?”
Yawning, he said, “The top helped me to clear my head better, so I could make clearer, more accurate illusions for longer. But it doesn’t really help for the headaches you can get from using illusions for too long.”
Bringing out my leaves, berries, and quill, I was about to start writing down what Zori had told me when he continued, “Also, I don’t get why you have to write down almost everything I tell you about my illusions.”
Stabbing into one of the berries, I responded, “Well, once I feel as though I have enough of the information about your ability down, I’ll decide if it’s safe enough to scan the ambient magic in your body, before, during, and after your creation of an illusion. Then, I’ll do my best to recreate that same magical resonance, so I could create my own illusion. From there, it would just be a matter of perfecting it, until I’m able to successfully create the skeleton of a spell.”
“...So you’re writing it down to learn how to use my ability?”
“Basically, yes. I want to learn how to make illusions the same way you do.”
Having already walked to the trapdoor, just before he jumped down, he said, “Okay, well if you ever learn how, just go ahead and tell me. I’ll do my best to see if I can help you control them.”
Just as he was about to jump down, I stopped him. “Here, let me get it.” I surrounded the cup in a raspberry glow once more, and teleported it straight down into the water. Pulling it back up, I held it out in front of him.
“Woah, you can teleport more than just yourself with your magic? That’s just like a psychic type!”
I smiled sheepishly. “Well, it’s not that hard to do. It just takes more energy the denser the object, and the farther the distance. The cup isn’t anywhere near as hard to do as something living.”
“Well, what’s the farthest you could teleport yourself? I bet you could go really far!”
I paused to think, before continuing. “Er, I’m not quite sure. I think the equation was something along the lines of the total magical energy needed being equal to the average density of the object multiplied by the distance traveled divided byhow far along the caster is on the magical age chart, but I haven’t done this equation since I was first learning basic teleportation, and back then I was able to do a maximum teleport of around twelve kilometers alone…”
I trailed off, realizing that my listener had long stopped listening to me, and was now staring blankly up at me. “...So yeah, basically I think I can travel around at least twelve kilometers.”
He blinked once. “How far is a kilometer?”
“Oh, uhm, I think that twelve kilometers is about seven and a half miles or so. I’m not too sure exactly on it though, so it might not be true.”
He perked up at that. “Woah, so then you can teleport almost twice as far as regular psychics can! And that’s almost ten miles, which is how far an Alakazam can teleport!”
I wasn’t exactly sure on what an Alakazam was, but from the way he was acting, I assumed that he was talking about a Pokemon that was extremely skilled at teleporting.
A loud, high pitched voice suddenly came down from the alcove leading outside. “I hope you’re all awake already, because I’m back, everyone!” From the opening popped out a small, pink feline, who was clutching a small, grass basket in its telekinetic grasp.
“I saw you guys were all still asleep, so I figured I’d head out and grab a few of berries so you wouldn’t have to go yourselves. I even found a couple gummis while I was out, too!”
Mew floated down to just below my eye level. He dropped the basket down on top of one of his many rugs, and said, “Go on ahead, eat whatever you want from there.”
Peering into the basket, I said, “Oh, so that’s where you were, Mew! I woke up just a bit ago, and I only saw Zori. We talked a bit, but didn’t think too much on where you’d gone.”
Mew giggled, then said, “Wow, and I thought I had left you two alone for hours on end! I can’t believe you both just woke up.”
Already biting into a small, red berry, Zori asked, “Well, how far into the day is it?”
His giggle slowly turning into a laugh, Mew struggled to respond. “M-midday, already. I left a little after dawn, and I thought you would’ve woken right after me. You honestly slept for over half a day?!”
Nearly dropping the Lum berry I had picked up, I said, “Wait, it’s midday? A-are you sure?”
I twiddled my hooves together, and chewed quickly on the berry. Although it left a pleasantly tangy taste in my mouth, I was just too startled and nervous to enjoy it fully. How could I have slept all the way through half of the day already? I was sure I hadn’t gone to sleep that late, but if Mew was telling the truth, then that meant that I was way behind schedule for planning for my trip to the Sinnoh region!
A twinkle in his eye, Mew said, “Yup, I sure am sure! Don’t worry, though, as long as we’re down here, you can’t really tell how much time has passed. “
Picking at several small, reddish berries, Zori said, “You know, if we don’t really care what time it is down here, we’ll probably be fine on however long we spend doing something. I mean, there’ll be nothing and no one to stop us, so we could just do it until we get tired of it, and are ready for sleep.” He stopped for a moment, then continued. “But, I think I’d want to go out every now and then for the sun and the moon. I don’t really like being away from them for so long.”
I quickly mulled over both Zori’s and Mew’s words. Together, they both made a large amount of sense, and really, as long as we found out a way to get me to the Sinnoh region before a month had passed, it would be fine with me. Letting out a deep breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding, I pulled out another berry, this time a green, guava shaped one.
I popped the berry into my mouth, it’s tanginess similar to the Lum berry’s. “Okay, so I guess we should try to think of how to go about getting to this Sinnoh place. First off, how far away is it, exactly?”
Mew rubbed his shoulder for a bit, his nose all scrunched up, before his eyes widened, and he said, “Oh! I think it’s about one hundred fifty miles South of The Tree. I’m not sure if that’s exactly right, but yeah, it should be around there.”
I smiled. Okay, so then about two hundred fifty kilometers or so from here. A boat could get there in less than a month, but then again, there would still be travel time to get to the boat, and all that would happen would be me following in my past future self’s hoofsteps. So, boats were a no. But maybe…
“Do you know of any sort of air transportation we could use? Anything such as hot air balloons, or the like?”
Zori spoke up this time. “Well, from what Yuzee’s said, the humans have hot air balloons, but most of the ones still in use are already in the Sinnoh Region, so there really isn’t a way to get to them without already being there.”
I bit my lip, thinking harder about ways that we could get there. No matter what we took, it had to get us to Sinnoh in less than a month, because the more I thought about it, the more I realize that, a month is a month, whether it be by sea, or by air. But, my mind drew a blank. The only way I could come up with was Teleporting, and even then, there weren’t near enough Xatu around to be able to get us that far, if each one could go only less than six kilometers.
Tossing my head back in defeat, I sighed. “Ugh. Well, I’ve got no idea how to get us there, then. We can’t go by boat or by air, because they’ll both still get us there in a month. And we can’t teleport, because we don’t have near enough the psychics we’d need to make it all the way there. So, from me, there’s no more new ideas. Any from you two?”
Mew cocked his head to the side. “Wait, Twilight, what do you mean we don’t have enough psychics to get you two there? I could teleport you to Sinnoh just fine if you needed me to.”
My mouth drooped open. Mew could teleport us all the way there?
“Wait, Mew- what do you mean you can teleport us there? Like, as in the entire way? All by yourself?” I did my best to keep my voice down. I needed to know for sure before I came to any conclusions, but if there really was one other way I could get there…
“Er, well, by myself, I could get you two there, but then that would require me coming along with you two. Also, unless we found another psychic type who could help lessen the load, there really wouldn’t be any way for me to get there without fainting as soon as we arrived. Plus, we’d only be able to arrive in one specific area.”
Why hadn’t Mew mentioned this before? If he was able to do it all on his own, why couldn’t he have said so in the first place? And, so what if he had to come with us? It would just be another thing to help prevent the past’s future from happening.
Opting to ignore the questions most prevalent in my mind, I smiled at Mew. “It’s okay if you have to come, Mew. We’ll do just fine with another pony coming with us. Er, well, you aren’t exactly a pony persay, but, uhm… yeah, either way, I think we’ll do more than fine with you coming with us! In fact, we’ll probably do better than we would’ve without you, since you’ll be able to help us pick out where more berries are probably growing!”
Mew’s face broke out into a grin at that. “Awesome! I can’t wait until we get there. But, uh, you know I still need to find a psychic who could help us, right? I don’t really want to end up fainting as soon as we get to Sinnoh…”
“Oh, don’t worry about it, Mew.” I said. “I think I know just who we can turn to.”
<~>
I looked all around the cliff, trying to see if I could spot even a single green or white feather. Instead, all I could find were rocks. Rocks, dirt, and dead brush. Not a single feather in sight.
“I… I don’t understand.” Dumbfounded, I fell backwards, plopping onto the ground. The small rucksack I’d created using an old rug dropped down next to me as well. Although patchy in many places, it was effective at holding all of my belongings, ranging from the small map given to me by myself, to the various notes I’d taken so far. “Where did Xatu go? She- she had just been here.”
Coming up from behind me, Zori spoke up. “Uhm, Twilight, it doesn’t look like there’s been another Pokemon here for quite a while. In fact, it looks like there hasn’t been one here since the Xatu last nested here.”
Poking his head out from behind several rocks, Mew said, “Actually, Zori, there has been someone here since then!” He showed us his paws. “Look, it’s some of Twilight’s fur!”
I rose from the ground, biting my lip gently. Where could Xatu have gone? In fact, even if she’d left, there would’ve still been some sign of where she’d left to. But instead, there wasn’t even any sign that she’d ever actually been here. It was almost as if the Xatu I talked to… wasn’t ever here.
Why though? Why would she just leave? If this was where the Xatu would nest, then what could have been her reason for leaving in the first place? She’d already been here since the other Xatu had migrated, which was just… when did they migrate? Ugh, still, though, none of this made any sense. None of it.
I sighed. “Well, without Xatu here, I’m not sure if I can come up with another way for you to share the energy needed to get that far. The only other option I can think of would be sharing it with me, but I don’t exactly know my magic would react to traveling any sort of distance accompanied by a Pokemon teleporting along.”
Walking up beside me, Zori said, “Wait, you just need any psychic to help you? Then why don’t we just have Yuzee’s mom do it?”
A huge grin coming up on his face, Mew flew straight up into the air, and loudly cried, “Zori, you’re a genius! I completely forgot she was an Espeon!”
While the two talked of where it was Yuzee’s mom could be, I ended up just awkwardly standing off to the side, watching them. I didn’t know Yuzee, other than the short time we talked, and I certainly didn’t know what an Espeon was, besides it most likely being another psychic type. So, I elected to just stand there, and watch them talk.
In fact, while I watched them, I slowly started to recognize a connection between the two of them. They acted a bit like I used to with Shining Armour, back when we were both still living with my parents in Canterlot. The way the were bickering over where it was Yuzee’s mom was most likely at, then switching abruptly over to the best path to take once Mew suddenly agreed with Zori, which then switched once more to whether she had any psychic type friends that could help as well when Zori decided that Mew had the better path picked.
“Alright! It’s settled then. Let’s head on out to the South a bit more, and we should be able to find Yuzee there.” Zori said, just before he started walking down the path leading away from the mountain. “Come on, the Travel Tree should be this way!”
Mew and I followed diligently behind him, and the three of us were able to make it to the Travel Tree within only a few minutes. In fact, it was still halfway up the mountain, and was at the edge of a cliff which overlooked a small lake.
We walked through the small opening, with Mew simply floating on through. Inside, there were a few pink bubbles moving about, although not near as many as there were when Mew first took me through the Travel Trees.
As we all hopped onto our bubbles, I said, “So, Mew, Espeon is a psychic type Pokemon, then? Or is she another type, but still capable of teleporting?”
“Yup, she’s a psychic type! She’s one of the evolved forms of an Eevee, which is what Yuzee is. A lot of Espeon’s are extremely agile, and have really, really strong minds.” He quickly flew away from his bubble, and pulled Zori into a hug, laughing as he struggled to push him away. “But, no matter how strong they get, they still won’t be able to read this little guy’s mind!”
Wait, Espeon’s could read minds? Compared to some of the other things Pokemon were able to do, I guess reading minds was a bit tame, but still… That would be a really, really useful ability to have! A lot of things would be so much easier to do, like picking out gifts, checking out books, buying and selling, trusting other ponies- there were limitless applications for this!
“Mew, can Yuzee… could Yuzee read my mind?” I asked, unable to keep out a flair of excitement from my voice.
Zori laughed, and answered me instead. “Nope! A lot of psychics don’t train to read minds at all. Maybe, after around a year or so of work she might be able to, but even then, you’d be able to tell right away if she was.”
Mew’s body glowed slightly as he pushed our three bubbles into a smaller route on the side of the tunnel. “Yeah, sorry Twilight, but even I never learned how to read minds. Out here, there’s just no point to it. You already know you can trust just about anyone around, so learning how would just end up being a waste of time.” He looked up for a moment, before saying, “Although, if you really wanted to find a Pokemon who could read your mind, you might have to either find a psychic type who’s been with their trainer for a long time, or go traveling to one of the various Guilds. There’s a lot of rescue and exploration teams out there that train under them, and one thing a lot of them love having is a psychic who can read minds for them.”
Rescue and exploration teams? Mew had never mentioned those before. “What are rescue and exploration teams, Mew?”
He started to giggle. “Oh, that’s right, I never mentioned those, did I? Well, I’m sure you’ll find out if we ever need to meet one. Besides, we’re here!”
I looked up, and sure enough, I could see the light that signified the exit. When we got to the top, all three of us jumped off our bubbles, before walking single file through the opening, and into the sunlight.
Blinking the light out of my eyes, I struggled to look around at what appeared to be a few dozen small huts, the tallest looking to be barely over a meter and a half in length, and the smallest just under a meter. There were groups of Pokemon just going about their day, doing various things such as playing with one another, eating, and fixing and building more huts. The Pokemon in question ranged from disturbingly large amount of variously colored foxes, with the main color being brown, small dogs who were all sorts of browns, whites, grays, and blacks, and even a few cat-like Pokemon that were blue and black, with rings of gold. All in all, it was by far the most Pokemon I had seen yet. All of which just happened to closely resemble predators.
Instinctively, I fell backwards behind both Mew and Zorua, who were still getting used to the sunlight. However, I remembered the conversation I had had with the four Pokemon on my first day, after the wind chime, Chimecho was her name I believe, had revived me.
"Y-You can talk?"
"Well duh, of course we can talk! What, never seen another Pokemon before or something?"
"So- so you're not going to eat me?"
“Why would we eat you? I mean, I'm pretty sure you wouldn't taste all that good anyways. In fact, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find someone willing to eat you.”
"Oh thank Celestia, you're not going to hurt me! I was so worried that you would, that I never even thought to consider that you wouldn't."
"What would make you think these young ones would hurt you?"
"Well, obviously you're all predators, and so I simply assumed that you all would attack me."
"I'm not really sure I know what you're talking about. What's a predator?"
They… they weren’t predators. I don’t know why it never clicked in my head before, but these Pokemon, no matter how much they looked the part, were not predators. In fact, based on what I knew from them so far, I highly doubted if they even knew of predators, if what I had been told by Yuzee on my first day here was true. With this in mind, I was able to pull myself out from behind both Zori and Mew, no longer fully fearing the Pokemon. But, that wouldn’t exactly stop me from having a natural disinclination towards being alone with those who I didn’t know.
Some of the Pokemon looked up when they saw the three of us pop out of the tree, and of those, only a few actually lingered on me, but they quickly lost interest when they saw my two companions. Most, however, just continued going about their business, completely ignoring the three of us.
We walked through their small… village would be the best word. Within several huts, near where there was what appeared to be a sort of well leading directly into one of the numerous rivers running throughout the Tree, we arrived at a short hill, with an oaken door protruding out of the front of it.
Mew flew to the door and pushed it open, bathing the interior of the small room with light. There wasn’t anyone in it, but at the end there was what appeared to be a narrow set of stairs. Laughing, Mew flew inside, and said, “Come on, guys, Espeon should be somewhere inside!”
Zori and I followed behind him, my horn just barely clearing the rim of the doorway. Once inside, I had a better view of my surroundings. The room looked to be around sixteen square meters, a perfect square. There were scuff marks and divots marked haphazardly on the compact earthen floor, and, at the end of the hallway, there was, indeed, an actual set of circular stairs leading down.
Mew went straight for the stairs, which were made out of solid redwood, and floated down them. I tried following him, but immediately realized that I would be having slight troubles with them once I took my first step. The treads weren’t spaced normally, feeling as if they were slightly lower than the average 14 centimeters, and their spacing felt off as well. I decided on just keeping my eyes to the ground while I walked, as it seemed to be my best bet for not falling flat on my face.
On the stairs, Mew was exceptionally faster than both Zori and I, as he was able to just skip them all together and glide along them all the way to whichever floor he was headed to. Which, incidentally, ended up being about four floors beneath us.
The rooms we passed by all looked to be the same size as the one we initially entered. Each had a dirt floor, just as the last, although they also had ceilings made out of the same type of wood as the stairs. Every room had its own mat of dried grass in the corner, a small chest against the wall next to it, and moss hanging from the walls that glowed with a blue tint. The first two rooms had small toys, such as soccer balls, tops, and what looked like balls of yarn. The third contained none of those same toys, however. Instead, it contained a desk by the chest, along with a stool for it.
Coming up on the floor Mew was on, I began hearing voices, three to be exact. Two sounded distinctly feminine, and the third sounded to belong to a boy. One of them I for sure could place as Yuzee’s. The others were a mystery to me. Rounding the corner, Zori and I both walked into a fifth room, where there were two Eevee’s, Yuzee and a similarly sized colt, and a bigger, lilac cat, presumably the Espeon that was Yuzee’s mom.
“I’m terribly sorry, Mew, but I don’t think there’s any other Espeons in the Tree besides me.” The Espeon sighed. “I’m not even sure if there’s many other psychics in the tree besides the Xatu.”
Mew raised a paw to his chin in thought. “Hmm… Well, I guess you’ll still work out for us. But, then we’ll have to… hmm…”
Walking up besides Mew, I smiled, and said to Yuzee, “Hi, Yuzee!” She wagged her tail a bit when she saw me. Turning to who I believed to be the Espeon, I continued, “Hello, I’m Twilight Sparkle. Are you the Espeon that Mew was telling me about?”
She looked slightly surprised when she saw me, but then she smiled back, and answered, “Why, yes, I am. And, if you don’t mind me asking, what new species of Pokemon are you?”
Laughing, I responded, “Oh, no no no, I’m not a Pokemon. I’m just a pony.”
“Well, you certainly look as though you have Ponyta blood in you… so, if Ponyta was one of your parents, who was the other? The only Pokemon I can come up with is a Nidoking, although you don’t particularly look like the aggressive type.”
My smile twisted slightly, turning into one of slight awkwardness. “Er, sorry, I don’t exactly know what you’re talking about. I have no idea what either of those Pokemon are.”
Once I finished saying that, her eyes widened a bit, and then softened. “Oh, I- I see. No wonder you’re with…” She trailed off here, before she smiled at me, seemingly brighter than before.
Puzzled at her odd acts, I wanted to delve further into what she was saying, when Mew suddenly exclaimed, “Okay! So, I think i have it all figured out now.” He looked over at Espeon. “Espeon, would you mind helping me teleport to the Sinnoh region?”
She paused to think for a moment, before saying, “I suppose I could, but only if we were to come back as soon as possible. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable with leaving my two kids and my husband for too long.”
“Oh, don’t worry about it! Me and you’ll be back before you know it! So, is it a yes?”
“Alright then, it’s a yes. I’m willing to help you with the teleport.”
“Great!” Mew exclaimed. “Alright, so Twilight, Zori, here’s the new plan: Espeon and I are going to teleport the four of us over to Mt. Coronet in the Sinnoh region, and then, after we’re done, I’ll be teleporting back with Espeon.”
Zori spoke up then. “Wait, but Mew, I thought you were going to come with us through Sinnoh?”
“Well, I was going to, but since Espeon’s the only psychic here who can help me, I’ll need to Teleport back with her, otherwise she’ll just end up stranded in Sinnoh.”
“Yeah, I guess she’d want to come back for Yuzee and Sino.”
The Eevee that was probably “Sino” suddenly broke in. “Yup! Mom would never leave us for too long, unless she really had to.”
Yuzee continued then with what he was saying, and said, “Yeah, Mom’ll always stay with us for as long as she can!”
“So it’s settled then! Espeon and I’ll Teleport us there! Sorry, Sino and Yuzee, but you’ll need to go upstairs for this. Can’t accidently bring you with us.”
With a chorus of “Okay!”, the pair bounded up the stairs. That left only the four of us left.
Mew looked over at me. “So, Twilight, are you all ready to go?”
Smiling brightly, I responded, “Yup! I’m all set!”
Mew grinned then, and looked over at Zori. “Zori, you ready, too?”
“I think so!”
Espeon walked up closer to Zori and I, and said, “Alright, we’ll all need to hold on to each other, then.”
Once all of us were touching in some way, with Zori and I interlocking hooves with each other and with Espeon, and Mew laying across Zori’s back and head, the gem on Espeon’s head started glowing. Soon after, Mew’s entire body started glowing as well.
“Remember, Espeon, just concentrate on letting me guide us the way there. I’m tuned in to Mt. Coronet’s Aura, so I’ll be able to get us on target. Just try to help push us along.”
It looked like Espeon was about to respond, but her mouth only opened, emitting no sound. The glow they were both emitting started to grow brighter now, and began extending to cover both my and Zori’s bodies. It was a pure white light, and once it covered my body completely, I could no longer move. Then, within the time it took to blink, we were gone.
//Twilight and Zorua both fully wake up
//Mew returns with more berries because he wanted to finally do something with his life
//Discuss future plans, realize that a month is a month
//Twilight backhand double pimp slaps Mew into the next week when she finds out he can work with Xatu to teleport them because he’s way too OP, and she wants to know why he didn’t tell her earlier
//Off to find Xatu once more
//No Xatu, have to settle for Yuzee’s mom
//Twilight finds out Mew had decided to come with
//They appear at the peak of Mt. Coronet, because immense power and stuff
//???
//Prophet like it’s hot