//------------------------------// // Chapter 10 // Story: Courage Will Pull Us Through // by Cloudy Serrano //------------------------------// ~Chapter 10~ He flew through the air, heading to the door. “Well, come on then, Twilight! If you wanna know what to do, then you have to follow me!” Giggling, he floated unchallenged through the caves, leaving me to scramble along behind him with my bag. “Wait, Mew! We need to stop so you can tell me what it is I need to do!” As I struggled to keep up, I remembered something from when I met future me earlier. “TWILIGHT!” Shouted out the pale violet Earth Pony. Having successfully gotten my attention, she calmly said, “Relax. Don’t worry, you’ll have your magic back once I’m gone. And besides, I don’t plan on staying very long, anyways.” My magic! Now that my future self was gone, that would mean that she could no longer affect my magic, which also meant… An accomplished grin covered my face as I teleported in front of Mew; only for it to be wiped off as he simply giggled again, and teleported once more in front of me. “Gosh, Twilight, you’re really, really bad at this game!” Mew playfully called out as he continued to float onward, leaving me to futilely attempt to keep up. Turning a bend, Mew immediately disappeared, giggles echoing throughout the caverns. Once I turned said bend a couple seconds later, I saw the cave ended not in a wall, but in another entrance to the Travel Trees. “GAH! MEW! You get back here this instant, or so help me I’ll… I’ll…” Not knowing how to finish my sentence, I jumped into the Travel Tree, allowing it to instantly begin taking me up on a large pink bubble. I didn’t know if Mew had gone up or down, but I did have a feeling he would go up, considering we were already so low. Looking around the section I was in, I saw that this area was considerably wider than the previous one. Realizing the only way I would actually be able to catch him would be through traveling faster than all the other bubbles, I knew what I had to do. Laying hope in the bubbles abilities to withstand magic, I quickly began teleporting higher and higher, aiming only for bubbles that were at least twice my size. Somewhere around ten teleports later, a slight headache having taken up residence around the base of my horn, I saw a small flash of pink peeking over the side of a bubble about a hundred meters up. Bingo. Readying myself for one last massive teleport, I reappeared up on the same bubble as the small pink menace who had initially forced me to begin teleporting. Rough tendrils of fire now writhing about within my head, I knelt down and scrunched my eyes tight as a raisin, only to feel a blissful tidal wave of coolness come to wash it away in it’s reaching arms. Smiling, I looked up at the grinning feline. “Thanks for that, Mew. Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Quickly, I grabbed ahold of him with my magic, preventing his escape. “Alright, Mew. I need you to tell me what it is I need to do to save Equestria." He rolled his eyes. "Ugh, fine, if you really want to know, I guess I can show you." Teleporting out of my magical grasp, he reappeared above me, and floated through an exit. "Come on then, Twilight. We don't have all day for your lolly gagging!" Smirking in satisfaction, I jumped forward through the exit. Looking around, I saw that we had ended up in the forest once more, although this area looked different. Large trees, sequoias, dotted the nearly flat landscape. Several animals, Pokemon I presumed, wandered through the trees. A body of water, too small to be a lake, and too large to be a pond, lay near the center of the forest. A four way bridge connected each side of the water. The various Pokemon came in all shapes and sizes, a large gray one looking reminiscent of the rhino, although with more of a gleam to its rough hide. Another, this time small and yellow, ran on four legs, small arcs of electricity sparking from it's cheeks. A third swam in the water, it's small blue frame allowing it travel through quickly. Slowly starting to walk towards the rhino, I heard Mew calling my name. "Twilight, come on! We gotta get there soon!" Shaking myself out of my reverie, I turned away from the rhino. Even if that exact Pokemon wasn't there tomorrow, there were still plenty of others to be seen. Plus, I could always ask Mew to introduce me to him later... Spotting Mew up ahead several meters, I trotted over to him. "So, Mew, now can you tell me what I need to do?" "Sure!" He said. "We're not as close as I thought we would be. I'll just start explaining on the way there." As I allowed Mew to lead me wherever it was he was leading me, he said, "Alright, so you know how, like, the Lake trio did their mind thingy with me 'cause they're psychic, right? Well, when they did that, they told me exactly what you needed to do! Or at least, what you shouldn't do." "Wait, so you don't know what I'm supposed to do, only what I shouldn't do? But... But that won't help me at all!" "No, Twilight, it 'll help you. Because, say you were going to go to one place, but then you knew not to go there, because future you had gone instead, and there was nothing there that you needed. Wouldn't that be helpful, too?" Biting my lip, I thought on his response. What he said did make sense, and if there was a way to skip through parts I didn't need, then... "Mew, this is brilliant! Even though it doesn't help as much as I would want it to, it's still a great asset!" He smiled. "Alright, well I'm glad you understand now, Twilight. Okay, so on to what the Lake Trio told me. Basically, they told me every place you would need to visit, and which places would do nothing to help further your journey." He paused and thought for a moment. "In fact, I think the map you have would be perfect for showing you where you need to go! Pull it out and I can show you, Twilight." Whipping out my map from the bag, I handed it to Mew. "Here you go, Mew. Remember, she said it was what she used when she was locating the Legendaries for help, so there may be markings." Unfolding it several times until it was a little over half the size of my body, Mew looked over the map. "Hey Twilight, do you have a quill and some berries with you?" He asked me, prompting me to pull out a quill and several light blue berries. He wrote in the map in midair, occasionally squeezing some juice out of the berries for either the quill, or into his mouth. Upon noticing the odd look he received from me, he said, "What? I can't help it if they're really good!" He passed the map back to me with a cheerful, “Here you go!” Looking over the map, I could tell that Mew really knew what he was doing. Circles were placed over specific areas in the map, and they each had different designs; two had dotted circles, some had jagged circles, and some had regular circles. A line, beginning near what appeared to be a mountain range, snaked its way through the map. Although… “Hey, Mew, what do each of the different circles mean?” “Well, the ones that have the regular circles are cities that have Pokemon Centers. They’re these cool places that you go to when you wanna get better. The ones with all the squiggles are places where the gyms are; you’ll need to visit these places at least once each to get the badge. Next, you see the ones that have the cool dotted lines? Well, those two are the most important places on the map. The one near the mountains is where you’ll be when you get teleported there, and the one way, waaaay out in the ocean is where you need to battle the Champion. So, do you like my circles?” A hopeful smile was on his face. Putting the quill and berries down from having previously stolen them from Mew’s paws to write, I looked up from the map. “Yeah, it’s really good, Mew! Am I correct in assuming the line is the path I should take?” “Well, I don’t know if you should take it, but I know that it’s a preeeetty good way. Or at least, I think it is. I haven’t been to that region in so long, so I might get several places wrong.” “Alright, thanks for that, Mew. Now, on what you said earlier. Would you care to explain a bit on what gyms are, what a badge is, and what you mean by battling the Champion?” <~> Deep in the Tree of Beginning “Hey, Z, you wanna come play soccer? I think we can get more than just Chloe and Riptide to play this time!” Z flinched as he cracked open his eyes to the brightness of the rising sun filtering in through the trees. Yuzee had been talking to him, most likely about going out to play a game. No matter how much he implied, no matter how much he said he was tired, no matter how much he straight up told them, it still never got through to them how little he wanted to go out and play their games. Soccer, tag, hide and seek, they all were fun, yes. The only problem? They just weren’t fun enough. No, Z wanted to go out, to have adventures, to travel to new lands, to meet new people. He didn’t want to stay in the same old tree for the entirety of his life, and never get to do anything that hadn’t been done by him already. “Yuzee, it’s like, seven a.m.,” he answered drowsily. “I don’t think many people are going to be awake at the moment.” “Well, duh, most Pokemon aren’t awake right now. But I bet if we get started soon, we can change that real fast!” “Okay, just let me get ready.” “I’ll be waiting in the clearing by the Pidgeot nesting area with everyone waiting for you. See you soon!” Having been left to his own devices, Z slowly got up, and ambled over to a small pool a ways over from where he’d been sleeping. After getting a drink of the mineral enriched water, he moved on to the next item on his agenda. Gingerly picking through the various berry bushes, he continued on until he had found the sweetest, most delectable of berries. The four curved bumps in the large red berry, about twice the size of his paw, a small yellow opening on the bottom; yes, he could eat Chople berries all his life, and he would be happy. His hunger sated, he then began the walk to the clearing by the Pidgeot nesting grounds. It wasn’t a long walk; on the contrary, he knew he could make it within several minutes. But he took his time, for he knew Yuzee would need at least some time to wake her various friends. Arriving at the clearing fifteen minutes later, he was unsurprised to find that Yuzee had managed to bring a total of zero friends to play her game of soccer. Oh well, at least he’d done his best to make her hap- wait, no, there was a shape in the small pond connector opening. “Hi Z!” Yuzee said excitedly. “I didn’t get too many others to come, ‘cause they all wanted to sleep and stuff, but I did get Fishay to come!” “Hello,” spoke the small yellow fish, his head bobbing out of the water. “I’ve never really met a lot of other land Pokemon, but when Yuzee, my greatest of land-based friends, called for me to come play this game of hers, well, how could I refuse?” “So you're a Feebas, huh? Eh, I’ve never seen a Pokemon like yourself before, either. What do you do, just travel the connectors?” “Why yes. In fact, I would’ve never met Yuzee if she hadn’t gotten stuck in one. Oh, I suppose she would’ve been found eventually, but it was surely a stroke of luck for her to have been found sooner, rather than later.” “Yuzee, is he talking about that time you were obsessed with the idea you were slowly turning into a vaporeon, despite having never once come into contact with a water stone?” Z asked, a grin creeping its way onto his face. “Er, well, ahahah, funny story there. Um, you see, Z, remember how I said I was wet from swimming in the pond? Yeah, I was kinda trying to swim in the connectors.” She said, awkwardly smiling. “‘Kinda’ doesn’t cover it! You were in one of the smallest ones, and you were still having trouble. The only reason you were still breathing is from the air pocket each connector has at the top, and even then it was a small one!” As the three laughed and poked fun at each other, Z’s smile grew slightly, although not by much. This, this was something he could get used to. Not playing games, or competing with others to see who was better at something, but spending time with others who cared about his wellbeing, and actually cared about what happened in his life. Not like those others... Shouting breaking him from the depths of his memories, Z looked up to see what was happening. Across the clearing, two Pokemon who most had never thought would see even once in their lifetimes, much less twice and at the same time, were running towards him. “MEW! Get back here with the last Lum berry this instant, or I swear to Celestia, I will never show you magic again!” “Nope, sorry Twilight. But this Lum berry is all mine!” Mew blasted past Z, with Twilight quick behind him. “You already ate all the other berries in the bag, and I haven’t eaten since last night! Just hand it over already!” “Yeah, but Twilight, you’re forgetting one important part!” Mew cried out. “Oh really? Well then please, enlighten me, Mew. Enlighten me as I EAT THE BERRY!” Twilight screamed, launching her body at Mew, only for him to teleport out of the way at the last possible moment, leaving her to fall flat on her face. Reappearing next to Z, Mew leaned in and whispered, “Hey, Z? Remember how you used to go on and on about wanting to go out, and have adventures, and have so many memorable experiences you’d be able to tell stories for hours on end? Well, now’s your chance to go on one with Twilight over there. Are you in?” Z thought back to the previous ten or so minutes. He thought back to all those games, those games that he hated, but at the same time, knew he wanted more than anything else to continue on forever. He thought of the crazy Pokemon looking their way at that moment, who appeared to be on the verge of using a move. And then he thought of his past, his memories, and why he wanted to go out and have adventures in the first place. His choice was made before he even knew he would choose it. “Err, sure?” Summoning her magic, Twilight pushed as hard as she could, until finally, finally, she cast the paralysis spell on Mew, causing him to fall on top of Z. Unfortunately for her, the effort needed to cast the spell knocked her unconscious, as she was almost completely used up from the massive amount of teleporting she had performed while in the Travel Tree, and the fact that she still hadn’t yet gained full access to her entire magic pool, despite her future self having already departed. “Well,” said Fishay. “That was quite unexpected.” “Hey, isn’t that the Pokemon we found in the forest yesterday?” asked Yuzee, looking over the unconscious form of Twilight. “Yup,” Z said, and then looked over at Mew, who was frozen on the ground, a goofy grin plastered on his face. “I guess we have to do something about them. I’ll go get a Cheri berry for Mew. You should look for an Oran berry for the other Pokemon. Fishay, you go, uh, do whatever it is you do.” “Then I will begin traversing the vast tunnels of the pond connectors, looking for any and all types of treasure to be had, whilst at the same time pondering on the greatest mysteries of life, such as why all Magikarp are unable to learn any moves without evolving, and why Yuzee has so many evolutions. I shall also ask around if anyone has spare Oran and Cheri berries.” “Right,” Z said, a confused look taken hold over his face.