Discord has finally figured it out. He now has the ability to defeat the Alicorns once and for all. But will it all go as he originally planned, or will it all be prevented by a certain apprentice?
Discord has finally realized how he can defeat Celestia and Luna. But, there is a problem. Aside from them, there is one other Alicorn who has enough power to stop him. One, who he will have to ensure can no longer be a problem.
Twilight was just writing in her journal when it happened. When He came, and He ruined it all. But now, now she has a plan. It is not the greatest of plans, and in the end, it may not even work, but when you have nothing to lose, and everything to gain, then any risk is a risk worth taking.
*Takes place in Season 4, right before the events of Discord's Blue Flu.*
*Pokemon Crossover*
*Rated teen because some people cannot handle battle scenes very well and will most likely make a fuss over it*
Also, check out my amazing proofreader! He's the guy that, without his help, this story would probably still be a thought floating around my head.
I sighed as I gazed around the room. It was empty really, but if I truly wanted to, I could fill it with anything I desired. I could make it into a mansion, bigger than the palace that Celestia had, or I could make it smaller than a Hydrogen atom, smaller than even the electrons around it. It was all just a matter of will. But I wouldn't do that. I needed to save my energy, for I knew that I had only one chance, one chance to give my past self the ability to defeat the Alicorn sisters once and for all. But I would make the most out of my chance, and give myself everything I needed to change back Twilight, and stop the Alicorns from gaining more power. And once I set it in motion, there was nothing that would be able to stop it, until it completed what it was meant to do. All it took, was a little will.
As the day wore on, I decided to create a window that looked out towards the palace grounds. Looking up at the sky, I found that the eclipse was nearly over. Good. This meant that soon, the Alicorns would lose the added energy of having both the sun and the moon up at the same time. Because of this, their senses would become dulled from the lack of magic strengthening them, similar to an arm losing feeling after it had been laid on for a while. All I had to do was wait.
More or less an hour later, I felt it. I felt the huge amounts of magic cease its flow from the palace, and instead slow to a trickle. The waterfalls of magic were no more, back to simply being what they normally were. Simply a large river. A river, that needed to be drained, as the water was needed for something just a tad bit bigger than the river was currently using it for. This was my cue.
Concentrating, I slowed down time to the point where it no longer flowed. As I spread it out across the planet, I felt a slight resistance, most likely from the Sisters noticing and attempting to stop me, but they were tired, weak from the large amounts of magic leaving their body. Not bothering to make myself invisible, I teleported to another place. Ponyville, to be exact.
I looked upon the citizens of Ponyville, who didn't even acknowledge my presence. Of course, they could not, for time had effectively stopped. I noticed that I was near Laughter's home, Sugarcube Corner I believe it's called. Laughter was always one of my favourite Elements of Harmony. Laughing at every little prank I've ever pulled, making a joke out of anything I did; yes, I think Laughter is my favourite of the six. But she is not the one I was searching for. No, I had to find the rarest Element, the most powerful of the six, the one that used to be mine: Magic.
I flew; no, flew is not the correct word. I... drifted towards Magic's dwelling, Golden Oaks Library. A fitting name, considering it was within a tree, although I do find it rather humorous how a library of books lies within a tree. A non-living tree, at that, held together mostly by pure Unicorn magic, blended to create the illusion of a perfectly healthy, living tree, when in reality it was actually- ah, but it was of no matter, as the time was upon me.
Extending my magic, I created a sphere around the library, large enough to cover it all completely. Granted, it wasn't very large to begin with, but the ponies apparently thought it was exceptionally large. The shield was invisible to the naked eye, but if one looked close enough, they would find there to be a sort of shimmer in the place of it. The shield allowed all forms of pure Unicorn magic short of teleporting out, and disabled my effect of slowing time to a standstill.
Satisfied with my work, I magicked myself into the top of the tree, where a certain element was busying herself with a journal of sorts.
She was in a small study, writing in some sort of journal or another on a desk. A blue wallpaper covered in spirals of gentle shades of blue covered the entirety of the wall, along with two paintings of famous Unicorns of the past on either side of a large window with the curtains pulled in tight. I never had much time to learn the more mundane parts of the history of Equestria after I was free from stone, so it came as no surprise to me that I had next to no idea who they were. Two large bookcases lay side-by-side in back of her desk, filled to the brim with books. More books lay strewn haphazardly on the floor, surrounding the mare.
"Why, hello there Twilight!" I shouted, appearing in the words of her journal.
"Gah!" She exclaimed, immediately dropping the book. "Discord! I thought we went over this already. Don't startle me when I'm working."
"Oh, silly Twilight." I reached out from the words and began gently rubbing the underside of her chin, only for her to pull away almost instantly. It was rather fuzzy, and always gave my paws a delightfully ticklish sensation. "Can you not make even the smallest bit of time for one of your most beloved friends? Why, you can't even talk to a pony these days, what with them so busy all the time."
"You know I always enjoy our talks, Discord, but I'm a little busy at the moment. I'm sure if you came back later, though, you could tell me all about whatever it is you need to," she finished, using her magic to gently try to push me out of her journal.
Deciding to instead move over to a nearby green book cover, which was decorated with a multitude of exotic plants, I started up again. "Oh, but Twilight deary, this is something that you absolutely have to know! Come on, don't you want to know what has even me all riled up?"
She sighed. "Look Discord, I'm sorry, but unless it's the end of all of Equestria, I don't think whatever it is I ‘absolutely have to know’, is really all that important."
"Well, I don't know about the end of Equestria, but I suppose the planet would be a nice compensation prize!” I exclaimed, throwing both of my arms wide open. A small amount of confetti shot from the book, showering her hooves.
"WHAT!" All the books around me were flung away, leaving just the one I was in to float in front of her. "Discord, I swear to Celestia, if you don't tell me what you did right this moment, I am going to... to... to do SOMETHING!"
Floating so close to her, I could practically smell the panic emanating from her pores. "Now Twilight," I chastised, watching as her left eye began to twitch. "That's no way to treat a friend. Why, if Celestia were here, I bet she would be scolding you right now! I'm not even sure I should tell you what's happening anymore."
Twilight's manic expression and heavy, deep breathing advised me otherwise. Despite being relatively untrained in how to use the power of her element, that didn’t mean that she couldn’t do even a little bit of damage to me. If you endlessly throw the same pebble into a river, eventually you’d find the correct spot to stem the flow, or, at the very least, cause a significant splash. "Oh, very well, I suppose if you're going to be that way." Raising a claw, I pointed to the closed window. "Go on then, Twilight. Look on outside."
If I had before thought Loyalty was as fast as a hummingbird traversing the winds, then Twilight was the wind. Yanking open the curtain, and nearly ripping it from the rail in the process, she peered out into the village.
"I- I don't understand." She said, cocking her head to the side.
"Well what do you mean, you don't understand?" I asked, drawing her out of her stupor and causing her to turn around.
"There's nothing wrong with Ponyville! Discord, if this is your idea of a prank, then you better find some better material, because this is not funny." She urged, putting extra emphasis on the not.
"Oh, but Twilight, I thought you were better than that! Go on, take another look. And this time, make sure to pay extra special attention to all the itty-bitty wittle ponies that are outside." I prompted, motioning her forward with my paw.
Sighing, Twilight turned back to look outside the window. It took her about five seconds to notice something was off about the ponies outside, and after gazing out at them for a few more seconds, she gasped.
"WHAT IS WRONG WITH THEM! WHY ISN'T ANYPONY MOVING!?" Immediately, her horn glowed an iridescent purple, but nothing happened. Beginning to scream my name, she sprang around to direct her full assault on me, only to find I was no longer there.
Twilight's horn lit up briefly, but it lasted only a second. "DISCORD! YOU BETTER TELL ME WHY I CAN'T TELEPORT OUT, AND IF YOU DON'T HAVE A GOOD ENOUGH REASON, THEN I SWEAR TO CELESTIA I WILL PERSONALLY LOCK YOU BACK INTO YOUR STONE PRISON!" She screamed, violently scanning the entire room for me. Her head was whipping in every which way, causing her mane to move about her in the oddest of ways.
"Now Twilight, deary, I thought we had been over this before." I spoke from my place in the picture by the window. "Remember, what would Celestia do?"
I could practically hear her molars grinding at that one. Oh, the look on her face was absolutely priceless! Her eyes even began the twitching I remember from when she got me to point at the window.
"Alright then, Discord. I'll play nice." She relented, forcing a strained smile on her face. Coupled with her twitching eyes, it was a sight to see! "Please, would you mind explaining to me why I can't teleport out of here?"
"Oh Twilight, if you wanted to go look around, all you had to do was say so!" Grinning at her clearly angered form, I immediately teleported us out to the nearest pony, making sure to keep time flowing normally for us, but not our environment. It was a bit more complex, what with us having such abstractly shaped bodies and all, but when combined with the fact that Sparkle decided to start moving… well, even I have my limits, and, despite being currently no where near them whatsoever, she did manage to start providing me with a slight migraine. Well, it just goes to show, even Gods can have their limits, no matter how powerful.
"What... What happened to her?" Twilight stuttered out, looking over the pony. It was but a bright red earth pony, with three cherries for a cutie mark. A light blonde mane lay across her neck.
"Oh, you know, this and that. I mean, there's no way that I can stop this. Once something like this has begun, you cannot simply stop it. You have to wait for it to finish. So really, even if I wanted to, I couldn't undo any I this."
I continued to watch her as Twilight slowly reached out a hoof to feel the pony's mane. Lifting it up to her eyes, she examined it for a bit, until she finally let it go. Now, normally the mane would fall down, but instead it hung in the air, unmoving.
Deciding that enough time had been wasted out here, I brought us back to her library. A sigh of relief nearly left my lips as we arrived, and I was able to dispel the fluid spell from us.
"Discord, what... What was that? Did... Did you cause that?" Twilight tentatively asked, afraid to learn the answer.
"Oh, well it is all rather simple Twilight. You see, seeing as how I've been a statue for a rather large portion of my life, I've decided on something. I want to play a game." I casually drifted from the painting on the wall to the wallpaper designs.
"Well, you see, Sparkle, when life gives you lemons, you can make lemonade. But, once you have made the lemonade, you realize something. Life never gave you sugar, sugar that was needed in order for the lemonade to taste juuuuuust right. And since life decided to be so horrible to you, you know what you do?" I paused here, allowing her to look expectantly at me, albeit with a largely confuzzled look. She always looked absolutely adorable when she had no idea what to think or do!
"You take your lemonade, and you turn it into orange juice! And since the would-be lemonade has become something it never should have been, complications arise. Complications that, well, you really don't want to have to deal with. But sometimes, even though you really don't want to drink the orange juice anymore, life just decides to not let you change it back into lemonade. And so, you end up stuck with something that you thought you wanted instead of something that you really wanted, something you actually needed."
"Alright, Discord, I think I've had enough of your game." Exasperated, her eyes began a silent plea to me. They even watered a little! "Just please, for the love of Celestia, please tell me what it is that's happening."
"Oh, but Twilight, you're being so silly all of sudden! And here I was, mistaking you for the element of Magic. I suppose soon you and Laughter will have to trade places, what with you being so much sillier than her." Boring into mine, Twilight's eyes continued their silent plea, until, with a sigh, I finally started up again.
"Well, as I previously stated, I want to play a game. Now, don't look so down already! It's a very fun game." I chuckled a bit at that. It would only be fun if she let it be fun. If she didn't allow it to be fun, then, well, I suppose things could get worse. I smiled down at her as I continued my description of our game. "I am going to send you off, off to a far-away place. Once you are there, all you have to do, is become the Champion of something, something extremely important to the future of the land, and, once you have done so, be able to successfully defend it once. Now, don't think collecting the title of champion will be that easy. It has to be a specific something, something that I won't tell you, but once you hear what it is, you won't be able to deny that that's what you must do!"
"And why, may I ask, do you want me to play this game in the first place? In fact, you still haven't told me what is HAPPENING!" She finished with a scream, sparks beginning to shoot out of her horn in her anger.
With a sigh, I casually appeared behind Twilight, and when I spoke again, she spun around to face me. "Oh, Twilight, silly, silly Twilight. If you really thought that I would show my hand so soon, then you are just a wee bit mistaken." I held out my paw, and in it appeared a miniature human hand. Such a shame they had to go. They probably could've stopped this before it got to this point, but the past is the past, and cannot be changed. Most of the time. "But, seeing as how you are going to be needing some form of idea of what you're fighting for, then I suppose I could tell you." I paused here, allowing the information to soak its way through her knowledge hungry mind. "What you will be fighting for, is simply none other than what you hold dearest to you."
And with but a snap of my claws, she was off on her journey. Which meant one thing, and one thing only; I had finally rid this world of one the immortal Alicorns.
With the first of the four Alicorns gone, now would be the perfect time to begin setting back the clock. I could already feel the waning strength of the remaining three, one of whom was due to be gone in only three weeks time. After her, the remaining two would be stuck with only half the power that once held me back, and would be in no shape to fend off my assault. The third would fall a month after that, leaving only the strongest of the four, the one who would be able to withstand it for nearly a year.
But, then again, time was irrelevant now. For her, nothing, absolutely nothing, would change, save for when that year was up. Now, all that was left for me to do, was wait. And I was used to waiting. Oh, believe me, I was used to waiting.
The young lavender unicorn known as Twilight Sparkle lay on the floor of a forest, teetering on the verge of unconsciousness. Her breath came in short, ragged gasps, and with each new breath, she was brought farther and farther away from the land of the living, as her heart beat ever so faster, trying its hardest to pump oxygen enriched blood throughout her frail, helpless body.
As she lay on the damp grass, only one thought crossed through her mind: Discord wasn’t a killer. He may have pushed ponies psychologically, tortured their surroundings with his chaotic ways, and even caused some to move to the brink of hurting others. But, throughout the entire time she knew him, and what she recalled from her talks with the Princess, he had never, ever, directly hurt somepony, let alone gone so far as to kill them.
Her mouth hung slightly open, and her lungs struggled to take in more oxygen, but to no avail. There would be no avoiding the inevitable now, for she was so far gone that not even the greatest of healing spells could bring her back anymore. And yet, her struggle continued. Whatever it was Discord was planning, it was her job as the last active element of harmony to stop it. Even if there was no way to stop Discord by herself, she knew she was powerful enough to at least break the other elements free from his control. She had done it before, after all.
Pushing her body to the limits, she forced herself off the ground. Unfortunately for her, her legs were not yet ready to handle her weight, and she collapsed back down to the grass. Darkness tugging at her vision once more, she made one final attempt to rise, only to fall for the final time, and her vision went out completely. All she was left with was her rapidly disappearing hearing, and as that too reached its limits, she could have sworn she heard a young colt’s voice call out, “Hey, Mew, what’s that over there?”
<~>
A high pitched giggle rang out as a grey, fox-like creature looked around its surroundings, vainly trying to locate the owner of said giggle.
“Come on, Mew, at least gimme a chance!” It called out, looking behind a tree where the sound originated, only to be gifted with nothing yet again. It knew that the Mew had to be around here somewhere, it just needed to figure out where it was the Mew was hiding.
“As if you need help! I know all your tricks already, Zorua, so don’t act like you’re not sneaking around invisible right now!” Mew answered from what seemed to be behind another tree, but was really coming from inside a small blueberry bush. However, he couldn’t fit all the way inside, and his tail poked out slightly at the bottom.
Suddenly, Zorua disappeared, and a voice from next to Mew said, “Actually, I was just sneaking around silently, Mew, but I guess next time I could do it silently and invisibly.”
Laughing, Mew shoved Zorua playfully, before floating up into the air. “Well, if you’re going to be going invisible, then I guess I’ll just have to be going around too tiny for you to see, then!”
“Yeah, but it won’t be my fault if I step on you again, Mew.” Zorua retorted, right before he jumped into the air to push Mew back, only for Mew to move just out of his reach. “Oh, come on!”
“That only happened, like, twice, Zorua. And both times, it was ‘cause you went and tried to sneak around invisible to find me!” Swooping down quickly, Mew tapped on Zorua’s snout with his paw. “Boop!” Laughing, Mew flew away into the forest, leaving an irritated Zorua in his wake.
“Hey!” Zorua cried out, startled by Mew. Composing himself as fast as he was able, Zorua quickly gave chase to the psychic feline.
Mew always did this to him. Every time he knew he had the upper hand in a game, he would be sure to taunt the Zorua in every possible way he could. It never bothered him much; on the contrary, it always made the games much, much more fun to play.
Zorua weaved in and out of the trees, keeping a close eye on Mew, who was around twenty feet ahead of him. Jumping over a mossy, rotting log, Zorua saw that Mew had decided to stop restricting himself to the x and y axis.
Slowing to a stop, he shouted to Mew, “No fair! You know I’m not that good with my psychic stuff!”
“Oh, come on, Zorua! I know you’ve been getting better, and you do, too. So stop acting like you can’t float yourself after me already!”
Zorua slumped his head, and sighed. Why did Mew always insist that he work on them? It’s not like anyone dangerous ever came to The Tree. All it was good for was getting food and berries from places out of his reach, and even then it took too long to get the food than if he had just walked to wherever it was. “Please come down, Mew? I really, really don’t want to use my psychic stuff.”
“Look Zorua, just raise yourself to the trees, and then you can just hop the trees to get around. Watch!” Lowering himself onto the branch of an oak, Mew proceeded to leap from the tree and land on the branch of a neighboring oak, easily keeping his balance. “Now come on up here and try it!”
Closing his eyes, Zorua planted his paws into the dirt, and remembered what it was like to feel weightless. He remembered the feeling of having Mew pull his body up with his psychic abilities, and allowed the feeling to push its way throughout his body. As he remembered more and more of the feeling, the memory slowly became less and less a memory, and more of a reality. As he felt his small paws gently lift off of the black soil, Zorua opened his eyes, and looked down just in time to see the ground begin to slowly leave him.
Digging deeper into his memories, Zorua recalled when he and Mew visited one of Mew’s older friends, a rather large Dragonite, somewhere near the ocean. When the Dragonite spread its wings and began flapping them, the intense winds had nearly thrown Zorua. Each time his wings were brought in, Zorua had been pulled forward, and each time he pushed his wings down, Zorua had been pushed backwards. Doing the same with this memory, Zorua was able to slowly levitate himself up and forward, and safely landed on the top of a large tree, forty feet in the air.
“See, I told you you could do it! Now, come on!” Mew shouted gleefully, just before zooming off once more through the treetops. Grinning, Zorua took a step back, readied himself, and then sprinted on the branch, leaping onto the next one once he got to the end. Keeping his momentum going, Zorua continued to jump from tree to tree. But unfortunately, Zorua traveling this way was not even the slightest bit close to being the same speed as Mew, and so he was quickly being left behind.
Realizing he had no other choice, Zorua stopped to concentrate and, looking down at himself, saw his body begin to blur. Perfect, he thought. Starting up again, Zorua kept the same pace as the previous time, although this time he was traveling well over twice his original speed.
Once Zorua had used Agility, Mew looked back, and, seeing the speed boosted Zorua coming for him, angled himself downward so as to better maneuver out of Zorua's rapidly approaching reach.
As Mew flew down closer to the ground, Zorua knew he had him. Altering his course just enough so that he could begin going down as well, Zorua changed branches several more times, until finally, with one final leap, he landed on all fours right in front of Mew.
Startled, Mew turned a hard right in a last ditch effort to escape Zorua, only to crash head first into a large, heavy oak tree. Holding his head, Mew slowly floated up, and was met with Zorua's grinning face. "Got you."
Eyes half open, he smiled and said, "Hah, good work, Zorua.” He moved his head to his left, and coughed onto the ground. “Hey Zorua, would you mind if, um…”
Sighing dramatically, Zorua said, “Weeeell, I guess I could heal you. I mean,if it’ll make you feel better.” Closing his eyes, Zorua concentrated, and several pink ripples of energy were emitted from his body, and sent to Mew. Zorua’s Heal Pulse having healed Mew, Mew stretched in mid-air, yawning as he did so.
“There you go, Mew! Now, if you’ll excuse me.” Whipping around, Zorua began sprinting through the forest, almost instantly going invisible. Darting through the trees, Zorua quickly gained the upper hand on Mew, having been able to avoid him in the very beginning thanks to his ability. Running as fast as his legs could carry him, Zorua jumped over fallen logs, scrambled through bushes, and did just about anything and everything he could to increase the distance between him and Mew.
Coming into a clearing, Zorua slowed to a stop, and hid in back of a tree. Breathing heavily, he forced his breathing to quiet, and listened for Mew. Hearing nothing, Zorua released his invisibility, and took in a deep breath. Turning to his right, Zorua took a single step forward, and nearly walked face-first into Mew.
“Hey Zorua!”
“WAHHH!” Zorua stumbled backwards, landing on his haunches.
Giggling hysterically, Mew floated up to him, and tapped him on his forehead. “Tag!” Continuing to laugh, Mew zipped away, heading deeper into the forest.
Shaking his head, Zorua got off of the ground, and looked to where Mew had gone. Smiling deviously, he thought, “Time for some real fun.”
~~~
The two Pokemon played together for some time after that, acting as two young brothers would: fighting, laughing, arguing, laughing, shouting, laughing. They capered up until the sun rose to it's highest point of the day, radiating an intense heat from it. Currently, it was in its own little patch of sunlight.
The two Pokemon, tired after an intense couple of hours of fun, collapsed under a small oak tree. It provided a moderate amount of shade from the sun, which was still out and bright, despite it currently being the middle of winter. Hopefully, the dark grey clouds Zori could see a few miles away would get here fast.
Smiling, Mew said, "Wow, Zori, you're really getting better at just about every game we play! Pretty soon you're gonna be beating me!"
Zori gasped, a faraway look in his eyes. "Yeah, and then once I'm beating you, I'll be able to beat just about anyone! In fact, I bet I could even beat a Garchomp in a game of tag after that!"
Laughing, Mew responded, "Yeah, well don't go challenging every Pokemon you can. Remember that not everyone is nice, and fun to be with. To them, it might not even be a game anymore." His last sentence ended with a much more serious tone than he had started with.
Zorua giggled. “Yeah, but then I could go with you, and we could be like those cool, rescue teams! We could be just like Team Go-Getters, and go around saving other Pokemon, or even exploring places no one else has been!” He gasped then, and said, “I bet we could even become better explorers than them, and find even more stuff than they did!”
The corners of Mew’s lips curled into a smile, and he said, “Yeah, Zorua, I bet we would! In fact, I think I still have those old Pecha Scarves I bought somewhere back in the Tree, if you want.”
“Yeah! We can go get them, and become the greatest team ever!” Jumping up from his spot under the tree, he began pushing at Mew with his nose. “Come on, Mew, let’s go! Teleport us, teleport us!”
“Oh, alright, Zori. You wait here, I’ll be back in a bit. And, don’t give me that look, you know it gets harder the farther the distance. We can’t have me all tired after having to teleport two Pokemon over twenty miles, right? Plus, without a focal point on top of it!”
Floating up into the air, Mew smiled, and then said, “Alright, I’ll be back in a few minutes. And be ready, because I think I know a game you haven’t seen yet!”
With a slight flash of pink light, Mew was gone. Zorua, a plan already forming in his head, began slowly collecting all of the items he would need for Mew. He knew that Mew preferred to Teleport to the Travel Trees, and simply use those for the majority of the way; if he was going to keep them active for so long, he would at least get some use out of them, right? So, this ended up leaving him with a rather large time gap to be able to do whatever he pleased, which he knew exactly what to do to make sure that when Mew got back, he would be in for a nice little surprise…
<~>
Watching from on top of his tree, Zorua saw as his best friend, mew, re-appeared under the tree, as well as three Pokemon he remembered seeing around camp from time to time; an Eevee, a Totodile, and a Vulpix. Confused, he watched as Mew immediately called for him, hurriedly looking all around the floor of the forest.
But, before the Zorua could answer his call, the Eevee, Yuzee if Zori remembered correctly, tripped and fell, pushing the Vulpix backwards on the ground, right on top of where the pitfall trap was that Zori had laid. It wasn’t that dangerous of one, only meant to temporarily lower a target’s speed. However, it still was enough to cause mild panic among the Vulpix.
“Ahh! What was that! Please, please tell me it didn’t mess up any of my stats!” She might have been overreacting a bit, but then again, not many Pokemon, save for exploration teams, had to deal with pitfall traps.
Plopping down onto the ground behind Mew, who was now facing the Vulpix, Zori said, “Well, it did lower your speed a little, but not for very long. Too bad Mew didn’t activate it.”
Whirling around, Mew exclaimed, “Zori! There you are. Hurry, I need you to grab hold of everyone here with me, okay? I’ll explain when we get there.”
Ushering all four other Pokemon into a huddle with a gap in the middle, Mew suddenly flew straight into the gap, and with another pink flash, the five Pokemon were teleported.
Once they reappeared, Mew said, “Alright, come over here, this is where I saw her! She shouldn’t be too far.” Flying off at breakneck speeds, the four other Pokemon struggled to keep up with him, the Vulpix especially.
Turning to the Pokemon he knew best, Zori asked Yuzee, “Hey, do you know what Mew’s having us do?”
“No idea,” she answered. “He just grabbed us three, and pulled us over with him, saying that he needed our help. If you really want to know, though, you should ask Chloe. She was picked up by him first, so he might’ve told her.” She paused momentarily, as if debating whether or not she should say something. “But, he’s Mew, so we should help him with whatever it is. Without him, well, this place wouldn’t even be here.”
Chloe was the Vulpix who had unwittingly fallen into Zori’s custom pit trap. At the time, she had seemed at least slightly angered by it, and currently, she still seemed a bit peeved at him over the trap. Zori knew because when he looked over at her to get her attention, she glared angrily at him in response to his unasked question.
Zori was about to respond to Yuzee, when he was suddenly cut off by Mew having stopped just ahead of them. The four of them ceased their running, with all of them able to do so easily, save for the Vulpix, who had just gotten back her regular running speed, and was moving fifty percent faster than she just had been. She nearly stumbled headfirst into Mew, too, but was quick enough to catch herself.
Turning to face them, Mew said, “Okay, so here’s why I brought all of you here. When I was headed back to where I keep my two pecha scarves, I sensed a disturbance extremely small in the area up ahead with my psychic powers. In fact, it was so small, that I nearly missed it, and when I went up to look, well, I couldn’t believe what it was that I’d seen. So, that’s why I brought you four. I needed you to stay here, and keep an eye on her while I checked something. Don’t worry, I’ll be back in around an hour or two. You four can just play some games while you’re here, as long as you keep an eye on her, and make sure nothing happens to her before I get back, okay?”
Mew paused, as if debating with himself, before saying, “Alright, I think you should see her now. Remember, she might not look exactly like a Pokemon, but still, you need to just treat her nice until I get back, alright? She’s right over- wait, where’s Riptide?”
Unknown to Mew, and the rest of the group, Riptide had slipped on ahead of the group, and at the moment was looking farther ahead. Noticing something farther on, he realized that, while it looked as if it could be a Pokemon, it most certainly didn’t look like any he knew. Deciding that it would be best if he asked Mew, he called back to him, “Hey, Mew, what’s that over there?”
Running water. Rustling leaves. Resonating laughter. My hearing was the first of my senses to return. Soon after, my touch came. Thousands of spongy needles lay underneath me, cushioning my body. I laid on my side, my hooves curled up to me. I opened my eyes, only to slam them back together. Oh dear Celestia, that hurt. More gently this time, my eyes slid open, shielded from the sunlight with my right foreleg.
Slowly, so very, very slowly, I managed to lower my foreleg and get to my hooves. Turning all around, I realized I was in what appeared to be a clearing in the forest. Pine trees surrounded my form, the needles shimmering in the slight wind. Sheets of sunlight filtered through the gaps in the trees, illuminating the area. Looking to the skies, I realized the sun had decided to make an appearance today, although the low hanging dark winter clouds foretold of a rainy future not too far off.
I continued to gaze around at my surroundings. My first instinct was to try teleporting back to the library. Horn alighting, I cast the spell to teleport myself back, but to no avail. I frowned. Discord must have done something to prevent me from teleporting, just like he did back at the library. Looks like I’ll be looking for a way out of the forest the old fashioned way. The environment didn’t give off a foreboding sense of dread, fear, or sadness, so I knew it wasn’t the Everfree forest. It must be one of the other, tamer ones. Taking a deep breath, I began my trek through the trees, but stopped when I heard laughter.
Wait a minute. That voice. I remember that voice. That’s what woke me up in the first place! Excited to meet somepony who could hopefully help me out, I followed the direction I heard the laughter coming from, which was actually opposite the direction I was heading. Luckily, the laughter was faint, so I knew I didn’t have far to go before I would find it’s owner.
Pushing my way through the various plant growth, I quickly realized that an alarming number of them were unfamiliar. Bringing a small flower in for examination, I saw that it appeared to be made of a sort of stained glass. The flower was spiraled, similar to an ice-cream cone from Sugarcube Corner. Lines of varying shades of green intercrossed the entire plant, and near the base it changed to a soft violet. Petals of purple and blue jutted out at the bottom.
Running a hoof over it, from the top to the base, to the petals on the bottom, I shuddered as I realized that, no, it wasn't glass, but at the same time it wasn't a plant based material. Instead, it felt sort of like a flexible piece of glass. Oh, the things that can be learned from this flower alone... The possibilities were endless! Clothes that could make a pony near invisible without the use of magic, a mirror that would bend, but never break, even a coating for everyday household items to prevent their easy breakage! Wanting to document it, but knowing better than to do so before I knew where I was, I continued on, resolving to come back and document the flower another time.
Soon enough, I began faintly hearing the voices again. As I quickened my pace so as to arrive faster, the various voices became audible enough for me to nearly distinguish individual words. In fact, I also began to hear their tones, which sounded.... playful almost, like how a foal would be expected to sound whilst playing with friends.
Laughter? Are they not afraid of this forest? Then again, I suppose if they lived in here they wouldn't be, although why they would choose to evades me.
As I approached them, I could finally hear individual voices. A light, male voice called out, "Hey, Chloe, pass it over here!"
"Got it, Riptide!" Another voice answered, although this one was that of a young filly's. The whizzing sound of an object being thrown at high speeds assaulted my ears.
"Come on Zori! We can't let them score!" Another filly’s voice said in a singsong tone, presumably to "Zori".
"Don't worry Yuzee. You know I won't let them near our goal again." A fourth, and sounding the most mature and calm, male voice entered, as a reply to "Yuzee".
Those are slightly odd names for a pony. Out of the four, Riptide’s makes the most sense. Zori was normal enough, too, despite the fact that it did sound slightly more feminine than usual for a colt. I suppose Chloe could be acceptable, but Yuzee? Really?What kind of a name is ‘Yuzee’? Rapidly approaching the next clearing where they presumably were, I wondered of their age. They didn't even sound like grown ponies, more like foals, really. Flashes of color jumped in and out of the gaps in the trees, a mixture of red, brown, blue, and dark grey, but never stayed long enough for me to get a good fix on them.
As I neared the last set of trees obstructing my path, their game continued on. Breaking through the branches, I called out, "Hello, I was wondering if yo- Gah!" Oh sweet Celestia, what are these things!?
Ahead of me, where I had originally presumed several ponies would be, were these odd creatures, who seemed to be playing with miniature soccer ball. One of them was small and light brown, looking to be a mix between a young cat and a fox. Large, pointy ears stuck out from it’s head, with a darker shade of brown fur coating it closer to the base. Fluffy, light tan fur fluffed out from its neck, and the same type of fluffy fur made up its tail. Small tufts of fur stuck out from its head in spikes.
The next was some sort of blue bi-pedal lizard, looking to be no larger than a foal, with what looked to be four small red spikes adorning it’s back, and going down it’s tail. It's arms ended in what appeared to be short stubs, similar to a dragons claws, and it's chest had two symmetric yellow parallelograms at about a thirty degree angle. A large maw made up the majority of its face. Most likely this one was a dragon, or a crocodile.
On the other side of him, holding what looked to be a miniature soccer ball in it's mouth, was what looked like another fox-like creature. A strange mixture of red and brown made up its coat, and several tufts of what looked to be reminiscent of a mane curled out from the top of its head. Brown pupil-less eyes were on both sides of it’s face. An almost white color seemed to break through the field of fur on it’s underside, and it had what looked to be six tails, all curled in much the same way as its mane.
Lastly, near the opposite end of the clearing, a light gray fox like animal stood. The bottom half of its legs faded from gray to a muted red, the same shade of red the top half of its mane was. A large, bushy gray tail protruded from it. By far, it was the largest of the bunch, looking to be about half the size of Princess Celestia.
Slowly backing up, I realized that there was no way I'd be able to fight them off. I mean, I had the magic to do it, but I would never kill something, and if I fought these obvious predators, it may come to one of our deaths. I just have to back away slowly, and hope to Celestia that none of them heard me call out to-
"Hey guys, look, it's that one Pokémon Mew showed us earlier!" The brown cat said to the others, motioning at me with one of its paws.
The ball dropped from the red fox, and it bounded forward to me, quickly being followed by the brown cat and the blue dragon-lizard.
"S-Stay back!" I cried out, not wanting them to come to me. Oh Celestia, these things were going to kill me! At least three of the four were carnivores, and the last one may very well be one also. There was no way I would let them have even a chance at me. Lighting up my horn, I teleported to the other side of the field, and behind a tree where I hid, unseen.
"Hey, where's she going?" One of the male voices called out.
"I don't know, but we can't let her get away! Mew said we need to make sure she was still here when he got back." Hearing this, I forced my hooves to start moving as fast as they could carry me away from them. Knowing they wouldn't be far behind, I sprinted through the tree line, making sure to avoid all roots, rocks, and anything else that would obstruct my escape.
As I ran, I felt my back began to dampen, until finally I realized the rain had finally begun to fall. Although It was slight and had done nothing so far, other than lightly dampen my coat, I knew that it could be dangerous to continue running in this weather.
Twisting my head slightly, my vision was assaulted with the colors of the various foliage, along with constant shades of brown, red, and blue. Turning back around, I knew there was a big enough gap between us that I could still manage to escape. I just needed some manner of escaping their pervading sight.
Up ahead, there was what appeared to be another clearing. Deciding that the best course of action would be to go through there and then make a hard turn to the left, I galloped towards my destination.
As I broke through my second set of branches for the day, I turned left, only to be met with the light gray fox from earlier.
"AHHHHHH!" I screamed, jumping back in fear. Oh sweet Celestia, now I'm really in for it! How did he even catch up to me that fast?!
Turning tail to run in the opposite direction, I began galloping forward, only to meet a giant rock wall. Quickly changing my direction for a second time, I instead continued to go the way I was originally going. The light gray fox continued standing where I ran into him, looking my way. But as I galloped, I had to stop yet again, and I came to a grim realization: I was trapped. In front of me was yet another rock wall, although this one had several trees in front of it.
Turning around, I looked to see if I had enough time to attempt the last way; where the fox had most likely come from. But alas, that way was blocked off also, this time by trees growing so thickly together, their gnarled bodies stopped all but a foal from going through. In fact, with the gaps at that size, how did the fox even manage to get through to here without me seeing it? But that was a problem for another time. Right now, I had to get out, and get out fast.
As the rain began pouring harder, I looked to my last hope, the only exit in the clearing, only to have my hopes of escaping through there dash away as I saw the other three of the four creatures from earlier appear. As I looked all around me, I realized I had one thing, I had one last thing that would be able save me; I had my wings.
Spreading my wings to their fullest, I took off, off to the tops of the trees, aiming for the top of one of the rainclouds above me. Glancing down from my height, I saw the animals looking confused up at me, most likely from not knowing their prey could fly. So fast and so high was I flying, that they soon became just specks in my vision.
Smiling triumphantly, I pushed myself up, up, and away from the clearing, and to my salvation, the dark grey cloud just thirty meters away, only to feel a slight tugging at my wings. As I looked at them curiously, I saw something that filled me with dread. My wings were.... My wings were.... My wings were disintegrating. Every feather, every muscle, every bone, all of it was disappearing. As I looked at my wings in horror, I didn't realize that the ground was rapidly approaching. The pain was excruciating, but I knew that I had no choice. Trying in vain one last attempt to flap them, my heart nearly stopped as the rest of them disappeared.
There’s so much to see from the sky. From one hundred meters, already an adult pony looks as small as a large insect. From two hundred, they’re just a tiny little smudge, barely recognizable as a pony. From three hundred, they can still be seen, although only the most talented pegasus can still make out that they are, indeed, a pony. From four hundred, those same talented ponies are barely able to tell that there’s something there. And from five hundred meters, not even the best of the best can differentiate between a pony and something of equal size.
Once you’re up in the air, however, the ponies on the ground no longer matter. What does matter is the floor of the planet, filled with enormous, twisting forests of miniature trees, paths looking as though they are simply wrinkles in the dirt, and valleys looking like dents in the earthen floor. From up in the sky, everything gets put into perspective. You start to understand how small you are, how insignificant you are, when compared to the entirety of the world.
And it only gets worse the higher up you go. Eventually, even the huge trees of the forests, the valleys in the hills, and the weaving paths, all turn to smudges. Eventually, they turn white, because up past the clouds, all you can see are the clouds. Sure, they can be moved, but then again, who are you to decide to move them? The cloud is far, far bigger than you’ll ever be, and even though you can move it, even though you can control it… should you? Should you get to dictate what it does?
Past that, if you can still see the ground, well, you can see so much more of the world. Far off cities with their glamoring, winking lights come into view, oceans can be seen peeking over the edge of the horizon, and the mountains begin looking more like raised bumps on the land. Past even that, and- well, I suppose only one pony has ever been higher up than that and lived, and, as far as I know, Luna has never been one to talk of it.
I think that, once you’re up in the sky, you really can begin to understand where it is you fit in the world. Everypony should have the chance to go up as high as they can, no matter the cost. It would truly help us as a species better learn how it is we relate to the world in all its entirety, in all its glory. It would truly help us as a species better learn how it is the world relates to us, in all our entirety, in all our glory.
I fell, hitting the same speed as the rain, and then falling faster than it, so fast that I had to close my eyes from the air rushing past. My horn crackled uselessly as I did all I could to slow my fall, to give myself something, anything, that would make it so I could survive. And then I hit the ground.
"Yeah, I saw her eyes twitch right now! She should totally be awake soon."
"Thanks again, Chimecho. I don't know what we would've done without you!"
"Oh, don't worry about it, little ones. Sometimes a little wish can go a long way, and it always works best when you believe it will. And it does seem as though she is waking up, so I think we should all take a couple steps back. We don't want to startle her too much."
"Okay, Chimecho!" Several beings chorused in unison.
Using the voices as a guide, I managed to pull myself from the foggy depths of unconsciousness. Blinking rapidly, I dispelled the film that had taken residence in my eyes. Opening my eyes fully, I looked straight ahead to see the back of a cave. Turning my head to the right, my eyesight was greeted with a large, floating blue wind chime. To the left of said floating wind chime were three of the animals from earlier, all showing off their pointed teeth.
"AHHHHHH!" I shrieked, scrambling to my hooves.
Backing up to the end of the cave, I looked at the beasts in front of me, along with what appeared to be a floating wind chime. Realizing I still had my magic, my horn lit up, and I cast the spell to teleport me to the front of the cave. But as my horn stopped emitting light, I came to the dark conclusion that, because I had been unconscious for so long, my magic wasn't strong enough yet for me to cast something as complicated as teleporting.
"P-Please...." I whispered, droplets of moisture beginning to tug at the corners of my eyes. "Just please, leave me alone. I don't want to be hurt. Please...." As I stood there, backed up against the wall, something came to me. Something came to my mind, something that had never even crossed my mind before. I, Twilight Sparkle, was going to die, and no amount of friendship could save me now.
"Uh, are you okay? I mean, I guess we could let you stay in here, but I don't know why you'd want to be alone." The red, multi-tailed fox said, a confused look covering its face.
Wait a minute. Did- did that red fox just talk? "Y-You can talk?" I sputtered out.
"Well duh, of course we can talk! What, never seen another Pokemon before or something?" The blue alligator said, smirking at me.
"So, you're not going to eat me?" I asked, unbelieving of this new addition.
The red fox looking at me curiously. "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, dear Celestia, have I been stupid. Back in the woods, when I heard the voices, I thought it was ponies, but in reality it was just them! And then my first time waking up, I woke up to their laughter, and right now I woke up to their voices again. In fact, I heard them talking to me, right before I ran away, and it never even clicked.
"Oh thank Celestia, you're not going to hurt me!" I exclaimed, smiling mirthfully. "I was so worried that you would, that I never even thought to consider that you wouldn't."
I saw the large floating wind chime's mouth move. "What would make you think these young ones would hurt you?"
Wait, why is the wind chime talking? Well, the animals can talk, so why not the wind chime as well? Celestia, this was becoming weirder and weirder by the second. "Well, obviously you're all predators," I answered the wind chime, "and so I simply assumed that you all would attack me."
"I'm not really sure I know what you're talking about," the brown cat said. "What's a predator?"
"What do you mean, 'What's a predator?'" The cat looked on expectantly. "You mean to tell me, that you have no idea what a predator is?" I asked, looking incredulously at it. I was answered with a confused look from it, and from the others as well. Oh dear Celestia, they had to be joking. There was no way they didn't know what a predator was.
Before any further comments could be made, I heard a quiet woosh come from outside.
"Hey guys, I'm back! I managed to find Mew messing around with some stones in his home." A voice called from the thick blanket of trees.
And from the lines of trees, the small grey fox from earlier appeared along with what appeared to be some sort of floating pink cat-like creature. Two triangular ears stuck out from the top of its head, and large blue eyes were stuck in the middle of its wide face. Short, stubby forelegs hung down from its chest, and three small claw-like appendages pushed their way through the end of each paw. Its hind legs also hung limply down, and were easily thrice the size of its forelegs. A long, thin tail ending in a rounded tip protruded from the back.
"Uhh..." I was speechless. The mouse, the fox, the dog, the lizard; Celestia, even the floating wind chime I could deal with. But this, this pink thing, combined with all the others, I just could not handle.
Falling to the dirt floor, I groaned out while rubbing my head with my hooves. "Oh dear Celestia, I really wish I had learned that headache spell."
What I assumed to be the floating wind chime said, "Come on then little ones, let's leave Mew to do his work. We don't want to bother him now, do we?"
A chorus of “Okays” later, I was in a room alone with whom I assumed to be the pink floating cat thing.
Why was all this happening to me? Discord magicked me away from Equestria, off to Celestia knows where, just so he could start playing around with time! Not to mention the fact that all of these… these things were everywhere, all of whom looked just like predators, yet still claimed they weren’t. Now, I have to deal with them, all while I try to figure out a way to get around playing Discord’s game. But, at the very least, four of them had just left, and I was only left with two others. It may not have been ideal conditions, but at least it was something.
As I lay there rubbing my temples, I felt something nudging my side. Removing one of my hooves to look, I saw the pink floating thing poking me with its foreleg.
"Hey, what's wrong? Are you okay?" It asked, sounding curious and worried. Before I could answer, its paws glowed yellow, and I felt my headache dissipate.
"There you go! Now you should be all set to go!" The pink thing said, sounding happy.
Realizing that my headache had been taken away, I looked at the creature oddly. "D-Did you do that?" I inquired as I got to my hooves.
"Do what?" It responded, staring at me with wide, unblinking eyes.
"Take my headache away. I mean, were you the one that took it away?" I questioned quietly, unsure of his response.
"Well of course I did! I mean, why wouldn't I fix you?"
Looking up at the floating creature, my gaze turned towards its face. A small mouth was stuck right at the base of its face, near where its chin should have been.
“W-what are you?” I tentatively asked, not sure of this creature. It didn’t seem violent, or threatening in anyway. In fact, it gave off a feeling of…I don’t know how to describe it. Safety is perhaps the closest thing to it.
Opening its mouth, it answered me in a tone of such happiness that only a foal could hope to match it. “Easy! I’m a Mew!”
“A Mew?” I asked, perturbed. Dear Celestia, this was getting odder and odder by the second.
“Yup! I may be rare, but I’m not that rare! In fact, I- hey, wait a minute! Have you never heard of a Mew before?" It asked, cocking its head to the side a bit.
"No! In fact, I've never seen anything like any of you before!" I exclaimed, my headache beginning to return with a vengeance. "I don't even know how I got here! All I know is that Discord somehow sent me here, and now I'm stuck in this place, and have no idea how to get back!"
"Oh wow, you must have dealt with a lot. And you know, it's no wonder you don't know what a Mew is, now that I think about it. I guess it would be pointless then to ask what kind of Pokemon you are then, right?"
"I think I've heard the others use that term before, but I really have no idea what it means." I answered, confused at the word. Pokemon? What in Equestria could that possibly mean?
"Well, a Pokemon is like a broad thing that's used to describe a lot of different kinds of beings. Kind of like having a flower and a tree. Both are completely different, but you call them both plants. Same thing with Pokemon. You can have two completely different ones in the same room, and they can both be considered Pokemon. Now do you get what I mean by Pokemon?"
I thought about it for a moment, then answered. "So then a Pokemon would be like... Like when you're referring to two different ponies. Both are ponies, but one is an Earth Pony, and the other is a Pegasus. But no matter what, both are still ponies." I said, fairly certain I had gotten the gist of it.
"Exactly! Well, I mean, I hope you're right. I don't know what some of those words mean, but it sure does sound like you are though, and that's good enough for me!" It finished, a glint in its eyes.
"Alright, now that that's out of the way, could you please tell me where we are?" I asked the floating creature.
When he laughed, it seemed as if his entire body shook at once, causing him to resemble a young foal who had just discovered the joys of a game of peek-a-boo. "Well, that's easy! You're in the Tree of Beginning, my home!"
"Okay, but I was kind of hoping you could give me something a bit more.... Useful than that?" I questioned hopefully.
"Well, so that I can answer your questions the best, I think we should go to a better place than this musty old cave." It said in a joyful tone. "So come on, let's walk and talk!" Realizing that I really had no other choice but to follow this creature if I wanted any chance at getting back to Equestria, I walked after him. Equestria needed me, the element of Magic, and I needed it, now more than ever before. And on this note, I exited the cave, following a floating pink thing known as "Mew".
Exiting the cave, I could have sworn I heard what sounded like it muttering, "I've always wanted to say that!" Deciding it best to keep quiet, however, I allowed it to lead me away, away from the cave, away from the forest, and into a world of unknown.
Following the pink creature, I picked up on some odd things about it. For one, it didn't fly in a straight line, preferring to instead zoom through gaping holes in trees just wide enough for it, whizzing under and above branches ranging from the size of a quill, to the size of the handles on one of AppleJack’s carts, and flitting in circles around random trees; it looked just like a dog in a new section of town. Watching it reminded me of what I was missing, and I turned to look at my back longingly.
As it flew, it occasionally paused at random plants, mostly flowers, and its eyes would stare intently at the flower, almost as if they were looking through it. Its eyes didn't look angry or sad, nor did they look particularly happy. They just.... Looked at the flower. After several seconds of this, it would pull away and resume its flight.
It did this with many different plants, nearly all of which I did not recognize. Tempted, I nearly plucked a couple for later analysis, but I knew that they would still be here, even when I was not.
We continued in silence for some time, before I sighed and decided to start up a conversation to break the quietness. "Hey, would you mind telling me where we're going?"
"Oh hey, you were so quiet, I almost forgot you were there!" It chirped, stopping in midair and looking at me. "Don't worry, we're going to one of the Travel Trees. They let you go almost anywhere in here."
"Travel Trees?"
"They're these big, ginormous trees that have these pink bubbles floating inside. All of them are connected, and have holes that let you go in and out. They're really, really fun to have races in!" It finished.
"Um, okay. How do we know when we're at one?"
"Don't worry, I know where all of them are, and we're super close to one. It'll probably be another minute or two though before we get there."
We continued on in silence for a moment, before I realized something. I didn't know what its name was. Celestia, I didn't even know I it was a colt or a filly!
Smiling awkwardly, I decided then was the best time to ask. "Uh hah ha, I kinda have something to ask you. I never really caught your name, and I was wondering if you could perhaps tell me." I said, hoping that it's name would give away its gender.
"Easy! My names Mew, although how you forgot already, I really don't know." It called out in a light voice, steadily spiraling to the ground ten yards ahead.
"Wait, I thought you said you were a Mew." I replied, confused.
"Yep! Most Pokemon don't have names. We just choose to be called by our species. But nowadays, a lot of other kids are deciding to get nicknames. Like, um, remember those guys from earlier?" At my nod, it continued. "Well, they all had nicknames. The Vulpix’s name is Chloe, the Eevee is named Yuzee, the Totodile’s Riptide, and Zorua's is Z. They all decided that they'd be called that, so that's what everyone calls them."
At this new piece of information, my mind was reeling. How could they all differentiate between each other if they all were called the same thing? Why, if everypony was called Unicorn, or Pegasus, then there would be way too much confusion.
"That- that's terrible!" I exclaimed. "That must be horrible, with everyone having the same name!"
"Well, it's not really all that bad. When you call out for a specific Pokemon, then that one is usually the one that comes. Sometimes, though, you can get like five to come over, and then that's really awkward!" Mew answered as it flew out from a log.
"So then you don't, like, really care then about it?" I questioned, unsure.
"Well no, not really. It doesn't mean anything to me. I've always been Mew, and it would be kinda weird if I just decided to use a nickname one day." Mew answered, slowing its flight speed to match my pace. "And hey, you never told me your name!"
Smiling, I laughed at my idiocy. Oh, how could I have forgotten to tell them my name? Well, I suppose he should learn it now. Better late than never, I suppose. "My name is Twilight Sparkle, student, apprentice, and element of Magic."
"Hey, that's cool! I always loved magic! It's so cool when I see people do it!" Mew joyfully exclaimed. "When we have some time later, do you think you could show me some?" He asked, looking expectantly at me.
"Well, sure, I guess I could show you some later. I mean, I'm not the best or anything, but I am pretty decent." I said, blushing at his words. Almost nopony had ever wanted to see me do magic before, and even then it was usually just young unicorns who were learning it for themselves, and whose parents either didn’t have time, or weren’t Unicorns.
"Alright! Let's get a move on then!" He shouted excitedly.
As we walked on, I realized that there was still one thing that I had no idea about: it's gender. Deciding that I'd rather go through the awkwardness now rather than later, I plunged ahead. "Hey Mew, remember when I asked what your name was? Weeeell, I kinda don't know what your gender is, either." I said, smiling awkwardly.
"My gender? Oh, my gender! Well, a lot of Pokemon say I'm a guy, so I guess I'm a male then!" He answered, his eyes crinkling as he smiled.
Coming to the conclusion that he was joking around, I smiled along with him. "Alright, thanks Mew. Any idea where the tree is?"
"Yup! It should be right up here!" He said, quickly flying up to a tree that was way bigger than the other trees. In fact, it was so large, I had no idea how I had missed it before. A semi-large hole sat in the base of it.
The tree was different from the other trees in the fact that it was not a pine, but an enormous oak. Long branches snaked their way through even the pine trees, allowing a sort of mixture between the two.
"Well, what are you waiting for? Come on in!" Mew exclaimed, right before floating through the hole.
Placing my trust in him, I slowly peered inside. Mouth agape, I was in awe. Hundreds- No, thousands of pink bubbles bounced around. Ranging from the size of my hoof to nearly two times as large as Princess Celestia herself, the bubbles all seemed to float in one of two directions: up, or down.
Tentatively reaching out my forehoof, I gently prodded a smaller, slower moving bubble. It didn't pop, but instead jiggled madly. Pulling it into my body, I pushed it in together with both hooves. The bubble didn't burst, but instead simply bent inwards. Letting it go, it began to float up to the sky, only to quickly begin moving in the opposite direction, and back into the tree.
"Hey Twilight, what are you doing? You can't just stand outside the tree and expect to get there. Come on!" I heard Mew call from within the tree, although it sounded as though he was significantly farther away than when he originally entered.
Deciding to place the rest of my faith in Mew, I took a deep breath, and jumped. I free-fell for about one or two seconds before I landed on one of the pink bubbles. The impact didn't hurt, it was just.... unexpected. Grinning, I looked up to try and find Mew, only to see him on the other side of the tree, going down. He was sitting on one of the bubbles, and was looking directly at me.
"Why hello, Twilight! You might wanna try getting on this side of the tree. Otherwise, you're gonna be in here a lot longer." Mew joyfully said, steadily getting quieter as he went downwards. "I mean, you'll eventually start going down when you reach the top, but that might take a while."
"It's okay Mew. I'll be fine staying in here a bit longer." I called out to him, as he was now at least fifty yards below me.
"Okay Twilight! I'll make sure to get you when you're supposed to come out." He shouted to me, but his voice was already sounding faint.
Realizing that I now had this magnificent place all to myself, I began to observe my surroundings. The tree I was in seemed to stretch upwards for another one hundred meters, and was at least fifteen meters in diameter. The bubbles on my side all seemed to float up, and across the tree on the other side they all seemed to float down.
Realizing that I was most likely in a place never before seen by pony eyes, I did my best to remember everything about the place. I didn't have any parchment, quills, or books, so I had to settle for memory alone. Perhaps I could obtain some paper from Mew later....
As I neared the top, I saw that the bubbles seemed to go within five yards of what appeared to be some sort of wooden ceiling, before they turned and began to head down on the other side. Heading downwards, I noticed how some of the bubbles near the middle would be heading down, and end up colliding with bubbles heading up. But rather than bounce off each other, they simply passed through one another.
As I passed by where we had originally entered the cave and went lower down, I saw that the bottom of the tree, where the roots usually were, was a large expanse of hallway-like rooms. Bubbles constantly flowed in and out of these rooms, and it looked like they all were on a set path.
I allowed the current of the bubbles to take me where they would. Right now, I absolutely didn't care. These rooms could keep a pony occupied all their life, and then still have rooms that went unexplored. Magnificent designs littered the walls of the caverns, and were mostly swirls and squiggles. They made absolutely no sense to me, but they still looked stupendous.
I stayed in the rooms for what seemed to be hours, but was most likely really closer to several minutes. As I passed another hole in the wall, I heard a voice call out to me.
"Hey Twilight! Over here!"
Looking towards the direction the voice came from, I saw Mew about a dozen or so yards ahead. When I got within jumping distance, I stepped to the edge and leaped forth from the bubble. Landing on my hooves, I looked up at Mew, a huge grin plastered on my face.
"Mew, what.... What was that place?" I asked, still stunned. There was nothing like that I had ever read about before. The designs, the bubbles, the cavernous rooms underneath- it was glorious.
"That was just the midway. A lot of Pokemon don't use it because of how confusing it is, but you can learn all the different routes to it." Mew explained. "Unfortunately, by the time they learn enough to use it, most Pokemon are either too old or too big for it to be of any real use to them. The midway goes all throughout the entire Tree, and it lets you skip a lot of the obstacles you would normally have to endure."
"Wait, so then how far did we go?" I asked Mew, unsure of it. If we bypassed the entire forest, and perhaps even the rocky cliffs, then were we even in the same area?
"Well, you skipped about an hour and a half of traveling, but for distance? I don't know, about four or five miles."
Miles? What in Equestria was a mile? "Hey Mew, how far is a mile exactly?" I asked, confused. It had to be a relatively short distance, seeing as how I was in there for about twenty minutes at most.
"You don't know what a mile is?" Mew asked in a surprised tone. "What, do you use kilometers or something?"
"Actually yes, we do use kilometers! Do you know how many that was?" I replied.
"Well, I never was good at mathing, but I think that a little more than one and a half kilometers equals a mile. So I'd say it was about six or seven kilometers, eight if we traveled really far."
six or seven kilometers!? There was no possible way! At the speed we were traveling, that should have been only four or five, but definitely not seven!
"But how is that possible? We should've only gone four kilometers at most! How in Equestria did we cover seven?" I asked, not believing it possible.
"Oh, that's easy! The bottom of the Tree is rounded, so the closer to the middle you get, the shorter the time it takes to get to the other side."
"Wait, the bottom of the Tree is rounded?" I asked. If the bottom of the tree was round, then how could it stand? Unless.... "Does the tree use some form of magic to stay standing?"
"Mmm, nope, no magic whatsoever!" Mew cheerily replied. "It’s just held up because so many Pokemon need it to! Okay, so now that that's out of the way, I have to show you something. Don't worry, we can get there by walking."
As Mew left the room, I followed him. He led me to a small and short tunnel, about three meters long, and we made our way through to another room, this one considerably darker. Realizing that I never got a good look at the last room, I turned back around to see, but I didn't even catch a glimpse. The room and tunnel were gone.
"Wha- Mew, where did the tunnel go?" I asked, tapping on the stone with my hoof.
"Don't worry about it, Twilight." Mew said. "We're here now, so now I can explain a lot of things to you." Right as he finished, a bright light began to erupt from orange crystals. Ranging from thinner than a quill to taller than a door, these crystals jutted out in large clusters in the ground. The only crystals not lit were a large bunch in the middle
Looking around, I saw that there were no exits in the room. Instead there was a giant dome around us, made out of what appeared to be more orange crystal. The entire ceiling was literally lit up, and it bathed Mew’s entire body in an orange glow, causing him to look the color of a pale tangerine.
"This is the heart of the Tree." Mew suddenly said, startling me. "Along with being my home, this is also the place where two heroes lie. Two heroes, who gave their life for myself, and for thousands of others." When he finished, the cluster in the middle lit up, and within I could see two figures lying motionless within it, side by side.
“Mew, who are those ponies?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“Easy! That one on the left, with the weird hat thing, is a human named Aura, but everyone else calls him Sir Aaron. I don’t know why they do, I mean, obviously he’s a Guardian of Aura, so why wouldn’t you call him Aura? But anyways, the one next to him, on the right, is a Pokemon named Lucario! He used to be a lot more fun, but then he had to go away for a really long time. I don’t know what he was doing, but when he came back, he made sure to keep everyone safe, just like he always does!” Mew finished enigmatically.
“Wait, hold on there, Mew. I don’t think I understand half of what you just said.” I said to him, utterly puzzled by his response. Aura Guardian, human, Lucario, it just wasn’t making any sense! Walking forward to get a closer look at the crystals with the figures within, I realised that they looked fairly large, nearly 2 meters long each. “Okay, Mew. I need to know a few things. For one, what in Equestria is an Aura Guardian? Also, what is a human, and what is a Lucario?” I sighed in exasperation as I finished, not enjoying where this day was going. I may be the first pony to see this entire area, but Celestia was this place getting harder to understand by the second!
“Well, an Aura Guardian is someone who is really, really nice, and they have all these cool things they can do, like shoot big balls of Aura, and see into the future and the past, and sometimes they can even move things with their Aura! And the best part is, they’re so fun to play with! Most of the time, an Aura Guardian is a Lucario, or if they’re super strong, then they can be a Riolu. But sometimes, when a human is really, really fantasmic, then they get to become one, too!”
“But… But you didn’t answer my questions!” I exclaimed, totally confused by him. Everything that came out of him just ended with me having more questions than answers!
“Well sure I did, Twilight!” Mew laughed. “You just didn’t listen hard enough for your answers!”
“Oh Celestia, you’re almost as bad as… as… as Pinkie...” I trailed off as I came to a realisation. Stumbling back from the crystals, I fell to my haunches on the floor, my gaze lowering. Pinkie. One of my best friends. Gone. In fact, along with Pinkie, all of my other friends are gone, too. Or at least, so far away that reaching them in time to save Equestria would be unfathomable. My failed teleportation to the library was proof enough of that.
“Hey, what’s wrong?” Mew asked, floating to where I could see him. “Are you sad? Or are you hurt? No, you’re probably in shock, ‘cause if you were hurt, I would’ve seen you get hurt, and there’s nothing to really be sad about right now.”
“M-Mew, I… I thought of something. Right now, I’m all alone. I don’t have any of my friends with me, and I have no idea how to reach them. In fact, there may even be a good chance I may never see any of them again.” Watery tears gently tugging at my vision, I felt myself beginning to slip far, far away from reality, and into the dark void of unconsciousness. There, the struggle in my mind began.
<~>
*Twilight’s mind*
“We need to keep trying! The entire fate of Equestria rests entirely on our back, and no matter what we can’t let it slip!” A loud, dauntless voice shouted.
“No, there’s no helping Equestria now. Anything we try to do will just end up being for naught.” Another voice moaned, distraught at the idea of being without friends.
“Equestria can be saved from Discord, we just need to stop feeling sorry for ourselves and get a move-on!” The initial voice snapped at the distressed one.
“But we’re just a single element, without any of the others even remotely close to us. In fact, all the elements are inaccessible at the moment, seeing as how they’re all guarding the Tree of Harmony. What hope do we have of being even a minor annoyance to Discord?”
The first one seemed to hesitate for a moment. “I- I don’t know. But what I do know is, no matter what happens, we need to at least say we tried to save Equestria when everything turned to Tartarus!”
A third voice came to light, sounding calmer and more determined than either of the two previous ones before. “Hey you two, if you would just stop arguing, then we could actually get this done. Now, what we need to do is make sure we know is what we’re going to do about our situation outside. Any ideas?”
“Find Discord, and go give ‘em the old one-two!”
“Lay here and just DAAAHAAAYAAAH!”
“Really? Is that really the best you two can come up with? Either go fight Discord, or just give up and die?”
“Well, what else do you want us to do? It’s not like we have enough magic to teleport back to the Library, and we can’t exactly just send Princess Celestia a letter when time’s all broken.”
“Oh, I suppose we could find a bed, or even a couch, perhaps. Really, anything better than a cave to pass on in. Celestia knows how horrid that would be!” Beginning to go off on her own tangent on places she considered better places to die in than a cave, the second voice became promptly ignored by the other two.
“Okay, I see your point in this. But at the same time, we cannot just magically appear back in Ponyville to fight Discord. Also, we don’t even know where in Equestria we are, or if we’re even in Equestria anymore.”
“Yeah, but, I don’t see you coming up with any better ideas!”
“Alright then, I guess we could… play his game?”
At her response, the first voice promptly burst into a loud, boisterous laughter. After what seemed like an eternity of it, she finally managed to contain it, and get it down to a reasonable chuckle. “Y-you really think, after what he’s done, and what he’s capable of, that we should put our trust into him? Hah, that’s a real good one. Next you’ll be saying we need to trust these weird animals that found us!”
“Actually, yes, I was going to say that we should trust them! If we are to have any hope of saving Equestria, then those Pokemon are our best hope. They know the land, and they might even be able to point us in the right direction of what we need to do. Besides, if we don’t play his game, then there’s almost no chance of us ever getting back to save Equestria.”
“But… ugh, look, it’s not like I don’t wanna save Equestria. I just don’t think we should do it his way.”
“I know, that if I had the choice, and there was any other way, I would take it in a heartbeat. But seeing as there is literally no other way, we are just going to have to make the best of it.”
“So then we’re all in agreement on this? We’re playing Discord’s game, just so we can save Equestria?”
The first voice was quiet for a moment, before sighing. “I don’t like it, but I know this is what has to be done. So for the sake of Equestria, I guess we could do it.”
The third voice decided that then was the time to remind the others of her presence. “Well, seeing as how I can’t give a valid argument after hearing both of your sides of the story, I suppose we could do this. But I will not consent to trusting that ruffian Discord anymore after this! Really, we should have never trusted him in the first place.”
“While I can’t say I’m surprised that you are able to see reason with this. But yes, I do agree with you that we should have never trusted Discord. But now that we have, we have to deal with the repercussions, and I’ll be a Diamond Dog before I ever trust Discord again!
“Okay, so now what? We’ve already got our plan, so what do we do to get it going?”
“Oh, that’s the easy part. Now, all we have to do, is play the most dangerous game.”
<~>
“You know, if you really wanted, I could be your friend. I mean, like, I may not be the same as your friends, but I am really furry, and pink is a pretty color. Unless, of course, you don’t like pink, but seriously, who doesn’t like pink?”
Startled by the floating pink feline, I immediately jumped back. “GAH! Mew! What was that for?” I angrily yelled.
A puzzled look covering his face, Mew asked, “What was what for? I only said I could be your friend.”
“Wuh- Wait a second. Mew, what happened right now? Not the pink thing, but before that. What happened before that?” I know something had happened, but I didn’t remember what. Hopefully Mew would be able to shed some light on it for me.
“What, do you mean when you went into shock? Or when you went unconscious? ‘Cause both of them were really, really scary. Not like scary scary, but like the kind where you get super, super surprised that it happened.” Mew ended, smiling the whole time.
I went unconscious? When did that happen? Unless… “Mew, what was the last thing I said before I went unconscious?”
Shrugging his tiny shoulders, Mew answered, “I don’t know, something about your friends, and never seeing them again. But hey, if you really want friends that bad, then I could be your friend, and we can have lots of fun!”
Ahah! That’s what it was! I had remembered that my friends were all in Ponyville, and I… I was here. Where I couldn’t meet them. “Oh. Yeah, I- I think I remember now.” Suddenly, a realisation came to me. If my friends were in Ponyville with Discord, and I was here, where his magic couldn’t reach me, then that means… there was still hope. I had the ability to save Equestria. But… my friends… would have to just hang on until I could get to them.
Fueled by determination, adrenaline, and loyalty to my friends and Equestria, a grim smile came to my face. I was ready. “Okay, Mew. I know what I have to do. I have to play Discord’s game, so that I can get back to my friends, and save Equestria.”
Having earlier decided to float around randomly, Mew came to a stop above my head. “You know, Twilight, I really still have no idea what most of what you say means, but if you don’t want to be my friend, and you just want your old ones instead of me, I guess that’s okay.”
My lips curling upwards as though fishhooks were tugging at the corners, I laughed playfully. “Of course I’ll be your friend, Mew. But right now, I think I have some explaining to.”
And so, Mew and I began to talk. We discussed many things, and I told him many, many stories about my life in Ponyville. And then, he told me about his life in the Tree.
When Mew spoke, he almost made me take a double-take. His voice now had a sort of… seriousness that it lacked before. Or, at least, as serious as someone who talked scarily similar to a child would. “So, we’ve already been over Pokemon, right?” Pausing to allow my nod, he continued. “Well, then that’s good. You already know the basics of them. Now, I could spend hours going into detail about them, and explaining every little part about them, but really, who has time for that?
Apparently noticing my expression drop when he said that, he hastily added, “You’ll find out more as time goes on, though, I promise you that!” Smiling at my small, but satisfying victory, I allowed him to continue.
“So, what next? Oh, I know! You need to know about moves! Every Pokemon has a different set of moves. Each Pokemon is limited to four moves at any given time. These moves can be anything, from breathing fire, to shooting lightning, to playing time and space!” At my scared look, he continued. “Of course, not everyone has access to these moves. Every Pokemon has a set number of moves, limited to their species. Each species has access to usually between one and two-hundred unique moves. Right now, I think there’s only four Pokemon even capable of using moves to alter things as important as time, and even less for things like space. So yeah, Pokemon moves are awesome!”
Deciding now would be a good time to ask questions, I quickly began to formulate several. A second later, when I had deemed them worthy of being asked, the questioning began. “Okay, so first things first, Mew. Do you happen to have any sort of parchment, scroll, or paper?” From the look he gave me, I gleamed he did not have anything of the sort. “Okay, then I suppose I’ll just have to make do. Thank Celestia for memory spells.”
“Wait, Twilight, before you ask anything else, I was wondering what exactly you meant by paper, parchment, and scrolls? I’ve never even heard of anything like that before.”
“What.” I don’t think my voice has ever came out more flat than it did at that moment. No. There was no way. They couldn’t possibly… “You know, the thing you write on? You guys do have a written language, right?” Dear Celestia, if they didn’t know how to read and write, I was seriously going to have problems here.
“Writing? Oh yeah, writing! Yeah, of course we know how to write, Twilight. We’re not barbaric. Why, do you want something to write with?”
Seeing the want- no, the need for something to write with, Mew left with a “Be right back!” He flew up to the top of the crystal room, and disappeared over a previously unseen ridge on the side. The floating pink feline came back but a moment later, carrying… a blue leaf with small spines spiking out from the sides, about the size of the average sheet of notebook paper, a light tan quill, several green berries about the size of a golf ball, and what appeared to be a variation of an ink bottle.
Holding out the items for me to take from his paw, Mew joyfully stated, “Alright, here you go Twilight! I got you the best quill and the best berries I could find! Oh, and before you try to eat them, the berries are meant for writing, not eating, so they're not gonna taste that good.”
Oh Celestia… yes, there were going to be problems. Taking the items from him with my mouth, I placed the on the ground for further examination. There was no possible way he expected me to write with… this. I mean, come on. Nopony has used berries as ink for centuries, since when has anypony used a leaf as something to write on, and I don’t even know what type of bird that quill came from.
“Uhh… Mew?”
“Ye-es?” He sang.
“What… what is that?”
“Well, duh! It’s writing stuff.” He spoke with such conviction, I would have been inclined to believe him if I couldn't see the items in front of me. Unfortunately, said items were very much with my viewing range.
I sighed, too low for him to hear.“So then, could you explain to me why a leaf is included with these things?”
“So you have something to write on, Twilight. Are you feeling okay? You’re acting like you've never seen something like this before.”
Wait a minute. If Mew brought me a leaf, quill, and berries, and had no knowledge of paper, parchment, or scrolls, then that could mean only one thing. “Oh dear Celestia, you ponies don’t have books, do you?!”
“Oh sure we do! It’s just, well, they’re kinda not ours. They belong to the humans. We never bothered too much with things like books, mostly due to the fact that most Pokemon don’t want to go through the process of making paper, glue, ink, and the like.”
“So… yes to the books?”
“Yup! But we don’t really have many here. There’s a couple scattered around the Tree, though, and I bet if you asked around right, then you could probably find out who owns them.”
Okay, so paper is still possible. I'll just have to get some from the humans later. Now, I really don't want to resort to writing on a leaf, so I guess I'll just... give it back?
"Hey Mew," I began. "I think I'll be fine without the... leaf for now."
"Are you sure Twilight? I mean, if you really want to make sure you know this stuff, you really should write it down. It'll help you remember it for one, and you'll have something to look back on for future reference."
"Yes Mew, I- I think I'll manage."
"Well, alrighty then, Twilight. Can't say I didn't offer you, though." Mew's eyes took on a light pink hue, and with a small flash of light, the items were gone.
"Mew!" I gasped, startled beyond belief. Did Mew just do magic? No, there was no possible way! First of all, he lacked a horn to perform the spells. Also, why did his eyes glow pink right before it happened? Unless... "Did you just use a move?"
“Yup!”
I stood there, waiting for him to tell me what move he had used. After several seconds passed by, mainly consisting of me staring expectantly at him, I sighed in exasperation. “Uh, Mew?” I started. “Aren’t you going to tell me what the move was?”
“Oh, you wanted to know the move was I used?” Noticing that I wasn’t answering his what I had hoped to have been a rhetorical question, Mew continued. “Easy, I used Teleport!”
Eyes going wide, I began to talk at what some would consider the shouting sound range, positively giddy at the news. “You mean to tell me, that you have the ability to TELEPORT?!”
“Well, kind of, but not really. You see, I know the move Teleport, and I may be a psychic type, but if I were to forget Teleport, then, well, I wouldn’t be able to teleport any more.”
“This is such a strange finding! Oh, I can’t wait to study you, and see what else you can do! If only I had some parchment and a quill, then I could write everything down as I saw it.”
“You know, if you really want, I can go back and grab the stuff for writing again. I don’t think it’s that far…”
Immediately sensing that if he got the leaf, there would be no getting out of it this time, I decided to nip that in the bud before it could sprout and begin to have many, many unwanted and unneeded foals.
“Oh, no no no!” I said, putting on my most believable fake smile. “ I assure you that I am perfectly happy and fine without your… writing utensils.”
“Well okay, if you’re sure you don’t want it… Hey wait, weren’t you going to ask me some questions earlier?”
Remembering the questions I had prepared earlier, I hastily agreed, although this time my smile was genuine. “Yes, thank you for reminding me, Mew! Now, here is the first and most important: you earlier said every Pokemon can have a maximum of four moves, but their species can learn about one or two-hundred of them. What happens if, say, a Pokemon were to learn five moves? Or if they were to learn a move outside their move pool?”
“Oh, that’s simple. If a Pokemon tried to learn five moves, then they would automatically forget one of their old moves. The move forgotten will be most likely the move that is most similar to the new move, but in the case of none of the old moves being in any way similar to the new move, then the move forgotten will be randomly chosen. If a Pokemon were to learn a move outside of it’s movepool, well, that happens all the time! When Pokemon breed, their child has the chance of learning moves that their parents know. In fact, species learning new moves isn’t uncommon, but at the same time you won’t be discovering a new move every day.”
Okay, I think that cleared up everything about the Pokemon moves. Now, a question on something he mentioned… “Alright, so Mew, I heard you say something about Pokemon breeding. I would like to know, are Pokemon foals born the same way as our foals?”
Mew seemed to pause and think for a second, before answering. “Well, I don’t know how your kids are born, but I do know how Pokemon are born! Okay, so here’s how it works when a Pokemon is born. You see, Twilight, when two Pokemon love each other very much, and they belong to the same egg group, then their love will come together, and it will become a real thing. Once it gathers together solid enough, then poof! An egg will appear. Finally, the mom and dad just have to be patient, and soon enough, that egg will hatch, and out will come a Pokemon.”
“Oh, well that’s convenient. I was afraid it would be something different, and completely inappropriate. Our foals are born in a very similar way as Pokemon, it seems. For ponies, our love will begin to coalesce if we love each other enough, and after a bit, that love will become tangible. Usually, a set of parents can tell when their foal is getting ready to appear. They usually use that time to prepare for the foal, and tell everypony they think should know about it. After that, everything is the exact same. Well, excluding the egg part. Ponies just skip straight to the live baby part.”
“Alright Twilight, so is there anything else you needed to know about the moves?”
The corners of my mouth curled upwards into a U-shape. “Actually, yes. There is one other question I have for you.”
Taking this as a time to do a backflip in midair, Mew answered me midflip. “What is it, Twilight?”
Eagerly, I posed my question. “Okay, so if every Pokemon has access to four moves unique to their species, what moves can you do?”
“Hmm? Oh, my four moves?” Smiling sheepishly, he floated down, until he was nearly brushing up against the floor. “Well, you see Twilight, I don’t really know four moves.”
“Buh- But I thought you said each Pokemon knows four moves, taken from their species move pool?” Celestia, did he not know all four of the moves he could? Why, if I was a Pokemon, I’d be in quite a hurry to learn as many different moves as quickly as I could!
“Well, not every Pokemon has to know all four moves. Believe it or not, some Pokemon choose to learn only one move at a time.”
“So then how many moves do you know?” Closing my eyes and looking away, I began to chant silently to myself. Oh dear Celestia, please don’t be one, please don’t be one, please don’t be one…
When Mew next spoke, it did not matter what kind of voice he spoke in. It could have been a soft, silvery voice, like something coming straight from the Princess’s mouth. The words could have flown gently, as if traveling on a feather. Or it could have been a low, guttural growl of something straight from the deepest, darkest depths of Tartarus. Rasps, barks, grunts, and the like would not have been out of place had this been the case. No, what mattered was his words. His words, which I will remember always, no matter what happens. Because if I ever forgot them, then I will have forgotten Mew.
Somewhere around two hours later, time found me trotting merrily through what appeared to be a staircase, a small, pink, unconscious feline cradled gently in my magic. My notes, having been taken after I had lost all compunctions of using a leaf for parchment, and berries for ink, lay flat against my back, firmly held in place by magic. A smile graced my lips as the previous two hour’s events ran through my mind.
<~>
*Tree of Beginning, Crystal Caverns. Two hours earlier*
“All of them.”
As soon as the words left Mew’s mouth, he knew he had made a mistake. The look that came to the lavender pony’s eyes told him so. And if that hadn’t been enough of a tip-off, well, the scream of pure ecstasy that shot forth from her gaping mouth should have told him him everything he needed to know.
Unfortunately for him, said lavender pony was his new friend, and so he didn’t use Teleport to escape. That was his first mistake.
His next mistake came in the form of listening, and doing what the pony asked of him. “Show me.”
Pupils dilated, and mouth attempting to catch as many flies as possible, Twilight watched in awe as Mew held out his paw for her to see, and it became engulfed in red fire as if it were a match. The blaze began in the center, and quickly spread until it covered the entire region. Flames gently licking at the air around his paw, Mew twisted his paw to allow Twilight to see the other side. There, the plasma seemed to cover all of the area, and the red flames looked to be a more orange in tone. From here, Twilight could see the flames did not go up his arms, and stopped at his wrist.
His final mistake happened when he decided that, no, that was not enough. He wanted Twilight to see what a true Pokemon could do, so he decided to make something special happen, something he knew that, if she had really had never before seen a Pokemon, would leave her quieter than a Rattata in the den of a Raichu.
And just as fast as it had appeared, the blaze popped out of existence. But it did not leave a space of emptiness, for a trade-off had occurred. As the flames left, a cold presence made itself known. Mew’s paw took on a shade of black, darker than the night sky in the ocean, and a sinister feeling emanated from it, more so than Sombra’s presence did. The blackness was a sharp contrast to Mew’s entire personality, and it tormented Twilight to no end to feel it. But she did not move, at first from curiosity and child-like wonderment, and now from being paralyzed with fear and apprehension. And yet, the same thing happened yet again.
The darkness was quickly overcome, this time by ice. Freezing, and harder than a blue school chair, a thin layer of ice replaced the darkness, and Twilight’s mind-numbing fear was gone. Small icicles covered the areas in which claws could protrude, and the air around the paws began to become vapory. The light blue ice coated the paw, making little ridges and lines where his fur was. A huge smile appeared on Twilight’s face faster than a moth to a lantern on a new moon as she imagined all the applications and implications for Pokemon.
As Mew used move after move, a small grin crept its way onto his face. He didn’t know why, but it felt… nice to be able to help someone. As he smiled joyfully, he remembered the last time he’d helped someone to be happy. And as he thought back, he realised something. He hadn’t left the tree in a while, not since the Pikachu, his trainer, and his trainer’s friends had come to help him. He hadn’t seen them in so long; it had been almost twenty-five years since they’d met. And he hadn’t made anyone smile like them, laugh like them, happy like them, in twenty-five years.
The more he thought, the more his eyes began to water like a fountain. Twilight, too distracted by the sphere of blue energy formed in the palm of his paw, noticed nothing odd. Knowing she could look at his eyes at any time and see how watery they were, Mew summoned a bone in his paw, tossed it in the air, and floated in the air above the lavender unicorn’s head. As expected, she immediately looked up to follow it, just in time for him to move it barely enough for her to be facing the opposite way from him.
Having bought himself some time, Mew continued to think about his situation. No one had come to the Tree for two and a half decades, but was that really a reason to not have any social contact outside the Tree? Sighing heavily, he realised that, no, it wasn’t. If he had really wanted to, he could have simply left the Tree as he’d done before. But in truth, he didn’t know why he didn’t want to be with people.
Maybe… maybe she could help him understand. This lavender unicorn. She was the first one to come to the Tree in so long, so maybe… just maybe… she could help him. He had already promised he would be her friend. Maybe he should deliver on that promise.
Renewed with more happiness than before, Mew Teleported the bone away, and waited for Twilight to turn around. When she did, he began again. Finally, his paw changed to it’s final form: lightning. Twilight had no words to describe it. Few unicorns had the finesse to harness lightning, let alone the sheer magnitude of power necessary as well. To see something do just that, and to be able to concentrate it all on one area as small as a paw, was just unheard of in the magic world. Small arcs of power occasionally shot forth from the glowing yellow paw, although they never once got close enough to actually shock Twilight. The entire room was lit up as though an illumination spell had been cast where Mew floated.
And then, it was over. Just like that. All power had ceased flow into Mew’s paw, and instead Mew floated there, awkwardly smiling. He watched as Twilight’s eyes slowly looked into his, boring a hole through his head.
“So, um, did you like it?” He waited for an answer, one which quickly came.
“Did I like it?” Twilight emptily said, as if she wasn’t talking to Mew, but merely thinking aloud. As she continued to stare at him with wide eyes, a grin slowly crept its way onto her face. “I didn’t like it, Mew. I loved it. Now, I think I’ll take you up on that offer for the leaf.”
<~>
I chuckled as I brought myself out of my reverie. Oh, after Mew had shown me some of what he could do with just his paw, well, I was hooked. So, I had him show me at least over a hundred, maybe even two-hundred different moves. Of course, I had him do only those that would not cause too much of a commotion, seeing as how we were underground and all, but Celestia, were they absolutely mind-blowing. So many different possibilities and applications, all from just one move.
I shuddered as I forced myself to stop. I needed to get to the room that was in here so I could look over my notes and let Mew sleep, and by Celestia I was going to get there soon! Before Mew had passed out from using so many moves in such a short amount of time, he had told me where it was he slept, and how to get there.
As I reached the end of the stairs, I saw a door that seemed to be made of wood. Remembering Mew’s instructions, I opened the door, and was greeted with a room about the size of the Library’s second floor. A disturbingly large amount of toys littered the floor, from small brown cat Pokemon similar to the ones I had seen earlier, to large, fearsome looking dragon-esque Pokemon. One of these dragons even appeared to have three heads instead of one. A small, fire red table sat against the wall off to the right, the paint seeming to move as if it were a live fire. A painting on the wall above the table depicted two large dinosaurs in the midst of battle, claws flying and teeth bared. Off to the opposite side of the room a simple wooden desk stood, with several leaves haphazardly placed on it. And in the middle of the room, a large pink sphere laid, one of the same kind that lay within the Travel Trees.
Deciding the sphere was the best place for him, I placed Mew in the middle of it as gently as if he were a foal. Leaving the pink feline to lay on his sphere of rest, I walked over to the desk. Sitting on one of the cushions placed at the base of it, I pulled out my notes.
“Alright, so it looks like some of these moves have things in common with each other, but at the same time are unique in their own way,” I mumbled, too low for Mew to hear. “Both Flame Charge and Flare Blitz involved Mew’s body igniting, but Flare Blitz looked as though it was causing him some discomfort. Could Flare Blitz perhaps be causing him pain in return for being stronger? Or is it Flame Charge giving up strength in return for causing no pain? I’ll have to look into this in the future…”
Ceasing my ramblings, I started to look over my notes once more. As I worked, a low rumbling began to emanate from Mew. Deciding to ignore it, I continued working, only for it to steadily progress until it became unbearable, such as how hooves on a chalkboard can only be withstood for so long. Sighing, I quickly cast a mute spell on Mew to stop the noise. Satisfied with my work like a foal who had finally conquered their math homework, I smiled and began to study once more.
As I powered through my work, I thought of what Mew had taught me. He had shown me what various moves were capable of, the different Pokemon types and how they worked, and he’d told me what I should expect when seeing a new Pokemon, but…
“Oh Celestia, why did you have to fall unconscious?!” I moaned, remembering to cast a deafness spell on Mew right before the first word. I may have learned about their moves plus their types, and a bit about what a Pokemon is, but I knew next to nothing about the geography, not to mention the humans who supposedly were evil, but at the same time not!
Peering over at Mew from the desk, I saw he was still fast asleep. “Well, I suppose I should study while I can. Even if it is getting late…”
<~>
“Wait, Twilight, is- is that magic?”
Twilight looked up from her leaf, a manic look in her eyes. “What was that, Mew?” Her quill never stopped moving.
Tired as he was, Mew was still struck with child-like wonder at the sight of the mare before him performing something that was usually reserved for only psychics, and psychic types: moving objects with but a thought. Although he had only been showing Twilight different moves for the past hour or so, he hadn’t been paying much attention to how she had been writing, focused as he was at using moves he didn’t normally use, some of which he had never before used.
“Right now, with the quill. How are you doing that?”
Confused enough to stop writing, Twilight brought the quill up for Mew to see. “What do you mean? All I’m doing is a simple telekinesis spell.”
“So you do know magic!” Mew exclaimed, a smile forming. “I’ve always wanted to see real magic, but most of the time I only see psychic types. So how are you doing it?”
Twilight brought the quill down, unsure of how to answer him. Most of the time, foals had some idea of how magic worked, but they never had no idea of even the basics of it. Even an Earth pony foal could explain some of it, explaining usually being, “They just cast a spell, their horn lights up, and then magic.” But either way, Twilight was fairly certain she could still explain the basics of it to Mew; it’s not like it was temporal magic.
“Well, you see Mew, magic is centered in the horn of a unicorn’s body. This is caused by our constant use of magic, and it needing to be more concentrated there. Then, the magic can be released in the form of a spell. When released, if it is at the correct level of power, then the spell is performed, and that’s that.”
“But why would you need a spell? Can’t you just let out the magic, and have it work?” Mew asked, puzzled from her explanation.
“Spell’s are needed just as much as magic is needed, Mew. A spell is a sort of guideline to how much power a spell needs. This is why most foals learn how to levitate objects at an early age. The lighter the object, the less magic needed. Now, if a unicorn were to be constantly using telekinesis, then they would progressively get better at it. Think of magic as like a muscle. When you use a certain spell more, you get better at it, until you reach the point where you don’t need to use so much magic that it can be cast with little more than a thought. Also, just because two spells require the same amount of power, doesn’t mean if you cast one, you cast the other. A spell also acts as a sort of buffer, to prevent a unicorn from casting multiple spells at the exact same time. When a pony casts the spell, they need to envision the spell happening at the same time. This’ll stop other spells from happening. Only the greatest and most powerful unicorns can cast more than one spell at the exact same time.”
Just managing to get more confused from her explanation, Mew said, “Yeah, sorry Twilight, but I think you lost me somewhere around the part about spell’s being a guideline.” An awkward smile appeared on his face. “Could you explain it again?”
Giving Mew her best, “Really?” look, Twilight said, “Mew, I just gave you one of the best explanations I can using memory alone. I don’t think it’ll get much better than that. Also- wait a second. Earlier you said something about psychic types. How about we do a trade-off? If you explain to me what you meant by psychic types, then I’ll give you a much better explanation in writing tomorrow after I cast a memory spell on myself. Deal?”
“Alright! I mean, that seems easy enough. A psychic type is one of seventeen different Pokemon types, and all of them are super cool! The types are fire, water, electric, normal, steel, rock, ground, ice, grass, bug, poison, flying, dark, ghost, psychic, fighting, and dragon types. Every type is really fun to play with, but dragon types can get really, really mean when they get older. There are a lot of rumours of other types, like the fairy type and the light type and even something about a sound type, but there’s no actual proof of them. Rumours are all they are. And sorry, I don’t know a lot about them. News doesn’t get into the Tree much.” Mew paused for a couple seconds to allow Twilight to catch up with her notes.
Seeing her look up at him from her notes, Mew continued. “Next, each type is either weaker, stronger, is normal against, or doesn’t affect each other type. Now, this is really, really easy to see when you think about it. An easy example would be: fire is weak to water, water is weak to grass, and grass is weak to fire. The good parts and the bad parts of each type pretty much even out, so there is no way to have one type stronger than all the others. Most Pokemon are just one type, but sometimes, when a Pokemon tries really, really hard, they can be more than one!”
“A Pokemon that’s more than two types can be stuff like fire and ground, water and flying, and fighting and psychic. When you have two types, you would think it would make you a lot stronger, and in a way it does. But at the same time, when you are two types, you can be even weaker to certain types than you were before! Like a water and flying type would be double hurt by electric, since water and flying are both weak to electric. This makes them good, but not too good.”
Looking up from her leaf, Twilight asked, “And what if they aren’t weak to any moves? Can that happen?”
Grinning, Mew said, “Actually, yes, it is possible. I think there are two Pokemon that are naturally resistant to all others, and one that has to use a move to be, although he’s not very important. They’re both dark and ghost type, and use all of their pros to cancel out their cons, leaving them with just the pros.”
Finishing up her notes on the different types, Twilight looked back up to Mew, a smile plastered on her face. “Alright, so now that that’s out of the way, what do you say we go back to the moves?”
A soft smile coming to his face, Mew said, “Alright, Twilight. Anything for a friend."
Ice cold water hitting my face, I snapped backwards, falling down and slamming my head on the ground as hard as a stallion stomping on a spider. Sputtering, I began furiously attempting to rub the water out of my eyes with my hooves.
As the prickles of the ice cold water slowly subsided, I heard a voice which sounded suspiciously like Mew say, "Yay! Good job, Twilight! Let's do it again!"
I looked up at Mew with a scowl on my face. "Mew! Why in Equestria would... you... do... that..." I trailed off as I noticed that Mew was not alone, but was, in fact, in the company of another pony. Standing off to the side of him, a pale violet Earth Pony stood, a smile on her face that didn’t reach past her pained eyes. Her mane and tail were a deep sapphire blue, with a gray streak running through each.
"You found another pony! Oh, this is so exciting, I can't believe you actually managed to find another. I mean, I had begun to think that I was the only pony in this whole place, and that I wasn't even in Equestria anymore!" My horn lighting with it's usual light raspberry color, I tried to cast a small heat spell to dry myself off, but found that I couldn't. Frowning, I lowered my head to cast it again, this time pushing harder. When the spell refused to cast the second time, I closed my eyes to concentrate, and was about to go for a third try when the Earth Pony spoke.
"Twilight, don't bother with a spell. Wherever I go, the power of Celebi and the Guardians of the Lakes follows. I know you don’t know what this means, but basically, your spells don’t work right now.”
Hearing that none of my spells will work, I whipped my head up to look at her so fast an audible CRACK! could be heard. “My- My spells won’t work? Oh dear Celestia, my spells won’t work!” Beginning to hyperventilate, I began to pace back and forth and said, “Oh, what am I going to do? How am I going to turn the pages of a book, and take notes on my parchment, and- wait, I don’t have parchment, because I have leaves! Celestia, first I lose my parchment and quills, and now-”
“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.”
“You… you promise my magic will return when you’re gone?” I asked, skeptical of her. There was no possible way an Earth Pony would hold enough magic in them to be able to focus it into even the most basic of spells, let alone one as complicated as magic nullifying. The only other way it would be her would be if a spell had previously been cast on her body to nullify the magic around her, which would explain what she meant by my magic returning when she was gone.
“Yes, Twilight, I promise it’ll return when I’m gone. But before you have anything else to say or ask, I have to tell you one thing.” Pausing to allow me to nod in understanding, she said, “Twilight, remember when you cast the spell to travel back in time a week to warn yourself to not go back in time? Well, this is like that time, but on a much bigger scale. Twilight, I’m you, but far, far into the future.” Pulling back her hair with her hoof, she pushed the stringy strands out of the way to reveal the jagged remains of her horn, small droplets of light raspberry magic condensed on the edges.
Gasping, I reeled back from her- myself. “Wha- what are you talking about? You can’t be me. I’m- I’m lavender, and I- I have a full horn, and… and…” Struggling to find something, anything to prove the mare in front of me was not my future self, my eyes scanned her body until they landed on her cutie mark. “There! Look, see! Your cutie mark is different from mine. Mine is a six-pointed violet star surrounded by five smaller six-pointed white stars. Yours is a six-pointed violet star that isn’t surrounded by anything!” As I smiled triumphantly, I looked up to meet her sad, pitying gaze.
“Twilight,” she said gently. “You know that, although my cutie mark may be different, and I may look slightly different, we are the same pony. Come here, and let me show you.” Noticing my hesitation, the mare continued, “Don’t worry, I’m not going to hurt you.”
Slowly, my hooves moved one after another, softly clip-clopping on the hard stone floor. I could hear a faint dripping sound, one that I had not noticed before, but seemed to be coming from outside the room.
The Earth Pony who claimed to be me was smiling, but as I got closer, I realized that it was not a smile of joy, for her eyes drooped, and gray hairs had started to become apparent on her muzzle. But even then, the smile was not forced, almost as if it had been one she had gotten used to having, day after day, week after week, month after month. Her smile was not a smile of joy, but one of grief.
“You’re- You’re depressed,” I said, not expecting a response.
I got one anyway. “Oh, don’t worry about it, Twilight. It’ll all work out in the end. Right now, we just need to worry about you.”
“What are you talking about? If you’re sad, you need to talk it out with somepony, let all the emotions out. If you don’t do that, then-”
“-All the emotions will build up, until you can’t contain or control them anymore,” she finished for me. “Yes, I do remember that book I read on psychology so long ago. Its name eludes me at the moment, however. But still, how about this. I’ll talk with you as long as I can about what’s made me this sad, if you let me tell you what I need to. Is it a deal?”
Biting my lip, a far-away look came to my eyes as I thought about her offer. If she really, truly believed she was me, then she was most likely a pony who was mentally ill. But on the other hoof, if she was sad enough about something that her hair was beginning to gray, then who was I to deny her the possibility of being able to move on? Plus, she was the only pony I’d met so far, and if what Mew said was true, then I may not get another chance like this to learn about where in Equestria I was. The answer was obvious since the first reason to accept it.
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll accept your offer.”
<~>
“I can’t believe this,” I whispered. “You really are me.”
After accepting the mare’s- my offer the mare proceeded to tell me about her life. Her life, which was exactly like mine. Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Applejack, Fluttershy, Spike- she knew them all, and told me about our adventures we had. Stopping Nightmare Moon, helping Daring Do, Rainbow Dash getting a new pet, my coronation- she knew it all.
But it didn’t stop there. She even started to tell me about her time in the Pokemon World, what she called, “Earth.” She stopped for a short break when she got to the part about right now, when she came to me. And all throughout her telling of the story, I had been asking questions. Sometimes a few, and sometimes many.
“Yup,” she said. “I sure am. In fact, Twilight, I went through the exact same thing that you were going to go through. But this time, there’s a difference. When I started out, I didn’t have anything with me. All I had was my magic, and the psychic connection to Mew he’d set up. It took me a while, but when I got to where I needed to go, a place called Sinnoh, I was in awe. There were, great, massive towns, with so many different types of Pokemon. But at the same time, there were people. So, so many people. I wasn’t sure what I was to do. I remembered Mew’s and the other Pokemon’s warnings, that not to trust any of them. So, I stayed out of sight of them, but made sure to listen in to what they were saying. Unfortunately, that didn’t last very long.”
“What do you mean?” I asked. “Did something happen?”
“Well you see, as I listened to the humans, I heard a lot about this thing they do, called battling. The first time I heard about it, I only heard it mentioned. The translation spell was still a little bit shaky to me back then, and I could only hold it, oh, about an hour I’d say. But either way, I didn’t need to hear about what the battling was. No, all I needed to do was keep sitting there, and watch it happen.”
“Just watch it happen?” I asked.
“Oh, yes.” She said. “Just watch it happen. When I saw the battling for the first time, I was shocked, and just a little bit angry. So shocked and angry, that I nearly jumped out to stop them. But luckily, I didn’t. I didn’t because I saw that the Pokemon didn’t hate it. No, they really they just… enjoyed it. I don’t know why, but all of them enjoyed to have their battle, from the youngest, to the oldest. What they did was horrible, yes, but out of all they did, nothing was long-term. In all actuality, when I saw them get taken to what’s known as a Pokemon Center, I thought something bad had happened. But instead, they came back out, all well and healthy. Not even a scratch remained.”
Pausing and closing her eyes, the mare who was me suddenly stopped speaking for a moment. When she began again, she said, “I don’t have much time left. It looks like I can’t tell you about everything that happened. This means from now on, no interruptions, for our time together is coming to a close. But I will tell you one thing, though, about how I came to be here. You remember the spell by Starswirl the Bearded, the one to let a single pony travel back in time for a short time?” At my nod, she continued. “Well, in the book about the spell, it says the spell can only be cast once in a pony’s lifetime, and only allows for short-distance traveling, and for a short time.” She snorted. “The only time traveling spell known to ponykind, and it barely scratches the surface of what is possible. But still, as it is, Twilight, there is something in this place, or rather somethings, called Legendaries, or Legends for short. These Legendaries… they have power. More power than we can imagine. But either way, in order to get here, I asked for help, and I received it from four of them.”
Motioning toward Mew, who had fallen back asleep during Twilight’s retelling of Nightmare Night, she told me, “Our friend there, Mew. He himself is a Legendary, but he’s young. Too young. He knows little about the world, but at the same time, has enough power to change all of it into whatever he desires.”
“Back to what I was saying, these four Legends… well, they helped me come here. They helped me, not travel through just time, but through the dimensions as well. Their names are Uxie, Mesprit, Azelf, and Celebi, although you will meet them in time. Since the four of them are also young, but not as young as Mew here, they said they cannot keep me here for long. But a long time for them, and a long time for us, are two very different things. In other words, I would only be able to stay here for about an hour at most, and I have already been here for so long, I don’t know how much longer I can stay.”
“I asked these four for aid, because Twilight, where I’m from, I beat Discord’s game. I beat it, and in doing so, lose everything I love, and at the same time, gain everything I thought I loved. So I came here, to try and change that. Twilight, I am here to tell you to beat the Champion, as I myself did. But do not, under any circumstances, follow in my hoofsteps. That will only lead you to ruin.” Reaching into a bag that had previously gone unnoticed by me, she pulled out a folded piece of square paper, about the size of my head.
“This is the map I used when tried to find the Legends for help. Twilight, I need you to follow this map, and at the same time, don’t follow it. You need to get through each of the eight gyms, and beat the champion. If you can do that, and at the same time do everything I didn’t do, you can beat Discord’s game, and save Equestria.” As she finished, her colors slowly began to fade, allowing her body to become clear.
“You’re… You’re leaving now?” I asked, afraid and curious of her sudden translucence.
“I am,” she said. “I only wish I could give you the spellbook I made.”
“Spellbook?”
She smiled. “What, you didn’t think I only used spells I already knew, did you? No, I had to make some of my own design and creation. They may not have been perfect, but it was what I had to do, and what you will most likely have to do also.”
My eyes grew wide. “M-Make my own spells? B-But I’ve only ever read on the theory of it once, and I have never seen it actually performed in the field.”
“Do not worry,” she spoke airily, objects now able to be seen through her body. “If I can do it, then you can, too, for we are the same.”
As she became more and more translucent, I said, “But… But when will I be able to see you again?”
“Let’s hope that it never comes to us having to meet once more,” she stated simply as she slowly become clearer and clearer. And then she was gone.
As soon as I noticed she had disappeared, I went into overdrive. “Oh Celestia, oh Celestia, I need to hurry up and get to Sinnoh so I can beat the Champion!” Swiftly moving through the room, I collected all the of my things that were strewn about, and placed them in a rudimentary bag; however, in my frenzy, I failed to notice that I had awoken Mew.
“Twilight, what are you doing?” He asked, sleepily rubbing at his red eyes. “Isn’t it still the middle of the night?”
Not looking away from the gathering of my things, I replied, “Sorry, Mew, but I think it’s morning right now. And besides, you woke me up, so you can’t really say anything.”
Sighing, Mew looked over to a circular object on the other side of the bubble he was on. “Uh, Twilight? It’s four in the morning. I’m pretty sure that still classifies as sleep-time for me.”
“Perfect!” I shouted, nearly finished with my stuff. “Four is a pretty lucky number, and if I want to get to Sinnoh and beat that champion to save Equestria, then I’m going to need all the luck I can get!”
Mew’s shoulders sagged, and he closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he said, “Look, Twilight, I know what you’re trying to do. And it’s not gonna work. You want to rush out to the Sinnoh region, and immediately attempt to challenge the champion, right?”
“Sorry, Mew, but no time for talking. I have a world to save!” Stepping towards the door, I was about to step out, when I felt something hard smash into my face, snapping my neck off to the side, and nearly knocking me unconscious. However, something, but I don’t know what, prevented me from going under.
Looking over at my assailant, I saw Mew was grinning awkwardly. “Sorry about the Wake-up Slap, Twilight. But I had to stop you from going out and doing something incredibly dumb and idiotic, and it was the only thing I could think of.”
Immediately wanting to yell at Mew for hitting me, and thank him for stopping me, I was speechless. Not knowing how to react, I settled for simply saying, “So you decided on just hitting me, not picking me up with your telekinesis, or making a wall in front of me?”
Tears beginning to glisten on the corners of Mew’s eyes, he said, with a slight tremble in his voice, “I-I didn’t know what e-else to do, Twilight! Y-You were just a-about to leave, a-and I knew i-it would be a bad idea, a-and you wouldn’t listen to reason, and-”
Not being able to stand the sight of him crying any longer, I said, “Look, I’m sorry, Mew. I know you only had my best interests at heart. But it still was wrong of you to do that. You shouldn’t immediately turn to violence to solve your problems, okay?”
“O-Okay, Twilight,” he responded, sniffling.
“So, why is it that I shouldn’t go out and try to beat the champion who resides in the place called Sinnoh?” I asked, a smile once again donning on my face.
Mew gently smiled. “Well, remember how I was already awake when future you came? Well, when she got here, it kinda woke me up, and I saw her. Anyway, that’s not important. What is important, is what the Lake trio told me.”
“Lake trio?” I asked. What in Equestria was that?
“Didn’t Twilight tell you about getting the help from four powerful Legends?”
“Oh yeah, I remember that! Do the Lake trio happen to be three of those four that helped her- er, me?”
“Yes, they are. Well, what happened was, since they’re psychic, and I’m a psychic, they were easily able to set up a working connection between our minds. Basically, in the time it took future you to figure out she was in the past, they had already told me everything I needed to know so I could help you to go back and save your friends.”
Wait a minute, if Mew knew what I had to do to save Equestria, did that mean… “Mew, since you know what I have to do to save Equestria, can you tell me what I need to do?”
He smiled. “Yup, and I’m not just going to tell you what you need to do, but also how to do it!”
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.
As I quickly came to, I immediately noticed the small brown cat from when I first woke up in the forest holding a half-eaten, blue berry in her mouth. Her lips were curled up in what I hoped to be a friendly smile, although I could see small canines poking out from the edges of her mouth. Yuzee, I think her name was.
The small feline turned its head away from me to look out into the forest, putting down the berry. “Hey Z, the purple one’s awake!” She called out in a female voice. “Do you think I should give her more?”
“Ugh, Yuzee, if she obviously needs more, then give her more. If she doesn’t, then don’t give her more,” a male voice called back from the forest. I recognized him as Z.
Looking back to me, her eyes scanned my body, before saying, “Hey purple, do you need some more Oran berries?”
I struggled to clear my throat for a moment, before answering, “What’s an Oran berry?”
She looked at me incredulously. “You know, the thing I just gave you? The thing I was just holding?” Her head bobbed down to the floor, scooped up the berry once more, and held it up for me to see. “Thee?”
Seeing as how I still hadn’t eaten, I rasped, “So, what, do I just eat it?”
The berry falling from her mouth, she rolled her eyes and made a groaning sound. “Yes, purple, you just eat it. But if you don’t, then I will.”
“Okay…” Slowly reaching out with a hoof, I pulled the berry towards me. Small, about half the size of my hoof, the spherical blue berry did nothing to look appetizing or appealing in any way, shape, or form. Fortunately for me, and unfortunately for the berry, my hunger needed to be sated, so I took the berry and unceremoniously popped it into my mouth. It’s delightfully pleasant juices filled my mouth, the flavor not unlike that of a blueberry.
But, just as the flavor of the blueberry-like berry began to diminish, I felt my body beginning to grow warm. Eyes wide in surprise, I attempted to say, “Hey!” in my raspy voice, but found that I could not, for instead of it coming out like it had traveled through sandpaper, my voice was crystal clear. “What in Celestia was that?”
Looking at me oddly, Yuzee said, “Uh, an Oran berry? You know, the thing that heals you?”
“It-It heals you?” I asked. “I thought that was just Pokemon moves.”
“Hey guys, I’m back with the Cheri berry!” Z said, emerging from the dense trees behind Yuzee. “Oh, and hey there, Twilight!”
“Hey… I know your name! You’re Z, right?” I said, looking past Yuzee.
“Yup, that’s me, and now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go fix up Mew.” Trotting over to Mew, he pulled out a small, light red berry, and put into Mew’s mouth. The effect was immediate, causing Mew to snap up off the ground.
“Thanks for that, Z! Oh, and hi Twilight and Yuzee! Are you guys having fun yet?” Mew said, flying over to us.
“Yeah, but apparently purple doesn’t know what an Oran berry is. I mean, seriously, she just kept on asking questions about it. It’s almost like she’s never seen a berry before.” Yuzee answered.
“Oh, don’t worry about that, Yuzee. She’s just new around here. Where she’s from, they don’t have berries.” He directed his next statement towards me. “Don’t worry though, Twilight. I’ll explain the berries to you later. Right now, we need to head back through the Travel Trees.”
Mew’s words elicited mixed responses from us.
“Oh, thank you, Mew! Just remember, I’ll probably need some more, uh, leaves, to write on.” I said.
“Wait, you’re going to take us through the Travel Trees? Alright. I have always wanted to use those, but I never really understood how they worked,” Z said, smiling slightly.
“Ugh, are you guys really going to take the Travel Trees? Besides the youngest kids, who even uses those anymore?” Yuzee said, her head drooping.
“Well, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to, Yuzee.”
Looking down at the ground, Yuzee mumbled, “I guess I’ll go look for Chloe or someone. I mean, it’s not like I have anything better to do right now.”
“Great, then it’s settled! Bye Yuzee!”
Yuzee had all of half a second to look surprised before a pink flash enveloped Mew, Z, and I, and we were gone from her presence.
Reappearing outside a familiar Travel Tree, I stumbled around for a moment, nauseated. Mew’s version of teleporting was unlike any method I had experienced before, so unfortunately for me, I had quickly been overcome with vertigo, as many first time teleporters are. A glance to my side revealed that Z and Mew were having no such qualms.
“Ugh, come on, Twilight! It’s not that bad,” Mew groaned, his head sagging.
“Well, Mew, remember that not everyone is as accustomed to using Teleport as you and I are.”
Forcing the bile back down my throat, I smiled at them. “It’s okay, I think I’m good. So, we’re just headed down to the, uh, cave-thingy?”
“Yeah, and my home is pretty close to here, so we should get there really, really fast. Well, down we go!”
Having all jumped down, and landed on relatively close bubbles, Z said, “Hey, Mew, I know you can Teleport a lot farther than that. Why didn’t you just take us all the way to your room?”
“Oh, well that’s ‘cause there’s something about the journey being the best part and stuff.”
“... What?”
“Z, I think what Mew’s trying to say is that you when you’re going somewhere, the journey there is better than actually being there.”
“Eh, close enough. I don’t remember what it was, but I’m pretty sure that’s about right!”
“Of course, if we are going by the journey there being the best part, then why we didn’t walk to the first Travel Tree is a mystery to me.”
“Yeah, Mew, why didn’t we walk to the Travel Tree in the first place? If we did, then wouldn’t I have not almost gotten sick from the teleport?”
Struggling to formulate an answer, Mew said, “Er, well, that’s because, well, walking is… bad?”
“Meh, good enough for me. Twilight, does that seem good enough for you?”
“Well, I guess everypony is entitled to their own opinion, so… alright, it’s a good enough response.”
We made it back to Mew’s home without any further problems, although there was a bit of a disagreement on the subject of food.
“Look, Mew, I don’t care what kind of berries you like most. What I do care about is the fact that we still don’t have any food!”
“But Twiiiiiiiliiiiight, it’s not my fault if Lum berries are my favorite!
Having gotten tired of listening to our bickering throughout the entire trek through the caves, Z said, “Hey, if you guys want, I can go out and grab some more food. I mean, I probably won’t find much at this time of year- heck, we’d probably have to settle for berries again!- but it’s not like I won’t be able to find anything.
Looking up at Z, I said, “Are you sure, Z? I mean, we could probably just get Mew over here to just go, seeing as how it’s his fault there’s no food in the first place.”
“I can’t help their deliciousness!”
“Yeah, I can do it, Twilight. I just need to know the way back here through the Trees.”
I looked to Mew. “Mew, do you think you could show him the easiest and fastest way to the top?”
“Sure!” Quickly floating up to the ceiling, and to a previously hidden alcove, Mew continued, “Just take this one, ‘cause it goes almost straight up to the top. But you’re gonna come out in a big place, with lots and lots of regular trees, so don’t get lost!”
As Mew finished speaking, his eyes took on a light pink glow, and Z and I were teleported up to the alcove that held Mew. The vertigo came once more, although this time it was far more brief. “Well, have fun!”
Z looked into the tunnel here. “So, do I just follow this to the top?”
“Pfft, nope! You just have to hop onto a bubble, and it’ll take you there instead!”
Poking his head deeper into the tunnel, Z looked up, and then down. “Yeah, I don’t think there’s any bubbles here, Mew.”
A surprised look crossed Mew’s face. “Whoops, sorry about that!” His eyes took on a brief shade of pink once more, and after a brief pop!, pink bubbles began to float up from the ground, and through the small tunnel. “There you go!”
o.0.o
Taking a bite of one of the apples Z brought, Mew said, “So, Twilight, have you decided on how you plan on getting to Sinnoh?”
Swallowing the rest of what they called a Persim berry, I answered, “Well, I thought about trying one massive teleport there, but unfortunately that idea didn’t seem very feasible, seeing as how the amount of magic needed to go long-distances is very taxing on the body, and I could pass out. The longer the distance, the more magic needed. Also, I have no idea where it is exactly, and so I could very well end up somewhere in the ocean, or halfway in a building.”
Mew and Z both blinked. “...Meaning?” Mew asked.
I sighed. “What it means, is that I can’t teleport that far.”
“Oh, well then why don’t you just have a couple of the Xatu use Teleport on you to get you there?” Z asked.
“Xatu?”
“Xatu are these green, bird-like Pokemon that can see the future. When they get in big enough groups, they can teleport people and Pokemon almost anywhere in the world; although they do need a focus point for the Teleport.” Z said.
A joyful smile came to my face. So I could already start going against my original destiny! And if they could really see the future, then perhaps I could gain some insight on where my current path was to lead me. “Z, that’s perfect! And maybe before they Teleport me, they can tell me what my future’s going to be.”
Mew floated up in the air, an enormous grin on his face. “Alright, that sounds like a great plan! You’ll just have to get them to agree to do it, but if I ask them, then they’ll be sure to say yes! Hmm… wait, do you know what they look like, Twilight?”
“Well, no, not really, but a green bird can’t be that hard to find. Where can I find them, anyways?”
“Oh, you’ll probably see them when they all come back in about a month or two, when winter is over,” Z said.
My face fell. “In-In a month or two? But… but why are they going to be gone so long?!”
“Well, it is the middle of winter, so I’d be really, really surprised if any of them were to actually still be around. But if any were still around, you could probably find them by the really, really big cliff, all the way at the top of the North side.”
I sighed, but still weakly smiled immediately after. “I may as well try going to the cliff. It’s not like I have anything to lose."
Mew, spinning slowly in the air, said, "Okay, just take go ahead and leave through the alcove whenever you want."
My horn lighting, I cast the teleportation spell, and reappeared nearly instantly in the alcove in the ceiling. I waved at the pair, before turning around, and heading into the tunnel.
Exiting the large tree, I looked around at my surroundings. It looked just like any other part of the forest, with there being no obvious way to distinguish it from the regular parts. It would be almost impossible to find my way back here, unless...
My horn lit up, and I allowed the magic to flow through my body, and out the tip of my horn. The spell caused a brief glow to surround the tree leading to Mew’s cave, and then it ended. I grinned at my work, having successfully cast the magnetic pull spell. It was a bit of a misnomer, really, as it didn’t actually have a magnetic field to exert force, but it did place a sort of marker that the caster could find wherever they were.
Satisfied that I would be able to find my way back, I then cast the four point spell, allowing my body to be gently pulled right, until I was facing North. I released the spell then, and began the walk to the cliff, my hoofsteps crunching on the various fallen dead leaves and twigs.
As I walked, I looked all around me, taking in as much of the forest as I could. Occasionally I’d see the flash of a tail, paw, head, or other body part from a various Pokemon, and at first I was hurrying towards it to catch a better look at it’s owner; however, after the first several times I did this, each time ending the same, with me just a tiny bit more tired, and the Pokemon dashing off as fast as it could, always staying just beyond my sight, I stopped chasing them. I don’t know why, but for some reason, none of the Pokemon I glimpsed ever stayed put long enough for me to talk to them.
Occasionally, I’d recast the four point spell, making sure I was always stayed on course. I never was more than a few degrees off course, but it never hurts to make sure.
Within about thirty minutes or so, I could just barely begin to see the top of what looked like a small, tan mountain, and within another ten minutes I was at the base of it. It looked to be somewhere around two, maybe three, kilometers in height. I couldn’t gauge the length, however, as I was unable to see all the way around the mountain.
Unfortunately for me, the small path that led up the mountain was a dark red, and it was covered in small, loose rocks. And, to make matters worse, the path was looking as though it wasn’t built to create a fast way up, but instead to do as little harm to the environment as possible, weaving in and around all the various brush.
Closing my eyes, I took a moment to steady my breathing, and prepare myself for the long climb. It wouldn’t be the hardest, except it would take a bit of time to walk.
I began my rather short lived trek up the mountain, as, only about ten minutes into it I glimpsed what appeared to be a large, green condor with white wings standing upright about one hundred meters up and to the right of me, away from any sort of path. There were black and red bands around the tips of its wings, and several other areas of color on its body.
Smiling at my luck, I readied my spell, and with a pop! teleported right in front of it. When I appeared, it didn’t seem startled in the slightest. In fact, it didn’t even flinch, or make a move to look at me. Instead, all it did was say, “Hello,” in a mare’s voice, and continue to stare off into the distance.
Fidgeting my hooves, I glanced around quickly, biting my lip. Speaking softly, I managed to ask, “A-Are you Xatu?”
“Yes.” She only spoke a single word, her mouth barely moving.
I fidgeted a bit more, before diving in and asking, “Err, I was wondering if you could tell me something about my future.”
“I can.”
I waited for her to continue, before saying, “So, um, are you looking, or…”
“Why?”
It was an innocent enough question, although the context was lost to me. “What do you mean why?”
“Why do you wish to know?”
I cocked my head to the side slightly, trying to think of a reason to tell her. Deciding on something vague, yet still truthful, I said, “Because I don’t want to make the same mistakes as I was going to make.”
Almost imperceptibly, her head drooped. “Is that not what everyone’s reason is?”
Laughing nervously, I said, “Well, I kinda do need to know my future. It’s mainly because, well…” I paused here, considering my options. If this Xatu really could see the future, then that meant that they could see just about anything to do with me if they really wanted to. If I wanted to know my future, I needed to be honest, and that meant telling her the truth.
I opened my mouth, and was about to speak, when, just before I could, Xatu said, “Please, you can refrain from doing so. I can see why you would want to know your future."
“You can?”
“Yes, I can. You traveled backwards through time, in order to warn yourself not to continue following your current path. That’s enough to warrant anyone a decent look into their future.”
I blinked. She knew about me meeting my future self? “How do you know I met myself?”
“All Xatu possess the innate ability to see both into the future, and into the past. We can focus it on an individual, on an event, or on a place. It matters not how far into the future it is, or how far back it is. All we require to see exceptionally far is more of us.”
“Y-You can see into the future and the past?!” I stuttered out.
“When we look with our right eye, we see all that can be. When we look with our left eye, we see all that was.”
Mouth gaping, I realized the implications of this. If she could see all possible futures, then that meant that she potentially see the path that would get me back to Equestria the quickest.
“And, before you ask, no, I cannot simply seek out how to return you to where you came; those threads are gone.”
Confused, I asked, “Wait, what do you mean, gone?”
“All possible ways to see those threads has been blocked off, and I alone am no where near strong enough to break through the seals that cover them.”
My face fell. She couldn’t tell me how to get home. Turning, I was about to thank her for her help anyways, when she continued, “Of course, that isn’t to say that all the threads are blocked. Only most of them.”
“Of those that aren’t blocked off, there is one that I can see clearly, one that is completely unguarded whatsoever. In it, you simply become the champion, and then disappear.”
I stood there, waiting for her to keep going, but, once I realized that she wasn’t going to, I said, “That’s it? I just disappear?”
“Yes. After that, your connection to this world burns out.”
“So then that’s the only route you can see that has the possibility to take me back to Equestria?”
“Yes.”
I sighed. Of course. The only way she sees me returning to Equestria is through playing Discord’s game. “Well, thank you for the information, Xatu. I’ll be sure to use it as best I can.”
I turned back around to leave, and was again stopped by Xatu. “Before you leave, you may want to know something about your friend, the Zorua. His species possesses the keen ability to manipulate light waves, and create illusions at a whim. You may want to learn more about that.”
My eyes widened. Maybe this visit wasn’t that much of a waste after all. “He can bend light? Th-thank you, Xatu! I’ll get right on learning more about that ability!”
My horn lighting up, I teleported myself all the way to the bottom of the cliff, giddy with excitement. However, just as I disappeared, I could have sworn I saw the Xatu move for the first time,turning her head so her large, yellow eyes could pass over my body, the red irises glinting in the sunlight.
<~>
Jogging basically the entire way, I made the trip in around twenty minutes, occasionally stopping to check to make sure I was still on the right path. There wasn’t really much for me to correct, however, as this time I never once purposely veered off course to examine Pokemon.
When I arrived at the Travel Tree, I walked through the entrance, and immediately launched myself downwards, landing on top of one of the bubbles traveling downwards. In the thirty seconds or so it took for the bubble to reach the bottom, I took the time to catch my breath, sweat slowly dripping down my body.
I hopped off the bubble when I reached the ground, and, checking the room to make sure there was nothing dangerous for me to teleport into, cast my teleportation spell. Popping back into existence right next to the napping Mew, I smiled and attempted to greet both him and Zorua, who was busying himself with spinning a top, but instead only succeeded in wheezing out a half-hearted, “Hey, guys."
Mew ignored me completely, electing to instead to proceed with his sleeping. Zori, however, answered with a, quiet, “Hi, Twilight. Did you find any of the Xatu?” He batted at the top once, to keep it spinning. “Oh, and there’s some water in somewhere around Mew’s empty food room, if you needed any."
“Thank you, Zori,” I gasped out, before blinking, and adding, “Wait, where’s Mew’s food room?"
Looking up momentarily from his top, he motioned his head towards a small, wooden trapdoor in the floor in the far side of the room, in between the alcove up and the door leading into the other areas of the cave. I walked over to the door, and, using my magic, pulled open the door.
Inside, there was what appeared to be a drop of about four meters, and no discernible way to light the room. Deciding that, since I didn’t exactly have any other choice, I needed to go inside, I hopped down, landing with a quiet thud! on my hooves.
My horn illuminated, I looked around the empty room, which looked to be about the same size as the one above. There were shelves up against the walls, which were bare, and, in the center of the room, there was yet another trap door, although this one was far smaller than the last.
I walked over to the next trapdoor, as it seemed the only place where there could be water, and, once I opened it with my magic, sure enough there was a small stream running along the bottom of it.
I concentrated forming my magic into a small, hollow hemisphere, and used it to scoop out water, raising it greedily up to my lips. I repeated this several times, always making sure to take water from the middle of the stream.
After drinking enough water to provide for a small country, I sighed, and began making my way over to the place where I’d dropped down from. Looking up, I cast the teleportation spell once more, reappearing next to the trap door.
Shutting the door, I turned back towards Zori, who was still busy with his top. Smiling, I said aloud, “So, Zori, I heard you can make illusions."
Not looking up from his top, he answered, “Yup, I sure can."
I waited a bit, before continuing. “Would you care to show me some of these illusions of yours?” I added a bit of a sweet tint to my voice, doing my best to try to get him to show me his illusion abilities.
In response, Zori abruptly disappeared, then reappeared several feet away. His top, however, stayed in the same spot.
Eyes wide, I walked slowly over to the new Zori, who looked exactly the same as the last. The only difference was that he was attempting to spin a top that was not there, although that didn’t stop the top from continuing its spinning.
Reaching out a hoof, I tried prodding at the illusion, before gasping as my hoof just phased through it. Zorua gave no visible indication of my having touched his illusion, although that was most likely due to him being invisible.
My horn lighting, I summoned an unused set of leaves, and more of the berries and quills. Preparing myself, I began to write down everything I was witnessing, from the near-perfect illusion in front of me, to the fact that Zori was able to hold it for so long.
It was going to be a long evening, but a fruitful one as well.
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
