Chapter 4: The Train

Quinn should have seen this coming. As they crept towards the rear parking lot, no less than three harsh figures in Plasma uniforms shuffled around the space. One lingered by the door, another by the security booth leading to the road, and a third patrolled between cars.

All were armed, and looked to have Poké Balls protruding from their vests and coats as well. There would be no quiet exit from the BBLEC.

Quinn, Avery, and their Pokémon companions lingered in the trees overlooking the parking lot, perhaps a hundred feet from where Quinn's car now sat parked. Unfortunately for them, it was among the only vehicles present in the whole space. The evacuation meant the rest of the staff had made their escape.

"No luck on your phone?" Quinn asked, peering out the edge of the backpack and over Avery's shoulder.

Since he'd worn himself out moving others around, he'd taken up residence inside the backpack, where he could see what was happening around them with ease, or hide from sight in the obscuring fabric. Hopefully he didn't have to do that very often—the bag stank, and getting jostled around wasn't terribly comfortable.

"Still no service. Guess I should've upgraded to a Rotom after all."

He winced at the thought, looking away. The situation was already confusing enough without adding a ghost. "The police should be here by now—or maybe the army." Unless someone had told them this was a radiation leak.

But it wasn't. There should barely be enough ionizing radiation to register on the safety cards. Team Plasma obviously knew that. So did Sirius's card, still clipped to the fluff on his chest. But if he was fine, what had happened to Avery?

"Do we go back inside? Maybe your professor knows a way out. Pokémon professor has to help a Mythical Pokémon in need, especially when they're also one of their PhD candidates."

He shook his head weakly. "I don't think she can help us right now. If we can make it back to Blueberry's main campus, maybe. Unless Plasma has more people waiting there. Which they probably do."

Avery slid to the ground onto the floor. She slid the backpack off her shoulders, helping Quinn to the ground again. "One second, I—"

She rested one hand on her stomach, expression distant. "Hold on. Just… need a minute. Feels like I just swallowed…" She winced, flopping onto her side. She spasmed, then coughed loudly, ejecting mouthfuls of something red and slimy onto the dirt.

Quinn winced, bobbing weakly up and down. It wasn't just how uncomfortable she looked, or even the twinges of red blood visible in that slime. Rather, it was the noise, much too loud to be anything natural.

He felt their reaction before he saw it—a sharp rush of focus, one of those diffuse human minds narrowing to a single purpose. The voices came a second later, calling orders. "Check it out."

Avery couldn't react—she couldn't even listen, not with her attention fully devoted to emptying her stomach onto the floor.

Baast settled beside her, resting one stubby arm on her shoulder. Even the disagreeable cat watched her with clear discomfort on her face. "Cat is… sick? Why? Stop being sick!"

Her words had no effect.

Heavy boots approached from the parking lot. Quinn saw him come, saw him shoot Avery dead in a single short burst, then order his Pokémon out to deal with the rest of them. The others would all come rushing over, and they would bring Quinn down with force of numbers alone.

It wouldn't be hard—he couldn't keep fighting long after watching Avery die.

But it hadn't happened yet. The steps were coming, but he hadn't yet emerged into the trees, the weapon wasn't drawn.

Quinn wasn't a fighter. He wasn't brave enough to compete in Pokémon battles, and he wasn't brave enough to ask out the girl he'd crushed on for almost a decade now. What if he got them wrong? What if things didn't happen the way he wanted?

Get away. We have to get away.

He didn't have to fight Team Plasma if they couldn't find him. All he had to do was escape! Quinn lifted into the air again. Pressure built behind him, overwhelming him in an irresistible torrent. Once he invited it, that power quickly raged out of control.

Quinn had to do something, or it would wash his friends away and carry him with it. But he had felt this once before, during the instant before his experiment failed so spectacularly. There was only one thing to do.

He sang. There were no words, just the melody that came from a piece of strange, melted metal held in a platinum frame. With each note his confidence grew, channeling the overflowing torrent into something ordered. He didn't need a tsunami, but he could use a river.

Not all of it came from him, either. There was power in Avery, raging impotently around inside her and destroying everything it touched. There was some in their Pokémon too, though they were far more resilient than any human. Quinn took it all, everything he could reach.

One soldier emerged through the trees, with two others close behind. His gun faltered, then clattered out of his hands. He stared at Quinn, utterly dumbfounded.

At that moment, Quinn landed on Avery's shoulder. He gestured sharply, and both Pokémon tumbled towards him. They just had to be a little closer, until—they left.

Light washed over them, as Quinn was momentarily blinded. His eyes could see nothing, focus on nothing.

There was still space, somehow. He saw the curves of it beyond any he had seen before, just as he had seen Avery's death at least twice. But were those futures that had been, or ones that only could have?

Other things moved in that vast expanse. Something shot past him like a bullet, a pair of tiny figures radiant with desperation. They left ripples behind them, though Quinn couldn't even say what sea they were swimming through.

It didn't matter, so long as they could get away from the ones chasing them. The organization that sponsored him now wanted Avery dead—he would not allow that to happen.

As quickly as it came, the river ripping through Quinn ran dry. He yanked back to reality with an incredible crash, so sudden that he dropped out of the air.

He landed on something soft, covered in a thin layer of white fabric—Avery's back. Quinn scrambled to hold on, but he no longer had the strength. He slid off his friend, then landed with a thump on cold soil.

One thought lingered with him, as the two Pokémon hurried over to look at him. "It's dark," he whispered, reaching weakly for Avery's dress. Where were the amber streetlights of the parking lot?

Quinn wasn't exactly sure what happened next. Time passed, and eventually he woke.

He was on his back in something soft. At first, he didn't move, holding perfectly still. Water bubbled and frothed nearby, filling the air with something pleasantly cool.

Even with his eyes closed, he could feel some of what was around him—not cement or tunnels, but huge trees, sprawling ferns, and creeping vines all bigger than his body. With each breath he took, fresh strength flooded him. Though it had no words, this forest seemed to want him to… something.

He listened in silence for a long time, searching for any hint of meaning beyond the gentle comfort of other living things. Maybe someone could explain what the hell had happened to him and wake him from his strange dream.

But no answer came. Sooner or later, he would have to get up and see if there was anyone to help him. The experiment of his life was that afternoon. He would get the data to defend his thesis, finally ask out the girl of his dreams, and begin the next stage of a perfect life.

Quinn sat up and found he wasn't in his apartment.

Mentally, he already knew that—there was no stream running through the tenth story, and his potted gracidea had died a month after Avery gave it to him.

Even so, the faint orange light of dawn gave him brief pause. It was mid-afternoon before, then it was night, and now it was dawn again? How?

He wasn't in his bed, or even wearing anything. Instead, he lay in leaves and grass, with a few heavier stones nearby to keep all of it together.

"He's awake!" called a voice from nearby, high and feminine. It belonged to a creature plenty big enough to be a person, sitting on a large stone beside the bed and swinging her legs back and forth beneath her.

No person he'd ever known looked so much like a Meowstic. "The fairy is alive!"

He could understand her!

He looked down, saw his own body—and everything else came rushing back to meet him. It wasn't the day of his experiment; that experiment was already over. He'd been right there by the glass for the first instance of artificial retrocausality—only for it to retrocause him right out of his body.

He rested two small hands on his legs, expression darkening in frustration. He wasn't supposed to be here, or even alive for that matter. "I saw it kill us both… but I'm not dead."

His voice was all wrong, just like everything else about him. Compared to the rest, a slightly different tone was low on his priority list. He was still a Pokémon.

Something else shifted nearby, and several loose leaves and twigs jostled off a large lump beside him. Quinn squealed in surprise, shielding his face with one feeble arm.

But there was no danger—he knew that face.

"Sirius! You're here too!"

The fox nodded groggily, wiping away dirt from his face. "Yes, master. You brought me too. Away from the mean-smelling humans."

"We didn't move," he said. He wasn't sure where the confidence came from exactly, but it didn't matter. Quinn felt absolute certainty, no different than he might feel if he'd walked somewhere.

"It is different!" the fox insisted. He stood up, knocking his stick against several nearby trees. They were enormous things, much larger than the sparse seedlings that had been here before. They didn't smell quite the same as before either, with huge flat leaves covered with hard bumps on the backs, not the pines the BBLEC had used.

"Yeah. We flew up instead of sideways. Like up in a direction that's parallel to all the—" He stopped, feeling the sour confusion radiating from his former partner. The fox could be his partner through many things, could keep him company every day in Sada's lab. But that didn't mean the mind within could comprehend. "Nevermind. Where's Avery?"

"My big cat is sick." Baast stood up too, pointing. "Carried you here, then fell over. Very sick… do you know where we can find berries? She needs lots of berries."

That concern lifted Quinn into the air, his wings buzzing again behind him. This time his flight was intentional, the same way he might try to walk. Don't think about it, just move. The living air of this forest was a sea, and he could swim it.

Wings alone weren't strong enough to move him—there was a combination here, with his intentions keeping him airborne and something else doing the heavy lifting. Psychic power. Celebi are Psychic-type.

Their legends were somewhat obscure, too much for most people to even bother. But Quinn was a time travel researcher. If he was going to learn how it worked, the obvious first step was studying one of two Pokémon rumored to exist who were capable of it.

A few donations to Team Infinity got him enough information to know that Celebi were Psychic and not Fairy-type, despite how they looked. Too bad no one from that organization of Mythical Pokémon fanatics could tell him that a particle accelerator could make him into one!

Baast's directions weren't exactly clear, but his senses were more than strong enough to tell him where he was going. He followed the stink of bile, along with something even worse underneath—rot. Was Avery already dead?

His friend was on her back in the soft dirt, close enough that she would only be a few steps from Quinn's makeshift bed. Her dress wasn't so much white anymore, and neither were the knee-highs underneath. But worse than the dirt or the smell of dried vomit was just how bad Avery looked. Splotches covered her pale skin, angry red in a disorganized pattern across her chest. Her eyes were closed, and her breathing shallow and rapid.

She didn't react as Quinn approached, despite the sound of buzzing wings. Apparently, those weren't loud enough to attract much attention.

Quinn landed on her knees. His wings remained open behind him, ready to take off again if something went wrong. Not that he expected an attack. But if his friend rolled over, he might be crushed by accident! "Avery, can you hear me?"

The girl groaned, shifting in place. She struggled, then opened one eye. "H-hey. Quinn? That you?" She'd fallen asleep in a sitting position against a tree, so she didn't have to move much to look at him.

Part of his mind rebelled at the scale alone. This girl was supposed to be several inches shorter than he was, so why was she huge?

"Yeah!" He hopped closer to her, resting tiny green feet on her thighs instead. She still had her glasses, but they'd been thoroughly caked with dirt, and she hadn't noticed. "It's still me! How are you feeling?"

Avery tilted her head to one side. She reached halfway for him, then lowered her arm again just as quickly. "S-sorry. I know I should focus, but it's… hard. I don't think I can pull off telepathy with you. Your head is so… big." She giggled energetically as she said it, as though it were the most hilarious thing she had ever heard.

Quinn did not laugh, obviously. He wasn't even sure he could right then. He couldn't get past the strange scent of his friend. This was his best friend, or at least she had been. He knew that smell well, from whenever she talked him into adventuring with him. Hiking up high mountains, or across the trails that connected each route.

That scent was gone now, replaced with something foul and acidic against his nose. Death.

It took some focus to find her mind waiting there and narrow his attention on her. As before, it required only enough focus to find a gap in her thoughts, wide enough for him to add a few of his own.

I could change those thoughts too, rewrite what she's seeing or feeling. He didn't do that, obviously.

"I shouldn't be a Pokémon," he said. "And you shouldn't be sick. This is all wrong."

She coughed, and a few drops of blood slid down her lips. "Yeah, well. We don't always get to… decide, what life will do with us." She closed her eyes, pressing back against the tree, apparently feeling its bark against her skin.

But she could take no strength from it, not the way Quinn had when he first stepped outside. "We're back in time, aren't we?"

He floated a little closer to her, close enough to touch her cheek. Silent instincts rebelled at that proximity, just as they did while sitting on her lap. He ignored these too, obviously. Avery wouldn't hurt him.

"I'm not sure. Maybe forward. Happened kinda fast… was just trying to get away. They wanted to shoot you again."

She opened one eye, watching him move through the air. "Can't be the future. There's no… people. Watched the sky, didn't see any satellites or space stations. There's just Pokémon here."

"Maybe people died out."

She laughed, at least for a few seconds. The movement made her jerk, and wrap her arms protectively around her ribs again. "Nah. That's not what the future looks like. I know I can't see the future, but… Quinn, you might have to be the one to… see it for me."

She reached for him, but apparently thought better of touching those delicate wings and looked away again. "I think it's getting worse. Feeling… so weak."

"ARS," he replied. "I should've got the same dose you did—I was right on top of you."

She shrugged. "Maybe you did. Somehow you got to decide that being a Pokémon was… better than dying of radiation poisoning. Wish I had."

"You aren't dying yet," he argued. "I'll bring us to a hospital. They can…" For a lower dose, there were procedures to intervene. But for a card gone black like Avery's, there was nothing to be done—just painkillers and fluids. She would be dead within a week.

She laughed again, a little quieter this time. "Careful with the telepathy, Quinn. When you're connected, you send things, even if you don't mean to."

"Sorry!" He floated away from her by reflex, head down. "I didn't mean to make it seem so bleak."

She closed her eyes again, settling back against the tree. "I don't think I'll… make it to a hospital, Quinn. I'm sorry. I won't be able to help you change back, or… not change back. I won't be able to see what Celebi can be. Or go on that cruise you booked for us. That you… think I didn't know about."

Baast moved over to her from the other side, pressing close to Avery's struggling form. The cat wrapped one foreleg over her chest, apparently not caring about the dirt or the mud.

Maybe the Meowstic was capable of emotion after all.