Chapter 25

As he soon learned, tracking Avery down wouldn't be as simple as flying to a specific place, or even a direct teleport there by one of his powerful new friends. The cats kept a tight perimeter around their primary settlement, and would capture him long before he got close. Even traveling through time would do him no good if each era had similar protection..

But he didn't have to find Avery in Starfall. He had already told her where to meet him. All he had to do was leave something behind for her to find. Time travel meant far less direct ways of solving problems, if he was willing to try them.

He had only one companion for the trip, despite one of his new friends wanting to come along. "I don't know where this goes, Cedrin. Maybe the cats find a way to turn this into an ambush. I don't want you anywhere near it."

"But if you go back…" The other celebi followed him out of their little house in Absentia. In the weeks since their escape, his wings were fully healed, and his flight restored. Amazing what a little time in the sun could do. "You might find your mate and go home."

He shook his head once. "Can't leave quite yet. Some friends of mine are still trapped in this time. I would have to go back for them too." Quinn leaned forward, giving the young celebi a quick hug. "Avery won't want to go home even if she could. If she's grown up again—she always cared about helping people. Can't do that if you run."

And there won't be anywhere to run to if we don't succeed. The future depends on us. Or it depended on the locals, and he had just interfered.

"She sounds brave," Cedrin said. "Like you. Guess that's why you came back in time together."

He released the smaller Celebi, floating away down the path. "I hope you get to meet her one day."

"Not soon?" Cedrin retreated to the door, antennae lifting cautiously from his brow. "Aren't you rescuing her?"

He didn't answer, because he didn't like what he would have to say.

Avery wouldn't help them if she were back in camp. They already had Mew on their side—the half-mutated cats that weren't quite any other Pokémon yet, but were still too terrified to return to Starfall.

Quinn wasn't surprised to find the Pokémon waiting for him in a quiet workshop on the outskirts of town. Stella had been the least tormented by their captivity, and seemed the least changed by their escape. She yawned, bobbing up and down in the air as he entered. The rebels had a huge map inside, projecting a slowly-rotating sphere of the planet in the air.

More or less the same one that he'd grown up with, other than some slight drift on the edges. "You are prepared to go?"

He floated over to her, wings buzzing steadily. "Did they tell you how I was gonna do this? I don't know when I'll see her—maybe before, or maybe after. It could be confusing."

She shrugged. "Why I am perfect for this assignment." She drifted closer, trailing the little cape behind her. "Do you know how badly I want to find a rock and sleep for years, Quinn? I could never do this—we fight for our survival. Yet Azelf tells me to accomplish my duty I will have a chance to finally sleep, and be serving the cause with every restful moment." She patted his oversized head with a tiny hand. Her skin felt cold and metallic, unyielding.

But not unfriendly. He felt the gratitude in more than just her words. Even this legend of steel and shooting stars came from the cats. She shared her feelings too. "What if they kill me?" he asked. "I'm new at this, as everyone is always reminding me. Maybe I don't survive."

She circled around the map, trailing her cape behind her. One small hand moved through the projection, flicking over several regions without settling on any. "I don't think anyone can stop the Admiralty. But if we don't win… I don't really care. I just want them to know that we tried. They couldn't make us give up, no matter how scary and mean they got."

Quinn floated closer to the map. He touched the position he intended to go, and again the illusion zoomed in close, focusing on the island chain.

"I know it may seem like a dream, Stella. But I wouldn't exist if it was impossible. The Admiralty will lose this fight one day. The mew are all gone. Except for maybe a few. Like the other time traveler… it's confusing. But there's no more ship or bombardments or genocide monuments."

"Perhaps I should be relieved," she said, expression distant. "I don't wish my kin to die. If our victory costs the civilization of the Firstborn… perhaps it was meant to be. But something beautiful will be gone from the universe on that day. We were once the greatest of all life, firstborn daughters of Arceus. Somewhere along the line, we forgot."

She gestured at the map, and it zoomed in on the islands, rotating to show the terrain from above. "Why here? I see almost nothing. A single observatory near the peak of that volcano. Suppose that means the cats won't see our intrusion."

He grinned weakly. "Because of her. My—I'm not sure what she is anymore. But before, I hoped she would be my mate. We were studying together… different subjects. But we would've graduated near the same time. We were going to take a cruise to celebrate. I suppose you… don't have those yet."

"But then you traveled back by mistake?"

"I guess so. Became this by mistake." He gestured at himself, tiny wings still buzzing. "I'm supposed to be human. But I ruined that for both of us."

"Ruined," she repeated, amused. "I do not believe any of that tribe would choose to be so imprisoned, if they knew what they had lost. Their powers are not different, as yours are. Their ears are deaf, their bodies feeble. Their minds… greater than other Pokémon, but not by enough. If you could wish to put things back as they were, would you?"

"I would wish… to go back to my time," he eventually said. "When this is over. Share what I've learned about time. Tell my family that I'm alive. But be human again—" Only if she does. If Avery gives it up, I will too. And she might—that seemed like a frightening possibility. His best friend couldn't guess at the future and leap through time. Last they spoke, she didn't even have the teeth to chew solid foods.

"As I said." Stella seemed satisfied with his answer. "Pity the Admiralty are not interested in the other humans trapped in our era. If you could be uplifted, why not them?"

Suddenly, they were somewhere else. The fading lights of sunset became brilliant yellow, with the sun almost at noon overhead.

He expected Stella to drop, and so was ready to catch her, holding both hands in front of him to focus his powers.

Her expression soured, third eye closing almost instantly. "Sun, course it would be sun. Put me somewhere cool."

She yawned, and the cape wrapped around her limbs, tucking in tight beneath her. "I'll need a night's rest at least before we… go back. Don't get into trouble before that."

"It might take a lot longer."

She nodded. "I hope very much it does. Don't jump me forward if you go. Come and collect me when you're… done. I can go the long way. But if you travel back, bring me for that. Longer nap is better."

Her body hardened. Quinn gasped and nearly dropped her—he would've, if he'd been using his actual fingers. Fortunately, his powers were not so close. That didn't put him in danger of getting covered with the crystal that crept up and around her. It appeared from nowhere, brilliant blue and rapid-growing.

In seconds, she was completely gone, replaced by this opaque, glittering crystal. "Well… I guess I won't ask if you trust me."

"I can still hear you," Stella thought, her words coming clear despite the thick crystal. "When it's time, put me in the starlight. You might have to shout, but I'll hear you."

Quinn couldn't just put her down on the beach, of course. If this was going to be long-term, he needed somewhere that other creatures weren't likely to find. That meant somewhere far from other observers, somewhere hard to reach. Somewhere only reachable through flight seemed like a good fit.

I only have a year. But at the same time, he had forever. So long as he could ground himself in the moment he left, he could always come back, and it would be as though he'd only taken a moment.

It was almost evening before he found somewhere: a cavern high in the mountains, one with an entrance only a child would fit through. Or a Pokémon levitating an oversized crystal.

There were Pokémon inside already, bats that watched his approach with confusion and skepticism. A Zubat flew into his path to block his way at first, circling with high pitched squeals. "Our place, our place! Fairy can't have!"

"Fairy won't," he promised. "Just want to leave this pretty rock somewhere dark and quiet. Then I leave."

"Watching," it said. "Forage now anyway. Be gone when we get back, or we fight."

Quinn was gone before they got back. He could've taken even less time, except he didn't want his friend to get herself buried in bat droppings for a few centuries. He had to take her further back, where there was no sign of visiting Pokémon.

"Dry enough here, I think," he muttered, once he’d found the right place and time. "Shouldn't have to carry you out of the limestone when I get back. I hope."

She didn't reply with words, just a vague sense that she realized he was there. Maybe she approved of what he was doing?

He took his tablet to track the time, then left her there. He found somewhere else to sleep for the night, in a hollow hidden away in the trees across the island.

Then came the more difficult task, leaving a message someone would find without knowing more than a vague sense of which island he was leaving it on. And when. For all he knew, Avery might've come searching many years earlier.

Quinn picked a quiet spot on the beach, then looked back. He had some sense for his "place" in the confusing spiral of time and causality now. Those he had been to already had a smell to them, like returning to his parents' house after many years at college. He could probably pick this one out again if he had to.

And more importantly, the one when he'd arrived. Awkward, clumsy, and blind his earlier self had been, but he had still been the one to bring them back.

"I'll make sure you find it," he whispered. To himself now. But that would be true for the next long while. Unless he found a way to travel back to the mainland to get his friends. It wasn't his mind that attracted the Admiralty, after all. If Avery wasn't with him, no one would know where he went.

Getting there would be the hard part.