Chapter Text
Professor Laventon was in a bit of a pickle.
Though the Survey Corps brought back precious little from many of their latest expeditions, Akari had managed to catch three incredibly rare Pokemon, who were not only fascinating finds, but also remarkably friendly! There was little doubt in his mind that the discoveries would significantly increase their understanding of these mysterious creatures.
If he could catch up to them, that was.
He wasn’t too sure what had gotten into them all of the sudden, but all at once, the three had darted away in a mad game of tag. He’d chased them all the way from the Galaxy Building. Prelude Beach – which was nearly an entire mile south of the village – was now coming into view.
It was rather strange. The Professor didn’t have nearly the same stamina these young ones had. They could have outrun him ages ago, but when he slowed, one of them would stay in sight as if they wanted him to follow.
Most Pokemon were remarkably intelligent. To say nothing of their power, the vast majority proved themselves capable of understanding human speech despite lacking the ability to communicate verbally themselves. Were they leading him somewhere? To show him something, perhaps?
His curiosity was piqued. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said of his energy. He finally stopped on the shoreside of Prelude Beach, gasping for air. Cyndaquil watched him anxiously, a safe distance away from both him and the water. Flighty, that one was. Certainly the most timid of the three, though it usually didn’t act up like this unprovoked. No, that kind of behavior could usually be attributed to one of the other two. Neither of which were paying him any mind at the moment. They had stopped running, at least, though the way they lingered at the edge of the pier wasn’t much more reassuring. If they kept going from here, he wouldn’t be able to safely follow them. He’d lose them.
“Okay, you three. Did you want to show me something?” He asked, trying to keep his voice even and inviting. Rowlet didn’t flinch, but Oshawott peered back at him, grinned and then returned his gaze to the sky. Laventon frowned and followed their stares.
The Space-Time Rift.
Even now, seeing it sent shivers down his spine. Though nothing had come of it since its appearance, it was truly an ominous sight. An ever-present, swirling storm of thunderclouds and lightning, accompanied by a violently blinding crack in the sky. A fracture in reality itself.
Was it bigger now?
And… what… was that? Like a comet, it hurtled across the sky from Mount Coronet, curving into a downward spiral.
It was… headed directly towards them!
His first instinct was to start running again, but there was no way he was going to be able to outrun that thing. So he watched in tremulous fascination until the streaking light miraculously dissipated at the water’s edge. Almost gently, it deposited a boy onto the sand.
Professor Laventon blinked. That couldn’t be right. Still, even after pinching himself, the image didn’t fade. Oshawott and Rowlet hurried to the boy’s side, and even the ever-timid Cyndaquil took a few steps toward him.
He wasn’t moving.
“Ohh, no.” Laventon rushed over to the boy. His heart leapt at the sight of his strange jacket and the gaping hole in it. It looked as if the infamous Alpha Rapidash of the Obsidian Fieldlands had run it through.
But there was no blood, no injury. At least, none that he could see. The boy was still out cold.
“Wake up!” He pleaded with the young stranger. His mind raced as he checked for any signs of life. He’d come from the rift. What did that mean? Had it done something to him? “Please wake up, won’t you?”
He had a pulse. He was breathing. Actually, was that a moan? He was alive!
The Pokemon seemed to share his enthusiasm, crowding the stirring boy before the Professor could object. “Hold on, let’s give him some space,” he tried to warn them, “we don’t want to scare him.” Waking up surrounded by unfamiliar Pokemon would undoubtedly-
“Hey there,” the boy greeted sleepily. “Who’re you guys?”
Rowlet hooted in lieu of a response while Oshawott peered at him inquisitively. “Osha, oshawott?”
“No worries, I’m Pokaaay~!” the young stranger sang lightly, sitting up to rub his eyes. Professor Laventon’s heart almost stopped – the same tear on the back of his clothes was on this side as well. There was no way they hadn’t been skewered through, and yet there was no sign of injury. The boy just yawned as if waking from a casual night’s rest. That’s when he spotted the Professor. “Oh, hi! Sorry, I didn’t see you before.”
“That’s, uh, that’s fine,” Laventon said. “Are you sure you’re alright, my boy? Your clothes are torn pretty badly.”
“Hmm?” He peered down, seeing the hole for himself. He frowned, patting his gut a few times before shrugging. “I think it’s okay. I’m not hurt." He paused, then frantically searched himself and the sand around him. "Ahh! But my Pokeballs are gone!"
"You have Pokeballs?" The Galaxy Team were the only ones that produced Pokeballs in this area, and he knew he'd never seen this kid before. Then again, he had come from the rift.
"Yes, six of them. Have you seen them?"
"No, I'm afraid I haven't," the Professor confessed. "Did they have Pokemon in them?"
The boy bit his lip and nodded.
Laventon was torn. On one hand, his heart went out to the boy, who seemed considerably more distraught than when he first woke up. On the other… he carried six Pokemon with him? Most people didn't even have one. He must have been fearless.
Who is this boy?
Rowlet hooted, catching the stranger's attention. He blinked, then smiled. "Do you want to help me look?"
"Hoo!" The bird Pokemon responded, echoed by its comrades.
"Thanks! That's really nice of you guys." He smiled sheepishly at the bewildered professor watching their exchange. "Is that okay with you, Mister… umm…"
"Oh, uh, Laventon. I'm Professor Laventon. And, no, it's not a problem," he replied, shaking off his alarm to get up and search. It took every fiber of his being not to call out when Oshawott took to the water and Rowlet the sky. At least Cyndaquil lingered behind the two while they spoke.
"Nice to meet you, Professor! I'm Dia. It’s short for Diamond."
“Diamond?” Laventon echoed. “Are you by chance acquainted with the Diamond Clan?”
Dia looked baffled. “Um. Who?”
Laventon sighed. “I’ll take that as a no. Do you even know where you are? You did just fall from the sky after all.” He could hardly believe what was coming out of his mouth. Honestly, who does that?
“Mm, I wonder…” With a commendable calm, the boy observed their surroundings. Then he stopped cold. “Wait. Did you just say I fell out of the sky?” He repeated with the same level of incredulity that Laventon himself felt.
“Yes, I saw it with my own eyes. You fell from the Space-Time Rift,” he answered, pointing. Dia followed it to the peak of Mount Coronet. He immediately paled, as one might at the sight of a crack in reality. “Do you know what happened?”
“I, uh… I remember getting hit by a Pokemon’s attack,” he said, touching his torn attire, presumably the place he’d been struck. “But I don’t remember that, or why I’d go falling out of it. You said it’s a Space-Time Rift?”
“Well, yes. That’s what we’re calling it,” Laventon told him. “In truth, we don’t know what it is.”
“I see.” He sounded almost contemplative. “Where are we?”
“This is Prelude Beach. It’s a short ways south of Jubilife Village.”
“Jubilife… Village?”
“Yes. Have you heard of it?”
“Um… something like that,” Dia said, scratching his head. “Are we in the Sinnoh region?”
Now that was strange. This boy knew of the deity the Diamond and Pearl Clans worshipped but not of the clans themselves? “This is the Hisui region, though I have heard that the deity that watches over it is called Sinnoh.”
“Is that so?” Dia said with a nervous grin. “In that case, I think the rift’s name might be a little spot on.”
“Oh? What makes you say that?”
“Ah… I think… I might have traveled through time?”
Needless to say, his claim came as a great shock to the professor. To be honest, he was rather alarmed himself. After all, if he was right…
He was an awfully long way from home.
To his credit, Professor Laventon was taking it remarkably well. Obviously, he was a little incredulous, but he seemed willing to hear Dia out. Meaning, he was asking a lot of questions and growing steadily more interested in the answers.
“See, Jubilife is a huge city where I’m from. And Hisui’s an old name for Sinnoh,” he explained while he and the small, mouselike Pokemon searched behind a wooden shed. Not a Pokeball in sight. “So it might be possible. I’m not sure though. I’ve never traveled through time before.”
“I can’t imagine many people have,” Professor Laventon conceded, somewhat humorously. “The idea is incredible… How could it have happened?”
Dia had met Dialga before and experienced a fraction of its temporal powers firsthand, so he didn’t doubt it was possible. Problem was, he didn’t remember seeing Dialga before winding up here. No, he’d been in the middle of a conflict with Giratina, Heatran, and the galactic scientist that instigated their rampage. So how could he have wound up in the past?
Still, he thought, looking back at the rift in the sky, that looks a lot like the hole Cyrus opened with Dialga and Palkia’s powers, or maybe the hole Giratina travels through. Are they the same? Granted, the one above them now looked a lot scarier. Dark, swirling clouds, lightning, and a huge crack in the sky definitely made for an ominous sight…
“... I’m not sure,” he answered finally, “but I have a few ideas. Is that Mount Coronet?”
“Indeed it is. Why do you ask?”
He gestured toward the rift. “Something similar happened back home once. I’m wondering if it’s the same thing.”
“Something similar…?” Laventon’s voice was faint. “You mean to say you know what that is?”
“It looks a little different, so I’m not sure. But maybe?”
Professor Laventon just stared at him, his search completely forgotten at this point. “What do you think it is?”
“A little while back… or, um, forward…? There was a guy who forced two really powerful Pokemon to fight on top of Mount Coronet. It opened up a hole kind of like that one that started sucking in everything around it like a giant vaccuum.” Dia peered into a few bushes on a hill behind the shed. Still no Pokeballs. He hoped the Pokemon were having better luck searching because he was running out of places to check. “We stopped the fighting, so the hole went away before it could cause too much damage, but I wonder if it’s the same thing.”
He didn’t get a response to that. When Dia turned back to the professor, he was gaping wordlessly at him.
That was understandable. It was a lot to take in.
“Watt!” Came a now-familiar cry. Dia excitedly turned to the little blue Pokemon. It proudly proffered a Pokeball to him.
“Thank you!” He said, accepting it and examining it for himself. Immediately, he knew it wasn’t one of his own. This one had a strange latch on it, and some sort of vent on top. It looked like one of those old Pokeballs he’d seen on display in one of the museums he’d toured with Pearl and Missy.
He really was in the past, wasn’t he?
“Is that one of yours?” Professor Laventon managed to ask through his astonishment.
“No. My Pokeballs look a little different. But it was a good find,” he reassured the otter Pokemon, who preened at the praise. Moments later, the tiny owl returned with a disappointed hoot. It hadn’t found anything. “That’s okay! You all did your best.” He said, giving the owl a quick scratch under the chin. It crooned happily in return. “My Pokemon must have stayed home.”
Maybe Pearl had them. He hoped so. If that Galactic scientist got his hands on Regigigas and Rotom like he wanted…
"You look worried," the professor observed gently.
"I am. But they're probably with a friend of mine right now, so they should be okay." That was right. Besides, they were strong. Reg on his own could simultaneously wrestle Palkia and Dialga to a standstill. He had faith in them.
"I hope that is the case. In the meantime," Professor Laventon continued, "you're probably going to need somewhere to stay, am I wrong?"
"That would be nice," Dia admitted. "I'm still not too sure how I'll get home yet." Mount Coronet was his first and only lead, but it was a long trip on foot, especially without Pokemon and supplies.
"Right! Well, if you don’t mind a little work, I'm sure we can make some space for you. The Commander will also want to know more about what you told me. The rift’s appearance has been troubling for us."
“Sure thing! That’s all fine by me.” Helping was going to be difficult without his partners, but he’d do his best. If it was the same hole Team Galactic ripped open, it was everybody’s problem. “Just lead the way, Professor!”