Pokémon Mars

Chapter 42: The Rift

By 3 AM, Jin fell asleep on the opals. While the flashing outside woke his friends, including Koray, Julien and Natsumi in their bunks, Jin snored through it. They couldn't imagine that he was dreaming about anything, but he was: the regally columned cave where Azelf floated before a tally. It was clearer than ever. He heard his own squelching footsteps. He looked down. A huge pattern imprinted on the ancient floor, vaguely resembling a Pokémon, was filled with perfectly clear water. It reached Jin's ankles and began to spill into his boots. His socks were wet.

Last time, it was just a regular dream. He wasn't aware that he was dreaming until he woke up. This time, however, he was acutely aware that he was dreaming and consciously looked around. Azelf's piercing gaze was palpable, but he wasn't afraid. Even legendary Pokémon were still Pokémon, just like the regular ones he called his friends. He sidestepped for a better look at the tally. Upon closer inspection, it wasn't just one tally. There were three distinctly separate lines of 10 strikes, the first clearly more ancient than the next. The final line, a fresh one, was incomplete. There were only five strikes. The fang used to neatly scratch the strikes laid in a bowl, ready to be used again soon.

Jin opened his mouth to ask Azelf if it was testing him. Then he was suddenly on the cold, dry and shiny floor. The ground trembled. Something clattered off a shelf. He opened his eyes to see the lab's doors opening. Blinding light rushed in. It wasn't red this time. It was white. The Admins were already out on the street. Zorua told Nyx that Courtney and Racer weren't there, so Firmino opened the window. On the other side of the canal, Damson sat on the roof. He had a perfect view of the rift in existence itself that opened over the distant Mt. Coronet.

'I gotta ask Mom,' Zorua told Nyx, 'But I'm pretty sure it's a space-time rift...'

'This is insane...'

The rift snapped shut as suddenly as it appeared, but Firmino kept staring at the sky.

'We've been gone from the lab for two days and they're already opening space-time rifts...'

Thalassa opened her window. Her frightened Pokémon huddled around her.

'So it's happening... it really is them... and they're at it again...'

Her Zoroark added that Rudolph was letting it happen. Indeed he was, yet oblivious to the consequences that could destroy his city of dreams in a second. Thalassa's eyes lingered on the perfectly clear sky where the fleeting disturbance was. It woke her from that same dream. It was clearer this time. She clearly saw the tally in its columned cave. The Pokémon before it was golden. It was still too blurry to discern, but if Jin saw Azelf, she was sure she saw Uxie.

So the bringer of willpower appeared to Jin. The bringer of knowledge appeared to Thalassa. If they had the same dreams without consulting each other first, they had to mean something, but what?

The street was silent again. Thalassa pulled on her lab coat, locked the door and went out. The sun peeked over the horizon. Her thoughts returned to her conversation with Abram on the ship. He believed that as long as one yearned for something, they would stay sane. That seemed like celestial wisdom back then. It sounded laughable now. It was yearning that drove Damson mad. Rudolph probably yearned for something, once upon a time. Perhaps he even longed to return to Earth. He was only 12 when he accompanied his parents on the very first Ares flight. Whatever he once innocently yearned for became a monstrous hunger that turned him into a tin-pot dictator.

She intended to walk straight to the lab, to discuss the dreams with Jin, but she sat on an upturned plant pot outside Hexagon Coffee. At least Racer was gone. Zoroark sat beside her. Porygon2 was comfortable in its mane. Charizard's wings spread protectively behind them. She smiled. She wasn't alone. She was never alone as long as her Pokémon were by her side. Four of them – Zoroark, Charizard, Metagross and Samurott – had been with her since she took her first steps. She won Porygon2 as a Battle Bingo prize at Realgam Tower. Krookodile only joined her team on the Gym Challenge, but she had known it for a long time, since they were young stargazers out in the desert. Every one of them remembered her running around in an astronaut costume, proclaiming that they would solve all the mysteries of the universe like their idol, Kazuki.