Pokemon Max: Family Matters

Ch. 9 Tremors

Things finally settled after a moment, and we broke our circle as Celebi dropped onto the couch with a soft thump.

Everything was in the same order as when we left, though some things looked a little less abandoned. This time we had jumped to the morning, as I noticed from the sunrise that was almost over.

My father swallowed and nodded. "We should be getting close. Right, Celebi?"

The Pokemon lifted its head weakly, thankfully not passed out. "...I made sure our larger jumps would be the first. We're being more delicate now. We can't afford to stay around long, or the timeline destruction might catch up to us."

That was when the air around us began to vibrate. I could feel a rumbling throughout my whole body, one that made me want to grab onto something.

Celebi flopped her head against a pillow. "Why do I ever say anything..."

Damien swallowed. "I take it that's the destruction we're trying to avoid?"

"Unless somebody's launching a fully-manned rocket in the middle of their backyard, that's correct." Celebi muttered, sitting herself up. While Thalia knelt beside her to make sure she was okay, my father rushed outside for a moment.

"What happens when the destruction hits?" I asked.

Celebi took a deep breath to steady herself. "The two coinciding timelines force together. Rifts will open up that drop a lot of things into each world that don't belong there. Eventually the fabric of reality splits, space and time collapse within this branch of the timeline, both worlds cease to exist."

"Delightful."

My father returned with a concerned look still on his face.

"How are things looking, Todd?" Celebi asked.

"Uh...big hole in the sky, so...you know..." He shrugged. "We're probably screwed."

She rolled her eyes. "I assumed that. I mean how big of a rift has opened?"

"...like a football field. Or six."

Celebi's expression darkened. "We're screwed." She managed to float into the air, and ordered solemnly: "Start running."

"What-"

"The rift is the epicenter of the collapse. Get as far away from it as possible, that'll give you the best chance of survival until I'm back."

I held up my hands. "Wait, 'until you're back'?"

She nodded. "I'm calling in a favor. We need to speed up our timetable."

No sooner had she finished saying those words had she blipped out of the room by herself, leaving us all standing, dumbfounded. After a moment, Thalia shifted, then made her way to the door. "That works for me."

Everyone seemed to come back to attention, and we all quickly hurried out the door. As we started to run down the street, another rumble in the air caused us all to look up. In the midst of a now almost perfect blue sky, there was a massive rip, looking like a knife wound in the air. On the other side, dim red light was the only thing that flowed through, until, along with the rumbling reaching a peak, the hole in the sky began to start popping out strange forms into our world, dropping you the earth with heavy crashes.

One landed a short distance away from us, and then seemed to stand up, revealing a large, humanoid robot (of course). It was pretty straightforward as far as robots go, very tall and very gray. There was some circular logo I couldn't distinguish on the shoulder. It looked over at us, then began to approach with large and surprisingly quick steps.