FSE

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"This is... this is great!"

I blinked in surprise at the Espeon. I had brought her back to Uxie's valley and had just finished explaining the situation to her. How we were trapped here until we caught back up to the moment we were sent back. I had explained we would be free then, but that anything we changed before that could erase us. I had told her we were stranded hundreds or thousands of years in the past, and...

Clara was happy?

"Uhhh... were you listening to the same thing I was? The creepy Ninetales just said we're prisoners here." Constella glanced at me suspiciously, then back at Clara. "Did you hit your head when I was dragging you out?"

"That's Sinori; weren't you paying attention?" Clara turned her head to me with an apologetic look.

"Sinori's a Vulpix; we just saw her two minutes ago!"

"But we were going backwards; I could feel the sun moving the wrong way. It's been longer for her." Clara's green tail swished impatiently behind her. "I can sense Phoenix somewhere near here too, though it feels like he's asleep or something. But it's them."

The Ledian held her arms in front of her - all four of them. "Okay, but that still doesn't change that we're trapped here. We can't leave or something bad happens."

"No, we can't change certain things. The branch thing - we can still mess with stuff, just so long as it doesn't lead back to what happened to us. Right?" The Espeon smiled and perked her ears in excitement as her psychic words finished echoing in my thoughts.

I hesitated. That was true - we were safe in Uxie's valley because the things we changed here would have no impact on our past. We could eat all the berries, drink all the water, even set the whole thing on fire. None of it would erase it because nothing here had any impact on our past. So we _could_change things... "Technically, yes, but..."

"And you can see the things that are safe to change or not?" I could see more excitement growing in Clara's glassy eyes.

"Y... yes, I can..."

"Jirachi!" The Espeon began hopping up and down in excitement.

"Oh, not this again..." Constella sighed and threw up her arms. All four of them.

I had forgotten how odd that was.

I shook my head and tried to place the word Clara had used. It sounded like I had heard it before... but I couldn't remember. "What's 'Jirachi'?"

"Jirachi's a magic Pokemon! He can make a wish come true, if you write it on the paper stuck to his head." Clara turned back to me with another excited grin. "I know where he lives at; we can go there and write down the wish."

"Wha... why not just ask him?"

Constella snorted. "Because even if the legend is true, Jirachi sleeps all the time. He wakes up, grants wishes, and goes back to sleep. For a thousand years." Constella sighed, then shook her head. "It matches some comet. We already went through this once and found it had happened some two hundred years ago, so it won't happen again for another eight hundred more. He_can't_ help you, Clara..."

"Yes he can! Sinori said it; we're in the past now. We go find him, write down our wish, and it comes true when he wakes up. We just ask him to change something at a later point far after he wakes up, when it's time. We can do that, right?"

I tried to think. It... could work, maybe? The obvious problem would be if there were other wishes already written, or if a wish would be written, and if that wish had shaped our own history. If all three wishes needed to be made to lead to our past, then we couldn't do anything about it, but... it wouldn't hurt to at least check, especially if Jirachi was asleep anyways. And even if it wasn't possible this time, we could check it again after he granted the current set of wishes. We _did_have time.

Any wish would have to be carefully written, to make sure it didn't change things too much, but... it should be possible. And Clara was right; if we did something that threatened things, I would see the distortions. I had gotten better at spotting them and understanding what they meant.

But what would Clara wish fo...

Oh.

I felt my ears droop. "Clara... we... we can't wish for that. Even if a wish was free, it... too much would change from that. You..." I tried to think, stringing events back together again in my head. "You wouldn't be with Sara then; you'd cut off your past."

I saw Clara's expression start to fall... then it brightened again, though for some reason it felt forced. "So... so we just ask that the wish gets delayed a little longer. No changing things before we left; just have it happen after we get back."

I frowned. That... that could work. But for some reason I had the strange feeling Clara wasn't telling me everything.

I started to press the Espeon on what she wasn't telling me... but then another thought struck me. If there was one extra wish free, then... there might be two. Maybe I could wish to have things sped up. To have us all brought back to the moment after Dialga pulled us through time. We could all be free, and... I wouldn't have to be alone anymore.

"Okay. It shouldn't hurt to just check it out."

I sent Constella ahead in time before we set out. That made me feel a little better - I had the briefest of impressions of a slightly older version of me reaching back to catch Constella as I slowed down her awareness of time. Or sped up the passage of time around her. I had done it for the billionteenth time by then, and I still got the terms and points of reference messed up. Slowed down, sped up. Both were happening at the same time. And probably neither, if I really stopped to think about it.

But that was a headache I did not need. The point was that there would be a Sinori again at some point to catch Constella; I didn't have to worry about erasing myself from time.

I didn't actually have solid evidence it worked that way, but it made sense. And it made me feel better to think it worked that way.

It took us eight days to reach Jirachi's home. It actually wasn't that far away, but we had to be careful traveling. We had to be careful about who saw us - even the mention of our presence to the wrong person could change things - and we had to be careful where we camped and what we ate. We had to travel away almost as much as we traveled towards our destination, searching for somewhere safe to spend a few hours asleep.

But I had learned how to sense the things that led to problems, and the things that didn't. I got us to the mountain where Clara said Jirachi lived.

After that, Clara led the way. Being blind actually seemed to help her - she had a sort of sense that was better than ordinary sight, at least in the dark tunnels. She could tell when a passage was a dead end, or when it would loop around or go off in the wrong direction. And she seemed to know where Jirachi was at in the cave - aside from stopping us from stumbling over a bat that my sense of time said would have been a danger, I really just followed after her.

The tunnel opened up into a large cavern. At first it seemed to remind me of the spot we had fought Dialga in... but it was different. Happier, somehow, calmer. The small wisp I had brought forth to be able to see with painted shadows across the wall that seemed peaceful and content, even welcoming, as if inviting us to sleep there for a while. And in the center of the cavern, on a small raised rock dais, a Pokemon was doing exactly that.

It was small, and had a yellow head that reminded me vaguely of the top half of a star shape. It lay on its side and slept soundly, body moving slowly with its slow inhales and exhales. Three strips of blue paper hung from the points of its head.

Even in the soft light of my wisp, I could make out writing on each of the tags.

I paused midstep, grimacing, and Clara must have noticed it. Her tail flicked back and forth in sudden worry as she turned back towards me. "What is it?"

"There's already something written on them. Maybe we can erase one though; let me check..." I moved closer to the sleeping Pokemon, being careful to move quietly.

"You don't have to be quiet. It won't wake up until the comet comes." Clara sat down and watched me.

I blinked. Really? I'd heard of sound sleepers, but that seemed... extreme. I lifted up my paw and prepared to slam it down, watching the strange glow I now saw on the ground beneath me. Nothing changed. I had learned enough to understand what that meant - if I did make a noise, one that would be loud enough to wake any normal Pokemon, it wouldn't have any impact on time. It wouldn't wake the sleeping Pokemon - or, if it did wake it up, nothing significant would come from it. Either way, I was safe.

I walked the rest of the way to the Jirachi and glanced at the three tags. The strange glow was visible around each of them. I took a closer look at each of the wishes written there and shook my head in disbelief at what I saw. People.

I lifted a forepaw and reached for one of the tags with the thought of erasing the writing on it... the glow reacted violently at the approach of my paw, writhing as if in pain and retreating somewhere behind the sleeper, as far from me as it could get.

The wish on that tag was very important. Erasing it would be fatal.

I tried again with the second tag... and with the same results. That wish turned out to be just as important to my past, somehow; changing it would cause a major problem with time.

I reached for the third tag... and closed my eyes. The strange glow had reacted just as violently.

None of the wishes could be removed. All three had to be there when the Jirachi woke up, or else... or else our history would be changed. We would be erased.

I looked back to Clara and stared at her sightless eyes. "I'm sorry. These wishes are too big a part of our past."

The Espeon stared blankly back in my direction... and I saw something change in her expression. Her blind eyes were suddenly angry, suddenly frustrated, and... suddenly determined. The wall holding back those emotions broke in a single angry word. "...so?"

I blinked, not sure I understood the question. "It... what I told you earlier. We can't change them."

Clara strode calmly forward, her green ears twitching. "That's not what you said. You said if we changed them we wouldn't exist anymore." I felt a sudden shock, one which only grew at Clara's next words. "That doesn't mean we can't."

I stared at her in sudden understanding. Sudden Shock. No... she wouldn't.

Would she?

She would. And she was going to.

I jumped between the Jirachi and the Espeon. "Clara, no; you ca... I can't let you do that! You..."

Clara's hazy eyes suddenly hardened. "Get out of my way, Sinori."

"No! No Clara, think about this! This won't fix anything..."

"Yes, it would. Flen would be alive again." She shifted her posture, as if looking towards the Jirachi behind me. "That would fix everything."

"No, it wouldn't! You'd be... you'd be dead."

"Again - so?" Clara's focus changed back to me, determination clear in the way she held herself. "Flen would be alive again. What would it matter what happened to me?"

I just stared back at her in complete disbelief. "You can't mean that... Clara, no... that..." I tried to think, tried to find the words to say to snap the suddenly dangerous looking Espeon out of what she was prepared to do. "Flen wouldn't want that for you..."

I don't know what the right words to say were, but those clearly were not them. A ripple went through the air around the Espeon, a small shockwave expanding around her. "Don't you _dare_tell me what Flen would want! You never even knew him, you have no idea what he would want!"

I felt a sudden pressure pushing me backwards, but I braced against it and shook my head. I glanced back up at her, knowing her eyes couldn't actually see me, but hoping something in my expression could get through to her. What would Opal say? Opal would... oh. "Nobody who loved you as much as you've said he did would want that for you." I took a breath and hoped my next words wouldn't send her into a deeper rage. "Sara wouldn't. I wouldn't."

"Opal wouldn't."

Sudden pain was obvious in the Espeon's manner, and I felt the pressure fade from against me. She rocked in place. "He woul... it doesn't matter. Flen would be back. Why doesn't anybody understand that? You, Shells, all of you... if he could just be back again..."

"But you _wouldn't_be. The rest of us would get back to that point in time, and Flen would be back, but... we'd go back without you. Flen would be alive, but..." I reached into the own pain I had felt growing in the long years in Uxie's valley. "_You_wouldn't be there with him. Don't do that to him; he wouldn't wan-"

The sudden psychic power came as a total surprise and flung me across the room. "Don't_tell me what Flen would want!_"

I managed to twist in the air and got my paws underneath me, landing against the wall and sliding down it. I got back up and turned back to Clara... and saw tears falling to the ground as she kept walking to the sleeping Pokemon. I got it then. Clara knew. She knew what Flen wanted for her; it was pointless to try and tell her that. She must have told herself it over and over again, day after day; 'I have to keep going, this is what Flen would want'.

But she was just too torn up inside to care anymore.

Oh...

Oh, Clara...

"I know_what he would want. I _know he doesn't want that for me. I know_he wanted me to be happy. One last day, to let him have that. And... I did." Her psychic voice faltered, then vanished from my thoughts. Her next words echoed around the room, actual sound. "I _know he wanted me to go with Sara. With Opal. To be happy with them. To... to live on. To live on without him. And... I did that, too." She faltered, then crossed the final steps to look up at the dais in the center of the room. "I know what my trainer wanted for me, Sinori! He was a part of me; his thoughts were always with me, in my head, as constant to me as the nose on your face is to you, from the very second I evolved. I don't need you, or Shells, or Sara, or Opal, or anyone else to tell me what Flen wanted!"

Her yell rang out through the cavern, echoing back again and again, before finally dwindling to silence.

"But nobody ever seems to care what I want. And..." Weariness filled her psychic voice. "I miss him, Sinori. So much... so much. It hurts. I just... I just want him to be alive again." The Espeon lifted one of her paws and reached towards the Jirachi.

I closed my eyes and reached for the power held in my tails. It flowed outwards, towards the Jirachi... and it fixed the strange glow in place. I pushed my will into it, made the energy stronger, and stronger, and stronger...

...and time pushed back against her as Clara reached out to scrub off the writing her eyes could not see. It held with my help, and refused to allow her to change our past.

She frowned down at the tag, seeming to know something was wrong. She tried again, and this time I saw it - the strange glow had congealed over the tag. Her paw reached towards it but was stopped in the air above it, unable to touch the paper.

Her head whipped around to glare at me with blind eyes. "What are you doing?"

"I can't let you do this."

"Yes you can! Just... just stop, and let me..."

"I can't, Clara."

"Why not?!" Her tail whipped through the air behind her, and I felt another shove against me. I stood against it. Clara's will was not enough to move me again. Had I gotten stronger? Or... had she gotten weaker? "Why can't you just let me do this? Why can't you let me bring him back?"

"It will _destroy_you, Clara."

"I already told you, I don't care!"

"It will destroy me, too."

_That_got a reaction from her. The pressure of the shove faded. "Wha... what?"

"I'm here now because Opal and Sara found me. And they only did that because they were trying to help you. If you change that, you don't just erase yourself." I swallowed, suddenly realizing how this conversation was going to end. Knowing that even the factor of my own existence wouldn't be enough to persuade an Espeon to abandon her trainer, and thus knowing what I would have to say next... and hating myself for even thinking of doing it to my friend. To Clara.

Clara stared back at me... and I saw it in the way her tail swished behind her when she dismissed that as a factor, too. Saw the biting anger in her posture. "Oh. So you're just protecting yourself. That's it, isn't it? You don't care about anybody but yourself."

Traitor!!

I closed my eyes. "And if I'm not here... Phoenix will die. Alone. In Uxie's valley. Or he will be driven crazy with the isolation and go do something that erases himself. You know what he's like." I took another deep breath. "And Constella will, too. She will arrive here, by herself, hundreds of years after Phoenix has died. Without you. Without me. And she will be just as frustrated at being trapped as Phoenix. She will die, too. Either by erasing herself, or of old age."

I took a step closer, walking towards the Espeon. "And at some point Sonata will emerge, too. Maybe it'll be close enough. Maybe she'll be able to live long enough, and she won't die here, alone, at the end of her lifespan. Maybe Opal will wake up and find her there - out of all of us, maybe Opal will still have Sonata."

I stopped by the dais, before the sleeping Pokemon, eyes still closed. I couldn't look at her. I couldn't look at Clara and say it. I had to say it, but... I couldn't bear to look at her face when I did.

"Or maybe he'll wake up in Uxie's valley, and he'll just have the bodies of Sonata, and Constella, and Phoenix, all passed away from old age, and no way of ever knowing what happened to the two of us. Maybe that's what he'll come back to. He'll emerge one day and find he's all alone. I can't do that to him."

I sat up, curling my tails around me, but kept my gaze downwards. My head was too heavy to lift as I prepared to whisper the next words in the silence of the cavern.

"Can you, Clara?"

The cavern was silent. No longer peaceful. The calm feeling was gone. Now it was just a shocked silence, a horrified stillness, as if even the rock walls couldn't believe what I had just said to my friend.

The silence broke with a sob. A forlorn sound, one of heartbreak. "No... I can't..."

I curled my tails around and pulled the broken Espeon closer. I hugged her in their warmth and held her while she cried.

I don't think she noticed that I was crying too.

The sobs finally slowed, and I began to relax my tails. Sniffles echoed off the walls as Clara finally pulled away from me. She looked away from the Jirachi and moved towards the exit, away from it.

I understood. If she didn't get away, she didn't think she would be able to stop herself from trying to replace a wish anyways. Even knowing what it might cost.

She stumbled, and I rushed forward to catch her, placing my body against hers. The Espeon shook against me and took a deep breath, wobbling unsteadily. "What were they?"

I tilted my head, not understanding her question. "What were what?"

"The wishes... the ones written on the tag."

My eyes widened. Oh, there was no way I could tell her that. "Clara... you don't..."

"Don't you _dare_finish that. Tell me. What is it that Flen has to die for?" Another tremor went through her. "I deserve to know that much."

I felt my heart sink. I couldn't... but... she did. I closed my eyes once again and remembered back to what I had read on the tags. "'I wish I was famous and adored by all'. 'I wish for riches beyond comprehension'. 'I wish for the city of my enemy to be swallowed into the earth'."

The Espeon began shaking again. This time was different. The trembles were not of grief, but of barely contained rage. I swallowed and tried to think. "We can try again. We'll have another chance aft-"

"No." My friend shook her head, and began moving again, walking slowly towards the exit. "My trainer deserves better than to be brought back to live among people like that. Just leave him how he is." Her psychic voice grew fainter. Sadder. "He wouldn't want me to go through this again." She kept walking, but I saw the trembling weakness threatening each of her steps. "Just... just put me next to the others and do the time thing to me too. Just let me skip to the end."

She left the cavern.

I took another look at the Jirachi and the wishes... then turned and followed after her.

I wove a crystalline veil of a Safeguard around the Espeon, protecting her from the dangers of normal time that might threaten her while her own perceptions were slowed, and slid her against the wall besides Opal. The blue glow of his rings mixed with the soft green light that shone from her own fur. I stared at the mingling lights on the ground and thought back to her utter sorrow, her disgust, her frustration, her complete loss. Her defeated spirit. Her statement of what Flen would want, and how I should just leave him how he was.

Screw.

That.

I spent hundreds of years investigating the legends of Jirachi. I questioned Uxie and the different Celebi I met. I found places in time it was safe to slip into - a doomed library at the moment of its destruction, the brief moments it was safe for me to race into the flames to rescue books that were soon to be lost to history anyways. A small fishing town close to its moment of destruction by an earthquake, wiped out in a gigantic wave. A larger city in the days before a meteor struck and left only a crater in its place. Dozens of other places I knew were suddenly doomed by the lack of response to my own presence in the shimmering aura of time I could see... and which I was helpless to do anything to save.

Over, and over, and over. Pokemon dead long before I had ever been born. Places that had ceased to exist before anybody even imagined the world I would come to exist in. Again, and again, and again...

Every thousand years, the comet brought Jirachi enough power to grant wishes. But only three - that was all it could do with the power the comet brought it. When it had granted those wishes, the massive effort would overwhelm the poor Pokemon, and send it back into sleep for another thousand years to recover. It would finally awaken, and shortly after that the comet would come and grant it enough cosmic power to start the whole cycle all over again. Three wishes - that was all. The comet did not give it power to grant more than that, and there were no roll-over wishes to tap into from some earlier cycle. If Jirachi was asleep, it was exhausted and out of the power it needed to grant wishes. If it was awake, the comet gave it the power to grant three.

That was what I learned over, and over, and over.

I felt a strange sympathy and understanding with the Jirachi - it went dormant for ages, waiting for a few key moments to act in. That thought stayed with me as I reunited with one of my friends for a day or two, then sent them onwards a hundred or more years into the future. I waited as decades or more passed, shut away inside the Uxie's valley, then ventured out in one of the few precious moments before an area's complete and utter destruction to try and learn even more about the powers of the mysterious legendary.

And finally, at long, long last, I found another way. I met with a terminally ill Aipom on the night of his death. I built a fire for him and nothing more, one just warm enough that he would feel some small comfort while I stood by and let the disease end his life... and as I stood there and did nothing while he died, he shared with me the knowledge of how else Jirachi might gain the power to grant a wish.

"What kind of Pokemon are you... How do you do the things you do... Share with me your secrets, deep inside..."

I smiled as I sang. Even if it didn't work... even if the worry I felt deep down was true, and all I had done in my life meant my song _couldn't_be pure enough to wake the legendary, even if this was all just a waste of the copious amount of time I had... it still felt good to sing again. And Jirachi's cavern was a good place to sing in - my melody danced along the walls, reverberating without overwhelming me, reflecting my gentle alto back and making my voice even richer, more melodious. I sang verse after verse of the cute little melody that humans taught to young children, so they would one day know by heart the areas of strength and the areas of need of whatever Pokemon they eventually became friends with, and I finally reached the crescendo of the last repetition of the chorus...

"What kind of Pokemon are you, are you loyal through and through, and do you have a heart that's truuuuuuuuuuuuue~"

I held the last word for a bit longer than the 'actual' singers would have, having always enjoyed that particular way they managed to make the words seem more meaningful by dragging them out like that and wanting to do the same. I finally let the word fade away and inhaled, preparing to sing the final line... but a sudden happy sigh of a yawn interrupted me.

I broke off and looked back to the dais at the center of the chamber. The Jirachi had opened its eyes and was looking up at me, an expression of curiosity and childish wonder plain on its face. "That was a pretty song... I haven't heard it before. Did you write it?"

I smiled down at the sleepy, innocent face. "No... it hasn't been written yet. It won't be for a very long time still." I glanced further down, trying to remember when I had actually first heard it... it had been Opal singing it, hadn't it? Or maybe it had been Clara? One of them, singing with Sara, while I listened on in fascination and happiness and tried to memorize every word. Eventually learning it and singing it too, dancing and laughing with my trainer and friends...

My friends...

"I... I have to ask you something. It's about..."

The Jirachi smiled and held up one of its hands. "I know. Your song and your joy have given me the strength I need to help." Then it frowned, looking sadder. "But... I can only grant one of your wishes. I'm sorry... they're... just too great to do both. I'm not strong enough."

I felt a sudden shock... and then felt tears start to well up. I had tried so hard not to hope, had tried to forget all about that stray thought so very, very long ago... had forced myself not to even dream that maybe the Jirachi could grant my own wish too. I had refused to allow myself to consider that maybe, just maybe, the Jirachi could fix things right here and now, and it could all finally be over. I hadn't even phrased the thought in my own head, hadn't even considered what I might even ask... but the Jirachi had heard me anyways.

It smiled up at me, but there was a sense of sorrow in the oval-shaped eyes, as if the legendary star Polemon knew what I was thinking. "Yes... I hear your wish."

I felt the tears begin to fall even through eyelids squeezed almost painfully shut. I was lucky to have the chance to have even one of the incredible, miraculous wishes answered... but all I could feel was despair at not being able to have both. I wanted so, so badly to have both, even if I had never admitted it and had buried it under the desire to help Clara... had wanted the loneliness to finally end, wanted my friends to wake up for more than just a day or two, wanted to have _life_with them again instead of just stretching them endlessly outwards for a day that was still so horribly far away... wanted to play with Clara again, wanted to hear Opal tell me it was all going to be okay, wanted to watch Phoenix and Constella compete with each other and ask me for advice, or to join in, wanted to help Sonata with the garden around the gym and share in the joy she always had when the berries were ready and she brought them to share with us, wanted to dance alongside Sara and sing... How long had it been? How many _thousands_of years had I already... How many thousands more were still left... I could end it all, right here, right now, with just a few simple words. It would finally all be over. All I had to do was... was...

Traitor!!

I started shaking.

I couldn't say the words. It was too much. I couldn't do it, couldn't say the words that would leave me trapped, hidden away in Uxie's valley and avoiding all but the most carefully thought out of interactions for fear that one stray ripple would sever the branch of reality that held my existence... and Opal's... and Clara's... and Constella's... and Phoenix's... and Sonata's...

I didn't want to walk back to the valley and watch a thousand more years go by.

I didn't want to be alone anymore.

But... I knew I could never face Clara again if I did not speak the words. I wouldn't be able to bear knowing what my own wish would have cost. And every day it would only get worse, knowing that if I had just been a little more patient, a little bit stronger, if I had possessed the barest smidgen more of loyalty, then my wish would have come true anyways... but that because I hadn't, Clara's never could.

It had been one thing when it was an academic question - would I be able to fake a voice that was 'pure' enough to wake Jirachi, especially after all I had done and allowed to be done? - or one last thing to try - 'I'm sorry it didn't work Clara, but I tried everything I could, I really did, even though you said not to' - but now that it was here, and now that it knew what I wanted too... now that I actually had to speak the words, now that I had to explain to Jirachi just how the wish had to work, and that I couldn't even wish for Flen not to die, that nothing I did could change that part of my past or Clara's past, lest we both be wiped from existence, that Clara had to walk up that mountain with us and Sara... but that if Flen could come back after everything was done, and be waiting there for Clara when time was fixed, and we were at long, long last able to walk back down it... now that it was all right in front of me, and I had to make the choice between getting what I so desperately wanted and what one of my closest friends in the whole world longed for with every part of her being...

The right choice was such an obvious one. Painfully so.

But it was just too much. I couldn't say it, no matter how much I knew I should.

My voice cracked as I tried to force out the words, my eyes still squeezed shut against all the hurt... then a small, gentle touch came to rest on my leg. "It's okay. I hear your wish..."

I held my breath, not daring to hope one way or the other, too conflicted to even know what I wanted the Jirachi's next words to be... and my heart shattered with bitter relief and comforting sorrow when they finally came.

"Flen will be waiting for her once you've fixed things."

The tiny star-shaped legendary Pokemon stretched its arms out wide and leaned in to hug me as best as it could, but I barely noticed. I broke down inside and sank to the floor... and the cavern walls that had been dancing with joyous melody mere moments before now returned only forlorn sobs of heartbreak.

Sinori fumed silently on the way back to Uxie's valley. It had been important to stay calm before, important to seem as unremarkable as possible - the Ledyba would already be agitated enough from what the Flygon had done, would already be talking about it and changing countless minor events that had led to their past. Events that would change other events, which would change others on top of those, which would...

The last thing her fragile past needed was her adding more ripples into it. In front of the Ledyba that had chased Phoenix off... she would have to be careful with what she said. She would have to pick specific words, have to use certain tones of voice, have to keep from doing anything too memorable, have to stay contained and in charge of everything that was said and done.

And she was far too furious to settle for that.

As soon as they were back to safety she whirled and glared back at the still-smirking Flygon. "How dare you! How dare you!!! Do you have any idea what you almost did?"

The buzz of Phoenix's wings changed slightly as he backed away from Sinori. His expression faltered, losing some of the smug confidence. "Relax, I was just going to have a fight with Constella. She can still fly right now, right? I just wanted to see how she would do. We've fought hundreds of times, so it's not like I would be changing anything."

"You almost changed everything!" The Ninetales stepped forward, and a hissing sound began to compete with the buzzing sound as the fire inside her began burning hotter. "You didn't fight her then, in this moment, in this time! You don't know what she might have been supposed to be doing instead! You don't know if she was even strong enough right now to survive a fight with you! You could have seriously hurt her worse, or scared her off so badly that she didn't join Sara!"

Phoenix rolled his eyes. "That wouldn't happen; I'm strong, yes, but Constella is too. It'd probably just make her even more interested in joining Sara, so she could have a rematch with me. It might even stop her from getting her wings burned; you said you were going to try and do that anyways. And I'm bored; there's nothing to do here. You can't blame me for wanting to have some fun."

"This isn't a game,_Phoenix! You're not supposed to be having fun, you're supposed to be helping me move the others! How _stupid can you be, you can't go interfering with time!" The Ninetales' tails swished angrily behind her in her growing fury.

Phoenix glared at her and moved forward, one claw raised. "Don't call me that!"

"Then don't _act_like that!!"

"You interfere with time all the time! You said that; you made it so Clara could see again, and Sonata will evolve. You got to go out and see all of our friends! How come you get to do that and I have to be stuck here alone; I haven't seen anyone else or done anything else in ages!"

Sinori's eyes hardened... and a burst of flame flew towards the Flygon. His eyes widened beneath their protective goggles in shock, barely having time to realize that Sinori - the thoughtful, clever, always calm and in control Sinori had just snapped and had actually attacked him. He raised his arms defensively and deflected the attack, pushing it away from his body.

The Ninetales flew through the fire that had temporarily obscured her from Phoenix's view, and she slammed into him, driving him down to the ground. She glared down at the shocked Flygon with wide, manic eyes empty of any reason. "You can't even begin to understand what that word means!"

She shifted closer, growling. "You've lived seconds. For you it's been nothing! A month, maybe two; that's all you've felt since you got here. It's been thousands of years, Phoenix! I've been alone here for thousands of years. You think you're bored? You think you're_lonely? You don't even know what a single year of that is like! Don't you dare even _think of using the word 'ages' around me ever again!"

She shifted her weight and pushed down on him. "Yes. Yes, I get to go out, because I'm cursed with this ability to push you ahead in time, and with that comes the ability to see what can and can't be changed. What changes are small enough to let time heal from, and what's too much for it. So I get to go out there. I get to go meet Pokemon and interact with people when it's 'safe' - when there won't be any changes, or when whatever changes I make will be so insignificant to time as a whole that it won't cause any problems. Do you know what that means? Do you know what I get to leave this valley to see, Phoenix? Do you know what getting to go out there and seeing our friends means?"

Fear began to creep into the Flygon's expression. This wasn't right - this Ninetales above him wasn't the friend he remembered. "It... you have to be careful what you say, but you can..."

"I can watch them suffer, Phoenix!" Embers fell from the Ninetales' mouth and landed on the grass around him, causing a few smoldering fires. Sinori ignored them as they sputtered and died, if she was even aware of them at all. "I don't get to go out and play. I don't get to ask Pokemon how their day went, or for advice, or what they plan to do tomorrow, or what things are like where they live, or what problems they might need help with, or even just how the weather was! I get to be there in the worst parts of their life, or maybe even the very end of their life, and I get to sit there and do nothing."

"Yes. I 'met' our friends. I met Clara, Phoenix! Her parents vanished one night and she began to starve to death. And I let her. I could have gone and gotten a mountain of berries and dumped them all right outside her den. But then she wouldn't have been hungry enough to risk going near Flen. The Clara you and I know would have died, erased from reality, if I did that. So I sat there and listened to her beg for her parents to come back, and listened to her cry for anybody that might have been out there to bring her food. And I did nothing, except the barest, absolute minimum. I didn't go to her and tell her it was going to be okay. I waited until she was too tired to stay awake anymore and left little more than crumbs of berries for her to get by on. And then I did it all over again with Sonata, when she was drowning in the rain and desperate for even the slightest flicker of light to reach her leaves. She was there, shivering in the cold, watching all that she knew wither and die around her_,_ and I let it happen."

The Ninetales shoved down on the Flygon again, pressing him harder against the ground. "I got to meet Opal! And do you know what I saw? Not the Pokemon we know, not the strong, confident Pokemon who was always between Sara and us and whatever may have threatened us, not the optimistic friend who always had the right thing to say, who was always shining for us and giving us the courage we needed to keep trying. Not the Umbreon willing to dash into a burning building to save somebody." She wavered a bit as she thought back to the meeting that had only been a few months ago - no time at all for a creature as old as she. "I met a scared, frightened, confused Eevee that just couldn't understand why everybody was afraid of him, and who had become so upset by it that he had run away, because it was the only way he could think of to stop his friends from hurting. He was huddled alone in a dirty alley, and all I could do... I couldn't even tell him I missed him, Phoenix! I had to whisper it at the end, too quiet for him to hear the words; time fought me to say even that little about knowing him. The first time I saw him in millennia, Phoenix! I didn't get to ask him for help, I didn't get to tell him what it was like, I didn't get to hear him say it would be okay, or that I could do it, or that it was just a little bit longer, or that it would be worth it, or that he was grateful, or that we would all be together again soon. I met one of my closest friends in the whole world and he didn't even know who I was."

Sinori trailed off for a long moment, still fuming, but now quiet and lost in her own thoughts. The Flygon didn't move, still too stunned by the outburst and by the tangible rage still smoldering above him. She stared down at Phoenix... and specifically, at the fragment of eggshell hanging from the string around his neck. Long seconds passed, then she spoke again, her voice breaking with pain and guilt. "And I met your father, Phoenix."

Her voice cracked with guilt as she whispered the words. Phoenix's eyes grew wider with surprise, and she saw his expression begin to change. Saw curiosity forming, saw a hundred questions begin to take shape. She cut them off before he could give them voice. "I met him and I let him die, Phoenix."

She stepped off the Flygon and moved away, too disgusted to keep looking at him. "I let him die. I stood there and did nothing. It would have been so easy, Phoenix! I was there, I was in the sandstorm he raised to save your life. I know how Sonata makes the sun brighter; I could have stepped in at any second and stopped the blizzard, or the rain. I could have given him an hour to rest, a day, I could have done that, and he would still be alive." She whirled to stare back at the Flygon. "But if I had, that would have killed you. Your past would be gone, poof. He was fighting with his life to keep you alive; he wouldn't have let Sara take your egg, even if she found it. She wouldn't even have wanted to take your egg, not if it meant taking you from him and your family! So I sat there and watched, and did nothing, and let him and your siblings die, all so I could save you. And then, at the very end, when he had worked himself to exhaustion and had crippled himself from the effort, then I stepped in, rubbed his face in the fact that I could have helped all along, and made it warm enough around his corpse to allow your legs to develop correctly!" She spat out the next words. "Congratulations. The younger you will be able to fly just fine when he evolves. All it took was my letting your father exhaust himself to death, and my letting your siblings freeze to death in their eggs, so you wouldn't be destroyed."

"That's what I get to do when I go out, Phoenix. I get to watch people suffer, I get to watch Pokemon die in front of me, and I get to sit there and do nothing about it, no matter how easy it would be to save them, all so you can live. And you... you..." The Ninetales trailed off and just stared at the prone Flygon for a long moment. "You almost destroyed yourself anyways. You almost took me with you when you did it. All because you were bored. All because you wanted to go do something. I've been here for thousands of years, Phoenix, alone, and you almost threw that all away. We're just a few years away, Phoenix, don't you get that? The next time I slow you down could be the last; we can be free again. We can interact with people once more, we can be back with Sara again. We won't be alone anymore. I won't be alone anymore, Phoenix, after... after so long, I can be with you all again... we'll all be back... it'll be like it..." Sinori shook her head, closing her eyes against the tears.

Her anger faded away, suddenly drowned once more by the numbness. The loneliness.

The guilt.

No. No, it wouldn't be like it was, would it? How could it be? After all she had done, and not done; after all she had allowed to happen? The countless ones like Phoenix's father, who could have survived but who hadn't... the ones like Clara and Sonata, whose suffering could have been eased but wasn't... The ones like Opal, who just needed a kind word or two, but who never heard it...

How could she go back to Opal and Sara with that? How could she pretend she even had any right to?

She looked back towards the tunnel where Opal and the rest of Sara's team rested. They were all there now. She needed to move them, had hoped Phoenix would help her, but... she couldn't risk it. Not this close. Not after all she had done.

She had to get them back, so it could be worth it.

"Sinori, I'm sor-"

"No." She turned back to the Flygon and silenced him with a glare... and began weaving the Safeguard veil around him. His eyes widened as he looked at it, knowing from all the times before what it signaled.

"I thought you needed my help to mo-"

"I do, Phoenix. I have what amounts to five boulders that I have to drag miles away and hide somewhere in a giant cave, all without anybody else seeing. I really, really needed your help."

The Safeguard came together above the Flygon's head, forming a perfect, glittering cocoon... and Sinori reached forward through time. She found the only other instance of herself reaching back, and had a glimpse of a determined and worried version of herself in a dark cave... and she slowed time down for Phoenix for the billionteenth time.

"But we can't afford it."