FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I opened my eyes.

That alone surprised me. I had succeeded - my own history had been changed. I no longer had any roots in reality.

How did I still have eyes to open?

I was surrounded on all sides by mist. All sides - there was nothing beneath me to even stand on. I simply hung in the air, as if held by some giant arm beneath my chest, and my nine tails dangled limply in the mists below. Where was I?

At that thought the mists seemed to part before me. The trunk of an enormous tree stretched before me in all directions, with a thick branch of it extending towards me. A large Pokemon that reminded me vaguely of a Gogoat stood perched on the branch. Spokes seemed to grow from its body to form a vague ring at its side. It stared at me with faint eyes sunk into its face.

I tried to reach for the branch... but my legs always seemed to be just a bit too short. No matter how much I tried I couldn't reach it. I drifted in the air above it.

The memory of Uxie snapping the branch from the tree came back to me. Oh...

"I do not think that song actually applies." The branch seemed to tremble at the soft words, and a ripple ran through the mists still around me. "I see no one wicked here."

I focused back onto the Pokemon. All I had done... all I had allowed to happen? "You must not see very much."

A ripple passed through the mists around me. A silent chuckle. "I am Arceus. I made this place - I see enough. Why do you disagree?"

"This... place?" I looked upwards, trying to see the top of the tree again. It stretched too far above me, far out of sight.

"I suspect from your discussion with Uxie that you see it as a tree? Your mind interprets it in a way you can understand. It is reality as you are aware of it."

I looked downwards, but the tree continued just as far in that direction too. Whatever the tree was planted in was too far out of sight to make out. I looked back up at the other Pokemon. "Why... why am I here?"

"You fell away. I caught you." The Pokemon glanced downwards towards the branch it was standing on... and I noticed small scratches in it, with a strange sap gathering at the tiny wound. "Why do you disagree?"

"Disagree?" I blinked, confused. "With what?"

"That you are not wicked." Arceus looked back at me... and I felt the same gentleness I had only felt from Opal in its expression.

I blinked, and instinctively began to think of a way to safely answer that question. An instinct born out of thousands of years of caution, to avoid saying anything that would erase me...

An instinct that was meaningless now.

I shoved it away. "All that I've done... how could I be anything else? All the people and Pokemon that I sat by and did nothing to save while they died, even though I knew what was coming. People like Flen. Pokemon like Phoenix's father. People and Pokemon who had friends that loved them. All the lives I could have saved... could have made better, and didn't..."

There was sadness in the ripples of Arceus' next words. And... sympathy? Understanding? "But it would have destroyed you to do that."

I glanced around me and laughed dryly. "It happened anyways, didn't it?"

"In order to keep the ones you love safe. You fixed a grievous wrong, one only you could have addressed."

I thought back over the last sight of my friends. I had saved them.

But all the lives I hadn't...

"It hurts. I know." The Arceus looked back at the tree. "But they were not your fault. Nor were they your responsibility. You saved everyone you could - that does not make you wicked."

"But the cost..."

"Would have been paid either way. If you had saved Flen, or Phoenix's father, you would have erased Clara, or Phoenix. If you had intervened and saved somebody else, you would have erased yourself and countless others. Others would have died instead. Others would have lived instead. It does not make you wicked to have done the best you could when faced with horrible options."

I closed my eyes and thought of the other faces that had haunted my dreams. "I left Opal. That first time... I left Opal alone with Dialga. And whatever that ghost was that had possessed it. I abandoned him."

"You did not." Arceus moved up the branch and peered down at it. "You missed your friend and wanted his help. You felt loneliness and sorrow over it. Not guilt. You had done all you could for Opal there - and it was your friend Phoenix that pulled you from that place. You could not move by that point, no matter how much you wanted to have been able to after."

I felt tears flow to soak my fur at the words... and thought back to the memory of the soot-covered girl and the ruins of her house. "I hurt people."

"And the second you learned you had done so, you put an end to it. So much so that the ones who were using you to inflict that pain were never again able to hurt anyone else. And you made sure to put an end to it again, didn't you?"

I thought back to that. I hadn't told my younger self all of the details, but... I had. It had taken years of careful, subtle interference - evidence mysteriously uncovered, recordings of private conversations, bribes stolen away - but Donphan and his accomplices were in jail.

But that didn't stop me from remembering that house, consumed by flames, and wondering how much suffering I had caused in my past. "But if it hadn't been for me-"

"If it hadn't been for you, the world would have been a much darker place. It always is in the moments before twilight comes into the world to herald a new dawn." Arceus regarded me calmly... and the mists around me shifted colors. They took on the soft purples and hints of oranges that I had always admired in the sky in those fleeting half-moments between night and day.

I stared upwards, where the tree disappeared into the softly lit mists, and shook my head sadly. "Even my own name says you're wrong. Maybe it sounds pretty, but it's right there in it - sin. All the others... I heard their stories. Constella, named after the stars in the sky. Phoenix, a testament to what his father did for him. Sonata, a sweet cherry full of nutrition and life. Opal, a precious jewel. Clara, the clarity her trainer needed. And me... a synonym for wicked. Evil. Deceitful, corrupt, traitorous. Sara knew what I was too, the things I had done. She gave me a name to match it."

"She most assuredly did not." The Arceus moved down the branch... and suddenly images formed in the mist. Blurry at first, flickering randomly through different scenes I could only barely make out... then they stopped, growing steady. A hotel room. An Umbreon and a nervous Vulpix, one looking like she was worried she might have to jump out the window at any moment. Words came from the mists as the two talked, but the words were distorted somehow. Only the Umbreon's made any sense at all, and they sounded strange; when the Vulpix spoke I heard nothing but various forms of the word 'Vulpix'. The perspective was strange, too, like...

There was motion in the scene. An arm moving upwards, picking up a phone. A human arm. Sara's arm.

Oh. This must be from her perspective. A memory. That Umbreon... the Vulpix, me... this must have been that night I met her. When Opal helped me plan taking down the Don.

The hand touched the phone and tapped a few icons. A page came up with pictures and descriptions of Pokemon, and I saw Sara touch a picture of a Vulpix. More sounds came from the mists as Sara read over new details that appeared on the phone. The sounds were softer, more like when Clara spoke to us psychically than any actual words. Sara's thoughts?

Opal likes her. The words on the phone became clearer for a bit, more focused... then they blurred again. I think she was at that fire. There are ashes in her fur. The Vulpix in the mists grew clearer, and I saw what Sara meant. My fur had been a mess back then on the best of days, but there were obvious bits of soot and ash in the russet coat. And... if she has information on that group he's been talking about... she's probably done things to help them. The image of the Vulpix grew fuzzy again, and the phone grew clearer once more. Sara's hand moved over it and the screen turned to a blank white display, with a small rectangle in the center. Sara's hand was still for a moment... then the phone went fuzzy, and the Umbreon grew clear. Still. I don't think I've seen Opal that bright in a long time. He likes her. The phone came back into focus again, and Sara began typing the word 'light' into the box. He wouldn't do that unless she was a good Pokemon. Even if she came from somewhere bad. More typing, and 'translations' soon appeared in the box behind the word 'light'. Sara tapped a button and the screen changed, bringing up a list of words. Some of them grew clear for a moment, only to fade away as Sara dismissed them. She scrolled through the list... then paused at one. Ori. That's pretty. Hebrew. 'My light'. Fitting for a fire type. It could use more though... The phone grew blurry, and the Vulpix and the Umbreon came back into focus. The ashes in my fur seemed to shine, being painfully obvious. She's done things... but... she's here trying to help. Trying to make things right again. Trying to fix it. Sara's thoughts grew silent again as the two figures in the mist talked to each other. Ashori? From the ashes, light? No... Phoenix would be jealous of that. Hrm... oh. Sinori. Things are messed up. People are getting robbed, houses are burning down, and she's involved in it some way. But she's not giving in to it, not joining with the darkness. The image of Opal grew even clearer. She's trapped somewhere in it all and here she is anyways, trying, and making my light brighter. Yes. Sinori.

The mists began to fade back into an indistinct haze, but one final thought came from them as the memory faded away. I hope she'll stick around. It'd be nice to have her stay...

I stared blankly into the mists. I couldn't think of anything else to say.

"I believe a wise Umbreon once told you that it didn't matter what anyone else said you were, and that the important thing was what you said you were. And you have said this louder than anyone else has. You didn't even know what it meant, but you lived up to her meaning behind the name. No matter how bad things were for you, when you encountered suffering you brought light. You think of all the Pokemon you met at the moment of their deaths as failures whom you couldn't save, but you ignore that you brought them comfort and happiness in that dark time. And not just when it served your own goals. It was more than just Phoenix's father, or even the ones you hpped to learn about Jirachi from. Despite the pain you felt from it, you set out time and again, and you found ways to help anyways. To shine."

"I was lonely..."

"And you were good." Arceus stepped closer to me. "I know. You made mistakes... but everybody does. Instead of accepting that, or blaming somebody else, or pretending it wasn't your fault, you fixed them. You did what it took to make things right. And you did it again, and again, and again, with each of your friends. You lived far longer than anyone expected, and through so, _so_much guilt and loneliness... all so you could save the ones you cared about. All to fix the wrong done to them."

"That is not wickedness. You are not wicked."

"I betrayed..."

Traitor!!

"You endured over five thousand years of loneliness to save your closest friends. To make their lives better. To heal injuries that had defined them. Stolen from their lives. Crippled them, and their trainer."

"Sara is _not_crippled." I hadn't even realized I still had that instinctive reaction - the same one I had picked up from Opal, the same one all of us had, whenever somebody said that about Sara. After five thousand years, it was still there. And after seeing that memory, there was no way I was going to let somebody insult her like that. No matter how large a tree it had created.

"No. And because of you, neither are her Pokemon." Arceus looked back at me with gentle eyes. "No, Sinori. You are not a traitor, either. You are loyal."

I felt a heavy weight leave me. Felt more tears flowing. Arceus would know, wouldn't it? But... "It doesn't matter... it's over now."

I had the sudden impression of a smile radiating through the mists with the next words. "I disagree."

I opened my eyes and looked back at Arceus, suddenly worried. "Please... I just want it to be done."

"I know." Arceus looked at me with eyes that held sympathy... and hope. Happiness. "But you deserve so much more than that, Sinori. Come."

The mists swirled, then grew thicker around me... and everything faded to white.

The world grew clear again. I was floating above the ground outside a house. It seemed familiar. I glanced to my left and saw Arceus there. It was in the moments between day and night, and the spokes of Arceus' half-ring glittered in the twilight. "Where are we?"

"Sara's house. But you know that's not the important question."

I glanced back at the house. It was her house, wasn't it? But... it didn't look quite like I remembered.

Oh.

"When are we?"

"Fourteen years ago. Look." One of Arceus' legs lifted towards the small fence...

I saw a silver furred Ninetales approach the home, with an egg balanced carefully in her tails. She nudged open the gate and slipped up to the porch, then sat the egg carefully down. The Ninetales reached back to one of her tails and tugged at a band there, drawing forth a rolled-up piece of paper to place beside the egg.

I smiled, understanding. This was the moment I brought my younger self's egg to Sara. That was the note I had written for Sara, asking her to take care of the young Sinori. The moment I had nudged a small detail of my own past.

The Ninetales slipped away just as quickly as she had arrived. I glanced down the street, knowing the cab bringing Sara back home would be appearing soon...

But it didn't come. I looked up at the sky and saw the clouds and colors frozen in place. Time had been paused.

Arceus walked forward, and I felt myself drawn along in the wake of the taller Pokemon. We passed through the fence like it wasn't even there, and somehow managed to fit beneath the overhang above the porch. Light swirled around us suddenly, and I felt a sudden tug towards the egg. Felt something familiar inside it, something growing more and more familiar with each passing second. Something I was being stitched together with - myself.

Wait.

But... That meant...

"That... sneaky, deceitful, clever little..." I glanced back up at Arceus. "The whole time I was talking to myself in that cave... she already knew every word I was going to say, didn't she?"

"From what I have seen, you do tend to be rather clever." Mirth danced in the larger Pokemon's eyes. "You know how it works - when you get to these events and meet up with yourself again, don't change your past. Let yourself do most of the talking, just like your 'younger' self did. But... until then..." The world around me grew indistinct, and I felt... young. Happy.

Time began moving again and what I could still see of the sky grew brighter. The calm beauty of the twilight sky washed away with the rise of the sun... and then I was aware of nothing outside the calm, quiet darkness within an egg.

"No more waiting on a moment that never comes. Rest, Sinori. You've earned it."

I smiled up at the Froslass, remembering the last fourteen years. "I didn't realize it then... but I was right." She stared at me with confusion, one of her icy hands passing through the space we had just watched the Ninetales fade away from. The room had gotten brighter when she vanished, the effect of the energy being released from her tails... but it had all flown back into me. Back into the six tails of a Vulpix. "You did do enough. She's okay - another Pokemon stepped in and rescued her. Rescued us."

I glanced back at the sleeping forms of my friends. At Sara, who was walking slowly forward in confusion. I walked towards her with a happy wag of my once-again yellowish tails and sat up beside her.

"Dialga... those other Pokemon, that Ninetales. Where did they go? Are they okay?..." Sara's voice was full of confusion, but there was a little worry in it, too. Maybe she knew somehow they were her Pokemon too... or maybe it was just the care that I knew she felt for every Pokemon. I leaned towards her and nuzzled at her hand for the billionteenth time, feeling my gym leader respond by slowly scratching at my ears.

"What happe..." I glanced back towards my friends. They all had shiny marks now. The ring on Opal's left leg had turned blue. Sonata's stalk had faded to a pinker color. Constella's wings had changed from red to orange. The border of Phoenix's left wing had lightened to orange. All the places I had helped heal them at. And Clara...

The green patch of fur moved around Clara's eyes as they slowly widened in surprise, staring at something behind me. I looked back behind me and saw brightness at the entrance to the cave. A formless light filled the entrance... then began to dim, taking the shape of a human...

No.

The shape of Flen.

"I hear your wish..."

Clara was already moving before the light was entirely gone. She leapt upwards... and Flen caught her, spinning from the force of the pounce. "Flen!!"

The trainer laughed and hugged her tighter against him. She leaned back enough to take in the sight of him, soaking in the appearance of her trainer. Alive. Happy. Healthy. "Flen... you jerk... you jerk, keeping that from me... Flen..." The psychic voice of the Espeon faltered, and tears began to flow into the purple and green fur of her face as she leaned back into his hug.

He held her close and brought a hand up to pet at her head. "Shh. It's okay. It's okay, I'm back now. Jirachi told me... it's okay." He stopped speaking and simply held her, tears on his own face.

I smiled and looked over my friends. Phoenix. Constella. Clara. Sonata. Opal. All of them were staring, surprise and happiness on their own faces at the sight. I turned back and looked up at Flen, and at the ecstatic Espeon cradled in his grip. The sheer, overflowing, exuberant happiness on her face. She saw me out of the corner of her eye, and I saw her focus back on me. Saw guilt at her past words, saw relief, and most of all, I saw happiness. And I heard it all in the tone of her psychic whisper in my thoughts. "I'm sorry... thank you, thank you, thank you so, so, so much."

I looked back up at my trainer, who was still looking around in complete confusion.

Yes, Sara.

They were okay.

Epilogue

Sara ran her hand through the soft fur of her Umbreon, scratching his ear. He leaned his head into the motion and purred, his yellow rings and one blue ring glowing brighter. The gym leader giggled, but eventually brought her hand back and glanced back at the children distracted by the video the teacher had put on for them. "You're sure?"

Opal looked over his shoulder to Clara, where the Espeon lay curled in Flen's lap. She yawned and made a happy 'Espe!' sound. Flen chuckled. "They're sure. The one in the back, who keeps doodling when he thinks the teacher isn't looking. That's the best one for it."

"Pfft." Sara rolled her eyes, but she couldn't help but grin. Clara was rarely wrong with her Future Sight, especially lately. The Espeon was no longer scared of the future, and only saw joy ahead instead of the sorrow that had once been threatened by Flen's death. She could spend as long as she needed exploring the happier times waiting ahead of her... and if Clara couldn't tell, Sinori _always_could. The strange effect of Dialga's energy still lingered in her, and Sara doubted anyone would ever truly know just how much control over it the young Vulpix actually had.

But Sara knew she could trust her. She could trust every one of her Pokemon. They had proven that to her over and over, even against time itself.

"Okay, okay... I'll put it in his locker. Come on Opal, show me which one it is..."

The boy groaned as the bell rang and the day finally ended. It had been exciting in the morning to see the presentation by the Gym Leaders... but everything had just dragged on after that. But it was finally over now, at least.

He spun the combination to his locker and pulled the door open... and stared in shock at the sight before him.

A Pokemon egg. A Pokemon egg, and... a piece of paper?

He double-checked to make sure he hadn't opened somebody else's locker by mistake, then reached in to grab the paper and read the scribbled writing on it.

Hello,

The parents of the Eevee that will soon hatch from this egg have assured us you will be a great friend to it, and have asked us to entrust it to your care.

Each and every moment you will have together is precious, young trainer. Treasure the time you have with your new Pokemon - as with every moment, more went into its creation than we can ever fully know.

Signed,

Sara

The Gym Leader of Time

Flen

The Gym Leader of Heart