Seven Island

Seven Island, known by some as Quest Island.

It was fitting then, that this was the last stop on the quest. Well, that and being the last of the islands with people on them.

If he didn't find what he was looking for here, he'd be rather lost and down a Snorlax.

It would be very ironic if, after he had taken steps to try and be more social with his Pokémon, he lost one of them to a random teleporting person named Naty.

Even if he never did have Snorlax in hand before she took it, Snorlax was still his responsibility. He believed that before he tried to be more social, and he believed that even more now.

Of course, if he had to be completely honest with himself, he probably wasn't being the most productive in finding them right now.

"Here you go. Not bad for a first time challenger, let alone someone's first time reaching me!"

Red held the gemstone that the man at the top of the tower had given him: the white crystal in his hand feeling both larger than it should've been, and also if he had to put a word to it, unstable.

The thing felt like if he pushed on it too hard, it would break, a bit like some sort of really solid salt. Like salt, Red got the impression that like salt it would disintegrate if one applied something to it.

Like water perhaps.

"Oh, I see. You mustn't know what this is. It makes sense I suppose, you don't see these much outside of Unova. This is a gem, though I am told by scientists it is not actually a gemstone like a ruby or something. It's a construct that Pokémon are able to use to boost the power of a single attack quite spectacularly. Doing so will cause the gem to disintegrate, but it could easily win you the match."

Red nodded, not entirely sure if such a thing was true. However a quick internet search would clarify that, and if it did work he would give it to Persian.

If not, he could probably figure out what to do with it. It probably wasn't environmentally hazardous if he had to toss it.

That was the reward for besting all eight floors of the Trainer Tower, the main attraction for those who wished to come out to this island. It was something he did on a whim.

It was for training, it was to see what it was all about; it was because it was drizzling when he started and crossing a body of water in the weather would be a bit hazardous and uncomfortable.

The sky was now just black and miserable, but without anything falling out of it.

It was a productive use of his time, even if not the most productive use of his time.

He moved towards the elevator, ready to get back to Yellow and see if he could get any searching done for his destination before dark.

"You know young man, I could see you making it up here even faster the next time. If you can cut off ten minutes, I can give you my most valuable prize. You could walk out with your very own mega stone, even if I have no idea what Pokémon it's for."

…

How did that that old series always start? I can scarcely remember it, for how long it has been since I have seen it, and how many more horrifying things have lodged themselves into my mind since then.

Was it, submitted for your approval?

Regardless of how it went, I could certainly imagine the host of that series, appearing right next to the ponderous youth, and commenting.

How it was originally supposed to be part of the story. That the young man, set up as a foil by destiny towards another, similar to him in all the ways that impress just as much as their differences infuriate each other, would seek out to gain power parallel to his foil.

Where the foil would gain crystals, he would obtain stones and learn to use their power to counter the foil.

He would have to learn to use them, but they would stand at opposites.

However reality is a winding road that takes many turns. As if he had been guided down a new path by different hands than fate, the young man makes a different call.

A call that would make an entire possibility scream, before fading into nothingness.

But perhaps, that is for the best. And the scream is not one of horror, but at relief for the changed road the story has taken.

…

He had taken a few more minutes to make the decision than he honestly felt comfortable with.

When he had come to the islands, he had wanted to find his Snorlax, but that wasn't all he had wanted.

He wanted to be better, to rectify advantages that Ketchum had over him. He had also been tempted by the offer of a megastone, a power that he had heard of as great.

After he encountered that Z-Move, he wanted something to counter it should he run into another Alolan.

However being here and traveling had revealed other things he had to work on before those. More pressing things.

Things that he had always been challenged by, not new challenges brought up by his brother or his opponents.

Things he still needed to prioritize.

Yet, deciding to turn down the pursuit of the mega stone took a lot more grappling with himself than he cared to admit.

If he hadn't run into all of the encounters he had before, he'd probably have chased the stone until he got it.

The thought of doing so was still tempting, even as he knew the problems with doing so.

"Come, Yellow."

He gestured to the bored girl, who hoped off her seat and followed him to the exit.

Where hopefully he could put the stone out of his mind.

…

It was in the north of the island that Trainer Tower was, but beyond the tower there was only open water.

It was to the south that the bulk of the island lay: a massive canyon that Red was sure a geologist could explain the history of and how it ended up on an island.

Red didn't think canyons on islands were that common, at least on the smaller islands. They were supposed to be either entirely flat, or have a volcano on them.

However it exactly existed though, it was going to take more than a single day to conquer the valley.

Red had walked in worst places at night before, but since he had taken Yellow under his wing he had made an effort to not do something so reckless.

So there he found himself, deep in a little curve in the rock wall, leaning against the stone as the last remnant of a fire simmered in the ashen logs in front of him.

Yellow lay against the wall, slumped over and snoring slightly.

He listened to her snores as they mixed with the light hissing of the fire embers. It was a lightly chilly night, even this far south.

Was winter approaching? He'd lost track of the exact date at some point.

Scratching Pikachu in his lap for a moment, Red couldn't help but wonder if it wasn't just the month and day he had lost track of.

He had come here for his own reasons, and it seemed he had found a way to do anything but.

Yet, he probably got more accomplished in getting lost in forests and criminal lairs than if he hadn't. It was for the better for everyone they had met then too.

Without him children would still be lost and Team Rocket would have a comfy and undisturbed time in their lair, even if they'd have never gotten their hands on Yellow if they had never been there.

His hand paused as the memory of that incident, resting mid-stroke on Pikachu. His hand balled a little, squeezing a bit of Pikachu's fur and skin.

Pikachu hissed as he did this, which snapped him out of it and he released the skin before it led to something that would wake Yellow up.

"Cha."

He gave Pikachu an apologetic stroke as he rolled his head back, looking up at the stars to clear his head a bit.

The stars were so bright out here. He had always heard that the cities had made so much light that they had blocked the stars out, and he had noticed some differences when on the road.

This far out though, the difference was as stark as night and day, and if he was Ash he probably would have slapped himself for the comparison.

He'd settle for a twitch in his eye, which might have been more disruptive than usual as he could have sworn he had seen something flying overhead.

Sort of looking like an N, though he had barely caught it. It was probably just the tiredness.

His eyelids flickered, and the N faded from his thoughts and found itself replaced by sleep.

…

I can see him sleeping.

I can see everyone sleeping really, I just normally choose not to. You get envious if you do that, and the worst sort of envy is of what you cannot have.

I can no longer truly sleep, so I try to avoid looking at people when they do. It makes me envious, and reminds me how much I miss sleeping.

My own thoughts aside, I wonder if our friend knows what sleep really means, and of the world that exists among the sleeping minds of everyone and no one.

There are many names for it, but for now let us call it the Dream World.

It's a world of endless possibilities and thought, but it doesn't work with dense thoughts. Humans, people who are capable of thinking things to an extreme, cannot partake in the dream world. Their sleeping thoughts are like weighted stones compared to the Pokémon, whose dreams are lighter in comparison.

They dream same as anyone, but their dreams are not part of what makes the Dream World.

There are ways to not be weighted down of course. Science is working on a way to use Musharna's dream mists to let humans see this world, and lest we forget there are others who aren't quite human.

Their dreams are different than the bulk of the dream world's residents, but different is not unwelcome in the world of dreams.

They are vulnerable to walking on the dream border, just as anyone else. They however, might have the extra thoughts to cross the line.

…

There were things Red was expecting to see when he woke up.

The sun, the rustling of the canyon grass, and the possibility of a cranky Pokémon on morning patrol or Yellow off the bad side of the bed were hardly impossibilities.

Though himself, he had to admit that was not what he expected to see.

His sleeping body lay against the canyon wall, Pikachu firmly in his arms.

Both he and Pikachu were breathing, even as he stood on the other side of the now extinguished and darkened fire. A good sign that he wasn't dead or anything, but that didn't really explain what was going on.

He idly reached towards himself, half-expecting his hand to go right through the sleeping him, yet his fingers poked right against his forehead solidly.

The warm skin of his head and fingers met, yet the sleeping version of him didn't wake.

Frowning he moved forward, stepping over the burnt out fire and standing over the sleeping him.

He moved his finger down his other self's face: down his nose and landing back on his chin before sliding off and landing on Pikachu's heads.

The fur felt very real, and very alive. Yet Pikachu, like himself, did not react to his touch.

He pulled his finger back, surprised by what had happened. Rubbing the fingers that had failed to do what he had expected to happen (either to phase through or wake them), he looked up to avoid looking at himself again, or worse Yellow in this odd state, and gaped in shock.

The night sky still hung overhead, but there was something behind it.

That sounded wrong, and honestly it wasn't because that shouldn't be the case. More, it didn't feel like the right way to describe it if he had ever had to describe it again.

Yet whatever the better way of putting it was, something hung behind the night sky. It almost looked like a spiral of light, sort of like a galaxy.

Faded hints of color suggested whatever was behind the night was blue and red and yellow.

"Is this a dream?"

Red had to admit, he somehow expected that he wouldn't be able to speak in all of this, but his words had little to help him in figuring out what was with this dream.

"Taduummm."

He also did not expect to hear some sort of radio sound to flare up, ringing through the canyon walls.

He looked around for what could make the sound, some sort of Pokémon that was not organic in nature perhaps?

No, that didn't feel right. It felt off for something like that.

"Duduuumm."

"Briii."

"Taduummm dududududm bee-brriii."

More sounds echoed through the canyon, and above behind the sky.

Looking back at himself, Red tried to see if he could listen in on the sound for some clue of where to go, for he really had no better options.

It wasn't even a good option either, as whatever was making the sound was nothing he knew. He doubted it was a Larvitar either, despite what he had heard of them residing here.

Yet it was the only option he really had beyond waiting.

"Keep an eye on her."

His order to himself wasn't heard, but it was the action that really mattered.

Whatever was going on here, he trusted himself to make sure that Yellow got through it fine. Same with Pikachu.

With that, and a few more beeps to get an idea of what way to go, he set off to find the source.

…

Poor boy, you're in my world now.

Pray you leave it.

…

It wasn't just Pikachu and his other self who weren't able to see or feel him.

The night was still ongoing, and with that the nocturnal Pokémon of the valley were still active.

A Persian darted across his path, so close that he could see a patch of fur on its rump that looked a bit less grown in. A healed wound of some sort.

The Persian didn't react to being that close to him, and ran off into the night.

He'd have to be careful, something else running in the night like that Persian could hit him more harshly. He'd rather not contemplate what him dying there might do.

Best case scenario … was that the other him woke up and go on without ever realizing that he died, which gave him a headache thinking about it. Worst case scenario.

'Red? Red, please wake up. Red!'

He could almost hear her shouting that, feeling the vibrations of her shaking his body in vain. Her tears flowing in fear, or were those his own.

His eyes felt a tad wetter than usual as the thought passed him.

She'd probably be alright. Even if he hadn't been taking steps to get his Pokémon closer to him, and Yellow by extension, Pikachu and Charizard would stick by her. Not even mentioning Ratty, who'd be with her regardless.

Now she'd be perfectly fine.

"She would be, if she wasn't in the middle of nowhere. That's dangerous you know."

The voice that shot through the canyon came from his left, and turning to face the voice Red found himself staring at a young boy, about ten or so.

He looked like a younger Ash, if he had to try and deage him in his mind, wearing a blue and white jacket with baggy black jeans. More oddly was the fact that the boy's legs seemed to be part of the rocky rubble he was standing on, connected by tendrils like bits of ice stalacmites in Icefall cave.

"If something happens to her out here that is your fault after all. You're responsible for her safety."

"And you are part of the rock face. You are in no position to tell me things I am already know."

He was having enough of a day as it was, and this was not something he was going to deal with on top of it.

He turned away from the Ash-from-the-rocks, and continued on his way.

Even as an Ash-from-the-grass rose up instead, identical to the one that had come out of the rocks aside for wearing a black and yellow jacket and blue jeans.

He just walked through the Ash, who collapsed like an untied bunch of grass before he could say so much as a word.

He tried to not ask question about if the Ash was the same Ash as he had just been talking to, if it would help him not think about what was going on too much.

He idly snagged the duplicate's hat and held it up, wondering if it might fit him as it was a nice hat, o even for a clue of what these thing were, before the hat disintegrated into snipped and yellowing grass and trailed away.

What a waste of a hat, and no answers given. All he could tell is that the hat looked like a hat, and not like it was made of grass.

He looked behind him, and took a relieved breath when he noticed that there no Ash duplicates behind him.

Perhaps the madness was over.

Turning a bend around in the cliff, he once again found an Ash in his way, this time with in a dark blue jacket and light blue jeans.

Though as this one was made of rock, he somehow doubted he could walk through it like the last one.

Clearly the madness was not over, and he was going to keep walking until it was gone. Or at least until it was far behind him.

"Do you really think what you've done here is enough?"

This Ash wasn't talking about Yellow, which was an improvement, but as he was still talking there was still things that could be improved.

He aimed to just walk around the, well whatever it was, even as the Ash kept talking.

"You know what the difference is between you and the others: Gary, Paul, and Trip?"

Given that he was competent, capable of happiness, and knew who he was, he could think of a few differences.

"They truly won the first time they battled. Eevee won fair and square, and Elekid won in my heart of hearts. As much as I'd hate to admit the first time was anything fair, the second time was certainly fair."

This Ash clearly was off his rocker. He had heard the story of what happened when Ash battled Paul before, and there was no Elekid involved.

There was a Grotle, a Nidoking, and a Drowzee, and it was a best of three match that Ash definitely won. He had also mentioned not battling Gary before their match.

No clue on the Trip person though. That could actually be true and not random babbling.

"Let me guess, you are going to comment that you lost only because a difference in our fighting morals at the time and that you'd win now if we were to have a rematch, quite possibly even with the same Pokémon as back in Lavender Town."

The Ash was grinning, and he shouldn't have been aware of that given he walked right by the stone thing, if not for the fact he found the face on the copy moving to the side of its head.

He'd probably see the face on the back too, but he was walking away and not looking back.

"No, it doesn't matter how you've grown stronger, because I found my own power. You haven't found what you were after, and even found that you are far from using it even if you did. Meanwhile I have no problem using the power I've discovered."

Ignoring the hallucination, or whatever it was, because giving it attention would only encourage it to keep bothering him.

"Tell me Red, are you ready to lose to me? Or do you want to make sure you never do, to me or anyone else ever again?"

As the Ash asked him the question a spot of the nearby upper path of the canyon glowed.

"Taduummm."

"Duduuumm."

"Briii."

"Taduummm dududududm bee-brriii."

The sounds he had heard earlier were also coming from it, and despite the fact that going that way would mean he technically did listen to the faux Ash, he was going that way anyway.

So he walked up the path, and to whatever new madness that awaited him there.

…

He has come.

How unfortunate for him.

…

When Red reached the entrance of the cave, he was greeted by someone who noticed him.

Unlike the Ash clones, he did not emerge from the ground in some sort of construct.

That was not to say the man was normal looking though, or even much of the man. Red would honestly guess him to be between him and Yellow in age, a dark haired youth who was so pale that he could pretty much see through him.

In truth, he actually could. The person before him was transparent like a ghost.

"You have changed Red. Your future is different than what it was when you came to these islands."

Like the Ash clones though, the man was speaking in nonsense, and with some sort of filter over his voice. It was almost like he wasn't even fully here.

Whatever here was, he'd like an answer to that someday.

"What is this?"

The simple question was met by a shake of the being's head.

"That in time, that in time. The place you are at now is called the Tanoby Key, though it is rare that anyone can figure out what the key is exactly. They always try to enter the door from the wrong side. Now come, if you are here that means they can make your desires become reality. Be prepared for the consequences."

…

There was no sign of Zubat in the cave, and that was probably the most striking thing about it.

A cave without Zubat, especially after that letdown of a cave on the last island, stood out.

He'd figure out if it was odder than the faux-Ash Ketchums after he got out of this nightmare.

'A nightmare is not quite the right term. Nightmares are not a realm like the realm of dreams you had overstepped'.

On top of everything, there was now mindreading. Joy.

'Your mind currently exists in an in-between realm beyond the Dream World. It borders the realm of dreams, along with another realm of creation that is far less friendly to visitors.'

"Dreams create things?"

He raised the question as he was pretty sure as dreams did not create things.

It created odd conversations and ideas sure, but so did drugs.

The answer was probably comprehensible enough, at least more so than how he ended up in some in-between realm or why it was filled with duplicate Ash Ketchums who had missed the puberty bus.

The figure nodded, his transparent head wafting in the air.

'Indeed. Dreams tap into the power of creation and life itself, though it is rare that it can be truly utilized. Dreams are a collective patchwork, and it is difficult to make use of the scattered energy to make beings from it. I can see some science working on it in Unova, but there are ways without science to do so. One who dreams hard enough can manifest the dream in life. A brother of yours did so yesterday.'

That crushed his hopes. That didn't make any more sense than an explanation of the Ash swarm.

'The Ash Ketchum duplicates came because he is currently asleep and his dreams contribute to the dream world. They are not directly from his dreams, but echoes of the dreams that reverberate in this realm like a half-plugged radio. Your brother has strange dreams, and echoes of them have appeared to you here reflecting both of your thoughts.'

Stranger than dreams where Gary was a match for him? That sort of madness didn't come from his dreams.

"Hyper Beam!"

Gary's voice rang out in the cave, as if summoned by his thoughts. Curious, Red decided to think of another.

"Electivire, standby for battle!"

That was Paul's voice.

What would happen if he thought of the one whose name he didn't recognize.

His guide turned to him, a puzzled look on his face.

'As I said, your brother has strange dreams. Dreams are built on the information in one's mind, given more clarity with familiarity. Stress, fear, lust, hope, all form dreams of various form and strength. Yet I cannot seem to see where the building blocks of his dreams came from. Your brother has strange dreams.'

He said that twice, which made Red wonder if he wanted to press for more information. Surely the dreams he had to be more clear than trying to explain how dreams created things? The very concept made him want to look for hippie sign.

Yet he had the slight suspicion he'd get some dream details he did not want to know. Among the last things he wanted to know of his brother were what sort of dreams he had while traveling alone with three attractive girls.

"You said this is in-between. What is on the other side?"

It would be confusing, nothing about today hadn't been, but it would at least keep them away from that topic.

His host twitched, his form shimmering as if it had connection issues. Red wondered if that was an equivalent of a fearful shake.

'Beyond this world, where dreams no longer exist, lie the Unown. Their world is what is overlapping here, and is the color behind the sky you noticed, and you have seen them briefly, and heard them a few times. Theirs is a realm without space, time, or form.'

The Unown?

"Taduummm."

"Duduuumm."

"Briii."

"Taduummm dududududm bee-brriii."

In the cave echoed sounds that he could probably name as Unown. It was a fitting description.

'The Unown live, but the fact they move and think to some degree you could comprehend is all that they can be compared to the life of this world, human or Pokémon. They are virus to your bacteria.'

If Red knew what that comparison was supposed to mean, he'd probably be more disturbed by it.

'They are truly alien creatures, even more so than the Ultra Beasts. They are less individuals as parts to a greater whole. They possess little power on their own, but when you have many of them active … well it is fortunate very few cross over from their world into even this space between spaces, let alone the waking world. Even a child could wreck havoc with a gathering of them without fully knowing it. As I said, they are more akin to viruses than true living life.'

He did, and that doesn't explain how they are dangerous. He somehow doubted they made people sneeze.

'The Unown have a different will than you or a Pokémon would. They have their own desires, but they are easily swayed by beings with certain forms of thought. They include the one above all, and humans. To be around a small swarm of them, you could manifest anything. A large enough swarm can duplicate the embodiment of time itself, among other incomparable deeds.'

Red's feet stopped working at the last part, and he stopped moving as his guide started to get away from him.

The what?

An embodiment of time?

Just thinking of the concept made his body feel like it was slowed, covered in everything by molasses. Time lived?

'Not as you are thinking. Time is not a single entity, but the being called Dialga is the lord of time, and time moves with the heartbeat of Dialga. The Unown can make another Dialga and I dread the consequences of doing so. I ask that you not.'

"Why would I want to?"

That was the question. Why would someone want to duplicate some sort of time being? Was it a Pokémon?

Who would want to bring the lord of time to the Pokémon League?

Yet he heard part of himself wonder if it was a strong Pokémon, which answered his question.

'Had you had different adventures on this island, you would have asked that thought aloud. I credit that you have grown to not consider it. I had dared not glance at that future. As to why you might ask the Unown, it is because that is how you can exit this world. To leave this world, you need to be awoken with their power coursing around you, and only a command upon them, a wish, a request, can achieve that. To do otherwise will prompt no response for them, and you will merely be surrounded by them until something sparks them to act. You do not want to wait for such a choice to come from their own end. However I must warn you, make your command carefully, unless you want to suffer consequences.'

His guide had stopped, and by the time he had finished speaking the concept of a being whose heart beat was time had stopped blanketing him and he could think a bit more clearly.

With that clarity came a notice that the last words from his guide were different from the others. They carried a weight, a weight that suggested it wasn't just impartial information.

It was experience.

Red stared as he approached the place his transparent guide had stopped in front of, which seemed to lead to a final end room. Before he did enter though, he wanted to be sure.

"What did you ask for?"

His guide was silent, though his face seemed to age a few decades with the question alone and his face twisted further with regret.

'You can wish for as much as you want. The fears of anyone can be spoken to the Unown: the uncertainty of the future, the fear of the end, the pain of life, and the exhaustion of each and every. They can provide you a solution.'

He had wished to know the future, to not die, to not be hurt, and not be exhausted. Probably in different words, but the meaning was the same.

While the future was not quite clear, Red could see how the latter three would apply with his current state.

His intangible body, non-corporeal and presumably trapped in a realm between realms with no way to leave it.

It felt like Sneasel had used an ice attack on him all of a sudden.

With a deep breath, Red tried to clear his mind, and took a step towards the most dangerous thing he had ever seen in his life.

…

The most dangerous thing in his life was a spinning ring made up of letters.

These letters were black, with a single massive eye in the center of their bodies. Their bodies themselves resembled letters, and he could see the N he had briefly seen among them.

They moved and spun like clockwork, a comparison that made him think of their ability to craft a second Dialga.

The moment he thought of that, the Unown began to glow.

He immediately shut his eyes, forcing the thought of his mind. He opened his eyes back after about ten seconds, and the Unown were once more rotating harmlessly.

He breathed in relief.

He stared at the spinning alphabet soup before him, moving so peacefully and seamlessly he could forget what he had been warned of about them, or what they had nearly just did.

Without his stray thoughts, they didn't pose a danger. Yet with one thought, they could be spurred into doing something.

Diverting his eyes from them, after counting about twenty of them spinning around,, he noted the room they were in.

It was a small room, a dead end with a shape to it that was defined and non-circular. It was barren bar a set of seven large boulders that seemed stuck in the earth along the edge of the cave.

One of the stones shimmered, and a twenty-first Unown popped out and joined the spiral. He gulped, as he wondered what he could declare to them that would not end horribly.

'Give me the Mega Stones, one of each that exists.'

A declaration that was his voice, but not from his mouth, rang in the cave. The Unown did not seem to hear it, but it had definitely been said.

It was a wish made, a command to the Unown, and Red could see the benefits of it. It saved the time it would take to find them, so he might focus on how he would get them to function.

They'd give him power, perhaps even more so than what the Ash clones had been boasting of. Heck, by saying 'the Mega Stones', perhaps it could specify it enough that it didn't create something horrible.

The difference between general immortality, and a specific sort of immortality that his guide had not asked for, and clearly regretted.

It was a good wish, one that he could probably think of ways to make even better with a bit of thought. Perhaps he could ensure it didn't create some stone that didn't exist and thus could not work, though that was assuming he couldn't make entirely new stones this way.

He cleared his mind as the Unown began glowing, and kept it that way until the Unown stopped glowing.

'Do you know enough about Mega Stones to not have something go wrong?'

A concerned voice in his head raised a pint, one that he feared that the other him who made the call might not have made.

He had learned of the mega stones beyond what the basics sure, but he was no expert. How could he possibly know that stones created by strange lifeforms from another dimension wouldn't have problems.

He didn't want to hurt his Pokémon, even accidentally. Had his other self thought of that, or did he think he knew enough that deliberate harm was avoided.

"How dare you accuse me of not caring! Everything you see is because I care!"

The other's voice was ringing again, this time sounding older. Probably at least over twenty.

It was also much angrier.

"This isn't caring, this is evil! She wouldn't want this, they wouldn't want this!"

A second voice rang out in the cave, and it took him a moment to figure out who it was.

A similarly aged Ash, and he sounded angry too. A different sort of angry than his other, but angry.

"How would you know, Mister Icon? They. Are. Dead! They are dead because of them, and this is how I will fix that!"

A new terror came over him as the shapers of reality spinning in front of him left his mind completely.

Dead?

She!?

His throat dried out, something that clone Ash Ketchums and time hearts failed to do.

"I will bring them back, and the whole stinking world will pay for it! They said they wanted a beautiful world, I'm just going to fix the one mistake that got made!"

He waited for a few very long seconds, but that last shout by his angry other was all he heard. The Unown still spun on, and he was left to wonder what exactly that was.

Was that Ash's dream? Or was that something else?

It was hard to tell, even if it was the same thing. Perhaps they both had dreamed into this place and he was using the Unown, instead of it being a result of the mega stone wish.

He was standing in front of things that probably could revive the dead, a thought that momentarily brought the thought of his mother to his mind.

Once again he had to clear his mind as the Unown began reacting to it. He was not going anywhere near that.

As the Unown calmed down, he took a calming breath and tried to make sense of the question before him.

He needed to have the Unown do something to snap him out of this place, but he could not have them do anything that could go horribly wrong.

One version of him asked for Mega Stones, and hopefully an entirely separate version sought to revive the dead while Ash tried to convince him not to.

They hated each other in it, but that wasn't entirely impossible to see. Even if they were far from that now, Red was aware that hate festered quite easily.

How Ash felt about him was something he could not help (nor did he want to risk seeing if the Unown could do something about that), and before he could truly think of the answer there he had to get out of here.

To get out of here and see Yellow, safe and sound. To see his Pokémon again, as he hoped to whatever was or was not out there that they were not in the Pokéballs on his belt as he traveled this bizarre place. To find the residence of Naty, the Snorlax he had captured, and the space for his Pokémon to train on their own when he was not actively using them.

As he reminded himself of why he needed to leave, an idea began to bloom in his mind. The Unown began to glow, and this time he didn't stop them.

"I seek a map of Seven Island that will lead me to the girl called Naty who has a Safari Ball holding a Snorlax and a Kangaskhanite Mega Stone!"

He declared his intent to the Unown, who were glowing brighter and brighter, spinning faster and faster. He saw motion in the corner of his eye, and he saw his guide standing at the entrance to their room.

A smile on his face, one of clear approval.

It was the last thing he saw before he was blinded by an intense light.

…

"Red, where did you get that map? You didn't have it when I woke up ten minutes ago."

"Pika?"

His eyes slowly opening to a normal dusk sky, and a confused Yellow and Pikachu, he shook his head and stood up.

They wouldn't believe him if he told them, and he really didn't want to think about it too much.

...

She should be happier than she was right now.

On the rocks on the coast of her little island, her chosen champion had finally appeared. She could see his Lapras in the distance, surfing out towards them from a starting point at the end of the valley.

He had pushed through each and every island, and came out better for it. She had seen that he had gotten stronger.

Yet, it was different than what she had seen glimpses of. It had diverged from what she had expected. What else might change?

A bit off from where she saw his Lapras, Naty could see one of the ancient Tanoby Ruins, which she eyed with a frown.

She had seen glimpses of a future where Red had come here with the fullest extent of mega evolution he would learn to master, and instead he came back with a map.

Both from the Unown yes, and she would keep with what she wanted regardless of what he came with, but would he still make the world change as she had once seen?

Thoughts on a changed world aside, she put on a smile as the Lapras drew close enough to see the yellow Pikachu.

She waved them in, focusing on the now for the moment.

The future would come later.

…

Once upon a time, there existed a story in which there were two brothers.

Both used energy from beyond the stars to give themselves more power. One created crystals, the other had stones made.

The two became the greatest trainers of their world, managing both glory and despair in their journeys. They encountered admiration and hatred, enhanced by the power they had gained.

One embraced the admiration, the other the hatred.

In that world, in a timeline diverged from only a scant few islands ago, the brothers clashed in a place called Geosenge Town.

In this divergence in the flow of time, Red stepped off that path. However, I dare not look too closely at how far.

When you look clearly into the future, it can never change. The future may still need to fully diverge, and to glance at it recklessly may make the changes for naught.

There are some who cannot see the future as definitely as I can, but what they have seen of that future is something they see as desirable. Some will meet Red, some will not, and I can only hope they do not guide the way forward.

The trainer Red will find what he came for, and with the adventures he found on these islands chart a different course in his future.

Though if that course has the same end destination is unknown. For some things remain the same in the corner of my eye.

One such stop in both times being a place called New Island, but that is some time away from now.

STORY END