Season III: Temporal
Chapter 42
Part 1
My name is Char.
That isn't my real name, though. I don't know what my real name is.
Maybe Dialga will tell me that.
Here I am on the first evening after we left the Emerald Division. Prince says the Temporal Tower is really far to the west from our current position, so we're going to have to walk west for a week or two before we have to go north into Zerferia. He says we made it far enough north that the Watchers shouldn't bother us, and I really hope he knows for sure. I really don't want to see another Watcher for a long time.
Already it's getting really cold. Just when I think I'm getting adjusted to the cold around here, it always gets colder. It's hard to take. I hope it doesn't come anywhere close to being like that freezer. I still haven't gotten over that.
Right now we're in some sort of a dried creek bed. Scythe says we should start a fire, but there's nothing really to burn. The land up here is barren. There's nothing even to look at along our hike, just hills of dirt and rocks. I wonder if we packed any of that sol-rock stuff, it would make me a lot more comfortable to have some of that burning next to me right about now.
It's pretty quiet tonight. We don't have very much to say. We talked with each other a lot on the road today, and now there's nothing really left to say. So here I am, sitting and staring at the sky, shivering from the cold a little, wondering if I'll get to sleep under the starry sky for once. And also, I'm thinking. I do that a lot. I have a lot to think about. Like… how I got all the way here. How all these Pokémon came to be with me. And I wonder how I got to be a Charmander in the first place. I worry that if I don't wonder about it sometimes, I'll forget I'm not really a Pokémon. It already started happening a few times.
Everyone's going to sleep, now. Everyone except Scythe. Scythe doesn't sleep very much, apparently. I guess he's going to keep watch for us. That makes me feel safe, at least. Even though I slept in until noon today, I feel tired, so I try to relax. The cold is still irritating, so I breathe slower and try to simmer down my flame, just like Prince taught me to. Lowering my body temperature makes the cold feel less cold.
I really have to admit something: I love being a Charmander. Especially after I've gotten to know this body for a while. It's human-like enough that I could adjust, except maybe for the tail. The tail's really strange, but I got used to it. It's great how it helps me balance and it always lights up the dark, and isn't just useless like the tails of most other animals. But I'm lucky I didn't become something like a Bulbasaur, to have a heavy plant constantly rooted to my back and to have to use vines to grab things. Or something that doesn't even have any hands, like a Torchic. That would have been so much harder to adjust to…
But yeah, being a Charmander is amazing. I feel so alive, like my energy won't ever go away completely. I can do incredible things if I push myself, like win battles that I never thought I could win. And I can also take such a beating, it's amazing! This body just doesn't know when to die. If a human got smashed into the ground with a giant boulder, they'd be dead, no questions asked. But me, I might get a few broken bones, my fire would flicker a lot, but my body would blaze for a bit and help me overcome the difficulty, and then I could stand right back up, spend a few days healing, and I'd be back to normal in no time. This power, it's like a life force completely different than what humans have. Compared to Pokémon, humans are just slugs who lie around and do nothing all day, and I'd be a little spark of energy running circles around their feet all night and day.
And best of all, I can burn things! That's the most amazing thing ever! I mean, you have no idea how gratifying it is to just be able to blow fireballs at things you don't like.
…Well, that could just be the Charmander in me talking. I can't always tell nowadays.
This Pokémon nature… it's strong. Really strong. It's not like a human nature, where you can just ignore it and act rationally if you have to. This is like I've got an animal inside of me that I know I can't train completely, and it's really stubborn and insists that it influence all the actions I make , so I've just got to do what it says half the time. Which isn't all that bad; sometimes it really knows what it's talking about. But sometimes it can also be really stupid. But that's alright. It's all a part of growing up and training myself.
But yeah, I'm sitting here, and I'm wondering what it's going to be like to face Dialga in person. I already know what he looks like. I have vivid memories of him, but I know standing in front of him is going to be so much different… just picturing the creator of time himself standing in front of me in all his shining glory, maybe even asking me for orders, if my Call worked the way we think it did… the closer I get to him, the worse it makes my ember churn.
There's something else I realized just now: I would be perfectly content if Dialga tells me there's no going back to my old life. Even if I'm some human who did something awful and got sentenced to live out the rest of my life as a Pokémon. I really wouldn't mind forgetting all about my humanity. This Charmander body? It's a reward, not a punishment. Ambera? It's paradise. I love being a Charmander, and if someone wants me to go back to my human life, they'd better have a good reason for it! Just get rid of this Master, let me turn into a Charizard, give me some volcano crater to laze around in when I'm tired, and I could ask for nothing more.
Great, heart's racing again. I roused my ember just thinking about it. C'mon, Charmander. Settle down. Your trainer says so. Easy, easy… That's it… calm down, you need your rest…
Bah, I'll figure this body out eventually. After all, I hope I'll be spending a long, long time in this body… Heh. I'm a living flame. Who would have thought? It's so incredible.
Though… I don't know if I should tell Saura or anyone else I'm not keen on returning to my human form. It doesn't feel right. My instincts tell me that.
Actually, I'm not sure what I could tell Saura right now. I always could talk to him, but lately, he's… he's not acting right.
He was supposed to get some memories of his childhood erased, but I think his mind changed a lot more than that. Before that, I could always talk to him whenever I wanted. When I would tell him something, he would always know exactly what I meant. He could sympathize with me. He'd know when something would be hard for me to say, or when I'm not so sure of something, or just about anything I'd want to communicate but wouldn't know how to put to words. He was the kind of friend anyone would want to have, Pokémon or not.
But now… a lot of his emotions just aren't there. Like today, he started bugging Prince, asking him about the Silver Division. Then when he wouldn't answer, he started bugging Scythe, asking him random things about Team Remorse's past, just out of plain curiosity. But Saura has no idea what kind of pressure Scythe is under right now. Even before his memories were erased, I don't even think he understood everything I know about Scythe. I feel so awful for both of them.
Today, he also started to ramble about his adventures with us back in the gold division base, as though they were fond childhood memories. Thing is… we've only known each other for about a month.
Yeah, a month. Maybe a month and a half.
Time seems to pass much more slowly for this Charmander body than I remember it passing as a human, so I imagine it's the same for other Pokémon. But… still. It was a month ago, add maybe a week or two, that I woke up in that dark cave and saw his face. Saura is seven years old. Now, he's only one month old. And I… I don't know what to say to that.
I'm starting to wonder if Saura was telling the truth.
Maybe that's really what drove him. Maybe his subconscious was so haunted by the thought of the Master targeting his family, that's what made him cling to me… that's what made him such a hero…
It hurts to imagine it. We were so close. We could read one another like signposts. We had… we had no secrets.
The Charmander in me still refuses to believe it. It feels wrong. I think he made it up. I think the ghost made it up. It's the only explanation. Saura had a heart of gold. He showed that every day back in the base. You can't just cover up a heart of gold like that.
The human in me…
I remember how Saura apologized to me before he let his memories be erased. I don't think I understood just why he had chosen to apologize to me then. I think I'm starting to understand now.
You think you know someone, and then… they change. You don't have to be a Pokémon to know how discouraged that can make you.
Without that subconscious fear, he's a really different. He acts like this is some vacation, and he's just happy to be going along for the ride with all his closest friends. He acts like he doesn't know how serious this is.
The real Saura would have known.
No! Flame's flaring again… cold is… cold coming back…
For the love of us both, Charmander, if you don't settle down, I'm going to smack your head against the ground until you pass out.
... ... ...
Saura woke me up tonight, twice.
The first time, he screamed. I jumped awake, thinking we were being attacked or something. I'm kinda used to it by now, that kind of thing happens to me a lot. But when I came to my senses, I realized it was just Saura. He was standing there with his paws digging into the ground, gasping for breath like he almost got suffocated. He looked so panicked, like he thought he was going to die.
I knew what had happened. This is the same thing he did all last night, because of that nightmare, jumping awake constantly. I remember Gardevoir said this would still happen sometimes, when his mind brushes up against the nightmare. It was still hard to see him in so much pain and worry, though.
It was like he had the Call. In just a few seconds, we were all wide awake and gathering around him. Prince and Scythe both rolled their eyes and went away. Ray stayed standing there. He looked worried. He didn't know whether to come help, or just go back to sleep. I nodded and let him know it was okay to go back to sleep.
I came up to Saura and asked him if he was okay. He said he just had a nightmare, but couldn't remember what it was about, and he said he was trying really hard to remember because it felt like the dream was important.
So… I told him the truth. I told him that's why he had his memory erased. I told him that it's something he doesn't want to remember, so he shouldn't try. It would make him feel better if he didn't remember it at all.
He looked at me. It was… unreadable. I don't know what kind of emotion that was. It was something that I've never seen on his face before. He was confused, and… desperate, I guess. Like he really needed me to help him somehow. Like he needed me to go into his mind and pull out his memories for him.
That's when I realized it. We had lied to him earlier. We told him it was the Watcher that took his memories away, not Gardevoir. I cursed myself. I hate lies. They're so hard to keep. You always slip up sometimes when you're not concentrating. You can't just keep concentrating on a lie forever.
So I kept telling him the truth. I told him he decided to have his own memories erased because they were hurting him. I told him I couldn't give him his memories back even if I wanted to. I told him they were memories that I never shared with him. They happened before we met.
Then he turned away from me, and I think he fell asleep instantly. I knew he was really tired.
The second time…
The second time, it was really early in the morning. The crack of dawn. It was the time Team Ember used to get up and go out to do our missions.
He nudged me until I woke up. I stretched out and yawned, letting the warmth of my ember spread to my limbs, getting ready for an early day's work. Habit. Ray would have jolted me if I didn't get moving quickly.
I opened my eyes, and I was confused for a moment. It wasn't Ray, it was Saura. And I was sleeping in the middle of nowhere.
Oh, right. I'm not home. I'm not doing missions anymore. Always a disappointment to remember that.
"What is it?" I asked him. "What's wrong?"
He looked at me. He wasn't sad, he wasn't angry. He looked… emotionless. Like he was trying to hold back tears or something, but doing very well. He looked really serious.
"I'm sorry," he said.
I didn't know what to say. I honestly didn't. The way he said it, it sounded just like he did before he had his memory erased. When he apologized to me. I realized that maybe he might have remembered saying that. To make sure, I decided to ask him.
"For what?"
"I… I don't know," he answered as he shook his head. "I just… I don't know."
I got on my feet, I looked into his eyes, and then I gave him the biggest hug I could.
That's something else I do a lot, too.
We Charmander are emotional creatures. I learned that on the first day. This fire is strong. It makes me care a lot about what others think of me. It makes me proud and confident, and angry when things go wrong. But as strong as a flame could be, it's also delicate. It's vulnerable. It needs someone to help keep it burning when the wind starts to blow. Someone to hold it close and protect it. Because no matter how strong I've gotten, how easy it becomes to use my fire, or how good I get at holding back tears, nothing has given me more strength than having Saura there for me.
I guess Saura is the same way, too. He could never make it on his own. He loved his family so much, and now I've got to be the one to replace them.
I've always wondered if all Pokémon are just born like this. I see it in almost every Pokémon I've met. We're so quick to form bonds with others. Powerful bonds that we'd never let break if we could help it. It's like we're born as puzzle pieces and it's important that we click into place somewhere. It wouldn't surprise me if our hearts just have some kind of code written on them like that, that we are just impressed upon so easily. I don't think I was ever a Pokémon trainer as a human, but even I knew that the bond between a Pokémon and a trainer is something you just can't touch. That absolute, unbreakable bond. It's something you couldn't really understand unless you felt it yourself.
And now, I know what that's like, because I love Saura like a brother. And I don't care what kind of memories he does or doesn't have, I need him there. And he needs me.
"I forgive you," I whispered to him. "Always."