31Yo! Another week, another chapter of this story! Hope everyone's enjoying it. I don't actually know if anyone reads this story weekly lol.
Chapter 30
Bianca tried to force herself to remain calm.
Yes, she was trapped in the depths of an ancient proto-Johtoan – Hisuian? – ruin. Yes, her legs were quite literally frozen in time beneath her, and she couldn't take a single step. And yes, her mentor, and the person she'd relied upon to get this far, Cynthia, had been entirely frozen in time just off to her left.
Yes…
That all added up to a rather bleak sounding scenario.
Well, if Bianca had been trying to hype herself down, then she'd done quite the standup job.
She was panicking. Except it was difficult to panic when one's lower half was entirely… null. It was perhaps the single oddest sensation Bianca had ever felt in her life, the feeling that her brain was receiving from her legs. It was as if she simply ceased to exist at her hips.
She struggled for what felt like hours, but was probably minutes. She shouted out for help, for someone to come and rescue her. She burst into tears, and then cried for a long time.
She wasn't sure how much time had passed when she realized that the only person who could possibly get her out of this situation was herself.
It was somewhat of a chilling moment. She'd… She'd become more self-capable as of late, able to do things on her own. She'd solved Janine's problems without Cynthia's aid, and that had to count for something.
She just…had to figure out how to break out of having time being literally stopped on her.
Which felt somewhat more difficult than helping Janine deal with her family's issues – complicated though they had been.
She forced herself to think. Forced herself to conjure up any possible solution she could conjure. In the end, the only real answer she came to was that she could try and reverse the effect somehow.
The problem with that was that she had no Adamant Crystal of her own. She knew that an Adamant Orb existed somewhere, that it had been used by Cyrus and Team Galactic in their attempted reshaping of the world some decade and a half ago. But she was also pretty sure it had been kept by Dawn, and was thusly unavailable to her.
Maybe if she had a chunk of Adamantine with her, she might be able to do something. Well, it hadn't seemed to hold any special powers, not truly…
But it was worth a shot.
She couldn't quite reach out and touch the walls that lied a few meters away…
But she had Pokémon for a reason.
She reached down, preparing to grab Gallade's Pokéball off her waist, and…
She found that her Pokéball's were all, also, frozen in time.
…Well, there went that plan.
Bianca tried to keep it together. Honestly, she did. It was hard, very much so, but she managed.
Panicking was going to get her nowhere, despite the fact that she'd panicked no more than a few minutes and then cried for quite a bit of time.
Just as she was about ready to start coming up with plan B's, however…
Bianca's legs just sort of…
Started again.
She collapsed forward, not having been prepared for her legs to suddenly return to both time and her, and for her to have to give them orders again. Her brain had also, apparently, forgotten to do that without her having to tell it to in the hour or so they'd been taken from her.
So yes, she fell face first into the ground, and came up with a bleeding – and quite possibly broken – nose.
It hurt, and it sucked, but Bianca really did have bigger priorities in that moment.
The first of which being…
How the hell did she get free!?
She looked around, trying to find the origin of whatever it was that had released her from the Adamant Crystal's frozen time. And yet, the only thing she could see was a single white feather, drifting through the air, aflame.
She felt a pang of familiarity at seeing it before it burnt entirely away, and then Bianca was left with no evidence but ash.
She shook her head. She could worry about the 'how' of she'd gotten free later. For right now, she needed to get after Mars.
She… she intended to reverse time. To send the entire world back years and years.
"Think about being able to go back to that time, fourteen years ago! Think about being able to correct your mistakes, to be able to make a difference choice! To be able to see your beloved friends and Pokémon again! You could see Hilda, and Emboar!"
…Bianca reached up, and slapped both of her cheeks with both of her hands.
No. She wasn't going to consider Mars' words.
There were many reasons, in truth. But perhaps the most important one was that she thought Mars' entire thesis for her plan was wrong, built on a faulty assumption.
She knew she could get through to her. despite what she'd said, despite her words about being dead-set on her goals…
"…You're right." She remembered Janine saying. "I know you're right. I've known a variation of what you're trying to tell me to be true for the longest time, but I just… I can't seem to get through to myself."
Bianca would show her. She would show Mars.
But first, she needed to find out where she was going.
Before she left the cave, she looked back towards Cynthia, still frozen there, hand outstretched towards a now missing Adamant Crystal. Bianca briefly attempted to move her, thinking that perhaps she might be able to lift her like a feather if she was, temporally, entirely absent. But no. She could not be moved. It was like she'd grabbed the side of a cliff and attempted to make that budge.
And yet, being near Cynthia reminded her of something.
The object that Cynthia had shoved into her hand.
She had dropped it earlier, while she'd been crying and wailing for someone to come save her. She headed back in to where she'd been previously, looking for something, and…
And she found a Pokéball.
Is this… what Cynthia gave me?
It didn't make very much sense, not to Bianca, at least. From another person, such might've added up, but Cynthia wasn't a trainer.
How had she gotten her hands on such a thing?
…Then again, if Cynthia had suspected Mars of foul play even before they'd left Fuchsia to come here, it was very possible she'd asked one of her research friends – who she'd explicitly told Bianca were all trainers – to let her borrow a Pokémon for securities sake.
Yes… yes, that added up.
And… Cynthia had offered Bianca her only source of protection in that last moment before she lunged forward, attempting to prevent the world from being rewound. To think, even then, she'd thought of Bianca first.
Bianca took a heavy breath, before bowing her head subtly towards her mentor's frozen form.
And then she ran as hard as she could out of the cavern.
It was well lit, and she remembered the general route. It wasn't a comfortable journey, and Bianca scraped her knee at one point attempting to surmount a meter-or-so high ledge, but other than that, she exited out of the cave without incident.
She took up the Pokéball she'd received, and threw it out.
And from out of that ball came a Togekiss.
"Wha…"
The Togekiss gave a quick chirp towards her, before flying over and nuzzling itself against Bianca's neck.
"Aha… hey." She tried to calm it down, given that now was definitely not the time for cuddles. "Uhm… Cynthia gave you to me. I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to do with you, but–"
Suddenly, before Bianca could say anything else, Togekiss landed on the ground. It called back to her as it faced opposite her, as if urging her to get on top of it.
"You… want to fly me somewhere?"
Togekiss seemed to cry out in the affirmative.
That…
Honestly, that was probably for the best. The only real chance Bianca had of catching Mars was to be flown to wherever she'd gone. And perhaps Cynthia had held some idea within her heart as to where Mars might go if she managed to obtain the Adamant Crystal.
"Okay." She whispered beneath her breath as she got onto Togekiss' back. "I'm… I'm as ready as I'm going to be."
Togekiss didn't wait another second. It flapped its wings, and suddenly, they were gaining both speed and altitude. Bianca hadn't felt this feeling – the rush of flying atop a Pokémon – in well over a decade. She'd done experiments with Braviary's – Professor Juniper's Braviary more specifically – and rode atop them during those experiments, but…
Well, it wasn't exactly what Bianca would call something she enjoyed.
"Oh gods," She shouted, clinging onto Togekiss' back as they soared higher, and higher, until Violet City only looked a few meters wide. "Oh gods!"
They climbed higher still, until they were well above Mt. Silver. Only then did Togekiss seem to focus less on height, and more on distance. It practically rocketed forward, causing Bianca to briefly slide on its back – and for her heart to briefly slide out of her chest.
Still, she managed to survive the perilous journey. Bianca had kept her eyes closed for what felt like hours, but when she finally managed to work up the courage to see where they were, geographically, she opened her eyes to find that they were hovering a few kilometers above open ocean.
That… was concerning.
But they were coming up on a landmass.
That landmass being…
Bianca's eyes widened.
Because even though it had been a while since she'd been, all the way back at the beginning of her journey with Cynthia…
She knew this place.
This was Sinnoh.
Togekiss flew them ever closer, and Bianca began to be able to recognizer certain landmarks. There was Oreburgh, and Sunnyshore, and Jubilife. Off in the distance, she could see the Battle Zone, where powerful trainers went to challenge themselves and their Pokémon after their journey's had been completed.
But perhaps most prominently, and the thing they were steering themselves towards, was Mt. Coronet.
It towered above the rest of Sinnoh. It wasn't as high as Mt. Silver was at its peak, but it was far longer, taking up nearly the entire length of the landmass. Bianca took a deep breath, then, when she realized that from the very tip of Mt. Coronet, there was a strange, azure glow.
That…
That had to be her.
Mars was there.
"You know where to land?" She asked Togekiss, having to shout rather loudly to be heard over the wind.
The Pokémon cried back in what seemed to be a 'yes', but it was hard to tell, in all honesty.
Still, as Togekiss approached Mt. Coronet, a storm began to brew above them. Rain pelted down at them, and Bianca was drenched within thirty seconds. Lightning flashed, thunder clashed, and Bianca knew that them going any further via the air would be far too risky.
"Set us down near the summit, but land as soon as you can! I'll make it the rest of the way."
Togekiss didn't seem all that convinced, but even so, it listened to her. It set her down about a hundred meters below the summit, on a path that led up to it. It was going to be quite the climb, one which would take her through the inner caverns of Coronet, but she could manage.
She would have to.
She recalled Togekiss back into its ball, and stuck it on her waist. It wasn't hers, but even so, having a Pokémon she could rely on to fly was important at the moment.
But for now, she needed to move.
The insides of Coronet were how Bianca remembered them from their brief foray through them to get to Celestic Town when she and Cynthia had gone to visit the woman's grandmother. They were dank and dingy, but still relatively well traveled. There were lights installed – albeit this far up, it was clear that they saw much more sparing replacement, given a good half of them were out – and even signs that pointed the way to the summit.
Bianca would have to thank whoever had set those up once she'd finished up here.
The climb wasn't particularly eventful, despite the adrenaline rushing through Bianca's body. She climbed a few stones, surfed across a few bodies of water with Milotic's help, and then did her best not to focus on how utterly freezing it was this far up.
It snowed year-round on Coronet's peak. That was one of those little factoids that Bianca had learned once and then promptly held onto for the rest of her life.
As she emerged out of the caverns, and back into the outside air, she saw a grand stone staircase, one which led up to Spear Pillar itself.
The sight where Dawn, alongside many others, had held off Team Galactic, and kept their world from being erased and reborn.
She ran up the stairs, taking them two at a time, and when she arrived at the top…
There Mars was.
"Wha–" Mars seemed shocked as Bianca showed herself, turning to face her, with the Adamant Orb still in her left hand. "How did you– No, that doesn't matter, does it? Somehow, you found your way out of being frozen in time."
"I don't really know how I got out either." Bianca admitted, thinking that maybe she could keep Mars talking while she considered her options.
"And yet, here you are… here to try and stop me, I take it?"
"I am."
"Hah…" Mars barked out a laugh. "And why would you want to do that? I'm doing this for the both of us! For people just like us! Are you not able to understand that!?"
Bianca almost had it. She was still formulating her argument, had been throwing it around inside her head for the entire ride over atop Togekiss. But now… now she thought she might be able to talk Mars down.
Yet as she opened her mouth to speak, to argue with Mars and convince her that she was in the wrong, the entire world seemed to shake.
Bianca was knocked to her knees by what felt like a colossal earthquake, and yet, when she looked up just in front of her, she realized it was not the land itself that was shaking…
It was more like reality itself was contorting.
"Finally!" Mars shouted, sounding almost vindicated. "Finally, you show yourself, Dialga!"
A swirling azure vortex whirled into being directly in front of Mars. From out of it came a creature that Bianca vaguely recognized from drawings and the occasional grainy photos that still existed of the events that had taken place at Spear Pillar's peak nearly a decade and a half ago now.
Yet it was…
Different.
This was not that same Dialga. That one had walked on all fours, a proud, dignified beast. But this…
It floated out of the portal, its massive, almost deformed-looking legs not touching the ground. Its back legs seemed to have had all of their mass taken from them, and simply sat still as it ceased its movement, still hovering, as if by magic, in midair.
"The legends were true, then…" Mars spoke, and Bianca could barely hear her. "There really was an ancient, more powerful form of Dialga! And the Adamant Crystal has awoken it!"
Bianca knew that was bad. She knew that that was in fact, really, really bad.
She needed to put a stop to this, to do something.
She fought to stand, but it was like the entire world was heavier, like she'd grown slower, feebler. Dialga emitted a sort of pressure, one which seemed to urge Bianca to stay right where she was, rather than risk approaching it.
But…
She couldn't not. She couldn't leave her mentor down there in that cave, trapped in time, unable to do anything. She couldn't leave her friends and family back in Nuvema town, unknowing of anything that was happening, to have the last fifteen years of their lives erased.
She… she couldn't allow her own history to disappear, either.
Not after everything.
But as Bianca stood, as she stepped forward…
She realized it was too late.
"Dialga!" Mars screamed, and she held out her arms at her sides as the Adamant Crystal began to glow with a brilliant power. "Rewind time back fifteen years, eleven months, and twelve days! Rewind to the day that you were last summoned atop this very tower! Rewind time back to when everything was right in the world!"
"NO!" Bianca yelled.
But there was nothing she could do.
Time, even flowing backwards, could not be stopped by someone like Bianca.
And so, the second hand stopped moving.
And the hour hand ticked back.
End Chapter 30
Alright, that's that. Mars' plan has succeeded...
...Hasn't it?