Chapter 374: Terapagos's Ability, and One Very Confused Little Turtle
"All right, that's settled."
Yveltal touched down. Reshiram landed just behind it and stared at Yveltal's back with bitter resentment.
Stupid black bird! I'm the one who's supposed to be Mammon's mount~!
Grrr!
Mammon, naturally, had no idea what his very own Dragon of Truth was thinking. He smiled at Baraz and the others.
Caitlin wore a faint smile. Platinum's eyes were shining with excitement and admiration. Serena was thrilled too. Mr. Mammon!!
"Heh heh~ Baraz, Meray, I'm back~"
Confined Hoopa floated over to the two of them, grinning from ear to ear.
"Welcome back, and congratulations on getting your power back, Hoopa."
Baraz smiled at Confined Hoopa, genuinely happy.
"Thank you, Mammon. We've caused you a lot of trouble."
Then he turned to Mammon to thank him.
"Thank you so much, Mammon."
Meray hugged Confined Hoopa tight and wiped her reddened eyes as she spoke.
Several times during the battle, she'd been so scared she couldn't breathe.
"Don't mention it. We're all friends." Mammon chuckled. "Besides, honestly, I have Hoopa to thank today. Otherwise I'd never have gotten to enjoy a spectacle that big."
"There is one thing that's strange, though."
Mammon turned toward the battlefield with a puzzled look.
"What is it, Mammon?" Baraz asked.
"With that many top-tier Legendaries fighting, this space should have collapsed under the strain. But there's no sign of that at all."
Mammon explained his reasoning.
"Was it because Origin Forme Palkia was here?"
In the original movie, a comparatively minor scuffle had been enough to make space start collapsing. That was nothing next to a brawl between double-digit top-tier Legendaries.
By rights, this space should have started falling apart long ago.
Could Palkia's Origin Forme have strengthened and stabilized space?
That didn't seem right either.
"No way. Palkia's got nothing to do with it." Confined Hoopa pouted.
"Oh?" Mammon raised an eyebrow.
"Sure, the concept of 'space' only exists because Palkia was born. But after that, it only keeps space as a whole stable. This space holding together under all that pressure has nothing to do with Palkia."
Confined Hoopa was completely certain.
"And I'm not trash-talking Palkia or anything, but if this space had started collapsing, it probably couldn't have stopped it."
"If you ask me, there are some ways of using space it's not even as good at as Hoopa."
Confined Hoopa clearly had its doubts about Palkia's spatial power.
To be fair, Palkia was the dragon of the very concept of space, yet it couldn't counter Hoopa's spatial rings. It was hard to blame Hoopa for looking down on it a little.
"So do you know why this space didn't collapse?" Mammon asked Confined Hoopa.
Confined Hoopa answered with total confidence.
"Of course I don't."
Mammon rolled his eyes, and in that one careless glance, he caught something.
Above the clouds at the edge of the sky, a flash of gold, and a white figure disappearing behind the clouds.
If it was that guy, it's not strange at all.
Mammon clicked his tongue. He'd known it. With a spectacle this big, there was no way the Alpaca wouldn't come watch.
"All right, let's head back and get something to drink first. This isn't a great place to chat."
The Vale of Creation.
Once Mammon and the others were back, Meray eagerly brought out a treasured bottle of fruit wine.
"Have some! My grandma made this. It's really good."
Meray poured everyone a cup, Confined Hoopa, Terapagos, and the rest included.
She was in a great mood today.
"It's a bit sweet... ummm... and a little tart. It's good!"
Platinum took a sip and found it surprisingly nice.
It was her first time drinking.
"Right? It's not very strong. One cup won't get you drunk, even if you've never had any before," Meray said happily.
"It really is good. Oh, and Baraz, going forward, have Hoopa practice breaking its confinement."
Mammon glanced over and saw Confined Hoopa using its psychic powers to hold up a big bowl and clink it against Terapagos's, Jirachi's, and the others'. He couldn't help laughing.
"It got its power back, but the confinement is still in effect. It can't pass through its own rings."
That was right. Hoopa could now switch to its Unbound form at will, but it was still confined. It had recovered its power, but it hadn't broken through its confinement.
That was just a matter of time. Confined Hoopa's state of mind was fine now. If it kept at it, it would break through eventually.
Once Hoopa could pass through its own rings freely, it would finally be truly free.
"Mm. We'll keep it on track," Baraz said with a smile. He sincerely hoped Hoopa would break its confinement soon.
That was what would finally fulfill his great-grandfather's original goal.
They chatted as they drank, and Meray even went to cook a few dishes.
Worth mentioning...
"You little BRATS! I said have a little! Not drink the whole thing!!"
Meray's shriek made the slightly tipsy Platinum and Serena jump. When they turned to look...
Meray had Confined Hoopa by the ear and was staring into the cask, less than a tenth of the fruit wine left. She looked ready to cry.
"Ow, ow, ow, hic~ Meray, don't be mad."
Confined Hoopa pouted, let out a boozy hiccup, and grinned goofily.
"I saved some for you on purpose, see?"
"Oh, so I should thank you now, is that it?! HOOPA!!"
Meray gritted her teeth. Jirachi, Victini, and Mesprit were passed out belly-up. Over on the other side, Terapagos was staggering around in a drunken swagger, head held high, extremely pleased with itself.
Meray wanted to cry but had no tears left.
These lushes! This was the fruit wine her grandmother had left behind, and it had been the very last cask.
Everyone had probably drunk a bit too much, so Caitlin and the others went back to sleep in the house Baraz had prepared for Mammon and his group before.
Mammon, meanwhile, carried the tipsy Terapagos out to a patch of grass and sat down.
"Little turtle, you used your ability today to send me into the past, right?"
"Did I? Oh. Yeah, I think I did."
Terapagos's clear telepathic voice sounded a little dazed at first before it confirmed it.
"Can you still use that ability now?"
"I think so..."
"What do you mean, 'think'?"
Mammon was taken aback.
Either it could or it couldn't. What was "think" supposed to mean?
Did this little turtle get too drunk to think straight?
"I'm not sure, Mammon. My ability doesn't just do whatever I want. And I can only send you to a past or future that has something to do with you."
"Meaning what?" Mammon had an idea, but he wasn't sure yet.
"I can't send you to an exact point in time. I can only send you to a moment in the past or future that you're bound to go through."
Terapagos tilted its little head, thought for a moment, and answered like that.
But how to put it?
That explanation was honestly pretty confusing.
Terapagos seemed to realize it hadn't been very clear. It spun around in circles, fretting over how to explain it properly.
"Oh, I know! Mammon, when I sent you back to the past before, didn't you meet someone you know?"
Terapagos had suddenly thought of something.
"..." Mammon suddenly seemed to understand.
"You mean you can only send me to the timeline of someone I'm guaranteed to cross paths with?"
"Yep~ And it has to be someone you have cause and effect with. It's because there's a 'cause' in the past or future that there can be an 'effect' now or later."
Terapagos's eyes lit up, and it nodded vigorously.
"So your time travel really does have a lot of limits."
Mammon mulled it over. Seen this way, Terapagos's time travel was less time travel and more a causal loop.
Then again, thinking back to the story of Scarlet and Violet, Terapagos's influence really had been monumental.
The Great Crater of Paldea had been shrouded in mystery since ancient times. Before the modern era, only the Area Zero expedition from two hundred years ago had ever reached the deepest part of Area Zero.
The explorer Heath wrote about that expedition in the Scarlet Book and the Violet Book, which recorded the bizarre things the expedition encountered along the way, and those books were passed down through the generations.
But most people in the modern era thought the contents of the Scarlet and Violet Books were too outlandish. There was no way to tell whether any of it was real, and nobody believed it.
Yet the husband-and-wife professors, Sada and Turo, who had read the books, believed them without a doubt. Why?
Because they had truly lived through a mysterious encounter. They had seen the Pokémon described in the books. And having read the Scarlet and Violet Books since they were children, their hearts had long since been captured by the Pokémon recorded there.
To see these ancient and future Pokémon again, the two of them threw everything they had into experiments in Area Zero, and in the end, they succeeded in building a Time Machine!
The Time Machine really could bring ancient and future Pokémon into the present: the Paradox Pokémon!
Sada and Turo had really done it.
But how could they be so sure the Scarlet and Violet Books were true?
Because in the future, the protagonist, Juliana, caught Terapagos. At the Crystal Pool, Terapagos used its space-time travel ability and brought over Sada and Turo from a time before they had built the Time Machine.
In the "future," Sada and Turo saw Koraidon (and Miraidon). That made them even more certain the Scarlet and Violet Books were true, and so they built the Time Machine.
And here's the thing: Heath's expedition saw all kinds of Paradox Pokémon in Area Zero two hundred years ago. So why didn't Sada and Turo see a single Paradox Pokémon when they entered Area Zero?
Most likely, Terapagos had sent Heath's expedition from two hundred years ago forward to the era two hundred years later, after Sada and Turo had built the Time Machine. That was why they saw all kinds of Paradox Pokémon and wrote their account.
Paradox, paradox. The paradox wasn't only the ancient and future species showing up in the present. The Area Zero story in the game was packed with paradoxes too.
In that story, who was the real "cause"? Who was the real "effect"?
Cause, then effect. Or the effect, becoming the cause.
Terapagos's ability really was profoundly mysterious. Either way, all Mammon needed to know was whether it could send him back to Hisui.
"So can you send me back to Hisui again? Ideally both me and Dawn together."
Mammon clicked his tongue. That was the only thing he cared about.
"What's Hisui?"
Terapagos was thoroughly confused.
"?" Mammon froze.
"Ummm... Back then, I was actually trying to send you back three thousand years. The longest 'thread' in your past reaches back to three thousand years ago."
"I wanted to send you as far away as I could, so it'd be easier to beat Hoopa while you were gone."
Terapagos tilted its head as it explained.
"But I didn't go back three thousand years."
Mammon's expression was strange as he said it. What the little turtle meant was easy enough to understand.
And he could guess what that three-thousand-year "thread" was: AZ and the Eternal Flower Floette. AZ was a man from three thousand years ago, after all.
"Right. My head wasn't working right back then anyway. Now that I think about it, some other power changed my ability and knocked you off course. Even I don't know where I sent you."
Terapagos was the very picture of innocence.
"..."
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