Chapter Thirty-Three: Legends and Lore



Ilima's POV



"All right, team," I say. "Now that we know what we're looking for, let's head to the Mintale Library and see what it has on Dark Matter before we leave."



Gary groans. "A library? Seriously? Do I look like a professor?"



"There's no point saving your family if the whole word burns," Gladion shoots back. "Get your priorities in order. Stopping Dark Matter is priority one."



"Well, Celebi doesn't seem to think so," Gary snaps. "She at least approved of rescuing my family! You can read through those dusty old books until the Miltank come home for all I care, but not me. I'm headed for Saffron."



"Yeah, good luck with that," Gladion says. "Do you even know how you're going to cross the Terra Caverns? Celebi said we'd need some girl's help to cross them, so we're going all together. End of story."



"What?" Gary looks trapped.



I sigh. This won't be easy. "Gary... I know you're upset. And you have every right to be. But what Gladion says is true. We won't be able to cross Terra Caverns without Cyan's help, and right now, we need to focus on learning what we can about Dark Matter. We have no idea if we'll ever get the chance to look through this library again."



Gary clenches his fists. "Hmmph. Don't have much of a choice then, do I?"



Terra turns to Wes. "Speaking of family. If you came from Mintale Town before, shouldn't you have family here?"



Wes looks uncomfortable. "Uh, well, see here... I don' remember my folks. An' I ain't gonna show up on their doorstep jus' t' walk away again an' maybe never return. An' I don' think they'd lemme leave that easily once I came back. Y'know?" He shrugs. "I just wanna do this first."



I hide a smile. Gladion might have doubts about Wes's character, but he's got a heart of gold under that dubious coat of criminality. He just has a funny way of showing it.



---



The library is a big place for a small town. Walls and walls of books everywhere, and a few computers open for use for those who have a library card. Which of course I don't, and Gary doesn't, and the rest of the group isn't even from Kanto, so of course they don't have library cards.



Doesn't mean we can't read the books.



I quickly organize my friends into a research team. Wes and Terra handle mythology and religion, Gary and Shu look up paranormal reports, and Gladion and I check aura science. Ali offers to help, but after nearly burying me and Gladion in a stack of entirely unrelated volumes, it comes out that she can't read English. So that doesn't work.



We don't really dig up much. Most of what me and Gladion find describes bad vibes as hanging around a person and affecting how others perceive them, sort of like how you try to avoid someone who's in a bad mood. They also describe how Ghost-type Pokemon are attracted to people harboring unpleasant emotions, because they feed off the aura waves produced by them. But they don't say much on "dark matter" in the sense Celebi spoke of it, as a separate, sentient entity with a will and purpose of its own.



Paranormal reports aren't that much better either. There's tales of Ghost-type Pokemon that feed on fear or envy, of course, but there's no report of the fear or envy actually fighting back.



It's the mythology reports that have the truly interesting results.



Terra manages to find a tale of a maiden who turned to stone out of grief while waiting for her loved one to return from a war. Wes locates a version of the Fall of Giratina in which Giratina is possessed by Dark Matter from its jealousy of Arceus, attempts to turn Arceus and the other dragons to stone, and is banished by the Original One into a parallel dimension for its pride. What's interesting about the second story is that it isn't even clear from the text whether Arceus and the Original One are the same being, as it's implied that Arceus was still stone when the Original One banished Giratina.



"It's myth," Gladion says dismissively when I broach the subject. "It's all mixed up from word of mouth and no one really knows what happened anyway. It's certainly no skin off my nose what the Original One is supposed to be."



"The Giratina I know certainly isn't anything like the one in the myth," Shu says.



"You know," I say, "some people think Mew are a myth as well."



Gladion rolls his eyes. "Makes things easier for us then."



"I think what we've gotta look at is the turnin' t' stone part," Wes says. "If this Dark Mattah's born from dark emotions, an' it can turn folks t' stone, then shouldn't we be concerned 'bout our own feelin's?"



"He's got a point," Terra says, motioning to part of Wes's book. "It says here that Giratina was deceived and possessed by its own dark emotions made animate, and embracing this Dark Matter gave it the power to petrify the other gods. If we have to actually fight Dark Matter, we need a protection against petrification."



"Assuming the whole story's not bunk to begin with," Gladion says.



"Speakin' o' weird tales, there's somethin' else I'd like ya to see." Wes flips a few pages back in the mythology book. "It's th' story from th' ruins, 'bout th' boy and the Dratini."



I take the book from Wes and start reading aloud.



---



"There was a time when humans and Pokemon lived in separate worlds. Humans did not know of Pokemon, and Pokemon did not know of humans.



"Except for one Pokemon, the Archdjinn of Rings. She could travel from the world of Pokemon to the world of humans. She brought tales of humans to Pokemon, and tales of Pokemon to humans.



"One day in the world of Pokemon, a Dratini approached the Archdjinn of Rings, asking her to take him to the world of humans. Thought the Archdjinn of Rings warned him that the world of humans was dangerous, the Dratini persisted, and the Archdjinn of Rings brought him to the world of humans.



"The humans had never seen a Dratini before. Full of fear, they locked it away in a cage and worried over what to do with it.



"Except for one human -- a human boy who took pity on the terrified Dratini. He freed Dratini and took care of it. They went to bed together, went to school together, even bathed together. In time, they became the best of friends."



"Who bathes with a Dratini, that's what I'd like to know," Gary says. "That sounds like asking for trouble."



"Shh!" Wes whispers. "Keep listen'."



"In time, Dratini's father, Dragonite, grew worried for his missing son. He went to the Archdjinn of Rings and demanded she bring him to where his son was. The Archdjinn complied, but the humans of the human world were terrified of Dragonite. They tried to destroy it with magic rods that shot steel and fire."



I take a deep breath. This next part isn't going to be nice. "Desperate to stop the fighting, the boy who was Dratini's friend rushed forward to plead with the humans for peace. But in the confusion, the boy himself was gravely injured. Terrified that the boy might die, Dragonite and Dratini took him with them through the Archdjinn's ring, escaping the human world once and for all."



I pause and take a breath. "Is that all?" Gary asks, in the tone of voice that says he's not really interested in hearing more.



"Dragonite took the human child to a special lake in the Pokemon world that healed the boy's injuries. However, Dragonite knew that the world of Pokemon was no place for a human boy. But neither did he wish to risk injury to either of them by returning to the world of humans.



"The Dragonite consulted the Voice of the Forest for help. The Voice of the Forest said that Dragonite should go to the Wishmaker to solve the problem of the human child. And so that is what Dragonite did.



"Dragonite, Dratini, and the human boy traveled far and wide to reach the Wishmaker. When the Wishmaker awoke, it asked them what wish it should grant them. The human boy, before anyone could stop him, wished for a world where he and Dratini could stay together forever.



"The Wishmaker granted that wish, creating a new world of humans and Pokemon for the boy and Dratini. But the energy expended by the size of the wish weakened the Wishmaker, sending him into an endless sleep, only to be awakened one week in every thousand years."



Terra looks over my shoulder at the pictures. "So the Voice of the Forest is Celebi, and the Wishmaker is Jirachi. But how could Jirachi create an entire world?"



"I always thought that Arceus was the one that made everything," Shu says. "Doesn't the myth say that the Original One created the world?"



"The myth says that Arceus shaped the world," I answer. "Arceus is said to have been born in a place where nothing existed, then formed the universe. But if this legend is true, then this Jirachi predates the Arceus of our world."



"That's a pretty big if if you ask me," Gary says. "I mean, doesn't it sound a bit absurd to you?"



"Only if ya haven't seen ancient carvin's o' desks an' alarm clocks wi' that myth," Wes cuts in. "Seems real enough t' me."



"But for that to be true," Terra says, "the entirety of Pokearth's history happened in a pretty short time in my universe. Unless there's another Earth-like universe where time moved differently?"



"It's certainly possible that time moves differently in different dimensions," I answer. "Dimensional science was still in its infancy even back in our world, in our timeline. If a few beings can travel back in time twenty years, what's to stop an entire universe from jumping back in time for long ages if infused with enough power?"



"Maybe Dialga got drunk," Gary says flippantly. "What's that got to do with saving the world?"



"Right now, nothing," I admit. "But it's possible that understanding more of how our universe came to be can help us figure out how to save it."



Through all this, Ali has been quiet. "Archdjinn of Rings..." she says quietly, mulling over what she's just learned. "The Archdjinn of Rings..."



"Ey!" a familiar feline voice yowls from the other end of the library. "Dat's moy tail, twoip! Lemme go!"



Meowth!



We rush to the sound of the noise, then slide to a stop.



Oh snap.



It's Hitoshi.