I turned my gaze in time to see a large, golden, glowing ninetales enter the clearing. She radiated power and majesty in a way none of the other pokemon I’d seen in this world so far had. She was obviously old, in a way I might one day become if Ho-oh had been at all serious, and it humbled me to think of what she had already seen during her life. It also worried me how it made her think, what ruts her mind could have fallen into. I could feel the psychic energy boiling off her in waves, despite not having a psychic bone in my body. I knew deep in my bones that the only reason the sanctity of this grove hadn’t been violated by humans from the nearby city was her power, but that power was all turned inwards, and forever would be.

  “You’re right,” I said to her, slowly, cautiously. I could see how she was looking at my temporary human pet. “This part of the world, right here, in this exact spot, is nice. But this tiny part of the world isn’t why I’m still here. It’s for that larger bit over there.” I pointed a paw back the way I’d come, half turning. “Or maybe even all of the rest of it,” I added with a shiver. “So, tell me what’s been going on here, and I’ll tell you how we can stop it, because pokemon, maiju as you seem to call them here and now, are dying, and I can’t allow that, not like this.”

  “You can’t allow it?” The ninetales was shocked. So was I, to be honest. From my perch on Dummy’s — Petri’s — shoulder I was looking slightly down at her, but she was no less imposing for my relative height. I was still just an eevee and this ninetales was absolute mistress of her domain, with powers that kept everybody under her aegis safe. “And who are you to talk of such things? I can tell you are no ordinary maiju, which is… astounding enough, but to hear you speak of ‘permission’ and believe you have a right to it? That is something else.”

  I met her gaze as calmly as I could, which is to say not at all. “I was just a normal eevee… well actually I wasn’t, but I was, it’s complicated. A-and then Ho-oh had other ideas than to just let me get my own issues sorted out. Or maybe… maybe my everything happened because of Ho-oh in the first place, and it keeps happening. There was a Celebi involved too, that kind of made things more complicated. Anyway long story short, here we are. Whilst I’m here, I’m not just going to let whatever this is carry on. I’d never forgive myself, and neither would they.” I pointed a paw at my friends, loosely arranged in a circle around the gathering as I prattled on. I deflated slightly. “I’m not sure I should have told you half of that, but then I think I kind of have to. You’d know if I lied, all I have left is the truth.”

  “A Celebi? Then you are from the past?” I shook my head. “The future then?” I tried to keep my emotions in check, but it failed. She was silent for a moment as she contemplated me and my quaking human before she made her decision.

  “Human,” the lady of the grove said, directly to the mind of Petri as well as to the rest of the pokemon in the clearing, “tell me of this maiju upon your shoulder, of how you came to be here. Have you traveled far with her?”

  “[I-I… I don’t, um… I mean I have come here with her, b-but she… I c-come from the t-town,]” Petri stammered. “[I caught her—]”

  I cuffed his ear at that, not hard of course. I might have been putting my ‘pet’ in his place since I’d claimed him, but I wasn’t cruel. Besides, if I used any actual strength I was pretty sure he’d crumple like a wet paper towel. Humans from this time weren’t as resilient as humans from my time.

  “[They caught me,]” he corrected himself. “[The… dark one, it… it went inside me, somehow. The eevee, Lux is her name, she… somehow went into my shadow! I have no hope of standing against such maiju! Please, please don’t hurt me! Please forgive me!]”

  The ninetales was silent again for a moment, pondering. She turned to me, staring at me as if she could see into my soul.

  “He says you caught him? You went into his shadow? Your friend there, the one desperately trying to hide himself from my powers as well as my sight, went inside him? What is he? Do all maiju from your time have such power?” The ninetales gestured to where Guy hung in the air, invisible. “I have never seen his like before. Your story alone is unbelievable, but his presence is moreso. It is far too fanciful to be false.”

  “No, no, not everybody can do what I do, but it’s not that special. I just have ‘Copycat’, or something like it. Guy’s a gengar, I borrowed his powers. I’ve done it before. It’s… he’s not that uncommon is he? Oh, of course, I think humans have to trade him to get him to evolve normally? And you won’t be able to do that yet. Giratina evolved him, don’t ask me how.”

  The ninetales’ muzzle fell open at my casual mentioning of the lord of the reverse world, but before she could speak again there was a rush of wind, interrupting further discussion, as a large, brown and beige flying pokemon arrived in the small clearing, which set Petri off blubbering once more until I cuffed his ear again and he calmed down. The ninetales silenced both of us with a glance.

  “My lady, the humans patrol again,” the fearow said, gazing curiously between me, the stranger on the shoulder of a human, and the lady of the glade, bowing his head.

  “Recall our foraging parties.” The ninetales pondered her words, then spoke up cautiously. “All of them. Gather what stray maiju you can too, send them all here. Call to them if you must, but fly high and lead the humans astray should they follow you. Do not get yourself captured.”

  “My lady?” The fearow looked from the ninetales to me and my human and back again.

  “You have my instructions, my friend, trust me, trust them.”

  The fearow dipped its head, then took off again in a rush of wind, and was gone. There was a moment of silence, then the ninetales fixed me with a gaze that could pierce diamond. It was a good thing I’d gone number sixteen back when dealing with Giratina, to be honest.

  “Just an eevee, you continue to say? Yet you have a name like humans do and you borrow such powers without a second thought. You travel with maiju I have never seen, you speak with words I have never heard. Truly, you are a strange creature. You say you are just an eevee, but I have a way with these things. You are not ‘just’ anything, and your friend there, the… gengar? I know not of his kind at all. You must truly be from some far and distant land. To speak of Celebi thus… I have heard of this maiju, but I have never seen one, not in all my long years.”

  I sighed. “Let me try to explain,” I offered desperately. I’d heard of the kind of trouble normal pokemon had had dealing with Legendaries, how their very nature put them at odds with normal pokemon. I didn’t count myself as one, but I could conceive of how different I and my friends were to every pokemon from this strange world, so I would have to bridge that gap. The ninetales remained silent, so I continued. “Pokemon like Celebi turn up where and when they are needed, and so she turned up for me, because I was needed here. Those humans back there, they are doing terrible things to the po- the maiju, but it won’t stop there. When the lord of that city is done with what he can wring from it, the humans may leave, scattering like leaves in fall, but they will go on to poison another place. And another. And another. And everywhere they go, pokemon will suffer and die. And, even if you don’t care for them, know that the humans will die too. More and more will die, each time the cycle repeats, until there are none left.”

  A distant part of my mind was screaming somewhere about how bleak I was sounding, but I really couldn’t see any other choice.

  “There are… I guess there are two ways this will end, and I’d like to avoid them both. Either the humans will kill off all the pokemon, each death empowering and emboldening them until they feel they can take on even pokemon like Groudon and Kyogre, or they will go extinct trying. Either possibility is not something I want to return to. What would the world be like with constant fighting between us and them?”

  “You describe the world I live in, little eevee. I’m not sure I understand the issue. This is the way of things, surely?” The ninetales watched me silently for a few moments, confusion tinged with a hint of anger on her muzzle, before she turned, flicking her golden tails. “You speak of leaving, returning somewhere. I know your plans, little eevee, speaking of such maiju — pokemon? A strange word to replace what we are — like Celebi, the princess of time itself. You either think me a fool. Or,” she took a deep breath, “well it troubles me. You trouble me. So I will humor you. Come, you and your human, you may both enter my glade to rest and to rejoin your friends. But be aware, should I need to deal with him, I shall not hesitate.”

  “Go on then Dummy, onwards,” I said, kicking Petri’s shoulder again until he got the message and walked further into the ninetales’ domain, eyes wide as he watched the surrounding pokemon, who wouldn’t stop glaring at him.

  The trees grew thicker, more vibrant, as we penetrated deeper into the glade and the world started to feel more like home. I had a pang of homesickness that turned to an ache of joy as we entered a verdant clearing. My eevee memories knew places like this, even if my human part didn’t. Both parts of my being revelled in it. It felt more ‘right’ than anywhere else in this ancient nightmare.

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  “You may rest here. Your human is to be kept under guard, though unlike his ilk I am kind to my prisoners. Water, food — though it be berries only — will be provided. He may rest where he wishes within the clearing. Should he stray from it, he will be punished.”

  The ninetales had obviously been relaying her thoughts to the human as well, since he shook fearfully and nodded his head. I leaped down as he slumped next to a tree, emotionally and physically exhausted. Hesitant pokemon approached, bearing berries, and his stomach growled loudly, first startling his would-be jailors and then causing them to laugh. I stretched a little, then went to explore the limits of the clearing, watching with some amusement as some young pokemon — all probably hatched very recently — went to examine the human. They were all cautiously waddling up to him, sniffing his feet with some interest, gingerly clambering up his body to peer into his wide eyes. Their parents looked on with worried, sharp eyes, but let them otherwise be. Ninetales was protecting them, and their enemy was at their mercy.

  I almost felt sorry for the boy, but quite frankly the naked terror on his face had me barking in laughter. He wasn’t just scared of the older pokemon watching him like a staraptor, he was rigid from the attentions of the young ones too. A riolu, a chikorita and a zigzagoon played hide-and-seek over his legs whilst a starly examined his hair with great interest, and a plusle and minun tried to spot each other through his obviously empty head. Eventually, I decided to give him some respite, returning to call to the kits, cubs, chicks and other little ones, to tell them a bit of a story.

  “Where I come from,” I began, my voice causing the attacking horde to turn as one in my direction, “humans and pokemon work together. I’ve seen the worst of humanity, here and now, many if not all of you have. So let me tell you about the best.” I had them. All eyes were on me. It felt strange to be the center of attention like this, but oddly good. Haltingly, I continued. “Where I come from, when a human comes of age, we pokemon are given to them. Not to lord over us, but to love us. We are a part of their families, their lives. They feed us, house us, care for us. When we are sick, they cure us. When we are hurt, they heal us. They build their cities all the same, with buildings taller than trees, that glisten in the sun like crystal, but they build them for us as much as for them.”

  The topic of ‘nice humans’ seemed a tad stale to the youngsters, so I took a different tack. “When I’m hungry, my trainer feeds me. Bulbasaur, that poffin you ate?” I called out to the bulbasaur I’d seen; he was hanging around to see if I did anything interesting, or more likely had anything interesting.

  “Yeah?” he answered cautiously..

  “How good was it?”

  The bulbasaur looked at the ground thoughtfully for a moment, before he raised his gaze to meet mine. “It was the best thing I’ve ever tasted.” He almost had tears in his eyes. It was cruel of me, seeing how hungry some of the pokemon here were, but stories about food worked.

  “Where I come from, you can eat so many of them that you can get sick! Humans make them, and buy them for you. They even make them just for pokemon like you and me. My trainer will go out of his way to find my favorite type—”

  “There are more flavors?” came Bulbasaur’s shocked voice.

  “More than you can count,” I replied earnestly. “Those berries you forage? Humans will cultivate them. They grow bigger, more plentiful, more tasty, and they will do it just for you.”

  “And what do they want in return? There is never something for nothing,” objected the ninetales, even the ancient pokemon was listening now.

  “Sometimes it’s just that we’re there, that we care for them. For others, like myself… we fight. In front of hundreds, thousands, even perhaps millions of humans. But we don’t fight to the death, or out of anger, we fight for sport, until defeat or victory. And after we fight, they have machines that heal us, and they proclaim the best of us champions, not just of our towns or cities but of the entire world. It’s…” I paused. Again, Chompy came to mind. Finally, I understood her simple message. “It’s a pact, between humans and pokemon, that goes back to before our recorded history. For those of us who fight, we choose whether to allow a human to take us for their own. If they do not live up to our standards, then we leave and we don’t look back.”

  I was silent, looking around the now silent clearing until the assorted pokemon watching me realized I was done. Some seemed stunned, others dismissive.

  “And you think you are here to bring this pact to those humans?” the ninetales asked finally, flaring her tails and her power. I shook my head.

  “No, sadly. I wish I could, but it ‘s too early. I have something more to tell you about humans, but if I tell you, it will change you. It will change everything, more even than my stories of my world. Even now, I don’t know if I should. It’s just… I think that's maybe why I’m here. I need to tell you this, even if it is to one day make sure that my world can happen, so that I can get back to it.”

  “Then you truly are from the future? This other world, it is our tomorrow?”

  I nodded, sadly. I wasn’t sure, I still wasn’t sure, but I thought I had something figured out. Either way, I was to choose my next words very, very carefully.

  “Go on then,” I was prompted by her, softly.

  After a pregnant pause, I led the older pokemon away from the little ones. The ninetales had either been translating for Petri or he’d lost his fear. He was still watched, but the young ones played with him now, and he with them, a small smile growing on his face. I tore my gaze away from their shared innocence and returned my attention to the terrible crime I was about to commit.

  “Bulbasaur, if Charmander there had something you wanted, and he didn’t share it, would you try to take it? If you really, really wanted it?”

  “Umm, I guess? I mean he’s my friend—”

  “If he wasn’t, you’d fight him for it, right? And he’d fight you back, right? But if whatever it was, was lost or broken, the fight would be over, right? You might clash over things, but you’d leave each other alone, right?”

  Bulbasaur and Charmander nodded, confused.

  “Humans… do things differently. They fight, but they don’t always stop. Not easily, and sometimes not at all, until there is nobody on the other side to fight back. And then after that, they’ll fight amongst each other, those who are left, over something else. The humans here aren’t fighting you like you might fight for…” I searched for something to anchor what I was trying to say, “for your favorite tree to sleep in, or that berry you want. Humans are fighting you to kill you. All of you. And they absolutely won’t stop until it is done. They call it war. War is a fight that doesn’t stop. Not easily, and maybe not ever in this case, not until there are no more humans or no more pokemon.”

  I looked down at the ground as the pokemon around me stared, confused, murmuring amongst each other. I closed my eyes, breathing deeply. I had to make them understand.

  “The humans, they will kill all the pokemon they can find, until there are none left because they tell each other that you are the cause of their misfortune. When that doesn’t work to make them happy, they will kill each other to decide who gets what’s left and then they’ll leave and go to another town or city and kill anyone there they need to until they can start killing pokemon again.”

  I could see, as I looked around the clearing, that they were starting to understand, even if they didn’t quite believe.

  “They will do this again and again and again until there are no more pokemon, or until there are no more humans. They do it because they are petty, greedy and scared. Humans are the most amazing creatures; Xerneas is the lord of life, Ho-oh can resurrect the dead. Kyogre rules the sea, Groudon the land. Humans can do none of that. They are weak, without powers, but they can see how they want the world to be and then they can change the world to fit in a way few pokemon can, save the Legendaries. In a thousand, or in ten thousand, years Xerneas will still be granting eternal life if he chooses, but humans will be looking to the stars, discovering other planets, or resurrecting the great beasts of years so long past that I don’t know if you know of them! They will shape and mold this world and give it the voice that we pokemon just cannot do. But for that to happen, they need to re-learn that they are a part of this world, and that this world will not stand for them to abuse it. And for that, I need to teach you about humanity. I need to teach you to about their wars, so you can do what is necessary to make peace.”

  The ninetales was silent for a long time, digesting my words. They had all come out at once, a lecture I hadn’t intended, but it seemed they’d worked.

  “You say you are nothing but an eevee, little one. In truth, though I still have reasons to doubt your story, I see you are a messenger of the gods. Such a great task to fall upon such a small body.“

  I chuckled darkly. “It’s alright, I have my friends with me. With my friends, we can do anything. We can even level an entire city if we need to. I just wish we didn’t.”

  “An entire city? The entire human city?”

  I took a deep breath. I wasn’t just an eevee. I was a messenger of the gods. I was a deputy ranger. I should bloody well act like one.

  “Yes. When humans make war, they won’t stop until they can’t fight. We need to crush their will to fight. We will take no prisoners, give no quarter, brook no opposition. We must utterly destroy them so completely that they throw themselves upon our mercy. Anything less and the lesson will not be learned.”

  The ninetales was shocked at how dispassionately I described the task ahead. “You say it with such… ease.”

  I took another deep breath, then let it out, having come to a decision.

  “It’s not easy, believe me, but I told you; what I tell you here and now will change things for everyone, forever. Once you’ve tasted war, it stays with you. What I teach, it won’t be forgotten. This is the day everything changes between pokemon and humans. This day itself will fade into history and both it and me will be forgotten, maybe even you will too, but what I teach will change the world. I wish it didn’t need to happen, but it does. If it doesn’t, it means the end for either humans, or pokemon. And then I could never go home, because my home will never have existed.”