"Shit, someone's camping us—"
Reiji was still stunned as he fell. He had already made it all the way to Lake of Life, so why was someone attacking him here? Was his luck really that bad?
There was a Pokémon hunter in this area, sure, but that guy should be an old man by now, and his target was Celebi. Why would he come after Reiji? Reiji did not even have Celebi.
He crashed into the forest and pushed himself up from the ground. Luckily, Pelipper had not taken a direct hit. The blast had only knocked them away. The tree canopy broke their fall, and Gengar's Psychic had caught them before they hit the ground.
Thud. Thud. Thud.
Reiji had barely gotten to his feet when the ground began to shake. The trees ahead were forced apart, and a huge, vicious shape stepped out from the forest.
For one second, it looked like Godzilla.
No. Not Godzilla.
A Tyranitar, covered in spikes and green armor.
"Shit, why is it this monster?" Reiji backed away, eyes wide. Then he saw the man walking out behind it.
The man stepped out behind it in red Rocket armor and a dusty yellow mask, that mohawk and thin mustache making him instantly recognizable.
Vicious.
"Well, well. Didn't expect to see you here." Vicious laughed, his smile twisting. "You walked right into my hands in a place this remote. Looks like luck is on my side today."
He had wanted to tear Reiji apart for a long time.
Because of Reiji, he had failed to capture Latias. Giovanni had chewed him out for it, and he had lost a group of his most loyal subordinates. Now he was an executive in name only, holding a top-rank title with no one left under him.
"Vicious… why are you here?" Reiji kept backing up.
This was wrong. This was way too early. Ash was still in the Orange Archipelago. Vicious should not be here yet.
"I came to catch Celebi. Strange place for me to be?" Vicious stared at his panicked prey, already thinking about how to break him. Giovanni would be pleased. They had finally caught this brat.
"But what about you? Why are you here?" Vicious's grin widened. "I heard you killed one of our Elite Four-tier Trainers at Mt. Silver. You're improving fast. Give it a little more time, and maybe even I wouldn't be able to handle you."
This is bad. This is bad. This is bad.
Those words were the only thing running through Reiji's head. His eyes flicked around the forest. They were still deep in the old-growth woods.
Running into Vicious here was the worst kind of accident. Now there was only 1 thing to do.
Run. As fast as possible.
"Pelipper, move!"
Reiji threw himself onto Pelipper's back. Pelipper had just lifted off when Tyranitar attacked. A swarm of rocks ripped out of the ground and shot toward them.
The boulders chased Pelipper like cannonballs, forcing it to dodge instead of gaining speed.
Fortunately, Gengar was there to cover them. It deflected the rocks one after another. Some smashed into tree trunks, blowing them apart on impact.
"You think you can run, brat?" Vicious had finally found him. There was no way he would let him escape.
Weavile and Scizor were already waiting ahead, cutting off the route.
"Damn it. Scyther, Poliwrath!"
Reiji was on Pelipper's back. Gengar was blocking the rocks from behind, so the front had to go to Scyther and Poliwrath.
The moment they came out of their Poké Balls, they rushed Weavile and Scizor at full speed.
Then they came flying back just as fast.
Both Vicious's Scizor and Weavile were Elite Four-tier Pokémon. One-on-one, Scyther and Poliwrath had no chance.
Poliwrath had the x4 advantage against Weavile and managed to knock it back, but Poliwrath was sent flying too and blacked out on the spot.
Protect kept it from being badly hurt. It had simply pushed itself to full power again, then burned out. Gengar caught it with Psychic, and Reiji recalled it.
Scyther had it much worse.
Against its own evolved form, it could not gain even the slightest edge. Scizor smashed it away, then kept moving without pause, its red pincer aimed straight at Reiji.
At that same moment, heat surged from behind.
Reiji only had time to recall Scyther. There was no dodging the attack. A huge beam of destructive light swallowed them whole.
"Tyranitar, Hyper Beam," Vicious said, watching Reiji's terror with a grin. "Survive this first, brat. Let's see how long that hidden dark Pokémon of yours can keep hiding."
"Bii!"
Celebi had been following Reiji, curious about where he was going. When it saw him in danger, it rushed out without thinking, throwing itself between Reiji and the attack so fast that even Suicune could not react.
Scizor blocked the way ahead. Tyranitar's Hyper Beam came from behind.
Reiji saw a flash of green.
Then white light consumed everything.
His only hope was that Gengar could hold the Hyper Beam back. If it could not, they would be vaporized.
"Celebi?" Vicious saw everything from outside the blast. At the last second, Celebi had flown in front of Reiji and erupted with dazzling green light.
Then the explosion hit.
Boom.
A mushroom cloud rose from the forest. Nearby trees vanished in the blast, and dust climbed kilometers into the air. Birds and wild Pokémon scattered in every direction. That was an Elite Four-tier Hyper Beam.
When the beam faded, Scizor stood in the smoke. It had used Protect to withstand the explosion. All that remained at the center was a crater 100 meters wide.
Vicious did not believe for a second that Reiji was dead.
That was Celebi, the Mythical Pokémon of time. It must have saved him at the last moment.
"Search the forest," Vicious ordered. "They're still here somewhere. Dead or alive..."
…
Forest.
Sunlight.
Grass, leaves, and the smell of damp earth.
When Reiji woke up, Pelipper was lying beside him, and a small green Pokémon was curled in his arms.
Only then did he finally see what it was.
Celebi.
"bii…" It let out a weak cry, exhausted from the time jump, then fell asleep.
"Celebi, did you save me?" Reiji held it carefully and recalled it into a Heal Ball. As long as they could reach Lake of Life, Celebi should recover.
Only then did he look around.
He was near the edge of a large crater. There was water collected inside it, and the area around it was overgrown with weeds. The forest here looked dense and healthy.
He clearly remembered being trapped by Tyranitar's Hyper Beam. Gengar had been his only defense, and then Celebi had saved him. Yet when he woke up, he was here.
This place did not look like it had just been hit by Hyper Beam.
Was it teleportation?
Or time travel?
If it was teleportation, where was he now?
If it was time travel, had he gone to the past or the future?
If this was a parallel world, then everyone he knew might be gone. If it was the future, then there should be 2 versions of him here.
Wait.
2 versions of him?
For someone who had already transmigrated once, that actually sounded kind of interesting.
Heh.
"Gengar? You there?" Reiji looked down at his shadow.
At the last moment, he had only managed to recall Scyther. He had not had time to recall Pelipper or Gengar. He had no idea whether they had come with him.
"Gar." Gengar rose out of his shadow and scratched its head, just as confused as he was. One blink, and they were here.
Reiji had been unconscious, so Gengar had done only the basics: kept watch, moved him to dry ground, and stayed alert in case Tyranitar was still nearby.
"Good. At least you're here." Reiji let out a breath and recalled Pelipper. It was in no shape to fly, so he released Pidgeot instead and had it scout the area for people or a village.
"Pidge! Pidgeot!" Pidgeot heard the order and took off at once, climbing high above the forest.
Reiji sat in the shade and took out Celebi's Poké Ball. The priority was figuring out where he was. Only then could he decide what to do next.
While waiting for Pidgeot, he took a look at Celebi's panel. It was a Mythical Pokémon's panel. Even if he could not do anything with it, it was worth seeing once.
[Celebi]
[Type: Psychic + Grass]
[Gender: None]
[Potential: ???]
[Level: 79.99%]
[Ability: Natural Cure/79.99%]
"Wow. That was almost useless." Reiji glanced over Celebi's proficiency panel, then closed it.
Celebi's potential was unknown. Its level was almost Champion tier, and it had plenty of moves. The only problem was that its energy reserves were low.
Then again, time travel probably burned through a huge amount of energy. It made sense for Celebi to be drained. Back when Reiji watched the anime in his previous life, Celebi always seemed to tire out easily and often needed to recover in Lake of Life.
He had not wanted to look for Celebi in the first place, but he still ended up dragging it into things and taking a trip through time.
A transmigrator time-traveling on top of that?
Come on. No recursive nonsense.
"Pidgeot! Pidgeot!"
While Reiji was thinking, Pidgeot returned and landed on a branch. It had found a human village.
"Take me there."
Reiji climbed onto Pidgeot, and they flew toward the village.
The moment he saw the rows of tree houses, his whole body went numb.
He knew where he was.
Still in Celebi's forest.
This was Arborville, the village he had left just that morning.
As soon as he landed near the forest entrance, Mr. White, Diana, and Towa—the old woman who had said goodbye to him that morning—came out to greet him.
"Hey, Rai, it's you!" Mr. White laughed as he came down the stairs. "Back again? It's been years, but you haven't changed at all."
"Mr. White…" Reiji had no idea what to say.
The moment he heard "years," he knew he was in serious trouble.
What if he could not get back?
"Hi, Rai! What brings you here?" Diana had not noticed anything wrong yet. "We were just watching your Champion challenge match."
Who would have thought that the passing Trainer from years ago would become a Champion-level Trainer, then show up in Arborville again looking exactly the same?
Only Towa noticed something off. She had seen Ash and Professor Oak's time-travel incident before. One look at Reiji's blank expression and strained smile, and she understood.
This Reiji was not the Reiji from their time.
"Young man," Towa said as she followed Diana down the stairs, "you're not him, are you?"
"You noticed, huh, ma'am?" Reiji smiled helplessly and shook his head.
He was him.
But not this world's current him.
This was not a parallel world. This was the future of the Pokémon world he had crossed into.
His own future.
"Can you tell us what happened?" Towa asked. Time-travel incidents were rare. In her whole life, she had only seen it once, when Professor Oak was pulled through time.
"Grandma, what do you mean?" Diana looked between them, confused. "What do you mean he's not him? He looks exactly the same."
"No wonder you felt so young," Mr. White said, finally catching on. "I saw you once when I was sailing around the Orange Archipelago. You looked more mature than this."
"So I really did come to the future." Reiji sighed. "Can we sit down and talk?"
The 3 of them brought him into the tree house. Diana poured him a glass of water, and Reiji explained what had happened. For them, it must have been years ago, especially if he had already become Champion.
"After I left here, Vicious shot me down on the way. I tried to escape through the forest, but he was too strong. When Tyranitar fired Hyper Beam, Celebi saved me."
"So it happened right after you left." Mr. White rubbed his chin, thinking back. "No wonder we heard an explosion that day. We didn't dare go check it ourselves, so we called Officer Jenny. She told us later it had been a Pokémon battle, and we didn't think much of it."
"Vicious?" Diana said. "Wasn't he beaten by Ash? And there was a boy named Sammy too…"
She was talking about what had happened in the Celebi movie. Reiji knew that story, of course, but he could not act like he did.
"That must be something from the future," he said, pretending to think. "Sammy… that name does sound familiar."
Of course it was familiar.
That was Professor Oak.
After seeing Ash with a Pikachu, he had gone on to prepare a Pikachu for Ash later. A neat little time loop.
As for the Celebi that took Ash through time, that made sense too. Since Celebi existed across past, present, and future, there were Celebi in every moment. It was not as if there was only one. The swarm of Celebi at the end of the movie had already proved that.
"Diana." Towa tapped her cane against the floor, warning her granddaughter not to say too much. They should not be leaking the future.
"I know, Grandma." Diana pouted. Still, this was a future Champion sitting right in front of them. What difference did it make whether they told him or not?
"Can I ask about the Champion thing?" Reiji asked.
He had never expected that his future self would become Champion. How many years from now was that?
Who was his future wife?
How did he become Champion?
Which region's Champion was he?
What were the winning lottery numbers?
Had Naoki, that hopeless simp, gotten his revenge?
How was Shun doing with Bruno?
What about Mikan Gym? Was it still there?
And Cissy and Senta? And…
There were too many things.
He wanted to know what his future self was like.
What the future world was like.
What everyone he knew would become.
[End of chapter]
[100 Power Stones = Extra Chapter]
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