Fanfiction PMD Worldforged Exile

~The Library~​

"...and that's about the last thing I remember." Vanilla said as his tale wound down to its end.

Reiga was silent for a moment while she processed his story. "An interesting tale to say the least." She admitted. "Though I must say I am surprised that you were able to pull off a mega-evolution."

Vanilla had originally planned on omitting that portion of his battle with Absolution, but it suddenly dawned on him that the Lucario was likely one of the few Pokémon he could trust with the information. "So that's what that was called? A mega-evolution?"

"Yes. Though uncommon in the human world, a temporary power increase can be accomplished if a relationship between a Pokémon and their trainer is strong enough. Granted, I've never heard of it being done without a trainer's influence." Reiga acknowledged. "You two have grown quite close."

Trying to ignore the heat emanating from his cheeks, Vanilla pressed on. "What about the stone? Was it anything like you thought it would be? Can we use that information to help Chocola?"

"Perhaps. While I don't know if your mystery stone and the one that's been described to me are the same, by your description, they do sound very similar."

"What are they?" the eevee inquired. "What do they have to do with her 'Family Curse'?

"Zaho called them Dimensional Pillars. The how's and what's of their makeup remains unknown for the most part, but what I do know is that something like this has happened before, to Chocola's mother, Zeri." Reiga paused. "Has she told you anything about her mother?"

"No. Not really." Vanilla admitted.

"Hmm..." the lucario thought to herself for a moment. "I see."

"See? About what?"

"I don't want to alarm you, but you should know that when Zeri came into contact with her Pillar, it eventually led to her death." Reiga stated. There a great degree of sadness in her voice, and maybe a tiny amount of regret.

As concerned as he was about his friend, he couldn't ignore the emotions coursing through the Pokémon in front of him. "Miss Reiga, what's wrong."

"N-nothing. Nothing you need to worry about, little one." Reiga said as she gave him a reassuring smile. The eevee didn't look convinced. In truth, she did feel responsible for Zeri's death. At least partially. Had she never fell into Exile, Zeri may have survived. Sure it was likely a coincidence, but the timing between her arrival and the zoroark's unfortunate end were too close to not have some influence with each other. "Rest assured, Vanilla. We will do everything we can to help Chocola.

That seemed to settle him down a bit. "Miss Reiga, may I ask you a question?"

"Certainly."

"I've been wondering this for a while now, but how did you manage to get involved in all of this?"

Reiga mentally slapped herself for forgetting how perceptive the little eevee was. "Well, after I came to Exile, I had little to do but wander around. Zaho was the one that approached me, asking all sorts of questions. I did my best to answer, but it was only later that I learned about the reason for his visit. He thought that my being here might have had something to do what had happened with his poor Zeri. It didn't, to my knowledge, but I felt that it was my duty to help Zaho in any case." She answered, being careful to leave out that she now believed otherwise, that her being here might actually have had a direct influence on those events, whether she liked it or not. "And after hearing how he was left to care for a cub all by himself? Let's just say that I was happy to have had something to do with the inordinate amount of free time I found myself with. I've been with them ever since."

Satisfied, at least for the moment, with Reiga's answers. Vanilla began tugging on his bandages unconsciously. Noticing this, the lucario stopped the cart.

"How are you holding up?" She asked.

"Um, okay I suppose." He stated before holding up his wrapped foreleg, "Maybe a little itchy is all."

Reiga took his paw and started carefully unwrapping the bandage. "Let's get a good look at you then."

"I didn't think I sprained it that badly..."

The lucario was shocked for a moment. Did he really not know? "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Vanilla, but this was no sprain. According to the chansey we brought you too, you managed to break your foreleg at some point. By your account, it was likely during that fall."

Vanilla visibly winced, but Reiga had been ready for it, gripping his leg firmly enough to prevent movement. There was no sense in letting the eevee re-injure himself.

"Just be thankful you aren't human." Reiga teased. "A tiny fracture like this would take nearly half a season to heal! Luckily for you, we were still able to bring you to a healing-capable Pokémon before too long, so all you need now is a few more days of rest." The lucario finished with a smile, doing her best to ignore the images that were currently intruding upon her mind. It would be impossible to miss the crimson trail the eevee had left as he crossed the living room that fateful night. She'd need to find time to scrub that down before he, or Chocola, could return to the house. "There we go, all done."

Staring at the little bit of paw that stuck out from the bandage, Vanilla could hardly believe that he'd broken anything. "I suppose that means I should thank you then, miss Reiga!"

Satisfied that her work was done for the moment, Reiga returned to her position at the head of the cart. "Just be sure to stay off of it for a while. Doctor's orders."

"Yes ma'am." Vanilla acknowledged. "Oh, and when we get back, can you introduce me to the chansey that healed me? I want to thank her as well!"

"That can be arranged." Reiga noted.

The rest of the trip was completed in near silence, the two Pokémon left alone with their thoughts. Thankfully, the quiet only lasted until later that afternoon.

"Looks like we're just about there." Reiga said as she pointed out the destination ahead.

"A house?" the eevee questioned, his head tilted. This whole trip seemed a little extravagant for their destination to seem so, well, ordinary.

"That, little one, is no mere house." Reiga laughed. "That is the Alm Du Athenaeum."

Vanilla had heard that term before. It was a project that the Grass-type Chair, Leyf the leafeon, was rather fond of, and was often campaigning in order to obtain extra funding for; The ancient building in front of them was home to Exile's one, and only, library.

 

~Firefox Family~​

As the library grew larger with the decreasing distance, Vanilla could tell that, at least from the outside, the building was more of a large shack than a place to store old books. That wasn't the only thing he was able to see, either.

"Is that Clementine? What's he doing all the way out here?" Vanilla asked after he spotted the vulpix. "I guess Chocola was right, he really does get around."

Reiga winced. What had that zorua been teaching him? "I recommend not repeating anything Chocola may have said about Clementine while we're here."

"Why not?"

"Because she likes to say things that have double meanings and as such using those sayings can lead to confusion. That, and I'm fairly certain that Clementine is actually related to the Pokémon that run the Athenaeum." The lucario replied, doing her best to skirt the real issue with what he had said.

"Oh." Vanilla acknowledged. He wasn't sure what Clementine's visiting of relatives had to do with anything, but he would be on his best behavior if it meant meeting new Pokémon. "Okay!"

Breathing a sigh of relief, Reiga pulled the cart near the building. If they ever got through this ordeal, she was really going to have to sit Chocola down for a face-to-face chat.

Though still wondering why the orange fox was in the area, Vanilla wasted no time in shouting out to his acquaintance. "Clementine! It's been a while!"

"Oh? Vanilla? Then that must mean that my dear Chocola is near, yes?" Clementine asked inquisitively as he skirted closer to the cart.

The eevee's ears drooped at that, but Reiga stepped in before it could go any further. "I'm afraid she's staying with Zaho for the time being, Clementine."

"I suppose I will just have to bear with the sorrow of her missed presence if it means that she can be happy in the company of her doting father." Clementine stated with a dramatic flair. "Although, today has not been a total loss, Miss Reiga, if it means I can bask in your beauty..." Clementine knew better than to use his routine against the fair lucario, but he couldn't help himself.

Ignoring the little vulpix's approach, Reiga continued. "We're here to see the the librarians, are they busy?"

"I'm afraid only Pumpkin is available at the moment, dear Reiga. Shall I escort you inside?"

"That'll be great, Clementine, thanks." Reiga said before turning to her passenger and catching him before he could hop out of the cart.

"Reiga!?" Vanilla said, a little shocked at suddenly being suspended in the air.

The lucario just raised an eyebrow. "What did we say about taking it easy, little one. Your leg still needs time to heal."

"Oh, right." The eevee replied sheepishly. "I can still walk, though. Right?"

"Afraid not, Vanilla." Reiga said before pulling him into a more comfortable position, being careful to avoid impaling the fox on her chest spike. "You'll just have to bear with it until tomorrow." She finished before carrying him inside.

Once they had entered, Vanilla realized that the outside of the building was nothing like the interior. Shelves took up almost every available inch of floorspace in, what seemed to be to him, an almost haphazard fashion. Row upon row of scrolls, tablets, and simply-bound books filled the shelves. There were even boards stretching between the various levels of the bookcases, acting as makeshift bridges, ramps, and additional storage space for the various documents that hadn't found a space on the shelves proper.

Even with all of the impromptu shelving, every spare length of flooring that wasn't being used as a thoroughfare had its own towering stack of books to support. The only connection he could make with a place that called itself a library was the smell. The old musty smell was to be had wherever a collection of papery-documents were amassed, and a few of the Council offices had acquired the scent all on their own.

"Pumpkin?" Their guide asked of someone unseen as he rounded a corner.

"What do you want, Clementine? I'm busy."

"Dear cousin, I only wanted to inform you that you have guests."

Reiga entered the little room with Vanilla held close. An office of sorts came into view, lit almost entirely by candlelight, it suffered from the same level of disorder as the rest of the building.

"I'm Reiga, and this is Vanilla." The lucario said as an introduction. "Zaho sent us."

"Oh?" Replied the vixen as she readjusted her almost comically large spectacles so that they sat high up on her tiny nose. "We haven't heard from Zaho in ages. What can we help him, or you, rather, with?"

Thinking about it for a moment, Reiga moved to one of the cushions that sat opposite of the little table that served as Pumpkin's desk. "For starters, I'd like to bring Vanilla up to speed with Exile's origin and Tutaxeclan's work. I'd do it myself, but time is becoming an issue. While you're doing that, I have a list of things that Zaho wants me to go over." She stated before handing the fennekin a wooden tablet from her bag. "Will these work?"

"Let's see. Yep, got that one. Those two are pretty dull, so they're probably still in the archive. Oh-? This one's still checked out to Councilmon Leyf, sorry. The last one's kind of unique, though. I can't let it out of the library."

"I guess I'll take what I can get. We'll have to get a hold of Mister Leyf at some point, but is there any way we can copy what we need from that last one?" Reiga asked.

"Well..." Pumpkin started as she thought about it. "I suppose that's possible. Hey, Honey Crisp!" She called out.

Another fennekin poked her head into the office. "Yeah, sis?"

Passing the list off to her sibling, Pumpkin delegated her orders. "Take Miss Reiga to pick up these three. She'll need some blank slates and a charcoal to copy down the stuff from the last item, though."

"Wait, I don't know where Chi's Guide to All Things Energy is located." the younger sibling stated as she mentally tallied the list.

Pumpkin sighed before delivering a complex set of coordinates composed of letters, numbers, and what Vanilla was certain was some form of unpronounceable geometry.

Whatever she said seemed to have worked, because Honey Crisp's eyes lit up with recognition. "Oh, right. Got it. Anything else?"

"Just stay where Reiga can get a hold of you while she works." Pumpkin stated simply. "Oh, and find Citrus. I'm sure our guests would like something to drink."

"Yes ma'am!" the little fennekin saluted before leading Reiga off into the depths of the scholarly labyrinth.

That order of business out of the way, Pumpkin got up and retrieved a scroll from the shelf on the nearest wall.

"You're pretty lucky, Vanilla." Clementine whispered as he gestured towards his cousin's scroll. "There aren't many lucky enough to learn of Exile's origin from Pumpkin herself."

"Cousin, you do realize that I can still hear you, right?" the vixen stated flatly as she unfurled the parchment. "He's not wrong, though. Exile's origin is considered more myth than fact these days. But once we get through my research, you'll see the truth for yourself..."

 

~Origins of Exile~​

"Before we get started," Pumpkin began, "How much do you know about how Exile came to be?"

Of course Vanilla had heard of the old stories, everyone had. "Well. Back when Exile was part of the human world, a powerful Pokémon called Giratina saw fit to separate Exile from the rest of the world. He erected the barrier that keeps our world separated from everything else, right?"

"Well, I suppose that means that you paid attention to your bed-time stories..." the vixen observed as she readjusted her glasses. "But you're still mostly wrong!"

"What?! How?" Vanilla retorted, seeing as how he got most of the details right.

Pumpkin laughed a bit before continuing. "Don't take it the wrong way, but it's the old tales that are wrong and not your recollection of them. Well, most of them anyway. Giratina was the Pokémon responsible for making Exile what it is today, but the hows and whys aren't so blase, or even benevolent, as they appear in some renditions." Unrolling the scroll revealed that it wasn't a single piece of parchment, but that other sheaves of paper appeared to be tucked away within. The fennekin continued her tale as the scroll continued to unfurl. "I've been looking through all of the oldest historical records, partially at the behest of Zaho, but also to sate my own curiosity. Do you know what I found?"

Before Vanilla could reply that there was no way he could possibly have divined her discovery, he was relieved of the duty. Abruptly.

"I found out the true reason that Giratina split our world from the real world!" Pumpkin continued excitedly. "A few years ago there was an earthquake similar to the one we had a few days ago. And unlike here, where we spent most of the next few days re-shelving books, the Pokémon near Loamwood found a stone foundation that had been uncovered by a small rock slide. Stonework that still had tool-marks, as if it was made by humans! Of course, it's been centuries since any humans have been to Exile, but according to a tablet piece found at the ruin, at least one of them was stuck on the island when Giratina made his move."

The next item revealed by the scroll was a charcoal rubbing of the tablet in question. "Of course, we're still having trouble reading human language, they don't exactly write the same way most Pokémon would, but it looks like the tablet was a record of the event. From what we can tell directly, there were two other Pokémon locked in combat that was so bad that the world itself was nearly destroyed due to the collateral damage alone. The record doesn't say exactly what the damage was, but it does say that it was enough to angered Giratina greatly. There's also some theories written down about the makeup of the barrier, but I believe that only one of them is remotely correct."

Vanilla found himself struggling to follow along. Had Clementine been teasing him about being lucky earlier? There was no way he would have guessed a Pokémon could be so enthusiastic about a single, ancient subject.

Luckily, an interruption in the form of a braixen appeared. The tray he carried was filled with cups of sweet-smelling tea, and a simple cake that had been cut into thirds, which he placed onto individual plates. After each of the seated foxes had their snacks placed in front of them, Vanilla realized how hungry he was. How long had it been since he last eaten anything?

His hunger, however, did not supersede his manners. "Thank you, um, Citrus was it?"

Instead of answering, the braixen simply made a curt bow before leaving the room.

For some reason, Citrus's actions seemed a tiny bit out of place, but Pumpkin didn't give him time to dwell on it. Wasting no time, she jumping right back into her explanation. "Anyway, Exile's barrier isn't really a barrier at all. There's evidence that Giratina can manipulate his own dimension, the mirror world. I believe that Exile exists in a state similar to that. Which is to say, that Exile exists within its own dimension!"

"But wait," Vanilla interrupted, suddenly remembering something that didn't quite add up. "Then what about Riega? If there is no barrier, and we are living in another existence entirely, then how did she end up here?"

"Ah! That's just it, nobody knows! Even so, we can see the direct effects." The next item was a crude painting of a very familiar looking stone pillar. "These are called Dimensional Pillars. They're made of some sort of weird stone that isn't affected by a rock-type Pokémon's attacks and cannot be moved. If you're working with Zaho, you'll run into one of these eventually, I'm sure. He's obsessed with the things. Anyway, soon after Reiga arrived, one of the last remaining pillars, specifically the one near Jocundale, is said to have vanished. Around the same time, Zaho's wife apparently vanished too! Though, I suppose he doesn't mention it much. Granted, while I'll admit that my correlation does not equal causation, I do believe that these events are connected in some way."

The more Vanilla thought about it, the more it made sense. At least it would explain Reiga's actions in a bit more clarity. For starters anyway, it would explain why she feels responsible for Chocola's care.

"But wait, let me get this straight. Two powerful Pokémon were fighting and Giratina stopped them."

"Correct."

"And to do so, he built a tiny dimension."

"Yes. Most likely using the Dimensional Pillars as some sort of anchor points."

"Then where are the two Pokémon he stopped?"

"That, Vanilla, is an excellent question..." Pumpkin said with a smile. "But before I can tell you the answer to it, I need Tutaxeclan's Anthology." Turning back towards her bookshelf, she suddenly found that the volume in question was missing. "Shoot, one of the others must have grabbed it. Citrus!" She shouted for the nearby braixen.

Poking his head inside, Pumpkin just pointed to the hole where the Anthology was supposed to be sitting.

Citrus wordlessly shrugged his ignorance as to the book's location.

"Argh! Fine. You two wait a moment. I have to hunt down a book..." Pumpkin informed the two before she stormed off into the annals of the library.

~Catching up With Clementine~​

Left alone with the vulpix, Vanilla found the silence to be a bit awkward. "Um, so Clementine, how have you been? The last time I saw you we were on the Everpeak."

"I've been well, I suppose. Nothing compared to the adventure you've been through, I hear. Provided the rumors are true, that is." Clementine raised an eyebrow. "I can't imagine what it must be like for you to be separated after going through all of that."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, for starters, you two were practically acting as each other's shadows earlier. I mean, I always knew that Chocola had a thing for danger, but to traipse around the Capital with the son of a then-former council member to out coup a coup? That's a level of dedication that goes a little beyond mere friendship, my friend." The vulpix suggested while moving his eyebrows up and down. "So, the only reason I can think of as to why she isn't here, now, with you, is that you're going through a bit of a rough patch."

"No! You've got it all wrong!" Vanilla attempted to deny. "It's not like that..." 'Right?' he thought to himself.

Clementine smirked. "Well as far as Chocola is concerned, you're already delving far into unmarked territory, and for you especially, I'd say that goes double. But, as a fellow gentlefox, I'll give you any tips and pointers you could want in dealing with the fairest zorua. All you have to do is ask."

"I-I'll keep that in mind." The eevee said as he tried to calm down his blush. Eager to change the topic of conversation, Vanilla continued. "S-so, um, how did Pumpkin get the job of running this place instead of that braixen?

"What? Why would Citrus be running the library? Pumpkin is the oldest sibling." Clementine stated.

"Oh, I just thought that, because he had evolved, he was older. It's usually the eldest that gets to evolve first."

"Ah, yeah. I can see why you'd think that. Normally that'd be the case, but Pumpkin decided to give Citrus her chance to evolve."

"They had a Fire Stone?"

"Nope." Clementine stated as he stared at his now-empty cup. "Fire Evolution Ceremony held in Convocity. Pumpkin was pretty excited for it, but that was before Citrus started getting sick. Long story short, evolution was the only way to help him, and she ended up giving her spot to her brother."

"Ah, because evolution makes a Pokémon stronger." Vanilla surmised

"Yeah. Citrus hasn't managed to speak a single word since then, but he still tries to help out as best he can." The vulpix admitted. "So, while their parents are away, I like to make the trip out her and help lend a paw."

That kind of came as a surprise to Vanilla. If Chocola was to be believed, the vulpix was incapable of a selfless act.

"What's so funny?" Clementine said, feeling a little insulted after he noticed the smile spread across Vanilla's face.

"Oh, sorry. It's just that, if you spent more time doing things like this, I think Chocola would have a better opinion of you."

The vulpix didn't quite know how to respond to that. But before he could think of a retort, Pumpkin returned with an ancient tome balanced along her back.

 

~Xatu's Prophecy~



"Sorry about the wait. This little beauty seems to have found its way into the archive..." Pumpkin said as she glared towards the door at no Pokémon in particular. Gently dropping the book onto the table, a cloud of dust puffed into existence before dispersing. Clearing her throat, the vixen continued. "I present to you Tutaxeclan's Anthology!"

"Who was this Tutaxeclan fellow, and how are they involved with the formation of Exile?" Vanilla asked. He was fairly certain that the name was quite odd, even for Pokémon standards. "Was that one of the two Pokémon who had been fighting fighting?"

"Not quite. But that doesn't mean that Tutaxeclan wasn't a bit of a mystery, to be honest." The fennekin answered. "We know that he was a Xatu, and that he was alive sometime before Exile came to be. These," Pumpkin gestured to the old pages in front of her, "are a collection of his known prophecies."

Vanilla glanced at the open book and noticed something that didn't quite add up. "Wait, you said he lived before Exile existed, but this is written in pokescratch. That kind of writing wasn't devised until after the council was formed."

Pokescratch was a form of writing that involved glyphs that could be written and read by the majority of Pokémon species on Exile. The First Council had decided that a common means of communication was necessary in order to bring a sense of fellowship to the various Pokémon types. There were still a few species that were unable to write the language down on their own, but almost every Pokémon on Exile could read it.

"Well, duh. Back in the Xatu's day these would have been passed on verbally. We're pretty sure that we've managed to gather most of them here, but there's always the chance that some of them have been lost to time. And before you ask if they are accurate or not, I'll let you be the judge of that." Shuffling through the pages, Pumpkin singled out a single set of prophecies. "I believe that Reiga wants you to know about this one in particular."

After she rotated the volume, Vanilla began reading the passage aloud.

"Legends to clash, a world, to gash.

War has cost, an island, now lost.

Humans have left, a peace, too bereft.

Elements in stone, a pact, not alone.

Peace is built, an era, till tilt.

Peace is lost, due ambition, small cost.

Fox to roam, a place, no home.

Power to use, a mercy, to fuse.

Sky to tear, a life, does wear..."

"Now, it's sort of vague, these kind of things generally are. But as you can see, the first few lines can easily be seen as the formation of Exile, at least from an outsider's perspective. The forth and fifth lines talk about the formation of the council and the era of peace that they bring." Pumpkin continued, "Line six is where it gets interesting. Now I'm no meowth, but I'd be willing to bet that we've recently witnessed line seven with the absol's coup!"

Vanilla was decidedly less excited. It was easy to see that the next line wasn't as vague as the rest. It was referring to him. The odd look he was getting from Clementine wasn't helping.

Pumpkin, however, couldn't have known that. "There's been some speculation that the line about the fox is an obvious reference to a member of the council families, but I'm not so sure that that's the case. I mean, why wouldn't he mention them specifically? Sure he could also be talking about anyone in this room at the moment, and Reiga actually disagrees with me here, but for all she knows, she could be the fox in the prediction! Though I don't know what power the prophecy could be referring to. A new type of attack, maybe?"

"What about the last part?" Vanilla asked, eager to move on so that he could ask Reiga some questions of his own.

"We don't know. It may have something to do with the same Pokémon involved in Exiles creation, since it nearly describes a similar event in the first line. The life in question, and what exactly Tutaxeclan means when he says 'does wear' is up for interpretation. He could even be referring to the fox in previous passage. Without additional lines, we start losing context."

Flipping the page, Vanilla found that the poem's cadence had changed. A different prophecy. "Wait, that's it? It doesn't say what happens after that?"

"Nope. Either it got lost over time, or the xatu made it after Exile was formed. Which is to say, that it's possible that there may be more to this prophecy after this, we just might not have access to it."

Pieces seemed to be falling into place, and the more he thought about it, the more Vanilla didn't like where the puzzle was heading.

"So what do you think? Don't these prophecies spark your imagination?" Pumpkin asked excitedly. Most Pokémon weren't interested in her work, and she was liking the thought of a captive audience.

Then it hit him. Vanilla realized the most important piece of the puzzle so far. The xatu wasn't the only one with a prediction of the future. "I've got to go! Where's Reiga?" He said as he jumped to his three good feet.

"Woah, calm down there, Vanilla. What's the matter?" Clementine asked at the eevee's sudden urgency.

All the vulpix got in return was a look of grave concern before eevee headed for the door. "I have to talk to Reiga!"

"What why?!" Pumpkin asked, not fully understanding what the commotion was about.

"I think I know what the last line was talking about..." was all Vanilla managed before he hobbled out of the room.

 

~Hurry up and Wait~​

The archive was silent save for the sound of charcoal being drawn across parchment. Thinking she was making excellent progress on copying a segment dealing with a specific form of meditation, the lucario was interrupted when she heard her name echo through the halls. "Reiga!? Reiga where are you?"

Being propped up in a corner with her selected book was hardly a place to have the discussion she was expecting, so Reiga finished the sentence she was on before answering. "I'll be there in a moment, Vanilla."

The eevee didn't wait. Following the sound of her voice, Vanilla found where Reiga had been hiding.

"Ah, so I take it you've been brought up to speed?" she asked of him.

"I don't know. With all the things I haven't been told I can't know..." Vanilla looked like he wanted to say more, but instead only found himself shuffling his feet on the floor.

"What's on your mind, Little One?"

"I-is there somewhere we can talk in private?" was all he asked.

Reiga simply checked the nearest halls and, once verifying that they were empty, returned to the archive entrance to close the door. Setting her book aside, she sat down in front of the eevee. "We should be alone now, Vanilla."

"You knew about all of this the whole time? Why didn't you tell me!?" Tears began welling up under his eyes as he continued. "I trusted you, and now I learn that, that... I don't even know what that stuff was about! What about Chocola! D-did she-"

"Chocola was unaware." Reiga cut him off. "Before we assess your feelings, there is still more that you should know..."

He wasn't sure she could trust what she said, having been kept in the dark for so long, but now? "I'm listening..." was all that he could say, his indignation clearly audible.

"Despite what Pumpkin may have told you, we do know the details of Exile's creation." Now she had his attention. "The two warring Pokémon were called Dialga and Palkia. Each a legend in their own right, they controlled the ability to manipulate time and space, respectively. We suspect that their powers interfered with each other often enough to drive the two to combat, but other than that, the details are quite scarce. We do, however, know what Giratina did to them." Vanilla raised an eyebrow betraying his curiosity, and Reiga continued "After defeating the two, he broke them apart and sealed their energy inside of the Dimensional Pillars."

"But, how does that affect what happened to Chocola...?"

"Well, after contacting the stone, she became a vessel. Based on what Zaho's discoveries, we believe that she is now in possession of a piece of Dialga's soul."

"Can we remove it?" Vanilla asked, trying his best not to get his hopes up.

"Yes, it will eventually remove itself, but without the proper training," Reiga paused for a moment, "Chocola may not be able to recover."

"No! That can't be true!"

"I'm afraid it is, Little One. We know this because the same thing happened to her mother." Reiga finished solemnly.

Vanilla was starting to connect the dots. "Her family's curse..."

"Precisely. For reasons unknown to us, the Pillars call out to her family members, though we believe it used to occur at some sort of set interval. Before my arrival, the time between soul transfers allowed for the vessels to nearly lead a full life. In doing so, they were able to train themselves to handle the soul pieces safely."

"But since you've arrived?"

Reiga sighed. "Somehow, my coming to Exile has sped up the process. We're not entirely sure how. Maybe it was caused by a weakness appearing in the dimensional barrier, no matter how brief. Or, it is because there are so few pillars left, and it is nearly time for Palkia and Dialga to awaken. We do not know. All we do know is that when Zeri returned the soul to its proper resting place, her own soul went with it."

This news hit Vanilla particularly hard. He felt as though his own heart was being ripped from his chest and he hated himself for it. "Is there nothing we can do? Please, Reiga! We can't let Chocola die!"

"And we are doing all that we can. That is why we chose to reveal all of this to you, now." Riega answered.

"But why me?"

"Before I continue, I'd like to apologize on Zaho's behalf once more. We did use you. We did it because Zaho believed that we could use you instead of his daughter for a vessel. It was selfish and wrong and there's nothing we can do to make up for that." Reiga stated. Vanilla had never thought the lucario could look more defeated than she did right now. "But, if what you told us was true, then there just might be a chance we can still save her, Vanilla."

So he had been right. They had used him. But if it was to save Chocola, he'd do it all over again. "Please, I'll do anything!"

Reiga looked at the eevee. His eagerness to help his friend, despite everything they'd intended to do to him, very nearly broke her heart. Despite her suppressing the urge to give the fox a comforting hug, she still had a job to do. "It will be dangerous."

"That doesn't matter!"

"There's a very real chance that you will die..." Reiga declared, in all seriousness. "That you may share in Chocola's fate..."

"I. Don't. Care." Vanilla declared, resolute.

"As you wish." Reiga said as she rose to her feet. "Your training begins now."

 

~Aura~​

"So, how exactly am I supposed to train if I'm still injured?" Vanilla asked as he gestured toward his bandaged paw.

"You will be fine. Unlike physical training, we're not here to gather strength. Close your eyes for a moment so I can get everything ready." Reiga instructed.

Vanilla was completely lost as to what he was supposed to accomplish here, but it wasn't as though he had anything else to do at the moment. Closing his eyes, he signaled the lucario that he had complied. With the sounds of exertion she was making soon after, he could only imagine what she was doing.

"You may open your eyes now, Vanilla."

Doing as he was instructed, Vanilla could hardly believe what he saw. "What did you do? Nothing's changed." He asked, tilting his head in confusion.

"Au contraire, Little One. You just cannot see them. Yet."

"Yet? See what?"

To answer his question, Reiga held her palms out in front of her. Concentrating, Vanilla could see the energy swirl and condense until she held a small orb of light in her left paw.

"An Aura Sphere?"

"Close." Reiga admitted, happy to now have a baseline for the eevee's knowledge of her abilities. She held the paw with the sphere closer for Vanilla to inspect. "This is a normal Aura Sphere, as you guessed correctly."

Vanilla swore that he could feel a warm energy wafting away from the calm blue light. If he didn't know how dangerous the attack could be for normal types, he could almost say that it was comforting.

Reiga held out her empty palm towards him. "This one is far less powerful. The aura is thin, and as such, it is both relatively harmless and practically invisible. Right now, there are several surrounding you at random intervals. I want you to tell me how many there are within ten paces of where you are right now." Reiga ordered with a grin. "I suggest you mark your current location before starting."

Uncertain about what all of this was supposed to be training him for, Vanilla took a cautious step forward. He was immediately on the receiving end of what felt like a punch to the nose. "Ow!"

"That's one. They may be invisible, but they are still attacks."

Still rubbing his snout, Vanilla marked the ground just in front of him with a line. Staring at the air just beyond it, he found that, even though he knew where one of the spheres was, he still couldn't see it. "How am I supposed to find these things?"

"They are made of aura. Even though they may be invisible to you, a lucario or riolu can still see them."

Skirting around the first orb, Vanilla soon felt another jolt of pain, this time through his shoulder. "Ugh! But I'm not a riolu. How am I supposed to see them!?" he asked, getting a little angry at being forced to step through a field that was filled with invisible traps.

"You're not." Reiga admitted.

"But then how-"

"This test is less about you being able to see aura, and more about learning where your own aura reaches." The lucario said simply. "Every creature, and even some plants, possess their own aura. You only need to observe how yours interacts with the aura around it."

Vanilla sat down for a moment after marking down the second orb's location. If what Reiga was saying was true, then he should be able to use his aura as a sort of sixth sense, even if he was unable to wield it as a form of attack. Taking a deep breath, Vanilla closed his eyes trying to think of a plan.

Then he realized that he'd accidentally discovered something. With his eyes closed, he could better focus on his other senses. Keeping his eyes closed, he got up and tried to reach out for an orb he already knew existed. His good paw jerked back in pain as it struck the orb, but for a split-second before he made contact, Vanilla swore that something felt different.

It was a sort of tingling sensation, very faint, almost like a static shock. The only difference was that it occurred beyond the reach of his skin, or even his fur.

Reiga looked on with a slight smile as she witnessed the enlightenment spreading across her pupil's face. The youngest riolu could, of course, complete this training blindfolded. But even a little step like this would benefit Vanilla in his task to come. She flinched in sympathy as he struck an orb with his tail.

"Remember, Vanilla, that unlike the spheres, your aura is not a solid structure. It flows around you like a thin mist. With every movement, your aura will not necessarily follow in the way you expect it." Reiga gave one final instruction as she turned to leave. "Continue until you believe you have found them all. I'll be in the archive if you need me."

And with that, Vanilla found himself alone in the field with nothing but his concentration and the Aura Spheres to keep him company.

 

~Sixth Sense~​

By the end of the third day, Vanilla thought that he'd been getting the hang of it, he just wasn't sure he'd be able to do anything with his newfound sense of personal space. Sure, he could sense when one of the Aura spheres was near, but when Reiga started moving them, the eevee quickly learned another lesson.

Just because he could sense them did not mean he could dodge them. At best, Vanilla found he could brace himself for the impact, but only just barely, and even that was up in the air if the orbs were moving too fast.

He'd managed to count thirteen of the moving spheres, or at least the extents of their paths. Starting on day two, Reiga had seen fit to alter the sphere's sizes, so Vanilla had had his paws full finding the last few tiny orbs when Reiga interrupted him.

"I think, I'm getting the hang of it, Reiga-" Vanilla announced just as one of the hidden orbs clipped his tail. "Well, almost getting it. What exactly is this training supposed to help with, anyway? I have a feeling I won't be dodging many of these..." he finished as he sidestepped out of the path of another.

"I should hope not. The purpose of this exercise was for you to learn the extent of your aura. To that end, I suppose you are about as ready as you'll ever be. You are not from a lucario lineage, after all." Reiga acknowledged before dismissing the field of Aura Spheres.

"Is something the matter?"

"Your training is over, Vanilla, at least for now."

Vanilla ran up to his teacher, still relishing the feeling of being able to move his recently unbandaged leg. "That must mean that you finished copying stuff down for Zaho..."

"Correct. I'll leave for Loamwood fairly soon, but I wanted to check up on you before I left."

Vanilla's head was tilted in confusion. "Wait, am I not going with you?" Not that staying at the library would be a bad thing, but ever since Clementine left for home, he found that he didn't share many interests with the rest of Pumpkin's family. "I can help, just let me-"

"I'm not leaving you here, Vanilla-" Reiga was interrupted by a purple flash of light in front of them.

<-Because I am here to take you off of her paws...> answered the newly-arrived mewtwo telepathically.

"Mawe?" Vanilla asked, more confused than ever. He hadn't known that Reiga and the psychic Pokémon in front of him her associates.

"Enough with the theatrics, Mawe." Reiga said, rolling her eyes. "We have a job to do."

"A job?" Vanilla asked, starting to hope that at least one of his questions would be answered before too many more popped up.

<Correct, young Eevee. Reiga is to return to Zaho and assist with his daughter. I am to take you to the last Dimensional Pillar.>

Mawe hovered nearer to Vanilla in order to pick him up, and the eevee pulled away, attempting to gulp his sudden anxiety down.

<Hesitant? Are you not prepared to do whatever it takes to save your friend?>

"N-no it isn't that..." Vanilla said hesitantly. "I'd do anything to help Chocola, and Reiga explained that I've got the best chance to act as a successful vessel. It's just that-"

"Ah, he senses your aura, Mawe." Reiga observed, suddenly regretting that she didn't have the chance to fully share the next lesson with the eevee. "It's all right, Vanilla. As massive as her aura is, it can't hurt you on its own. Just remember that there isn't anything really pressing down on you and you'll be fine."

'That was easy for her to say.' Vanilla thought. With his new senses, it felt as though he was practically suffocating.

Mawe, however, wasn't amused at Reiga's insinuation that her aura was particularly large. <Believe me, little one, if my close presence disturbs you, you are definitely not going to enjoy the alternative...>

"And that is?" Vanilla asked, not quite so sure.

<I'll be forced to grab you with Telekinesis. Furthermore, we'll be unable to teleport, so you'll be forced to endure the suspension for the entire trip.">

The eevee weighed his options. On one he only felt as though he was being crushed. On the other, Mawe's psychic energy was literally going to be touching every part of him simultaneously, aura and all. Option one it was. "T-that's okay, Miss Mawe." Vanilla stated as he volunteered himself to take a step closer to the mewtwo. "I'll go along with whatever you decide..."

Mawe simply raised an eyebrow. <A wise choice...> Reaching down, she picked up the eevee and held him to her chest.

"Take care of him now, Mawe." Reiga said in all seriousness.

<It was never my intention to do otherwise...> the mewtwo responded before slowly ascending into the sky.

Once the pair had risen clear of any perceptible interference, the purple flash of Mawe's teleportation lit up the ground below. Nothing but air remained in their place.

Assured that her job here was done, and that she'd seen Vanilla off. Reiga returned to her cart with a smile on her face. "It won't be long now, Reiga." She said to herself as she began pulling her cart down the path. "Just a little bit longer..."

 

~Jetlag~​

By the time Vanilla set foot back on solid ground, he had realized two things. One, he really, really did not like teleportation, and two, despite her seemingly cold demeanor, Mawe was fairly nice.

Before he could properly register exactly what it was that the process of teleportation had done to him, Vanilla had promptly lost his lunch upon the grass. Mawe apologetically rubbed his back in a soothing matter just after.

He wasn't sure if the mewtwo was just used to being torn in all directions, but she seemed to understand the effect it was having on his constitution.

<Apologies, Vanilla. I should have warned you against bracing yourself. I haven't had to transport another in a very long time...>

The backrubs were keeping him from being mad at the mewtwo, and he recovered before long, with exception of being hungry again. "Where are we?" Vanilla asked, finally having an opportunity to take in his surroundings.

They stood upon a small hill that was covered in emerald-green grass. It overlooked sheer cliffs on all sides as waves crashed against rocks somewhere far below. Looking around, Vanilla could see that there were a great many sea stacks surrounding them, most likely terminating in the same water as their own little plateau.

Curiously missing from the picturesque scene, however, was the dimensional pillar.

In response to his questioning glance, Mawe led Vanilla to the edge of the hill and pointed toward the bottom of the largest rock formation in front of them. Peering over the ledge, he could just make out the waves as they seemed to disappear into the stones below.

That could only mean that there was some sort of cave down there, but Vanilla could not determine the depth or even the basic structure of the formation from this distance.

"How are we supposed to get down there?" Vanilla asked upon failing to see a path down to the water.

<I'll bring us down when the time is right.>

He'd been under the impression that the only reason they hadn't already approached the Dimensional Pillar was because Mawe had only just found it. "Why not now? The sooner we help Chocola, the better, right?"

<Not so fast, Young One. You are not yet fully prepared to receive the legendary Pokémon's soul.> Mawe responded with the telepathic equivalent of what was essentially matter-of-fact. <Besides, the tide is still high. We must wait until the water recedes...>

"Oh, right." Vanilla conceded. "So, what are we going to do in the meantime?"

<You should rest. Our training will begin once night falls.>

Before Vanilla could argue he suddenly realized just how tired he was. Well, tired wasn't really the word. Fatigued? Worn? Either way, the eevee found his own movements to be surprisingly sluggish.

Luckily, Mawe was able to catch him before he could tumble into the ocean. It would appear that the teleportation had not really agreed with Vanilla in the slightest. If he was to travel any further with her, he'd have to get overcome his distaste for telekinetics encroaching upon his aura.

For now, though, her charge would just have to sleep it off. 'Although,' Mawe thought to herself as a smirk spread across her face, 'I guess this means that his training can start early...

 

~Sweet Dreams~​

Vanilla found himself laying on on sweet-smelling grass with the sun warming his coat. He hadn't realized how much he'd missed the presence of her darker fur.

And then Mawe stepped in and ruined the illusion."Impressive. Mere moments after you fall unconscious, and you've already constructed a little paradise for yourself." The mewtwo stated as she observed her surroundings.

The eevee, despite being so recently startled, noted that Mawe wasn't communicating through telepathy. Only then did he realize that he was in a dream. A particularly embarrassing dream if Mawe's facial expression was any indication.

Sweeping one of her arms across the imagery, Mawe cleared the dreamscape to an oddly familiar white.

"W-wait, when did I get hit with Hypnosis?" Vanilla asked while attempting to rub his eyes. For some reason, he was having trouble focusing on anything that wasn't Mawe. As he pulled his paws away, he realized that it wasn't his eyes that had made everything blurry, but rather, it was his own body that wasn't quite corporeal. "That's new..."

"Ah, I'm assuming the last time you were here, it was before you'd discovered your aura."

"But how am I able to see it now? I've never actually observed my aura before."

"That doesn't matter. As long as your mind believes it exists, it exists here. You only need to consciously imagine what you want to look like if you hope to alter your appearance." Mawe answered, though she tipped her head as another thought occurred. "Did you not encounter this ability the last time you were here?"

"Oh? The meowstic said something along those lines, I suppose, but they also said that they've seen every trick and that they knew how to counter it..." Vanilla responded as he reflected on what he considered to be a weird time.

"Indeed... Did it ever occur to you that they only said that because that is what they wanted you to believe?" Mawe questioned. "As long as we are in your dream, you hold the majority of the power. Had you attempted anything, most opponents would have been hard pressed to counter anything effectively."

"Aww... Are you saying that I didn't have to trick them?"

Mawe smiled, which was not something that Vanilla expected. Or even thought possible, honestly. "The fact that you outwitted them despite the imposed handicap is a credit to your ingenuity."

"Thanks, I guess?" Vanilla stated. "Hey! What are you doing here anyway? I was having such a nice dream..."

"I am well aware..." Mawe admitted with a raised eyebrow. "But, to answer your question, I'm here to oversee your next bout of training."

"Um, what sort of training?" Vanilla asked cautiously.

Mawe smiled. "I'm glad you asked." Suddenly, floors and walls erupted around him as his would-be mentor dissolved into thin air.

Before long, Vanilla recognized that he was standing in some sort of stone hallway. "Mawe...?" he asked, only to receive no answer. Taking a cautious step forward, he was greeted with a sudden wall of flame.

His nose slightly singed, Vanilla yelped out in surprise. "Hey! What kind of training is this?"

"Don't worry, young one. This training only follows one, simple rule: Survive."

As if to punctuate her point, a giant boulder dropped down behind Vanilla and started rolling towards him.

This was going to be along night...

 

~Master of None~​

Vanilla found himself panting due to exertion. He'd been thrown into one disaster situation after another with almost no time in between to catch his breathe.

Deep down, he knew that it might be possible that he didn't need to breathe in the dreamworld, but he didn't necessarily want to test that out in the middle of Mawe's onslaught. She'd thrown fire, boulders, spikes, quicksand, and some sort of whirlwind at him so far, and Vanilla was starting to wonder just how many more attacks a Pokémon could come up with before they could be declared officially insane.

The fact that Vanilla's solutions had consisted of rather basic constructs so far. Sure they worked, but it as probably only a matter of time before Mawe initiated a new rule that prevented him from simply summoning a defensive wall.

"I'm afraid you're going to need to do better than you have so far, Vanilla." Mawe stated as she appeared beside him.

"Okay, I get that, but why all of this?" Vanilla asked as he gestured to the ruins left by the recent winds.

"Because we don't know what is in store for you once you reach the soul inside of the crystal. So, before we simply thrust you into a truly dangerous situation, we must throw every conceivable attack at you. Speaking of which, you might want to hold your breath..." Mawe said conspiratorially as the dream-scape suddenly turned into a watery abyss.

As the eevee followed his instincts and swim to the surface, he realized that there was no surface to swim to. Panic swarmed through his head and interfered with any plan to stop he may have had concerning the ability to not breathe.

His first thought instead was to summon a large bubble of air, only to find that it had immediately rushed passed him to the unseen surface, providing him precious little time to inhale a gasp of the air.

He tried again with an even larger bubble, only to run into the same problem. Somewhat surprisingly, this time he was airborne long enough to start falling towards the bottom. At least he had time enough to suck in a panicked breath before colliding with the bottom of the bubble as it rose, but it was obvious that this solution was a solution in name only.

If only there were some way to freeze the bubble in place long enough for Vanilla to think of a way out of...

Vanilla smacked himself on the head mentally before summoning a new bubble, and this time, literally freezing the ocean around his air pocket. Finally not having to fight for his next few breaths, he started coughing up the water he'd inadvertently swallowed, covering the frozen floor in a thin film.

"Nice." Mawe mused. "And a little bit clever, I might add, though it wasn't quite what I was expecting..." she finished before exchanging the newly-frozen dream for one consisting of more solid ground and less watery abyss.

"Are... You... Trying... To kill me?" Vanilla asked as his lungs took the opportunity to enjoy fresh air again.

"Well, for the most part. You won't die, exactly, but the feelings of panic and fear, just before you meet your end, will be very real."

Vanilla took one last full breath before processing the mewtwo's statement. It was probably a safe bet that the mewtwo wasn't intent on stopping anytime soon, not that he could tell time here anyway. But what could he do? She was only doing this to help him help Chocola, and without the zorua by his side, there wasn't much he could do to stop the torment. "Okay..." he relented, "but can we please avoid any more drowning?"

"I wasn't planning on it. But, it is obvious to me that, while your last solution was passable, I don't believe you've fully grasped what you are capable of here..."

"What do you mean?"

"Simply telling you won't suffice, I'm afraid." Mawe stated flatly. "I've been forced to escalate..."

Before Vanilla could ask what she meant by that, he felt, rather than saw, what her next plan of attack was. Heat poured down from the massive, fiery object that appeared to be swelling in size as it tore through the atmosphere he hadn't realized was there. Even as he attempted to shield his eyes, he could see that the object was moving closer, filling more of his view with every passing moment. "Mawe!?"

"I'm sorry Vanilla, but you won't be able to figure out a clever plan to get out of this one. That meteor has about two minutes before it crushes this whole area. And, if you somehow manage to escape even that, the pressure wave will hit you following the impact. This is the end, Young One..."

Sitting there a bit dumbstruck, Vanilla found himself at a loss for words. Even if he refused to believe it was possible before, he was certain the mewtwo was crazy now. Even now, with the threat drawing nearer, Mawe had simply sat down to watch as they were both obliterated. She was beyond convincing that this was a bad idea now.

No. Vanilla still had a few minutes, right? Looking up, he was forced to squint as he tried to think of a plan. The first thought that came to mind as tears formed in his eyes was that he'd never thought he'd miss that water he'd almost drowned in. He'd berate himself on not helping the situation, but he didn't have time for that. He was going to have to throw everything he had at this thing.

All he had to do was keep the meteoric mass from falling, right? Vanilla stuck with what worked earlier and summoned a structure to impede the object's progress. Instead of using a wall similar to the one he used to stop the boulder from rolling over him, this time he summoned as many dense pillars as he could. On his command, each and every one of the pillars rocketed up to meet the falling rock head-on. There were so many towers that they effectively shielded him from most of the heat.

Closer and closer the meteor and the towers appeared as they closed the distance. Finally, they struck each other, causing an almost infinite number of brief explosions surrounding each of the towers impact zones. And for a brief moment, it appeared as though his plan had worked.

Just as hope rose in Vanilla's chest, the first pillar shattered. Then the next, and soon the pillars contributed to a cascade of failures as the meteor bore down its full weight upon them. He'd barely managed to slow it down. In fact, his contribution had been less than negligible, as not only had the flaming mass barely noticing the hiccup but now the shattered remains of his solution were now adding to the calamity as they fell.

The mewtwo only watched on, almost uninterested. "Mawe! Please?!" Vanilla pleaded.

"No. If you want to save your friend, you must stop this yourself. If you can't then you will, both of you, die." Was all she said.

Vanilla looked up in desperation. If he had somehow managed to even slow it down, buy himself some more time, then maybe he could have had time to figure out a solution.

Tears flowed freely now. He'd failed, and in doing so, he'd doomed Chocola in the process. It had just taken him this long to realize it.

Hadn't it?

"Giving up so soon?" Mawe mocked. "Well, I suppose dying here would be better than the alternative. Sitting on your haunches while your best friend gets her soul, everything you've understood and loved about them, torn out. Nothing left but a lifeless husk. Who would want to see that? In a twisted sense, you're the lucky one..."

The meteor was close now, no longer on fire, but it now possessed the majority of one's vision now matter where they gazed.

He'd had enough. Of the meteor pressing down on him, of mawe's constant torture, and worse, the thought of losing his best friend to something outside of his control.

"Stop..."

Mawe tilted her head. "What?"

"Just. STOP!" Vanilla screamed aloud. Both at his surroundings and himself.

And then, everything did.

 

~Descent~​

Drenched in sweat, Vanilla woke up with an audible gasp. Even though he was recently asleep, he felt everything except well rested.

<Congratulations, Young One. You've mastered control over your own mind. There are few non-psychics here who can boast the same.> Mawe acknowledged with a nod.

Vanilla mumbled something inaudible.

<I didn't quite catch that...?>

"I said I don't want to hear that from you!" Vanilla shouted as he got up and turned away from the mewtwo.

<I don't understand. Are you not happy with your accomplishment?>

"I-I don't know." The eevee admitted as he made his way to the top of the hill. "I just-. I need some time to myself for a while."

<But-> Mawe started as she turned to follow.

"No!" He shouted. "No. I've had enough of you, for the time being, Mawe. So I'm going to get some actual rest over here until I feel like accepting the apology you're going to prepare in the meantime." Vanilla said as he walked beyond her line of sight. "And stay out of my head this time!" He added.

'Perhaps I pushed him a little far...' Mawe thought to herself. Even if they were on a supposedly tight schedule, and this was for his own good, maybe using his feelings for his friend against him had been a bad move. It was frustrating being as terrible at these kinds of things as she was...

And to top it all off, she had invaded his mind, if only for a bit. While this situation had been approved by Zaho, she'd been working so hard to keep herself from doing something like that ever again, and now she was beginning to realize how wrong it must feel for the eevee during all of this. The least she could do is abide by his wishes.

That just left her with a few hours to herself to do, well, nothing. 'Yeah, no...' Mawe looked down at the cave. She could force herself underwater and attempt to scout out the cave network once more, but she felt as though it wouldn't be wise to leave her charge by himself for too long. At least not by going into a place that would not allow for a quick escape, should she need to reach Vanilla in a hurry.

So instead of exploring the cave once more, Mawe chose to explore the sky instead. At least that way she could keep an eye on Vanilla, despite his insistence that she keep her distance.

Only after he noticed the mewtwo fly off into the distance did Vanilla attempt to close his eyes once more.

When he awoke, it was fully night. Next to his head he noticed a stack of chesto and persim berries sitting atop of a leaf. Vanilla noted that Mawe must have left them as a sign of good faith before as he attempted to eat a few. They did little to ease his anger towards her, but his hunger had been tempered somewhat. It was a start, at least.

Heading back over the ridge, he spotted Mawe leaning sitting near the ledge. Upon his approach, he noticed that she'd been crying. He couldn't tell the exact reason for her feelings, as she wiped away the streams upon his arrival, but he had a feeling that it had something to do with him.

Instead of trying to get her to confide in him however, Vanilla found himself holding his tongue. It would seem as though he still hadn't fully recovered from his earlier ordeal just yet.

Mawe seemed to recognize his hesitance, however, but chose to ignore it as well. <We-> She stopped herself from using her telepathy. "W-we should be okay to enter the cave now. If that's okay with you?"

Vanilla perked his ears up as she spoke. Unlike the voice that had appeared in his head, Mawe's actual voice sounded quite young. Almost as if she had only recently learned how to speak, in fact. Yet another mystery to add to the enigma that was the mewtwo. Even if he wanted to pry that out of her, he still had a mission to do, and such conversation would only delay him.

He nodded his head in affirmation.

Mawe had thought about using her telekineses to lift them both off of the ground, but thought better of it after Vanilla's earlier complaints. Instead, she chose to kneel down next to the eevee and proffer her arms to him.

Hesitant at first, Vanilla complied and jumped into them.

Doing her best to keep her telekinesis from touching her rider, she lifted herself off of the ground and slowly descended down the cliff. Upon reaching the cave entrance, Mawe changed direction and floated them both inside.

Water was still rushing out of the cave, indicating that it had not been fully uncovered quite yet.

After a few moments, the path started to descend until the cave was fully blocked by a pool of water. Setting Vanilla down on the damp, exposed rock, Mawe turned to him and pointed to the puddle. "To continue, we must swim." She said softly.

Vanilla attempted to quell the fear rising in his heart. Even though he knew it was only a dream, the threat of drowning seemed to have a lasting effect on his psyche. "Remind me again why I'm the one who has to retrieve the soul?"

Mawe very nearly chose to remind him that his friend's life depended upon it but realized that she had already failed to predict his reaction to that news earlier. There was no sense in provoking him now. "Because we know you are compatible. You've heard the call, even as the last pillar called out to Chocola." She stated. "Besides, were I to attempt to absorb the soul, with it being in its current, fractured state, my mental defenses would annihilate it within moments of it entering me. Were it at its full strength, it might be able to hold my mind at bay, but as it is now, my mind would not leave anything behind to reunite with the original..."

Suddenly wondering how things would be different if he'd entered her mind instead of the other way around, Vanilla immediately shook the thought from his head. "Well then. Guess there's no sense in turning back now, is there?"

"Afraid not, Young One." Mawe stated after wading into the water.

 

~The Thread~​

While the cave wasn't entirely uninhabited, the other Pokémon had the good sense to give Mawe a wide berth as she escorted the eevee from the pools and into the salty, air-filled pockets that formed the rest of the cavern's structure.

As soon as they'd cleared the water, Vanilla could feel The Call bearing down on him once more. Even so, there was something inherently different about this one. Instead of the steady rhythmic pulse he'd expected from memory, this beat seemed to shift in multiple directions, the direction and intensity applied nearly at random.

The feeling was far from comforting, to say the least, but at least the rest of their jaunt into the cavern's interior was relatively silent.

The pressure increased upon their approach, just as they had done before, so it wasn't as if Vanilla hadn't expected it. What surprised him though, was how much this Pillar differed from the one's he had seen before. Both the sketch and the previous stone itself had looked as though they'd been carved from a massive piece of dark, jagged obsidian.

Palkia's Stone was massive as well, but that's about where the similarities ended. The stone itself appeared to be a solid, yet partially translucent color near the deceivingly rough surface. The shape was more uniform overall, its slightly rounded, yet straight, outline could not be confused with a natural formation. Despite the slight blue glow provided by the bio-luminescent substance coated the walls, the pillar was undoubtedly a shade of whitish-pink.

"Here we are..." Mawe's voice echoed off of the walls.

"So it would seem..." Vanilla replied simply.

Before he could walk up and touch the stone, as Chocola did, Mawe stopped him. "I will do my best to support you, but you must understand that once you make contact, you will be on your own. Whatever the outcome may be."

Vanilla held his paw back at that. Worst case scenario was that he ended up like Chocola, that much he knew. But, if he managed to pull it off, there was hope that he might discover a way to help her along the way. "If this is the only thing I can do to help," He reasoned, "then it really isn't much of a choice, is it?" He finished before reaching out and touching the pillar.

As the pillar lit up and its energy surged, Mawe found herself silently wishing the eevee good luck.

​

~~~~~​

​

Vanilla found himself inside the now-familiar field of white. Looking around though, he failed to see anyone else. If it wasn't for the ominous feeling he felt deep down, he could have sworn he was alone.

"Hello?" he asked curiously.

He didn't receive a response, not even an echo.

As he pondered whether or not he'd done something wrong, he noticed that he was being overshadowed by something.

Looking up, Vanilla saw a large, twisted mess hovering a few paces above him. The pieces of colorful rope or string that comprised the object writhed against itself as it floated about.

"Um, hello?" Vanilla tried again, hoping that the thing was the piece of soul he was supposed to transport.

He couldn't tell from the tendrils' pulsing that it had even registered his existence. At least until a few of them angrily lashed out at him.

 

~Unwind~​

​

​

​

​

As the tendrils shot out, they brushed against Vanilla's aura. Reflexive instinct kicked in, quarter-turn to the left, push backward, rear up for reversal. So far, Vanilla had managed to dodge the first three tendrils. He found himself rather preoccupied with the fourth strand, however, as not even his newfound abilities were enough to evade the full assault. The fourth tendril didn't strike him, as he mistakenly thought it would, instead, it had actually managed to grasp one his rear legs, wrapping around as though it were some sort of vine-whip attack.

The feelings that coursed through him from the contact were rather jarring, to say the least. Even after he severed the strand with a hastily summoned wall, he felt, well, a feeling of a dull fuzziness spread through him.

What worried him most though was the visual he was left with upon examining the strand. Instead of the solid surface of his skin that he expected to lie underneath his aura, Vanilla found that he too had begun to turn into the same kind of string that his assailant was made of.

Vanilla made it his priority to distance himself from the creature, which thankfully seemed hesitant to pursue.

Upon close examination of his wound, for he had nothing better to call it, his string consisted of little lights. Just as his attacker's string did. Reaching down to remove the non-eevee tendril, Vanilla received quite a shock, one powerful enough to obscure his vision.

The flash was momentary, and soon, he regained his sight. However, upon this discovery, Vanilla found that he was no longer inside of the dream-scape.

~~~~~​

[Why, Dialga!?] came a booming telepathic voice from somewhere up above.

Everywhere around Vanilla, he could only see destruction. Towering waves, mountains of rubble in varying states of decay, and a sky bereft of any light. Every so often, Vanilla swore that he could see a small gap form in the air itself, like a small rip in a piece of fine fabric.

He couldn't make out what was on the other side, but the two figures floating above him gave the rifts little notice.

{I forbid you from acting upon this region. That is all you need to know!} The Dialga's mind shouted back.

[I don't understand. You've never prevented my work before...] Palkia returned as he let loose another beam of energy towards his opponent.

{And that is because your mind cannot comprehend!} the Dialga shot back in conjunction with her own attack.

Their attacks intersected at the exact moment one of the little tears passed between them. The rift absorbed the majority of their combined energy and tore itself open.

Another creature emerged with a terrifying shout and everything went black.

~~~~~​

Vanilla found himself back in the white nothing of the dreamscape. Shaking himself out of a daze, he tried to make some sense out of what had just happened.

"Are these memories?" he asked to no one in particular. Testing out his theory, he poked one of the motes of light inside of his recently revealed eevee-string.

~~~~~​

He was home. His mother standing over him protectively. His father berating his uncle, Fyst, the fighting-type seat, for too much roughhousing with the younger pups.

Vanilla remembered this. His uncle claimed that such play was vital to a well-rounded upbringing. The other families, his own included, hadn't quite seen it that way. His poor uncle hadn't really been allowed to play with his nieces and nephews unsupervised ever since.

He briefly wondered if that position had changed since the coup. Before he could finish, his train of thought was interrupted by the transition from the memory back into the dream-scape.

~~~~~​

Vanilla reasoned that the creature hadn't pursued him because he not only chopped off a piece of the creature, which he now believed to be a piece of the Palkia's soul, but he was also still in possession of said piece.

Turning to the piece that floated off in the distance, Vanilla carefully offered up the string of memories that had been wrapped around his leg. "Do you want this back?"

The string-form bristled slightly and floated a little nearer. Vanilla wasn't an expert in the random gestures of string-based creatures, but he had a fairly good idea that that meant 'yes'.

"I'll give this back, but you have to promise not to attack again, okay?"

The soul rushed in to grab it's missing piece, surrounding Vanilla on all sides as it did so. More tendrils lashed out, intent on getting a hold of the eevee for certain this time.

They stopped in their tracks just before breaching his aura.

Vanilla hadn't wanted to resort to this, but it would seem as though he had no choice if he wanted its cooperation. Dangling the string in front of him, he held it out over a summoned flame. "Keep it up, and you'll never get this memory back." He threatened. "Attack me again, and I'll do the same to you."

The soul backed off almost apologetically, and in return, Vanilla laid the missing string out between them. Slowly, a tendril reached out and reattached itself to the missing strand.

"See, that wasn't so bad. If you continue to cooperate, I can hopefully reunite you with the rest of, well, you."

The soul trilled with joy, and very nearly reached out with a stringy embrace before Vanilla stopped it.

"Not quite, there need to be some ground rules. First, no touching. It seems as though it's too easy for you to get tangled up with me, and I'd rather not hurt you to get us separated." He left out the part about him not wanting to risk his faculties on the of chance that the reunification wasn't going to damage something he needed. He was going to need those if he was still going to help his friend, after all. The soul didn't need to know that, though. "Do you understand?"

The soul tipped forward once before it started listing to the side, Vanilla guessed that the first was a confirmation followed by a question of sorts. "Oh right, the second thing?"

The soul tipped forward again.

"I want you to show me everything you can. You fight with Dialga, Exile, the zorua family that helped you, everything. If you don't have everything in this piece, I want you to promise me you'll show me once we've reunited you. Can you promise me that?

The soul nodded twice, both of the actions confirming a, 'yes'.

 

~The Observer~​

Upon the next viewing, Vanilla learned one important fact before anything else; He had no real idea what kind of power the 'ability to manipulate space' even was. He'd assumed that it involved raising continents from the ocean or something similar. But as he perused Palkia's memories, he'd learned that it consisted of so much more.

Palkia was attuned to what appeared to be some sort of alternate dimensions. Unlike Giratina's realm, these all seemed to be variations of the world Palkia was intent on altering. Maybe the land would have trees that all leaned in slightly different directions, other times the new land would have no trees at all. Granted, some of the alterations were so minute that Vanilla could not discern a difference, but according to the soul's memory, such alterations could be considered apparent.

For untold eons, Palkia was resolute in his work. Every so often, Dialga would come and re-alter his work, always by manipulating the area's timeline. So long as Palkia was free to continue his manipulations, he did not care if it was altered afterwards.

Other than Dialga's meddling, Palkia was left alone with his work, the ends of which Vanilla could not fathom, Pokémon and people alike barely seemed to notice the changes. Such was the nature of Palkia's existence.

That was, of course, until he met one human in particular. A wanderer by nature, he introduced himself as a simple observer. Unlike the other humans that Palkia had come across, this one seemed intent to do little more than experience the world around him.

This human had taken the time to notice Palkia's work, a small change that had occurred in the man's absence, and yet was not the product of a natural change. This new thing intrigued him so much that he sought out the one responsible. His journey brought him to Palkia, and soon, they developed a sense of respect and friendship between one another.

Palkia, because the observer was not motivated by the usual human traits of greed, or power, and the human because the Pokémon could provide him with something he couldn't find anywhere else.

Many of their discussions revolved around their observations of each other. The Observer showed great concern over the fact that Palkia's work was a hefty responsibility, bound to be abused if it ever fell into the wrong hands. Palkia merely wondered if their friendship would last forever.

Sadly, the answer to Palkia's question was revealed far too soon. The Observer was mortal, after all, and could not escape his inevitable demise. Losing his companion was the hardest thing Palkia had ever experienced in all of his years.

So moved was he by his sadness, that Palkia attempted his greatest modification of all time. A monument to his fallen friend, and so Palkia created a composite of modifications so unique that even the land beneath it would provide wonderment to any who may discover it. Piece by piece, Palkia pulled space from every realm he could influence.

The work was tedious and painstaking, but it had been his proudest work yet. And just as he deemed it worthy of completion, Palkia was surprised to learn that his work was gone.

Dialga had erased it. She hadn't even attempted to tell him why. This infuriated him in a way he'd never known he could feel and, space being what it was, he rebuilt his monument once again, in what could be considered record time.

Again Dialga erased it, sticking around only long enough to see the landmass eroding away with accelerated time.

The back and forth of creating the monument and its subsequent destruction continued for ages before Palkia finally confronted Dialga. Vanilla could not discern the conversation beyond a few pieces, but he could make out that Dialga declared that Palkia was forbidden from ever building the monument here.

The resulting battle tore open the very sky, and led to Exile's creation. In the end, the only one who remembered the Observer was Palkia himself, so even with their technical stalemate, he had lost.

With that revelation, Vanilla left the memory.

~~~~~​

The memories, while enlightening, still hadn't helped him understand what had changed since then. Other than the fact that the soul piece knew that the timing of the normal release had changed, it couldn't tell Vanilla the reason why.

That meant that his only hope of helping Chocola would likely have to wait until Palkia's soul was pieced back together.

With a groan, Vanilla rubbed his eyes. Despite the minute headache floating around in his head, never resting in the same place for long, he felt inexplicable energetic. Blinking his eyes a few times, he swore he could see the soul just out of the corner of his closed eye.

Mawe cleared her throat. "Vanilla?" She asked in an unusual tone.

'Oh! Right. I just woke up after being possessed.' Vanilla thought to himself. The soul agreed, which was more than a little disconcerting. At least his eyes weren't glowing. "It's me, Mawe. How long was I out?"

The mewtwo seemed to cheer up, if only a little, at the news. "It's been three days. Just longer than Chocola had been unconscious when you arrived at her home."

Wow, he hadn't quite expected that. It would explain why he was so hungry, though. Before he could sate himself, however, Vanilla wanted an update. "Well, I think I have this under control, what's next?"

"You managed to pacify the Legendary's soul?"

"Well, it calmed down once I gave it its memories back." Vanilla declared.

"Memories?" Mawe asked, her interest suddenly piqued.

"Yeah, these little lights on a string. They're both pieces of the soul as well as its memories."

"Oh my! That means you delved into an actual engram..." Mawe's eyes focused on something distant.

"Um... Was that wrong?" Vanilla asked, suddenly uneasy. "Was I not supposed to?"

Mawe shook her head and refocused on the eevee in front of her. "Well, not for you, most likely. Let's just say that you are lucky that you are not a psychic type." The little one didn't need to know how easy it was to get lost in such memory engrams. Usually, only a powerful psychic Pokémon could navigate the memories of another at all, but once the access had been gained, it was all too easy to get lost in them. If the victim had a relatively pleasant life before a delve, the psychic may choose to lose themselves inside of it. Forever.

"If you say so, Mawe..." Vanilla said, partly unconvinced.

'Nope, Vanilla definitely didn't need to know that...' the mewtwo thought to herself. "Just promise me you'll stay away from the Legendary's engrams. They are ancient Pokémon, yes? Far too many memories to live through again, at least in your lifetime, Young One." She lied.

"Okay, fine." Vanilla conceded, happy to know that he hadn't done anything wrong, at least. His stomach brought itself to his attention before he could change his mind. "Oh, um, do you have anything to eat, Miss Mawe?"

The fact that Vanilla was being polite once more was not lost on her. Using telekenisis, she pulled a bundle from a pile in the corner and placed it in front of him. "Eat up, Young One. You will need your strength for the next leg of our journey."

Vanilla swore he turned three shades of green at the mention of travel.

Mawe did not fail to notice her charge's discontent. "Do not be alarmed. We will not risk using teleportation as long as you possess the soul. Zaho believes that they are linked to Exile's very construction. And with the events of the last few days, I'm inclined to believe him."

"What events...?" Vanilla started before noticing that the cave was in a state of disarray. More light seemed to be filtering in from above than before, and a few of the stalactites were missing, most likely reduced to the rubble surrounding the less-damaged stalagmites. Most alarming, now that he had the chance to observe his surroundings, was that there was also a pile of pink sand where the pillar used to stand.

"For starters, there was an earthquake while you slept." Mawe stated, proving Vanilla's fears correct. "Is something the matter?"

Mention of an earthquake shook loose one of his own memories. Vanilla recalled what he knew about Perihelion's prediction. The events of the supposed future were startlingly similar to the events of the memory he'd just been experiencing. The battle between Palkia and Dialga had caused rifts once before.

"Mawe, what will happen when we return the souls? Once we figure out how to help Chocola, that is."

"Well, we'd like to enlist their help in order to move Exile back into the outer dimension. Why?"

"Because I don't think it will be anything nearly so easy." Vanilla declared.

"Such things rarely are." Mawe admitted.

 

~Titan Dias~​

If Vanilla was being honest, traveling such a distance while Mawe held him within her telekinesis wasn't as bad as he thought it would be. Either it was due to growing accustomed to the feeling of the mewtwo's ability encroaching upon his aura, or maybe it was the simple fact that the soul floating around inside his head was taking a far greater amount of his focus.

Either way, the journey itself was quite a bit longer than the teleportation would have afforded, but Vanilla was simply content to not deal with the uneasiness he'd felt after his last one. Every so often, they would take a break, not because Mawe needed a rest, but more for Vanilla's sake. Feeling the cool grass beneath his feet was just the thing he needed after having to bear the weight of the mewtwo's presence for so long.

Palkia's soul thought so too, but not for the same reasons. Vanilla wasn't sure exactly how it happened, but he could feel the soul relished contact with the soil beneath his feet. As they approached a location Mawe had called the Titan Dias, where Palkia's and Dialga's bodies were stored, the soul seemed to tug itself in the direction they were headed, yearning for its reunification. It needed to be whole again.

"Are you all right, Vanilla?" Mawe asked

"Hmm?" He snapped out of his daze only to find that the mewtwo was now a few paces away. Looking about, Vanilla was a little startled to discover that he had been the one to move away, not her.

Mawe walked nearer and knelt down in front of him. "It's the compulsion, isn't it?"

"Compulsion?" Vanilla asked, though he had an idea what she was referring to.

"Zaho was afraid of this. The same thing happened with Chocola not long after you brought her home. She continually tries to walk in a singular direction. She's not conscious while she does it, unlike you, but she still moves as though she were one of the human machines, albeit one that still requires food and rest. Her father has been keeping her suspended within a complex illusion that has been keeping her from actually reaching the Dias." Mawe stated while wrapping Vanilla with her telekinesis once more. The break was over. "To that end, we'd best continue. The sooner we get there, the sooner we can try and rescue Chocola."

"Right." Vanilla agreed. Helping Chocola was the priority, but he had to admit that it would be nice to be alone in his own head again. At this rate, he'd eventually have to decline the position of normal-type council chair and become an umbreon like his father. At least that way he'd never have to deal with psychic shenanigans ever again.

And with that, Mawe soared into the air with Vanilla in tow.

~~~~~​

"We're almost there" Mawe declared as they approached their supposed destination.

Vanilla had wondered how such an important piece of exile's history had been lost to time, but now he knew.

Beneath the now descending Pokémon was a massive, lush forest. The Loamwood, if Vanilla's knowledge of Exile's geography was correct, he'd never had a bird's eye view of the area before. Nearly hidden by the treetops, a massive hole opened up and seemed to absorb most of the light that entered it.

As they pushed past the branches, they entered a vertical shaft in the earth that even a wailord could fit through, if said water Pokémon was capable of floating down an earthen tunnel such as this. Deeper and deeper they floated down until, finally, they reached an opening that led into a much, much larger room.

In the distance, Vanilla spotted the flickering firelight as several torches lit up the surrounding area with their orange light. "The Dias..." was all the eevee could say as Mawe let them both touch down well outside of the carved stone plateau. Even from this distance, he could make out the lifelike statues that depicted both Dialga and Palkia.

Trying to get a closer look, Vanilla took a few steps forward. Curious as to why they landed so far away, he turned back to ask Mawe about it, only to stop in his tracks. He was still standing right next to her, despite his short walk.

"So, he is still not in complete control of the compulsion?" A deep scratchy voice said as it emanated from the shadows nearby.

"I-I just wanted to see the Dias..." Vanilla said, realizing that he must be inside of, what Chocola would call, a 'mirage.'

"I'm sorry, Zaho. The effect seems to be tied to both distance and exposure. I could not have prepared him to resist the effects of a discrete force that grows so slowly. It would be impossible to notice before the symptoms were already evident."

A zoroark appeared in front of them. Vanilla wasn't quite sure how he didn't see the fox standing between them and the Dias, but his presence was unmistakable now.

"You did well, Mawe." The zoroark said with a nod of his head. "I can keep him at bay for a little while." He finished before turning towards the eevee. "We haven't been properly introduced, Mister Vanilla, I am Zaho. The fact that you have not succumbed to the soul residing within you brings me hope that we might save my daughter, Chocola."

"Where is she?" Vanilla didn't realize how much he'd missed her until he thought about her being in close proximity.

"Don't worry about her just yet, I've got her trapped in a maze for the time being. She'll eventually break out of it, but there are still some contingencies in place and Reiga is watching over her just in case. But first, we must prepare you to offer your soul piece to its owner. Until then, I suspect it is still too dangerous for you two to interact."

"Why is that?"

"Because I have a suspicion I know why everything's moved so far ahead of schedule." Zaho said as he looked off into the distance. "I believe that Dialga's soul has learned to influence the world around it, to a degree. The effects are subtle, but I think that he may still be trying to attack Palkia, even in its current state.

"She."

"I beg your pardon, Mister Vanilla?" Zaho tilted his head to the side.

"Dialga's a girl. At least, that's how Palkia sees her, anyway."

"Well, to that end, I think we should head to the campsite. There is much to discuss and perilous little time with which to discuss it, I fear."

 

~The Plan~​

After Vanilla had clued everyone into what he knew, silence drifted between the gathered Pokémon.

Zaho broke it first. "If what you are saying is true, and that we can assume that Dialga is the aggressor, then we will have to take extra precautions in dealing with her. Can we convince Palkia to hold off on resuming his attacks once his soul is reunited?"

It took a moment before Vanilla recognized that the question was directed at him. "Oh, um, I'm not sure. I've only interacted with one piece of the whole, and our conversations haven't been what one would call verbose. I'm afraid I can't predict Palkia's actions before or after we fix him."

"I see..." Zaho said as he rubbed his chin in thought. "Then we shouldn't count on him standing around until we sort Chocola out. I'm sorry Mister Vanilla, but you may have to house the soul piece longer than what we agreed upon."

"What? Why?" Vanilla didn't want to be stuck with the mental stowaway any longer than he had to. The stowaway agreed.

"With no guarantee that either legendary will wait around for the other to be released, we have no choice but to release them at the same time. That means that you'll have to help Chocola first. That way, you can both safely perform the reunification ceremony. Once that's done, we can move onto the real goals of our mission here."

"Wait, I thought all of this was to save Chocola."

"While I wish that were all this is, we've been working out the details for a long time now."

Reiga stepped forward. "Chocola's condition is a reminder that we don't yet know everything about the situation. Had we known that the pillar would call her so early, she would be standing here instead of you. That being said, we do know three things. Giratina created this world, therefore he can bring it back."

Mawe continued. "We expect that this dimension is only temporary. As the Dimensional Pillars are emptied, their strength as anchors wanes, and instabilities in this dimension increase."

"...the earthquakes." Vanilla said to himself. Thinking about that, and Perihelion's prophecy caused him a mild headache. "And the third thing?"

"These two, when awoken, will either continue their fight, and eventually summon Giratina, or they will see reason and will use their powers to restore Exile to the real world. Without Giratina's help." Zaho finished.

"They could really do that."

"Honestly," the lucario admitted, "that is only the best case scenario..."

Vanilla gulped. "And the worst case?"

"The worst case is the same as the current one." Zaho turned to look at the dias. "If we do nothing, or if Giratina doesn't reveal itself during or after the fight between the two legendaries, then this world is likely doomed."

Silence grew once more at the revelation. This time it was Vanilla who broke the silence.

"What do you need me to do."

"I'm glad you asked, Mister Vanilla." Zaho said with a wicked smirk. "Your help will be most invaluable..."

Suddenly filled with dread, Vanilla found himself backing up. "Um, on second thought, could we-"

"I'm afraid there's no backing out now. The moment that Chocola extracted the last vestige of Dialga's soul, our time became limited." Reiga revealed. "Even now, reports should be coming in that Exile's outer borders are not where they should be. It's only a matter of time until they collapse."

"And to answer your question, we must bridge your mind to Chocola's. While there, you must find a way to separate her from Dialga."

"But I don't know how! W-what happens if I fail? If I can't find a way to save her?"

Zaho only clenched his paw. "We can only hope it doesn't come to that..."

 

~Awakening~​

"Are you sufficiently prepared, Young One?" Mawe asked.

Vanilla didn't like the thought of being connected to the mewtwo's mind again, but that was the only method that would allow him to enter Chocola's dream. It was all-or-nothing at this point, so the eevee decided to double check on his guest before he declared his readiness.

Inside his own mind, Palkia's piece of soul was still safely locked away inside of its temporary prison. Using the knowledge he'd gained from his first encounter, he'd built a box around the stringy being and made it so that every touch would singe it a little. It wasn't enough to hurt it, but at least it had stopped trying to break out for the time being.

Palkia's soul safely verified, Vanilla focused on Chocola. She had to be carried by her father. Even now, her unconscious body was trying to break free in order to deliver the soul. There was nothing else the eevee could do, but free her from this fate. "I'm ready."

"Good. I've locked onto the Dialga's mind. Since I can't see Chocola's dream, I'll use the legendary's soul as an anchor point." Mawe said as she took a meditative position between the two foxes. "All you have to do is break Dialga's hold on Chocola, and the connection will sever. We'll take over from there." Reaching her palms out, one on each of the pups' heads. <Good luck, Vanilla.>

~~~~~​

Unlike his own mind, Chocola's headspace was nearly black, the only light coming from the hazy horizon in the distance. Despite the difference, it felt familiar somehow. And, while the ever-present dark mist seemed to hide things from view, it didn't take him long to find what he was looking for, almost as if he knew exactly where to look.

After his own run-in with Palkia's soul, Vanilla had often wondered why Chocola hadn't fared the same. Even with his fairly brisk training, he'd felt as though keeping the soul at bay was rather easy. It was only after seeing her mind for himself that he'd understood why he had succeeded where his friend had not.

This had been Chocola's first time in the dreamscape. She hadn't known that she was in control here, much like he had during his first encounter with his own space. When she'd run into the soul, the zorua had been defenseless.

"Oh, Chocola..." Vanilla called out in concern. The figure before him was just as twisted as the soul he had locked away in his own mind, but unlike Palkia, Dialga's soul had one distinct addition. Vanilla could just make out Chocola's face, but the rest of her had been unwound and absorbed into the legendary soul's own mass.

The eevee nearly panicked as he grasped the situation, only after calming down did he realize something important. The soul wasn't trying to attack him too. It allowed Vanilla to get close enough to examine the situation, and for that much he was thankful. While he tried to trace Chocola's engram string through the other soul, he tried to reason out what had happened.

If the soul pieces were largely the same, it was probable that Dialga had lashed out the same as Palkia did once his soul had been removed from the tower. Without the proper defenses, the soul had probably snagged Chocola more successfully, and, since she was unable to defend herself, she unwound enough for the soul to drag her into itself, one strand at a time. But now that it had her in it's grasp it was content?

Vanilla shook his head. It still didn't quite make sense. Why even pull the hosts in at all? If anything the soul was acting like a young pup who, after catching its own tail, now couldn't figure out what to do with it. Could the soul's pieces not perform more than the most basic reasoning? The only answer he could fathom was that, perhaps, the mechanism that allowed it to attack the host was the same as the one that allowed the soul to reunite with the other pieces. Sort of an instinctual response gone wrong.

Honestly, the minutia of the hows and whys were just details he could use to distract himself from the real problem, which was figuring out a way to reverse the process. He could likely part the string with the threat of fire, as he had done with Palkia, but there was no telling what would happen to Chocola if the larger soul decided to recoil away from the flame too quickly. And even then, there was no way to differentiate between Chocola's memories and Dialga's past the first few lengths of string. He could very well be threatening her on accident.

After some thought, Vanilla decided to try something. Reaching up with his paw, he touched Dialga's string. Besides the brief flash of memory just before contact was broken, nothing happened. In fact, upon closer examination, he realized that, beyond the few points where the two strings contacted, Dialga's soul seemed to pull away, avoiding both his touch and that of his friend.

Even the soul stuck inside of his own mind hadn't done that. It would still try to brush up against him if he got too close, but then again, he'd never been fully absorbed either. Testing a theory that was forming, Vanilla reached out to Chocola. A brief memory flashed before him that time, but it only ended when he pulled away. Chocola's string hadn't avoided his contact.

Vanilla knew what to do now. "Don't worry, Chocola. I'm going to get you out of there!" He declared to her unresponsive form. He only hoped she would forgive what he was about to do.

Taking a deep breath, more to calm his nerves than actually breathe in what he knew was technically non-existent. Vanilla grabbed a hold of Chocola's visage, and touched it to his own.

With all of his concentration, he began to navigate through her memories. If he could find where they intermingled with Dialga's he could separate them. By force if necessary. But to do so, he would have to learn more about Chocola than what she probably knew about herself.

 

~Zeri~​

As Vanilla swam through Chocola's memories, he only had to start at the first string that connected with Dialga's. Before he moved on to find the other connections, he summoned a ring of material and placed it around the legendary's string, only an engram's length away from where the tendril wrapped around Chocola. Ensuring he could adjust the ring's properties at will, he continued his search in earnest.

His friend's memories were almost exactly what he'd expected of her, even in the short time he'd known her. Before they'd met, she had a tendency to terrorize the other Pokémon around her. Her pranks were never harmful but were always surprising. As he continued on, Vanilla noticed that her antics were only a method of last resort after a Pokémon had rejected one of her tricks, or after they simply refused to play, often after they'd learned she was a zorua.

He couldn't help but feel a little sorry that such prejudices still affected Pokémon from Exile. But after each rejection, Chocola nearly went out of her way to prove them right. Before he'd met her, she'd been alone for a long time.

Moving deeper and deeper, he saw her skills get less refined, as the memories dug farther into the past. The trend of rejection and loneliness continued, and Vanilla found himself skating through the engrams as fast as he could, lest he stop and reach out in an attempt to console the tiny vixen.

So caught up in not getting caught in Chocola's turmoil, that he'd almost missed the change. One moment was the same as the rest of her pre-Vanilla days, and the next she was as happy as he'd ever seen the little pup.

Going back, Vanilla couldn't help but look at what had caused the change. It didn't take long for him to notice what it was. A zoroark, but not her father, but her mother, Zeri, if he wasn't mistaken. Even though the memory was an old one, he could see that their relationship was not too different than the one he shared with his own mother.

Having been told what had happened to Zeri, he knew what happened next, but Vanilla couldn't help but see it through Chocola's eyes now. There had been a fight between the two. Nothing serious, just a squabble over something silly, Chocola didn't even remember exactly what it had been over. Family members have been known to disagree from time to time. It was what happened next that had changed the zorua forever.

Zeri had left that very day, presumably to get some fresh air and a clear her head after dealing with an unreasonable child. Having been left in the care of her father for the moment, Chocola hadn't thought anything different about it.

That lasted until it was revealed Zeri had never returned home. By the time they'd found her, it had already been too late. The young Chocola didn't understand what had happened to her mother that night, but she believed she knew why. She'd believed that her argument had caused her mother to leave that night.

Ever since, Chocola had held onto the belief that she was responsible for her mother's death. She'd hated herself for it, and eventually turned on those around her. Separating herself from others with her tricks became second nature, and the number of Pokémon she could count as friends dwindled.

Vanilla wasn't just saddened by this revelation, he was angry. Even as the adults had grieved, they never managed to convince her that it wasn't her fault. Zaho swamped himself in his research, as Reiga stepped in to help, all while failing to see that Chocola had been hurt far more than she had let on.

Why hadn't they known? Why hadn't they told her the truth?

Before Vanilla could ask any more questions, he found himself face-to-face with an engram. It wasn't Chocola's.

What's more, is that this one wasn't quite connected to the vixen either. It just sort of hung there, and when Vanilla tried to go around, the engram moved into his path.

Could the dialga see him there, delving through Chocola's memories? As he tried, and failed, to get around the engram, Vanilla could only come to the realization that it was being offered to him.

On a whim, Vanilla reached out and touched it.

~~~~~​

Vanilla could tell that the memory was more recent, and far more linear, than the battle he'd witnessed between the two titans. He could also tell that it wasn't quite in line with how he thought time was supposed to flow, since the memory seemed to be out of place with the others nearby.

What he could make out was that the memory was stuck in a fixed location. Unable to move inside the memory of a Pokémon with which time held no meaning was probably one of the most disturbing situations that Vanilla could think of. Thankfully, it didn't seem to be a trap, nor a prison.

Inside a forest whose dense trees towered, a shadow moved along the periphery of the small clearing. A zoroark. An old one, by the looks of it, but one that seemed to be very interested in the memory's location.

"Curious. A stone that appears to not be a stone." The zoroark observed as she wondered around. From this distance, Vanilla could clearly see numerous scars that shown through her graying fur. "Nor a Pokémon either. A shame. This is not the stone Zashuwari seeks..."

With that, the zoroark left the stone in search of something else, only to return and make camp in front of the memory's location, which Vanilla could only assume was the Dimensional Pillar. Every night for a week, the older fox returned carrying a different spherical stone, and before she turned in for the night, she used a skarmory quill to whittle a hole through the center. Before long, she'd acquired a collection of rather large stone beads.

"Do you like them, Curious Stone? Zashuwari made them as gift for her granddaughter." She said while presenting the age-worn stone bead holding her mane in check. "She will choose once she is old enough to evolve. Much to learn of her skills then, if she is to help protect the clan. No time to learn of the old ways..."

The stone, of course, couldn't respond.

The zoroark paid the silent stone no heed. "These shall be enough for generations. Far easier to find than the dusk-stones." She continued as she turned to examine the pillar once more. "Zashuwari wishes to take the Curious Stone a bead as well, but something tells her that this would not be a wise choice."

As she spoke, the old fox reached out with a fore-paw to test the stone, but upon contact, she unintentionally enabled the stone's energy course through her.

Vanilla found, as he expected, that they had both entered the zoroark's dreamscape.

Despite being thrown into a seemingly calm, nondescript space, Vanilla could tell that Zashuwari was alert yet calm, not confused and lost like he was the first time he had been hypnotized. Even from his viewpoint above the Pokémon, he could make out the precise moment she tensed up before the soul string lashed out.

Dodging deftly to the side, the zoroark let the tentacles miss long enough for her to counter with a sucker-punch attack. In one swift movement, she'd severed one of the tendrils and used the remaining momentum to carry herself a few paces away from the soul.

"Heh heh heh, it takes far more than that to get the edge on Zashawari..." She taunted as she twirled the piece of engram-embedded string in front of her.

Dialga's soul behaved almost exactly like Palkia's did when Vanilla first encountered it. Having lost a piece of itself, it decided to get it back with a second attack.

Vanilla worried for a moment that Zashuwari was at a disadvantage not knowing what she could do in the realm of dreams, but after watching the soul attempt to attack the after-images of a perfect double team, he noticed what the soul had not. While Dialga was busy attacking what it thought was in front of it, the real zoroark had distanced itself only to sit back and observe.

After the first images were done for, the vixen repeated her mirage, only this time with some alterations. Namely, she left out the captured string from a few of the images. Whether the change was just a whim or some planned action, Vanilla could only guess, but the result was clear, the soul prioritized the string-carrying images first, but still tried to attack the other images if they were too close.

Vanilla hadn't noticed that the images were spaced apart with any real variation before, but now that the soul was taking more and more time between attacking the increasingly distant images, he could see, now, that it took a great degree of foresight to plan such a thing out ahead of time.

Meanwhile, Zashuwari sat back and watched until eventually, the images got so far apart that the soul stopped attacking them. As the last image faded away, it only turned and faced the zoroark.

She held up the string, and the soul pushed forward, only to stop as the fox held up a paw. "Zashuwari sees what you want, Curious thing. She will give it, if the Curious Thing stays at bay. Does it understand?"

As the soul tilted itself forward in what Vanilla recognized was a familiar 'yes' gesture, the zoroark laid the string out carefully before taking several steps back.

Seemingly happy to have its engrams returned, the soul approached, but Zashuwari kept her distance.

"Good. Now that that is taken care of, Zeshawari wishes to know one thing. Does she continue calling the being before her a Curious Thing, or does she start using the being's, name? What says the Dialga?"

The soul listed to the side as if confused.

"Heh, Zashuwari may have accidentally intruded upon the memories while the being was busy. She has seen enough to know. So what is it, Curious Thing, or Dialga?"

Dialga bowed down twice.

"Good, good. Now, Dialga, why has one troubled Zashuwari so?"

The soul offered up an engram, just as it had done to Vanilla, and set it up on the ground, floating far enough away to maintain the distance between them.

As the current memory continued, the exchange between zoroark and dialga continued through questions and memories. The memory rushed forward to what Vanilla assumed was what the Dialga wanted him to see.

Zashuwari had promised Dialga that it would find the other pillars and reunite it with the other pieces, only to find that the other Dialga-oriented stones did not have the same charge as the first. Ideas and engrams could be exchanged, but the soul itself could not. Not yet.

It was discovered that the charge was building in the others, albeit slowly. It would take a very long time before the next pillar had weakened enough to allow another transfer. This would be long after the zoroark's life had met its end, however.

"A promise was made by Zashuwari to fix the broken one, but, it has been years now. Dialga can be delivered to its body, but Zashuwari cannot make the journey again, nor will she allow another to become entangled in one's possession. But that is not to say that Zashuwari breaks her promise. She will prepare another, her daughter, to contain one's secrets. The Zoraork Clan will continue her work."

The soul disagreed. To it, there was no reason to delay the reunification.

"Dialga cannot control its actions in this form. Merely touching you would have been dangerous to one who was not Zashuwari. Can the Pokémon of Time not wait?"

As the memory shifted once more, Vanilla learned that the zoroark had kept her promise, but with a caveat that the Dialga had not understood at the time. When Zashawari's descendant had arrived at the next Pillar, it was not the older Zoroark's daughter, but her grand-daughter instead.

The pattern followed into every other generation, grand-daughter after grand-daughter came and released the soul, made a pilgrimage to the other remaining stones, and finally made the journey to the dias. All of them survived to pass on the tradition.

The soul surmised that the generations it didn't see were helping Palkia's soul reunite with its own body.

This continued until, one day, something changed in the fabric of Exile. Something had come across a remnant of power from beyond Exile's domain, and for the first time since its creation, something had managed to enter the Worldforged dimension.

It was only then that Dialga realized what had happened. With the dimension weakening, Palkia's power was allowed to manifest somewhere. The soul realized that its own power must be present. After a time, Dialga managed to use that small amount of that power to invoke the promise that bound entire generations.

Dialga had called out to the zoroark, and forced the chosen ones to start their work early.

Only afterwards, when the Pillar was approached by a male, one that Vanilla recognized as Zaho, did the soul realize that something was wrong. Zeri, having not finished her training as a vessel for Palkia, had been forced to accept the other legendary Pokémon's soul early, and in doing so, it had taken the vixen's life in the process.

And now, history had repeated itself with Zeri's daughter. Dialga had doomed the very ones she'd trusted to look after her for all of these generations, and there was nothing she could do to prevent Chocola's fate.

Until Vanilla appeared, bearing the soul of her enemy...

 

~Daze~​

​

​

Vanilla double-checked that all of the connections were still surrounded by the rings. He'd have to move quickly if this was going to work. It never hurt to
be cautious, even if he was in a rush to tell Chocola that she didn't have to blame herself anymore.

Willing his way between the two entities, Vanilla left a solid structure in his wake. He wove it around the rings until they were the only openings left between Dialga and his friend.

He took a deep breath before continuing. The next step wasn't something he wanted to do, but it needed to be done, nonetheless. Without anything else left to prepare, Vanilla tranformed the openings in an instant, snapping all of the rings into discs.

All of the connected tendrils were promptly severed and the soul actually cried out in pain. Vanilla cringed. He hadn't known it could do that. While the soul was distracted, he gently pulled Chocola's twisted form from the cavity of the barrier.

On the other side, Dialga was practically skewered onto the exterior of the cavity. She was unable to move freely, let alone separate herself from the structure.

As the soul started wailing against the structure, Vanilla willed reinforcement while he siphoned his friend out of the hole. Every so often, as Chocola cleared a section of the warped hollow, Vanilla solidified it and let it dissipate into nothing. After all, there was no sense in letting the creature suffer more than what was necessary.

It took every ounce of his concentration, but eventually, he managed to free Chocola. Setting the severed tendrils aside, he gathered the remnants of his friend and moved a great distance away from Dialga before he destroyed the barrier completely.

Once this was done, and the soul distracted, with both distance and access to its pieces, did Vanilla set about trying to get Chocola pieced back together.

Sitting down in front of the mess, Vanilla grabbed the vixen's face. Thankfully, it was still mostly solid. Holding it up in front of him, he tried to ignore how creepy the physical action was.

"Chocola." He addressed the visage. "Chocola! It's time to wake up."

As only silence responded, he gave her a little shake.

"Ugh... Five more minutes..."

Vanilla was never happier to hear her voice. "Heh, sorry, Chocola, but-"

He was cut off. "I- wait!" Her eyes shot open. "Vanilla! I-I can't seem to move. I-"

"Shh. Chocola. It's going to be okay."

"But, what happened? Was there another cave-in, or-?"

"No. Nothing like that." Vanilla took another big gulp of air, more for time to think about how to proceed than anything else.

Chocola would very much like to have a panic attack right about now, but she found it rather difficult while being held by Vanilla. There was something different about him, but she couldn't quite place it. "Why are you glowing?"

'Of course!' Vanilla thought as he hatched out a plan. "Listen to me closely, Chocola. Do you remember that disguise you used when we first met?"

"Duh, I doubt I could forget my own personal eevee mirage. What about it? Did you miss it?" She finished teasingly.

"I'd like to say yes, but it's not about that. I just wanted to know about how you had to change every detail to match that of your zorua form."

"That's an odd request."

"Just humor me, Chocola. I want you to tell everything."

"Everything?"

"Yep." Vanilla said as he gave her a huge smile. "Every intimate detail."

Chocola thought about it for a bit before blushing furiously. The next thing she knew, she'd smacked him. "Vanilla!" she cried, slightly embarrassed. She didn't know he had it in him.

But instead of getting mad, Vanilla could only focus on the fact that she had hit him. Even now he found his gaze wandering over her newly reformed body. Where there had once only been the complex knot of engrams, there was now a complete zorua. "Chocola! You're back!" was all he could say as he both hugged and tackled her. Mental self-image was a heck of a thing!

As much as she enjoyed the glomp, she was only confused by her friend's actions. Vanilla was friendly, sure, but she'd never known him to be that friendly. "Okay... um, couple of questions, Vanilla..."

Pulling himself off of her, Vanilla wiped the tears from his eyes. "Anything Chocola. I'm just glad to have you back."

"Have me back? Okay, we'll revisit that in a moment, but first," She gestured to the creature hovering off in the distance, "what in the name of Arceus is that?"

Vanilla glanced at Dialga's soul. "Oh, that..." He noted that it was being fairly dormant so long as they stayed out of its range. "That's Dialga, well a piece of it anyway..." They sure did have a lot to discuss. Sighing deeply, he asked her what the last thing she remembered was. If there was any way to bring her up to speed, he might as well start there.

 

~Titans~​

"Wow, I was really asleep for all of that?" Chocola asked in bewilderment. Even though she'd never turn down a good nap, it was still hard to believe that she could sleep through all of those adventures. "And this is the dreamworld? My dreamworld?"

"Yep." Vanilla answered dutifully, glad that Chocola wasn't asking for too many details about her end of the ordeal. He had no idea how to explain that he literally had to clean her up off of the floor only moments ago. "Normally, a dark-type would only end up here if they succumbed to Sleep Powder or some other non-pychic ability capable of putting Pokémon to sleep." He beamed. "Or if your dream were interrupted by a certain intruding pychic." Vanilla finished under his breath after remembering how Mawe started training him.

"What was that?"

"Oh, nothing! I was just thinking about what I had to learn to get this far. Check this out!" the eevee summoned a little white ball in front of him.

Chocola poked the floating sphere tentatively. "What is it?"

"I'm not entirely sure what it's made of by default. But if I wanted to, I can turn it into anything I wanted." Vanilla demonstrated by tuning his ball to water and then to ice, before settling on some sort of igneous rock."

"So it's kind of like a mirage?"

"Maybe? I don't know. I mean, it acts like a physical item here. Are mirages capable of that?"

"Only if you're the one caught in one, I guess. That, or if you happen to be a zorua that's so young it can't distinguish between reality and the pup's own mirage."

Vanilla made a note to ask her about that story at a later date. He still had work to do after all. "Now that you're all caught up, I think it's time we get out of here."

Before Chocola could ask how, the both of them found themselves suspended very far above the ground. "Hey! What?" Suddenly falling, Chocola found herself staring at a perfectly content, yet plummeting, eevee. "What gives!?" She shouted over the rushing air. "I thought you were afraid of heights!"

Hearing her question, Vanilla remembered that he didn't like being too high up not too long ago. But after everything that's happened to him the last few days, and with the task they still had to fulfill, he just couldn't bring himself to worry over such a trivial fear anymore.

As the ground rushed up beneath them, Chocola could only stare at Vanilla while he gave her a shrug.

The moment, just before they hit the ground, the both of them found themselves awake inside of a torch-lit cavern.

~~~~~​

"-y Child! Speak to me, Chocola!" Zaho cried out as he held his daughter close.

"Daddy?" Chocola answered before attempting to rub the sleep from her eyes. "Ow!" She shouted as she suddenly found it painful to do so. She was sorer than she could ever remember being before. Does that mean that her dream was true? Then- "Vanilla!?"

"Shh, now, dear. He's over on the other side of the Dias. Come now, let's get you to a safe place..." Zaho stated sternly, leaving no room to argue.

Near Palkia's statue, Vanilla had a similar greeting, though not one of a familial nature. "Ugh, my head?"

Are you still you, Vanilla? Mawe asked.

"If I yell at you to cut it out with the telepathy, would you believe it's me?" Vanilla said dryly, to which the mewtwo shook her head in affirmation. "What happened? Where's Chocola?"

"With her father." Reiga chimed in. "Once Mawe discovered that Dialga's soul was by itself, we moved the both of you to your respective statues. You should find your head a bit more vacant now. No offense."

Peering into his mind, he found that he was truly alone. The silence was, while nearly deafening, was still quite comforting. "Umm, non taken, I guess? So then, was that it? We're done?"

Mawe spoke this time. "That depends, once the spirits were reunited, we were to-"

She was cut off by a couple of deafening howls. One was full of anguish and woe. The other was filled to the brim with nothing but absolute rage.

Shouting over the din, Mawe surrounded the three of them with a bubble barrier and sped away from the two awakening Pokémon.

And not a moment too soon, as the moment they left the dias, Palkia opened fire on Dialga. The Hyper Beam was aimed directly at her chest.