บท 48: Space is Big

It's been…what? Two days now?

I still haven't received a response, even after confirming I had the right numbers with Sycamore. Courtney has been taking a reprieve in the city since she's off duty from the whole Team Magma thing. Like yesterday, she found a nice café called Lysandre Café that's honestly too red for the eyes. She likes their pastries though.

On my end, my stock investment program has finally made some profit. Profit that I immediately reinvested in myself with upgrades to my Octillery Arms: increased battery capacity, stronger sensors, and better energy absorption. However, I got a little too into the whole process and may have used up all of my crystal samples.

I'm still working on crystal growth, finding some advancements with Hazel. The structure is too complex for her to replicate, but I think if she evolved to a Ferrothorn, then it should be easier for her to do.

Anyway, because of the performance of my piss-poor planning, I'm darting across the forest by my lonesome—with the exception of my pokémon—back to Reflection Cave. While I'm there, I might try and do more investigation into the reflection-less crystal wall. That one that I really felt the urge to touch, but I didn't because I was dragged away by a single Misdreavus that is now my Elania.

As I climb down the tunnels, I hear other voices. Specifically, I can hear Serena… I guess they're touring the caves. I really want to see her right now, but I know she said that she won't have an answer until she gets to Lumiose City.

So, against my greater desires, I trudge onward into the caves illuminated by mirrors.

It doesn't take long to reach the familiar mirror pane. Funnily enough, I'm not drawn towards it this time. That's probably a good thing but what do I know? I guess Gwen is, though, since her pokéball is shaking like crazy.

Reaching to my pocket, I release her from her ball. "Have fun," I idly comment as my arms begin breaking off chunks of crystal. I do have to keep an ear out since the Pokémon Rangers would have my neck if they knew I was…acquiring resources from a protected cave.

I can hear the gang now. The echoes are traveling quite far for Serena's shouts to reach my ears. It sounds like Ash ran off somewhere, and they're looking for him. However, I'd rather not get involved with Ash if I can avoid it. The boy is the definition of trouble.

There's a noticeable pattern here. It appears that reality likes to screw with me the most. Team Rocket gets blown up, presumably, every day, and they're fine. I get blown up, and I lose an arm. Countless battles have taken place in gyms that have seriously undergone stress tests, but they collapse as soon as I'm involved. Physics ignores aspects of the world around us until I'm involved. I've noticed this and have used it to my advantage.

With Ash, fate likes to screw with him. He gets into adventures and troubles nearly every day. He always comes out on top, like some kind of protagonist. He never gets hurt, and his trials are never too difficult. I have days go by where nothing happens, but Ash gets them every time we meet.

Knowing all of this, it would be in my best interest to avoid Ash at all costs. So, I continue with my work, ignoring Gwen who is poking my cheek with her stubby little hands.

Like the child she is, which I can't fault her for, she gets fed up with my ignorance of her and steals the crystal I was inspecting from my good hand. Impulsively, the arms move, but I stop them because that would likely hurt her in a real sense.

In my momentary pause, Gwen took the time to run off into the caves. Little does she know that I've upgraded my sensors to track different types of pokémon energy, and she's a little fireball of psychic and fairy.

Someday, I'll make glasses or a replacement eye or something to implement a HUD for this data instead of feeding it directly into my brain.

Psychic energy, like massive objects in space, bends the fabric of reality around it. Fairy energy takes it a degree further since it's the opposite of reality and logic, meaning literal magic. This bending, although the elasticity of space can fix itself, leaves footprints that I can easily follow.

A few minutes later, I find Gwen on an upper level holding the crystal, completely transfixed on a crystal mirror. I pluck the crystal out of her hand, shoving it in my bag, before scooping her up into a piggy-back.

Then, I see why she's fixed on the wall. I know why I wasn't entranced by the other mirror. It was simply the wrong one, or maybe the effect moves. All I know is that, as I life Gwen on my back, neither of us have a reflection. Though wary of it, part of my energy absorption upgrades allows me to siphon off the psychic energy this crystal is giving, allowing me to have the presence of mind to investigate.

The psychic energy this gives off is quite faint. Enough to entrance those that look, but in small enough doses that most won't even notice. The crystal is heavily imbued with fairy and dark energies which is an unusual combination. Those two are counter-intuitive to conventional resources.

Pulling me out of my thoughts, a pink fog envelops me. The source is found to be Gwen, who knows Misty Terrain…apparently. One of her parents must've known it, and she inherited the move.

Gwen, still entranced by the mirror, which is starting to worry me, uses her psychic abilities to move the fairy cloud into the crystal.

I shield my eyes as the mirror begins to glimmer, and the crystal turns from a reflection into a hallway!

As I step through, because science! I make sure to clamp an arm on the boundary between the two passages… Well, if I can prove what I'm seeing, I might just earn a doctorate in quantum mechanics and astrophysics. Sensors indicate that the crystal should at least be five meters thick. Obviously, I'm standing where mineral should be, so there must be some space-time fuckery going on here.

That same fuckery which is dumping terabytes of data into the input stream attached to my head.

This'll take weeks, possibly months or years to completely comb through, but my enhanced processing power can at least parse some of the header data. If I'm right, this portion should at least be a measure of how dimensionally stable I am. I'm from one universe, passing into another universe where physics might be more unnatural than normal.

I hypothesize that if my instability grows too high, I'll either won't be able to come back through this crystal portal, or I'll disintegrate into atomic spaghetti. Either way, I have the incentive to return before…approximately sundown.

I release the arm, finding the crystal immediately turns solid again. I turn to Gwen, giving her a blank stare as I hope to Arceus that she can open the portal again. As if hearing the question in my head, she nods.

I look back at the cave, finding it much browner than its silvery counterpart. A single fleeting thought rears its head in my mind, though. If Serena, Clemont, and Bonnie were looking for Ash, then my BS intuition is saying that he's…here somewhere.

I make my way towards the surface, grabbing as many alternate-reality crystals as I can for sampling. I can already tell that my future is making irrevocable changes… I just don't know if they're for the better.