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“It wouldn’t be too big of a stretch to assume so,” Kep says, though he doesn’t like the taste of assumptions. They make him itch. “But also, if you imagine time as a big circle-- or even a small circle-- it makes it easier for universes to cross than if they were just straight.”
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He flips to a blank piece of paper and uncaps a Sharpie. “So, imagine, time is a flat circle--,” he draws a straight line on the page-- “but space-- the stuff that makes up the universe-- from the smallest nucleic acids, to the cells, to the people and Pokemon and plants the cells are in, to the earth, water, sky, and stars-- is like this,” he draws a larger circle around the line, “where the two sizes are equidistant with each other. This is spacetime. It’s a mathematical model.”
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He pauses to label the drawing.
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“Now we know that spacetime is 4D-- there are three dimensions to space, plus the dimension of time-- so imagine this bisected circle hops off the page.” He draws another circle in the middle of the halved circle to illustrate its dimensions. “It would be easier for a cyclical four-dimensional timeline to intersect with another cyclical four dimensional timeline than if it was just-- like this.” He drew a ‘+’ sign in the margins. “This would be the model if universes weren’t cyclical. And you could have these axi be any lengths. You could have more time and less space, or more space in less time. So the cyclical theory checks out.”
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He’s monologuing now. He’s found a groove and he’s in it.
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“You could theorize that the Unown appear in cyclical universes when the cycle is coming close to restarting. They have to be present for the birth and death of the world. Which doesn’t spell out too great for us.” His voice is bland, like he doesn’t so much care if the world ends. “I’m sure a whole bunch of catastrophic stuff could happen, but the end result would be the same.”
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There’s a strange wobbling noise as across the way Mercury is using a Wobbufet as a punching bag, striking and kicking the blue Patient Pokemon as it bounces back and forth. Eventually, the poor thing starts to look a little bruised, so Kepler tosses a Pokeball and secures it safely away from his meddling Scorbunny.

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The last thing Mars needs is to become some sort of stereotypical doomsdayer holding a sign that says ’THE END IS NIGH’. But, let's be honest, he’s already pretty close to that to begin with, and as he steps closer and listens to kepler brueshaber’s explanations while watching him draw, it all makes perfect sense to the Rocket admin.
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”It’s just a theory.” He reminds himself. ”There’s records of Unown presence through all ages, that there seems to be more now could just be a result of technology improving or people being more aware of their existence.”
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All that is well and good, but…
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”I once found my way to a world where the moon was falling. When I was there I was able to call a swarm of Unown that created a portal to bring me back to our dimension.” Him and luka chêne, but he’d rather not make mention of his friend to other Rocket members unless absolutely necessary – for her sake.
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What if that world had truly been meant to end, instead of it just being the fault of the assassin’s intervention? What if stopping the moon’s fall has catastrophic consequences they aren’t yet aware of?
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Those are grim thoughts.
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”It could be the meteorite… The Unown Report first appeared not long after 99943 METENO was first discovered, as far as I’m aware. After that everyone started seeing Unown everywhere.”
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99943 METENO.
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Killian Decker had told him about the meteor long before the public learned about its existence. He should have seen the connection back then. It would make sense that they are connected.
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Then again, there's no way to be certain.


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Honestly, the questions raised by the presence of potential end-of-the-world powers were good ones-- ones Kepler didn’t particularly want to answer. Like, was he sad? He’d never known how to answer that one on a good day-- and it’d been years since his last good day. What did one do, burdened with such a powerful brain and the feasible ability to help prevent such catastrophic events? Rage against the dying of the light? Kep had never been much of a rager, even that one time when he accidentally tried MDMA. He was definitely more of a ‘go quietly into that good night type’ of dude.
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Still, Mars’ story makes him pause. He looks up at the man, face that weird, blank stare that he got when he was working through a particularly tricky equation. Leave it to Kepler, he was more concerned with the repercussions of the falling moon than the point of the tale, which was that other universes exist and, also, Unown can make portals between them.
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He liked oceans, so sue him.
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“Did you-- stop it falling?” Kepler asked, wondering how on earth-- pun intended-- they’d do that. Because he was quickly gunning through the math in his head and the moon falling and how that would actually happen. They’d need another large body-- like, planet large-- to move for that to happen. Honestly the biggest problem would be the impact of a moon-sized object on the planet. And no more tides. But unlike, say, the sun, the moon wasn’t intrinsically tied to the earth’s seasons, weather, or anything like that.
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He broke himself out of his train of thought with a snicker. Laughter was a rarity for him.
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“Here I am worrying about all the wrong things,” he said.
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Yeah, the meteor. Lulu Flint’s Meteor, he was starting to call it in his head.
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“But is the meteor the end of the world or just the end of Hoenn?” Kepler prompted. “There would be an adjustment period, obviously. But I think everyone else would be okay in the end.”
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The end. A funny concept.
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Nearby, Mercury had moved on to another victim-- a Drifloon, leisurely floating by, until the Scorbunny grabbed it by its little heart-tipped tendrils and spun it around like an Olympic discus thrower.
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Unfortunately, the balloon didn’t toss in a satisfying way, so Mercury ended up kicking it-- and it floated up, like, you know, a balloon. So he kicked it again, and again, until it was bedraggled and bruised and more rolling along in the grass, not inches away from Kepler’s lap. He sighed, and tapped it with a Pokeball, putting it out of their misery.
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“Stop tormenting things,” he scolded. Mercury saluted him and then hopped off to completely ignore the order.

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”Yes.” It’s not entirely correct, it’s not like he had somehow amassed enough power to push the moon back to a point where there’s an exact balance between the centripetal and centrifugal force, but it still wouldn’t have been done without their intervention, would it? That wouldn’t that isn’t their own would have been destroyed. As Mars looks at Kepler, his expression is calm yet incredibly serious. ”Cresselia. The legendary pokémon? She had been captured. We freed her so she could restore the moon to its place.”
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Thinking of Cresselia always makes him think of the tales he would hear as a child: of growing in Sinnoh.
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Sinnoh with all of its tales of legendary pokémon, and now Hoenn, with all of those living deities that seem as if drawn to the region.
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What had FERNANDO SILPH called it in his interview for BARNABY FINCH’s show? Hollowed Earth Theory?
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”Hmm… It could be, though. Sure, the meteor isn’t large enough to destroy the planet, it probably isn’t large enough to destroy all of Hoenn, but this region isn’t like any other region, is it? I would even be inclined to argue that it being on course to crash here, of all places, is no coincidence.”
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Has it been drawn here? Is the meteor something else? If so, what is it after?



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Kep tilts his head, braid trailing down to graze his shoulder. “Cresselia,” he parrots, as though weighing the word on his tongue. “Heard a lot about her growing up. Heard more about Darkrai, of course, but Cresselia too.” Darkrai was the unofficial mascot of Alamos University, his alma mater. Their rival was University of Western Alamos, and they were often depicted as Cresselia in some of the-- less flattering artwork.
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After Mars finishes talkin, Kep makes a face. “That’s tinfoil hat talk,” he says, beginning to rifle through his notes again. “And a very Hoenn-centric point of view. The idea that this stuff isn’t happening in the world at large.” Which, what were the odds? But then, what were the odds that it was happening here, at all? What were the odds of a singularity? What was a singularity, if not a point wherein a function stopped being well-behaved?
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Hoenn had never been one for behaving.
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Having argued himself down from that ledge, he shrugged.
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“It’s a theory, I guess,” he allowed.
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Mercury had discovered a Misdreavus, and the two of them had been running across the open gnoll for the better part of five minutes, chasing each other, with the latter disappearing and reappearing in space, and Mercury trying to guess where she’d pop up. A random equation for which the answer was equal to all the space directly around Mercury. Event space, if you would. He’d zoned out, mind lost in the math, when the Misdreavus popped up right in front of him, startling him out of his skin and sending him backpedaling.
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“Holy fucking shit!” he yelped, clapping a hand to his chest to settle his racing heart. Mercury was rolling on the grass, laughing along with his new best friend. Kepler shakily drew out a Pokeball and slapped it against the Screech Pokemon’s forehead, sealing her inside and putting an end to that particular bullshit.
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“Wh-where’s your proof?” he asked Mars, trying to get his friggen’ heartrate to slow down. “Where’s your evidence?” Not accusatory. Just scientific. Nothing to prove except everything. That was how science worked. All things were theories, in a way.

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Is that not exactly what this whole conversation has been? Where’s the line between logical theorization and conspiracies? Evidence, perhaps. Proof. Things that are all around them when it comes to pointing out how different Hoenn is from most regions.
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He would say as much, but it’s then that a Misdreavus spooks kepler brueshaber, and Mars can’t help but chuckle at the sight.
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”Are you okay?” Instead of approaching to check on the scientist, he takes a seat, calling over his Rapidash and patting the pokémon’s neck. ”Things like these do happen in other regions from time to time, you’re right about that. Galar comes to mind.”


Images of the vision he had almost a year ago are fresh in his mind, as are thoughts of the conversation he had with Remiel Calcifet regarding past events at Galar.
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”Don’t you think Hoenn does seem particularly unlucky, though? Ultra Beasts appearing, the invasion of a species of extradimensional cannibals, the fall of meteors containing dangerous alien pokémon, the appearance of assassins with strange power, outbursts of primal energy, outbursts of infinity energy, almost every legendary pokémon in the book seeming to be drawn to this place… and avatarship.”
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Avatarship.
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It has been called a blessing by many, but is it really?
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It’s power… Power that is costly.
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”This is where the avatar phenomenon first appeared, and the only place where it is known to appear. What are the odds of all those things happening at the same place by chance? As far as I’m aware, logic dictates that there has to be a reason why all of these things occur in Hoenn.”
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It would make sense, but if that much is true, the future sure doesn't look bright.



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While it was true that conspiracies and hypothesis went hand in hand-- it was even in the name, conspiracy theory-- not all of one were the other-- like frogs and toads. All toads are frogs, but not all frogs are toads, which is, like, the one zoological thing Kepler retained from his Pokemon Evolutionary Theory class he had to take as an elective his freshman year.
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“Yeah, ‘m fine,” Kepler says, not realizing he’s still clutching at the fabric of his sweater until his fingers start to ache. He glares daggers at his Scorbunny as Mars continues to build on his postulation that Hoenn is special.
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And he has to admit, the evidence is damning.
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“I don’t believe in luck,” he says, voice flat. “But the idea of randomness exists as a theory in statistical mathematics. Statistically speaking, it’s possible that all these things could happen, individualistically, to one region, and not mean anything. Just be a product of-- of numerical determinism.”
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He runs a hand through his hair, fingers catching on snarls. Mars is stressing him out.
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“But it is highly unlikely. So your theory has weight. More weight than I enjoy it having, from a personal comfort standpoint.” Because now, as a scientist, isn’t it his job to put his mind to use trying to save the world? That’s a whole division of moral ethics that he’d snoozed through in college.
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There’s a loud, metallic banging noise as Mercury is picking a fight with-- with a freakin’ Metagross? The little rabbit is hopping and bopping as the Iron Leg Pokemon tried to punch him into the ground; eventually, Merc gets underneath him and fires off a flame charge directly into the larger dual type’s underbelly, sending it flying up in a smoking plume, and landing with a heavy slam on its back. Kepler, recovered from his fright, hurls a Pokeball at it, mostly to save Mercury from having to fight it any longer.
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“But where does it end?” He asks, once his attention is back on Mars. “We stop the meteor, then what? What-- what supernatural catastrophe comes next? In a model of cyclicism, all things have to end. The circle must become full.”

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Mathematics are actually something he can deal with. A zone of comfort among all these things that he has researched but that he still can’t grasp completely because there’s too many possibilities. The mention of statistics, of deterministic systems, brings a smile to the admin’s face, even if he agrees with Kepler: he also doesn’t enjoy how much weight this theory actually ends up having when considering every piece of evidence.
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”Yeah, I don’t believe in luck either.” He never has. He deals in statistics and probability. Luck is for people who don’t care for truly understanding the world… or so Mars would claim, at least.
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”I think the catastrophes will keep coming until Hoenn is gone.” A grim truth. Does he want that to happen? Should they all just abandon the region to its seemingly inevitable fate? If only Mars were aware that soon they won’t even be able to do so. ”...Unless someone finds what’s causing all of it to happen and comes up with a way to stop it, I guess. The origin of it all.”
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The origin point.
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Is that even possible? Would anyone even want that? Is it worth all the trouble? Hoenn isn’t even his own homeland, so why fight for it?



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Though math is an integral part of everything, and Kepler understands, reasoning and statistics bored him to tears. Sure, the higher planes of what he deals in are all based there, rooted there, grown from there-- what are advanced studies in physics or quantum mechanics but further analyzing, organizing, and presenting empirical data?
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Kepler snorts. “And I thought I sucked the fun out of a room.” That’s what he’d been told, at least, at his singular college party he’d dared to go to. Never again.
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“Ah. The origin point.” Kepler drew a lazy circle in the air with one finger. “The bottom of it all. All of this Euclidian space.” Across the grassy knoll, Mercury’s found a Honedge, is spinning it around by its trailing, blue ribbon.
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“Or do you think it’s different?” he asks, looking up at Mars for perhaps the first time. “Extraneous. Or vestigial. Dug in like a tick, as opposed to being an equivalent vector of our conformal, universal map?” He’s found another tangent and his brain is running with it. “The universe isn’t a circle, it’s a lemniscate. It’s got dimension but it’s all one side. A flat surface. So your origin point is rammed in here like a-- a foreign body. It’ll have an angle that’s perpendicular, that doesn’t fit.”
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Mercury clangs the Honedge off a tree, making it sing, before it falls, limp and tired, to the ground. He drags it over for Kepler to catch, but his brain is already on something else, so he’s distracted when he taps it with a Pokeball.
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“What if these disasters are the immune system?” he asks, not having considered the biological aspect of all this calamity before.