What kind of creep invaded a maiden’s bedroom in the middle of the night? Father Winter, or Dionysus--or whatever his real name was--had already been publicly outed as a sexual harasser in his Rondez-View of Luv route, so it shouldn’t have come as a surprise.

Him mentioning Maldacena by name all but confirmed his affiliation with the DRK Triad, the true enemy of Hoenn. Before Andrea could question the shady holiday icon, she was yeeted into a swirling portal against her will.

“W-wait, let me get dressed fiiiiiiirst!” The young woman wailed as her body involuntarily traveled through space and time. Thankfully, by the time she reached the other side of that portal, her Sygna Suit had materialized around her form. How convenient.

Her Fuecoco had also come along for the ride. Jalapeño always slept next to his mama. Cradling the tiny, red crocodile in her arms, the eccentric trainer tried to get a grasp of her surroundings; they appeared to be smack dab in the middle of Slateport City.

“Where- no, when are we? Is this the past, the present, the future?” Andrea fished her Rotom Phone out of her pocket, browsing HNN’s website--the most trusted source of information in all of Hoenn. According to the date of the latest article, this was the future.

“THE LEAGUE AND ROCKET SIGNED A PEACE TREATY?!” She yelled in shock after reading the headline, almost dropping her phone on the ground. Her confused shouting elicited several annoyed looks from passersby making their way to work.

Was Father Winter messing with her? This sounded almost too good to be true.

//part 1 of X

☉

It took all of Andrea’s mental fortitude to not completely freak out. Thankfully, her multiple experiences with interdimensional travel had normalized this sort of thing to her. When daily life in Hoenn was like a sci-fi novel, nothing truly shocked her anymore.

Now she had a whole year worth of history to catch up with. What exactly had happened in this branching future? According to that HNN article, dahlia goode had died in December of last year--which, for Andrea, was December of THIS YEAR. Confused yet?

“You think Father Winter is trying to warn us about future events?” Andrea looked at her Fuecoco questioningly, but the tiny croc visibly had no clue what she was talking about. “I guess you’re not versed in quantum mechanics, huh? That makes two of us.”

How had Dahlia’s death and the rise of the Silph’s to power led to the war ending? A piece of the puzzle was missing. “Could it be… because of my letter?” In her letter, she had asked for peace. Had Father Winter read it, and handpicked a future shaped by her very wishes?

Perhaps the how or why did not matter. “Peace…” The young woman smiled. That word sounded so beautiful, she wanted to repeat it over and over again. Finally, there was no more fighting. Finally, she didn’t have to worry about her friends showing up in an obituary. Finally, everyone could live the life that they wanted.

And so she would, in this timeline. Never to go back home, where life was hard.

//part 2 of X

☉

Minutes turned to hours. Hours turned to days. Andrea integrated herself in this foreign timeline as one of its regular denizens, no longer being treated as an anomaly by the forces that governed space and time. All the while, she did whatever research she could about the major events she had missed.

Various names of Hoenn’s important figures showed up in her news feed. Some of them were unfamiliar to her, while a few familiar names were missing. A popular celebrity blog had a picture of a shirtless Shred with a tagline calling him Hoenn’s ‘hottest new Gym leader’. Next to the article was an ad for the grand opening of howard slayte’s archeology-themed Gym.

It looked like some Rockets had taken a page from CIAN MAHER’s book and ran their own Gyms now. Andrea was halfway tempted to challenge them for their badges, but taking on a Gym with nothing but a Fuecoco was a bad idea. She couldn’t find any information about Team Rocket’s highest-ranking members. She hoped they were okay…

“No use worrying about the past, right Jalapeño? We should enjoy what the future has to offer!” The young PokéManiac declared, putting her phone away, and stepping out into this wonderful, futuristic world. A world filled with hope and possibilities.

She had decided that she wanted to spend her entire life here. Word on the street was that the government was going to unveil a secret project that would save Hoenn once and for all, preventing the Origin Point. This was now her home too, so she wanted to know what she could do to protect it.

//part 3 of X

☉

Andrea had spent over a week in this future, going through her daily routine of waking up, eating, and training her sole Pokémon. She had even gotten a job as an assistant to a local seamstress in order to cover her food expenses. Constantly repairing her own Sygna Suits had given her a knack for sewing.

All in all, life was good. The thought of returning whence she came wasn’t even on her radar. She only worried about her idyllic, conflict-free world being invaded by the DRK Triad, or the Megalopolans, or another entity. However, she slept peacefully at night knowing that the government was working on saving them all.

Then the announcement happened, which was broadcasted on virtually every device in Hoenn that had a screen.

“Blah blah…Project Salvation…blah blah…Silph Corporation…blah blah…Primal Points…blah blah…The Cloud…blah blah…observable phenomena…blah blah…solid projection…blah blah…Dynamax…blah blah…parallel worlds…blah blah…Sea Hoenn.”

The spokesperson for the big reveal was a faceless Silph employee. Much like Dr. Frankenstein, the scientists actually responsible for this invention were ashamed and horrified of what they had created. What followed was a live demonstration of ‘Project Salvation’ in action.

“N-no way… They can’t do this…”

Looming over the alternate dimension known as Sea Hoenn was a copy of the 99943 METENO meteoroid pulled straight out of The Cloud’s records and magnified tenfold using Dynamax Energy. The impact reduced that entire planet to space debris within seconds.



Billions of souls had just been callously extinguished like flies on a cosmic bug zapper.

“Father Winter, take me out of this place! I don’t wanna be here anymore!” Andrea’s tearful pleas fell on deaf ears. Father Winter was not there. He must have either sent her there so she could learn a lesson, or for his own sick amusement.

Was that really how the Silph-Rocket administration planned to save everyone? By destroying every other world until only Hoenn-820 remained? There was no way the Council had agreed to this. Someone must have spoken up. Someone had to rebel against such an awful, heartless decision.

If no-one else was going to do that, she would. Even though she was just a lone girl with a Fuecoco, she could not let them have their way.

//part 4 of X

☉

Like in 2022, the League needed Primal Points in order to warp the mass-produced meteoroids into other dimensions. Andrea had unwittingly helped Champion kyle lopez guard one of those machines back in the day. This time, she would be destroying them.

Finding one of those Primal Points was one thing, but dismantling them was another thing entirely. After Mt. Pyre, the structures had been reinforced and made much more durable. Jalapeño’s fire breath couldn’t even make a dent in it.

A couple of rangers spotted the two saboteurs. “Hey, you! Freeze!” Before they could apprehend them, the rangers were tossed into the air by a charging Aggron.

“Barron?! What are you doing here?!” The young PokéManiac exclaimed in bewilderment.

“Chomper, Sora! Help that little guy out!” A voice identical to her own was heard. Several Dragon-type Pokémon descended from the sky, bashing the doomsday machine with multiple high-powered attacks.

What surprised Andrea the most was that the person commanding those ferocious dragons was none other than herself! A second Andrea stood before her, identical to her save for being one year older. It did not take a genius to deduce that this was a version of Andrea Vaneau native to this timeline.

The two Andreas locked eyes, wordlessly approaching each other. As they touched palms, the two became one by the unconscious will of the universe trying to correct an obvious paradox. The memories of her present and future selves were perfectly synced. Now she truly had all she needed to rebel against the system.

Over the next few weeks, she made a name for herself as a region-trotting vigilante, constantly foiling the League’s nefarious plans of spreading Project Salvation across the multiverse. Eventually, they began to see her as a threat, deploying one of their best soldiers to deal with her.

//part 5 of X

☉

How foolish she had been. One could not lead a one woman rebellion against an entire system of greed and corruption. The world possessed a strong immunity to change. Only instead of sending white blood cells to fight off the infection, it sent white knights.

She had declared war on the Silph-Rocket administration. She was prepared to have to fight their best of the best--MATIAS SILPH, declan walsh, perhaps even FERNANDO SILPH himself--but not him. Anyone but him…

Thunder rumbled, dark clouds looming overhead. The heavy rain was not enough to wash off the blood that stained the rugged terrain of Route 111. Chomper, Barron, Missy, and many others… All of them lay dead, the light extinguished from their eyes.

“How… How could you do this?” Muttered an utterly defeated Andrea, kneeling on the ground before her fallen companions. Jalapeño was once again all she had left--the former baby Fuecoco now an adolescent Crocalor.

“How could you side with them?! Answer me!” The grief-stricken woman spat, shooting a spiteful glare at the person that had beaten her. The person she had once called a friend.

Standing across her, riding the legendary beast of lightning, was none other than Josh Devlin--no longer just the Gym Leader of Mauville, but a fully fledged avatar. And yet, despite this future version of him having achieved his lifelong dream, he couldn’t even muster a smile.

“I’m sorry, Andrea. For your sake, I hope that you’ll stop your foolish insurrection.” He said with the cold cadence of a soldier following orders, before flicking Raikou’s reins, the rider and mount duo vanishing into the raging storm.

The dragon-costumed girl choked up, clenching her fists hard. Her mournful sobbing devolved into a blood-curdling wail of vengeance, as she started tearing off her own Sygna Suit in a blind fit of rage. The former manifestation of her dream, now a grim reminder that Chomper was no longer with her.

Chomper was gone. They had killed him, and now he was gone. Nothing mattered anymore. Everything was meaningless. This whole world was meaningless--a hollow, cruel world that dared fool her into thinking she was in paradise.

//part 6 of X

☉

//TW: suicidal ideation

Had she been killed back there, her final act of defiance could have meant something. She could have become a martyr, inspiring thousands of people to follow in her footsteps. But no, the ones who ruled this world were smarter than that, letting her live with her failure instead.

No longer welcomed by a society that grew increasingly radicalized in their pursuit of complete cosmic dominance, she withdrew to the remote depths of Meteor Falls, where she spent the rest of her days. Completely isolated from civilization, she immersed herself in studying the past etched in the walls of the cave by its ancient inhabitants.

The years flew by in fast motion. Her hair turned gray. Her beautiful skin pruned into the hideous visage of a hag. Tomes of apocryphal Draconid lore filled up her brain, replacing former memories that were either forgotten or repressed. Her inside voice that had once been jovial and optimistic was now bitter and spiteful.

This world is condemnable. Everyone has blood on their hands. Even those who did not commit those atrocities themselves.

A withered old woman accompanied by a fully matured Skeledirge stood atop a steep cliff. She planted her cane into the ground, reciting a mystical chant in a language whose meaning had long been lost in the mists of time.

Their silence makes them complicit. Therefore, they too shall be judged by the Man-Devouring Beast.

Through decades of research steeped in madness, she had gained knowledge of an ancient artifact passed down through generations of dragon tamers. An artifact capable of fusing dimensions. That artifact was now in her hand.

[player]https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/1035423510278979624/1180015509010391072/FROZEN_CITY.mp3[/player]

🎼 Frozen City (Opelucid City Frozen): Arrangement ► Pokémon Black 2 & White 2

A gargantuan maw of ice emerged from the gaping portal, cold breaths freezing the very air around it. The monster that had once been at the beck and call of the DRK Triad was now hers to command, immediately wreaking havoc upon the world.

It is done. If there exists even a single world out there that survived our violent crusade, I beseech you to not repeat our sins.

And yet, it was not entirely done. Everyone was complicit, including herself. Once Kyurem had covered all of Hoenn in ice, she too had to pay penance for her crimes.

With solemn tears cascading her wrinkled face, the old woman knelt down, pressing her forehead against the Skeledirge’s snout. “Goodbye, Jalapeño. Please be a good boy…”

With that, she turned on her heel, sparing one last glance at the sun setting over a condemned land encased in ice.

And then, she jumped into the void.

//part 7 of X

☉

Andrea was jolted awake by a sudden sense of vertigo, gasping sharply. She was lying on her bed back home, drenched in cold sweat. A hand instinctively reached for her face, feeling her smooth skin. She rushed to the bathroom sink, looking at her own reflection in the mirror. She was young again. No wrinkles, no gray hairs.

“Was this all… a dream?” The girl muttered in disbelief. Jalapeño waddled up to his human mother, nudging her leg. He was back to being a Fuecoco. She picked the diminutive crocodile up, hugging him close to her chest. “Did you have the same dream too?”

She refused to accept such a convenient explanation, though. She distinctly remembered Father Winter dunking her through a portal. It all had felt very real--an entire lifetime spent in a branching future, only to return to the familiar present as if nothing had happened. The more she thought about it, the more her memories from that branch started feeling like a distant dream.

“No, I don’t wanna forget!” The young woman protested, holding a hand to her temple. “Come on, brain, keep those memories in! If I forget them, I won’t have learned anything!” She told herself, trying to keep those images alive in her head like her life depended on it.

In truth, she wanted to forget. She needed to forget. She didn’t want to remember that, in another timeline, she had doomed the entire world. She didn’t want to remember that, in another timeline, her friends had betrayed her. And yet, if she allowed herself to go on living in blissful ignorance, she was destined to repeat those same mistakes.

Whether Father Winter had tormented her for his personal amusement, or was genuinely trying to help, Andrea had learned an important lesson about blindly trusting people’s goodwill. Even the nicest deeds could hide insidious motives. At the same time, she couldn’t afford to lose her faith in humanity’s inherent goodness lest she wound up just like that spiteful old hag.

“I need a pen.” With Jalapeño perching on her shoulder, she sat in front of her desk, and began writing down those events in her diary to the best of her dwindling memory. Her barely legible scribbles would no doubt read like the ramblings of a madwoman the next morning, but at least there would be some record of it.

Maybe next time she would know better than to wish for something without thinking of the consequences.

//the end

☉