The sky was dark, the air was cold and still, nothing moved anywhere. It was the same as usual. Only one thing was out of place. Moving across the hillside was a green and red figure. It was the only thing moving in this place and would normally be spotted immediately, but no one was around today. Lucky for him. If he was caught, it would mean death.

He stood on the low side of the hill at the entrance to the forest where he knew the one he was looking for lived. He entered the forest and walked for a few miles until finally coming upon her hiding place.

"Celebi!" The lone pokemon shouted. He waited for a minute. Nothing stirred. After a while he concluded that she must not have been there. He turned to leave.

"Wait, dear Grovyle! I'm coming!"

Grovyle turned back in the direction of the voice. A small sphere of light started to form in mid air and disappeared suddenly. There in its place was a small pink pokemon with bright green eyes. It looked like a fairy.

"What can I do for you, my dear?" Celebi asked.

"I was hoping you would be able to translate something for me." Grovyle took the stone tablet he had found out of his bag. He handed it to Celebi who looked at it curiously.

"This picture at the top is definitely a Time Gear. Unfortunately, I can't read any of this. Unown Runes aren't my specialty." She said.

"That's alright." Grovyle took the stone tablet back and put it in his bag. "At least now I know that much. Do you know where I might find someone who could read this?"

"Yes. I know someone. Or at least I might. I've only heard of her from other pokemon. She lives in a library on the main land. Pokemon are too afraid to go near because of her reputation, but, you know."

"Nothing is ever as it seems in this world of darkness." Grovyle finished for her. "So who is she?"

"I don't know. I've just heard rumors of a haunted library, or else a small child living in the library, or sometimes an old lady. Everyone's too afraid to go near it because she apparently works for Dusknoir."

"You expect me to ask a servant of Dusknoir's for help?" Grovyle yelled.

"Well, as I said, most of this stuff is from rumors, but a lot of pokemon say that she had some sort of strange power, which is why they don't go near. It does sound like Dusknoir, doesn't it, my dear?"

Grovyle nodded.

"From living in a library we might be able to guess that she would know how to read Unown Runes, but we won't know for sure until one of us goes to see."

"If that's the case, we should both go. If she does turn out to be a servant of Dusknoir's, we'll just have to bring her back here and get her to read the inscription and find a way to keep her from telling Dusknoir."

"You don't honestly plan on taking someone prisoner?" Celebi asked.

"If that's what needs to be done. Hopefully it won't matter soon anyway."

Celebi knew that this was just a dream of his, that he didn't really think they could make any difference, but it was hopeful trying to figure things out and to tell themselves that what they were doing was actually helping. But if they actually had to take a prisoner? Wouldn't this little charade turn into something too serious? Wouldn't it make them like every other pokemon in this dark and dreary world? But Celebi had to remind herself, Grovyle was like every other pokemon.

It was just a few days ago that she met Grovyle. He had come to the forest in search of a better place to live with more food. He chose Celebi's hiding place, but when he found out someone already lived there, he wanted to fight for it. Celebi didn't like violence. She was a healer and a protector before a fighter. She said that she would give him something in return for leaving the forest. A great treasure. He agreed, though it obviously wasn't like any treasure he could have imagined.

Celebi told him about the world of light. The world where a sun rose and set every day and where a moon and stars shone in the night. A world where the wind blew the leaves on the trees and the water ran through the forests in streams. It was more than Celebi had imagined seeing when she saw a strange spark in his eye. The two of them ended up being friends, but Grovyle was still a lot like every other pokemon in this world; greedy and scared at the same time, a dangerous combination. Like most he also had a longing for a bit of power. Maybe he thought brining the world back to the way it was would give him that power. But there was still something about him that Celebi found somewhat charming. He was still young and maybe he could change. People in this horrid world grew up much too quickly.

"Shall we go then?" Celebi opened the passage of time, which had been waiting there. "We'll use the passage of time to cross the dimensions to the mainland.

The two of them stepped through it. There was the uncomfortable spinning feeling that Grovyle hated. He woke up on the mainland, Celebi still floating above him.

"You're awake." Celebi said. "And it's about time too. You've been out for a while."

"No I haven't." Grovyle stood up. "Pretend all you want, but I've been asleep for no time at all.

"That will soon change, my dear Grovyle. The library's this way." Celebi took the lead and led Grovyle to a ruined old building. Two stone Luxray stood guard outside. Grovyle took a second to look and realized how ridiculous the statues looked, even though that alone would probably be enough to scare away most intruders.

"Isn't there a more secluded way in?" Grovyle asked. "These steps are so exposed."

"It'll be fine. No one ever comes near here."

"But if this person does really work for Dusknoir…"

"Don't worry!" Celebi tried taking something out of her bag. It seemed like it was too big to even fit in the bag. "Here it is! An apple for the teacher!" She handed a giant apple to Grovyle. "That's a Perfect Apple. I've heard that she shows a strange fascination towards fruit and that once she gave some information on a lost child when someone gave her a Perfect Apple. Give this to her and I don't think we'll have to worry about Dusknoir."

"A lost child is one thing! I don't think that the Planet's Par—."

Celebi covered his mouth before he could say anything else. "Let's just hope for the best! Okay?"

Grovyle sighed. "Fine. If we have to, we'll still take her prisoner."

The two of them walked, or in Celebi's case flew, up the stairs to the large front doors. With a bit of trouble they were able to force the doors open and they walked inside.

The place was like a maze lined with books. When they got to the back of the library, they quickly hid behind a book shelf. There was something that sounded like moaning coming from the desk at the back of the room.

"Wait, is that crying?" Grovyle asked.

"Sounds like it." Celebi said.

Grovyle came out from behind the shelf and shouted. "Hello? Is anyone here?"

The crying stopped almost immediately. "W-who's there?" A voice called back
to them. It was high pitched and sounded pretty young.

"We just want some information, that's all!" Grovyle shouted.

"Go away!" The voice yelled loudly. "I already told your boss everything I know!"

"Boss?"

"You don't work for Dusknoir?" The top of a head peaked above the edge of a desk. After seeing the two of them she stood up. "Who are you?"

"I'm Grovyle, and this is Celebi. We only came to ask for some help translating something."

She stepped out from behind the desk and walked closer to them, staring curiously at Celebi. "Aren't you a rare pokemon? The time travel pokemon?"

"Why yes!" Celebi said, obviously happy that someone knew her by name like this. "But, you're not a pokemon, are you? You're a human!"

She nodded. "The only one left. In this world, anyway. Because of Dusknoir. I agreed to help him out of cowardice in return for my life, but I had no idea how lonely it would get here."

"So you do work for Dusknoir!" Grovyle got into his battling stance.

She jumped and took a step back. "I don't want to, but you see what they do if I don't cooperate!"

Grovyle only just now noticed the many scars and scratches, some of them really deep cuts. She obviously had tried to put up a bit of a fight. Grovyle relaxed a little, but still didn't trust her.

"They came here a while ago." She said. "Dusknoir and a half dozen or so Sableye. They were asking me if anyone from the Planetary Investigation Team had come here, but they hadn't. They didn't believe me. You're not one of them, are you?"

"No, but I've heard of them." Grovyle said. "They investigate the Planet's Paralysis and try to find ways of reversing it. That sort of research has been outlawed, which is why Dusknoir's been hunting for them."

"Outlawed." She repeated. "So that's why they tell me to stay here."

"Why's that?" Celebi asked.

She didn't seem to want to say anything.

"Er… Are you… hungry?" Grovyle held out the apple.

"Ever since helping to find that little kid, people have been coming here trying to bribe me with food. I had to start making up stories about ghosts and things like that just to keep people away. I would naturally turn you down too, but I've been terrified of coming out of hiding for a while now. I'm starving!" She took the apple and started eating it. Grovyle and Celebi waited patiently for her to finish eating. "Now I'd feel guilty if I took your food without giving you something. But couldn't you just settle for a book or something?"

"Please tell us what you know." Grovyle said. "It's the only reason we came here. Why does Dusknoir tell you to stay here?"

Seeing that there was no way to convince them otherwise, she decided to tell them. "He wants me researching the Planet's Paralysis for his own reasons. I thought at first he might have been planning to betray Dialga, but then one of the Sableye let it slip that Dialga wanted him to research it himself so he would be able to keep anyone else from reversing it."

"So he's getting you to do all the work for him." Celebi said. "How horrible!"

"Anyway, we were wondering if you could read Unown Runes." Grovyle said. He didn't seem to care at all what she had been through.

"I can, but whatever you have to show me I'll have to tell Dusknoir about it. He can always tell if I'm hiding something."

"Well in that case, we're going to have to take you with us." Grovyle got back into his battle stance again.

The human girl jumped in surprise and took a nervous step back.

"Hang on." Celebi said. "I know that this is important to you, but I think we're going too far here. Maybe we should just stop now."

"We can't now, can we? She said she had to tell Dusknoir everything so now if she tells him about us it will be too late."

Celebi suddenly realized what he said was true. "We were just messing around! You didn't honestly think we would be able to do anything! We've gotten in over our heads now!"

"No going back then." Grovyle said. "I won't end up a victim of Dusknoir and I'll do anything to restore time again. Just to see what it's really like would be enough for me! And if we leave her here Dusknoir will find out about what we're doing and everything would be ruined!" He couldn't believe that Celebi really believed that they had just been messing around, that she thought this was all just a game!

"Can I come with you?" The human girl asked.

Celebi and Grovyle both turned to her in surprise.

"You want to come?" Celebi asked.

"Please take me with you!" She said. "I can't stand doing this anymore! If you promise to keep Dusknoir and those Sableye away from me, I'll tell you anything you want! I just want my freedom back!"

"What do you think, my dear?" Celebi asked Grovyle. "Do you still want to try to restore time?"

"Of course I do!" Grovyle said a little louder than he had wanted to. "What's you're name anyway?"

"I don't really have one." She admitted a bit embarrassed. "I've been orphaned since before Dusknoir showed up. I might have had one at one point, but it was so long ago that I forgot it."

"We can't just call you human." Celebi said. "Don't tell me; that's what Dusknoir calls you?"

She laughed. "Yea. I hate it so much. I did read a name in a book once. Verity. It means truth."

"Verity, eh?" Grovyle said. "Fine. Now let's get out of here before Dusknoir or those Sableye show up." He walked back towards the door.

"He's so hasty." Celebi said. "It's not like we're going to run out of time; that's already happened. I'm sorry he acts so rudely, Verity."

"I'm used to it." Verity said.

"Listen, I really think we've gotten ourselves in over our heads. Grovyle is so determined though. Would you mind working with him for a while to research a way to restore time? I think that being around someone like you might help his attitude a bit."

"It's the least I could do for you since you're doing this for me." Verity said.

"Hurry up!" Grovyle shouted back at them.

"It might not be possible, but I'll give it a try."

"ARE YOU COMING OR NOT!"

They arrived back in Celebi's forest and watched as Verity immediately started looking around at the trees and the eternally cloud covered sky. She walked over to a Caterpie who was walking through the forest. It looked up at her startled and then used String Shot to tie her legs together and cause her to fall on her back. Grovyle started laughing at the top of his lungs, but Celebi rushed over to try to help her up.

"What's your problem?" Verity said to Grovyle.

"I can't believe so many people were afraid to go near that library because they thought you were dangerous. You're pathetic!" He said.

"And I'm guessing you're some big tough guy? Slinking around in the shadows out of fear of the Sableye and so insignificant that Celebi didn't even think you were serious about restoring time until now?"

"Insignificant? You're the one who's been hiding in a library for who knows how long and helping Dusknoir. I bet you were just an obedient servant like any of those Sableye! I bet the only reason you got those scars was because you messed up and got Dusknoir in trouble! I bet you're not reliable in the least!"

"Then why did you suggest brining be back here?"

"Will you two stop it!" Celebi said. Verity and Grovyle turned away from each other. "My dear Grovyle, if you really were serious about this you wouldn't let your emotions get the better of you like this! Now just let her see that stone tablet so she can decipher it for us."

"Oh fine." Grovyle turned back to Verity and gave her the stone tablet that he had kept in his bag. "So can you read it or not?"

"Yea, I can read it. It's pretty simple. 'The Time Gears transcend the boundaries of time and space and keep the world in balance. Each of these hidden around the world are the keys to the tower that regulates time. Though some be guarded by the Spirits of Emotion, Willpower, and Knowledge, each is the key to time and its regulators. Without these gears time takes no shape, as it takes shape as the gears turn. Placed in the temporal spire, Time shall take shape throughout space, and space is also brought into being, as neither can exist without the other.'"

"Well that hardly helps." Grovyle said. "Mind telling us what that means in English?"

"The Time Gears are what give time its shape, though they seem to be part of something larger. This tower it mentions must act like a structure for time while the Time gears kept time flowing. If one is gone, then the other won't work either and time stops."

"That's basically how it works." Celebi said. "Temporal Tower collapsed a long time ago. When that happened time began stopping in larger areas until it stopped completely."

"So we have to find these Time Gears and place them in Temporal Tower?"

"That won't work." Celebi said. "The tower collapsed and when that happened the Time Gears stopped spinning and eventually shattered and turned to dust. Even if the Time Gears were still around, the temporal spire at the top of Temporal Tower was destroyed when the tower collapsed so there's nothing we could do."

"So much for that." Grovyle said. "Our only lead and it's gone. Fine. It looks like the only thing we have to go on is to investigate the Time Gears and find out if there's something else we could do."

"That sounds like a plan." Celebi said. "But finding where they used to be hidden will be the hard part. They were well hidden and no one knew their location when time stopped. Now that they're gone, finding where they used to be will be difficult. Dusknoir's bound to notice that Verity's gone so I wouldn't risk going back to that library."

"We should have left her there." Grovyle said.

"You were the one that was about to force me to come with you!" Verity shouted.

"Right before you started begging us to take you with us!" Grovyle shouted back at her.

Celebi sighed. "Making friends. Wherever we go, just making friends… Listen, you two! You can't keep fighting like this! If you are serious about this, you have to act like it! I can't be escorting the two of you everywhere. It's my job to guard this forest so once you decide on what to do you'll be on your own for a while."

"Fine." Grovyle said. "We'll try to get along, but I'm the boss. I'm not about to be taking orders from a human."

"Whatever you say, 'Boss.'" Verity said sarcastically.

Grovyle wanted to strangle her, but thought it might be best if he didn't. Celebi sent them back to the mainland a while later. The two of them started searching aimlessly for the previous hiding places of the time gears, but without much luck.

The two of them stopped to rest. Grovyle wasn't tired, but Verity looked like she was about to collapse so he grudgingly decided that they should stop.

"You're such a weakling. Wanting to stop after that short walk?" Grovyle said.

"Well sorry, 'Boss.' It's not like I've been locked in a building for who knows how long or anything. No, I go on ten mile runs all the time!"

"Forget it. Celebi said we shouldn't argue and she hasn't been wrong on anything yet."

"She said you two should quit while you're ahead. Do you think she was wrong then?"

"Probably not. I must just be an idiot." He waited a few seconds while Verity tried catching her breath from all the running that they had done. "You've met Dusknoir, right? What does he look like?"

"Big, grey, antenna on his head, and one big glowing red eye. His mouth is on his stomach. I heard that he can use an attack from that mouth on his stomach that's really strong. I'm glad I've never had to see it. His arms are strong enough, though. He knocked a Sableye out once just by punching it. It left a huge dent in the wall too. But I don't get why you would want to be doing this if you've never even seen Dusknoir and the Sableye."

"I want to see a world where the sun rises. That's all there is to it." He said simply.

"I think it's more than that." Verity said.

"It's not really any of your business, now is it? If you're rested enough, we should keep going." Grovyle stood back up.

The sound of a quiet laughter came from behind them. Verity started shaking and turned to the source of the laughter. They could hear something moving around behind the rocks behind them.

"Sableye." Verity said under her breath.

"Let's just see how strong they are!" Grovyle stepped in front of Verity as a few Sableye jumped out from behind the rocks. They attacked Grovyle with their Fury Swipes. He knocked out a couple with his Leaf Blade, but there were a lot of them. "Verity, get away from here! These guys shouldn't take too long to knock out, but you might not be able to keep up with them."

"You're kidding, right? After what I've been through I could go for a bit of revenge!"

"Weh-heh-heh-heh! Why don't you just come back with us quietly? It would mean a lot less trouble for you!" One of the Sableye said.

"Of course after what your friend just said, we can't let him escape!" Another one said.

They all started jumping around excitedly and started to attack again. Verity and Grovyle fought against them for a few minutes, but more Sableye kept showing up. The two of them turned and started to run. Ahead of them was a cliff. They stopped again and turned back to the Sableye.

"Throw the Grovyle over! Don't let the human get away!" One of the Sableye shouted.

Verity stepped back towards the edge of the cliff.

"What do you think you're doing?" Grovyle said.

"I'd suggest letting Grovyle go if you don't want to explain to your boss why you weren't able to bring be back alive!" Verity shouted at the Sableye.

"You're insane!" Grovyle shouted. "You wouldn't really do that, would you?"

"Of course I would! I don't want to be Dusknoir's prisoner any longer! I would do anything if it meant keeping my freedom!"

"You're bluffing!" One of the Sableye took a step closer. Verity took a step back and staggered on the edge of the cliff before regaining her balance. The Sableye took a few steps back.

The sableye all started murmuring to each other about what to do, but apparently none of them could think of anything. Obviously they didn't care if Grovyle would die, but they couldn't let her die when Dusknoir had told them to bring her back.

"Now stay back!" Verity said.

Grovyle realized what she was doing and took the opportunity to attack the Sableye. Every time they tried attacking, Verity would nearly fall off of the cliff again. Grovyle was finally able to knock out all of the Sableye.

"Quick thinking." Grovyle said, obviously reluctantly.

"I read about something like this in a book once and decided to give it a try." Verity said.

"Oh, so it wasn't really your own idea." Grovyle said.

"Hey, I still thought of something to get us out of that mess!" Verity said. "Something unoriginal is better than nothing at all!" She stepped away from the cliff, but when she lifted one foot off of the ground, the other one slipped and she fell over the edge of the cliff. At the last second she grabbed the ledge and tried to pull herself up.

Grovyle ran back towards her and grabbed her arm just as she lost her grip and was about to fall over the edge of the cliff. He pulled her up and she sat on the ground trying to catch her breath.

"Thanks." She said to Grovyle.

"For what? You're too important to lose this early on." Grovyle said.

"Oh, of course. So you don't care about me at all, is that it? I'm just a translator, right? Maybe you should have just stayed at the library and learned all of the stuff I know. Or would you rather just use me as a scapegoat until you find a way to restore time?"

"Not a bad idea. By taking you hostage and threatening your life, there's no way Dusknoir would dare try to hurt me."

"You know, you and Dusknoir aren't that different." Verity said.

This seemed to get Grovyle's blood boiling, but he still didn't seem to want to hurt Verity, whether because he still wanted to use her as a scapegoat or because Celebi told him to, she couldn't tell.

"Let's get going." Grovyle said.

"Hang on. Before we do, don't you think we should at least try to figure out where to go?"

"They were hidden before and they're gone now, so there's no way to figure out where they were. We just have to keep looking and hope something comes up!" Grovyle started to walk away, but Verity stayed rooted to the spot.

"Now hold on!" She said. "You don't trust me and I don't see any reason I should trust you. Without trust between us, I don't see any reason we should continue traveling together!"

Grovyle turned back to her. "How stupid can you get? Of course there's a reason we're traveling together! We need to find a way to restore time. With your knowledge and me not being a pathetic weakling, we'll be able to get this done when neither of us would be able to alone!"

"That is if we can keep from arguing like this every five minutes!" Verity pointed out.

"So why don't you just stop talking unless you absolutely need to?" Grovyle shouted.

"This is what I'm talking about! Unless we can truly trust each other, neither of us will ever want to stop this fight! At least I'm trying to find a way to solve this, but you're just running around randomly and acting like Dusknoir's long lost twin brother or something!"

"If you want to be left to the Sableye, then fine. I'm going on ahead."

"Go ahead and leave. If I'm not with you of course they won't hesitate to kill you."

Grovyle sighed. "You're so weird. Fine. What if I said I trusted you? Would that make things any better?"

"Not really. Words are meaningless. Unless we can really trust each other, there's no reason we should try finding the Time Gear hiding places."

"Fine. So what do you suggest we do?" Grovyle asked.

"You're the boss, why don't you think of something?" Verity asked.

Grovyle thought for a minute. "Okay, how about this? I once heard a rumor of a treasure hidden in a cave not far from here. Why don't we try to get that treasure as a bit of practice for finding the Time Gear hiding places?"

"Sounds good to me." Verity said.

The two of them headed out to the cave. The inside of the cave was filled with pools of lava that, like everything else, were frozen in time. There were many types of pokemon in the cave, though most were fire types.

"We're kind of lucky." Verity said. "If time wasn't frozen this place would be burning up. Being a grass type, I'm guessing you wouldn't like it very much."

"And you think you could take the heat?" Grovyle asked.

"Probably not. This cave is probably part of a volcano. Whenever the volcano was about to erupt, the lava would probably pour out of this cave down the side of the cliff."

"We'd better be careful then." Grovyle said.

The two of them went through the cave together. Grovyle fought and defeated every pokemon that came their way, making Verity feel a bit useless since she couldn't really do anything. About half way through Verity found what looked like a wooden staff laying on the ground. She turned and attacked just as a pokemon that Grovyle didn't notice was about to attack him. She hit it right between the eyes with the staff and knocked it out.

"Looks like I'm not so useless anymore." She said to Grovyle.

"You are. You'd be completely useless if it wasn't for that staff you picked up." Grovyle turned away and started walking again. Verity glared at the back of his head for a moment before following after him.

They finally reached the deepest part of the cave. Everything seemed still and there was no sign of treasure anywhere.

"So where's this treasure supposed to be?" Verity asked.

"I don't know. It's really just a rumor, like I said, but it's supposed to be around here somewhere." Grovyle said.

"And you believe every rumor you here, do you?" A deep voice said from somewhere in the back of the cave. Everything went dark for a second and when the little bit of light that there was came back, they were surrounded by a ton of fire type pokemon.

"Who are you?" Grovyle yelled at the one who was apparently their leader.

"I am Magmortar and these are the Magmar that live in this cave." Magmortar smirked. "You, like many before you, have fallen into our trap! We spread the rumor of a great treasure and when people come running to find it out of greed, we jump them and take everything they have."

"You're just a bunch of cowards, then?" Grovyle said. "Real pokemon would just come out of hiding and fight for what they want instead of using a cowardly trap like this! If you think we're going to let ourselves be beaten by you, then you're wrong!"

"Hey boss, this guy seems a little weird, doesn't he?" One of the Magmar asked.

"Nonsense." Magmortar said. "He's just like every other pokemon in the world; greedy and selfish and that's exactly why we were able to lure him here. His friend's no different, human or not."

"You take that back!" Verity said. "Grovyle, let's clobber these guys for leading us here!"

"Watch it!" Grovyle pushed Verity out of the way just as one of the Magmar was about to attack with Flamethrower. Instead of her getting hit, Grovyle took the attack for her.

Verity stared at the burn on Grovyle's arm. It looked really serious, thought that wasn't what had been so surprising. Grovyle, being a grass type, had just protected her from a fire type attack.

"You saved me…" She said.

"Think nothing of it; I merely acted on a whim." Grovyle said as he cringed from the pain.

Verity tried to hide a smirk. "Whatever you say, 'Boss'. As for all of you, you really are cowardly to attack like that! Why don't you fight us for real?"

The Magmar attacked. Verity and Grovyle fought them all off, back to back. After a few burns, cuts, and concussions, all of the Magmar were finally knocked out cold. The only one left was Magmortar.

Magmortar looked around in disbelief at all of his fallen minions. "You think you'll be able to get rid of me that easily!"

Magmortar shot a blast of fire towards them. Verity dodged by jumping out of the way and Grovyle dug under the ground. Magmortar looked around, hoping to be able to spot Grovyle coming out of the ground so he could attack him before getting attacked himself. Verity used the opportunity to attack with her staff. Magmortar blocked it with one arm and shot a Lava Plume attack towards Verity. She dodged out of the way of it and Grovyle came up behind Magmortar and attacked with Dig.

Magmortar turned and used Fire punch on Grovyle, but Verity attacked by hitting him in the back of the head with her staff. He staggered and Grovyle attacked him with Leaf Blade.

The battle went back and forth like this for what normally would have been hours, though not even a second had passed. Finally Magmortar fell to the ground panting for breath. The Magmar started to stir and all saw that their boss had been wiped out. They looked at each other for a few second and ran for the exit. Magmortar got up and, realizing he was all alone, ran for it also.

Grovyle knelt down and grabbed at the burn on his arm from where he had taken the attack for Verity before the real fight had started. It was looking really bad at this point.

"Do you have any bandages in your bag?" Verity asked.

"Yea. Do you know how to bandage wounds?" Grovyle asked.

"Of course. At least, I've read about it, but I'm sure just reading about it will be nothing like actually doing it." Verity took Grovyle's bag and started rummaging through it. She took out some bandages she found along with a few Rawst Berries and some other things and started treating Grovyle's burns.

"You've got a few bad burns yourself." Grovyle said.

"They're nothing compared to yours." Verity continued to put the bandages on Grovyle's burns. "You'll have to take off the bandages every now and then to let the burns get some air so they can heal. Those Rawst berries probably aren't going to be enough to treat them completely."

"Thank you…" Grovyle said.

Verity shook her head. "If you hadn't pushed me out of the way like that, I probably would have been knocked out instantly. Thank you, Grovyle."

"I'm still your boss, got it? Besides, I told you to think nothing of it. It was just a whim that I acted on without thinking about it." Grovyle looked towards the exit. "Does creating rumors of monsters really help keep people away?"

"Yea, why?" Verity finished bandaging Grovyle's wounds and put the extra things back into the bag.

"Those pokemon won't be coming back here now. If we spread a rumor that there's a monster living in here, other pokemon will stay away and we'll be able to keep this place as our base."

"Normally I would be completely against taking someone's home, but since it was where those creeps used to live I don't have any problems with that at all. Not to mention, it would be good if we had a place to hide from the Sableye so we don't have to constantly run from them."

Grovyle nodded. "Of course, this place might only be a temporary place for us to live until we find out where a Time Gear used to be hidden." He got up and walked towards the exit. "I'll go and spread a rumor. The Sableye are more interested in finding you than me, and with these injuries I'm sure they'll believe that I was attacked by a monster of some sort. Of course, If I leave my bag behind they'll think that all of my stuff was stolen too and no one will have any reason to attack me while I'm injured."

"Aside from the Sableye." Verity pointed out.

"I doubt they'll still be around here. They will have thought that we've moved on and they probably wouldn't want to fight us near a cliff again. Either way, I'll be careful and lay low until I'm sure the coast is clear." Grovyle left and Verity sat down to wait for him to come back.

"You really trust him enough to let him leave you in a cave where you were just attacked?" A sphere of light appeared in front of Verity and Celebi appeared.

"Of course I trust him." Verity smirked. "Besides, he left his bag behind."

Celebi laughed. "That's a good point."

"So have you been spying on us?" Verity asked.

"Not really. I just wanted to make sure you two wouldn't tear each other limb from limb and when you got into that fight I wanted to make sure you could handle it on your own. If it got any more serious, I would have stepped in. Now I'm sure the two of you will be able to work well together. You might even be able to defeat Dusknoir if you really put your minds to it."

Verity smiled.

The two of them talked a while longer while they waited for Grovyle to come back. Verity thought it would be best if Celebi got back to her forest in case someone came along, but she insisted that it would be impossible for anyone to catch her. She also said something under her breath about wanting to see Grovyle again before leaving.

Grovyle finally came back, carrying a few extra items with him, and noticed that Celebi was there.

"Hello, my dear Grovyle. I've been waiting for you to get back." She said. "Where did you get all of that stuff?"

Grovyle laughed. "A few pokemon took pity on me and gave me a few items."

"And you just let them give them to you?" Verity asked.

"You might live in your books, but the real world is different!" Grovyle started packing his things in his bag. "In this world it's take what you can get or it might mean your life. You'd better learn that quick."

"I'm sorry, but I can't believe that." Verity said with a sad expression on her face. "I think the pokemon in this world are just scared. Maybe those Magmar and that Magmortar were too afraid to leave this cave and they just lure people here so they can steal food."

"Believe whatever you want, but we were low on items anyway." Grovyle said. "If some gullible pokemon wanted to give their stuff away, I'm not complaining."

Verity sighed. "Fine, but where do we go from here? We still don't know where any of the Time Gears used to be hidden and we still don't know what to do when we find them."

"I was thinking about that." Grovyle said. "I really don't have any idea, but maybe if we took another look at that tablet I found?" He took the tablet that Verity had translated earlier out of his bag. He looked at the Unown Runes for a second, still unable to read them. "Do you think you could teach me how to read this?"

"Sure." Verity said. "For now I'll read it."

Grovyle handed the tablet to Verity, but almost immediately she put a hand to her head. A horrible dizziness had come over her. It was so bad that she would have given anything just to make it stop spinning. There was a flash of light, and suddenly she was no longer in the same cavern.

Instead of lava frozen in time, there were pools of water all around, each shimmering and sparkling in a warm and inviting light. The source of the light was coming from a blue-green gear-like object at the back of the cavern. There were some pokemon there too, though they all had a strange light in their eyes that Verity had never seen before.

A purple snake pokemon looked at the gear. "Wh-What'ssssss… thisssssss? What'sss Thisssss light?"

A rabbit-like pokemon spoke next. "Th-this is! There's something floating in the sky and shining! It's an incredibly mysterious scene… But it's so… it's so pretty…"

"Yes, very…" A white and green humanoid pokemon said. "It's emitting this blue-green radiance from its center… That light is illuminating the whole cave… This is very beautiful…

"It's just fascinating…" A small pink humanoid pokemon said. "I've never seen anything like it before… But… but this thing… What is it exactly?"

"You don't know?" A dark blue and red pokemon with long claws said. "It's a Time Gear."

"Huh? A Time Gear? Th-This is?" The rabbit pokemon said.

There was another flash of light. Verity gasped and looked around. She was back in the magma cavern with Celebi and Grovyle. Grovyle was fussing over the tablet she had apparently dropped and broke when she had the dizzy spell, but Celebi seemed deeply worried.

"What happened?" Celebi asked.

"I-I don't know…" Verity said. "I just got really dizzy all of a sudden and I had like a vision or something. There was this cave filled with water and there was a Time Gear hidden in it! It was shining and rotating slightly in the air. The light it was creating reflected on the water and… it was so beautiful…"

"Oh my goodness!" Celebi said excitedly. "Verity, it seems that you posses an ability called the Dimensional Scream!"

"Dimensional Scream?" Verity said.

"Yes!" Celebi said excitedly. "It's the ability to see into either the past or the future by touching an object related to Time Gears. This tablet must have come from that cave! Verity, you've found the location of a Time Gear!"

"How do you know she wasn't just imagining it?" Grovyle asked.

"The way she described the Time Gear was perfect! That's how a Time Gear looks, so this must truly be the Dimensional Scream!" Celebi said.

"But why hasn't it ever worked before?" Verity said. "You said I had to be touching something related to a Time Gear, so that explains why it didn't work while I was trapped in that library, but why not the first time I touched that tablet?"

Celebi looked slyly over at Grovyle. "Because for the Dimensional Scream to work, the one who possesses the ability must be accompanied by a trusted partner."