Arven often wondered what it was like to die. Was it painful, scary, peaceful, or a combination of all three? What did his mom feel when she died? Arven pictured her death scene every day after he and his friends descended into Area Zero in the Great Crater of Paldea. A Pokémon attack hurts, right? Did it break every bone in his mom's fragile body? Arven wouldn't be surprised if it did.
Oh gosh, the ache in his chest was back. It was like somebody grabbed his heart and squeezed the life right out of it. Arven couldn't think straight. How could his mom be so stupid when she had a child waiting for her to come home to him?
The first thing Arven saw when he sat up on Poco Lab's leather couch that he used for a bed that morning was the Scarlet Book on the glass coffee table. But how? Sada took it with her to the past. Then again, in the world of Pokémon, anything was possible.
Arven fluffed his pajamas and picked up the familiar book. It remained breathtaking, with its scarlet cover, golden border, and an outline of Koraidon on it. The pages were yellow with age and slightly torn but still readable.
Still trying to make sense of the phenomenon, Arven stood. He didn't see his Dark-type dog Pokémon, Mabosstiff, anywhere, so he most likely was out on his morning walk. That was good in its own way because it bought time for Arven to clear his head, although it was near impossible with all those disturbing memories of his mom. What sick person abandoned their child and left him with just a dog to grow up with? Arven loved Mabosstiff, but still! He might as well call himself an orphan. His mom was dead—replaced by an AI—and his dad was Arceus knows where.
Arven jogged to the lab's tiny kitchen and pulled back some flower-printed curtains. He peered outside to the newborn day and called into the hazy, blue sky, "Mom, is this a sign?" He held the book up to it. "Are you trying to tell me something?"
Arven hoped that the sky's translucent cirrus clouds would come together to take on the form of his mom, but they never did. No one visited him from the heavens. Seriously, what was the point of magic if Paldea was forbidden to share it with people like Arven?
He lowered the Scarlet Book, disappointed but curious if its sudden presence meant he could, indeed, reunite with his mom, whether in the afterlife or the past. He didn't care which one as long as it happened.
"I don't wanna go to school," Arven muttered. He slammed the book down on the kitchen counter, and its impact rattled the dishes in the dishwasher. "Not until I get her back." Tears sparkled in his oval-shaped, teal-colored eyes. He slid off the counter like he was dying and rested his left shoulder on its wooden cabinet. The Scarlet Book fell with him and landed open at his knees, revealing the blurry image of a Past Pokémon called Great Tusk.
Arven shivered and crossed his arms over his chest. He recalled one of the earliest memories of his mom—when she taught him how to swim for the first time with his little Magikarp floaties. He still felt her tossing him up into the sky and twirling him in a circle because he managed to doggy-paddle to the other side of the pool. That's all it was, though—a memory.
"I just want a mom," Arven whispered to himself. The emotions built up inside him like a volcano preparing to erupt. He felt like he was about to erupt. His face paled until he looked like he was about to faint.
Arven suddenly didn't want to be alone anymore and shouted, "Mabosstiff, help me! Mabosstiff!" The whole time he waited for his partner, he sobbed.
***
"Good morning, children!" Ms. Raifort pulled her large, square-shaped glasses off and set them down in her lush, light black hair. She eyed her History students, who sat with their legs behind their desks, straight as poles, and admired their white uniforms with deep red ties and striped shorts. "Oh, aren't we missing someone?" Raifort wanted to know after studying her students a little longer. It was like she suddenly owned all of Naranja Academy.
Nemona and Scarlet, who sat at the front of the class, exchanged looks. Scarlet tucked her tight-covered legs under her chair and hid behind her brown curls, but they became caught in her black and round glasses.
Nemona lifted her arm. "Arven promised he would be here today, Ms. Raifort."
"Well, I don't see him, do I, Nemona?" Ms. Raifort questioned. She shook her head and closed her eyes. "I swear, it's like that boy's got his head in the clouds nowadays."
Scarlet and Nemona gulped when images of Area Zero and AI Sada filled their heads: the way Sada glitched when the time machine overthrew her and Arven's face when she told him that his mother had loved him.
"Oh, come on," Ms. Raifort groaned at the sight of Nemona and Scarlet's blank faces. "Don't tell me you two have your heads in the clouds, too." She rested her palms over the papers on her desk and stared deeply into the two girls' eyes—past Scarlet's glasses. "What, do y'all need a sandwich to perk up?"
Right at the word "sandwich", one of the pokéballs on Scarlet's belt flashed open.
Before the class knew it, Koraidon sat like a Mabosstiff in the aisle. He licked his lips, and his big, orange-yellow eyes searched the room for sandwiches. He almost knocked Nemona and Scarlet's desk over with the tire in his scarlet chest and silently whined, "Gias."
"Scarlet!" Ms. Raifort snapped. "How often have I told you not to bring your Pokémon to class?"
"That's my fault," Nemona piped up before Scarlet could answer. "We had a battle before we came here." Now that Scarlet was a Champion-ranked trainer like her, they spent too much time battling each other, to Scarlet's exhaustion.
She wrapped her arms around Koraidon's powerful, scaly neck and buried her face in the feather-like features on his head.
Putting her hands together, Nemona said, "We'll do better, Ms. Raifort. Promise." One of her green-tinted bangs fell before her left golden-brown eye, and she peered pleadingly into Ms. Raifort's face.
"Sigh," Ms. Raifort said out loud, "what am I going to do with you battle-crazy kids? Scarlet, it's okay for today, but if you bring your Pokémon to class again, I will have to send you to Director Clavell's office. Do you understand?"
Scarlet removed her head from Koraidon and gave her a weak nod. "Yes, ma'am."
"Gias," Koraidon repeated, ashamed, but also disappointed that there were no sandwiches for him to munch on.
***
Poco Path. There was something about it that comforted Arven. Was it its lush, green grass, the view of the Paldean Sea sparkling under the sun's rays, or the fact that the lab was where he grew up without a mom or dad? Whatever it was, the lighthouse attached to it was always Arven's go-to place when he felt stressed, aside from the kitchen.
He and Mabosstiff looked across the Paldean Sea. They kept an eye out for any incoming ships, and then they jogged to the other side of the lighthouse and studied Paldea's extensive nature: the white tips of Glaseado Mountain and Mesagoza just past Los Platos below.
Mabosstiff wagged his tail and rubbed against Arven's leg with his favorite pokéball in his mouth.
Arven's eyes left Paldea's wilderness and settled on his partner instead. "What is it, boy? Do you wanna play fetch?"
"Woof!" Mabosstiff replied, running in a few quick circles.
Arven took his hiking pack off his back and sat it beside him. He held his hand out to Mabosstiff. "Come on, boy. Give the ball to Arven now."
Obeying, Mabosstiff dropped the slimy ball into his partner's palm. A few drops of drool dripped onto Arven's scarlet jeans and tie, but Arven couldn't care less.
He pulled his arm behind his head of dirty blonde hair inherited from his mom and tossed the ball a few feet forward.
At once, Mabosstiff chased it. He moved so fast that he slid on the lighthouse's red and white bricks before he caught the ball.
While his partner played, Arven sat down and rested his back on the lighthouse's fence. He unzipped his knapsack and pulled out the Scarlet Book. Arven flipped to the first page. Nope, there was nothing there that could help him. He flipped to the next page, and the next, until he finally found the chapter about the herba mysticas that he tracked down with Scarlet to help Mabosstiff when he was ill not too long ago.
"There has to be something about the time machine in here," Arven said when Mabosstiff returned and lay down beside him. He knew there was; he just had to find whatever clues he could.
The journey down the lighthouse was quiet because Arven was so lost in his thoughts. The second he reached the ladder's base, his Rotom Phone buzzed and floated out of his pocket.
"Hey, Arven!" Nemona said on the other line. "Where are you? Ms. Raifort's pitching a fit."
Arven slapped the phone off to the side. He didn't feel like talking right now.
The Rotom Phone chased him, but Arven whirled around and said, "Stop!" He scared poor Rotom so much that he instantly shut down, and Arven caught the lifeless phone. Instead of hearing Nemona's voice about Ms. Raifort pitching a fit, he heard his mother's—the few times she snapped at him when he didn't attend some of his elementary school classes. That was before she became obsessed with her dumb time machine.
Arven slipped the phone into his pocket and removed Mabosstiff's ball from his belt. "Come out, Mabosstiff. I need you."
Mabosstiff was at his heels within seconds and followed Arven into the lab. Even though he ensured he cleaned it every week, must and dust always seemed to find their way back into it.
Dusty books fell from a few bookshelves, and the lab's computers on the other end booted up simultaneously, revealing a topographic map of Paldea and the Great Crater.
Arven studied them for a few minutes and then went into the kitchen to fix sandwiches for him and Mabosstiff. They ate silently in the musty, old lab—with no parents or answers. How on Earth was Arven supposed to get his mom back now unless he found another Past Pokémon?
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