Buzz!
A swirling blue vortex tore open in midair, and Steven Stone stepped out of it slowly, as though walking through a doorway. The moment his feet touched the stone floor, the time-space gate collapsed behind him without a sound.
He took a breath and looked around.
The chamber was a simple palace, its walls and pillars carved from silver-grey stone bricks. The layout was eerily familiar — the arrangement of the columns mirrored, almost exactly, the structure at the summit of Mt. Coronet. The color was different, but everything else was the same.
And then there were the statues.
Ten of them, scattered across the floor at intervals. Each one was a Pokémon, though their forms were so old and worn that Steven couldn't name all of them with certainty. Some were easier to recognize — he spotted likenesses of Arcanine, Lilligant, Avalugg, and Braviary among them. The others were harder to place.
Is this... the ancient Spear Pillar?
Bang!
"Metagross!"
Steven let out a quiet laugh, and reached over to pat Metagross on the arm. His partner had burst from its Poké Ball the moment they arrived, apparently as startled by the surroundings as Steven was. He gave it a reassuring look, then reached into his coat and began checking his gear.
His Key Stone ring was functioning normally. His Poké Balls worked fine. But his phone Pokédex had taken a hit — most of its features were locked out, showing inaccessible icons where there had once been menus. What remained was limited to its core functions: recording, scanning, and searching Pokémon data. Everything requiring a network connection was gone. Even the map displayed nothing but an error.
He wasn't surprised. The data stored on the chip inside the device was still intact. That was enough for now.
Steven slipped the phone back into his pocket. He had a charging dock for it, and as long as he could find an Electric-type Pokémon willing to help, he could keep it running. That was a problem for later. For now, he needed to get his bearings.
He turned toward Metagross, ready to climb on and take to the air — and then a soft whoosh cut through the quiet.
Diancie had popped out of her Poké Ball on her own, floating free and drawing in a long, satisfied breath of fresh air.
"It feels like so much time has passed!" she announced happily.
"It has, in a way," Steven said. "Though we didn't move forward. We moved back."
Diancie blinked. "Huh?"
She tilted her head at him with a puzzled look, then drifted curiously toward the edge of the palace and peeked over the side. Steven followed, and together they stood at the rim of the ancient structure and looked out at the world below.
There was nothing like what Steven was used to seeing from a high vantage point. No cities, no roads, no towers. Just open wilderness — rivers cutting through valleys, forested slopes, and mountains stretching into the distance. A massive waterfall tumbled down the cliffside below Mt. Coronet, its roar barely audible from this height.
Steven helped Diancie climb into his arms, then mounted Metagross and the two of them took off.
As they flew toward the base of the mountain, Steven kept a loose eye on the Pokémon they passed. They were common species — Pikachu, Ponyta, Golem — nothing out of the ordinary, though it was strange to see them roaming so freely across the untouched land. Below, scattered across the hills and plains, were small clusters of houses. Some were built of wood, others of rough stone. Simple, modest, clearly very old.
The people who spotted Steven from below stared. He could feel their eyes on him — wary, uncertain, trying to make sense of what they were seeing.
Steven chose one of the nearby dwellings and landed.
An old man was out front, working the soil with a hoe. He had a long white beard and a towel slung around his neck. When he heard Steven approach, he straightened up, wiped the sweat from his face, and gave the newcomer a long, careful look.
"Young man," he said slowly, eyes moving from Steven's outfit to the Pokémon looming behind him, "that's... quite the clothing you're wearing. And that Pokémon — I've never seen anything like it." He seemed to settle something in his mind. "You must have come from somewhere very far away."
"You could say that," Steven replied. "Can you tell me where we are?"
"These are the Coronet Highlands," the old man said. "Keep heading on, and you'll reach Horseshoe Plains. Beyond that is Jubilife Village — most travelers passing through here are headed that way."
"I see. Thank you," Steven said, bowing his head slightly. He turned to leave, his thoughts already turning over the information.
Jubilife Village. He filed the name away, wondering quietly whether it had any connection to the Jubilife City he knew from his own time.
The grasslands of Horseshoe Plains opened up before them not long after — wide, flat, and seemingly endless. Steven called a halt. He landed and let all of his Pokémon out of their Poké Balls.
Doublade drifted out and immediately started looking around, its twin blades spinning slowly as it surveyed the unfamiliar terrain. "Ball?" it murmured, a little confused by the change of scenery. The others were more relaxed about it — they had been moving from place to place constantly during the journey to this point, and adjusting to new surroundings had become second nature.
Steven unzipped his backpack and looked at what was left inside.
His face fell.
He had been aware, on some level, that he hadn't packed as well as he should have. Seeing what remained made it very concrete. There was enough food to keep his team fed for perhaps a few more days — not much beyond that.
He took stock of his options.
He wasn't an expert at making Poké Puffs or high-grade energy cubes, but he knew the basics well enough. The quality wouldn't be exceptional, but it would do. And he'd noticed on the way down that the fruit trees dotting the landscape were carrying enormous, healthy-looking Berries. He had gathered several handfuls as they flew. Larger than any he'd seen at home, and clearly in excellent condition.
He fed his team and then sat down and ate an Oran Berry himself — nearly twice the size of the ones sold in modern Pokémarts, and considerably sweeter.
Diancie glanced at the Berry in his hand, considered, and then quietly chose an energy cube instead.
Now came the harder question.
Steven stared at the horizon. Dialga had sent him here, but hadn't told him where to look. No coordinates, no description, nothing — just the task. Find the token, return it, bring his mother home.
The token was presumably something like the cylindrical stone he'd seen before — an object tied to Dialga in some way. His mother had been searching for it for years, more than a decade, and hadn't returned. That alone told him how difficult this was going to be.
He got to his feet.
The first step was finding her. And the most sensible place to start looking was the nearest settlement.
"Metagross," he called.
His Metagross moved to his side, then paused — watching him with that particular look Steven had learned to read over the past several months. The one that meant Metagross had something it wanted to communicate.
Steven had been working on understanding it. Those long, quiet exchanges between them — the shared looks that had sometimes stretched for minutes — hadn't been wasted.
"Metagross is saying," Diancie chimed in from beside them, "that it feels like training here would—"
"Who asked you to explain?!"
The shout cut through the air.
Everyone went very still.
Diancie froze.
Steven froze.
Metagross froze.
Then, slowly, all three of them turned to look at Metagross.
Because those words had come from Metagross.
In perfectly clear human language, transmitted directly into Steven's mind.
"...Metagross," Steven said quietly. "Say that again."
A long pause.
"...Master?"
The voice was young-sounding — something between a teenager and a young adult — and level in tone, even though the words carried a note of disbelief.
Steven felt a slow smile spread across his face.
It had worked. After all these months of effort, Metagross had finally done it. It had learned telepathy.
The truth was, Metagross had come close once before — it had managed to transmit the word "Metagross" to Steven's mind during an earlier attempt. But at the time, it had still been thinking in its own language out of habit, and the only word that came through had been its own name. Since then, Metagross had been quietly practicing. Forming sentences in its mind. Running them through in human language, translating them internally, making sure the thought was in the right shape before sending it.
It was Diancie's habit of jumping in and explaining for it that had pushed Metagross over the edge. The irritation had been strong enough to override the hesitation, and the sentence had come out — in clear, deliberate human language — before Metagross had even registered what it was doing.
"Master... I have learned," Metagross said again, this time more slowly. Its telepathic voice was steady and measured, just like its usual demeanor, but Steven could feel the quiet satisfaction underneath it.
"Congratulations, Metagross," Steven said.
He meant it.
"I always knew you could."
The greatest brain in the Pokémon world had, once again, lived up to its name.