Chapter 5: Time Travel is Your Friend “Bayleaf! Mismagius!” Chris held two small pokeballs in his two outstretched hands, he swiftly clicked the two white buttons at the center of each small sphere in his hand and they enlarged. “Go!” He tossed them in the air and they swung open at their center. A sudden red flash appeared, followed by two bodies materializing in front of him. One of the large green reptile like Bayleaf and the other of the purple cloak that was Mismagius. “Nice Mismagius,” said Karma clearly appreciating Mismagius’ appearance. “Hello, my name is Karma Metrawire.” Mismagius and Bayleaf looked towards Karma with gentle amusement. Chris had been trying adamantly to not stare too much at Karma’s “strange” sense of fashion. “Introduce your self’s if you please, Cuerno, Piedra, y Noche!” said Karma suddenly juggling three pokeballs. She tossed them and from the resulting flashes of red light emerged three new pokemon. Cuerno the rocky-hide Ryhorn. Piedra the round Golem, and Noche the pale Absol. “Nicknames huh?” Yawned Growlithe lazily from the patch of grass it was laying on. Immediately Karma’s pokemon jumped back in surprise. They quickly recovered from their surprise and crowded towards Growlithe. Chris’ companions had already been introduced to the talking oddity that was Growlithe some days back in Cerulean. Chris was a little surprised at Karma’s line up of pokemon. From her appearance and demeanor, he would probably have bet a lot of money that she wasn’t a very serious pokemon trainer. At most, maybe a hobbyist or pokemon coordinator. Yet her pokemon were truly fit for neither. Pokemon such like Ryhorn and Golem were powerhouses. Her pokemon, Absol included, were melee based. Interestingly enough, Chris would also have bet that she would have preferred pokemon of the psychic, ghost, or dark type basis. She had struck him as someone who would specialize on special attack and even more on defense if not speed. A single lonely rush of wind passed through the party’s makeshift lunch stop. Chris looked up and saw a pair of Spearow flitter through the air overhead. Far higher up was a single Fearow. Chris sighed. Had the Fearow been flying much lower, he probably would have made an attempt to capture it. Unfortunately Fearow were notorious for soaring at usually unreachable heights. Even when roosting, their nests usually are in mountains or canyons, so reaching them when they sleep at night is almost just as improbable. Having a Fearow would certainly have made traveling easier for Chris in any case. He studied the Fearow for a few more seconds when he saw it. At first a black dot, it seemed to descend until it was flying next to the Fearow. Chris could have sworn it was a flying green snake or something, it was longer than the Fearow and it sported no wings and yet Chris saw that it had what looked like arms. Chris reached for his pokedex but Karma called his name and he looked down. Upon looking back the snake was gone and the Fearow was alone again. “Hey stop day dreaming. Do we have enough plates?” asked Karma. Chris looked down, a little disappointed and yet the question distracted him enough that he just about forgot what he just saw. “Uh…yeah, I keep a stack of paper plates on pack…” he sort of trailed off. He had just counted the total of pokemon and people there was to feed. Lunch was a fairly messy ordeal. Chris thought that he had made plenty and yet he had not counted on having to feed a Golem or Ryhorn. The stew had been insufficient and Chris had been forced to skip on this meal for the sake of having enough for the pokemon. He really had been rather foolish for not asking how many pokemon Karma carried with her before trying to prepare their meal. Watching everyone else eat while he snacked on a chocolate bar was torture. After lunch, Cuerno, Piedra, and Bayleaf turned to playing in the tall grass to the general annoyance of many bugcatchers. Mismagius and Noche had chosen to nap under the shade of a tree. Karma sat down next to Growlithe, which was back on his patch of grass. Chris looked at them both and sat down directly in front of them. Throughout lunch he had been trying to see what Growlithe’s view on the situation was. Was Growlithe opposed or for Karma joining them? Yet he hadn’t gotten anywhere, Growlithe hadn’t given Chris a single word, instead choosing to bask in the limelight the other pokemon were giving it for being able to speak. “What’s it going to be big-boy?” asked Karma. “Well,” Chris looked at Growlithe again, hoping for some, any form of communication, but Growlithe’s eyes were closed and it was looking out towards the playing pokemon. “Lets let her come along. It’s boring with only Chris for company. He snores too much,” said Growlithe slowly. Chris didn’t like that answer. Personally, he didn’t want Karma to come along with them. He simply disliked her and didn’t relish the idea of spending too much time with her. Yet, he knew that they had to do what was best. If Karma could help them, he would not oppose her intrusion. “Okay,” he said finally. “If you want to come along then it’s fine.” “I get to know what your doing and where your going. I am not required to join you but I may do so if I so wish. I also reserve the right to leave your journey at any time. Also remember that by extension of joining you, I also have say in our destinations, where we go, what we do, and how we do it,” said Karma, as if she was reciting some prewritten agreement. “Be aware of what you’re agreeing to.” “Yeah, okay that’s fine,” mumbled Chris, a little uncertainly. “Okay one second,” said Karma. “Piedra! Cuerno! Noche!” Karma’s pokemon stopped what they were doing, be it playing or resting, and returned to her side hastily. Chris’ pokemon looked in curiosity at what was happening. “What are you?” asked Chris. “I like my pokemon being informed,” said Karma simply. “Knowledge is power. Anything I learn, I would also like them to learn as well.” Chris pondered these words for a minute. He found wisdom in them. He called over his Bayleaf and Mismagius and asked them to listen to the exchange of information as well. “Okay then, spill it,” said Karma. Chris thought he detected a bit of smugness in her voice. “Alright…I found Growlithe four days ago. Tuesday, unconscious in a pond on Route 25. Obviously encountering a talking pokemon is something a bit out of the ordinary.” “Obviously,” yawned Growlithe. “Even more so when you also consider that the talking Growlithe claims to have no memory of it’s life prior to being in the pond and it also claims to have been murdered,” Chris stopped for a moment and went on. “That night, after I turned in some pokeballs to the Cerulean police station-” “Police station?” asked Karma. “Yes, we ran into a member of Team Rocket. Battled and he fled leaving his pokemon so we turned them into the police. So we took a room in the Cerulean pokemon center and it was then that I agreed to help Growlithe,” Chris looked at Growlithe again. “Since then, we have been trying to get information that would basically support what Growlithe had said as either truth or lies.” “How?” asked Karma. Absol trotted over and stood next to her taimer. Karma patted its head absent-mindedly. “First we tried to get information on any murders that have currently happened in the area. The police department informed us that there had been one a few days earlier,” Chris explained. “Yet having a murder happen nearby is not enough, so we looked for any possible connections.” “What did you find?” asked Karma. “The murder happened on the same Route that I found Growlithe in,” Chris paused. “Yet the murdered was a human trainer, and as you can plainly see, Grolwithe is a living pokemon.” “Eventually we found out the murder happened on Saturday. Since I found Growlithe in the pond on Tuesday and Growlithe remembers nothing of itself before that point, then there’s a four day period that we couldn’t account for. Basically, we hit a dead end.” “You said dead trainer right? Didn’t you try contacting the family? Or finding his pokemon?” asked Karma. “The police wouldn’t give us any details on the case and his pokemon had been transferred to the professor that gave him his pokedex,” said Growlithe. “We probably should have given up on that lead but it was the only one we had. So we decided to take the few things that Growlithe remembered and apply them,” said Chris. “ “ ‘Night’. ‘Moon’. ‘Fire’. ‘Bird’.” “ ‘Night’, ‘moon’, ‘fire’, and ‘bird’? What’s that about?” asked Karma. “That’s all that Growlithe can remember when it comes to his past. We needed a connection and we found it in ‘moon’ and ‘night’,” Explained Chris. “We found out that the trainer had been murdered at ‘night’. We visited the crime scene and found out that the way in which the body was discovered, the trainer would have had a perfect view of the ‘moon’ as he lay dieing. If he lay dieing that is. It’s possible he was dead when he hit the floor.” “That’s it? What about ‘fire’ and ‘bird’? Or the four day period after the murder?” asked Karma. “That’s all we could find. We settled that if Growlithe did indeed go from human to pokemon, then those four days could be how long it took for the transformation to happen. Or maybe he was in the pond for those four days…” said Chris. “Okay, so now you had enough of a connection to determine that that trainer may have been the murder the Growlithe claimed it had gone through?” asked Karma. “I get that you needed to confirm that Growlithe may truly have been murdered and not just be insane, but instead of going over the past, shouldn’t you be trying to get whoever actually did it?” “No,” said Growlithe quietly. Karma looked at him in surprise. As did many of the pokemon. Not wanting to focus on catching your killed seemed weird. “Yeah, like Growlithe says, that’s not important,” said Chris. “Why?” said Karma. “I have a plan that would make catching the killer now unimportant. What will matter will be catching him then,” Chris wanted to say this quickly, because he knew it was going to sound crazy. “What does that mean?” asked Karma a little startled. She looked towards Growlithe but he looked just as uncertain. “Yeah, what does that mean? You haven’t exactly explained it to me either,” said Growlithe. “I have a plan. It can’t work unless we have enough evidence to directly support that Growlithe really was the trainer that got murdered. We needed to be 100 percent certain,” explained Chris. “I know this sounds mad but hear me out. I didn’t want to tell Growlithe earlier because I know he would think this was stupid but…” “Just say it,” said Karma. “My plan, is to not catch the killer now, but catch the killer before he commits his crime,” said Chris. “My plan is to go back in time.”