Whole Story
The Walrein
Vicinal Dragging for the Truth
- Partners
-
Groudon’s Map
Waves spread through the ocean as the peak of Mount Coronet pierced the water’s surface, its tip needle-sharp, yet to be touched by snow or weather. One by one, other mountains in its range arose alongside it in a line, like the emergence of a newborn carvanha’s teeth. Then the main mass of Sinnoh forced its way out of the sea. Water poured off of the rising continent in great torrents, creating waves that echoed all the way across the world, slamming into other landmasses with the force of a titan’s fist. Some water was left behind, creating lakes and rivers where it filled in the natural depressions in the land.
Finally, the waves settled, and the seas grew still. Silence. And then…
“That’s the last one, I think. Looks good. Well, good enough, at least.” A pink, long-tailed creature hovered over the newborn landmass, eyes shifting rapidly to take in all its varied topography.
Beside her, an armored beast stood on a pillar of stone jutting out of the ocean. “Yay! Groudon is good continent-maker!” he exclaimed, and thumped the pillar with his tail, producing a thunderous sound and causing it to nearly crack in two with the force.
“Uh-huh,” Mew said, ignoring them in favor of scanning a clipboard held in her stubby paws. She made a few quick marks, glanced at a watch strapped to her wrist, then broadcast a telepathic message reaching all corners of the nascent planet:
Okay team, it’s time for another project review! You should’ve all had more than enough time to finish up your tasks while I was supervising Groudon’s job, so I want to see everyone in the Meeting Hall within five kilo-seconds!
Faint traces of irritation returned to Mew through her psionic senses.
And yes, Palkia, that includes you! Yes, I know that ‘keeping track of time is Dialga’s job’, but that’s no excuse to be late to everything! Especially not when you can warp anywhere in a single instant! Sheesh!
Grumbling, Mew traced a circle in the air with her tail, opening a glowing portal in the sky. She floated through to the other side, and began to close it when she heard an alarmed shout. Mew sighed and forced the portal to stretch to several meters in diameter, then waited impatiently as Groudon hustled towards it, pillars of rock erupting from the ocean to support each of his footsteps as he ran.
* * * * *
Soon, all the legendaries had assembled in the interdimensional meeting hall, a corridor which stretched as wide and tall as it needed to accommodate all its widely-varying inhabitants, and were approaching the tail end of one of Mew’s project review meetings, which she tried to make as quick as possible knowing that the team’s collective attention span could contract as short as it needed to thwart all her carefully scheduled discussion items.
“…so between Kyogre, Lugia, and Manaphy, I’d say we’ve got the oceans covered pretty well. Rayquaza, you’re up next.”
The green dragon yawned and uncoiled themselves from one of the massive chandeliers that dotted the hall’s roof at regular intervals. “Ozone layer’s all set up now, chief.” Seeing Mew start to open her mouth, they added, “And yes, I didn’t make it out of pure ozone this time. And yes, it’s high enough off the ground that it’s not going to poison everyone this time.”
“Sounds good, just make sure to give me the exact specs after the meeting. Next up is-”
“Although I still think it’d be easier to just make a sun that doesn’t produce deadly ultraviolet radiation in the first place.”
Mew grimaced. “Ugh, you have no idea how hard it was to just make it so that all matter, everywhere didn’t produce gamma rays all the time. I literally had to ban fractions from energy emissions of a given frequency, and then that caused a huge mess all its own.”
Diancie raised a hand. “Uh, I’m not sure that worked a hundred percent. I still keep finding these rocks that emit radiation constantly.”
“Eh, just bury those under mountains whenever you find them. I’m sure it won’t cause any problems. Anyways, Heatran, you’re up.”
“The planetary core’s finally complete. Took me half a gigasec just to gather up all the metal needed. Not that anyone’s ever going to look at it, though,” Heatran muttered. “I might as well have made it out of tapioca pudding for all anyone cares.”
“You’d better have made it out of something that produces a strong enough magnetic field to stop the solar wind from blowing all my atmosphere away,” Rayquaza growled. “Of course, that wouldn’t be necessary if someone could just make the sun not be quite so dangerous...”
Mew pointedly ignored this in favor of loudly shuffling the papers on her desk and then floating into the air. “All right, I believe that’s everyone. I know I’ve been hard on you guys, but you’ve really produced some good work over the last few gigaseconds of this project. And, thanks to my expert management, we’re way ahead of schedule! Heck, in a just few more megasecs, we can start measuring time in years and days! And once we have rotation and orbiting finalized, we can move on to the life-creation phase! I’m sure you’re all hyped for that, right?”
“Hey, so is the meeting over already?” Lugia asked. “Manaphy and I were going to go have a fight to settle who has to take first shift as ‘guardian of the seas’ and who gets to nap on the ocean floor for the next hundred gigasecs.”
“And me and Thundurus were gonna go see who can whip up the sickest storm before we have to worry about ruining any of your lame-o life-forms!” Tornadus said.
“...yes, yes, it’s over,” Mew said, sighing.
“Whooo! Last one out of the meeting hall has to put away the desks!” Victini called out, and dived through the exit portal they just made.
No fair! I always end up putting away the desks! Regigigas complained telepathically. Give me some time to warm up first!
“Wait, everyone make sure to turn in your written reports first!” Mew called, only to be largely ignored in the mad dash that ensued. Eventually, after enough telepathic exhortations to get back here! and a fair amount of telekinetic wrangling, Mew had gathered up almost all her desired documents, and was left alone in the hall with Groudon, who was tapping his claws together nervously.
“Um, does Groudon have to know how to read before Groudon can write report?” he asked.
“No, not really,” Mew replied, focused on trying to fix a stapler that had partially melted after Heatran had ‘helpfully’ carried it to her in their teeth. “All you have to do for your report is make maps of all the continents you created.”
“Oh,” said Groudon, but continued to stand there, claws clacking away as Mew fiddled with the stapler. Finally, Mew turned towards him with an expectant look. “...what’s a map?”
Mew sighed. “In this context, it’s a pictorial representation of a geographic area. Let me show you.” She went over to a filing cabinet and pulled out a thick sheet of basalt covered with crudely scratched lines. “Recognize this? It’s Cinnabar Island! See, there’s the volcano, here’s the little inlet, there’s that one coast that really creeps me out for some reason…”
Groudon took the map into his hands and looked it over with growing puzzlement. “But Cinnabar not made out of basalt! Cinnabar made out of cinnabar! And other rocks!”
“That’s true, but for a map, it doesn’t really matter. What’s important is that the pattern of markings on the map corresponds to the terrain being charted. In fact, maps are usually made out of plant matter, but that hasn’t really been created in this universe yet.”
“Oh,” said Groudon, but continued to stand there, squinting at the hunk of basalt in his claws. “…I don’t get it.”
Mew thought for a minute. “Okay, check this out.” She took some paperclips out of another drawer and used her telekinesis to bend them into a wire outline. “See, this is also a map of Cinnabar Island. Sorta. It’s made out of a different material, but it still has the same shape as the perimeter of the island on the basalt map. Get it?”
Groudon frowned. “Groudon not understand. If Mew so good at moving little metal bendy things, why Mew need to use stapler?”
“That’s beside the- okay, screw it,” said Mew, and sent out a telepathic broadcast. Uxie, get in here!
I am afraid that cannot be done, came the response.
What? Why not?
“Because I am already here!” Uxie announced, hovering right behind Mew.
“Gaah!” Mew whirled around with such speed that her improvised sculpture flew out of her control and shattered against the floor, guaranteeing that paper clips would be popping up in random places in the meeting hall for the next several megaseconds due to the space-warping nature of the building. “I thought I asked you to warn me before you do that ‘I have foreseen that I would be needed’ schtick!”
“My apologies,” said the legendary being of knowledge, the red crystal on their forehead glowing warmly. “What is it that you require?”
“Knowledge-blast this guy with everything you’ve got on maps,” Mew said, flicking her tail in Groudon’s direction.
“Very well.” Uxie closed their eyes, and all three of the gems on their body stopped glowing. The lights in the meeting hall slightly dimmed.
“Uh, wait...” he said, moving back a step. “Groudon isn’t sure Groudon likes the sound of that. Maybe just let Groudon take another look at paperclip map aga-”
“It is done,” announced Uxie, opening their eyes. All the lights returned to normal.
“Huh? That was it?” Groudon asked, lowering his arms from this face.
“Indeed,” Uxie replied.
“Oh. Groudon feels silly about being scared now!”
“Actually, finding out that Uxie can change your memories that easily really should make you a lot more scared,” Mew said.
“Indeed,” Uxie repeated.
“Oh. So… should Groudon start panicking, or-”
“No! Just… focus on thinking about maps now. Can you understand what I was saying earlier?” Mew asked.
“Hmm… I think so…” Unfamiliar memories surfaced in Groudon’s mind. “ Latitude… fatitude… but what direction is north when planet isn’t spinning yet?… Groudon wants to use projection that will make rhumb lines straight, but Groudon has weird sense that someone will complain about it in future...” he muttered. “Is so strange! The more Groudon knows, the more Groudon knows Groudon doesn’t know! This seems too tough...”
“Hey, don’t stress out over it too much,” Mew said. “Your maps just need to be at the same level as this basalt Cinnabar map here. Volcanion was able to make that one, and she doesn’t even have hands! I’m sure you’ll be able to make much more detailed ones.”
“Well… Groudon will try...” he mumbled.
“That’s the spirit!” Mew cheered. “Now go and get started; I’m way overdue for my meeting with Xerneas.” She promptly opened a portal and shoved Groudon through.
* * * * *
The waves beat against the jagged cliffs at the southern edge of Sinnoh. A large red figure sat facing away from the sea, focused on a collection of scratch-marks in the barren rock surface he rested on. They formed the rough shape of a diamond, split by a diagonal line running up the center. Surrounding the figure were over a dozen more places where the rock had been similarly carved. Groudon stared down at his latest attempt for another minute, then smashed his fist into it, cracking the ground. It was hopeless!
Almost as soon as he’d left the meeting hall, it seemed like all of Groudon’s newfound knowledge of cartography had flown out of his head. No matter how carefully he tried to make his marks, they only ever bore the crudest resemblance to an outline of Sinnoh, let alone accurately representing any features of the interior. Yet, some remnant of Uxie’s knowledge told him that the task wasn’t impossible. And he’d beheld Volcanion’s map of Cinnabar Island with his own eyes; there must have been some way she’d managed to make it. Maybe, thought Groudon, she’d made the map first, and then made Cinnabar Island in the shape of her map! Hmm…
Groudon got up and walked to the nearest mountain in sight, the southernmost in the Coronet chain. Sinnoh would be a lot easier to map if it were completely flat, he thought. He drew his fist back and, after a considerable wind-up that involved spinning his arm in the air multiple times in a fashion that would’ve looked rather ridiculous had anyone been looking, sent it hurtling at the base of the mountain. A massive fault-line raced through its core, and nearly half of the mountain sloughed off and crashed into the ground. After a considerable amount of time passed, all the dust and debris that had been thrown into the air finally settled. Groudon blinked and looked around.
The topography of the surrounding region had, rather than becoming simpler, greatly increased in complexity. There were now effectively two mountains that would have to be drawn on the map, and there were all kinds of irregular boulders and rock-forms scattered about. Groudon roared and frustration and stomped the ground. Then, something caught his eye. One of the boulders that had been produced, looked, very slightly, like a miniature version of the continent he was standing on. Yes, that was it! He ran over to the rock and chipped away it with his claws, carving away all unneeded portions of it until, instead of bearing a very slight resemblance to Sinnoh, it bore only a moderately slight one. …well, it was a start!
For the next several megaseconds, Groudon practiced carving. His skill grew and grew, but he soon discovered a problem: No matter how finely he carved the stone, there was a limit to how closely it could represent its subject. The broadest canyons and the narrowest ones couldn’t be differentiated; the most gentle scrape of his claw left a gash which was larger than the widest of them.
The solution was obvious: Carve bigger rocks! For a while, it seemed to work, but as Groudon grew more practiced, he grew more discerning, and finer and finer discrepancies between his map and the terrain seemed to jump out at him. Maps the size of boulders grew to maps the size of hills, and then maps the size of small mountains. Groudon redoubled his efforts. Gigaseconds passed. And then, finally, he was satisfied. He stared up at the largest map yet, a mountain which surpassed all other mountains in size. Every square centimeter of it was covered in careful engraved details, and every square millimeter of that had even finer inscriptions! Trembling, Groudon wiped a tear from his eye and sniffed.
But then, a terrible realization arose: His map was missing something. Something huge. Something so massive and notable that any reasonable map would have to have it. Itself! The map-mountain had no representation of itself!
Groudon began to lurch toward his map with the intent of correcting this mistake, then stopped. If he tried to carve the map into the map, then that little map of the map would have to have within it a map of the map of the map to be accurate, and then that would have to have a map of the map of the map of the map, and that would need-
Roaring, Groudon slammed his fist into the map mountain, then stomped on the pieces. It was impossible! Completely impossible! But then, another idea struck Groudon. There was a way, he realized! A way to have a perfect, exact map of each of the continents, that represented all of the details precisely while not needing to include a representation of itself.
Groudon stood facing the ocean, and called upon all his world-altering power.
* * * * *
Waves spread through the ocean as the peak of Mount Coronet pierced the water’s surface, its tip needle-sharp, yet to be touched by snow or weather. One by one, other mountains in its range arose alongside it in a line, like the emergence of a newborn carvanha’s teeth. Then the main mass of Sinnoh forced its way out of the sea. Water poured off of the rising continent in great torrents, creating waves that echoed all the way across the world, slamming into other landmasses with the force of a titan’s fist. Some water was left behind, creating lakes and rivers where it filled in the natural depressions in the land…
* * * * *
“Well, that took longer than I thought, but we really got a lot done! I bet everyone will be really excited to hear about all the different creatures we’ve thought up!” Mew said, speaking excitedly as she floated through a portal out of the meeting hall.
“Did we really have to come up with quite so many species of beetles?” Xerneas asked. “A few hundred would’ve more than enough in my opinion, but no, we just couldn’t leave until you explored every possible variation on six legs, an elytra, and a handful of horns and mouth-parts.”
“I just had so many ideas!” Mew chirped. “And besides, I let you have about a bajillion species of worms in exchange, so you can’t complain!”
“Those species are spread out over a bunch of different phylums, not all jammed into the same order! It’s completely different!”
“Oh, hush! Just wait until- uh… ” Mew slowly looked down at the planet she was hovering over, closed one eyelid, then re-opened it. “Hey, Xerneas.”
“Yes?”
“Have I just gone cross-eyed from squinting at your worm cladograms for too long, or is there an exact duplicate of every single continent in this hemisphere!” Mew yelled.
Xerneas blinked as well. “It… it appears to be the latter.”
Indeed it was so. A few hundred kilometers off the coast of Galar was a second Galar, identical in every way; two Mount Coronets vied for the title of the tallest mountain on the planet, and a pair of Hoenns graced the equator.
“Who- why- how- AAAARGGGH! I go away for fifteen gigaseconds and something like this happens!”
“Whoa, calm down. At least let’s check out the other hemisphere first.”
The opposite hemisphere had almost the exact same problem. All but one continent had been duplicated, although a doppelganger of that last one, Orre, appeared to be in the process of slowly rising out of the waters.
“See? It’s not as bad as it might have been-” Xerneas started to say, but their words were carried away in the woosh of air filling in the gap Mew left in the sky as she teleported away.
A few teleports later, Mew triangulated the source of the ground-type energy being used to raise the copy of Orre, and warped to its source.
“Hello Mew! Groudon hasn’t seen you for-”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” Mew screamed.
“Groudon’s making map of Orre! See, Pyrite Cave on map represents Pyrite Cave in Orre, Mount Battle on map represents Mount Battle in Orre-” Groudon said.
“No! That’s not- You can’t fold up an entire continent and put it in a filing cabinet!” Mew shrieked.
“Really? Groudon heard Palkia boasting that-”
“Palkia says a lot of things! They aren’t that good at space-manipulation! Aaaaarrggghh!”
“Is Mew upset?” Groudon asked, scratching his head.
“Yes! Yes, Mew is upset! Arceus is coming to review all our work very soon, and you’ve screwed up everything with your wanton continent copying!”
“Oh. Groudon’s sorry...” he said, scuffing the ground awkwardly.
“Hey… wait up!” Xerneas flew down and landed next to Groudon, trying to speak as fast as they could while catching their breath. “Look… before you go do something drastic...” they addressed Mew.
“I’m not planning on doing anything- actually, no, wait, I am! There’s not going to be a way to solve a crisis of this magnitude without doing something drastic!” Mew snapped.
“No, wait, see… I was thinking...” Xerneas huffed. “Maybe… we could put almost exactly the same species on each of the duplicate continents… and then any sapient biologists on each of them would have to trade their records if they wanted to get a complete list of all the species-”
“No, that’s an idiotic idea. Ugh, I can’t even think how to- GROUDON WHY ARE YOU STILL-”
The primal legendary of the lands had gone back to concentrating on raising continents again, oblivious to what Mew was shouting.
“-ugh, just- just whatever!” she yelled. “Just keep doing that! You can’t mess up things any worse, I guess! Errgghhh… Okay… I think I know how to fix this...”
* * * * *
Arceus stepped out of a portal onto the plains of Unova, and glanced around with a distinctly unimpressed air.
REMIND ME AGAIN WHY YOU WANTED ME TO START MY EXAMINATION OF THIS WORLD FROM THE LEVEL OF ITS SURFACE AGAIN? Arceus asked.
“See, it’s a new trend that’s all the rage in all the most popular world-creating blogs and magazines! The idea is that by examining a new planet starting from its lowest level, and then gradually, very gradually, moving higher, you get an immersive, detail-rich experience that allows you to really get to know a world on a primal level,” Mew said, speaking hurriedly while telekinetically juggling a ream of papers and clipboards that hovered around her.
REALLY? BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE THE BEST WAY TO GET TO KNOW THIS WORLD WOULD BE TO LEAP INTO ORBIT AND VIEW ALL ITS DIFFERENT CONTINENTS ALL AT ONCE, Arceus said.
“Ah, well, see, you could do that, but they say you can only see something for the first time once, you know! Time-travel notwithstanding. You don’t want your first impression of this magnificent world to just be a view of some boring old sphere out in space, right?”
I DO NOT SEE HOW HAVING MY FIRST IMPRESSION BE A VIEW OF SOME BORING LIFELESS PLAINS IS ANY BETTER.
“Right, right, which is why I’ve put this little tour together! You’ll get to see all the different wonders of geography this world has to offer one at a time, and at each stop, we’ll stop and take a few megaseconds to go over all the species planned to-”
NO THANK YOU, Arceus announced, and leapt into the sky. Mew winced, then followed him, a trail of loose papers forming her tour agenda scattering in her wake.
After travelling a fair distance away from the planet’s surface, Arceus stopped and turned back to face it. A massive sphere of grey rock completely obscured Arceus’ vision.
MEW. WHAT IS THIS MEW.
“Oh, that, that’s called a moon!” Mew said, speaking through telepathy now as she floated into position beside him. “They’re all the rage now, just really super popular amongst the ‘in’-crowd of world-creators! You just can’t make a new planet without having one of these beauties orbiting around it!”
SO I SEE, Arceus said, and floated to the left, trying to get past the moon so Arceus could take a good look at the planet Arceus had come to review.
The moon floated leftwards in lockstep, continuing to obstruct Arceus’ line of sight. Arceus stopped and began floating to the right. The moon halted and reversed course to match.
I WAS UNAWARE THAT ORBITING BODIES COULD SUDDENLY CHANGE DIRECTION LIKE THAT.
“Uh, right, that’s because of the, uh, epicycles!” Mew said. “Say, have you seen the sixth planet we’ve created from the sun yet? It has these absolutely gorgeus rings around it, you just have to take a look at them! Why don’t we go and check out those for the next several hundred gigaseconds-”
Arceus suddenly shot straight towards the moon. It jerked backwards, but a few seconds too late, and Arceus landed on its surface. Arceus then quickly ran to the opposite face of the rocky satellite, and peered down at the planet Arceus had come to examine.
A thick layer of clouds enveloped the planet completely, obscuring all view of the surface.
LET ME GUESS. THIS IS ANOTHER TREND THAT’S ‘ALL THE RAGE’.
“Er, yes! It’s called a perma-cloud atmosphere, and- uh...”
Arceus began to glow, and then let out a wave of normal-type energy. It was the strongest use of the move defog the world ever had, and probably ever would, see.
All of the world’s surface was revealed as the clouds evaporated in an instant.
...MEW.
“...yes?”
WHY ARE THERE TWO COPIES OF EVERY CONTINENT, MEW?
“Oh. Those.” Mew avoided Arceus’ gaze in favor of shuffling through her notes.
YES. THOSE.
“Those are the, um, back-up continents! Y- You know, in case one gets hit by a meteor? Don’t- don’t want to be caught without a backup when that happens, right? And, uh, most planets of this class usually uh, average, um, two-thirds cloud cover, so if the clouds were in the right places, it, you know, wouldn’t even really be noticeable, right? And also-”
Arceus slowly shook Arceus’ head back and forth as Arceus slowly drifted around the circumference of the planet.
THERE ARE MISTAKES I CAN OVERLOOK IN THE PROCESS OF CREATING A PLANET, BUT I AM AFRAID THAT THIS IS JUST TOO MUCH. YOU WILL HAVE TO SCRAP THIS PLANET AND START OVER- WAIT. WHAT IS THAT CONTINENT?
Mew blinked. There, in the northern hemisphere of the planet, in a space where there had previously been naught but water, was a land Mew had never seen before. An entire continent that had been shaped to look like Arceus!
The pair of deities floated down to observe more closely. A red figure was standing in the place where the continent-Arceus’ eye would be expected to appear. “Groudon made map of Arceus!” he announced.
HMM. PERHAPS I SPOKE TOO SOON. THIS WORLD MAY BE SALVAGEABLE AFTER ALL. WE COULD EVEN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ITS PECULIARITIES. MAYBE IF THERE WERE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT DISTRIBUTIONS OF SPECIES ON EACH OF THE DUPLICATE CONTINENTS, IT WOULD ENCOURAGE COOPERATION AMONGST MORTAL TAXONOMISTS SEEKING TO COLLATE A LIST OF ALL KNOWN LIFE ON THE PLANET.
“Why, that’s a brilliant idea!” Mew said. “Oh, and we should come up with different names for the continent pairs so that the mortals know there are differences! There could be, say, Kanto Beetles With Short Elytra Version and Kanto Beetles With Pectinate Antenna Version!”
HMMM. WE MAY NEED TO WORKSHOP THOSE A BIT…
As Mew and Arceus drifted back into the stratosphere, hurriedly exchanging ideas, she sent a telepathic message back down to Groudon:
Thanks, Groudon! Your map saved the entire planet!
Groudon waved at the pair as they departed. “Mew is welcome!” he yelled back up. Then, as he looked into the sky, an idea came to him. Someone would have to create a map of that new spherical mass of rock floating up there…
THE END
This one-shot was originally written as part of a sort of informal holiday gift exchange on another forum. The prompt used for this fic was "The most perfect map is the territory itself: perfectly accurate, and perfectly useless."
Waves spread through the ocean as the peak of Mount Coronet pierced the water’s surface, its tip needle-sharp, yet to be touched by snow or weather. One by one, other mountains in its range arose alongside it in a line, like the emergence of a newborn carvanha’s teeth. Then the main mass of Sinnoh forced its way out of the sea. Water poured off of the rising continent in great torrents, creating waves that echoed all the way across the world, slamming into other landmasses with the force of a titan’s fist. Some water was left behind, creating lakes and rivers where it filled in the natural depressions in the land.
Finally, the waves settled, and the seas grew still. Silence. And then…
“That’s the last one, I think. Looks good. Well, good enough, at least.” A pink, long-tailed creature hovered over the newborn landmass, eyes shifting rapidly to take in all its varied topography.
Beside her, an armored beast stood on a pillar of stone jutting out of the ocean. “Yay! Groudon is good continent-maker!” he exclaimed, and thumped the pillar with his tail, producing a thunderous sound and causing it to nearly crack in two with the force.
“Uh-huh,” Mew said, ignoring them in favor of scanning a clipboard held in her stubby paws. She made a few quick marks, glanced at a watch strapped to her wrist, then broadcast a telepathic message reaching all corners of the nascent planet:
Okay team, it’s time for another project review! You should’ve all had more than enough time to finish up your tasks while I was supervising Groudon’s job, so I want to see everyone in the Meeting Hall within five kilo-seconds!
Faint traces of irritation returned to Mew through her psionic senses.
And yes, Palkia, that includes you! Yes, I know that ‘keeping track of time is Dialga’s job’, but that’s no excuse to be late to everything! Especially not when you can warp anywhere in a single instant! Sheesh!
Grumbling, Mew traced a circle in the air with her tail, opening a glowing portal in the sky. She floated through to the other side, and began to close it when she heard an alarmed shout. Mew sighed and forced the portal to stretch to several meters in diameter, then waited impatiently as Groudon hustled towards it, pillars of rock erupting from the ocean to support each of his footsteps as he ran.
* * * * *
Soon, all the legendaries had assembled in the interdimensional meeting hall, a corridor which stretched as wide and tall as it needed to accommodate all its widely-varying inhabitants, and were approaching the tail end of one of Mew’s project review meetings, which she tried to make as quick as possible knowing that the team’s collective attention span could contract as short as it needed to thwart all her carefully scheduled discussion items.
“…so between Kyogre, Lugia, and Manaphy, I’d say we’ve got the oceans covered pretty well. Rayquaza, you’re up next.”
The green dragon yawned and uncoiled themselves from one of the massive chandeliers that dotted the hall’s roof at regular intervals. “Ozone layer’s all set up now, chief.” Seeing Mew start to open her mouth, they added, “And yes, I didn’t make it out of pure ozone this time. And yes, it’s high enough off the ground that it’s not going to poison everyone this time.”
“Sounds good, just make sure to give me the exact specs after the meeting. Next up is-”
“Although I still think it’d be easier to just make a sun that doesn’t produce deadly ultraviolet radiation in the first place.”
Mew grimaced. “Ugh, you have no idea how hard it was to just make it so that all matter, everywhere didn’t produce gamma rays all the time. I literally had to ban fractions from energy emissions of a given frequency, and then that caused a huge mess all its own.”
Diancie raised a hand. “Uh, I’m not sure that worked a hundred percent. I still keep finding these rocks that emit radiation constantly.”
“Eh, just bury those under mountains whenever you find them. I’m sure it won’t cause any problems. Anyways, Heatran, you’re up.”
“The planetary core’s finally complete. Took me half a gigasec just to gather up all the metal needed. Not that anyone’s ever going to look at it, though,” Heatran muttered. “I might as well have made it out of tapioca pudding for all anyone cares.”
“You’d better have made it out of something that produces a strong enough magnetic field to stop the solar wind from blowing all my atmosphere away,” Rayquaza growled. “Of course, that wouldn’t be necessary if someone could just make the sun not be quite so dangerous...”
Mew pointedly ignored this in favor of loudly shuffling the papers on her desk and then floating into the air. “All right, I believe that’s everyone. I know I’ve been hard on you guys, but you’ve really produced some good work over the last few gigaseconds of this project. And, thanks to my expert management, we’re way ahead of schedule! Heck, in a just few more megasecs, we can start measuring time in years and days! And once we have rotation and orbiting finalized, we can move on to the life-creation phase! I’m sure you’re all hyped for that, right?”
“Hey, so is the meeting over already?” Lugia asked. “Manaphy and I were going to go have a fight to settle who has to take first shift as ‘guardian of the seas’ and who gets to nap on the ocean floor for the next hundred gigasecs.”
“And me and Thundurus were gonna go see who can whip up the sickest storm before we have to worry about ruining any of your lame-o life-forms!” Tornadus said.
“...yes, yes, it’s over,” Mew said, sighing.
“Whooo! Last one out of the meeting hall has to put away the desks!” Victini called out, and dived through the exit portal they just made.
No fair! I always end up putting away the desks! Regigigas complained telepathically. Give me some time to warm up first!
“Wait, everyone make sure to turn in your written reports first!” Mew called, only to be largely ignored in the mad dash that ensued. Eventually, after enough telepathic exhortations to get back here! and a fair amount of telekinetic wrangling, Mew had gathered up almost all her desired documents, and was left alone in the hall with Groudon, who was tapping his claws together nervously.
“Um, does Groudon have to know how to read before Groudon can write report?” he asked.
“No, not really,” Mew replied, focused on trying to fix a stapler that had partially melted after Heatran had ‘helpfully’ carried it to her in their teeth. “All you have to do for your report is make maps of all the continents you created.”
“Oh,” said Groudon, but continued to stand there, claws clacking away as Mew fiddled with the stapler. Finally, Mew turned towards him with an expectant look. “...what’s a map?”
Mew sighed. “In this context, it’s a pictorial representation of a geographic area. Let me show you.” She went over to a filing cabinet and pulled out a thick sheet of basalt covered with crudely scratched lines. “Recognize this? It’s Cinnabar Island! See, there’s the volcano, here’s the little inlet, there’s that one coast that really creeps me out for some reason…”
Groudon took the map into his hands and looked it over with growing puzzlement. “But Cinnabar not made out of basalt! Cinnabar made out of cinnabar! And other rocks!”
“That’s true, but for a map, it doesn’t really matter. What’s important is that the pattern of markings on the map corresponds to the terrain being charted. In fact, maps are usually made out of plant matter, but that hasn’t really been created in this universe yet.”
“Oh,” said Groudon, but continued to stand there, squinting at the hunk of basalt in his claws. “…I don’t get it.”
Mew thought for a minute. “Okay, check this out.” She took some paperclips out of another drawer and used her telekinesis to bend them into a wire outline. “See, this is also a map of Cinnabar Island. Sorta. It’s made out of a different material, but it still has the same shape as the perimeter of the island on the basalt map. Get it?”
Groudon frowned. “Groudon not understand. If Mew so good at moving little metal bendy things, why Mew need to use stapler?”
“That’s beside the- okay, screw it,” said Mew, and sent out a telepathic broadcast. Uxie, get in here!
I am afraid that cannot be done, came the response.
What? Why not?
“Because I am already here!” Uxie announced, hovering right behind Mew.
“Gaah!” Mew whirled around with such speed that her improvised sculpture flew out of her control and shattered against the floor, guaranteeing that paper clips would be popping up in random places in the meeting hall for the next several megaseconds due to the space-warping nature of the building. “I thought I asked you to warn me before you do that ‘I have foreseen that I would be needed’ schtick!”
“My apologies,” said the legendary being of knowledge, the red crystal on their forehead glowing warmly. “What is it that you require?”
“Knowledge-blast this guy with everything you’ve got on maps,” Mew said, flicking her tail in Groudon’s direction.
“Very well.” Uxie closed their eyes, and all three of the gems on their body stopped glowing. The lights in the meeting hall slightly dimmed.
“Uh, wait...” he said, moving back a step. “Groudon isn’t sure Groudon likes the sound of that. Maybe just let Groudon take another look at paperclip map aga-”
“It is done,” announced Uxie, opening their eyes. All the lights returned to normal.
“Huh? That was it?” Groudon asked, lowering his arms from this face.
“Indeed,” Uxie replied.
“Oh. Groudon feels silly about being scared now!”
“Actually, finding out that Uxie can change your memories that easily really should make you a lot more scared,” Mew said.
“Indeed,” Uxie repeated.
“Oh. So… should Groudon start panicking, or-”
“No! Just… focus on thinking about maps now. Can you understand what I was saying earlier?” Mew asked.
“Hmm… I think so…” Unfamiliar memories surfaced in Groudon’s mind. “ Latitude… fatitude… but what direction is north when planet isn’t spinning yet?… Groudon wants to use projection that will make rhumb lines straight, but Groudon has weird sense that someone will complain about it in future...” he muttered. “Is so strange! The more Groudon knows, the more Groudon knows Groudon doesn’t know! This seems too tough...”
“Hey, don’t stress out over it too much,” Mew said. “Your maps just need to be at the same level as this basalt Cinnabar map here. Volcanion was able to make that one, and she doesn’t even have hands! I’m sure you’ll be able to make much more detailed ones.”
“Well… Groudon will try...” he mumbled.
“That’s the spirit!” Mew cheered. “Now go and get started; I’m way overdue for my meeting with Xerneas.” She promptly opened a portal and shoved Groudon through.
* * * * *
The waves beat against the jagged cliffs at the southern edge of Sinnoh. A large red figure sat facing away from the sea, focused on a collection of scratch-marks in the barren rock surface he rested on. They formed the rough shape of a diamond, split by a diagonal line running up the center. Surrounding the figure were over a dozen more places where the rock had been similarly carved. Groudon stared down at his latest attempt for another minute, then smashed his fist into it, cracking the ground. It was hopeless!
Almost as soon as he’d left the meeting hall, it seemed like all of Groudon’s newfound knowledge of cartography had flown out of his head. No matter how carefully he tried to make his marks, they only ever bore the crudest resemblance to an outline of Sinnoh, let alone accurately representing any features of the interior. Yet, some remnant of Uxie’s knowledge told him that the task wasn’t impossible. And he’d beheld Volcanion’s map of Cinnabar Island with his own eyes; there must have been some way she’d managed to make it. Maybe, thought Groudon, she’d made the map first, and then made Cinnabar Island in the shape of her map! Hmm…
Groudon got up and walked to the nearest mountain in sight, the southernmost in the Coronet chain. Sinnoh would be a lot easier to map if it were completely flat, he thought. He drew his fist back and, after a considerable wind-up that involved spinning his arm in the air multiple times in a fashion that would’ve looked rather ridiculous had anyone been looking, sent it hurtling at the base of the mountain. A massive fault-line raced through its core, and nearly half of the mountain sloughed off and crashed into the ground. After a considerable amount of time passed, all the dust and debris that had been thrown into the air finally settled. Groudon blinked and looked around.
The topography of the surrounding region had, rather than becoming simpler, greatly increased in complexity. There were now effectively two mountains that would have to be drawn on the map, and there were all kinds of irregular boulders and rock-forms scattered about. Groudon roared and frustration and stomped the ground. Then, something caught his eye. One of the boulders that had been produced, looked, very slightly, like a miniature version of the continent he was standing on. Yes, that was it! He ran over to the rock and chipped away it with his claws, carving away all unneeded portions of it until, instead of bearing a very slight resemblance to Sinnoh, it bore only a moderately slight one. …well, it was a start!
For the next several megaseconds, Groudon practiced carving. His skill grew and grew, but he soon discovered a problem: No matter how finely he carved the stone, there was a limit to how closely it could represent its subject. The broadest canyons and the narrowest ones couldn’t be differentiated; the most gentle scrape of his claw left a gash which was larger than the widest of them.
The solution was obvious: Carve bigger rocks! For a while, it seemed to work, but as Groudon grew more practiced, he grew more discerning, and finer and finer discrepancies between his map and the terrain seemed to jump out at him. Maps the size of boulders grew to maps the size of hills, and then maps the size of small mountains. Groudon redoubled his efforts. Gigaseconds passed. And then, finally, he was satisfied. He stared up at the largest map yet, a mountain which surpassed all other mountains in size. Every square centimeter of it was covered in careful engraved details, and every square millimeter of that had even finer inscriptions! Trembling, Groudon wiped a tear from his eye and sniffed.
But then, a terrible realization arose: His map was missing something. Something huge. Something so massive and notable that any reasonable map would have to have it. Itself! The map-mountain had no representation of itself!
Groudon began to lurch toward his map with the intent of correcting this mistake, then stopped. If he tried to carve the map into the map, then that little map of the map would have to have within it a map of the map of the map to be accurate, and then that would have to have a map of the map of the map of the map, and that would need-
Roaring, Groudon slammed his fist into the map mountain, then stomped on the pieces. It was impossible! Completely impossible! But then, another idea struck Groudon. There was a way, he realized! A way to have a perfect, exact map of each of the continents, that represented all of the details precisely while not needing to include a representation of itself.
Groudon stood facing the ocean, and called upon all his world-altering power.
* * * * *
Waves spread through the ocean as the peak of Mount Coronet pierced the water’s surface, its tip needle-sharp, yet to be touched by snow or weather. One by one, other mountains in its range arose alongside it in a line, like the emergence of a newborn carvanha’s teeth. Then the main mass of Sinnoh forced its way out of the sea. Water poured off of the rising continent in great torrents, creating waves that echoed all the way across the world, slamming into other landmasses with the force of a titan’s fist. Some water was left behind, creating lakes and rivers where it filled in the natural depressions in the land…
* * * * *
“Well, that took longer than I thought, but we really got a lot done! I bet everyone will be really excited to hear about all the different creatures we’ve thought up!” Mew said, speaking excitedly as she floated through a portal out of the meeting hall.
“Did we really have to come up with quite so many species of beetles?” Xerneas asked. “A few hundred would’ve more than enough in my opinion, but no, we just couldn’t leave until you explored every possible variation on six legs, an elytra, and a handful of horns and mouth-parts.”
“I just had so many ideas!” Mew chirped. “And besides, I let you have about a bajillion species of worms in exchange, so you can’t complain!”
“Those species are spread out over a bunch of different phylums, not all jammed into the same order! It’s completely different!”
“Oh, hush! Just wait until- uh… ” Mew slowly looked down at the planet she was hovering over, closed one eyelid, then re-opened it. “Hey, Xerneas.”
“Yes?”
“Have I just gone cross-eyed from squinting at your worm cladograms for too long, or is there an exact duplicate of every single continent in this hemisphere!” Mew yelled.
Xerneas blinked as well. “It… it appears to be the latter.”
Indeed it was so. A few hundred kilometers off the coast of Galar was a second Galar, identical in every way; two Mount Coronets vied for the title of the tallest mountain on the planet, and a pair of Hoenns graced the equator.
“Who- why- how- AAAARGGGH! I go away for fifteen gigaseconds and something like this happens!”
“Whoa, calm down. At least let’s check out the other hemisphere first.”
The opposite hemisphere had almost the exact same problem. All but one continent had been duplicated, although a doppelganger of that last one, Orre, appeared to be in the process of slowly rising out of the waters.
“See? It’s not as bad as it might have been-” Xerneas started to say, but their words were carried away in the woosh of air filling in the gap Mew left in the sky as she teleported away.
A few teleports later, Mew triangulated the source of the ground-type energy being used to raise the copy of Orre, and warped to its source.
“Hello Mew! Groudon hasn’t seen you for-”
“WHAT ARE YOU DOING!” Mew screamed.
“Groudon’s making map of Orre! See, Pyrite Cave on map represents Pyrite Cave in Orre, Mount Battle on map represents Mount Battle in Orre-” Groudon said.
“No! That’s not- You can’t fold up an entire continent and put it in a filing cabinet!” Mew shrieked.
“Really? Groudon heard Palkia boasting that-”
“Palkia says a lot of things! They aren’t that good at space-manipulation! Aaaaarrggghh!”
“Is Mew upset?” Groudon asked, scratching his head.
“Yes! Yes, Mew is upset! Arceus is coming to review all our work very soon, and you’ve screwed up everything with your wanton continent copying!”
“Oh. Groudon’s sorry...” he said, scuffing the ground awkwardly.
“Hey… wait up!” Xerneas flew down and landed next to Groudon, trying to speak as fast as they could while catching their breath. “Look… before you go do something drastic...” they addressed Mew.
“I’m not planning on doing anything- actually, no, wait, I am! There’s not going to be a way to solve a crisis of this magnitude without doing something drastic!” Mew snapped.
“No, wait, see… I was thinking...” Xerneas huffed. “Maybe… we could put almost exactly the same species on each of the duplicate continents… and then any sapient biologists on each of them would have to trade their records if they wanted to get a complete list of all the species-”
“No, that’s an idiotic idea. Ugh, I can’t even think how to- GROUDON WHY ARE YOU STILL-”
The primal legendary of the lands had gone back to concentrating on raising continents again, oblivious to what Mew was shouting.
“-ugh, just- just whatever!” she yelled. “Just keep doing that! You can’t mess up things any worse, I guess! Errgghhh… Okay… I think I know how to fix this...”
* * * * *
Arceus stepped out of a portal onto the plains of Unova, and glanced around with a distinctly unimpressed air.
REMIND ME AGAIN WHY YOU WANTED ME TO START MY EXAMINATION OF THIS WORLD FROM THE LEVEL OF ITS SURFACE AGAIN? Arceus asked.
“See, it’s a new trend that’s all the rage in all the most popular world-creating blogs and magazines! The idea is that by examining a new planet starting from its lowest level, and then gradually, very gradually, moving higher, you get an immersive, detail-rich experience that allows you to really get to know a world on a primal level,” Mew said, speaking hurriedly while telekinetically juggling a ream of papers and clipboards that hovered around her.
REALLY? BECAUSE I FEEL LIKE THE BEST WAY TO GET TO KNOW THIS WORLD WOULD BE TO LEAP INTO ORBIT AND VIEW ALL ITS DIFFERENT CONTINENTS ALL AT ONCE, Arceus said.
“Ah, well, see, you could do that, but they say you can only see something for the first time once, you know! Time-travel notwithstanding. You don’t want your first impression of this magnificent world to just be a view of some boring old sphere out in space, right?”
I DO NOT SEE HOW HAVING MY FIRST IMPRESSION BE A VIEW OF SOME BORING LIFELESS PLAINS IS ANY BETTER.
“Right, right, which is why I’ve put this little tour together! You’ll get to see all the different wonders of geography this world has to offer one at a time, and at each stop, we’ll stop and take a few megaseconds to go over all the species planned to-”
NO THANK YOU, Arceus announced, and leapt into the sky. Mew winced, then followed him, a trail of loose papers forming her tour agenda scattering in her wake.
After travelling a fair distance away from the planet’s surface, Arceus stopped and turned back to face it. A massive sphere of grey rock completely obscured Arceus’ vision.
MEW. WHAT IS THIS MEW.
“Oh, that, that’s called a moon!” Mew said, speaking through telepathy now as she floated into position beside him. “They’re all the rage now, just really super popular amongst the ‘in’-crowd of world-creators! You just can’t make a new planet without having one of these beauties orbiting around it!”
SO I SEE, Arceus said, and floated to the left, trying to get past the moon so Arceus could take a good look at the planet Arceus had come to review.
The moon floated leftwards in lockstep, continuing to obstruct Arceus’ line of sight. Arceus stopped and began floating to the right. The moon halted and reversed course to match.
I WAS UNAWARE THAT ORBITING BODIES COULD SUDDENLY CHANGE DIRECTION LIKE THAT.
“Uh, right, that’s because of the, uh, epicycles!” Mew said. “Say, have you seen the sixth planet we’ve created from the sun yet? It has these absolutely gorgeus rings around it, you just have to take a look at them! Why don’t we go and check out those for the next several hundred gigaseconds-”
Arceus suddenly shot straight towards the moon. It jerked backwards, but a few seconds too late, and Arceus landed on its surface. Arceus then quickly ran to the opposite face of the rocky satellite, and peered down at the planet Arceus had come to examine.
A thick layer of clouds enveloped the planet completely, obscuring all view of the surface.
LET ME GUESS. THIS IS ANOTHER TREND THAT’S ‘ALL THE RAGE’.
“Er, yes! It’s called a perma-cloud atmosphere, and- uh...”
Arceus began to glow, and then let out a wave of normal-type energy. It was the strongest use of the move defog the world ever had, and probably ever would, see.
All of the world’s surface was revealed as the clouds evaporated in an instant.
...MEW.
“...yes?”
WHY ARE THERE TWO COPIES OF EVERY CONTINENT, MEW?
“Oh. Those.” Mew avoided Arceus’ gaze in favor of shuffling through her notes.
YES. THOSE.
“Those are the, um, back-up continents! Y- You know, in case one gets hit by a meteor? Don’t- don’t want to be caught without a backup when that happens, right? And, uh, most planets of this class usually uh, average, um, two-thirds cloud cover, so if the clouds were in the right places, it, you know, wouldn’t even really be noticeable, right? And also-”
Arceus slowly shook Arceus’ head back and forth as Arceus slowly drifted around the circumference of the planet.
THERE ARE MISTAKES I CAN OVERLOOK IN THE PROCESS OF CREATING A PLANET, BUT I AM AFRAID THAT THIS IS JUST TOO MUCH. YOU WILL HAVE TO SCRAP THIS PLANET AND START OVER- WAIT. WHAT IS THAT CONTINENT?
Mew blinked. There, in the northern hemisphere of the planet, in a space where there had previously been naught but water, was a land Mew had never seen before. An entire continent that had been shaped to look like Arceus!
The pair of deities floated down to observe more closely. A red figure was standing in the place where the continent-Arceus’ eye would be expected to appear. “Groudon made map of Arceus!” he announced.
HMM. PERHAPS I SPOKE TOO SOON. THIS WORLD MAY BE SALVAGEABLE AFTER ALL. WE COULD EVEN TAKE ADVANTAGE OF ITS PECULIARITIES. MAYBE IF THERE WERE SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT DISTRIBUTIONS OF SPECIES ON EACH OF THE DUPLICATE CONTINENTS, IT WOULD ENCOURAGE COOPERATION AMONGST MORTAL TAXONOMISTS SEEKING TO COLLATE A LIST OF ALL KNOWN LIFE ON THE PLANET.
“Why, that’s a brilliant idea!” Mew said. “Oh, and we should come up with different names for the continent pairs so that the mortals know there are differences! There could be, say, Kanto Beetles With Short Elytra Version and Kanto Beetles With Pectinate Antenna Version!”
HMMM. WE MAY NEED TO WORKSHOP THOSE A BIT…
As Mew and Arceus drifted back into the stratosphere, hurriedly exchanging ideas, she sent a telepathic message back down to Groudon:
Thanks, Groudon! Your map saved the entire planet!
Groudon waved at the pair as they departed. “Mew is welcome!” he yelled back up. Then, as he looked into the sky, an idea came to him. Someone would have to create a map of that new spherical mass of rock floating up there…
THE END
Last edited:
