Pokémon Time All At Once (PokeMas/SV)

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Chapter One--A Project Unlike Any Other aka Consequences of Nemona's Actions​

"Ah, Champion Nemona!" Lear was in a good mood, indicated by his formality. "What brings you to see me today? I heard you had a proposition for me."

Nemona bowed slightly. She wasn't sure if Lear was really a prince, but best to err on the side of caution. After all, she was there to ask a very big favor. "Your highness! Hello!"

"I'm not going to battle you." But he was smiling when he said it.

She laughed. "Oh no, that's not why I'm here." She bowed again, not as low as before. Maybe she should curtsey instead. She wasn't sure. "I've heard that Hoopa can bring people here from other times, right? Mister Rose for example. My friend Penny was telling me that he was brought here from before he did the thing that got him arrested."

Lear nodded. "Yes, that's apparently true. We're keeping an eye on him, as with everyone we view as potentially suspicious, but with Eternatus safely in Leon's hands, I doubt he'll be a threat."

"Oh! Ah, that's good to know." She shook her head. "And you--or rather Hoopa--can bring people from other timelines entirely? Because Penny is also pretty sure that Kalosian tech guy is supposed to be dead. I don't know; she pays more attention to that stuff than I do."

Lear's eyes narrowed. "Are you going to ask me to bring some sort of...dead villain to Pasio?"

For a moment, Nemona thought how that would work. It wasn't as if she didn't know of a dead villain. But while that was close, it wasn't exactly who she was after. "I hope not! This one was nice. If you keep her away from that weird machine, anyway, but it doesn't work any more." She wasn't technically supposed to be talking about anything that had happened in Zero Lab, but that was vague enough, right? And it wasn't as though she was telling just anyone.

"A...weird machine...?"

"She's the strongest opponent I've *ever seen!*" Nemona enthused, "but I didn't get to battle her!"

"Ah, a missed opportunity?" Lear seemed to have relaxed a bit. "You can't extend the invitation yourself?"

"Well no, see...she sort of..." Nemona sighed and wrang her hands awkwardly. "had to send herself to the distant past in order to stop an evil computer program from carrying out a mad scientist's plan."

Lear pondered this for a moment before his face twisted in disgust. "Excuse me, WHAT."

Nemona didn't seem to notice. "So she's probably very lonely. If she's running at all. If she went back too far, the crystals that keep her powered might not exist yet."

"That keep her powered." His tone had switched to dry and terse, and he took a hostile step towards Nemona. "Just what sort of person are you asking me to bring?"

That, she noticed, and grinned broadly in a futile attempt to lighten the mood. "Um yeah, she's sort of a...robot." The last word was rushed, as if trying to propel it to sound a lot more rational than it did.

"Get out of my office."









"I suppose you're wondering why I've called you here today."

Lear wasn't present, speaking to the gathering of Gadgeteers over the Poryphone. He wouldn't dare set foot in their isolated lab. Who knew what sort of mad science was happening there? He had tried, but Raihan had nabbed him in a selfie, and that was the first and last straw. Even with the influencer busy elsewhere, Lear wasn't going to take any chances.

"With an introduction like that," Volkner drawled, "it makes you sound like you want us to develop some sort of superweapon."

Everyone was grateful, though they wouldn't say it out loud, that Lysandre hadn't shown up.

Lear coughed a bit. "What sort of man do you take me for?"

"You don't want us to answer that." Cyrus had mumbled it far too low for Lear to hear, but next to him, Sophocles sighed and shook his head.

"Anyway! Your task today, my consortium of energy experts, engineers, and hackers supreme--"

Not looking up from his tablet, Thorton exclaimed "A consortium!" It was impossible to tell if he was impressed or mocking.

"Am I going to keep getting interrupted or are you going to *hear my words*?" The group heard a thumping, no doubt Lear tapping his foot in impatience.

"...Sorry," Penny murmured, though she hadn't said anything up to that point, including to greet the other members.

"AN. Y. WAY." It was emphasized with considerable force. "Are you all interested in a project unlike any other? Something that could revolutionize multiple scientific fields and make Pasio the hub of world technology?"

Sophocles stood up from the bench and raised his arm before Cyrus could answer. "We are!"

Clemont, who had been drinking the remainder of a juice box, handed it off to the robotic arm on his back before raising his own arm. "The future is now!"

Penny raised her index finger before quickly lowering it back to the table. "Sure."

Volkner sat back and pondered. "There's no way this is going to be nearly as interesting as you're making it sound but I've got nothing better to do."

Thorton waved his tablet slightly. "You'll need my vast expertise."

From the screen, Lear smirked. "It sounds unanimous. At least among present company, but you lot are the ones I wanted anyway." They couldn't tell, but behind his opaque sunglasses, his gaze wandered slightly to Cyrus for just a moment. "Mostly. The future of robotics and energy awaits in this room!"

"Naturally." Thorton input something on the everpresent device. "Anything I'm involved in is sure to be a success."

"Oh my god," Volkner groaned, "put your ego away before someone makes you."

Penny drummed her fingers on the table but said nothing. Cyrus stared intently at the Poryphone as if trying to drill a hole in it with his eyes.

"Yes, the future..." Lear didn't sound nearly as sure as he had a moment ago. "Anyway! An associate will be bringing your projects in in a moment." He flared his hand to the side and was no doubt cocking his hips in that particular stance he often took during addresses. "I had a request a few days ago, you see. A request from a certain high ranked trainer. Very enthusiastic one, wanted to find a battle robot."

Penny's drumming stopped. No one noticed.

"One who'd traveled to the past, apparently! It all sounded like nonsense to me, but I figured why not? So on a whim, I asked Hoopa to try to find some sort of...time traveling robot..."

Penny started breathing funny. No one noticed.

"And somehow, it managed to find *two* of them! One of these days I'm going to have to assemble all you scientists to figure out how the multiverse works, but for now, we have two de-powered time travel robots--"

Penny was sitting stark straight, wide eyes straight ahead. No one noticed.

"--who apparently depend on crystals only found in Paldea to run. So we're going to need you to get them back...is it 'on line' for robots? Rachel, is that the term?" His retainer murmured something from the side. "Ah yeah, I should ask them. Get them running again! That's your order! So proclaims Prince Lear!" And the Poryphone went dark, dropping back to the table.

Just as it did, the back door opened, and one of Lear's servants started pushing a simple gurney into the room. "Don't freak out," the servant warned. "It looks like a dead human, but I assure you this is a robot."

The figure on the gurney was covered with a sheet, but the top of its head was poking out, and Penny would know that piled sandy brown hair dotted with orange accessories anywhere. "Um. I have to make a phone call before we start. I'll be outside..."

"I can't wait!" Clemont exclaimed, squirming with excitement. "It'll be your first project with us and it's gonna be robots!"

That was the only address she got before she darted out the front and slammed the door behind her. A moment later she snapped into her phone "Nemona, what did you DO?"

 

[Blackjack Gabbiani]

Chapter Two--Insecurity System

​

Two robots, in the form of a man and a woman. The woman bore a striking resemblance to the late Professor Sada, Volkner stated, but was clearly something mechanical.

"They look so lifelike," Sophocles said, caution in his voice.

Volkner shrugged and pointed to a gathering of a shiny mass that had built up on the clothing of both robots. "This stuff here. This is what we've got to focus on. The informant from the file said that this is what powered them originally, but since they're not in Paldea any more, it isn't enough on its own."

Thorton rifled through the provided papers again. "Pasio has an unparalleled ability to make any sort of regional power work. And if a mere schoolteacher could get terastalization to work on an artificial island in Unova, no place with me in it could possibly keep its secrets for very long!"

Cyrus glared. This in no way was a change from his previous expression. "It isn't merely tera energy they require. The informant who spoke to it when it was active reported that--"

"She." Penny had slid back in, having been gone for several hours. "When she was active."

"Was it you then? I know you go to school in Paldea. Were you the one who talked to the robot?" Clemont's voice bore a fair eager streak to it.

"N-no, I just...I didn't talk to her. But I know who did."

"Fine." Cyrus's tone was terse, as always. "The informant reported that the robot claimed to be unable to leave 'here', but didn't specify if this meant the specific laboratory they were in, the underground cave where the crystals grew, or the space known as Area Zero. Additionally," he continued as he gestured slightly towards the unknown male figure, "we do not know if the same restrictions apply to her unaccounted for counterpart. There is a considerable amount left unanswered, and we must access their programming to uncover their secrets."

Penny shrank back. Hacking the league was one thing. It had even been easy. But a robot double made by a paranoid mad scientist, who had already got taken over *twice* by a security program that wanted them dead?

A faint mechanical whirr, and there was a small soda can before her, gripped in Clemont's Aipom Arm. "You look a little sick. Figured some ginger ale would be good for that. I'm sure you can do it, Penny!" He smiled broadly. "The future is now, thanks to science! Say it with me!"

She accepted the gift but shook her head. "There's no one else that can help? One of our missing members maybe?"

Volkner laughed, short and bitterly. "Listen. I don't know if you've met him yet, but Raihan's no scientist. He's not stupid, like his public persona might lead you to believe, but he's a history buff, not an engineer. And the other one is the guy you expressed shock was still alive because the last time he made the news, he was trying to blow up Kalos and ended up getting exploded himself."

"Getting blown up."

"WhateVER, Thorton!" Volkner leaned forward in his chair, a familiar posture to most of his gym challengers. "Actually, a programmer is something we needed, and it looked like you came at just the right time."

Her gaze darted back and forth, but always at the floor. "Uh...I've met a man named Colress before. Would he--"

"NO!"

She startled, nearly dropping the soda can. Every last person there had replied in the exact same way, including Cyrus, making it the most emotion she had ever seen from him.

Clemont chuckled and patted her on the shoulder. "We'll explain later but long story short, no. Would he? Yes. Do we want him to? Absolutely not."

"Uh...ok..."











Nemona had told her about the exchange she'd had with Lear. About how she was originally asked to leave but was contacted shortly thereafter for more information, and filed a full report with everything she and their other champion friend knew about the entity known as AI Sada. As far as any of them knew, however, there was only the one robot. The man was a mystery.

Not that AI Sada herself wasn't one as well, but at least they knew what to call her.

Everything about this felt wrong. Penny had been sure that the professor's AI was having fun in the past. Sure, she had been slightly malfunctioning when she went through the machine, but the first time Penny had seen her, she had been emitting smoke, so she must have had some sort of internal healing factor.

Unless that was something else that depended on the crystals.

And how far back had she gone? The notes their group had discovered around Zero Lab later on indicated that the crystals only began forming a few million years ago. If the robot had traveled back further than that, would she have lost power completely?

She had seemed to happy to go. Regretful to leave Arven, but happy to have her own adventures. That was what had made Penny so sure that she was able to succeed. What sort of ending would it be otherwise?

Even if she fell dormant and could power back on once the crystals grew big enough, she must have been scared. She must have felt like she was dying. All those dreams of freedom, for nothing.

Or as much as a robot could dream, anyway. Penny wasn't sure about that.

Robot characters weren't usually her favorites. Penny was more interested in their technology or how they could serve the story of whatever anime she was watching. And even if they were alive, they were just machines and could be rebuilt. They may not have the same memories, but a human who gets amnesia is still the same person, so she always thought of it the same way.

But this wasn't one of her shows. This wasn't something created by some visionary writer, or even cobbled together to sell toys. This was something far too real, far too unsettling, far too sad, far too dangerous.

If any trace of the Paradise Protection Protocol remained...

...she didn't want to think of those crystalline eyes ever again. She didn't want to think about what would have happened if Sada's own Koraidon hadn't fallen into the hands of a random passerby, the same random passerby who intervened when Penny herself needed help...

She wasn't going to tell Arven that it still gave her nightmares. He had enough problems. And he wasn't there anyway.

Nemona, on the other hand. If her desire for a strong opponent resulted in the revival of "Paradise", well, that was something else that Penny didn't want to think about.









"You ok there?"

Penny wiped at her eyes and slid her glasses back down. "Yeah, I guess I am."

Clemont picked up the empty ginger ale can in front of her. It was the third one. "You don't seem to be. What's going on? It's ok, just Thorton is still here and he doesn't care."

Sure enough, the Factory Head was slouched over a table, examining his everpresent tablet, not even looking up at the mention of his name.

She shook her head. "I know her son. Or, the son of the person who created the robot. He's a friend of mine, even if he gets on my nerves sometimes."

"Sounds like me and my little sister." He handed the can off to his Aipom Arm, which tossed it into the recycle bin in the corner of the room. "Yes! I could never make that shot myself. Machines let us do a lot more than we could ever do ourselves. I imagine that must be why she created something like this."

Penny tried to look at the screen again, but flinched. The raw data on display was nearly incomprehensible, and Penny wasn't sure if that was a sign of Sada's genius or her madness. Probably both. "It's been a long time since I've been this overwhelmed by a computer. She's so advanced that I can't figure it out. And even if I could..."

Clemont pulled up a chair. "It feels personal?"

"Yeah." She hugged her knees up to her chest, pulling tight in a ball. "It feels like I'm poking around where I shouldn't be. That I'll find something too dangerous."

"The document said that she..." He trailed off and looked through a nearby sheaf of papers for a second before continuing "got overridden by the lab's security system. Is that what you're afraid of?"

Penny tugged on the cords to her hoodie, closing herself off from the outside. "Yeah. She kinda tried to kill us. Including her creator's own son."

"Well, if it helps, the document says that the machine in the lab was deactivated."

She shook her head. "It was, but that was only possible because she left. Because she went back in time, it severed her connection to it. Now that she's back, I don't know what will happen. And the worst part..." She didn't finish, tugging the cords tighter, balling up smaller.

"Penny, if you need to take a break..."

A deep sigh from somewhere in her hoodie. "...I'd never met the woman. Sada herself. But Ar--" She sighed again. "My friend said later that when the machine was talking, even as brutal as it was, even though it didn't recognize him, it felt like his mum was talking. Like that was all that was left of her..."

Clemont pondered this, finally shuttering slightly at the thought of it. "That's awful. I can't even imagine that."

She loosened the hoodie just a bit. "What are your parents like?"

"Uh? Oh, they're all right. They're really encouraging, but they want me to go outside more often. They're excited that I'm meeting a lot of people here! What about yours?"

"..." Even though asking him meant that he would ask in return, she was still hesitant to answer. "...I think I appreciate them a lot more after going through all that. My dad is all clingy and loud. But after all of this stuff with Arven's mum, I thought about it..." She shook her head, sniffling a little. "He just loves us. And...when he was a kid, his dad died real suddenly. I think he wants to value his time with us because he knows things could change in an instant."

Clemont nodded, holding back a sniffle of his own. "I can't even imagine that either."

For a moment, the only sound in the room was the sound of Thorton typing on his tablet. They had both forgotten he was there.

"...So uh...do you need any help?

Penny undid her hoodie entirely, pushing the hood behind her as usual. "Yeah. Her programming is absolutely bonkers. It's like learning an entirely new language."

"I'll take a look!"

If it hadn't been for the brief reminder a moment before that Thorton was still in the room, the teenagers would have jumped. The startling suddenness of his statement was jarring. "Are you sure?"

"Absolutely! There's no programming language that can possibly stump me! Move over."

Penny scooted her chair out of the way, and Thorton dragged in another from the main table. "You see, it's nothing I've ever seen before."

"Me either," Clemont agreed. "Though it's also partially in Paldean. If I wasn't sworn to secrecy with that contract we all had to sign, I'd be asking one of my online tech group. Cassie would be perfect for this project."

Standing up was painful, a sign Penny had been sitting for far too long. "Cassie?"

"Yeah, I'm in a group that talks about tech. Bunch of kids from all over the world. There's this programmer with the screen name Cassiopeia--"

Penny's eyes went wide. She covered it with pushing her glasses back up.

"--and they mentioned speaking Paldean, so it would be pretty good to have them on board."

"That's uh...that's a heck of a username..." she murmured.

"Our guess is they're probably an astronomer. My user name is Clembot 5000!" He seemed so proud of it.

Clembot 5000, the robotics expert of the group, who had made an autonomous robot to do his daily tasks but had accidently activated it with the wrong keywords. She had known Clemont was the one behind that name, but didn't think that it would ever come up in any sort of offline life. "I think a lot of people could figure out who you are from that. Especially since you're a public figure."

He shrugged. "Yep, it doesn't really come up much. They're like oh that's Clemont. Which is nice, you know? Sometimes being famous is nice, but you want to be seen as just one of the gang sometimes."

"Yeah..." Her dad had echoed that a few times, and she didn't want to think about him right then. She looked aimlessly around before letting herself really take in the figure of the robot, laying mostly covered on the gurney she'd been brought in on. They were both in the next room for closer physical observation, but the window set into the wall was guarded only by a curtain, leaving very little to prevent the feeling that they were watching her. "...You know, I wonder how that affected Sada. The real one. She was super famous but she hid away. People even knew Arven was her son, even though he wasn't in the public eye."

"Even I'd heard of him," Thorton interjected without turning away from the screen, "and I don't care to know anything about the personal lives of these scientists. Or I knew she had a son, anyway."

Penny put her hood back up on instinct. "That's sad."

"Sad?"

"That he'd be so known without trying, but nobody cared to check in on him."

This time, the silence was absolute, without even the ticking of a keyboard to break it.