Pokemon Fan Fiction ❯ In a Perfectly Imperfect World ❯ Chapter 1

Originally posted on FanFiction on November 16, 2008.

 

This is a rather old work of mine, but I still think you'll enjoy it. I hope I'm not wrong!

 

Disclaimer: I do not claim any of the Pokemon characters used in this chapter, because they are all property of Satoshi Tajiri and I haven't stolen the rights from him yet. I bet he has people try that all the time, actually; probably has to have bodyguards and stuff.

 

 

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In A Perfectly Imperfect World

 

 

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“Oh, Dialgaaaaa! Open the door!”

 

Sighing, Dialga continued to lie on his bed, but shouted for his brother to instead do the job. Palkia sighed and asked, “Why me?”

 

“Because I'm too lazy.”

 

“Dialgaaaa!”

 

“Please, Palkia?”

 

“Alright, fine,” the pink space dragon grumbled as he went over, cursing his kindness to everything. As he opened the door, however, he soon came to regret it as he spotted the rainbow-feathered Legendary standing before him, preening her feathers as she waited.

 

When she caught sight of him, however, she raised her head to look at him with a frown, asking, “Where is that sparkly, non-perfect creature?”

 

I'm sparkly, Palkia wanted to whine, but instead he sighed and stepped aside, saying as she stepped inside, “Being lazy, as usual.” He felt kind of giddy to lead the Rainbow Pokemon over to his brother's room, as if the prospect of his certain doom was entertaining. He stood be the door and watched the fun begin.

 

“Get up!” Ho-Oh kicked the leg that hung off lazily over the edge of the bed, but his tail only twitched at the action, seeing as how his scales were the hardest diamonds possible. The Spatial Pokemon couldn't help but wonder why it didn't hurt her like it did to him when he tried it, but he supposed it was because-he snorted-she was so “perfect.”

 

“You lazy oaf, get off of your scaly-tail and listen!” She fired a Sacred Fire at him, smirking in triumph when he leapt up with a yelp and fell off of the bed. Then, as he groaned in exhaustion, she kicked him in the side again and told him, “If you don't want to experience that again, I would suggest doing as I say!”

 

“Alright, alright, woman,” the Dragon/Steel-Type grumbled as he scratched his side at the mild irritation he felt from being kicked, and then he asked reluctantly, “What do you want that you have to storm into my house and kick me out of my slumber?”

 

“You must accompany me in an attempt to turn the Legendaries into perfections of nature!” She flared her wings out, the sunlight creeping in through the window causing her to shine with-what do you know-the colors of the rainbow. “In a perfectly perfect world, there are perfectly perfect people, and we cannot perfect our imperfect people if our world isn't perfect, and we must perfectly perfect our own perfection before we can perfect our imperfect world and imperfect mortals! We must be perfectly perfect role models; otherwise, it will all dissolve into imperfect ruin, and that is perfectly awful! So, join me in my perfect quest to perfect the imperfections we call Legendaries!”

 

Her eyes were closed with arrogance, as always when she did this pose and speech, but they opened when he hadn't moved from his spot immediately. She rolled her eyes and then dove her beak under his neck to toss his head up, causing him to fall on his butt in surprise and letting her pull him the rest of the way up. “Come on,” she commanded him in irritation, “let's go! The imperfect Legends need attaining to!”

 

“Says who,” he countered with a frown, hating how she always came to ruin his sleep. He was allowed some time to rest, right? I mean, he controlled time-couldn't he have that bit of luxury?

 

“Arceus says.” She smiled that bird-smile of hers with confidence, knowing he couldn't back down a command from Arceus unless he wanted to spend a month in a matchbox. Although, it might have just been an “order” that Ho-Oh go bother someone else, but either way he couldn't challenge it. Her results were him sighing and relenting to following her out the door, leaving Palkia to sit and wonder about this ritual they practiced every day for the last millennia.

 

I'm surprised he hasn't just flat out refused, he questioned himself, but then shrugged and left the matter be again, joking to himself as the front door slammed behind them, “He's probably just too lazy to fight her!”

 

 

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“Come on . . . push! It's almost off of him!”

 

Dialga and Ho-Oh had just been going to Groudon's to pick up his brother when suddenly an Earthquake had shook the cave around them and caused some boulders to fall on the poor space dragon. With how exhausted he was from constant hours of playing Dance Dance Revolution (he couldn't get enough the human game), he hadn't the strength to get up himself, and so he had to enlist the help of the other three to get the boulder off of him. Groudon was helping motivate them as they put all of their weight into pushing it, finding it surprisingly heavy. They needed to work out more or something, because this was ridiculous.

 

“Heave,” the Rainbow Pokemon grunted rather “imperfectly,” but Dialga didn't have the thought to tease her about it as they tried to get that damnable rock off of him. (Of course, he was also tempted to say `Ho-Oh' instead of `ho', but . . .)

 

“Ho!” Groudon gave a big bang with her shoulder, and suddenly the boulder rolled off of the Spatial Legendary and banged into the wall, crumbling into fine dust at the impact. Quickly going to his side to help him up, the Continent Pokemon asked him, “Are you alright? That was a pretty big-ass rock.”

 

“Y-yeah,” he stuttered, rubbing his head and feeling a bit shaken by the experience of being pinned to the ground, “I'm fine. I just need to sit down for a bit.” As Groudon guided him to the couch, he scowled at his brother's smirk, but it disappeared as soon as Groudon began to talk to him about remodeling the place. He was instantly and completely enthralled in the conversation.

 

“He seems to be fine,” Ho-Oh commented with a snort, and Dialga looked over to her and raised a metallic dragon eye-ridge.

 

“You did very well, for a pretty bird, Rainbow.” That was her dreadful nickname, or her “imperfect” one as she called it. She much preferred “The Glorious and Beautifully Perfect Rainbow Phoenix,” but after Dialga pointed out she looked more like a chicken she settled for Rainbow.

 

She looked over to him and smirked her normal arrogant bird-smirk. “For being a big, lazy dragon, you didn't do so bad yourself, Di-Di.”

 

He scowled as he hated that nickname more then the anti-lazy life itself, but she just chuckled at his irritation and strutted off as the conceited bird she was. The only problem was that his eyes followed her on her way to the cave's entrance, and when the sunlight hit her feathers he couldn't help but have his breath taken away by the beauty that, no matter how many times he saw, would always astound him. It seemed the colors would shift and change each time, giving him a new fascination with her wings and the sparkling light that seemed to come from her. Was it that sight that made all of her torturing, her taunting, her trying to change him, worth it?

 

He might not ever be able to find out, but as the bird turned her head to look over at him and smile, he wondered if he even wanted to.

 

“Liking the view?”

 

Actually, he might just stuff her like a turkey . . . then maybe she'd be sweeter. And blissfully silent.

 

 

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“Then you do this . . . no, no, no!” She sighed and walked over to him messing up the position, asking irritably, “Are you always this uncoordinated, Di-Di?”

 

“Only when you yell at me,” he grumbled, not understanding how his Legendary form was supposed to bend that way when obviously his legs couldn't go that far over his head. She had forced him to try yoga, in an attempt to “clear his mind of all imperfections” and to “strengthen his body from said taints of the physique,” but he really didn't see the whole point of this. What was breaking his back by attempting to do a crab-walk on a bouncy ball going to help?

 

“This is not stupid,” she glared at him when she caught his grumblings, and he turned to her and scowled right back.

 

“It sure as hell is, Rainbow! I mean, what the hell does this do, other then make me want to scream in pain and frustration?”

 

“You aren't doing it right! That's the problem!”

 

She sighed, folding her wings against her sides as she had had them flared out while shouting at him. After a moment in thought, she arched her neck up in enlightenment of an idea, causing him to tilt his head to the side (making it pop uncomfortably) and cautiously ask, “What?”

 

“Perhaps it would be easier as a human,” she suggested slowly, as if she was considering it but not too enthusiastic about it, and he actually agreed with that as he shook his head.

 

“No, I'm not going to turn into an even weaker form to practice this-this evil sport of torture. No, you're going to have to find someone else to be your “toy.” ” He then sat on his tail and folded his front legs like a human would cross their arms defiantly, and he looked away from her as she tried to convince him to keep trying.

 

Eventually, she threw up her wings and groaned, “Fine! Be an imperfect creature as you perfectly are! But don't come crying to me when you can't lift a pencil off of the ground because you're too imperfect and weak!” Fed up with his nonsense, she went and stood in a corner, fuming silently at the thought of such a selfish Legend. After all, she was doing this to help him! Isn't improvement something room for a “thank you?” Ugh!

 

She felt his presence before suddenly a soft, fleshy thing poked her leg awkwardly, and she started before looking down and between her legs to see what the hell was poking her down there. The sight of a blue-haired human was incredible, but at the sight of his ruby-like eyes she immediately recognized this as the time dragon's human form. She grinned at him, eventually joining him in his human-y-ness.

 

“You know,” she commented as she showed him the first exercise again, “you aren't as lazy and stubborn anymore towards my perfection methods. Perhaps I'm rubbing off on you.”

 

“Oh, joy.” She slapped him hard on the shoulder, earning herself a pained “ow!” as she giggled at his pain. Oh, how he allowed her to injure him. And the question “why” still wasn't answered.

 

“Don't be so sour, Di-Di, you're getting the hang of it.”

 

 

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Deciding that his lazy days were forever gone because of the pretty bird's antics, he finally found a hobby to occupy his time-exercising. After that little accident of Palkia's, he felt he wasn't physically fit enough to take on a Feebas, and so he decided that he would train his body to be stronger then ever before. Choosing to make his weaker form stronger first, as a sort of building block to his success, he went to a human's exercising gym at least three days a week, trying to strengthen the basic and limited muscles of the human body before moving on up to his Legendary form.

 

One day, he was surprised to have a visit from Rayquaza, also in his human form, and he tilted his head as he raised the weights in both of his hands up and down and asked him. “What's up, Ray?”

 

Of course saying the Sky High Pokemon's real name was basically condemning him to death, and so they had all adopted some nickname for themselves whenever in the human race's presence. The green-haired “human” nodded in acknowledgement before grinning and saying casually, “Oh, I was just bringing a package to you, with Paul's consent.”

 

The vagueness of that statement troubled him, and Dialga put down the weights for a moment as he wiped the sweat off of his forehead, his blue tank top already soaked from the thirty minutes of working out as his long blue hair with lighter highlights clung to his back uncomfortably. Of course, he was a Legendary, so he would stay there long after the morning crowd had left. He then asked, slightly winded, “What is my brother sending to me, now, when I told him when I left that I was coming here?” Any special Legend action that happened would blow his cover, and then he'd have to come up with another human disguise before he could sneak in here-and he rather liked this spot.

 

Rayquaza moved aside, however, revealing a familiar head of rainbow-themed hair, and the green serpent in men's clothing told him as he stood in slight shock, “He said to “take the annoying bird off of his claws before she drove him nuts,” but then he got kicked into the next dimension by you know who.” Grinning, he gave him a salute before turning around and leaving the gym, disappearing around the corner and probably heading to a deserted alley so he could change forms and fly off sniggering at the time dragon.

 

He was like that at times, but who could blame him? He was just following the trend of making fun of the Legends who hung out in pairs. It was kind of odd how much time they spent together though, considering they would normally never be “friends” with their clashing interests. Laziness and perfection don't generally make a good match-up . . . do they?

 

“Nice place,” the shiny bird in disguise came over to him and spoke calmly, although she seemed a bit disgusted by all of the sweat everywhere, and for once the Temporal Pokemon didn't know exactly what to say to her. Normally he'd have some retort or another, but her appearance was so sudden and . . . unexpected, that he had no clue how to react. Why was she looking for him at his house, anyways? Was she stalking him or something?

 

“Uh,” he finally choked out after realizing he had been standing silently for a while, “yeah, this place is…pretty cool.” Grimacing at how lame that sounded, he contemplated on going back to his new hobby, but he felt reluctant for some reason. Maybe it was the way she kept staring at him expectantly; maybe it was because her eyes roved up and down in a term that Lugia often affectionately reminded him was “elevator eyes”-or maybe it was because he was in a sweaty shirt in an old, smelly gym while she was the Goddess of Perfection (or so it seemed), being deemed unworthy in her eyes. Why did her opinion matter, anyways? He controlled Time and kept the universe in check, while she was just a bird who ranted on and on about how “imperfect” the world was, even though it was obvious.

 

Or maybe it was the fact that Rayquaza had left the two alone together, and then ran off to tell stories about them to Lugia or Latias or whoever the hell really cared. Sometimes he was embarrassed to say he was of the same species as the dragon.

 

“Hello?” Ho-Oh snapping her fingers in front of his face took him out of his trance, and he blinked back to reality as she asked, “Don't you normally do things here? You know,” she mocked the motion the other guys there did, “like lift things?”

 

He simply nodded without a word, but he was further surprised when she asked him rather timidly, “C-could I try?” Her stutter wasn't missed, and his questioning gaze was only answered with a glare as she scowled and said, “I'm just asking, dammit! Don't look at me as if I have three heads! I mean, you know, I've never tried this before, but it looks like fun, so I thought-what the hell!”

 

She never used to curse this much, Dialga noticed, until she started to hang out with him more often. His mouth twitched at the thought that he was rubbing off on her, just like she said her “perfection” was rubbing off on him. When she saw said twitch, she only scowled more, and she threw her hands up and said, “Fine! Go ahead and continue with your imperfection! I'll just go-”

 

“Wait!” Dialga quickly grabbed her hand as she was about to go and leave him, and she fell back a bit to rest on her awkward human feet before turning to face him expectantly. He opened his mouth to explain to her his reasoning for stopping her, but for some reason he couldn't get out a word. It was as if he had lost all train of thought and was riding said train on a speedy collision course with a wall. Why had he stopped her again? Ugh, there was that “why” word again. He sighed. He just wasn't getting his way today, was he?

 

“Well?” The Rainbow Pokemon's cherry eyes bore into Dialga's own, making him close his eyes to think, and she searched with a few flicks of her gaze for the answer to her unspoken question.

 

“Uhh,” the time dragon found himself stuttering, much to his surprise, and he let go of her arm to let his own dangle straight down his side like a useless thing. What did he need from her? What reason was there to stop her from going? Why wasn't he shoving her out the door at the very moment? He didn't know exactly how to answer these questions, but he could speculate at the least that he wanted her to stay.

 

A scoff, and he opened his eyes to see her turn away and walk to the door again, telling him, “Well, if you can't make up your mind, then I'm not wasting my perfectly precious time here! I'm off!” He made a grab for her again, but this time he wasn't so lucky as she slipped away-almost like she knew he would try again-and went out the door. He stood there for a while, contemplating on going after her, before he sighed and hung his head down, mumbling to himself, “Well, it's too late now . . .”

 

After a moment, the ridiculousness of that statement finally hit home, and he looked up at the door she had exited from and frowned, growling, “What the hell am I saying? What is this, one of Palkia's soap operas?” He certainly wasn't going to reenact a scene of As the Brass Tower Burns, and so he closed his eyes and concentrated on fixing his mistake. Knowing that he was taking a risk in doing such a selfish act, he pushed aside the hesitation and focused his energy into his weak human body, making sure not to completely obliterate the frail thing with nearly unlimited power pumping into his hands.

 

He lay them on his chest where his diamond would have been and gritted his teeth, taking the searing hot pain of the action without complaints as he felt the Roar of Time welling up in the pit of his stomach. Ignoring the temptation to let it loose, he instead diverted the physical attack into “attacking” the framework of time, letting him create a hole in it that he could slip through and reverse time itself. It was a more painful out-of-body experience, but as he opened his eyes and heard someone say-

 

“Oh, I was just bringing a package to you, with Paul's consent.”

 

It got the job done.

 

He smiled to himself before turning around to face Rayquaza with fake curiosity, asking him in a light and cheery tone, “What is my brother sending to me, now, when I told him when I left that I was coming here?” If he got the timing and the words just right, he would-

 

The serpent in disguise blinked for a moment, a look on his face you wouldn't have recognized unless you were waiting for it, and Dialga smirked mentally as he thought, Déjà vu, you oversized ringworm.

 

The serpent then smirked and stepped to the side as expected, revealing human-Ho-Oh before him. For all that was holy, Dialga had to use whatever energy he could muster after turning back time in a human's body just not to laugh, and he let himself look surprised for a second, before he smiled warmly and said, “Oh, well, tell my brother I said that I'd gladly take her off of his claws.” He could tell that Rayquaza was baffled by his smoothness, and he could barely resist the urge to go and shout in his face “you just got served!,” only turning and giving Rayquaza a smirk that he'd let him interpret. The green-haired human scowled and slinked out of the fitness center, obviously peeved at getting his blackmail foiled, and he doubted that he'd hear any rumors about this anytime soon.

 

Now, he turned back to Ho-Oh who looked almost as surprised as the Dragon/Flying-Type did, time to fix what I messed up for myself.

 

“Nice place,” Ho-Oh finally commented when she was over her shock, and Dialga nodded and responded, “Yeah, it's a bit dingy and overcrowded with stupid people, but it works.” Ah, better answer, he praised himself as she nodded in thought, looking around at all of the equipment there and the hot, sweaty bodies that occupied them. As she tilted her head in slight interest and a bit of distaste, Dialga saw the opportunity to take the advantage and asked her, “Do you want to try?” Man, I love being the Legendary of Time.

 

She looked at him with slight surprise, but it was only there for a split second, and she half-shrugged as she mumbled, “Sure, I guess . . .”

 

The way she tried to sound so uninterested made him smile, and he motioned her over to one of the workout areas and told her, “Here, sit on this.” He patted the warm spot on the vinyl bench where a human had been just a little while ago, and he watched curiously as she eyed it with a thoughtful expression on her face. Will she do it? Oh, Arceus, I hope it's yes . . .

 

He wasn't even going to bother asking himself “why” this time.

 

“Oh, alright,” she huffed as she walked over and flopped onto the seat, and then glanced at the bar above her head and blinked. “What's this for?”

 

“That,” he leaned over her a bit to reach the bar and pull it down to her, “is for you to repeatedly pulled down.”

 

“Ha ha, very funny,” she scowled at him, but when she had a grip with her hands on either side of it and he let go, she yelped as it ripped itself out of her hand and zoomed back up, a metallic clang of the weights behind the chair dropping suddenly ringing throughout the room. Few people looked over, but Ho-Oh was still embarrassed by the accident as her flushed face showed.

 

Dialga sighed and pulled the bar back down, advising her, “You have to be careful, because at first it's extremely hard to fight against gravity.”

 

She only stuck her tongue out at him, and he made sure that she was holding it tightly with both hands before he carefully let go. The expected strained look on her face came as she put in an effort to keep the bar where it was, and after a moment the Temporal Pokemon went behind the chair and told her, “Alright, gently put the bar back up and slowly let go, and I'll get rid of some of the weights on here.”

 

“Thank Arceus,” she mumbled as she sat high in the seat to gradually let go of the bar, this time only having a small clink follow as he examined the weights on the back, licking his lips to taste the salt of sweat on them. Let's see, our powers and abilities are divided by ten or so while in the human form, so . . . He took off three of the weights, and he stood back and breathed, “Ah, that should do.” He then tapped her on the shoulder and instructed her, “Try it now, and see if it's easier.”

 

She grumbled something that he didn't catch before she tried to pull it back down, and she grunted before it came down rather fluidly if not slowly, to which he clapped his hands and complimented, “Good job, and on your first time! Either you're a better student, or I'm a better teacher.”

 

She craned her neck to scowl over her shoulder at him, but he only stuck his tongue out before coming around to stand there and watch her exercise for a bit. It was actually a bit relieving, seeing her try something that he considered “fun” and it made him feel a bit of a pressured sensation on his chest he then dismissed as his legendary energy getting restless in his human body. He couldn't help it, though, when his eyes started following something that wasn't her face, and after a moment his face grew red and he looked away to keep from embarrassing himself. Geez, I thought that human hormones only affected humans.

 

“How,” the Rainbow Pokemon in disguise grunted, still exercising and oblivious to his red face, “am I doing?”

 

Dialga glanced over for a moment to examine her expectant face, and he gave her a half-smile before looking away again. “Eh, you're getting the hang of it.”

 

 

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With both of them hanging out more often, eventually rumors were going to fly. With Palkia at their roots, it wasn't any surprise when his brother would try to avoid him at all times. Sometimes, though, things couldn't just be sidestepped, and this morning was one of them.

 

“Hey, bro,” the pink Legendary tapped him on the shoulder, “what's up? You haven't talked to me in weeks.” When all he received was a shrug in response, he frowned and forcefully turned the blue dragon around (a hard feat considering the Temporal Pokemon was four-legged), looked him straight in the eye and repeated, “What's up, bro?” His maroon-and-violet colored eyes were searching his brother's simple maroon ones, but he could find no clear answer as he just got another shrug while eye contact was avoided.

 

“Dialga,” Palkia called him as he rummaged through their fridge, “why aren't you talking to me?”

 

He went to shrug again, but then he paused and thought it over, his eyes lowered to the floor in serious contemplation. Then, he looked up to the pink dragon before him, locked gazes with him, and said truthfully, “I need help.”

 

The space dragon blinked a couple of times, unable to believe what he had just heard, and asked him to repeat it again because he swore he hadn't heard right. Dialga sighed in exasperation and explained to him, “Look, you know how me and Ho-Oh have been hanging out a lot.” Palkia nodded to show he understood. “Well, I've been thinking, and I've realized that she's become more of a friend now. I mean, she used to bother us often because of her need to turn everything into perfection, but now . . . I mean, she really wants to hang out with me.”

 

“. . . And . . . ?” His brother really didn't see the problem here.

 

“I mean,” Dialga went to say something, and then sighed, and as the other dragon raised an eyebrow at this he told him instead, “Surprisingly, I like hanging out with her, too. Especially when we share the same interests.”

 

“Oh,” Palkia seemed to finally get where he was going, and commented, “Kind of like how I hang out with Groudon all of the time?” He wasn't ashamed in talking about this-not to his brother. After all, he knew that this was serious and he wouldn't tease or get teased. Not right now, anyways.

 

“Well, yes and no,” he replied, and as he received a quizzical look he answered the unspoken question on the dragon's lips. “I mean, we have fun, yeah, but . . . I can't help the feel that that's the only reason.”

 

“Dialga, buddy,” Palkia stopped him by putting a supporting claw on his shoulder, as if he would need it with what he was going to say next, “I think I know what your “problem” is.”

 

“And I know how to help!” Both of them turned to look at a certain wishmaker floating behind them with a small smile on his face. As the blue dragon looked at him in confusion, Palkia had a smug smirk on his face, as if he had known the tiny legend was there all along.

 

“Yes, for you see, he has a plan . . .”

 

 

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“Hey, Rainbow!”

 

The Legend in disguise gave a huff as she turned around and exclaimed, “Finally!” She had been waiting outside of the ice cream parlor Dialga had told her to go to, and he had been at least twenty minutes late. “You aren't being fashionably late, are you?”

 

“I am not late,” he replied with a grin, “I'm just early for tomorrow.”

 

“Yeah, yeah,” she rolled her eyes and guided him into the parlor, “you'd think with your job, you'd be able to keep track of time.”

 

“You'd think,” he pointed out as they walked up to the counter of the nearly abandoned place, ordered their choices and sat down at one of the many unoccupied tables. As Dialga started digging into his Oreo Blizzard with a spoon, he watched Ho-Oh as she ate her rainbow sherbet rather leisurely.

 

Eventually she noticed, and she put down the half-finished ice cream for a moment to ask, “What?”

 

He blinked once, as if coming out of a trance of some sort, then turned his attention back at his Blizzard, mumbling, “Nothing . . .” He received a strange look from her but nothing more as she shrugged it off and went on with eating, sighing contently when she was finished. The Temporal dragon looked up once more at her and asked, “Are you happy?”

 

“Yes,” she admitted, “I am. How did you know that I love ice cream?”

 

“I kind of overheard Zapdos talking about you and your room filled with empty ice cream buckets,” he teased, and as she stuck her tongue out at him he smiled and continued seriously, “and I figured that you'd like to come here. I heard from Mew that they sold the best ice cream here.”

 

“Of course he'd know,” she smiled back, actually at ease sitting here with him, and he couldn't help the grin that came from seeing her relaxing around him. And now, he thought smugly to himself, it's time for Phase Two of my plan.

 

“Well, come on.” He got up and threw their empty cups into the trash, beckoning her over to the door when she just sat there in confusion. When she still didn't move, he rolled his eyes and took her arm to pull her up to her feet.

 

She gave a small gasp, and then another when he began to drag her out the door, inquiring in surprise, “What-where are we going?”

 

“Someplace special,” was all he said before he jerked them into an alley and closed his eyes. As she began to reprimand him for dragging into “such an imperfect place,” he shushed her with a finger to her mouth as he laid the other hand on his chest, drawing his power from his legendary spirit once more to put everything into reverse and send them speeding through the fabric of Time, much like Palkia did for the strands of Space.

 

Ho-Oh's third gasp of the hour was lost completely and thrown into some other time, probably confusing some cavemen back in the Ice Age. Everything was splotches of color, burning into her retinas until she finally closed her eyes and tried not to wince at the spots she saw on the back of her eyelids. She grabbed a hold of Dialga and didn't dare let go, hugging him tightly in fear of being lost in the sands of Time. Instead of her experience with Palkia's powers where it all become ice-cold, this was fiery hot and burned her feet and hands and ears as she wished for the entire ride to end. Suddenly, she felt her feet on solid ground again, and as dizziness kept her from letting go of him she opened her eyes to gaze around her.

 

And she was amazed.

 

“Whoa,” she barely breathed out the words, “the moon is so . . . big.”

 

And it was; instead of the small disc that you could hold up a quarter to and it would be small in comparison to the coin, there was a moon that you had to take you palm up and cover it and even then would shine through your fingers. The moonlight spread across the world like a blanket, and whatever it touched shone like fireflies in the night. They were on a cliff overlooking a waterfall into a valley where huge stone monuments covered by a thin layer of moss stood like trees, and her eye's lit up in recognition as they flew up to the sky, searching-

 

“Oh!” A hand flew to her mouth in an effort to hide her surprised gasp, but it had already escaped well before it had reached its destination. Dialga heard it and looked down at her, gently laying an arm around her as he smiled at her reaction to the sight of the comet gradually streaking across the sky, to leave the sight of Earth for another thousand years. The tail was a beautiful striking white contrasting against the soft dark blue sky, with the little pinpricks of stars and planets shining, as the nursery rhyme goes, “like diamonds in the sky.” It was as if she was staring at an expansion of the Temporal Pokemon's scaly skin painted on the canvas that was the sky, and the sparkles made up the many stars that winked back at her like periods on a page. Wow, I'm being rather poetic tonight . . .

 

“What do you think?” He really wanted to know how she felt about this, and he tightened his arm around her to remind her that she was still hugging him long after they had got here. After she realized that she was, she blushed heavily and let go, instead just leaning against him as the temperature of the land was much, much lower then when they had been time-traveling with the sensation of taking a lava bath. When she got over the initial embarrassment, she closed her eyes and sighed in content, resting her head on his shoulder.

 

“It's . . . perfect.”

 

That brought a goofy smile to his face, and then he discreetly looked over her shoulder to wink at the little younger Jirachi from this time staring at him with wide curious eyes marked underneath with dashes of sea-green, little charms jingling softly in the slight breeze. When he saw the little guy squeak silently and rush off to hide in his cave, he returned his attention to Ho-Oh and laid his chin on her head, closing his own eyes as he enjoyed this-perfect-moment with her.

 

He didn't need to answer “why” now-to be honest, he didn't give a Hoothoot about why he did all of this. All he knew was that it made him feel good.

 

“You know, Di-Di, you should try out karate. It lets you take out your imperfect frustrations, and-”

 

“Hush, Rainbow. Let me enjoy the only peace I'll ever have with you.”

 

 

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I was rather ecstatic the day I finished this onceshot-you should read the Author's Note on FFN! I was way crazier back then . . . and sillier.

 

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Lots of dragon-y love (and cookies!),

~DL (`Dragon Lover')