347: Me, Myself, And Time
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350: Yajoron to kasumi no naka no iseki!
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Meanwhile, Team Rocket are also lost in the forest, complaining about being lost which causes Meowth to scream out to the twerps - wherever they are - that this is all their fault. She grabs him around the mouth and warns him to shut up, then points in a random declaration and declares they're "that way", insisting it's woman's intuition, it's a psychic thing!
As James and Meowth gape at this recklessly stupid statement, Ash and Pikachu wonder through the forest confused (nothing new for Ash) about why they can't find everyone else and then... slip down a ravine towards certain doom!
Oh dear, if Ash and Pikachu don't die, they'll be left broken and bleeding messes at the bottom of the fall, with nothing left for Ash to do but spend time with himself. He'll say it's just....
They slide to the ground relatively uninjured, the slop not as steep as they thought. Then they heard a singing voice calling out to them, and he approaches a small opening at the base of a big tree, and a robed woman sitting inside wearing large sunglasses. She sings about moving through the pass as the fog rolls back in and when it clears... she's gone!
The fog lifts where the other twerps are and May turns to ask Ash if he wants some lunch, but he's gone!
Oh no, he's the star of the show!
Ash finds himself on the edge of a sheer cliff and stops himself just in time, then turns as he notes a Baltoy - a small spinning top like Pokemon - spinning towards the edge of the cliff. He cries out to Pikachu to zap in front of it to hold it off from the edge, but it does nothing, and Ash checks out Dexter again and discovers it is part psychic/part ground type, so electrical attacks won't give it pause. He tells Pikachu to use Quick Attack and target its feet, and knocks it over on its side as a young red haired girl rushes by him and scoops it up, relieved to have found it. She turns and yells at Ash, demanding to know what a Pokemon Trainer out in the middle of a forest battling a lone Pokemon by itself without a trainer anywhere to be seen... why the nerve of him! He points out the cliff RIGHT NEXT TO HER and she finally turns and sees it herself, gasping in fright as she realises how close her Baltoy (and herself) came to certain death.
She introduces herself as Callista and Ash returns the favour, while Team Rocket.... skid down the same slope that Ash fell down earlier! Meowth moans that he's lucky to have nine lives and then sarcastically asks "Madam Jesse" where to next, not knowing that she has been surprisingly accurate in finding Ash's path. She notes that she saw a flash that looked like a Pikachu electric attack from off in the distance and leads them on.
Meanwhile Ash is sitting chatting with Callista while Pikachu amuses itself by tapping Baltoy which - thanks to its thinning to a point "leg" rocks back and forth while Pikachu laughs away... haha, what a jerk!
It seems that Callista is searching for ancient artifacts, but once the fog rolled in she had to rely on Baltoy to find their way out. She takes a magazine with a picture of a Baltoy on the cover and tells Ash that according to the magazine; the most valuable artifacts in THE ENTIRE FREAKING UNIVERSE are to be found in ancient ruins somewhere in these mountains. After this extravagant claim, Callista tells Ash (who seems completely unfazed by the fact that his three companions are nowhere to be seen) that she wants to be an architect, but this will probably never happen due to her Doctor parents wanting her to follow in their footsteps. She has a child-lens view of her parents, terrifying black-faced monsters that take away her archeology books and toys and samples. But they had no idea she still had the magical book about the amazing samples, and then one day she got a phone call from a mysterious woman begging her to come to the mountains with Baltoy, because everything in the books is true!
Ash tells Callista he can understand why she would take the word of a mysterious stranger on the telephone to sneak out without her parents’ knowledge and head away into the foggy mysterious mountains! She begins singing a song out of the book and Ash finishes it, recognising it as the song the lady in the forest earlier. He tells her he'll take her to the tree where he saw her, and they head off, watched from a distance by Team Rocket who declare that they're going to get that treasure and give it to the Boss!
Down by the tree, the woman sings away.... and then Team Rocket appear, telling her to can it and tell them where the treasure is! She replies curtly that her song isn't for them, and Team Rocket hit her with THEIR song.
Yes, they sing their motto!
"Then prepare for trouble let us sing you OUR song!"
"And make it double if you care to sing along!"
"To protect the world from devastation."
"To unite all peoples within our nation."
"To denounce the evils of truth and love."
"To extend our reach to the stars above."
"Jesse."
"James."
"Team Rocket blasts off at the speed of light."
"Surrender now or prepare to fight, fight and fight!"
"And Meowth dat's right!"
"WOBBBUFFET!"
She asks them to explain what they want.
"Prepare for trouble, we know what we want!" Jesse starts.
"HEY WE DID DAT ALL READY!" snaps Meowth.
They demand the treasure lactation from her but when she refuses, James sends out Cacnea (and gets the traditional crippling agony for his troubles) and Jesse sends out Seviper, while the mysterious robed woman sends out a.... Xatu!
Cacnea tries Pin Missile but Xatu Reflects it, the missiles bouncing off the glass-like screen. Then it teleports between Cacnea and Meowth and begins pecking Cacnea. Ash and Callista show up and see Xatu beating the shit out of Cacnea, and when Ash explains that Team Rocket are bad guys, Callista yells at them to cut it out, much to Team Rocket's consternation as they point out that THEY are the ones taking the beating!
Cacnea tries Pin Missile, but Baltoy knocks it back with Rapid Spin, sending the attack back at Team Rocket. Jesse tells Seviper to use Wrap on Baltoy, but Pikachu Thunderbolts it, and then Xatu hits Team Rocket with Shadowball and sends Team Rocket blasting off again, crying out that they'll be back!
HEY TRAINERS WHICH OF THESE IS THE BEST CHOICE TO BATTLE ILLUMISE? THE MUTANT BAT CROBAT? THE RETARDED MEXICAN STEREOTYPE LOTAD, OR THE UNHOLY CREATURE FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL, TOGETIC? MAKE YOUR CHOICE CAREFULLY!
Ash and Callista rush up to the hooded lady and Callista asks for the meaning of the song, and specifically what the line about Baltoy's path means. The woman feigns ignorance, saying it is just a song, but when Callista says she thinks it describes the path to the ruins inside the mountains, the woman reveals she was the one who called her and leads them under the tree singing the song... and they fall into a giant pipe and slide down it screaming until they fall into a soft pile of leaves and find themselves in a giant room with markings on the wall of something called The Baltoy Civilization, a super-advanced civilisation between humans and Baltoy.
What were they? Some kind of creepy super-intelligent aliens?
"Excuse me," Ash asks the robed woman, as if it was the most common thing in the world, "But do you know where we can find the most valuable treasure in the Universe?"
"Over there," replies the woman, and points off in another direction.
They turn and look, but all she is pointing at is a pile of old crumbled rocks. She explains that under the rocks is the greatest invention of the Baltoy civilisation, but an earthquake dropped debris onto it... and underneath is her Baltoy as well. Ash tries to pull the rubble away but can't, so the woman suggest that Callista's Baltoy could do it with the right combination of attacks. She has her Xatu use Reflect, then Callista's Baltoy lifts the rocks with Confusion and smashes them into the Reflect screen, revealing a prone Baltoy. The woman picks it up and returns it to its Pokeball (how long has it been under there?) and explains that underneath is the greatest treasure in the Universe... but how does she know about it? Callista takes out her book and says that it says no one ever discovered the Baltoy Civilisation, it's only theorised about, and the robed woman takes out an older, grimier looking copy and says hers says the same thing.
The smart ones amongst you would have figured it out by now, but let's keep going and see if you can beat Ash to figuring it out.
The woman explains her parents never wanted her to be an archeologist and she spent too much of her life trying to convince them otherwise, then warns Callista that you only get one life to live, so you have to live it to its fullest potential. Suddenly Callista cries out that the book is only a couple of months old, and Ash asks how come the woman's is so old and worn? She replies that she has had it for years, and used it for much of her research
Figured it out yet Dodgers? Don't worry, Ash still hasn't!
Callista asks how it is possible and the woman tells her not to worry about it and just have Baltoy use Rapid Spin in the midst of the giant wheel to see what the great treasure is. But before she can, Team Rocket burst through the wall in a giant drilling machine, and Jesse laughs to James that she TOLD HIM they'd be in there.
Hang on a second? What exactly did she say to him? Hey James, I bet that they're in an underground chamber with stone markings on it that nobody has been in for centuries!?!?
Meowth uses a metallic arm to grab Baltoy and Team Rocket cry out success, then prepare to send in a strange looking toolbit to dig under the wheel to get at the "treasure". The woman cries out that this will destroy the great treasure but they ignore her, so she sends in Xatu to peck at the machine, only to be slapped off by one metallic arm.
Ash notes it is made out of steel and Meowth laughs that it is indeed, and so Ash has Pikachu use Thunderbolt to blast the metallic arm away, much to Meowth's horror. How did Ash know, he ponders out loud, and Jesse screams at him that maybe him giving away that the machine was made out of steel wasn't the best idea!
Baltoy has been knocked clear and uses Rapid Spin, smashing directly into the machine and crumpling it down to a mess, and leaving Team Rocket exposed to a blast of Shadowball that sends them blasting off again!
The woman again asks Callista to have Baltoy use Rapid Spin on the wheel, and it begins to glow, the lines shining brightly as a light flashes up and the woman steps into it, the robe opening to reveal a pretty smoking body for an older lady, and then she removes her glasses and reveals her name - Callista!
There you go, Gentle Dodgers, did you beat Ash to the realisation!?!
Yep, she's Callista from the future, and the greatest treasure of all is time. The wheel is a Time Machine, and Future-Callista explains that she has come back to her own youth because her own time to research it has been growing shorter and so she wants Callista to take up her work now at a far earlier time than she ever got.
But the paradoxical ramifications of all of this are confusing Callista, while Ash is just completely fucking lost. Together the two Callista's sing the Baltoy song (that thanks to a Paradox, Callista learned from HERSELF!) and her future version disappears, and Callista picks up Baltoy while Ash - not wanting to look completely lost - mutters that time really is the greatest treasure.
They somehow get back up the pipe to the tree and stand outside, wishing each other luck and Ash insisting he has learned a lot today as well.
Well.... not really, he hasn't got a fucking clue what just happened!
Callista rushes off and the other twerps finally find him, and he insists that they head off right now because he doesn't want to waste any more time getting to his next Gym Battle. The others are confused and surprised, doesn't he want lunch? But nope, he wants to get going, and he charges off leaving them behind, and they have to give chase to keep up.
So there you have it, Gentle Dodgers, another time travel episode of Pokemon that didn't really make much in the way of sense. Still, Ash can say one thing about this escapade with time travel that his last one can't.
At least this time his own Dad didn't try to mack on him.
| BEST QUOTES |
 "Prepare for trouble, we know what we want!" "HEY WE DID DAT ALL READY!" "Excuse me, but do you know where we can find the most valuable treasure in the Universe?"Hey, dat peck is going ta ruin da opulent steel finish!""So it's made out of steel, huh?""Dat's right, even harder dan yer head, twerpy!""HOW'D HE KNOW!?!""I don't know Meowth, YOU TOLD HIM PERHAPS!"
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