Post by Gatz on Mar 22, 2016 21:48:21 GMT -7
Time flows; time ends; we are at odds with time. None learned that better than Dr. Andromar did when she vanished at the start of 2009. As she was one of the most reputable scientists in all the region, search parties scoured all of Lualdi in hopes of finding even a single trace of her. Yet no matter where they looked or whom they asked, they could not find her. It was as though she had simply been there one day, then gone the next. After nine months, the clamor died down, and it was thought that Dr. Andromar's vanishing would simply be one of many that had grown increasingly common as of late.
A week later, on September 9th, 2009, Dr. Andromar reappeared again -- malnourished, rambling, but alive -- in the wastes of Domorto. She was quickly hospitalized, and it was predicted that she would make a full recovery, given enough time. But Dr. Andromar felt they had no time, insisted that there was not a single moment to waste. In just ten years, she said, a terrible apocalypse would befall Lualdi. None other than the god-Pokémon Arceus would burst forth from Mt. Enettivo, the dead volcano to the west of Domorto, and rain judgment, destruction, and hellfire from the volcano upon all of Lualdi.
Initially, it was thought that Dr. Andromar's fixation on the alleged apocalypse was simply the byproduct of some traumatic event. She was written off, disregarded, and everything she said was countered with evidence to the contrary. Mt. Enettivo was dead, so an eruption would be impossible, and besides that, there was evidence that Arceus had been seen in the far-off region of Sinnoh -- nowhere near Lualdi. The story simply was fantastical, especially as Dr. Andromar insisted she had seen the apocalypse unfold herself. When pressed for further details, she couldn't explain precisely how she had managed to travel ten years into the future, seen and survived an apocalypse, and then returned to the present-day.
In time, Dr. Andromar disappeared again, fading from all media presence. And just as she did, Lualdi seemed to change.
Long-extinct Pokémon were found roaming all over Lualdi, even showing up in the middle of cities. Creatures ill-suited to Lualdi's tropical climate would abruptly appear out of nowhere, as though they had simply been yanked out of the distant ice age and placed in the modern-day. Pulsing energy auras that could be best described as rips in time would flicker in and out of existence, depositing wayward, time-lost creatures wherever they ended up. Most strangely of all, more and more people with clothes and mannerisms reminiscent of other eras became more and more numerous. They recognized Lualdi, but not its specifics. When they spoke of the world they had come from, they spoke of a Lualdi far in the past...
...or not too far in the future.
A few of these people spoke of destruction -- of apocalypses, of the wrath of god-like Pokémon destroying everything, of how they all knew the story of "Lualdi's End":
On September 9th, 2019, the god of gods, Arceus, erupted like a vengeful meteor and condemned Lualdi and all people in it to a living nightmare. Roaming, starving Pokémon in a hellish landscape hunt humans like wild game. Everything is dead or dying, ruins upon ruins in a ruined future. Nothing grows in that forsaken land except for fear.
Curiosity about these strangers turned to a region-wide panic. What these people from the future spoke of matched Dr. Andromar's story exactly. Though now Dr. Andromar's tale was seen as much more credible, this left Lualdi with the sinking realization that they were almost out of time, having wasted precious years ignoring Dr. Andromar prior. Governments, organizations, and citizens all debated fiercely about what to do. Evacuate, stay and try to avert the apocalypse, research things further before committing to a course of action -- no one could even agree what should be done about the increasingly common time portals. Some said they should be fenced off and guarded to push back anything that came out. Others thought policing holes in time to be about as fruitful as policing an avalanche or a storm.
All progress halted. Time continued to tick onward, marching onward towards the cataclysm they were now seeing too late. And it was at this time, during this stalemate, that a cryptic message scrawled in red paint appeared on the walls of every Gym in the region:
LISTEN:
LUALDI HAS BECOME UNSTUCK IN TIME
LUALDI HAS BECOME UNSTUCK IN TIME