"Oh, the butterflies messed me up so hard! There is a group of local wannabe heroes, they were too late to stop us, but they usually show up later and behave differently every time. But they don't remember previous times. It took me almost twenty loops to realize they have a way to remotely observe the ritual and change tactics accordingly.

This loop has been going for three hours, and the shortest one where I lived was twenty-five. We probably have time, but I would love to start doing whatever needs to be done to make that one the last."

"Alright. The standard procedure for half-looped planar connections, when we don't have a team on the scene to finesse things, is to add contact points until the entanglement between the timelines is too strong for the looped end to get reverted. So, summon more people, send people the other way if you can manage it, pass information between the universes, that sort of thing. If you can have a traversible portal open at the moment the loop would otherwise reset that'll do it for sure, though I wouldn't have anything expensive within a few hundred meters of the portal at the time. Or if you don't want to deal with all that, you can hang tight for another forty-odd loops and we'll find you and send some folks out with the right gear to do it the smooth way."

"Uhh. Uhh-uh.

First of all, we are in the middle of a city. A lot of expensive things around, if you value human lives..." - Yan was starting to get fired up, but then he was interrupted by a distant female voice.

Several minutes of hushed arguing.

"Ok, we can summon a lot of people, and we can do it away from the city. I was sure it would be a disaster, but Esther says she can take them," - Yan sounds more than a little surprised.

"I don't believe it would break the connection outright because we have no way to send information or matter back, but if we summon everyone who has ever touched those Curator-forsaken boxes, I don't see how the loops can continue. Summoning is very cheap now, but I would have never thought to do that because without Esther I would die for sure. Thanks. I guess if it doesn't work and I survive I will call again!

Have a good... whatever time is on your end."

"You too!"

“.yako ,hU ?sruoY”

".ti ees nac ydobon erehwemos ti tup tsuj ;enim ylbaborp s'tI"

“.yug eht ees t'nod I dna dnuora dna rood rehtona tuo tnew I ?kcab enohp siht evig I woh htiw em pleh uoy nac ,hu ,tiaw — noitcerid thgir eht ni gniklaw era elpoep ,yakO”

".ereht ni seog esle enoyna erofeb lamron ot kcab s'yawllah ruoy ti ot ees ll'I dna ,won tuo detros lla eb dluohs uoY !tekcit eht s'tahT" (Sound of more button-pushing.)

Sound of footsteps. ".ti s'taht ,syawllah owt ,moorhtab ,ksed ym ,hU .yakO .yakO”

."yaw eht no flesruoy gniteem rebmemer t'nod uoy fi ,yllautca ,noitpo eht evah uoy fi rood tnereffid a hguorht tuo dna ni og ot tseB .ni erew uoy moor yreve tisiv ot yrt tub ,yltcaxe spets ruoy ecarter ot deen oN"

“?evael dna retne tsuj ro ,yltcaxe spets ym ecarter I dluohs ,hU”

".niaga tuo kcab dna ni gniog yrt--tceffe aera na ylbaborp saw ti ekil sdnuos ,thgirlA"

“.siht ekil saw teerts eht gnidliub eht tfel I nehw neht dna ,I dna ,eciffo eht otni — teg ot eciffo eht otni gniog saw I ,yako — I ,mU”

"?sdrawkcab gniog detrats sgniht erofeb rebmemer uoy od tahW .desrever-emit flesruoy nettog evah ot raeppa uoY"

“.meht wonk t'nod I .driew yllaer saw tahT ?enohp siht em dednah enoemos tuB ?sdrawkcab gniklat dna sdrawkcab gniklaw si em dnuora enoyreve dna teerts a no m'I — m'I .em ot ylbisneherpmoc gnikaeps era uoy ,hU .esnes sekam taht sseug I ,yako — yakO”

"?uoy ot ylbisneherpmoc gnikaeps I ma ,eniltoh ycnegreme-non eciloP emiT ,olleH" (Sound of someone pushing buttons)

“?olleh ,hU”

Her phone may have been touched by the same the same power that transported her, remade into a new image, but it still works as a phone. For some reason. She's not going to think about it too hard.

"Hello?"

"Hello, this the Time Police. What's your difficulty?"

"One of the, uh, thousand hands of Arceus himself picked me up and threw me backwards in time? Is that a legal thing to have happen to you? Am I going to mess up history just by existing?"

"That's not necessarily illegal but it is kind of a dick move. You're not going to mess up history just by existing but it's not impossible. If you were in your original zone's past but not in a way where the zone you came from was your future you'd be fine, but in your case the zone you came from totally is your current zone's future. So, good news if you're immortal or can put yourself in stasis, but does mean you can't just go around killing famous dictators and slash or your own ancestors for kicks."

"Okay, that makes a feel a little better. He did tell me to 'seek out all pokemon' so maybe he'll send me home once I've done that."

"Uh, the way I'm working on getting that done though is joining the person who is as far as I can tell the creator of the original pokedex? Is that a problem? Since I kinda already know what the future form of the pokedex looks like."

"Ooof, yeah, that could be an issue. Because if you give that person an idea that you got from a product that got it from an earlier product that got it from them, then who had the idea, see? If we allowed that people would be constantly summoning--well. Anyway, don't give the inventor any hints. Have you already? If you did you're not in any trouble, we just need to know."

"I may have demonstrated modern battle techniques? And, um, named a species."