What is Timeslip?
To put it simply, it's a slow burn AU fanfic about Professor Sada and Turo from the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet games, that changes a singular but drastic thing about them and is now having fun exploring all the possible ramifications of it. And feels. Lots of feels. And time travel shenanigans.The basic idea was based on a theory that floated around before the games actually came out and as soon the "past vs future" theme of the games started to become obvious: what if Professor Turo and Sada actually were from a far off future and past, and after somehow meeting they ended up stranded in 21st century-Paldea together?
How could it happen?
What would drastically change about them (and indirectly the game's plot)? What would stay the same?
What started as a fun thought experiment then spiraled into pretty much its own thing, and was enough to convince me to pick up writing again after some ten years or more of hiatus. Before this, I had never written anything in English or really nothing longer than a oneshot or 2-3 chapters at the most, so this fic is my first time approaching a lot of things in a sense. It's been a lot of fun.
I've already posted this fic on various other platforms: as of now, the fic is almost 200k words long and still going strong and I update pretty regularly (or try to).
Comments and impressions are very welcome!
Chapter 1: First landing
14'000 years in the past, in the area that will be known as Kalos, Paleolithic EraThe first thing that young Turo, Ph. D in Applications of Time Traveling at the University of Mesagoza thought after opening his eyes was
"Well, this sure isn't Lumiose City".
He was, all things considered, pretty calm for a man who had just stepped into a time machine for the first time in his life and just got catapulted into an unknown time that was nothing like he was expecting. It was a lot more cold, for starters.
Or maybe he was a bit too used to the perfectly controlled temperature of the labs. But sure, those things could happen. Time traveling was not a really exact field... Mostly because there is a lot of time you could end up into in the "past" direction and even more in the "future" direction, so one of the first hurdles to overcome to avoid unfortunate accidents had been to develop a way to make sure that you could always come back. It was all in the manuals and papers that he spent weeks reading, studying, dreaming and in the end almost hallucinating to the point of being able to recite by memory when he had started his studies.
He checked the little device similar to a wristwatch on his arm. Battery was low, but everything looked functional. The little device responsible for anchoring him to his time would recharge in a couple hours time, as long as the sun was out. If the sun wasn't out, it could recharge simply by walking, but that would take definitely more time, not to mention effort, because you would be stuck running a couple miles either in the rain, at night, or in the rain at night just to get back home, and who wants that, really? (And that's the reason why rainy places were not a good spot for time traveling to, he discovered: nothing more than human laziness)
He had ended up in a forest. And that was.... Already not something he was used to. His time, barring some extremely remote (and extremely costly) places, was not.... Really big on the whole "living with nature" stuff. Not because they didn't want to, of course. The times were people could simply walk into a forest, maybe even with a Pokémon or two with them, were a pretty popular subject in media. Entire VR simulators were built around them (with realistic nature sounds!), milking the desire for times long gone that no one alive had the chance to live in. Well, except if you time traveled there... But time traveling was still pretty new as a field of research, and of course, for the general public, it would have been so expensive that only one 50-minutes trip anywhere and anywhen would cost you so much that you were better off investing your life savings in planning that move to the Natural Reserve of Hoenn.
Nice place, if you didn't mind active volcanoes that rained ash. Or Groudon and Kyogre having a staring contest every couple of decades requiring mass evacuations. Or too much water. But he was getting distracted. Point was, he was in a forest. A real forest, with real leaves. And the sun! A real sun, not an hologram with artificial light projected onto the walls of the laboratory so people didn't lose their minds not stepping outside for days! He spent a good minute just staring at the light that shined across the leaves, mesmerized, hands in his lab coat's pockets, before moving some hesitant steps. There was no traces of a trail or any other sign that people had ever visited this place. He had wanted to land in the Lumiose City of almost 15 years ago - nothing big for his first time jump, just a little test run, walk around a bit, grab a PokePuffin, listen to some 15 years old music - so the place should have been the same, but the time.... There wasn't even traces of a city. Maybe he messed up the calibration of the machine and accidentally went back 140 years? No, the city was much older than that. 1400 years...? That would put him... Still quite a bit past the League Golden Age. The times were everything seemed perfect, were people were living in harmony with Pokémon and enjoying the longest time of peace that the world had ever known... If you excluded some crazy guys that wanted to destroy the world or remake it or whatever it was in a couple of very, very intense decades.
Turo could hear a stream gurgling on his left; he followed it, figuring that streams and rivers had always been a place to meet people in any era. His pace hastened when he finally heard a human voice, humming to itself. He went around a little curve in the riverbed and stepped out from the cover of the trees.... And then immediately stopped, frozen in place. There was a person there, a woman with light brown hair wearing what he could only describe as "stereotypical caveman clothes". She was fishing in the river for something, humming, and a mean looking spear with a sharp stone point was laying on a flat rock at arms reach.
Shit. Shit. Now he had done it.
Years of studies, of planning, his first opportunity to actually concretely apply what he had spent so much time studying and he ended up in the Paleolithic age. As far as he knew, that's the farthest someone had ever time traveled... No wonder his time-anchor's batteries were so low. People were not even sure if it was possible to go that far back. Guess he had an answer now, if he made it back, that is...
He started to quietly back away, but his boots creaked on some branches. The woman whirled around in a flash, grabbing the spear with astounding reflexes, her eyes widening when they landed on him. Turo did the first thing that came to mind: slowly raised his hands, in what he hoped was already an universal sign for "I'm unarmed, don't shoot". Or.... Or stab, in this case.
« I-I come in peace...» he mumbled, feeling stupid while doing so.
It's not like she could understand him. Did ... Did people even have language already at this point...? Turo knew a good bit about history(in his field of work where punching the wrong numbers in could land you in some nasty situations, who didn't?), but the problem with going so far back was that inventions and development were measured in the span of thousands of years. A lot of room for error, there.
He didn't move an inch while the woman stared him down, still wide-eyed. Well, he didn't blame her.... His clothes must stand out a lot. If he had landed as planned 14 years ago, nobody would have batted an eye at his skin tight body suit and lab coat. The dark violet suit was pretty common in his time, being made of a material that was quite suitable to a lot of different environments and capable of checking vitals, automatically regulate body temperature, and a lot of other functions that were honestly utterly useless at the moment. The lab coat was.... Ok, the lab coat wasn't exactly required to time travel, or at all, but it was just rule of cool. He liked his lab coat.
Here, on the other hand...
"Please don't stab me thinking that I'm some evil spirit or Pokémon" he silently pleaded, shaking slightly. He almost literally jumped back and closed his eyes when the woman suddenly moved, thrusting the spear forward. A moment later and he heard a light tap on his chest.
He slowly opened his eyes again; the woman was... tapping the side of the spear along his arms and legs. It's almost like she was checking for some hidden weapons, quickly circling him. When she comes back around she seemed satisfied that he really doesn't seem to be an immediate danger, because she lowered the spear, smiled and then unmistakably opened her mouth and asked him something.
And he just stared at her in confusion. She's got little fangs. Is... Is that normal? A mutation? Something that humans had that disappeared along the way and they never found traces of it? At least she seems to have language, not that it helps him particularly... She tilted her head to the side, staring at him with clear, light grey eyes, then repeated the question, which sadly does not make it any more comprehensible.
He just shook his head(another gesture that he hopes is already universal), and she frowned for a second, before moving a step forward. Turo automatically moved one back by instinct, still with his arms raised, and that's when she grabbed one of his arms and pulled it towards her to examine it. She seemed... Fascinated by his lab coat, and it took him a moment to realize that it's probably because of the color and texture. Such a stark, shiny white is probably even more unnatural than purple to her. There's like... berries and fruits for purple, right? And Pokémon furs, even just the common Rattata is purple.
She rubbed the hem of the lab coat between her fingers, and Turo found himself staring at her with the same fascination that she seems to have for his clothes. He thought back to the stereotypical way the first humans were represented in movies and books, as brutish, grunting savages, and realized how stupid that is. Her eyes are brimming with the same curiosity he has when challenged with some inexplicable puzzle. Her head suddenly snapped back up, and he jumped a little when she stared at him with a mix of curiosity and frustration, before asked the same thing again, this time slowly, like she was talking to a child.
"She knows we don't speak the same language." he realized. Probably thought that he was from some far away tribe or something... People lived in nomadic tribes around this time, right...? She huffed and shook her head, such a normal gesture that it just makes the whole situation only more surreal, then moved the hand that was not holding the spear and pointed to herself.
« Sada. Sa-da»
The hand pointed to him next, and his eyes widen in realization. ... Honestly, it must say something about his state of mind that he didn't think about doing something like this sooner. Must be the shock.
... Sure, let's go with that.
Not him being an idiot that managed to fling himself at the beginning of human civilization. Nope.
« Turo. Tu-ro»
She gave him an enormous smile at his answer and moved back to the riverside, motioning for him to follow. And... Really?
He shouldn't. He really shouldn't. He should be running away and avoiding all signs of civilization to keep the risk of catastrophically influencing all of human history to a minimum. The Beautifly effect and all that. But then again.... It's not like he has encountered an entire village or something. It's just one girl. And he is still stuck here for the next couple hours until his time-anchor recharges. And staying with her surely is more safe than wandering the forest completely defenseless and getting mauled by a prehistoric Ursaring or something. She is the one with the spear and advantage of knowing the land, after all.
Turo took a couple of long breaths. He can do this. He can manage a couple hours. He is a scientist, he is going to use this as a learning opportunity. Being able to directly experience life in this era! He could.... Write a paper on it, or something.
Turo followed her to the river, where the girl - Sada - proceeded to excitedly show him what she was working on. A string of leather and what looks like a bunch of tiny scales, tooth and feathers, probably gathered from wild Pokémon. She pointed to a similar necklace that was already hanging from her neck. Oh... So she was gathering materials for another one? She sat down by his side and started to work on the new necklace, pausing every couple of seconds to point at something in view and enunciate it's name. Grass. Rock. Water... At least, that's what she is pointing at, so he is going to assume that's what she is doing. He tried to copy her words and started doing the same almost unconsciously before stopping.
What is he doing? Trying to teach her his language or to learn hers, trying to communicate?
In a couple of hours he will be back in his time and never see her again, and she will have been dead for literally more than ten thousand years, all traces of their weird encounter erased from history.
That thought unsettled him more than it should: maybe he isn't cut out for being a time traveler if something that obvious still upsets him that much.
« ... Turo?» Sada looked at him hesitantly; she kept stealing glances at him while talking - or at his weird clothes, more probably - and must have noticed his sudden sullen expression.
He managed a smile to reassure her and pointed at something new, mostly to distract her.
« "Sun"»
---
They both stumbled their way through some incredibly basic vocabulary, and even started a crude game of quiz by pointing at something and waiting for the other to recite the respective word in the other's language. She gave him one of the necklaces she had completed in the meantime, pretty much pushing it into his hands even when he tried to refuse (is it going to be ok bringing it back with him? Necklaces with real teeth and Pokémon scales aren't exactly... in style, in his time).
All in all, it's somewhat fun, even if simultaneously incredibly frustrating by how little they both can communicate. Sometimes Sada would just start muttering to herself, frustrated by something that she doesn't know how to explain or to ask him. He is sure of it, because in all that time the eyes of the girl have never stopped being so... Excited, shining with curiosity and a burning desire to understand the weird guy she suddenly met. She probably is trying to teach him words figuring that he was going to stay around, and that kind of broke his heart.
Turo tried to stealthily check the time-anchor on his wrist, not wanting to gather attention on it. The battery had reached full capacity and should be able to transport him back at any moment. Problem is, he can't exactly.... Poof out of existence in front of her eyes, or he is probably going to go come back to his time and find out that a weird robed figure in white and purple had suddenly been depicted in some ancient cave paintings in Kalos puzzling historians, if not something worse. His superiors were never going to let him hear the end of it.
No, he had to... Distract her and get away. Somehow. He rose to his feet and awkwardly tried to find an excuse with the like.... twenty words he knew.
.... Yeah, not much he could do here. He pointed to himself and then from where he came from, miming some walking with his hands. Sada nodded solemnly and stood up, gathering her spear and the couple of necklaces she had completed in the meantime, evidently wanting to accompany him. What? No. This is even worse. Doesn't she have a family to go back to?
Wait.... She's isn't thinking that he wants to be brought to her group, right? Absolutely not. Way too dangerous.
He fumbled in his pockets for something to give her as a little farewell gift; the only things in them are... A little paper notebook and a pen. The pen is not made of plastic, thank Arceus, they stopped using that stuff that took forever to decompose a good dozen of centuries ago in favor of new, more eco-friendly materials. These things should be okay, right...? They will leave no trace and become useless the moment she used them all up. He clicked the pen and showed her how to write with it on the notebook, and was rewarded by her eyes immediately lighting up with excitement. She grabbed the pen and started doodling on the first page, completely absorbed by it.
He bolted for the trees as soon as her eyes are off him and activated the time-anchor the instant he is out of view, disappearing in a sudden flash of light.
When the head researcher reads his report on the trip the following days, he gets both complimented in somehow managing that trip and banned from using the time machine for a month.