Unstuck in Time

In early 2009, one of the most reputed professors in Lualdi, Dr. Andromar, vanished without a trace. Though search parties turned the entire region upside down in an attempt to even find a single clue of the professor's whereabouts, she was nowhere to be found. After a fruitless nine months of searching, they eventually gave up on ever finding her.

Just a few weeks after, Dr. Andromar was suddenly found, malnourished, disheveled and dehydrated, within the wastelands of the Dormoto province. Against all odds, she was alive. But after recovering, the professor started to ramble about an apocalyptic future that was to befall Lualdi in just ten years.


 * "The wrath of the world's gods will descend upon us! There, that volcano in Camani... Mount Enettivo... Arceus will emerge from it and rain destruction upon Lualdi!"

In the beginning, the doctors and the public disregarded Dr. Andromar's words as the side effects of some traumatic experience and assumed that the scientist would go back to normal soon. However, even after making a full recovery, she adamantly continued to preach about the imminent apocalypse and even produced some pictures and even videos of the things that had been seen in the not too distant future.


 * "I saw it with my own eyes. Everything was desolate, barren... And that is our future if we don't stop it! Look, you can see for yourself!"

Naturally, nobody believed Dr. Andromar. Aside from the possibly fabricated pictures and videos, there was no evidence supporting the good professor's outrageous claims. There were no signs of Arceus living in Mount Enettivo. In fact, there was evidence suggesting that Arceus wasn't even in Lualdi at all, but rather in the much farther off region of Sinnoh. Furthermore, she hadn't fully explained how this insightful trip to the future had been done, casting further doubt on the scientist's findings. Yet even as public opinion turned against Dr. Andromar, the scientist continued to stand by everything that had been "seen" in the future.

Over time, Dr. Andromar's presence in media grew increasingly small, and the scientist disappeared again. A month after the second disappearance, strange pulsing bunches of aura started to appear all over Lualdi. Some things would come out of them -- Pokémon not native to the region and, stranger still, Pokémon thought to be extinct except by scientific reanimation. People, too, started to emerge from the portals, bewildered as to where they were -- they claimed to be from Lualdi, but they didn't recognize most of the region.

Investigators went into these "portals" and soon discovered that beyond the portals was Lualdi, but in different time periods. The geography and landmarks were all remarkably similar -- it was just a different era, such as when dinosaur Pokémon ruled the land and when the region was encased in an eternal winter. Most alarmingly, as they discovered several months after the portals' initial appearance, some portals led to a wasteland version of Lualdi, grey and covered in the ruins of bygone civilizations. Records salvaged from some of these ruins mentioned something they called "Lualdi's End".


 * "I saw it all... I was there... The servants of nature, the Legendary Pokémon, razed the whole region... Huge storms enveloped the darkening skies... Earthquakes cleaved our homes in two... Tornadoes picked up the remnants of our cities and the screaming survivors of the destruction and tossed them about without a care... Everywhere, there are fires reducing even the mightiest of cities to mere ashes... There is nothing left here for us..."

The news caused Dr. Andromar's theories to experience a surge in popularity and perceived credibility. There was no doubting what had just been seen; anyone could venture into a portal and confirm the truthfulness of the apocalyptic future themselves. Panic swept over the region; Dr. Andromar had first said the apocalypse would occur in ten years, but that was over half a decade ago.

The world would end in 2019.

As it stood, the Lualdians had a little under three years before everything was destroyed.

Governments and organizations argued over what to do -- attempt to avert the awful future? Fence off the time portals to prevent civilians from entering? Evacuate the entire region? No agreements could be made about the time portals or the people of Lualdi or what to do about the seemingly inevitable fate.

During the stalemate of debates, when all progress halted in its tracks, a cryptic message scrawled in red paint appeared on the walls of every Gym in the region:


 * LISTEN:


 * LUALDI HAS BECOME UNSTUCK IN TIME