TRIAL OF TIME: ROSE GARDEN

"Perhaps it is not the seed that is the problem, but the cup it is set in," Seta says. "It may be that the seed is perfectly fine, and it is just waiting for the right cup."

Seta moves down the hall beside Rose Garden, leading her to a door-shaped hole in the wall. The entrance is flanked by statues wearing golden Seedot masks.

"Either way, Miss Daniels is right. What's required is a little care."

You pass through the darkness. It's as brief as blinking, and you find yourself in a new world.

TRIAL OF TIME
You are transported to a strange clockwork world, where gears and cogs turn endlessly. You catch glimpses of your lost Pokemon darting between the gears, but as you try to catch them, the gears shift and move, and the world around you changes. Solve the clockwork puzzles and find a way to save your lost Pokemon before time runs out.

SPOILER: Click to show

{THEME}

Rose Garden

This world was filled with gears, cogs, and the hiss of steam as this world seemingly powered some unseen machine. She was genuinely stunned, having no idea what she was looking at as she stood atop a massive platform. Her eyes were gazing across everything moving, before the ground suddenly shook beneath her, rotating slowly. She was standing on this massive, slow-moving gear!

Rose looked around, trying to find the Pokémon. It didn't take long before she spotted the little seed, seemingly clutched in some kind of harness, spinning around some cog that rapidly shifted around the room in unpredictable ways. This device was so complicated, she couldn't even see them half the time.

"Hello?" Rose called out, trying to get their attention. "I'm here to get you out!"

What she got in response, was nothing like she was expecting. It was like their words were cut out into silence every couple of seconds, maybe something strange about this land.

"Oh, ____ing fantastic. Another fu____ing human, here to mess up my day. Go ahead, you little __it. It's not like you can do worse than that ____ng she-devil ___hole." It shouted back, with such genuine vile and vitriol in its tone. Rose was genuinely taken aback, startled and flopping onto her butt.

"I swear, I was just chilling. Just existing, doing my own ___ing thing. When this little ___it comes out of nowhere and starts talking about me getting in their way! Newsflash, I was just existing! And the __ch has the gall to kick me! Me!" The voice echoes around the chamber, growing quieter and louder as its moved around the room in random movements, even going up and down, back and forth, side to side.

"And then! She ___ng sacrifices me! Tosses me in the hole! Like I'm just some god___ pest! I fought for my life! I knocked out so many of her _____ Pokemon! And they kept coming back! Why the hell didn't they leave? Why did they keep ____ing coming back? Did they want to make me miserable? Did they just want me to ____ suffer?" The last words sounded more... sad, than angry. Like the trauma had built up for months and months, with no outlet, no way to cope, just bottling up all this pain, hurt, and anger inside them.

How long had they been trapped here?

Rose still didn't know know what to do, but her poor heart hurt. She just frowned deeply, slowly spinning as the gear beneath her would occasionally click and rotate to the next gear.

"...What's required is a little care."

"Umm... Mr. Seed?"

"What the ____ do you want?" It replied angrily, pain audible in its voice.

"Do you, umm, want to come home with me? I promise I'll give you lots of snacks! I'll even give you cereal if you want it! And we can go find that mean lady, a-and tell her how rude she was!"

The Seedot didn't respond. For a moment, Rose almost thought it didn't hear her. She was just about to start up again before their voice spoke up again.

"Fine. But we're finding that ____ing lady. And this time, I'm going to be the one kicking her."

With a smile, Rose finally got back up to her feet. "Okay!" Now it was just time to figure out, how to actually bring them home.

Hesitantly, Rose reached up, and gently turned pushed a lever upwards. Suddenly the whole world seemed to shift. Some gear somewhere began to turn in the opposite direction, and it set off this massive chain of effect.

But Rose had no idea what to do with this information. She tried flipping it back and forth, seeing what gears actually changed, but there were at least 15 that seemed to shift! And considering the whole place was still moving, she lost track constantly!

"Man, this sucks." She mumbled to herself, frowning.

"What's the problem?" The voice echoed from behind her from a few moments, but this time Rose didn't bother to try to turn around, knowing her new Seedot friend would be moved elsewhere when she did.

"There's so many levers! I don't know what they do! I flipped one, and stuff changed, but I can't tell! I'm not good at puzzles! I always let Keightlyn play with the rubix cubes during playtime!"

The Seedot was quiet for a few seconds, before its voice seemingly echoed from above. "____ it. Flip them all."

With a quiet laugh, Rose quickly began to move. Flipping levers up and down at random, moving from console the console. The whole world shifted and changed rapidly, everything either moving in rapidly different directions, stopping entirely, or just moving at different speeds. She had to admit, it was at least a little fun.

That is, until she yanked a bit too hard on a lever, and the rusty metal rod just snapped leaving her with a metal stick in her hands.

"Oops."

Rose was hurt at first, only for it to dawn on her as well. That grinding sound was terrible, and it hurt her ears, but it meant she was doing something! She suddenly laughed as well, quickly standing up and drying her tears.

"Right! I'm really g-good at breaking things! Lemme just-" She reached up with her sticky Catcher hands, grabbing another lever and pulling hard, pressing her feet against the console and tugging with all her might, breaking another lever and suddenly tossing it out into the world where it eventually got caught between some other gears, visibly stalling at least a few gears.

"That's the spirit, girlie! Rip it up! Tell that ____ng stupid puzzle what's up!"

Rose laughed, downright giggling. This might not be the solution intended, but it was her solution! Just like that stupid Rubix Cube! Who needed to know how to twist it and turn it, when she could peel off the stickers and move them? Or rip off the squares and put them back!

Sometimes, destruction was the answer.

Although in truth, the more accurate answer was simply believing in herself and her talents. Sometimes you didn't need to be the smartest, or the strongest, or even the coolest. You just had to be the most creative. And she could do creative.

She worked to rip lever after lever off the console. Some of them were too solid, so she'd abandon those ones and move onto the more rusty levers. She'd eventually break, bend, or twist off most of them, and at her feet sat a huge pile of broken rods.

"I'm gonna get you out of here!" Rose yelled, picking up a lever and once again tossing it into the gears. "And then, we're gonna have cereal at Not-Mom's House!" She'd toss levers in every direction, up, down, and all around her. Some of them never caught between any gears, just laying atop of them, or getting shoved around easily enough. But some of them definitely caught, stalling some gear chains up completely, no matter how hard they struggled to move. Eventually, a huge majority of the gears in the room were stuck.

"A-and then, we're gonna go beat up that mean lady!"

Sure enough, with most of the room frozen, the Seedot was plain to see, hanging far below her.