And here we have the last of the main game chapters. I own nothing, and I hope you enjoy it.
We traversed the Hidden Land, the Pokemon there were pretty aggressive. I guessed they were already feeling the negative effects of Primal Dialga's energy.
"This place is like a maze, how do we even know we're going the right way?" Eric asked.
"It's this way." I lead them in the direction of the Old Ruins.
"How do you know?" Kitten asked.
"I lived here most of my life, remember. The aesthetic may have changed but the lay of the land did not."
"Oh true..." They let me lead and eventually we got to the Old Ruins.
Now I truly had come full circle.
"Wow!" Eric exclaimed, studying a mural of the ancient Pokemon, Mew.
"This is...very nostalgic..." I mumbled, staring at the murals. These ancients, they were from this time, the time in which there was time. They were not afraid, and neither was I.
"Hm?" Kitten sat beside me, staring at the murals as well.
"I was alone when I was born. No parents or anything, but that was typical in my time. The darkness seeped in from every side. I was cold. I might have gone mad, and just been another savage of the future...if it weren't for these murals. I found them one day, and they sparked hope within me. These Pokemon looked so powerful and...unafraid. It gave me hope that some day I could be like them. Then you came along and showed me light. I saw these murals in the light...and I knew I would be chasing it my whole life. And here they are...I still can't believe we made it."
"I was able to do that for you?" Kitten asked.
"Yes." I responded with a smile. "Yes, you did. I am eternally grateful."
"I'm glad I could do something like that...even if I don't remember it."
"You know...this is the first time I'm going past this point." I chuckled. "I spent time here every day, but I never went beyond this point. Well, here I go." and I stepped beyond my previous boundary, out of the tunnel, and out into the open. There was a huge, steep stone staircase surrounded by various abstract statues.
"What is this place?!" Eric asked.
"A temple of some sort?" I guessed.
"Let's head up these stairs." Kitten suggested. With a nod we started climbing. Eric lagged behind a little, he was the slowest of the three of us. We climbed about two stories, the stairs were steep and narrow. My feet were pretty narrow, so it worked nicely for me. At last we reached the pinnacle. It had a huge pattern on the floor, stairs on three sides and a stone tablet on the remaining side. Behind the tablet was a sheer cliff all the way to the bottom...hundreds of feet.
"There's an indent here..." Eric observed. "I wonder if it means anything?"
"What about that tablet...it has markings, but I can't read it." Kitten said. I looked over at it. It was the language of the Unknown.
"I can read it. It's the ancient language of the Unknown. Humans wrote in it, mostly. The library books I used to research the Time Gears were mostly in this language. Give me a minute."
I was a little rusty, I hadn't encountered Unknown in a while...
"Hello?"
"I said give me a minute...Ok, I've got it! This place is the Rainbow Stoneship. The Relic Fragment is needed to activate it. Put it in the indent. You finally found where your Relic Fragment belongs."
"Wow...I always said I'd be so happy when I figured it out but...everything's so tense right now, I can't enjoy it." he gave a nervous laugh which grew and grew until it sounded...somewhat maniacal, then he teared up. The stress was getting to him.
"Thank you, Grovyle..."
"Not a-"
I found myself tumbling down the stairs. What? What happened? Well, I had no time to think about that because my back connected with the stone floor. I sat up with my eyes closed and rubbed my backside.
"That's quite enough of that." Dusknoir stared down at me, a smirk on his face. The other two were also on the ground. Six Sableye surrounded us.
"Dusknoir! How did you get here?!"
"The same way I got here the first time. Master Dialga warped us directly here. I knew you would inevitably come here, so why give chase if I could have you come to me?" He laughed in satisfaction. "And now all three of you can come back to the future with me, where you will be executed." I looked behind him and saw the portal that would take us to the future...no. I didn't want to go back, not again. "Sableye! Into the Dimensional Hole with them!"
The Sabeley grabbed me by the arms and started dragging me.
"Kitten, Eric! Now!" I yelled, and we all thrashed at the Sableye. They fell back. I was glad we were all in sync enough to understand what I wanted to do.
"Well well, you display some feeble resistance, knowing that it's futile?" Dusknoir asked.
"You expected something less?" I shot back at him.
"Hmph. Very well, you leave me no choice. I will simply have to kill you here and bring your corpses back to the future with me to show Master Dialga. It makes no difference to me. The odds are overwhelmingly stacked against you. How much resistance can you even serve up? Show me!" He made a signal with his hand.
"Swarm them."
The Sableye swarmed in on us, but Kitten was able to jump and twist, knocking them all back with her tail. Then I leaned down and used my Quick Attack to get as much power into a body slam as I could. I went straight for Dusknoir, who stood between us and the stairs. My uppercut slam connected and stunned him for a split second, then punched my solidly in the face. It knocked me down but I used my feet to flip him into the opposite wall. I made a dash for the stairs, but two Sableye blocked my way and shook their fingers at me.
"Let's do this." I brought out my Leaf Blades. There was a flurry of jabs and parries. I was so accustomed to fighting with these that I couldn't even tell what I was doing, it all came automatically.
Suddenly, an arm was around my neck, Dusknoir's He was choking me! I thrashed about wildly, but then he put an arm around my body, restraining me. It was...I couldn't breathe...The corners of my vision were going dark. The Sableye were scratching at me. I was in horrible pain.
Then, just as suddenly, he wasn't holding onto me anymore. Did someone attack from behind? I didn't care, I used the opportunity to dig a hole. Underground, I could somehow sense what was above me. I positioned myself under Eric and Kitten, who were backed up to each other, then jumped up. I caught them and flew high in the air.
"Attack!" I commanded. razor sharp leaves shot themselves from Eric's body onto the battle field. Two of the Sableye fainted. We landed on the ground. The Sableye came after me, I was the biggest threat.
I ducked under the grasp of the first, grabbed the arm of the second, swung them into the first and third, then threw them into the fourth. They all fainted, leaving only Dusknoir.
"NOW! STRONGEST ATTACK! LET'S FINISH THIS!"
Eric and I both used absorption attacks, and Kitten used Water Pulse...and Dusknoir fell to the ground. We did it! We did it!
"Had enough?" I approached him slowly.
"I...I...I REFUSE TO LOSE THIS WAY!" Dusknoir got back up and knocked us backward with a swipe of his arm. We were now positioned in such a way that Dusknoir was right in front of the portal. "Hah! You dared to challenge me? For all your effort...with your puny power...you had no chance of winning from the start!"
"Dusknoir is really tough..." Eric conceded.
"Don't give up! There's a way out of this!" I said, and there had to be. There always was. If I learned one thing my whole life, there was always a way to fix a situation, even if that way meant you got hurt.
"That's easy for you to say..." Eric said.
"Eric, this really isn't the time to be doubting your abilities." Kitten said.
"You know...you've done remarkably well so for those as pitiful as you. But it's all over now." He opened up the mouth on his stomach. I honestly thought it was just a pattern, I didn't know it actually opened! What...what was he going to do. Even with all I knew about Dusknoir I had never heard of him doing anything like this.
"Wait a sec..." Kitten mumbled.
"What is it Kitten?" I asked. Dusknoir was now gathering a vast amount of dark energy...nobody could survive a direct hit from something like that.
"We have to attack in his mouth, like, combine our attacks at the thing he's launching at us and launch it back at him in the mouth thing!" Kitten quickly explained.
"Can something like that even work?" I asked.
"There's no time! That's our one shot, Grovyle!" Eric exclaimed.
"TAKE THIS!" Dusknoir unleashed the energy, and somehow we were able to reflect it back at him. Smoke poured out of his stomach, his eyes went wide, and he collapsed.
"We've finally beaten Dusknoir..." Oh how the mighty had fallen. Ha!
"Weh...It can't be..." a Sableye said, waking up.
"Lord Dusknoir..."
"Lord Dusknoir...was defeated!"
They all screamed and ran into the portal.
"And stay out!" I called triumphantly. Finally, things were turning around! We walked up to Dusknoir, who had regained consciousness but couldn't get up. "Your allies have run away." He grunted in response. "Eric. I'd like you to go to the Rainbow Stoneship and put in your Relic Fragment, just to make sure it works. We'll stay here and watch Dusknoir and make sure he doesn't do anything funny."
"Ok, I'll go do that." Eric said, then started clambering up the stairs.
"If it works, it will finally take us to Temporal Tower. I hope it activates..." Dusknoir groaned and moved a little. "Don't move." I warned.
"Urgh...Grovyle, Kitten...Is this really...Is this really...what you want? If history is changed...we Pokemon of the future will disappear."
"Excuse me?!" Kitten exclaimed, but Dusknoir went on, ignoring her.
"It won't just be me...You will disappear too, and all the other Pokemon of the future. We will all disappear...why can't you understand that? Is that what you really want? To kill of thousands, or worse, never give them the chance to be born."
"Is this true?!" Kitten asked, turning to me. "Are we going to disappear from history after this?"
"...It's true, Kitten. If we change history, we disappear, and so do all the others, Celebi, Umbreon, Spiritomb, everyone. But...that doesn't matter. Back in the future, we agreed, Kitten, we agreed we would have to kill a few thousand, and sacrifice our own lives, to save a few million and restore the flow of time."
"Who are you to decide who should live and who should die..." Dusknoir said, I talked over him.
"Listen, Kitten, you agreed to do this. I know you don't remember, but you did. You had a passionate dream to save the world and make time flow again, bring light to the world. You would achieve that end no matter what it took. If we don't, the Planet's Paralysis will begin. Try to understand, Kitten."
"I'll do it. I have to." Kitten replied bluntly.
"Thank you. There's just one thing...when we went back to the past together...we had absolutely nothing to lose, no friends besides each other and a few others who helped us, no family, no home...death didn't seem that much worse, in fact it might be better. But Kitten...now you have Eric." her eyes went wide. "He is a Pokemon of the past, and so his birth will not be affected by the change in the timeline. He will still be here, and he will still remember you, but you will be gone. He has a good spirit, but if you disappear...Eric. He will be...left all alone." I was almost afraid of what would happen to him when Kitten was gone...considering what he was like before she was in his life.
"What is that?!" Kitten looked over in the direction of the Rainbow Stoneship, it was shining?
"Eric! He must have gotten the Rainbow Stoneship to work!"
A roar emanated from Dusknoir. He suddenly hoisted himself back up and punched Kitten backward.
"I won't...let you change history! Never!" He launched an attack but my legs carried me forward, The attack connected with my chest, and I was on the ground.
"Grovyle!" Kitten called out.
"So you shielded Kitten, Grovyle? That's taken a heavy toll on you! Very well! You're going down first!"
I was able to get up and attack him. I pushed him toward the portal. I would take him back with me. It was the only way.
"What are you doing?!" Dusknoir asked. I had him incapacitated.
"I'm taking you back to the future with me!" I yelled. "Kitten, it's up to you now!" I maneuvered the Time Gear satchel off of my body and on to the ground. Metal clinked against metal. "The Time Gears." I explained.
"Ok, team, Rainbow Stoneship ready to- Grovyle what are you doing!" Eric climbed down the stairs, he then approached me.
"STEP BACK!" he flinched. "I'm afraid this is goodbye. I can't come back after this. Take care of Kitten...Promise me!" I wanted to make sure she would be ok.
"Take your place, Grovyle? I can't!" Eric sounded as if he were in tears.
"You can and you will. You two are...the greatest of combinations."
"Let me go!" Dusknoir squirmed.
"Quiet, you! We're almost done here!" I looked over my shoulder. "Kitten! Take care, Kitten! I was lucky to have known you. Though the parting hurts...The rest is in your hands!
"Grovyle!" Kitten called out.
"Sorry for the holdup, Dusknoir. Let's go."
I pushed him in to the portal, and everything went dark.
Wow, that got a tad bit wordy and dialogue heavy. Almost done, just the special episode to go now!
Have an awesome day!