Vallea wasn't sure how long she had left to live. Maybe three minutes, maybe longer if she was lucky. It was enough time for the Riolu to soak in the summer morning as she sat atop the hill beneath the ancient oak tree, gazing down at the tranquil little village she'd grown up in. The village she would die in—no, not die. She didn't know what exactly would happen to her, but the unknowable nature of it all scared her even more.

Xerneas had only awakened her a minute ago, but it already felt like her head was split in two.

On one side of her mind there were the memories and desires she'd held all her life: a wish to travel the world and uncover all of its secrets; an idealistic hope to create a map of the entire planet; a need for companionship as she set forth to make her dreams come true.

And on the other side lurked the memories of someone quite unfamiliar. Mew's memories. They crowded her mind like unwelcome guests, invading her thought patterns and corrupting them into an entirely different way of thinking. Already she could feel herself fading into someone far more ancient, disappearing slowly to make room for Mew's return. Because at the end of the day, she was nothing more than a tool used to finish what Mew had started thousands of years ago. As a mere reincarnation of Mew, Vallea had to vanish for them to come back.

She was a sham.

A fake.

Her dreams, her hopes, the life she'd lived: all counterfeit.

She couldn't stop shaking, no matter how hard she tried. She hated it. She hated everything about this. She didn't want to go, not when there was still so much left undone. Maybe it was selfish of her to not want to die, but she didn't care.

But there was nothing to be done now. Xerneas had promised to bring Mew back, she told herself. All they were doing was fulfilling an ancient promise. It just happened to come at the cost of her very existence.

Vallea had begged Xerneas for enough time to say goodbye to everyone, but now that she was sitting helplessly on the hill and waiting for the inevitable, she found herself wishing that she hadn't. It was selfish, she knew that, but the prospect of facing Carracosta's—not Carracosta, that wasn't what she called him, he was her Pops—heartbroken face was too much to bear. And her partner, too…

It was far easier to stay here and fade away quietly without having to see the hurt, the sorrow, the horrible, terrible pain she was about to inflict on them.

But that was selfish, she was selfish and stupid and horrible if she vanished without telling anyone they would never stop looking for her why would she refuse them closure what was wrong with her—

"There you are," said an all too familiar voice. "I thought I'd find you here."

Quiet footsteps approached, then a Treecko sat down next to her, giving her a little smile. It was Aster, her partner. For a moment she wondered why he wasn't a human, only to realize that was Mew wondering, not her.

Dread built up, pushing against her lungs and throat and making it hard to breathe. Vallea pushed it down as best she could; there was no use in panicking now, and she needed to explain everything to him before it was too late. She took a deep breath and looked up at the tree's branches in an effort to calm herself. The golden sunlight danced through the deep green leaves and cast scattered spotlights onto the grass and flowers; up in the sky, puffy white clouds billowed out as they floated lazily from one horizon to the other.

It was beautiful.

She hadn't appreciated it enough before, but she saw it now.

Vallea exhaled, then turned back to Aster. She tried to start talking, but the words died in her throat. How was she supposed to explain her impending disappearance to him? She hadn't believed it herself, not until Xerneas had brought back the memories locked away deep down. What would she say? Hey, by the way I'm actually Mew and I'm gonna disappear in a few minutes, bye!

Ridiculous. She laughed hopelessly.

"What's so funny?" Aster asked.

"Oh, nothing. I'm just thinking," she said. "Why're you up so early, anyways? I thought you said you'd sleep until noon."

"Tragically, it didn't work out that way." He leaned back against the tree with an overdramatic sigh, his eyes shut. "Your father told me something about a weird light on this hill, and that you went to investigate. But I don't see any lights here. I guess it was nothing too important?"

Vallea couldn't reply. He really had no idea what was about to happen. Before she could work up the courage to explain, he sat back up and started talking again.

"Can I tell you something?"

She hesitated, then nodded. Some small part of her still wanted to pretend this was just a normal morning and she was just a normal kid talking to a friend. She was selfish, and she wanted to preserve this moment as long as she could.

"Thanks," he said. He looked down at the grass, his brow furrowed. "There's something that's been on my mind lately. Remember how you mentioned one time that there were three other apocalypses before Dark Matter?" He waited for her to nod, then continued, "I-I did some poking around, and found out that all of them were stopped by humans, at least partially."

"Really? That's a weird coincidence," she said in a tone that she hoped didn't sound panicked.

"Right? And, well…all the humans, they eventually disappeared. One by one. Just—" He mimed an explosion. "Poof. Vanished into golden sparks. I know it's stupid, but I'm worried that might happen to me, too. And, well… Call me sentimental, but I don't want to go. I want to stay. With you, I mean. I don't want to say goodbye." He nervously fiddled with the scarf tied around his neck. "You're…you're really great, you know that? You've always been…"

The Treecko trailed off, still staring down at the flowers. All the while, something deep within Vallea was falling apart, cracking and crumbling in the face of what he'd said and the heartbreak she was about to inflict on him. Her heart felt constricted and her eyes started to burn; she wiped the tear away before he noticed. She clenched her paws and exhaled slowly, shakily.

Once she was sure she wasn't about to weep, she said, "Thank you. But there's something you need to know."

He looked up and met her eyes. His aura tensed slightly; he probably suspected something wasn't right already. "What is it?"

"Carra—" She stopped herself and tried to isolate her own mind from Mew's. Everything about her was slipping away. "…Pops was right. There really was a strange light up here. And that light was Xerneas."

"Wait, you don't mean—"

"Yeah." She forced himself to maintain eye contact. "That Xerneas."

Little by little, she explained everything to him: her awakening; the truth of her existence; the fact that at the end of it all, she would be discarded like an old, frayed scarf that had outlived its usefulness. The further she got, the more difficult it became to keep track of which memories were hers, and which were Mew's. More than once she had to stop and reorganize her mind to the best of her ability. Her time was running out. Dread grew apparent in Aster's eyes, and when she was finished he rose slowly, ever so slowly, to his feet; it seemed as if he would shatter if he moved too quickly.

"So you'll just…vanish?" he murmured.

Vallea stood up as well, intending to reply. Suddenly the weak hold she had on herself failed entirely, and her mind fell into a roaring ocean of thoughts and memories mixing together and washing away whatever still remained of her. A single golden spark floated up before her; she looked down to see her body was disintegrating, breaking apart into little bits of light.

Aster stared in horror, shaking his head. "No," he kept whispering over and over. "No, no, no…" He tried to grab hold of her shoulders as though he could somehow stop this process, but his paws passed right through her and dislodged even more sparks.

"It's not you who has to go, Aster," she said. She didn't know if it was Vallea talking, or if Mew had already taken over.

Another tear fell. She didn't stop it this time.

"It's me."