[Incoming Transmission]

So, this chapter deals with how Special Episode 5 (the one where you play as Grovyle and team up with Dusknoir) would go in my version of the story. Keep in mind that this DOES NOT happen in the actual story due to extenuating circumstances that shall not be mentioned, but at the moment it is a teaser for what Grovyle is going to be like when we finally meet him. And yes, I did rip a decent amount of the first scene directly from the game.

Special Episode 5

"I… I will not allow you to change history!" Dusknoir cried out, his composure lost. He lunged at me, arm raised for another giga impact-empowered punch.

"No!" Grovyle dove across the space between us, pushing me away and taking the attack meant for me directly to the stomach.

"You would shield him with you own body?" Dusknoir asked, his peculiar, detached tone of voice back again.

"I have a 'saving people thing', Dusknoir. If you want them then you have to go through me first," Grovyle ground out through teeth clenched against the pain. "You're not getting to those two unless it's over my dead body."

"That can be arranged."

Dusknoir leaped forward again, only for Grovyle to tackle him back. Slowly but surely, Grovyle began to force himself and Dusknoir in the other direction, straight towards the portal.

"No! Stop this! What are you doing?"

"I'm taking you with me, Dusknoir. We're going back to the future."

"What?" Dusknoir and I cried out at the same time.

"Xi! Take the time gears! It's up to you and Kurama now!"

"No! Please, Grovyle, don't leave us. We never would have made it this far without you, there's no way we will make it the rest of the way without you!"

"Well you won't make it farther than this if I don't take Dusknoir back."

"You can't do this, you fool! You'll get all of us killed!" Dusknoir shouted. "If the future we exist in is changed and doesn't exist anymore, then we won't exist either!"

"Quiet, you," Grovyle hissed, "we're almost there, and then it won't matter anymore."

"Please!"

"Xi! I was lucky to have known you and Kurama. Just remember… though the parting hurts… the rest is in your hands now! And tell Kurama that I'm proud of both of you."

And with a final smile back at me, Grovyle disappeared into the shifting vortex with Dusknoir, swallowed up by the great sea of time.

I sat up, finding myself looking at the bleak, barren greys and blacks of the paralyzed future. Dusknoir lay on the ground next to me, unconscious.

"Lovely. Stuck in the future, which is apparently still paralyzed, so Xi and Kurama failed, and this floating piece of scum is here with me. That's just great."

I sighed.

"No, no, I can still do something to clean this mess up. Sometimes… sometimes the only thing that can be done to clean up is…" I trailed off, knowing that nobody would care even if they could hear me.

I walked over to the unconscious Dusknoir, powered up a pursuit-imbued leaf blade, and sliced his head off. With the leaf blade still active, I then sliced the rest of his body into as many pieces as I could, and scattered them as far as possible.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry I had to do that."

I dashed away without another word.

Dusk Forest

"Celebi? Celebi, where are you?"

Three circadian cycles. That was how long I'd been back in the future. The present. Whichever. I can't very well say days when there is no day or night, just the eternal twilight of the frozen time. I'd stealthily made my way to the forest that Celebi lived in but… nothing. She wasn't there. I'd failed her. She'd been captured, most likely when we pulled our stunt to get back to the past again. Great. The death of another to add to my hands.

But I still had hope. It was the only thing that anyone who hadn't succumbed to the darkness of the present had to keep them going. We held onto hope that we would be released from this endless nightmare at some point, and a few of us actually tried to meet that end. But everyone who tried found the same fate as the last to try: death by erasure from the timeline at the hands of an insane goddess. Celebi had most likely met the same fate, but there was only one way to know.

I had to find Dialga.

Temporal Tower Pinnacle

Nothing.

There was nothing here.

I growled in frustration, kicking a broken piece of the tower off the edge. It didn't fall, but just hung there, the entropy of the frozen time stream draining energy from everything far faster than normal. It was a wonder that gravity even worked. I turned on my heel, and stalked away towards the stairs back down the tower.

Once at the bottom, a squad of Sableye surrounded me. I hoisted the one that looked most like a leader into the air by its throat, slamming it against the wall of the tower.

"Where. Is. She."

"I have no idea who you—" A body fell off the side of the pathway, and I was holding a different Sableye in my grip.

"I will ask again: Where is she?"

"Which 'she' are you—" Another body flew into the aether.

"Last chance. Tell me where she is, or the rest of you all follow your comrades to a personal meeting with Lord Giritina. Where. Is. Dialga."

Vast Ice Mountain Peak

"Dialga."

A lopsided grin met my gaze, and a name leapt unbidden to the front of my mind: Koschei. I shook my head; there was quite literally no time to get distracted. I didn't even know who that was, or where the name came from.

"Where is she?"

The grin faltered for a moment before becoming even wider. She stepped aside to reveal a bound and gagged Celebi. Her eyes were wide in horror as I took a step towards her, and she began frantically shaking her head, tears welling up in her eyes.

The energy cage trapped me almost before I knew what was happening. Honestly, even though Dialga is insane, I should've expected a trap like this one. It's classic 'evil mastermind'. I felt the cage slowly pumping me full of energy, more than I could handle, trapping me in a feedback loop. Faintly, I could hear a pleading voice:

"No! Stop! Why are you doing this to him? Do you not remember what we used to be? You have forsaken everything we stood for! Death is our brother's dominion, not ours!" The voice paused, before speaking again, but the tone was very different. "Time marches onwards, and stops for no one. Except me. Now, Time Lord… die for me."

The energy grew to an unbearable level, and I knew no more.

[End Transmission]