[Incoming Transmission]

This chapter is the actual ending of the story, so spoilers ahoy! That said, you were warned at the beginning that things would be spoiler-heavy, but it only seems fair that I should warn you again since this is the end.

...You have been warned.

In Apex Tempus (Part 3)

Kurama dashed up to Grovyle's downed form. "Oh Arceus! Grovyle! Are you okay? Grovyle?"

He coughed slightly, replying, "Well, it's not as deep as a well, or as wide as the Guild's doorway, but it's enough; that last dragon claw will serve me. I'd imagine that if it weren't for the fact that time here is out of synch with the rest of the world, I'd be dead by tomorrow. As it is, I think I'm going to die yesterday."

I kneeled beside him, tears in my eyes. "Don't say that, Grovyle! You can't die now!"

"I can die, and I'll wager I will."

Dialga, now back in its normal form, approached the three of us. "I was the one who injured you so grievously, but it is within my power to heal you. I could simply turn back time for you to before you were injured. It is only right that I should save you, just as you saved me; a life for a life."

The prone pokémon chuckled mirthlessly. "No, no, it's fine. I remember everything now. I'll be okay, I'm simply going home." He turned his head towards me, continuing, "You two should go home, too. I'm sure everyone is worried about you back at Treasure Town. Just leave me here."

Kurama glared at him, eyes bright with tears, vehemently denying him. "No! We won't leave you!"

I chimed in with my own two poké, trying to convince him to stay. "Yeah! What kind of partners would it make us if we just left you here to die?"

I found myself affixed with a slightly cold stare from Grovyle, but still cold enough to send shivers up my spine from the feel of it on me. His voice sounded just as cold, without all the humor normally in it, as he replied, "It would make you good partners that would leave a comrade beyond all hope of saving to die in peace. Don't worry, Solara will be here for the end, and for that, I am grateful. Just go, now."

With heavy hearts, Kurama and I turned from the prone form of our fallen friend.

"Xi!"

We turned back to Grovyle, a small measure of hope in our eyes.

"Take care, Xi. I was lucky to have known you." He gave a small smile to the two of us. "And you kn―" Grovyle started coughing a little, but soon got it under control. He smiled at us again, and gave a small chuckle. "I'm going to die here," he stated frankly. "But you know what? I don't care. Because even though the parting hurts, I did so many great things with this life. You did too, Xi. Now go."

We turned away once again, and fled back down the tower.

I looked down at my hands as they started glowing slightly, and then turned to the only other being remaining atop the tower. With a small chuckle, I questioned, "Looks like it's time for me to go, doesn't it milady?"

She looked at my glowing hands with slight astonishment, then looked deep into my eyes. "I'm hardly believing what I'm seeing," she began, the amazement clear in her eyes, "but… is it really you?"

I chuckled dryly at the question. "Believe it or not, Lady Algydia, it is me. Now―agh!" I doubled over in pain as my body started healing itself, and my breathing was labored as I continued, "―can… can you… bring Solara to… to me? The… final request of a―" A fit of coughing seized me, the last few coughs ejecting disturbingly high amounts of chlorophyll-laden green blood. "―of a dying pokémon?"

The great blue Mistress of Time smiled faintly at me, replying, "It would be my pleasure." She roared out towards the heavens, the sound echoing throughout all of time, every instant of every place, but only audible in one time, and only to one single person.

500 years later,

At the peak of Vast Ice Mountain

I curled up into a little ball and cried. It was the only thing I had left to do: cry. Grovyle―no, the Director, I had to remember that―was trapped in the past, I was trapped in the future, and nobody was coming to save me. At least the Director still had Xi to help him try to fix things, but that obviously didn't work, seeing as time was still frozen.

Oh, and, for going against the will of Primal Dialga―she was definitely no longer the Lady Algydia that I was friends with―I was to be executed. The day, such as it were in a land with neither time nor daylight, was looking extremely bleak.

I had been pursued for days across the time-frozen wasteland that was my prison, fleeing the loyal henchmen of my former friend. Eventually, though, I had been captured, dragged back across the vast continent I was trapped on, and back to the Hidden Land, to Vast Ice Mountain.

Oh, sure, I had held on to the belief that maybe the Director would still find some way to save me, but as I stood, trapped on the summit of Vast Ice Mountain, I finally saw the futility in my hope. There was nothing left. Nothing that could save me, nothing I could use to escape, nothing. When it finally came home to me, the only emotion left was despair.

So I cried.

I poured my despairing soul out into the skies, and my captors simply laughed. They laughed, knowing that soon my wailing would be silenced forever by my ex-friend's powerful, time-shredding roar.

I regained my composure as one of them pulled me upright, and looked the orange behemoth in front of me squarely in the eye. "So, Algydia―" I spat the name out like a curse, as she hardly deserved my respect anymore.

A few of the henchmen gasped, appalled that I would use her name instead of calling her 'Master Dialga' as they did. I mean, really? She's a female! If they called her titles like that, she would be Mistress Dialga! Actually, no, that just sounds creepy. I can see why they did it that way.

"―are you going to kill me slowly, or be merciful towards your old friend? You know, for old times' sake?"

The only answer I received from the insane Mistress of Time was a lopsided grin that wouldn't have been out of place on the face of the Director's old friend Koschei, from what I'd heard. I sighed grimly, knowing that she was too far gone for talking to have any effect.

I stood up straight, holding my arms out to the sides. "Alright then, give me your best shot."

The gem on her chest began to glow brighter and brighter, before she pulled back her head in preparation to blast me into the Void That Is Between. In the split second between her blasting me and my demise, I heard the clear, ringing peal of what my friend had sounded like before the tower was destroyed. I smiled slightly, knowing that even if I was about to be destroyed forever, I would still have one friendly voice in my memory when I died.

500 years earlier,

Temporal Tower Pinnacle

I looked up to the bright blue sky above me as I began to fade into the black of unconsciousness. However, a sudden appearance above me forced me to pull myself back out of said sweet embrace.

The sky started to rip itself in half, and a small, smoking pink form began to fall from the jagged hole in the sky. My eyes widened as I recognized Solara, and I forced myself up so that I could catch her, but I collapsed onto the ground as another spasm of pain ripped through my body.

I weakly called out, "Solara," and, like a miracle, she spread he wings and began to fly again. She pulled in close to the top of the tower, executing a not exactly perfect landing nearby.

Alright, to be frank, she crash-landed, although she didn't injure herself… much.

Again, I weakly called her name, and she turned towards me, tears bright in her eyes. She tackled me, crying tears of both sadness and joy.

"I missed you so, so much," she whispered to me.

I gave a pained smile, and let out a small chuckle. "Well, I missed you even more. Even when I didn't have my memories, I still felt that I was missing something." Suddenly, another coughing fit seized me, and another glob of green blood came out of my mouth.

Her eyes widened, and she stepped back to look at me. "You're dying!" The tears she had been holding in began falling, before she embraced me again. "No! You can't die now!"

"No, no, it's okay―"

"Don't you dare say that! I just got you back, and I'm not going to lose you again!"

"No, really, I'm fine, I've still got one more left in me. One more regeneration."

She sobbed into my shoulder again, gripping me even tighter. "But it won't be you anymore."

I stroked the back of her head gently, saying, "Of course it will. It will be just as much the same me as when I got my old body back, or when I lost it and got this one. It's still me."

She relaxed and backed away so I could finish regenerating, but I pulled her back to me, placing her ear next to my mouth. "Xian," I whispered, so soft that no one other than her could have heard. "It's my name."

I couldn't see it, but I felt her smile behind me as she whispered a single word to me: "Nivea." She pulled away, finally allowing me to regenerate in peace, knowing that the two of us were now bound in ways that no ceremony could begin to compete with.

I smiled at her one last time. "Well, let's hope I get something good, eh?" I convulsed in pain one last time, before standing and throwing my arms out to the sides, and my head up towards the sky.

'This…' I thought to myself, 'This must be what true happiness feels like.'

Three minutes earlier,

Entrance to Temporal Tower

I walked back to the Rainbow Stoneship alongside Kurama with a heavy heart. We both realised that he had wanted us to, but we had just abandoned Grovyle on the top of Temporal Tower―as he was dying, no less! I felt tears sliding down my cheeks, washing away the accumulated dirt left over from our mad dash through the Hidden Land to save the Tower.

"I just don't understand."

I looked over to Kurama as she spoke, giving a small, sad smile. "I know how you feel. He kind of just… forced us to go against our way of life." I rubbed her shoulder consolingly, feeling the unusual warmth I'd felt whenever I touched her as of late―and not just because she was a fire type; this was something more.

No, I think I'd finally found out what it really was: love. Maybe it was mere infatuation, but I felt it went deeper than that. We had reached a point where words were hardly needed to understand each other. Part of that was just combat synergy, but again, it felt deeper than that. We just… knew each other to the point that we could almost always guess exactly what the other was thinking.

It felt wonderful.

And, of course, one couldn't forget the way the sun glinted off her fur at sunset, or the impossibly deep onyx eyes, or the way said eyes reflected her fire in hundreds of different hues, or… well, she was just perfect. There wasn't anything wrong with her other than what others had done to her in the past, and I'd helped her get over that a long time ago.

It made it that much more difficult to leave. And I had to leave. A lone tear fell from my eye as a small, glowing particle lifted up from my fur.

"Kurama."

She turned towards me, tears still in her eyes. "Xi?"

"I'm sorry, Kurama. I've kept this to myself for quite a while… But it looks like… I have to say goodbye."

Her eyes widened, and fresh tears sprung up to mix with the ones she was barely holding back. "Goodbye? I don't understand!"

"Dusknoir told me while you were getting the Rainbow Stoneship ready. If we changed the future, everyone from the future would disappear… That's why I have to go. I'm destined to disappear." A few more particles lifted off of me as I spoke.

"No! Xi, I can't lose you too! We just lost Grovyle! You're…" A small sob racked her frame as the tears began to spill. "…You're all I have left…"

"Thank you, Kurama… Thank you for everything… The adventures… Making our own rescue team…"

"But I couldn't have done it without you! I only made it this far because you helped me! If you hadn't been there, I would never have gotten back my Relic Fragment, or beaten Drowzee, or… or…"

"I'm so sorry Kurama, but you'll have to become stronger on your own now. You have to live! You need to get home so that you can keep this from ever happening again…"

I knelt down to put myself at eye level with Kurama as the glowing particles started coming off of me with more frequency.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so lucky to have had you as my friend…"

"I feel the same, Xi! To me…" Her voice suddenly became very timid. "You're more important to me than anything."

"Even red gummis?" I asked with a small chuckle, recalling our first job.

The small smile I got from my joke was worth making a joke at a time like this… anything to see her smile one last time…

"Definitely more than red gummis."

"I feel the same way, Kurama… You're more important than the whole world… the whole universe, even… More important than every star―" The particles were drifting off of me at an alarming rate now. "―every planet―" My legs started fading away slowly. "―and everything that ever is, or will be."

Tears were flowing freely from both of us now as we stared deep into each other's eyes.

"Maybe…" Kurama started, but then she trailed off.

"I know. Maybe, if I didn't have to leave, we might have had something more." My torso was beginning to fade now. "But even though I'm going to disappear… I'll never forget you."

And like that, we were kissing each other. I wrapped my arms around her neck tightly, not wanting to ever let go of the beautiful vulpine figure before me. But even as I held her, my arms started fading away as well and simply passed through her.

I pulled away from the kiss, my entire body now a mere spectral form of what I had once been. I spoke one last time before I disappeared completely. "And you know, I may have left the future with nothing to lose when I would disappear… but now, while I'm here with you, Kurama…

"I don't want to go."

Then, the lights coming off of me increased in brightness until it was hard to even keep my eyes open anymore as they flurried around me, and I felt no more.

...Yep. There you go. The end, there's nothing else left after that but the epilogue, and I've already said why you won't be getting that.

[Transmission Terminated]