-Chapter XIX: A Gift Denied-

-Connor-

He couldn't sleep. He'd been up for a few hours now, along with Atlas, Basileus, Amber and Grovyle. They had accepted Aaron's offer for the time being. But Vulcan had said that he had to swear by Arceus that he would follow any orders given to him. He agreed, so Celebi made the Pikachu a makeshift bed right next to him and Vulcan. It had gotten dark by the time everyone had calmed down over Alice. Atlas almost fought Tyranitar again, but Grovyle stopped him. But as he laid there, staring up at the wooden roof while lying on his grass bed, he couldn't help but think about everything they'd been through, and what he could have done differently. They had stopped the destruction of time and space on two separate occasions. And now, even when Briar kept telling them no, they sent them on a suicide mission. He received a Dimensional scream telling him what would happen, but it was literally seconds too late. And now Alice was gone... Just like that. And Atlas was taking it hard... He'd been crying for over half an hour.

"Connor..."

He turned to Amber while she sat next to him. "Do you mind if I sit here for a moment?"

He shrugged and continued looking up. "Go ahead."

"Connor… I'm sorry… About Alice."

He didn't look at her, but said, "Mhmm…?"

"But… since you didn't appear to be going to sleep anytime soon, I wanted to talk to you."

"About…?"

"About when you were human."

Oh?

He shifted his body to face her, and she looked around at the rest of the sleeping Pokémon. She kept her voice at a low whisper and leaned in closer. "Connor… I know this is sudden, but I wanted to talk to you about who you were… In your past."

"Uh-huh… Kind of a weird time to talk about it, but go on."

She looked down, as if she were trying to figure out the right words.

Connor began after waiting for a little while in awkward silence. "Okay, let me start with some questions. One, what Grovyle and Dusknoir both told me. Apparently I was some super-human-pokémon thing with aura powers? Care to explain how that came around?"

She stared at him with disbelief, then said, "When I met you, you already possessed those powers as a full-blooded human. You were able to do anything on the material plane. Teleport, fly, transform into any pokemon, regenerate entire limbs at once, slow down and speed up time, shoot bolts of pure energy... even bring back the dead, to a certain degree."

He tried to comprehend how he could do all of this, especially as a human. Supposedly, based off of some reading he had done over the course of the past year, humans were very fragile creatures. Even the strongest human wasn't a match for most wild pokémon. And they only lived, on average, about seventy to eighty years. Pokémon with short lifespans here lived over two-hundred years, but until they reached thirty, they age at practically the same rate as humans. Kind of like elves in human mythology.

"But… How? Like, if I was supposed to be super powerful, how come I got turned into a Mudkip? And got Amnesia of everything? Darkrai wasn't a match for us when we were normal pokémon. How did he beat me then?"

She took a deep breath and shrugged. "I don't know how any of those events happened... I'm sorry, I truly am. But… I want you to know that… I can help you."

His eyebrows shot up at that statement. "Help me… how?"

"I can cure your amnesia."

He was about to laugh, but the seriousness in her eyes made the laugh die in his throat. "...Seriously-?! How? Is it like what you did to Vulcan to erase the hypnosis?"

"Something similarly to that, yes."

"That's... I mean... uh... How can you do that, anyways?"

"I am a being of blazing Aura… Just like you." She opened her hand, and a bright orange fireball formed in her palm. Except, when he looked closer, it looked more like an aura sphere.

"What is that?"

"It's the power that you bestowed upon me." She grabbed hold of his hand and looked into his eyes as the orange energy filled him with a newfound strength, and his head filled with blurry pictures that he couldn't make out. Her amber-colored eyes drew him in like a flame, but in a good way. It didn't feel wrong. Something about her was familiar… And not just from earlier. But from his forgotten past, too.

"You still have that power inside of you… All you need is someone to bring it to the surface." The endearing look she gave him made him want to say yes without hesitation. But without explanation, anger rose up. Why was she suddenly helping him out now? "Then why wait all this time to tell me? You could've cured my amnesia when you first started helping us out! Why didn't you do anything then?"

"You… you weren't ready to receive-"

He stared at her with a shocked anger and subconsciously raised his voice. "Are you freakin' kidding me? You didn't think I was ready to have my memories back? The one thing I wanted more than anything else? Vulcan and I looked for months trying to find out how to fix it! That's how this whole thing about stopping time started!"

She shook her head rapidly, making sure to stay quiet. "That's not what I meant… Connor, I didn't know how you would react to many of the things you'd done. If your memories were to return, I feared that you would be very different than you are now... Your team needed you. They still need you… But now… it's different. If your memories were to return, your power would, as well. And with your strength, you could protect us all. Your team would be safe."

He clenched his fists and rolled over to face away from her. "If it means that I'll be different than I am now, I don't want it."

"...It might alter your behavior slightly-"

"Then I don't want it. I don't want your help bringing my memories back. I'll figure it out myself."

"I don't understand… Why you wouldn't want your memories. It would help protect all of us and enable you to do things that used to be beyond your normal capabilities."

He rolled back over to face her, a scowl across his face. "Because, Amber... Sometimes people with tons of power get it taken away for a reason. Sure, having my old power would make this whole thing easier… and probably fix a lot of problems… But I like myself the way I am now. Even if it sucks a whole lot, I get to share hardships with my team, feel their pain, experience their fear… It's what makes living worth it, and it's what makes me their leader. The constant mystery, the suspense, the heartbreak, and still knowing that we'll win eventually because we're the good guys? What's the point of living without any of that? Living without being afraid of anything and being able to solve every problem in the blink of an eye… There's no fun in that. I sure wouldn't be where I am today if I hadn't lost my memories and stuff. And even though I wish all of this hadn't happened… I know that Arceus, or whoever the heck's in charge of the world, put me here for a reason. I just don't know that reason quite yet. At first I thought it was to save time, then we did that... Then I thought it was to save Space, and we did that too. Now... I'm not sure."

She stared at him with a dumbfounded look. "I-I don't…"

"You don't have to understand. You've just gotta have faith."

"Faith…?"

"Yeah. I mean, you're a Temporal Guardian, right? Nobody that I know outside of our team thinks that you exist!"

She reeled back slightly. "Wh-what? What do you mean?"

"You guys are myths. Most pokémon haven't even heard the term before. Basileus is a Temporal Guardian. He knew Lapras. Lapras knew you. And Basileus looks up to you. Maybe it's just me, but he doesn't seem like the type to take orders from just anyone. So I put the pieces together after some of the stuff he said."

"Who told you he's a... a Temporal guardian?"

"He did. He told us when we got blown into the sea, right before Lapras rescued us."

She seemed to be panicking, judging by her sudden fidgeting and constant eye movement. Connor tilted his head at her. "What, are you not a Temporal Guardian? If I'm wrong, just say so."

"...You're not wrong…"

He narrowed his eyes at her, then at the rest of the insurgo. "So what's the rest of their deals? Celebi's a time-walking pokémon, and I think she's one too, right?"

Amber nodded, and Connor grunted once. "I thought so."

Amber sighed. "I'm sorry, Connor… We had every intention of telling your team at daybreak. After Alice…" She pursed her lips and continued, "That was the deciding factor."

"But why keep it a secret?"

"...Had your team known-Atlas and Jade, especially- then they would have put us on a much higher pedestal than they should have. They would expect us to solve all of your problems. We are very limited in what we are allowed to do outside of our assigned eras."

He clenched his fists and tears began falling, "You think that I expect anything like that from you? I know that being a Temporal Guardian isn't that simple. I've talked to Lapras all about it after we stopped Darkrai." Then he looked to her, tears still lining the edges of his eyes. "But I expected you all to at least try and push the boundaries a little bit, since I did help you restore the future, didn't I?!

She looked at him and nodded slowly. "Yes… You did. But… we have specific guidelines that we have to follow-"

"So killing pokémon? Can you guys really not do that? Because that doesn't make sense. A new branch would just form if you did, right? Briar explained the whole time-continuum thing with a tree, and from the looks of it, there's going to be a reality in which we're killed by the stupid Mafia. I'm just trying to make sure that we aren't that reality."

"We can… We just try to refrain from it. Especially those that play a vital role in this timeline, such as Mordred and other evil pokémon."

"So you could have saved her? Is that what you're saying?"

"I'm not saying that… We can't undo events at a moment's notice. Not without Dialga's permission. And he doesn't take that kind of interference lightly to begin with. Especially not by us."

Another thought popped into his head in spite of his confusion. "How are all you guys here, anyways? Wouldn't your time-powers be too much for one era and make time collapse on itself?"

"Dialga has stripped us of most of our power. We have sacrificed everything to help you. I will explain further details to the rest of your team in the morning. Do you want to talk about anything else?"

"I'm good." He rolled back over to avoid looking at her, although the light cast from the flame on her tail made a shadowy outline of a Charizard on the wall.

-Victor-

"Victor." Widow's voice cut into his train of thought. He put a feather in the book he was reading and looked up at her. "Hm?"

"We've got one."

Victor looked at Mordred smugly and closed his novel. He was just getting to the best part, which annoyed him, but it could wait. "Marvelous! Who do I have the honor of meeting?"

"Alice. The Lopunny."

Victor nodded solemnly. "I hope the job didn't get too messy?"

"It was easy work. They practically came right to us."

"They?"

"Yeah; They." Flatline crawled into the room, hoisting a large bundle of webbing on his back, like a backpack. "They've got another friend. A Tyranitar that calls himself Barrage. But it wasn't an issue. Two Hariyama held him down while I finished her off."

"A Tyranitar? He could make a decent member." Victor placed his wing on his chin in thought. "I hope that you were able to capture him?"

"Unfortunately, he was able to Mega-evolve. He muscled his way through the entire base and escaped." Widow sounded more annoyed than concerned, which amused him.

Victor couldn't help but chuckle. "And he's the Alpha, no less! This is marvelous! So far Rogue is the only Alpha among my ranks! This Tyranitar would be a wonderful addition!" He turned to Mordred and paced to and fro. "His dark-typing will make him immune to hypnotic incantations… And if he is an ally of Team Firestorm, I doubt I could earn his loyalty any other way… I'll have to think about this later. Mordred, remind me to send Koumori to gather more recent intelligence on Team Firestorm. New allies appear to be popping up right and left, which is bothering me." He turned to the silk coffin with a smile. "Now! Let me see her!"

Flatline grunted and threw the cocoon to the ground. He heard a somewhat high-pitched shout. It was muffled, but definitely there. Flatline's ears twitched, signaling that he heard it as well. Victor narrowed his eyes at Widow. "...She is dead, right?"

Widow nodded. "Her body was burnt to a crisp by Flatline's dragon pulse. And she wasn't holding a treasure bag or anything of the sort."

Victor directed his gaze to Flatline. "You heard it, didn't you, Flatline?"

Flatline slowly nodded, and Widow tilted her head. "Hm? I didn't hear anything." She pulled a quill off of her back and pressed it against the webbing. "Just as we promised, we have results within a week."

As soon as she punctured the layer of silk, Flatline vanished in an eruption of smoke, and the cocoon swelled up the very next moment. A purple sphere of light emanated from the thickening fog, causing Widow and Mordred to back away, then shattered, signaling a Mega Evolution. Victor shouted, "Kill the intruder! Don't let it escape!"

He flew backwards with a swift beat of his wings and pressed the button on the underside of his desk. Shortly after, the bookcase behind him slid aside to reveal a stairway. He dove into the tunnel as the shelf slid back into place, muffling multiple shouts and explosions.

After quickly making his way out of the tunnel and into his secondary command center, he took a deep breath to calm his pulse. "What in Arceus' name was that?"

So... Today is February 29th... Amber still hasn't even really said anything big yet besides giving Connor his memories back... What are your thoughts, guys? Was Connor being a stubborn little butt about it, or do you think that he was sort of right about not wanting his memories back? And who's that pokémon at the end? Food for thought for the next few days! As always, go ahead and leave any questions, comments, concerns and theories about what might happen in the form of a Review or PM! Much Love!

-PL