Today was the day, the last day that they'd all be together. With the anomaly defeated once and for all, the barriers between worlds were closing for good. Keldeo had kept a lookout, making sure the anomaly didn't try anything last minute, but no. It seemed like the anomaly was gone from this world. Which was fine by everyone.
He had just finished grabbing and collecting all of Vera's bags that she had brought when they first arrived; Cody and Terry were right, she did overpack. He finished pushing the final bag towards the others, cursing as he slipped again, his horn leaving a good scratch on it. Vera was nice about it, saying it would be a nice memento to remember him by, but he wondered if that sentiment was still had after the third time he slipped?
"That's the last of our stuff…" Vera said, dropping Terry's single bag with a laugh. Keldeo looked at Cody's bag, noticing he wasn't here yet.
"I think Cody is back down by the beach with the Lugia." The Voice of Life chimed in, not too far away.
Keldeo nodded "I'll go grab him, then." he spun around, running off to go find Cody. His running brought him through Paradise, there was a catharsis to seeing how much things had gone back to normal in town. Swanna's cafe opens again, Gurdurr slowly beginning reconstruction and Victini's V-Wheel spinning again. Until he heard the sound of crashing again.
"Watch where you're moving that body of yours, Kyurem!" Victini cried out, zipping around Kyurem as he backed away, bowing "You nearly broke my special V-Wheel!"
"And I was about to win!" Terry grumbled.
"I apologize." Kyurem bowed his head once again. Keldeo watched for a moment more before finally approaching them.
"Alright, that's enough, you three." Keldeo smiled "It was an honest accident. Terry, I remember how clumsy you were when you were learning how to use Terrakion's body."
"That's…" Terry began, his argument lost by his muttering.
"And Victini, this is the last time Terry and the others are gonna be here for…forever probably." Keldeo hip checked Terry "Maybe you can give something to the three of them…on the house? For me?" Keldeo smirked as he saw Terry realize what he was going for, pleading as well.
Victini scowled at the three of them, but eventually relented. With a groan he flew back behind his stall "This isn't even a lottery system, yknow? It's supposed to alter the V-Waves in the area and…" Victini continued, muttering. Terry mouthing a silent 'Thank you' as Victini finally flew back around with a knapsack stuffed to the brim "There all sorts of Paradise goodies. I'll let it go this time, but next time you gotta play to win!"
"I'll keep that in mind in the other dimension." Terry laughed, holding them carefully, running off to join back up with Vera.
"Thank you again, Keldeo." Kyurem said in a deep rumble, his voice still gentle "I'm still getting used to being here. I certainly do have a lot more to be sorry for now that I'm fused with Zekrom and Reshiram permanently…-?" Kyurem began only for Keldeo to scoff at him.
"Sorry that I'm not sorry that I stopped your initial plan of living in isolation for atonement." Keldeo smirked "You realize that it could mean some third thing gets a hold of you."
Kyurem shuddered at the thought and nodded "I see the wisdom in your words swordsman. Better to be amongst friends than alone again." Kyurem nodded, continuing on and being more careful and mindful of where he stepped. Keldeo chuckled to himself before running off to find Cody; Kyurem was going to fit in just fine.
Down the cove and where the dirt road turned to sand, Keldeo's run turned into a trot. He could hear laughing from the beach as he approached. He slowed down, lest he interrupted the moment. He hung out behind the corner to see Cody standing there, his socks and shoes off and his pants rolled up, already ankle deep in the water. He could barely make out the Lugia from before, his head poking out of the water.
"Y'know…there's still probably enough time to see her before the walls close up for good." Cody offered, Keldeo wasn't aware of the context behind that statement, but continued to listen.
"Hah, I don't know, it's been so long since we saw each other. Or maybe she forgot about me. Or maybe she's moved on already…or maybe she found herself someone else. Maybe J…-!?"
"All the more reason to see her then." Cody scoffed "Also, forget you? How could anyone forget a giant bird like you?" The two of them laughed, deep and hearty. It warmed Keldeo's heart to hear Cody laugh like that. It sounded like he was doing much better compared to last week.
"I guess you're right. I don't know when our worlds will be in danger again for me to even try that again. I just hope father doesn't find out. Don't want him to hear I risked being stranded in that world again just to say 'hi' to some old friends." the Lugia began to swim away "Take care, Cody!" the sound of a resounding splash was enough of a cue for Keldeo to know was alone now. He stepped out from around the corner and approached Cody, who was watching the Lugia swim away.
"May I join you?" Keldeo asked, the quick moan was enough for Keldeo to stand beside Cody, getting his hooves wet. The two just stood there for a while, looking out over the horizon while the ocean waves lapped at them.
"Y'know…I've heard stories about that Lugia after you told me about him…" Keldeo could barely make out the shadow of the bird in the water "I was told he had purple feathers and red eyes though…not white and blue…"
"Birds molt?" Cody shrugged, Keldeo shrugged too. A long pause.
"So I know you've been keeping track…" Keldeo didn't look at Cody "How much more of your summer vacation do you have?"
Cody hummed and thought for a moment "This all started a week before summer vacation…so…we still got three weeks left." Cody chuckled, "Kinda figured this would take up all of our time."
"Just shows how efficient we were as a team." Keldeo huffed a laugh, shared by Cody. Another long pause of silence.
"Now that I'm thinking about it." Cody chimed in "This all started on a beach, and here we are again…it's always the beach."
"Is that a problem?" Keldeo asked.
"Not at all." Cody said "I love the beach." another pause. They both knew they were talking to fill space at this rate. So finally Cody broke the silence with something more meaningful "When the barrier closes up again. What are you going to do?"
"Besides acting as a guardian of Paradise? I haven't really thought about that." Keldeo said, finally turning to speak to Cody "I feel like doing that is going to eat up a lot of my time, y'know? Maybe train up some new people to help defend Paradise too? Maybe even looking beyond that."
"Gotta expand on that 'Sacred Swordsmen of Justice' credibility, right?" Cody shook his head "Quinn and his names for things."
"Thinking back on it, it has a good ring to it honestly." Keldeo huffed "Pokemon around here would eat that kind of name up around here.
"Fair enough, Blue." Cody hummed, smirking at the snort from Keldeo "Vera's convinced me to join up for the musical this fall. I think she said they were doing 'State Fair'..." Cody held his hands out "The best state fair in our state…except its the only state fair in the state…" the two laughed "After that, Terry thinks I'd be great for tennis. I already know how to use a sword thanks to the anomaly, hopefully a tennis racket is comparable. So I got that going for me."
"Which is nice." Keldeo nodded, smiling. Another long pause before Keldeo dared a look at Cody, he was smiling, but he could clearly see tears streaming. He could feel the sting of tears coming to his eyes too. Keldeo hip checked Cody with a smile "You ready?"
A long inhale, his forearm wiping away the tears "Yeah…yeah let's go." Cody looked down, Keldeo made no effort to hide that he was crying too. This was going to be hard for the both of them, no point in hiding anything anymore. The two walked back to Paradise close together.
"Kept us waiting, huh?" Terry asked, waving Cody and Keldeo over, Cody's hand resting in Keldeo's mane. Keldeo could see that all of Paradise was joining up to say goodbye to the humans. He could imagine it was a surprising twist of fate: so often humans came in the form of pokemon to help them, so to see real live humans was something new.
"Just wrapping up a couple of things." Cody said, clearly drained, but still active, present with the others. He turned to the Voice of Life "You're certain that…"
The Hydreigon nodded before he even finished his sentence "I haven't detected the anomaly in any capacity since the fight, not in this world, or your own world. You will be returned to a safe world" he smiled "I cannot thank the three of you enough for everything you have done for us, and for Keldeo."
"Hey, I can speak for myself now." Keldeo chimed in "But he's not wrong. I would have been lost or worse if you guys hadn't stepped in."
"What can I say, teenagers saving the world is commonplace in the anime I watch…in practice though..." Cody grimaced, his hand hovering over his chest, he was gonna have an awkward time trying to come up with a lie for his mother in how he got that one.
"Yeah, this was a lot. I'm glad it worked out, and meeting all of you was great but…I'm only now realizing how many times we all almost died." Terry chuckled, not the same confident laugh he usually gave off.
"Well I had fun. Letting loose like that was…nice, and new." Vera smiled, more meaningfully. Cody and Terry looked at her incredulously. "We'll have to do something like this again…just…lower stakes." Vera added.
"Yeah, maybe just kendo or aikido or something." Cody added "But don't forget, you guys agreed that we were gonna spend the last couple of weeks letting me show you some anime…maybe we can even squeeze in some DnD…"
"And you two agreed to join me on my morning runs." Terry added.
"And the three of us are going shopping for clothes for the new school year when this is all done." Vera hummed, delighting in the groans of the two boys.
Keldeo couldn't keep the smile off of his face, seeing the three of them interact as they were. He knew friendship like that wasn't going to fade easily. He let them talk, just taking in the energy that they gave off. It lasted a while until finally The Voice of Life chimed in, clearing his throat.
"It is time." is all the Hydreigon said, and the conversations died down. Keldeo nodded, stepping forward and summoning his sword, taking a deep breath and giving one firm slash. A portal opened, and from the otherside the three of them could see the cave on the beach that they hung out in, it was months ago, and yet it felt like years. They could see the portal already faltering, struggling to maintain itself.
"Oh! How could I forget!" Vera chimed in, reaching into one of her bags. Grabbing a long white scarf and wrapping it around Keldeo, who blushed at the sudden accessory "A little thing to remember me by. I think it completes the 'swordsman; look." Vera winked, grabbing as many bags as she could and kicking the rest in through the portal, vanishing.
"Don't think I didn't hear how you're gonna be making a new team to help around. You remember all those play by plays I taught you?" Terry pointed at Keldeo, who nodded in return. The pointing turned into a thumbs up, and he ran through the portal, vanishing.
Cody and Keldeo remained, Cody walked close and knelt down beside Keldeo so that they were eye level "I know we got that goody bag from the others but…" Cody reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out the fragment of Keldeo's horn "I got something even better." Cody hugged Keldeo "I'll never forget you." he whispered, kissed Keldeo on the forehead.
"I know…me too…" Keldeo asked rhetorically, nuzzling into Cody. Time stood still as the two embraced. It was Cody who finally broke away, nodding with a smile, cramming the horn fragment into his pocket, grabbing his things and walking through the portal, vanishing. Then the portal closed behind him.
It took a while for my eyes to adjust after going through the portal, but it was about what I expected. It was Terry, Vera, and I, all at the mouth of the cave on the beach. Our little hideout when we were still in just Provincetown. I stepped out into that hot summer sun, a refreshing change of pace for the amount of times the anomaly through snow and ice at us. Terry was already holding half of Vera's stuff by the time I walked up to them, happy to take up the last third.
"So…we still have a couple of weeks left before school starts again. What are we all doing?" I asked, realizing how hard it was to move these bags through the sand.
"Well, first things first. I'm having a spa day and you two are coming." Vera said. Terry made an objecting sound "It was nice staying in Paradise, but the amenities were…lacking. Not that it was their fault mind you." she added "And my favorite spa is in the mall. So that means we can focus on clothes shopping too."
Ever the prep, she was. I laughed "Alright, alright. But you better plan around the jacket."
She scoffed "Cody, denim is so…nineties."
"Yup, and you're working around it…" I leaned in and smirked, "You think you can't make it work?"
"I didn't say that." Vera snapped back, humming a moment later "Challenge accepted." she pulled out her phone "I'm calling an Uber, drop off our stuff at my house, then go shopping." Vera started walking up the stairs to the boardwalk.
"Sleepover after. Then we can go for that morning run." Terry added with a laugh "You don't have Cobalion's body to make up for your lack of muscle, Cody." Terry laughed, taking the stairs two at a time.
"And you don't have Terrakion's body to make up for your lack of brains, Terry." I snapped back, earning a fist bump from Vera "I'll think of a show we can watch after the run. Something easy to dip your toes into." I waited at the bottom of the stairs for a moment longer. My hand was already wanting to go back to the fragment of Keldeo's horn. I reached into my pocket, only to feel something else brush it. I pulled it out, admiring the silver feather in my hand, twirling it for a moment. I'm trying to think about when that Lugia snuck it in my pocket, but I'm not complaining. I looked back out over the horizon, and saw a silhouette of something sticking out of the water; something Lugia head shaped. That clever bird. I watched him disappear under the water, hopefully returning to the Pokemon world by now. I hope he was able to see whoever he needed to see.
"Cody?" I heard Terry call my name, he and Vera getting a good look at the silver feather in my hand "Wow, man. How come the Pokemon world lets you have two things to remember them by."
I smirked, putting it back in my pocket next to the horn fragment. Climbing the stairs as the Uber pulled up. Vera and Terry took a couple of minutes to get all of her stuff in the car, and then they ran inside. It ended up in a way where I was in the middle of the two of them. A part of me was disappointed, I wanted a window seat so I could look out of it and be in my head for the car ride, but that could wait. Instead, Terry and Vera were both talking to me, about how excited they were to get me involved in their passions, even admitting to passing interest in what I wanted to show them.
It felt like summer was starting all over again, and I couldn't be happier.
You'll always be a part of me
You gave me a song to sing
Dancing in your room
Innocent and true
Elvis tattoo on your shoulder
We'll know better when we're older
You'll always be a part of me
Some wounds will always sting
Forever in full bloom
Barely twenty two
Summer days are growing colder
We'll know better when we're older
Memories - The Midnight
The Sacred Swordsmen of Justice: END