Chapter 39 – Echoes of Time
by acti_nerdingtonThe rumbling and tremors of the tower had gotten even worse. Wasting little to no time healing up after the intense fight with Iron Valiant, Rickety and Lexxi quickly rush over as fast as they can to the keystone, the Time Gears held in Rickety’s arms, ready to insert them the moment they reach the top.
“J-Jeeez, it’s getting really bad! I’m having a hard time fitting them in!” Rickety stammers, trying to enter a flow state, but in such a panicked state, he can’t quite achieve it. One by one, he shakily places the Time Gears into the divots around the keystone, all of the divots closing around each other as the final Time Gear is set in place.
“Did that do it?!” Lexxi wonders aloud, watching as the walls surrounding the keystone go from red to a light shade of blue, the pattern etched onto the keystone resembling that of the Rainbow Stoneship they had rode upon to get here.
But the rumbling doesn’t stop. It gets even more intense, knocking Rickety and Lexxi down as they back up away from the keystone in a confused panic. “W-What?! But I put the Time Gears in! W-We couldn’t have been too late!”
“Maybe it’s not immediate!” Lexxi exclaims. “I-It might take a minute! Maybe! Hopefully! …Maybe!”
“B-But if Temporal Tower keeps collapsing even though I’ve put the Time Gears back, then… No. No no no no no-” Rickety quickly grabs ahold of Lexxi and pulls her close to him, wrapping his arms around her tightly in a hug as she hugs him right back.
Lexxi buries herself into Rickety’s chest as the lightning strikes intensify all around them, hearing lightning strike at the surrounding pillars, sending stone tumbling down and crumbling. She feels Rickety’s grip around her tightening, hearing a whirring sound coming all around them, being enveloped in a bright light.
And then…
Silence.
Rickety and Lexxi slowly open their eyes back up, looking towards the sky. The swirling red vortex that had been in the sky just a moment ago had entirely vanished. And not only that, but the tremors had finally stopped too.
“…Did we do it?” Rickety says, his voice quiet, a faint whisper. Carefully looking around, the two take in their surroundings. The spire of Temporal Tower had been near completely destroyed, all of the stone pillars having crumbled to the ground, but it was still standing.
Everything… Everything seemed to be normal.
“IT IS TRUE THAT THE TIME GEARS HAVE BEEN PLACED INTO THE TOWER EARLIER THAN THEY SHOULD HAVE BEEN.” A loud voice suddenly bellows, echoing throughout the space surrounding the tower, briefly startling Rickety and Lexxi. They turn, seeing Dialga looming over them, his massive body making them feel pitifully tiny in comparison.
“HOWEVER, WITH THE TIME GEARS IN THEIR RIGHTFUL PLACE, TIME SHOULD STABILIZE EVERYWHERE ELSE THROUGHOUT THE REGION, ENTROPY SHALL DO ITS WORK TO CORRECT THE MISTAKES CREATED THROUGHOUT ALL OF THIS. AND ALTHOUGH TEMPORAL TOWER HAS TAKEN HEAVY DAMAGE, IT HAS SURVIVED.”
“Y-You mean we did it?” Lexxi stammers, her voice wavering as she keeps holding on tight to Rickety. “We won?!”
Dialga gives a slow nod of his head. “YES. TIME SHOULD STABILIZE, ANY ANOMALIES SHOULD SLOWLY COME UNDONE. BECAUSE YOU STOPPED THE COLLAPSE, THE TIMELINE WILL REMAIN, ITS COLLAPSE HALTED.”
“…We did it.” Rickety chuckles quietly, before turning into joyful laughter, clutching Lexxi tightly as the two hug each other tightly. “We did it! We actually did it, Lexxi! We stopped the timeline from collapsing! And hopefully Dusknoir in the process, too!”
“We need to find a way back to the future and check on Glyph and Pixie!” Lexxi exclaims with a smile. “Hopefully they’ve taken care of Dusknoir and we can tell them the good news!”
“YOU HAVE MY ETERNAL GRATITUDE.” Dialga says, bowing his body down towards them. “TO HAVE REACHED THIS FAR, TO GO THROUGH EVERYTHING YOU HAVE AND NEARLY RISKED YOUR LIVES TAKING ON THAT DISGRACEFUL MACHINE REQUIRES SUCH UNMATCHED COURAGE.” Dialga steps aside. “YOU MAY RETURN HOME. I MUST SEE TO THE REPAIR OF TEMPORAL TOWER.”
Rickety and Lexxi nod in response, hugging each other tightly before they get back up. They’re about to head right back to the exit, heading back to the Rainbow Stone-
“GRRAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!”
They hear Dialga crying out in pain, his scream echoing all throughout the tower. “Dialga?!” They both call out in worry, quickly turning around, eyes wide with concern, gasping in horror at the sight they see.
Iron Valiant had gotten back up.
Its body had climbed right onto Dialga’s back and plunged its halberd straight into Dialga’s back, piercing all the way through the gem in Dialga’s chest, causing it to shatter and break apart into tiny pieces on the ground.
Iron Valiant’s body is violently twitchy and unstable, letting out a series of pained, distorted beeps, almost angry sounding as it holds its halberd in Dialga’s chest, ripping it back out, leading to another pained cry from Dialga, bucking it back against the keystone, the force breaking Iron Valiant’s body in half.
“T-T-T-TARGET-ET-ET NEUTRALLLLLIZED… M-M-MISSIONNN ACCOMPLISHED… ALL HAIL… MASTER D-DUSKNOIR…” What remains of Iron Valiant’s body slowly goes limp, deactivating once and for all. No more.
Rickety and Lexxi in a panic, rush over to Dialga, eyes wide with worry. “Dialga?!” Lexxi shouts, looking up at him. “Are you okay?!”
Dialga doesn’t answer, his breaths wheezing, panting heavily as he falls to the ground once again, making the entirety of Temporal Tower rumble. Slowly, orbs of light begin to envelop Dialga’s body, as he weakly looks over at Rickety and Lexxi.
“RUN…”
Dialga lets out another scream of pain as his body slowly vanishes before Rickety and Lexxi’s eyes, Temporal Tower immediately beginning to tremble and rumble once again. They look up, seeing the sky itself cracking apart.
It begins to break, crumbling down, revealing a bleak, empty, dark nothingness underneath as Temporal Tower begins to collapse once again. Lexxi and Rickety, awestruck, barely even know how to react, just staring at the sky as it falls apart, reality itself slowly crumbling around them.
“…No.” Rickety mutters. “NO!” He quickly grabs Lexxi and holds her tightly, trying to make a break for it, but the tower collapses, Rickety and Lexxi screaming as they fall into the abyss, the cracking sky catching up with them. They float, aimlessly, their surroundings having all by shedd away, leaving them drifting in the void.
“NO!” Rickety screams, holding onto Lexxi tightly, hugging her against his chest. “No, no no!” Rickety begins to sob, feeling Lexxi’s tail wrapping tightly around him as they fall. “We had it! W-We were so close! We stopped the tower from collapsing! A-And now…!”
“W-We… We did the best we could, R-Rickety.” Lexxi stammers, stifling sobs against Rickety’s scarred chest, her stubby little arms wrapping around them as tightly as she could. “W-We did everything we could, t-that’s what matters…”
“N-No! We were so close! T-Then we had it ripped away by that stupid robot!” He screams, tears flowing freely from his eyes as he holds onto Lexxi for dear life. “It’s not fair! IT’S NOT FAIR!”
Lexxi can’t think of much else to say. Calming Rickety down at this point would be next to impossible. Any comforting words would seem ingenuine. Because truth be told… He was right. There was nothing they could do now. Nothing they could do to fix this. The timeline was collapsing, and there was nothing they could do to stop this.
Lexxi tightens her grip, beginning to feel a strange, dull heaviness spreading throughout her whole entire body. She peeks an eye open, slowly beginning to see the same orbs of light that had enveloped Dialga just moments ago.
“L-Lexxi… My body feels heavy…” Rickety stammers through choked sobs, holding onto her tightly, crying into her fur. “I don’t wanna go, I-I don’t wanna go…”
“I know, Rickety…” She hugs him tighter, just trying to comfort him as best as he can. To be there for him. “I don’t wanna go either…” She whimpers, just holding onto him as tightly as she could, not even daring to let go.
“Lexxi… C-Can you sing for me…?” Rickety asks, staring down at her through the tears in his eyes, chest heaving through sobs. “I-I never got to hear you… Sing for real…”
Lexxi slowly smiles, nodding her head. She rests her head on Rickety’s chest, breathing slowly, beginning to sing, her voice soothing Rickety’s mind, body and soul.
The moon wrote a love letter to the sun Albeit, in awkward words There was your light, it was bright…
“HHRAAAAHH!” Mesprit shouts as she shoots another large spark of electricity from her hands, frying another machine that had been rushing towards her, sending it tumbling to the ground. “Haha! Yeah! Keep it coming! I might look like you BUT I’M NOT WITH YOU ANYMORE!”
“It seems endless!” Uxie exclaims, hurling another machine away with their mind. “We can’t keep this up for much longer, can we?!”
“We can keep going!” Azelf shouts, firing a psybeam at another group of robot Pokemon. “We just have to stick together and-“
The ground rumbles violently, a loud, piercing sound beginning to come from the sky. From the direction of Temporal Tower, the sky was breaking apart, revealing an inky, black darkness underneath. The ground itself begins to give way to nothing, some of the Pokemon getting sucked into the empty void, becoming one with the nothingness.
The Pokemon around them all begin to panic, trying to flee for their lives, even the machines realizing that something is wrong and beginning to run on pure survival instinct alone.
“They… Failed?” Mesprit says, mouth agape as she watches the landscape crumble apart before her. “T-That can’t be right, no- They- What?!”
Uxie stares at the nothing approaching before them, letting out a long, mournful sigh. “I suppose… Nothing lasts forever, does it?”
Azelf gathers Uxie and Mesprit close to him, wrapping his tails around them tightly, holding them close. “Just when we had finally reuinited, too…”
Mesprit tightly wraps her tails around her siblings, minding the sharp edges of her tail. “…I-It’s fine… The world might be ending, the timeline is collapsing, but you know what’s funny? I feel fine… I’m finally back with my family. If we’re going, I’d rather be here with you than out there…”
“We can all go out together.” Uxie says solemnly, a sad, but at the same time, accepting smile on their face. “As family.”
“As family.” Azelf whispers, holding his two siblings tighter as the darkness overtakes them, encroaching over the past.
Surrounded by the stars in the night Promise me that you’ll continue to shine your light So that we can meet again
Current steps out of the Rodent’s Sanctuary, having felt tremors deep underground. Initially, he had been very confused, unsure of what was going on. Was there some sort of city construction going on? Why was everything rumbling? And why was it only growing more intense?
The eyes on his screen widen as he looks off into the distance, seeing The Veil slowly becoming engulfed in a dark void that kept consuming everything, reality itself breaking apart bit by bit, slowing growing closer and closer.
His screen turns into a rotating circle, trying to process what he’s looking at, but it’s quickly replaced by a question mark, his face returning, looking concerned.
“Current?” Iron Pouches calls from inside the door. “What’s going on out there?” They open the door, walking outside. “Current? Are you okay? What’s going… On?” Their eyes turn towards Current’s direction, seeing The Veil slowly getting torn apart and practically eaten alive by a void.
“…Let’s gather everyone up.” Current says, sounding resigned to the worst. “Huddle everyone up and keep everyone safe. Just like we always do. I get the feeling we might not be coming out of this one this time.”
The star lent its light when your love was implied for my hand Now I know These strong feelings of joy overflowed, being at this distance
Chatot sighs at he looks out the window of the guildmaster’s quarters his body having been bandaged up since the expedition to Brine Cave. Just outside, he can see the darkness encroaching, the ocean being swallowed up by the consuming void off in the distance. “Well… I can’t say we didn’t at least try, guildmaster. We did everything we could, and yet…”
“It’s a bit scary…” Wigglytuff says as he stands next to Chatot, gazing out at the window as the waves crash over each other, feeling the vibrations within the guild. “What do you think happens after it gets here?”
“Truthfully? I don’t know. And maybe I’d be more comfortable not knowing.” Chatot chuckles sadly, shaking his head. “Ah well… We lived a fulfilling life, guildmaster. Everything we did, everything we’ve experienced, everywhere we’ve gone… I’m content with it. There’s not a single thing I’ve yet to do that I regret.”
“Chatooooooottt,” Wigglytuff groans poutily, turning his head to face his partner. “I know that’s not true! You’ve always said that there’s lots of things you wanted to do!”
“You know what I meant, guildmaster.” Chatot sighs, rolling his eyes. “Do we really need to get into another scuffle during our last moments? But I suppose it is like you to make it seem rather… Silly, and playful, in your own way.” He looks back out the window, seeing the darkness getting closer. “…But I suppose there is one thing I regret-“
Chu!
Chatot is silenced when he feels Wigglytuff give him a pech on the cheek, smiling happily at him as his eyes widen, staring jaw agape at the guildmaster as his pouty demeanor all but disappeared. “There. Now you can live without any regrets at all.~”
“Guildmaster…?” Chatot stammers, feeling the vibrating getting worse and worse, staring at Wigglytuff’s face, that is still smiling so serenely even as the guild begins to fall apart from the inside. Chatot’s breath wavers, and he rushes up to Wigglytuff, wrapping his wings around him tightly as the encroaching darkness finally reaches the guild. “GUILDMASTEEEEEEEEEERRRRRR!”
Surrounded by the stars In the lonely night sky, looking for the night, Promise me that you’ll continue to shine your light, so that we can meet again…
Rickety and Lexxi’s bodies had become almost fully enveloped in those glowing orbs, their bodies having grown heavier and heavier like lead. They couldn’t move anymore.
Not like they wanted to.
They were at peace now. Drifting through the empty void, finally accepting that it was time for them to go.
“Goodbye, Lexxi.” Rickety says quietly, hugging her as tightly as he can against his chest. “I’ll miss you.”
“I’ll miss you too.” Lexxi says, their bodies finally becoming enveloped within the orbs, fading from existence.
As existence itself too, begins to fade, nothing is left.
Time is lost…
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