After Arya

After Arya: Part 3

I'm not sure when I finally pushed myself off the stone path and started moving again. It could've been one minute or one hour. Time, which had meant so much to me only a few hours ago, was suddenly devoid of meaning. I slowly started walking down the path in the sky to get to the Rainbow Stoneship.

".........I have to live...I have to get home alive...Get home...and tell everyone about what happened. Because it's...Arya's...It's Arya's...last wish...," I sobbed, my eyes filling with tears that I didn't even know I had left.

When the tears finally cleared away, I could see the Rainbow Stoneship. "Th-there's...There's the Rainbow Stoneship..." When I was just a few steps away from it, I tripped over a loose stone. I didn't feel anything besides the crushing weight of despair, though.

I'd thought the Rainbow Stoneship was beautiful when I'd first seen it. Part of it was because through it, I had finally found the purpose of my Relic Fragment, which was deeply connected to the purpose of my life at the time. My Relic Fragment allowed the Rainbow Stoneship to operate, you see. And the Rainbow Stoneship flew Arya and me through the sky and to Dialga to meet our destinies. The ship itself was a large, circular slab. Inscribed on it was the same elaborate pattern that was on my Relic Fragment. The pattern glowed with the different colors of the rainbow when it was activated.

I slowly stepped on it, not wanting to leave the last place I'd seen Arya. As it moved away from the tower and through the sky, I noticed it did not leave the beautiful rainbow trail that it had the first time when we were arriving. How fitting. Temporal Tower was getting smaller and smaller in the distance. "Temporal Tower is...getting farther and farther away..." I couldn't finish the sentence, and I began crying again. ".......And Arya...I'm getting farther away from Arya...Oh, Arya..." I cried again. Why had this happened to me? I had wanted an exploration team, and I'd gotten that and so much more. Why did Arceus see it fitting to take it all away? Had I done something wrong?

I knew that Arya had told me that she'd had to disappear because her future had been destroyed. But why did it have to be the only way? It struck me that even though Arya had known what would happen to her, she had still gone through with it. She had sacrificed herself for our world.

The Rainbow Stoneship finally landed at the pillar where we had begun the final leg of our journey. I realized that this was the last place that Arya, Grovyle, and myself had all been together. This made me deeply sad, but my eyes had run dry.

I had to fight my way through the Hidden Highland and Hidden Land. At first, I was dreading it, as I wouldn't have Arya by my side. Once I got in there though, I realized it was easy for me to focus on battling my way through, and nothing else. I couldn't think about my loss because I was concentrating so hard.

Finally, I made it to the end of the dungeon and to Lapras, the Pokemon who had taken us to Hidden Land. Lapras was a very special Pokemon, you see, because the Hidden Land existed in the space between one second and another. It was barely even a physical location (you'll have to take that one up with Dialga himself because I don't even understand it).

"Ben!" Lapras exclaimed. "I knew you'd make it." Confusion crossed Lapras's face. "But where's Arya?"

At this point, I was exhausted and defeated, so I just hung my head and said, "She...she didn't make it."

Lapras was shocked. "What do you mean, didn't make it? Did she...?" He trailed off, but I knew what he was implying.

"No, she just...disappeared. I really don't understand it, but that's just how it is." I could feel tears stinging the back of my eyes. "But I really can't talk about it right now. I'm sorry."