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How much of a person was made from their memories?
It was Grovyle’s belief that memories only accounted for a portion. What was more vital was one’s character, their values, their heart, that which made up the soul. Memory and experiences could influence those things, but they were strong enough factors on their own that they could continue to shine even in cases where memory had been extinguished. His very partner was showing themselves as evidence of this belief.
They didn’t remember who Grovyle even was, let alone the bond they had forged together through their shared life and experiences in the future. They were Grovyle’s most trusted friend, but to them, Grovyle was a pokemon they only very recently learned was an ally rather than stranger or foe. Their time spent travelling, researching and planning, their very life mission, had been wiped from their mind. Their own personal history in the harsh existence that was the future timeline had been entirely forgotten. All through no fault of their own, a victim to the accident that had caused their amnesia.
But their heart had remained. Grovyle knew his partner’s heart more than anyone else, and he could feel that it was the same. Their quiet strength, their determination, their bravery when taking the lead, and their desire for good within the world. These traits were exactly how they had come to be of such importance within Grovyle’s life in the first place, and Grovyle was relieved to witness their endurance. Grovyle loved them for the person that they were, and still did. They would always be Grovyle’s dearest friend.
The night at Sharpedo Bluff was the first chance Grovyle had to breathe again since his entire involuntary detour into the future and back. The first time he could have a brief period of rest, time to process the events that had happened and the truths he had learned throughout. He sat within the gape in the clifface, comfortable in how it provided privacy and protection, as he watched the other members of his current team laying in their straw beds.
There was something touching about seeing his formerly human partner now taking the form of a Treecko. Grovyle had still been one himself when they had first met. His partner had towered over him then, even the smallest human easily being larger than a Treecko. Now, his partner was the smaller one between them. Perhaps he was being delusional, but Grovyle wondered if the transformation into this particular species wasn’t a coincidence, but was related to himself in some way. He supposed he would never find the answer, as his partner had no recollection of their transformation. It would be an idea Grovyle would have to cling to as proof of their connection that would never be as mutual as it once was.
Next to his partner was the other small pokemon, Chimchar, as he lay curled up and instinctively facing them. Grovyle knew he would have reason to harbour particular feelings about this Chimchar. The chimp pokemon had been openly and stubbornly antagonistic towards Grovyle to a significant extent while they had been in the future. Simply establishing a base level of trust had been an arduous task in itself. But more than mere personality clash, Chimchar now also represented something else that Grovyle had to accept.
His partner had replaced him.
His partner had latched onto Chimchar as a result of their circumstances, their bond evidently having already deepened into becoming each other’s most important person. The recounting of his partner’s Dimensional Scream activation proved how early their trust had been established. Grovyle and Chimchar shared the same best friend, but their best friend’s memory only extended to one of them. Chimchar now had the role that Grovyle used to have; the one that was by his partner’s side through their battles, the one who brought them back to the present from their Dimensional Scream episodes, the one that spoke for the both of them. The one who was their strongest support.
However, Grovyle found that he held no ill-will towards his partner for this outcome, nor towards Chimchar. On the contrary, Chimchar was the pokemon that he could be grateful for having been there for his partner at their most vulnerable time. A pokemon that loved and cared for his partner just as he did. A pokemon that was currently offering up his own safe home as a place for them all to sleep. Chimchar had Grovyle’s blessing as his partner’s new closest friend. Even though he and Chimchar had started on the wrong foot until Chimchar had learned the truth, and despite their differences in personality, Grovyle knew they both wanted the same things. Their partner’s happiness and best interests at heart, and a desire for a world in which pokemon could live peacefully and chase their dreams.
That type of world was always going to have to be Grovyle’s priority. He couldn’t let the mourning of his own relationship with his partner interfere with that. He was lucky to have even met them again at all, glad to see them alive and well. Even though his partner didn’t remember, Grovyle was going to continue to fulfil their mission. He would accept the circumstances and press onwards, even if it hurt him to do so. In the long-term, only one of their trio was going to have to face the most pain of all in the end.
Grovyle didn’t know how he was supposed to break it to the pair about what the consequences of saving the future entailed. His partner had accepted them before, but now they no longer had a fully informed decision about the erasure of their own existence. Grovyle knew his partner would accept the terms again for the sake of the world, but it felt cruel to add this knowledge on top of what was already one overwhelming revelation after another. And even more cruel now that there was another party, not from their time, that had become involved.
Grovyle had lived with the separation from his partner temporarily, but Chimchar would be the one that would have to live with it permanently for the rest of his life. Grovyle and his partner would disappear into the same fabric of the universe, while Chimchar would be left to push himself forward on his own without his own best friend and source of strength by his side anymore. Grovyle could never feel negatively towards Chimchar when he knew the pain he would have to suffer all alone. Grovyle had neither regrets nor jealousy, only the sincerest of sympathies towards his partner, and their own partner, for the inevitable parting that they would have to face.