Love in the Time of Tomorrow

Chapter 26: A Farewell

Today is the second anniversary of the Ancienverse! It's also the final day of the Ancienverse! I have so much to say, and so much to express, but I'll save that for the very end. For now, I'll allow the final chapter to do all the talking for me. Please enjoy Chapter 26!

Chapter 26

A Farewell

"The future is now, thanks to science! Full electricity on!" shouted Clemont's voice. Murmurs cascaded around the crowd that was gathered near the electrical station of Ancien City, each waiting with bated breath for the inventor to restore full power to the still broken city, many of the generators having been destroyed in the battle. Among those gathered was Serena, standing near the front of the crowd with Bonnie as a wind blew across them. With a grin to everyone that was there, Clemont pushed forward on the switch. Electricity sparked, and with a great burst of light, the whole power station lit up with little lights.

"Ooh!" Bonnie cheered out along with the rest of the crowd, clearly excited over the symbol of restoration that was now spreading throughout the city. Serena turned, as everyone else did, looking at the lights now popping up throughout the city. A cheer passed through the crowd, as if in a wave, and Serena found herself smiling as it did so. After just a single day, life was finally restored to Ancien City.

Clemont stepped away from the site of the power station, approaching both Serena and his sister with a wave and a rather embarrassed expression upon his face while he did so, rubbing at the back of his head. The action reminded Serena heavily of her husband, somewhere off doing something in helping to try and patch up the city. Not that he was alone, joined by his fellow rivals, Meyer and a number of civilians. This particular task had simply been their own job, restoring morale to the city by restoring the power. After all, it had been of top priority, only taking a little less than a day to succeed with the task. It helped that Clemont had quite the amount of experience in working with power plants, and specifically Ancien's own power grid.

That served as a bright beacon of hope for everyone there, patting him on the back and grinning. Even so, there was still a lot of work to be done.

While Clemont continued to approach, Serena cast her gaze out to the city. In less than twenty-four hours since the battle against IDEAL, the city had been an absolute flurry of activity, and their lives with it. Not that Serena had expected everything to quiet down in an instant; these sorts of things never really seemed to do that. Everyone had found their own roles, from researchers like Gary and Burnet examining the site of the final battle, where the meteonite had disappeared, to Serena leading her group of surviving Performers to passing around refreshments and lightening the mood in the city. Each and every person was focused on repairing the city to what it once was.

She let out a sigh, realizing the long road that was still ahead of them. The stadium had been almost completely demolished, with at least half of it gone. The hotel, thankfully, still stood, and workers with their Pokémon were definitely hard at work repairing it, thanks to the string from Vikavolt being as tough as ever. The Champions and researchers were certainly using it as a space to coordinate all the construction and relief efforts around the city, even while it was being patched up. All too keenly, Serena was reminded of their last battle here, all those years ago. This latest one had been far more devastating to the city and trainers that had fought as a part of it, but there was still a silver lining amidst that sizeable cloud.

"Whew, that took less time than expected," Clemont stated, finally reaching the two of them. Bonnie reached out and thumped Clemont on the back, all while Dedenne ran up her arm to nuzzle the inventor. Before the Antenna Pokémon's shocks could spark out, Bonnie grabbed him back and held him close. In her bag, Squishy burbled, but continued sleeping. The three began walking away from the power station, while those surrounding them also broke away, clearly invigorated to get some more repair work done before the evening. Serena still couldn't believe that everything had taken place such a short time ago. They hadn't even had time to get themselves or their Pokémon checked out! After all, Brock and all of the Nurse Joys there were too busy with the major glut of Pokémon injured through the battle.