*Lifts a megaphone* AYYY, LAST AUTHOR NOTE, EVERYBODY! FOR REAL THIS TIME! And I really mean that, because there's not even an Author Note at the end of the chappie like usual. Hehe~
Herro, everyone! Welcome to the supposed "secret" chapter. Also known as Extras. ;3 If you for some reason wish to read this before the technical final T&I chappie, which was the last one, be warned that there are spoilers…! I tried to include as many questions as I could. Some were included for clarifications, others for genuine answers, and some are bits of silliness. If you scroll through this document real quick, all questions our underlined, so if you're not in the mood to actually read the chapter and instead want certain answers… it'll be easy to find them? X3

Since this is the last A/N, lemme say… I love you guys! Kyaaa—if you're reading this, I love you so darn much, because that means you read through over forty chapters worth of my writing! I applaud you because that's super dang impressive, ESPECIALLY because you had to deal with my unbearable uploading times… pluuus, you read that monster of a last chapter at 20,000 words. That's QUITE an accomplishment! X3

So—thank you… everybody…

Again, I love you all~

Now…

Can you do the honors, Ruby? I mean—Sun?

Dandelion: I stand as a much better candidate.

Sun: Pfft… I guess I can make the time for your 'plebeian' wish. Hehe. X3

Dandelion: *Gawks* Luxray, you are quite a respective individual now. Plebian! Such admired vocabulary.

Ruby: Ah, um… I was kidding mostly, just because… you're here…

Dandelion: #^# *Aura goes aflame; drools lethal magma* URRRGH, THIS IS WHY I HATE MOST POKÉMON!

Me: Rubaaae, you're holding us up…! ;w;

Ruby: Whoops—okay, okay, here we go! *Raises a hefty paw and slams it forward, shattering the fourth wall*

As two pokemon began dusting up the debris leftover from the grand fourth-wall destruction…

"Fang, where'd you leave the camera?!"

"Camera? Huuuh? What's a camera, Star?"

"Well, er… you know! It's otherworldly, magical, advanced, human-esque…"

"Uuuummm…"

"The weird black box with all the funny lights and doodads. Where is it!"

"Ooooh. That! Uh, I placed it in the bushes over there. It's like the bush has an eye and I created a new type of Pokémon!"

"Pfft. Fang, you're a special pooch."

"D'aawww! Thanks! I love you super-duper much, Star~"

"Eheh, d'aaww… wait, I'm holding up all the readers! This romance has to wait until later!"

"Gasp! DID YOU JUST BREAK THE FOURTH WALL?!"

"Catch up with the rest of the world, Fang!"

After some frantic rustling of underbrush, an intensely focusing zorua popped up, adjusting the camera before she dipped away. A large, leaf-littered clearing and a ginormous sequoia quickly replaced her close-up. With sunbeams leaking through the canopy and gentle winds twirling all around, it was tranquil scenery to find comfort in, but it was easily ruined in a remarkably disorganized fashion. Diverse Pokémon filed in, jamming the clearing with colorful furs and paws and chaotic clamors. An arbok's head wobbled obliviously in front of the camera, blocking off all sight with violet shadows, and a poochyena hurriedly shoved the serpent out of the way despite the price of a nasty bite. Everyone casually settled in at a rapid pace.

"N-no, don't make me do this!" a voice bellowed from the massive tree. On the ramp leading up to the Great Sequoias' platform, trembling on stubby legs stood the anxiety's source as a loudred, his stereo-like ears twitching uncontrollably. "I kn-know what's gonna happen when I go up there. I don't wanna be a laughing stock anymore—I can't take the humiliation!"

Standing behind this rebelling speaker, to his misfortune, stood one of the most formidable creatures ever to scar Sugarcane Forest. Her paw slapped against his back and jolted him forward. "Just move it," the luxray grumbled. A warning shock of electricity arced off her mane and jolted the poor normal-type's hand, which convinced him fretfully forward and onto center stage. All sunshine seemed to curve around him as he interlocked sweaty fingers, forced some coughs, and somehow manned up the courage to actually speak.

"A-ack… um… w-we-welcome to—!"

A poochyena hurtled at unnatural speeds at the loudred and mercilessly knocked both of them out of sight. Properly expecting this interruption, the luxray that had pushed him into the death trap stood away a safe distance, and she shook her head at this violent silliness before sauntering into the heart of the Great Sequoias. An ever-fabulous zorua strutted out from the crevice just as Ruby faded into her shadows, and the eager dark-type surveyed the crowd with a broad sweep of a glance. Her nose was raised the highest it could go as a satisfied smile cut across her snout. She dared a big and prosperous inhale.

The ground rumbled from her voice's cheerful might, a slight tremor of pure, raw excitement claiming the square: "Helloooo, Sugarcane! Welcome, Pokémon and fanfiction readers—that's right, I mean you!—to the craziest, silliest, most fourth-wall-breaking meeting ever to be held at the Great Sequoias. I will be your host, the charming, mischievous, forever perfect Star"—pink-purple glitter momentarily flowered around her—"and I introduce you to the first and final installment of… Star's Spectacular!"

Pokémon weren't entirely sure how to react, but they clapped anyway.

"There will be Thunder and Ice extras, kyuu-and-ayy—ahem, Q&A—plus, uhhh… lots of randomness. And it'll all be super funny. We have all of the things!"

The crowd more fervently bestowed applause, and Star snickered in ecstasy, appreciative of this well-received start.

"I can't host this meeting alone, though, and I'm hardly just a side-character anyways: so! May I welcome the beloved Shard to the stage." A glaceon then spawned out of nowhere, instantly appearing dizzy and disorientated beside the zorua. "Aaand… someone bring in Thunder!" He abruptly fell from the canopy's leafiness above. After landing painfully belly-down on the wood, his eyes went from unsuspecting normalcy to bewilderment, and his scream clawed at the bubbly atmosphere. It silenced the audience's exuberance for only a heartbeat, however. "Plus, let's bring in Petal, Ruby, and, uh… Falcon, just 'cause there are too many girls here. Hehe!" The rest casually walked out from the colossal trunk and found nice, respective spots to sit in peacefully.

Impaled with the emotions of uncertainty, Shard and Falcon reached their own private agreement to awkwardly fiddle with paws and talons. Petal's dark, condescending laugh had easily mined irritation from beneath Thunder's pain. Ruby ignored these interactions, too busy puffing a snobby breath and stomping a paw with exasperation. "Zorua, you said," Ruby began with a weak frown, "if I just forced that gosh-darn standup act onstage, I wouldn't have to bear through this! Hey, and why am I still be called Ruby?! My name is Sun… now…" She faltered, still mystified and unused to the new name.

"Uhh, my only explanation is that I lied! Oh, and… Suuuun, you say?" The zorua gasped dramatically, and she raced over the very short distance to rudely shove furry snout against furry snout. The luxray instantly appeared uncomfortable. "Does that make us both starrrs? Are we related now~?"

A slightly suppressed, intolerable snarl faded upon her needle-toothed maw. "No, definitely not."

"Welp, then is your name still Ruby? Ru-Ru? Rubae? Hmm? Hmmmmmm?" Star hopped forward. Ruby inched backward.

"N-no! Ugh, just—" As she scooted away just a little bit more, her hindquarters met unforgiving air and she plummeted offstage. She landed with a muffled oof in the crowd along with the crying yelp of a smashed poochyena, having fallen on him. Star whistled at a high pitch before snapping back into a tall, formal stance and brightly facing the crowd.

"Any~hoo, enough distractions! All of the Pokémon I magically spawned here today are gonna help me answer some questions, which y'all so kindly asked us! The reader is the most important part of any story, after all. Thunder and Ice was made for you! From the cray-cray to the serious stuff, we're gonna try an answer 'em all, mmkay? Mmkay!" The zorua wildly shook her body from ears to tail, and several slips of tiny, scrappy paper curled out from her scarf-like mane. She flounced elegantly over to Petal, who had begun to absently groom a forepaw with disinterest, and grinned from ear to ear. "C'mon, pick a paper, any paper! It's like drawing name from a hat, but instead it's questions from my fur!"

The leafeon rolled her eyes before plucking the one in easiest reach. She dropped it uncaringly to the oaky floor, briskly read it over, and shifted uncomfortably. When Star widened her crimson-lidded eyes expectantly, Petal complied with reading it aloud. "This says Where the… frick… are Shard, Thunder, and their legit friend circles sleep after the end of the story? Like... will Shard and Thunder or Fang and Star share dens? Um, then in parentheses, it says, with no spaces whatsoever, hehe Fang and Star koff koff? And at the end, Will Petal become crazy overprotective?" The leafeon's face brightened despite her best wishes to prevent it. "To that final bit, no. I won't be overprotective. Ack… wh-what sort of question is this?"

The zorua giggled at this obvious discomfort. "Geeeez, Petal! Don't say that with such a tsundere scoff! Our readers have hearts, you dumbo."

"What? Tsundere?" Petal spat.

"C'mon, just answer sincerely~"

The leafeon's tail flickered angrily a few times in protest, but her iron-will caved in. "Well… Honestly, I think it'll be the other way around… Even though I'm kind of fierce, Faolan probably will be overprotective of me, especially since he's stronger and much taller and… yeah…"

With Thunder having slightly recovered from the aches of falling, he added, "O-on my end, Shard and I are just gonna continue doing us. Without any more major problems, anyway… and after time, if we're still together, we'll probably share a den… if you're okay with that, Shard?"

"E-eheh…" The glaceon shyly eyed the jolteon. "Th-that sounds… nice…"

"Then they'll have cubs, start a family…" Petal drawled casually. Their cheeks immediately flamed with hilarious blushes.

"Wh-what…!"

Star gazed upward thoughtfully and chirped, "Ooh, I wanna share a den with Fang! But we'll probably share something silly and uncommon at one point, like a tree, or a hole in the sand, because why not? Anyways, next question!" She zipped over to the heavily flustered glaceon and proudly puffed out her scruff. It took a moment before Shard oriented herself, and she accidentally pulled two instead of one and she squeaked and her face blared with fiercer reds and Star laughed lightheartedly.

She smoothed them both nervously against the ground with a paw, and she noticed with capsizing relief that the questions meant the same thing. "These say, How are Fawn and Scarlet doing? and Fawn…What happened to her? Is she OK?"

"Aha, well…" Thunder started, knowing the answer, but he mournfully trailed off. Soon, realizing they were going absolutely nowhere, Star decided to bring in those that were questioned and she waved a crimson paw and two fennekins popped in within clouds of smoke. It was cub-friendly smoke, of course. No young'uns would be harmed in the making of this Star's Spectacular.

For convenience's sake, Star magically gifted knowledge of the asked questions, and thus Scarlet spoke up without need of a verbal explanation. "Oh, um… I'm okay, e-everybody, still pretty ruffled but doing okay, and Fawn… she, she took Copper's… pa-assing… better than I thought she would. But… st-still…" The tinier cub faced her only bestie remaining in the world, and Fawn seemed crushed on stage, her head hung with a gloomy, purple air. Setting aside all signs of stage fright or care for the viewers, Scarlet gently rested a paw on Fawn's slouched back, and she stroked it in a comforting manner. As the observing crowd 'aww'd in deep empathy, Fang climbed onto the platform and escorted them off stage, kindly offering to go pick their favorite berries together.

"Oh wow, what a feels trip," Star whimpered, gripping the left side of her chest in vain attempts to calm a throbbing heart. "Those cuties are gonna get better every day, at least. Give 'em time. Time heals all…" She then walked over to Thunder the blunder, who had finally crawled up into a sitting position from his belly-down pain, and he clawed out one of the slips. Star felt a sharp, sudden, tiny pain in her neck. "Hey, watch the merchandise!" the zorua squealed indignantly.

"Sorry, it was just a fur or two." Ignoring her intensely narrowed eyes, he scanned the writing. "What happened to Xatu? Is he still down the garbage chute?" The jolteon paused, visibly puzzled. "Um, may I ask who is Xatu? And what's a garbage chute?"

"Nuuuooo, you may not ask!" Star squealed within her blindness of anger, still fuming as she repeatedly slapped the jolteon's shoulder. As he rubbed the aching spot, a certain luxray finally returned to stage, limping slightly upon the upward-sloping ramp.

"If I had to guess," the luxray huffed, "Xatu is staring at the sun all day and brewing potions when he can't, so, yeah, he's probably still a cuckoo birdie."

Star suddenly appeared troubled. "Mmrrr, if only we could confirm that—ugh, but I don't wanna bring him in heeerrreee…" The zorua host, with a flickering lightbulb of an idea above her head's red-tipped puff of fur, gave a magnificent flailing of forepaws with excitement and purpose. The motions stirred her overpowered, non-canon magic and she brought a humongous HD television down from the canopy. Every Pokémon stared in dazzled, dumbfounded awe. "Let's see for ourselves, shall we?" A gentle glow flashed alive on the glass screen, and amidst the televised, shrub-dotted clearing was a number of things: an oddly shaped tent, a pink-and-purple Pokémon with dreamy mist, and the fabled cuckoo real in the feathers.

He was staring at the sun.

After a long moment, it became obvious that was the only thing he'd be doing, and the screen switched to abysmal black.

"Welp!" Star yelped. "That wasn't eventful, but at least this TV-thingamabob contraption works. Answering questions about Pokémon not here in-the-flesh will toootally be faster now! Next inquiry!" She drew a paper herself from her silky mane. "Is Lobo older or younger? Um. He's older. Uhh… that was too simple." She snatched another. "What happened to Scarlet after Thunder was hurt and Shard was hurt and all? She helped everybody get better, but then she was just her quiet side-character-self once again and was just trying to hold back tears and the truth of… Copper… Agghh, so sad! Welp, again, that was simple, so third time's the charm!" Another swipe, another paper. "Will Aqua have to change her name, now that she's a Glaceon? Yesss, it's Coconut now! 'Cause she's sweet and watery inside despite the furry, ice-hard outside. Ugh, next!" One more time. "Does Aqua find her way back to Maplewood or will she stay in Sugarcane? She goes back! Sweet pechas, why am I getting questions that were already answered in the story?!" She childishly batted at the four shreds of unentertaining paper. Thunder helpfully butted in.

"The person asked them before the last two chapters were a thing! Actuallyyy… they kinda helped Shadow organize those chapters. She nearly forgot to mention stuff involving Aqua's evolution, and she initially wasn't ever gonna mention how Lobo's older even though he's still a luxio. Did that answer that?"

"Pssh, I didn't need your blunderous help, Blunder McBlundykins." The zorua stuck out her tongue and the jolteon merely glanced away, handling her with a matured soul. "Since you're so talkative, Blunder, you get to pull the next paper!"

"Fine by me~" His claw snagged a paper and another fur, which provoked the already-agitated zorua to pounce at him, but he jutted out a foreleg and held her back with a paw while reading. "In all caps, it says, What happened to Petal and Faolan? Then, lower-cased, Is Petal seriously just going to forgive Faolan for everything he's done? Shame shame shame Petal and Faolan…" The electric-type smiled very wide. "Pfffft, hahaha! Yeaaah, Petal, care to explaaaain?"

Her hazel orbs twinkled tearfully, but she immediately hid this sign of emotion. "The past doesn't matter that much, does it?" Then, to tell the truth, a thick cloud of shame swamped together and rumbled over her head, but instead of lightning and her own personal downpour, a neon sign beamed from the gloom and colorfully flashed SHAME many times. "Urf. W-well, Faolan forgave me because he wanted to fix all sins, because of his sudden enlightenment from Arceus, or whatever… and when he'd saved my life from Lobo, he… hemademe… reallyhappy…" She shook her head, realizing she started strolling too far down Sentimental Lane. "I've been so used to fending for myself, mostly because Shard doesn't fight, and have had the need to protect her. Always. Now, not only is someone else watching Shard, there's someone here to protect me for once… and when Faolan saved me, when he set aside the past and said he'd forgive and forget… I… I'm sorry, my heart decided this, not me!"

"D'aaaaw, wittle Petal has finally grown up!" The leafeon glared hateful infernos in the jolteon's direction, but he actually hadn't uttered a peep. "Boo~" Petal's ears pointed straight up as she realized the true culprit. Turning around slowly, she zeroed her hazel eyes on the sequoia's crevice and saw a manectric head sticking out, and it catered a cutesy smile with wiggling eyebrows.

"Ahhh! Faolan! No!" She scrambled for the nearest object, picked up an unsuspecting poochyena, and chucked him in this heartbeat of rage. Faolan lowered his head only slightly and the pup missed, rebounding like a bouncy ball off the wooden trunk and careening off into mysterious nowhere.

"I'll wait for you inside, my love," he purred, holding his paw to his muzzle and blowing a kiss. When he backed inside, Petal's entire body quaked with a strong blend of embarrassment, love, and fiendish anger. Thunder enjoyed this spectacle to an unbelievable amount, but Shard, her uncovered eye curtained in worried tears, cruised over to comfort her bestie.

Star gestured towards the uninvolved electric-type, and she sighed. "My turn," Sun gruffly announced, ripping out two questions and more than a strand of fur. Star didn't dare to voice her pain and retaliation, though. "What had even made Ruby so cold if she did feel some warm feelings towards Shard? Was it because Shard accused Ruby?" The luxray lightly shook her head, a little reflective, a little miserable. "Well, kind questioner, when you lived in the conditions like I had… it is near impossible to not be corrupted with what I like to call a black heart. Shard helped me cope with these conditions for a good while, but when she accused me—when she… left me…" She opted to chuckle, even though it came strained and sorrowful. "I lost myself, aha—"

The luxray leapt at least three feet in the air at the startling sound of messy tissue blowing. Fang, his yellowish eyes completely waterlogged like a flooded waterpark, had a huge pile of snotty, crumpled tissues beside him as he threw the hundredth one into the pile. "This story is so saaaaad…" he sniffled. The entire audience was whimpering and sobbing in a similar fashion.

"My stars, you…" Ruby's paw rested anxiously by her chest, ears screaming with her escalated heartbeat. "Why do you keep appearing out of nowhere?!"

"That's not an official reader question!" Star scolded. A frying pan was suddenly cradled between her forepaws, ready to smack the angsty luxray with it if she dared question another inane thing. Ruby's maw hung numbly open at the thought of protest, but it ultimately closed. "Aha, that's what I thought~" The silly zorua then worked to decide the next participant and, since everyone seemed somewhat out of it, she raced over to Falcon—who stood stiller than Petal's dignity the entire time, on the far edge of the stage—and fluffed out her neck to him, spines of paper bristling like trapped pieces of confetti. "Your turn, Silent Falcon!"

When he understood he truly had no choice, Falcon claimed a piece of paper with his acute nitpicking. He grabbed one of the shorter scraps, yet, to his misfortune, it had one of the longest inquiries written in dreadfully small, messy handwriting. He squinted at it like an old torkoal. "Will… Will Falcon ever settle down or will he always be… like… super cool night bird guardian dude… that has childish friend girl…?" After a quick, almost unnoticeable breath, he bowed his mighty head apologetically. "I am sorry, but this had been written in all capital letters and with no breaks in between. I… just could not reiterate in that sort of tongue…"

Thunder blinked rapidly, struggling to process the smoothly spoken words. "Don't worry about it, bro, but that's a very interesting question. What's your answer?"

The shadow-feathered Pokémon stared blankly at his jolteon pal, and it stayed like that for an unanticipated time, sapphire tints gleaming towards two pits of mysterious, milky blackness wherein zero emotion relented. Star contemplated whether or not to knock the nearby poochyena into something painful, just to cause some entertaining commotion again, but the super cool night bird guardian dude finally snapped open his narrow beak with a reply.

"Sure."

He wouldn't say another peep, to the dissatisfaction of everyone else.

Except for his childish friend girl, that is. The pidgeotto spotted an opportunity and took it. In a flurry of sandy feathers, she darted down from above and completely smothered the staraptor in a grateful, ohmigosh-it's-like-so-nice-to-see-you-again hug, which invoked no reactions from him per usual, and she spun on hyper talons into center stage. Star tried barking a protest, but a huge mouthful of feathers slapped her in the face and stunned her for long enough.

"Ohmigoooosh, why didn't anyone invite me to this farewell announcement party thingy?! Oooh, hi there, everybody!" The attentive audience screamed and clapped in an overwhelmingly positive response, flaring the pidgeotto's cheeks with a little rosy color. "Oh my, oh my, you're all way too super kind! Can I be part of this thing? Wow, I'm totally being part of this thing! What's this thing called? Uhhh, I'll call it… Skylar's Spectacular. Ooh, that's a good name. I'm a pretty smart birdie~" Supportive hollers and bellows waved up from the crowd, further reddening the talkative Pokémon.

"Wh-what?!" Star radiated with desperation. "No no nooo, Skylar, this is my show!"

"But the crowd agrees~" Before the zorua could panic enough and predict this in paranoia, the pidgeotto fluttered up so her talons became very useful tools, and she swiped all the papers from Star's twilight-furred mane. Miraculously, she stole every piece without also snatching any of the forcefully-retired host's furs. "This is borin', just drawing from like a hat and stuff! So, let's make things more dynamic."

Those broad wings heaved her high, high up into the dizzying air, just barely beneath the Great Sequoias' plentiful dome of leaves, and the tight grip of her talons simply relaxed. Paper fluttered down. Star frowned as all her control had officially been snatched from her, her remorseful eyes witnessing the strange sort of snowfall.

"Mm? You okay, Star?" a poochyena pressed, having dutifully appeared by her flank.

As if she heard another question, the zorua declared darkly, "I'll take back my show."

"Ummm, is it okee-doke that everyone on stage overheard you say that?" He poked her cheek in a playful, totally-Fang manner.

"Everyone but Skylar, you mean. She's too busy making herself into a queen—so, yes."

Right to her words, the pecha-pink beak snapped at the speed of a hasty typewriter, bold words filing out into the ears of all below. "You now must all humbly call me Your Skylord and it must be said at least every other paragraph and we can only speak in run-on sentences and I shall make this show great!" As she pronounced the 't' sound in 'great', her talon snatched a piece of fallen paper from the ground with lightning quickness, and her beady eyes read it in sugary eagerness.

"Does Ruby have a retarded twin?! Ohhh-mai-gawsh, this is, like, the best question of all existence, according to the great and ever-beautiful Skylord! I'd applaud if talons could applaud. Wait, can they? Oooooh, I made an even better question! I haven't really ever tried—hmm~" Her mind trailed into intense thought, her attention completely deprived from the stage and the audience where it truly belonged. The nearby luxray sighed, impulsively ran her claws through her mane to ease some stress, and blinked timidly towards the puzzled crowd. "Allow me to be insightful.

"Deep down in all of our heads, within our craziest, silliest, zaniest depths where a well of stupidity ripples… the real question originates. Deep, deep down in our heads, who doesn't have a retarded twin? I leave you with that question." A philosophical silence followed these strange words, and then all of a pidgeotto's feathers bristled in shock.

"Oh, oh, that's riiight! Skylord's Spectacular is going on right now. Whoopsies!" Skylar the Skylord bowed apologetically to the crowd as the luxray blinked fitfully. Sun swallowed an instinct to give a whip of cursing, taped on a brave face, and endured the flighty attitude like everyone else. "For that Ruby thing, the answer is eye-dee-kay! What's that spell? IDK! That's actually a very weird question." She fluffed her wings like an overenthusiastic cheerleader. "Yeeeee, now Skylord draws the next ques—!"

Finally, a poochyena barreled in from the side and knocked them both offstage. A nonexistent statistic proved that four out of five Pokémon sighed with relief at this time. As the crowd recovered from this event, a certain zorua wiped the sweat from her brow and quickly marched into center stage, reassuming her title as the Spectacular host.

As Petal and Thunder received zorua orders to clean up the disorganized, papery mess all over the place, Star situated herself between a visibly bewildered glaceon and luxray, politely smoothing her ruffled mane and smiling with the brightness of a Dandelion's flame.

"Okay, everybody, we're rapidly losing daylight"—she looked urgently towards the dimming treetops—"so, geez, let's hurry this up! Craziness is just dragging everything out. Sun, please keep any and all other interruptions as bay, so we can finish up waywayway faster and you can disappear to wherever you went after last chapter. 'Kay?" Satisfied at the casual use of her newfangled name, Sun gave a dignified nod. "'Kay! Go guard everything now." And the electric-type stood up and did so and that was that.

Petal plucked a question as she swept up the place. "I admit that this is crazy, but I am now curious that you mentioned it: How many Leppa Berries can Fang fit in his mouth?"

A poochyena returned to the stage at his name—with the absence of a chipper-beaked pidgeotto—and he slowly acknowledged the silence simmering away. "Fang, Fang, Fang!" the crowd chanted, each exclamation louder than the last, and a heap of tiny, perfectly round, blazing red berries rolled conveniently out from the inner sanctum of the Great Sequoias. As everyone with sense uselessly pondered the logic of Fang's illogical occurrences, he shoveled Leppa after Leppa into his maw. Spicy flavor unleashed its Lepparific wrath; eyes watered and fur spiked and ears flattened and whimpers existed. As the forty-second berry squished in with the forty-one others, the poochyena paused, sweating a river. A victorious cheer of "YAAAAAAAS" roared from the crowd in attempts to motivate him onward.

Star than tiptoed up and poked the wall of berry skins, juices, stems, and seeds cobbled in his mouth. She leapt back with the snickering of a madmon as a liquid fire explosion sprayed from one tiny maw, an overwhelming scorch upon the hairs on Pokémon's heads. Fang greatly careened back from the force and a blatant, distinct, poochyena-shaped gap marked its legacy into the Great Sequioas' trunk—and from the other side of the newly-established hole, he miraculously lived. Smiling through broken, burning teeth, he called, "Am okeaayrrhh!" and the entire audience practically backflipped with enthusiasm, they were so entertained.

"Uh… next paper?" Thunder mumbled, smoothing a slip against the floor. "Ehe. In all caps: WILL RUBAE GAGA SUMMON A BRICK STORM AND KILL THE STUPID LUXRAY CLAN?"

Sun blinked many times. "Rubae… Gaga…?"

As a happy hoot from Keldeo pierced ensuing silence, the luxray took a few gentle steps towards the front edge of the stage, inhaled as everyone else held their breath, and forcefully said, "The answer is no."

Then, in obvious rebellion, a flock of bricks completely overshadowed the crowd, flying from east to west, and just as quickly disappeared through the wall of trees as it appeared. The bricks were very determined to track down the departed Luxray Clan and smite them.

"What? I said no! Why in the stars is it specifically a brick storm, anyway?"

"Don't question the darling readers!" Star chirped without a care. "Anywho, it's myyy turn! Petal and Blunder, scoop up the paper faster!"

"I'm not your slave!"
"STOP CALLING ME THAT."

The zorua just smiled as they swept over a mound of white slips. She snatched a total of three in desperation, realizing her grand Spectacular had definitely dragged into overtime. "WHAT HAPPENED TO EMOLGA? Oh, Rubae's old buddy thing? She is… hmm, I dunno. Let's see!" The gigantic, crystalline television tethered above gave some static noises as it beamed on, revealing a fluffy, yellow-white Pokémon with membrane wings. Her little snores echoed from within a snug oak, her black, broomstick tail and floppy ears swishing lightly with every exhale. Star gasped in horror and offense. "She didn't come to my show? Rude!" The screen flickered unceremoniously to a pitch black. "All in all, she looks content and normal with her life right now. She obviously doesn't care for the most important things in life such as this meeting, though. Hmph!

"Next question is, If Lobo was soooo concerned with strength, why didn't he evolve into a Luxray? Welp, I wouldn't be the best one answering this! Ru-ru~?"

"Please call me Sun."

"Fine! Su-su~?"

The luxray grumpily compromised with that. "He wanted to be powerful in the first place so he could become a strong clan leader. When he saw all the work I went through as a cub, which made me so admired hunting-wise, he became a lazy, unproductive snob." She sighed, acknowledging her statement's bluntness but showing her exasperation to be the cause of it. "He knew he'd rule the clan regardless due to being the only male heir, and females weren't allowed to reign, so he didn't have to labor for the title. Since he was the stupid clan prince, he became lazy, and because he was lazy, he stopped working so hard, and therefore he didn't evolve." She sighed again. "The end."

"Yup yup, that's that, and now the last one I drew was… Ooh, Thunder and Ice, but like, Mario Kart." Mischievousness caked Star's expression, weaving into her narrow grin and crazily twitching tail. "Welp, I would sooo be the triple banana peels, don't you think?"

Shard nodded after a thoughtful hesitation. Sun tilted her head with that large nose wrinkled in confusion, the poor luxray wishing she understood. "Why are we deciding what items we'd be? Wouldn't it be better if we were racing? Choosing the Mario character's we'd be? Ya'know—something crazier for this crazy show?"

"That's what people expect, so newp. Su-su, you would be the lightning item!" The zorua giggled at her ingeniousness. "Fang would be the ink squid that that messes with your screen—a blooper! Or maybe a Super Star, because that's one of the wildest items. And Blunder, he would be a siiingle banana peel, sad and small and only a minor trouble."

The jolteon's ears flattened as he glared. "Hey! If anything, I'd be a…"

"Banana peel~"

"Nooo! Maybe a Bullet Bill, or the Dash Mushroom—ya'know, because I'm so speedy?"

"Nope. Banana peel," the zorua cooed, completely dismissive of his feelings. "And Shard… eh, Shardy-chan would be the coins on the roadway. She can't hinder others. Ever." With a frank, understanding gaze, the glaceon nodded in full agreement.

"Welp, we could debate this question all season, so let's stop here. If the readers want to decide who other characters would be, or they… disagree with my choices"—she sharpened a threatening gaze and scanned the crowd, steeled with intimidation—"then feel free to review your thoughts!" She suddenly smiled a too-sugary smile and batted her eyes like an innocent little girl.

"Anyways… Falcon! You're returning to the spotlight!" The staraptor, easily forgotten and ignored once again, peered up from his tiny, private corner of solitude. Two pairs of sharp, crimson eyes interlocked in mental combat. Star waved towards the inquiry pile without relenting even a millisecond-long glance away, yearning to win this sudden, intense staring contest. "You get to choose the next question, Falcy-boy~"

He blinked hard a few times, and as the zorua whooped with victory, Falcon unfurled massive wings and glided over to the circle of papers. He read, "Star's ability is Illusion; and it's so OP of an ability. How did she even learn how to use it? I don't think it's easy to twirl in the air and come down as a completely new Pokémon, right?"

As the mysterious Silent Falcon darted back to his quiet corner, Star lost all sense of competition and bashfully fiddled with her scruff, as if some unseen importance itched beneath it. "Why thank you, questioner, for indirectly calling me OP! What a real confidence booster, hehe…" She saluted in thanks towards the camera. "All zorua learn Illusion at some point. It's natural! When we first learn to walk, we also learn the kinks of our Illusion powers. We're born this way! I taught myself to do glitzy twirls and backflips while doing it, though. Nothing's wrong with a little flair~"

Star cheerfully nuzzled the glaceon's shoulder, urging her past a returning dread of stage fright wherein stunned her to silence. "It's your turn!" Shard nervously picked a question from the rounded-up clutter of them.

"Um, s-so, this one says… Line up all of the main characters. As in… Shard, Thunder, all their friend circles, (Fennekin Clan/Xatu and Musharna/anyone else like that) but not legit bad guys. Who do you think is the best bad guy material out of them?"

"Stellar reading, Shardy!" the zorua praised, and silence hung, all Pokémon solemnly considering this with intrigue. "Should we drag Shadow ze Snivy out for this? I mean, this question is sorta directed at her."

A poochyena gave a giant leap from deep within the crowd and landed onstage. "Ohmigosh, yeessss. We can torture her. WITH LOVE!" Throwing his paws up with a happy howl, small bundles of confetti soared up like a cloud and gently trickled back down on him. "I will pounce-hug her and it'll be great, yaaaay! She is my masturrrr and I love my masturrrr."

"Okee-doke, then it's settled!" The zorua tapped a forepaw as she assumed an authoritative air. "Shardy-chan, can you fetch her, pretty-pleeease?

The ice-type nodded dutifully, eyes glittering at the interesting possibilities after dragging out the author and her creator, and she swooped inside the heart of the Great Sequoias. As her some gentle, considerate voice echoed out and seemed to fail at peacefully coaxing, she yanked the black-and-purple monstrosity into the light by the tail. The snivy mutation was greedily eating potato chips. Fang's mouth waterfalled with drool, but even he knew no amount of begging would earn him a chip.

"Um, Sh-Shadow, are you gonna say hi to your audience…?" Shard pressed hesitantly. With the glaceon subconsciously frightened of a flagrant, cataclysmic bout of silliness from the darkly-scaled serpent, which would embarrass the entirety of Thunder and Ice, Shadow's eyes flitted to little slits and she mumbled:

"I need my glasses."

Fang then lunged with determination and madly licked her face. A thin piece of eyewear toppled out of his fur, and Shadow picked it up from the ground and adjusted them calmly, not even thinking of forcing Fang back nor wiping off his festering layers of saliva while doing so.

"So, Shadow!" Star copied the above question and threw it in Shadow's face. The snivy dully swept the underlined text away with Fang's drool in one broad, sweeping arm motion, and she had easily retained the information. "Answer that question, pwetty pweash~?" Shadow finally opened her mouth, ready to utter her first word of the entire story.

"Psst. Petal." Thunder leaned towards a leer-etched leafeon, who leaned away while flashing blunt, unthreatening teeth. It obviously hadn't deterred his persistence. "How does a pair of glasses stay on a snivy if snivys don't have ears?"

"Nothing's making sense anyways, so shush," was her snarling response. The jolteon rolled his eyes and returned attention to the slobber-faced snivy and overenthusiastic poochyena, but he quickly realized he missed something.

"Ooh, funny answer, Shadow!" Star yipped, smirking wide. Shadow sassily placed her hand on her hips and grinned in a prideful, confident way.

"P-psst, Petal…" The leafeon hissed at her name in his voice. "Wh-what did she say?"

"Oh Blunder, Blunder." Petal's jaws hadn't so much as twitched—the grass-type was quieter than a grass whistle—so shocked sapphire and hazel eyes alike whirled to the serpent with a sort of tsk, tsk in her expression. "I said that Thunder is the best bad guy material, because he'd rather question logics over being a good listener, and those ingredients make the best five-star dish for a villain!" She high-pawed a fitfully giggling zorua. "Ahh, this is fun. Are there any other questions for me? I'll answer them all right now!"

"Faaang!" Star yelled, and that's all she needed to do. The pile of collected papers became nonexistent on the ground, and the poochyena traipsed over with all Shadow-orientated questions in his maw. He dropped them carelessly at the snivy's feet and licked her pointy nose affectionately.

"D'aw, that's a good Fang!" Knowing exactly how to reward his obedience, she expertly scratched the secret, heavenly spot behind his ear. One of his hind legs kicked lightly and instinctively, and a certain zorua gradually darkened with jealously. Lots of jealousy.

"He's my Fang, you know-it-all inbred!" She tackled Fang across the stage and away from her creator, pawing madly at his ear and almost breaking it, wanting so badly to be the only one who made him happy.

"Anyhoo," Shadow giggled. She plucked a slightly saliva-framed paper, one after another, with care.

"What are some of your favorite scenes? Maybe not to write, but in general? Hmm. I really like this question. I would say… oh gosh, I'm horrible with choosing favorites, so gimme a moment!"

The camera abruptly shut off, and all visuals went black.

"Ahhh, it's so hard to decide…"

A hopeful spark soon reignited the camera, and its lenses captured a contented snivy smile. "Welp, after getting lost in glancing through over forty chapters, I've decided! I really loved the scene when Thunder and Shard were lost in those underground beach tunnels. It was fun to write a chapter while constantly imagining it to be dark, and I also applied some recently learned knowledge to the scene! Also, I had basic ideas of where I'd go with Thunder and Ice by this point, but involving Sugarsand Beach and Fang getting two of my favorite eeveelutions stuck in tunnels and forcefully making them physically close to each other… It was all unplanned, and it turned out great. And super fun to write, too! It's strange to think a chapter that did little to the storyline has such a safe place in my heart." A scaled hand twice patted the left side of her chest, emphasizing her point. "Now, I rebound this question back to you, readers. What was your favorite chapter?"

Shard, with shy intention, padded over and decided to read the questions off for Shadow. After that last answer, the glaceon wanted to save the grass-type some talking to spare her throat. Or fingers, since I'm typing this and my throat isn't suffering. I mean, whaaa? What surprise fourth wall breaking? You read nothing, readers. Shhhhh. "Um, Shadow—Do any of your characters own you at video games?"

"Well, funny story, actually~" Shadow nerdily pushed up her glasses and snapped her fingers. In response, the overhead TV buzzed on, and a flashback played to paint everyone a picture.

In a tiny, lonely room almost completely capsized in darkness, the soft blue glow of television revealed a snivy and zorua. Their differing expressions revealed the winner of a first-person shooter thus far to be Star, despite her lack of opposable thumbs. She violently mashed the buttons of a controller with bloodshot eyes and an insane Cheshire smile. On the other hand, Shadow limply toyed with the joystick and rarely pressed any buttons with enthusiasm. After nothing but this for a while, Star yodeled in victory and vigorously chucked her controller across the room. Wearing a glassy, traumatized gaze, Shadow limply placed down the controller, and she silently vowed never to bother with any majorly competitive video game ever again.

Fang proceeded to slowly but productively eat all the game consoles in the house, and as Star enacted an elaborate, well-practiced routine of victory dance, the screen blackened and silenced. Shadow grinned uncertainly from beneath it. "So… yeeeah, there's that. I suck at anything that isn't Pokémon. Also, Star is a hardcore video gamer, believe it or not."

"And I'm a hardcore lover, too!" Star screeched, still stubbornly pawing at the quietly whimpering Fang. She had at one point transformed her appearance into another poochyena, so she could flash prominent eyelashes for a cutesy, feminine look.

"Uhhh, okay-dokey then. Shardy-chan, what else is there?"

"Do you plan on making an epilogue? Are you going to be starting any new stories?"

"Mm, great questions! For the epilogue, uh… I actually had a short epilogue planned, but it's not as much of an epilogue as it is a… teaser, of sorts, and I decided not only was it unnecessary but it'd be kinda boring to write. So, I decided against it. And as for new stories, I have so many things planned, and I'll probably struggle to keep them updated… After a break from writing T&I, though, I'll hopefully feel rejuvenated. I can't even remember what it's like to write a story other than this one, and I hope that awakens me from this dreadful hardly-writing-at-all phase that I've been wedged into for so long. What else, Shardy?"

"Hmm… Do you like Sharunder the best? Or Starang or Coppeawn… DEDSHIPP—" The glaceon violently spluttered and slapped away the paper. "Ohmigosh, aha… aahhh… sorry. It said 'dedshipping,' or 'dead shipping', and… that's funny, but—aha, eeeek, I'm tearing u-up… p-poor Co-oppe-er…" Before she managed those final words, her lovable, blunderous jolteon desperately rushed to the glaceon and loyally placed himself at her flank. A tender showing of affection immediately bloomed between them with nuzzles and cuddles, stirring a synchronized chorus of 'd'aaaaw's from the audience. Petal sighed in relief of distance set again between her and the jolteon, and her eyes rapidly fogged—and so did her cheeks, with a rosy flair—from fantasying mimicking these actions with a certain seductive manectric. Sun smiled sweetly alongside Petal, but deep beneath those tightly sealed, spiny teeth rumbled hints of jealousy.

After Shadow mentally laughed at the luxray's hidden reaction—an author knew everything about their creations—she clapped a few times and winked at the camera. "I chose to incorporate some quick Sharunder fluff right there instead of Starang and dedshipping. I think that's enough of an answer. Neeext!"

Petal sprinted up to the scattered papers and, motivated by wanting to return to her darling manectric, read off the rest of the questions with a lightning tongue. "Where the frick do Shard, Thunder, and their legit friend circles sleep after the end of the story; like, will Shard and Thunder or Fang and Star share dens? Will the pirate Magikarp evolve? What are Hunter's mornings like? Do all the bird characters do like bird gangster stuff at night? Sharunder won't die, will it? What about adorableness Fang and Star?" The leafeon groaned out the remnants of her frustrations, clawed some of the stupid scraps of paper into unrecognizable tears, and grumpily seated herself next to Sun. "Longest Extras chapter ever," she hissed.

The snivy pretended Petal's animalistic display was a compliment. "Well, to all of those wonderful questions, I can't answer. It's all another story. Some of those may make great oneshots, actually! But they don't belong in Thunder and Ice. But, of course, I couldn't ever let Sharunder and Starang die… they're too precious. Oh—actually, speaking of oneshots, ehehe… I have planned to start this one fanfic, which'll be a compilation of T&I oneshots. I wouldn't call it a sequel, but it'd answer questions such as those that Petal listed. It'll probably be a fun read if you still want more Thunder and Ice. More than anything, though, it'll probably be fluff. I'll also write chapters to it sporadically, not routinely. I might upload three chapters within a week, or it could be three chapters in a year. It all depends on inspiration and when I want to write or it, haaa…

"Oh, and for those wondering: will there be a Thunder and Ice sequel? Possibly. And if I do, it definitely won't be nearly as large and intense as this story was. It'd most likely be a ten-chapter-ish story about what happens to Ruby after she leaves Sugarcane, something involving Shard and Thunder's cubs—hint hint nudge cough splutter—and… it won't be written any time soon, I'll tell you that. I love these characters to death, but I need a break from them. Ehe~

"And that's enough questioning! Into the mysterious abyss of a tree I gooo~!" She waltzed past the invisibly seething luxray, the cuddling jolteon and glaceon, the wrestling poochyena and zorua-disguised-as-a-poochyena, and an ever-silent staraptor. She hesitated before entering, swerved around, and bowed sharply, her tail visible from behind as her nose nearly jabbed against the wooden floor. This exit of hers was quite different in comparison to her nonchalant, unimpressive entrance.

"Th-thank you so much for reading my story… I'd hug you all if I could!" And she melted into the darkness.

When the poochyena-disguised zorua finally received a hug from her precious Fang, she tumbled off him with a gleefully glinting gaze, and her paw landed with a loud crumple on an empty, abandoned bag of potato chips. Her contented smile snapped ferociously onto the bag—crrklnk!—and easily pierced its flimsy material. She snarled towards the Great Sequoias' opening, screaming, "Litterer!" the best she could with the bag in her mouth. Star leapt up high in a whirling, lavender-magenta cloud of illusion that transformed her cutesy poochyena into a monstrous, dark-eyed, steel-skinned tyranitar with an earth-shaking roar. She flexed daggers for claws, took resounding stomps in snivy pursuit, and her massive frame barely squeezed into the crevice.

Thunder coughed awkwardly, and he faced the shocked-to-silence crowd. "Remember: do not litter, kids…" Shard couldn't resist a quiet giggle.

Realizing no one dared to take over in Star's place, Sun scraped up her courage and trotted to center stage. "Well, um… I guess that's it? Is this the very end, everybody? The very very end?" Her star-tipped tail swayed behind her restlessly.

"Almost."

Everyone's attentions clung to the feathered loner in the back. If he revealed even a miniscule amount more of emotion, a smirk would've noticeably edged into his beak. "Since this fanfic completely centered around girl characters in the end, only male characters had died, and a leafeon discredited guys for so long, Shadow ordered… a quick recognition… for the males of this fanfic."

Fang somehow teleported above, and he collapsed directly before Shard and Thunder, smiling carelessly. A raichu paw firmly grasped the fluffy, silver one as they fell, and his manly scream following a distinct thud was all that could be heard for a good long moment. "That," Hunter rasped afterwards, "was excruciating."

"I know, right?!" Fang yipped cheerfully.

"Welp, my beloved Shard, I have to join them. I'll kiss you lovingly later~" The jolteon nuzzled the glaceon's forehead, she giggled softly, and Thunder energetically rushed a few blurred circles around his flattened pals. An explosion set off somewhere above, and the audience shrieked in fright. Thunder planted down four paws and stopped, which revealed a pair of wicked, custom-fit sunglasses resting on each of their noses, and all three of them mumbled, "Perfect." Falcon remained in the background, but a DJ table had spawned in front of him, and he expertly played some of the jazziest jams from various Pokémon Mystery Dungeon games to create an awesome atmosphere.

"Helloooo, everybody! I'm Thunder, obvious, but for this bromidable little skit filled with nothing but random displays of epicness, you can call me Sivan. It's a fun stage name. This near-unconscious raichu is Trikko, the cool poochyena is Pippy, and the staraptor in the back goes by Reyna." However, for the sake of averting confusion, Thunder is still referenced as Thunder outside of dialogue, as it is seen now. "While Reyna keeps up the music, Trikko 'ere will read off some tooootally fun statistics! Won't chu, Trikko?" The raichu grumbled curse-riddled thoughts, brushed off bruised knees, and snatched a script from the jolteon, who adorned an awkward grin that silently translated an apology. Hunter adjusted the papers and briefly skimmed certain lines.

"Hmm, so… fun facts. As of this being written, Thunder and Ice has totaled an impressive amount of… 34,000 views?! What! I mean… that's nice. There's over a hundred alerts and favorites, and there's precisely 339 reviews. Look at how far this story came, eh? The chapter with most views—besides the first chapter—is… chapter two. And then chapter three. There's a telltale pattern here, but it fluctuates throughout later chapters. The chapter with the most reviews—right behind the first chapter—is tied between chapters seven and nine at fifteen reviews! The chapter with the largest word count is… um, the last chapter, The Setting Sun…" The raichu yawned. "Wow, this is boring to read…"

"Stick to Sivan's script, stupid Trikko! It took him hours to write!" yelped Fang with teary eyes.

"Yeah, sure, but no more numbers." About half of the script's pages were torn from the stapled entirety, and Thunder became slack-jawed as his carefully calculated work was just dusted away by Hunter's jagged tail. "Next, the songs Think I'm Sick and The Grey—yikes, those names!—reminded Shadow of Ruby every time she heard them, and Fight, by the same band, reminded her of Shard when she finally stood up to Ruby and battled. A cutesy song that's reminiscent of Shard's crush days is called I Like You, I Love You by a vocaloid named Rin Kagamine… Ew, what a sappy name—"

"The scri-i-ipt!" Thunder coughed unsubtly into his paw.

He adjusted the papers slightly. "Hmph. And the last song-related thing is that late one night, Shadow was struggling to sleep and so she turned on her alarm clock's radio, and the song Rhythm of Love by Plain White T's came on. That song, even though there's little correlation between it and Thunder and Ice, inspired the start of this story. Neeext, I pass this script to mister Pippyena over here, so he can read a final bit." He coolly tossed the script over his shoulder, smacking the overenthusiastic Fang in the face. He clutched clumsily at it with forepaws, accidentally spat on the paper, and permanently imbedded unsmoothable creases. Thunder mentally shed some tears in regards of his beaten manuscript.

"Ooh ooh ooooh, gwasp, I get to announce…"

Fang trailed off as something changed. The soothing, mellow beat to the specific Mystery Dungeon soundtrack had abruptly cut off, Falcon having mistakenly leaned on a colorful rainbow button, and girly J-pop voices blasted all across the clearing.

Cutie panther watashiii, doko demo iku yooo!

Everyone paused, listening.

Kiiimi no, kiiimi no—

A cringe-inducing screech of vinyl records—and the horrified cawing of a staraptor—killed the upbeat tune, leaving plenty of room for judging silence. Thunder and Hunter both stared suggestively at Falcon over the tops of the sunglasses while Fang idly hummed to the rhythm he barely memorized, bobbing his head in unhindered enjoyment. "Ah… hah… th-that was… a-another song… wh-which I like…" Falcon spluttered.

"…Anywaaays! Pippy wants to taaalk!" Half attention devoted to the poochyena once again, but the other half still processed the staraptor's guilty pleasure in music. "Sooo, the spectacular Shadow Snivy wants to recommend some fanfics similar to T&I! If you enjoyed this, you'll like these others, mhm. Some great romance fanfics are A Cub's Crush by FennekinLover321, Test of Fate by Kazoot, and Blazing Courage by Orenji Splash! If you want to read something that isn't primarily romance but still has some, check out Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Fates to Infinity by Starry's Light, A Spirit's Journey by PkmnMaster Rolf, aaaand… Chronicles of Legendary Eevee by Last Warrior 7! Phew, that was a lot of names. But I really like all those names! Those are very good names. I'd lick them if I could, but… Shadow doesn't let me lick her laptop screen, heehee… And that's all of the script thiiiing! The end! Buh-bai!"

Hunter raised a paw. "Ahem—can I ask a question? Wait, I'm… not waiting for an answer to that." He crossed his paws and tapped a foot impatiently. "Why did we get stuck with fanfic recommendations and weird statistics and song shout-outs? Personally, I wish I helped with the answering questions part. Why couldn't the girls have these statistics?"

Thunder's grin grew sly and iced. "Calm down there, Trikko. You know what you have that no one else does? The title as a Cool Dude. We are the Cool Dude Squad, and no girls are allowed."

"Th-that sounds… fun…" Shard mumbled idly, shuffling forepaws.

"Except for Shard," Thunder added hastily. "She's an… honorary member."

"What, no! That isn't fair—"

A frustrated scream clawed out from within the Great Sequoias, silencing all for many heartbeats. The vocal strength was so potent, in fact, that Star the fake tyranitar rocketed out of into daylight, nearly crushing a round-eyed Sun with those jagged, limestone green spikes of metal. "Aaaaaaaaaah!" continued the fitful screech, "I can't believe wrote a fanfic about… gender inequality!"

"…Well, someone sounds peevish," the tyranitar snickered. She then twirled in the purplish-pink cloak once more, landing as a mischievous-eyed zorua once more. "Anyways, good job, Cool Dude Squad! That's the last thing of my Spectacular. Oh, look, and now it's dark. Also, half our crowd left. This reeeally dragged out, didn't it, ehe?" True to her words, only pale, fading glistens of moonlight twisted down from the canopy, and at least 1,475-and-a-half poochyenas could fit into the unoccupied space of Cedar Square. "Guess it's time for, well, ehe… the final part: farewells… E-ehe…!"

A pidgeotto head ducked in from the canopy. "Buh-baiiiiisies!" she twittered real fast.

A minccino's dainty paws held on like cold, practiced hands to a teacup on Skylar's upside-down head, but her grip slipped from her flowing, scarlet mane and she plummeted just as Skylar pulled above the layers of leaves. Lily stifled an unladylike wail and hoped for the best, which arrived as a panicked raichu in metaphorical accelgor's armor. He leapt with desperate, unrealistically large strides and slid on his back a short distance to catch his little princess. She landed on his cream white stomach, and he secured maple brown paws around her protectively.

"A-ah, dearie…!"

"Mmm… helloooo~"

Hunter stood up unharmed, waved a cool-headed, casual goodbye with his tail, and sauntered offstage victoriously with his grateful maiden. "F-farewell…!" Lily managed before they disappeared within the darkness-clad foliage.

Falcon dipped his head solemnly, offered a solid smirk as his own farewell, and zipped wordlessly skyward in likely search of Skylar.

"Thanks for watching—um, I mean reading—my beautiful Star's Spectacular!" piped the grinning Star, assuming a confident pose with erect ears and a puffed-out chest. It was reminiscent of a certain adventurous fennekin. "And I also say adios on the entire Fennekin Clan's behalf, even for Copper all the way up there in the stars somewhere. They love and will miss you all, and so will… I…"

"Bai, bai, baaaaaaai! I wurrrrv you all super-duper-glitter much!" Fang hooted, skipping boisterously away with the zorua in tow. "And don't lie to yourselves: you know Starang is the best!"

"You know it, Fang~" Star hurriedly pecked his nose before dashing off ahead of him, and they vanished in the crowd while giggling like senseless, lovey-dovey cubs.

"Aha, um…" Petal kicked a forepaw bashfully, her tail swiveling nonstop. "Now I kinda regret rushing this to an end, but… goodbye from Faolan and I." Her caramel-hued paws slowly dragged her towards the Great Sequoias' interior. Her vicious, hazel-flecked eyes never dared glancing back, hiding her fermenting rims of tears. "Farewell…" And she disappeared just like Shadow.

Sun hurriedly pounced off the wooden platform into the crowd, attempting to escape before her bawling could be documented. Shard rushed to the edge and shouted her name. She stopped, shoulders hunched and ears flattened, and some remaining Pokémon parted to make her more visible to the glaceon.

"Bye, Sun! I… love you!" The luxray dipped her head further, shadowing her expression completely. When no response reverberated back, the ice-type echoed, "Bye…?"

"Haaa, errm… th-thank you… all…" After a moment of serious mental debating, her head snapped up, moonlight scarcely aglow on her face. With closed eyes and a mouth crafted into a sunny, genuine smile, she finished, "Thanks for forgiving Ruby in the end! Thank you so so much!" She waved with a forepaw before merging seamlessly with the shadows, but despite the façade of darkness, her presence still held strong from the clearing's quiet outskirts. After enduring so much, after hanging on for so long, she truly wanted to stay until the very very end.

…

"Um… It's just Sharunder now, huh?" Thunder offered. He numbly pawed off his cheap sunglasses with a chuckle.

"Y-yeah… wow, just us." Shard gently, hesitantly inhaled. Following that inhale, she blurted, "I'll miss you all! I-I mean, well, um…" Her voice lightened considerably. "I'll miss you all… Y-you saw how I went from a purely stuttering mess to someone who's, aha, much less self-conscious. Even after years of monotonous abuse in my lie, things could finally be made right with some aid, and I even found someone… to love… I never thought I deserved a mate in the p-past, but I'm glad… that he came along, and he helped me…" She gazed sleepily and longingly up into the jolteon's eyes. "And I'm so glad that Ruby became Sun, and somehow, somewhere, she's going to start over and be loved just as deeply."

The glaceon's one amethyst eye fluttered contently to a close, and she nestled into the jolteon's chest, breathing in his scent and drifting into delightful, purely peaceful dreams that she deserved for so long.

Thunder's sapphire eyes flashed openly to the crowd. "Well, um, yeah. What an adventure. Also, to think, I could talk one-on-one with all of you like this! I'm gonna take advantage of it while I can, haha." He cleared his throat. "It's funny how taking that first step of a journey can land you where I am, ya'know? If I hadn't persisted with Dandelion, I would've ended up stuck in Maplewood forever. One step, just a single moment of insane courage, does great wonders on your life forever." The jolteon raised a paw, gently stroking the precious glaceon's head. "I did not come to Sugarcane in search of love or luxray drama. I looked for a new life. That's exactly what I got, and I made cool friends, one of the nicest mates any jolteon could ask for, and memories. Memories.

"Also, isn't it interesting how I opened Thunder and Ice, but Shard and Sun ended it? Whose story is Thunder and Ice, then? Is the Thunder really me or Ruby? Can any story really be just their story, or is it a compilation of many stories? I guess that really depends, hmm. Does Thunder mean the action in which thaws the Ice of someone else? Does it show courage versus hesitance? Are they two unlikely things that end up meaning so, so much to each other? I'll leave the title's interpretation to you. It goes in all sorts of directions, and I'd love to hear anything else you come up with~

"Sorry for dragging this out with such a speech, but I'm just… so wowed! Journeys and adventure need to be mandatory in everyone's life. Do new things while you can, and not only will you have a story like Thunder and Ice to tell but you'll most likely change lives for the better. How long would've Ruby and Shard brawling dragged on if I had stayed in Maplewood? Who knows. At least a weird, imperfect blunder like me came along and helped make everything right again. Bottom line: be the hope in someone's life. Take leaps of faith, laugh with everything in your heart, and… while you still have the gift of breathing… live!"

Together, from the sleepy Shard and heartfelt jolteon, they said goodbye as one:

"Thank you."

Then, Fang appeared in front of the camera, his excited panting fogging up the glass, and he licked it and smiled goofily before the camera switched off.

~The end~