Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon. I do however own Alex, and this characterization of a member of the Darkrai species.

Chapter One:
Waxing Crescent

-o-O~OOO~O-o-

Alexandra jumped off the speedboat, throwing the moor line to the startled dockworker without stopping to see if he caught it, and raced for the light of the Pokémon Center. Not even pausing to catch her breath, the panicked trainer grabbed the Poké Balls off her belt and thrust them towards the resident Nurse Joy standing behind the counter with one hand bookmarking her place in a magazine. Taking in the pleading expression, the breathlessness, and the speed of the trainer, along with the lateness of the hour, the Nurse merely pursed her lips into a thin line and accepted the proffered Pokémon onto a metal tray before disappearing into the back room.

The safety of her team now firmly out of her control, Alex finally let herself collapse into a cushioned armchair near the door to the ER and tried to figure out where it all went wrong.

Having heard that the Pokémon was fond of darkness, she had set out of Canalave in the early evening, and arrived on Newmoon Island just as the sun was setting. In retrospect, she should have planned better, or even just have avoided the place altogether, but it had seemed at the time that luck was on her side, granting her a clear night that even the waxing crescent moon could illuminate. Gods, she was an idiot. The attack had come as soon as night fell in earnest, with a wave of dread coming over her as the Pokémon she had been seeking revealed itself in terrifying slow motion, rising up from the shadows like a demon from a nightmare come to life.

Alex had met many different Pokémon on her journey, in many different circumstances. But nothing she'd ever experienced could have prepared her for the look of utter hatred in that Pokémon's eyes. It was in that instant of eye contact that she knew with complete certainty that there would be absolutely no reasoning with this creature.

And it broke her heart.

She had tried to retreat then, but the wild Pokémon swiftly cut her off, moving like blur against the ground to pop up directly in front of her, lashing out with its three-clawed talons and catching her arm in a feral swipe. She was forced to send her Pokémon out, then. Oh, her poor team… Alex trusted her team with her life, but they all fell, one after the other, before they could get a single attack off. All but one, but she'd sooner forfeit to a Magikarp than send out that Pokémon to fight this demon.

Unfortunately, she didn't get a say in the matter.

To her horror, a red light emanated from the last little red ball on her belt and solidified into the familiar form of her Mightyena. Once black fur gone salt-and-pepper from age, Alex could hear the bones creaking and popping in her most loyal and faithful friend as he dropped into a fighting crouch and let out a snarl that was in no way diminished by his many years of life. The wild Pokémon looked almost taken aback by the state of her last fighter, letting out a few stunned growls of its own as the two dark types conversed.

Taking advantage of the abrupt break in the action, Alex gathered her wits and threw together a desperate strategy to distract the wild Pokémon long enough for her to return Mightyena and flee to her boat.

Alex was pulled from her internal flailing by the wave of silence that engulfed the battle field. The two Pokémon seemed locked in a staring contest, and neither reacted as she slowly slipped her hand into her bag and pulled out a random empty Poké Ball. Moving with the frightful speed of someone whose friends are in mortal peril, Alex tossed the ball, returned Mightyena, and sprinted towards the wide-eyed wild Pokémon slowly disappearing into a red blur on the ground. She leapt over the rocking ball and took off towards her boat.

She didn't stop until she hit the Pokémon Center.

"Miss?"

Alex jumped as a voice broke her from her reverie. The same Nurse Joy from earlier stood over her, a slight frown on her face. "Are my Pokémon alright?" Alex asked.

The nurse nodded. "They will be fine, they're just a bit beaten up from battling and need to rest a few days before we can release them." Alex felt something loosen in her at those words, but her sigh of relief was cut short by Joy. "You, however, need to get that looked at." She gestured to the claw marks on Alex's forearm.

Alex looked down in surprise at her arm. Three jagged red lines were gouged into the outside of her right arm, while thin trails of blood trickled down to her elbow as she watched in numb fascination. She hadn't even noticed that she'd been injured on her flight from the island. As soon as the wound registered, however, it started stinging. Like hell.

Biting back a whimper, Alex winced as she consented to let the nurse inspect the injury. Joy twisted her arm this way and that as she muttered about careless trainers under her breath, tsk-tsking for a few seconds before delivering her verdict. "You're lucky; it's quite a shallow cut. See? It's already starting to heal." Indeed, the blood had all but stopped flowing and was even starting to crust around the edges. "That said, it needs to be cleaned. Go wash it in the sink in the bathroom while I get the disinfectant."

A few minutes later, Nurse Joy finished bandaging her forearm while Alex offered her thanks. "All in a night's work," the nurse said proudly, "Oh, I think you have a call waiting for you." Joy pointed off in the general direction of the large boxy video phones. Alex thanked her again and got to her feet, swaying in sudden exhaustion.

Waving the nurse off with a semi assured 'I'm okay, thanks', the trainer made her way over to a blinking display and clicked the flashing icon, bringing up the always splendid view of Professor Rowan's backside. Alex coughed, causing the professor to jump and look down from where he was apparently inspecting the ceiling.

"Ah, Alex! I was hoping to catch you before you turned in for the night," Rowan began, taking a seat in front of the screen. Suddenly, the normally taciturn man grinned. "Of course, I'm not the only one who's caught something tonight."

Alex frowned. Professor Rowan only made puns when he was very excited, and he only got very excited when studying something new and interesting relating to Pokémon. Alex suppressed a shudder as she recalled the time a young boy had brought in three strange monkey-type Pokémon from Unova and proceeded to stone-evolve them while the professor observed. So. Many. Puns. Terrible, terrible puns.

Blinking, Alex returned to the present. "Who caught what, Professor?"

Rowan's grin dimmed a bit as he leveled a stern gaze at the trainer. "Don't play coy, girl." The man however couldn't keep his excitement down for long, and was soon grinning like a fool again. "If I knew you were going after one of them, I would have joined you!"

And now Alex was thoroughly confused. She caught something tonight? She hadn't even touched an empty Poké Ball in three months! Well, except for earlier that night, but that didn't… count? All the color drained from her face as Professor Rowan tilted the camera up to look at the ceiling.

No.

The demonic wild Pokémon from the island hovered near the ceiling, looking for all the world like it was trying to read the secrets of the universe in the filaments of the light bulbs in the ceiling lamps by circling them repeatedly. The inky black beast looked most like an hourglass wearing a tattered cloak, with a thin waist and a spiky red fringe around the top of its upper half. A plume of white smoky hair trailed off from its head, waving in some imaginary wind, while two black cloth-like tatters flowed from the shoulders of its spindly arms. Finally getting a good look at the Pokémon that had tormented her in the dark, Alex was surprised to note that it didn't seem to have any legs. The great dark creature glanced down at the two gawking humans with glowing cyan eyes and tensed, gaze shifting between them before abruptly darting into the shadow of a nearby bookshelf.

Rowan tilted the screen back down to look the trainer in the eye, face gone from ecstatic to puzzled. "Hmm… It's been doing that since I let it out an hour ago. I dare say, I don't think it has had the best of experiences with humans." The professor nodded grimly. "It's quite shy around the other Pokémon, too." A gleam of excitement returned to his eyes. "You must tell me where you found it—it's not the one from Alamos, is it?"

Alex shook her head. "I don't… think so?" Blinking, she continued, "I was at Newmoon Island." The professor looked relieved. "Professor, what is it?" The trainer stared over Rowan's shoulder as a turquoise eye blinked open from behind a large computer bank and scrutinized them.

Professor Rowan's eyebrows shot up. "You don't know…?" Alex frowned at him. "Hmm! That, my girl, is a Darkrai. A legendary Pokémon," he explained. "Very rare! There have only been five confirmed sightings of Darkrai in the past ten years, fifteen in the past hundred." He paused. "Hmm, I suppose this makes six, then."

Alex watched the eye in the corner watching her back. "What can you tell me about them?"

The professor rubbed at his chin. "Well, they're very powerful. The one in Alamos held off two god Pokémon for over an hour while a brave group of heroes tried to figure out a way to get them to stop fighting and destroying the town. Around the same time, a trainer nearly succeeded in wiping the entire Pokémon League, and, apparently, all the gym leaders in the region, with one singular Pokémon. A Darkrai." Alex felt her slowly abating dread come back full force at the professor's words. But he wasn't done yet. "Over in Almia, one was used by a nefarious organization to try and take over the world." Rowan paused, rolling his eyes. "Something went wrong, however, and the Pokémon went on a rampage and blotted out the sun. If not for the timely intervention of the ranger corps, it may have ended up demolishing the entire city."

Alex's eyes widened. She really wished that she had known this before she set out to investigate rumors of a powerful Pokémon isolated on a barren island to the north. But then, she'd had no idea that Newmoon Island was home to a legendary, of all things. The island wasn't exactly hard to get to.

Professor Rowan seemed to finally notice her trepidation. "Hmm, I may have exaggerated that last one a bit." He huffed, "Nonetheless, it is a very powerful Pokémon—you'll need to be careful when training it."

Waitaminutewhat?

Eyes closed, the professor nodded to himself, missing the look of absolute panic on the trainer's face. "I assume you'll want to trade out Mightyena, yes? He's getting on in the years, and I know you've been looking for an excuse to retire him."

Alex stuttered. "Umm, actually, I don't, I mean, it's just that—"

Rowan's eyes snapped open and the glare he aimed at her was so cold it froze the words in her mouth. "You caught it. You are responsible for it."

"I didn't mean to! I was just—"

Rowan cut off her protests with a raised hand. "It doesn't matter the circumstance. That Pokémon is yours now. You are responsible for taking care of it and keeping it out of trouble."

Alex sighed, glancing back to the eye in the corner, which almost seemed amused at the proceedings. "I never intended to catch it. Maybe it would be better to just release it."

If Rowan's glare had frozen the words in her mouth, than the look that the Pokémon in question shot at her then froze the very blood in her veins. The dark type rose fully from the shadows, eyes locked onto hers, pining her with its gaze. Alex didn't even dare breathe as the Pokémon seemed to stare into her soul, icy orbs systematically taking her apart and studying her pieces before tossing them away. Then it snorted and turned its back on her, floating serenely out of sight across the lab.

Alex gasped in a breath as the spell broke. Professor Rowan regarded her with a mix of sympathy and pity. "I think you upset it."

Alex gaped at him. "I upset it? I upset it?! It attacked me! I mean, sure, I realize now that I shouldn't have even gone to the island in the first place, but—" Rowan's exasperated figure was suddenly shoved aside by the nightmarish form of the newly caught Darkrai, who proceeded to fill the entire frame with its black mass and shout at her in its unique tongue.

"Dar—krai, Rai! Dar-Dar! Krai darkrai Dark—" The Pokémon's eyes widened comically as Professor Rowan gently—but firmly—pushed it to the side and glared them both into silence.

"Are you two quite finished?" the professor asked thunderously. After a few moments more of quiet, he relented his gaze. "Good. Now, Alex." The girl glanced up from where she had been studying the floor. "You will tell me what happened. Calmly."

Taking a deep breath, Alex did.

By the time she had reached the end of her tale, the professor's countenance had turned thoughtful, while the Pokémon at the center of the story went back to sulking in the corner.

Finally, Rowan sighed, pinching the bridge of his nose for a few moments before turning back to Alex. "It's late. Everyone's tired. Let's talk about this in the morning."

Alex nodded, too exhausted to even contemplate arguing with the stubborn old man.

"And you," said stubborn old man turned to address the dark type hovering in the corner, "need to get back in your ball." Rowan held up a Moon Ball and pointed it at the Darkrai. The Pokémon eyed the ball mistrustfully, but didn't put up a fuss as the beam of red light shot out at it. Just before it disappeared, it shifted its gaze to Alex one last time. There was a brief flicker of… something before it vanished. The professor turned back to her. "Get some sleep, Alex. You're going to need it."

-o-O~OOO~O-o-

End chapter.

Well, here we go.

I'll post a new chapter every week until I've finished writing the story, then I'll post more often. As of writing this, I've almost finished with chapter twelve, so even if something horrific happens to me (like writer's block), you'll have that much at least.

Questions? Comments? …Concerns? Well, not even Darkrai can read your mind (yet), so if there's something you want to say, make sure to post a review to let me know.