"Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before."

-Edgar Allan Poe

Chapter One: Darkness

"You're a good girl… aren't you?"

Yasille sat up sharply in bed, panting heavily and shivering. The sheets around her were soaked with sweat and her hair clung to her forehead despite the window that was cracked open beside her bed. Something furry and warm brushed against her bare leg and she looked down, startled, to find a poochyena staring up at her quizzically. She relaxed slightly in relief.

'Good old Poochy,' she thought to herself as she absently scratched behind the elderly poochyena's ears. The dark type leaned into her touch.

Yasille suddenly realized what she had just seen. That was more than a dream, she knew. It was a memory. Even though she was eight now, and that incident was three years ago, she still apparently couldn't just let it go. Even though nothing too terrible had happened, she just couldn't let it go. Even though she made it out somewhat unscathed, she still couldn't let it go.

Suddenly thirsty, the young girl decided to go and get some water. Swinging her legs over the edge of her bed, she briefly shivered once her bare feet touched the hardwood floor. Icy cold seemed to secure her feet in its grip, and the feeling travelled all the way upwards, from her legs to the top of her head. She shook off the cold feeling and slowly walked towards the closed door. She heard a light thump and the clicking of claws, signifying Poochy decided to follow her.

She pulled the door open with a low creak, and stiffened immediately. Something wasn't right.

She quietly padded down the hall, towards her parents room. Finding the door slightly ajar, she pushed it open slightly and peeked inside.

There was nobody there. The TV was on, the flashing lights eerily reflecting off of every surface in front of it, and the bed was empty, save for the blankets which were all jumbled up and flipped over on the bed.

Heart pounding, Yasille closed the door and continued her journey down the hall, eventually reaching the stairs. Poochy whined softly from behind her.

"Mom?" Yasille called quietly from the top of the stairs. "Dad?" There was no response. She shivered and started to slowly creep down the stairs. "M-Mom?"

She stopped in the middle of the stairway. There. There was a 'thud' sound, and it was coming from the kitchen. Poochy moved a few steps down, the hair on his back visibly stiffening as a low growl built up in his chest. Yasille creeped downwards, downwards, the muted thumping still continuing, until finally, she reached the bottom of the staircase.

The thumping stopped.

Yasille inched towards the kitchen doorway. "M-mommy?" Mom liked to get up in the middle of the night sometimes and mess around in the kitchen. Maybe this was one of those times?

She stepped into the kitchen, which was completely dark, with only the moonlight streaming from the window above the sink providing any form of illumination. Poochy wasn't growling anymore, was instead staring at the direction of the back door with slightly glowing gold eyes. Yasille followed his gaze, and she held back a gasp.

In front of the screen door, which was for some reason wide open, was a Pokémon. At least, Yasille thought it was a Pokémon.

The creature was short in stature, candle shaped, with a flickering pale blue flame atop its head. It had golden, narrow eyes, and it's candle wax was dripping onto the smooth linoleum floor. Yasille wasn't sure what it was. In Sinnoh, there was no such Pokémon on record that she knew about,

Poochy broke her stunned thoughts by growling. He creeped forward, target locked.

Yasille found herself shouting "No!" With as much strength as she could muster at the moment, still staring into the mesmerizing flame atop the candles head. Poochy stopped. "No," Yasille repeated, softer this time.

"What are you…?" She whispered. She took a step forward.

Suddenly, the candle jerked back. It drifted, backwards, out the open door. Yasille couldn't help but to follow with shaky, uneven steps. Poochy whined softly, hoping to catch her attention.

But when Yasille continued forward, out the door, eyes locked on the candle creature, Poochy had no choice but to follow.

Twigs and dry leaves scratched at her feet, but Yasille hardly noticed. She was entranced by the flickering blue flame, the one that slowly drifted away from her. If it drifted too far away, Yasille would quicken her pace, not wanting to lose the flame.

Poochy whimpered occasionally, behind his human, noticing that they were moving into the woods surrounding home. He wanted to stop Yasille, to attack that strange Pokémon leading her away, but he couldn't. Yasille's sharp order still rang clearly in his ears, and he had no choice but to do as she said, unless she said otherwise. He was trained too well.

Farther and farther the three went, the candle, the girl, and the dog. The deeper into the woods they went, the darker it got. Soon the only source of light was the blue flame.

And then, the candle stopped. Yasille stopped as well, and Poochy crashed into her legs.

Before either girl nor dog could so much as blink, several pairs of glowing gold eyes appeared in the darkness. Poochy, having decent night vision, could make out the figure of his evolved form, many of them, hiding in the dark.

A growl was building in his chest, one he couldn't stop from rising to the surface. He did not like this. At all.

Yasille, too, was terrified. It seemed she had finally noticed where she was. All she remembered was coming down into the kitchen, searching for her parents, and then seeing the strange candle creature…

A shiver racked her spine as the gold eyes collectively moved closer to her, and she noticed, for the first time, that the candle was gone. Like a ghost, it had disappeared without a trace.

Poochy saw, though, when Yasille's attention was elsewhere, that the candle hadn't disappeared like a ghost; it was disintegrated into that familiar red matter that he knew so well. It was disintegrated, and returned to a pokéball.

Insead, there was figure, barely noticeable in the dark shadows of the unfamiliar woods. The figure whistled, sharply, and the advancing pack of gold eyes stopped in their tracks.

"Wh-wh-" Yasille couldn't form a proper sentence, not quite yet, so Poochy decided to react for her.

The dark types lunge was immediately intercepted with the leap of a nearby mightyena, who's eyes glinted in sadistic delight as she (her slimmer stature suggested a female gender) dug her sharp claws into his much smaller, trailer body. The area had lightened considerably, for some strange reason, allowing Poochy to make out such details.

Poochy's yelp of pain is what snapped Yasille out of her fear induced trance. She saw a large wolf like Pokémon, a mightyena, on top of her childhood friend and protector. "Stop!" She cried, moving forward, only to be stopped by a heavy hand on her shoulder. The hand gripped her, hard, causing her to cry out in pain.

"If you want your little friend to live," the man, for his voice was masculine, said with malice. "You should find yourself coming along with me with no problems."

"..." Yasille, eyes beginning to water, could only stand in petrification as Poochy whined and occasionally writhed under the dark type holding him down.

"Wha-what do you want...?" Yasille sniffed, regretting ever leaving her bedroom.

The man had a smile on his voice as he said, "Isn't it obvious?"

Yasille stayed silent.

"Hm. No worries, that insubordination of yours will be fixed immediately." He seemed to change demeanors. "Grunt, take her to the limo."

This caused a reaction. Yasille's parents had always told her that if somebody she didn't know tried to take her somewhere she didn't want to go, that she was to scream as loud as possible.

So, as she was forcefully passed over to another man (this one she could see much better because of the lightening woods), she did just that.

But it did nothing, caused no reaction in the man as he picked her up, easily controlled her frantically kicking legs, easily restrained her flailing arms. He started walking with her in his arms.

It was as if he had done this before.

"Poochy!" Yasille wailed. "Mommy! Daddy!"

"Kill the mutt," the older man dismissed as he turned to follow.

Poochy, seeing this scene play out, had renewed his vigorous struggle. He managed to bury his teeth into the mightyena's forepaw, digging in deeper until he tasted metallic blood. Then he pulled with all his might. Flesh tearing, the wolf Pokémon snarled, flinching at the unexpected pain, and the Bite Pokémon used that opportunity to lift a paw up and dig it into the gaping hole in the mightyena's leg. That, along with his teeth once more buried in the wound, is what made the dog Pokémon jump off of Poochy.

The poochyena wasted no time. Reaching up with a paw, he hooked a claw around the silver necklace holding an everstone in place. With one good tug, the necklace snapped, sending the silver stone tumbling onto the ground.

Almost immediately, Poochy began to glow brightly. Taller, broader, stronger- the power flowed freely through his veins, as freely as the pain. The pain, caused from denying his natural evolution process, was nearly crippling, because he had been warding off evolution for ten plus years. He couldn't help but howl as the strength filled him.

But the adrenaline overrode it, and he was on the female he had injured before the glow even started to fade.

His teeth locked on the back of her neck, he didn't hesitate to rip with all his might- which was twenty times more than he had when he was a poochyena.

She didn't stand a chance. Not taking the time to watch her body crumble, Poochy turned on the remaining mightyena that had not followed the two men away. There were four.

Poochy didn't doubt his abilities. As a poochyena, he had the power of a weaker mightyena. Now, evolved, these four were dead meat. Then he could go after Yasille.

But it wasn't meant to be, it seemed. He was quickly overwhelmed by the group of dark types, all of them slashing, biting, ripping, tearing, snarling.

When they were finally done, several minutes later, there was nothing left but the blood on the grass and the pieces of flesh scattered about.