I stumbled back at the ingulfing sight of the beast. Darkrai was a mystical being that most believed didn't even exist. A creature capable of creating nightmares. My mom always told me stories about it, but I didn't think anything of them. Yet here I am, face to face with it.
Darkrai eyed me curiously, as if it was deciding something, and then moved closer to me. The pokemon grabbed my shoulder and with it's other arm pointed to a ravine down from us.
I strained my eyes to look closer and saw a group of people beating a pokemon. I had seen pokemon beatings before, but only from the kids in town. These were grown adults, and they were on a whole other level.
I looked back to Darkrai, and even though they are incapable of human speech, I understood everything it said in its eyes. Save it.
I sprinted past the pitch black pokemon, and all of my partners stumbled for a second, and then followed me as we slid down the slope into the clearing.
At the bottom I began to see a more vivid picture of what was unfolding in front of me. A pikachu was being beaten almost to death while a bunch of drunk adults from out of town, who had presumably drank to much at the festival and been forced to leave, kicked and hurt the little pokemon.
"Hey!" I shouted, trying to grab their attention. "What do you think you're doing?" One of the men turned to face me and I saw his face was covered in blood. I felt my face go white.
He smiled and said, "hey guys, a kids shown up," and all of the men turned towards me with cruel expressions on their faces. Growlithe growled and stepped in front of me, but as soon as the adults saw him they kicked him away.
I was about to yell for Bagon, but I turned to see three more adults had grabbed him, Jangmo-o, and cacnea, and that's when I realized what was about to happen. The biggest adult walked towards me, and Caterpie shot him straight in the face, which just seemed to make him angrier.
He grabbed and pinned me to the ground, and pulled Caterpie off my head. I took that chance and kicked him where the doesn't shine. He recoiled back, and rolled off to the side. I jumped on top of the wounded pikachu, which at the time seemed like the best idea, and proceeded to get kicked right in my bruised ribs.
This hurt. It hurt much more than when Jake and his buddies did it. I thought Jake was a once in a life time level of jerk, but there are people so much worse than him, and there's loads of them? This world that's supposed to be about the bonds between pokemon and humans working together, it's in reality like this?
The thought of not coming back to hang out with the girl I met at the booth crossed my mind. I pushed it back but I still teared up over it. I thought of my mother, who's never been respected in this terrible town. I thought of my father, who lost his life to a petty crime and was never recognized for it. I thought of the pokemon I had come across so far in my life, each with it's own story, and no one would ever care because it's a pokemon associated with a caterpie. Then I thought of Jake and his buddies, sitting back at the festival laughing about how they ran me off, and that's when I broke.
Tears started to stream down my face with unrelenting fury, and the pikachu seemed to squirm and understand my pain. It shoved it's head against my stomach and cushioned my body.
Wait, I've felt a pikachu's head before. They were soft, and sort of fuzzy, but they were never cushioned, just hard like any skull. I looked down and my eyes adjusted to the darkness, and saw what was really underneath me.
The tiny pokemon sat with a fake expression drawn onto a puppet head made to look like a pikachu's. A darker complexion than the usual pikachu yellow. Tiny cut holes in it's "chest" showed tiny bead like eyes staring back at me. I had never seen a pokemon like it.
That's when the scream came. A screech with the highest pitch capable without breaking ear drums, and yet so threatening and full of power it dropped the men surrounding me to their knees. A mawile ran full force at the man to the left of me, knocking a clear few yards.
The screech came again and I looked to see a skarmory flying in the air. The men started to run, while the skarmory flew in the opposite direction to perch itself on a man's shoulder.
The mawile that launched the man ran back to his side, and he walked over too me.
"That was pretty brave of you kid," he said in a gruff voice. "I guess you weren't chosen for nothing though." I looked at him, and was bewildered at what I saw.
The man wore a a beefy flak jacket with parachute like pants. He had a a bandana sitting around his neck, and a cap that sat low on head so that I couldn't see his eyes. He had sandals on that didn't match the rest of his outfit at all, and bracelets and necklaces to boot. Then I comprehended what he said.
"Chosen?" I asked. "Chosen for what?" He seemed to chuckle to himself and then said, "you were chosen to be the Yugure no Seishen."
"What's that supposed to mean?" I asked him.
"It means dusk spirit," the man said. "It's the name given to the one chosen by Darkrai to balance light and dark." As the man said this, Darkrai appeared to his side in an instant, and nodded in agreement.
"Balance light and dark?" I asked. "But why me?"
"Darkrai has been watching you for a while now, he's seen what all you've done," the man told me. "You're story may have a dark and unhappy beginning, but that is what has caused you to grow and bond with you partners. Darkrai found everything it sought out to find in you, from your personality to your bonds to your ideals."
I still couldn't understand what he meant by that.
"You may not understand it yet," he continued, "but someday, your destiny will play out, and even you, can't walk out on that." The Darkrai opened it's hand and gave an object it held to the man, who then held it out to me. A necklace, with a tiny dragon and Darkrai molded onto the center piece.
"Pick it up," the man said. "This is your story, and up until now, has only been the prologue." I thought about these words. My pokemon has all gotten back to me and we're laying around me, all with determination on their faces.
I grabbed the necklace, and put it around my head. The man smiled at me, and pulled his hat off, setting it on my head, and for the first time, I saw his eyes.
"You're gonna go far kid," he said, with flame in his eyes so deep and hot that my breath was taken away. The man then turned away and walked away.
Darkrai turned to face me and put it's hand on my shoulder. It then pointed to the mysterious pokemon and patted me on the head. I guess that means it was proud of what I did. The tiny pokemon tugged on the side of my pants, and then proceeded to climb onto my shoulder.
I sighed as I thought about how unhappy my mom would be about me keeping another pokemon, but in the end, I knew taking the mystery with me was the right thing to do. The Darkrai looked at me one last time with those black eyes, and then grabbed the necklace and proceeded to pour a dark smoke like substance into it. After that it turned one last time to face me, and then disappeared into the darkness.
Back at home while my other pokemon were getting patched up by bug types and nurse pokemon, I was getting ready to check out just exactly this new pokemon was. Before I did that I decided to wash up, and as I dried myself off, I saw my reflection in the mirror. Funny, my eyes different. They have dark rings worse than usual underneath, but that not what I meant. They seemed to have gotten...darker.
