"So, we haven't found any unown," Ash summarizes, and yawns. From his shoulder, Pikachu reaches up and pats his cap.

They're crouched in the storm drains together, Pikachu and Ash and a wanted pokémon well on its way to becoming their newest best friend whether it knows that or not. Ash is nearly dead on his feet. Nothing about this is surprising.

Musty light falls through the grate above, filling in a barred rectangle on the walkway near Ash's feet. Footsteps and wheels set it clanking as they pass over, and raised voices stream through to echo oddly against the water.

There's an evacuation in progress. Someone found a way past the fog barrier. Darkrai's victims were the first to be returned to daylight. Evidently, taking them out of town breaks Darkrai's hold on them. The trio haven't run into one of the illusory pokémon since the pokécenter was emptied. Sudowoodo should be alright.

Since then, the rest of the town's occupants have been packing their possessions and making their slow but steady way out. Movement! Bustle! People don't feel as sludgy when they have a goal to work towards, especially when there are so many others doing the same alongside them. For the most part, taking action's helping. But the goal is to abandon their homes, and there's worry there, too – fear, even – that this won't be temporary. It's a rich, heavy mix.

"Yes," Darkrai says. Noise without meaning. Not even the garbled meaning of a dark type, because in its shadow state Darkrai hides itself almost completely. Now that they're not fighting, Pikachu's continuously fascinated by the concept. Yes is a word that Pikachu understands, which makes it all the stranger. He recognizes the arrangement of the sounds, knows the meaning that should be associated with it, but the meaning isn't there and yet he can still fill in what Darkrai said. It's exactly the way most humans talk. Stream-lined. Clear-cut. There's a simplicity to the idea that appeals to him. If it's only the sounds that carry meaning, they can talk over long distances through phones and video without losing information, and they can write. It's how humans lie to each other so easily and so often, too. For pokémon, lying well through speech requires practice to hone thought-quick reflexes and mental discipline. Though it came much more readily once he got the knack of it, it took Pikachu years to learn his first and simplest lie: You don't scare me. Humans just need to move their tongues a bit. Having first-hand experience of how it all works is new and exciting.

He wouldn't want it as the only form of communication, though. Interesting as it is, it exists by necessity. The fact is that everyone, humans and pokémon, talks constantly. For pokémon, the vocalizations are merely emphasis. But humans can't feel, so they design entire languages out of what amounts to a punctuation. In the spaces where a pokémon finds intent, humans hear silence. Pikachu never had a friend before Ash, but even he finds the idea of ever being so unbearably isolated humbling. He's so, so glad for his partner that Ash has begun to learn.

Ash stands slowly, fighting gravity every bit of the way. "We should scour the town again. We must have missed someplace. Where should we start? How about – "

Pikachu tucks his head under Ash's chin and pushes up, closing his mouth. Nope. They can't go out now, not with so many people everywhere. Only one pair of eyes needs to notice their shadow. They should just take a nap while they wait for the town to clear out. Ash is tired. Pikachu is tired. Darkrai doesn't seem tired, but you never know.

Ash nudges him away with his knuckles, avoiding Pikachu's cheek as he always does. "I'm not – " He swallows a yawn. "'m fine. Unown get stronger the more time they have to work. We need to find them before things get worse."

That's true. What's also true is that if Ash faints and falls into the reeking water, his clothes and maybe his pack are going to soak through.

Ash wavers, but holds. "Piiii," Pikachu whines, pressing against his neck.

"Come on, we have priorities!" Ash insists. Pikachu is extraordinarily unimpressed. Ash grins. "Sleep is for the dead. If you're tired, I can carry you in the bag."

Pikachu buries his face in Ash's jacket in exasperation. The rank tang of the air down here drowns under his partner's scent. He lets his twitching ears betray him, though, and Ash only laughs and scratches Pikachu's head. "Let's keep going through here until we find some place with no people where we can head back up."

They end up coming out of a manhole by the tower, at a long unbroken street bordered on one side by the park and the other by buildings. Pikachu exits first, shoving the heavy plate out of the way and crawling out after it like this is a perfectly normal thing to be doing. He trots a few feet away, checking idly about for people. They're far out at the edge of town while everyone else is gathering at the exit deeper in, so they're not likely to find anyone. He's right, as expected. The closest signs of people he hears are the flashes of pokéballs from deeper in the park as trainers and volunteers capture water-confined pokémon from the ponds. When he's confirmed they're alone, he drops the nonchalant act, scurries back to the hole in the street, and shouts down.

His partner sits on the ground as soon as he clears the edge, trying very hard not to pant from the simple climb. Pikachu nudges his leg, worrying, but of course Ash pretends he doesn't notice. Once Ash recovers, he dries his feet on the ground, unties the shoes and socks hanging by the laces from his belt, and pulls his footwear back on. Darkrai speaks as he's finishing, and Ash translates for Pikachu. "They left."

"They?" Ash asks. "Who's they?"

"Everyone."

"Everyone...?" Ash's mind is a fog, hazy and heavy. That's alright. That's what partners are for. Pikachu chatters for his attention and tells him what he's pretty sure Darkrai means. Ash's expression clears. "Yeah, the townspeople are evacuating. Leaving."

"Cresselia?" That's the pokémon meant to be the counterpart to darkrai. Pikachu makes a questioning sound. Did she open up the exit? But if the fog isn't Darkrai's doing, why would it expect – "Will they come back?"

The haze thins at the edges. With energy he tries hard to feel, Ash says, "This is their home. They're not going to abandon it." Then: "Do you want them to come back, Darkrai?"

It doesn't respond immediately. Pikachu and Ash exchange glances, both of them with questions the other can't answer. Finally, Darkrai says, "The garden belongs to everyone."

Then their shadow peels away, and Ash scrambles to his feet to follow.

Technically, Pikachu has gone without sleep as long as Ash has, but he still has charge remaining. It leaks persistently while he's awake, but he has enough control over his electricity to minimize the loss. He hasn't used it actively either aside from the barely notable amounts he aimed at Darkrai. As long as he's careful, he can pull off another couple days without rest, though he would prefer not to. Unless he finds a power source, in which case he can stay awake without effort for as long as it lasts.

Pikachu is not altogether sure why humans and other non-electric types sleep. The easiest way for him to imagine it is that they do charge when they rest and bleed when they're awake. They have electricity, after all, even if it's not much and nothing they can voluntarily use. That probably isn't the reason for it, but it's how he thinks of it. The results are the same either way. They grow tired as the hours pass, and it happens faster if they're active. The younger, less experienced ones have less energy and less practice at using it efficiently, so they charge more often. And nearly all of them require more sleep than Pikachu because they don't store nearly as much electricity as him.

Though Ash breaks the mold in so many other ways, in this he's the same as the rest of his line. Darkrai moves no faster than it did before, but the gap between them still widens. Pikachu clings to his shoulder and rubs cheeks with him, transferring static. "Ow," says Ash without heat. He doesn't stop Pikachu.

"Where are we going?" he asks after a while. Darkrai has pulled nearly half a block ahead and doesn't answer. (It's begun to slow. Pikachu wondered if it would shake them off when they couldn't keep up; he's glad that's not the case. Chasing it down again would be a hassle when it has that much of a head start.) Pikachu has no useful information to offer other than the obvious: that they're heading straight to the tower. Darkrai understands a lot more about the situation than it can tell them, so Pikachu's not inclined to worry. He's pretty sure it knows what it's trying to do. As long as it doesn't look like it's about to antagonize the entire town yet again, he's willing to follow its lead.

When they catch up to Darkrai, it comes to a halt and rises from the ground. Pikachu perks up, ears lifting. He hears the crowds past the buildings, but no one closer.

Darkrai says nothing intelligible. From somewhere among the mess Pikachu is doing his best to wall himself off from – Darkrai's very unyielding, so it's difficult, like hiding from a hailstorm in an open field – he accidentally picks up the impression that Darkrai is relieved, but... not in a good way? Something like that. He tilts his head, trying to remember if it mentioned murder and destruction quite this frequently before.

It expects them to initiate, he thinks. Ash assumes the same. "What are we stopping for?" he says in honest confusion. Pikachu hiccups in despair. "What is it, buddy?" Ash asks him, and somehow grows more befuddled when Pikachu pats his face gravely.

So they keep moving. Whenever Darkrai pulls ahead, it stops and emerges partway to fix them with a bright blue eye. It doesn't really seem unused to interaction. Everyone says it hasn't befriended anyone after Alice's grandmother, but on his own Pikachu wouldn't have suspected that it's not spent time with anyone in two human lifetimes. It's behaving more civilly than plenty of people and pokémon Pikachu might name. It's much more expressive than Pikachu would have thought, too.

While he's musing, the inevitable happens: Ash's sense of self stutters and wanes, and he trips over air. Microsleep. Pikachu clings tightly to his perch, cries Ash's name, sends sparks through his feet, and briefly hesitates when Ash doesn't immediately snap back to awareness. Then he pushes off for the ground. He lands before Ash, flipping to come down on his back, and his partner's face meets his paws rather than packed dirt.

Pikachu pushes him off and keeps pushing until Ash lies on his side, his bag propping him up from falling fully onto his back. Pikachu rolls to his feet and hurriedly checks Ash's breathing – steady, if slow – then scrambles over him in search of an entry wound. There wouldn't be for a psychic ability, but he wants to eliminate what possibilities he can first.

Ash doesn't feel like someone struck by a psychic attack either, Pikachu thinks as he looks over his partner's arm. He might only be asleep. There's been a trend lately. Pikachu pauses as soon as the idea occurs and focuses on Ash's presence. Faint still, but unmistakable once Pikachu knows what to search for: the prelude to a nightmare.

He shocks Ash again, just to make sure, and winces when Ash's nightmare worsens. Oops.

Darkrai is nowhere to be seen. Pikachu rears, calls for it, and receives no answer. He settles back onto his haunches, bemused. But Darkrai didn't do anything. Why won't Ash wake up?

To make absolutely, positively certain, he hits Ash with a true thunderbolt. No effect. He lifts one of Ash's eyelids, blows into his eyeball, then lets go and scampers over to his belt. He noses the pokéballs, wishing Ash had someone bigger, and in the end, for lack of a better choice, releases the whole team.

Staravia cranes his head about, taking stock of their surroundings; Aipom steals Ash's hat and bares her teeth at Pikachu; Turtwig waddles loud and frantic circles around his prone form. Pikachu calls them to order and gives a rundown of the situation. They need to take Ash to the evacuation point, which should break him out of his nightmares as it's done for the humans and pokémon Darkrai attacked. Just follow the crowds. Everyone's heading for the same place.

Turtwig wants to know what Pikachu intends to do while the rest of them help Ash. Splitting the party rarely ends well. Or adequately. Or without a desperate race to the nearest pokémon center or miracle-granting legendary pokémon. Will Pikachu be alright on his own?

Staravia would not mind the chance to get his claws into Darkrai. He ruffles his wings, looking consideringly at the lifeless sky, and coos.

Aipom jumps onto her tail and improvises an animated performance of the size differences between them and their trainer, somehow without dislodging the cap on her head. She also takes issue with the should part. How sure is he that this will fix Ash, and why is he not more certain? Also, has Pikachu tried zapping him? That usually works.

He explains that this isn't Darkrai's fault, which raises the same issues for the others that it did for him. He can't tell them any more, though, and meanwhile they can all sense Ash's nightmares. They should go. Pikachu will catch up later. He's off to look for Darkrai. Ash wouldn't want to renege on their promise just because one of the team fell into a mysterious coma.

He stays long enough to help them sort out how to carry Ash. Aipom hauls his head over her shoulder, Turtwig bites onto a pant leg and drags, and Staravia carries the backpack in his claws once they maneuver it off of Ash and flies higher to scout for their route. Ash is tough. He'll survive. And a friendly stranger or two will probably get involved before he acquires too many bruises.

Pikachu has a good idea of which direction Darkrai went in. Once the others have started on their wobbly way, Pikachu charges down the road towards the tower.

He doesn't catch up to Darkrai until the plaza at the tower's base, and then he nearly misses it where it's taken up hiding in the shadows beneath a tree near the way in. The only reason he doesn't is because the darker splotch starts to edge away when he comes into view. He hurries over, slowing as Darkrai materializes. There are a few people in the plaza, but the area is large and none of them are close. As long as it doesn't move into the light, Pikachu doesn't think there's a risk of its being spotted.

He sits back and stares up at it. It floats and stares down at him.

It talks, terse as usual. Pikachu tilts his head and scratches an ear.

He's perfectly willing to help it still, alone now or not, but it'll need to show him what it wants.

Maybe it's waiting for Ash to mediate. But it saw Ash fall asleep. Isn't that why it left? They stay at an impasse long enough that Pikachu grows jittery. He drops to all fours, stretches, ambles in a circle, returns. Darkrai might have had enough of staring ineffectually too then, because it leans slightly forwards and slowly raises a hand to its head height, palm down. A moment passes. Pikachu watches curiously as Darkrai waggles two fingers like its hand is a biped walking through the air.

That's Ash's height too, he realizes suddenly, sitting up straighter. Where did Ash go? Is it asking that? Pikachu waves his hands at the people across the plaza leaving. When Darkrai keeps its focus on him, ignoring the direction he's indicating, Pikachu scurries a few feet past it, putting himself between Darkrai and the distant groups, and keeps gesturing – with his paws, by leaping, with verbal sound – until the message gets through. Darkrai's head sinks lower behind its red collar, and it turns slightly away, though Pikachu notices it still watching him out of the corner of its eye.

It doesn't make to move after that. Pikachu waits only a few more seconds before scampering over to the tree. He's not going to figure out what Darkrai wants by sitting about and hoping it'll eventually tell him. Darkrai turns to watch as he arranges the twigs fallen around the roots into letters, snapping the wood for the curves. He makes them as they come to him, not knowing the order humans sort them in. After he lays the final line down for the fourth letter, he glances back at Darkrai, pats the ground between the shapes, and moves aside so it can see them clearly.

Darkrai's eye flits over them. "No." It brings its hands together.

Pikachu drops immediately into a battle stance, eyes wide. What is it doing now? Aren't they over this? But Darkrai doesn't hear and doesn't answer, and the moment the rings of dark energy twisting between its claws grow to Pikachu's size it spins around and looses the attack at the sky.

Baffled, Pikachu relaxes from his crouch as the beam flies away. It has an impressive range. The rings' color hasn't dimmed when it reaches half the Space-Time Tower's height. When it finally begins to fade, Pikachu can't tell whether it's dying or growing too far away for him to make out. "Ka?" he asks. Darkrai doesn't respond. Pikachu follows its gaze to the attack still rising.

When it reaches the tower's height in the air directly between the twin spires, the dark energy explodes. It's a subdued explosion, the light dim and the sound nonexistent, but dark pulses don't blow up in any capacity. It connected with something else. Pikachu squints up, trying to make out Darkrai's target – he gets as far as identifying the texture, rippling like a heat wave, and then a dissonant howl arrests his attention entirely.

What comes next happens very quickly: a gale emanates in every direction from the point of the explosion, in an instant shearing through the fog shrouding the town, peeling back the cover from a writhing, oily black sky streaked with false lightning; the haze between the towers vanishes, revealing a large, pale object hanging in the sky without visible support; Darkrai charges up another pulse; and then the thing hovering so high up is directly above them with no transition through the space between. Darkrai and Pikachu scatter in opposite directions as a claw blazing with pink light hits the ground where they were – hits it and keeps going without the slightest resistance, stone dissolving into glowing motes beneath the strike.

Pikachu has never met a pokémon who could benefit as much from a trainer as Darkrai. Conflict resolution! It exists! If Darkrai could have just thought to explain itself to the town instead of attacking people, and if it could have just explained to Pikachu that there was an improbably powerful automaton concealed above the tower instead of attacking it, then Darkrai wouldn't be here dodging and morphing into shadow and splitting off illusionary copies and pulling out what might be every trick it has just to evade the thing's claws, unable to find a single opening to go on the offensive.

With a frustrated shout, Pikachu launches a thunderbolt at the thing's back. It roars as the electricity connects and disengages from Darkrai to twist towards Pikachu. Its tail, suddenly sheathed in several feet of water, catches Darkrai off guard as it turns and sends the shadowy pokémon flying back to hit the wall of a building at the edge of the plaza. Though Pikachu's attack caught the thing's attention, it doesn't give any indication of being actually hurt as it moves to stomp on him. Pikachu starts to run out from under the incoming foot, but suddenly the ground rumbles and the cobblestones crack. His paw catches in a crevice, sending him sprawling. The thing's full weight descends.

It's dark and it hurts and he can't think through the awful, crushing pressure squeezing his ribs and skull to creaking. He only reacts.

Lightning surges. Nearly every spark of his stored power screams outwards in a coruscating torrent. He can't name the moment when the thing moves off of him, only knows that when he eventually cuts off the surge he can see the sludgy sky again. He's not sure how long he stays there without moving, ears ringing and every muscle aching and nothing but ozone in his nostrils, sparks flaring and dying in his vision.

The first sensation to filter back in is weightlessness, air under his dangling legs. Then wind pushing through his fur. His back impacts something solid, stunning the breath from him, and he rolls over and over to a stop.

Wheezing, he pushes himself trembling to his feet. He flicks his ears, not to shake off the ringing but to give himself a tangible action to focus on, staring blankly at the the uneven surface of a cobblestone beneath him. Darkrai picked him up and flung him away, didn't it. From somewhere Pikachu musters the energy for disbelief. It generally has good intentions, he's found out. But it doesn't know how to carry them out at all.

He looks up, scanning blearily for movement, and watches the white and black blurs across the plaza dance around each other like confuse rays. A flash of light, a crash and a tremor through the earth. Pikachu pushes himself slowly up to sit on his hind legs. Sparks fly from his cheeks as he charges a path between himself and the white shape. Halfway across, his control starts to slip; he looses the lightning strike anyway, and it courses steady for a bare instant before veering off into a bench. Pikachu swallows and presses his cheek. He's nearly dry. He doesn't have enough electricity left to set up a stable channel. Actually, never mind setting up a channel, he doesn't have enough for any sort of control. White-blue sparks skitter aimlessly across his fur, chipping at his already depleted reserves.

He doesn't notice the person drawing near until she's only a feet away. He turns and looks up as she crouches. She rings some bells. "Aren't you Ash's pikachu?" she asks, and he flicks an ear as he recognizes her by her voice. Alice puts out a hand, holds still until his eyes focus on it, and reaches for his head.

Her palm settles behind his ears, and then she snaps back with a startled sound. Pikachu recoils from her pain on reflex. Tonio, who Pikachu only now registers standing behind her, hurries to put a hand on her shoulder. "Alice?"

"Static. It's fine."

Tonio hesitates. "Alice, we need – "

A dragon pulse tears by half a dozen feet to Pikachu's left. Air flees gracelessly from its path. Pikachu narrows his eyes against the wind, bristling at the energy. It fizzles away a few long seconds later. Alice and Tonio are both very quiet. Then Tonio says, breathing heavily, "Alice, we need to hurry."

"Give me your jacket," Alice says. Tonio does without hesitation, handing over his laptop for her to hold as he takes it off, and then Alice wraps it around Pikachu. He squirms a bit to keep the cloth under his neck. Once he's situated, Alice picks him up, hugging him to her chest and tensing at every spark that makes it through the cloth. Pikachu only notices distantly through the encroaching fade. He stays awake long enough to feel Alice running and see the tower's base growing larger, and to hear her to say, "You're alright, Pikachu, you can sleep. We'll bring you back to Ash after we stop this."