We finally stopped, taking a nice spot with a great view on the whole horde of eons and the stone full of pack elders close to their mates, next were Aspirants and further on, Lectors, and obviously in the centre, Sogot, with his four bulky looking flareons behind him. Sogot kept calling them his guard, but I couldn't see a reason for having a guard inside of the pack. I guess it was something he got used to while being domestic or it was another example of his ego.

It was quite common for elders to use lectors, though it was rather a seasonal occupation, some eeveelutions were better giving speeches than actual elders, so they were using them to 'speak through them'. Nowadays, not having a lector could be even a shame, pretty eeveelutions with good voice became the picture of prestige in each region. Though I could understand the role of lectors, I never could understand what Aspirants were for, they were supposed to do something with the pack's politic outside of its territory, but I could swear that I see the same guys walking around almost every day and enjoying themselves. Though, on the second paw, there was not much to do outside of the pack's territory besides scouting, lurking, or trying to find a way back home.

"Any expectations?" I asked the umbreon sitting next to me.

"Not much, I am interested only in stuff directly affecting me. I think I may even leave earlier, depends when Lyn will have her time to speak," answered the dark-type.

"I've heard that name before, but I don't really remember."

"She is kind of a new leader of umbreons, and has to tell about the future of hunting," explained umbreon mocking.

"Kind of?"

"Yeah, kind of, to truly be an elder and deserve to be called Huntmaster, you really need to be something, but unfortunately the real elder currently is in this weird kind of dream I told you earlier about, so there was need for a replacement," said Serge, with rising anger in his voice.

Besides that, I had to ask.

"So why was there someone chosen that, in your opinion, doesn't fit this role?" I asked in the same moment as some Lector started his speech, but my friendly nocturnal ignored him.

"It isn't just my opinion, she just has three nights behind her," said Serge. I already knew that 'Nights' for umbreons meant the hunting trips, but not the ones to the closest forest, but the more dangerous ones. "It wasn't really a choice. No one thought that our Huntmaster would just be... well... out of reach. Maybe only Sogot would be able to do serious harm to him and even then, he would come here so generally everyone was shocked, but there was the need to chose someone for the meeting. There were four of us who informed Sogot about the problem, Lyn found him first so he was with us too. Accidentally, there was also this weird espeon, I mean this younger from these two weird espeons. Von? Vion? Doesn't matter, however, he suggested to Lyn as the temporary replacement. I don't know how he managed to convince us that that would be a good idea, if we weren't all umbreons I would have already accused him publicly for using psychic on us."

"Maybe he is just a great speaker?" I suggested shyly.

"Maybe he is, but still, Lyn shouldn't be so promoted, even temporary, that first. Second, since when can espeon decide about umbreon's things? We never liked each other, only some newly evolved find it interesting to break this standard and create a dozen of never working romances," Serge kept speaking nervously.

"But you need to admit that without these new evolved the number of young love tales would be decreased to just a few. Eons love shipping espeons and umbreons," I giggled, nudging the umbreon.

"I wonder why they don't ship vaporeons and flareons as often, it's a similar conflict," grumbled Serge, accepting a nudge with ignoration.

"Maybe because of how wet vaporeons can be and how easily it can extinguish the flareon's flame of temptation," I joked, but the umbreon didn't react immediately.

However, the growing thought that my friend became more serious then quickly died when I started to hear laughing coming from the deep of his guts that slowly was getting louder as he was making his way up the throat becoming honest and uncontrolled chortle.

"You know I love jokes that hit so many different levels at once," finally cackled umbreon shaking. Few eeveelution around looked at us with confusion probably wondering what was so funny in the lector's speech to make an umbreon laugh, I answered them with the nods of a face showing my apologies about my companion's sense of humour. For most, it was enough, while a few exceptions needed to keep looking for a few more seconds before looking away.

Oh my. I used Sonya's way of telling time unwillingly! Or one of the ways she was using as she mentioned moon phases too once or twice.

"But going back to Lyn, I gonna keep an eye on her," said Serge returning to his serious and silent tone.

"Do you want to spy on her?" I asked worriedly.

"Rather check her environment, it's just not right that some random eon gets such an honour," answered calmly dark-type.

"I see, just let me know if it would gets more interesting."

"In that case, it would be better to keep you away from it. Sorry, but if it would be something more than coincidence, for example, conspiracy in an attempt to weaken umbreons leadership, you wouldn't be much help," said Serge.

"Uh, I'm actually not sure why anyone would do something like that, I guess your nature speaks through you. However if not me, then Cera can be some help," I suggested, surprised by his imagination.

"But she is an espeon!" yelped umbreon.

"So what? Maybe it's not publicly official that she is my mate, she is trusted, you shouldn't doubt in her just because she is psychic!"

"She still is espeon and has espeons in her environment and was raised by an espeon's family. She may be trusted, but still, she thinks in the espeons' way."

"An espeon's way of thinking is not always a bad one," at the sound of a female voice, umbreon jumped on his paws. "Sometimes we have good ideas, like preventing some eeveelutions from hearing everything you said."

Cera slowly walked around, still bristled dark type and sat next to me looking at Serge unfriendly.

"However, I can understand your worries. The knowledge that you can be easily outsmarted, that someone can mock you or push you into the corner, can be very horrifying," continued Cera. "Today, I can agree with you."

"Eh, you mean, was I right?" questioned the confused Serge, calming down a little.

"No, absolutely. It's a completely different scale of the problem we are facing here," answered Cera, suddenly changing the voice to very serious. "I already know what you said to Zar about the weird dream."

"Hey, you said you don't read my mind!" I noted, but I wasn't actually sure how long Cera was listening to us. "Are you stalking me?"

"I wasn't, however because of our connected minds I was sucked into watching the world by your eyes and I saw your meeting with Vilastraday, anyway, interesting way to break a combination of a psychic barriers and illusions Zar," she winked. "But back to the dream, or I should say... ehm, generally we should keep ourselves away from it, but what I was wanted to say is..."

"Now we listen to Vilastraday and his prophecy of the future he promised to tell us!" boomed Sogot's voice, announcing another speech.

"Oh no already," whined Cera. I saw her lower her ears being visibly nervous and... scared? That was what her posture was telling me, but I could understand why.

"Great, besides Lyn it was second things I even came here," said Serge, sitting back down.

"No! Both of you stand up and run!" commanded Cera. Before I managed to ask her anything I felt the psychic power pulling me up on all fours and pushing me forward, for Serge, Cera went more directly pushing him with both her front paws but the effect was the same impressive and suddenly three of us were running through the crowd of surprised eons.

"Why?" asked Serge, looking back at Cera that kept pushing him to run faster.

"I will answer later, now just follow me as fast as you can, with all the trust you have to me," answered Cera. Though I wasn't convinced and I guess Serge wasn't too, we both nodded momentarily. Seeing that Cera smiled and took a lead, guiding as thought the crowd and pushing others out of the way with psychic. I needed to admit I never know that Cera could be so fast, without her still pushing me forward I would never be able to follow her. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see that Serge also had a hard time and only thanks to training and self-discipline he managed not to be left behind.

We managed to get out of the crowd, but Cera didn't stop there, nor did she allow me to stop, she kept pushing me with psychic forward, so we ran through the empty Middle to the sandy lagoon. Cera stopped right before water looking at the second bank.

"One moment," she shot, and shook her head once before lighting her eyes in blue light and the energy in the same blue light hit the water, stopping the flow and making the dry passage through the river.

"Okay, now go!" said Cera, returning to run across the bottom of the river. Serge and I looked at each other still confused, but followed without any further hesitation. This time I was slower as Cera wasn't supporting me, probably focusing only at the stopping river, so I was last to reach the opposite bank.

Just as I stopped at the second beach where I was walking earlier today, the river returned to flow with impact as the blue walls weren't stopping it any longer.

Again, I hadn't time to take a breath as Cera again threw me forward forcing me to run. This time Serge followed without being physically pushed.

"Where... where are we going," I managed to pant.

"Away from Vion and Vila, outside of the Pack!" screamed back Cera, blinking slightly in blue energy.

When did her psychic powers become blue? I wondered, reminding myself of the pink barriers in her den.

We entered the forest, and I meant the 'forest', generally, the whole Pack was in the forest, but eeveelutions had their desire paths. When we entered the 'forest', I meant this rarely visited part of the eon's territory.

Both for Cera and Serge running became harder, Cera was trying to push branches out of her way, while Serge was trying to avoid them. For me, however, running in the thickness became even easier, to the point I needed to slow down a little.

When we were completely lost and the side of the mountain's pass surrounding the Pack seemed to be quite close instead of being at the horizon, Cera slowed down and finally stopped panting heavily.

"What the fuck... are you thinking you're doing... forcing me to run so much after eating?!" said Serge, visibly having problems catching his breath or actually holding his stomach's possession.

"Hehehe," laughed Cera weakly, lying down tired. "I saved you."

Serge didn't answer probably just like me, not understanding the joke just yet. I was looking at them with a slight smile, happy Cera and frustrated Serge who was too tired to express his emotion. However, the worrying feeling that invaded my mind washed my smile away. It was something weirdly scaring, chaotic and gloomy.

"I sense that too, just at a different level," said Cera, noticing my change of mood. "Vion was right saying that the leafeons are equals to espeons. I guess it was the reason why they became extinct, at least in our pack."

"This feeling... what it is?" I asked, slowly being overwhelmed by the depressing emotions coming from the environment from the Middle's direction.

"That's a perversion, a disorder that haunts our world. It has many different names, but in general, it is some power of an unknown source that twists everything we have known," explained Cera, rolling on her belly.

"Oh, thanks. For a moment I was worried you felt my fart," breathed Serge, immediately getting a disgusted glance from the espeon.

"Your presence is disgusting," commented Cera, making the distance from the dark-type.

"Excuse me, but all I felt was a wave of the dark energy and it was you who called it a 'disorder'," shot back umbreon.

"So, you felt it as a wave of dark energy?" asked Cera, surprised.

"Yes," affirmed Serge nodding.

"That's interesting, at the psychic since it didn't felt like that at all," said Cera, in an apologising voice.

"In a green vision, it also felt different," I agreed with Cera.

"Green what?" asked both eeveelutions.

"Uhm," I mumbled abashed. "That's how I named the leafeon way of sensing things, green because of the colour of most of the plants... I thought it's a cool name."

"It's not," judged Serge.

"I think it would be better if you would leave naming things to some other leafeons," commented Cera.

"Okay! Fine! Weren't we talking about this world disorder?" I shot.

"We were, but we changed the atmosphere too much to talk about serious things," commented espeon.

"It's not about atmosphere, I just want what happened," I said honestly.

Cera, before answering glanced meaningfully at Serge.

"I won't be disturbing," said umbreon, shaking his head.

"Okay, so generally my knowledge about this theme isn't very impressive, but I got these pieces of information in just two days, so please don't blame me," said Cera slowly taking a seat. "So, it started by accident. I returned to my den very tired. Exactly the same day Zar disappeared again, Vion sent me to the team of espeons whose task was to check on some interesting object. It looked like kind of violet ice, but the only kind of, it wasn't cold or anything like ice. Generally scanning objects with psychic is quite exhausting, but this one was extremely hard to scan, at least to me. Some of the much less skilled or experienced espeons hadn't as many problems as I had. It seemed a little weird for me, but I guessed it just wasn't my day.," Cera made a pause for one deep breath.

"I returned to my den and took a nap. However, instead of some typical dream, I found myself in a dark chamber, I was talking with Zar's voice and I was seeing through your eyes. I remember you had something similar earlier so I wasn't panicking. Anyway, you have great ears, much better than mine. I heard everything Vila said and it confused me, he never showed this kind of personality ever before. It really worried me, an espeon who can see the future? It's not something normal, our psychic bodies aren't strong enough to stand such pressure of psychic energy. I started looking for information about how it can be possible. First I started with the teacher of my Lodge, but they weren't much help, only proving to me again I overpassed them. However, the group of espeons collecting history were a bit more helpful. I learned about the group of eeveelutions that once existed in our Pack that had access to unusual abilities. These abilities were partly ancestral, but only partly because every next generation of this group had weaker and weaker these special abilities. As the last known eeveelution being able to do something unusual was known as Azor the Duskeye. Obviously, this name came from this special ability which was just typical dark-type ability of unusual power," Cera took a moment to take another deep breath.

"As Vila named it, the Dark Litter is exactly the same line of eeveelutions, but it's something more than just genes, as not every eevee they produced had access to these special abilities. So it would be all about my knowledge, the rest is just my guesses," announced Cera. "So, from what I found, I can theoretically guess that the Dark Little didn't end at Azor but still exists somewhere. I think it can be Vila or Vion as both of them are unnaturally good at psychic, also Vion is able to create psych-creations and manipulate the distortion energy. He invented this... Dark Dream... or whatever it's called."

"I don't like the idea of calling 'dark' everything that's bad," marked Serge, giving the blink of his blue rings.

"That's how... okay, doesn't matter," the espeon shook her head before finishing the thought. "Anyway the reason why I evacuated you two was that I that at this clearing, in the centre of the Middle was concentrated so much psychic energy that I was afraid, and I still fear that.. that was the end of the Pack."

"What?" both of us asked surprised.

"The Pack end so suddenly, all these eeveelutions..."

"All these eeveelutions are now caught in this weird dream!" Cera cut the dark-type. "These random disappearances of different eons were just tests, practice, for Vion and Vila before trying it at a larger scale."

Serge didn't answer so quickly this time and looked at me for help but I answered him with a questioning look, though Cera's words were slowly sinking into my brain and realisation about what happened.

"But that doesn't make much sense, first, why one eon had to do anything bad to the second eon, second, putting everyone in the dream? For what?" finally asked Serge and I nodded my head showing I also share these doubts.

"As I said, these are not things I am sure about, but they seem a bit... not eons," said Cera slowly, looking for our expressions. Mine probably was quite obvious, I didn't understand most of the situation, but Serge, like always, wasn't showing many emotions. "And the second part, the distortion has a tendency to spread, if Vion had a connection with it, it probably wants to spread through him too, maybe this dream has to do something with it? I don't know, I got caught busy with saving you."

"Okay, but even if, what do you want to do with it? Yeah, you are quite skilled and proved that you are also intelligent if you needed just two days to collect so much information, I can be quite a good umbreon and there is Zar and being him leafeon makes him quite unique too, but it's still not equal to two psychic freaks having power over something not from this world," noticed accurately Serge.

"Uh, there also Metro that can be some help if it comes to learning something about Dark Litter," I said under my breath, but loud enough to let them hear.

"Metro?" asked the umbreon, unsure, shining slightly in questioning blue.

"Oh, right, I just realised you don't know anything about him... or it," I mentally face pawed myself finding current moment as not best to talk about the world-eating monster.

"Zar, what's Metro?" asked seriously Cera narrowing her eyes at me.

"Well, generally I am not really sure. I know rather what Metro isn't then what it is, and for sure it isn't anything we should be interested in."

"I am tired of mysteries for one day Zar," said irritated Serge.

"Okay, okay. So, in short, Metro is living thing, kind of evil mindful and intelligent plant growing under the 'ruins', in dark deep tunnels. It mostly spends time-consuming dark-type energy to grow larger, but it also adapts other creatures organs to support himself."

Now, seeing faces of my friend I could understand of stupid I needed to look when it was me who didn't understand a word.

"Oh, consume dark energy? Well, that's unfortunate," commented Serge.

"Why you didn't tell us earlier!" exploded Cera waving her tail angrily. "How did you get the idea that being silent about such abomination?! I thought that we just at the beginning of the curse spreading but if there is something like that living somewhere there then... then... well, I don't know. Guess we are fucked."

"I also once got transferred into a different dimension and then when I found the way out some shadowy monster was chasing me through the forest of bleeding trees and brainwashing fog," I added seeing how both their eyes slowly are getting wider as they were proceeding my words. "Hadn't you hadn't seen that with our mind connection?"

"Some memories were covered in dark, twisted or unreadable, but I didn't think that they hid something like that!" gasped espeon and shook her head. "We will leave it for later, we need to focus on the current situation."

After Cera's words, complete silence filled the space between trees and bushes and each of us as everyone was waiting for someone other to say what to do.

"Well," said Serge finally. "I would like to go and make sure that Liss is fine too."

"Already done, I send her psychic message telling that's from you. She is going through the mountains," Cera waved at the long mountain pass covering the horizon.

"How does she know where we are going?" I asked.

"She has to look for a narrow passage through the mountains, it's not very popular, actually I had only heard about it, but whenever we want to..."

"I was there," I cut her. "The passage exist and it should be fine, it's generally quite an unpopular area of the Pack."

"Great so there is our first destination. So, if we are already rested then let's get moving. Zar, make your grass-type duty and guide us through this thickness with the easier possible path," said Serge visible happier after hearing about meeting Liss.

"Uhm, ok, I just need to..."I mumbled, but the answer came faster then I managed to start to wonder how I supposed to find such a path. "I found it, follow me."

I wasn't following any instinct or ability, I just tried to go forward in the most typical for me, way, only sometimes reminding myself that following me, Serge was a little taller and generally slightly bigger, having that in mind I tried to avoid tight spaces between root or branches, and it seemed to work as they weren't complaining.

Going in a single file, we weren't talking, only sporadically if I had wait for them or if Serge accidentally bumped into Cera.

The forest was mostly silent, trees were moving in the slight gust of winds resounding with the sound of bending wood. First leaves started to appear, but they were still we rare to rustle, rustling were only two eeveelutions behind me, stepping on dry forest cover, but I didn't say them anything about that. It wouldn't change anything besides their moods to worse.

In the meantime, I started to wonder if telling Metro was an actually good idea. One does not simply walk into Metro's cave and now we were all three, with Liss, four, plus Serge was dark-type. He can appear tasty for Metro so I wasn't so sure if he should go there with us, though I didn't want any of them close to Metro. Also, Sonya was dark-type and all of sudden she attacked me which I somehow answered with dark-type kind of attack. This place for sure had something with dark-types and it wasn't anything good, I guess.

Wow, Serge had been right that we use word 'dark' too often, but on the other paw, it still sounded better than overusing words like bright or light like, Bright Litter sounds flatness. Talking about Dark Litter, I didn't tell them that most probably I was part of it, at least in some small part of me. Even now I doubted it as I hadn't any impressive ability and Cera said that each of them has some. Unless it was about the white colour of leaves that was slightly emitting light in the dark, but rather not. Maybe Metro was wrong assuming I had any connection with them, somehow related but without any stronger bond. Also, I thought it wasn't the best moment to share this information with my companions. It wasn't secret, if they ask I will answer but if they won't ask... For now, they thought that Dark Litter is total evil, the source of problems and generally very wrong, immoral, spreading curse things. Spearing them this news I spear them extra worry. Also, this news could be fake for Tera I was just leafeon and I guess that after years of training leafeons she would notice some difference much better than Metro did. Though Metro actually found this by accident by trying to consume me.

"Zar?" asked Cera bringing me away from my thought back to reality.

"Yeah?" I asked looking back, noticing the sky got quite dark and covered in stars.

"It's late, don't you want to rest? Even Serge started to feel sleepy," noticed Cera. Indeed Serge looked kind of sleepy having his blue rings dimmed.

"What have I become? Leafeon just keep going in the night toward dawn and me, the umbreon, am falling on my muzzle to sleep," mumbled Serge having his head and ears already low.

"I didn't even notice of fast time had passed," I admitted. However I couldn't blame myself for losing my sense of time, after all, I spend the last few days in Tera, or should I say training with Tera in her tree-kind-of. Whatever, what mattered was that actually sleep felt so distant for me that suddenly I became sleepy too. "This place could be comfy."

I pointed on bare but still thick bushes that had some free space close to the ground.

"It would be perfect," agreed Serge allowing me and Cera to lay down first before lying down covering us from the free passage under the bush. We lied close to each other sharing our warm or it was actually me who was taking warm, a little from the umbreon and espeon. Surprisingly, Cera, besides similar to me coat of the fur, was extending a similar amount of warm as much better prepared to stand cold, Serge.

Cera's eyes once again lighten up in blue covering for the moment the space around us in similar glow before fading away.

"That's for safety," explained espeon.

"Why it's blue now?" I asked.

"Typical it is pink, yes. But it's depending on the mind of psychic on which colour his energy is shown up. I always had blue, but my teacher didn't like that and wanted me to make it pink like every other espeon, now I just don't want to waste energy on something so stupid like colour," answered Cera in a sleepy voice. "Is it bad?"

"No, it matches your eyes," I noticed.

"Thank you, see you at dawn."

Morning came unexpectedly, in one moment I closed my eyes to fly into slumber, a second later I opened them to the rising sun. Whole night seemed like a blink of the eye, a moment, at that how I felt. Walking at the peak of our group I fought heavy eyelids and damping down yawn ripping yawns. My fur was a complete mess, dislocated and dirty, I just needed to damage my leaves and I would look just like I looked while walking with Sonya, or what was worse, I looked just like Sonya, just without this musk-like smell and high altitude.

Cera was the complete opposite, actually, she looked as if she would sleep in her den, had time in the morning to do her fur and wash in the river or whenever she used to take a bath. Then ate something gaining energy to function normally. The truth was she was deriving from her psychic abilities to refresh her mind and body keeping herself at the highest functionality. I was just wondering how long it would be working and what will happen when it stops working. Everything needed to have its drawbacks, but I trusted that Cera knew what she was doing, after all, she was espeon and should know espeon things and me, leafeon, shouldn't say a word about it.

Walking at the end Segre wasn't looking so bad as I felt but there was an effect of too short sleep in his eyes and his stomach was loudly demanding some morning eatables. Apparently, it wasn't part of the year to find much of edible things around and if we had to stay hidden without drawing the attention of two crazy espeons, then hunting also needed to wait.

It was all kind of weird, after all, we hadn't seen anything and depend on what Cera told me and Serge. It could be really stupid if it would appear that actually nothing happened and it would be Cera's joke or misunderstanding. Thought this mighty had to be like that, such suddenly, completely unexpected, if Vilastraday could see the future then planning anything hadn't much sense for us... uh?!

"Hey, Cera?" I spoked unsurely.

"Yeah?"

"If we are heading to this passage, and we think about it and keep doing it for a day and we keep doing it all the time and don't even think much about anything different, then would it be possible for espeon with an ability to foresee the future to discover our destination?" I asked. Serge raised his eyes on Cera visibly being interested in her answer too and Cera kept thinking, hesitant with the answer.

"It doesn't make much sense," she finally said.

"Oh, that's good, for the moment I really started to worry," I breathed.

"No, I meant it doesn't have much for us. How we supposed to do anything if he can just foresee this and what we want to do and prevent us from anything we would like to do against the distortion," said Cera wondering.

"He didn't guess that you will walk into the gathering and force two eeveelutions to run from it," noticed Serge. "Maybe it's not so perfect as we think it is."

"Zar, you were talking with him, how much did he tell you about his ability?" asked Cera.

How much he said to me about that? I couldn't remember much, this information was what I was focused on when Vila was sharing them with me.

"I think... he tried to say me that isn't anything amazing. That it isn't like travelling in time but calculating possibilities from the world around. Oh, and he said it drove him crazy," I answered trying to be as helpful as I could be beside I couldn't really remember.

Fun fact, Zar hadn't green/white leaves at the very beginning of the story. In the first version of the idea he had normal leaves but then while I was walking through the forest walking out my dogs and I found this pretty looking plant with double coloured leaves (Silverleaf Poplar ;p ) and then I got the idea that Zar will have these leaves because why not, he is the main character, he needed something unique ;)