My vision doesn't end there as it should. Instead, I find it blurring in a haze of dull colors that sends my head reeling. A wave of undecipherable images seem to cut across time and space to drill into my skull—ancient scripts and murals from long, forgotten places; dark powers that should never have been awakened—and I can only latch onto pieces of them in order to form a single coherent thought: Whatever Pitch Black has done to become whatever he is now, he's delved into forces that should never have been disturbed.
"I used to be able to feel your presence so easily," I hear Cresselia from the void say in a mournful voice, "but anymore, you could be standing right by my side and it would feel as though I were only standing next to a shadow… Darkrai, what have you done?"
There's a moment's hesitation before his terrifyingly familiar voice replies, "It has always been a talent of my kind's to hide beneath the cover of darkness, both a gift and a curse of ours. It has always allowed us to conduct our work with ease, and helped us to stay hidden from those who would try to do us harm. Nevertheless, time and time again have we been found and chased away.
"Tell me, Cresselia: What can someone like you, who is so beautiful and so loved, have to fear? Darkness? Betrayal? Hostility?"
"What are you talking about…?" she asks him in a cautionate whisper.
"I know you're fully aware that my powers have grown. Are you afraid of me, Cresselia?" he presses further, and I hear the difficulty he's having at keeping his voice level.
There's a moment's pause before she answers, her tone a bit stronger than before after she recomposes herself, "I am afraid of what you're becoming. I'm afraid for you. Please… Whatever you're doing, you can still walk away—!"
"As a show of appreciation for your companionship over the years, I have decided to let you do as you will for now," he cuts her off, "Do not take this one act of mercy lightly. I don't expect us to see eye-to-eye the next time we meet."
"Darkrai… Come back, Darkrai!"
But I don't know whether or not he answers her. In the next instant, I'm thrust into a world of night blanketed by the pale cover of the moon shining through a partly cloudy sky above—the kind of night on which the glimmer of only a handful of stars can be seen. The Hidden Land is gone, as are the legendaries. The temple and its jungle background have been replaced by the rolling hills of a town set within a mountain landscape like some paradise kept locked away from the world.
The first thing I distinctly notice about this place is the architecture: It's clearly human. Most Pokemon settlements have a way of fashioning their homes and businesses in a manner that plays off of their surroundings. Many Pokemon will mimic the structure's design off of themselves, and there are others that carve their homes directly from trees and boulders. Even the structures that do seem to be more human-like are usually rudimentary and archaic, constructed in ways that humans haven't used for hundreds of years. No, these buildings are clearly modern: Even as simple as most of them are in design, they're much like what I saw when I was returned to my own time.
Vast fields and farmland surround them, and beyond those forests, and beyond those the nearby, isolating mountains. There are lights much like the ones that shine through the windows that make me think that there are even more buildings scattered in the distance too, but I can't make them out as well. There are roads that split off in each of the cardinal directions, but I'm surprised when I find that—while they're still wide enough for vehicles to travel along—none of them are paved. Unlike on the many streets I walked before alongside other humans in their cities, I don't see a single road that isn't a dirt path.
It's not a splendorous place, that's for certain, but there's something about it that makes it feel like home. It's more than just about it having a peaceful atmosphere—there's a feeling here that I can't shake. It takes me a minute to realize it, but this place has a similar, strong aura to Rota's. And that is the final piece of information I need to tell me exactly what the place I'm seeing is: The Lucario Kingdom.
The vision ends up carrying me through the winding paths, and soon enough I realize that I'm following a shadow travelling along the ground. Darkrai. By the way he moves, I can assume that this isn't his first time here: He weaves between the buildings as if he's taken this same route several times over. Nothing is all that well lit—there are no street lamps and most people seem to have turned in for the night—so only what illumination seeps through houses can be seen.
He doesn't try to enter any of them, but he stops to peer inside each of the homes to briefly examine the people within. It almost seems as though it's a custom of his. The more often he does it, the more I begin to realize his goal: He's looking for something. Someone…
It doesn't fail to slip past my notice that the ones he pays the most attention to are young children. There are many that he doesn't show much interest in and others who's bedroom windows he'll linger at for a little longer—watching them as they sleep and allowing a part of his nightmarish abilities to work. Then, once they begin to squirm with fright or despair, he leaves. He's searching for the final Guardian of Light: I know it. He's searching for me…
With every failed attempt, both his pace and impatience grow. He skims over homes he's likely already visited on previous nights, only bothering to truly check those select few with babies or toddlers—new life. It's no use though: No matter how often he looks, he'll never find me there because that isn't my hometown. I'd never even heard of the place until the Gothorita that Dusknoir had see us mentioned it.
Suddenly, there's a noise that reveals not all is as peaceful here as either of us would think. Muffled shouting resounds from one of the homes set a little further than the others amid the cluster, along the outskirts of them and closer to the stretch of fields lined with row upon row of berry bushes. Whether out of curiosity or something else, Darkrai alters his path in the direction of the sound and glances within a living room window.
The dim, flickering light of a television is all that reveals the scene playing out before us: Two figures—a man's and a woman's—on their feet as they heatedly argue with one another. They're hardly more than silhouettes, so I can't tell what they look like, but I can read their feelings on their voices and body language well enough. The man is furious: The woman is desperate. Both are resentful and distraught.
"—so there is no discussing this—she made her choice!" the man screams, throwing down what I think is a stack of papers onto a nearby table, "Do you want to know why she hasn't come back home once after all of these years?! It's because she's traitor and she knows it—!"
"She's not a traitor: She's our daughter—our only child and we're losing her because you're too stubborn to set aside your pride and pick up the phone for one minute—!"
"—years of training gone to waste, after everything we did to raise her right, only for her to throw away her duty out of some stupid, idealistic—!"
"—she wanted to see the world for herself, not be stuck here being told what it's supposed to be like all of her life—!"
"Oh, 'stuck here!' Stuck here! Is that what home is now, just some place you're 'stuck' with?! Well, guess what—she was 'stuck' with us and with her abilities! It couldn't be changed—that's life! Now, she had a job to do and she threw it away! That's an undeniable fact! Kids are leaving every day, I see that, but at least most of them are still upholding our duties and values! And what does she do?! She abandons everything to just wander the region and—!"
"And are you really going to let us lose her because of that?! I don't want to lose my daughter! The reason she never comes back is because you hate her—you treat her like you hate her for leaving—You've made us miss so much of her life, and we're never going to get that back—!"
"—but she can call you just fine, can't she?! Why you even talk to her, I'll never know—she can't take a day out of her schedule now to come back here to face us! Probably harder on her now that she's married to some half-brained miner digging circles in an empty ditch in Hoenn—!"
"Arceus, Eric, Iliana is pregnant!"
Silence falls at the fierce, tearful outcry of my mother's name. Not just inside the house: For a moment, it seems like the whole world is standing still. I don't know who or what I'm looking at anymore. I don't know how I'm supposed to react to the pair of silhouettes standing in front of me. I'm frozen, and both my heart and mind are numb. And when I can feel again, I find myself caught between two opposing urges: The desire to go to them—even knowing that none of this is real—just to capture a single, solid image of these people into my memory and the desire to retreat as a baffling anger threatens to consume me from the disgust I feel toward them.
But, of course, I can't do either. I remain where I am, just as Darkrai does. The man remains silent. The woman gives him a light shrug, choking back a sob. They both seem deflated.
"She's going to have a baby, Eric. Doesn't that matter?" she asks him in a faint voice, "We're going to be grandparents. Doesn't that matter to you at all…?"
He says nothing. They stare at one another a moment longer. Then, shaking her head, the woman leaves—disappearing somewhere further within the house. A few seconds more pass on in the quiet before the man moves as well, dropping himself into an armchair with his arms resting on his knees and his hands clasped together.
This final sight is all I have left before the vision burns away to reveal another. There is no pause as the Lucario Kingdom dissipates to paint another scene right in front of me. As I feel the passing of time with every piece of the first falling away, the surrounding world grows darker. The night deepens…
So much of this explains how Pitch Black was able to find out who I was though. Based on that prophecy I saw, he traced the Lucario Kingdom to my mother and my mother to me. It seems as though it took him years to do it, but he did somehow find me. And I'm the youngest out of any of us, so does that mean he was trying to hunt down Ri, Grovyle, and the others for all that time too?!
In the very least, I know he wasn't able to find Ri at this point or else Ri would never have started travelling with me in the corrected timeline or have risen to become the leader of the Resistance in the Dark Future: Darkrai would've chased him down first otherwise. But Celebi… Those Celebi who made those predictions about us specifically said that one of the five Guardians of Light would be born as one of them. That must've been why there weren't any Celebi let free in the Dark Future and why our Celebi had to escape Primal Dialga! In order to not take any chances, Pitch Black would've had all of them locked away!
I can't guess what he was planning on doing with the rest of us, but it makes sense that he tried to find out who we were before he changed the future by causing time's collapse since he knew we would try to stop him! And all while he was trying to figure out our identities, he could also use that time to build up his own, perverse abilities. Once he was strong enough, he could go back in time before any of us were born to begin the Planet's Paralysis and then hunt for us one-by-one again later along the destroyed timeline under the assurance that we'd be too young or too weak to face him when he did—and with no one to protect us since the other legendaries would've been killed if not chased away as Primal Dialga rose to power. If he hadn't, then he would've faced the risk of all of us already having joined forces and realized what we were capable of when he did begin the Planet's Paralysis. And if he tried to kill us off in childhood one-by-one as we were born, someone would've taken notice and he likely wouldn't have been strong enough to fight them. Going back in time was his only option to avoid both risks.
And when we did change things, when we were able to stop his plan by going back into the past as well and setting the Time Gears in place, he knew what happened instantly. Because he's also time-travelled. He picked up on what the Resistance was planning since he knew that was the only option he left us with because he's done it himself. And when we succeeded, he must've first believed that it was Grovyle and I that did it: Ri was still safe, but Darkrai found me and began to torment me not long after I returned to my own time. It wasn't until later that he must've learned exactly who Ri was and decided to come after him too.
He plotted this for decades. He's waited decades to get rid of us…
It's so hard for me to compose myself when I find where I am now. It's still night, but rather than being outside like before, I find that I'm in a small room fashioned with wooden walls. A child's room, based on the colorful furnishings, scattered toys, and small bed. There's someone sleeping, a tiny form with brown locks curled-up beneath the green blankets. My head feels like it could split apart at any second, because I think I remember this! I remember this now! No…
A dark shadow crosses the room, creeping along the floor. Pitch Black may not have found me as soon as he had wanted, but he did find me. Manifesting from the darkness along the bedside, he peers down at the small child—a little girl—still fast asleep. She looks so peaceful, hardly making a sound beyond the gentle rhythm of her steady breathing. She is completely unaware of the danger next to her.
A quick test. Summoning a fraction of his power, Darkrai casts a single nightmare upon the girl—not a grave one, but one that would make any child cry in the night. But she doesn't. Rather than bolting up in fright, she murmurs in her sleep and her eyes flutters open dreamily at half-mast. She doesn't seem terrified, just disgruntled from being awoken so early.
With a tired moan, she pushes herself up—a familiar doll cradled in one arm as she wipes at her eyes with her free hand. Silent, Darkrai waits for her to notice him. She yawns. She kicks at the covers to escape from them. She finishes wiping at her face, blinking wearily as she looks around the room—the only light source then thin sliver of the moon peeking through the window.
No, that isn't right. Something isn't right: Her room is a little brighter than it should be. A cerulean glimmer radiates from the edge of her field of vision and she turns her head—startled to find the ghostly figure looming over her.
Startled, but not scared. Mutely, she stares at him. He stares back, waiting. Fully alert now, the girl takes in the sight of the Pokemon in front of her: His shadowy physique blending in with the dark background of her room; the white mane rippling through the air on its own accord like a phantom in its own right; and the vivid, cold eye peering down at her from behind his locks. She gapes at him, the doll slipping from her arms.
Then the child pushes herself onto her feet in the bed, reaching up toward him. A grin pulls against her lips and she mutters with a quiet giggle, "Pretty…"
Pitch Black falters. He doesn't seem to know how to react to the beaming little girl in front of him nor the outstretched hand that inches closer to him. Just before she can touch a wisp of his mane, he recoils back from her as though she were the plague. He doesn't understand it. He can't make sense of her.
When he then stops at just over a meter's distance from where he had been, he watches her carefully as she stares back at him with her hand still held in the air. She looks shocked, but quickly enough her lips purse in a child's frustration. "No fair! I just wanna pet you!" she grumbles, balling her fists together in front of her. With a determined gleam in her eyes, she begins to clumsily get down from the bed to chase after him.
There isn't much of anywhere to go within the confined space. His back to the walls, always watching her, Darkrai hovers around the perimeter of the room to keep his distance as she follows him—never truly attempting to escape her, but staying out of her reach. Were the circumstances different, it would almost look like a game. Eventually though, she corners him between the window and a dollhouse. Giggling and out of breath, she reaches up for him a second time.
He's too tall for her to reach without the added height of the bed. She settles with clasping a hand around one of the fingers of his larger one, grinning from her success while he's rattled by the foreign touch.
No, he doesn't understand her. She's more confusing that any creature he has even encountered…
The creaking of a door, the shuffle of a board, and finally a propelled sphere of light barreling his way: These things follow one by one after each other in the background of the scene as my mother suddenly appears from the hallway—dressed in a set of pajamas with her hair disheveled from sleep. The child's running around at this hour must've woken her up.
Even knowing what she is now, I can't contain my shock from watching her with a readied Aura Sphere manifested in the palm of one of her hands. Pitch Black barely misses the first attack, throwing his weight forward and knocking the girl off of her feet as she tumbles back and lands on the rug beneath her—the first orb slamming into the wall and the impact of it jarring a few toys from their shelves.
"Mommy?!" the little girl cries in confusion while a frightened shout can be heard from some other part of the building follows by the pounding of footsteps racing toward them. Darkrai moves back away from me, his back colliding with the window as he eyes my mother with a harsh glare.
Soon enough, my father skids to a halt behind her, "By Kyogre, what is that thing?!" He hurriedly shuffles past her, racing toward the child to scoop her up in his arms.
'That thing' is already dissipating into a shadow and filtering through the crevice between the glass and wall as he speaks. Pitch Black slinks away from the woodland home, only to scale up the trunk of another, large adjacent tree and watch them from afar as a light is turned on and the mother joins the side of her husband and daughter—checking the latter over for injuries before she heaves a relieved sigh,.
"What is that thing?!" my father asks once more, the words muffled and only discernable by the repeated movements of his lips. My mother answers him, but here there's no way to tell what's being said.
Only one clear statement can be heard in the quiet of the night as Pitch Black continues to look on, watching the child in fascination. "She's not afraid of me…" he whispers.
And just like that, I know my fate was sealed.
