Story II, Forming Darkness, Part I

A drop of sunlight came around Memory Cay about as often as willing travelers set foot on its pitch black shores. Even before crossing into the abyssal haze that engulfed the island, wayward seafarers would find the ocean currents around the area suddenly becoming still. All motion dying, all traces of light fleeting, leaving just the idle black water to swim along towards even greater darkness. Nothing survived on Memory Cay. Anything dead was lost. Just a long thin winding expanse of land spotted with barren trees and covered in lifeless grey stone that neither the sun nor moon would spare even a passing glance at.

And yet, despite the natural proclivity of the island to expel all life from it, two Pokémon chose to ignore it and journey through that abyss. One pair of eyes in front belonging to a young Wartortle, the other to the Crobat perched on her shell and watching her back. The Wartortle fidgeted with the straps on her head as she walked along the island, trying to adjust her headgear as best as she could.

"The goggles still working, Jenny?" The Crobat asked.

"Yes," she said. "I can still see."

"Are they too tight?"

"Just a little."

"Let's stop and I'll help you adjust them."

"Not till we find the cave," Jenny said.

"As you wish. Anything up ahead?"

"Nothing yet."

"Good," he whispered. "No one behind us, either. Watch your step. Go as silent as possible."

"I'm trying, Garley."

The natives of Starlight Island spoke only of the horror stories passed along through generations about the evil that no doubt lurked on Memory Cay. Some said the shroud of darkness protected a treasure deep within. Others claimed it kept abominable creatures from escaping the island. A few spoke of how nothing moved on the island, not even light or the air, as if one night all time had frozen there.

"Anything up ahead?" Garley asked.

"Still nothing."

Every step Jenny took sent a new chill up her spine, yet she couldn't help but take in the ethereal view of the island with such wide eyes. Her Noctowl Goggles, although nearly drained her savings, let the otherwise blind Wartortle see the spindly fragile trees through the darkness and the loose gravel beneath her feet. She could still see the shore on both sides of her, though she kept her head straight, looking for a foretold cave opening that might be hidden in the deepest depths of Memory Cay's darkness.

Jenny looked to her left, nearly opening her mouth to speak to a friend that wasn't there, but caught herself. She shook her head. As she traversed through the haze, she remembered how she posed the adventure to that Clefable friend of hers, wondering what she could have said differently to convince him to come along.

"You really want to go to find that cave on Death Island?" She remembered Calypse asking, him nearly choking on his Kebia berry smoothie as he heard Jenny make the proposition.

"That's not it's name," Jenny huffed. "And I told you as soon as I could afford the goggles I wanted to go check it out. And see? They make me look just like a Noctowl with the eyes and eyebrows. What? Did you think I was joking about going?"

"I kind of hoped, yeah. Guess I should have known better after you dragged me up to Lumina Peak just to 'watch the stars'. Ugh, I'm still sore from that hike."

Jenny chuckled. "Yeah the hike was kind of a slog, but you said so yourself that you enjoyed the view. And those Moon Stone deposits we found paid for dinner and then some."

"Was that before or after you slid down the path on your shell and made me walk down by myself?" Calypse asked, resting his chin on his hand.

"I offered to let you ride on top," Jenny said.

"I wouldn't have fit."

"Would too."

"And I saw how fast you were going. I would have flown off and split my head open."

"I would have caught you, Calypsy," smiled Jenny.

"Sure. I bet," the Clefable said, taking another drink. "My answer is 'no', by the way."

"To what?"

"To going to that awful island."

"I didn't even ask yet!"

"You were going to and don't even pretend like you weren't," said Calypse. The Clefable looked up to one of the ceiling rafters where a Crobat hung upside down. "You're not even going to try and talk her out of it, Garley?"

The Crobat opened one of his eyes. "I learned long ago how stubborn humans can be. If she really wants to go, I'll make sure she gets back safe."

Jenny smiled. "That settles that. You can just watch the shop for us while we're out, Calypse. And hey, we might even split the treasure we find with you."

"C'mon Jenny, be reasonable. Did they really not have any kind of dangerous islands like this in the human world? Imagine it like that, but a hundred times worse."

"I wouldn't know," she said. "The little town I grew up in was about as far from any ocean as you could get. I mean, the first time I ever even saw the ocean was when I met you and Garley."

Calypse sighed. "Well, if you're really going to go, just be super careful, okay? And don't stay overnight. Just because a place exists, doesn't mean it's safe to go to."

"We'll be careful, Calypse. Right, Garley?"

Garley closed his eyes. "I'll protect your life like it's mine."

The memory cut off for Jenny as she heard Garley speak to her again.

"What did you say?" She whispered.

"I said is there anything up ahead yet?"

Jenny squinted. Around a bend of a cluster of trees, a gateway into the depths of the cay laid amid the unmarked stones.

"I see a cave opening. Up on the right."

Garley flapped his wings and took flight, gliding through the darkness to where Jenny saw the hole. "Just as dark," he said. "Do you need to stop?"

"Nope. The goggles are feeling better now. I'll follow behind you."

The Crobat nodded as he descended down the pit. Jenny rested her shell on the least steep of the walls and slowly slid herself down, using her legs to help lower herself down as she got deeper in. About half way down, though, Jenny put her legs out to catch herself, but her heels only met unstable gravel and slipped out from under her. Garley only had time to hear the sounds of Jenny's shell whizzing past him over the stones before he tucked in his wings and swooped down after her. Jenny had no idea where she was heading and braced for a rude impact, though before she could hit a wall, she felt weightless. Then, as her forward momentum began to dip, she popped out of her shell to find herself falling. Even her goggles couldn't pierce the bottomless darkness that the pit incline had fed her into, hearing Calypse's voice in her head as she fell.

Jenny's head and limbs jerked forward, then hung there as she felt herself begin to rise. She looked back, seeing Garley gripping the edge of her shell in his teeth as he flapped his wings like mad. The Crobat picked up quick height as he could feel his hold on Jenny slipping. Meanwhile, the Wartortle was turning her head in every direction, trying to find any semblance of solid ground for the two to land on. Finally, she spotted a cliff face that seemed to lead further into the tunnel system. Jenny pointed a claw and directed Garley towards the cliff where he was quick to land. Once there, the Crobat dug his fangs out of Jenny's shell before falling to the ground and resting against one of the walls. Jenny propped herself on the opposite wall, finally able to breathe easy.

"Jesus, Garley," Jenny said, trying to collect herself and stop her heart from beating so fast. "Th-thank you."

"Feh, I wasn't going to lose you to something as plain as a bottomless pit," Garley smirked, wiping the spittle from his mouth with his wing. "I might have left some teeth marks on your shell, though."

Through her heavy breathing, Jenny managed to smile as well. "What? You think I'm gonna' tell Calypse you tried to take a bite out of me?"

The Crobat chuckled. "He'd believe you, too."

The two shared in the weak laugh, letting it fall off into silence. Jenny gave a side-eye glance at the pit again, then sighed.

"Should we go back?" The Wartortle asked.

"I'll need a bit of time to rest before I can fly you back over," Garley said.

Jenny nodded, though as she looked away from the pit, her eyes drew her down the expanse of the tunnel before them. Like the pit, her goggles couldn't identify the end of it, only seeing the walls go on and on into the darkness till their edges melted into shadows.

"Looks like the tunnel goes on for a while," she said.

Garley turned his head down the passage. "Looks like it."

"We could go and see what's down there."

"Didn't get close enough to death just now? Or are you really that addicted to being reckless?"

"I wasn't being reckless before! I just lost my footing. Look, I promise that if we see any more pits or anything, we'll turn around and go straight back to Starlight."

"Keke, if I knew you'd start being more reasonable after just one near death experience, I might have dropped you off a cliff a while ago."

Jenny chuckled as she helped Garley up off the floor. He crawled up her shell, perching himself again. The two kept great caution as they traveled down the cave's corridor. The Wartortle straightened her goggles, yet could still only see the room go on into an empty abyss. She and Garley scanned the floor and walls as they walked, careful of any triggers or traps, though the area seemed truly empty. Even the stones seemed more packed together. Footsteps had not graced the cave for what seemed like eternity. Everything still, the only sound being the crunch of gravel beneath Jenny's feet, perhaps the first sound the walls had heard since the darkness came.

"What was that?!" Jenny whispered, turning behind her. Just darkness still.

Garley shook his head. "My hearing is much sharper than yours and I didn't hear a thing. Are you feeling okay? Not getting paranoid, are you?"

"I'm f-fine," Jenny said. She clenched her fists. "We'll give it a little more. This is looking more and more like a dead end, anyway."

The two continued down the cave. Jenny tried to keep her heart still, but as her eyes darted in every direction, the darkness seemingly encroaching in on her, the beating in her chest only grew faster. Even her steps seemed to stop making noise, as if they had crossed over into a void. Jenny nearly leapt out of her shell as she heard Garley whisper to her.

"Jenny, look at the floor."

She looked down and knit her brow. "Stone bricks?"

"Yes. Someone had to have been here before."

Up ahead, the loose stones mixed with bits of shattered masonry till only a solid brick path laid before Jenny and Garley. The path lead to a short set of stairs. At the end of the trek, poking through the once endless darkness emerged a small chamber mostly encased in the same stone bricks, though some had become dislodged from the walls and ceiling over time. A thick layer of dust and debris lined the floors, but no sign of any sort of treasure worth hiding so deep in the recesses of the cave. Only a simple stone pillar stood upright in the center of the room, though it held nothing. However, behind the pillar, Jenny's goggles spotted an odd color. Twisted among the debris, whatever laid there seemed pure white.

The Crobat flapped its wings and examined the room from the air. "Sacked long ago, it seems."

Jenny shook her head and pointed to the pillar. "No, I see something."

She went over to the pillar, and as she checked behind it, she nearly fell backwards. The skeleton of some indiscernible Pokémon laid slumped over the back of the pillar, a cloth belt tied over its empty eye sockets and a gaping hole in its cracked skull. Shards of bone rested in the palm of one of its mangled hands, clenching it like a prize.

"Are you alright?" Garley asked.

"I'm okay. I just...haven't seen a dead body before."

The Crobat sighed. "And it unfortunately only gets easier the more death you see. Hopefully this will be your last."

"What do you think happened?"

"No doubt a fight over whatever was in here."

"A bad one, at that," said Jenny, kneeling down besides the skeleton. "The fingers on his left hand are all broken. Whatever was here, it must have been worth a lot to cave in the poor guy's head."

"Who's to speak on the extremes of greed? At any rate, I think we've spent just about enough time here. Best not linger around death. Let's leave this soul to rest...Jenny?"

Jenny's gaze was fixed. The Wartortle saw something in that cracked skull. Something drawing her in. It wanted her to hold her hand out and touch it. To reach out to that faint glimmer of green and yellow pulsing within the darkness of the skull. Without knowing it, Jenny obliged. A brief flash of light filled the room and blinded her, but soon the darkness returned. The soft chime of wind echoed in Jenny's mind for an instant, almost like laughter, but Jenny shook it off. Just hearing things that weren't there. She needed to get out of the darkness, she reasoned. Jenny's eyes adjusted from the flash just in time to see the skull tumble off the skeleton's shoulders and shatter into dust on the floor.

"What was that?" Garley asked.

"I have no idea," Jenny said as she stood up. "W-we should go."

"Wait. Do you feel any different?"

"I don't think so?" The Wartortle looked down to her hands. "Nothing feels different."

"Good. A shame that all this excitement proved fruitless. Let's try to make it back out without any surprises."

Jenny nodded and followed close behind Garley, unsure now if the soft giggling reverberating in her mind was real or not, but as she gave it any thought, the sound disappeared.

Garley successfully carried Jenny back across the pit and the two made their way back up the entrance and out onto the island proper. The island went further on from the first cave, but the two couldn't see any other openings nearby and opted to dismiss the island as a waste of time. The two Pokémon stuck close together as they made their way to the shoreline. Jenny wasted no time diving into the cold ocean waves and taking a direct line out of the shadowy haze of Memory Cay. Garley too was quick to cut through the darkness and slice open a passage for himself, letting the eager bits of sunlight enter to only get swallowed up. The Wartortle dove beneath the surface, seeing where the dark water met the sunlight drenched sea, and smiled as she crossed over into its warmth.

However, as the two continued along the newly renewed currents back towards Starlight Island, Jenny felt an odd tug at her back. She hadn't noticed it at first, but as she looked behind her, her eyes widened. Her shadow had become thin and stretched all the way back to the edge of Memory Cay's darkness. Worse yet, it pulled at her, trying to get her to return to the island. Jenny tried to swim against it and break free, but the harder she swam, the harder the shadow tried to pull her back.

"Garley?! Something's got me!"

The Crobat pivoted back around Jenny, readying an attack. "I see it," he said. Garley flapped his wings upwards, then in a swift motion brought his wings together, firing off a slicing stream of air towards Jenny's shadow.

Jenny felt her body spring and flip forward, finally free from her shadow's grasp as Garley's attack struck nothing and shot into the ocean. Before his attack could connect, a worried cry was heard between both Garley and Jenny as the once long shadow snapped like a rubber band and became whole. The Wartortle turned herself onto her shell to see the flailing bit of darkness flying through the sky, two frightened little red eyes on it as it tumbled through the air. Before Jenny could process it, she found herself kicking along the waves, trying to predict where the creature would land. Just in time, Jenny got herself into a perfect position to catch the falling creature on her stomach. The creature landed with its body sprawled out and completely disoriented, but as it gained its bearings and noticed where it had landed, it locked eyes with Jenny, then quickly buried its face in its hands and tried to hide itself away.

Garley flew down towards Jenny. "You said you felt completely normal!"

"I did!" Cried Jenny.

"What is that, then?! You think that's normal? You're possessed!"

"Stop freaking out, Garley. I'm not possessed. This little guy just, uh, hitched a ride. I think."

"On your shadow, no less. And how soon till it tries to take over your mind?"

"Aww, c'mon. They seem harmless enough. Probably just wanted to get off that empty island and thought this might be their best chance. Can you blame them? Besides, you don't really think this cute little thing would do anything bad to us, do you?

"I do, Jenny. You know what that thing is, don't you?"

"Nope," she said. "Only ghost types I know are Gengar. Is this like the baby form of that?"

"Not even close," Garley sighed. "It's a Marshadow. They're Pokemon of darkness that spawn from an even darker and more sinister power." Garley shuddered. "And who's to say that kind of force isn't the cause of the darkness on Memory Cay? Or maybe it even resides there now? We're lucky to have made it out so unscathed."

Jenny hardly listened, more focused on trying to coax the little shadow out of his shyness. "Is that right? Are you a Marshadow?"

The Marshadow slowly nodded, their face still covered.

"You got a name, little guy?"

The Marshadow looked up through their fingers. "...Zenji", they said, then went back to burying their face.

"Zenji? That's a cool name. You know, if it's too bright out, you could hang out in my shell. It's nice and dark in there."

Zenji looked up. They thought for a moment, then their body began to shake. Zenji grew transparent as their body became flat, sliding along Jenny's shell and slipping into her darkness.

Jenny smiled as she flipped herself back onto her stomach. "You okay back there, Zenji?"

"...Yes," they whispered, their voice echoing from inside Jenny's shell.

"Great," said Garley. "It has a name, too. Joy."

"Garley, are you really gonna' be like this? I thought you of all people would be willing to give something like this a chance to prove themselves."

The Crobat hesitated. "It's not the same thing," he said.

"Let's just bring them back to Starlight Island, okay? Calypse is sure to know what to do with them. Ooh, maybe there's even a family of Marshadow living on the island."

Garley scoffed. "I guarantee that's not going to be the case."

"Then maybe we'll just have to take care of him for a bit. At least until he gets a bit older and can go off on his own."

"Get older? Jenny you don't-!"

"Hold on tight, Zenji!" Jenny launched from a coming wave and took off towards the distant image of Starlight Island sitting on the evening horizon. She tried to keep her shell above the water as much as possible, but Zenji didn't seem to mind. Her swimming helped to drown out Garley's protests as the two made their way back to the island.