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Chapter 63

Don't Belong Here

Terron and Novus both stared at the Darkrai before them, absolutely dumbfounded by the words she had just spoken.

"What do you mean that Zekrom is here?" Novus asked. "How could she possibly be in the human world? She's a Pokémon; Pokémon do not belong in Kuron."

"Zekrom is in this dimension, just like how Reshiram is in Shiron. But maybe an explanation would be better, since I still cannot tell if you are oblivious or just faking it. So, I will start at the beginning, when those two were once a powerful creature called Rem."

"Wait, Reshiram and Zekrom are split beings?" Terron interjected. "Novus, you didn't tell me any of this. You just said that they were legendaries who were supposed to protect everybody. You never said that they were once one legendary."

"Admittedly I should have told you that from the very start," Novus sighed ruefully. "I just didn't feel the need to explain it before because I supposed it wasn't important. I was never going to ask Reshiram and Zekrom to become Rem, and I do not think they would want to reunite anyway. So, what was the point in telling you it if Rem would never exist again? But I see that I should have told you. So, I'm sorry for not telling you that earlier."

"Well like you said, it wasn't too important, so I guess it's okay…" Terron said unsurely before looking back over at the Darkrai. "But uh, sorry Nyx. You can keep going. I won't interrupt you again."

The Darkrai didn't seem the least bit offended at being cut off. She only took a moment to ponder in something, perhaps to recollect her thoughts, before speaking once more.

"Rem was the guardian over the land when humans and Pokémon inhabited the same world, not Reshiram and Zekrom. I never personally met Rem, but I saw in the dreams of others that it was the being meant to protect everyone. It would do everything in its power to prevent disaster from striking upon the poor mortals. But then on that day the Primogenitor was defeated by the one known as Arceus and was sealed away, something else happened. The world was split in two due to the violent clash between Arceus and Primogenitor, and the planet became Kuron and Shiron. The two worlds paralleled each other, but neither one of them knew the other existed. But the planet splitting was not the only consequence of that fight. Because of the massive amounts of energy that ravaged the planet, Pokémon were thrown into Shiron while humans were thrown into Kuron. Then to make it worse, the damage of the legendary fight made all of their memories of each other hazy and they were unable to remember why they could no longer be together. Arceus wanted to reverse the damage after the battle was over, but he was too weak to do so. So he left the planet in its current state and hoped the humans and Pokémon would adapt to their new situations.

"But as you can imagine, Rem was torn with this. Rem knew it could not protect both worlds when they were on different planes of existence. So just as Arceus sealed the Primogenitor into Kuron, Rem tore itself in two, making Reshiram and Zekrom to each guard over one dimension. And then immediately after, for reasons I am unable to understand at the moment, they both fell into a coma and were hidden away into their new dimensions."

The Cubone and Quilava were once again deeply disturbed by the Darkrai's information. While she didn't seem the least bit bothered by anything she had shared, the two smaller Pokémon had no idea what to make of anything. They could only stare at her in the empty street of the Kuron city, the blueish hue from the surreal, glowing road lines illuminating in their eyes. It was a wonder that they had not been spotted by anybody, given that they were standing out in the open, even if it was night-time.

"How… do you even know any of this?" Novus managed to ask. "Yes, I understand that you watched Rem split up from the Primogenitor's home like you were telling me a while ago, and I know you saw Rem in everyone's dreams in the past, but everything else?"

"It is the same as with Rem's splitting. I watched it from the Primogenitor's dimension. That clash with the Primogenitor, Arceus sealing it away, Rem becoming two, and even Reshiram and Zekrom falling asleep were the last things I saw before I too went into a deep slumber. It is hard to forget those events when they are the last things you see for a very long time."

"Is there anything you don't happen to know?" Novus then chuckled dryly. "You're so knowledgeable about everything that it puts me to shame. If I didn't know any better, I'd say that you're so knowledgeable because you're always reading everyone's minds like a nosy psychic."

Nyx cast Novus a disgruntled glare, but upon seeing the Quilava abruptly backpedal from her, quickly rid herself of it.

"So you really did not know that Zekrom is here?"

"Well, I had some suspicions that she might be here, since I know that Rem did protect all creatures," Novus admitted, strength returning to his stance. "But I thought that the creator would not have let her come here. I thought he would have prevented Pokémon from being in Kuron thanks to the dimensional splitting, no matter who they were. But it seems that I was not quite right to think that."

Nyx continued to stare at the Quilava, her gaze becoming hazier with each second, as if she was becoming lost in her own world.

"And you say that Rem only split up into Reshiram and Zekrom? There were not any other pieces of Rem?"

"No, there wasn't," Novus answered earnestly. "Rem became Reshiram and Zekrom, just as how Dimitri became Terron and the plagued Sableye. There would have been no reason to make more than two pieces of itself. Why?"

"Curious."

The Quilava shot the Darkrai a puzzled frown, but the Darkrai's solemn stare wouldn't relent.

"Well there's still something I don't understand," Terron then said, breaking the awkward silence between Novus and Nyx. "I get now that nobody actually forgot Reshiram and Zekrom existed; they just plain didn't exist for more than five minutes. You just didn't say anything Novus because you didn't feel like Rem was important. But if the world was split in half because of Arceus and the Primogenitor fighting each other… is that why nearly everybody became a feral again when they got separated from the humans? Because their minds got all messed up from the dimensional split?"

"I honestly don't know the answers to those questions," Novus replied. "I mostly discovered that nearly everyone became feral from books I read that the few Pokémon who retained their sentience wrote during that chaotic time. Pokémon, and I imagine humans as well, don't know that their world was split in half."

Terron sighed, shaking his head.

"Yes, that is what happened."

"Wait, what? You knew?" Terron then cried in exasperation as he turned to Nyx. "Well why didn't you say that was the reason when we were talking about it at Unown Ruins?"

"Because it was late, you were tired, and giving you the answer would have caused you to remain awake for even longer. I knew it was not important, so I did not bother explaining it. I knew a time would come where I could explain it, so I decided to wait until then. And here we are, in a much better time. Besides, the Quilava did not tell you about Rem, and you are not upset with him."

Terron growled under his breath as he averted his glare from the Darkrai. In truth, he shouldn't have been surprised. Nyx could be very withdrawn and she did have a massive collection of secrets within her mind thanks to being one of the Primogenitor's resources, as well as being alive for centuries. She had even told him that she didn't want to share all of her secrets with him. And yet, Terron couldn't help but feel flustered. Even if knowing about why Pokémon became feral during the dimensional split was ultimately trivial, she still hid the information away from him. She knew information that Terron wanted, but still didn't bother to explain it.

Why do you have to make it so hard to trust you, Nyx? Terron seethed. What else haven't you told me?

The Cubone pressed his paws into his helmet as he took a deep breath, and then quietly exhaled as he simmered his contentious emotions. He couldn't let this get to him. Nyx was his friend, and she did have a somewhat valid reason not to share the information with him. There was no reason to start doubting her. Then also, as Nyx had said, Novus had done the same thing and Terron hadn't felt betrayed. He knew it to be because he had more of a reason to trust Novus than Nyx despite all that the Darkrai had for done for him, but he knew that she had made a reasonable point.

"Alright, fine," Terron then said. "Just… can you just not do that again? I don't care what the circumstances are, if you know something, you can say it. Don't worry about anything else. Can you do that for me?"

"I will try."

"Thank you," Terron sighed.

The Cubone, at long last, brought his gaze back to the city before him. He peered toward the gigantic buildings towering over him like a mighty beast of metal, seeing the veins of blue light course down the buildings' sides like individual streams of water. He stuffed both of his paws into his coat pockets as he took a few steps toward the human civilization.

"Well now that that's out of the way," Terron started to say, "we should probably go inside of the city. I'd normally say wait until it's day time, but I don't think we should get spotted by any of the humans here. I don't know what they'd do if they saw weird things like us walking around…"

"And what will we be doing inside of that city?" Novus asked.

"Visit my old home of course," Terron said with a smirk. "And maybe some other places that I used to visit as a human. I bet if I walk around here enough, I'll start having things come back to me."

"What about Zekrom?" Novus then asked tersely. "I do believe she's in this dimension too."

"Well we can look for her while we're visiting," Terron said nonchalantly. "You know, multi-task."

"I suppose that could work," Novus said with an indifferent shrug. "Very well. So where do we go?"

"Let's start by getting inside of the city for one thing. I'm pretty sure once we get inside, it'll be easier to tell where we should go next. And maybe I'll start remembering things."

Terron then went forward, where he was soon to hear Novus's footsteps following shortly behind him. The Cubone smiled as he continued his casual stroll toward the human town, letting his mind create a number of fascinating ideas of what awaited him. He had no idea what to expect, but surely with how breath-taking everything was when he viewed the outside, he was safe to believe that the inside had to be even more amazing and awe-inspiring.

"I want you to promise me two things as we explore your old world, Cubone Dimitri."

Terron turned to his right to find Nyx hovering right beside him, keeping up with his pace effortlessly.

"Yeah?" he asked.

"For the first one, I want you to remember that after we find Zekrom, we are going back to Shiron. We cannot stay here. We do not belong here. Even you, while you are human, do not belong here in your current state. You belong to Shiron until you are repaired."

"Of course," Terron said with a nod. "I know we can't stay. Besides, I need to meet up with Zekra. I can't see her again if I stay here, right?"

Nyx didn't say anything for a few seconds. Terron continued to stare at her, looking into her sapphire eye to see what could possibly be stifling her voice. All he saw was an endless void, leading to the darkness that filled her being.

"Right, of course."

"What was the second thing, though?" he then asked.

"I want you to promise me that you will not get your hopes up and expect to find what you want here."

This time it was Terron's turn to go speechless. He shot the Darkrai a disbelieving look as he twisted his mouth into an unsure scowl.

"What do you mean by that?" he asked in a subdued voice.

"Things have changed on Kuron since your whole self left. Much can change in the years you have been gone."

"Yeah… I guess I have been gone for twenty-five years," Terron realized, sighing softly. "A lot can happen in that much time. My family might not even be here anymore."

"Actually you have only been gone from here for five years."

"Wait, what? What do you mean?" Terron asked, growing further confused. "I'm pretty sure I've been gone for twenty-five years. I mean, you even said you dragged Dimitri out of Kuron twenty-five years ago and brought him to Shiron then."

"On Shiron you have been gone for twenty-five years. But on Kuron, you have been gone for five years, because time flows differently in Kuron and Shiron thanks to the unnatural split of the original world. What is five years on Shiron is one here. Because of that, you have only been gone for a much shorter time than you think according to your human family. But I still warn that things might have changed. Some things can still change in five years."

"Well… thanks for actually explaining that to me this time," Terron replied. "But… I'm pretty sure that not too much changed if that's the case. Sure, it's five years, but I'm sure there's still things to find."

"I asked you not to get your hopes up."

"Well I can't really promise that then," Terron then said. "I'll keep the other promise, but I'm not going to get myself to think that there's nothing here for me. I know that there's something here for me if I was only gone for five years."

Nyx shook her head as she gave the Cubone a pitiful, but disappointed stare.

"I am only trying to minimize the pain. In reality, I should have never brought you here even if Zekrom is here. I should have sent you and the Quilava back into Shiron while I investigated Kuron by myself. But I brought you here because I feel sorry for you. You really should not have left Kuron on that day so long ago. I am only telling you to not expect to find anything here on Kuron so that the pain is less if you find there really is no longer anything here for you. But if you do not want to listen to me, you are free to do what you want. All I can say is that you cannot blame me if you are in pain more than you already are by the time we leave because you did not listen to me. It will be your own fault."

And with that, the Darkrai fell back, distancing herself from Terron until she was following behind him from a relatively safe, yet close distance. Terron frowned glumly as he kept moving forward.

I know Nyx… I know. But I just know that there's something here. Terron thought to himself. There's still something in this world that once was mine. I just want to see it so that I know what I left behind. I want to know what my old home was kind of like before you took me away from it. You don't know what it's like to have this giant black hole in your memory that never goes away.

The Cubone pondered for a moment longer, and then pushed the depressing thought out of his mind as he continued on his way.

As soon as the three exited the vacant outskirts of the city and entered the main area, it quickly became clear that what they had seen from afar had not even begun to cover what awaited them within. While the buildings were still very close together as they had seen from the outside, there was still quite a bit of space to walk around in. The buildings all seemed to be clumped together in small groups while a massive road lay between each of the groups. These roads were not like the pathways that Terron and his friends stood upon now. These roads, Terron noticed with great astonishment, were far larger than the little pathways and roadways he had grown accustomed to in Shiron. While the Shiron roads could easily hold five medium-sized Pokémon standing side-by-side, these particular roads seemed capable of holding maybe a dozen of those same Pokémon. And not only that, but the roads weren't made out of cobblestone as they were in Shiron, for just like the buildings, they were also a deep black with dozens of vein-like lights flowing through it. And when Terron looked very carefully, he was also able to notice that the roads were able to hold reflections of their surroundings.

He honestly didn't know what the road before him was made out of. It looked as though it were made of glass, but he knew that there was no logical way that humans would make roads out of glass. If they had, the roads would have been shattered all the time by the inevitable collisions of whatever roamed these roads, leaving their streets broken and unsafe. And yet, Terron couldn't think of anything else that he could possibly be walking upon. He briefly considered that perhaps he was walking on an alien object, something that the humans might have taken from the deep reaches of space and constructed into whatever material it was now.

But quite amusingly enough, the roads didn't just flow between the buildings as to be expected. There were quite a few branching paths that came out of the roads that rose high into the air, looping around the many structures in the area in complicated patterns, as if the roads were massive roller-coasters of sorts. They twisted around nearly all of the buildings, somehow not becoming entangled with other roads or even segments of its own self, before venturing far off into the distance that Terron couldn't see.

"This is a really weird place," Terron remarked as he remained where he was, unsure of the massive size of the roads. "To think that I used to live here and that all of this stuff was normal…"

"You humans truly are very amusing creatures," Novus replied. "Instead of remaining in the simpler and happy times you had when you were with Pokémon still, you advance yourselves to whatever all of this is. I don't understand why you humans have to change your world so much. I had already thought the changes you humans made to your civilization when I last saw you centuries ago was enough. Looks like you weren't satisfied."

"What were things like before?" Terron wondered.

"It really depends on where in the timeline you want me to explain," Novus chuckled. "As I've said before, you humans do change your ways quite often. In the very, very beginning, everything was very primitive and simple. It was just like the feral world. You humans were just like Pokémon in that you were nothing but wild creatures driven by instincts, and you formed packs just as some Pokémon did. But as time went on, you humans suddenly became more intelligent and you built cities very similar to the ones in Shiron. I'd dare say that everything at that point was exactly like Shiron. It was still simple, but now more peaceful. Well, in a certain sort of way anyway.

"But of course, you humans changed even more. A few hundred years later, your creations slowly became more advanced and things I never thought possible suddenly became a reality. Nyx already described one of those inventions you humans created, it being a device of essentially artificial telepathy. But there were other things too. You humans created an entire society governed by metal objects that could do nearly anything, replacing the need for Rapidash to carry you to other cities, replacing Dragonite to fly you across regions, and so on. Of course, you humans still kept us Pokémon around, as you never truly intended on ridding yourselves of us. You simply had these odd machines that could help make you not so dependent on us Pokémon. And that time, in that era of machines and electrical wonders, was the last era I saw of you humans. Now it seems that in this current era, where you are isolated from Pokémon, you humans have created something I can't even begin to understand. I honestly don't even know what I'm looking at."

"You know, maybe this is why we humans don't have the instincts to tell what time it is or automatically know which way is east or west," Terron then said. "Maybe because we're so good at advancing ourselves to make… all of this, that we start to lose certain instincts. Like, maybe at one point we actually could tell what time it was without any help, but because of clocks, we stopped needing that instinct. So, it just evolved right out of us after a few generations because we quit using it."

"What exactly are clocks?"

"They're… well, they're that."

The Quilava looked up as Terron pointed his finger towards one of the ring-shaped buildings in the area. In the middle of the hole its shape made, there was a neon blue hologram that had four numbers in it, the first two separated by the other two with two dots stacked on top of each other. On the right side of that cluster of numbers, there were two strange letters that looked nothing like foot-print runes, which according to Terron, read "PM".

"It says ten twenty-eight," Novus read aloud, "along with this odd word I do not recognize. What is ten twenty-eight? Is that a code of some sort?"

"It says ten twenty-eight PM," Terron corrected. "And what that means is that right now, it's about one and a half hours til midnight. Because for us humans, we have numbers that represent how many hours are in a day. We think there's twenty-four hours in a day, so we have two of these twelve hour time segments, one for the day and one for the night. They both start when the hour reaches twelve. And this is really hard to explain and I don't understand it either, but we like to pretend that the day starts when the sun's not actually up yet. I don't know why, but humans like to think that the day starts when the clock hits midnight. And our numbering system is all off, since we like to say that it's one o'clock when it's day time, but we also like to say it's one o'clock when it's the middle of the night. We kind of tell the difference by saying it's one AM and one PM, but it's still really hard to explain and might even be confusing for some actual humans. I think that's why some humans made up this other system where it just goes by a twenty-four hour clock so that it's a little simpler…"

Novus didn't even bring his gaze over to Terron, making it unclear to Terron if the Quilava was hopelessly confused. He certainly remembered how utterly baffled Zekra was when he had talked to her about time a very long time ago.

"What does this 'AM' and 'PM' stand for?" Novus then asked.

"I… well I actually don't know," Terron admittedly sheepishly. "I don't think I ever cared enough to know."

"Fascinating," Novus said dryly.

"Yeah… but does any of this make any sense to you?" Terron then asked. "I mean I know it's really confusing to anyone who's not human."

"Admittedly, I didn't understand a single word you just said," Novus said without hesitation. "As I've said before, you humans are very strange sometimes. You always were, and probably will be for the rest of eternity. However, I see that it must benefit you humans somehow, for you are able to still exist and advance yourselves to create feats that no other mortal creature could ever do. Therefore, while I can't make sense of it, I can see that it's not meaningless."

"Okay, I guess," Terron replied.

The Quilava said no more, only choosing to keep his puzzled gaze upon the clock in an apparent attempt to study it. Terron looked back toward the closest luminescent road before him. But just as he was to announce their leave, he noticed something strange about it that he somehow didn't see before. The road was leaving the city and traversing out into an unknown area of Kuron, but it did at one point come close to the more metallic pathway that Terron currently found himself standing upon. It merged in just a small spot not too far from where the Cubone stood, and in that tiny shared space, he saw what appeared to be a white circle drawn into the ground, illuminating the same way as the road was.

Something told him to go to that strange symbol.

"Let's try going onto one of those weird roads," Terron announced. "We need to start exploring anyway."

"What about this current path we are upon?" Novus asked as he lifted up his front paw. "True that it does not connect to those strange roads and seems to be less illuminated with those odd lights, but it still leads further into the city."

"Well yeah, that's true," Terron admitted. "But, I get this weird feeling that those bigger roads are what humans go on when they want to travel somewhere a lot faster."

"I suppose I won't argue with you," Novus then said. "You are human, after all. You'd be the one to understand the ways of this world best, even if you do have amnesia."

Without wasting another moment, Terron lead Novus and Nyx over to the peculiar spot he had been so entranced by and stopped just before it. Now that he was closer to it and had a much clearer view, he was able to see that the white circle seemed to have several miniature, transparent cubes rising out of the light. They hovered there in the soft glow of the symbol, idly drifting up and down in a non-existent space.

"What are you staring at?"

Terron nearly jumped out of his skin at the sound of Nyx's voices, for she hadn't spoken in so long. He took in several deep breaths as he turned his head back to look at her.

"Just this weird circle," Terron answered. "I feel like it's important somehow. I just can't remember why. You wouldn't happen to know how stuff is on Kuron, do you?"

"No, I do not. While I have seen some parts of Kuron in Dimitri's dreams, I never saw the mundane parts of his life. And I certainly never saw this odd thing in his dreams."

"So I guess we're all lost then," Terron chuckled bitterly to himself. "Well, should have expected much when coming here."

Terron continued to stare at the radiating spot before him, watching as its light never seemed to dim in the slightest. Somehow it was able to retain all of its brilliance without blinding the Cubone.

Why is there a circle in this road? Why would humans put this here?

It was at that moment that Terron had a prompting. It was gone just as quickly as it came, but its message had run clear to the Cubone. With a cautious scowl, he stepped forward and set his foot inside of the sphere. The second his foot made contact, the road that lay within the circle became filled with a bright light, and the cubes flowing out of the ground seemed to grow more numerous. And yet, despite the startling sight, Terron didn't feel the least bit scared. He only brought his other foot into the circle so that he was fully within the sigil and turned to his friends.

"Here, come over here," he instructed.

Though clearly skeptical of what was happening around them, Novus and Nyx did as asked and brought themselves into the circle. When the two entered inside, the circle instantly grew bigger, allowing the two more room to spread out so that they were not so close together.

For just a moment, nothing happened. The three remained together in that glowing circle, watching the cubes drift in the air around them before dissolving away into particles. But then, a low humming resonated from below them, and the cubes rising out of the circle clumped together. They formed a white sphere around the group, trapping them in a transparent bubble as it grew more and more solid as every cube stacked themselves together in a coordinated and calculated fashion.

Within seconds, the group of Pokémon found themselves enclosed in the giant bubble. Save for a few cushioned seats behind them, and the familiar veins of light that streaked along the walls, the interior was completely devoid of anything. There wasn't even a door to let them out, only a massive window at the very front, allowing them to see the road before them. Directly underneath that window, hovering right before Terron at his chest's height, was a translucent board without a single key or image upon it. It was completely blank.

"Um, I do not think that it's a good idea to be in this odd device," Novus said nervously. "Terron, how do we get out?"

"I don't know, but I don't think that this place is dangerous," Terron replied. "I think this is something I might have actually used a lot when I used to live here."

"What could you possibly use this prison for?" Novus asked in disbelief as he pawed at the non-existent doors. "I think that this might be some strange device used to trap unsuspecting humans for whatever reason I cannot imagine. Why else would it seal us in here the second we all get inside?"

"I don't know! I'm just as confused as you are!"

Terron slammed his hands down upon the board in frustration. Except, his hands didn't stop upon hitting the floating mass of light. His paws went straight through the panel and became embedded deep into its contents, where it soon became stuck fast. Terron felt his heart flare up in a panic as he felt something similar to ants crawling all over his hands.

"What did you do?"

"I didn't do anything!" Terron cried desperately. "They just sank in there! I-I can't get them out! They're stuck in there!"

The Darkrai swiftly rushed to the Cubone's side and grabbed onto him. Then, with all of her might, she pulled the Cubone away from the console, attempting to free him from his surreal imprisonment. But despite her best efforts, Terron wasn't freed. Nyx let go of the Cubone as her unfazed expression slowly became more and more anxious. Novus, on the other hand, decided to continue Nyx's abandoned plan and tried to pry the Cubone loose, but to no success.

"I am going to destroy it."

"Wait, you can't do that!" Terron cried. "You might blow off my hands if you do!"

"We have no idea what that device is doing to you as we speak. We are not taking any chances."

One of the Darkrai's clawed hands sparked with yellow bolts of electricity. Terron abruptly backed away the best he could without ripping himself away from his hands and without crashing into Novus, who was still attempting to manually free the Cubone.

"Nyx, stop!"

"I am not about to lose you too."

"But you don't even-"

"User located and connected."

The panic ensuing in the sphere immediately stopped as soon as the empty, robotic words echoed in their ears. Everybody quickly turned their heads toward the source of the voice to find that it was coming directly from the console itself.

"Locating destination in user."

The unsettling feeling in Terron's paws vanished as a cold chill spread up his arms and into his mind. He shuddered as he felt something crawl through his mind, making its way through his neurons at a lightning speed. Within seconds, it finally stopped, and hastily exited down his spine, back into his arms, and then finally put itself back into the console. Upon doing so, the lights upon the board seemed to flare up, flashing several different colors at once as the information it had stolen from Terron's mind was absorbed.

"New destination located. Arrival at Black Lightning Monument will be in approximately five minutes."

There was a lurch, and then the sphere suddenly started moving, speeding down the luminescent road. Terron's hands were then ejected from the console, where he quickly stumbled back and caressed his paws gingerly. While he found that they were unharmed, he could still feel them tingling from whatever that machine had done to him. Somehow, it had infiltrated his skin, bypassing all of his organic tissue so that it could get into his neurons and access his brain. He almost didn't believe that this had just happened to him. It almost seemed impossible.

The Cubone took a seat in one of the cushions scattered about the sphere, sighing deeply as a wave of memories came over him. They were not incredibly important memories, as they only clarified exactly what had just happened and what this vehicle was, but were still somewhat helpful. As the rush of information came over him, the Cubone tried his best to relax and let everything process. It was not hard to do, for he found his cushion to be very comfortable and soft. It almost felt like sitting upon a marshmallow.

Novus and Nyx took a seat beside him in their own cushions, both of them giving him a concerned glance. Or rather, Novus sat down while the Darkrai hovered above her resting place.

"Are you hurt?" Novus asked.

"No, I'm fine," Terron sighed, sinking deeper into his seat. "I just wasn't expecting any of that to happen. I totally forgot what these things were."

"So, they are transport devices?" Novus then asked.

"Yeah," Terron breathed, closing his eyes. "They get you anywhere you want them to. Basically, you just stick your hands into that board, and it'll go into your brain and it'll look up where you want to go. You don't have to tell it anything; it knows where to look to get the information. And as long as it's not a restricted place, it'll take you there."

"And you do not have to pay for any of this?" Novus asked curiously.

"Oh, you do," Terron answered. "You're supposed to pay before you can even ride this thing. But if you don't have any money, it will take you anyway. But you still have to pay in the end, since at the end of every week you get billed for how much you've used them, which is basically just saying that you owe money and have to pay the people who made these back. It knows where you live."

"You do realize how disturbing that sounds, right?"

"When you think about it, yeah, I guess it does. But for some reason, as a human, I never seemed to mind that. I don't know why. Maybe I just got so used to using these things that I quit caring. And I kind of don't care right now because back on Shiron, we have psychic-types who can also go into your brain if they're talented enough and I've got something that isn't me living inside me and listening to all of my thoughts without my consent."

Novus didn't seem to be comforted by this thought. But he didn't bother to further press the issue. Terron, thinking that the Quilava was satisfied with him, opened his eyes and looked toward the window. He saw the city pass by him in colorful blurs, but not quickly enough so that everything was indistinguishable. He was still able to make out the details of just about every building they flew past.

"I wonder why the machine let you use it. You do not live here anymore. It should realize that you are not a human."

"Maybe my brain is still Dimitri's brain and the machine thinks I'm him," Terron said facetiously. "Tearing me in half probably didn't completely undo everything about my genetic structure."

"But you are a Cubone, not a human at the moment. Your soul is not the same, and the same can be said for your mind. They are different now."

"Well it's the only explanation I can come up with," Terron said dismissively as he rolled onto his side. "I don't know how everything works in Kuron. It was always really complicated to me. I never really understood all of it in the first place. In Kuron, you need to be an engineer or something to even attempt to understand anything. Shiron is a lot easier to understand."

"And you find this to be so because Shiron does not have inventions like the one we are riding in?"

"Well… actually, I take that back. I think Shiron is weird too," Terron realized. "But it's not because of the inventions like here; it's because of you Pokémon. You guys, when I really think about it, don't make much sense either. I mean, some of you are on fire, but you don't get incinerated. Some of you can make ice out of thin air, and then some of even have poison inside of you that doesn't kill you somehow! So I've changed my mind, everywhere I go is really hard to understand. Kuron just happens to be a little more complicated right now because none of us even know what to expect."

Nyx nodded solemnly as she dropped into her cushion, awkwardly trying to sit in it when she didn't have any legs. After fumbling around for a few seconds, she eventually settled into the seat, propping herself to sit up with her hands. She didn't seem the least bit comfortable.

"Are you okay?" Terron asked her. "You look, well…"

"I am fine. I admit that I feel strange sitting in something that sinks this much when I sit on it, but that is something I will have to put up with when I do not have much of a lower half."

"There isn't a way for you to make legs?" Novus then asked. "I've heard that some Darkrai can make retractable legs to help aid them in a number of situations."

"So you know about that. I should have figured you would know."

The Darkrai laughed to herself as she straightened herself out, using the tendrils escaping from the bottom of her dress-like figure to curl around the cushion and help adjust it to her liking.

"Yes, Darkrai do have the ability to make those makeshift legs. I imagine one use for them is to make sitting more comfortable, but if I am to be honest, I do not like to use them because I think they are unsettlingly creepy. It unnerves me."

Terron and Novus stared at the Darkrai for a moment, finding themselves unable to process what she had just said. Nyx only looked back at them with a blank expression.

And then, without warning, the two burst into a crazed laughing fit.

"You don't use them because you're scared of how they look?" Terron asked, barely able to contain his voice enough to talk. "Of all the reasons… that's the reason?"

Nyx seemed to scowl as she curled both of her claws around the cushion, puncturing holes into it. And yet, this didn't seem to stop the two smaller Pokémon from their hysterics, most likely because the two couldn't even see Nyx because of how much they were laughing. They were laughing so much even, that their eyes were beginning to water.

"A Darkrai being unnerved by itself, I never thought I'd hear of such a thing!" Novus cried. "You really are full of amusing little secrets!"

"I bet they don't even look that bad," Terron chuckled evilly. "I bet they're like stilts or something. I mean, what kind of Pokémon is scared of their own legs? That's… that's… Hahahah!"

"Maybe that's the real reason she covers up half of her face, because she is terrified of what it looks like in full!"

"Yeah! Or maybe that's why-"

Terron was never able to finish, for something in the air changed. Something that seemed to eradicate everything it touched, killing all of the jovial humor inside of him in an instant. He shuddered as the feeling coursed through him, as if there were actually something crawling underneath his skin. Terron shot his glance to Novus to find that the poor Quilava was also ensnared in the uncanny atmosphere.

"I suggest you two stop."

The Cubone froze. Though a part of him vehemently resisted, Terron turned toward the voice to find Nyx still sitting upon her cushion. Except this time, she wasn't the benevolent Darkrai he had come to know over the past few days.

The black wisps escaping her body had suddenly grown tremendously in size, now sprawling across the floor and walls like overgrown ivy. The red growth sprouting around her head had suddenly become more like an actual jaw, now bearing the resemblance to spikes that somehow didn't impale the Darkrai despite so close to her face. Her white hair, which had always remained together in a neatly organized manner, was now frayed everywhere, giving the illusion that she was even larger than she already was.

But of all the things that changed about her, it was the eyes that unnerved the Cubone the most. Her eyes, both of them now exposed, were no longer blue.

They were now black that were somehow able to glow with an intensity that only seemed possible with a much brighter color.

"Do I have your attention?"

Terron and Novus didn't need to be asked twice. They both nodded as quickly as they could.

"Good. Now, are you two ever going to bring up that conversation ever again?"

Once again, the two nodded, unable to find the strength to speak. Nyx's aura was even more oppressive than it normally was.

"You chose wisely."

All of her tentacles withdrew back inside of her, shrinking to their regular size as the rest of her body slowly normalized. Within seconds, Nyx was her less intimidating self, but this did nothing to snap Terron and Novus out of their horrified states. Nyx only shot them a disappointed glare.

"What did you think was going to happen when you mocked a Darkrai?"

Terron and Novus didn't even bother to make a retort out of fear that she would become that nightmarish creature once more. They only remained in their seats, desperately trying to block out the traumatizing image.

The two were about to close their eyes and take in a few deep breaths, but just as they were to do so, the vehicle came to a stop. Everyone looked up at the window that it was facing to see a very large object of sorts in the near distance that seemed to resemble a creature of sorts.

"You have arrived at Black Lightning Monument. Please step out of the vehicle and watch your step."

The right side of the sphere dematerialized into white cubes as they sank back into the ground, granting the three access to a familiar, obsidian-like road. Wasting no time, the three got out of their seats and carefully exited the transport bubble. When all three of them were out, the rest of the sphere was quick to dematerialize, shrinking back into the road to become the radiating white circle.

Terron and his friends turned away from the transport device and finally brought their attention to their destination. Just like the rest of the Kuron city, the ethereal lights lined the vaguely metallic roads, their power source unknown to them. But that was as far as the similarities went. This particular part of Kuron, this Black Lightning Monument as the vehicle had explained, was in the middle of what resembled an empty, circular field. There wasn't any sign of organic life anywhere in sight, only having massive pillars of black and blue metal protruding out of the ground along the outer rim of the vicinity.

Flowing out of each of the pillars was the same neon blue light that Terron had grown quite accustomed to, but instead of flowing somewhere deep into the city as with the other lights, these ones went directly into something in the very center of the circle.

There, standing mightily and proudly in the midst of that circle, all of the light flooding into it, was a statue. It seemed to be modeled after a draconic creature that towered over him just like everything else in Kuron. He could make out a wing upon each shoulder, as well as two red eyes, but that was all he could see from his distance.

"What is that?" Terron wondered aloud. "Is that the Black Lightning thing or whatever that computer called it?"

"It's her…" Novus suddenly said, his voice barely above a whisper. "That's her…"

"What?" Terron asked again.

The Cubone turned to find his Quilava friend was already rushing toward the statue, moving with more haste than Terron had ever seen him with before.

"Hey! Hey, wait up!" he called out.

Knowing that his friend wasn't going to stop, the Cubone chased after the Quilava, Nyx following shortly behind him. Within a few moments, Terron caught up with Novus. He took in a few deep breaths as he slowed down his heart, and then shot Novus a disbelieving look.

"Novus, why'd you run off like that?" Terron chided.

"This is a statue of her…" Novus said again, very slowly this time. "This is what she looks like… Zekrom really is in Kuron."

Terron was taken aback by the Quilava's words. Novus only continued to gaze upon the monument, his eyes glimmering with a deep fascination as he set a paw upon the statue's foot.

"Zekrom…?" Terron said, his words also becoming slurred.

The Cubone finally turned away from his overjoyed friend and set his stare upon the mighty statue before him.

The monument stood before the Cubone, its mighty stature towering far over him just as he had been able to deduce after seeing it from afar. But now that he was much closer to the Zekrom replica, he actually felt as if the statue wanted to intimidate him with its size. It stood upon two legs with its arms raised up in front of its chest, the wings upon its shoulders raised high into the air. It had its head thrown back as if letting out a terrific roar, all of its razor-sharp teeth exposed as if it would come to life at any moment and snap its jaws down upon its next unfortunate victim.

The red eyes of the Zekrom statue didn't seem to be staring directly at the insignificant Cubone, but Terron couldn't help but shirk back at the sight of those eyes. There was a powerful ferocity in them that he had not seen in a creature before.

It did not help that they were, in fact, glowing. The light from the pillars surrounding the vicinity were mainly flowing into the statue's generator-like tail, causing it to give off a brilliant radiance of blue that lit up the area even more than the power lines drifting through the streets, but it spread into the rest of the body as well. Zekrom seemed to be giving off a bright aura that somehow didn't blind them with its intensity.

"So, this is what she looks like," Terron stated.

"Yes, this is her," Novus verified. "Well, a statue of her, similar to the Reshiram statue back at that training center I used to work for on Shiron. She's not in here despite how much it resembles her."

"How do you know that?" Terron wondered. "You said that Reshiram and Zekrom turned into stones after all. Maybe she just did turn into stone, but still kept her shape."

"No, this isn't her," Novus argued. "For one, whatever this statue is made out of is not the same material her body is made out of. The stones the two became are sphere-shaped and cannot be tampered with by any means. Then also, if this were truly her, I would feel her spirit in it. This statue is empty and completely devoid of any kind of life."

"Fine, whatever you say," Terron shrugged. "But then why do the humans have a statue of her? If she's really a round stone, then how do they know what she looks like? Even with all of their technology, I bet they don't have anything that can let them go inside her stone, find her memories, and then see what she's supposed to look like."

Novus frowned thoughtfully as he removed his paw from the statue and set it back down. He stared up into its eyes, somehow not intimidated by the borderline malicious glare.

"She must be awake then," Novus said after a short pause. "She must have woken up and the humans saw her and constructed this statue after her for whatever reason."

"Really? But how?" Terron asked. "Reshiram sure isn't awake back on Shiron, so how can Zekrom be awake here?"

"I do not know," Novus replied quietly. "I do not know how Zekrom is awake on this world when she should still be asleep. But apparently she is awake, and the humans have taken notice of her. I do not know what they think of her, but their name for her… Black Lightning… I cannot help but wonder if they gave her that name because they think that she is a malicious force of destruction."

"This statue seems to show that they think of her as a terrifying creature."

"Yes, I admit it does," Novus replied uncomfortably. "She certainly does look rather menacing here. And I suppose I cannot blame the humans for that."

"Perhaps. Or maybe they made this statue to honor her. Maybe she is held as an actual goddess in this dimension."

"Yeah… I remember in these books I read, people in the ancient past used to make a lot of statues of these gods and goddesses they worshiped," Terron spoke up. "They filled their cities with their images to honor them and pay tribute to them or something like that."

"Hmph, you two amuse me with how you can so easily change your minds," Novus laughed dryly. "Whatever the humans think of her, it's not of concern as of this moment. All that we know is that somewhere on Kuron she is awake and that we need to find her."

"How are we supposed to find her? Cubone Dimitri asked the transport device to bring us to her, and it brought us to her statue instead. The world itself does not know where she is."

"We'll find her," Novus assured. "She'll show up somewhere. We'll have to search as much of Kuron as we possibly can."

"We'll have to do it at night, though," Terron interjected. "We don't want any humans spotting us."

"Yes, about that…"

The Quilava turned to face the Cubone directly. He pointed out toward the city in the distance, where the light it radiated continued to give off its glow without any weakness.

"Where are the humans?" Novus asked. "Because while I can understand that most humans are not nocturnal, there are still some who are awake at night. And yet throughout this entire time we've been in Kuron, we have not spotted a single one. Not even in that massive city which I can easily assume holds thousands of humans within it."

Terron frowned. He was about to tell Novus, yet again, that he couldn't remember anything about Kuron, but a sudden headache split through his mind. He cringed as he clutched his skull.

Not now. Terron growled at his plagued self. I don't need you interfering with anything right now.

There was no response from within his mind, leaving Terron lost and confused. He searched in his mind as he tried to locate his corrupted self, but found that it was nowhere in sight. He could certainly feel its presence, but he couldn't see what it was doing.

"Terron?" Novus asked again.

Something suddenly took control of Terron's tongue, and before he could cry out in protest, words spilled out of his mouth.

"They're hiding," Terron answered in a low, almost demonic tone. "They're trying to save themselves from the spawn that roam the night to descend upon those humans and make food out of them. They know that they are not safe in the night, no matter how far they've come in technology. So they hide away until the sun comes out. They know that the spawn is not strong enough to eat them in the day with all of the light from the sun that makes them visible and all of the weapons the humans craft."

Terron forcibly clamped his mouth shut with his hands, but found that whatever had taken over his voice had no intentions of stopping. It only made him talk more, rendering his efforts useless.

"So in their hopeless attempts to stave off the spawn, they made guardians," Terron continued to say. "They watch over the city at night, keeping an eye out for the spawn and obliterating them on sight. Humans think that they are combating well against the spawn with the guardians, but not for much longer. The spawn will overwhelm them soon."

Terron wrestled with himself more, throwing himself onto the ground as he shoved his head into his coat in an attempt to muffle the alien words spewing out of him. The unknown force must have had enough use of him, for it finally withdrew its hold on the Cubone and left him lying on the ground, panting.

"Um, Terron, are you alright?" Novus asked tenderly. "Is your blight doing something to you?"

"I don't know," Terron said as he slowly got back up. "I really don't know what just happened… something just made me start talking, but I don't know if it was the plagued me…"

The Quilava continued to cast the Cubone an anxious stare, but said nothing more. Terron sighed as he looked over at Nyx, and was immediately shocked by what he saw. Nyx seemed absolutely horrified with the spectacle. Her tiny pupil was almost taking up the entirety of her eye, and she seemed to have distanced herself from the Cubone a significant amount. She had her claws over where her mouth should have been if she actually had one, as if she was gasping in horror.

"Are you okay, Nyx?" Terron asked her uneasily, not sure what to think of seeing her so startled.

The Darkrai, upon realizing that Terron finally noticed her, quickly stifled the dread apparent upon her and reverted back to her more collected state.

"Yes. Everything is fine. But we should try to find a place to rest until morning."

"But if we do that, we will run into the humans," Novus then said. "I still feel rather reluctant to see these humans. I'd prefer we operate under the cover of night."

"We need to find rest."

"Why are you suddenly being this way?" Terron cut in as he took a step toward the Darkrai. "Do you know something? Did something I just said sound familiar to you?"

"We need to find a place to rest. Do not argue with me."

"You do know something," Terron growled in exasperation. "I can see it all over your face. What's going on, Nyx? Do you know what just happened to me?"

"We are not talking about this. We need to go. I do not want meet these so called guardians or spawn."

"No Nyx! You're not doing this to us!" Terron yelled fiercely as he held his ground. "You are not turning into Yimtri where you hide everything important from us! Do you know how sick I got of him saying that he knew something that could help us, but refusing to say it because he didn't think we could do anything? Do you know how much time and pain he could have saved himself if he had just told us the truth? Oh sure he was probably right for thinking that other Fellowships were going to kill him if he told them what happened, but you know what? He knew that me and my friends weren't going to say anything to the Fellowship. He knew that we wouldn't dare say anything after what happened to us, but he still kept everything hidden from us even though he knew how it felt to be in our position.

"It's fine if you don't want to share all of your secrets, I get that, but not something like this. I don't care what you told me back at Unown Ruins; if you really are my friend, and if you really do care about me, you'll tell me when you know something important! You'll tell me so I don't have to suffer like I did when Yimtri dragged me into Erebus Woods and I have to figure out what happened to me all on my own!"

The Darkrai shot the Cubone a malicious glare as she slowly drifted toward him. Instantly, all of the willpower in the Cubone died as he shirked closer to the Quilava, who was as equally as terrified of the Darkrai. It seemed that no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't force himself to stand strong against Nyx. But deep down he knew he should have expected as much.

"It is time to go."

Just as the Darkrai was to close in on the two smaller Pokémon and presumably drag them off to a sanctum of sorts, there was a strange noise.

It was a low clinking sound that now filled the air, as if something metal was lightly tapping against a hard surface. The three stopped as the noise became louder.

"Three unknown targets detected."

"Guys… where is that voice coming from?" Terron asked in a whisper.

The clinking noise stopped. Two triangular red lights shined in the distance along the outer rim of the circle the three stood in. They were fixated on the three and didn't in the least bit seem organic.

"Targets identified as spawn. Annihilation mode activated."