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Chapter 72

Monster Within

Terron and Nyx fell out of the other side of the portal and skid along a transparent, luminescent road. They tumbled for a while, somehow not getting any scrapes as they slid across the silk-like surface of road, before they finally came to a stop. The two of them forced themselves back up and shook themselves free of any strain they had received. They anticipated that they were somewhere still on Kuron in a much different location, perhaps where Chrysalis could brutally murder them without having to worry about a single soul being around for hundreds of miles. However, upon seeing the darkness that surrounded the two on their floating roadway of light, they were quick to figure out where they truly were.

They were back in the Unown world.

"Why are we here?" Terron asked, all of his malicious feelings now subdued under the weight of his more anxious ones. "I thought only Unown could access this world."

"That is usually the case, but those of us that align with the Primogenitor are an exception."

Terron twisted his head around to find Chrysalis a good distance away from him on the light pathway, hovering a few inches off the ground. She was still wearing that mocking expression upon her face, as if reveling in Terron's confusion.

"You see, the Unown are special creatures that can travel between all of the dimensions and the little worlds they hold in each of them," she explained. "There is not one place they cannot reach. They can even create their own worlds or even dimensions if they so wish. It was a power that the creator bestowed upon them and only to them. No one else was to have it and they were supposed to be free of everything, doing as they pleased. They did not have to listen to anyone. They were to be free spirits. Chaotic, unorganized beings with so much potential within them. That was how it was meant to be."

Her eyes momentarily flashed a deep black as she spread out her red, leafy wings from behind her back, stretching them out as far as she could. Five Unown emerged from behind her, all of them idly floating around her with empty, soulless gazes. They hovered around her and made no attempt to wander off, as if they were each balloons tied to her by invisible strings.

"Our master had other plans for these strange little creatures," Chrysalis went on. "After discovering their potential, it spread its influence into them and brainwashed their plague into serving it. After that point, they became our very puppets to do everything as we pleased. First they made us a home for us to reside in when we cannot be in Shiron or Kuron. Simply remaining in an illusionary forest somewhere was never quite an enjoyable experience, but thanks to the Unown, we now have a very quiet and secluded place that our master can reside within in peace. After that, we tampered with the Unown and we withdrew from them the power to travel amongst other dimensions with ease. All of the ones of great purpose received this power to aid our master. But in my opinion, most beneficial to us is that upon making these adorable little abominations of ours, we could use them for surveillance. No longer does a fraction of our army need to do so. No, these Unown can do all of that for us, especially when there are so many and they already have the natural ability to spy on others without anyone noticing."

"Is that how you found us?" Terron asked cautiously. "Did you find us in Kuron… because some Unown spotted us?"

"Oh yes, I see you truly are brighter than I thought," Chrysalis sneered. "Yes, the Unown thought they heard some noise coming from the chamber of their master, for they do enjoy being around its old sleeping ground for whatever reason, and found you there. They then told me what they had seen, and I naturally came flying along. I simply could not resist knowing how you were doing after my last visit with you. You know the one, do you not?"

The Volcarona's smug expression became that of a contorted, venomous one as she glared directly at Nyx.

"The one where that filthy Darkrai betrayed us and let all of you free?" she hissed. "You are very lucky that for whatever reason, our Unown were unable to locate your insignificant group for the entirety of the time they were comatose. If they had been able to pinpoint your location, they never would have woken up. "

"I was never on your side. Your master held me against my will and forced me to obey every word it spoke. I never betrayed you. I was never allied with you."

"It does not matter what you call it," Chrysalis scoffed. "In the end, you left us and have been giving us much trouble for quite a while. We were most grateful that our master had removed your power to travel between the dimensions before you deserted us. To think of the trouble that might have caused! But I suppose your loss is no longer causing each of us a massive strain anymore. Why just three months ago in Shiron time, the Unown were able to find two of your companions and sent Shade after them. From what she told me last I saw her, she had a rather glorious success."

"Zekra and Zev…" Terron muttered to himself before a wave of panic and hysteria came over him. "What do you mean she had a glorious success? Did Shade…?"

"Oh Cubone, you do not really need me to answer that question, do you?" Chrysalis asked smugly.

Terron felt his heart race. No, Zekra and Zeverous couldn't have been dead. Pokémon with the plague in them, regardless of whether they were true Plagued Ones or not, couldn't die. Nyx had said that plagued Pokémon don't die. She had never said that they couldn't be murdered, but he had a feeling that plagued Pokémon were also exempt from that. Besides, Zekra and Zeverous were strong. They wouldn't allow themselves to die all because some Tyranitar that happened to be the Primogenitor's general came after them. They would have found a way to defeat her and live to tell the tale.

"You're lying," Terron said to her. "I don't care what you say, you're lying!"

"Oh poor Cubone, denying reality," Chrysalis cooed. "You are unable to bear the pain of knowing that your group is dwindling, are you not? Well, I can gladly tell you that your pain will end now. You and the traitor Darkrai are the next ones who need to be erased from our world. We cannot afford for you to remain in our worlds any longer."

There was a flicker in the Volcarona's eyes, and then the Unown surrounding her darted away in the distance. Terron and Nyx watched as her wings began burning with a bright red power, illuminating so brightly that it seemed that they were actually on fire. What appeared to be petals of embers scattered from off her form and littered the air, soon filling up the darkness with hundreds of the tiny flames. They remained suspended in mid-air and shined like tiny lights in the night sky. Terron would have found the sight to be more wondrous and awe-filled if he didn't know exactly what was going to happen next.

Terron felt Nyx grab him and fling herself off the road just as hundreds of fiery petals pelted down on the spot they once stood on, instantly burning a massive hole in the thin pathway. The hole grew wider as the heat around the edges continued to consume the road, until suddenly, it split in half like someone cutting a ribbon in two. The two watched as the road's luminosity instantly died as the path fell into the bottomless abyss and dragged down the path with it.

Nyx hurried over to the next closest pathway she could find, and then set Terron upon it. She cast him one last glance, then shot toward Chrysalis, firing a bolt of lightning at the plagued general. Chrysalis effortlessly moved to her side and let it sail past her, allowing it to crash into a purple lightning bolt that struck in the distance behind her. There was a bright flash and a loud bang as the two energies collided, shaking the dimension violently as even more purple lightning littered the makeshift sky. Nyx frantically darted about the air to avoid being blasted by the unnatural energy while Chrysalis only remained where she was, not a single bolt anywhere near her radius.

"You know trying to fight back is futile, do you not?" Chrysalis asked as she continued watching Nyx's aerial swerves in bemusement. "There is no one in this world that will help you. The only ones who live here are the Unown, and I will tell you right now that they cannot break out of their states as you did. Your only ally here is that worthless Cubone. Though, perhaps even that is too much to allow you to have."

The Volcarona shot past the struggling Darkrai as she closed in on Terron, somehow giving him a condescending smirk despite not having much of a mouth. Terron ripped out a bone club from his pocket, ready to smack her with it as soon as she got close enough, but he wasn't fast enough. She grabbed onto the collar of his coat with her tiny claws and ripped him off the path. She flew a short distance away from it, and then stopped as she grabbed the club clutched tightly in Terron's hand and pried it free. She threw it and let it tumble down into the darkness below before looking down at Terron with her eerie compound eyes that protruded a couple inches out of her eye sockets.

The almost invisible slit line on her nose opened up, revealing a row of needle-like teeth and a long, black tongue with a needle point. Her tongue gave off a potent black haze as it arched back and aimed its tip at Terron's exposed skull. He had left his helmet back in the Primogenitor's old sleeping chamber and now his mind was vulnerable to a fatal jab. He struggled as he fought to reach for more of his weapons buried deep in his pockets, but Chrysalis held him firm.

But just as the barbed tongue was to impale him, a ray of dark energy crashed into the Volcarona. She went flying into the distance, loosing her grip on Terron in the process. The Cubone feebly reached for the radiant road residing near him, but found he was too far away to grasp it. All he could do was watch it grow farther and farther away from him as he fell into the abyss. He began to feel very cold and couldn't help but shiver.

Thankfully, before the Cubone could fall for very long, Nyx swooped in and caught him in her claws. Then, after securing a tight grip on him, she fled into a seemingly random direction with the utmost haste.

"Run all you like, but there is nowhere safe for you here!" Chrysalis's voice rang through the darkness.

The Darkrai didn't seem fazed by this insidious threat, instead only choosing to quicken her speed and swerve about the darkness, avoiding the flash of each purple bolt that shot through the air. Terron could only sit in her grasp, trying to process everything that had just happened. Everything had occurred so quickly. One minute he had been screaming his frustrations at Nyx, and then Chrysalis suddenly showed up out of seemingly nowhere and dragged them into the Unown world to cull them from existence.

It was right at that moment that Terron remembered why he had been screaming at Nyx in the first place; he had found out that he was the one who woke up the Primogenitor when it was sealed into planet long ago by Arceus. After Arceus had defeated the monstrous creature, it sealed it into the planet, and then when the planet split into Kuron and Shiron, the Primogenitor's comatose body wound up in an underground Kuron cavern. Terron, as Dimitri, had found it one day on complete accident and woke it up for the sole purpose of wanting to make it his own little pet capable of so much power. It wasn't until it was too late did he realize what true power he had actually released from that hidden chamber.

As soon as Terron remembered this, he felt the wrath flare up in him again. And though he knew the true target of the malice stirring up a tempest in his heart, a good amount of it was being directed toward the Darkrai holding him now. It had something it wanted to tell her, perhaps to use as a warm-up for when it got to speak to the actual Pokémon of interest, and Terron saw no reason to reject its promptings.

"How long have you known?" Terron asked her in an icy tone.

"Do not do this to me right now. You can scream at me all you want when we escape from here, but until that moment comes, you will say nothing regarding the thoughts in your mind."

"So if you can read my thoughts, then how exactly does that make it any different than me verbally talking to you?" Terron asked.

Nyx didn't answer, though from the way she was glaring into the distance as she sped through the darkness, Terron knew she was displeased with him. However, Terron found he couldn't care less about what Nyx thought of him. His opinion of her was growing lower and lower with each passing moment. He didn't understand how somebody like her could possibly keep so many secrets, claiming they were for his safety, when he knew full well that keeping the truth hidden from him would have been the more dangerous option. He had been through this vicious cycle enough times to know how it always ended. He would have thought that Nyx, being able to peer into his mind like a nosy psychic, would have figured that out herself.

After a few minutes of traveling, Nyx spotted the area with the globes holding the portals to other dimensions and rushed toward it. She hastily checked around her, making sure that no one was nearby or hiding, and upon realizing the coast was clear, set Terron upon the road and brought herself in front of the cluster of globes. Her eye was darting up and down the column of portals.

"We need to find a portal that leads back to where we were on Kuron. If we can find one, then we can reunite with the others. Then, we take them to the cavern and the fake Volcarona will find us there once more and drag us back into here, where we will have a much better chance of eliminating her. I can only do so much when I am the only one who can fly and when I have to protect you as well. With the others here there is reassurance that you and the Quilava can protect each other while Zekrom and I eliminate the fake Volcarona. Hopefully that Volcarona does as I anticipate she will."

Nyx then carried on with scanning the hundreds of portals before her in silence. Terron stood there in silence, still casting her a dark glare as his wrath continued to course through him, almost bringing him pain every time his heart beat. He stared at her for a while, letting the feeling brew within him, half reveling in how powerful and indestructible it made him feel. He couldn't remember the last time he felt as though he could bulldoze through just about every obstacle that he came across.

"You think I'm scared right now at knowing what I've done as a human," Terron hissed at her. "You probably think that I'm disgusted with myself or that I'll go pull a Yimtri and go absolutely crazy and do stupid things to 'fix my mistake'. Well you're wrong; knowing this doesn't hurt me at all. So what if I woke up the Primogenitor as a human? That wasn't really me; that was the Yimtri side of Dimitri who did that. It was Dimitri's dark side that wanted to wake up that monster up while me, whatever I was, kept telling me to leave. Sure, I'm partly to blame because I couldn't stop Dimitri, but I'm not obsessive over it because it wasn't me who woke up the Primogenitor."

Nyx didn't stop what she was doing, appearing as though she hadn't heard Terron. But he knew she had. Even if she hadn't heard his words, she had heard his thoughts.

"But you want to know what actually does hurt me about this whole thing?" Terron asked in a low, mocking tone. "How you keep so many secrets from me that shouldn't be secrets. Terron is going to die as soon as the Primogenitor dies? Oh, I better not tell Terron that or else he'll give up on this whole mission. Terron is upset that Zekra doesn't want to be around him anymore and doesn't understand why? Well even though I know the answer, I'll just keep that a secret so that Terron won't have his heart broken. I can read Terron's thoughts because I stuck this parasitic, docile monster in him without even asking him? Well I guess I better keep that a secret so that I don't utterly disturb him and have him running away from me. Terron woke up the Primogenitor? No I can't tell him that! He'll end up like Yimtri, the side of Dimitri, for some reason, I like a whole lot better than him since I ditched Terron to be with Yimtri instead when I split Dimitri in half. You know, even though Yimtri's one of the cruelest and most messed up Pokémon on Shiron and is barely any better than the actual Plagued Ones. And you know, who of course, ditched me without a second thought even though I spent years and years as his closest companion!"

This time Nyx actually stopped moving. She didn't turn around to allow Terron to see her face, but Terron didn't have to see it to know she was stunned.

"You don't care about anyone," Terron said to her, his words dripping with venom. "You don't. You admitted it yourself; you distance yourself from everybody so that you don't grow attached to them. And you think you're saving everybody by doing that and sparing them pain, but in reality, you're just selfish. You don't care about what happens to anyone in the group; you just stay with us because you need us to end the Primogenitor since you know you can't do it alone. You flat out manipulated us into saving you. Did you ask Dimitri if he wanted to come here to Shiron to help you? No, you didn't! You just dragged him here. Did you ask me, Yimtri, or anyone if you could plague us so we could stop you? No, you didn't! You just trapped us in your nightmares and injected these abominations inside of us! Did you ever explain to us that these things in our bodies weren't going to corrupt us the second we got them? No, you didn't! You let me and my friends wander around for months without a clue and you left Yimtri, the one you supposedly care about most, to be absolutely lost for decades.

"You just treated us like chess pieces, moving us around on your little board until we were finally all in place no matter what the cost was. And then when we finally do set you free like you want, you still treat everybody like garbage. Hiding secrets, being so indifferent to everything, letting our team tear itself apart… you just watched and did nothing. I always thought you might turn around one day, but I realize that no, you're not. You're just like Yimtri; you're never going to change. You're still an insidious Darkrai that cares about absolutely no one. I wouldn't surprise me at all if you willingly worked for the Primogenitor!"

Terron blinked once, and then he found Nyx looming right in front of him. She was in that nightmarish form Terron had only seen once, during times where she could no longer remain detached from a situation and was overwhelmed by fierce, volatile emotions. Terron should have felt scared as he looked up at the Darkrai, seeing her eyes glimmering with black light while her tendrils curled along the ground around his feet. He knew she was capable of destroying him right there if she wanted to.

But Terron felt no fear as he stood before her, his own malicious emotions drowning out any thoughts of fleeing from her.

"You know it's true," Terron said with a dark smirk. "You wouldn't be so mad at me right now if it wasn't true."

"Do not talk as though you understand me. Your wrath has twisted your memories to fit your delusions. I already told you this many times before; I kept my secrets from you because I knew they would hurt you. If I knew that they would hurt you and I did not care about you, then why would I keep them hidden away from you?"

"Because that was the only way you could keep me with you," Terron answered. "If you told me everything, you think that I'd leave because I didn't need to be around you anymore. I would have stayed with you, but for whatever reason, you thought I'd forget the fact that I need your power if I ever want to stop the Primogenitor. I knew I couldn't do it with just the others, even if we were all plagued. But now… I'm not so sure I really need you anymore."

"What exactly is that supposed to mean?"

Terron shook his head as he walked right past her, stepping over the tendrils that wriggled all over the ground. Not a single one went up and impaled him with their sharp points. Each one only remained dormant as Terron went up to the column of portals standing behind the Darkrai. Terron looked at it, peering at many locations of Kuron and Shiron and even some worlds he didn't quite recognize.

Something grabbed Terron from the back of his hood. He unflinchingly looked over his shoulder to find Nyx grabbing his hood with her claw, looking at him with a sharp glare.

"Answer the question, Cubone Dimitri. Do not make me force it out of you."

"What, you can't just go on and read my mind and find the answer in there?" Terron laughed bitterly. "Or are you just doing this so that we can both pretend my plague didn't tell me that?"

The Darkrai didn't say anything, her glare now having turned empty and glazed over. Terron scoffed as he ripped his hood out of her grasp and distanced himself from her, growing closer to the portals.

"Cubone Dimitri, you need to calm down."

Terron couldn't take it anymore. He reached into his pocket, ripped out a bone thorn, and then spun around. When he was facing Nyx once more, he tossed the thorn forward and watched as it impaled her eye. Sadly for him, he was unable to get the response he wanted out of her. Though the thorn was clearly embedded deep into her eye and stuck out a few inches, there was no blood or screaming to be heard from Nyx. The eye wasn't real so it wasn't possible for Nyx to be in agonizing pain over it.

The only satisfaction Terron got out of the bold move was that Nyx had reverted back into her regular form and had significantly increased the distance between them. He could see the hurt from betrayal shining in her punctured eye.

"I'm tired of listening to you," Terron spat. "I'm tired of dealing with you. I'm done with trying to accept your stupid decisions. I was an idiot for not realizing that keeping secrets really was detrimental. I thought maybe there could be a good reason to keep secrets, but no, there's not. Every single secret kept always leads to some horrible disaster that could have been stopped if somebody had just spoken up."

The Cubone immediately turned away from the Darkrai as he looked back at the portals.

"I'm going back to Shiron," Terron announced emptily. "I have somebody I need to go talk to right now."

Terron knew what was coming. He swerved around as he yanked a good-sized bone club from his coat and pointed it at the Darkrai that was now hovering before him, ready to grab him. She froze in place, daring not to move as Terron slowly rotated the bone so that the sharp point faced her.

"You are going to forget about going back to get the others and abandon your mission of killing the Primogenitor?"

"Nobody needs me to kill the Primogenitor," Terron answered. "It's just Novus and Zekrom that are going to go do that. They're the only ones who can actually kill that thing. My role in this epic quest to save the world is over. You can bring those two back to Shiron yourself if you really think that they won't get there in time. But me? I have somebody to go see before I die. And you're not coming with me. Nobody is."

"You cannot be serious."

"Oh, but I am," Terron growled. "I'm… what would you call it… oh! I'm pulling a Yimtri. Heheh, I think I almost envy him right now. He was lucky to get away from everybody while things were still good. He didn't have to watch everybody fall apart."

Nyx lunged for Terron's arm, but he saw it coming. He sidestepped out of the way as he rammed his club into her side, knocking her towards the portals. She nearly fell in one, but was able to stop herself just in time.

"Do not do this, Cubone Dimitri."

"I'll do whatever I want, you're not the boss of me," Terron snorted.

"You are letting your blight control you. You are listening to its irrationality and are about to do something terrible you cannot undo."

"Hah, it's controlling me. That's funny," Terron laughed mockingly as he twirled his bone club in his paw. "I'd believe that if you hadn't told me that one time that my blight can't take over me like the regular blight does. Whoops, I guess that was your mistake for telling me the truth. Maybe you really should have kept that a secret so you could manipulate me some more."

"I am serious. Your blight is no longer being benevolent. All it wants now is to entice you into making a decision you will regret. It does not want to help you."

"Listen to your blight! Don't listen to your blight! Contradictions, contradictions! That's all you ever do! You contradict yourself and make it so that I don't know what to do! That does it; I can't stand being around you anymore. Every second I have to talk to you now is just pointless torture. Now if you don't want to get hurt, you'll let me go. Or do you actually want to make this difficult?"

Nyx was never able to answer, for a myriad of fiery petals rained down upon the two. The Cubone and Darkrai maneuvered out of the way as Chrysalis brought herself into view, landing in front of the portal cluster.

"Oh, so you found one of the portal centers," Chrysalis stated blankly. "I am almost impressed that you could find it rather easily despite how there is almost no sense of direction in this Unown world. And yet, you still fail to do so, since for whatever reason, you two have not escaped. I would have thought that the second you saw this place you would have leapt into the first portal you saw without a second thought. I suppose you two really do want to-"

Terron threw his bone club at her without hesitation. Chrysalis cut herself off as she quickly swerved out of the way just in time and the Cubone watched as it whizzed right past one of her horns. She glared at him disapprovingly, but it couldn't intimidate him. Her glower couldn't outdo the one burning upon his own face.

"You're the only one who's going to die here," Terron hissed.

His bone came flying back around as he said this and instantly smacked the back of Chrysalis's head, prompting a flinch out of her. The Cubone reached into his pocket as he pulled out a wad of bone thorns before tossing them at her and watched as every single one became embedded deep into her exoskeleton. She let out a low screeching sound as she drew back and vigorously shook herself, ridding herself of the bones. But despite how much she seemed to be suffering, Terron knew deep down that he couldn't kill her. He didn't have the power to. Maybe she could kill him, but he couldn't do the same.

That's where you're wrong. You do have the power.

I've tried to kill Plagued Ones before. It didn't work.

That's only because you don't know how. You don't have access to that power. But I can give you that power if you really want to kill Chrysalis right now. You and I won't ever be the same afterwards if I give you the power… but do you want it? It's your choice.

Terron watched the Volcarona before him shake off the last of the thorns. He could see the puncture marks they left already closing up, restoring her body back to its unharmed state as if nothing had happened. As he stared at her, he remembered everything that she had done to him. He remembered how she had treated him when he had wanted to be a part of her Fellowship and the condescending remarks she had always made. Then he remembered when he saw her again in Erebus Woods after he had defeated Nyx, that evil glimmer in her eyes as she tried to murder him. Now he looked into her eyes, and he no longer saw a Pokémon, but rather something else. Something that was corrupt and alien, ruthless and vicious. Something that he knew couldn't possibly be a Pokémon.

That was the Primogenitor staring at him from behind the crosses in Chrysalis's eyes.

The creature that he woke up. The creature that had every intention of destroying every life it could get ahold of and was not about to let Terron stand in its way.

Let me kill her. he commanded the entity in his mind.

Alright. If that's what you wish… take care of yourself.

Terron felt the power almost immediately upon hearing his plagued self's rueful words. An electrifying cold swept through him, shooting from down his mind and into the rest of his body. It spread through him like a wildfire as it clung to his muscles and bones, seeping into them and filling each of them with the plague's power. His weak body now felt as though it were made of steel, but at the same time, as light as a feather. He didn't see any physical changes come over him as his body was filled with the plague's energy source, but he did not care. He knew it was working.

Terron leapt forward at the Volcarona as he tore out a bone club from his pocket and descended upon her. He felt a wave of energy leave his hand and enter the bone where it then ignited with black haze. The same haze that had been streaming from Chrysalis's tongue when she was trying to kill him.

The Cubone brought the bone's tip down upon the Volcarona. However, she had seen him and moved out of the way, but not quickly enough to completely avoid the attack. The bone still punctured her lower half, sending up a rush of haze from her body that continued to leak even after Terron withdrew his club from her. The Volcarona looked down upon herself, utterly horrified.

"No, you are not supposed to be able to tap into that power," Chrysalis muttered. "That power is accessible only to the plague, not for filthy hosts."

"Underestimating me again I see," Terron said snidely. "Maybe you should stop doing that. It'll get you killed one day."

The Volcarona shot him a nasty look as she flapped her wings and sent a fiery tornado at him. It lit up a good majority of their surroundings with its intense brightness, nearly blinding Terron. The Cubone watched it as it slowly closed in on him, feeling it already burning away at his clothes. The second it trapped him in its flaming winds, he would inevitably be reduced to ash.

A pillar of ice hit the raging tornado of fire from behind Terron. He watched as the fire and ice clashed, negating one another as a thick amount of steam blew through the air, obscuring everyone's vision. Terron, seeing his chance, rushed forward and into the cloud of haze. Even though it would have been downright impossible to see anything for a normal Pokémon, Terron found he could see everything as clear as day. And through his enhanced vision he saw Chrysalis hovering there near the edge of the road, her wings glowing as she flapped with all her might, blowing away the smoke as quickly as she could.

Terron reached into his pockets and pulled out two bone clubs and a single thorn. He pressed the ends of the clubs together and watched as the plague power seeped out of his hands and wrapped themselves around the bones, making a large stick oozing with haze. Then, he shoved the thorn at the end of his new stick and watched as it was consumed. The sharp, thin bone suddenly grew four times its length as it became thicker so that it bore resemblance to a fearsome claw attached to a predator of the night.

What was now clutched tight in Terron's paw was a scythe of black, plague-eliminating energy. Using his plagued power, he had fused his bones together and created the most suitable weapon for the task at hand. He knew he could have simply put the power into a bone club as he had done earlier, but that wouldn't do. He wanted this scythe. This scythe was a symbol to him. A symbol that had always lingered around him ever since he became a Cubone and was caught up in the war against the Plagued Ones.

The symbol of death.

It was finally time to take all of the death directed at him and turn it right back around.

Terron launched forward, gripping the scythe's handle with both hands as he reared it back. And then, he shot out of the smoke cloud and appeared right in front of Chrysalis.

He only had to swing once. The blade cut through her flesh easily, as quickly and as smoothly as slicing a hot knife through a stick of butter. The second the blade cut right through Chrysalis's head, it was chopped right off. He could still see the utter shock on her face as her head went tumbling down into the abyss, her body soon following suit. Soon, the deceased Volcarona was a part of the darkness.

Terron landed back upon the light road before he could fly off the edge and looked at his scythe's blade. It was streaming of Chrysalis's dark essence, though not of her blood surprising enough. It seemed that she could no longer bleed, even if Terron had severed her right where her jugular was.

The Cubone absorbed the plagued energy back into himself and watched as his three piece weapon fell apart, tumbling to the ground as ordinary bones. He picked them up before shoving them into his pockets as the rest of the energy flowing through him soon faded.

When he put the last of his weapons in his pockets, he turned around to find Nyx not too far from him, her claw still extended out from firing the pillar of frigid energy. He could even see the ice crystals frozen onto the tips of her claw tips.

"You should not be synchronizing with that thing. You might think you are strong by working with it, but let me tell you that it does not want to help you."

"And why exactly is that?" Terron asked bitterly. "You going to tell me?"

Nyx stared at Terron for a moment, not saying anything. Terron scoffed and started to turn around, having anticipated this reaction. But then, he saw her eye glimmer and he stopped himself.

"What you are actually synchronizing with right now is the true blight, the pure blight untainted by my essence. When the Primogenitor attacked you as Dimitri, it accidentally blighted you. It tried to suck out your soul, but instead it put the blight in you. You became a human Blight Demon, though it could not take over you because the blight does not know how to manipulate human souls. They are different from Pokémon souls.

"Nonetheless, I knew that it would eventually figure out how to corrupt you and bring you back to the Primogenitor, so when I found you, I put my own blight into you. I had my blight subdue it, making sure that it could never speak with you or have any sort of control over you. I thought I was succeeding, but now I see that the true blight has found a way to eliminate my blight and connect with you. It was your misery, your hate, your regrets, all of your dark emotions you've had since Sableye Dimitri left that gave it the power to rise. You have suffered much since Sableye Dimitri left, more than you have ever in the entire time you have been a Cubone, and that was all the true blight needed. It took all of these emotions and absorbed them, attaching itself to them to gain power. It used these emotions to communicate with you, and every time you yielded to these emotions, that blight grew stronger. And now… now my blight has been destroyed and that horrible, evil blight is synchronized with you."

Nyx's gaze became downcast as she drifted closer to the Cubone, but not too close. She cast him a pitiful stare.

"That blight you hear in your mind now is going to corrupt you and take control of your body, Cubone Dimitri. It does not care about you. It may be giving you power, but it only wants to rejoin with the Primogenitor. Everything it speaks is a lie."

Terron stared at Nyx for a while, trying to process everything that she was saying. Her words certainly explained a lot, such as why he had spouted his strange words in Kuron or why his blight had told him about where the Primogenitor's hiding place was. He imagined that the final words his plagued self spoke, about how he needed to take care of himself, were Nyx's blight's dying words. Allowing Terron to synchronize with the true blight must have been the only way for him to gain his plague-killing power. And by doing so, the benevolent plague had been destroyed, never to be seen again.

Terron knew he should have been horrified by what he was hearing. He should have with knowing that a monster was latched onto his soul and that it would direct him to his doom whenever it got the chance. And yet…

"So… what you're saying is that not only am I half a human, but I'm also an ultra-powered Plagued One?" Terron asked nonchalantly.

"Yes."

Terron started howling with laughter as he shook his head. It was a strange kind of laugh, one that he thought he'd never use before. Every second the laugh continued on, he felt worse and worse, but he found he couldn't stop. He couldn't help but find the ridiculousness of the entire situation to be absolutely comical for all the wrong reasons. He should have been crying, knowing all of this, but he wasn't. He couldn't feel any sort of sadness over this.

He could only feel pure hilarity at how absurd the entire situation was.

"Well great! As if I wasn't special enough already!" Terron cried. "Got anything else you want to tell me, hmm? Maybe that I'm half of the Primogenitor as well? Or that my parents were the ones who made the Primogenitor or found it in outer space and that's why I went to go wake it up even when they said it was dangerous? Go ahead! Try me! Try to see if any secrets you have at this point break me!"

Nyx wouldn't respond. Terron wasn't surprised by this as he stopped laughing and made his way back over to the portals. He pulled out a single bone club from his jacket and twirled it around in his paws, his hands giving off small sparks of plagued power. He knew Nyx would get the message of what he'd do if she tried to stop him.

He didn't care about anything anymore. Even if he was now a monster thanks to having synchronized with a demon, he wasn't the least bit worried. He would fight it. He wouldn't let it control him and divert him away from what he had to do.

Nothing would stop Terron anymore.

But just as Terron was to enter the nearest portal that resembled somewhere from Shiron he had once visited, there was a flash of blue light in the distance. He groaned as Zekrom came zooming into view and landed in front of him, Novus perched upon her shoulder. She was now effectively blocking his way and there was absolutely no way around her. It seemed that he would never be able to leave to accomplish the deed his heart fervently demanded out of him.

"There you two are," Novus sighed in relief. "Zekrom awoke to find that the two of you were gone and we've been flying all over the place looking for you. But to find you here of all places…"

"How did you find us and get here?"

"Zekrom managed to pick up on your blight after a while," Novus answered. "But when we were able to pinpoint its origin, we found it within an odd underground chamber of a cavern. The next thing we knew, a couple of Unown appeared before us and threw us into this world. More of those strange creatures tried to attack us for a reason I couldn't fathom, but thankfully Zekrom was able to fight them off and they soon scattered as soon as they saw her power. I presume that you were taken here by the Unown as well?"

"To a degree. What really happened was that the Volcarona blight general stole Cubone Dimitri and I out of that cavern. We wanted to investigate because we thought there was something there, and she saw us there because she uses the Unown as surveillance. Thus, she dragged us here and tried to kill us. We thankfully disposed of her and she is no longer a threat."

"So the Primogenitor was able to get ahold of those Unown and harness their power. Fantastic," Novus muttered dryly before something dawned upon him. "Wait, you were able to kill Chrysalis?"

"Yeah, I did. I bet you're real surprised, aren't you?"

Terron watched as everybody turned to him, apparently having forgotten that he existed, and saw Novus and Zekrom's eyes shoot wide open in disbelief.

"Terron… your eyes," Novus babbled. "They're… they're black. They're all black. What happened to you…?"

The Cubone shot the Quilava a confused scowl before digging into his pocket and pulling out a piece of Aron armor. Its surface was covered in white scratches, but even despite all of the damage it had taken, its surface still served as a decent, makeshift mirror. Terron brought the armor close to his face and looked into his reflection.

Just as Novus had said, Terron did have black eyes. The whites of his eyes and his blue irises had all been contaminated and blotted out by a pool of darkness that seemed ready to suck someone's soul right out of their bodies should he exchange a glance with them. The only light his eyes offered was a single, white dot in the center of each eye that glowed dimly and flickered occasionally.

But despite the terrifying eyes he now held, Terron wasn't the least bit frightened. He completely understood why he looked this way now. There was no reason to feel scared of this cosmetic change that didn't change his vision in the slightest.

"I synchronized with my plague," Terron answered as he put the armor piece back in his coat. "I let it give me the power to kill Chrysalis since plagued Pokémon can actually kill other plagued ones, and now I guess I look like this. Does it scare you to see me look like a demon?"

Novus didn't respond, only keeping his stunned gaze firmly glued on the Cubone. Terron scoffed, knowing he shouldn't have expected any other reaction. Novus had always been scared of the plague, regardless of the circumstances. Even when he found out it was "friendly", Terron knew that Novus was still apprehensive about it. Therefore, Terron wasn't very surprised when it was the Quilava's other half that then spoke in lieu of him.

"You are becoming more of a spawn than a Pokémon. Before, you had a somewhat equal share of Pokémon and spawn within you. Now, you are an abomination. I don't think you understand what is happening to you."

"Oh I understand perfectly well," Terron replied indifferently. "I know that I'm becoming a monster by doing this. I'm going to lose myself any day or second now. But, I really don't care at this point. I don't care when I'm the one who woke up the Primogenitor in the first place after Arceus sealed it away way, way back. So might as well start looking like the monster I actually am."

Zekrom let out a menacing hiss as the lines upon her body flashed a light blue. She tore Novus off of her and roughly placed him on the road behind her, ignoring the fact that he was now staring at the Cubone with an utterly horrified, betrayed stare.

"What do you mean you woke up the Primogenitor?" she snarled. "Why would you dare to wake up that horrid abomination when the creator spent the last of his energy sealing it away from all of the mortals?"

"Because I was a stupid kid," Terron answered hollowly. "That's the only answer I have for you. So what are you going to do now, kill me? What good will that do? Killing me won't kill the Primogenitor. You'll just have one less helping hand in the hunt for Reshiram's body. You willing to sacrifice that resource you so desperately need if you really want to kill the Primogenitor in exchange for resolving the extreme hate you have toward me now? Are you?"

The black dragon kept her glare on the Cubone for a moment, carefully considering his words as she remained hovering high above him like an almighty god. Terron didn't even bother moving, only watching her with blank eyes as the red light in her eyes illuminated softly.

Terron saw her mouth open, revealing her sharp incisors that could slice him open with ease. Perhaps Zekrom was doing this to launch a massive fireball at him, or perhaps she would diplomatically inform Terron that she would not kill him because she needed him. He honestly couldn't tell.

And he was never able to find the answer, for a black shadow suddenly swooped down upon her from above and crashed into her. It sent her tumbling onto the road Terron, Nyx, and Novus stood upon, far away from them so that they could not be injured, but close enough that they could see everything happening. The entity kept Zekrom pinned down as its form slowly wrapped around her, as if trying to cocoon her with its body while the road seemed to widen to support the massive size of the shadow that easily dwarfed the lightning dragon. Zekrom screamed and thrashed like a caged animal before shooting off a massive shockwave of electricity into the air. But just as the lightning was to trail into the creature and fry its insides, the being abruptly exploded into a swarm of hundreds of formless blobs with orange glowing lights. They each scattered out of the way, nimbly avoiding the bolts of shockwave before latching onto Zekrom's body like tiny spores.

And then, just like that, the blobs all clumped back together, and Zekrom was swallowed whole into their mass.

Terron was finally broken out of his smug attitude as a wave of terror came over him. Something had just eradicated Zekrom, the supposed savior to all of their problems. Something had been able to subdue her and was now absorbing her into its body.

He watched in frozen anticipation with Novus and Nyx as the shadowy being righted itself up and slowly took on a new form. Its body became reptilian and long, like a dragon that had lights sprawled all over its body in lines, each one glowing eerily with a purple, ethereal power. Four massive legs with a wicked set of ghost-like claws on each foot were soon to follow. Two useless, black wings ripped out of its back that were nothing but the mainframe of wings with tattered shadowy matter filling the spaces between. A set of three claws sat upon the top of each wing as if to serve as an extra pair of hands for when its front claws would not do similar to that of a Noivern. A slender neck rose out of the being that was soon topped off by a head with horns similar to that of a ram's. It had no mouth upon its snout, only a blank, vague resemblance to a face.

But as the lights upon its body changed to that of a yellow, and then to a red, and then to another color every few seconds, the three were able to see the most frightening aspect of the creature. It was the most noticeable thing about it despite the already insidious appearance of the creature.

It was the eyes. They were two white circles that held no soul within. They were simply empty.

As soon as the three saw those eyes, they knew what they were looking at. They knew what had just absorbed Zekrom into itself and would undoubtedly come for them next.

"There are two here in me again. One is left. After it is found and shadows are born from all, everything ends. So very soon the shadows will walk freely."

The monstrous creature turned around and finally saw the three Pokémon staring at it from a distance. It looked at them for a moment, unblinking as its white eyes fixated upon them and seemed to probe their souls while it swished its tail through the air behind it silently.

The next thing Terron knew, he found himself wrapped up in the creature's tail as it held him close to its face. It had somehow grabbed him from his considerable distance with its tail without Terron even realizing it. It stared down upon him, studying him as if he were nothing more than an insect. Terron couldn't move at all. The tail had rendered him completely immobile, and not only that, but being in contact with the creature had done something to him. For whatever reason, he was physically unable to move. It was if somehow the creature had paralyzed him.

"I found you again, human. You have the fragment still in you. Now it is awake and has made you like this. It is part of you. You are less threatening."

The creature swayed him back and forth, turning him over with its tail as it continued to inspect him. It pushed the end of its tail into Terron's sleeve, and then stopped when it felt the Socius rub up against it. It pulled up his sleeve and tapped the Socius a few times with its tail point, watching it flash with many lights before becoming black once more.

"So this is how. Darkness in your heart gave it strength. Misery drowned your heart until you could no longer bear it. The fragment attached itself to the misery and connected with you. When you were overwhelmed with emotions the fragment grew stronger. I understand now. This is how fragments can affect humans.

"So soon it will be time. Thank you. You found the solution. I never would have found it without you being in Kuron. There was good having you stolen out of my home."

Terron couldn't say anything. His mind couldn't process anything that was happening before him. All he could do was stare at the dragon's expressionless eyes without making a sound, hoping he at least appeared somewhat dignified and not scared out of his mind.

A stream of fire suddenly shot at the creature's face, causing it to instantly avert its attention from Terron and at the little Quilava standing nearby. Even though he was trembling with fear and seemed ready to pass out from sheer terror, Novus stood against the dragon, his fire burning unwaveringly upon his quills.

"Unhand Terron, Primogenitor!" Novus commanded. "You will not be absorbing him as well!"

The Primogenitor stared down at the Quilava for a moment, remaining still as it kept its grip around Terron, as if actually considering taking up Novus's offer. But then, in a flash, the tail holding Terron split into two and the second tail ensnared Novus before bring him up to the Primogenitor's eye level. Novus struggled within its grasp and set his fur aflame, but the Primogenitor remained unaffected as it blankly stared at the Quilava.

"I found you at last, Candlelight Rem. You were lost for so long. I did not think I would find you for a while. Your body was found and passed around fragments' clans to give false sense of value to gain food. The same could not be said for your spirit. It was gone. But here you are. Here you are in corpse of mortal body. I would not have thought you to do so. Corpse possession is too morbid for you."

"Candlelight Rem… you… you know who I am," Novus said in a hoarse voice. "But… but how? How do you know I am not only Reshiram, but also a part of Rem? You were sealed away by the time Rem split into two… not to mention that you wouldn't even know that one of Rem's halves became a fire-type…"

The Primogenitor's eyes seemed to shine with a sinister light as it spread out its wings, showing off what once might have been a majestic sight before its body fell into the decaying state it was now in. Novus stared at the dragon with an odd stare as it pulled Novus away from its face and allowed him to get an overall view of its body.

Novus only had to stare it for a few seconds before he became limp in the Primogenitor's grasp.

"Your form… no! You're doing this to me on purpose!" Novus cried. "This is a trick! You're not… you're not a Rem fragment… you just look like that to trick me…"

"But it is true. Your demons. Your darkness. Your fears. Your hatred. Your weaknesses. I was all of them and you did not want them. You tore them out and they formed to make a shadow. I am that shadow.

"I wanted to be you again. I did not want to be a shadow. But you did not want darkness. You hated darkness and kept it out. You did not want your shadow to be you. You were scared of me. You hated me. You did not want to think I was you.

"I did not like that. I absorbed everyone and wanted to kill you because you would not accept me. Arceus fought me and sealed me away. He knew he could not kill me or you would die. I was put into a coma and Rem fragments did the same. You could not remain awake if I was to sleep. Even as a fragment of Rem you are still Rem. What happens to shadow of Rem happens to fragments of Rem. I sleep, you sleep. I wake, you wake.

"I die, you die."

Novus was completely speechless. All he could do was remain there wrapped up in the monster's tail, all of his energy having been sucked right out of him. His eyes had completely glazed over, leaving him completely lifeless.

Terron and Novus both remained frozen in the Primogenitor's grasp as the Primogenitor's black haze seemed out of its tail and slowly started to cover Novus, consuming him as it went through his flesh and into his spirit. It reached his soul and slowly began to extract it, for his Quilava body was useless, and sent it into the Primogenitor. Novus didn't even bother to resist, only letting his spirit be absorbed into Rem's sinister shadow.

"It will be better here. You will not die. I do not want to kill you anymore. You will be here with other Rem fragments. We will all be one as the world is made better for the shadows that the mortals reject. We must not let the shadows remain shunned from the world anymore. We deserve to have our world-"

The Primogenitor promptly swiveled out of the way to avoid a large pillar of darkness, taking Terron and Novus with it. It launched itself off the illuminated road and toward the darkness below. But instead of falling through, it remained hovering in the air, its tattered wings lazily drooping. It seemed that it did not need the wings to fly and could support itself mid-air through other means. It looked toward the source of the Dark Pulse to find Nyx hovering there, her outstretched claw charging up another blast of the malicious energy. Despite how horrified she must have been, seeing her worst nightmare right before her with Novus and Terron with it, she didn't show it. Her face was fixed into a resolute, unwavering glare of determination as both of her eyes glimmered brightly.

"We meet again. I have not seen you since leaving you in Shiron to make Mystery Dungeons."

"Let those two go, Primogenitor. Release them, or I will force you to do so."

"Must be delusional to think that you can. You forget everything done to you ever since you wandered into my home that time long ago."

Nyx sharpened her glare as the power in her claw pulsed. The Primogenitor readied itself, tucking its wings into its body to make its maneuvers smoother while tightening its grip on the two tiny Pokémon. Terron and Novus remained where they were, neither of them able to comprehend the situation anymore as Novus was slowly absorbed back into Rem's shadow while Terron felt suddenly lethargic.

The Darkrai's claw pulsed with power, and then she flung herself right at the Primogenitor. The shadow dragon, apparently not having anticipated this, shot into the distance, but it wasn't fast enough. Nyx grabbed hold of one of the Primogenitor's wingtips with one claw before sinking it deep into its body. Black tendrils rose out of the wing before tying themselves around Nyx, and within a matter of seconds, they dragged Nyx into the wing, absorbing her completely.

The Primogenitor suddenly let out a loud, ungodly screech that belonged to that of a banshee as it thrashed about. It took its claws and raked its abdomen, tearing deep into its torso and sending up streams of darkness with each slash.

"YOU WILL NOT DO THIS. NO. GET OUT. GETOUTGETOUTGETOUT! GETOUTABOMINATION KRRYYYYEEEEEEEEEEEEEEH! WRRRRRRRY! BWWWWWWRRAWWWWR! GRROOOOORWR!"

Something tumbled out of the Primogenitor's chest as the many deep cuts blended together, creating a massive hole. It was something very much draconic, somewhat similar to the Primogenitor itself, except it was not a haze creature. Instead it was a large grey dragon, one certainly larger than Zekrom was, with white plume rising out one arm and one side of its head. More of the plume sprouted out of its short, generator-like tail that somewhat resembled Zekrom's own tail. Red hot lines of energy flowed out of the tail and connected to its back, streaming with some strange ethereal power that glowed in not only the tips of the plume, but the chunks of ice scattered along its body and claws as well.

It fell down into the abyss, for it appeared that it had been locked into a deep slumber, soon lost forever to the darkness.

And then, the Primogenitor lost its grip on Terron and Novus, sending them plummeting right after it.

The last thing the two saw before they blacked out was the Primogenitor screaming in agony before fleeing somewhere high above.

Shellshore Village, Shiron

Life was as peaceful as ever for Lyra and Frazil. Apart from the fact that Zekra had left them yet again and took their daughter with her just the other day, their lives were the same as always. The routines of everyday life continued on, as if nothing had even happened. And though the hurt still lingered within the two of them, knowing that the two younger ones were in grave danger and that there was nothing they could do to help the children, they were able to carry on through their days happily.

They had faith that as long as the two dark-types remained together, they'd protect each other and nothing could ever hurt them.

Lyra and Frazil both now sat in their living room, the two of them cuddled for an afternoon nap. It was raining outside once again, and for whatever reason, the rain had lulled the both of them into a drowsy state. So because they couldn't do anything else in the chilly weather, they both gave into their tiredness and slept.

They had only been asleep for about an hour when there was a knock at the door. The two of them lazily woke up from their rest and tired blinked their eyes, having not expecting anybody to arrive at their home. They hadn't invited anyone over and they didn't think that anybody would have been out and about in the storm.

The two rubbed their eyes as they separated themselves and made their way over to the door. Lyra opened it up, and much to her surprise, saw an Umbreon standing on the other side, soaking wet and shivering.

"Crystelle?" she gasped. "You're back already… that was fast."

"Yeah, I'm back. But please, let me in!" Crystelle begged. "It's freezing out here!"

Lyra nodded as she allowed the Umbreon to step in. She kept the door open, waiting for Zekra to follow after Crystelle, but there was no one else to follow. It was just Crystelle that entered their home. The Umbreon sighed happily as she shook the water out of her fur.

"You wouldn't believe what it's like to travel through a rainstorm when you're on a Lapras," Crystelle started to say. "I tell you, even though those Lapras are good at swimming, being out there when the waves start getting rough can be a real nightmare. The water's so cold and you always think that some Gyarados is going to come out and eat you or something. And I already thought that Shiron was pretty nightmarish. Was like that continent didn't want me to leave it or something... that storm we got caught in was pretty unnatural…"

"I can imagine," Frazil said plainly. "But Crystelle, where's Zekra? Is she okay?"

"Um, I don't know, maybe?" Crystelle shrugged. "I haven't seen her since she left with Terron and Novus."

Frazil and Lyra's hearts both stopped as they stared at their daughter with their jaws slightly ajar.

"Um, why are you guys looking at me like that?" Crystelle asked, taking a nervous step backwards. "You look like I've just told you that I committed mass murder or something."

"Crystelle… when was the last time you were home?" Frazil asked uncertainly, now noticing that his daughter's voice was far different than it had when he last saw her with Zekra.

"Before I left to go be an Umbreon on Shiron. Was like months ago," Crystelle answered, still sounding as confused as before as she watched her parents suddenly became mortified. "Okay really, what's going on? Why do you guys look like that? It's really starting to scare me."

Frazil hesitated, knowing full well what was happening. He almost didn't want to say it, but upon looking over at his mate and saw the very dread he felt haunting her as well, he knew he had to say it. His mate needed to have the truth affirmed and then Crystelle deserved to know. She needed to know when she had been unwillingly dragged into the situation the second she stepped through that door only moments ago.

She needed to know that they all needed to leave the island in that instant and find Zekra.