Chapter 17: Trust in the Darkness

Celebi was leading Trey somewhere. He hadn't bothered to ask where yet. He simply followed and watched out for her. As he walked and watched, it helped him to ignore the horrific images in his mind. She may have just been wandering about, or she may have been heading somewhere she thought was safe. Certainly, she was feeling overwhelmed as well.

She paused at a pool on their way. She looked ahead, so she probably had some destination in mind. But she turned to the pool and swept over it with some kind of power. The water began to lighten, even ripple a bit.

"There," she said, the first thing either of them had said since leaving the battlefield. "I'm no Suicune, but…" a look of grief deepened on her face, "Well, it's clean for a bit, so we can wash off this grime."

"Good idea," he said, although she was probably better hidden muddy than she was pink. But who knew what poisons or substances were in the battlefield mud that might absorb through their skins?

He washed his face off first, then peered into the water to see if the reflection was suitable for finding any extra bit of dirt. It was then that he saw something that he hadn't really noticed yet. There was a long scar in between his eyes from when the Sableye had slashed him down the face originally. He hadn't paid much attention to his evolved form yet, and he couldn't remember any mirrored surfaces being around the underground base. So he hadn't noticed yet, but that scar and his paler than usual skin made him look exactly like the Time Gear thief.

An icy hand seemed to grip his throat, but then a cynical internal voice that sounded oddly like Kip said, 'Why should that be a surprise to you? That Grovyle was from the future, yet of the Grass type. There is only you and Celebi now.'

But then what about Drakken? Tray had witnessed the Pokemon who had betrayed him and his friends being evolved from a Duskull to a Dusknoir, when Drakken had been a Dusknoir when he kidnapped Team Marmalade. What in the world was going on?

Once Trey had gotten himself suitably cleaned, he got out and sat on a nearby rock. Celebi was still fussing over herself. She seemed to have gotten much of it off, but was mechanically doing some actions over and over while her mind was caught up elsewhere. Trey closed his eyes and thought over some meditations he had found in the book Kip had given him, about controlling the darkness once it began speaking up. He thought of shifting through the battlefield memories, but put that off for later. He would have to give that his total attention, when now he needed to have his senses open to any possible threat.

After a bit, he opened his eyes back up and asked, "Where are we going?"

That seemed to jerk Celebi out of her distracted state of mind. "Oh… Sky Peak. I want to find Arceus, but I don't want to teleport very far and alert Primal Dialga of where I am." She came out of the pool of water and buzzed her wings to dry them off. "I want to ask her why she hasn't been doing anything while the world keeps descending into lower stages of hell. No one's been able to contact her this whole era."

"What if she's gone Primal?" Trey asked.

"If that's the case, then we're screwed," Celebi stated bluntly. She headed off again and Trey followed.

She seemed to be on autopilot as they said nothing more on the journey. There was a time or two that she showed signs of being troubled: she'd slow down, her antennae would droop, or whatever she was feeling would crack the blank expression on her face. But at any point Trey would show some sign of noticing, before he even spoke, it was gone and she pressed on.

Trey wondered where they were in relation to Sky Peak, or if Celebi was even paying attention to the direction she was flying. But then a mountain came out of the darkness. When they came to the foot of it, they found a single stone monolith standing in an open field. Although it was missing the Sign of Arceus, Trey felt like he might find his way back to Treasure Town, even Bartleby's Guild, from this place.

"We should stop and get some rest," Trey said.

"I'm not tired," she said, but in a voice that said she was very tired.

"Yes you are. Use a Sleep Seed if you have to, but we should take a break before we go climbing this."

She sighed. "Probably." She did as he suggested and was soon in a deep dreamless sleep.

Trey sat down and meditated. He had learned this trick from some of his clan peers as a way to regain energy without sacrificing attentiveness. It was usually for staking out a victim or keeping an extended watch, but it worked for protecting someone else.

His meditation was broken three times, twice by the ominous giggles of Sableyes and once by the actual Pokemon. The first two times, he had managed to distract them from thoroughly searching the spot, but the third time, the creature found them. Trey knocked it out with an Energy Ball before it could alert its peers or attack Celebi.

She woke up shortly after. "Huh?" She saw the Sableye and her eyes widened. "Where did that…?"

"There's others around," he said softly. "We'd best get going. But take this," he handed her an Apple.

She nodded and ate it while they started up the path. Trey ate his own Apple on the way as well. Now there were noises to watch after: wild Pokemon, the Primal Sableyes (who seemed to enjoy their position far too much), and the wild magic that shifted paths and passages on them. Whenever he sensed that Celebi was headed towards a trap, he gently nudged her to avoid it. Although she only thanked him once, she followed his tips without hesitation.

It seemed like forever, but it seemed like not, while they climbed up Sky Peak. As they got past the ring of clouds, though, Trey noticed oddities. For climbing so high up the peak, there were an awful lot of flowers paralyzed along and on the path. And there were many other plants too, seemingly frozen into a forgotten spring. "What's with all the plants?" he asked finally.

She tensed at the sound, but then relaxed. "This leads to the village where the Shaymin clan lived. I used to visit here a lot. And the place where Arceus stays is connected to here, among a few other places. That's why the wild magic is so strong on this mountain, even now."

The abandoned village was in sad shape, though. The woven grass huts were empty and cold and the place had none of the warmth and spring soul that even the weakened Shaelin had possessed. It didn't even smell like her anymore.

Celebi brought him to a stone circle at one end of the village. "We're not supposed to bring Pokemon like you past here," she told him. "But in this case, there aren't many Pokemon left, so…" she left it at that and activated the circle.

It warped them to a different Mystery Dungeon. It was a silent place. Trey had a sense that it should have felt sacred to be walking here. But, it didn't. It felt as silent and as empty as it looked. Even as he looked over it, it was forgettable when it should have been awe-inspiring.

After three levels, they came upon a weird sight: a frozen meadow, just as dark as everywhere else. And there, they found an old skeleton of a quadruped Pokemon. Given the planetary paralysis, there was no way to tell when it had been killed. But the place was strangely clean.

"Oh no," Celebi said, going over to the skeleton. "Not Arceus too."

That had been Arceus? The bones made no sense to him, but maybe when there had been flesh there, it had been the Creation Pokemon. "Celebi," Trey said, going over to her.

She waved at him. "Go away."

There wasn't much of a place to go away to here, Trey thought. He spotted a wall on which there was writing and strange things, so he went there.

As he approached it, the wall changed to Unown text, an alphabet he could read well. Looking over it, he realized it was a list of legendary Pokemon. Each name had a glass gem by it. Nearly all of them were dark. When he saw that the ones by Mew, Zapdos, and Arceus were dark, he realized that all of the darkened names, some he knew but many he did not, these legendary Pokemon were dead.

He looked at the few that were glowing. He found Dialga; that gem was glowing red. So was the one by Palkia. Underneath them, there was Giratina glowing white, with a center of silver and gold. He wasn't sure how to interpret that. Under Mew, Mewtwo's name was glowing white with a pink center. Celebi was a few names below them, glowing white with a circle split between pink and green. And there was one other name that had a glowing white gem. This one had a dark blue, almost black, center. The name by it was Darkrai.

Trey frowned. The name of Darkrai was unfamiliar to him. But the look of it… he remembered the phantom at the battlefield, the one who almost blended into the darkness. Had that been Darkrai? And according to this list, Darkrai was not Primal. Neither was Mewtwo. Perhaps they should seek out those two survivors to figure out what to do?

The gem by Celebi's name flickered, but stayed lit. Feeling that was some kind of premonition, Trey left the name board and went back over to Celebi. She wasn't hovering like before. Instead, she was sitting on the floor staring blankly at Arceus' skeleton.

"Hey," he said quietly, tapping her shoulder.

She didn't respond.

Trey felt his leaves tingle, a sign that someone had teleported into here. He set his hand on her and glanced around for who the other intruder was. He spotted Drakken with three Sableyes. "Celebi," he called out. "You need to meet up with Dialga."

As she still wasn't responding, Trey checked the room again. There was a warp panel, but it would require him to run by the four Primals. He reached into his Treasure Bag, pulled out a Stun Orb, then smashed it on the ground, grabbed Celebi, and bolted for the panel. When his vision cleared, he saw that the panel had placed him at the foot of the mountain.

They would be here shortly, so Trey ran. It was a difficult task; Celebi was pretty much dead weight, but he couldn't afford to lose her. He went into a Mystery Dungeon, made his way through it. Every now and then, he hid for a while to see if he was being followed. Occasionally, he could hear the sadistic giggles of the Sableyes. Still, he was wary of getting faked into a trap by that, and altered his course carefully when he heard them.

In one open area, he spotted a yellow thing sticking out of the ground. It was like a mushroom, but not quite that. As Trey decided to not investigate it, it erupted from the ground; not a mushroom, but Drakken hiding in the ground. "Foolish Grovyle," he started to say.

Trey whipped out an X-Eye Seed, then threw it at the point between the Dusknoir's eyes. While the Ghost was hallucinating, he ran on. He would not lose Celebi.

After he had not heard from them in some time, he changed direction and headed for Treasure Town. It was a sad shell of its former self. The buildings were intact, but no one was inside. The Guild building was gated; Trey didn't know of the secret entrances and stepping on the security grate got him nothing. So he went west of town to Sharpedo Bluff. He knew of a secret tunnel there; it led to a place that he had lived in for some time before joining Bartleby's guild.

It was still covered by the old bush, so he pressed the hidden button. This caused a stone in the ground to roll to the side, showing an old staircase. He brought Celebi down there and shut the hatch again. Then he entered the secret cave held within the mouth of Sharpedo Bluff.

After placing her by the small pool of water, Trey checked the area out. It was mostly secure; a detection system would alert inhabitants of any ghosts or diggers trying to get in through the surrounding rocks. And the jagged teethlike stones around the opening dissuaded fliers from entering that way. From that opening, he had a good view of the beach and the sea.

"Trey?" Celebi was looking over at him. "I'm sorry. I just…"

He went back over to her. "It must be hard on you. I'll protect you, though, I swear."

"Oh." She looked down.

"Stay quiet and this is a pretty safe spot," he told her. "I'm going to scout about the old town and see if there's anything useful around. I'll be back."

She shrugged, so Trey left to gather supplies.


"It's odd to run into another civilized Pokemon in this era," a male voice said.

The words caused Trey to tense up. He had gone for several cycles without hearing another voice, as Celebi was silent. What if it was a Primal? He came out of the Kecleon's shop storage room and went to the counter. On the other side, there was that white-haired phantom Pokemon. The glow of his blue eyes didn't seem as bright today, but his expression seemed to be that of regular curiosity.

"Especially not after that battle," Trey said, causing his top leaf to twitch.

"Oh yes, that. I may have seen you there, come to think of it. You're quite lucky to have survived."

He put his paws on the counter. "You too, considering you weren't doing any fighting when I saw you."

He smiled; it was a trickster's smile, something Konga often had. "Well my skills are not all that suited for a battle on that scale."

"Who's side were you on?"

"None, honestly. I was resting in that area when the battle grew around me. It took me some time to realize that it was going on in reality, not just as some gory dream that had been attracted to me. The dreams of this era are so different than those that came before." His gaze turned to the sky.

"Dreams?"

"Yes, dreams." He put his hand to his chest and looked back to him. "We have not introduced ourselves, have we? I am Darkrai, dream spirit of the new moon. Alas, there is no longer a moon, so I am as misplaced as you are, Grovyle."

"Possibly," Trey replied. "I'm called Trey."

"Trey, is it? Would you, by chance, be staying with someone else?"

"Why should I tell you?" he asked, suspicious.

"Hmm… I suppose in this era, such distrust is normal." He put his hand to his chin. "If you are protecting someone, I should not interfere. But, being the dream spirit that I am, I sense that someone is dreaming nearby. Unfortunately, it seems to be one of a terrible nature. I should hope that whoever it is is not depressed. It would be rough punch to the soul of someone who is suffering on the inside."

Trey immediately got worried for Celebi. However, he couldn't put her in danger. He had to either trust Darkrai or get him away from here before he went back to check on her. And recalling the utter calm and serenity that this Pokemon had shown in a horrific battle, he was leaning towards not trusting him. "There isn't much comfort to this era."

"You're right. So what do you intend to do?"

He shrugged, trying to look as jaded as he could. "Survive? And keep free from whatever's turning everyone into a crazed violent fiend."

"That would be my goal as well. Speaking of those fiends, I'd best leave soon. Better for me and better for you that we don't stick together. But, since you are in a shop, would you care to trade some Apples and Berries for a couple of TMs? I have been running dangerously low on food lately."

"Sure, I guess." He gave Darkrai some assorted foods in exchange for a Dark Pulse, a Thunderbolt, and an Ominous Wind. Once he said goodbye to the dream spirit, he went back to Sharpedo Bluff to check on Celebi.

She was awake, but looked badly spooked. She was watching the stairs, but seemed relieved when she saw him. "Oh, Trey…"

"What happened? You look pale."

"J-just a bad dream." She looked down, so Trey went closer. Then she hugged him. "If it would kill Primal Dialga," she whispered, "do you think I should kill myself?"

This was looking bad. "No, Celebi, don't do that. We can find another way."

"But if there was no other way," she said even quieter than before.

"There will be another way," Trey said firmly, patting the back of her head. "I'm looking into what's recorded and I know there will be a way to fix things."

"Oh." She sounded relieved, which made Trey feel better about her safety. But when he let go of the hug, she took one of his paws. "Would you stay with me for a while, though?"

He had been out investigating the town a lot recently. "Okay, I will."


Out on the beach, Darkrai's gaze was steady on Sharpedo Bluff. After staying there for quite a while, he gave a satisfied nod. "Silly Celebi. We can't have you killing yourself off now. Still, it's a pity that it's taken so long to track down a loose cannon like you." He ran his fingers through his hair. "And Trey… all of the other Grass Pokemon should have died out long ago. Your bright and cheerful natures, sunny dispositions…" he grimaced. "At least you've given me an extra way to attack Celebi."

Darkrai vanished.


When Trey woke up, he felt an odd warmth. It puzzled him until he realized that he had fallen asleep next to Celebi and she was still sleeping at his side.

A sense of guilt wormed into his heart. Was he dishonoring his memory of Stacy by doing this? Or, because she was dead, was it okay? But then it felt bad to think about it that way. Yet, in this era of darkness, when all the inhabitants he had known (who were dead) had all been distant and isolated even in living together, to be close to another gave him a feeling of hope and encouragement. But he was considering going back in time, back to when Stacy lived, and he was darn well going to see to it that she (and the others) survived. Did that make this wrong?

But Celebi looked calm and peaceful, which was way better then her being paralyzed by depression. For the moment, Trey tried not to think about it too hard and just stayed with Celebi.


For the umpteenth time, Trey wished there was some passage of days or something. Celebi was still depressed. Fortunately, the town was well stocked and nothing had been ruined in the paralysis. He was falling into another routine, but this time, he didn't like it.

After investigating around town with the knowledge Bubbles and the clan gave him, he was able to locate some of the secret entrances to the Guild building. He looked over the room he and Kip had slept in. In a corner, he found a small hole that had been dug out and filled with a small collection of rocks. As he looked over them, he realized that he had found Kip's secret stash. One of the tricks Stacy had tried to keep Kip satisfied was to allow him to take relatively harmless rocks and take them as treasures for a collection. The Skitty took to that suggestion and those rocks were still here. Trey spent a bit sorting those rocks, trying to figure out what he had seen in them.

He searched the girls' room too and found a lost spool of white thread. He found no sign of Stacy there, but in the next room where Matti and Azeri had stayed, he found the Azurill's drawing of Team Marmalade and the two kids. While it caused tears, it also gave him a warm feeling. He took it back to the hidden cave.

There were other signs that the planet's paralysis had happened shortly after he had left that time. He found a Perfect Apple in the Guildmaster's office (he ended up giving it to Celebi). He found some journals of the others, like Bobby the Bidoof, Flora the Sunflora, and Chiaka the Chimecho. In those, he was able to read entries on the Time Gear thief, his old exploration team, and the day they disappeared. Flora had the most entries after that, thirty, until that journal too went blank.

But in those writings, he found nothing about what had happened after the time of paralysis. In other evidence around town, it seemed that the entirety of Treasure Town had been abandoned (or massacred) when the planet became paralyzed. There was something suspicious, though. Bobby, Flora, and Chiaka had all noted that when Mespirit, Uxie, and Azelf went to replace the five stolen Gears, time did not start back up in those places. They stayed stagnant, paralysis slowly spreading until the day that all time went stagnant.

He found more writing on that in a journal he found at Kazza's library. The Alakazam had all sorts of research notes, so Trey would find those books, then bring them back to Sharpedo's Bluff to read. While there, he found a few books that Celebi might like to read. He wasn't sure, but brought them to her anyhow.

Finally, he came back after one search to find her reading through one of the books. She looked up and smiled. "Thanks for that Perfect Apple. It's been ages since I've encountered one of those."

He smiled back at her. "I'm glad you liked it. How are you doing?"

"Okay, I suppose. I'm not doing anybody any good just sulking here. Then again…" she looked out the opening, "I've decided that I hate this world. There's no sense in letting it suffer any longer. If I had some idea of how to undo this darkness from the past…" she looked to him. "It's dangerous. If we erase this darkness, we will almost certainly erase ourselves. Perhaps we'll revert to our old selves before the darkness to find a new future, but all our memories of this era… well, I won't miss them."

"I feel the same way," he told her. "But I might have an idea on how to undo it. Here." He handed her a piece of paper he'd found in the guild.

She looked at the drawing it held. "Oh, that's you Trey." She read down the outlaw statement. "Oh…" then she frowned. "But you were a Treecko when I found you."

"I was a Treecko when this happened. I was part of an apprentice explorer team when this unnamed Grovyle began stealing Time Gears. About that time, a Dusknoir called Drakken appeared."

She tensed. "Drakken? The one we saw?'

He nodded. "The same one. The Grovyle attacked Uxie to steal the Time Gear he was guarding, and then my team encountered the thief when he attacked Mespirit for the same reason. And we met him again when he attacked Azelf, but Drakken appeared then and fought him. He then told us that he was from the future, where the Grovyle was a notorious thief. And, we believed him because he showed no signs of darkness while the Grovyle… well, the three legendaries were defeated so strongly that they each spent several days in the hospital recovering."

"And the three of them would never give anyone a reason to hate them that much," Celebi noted.

"Those three even offered to personally assist Drakken capture the thief. They did, and sent him back to the future. However, Drakken also kidnapped me and my three friends without warning or reason. He brought us to Temporal Tower, where I got this scar from a Sableye. And then, we and the Grovyle were executed. I somehow survived, and…" he shook his head. "And I don't know how, but I wound up going a bit into the past in what was the future from my time and wound up joining your rebellion when Drakken was just a Duskull. That doesn't make sense, but that's how it is."

She closed her book. "It makes sense to me. But…" she considered something, then said, "I've always noticed that you seem to be moving backwards."

"Backwards?"

She nodded. "You're caught in a time loop, and you're actually heading backwards in a way. Like this is how you started," she put her hand on the dirt floor and drew a line. Then she brought it up and brought it back into a loop, "As you're here, and then you should be heading…" she brought the line of the loop down and closed it, "here, so that things stabilize. So, you need to go back into the past and become that unnamed Grovyle thief."

"But I know what's going on this time," he said. "I might be able to get away with the Gears without hurting the triplets. And I know that the final plan is a trap, so I can avoid it. So I can change time and…" he paused. "The thing is, I don't know what he was planning on doing with the Time Gears."

"I know what I would have asked to be done with them," Celebi said, sounding more confident as they went along. "First, did you find any records of after your kidnapping?"

"Yes."

"What did they say about the replaced Time Gears?"

"That the places they were did not recover. They were still frozen days after the Gears were replaced. It even spread more as time went on."

"Right, because time was already unstable at that point and Temporal Tower must have been in the beginning stages of collapse. And I know now the weak point that was pressed and how Dialga could have missed it that whole time. On top of the Tower is where he normally resides, and it's a large open space. At the north end of the platform, there's a small raised area. It's square, about a yard on each side. You've seen how big Dialga is; he might not pay that particular little piece notice. But in that place is a mechanism that is run off five Time Gears. It helps keep the stability of Temporal Tower. Someone could have stolen those five Gears. The effect wouldn't have been noticed right away, but it's like a small crack in a high-traffic bridge. The more the bridge is used, the bigger the crack grows. By the time you notice, it's already a big problem."

"So I only need to go after those five Gears."

"Yes, the ones that are not native to those areas. Getting to Temporal Tower might be a problem. At that era, you have to pass the Sea of Time, and you need a particular key. But I could get you around that. Is there anything else about this story that would be important?"

"Yes. Drakken told us that the Grovyle had a partner. Later, he told us that the partner was a human named Sally. And, well," he passed over the drawing Azeri had made. "Sally was one of the members of our exploration team."

"Huh… oh, that's right! Mew and Mewtwo wanted to get someone with a special talent to help with our rebellion effort. They found a human named Sally, but she was young and in need of training. Mewtwo was left with her…" she frowned. "But all Psychic powers are limited under this darkness. I can't easily make contact. And, I don't know if the Primals have gotten them."

"I saw this board back at Arceus' dungeon that seemed to show which legendary Pokemon were alive, which were dead, and which were Primals. It showed that Mewtwo was alive at the time we were there, uncorrupted."

"That's hopeful. Was there anything else you noticed about the board?"

He nodded. "Palkia was also shown to be Primal. And there was another alive and regular one too, someone named Darkrai."

"Darkrai, huh?"

He wondered if he should tell her about his encounter with the dream spirit. "Who is he?"

"I've only heard about him," she said uncertainly. "He's one of the dream powers connected to the moon, I know that. He would be the Dark type one, so he might be able to resist this time like the Sneasel Konga did. It might help if we could contact him, but he would completely slip my notice if he were nearby."

"And he must be able to hide very well in a time of darkness too," Trey thought aloud.

"If we run into him, we'll try to get his help. But we're going to be better off finding Mewtwo and Sally. That would mean crossing the ocean. I can fly, but you… it's too far to swim. Well can you gather all the evidence you have? I want to see this for myself."

"Sure." He brought her out of the hidden cave and brought her to the library. Later, they went to the guild.

At one point, they spotted a boat approaching the shore. They went out to meet it and, as hoped for, it was Mewtwo and Sally. "We had a horrible trip over," Mewtwo told them. "So thank goodness I caught your aura signs and was able to correct our course so that we could meet right up."

"We've been formulating a plan," Celebi said. "But, it's drastic. I'll have to show you all the information we have."

Trey smiled at seeing his friend Sally again, although it was bittersweet in that she was younger and thus did not recognize him. However, she looked much the same, with her long white hair spilling over her face and her turquoise blue eyes. So he said, "Hi Sally. I'm Trey."

She gave him a friendly if uncertain smile and signed, "Hello Trey. I hope we can be friends."

"I'll be your friend, don't doubt it."

Her eyes widened. "Really, you know sign language?"

"I do."

"That's an odd skill for you to have," Mewtwo said. "But helpful. We should be able to get through things faster."

When Celebi and Mewtwo went off to Sharpedo Bluff to look over things, Trey asked Sally, just to be sure, "Do you like marmalade?"

She gave her odd laugh. "That's a weird question," she signed. "But I love marmalade. It's one of my favorite things. Do you like it?"

It was definitely Sally. "I don't come across it often, but yes, I like it too."


Drakken the Dusknoir came up to his master's platform. "Master Dialga, you have a guest."

In response, Dialga growled. He did not trust anyone. Maybe not even Drakken. The Dusknoir occasionally felt like his Sableye helpers were spying on him for Dialga. Certainly he was spying on them for Dialga. As it was, any one slip up could end in his death.

"He calls himself Darkrai, sir. He does not seem too hostile, but we should be able to contain him if he causes trouble."

After more growling, Dialga said, "BRING HIM IN."

"Yes, master." He went to the teleport pad to reach the place where he had left the phantom Pokemon. He seemed to be observing a crack in the wall, where the collapse had frozen. "Darkrai, the master will see you now."

"Ah, I see. Thank you very much for this." He bowed like a gentleman Pokemon.

"I hope you have important enough business. Master Dialga has no time for chit-chat."

"You have made that quite clear. I am aware of this."

With that, Drakken allowed Darkrai into the teleport pad and brought him to Dialga's quarters. The master's red eyes narrowed as they glowed in the darkness. The Dusknoir bowed to his master, then turned to the stranger. "You are now in the presence of Master Dialga. Please state your business without disrespect."

Darkrai smiled. "Oh, of course. I would not dream of disrespecting the master of the world."

Dialga snarled. "GET ON WITH IT. WHY ARE YOU HERE?"

Clasping his hands together, the phantom seemed eerily calm in the presence of the master. Drakken was jealous of this. As much as he tried to hide it, being in Master Dialga's presence still unnerved him. However, he had great respect in this, in that even he was afraid of the master. So why was Darkrai so calm?

"I have come across some interesting information that you may wish to know about," Darkrai stated. "First, Celebi seems to be working with a pale Grovyle named Trey."

"We already knew of this," Drakken stated, trying to make Darkrai nervous. However, there was a new piece of information in there: they hadn't learned the Grovyle's name yet.

"Have you?" Darkrai's smile seemed almost a smirk when he looked back to Drakken. "Well your information network must be extraordinary, as Trey seems quite cautious. The other thing that I have learned is, Mewtwo has found a human who possesses the Dimensional Scream ability."

At that, Dialga roared in anger. When he spoke, his voice was seething with hostility. "THE DIMENSIONAL SCREAM? SO GIRATINA HAS SURVIVED! I KNEW THAT DIRTY SCOUNDREL WOULDN'T GO DOWN QUITE THAT EASILY."

To Drakken's annoyance, Darkrai did not seem ruffled at Dialga's outburst. He was still, seemingly, at peace. "It is a pity. I did not wish to betray the true master of the world, so I thought you would want to know of this."

"Are you mocking us?" Drakken demanded.

"Why, of course not," Darkrai replied, placing his hand on his chest. "Why would you think that I am mocking either of you? What good would it do me to mock the great Master Dialga and his highest, most loyal servant?"

"WHO IS THIS HUMAN CHOSEN BY GIRATINA?" Dialga asked.

"A girl, albino. Her name is Sally. And, if I'm not mistaken, she is curiously deaf. However, that is no obstacle to Mewtwo."

"AND MEWTWO IS NOT EASILY FOOLED OR CAPTURED. DARKRAI, CONTINUE TO SPY ON HIM AND THE HUMAN GIRL. WE WILL HANDLE CELEBI AND HER GROVYLE SERVANT."

"As you wish," Darkrai said, bowing. "May I have your leave?"

"YES, GET GOING ALREADY!"

"Just thought I'd ask." Darkrai faded into shadows, and then was gone.

"Master," Drakken said, then quickly caught himself. "Forgive me for asking, but can we trust this Darkrai? He was not disrespectful on the surface, but he might have been tricking us."

"I CAN TELL WHEN SOMEONE IS TRICKING ME!" Dialga shouted. Then he grumbled for a bit. "DARKRAI IS A TRICKSTER. HOWEVER, HE HAS THE ABILITY TO INFLICT NIGHTMARES ON ANY HE IS NEAR. AS LONG AS HE IS CLOSE TO OUR ENEMIES, HE WILL WEAR THEM DOWN SIMPLY WITH HIS PRESENCE."

"I see." He bowed. "Very clever, master."

"NOW FIND CELEBI AND THIS TREY. BUT REMEMBER, SHE MUST BE BROUGHT TO ME ALIVE. DO WHATEVER YOU WANT TO THE SERVANT, BUT BRING CELEBI TO ME."

"Yes, master." Drakken then left on his mission.