Chapter 62, everybody! And pretend it's October instead of the day before Thanksgiving (Happy Thanksgiving, all) so you can have your spine appropriately tingled.

On the topic, we now have chapters for every week remaining in 2021, so good things. :D Less good is Microsoft Word deciding to change their UI to some blinding white simplification that causes eyestrain and a disgust usually reserved for something foul which resists all attempts to change, but rest assured I will continue to suffer in an endeavor to deliver.

You are, of course, familiar with Twitch Plays Pokémon, I'm sure—we're also referencing the regional war theory and several creepypastas, as per the norm. Also commentary on how the Gen I games were pretty bare-bones (I understand the mainline games are returning to that as well *bricked*). I guess we can also say that we're referencing that one novel that never got translated to English too, the one that paints the Pokémon world as a thinly-disguised dystopia with ten-year-olds being declared legal adults. And then Pokémon became a worldwide hit and that got swept under the rug. ^^;

Also…Darkrai backstory if you squint and turn your head.

Moving on: Chryssal, Cyan Quartz, Kayuri Igrimakeon Pax, Dragonkeeper10, thor94, forward-smash, Chroniclerpoke, talesfanjmf, Johnny Spectre, epantoja521 (I have really been enjoying reading your journey through the fic :D), Urdeadnotbigsurprise, KaterinaWhite, Harrison, and Guest, thanks for the reviews! Also, we're now sitting at half-a-million views! Congrats all! :D

Pokémon © Game Freak; Nintendo

And now, for something completely different:

Tonight, on The Distortion Zone—this…is a Gameboy. A common device, one of entertainment and childlike joy. But in another dimension, this is the only device by which Pokémon exist. Yes, in this other dimension, Pokémon are part of a massive franchise aimed at children. Your actions are controlled by the mashing of buttons. You have no control. You are a bundle of pixels. And the voices are starting….

Red Satoshi—everyone in Kanto knew of this boy.

He was from the first generation of trainers after the inter-regional war, when everything was still a disorganized mess—the plan with the Kanto League was to prove to the rest of the world that they could bounce back from the rubble, and bounce back first.

But routes were rugged, towns were bare, and gyms and Pokémon Centers were few and far between. That first generation of fresh trainers—starting at ten because everyone over that had been drafted—had been thrown into a vicious world that didn't support them and quickly destroyed their wide-eyed ideals.

Chief among them was Red Satoshi, who swept the gym challenges and the League. Everyone thought that he was the prime example of Kantoan trainers, the pinnacle of them all, the Champion—

Right until it became very clear that he was certifiable.

Red had claimed—when he was still talking—that he had started hearing voices. By the time he had turned up in Pewter, it had been enough to get him to stop talking. By the time he swept the League, it had been enough to break him. The last people to see him had said he was fleeing to Mt. Silver.

The bloodied note he had left behind had intimated it was the voices that drove him there.

Red Satoshi had become a horror story overnight when the news broke—Ash had had nightmares about him for years. Darkrai knew this—it was why he had assumed that the thing in front of him was an illusion made by the Legendary.

The fact that it was still advancing, frostbitten fingers stretching out for him, suggested otherwise.

Ash gave into the pressure building in his ribcage, screamed, ran—down one row, jinking to the side, running up another one, glancing behind to see if the ghost could even keep up with him with frozen legs—

Slammed right into something, screamed as he fell back—

"Ash!"

"Brock!" Ash gasped, scrambling upright—and then backing away a few steps. "It—it is you, right? Ulk."

"Ulk" being what you said when someone more than a foot taller than you suddenly grabbed you by your shoulders, shaking you a little bit before attempting to suffocate you in a hug. And was it just him, or was Brock crying?

"You're alive," Brock choked out. "I just—they were dead—they were all dead—"

That made ice slip down his spine—who was dead?

"I just—" Ash tried, wriggling out of his grip enough to point. "I just saw Red Satoshi. I-I swear it was him—"

Brock looked around, one hand still firmly on Ash's shoulder. "W-where's Misty?"

Where Misty was was quickly answered by her screaming.

"There!" Ash yelled, pointing—Misty was stumbling out of an aisle—they ran up to her as she kicked and screamed and batted at herself—

"Get them off me! Get them off me!" she shrieked, swatting at herself so hard she left red marks—Brock grabbed her wrists, hugged her tight to keep her from flailing.

"Misty!" Ash exclaimed—was cut off by the sound of Pikachu screaming. "Pikachu!"

"Misty, what is it?" Brock demanded, not loosening his grip.

"Spiders! Bugs! Tons of them!" she wailed, still thrashing.

Brock took a moment, looked at Ash, still yelling for Pikachu.

"PIKA!"

"Pikachu! Over here!" Ash yelled—electricity flared—something small and yellow jumped on one of the grave markers, spotted them, leaped in their direction—

Something grabbed Pikachu by the tail, flung him around before flinging him away.

"PIKACHU!" Ash screamed, stomach hitting ground floor and not stopping.

"They're illusions!" Brock yelled, trying to be heard over Misty's hysterics. "There's something here—something trying to scare us!"

"And doing a good job!" Misty wailed.

"We have to get out of here! Get Pikachu and Darkrai and—"

Why Brock cut off was painfully apparent to Ash: eyes, glowing red eyes, two by two, snapping into existence around them. A pair snapped open close to them—

Ash could see around the eyes and to the grave marker beyond—there was nothing supporting them.

Pressed back to back with Brock—at least, he hoped it was Brock—facing down ghosts that his Pokémon couldn't even hope to counter, completely surrounded—Ash did the only thing left available to a ten-year-old over his head.

He screamed.

Darkrai had decided that something was screwy shortly after they reached this level. For one, he lost track of the others almost as soon as he turned around.

For another, he couldn't see much past the first couple of grave markers.

This, for an abundance of reasons, was what told him that something was off—Darkrai could see in the dark, hence the name. Hunting in darkness was their bread and butter—a Darkrai with night blindness was simply unheard of, and he did not have night blindness. Or if he did, it had come on in the past few minutes, which he felt was just plain stupid.

So someone was trying to pull a fast one on him. And weren't they here hunting for Ghost Pokémon, which were in and of their type notorious tricksters?

"All right, that's enough, you've had your fun," he declared, scanning the area. "Now show yourself, give me a good jump scare, and we can pretend it was actually a good job."

Nothing. Glance around again, paying particular attention to the patches of shadow…ghosts would be hiding in those….

His head jerked up at the sound of a scream echoing back to him—one that he recognized.

"ASH!" he bellowed, floating a little higher to strain across the room—still no depth perception in here, and he couldn't see anyone—"ASH! Stop screaming and yell something useful! Like row number!" Nothing. "Ash, you're going to be in for a world of hurt if you don't say something useful in the next ten seconds."

"He's in for a world of hurt anyway."

Darkrai spun—

And saw, down the row, a little boy.

A very familiar little boy.

"What are you doing here, monster?" the boy asked, death clinging to him, practically oozing out of his sunken eyes—nightmares had been his end. "Come to ruin someone else's life?"

Darkrai clenched his claws, floating backwards away from the apparition. "You're not real," he said.

"That boy's as real as your guilty conscience."

Darkrai started—that voice—it couldn't—not—

He spun, flinched back—

The man before him gave off an air of death too, Peabody coat and red scarf looking ragged and moldy. And that expression—a glare of anger, of hate, of pure disappointment….

Not him, please….

"It can't be," Darkrai managed, eyes feeling hot, unable to force his mind out of the mantra it had sunk into—not him not him not him please—

"Yes, me," he snarled, forcing Darkrai to drift backwards and down. "Surprised? You left me to die!"

"No—no I didn't—"

"And not even repentant about the boy—you went right back to your old ways! You wanted me to die so you could! You sicken me, Darkrai!"

"I—"

Wait.

A memory—

"I've been informed that all Pokémon have names, just that they don't share them with others readily. But seeing as how we're travelling together, what's yours?"

"…I don't have one."

"You don't? Why not?"

"…I was never given one." His mother had never had the chance to help him find his.

"That won't do at all. But don't worry, I'll help you find a nice one."

And if there was one thing he had always been good at, it was keeping a promise.

And never just referring to a named Pokémon by species—not even in a fit of anger or pique.

Any fear Darkrai may have felt vanished instantly, replaced with white-hot rage.

"You're not him," he said quietly.

The apparition blinked. "What?"

"You're. Not. Him," Darkrai hissed, before launching himself at the apparition—his claws hit something decidedly not human-shaped—

The purple shape of a Gengar barely registered on him before he started literally ripping it to shreds.

"HOW DARE YOU!?" he raged through his assault. "DON'T YOU DARE USE HIM! DON'T YOU DARE!"

There was nothing left—he ripped at the Gengar fruitlessly attacking his back, trying to get him off of its fallen comrade—it quickly met the same fate—find another one, find another one to sate this absolute rage and fury—not him, not him—

He refused to let one of his few good memories be soiled like this.

A scream—snap to attention—

Three people running from a cloud of ghost Pokémon—

The yutz kid and company.

He wasn't sure if he was fueled by the need to save them or not.

What he was certain about was that before him were more ghosts, ghosts that wanted to corrupt the few good points of his past and force him to relive the absolute worst moment of his life.

And so he saw fit to return the favor and make them live through the worst moment of their unlife.

And he had regained enough sensibility to be cruel about it instead of vicious.

He was suddenly in between the kids and the ghosts, and the ghosts had too much forward momentum—

They slammed right into his Dark Void.

And he was furious enough that they were going to stay there.