Venri's heart pounded in her chest as she followed Crystelle to find Len.

It was a strange feeling, having a heart again. She had spent so long without one as an ethereal specter, never understanding what it felt like to have something constantly beating within herself. But now she was a Zorua of flesh and bone once again, and that rhythmic thumping felt wrong. It made her chest heavy and filled her ears with its dull thudding.

To think this used to be normal. She almost wanted to go crawling back inside Gallows's dreams, just so she could escape these uncomfortable mortal sensations.

At least she had still known anticipation as Gallows's prisoner, so keeping a straight face wasn't difficult even as her thoughts churned in hellish, looping circles.

"It hasn't been dark long, so hopefully Len hasn't slept too much," the Umbreon said as she led the way on silent feet, as to not wake any of the slumbering Pokémon in the resting chambers they passed by.

"I'm sure when he sees me, he'll perk right up no matter how tired he is," Venri said with a dry little smile.

"Eheheh… yeah, probably… He was always wondering what happened to you."

Venri continued to take in the castle as they made their way to Len's sleeping quarters. She had visited this organization so many times in the dream existence and it never ceased to baffle her just how similar reality's Shadow Alliance was to the dream's one. If she hadn't been ripped from the real world, she would have spent so much of her time here, leading and guiding Pokémon in a new world, one that had been saved from the brink of a great disaster. One that needed new direction, new leadership after the older ones were revealed to be puppets, marionettes of the sinister forces that wished to consume the planet.

Venri could have worked alongside Zekra, given her ideas that no one else would have thought up, and maybe sometimes manifested into reality when an extra pair of claws was needed. It would have been a good life. But instead, Gallows, for some reason, had stolen her away. He had robbed her of this purposeful life and ensnared her in his clutches, forever sealing her away as he toyed with her for what felt like centuries.

Why? Why had he done that? Just who was Gallows?

Eventually, Crystelle led them to a room that didn't look any different from all the other bedrooms the two had passed up. However, Venri knew that this was Len's room. She had seen him retire here for the night many times in the dream world. She wondered if now that she was alive and "mortal", she'd be intimidated by the great Luxray. She remembered Zekra used to feel skittish beneath his piercing gaze when she was a Zorua, even if she didn't want to admit it.

Venri smiled fondly as she remembered meeting Len as Zekra for the first time, when she needed sanctuary after her home had been wiped off the face of the planet. It felt a little strange, seeing Zekra's memories and knowing they were also her own, but she supposed this was normal. Venri was Zekra after all, the darkness and hatred and bitterness Zekra buried deep within herself.

The Umbreon dragged a paw against the wooden door repeatedly with an irritating scratching sound.

"Hey Len, it's Crystelle," she said softly. "You still awake?"

A few seconds later, the door creaked open. A red eye peeked through the crack in the doorway and looked to Crystelle with a tired gaze. The eye was blinking slowly, as though its owner had just woken up and wanted to do nothing more than crawl back to sleep.

"Everything alright?" came the deep, rumbly voice behind the door.

Venri's fur stood on end. That was Len's voice, exactly as she heard it back in the dream world. He really was here. Finally, after all this time of simply watching his fake self from within that fake world, she'd be able to converse with him. She could converse with the Luxray she had known when she had been with Zekra, the upstanding Pokémon she could always depend on no matter what happened.

"Yeah, everything's okay," Crystelle said. "I just… I found an old friend while I was doing night patrol around the castle."

"An old friend?" he repeated.

"Yeah I… here. It'll be easier if we both come inside and talk to you. Can we come in?"

The Luxray nosed the door open a little wider. Crystelle made her way in and beckoned Venri to follow. The Zorua didn't hesitate to do so, but her fur still wouldn't settle back down and she couldn't stop herself from grimacing as she entered the room.

Len's room was dark, but that was to be expected when they had probably woken him from his slumber. Even still, Venri could see some of the furnishings with her night vision. A few chests to store belongings, a few hooks on the walls with multiple, colored scarves hanging limply from them, a map of the world pinned to the wall and covered in notes, and a large, sprawling mat across the floor that probably served as a makeshift bed. It was cozy, Venri decided, but not enough to put her at ease. Especially when there was a giant Luxray standing a few feet away, eying her as he silently swiveled his tail. The scars running over his left eye didn't help matters either.

Crystelle shut the door with her back foot before gesturing to Venri.

"I found her sleeping in one of the spare rooms," the Umbreon said. "I know it's hard to believe, but this is Venri. You know… Zekra's shadow."

The imposing stare on Len didn't change. His tail might have flicked more harshly, but that was the only sign he was surprised. He twisted his muzzle into a frown.

"I'll admit she does look quite a bit like Zekra," he said after a moment. "Of course, that doesn't explain how she's here. Venri disappeared a long time ago and as far as I'm aware, she can't be too far away from Zekra."

"Well you can join the club, because I don't understand a lot of things going on right now either," Venri said with a sigh. "I get some things. Like I know I used to be a part of Zekra and that apparently I helped her save the world or something. And that somehow, I got ripped out of her and was taken somewhere else. And that you two are friends of Zekra's, right?"

She didn't need to tell them she knew everything about their lives already thanks to her snooping in the fake version of this world. Besides, what she knew might not have even been true. Though so much of the real world seemed similar to the fake world, Venri knew she couldn't assume everything was the same. Maybe Gallows had purposely altered the details of certain events in his world to hide information from her.

"You certainly sound like Zekra, that's for sure, if with a bit more edge," Len chuckled. "Yes though, Crystelle and I were friends of Zekra, you could say. Partners in running this organization together."

"Okay, good," Venri said with a nod. "If you're not too tired, I'd like to talk to both of you and figure out everything that happened to me before I disappeared and maybe together we can figure out why I vanished in the first place. I know you two don't really have a reason to trust me, but I need answers. A lot of crazy things have been happening to me lately and I'm only just now starting to realize just how maddening this all is and how much I just wasn't aware of it…"

Len and Crystelle gave each other a concerned glance. Not that Venri could blame them of course. She probably sounded like a rambling madman right now. Of course, nothing about this situation was exactly normal to begin with.

"Is there any way you can prove you're Venri?" Len then asked. "I'd love to talk, but for all I know, you're an imposter of sorts trying to gain information. I don't know why you'd want to gain that information or what you could possibly use it for, but perhaps I'm a bit reluctant due to past experiences. If you are Venri, I think you know exactly what I'm talking about."

"Yeah because you used to belong to some Fellowship that you thought was working to combat monsters, but actually the monsters were the ones running the show," Venri scoffed. "Yeah I know, I know…"

She couldn't resist a long sigh. She shouldn't have been surprised Len didn't trust her immediately. Really, she should have been disturbed that Crystelle was so quick to believe her. Zorua and Zoroark were known for deceiving everyone with their illusions, weren't they? You'd have to be an idiot to trust them immediately.

"Alright, fine. I'll tell you something only I would know about you, as Zekra's shadow," Venri decided, hoping that her knowledge of his fake Gallowsverse self was actually true. "You let Zekra join your little Fellowship because you felt bad for her. Because she suffered a tragedy just like you and you pitied her. You saw yourself in her, and then later you regretted it when a huge disaster hit the Fellowship and destroyed the base. You realized that was stupid, that putting her in danger wasn't good for her, and then you kicked her out. You banished her to an island to be raised by the parents of one of your teammates. You wanted her to live a normal life, which didn't work out at all because she came right back to save you at the end of it all."

She waited for a response. She hoped he didn't notice how much her paws were trembling.

A moment later, the stern expression faded from the Luxray's face and a small smile took its place.

"Welcome back, Venri," he said softly. "I don't know what happened to you or why you've suddenly returned after all this time, but it's good to have you back. I wish Zekra was here too, but… this is acceptable enough for now."

Venri breathed out a quiet sigh of relief. She still felt jittery, but that would hopefully pass soon. She straightened up as she looked the Luxray square in the eyes, while also giving Crystelle a brief glance.

"Tell me everything you know about me," she said to them. "I feel like I know quite a lot, but I need to make sure it's actually true. Make sure that everything I think I know isn't a lie."

"Well, from what you've been saying, it sounds like what you know is right," Crystelle said first, ears flicking as she moved next to Len to address Venri more easily. "You're Zekra's shadow and you used to belong to an organization that was trying to stop what were basically monsters that used to eat everyone in sight. At least, that's what the swarms did. We eventually figured out a strong member of their kind was making Mystery Dungeons and turning Pokémon into those monsters if they went to one of the very strong dungeons up in the north part of the region. That's how you started to exist, from what Zekra told me. She went into that dungeon because of a mission and you started existing because of that. You were supposed to just take over Zekra like some kind of parasite, but you didn't."

"Right, because that monster in that dungeon didn't actually want me to be a monster too. She wanted me to help Zekra," Venri said with a slow nod. "That monster, she was being controlled by the one making all the monsters. All the… all the Plagued Ones. She wanted us to save her, but she knew we could only do it if we were stronger. So, she infected as many Pokémon as she could so they could free her by using her own power against her.

"She… changed the whole process of how someone turned into a Plagued One. Instead of bringing someone's shadow to life and making them eat their hosts from the inside out, she told us to… try helping our hosts. Try to bond with them. Give them our power and make them stronger than even the gods. I… I remember that. I never felt like taking over Zekra. I just wanted to help her when she was suffering so much."

That lined up with what Venri had seen in the fake world. This was proving promising. She wasn't sure why Gallows had allowed so much of his world to be borderline the same as reality, but maybe he got a sick fascination out of knowing the answers were right there in front of Venri all along, and yet she'd never know the truth. But then, why did he let her out into reality if that was so…?

She told herself to stop thinking about him. He was an enigma to be ignored for now.

"Alright, so that's how I was made," she said after shaking Gallows out of her thoughts. "What happened afterwards?"

Len and Crystelle told her everything there was to know. They told her how she and Zekra had fought for so long, how Zekra insisted Venri wanted to hurt her and refused to speak with her. How Venri, in an attempt to still communicate with Zekra, projected herself as an illusion and took on the form of one of Zekra's new friends after she had abandoned her teammates in a moment of weakness. How in this disguise, she pushed Zekra to continue her quest to stop the Plagued Ones and promised to always be there, no matter what. How Zekra eventually found out the truth and after both of their lives were nearly snuffed out, Zekra finally accepted Venri and they became one. How the shadow and the true self merged to become an ultimate being with more power the two of them could ever have separated. How together, they found Zekra's teammates once again and finally put an end to the madness, to the Plagued Ones, to source of them all.

"Zekra said you needed rest after all was said and done," Len finally said after doing his part in sharing the long and lengthy tale. "She said that because you let her live instead of dying like all the other Plagued Ones after you placated the Primogenitor, she needed to recharge. You went completely silent and after that, no one ever heard from you again. That was nearly eleven years ago now."

The Luxray frowned as he stared down at the tiny Zorua, the mirror image of Zekra when she was still weak and dangerously volatile. Venri returned that stare unflinchingly.

"Now you're here again," he spoke. "Now. Why don't you tell us where you've been all this time?"

Venri thought over everything she had just been told. All of the information matched everything Venri saw within the Gallowsverse, plus what she could piece together from her own memories still trickling in, down to the finest detail. The only detail that had been altered was that Venri took on the form of a Mismagius in the fake world whenever she manifested into reality.

Venri found that to be outright comical, that Gallows would change her appearance, yet keep everything else the same. As if knowing that a Sableye claiming itself to be Zekra's shadow would tip her off to the truth. There were hundreds of billions of Sableye in Gallows's fake little realities. She found it so hysterical, she nearly burst out laughing.

She held back the laugh, but it didn't stop the furious, bitter smile from forming on her face.

"I thought I was in heaven," she answered sinisterly. "It turns out, I was actually in hell."

Crystelle and Len both looked at her, deeply concerned. However, they didn't ask for clarification. They knew she'd explain herself soon enough. Venri was glad for that, because she couldn't stop a few spiteful giggles from leaving her mouth.

"A year after I fell asleep, someone showed up in my domain inside Zekra," she started to say, flicking her ears as she recalled the encounter. "I don't know how he did, but he told me I was stuck there forever. I believed him because he showed me it had been a year already and I wasn't feeling any better. He told me he could fix that, that he could make me better if I went with him."

The smile twisted into a disgusted grimace as she looked at the floor.

"I was in a dream he made," she then said. "That's the best way I can describe it. He put me in a dream made up of who knows how many universes. He took away my memories, changed my name, shoved me inside a weird Sableye body as a joke, and then let me run loose in there. And at one point, made me think I was in love with him.

"That would have been crazy enough, but he decided he wasn't done. I don't know how long I was 'alive' in him, it felt like centuries really, but he decided he wanted to torture ten other souls he dragged into his dream. He told them they had to assimilate each other if they wanted to save all of reality and he made them all think I was a part of that. Except you know, that wasn't true at all."

She bore her teeth just thinking about the next part. Especially because even now, she still didn't understand certain parts of Gallows's plan. He had made all of this so… stupidly complicated. Probably so that when she escaped his realm, she still would have no idea what he was doing.

"For some reason, he wanted to get me out of his dream using those ten other souls," she went on, growling as she continued. "Maybe he got bored. I don't know. But he told me it was the only way I could actually see him as he was and because I thought I loved him, I went along with it and ended up assimilating whoever those ten were. Except, when I got out of his little dream and woke up in this body, I couldn't find him anywhere. He's gone. And now I have no idea what to think about anything anymore."

She huffed as she waited for the two to respond. She knew all of it sounded insane and she wouldn't fault them for not believing her one bit, but it was all she could do right now.

"So you're saying this whole time, you were imprisoned," Crystelle finally said after many long, uncomfortable moments of silence. "And then this… guy just let you out for some reason. Who even was this Pokémon?"

"He calls himself Gallows," Venri confessed bitterly. "And I have no idea what he is. I can tell he's pretty strong. Not as strong as the Primogenitor, but stronger than anything I could have done when I was synchronized with Zekra. All I know is that he apparently knew I stopped the Plagued Ones and wasn't very happy about that."

"Well it sounds to me like maybe he's a Plagued One himself, whoever he is," Crystelle stated with a frown. "I can't think of why anyone else would be upset about you getting rid of those monsters unless he was also one of them…"

"Yeah well, that would be an easy answer, except for one thing," Venri grumbled. "All of the Plagued Ones are dead. They're gone. I'm the only living one left."

"That's not necessarily true," Len cut in.

Both Venri and Crystelle looked to the Luxray oddly. He closed his eyes and thought a moment before swiveling his tail thoughtfully.

"There were a number of Pokémon that were still in the process of becoming Plagued Ones," Len explained plainly. "We all thought they'd die when everything was said and done, but they didn't. The power that was incubating inside them simply vanished, possibly because it hadn't entwined with their souls enough yet. So, hypothetically, this Gallows might have found a way to keep hold of that power when it was taken away from everyone else. After all, that's what you did, isn't it? You clung to Zekra when you should have died. You refused to leave her."

Venri grimaced. She had, yes. She had thrown herself into a coma for doing that, but she had succeeded. Was it difficult to believe someone else could have done the same?

"Alright, you got a point there," Venri conceded. "We'll say Gallows is like me then. He's a shadow and he's out for blood. Where is he then? Why did he let me out? Why is he letting me talk to you two?"

Silence again. Venri couldn't even say she was surprised.

But then, a dark suspicion started to form in her mind as Crystelle and Len mulled over their thoughts. Gallows said he had allowed her back into reality after assimilating all of those other souls. This certainly felt like reality, she didn't doubt it.

However, what if this was all just another lie? What if she was still stuck inside Gallows? He had lied to her over and over again. Was it that difficult to believe he wasn't quite done with her?

Venri tightened her gaze at the two of Pokémon before her, but didn't vocalize her hunch. They could both be puppets of Gallows. He could be listening in on her right now.

Maybe she needed to be back on guard again, in case he was plotting something, yet again. For now, she'd play along with these potential mouthpieces of Gallows and pretend everything was fine. Pretend to think she had escaped from everything.

"It's fine, you guys don't have to know," she said with a soft sigh.

"So what are you going to do now?" Crystelle asked with a worried frown. "You going to try finding Gallows?"

"No," she answered. "I think… I'd like to stay here with you guys, for a little while. If that's fine with you. I could use a little normalcy for once and maybe if I just take it easy, I'll start remembering more things Gallows made me forget."

They both looked at her oddly, as if in disbelief that her course of action from here on out was to do nothing. Of course, that wasn't what she planned to do at all, but they didn't need to know that.

"Are you sure?" Len asked.

"Yeah," Venri said with a nod. "And don't worry; I'm not going to be lazy. I can run missions for you guys or help do leadership things like Zekra was doing. I just want to spend some time with Pokémon that knew me before I went missing. Spend some time in the one place I actually could call home. Be surrounded by the Pokémon that could keep me safe from Gallows if he shows back up. You get that, right?"

"Certainly," Len replied. "If that's what you'd like, I'd be happy to provide. I do believe we were in need of someone with your capabilities for a few different missions. They're not even perilous."

"Just give me whatever you feel would work best for me," the Zorua said with a shrug. "For now, I think I'd like to get some rest. I'm pretty tired."

"Of course. Feel free to use the room Crystelle found you in. It was a spare anyway."

Venri nodded, and then turned back to the closed door. She saw herself out and shortly after entering the hallway, Crystelle followed her. It seemed Len had gone back to sleep. Venri eyed her cautiously, looking for signs that something was amiss. That Gallows was watching her through this Umbreon. However, there was nothing. She only seemed relieved to have her old friend in her life again.

Crystelle's rings glowed a soft yellow as she took Venri back to the spare room, smiling sadly as they walked. Venri trotted alongside her, tempted to shift into a mirror image of Crystelle. It was much easier to keep up with her on longer legs.

"It's good to have you back, Venri," she said warmly. "It really is. Now if only Zekra was with us again, then everything would be perfect…"

"Maybe she'll show up again," Venri said vapidly. "I showed up again when everyone thought I was gone forever."

"That's true! That would be nice," Crystelle said with a giggle.

After a while, the two arrived at the spare room Venri had been sleeping in before Crystelle spotted her. Venri opened the door and went right back to the hay pile in the middle of the room. It had a slight indent vaguely in the shape of a Zorua now. She curled up on the soft bedding before looking back to the Umbreon, who still stood in the doorway.

"Did you want me to stay with you?" Crystelle offered kindly. "I do have to check up on the rest of the castle for my night round, but I could keep you company the rest of the night afterwards."

"No, it's fine," she said with a gentle shake of her head. "I'll be okay."

"You're not scared Gallows is going to show up while you're alone?"

Venri looked at Crystelle after she said that. Looked for the slightest hint of malice, of Gallows speaking directly through the Umbreon as a vague warning to Venri. She only saw genuine concern.

"… I'll be okay," she said simply. "I promise."

"If you say so," Crystelle said with a reluctant smile. "Well, good night, Venri. Sleep well. And please, don't be afraid to come talk to me or Len if you ever need anything. We'll do everything we can to help you."

"I won't."

The Umbreon gave Venri one last meaningful stare, and then silently shut the door, casting the Zorua in darkness once more. Venri waited a few minutes to make sure Crystelle had disappeared for good, then rose from her bed and crept over to the sole window in the room. She peered out of it and saw the vast landscape beyond the mountains cloaked in night's darkness. It was beautiful, peaceful. A fine reward for supposedly escaping from Gallows's prison.

Too bad this was probably a new prison cell.

She stared out the window a moment longer, then made her way back to bed. She would rest for now, not think about anything. Pretend everything was fine. Play the part of a relieved, freed Zorua who had finally escaped hell.

But come the next morning, she would unravel everything.

And she would take Gallows down.