A/N: First off, I want to thank you guys for your responses to my question last chapter. Got quite a few ideas, but only one of which I will use right now. Do not fear, if I didn't pick your favorite legendary, they may show up later! Also, gotta give some thanks to my friend Kyle for helping me out with my choice, as well as several things earlier in the story. In fact, a few of my friends have helped me out. So, shout out to you, you know who you are! Now read on - it's why you're here, right?

This was something new. First I am picked out to be Dialga and Palkia's 'messenger', since they could not get along to save the world, and now I am being given yet another assignment. "Let me make sure I am clear about this..." I looked between the two mentioned Legends, my one eye darting back and forth. "You want to send me into the Human's world - not our humans, but another entirely - to assist one or more of them that you do not even know the identity of. With no guarantee of being able to return."

Palkia let out a sigh, but Dialga was the one to respond. "Yes Darkrai, that is exactly what we want you to do."

"And you chose me, 'Lord of Nightmares'…" I said my human-given title with something between sarcasm and disdain. "… rather than one more... sociable, such as Mew or Latias because... why?"

This time Palkia spoke up. "Because you were the only one available, Darkrai." Her voice said more than the words - I was the only one who didn't isolate themselves. In truth, it made sense: I could disappear into shadows if need be, and unlike the two I mentioned I would be able to take any situation seriously. "That's another reason. You can figure out almost anything, without much information. Since we don't know who you need to help... that might come in handy."

Ah, so Dialga was not the only intelligent one of the two. "Very well. I suppose it is better than lying about in the Halls, waiting for something to go wrong. My only question is this: How am I getting there?" It seemed that Palkia was not the one to plan this, if it could be called a plan, by the fact that she looked over at her counterpart.

Dialga replied with something that surprised me - even though it was the only solution, when I thought about it. "Palkia will send you. She will tear a small rift between the two worlds, and you will go through." Obviously he had not shared his idea with his sister, because she seemed ready to begin quite the rant.

"Are you insane? You want me to tear another hole in reality?! I don't even know what that will do, or if it will even work! And what if it-" Correction - she did start yelling.

"ENOUGH!" Dialga roared, shaking the floor and cracking the walls of the 'room' - mine, so I was not worried. They would quickly regenerate. "Palkia. I understand that it carries a risk. But we do not have the choice, nor the time to find another way to do this." He gave her a glare that honestly might have unnerved me. "So we are going to have to take a chance. Arceus says that this human, whoever it may be, will need assistance, and we are going to send it. I will take responsibility if it happens to have... side effects here, but you need to just listen."

I think I witnessed something that assured me this world was doomed - Palkia cooperated. Admittedly, she grumbled something about a crazed time lord, but she nodded and stopped arguing. "Alright, fine. Before I send you to a completely different world that we know next to nothing about..." She glared at Dialga one last time before continuing. "I can't give you much advice, but I'd guess that you don't want to be seen. We never existed in that world - you might not get a very good reception."

My only response was a silent nod - there was no point delaying this, it could only spell trouble. Then I noticed Palkia's continued hesitation, and added "Open the rift. There is nothing I need to do here."

She apparently had enough of the delay as well, because she didn't even respond. Palkia raised an arm, the claws at the end glowing a vibrant pink along with the gems on her shoulders. Then she slashed the air... literally; a gash appeared in mid air, just large enough for me to slip through. The other side was merely a swirling purple void of sorts, but I was not worried. I trusted that the Legend knew what she was doing.

"One final thing." I turned to Dialga. "With Giratina having gone rogue, is there anything in particular you suggest me to do? Or should I simply do whatever I decide to be necessary if I happen to find her?"

He let out a sigh as he thought for a moment. Understandable - technically, all three of them shared control of the world in some way, so perhaps Giratina could be viewed as the rebellious sibling of the three. "If you encounter her on your own, then do what is necessary. Otherwise, you are only to keep track of her." He paused for a moment before continuing. "If she threatens to destroy their world, a legitimate possibility, then there are no rules."

Well, that was something. When Dialga was worried that a world could be destroyed, that... carried a significant amount of weight. His ability to even passively detect future events was incredible, so that made this situation... tense, to say the least. "Very well. I can only wish you all good luck on this end."

He nodded once in acknowledgement. "And you as well, Darkrai. You may have a less than preferred situation, but at least you can do something." With a sigh, he shook his head. "We cannot afford to leave the rift open much longer. You need to go."

Without a word, I turned and drifted through the portal. I had a distinct feeling that I was going to have... quite the time in the human's world.

It is difficult to describe what the rift was like. I can say that I experienced the decidedly strange sensation of being both torn apart and compressed together at the same time, which was quite painful. I can also say that it was incredibly quick - it seemed to take as much time as drifting through a doorway, and suddenly I was in a forest.

"Freeze!" And I did not have time to determine where I was. I looked around for the source of the voice, but did not expect what I saw. Nearby were three humans - one seemed to be a trainer, another was simply dressed in what was likely casual wear here, with the addition of a black jacket emblazoned with... an Absol design? Strange...

The third, and the one most likely to be the source of the voice, was the one to catch my attention. Wearing some sort of black protective clothing, he was pointing a metallic grey object at the other two humans. From their worried expressions and postures, I suppose it was a weapon of some kind. Then I blinked once, twice, to make sure I was seeing this correctly.

Standing near the two humans, ready for a fight from their stances, was both a Lucario and a Scyther. It was unmistakable, but it made no sense. 'I thought Pokémon did not exist in this world... but this is obvious evidence that they do.' I had already made an acceptable guess at the situation - the armored human had some sort of problem with the other two, possibly because of the two non-humans now that I think about it. If either moved, he would use whatever weapon he was holding.

'And none of them know I am here. Considering the two Pokémon seem ready to defend the unarmed humans... fantastic.' It only made sense - at least one of them was the one I was meant to assist. So of course, I was going to have to intervene. '… I might as well get some amusement out of this.' With a hidden, slightly malicious smile, I melted into a mere shadow and crept toward the armored human. Perhaps I could have some fun in this world.

"Alright... this is a problem..." Oddly enough, I wasn't scared. Heh, actually it made sense - I went up against Giratina for God's sake! Or is it Arceus now... I don't know. But really, a guy with a rifle doesn't faze me much.

"Sword on the ground, and be quiet! Hawk four, we've got two, accompanied by two of the creatures." It didn't take a genius to notice he was talking into a radio, and that things were probably headed downhill from here. I slowly drew the Master Sword, and started to set it down. Then a thought hit me out of nowhere.

'Fight him.'

It was moronic, of course. Yeah, Aurora and Ghost could tear him apart - hell, even one of them could do it. But not before I got shot, and I doubt I could hit him before he could pull that trigger anyway. "I said sword on the ground!" Deciding that I didn't want to get shot, I stabbed the blade into the grass. Probably not what he meant, but hey - it was on the ground.

"You, step away from the creature." The SWAT trooper switched over to aiming at David. I could see Aurora's eyes narrow - she was going to kill this guy if he tried anything. Ghost was also glaring at the guy, but he had more of an... eager look, like he wanted a reason to fight. Remembering how he enjoyed fighting me, that was probably true. Then, just for a moment, Aurora seemed to glance around like she was looking for someone else.

Now, I still haven't figured out what made me do this. I probably never will, really - maybe a stray, stupid impulse to not surrender to anyone, or maybe I just didn't like someone threatening me. Probably both, and then some. Whatever the reason, I snatched my sword out of the grass and, moving faster than I can ever recall, rushed up to the trooper and put the edge up against his neck.

Forget surprising him, the Pokémon, or David - I shocked myself with that. I think somewhere between me moving and me being next to the trooper, I heard the rifle go off, but since I didn't hear anyone even whimper I figured it was good. Only trouble was, I didn't know what to do next. The guy was probably gonna shoot me, but could I just kill him?

"That was a bad move, kid." I couldn't see the man's face - the visored helmet sort of got in the way of that - but he didn't sound worried. Why should he be, to him I'm a kid with a sword, and he's a trained soldier. "Come on. Put the sword down, and no one has to get hurt." He was serious - he didn't want to shoot some random guy.

"It is far too late for that." Of course, an eerie echoing voice would interrupt this. Absently, I matched the voice to something I'd heard before - that weird horror dummy from Saw. I didn't have that much time to think about it, though.

Immediately the trooper pushed me away and started aiming his rifle around. At the same time, I saw Aurora's paws glow with a blue... well, aura, and Ghost's scythes got a similar shadowy one. They were both looking around for whatever that was. And speaking of shadows... There was five of us: the SWAT trooper, the two Pokémon, David and me. There were six shadows. Unless my math was wrong, that didn't quite add up.

Go figure, I was right. The out-of-place shadow stretched up, and I don't mean across the ground - it literally stretched into the air, and over the course of maybe five seconds morphed into... "Are you fucking kidding me." Where the shadow was, there stood something that could almost be mistaken for human... if it was pitch black and on Halloween. The thing looked like a solid shadow with wisps trailing out of its shoulders, thin arms that ended in three-clawed hands, and stilt-looking legs.

It wasn't all shadowy looking, though. Around its 'neck' was a weird, red spiky collar, and its head was topped by white smoke-like... stuff trailing up and behind it like gravity-defying hair. Only one of its eyes showed - the other was covered by a hanging down bit of its 'hair', but it only took the one piercing blue one to legitimately scare me. That, and the odd sense of... well, eeriness is how I'd describe it, that seemed to surround it.

I was looking at the Legendary Pokémon, Darkrai. And like everything else I've seen from Pokémon so far, it was a lot more intimidating in reality than on a screen. That effect was even more apparent when it started walking towards us, specifically towards the trooper. Oh right, the trooper's reaction was... actually kind of expected. He shot at the thing.

It did... something, actually. The bullets hit dead-on, and seemed to rip right through Darkrai. It surprised me when the Legendary fell to its 'knees', one arm clutching its chest where it was shot. The trooper seemed surprised too, because he edged towards the Pokémon, keeping the rifle trained on its head.

Then Darkrai just drifted upright again, the stilt-like legs vanished. It pulled its arm away from its chest, and there was... nothing. Unharmed black... shadow? Skin? With a simple gesture, it opened its claw and a cluster of bullets just fell to the ground. I couldn't see its mouth if it even had one, but I could've sworn it was... smiling.

"Did you honestly think that would work? What a fool, to think you possess the power to harm me. You cannot destroy a Nightmare, human." Darkrai held its arm out to the trooper, claws apart, and a black orb formed in its hand. "Perhaps you need a taste of the sort of power you are dealing with!" Before the guy could react, the orb flew towards him. Just before it hit, the attack grew almost instantly until it was barely bigger around than he was tall, and it just... absorbed him.

For almost a minute, there was silence. The orb just hung there in mid-air, and I wasn't sure what was going to happen next. Aurora and Ghost were giving Darkrai a look somewhere between scared out of their minds, instinctive respect, and ready to kill. David was still quiet, probably out of the surprise of so much happening at once. Then the orb faded, and the trooper was lying on the ground.

Apparently this had dropped into a situation David was used to, because suddenly he burst into action. "That's it. Aurora, Focus Blast!" At that moment, I got to watch a Pokémon battle in real life. Yeah, I'd seen Aurora obliterate Ghost before, but that was running on her own. It was different, when she had her trainer as a second set of eyes and a second mind to plan things out.

The blast of blue energy slammed into Darkrai, knocking it back a few feet from the sheer force of it. The Legendary turned to look at Aurora with... confusion? But it was gone just as quickly as I'd seen it - Darkrai threw its arms out to its sides, and a blast of what I could only describe as purple... wind flared back at the Lucario. She dashed to the side, easily dodging the attack, and then the real fight was on.

This time, I was paying attention. Ghost moved to join in, but I stopped him. "Hold up, for a second..." I muttered, keeping my eyes on the fight. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him stop almost instantly. "I wanna see how this goes." It was damn fast-paced, I can say that - those same orbs flying out from Darkrai, Aura attacks coming in a barrage from Aurora, and both were dodging almost everything the other threw out. I actually had to duck to avoid a stray Aura Sphere from blasting my head off!

And through it all, David was... calm. Calling out attacks whenever the Legendary wasn't paying attention, which coincidently was every time it ended up getting hit, but otherwise he wasn't actually saying anything, or even showing whether he was scared, angry... nothing.

And then, Darkrai just... stopped. It held out one arm, claws open in a 'stop' gesture. "Enough. You have proven your ability, this does not need to go further." This time, he - and yes, I could tell from the voice he was a male, I don't care what the official information says - was actually verbally talking. And it carried enough weight to make Aurora stop in her tracks - I guess I'd stop too, if someone that powerful told me to hold up.

I could hear boots thudding against the ground, so I knew that we didn't have long before more of the guys showed up. "Hey, love to chat buddy, but we've got to go. That little brawl of yours might have ticked off more soldiers, and we don't want to be here when they get here." Surprisingly, Darkrai nodded.

"I agree. Remaining here would be at best irritating for me, and very likely much worse for you. I can give you a simple way through, if you would like." He wasn't kidding - I'm not sure how, but I knew he was at least willing to help out. Just to be sure, I glanced over at David to see what he thought. He just looked back at me, and gave a slight nod - he was alright with it, then.

But first, I had to ask something. "How? Are you gonna kill them like you did him?" I pointed at the unmoving trooper on the ground, glaring at the Legendary. In response I got a cold, almost calculating glance before he spoke again.

"You are perfectly aware that I did not kill him. You know quite a bit about us, and have some sense of scale as to what we can do - I am referring to Pokémon as a whole, of course. And yes, I will do something quite similar." His actual voice was odd - deliberate, intelligent sounding. And it fit - he read me like a book just now. I knew he'd just used his iconic move Dark Void to put the guy to sleep.

"… alright then, just do it. Let us talk some things over, and get back here when it's safe for us to bolt." I couldn't believe I was telling a Legendary Pokémon what to do - then again, there was a lot I couldn't believe right now. Apparently though, Darkrai didn't have an issue with it, because he just melted into shadows again and was gone.

I walked over to the unconscious trooper and rolled him onto his back. The first thing I took was his gun - not the rifle, but the handgun he had holstered against his side. Wouldn't help me against anything but a Magikarp, but as much as I want to deny it, I might need it for any humans that caused trouble for us. I wouldn't have Ghost around all the time. Then I stopped - the hell was I thinking? Planning ahead of time to shoot some guy who probably would know nothing about what was going on?

I threw the gun back to the ground. No, if I was going to kill someone, I'd at least do it 'fairly'… it wouldn't be with something as impersonal as a gun. I did take his radio - one wouldn't help for communicating, but we might pick something up from whatever network it's connected to. Then something occurred to me, and made me let out a bitter laugh. 'Bloody hell, I'm a criminal. Attacked a soldier, and now I'm stealing from him... and I might have to do a lot more.'

"We all do what we must to survive." I glanced back to see Aurora standing beside me, looking sort of sympathetic. "You showed him mercy when you had him beaten. It is a small thing for him to... give you something in return." I forced a relieved smile - she had a point, but it didn't help much. Then Darkrai drifted out of the ground right in front of me.

"The way is clear. I would suggest leaving now." And then he vanished back into the ground without another word. I could see his 'shadow form', but you wouldn't notice if you weren't looking for it. With a sigh, I turned to look at the others.

"Well gang... time to head out." Motioning for them to follow, I walked ahead out of the trees. I was greeted with the wonderful sight of what looked like every soldier in a hundred mile radius unconscious on the ground. It seemed Darkrai had some courtesy, because they were all on their backs and deliberately somewhere away from the road. After looking around for a moment, I glanced up at the sky and sighed. "Hell of a way to start an adventure..."

Rumbling echoed through the sky, and it wasn't thunder. But more worrying... the sky was tinted a violent purple color. Purple, like how David described the rifts on his end. I had an eerie feeling that this was just the tip of the iceberg... and we were riding the Titanic right into it.

-?-

"What do you MEAN it's drained!?"

"I don't know - it brought the tablet back, but there's no energy in it. It's... just dead."

I listened to the scientists' babbling, coming from just outside my control room. So... Giratina retrieved a dead relic. Well, it was no matter... energy of that sort never disappears. It merely moves - the question is, where is it now.

"Enter." I commanded, silencing both of the morons outside. I heard the door hiss open, but kept my back to them. Before they could even speak, I cut them off. "You will trace the relic's power. And you will find where it has drained to. And then you will have it brought to me." I heard the usual, stumbling 'yessir's and 'right away, sir's.

But when I heard them stepping towards the door, I made a simple motion with my hand, exerted a trivial effort, and it slid shut. "S-sir? Is there something else?"

When I heard the frightened tone of the man, I smiled, hidden by the darkness that always filled the room. Slight rustling, like metal against metal, echoed through the otherwise silent area. "Yes. Which of you is the head of the Crossroads project?"

After a moment, I heard one of the shuffle forward. "T-that would be me, sir. Is there something you requi-" With the sound of metal whistling through the air, his question faded into unintelligible gurgling. It was only a second later that I heard him fall to the ground with a dull thud.

The other man gasped, and I could tell he was forcing himself not to cry out in terror. I could hear him scrambling back as fast as he could toward the door. "You have just been promoted. Keep the project on schedule... or you will join him on his 'vacation'." Again, the usual 'yessir, right away sir!' was uttered, but tinged with absolute fear. The doors hissed open and shut, and I was alone in the dark again.

"What have you hidden from me, ancients... what is your secret?"