So...longest PMD fic on Fanfiction now I think. Guiding Light was the previous holder at time of writing. Not anymore.

Azelf had parted from Armaldo somewhat unwillingly. As the leader of this cadre, they felt that Armaldo needed to be kept informed of anything Uxie may have to pass on.

However, the value of protecting more pokémon and moving faster was judged to be just slightly enough. They floated alongside some of the guild, Paras and Diglett and Azelf led a group, of which included Flaaffy, who had not let his recent disfigurement blunt his personality.

He'd taken a face full of fire from a houndoom. His wool had been almost entirely burned off, the pink skin of a flaaffy taking on more of a glistening hue from the burns that led to not only a lack of fabulousness but a sweaty look that didn't match his image.

Despite his injuries, he'd refused to be taken with the injured pokémon citing that it was mostly cosmetic. Painful, but not debilitating.

They led a modestly large group, Azelf's presence emboldening a larger team. Azelf remained back to let Paras be the one to lead, she was a shy young thing, but there was quite a lot of inner strength there. She'd said something for Marill, as had Flaaffy and Bidoof as well. Azelf was able to clue together that the four had been a team until the situation had escalated and Bidoof was placed into jail.

"Come on, you don't look your best without a smile," Paras said, nudging Flaaffy carefully with her pincer. His confident grin never faded while interacting with the townsfolk, and his encouraging jibes never failed.

"You could do with a flower to freshen up that look."

"Can I style your fur? I think you'd look better with some braids."

"Goodness, you need assistance, Paras to me!"

As the walks dragged on and he stepped up to walk alongside Paras, his veneer faded slightly into a pained grimace. His burns were not threatening, but they looked very painful, and she worried he'd get an infection. He didn't have access to his shampoos after all, not that he could really use them for their actual use anyway.

Bald and upset Flaaffy would have been a riot. They'd once fought a scyther baddy who did chop off part of Flaaffy's finely-fashioned wool, sending him into a fury and catching them an outlaw.

The rest of the walk home had been filled with the light sort of teasing between friends.

"I reckon Flaaffy can pull off any look," Bidoof had said, all encouraging like.

"Even that one," Paras had added, restraining a giggle.

"I always knew he was a cut above the rest," Marill did giggle, and they all laughed at his look of reproachful offence.

"Bland, bug, and blue," he had scoffed, poking his nose high into the air, tilting his head back and displaying the bald patch unwittingly, causing them to giggle more.

He'd gotten his revenge the next morning, turning Bidoof's fur into grumpig tails, stained Marill's fur green, and did nothing to Paras but made her paranoid that he did or would. It had been an effective revenge, all things considered.

She missed that. Missed Bidoof's well-natured jokes, Flaaffy looking gorgeous, and Marill-

Just Marill. She missed him.

They all did.

Thankfully the last leg of the journey to the cathedral was not fraught with peril. It was scary; every noise in the distance felt like a horde of Shadow Pokémon coming to finish them off. No attacks came, and the teams began to converge, led by explorers who could follow directions.

Armaldo's group was not the last to arrive, but as one of the larger ones and his relative lack of speed, they weren't one of the first either.

Azelf immediately flew right over to them. "We have a situation."

Chitin made a reverberating groaning sound. "When isn't there a situation?" he asked before sighing a gravelly sigh. "Very well, tell me."

Azelf straightened up, having communed to Uxie that Armaldo had arrived. Cara began to speak, being spoken word for word by Uxie, which Azelf then repeated in kind.

"Braviary and Hatenna were sound as a scouting party to track the movements of Indeedee or the Shadows that attacked Treasure Town. They have found the horde."

"How close is it?" Chitin asked, knowing where this had to be heading.

"Closer than we'd like. They had experienced difficulty in finding the group before they suddenly appeared. It appears that they are being led through dungeons to make up for whatever time they had spent lagging."

"And they know where we are?"

"Cannot say for sure, but based on their trajectory, it seems that is likely. We must act as if they do know exactly where you are."

"How close it is?" Chitin repeated.

"Expected outcomes is around six hours from you."

Chitin snarled, not everyone was here yet and teleporters….

"So, not everyone is getting out then?" Chitin asked. Azelf's expression flickered with worry as they spoke Cara's answer.

"As many as we can, then you have to move."

Knowing Azelf would put that motion through, he nodded and turned to the group. He began to scan it, thinking and putting numbers together.

"Whoever is coming better be here already," he said.

"They are," Azelf answered on their own. "I had been speaking to the three."

"Three?" Chitin asked.

"Claydol, Kirlia, and Alakazam." They paused and added. "We have been able to send the word out far enough to get further help, teleportation-capable pokémon are still as rare as rare can be, but Alakazam is ready to assist."

"Good," Armaldo nodded and began to stomp forth. "Alright, people! Townsfolk bunch up around the teleporters, younger and weaker in closer. Exploration teams, same position as last time. There could yet be an attack coming!"

"Not everyone is here yet!" It was Charmeleon, as always, who spoke up angrily.

"No," he agreed. "We are not waiting. If they arrive in time, good. If they don't, they'll have to move with the rest."

The rest? Those words spread; he didn't wish to alarm the town as they were so susceptible to panic.

Chitin's head ached with stress and even more stress. The cathedral they were in was meant to be the end to this, a place safe enough to defend until the teleporters could make enough trips to get everyone out.

Their location was known; it had to be. He wondered what had betrayed them; his mind raced with possibilities.

"Azelf," Chitin said. "Ask Scizor if he has determined another location for us to head afterwards."

Azelf nodded and focused, waiting as what pokémon could squeeze in pressed close to the teleporters.

"We are still determining what is safe. If they are following you, we do not want to lead this attack into populated spaces." That, Chitin agreed with. It's why they had headed here, deep in the thickness of the natural world, ancient ruins dotted in some places, mostly reclaimed by the trees.

The cathedral was something built by human hands that was well believed.

The outside of it was a bleached white fortress, vines squeezing through cracks and stones, almost holding the place up. Cavernous pathways dying immediately as the interior of the ruin was but one large flat circle.

It was almost like a battlefield perhaps, places where humans may have sat in rising platforms circling the area, vacant holes where walls might have stood once, crumbled brick and mortar strewn about.

The air was stale; despite all the holes, there was still a roof to this place, one where only slivers of light cracked through, lighting spotlights on the ground. There were so many doorways. Maybe they weren't even doorways, but walls and windows once. Now it was just a dotted landscape of holes, trypophobic-alerting holes patterned into a bleached white ruin.

It was abandoned by a species that had long since died out.

"There is more to the situation but related to other things," Cara added, and Chitin waited impatiently. "Aegis Cave has shifted, the doorway to it has been broken from what looks to be the inside, and there are reports of a giant exiting it."

Chitin blinked, puzzled. "Regigigas?"

"We assume, yes."

He couldn't focus on that enigma at the moment and spun to continue scanning the place for threats. "Once you have a location, inform me."

"Will do. Stay safe, Armaldo."

Now it was a waiting game. Six hours was not nearly enough time to get everyone out; people would have to remain and run.

Thus, they couldn't even wait out that amount of time. If the Shadows were gaining so quickly, they probably couldn't even spare this amount of time. Chitin could only hope that more rather than less could get out of here because he feared whoever didn't leave would die.

To compound the issue of having too many people here, things started to happen all in conjunction with each other.

The last two teams arrived together.

A pink explosion sent far too much noise. It caused everyone, including the teleporters, to jump, and Saniya and Sean fell out of the smoke.

And before anyone could so much as tell them off for being loud, a litleo crawled into Swellow's sight.

Swellow, who was one of the guards, squawked loudly. "Is that-LITLEO!"

"Help," Mane coughed, limping forwards in relief. His back legs were lagging, and he was scratched, burned, torn up, bleeding from grazing wounds.

Saniya, dizzy from her recent port, gasped and flew into a tree next to Mane instead of him as Sean wobbled over as well and scooped him up and carried him the rest of the way.

"We have news!" Saniya cried. "Dialga and Palkia will help…once they sort out whatever is going on."

Not Giratina, Chitin noticed, focusing sharply on facts as he fought against being overwhelmed.

"Where'd you come from?" Sean asked Mane, worried. "I thought you were back searching for Scout?"

"Where did YOU come from?" Mane retorted, coughing out smoke. "I heard the explosion and took a chance that it was Rai."

"Wait, where's Rai?"

"We sent Swellow and then came back ourselves!" Mane snapped. "We just got attacked, though, by a luxray and my fucking brother. He's a Shadow Pokémon now, isn't that fun?"

"You were attacked by a Shadow Pokémon?" Chitin demanded, stomping down.

"Yeah," Mane croaked. "Look pretty fucked up though, don't I? You'd love to see him, though."

Chitin scanned him for a long moment. Mane's wounds were…regularly bleeding, no signs of darkness swimming, and he gazed at Sean and Saniya before nodding.

"Get in here," he ordered. "There's a horde coming; we need people out."

"A horde!" Mane yelped in horror, his voice carrying. "Rai and Luxio are still out there!"

"I can go look for them," Swellow said. "I know what they look like."

"I can look too," Saniya said woozily.

"No," Chitin said, vetoing Saniya. "You are a healer, Psychic Network, can fly and teleport. We need you here more than ever."

Her face dropped as they stepped into the relative safety of the cathedral.

Striker and Guardian raced over as they heard them, Mane squirming in discomfort in Sean's hold. "Put me down." He acquiesced.

"What are you doing here?" Guardian asked, concerned more than anything else at the moment.

"We got some word from Scout," Mane explained with a wince. Saniya gasped and began to float dew in the air, laying it onto his injuries that he took with a hiss. "Learned a Substitute from Soothe and used it to send a message. We told Swellow, and it looks like Swellow managed to tell you."

"Just in time," Striker murmured; their eyes fell on Swellow arguing with Chitin a bit away before back to Mane.

"We just got attacked, though," Mane added. "Tackled out of nowhere. Some massive Luxray just slammed into Luxio and Rai and took them off while my brother attacked me. We need to go find them!"

"Did you say a luxray?" a shaking, familiar voice caught his ear, and Mane turned to see Sunflora looking at him. He gasped as he saw her. She looked awful.

Beyond any injuries or exhaustion, most of which didn't show by this point, the look in her eyes… he'd seen that in the reflection of the pool once or twice at his lowest of points and blinked, hoping it'd go away.

Strangely enough, it did. Sunflora was still Sunflora; she could read people even as they read her.

"Did you say Luxray?" she repeated.

"Yeah."

"That's Rai's father," she explained. "He was turned into a Shadow Pokémon and kept by that monster for years. He seemed to want to see Rai; he freaked out on me when I realised who he was."

Mane did not know how to take that information, and he just blinked several times at her.

"I… doesn't matter, he's in danger! They both are!" He got up, only slightly healed by Saniya's aid, and looked ready to rumble at the drop of a hat. "We've got to go help them!"

They began to talk as Sunflora slowly began to take steps back from that group. She looked around, pokémon grouping up together, braver ones letting them go first. Her eyes brushed across Croagunk sitting with Timber and Diglett counting footsteps. Anything and everything to distract, put minds off what had happened, what was coming.

She looked up at the roof. The holes in the walls around them. Her roots dipped into the ground, tasting the old soil. The blades of light piercing through the darkened ceiling, she raised her leafy hand to one of them, soaking in the sunlight on that one small patch for a moment.

Pokémon finally began to disappear; no attacks had come yet. Three clumps faded, and breaths of relief came. It wouldn't take as long for the teleporters to return, but it'd take longer for them to port multiple people again. There was still a lot of them. Sunflora knew not everyone was going to get out of this.

Not when the horde arrived. They were too quick.

Mane wound up getting knocked out by Chitin after an argument about Rai. Swellow left to search for the pair regardless, braving the risk of what was coming once again. He'd done it before, after all.

Team Sunrise reconverged and shared information of what was going on since they had parted. She smiled a little on seeing them. They had come together and lost each other so many times, but they always came back to each other.

The romantic in her squee'd at that. A team with bonds so strong that time and space could not separate them forever; they always got back to each other. She wondered and hoped if Scout counted in that. Rai too. Mane was here, but where were they?

She wondered if Jet and Boom had been in the attack on Treasure Town. Part of her hoped they were because then maybe…they could help them like they helped Swanna. The rest of her shuddered in horror at the feeling of hope like that.

Hope itself felt sour like everything simply turned her stomach.

The teleporters returned, and then they left again. It had been nearly four hours since they'd arrived, the teleporters were not going to return again. Armaldo ordered people to get moving again; they had a rough idea of where to go, towards the southern coast. Scizor would get them an actual location soon; they had to head there for now.

People came together, and then they began to move. It was easy to get missed in the crowd. It was easy to be left behind.

Sunflora placed something carefully in a travel bag and blended into the leaves of a tree. Once she was left behind, she dropped back down and returned to the cathedral.

If the Shadow Pokémon were coming here, if Indeedee was, then she'd get what she was looking for.

)(*&^%$# !~~! #$%^&*()

There were a lot of things Scout in his exhaustion-building sassiness didn't like.

Soothe.

Soothe's face.

Soothe's weapons.

The weird clicking, popping sound ringing in his ears around Soothe.

The way she wasn't blinking as much lately.

Talking less too.

He didn't like that.

"Soothe," Scout said flatly. "I feel like we're walking into a 'Oh, I'm sure I heard nothing' situation when it was, in fact, something."

He had his arms crossed and staring firmly at the taller, also-differently-coloured not-quite-so-pokémon.

"We both know what's going on," she replied, her voice board, her affectation almost echoing. "And I can handle it. I've handled it for longer than you've been alive."

The way she said that rubbed him the long way. Or maybe he was just tired.

Trill stepped in, as he could see the exhaustion in Scout's eyes. "Let's just have something to eat," he suggested.

Soothe turned and walked to gather rocks as Trill rubbed Scout's back with his wing. "You really need to sleep," he chided gently.

"Not with her around," Scout muttered. "My ears won't stop popping. I know you hear it too."

Trill sighed and withdrew his wing. "What can I do to help you?"

"I don't know. Make her actually explain her thoughts rather than just telling you and expecting us to just go along with everything."

"Scout, that doesn't happen often."

"Well, it feels like all the time!" he snapped back. He recognised he was getting angry again, and Trill didn't deserve that, so he took some deep breaths in through his mouth and out through his nose.

Trill stared sadly, not sure what to say. Scout eventually turned away to start pouring water. His arms were shaking slightly from overexertion; he'd glance at things that weren't there and shake his head.

Trill knew the signs of dangerous amounts of lack of sleep. One would begin to hallucinate eventually. He wondered if he should powder some sleep seeds but then decided against drugging Scout. He'd ask if he'd like something to sleep with.

Sadly, the seeds didn't help someone stay asleep, and he'd be up again shortly anyway. He was so stressed.

It felt like that was the song and dance every day. Scout was stressed, Soothe was covering up her issues with smarm, and Trill wanted things to be normal, but they weren't.

Good heavens, they were not normal.

Maybe that was one of the problems here, he considered. They were all trying to behave correctly here, sharing old stories, being friendly. This wasn't a friendly friends situation. Soothe had kidnapped Scout and technically himself as well; they were working out how to fight a monster among monsters and disagreeing at every step of the way.

Maybe something had to change?

Soothe returned, and so did Scout, and they resumed a tense, flavourless meal. If it did have flavour, no one tasted it.

Trill looked between the two and wondered if what he was about to do was a mistake. If another musing lurking behind his thoughts would also be a mistake.

"Ahem," he cleared his throat importantly. "I believe it is time for an intervention."

Scout and Soothe both looked at him like he'd just announced that they'd only be charging the apprentices 85% tax from now on.

Trill took a breath. "Soothe, we are not your prisoners; we are your companions. Can you please explain what your idea for the next move is? Even if you don't have it, at least tell us so we can plan together."

Scout nodded emphatically. "Yeah!"

Trill turned to him. "Scout," he barked, and Scout paused. "You have to sleep. By this point, you have to know that Soothe is not going to hurt you in your sleep or myself. You can't keep going like this. You will break yourself down and get very sick very soon. I heard what happened after my death; I will not see you fall down like that again."

Scout cringed at his words and slowly huddled, hugging himself.

There was silence.

"It's not that easy," Scout said. "It's not like I don't want to sleep. I just don't stay asleep."

"Just close your eyes again," Soothe replied, like that was the answer to this problem.

"Every time I wake up, I hear you two whispering to each other," Scout said darkly. "Or standing around in tense silence. It feels like there's a loaded gun with us at all times, and when I wake up to that tense air, I can't go back to sleep."

"You're having night terrors," Soothe said tersely. "Waking up terrified and having sleep paralysis. Aren't you?"

"…sometimes."

"Don't believe you can change the subject, Soothe," Trill spoke up. "Back to you."

She frowned back at him. "I don't know what you want me to say. He's beginning to hallucinate from lack of sleep; he's getting touchy and twitchy."

"Touchy?"

"Loud too."

"It's hard to hear through the popping of my ears around you."

"Stop dunking your face in water to stay awake."

"I did that three times max."

"You actually did it seven times, but I guess you forgot."

"Had to tell what's water these days," Scout muttered under his breath. His tail lashed at the air, leaving an audible thump when it hit the grass.

Soothe's expression briefly turned to one of vague concern before her normal disinterest returned. "Go to sleep."

"Make me!"

"Ohoh, I will."

Scout stood up, and she straightened up.

"Children, please!" Trill snapped, stepping between them. "It seems like you two fight at the drop of a coin these days."

"Maybe if he'd get some sleep," Soothe began.

"Maybe if she didn't kidnap me!" Scout shouted. "I COULD sleep. I miss Rai and Mane."

"Co-dependency."

"Oh, fuck you and everything about you," Scout growled, his eyes flickering in a concerning manner. "Fuck your smug attitude, the creepy popping around you, and all of your endless little comments. Oh, Scout's so co-dependent; I guess kidnapping him will do him some good. Oh goody, I can revisit the good times with my best buddy Trill; it doesn't matter that twenty years have passed, I just came back from the shop with those smokes and ham I said I was going to get."

He spun on his foot, tearing a scratch in the ground as his claws had come out, and began to storm off. "UGH! I'm going for a walk. Don't worry, best buddy. Your prisoner isn't going to run away; he just needs some time to HIMSELF!"

And then he stormed off fully.

Soothe gave a scoff. "Better keep an eye on him," she said, motioning to Trill.

"I trust his word," he said.

"Yeah, sure, don't know what else might be lurking about, though. We ran into A.W.D out of nowhere, and I doubt Indeedee just has them."

"I think, maybe, we could just talk?" Trill said, letting Scout go off to get some space.

"Talk? What stories do you want to remember today? The Geodude Drinking Group? Exploring Skyfall? Let me tell you, never seen a trapinch that big before or since."

"Not Skyfall." Trill shook his head. "Ugh, you almost fell."

Soothe's smile shivered out of place for a moment, almost sliding across her face without the rest of her head moving.

She could see herself falling into the gargantuan maw of the trapinch, red, then dark, then wet, then dark. Dark. Dark. Then nothing.

She was snapped out of her musing as Trill was flapping in front of her. "Soothe? Soothe? Soothe are you listening?"

"Mm, just imagining."

"What?"

"Mm."

Trill set his beak, and his eyes became kind again. "I remember the last time we spoke before it all became such a difficulty. At the beginning of the Treeshroud Forest dungeon. You said…you said you'd talk, but not 'right now'."

"I also said 'once we're done with this', you know?" she countered.

"We finished the dungeon," he said, trying to play to the specifics.

"And I said we're going to need to focus," Soothe replied. "Which is even more true now."

"Exactly!" Trill squawked. "I don't know about you, but I cannot focus, not knowing what isn't being said. Soothe, please, we used to talk about everything."

She was quiet.

"We shared simple little secrets. You always wanted to get a hug from a lucario; I love perfect apples. Bigger thoughts. We talked about doubts, emotions. You coached me through conflicting feelings I had about Rhythm, and we talked about your own doubts you had as a person."

She was quiet.

"I know you," he said softly.

"No, you don't," she finally replied. "Secrets? They were just excuses. You don't even know my name, where I come from. You had no idea that I knew you were 90% Tax Chatot and the dumb super-powered tantrum-thrower Guildmaster Wigglytuff. I always knew who you two were and what you'd become. Why do you think I never left?"

"Because you grew close to us."

"Because I was one of the weirdo's who thought Chatot was a great character. The sacrifice he made in Brine Cave, saving those lives almost at cost to his own. The reveal that he wasn't so bad. The fact that he marshalled the Guild when Bidoof was being taken advantage of, oh sorry, that didn't happen because of me."

"Soothe."

"Don't you get it that you never knew me at all? I didn't even see you as a person, but a character I had liked. Of course, I wanted to be close. I could be part of the Wigglytuff Guild! I could live in Treasure Town! I could save the world."

"Soothe!"

"I didn't do anything right, and when the world was in danger, I didn't do anything. Scout can say what he wants about what he did; at least he tried."

"That is why I don't believe your words now," Trill cut across. "You're talking like you're some child playing make-believe with dolls. You cried and laughed and lived! No one who saw the people around them as cut-outs of a story they had once known would do that!"

"You don't know me at all."

"Perhaps I don't, but I know you enough. And I want to know you now."

She laughed, an awful bitter little thing. "Have you ever thought that maybe I don't want that?" she asked. "Why would I want anyone close to me considering what has happened? Everyone suffers around me. Look at Scout! I'm not blind to what he's going through, but you know what? I don't care. I don't care that I've stolen him away, putting him through so much stress he might actually die from it. I don't care that I'm saying this to you, even though I do know that you'll hate to hear it."

"Th-that just proves."

"That I'm not worth knowing."

He cringed at the flatness of her voice there. He tried to look into her eyes, but all he saw was his reflection.

Did she hate herself?

He didn't want to ask that question.

Soothe stood straight and firm, bent over and broken. She looked so confident and strong, an eye for what was next, the hidden joke of someone who knew more than she let on.

He saw nothing but an audino propped up by marionette strings, moving automatically to whatever the puppet master wanted.

He asked a different question.

"What do you expect to do after all this is said and done?"

Soothe's expression was a cool gaze, forever perfect in its imperviousness. A creature of confidence, assurance, and knowledge. "Nothing," she answered, at long last.

He blinked. "Pardon?"

"You heard me."

"I don't understand." He had an awful feeling in his chest.

She smiled at him. It was many things at once. Amused, pitying, annoyed, frustratingly smug, sharded. "Yes, you do," she replied, her eyes never leaving his. "You know exactly what I mean."

His eyes squinted as a lurch hit his chest, and he had to turn his head away from that gaze. He'd never seen an expression like that. Something so calm, cool, confident in their words.

The expression of someone who saw no future for themselves.

"It won't," he croaked, coughing momentarily for breath. "It won't end like that." He refused to allow it.

The smile took more of a pitying look over the rest. Still filled with shards that stabbed through his chest. "Good thing the world isn't up to you, then," she said airily, and his heart broke again.

"…you surely don't…want that?" he whispered. She had already turned away from him. "Soothe?"

"…good thing the world isn't up to you," she murmured again and walked off, leaving him alone and torn between two people he had to rush to.

)(*&^%$# !~! #$%^&*()

"Ooh, just MOVE!" Nelia snapped, a strike of something invisible lashing a disobedient gastrodon. The creature squeaked and gurgled and waddled back to the path.

Nelia hummed angrily to herself as she continued needing to wrangle her forces back into line. Say what you want about Kabutops, Soothe, and Scorch, but at least they could listen.

Every shiny object or curiosity to these animals caused the tightly packed herd to move. She, thankfully, had her core group raised in the cages that knew they had to remain tightly packed in together lest they suffer the displeasure of Indeedee.

The Blackstone pokémon that had revived were not so well mannered, however. She received scathing glares and random rants broken between animalistic sounds and actions.

The First Fallen knew better than anyone how much lucidity these creatures retained. It might have been fun had she not needed them to stay together for now.

There was one small saving grace, however. "Melody, be a dear and break them up," Nelia called sweetly, tilting Melody's head towards a scuffle.

The chimecho paused when she saw the fighters. A flareon meant nothing to her, but the corphish pinching at it sure did.

There weren't any other fights going on, just them. She only hesitated for a moment before floating over and telekinetically pulling them apart, Flareon barking at her with a spark of fire that was snuffed out with ease.

It began to cringe as she pressed more pressure into it until it relented and fell back into line. She ignored the corphish, who was just staring off into space like it hadn't just been fighting.

"Flora?" he, it, it, it, it was an it not a he. "Flora," it said, probably looking at a blosso-a blooming flower.

She glanced at the corphish, and, nope, he was looking right at her. "Mel…dy? Hurts."

What was left of her heart twinged as the fog began to return to his eyes, and she floated him away from Flareon and back into the horde.

With peace restored, for now, Melody cringed away from the horde and to the only intelligent conversation left.

She might have preferred the horde as Nelia looked up at the twinkling blue sky. "Lovely day isn't it?" she asked, surrounded by a horde of salivating monsters, puppeted corpses of people she might have known once.

That Nelia absolutely had known.

"Ah, Houndoom," she sighed as he was pushed to the area that was closer to her. Even the berserker Shadows didn't want to be close to Nelia if they could help it. Her hand petted his head, tracing down his horns.

Its expression twisted into something of discomfort, and it barked. "House?"

"All gone, I'm afraid," Nelia sighed sadly. Houndoom whined, ears drooping. Manectric braved the area close to Nelia as well and tried to drag him off.

At the sight of Manectric, Nelia's face curled into a smile. "You know that he once had a father?" Nelia asked before tittering. "Well, I mean, everyone does. Even I did. I mean, he had a father that was around once. He disappeared on him, and he searched for his father, coming to where the tracks led him last."

"Blackstone?" Melody asked, hearing the prompt.

"Quite right!" Nelia beamed. "Just a cute little electrike at the time. He never did find his father, big strong Manectric, but he fell in love with the place anyway. With him, actually." She gestured at Houndoom. "They never admitted their feelings though, rather sad really."

She gave Houndoom one last pet before Manectric succeeded in pulling him away.

"Is it…?" Melody wanted to ask if it was right to talk about them while they were right there, but the words felt like ash in her mouth. She'd breathed far too much of Treasure Town in.

"Quite," Nelia replied and pointed someone else out. "Ah, Gardevoir. I reckoned she'd be one of the most likely to come out of it intact. I think what got her was her lingering guilt over her and Gallade. He never quite was able to get over her. Promised each other at a young age to marry, he left on a journey, and she wound up moving on and fell in love with Swampert."

There was a swampert somewhere in the horde.

"When Gallade returned, he expected that promise kept. Very sad stuff. No one was really the bad guy there, although Gallade certainly went too far with his attempts to 'win her back'. Tsk." She shook her head and pointed to yet another.

Weavile, who had some sort of rivalry with Gardevoir. Both of them had ideas of becoming mayors themselves if Indeedee ever wanted a break.

Bisharp, who fancied Gallade himself and tried to support him emotionally, holding his own feelings away.

Castform and Sableye, who were quite the troublesome duo, loved to steal things, but just to steal them. They always gave them back when asked. It was a game in town almost, what would they take next and how.

Braixen, who was a bit of a hot mess at times, with his best friend Dartrix and their search for incredible treasures around town. Often employed by Ampharos, who was a bit of a Blossom, if she got what she meant by that.

People she had known and even raised in a grandmotherly way pointed out like interesting exhibits or reminisced like fondly-remembered stories. Like they weren't still here, but lesser.

Like she hadn't killed them all.

"What is wrong with you?" Melody thought in utter disgust. She curtailed the thought and the emotion and wrapped it away, and locked it down firmly. Indeedee always knew so much more than she let on, and to feel too much around an emotion eater was simply asking for it.

She hadn't known who this person really was.

She knew, logically, that Indeedee was not likely a very good person. No one had powers over the Shadow without being Shadow themselves. She had thought, vainly perhaps to justify it all, that she was truly as she claimed.

Someone who had beaten the corruption and could help others, but quietly, clandestinely. Others didn't understand, would doubt, would show predictable fear and lash out if they knew. She'd help Melody be safe, be normal, be herself again.

And to tell a politician connected to another guild about her own guild's secrets, well, that just seemed like an obvious thing she'd want to know. It was a little dirty maybe, but Indeedee was helping her so much she could look beyond it.

"Remember how we met?" Nelia asked suddenly. Melody nodded.

"You found me in the Psychic Network at my lowest point," she replied passively.

"It wasn't long after you had been empowered," Nelia mused, gazing up at the cerulean skyline again. "Mm."

Melody remembered the pain and fear of those nights. Of lightning falling, dark and rotting and burning through every inch of her body. It hurt so much. She heard Corphish say he was in pain and felt it all again, a shadow of a memory of what it had been.

The pain still made her want to throw up; the Hunger never truly went away.

She'd been killed by a Manectric. Sometime later, a Shinx and Luxio crawled into Treasure Town with a tragedy on their lips.

She wondered at why this Manectric never found his father, a Manectric like himself was now. Maybe exactly like himself was now.

'DIE! PAIN! DIE! PLAINS!'

She wondered.

"Are you afraid of me?" The First Fallen whispered, and Melody didn't jump or flinch at how the voice seemed to go right into her ears, on the other side to where Indeedee was to her.

She realised she was letting herself muse too much around an empath. And someone who knew lies better than anyone.

She could schmooze with the best of them, though. "I've always wondered what you were like in person," she said, carefully feeling nothing. "I'm a little overwhelmed, to be honest. Someone like you." She said it breathlessly like she couldn't imagine herself in her presence.

Which she couldn't. This was utter terror masked by a void.

Nelia smiled and then giggled and threw her arm around Melody's head, around her bell. "You don't really have shoulders, you knucklehead," she said with a laugh. "So, this is a little awkward."

"A bit," she said, muffled by Indeedee's fur as her face was smushed into her side.

"Mels, you don't need to suck up to me," Nelia said before grimacing and letting her go. "That goes for literally as well. If I have chimecho drool on me, I'm going to need a bath." She did not; Melody wasn't suicidal.

"I don't unders…." Melody grimaced, not sure what she could possibly do. What was going on here? Why was she so friendly but so sadistic. She had seen what she did to Wigglytuff, what she had done to so many.

"I like you, Melody," Nelia said, emphasising the word. "Everyone else sadly has been lost; they weren't strong enough. Even the ones I had hopes for. But you? You're incredible! Scorch was crazy. Scythe, that's Kabutops, was a crazy cave hermit serial killer. Soothe is exactly 1 cup of personality and 3 cups depressingly frustrating. And don't even get me started on Weavile."

She pouted and then rubbed her chin. "You know, until Kogeki and Rumble, most of the truly blessed were the ladies lately. Soothe rejects it, though, Rumble's a little bitch, and the less I have to say Kogeki's name, the better. He says it himself enough."

"What about Wigglytuff?" Melody asked, feeling airy.

"What about him?" Nelia snorted. "He'll revive, anyone I murk does in the end, which can get annoying when you just want someone to die and stay that way."

"Do you not think he'll be able to retain himself as we did?"

"Oh definitely," she purred.

Melody frowned slightly. "That's not a concern?"

"It won't be, no." Nelia shook her head.

"No?"

"No. He'll still need a little longer to revive anyway."

She felt like she was missing some sort of punchline to this joke, but Indeedee wasn't sharing it.

"…can you tell me where we're going?" Melody finally asked. They'd been travelling together for some time now, pulling the horde into line whenever it lagged, charging through dungeons.

Turns out it didn't matter how many Shadow Pokémon entered a dungeon together when you had too many of them. The walls cracked and crumbled, and a LOT of ferals attacked them, the dungeon itself trying to fold around them to restrain them.

Indeedee waved her hands like a magic trick and broke the dungeons attempts to hold them in place.

She was terrifyingly powerful at times.

"We're going after Treasure Town," Nelia replied.

"Yes, but…how do you know where they are?"

"I have my ways," Nelia said mysteriously with a mysterious smile and mysterious wink to her mysterious eye.

She must have seen or felt something about Melody as she tittered again at her. "I'm pulling your…." She looked her up and down. "Ahem. They've got a couple of small little elements betraying them at the moment. People are easy to track, items are easy to track, communications are pretty easy to track if you know what you're doing."

She winked again. "I've got this, okay?"

To Melody's eyes, they pulled through a lot of trees and shrubs and overgrown forested areas to unveil an ancient ruin. "The Cathedral," she breathed, an old flicker of excitement in her. She'd joined the guild as an explorer first, after all. Her death had stamped out the interest in exploring, but at times she'd have moments.

Old human ruins were always interesting; she'd always wanted to go. She was almost happy before she remembered herself and present company, and the feeling was quashed once again.

"Hmm," Nelia hummed. "I reckon they're gone." She looked up at the sky, where she had been tracking the movements of a braviary who'd scrapped with some of her own earlier. He was gone.

They entered the cathedral to take scope of what had happened and where the escapees might have gone. The air sizzled with lingering energy, and Nelia could almost taste the psychic streams left behind of mass teleportation.

There were footprints here, places where bodies had sat to rest, the lingering miscellany of emotions. Fear, stress, flattening anguish and plenty more. There was a spicy burst of anger and desperation that she recognised as belonging to a fiery little litleo. "Ah, so the remnants of Team Ion are around here too…."

Melody avoided looking at her. As they entered the cathedral, she let herself sink backwards, just wanting a little bit of space for a moment. Intelligent communication maybe, but at least she could swim in anguish and despair freely amid the broken animals these people had been reduced to.

They were walking as Nelia crossed the midway point of the cathedral, following footprints and lingering emotions that led her out that way; something happened.

"So... it's you." Nelia slowed to a stop when a voice suddenly reached her ears. She glanced around the cathedral they had stepped into, high walls, many holes, plenty of doorways, rather dark. The place was perfect for an ambush in theory. Overgrown with grass and closed in with ancient stone walls.

Roots caused the ground to bulge, and despite the darkness, the beams of light poking through the roof were intensely bright and warm.

There was a lot of shimmering grass further away across all the various exits to this place.

She couldn't see where the voice was coming from, and oddly enough, she couldn't quite track them either.

"The one who...killed so many of my friends," the voice continued, and it sounded familiar. Too familiar. She knew who was speaking, and a smile curled at her lips.

Someone else knew that voice too, and Nelia could taste a flood of anguish. It was so rare to make a Shadow Pokémon feel anything strongly, and she valued the times that it happened.

The other Shadow Pokémon had stopped with her, none daring to step past The First Fallen. Farther back, a certain pokémon quivered as the voice continued. "I knew everyone in Treasure Town. Everyone. I-I know I was told to run with the others, but I can't. I can't just run while you rip apart every single inch of our world!"

Nelia raised an eyebrow, this was getting a little dramatic, and she opened her mouth to retort.

"Thirty-four," the speaker said, voice cracking. "You killed thirty-four of them. Thirty-four lives, gone, taken by y o u." That was an impressive amount of loathing packed into a single word. She'd almost applaud it, but her good humour at whoever was stupid enough to do this was fading quickly.

Thirty-four, while that was a small enough big number to register as a tragedy, Nelia knew she could do better. Over a hundred had died in Blackstone, although they didn't get a warning or had a secret way out.

"But if you think that this is a victory," the speaker, Sunflora, said, getting spiteful with her tone. "Then...then I'm NOT sorry to say, but this is where it ends."

"Mmm, really?" Nelia said, finally speaking up. Her own words hung heavy in the air, seeking out who dared to speak to her like this. "Thousands of years of terror, and it stops now?"

"As I speak, the rest are getting far away from you," Blossom continued, undaunted, her voice gaining strength. "And as long as I'm here, between you and them, you will not get ANYWHERE NEAR THEM!"

Nelia raised an eye again and went to give a snappy retort.

"I'm not going to survive this," Blossom uttered, voice shaking. "I-I know that, I'm... I'm not stupid."

"How refreshing," Nelia said, bright and very sweetly. "Most people run with delusions of victory. Or survival. Tell me, Blossom? Are you throwing your life away because you think anything you can do here matters? Or are you so broken that dying seems like an easier choice to make? I can assure you it's the coward's way out."

There were doorways scattered around; which one was the speaker near? The voice reverberated, but Nelia was homing in. Letting her talk was cute, but it was helping her find the hidden sunflora.

"I don't care. As long as I can endure for long enough," she said as Nelia began to lock on. "Long enough for them to get away from this HELL that you've created...then I win."

Nelia began to walk forth unflinchingly, casting out a wave of energy that caused something to ripple in a doorway littered with grass. There she was.

"I've done my duty to Wigglytuff and..." The voice shook before continuing with a pained. "Melody." Far in the back, Melody watched with a shattered expression. "So…take your best shot," Blossom said as her vanish seed's effect was broken, revealing why she REALLY was speaking for so long.

Nelia froze. Blossom's head, now revealed, glowed with burning light. As she blazed, her face was curling and scorching, her leaves shaking, her body trembling. She was pulling on the sun stone, Nelia realised. A technique one could almost consider 'forbidden'. Blossom really was going to do this.

Blossom's eyes met Nelia's as she spoke her last words.

"Because I am going to stand here…for the rest of my life."