Night fell, the villagers lit their lamps and Darkrai slithered down the hill.
Finally, the time for him to put his undertaking into motion had come: under the cover of the dark, moonless night, he would give Haven — and the Sanctuary in particular — a furtive visit. Once there, he would extract the Life Orb from Gothitelle's collection and then retreat back to his lair, undetected. That everyone would be herded along the Residential Quarter during the New Moon, to be more easily kept an eye on, would only serve to make the execution all the easier.
The only drawback was how painfully tired he was. He could handle it better than most other pokemon, but he had barely slept the past few days, which was beginning to wear him down: sudden motions of the head made him feel sick, his vision was bleary and his eyes itched, his slowed reflexes meant that, while trying to maneuver between the trees, he would oftentimes only narrowly avoid crashing into them.
As he flew to his destination, the wraith did not bother to rise above the canopy, but rather took this stroll as an opportunity to try to get a hold of himself, sharpening his reactions as he dodged the trunks and swirled through the woods, adeptly melding in and out of shadows to slide across obstacles as need be.
Eventually, he slowed down and then halted entirely by the desire path which lead out of the Blightwoods. While he extended his legs and stood to recuperate before advancing further, he crossed his hands behind his back, recollections about this area in particular came back to him: it had been created by the treading of the multiplicity of villagers who had all used this same path over the years to enter his weald... generally bearing ill intent towards him.
His heart clenched from the memories surrounding it, all of which had compounded over the decades and were ones of being denigrated as a monstrosity by resentful townsfolk, of being stabbed and injured, and then of being forced to cast others into withering nightmares for his own self-preservation from their... misguided fury.
Along the rest of the way, Darkrai would stop performing his boastful maneuvers through the air, and instead meekly retreat into the comfort of the shadows.
All the same, he arrived at the top of the slight incline overlooking the village, itself made more easily visible by the conglomeration of lights adorning the Residential Quarter. The lamps which produced said luminosity, however, were totally absent from the rest of the settlement, leaving all that was outside of the edge of Haven engulfed in silent darkness.
Both homely and helpful for a particular creature of shadow.
His entry into the confines of the village, though, was quick to prove to Darkrai that there was an exception to this seemingly total blackout: two powerful beams of yellow light whisked by right in front of him, cutting him off from the intended path and sending the Moonshadow recoiling under one of shops of the marketplace, like a Dwebble jerking back into the security of its rock.
Hidden in the shade, he composed himself following the abrupt fright and ascertained that his cover had almost just been blown — due to his own negligence and carelessness — by Pumpkaboo, in the middle of scanning the perimeters with the dual streams of light she could emit.
The idea of using her as a scout of sorts had been discussed before — he knew because he had listened in on Gothitelle and Hoothoot's proposals to her — yet Pumpkaboo had always been far too hesitant to stay outside of the Residential Quarter alone, even if she did possess the insomnia ability. The leaders of the village had become more adamant and had pushed harder for this added security after Hoothoot's disappearance, no doubt.
Well, there was doubt, but since he didn't spy on them anymore, he could never truly efface it.
This was a novel measure they had taken, one which he hadn't accounted for, but it was unlikely to be too much of a concern for his stalking of the streets.
While waiting for her to vacate the area, still lurking in the shadows underneath the shop, Darkrai noticed how very evident it was that she wasn't taking the task too well: her trembling was obvious, even from as far as he was, so was her reluctance to ever budge from her position and into unexplored territory, and her anxiousness, demonstrated by her sometimes frantically turning to shine her beams in the direction of imagined sounds or movements.
And, periodically, she would turn her lights towards the Blightwoods, scanning its entrance from left to right and back multiple times over, all while giving glances to what was behind her, likely to make sure that she would not be blocked by a wall if she did need to run for her life.
...that could have presented an issue, had he been unlucky enough to leave the forest just as she was flashing her ray into it. Fortunately, such a scenario hadn't occurred.
After some time of watching her do her best to stay calm and collected while checking the entirety of marketplace, she finally left the area and moved on in the direction of Ursaring's Stead, giving Darkrai the chance to leave himself. While doing so, he couldn't help but look back to the fading silhouette of Pumpkaboo. Knowing full well that he was the one causing her such stress left a heavy feeling in his chest. It truly did hurt to know that they felt so tormented, even when awake.
He longed for the day where they — him and Pumpkaboo, but also him and just about anyone else — could maybe cross paths on the way to the marketplace or other, where they simply exchange greetings and best wishes, without fearing for their life. One day, they would hopefully begin to see him as a pokemon like any other.
He exhaled. At least, for now, he had Espurr's friendship.
Back to the paramount affair at hand: the Life Orb.
No longer under threat of being discovered by the scrutiny of the pumpkin, it became exceedingly easy for him to make his way to Gothitelle's Sanctuary: a few seconds after moving from his hiding spot, he slithered through the shops and found himself right in front of the blue tent, though its colour was drowned out by the darkness.
Espurr had relayed to him, through their meetings in her nightmares, that the Life Orb had been picked up by her and stored on one of the shelves of the establishment.
He hesitantly advanced into the somber vestibule he was irrationally repulsed by, only to halt and then return towards the entrance, having heard a faint voice and the sound of footsteps up ahead. Evidently, Gothitelle was still in there, up to the Original One knows what, which was... problematic for his plans, to say the least.
His irritation flared. Why was it that she hadn't left? They were meant to all be sequestrated along the Residential Quarter during the New Moon! That was the point of him waiting to execute this whole operation on this specific night!
He turned back and tamped down his anger, having realised that, at the very least, this gave him an excuse to attend the festivities for a little while. It would make the future conversations with Espurr easier and, it being a New Moon, he would have nothing better left to do after his operation, other than lay in his cavern and dread the possibility of someone falling into a coma, perhaps.
Darkrai would wait for her to leave and keep his mind off of that for now. Even if fatigued, he'd occupy himself with some spying, something he hadn't partaken in for a long while.
Upon reaching the outer edge of the Residential Quarter, illuminated with oil lamps and animated by Kricketune's instrumental play in the distance, Darkrai was intercepted by Honchkrow, hopping by right next to him and towards the light. Quickly realising how convenient this late-arriving bird was, he melded into his shadow, hitchhiking a ride for his expedition into the crowd.
While mimicking the silhouette of his host, he beheld with awe the multitude of lamps hanging from every wall and tree, punctuating the view of the narrow street with dozens of points of shining, bright light between which ambulated droves of various pokemon from the village: Kricketune and Oricorio, Mothim and Lampent, Scyther and Ursaring, and on and on.
No gray furball yet.
The townsfolk weren't used to remaining outside the confines of their homes after dusk, they fell asleep in tandem with the Sun and rose just when it did, thanks to the alerts provided by the Murkrows' shrieks at dawn. They dread, and therefore loathed, the dark.
Their solution to this tenebrousness certainly left Haven seeming chaotic, but the ornamentation of lamps and multicoloured drapes sprawled along the buildings made it uncharacteristically and delightfully merry as well. Warm, as well, both figuratively and literally, giving off a strong feeling of coziness which his sharply frigid woods were sorely lacking.
In some instances, he found himself wishing that he could one day calmly float amongst the lights and carnivalesque decorations, none there being perturbed or bothered by his presence. The New Moon Festival would still happen, of course, but to them, the villagers of this alternate reality he was in the midst of imagining, it would be an occasion where they needed to do their best to avoid the regrettable defects of their neighbour Darkrai's powers, rather than a period where they felt besieged by the deathly tendrils of a nightmare demon which haunted the lands.
While he did long for such a future, where he was regarded by them not as evil incarnate, but rather a recluse friend, he, alas, was not sure that it would ever be attainable, and neither did he have the courage to reach for it.
Once he quit marveling at the scenery, his gaze fell to the flock of Murkrows lining the overhangs of almost every roof along the Residential Quarter. Their position, an excellent vantage point for keeping an eye upon the entirety of the route, and the immensity of their numbers would certainly make them an issue for his undetected ambulation through the streets.
Darkrai blinked a few times to dissipate the blurriness of his sight and focused more closely on their faces.
They were all staring right at him!
He had just been compromised?
He had to stop himself from impulsively fleeing from panic. Unsure of how to react and too prudent to dare to leave the shadows, his eyes darted from left to right, desperately searching for a solution.
He looked back to the alleyway, considering retreat, to the other pokemon along the streets, maybe he should jump shadows?
Should he should not move at all?
He turned to his host and... suddenly relaxed, his muscles now cramped and sore from the abrupt tensing.
Obviously. Obviously the glares were not aimed at him, but rather at their former boss, as was the incessant and uncomfortable snickering they partook in once Honchkrow had entered their line of sight.
He was tired.
In response, the bird puffed out his chest and scuttered away faster, remaining non-confrontational in the face of the hostility from his old clique. The enmity between them had not disappeared during the time Darkrai had avoided spying on them, apparently. It was getting rather stale as a spectacle for him to enjoy keeping up to date with, at this point, as it likely would never be given a satisfactory resolution.
"You're late," he heard someone say in a stringent tone from behind him.
Darkrai turned, unexpectedly coming to face a vexed Gallade and Arbok, who was wiping a glass using a cloth held with his tail, both sitting at a bar.
"Oh, but I only took the time to verify that the bank vault was sealed shut! We wouldn't want for everyone's valuables to be turned into scraps for my former subalterns' nests, no?"
For a long time they had been forced to make peace with the reality that at least a few of their belongings would mysteriously vanish during this night, and that they would then need to buy suspiciously similar items from the Murkrows in the following morning. Luckily, Honchkrow had found a solution through unadulterated spite.
"You could have done that sooner. Don't wait until the last second next time, alright?" The bird rolled his eyes and nodded.
"Worry not, I'm safe from all of these complications, remember?" Honchkrow chuckled, referring to the protection granted to him by his own insomnia ability. "Besides, I am no pushover in combat," Honchkrow was resistant to his Dark Pulse, so perhaps he would only be knocked out, rather than vaporised, in such a showdown.
Gallade gave him no further response and returned to his rinsing, leaving Honchkrow to turn his attention to the assortment of glass bottles of Chesto Berry extract sitting behind the counter. "How much per glass?"
Arbok barely humoured his query. "You don't need it, you're ssssafe from all of thesssse complicationsss, remember?" He scoffed.
"Well, yes," the crow conceded. "But how much?" He hopped onto the counter to get a closer look, forcing Darkrai to shift up one of the supporting poles of the building to keep track of what was happening.
"It'sss free," Arbok left the cloth he was holding onto aside and instead reached for a jar of coins hidden beneath the table. "But you may tip," he shook the container.
"I'd rather not, but, look, let's make a deal," he started, holding his wing up to cover their conversation from any onlookers. "I take your entire stock — for free — and then manage it at a few cents a bottle from now on. You go and enjoy the night with Kricketune or Oricorio or whatever, whatcha say, then? Deal?" Immediately upon asking, the bird was driven from the bar by a threatening hiss, jumping back down onto his chair and then the ground.
"Pissss off," the serpent loomed in closer to the terrified Honchkrow. "No hoarding," he snarled, making Honchkrow stagger away in fear and then lift off, disappearing into the mass of pokemon.
The entire display earned him another wave of scorn and snickering from the Murkrows, while Darkrai and Gallade fought back against the urge to join in on the derision, as doing such a thing would be highly ungentlemanly.
A familiar giggle coming from behind Gallade caught his attention: Espurr! She was there! Sitting on one of the chairs, dawning an adorable red ribbon around her ear — one which he had seen brief glimpses of in her dreams — with Morgrem's ingenious Soothe Bell tied to it and clutching an amusingly oversized bag. He hadn't seen her when he arrived, but her presence instantly brightened his spirits.
"Oh, right, a Chesto juice for Espurr here!" Gallade ordered from Arbok.
"Right up," he coiled one of the already prepared mugs from the shelves with his tail and gave it over to the small pokemon, who eagerly reached for it.
"Thank you kindly, Mr. Arbok!" Espurr was quick to begin gorging herself on the extrac—
An ear-piercing screech abruptly displaced the pleasant melody, making Arbok flinch and launch the glass he was holding into the ground, sheathing the front of his bar with shards.
Espurr squealed and reflexively launched away her own mug with her psychic powers, which spurred into a storm and enveloped the surroundings of the bar, forcing Gallade to quickly respond with his own Psychic to hold everything into place.
He picked the distressed furball up, clutching her tightly while ringing the bell placed on the bow around her ear. "It's all alright, just a loud noise."
Poor thing. Who dared to disturb her?
With Espurr now calmed and hugging Gallade, everyone at the bar turned their attention to the crowd, seeing that they weren't the only ones disturbed by the sudden shrill, as all those around them, even those who had formerly been consumed by worrisome languor, had now been shaken wide awake and were keenly searching the entire street for the culprit of the acute noise.
"Sorry, folks," Kricketune eventually called everyone's attention by clanging his claws together. Beside him was Oricorio, dawning her energetic, yellow form, in the middle of rearranging her ruffled feathers. "New measures and all. Just gotta make sure you all stay awake!" He chuckled.
It had worked, but, good grief, they maybe went too far sometimes with their compounding safety protocols.
Everyone gave the insect a vexed glare, one which quickly vanished, though, as the old 'mon was far too charming all around to bring long-lasting scorn upon himself.
"Kricketune, can I ask you to quit doing that for the rest of the night?" An exception, Gallade stepped forth. "It was an alright idea, but it also just startled Espurr over here, and we can't have that. Back to the drawing board with this one for the next New Moon."
"Good night, Mr. Kricketune," his friend land down on the guardian's shoulder, grooming her bristled fur. "It would be quite appreciated if you could stop doing that!"
Kricketune gasped. "Oh, I'm very sorry for that! I'll make sure to avoid the screeching. It suits me, even! I don't like having to interrupt the music!" The bug hovered towards her and Gallade, his wings producing a repulsive vibration which made the Moonshadow shiver and his bowels turn. "How's about a tune to make up, eh?"
Once Espurr nodded and then landed on the ground, listening on as Kricketune began to play his melody, with Oricorio dancing along, Darkrai slipped into Gallade's silhouette and gave some consideration as to his plans going forth.
He was glad that his friend was having a good time, at least, but he was also reminded of just how much of his own time he had been wasting while lounging around and why it was that he was there in the first place. Not to return to his spying — as interesting as he found that to be — but because he still needed to extract that Life Orb from Gothitelle's clutches. The only issue was the uncertainty of when she would leave her Sanctuary.
He turned in the direction of the Sanctuary, the top of the dark blue tent slightly protruding above the rest of the buildings. He'd wager that she was still cloistered in there, as she would have brought far more attention upon herself by now, were she currently amongst the crowd. Why she was still in there was beyond him, however.
Just to be confident in his assessment, Darkrai slithered up an overshadowed wall still providing him with the much needed cover from the sights of the birds. His cursory look at the congregation of faces seemed to confirm that she was, indeed, not in their midst.
As a good hypocrite, she had a tendency to ignore the very regulations she had imposed on the others through the authority granted to her by her expertise in the matter, but even she would be hard-pressed to wander off into the unlit darkness during the New Moon, where there was no Gallade, Scyther or Ursaring to provide the usual illusion of safety.
Having to wait any longer would be unbearable. He did enjoy this visit after a period of more intense reclusion, but he was exhausted from every other day and night, the rest of the village was occupied and posed no threat to him during this time, and, above all else, Espurr was wide awake and incapable of speaking to him through the Dream Realm. This would have been a wonderful opportunity for him to get some much needed rest, but no! That hag had to—
A foul thing to call her, he instantly disavowed.
He looked back to Espurr and, while he watched her bop to Kricketune's music, he realised that she could prove quite useful indeed for the efficacy of his operation going forward.
He wouldn't just stalk the streets of the village while seething about things not going his way and events not unfolding as rapidly as he wished. Instead, he would pull a few strings to make sure that it panned out as he willed.
"That was quite the marvelous song and dance!" Espurr gave the bug and bird a quick clap once they ended their performance.
Kricketune was an unexpectedly talented artist for someone in such a remote location. Granted, he didn't know many others of his kind, but he was not much worse than the ones Darkrai had been given the chance to hear play during his trip to the Distortion World. Of course, he found it highly unethical that they had been dragged there and made to enliven the place against their will, but the Beyond One did have excellent musical tastes, according to Meloetta. This chain of credible authorities on the matter and comparisons made him fairly confident in his own assessment of the bug's talent.
"Thank you, thank you," both Kricketune and Oricorio bowed. "Though it wasn't really a song, but rather just an instrumental. I can't sing for scrap," the musician shrugged and chuckled.
Gallade clapped as well after a moment, but was noticeably distracted by something else down the street. "It was pretty good, yeah, I'll tip you both, just... excuse me for a second," he reassured them before springing up into the air, taking Darkrai — who had infested his shadow — along for the ride, while Espurr floated behind him.
He joined his silhouette again with a thud, landing at the end of the line in front of Morgrem's Berry Stall. Gallade came to notice that, similarly to Honchkrow, someone else had been enticed by the idea of illegitimate stockpiling: Skwovet, rummaging through the tray of berries and stuffing handfuls into her tail, left the goblin managing the shop overwhelmed.
"Skwovet," the guardian marched over behind the oblivious squirrel and crossed his arms, much to Morgrem's relief.
"Oh?" She spun around and her expression turned to worry once she saw him overhead, making fruits drip from her brush. "Oh! Hello, Gall! I... uh..." she barely managed to articulate with her bloated cheeks.
"I'm not telling you to spit out those in your mouth," Gallade started. "But you are going to leave behind those in your tail and stop amassing berries for the night, the rodent vigorously nodded, immediately grabbing her own tail and shaking it to dispense the accumulation of Chestos onto the ground, and then took off into the crowd, chops still engorged.
The possibility of death if one fell asleep was quite a stressful thought, indeed, but the shielding effects of a Chesto Berry were acute and temporary, there was no use in consuming so many at once, considering their potency would deteriorate quickly all the same. They were meant to be eaten a short moment before they came to be useful, not for a large gulp to protect one throughout the whole night. It was likely not particularly healthy to ingest such a large dose at once, either, as was the case with any other berry which possessed particular healing properties.
"Much thanks, Gall! Didn't have a clue how to get her to stop..." Morgrem, in the middle of scooping up the dispersed fruits back into the tray with his hair, gave him a thumbs-up and then sat back down on his chair.
There was always a lot of policing early on, and it only got more intense as the night dragged on. The initial joviality and order would deteriorate further as they became more and more sleep-deprived, exasperated by the fact that they slept little under normal circumstances already. Once the Sun rose again, they would simmer down for a while from relief at having survived... before the dread would flare up again after they returned to their habitual routine.
"Howdy, everyone!" The next set of pokemon in the waiting line began to pick from the wooden crates, eventually arriving at Mawile, whose greeting made him snap out of his brooding and, unlike everyone else, took only one fruit instead of a handful. "Greetings, Gallade, sir!" She bowed in front of him. "You having a rough night, Morg?"
The goblin frowned and nodded.
"If you want, I can take up management of the tray," Gallade leaned in against the supporting pole of the stall. "You'd be free for the rest of the night."
"Oh!" Espurr exclaimed in excitement, hopping up and down, making her bell ring. "We could all go and get Pollen Puffs from Miss Ribombee's together!"
"And I'm down to move onto the games already," Mawile added. "So are we going, or what?"
"Uhhh..." the goblin slowly lodged his claws into the plank of the table. "Nah, I'll say I'm good. I like the shop, it's cosy... I just get a touch fidgety during this night," he stuttered, giving a quick glance to the sky to confirm that the Moon was, indeed, nowhere to be found.
"Ah, you'll be fine," Mawile responded, accidentally spooking him by attempting to pat him on the shoulder. "I'll be sticking around here with ya', just in case then," she continued, snapping her jaws as a show of force, though it only made Morgrem shudder and move a comfortable distance away from her.
"Well, suit yourselves. But you have to start enforcing the rationing," Gallade shrugged. "However, I gotta admit, I am hungry for some Pollen Puffs just about now."
"Well, haven't you two just been the busiest bunch of little Combees in the hive tonight?" Ribombee greeted both Espurr and Gallade, as they were made way for by the rest of the pokemon standing in line before them. "Why, I've been watching you both pace left and right since dusk!"
"Espurr's the one here to keep us safe for the night, I'm just following along to make sure she stays out of trouble herself," Gallade gave a timid glance at the wooded hills. "Everyone's a bit tense after what happened, and I can't claim that I'm an exception here," he sighed. His near death experience hadn't left him without scars. Luckily, this trauma had translated into heightened vigilance, so it was productive, at the very least.
"Scyther passed by here, he doesn't seem to be coping too well with being laid off, either," Ribombee commented while fashioning her confection.
"Even if what Esp here deduced makes sense, I'd rather wait for Druddigon's return for confirmation before he's brought back on defense duty. Gothi agrees," Scyther was the one to — unjustifiably — receive most of the blame for Gallade's coma, something Darkrai wasn't willing to stand for. He had Espurr bring up the very odd name of the item and, for the most part, they had been left receptive to the idea, but their reluctance to run any tests had postponed the full resolution. "Until then, he's doing an alright job on the farm," the guardian chuckled.
Done with the creation of their deserts, the shopkeeper handed the two balls of yellow fluff over the counter, Espurr's eyes glimmering as she extended her arms to reach for the treats.
"Such a marvelous delight," his friend jumped with excitement at the Chesto-flavoured Pollen Puffs, a treat whose aroma was by far inferior to the one exuded by the usual recipe. They didn't have to smear Chesto Berries into everything, for the Original One's sake! "Many thanks, Miss Ribombee!"
"Oh, well I knew you were polite sounding, but this is a bit much," Ribombee laughed. What exactly she found so funny was a mystery for Darkrai.
"Well, I have come to try quite hard to vary my vocabulary," Espurr giggled.
Oh, that, he had become numb to her pattern of speech at this point, but it was a tad amusing.
She waved the fae goodbye and covered herself with a layer of pink glow, sitting down on Gallade's shoulder. Right before he propulsed them both into the air, though, Darkrai was given the needed time to meld into the latter's silhouette, getting taken on a fairly short journey to the roof of the Post Office, covered in hay due to Chatot and Drifblim using it to rest as well..
...he had yet to spot that duo, which was odd. Seemingly, the guidelines were being disrespected by more than just Gothitelle.
They both sat down on its edge, monitoring the rest of the happenings along the street below, and readied themselves to eat the delights they had just bought.
Wait. Right. The plan.
What he had concocted, meant to get things moving along, went as such: he would reveal himself to Espurr, bringing Gothitelle's absence to her attention after a short dialogue, and he would then have her make the same remark to Gallade, who would in turn, ideally, force Gothitelle to depart from the Sanctuary, leaving the place open for him to spoliate the Life Orb in utmost secrecy, be done with this all and then go to sleep. If that did not work out as intended, due to Gallade being aware of and allowing for Gothitelle's continued absence, he would summon a Haze upon them, just to have their paranoia mount to a sufficient degree where they would force her to join them, out of concern for her safety.
While thinking about how he would go about separating Gallade from Espurr, his sight wandered along the roofs opposite to him, unable to keep himself from noting that all of the crows perched on the overhangs were looking in the same direction.
Following their lines of vision lead him back to Arbok's Lounge, where he had just come from. There, he noticed that what the Murkrows were interested in was the tip jar of gold coins the serpent had, unfortunately, left sitting on the counter, practically begging to be used as the centerpiece of a distraction.
Shifting from Gallade's shadow and through the combined shade cast by the pokemon of the Residential Quarter, Darkrai arrived at the rear of the bar. The silhouette of the full container trailed behind the object itself and, thus, made a corridor through which Darkrai could pass his hand underneath the jar undetected.
He pushed it off the counter with a slight prod of a claw from below. The glass hit the ground and shattered, spilling all of Arbok's hard-earned tips and immediately attracting the attention of both the aforementioned serpent and of the Murkrows, as Darkrai had predicted.
While the former lunged over the counter and did his best to fend off the rapacious birds from his scattered belongings, the Nightmare Weaver slithered back up to Espurr and Gallade. Having lured all of the crows away from their entourage, this displacement attracted the attention of all of the other pokemon along the narrow street, including the village's guardian.
"Just hold the Pollen Puffs for us both, I need to go and take care of this," he instructed her and gave away his food, jumping down to join Arbok in his struggle against the onslaught of raptors.
Espurr, for her part, sat by and intently watched the skirmish unfolding below her, as did everyone else in the area, until her attention was captivated by something else: her shadow was elongating itself behind her, beginning to move on its own, calling for her to notice it.
"Darkrai?" She gasped upon looking down at her animate silhouette on the tiles.
"Greetings, friend," his entry was monotonous and he was obviously languid, but she was fine with it by now. It was 'kinda funny how serious he sounded all the time', according to her, and he certainly wasn't going to go through the trouble of making amendments to his demeanor if she found no issues with it.
"Greetings to you as well, Mr. Moonshadow, who is being a shadow," Espurr chuckled, luckily already aware that she needed to whisper in this situation. "But... why are you here now?"
"I... cannot tell you right now," he had yet to decided whether he would tell her the truth of the matter, he hadn't planned to do so before this minor contrivance. "I will offer you an in-depth explanation tomorrow night, alright?" Neither did he have a lie prepared.
"But I don't understand, isn't it quite unsafe to have you here at night?" She asked, struggling to keep her suddenly distressed voice down.
"It is not, the New Moon negates any such issues, I will explain it to you in length tomorrow as well."
She nodded. "What do you need, then?"
"I only came to you because I needed to voice a pressing concern of mine," well... it wasn't 'only' because of his legitimate concern for Gothitelle's well-being, this wasn't even an obfuscation, but rather a full lie.
And lying to her made him feel bad, which wasn't something that happened often with anyone else. Or at all, for that matter.
"Oh?" She put her paw to her lip.
"Have you noticed that Miss Gothitelle is absent from the festivities?" He asked. "Could you alert Gallade of this non-attendance?"
She took a moment to look around at the faces below. "Oh... that's quite true! And quite weird..." Espurr gasped once more. "Is it because she's having a nightmare somewhere? Does she need help?"
"No, it's not, rest assured," he gestured her to calm down. "Though I have no clue as to what the actual reason is."
"Alright! I'll warn him right this instant!" She looked back down to Gallade, in his continued kerfuffle with the black birds. "Once that's done with..."
"Best of luck for the rest of the night," he prepared to leave. "Remember to keep safe and stay awake."
"Thank you! Likewise, while you sneak around like a little Sableye."
He didn't know that expression. "Do not worry about me, goodbye," her shadow returned to its normal position and proportions. As far as she knew, he was gone.
"Bye," Espurr waved at her own shadow and then lowered herself down to the road. Of course, Darkrai was still attached to her, now laying in wait for when his friend would apply the directive given to her.
Arbok and Gallade were still struggling with the seemingly impossible task of guarding the gold he had spilled. The amount sprawled on the ground had dwindled, whether it was because they or the Murkrows had collected it being left an enigma.
A sudden gust of wind, accompanied by an unpleasant buzzing noise, came to blow away the ravenous birds. Gallade was quick to halt the dispersal of the coins with his Psychic, coalescing them into a pile on the ground and leaving Arbok to protectively coiled himself around the mound.
"You're all welcome!" Scyther exclaimed, landing triumphantly before them.
Without heeding him any immediate attention, Gallade marched over to the dazed Murkrows instead, who were in the process of picking the dirt out of each other's feathers. "Alright, the gold is out of sight, are you all ready to calm down now? This isn't the night to be careless and play these games."
"None were harmed. We just got a bit carried away there," one chortled.
"I'm guessing that you all don't want your shop booted off the market?" Mechanically, they all dropped what it was they were doing and turned to gape at him, wide-eyed. What an elegant solution to the problem that was... well, the Murkrows, in general. Why hadn't they thought of it sooner? Darkrai had thought of it sooner... and then forgotten about it. The sight of the marketplace without 'Anything and Everything' was hard to imagine. "No? In that case, I'd recommend that you all move to the darkened sector and keep Pumpkaboo company, help her with scouting. Understood?" The birds looked to each other and hesitantly nodded, beginning to lift off one-by-one.
Espurr slowly walked up to him once he was done with them, but he ignored her and now turned to Scyther. "I think your Defog littered the street with shards of glass, but, otherwise, good job."
"It was good enough, right?"
"Right, good enough, but you're not getting reinstated until Druddigon comes by."
"Bah! Come on, this is getting ridiculous! Not even you believe that it was my fault anymore!"
"There is no harm to leaving you off duty until we are certain that what happened wasn't your fault."
"Can't we agree to blame Druddigon, or just the Nightmare Weaver, and move on already? Why do I have to keep being a wheat and berry collector?"
"No, we are not moving on."
"That's unfair! What about innocent until proven guilty, or whatever?"
"I am only taking precautions, this has nothing to do with justice."
Darkrai and Espurr waited and listened on as they argued like an old couple, the latter unblinkingly staring up at Gallade with her sack in hand. Meanwhile, the former was half asleep, the only thing he could even discern from that conversation being a mention of one of his aliases.
The thoroughly repulsive vibration of his wings signaled Scyther's departure, leaving Gallade to turn back to them.
"Espurr, where are you?" He called, getting startled once he saw her waiting at his feet. "That took a while," he let out a long sigh. "Can you give me my Pollen Puff back?"
Instead, the gray pokemon landed on his shoulder, seeming nervous. "While you were kept busy with all that, I swiftly looked around the streets and noticed that Miss Gothitelle was absent! All of the way down the road! She isn't here!"
Instead of immediately responding, Gallade closed his eyes and took a deep breath. "I can sense her in the Sanctuary, she seems to be fine," he eventually stated.
An ability of his kind, he could perceive the emotions of pokemon, with the convenient exception of dark-types. It would have been helpful if it wasn't so limited by range and concentration. He could have felt Espurr's distress at almost being put to sleep in a dark corner of the woods, but, alas, his capabilities were far inferior to those of his feminine counterpart.
He missed Gardevoir, she was very good at pre-emptively resolving problems with the aid of this ability.
"Huh, I don't think she even bothered to get here since the headcount. She's been stuck in the Sanctuary doing who knows what since dawn," how interesting, but he should be spending less time engaging in such vague tangents and more on enforcing the rules, even on her!
...
It was the lack of sleep, it was making him more irritable.
Hopefully, now they would go and get her, so that he could go and get the Life Orb.
"Honestly, I didn't suspect a thing," Gallade continued. "I expect better, if she's going to rail about safety as much as she does. I'll go and—"
He suddenly stiffened up and went silent.
"N— No. No, something is definitely wrong, actually," Gallade stuttered before rushing off towards the Sanctuary, leaving both Darkrai and Espurr confused.
Since dawn, Gothitelle had secluded herself to the depths of her Sanctuary and dedicated her time to carefully analysing the box gifted to her by Chatot and Drifblim, as well as the stone tablets contained within. Within that time, the only conclusion she had reached was that the wooden box was but that: a soberly decorated, wooden box.
Beyond that, certainty became scarce. When it came to the slabs of sandstone with runes inscribed upon them which it held, she had... far more trouble determining anything definitive about them.
She was tempted to conclude that there were 28 of these tablets, yet, maddeningly, every time she attempted to count them, she would encounter difficulties in keeping track of the number. She would either become incapable of enumerating them any further, losing herself to a protracted staring contest with the engraved eyes, or she would get the inexplicable sense that they had shifted positions on the table, forcing her to begin anew.
They likely possessed dimensions almost equal to those of the palm of her hand... which was incredibly peculiar, as by all means they should then not be able to fit into their wooden container, which was, at a glance, much too small to hold them all. That they did so anyway was evidence enough that sleep deprivation was likely already setting in for her, which did not bode well for her chances of surviving the rest of the night.
She was evidently not well: beyond her rising migraine and her odd inability to adequately study a few runes, that she was even humouring what was likely a crate of toddler toys, meant for educating pre-evolutions in whatever script this was, showed a clear mark of madness. How had she even let herself suffer this humiliation at the hands of Chatot and Drifblim, when their trick was so nonsensical?
Well, she would at least be putting an end to it now, as she was amassing all of the slabs into a pile by their case on the table. She exhaled, relieved after having liberated herself from whatever temporary delusion had taken hold of her, and prepared to leave her establishment to join the festivities at the Residential Quarter rather late.
...
She had no reason to believe that those things would be of any legitimate use to her. At best, if they were to cross her mind again by that time, she would ask Druddigon upon her return to Haven — if, indeed, she ever did return — if they could be translated. A travelling merchant who had apparently seen so much would hopefully be versed in this foreign script. Or maybe Lampent would know.
"Hopefully'?
Why hopefully? Her anger roused and she clenched her fist. Why was she acting so irrational? It was a farce! They were nothing! Just odd letters carved into sandstone! Meant to fool unwitting buyers with their esoteric allure!
And, yet... she barely got to the Incense Burner she wished to dull before finding the urgent need to turn around and stride back over to them again, letting her mind go numb as she stared at the symbols.
Upon snapping out of her fixation some moments later, she was no longer frustrated nor angry, but rather scared. There was something wrong here. There was something wrong with her tonight. Of course it would happen this night. Was she being driven into some sort of delusion by the Moonshadow? Was it causing her to lose her good sense like this? Causing this inexplicable monomania?
Evidently it was!
...
She sighed. Perhaps it was simply her desperation finally beginning to surface, as she edged ever closer to accepting that there most likely would be no closure for her in sight.
There was no sense of justice in all of this... right after she had barely evaded the Nightmare Weaver's grasp, when she had just barely avoided being lost forever while attempting to save another, it cast one final curse upon her: slowly leaving her abilities to decay until they faded into non-existence.
She did her best, contacted anyone she could, read through every book on the matter, to retrieve them. She did this not solely for herself, but for the benefit her powers brought to the village as a whole, and yet, it all amounted to nothing.
Once it became clear to her that she would never gain them back, she became embittered towards the monster... her wishes for revenge amounted to nothing and all she did was push valuable members of the community to die in their attempts to fight it. The Moonshadow was unchallenged and would remain so.
And now, in a bid which combined desperation and naivety, she had returned to her original plan, scrapping the barrel for any possible remedies to her plight. But, frankly, there would be no justice for her, none at all.
Upon first arriving in Haven, her instincts told her to flee and not look back at the blighted nightmare village, she fought those urges and remained there after she had guided a Linoone out of a writhing terror and into the waking world with the use of her ability to walk dreams. She remained for a while to help those suffering there, until it came her turn to suffer.
After that ordeal, her attempts to leave the wretched place were cut short, even being bested by a gang of mere Raticates along the road. How vulnerable she was without her psychic powers forced her to remain there, the only shelter she was guaranteed.
Defenseless, telekinesis lost, hypnosis lost, the visions of the future — which she was fascinated with, as vague and hard to decipher as they were — lost, her ability to see into the stars, as the elders of her kind could, lost... she had always wanted to sit down in an open meadow at night and do nothing but gaze at projections of the astral bodies beyond... it was not to be.
Suddenly overcome with irrepressible fury, she struck the sandstone slab within her reach, gasping once she realised that the cracking sound which followed was caused by the tablet shattering under the strength of her blow.
But, for as strong as the confusion of anger and sorrow seemed to be at first, it totally dissipated once she exhaled. Just like that, she was ease once again. It didn't feel natural, but she forgot to care.
She looked up to behold the grand Moon hovering above her and smiled, inundated with sudden joy. It was incomparable in its magnificence and the glimmer which it exuded effortlessly cut through the twilight sky to bathe her — sitting there on the green grass on the vast, monotonous field— in its soothing luminescence. As all traces of her misery vanished, she was left feeling not simply content, but knowing that, here and now, she was as happy as she could ever wish to be.
She bathed herself in bliss and marveled at the beauty of the gray and white orb before sluggishly dragging her sight away from it and onto the rest of the celestial bodies which wandered through the sky. None of them even came close to rivaling the Full Moon, but all were spectacular in their own right, massive and brightly coloured, with the entire spectrum of the rainbow being represented in all of its shades by one astral body or another...
...
This wasn't real.
Her panic at the realisation that this was all but a delusion concocted by the Moonshadow, that she had fallen asleep, was choked out. As if some unseen force was acting upon her psyche, she was precluded from ever lingering too long upon that distressing conclusion. It was banished from her mind whenever it surfaced.
She remained there, laying in the flat grassland, in a limbo between unparalleled serenity and creeping dread, until, finally, the chirps and gurgles which came from beside her, just out of her line of sight, caught her attention for long enough to allow her to break free from her paralysis.
Gothitelle looked back to her side, to where the noises were coming from and to where the table should be, only to see that, not only was her desk gone, but so was the tent and the entirety of the Sanctuary. She was in an open field, and all that remained was the pile of runes, hovering there above the ground, in the exact same disposition she had left them in.
With the exception of one: it had shed its sandstone, leaving behind only the form of the letter carved into it, taking on a pitch-black hue.
The space around the spot at its core became white and it spontaneously shifted its position in space to face her, making Gothitelle flinch, before her anxiety was suppressed. It didn't just resemble an eye, it was one.
While locking sights with her, it began to vibrate at a rising speed, eventually crackling with bolts of electricity and shambling the air around itself into an amalgam of colours. The excess energy began to disintegrate the rest of the tablets, leaving their respective engravings to break free from the slabs which had served as prisons, forming a horde of levitating letters.
Suddenly, they shifted their positions towards her, this time to form a semi-circle, and began to loom in ever closer while still chanting their gurgles.
For a brief moment, her instincts told her to run, but the impulse was quashed just as quickly as it had sprung up. Instead, she was left to stare at the oncoming cloud of eyes and the distortion which trailed behind them, trying her hardest to dread whatever was about to happen.
"Gothi, I'm outside... are you alright?" She heard a voice — Gallade's voice! — call to her, the reverberations of his knocks on the wooden supports of the tent throbbing through her torment-ridden head.
Her tent... she gasped. She was back in the safety of her tent!
"I... I'm fine!" She composed herself, leaning against the shelves in her Sanctuary while trying to calm her heavy breathing after... whatever in the Great Dragon's name that was...
She struggled to think clearly. Had she just barely fallen asleep? That must have been it...
None the matter, it was over...
"I can sense that you're not fine," he responded following a moment of silence, after which she could hear him enter into the antechamber.
Gothitelle's distress flared again. She scrambled to rearrange all of the tablets — one of which was bruised and cracked — back into their wooden container, sealing it shut with as much strength as she had left and pushed it to the back of her shelf. "No touching this anymore," the words she muttered to herself echoed in her mind, her thoughts becoming increasingly high-pitched before abruptly cutting off.
She spun back to face Gallade, who entered the room and immediately noticed her trembling. "Are... are you alright?" He asked, the stern look on his face erasing itself once he saw how shaken she was. "What were you doing back here alone?"
"Of course I'm alright!" She yelled and, after a moment of hesitation, continued, attempting to mask her anxiety as anger. "The only problem for me right now is you barging into here uninvited!" No, she wouldn't reveal what had just happened to her. She shouldn't.
Gallade shrank down and, fortunately, seemed to have decided not to press her further. "The rules are for everyone. You're meant to be at the Residential Quarter during the New Moon. You're setting an awful example for everyone else," he remained disrespectful, but she was just happy that he was there now. She wouldn't make a fuss about his manners.
"I... I'm not leaving my belongings unguarded," the Murkrows would try and steal the runes as well, she was certain of it!
"Well, take whatever you think is at risk with you and store it away in the bank vault, remember about that?"
"Ugh... don't bother, actually," she marched out of the tent and pulled him with her, giving one last, puzzled look back to where she had left... those things.