Bony claws stabbed into Gallade's skull and gripped his head, deforming his infuriatingly delighted expression into one of delightful anguish. These claws were his own.
Ursaring fell back while his comrade was lifted off of the ground, flailing and screaming for his life in the grasp of the Nightmare Weaver. It— no, he blazed with a rabid excess of dark energy, emanating as a violent squall of black and purple, reaching to taint and deform the ground, trees and air around him, decomposing the environment into a profuse mire of ooze.
This onyx tidal bore surrounding the Moonshadow, aggressively assailing the peace of the weald and threatening to wholly devour it, was a searing fusion of his own anger. His anger at them.
They, who had passed the night mutilating him with no respite, they who had not dared to question why he was not fighting back, they who had taken no time to consider why it was that the heartless monster of the forest had shown them mercy, and, now, they who wanted to put an end to it.
It had given them ample leeway, so many opportunities! And yet, they had willfully ignored them all. They did not deserve to come out of this alive.
And, so, a Dark Pulse vaporised Gallade's head.
What was left of the Guardian fell limp to the ground, all under the horrified gaze of Ursaring, who could only gape ahead at his friend's cadaver.
The Nightmare Weaver turned its sights to the bear.
"Wait! Please, no!" His naive bravado had totally vanished, but his pleas were too little, too late: a flurry of energy soon came to consume him, leaving behind only a charred, sizzling quagmire of tar.
The creature extended its legs and landed back onto the ground, giving a pleased look to the writhing sludge. Justice had been served, the woods could go quiet anew.
...
"Darkrai... what did you do to them?"
The Moonshadow froze up, then turned.
The sight of Espurr — poor, distraught, sobbing, little Espurr, shrivelled up while standing and staring at the viscous puddle which had once been Ursaring — exorcised from him any remnants of animalistic fury.
His heart sank.
What did he just done?
His eyes darted to Gallade's remains, being slowly swallowed up by the mud.
Why had he done this?
"You should've told them! Gallade and Ursaring would listen!" His friend sobbed.
Would they...?
...
They would! He knew it in his gut that they would!
...
What had he just done? He should've talked to them. They would've listened... and... now...
"You promised me that you were not evil!"
"Espurr, I'm... no, I was..." he stuttered, feeling himself begin to liquefy, his cloak melting, craving to leave her sights and plunge into the depths of the bubbling mass of obscurity around him.
"That you would do your best not to hurt us!"
"I... I'm sorry... but..." the liquid crept up his torso and shoulder, the mark of the corrosion trailing the pattern of the poison he had endured, tugging him backwards with increasing force.
"There's nothing to be sorry about, what you did to them wasn't an accident!" Espurr cried, tears running down her pouting little face.
"I was defending myself!" Darkrai roared, a sudden bolt of anger overwhelming the sorrow and shame she — the foul, unjust little creature — had wanted him to drown in.
"They didn't know! It's not fair! Just like me when we first met! I didn't know!" She hissed.
Her continued, insidious attempts to paint him as the sole malefactor undid all restrain: he broke free from the smoldering mire of darkness and lunged at the imp with outstretched claws.
... only for the ooze to thankfully surge upwards and swallow him again.
...
Under the watch of the numerous, intrigued eyes inhabiting it, Darkrai listlessly drifted through the void of spiraling, pitch-black and violet tendrils, infested with odd chirps and gurgling. The unnatural, impulsive emotions overcoming him had been burned away... and his intentions before being contained were now laid bare..
He would've hurt her... he was ready to mangle her! Nothing she had told him was wrong, he was being a selfish, imprudent idiot.
He had wanted to kill her! He had killed Gallade and Ursaring!
Every visit he made was a risk he exposed the townsfolk to and, the very night that the consequences of his carelessness had caught up to him, he had given himself the prerogative to behead one of their protectors and to boil alive another!
He woke up feeling nauseated, sore and benumbed, sweating, his breath was heavy and the rhythmic rising of his chest was agonising, yet he finally felt rested.
What he had just lived through could be relegated to fantasy, at the very least, he realised. It was but a dream... even if he could still feel a few, meager tears course down his face as a reminder.
The feeble attempt to open his eyelids was enough to send waves of pain crashing through his body, highlighting for him the regions along his torso, arms and shoulders where he had been beaten and torn. He remembered what had happened...
Why was he still alive?
Braving the discomfort it brought upon his sheared skin and inflamed articulations, Darkrai heaved himself into a sitting position, and finally managed to regain his sight... only to see more darkness.
His plume and head had tucked themselves into his protective carapace, of course. Nothing to worry about, he hadn't gone blind, he reassured himself after momentary panic.
Instead of peeking out to check his surroundings, the Moonshadow could not fight off the impulse to surrender himself again to the embrace of the oddly comfortable... thing he was laying on, enjoying the potently bitter aroma which pervaded his scent.
"Hello... are... are you awake...?" A voice called.
His eyes jolted open. His head sprang out from his battlement. The blurriness subsided. He was face-to-face with Leavanny.
The bug flinched, her antennae suddenly straightened and stiffened, while her face went white. As if physically repulsed by his stare, she began to step back — fearfully muttering something incomprehensible throughout — until she bumped into another figure.
Darkrai's bleary and confused vision darted to her right, the sight of Ursaring prompting the wraith to instantly launch himself into the air in a desperate and uncoordinated bid to escape.
"P—Please, don't hurt us!" Leavanny squealed, shrinking away behind the bear, as the terrified Nightmare Weaver was barely able to move before crashing into the ceiling of wherever he was being contained, forcing him to descend and try and escape into the shadows instead.
"Enough with this!" Ursaring caught him by the collar, stopping his attempt to meld into his own silhouette, and drew Darkrai out. "Calm down, or I'll punt you through the bed and into the floor."
Crippled by pain, the Moonshadow obeyed and abandoned the skirmish, the fall onto the bed reigniting his every wound at once.
While laying there and moaning, he got a brief glimpse of Leavanny dashing through a nearby door, slamming it shut behind her.
What had he just gotten himself into?
"He just wanted to visit us! To see what it was that we were doing during the New Moon! I'm quite certain of it!" Espurr cried out, tired from being forced to explain over and over again to Miss Gothitelle — who was less than receptive to such an idea — how Darkrai wasn't the evil monster she thought he was. "He bore no ill intent! Not one smidgen!"
"I can only ask you if you seriously expect me to believe that?" The irritated Gothitelle fumed and crossed her arms.
"This is all so... overwhelming," Gallade sighed and turned to the youngling. "Esp, I have some— no, a lot of reservations towards what you're telling me here..."
A grin spread across Gothitelle's face.
"... however, Gothi, there definitely were a lot of things odd with how it went about fighting us: it didn't actively attack, just blasted us away and then tried to flee, it never used on us the attack it used on Scyther, and, well, obviously... there was the 'mercy' it tried to grant me. We can't just ignore all of these peculiarities."
"What 'peculiarities'? It was poisoned!" She howled. "Of course it would try and flee instead of fighting you! Are you this dense? And, it 'just' blasted you away? You yourself described that Dark Pulse as the strongest attack you had ever endured! Is such a ludicrously high infusion of negative energy in one move not evidence enough as to its true nature? How is it that we're even arguing about this, still and at all?"
"Dark-types can find fuel for their power from a whole host of negative emotions and feelings, not just through inner malevolence," the Guardian responded. "And the question of whether it actually is a malevolent entity is an important one on its own, no matter what we end up doing with the answer..." he paused. "What you don't get is that we can't just kill it without putting this issue to rest. It would be leaving our town's entire history in doubt, no matter if you believe Espurr here or not."
"Plus, Darkrai isn't malevolent at all!" Espurr, pouting at their feet, found an opportunity to rejoin the discussion. "He quite genuinely doesn't want to hurt anyone here!"
"This doesn't mean that I'm going to go along with everything you say, Esp," Gallade remarked. "I'm willing to investigate further, if the Nightmare Weaver wakes up in time and plays along."
"Well, I'm telling you nothing but the truth! He wants to be friendly, but also to not get bullied away from his own home! He even visited me in dream the night after you had a nightmare to ask if you were alright, Gallade," the psychic-type flew up to face him, holding onto his arm. "And he was quite upset about the nightmare he gave you, as well!"
"Espurr dear, you are being manipulated," Gothitelle retorted.
"It would honestly be a relief if that were the case... but that cop-out to this ordeal doesn't stand up. My psychic capabilities aren't the most developed, but if there was any force acting upon her mind, I would be able to detect it, especially if it was the influence of a dark-type," Gallade explained. " Espurr is claiming all of these things — which I recognise are hard to believe, mind you — of her own volition."
Gothitelle shot him a furious glare and went silent for a moment, before straightening her posture and clearing her throat. "Oh, I did not mean that mind-control is at play here," her glance hoovered back down to the furball. "Simply, it has most likely been grooming her into becoming its little Pawniard. With the aim of using her to confuse us in a situation such as this one. Do you get it?"
"No! We're friends!" Espurr pouted. "Remember how I told you that he saved me from Hoothoot when we first met?"
Gothitelle turned to Gallade. "It most likely mauled my dear Hoothoot, plunged her into a nightmare she could not perceive the start nor end of, and then convinced her of these... delusions."
"But... that's... just... not what happened!" She cried to Gothitelle, not even sure of how she was meant to go about making a counter-argument to that! "He's a very kind Pokemon, I swear it!"
"Gothi, I understand the importance of all of this to you, to us, and so you're obviously very invested in getting your way," the tired Guardian huffed. "But do you really have no interest in getting to the bottom of this? At all?"
She gave him another death glare. "The real question is if you really want to let it wake up — to gamble with our lives! — just so you can interrogate it? Whatever we find at 'the bottom of this' doesn't matter: it's only ever done us wrong, only ever made us miserable, and I think that we should put an end to it — no matter if it's conveniently doing it on accident or not — instead of leaving it to hog one of our hospital beds! How does this not make sense to you?"
"It does make sense to me, but there's obviously a complexity to this that you're purposely ignoring."
"I'm not ignoring any complexity," Gothitelle huffed. "I'm just not allowing myself to get mired by it: we have until nightfall to make a decision, everyone is tired, everyone wants to be able to sleep before then, without that thing 'accidentally' trapping us all in deathly terrors because we left it here for some reason!"
"We have time until the Moonshadow wakes up, still, so I should check up on how the others are doing back at the Shelter," Gallade looked to her, and then down to Espurr for a moment. "If they're really on the brink and can't hold on any longer, we'll have to move on and... be done with this."
The Guardian took a left turn at the Public Library and made his way down the Residential Quarter through the barren village.
Everyone had been told to stay inside. The stalls were abandoned, the oil lamps had burnt out, the decorations decayed, but all the same, he could sense the dread and confusion seeping from all of the Pokemon cloistered in Leavanny's Shelter, coming to linger like a miasma throughout the silent town.
Almost at his destination, he couldn't help but slow down and carry his gaze over to the Blightwoods, the black forest sprawled over the hilltops and weighing down on little Haven. Now, though, it was defanged: for once, it had truly been left empty, its lord had been conquered.
... to think that they had spent the night there, and then returned victorious... it did not feel like the glorious triumph he had always fantasised it being, nor did it bring any relief.
Staying awake since the morning of the day before was a torment in and of itself, the ensuing battle had thoroughly exhausted him, but, above all, nothing had drained Gallade more than being faced with this situation. What was he meant to do with the Moonshadow? How was he meant to explain... anything, to everyone else?
That he had arrived at the front of the Shelter meant that he would have a few minutes of respite from pondering these questions, at the very least.
He knocked three times, paused, and then knocked twice more. The coded banging prompted the twisting of the knob from the inside, opening the wooden door and unleashing a flood of shuffling and quiet, worried murmurs.
"No need to be scared, it's me," Gallade reassured, stepping inside the cluttered room to find a mass of fatigued, languid townsfolk sprawled all throughout.
The collection of gazes turned towards the door and their eyes lit up at the sight of the Guardian, freeing them all from the depressing monotony and making everyone get up and hurry over to enthusiastically greet him.
"Gallade! Did everything go well?"
"What happened?"
"Did somebody get hurt?"
"Chief, I'm really not feeling well," Scyther, hunched over, clenching his stomach with one arm and his forehead with the other, was the only exception to this sudden boost of energy. "I still haven't healed from the nightmare last night, I'm feeling sick," his friend cleared his throat. "I don't think I... I can keep awake much longer," he moaned.
That they were having trouble fighting off the urge to sleep was exactly what Gallade didn't want to hear... and, what's more, his lamentations were contagious: the rest of the villagers began to nod along to his complaints, gradually beginning to voice their own.
"I want to go to sleep already!" Honchkrow grumbled.
"I'm quite worn out, too," Ribombee chimed in.
"I'd appreciate some rest, as well," Lampent interjected.
"Gallade, dear, I need my beauty sleep," Oricorio came next.
"Imagine needing to sleep," Honchkrow chuckled from a distance. "Couldn't be me."
"I'm dealing with something right now," Gallade hesitated on what to tell them. "I... won't be telling you any more than that for now, but it'll all be over with soon enough, I promise."
None pressed the issue any further. They were all fairly paranoid, but the village leadership hiding information from the townsfolk was common practice, and not talking about worrying events had been understood as necessary for a long time now: it would make them feel more anxious, and fear made nightmares more likely.
"Just hold steady for a bit long... er..." Gallade's weary eyes jolted open, a chill ran up his spine. A strong sense of panic — of a panic foreign to him — much stronger than that of the rest of the villagers, emanated from the distance. A single, moving point, and one moving towards the Shelter.
He excused himself — everyone understood well enough what his sudden zone out and mumbling meant — and marched outside, immediately coming face to face with an exhausted Leavanny.
"It's awake! It's awake! It's awake!"
Articulating his claws made them blaze with pain, but mutilating the bag of hay serving as a bed was the only thing Darkrai could do while he was left there to seethe.
His pride laid in shambles, he had been thoroughly outdone this night — by an eclectic collection of unfortunate events, of course, but, all the same, he had carelessly let himself succumb to a poisoning on his own territory and then been vanquished by only two Pokemon, when he knew well that he could hold off dozens when in pristine shape!
His refined, calculated threats and tricks had simply been ignored, they had pressed their attack, and now he had ended up their prisoner, and they did not have the intention of letting him live much longer, presumably.
His sight deviated to Ursaring, who glared at him from across the room. Darkrai responded with a glare of his own, but the perturbed face the bear made in return was not one of fear, but rather... disgust.
It hurt, but he had a pre-eminent issue to worry about: getting out of wherever it was that he was being contained. He knew not what they intended to do to him for certain, but indulgence seemed unlikely.
His gaze then slowly shifted to the sole window in the room: to his right, wide enough for him to fit through, there was the glass in the way, obviously, but he could ram it with his spikes... and there was also the bear.
Darkrai could simply plunge Ursaring into a nightmare, it was not as though he would have much room to evade a Dark Void but... 'you promised you would do your best not to hurt us', the words from the Espurr in his nightmares rang back. He'd rather not...
Darkrai turned back to look at the ursid, still uneasily eyeing him. An idea instantly came to mind: all that was necessary was a temporary distraction, and all that he needed to rely on to produce one was his Double Team.
Without warning, Darkrai sent a manifestation of himself lunging towards the bear, who growled and fell backwards, thrashing around on the ground with the cloud of insidious smoke.
The Moonshadow capitalised on the opportunity, lifting into the air and thrusting himself towards the window... only for the outburst of aches all across his body to crush any hope of liberation, deviating instead his trajectory and making him tumble to the ground.
Before the whimpering Nightmare Weaver could make any other move, the door was kicked open and Gallade's blade was suddenly at his neck.
"Get back to the bed," the Guardian scowled. "We've bested you. You are only alive because of our mercy, so I advise that you behave."
Darkrai anxiously gaped at the blade and then heaved his gaze up to Gallade's face, noticing the slight whiff of doubt and fear when their eyes met. All it would take is a touch for the Pokemon menacing him to be out cold. He was in control. He was always in control. He was always safe. He needed to remind himself of that and stay calm.
The green brand loomed closer, forcing the Moonshadow to retreat and shrink away into the cushions, slowly moving his strained limbs towards his chest, his face slightly retracting behind his carapace.
"Please be more gentle with him!" He barely had time to register that it was Espurr's voice that she flew over to him and latched onto his battlements, leaning her face into his. "Poor him, he's all shook!" She remarked and reached for the Soothe Bell stuck to the ribbon on her ear, the chime of which was, admittedly, fairly relaxing to the confused and overwhelmed Darkrai. "Listen to this a little—"
"Espurr, you're not supposed to be here!" And, immediately, his friend was snatched away from him — hissing and struggling to break free — by Gallade.
She was handed over to Leavanny and the saber quickly returned to threatening his neck, while Ursaring and the bug were ushered outside with a motion of the head.
The two gladly complied and hurried out of there with his friend in hand, while the ray of sunshine which penetrated into the room through the temporarily open portal struck Darkrai with sudden horror: it was day break following the New Moon, right after the townsfolk had endured the entirety of the night! They went to sleep early during this period!
"I... I can not... stay here," talking hurt, uttering those few words felt like coughing up parching charcoal, but it was enough to dismantle Gallade's bravado, making him recoil away from the bedside, tense his right arm, and reflexively raise his blade.
This display comforted the Moonshadow, somewhat.
"You will be staying here!" Gallade tried to salvage his act by approaching the blade to his neck, but the trembling of his voice and arms did not go unnoticed. "You are the Moonshadow, are you not?"
He took a second to calculate. It was too late to execute some contrived lie about his identity — Espurr had most likely already revealed it — so Darkrai decided to slowly nod, holding in his breath and eyeing Gallade with invisible dread. The Guardian had no reason to do anything other than try and drive his blade into his gut right then and there.
"Is that what you call yourself, or do you have another name?"
The wraith frowned and pondered this next question for a second as well, but found no reason to lie here, either. He would let them at the very least know his real name, if they were soon to... part ways. "Darkrai."
The Guardian nodded, unexpectedly didn't move to impale him, and a... hard to define emotion — resembling worry? — formed across his face, before the stern look took back control.
What had he said? What had he expected as an answer? The torturous stare lasted on, leaving him unable to tell whether Gallade was having trouble formulating his own thoughts, or if he was on the verge of striking at him after all.
"Darkrai..." he clenched his fist, the stringent tone of his voice reminded Darkrai that it was best to act meek. "For a century now... you've haunted Haven, you've preyed on our townsfolk, on our weakest, on the elderly and the young alike, your nightmares condemning them to torturous deaths far more gruesome than anything they could ever endure while awake... without fail, for a century," by the end of it, the tough act had been wholly undone, and the poor kid sounded like he was on the verge of weeping. "I only have one question to ask you, O Nightmare Weaver: why? Why make us live like this? What did we ever do to deserve this?"
The scorching reminder of the misery he had been inflicting upon the only place he claimed to love... by someone who had been made to endure it all... a moment Darkrai had both dreaded and yearned for, yet, being faced with it now, he broke, he failed to respond, he could only stare at the irritated, tired, and — deep down — scared, kid.
"You are speaking for your life, don't take so long to answer!" The Guardian hissed.
The craving to flee and let this remain unresolved, to let Gallade wither in the Dark Void, was embarrassingly strong. Why had explaining himself been so easy with Espurr, when it was so difficult here?
"The way you're calculating your every word..." Gallade's authority had drained from his voice, he was not enjoying this pseudo-conversation any more than Darkrai was. "It's going to make it very hard for me to trust in anything you say next."
A rare emotion shone through the Moonshadow's almost featureless face: awe. "Trust?" He couldn't help but bleat. His voice still made Gallade shudder, but it also seemed to... relieve him.
The Guardian exhaled. "I genuinely want to understand what is going on. Why you're doing this to us. I'm giving you the benefit of the doubt and am willing to let you explain yourself."
...
There was a chance that something good could come of this. There was hope for him. "Thank you... thank you dearly."
"I can't help but worry for poor Gallade, back there, alone with..." Leavanny mumbled while pacing around the Sanctuary. "I hope he knows what he's doing!"
"He doesn't," Gothitelle fumed.
"I promise he'll be fine!" Espurr chimed in. "Darkrai won't hurt him!"
"This wouldn't be so much of an issue if we had gotten rid of it before it woke up, but none could be bothered to even restrain it, apparently!" Were they seriously expecting it to just act in good faith? Had everyone legitimately gone mad?
"That was Gallade's decision," the bug responded. "He said that it could meld through shadows, so imprisonment or bindings would likely accomplish nothing, and maybe even serve to anger it!"
"So it is a ghost? Gallade made a point to emphasise that I had apparently been wrong about that, and that it was a dark-type, actually."
"He's a dark-type, but with spooky ghost abilities," Espurr explained and then flew over to her caretaker. "And I really, really, really promise that there's nothing to worry about, Darkrai would never hurt Gallade for no reason! It's just that... I told him that we were friends, so I think I should be there for him, especially after everything he just went through! He can be kinda timid. And gets easily overwhelmed and confused! He looked all shaken when I saw him already!"
"Could you please stop calling that thing your friend?" Gothitelle huffed, with Leavanny giving a slight nod.
"But he is my friend! I even happen know that his favourite berries are Wikis and everything!" Espurr exclaimed. "But he sadly has no mouth of his own, so he can only appreciate the scent."
From her — admittedly shallow — studies into botany, Gothitelle could at least deduce that the Moonshadow was likely predisposed towards a certain rashness. It being exceedingly quiet was another possibility. Modesty or a mild nature could be discarded.
But this was all fairly trivial information, and the jovial tone she used when speaking of the Monster of the Woods was unnerving.
She looked back to Espurr, still pleading Leavanny. The poor toddler was being manipulated, evidently, but she could also prove herself useful. "Espurr, did it mention me when you talked to it? On any occasion?"
"Well, if you want me to tell," the furball crossed her arms, rocking back and forth on the table. "You'll have to stop referring to my friend Darkrai as an 'it', that's highly rude!"
Gothitelle pouted and crossed hers in turn. "No, I would much rather not."
"Then I'm quite sorry, Miss Gothitelle, but I would much rather not talk to you at all."
The information she could give was, sadly, most definitely necessary for her and everyone else's survival. "Bah! Fine," Gothitelle huffed. She'd just avoid the issue by referring to it using one of its aliases instead. "Go on and answer my question about the Nightmare Weaver now."
"Well, we did talk about you a lil' bit—"
"Why? In what context?" She had some nerve to be conspiring with it behind her back! This betrayal was deeply upsetting!
"Miss Gothitelle, remember all of the trouble I was the source of before acquiring the Soothe Bell?" She nodded, irked at being walked through another story. None here could keep their answers concise, seemingly. "When I first met Darkrai, I asked him to try and take away my psychic powers, like he had taken yours away, but he refused."
Leavanny flinched and Gothitelle was... befuddled to say the least, but she needed to remain focused. "Uhm... alright... but what did the Moonshadow have to say about me in particular?"
"Miss Gothitelle, he's quite sad about what he did to you. He didn't enjoy doing it one bit! And he says that you have the right to be angry at him," Espurr landed by her feet and began nagging at her dress, prompting her to take a step back from the upset little critter. "But please don't be! He was looking out for you!"
Well, of course she had every right to abhor—
A chill ran up her spine. 'He was looking out for you'. A disgusting thought, no matter what it meant... but what did it mean?
"Uh? I beg your pardon? What does that mean? In what way was it 'looking out for me'?"
"He was the one who told me that you were absent from the festival the previous night, and then told me to go and alert Gallade, in case something had happened to you!"
"Oh my..." the Leavanny muttered, justifiably disturbed by the idea of it slithering around them at night and... 'looking out for them'.
Gothitelle gave a glance to the shelves of her establishment, her sights landed on the peculiar box she had been gifted by Chatot. The very day she had received it, the creature had crawled down from its lair in the woods and into their village, made its way into her home... made its way to those slabs...
Such a naive child...
It had not visited them in good faith, evidently not. To even think such a thing was absurd. Something was amok, something was definitely amok.
...
She needed to put pressure on Gallade. He needed to come to the right decision faster. It was vital.
"An immutable ability, and with a field of effect which varies depending on the mental fortitude of those around you," Gallade attempted to synthesise the entirety of the disjointed monologue the Moonshadow— er, Darkrai had struggled to get off of his chest. It gave him something to say, without having to offer anything of substance in return, at least. "Have I got that right?"
The wraith's eyes glimmered and he frantically nodded, seemingly inflicting pain on his neck.
He had his reservations... but it— him being a hazardous, defective Pokemon, rather than a malicious entity, lined up unfortunately well with the oddities of the encounter in the forest... and with what Espurr had told him...
What a dumb kid, what was she thinking when she accepted to talk to it, to him, the first time? And then she had gone on to chat with him again? Gallade was having trouble stomaching being in Darkrai's presence while he was lying limp in a hospital bed!
"Gallade, I hold no expectations for forgiveness," he continued, almost... on the verge of sobbing? "But you must understand that I loath all that I have done to you. There has not been one death which I did not pass countless nights mourning... I'm sorry... to all of you..." the Moonshadow sank into the cover and cushions.
"So you... are invested in avoiding tragedies caused by it?" Gallade would avoid the question of 'forgiveness' for now. He wasn't certain whether he had the right to grant it, even.
"Yes! Yes my... most of my life has revolved around it," Darkrai sighed.
The Guardian looked at him, with... cautious sympathy. The actual story of the monstrous 'Shadow over Haven' seemed only to reinforce the image it gave while battered and scorched: the Moonshadow was just pathetic.
"Then, I have to ask you why you remain here?" Better to stick to his mental list of questions than humour his whining, though. "You're aware of the troubles you cause us."
Darkrai stared at him for an uncomfortably long while. Gallade stared back, making an effort to erase any signs of anger from his expression. The conversation — though hard to bear — was going well enough, there was no need to poke the Nightmare Weaver with unnecessary gruffness.
"This place... is home," it eventually managed to stammer. "I cause pain wherever I go, yet this was the only place ingenious enough to adapt and stubborn enough to not be undone due to me," another awkward pause. "I've been here since before you were born, since before Haven was even a few Murkrow nests, Ariados dens and Gourgeist setts around a shoddy firepit..."
The psychic-type crossed his arms and went mute. His dazed glance shifted to the ground, then to the window, then back to Darkrai, then veered to the ground again. Gallade was confused, Gallade was overwhelmed, neither of them seemed to be enjoying this conversation, but it was a necessary one.
The Moonshadow came before them... he didn't know whether to trust that.
They had always believed the opposite: that it had come to haunt them, whether because it had been summoned there, because it was a punishment for the infractions of some long-forgotten villager, or any other version of those stories...
All he knew was that, maybe, just maybe, he had overstayed his welcome.
"Darkrai," He finally spoke up, making the Moonshadow tense up. "Why did you come here tonight?" It was best to move on.
Darkrai's eyes widened suddenly enough to startle the Guardian in turn.
"Respond faster," Gallade found the courage to press on. No time to fabricate anything, he'd need to simply tell the truth.
"I wanted the Orb."
Gallade raised an eyebrow. "The Life Orb, you mean? So you're aware of what it does?"
"It is I who told Espurr," Gallade was quick to realise that his surprise was irrational. Of course that was why she knew...
"Why did you want it?"
The Moonshadow, once again, gaped ahead at him for a few seconds before responding, planning his next sentences, but he didn't have the will to be pushy with him anymore.
"Gallade... even if I do... even if I wish none of you any harm, that sentiment has never been... reciprocated," he awkwardly stammered. "I am... quite sorry for what happened... for what I did to your comrade the night before. I had no intention to leaving him to... well, he startled me... and... I..." Darkrai mumbled and then went silent again. "Is Scyther well?"
It took Gallade a moment to make out just what it was that he was even talking about. "He's fine, though a bit—" he stopped himself from elaborating further. It would be a dangerous mistake to reveal information about the health of the village's protectors to the Nightmare Weaver.
"And Ursaring?"
"Ursaring, as you probably saw, is in top shape," the bear was tired, but there was no need for him to know that.
The Nightmare Weaver went mute, but the Guardian could anticipate his next question. "Gall—"
"I'm fine as well," he assured. "You... weren't really fighting back," the remark was a quasi-question.
Darkrai blinked — quickly glancing to his side, almost as if he was... ashamed? — and then slowly nodded.
"I... did not believe it justified to maim you when the blunder was mine. I thought that you pursuing the fight would have ended with much different results, and yet..."
He was over-confident, as one would expect him to be after a century of virtually unopposed domination of the region... but it did signal that he was at the very least willing to maim them or worse...
Another point on his list came to mind. "An important member of our village disappeared fairly recently."
Darkrai's eyes jolted open again.
"He was a Hoothoot, his name was also Hoothoot. Do you know what happened to him? Or did you... happen to him?"
Another long silence ensued. This time, at least, it was a justified one: Gallade had already been told of the owl's ill intent and, having been in the bird's presence multiple times before, Hoothoot's maliciousness hadn't gone unnoticed, either, even if it seemed milder than it actually was.
Darkrai, though, had every right to calculate whether it was prudent or believable to give his heroic side of the story.
"I am unaware of his whereabouts, but I did not do anything to him."
Gallade faked a glare of vexation, he knew that not to be true, and he wanted the Nightmare Weaver to know as well. "I understand why it is that you're lying, and so I'm giving you a second chance: what did you do to him?"
"He tried to hurt her, I stepped in to help," the Moonshadow relented. "I know that it sounds implausi—"
"And that's how you two met," he took the liberty to cut him off. "Is Hoothoot...?"
"I made him flee."
"If that's a second lie, I'm giving you another chance."
"I made him flee," Darkrai's tone of voice rose, sending a chill up Gallade's spine.
He'd accept the answer.
"There's also the disappearances of Drifblim and Chat—"
"I genuinely do not know."
"If that's another lie—"
"It isn't," the Nightmare Weaver responded with practically a growl, making Gallade tense up and go silent...
... before he was forced to divert his attention away from him and towards the dozen of presences he could now sense coalescing outside of the hospital doors.
That confirmation was all he needed to conclude this arduous interrogation, anyhow, so, rather than continue the back-and-forth, or segway into another topic of discussion, Gallade nodded and marched over to the door, all while keeping his eyes locked on Darkrai.
"I need to go now, I'll return later," he explained to the docile creature. "For the time being, I trust you not to try and leave here... please."
The Guardian stepped outside, after the most soul-crushing conversation he had ever had to endure — without meeting Ursaring, who was meant to be in the hallway — and was faced with exactly what he feared: almost the entirety of the village, amassed into a crowd outside of the hospital.
"Who got hurt?"
"Who's being healed?"
"Chief, what's going on?"
Thank you for everyone following along thus far! If anyone's interested, the stor(y)/(ies) on Ao3 has/have commentary provided on every chapter:
/works/32933815/chapters/81736012