At the first sight of the morning's rays of sunshine slowly beginning to creep their way into his room, Scyther, eyeing it ravenously, felt a joy which would have seeped into his expression, were he not as pessimistic as he currently was, were all of his muscles not aching at that point, and were he not tormented by a thousand other thoughts and fears.
Still, even as he managed his expectations of what was to come, the bug eagerly watched as — finally, finally — the comforting light slithered down the frame of his window, and towards the foot of his bed, banishing the untrustworthy shadows deeper and deeper beneath the furniture.
Salvation, he couldn't keep himself from feeling it to be that, even though — rationally — he knew not how it would save him.
Once the glimmer of dawn came to graze the strands of straw on the very edge of his hay bed, Scyther dared to dislodge his talons from the wooden beam he had spent the night clutching, and dropped down onto it. Immediately, the motion of his fall reminded him that it was not only fear he would have to contend with, but, much worse, his growing tiredness: the room spun, his stomach churned, his head in his arms and his eyes covered, his entire being was quaking and wanted to let go, to fall into the pile of hay, and not rise for the foreseeable future.
But, by sheathing his eyes in darkness like that, he unwittingly reminded himself of the true stakes: he needed to be careful and alert, wide awake, or he would die.
To remain stable, he planted one of his sickles into the wall, and the claws of his legs firmly gripped the straws he was standing on, or the floor itself, when some of them reached it. Slowly, he allowed himself to see again, and moved to scan his surroundings, with mistrusting glances being thrown at the remainders of the obscurity under the table or behind the storage box, and every other lingering shade still blighting his home.
There was nothing.
Half a night spent with eyes wide open, monitoring, panicking at the slightest movement — whether real, or just some random swirls in the fog outside — doing the same at the meekest of sounds, which was, for the most part, only the wailing of the wind through the village.
Monotonous and dreary, but with dread banishing all boredom. Dread, dread, dreadful, dread gripping him all throughout the night, with but one, equally terrible sensation threatening its dominion, yet serving to reinforce it at the same time: he was tired, supremely tired, increasingly tired, and perhaps that tiredness was what had kept the monster of the dark waiting, at bay. Waiting for the limits of his own body to betray him, for him to fall into a deep slumber, and be within the reach of its own claws once more.
Dawn or not, he needed to keep himself awake.
At multiple occasions and in spite of the blackness prowling the peripheries of his dear bed, Scyther had flown down to the floor and quickly appropriated for himself some of the chesto berries in the bowl right besides the straw pile.
It had been enough so to keep the bug up, at least until he was mentally ready for his next expedition down to there. With the light now slowly overtaking his chamber, though, he could simply — but still cautiously, for fear of the demons perhaps lurking in the hidden spots of his home... and of his weakened legs letting go, and leaving him to crash against the ground or furniture — make his way over to it, with his scythes long enough for him to not even need to grip the container at all, but impale one of its contents, and—
His claw only scraped the wood for a moment, before he decided to instead take and pull it towards him. A stare deep into the shallow holder revealed the worst: there was nothing to see, it was empty.
He had emptied it! He had forgotten that he had emptied it almost an hour ago now! How was that even possible? It was always meant to have at least enough berries to get someone through the night, and ever since his first nightmare, he had done well to keep double that quantity! He even clearly remember his meeting with Honchkrow to negotiate that! How had he depleted it this fast? No one was even awake yet!
The sudden despair served to remind him of just how heavily his eyelids were beginning to weigh. How languid and weak he felt all over.
There was a berry bush just outside his window, was there not?
He would need to reach outside, would he not?
...
He could outspeed Darkrai, theoretically speaking, he ought to be able to, Gothitelle had told him that the Moonshadow was likely not supernaturally fast enough to outpace a Quick Attack... even though he had been told that it had used Quick Attack during the fight with Gallade itself. So, he could strike it first... if he was the first to strike, and then hit it with X-Scissor when it was down?
Or use Fury Cutter?
Wait, no, he'd use X-Scissor if he got the first move... Fury Cutter if he got caught by the Nightmare Weaver again, it would mince its claws!
Or maybe Bug Buzz, in a situation where he moved first and was far away enough... which was unlikely, still.
Or should he use Air Slash for that? He could try and poison Darkrai with Toxic again...
Or maybe he should just use Quick Attack to escape at first sight...
Speaking of first, however, the task at hand wasn't to fight the monster, but rather to build up the courage to get off the bed.
He couldn't help but gawk at the ground, his hay pile was only a foot ascendant over it... but it was darker, it had patches of shadow here and there, surrounding it, he would be at the mercy of the shade under the table, closer to the somber corners flanking the window from where the light came. Any one of those could be Darkrai, a long hand would reach for him, a motion could break his head off from his body, and then a tug would suffice to split his abdomen from his thorax, his wings could simply be plucked off as well. It would be very easy to make Scyther suffer atrociously...
Step one was timid, he really didn't want to abandon the high ground.
The second was by far even more pathetic, but compensated for by the conjuring of an X-Scissor, its energy lounging at the tip of his sickle, itching to be freed upon a hostile target at the first occasion.
The third came with a restrained swipe upwards, as the insect suddenly realised that he had forgotten to verify the ceiling for threats; there were none.
And so on and so on, until the grueling journey was done with, yet quickly came to be missed, as an even more perilous task presented itself soon after: he would need to reach outside, the berry bush and its pot were beyond the safety of the fine, fragile glass of his room's window.
The insect grimaced. He needed to breathe in. He was trembling. He was shaking. He... looked to the roads, those slivers of the roads he could see from just outside his residence: they were empty.
...
Everyone else was asleep.
The Nightmare Weaver wouldn't risk it, right? He wouldn't blow his cover by going there, when everyone was asleep, just to get him, right? When everyone was asleep, so long as everyone was asleep... Scyther was safe... so long as everyone was asleep, Darkrai could not come to him, to the town... physically. He needed those chesto berries to stay awake, or else he would meet him elsewhere.
There was nothing outside, of course, of course. He would simply reach for the door, get the berries and—
Three knocks on the wood followed each other.
... and Scyther zoomed back to his perch on the ceiling, clutching the wooden beam.
Was it over for him?
Was he done for?
Was this how it all ended?
Was... why would Darkrai knock?
Three more knocks. Louder.
It wouldn't be Darkrai... the Murkrow wanted him to wake up, was what was happening! It had come time for them all to wake up... he needed to alert everyone to what had happened! And to do it before the wraith got to them!
While his sudden realisation did translate into action, said action was not at all as abrupt: the bug first took a second to observe the potency of his X-Scissor summoned in one hand, after which he slowly reached for and turned the handle of his front door, peering out at the Residential Quarter's street, bracing himself to be attacked by the usual storm of pecking and tackling and shrieking of the birds, only to see and feel... nothing? No one?
A shiver ran up his spine. It was very quiet... there had been a knock, but there was no one to be seen, but it was very quiet... and the berry bush, it was right there, right on the outside of the window, right next to him, he'd only need to take a step and—
He hurriedly swiped at one of its branches, aiming to skewer a fruit, but instead sliced it clean off. His salvation fell to the ground, Scyther silently went on to curse himself, before trying to grab it again, this time with wings outstretched, ready to make up for these seconds lost with a rapid escape back into his home.
Another failure: he could not capture the damn thing because... it flew back up to him instead?
Scyther froze up, only then realising the magenta glow it was emitting, and only then noticing the other such glow, to his right, just out of the corner of his eye: two, magenta eyes gazed up at him in turn, illuminating their still twilit surroundings.
Espurr smiled and waved at Scyther's feet, making him take a step back from momentary befuddlement, but it was luckily not from fright, nor the need to save himself from an oncoming attack.
It was just Espurr... for some reason.
"Uhh... Espurr?" Confused, he didn't have the clarity of mind to not take the fruit being handed to him. Why was she—?
He bit down on the berry, and its waking juices were quick to deal their effects, he came to a realisation: she was Darkrai's acolyte! She was there as a harbinger of his coming demise! She was the Lampent before the Dusknoir! She—
"Good morning... indeed, Mr. Scyther!" The loud well wishes cut through the silence of the otherwise mute village. Some details in her tone of voice — those that showed that she was clearly worried about something — served to distract him from his wild speculations, and his attention thus shifted down to her not-fully-honest smile.
"Ah, right, yeah," the X-Scissor he had kept hovering above his head now vanished, and he instead used his claw to rub the back of his neck. "Good morning to you too, Esp," he looked around again, this time not out of any sentiment of looming dread... but because he realised that he hadn't registered anything at all the first few times he had anxiously scoured the streets. There was nothing and no one, luckily, not Darkrai... nothing... no one... something was missing, come to think of it. "... Why are you up so early? Shouldn't you be in bed, still? Is... is something the matter?"
"I was woken up to talk to you!"
To talk to him? How come-?
After that torpidity-induced tangent came to a close, the true urgency of the current situation struck him again like a Hyper Beam. "Espurr, you have got to trust every word of what I'm about to tell you!" The anxiety was overtaking the tiredness once more, and it made it so he couldn't stave off the need to scream out his request, as he knelt down besides her.
"Oh?" She tilted her head, slightly shuddering from his exclamations right into her ear.
"Darkrai tricked you, me, Gallade, all of us!" He told her. Her expression soured. "Espurr, he came to attack me in dream! He wanted to condemn me to that pit again! He said so himself, you have got to believe me! We need to wake everyone up — and Gallade above all — to figure out what to do, immediately!"
"Please, stop," Espurr zoomed up to him, holding onto his face, and making her bell chime by rubbing it against his horn. "Calm yourself," the sound was nice, but how disorienting sudden motions still were for him would mostly be what would actually make him stop.
She let go of his head, preferring to levitate right by him instead.
"Weeeeeell, don't fastly get too mad," she tapped her stubby little hands together. "But Darkrai actually planned to wipe your memory right after the bad dream-?
"WHAT?"
"But wait just a moment!" Espurr cautioned right before clutching her now sore ears, and making her Soothe Bell chime for a second time. Two deep breaths, and she had fully recuperated from that abrupt spook. "He wanted to do it just because he didn't want you to be too anxious when you woke up, he was going to tell you everything right after!"
"WHY DID HE ATTACK ME TO BEGIN WITH?"
"He-! He-!" In her irritation, Espurr did not notice her psychic powers begin to agitate, the dust on the ground rise to swirl in the air, the leaves shake, the stone tiles clamour, the wooden planks of the house begin to shriek, as they slowly came to bend outwards. She did not notice, but it did not escape the ever nervous Scyther's attention.
"Alright, alright, alright, you be the one to calm down and I'll do it as well! Please!" He reached for the bell, all while making certain to remain within her line of sight. The surge of energy that she made flood through him, stretching back his wings in spite of his best efforts, made the bug brace for the worst, but it quickly subsided.
"But he just wanted to know what had happened to you, that's why he was searching for information in your dream, in case it could possibly get much worse, which he made sure to stress was quite the possible... possibility!" Whining but no longer on the brink of an outburst, she jumped up onto his shoulder, making Scyther unexpectedly tense. "I'm quite sorry that you got frightened, but he's trying to be as helpful as he can be, and sometimes goofs, like right now. He said that he was sorry, as well, but all of you are too worried to let him be useful, even when he's shown that he's quite the docile fellow!"
"If he was quite the good fellow, he could've asked!" This was absurd! He couldn't even moderate his tone anymore!
"He just wanted it done with quickly to be able to come back and talk with me, though... but I concede that it was a bad idea, I really did!" She added, once his fuming expression made clear that he did not at all approve of her excuse. "As did he, you should know! He's been stressed and stressed again, he admits that he tends to make bad decisions often!"
"What do you mean 'bad decisions'? It was an actively evil thing to do to me!"
She began jumping and shaking her arms out of frustration. "He's promised that he'll come and say sorry to you in person later, so there's that!"
He shuddered. "Ah... n-no need to, actually. You're... right, I forgive him. No need for that, no-"
There was a distant shuffling, just around the corner of the street. Dread gripped the bug's throat, while Espurr's ear shot up to better listen, confirming for him that there had, indeed, been a noise.
There was another shuffle, and a deafening shriek, before a band of disorganised Murkrow collided into Scyther. He did well to keep himself from his first instinct — to slash at them — but the birds did not keep themselves from poking and jabbing their beaks into his carapace and stabbing at his wings and face, all while chanting 'finally someone, finally someone'.
"GET AWAY FROM ME!" He jumped into the air once he had reached his boiling point, unleashing a Gust upon the avians and ejecting them backwards, into the ground or walls. "What's wrong with you?"
"There's a problem! Come quick! Come quick!" A new chant replaced the old, the duo shared suddenly worried glances.
"Where, what's happened?"
"The Sanctuary! The Sanctuary! The Sanctuary! Come quick! Come quick!"
And on he went, flowing through the open fields, ignoring those abandoned villages he passed by, or whose silhouettes he just barely noticed in the distance, on the horizon. He had witnessed one, the first one, in detail: everything had been ransacked, there was no one left, there were thousands of remains, bones and flesh, he had no reason to assume that the others would be different, or milder in any way whatsoever...
Since then, he had kept to the tracks in the mud, to the row of disturbed and cut grass of the plains, leading to the depths of the growth, hoping to find her that way.
This unfolding of Leavanny's nightmare may as well have been one of his own. He, too, all too often, dreamt of the townsfolk of Haven being gone, in both senses of the word, having departed without his noticing, or departed due to one of his mistakes condemning them all in one, fell outbreak.
This was made all the worse by knowing that harm coming to them from some source other than himself was now possible — whatever was causing the distortions around Haven — yet he could not infer anything yet as to what its source was, nor could he hope to help them, if they were not on good terms.
This world was grim, but these happenings within her Dream Realm were being eclipsed from his mind by other worries, for the one time where he could fully concentrate on something outside the bothersome simulacra along the way: contingencies, contingencies, contingencies. He needed more contingencies than he could count, but just enough of them for him to be able to commit them all to memory!
He had ruined the matter, potentially, probably for good, through what he had done to Scyther! All of his best efforts for the past half month now laid in shambles! The matter wholly ruined, yes, in shambles, sundered, derelict! Scyther would cry abut having been apparently, obviously attacked to the village...
His mind couldn't help but wander, and the most terrible aspect of that wasn't that he became lost in thought, but that the solution which came to mind immediately was one he knew all too well, and which he had come to ponder time after time throughout the night: what he had done was so utterly, blatantly hostile that he might come to need to shift his method, and turn to threatening them to stay in line.
By Arceus, would that be the contingency? Frightening them into submission, for fear that they in all likelihood would now retaliate?
The wraith had to rise into the air, further from the field, so as to avoid being slowed down by suddenly sprouting trees: the nightmare was twisting itself to offer him a way to relieve his seething anger, to mangle those trunks. This, too, was a mistake he made all too often: he detested defacing his Blightwoods but, sometimes, in his fits of frustration, he could not keep himself from doing so, and tended to take out his frustration on the forest. Not now, however.
That was one option, a large-scale operation he believed himself capable of putting into practice, in theory.
His once fine understanding of the behaviour of others had perhaps eroded, along with his equally elegant skill in maneuver, deception and manipulation, but the wraith saw quite a few paths which could open to him, were he willing to remind them that they stood no chance and exerted no true sway over him: he had helped them — some were grateful, some were not — he had lived in total reclusion and abandon for them a land he had called his own before any other, he possessed certain key allies, and any authority Gallade held over him was comprehensively based on Darkrai's consenting to it, likewise for the village's rules and wishes... and he terrified them.
On a purely factual basis, the wraith absolutely could arrive in Haven, declare that he would remain for so long as he wished, that he would guard them from any of the supernatural developments around their home — as he had already done with the Murkrow and Scyther! — but that, in exchange, he would not accept accusations, and all attacks on his person would be responded to with force!
He had examined in detail his other worriments relating to it, as well. Chief amongst them being his spontaneous reactions, and he did not mean in verbal exchanges, but physical... disputes.
Responding to his thoughts, the Dream Realm shifted its form, cloning him, and making rise from the ground a legion of Pokemon meant to represent the village, whether they were actual villagers or not. One of them, its motion making it fall apart into a formless thing, struck. He reciprocated by blocking the attack.
Shadow Claw could well parry most melee moves...
It retreated, breaking down into a fine sludge, and absorbing the rest of the illusions into a jittery shape, much larger this time. It ascended to loom over him, its frenzied appendages ignoring his attempts to parry, and thrusted him through the black fabric of the nightmare.
... other than those of Ursaring...
The cloud flashed with the image of an ursid, and lunged forward, only for him to disrupt its onslaught.
... though a Sucker Punch could adequately defuse the threat of the bear...
The darkness that was not himself restructured itself, its body encircling him and, then, with a singular convulsion, sprang towards Darkrai from all sides at once. A wave of energy of his own dissipated the deluge back into droplets.
... a mild enough Dark Pulse was a decent response to crowds of... enemies. It had proven its usefulness against the double onslaught of Gallade and Ursaring during the night where he had been knocked out...
It tried again, he tore it apart again.
... this applied to Ominous Wind, as well, they both would allow for him to clear any concentrated assaul—
It took a different approach, one which immediately proved potent: an arm from the amalgamation extended towards him... and then molded itself into Espurr, Morgrem, Mawile, all of them at once, or shifting from one to the other with no consistency whatsoever, except that it would impose itself between him and the rest of the mass, letting it prepare its next move, with him not daring to attack.
He...
He did not dare to attack, but could only watch in horror as his hand rose of its own volition, his fingers positioned themselves against his will, and summoned an orb that ended the creature for him, the energy it liberated swallowing the arena — and then the fields — whole into a black void.
Left in nothingness, given an opportunity to compose himself, he reflected on what had just happened with a certain degree of anxiousness. That had been a Dark Void... it could be counted on... if need be, but he'd rather utilise Hypnosis, if any slumber-inducing move at all... most of his tactics relied on there being no infants or first stage evolutions in its ranks, at which point he would exclusively rely on Quick Attacks to escape, and then recalibrate his tactics...
How to counteract that...? Could he maybe use Shadow Sneak to make weaker targets vacate the area, by restraining or distracting them with shades? Double Team would, of course, aid with those and much more... it was tied with Haze as the most useful of his moves for responses to a mob, actually, and might need to be his primary way of responding to one.
This had felt odd, as well, he rarely lost control like that... though perhaps having more reactive reflexes was in his interests... it had felt as though he had no control throughout, actually. Did events not unfolded before he had even thought of them? Did he not first attack and get attacked, and only then think about his response and... respond?
...
There was a buzzing that pervaded the background of the void. There oughtn't have been one.
Darkrai turned, and the sight of a grand structure came to dwarf him. Nothing nightmarish, not this time: above the reborn fields hovered a congregation of iridescent globes, each one resembling the moon in the sky, in size and beauty...
Pulsing purple and magenta. Swirling around each other...
Bound by vast rings of light, and columns which extended into the nothingness...
It possessed a malign suggestiveness innate to all things within the Dream Realm, but with tenfold the seeping power other entities there would exhibit...
It was marvelous... but it still came to dwarf him, dwarf him in all senses of the word. That the illusions which were conjured and which he was the one to conjure were larger than him was often the case, but that they filled him with this... terrible awe, that they made him feel this stupour, vulnerability, weakness within his own realm, was not.
Suddenly, he became free from those considerations: as he dragged his sights through the oceanic darkness, they crossed paths with those of Leavanny, behind him, floating. He had undone her dream wholly, and now there was no place for her to be dissimulated.
He approached her, she did not flinch. Darkrai took notice of this, and then of the fact that he had wasted much time with the degeneration of his thoughts. He needed to act and help her understand the situation and - being prepared for this occasion, wishing for this to be done with quickly - Darkrai implanted in her mind and with the flicker of the eye the memory of a long conversation between them both, where he told her all there was to know about his brief misstep with Scyther, and how he had come to respond to it.
As she processed this, the default landscape for his conversations, the Blightwoods, was called into being, supplanting the abyss.
"I see, I see," her demeanor abruptly changed. "I will say: well done on taking this initiative... and not any other, or none at all," Leavanny's remark was scarcely comprehensible to him at first, but Darkrai barely cared at this rate. He was just thankful that this seemed to slowly be resolving itself, and that this course of action had been recommended to him well enough for him to have been convinced of it. "Talking to me about it was a very good first step, so don't worry. I promise to have this all well sorted out for you in the morning."
Espurr would approach Scyther, and her conversation with him would serve to dull most of the fervour in his standing that Darkrai was malevolent, while Leavanny's following explanation to the village at large would come to pacify them enough for the situation to not be dire upon his arrival.
It was a fairly astute plan, it was frustrating that he hadn't been the one to formulate it. "I am fairly certain that... with your evidently surprised reaction in the face of this 'initiative' of mine, as you call it, that you have surmised this to be more of an idea of Espurr's, rather than my own," he couldn't help but be honest to her in this case. There he had been, considering whether to terrorise them into submission, where her simple appeal to diplomacy seemed to be working out quite very well. "I would have been..." no, he would not say 'embarrassed', that was infantile. "I would have been far too wary of causing any more issues to have come to you of my own accord."
"Ah, well... I'm certain that we would have heard you out, even if you arrived in the flesh and after Scyther's explanation," how reasonable of a contingency plan that would have been... "Again, I'll defuse this situation, dear, it should be fine for you to come by and visit this morning, as usual, and then we can talk this all out. Mawile wants to get to talk with you a bit again, as well, so don't leave her hanging!"
"I... thank you dearly," he bowed, the process of the dream's fabric swallowing him had already begun. "I shall make my leave, remember that Espurr awoke earlier than you, so do make sure that she isn't feeling too tired in the morning."
"See you in the morning! And don't worry, alright?"
He nodded, and the last of him was extracted from her subconscious, only to re-emerge from the shadows in his forest's clearing. There, he dropped to the ground, onto the mildly comfortable patch of grass.
There were other ways of going about this all, if Leavanny's aid did not pan out, right? His initial scheme had always been the most effective backup plan in his mind, but one he had started off reluctant to commit to, even to think through to its end... with this disinclination becoming all the more pronounced as time passed, and he got to truly become acquainted with the villagers...
If they judged him to be a menace against their well-being once more, he could attempt a tactical retreat. That was an option, as well: leaving behind the memories of this first, failed escapade as a foundation for another attempt down the line, perhaps... in a generation or two, the story would have turned into somewhat of a legend, only a vague memory of the Nightmare Weaver having once arrived in Haven proper, and... having acted unexpectedly cordial, he would like to think, and their descendants would be more partial to him to begin with.
However... he would be abandoning Espurr, abandoning Miss Leavanny, abandoning his nascent amicable relationship with Gallade, with Ursaring, the hints of one with Mothim, with Lampent, with Pumpkaboo...
... he could not walk back on such progress, but he could not force them to accept him, right? During these moons, they had all been far more welcoming than they had any obligation to be towards him. That they were perhaps willing to warm up to their demon on their own volition was one thing, but Darkrai imposing himself in the middle of their village, with the expectation that they ought to treat him as if his existence had been anything but an infernal scourge for so long... would be vile.
Either way... that was not a line of questioning for now — he loathed how often he needed to leave such vital decisions to the last moment — as he had another object in need of his attention right then and there: the Dream Realm, both the place most likely to provide leads for his investigation of the spatio-temporal anomalies... and where he believed he had already, recently, witnessed such evidence.
But did he have time even for that?
Soon after, he sensed whether they were close to waking yet; the answer was 'no'. Odd, for this morning was definitely seeming brighter than those during which he would already be at the village, by that point.
...
The sun no longer hid behind the horizon, neither wholly nor in part, his eyes had been accustomed to the brightness, the morning fog had thinned, and, yet... there was still no smoke rising from their chimneys in the distance and, indeed, he sensed that the villagers themselves had not risen at all.
None were awake.
They should have been awake by that point.
His eyes darted back to the sun, frantically searched for any hints of fog — there should have been mist at the very start of the morning, when they arose, even in the shallow clearing he was located in — and then the ground, leaves, branches, analysing how illuminated they all were. His diagnostic ought to have been right: they were meant to wake up early, the time during which they slept was not so warm and bright.
They should be awake! He... he... the wraith had a contingency for this case, he had elaborated one even prior to his visit to the village, and that he now had access to an audience with Gallade only made it much easier: no need to bombard the warden with glimpses of withering townsfolk, and vague allusions to a creeping threat, he could simply tell the lad that they had an issue—
No. There was no need for it any longer, there came to him a clear sense that Gallade had been freed from the Dream Realm.
Following the thud of Gallade's landing upon the pavement — as had been the case for a long while before it already, since his impromptu waking — there was only deafening silence throughout the village. One by one, waves of his psychic powers felt their way through the numerous alleyways growing out from the Town's Heart.
The streets were increasingly lit up, the sun warmed the ground, but the quietude persisted, the dreadful feeling of fear and worry and just miserableness emanating from... somewhere, persisted. He would have thought that his wards had vanished but, no, so far, in their homes, in their warm beds of hay, were just about all of the villagers he ought to have sensed so far. All except one, there was someone awake, in distress, somewhere.
Once the guardian jumped over to the tap by the Haven Lounge, however, and he thought to use his telekinesis to dampen his face with a bit of water, the evident conclusion and then the most pertinent question came to him, finally: it was nigh time that everyone got up for the day, but they hadn't done so, because none had been there to wake them.
Where were the Murkrow? Why were they not in their nests? Had they been offended somehow...? There were... more possibilities as to why they wouldn't be around... but he'd stick to the most hopeful.
With rising concern, Gallade retreated to the rooftops with a singular jump, looking down onto the layout of his home, attempting to elaborate a plan of action. Darkrai would be arriving soon, they had faced a similar situation before but, now, this could be a disaster the likes of which they had never dealt with, and maybe could not even deal with at all. He had to keep calm, and act decisively.
Right then, another spike in strong emotion caught his attention. Not his own, but that of...
Espurr and Scyther.
From roof to roof, Gallade closed in on the source of the terrible sensation, crossing entire streets and eventually even buildings with unique lunges before, finally, he joined the ground again at the foot of the source: the Sanctuary... which he quickly penetrated into.
As warden, Gallade had done his best to train himself so as to not show panic in public during emergencies, but the immediate scene — all over the floor, layered beneath the mess of their very own, scattered feathers, were more Murkrow than the room could hold — made him first gasp, and then almost gag, once he fully understood what he had walked into.
His eyes darted left to right in frantic disbelief — Haven's entire flock, out cold, immobile, not even twitching — until his eyes crossed those of Scyther, Espurr, and the rare sight of awake Murkrow. "What... what happened here?"
"I can... I can explain—" Scyther exclaimed, but quickly cut himself off with a headshake. "No! I can't explain! But it wasn't us!"
Espurr nodded in response, the accidental chime of her bell helped Gallade feel a hint of serenity, just enough to break free from his paralysis and react. "I know!"
The guardian ran over from bird to bird, putting his hand on their chests to test whether they were inhaling and exhaling, all while every moment spent staring at their night-black plumes accelerated his own breathing, as he drew ever closer to the realisation that dark-types could not be helped.
"Espurr, don't stand around, use Dream-" and right then, it dawned on him.
The warden stepped back, clenching his fists. From the terrible nightmares they could now be suffering, to the thought of losing them all at once, to what the village would become without its winged helpers, a reel of horrors ran through his mind, capturing him in a cycle of panic, gaping at the scene over and over — his movements frantic and pointless — until it all became too much, and snapping finally freed the guardian from his quagmire of dismay.
"Dream Eater won't work on them," he turned to the other pychic-type first. "Espurr, I need you to go and wake Leavanny up for me, have her bring chesto berries, any leftover elixirs against sleep, everything that she still has lying around, and then have Mawile and Morgrem act to get everyone else up immediately as well. I know that you tend to get easily panicky, but we need to-"
"I'm managing just fine, don't worry!" She rose into the air, a determined look on her face. "After the spooky nightmares that I've been having every night before talking with Darkrai, I think I've become quite better at keeping myself composed!"
"Well- ah, alright, go quick, then. We've all overslept, massively," and off she went, speeding past the doorway and outside. Meanwhile, Gallade again turned to the insect. "Scyther, you're going to have to use Bug Buzz to try and wake them up."
"Wha- that'll hurt everyone here!"
"They're flying and dark-types, and I'll endure it," Gallade declared, shortly before clasping his own ears and and stepping towards the doorway.
Scyther reluctantly nodded, and rose into the air as well. His wings stretched out, and Gallade soon discovered that his hands were not enough to keep out the ear-piercing screech... but Scyther was quick to end the attack, and the Murkrow had still not awoken.
"Nothing," the warden commented, his voice and shrivelled expression betraying a rising frustration.
"What... what is happening..." someone who they had wholly forgotten about, but who had been awakened, however, was Gothitelle, clutching her ears and head. Her eyes lazily wandered the room, until falling upon the mass of sleeping bodies shocked her wide awake. Gothitelle stared with stupour, before dragging her gaping sights towards Gallade. "What did you let him do? Did I not warn that this would happen? Did I not warn that we were on a timer, from the very moment you decided that Darkrai wouldn't be killed, but allowed to fester further?"
"Did you see him do this to them?"
Gothitelle froze, her expression swallowed by deep thought. The seconds that went by told Gallade that she hadn't, and made her realise that she had missed her chance.
"Nevermind," he skipped through the clean areas between the pile of birds, sometimes using his Psychic to lift himself up and cross the last stretch to her, placing his hand onto Gothitelle's shoulder. "I need you to begin getting them off the ground and somewhere more comfortable, Scyther and the birds not asleep can help in waking everyone else up, I'll check in on Espurr and Leavanny, try and get whatever we'll need here faster."
Three knocks. Nothing.
"Espurr, Leavanny, could you both get a move on with it? Please!" Gallade cried at the front of the Haven Shelter. "We weren't able to wake the Murkrow up, we need to agree on a plan here and quickly!" He waited. Nothing. No... there was no response, but there was something: whiffs of someone's distress, and of suffering. "Alright, this has me worried, I'm coming in!"
With a gesture of the hand, his Psychic twisted the handle of the door — it was of course unlocked, and even open, he needn't have turned it at all — and the warden stepped inside, his senses immediately guiding him up to Leavanny' chamber. Gallade turned the corner, and was met with a similarly terrible scene as the last: Espurr levitating over Leavanny, sheathing her caretaker with the magenta flow of Dream Eater, while Leavanny laid in bed, twitching and turning, an unbearable grimace stretched across her face.
"GET HER UP!" He ordered — as if she wasn't in the middle of trying to do so — and then ran over to Leavanny, his heart racing, shaking her as hard as he could without smacking Espurr away while doing it. "LEAVANNY, PLEASE."
Then, it got worse. The entire village, everything around him, flared with the same, painful terror.
This was the catastrophe.
They were all suffering, every one of them, everyone had been touched by the plague, his senses were overwhelmed, bombarded by the sudden misery of the entire town, it was over, they couldn't—
"Gall," something reached out to grab his hand, wrapping itself around it. It was Leavanny. Her eyes opened, staring up at him. She rubbed them and then her forehead.
Without warning, the warden reached for Espurr once more, hugging her tight. "YOU DID IT, YOU DID IT!" She reciprocated the enthusiastic embrace, while Leavanny slowly rose into a sitting position.
"I... thank you for the help, dear," the bug moved her weakened limb to pat the kitten in turn as well.
The anguish lashed him again, he got back up, rushing towards the door. "We can't just sit around here! We're having a generalised outbreak, I— I— I can feel it! We need to act—"
Abruptly, the bug's eyes widened, she had remembered something, too. "Gallade, calm yourself," she recommended, while his mind felt like it was getting fried. "It was actually Darkrai who woke me up. He approached me twice, we'll speak about the first later, but for now he says not to panic, as he just came to tell me to wake up. He says that we overslept, but he's in the process of waking everyone up. He'll be with us shortly."