October 15th, First Year
Dusknoir was careful not to be seen as he hid in the shadows of the house's outcrop, his singular eye tracking through the window onto his target. The young girl. The one with the shiny black hair standing alongside the boy. Dusknoir approached ever closer, melting through the wall until he knew he was viewing the both of them from the long shadows stretching in the upper right corner of the room.
There they are. Dusknoir watched as the two small humans paced about the shoddy room, the girl constantly reaching into a packed bag to pull out what looked to be an odd map. The boy appeared to be just as agitated, combing a hand through his sullied golden hair as beside him, a small Snorunt rooted through his belongings.
"Do you even know how to get there, Akari?"
"Not really. I just didn't want Ingo to be worried about me," Akari admitted, pausing in her harried ministrations. Her voice quieted. "Things have gotten a lot more difficult and if I'm being completely honest Yuki- and I know it sounds bad considering that Ingo is doing most of the work- I feel like I need to leave the coastlands for a little while."
Dusknoir felt his blood turn to ice when he sighted something stir within Akari's shadow; something slender and small, so inexplicably unnoticeable by the untrained eye that if Dusknoir hadn't been watching Akari like he had been for some time yet, he would've barely noticed the creature at all nor the icy blue pinprick of light that gave away its owner. Dusknoir's shoulders hunched forward, and he balled his hands into fists, preparing to swoop downward. There you are… Darkrai.
Yuki paced across the room once more, breaking Darkrai's visage in the young girl's shadow. "I understand Akari. I mean, I never would've thought stuff like this could happen a year ago! I barely even understood pokémon a year ago. But…"
"…Here we are?"
"Y-yeah. Well, at least you have a map."
"Yeah, it shouldn't be that hard to find the place. The Coronet Highlands are northwest of here, but the easiest way would be to- "
"Follow the coast. Dangerous, don't you think? Walking near water the whole way there?"
Dusknoir allowed the humans' conversation to drift away from him, not too concerned about them nor what they were agitated about. He instead reached into the firmament of the house's shadows, trying but ultimately failing to pick up Darkrai's soul trail. When he sensed nothing, Dusknoir shook his head and pulled his hands back out from the shadows, instead choosing to busy himself with sorting the items within his treasure bag as he waited for the two humans to leave the relative safety of their stone-and-wood dwelling.
It had been a rinse and repeat cycle for such a long time now. Ever since Dusknoir had arrived at the new dimension Lord Dialga had sent him to, chasing Darkrai always led to him having a migraine and Darkrai always mysteriously managing to slip away. Completely on his own, Dusknoir wished more than ever that he had simply stuck around in the future and let the hundreds of thousands of pokémon he had wronged take their pounds of flesh. Grovyle. Celebi. His henchmen, the Sableye, and the hundreds of thousands of angry pokémon who he had indirectly both saved and cursed. He wouldn't be all on his own if he had changed and had told his teammates the truth about where he was going. He missed both of their company now more than ever.
Dusknoir had been sent to this dimension solely to find two people; one of which he felt nothing but wrath for and the other… well, the other person made Dusknoir queasy wondering of what their reaction would be and the many ways he himself would get hurt bearing himself for them see.
Darkrai was a wanted felon who had attempted to cast both Dusknoir's dimension and his human enemy's in never-ending darkness. Or at least, that was what Dialga had told him the last time the great legendary pokémon had spoken telepathically to him. Darkrai had allegedly been the reason why Dusknoir's world had always been so bleak. A world with no warming sun shone or where a blowing breeze ruffled the grass. Where water stagnated and food scarcely grew. Where darkness thrived. Pokémon fell into nightmares in droves- twisting and shaking and screaming- and sometimes, they never awoke again. Pokémon fought over scraps of food and fresh water- commodities that had grown exceedingly rare despite the lack of time passing. Paranoia, greed and despair ruled overall. And Dusknoir had been furious upon hearing that sickening truth. That a single pokémon- a legendary pokémon- had been the cause of his and many others' sufferings; especially when he himself had prolonged the suffering of his own world by acting upon delusions of self-preservation when another winter's cold without strong life forces to feed off of would've forced him to fade away.
The other person Dusknoir had gone to collect was a human who had once helped thwart his own plans in the past. Who had once worked alongside Grovyle to find a solution to their dark world and had gone to save it and all of the pokémon from the future. As a human-turned-pokémon, the human had helped restore the balance of time and bring light and life back to Dusknoir's world as well as stop the same thing from happening to their own in the distant past.
They had never gotten along. It had started as a petty dislike but had grown into something more sinister and deceitful on Dusknoir's end that he knew the scorch marks and tooth marks littering his body had been more than deserved. Dusknoir hadn't forgotten the human's fury nor their partner's when he had revealed his true intentions and seeing as how they had all parted on a sour note, he had no wish to restart that feud. He had learned his lesson and had vowed to become a changed pokémon and scheme for good- not evil nor for his own selfish desires. Dusknoir had been sent to collect that human solely and 'bury the hatchet' so to speak, though he couldn't find himself believing for even a moment that the human wouldn't attack him on sight if they were to meet again.
Dusknoir had been allowed to revisit the past in order to find the human, still allowed to remain as a pokémon with their dutiful partner. He remembered the way the town- Treasure Town- was alive with life at all hours of the day when he had visited the quaint town during its prime. The way the waters of the cape would sparkle in the sunlight and how welcoming and warm the townsfolks were. And though he couldn't allow himself to be seen- Dusknoir was still a criminal in that past- the town he had once grown to know and enjoy had become a shell of its former self.
Numerous shops were closed. Parts of the cliff the town sat on had collapsed onto itself. The old café that Dusknoir used to pick up leads at had been boarded up and the occupants long gone. Even the guild located near the town- the most powerful guild on the continent, Wigglytuff's Guild- had been in tatters as if some horrible storm had ripped through everything and had chased away the people. The few people Dusknoir knew- the secretary bird, Chatot, and the two sentry guards hidden beneath the earth- an evolved Loudred and Diglett- all bore cruel injuries and an even crueler dullness that shone in their eyes.
And when Dusknoir had searched the guild- to find the human and presumably their partner- he had found nothing. Nothing but a wanted poster with the human's pokémon likeliness stamped in bold ink offering a ludicrous bounty on claims of numerous accounts of treason. No amount of listening around gave Dusknoir any clues as to what had truly happened. No amount of wandering about the world searching in the human's old haunts gave him any clue as to where they nor their partner had disappeared off to. The only thing he had picked up on was that legendary pokémon no longer roamed the world, many of them being said to have been slain or to have run away from the continent entirely. Dusknoir hadn't been able to contact even Dialga at that time, a notion that terrified him.
In Hisui, the place Dusknoir had been sent to, Dusknoir so clearly felt the human's soul pull at him. Scald him even. But not their partner. Never their partner. And he delayed finding them. Dialga had told Dusknoir that his mission would be over once he successfully turned Darkrai over and once he managed to clear the human's name and free them of their bounty in their world. Dialga had also mentioned to Dusknoir that the human had been pursuing Darkrai as well. That Darkrai had managed to trick not only the human but also Palkia and Cresselia who had been in attendance to put a stop to Darkrai's plans. Cresselia had tried to erase Darkrai's memories to neutralize him and Palkia had opened a rift within the space dimension. All to placate the legendary pokémon. All to save the same tragedy from repeating itself twice. Both had failed. Darkrai had indeed been sent somewhere else- somewhere far from both his and the human's dimension- somewhere far from justified persecution- but with Darkrai's memories still fully intact.
And now, it was Dusknoir's plan to make amends for his selfish behavior in the past. Darkrai was hanging around the young girl- Akari- for some strange reason and now that he had his lead, Dusknoir wouldn't let go. Even if it meant ignoring the human, the one person who most likely had the missing pieces of the puzzle that neither him nor Dialga knew of. The one person who would sooner kill him than give him a moment's breath to ask a simple question.
Dusknoir had no skin or body to feel any pain, but a horrible nagging tendril of dread weighed heavy upon his shoulders, worsened by the sound of a fresh storm rolling toward the coast. He could sense the matted clusters of human souls malingering at the bottom of the ocean, trapped until further notice. He had also sensed the overarching hostility that grew from the land like seeds. So, he flexed his hands and blended into Akari's shadow, flinching as a flash of lightning illuminated the world around him.
Darkrai must come first. And then… then I will come for you, wretched fool. He scowled. Grovyle would be furious if he knew his beloved partner was here without him… But I will bring them back to Dialga. If not for his sake than for that of Treasure Town. He glanced at the far horizon, the waves making his head feel light. Soon.