My wish is...

[Independent PMD Darkrai blog] [sidebar image is by purplekecleon] Status: Healthy and peppy Rules Headcanons Mun

[hosannasofanguish-deactivated20]

It wouldn’t take long to find out just what was so threatening about a suit. At granny’s words, the boy bites his lip and nods jerkily before scampering off to fetch the clothing item. He fumbles to get it on, the nasty smelling thing. Once he’s done, he returns to the woman, who takes him by the arm and pulls him back outside.

The two are en route to the aviary. A big, run-down building with a sizable hole in the roof. The child gives no physical resistance, but his dread grows as they near the place. His stomach is practically doing flip-flops, in and out of the dream - quickly on its way to turning into a nightmare.

There’s naught but a whimper as he’s almost carelessly pushed inside. Young Jonathan pushes up against the door, pleads for the woman to let him out please please please no it wasn’t my fault - “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to, please - !”

She’s gone.  The door’s blocked and she’s gone. The boy turns, his head tilting up towards the sky, towards that hole.

[notmisunderstood]

Darkrai leans sideways, almost as if he's balancing on one elbow, if still not actually touching the ground. The old human's gone, and with it the antagonist of this nightmare - while he's sure something else is going to show up, and he does know that the anticipation of something causes more fear than the actual thing, usually, he's not all that patient. He wants to know what's coming too. 

What, is there going to be a huge rush of Zubats from up there or something? He's pretty sure he's heard that humans used to get scared of those, for some reason. Fluttering in the dark or something? Or their teeth, maybe? Stupid either way.

Still draining the man's - boy's? - man's mental misery, Darkrai absently looks around the room - perking up when he remembers that somewhere down below, in that lab thing from earlier, there'll probably be some chemicals lying about. Maybe he'll dump some on Crane before he leaves, see how he likes being poisoned. Or whatever that was. 

He leans down and sticks his head through the floor curiously, checking if he's right above that room or not -

[hosannasofanguish-deactivated20]

There’s a twitch from the sleeping body, perhaps an echo of what’s happening within his mind.  The boy has opened the door and meekly shuffled inside.  Every little shadow within the place is sharp and menacing.  The place looks like a home, but it most certainly had an undercurrent of danger.

A low, submissive tone, calling out to a shadowy figure off in the kitchen, “G-granny, I’m sorry I’m late, I didn’t mean to be… but give me a minute and I’ll get right to my work, I promise, okay?”

The figure stops its motions.  It looked as if it was preparing food, but now it halts and makes its way towards the boy. As it does, the shadows grow in sharpness and menace.  The figure itself appears to be a reasonably aged woman, perhaps somewhere in her sixties. She is thin and angular, much like the grown Jonathan that Darkrai has seen already. In the dream, she looms over the boy, her eyes narrowed as if to burn a hole into him.

“Now, Jonathan. I’ve told you a thousand times that punctuality is important - or were you hoping to avoid your work?  Force a frail old woman like me to do everything myself?”

Young Crane’s head bows shamefully and shakes horizontally. He already sounds like he just might cry. “No, granny.”

Granny frowns. Her thin lips press into a tight line. Her glaring eyes seem to burn with an underlying hatred. “Don’t lie to me, boy. Put on your-“

No no no no please-

“-suit. We will do this until you learn your lesson.”

[notmisunderstood]

Darkrai watches with curiosity as a figure resolves itself out of the background of the dream - another important character. Finally. His shoulders slump slightly when the silhouette melts away to show another human, but an old one. Old humans are supposed to be all pathetic and weak, aren't they? 

This man has the most boring nightmares already. Seriously. Disappointing, considering what he'd managed to do -

Oh. Ohhh. Nevermind whatever the actual goings-on in the dream are, that sudden burst of deepening despair? Now that tasted nice. Darkrai settles back again, resolving to save his complaints until after he sees the whole thing. You never know, it could be like one of those movies that start off boring and end up getting good round the climax...

...what's so threatening about a suit anyway?

[hosannasofanguish-deactivated20]

Laughing.  Tch.  Choosing not to comment, Crane - Scarecrow instead curls fingers around whatever he’s managed to reach, slowly, slowly pulling it back. Feels like a syringe, though he wouldn’t know which one of the remaining it is.  He doesn’t bother to explain that he thought he might have been hallucinating.  It does happen, sometimes.

“Ha. Yes, well. I would have been happier if you’d been able to tell me what you were seeing-“

Okay that came as a total surprise move move move. Such a small bit of space between the two, no time for anything else except stumbling back a bit over his own long legs and bump against the table. Something envelops him, disperses, and there’s a quiet little clink as the object he was holding rolls out of his hand and onto the floor, the rest of his body following suit and going limp - slumping, falling sideways…

—-

There’s a little boy; small, thin, strangely long limbs for his age, red hair. The environment in which he stands - what appears to be empty, dry farmland, situated next to a mansion. The kid stands on the road facing the large building, practically shivering despite the heat. It’s hot, as it so often is in this town. The boy seems nervous, even though there’s nothing else there except for himself. Head lowered, one arm rubbing at the other.  He’s late. He was supposed to be here about twenty minutes ago, so as to get to his chores, but on the way home he’d been accosted by those boys, and… no use dwelling on it now.  He’ll have to face the music sooner or later.

With cautious steps, the boy approaches the big house with a sense of dread.

[notmisunderstood]

Darkrai can't help but let out another snicker as the tall human collapses sideways, hitting the floor. Well, for all his bravado, that was anticlimactic...

He floats slowly out of the ceiling, righting himself to continue the rest of the way down and balance just above the floor. Before turning his attention towards the human, he reaches out to grab the syringe, carefully keeping the pointy end away from himself. He peers at it, then tucks it away for later - if this is the same thing that made him hallucinate - even if he only figured it out later - he wants to see if he can find out anything more about it.

Then he turns to human, creeping up on him with claws upraised and standing there for long seconds before collapsing into giggles. Okay, no. No, he had his fun earlier, he should stop fooling around. He's hungry now anyway.

He reaches out to start draining Crane's imaginings, half-visible globules of glow being absorbed by his hand being held just above the man's head. Darkrai seems to almost frown at the first echo of the dream he sees - young? Young ones don't have dreams nearly as serious as adults usually - it feels more horrible to them, because they're small, but the actual... well, this is still an adult human he's draining, so nevermind. 

Who knows, this might be interesting anyway. He settles back to watch, snacking simultaneously.

[hosannasofanguish-deactivated20]

There’s alarm, arms shooting up to protect his face, but that’s only natural. You’d probably react that way too if your shadow grew claws and suddenly started making awful noises at you.  

A flash of red and white.  What could that have - wait.

The man doesn’t have to put much effort into looking up at that… shadow, being quite tall, but now there was something familiar about it.  Didn’t he see something a while back that liked to jump around in darkness like that?

It hits him, and his eyes narrow.  Not taking his eyes off of the shade, Crane reaches a hand back for the case, slowly, looking for something.

“Ahh, I thought something about you seemed familiar. What is it, back for more medicine?” Hopefully the filters muffling his voice would also make that horrible accent somewhat less prominent…

[notmisunderstood]

Darkrai drops the fake shape at being recognized, the shadow forming into his own, and doubles over laughing momentarily. He pushes his head - just his head - out of the ceiling, upside down, claws reaching up to where his ears would be to taunt Crane again - then seems to remember he doesn't have a tongue normally, darting back into flatness to blow another raspberry before finally emerging a last time. Still upside down and just his head, but he doesn't seem to mind.

"It took you far too long to figure out, I'm disappointed in you, human. I thought you were better than that!"

"In all seriousness, though..." his single eye narrows, and he cuts off the mirth. Okay, he's done fooling around, even if that was fun and he should do it more often. "I'm here for a little payback. Thought you should know ahead of time, might comfort you a little bit to know that you managed to get me angry enough to merit it. You should feel honoured."

And with that he plunges those claws out to throw a blob of expanding purple energy at Crane. If it hits him, he'll be thrown into a nightmare of his own mind's creation.

[hosannasofanguish-deactivated20]

Now that was just silly.  Feeling much more confident with the mask on, the lanky man slowly leans down, as if to get a closer look at the shadow. That probably wouldn’t do much good, but the antidote only ever took a few seconds to start working, so this… shouldn’t be happening…

For the moment, curiosity overrides any possible fear or nervousness.  That may or may not be bolstered by the fact that he thinks this should all be wearing off in a second or two.

[notmisunderstood]

The shadow looks back at him, pondering...

Then suddenly leaps out with an inhuman shriek, claws reaching for Crane's face. Darkrai darts straight through into the ceiling now, hoping he's moving too fast for Crane to recognize so that he'll still be able to have some more fun, but there is a flash of red and white when he pops out, since this still isn't one of his artificial nightmares. 

Either way, he forms right back into Crane's shadow up there, looking straight down to gauge reactions.

[queenofmorolianspiders]

Ah; he didn’t seem to care that his fellow Pokemon had been ensnared and chained before. She of course omitted the part where their sales had been attributed to her account at the time, since it seemed of little import. Selfishness, she noted as well, since he didn’t seem very outraged, but rather… gleeful that the others had been corrupted, or presumed so anyways. She had gotten the sense that the creatures of that world, or the sentient ones anyways, had a bit more care about their own kind.

Oh well.

“The ignorant would call him a deity for existing so as an entity made of nightmares. But nightmares are what give him strength. I doubt that you would be able to rid yourself of this competition without finding that holy grail.” She kept out that he had been defeated before, not necessarily “killed”, since killed would imply that he died and should not have come back. Rather, she’d enjoy seeing him learn that on his own. Or hearing about it, actually. She would not bring herself near to Nightmare anymore if she could help it. Not while she had the kid to be concerned about.

[notmisunderstood]

To be fair, he was gleeful because those two at least, Palkia and Dialga, he didn't like much at the moment. It was unfair to dislike someone who'd caught you in your manipulations, perhaps, but he didn't care, just sniggering to himself mentally. For other Pokemon - well, he'd still be indifferent, true, no more worried than what he needed for 'what if this can be done to me as well,' but he wouldn't be actively happy.

Called a deity  hmm? Another similarity to Darkrai, that. Even more fascinating.

"If that's all, I think I'll go see for myself now if he'll actually be any competition. Over in the cosmos, eh? Someone like that shouldn't be hard to pick out, 's pretty empty out there, most places." He hovered for a second longer, then began to sink into the floor with an almost cheery wave. "Look forward to doing business with you again in the future!"

[queenofmorolianspiders]

She shrugs. “He is an entity made from such beings, and the name befits him. He has a rather hideous look, eyes hidden behind what looks like shades, or so one can presume, and a chin that is far from flattering on any being imaginable. He can corrupt various things, and cause corruption through these objects. His only known weakness is an item called the ‘Star Rod’, though what it does or its whereabouts I know not. That is as much as I know that will be of value to you.” She doubted that his hideous art or cooking skills were of note, or that he ran a corporation selling…

“Ah, no; I did forget one thing. He has had Pokemon in his stock before; corrupted them, I presume, for all creatures that pass through his hold have been corrupted. I recall the sales of two that were listed as dragons of time, space, and antimatter, as well as a few felines. The memorization of species of Pokemon or his stock was not in my interest at the time, but I feel that the information might be of interest to you, even if I have not heard of him dealing with Pokemon anymore.”

[notmisunderstood]

"Made from nightmares?" Darkrai absently wonders if that means he can eat this Nightmare. That would be hilarious. He claps his hands together and rubs them, once more grinning without a mouth. "I'll have to test that." And maybe check up on this Star Rod too, though he's not too worried. He'd have heard of it at some point before now. Could've forgotten what with his limited memory, but for something dangerous he usually leaves himself notes.

"Oh. Really, now. Those sound like Palkia, Dialga, and Giratina themselves..." he muses aloud, not really caring about her overhearing. Dragons of time and space? As if they'd be anyone else. That, in contrast, should be easy to find out more about even if he said nothing. And felines... could just be the little ones like Meowth, but at this rate... "I'll need to ask about that when I visit." Probably before seeing if he can drain Nightmare - he doesn't think questions would be favourably looked upon after.

[queenofmorolianspiders]

She smiles at him. “Nightmare; his name is Nightmare. He resides somewhere in the cosmos, beyond the atmosphere of your planets. He has the ability to give nightmares with anything he desires. Share more of yours, and I will give you more.”

How unfortunate that she hadn’t been reading up on Nightmare before this encounter. 

[notmisunderstood]

"Just 'Nightmare'? Well, that's not boring in the least. Please tell me he didn't choose that title for himself. I'm going to be massively embarrassed for all of bad-dream-creating-kind." Darkrai lifts one claw up over his visible eye in feigned horror momentarily.

"The Rock Horn is - well, a horn, duh. About this size -" He holds his claws apart to demonstrate - "and red and gray. Plays this absolutely horrendous noise. And loud." He shudders. "Rock Pokemon seem to like, it though. Almost hypnotic to them. It won't brainwash any that hate you already if you play it, but it'll make neutral ones more inclined to be friendly, and ones that already have a good opinion about you will be willing to do practically anything. That's about it, really. I almost don't see what the big deal is, but then again I don't know of anything that can hypnotize my type. I gather the Rock types gathered together and asked Giratina to protect it for them. No idea why he agreed." 

[queenofmorolianspiders]

“I can think of several offers, but your current form does not seem to suggest that mine would be plausible,” she tells the being of nightmares. 

There’s a pause.  She’s considering telling him about Purge, but, if he needs nightmares, then it concerns her that he might get the wrong one. And the less amount of people who know about the kid, the better.

“Perhaps you may enjoy information of another being who may fight you for nightmares?”

[notmisunderstood]

Darkrai perks up slightly. Now that does sound interesting. If he has competition he wants to know about it, and if he can use this competition instead... "Deal."

"It's called the Rock Horn. Tell me about this other being and I'll tell you why it's a treasure." That'll cut off any arguing about either of them reneging on information ahead of time, and if she does go back on it and leave with just the name, he's pretty sure she won't be able to find out about it too easily. It'll be at least as difficult as him finding this other being without more information.

[queenofmorolianspiders]

Oh great. Another being that feeds on Nightmares.

“I’m afraid I don’t have any,” she said; and for the most part it was true. And for the most part, she didn’t have nightmares in the sense that they kept her up at night and made her fearful of things. She had some, occasionally, but never to the extent of being a bother. “You’ll die of starvation before you can dine on them.”

And casually she wonders if this would be an alternative Nightmare, but for the universe that breeds the creatures called Pokemon.

[notmisunderstood]

"Everyone has nightmares. 'Guess there's a few people who don't have as many, or not as bad, or as detailed, or whatever other criteria you can think of, but everyone has nightmares if they dream at all." Darkrai shrugged. "Oh, well, if you say so. I'll have to think of something else, then. Anything you can suggest?"

[queenofmorolianspiders]

That nickname actually gets a good, genuine laugh out of her. It’s short, but it’s real and not malicious. “He hardly seemed anything but fussy, but I do adore the nickname.” She made a note to use that the next time she saw him.

“I figured as much. What would you consider to be of valuable worth then~?”

[notmisunderstood]

Darkrai's eye flickers slightly, startled by the momentary change and laughter, but he recovers without showing much other emotion, that aura of grinning back about him.

"Oh, now that's a good question. I'm afraid I don't know enough about this little corner of the universe to ask for information in return that I know I'd be interested in. Perhaps you'd let me drain your nightmares for a bit instead, Human?" Not that he needs permission, but it's so much easier when they go along willingly. And if it's a natural nightmare, not one he focuses on building, it'll likely show him this person's weaknesses. Just for further reference.

[hosannasofanguish-deactivated20]

He’s retreating.  That meant whatever he saw Crane as, it was terrifying.  Now if only it’d tell him what it was!  Frustrating-

Snapped out of his thoughts once again as Darkrai surged forward and shoots… something at him.  For a moment he freezes, until he sees where the thing is being aimed.  Off to the side so it misses him by a mile.  Hmm.  Crane would have to proceed cautiously, here.  That panicked noise when it turns and attacks the wall is quite nice, though-

Oh.  It’s fleeing now.  Good.  Crane will follow- gingerly, because God, his side still hurt, but just to make sure the thing really leaves.  It can rampage all around Gotham for all the Scarecrow cares, he just wants it out of his hideout.  Interest and curiosity be damned, he did not want it damaging any of his delicate equipment, or his chemicals, or the hideout itself.

[notmisunderstood]

Palkia is stomping after him now, slowly, as if nursing a wound, but Darkrai knows that isn't right, even if his second dark pulse hit it'd have done little more than delay against a Legendary which actually practiced battling skills. No, Palkia is trying to torment him, that's what it is, laughing at his attempt to flee -

And where's Cresselia?

- no, no forget that, what he needs is to distract Palkia again - Darkrai's shadow jumps out of the ground, reforming for a moment to fling a scattered series of dark orbs back at 'Palkia' - and then he dives back in and actually flickers away this time, warping to a different shadow.

(Somehow, the both of them still follow.)

[mischiefmakingmuses]

I have a few. And you?

[notmisunderstood]

"Oh, well, you know. Pitch-Black Pokemon, going around causing nightmares... not that many friends in this career." Darkrai shrugs. "I manage, though."

[queenofmorolianspiders]

She shrugs at the suggestion about the names. “He’s come out of there before; he’s had to a few times.” Like when he wanted to show her Vari, the Joltik. “Though I am curious— what ‘treasure’ do you speak of?

“Oh, but you could, and I’d do nothing but smile~” Which she did right now— it didn’t exactly give off an unthreatening feeling.

[notmisunderstood]

"Pff, of course he comes out when he has to. And only then. Ol' Fussy Pincers. Or whatever his claw things are, never really figured 'em out..."

Darkrai wags one claw back and forth. "Nah, not telling you that. Not unless I get something equally interesting in return. And I'm sorry to say your name won't quite cut it, Human."

[mischiefmakingmuses]

I don’t think the multiverse would be able to handle more than one of me. Well, too many of me…I guess. It gets lonely though. I don’t have any family and I don’t know where I come from. That being one of the reasons; I’ve been through time and space so often, precise location has sort of become lost on me. I have a home dimension, but I can’t remember if I was…born there, I guess I can say. It’s my own creation.

[notmisunderstood]

Darkrai - Darkrai honestly couldn't care less about this Ekoro's life story. But the time and space traveling? Could be very useful now that Palkia and Dialga figured out what he was up to and won't cooperate anymore. If he can get Ekoro to help him... So he reaches out and pats Ekoro as sympathetically as he can fake.

"That's... that's sad for you. No family... do you at least have a friend or two? It's not as lonely with one."

[mischiefmakingmuses]

Spider bitch, very hard to miss. And the world is huge. You’d be surprised what you’d find~

*becomes a bit quiet, fearing he’d sound ridiculous*

I’ve even found myself…

*remembers he’s supposed to introduce himself*

Right, right, right, my name is Ekoro. I travel time and space to my whimsy~ It’s not too hard to think there’s other Darkrai out there when you can go anytime anywhere whenever you please.

[notmisunderstood]

"Yeah, alright." He'll figure out who it is later, doesn't want to seem stupid by asking over and over.

"...ohh? Travel time and space, you say?" Darkrai leans forward slightly, tapping claws together. "Now that sounds useful. I lost my methods of time traveling a little while back."

"...never saw another of me, though. I'm unique. Besides, I think Cresselia would be hiding on her little island already, quivering, if there were more than one of me."

[queenofmorolianspiders]

“No more than the next hume~” she teased. 

She notes with inner pleasure at the stiffness that mentioning Giratina caused in the Darkrai. Perhaps she ought to pay the grey-skinned one another visit.  ”Yes; we’re acquainted a little bit. Though he didn’t call it the World Abyss when I spoke with him— but I might have ran into him in some place he calls the Distortion World. No treasures to be found.”

[notmisunderstood]

"Heh. Should've guessed, then." Though it's actually stupid to make generalizations, he's just humouring her. No matter how much he'd like to believe in this one. The last human didn't change its mind even when he offered it something that would've had almost any other creature begging at his feet. Even when he convinced it its partner had joined him --

"World Abyss, Distortion World, whatever. Can you blame me for not keeping track if all he's doing is staying in there and switching up names to stave off boredom every few centuries?" Darkrai waves one clawed hand dismissively. "Not really much of a treasure either, to be honest."

"Anyway, so what'm I supposed to call you? Can't go around saying human or whatever you are every time."