Divide City learned how to lie to itself very quickly.
By midday, streets were open again. Shopfronts replaced shattered glass with temporary barriers etched in neutral sigils. Rangers stood on corners not to block people, but to reassure them — smiles tight, hands always near their belts.
If anyone asked, the answer was the same:
A weather anomaly.A psychic flare.A rare Legendary migration event.
Cyrus heard the excuses as he walked.
He didn't believe a single one.
The first thing Cyrus did was not chase rumors.
Rumors panicked.
Patterns persisted.
He sat in a quiet corner of the Axis Atrium café, holo open, cross-referencing three data streams at once:
• Emergency response logs• Civilian sighting reports• Pokémon behavior anomalies
Ditto sat beside his cup, shaped like a little wedge that leaned whenever a data point matched.
Thumbs up.
Thumbs down.
Occasionally a slow, thoughtful wobble.
Gengar hovered upside-down above the table, eyes scanning reflections in the glass more than the room itself.
"…Gar."
"I know," Cyrus murmured. "They're not loud."
Hoopa lounged invisibly in the space above them, voice drifting down like a nursery rhyme hummed too close to your ear.
"They're tidy~."
Cyrus paused. "What does that mean?"
Hoopa spun once, rings chiming softly.
"No chanting in the streets~. No symbols left behind~. No big scary messages~."
"…That's bad," Cyrus said.
Hoopa giggled. "Very~."
The cult didn't want attention.
They wanted movement.
So after thinking about everything Cyrus changed tactics.
Instead of asking what people saw, he asked where they felt wrong after the events.
He spoke to rangers.
To medics.
To café owners who stayed open late.
The answers varied — but the directions didn't.
• Near boundary crossings• Along older streets beneath newer infrastructure• Close to places people avoided without remembering why
Cyrus marked each location.
A shape emerged.
Not a circle.
Not a line.
A spiral — slow, deliberate, tightening toward the dark half of the city.
Gengar's grin faded as he noticed it too.
"…Gar."
"Yeah," Cyrus said softly. "You feel it."
Hoopa drifted lower, voice quieter now.
"They're walking the old paths~."
Cyrus looked up. "Old?"
"From before the city split~."
That earned a slow exhale.
"Of course they are."
The historian from the council had mentioned it almost as an afterthought:
"There's an older archive beneath the main library. Mostly ceremonial records. You're welcome to access it… if you can stand the stairs."
Cyrus could.
The lower archive smelled like dust and old incense. No modern lighting — only embedded glow-crystals that responded faintly to movement.
Scrolls.
Stone tablets.
Pressed-leaf manuscripts.
History that predated Divide City as a name.
Ditto slid along the shelves, occasionally forming a finger to point when something caught its attention.
Thumbs up.
Cyrus pulled the tablet free.
It depicted two figures in the sky.
One dark, wreathed in shadow.
One luminous, crescent-winged, standing between dream and dawn.
Darkrai.
Cresselia.
Below them, the city was whole.
No dividing line.
No opposing biomes.
Balance.
The text beneath was simple.
When the Dreamer sleeps and the Warden wakes, the night grows teeth.
Cyrus swallowed.
"They didn't worship Darkrai alone," he said.
Hoopa appeared fully this time, sitting cross-legged atop a table, chin in his hands.
"Nope~."
"They worshipped the imbalance," Cyrus continued. "They believe darkness is truth."
Hoopa's smile thinned.
"And truth without balance hurts~."
Cyrus nodded. "So they took Cresselia."
Silence stretched.
Then Hoopa hummed softly. "Clever little mortals~."
4. First Thread Pulled
The break came at dusk.
A ranger report flagged Cyrus's comm:
Civilian disturbance — lower boundary sector. No visible Pokémon involved. Residents reporting "pressure" and shared dream imagery.
Cyrus was already moving.
The alley was narrow, old stone half-swallowed by creeping dark vines. Red-yellow glow pulsed faintly along the walls like a slow heartbeat.
Three people stood frozen in place.
Not asleep.
Not unconscious.
Dreaming with their eyes open.
Gengar slipped forward, shadow merging with shadow.
"…Gar."
"I know," Cyrus whispered. "No Darkrai."
Hoopa floated above the alley, unusually quiet.
Cyrus knelt beside one of the civilians and placed two fingers against their temple.
A whisper slipped out of the man's mouth.
"—the night is almost ready—"
Cyrus pulled back sharply.
That wasn't Darkrai's voice.
It was human.
A symbol was scratched faintly into the stone behind them — not glowing, not obvious. Almost like it was meant to fade.
A broken star.
Cyrus stood slowly.
"They were here," he said.
Hoopa nodded once.
"And now they want you to follow~."
Cyrus looked deeper into the alley, where the spiral tightened toward darkness.
A choice.
He straightened his jacket.
"Then let's not disappoint them."
Ditto shifted into a firm thumbs-up.
Gengar grinned again — sharp, eager.
Above the city, night settled in.
And somewhere within it, Darkness felt a thread pull taut.