(Hoopa POV)
Hoopa was not born.
Hoopa arrived.
That distinction mattered.
Arrival implied intention. Birth implied accident. And Hoopa had never been an accident—not even the first time he laughed and tore a hole in the sky just to see what would fall out.
Back then, the world was loud.
Not noisy—loud. Reality shouted its rules, screamed its borders, rattled its chains. Hoopa found it rude. So Hoopa bent them. Folded them. Slipped rings through places rings were not supposed to go.
It was very funny.
Gods noticed quickly.
Some were angry. Some were afraid. Some were curious enough to pretend they weren't either.
They tried names first. Djinn. Trickster. Calamity. Relic. None of them fit. Names were boxes, and Hoopa did not enjoy boxes unless he could leave them from the inside.
So they tried bargains.
"You may travel," they said, "but not rule."
"You may steal," they said, "but not keep."
"You may watch," they said, "but not interfere."
Hoopa agreed.
Hoopa always agreed.
Agreements were just games that took longer.
Time passed. Or maybe it didn't. Hoopa stopped counting after the first few civilizations burned themselves out trying to worship the wrong shadow. That had been… tiring.
Eventually, the world quieted.
Borders thickened. Rules hardened. Reality learned to whisper instead of shout.
Hoopa adapted.
Hoopa waited.
There were others, of course.
Moon-bright watchers who mended dreams.Shadow-bearers who ruled nightmares.Balance-keepers who slept for centuries because it was easier than arguing.
Hoopa liked them all in different ways.
Darkrai was fascinating—not cruel, not kind, simply honest about what fear did when given space. Cresselia was… gentle, yes, but gentleness was a form of power mortals always underestimated.
Together, they made a hinge.
A place where dreams bent without breaking.
A city grew there, eventually. Divide City, though Hoopa had known the place long before it had streets or names. Back when the grass still argued with itself over what color it wanted to be.
Hoopa watched that too.
Hoopa did not intervene.
Not yet.
Mortals always misunderstood restraint.
They thought it meant weakness.
They thought it meant fear.
They never understood that rules were not chains.
Rules were invitations.
Break them too often and the game ended.
Hoopa liked the game.
So Hoopa played carefully.
Cyrus arrived like a question mark.
Not dramatic. Not prophetic. Not glowing with destiny the way some trainers did when the universe was being particularly unsubtle.
Just… a boy with tired eyes and a Ditto who pretended to be a scarf.
Hoopa noticed him immediately.
Not because of power.
Because of shape.
Cyrus moved through the world as if he expected it to push back—and was prepared to push back gently in return. He did not dominate his Pokémon. He did not fear them. He listened, even when he didn't understand.
That was rare.
That was interesting.
Hoopa hovered in the space around him, unseen, unheard, watching how Cyrus reacted when strange things happened.
When shadows leaned too close.
When doors opened that should not have.
When a Gym felt less like a test and more like a warning.
Cyrus noticed the effects.
He did not panic.
He asked questions.
Hoopa liked questions.
The first time Hoopa spoke to him, it was almost an accident.
Almost.
Cyrus had been staring out a transport window, clouds sliding past like forgotten thoughts, when Hoopa nudged a light just enough to flicker.
Cyrus had frowned.
"…That wasn't turbulence."
Hoopa laughed.
A small laugh. A soft one.
"Hi~"
Cyrus froze.
Slowly, carefully, he said, "I'm either hallucinating, or something very strange is happening."
Hoopa drifted closer, still unseen.
"Mmmmaybe~ both?"
Cyrus did not scream.
He did not reach for a Pokéball.
He sighed.
"Okay," he said. "If you're going to talk, you might as well explain why."
Hoopa had blinked.
That… was new.
No demands. No bargains. No fear.
Just expectation.
Hoopa decided, then.
If this mortal was going to walk into something ancient and broken and loud…
Hoopa might as well watch from close by.
The cult came later.
They always did.
Mortals loved explanations that made them feel important.
Darkrai's power rising without its counterbalance terrified the city. Nightmares thickened. Dreams bled. Fear pooled in alleyways and bedrooms alike.
The cult called it destiny.
They always did.
They found old symbols and misunderstood them. They found fragments of truth and sharpened them into weapons. They stole Cresselia away thinking capture equaled control.
It was almost adorable.
Hoopa could have undone it in a breath.
A ring. A twist. A nope.
But then the game would end.
And Cyrus…
Cyrus would not learn.
So Hoopa waited.
The night Darkrai rose fully into the sky—ascended, swollen with imbalance—Hoopa felt the city hold its breath.
Sirens wailed. Humans ran. Pokémon cried out in fear or defiance.
Cyrus woke instantly.
That alone made Hoopa smile.
When Cyrus stepped onto the street, eyes wide but steady, Hoopa floated closer than ever before.
"This is bad," Cyrus whispered.
"Mm~ very," Hoopa agreed cheerfully.
Cyrus shot a look at empty air. "You knew this was coming."
Hoopa spun lazily. "Kinda~"
"Did you cause this?"
Hoopa paused.
"Nope~"
Cyrus believed him.
That trust landed heavier than any chain.
When the cultist raised their hands toward Darkrai, praising it like a god that could finally see them, Hoopa watched Cyrus watch them.
Not Darkrai.
Them.
That, too, mattered.
As the battle unfolded—Darkrai testing, not destroying; Cyrus responding, not retreating—Hoopa bent the edges.
A portal here to redirect a blast.
A ring there to give Gengar a better angle.
Never too much.
Never obvious.
Hoopa followed the rules.
But rules bent when you smiled at them.
Now, in the quiet after, with the city scrambling for answers and the cult whispering its own lies back to itself, Hoopa drifted higher, watching everything align toward something inevitable.
Cyrus would track the cult.
The cult would misunderstand Hoopa.
Darkrai would push further.
And somewhere, Cresselia waited.
Hoopa clasped his hands behind his head and hummed.
"Such a fun mess~"
For the first time in a very long while, Hoopa wasn't just watching the game.
Hoopa was invested.
And that…
That was dangerous.