Living in the Shadows

CHAPTER 7 RELAY TRAINING & MIDNIGHT TROUBLE

May 8th

It was 4:23 a.m. Crystal, Melody, and Zorua were still asleep, and I was still reeling from my conversation with Cresselia.

*Flashback*

"Cresselia?!" I exclaimed as my eyes popped out of my head.

She simply nodded in response.

"How? What-?"

"All of your questions will be answered in time," she interrupted. "Right now, I need your help."

I took a deep breath to calm my racing heart and frazzled nerves, then let it out slowly. "Help with what?"

"Sixteen years ago," she began. "There was a group that called themselves the Sinis Trio. I don't know what they were planning back then, but it involved me. With Darkrai's help, I was able to escape. However, my injuries were too severe for me to fly home, so we landed at the very spot where we officially met."

That was when an image appeared. It was Darkrai and Cresselia, and they were at Cresselia's Garden. There was a full moon out in a cloudless sky, and the flowers were shining the brightest I've seen yet.

Suddenly, the bushes at the treeline began to rustle. Darkrai formed a protective fighter's stance in front of Cressleia just before an Ariados and a Spinarak came out. On Ariados's back was a two-year-old baby wearing a summer nightdress.

When I saw that the baby was me, I gave Cresselia a sharp look.

"You were too young to remember this," she explained calmly. "The story Ariados and her son told Darkrai and I was that you were wandering around the woods when you startled Spinarak and he used Poison Sting on you. He and his mother came here, hoping the flowers would heal you."

Well, I guess that explains why I'm afraid of Spinarak. I thought as the scene continued.

The scene before us didn't have any sound, but judging by the frantic expressions on Ariados and Spinarak's faces, they seemed to be arguing with Darkrai until Cresselia intervened. She floated over to two-year-old me and placed her hand on my chest. She said something to Ariados and Spinarak that made them cry and made Darkrai object.

"I can't hear anything. What's going on?" I demanded.

"I was explaining to them that they brought you here too late. The flowers couldn't help you." Then she looked me directly in the eye. "You were almost dead."

That's the second time tonight someone told me I almost died.

"Darkrai was upset because what I was about to do was very dangerous. Not to mention it would separate us for years."

The scene continued with Cresselia using Psychic to lift me off the ground and gather all but one of the flowers before a blinding light flashed. When the light faded Cresselia was gone and I was floating down to the ground, a golden crescent moon appearing on my left shoulder.

I looked at my now Lunar Wing-shaped mark. I had forgotten it used to be gold before it turned silver.

When I turned to her with a question, she answered; "The only way for you to survive, and for me to hide while I recovered my strength, was for the two of us to become one."

I stood there completely stunned, my jaw hanging open in complete disbelief.

The scene continued with Darkrai, looking very sad, sinking into the shadows and Spinarak and Ariados walking away while my brother, with Grandma's Houndoom, burst from the trees. My parents and his mom appeared right behind them and my grandparents right behind Jake's mom.