Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Hands of Creation

Chapter 101 - Dark Approach

In the outskirts of East Null Village, Anam stood with the guards at the edge of the encampment that had been formed within the trees. Clearing out the Void Shadows that were hidden in the roots and underground were easy with how practiced the guards were, some of them with centuries of experience.

Anam was ready to confront Dark Matter right then. He wouldn't let Dark Matter take the fight to the innocents. He walked through the hastily formed tents, past the crystals buried in the ground as wards against Void Shadow attacks, and finally beyond the loose ring of guards at the edges of the expansive encampment. It was impressive how quickly they had mobilized to evacuate, considering the fact that the town's size rivaled the basin of Kilo Village. In less than a quarter of a day, according to their clocks, the town was completely abandoned. Dropped everything and left.

They had drills for such a thing, after all. If a Titan came too close, or some other emergency. It was sad, but effective, that they could leave so perfectly.

"I'm glad you have everything taken care of!" Anam said cheerfully, smiling at the guards, who were still unnerved. One of them was the guard that had punched through his chest, and he was avoiding eye contact.

"Er, yeah. So, we have everything taken care of here, I think. Dark Matter is...?"

"He isn't coming right now." Anam frowned, trying to assure them that he was competent. Without Dark Matter's advice, he could no longer tell with certainty whether they had negative feelings about him or not. "He should be here soon, though. So, I'm going to go out and fight him and try to keep him away from your group, alright? It should be safer. If you can see him coming, keep moving. You can do that?"

"Won't be hard," said a Rhyperior to the left, scoffing proudly. "You saw how quickly we moved on our own. We know our formations."

"Great!" That was good enough. Anam turned, flinging a little slime with his momentum. The guards grimaced and distanced themselves. "I'm gonna go, then. I'll fight Dark Matter, and then you'll be safe. I should be back in a few days, but if I don't, um, well, do as usual until Latios and Latias come back. They'll know what to do, right?"

"We were fine without you before and we'll be fine without you after," Rhyperior said, nodding.

Anam could only hope that was true.

<><><>

That had been at least a day ago. From there, Anam departed from the camp and headed northwest, following where he had last felt Dark Matter. He first checked the abandoned East Null Village for any sign of his twisted aura, but found nothing but abandoned buildings. Chores and tasks had been left completely undone, and only the occasional winds of the Voidlands accompanied the soft, slimy steps the Goodra made.

Did Dark Matter simply ignore the village entirely?

He surely would have sensed Dark Matter if he tried to go past him to the camp. Anam made sure to be careful of that, even making irregular, zigzag-like flight patterns to cover more ground in case Dark Matter tried to go around him. Even with the delay of getting an entire city's worth of Pokémon evacuated, they had had a great deal of a head start.

Do you sense anything, Anam? Madeline asked.

No, I don't.

Then perhaps he has gone someplace else, James said. I was watching your flight path. Dark Matter wouldn't have been able to go past you unless he went so far around that you'd beat him back to camp. Which you should do.

Right... If he delayed for too long, then a clever way around would have led to an ambush. If Anam wasn't there to defend them, he wasn't sure if they'd stand a chance.