I awoke only an hour later when I check the clock, feeling slightly less sluggish but still almost the same before I collapsed, I noticed my head was resting on something soft and looked behind me to find Altair's sleeping form. I was too tired to wake her up or even move so I just lay there and thought about how to overcome this. At the rate I was going, I would die in 2 or 3 days, perhaps less.

"Nailah?" I called out only to have her form materialize next to me

"Yes?" She responded confusedly

"I have a favor to ask, one that will likely benefit us all. I need you to erase all my memories of that time."

"I cannot do that." She replied without even considering it for a second

"Why not? Surely it wouldn't be hard, and I know you can see that I will die if this keeps going,"

"You have yet to learn anything and to face the darkness you must learn, you currently possess little emotion. The only ones being Anger and Care for your pokemon if your pokemon had never existed, you would be nothing more than a pawn for the darkness."

"So you would rather let me die?"

"To be quite frank, yes. At your current state and even after I reduced your memories to nothing, you would've passed up a crucial opportunity that will most likely never happen again. Then you'd be better off dead than leading a campaign that would ultimately fail in the end."

"I am too tired to learn, but I will make a deal with you. If I do not resolve this problem on my own within the next two days, then by the third, erase my memory of it,"

"No. You will resolve it on your own or die worthless." Were her parting words before she disappeared into nothing and left me there.

"How funny, I now fear death when just months ago it would've been nothing more than an afterthought. I suppose Nailah can add fear to the small list of emotions I can feel."

Then I saw something out of the corner of my eye that made my brain go into overdrive, It was a presence that wasn't natural or meant to be.

It was me, but its skin was ash-colored and it's eyes a deep black, the hair was also the same ash color. I painfully stood up and faced it, for it had to be an agent of the darkness.

It started to walk toward me, slowly and step by step before turning slightly and I realized it was going for Altair. A dagger materialized in its hand, made of Aura and I stood dumbfounded before dragging myself in front of Altair and standing in its path.

"Back off," I managed to choke out but it most likely came as a whisper, and the being kept slowly taking step by agonizing step towards me.

"Damn it, what can I do?! I only have a dagger right now and my fatigue is painfully evident!" I yelled at myself in my mind while keeping an eye on its movements

Then it just disappeared, I looked around frantically before feeling a sharp pain in my side and looked to see the dagger stabbed in me and removed. I lazily swung at it, but it had disappeared again, I tried to sense it's presence and found nothing. I turned around and found it right on top of Altair just about to end her life so I lunged with my dagger at its head.

Yet when I got close it simply faded and I realized now that I was about to kill Altair, I couldn't stop in time and braced myself but I was simply thrown across the room by an invisible force and hit the steel wall pretty hard which knocked me out.

I woke up in the infirmary sometime later and by checking my phone had slept for 8 hours, not a lot, and a far cry from what I needed, but it helped nonetheless. My first concern was how to deal with the amount of lethargy that was stacking up rather quickly within me, and I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to fix this, the only solution I could think of was to have a pokemon erase those memories, but Nailah was unwilling and Mewtwo was probably being ordered not to do anything by Nailah.

So I came to another conclusion, try meditating again, but change the location to somewhere else. With my mind made up, I struggled to just stand, but once I did I was able to slip out into the forest and find a nice clearing.

There were some flowers dotted about and the trees provided some nice shade while still letting sunlight through, and so I went over and lay down instead of sitting purely because I felt too tired to keep posture.

I took a deep and calming breath, the smell of the forest was always something that was pretty enjoyable to me, nature itself has fascinated me for the longest time, and surprisingly I started to feel drowsy as I lay there enjoying the sun hitting my body with the smells and sounds of the forest. The last thing I remember was the sound of pokemon scurrying around before I was unconscious.

"Where am I now?" I asked no one in particular as I looked around the old stone palace. At least I think it was a palace. The architecture seemed to indicate as much as I walked around, what was interesting is that I started on a circular platform that was in near the back wall and there was a singular straight path that was above the water that had submerged everything else.

As I walked along the path, the fog that was only obscuring what was in front of me cleared and I could see an expanse of land, not very big but at the center was a couple of broken arches that looked like they connected long ago to form a Pavillion of sorts. 

As I got closer I could see 3 beings at the table, the reason for saying beings was that two were clearly not humanoid at all, then their faces were revealed and I only recognized one. The human was Ash, The Chosen One of Arceus, and one who had tried to help me that day. The other two were a bit odd, one was a translucent green dragon and the other was most likely a pokemon, but not one I had ever seen, so a likely emperor/empress of sorts.

"Ah, I'm glad to see you could make it, Shiro, please have a seat, I'm sure you have many questions but all will be answered in due time," The pokemon like being spoke and I felt very compelled to listen so I sat down at the one empty seat left.

"Let me start with introductions, I am Arceus, The Original One. To my left is Ash Ketchum, my chosen one, and to my right, is the manifestation of your aura." I blinked several times at the bomb of information that was just dropped on my head before quickly bowing to Arceus

"Now, now, no need for that here, though I am curious to see what questions you have so please ask away," It dismissively said and I lifted my head and cleared my throat.

"Well then, if you would be so kind, I would like to ask about what exactly the Emperor's and Empresses are, they don't seem like pokemon and bonding with Voltanuc has given me a few new words like 'Anubis, Unicorn, and Dragon' all terms that don't exist in this world,"

"Quite perceptive, to answer that, not even I fully know, all I do know is that they hail from the same place as the Darkness, they came to me many millennia ago right after this world had been founded by me, seeking refuge and telling me they would lend their power if I gave them refuge, so I did. As for their origins themselves, I'm afraid that knowledge is only privy to themselves."

"I see, well if you don't mind me asking, what is the purpose of this meeting?"

"The purpose? Well, I suppose it has a couple, the first was to get you and the Chosen One acquainted a bit more, the next to repair the relations between your aura and you, the last would be to give advice to you," After thinking for a bit, I simply nodded, showing my willingness to participate in the meeting, then almost immediately, Ketchum began talking to me.

"Hello there! As you just heard from Arceus I'm Ash Ketchum and I aspire to be a Pokemon Master! Nice to meet you!"

"Nice to meet you too Chosen One, I am Shiro Delta, a clone, and my current objective is to defeat the Darkness," I spoke in monotone as I gauged his reaction

"Well, then I look forward to working with you once I'm out from this coma since we share a common goal!" He gave a radiant smile and nodded in agreement 

"I do too, I would like to ask if there was any particular reason you tried to protect me on the day Groudon went crazy," 

"Isn't that obvious, I was just helping!"

" 'just helping' you say? You would stand in the path of a rampaging mythical pokemon to help a stranger?" I asked confusedly

"Yeah, it was the right thing to do, I couldn't let you be crushed after all!" He cheekily grinned and I sat there astounded at this boy who seemingly had no regard for his own life

"Well, what do you do for a living and all? I can imagine being a clone is pretty interesting!" He asked giddily and I chuckled a bit before responding

"Before starting this huge campaign I was an assassin, and I still am in a sense, I just don't do much assassinating anymore," My reply took a hard toll on the boy as he was processing what I just told him

"Oh, well that must've been an interesting life, did you assassinate both good and bad people?" His eyes shone with some apprehension and curiosity to which I simply nodded

"Wow, I expected you to say no, I mean when people say they are assassins you usually think all these important and good-natured people,"

"Hmmm, well the morally wrong people I killed was mainly out of convenience but you are free to think of it as you like, in any case, how has your life been so far?" I asked, curious to catch a glimpse into my original's life

"Well, I've mainly just been on a long journey collecting badges and entering pokemon leagues to help me become a pokemon master! I've had plenty of friends along my journies to each region as well!" His aura oozed of excitement as he recounted his journies to me

"That was all very interesting, but I think I'll go and complete the second objective of this meeting, thank you for your time," I announced as I got up and he looked confused before getting out a long 'oooooooooh' and bidding me good luck.

"Time to face what his probably similar to these 'Inner Demons' I've heard people struggle with so much," I thought as I walked towards Arceus and the dragon.

This was actually quite fun to write, and I promise this entire bunker situation will end soon and the action will begin again, Shiro did ask Looker for a list of people affiliated with the legendaries after all! In any case, please share the story around as I love seeing new readers come and read! Ja ne!