“Silly doctors of flesh and blood,” a raspy, wheezing voice was heard. It would be considered a harsh whisper under normal circumstances, but these were not normal circumstances.

They never were when he was added to the situation.

Thus, his whisper managed to completely shatter the stifling silence of Eterna Forest. There was no sound, no movement around them, as if the world itself was afraid to move in his corrupted presence. It was no strange sight, he was used to it.

He reveled in it.

“They cannot fix the one who ruins,” the voice continued and from the shadows a lone figure rose. He supposed he looked better than usual. His clothes looked clean and new, but they were still the usual red and black he always wore. His hair might be relatively clean, his skin might not be riddled with rotten wounds anymore, but it was still gaunt and pale and terrifyingly frail.

His figure was still dreadfully thin, despite how hard those poor mortal doctors tried. But he at least looked presentable.

A remnant of his humanity whispered in his head that perhaps, looking presentable made for better intimidation of the ones he hunted, but it was almost drowned by the Darkness commanding him.

The tall man straightened his back and took a deep breath of the rot he caused the moment he appeared. Vegetation withered in his presence, Pokémon ran as fast as their legs could carry them, far far away from the Avatar of Darkness. The very air grew still and nigh impossible to inhale, but such human functions were beyond Tobias' body.

Even colour seemed to drain from the forest as the light of the moon dimmed to a flicker.

“Poor Storm-Tamer, wasting effort for Tobias,” the man said with a broken chuckle as he moved deeper within the forest. “Tobias needs no help. Tobias is doing his job, as always.”

Darkness chuckled inside his mind.

For a single moment the human inside Tobias tried to command the body to harm itself in response, but Darkness held a tighter leash since the last meeting with Ketchum. Of course, the vessel could not die as long as the pact existed, but it attracted undue attention if it was obviously rotten. The Darkness would rather keep the rot under a facade.

“Rat, rat, rat, rat, rat…” Tobias mumbled as he trudged between bushes, trees and rapidly withering foliage. As he walked, however, he felt a field of Distortion brush against his presence before it immediately dispersed.

A glint appeared in his eyes as he felt his prey nearby.

He tried to move faster, but his atrophied muscles were not fit for the slightest of strain. Weak, stiff and uncoordinated movements resulted in him tripping over himself as he tried to rush ahead.

The Darkness insulted him mentally but he merely chuckled.

“Maybe Tobias does need help, maybe Storm-Tamer is right,” he whispered as he struggled to get up, finally standing on his feet after a brief struggle.

He lifted his hands to inspect the damage. Of course, his frail, paper thin skin broke under the stress of the impact and oozed dark, almost black blood that moved slower than tar. He couldn't see it, but his hair was ruined once more, even with blood from a wound that opened on his scalp.

He fully ignored it all, letting the blood drip from his wounds as he picked up the pace once more.

As he walked, he let his azure eyes rotate in their sunken and blackened sockets. He watched the withering vegetation with fascination. His leftover human conscience spoke of an influence stronger than before, as if his corruption had spread. The flora withered faster than before, the blanket of darkness was heavier and his stifling aura heavier than before. He chuckled physically to himself.

His human was so silly sometimes. Of course his influence had gotten stronger. He is Tobias, after all. Whatever that name might mean nowadays.

Of course, he knew what it meant. Tobias is Tobias. Tobias is power. The apex of Distortion. A being that even the deceased Crone could never hope to become, even if she wanted to.

Tobias frowned. Agatha was strong. Worthy. A shame her mortal frailty caught up to her. At least now she could keep company to the Ruler of the Upside Down. Tobias knew he'd never go there himself.

Tobias is Tobias, after all.

He chuckled to himself.

A low hanging branch scratched his cheek, immediately drawing blood. The branch broke down to splinters and joined the earth the moment the tar like blood covered it.

“Tobias deadly. Good.”

He knew not how long he walked for. The concept of Time was something foreign to his existence. He was beyond such pesky rules, despite his reluctance to completely mess with Time. Minutes, days, seconds, none mattered in the face of his existence.

Tobias froze. “How could Tobias forget?” He exclaimed with his raspy voice and darkness bubbled beneath him. His vision darkened considerably. A normal person would compare the sight to wearing a pair of extremely tinted sunglasses. Then, he saw everything blur past him as he glided through the world. Black-tinted trees, bushes and vines passed by him as he didn't move a single atrophied muscle on his body until he suddenly saw a large, wooden door in front of him.

He forgot that Space was also a toy to him.

He oriented himself once more, taking in the dilapidated mansion in front of him. He spread his awareness and the results were immediate. He relished in the panic and primal, unadulterated fear that took over the denizens of the Old Château as they scrambled and scurried away from the place they called home.

All but three beings, one of which stood behind the closed door.

Be moved closer to the door and knocked on it with his frail hand. The skin broke and bled at the point of impact but he ignored it. Whether it was a result of habit or simple inability to feel pain, no one could ever know.

His polite knock went unanswered. He chuckled to himself and the next thing he saw was the interior of the Old Château and an old, mighty Gengar in front of him.

The poor thing trembled and struggled to keep its corporeal form in his presence, but it stood strong regardless.

Admirable.

“Tobias won't bother you,” the man rasped. “He will only collect the one you granted entry.”

The old Gengar’s fearful eyes strayed towards the middle door of the ground floor, directly straight in Tobias' line of sight and it slowly nodded. With a wave of its gaseous, nearly torn apart arm the door opened with an unbearable creaking noise.

Before it even managed to swing fully open, the Gengar Shadow Sneaked as fast as it possibly could - and even that was shaky.

Behind the door, a black haired man with a long, purple coat stood with his back towards Tobias, looking down on a very frightened looking Rotom.

“You don't need to be afraid of your new master,” the man said maliciously as a Mismagius nervously chuckled beside him. He idly played with a seemingly empty Great Ball.

“Now, you should finally accept your-”

Whatever he attempted to say to the Rotom was cut off as a vile stench that vaguely resembled a decomposing corpse assaulted his nostrils. The hairs on the back of his neck, his arms… every hair on his body, really, stood straight up. He slowly turned his head right, above his shoulder and found the unflinching gaze of Tobias mere inches away from his violet eyes.

His eyes widened and he frantically scrambled to move away from the unsettling man, his Mismagius floating beside him in a frightened manner.

“Who the fuck-”

Before he even managed to finish his question, he found Tobias nearly on top of him once more. The Rotom let out a high pitched sound that resembled a scream before it vanished through a wall, leaving a static field behind it. The Mismagius groaned under the stress of Tobias' mere presence and its form flickered unnaturally.

The violet orbs shook within their sockets, instinctively trying to find a route of escape. He saw none, but he did notice that the room seemed unnaturally dark. That was when he also felt the Distortion around him, so much worse than the one he had developed himself.

It was not the pleasant - at least to him - corruption brought forth by the denizens of the Upside Down he himself trained. No, the man's presence was much more vile and potent. The air itself was suffocating and not even the ever present whispers of the Old Chateau of Eterna Forest could be heard, as if every entity fled the premises.

They probably did.

He took in other details, the fresh from the fall filth that permeated his hair, the wounds littering the breathing corpse and the tar like blood slowly flowing from within. He couldn't see anything beyond that as the creepy man smiled, revealing a row of black, rotten teeth - or what was left of them, at least.

“Hello, Jacob,” Tobias said with his raspy, broken whisper. “Tobias is pleased to meet you at last.”

“W- who are you?” Jacob stuttered as he moved back towards his ghostly partner. “Do you have any idea who I am?” He asked with a raised voice, trying to appear threatening.

“Oh, Tobias knows. Tobias always knows,” the blue haired man said with a nod.

“Y- you should be s- scared then!” The man yelled as the nerves slowly caught up to him. He might be a Rogue, unregistered Master himself that managed to escape the watchful eye of the Lily of The Valley, but it was that very title that gave him the necessary experience to realise that he was no hunter in this place.

He felt like prey, vulnerable and cornered by the apex predator.

Tobias wheezed out a broken chuckle. “Good Master. Strong. Steeped in Distortion, as he should. Playing around with ghosts and the minions of the Ruler Below.” The chuckle repeated as he shook his head. “But bad man. Tobias works to hunt bad men. Killers, rapists, crooks and thieves, terrorists and scum. Tobias hunts, and when Tobias hunts, Tobias finds. When Tobias finds, Tobias completes the mission. Tobias works for balance.”

Jacob's eyes continued moving around their sockets frantically, still trying to find an escape path. His eyes locked on to his partner Mismagius and an idea sprouted to his head.

His partner nodded slightly.

“Yes, yes, Tobias fill the void of the Crone,” he nodded to himself. “Crone is gone, so Tobias needs work double. Yes, yes.”

“Now!” The Rogue Master shouted and his Mismagius moved with incredible swiftness. It barely touched her trainer and attempted to move them away with a Shadow Sneak but…

“No, no, no. Tobias doesn't think so.”

The ghostly technique was dismantled before it managed to even form, the energy dissipating in thin air. The Mismagius shook with its eyes widened.

Suddenly, Tobias was directly behind the Rogue Master once more.

“You want to travel. Tobias will travel you,” a raspy whisper was heard directly in his ear and the world shifted.

A veil of darkness hung around them, clouding his vision considerably even as he saw the world move around him. Cities, woods, plains, cliffs, a river, Mt. Coronet in all its mysterious glory and finally a sea, all in the span of mere seconds.

They were gliding - swimming, phasing? - on water, Jacob noticed. The man that was holding him seemed terrifyingly still, like a puppet waiting for the master to move it.

The movement was suddenly slowed to a crawling pace as the moon above shined its almost impossibly bright light upon them. They were floating on a patch of Darkness in the middle of the ocean, with two nearly identical but inverted islands ahead. The left one was lush and vibrant while the right was nearly completely barren apart from the decaying trees.

“Leave us be, Lunar Queen,” the man mumbled as his body shook. “It's our noble mission. Don't intervene.”

The moonlight dimmed as if surrounded by pitch black clouds and their movement resumed with newfound fervour.

And then, as if it was a lie, the journey ended and Jacob found himself rolling in the mud with his breath knocked out of his lungs.

Tobias seemed fully content to let him gather his bearings and Jacob had the chance to observe the death around him that hung like a black mist.

His eyes widened as he noticed that the island was actually covered in black mist. Brittle husks of former flora were littered around the clearing Tobias brought them to, standing impossibly still, as if frozen in time. The mist rolled slowly but it never faded, despite the fact he didn't feel a single breeze of air. His breaths were laboured, as if he was trying to breathe next to a blowing furnace. Silence reigned in this desolate land, drowning even his own heartbeat in its unrelenting wake. The Darkness was pressing down upon his very existence. It warred within him with every breath he fought for, dismantling the feeble influence of the Distortion caused by his partners.

For the first time he felt naked. Vulnerable. Wrath bloomed within him as he felt his connection to the unnatural weaken and he released 7 different Pokémon from his belt, yet he ached for his starter, his first pawn.

A cackling Gengar appeared, yet its mocking sound was abruptly caught off as it shivered under the influence of the island. A Cofagrigus immediately hid within its coffin which shuddered frightfully. A Gourgeist and a Trevenant tried to announce their frightening appearance only to wilt as they looked around in sheer terror. Two Banette - one looked like it had a stain around its mouth that looked a lot like blood - grinned madly but their grins broke much like the environment around them. The last flash of light revealed a Pokémon rare around most parts of the world, a broken looking Mimikyu. It was the only member that could stand somewhat proud.

“Missy!” Jacob yelled. “Where are you Missy? What did you do to her?”

“Tobias did nothing,” the tall man whispered. “Perhaps it got lost in the wide sea. But don't worry about that. Tobias will collect now.”

“Bring me back my Mismagius!” The man yelled and his Pokémon seemed to gather their wits, poised to strike, each of them dripping malicious and murderous intent.

“Such brutality…” Tobias whispered as he stood straighter. His voice slowly started to sound different as he spoke, gaining an otherworldly quality that caused Jacob to gulp.

Tobias' voice fit oh so perfectly on this barren speck of land.

“I can see the mortal creatures that were able to strip others of their mortality. Killers, one and all. Murdering innocents in cold blood, for petty theft and revenge.”

Jacob whistled and Gengar unleashed a very potent Dark Pulse which disintegrated near Tobias. Master and Pokémon froze.

“Especially Distorted Ones. Tobias exists to hunt two-legs like you. Inferior being of flesh and blood, killing hopefuls that could possibly stand above you. A Master without opposition because you killed and slaughtered and corrupted the ones who could oppose. A hunter of talent, if only to feed it to your rabid beasts. A stain upon this world, ruining its balance and draining it of its potential. A vulture, a parasite, a stain upon this world and a disgrace to the order brought by Chaos.”

“Shut your mouth! You know nothing about me!”

“I know enough,” Tobias thundered with a voice not his own. His azure eyes shone under the distorted moonlight that darkened and altered the world and its colours. Dark blue hair gained an otherworldly white shine, looking like a flowing river made of pale white bone dust freshly torn from a body. Part of it fell on his face to cover his right eye. Blood red cloak lost its colour and brightness, resembling a cloak of shadow that moved on its own despite the stifling stillness of the world around them. The tar-like blood became one with the black mist around them, albeit thicker and more violent in its otherworldly movement.

The remaining visible azure orb locked onto Jacob's violet eyes. A thick, glowing red chain appeared around Tobias' neck.

“Let Tobias show you how it feels to be the prey.”

He spread his pitch black cloak apart and pulled an incredibly worn Pokeball from his belt. He tossed it in front of him without any sort of fanfare and it landed on the mud with a thud. It shuddered and snapped open, but no red light came out.

A rushing cloud of darkness spread forth from the round confines of the machine, like cursed miasma from the depths of hell. It split and spread around the clearing and merged with the shadows cast by the moonlight. The Gengar tried to move forward but it froze as it materialised from the noxious’ Pokémon's shadow.

The Darkness around them intensified in pressure as a creature made of dark mist stared down maliciously at the Gengar with its single azure eye. The contrasting white mist on the top of its head billowed in the stillness of New Moon Island and the red necklace around the base of its head glowed.

The Gengar imploded into thin wisps of poisonous gas, resulting in a state past salvation. It was gone, brutally ended before it had the chance to resist, like a particularly awful nightmare.

Its owner screamed in terror and agony but no sound was heard under the choking influence of the Dark.

The monster, Nightmare Incarnate, next appeared from the shadow of a tree cast between the two Banettes. Its clawed, misty hands reached out and two orbs of dark energy formed in its palms. Twin beams - Dark Pulses, powerful beyond even the mightiest iterations of the technique - burst forth and blew twin holes upon the twin puppets. Their bodies fell to the mud, lifeless as the spirit that controlled them ceased to exist.

Its menacing azure eye blazed as it rotated to stare at the cowering Cofagrigus. A tiny, rotating sphere appeared on the top of Darkness’ misty finger and it was launched towards the possessed coffin. The sphere exploded on impact, surrounding the ghost in a translucent bubble that caused it to cease its movements.

The two Grass type fiends bravely launched their shaky Shadow Balls towards the Nightmare but its body spread apart, causing the globes of distortion to wander aimlessly before flickering out of existence all together. It earned them the monster's attention, however, which suddenly appeared from the shadows cast behind them. It stared at the Trevenant while it raised its hand behind it to grab the Gourgeist by its terrified face. The ghostly influence within the Gourgeist ceased to exist and the leftover plant shriveled to dust, right as the staring azure eye cast a terrifying Night Shade at the tree, the impact so mighty it left a broken, withering trunk behind.

‘D- da- dark-’ Jacob tried to mumble in horror, a feeble attempt to break the unnatural silence as he watched the Nightmare erase his team one by one. Of course, no sound came out, as if someone pressed the mute button on reality itself.

His eyes strayed towards the owner of the monster. The resemblance between them was uncanny, even as Tobias unflinchingly and passively observed the massacre.

“Such is the fate of those we hunt,” the breathing corpse whispered. “A shame your deaths won't give you rest.”

The Mimikyu fearlessly shrieked as it lunged towards the monstrosity that killed his brethren. It jumped in the air and lifted its cloak, trying to do something, anything to the shard of the mighty Legend.

The azure eye stared in the unholy depths of Mimikyu’s true form and froze for a mere fraction of a second, before the Pikachu outfit glided to the floor, soulless and broken.

Finally, with every poor existence destroyed, the Nightmare appeared above the sleeping Cofagrigus that trembled under the assault of Bad Dreams plaguing its conscience. Something resembling a mouth appeared on the monster's face and the dreaming spirit possessing the coffin was sucked right inside it in a macabre iteration of Dream Eater.

“Such is your fate by Tobias' hand,” the cloaked man whispered. Darkness materialised behind its primary target, Rogue Master Jacob, pierced its clawed hand through his torso. Blood splattered on the mud even while the gaping wound begun to decompose on the still living body.

“D- d- da-” Jacob tried as he spat blood.

Tobias retrieved the worn Pokeball and the Darkness was sucked back inside without any red light from the machine. Colour returned to the clearing and Tobias' appearance returned to normal. Slowly he trudged forward, until he stopped directly in front of the wounded master. He observed the gaping wound with macabre fascination until he nodded, satisfied with the result. His frail and thin hand grabbed the Pokenav from the Master's belt.

“Another mission finished. Time for another. Tobias always works. Always on the job,” he whispered with his raspy voice and then, he was gone.

As if he was never never. Like a very bad dream.

Jacob's body, left for dead as it was, fell with a full thud. Through his bleary eyes he saw something white, something he failed to notice before.

A white, weathered skull stared right back at him.

Jacob, in his final moments, knew what killed him. A creature of myth and legend, a mighty beast that not even the craziest of the Masters of Distortion would dare speak of. To think that a mere human, state of living notwithstanding, worked with a fragment of it.

In his final moments, a single wisp of lavender floated in the clearing and landed right next to his head. He choked on his attempts to speak the name of his first partner as he witnessed the last of her essence break apart.

The light left his eyes and thus, stillness was restored on the clearing of New Moon Island.