//------------------------------//
// What's really going on 
// Story: My Little Pokémon 
// by Amarvax 
//------------------------------//

The Everfree Forest, Zecora's hut.

"James, you're not doing it right!" Jessie yelled.

"I'm putting in the most effort I can right here!" James replied.

"Let's just hope this one doesn't blow up in our faces again!" Meowth finished off. They had become apprentices for Zecora, learning from her and working for her. It was going poorly. Neither understood how any of these voodoo magic stuff worked. So for the past few hours, it has been consistently going wrong for them. Zecora was enjoying this though. Never before had seen such failure yet determination from a group like this.

"I admire your determination Team Rocket. But your results end up hitting hard like a comet." The zebra said. 

"Cut us some slack, lady! We've more experienced in tech than this magic mumbo jumbo" Meowth said as his face was covered in various colours. 

And then, through the door came Ash, Twilight and the gang. 

"Zecora! We need your help!" Twilight yelled. Team Rocket and Zecora turned their attention to the gang as the rockets noticed Ash and Pikachu right there. The boy and Pokemon had also seen them as well.

"Team Rocket?!"

"Pipi-kachu?!"

"The twerp and his Pikachu?!" Each of them said one after the other. Shocked to see the other here as they pointed at each other.

"What are you guys doing here? You planning to steal from here as well?!" Ash said, ready to act on them.

"You know these folks?" Fluttershy said. 

"They're bad guys who steal Pokemon. They've been after my Pikachu for years now."

"For your information, we're just kindly helping Zecora out like good citizens so.. NYAAAH!" Jessie blew her tongue out at him.

"I can already sense there is some bad blood between you two. But other than that, how can I help you?" Zecora said.

"Zecora. Something weird is going on! Everypony in Ponyville had suddenly become drowsy.. and their bodies go numb afterwards. We were hoping that you could help us solve this?" Twilight explained the situation.

"This is a predicament, drowsy and numb? A potential solution could be a special type of plum." 

"A special type of plum? What sort?" Rarity asked a question.

"The plum I speak of is ordinary. But once it is altered it becomes extraordinary. Zecora got out a standard plum from her jar. "Once this plum has been dipped in this liquid, its properties will change, everything shifted."

"Does she always talk in rhymes?" Did Ash ask?

"Yes." Rarity, Dash and Pinkie replied.

"All it takes is plum in that green liquid? Wow. That's surprisingly easy." Twilight said.

"But be warned of the result, Twilight Sparkle. If it's not eaten right, then the result will be an unparalleled startle." Zecora warned her. This enhanced plum had to be eaten in a specific way, or else the outcome would be devastating. Much more dangerous than numbness.

"How is it supposed to be eaten?" She asked.

"Once inside the mouth it must be still. After 3 minutes pass, the plum's job will be fulfilled."

"She basically means, holds it in and bite it once 3 minutes pass by. That's what I got anyways." Meowth translated.

"But that's only one plum though. We're gonna need a lot to heal everyone." Dash said. Zecora had grabbed a few more plums to alter in the liquid, but that was all she had. 

"That is all the plums for now. Go save everypony, now."

"We'll make sure its eaten right Zecora," Twilight said. "Come on girls. And Ash and Pikachu. Let's go wake everypony up."

"Bye-bye! Be safe out there.. losers.." Jessie said quietly.

The numbness was reaching everypony, pokemon and human affected. They couldn't feel anything as they dropped to the floor like flies. Luckily some Pokemon were actually resisting going numb. Mainly poison types and some grass types who can absorb various toxins and fumes. The grass types pitched in to help everypony and human. An Ivysaur used its vines to grab onto a numb pony. It had used leech seed on the numb unicorn, seeping all of the poison from her body. The numbness was sent out Ivysaur's bud, holding it there. The Ivysaur went around, absorbing all numbness from as many humans, ponies and pokemon as it could. But it couldn't. Even an Ivysaur couldn't handle that much as all the numbness now travelled to it. The ones that Ivysaur helped were healed, but there was still so many of them who were drowsy and numb.

"W-What happened? Oh, I don't feel weird anymore." A youngster said, feeling refreshed. He, a real unicorn and a Chingling were fine along with the others that Ivysaur helped.

"All I remember is two weirdos came out of nowhere and used some creepy dark creature put us all to sleep." The teal unicorn said, holding his head. Ash and the gang arrived, seeing that some of them were healed.

"Oh sweet! Some of you are okay!" Ash said in joy.

"Yeah. But not all of us though. That Ivysaur over there helped us... but it looks ill though." The youngster pointed at the now ill Ivysaur who was carrying all that numbness in its bulb. Ash and Fluttershy walked over to the seed Pokemon, comforting it. 

"You did good Ivysaur. " Ash said to it.

"Get a good rest you." Fluttershy soothed the Ivysaur, calming down.  

"We have only a few plums for everypony here. Zecora's out getting more plums as we speak." Twilight said as she went over to a filly, lending it to her. "Hold in for 3 minutes. Once 3 minutes pass, then bite it."

"Okay.." The little filly responded in understanding. Ash looked around and saw an Audino who was also numb. That gave him an idea. 

"Hold on a sec, Twilight. Give a plum to that Audino there. I have an idea." Twilight lent a plum to the hearing Pokemon, placing it in its mouth and giving the pokemon instructions on what to do. 

"How will this help Ash, dear?" Rarity asked.

"Audino's are favourite for Nurse Joy's in Unova. They have tons of healing moves like Refresh and Heal Pulse. If I'm right, that Audino can help us heal everyone here."

"It can do that by itself? Man pokemon are so awesome!" Rainbow Dash said. As time was passing by, the two individuals who caused all of this was watching from the shadows. Similar to how Cold Colt and the man were last time in Oreburgh.

"Those are the ones that were in Oreburgh." Said the mysterious unicorn. She had teal skin and a radically swooshed hairstyle which went over her eyes. Her cutie mark was an emerald with a rift in the middle of it, similar to Cold Colt's cutie mark. 

"Yeah, that's them. The rift has been keeping a good eye on them. It has all its attention and plans geared towards them." A girl with blue drill hair responded. Her identity was still a mystery. "Alright Emerald Aura. What do you think we should do about this? If we ruin it here, the rift will be upset." She said to the pegasus.

"I say we use him again." Emerald's horn glowed as she bought in a controlled, out of mind Darkrai. "We've already made them act all weird and numb. What do you think about nightmares?"

"I like that idea. It'd be interesting to see how they'd fix this one." The drill haired girl replied. Emerald Aura used her magic to send the controlled Darkrai as it appeared upon Ponyville. Everypony, pokemon and human looked up to see the Pitch Black Pokemon. Ash was most surprised by this. His fourth time seeing a Darkrai. 

"It's a Darkrai!" He shouted. "That explains it."

"What the hay's a Darkrai?" Pinkie asked.

"Darkrai's are infamous for putting people and pokemon into a deep sleep, where they are tormented by terrible nightmares."

"T-THAT'S HORRIBLE!" Fluttershy yelled in fear. How could a Pokemon like that exist? 

"Now Darkrai. Show them a nightmare!" Emerald said out loud as Darkrai gained a green aura around him. He then let out this pulse of dark energy that engulfed Ponyville as the skies were cloudy and dark. Everything was dimming down around everypony. This was the result of a Darkrai's nightmare initiation. Ash had experienced this back in Alamos Town.

"I can't let this happen again! Pikachu! Thunderbolt!" Pikachu charged up lightning, shooting it towards Darkrai. However, it was stopped due to Emerald's magic wave, cancelling the thunderbolt. "Twilight. Girls. If we don't stop Darkrai, everyone's gonna is put into a neverending nightmare!" The darkness was only getting bigger as some ponies and pokemon were being pulled in a black void. Some humans tried pulling them out but they were sucked in as well.

"I got this!" Twilight cast a reflection spell that had pushed back some of the darkness, bringing in some light. But it wasn't enough. Soon, a black void appeared underneath Rarity and Pinkie Pie, pulling them in as well. 

"AH! GET IT OFF ME!" Rarity cried out.

"DON'T LOOK INTO MY DREAMS!" Pinkie Pie followed. Twilight and the gang attempted to pull them out as they were struggling. Pikachu turned around as he saw one of the black voids emerging underneath him and the others. To save him and his friends, the electric mouse pokemon jumped over the void, running towards Darkrai. Pikachu used its iron tail on Darkrai, hitting its head as it was sent down. Doing this had sent the voids away, however, a lot of ponies, humans and pokemon had already been sucked inside. Rarity and Pinkie were lucky to be saved at the last minute.

"Oh thank Celestia. That was close." Twilight said in relief. 

"Good job buddy," Ash said as his partner ran back to him.

"Oh, so it was the mouse that stopped it. Ah, whatever. Let's just make this more interesting." Emerald said, preparing another stunt. Fluttershy noticed Emerald Aura, standing near a hill. 

"There!" She pointed at the duo. 

"I got it! Pikachu! Electroweb!" A quick electroweb was sent towards the duo, interrupting Emerald's aura's magic. 

"You jerks!" Emerald yelled. The drill haired girl wasn't worried in the slightest though. "

"Calm down Emerald." She used her hair to break free from the web. Almost like her hair was a weapon.

"Who are you two? What's the big idea about doing?!" Twilight demanded.

"Like we'd tell you." The drill haired girl said, however, Emerald spilt it all out.

"We're creations made from the rift based on each of your own individual worlds and we've come here to do the rift's bidding by causing events to play so that the rift can see how it all turns out so that it can satisfy itself. Oops." Emerald had finally made it clear for the gang. Now they know what is really going on. The drill girl facepalmed herself.

"Its already been exposed anyways. So whatever." The drill haired girl revealed herself to be wearing a purple cloak that covered her completely. 

"You mean it's doing this just for fun?!" Ash said with anger in his eyes.

"Oh yeah! And it's turning out great so far. So if you don't mind.. the rift would like to have some more fun!" Emerald made Darkrai get up as the pitch-black pokemon grew to a much larger size. Larger than Ponyville itself. It could be seen from the Everfree Forest and even from Cloudsdale.

"What in Celestia's name..." Twilight and everypony else looked up at the now titanic Darkrai. It was clear that this was a threat much bigger than Discord or Nightmare Moon.

Chapter 8 End