ID: 11
Username: [Redacted]
Title: The Wild Hunt

The low, vibrating call of a distant horn sent a chill deeper than that of the surrounding blizzard through Gunther’s blood. He stopped short, hands clutching his trio of paper bags with a white-knuckled grip, eyes flickering back and forth along the tree line searching for any hint of light filtering between the branches. It had to be there. He’d been cutting it close, sure, but it wasn’t fully dark yet. He was only ten minutes from home-

The horn came again, accompanied by another sound. Something sharp, at the edge of his hearing, undecipherable. It didn’t stop when the horn did. Was it growing louder?

Gunther didn’t realize he’d started moving until he tripped over a hidden ditch, stumbling through the snow. The blizzard hid most details and it only seemed to intensify as he regained his stability and pushed on, coat wrapped tightly around himself and eyes fixed on the road, still desperately searching for any hint of light besides the flashlight tucked under his arm.

The horn sounded for a third time as he spotted his turn in the road ahead. Gunther could barely see through the thick snow, but he started sprinting anyway, heedless of hidden pitfalls. He’d make it home before full dark, surely! It might be the middle of the Dark Days, the Winter Solstice only seven days past, but they still had some hours of light-

Why couldn’t he see lanterns? No good Galarian home would go without during the Dark Days. Why couldn’t he hear the Yamper barking as he ran by? The neighbors never stopped them before. No, wait, he could hear barking. The sound from before- it was barking. Yips, barks, growls, howls-

Gunther dropped the bags, abandoning his groceries to the darkness as he ran, light vanishing as the flashlight fell. Sweat froze on his face as he pushed himself for every bit of speed he could summon, running blindly into the wall of snow and shadow ahead. The horns sounded again, shaking his bones with their closeness. The howls and barks were all around him now, clawing at him like living things. Screams rang in his head, through his bones, and he didn’t know if they were his. The edges of his vision fuzzed, and he saw – something running beside him, keeping pace. No. Not something. Somethings.

The clatter of hooves. Hooved shadows, only visible from the gaps they left in the falling snow. Formless, shifting, only visible from the corners of his eyes, they surrounded him, keeping pace with his faltering sprint. Some seemed almost human, others the shapes of familiar Pokémon wildly distorted. A pack of Boltund with strange spikes, a rider on a gigantic purple Rapidash with shadows for mane and tail, too-long-too-flat black arms, reaching-

Snap! Something tore at the back of Gunther’s heels, tearing a chunk from the back of his pants. The sudden tug nearly unbalanced him and he flailed, slipping sideways on something slick. Only adrenaline kept him on his feet, but looking down he found he wasn’t running on a snowy lane anymore. A dusty road stretched beneath his feet, puddles lining the path. He couldn’t tell what color. Where had the color gone?

His vision was fuzzy now, filled with static. Shadows crawled at the edges like an old photograph, and what he saw belonged there. The clash of metal sounded over the barking of hounds and the pounding of hooves as he saw warriors brandish ancient weapons. Blood spilled freely as they hacked and slashed, pooling on the ground to become the puddles he’d seen. Yells and screams mingled to become an overpowering roar. Pokémon tore swathes of destruction through the ranks and left devastation behind as they clashed. Men fought with all-too-human brutality. The horn-blowers and their hounds, misty, wavering shapes amidst the grayed-out landscape, raced through the battlefield with wild abandon.

And above it all, the only spot of color in a sea of shadowed grays. A purple, unblinking eye, somehow… flat, as though painted onto the very air.

It blinked, and the world changed.

A different battlefield, men and Pokémon moving between great stones in a wasteland, their battle just as fierce though they wielded Pokéballs not iron swords. The shadowed riders and their hounds running between them, unseen and unheard, untouched by blast or blow. A great pillar of stone next to Gunther blew apart as a dragon strafed his position, shards tearing into him-

The eye blinked, and the world changed.

A storm at sea, waves higher than skyscrapers seen from the slick wooden deck tilting almost 90 degrees beneath his feet, riders galloping past atop churning waters, the heat of a Hyper Beam ripping through wood and bodies alike-

Blink. Blink. Blink. Blink.

Wastelands, lush fields, forests, tundra, mountains, villages, cities, deserts. Battlefield after battlefield after battlefield, slick with blood and gore. The riders ran on, their horns the only sound he could hear anymore, their hounds snapping at Gunther’s heels. With every step they became more real to him, and he recognized some of them as those he’d seen on the battlefields, torn apart, cut to pieces, dead dead dead-

Blink.

The sky tore and something even worse than the eye came through. Something from the deep black, poison and entropy, a great hand ready to grab the world-

Gunther didn’t look. He couldn’t. He-

He couldn’t look away.

Blink.

The deep snow returned and caught him at last, dragging him down down down with icy claws. He fell but couldn’t feel the impact through the numbness that consumed him, the static that ate at him, chewed away at his very soul.

The riders passed him by, the hooves of their mounts and paws of their hounds passing through him, but he felt each blow land like hammers. Those too-long-too-flat hands came again, tilting his head up, forcing his eyes open. He hadn’t realized they were closed.

Gunther saw, for the first and last time, a great mural. Runes intertwined with images of humans and Pokémon in battle, impossibly intricate, as fresh and vibrant as the day it was painted. A central figure, outshining the rest, grabbing onto his soul like a Magikarp in a net. It burned into his mind, and he saw.

Ichor dripping from a long finger dancing across the stone leaving behind swirls and lines tearing reality apart binding what came through a king’s blood to create a king of ghosts ruler of the dead of his realm bound to gather them all for the battles ahead

Pieces of stone broke apart, held together by too-long-too-flat black limbs, and a single purple eye opened near the top of the mural. It reached for him-

The ancient Command swept him away.

____________________________________________________________________________

Arthur stalked along the snow-dusted road, watching Perrserker climb over rocks and fallen trees, wincing at the screech of steel claws digging into solid stone. Hatterene hung back, face twisted into a frown even more severe than her normal one. Arthur didn’t like this duty either, but this was a familiar task for the weeks after the Winter Solstice. They’d known it was coming.

Perrserker stopped in his tracks, catching Arthur’s attention with a yowl as he dug in an unusually deep snow pile by the side of the road. Arthur’s pace quickened as he stepped up beside his partner, Hatterene moving even further away when she saw what Perrserker had uncovered. A body, half of which appeared to be little more than ash. The rest was frozen solid, an expression of sheer terror preserved on the half of the victim’s face that remained. The veins around his eyes had turned black, reaching down to his neck and disappearing under what remained of a thick coat.

Arthur sighed, plucking the radio from his belt. “Captain, I’ve got another one here. Looks to be a couple days old, but you know we can’t tell with these. Clear signs of Distortional influence; Hatterene won’t go anywhere near him.” A pause. “Yessir, I’ll check.” Arthur bent down, absently waving Perrserker off. A quick search of the pockets in the half-disintegrated coat revealed a wallet, which he flipped open to find a tattered, frost-covered ID within.

Arthur sighed again, standing up and staring at the standing stones just barely visible beyond the trees. If he got closer, he knew, he’d find a well-patrolled perimeter staffed by other NOBLE trainers. If he made it past them, he’d start hearing a distant horn. Barks. Howls. The clatter of hooves. The ancient clash of swords, of moves, of battle and war. The smell of blood and the icy, burning touch of something that did not belong in this world.

And if he had a death wish, he’d reach the stones and find an ancient mural painted with the blood of a king. The blood of a Legend. And a thousand-thousand eyes from ages long past, dead yet alive, staring down at him.

“Well Gunther, looks like you ride with the Wild Hunt now.”