Night didn't fall over Divide City.
It settled.
The glow along the Divide Line intensified as the last daylight drained away, bioluminescent growth flaring brighter on the light side, red-veined flora pulsing dully on the dark. The boundary itself hummed, not audibly, but in a way that made Cyrus's teeth feel slightly off when he stood too close to the window.
He watched from the Axis Atrium's upper level, lights off behind him. The city below moved carefully now. No crowds. No sirens. Just purposeful motion—people getting where they needed to be before they didn't want to be outside anymore.
Ditto stayed wrapped around his shoulders, scarf form holding tight. Meltan rested on the floor near the window, its body rotating in small, irregular increments. Gengar hovered at Cyrus's side, eyes fixed on the dark half of the city.
"Gen," it muttered.
"I know," Cyrus said quietly.
The pressure was different tonight.
Not heavier. Sharper.
Dream activity spiked first along the eastern districts, localized, surgical. Cyrus watched the data feed on his wrist tablet as it updated in real time. Not mass fear. Not chaos. Just enough disruption to test response times. Emergency teams adjusted. Psychic-types moved into position. No alarms. Exactly as planned.
Darkrai wasn't trying to overwhelm the city.
He was probing it.
Cyrus leaned his forearms against the glass. His reflection stared back at him, eyes tired, jaw tight, posture steady. He didn't look brave. He looked functional.
That would have to be enough.
The sky over the dark half shifted.
Not clouds. Not weather.
Something behind it adjusted, like a massive presence settling into a more comfortable position. The stars dimmed, stretched thin, then vanished altogether in one section of the sky.
Mega Darkrai didn't emerge fully.
He didn't need to.
The weight of him pressed down on the city like gravity recalibrating itself.
Cyrus inhaled slowly. Gengar drifted closer, its shadow thickening against the floor.
"Not yet," Cyrus murmured.
Gengar hesitated, then nodded once.
Hoopa's voice floated in from nowhere, light and sing-song. "You're not scared."
Cyrus didn't turn. "That wasn't the goal."
A gold ring opened near the ceiling. Hoopa leaned through it, upside-down, hands folded beneath its chin.
"You're tired though," Hoopa said. "That's new."
"Also not the goal."
Hoopa giggled softly. "Mmm. This one's tighter. Darkrai's being careful."
"Because he has to be," Cyrus said.
Below them, a building on the dark side flickered. Inside, a sleeper jolted awake, gasping, heart racing, hands clawing at nothing. Across the street, a Psychic-type braced, aura flaring as they stabilized the wave before it spread.
Cyrus watched the interruption on his display. Logged it. Mapped it.
"Pattern," he muttered.
Darkrai shifted again.
Not toward the city.
Toward him.
The pressure narrowed, focusing like a lens. Cyrus felt it immediately, a weight behind his eyes, a familiar pull at the edge of sleep. Gengar reacted instantly, floating up until its face was level with his.
"Gengar."
"I'm awake," Cyrus said. "Stay."
The dream didn't take him.
It brushed him.
A suggestion. A test.
Images flickered at the edge of his vision: endless streets, empty windows, a city split cleanly down the middle and never put back together. Not fear. Not violence.
Isolation.
Cyrus exhaled and let the images pass. He didn't push back. He didn't invite them in.
"Is that it?" he asked quietly. "Or are you warming up too?"
Darkrai didn't answer.
But somewhere beneath the city, something moved that wasn't supposed to.
Meltan's body vibrated sharply. Once. Twice.
Cyrus straightened. "That's not dream activity."
Gengar's eyes narrowed. "Gen."
Hoopa's grin widened. "Ooooh."
Cyrus's wrist device chimed, one alert, then another. Security feeds flagged movement beneath the old transit lines along the dark side. Too coordinated. Too deliberate.
The cult.
"They're moving," Cyrus said.
Hoopa spun lazily in midair. "Of course they are~. They think this is their night."
Cyrus grabbed his jacket from the chair and shrugged it on over Ditto, who reshaped smoothly to accommodate it.
"Then they're wrong."
He turned for the door, Gengar slipping ahead into the shadows. Meltan clicked and followed, metal scraping softly against the floor.
Behind him, the sky over Divide City darkened another shade.