Blackrai

This is Pitch Black from “Rise of the Guardians” and Darkrai from “The Rise of…” Fuck. To make it even more obvious, go to his Bulbapedia page and see something above the picture bulbapedia.bulbagarden.net/wik… Should I even mention the nightmares? I was very surprised NOT to find references to their striking similarity!

Initially I was going to draw the fusion, then I sketched the original characters in the manner “Pitch Black + Darkrai = this cool dude”, but these outstretched hands instead of some gross “plus” sign suggested something more. The painting was (and still is) really messy and it took so long that my brain started to ship them in a specific way and even developed a story in which Blackrai is a real thing.

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Pitch is banished from his homeworld. Drifting between dimensions he manages to enter the Pokemon world near Alamos Town, where interdimensional matter is still thin. He prowls the town at night, causing nightmares to children and feeding off their fear, slowly restoring his power. People don’t believe in him so they can’t see him, but Pokemon can, and he has to be extra careful. In terms of attack types Pitch is ghost/dark so he can’t be scratched or punched by them, but he’s been burned and thunder-shocked a few times when a pet Pokemon happens to guard a child’s sleep.

But there’s another entity in this town that is attracted by nightmares, and one night it finds Pitch, rising from the shadows in a child’s room. Pitch gets spooked by this and attacks promptly with a shadow lash, throwing Darkrai out of the open window, but he levitates back, catches the next lash with his claws and yanks at it, sending Pitch flying into the wall. “What are you?!” he exclaims histerically, as he is used to be unheard by humans. “Be quiet!” - Darkrai orders as quietly as he can. But the crash was heard, and the child begins to toss in bed, close to awakening. Darkrai doesn’t want to be seen and he doesn’t know Pitch can’t be, so he grabs the bogeyman and blends into the shadows. None of them have expected that their shadow forms would merge together. Pitch is in dire panic and feels as if he’s suffocating. But Darkrai seizes the opportunity to get him as far away from people’s homes as he can. Slowly Pitch’s panic subsides and he begins to feel warm and comfortable, only to be “spat out” onto the ground after Darkrai emerges in the familiar garden. Pitch lashes at him again in rage, but Darkrai parries his attacks impassively and then hits him with Dark Void. It’s Pitch’s turn to suffer from nightmares, while Darkrai sits nearby draining power from him. When he decides it’s enough he lets Pitch awaken. “So you’re the Bogeyman here, - Pitch says sullenly. - Okay, okay, I’m leaving already!” He turns around to storm away (though he can’t do it as dramatically as he wanted due to exaustment) but Darkrai emerges from the shadows in front of him. “What do you want from me?! - Pitch hasn’t had much patience to begin with. - To eat my soul, if I have one at all? Go on, my existence is pointless anyway!” “Stay, - Darkrai replies. - This garden is for everyone.” - “Not interested,” - Pitch says coldly, realising that he’s not threatened anymore, and walks in the opposite direction, but Darkrai repeats his trick. “Leave me alone!” - “No. We had a battle and I defeated you. That means we belong together now.” (Darkrai’s seen enough battles and captures to associate “defeating someone” with “becoming friends” - that’s what Pokemon culture seems to be about.) “What’s wrong with this world?” - Pitch complains loudly as Darkrai approaches to take him into shadow embrace.

In the back of his mind a thought passed: “We’re the same thing, darkness and nightmares. We are supposed to fight and destroy each other, and yet… he thinks there’s another way?..” Pitch wasn’t sure it was his own thought, as he was strongly aware of the other mind, calm and powerful and not malevolent at all. He couldn’t locate it within his own, but there was a “self” which thought in words, while the other presence hadn’t used a single word since they merged. All it did was emanate the feeling of comfort, like a blanket made of primal darkness that protected him from the whole world. It gave him a steady flow of energy to absorb, and the warmth of it made his thoughts fall asleep, while the merged entities rested in the shadows.

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It didn’t look like Darkrai had any benefits from that symbiosis, aside from having company. It can be bothersome to watch a mean spirit; it’s not easy for Pitch to give up his wicked ways after centuries of bringing fear to people. Darkrai tries to teach him to be fair, giving nightmares only to the people that deserve it, and catching him doing otherwise results in severe punishment. That makes Pitch childishly resentful, because he doesn’t know what it means to care for people. But his approach begins to change as they discover that Pitch’s ability to gain power from people’s belief can make the merged form unbelievably strong. In Blackrai form Pitch can experience what being a good guy feels like: protecting the city brings more faith. But Pitch wouldn’t be himself if he wasn’t trying to exploit that ability in a bad way, corrupting Blackrai to bring fear instead of faith. He needs to become more powerful than Darkrai to take over, and it’s literally all he thinks about when they're not merged. Pitch doesn’t believe that Darkrai is his only true friend and thinks he’s using him, keeps him prisoner, and on top of everything, messes with his mind. But the doubts and the resentment disappear as soon as the entities become Blackrai. Pitch’s personality begins to split: one part doesn’t ever want to leave Darkrai’s shadow embrace, but in his original form Pitch wants to escape and gain power for himself.

Darkrai should’ve spoken to Pitch more often. Even as spirits, people rely on speech more than on images and emotions - the way Darkrai communicates when they’re merged. He uses words only when they’re separate, and he isn’t very talkative. In terms of their “collective mind”, Darkrai is subconsciousness. And what person trusts their subconscious? It doesn’t even explain anything!

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P.S. I know I’m not very good at drawing Pitch, he looks a bit too old here and not as handsome as I intended. I’m drawing him for the first time after all, and he does have a very peculiar type of face. My friend compared him to Na’vi, I mentioned that his nose reminds me of Edward Cullen, and then he said that Pitch looked like an Avatar of Edward Cullen XD Even though I like neither Cullen nor his nose, I find this particular part of anatomy most attractive in Pitch, along with his wide-set eyes. The only thing that disappoints me is that his outfit is too plain. But it can be improved in fanart, right? :3 *thinks of Pitch in tall boots and leather pants and faints of massive nosebleed*