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He barely hears Alex calling out behind him. Memo’s brain works in a two-pronged attack: he is insanely curious about what could be going on, first of all, and second, if he can figure out what that is and stop it fast, Alex won’t ever have to be involved or be in any danger. He doesn’t doubt, for a second, that whatever this is is something he can handle.
[break][break]
“I will be,” he said over his shoulder, reaching forward to depress the handle on the door. He pushes it open with a shove all the while stepping back. The pink mist catches on the door and billows up and backwards, little licks of clouds crawling out over the landing. The room beyond is full of it-- a darker, magenta hue, thick enough to obscure anything within.
[break][break]
Tendrils of pink slip over the edge of the first stair, drifting to pool on Memo’s foot; he feels it, distantly, the overwhelming sleepiness that had overcome in when he’d touched the mist on the floor below. It’s not overpowering, but he has to stifle another yawn--
[break][break]

[break][break]
What Memo doesn’t realize is that he’s asleep, living through the Ampharos’ nightmares. His body pitches backwards, reaching full unconsciousness, and hopefully, either Alex or Vincent is fast enough to catch him…
[break][break]
…a vague shape, like a kidney bean darkens in the fog, as a slumbering Musharna, glutting itself on the strength of the Ampharos’ nightmares, floats to the forefront of the dream mist billowing from its forehead like a geyser.
[BREAK][BREAK]

Famous last words, Memo.

Alex had followed the other fast enough to see the moment that he’d opened the door, and then, and then—

Instead of the other going straight into the pink-tinged foggy room, there was a rough shape falling down backwards, right where he was climbing up towards!

“What the—” was all the words he could say before bracing himself and catching the other, who had—fainted—no, he didn’t look like that, and then the looming shape that floated out from within the depths of the—

Are you kidding me?! he screamed in the back of his head, realizing what the hell was causing the uproar—it was a mcfucking Musharna, but where did it come from?

How did it get here?!

He knew as much as the average Pokémon trainer that sending a Fighting-type against a Psychic-type was never a good idea, so he had to switch—and fast.

“Vince, grab him!” he barked at the Lucario, temporarily dropping the other—only for the jackal Pokémon to close the distance and use his paws to catch the other in a somewhat upright position, before he quickly summoned his Salamence, Gabriel.

Okay, this was going to be a tight fit, considering how narrow the staircase was—

He flattened himself against the wall as the Salamence expanded from the red beam of light, roaring at the sight of the Musharna.

“Flamethrower!”

Without further ado, the Salamence took aim, and released a powerful, peppery burst of flames aimed right at the round, floating, pink mist-emitting Pokémon, hoping that the other would be driven back—

Shit, what a time to not have a Pokémon with him that knew Hurricane!

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[break][break]
Gabe’s form expands in the stairwell, wings scraping along the metal interior of the spiral column. Pink lightning bolts strike around him, the fog creeping ever further down the stairs, rolling in dense banks.
[break][break]
The Flamethrower goes off, instantly superheating the air around them. It hits the Musharna at full blast, paint on the doorframe bubbling and dripping, and the Musharna wakes with a furious shake and a screech-- not a verbal one, but a mental one, a shrill cry of pain.
[break][break]
It’s awake, now, and pissed-- and powerful, having glutted itself on the Ampharos’ nightmares for at least a week. But it has grown tired of shipwrecks and storms and unending loneliness. Now it has new terrors to absorb.
[break][break]
The magenta dream-fog darkens to a purplish-black, like a fresh bruise, and out of it crawls a line of thorny roots, spiraling down the stairwell. The roots are cloaked in black flame, as the dream eater warps the world around them, and the Musharna regains some strength.

The Salamence is more used to fighting in open spaces, so to be sent out to do battle in a tight, cramped stairwell—this wasn’t going to end well, was it?

The Lucario barked out loud somewhere behind the two, warning them of the danger that was headed their way, because what the—

The loud, piercing, mental shriek drove Alexei to his knees; and made the Salamence roar out loud in pain. While Vincent was slightly farther down the stairs, he felt his aura twitch painfully as he growled, paws still supporting the other as the strange attack spread out—

“What’s going on?!” he screamed, looking up at the Salamence who had a pained expression on his face.

“Don’t get too close, otherwise you’re going to get taken out too! Keep it at a distance!”

The strange fog had curled and morphed into something straight out of hell—why were those root-like projections black, and on fire? Whose dream was this?!

It was too risky for a Dragon Claw, so the only other option he had was a Rock Slide—but that was too powerful and could wreck the stairwell (and send them all to their deaths) so instead, the Salamence had to get creative and began a peppering, continuous blast of Flamethrower to keep the Musharna at bay.

Because holy fucking shit, if either he or the Salamence inhaled the mist, they were going to be in for it!

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[break][break]
Gabe’s wings knock against the walls of the narrow staircase, filling the room with hollow, echoing thuds. The sound of rain is gattling-gun heavy against the external metal of the lighthouse.
[break][break]
Tendrils of magenta missed pooled down the stairs, curling ever closer to where Alex was bowed to his knees.
[break][break]

[break][break]
Angry at being awoken, the Musharna dances with Gabe, hovering and floating around the belches of fire that shoot towards it. The air in the lighthouse hallway becomes overheated, and drips of paint bubble and plop down from the ceiling.
[break][break]
The briars burst from the walls, zigging and zagging back and forth down the staircase like barbed wire. Their serrated edge slice anything they touch.

The mental screaming was causing Alexei’s own head to start pounding—oh, shit, not now, not when they’re one man down in this entire search and ‘rescue’ thing and—

A loud roaring noise came from the Salamence, who’d resorted to backing way despite the incredibly cramped quarters, trying to keep the advancing Musharna away. Turning to where his human companion was still on his knees, he roared out another warning—

And then decided, fuck this shit, it was time to try and put a wall between them and that strange—that strange black mist!

Another loud roar shook the entire curling hallway where they were, before a controlled—well, as controlled as possible anyway—avalanche of boulders ripped through the space, an attempt at a Rock Slide to create a defensive wall between the black mist and them.

“Th—thanks,” he whispered, finally getting the strength to stand the fuck up and wobble his way back down the stairs as the Salamence continued—although there were still tendrils of the terrifying medium chasing after them. Oh, hell no!

“Whoa!” he yelped, trying to back his ass away from the walls and stay in the middle as possible. Since when did the ‘dream’ become all too real?!

“Vince! Wake him up!” he shouted down the stairwell, and that was all the Lucario needed before he leaned the other man against the wall and attempted to slap Memo awake with his paws!

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Summoned from out of nowhere, stone boulders crashed down between Gabe and the Musharna. They fell backwards until enough of them crammed into the space to block it off, the metallic steps and walls of the lighthouse creaking and bowing with the pressure of new matter.
[break][break]
There was a crackling noise like burning paper. Small pebbles began to crack and crumble from the boulder wall as the flaming black briars burrowed through the seams in the rocks, worming their way through a little at a time.
[break][break]
As Alex turns to give Vince the command, he would see between himself and his Lucario an image, a visage, like a smudge of soot on the bare air.
[break][break]
An image of himself, smouldering and smoking at the edges, blank-eyed and burning away as Memo’s nightmares mesh and converge on each other. The not-Alex beings to crack and split, seams of ember hot redness splitting like lightning across his skin as he dissolves to ash.
[break][break]
Vince’s slap is loud and audible even above the din of the not-fire, and it works, because Memo bursts up with a scream-- then, he winces, eyes squeezing shut as he places a hand to the reddening mark forming quickly on his cheek.
[break][break]
“Ow,” he says, dizzy from sitting bolt-upright from dead sleep, then, “thanks.”
[break][break]
He uses the Lucario to get to his feet, still shaky. The scent of burning wood is still thick in the hallway, though fading by the second.
[break][break]
Still holding his cheek, he looks up at Alex, sheepish smile crawling across his face.
[break][break]
“Remember when you told me to be careful?” he asks weakly, wincing in apology.
[break][break]
There’s a trill of annoyance, this time audible, and a second later a loud thud echoes as something heavy slams against Gabe’s boulders. Like a battering ram, the Musharna beats at the makeshift wall between it and the interlopers, and each pulse pushes the rocks closer and closer to falling, pebbles crumbling and scattering down the stairs.
[break][break]
Pink smoke filters between the ever-widening cracks.
[break][break]
Memo reaches up and snags Alex’s hand, pulling him backwards, aiming to put them well behind Gabe and Vince and himself, because all it would take is one bad bounce to open a small cut and then they’d really be in deep shit. Deeper than they already were. At least Memo was awake, now. He’d have plenty of time to beat himself up for being an idiot later.
[break][break]
He navigates Alex back down to the landing of the floor beneath them, making enough space between them and the stairs to free Zuza. The unicorn looks around, confused for just a moment, before Memo yells, “Psychic!” just as the Musharna finally breaks a space for its bean-shaped body in an accurate rendition of The Shining. Horn glowing vibrant pink, Zuza makes a psychic wall that charges up the stairs like a train, gaining momentum as it goes, picking up Gabe’s wall of rocks and throwing it backwards with the Musharna lodged in the space it's broken open, sending it careening backwards, ripping open the doorway and continuing back until it crashed against the back wall of the lighthouse, bending the metal outwards with the force of the blow. Caught in the psychic barrage, the pink smoke is pushed back, compressed against the far wall where it puffs in weak spurts around the edge of Zuza’s psychic.
[break][break]
It all happens with a screaming roar and a screech of rending metal. The silence in the aftermath is deafening.
[break][break]
“Holy shit,” Memo says, looking at his unicorn with wide eyes.
[break][break]
The Musharna is crushed under feet of boulders and stone. For a long time, there’s no motion from the pile of rubble.
[break][break]
Memo’s still holding Alex’s hand, he realizes. “Did we do it?”
[break][break]
The smoke begins to fade.

Maybe that was a bad idea—

Well, caution had already been thrown to the wind, it was basically a ‘fuck this shit, I’m out’ kind of gesture as the Salamence roared out of surprise, belatedly realizing what could potentially happen as the boulders formed a wall—well, the best rendition of a wall he could muster up before he turned his attention back to…

Oh, hell no!

Instead of seeing the Lucario slapping the ever-living daylights out of his sleeping companion, he instead sees something else—

It was him.

Only, instead of looking all normal and alive, it looked like the ‘other’ vision of himself he could see was… disintegrating into ashes? What the fu—

Another belated realization sunk in as he realized whose nightmare he was seeing (definitely not his, those involved something else entirely) before the sound of something loud, clattering echoes throughout the space.

The Salamence overhead roars at the cracks in the wall, forced to back away as said cracks widen and the pink mist from earlier seeped through—

The cracking noise is more than enough for him to turn around and catch sight of the pink—oh no, oh fucking hell no you do not—

Had the other been half a second faster, Alexei wouldn’t have screamed in surprise as his sudden gasp for breath caused him to inhale what was left of said pink mist before he felt himself pitching forward—backward, really, he wasn’t sure—as the Salamence was about to scream bloody murder and throw up a Protective screen before the other man stumbled backward over the steps downward.

The rest, quite frankly, is a mess—he barely registers hearing hooves (wait, hooves? What the hell?) clattering against the stairs and another louder roar as the Salamence throws the actual Protect right after Zuza’s Psychic just to make sure the boulders don’t come crashing down the stairwell with them as the Musharna’s thrown backwards, back up and through and smack right into the wall.

The Lucario’s brows furrow at the sight of the wobbling human before quickly throwing his own paws out to catch the other from falling over backwards as he lets out a warning bark to the idiot he’d slapped awake.

Gabriel flew up through the rest of the passage, just to make sure the pile of boulders didn’t start moving again of their own accord and wreak more havoc yet again. Just in case.

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“Hey.” Memo feels Alex’s woozy wobbling tugging at where he still has the other man’s hand squeezed in his. He follows along with him as he goes down, leaning in close when Vince catches him. “Hey, hey. None of that, now.” He brushes the hair out of Alex’s face and cups the back of his head.
[break][break]
Zuza can’t really do stairs because, well, horse, but she does manage to turn around. She whickers curiously, lowering her soft muzzle to nose at Alex’s forehead.
[break][break]
“Hey. Don’t make me make Vince slap you awake, too,” Memo says, shaking Alex lightly. The red handprint blasted across his face stings.
[break][break]
From the crumbled pile of boulders, there is no movement. The Musharna seems to be well and truly decimated.
[break][break]
There is, in fact, a sleepy purr from the room on the second floor. The Ampharos-- without whom none of this would have happened-- sticks their head into the hallway, rubbing at their eyes and yawning.

The racket washed over him like a blanket, before the threat of an actual slapping makes him look up, bleary-eyed.

“You—can’t do that, you know,” he mumbled, yawning as he felt a familiar scent nuzzling his forehead before the aroma of cotton candy reached him—it was Zuza.

“How’d you…fit her in here?” he added sleepily, fighting off the yawn before a grumbled sort of roaring noise came from up above them—and the Salamence flew back within sight.

The Lucario shook his head in Memo’s direction, before letting go of Alexei and turning around to look over at their new guest—the actual guard of the lighthouse; the Ampharos, before walking over to ask what the hell had happened.

“Never mind—ugh, what the hell did I see… was that… me?” he continued, realizing that he was in the other man’s hold but made absolutely no move to get up.

It felt rather nice to be in his arms.

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Memo grins down at him, the relief washing over him in a wave. He’d been so scared-- god, his nightmares were one thing, but Alex having to go through that? No thank you.
[break][break]
“Why not?” he asked, half a snicker. “It worked on me. Vince woulda done it, too.” He’s not 100% certain of that but he says it like he is.
[break][break]
He looks up at Zuzu, who has stepped back with a snort, satisfied that neither of her boys are in need of real healing. The Lucario paw-shaped mark on Memo’s face is just something he’s going to have to live with. “A feat of modern engineering,” he says, reaching down to grab her Pokeball. She goes without complaint because it’s all starting to feel a little claustrophobic, anyway.
[break][break]
Vince transfers the rest of Alex to Memo with a shake of his head, and Memo happily accepts the weight. It is remarkably like it had been on their first few dates-- even the one where Alex could have died. “You just can’t stop falling for me, huh?”
[break][break]
The Ampharos yawns again, and stretches. Vince will find they’re not much the worse for wear, save being asleep for a couple of days, and having enough stress dreams to last them an entire lifetime.
[break][break]
Memo’s face fell a little, first in confusion, then in realization. “Was what you-- oh.” He looked up, then, unknowingly staring at the spot where the ash-Alex had burnt away. “Um, yeah. Yeah, it was. Sorry.”

“I don’t think he would…” he said with another yawn, while the Lucario checked on the Ampharos and doused the Electric-type with Life Dew and flared out his aura in reassurance that the ‘nightmare’ of the Musharna was over.

At his next words, he snickered.

“Look, I-I can’t help it,” he added as he curled up into the other man’s hold unknowingly. “Plus it’s so nice here…”

The Salamence up above them huffed and rolled his eyes, before flying down the stairs to continue his patrol—the better to leave the two silly humans alone, joining the Lucario as they went back down the lighthouse.

“At…at least, what-whatever it was, what you saw… it’s not going to happen. Because…because I’m here,” he continued quietly with another yawn as he dozed off into a peaceful nap in Memo’s arms.

None of those nightmares, just a nice, quiet sleep.