love
dream 02

they arrived in a place of endless shadow. a thin sheet of liquid covered the floor, barely visible, yet somehow reflecting some unseen light.

“this is your realm…”

“this is your heart,” darkrai corrected. “listen.”

this dream had always been silent, except for once, when she’d heard the faint running of water. now, there was the unmistakable thump, thump, thump.

“not the heart as you know it.” darkrai explained, ”not of the body, but of the being.”

“why’s it beating?”

“the drum of war.”

lulu listened, feeling suddenly bitter, cold, and regretful.

“don’t try to block it out. it will always be a part of you.”

“it’s evil.”

“what do you know of evil?”

“i know blood.” she remembered, then, and reached down. the water wasn’t water at all. it was thick, sticky, dark. she held it up, pooled in her palm and running down through her fingers as proof.

“that blood is yours, revenant.”

she was quiet for a long moment, looking out into the vast expanse of black.

“it’s all that’s here. my heart… it’s empty.”

“no! not empty.” darkrai’s claw swept across the darkness, as though commanding the veil to fall. “never empty. look.”

she turned to see familiar faces. a drink shared warmly with Rowan Wrynn . a tearful embrace with Cillian Quinn , and then @naomi . congee at a table with Tempest Quinn . lying on messy sheets as Sabine Calcifet wiped away her tears, laughing about sharks, and swimming amongst fish with THEO BECKETT , and sitting on a porch with a friend from prison in galar who’d changed her mind about everything.

“don’t forget to open your eyes. you will need them to find the answers.”

dream drop distance: love theme
word count 284 words

☉

avatarship
dream 03

on the third night, she found herself alone in space on an asteroid careening through the stars. her boots stood on a glass screen that stretched across a large crater, black and reflective and impossible to see into.

suddenly, the screen lit up. across it, almost too large to read, were the words ascended hall of origin.

the asteroid began to travel faster towards a light in the distance. then, a portal opening out of the corner of her eye revealed that, of course, she had company.

turning and expecting it to be the drk triad, she instead found declan walsh staring back at her. his face glitched, a few pixels becoming something else for a fraction of a second. the growing light seemed to affect him strangely.

darkrai appeared behind him, claws outstretched and flying over the boss’s head to grab her threateningly before she could react. however, it was met with a dark pulse sent by a doppelganger. narrowly escaping the other darkrai’s grasp, lulu stumbled backward on the asteroid’s pocked terrain as a fierce battle between universes ensued.

walsh charged for her, but she found when she swiped defensively at him that shadows followed her hand, just as they did his, knocking him back. when he created copies, she did the same, until neither could find one another amidst their illusions.

the battle was even–but not for long. through a hyperspace hole, a hoopa appeared, monstrous. it dove in, fighting alongside walsh’s darkrai in a battle that would quickly tip towards their defeat.

it was only near the end that a lunar blessing bestowed renewal. cresselia arrived, radiant in a plume of dream mist and joined by luka chêne . in the distance, a moon glowed brighter, until an immensely powerful moonblast cut across the surface of the asteroid. the hoopa, darkrai, and walsh disappeared in the light, becoming like disappearing wisps of black smoke.

luka lowered her hand. lulu stared at the woman she had once chained to a sink and left for dead in her laboratory. she was almost angelic.

“thank you,” lulu said softly, in awe.

“it wasn’t for you. i don’t like you.”

”that’s fair.”

her rose-haired captive stared back with wise resolve the scientist had not previously seen. “but we still have to do this together.”

“what do you–”

just then, they were blinded by arrival. the asteroid was gone, but there had never been an impact. they walked through space like daylight, on nothing but faded stars under the eyes of arceus.

“cresselia, darkrai. luka, and lulu. just in time.”

“i don’t know what’s going on…” she said quietly to luka.

”always so impatient. you are here for the answer. there are many tasks that must be done to save our universe. i give one to the four of you.”

worry. regret. how would they work as a team to accomplish anything now?

”i understand you have your differences. cresselia and darkrai exist in a balance–not enemies. you will do the same. you must close off the interdream zone from the rest of your world together.”

the god’s gaze fell directly upon her then.

“consider this your redemption, revenant. you are forever connected to your world’s fear. they may always see you as evil, and i will not change that—but do this, and you will know otherwise in your heart, by the word of the creator. do not fail me.”

a bright light flashed.

sootopolis, hoenn
post-dream

she awoke. when she did, it was with almost immediate bitterness.

“why again? why nothing else?!”

she began ripping notes from journals. all of them were about dreams in one way or another. the paradox pokémon. the mist. munna and musharna. the lunar wing. pages upon pages of the doctor’s wild theories, stacked on top of her own imagination...

”this is all i am anymore! for what?! lies! they’re not real. none of it’s real! it’s pollution! it’s—“

she looked at her porygon-z. as it peered back, it wasn’t with the same overwhelming hunger she had once felt. it merely awaited her command, looking somewhat startled at her outburst.

”get these dreams out of my head!”

never had the scientist requested that it attack her. unsure what to make of it, the pokemon merely twitched—a glitch she had missed.

sweat beaded on her forehead. she took deep breaths, running a hand through her hair as she assessed the damage she’d done. what a mess.

there would be no picking it all up until morning, at least. instead, she ascended the stairs for a glass of tequila and a long stare into the night.

dream drop distance: avatarship theme
word count (dream portion only) 575 words

☉

a few days later, she tried again.

power
dream 04

in her mind she saw a triangle.

“deoxys?”

it began to morph, first its tentacles writhing at the edges, and then triangle burst. deoxys stared back at her. there was familiarity in its eyes. this one had once belonged to killian decker.

without the hostility it had shown before, it reached out to touch a tentacle to her forehead. there, images were transmitted. first, a hyper beam into space, sent from a lighthouse where she’d once lived. second, the image of a tera crystal shard.

she reached into her pocket and found the same shard, and pulled it out, offering it to the alien. the deoxys took it, and began to ascend, up and away.

then, she awoke within her dream–a dream within a dream–feeling as though she knew what had to be done.

it took some convincing, but over several days, the lunar duo, lulu and luka chêne collected the things they would need to complete the task. many z-crystals and primal shards were stolen from both mossdeep space center and team rocket alike. experiments were performed. after a few trials, a large metal bowl was constructed, housing the two crystalline materials fitted tightly together.

when it was ready, the moon was full. right on time.

on a small island off the coast of sootopolis, the four tasked with closing the interdream zone gathered around the contraption. luka unveiled a pink tera crystal shard, and cresselia terastallized beautifully before them. its avatar closed her eyes, a rosy halo glowing around her.

above, the moon grew even brighter, before beams shot towards it, reflecting tenfold in a moonblast back at the bowl. the z-crystal and primal shard activated in tandem, the resulting power immense. it shot upward, back through the sky and into space, traveling much further than the hyper beam from before.

what answered was a swarm from the sky. hundreds of deoxys descended upon hoenn in search of their mysterious treasure.

”help them find it. it will be easier in the dark.”

darkrai agreed, and rose into the night sky. a blanket of black was drawn across all of hoenn, blotting out all manmade light. what shined through was the glow of tera crystals in their hiding places, beckoning their extraterrestrial seekers.

the deoxys had a singular mission, and they did not wreak any havoc on the region they briefly invaded. tentacles pried mineral from dirt in the recesses of caves and from the sand of beaches, until the region was cleared of the tera crystal, sparkling as it was hauled in fragments back into the sky, and back to outer space.

the blanket of darkness was lifted again. the interdream zone was closed, no longer accessible from their world–at least not by the average human. more importantly, dreams could no longer walk among them.

however, there were still dreams that remained, having escaped the threshold long before the closing. the four’s mission was not yet over.

they spent the night traversing hoenn, cresselia and luka’s lunar dance drawing dreams from their hiding places. darkrai and lulu weakened them, making them easier to round up and collect en masse. a team of porygon-z converted the remnants into data, so they could be moved into a safe place, away from the rest of the world.

eventually, the waking dream infestation was cleared. their mission had reached its end, and they had succeeded.

before the lunar duo and their avatars parted ways, lulu offered a hand to luka.

”i’m sorry,” she said, amber eyes filled with sincerity.

”i forgive you,” luka smiled, and turned away, disappearing into a fog of dream mist.

when the scientist and her patron were alone again, they traveled in shadow back to the island, and down into the bunker where the dream machine rested. there, it was loaded with the remnant data they had collected, completing the simulated dream world.

powering it on, lulu entered an artificial paradise that stretched as far as the eye could see. however, there would be no exploring it all yet. in a cloud of shadow, she searched, rather, for the end of the realm.

when she reached the far edge of the simulation, she found a plane of white, where almost nothing else existed. there was something like a film hanging there in the air, la barely visible wall. she approached it, and tentatively stuck her hand through. pixels spread. she could feel drops of water on the other side.

it was raining in the parallel universe.

“it worked,” she breathed, in disbelief.

arceus appeared next to her. “indeed. you may consider yourself redeemed, revenant, but there is yet more you have to offer this world. answers await beyond here. for now, we are out of time, and there is one last thing i wish for you to see.”

dream drop distance: power theme
word count 803

☉

revelations
dream 05

splash.

she felt she knew this ocean just as she had felt she’d known the darkness. in it, she swam alone, seeing nothing in the depths for a long while. eventually, familiarity came in the form of floating islands of stone and drifting nihilego. she heard the beat of a heart again.

thump, thump, thump.

she kept going towards a dim light ahead, realizing soon that it was the mouth of eternatus, and it was swallowing fire. kicking off to the side, she was able to evade the quaestor lucis as its wreckage rushed by, still lit up with life aboard–but not for long.

when she made it to beyond the mouth, she swam into the blotchy indigo of ultra space and found herself in crossfire. tera blasts exploded against the eternatus from weapons mounted on megalopolan spacecrafts.

before she was blown to bits, her hands found purchase on a timeline, thrown like a rescue rope from a dialga in the distance. she grabbed on, letting it pull her from harm as she glimpsed history and the birth of the universe. it led through ultra space, and eventually into the swirling colors of an ultra wormhole.

out the other side, she swam into the stars. dialga led her still, until she could see the world as she knew it ahead. she had seen that sight before in real life, one of her greatest achievements.

however, as she neared, she witnessed a powerful spacial rend from a nearby palkia, that collided with the atmosphere, warping it as though it were solid. as though a dome of some sort encased the entire planet. it sparked, pixelated, and then failed.

behind the facade was the blinding glow of a quasar. energy rippled from it, lighting up the dark of space.

she shielded her eyes, but as they drew closer, she noticed the light fading. it grew colder. when her arm lowered, it was clear they were heading into the heart of a black hole. from it peered back the glowing eyes of a gigantamax giratina, sparkling with dark crystal.

everything was pulled in. debris. spaceships. the eternatus that had been left behind in ultra space. a moon.

they all began to stretch thin, and in the vortex she also saw familiar faces. rayquaza, groudon, kyogre, lugia, ho-oh, suicune, entei, raikou, xerneas, yveltal, kyurem... all of the gods were there, and this was their last chance.

life's necessary balance gave way to an ultimate weapon that had never existed before. leaves flew through the hottest flames and didn’t burn, fanning an inferno that was not weakened by rushing water and didn't melt the ice, and the ice didn’t diminish the power of dragons. all empowered one another.

she saw darkrai and cresselia in a dance. a moonbeam fired, and it bared the black teeth of nightmares, like a shadowy gauntlet for a fist of light.

arceus charged through the eye of their storm, launching one final, fate-altering attack.

sootopolis, hoenn
post-dream

when she awoke, it was under the glow of psychic energy.

she saw her dream pulled away from her, pinched in the center as though it were a sheet dragged off by a hand. it spiraled like the vortex she had just witnessed, though quickly fading into nothing. behind it, her porygon-z blinked and twitched.

with a cough, she rose weakly from her chair, stumbling from lack of coordination and numbness before falling to her knees and vomiting. with no energy to move further, she then rolled onto her back and stared at the ceiling as it continued to swirl. her ears rang as though a bomb had gone off. her body tingled.

”so this is what it feels like…”

the last time she had felt the power of a psychic z-move so directly, she had not retained any memory of the aftermath.

dream drop distance: revelations theme
word count (dream portion only) 492 words

☉

the sickening effects of the z-move had turned her off to the idea of dreaming again—at least for a few days, until she became curious. had the last story been taken away entirely? if so, what would she dream of next?

with the aid of musharna, she dove back into the dream world one last time.[break]

family
dream 06

opening her eyes, she found herself on the side of a tall, snowy mountain, near the peak. familiar tones of laughter rolled down the hill like sunshine. the wind whispered higher.

it had been a long climb. her legs were sore, and the cold burned in her chest, but she smiled. it was practically ear-to-ear when she saw tips of their hats, and the many colors that glowed at their edges and reflected on the distant faces of other mountains.

Rowan Wrynn and Cillian Quinn had beaten her there, leaving her behind in a last minute race to the top. hers was a more leisurely pace.

eventually, she stood beside them. cillian, who already had an arm around his brother’s shoulder, put an arm around hers as well. he laughed again, ”look at us! we made it. we are quinns of the crown tundra!”

aurora borealis danced through the sky, lighting the dark. their amber eyes sparkled, in awe of the world’s magic. it lived on, like the joy in their hearts.

”it’s beautiful.”

dream drop distance: family theme

☉

birth by sleep
scenario 1 (1/2)

as you know, the snubbull king said, but the kingdom of sylvis did not ring a bell. still, the theme carried a strong parallel to their reality: the impending end of all things.

regarding the clock above the crown topping the pokemon’s head, she wondered if it was dream time or real time, and what the difference was, and if she’d really be there for that long, but did not consider returning to the waking world.

then, a howl, and her porygon-z took off with others for the forest beyond the castle, and she found herself with no choice but to venture into those shadows of surely perilous wood anyways.

she was not the first to leave, nor the last, and she was in no rush past the occasional tear in space, inspecting their glitching edges with parts concern and fascination. it was as though parts of the world were rendering poorly on a computer.

am i in a dream within a digital world, or am i in a digital world within a dream?

before she could get very far, she was attacked by a shadow pokemon, of which she caught only the vague silhouette before she was brutally taken down and it tore off deeper into the forest once more.

she opened her eyes to discover her avatar’s new transparency. ”damn!” she hissed, remembering the uselessness of her ability.

wandering wraith
revenant <darkrai>
return as a ghost after your avatar dies. in an incorporeal state, you are unable to interact with anyone or anything beyond observation–including the dream ball.

she looked through the gaps in trees that faded to shadow, and that vague abyss felt ominous. still, she could not resist pressing forward anyways, if only to explore a little longer.

eventually, she did come upon her porygon-z, to find that it, too, had startlingly transformed into a shadow pokemon. she reached for the dream ball quickly but in vain. the veil of her fingers slipped right through its smooth surface, and when she looked back up, a wave of shadow overtook her, and she was back in the real world once more.

☉

birth by sleep
scenario 1 (2/2)

she awoke from her dream and rushed to check her pc, only to find that, indeed, her porygon-z was gone, which could only mean one thing: the dream had been real, at least in some significant way that affected their own reality.

it’s getting worse, she worried.

the next evening, she went to sleep with the help of her musharna, and found herself in sylvis castle again, as promised. she had a second chance to get back the dangerous porygon-z.

she left the castle, into the forest beyond. this time, she was more careful, hiding behind trees from the often passing shadow pokemon and remaining successfully evasive until her eyes fell upon a familiar silhouette.

she prepared the dream ball in her hand before turning out from behind her hiding place and throwing the ball in the direction of her porygon-z. it cracked open and absorbed the corrupted duck inside, and fell to the ground with a click and a brief glow.

when the menu appeared, it took her a long moment to make a selection.

[attr="class","rbynote"]

KEEP YOUR POKEMON'S STRENGTH

Warning! Doing so will keep you from reaching their true potential in lieu of brute force.

Continue?

[newclass=.rbynote]border-width: 9px 9px 9px 9px;border-style:solid;border-image: url('https://i.imgur.com/UUqNs3l.png') 9 9 9 9 repeat repeat;padding:6px 8px;color:#232323;text-align:justify;font:11px Calibri;letter-spacing:1px; margin-top:20px;background:#aaa;background-clip: padding-box;[/newclass]
what tie did the shadow pokemon have to the dream world? she intended to find out.

☉

birth by sleep
scenario 2

next time, she awoke within the dream, she resembled a porygon-z. once a claydol, and now this. at least this time around, there were less eyes to get used to.

she levitated in the dining hall, staring for a moment at the rest of the avatars. it was such a strange dream, so unlike the others she’d had that month, that it made her question if it was in any way a product of her own imagination, or perhaps something else entirely.

she wondered if it was a digital connection to the inside of her mind. with the game-like qualities, the glitching, and the riddle, it all pointed in many ways to the drk triad. are they also somehow responsible for the shadow pokemon? she wondered.

and she remembered, then, the way the shadow pokemon had turned on them, during the dawn of the darkest day, when necrozma had attacked, and there had briefly been two of them.

they’re trying to end our world first.

preparing to leave the castle, while her latest theories bloomed in her mind, she checked her inventory, eyes quickly pulled to the strange, but memorable word: hexenzirkel.

modification of navigation. resets after battle encounters. it reminded her of the rks simulations. more puzzle pieces seemed to snap into place–yet, still not enough for a clear enough picture.

remembering the difficulty of her last venture out into the woods and the uselessness of her ability, she joined a party on their way into a dungeon. hopefully, she would be successful in one go this time.

before leaving, she destroyed her card.

revenant - Lulu Flint
ghost gem / spooky tablecloth / spell tag

while her porygon-z knew no ghost moves and two of the items were thus ineffective, the spooky tablecloth tied like a cape would surely provide added intimidation.

they battled and smarted their way through various obstacles and swarms, and somewhere along the way, she realized she was fighting alongside a few beings of artificial intelligence, which wasn’t terribly surprising, really.

as a dynamax darkrai rose ahead (hardly impeded by the spookiness of the porygon-z’s donned tablecloth), shadesorcerer charged in, the choice specs on his squirtle boosting the special attack power of its water pulse.

meanwhile, lulu dodged another party member, cluckle_up, who attempted to helpfully hand her a lucky egg.

a hyper beam ripped towards the darkrai from her own porygon-z, followed by the attacks of the ai’s pokemon. dark pulses and dark voids were launched back, and it was difficult battle, ultimately won curiously by a weezing’s explosion. she watched the darkrai disappear in the smoke with a pang of regret.

she was also reminded of the death of her own weezing, having sacrificed itself in an explosion during the war with the megalopolans. she wondered if it was simply a coincidence.

with the round cleared, the token she received was an image of her avatar’s wandering ghost, scarcely recognizable.

☉

birth by sleep
scenario 3

weeks into december, the dream world beckoned again. she answered, returning to the castle for the first time since cresselia’s attack.

are you here? is this really your realm, or is this the cloud?

a key to the past reminded her of father winter, and she wondered if he was not who the snubbull was referencing. the instructions to destroy were concerning. what would be the scope of the destruction? could all dreams be reached from the castle in the forest, or was it just a piece of a much greater, unfathomable world like she’d imagined?

”what is this place, exactly?” she blurted, but there was no response, and as the hall emptied with avatars leaving to find and unlock and destroy, she went as well, hoping for another way.

do you see what’s happening?

the shadow pokemon in her company hovered near, drawn to glitching cracks in the world with a hunger the scientist did not yet realize. when eventually they did find the rift, the porygon-z was the first in, slipping through her grasp as she tried to stop it.

”no!” she scrambled in after, and before she could grab for its dream ball, spaceships were already exploding past her. the porygon-z flew close and knocked the ball into space, where it plummeted down as though pulled by gravity.

she dove for it, but it stayed out of her reach as the world grew nightmarishly darker. she felt helpless.

”leave it alone!”

she kicked and reached harder. the pokeball suddenly stilled as though pinned in place, and she grabbed it, tumbling forward to glimpse the remnants of dreams behind her, dead gods and dying light.

”stop!” she screamed once more, but the last of the stars were snuffed out by a shadow wave, and then that world went black too.

☉

birth by sleep
scenario 4

it had been only in hints before, but now it seemed clear enough: this ‘dream world’ was digital. was it all a dream itself? dreams within a dream? either way, it was spooky.

when the snubbull quieted, she eyed the new item in her inventory. she suspected she’d regret opening it, but unable abandon her curiosity, soon found herself falling back through time.

✦

“hi reuben.”

a small voice echoed lightly within the stone walls of a castle tower, from a child with snow-speckled blonde hair doing her almost-best to be quiet. quinn court’s aviary had become one of her favorite places to sneak off to at night.

“how was your day? did you get to fly a lot?”

the rookidee she was speaking to warbled a soft sound and settled closer to her. she ran her hand against its blue feathers and welcomed it into her lap, sharing warmth to fight the chill of the ever-present draft.

“my day was okay, i guess. i went to school. that was boring, and i’ve been grounded for my marks again.” she sighed. “not sure why they bother... it’s not like i ever go anywhere or do anything anyways. you’re my only real friend.”

after a moment, then, she brightened once more. ”that makes you my best friend, reuben. and once you get big, we’ll fly far, far away from this terrible place. we’ll go to alola, or paldea…”

✦

she awoke in the chair in her laboratory, the dream still vivid in her mind, and she quickly rolled toward her desk, where she grabbed a pen and began frantically writing in a journal, describing the castle and the snubbull’s game, the shadow pokemon, and the strings of code...

finally, she stopped, and stared at the edge of her desk  until she had the thought to get up and check her pc.

her breath hitched at what she saw. ”no fucking way.”

had she really been in the cloud? did that mean they, too, possessed some kind of dream machine?

then could it be… that i am in the dark triad? she suddenly wondered in horror, fingers winding into her hair as she thought through the possibilities of time travel and alternate universes.

her dog watched, drooling onto the laboratory floor. “never trust anyone, djall,” she cautioned. ”not even yourself.”

djall snorted, and she looked over to meet the dumb look in his eyes. ”especially not yourself,” she amended.

☉