Dreams

Family

His breath still caught in his throat, he slowly turned his gaze to her—

And found himself looking at a familiar shack... no woman in sight.

Cold. Wet.

Everything beneath his bum suddenly welt... watery.

Glancing down, he realized he was no longer resting on a hill— but on a verdant marsh. A familiar marsh.

Rising slowly, he cocked a brow as he looked down at himself, unfastened overalls clinging to his waist yet another vaguely familiar element. He had seen these before... he had never worn them, though.

And even hHis father had stopped wearing them after they moved into Slateport...

Turning his gaze back to the familiar shack, his brows rose as he noticed the... smoke rising out of a shabbily built chimney.

"Wha- what the heck is this...?" He muttered to himself as he took a slow step towards the shack, and another— before breaking out into a sprint—!

The door banged against a wall as he ran into the house, panting hard and nearly as wide eyed as his shocked mother.

"... John!? Boy, why didn't ya call if ya were visitin'?" His mother finally gasped after recovering from the shock, holding a dainty hand to her chest briefly before pursing her lips at him. "I didn' prepare near' 'nuff food to feed yer butt too! Wait, is my lil' daughter in law with ya? That poor girl is so thin as is... Argh! Stay right there! I'll whip up something real quick!"

Stupefied as he was, he had didn't get to answer any of her questions, simply staring wide eyed as his mother grabbed an apron and rushed back into the small kitchenette...

---

Dreams

Aspiration

"W-wait, Mom, how are you—" The youth said as he rushed after his mother, rounding out of the living room and into the kitch—

Into the blinding flashes of camera lights as he stumbled out of a —his?— limousine, finding himself surrounded on all sides by men and women trying desperately to get mics to his face, all shouting incomprehensible nonsense questions at him.

Champion Doug this. Doctor Sullivan that.

Brought back Victini from the dead...? Defeated Talia Bosch, Bailey Cooper and Kyle Lopez in a 1v3? Impossible feat here, ludicrous thing there.

Every question thrown at him seemed to concern some event so thoroughly outrageous and/or impossible he was already getting second hand embarrassment.

It sure would've been nice if he were to ever actually accomplish anything quite as ridiculous as all this, but...

His brow furrowed deeply, head swiveling back as he looked over his shoulder— and getting blinded by another group of people on the other side of the limo.

What the heck was going on? Lucid dreams weren't like this.

"Ugh, I can't do this right now." He groaned as he rubbed his temples.

Before freezing as a hand suddenly reached out from the limo's open door.

"You should know better than to make me wait, John." Came that familiar voice, tone impatient and expectant and making his heart leap to his throat.

Dreams

Reunions

He got yanked back into the limousine.

And landed head first against a wooden log, banging his skull against hard bark. As white flashes filled his vision, the youth realized he would have to give up on truly understanding what was going on.

Whatever this was, dream or reality or limbo— it was clearly not something he could hope to understand.

As he waited for his vision to clear, he found himself staring up at stars framed by the thick canopies of a forest.

A glowing, shifting orange tint colored the underside of the tree leaves as his vision slowly began to clear, and the sound of voices began to reach him.

Familiar voices. Familiar tones. Familiar words and familiar jokes.

There was a bonfire nearby, he realized now. Something was being cooked on it— not particularly well cooked. But the scent made him feel young. It was familiar and nostalgic.

As he rose from were laid against the wood log, he saw several familiar faces sat around a campfire.

"Damn. You ate shit, mate. You good?" A familiar voice suddenly said as a palm fell over his shoulder, a grunt following as a very familiar youth tried to help him stand. "Come on—! Everyone's waiting."

Dreams

Revelations

As he was pulled up to his feet, the world blended together into a mesh of colors.

Overwhelmed by an irresistible vertigo, he collapsed on his ass— right atop an a plush, leather-bound surface, the creak of the fabric echoing within an otherwise empty room as the seat beneath skid back atop a set of wheels.

"Ugh... What now?" He groaned as he rubbed his temples, his gaze bleary and off-focus as he raised it to the room around him.

It was nowhere he had ever been before, but he recognized it for what it was nonetheless: an office. A big office.

A big, weird office. It felt almost right. Almost built, decorated and furbished with the logic one would expect from a human being living and working in the space. Almost.

But it didn't quite add up right.

The first thing that put him off was the atmosphere.

Though he stood inside a room, the walls left of him were nothing but glass windows on what he presumed to be a tower; but there was no metropolis stretching all the way to the horizon out there.

There were certainly glittering lights; the occasional neon-like signs... but it was all nearly entirely swallowed up by an all consuming darkness.

He could see the vague suggestions of skyscraper's silhouettes in the horizon and nothing more.

Unnerving.

Even more so, however, was the face staring at him in the windows.

His own face, as ever— draped heavily in the military regalia, as he had once preferred.

Curious thing, however:

His skin was... worryingly blue-ish. And the badges and pins on his uniform? He was fairly certain those were Megalopolan in origin.

"Oh boy." He muttered under his breath as he noticed something on the desk.

A familiar hat. Yet... of a different palette.

Turning towards it, the youth slowly approached the black cone occupying 'his' desk. It twitched...

And from it, rose a Tapu Lele. A 'shiny' Tapu Lele.

"... You making fun of me?"

Birth by Sleep

Round 1

"What the hell are these choices?" He scoffed as he stared at the text window, lips pouty as he considered his 'options'.

Quack or 'jinxed'?!

"I get 'redneck' and quack, whatever, but... why Jinxed? My luck ain't that bad! I've never even lost a game of jinxed in my life!" He protested as he tried to grab the window, quickly finding out that, other than the choices? The thing might as well not exist.

Which is to say, he phased through it and nearly faceplanted, accidentally making his 'choice' in the process.

[attr="class","rbynote"]

'THE JINXED'!

Occasionally, bad luck will strike someone or something around you at random.

Doug stared at the window before him for a moment, brow twitching, mouth slightly agape.

"Oh, this is BULLSH—!"

---

"—IT!" Yelped the youth as a familiar silhoutte came flying down upon him from the canopy above, the gleaming blades unmistakable despite the dark.

For a moment, it seemed as though his very own Accelgor was gonna be sending him right back to his bedroom.

Until it suddenly, without warning lurched back midair, releasing a gagging wheeze as its scarves caught onto a branch, leaving the bug shinobi hanging like a prisoner on the gallows.

"... Oh shit!"

One dream ball later, Doug was sighing in relief, his Accelgor's snazzy new ball held tight against his chest.

"Sheesh, almost went and got yerself killed." He said, scowling at the ball. "What kinda ninja roars before attacking anyway?"

He could really use a rewind button on the shadow nonsense right about now.

And on that note...

[attr="class","rbynote"]

PURIFY YOUR POKEMON'S HEART

Warning! Doing so will take away power that can help you protect the ones you care about.

Continue?

"... Huh. How convenient." He said simply, before finishing his Accelgor's purification with a flick of his digit. "Lucky!"

He didn't need shortcuts to strength anyway.

---

Accelgor forgot Shadow Chill. Accelgor learned Helping Hand!