Smoke hangs in the air like a confession that can't be taken back. Trench warfare was a dated method, but she had ordered her Sergeant's orthworm to make such a ground formation for them as they circled the insurgents. Galar was home to a few terror organizations, but while the intel stated as such, she had a feeling this was less about insurgency and more about a group of radically progressive politically-active youth who wanted the monarchy to be dismantled for greater and better things. [break][break]

The distinct lack of military training or weaponry gave it away, along with the fact that group had made no demands and had no insignias, as one might expect terror organizations to have. But more than that, they were in a country-side home instead of taking cover somewhere more defensible. [break][break]

The situation is a play on the destruction of a village, though the scenario has shifted to be smaller and more personable. Instead of combing the streets for political radicals, she stands in a trench before a house. It's not a decision she would normally make, but in the dream, it seems quite rational despite the lack of projectile weapons or snipers. There's no reason not to charge forward, no reason not to just appear with a teleport. [break][break]

Her Sergeant generates a smokescreen with his tentacruel. Ameena walks through it, unencumbered by the smoke. Her other soldiers create a ruckus in the expanse between the house and the trench, drawing fire. It's obvious something is traveling through the smoke, but the insurgents or politically active youth or whatever they are do not fire on it. There's nearly a mile to traverse, but Ameena stands before the house in just a minute. [break][break]

The smoke sits on her tongue like a secret. The door to the house is unlocked. She can hear screaming upstairs in a language she doesn't understand and yet, all the same, she knows they are cursing the government and promising to kill her soldiers. [break][break]

She feels removed from her body, watching from a third person perspective, unfeeling as she sees herself walk up the stairs with her sword drawn. It's ceremonial. She has guns, several, and a knife, and draws nothing but the sword. She has pokemon to fight this fight for her. She has Espathra to teleport her directly into the house ages ago but made no move to release her; she had Munna to put them all to sleep for an execution, but never released her. [break][break]

It would be a true dream if it were just a power fantasy. It would be a true nightmare if it were just the separation of mind and body, the powerlessness of it. This one is neither. [break][break]

The faces of the youth always change. She knows she must have seen these faces in passing, that the mind cannot construct expressions well enough to design its own people, but she never knows a single one. They come at her haphazardly, streaked in dirt and tears and anger. She strikes them down with her sword with practiced ease. They never lay a hand on her. They always fall to slaughter like miltank. Every time she goes through the dream - with a different strategy, with a different team, with a different setting - she always wins the fight effortlessly, without emotion, without active thought. [break][break]

She wakes and writes down every conceivable detail on top of letting Musharna consume it; eventually, she will understand this one, which is so perplexing. Is it a nightmare, the feeling of being a puppet on a string? Is it a dream, the unstoppable force that she is? Is her mind asking her to work through her military experience, though the scenario is never similar enough to a mission to truly reflect it? She always wakes to the scent of smoke.

d r e a m – G 13[break][break][break]

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