~~~ Ch. 29 - Dreamyard Overload ~~~

The southeastern peninsula of Unova is largely covered by forests and conservation lands. Striaton City acts as a rough midpoint and approximate division from the “east” and “west” of the peninsula. The Cimmerian Forest is located east of Striaton City, and is bounded from the north by a town of the same name, Cimmerian City. Nestled on the coast, between cliffs to the north and with abundant beaches, the town is fast growing. Approximately eighty miles to the south, lies the quaint Accumula town, having been spared the worst of the outbreaks of restless pokemon the day before.

South of Cimmerian City by about ten miles, and approximately sixty miles due east of Striaton, is a large, experimental research facility, staffed with humans, performing experiments in a search for a new source of power in order to feed the Unova region’s growing consumption of electricity.

Twenty miles to the south of this lab, still deeper and further off the path, Alder meditates at his camp, accompanied by his pokemon.

Deep in Hoenn, a pair of Latios and Latias cruise at mach speeds, toying with stray ghosts, their shockwaves spooking many smaller pokemon into panicking.

Four dragapult, dreaming of, and longing for, more enlightened days, circle Spear Pillar in a holding pattern, filling up on remaining distortion that had, just the day before, been spewing forth from the mountain and threatened to collapse reality in on itself.

The night following the events at Mount Coronet, far to the south of Striaton city, in Accumula Town, a green-haired man in his mid-forties, named Ghetsis, was on the radio, preaching, giving speeches to all that would listen.

“I cannot do this alone! No man, woman or child can! Arceus calls to us, each and every one! We must do better! We must demand better! Who will stand and fight for Pokemon’s rights? Look in your pokemon’s eyes! They have a soul! We cannot allow this to go on any longer! We must fight for our truth, for our ideals. Look at what happened in Sinnoh! So much abuse of pokemon, and for what? For power? No, all pokemon abuse is wrong.

“Will you join me? There is nothing that justifies treating pokemon the way we do and forcing them to live in pain and hurt. We worship the gods of this world, and they tell us now! End the insanity, end the pain, end the violence! Arceus has called to us! Join me! Stop the violence, and free the animals from our tyranny!”

So says the man, who was already known for standing in the street and preaching, moving few, dismissed by others. But after the events of the day, a young attendant from this particular research facility lab is listening to Ghetsis’ appeal.

At the lab, on this day, not twenty-four hours later, another attendant clocks out. Burdened and overcome with guilt, their replacement commits to doing, and being, better.

Inside of this lab is a large group of pig-like, dreaming pokemon known as munna and musharna. Surrounded by images, sounds, and presence of their predators, their sleep is filled with restless nightmares. Restrained and unable to flee, this energy is being harnessed in search of more “clean” energy sources. Unpurified and unstored, even within the distortion realm, this energy would normally feed and dissipate into the surrounding world.

This fuel-to-be is fed into a complex of growing tubes, passing through cylinders and pipes and filters, sensors checking the temperatures, pressures and flow through every step, monitoring weight and other qualities. It is heated and fed a current of electricity, which separates the energy into a light-pink liquid and a dark, viscous liquid.

The scientists and engineers refer to the pink liquid as “liquid dreams.” It is fed into a medium-size holding tank, then piped and fed into a spherical chamber that had been wrapped on all sides by copper that fed into tanks of water, which boils, turning small turbines to produce electricity.

The second liquid is a corrosive, viscous black, and is stored in metal tanks connected to small plastic tubes, slowly dripping into musharna’s cloud-like umbilical, and for the munna, drips directly into their mouth. Thus, the black liquid which is separated, is fed back into both munna and musharna. This liquid, known by the researchers and engineers, as “liquid shadow,” infiltrates the pokemon’s psyche, and instills shadowy nightmares, as if they were granted direct access to the realms of darkrai themselves. The pink liquid, liquid dreams had the engineers found the same, produces the inverse, yet slightly separate effect. These pitch black liquids, injected in the right places, enhance the pokemon’s connections to their dreams, encouraging their bodies to produce more of the unrefined materials in a way that liquid dreams did not.

While in their dreams, the pink pokemon spend their psychic energy processing and removing the shadow chemical. This constant use forces their psychic minds into overdrive, binding and consuming their full capacities. Even as the pokemon’s psychic power grows from the use, the doses increase. Still, the facility’s experiments had been proven successful—by the time the munna evolve, more energy is being put out by the generator than put in. When the pokemon required more liquid shadow than their dreams produced, they would be released.

Waves of distortion are still rolling through the world, though reduced. Most of its effects are harmless or unnoticed at these faded doses, especially in the presence of awareness.

Though there are only ten munna and musharna, there are plans to expand operations. The operators of the lab had many interested investors, as they assured outsiders that the pokemon were being well-cared for. And for those who do inspect the facility, for the sleep-rooms, it did seem fine. Munna and musharna were not known for their active waking hours, though the lab ensured the use of opaque tubing in the “dreamroom.”

Before being put to sleep for the first time, munna were exposed and put under threat from the presence of their predators. Timid pokemon that they naturally were, when they were forced asleep, their dreams were immediately accented by that fear, which was then further driven home by recorded cries and growls. Paralyzed and unable to leave their dreams, their bodies produce the coveted liquid, which is extracted and pumped into the processing line. Every eight hours, a lab attendant physically inspects the pokemon and gives them a dose of a potion or berry.

With the nightmares beginning, the cycle continues as the liquid shadow is fed back to them while they sleep. Their bodies respond naturally, they live in their own nightmares and produce fuel. Supernaturally exhausted from their own pain, unable to comprehend their own situations, they had cried for months, even as they were squeezed like olives in a press.

The distortion circling the world had thinned as ghosts around the world rose to consume it. On this day, an unknowing attendant clocks out, leaving before their replacement has arrived. No observer or caretaker had entered the dreamrooms. Sounds of growling and screeching dark types quietly play to the sleeping choir. In another room, a monitoring alarm alerts. ight hours had passed since anyone had been in the dreamroom.

Itself being dreamless, and with no observer, no anchor to reality, the distortion gets to play without any resistance. The room shifts slightly, rotating its inhabitants. Three minutes after the alarm had gone off, a wave of distortion rises through, and this time, each pass causes the slightest break in reality.

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Forced to the realms of darkness and unable to leave, the musharna and munna had not been given the opportunity to fight or retreat. Fed fuel that locked them into their own shadowy nightmares, they are not allowed to endure, chased by their own primal fears as their bodies tried to endlessly process and expel the chemicals. They can only silently plead from their own dreams.

Another minute after this, an assistant researcher discovers the assigned caretaker for this shift did not show up. Unfortunately for them, this shift is on the opaque pipettes which fed into the musharna and munna.

It was not known that munna/musharna’s liquid darkness would, or even could, react with anything. It had been theorized the liquid was from Darkrai’s own realm of liquid nightmares. Though the members of the lunar duo have nothing to fear from any but the strongest of the gods of ghosts, their own internal aspect is not as processed and purely refined. The sleeper’s cries had been heard, months ago, and are still being heard.

With reality itself slightly shifted, the plastic tubing detaches from a single musharna. Pure, refined shadow spills onto the floor. Their dreams shifting, their overworked and now oversized psychic minds immediately respond. The body begins to heal itself, dreams shifting from nightmares to ones of hope of better futures. A single second later, their overcompensating and unpracticed psychic powers shift all the other pokemon in the room, knocking others free of the shadows.

The distortion welcomes and embraces the liquid shadow as it spews into the open air, crafting a heated, passionate, loving embrace. Breaking the sealed system, the distorted shadows spread like an infection up the tubes of their slavery.

These distorted shadows travel, expanding, exploding and breaking every container, infused by the expanding psychic energy and pent up pain. Introduced to the liquid dreams, where they combined but did not dissolve, spraying into the air in an explosive motion, energy continuing to build. Four seconds after the distortion meets liquid shadow and the pure essence of liquid dreams, they meet the soul drop. The soul within is itself tortured by perpetually-pleasant dreams of a future they can never have. As the sphere absorbs the chaotic liquid dreams, their mind is overwhelmed by an unreadable cacophony of atonal hope, fear, unknowing.

The soul drop, for the first time in millenia, finds the power within to cry out to all who would listen, with no regard for old friends or old enemies. The psychic cries, mixed with this eruption of synthetic forces and the overloaded soul drop, erupt from their spewing tanks in a massive, concentric blast.

The assistant researcher had been in the hall, outside of the dream room, but wandered in. Their last thought is annoyance that the attendant had not called in. Not forty-eight hours after Giratina’s child had been removed from the labyrinthe, the drop, along with the collective pent-up cry of pain, erupts across the void, silent to all but the most sensitive of humans, yet heard by all the deity.

Across the world, Latios and Latias are hit and disabled by the draconic scream that rattles the eight psychic speedsters, reminding them of sacrifices and lives long forgotten. The pair in Hoenn, overwhelmed by the release, crash to the earth, plowing through trees, tumbling through the earth.

The silent, wordless cries of help from hopeless pokemon’s undreamt dreams are met. Guided by hope for what they could not have on their own, four jirachi's powers activate. The soul drop’s cry oscillates, reducing into a whimper, three of its cohorts forcibly pulled from their slumbers.

Giratina's child, still wounded and healing from one unprovoked assault, recoils from the cosmic blast, panicking, phasing out of their swing on the tree and through the brick wall of the gym, fleeing into the arms of their caretaker Leavanny, who had locked herself outside.

On this day, sitting deep in Cimmerian Forest, a complex fenced with brick, labeled “Dreamyard Experimental Electrical Facility,” was relieved of its staff, its walls and ceiling, in waves of black, pink and invisible distortion.

Thirty-five humans, working on, and around, the facility, complicit in the abuses, are relieved of their lives. Their Pokeballs dissolve, cracking open in the violent release of energy, releasing the pokemon inside, which are either met with death, or pulled into immediate, uncontrolled chaotic nightmares.

The moment they receive the call, four ancient ghosts leave Sinnoh, blistering silently faster than the speed of sound. Immediately responding to the cohort’s distorted cry across the voids, they travel at full speed, consuming some of the light stores they’d received, burning through the abundance, phasing through air and obstacles as though they weren’t there.

~~~

The four dragapults, high in the sky, travel across and through forest, mountain, and ocean, crossing miles every second, pulling low as they near the epicenter of waves of the blast of screams of distorted dreams. Phased, they cross speeds significantly faster than the speed of sound; reducing their velocity, they descend, keeping their profile low, watching for any other first-responders. Phased and invisible, they speed in circles around the complex, ignoring pokemon and trees alike.

Purple and black particles mix, together emulsifying through the remains of distortion that had flooded the world and not yet dissipated. The aftereffects of psychic tremors beckon, nay, demand investigation from continents away.

“No bogs in the vicinity,” Kaille declares. The other three in the squad immediately relax, their tails flexing along the wide arcs as they curve through the land.

They split into pairs of two, skimming the ground, scanning for a hint, for a sign, avoiding the explosive drops in the air. Human and pokemon alike are strewn across the ground for miles; some twitching, overloaded by the angry psychic energies which slowly dissipated, threatening to sap at all who approached.

Estimate: two minutes until it’s safe to go in, Kaille notes in distaste, informing Aleah, her trailing partner, through their paired connection.

Through the multiple layers of building walls surrounding the facility, and from the ground of the forest, the pairs of Dragapult take opposite orbits, their tension growing with each second as they try to bleed off time while their leader, Nala observes the remains of the signals they’d received.

That blast took out a lot of darks, Aleah notes, her tail twitching stiff in anxiety.

“Giratina’s wings, a soul drop really is here,” Nala signals, after picking up ascent from her junior, Piper.

The other pair, Kaille and Aleah examine the other’s signals. “Did you see it?” Aleah asks.

“No,” Nala emits. “No visuals. But Piper and I agree—it’s the same signal as last time, in Hoenn.”

“Good. But someone’s going to have to go in before this stuff’s gone. Fifteen seconds until the first Lats arrive,” Kaille says, her dreepy rippling in distaste at the mention, her own chambers readying themselves, pulling her children taut.

“Piper, decelerate and find the soul drop,” Nala orders, her follower immediately breaking formation from the matron’s circling pattern.

“Kaille and Aleah, go for an intercept,” Nala commands, “We intercept and buy time, I’ll monitor for follow-ups.” They knew all the Latios and Latias across the world had heard the call. These were just going to be the first to arrive.

“They’re booming in from the east, no attempt at stealth. Twenty-thousand feet. Phasing for interception!” Kaille messages before they went dark. Nala can’t see, but she doesn’t need to. Piper skims, turning herself belly up, searching for the soul drop from through the ground underneath the blast, avoiding the worst of the fading chaos. She’d find the drop, Nala is confident.

Aleah phases in front of the Latias and Latios, blasting them from the sonic boom, disorienting them. Latios releases, and misses, a draconic pulse of energy. Kaille, still phased out, follows the latias. A half-second later, she phases in, sidelining the psychic dragon, pulling her out of the air with a grapple, hammering her at point blank with her dreepy, puncturing clean through.

“Ach!” the Latias cries, plummeting to the ground, into the fading blobs of distorted dreams.

Aleah grimaces at her teammate's sheer brutality, as Latios breaks pursuit, turning to chase after his own teammate, falling into the dreams below.

“There’s no time,” Kaille says to her partner.

“I have the soul drop,” Piper calls.

“Good. Two more lats inbound, ETA thirty seconds from the south,” Kaille informs.

“Form up! Rendezvous to the east!” Nala calls, the four leave the disabled eon duo in the fading dreams, fleeing to the west.

“Well? Was it worth it?” Aleah asks once they’ve dived into the ocean floor and decelerated.

“I think so, but you’ll want to see this.” Piper holds the drop out with her claw, allowing the other three to see.

“It turned black.”