~~~ Chapter 39 - Dream Candy ~~~

I have questions, Cresselia, I stated. Lanky and I walked out into the night, Lanky holding my forelimb. People on bikes cycled along the road, nary a car in sight. The moon shone its bright yellow lights from above, only the lights of townhomes, lofts above small stores lit the road. Joggers and pokemon walked about through the night of the city, many bearing reflector for the occasional biker. I had been asleep for quite some time.

"The moon is full. You may ask."

Lanky pulled from his pocket, another candy. My mouth opened, the future gym-leader dropped the treat in. Clamping shut, the outer layer of the candy dissolved under my mouth's digestives. I had already played heartgold. I had played Black and White. I could be happy. What happened to Tug? Or Bonk? They would return. Oust? I wanted to see them again. What did Lebi want? Why me?

Was that really what I wanted to ask? Did I care? Why did Lebi choose me? Lanky was looking down at me, his mouth in an upward curve, eyes squinting. The inside of my mouth was coated in the syrup of the candy's second layer. A door to our left opened as we walked into the west. The man stepped out, waving at us. A bipedal, humanoid pokemon with a piece of wood in its arms stepped out.

Timburr.

A kid, not my height, stood in the doorway with a pokeball in hand. The man and pokemon stepped out into the street as the boy stared at me as Lanky and I passed. The timburr ignored me, but was instead staring at the boy in the doorway. The older man, possibly the kid's father? Called to the boy as they went out into the street.

We continued on our little walk, passing residences and stores in the remarkably dense, yet compact town. Only the light hum of air conditioning and people going about their lives sounded in the air, trees so nearby they muffled anything louder.

No rumbling cars or car horns, no boats. No skyscrapers for the sounds to echo off of.

It really was natural.

It had only been a few moments, but I'd already reached the inner core of my candy. I'd already taken too long trying to think it through. I couldn't make her wait any longer. But I couldn't come up with any good questions on the spot!

"Can you eat candy? What's your favorite kind?"

Looking up at the moon, I rotated my head up to see the big… blob of yellow. Because my eyes can't see that far. I didn't think there were any clouds out right then, either. Not a single star was visible in the sky. They never were. We entered a 'T' section of the road. Lanky turned left, and we headed north together. We turned back west again, heading down out of the center of the city, further and further out. Leaf's smell was the first thing that hinted someone on our team had been here before. It was a set of four townhomes with a large brick fence, not as thick and sturdy as the gym, but it easily thrice my height.

"How about an easier question, Cresselia. What does dreamer mean?"

The front door to the house opened, and the lady from earlier stood there, holding it open for Lanky. He sighed, stepping on to the path to the front door, waving at the trainer. We entered the home. It was… spartan. Reminded me of the professor's house in nuvema, except not even a pair of token pictures on the wall. The only thing placed higher than I stood was the woman's backpack hanging off a rack and some books placed on a countertop.

The first floor immediately opened to a couch. The detective guy was kneeling on the main room floor, sets of pictures strewn about. A force hit me from the front, knocking my arm out of Lanky's hand, bowling me over onto the floor. When I got up, a large leaf-blanket was hanging off my thorax. Leaf had made me a present while I was gone? Lanky had left Leaf with the Detective?

Judging by the printed pictures that littered the ground, he'd received the same questioning as me. Without me there. Like a gunshot, a single CRACK, snapped through the room, my jaws crunched what was left of the phosphoric core of the candy with a single mash.

Clever detective.

Everyone in the lower floor jumped, followed by multiple pokeballs in the room beeping their warning noises, the lady who'd let us in, grabbing her bag and running outside through a tall glass door. Leaf had jumped back at the gunshot sound of the mashed treat.

"Caramel Oran"

My antennae twitched, my vision turning pink, and I was in the middle of a field of sugary sweets and candies.

Can it wait? I asked. Cresselia apparently decided to oblige, since my vision returned. The detective and Lanky were both staring at me. I had things I needed to deal with, or the guy was going to follow us around. The beeping of the lady's pokeballs panic mechanisms stopped. How large was her team? I was lucky the girl hadn't had any of her pokemon out. I could taste the smell at least six distinct pokemon, if not seven or eight. The humans talked in short sentences, Lanky chuckling, picking me up before heading to sit on the couch as the detective re-collected the photographs that leaf had strewn about or tore through.

The detective turned their head up, looking at me, then Lanky, speaking some words. He stood up, then Lanky looked me in the eyes, his in a position I could only assume was questioning. High off the sugar, I walked outside as the lady with brown hair walked back. She has a meganium. And with that, I had a name for her. Megan. Megan the trainer of a meganium. Getting frustrated and struggle-bugging on the ground probably wasn't the best idea for the inside of the house. Everyone seemed to agree, at least, when I stepped outside and Megani turned the backyard porch-light on. We went through all of the pictures over again. I paused the tapping when they'd pulled out a picture of Oust in his non-sewaddle form. There was no background. Had they pilfered the scans from the pokecenter?

It was probably uploaded and added to a pokemon database online somewhere.

We made it through the whole pack of pictures, and I managed to keep my blades from rubbing two of the four times I noticed! Lanky and Leaf watching from a step on the porch, Lanky breathing a sigh of relief. Leaf had watched, though his antennae had been so still I was pretty sure he fell to torpor. When the detective packed up his briefcase, he gave Lanky a thumbs-up, going inside, stepping over my sleeping leaf-bug companion, who didn't move. Yeah, Leaf had fallen asleep.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Megan released her meganium, letting it out into the backyard, before taking her bag and disappearing up a staircase. The man opened their pantry door, pulling out a slab of dehydrated meat, tossing it to the dinosaur, who laid down outside, before going upstairs, leaving our small team to ruminate in their backyard, in the company of the dinosaur. Lanky went inside, swept up the mess of leaves Leaf had left in the kitchen, and turned off the lower floor lights, choosing to sleep, not on the couch, but with us bugs in the backyard.

Apparently they'd reached a deal while I was in the pokeball? Or… sleeping. Lanky pulled out a packet of food, holding them out, pouring them into my blade-arms, I ate. The meganium watched, lying down as Lanky pulled out his sleeping bag, sleeping in the small backyard of the wooden fence. I looked back up at the yellow moon overhead.

"So, Cresselia." I thought, my vision fading to pink all over again. This time, the pink was significantly more literal. I was before an ocean of pink. A blue fruit, covered in caramel emerged, followed by the crescent goddess herself. She had a blue, swanlike body with a yellow underside. No arms, but this was her domain. Her dream world. I stood up, my spindly legs rippling the pink liquid.

"Hello, Little Dreamer," she said, taking a bite out of the candy fruit. "This… 'candy' is pretty good. Our partners unanimously recommended it."

"Leee aavvv aaa eee," I spoke, the words echoing out through the void, voicing my agreement. Candy was pretty good, I agreed. Nitrogen-filled rocks hit the spot too, but what were the chances her tastes lined up with mine? My tastes told me what was healthy for me and my leaves. They probably wouldn't align with hers.

Cress nodded her head, her body swaying, little waves of pink reaching out from her body. "I suppose you have more questions?"

"Eee vvv aaa eeennee", I asked. The thing about dreams is how personal they were. I wasn't about to ask things she didn't know. But she could answer the most basic question. Though, I wasn't exactly interested in being tugged around at their whims, either. She bobbed for a moment, before considering her answer with grace and thought, her pink eyes shining in the dull twilight of this world.

"Willingly or not, you have cultivated your dreams. Many get dreams of happiness, many get nightmares, all feed into these realms. Others enter and leave dreams of their own will. This is why. We do not choose who does or does not dream with us. You stand before us of your own accord."

She bit into her candy, both levitating and bobbing in sync, the bottom of her belly bouncing in and out of the nigh-motionless sea, save for our mutual waves.

"Nyyy eee vvee aaa neee vaaa?" Was it going to be a common thing, these dreams? Would I be sucked into them while waking again and again? I mean, she probably only ever gets questions about "fate of the world" type stuff. But at the same time, too much sugar will rot your teeth. If you have teeth. Which I didn't. And still don't.

Off in the distance, a blob of pink arose out of the ocean.

"There are many who seek to be dreamers, little one," cresselia said. Another cresselia made themselves known, a shade of twilight gray passing over the pink water, before arriving, sending their thoughts through our shared channel of dreams. A third cresselia, one off to my left, bobbed out of the eternal pink.

"Those who seek to cultivate it, gain, and use access to these worlds. They learn many things. But it is also… fraught with mistakes. We cannot interpret them for you. Our will is not always embedded with the message the dreams send."

The cresselia in front of me bobbed, taking another of her miniscule bites of her candy berry. A fourth arose, off to my right.

"We shape the current and the flow of these oceans. Dreams are from times past, they are from times present, they are from times future. The oceans of experiences, both those had and not had. Here, they invite themselves to be made real. The contents are yours. They are not ours."

Another, this cresselia arose from behind. "Through your interpretations, the dreams are also made fake. We are mirrors who present before you different, yet same dreams. You must take the meanings yourself. We show the dreamers the leaves. It is up to you to craft what you wish. This is our warning."

The one immediately before me spoke this time, chewing the last bite of their candy fruit. "Little Dreamer, that is our warning. We care not the content of your dreams. We die as dreams cease. We live as dreams are made real. We control the currents of these oceans, but dreamers must ride the tides as they are pulled by stronger forces than I"

The other cresselias in the dream floated, miles away, I saw other blobs of pink popping up in the distance, even as the nearer ones, save the one before me, faded down into the abyss of pink upon which I stood.

"Neeeee" I said. What was I supposed to do with that information? That's cryptic as fuck.

"Dreams aren't real. And yet they grant power."

Ugh.

"Little Dreamer. You have learned to harness the sun into pillars of screaming light, no?"

"Vaa," I said. Yeah, I can 'Solar Beam'.

"How do you harness that?"

I… didn't actually know. It just kinda happens, my abdomen vibrates, I'm angry, and the energy just… coalesced inside?

"The way to rid yourself of unwelcome guests—"

Lebi's face in mine, "You need to think more evil thoughts," she'd said.

Cress continued—"one method starts with nasty thoughts. You feel the energy build, and you hold the energy inside, until the passenger must leave. The strongest, they learn to control it, harness it, without the thoughts."

The lunar goddess drifted closer to me, floating through the liquid, belly barely in it, her pink rings drawing trails through it.

"Aaannee" I said, responding, indignant that only made it more confusing. Cress hadn't even answered my question!

"Being a dreamer is the same, little one. Like all pokemon, you must learn on your own if you wish the aspect to grow."

I thought about Lebi, their split form from the other night, oozing pink and black which boiled into the air. I imagined myself, my insides being filled with whatever these substances were. Lebi's had been filled with a pure, oily black. Then, I was in my mind, in front of the latias, their body a pitch black, their outlines in pink. One who, while unable to communicate like a psychic, still could read my mind.

Tentacruel games.

My body, my abdomen was oddly quiet. The energy was in my legs, held by my subconscious. Like I'd pulled the energy of the sun together, concentrating to hold the mass energy of light in, I pulled the energy from my legs, into my abdomen. It took a moment, but I sunk into the ocean, my vision and world turning from pink, to black and gray. I did not gasp for air, when I came to. There, before me, Lanky was sleeping. The meganium was also sleeping, their body in a crescent-shape, curled in on themselves.

I moved, standing up, but I was instead covered in leaves. They rustled about on me. It was not a coherent design, it wasn't a blanket, shirt or dress. Leaf was nowhere to be found, but Lanky's eyes did open, to see my arms and body and armor all coated, covered in leaves that were attached at one point, moving and rustling with the slightest movement or slightest piece of air.

The question that no one asked, I was left to ask myself. Did I want to get involved in the games of the gods? Lanky giggled at my comical state of dress, moments before his eyes went wide, presumably realizing his mistake—letting Leaf roam free.

I had a juvenile Leavanny and a teen who needed some badges.

If the gods wanted me in their games, they could ask directly.

We could strike a better deal.