content warning: animal cruelty, animal harm, gratuitous use of the fuck word
Due to a scheduling error, Amalia's gym match with the Striaton gym leaders had been moved up a couple of hours. She was originally set to battle at four o'clock, and planned to spend her morning getting in some last-minute training, but instead she had been called to the arena at 10:30, still groggy from waking up at eight. Sure, she hadn't really needed those extra five and a half hours of training, but it was only noon and she was already finished with what she had thought would occupy her entire day.
Going to the Pokémon Center's computer lab sounded like a good idea, that way she could browse the internet or waste her time playing a game, but as soon as she turned the handle, she spotted someone else in the room. It was that guy, with the one-letter name, who had accosted her and Cheren in Accumula. He seemed deeply absorbed in whatever he was doing, frequently looking down at the keyboard and typing out a sentence one letter at a time. He was so focused on the task that he probably wouldn't have noticed if she entered, but Amalia wasn't going to chance it. So that was a bust.
Around one pm, after getting a bagel from a nearby shop, she visited the Striaton Pokémon Library, which also had a computer lab she could use. She sat down, got her stuff situated, opened up Mozilla Delphox, put her earphones in to listen to some David Bowie and was promptly interrupted by Cheren. He had a copy of Pokémon Battling for Dummies in his left arm, the caricature of a man staring condescendingly from the book's spine. Always respectful of library policies, he challenged her to a battle right then and there. She won, they were kicked out of the library, and that was that. Cheren headed off to do whatever, and now it was one fifty-seven and Amalia had nowhere to go.
Out of sheer boredom, Amalia found herself exploring the Dreamyard, a steel-mill-turned-homeless-camp. Thinking about it now, it probably wasn't the best idea to go alone, but so far she had only encountered three homeless people, one of which had a friendly one-eyed stoutland named Captain.
There really wasn't anything dreamy about the Dreamyard, save for the fact it smelled like a place where dreams went to die: with the faint aroma of iron and coal dust, and just a hint of piss. The place had been a thriving integrated steel mill in the latter half of the nineteenth century, but had been abandoned once the Great Depression rolled around. The building had never been torn down, and its halls and rooms were now strewn with debris from the crumbling building and litter from the many homeless people and wild pokémon who now called the place home. The building was obviously a public hazard, what with the cracked and unstable walls, and the old, inoperable furnaces and machinery, but Striaton's Building Department didn't seem willing to do anything about it. The whole place had probably been insulated with asbestos, to boot. Amalia could hear Captain barking in a distant part of the mill.
It was by complete chance that Amalia happened upon Bianca. She hadn't even known that Bianca was in the Dreamyard, running an errand for Dr. Fennel of Unova University, apparently an associate of Professor Juniper's.
"I'm looking for something called 'dream mist,'" she said, "it's pretty hard to find, but it's an important component in many medicines and treatments, y'know."
"Why can't Dr. Fennel just get it herself? Doesn't she have clearance to buy substances like that, as a researcher?"
"It's probably ridiculously expensive, I think. It's more cost-effective to harvest it from the wild than to buy it," replied Bianca.
They walked into a larger room of the factory. This room was open to the elements, with several large, broken steel converters lining the open wall. The roof was partially missing, allowing the plants growing on the floor to get adequate sunlight. This factory was apparently a lot older than Amalia thought.
Bianca tugged on Amalia's shirt to get her attention. "Amalia, look!" she whispered, pointing to a patch of grass near a hole in the wall. Floating among the tops of the weeds was a large, pink lump, looking right at Bianca.
"Amalia," Bianca whispered again, "I think that's the pokémon that we're looking for! It's supposedly able to control people's dreams."
The lump turned to the side… it had a floral pattern, like some sort of couch.
"It looks like a sofa, something you'd see in like, someone's grandma's living room," Amalia whispered.
Bianca rolled her eyes. "Just come on, Amalia," she said, slowly approaching the pokémon and motioning for Amalia to follow.
"A-HA!" yelled a male voice, almost from nowhere.
Bianca twitched in surprise. Amalia jumped. The pink pokémon did nothing.
"Shut up, dipshit! You're gonna scare the fuckin' thing!" hissed a shrill female voice.
Two hooded figures entered through a large hole in the wall and immediately lunged at the pokémon. The pokémon was slow to react. They easily grabbed it.
"Now we just gotta make it give us the dream mist," the young woman said.
"How do we do that? Is the dream mist like, inside or something? Maybe if we shake it real hard?" the man suggested dumbly.
"Ugh! Just shut up and hold the damn thing down!" she said as she aimed a booted kick at the pokémon.
Her foot connected with an almost cartoonish 'whump' sound. The pokémon squealed, squirming under the man's firm grip.
Amalia couldn't believe what she was seeing.
"Come on, munna! Cough up that dream mist for me, will ya?" the woman said before kicking it again. The munna let out another pained squeal.
Bianca was absolutely infuriated. "W-what ARE YOU DOING?!" she shrieked, running to where they were standing. Amalia followed.
The woman turned her head, noticing them for the first time. "What does it look like?" she sneered at them, "we're squeezing the dream mist outta it."
"This pokémon is apparently able to manipulate dreams," the male explained, "Our organization plans to harness this power in order to make people release their pokémon!"
The woman turned back to her partner. "You fucking idiot! They don't need to know that!"
"Your organization?" Amalia asked. Seriously, what was it, the dumbass rodeo? Did they honestly think they could use dreams to manipulate people? That might work in some sort of convoluted video game plot, but this was real life!
The lady ignored her. "Anyway, we're gonna get this dream mist, if youse guys'll excuse us," the woman said, kicking the pokémon again.
Bianca was fuming. "So you think that KICKING it is going to get you what you want? That's horrible! That-that doesn't even make any sense! Stop it!"
The lady kicked it again, for good measure.
Bianca barreled into her, sending the woman tumbling to the ground. "I SAID STOP IT. CUT IT OUT."
The woman stood up, pushing Bianca off of her. "Ugh, get off of me! Self-righteous little cunts like you are the reason I joined this group in the first place! People like you don't deserve to have pokémon!" she said, sending out her pokémon and motioning for her partner to do the same.
They sent out a purrloin and a patrat. Hecate easily immobilized them, and Bianca's Snivy finished them off. It wasn't really a fair fight.
"Hmph! Well, this still doesn't change our plans. We're still getting that fuckin' dream mist!" She walked back to the pink Pokémon. It hadn't moved. It was still lying on the ground, wheezing in pain.
It was appalling that they were still at it. "Come on," Amalia started to say, "you can't be serious—"
"G-G-G-Ghetsis!" The man stammered, pointing at something behind his partner.
Amalia cocked her head. What did politics have to do with any of this?
"What?!" the woman said, her head whipping around. "Boss, w-what are you doin' here?"
Amalia looked around. The only other person she saw was a homeless woman fast asleep against a wall. Bianca just looked confused.
"Ah! He's over there, too!" the man said, looking in another direction.
The woman was almost pleading. "We're sorry! We won't mess up again, we promise!"
They were acting like someone was speaking to them, but Amalia couldn't hear anything, save for a high-pitched ringing noise coming from behind the back wall.
The man turned to his partner. "We better start making amends now before he gets any angrier!"
"Good idea," the woman agreed, and both of them ran off.
"What just happened?" Bianca asked. "Were they seeing things?"
"Sounded like a bad trip," Amalia replied.
Bianca knelt next to the munna, fishing for a potion and first-aid kit from her bag. "Those people were horrible. How could they do this to a pokémon? Is it going to be okay?"
The ringing noise got louder. A large, purple Pokémon emerged from behind the wall and sat next to the munna in an attempt to comfort it. A cloud of multicolored smoke was rising from a hole in its head. The smoke settled around the munna, calming it down while Bianca patched up its wounds.
So this was the Pokémon that produced dream mist. It was… a bean bag chair?
"Bianca, maybe this pokémon," said Amalia, waving her hand towards the Musharna, "is what made those guys hallucinate."
Bianca looked up at her. "So this is dream mist? I'll need to take it back to Dr. Fennel." She looked back at the small pink pokémon that was still wheezing on the ground.
"Amalia," she said, pulling a pokéball out of her bag and tapping the pokémon with it, "I'm going to take this munna to a Pokémon Center. It might have injuries that I'm unable to treat on my own."
"What about the dream mist?" Amalia asked.
"I'll come back for it later," she said, "I think this is more important right now."
Bianca turned to the musharna and patted it on the head, trying to reassure it: "Don't worry, I'll make sure she's safe. When I come back, she'll be feeling way better."
She got up and left, saying a quick "See you later" to Amalia as she did so. The musharna stared at her for a while, before retreating deeper into the building, leaving only Amalia and the sleeping homeless woman, who woke up and mumbled something that sounded like 'good morning'. Amalia handed her three dollars and left.
What had that been all about? Using dreams to make people release their pokémon? It reminded her vaguely of the speech that politician had given in Accumula the other day, about how humans were enslaving pokémon or something.
Wait a minute. Hadn't those guys mentioned the name of a politician when they were hallucinating? Ghetsis? That was the same guy who gave that speech. Maybe they had been inspired by it, and were so overcome with self-righteous furor they didn't realize that kicking a pokémon was just as bad as making it fight. Maybe they were just fanaticists, the extreme far end of the spectrum that would stop at nothing to achieve their goals. Ghetsis was much, much more moderate than those people. Heck, he was moderate compared to most politicians. It's possible that, even as a moderate, he's the closest thing to a candidate that aligned with their extreme beliefs.
Amalia checked the time on her phone. It was only five thirty. God, she hated Striaton.
The dreamyard was described as a "plant" in the games, but apparently everyone's like "it's a former research facility." Yeah, right. It's called the dreamyard because it's where dreams go to die, hence why there's a lot of homeless people.
Honestly though, it's probably a soothing place to be if you're homeless, because the munnas and musharnas can give you good, soothing dreams. And you know, the dream mist probably also makes your waking hours more relaxing, too, like the warm, fuzzy feeling of contentment. The homeless people who end up there probably start to gain a more positive outlook on life. In the pokemon world, dream mist is probably used as an ingredient in psychiatric medications, so staying at the dreamyard can help some of these people better manage their mental illnesses. It would be nice if the real world had something like that. Then Paul would still be alive.
Amalia may seem a little callous, but she's like 18 and (no offense to ya'll 18 or younger) but like most of us had shitty opinions at 18.
Footnotes: n can't fucking type lmao.