Pokémon Type: Psychic
Shipping: FennelShipping

One-Shot 3: Dream a Broken Record

On their way through Unova, Ash, Cilan, Iris and the Pokémon made their way to the next town. "A picturesque morning to say the least," Cilan complimented.

"Sure is," Iris agreed. "There's nothing here that can ruin it." While everyone accepted the sun shining and gentle breeze flowing through the air, Ash seemed mentally distant. He trailed behind his Unova companions but his mind had to be miles away while he physically walked a few feet behind. The bill of his cap blocking his face, Ash remained silent. Perhaps it's to prevent Iris from calling him a "Little Kid." Still, his silence did bother Cilan that he looked back to the foreign trainer.

"Ash?" Hearing his name, Ash looked up to the Pokémon Connoisseur.

"What's up?" he asked.

"You've been awfully quiet since we woke up. Normally, you're bursting with energy like you had a cup of Sitrus Berry Tea with a teaspoon of sugar, that attitude of ire to battle someone or a wild Pokémon." Ash hadn't been one to keep people guessing. Discussing what weighed his head seemed appropriate.

"I've been having this weird dream for almost a week. I find myself in a black area where I can't make out anything I see or hear." Iris returned with Axew and hearing this, she wondered herself.

"What do you mean by that?" she questioned.

"Everything's so fuzzy, I could only make out the colors of black and white of these big things. I don't know if they're Pokémon or something from Team Rocket. Also, I couldn't make out the sounds." Iris and Cilan glanced to each other with befuddled looks.

"Tell me there's more."

"There is! Some green glow appeared behind me and what I found, I'm not sure what to make out. All I know is that it was huge, black and had green in several areas." Cilan studied the details, a clue somewhere in the description.

"If anything, I bet the black and white 'things' could be Reshiram and Zekrom," he guessed. "However, that other one baffles me." Iris gave the theory some mind.

"If Ash is dreaming of Dragon-Type Pokémon, I want in on it," she sneered. Ash apparently had more to explain.

"Everything else is fuzzy but there's one thing that's pretty clear," he added. "Somehow, I'm on the ground and looking up to something red." Iris and Cilan weren't sure what to think of the dream.

"In other words, we're just hearing nothing from a little kid." Cilan had a different take to the dream.

"Maybe not," he disagreed. "A lot of ingredients aren't mixing properly or missing in this dream recipe. I have an idea of who can help us." Ash and Iris blinked, not sure on Cilan's reference.

"Who do you mean?" wondered Ash.

"You know: Professor Fennel!" Remembering the name, the others knew the Pokémon the doctor had on hand.

"Oh, yeah!" snapped Iris. "Munna and Musharna!"

"Of course!" realized Ash. "They have Dream Eater and can project those dreams in real life!" The group now had a goal: meet with Doc Fennel.

"Let's get to the Pokémon Center and call her up," Cilan decided. He lead the rest to the next town and the Pokémon Center. The local Nurse Joy saw the group enter.

"Welcome to the Pokémon Center!" she greeted. "Do you want me to check your Pokémon?"

"Sure!" replied Ash. He and Iris placed their Pokéballs, Pikachu and Axew on a tray to Joy who brought to the back for a checkup. Cilan reached the video phones and dialed a number. After a ring, something weird occurred. Someone stepped out from a side door.

"Professor Fennel, here!" she called. Cilan gawked to the voice, not on the phone, and turned to see her.

"Professor Fennel?!" he shrieked. Fennel looked to Cilan from her phone and reading the number, realized the caller.

"Cilan?! What are you doing here?!" Ash and Iris spotted the doctor in awe, finding her with barely any effort.

"This is a coincidence!" the Dragon-Type trainer gulped. Fennel seemed speechless, only a few giggles to the notice.

"What brings you here?" the Pallet Town trainer wondered.

"I got a call about a trainer's Cubchoo not being able to sleep," Fennel explained. "I theorized that its lack of sleep was a result of a nightmare it had. Munna and Musharna lulled Cubchoo to sleep and used Dream Eater to extract the nightmare out." Interested, the boys wanted to ask. Iris stepped back due to her fears of Ice-Type Pokémon like Cubchoo.

"And what did you find?" asked Cilan.

"Cubchoo had a nightmare where it was in a volcano and a gang of Fire-Type Pokémon attacked it. No wonder that poor thing felt scared out of its mind."

"Yeah, no surprise," Ash agreed. "Ice-Type Pokémon like Cubchoo are weak against Fire-Type Pokémon like Magmar and Infernape to name a couple." Obvious followed a sigh from Iris.

"I guess I need a Fire-Type if I want to protect Axew," she mumbled.

"Well, anyway," Fennel spoke up. "What are you three here for?" In the back, Fennel received the story of Ash's dream. She studied the details given.

"That's what we got," Cilan finished. Pikachu and Axew shared Pokémon talk with Fennel's Munna and Musharna.

"Interesting… Until we see the dream from Ash, we don't know for certain what Pokémon lurk within. Who knows, it might be some we've never seen." The thought of unseen Pokémon gave Iris a guess.

"Yeah... Pokémon he made up," she sneered. "What a little kid." Ash mulled to the mockery.

"What, you wouldn't like any Dragon-Type Pokémon he has?" pointed Cilan. Iris shrugged her shoulders before Fennel decided to start this operation.

"Okay, I'll need you to remove your hat and jacket," she ordered. Complying, Ash removed his cap and placed it on Pikachu's head. He took his jacket off before handing it to Cilan before he draped it on his arm. Fennel provided a cup of water. "What I have here, you won't be able to taste, but it will signal when you're dreaming." Ash guzzled the water fast. Not long after drinking the water, he soon felt his eyes weighing down. Munna and Musharna floated to let Ash fall on the bed he sat on for him to sleep. Concerned, Iris and Cilan wondered what the professor put in the water.

"What did you have him drink?" questioned Iris.

"A little sleeping powder. He'll be fine." The group waited for any reaction. Suddenly, his body began to glow pink. They remembered from Striaton City. Fennel allowed Munna to close in on Ash and put her nose on his head. Musharna placed her trunk on Munna.

"Let's watch," Cilan intstructed. Munna performed Dream Eater. The pink glow slowly created a stream from the body to Muuna's mouth. The glow finally removed, Munna munched on the dream as Ash remained asleep. Finding the flower print on the Dream Eater Pokémon's body aglow, the Drowsing Pokémon placed her trunk on Munna's body.

"What's going on here?" asked Iris.

"Since the dream's blurred to his memory, Musharna's absorbing the dream so it can repair the vision," Fennel explained. After sometime within Musharna, a pink cloud began to billow from her. The cloud became massive. Like a big screen TV, the vision started from Ash's eyes in a black area. He searched around but found nothing.

"Misty?" sounded Ash from the dream. "Brock!" Cilan and the girls blinked to the names.

"Former traveling companions?" guessed Iris.

("They're friends of ours!") confirmed Pikachu. Axew understood.

"Dawn?" called out Ash. "May? Max!" As they watched the dream, Iris saw lights in the background.

"What's going on over there?" wondered Cilan. In the dream, Pikachu dashed pass Ash to see the action in the back. Pikachu saw himself, not surprised considering their bond. Seeing Pikachu, Ash started to tail before noticing something green on his shoulders. Two gelatinous slug-like creatures with a blank eye toward the head. One on the left shoulder had an orange hexagonal midsection and the other with blue. Even the Pokémon looked dumbfounded to these new creatures.

"Are those Pokémon?" asked Fennel. "I've never seen them before."

"You wouldn't be alone." Forgoing the creatures, Ash pursued Pikachu and found the two Unova Legendary Pokémon fighting.

"Reshiram!" noted Iris. "And Zekrom!" The two Dragon-Type Pokémon attacked with fierce attacks, trying to force the other to submit. As the battle played during the dream, Ash woke up and turned to find his dream on show. Dream Ash dashed in between the legendary Pokémon to ease them.

"Stop it, right now!" he roared. The Deep Black Pokémon charged up Bolt Strike as streaks of green light shot through the air. Behind Ash, not finding the creature on his shoulder anymore, saw Reshiram inhaling for Blue Flare. Both attacks fired at the same time, a death sentence imminent. That's when green rays blasted the attacks clear. Ash, Pikachu and the Dragon-Type Pokémon turned to find a large black humanoid creature with green shapes over its body and flag-like feelers stemming from its shoulders.

"What just happened?" conscious Ash asked. "And is that thing a Pokémon?"

"That's what we all want to know," Iris gulped. Feeling that it's a threat, Dream Ash had to act.

"What do you want?!" he demanded answers. Reshiram and Zekrom chose to settle their differences after dealing with this new threat. To Iris, she felt the dream gave Ash all the control as the creature fired green beams. The two Dragon-Type Pokémon intercepted the attacks before firing Fusion Bolt and Fusion Flare, striking the hostile. The show of power seemed to satisfy the new creature, Reshiram and Zekrom cautious to the threat. Then the creature looked to Dream Ash with a message.

"Ash..." it spoke. Dream Ash, conscious Ash and the rest gasped to what was spoken.

"You can talk?"

"Yes… Reshiram… Zekrom… I warn of new threats to the world. He must be protected. He is the savior of this world." To conscious Ash, he felt rather humbled to have this title.

"Not even my entire life would I dream of something like this," he admitted. "I'm normally dreaming of either being a Pokémon Master or winning my next Gym Badge." However, the dream took a disturbing turn. A jolt and a flash of red. Knocked to the ground, Dream Ash spun to find an orange haired man with added facial hair to give it a look of a lion. He held Pikachu appearing under some sort of Hypnosis due to the red eyes.

"Bid yourself adieu," he snarled. Dream Pikachu squeaked lowly, freaking the conscious Pokémon to fear. Dream Pikachu hit Dream Ash with Thunderbolt and wouldn't stop. The man, not affected by Thunderbolt with the rubberized boots, stomped on Dream Ash's neck as he's suffering. Conscious Ash shook his head, a massive fear blooming on his mind. That's when a Flamethrower knocked the man off. Dream Ash laid flat on the ground, his vision going white as he saw a stick above him.

"Ash!" shouted a girl. It wasn't Iris. A blond girl in a red hat and vest over a pink dress and a blue tie reached Dream Ash, calling his name as the scene grew more white. "Ash, stay with me! Ash!" The name kept ringing but Dream Ash lost consciousness, maybe his life. The pink cloud evaporated and Fennel's Pokémon descended to the bed, exhausted.

"I know for a fact that she wasn't Bianca," Iris studied. "Still, that was something, right, Ash?" She turned to see Ash fidgeting terribly. Seeing his dream become a nightmare in an instant flushed Ash pale. Even he found himself scared out of his mind. "Ash!" Fennel, Cilan, Iris and the Pokémon reached Ash's side, unable to respond.

"Ash, wake up!" called out Cilan. They did their best to ease Ash. That's when he cried. Iris had belittled Ash but after witnessing his dream, she felt frightened about the experience.

"It's okay, Ash! We're all here!" Ash's cry softened to sniffles. Fennel held Ash tightly, knowing what they saw wasn't pretty or for the faint of heart. Twilight came by. Fennel, horrified by the dream, felt it wasn't just a dream at all.

"If that creature we saw was a Pokémon, it's leading me to believe Ash had a future event forewarned," she began. "In other words, Ash received a prophetic dream." Ash still looked pale from the dream and couldn't respond.

"A prophetic dream?" repeated Iris.

"A dream that's going to happen. I hate to imagine why Ash would receive something like that but if true, he's risking his life." Cilan studied this prophetic dream and recalling that girl who appeared.

"Professor Fennel, what about that girl we saw before everything went white?" he pondered. "Ash did name off some people's names, namely Misty, May and Dawn. Pikachu knows them." Pikachu shook on the girl in the dream.

"That's telling me Pikachu doesn't know the girl at all," Iris concluded. The Electric Mouse Pokémon agreed to Iris. While questions continued to mount, most of them without an answer, Fennel saw the time.

"Whatever's going on with Ash's dream, it's out of him now," she clarified. "Still, he's gonna have some trouble sleeping from that. I want to monitor him tonight before giving him back to you." Iris, Cilan and Pikachu trusted the professor.

"Of course," surrendered Cilan before departing for a room to sleep in. Fennel escorted Ash and their Pokémon to another room and got him comfortable on a mattress. Pikachu yawned before Munna and Musharna joined him for a sleep. Ash soon laid on the mattress in hopes of having better dreams, thus crashing.

"Good night, Ash." Fennel combed her fingers through his hair and kissed him on the cheek. She looked over him and soon found that he's fast zonked. "Have a sweet dream. Maybe I should help." She removed her flats and glasses before crawling over Ash and wrapping an arm over him to cuddle. Musharna stayed awake for a little while longer to deliver a blanket to Ash and Fennel. As she soon closed her eyes, she began to sing a lullaby to Ash. The prophetic dream had been removed from Ash, now able to dream about the Pokémon like his usual self.

END of PSYCHIC

(Okay, December 1st is the deadline to vote. At the end, the top four will start the second trimester of the 12 Elements. Still, if you feel someone of the represented type should be included, leave me a message.)