Hello again! We're back - and with a Khrista 1st-person perspective!

Chapter 4 - Dreamscape, Part 1 (Khrista's POV)

This is just plain freaky.

One minute, I'm playing my DS, minding my own business while I'm demolishing every single Rocket grunt in sight, and the next I'm standing in some region where Cyrus has taken over - and maybe not just there, either.

Then I get knocked out, the next thing I know I'm lying somewhere cold, and then I'm knocked out again.

Now I'm stuck in a house that looks eerily like mine - except it's way too clean, the doors and windows won't open, my parents aren't here (but their bedroom door's locked) and all I can see outside is pure black.

No street lights, no moon...no lights from across the street, either. The Carlsdales usually stay up until ten - the older ones, anyway - and the digital clock Mom hung up in the kitchen hasn't even reached eight.

Eight. In. The. Morning.

What in heaven's name is going on here?!

I was brooding with these thoughts in my head when I heard the front door creak open. I knew it was the front door because it always creaks.

So of course I jumped off the couch in the family room and dashed down the hall for the front door. As soon as I got there, though, I screeched to a halt.

You would, too, if you saw Ash Ketchum - in the anime's Sinnoh outfit - closing the front door behind him.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Ash turned and caught sight of me staring wide-eyed (and, admittedly, fearfully) at him. His brown eyes widened in surprise.

Wait. Brown?!

"His eyes were red before," I muttered under my breath, frowning at my white shoes. "Why aren't they now?"

"Did you really think I was going to take after my brother?"

I looked up at Ash in surprise, who was giving me a half-smile that didn't quite look like it was natural. What's the saying..."didn't meet his eyes"?

"Brother?" I repeated, frowning. "You know, Red? The guy on top of Mt. Silver?" Ash walked past me and down the hall into the family room, looking around with some interest.

"Red's you're brother?" Well. I followed after him to make sure he didn't actually mess with anything. "I guess I can see a resemblance, though. Somewhat."

"Most of the people I ran into didn't really notice." Ash collapsed on the couch I had been sitting on moments before. "And most people try to punch me first for dragging them here under orders." His voice took on a bitter tone when he finished off.

Oh, yeah. The Red Chain thing.

"Mewtwo told me," I stated, sitting down in my dad's favorite armchair. "About what happened on Mt. Coronet." I remembered a second later that Mewtwo's real name was Chaos, but Ash had already started to respond by then.

Ash's face scrunched up. "Yeah. That." His eyes narrowed at the memory, and he shook his head. "Since you already know, I'm not going to tell you from my perspective." He looked around the room again, then paused when he caught sight of something.

A minute later, he was standing next to the glass coffee table in the middle of the room and inspecting my red DS Lite.

"Is this that DS thing that those games are played on?" Ash asked, looking over at me curiously.

"Uh...yeah." I stood up myself and walked over. "I was playing Platinum before I got sent to your world."

Ash's eyes widened in interest, and he put the DS back down. "OK, so you do play the Trainer games."

"Um...yeah?" I frowned. "Does this have anything to do with what's going on?" I motioned to the room around us, thinking that might be proof enough.

"And why I'm back in my house but my parents aren't here?"

"You're not home," Ash replied, lifting a finger. "This is a dreamscape."

I opened my mouth. "Then what -"

"I'll get to that later. The reason you're here is more important at the moment." Ash walked back to the couch and sat down, then patted the cushion next to him. "This is going to take all night, trust me."

I gave him a weird look, then walked over to the couch and sat down so that there was a cushion between us. "So, what's going on?"

Ash let out a sigh, then took off his baseball cap and stared at it. "From what I picked up from Charon talking about his project, ever since White started her journey in Kanto, there have been random teams of Pokemon appearing all over the place. And they're usually led by a shade of some sort that looks like a basic Trainer of sorts. Some are Battle Girls, others are Ace Trainers - you get the idea."

I nodded. So they did have specific Trainer classes here.

I frowned slightly when I heard the name White again, but Ash saw it before I could say anything.

"I'm getting to her," the Trainer stated, holding up a hand to keep my question at bay.

I held up my hands. "OK, fine. So what's with the ghosts?"

"Basically, these Avatars, as people have taken to calling them, are members of your world who found the games. I only found out about them when I went to Tate and Liza's Gym though, because I apparently had a large group following me." Ash shrugged.

"You mean you couldn't see them?"

Ash shook his head. "Only Psychics can, and White isn't exactly a psychic, so she didn't know about them, either. See, she's from your world, too, but she managed to actually get to our planet."

I blinked. "Wait. What?"

"You didn't hear about that?" Ash frowned.

I shook my head. "No. I didn't even think that she could come from our planet. How's that even possible?"

The Trainer shrugged. "Don't look at me. Charon was the one who did all the math and stuff. He was ordered to hunt down White, not me."

"Hunt her down? But isn't she already in your world?"

"Not anymore. She disappeared after everything in Sinnoh died down and Team Galactic had scattered. People thought she had gone back, so Charon started making some sort of giant portal so that he could hunt her down."

Oh. I blinked. "But how did she leave?"

"None of us know. Charon might, but he hasn't said anything about it when I'm around." Ash sighed. "Anyway, Charon got ordered to hunt down White and he ended up dragging through a large number of the Avatars instead."

He placed his hat back on his head and pulled down on the brim. "You were kind of a last-ditch effort in order to get White, but since she didn't come through, I can only hope that she's not in her home. Maybe she'll hear about the disappearing kids and come and rescue everybody."

I blinked. "Wow. All this for some girl who might be living in my neighborhood? Cyrus is insane."

Ash flinched. "Don't say his name, whatever you do," he warned darkly. "He did some sort of voodoo so that nobody under him can say it."

I frowned. "Well, I just did, didn't I?"

"Which only confirms what I already figured out." Ash pointed at me. "You didn't get conformed like the other kids."

"What?"

"Uh...Brainwashed."

I was instantly on the alert. "Brainwashed? Was that what was going on when we passed those kids in the hallway before I got knocked out?"

"Sorta." Ash looked a little nervous and started to rub the back of his neck. "See, there's this machine that was found and put back together the way...well, the way he wanted. First kid that came through -" Ash made a swooshing noise as his arm shot forward. "Into the machine he goes. He came out the other end with the same blank look I've been giving everybody else."

Ash gained a concerned look. "Pretty much everybody's ended up like that, even when they fought back against getting strapped down. I would have thought that half of them would have had a chance, but..." He shook his head again.

This was starting to sound like it was part of some sort of horror show or something. I gained a disgusted look.

"These guys are sick," I declared. "If only I could wring Charon's neck."

"Believe me, I've been trying."

I looked at Ash in surprise. "You? How? You've got that -" I paused, considering whether I should say the name of the device that had Ash under Cyrus' control.

"Yeah." Ash's face scrunched up in anger, but then a sinister grin snuck over his face. "But the thing is, the Red Chain wasn't exactly made to control humans."

"Well, yeah, they were going after Dialga and Palkia, but -"

"I mean, it never was." Ash looked me straight in the eye. "And it's because of that that I can jump into other people's heads at night and talk to them...or give them nightmares." His grin strengthened, and this time it did reach his eyes.

"You've sound like you've done it before," I noted.

"Eh. On and off. But definitely enough to make them look at me like I'm Darkrai spawn or something. He's going to be bothering him now, though, so hopefully that might do something. That's not the only thing I can do, though." Ash's smile faded to a half-smile.

"Oh?"

"If I can build up enough emotion, I can break loose for a minute and give people a piece of my mind - and I mean really, since I've only been able to make snarky comments when I've been spoken to."

Whoa. "I bet they think you're more volatile that way."

"Probably." Ash got up from the couch. "It's technically almost dawn. I'm going to have to head back before someone comes in and yells at me to wake up."

That was abrupt. But -

"How can you tell?"

"I have my ways." Ash turned and started down the hall towards the front door - which, I guess, means that it's his exit back to his own place. Wait.

"Hey - you didn't explain about that dreamscape thing!"

Ash paused at the door, his eyes widening, and he slapped himself in the forehead. "Right! I completely forgot about that."

Looking over at me, he stated, "A dreamscape is basically a place that represents your mind. For some reason, though, you Avatars didn't really know they existed."

"Um...I think that may be because we usually don't remember what we dream."

"Well, that's going to change." Ash opened up my front door and started to step out into the black void. "Because these dreamscapes aren't going to leave you alone here."

With that abrupt statement, he fully stepped out of the house and closed the front door behind him.

What felt like seconds later, a loud beeping noise filled the house and gave me a pounding headache. The house started to go out of focus.

I realized that I was about to wake up.

Different look into what exactly goes on in people's heads at night, huh?

What do you guys think I should do with the dreamscapes? I've only got one other dreamscape with Ash (and a few others besides...), so if you guys have any ideas as other things I can do in these places, they would be appreciated!

See you next time!