The two girls stepped through a large hole in the wall to the fairly open facility. Grasses and weeds poked out between muddy and broken tiles on the floor. The whole roof was practically blown away and the walls that were standing were covered in dirt and snaking vines. There was something eerie yet soothing about the place. It was almost as if it was an ancient war ground, canvassing the power that nature had. It could still grow back after being trampled, and overcome the man-made building.
"What are we here for anyway?' White asked Bianca.
"We need to find a munna and collect some dream mist for Professor Fennel. Dream mist is a pink fluff that munnas and musharnas emit…it has the power to show dreams for real! Sometimes you can find munnas in the main area; Fennel calls it the Dream Yard because they gather there sometimes," Bianca whispered excitedly.
"What do they look like?" White whispered.
"Munnas are small and pink. They're pretty skittish, but they give nice trainers dream mist," Bianca responded quietly.
"Right…" White whispered stepping towards a more open area. They passed by some rubble and Bianca sighed.
"I wonder what my first kiss will be like," she murmured dreamily. White slapped her forehead.
"Bianca. Really." White said pleadingly.
"I hope it's super special! Like romantic, you know? I want-"
But White cut her blonde friend off by slapping her hand over her Bianca's mouth. She pushed herself and her friend against a wall and peeked out into the main area. There were two men in grey uniforms huddled around something. White had seen those uniforms before, but where? It came to her as she thought backwards through her journey. It was the group from Accumula town, Team Plasma. What could they be doing in the dream yard? White was curious, but she wasn't about to just walk up to them and ask them what they were up to. She quickly leaned over to Bianca and whispered in her ear.
"We aren't alone. Be quiet."
Bianca nodded and shakily poked her head out beyond the rotting wall along with White.
"Finally found one of these stupid balls of bubblegum," one grunt said to the other.
"Yeah it looks like something that I scraped off the bottom of my boot!" the other said with a laugh. White's eyes traveled to the ground where she saw a dirty, beat up pokemon in between the two of them. It fit the description of the pokemon that Bianca told her about earlier, tiny and pink. It opened its red eyes slightly and let out a small cry.
"Muuuunnnn…" it whimpered. White whipped her head back to the other side of the wall. She put her hand to her chest and she could feel her heart beating quickly. Bianca joined her with a scared look on her face.
"Wh-white? What are they doing to that Munna?" Bianca asked. Her voice was shaking. White heard the two men laugh again at something and decided to listen to their conversation some more.
"-dude said we can get half of the cut, right?" one of them said.
"Yeah. Once we get this last ingredient, he's going to present it to the sages. They'll probably test it out on a small town first like Iccirus or Accumula. Then we get that bonus that the higher-ups have been waving in our faces for suggesting good ideas to make people give up their pokemon."
"And it will really be able to hypnotize people into releasing their pokemon?"
"That's what the scientist dude said!"
"Well then, hey bubblegum blob, get to making the mist!"
White and Bianca began watching again. One of the men pulled their legs back and kicked dirt at the munna. The Munna squeaked.
"White!" Bianca gasped. White continued to watch, completely dumbstruck by what the men were doing. Her wide aqua eyes reflected the other man giving the munna a swift stomp directly. The pokemon cried out and tears began to slide down Bianca's face.
In that moment, White remembered N's dark words…
Well, you need to believe it. It's a harsh reality that happens frequently. More often than you would expect.
Zorua was abandoned by his owner after he lost one too many battles.
There are a lot of terrible and rotten trainers out there, White.
"White, do something!" Bianca sobbed. White was snapped back into reality as one of the men brought his boot down and began to apply pressure to the little Munna…squishing it closer to the ground.
White ran out from her hiding spot and threw the pokeball at her waist towards the men.
"Snivy! Use your vine whip and save that munna!" She cried. Snivy erupted from his pokeball with his vines already extending from his shoulders. They wrapped around the distressed munna quickly and whipped it out from underneath the Plasma member's shoe, causing him to lurch forward and curse. Snivy landed on the ground with the munna safely in its vines.
"Sni," Snivy said worriedly to White. White turned around to Bianca, who was still cowering behind the wall.
"Bianca! Come and help Munna! I'll take care of these two," White barked. Bianca came out from behind the wall, her face tear stained and shocked by White's sudden surge of courage. Snivy extended his strong vines to Bianca and plopped the wounded munna into her arms.
"Muuuu…" it said gratefully to her little savior. Snivy gave it a quick nod and then glared at the two men while he retracted his vines. He walked back to stand by his trainer and folded his little leafy arms coldly.
"Hey girlie! What the fuck do you think you're doing?" One of the men asked her sharply.
"How could you kick a defenseless pokemon like that? You're both disgusting!" White said clenching her fist.
"Listen, just give us back the pokemon and we'll let you leave peacefully, allrighty little girl?"
"Not a chance," White spat back. Snivy grit its teeth.
"If you don't give us the pokemon, we're gonna have to make you. Trust us, you don't want that, darlin'," one of the members said. He shrugged his hood off to reveal his thin, snake-like face and his dark greasy hair. His friend also shrugged his hood off to reveal a slightly lumpier face with long, un-kept curly hair. In both of their hands they held pokeballs.
"Bring it on!" White snarled. She turned to Bianca.
"Go and get one of those crazy butlers. A gym leader needs to know what is going on here."
"O-okay," Bianca nodded as she spun around and took off with Munna safely in her arms. White turned back around to see the two men send out both of their pokemon at the same time. With a pop their pokeballs revealed a patrat, and a purloin. Both were native pokemon to the area. Lucky for White, she and Snivy had battled multiple patrats and purloins during their adventure, never at the same time, however. White chewed on her bottom lip nervously.
"Ready Snivy?" she asked her little friend beside her. In the past few weeks they hadn't had too much time for training, so she was a little nervous that he might be out of shape. When White looked down at him, she was reassured. Snivy's sharp red eyes glared at the two men. What they were doing to the little munna must have lit a fire under him. She had never seen her little lizard so ready for battle.
"Wait for their move. Let's only attack when we find openings, ok? Otherwise, be defensive. We can't afford to be reckless in this battle," White muttered to Snivy. The little green pokemon leapt on to the battlefield and the brawl began.
"Use tackle, Patrat!" the curly haired man yelled.
"Scratch it up, Purloin!" the snake-like man crooned.
The little brown patrat was the first to move, though Purloin was right after it. The patrat launched itself at Snivy, who dodged to the left. Next came the purloin's attack. Its claws flew through the air as Snivy hit the ground after his first dodge. With one small foot hardly on the ground, Snivy managed to leap to the left again, but not without the scratch attack slightly grazing his side. When Snivy landed from its second jump, he flinched slightly, but looked unscathed for the most part. White's palms began to sweat. They seemed to have a pretty strong simultaneous team attack that didn't leave a lot of time for counterattacks.
"Tackle again!" The wavy haired trained said with the wave of his large hand.
"Assist, Purloin!" the snake man said with a smirk.
Purloin's tail straightened. It glanced at Patrat and it began to run in time with the little brown pokemon, who was already charging full force at Snivy. White's eyes narrowed. It looked like they were both going in for a full force tackle attack. White had to calculate quickly…they were too close to dodge, Snivy's tackle and vine whip weren't strong enough to stop them both, and leer wouldn't work unless Snivy could make eye contact. That left only one move. It was risky. A tingle shot up her spine and she clenched her fist. Yes! It could work! Charging in headfirst would be their downfall.
"Leaf tornado down the middle, Snivy!" White yelled.
Snivy obeyed and spiraled into the short space between the two charging pokemon. Like a bowling ball knocking down pins, the force of Snivy's leaf tornado blew both pokemon away into opposite directions. They each skidded to a stop in the dirt and Snivy landed. His tiny chest heaved from the over exertion to his body, but he knew that this was no time to quit. Now that the two were separated, White snapped her fingers.
"Vine whip the purloin fast, Snivy! Send it flying!" White said quickly.
"Get up you stupid pokemon! Get out of there!" the snake man said. Earlier he seemed so calm and confident, but now his little eyes were bulging out of his head.
"Sniiiii…vy!" Snivy shouted and wrapped his vines around the purloin before it even attempted to get up. The little grass lizard threw its enemy up into the air, and dashed towards the other end of the battlefield to take out the patrat.
"Tackle! Shut it down!" White commanded, and Snivy scampered even faster to gain momentum.
"Tackle it back!" the curly haired trainer hollered at his patrat. The little brown rat got to his feet and swayed slightly. It went in for the tackle against Snivy, but Snivy had already built up too much speed. He hit the patrat head on and sent it sailing again.
When the purloin landed, its eyes were unfocused. It was unable to battle for the time being. Patrat was also knocked out cold. This battle came at a price however. Snivy knelt to the ground and held himself up with his arms. His chest was heaving. White ran up to her pokemon and scooped him up into her arms. Snivy was having difficulty catching his breath. With each exhale he wheezed.
"Sni…Sni…Sni…"
White rocked him back and forth.
"Oh. I'm so sorry you had to battle two pokemon at once, buddy. I'm so sorry!"
The two team Plasma members returned their pokemon to their pokeballs and stared at White in disbelief.
"How could that little girl…beat us?" the curly haired man said completely stunned. The dark haired man nudged his shoulder.
"Look, her pokemon is about to pass out, too. Let's knock her out and toss her in the woods somewhere so that she can't bother us," he said to the lumpy man. They nodded to one another and sauntered up to White. They stopped behind her and the larger, curly haired man grabbed a heavy branch that was lying nearby. White spun around to face them, and saw the crazy look in their eyes. Suddenly, her victory seemed a little useless, and she felt frail and powerless against her attackers. Before she could open her mouth to scream and voice boomed from behind her.
"Fools! Ingrates! Failures!"
White gasped as she noticed a ghostly figure seemingly step out of a strange fog. It was the scary cloaked man that did the speech at Acuumula, only he stood towering nearly a foot taller than what White remembered. White's eyes widened and she gulped. Her face turned back to the two team Plasma members. How scared she looked was nothing compared to the look of horror that the two bullies had on their faces.
"We're sorry, my lord!" the lumpy man hollered while bowing his head.
"Forgive us, my lord!" the snake man sobbed. The towering apparation growled. White's eyes twitched as she noticed the Plasma leader in front of her ripple ever so slightly. Like a flicker, it reminded her of when Zorua dematerialized after taking her form. Now that she was aware that something was going on, White noticed a light pink fog covering the entire area. If dream mist had the power to manifest dreams in real life, maybe it had the power to create nightmares as well? White deduced that the angry cloaked man must be the plasma member's worst nightmare brought out by the blanket of dream mist that spiraled around the field. The apparition bellowed at his subjects.
"No forgiveness! Pathetic! Hooligans! Failures! Scum!"
The two men cried and ran from the dream yard screaming like a whimsicott on fire. White looked down at Snivy, who had finally caught his breath. He looked around and sniffed the air.
"Snivy, sni!" Snivy said pointing to a large piece of rubble. White blinked and, with Snivy still safely resting in her arms, she walked up to the slab of concrete that Snivy pointed at. A large pink and purple pokemon hovered out from behind the rubble and made a noise that sounded like wind chimes. From its body came tufts of pink smoke that hovered around it like cotton candy. It seemed solid, but after some time the smoke would turn into a lighter color and disintegrate only to be replaced by some more.
"Muuuuu…" it said in a low singsong tone. White's eyebrows shot up and she pulled out her pokedex to get some information on the dreamy pokemon before her. She read the description and she nodded.
"Now I understand! You're a musharna, the evolved form of munna, right?" White asked the pink pokemon that suspended itself in the air. Musharna responded by dipping its body up and down.
"You dove into their dreams and found their greatest fear, then made it materialize in the real world. That's a pretty cool illusionary trick that you have there. I'm impressed!" White told the pink pokemon. Snivy chirped a few times in agreement. Just then White heard several footsteps and some mumbling from a little bit further away.
"Hide!" White told musharna, but not before Bianca called out her name and came running up to her with help. A small woman with long black hair came jogging after Bianca. Bianca and the other girl stopped to catch their breath.
"Are…you ok…White?" Bianca managed to say between huffs.
"I'm fine," White said quickly, "I'm sorry that those two goons got away. I wasn't able to detain them, but Snivy knocked out both of their pokemon."
The little girl in the lab coat spoke up after finally catching her breath.
"Oh! Chili, Cress, and Cillian were able to catch them while they were running away. They are turning the two hooded men into the authorities as we speak. All is well!" the scientist girl said happily with her hands clasped to her chest.
"White, this is Professor Fennel!" Bianca said after finally catching her breath, too.
"Pleased to meet you, Professor," White said sticking her hand out casually and letting go of Snivy. Fennel grabbed her hand and held it with both of her own. Her eyes were sparkling.
"Oh White! I have heard so many things about you! You must be some sort of pokemon trainer prodigy like Junebug said!"
"June…bug?" White muttered. She looked at Bianca, who was smiling like a moron as usual.
"That is her nickname for Professor Juniper! Junebug!" Bianca said happily.
"You were able to save Munna, and direct Bianca to safety! Then you battled those two thugs with two against one! I'm becoming, like, your biggest fan!" Fennel gushed. White pulled her hand away from Fennel's grasp.
"Uh-huh…" White said quietly. Professor Fennel reminded her of the crazy butlers a little. Was it just chance that the mad scientist lived in the same town as the crazy butlers? Coincidence or conspiracy? Unova was proving to be a most interesting place. White shook her head as she remembered Musharna behind the rubble. She walked back to the pile, but nothing was there except for a large tuft of the cotton candy like substance. White bent down and picked it up. The pink smoke floated above her fingers and she carried it back to the other two ladies.
"Is this what we were looking for, Bianca? Dream mist?" White asked them. Fennel straightened her glasses and she stared in awe. Bianca nodded.
"That's the stuff! I've never seen so much of it in one place, though! Where did you find it?" Bianca asked White.
"I think Musharna left it for me. It must've know that it was what we came here looking for. Here you go, Professor," White said while plopping the mysterious wispy substance into the professor's palms. Fennel looked like she was about to burst into tears.
"Y-you met Musharna?! And it gave you this?!" the black haired girl said in wonder, "No wonder you were able to get so much! It came from Musharna! We haven't seen it around the dream yard in ages! I can't believe it, White! You're like…a friendly pokemon trainer prodigy!"
White rubbed her temples and Bianca laughed.
"Let's just head back to the gym," White suggested. She began to trot back to Striaton with a rambling mad scientist and a ditzy blonde in tow.
/chapter 11 end/
There was a reason for White and N's argument all along!
Sorry I haven't posted lately. Things come up, as I am sure that you all know. Thanks for the continuing support! I have also recently decided that I will be answering everyone that comments through messages. Feel free to ask me some questions : I like it when other writers respond to my comments, so I want to spread the joy! Please look forward to the next chapter. It is one of my favorites that I have worked on so far, and I will be posting it by the end of this week as an apology for my neglect.