It's a Special Episode, in the vein of EoS! Stuff I want to write for this AU but doesn't fit into the main story will be used as Special Episode material.

The first time he had one of those visions was when he was a kid, traveling with his family through the perpetually dark wastes. They'd been hiking through a ruined forest (a Dungeon, his parents said it was, and even at the age of eight Ryou knew his parents were trying to keep them hidden and away from open spaces), and had come out on a clear patch, though with the lack of any real light it was as dark as anywhere else. Ryou had leaned against a large tree, taking a moment to rest before moving on, only for Amane to wander over.

"Do you think there's anything hiding in here, Ryou?" Amane whispered, staring around the trees as if a Pokemon was going to burst out of hiding and attack the group on the spot.

"I don't know. If anything does...Papa should have the Orbs..." Ryou struggled to focus, his thoughts refusing to cooperate as a sudden wave of dizziness struck. Amane didn't seem to notice, continuing to worriedly babble as Ryou slumped harder against the tree.

"I heard there's Psychic Ponyta in here, though..." Ryou barely registered Amane's comment, another wave of dizziness hitting hot on the heels of the first. He whined, dazedly dropping to his knees as he tried to find the words to say that something was wrong, that he didn't feel well, but the words failed to come as the forest spun wildly around him. He cried out again, something that maybe could have been an attempt at desperately calling for his mother to help him, and for a moment he thought he could hear Amane calling his name as his hearing faded, but then the next moment all was consumed by white.

Ryou saw a forest clearing, light dappling through the rustling leaves. The sounds of unseen Pokemon could be heard nearby, going about their normal business as if nothing was wrong, as if time was never frozen. And at the edge of the clearing, flanked by two massive trees, was a floating gear, glowing softly blue as if it generated its own light source.

In front of the gear stood three Pokémon, standing tall as if guarding the gear. One, Ryou realized with a shock, was a Psychic Ponyta just like what Amane was so fearful of, its fluffy pink mane framing wide eyes and a short stubby horn. The other two, standing on either side of the Ponyta, were both recognizable as Rapidash, but couldn't be more visually different from each other. One Rapidash sported a long, blue striped horn and a sleek purple and silver mane, while the other blazed with flames, their flickering light highlighting a broken stump of a horn and a scarred face. All three seemed to stare right at Ryou, as if warning him off from the gear behind them.

The scene held for a few moments, barely long enough take in what he was seeing, before it all faded out again.

"Wake up, Ryou! Wake up!" Ryou blinked, coming around to find his whole family crowded around him, his mother crouched by his side and his father keeping an eye on the surrounding trees, with Amane just behind them, her green eyes wet as if she'd been crying. He tried to sit up, no longer dizzy (in fact, he felt more or less fine, as if the dizziness had never happened), only to be gently pushed back down by his mother.

"No, just stay down for a bit and rest. Do you remember what happened?" His mother stared at him, concern in her eyes as Ryou frowned but stayed down.

"I...I got really dizzy..." Ryou's eyes strayed around the clearing, an odd feeling in his gut as he recalled what happened. "...Then I saw this really bright forest, with-"

"With...?" Ryou ignored his mother's question, his eyes locked on the tree branches above his head. It was dark here, dark and quiet and still, but he was certain...

"...I saw those two trees there! There was a floating gear between them, and-" Ryou was interrupted by his father, huffing as he looked down at his son.

"Hallucinations."

"I didn't-" Indignant, Ryou bolted upright into a sitting position, knowing somehow that he wasn't hallucinating things, but fell silent as his father raised a hand in the gesture he knew to mean 'be quiet'.

"What you saw wasn't real. It was just you passing out and seeing things." Ryou's father looked him over briefly, a blue orb gripped in his hands as if prepared to use it at a moment's notice, then strode off towards a path. "We should get moving. Every living thing in this forest will have heard him calling out."

Ryou's stomach dropped at the thought of moving on again, but he wordlessly got up and brushed himself off, shaking off his mother's concern as he gently took (a still weakly crying) Amane's hand in preparation to leave the forest.

"Come on, Amane. I'm fine now, see?" Ryou forced a smile, trying not to think about what he saw or how he was so sure it wasn't just him seeing things as the group headed out.

"I don't think you were hallu...hallu..."

Ryou lifted his head from his attempt at sleep, looking up to see Amane sprawled out on the ground nearby.

"...Hallucinating?" Ryou quietly suggested, staring at his sister with surprise.

"...Yeah, that. You got all weird and starey when that happened, so..."

"...So you believe me?"

Amane just nodded, her eyes wide as she watched Ryou.

"...I think it was real too, but I don't know how. The forest I saw was way too bright to be real..."

"Bright?" Amane perked up, looking around the darkened cave the family was resting in for the moment as if hoping to see something matching that description. "What kind of bright?"

"Very bright, not dark like everything is here. There were noises, and things were moving..."

Amane hung on every word, letting Ryou describe exactly what he'd seen in that Dungeon with quiet attention, only to let out a sudden "is that all?" when he finished the story, forcing Ryou to quickly shush her as he glanced towards where their mother was sitting guard at the cave entrance. When she didn't come to check on them, he let out a sigh before he spoke again, knowing they were supposed to be asleep and not talking to each other about weird dreams.

"I want to know why I saw that..." Ryou shook his head, as if shaking off the memory of his strange vision with it. Beside him, Amane perked up, though she was starting to sag a bit as the excitement of what passed for 'day' faded.

"Maybe you're psychic like that Ponyta you saw..." She broke off into a wide yawn, noticeably drooping, and Ryou quietly sighed. Amane was two years younger than him after all, and she always got tired first.

"Go to sleep, I'll tell you more when we wake up." Amane looked ready to protest, but decided otherwise when she yawned again, instead curling up to sleep. Ryou in turn laid his own head back down, trying his best to sleep despite the questions in his own mind and, threatening to overpower everything else, the worry that the dizzy spells and odd dreams might happen again.