Prologue
Reimu lunged upright from her sleep with a scream still echoing in her ears and streaming from her trembling throat. It took a moment to realize she was awake, but she was already out of bed, standing and rubbing the sleep from her eyes. This realization brought a scowl to her features. "Okay! That's it! I don't know what Doremy is doing, but I'm putting a stop to it." She stomped towards the door. "Right now!"
"Ugh." The voice made Reimu glance up at another form, a young girl. "I'm glad ya feel the same way, Reimu."
Reimu started with a jump. "Huh? Marisa? What are you doing here?!"
Marisa sighed dramatically, hand to the side of her head. "I'm having these awful nightmares, just the same as you, ze! It's not even just us! Everyone in Gensokyo-" She pointed towards the front door, "-is having these nightmares. Nonstop!"
Reimu gasped with shock, hand over her mouth. "What?! Seriously? Why?!" She threw the same hand aside. "This just doesn't seem like Doremy's doing. I know her, she's my friend even! She'd never do something like this…" Her eyes narrowed. "Besides… Baku doesn't like eating bad dreams." She wagged her finger as if chastising. "They taste awful to them, and give them food poisoning."
Marisa clenched a fist, a determined look in her eyes. "Yer right, Reimu! Something terrible must'a happened!" She extended a finger out. "Let's check out the dream world."
They hurriedly went to Kaian Passageway #4 and swiftly entered the Dream World, but there were no dreams in sight. The whole place was a nest of activity with dark shapes and menacing figures running rampant.
A small voice reaches them, muffled and small. Though hard to pick out among the chaos, they push towards it, battering any nightmare that dares to come too close to them. Their name! Yes, that's what the voice is saying. Hearing that, they redouble their pace and rush to find someone locked up in a web of locks and chains in a purple floating sphere. Inside is Doremy Sweet herself.
Doremy lets out a sigh of relief, jiggling against the chains that bind her. "Reimu! Marisa! Boy, am I glad to see you two."
Reimu frowns, moving a hand to her hip as her eyes study the situation. "Doremy… What is going on here?"
The rattling grew louder as Doremy waved as violently as she could. "It's another incident, Reimu! A ghoul and her friends captured me and locked me up!" She grunted with an annoyed sound, glaring at something else. "And now, they're harnessing Nightmare Energy to free an old enemy of mine!" She pouted with a mixture of a scowl. "Please, you two, you have to stop them! You have no idea how terrible Frederica is!"
Reimu made placating gestures with her hands. "Slow down, Doremy! Who is Frederica and what's so bad about her?" She shrugged helplessly. "While we're at it, what's "Nightmare Energy" and why is the ghoul doing this in the first place?"
Doremy sighed, doing her best to calm down, and at least stop jiggling the chains. "Her name is Jacinta Gawkyzentyre. She's been cursed with constant insomnia because she accidentally fell into a cursed lake." She hiked a thumb at herself. "She came to me for help, but since I can't break the curse, she went to Frederica instead, and I don't even know how!"
She kicked a largely immobilized leg. "Frederica told Jacinta that if she got freed, then she'd help break the curse. So Jacinta is out there, collecting Nightmare Energy. It's the energy released when somebody wakes up from a bad dream, by the way. If they gather enough of it, Frederica will get enough power to free herself."
"And is she really that bad?" Reimu cocked a brow.
"YES!" shouted Doremy, "Frederica is pure evil, Reimu! She gives other yokai a bad name. She was imprisoned for trying to plunge all of Japan into an eternal nightmare, just because she could!" She slumped in her imprisonment. "And I just know that if she's let loose, she'll pick up right where she left off…"
Marisa whistled sharply. "Yowza! We can't let that happen! How can we help, Doremy?" She reached out to tap at a chain. "How do we free you?"
Doremy waves a hand at the locks of her imprisonment. "These locks are tied to their dreams. If you can wake all six of them up, I'll be free! The problem is, they probably won't listen to reason, so you'll likely have to fight them. On the plus side, the dreams are easy to find," She hiked a thumb upwards. "They're right above me!"
Marisa blinked up at the swirling, cloudlike eddies that were the other dreams. "Huh. That's convenient!"
Reimu pumped an arm, striking a ready post. "Got it! Come on, Marisa. Let's resolve this Incident!"
Together, they flew up towards the manifestations of the dreams. Each appeared different. One was a pumpkin, the next a beehive, and then a balloon, a coiled whip, a straw doll, and finally a hockey stick.
