The night sky, beautiful as it may be, eventually said its goodbyes and receded into the horizon to give the sun its turn to bring in the morning. As it rose and brought light once more to the oak forest, its rays shined upon the face of the little specter resting upon a high-up branch. Her eyes, sleepy as they were, slowly opened and her mouth let out a yawn before the misdreavus rose up from the bark and floated her way back down to the ground. She was ready to start the day, to see Paco face-to-face again, and to gleefully get the two-footed canine in the loving embrace of the cute, adorable audino. But before any of that could happen, she had to check if the fighter dog happened to be awake yet.

Millie closed her eyes and focused as she had done many times before in order to seek the mental link to her companion. She waited...and waited...and waited.

She waited some more.

Nothing. Wait, nothing?

"No, that can't be right," Millie said, as she shook her head to shake off initial concerns. She focused harder, squeezing her eyes closed tighter than before. Her pearls glowed and her hair and body fluttered as if caught in a gusty storm as she mentally sought the presence of the lucario somewhere, anywhere at all. Her concentration of power disturbed the grass and the branches, an act to which mortal eyes saw as merely an errant wind. But just seconds of this act occurred before she ceased the disturbance, opened her eyes, and slowly bit down on her lower lip.

"No, no, no. This can't be right at all," Millie repeated. She began pacing back and forth along the ground, trying to make sense of it all. "I can't sense him anywhere. It's like he's...gone. But he can't be gone just like that. He just can't!"

Theories quickly brewed in the misdreavus' mind. Did he die while she was asleep? From what, a heart attack?! Paco's still in his prime and even if he did die, there's no way he'd cross over. He would've bee-lined straight to her, distraught over his untimely demise. She would've consoled him, and as soon as possible she'd find out if they could f- Um. Oh my. Millie squelched that line of thought in embarrassment. She thought of another theory. Did Paco bail on the little ghost? Like hell that would happen! Because of her the forest was Paco's oyster, and hers as well. He took two-two!-lovely females under his wing and was on the verge of consummating with a third!

Millie puffed her cheeks, now fed up with her mood the more she felt like a dumped girlfriend. "Dammit, Paco, what made you disappear?" she swore aloud, "You're going to make me hunt you down, aren't you? Well, when I find you, you better have a good reason I can't find that noggin of yours or else I'll find a way to curse you! Ghosts can do that sort of thing, you know!"

She floated off in a huff, heading straight to the cave where Paco was the night before.

***

 In spite of the morning sun, the makeshift den where Paco and his harem spent the night barely had any light to illuminate the rocky interior carved out over many ages. The modest entrance, a mere hole carved out of the cool stone, hid a surprisingly deep tunnel that soon turned pitch-black. Even the red eyes of the specter couldn't navigate the cave without some form of sight, so she took a little risk. She exposed her ethereal form to the spectrum seen by mortal eyes and imbued a gentle glow in her pearls, giving off just enough luminescence to show the way, albeit dimly. Already Millie imagined how haunting a silhouette she must look in the dark, floating ever so slowly along, and hoped she didn't stumble upon anyone already awake. No pokémon ever acted rationally whenever she was caught snooping around.

Not a sound could be heard except the ambience of the woods reverberating down the tunnel, far from loud enough to wake up anyone who might be inside. The tunnel itself began to branch off into several paths. Mille backtracked more than a few times as her spelunking led to more dead ends than she would've liked. That is, until she stumbled upon a few pokémon at one of the dead ends, deep in slumber, that nearly petrified her on the spot. Immediately she cut off the glow of her pearls before the light could disturb the three she found on the floor, throwing the tunnel back into the impenetrable darkness.

Crap! That was a close one, thought the misdreavus. With the recent turn of events putting her on edge, the specter nearly forgot about the gardevoir's two children, son and daughter kirlias from a former relationship. Their slender, humanoid forms, closely resembling young girls in white dresses and green stockings, slept in close proximity to a blue-eyed, chubby, adorable fairy critter of a pokémon, whose pink patches of fur and oversized, animalistic ears were surely that of an audino. Not just any audino, however, but the one Paco had planned to mate that very day. But Amber didn't concern Millie as much as the psychic kirlias, who'd surely give her a mental whipping before she had any chance to explain her intrusion. She quietly retreated back several feet before lighting the way once more to find her way back to the last fork in the tunnel.

"Gah! I hate this cave. Hate it, hate it, hate it," she whispered to herself, as she continued down the other path. "Dammit Paco, you better not have died and crossed over without telling me. I'd never forgive you!"

She had dismissed that theory before, but the audino's presence in the cave cast new doubts on the lucario's present state. Nothing in what he said last night to the misdreavus came off as carefully chosen words to cover some unpleasant truth. His interest in the audino was genuine. At this hour of the day, he'd surely be sleeping off the exhaustion from the sex, if he didn't already nudge Amber awake to eventually do their thing. Millie's mental linking would've revealed this easily, and yet now it was if his mind no longer existed, or didn't want to be found.

The deeper she traveled into the cave, the more such disturbing thoughts consumed her. The ambience of the woods now barely registered in the ghost's hearing, making the troubles of her mind all the more louder in her head. Her pace slowed without thinking, as a part of her grew hesitant to know of the answers, and another part felt the crimson-lighted walls of the cave closing in claustrophobically upon her. But just as she thought she'd finally lose her nerve and hastily retreat to the perceived safety of the brightly lit outdoors, she heard the faintest of breaths from up ahead.

There! Paco has to be up ahead, Millie thought, energized by the sound. It didn't matter to her that the gardevoir, Rose, was likely close by, or that the breathing she heard might not even belong to Paco but to said gardevoir or the leafeon, for the hope that lucario was alive and well was all she cared about now. She picked up her speed to race down the tunnel, hopefully to the last dead-end she'd have to face, and imbued a stronger glow in her pearls along the way. Whatever the truth may be, she wanted to see it clear as day and eliminate any doubt that could possibly linger.

When the crimson light of her pearls finally shined upon the last wall of rock in that awful labyrinth of a cave, Millie peered down towards the ground.

"Whaaaat?"

Part of what she saw made sense, yet another part didn't make sense at all. A blue, two-legged canine lied on his back in the middle of the last room Millie found. To his right laid a beautiful, older female, closely resembling a green-haired woman in a flowing dress. Rose. To his left lied a healthy, tan-colored fox with brown paws and a pair of ears and a tail closely resembling leaves. Cellin. The misdreavus expected this much, except for one thing: the three of them, Paco, Rose, and Cellin, all squirmed in a deep slumber, faces twisted in pain, all while sexual fluids seeped from masculine and feminine parts alike.

Mille floated over the three, trying to make sense of what was wrong. "Paco? Cellin? Rose? Can any of you hear me? Wake up! You're having bad dreams!" She said aloud as she tried to stir them, but words proved futile. It soon dawned on her that this was no ordinary nightmare.

"Something, or someone, put these three in this state and didn't want someone like me to know," she thought aloud, "Well, I couldn't connect with your head from a distance, Paco, but I can definitely force my way in point-blank, long as you're sleeping!"

The misdreavus stared down at the canine as she prepared her mind for the dive she was about to take. Part of her fought back the fear that began to brew within her. It was one thing to use a mental link on an awake pokémon to sense their thoughts and feelings, but to use such a skill on a pokémon in deep slumber meant being literally sucked into their brain and then undergoing a complete submersion into the subconscious and in turn, into whatever dream that mind created. But in this case, Millie feared that the dream she'd eventually materialize in wouldn't belong to Paco or his mates at all. The origin of their imprisoning dream was a mystery for which the answers could only be found inside them.

"Okay, Paco...ready or not, I'm going in!"

She closed her eyes. She fell.