The long, dark, winding cave and its inhabitants disappeared from Millie's senses in an instant. The next thing she knew, she flickered from that momentary void just as instantly into a world that felt real, yet was anything but. And somehow she also ended up head-first in a bush, hair and mouth full of twigs, immediately reminding her in a not so pleasant way that, in the dream world, she has as much physical presence as anyone alive.  Not a comforting thought in a realm so potentially dangerous.

"Aaack! Phbbt Phhbt pphbt!" The misdreavus yanked her ghostly form out of said bush and spat out the repulsive taste whilst shaking her head to fling off the twigs in her hair. She now floated upright, visibly jarred by the transition, like an actor in a b-movie aware of a shoddily-made jump cut.

"Ergh...I should've come in slower than that," she said, feeling foolish. "I could've ended up in something worse than a bush, for all I knew. Now then...where the heck am I?"

The ghost girl took her time to look around the place. Numerous trees and shrubs surrounded her, stretching as far as her eyes could see into a sylvan landscape. But similarities to the real world, at first glance, ended there. The colors of this world...to merely say they were dark felt like an understatement. The lush greens of the leaves were gone, replaced by sickly hues of purple that neared to deep-black in its palette, and the comforting browns of the earth now glared at the specter with tones of crimson. The whole place felt ominous and oppressive, and yet her continued gaze upon this world led her to stumble upon another observation: this clearing in the dream forest matched the very spot where she and the lucario had first met.

"What're the odds of that?" she chuckled nervously at the coincidence. "Okay...if this forest is laid out just like the real one, then that should meaaaan..."

The misdreavus' eyes squinted at the patterns of the branches above her as she identified the natural trails copied from the real thing. "Up ahead some ways ought to be Cellin's old den, and if I go in the other direction, that'll lead to the cave Rose and her kids were staying, and where Paco stayed the night."

Millie bit her lip as she looked in the direction of the gardevoir's family home. "Yeah...I'm not in a rush to run into her. I know she'd blame me for this...whatever this is."

She turned towards the direction of the leafeon's old home, intent on scouting it out.  Her cloth-like body and wavy hair rippled gently as she floated close to the red ground along a trail she followed thousands of times before. But she did so at a cautious pace, for she distrusted the freakish dreamscape that seemed to obsess over the colors of her ghostly self. She assured herself of the chances of finding Paco at Cellin's den, for the leafeon's hole in the ground would be a strong memory for both the canine fighter and his spectral companion. There, in the den, Paco spent a long night claiming the cute fox's virginity, much to Millie's delight. And then, just outside that den the following morning, he appeared: The black, towering hellhound and his terrible, searing teeth.

"Leon..." Millie whispered the name of Paco's one-time foe with worry. Such a powerful, tyrannical enemy would leave a mark on Paco's mind long after the hellhound's death. He was by far the worst of his kind, a houndoom so dangerously aggressive he'd dominate male and female pokémon alike to satisfy his lust for sex and power, if he didn't end up killing the pokémon unfortunate enough to get in his way. The forest had breathed a collective sigh of relief at the news of his passing, but even the memory of such a beast could prove potent nightmare fuel.

"No, Paco wouldn't dwell on something like that, would he?" she said aloud, as if to convince herself, "He did what he had to do, ‘cause it was either going to be Leon or him left standing. Paco's a hero, and that good-for-nothing monster is gone forever. Forever!"

She stopped in place as her voice began to rise. "And why is this place so damn quiet?!"

"I don't know. You tell me."

Millie immediately recognized the voice she heard just now behind her. Her eyes widened in panic as she whirled around and looked way up at a certain green-haired pokémon, who now stood over the ghost with crossed arms and a narrowed, disapproving gaze.

"R-Rose!" the little specter blurted.

"Hello, Millie," the gardevoir answered back. She spoke like a mother about to punish a troublemaking child, and the misdreavus reacted much like a child about to be punished as the ghost girl turned tail and tried to flee. The effort to escape, however, proved futile. Telekinetic bonds, invisible to the naked eye, seized the misdreavus and kept her in place, no matter how much the specter strained to break free.

"Ngh! Let me goooo!" Millie pleaded as she continued to struggle against the gardevoir's psychic powers.

"You got some nerve coming back here after I caught you snooping last time," Rose said to Millie, not moving from where she stood as she used her mind to bring Millie up to her face, "And now you ensnared the three of us in our sleep to sate that appetite of yours in the sickest way I can think of. Didn't think I'd break the spell you had cast, did you? Well, the jig is up! If you don't let Paco and Cellin go, I'll make you let them go!"  

Millie shook her head back and forth in haste. "No, no, no! You've got it all wrong," she defended, "I couldn't sense Paco when I woke up so I went into your cave to find out what happened to him. I found the three of you trapped like this, so I dove into Paco's head to find out what's going on. I haven't done any of this, I swear! Read my mind if you have to, I'm telling you the truth!"

"I'll be the judge of that," Rose replied back. The gardevoir reached out slowly with one hand, which Millie eyed with the same fear as one might hold for a hypodermic needle about to sink into the brain. She felt like she died a thousand deaths before the touch of the psychic finally pressed against her brow. The ghost didn't feel any pain, but she could tell from seeing the gardevoir close her eyes that the psychic read her memories like an open book. She bit her lip, not knowing how Rose would react to the role Millie played in the lucario's love life.

When Rose pulled her hand away from Millie, she planted her face into the palm of her hand. "So that's what you've been up to. Oh, Millie. You just couldn't resist such a sweet, young guy. Well, neither could I, so you got me there."

Millie felt the bonds of the gardevoir ease off, allowing her to move freely again. "And here I was thinking you were the one fixated on something horribly morbid and sadistic," Rose went on.
The misdreavus stared at the gardevoir with genuine confusion. "What on earth are you hinting at? What kind of dream is this? What the heck is going on?" she asked, more and more consumed with worry for the canine fighter.

Rose removed her hand from her face as she looked back at Millie with a frown. "Someone, I don't know who, is obsessed with the morning you were attacked. It keeps repeating, over and over, and Paco and Cellin keep reliving it, trapped in a loop, never remembering the last replay, and..." Rose's voice trailed off as she visibly shuddered.

"And what? What else is happening? Tell me!" Millie pressed on. Part of her already suspected the answer, a part of her she didn't want to listen to.

"It doesn't play out the way it actually happened," Rose forced out of her lips, "In this dream, Leon wins, and...takes what he wants. And it starts all over again when he's done."

Millie's face froze in the greatest sense of terror she ever felt as the words of the gardevoir disturbed her very soul. "Paco!" she cried out the lucario's name, the worst of her fears realized, as she spun to race towards the leafeon's den. Before she could fly out of sight, though, Rose raced in turn to restrain her with psychic bonds.

"Wait, Millie! Don't rush in! We need to come up with- AAACK!"

All sense of reason and restraint had left the misdreavus. Driven to rescue the lucario by any means, she channeled ghostly energy into a volatile sphere and flung it at the gardevoir with the whip of her head. The psychic bonds unfurled as Rose dived towards the ground to dodge the hurtling shadow ball. As the ball slammed into a nearby tree and scorched the bark, Millie left Rose in the dust. She wasted no time with the trails of the dreamscape as she charged on through the space between the trees and over the shrubbery, determined to plunge into the heart of the nightmare like a guardian angel sent to drive