Chapter Text
Clarity expected that she would awaken as an Espurr in the Dream. She expected the sound now rushing into her ears, the sound of dying, flickering electricity. She even expected that she'd wake up alone, at least for a little while.
What she didn't expect was to see a dozen entities standing around her, watching her with their unnaturally large, unblinking eyes from every angle. Espurr, upon closer inspection. In the dim light that filled this Dream, they reminded Clarity of restless spirits unable to move on.
Her ear flaps flew open, and white light exploded around everywhere. Clarity couldn't see a thing as the psychic power crashed into each of the Espurr, sweeping them up in its explosive power.
.ytiralC otni demmals dna ,rebbur fo edam erew yeht hguoht sa ,rrupsE eht ffo decnuob rewop reH
Clarity screamed as her own power smashed into her tiny body, charring her gray fur as it burned her skin. She jolted up and covered her ears with her useless paws, stopping more power from flooding out. She was still surrounded by the many Espurr, but they were no longer holding still. Now they were mimicking her, holding their ears shut as they stood. They grimaced and resisted the urge to scream further. Even their fur seemed darker than before, as though they had also been burned by the blast…
Clarity took a few deep breaths, quieting her frazzled nerves, before slowly lowering her arms. The many Espurr perfectly copied her. Clarity narrowed her eyes and slowly walked toward the Espurr directly in front of her. She held out a stubby paw, the other Espurr offering their own paws in return.
She pressed her paw against one of the Espurr's own.
.htoomS .dloc saw tI
She withdrew the paw and let it fall at her side. The Espurr surrounding her did the same. Clarity sighed as she rubbed at her ears.
"Griffith! Nibiru!" she called out, ignoring what was now her scratchy, horrid voice. "Where are you?!"
Her voice echoed all around her, growing softer and softer with each passing second. She waited a few moments, waiting for one of her companions to respond, but no one answered. She grumbled to herself as she scanned her vicinity, searching for a hint of a way forward. Copies of herself surrounded her and watched with exasperated gazes, offering no hint of a clear path.
"Moon, can you hear me?!" she cried out again.
Echoes resounded amidst the crackling electricity, but there was no response. Clarity resisted the urge to claw the nearest Espurr. She had anticipated that the group would become separated upon entering the Dream, this wasn't exactly an uncommon occurrence, but it had always been easy to regroup.
At least there didn't seem to be any Figments around, or even the Nightmare itself. Nothing wanted to harm them, not yet. Who knew how long it would stay that way? Clarity looked down, and an Espurr stared back.
She thought back to her school days when the carnival had been in town for a week. She remembered one of their most intriguing attractions: the house of mirrors. A bit of a competition developed amongst all the children regarding the mirror house over the few days it was in Amber Haven. Everyone wanted to be the one who raced through the maze the fastest, the one who was clever enough to see through the illusions and not crash into a single mirror. Clarity vaguely remembered some of her classmates even keeping score of this absurd little contest, posting the rankings of all the "players" in the busiest hallway in her school.
Clarity had never taken the maze competition too seriously, but she had ventured through the attraction once or twice. She thought back all those years ago, trying to remember how she had safely traversed the house of mirrors.
She set her paw against the cold surface she felt earlier, her paw meeting with her reflection's. Then, she turned toward away and held her other paw in front of her, toward a spot where an Espurr wasn't staring back at her. She took a couple of steps forward, bracing herself to stumble into an invisible barrier.
She didn't crash into anything, only harmlessly moving forward. The Espurr continued on, keeping one paw on the "wall" beside her as she kept her other paw ahead of her, always anticipating to feel something ahead of her. It made it difficult to keep her claws inside her paws.
A Kirlia walked by not too far from Clarity, appearing lost.
She instinctively reached out to him with a telepathic scream, but he didn't look her way. It was then that she remembered her telepathy was non-existent in Dreams.
"Griffith!"
She hurried forward, reaching for the Kirlia, ignoring her reflections mimicking her movements. She closed the distance between them and grabbed for his hand-
.dnuorg eht ot gnilbmut dna ti fo ffo gnidnuober ,llaw elbisivni na otni thgiarts dehsarc ehs dnA
Clarity lay there on the floor, head throbbing from the sudden impact. The Kirlia continued walking, oblivious to her presence.
"Griffith, it's Clarity! Griffith!" she cried as she conjured up a few strings to pull her back to her feet.
Her telekinesis was weaker with this body, and she had to summon three more strings to successfully complete the job. A small headache buzzed through her skull that persisted even after she dissipated the strands. She winced and did her best to ignore it.
She pressed herself against the invisible wall that separated the two of them and banged against it with her paws. Dull thuds resounded around her, but that too failed to catch the Kirlia's attention. He only continued moving along, soon disappearing into another part of the maze Clarity couldn't see.
Clarity could feel her paws trembling.
No, she couldn't panic. Griffith couldn't have gone far. He had to be close by. She could probably reach him if she navigated through the maze fast enough.
She shut her eyes and tapped into her psychic eyes, hastily seeking a way past the illusions. Her ear flaps rose as the yellow rings within illuminated bright. She wouldn't be able to see as well as she could while a Meowstic, but she would have to suffice.
The reflections of herself grew hazy and wispy, like fading memories. She could no longer see their eyes, their faces, the little tufts of fur protruding from their chests and forehead. Their gray coloring now had an inky blackness slowly stretching from the chest and reaching outward, like the roots of a seed seeking nutrients. Within that darkness, she saw a single blue eye, flickering and wavering like a flame within a windstorm.
She resisted the urge to look at it further.
Clarity looked back to the "wall" in front of her. She softly banged her paws against the barrier.
ekil kool yllaer uoy tahw fo deracs uoy erA
As if she had dropped a stone into a pond, a transparent ripple only outlined by a dim white light spread out from beneath her paws. It traveled past her, growing fainter and fainter as it moved away from her. She hurried after it, following it as it swept across the barriers' surfaces and worked its way to the supposed end of the maze. She doubted it would reach far, but at least the ripple would show her where the invisible walls were.
She rounded a corner that the ripple disappeared behind, avoiding crashing into yet another wall. She followed it down a small hallway for a moment before it had settled down enough to become undetectable. Clarity took her paw and smacked it into the wall beside her.
gnisselB a si hcum woh dna uoy si hcum woH
Another ripple broke out from beneath her stubby limb and made its way through the maze. She noted that her reflections were still copying her movements, even if their forms were more amorphous than before. More than that, she saw that a couple of them had grown taller and now had two tails. They seemed to be in an awkward transition phase when an Espurr was in the middle of evolving into their superior form.
She hurried along through the maze, keeping close to the ripple until it inevitably grew weak enough to fade away. The second that happened, she hit the wall again.
ti t'nsi reh ekil gnikool naht retteb s'ti tuB
Another little wave formed, and she was off again. She raced past her reflections, all of which were now undoubtedly fully-fledged Meowstic. There was not an Espurr in sight. She at first thought they were all just reflections of how she actually was, but then started to notice the ears were shorter than hers. Thinner. Unkempt and not groomed for perhaps several days.
She started to run faster. The Meowstic copied her every move.
Her head began to ache. She pressed her stubby paws to her scalp, but it didn't ward off the growing migraine. Her psychic sight flickered in and out, bringing with it a low buzzing sound. Clarity grit her teeth and tried to shove away the pain, will herself to focus even with her energy draining, but she was only able to run down more hallways before her ear flaps abruptly shut. The psychic lens gave way to normal sight, and Clarity suddenly couldn't feel her legs anymore.
She collapsed in the mirrored corridor, head throbbing. The floor was cold, hard, slick, unwelcoming. And yet, she couldn't stand. Her psychic sight had drained too much of her energy.
She weakly rolled onto her back and resigned herself to lay there, staring up at a non-existent ceiling of black and dwindling lights, like stars burning out in a vast sky. She could see her reflections in the corner of her eyes, all of them still that Meowstic that looked so much like Clarity yet wasn't her. She pretended she couldn't see them. She forced herself to focus on the ceiling as her body slowly recuperated.
Nothingness was above her, and it was below her as well. As it is above, so it is below. She had heard a phrase like that at Arcane Academy, now that she thought about it. When she was still there, she had seen that phrase in an ancient novel she had been assigned for anthropology. It was a strange saying some Pokemon liked to use, back when they still thought their typing was a sort of wild magic influenced by nature and not an internal power that could so very easily be controlled. They used that term to describe that what is outside will influence what is inside. Everything and anything followed this rule, per the book. Nothing was exempt. Everything was an unwilling product of the forces in or around them, a reflection of the inner and the outer.
It was an archaic phrase, yet it stood the test of time. Nothing is influenced or molded into something new while in a vacuum.
Maybe that was why Clarity spoke so much like her father and why her mother couldn't—
She clenched a paw. No, no she wouldn't think about that. Not here in the Dream where it preyed on weakness, preyed on vulnerabilities. She sat up and a wave of dizziness swept over her. She held her head as she waited for the feeling to pass, then slowly got to her feet. She felt shaky and weak, but at least the headache had numbed into a dull throb.
She leaned her side into the nearest invisible barrier, using it as support.
.eromyna rehtaf ro rehtom reh tuoba kniht t'ndluow ehS
She took a moment to take a few deep breaths, then slowly made her way forward. She didn't dare use her psychic sight again, not yet. She would have to rely entirely on touch and slow progress, even if it was the last thing she wanted to do. She needed to find her team, she needed to kill the Nightmare, she needed toleave…
"Clairy?"
The Espurr stopped and looked around. There, on the other side of the corridor between two of the Meowstic reflections, was a Zorua. Clarity cautiously approached and reached for her, tentatively expecting to touch invisible glass instead.
.wap reh tem dloC
She pressed her paw more firmly against the barrier, but nothing happened. She couldn't reach Moon. Clarity didn't feel Moon as the Zorua raised her paw against Clarity's own, the two separated by the invisible wall.
"You can hear me?" Clarity asked.
"Hey, you're talking with your mouth! And you can hear me!" Moon said instead, tail wagging vigorously.
Moon's voice sounded near, clear, like she really was in front of Clarity. The Espurr resisted the urge to grimace. She hated the way Moon's words flooded into her ears and bounced around her skull. They rattled harshly like an Ekan's tail.
"Not because I want to, let's make that clear," Clarity huffed as she shot the child a glare, even if she doubted it did much to intimidate Moon when she was now a tiny kitten. "You can hear me though?"
"Yeah!" she said. "Why wouldn't I?"
"I saw Griffith earlier, but he couldn't hear me for some 's why I ask."
"Oh, well that's really weird. I can hear you just fine. Have you seen Nibby too?"
"No, I don't know where he is."
Moon set her paw down and gave Clarity a puzzled stare, but not before momentarily glancing at something off to the side. Why was she able to hear Moon, but not Griffith? Was it the Dream being generous? Was the Griffith she saw a trick?
"Ummmm why does the Dream look like this anyway?" Moon asked. "It's really weird and confusing. I keep hitting walls I can't see."
"I couldn't say for certain. I've theorized that Dreams are a reflection of someone's cognitions and mental state in the most abstract and metaphorical sense, so attempting to make sense of why Dreams manifest as they do is never straightforward. Just about all of the Pokemon I've saved over the years were strangers, so I knew nothing about their lives to give me hints as to what struggles they might be facing."
She expected Moon to ask more questions and clarify on the many sophisticated terms she had so casually dropped, but the Zorua didn't. She only watched Clarity thoughtfully for a moment before once again glancing at something off to the side. She stared at it for several seconds this time.
"What are you staring at?" Clarity asked.
"Me? I think?" she said carefully. "There's like a bunch of myself all over the place, but they look really sick. And one of them is just a skeleton and it won't stop staring at me…"
"Ignore them. They're not real, they're only the Dream toying with your mind."
"Are you sure? They look pretty real to me…"
"I'm sure. Now stop looking at them before you get too scared and focus on me."
Moon continued to stare off in the other direction for a few heartbeats longer before finally bringing her gaze back to Clarity's. Parts of her fur were raised and the slightest hint of a grimace was present on her snout. Clarity sighed deeply as she ran her stubby paws over her tiny ears, doing all she could to ignore just how wrong it felt to have such short ear flaps again.
"We should keep moving," the Espurr said, turning away from the Zorua and looking down the hall. "We need to find Griffith and Nibiru."
"Are we going to get separated again?" Moon asked.
"Potentially, though ideally this maze will let us stay within each other's sights until we find one of the others. Staying still isn't an option, regardless."
"Why?"
"Because we're lost and need to find our way out. And it's a terrible idea to be alone in Dreams in the first place."
"Well Mom and Dad always told me that if you're lost, you should stay put and eventually someone will find you. And we might get separated if we start moving again, or get even more lost."
Clarity sighed, exasperated. Why did she have to explain this? Why did she have to deal with a child that was only mimicking what their parents had repeated countless times, unable to understand why they were given that advice in the first place?
"That's only true if you're in a vast forest where wandering can lead to a potentially worse fate due to exertion or wandering into even more unknown territory other Pokemon wouldn't think to search," she lectured impatiently. "This is a maze, somethingdesignedto be escaped from. We are also on a time limit because if we take too long here, our clientwilldie."
"Oh. I didn't know. I just thought staying still was what you're supposed to do…"
"Well it's not. Stop questioning me when you don't know anything. You're being a burden."
Moon shirked away, ashamed and embarrassed. Clarity felt the icy suffocation of guilt seize her chest. In that moment, she was no longer looking at Moon. She was staring at herself, a much younger version of herself that probably wasn't much older than Moon. Tears streamed down her face as she reached out toward Clarity, eyes pleading to be held.
Clarity lashed out at the reflection with her paw.
.rewop eht eciwt htiw reh gnittih ,wap reh tsniaga kcab dednuober ecrof eht dnA
Clarity stumbled back, grabbing her aching paw that suddenly felt very numb. She flexed it, but doing so only brought with it a horrid sensation of pins and needles driving into her skin.
"C-Clairy?"
She looked up, and Moon was there again. She seemed concerned, but also very wary, like she worried Clarity would hurt her yet again. The sobbing Espurr was gone.
Clarity took in a deep breath, burying the tempest of panic, pain, and guilt, and put her unharmed paw on the invisible wall she shared with Moon. Then, she continued her journey through the maze, staying close to said wall.
"We need to move," Clarity muttered hastily. "We can rest when one of us starts feeling tired."
"Are you okay?" Moon asked as she followed after Clarity, their sides of the maze letting them stay near each other. For now anyway.
"I'm fine. The sooner we find Griffith and Nibiru, the sooner we can find the Nightmare and leave."
"Why did you try to hit me then? It really scared me…"
Clarity ignored her just as she ignored the white Meowstic reflections that were no longer mimicking her movements. Now they all watched her with resentful eyes that pretended to be indifferent. Where was Griffith? Why hadn't she found him yet? Where were the Figments for that matter? Usually Dreams were full of those ominous little creatures that watched from a distance, sometimes attacking on sight.
Where are you?Clarity projected out of instinct even though her telepathy didn't work here.
Unsurprisingly, she received no reply.
"Hey um, Clairy?"
"Yes?"
"Are you scared? I mean, I'm a little scared. I don't like all these scary Zorua looking at me. I think they're going to hurt me."
"I'm not scared. There's no reason to be."
"There's not?"
"I'm not scared because I know it's all a trick. All of this is psychological warfare on the Dream's part because it doesn't want me to perform my duties. The Dream can't hurt me if I don't let it."
Clarity rounded a corner and entered another hallway. Mercifully, Moon was able to follow her from the other side. Clarity momentarily glanced at the Zorua to find she was staring at the Espurr with an eerily blank gaze. Any traces of her previous hurt and shame were gone, as if they had never existed in the first place.
"What do you see instead of Zorua?' Moon asked, sounding solemnly.
"Meowstic. Or Espurr."
"So you see yourself like I do?"
Clarity hesitated. Her first instinct was to lie, but for some reason, she couldn't. Something about the way Moon was looking at her strangled that lie before it could be spoken.
"Why are you asking?" Clarity asked instead.
"Because I'm trying to understand you."
"You shouldn't. There's nothing to understand."
"Do you really expect me to believe that?"
Clarity didn't answer. She looked away from the Zorua as she continued through the invisible maze, silently praying that she'd find the end or one of her companions soon. How long had they been done here? Time was so difficult to track in Dreams…
"Hey what's th-"
The Espurr turned toward Moon, only to find she had disappeared. Clarity stopped and pressed her face into the wall, searching for any hint of the Zorua. Only an empty hallway stared back.
"Moon!" she cried out.
Her voice carried down her own corridor, but there was no response. Clarity pulled back, keeping one paw on the barrier. Claws pushed out of her paws, and refused to retract.
She drew upon her psychic sight, but the stabbing in her scalp stopped her from tapping into it entirely. She grimaced as she hurried forward, keeping one paw on the wall and another paw outstretched in front of her. As long as she stuck to one wall, she'd eventually find the exit. It might take hours, but she'd reach the end. That was presuming the maze didn't shift periodically or stretched on for eternity of course. Considering that this was a Dream…
No, she couldn't think that. She'd find a way out one way or another. She had her escape phrase Pontifex had taught her as well, if it came to that. If she had to abandon her mission. Admit that this was too difficult for her and that she wasn't perf-
Her breath caught in her throat.
She saw another Meowstic then, standing in the between space where the path split into two. This normally wouldn't have been noteworthy, except that this was a blue Meowstic. One with kind eyes and twin tails that remained drooped instead of held high. He was smiling at Clarity as though she were a long-time friend he hadn't seen in years.
"Stop it," Clarity muttered under her breath. "Stop it… I know this isn't real…"
She squeezed her eyes shut and continued forward. She'd take the right path in the fork. All she had to do was keep moving forward and she'd automatically move in that direction. She focused on the cold beneath her paw as she tried not to think about how she was growing closer and closer to the friendly Meowstic.
"You think you're winning, showing me this?" Clarity seethed. "You think you're making me weak?"
No answer. Of course there was no answer. Nightmares didn't speak, unless they were that peculiar one she encountered in Moon's Dream. Nightmares couldn't be bargained with. She had to ignore these illusions and continue onward. It was all she could do for now.
"?em raeh uoy nac ,ytiralC !ytiralC"
The barrier under her paw rippled. She opened her eyes.
He was staring at her from within the wall, white paw over hers, mouthing something. Mouthing something that matched his warm, fond gaze that she never saw him without. She couldn't hear him, but she knew exactly what he was saying.
Be the best Espurr you can be, Clarity.
They were such mundane words. The same words he said every morning to her before she left for school. Words that had begun to lose their meaning after she heard it the tenth time. Words she had started to filter out before long.
The last words she ever heard from him.
She shut her eyes and bolted.
She didn't care that she wasn't using her strategy anymore. She didn't care that she couldn't see where she was going.
.ecaf reh pu decar niap fo sevawkcohs dna llaw a otni drah dehsarc ehs taht erac t'ndid ehS
The Espurr peeled herself from the wall and kept going. She didn't care that blood was running down her chin.
.dnuober eht fo tluser a sa dnuorg eht ot gnilbmut tnew dna retfa noos llaw rehtona tih ehs taht erac t'ndid ehS
She had to run far away. Run far away where she couldn't see him, where she couldn't hear him, where she couldn't remember him, where she couldn't remember she would never see him again, that she was alone and it was her fault that everything happened the way it did and she could never change she would never change she would never change she was broken forever and nothing she could do will would ever fix that she was a bad Pokemon with a rotten core filled with writhing worms who would do nothing more than hurt again and
againandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagainagainandagainagain
Something wound around her paw. She screamed and flung a black, crackling sphere at it.
The sound of something crashing into hard glass, followed by the slightest hint of shattering filled her ears. Clarity's eyes snapped open just in time to see the orb flying back at her. She leapt out of the way just as it sailed past her, disappearing into the section of the maze she had left behind.
"Oh, she would have killed you if you had actually grabbed her, keheheh. Guess you can be pretty smart sometimes."
"Please, I'm not that stupid."
"I mean you chose to be a Gardevoir, so I'd say you can be pretty stupid."
Clarity looked over to see a Clefairy and Kirlia standing nearby, the former holding his paws to his face as he suppressed a laugh as the latter shook his head and scoffed. Clarity nearly ran at them, but she stopped herself. They could be illusions, just like the Meowstic she had seen in this Dream.
They could turn into her father and then she'd have to remember that deep down she was stuck like this forever-
She took a deep breath, pushing her erratic thoughts away, and then slowly moved toward the boys, paw extended in case there were more barriers.
"Where's Moon?" she asked, hoping neither noticed the shaky quiver in her voice.
"Haven't seen her," Nibiru answered, lowering his paws as he grew more solemn. "Been listening for her and keeping an eye out, but these Clefairy ears just aren't as good as my actual ones."
"Neither have I," Griffith stated. "Couldn't sense any emotions in the air that weren't Nibiru's or yours."
Clarity closed the distance between them. She reached out and pressed a paw against one of Griffith's hands. It felt soft, warm. Secure. Stable. Comfort.
His gaze shifted down to her. He was shorter than most Kirlia here, so she didn't have to crane her neck as much to meet his gaze. Even without their telepathic link, she could so clearly hear what he was silently asking her:
"What happened when you were alone?"
She looked away and back to Nibiru, but she didn't retract her paw. She couldn't.
She heard him sigh softly as he kept his hand still, neither pushing her away nor offering anything more. Clarity ran her free paw over one of her ears.
"We can find Moon, or we can find the Nightmare," Clarity said to the team. "The former might take a long while considering we don't know how big this maze is. The latter we could probably accomplish sooner and doing so would dispel the Dream anyway, letting us find Moon immediately."
"I don't know if I like that," Nibiru said with a grimace. "We're supposed to keep Moon with us. We need to make sure she's safe."
"I saw her before I ran into both of you, actually," Clarity stated. "She's fine. For now, at least. She's not as incompetent as I took her for initially."
Clarity, of course, didn't mention that Moon had suddenly disappeared in the middle of a conversation. She kept her face neutral as Nibiru mulled over her words before glancing around. The blue Meowstic reflection was nowhere in sight. Only little Espurr reflections greeted her throughout the maze, their paw holding a Ralts' hand tight.
"Neither of you said you could sense Moon," she went on. "Can either of you sense anything resembling the Nightmare around here?"
"I'm not hearing anything, no," Nibiru said. "I still think we should focus on Moon, though. She's our responsibility and I'd feel awful if something happened to her."
"You'd feel awful, yet you were completely fine with her becoming a Dream Eater," Clarity shot back.
"Dreams don't usually separate us to this degree, or for this long," Nibiru scowled. "Look, we need to find her. We're wasting time."
"Griffith, can you sense the Nightmare?" Clarity asked, blatantly ignoring the Clefairy.
"I think I do," he said carefully. "I sense a lingering animosity nearby."
"Nah, you're just picking up on Clarity," Nibiru laughed bitterly.
Griffith took a breath, and as if he had smelt their volatile emotions, winced and took a step back from them both. Clarity's paw fell to her side and felt the stability disappearing again. She felt the black hole opening up in her chest, but she refused to fall into it.
"We're wasting time," she said instead, brushing her ears back. "We'll find Moon one way or another if we find the Nightmare first. Moon will be fine. She knows how to escape if she's in danger."
"And what if the Nightmare findsherfirst?" Nibiru challenged.
"She'll escape. She knows not to be stupid."
"Weren't you the one who was always going on about how kids are liabilities and never make the right choice?"
"Do not bring that into this."
"We need to find Moon. If you're not going to find her, I will."
He sharply turned away and began to head deeper into the maze. Clarity summoned three psychic strands and entangled them around his wrist before pulling back. They dragged him to a stop. He squirmed and yanked his arm forward, overpowering them with ease.
"You're going to go off alone, when the Dream is like this?" Clarity spat.
She summoned three more strands to aid the current ones. They braided together into a stronger loop around his wrist, and when he pulled against them, they held firmer.
"Someone needs to make sure she's okay," Nibiru grunted.
He struggled harder, and it strained Clarity. She looked to Griffith for help, but he was still keeping his distance, still grimacing. He was undoubtedly overwhelmed by the tense emotions between Clarity and Nibiru. Clarity couldn't help but feel disappointed by him. Useless, he was always useless whenever emotions were running high.
He was always like this, he never changed, he was useless, worthless, a burden
Griffith's gaze suddenly snapped toward her. She flinched, thinking he might have somehow heard her thoughts, and loosened her telekinetic grip on Nibiru in the process. The Clefairy stumbled forward, tripping over his feet.
One second Griffith was standing there, the next second he was grabbing Clarity's wrist.
Clarity saw a radiant, golden light race toward her just before Griffith teleported them a few feet back. When they reappeared, she saw that something had smashed into the spot where she had once stood. Something amorphous, something with hollow black eyes, something that had janky, jittery motions.
The Nightmare.
A horrid, otherworldly screech filled her ears as it shot itself at her. The sound reminded her of how she imagined that eldritch beast's cries sounded from her book club novel.
She felt the pull again as Griffith teleported them out of the way, and then his loosening grasp. The black and orange light filled his eyes as the familiar bident formed in his hand. He hurled it forward, but the Nightmare proved too quick. It leapt to the side, and the bident smashed into an invisible barrier.
Black sparks crackled and burst into the air as a hungering abyss opened at the weapon's tip, sucking everything into itself. Jagged cracks ripped across the maze walls, splitting one reflection into several.
One stoic Meowstic became a dozen Espurr, crying, screaming, laughing, wailing.
Griffith hastily dispelled the bident, but the gaping hole remained. It continued to devour, to suck in everything it could. The maze quaked around them as glimmering shards flew past Clarity and disappeared into the void.
Clarity summoned as many psychic strands as she could and tied them around her wrists just before the pull of the black hole snatched her up. Her strings tightened around her arms as they pulled her back, fighting against the bident's immense gravity. Griffith had done something similar, and the Nightmare was nowhere to be found, having fled into a safer part of the maze.
"Nibiru!" she cried. "Your blessing!"
The strings lost their strength, and Clarity went hurling toward the black hole. She clawed at the ground, but it did little to help.
"NIBIRU!"
Something grabbed her arm, and the next thing she knew, she was back on her feet and being dragged far away from the black hole. She could feel it tugging at her, drawing her in, but it was weaker. She looked up to find Griffith holding her tight, hopping forward every few feet with quick teleporting bursts. She ignored the uncomfortable sensation of never being able to touch the ground for longer than a second.
"Where's Nibiru?" she demanded.
"Ran for the Nightmare," he answered. "We're catching up to him."
She couldn't even respond before he abruptly changed course, teleporting them high above the ground. She saw that there were dozens of tiny, wispy Espurr and Ralts flooding the maze now, eyes hollow and lifeless.
Another bident formed in Griffith's hand before he flung it down at the horde. Clarity didn't get to see the aftermath before he abruptly teleported away, dragging them further and further away from the sight. However, though they retreated from the newly formed black hole and Clarity couldn't feel its pull, the maze continued to fall apart. Shards flew through the air like a raging blizzard and threatened to slice into the two.
Clarity conjured up ten strings and had them form two small shields in front of them. The shards bounced off the strands, though it didn't stop other debris from cutting their lower limbs. One particularly large shard sliced open Clarity's stomach, eliciting a shrill cry.
"Stop doing that!" she screeched. "That's not helping here!"
"It's getting rid of the Figments, which are more of a danger than this!" he retorted. "Keep shielding us and we'll be fine! Nibiru's close, I can sense him!"
She certainly hoped he was right. She stopped arguing as he continued teleporting them through the maze, throwing down bidents whenever a cluster of their own reflections invaded the corridors. As the black holes continued to eat away at the maze, Clarity couldn't help but fear that they'd eventually combine and create a massive blackhole that no one could escape. What would happen if they were trapped in one of those while in a Dream? Would they be forcefully ejected from the Dream? Would they perish as their bodies were reduced to nothing? Or would they fall into oblivion, trapped in between life and death within a Dream?
No, she wouldn't think about it. Griffith said Nibiru was near, which meant the Nightmare was near. All they had to do was vanquish it and this would end.
A few moments later, the two found themselves in a large, open space. Nibiru was grappling the large, imposing Nightmare as violet wisps kept his feet firmly planted on the ground.
Clarity looked behind her and was horrified to see that the entire maze was barely still standing. Half a dozen black holes had devoured everything in sight, continuing to devour what remained as light, shimmering motes, and flailing Figments tumbled into the hungry abysses. Terrible groaning sounds filled the air as the Dream slowly fell into the holes, punctuated by the screams and cries of the Figments pretending to be herself and Griffith.
She watched an entire world be devoured by raw power.
It was a sight of horror that should have been unimaginable, inconceivable.
The true nature of your blessing.
Does it scare you?
Clarity whipped her head around. That voice…
"Guys, a little help here!" Nibiru cried out.
She suddenly found herself beside the Clefairy as Griffith finally let her go. She expected he'd summon another bident and sink it deep into the Nightmare's body, but perhaps because he already made so many weapons, he instead turned to Clarity.
"Help me hold it down," he urged her. "Nibiru can finish it off."
She nodded as she had her psychic shields unwind back into strings before having several of them tie together to make long ropes. Once she had done that, she wrapped them around the Nightmare and mustered all her strength into holding the creature down. Griffith seemed to do similar, though with many more strings, Clarity imagined. The creature screeched and writhed, straining their restraints.
"Hurry up!" Clarity cried.
Nibiru's shadowy wisps traveled up his legs and circled around both of his paws. He breathed deep, and the wisps flared, as though they were flames being stoked vigorously. With a loud cry, he shoved his claws into the Nightmare's body, right between its eyes.
Sizzling. The sounds of seams ripping. The quaking of an entire world. Lights flickering and dying.
Unnatural screams drilled into Clarity's ears so furiously that she flinched back and lost control of her strands. The Nightmare's body was splitting open, but it was still fighting, still living. With Clarity's restraints gone, it easily broke out of Griffith's own and slammed something resembling a claw down towards Nibiru.
Griffith tackled the Nightmare as a tiny bident no bigger than a knife formed in his grip, but it didn't change the claw's direction. It only made more screams fill the Dream as he stabbed the weapon into its side, and a gaping hole the size of his fist began to swallow everything up.
"Nibiru!" Clarity shrieked.
She shot some psychic strands toward Nibiru to push him to safety. But they weren't fast enough. The claw smashed into the stunned Clefairy-
A Zorua suddenly appeared behind Nibiru and bit down on his swirly tail. With a yank, she pulled him away from the incoming claw just as it hit the spot where he once stood. The two went tumbling back as the Nightmare slowly began to evert. It couldn't even scream as it turned in on itself, its radiant light turning black as Griffith teleported away from the dying creature. The black hole he had opened up on its side slowly shrank down the inside-out monstrosity, crushing it and pulverizing it into paste as it ate the Nightmare alive.
The group watched all of this with tense expressions as their blessings eradicated the Nightmare. The Dream began to die with it, the world becoming hazy and transparent, like a fading dream as one returns to the waking world.
Clarity breathed out a long sigh as she looked over the group, checking over for any injuries. All of them, save for Moon, had been cut up by debris or the Nightmare itself, but these were all minor injuries, all things considered. It didn't matter much anyway when they wouldn't take these injuries with them to the real world.
"And… there we have it. Nightmare vanquished," she said with a clasp of her paws. "A Dream Eater's duty."
"Pretty crazy stuff, ain't it?" Nibiru asked as he turned to Moon, chuckling light-heartedly.
"Yeah… it sure was," she said, laughing nervously as she watched the last of the Nightmare disappear into the black hole. "A-And you guys do this all the time?"
"Like every week or two, yeah," Nibiru answered.
"Wow. I uh, I didn't realize it would be so… scary."
"Yeah well, we are killing Nightmares. Of course they're scary. But hey, you were pretty brave, pulling me out of the way before I got squished. If it wasn't for you, I wouldn't be looking too good right now."
He reached over and ruffled her mane, which she accepted with a bashful smile. Clarity, however, couldn't help but stare at Moon now that things had calmed down. She had seemingly appeared out of nowhere while they were fighting the Nightmare. She had been trapped in the maze, and yet somehow, she had found her way out and managed to reach the group despite all of the black holes tearing apart the Dream. Not only that, but she was unscathed. Unharmed. Not a scratch on her, unlike everyone else.
How was that possible?
Something nicked Clarity's cheek. She winced as she held a paw to her face, only to feel something wet. She pulled her paw away and looked down at it, only to find a smear of blood staring back at her. She looked toward where the maze once was, only to find it hadn't fully dissipated yet. The Dream was still ending, and the black holes Griffith created were still active. Glimmering motes shot toward the group, attracted to the tiny black hole that had sucked up the Nightmare moments prior. It still hadn't faded away.
"We need to go!" Clarity urged. "Everyone,Memento V-"
A cloud of motes cut into Moon's flank, burying into her fur and digging into her flesh. Her eyes went wide as she suddenly fell over, hitting the ground on her side.
"MOON!"
Clarity wasn't sure who screamed, but it didn't matter. All three of them ran to the downed Zorua, kneeling at her side. She wasn't moving, and her eyes remained frozen open.
"No no no no no no no," Nibiru muttered as he gingerly ran a claw over her side, as if looking for something. "Come on Moon, you're fine. Come on, don't tell me that actually…"
A violet light suddenly swept over the Zorua's body. Everyone flinched back as the light continued to consume her, changing the little Zorua's form into something else. Something with no real shape, no real form.
A second later, the purple light turned golden, and the once lively blue eyes of the Zorua were now two black holes. The eyes looked over the three with what might have been tired disdain.
How much I wanted to remain Moon to all of you.
How much I wanted to keep you blissful and comfortable.
Something resembling a defeated, warbling sigh emitted from the creature. It echoed across the crumbling Dream.
To think one mistake would undo it all.
