//------------------------------//
// Dreams Peeker 
// Story: The Disaster Pokemon 
// by Onomonopia 
//------------------------------//

"We should make camp for the night."

Absol's words came as sweet relief for the two Pie sisters, who had just reached the end of a very long day. They had been attacked by ghosts while crossing a bridge, resulting in the ropes holding up the bridge being sliced and the pair nearly falling into the raging waters below. Then they had been attacked my a Venus Ponytrap, a larger and far more deadly version of the flytrap, before Absol had sliced it in half. And then for the last third of the day, it rained.

Suffice to say, they were ready to call it a day.

With a flick of his horn Absol cleared out all of the grass and plants in an area along the ground. He then aimed his horn skyward and sliced a branch off of a tree. He flicked his horn twice more as the branch fell and it landed at his paws in a pile of perfectly sliced pieces of wood. Absol stacked them to make a campfire, before looking around for a pair of rocks. Limestone, who was both cold and wet from the rain, walked up to the sticks and created a spark by scraping her hooves together.

"That was...impressive?" Absol said.

Limestone grunted at him before she laid down next to the fire, curling up with her back to it. A shudder of warmth passed through her and Absol could tell that she was doing everything in her power to keep from shivering. He had to admire how tough she was, even if he wasn't fond of her attitude.

Marble was showing no such toughness. She practically threw herself into the fire to get warm quicker and shivered with such force it looked like the ground beneath her was shaking. Absol glanced into hi bag in hopes of finding a berry that would help Marble with her shaking, but to his annoyance he found that he was out. He rummaged through Marbel's bag as well only to find hers devoid of them as well.

'Curse my shortsightedness, I should have packed more,' Absol grumbled. 'Yet since we were leaving the mountain I foolishly believed that we would not need them. And now here I am with two shivering ponies and no way to warm them-'

Absol lost his train of thought when a berry smacked into the side of his head and thudded to the ground. Absol glanced down at the berry to find that it was an Aspear berry. A thin smile crossed his face as he glanced over at Limestone, who had tried very hard to make it look like she hadn't moved from her original spot, but he picked up on the subtle changes.  He said nothing on the matter and instead simply offered the berry to Marble, who, after recognizing it, scarfed it down swiftly.

"Thanks for that, Absol," she said before a small yawn snuck out. She curled up into a ball and closed her eyes sleepily. "If you don't mind, I'm going to close my eyes and get some sleep. It's been a long couple of days and...well..."

"Sleep. I will watch over you and your sister," Absol promised her. Marble was asleep moments later. Absol sat next to her for a few minutes, keeping an eye on the woods around them, before a small sigh escaped his lips and his rose to his paws. He walked around the fire and sat down next to Limestone, who he noticed was still shivering slightly.

"You're still cold?" Absol asked her.

"Of course not. I'm just shaking at the thought of getting my hooves on Spiral," she spat back.

"...you're cold," Absol nodded. 

"...only a bit."

"Makes sense. After all, you were the only one to fall in that river. Then add the rain on top of that and..." Catching the look that Limestone was giving her, Absol decided it was time to stop talking. He walked over to her bag and opened it, peeking inside to find another Aspear berry. When he found there were no more, a thin smile crossed his face as he looked down at Limestone. "You gave your last Aspear berry to your sister, didn't' you?"

"Of course I did. She's my sister," Limestone replied, though Absol noticed her teeth chattered a few times while she spoke. "I'll be fine. I once stayed on top of Holder's Boulder all night in order to keep a rock thief from getting his hooves on it."

"You did that on a snowy night when it was ten below. If pa hadn't found you Absol would be talking to an icicle right now," Marble sleepily added. Limestone flashed a look at her sister, but Marble rolled over and went back to sleep. Limestone shifted and tried to go back to sleep as well, but Absol still noticed her shiver. With a sigh, knowing full well how she was going to react, Absol moved his body next to hers so she could absorb her warmth. He braced himself as he did this, fully expecting her to kick him across the clearing, but all she did was tense for a moment, before taking a minute to relax.

"So how come you're not cold and wet still?" Limestone asked after half and hour.

"Because my fur is designed for survival in the wet and cold mountains. Stays warm and doesn't take long to dry," Absol replied, before smirking to himself. "And that's why it always flows perfectly in the wind, allowing me to always looking awe inspiring and thought provoking."

"Please, the only thing that others would think upon looking at you is if having a horn on only one side of your head gives you neck pains."

"You know actually, I've always had a bit of a pain in the left side of my neck and always wondered why. Maybe you're onto something with this horn idea."

"Heh, I bet it does. Though I'm sure your shoulders are fine, having to carry around the weight of the world on your back all the time."

"What do you mean carrying around the weight of the world on my shoulders?"

"Please, the way you act, the looks you give, the whole "tortured soul who only tried to help"...you see what I'm getting at?"

"And again with the mocking. I'm starting to think you have a problem with me."

"I don't have a problem with you."

"Then why do you constantly feel the need to verbally spar with me?"

"On one hoof, you're one of the only ponies...beings I know that can actually hang with me in a verbal spar," Limestone admitted with a smirk.

"And the other?"

"The other...isn't important," she muttered quickly, before closing her eyes and placing her head on the ground. "Look, we've talked enough and it's getting late. We'll need our strength for tomorrow, especially if something happens. Good night."

Absol raised an eyebrow at her quick dismissal of him, but after a moment of waiting her found that she truly did seem to be asleep. He checked over her once more to find that she was no longer shivering. With the two sisters seemingly back to normal, Absol closed his own eyes and allowed himself to drift off into slumber.

(]o[)

It was the screams that always got to Absol first.

Not the screams of someone in pain or terror, but screams of rage. Screams of bloodlust. Screams of those who saw his kind as bringers of the end and sought to put an end to him first. The screams were always the first. Then came the fire, the fire that consumed the forest where he had once lived.

He was a young pokemon when the humans had come for him and his mother. They came in the night, in a time when he was usually awake. But the Oddish and Gloom in the area had been doing a dance and had scattered Sleep Powder all over the place, making it hard for any Pokemon to stay awake. But the fires and screaming had awaken the both of them.

His mother had gathered what was happening far quicker than he had. She had awoken him and told him to run, to run faster than he had ever done in his life before. Normally the two of them would have been more than quick enough to escape the humans. But the humans had been far more cunning.

They had set up rings of fire had encircled the forest that he called home, preventing them from finding a way out. From beyond the flames, Absol could not only see the humans that had gathered with pitchforks, but the Pokemon that they had brought with them on the other side.

Absol was not afraid of the fire, nor was he afraid of the humans. But the Pokemon he saw on the otherside sunk his heart to the depths of his stomach. Hariyama, a monstrous bruiser with enough power to crush cars into cans. Ninjask, an insect with speed and claws that could slice through trees with ease. And Heracross, a combination of Bug and Fighting. A living nightmare for an Absol. And there were dozens of each.

His mother had seen the same Pokemon that he had and knew full well what awaited the both of them. He had looked up into her eyes as she kissed him on the forehead one last time, before saying her final words.

"We prevent disasters. Never forget that, no matter what they do to you."

And then she had run through the fire, attacking everything one in sight before racing on by. The humans and Pokemon had followed her, leaving Absol alone as a raging inferno burned down the place he had grown up. Watch as all he had ever known was burned away.

Watch as his mother raced to her death to save him.

"How tragic."

Absol whipped around to find a strange being standing behind him. The fire, humans and Pokemon were all gone, leaving only Absol and the creature. It had a monstrous face, ape arms, lion legs and a tail with a hand on the end of it. Absol narrowed his eyes at him, wondering who in the world he could be, before the being vanished and was replaced with another image.

The image was the inside of a large tree that rested in the center of a massive canyon. And inside the tree was a red stallion with a green apple on his flank, sitting next to a yellow filly with a bow in her mane. The two of them were chained to the center of the tree, while ghosts encircled all around them. 

Then the image zoomed out to show exactly how close this giant tree that housed the two ponies was to where Absol slept...and then his eyes snapped open.

It took Absol a moment to shake himself free of the nightmare, but when he did he found that the sun was just starting to rise on the horizon. He started to get up, only to find himself feeling heavier than before. He glanced at Limestone to find that she had moved closer during the night, practically laying on top of him at that point. He struggled to get out from under her and accidentally woke her up in the process.

"Absol, what's going on?" she asked, slightly groggy but looking around for danger.

"I just had a vision. A sigh of the future, if you will," Absol explained quickly. "In it I saw this tree and this creature and these pair of ponies that were chained up inside of the tree. I think it might be one of the families that you said went missing."

"It's too early in the morning for this," Limestone grumbled as she started to go back to sleep only for Absol to shake her awake once more. "Okay, okay, I'm awake! Geez. Alright, describe what these two ponies looked like and I can tell you if I know them or not."

"Alright. One of them was a stallion who had a red coat and a green apple on his flank. The other was a small filly with a yellow coat and a bow in her red mane," Absol explained. The moment after he did so, he could tell just by the look on Limestone's face that they were going to have another rough day. "You know who they are, don't you?"

"Of course I do. Next time Absol, keep your nightmares to yourself."