#trigger-free post

So basically in Chapter 14, the biggest revelation is that potentially, Plasma is actually Darkrai's amnesiac spirit from the original Explorers of Sky timeline, who lost his memory after Palkia destroyed the dimensional hole after his defeat at the bottom of Dark Crater, taking the form of the original timeline Plasma. The reason why she's so aggressive and so keen on ridding the world of scum is because she's subconsciously acting out Darkrai's will, who will go to any lengths to punish wrongdoers, even if it brings the world to ruin.

Specifically, her strong reaction to Cresselia immediately labeling her as an evil Pokémon is Darkrai's spirit responding to a similar betrayal by her in the past, when she discarded her friendship with him after learning that he's destined to ruin the world.

How does Plasma and Flora learn about this? Well, they were tricked by Team Charm, knocked out cold, and kidnapped to help Grovyle, who believes that the Plasma of this timeline, being a lot different than the Plasma he knows, is an illusion conjured up by Darkrai, and with Gardevoir's ability to send Pokémon into a dream world, entered Plasma's dreams to hunt down the Mythical Pokémon of nightmares. Speaking of, Darkrai finds Plasma and Flora first, and not divulging his identity until he showed Cresselia's betrayal, basically revealed she has a serious issue of control and needing to be in control in every aspect of her life and the world. . . just like him.

Plasma is not taking this well. She wondered if she really was Darkrai once the nightmares started, and once the villain of the story basically showed her via her spirit, she's convinced that she has no choice but to play her role as the one who dooms the world. She is currently following his request to reach the top of Temporal Tower to find out what he means by the distortion of time.

Grovyle, who was hunting her down, is also convinced that our Plasma is a version of Darkrai who's taking the form of his dear friend, but formed a temporary truce with her and Flora to escape the dream world. He can't really deal with a Pokémon who can manipulate dreams in his home turf, now can he?

Flora is not convinced. She thinks that Darkrai is trying to trick Plasma into falling into despair, and that she and him are completely separate individuals. Sure, the Charmander can be a Tauros in a china shop when dealing with her problems, but she has no intention of destroying the world, right? She's trying her hardest to convince Plasma to stop listening to Darkrai's lies, but nothing's sticking. . . .

Related to the most important revelation, Chapter 12 has Wigglytuff sending Team Cayenne to Treasure Town Ruins to find Armaldo, his mentor from all those years back, so he can tell them his story on how he reformed from being a criminal. Unfortunately, Plasma takes it as Wigglytuff not trusting the duo, and she was seconds away from throwing down with the old fossil Pokémon. Flora, however, puts her foot down at this point and calls Plasma out for fighting everyone who rubs her the wrong way, and for the first time in the story, leaves her behind (with the rest of the team following the Chikorita).

This snaps Plasma out of her blind rage, and horrified that this is what caused Flora to leave her side, withdraws from fighting Armaldo. She only returns to the guild at night, and apologizes to Flora, as she has been taking her friend for granted. Plasma has a breakdown at this point; ever since the nightmares began, she has been losing control of herself, and feels like she can't trust anyone but Flora, which is why the Chikorita getting angry at her and leaving was so effective at snapping her out of her rage.

Flora says that yes, there is a lot the two don't know, but they got to stop making enemies. She basically tells Plasma to stop assuming everyone is out to betray her, and if they do, only act on it after they do so. Today was a bad day, so tomorrow, they should start off fresh again.