“The Pokemon League and International Police have just released information about a shadow organization called Team Galactic that reportedly has ties to Galactic Corporations, the largest clean energy company in Sinnoh. The PL and Interpol worked together in a joint operation to reveal Team Galactic’s illicit activities and arrest everyone involved. Here is Ramona with the details…”
“Bzzt!” Rotom buzzed to alert me to a new message as I walked out of Hearthome hospital, I adjusted my headphones as I looked at the messages.
Ghost Geek: Hey Az! Just wanted to let you know that Kenta and i are planning to get some food. do you and your team want anything?
Kenmo-o: Does Banette want the usual from the boba place?
Zombie: Yeah get the usual for Banette, and crab rangoon from the that restaurant with the krabby sign for me pls.
Ghost Geek: 👍u out of the hospital yet?
Zombie: Thx guys. Yeah I’m out, the wait was pretty long, we’re meeting back at the Pokemon center right?
Kenmo-o: Yeah. You need someone to pick u up? I can send dragonite.
Zombie: Nah I’m gud, I don’t think I’m fit for flying with Dragonite just yet 🥲 I’ll just grab a taxi. ttyl
Rotom closed the message app and went back to the news, spinning and buzzing happily. The plasma ghost was still pretty psyched to be back in its Rotom phone. Jason was nice enough to rebuild the phone after the Mountain Lord had crushed it. I hadn’t seen him since he returned the phone to me a few days ago cause he went back to Sunyshore.
“...like the recent incident in Hoenn with Teams Aqua and Magma, and the Unovan incident with Team Plasma a few years ago. Which region will be targeted by evil organizations next?”
Well according to the timeline of what I had been able to find on the internet, it would be Kalos in two years is Team Neo Plasma doesn’t do anything crazy. Ash should be doing the Battle Frontier around now and still has to go through Sinnoh and Unova at the very least.
“Rotom, call a taxi for us please.” I told Rotom, who used the Pokerides app to call a taxi. A few minutes later, a Cyclizar pulling a small carriage behind it pulled up in the parking lot. The screen on the little saddle on its back flashed my name.
“Cyclizar!” The dragon chirped, gesturing for me to hop on.
“Can you take us to the Amity Square Pokemon center please?” I asked Cyclizar as I got on.
“Zar!” Cyclizar nodded and took off at a pleasant trot as soon as I got myself settled in the carriage seat.
Hearthome was an attractive city, with a more gothic theme to its architecture that fit in well with its reputation as the ghost capital of Sinnoh. A ton of Drifloon and Drifblim floated around the city like little sky decorations.
It would’ve been nice to be able to walk around it with the crew but I couldn’t. Back during the fight with the Mountain Lord, the illusion fox had taken a big ol’ stab at my leg with a nasty Shadow Claw.
According to the crash course I got from some internet searches, humans didn’t have enough natural type energy or enhanced healing like Pokemon that could keep them safe from the harmful effects of type energies. That made humans more susceptible to negative side effects of being hit with an attack imbued with type energy. Basically, it was better to be shot with a gun or fall off a cliff than to get mauled by an angry Pokemon.
Well, at least I wasn’t hit by a poison type attack. According to some of the nurses I talked to, poison type injuries were the worst because they caused repeated infections, and people often either died of sepsis from months of bad infections, or from the effects of the poison if they weren’t treated immediately. I guess that's why poison type specialists are so rare.
Injuries caused by dark and ghost types were the second worst as they both massively slowed down healing. The difference was that dark types could cause chronic pain, while ghost types could cause a permanent feeling of frostbite in the area. With a big enough dose of either and the person was at risk of cardiac arrest.
I wonder how in the world the humans here survived without Pokemon to constantly help them out before tech got so advanced. Pokemon are just built different I guess. Oooh! Wait, is that why the Pokedex says that Houndoom flames will cause burns that hurt forever?
“...and here’s Kaleb with recent news on the infamous poacher known only as Hunter J.” I snapped back to attention as I heard the news guy mention Hunter J.
“Yes, thank you Martha. We have breaking news on the death of Pokemon poacher and trafficker Hunter J, who attempted to take over a ranger base in the Icelands Pokemon Reserve and steal the endangered Pokemon living there. The brave rangers of Icelands Reserve were able to fend off the attack long enough that Sinnoh’s ACE force was able to arrive and finish the job. We are currently standing here at the shores of Lake Acuity where the body of Hunter J was recently retrieved…”
“Oh yeah, she’s dead.” I said aloud to myself, “The Mountain Lord said something about her forces taking care of it.” I guess the news didn’t mention it cause the Pokemon League is keeping the sanctuary a secret.
“Hmph, of course they give all of the credit to ACE. Typical League business.” Yamask phased out of my shadow and sat on the seat next to me. “If the public knew what happened to her they’d instantly blame it on wild Pokemon.”
“Oh, hey Yamask. What’s up?” I smiled at the mask ghost.
Yamask crossed his arms and gave me a smug look, “You must have seen the results of my contact in interpol.”
I nodded, “Yeah, they work quickly. To be honest, they were a lot more competent than I thought they’d be.” I only gave them the info like, a few weeks ago and they’ve already taken down one of the big bads? Either Interpol is super competent, or Team Galactic is super incompetent. Or maybe a mix of both.
“Of course Interpol is competent!” Yamask replied, puffing out his chest, “I can only expect that much from my top students~”
I raised an eyebrow at that last statement, “Your students?” Bruh he acts like a little kid, how in the world does he have students?
The mask ghost made an oops face and coughed awkwardly before quickly changing the subject. “Ahem! Anyways. Now that you’ve seen the results, will you hand over the other information you told me you have?”
“Yeah sure. Give me a second” I took a journal out of my bag. Actually, I wonder how Yamask knows people from Interpol in the first place.
I carefully tore a bunch of pages out and handed them to Yamask, who gave them a quick lookover. “This seems decently detailed.”
“Yeah, I wrote down a list of organizations, their goals and how they plan to achieve them, the location of their base, the names of important members, and any important miscellaneous info.” It wasn’t like I had anything really interesting to do since I got back besides sit around or be yelled at for moving around more than the doctors said I was supposed to for the past two weeks.
Team Neo-Plasma, Team Flare, Chairman Rose, the Aether Foundation, the time machines in the Great Crater of Paldea, it’s all there. Hopefully I can just leave this all to professionals who actually get paid to put away these sort of bad guys while I go about my way with a nice PG-Rated Pokemon journey.
Cyclizar slowed down and came to a stop in front of the Pokemon center. I got out and thanked the dragon, before asking Yamask a question that came to mind.
“By the way, how did Hunter J die? What happened to her ship?” Originally she would’ve died with her ship crashing into one of the lakes right?
Instead of Yamask, it was Kenta who answered, “Hunter J? The Nobles took down her ship. That bratty Noble Arcanine blew it up.” Kenta and Justine seemed to had just gotten back to the Pokemon center on Flygon. They were carrying a few bags of takeout that they didn’t want to put in their bags.
I glanced back at the carriage. Cyclizar had already taken off to go get its next client and Yamask was gone, presumably to hand over my notes to his ‘student’ in Interpol. Who the hell would agree to be the student of an inexperienced ghost?
I turned back to Kenta and Justine, as Kenta returned Flygon.
Litwick, who was perched on Justine’s shoulder gave me a friendly wave. “Hi Azzy!” I waved back at the candle ghost as I joined them.
“Who were you talking to?” Kenta asked glancing in the direction Cyclizar went.
“Uhhh, the ghosts.” I replied glancing at my shadow. Well, most of them aren’t with me right now.
“Oh ok. Yeah, uh Hunter J escaped to Lake Acuity and was killed there.” Kenta continued, “From what Celia told me, a bunch of ACE trainers found her body on the lake shore. It wasn’t a pretty sight.”
Justine jumped in with sparkling eyes, “Tim told me she had no face, it was like someone replaced it with the surface of an egg! And!” Justine leaned closer with a spooky smile while she pointed at her head, “There wasn’t any damage to her head but her brain was gone, like someone just teleported it away and left the empty head behind!”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
I made a grossed out face, “You’re quite excited about that.” Bro, did she meet Koh the face stealer or something? What Pokemon would steal faces?
Justine and Litwick both giggled, “It’s the type of stuff a ghost Pokemon would do~” “No faces~ Blank faces~”
“I see.” I said, stone-faced. The brain thing was definitely Uxie. Would Uxie steal a face though? I don’t think so, that might be the work of a ghost.
I followed Kenta and Justine to the back of the Pokemen center where a few other trainers were hanging out with the larger members of their teams. They began setting out the food they brought in, mouthwatering savory smells floated out from the takeout boxes.
One of the trainers in the area had a Charizard so we decided to not let any of the dragons out either until they left, or until we were done eating. None of us were in the mood for a battle before being able to eat.
Banette floated out of my shadow to grab her peach slush and sat on a bench, sipping the drink and sharing it with a few of the other ghosts.
“So, how are Angela and Marcus doing in the sanctuary?” I asked as I grabbed the crab rangoon box. Marcus had been insistent on staying behind and researching the variants, so Angela had stayed behind to make sure he didn’t end up doing something stupid and hurting himself.
Justine took out some poffins and gave them to Litwick to share with Golett before she took out a sandwich for herself. “They’re fine. Marcus is still freaking out about the new variants.”
“Yeah. Professor Rowan, Celia, and Tim are talking with the Ranger Corps and Professors Turo and Sada about ways to keep people out.” Kenta added.
That caught my interest. They both exist in this universe? Damn. “Why Turo and Sada?” I asked.
Kenta ate a spoonful of the curry he had ordered before replying, “They’ve been able to keep people out of the Great Crater for a very long time without any huge incidents, so Celia wanted some advice from them.”
I shrugged. “Oh, yeah that makes sense.”
I slightly turned my head as I eyed a wild Drifloon ‘sneakily’ reaching for on of my crab rangoons. Banette floated over and hissed like an angry Liepard at the ballon Pokemon, scaring it away. Then she grabbed one of my rangoons and ate it.
“Oh, by the way Az,” Justine said, as she roughly ruffled Kenta’s hair, “This jerk is leaving tonight to challenge the Indigo League! He didn’t bother to inform either of us until today!”
I raised an eyebrow at the dragon type specialist, “You ditching us for someone else? I feel betrayed.” I leaned back and dramatically clutched some imaginary pearls.
I wasn’t surprised he was leaving though cause everyone else had kind of already left. The twins were the first to leave and were already back in Kalos, and Leo had left from Snowpoint a week ago to go back to Paldea. Ben, Collin, and Abigail all came with us to Hearthome but they all left within a few days because the next league season was coming up soon.
Ben and Collin made sure to throw a party with all of us the night before they left for Unova. Abigail’s Sandslash had to drag her around in order to say bye to the rest of us, which I found kind of funny.
Dodging another hair ruffle attack from Justine, Kenta shrugged, “Sorry guys, I just decided on it yesterday and I kinda forgot.”
“Yeah that happens. Dang, well good luck on on the gym challenge man.” I raised a fist for a fist-bump, “You’ll one-shot everything with your dragons!”
Litwick raised its arms and made a “rawr!” sound like a baby dragon. Banette sipped her drink and used ghost type energy to make a few dragon-like shapes fly around Kenta’s head.
“Thanks.” Kenta gave me a fist bump, “I’ll try my best, my goal is to get into the top four.”
Justine leaned over and grinned like a Gengar as she looked at Kenta, “You know, you’d be able to win it all with a Dragapult on your team.”
Kenta pushed her away by her head and replied, “I’d rather raise a rabid Hydreigon, no offense to Kaiju.”
I chuckled, “I don’t think he would take any offense to that.”
“Tch.” Justine sighed in defeat before switching to another subject, “By the way Az, I was wondering where Winnie is.”
I sighed as she brought the illusion fox up, “Heck if I know, he’s out doing something with some of the ghosts.” That jerk has been avoiding me ever since we got to Hearthome.
“Okay, well make sure he’s around tomorrow, I have a surprise for you both!” Justine excitedly said, clapping her hands together.
“What is it?” Kenta asked,
“It’s a surprised dummy, and you don’t get to know ‘cause you won’t be here tomorrow.” Justine answered.
“Well, I’ll be looking forward to it.” I said.
“Can’t you tell me after Az leaves?” Kenta asked, “I won’t spoil it for her.”
“Nope!” Justine giggled. “You’ll have to find out later!”
“And when is later?” Kenta sighed, “Next year perhaps?”
“Hey Justine.” I interrupted the two.
“Yeah?”
“Since Kenta is going back to the Indigo League, what are you planning to do next?” I asked, “You gonna help Marcus out with the Hisuan variant research?”
Justine waved her hand as if to shoo the question away with a resigned expression, “Ehhh, probably not. Marcus has been hogging all of the research tasks like a nesting Gabite.”
“Instead, I have something more exciting than Pokemon variants.” Justine said with excitement, “Well it’s not confirmed yet, but hopefully I’ll be joining the twins in Kalos soon!”
“Oh yeah you said something about this a while back.” Kenta commented.
“Really? You gonna go work for Professor Sycamore?” I asked.
Justine nodded, “Yep! Rowan and Sycamore have a lot of overlap in their research. Sycamore said that he needed a ghost type expert to help out,” Justine fancily gestured at herself, “Obviously the only right answer would moi.”
So he needs help with something relating to ghost type mega evolutions? Man I wanna get access to mega evolution!
Kenta snorted, “So you’re gonna be a stable girl for ghost types?”
“Heh. A bit of that, aaaand,” Justine grinned, putting a hand on her cheek, “I’m gonna be able to hang out with Sycamore~”
“Urgh, not again.” Kenta sighed, rolling his eyes sky high.
I gave Justine a suspicious look, “Umm dude, he’s in his thirties.”
“Yeah I know,” Justine sighed, “he’s such a d–” “Horny police!” Litwick chirped, spraying a few embers of fire at Justine.
Justine recoiled, raising her sandwich away from Litwick to prevent it from being burnt, “Oww! Okay fine.” Another Gengar-like grin appeared on Justine’s face, “Buuuut Sycamore is not as hot as my hubby Steven~”
Is she trying to emulate Brock? Wait, no. One of my friends was like with her favorite celebrities too.
Golett facepalmed and Litwick shrugged as if it couldn’t disagree.
“Steven is also too old for you.” Kenta groaned.
“Yeah, he’s like twenty five.” I added.
Justine scoffed and shoved her phone in my face to show me her wallpaper of Steven Stone, “That doesn’t mean we can’t fangirl~ Come on, isn’t he handsome~?”
Insert my unimpressed Saitama face. “Sure.”
----------------------------------------
The electronic clock on my nightstand blinked, 3 AM. It should be about…now. The curtain to the room rustled as if a wind had blown through it despite the window being closed.
Winnie gracefully hopped out of the shadows of the room, followed by Haunter and a few other ghosts.
I shifted in my seat on the couch directly facing the window and crossed my arms. Banette sat on the couch’s backrest and mimicked my movement. “Well, well, if it isn’t Winnie the Pooh finally showing his face.”
Winnie jumped, glancing at me before quickly averting his eyes. He began to step back towards the window. The ghosts accompanying him scattered into the shadows.
“Oi! Nu-uh.” I wagged my finger at the illusion fox as I put on my mom voice, “We are going to speak to each other, I’m tired of the avoidance and lack of communication. We are going to talk tonight.”
Winnie paused and just stood there awkwardly not knowing what to say or do. Or maybe he was still considering jumping out the window.
I sighed, patting the seat on the couch next to me and spoke in a softer tone, “You can sit if you want. It would probably be more comfortable.”
After a moment of hesitation, Winnie trudged over and sat on the couch next to me.
“I’ll be blunt here.” I said, “You’ve been avoiding me and the rest of the team besides the other ghosts, something is obviously bothering you.”
There was silence as I waited for Winnie to say something but he was stone-faced and kept avoiding eye contact.
Finally, Banette jabbed him in the side, “By Arceus above and Giratina below, stop being so stubborn and start yapping. You’ll feel better once you stop bottling everything up.”
Winnie looked wide-eyed at the voodoo ghost and sighed before looking directly at me. “i’m angry.”
That’s a start. I pointed to myself, “At me?”
“No,” Winnie shook his head.
“The Mountain Lord?” I asked, “Someone from the expedition team?”
“No! I don’t know! A lot of things!” Winnie suddenly shouted, wildly gesturing to the sky and the words began to spill out like water breaking through a dam, “I don’t want to be weak! I was treated like a useless ragdoll when we fought the Mountain Lord and you almost died! Sahara and the others were helpless, and I was even more helpless and I hate feeling like that! And then even when I evolved and could do something, it wasn’t enough! I was terrified! I hate the idea of you guys being gone!”
Tears began running down Winnie’s face and he began sniffling.
Oh boy, how do I, uh…? Perhaps I’ve been a bit too nonchalant about almost being killed. Well, to be fair almost everyone else has been kind of nonchalant about me nearly dying too…I dunno. Can’t forget that he’s basically a kid considering he only started existing just a bit more than a month ago.
I pulled Winnie in for a hug and patted his back, “Hey, hey, it’s okay.”
“Don’t blame on yourself for anything that happened, I was the one who put us into a situation like that in the first place. I didn’t properly consider what could’ve happened.”
I pulled away from the hug, using my sleeves to wipe away his icy tears, “You can talk to me whenever there’s something bothering you, okay? I’m not exactly the wisest or smartest person in the world, but I can certainly listen and we can work stuff out together if you have a problem. No more avoiding me and the others, you got that?”
Winnie sniffled and nodded.
“And if you feel weak, we will train until we’re the strongest, then no one can toss us around like we’re nothing. The main point is that we need to work together.”
That seemed to reassure Winnie and he nodded, “Alright.”
“Perhaps not jumping into dangerous situations headfirst anymore will help, though I don’t know how much can be expected of someone with a small brain for personal safety.” Banette dryly added.
“Gotcha. I’ll work on expanding my brain size.” I joked as I tapped the side of my head.
Winnie chuckled as he wiped away some tears.
“But seriously, I’ll try to be more careful from now on.” I continued, “Let me know if I’m being a dumbass.”
Then I turned to the ghosts still hidden in the shadows, “By the way everyone, please talk to me if you have any issues.” There was a quiet chorus of “okay” and “alrightie” from the ghosts gang. Banette nodded and saluted.
I pointed to my nightstand were Rotom and Glados where staying in their phone and watch, “That goes for you guys too.” I’ll have to remember to tell that to Sahara and Kaiju tomorrow.
There was a buzz from the Rotom as its screen lit up, showing a thumbs up emoji and a dopey Mr Mime smiley face. My watch showed a GIF of a Croagunk croaking and nodding. Seems like Glados is picking up some habits from Rotom.
“Ooo! Ooo! I have an issue!” Haunter waved its hands around to get my attention, “I want to try out that yummy smelling food that Kenta was eating before he left.”
Misdreavus headbutted Haunter, “That’s not an issue stupid.”
“Curry does sound nice.” Banette said.
Winnie’s ears perked up, “what does it taste like?”
Banette grinned and nearly began drooling, “It’s super savory and has both meat and veggies and is very yummy with rice.”
“that sounds good, does it go well with sweets?” Winnie asked, licking his lips.
“I dunno, we can try to make sweet curry,” I yawned and stretched, “I’ll order some for you guys for lunch tomorrow.”
“Yay! Curry!” The ghost gang began to cheer and chant, “Cur-ry! Cur-ry! Cur-ry!”
“Shut up!” Banette flew over and smacked a few of the ghosts on their head, “There are people in other rooms guys, you’re gonna get us in trouble if you wake anyone up.”
“yeah, it’s rude to be yelling where everyone else is sleeping.” Winnie added, patting the backs of the Litwick pair that had emerged during the talk about curry.
One of the several roaming form Ghimmighoul pouted, “But you were yelling earlier.”
“uh, i’m allowed to yell because i’m the boss.” Winnie pointed to himself and slightly puffed out his chest trying to exude boss energy. It didn’t seem to work but the ghosts got the message.
I smiled to myself as Winnie and Banette lectured the other ghosts on their manners. It seemed like I was successful in lifting the trouble off of Winnie’s shoulders. I sighed in relief. Man, thankfully I could sort that out with talk. I’m glad I don’t have to do that with anyone else on the team like this I don’t have the necessary emotional stamina or skill. How in the world do therapists do stuff like this for a job?
Kaiju, Sahara, and Glados were a lot less bothered about the whole, me-nearly-dying thing. That sounded kinda bad now that I thought about it.
To be fair, Kaiju’s reasoning for not being worried was because his mom always came out of rough fights okay so obviously in his mind the same logic wold apply to me. Sahara seemed more irked about not even posing a challenge to the Mountain Lord, and Glados was kind of unreadable but seemed the same as ever.
I waved at everyone, “Settle down everyone.” I yawned again, “It’s late,” I glanced at the clock, “or early, I dunno, either way I’m gonna catch some Z’s. Since our current goal is to get stupid strong, we’re gonna begin going all out in training beginning tomorrow.”
On my nightstand, Sahara’s ultra ball shook in excitement. Can she hear me from inside?
“And that will include you guys.” Banette added, pointing to the ghost gang, earning herself a collective groan of protest from them.