“Everyone ready?” I asked.

Winnie and Sahara nodded, with the landshark sitting on Kaiju to prevent him from rushing the newcomer.

Sahara was rather disappointed that the newcomer wouldn’t be a Pokemon she could freely spar with, as the rest of my team weren’t exactly exactly a head-to-head fighters, well besides Kaiju who was usually more interested in testing how edible everything was.

Glados floated next to me making curious glitching noises and Rotom had already opened up its Pokedex app, readying its scanning feature.

Banette jumped out of my shadow and floated over to sit next to Winnie. The rest of the ghost gang giggled and replied to my question with a series of yeps and uh-huhs. I blinked a few times in surprise and looked a bit closer at the ghosts grouped in the shadows of my team and me. There seemed to be a few new faces. A lot of new faces actually.

There were like fifteen-ish ghosts originally. Now there were about thirty, with most of the newbies being roaming form Ghimmighoul. The little possessed coins glinted and sparkled in the filtered sunlight that shone down through the test dome’s glass roof as they shifted around in Sahara’s shadow.

When did they join?

I shrugged and took out the Pokeball that had been sent over that morning from the Sinnoh Regional Lab, giving my team an excited grin, I pressed the button.

There was a *pop!* And a very fluffy Rufflet fluttered to the ground. The little bird shook its body and fluffed up its feathers like a diva fluffing up a fancy fur scarf.

Then it examined its new team with a very judgemental set of eyes before sizing me up as well.

“Zwei!” “Lous!” Both of Kaiju’s heads barked as he wriggled out from under Sahara and made a full-on bellyflop dive for the eaglet, determined to find out if he could turn Rufflet into a KFC menu item.

“GAK!” Kaiju choked and fell to the ground as Sahara grappled his heads into a headlock, growling at the unruly teen dragon and probably telling him something like “Sit the fuck down and behave!”

Winnie rolled his eyes and sighed, Banette giggled, and Glados beeped disapprovingly at Kaiju.

I gave Sahara a nod when Kaiju continued to try to wriggling out of her grip. The landshark’s eyes got a gleeful look and she exposed all of her sharp teeth in an evil grin as she slammed both of Kaiju’s heads into each other. Kaiju wobbled on his feet for a second and sat down in a daze.

Unbothered by the commotion, Rufflet surprisingly didn’t even flinch at the sight of a massive two-headed dragon trying to eat him. Instead he seemed quite pleased and made a bunch of positive sounding chirps.

“Ruff rufflet ruff rufflet!”

I looked at Winnie for help, “What did he say?”

“The new kid says that he was told he would be sent to be a member of a powerful team and that his expectations were mostly met.” Winnie translated with a bit of pride.

“I see.” I smiled at Rufflet, “Well, I’m glad you approve.”

Rufflet nodded and then ruffled his feather in disgust as he saw Kaiju lean forward, both of his mouths drooling enough to create a small pile of slobber at his feet that began slowly making its way toward the bird.

“Ruf, rufflet ruff rufflet.” The eaglet huffed as he hopped away from the drool puddle.

Bannette translated this time, “He says that he does expect certain members to have a bit more class, and some more cool factor.”

The ghost puppet gestured towards Kaiju.

I squatted down to speak to Rufflet. “Hey man, I dunno I wouldn’t peg us as being the classy type, but I’d say that we can be pretty cool.”

Rufflet rolled his eyes and gave me a prissy scoff, “Ruff rufflet! Rufflet ruff ruff.”

I glanced up as I heard a snicker from Winnie, the illusion fox was desperately trying to hide a smile, “he– he says that with the team description he was given, he thought his new trainer would be cooler, like Cynthia or Lance, or even Lucian…”

“And less like a human with the face of a Cleffa.” Banette finished Winnie’s sentence with a giggle.

I frowned, “A Cleffa?”

“An angry Cleffa right now.” Haunter added, Misdreavus nodded in agreement, “Very intimidating.”

There was an uproar of laughter from everyone. Kaiju cocked his heads, confused about what everyone was laughing about.

“Heh, alright,” I sighed, rolling my eyes as I stood back up and crossing my arms. “I guess I look like a Cleffa now.”

“Rufflet.” Rufflet nodded.

“Hey,” Banette said, raising a finger, “Didn’t that fire monkey back when we were in Sinnoh call Az a Dedenne?”

Winnie nodded, “yeah he did.” The illusion fox then stared at my face and shrugged, “Meh, I think Cleffa fits more. the kid knows his stuff.”

I rolled my eyes again, “Sure, whatever. Well, don’t judge a book by it’s cover aight? Cute doesn’t mean not dangerous.”

Rufflet seemed unconvinced. Heh, he sure is one to talk about cool factor. Though to be fair, Braviary does look hella cool.

I walked over to my team, “Anyways, lemme introduce you to the team.”

I pointed at Winnie, “The white zoroark is Winnie, he’s in charge of the ghost gang.” I gestured at the ghosts lounging about in everyone’s shadows, “The ragdoll next to Winnie is Banette, she’s Winnie’s second in command, you can go to either of them if you have any problems with the ghosts.”

“Yep.” “Uh-huh.” The two said.

Then I pointed at the others, “Sahara is the big Garchomp, Kaiju is the drooling two headed punk that she’s currently sitting on, you might wanna stay away from Kaiju until he stops seeing you as food. The glitchy one here is Glados, and the floating phone is Rotom.”

Rufflet gave us all a pompous nod and did a grand bowing wing gesture, well as grand as one could get looking like a fluffball, and began doing his own introduction, “Rufflet. Rufflet ruff ruff rufflet rufflet…”

I kinda just stood there and watched as Rufflet continued talking and looked at Banette for some translation help.

Banette floated over to me and whispered, “He’s talking about his ‘exalted’ family tree.”

“Ah, I see.” I cleared my throat to get Rufflet to interrupt the eaglet’s speed. The little bird looked at me with annoyance. “Ruff?”

“So Rufflet, how would you like a, uh, noble name?” I asked.

“Rufflet!” Rufflet jumped in excitement and nodded

I kneeled down again, “Okay, uh let’s see. Oh.” I paused as the lighting changed from the sun being obscured by some clouds. Wait a minute, its coloring is…off.

My brain had kinda registered the faint orange-ish hue in Rufflet’s feathers as an effect of the warm sunlight filtering through the glass of the dome we were in. Nope. His feathers were a mix of grey, brown, and orange instead of the grey-blue of a normal Rufflet.

“Oh damn, you’re a shiny.”

Rufflet looked at me as if I had just pointed out the most obvious thing in the world and gave me a smug shrug before lightly preening his feathers. Well I’m not questioning it.

“Okay, well uh, firstly, do you know that you can evolve into two different final forms?”

“Ruff.” Rufflet nodded. Good, I don’t have to explain.

“Do you know which one you wanna evolve into?” I held up my hands, “Right hand for Unovan and left for Hisuan.”

Rufflet pecked my left hand just a bit too hard. I sucked air in through my teeth and shook my hand.

“Aight, cool, so wizard instead of warrior build.” I said as I began brainstorming name ideas. Then one name hit me like lightning, “Thorondor!” I exclaimed and pointed at Rufflet.

“What do you think of Thorondor for a name? Thoron for short.”

Rufflet tilted his head, “Ruff?”

“It’s the name of the greatest Braviary to ever live!” I said with a bit of embellishment, “He was the king of Braviaries in the first age and battled mighty dragons head-on!” Well, Thorondor isn’t a Pokemon, but he’s an eagle. Braviaries are technically eagles though, plus it’s a kickass name. Thanks Tolkein.

Rufflet ate that up and nodded, trying to hide his excitement, “Rufflet.”

I offered an arm for Rufflet to hop up onto, which he did. I winced as I stood back up. Despite looking like a feathery fluffball the eaglet gripped my bare arm hard, digging his claws into my skin.

I slightly grimaced. Oooo, that’s gonna leave a mark, multiple marks actually.

“Well, welcome to the team Thorondor!”

I made a mental note to get myself some arm and shoulder padding in case Thoron ever wanted to use me as a perch.

Everyone padded over to finally get a closer look. I lifted Thoron up a bit higher to prevent Kaiju from eating his tail feathers and began pushing Kaiju’s head back down like a game of whack-a-mole.

Banette patted Thorondor’s fluffy head feathers, much to the eaglet’s annoyance before the little bird decided that Sahara’s would make for a better perch and flew over to sit on the landshark’s head. Sahara didn’t seem to mind.

Rotom pushed past Banette and eagerly flew over to Thorondor to scan him, “Bzzt!”

“Rufflet, the Eaglet Pokemon. Known as a natural-born warrior, soon after its hatching, it will challenge its parent to a fight in order to gain their acceptance. This combative Pokemon will fearlessly pick fights with anything in order to get stronger. It fights with its sharp beak and talons strong enough to crack the hard shells of Shellder.”

I shook the arm that Rufflet had just been perched on and looked at my forearm, it was already beginning to bruise. Yeah no kidding, that’s some good grip strength.

Rotom flew over to me and I looked at Rufflet’s abilities and known moves while my team talked with Thoron, “Thanks Rotom.”

Abilities: Keen Eye, Sheer Force, Hustle

Known Moves: Agility, Leer, Roost, Zen Headbutt, Peck, Wing Attack

Huh, he knows Zen Headbutt already? Looks like he’s getting started on that psychic build early.

Definitely gonna need to teach him a ranged move soon, but it looks like a pretty good starting moveset.

“Great.” I said, clapping my hands to get everyone’s attention. “Well, now that we have the introduction out of the way, what does everyone say about getting the fuck outta here and beating up some trainers for money?”

The entire team cheered.

----------------------------------------

After two more days of waiting, I was itching to go somewhere with less city stuff, and more trainers to battle.

Plus, Justine was busy preparing the first step of her plan, now dubbed, Operation Matchmaker. She was currently making a pitch to convince Fabian to get a grass and ghost-type Pokemon, so I just sent her a text telling her an approximation of when I’d be free to go ghost hunting and left for Route 4.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

Cosette was right, Route 4 was bustling with trainers. Most of them were around fifteen to eighteen, though some were young enough to have chaperones following them around.

I had made sure to stop by a store in tailored to bird Pokemon before leaving the city to get a shoulder pad and an arm protector thingy so that the eaglet’s talons wouldn’t keep digging holes into my skin. He was a bit disappointed that he wouldn’t get to perch on Sahara but she wasn’t really in the mood to be outside with so many trainers around, so he had to settle for my shoulder.

And I had to settle with letting him constantly chatter in my ear, according to Winnie and Banette, about how great he is. I was honestly impressed that his body hadn’t been crushed from having to carry such a big ego around all the time.

Winnie, who was currently disguised as an Alolan Ninetales, was on the lookout for potential opponents he could test out his newest set of illusions against. He was masquerading as an Alolan Ninetales because he wanted to experiment with making damage from one type energy feel like another type.

If he could make his usual roster of ghost, dark, and normal-type damage feel like ice and fairy-type damage, it would help make his disguises even more convincing.

We were both decently familiar with the mannerisms and moveset of an Alolan Ninetales due to Celia’s Alolan Ninetales, plus, the ice fox Pokemon just looked really pretty, so it was an easy choice.

Right away, Thoron and I had a short battle with a trainer and her newly caught Fletchling so that I could gauge his skill level.

The eaglet had Leer and Peck down no problem, but he was having issues keeping up with his opponent in the air. The smaller bird kept using hit and run tactics, always staying just out of reach and using Thoron’s clumsiness in the air to its advantage.

Thorondor was able to knock Fletchling to the ground with a well timed Zen Headbutt. Then he dived in with Agility to grab the smaller bird with his powerful talons. It would be pretty useful for him to learn Crush Claw, so that was definitely on my list of moves to teach him.

The eaglet got in a bunch of good hits with Wing Attacks and Peck, whereupon our opponent forfeited the match and coughed up twenty bucks.

Thoron was rather winded from the match, so I put him on the bench with a leppa berry (that he flung all over me while eating).

I continued walking through Route 4 and kept an eye out for anyone who looked ready for a battle. Winnie would be up next, or Sahara if there was another Pokemon who I thought could keep up with her.

“Hey, you!”

“Girl with the Ninetales!”

I looked over at the person yelling. It was a teen standing on the side of the road.

We made eye contact and the boy nodded and grinned, “You guys wanna battle? One vee one, winner gets two hundred bucks from the loser!”

I shrugged and grinned back as I walked over, “Yeah sure. I could do with a bit of pocket change.”

The trainer chuckled, “Right, I’m the one who’s gonna be getting that pocket change.”

I raised an eyebrow.

The trainer pointed to a large area cleared out area on the side of the road, it was well used from countless Pokemon battles over the years.

“We can battle over there.” The kid smiled and held out a hand to shake, “I’m Louis by the way.” I shook his hand, “Azalea.”

“You’d better not regret this, my Pokemon are all rated at three stars.” He held up three fingers.

I nodded and shrugged, “Sure.” How strong is that again? I looked at the chart explaining this a while ago but I forget. It had to do with how many gym badges a person has right? So he’s saying that his Pokemon is strong enough to be on a team that’s earned him three badges?

Winnie trotted onto the makeshift battlefield as I walked to the opposite side of the field from the kid.

I internally shrugged, let’s find out.

“Hey, can I scan your Ninetales before we start?” Louis asked, taking out a Pokedex, “I’ve never met a regional variant of Ninetales before.”

I shrugged, “Yeah sure, I don’t mind.”

A bit of concern crept through me as I watched the Pokedex scan Winnie. Oh shit, will it see through Winnie’s illusion?

Nope. The Pokedex did not see through Winnie’s illusion.

My sudden concern lifted as I heard its robotic voice begin to speak, “Ninetales, the fox Pokemon. Possessing a calm demeanor, this Pokémon was revered as an incarnation of a deity of winter before it was identified as a regional variant of Ninetales. Wild Ninetales will guide travelers who get lost on a snowy mountain down to the mountain’s base, though it only does so because it wants them to hurry up and leave. It creates drops of ice in its coat and showers them over its enemies to freeze them solid in an instant.”

“Haha! That’s funny, helping people out because it wants them to leave faster.” Louis put his Pokedex away, “Thanks, let’s get to the battle then.”

He grabbed a Pokeball from his belt and threw it.

“Time for another win Warlock!”

“Braix–en!” Yellow-tan and white fox Pokemon appeared, drawing a branch from its fluffy tail and spinning it before pointing it at Winnie like a cowboy from an old western movie.

Lol, fire fox versus ice fox.

“You know what to do.” I said to Winnie.

The illusion fox grinned, “yes indeed.”

The temperature immediately dropped and frost formed on the ground as a blizzard picked up. Winnie’s form shimmered as he disappeared into the snowstorm.

“Calm Mind, listen for a clue.” Louis instructed.

Braixen took a deep breath and focused, its ears rotating, trying to pick up even the slightest of sounds that could indicate its opponent’s location.

“Ice ‘em.” I smiled, time to see what Winnie’s got up his sleeve.

A bunch of ice beams shot out from the snowstorm, freezing Braixen’s feet to the ground with a crystalline crackling sound.

“Shield yourself with Fire Spin!” Louis shouted.

“Braix!” The fire fox barked as it swept its wand in a graceful upwards motion. Multiple pillars of fire burst out of the ground and engulfed Braixen in a tornado of flames just in time to shield the fire type from a barrage of icicles and melt the ice encasing its feet.

Let’s show off a bit. “Freeze the fire!” I ordered.

Through the snow, I saw Louis’s eyes widen in disbelief as he heard my command.

In an instant, Braixen’s Fire Spin was flash-frozen, the fire quickly extinguished as Braixen was encased in a cylinder of ice. Through the ice, I could see Braixen’s form flinch and step back in surprise.

I don’t know how he’s doing that with an illusion but this is impressive.

“Flame Charge and Swift all around you!” Louis shouted.

The fire fox braced its feet as it engulfed itself in fire before charing at the ice wall. It took a few hit from Flame Charge before it was able to break out of its icy prison.

Then the fire type brandished its wand and spun like a Beyblade, releasing a barrage of golden stars all around it. The stars immediately targeted Winnie and began to converge on one part of the field.

“Counter with Blizzard.”

There was a burst of frost and snow as Winnie created an illusionary Blizzard that destroyed all of the Swift stars targeting him. It was probably something like Night Shade disguised as an ice type move.

Louis and Braixen didn’t seem too bothered by Swift not hitting, all they needed was the location of their target.

“Machine gun tactics!” Louis shouted, pointing at Winnie’s vague form in the snowstorm.

I raised an eyebrow. Machine gun Tactics?

Well I didn’t have to wait long to find out what that was.

Braixen pointed its wand at Winnie’s silhouette. Multiple burning beads of fire formed around the fire fox’s wand in a circle, then the circle began spinning and burning brighter.

That looks like Ember. But like, a lot of embers.

“Braixen!” The fire type shouted as it began to release a stream of machine gun fire with its modified Ember attack. These were pretty powerful Embers too, each bullet created a small explosion of fire and released burning hot sparks the moment they made contact with something.

“oh that’s just foul!” Winnie shouted as he blocked the first barrage of exploding Embers with Protect before running around to prevent himself from being hit, though I doubted the silhouette we were seeing was actually him.

That’s hella creative. I’m gonna “borrow” that idea, maybe Glados can make use of it. Or one of the ghosts could try that with Shadow Ball.

“Ruff rufflet ruff let ruff ruff!” Thoron commented with some excitement.

I heard Haunter cackle behind me as it wondered aloud, “I wonder if we can make a machine gun like that but use the Ghimmighoul as bullets.”

There was a panicked clatter from the Ghimmighoul, followed by a small commotion as one of the other ghosts bonked him for scaring the coin ghosts.

Winnie struggled to dodger the nonstop barrage of Braixen’s Ember machine gun, but was able to escape after temporarily blinding Braixen with a gust of freezing wind and hail.

“Freeze its wand, then Hex.” I called out.

Louis immediately countered, “Don’t let them freeze you again! Use Flamethrower!”

Winnie leaped out of the snowstorm and shot an Ice Beam at Braixen’s wand hand. The fire type countered with a Flamethrower, both attacks negated each other with a burst of steam.

A circle of fiery beads began forming around Braixen’s wand again as it tried starting up its machine gun attack again.

“Dazzling Gleam! Then disarm it!” I shouted.

Winnie howled and used his illusion to mimic the Dazzling Gleam the Mega Gallade had used. There was a blinding flash of pink light, and Braixen yelped as it received damage from “fairy type” energy.

The fire fox recoiled and shielded its eyes, its machine gun attack flickering out due to being interrupted.

Suddenly, Braixen’s wand hand was frozen, and Winnie used Psychic to wrench Braixen’s wand away from its paws. The fire type snarled viciously as it unleashed a powerful Psyshock, making Winnie drop the wand.

Braixen dashed over to retrieve it’s precious wand from the ground, only to have a truckload of ice and snow dumped on it from an “Avalanche” that Winnie had generated.

Probably Winnie using Psychic to make it feel like there’s an ton of pressure on top of his opponent.

There was a powerful blast of fire, and the snowy rubble instantly melted in a burst of steam. Braixen emerged from the melted snow pile and pointed its fiery wand at Winnie.

That must be its ability, Blaze. Louis seemed to realize this too and he grinned like he’d already won the match as he shouted, “Flash blaze!”

Braixen pointed its wand at Winnie and created multiple Ember circles above it in an arch. Now

that its firepower was boosted, it was able to create multiple machine gun circles with ease.

The fiery circles began to spin and sprayed a storm of explosive embers at Winnie, who countered with an Icy Wind that was enhanced to look like a full blown Blizzard attack.

While Winnie was occupied with the machine gun fire, Braixen dashed right over to Winnie, generating a searing ball of fire at the tip of its wand.

The fire type’s eyes glowed blue as it used Psychic to throw Winnie into the air. Then the fire fox pointed the powerful fire type move it was charging at the illusion fox, a victorious grin played across its face.

“I’d dodge that if I were you.” I said, just in case Winnie was somewhere in the blast zone.

There was a bright burst of condensed fire as Braixen fired off an Overheat right in Winnie’s face, followed by an explosion that generated a bunch of smoke and steam.

Louis pumped a victorious fist in the air and shouted, “Yeah!”

Braixen grinned and relaxed, putting its wand hand down. It was getting ready to sheath the wand back into its tail.

I smiled to myself as I saw Winnie’s silhouette briefly appear behind Braixen before he disappeared into the ground. I wouldn’t celebrate early if I were you.

Our opponents paused and looked confused as the snowstorm and smoke cleared up. Winnie was nowhere in sight.

“Finish this.” I said.

Winnie burst out of the ground, throwing Braixen into the air like how a cat would throw a mouse into the air. With a cackle, the illusion fox froze Braizen’s arms and feet to prevent it from being able to land properly.

The fire fox was too tired from using both its ability and Overheat and wasn’t able to react as quickly as before

“take this!” The illusion fox shouted as he chucked two Shadow Balls at his opponent.

The ghost type moves crackled like lighting as the spheres of dark purple energy slammed into Braixen, one after the other and exploded. Braixen cried out as it was knocked out and fell to the ground.

Confused, Louis stood there for a second before pulling out Braixen’s Pokeball.

My opponent scratched his head and sighed as he returned his Pokemon, “Dang. I know type advantages aren’t everything but I thought we had that at the end.”

I smiled as I walked over to him, “Hey, that machine gun attack was super creative, and Braixen’s Blaze and Overheat combo is really powerful.”

“Thanks,” Louis smiled, “We’ve been working on mastering that for a while. Your Ninetales has some killer mastery over ice.”

We shook hands and Louis handed me two hundred dollars in cash before he turned to leave, waving goodbye.

“Well, thanks for humoring us. If we battle again Warlock and I will be sure to beat you guys.”

I grinned, “I’m pretty sure it’ll just cost you another two hundred bucks and another loss.”

There was a bark of laughter from the other trainer.

Then the sound of children loudly talking and screaming brought my attention over to the middle of the main road.

It seemed that during our battle, a field trip’s worth of second graders had arrived. They were all wearing brightly colored vests that said Estival Primary School.

The kids gathered around their chaperones, which included three teachers, a Stoutland, an Indeedee, and an Orbeetle.

Hmm, I would’ve liked to go on a Pokemon field trip when I was their age.

The teacher in the middle said something and the kids all chorused something back at the teacher before the little gremlins were set loose on the rest of us, running over to trainers in small groups with a chaperone in tow to ask questions and jot things down on their little clipboards.

A trio of students–escorted by Stoutland–immediately ran over to Winnie and I, giving Winnie admiring looks. They hesitated for a second. I leaned on one leg and waited for them to say something.

Then the little girl with a Dedenne on her shoulder held up her clipboard and began slowly reading the script that was printed on it, “Hello. I am Adrianne, and I am from–”

Both the kid and her Dedenne squeaked as the kid on the right pushed them out of the way and shouted, “I want to pet that Ninetales!”

Dedenne girl shoved the pushy kid back and whined, “Stop it Asher! I need to do the interview first!”

“But you take forever!” Pushy kid whined, “I want to pet the Ninetales first!” Asher then reached for Winnie’s illusionary tails.

“Hey, hey wait a moment.” I said as I stepped in front of the kid to prevent him from touching Winnie. Bro, did your parents never teach you about not touching strange Pokemon? ESPECIALLY a Ninetales.

Despite Winnie not being a Ninetales, I doubted that he would've like some random child trying to touch him with their grimy little fingers.

“stay back you fiend!” Winnie growled at the rude kid.

Thankfully Stoutland intervened and used its nose to sharply push the rude kid away, giving us an apologetic woof before shooting the kid a stern mom-glare.

Rude kid pouted and stamped his foot, but seemed to at least know not to mess with Stoutland.

The third kid, who was wearing a weird Sandile hat–wait no he had an actual Sandile on his head, it just yawned and blinked, finally spoke up. He gave Asher an irritated look as he said in a snarky voice, “This is why every Pokemon your mom gets you keeps running away.”

“It’s probably why your dad ran away too,” Adrianne huffed, her Dedenne squeaked and stuck a tongue out at Asher, “You’re such a dumb-headed Muk.”

I tried to hide my surprise at the dad comment, kids do not know how to hold back.

Tears welled up in Asher’s eyes and the kid began wailing, “MRS. RILEYYYYY! ADRIANNA JUST CALLED ME A DUMB-HEADED MUK!”

I winced at the kid’s high-pitched scream. Thoron got a bit startled and flapped his wings, slapping the side of my face with his feathers.

Mrs. Riley was already on the way over after having helped another kid ask her interview questions, she quickened her pace to a fast jog the moment she heard rude kid start screaming.

Said kid stomped his feet a few times and took a huge breath to scream again, but Stoutland Licked the kid’s face. The paralyzing effect of the weak move was enough to stun the kid long enough for Mrs. Riley to get here before he could try to scream again.

I shared a look with Winnie and debated if I should leave. Bruh do I really want to deal with grade school drama? Yeah, why not? I’m nosy and have nothing else to do.

“Asher,” Mrs. Riley said in a stern teacher voice, “You have to ask a Pokemon before you can pet them.”

Dude, if you know that this kid is a student with a history of problematic behavior, then why did you even let him come on this field trip? Ehh, from the sound of it his mom would probably raise hell.

Then the teacher turned to Dedenne girl, “Adrianne, it’s not nice to call people names okay?”

“But he started it first!” Adrianne pointed an accusing finger at Asher, “He pushed me!”

“Yeah he pushed her.” Sandile kid chimed in.

The teacher let out a tired sighed, “I see, Asher, you shouldn’t be pushing people, especially not your classmates.”

“But I wanna pet the Ninetales!” Asher yelled, “My mommy says that I can pet any Pokemon I want!”

I noticed Mrs. Riley’s expression briefly flicker to irritation at the mention of this kid’s mother. “I’m sorry Asher but you still have to listen to school rules when you’re on a school field trip.”

Winnie leaned over to me with a wicked grin and whispered, “well if the brat’s mother won’t teach him better, why don’t we teach him a lesson he’ll never forget?”

I saw Stoutland’s ear twitch, it definitely heard our plan but didn’t make any action to stop us. The dog Pokemon just kept using its paws to slap Asher’s hands away from trying to reach for Winnie.

The ghosts in my shadow giggle and shift and I returned Winnie’s grin before walking a bit closer to the group.

“The school rules are stupid! My mommy said that I can pet whatever I want! I! Wanna! Pe–”

“Hello!” I interrupted, giving them all a sweet smile before making eye contact with the rude kid and leaning down to get to eye level with him, “Do you know what happens to naughty children who don’t respect a Pokemon’s boundaries?”

“What?” Asher snapped. “I–”

I sharply cut the kid off, “They get cursed and turned into ghosts!”

“RUFFLET!” Thoron screeched and leaned over to Leer at the kid with an evil eye for additional intimidation factor.

There was a shift in the air and the temperature slightly dropped as Winnie sneakily applied a weak Confuse Ray to the rude kid to only let him see whatever Winnie thought would scare the kid into at least thinking twice before touching an unfamiliar Pokemon.

The kid went pale and looked like he almost shit his pants as he wordlessly stumbled backwards and tightly grabbed his teacher’s pant leg.

I straightened myself and smiled at Mrs. Riley, who was rather surprised at Asher’s reaction. “Perhaps you shouldn’t let a student with boundary issues interact with unfamiliar Pokemon, something bad might happen.”

Then I turned and walked away before they could say anything to me.

There was a squeak of an apology from the rude kid, then I heard him say that he had to go to the bathroom before running away.

The ghost gang giggled to each other about the kid’s expression.

“You think that’s really gonna help teach the kid a lesson?” Misdreavus skeptically asked.

I shrugged, “No idea, what did you show him Winnie?”

Winnie chuckled, “i showed him what he would look like if he had tried this with a less patient pokemon.”

“Ah, I see.” I didn’t need any further explanation, “Well hopefully he’ll learn to at least think twice about trying to touch unfamiliar Pokemon from now on.”

I knew for a fact that if that kid had tried touching Sahara, or any random dragon Pokemon like that while they were in a foul mood, then he could’ve been badly hurt. Some Pokemon just don’t play around, and if Winnie had actually been a Ninetales, the kid could’ve been frozen or roasted just for trying to touch his tails.

“Human children sure are a handful.” Winnie commented.

Banette floated out of my shadow and over to Winnie, nodding in agreement, “The other chaperones sure had their hands full.”

“Were the other kids acting out?” I asked the voodoo puppet.

Banette shook her head, “Nah, just that one kid. The others were overly excited or just didn’t know how to write certain words.”

“Ruff rufflet ruff! Rufflet rufflet let rufflet!” Thoron added before launching into a long droning exposition. Judging from Winnie and Banette’s reactions, it was probably about his noble family bloodline and how great he was because of who he was related to.

Winnie rolled his eyes and sighed.

Banette facepalmed, “Just kill me already.” Then she dived back into my shadow with her hands over her ears.

Well I sure am grateful I can only understand ghost Pokemon.

“can we let kaiju eat him already?” Winnie muttered under his breath. “it hasn’t even been a day and i already can’t stand him.”