The shapeless shadow's voice thundered in Jared's mind, it held an otherworldly laugh, "I know you are awake human!"

Slowly opening his eyes fearfully, Jared's mind quaked while observing the twisting ball of shadow.

The two days he spent putting himself through agonizing pain over and over had started to pay dividends. This was only the second encounter, but he felt his mind steeled enough to resist outright screaming.

With a shaky breath, Jared begins drawing some strength from within himself, and then musters the courage to speak, "y-You were h-here yesterday w-weren't you? W-what are you?"

Suddenly, the mass of shadow and gas begins to congregate together, and soon reveals its true shape.

It had no body, and appeared as nothing but a head of swirling shadow and gas with sharpend fangs.

(Oh... god.... I think... I think I found the Headless Horsemans missing head.)

"Silly human, now do you see?"

With chattering teeth, Jared gulps, "Y-you're a pokemon, a-aren't you?"

The shadowy ball of gas smiles mockingly, its voice hammering into Jared's head, "You're not very sharp for a human are you?"

Jared's teeth fail to stop chattering, but tries his best to form a coherent question anyway, "I I, w-what do you w-want from me, h-how can you t-talk?"

The grinning ball of shadow ignores the blubbering human, and begins floating its way closer and closer, until stopping half a foot from the shocked man's face.

Jared's eyes go wide with fear, as the monster opens its fanged mouth wide. It looked as if the creature intended to swallow him whole.

Its horrible voice once more quakes in his mind, it was more sinister than ever, "Aren't you going to run and turn on the lights, human?"

Noticing its fangs now an inch from his face, Jared softly asks, "W-why are y-you doing t-this?"

It draws back, then begins to float around the room in circles, Jared does his best to follow its floating form with his eyes, but he somehow always keeps losing track of it, as if it were phasing in and out of existence!

Suddenly Jared feels the foul wind touch the back of his neck, and his mind once again booms with a chaotic voice, "You humans are not fun when you don't run, why aren't you running human?!"

Jared begins to sense the threat of death was close, and a calm begins to come over him.

Feeling the tornado of air behind his head, he turns to face the creature and manages to reply without a trembling voice. "Is that truly the question you want to ask? do you not want to know the answer to what you asked me last night?"

Seeing the look of surprise on the ghastly visage, he wonders if he even saw a hint of fear, so he asks again "Do you want to know or not?"

The creature vanishes in a puff of smoke, and then reappears on the ceiling.

Its voice once again appears in Jared's mind, but the voice sounded strange... normal? almost pleasant even... "Tell me human?"

Jareds fear changes to wariness as he looks up, "If I tell you, you aren't going to eat me afterward are you?"

Jared flinches as his mind begins to shake with powerful laughter before the voice suddenly said, "I won't eat you human"

(...This is a gastly, I'm sure of it now. What did it say last night? It wanted to know why I was doing something to myself?)

"Just to be clear, are you wanting to know why I put myself through so much pain?"

The ball of gas grins.

"It's not a big secret, I do it because it helps me memorize my book faster"

the gastly spins around and pulses as it seems to mull the answer over, then it begins slowly floating towards the human.

Jared starts feeling slightly nervous again, so he blurts out, "Why are you haunting me?"

It ignores the question and continues floating closer, until it suddenly pauses half an inch from the human's face.

(Ok, deep breaths, don't scream then turn on the lights, that's just what it wants.)

The maw of the shadow smiles widely, "I eat emotions human, and the rarest and most delicious emotion of all is the pain humans intentionally inflict on themselves, you're the first human I've ever seen do this willingly over and over and over"

Jared's face scrunches in confusion, "You've been eating my emotions?"

The smiling fiend seems to look through the human with a vicious grin as its laugh rocks the human's mind once more "Your delicious pain lured me here human"

I've never heard that gastlys literally ate emotions...

Jared's mind swirls with thoughts, (Maybe... this situation is actually salvageable, maybe... maybe this could be a blessing in disguise. It said it eats emotions, so perhaps humans aren't on the menu, still... I'd be a fool to trust it.)

"So, you're not going to harm me then?"

"Even if I do nothing human, won't you harm yourself?" Jared felt his mind once again quake from laughter, so he nervously laughs along with him.

While feeling the threat of death and adrenaline slowly fading from him, Jared's shaking body begins to regain some calm. Although it did nothing to dispel the trembling from his own self-inflicted injuries.

"Did your trainer send you here to prank me?"

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The ghastly scoffs with a roar, "You think a mere human can tame me? there's no human alive that can make me submit, and the one who dared to try... met his end!"

Jared then sat up straight and shamelessly asked with genuine intent, "I have something I need to accomplish, If you join me and help me fulfill it, it will benefit both of us."

The gastly disappears and reappears back on the ceiling, but Jared somehow got the impression the creature was annoyed.

With an unimpressed giggle, Gastly asks, "Why would your accomplishments benefit me? Why should I human?"

"Because if you do, I'll let you eat my pain as much as you want"

Sneering, the gastly licks its lips, "But human, I can do that without your permission, can you stop me?"

Jared laughs, then gives a quick lie, "My memorizing method is only a little faster than remembering it normally, if I were to stop harming myself, then wouldn't you lose your delicacy?"

The gastly flinches, prompting Jared to muse inwardly, (...I lived on the streets for a long time gastly, do you think I don't know an addict when I see one?, but I'll take this slow, for now, even if taming you proves impossible, I can't give up this chance.)

"You don't need to give me an answer right now Gastly, you can even keep eating my emotions, but know I won't use this method forever. If you join me, however, I can continue to hurt myself just for you."

Gastly gazes at the bold human while pulsing for over half a minute, then vanishes without a word.

Silently watching the space it used to occupy, Jared whispers to himself after a minute, "You'll definitely become my partner gastly, and you'll get the food you desire as long as you help me!"

Imaging the beautiful future he will bring, Jared sinks further into self his self-delusions, (Yes, what is a little pain compared to the endless paradise I desire to bring?) And with that, Jared laid back down, and soon he was once again fast asleep.

In the morning, Jared woke up as usual, but this time from the phone's alarm.

He clicked the phone to stop the racket and looked around the room. He shuddered when he realizes that the gastly may have watched him sleep all night!

He shakes off the unease along with the sleepinessm and he prepares himself for school.

With his bag strapped on, he's back into the depressing alley.

Before turning the corner, some footsteps can be heard, he turns to look and see's none other than Kai.

Jared eye's him warily "Were you waiting for me?"

Kai scoffs "No, I live here!"

Jared chuckles, "Don't tell me this sidewalk is your home?"

"No you idiot, I live nearby okay?"

Scratching his chin Jared replies, "So what do you want Kai?"

He looks away for a second, then meets the older man's eyes, "Got any food?"

Jared snorts, "Cmon It's only been a few days, there's no way you've already finished off the bags you stole, and even if that wasn't the case, I don't even have enough money to buy a pillow, let alone enough money to give food away"

Kai turns his back and begins walking away, "Hmph, you coulda just said no"

Jared lets out a sigh as he walks away, he once again feeling emotional, (I feel for Kai, and I know his struggles all too well, but because of that, I won't be taken advantage of. I know that when you are on the street you have to take any opportunity you can get. Even if you have enough to eat now, I know better than anyone that it won't always be the case... and it's not like I can help everyone.)

Jared coughs with a whisper, "But... if he gets thinner, I suppose I can help him out... just a little"

Twenty minutes later Jared is sitting in the small tutoring room once more.

Tapping his foot he waits, the bell had long since rung, but the tutor was still late by fifteen minutes.

The tutor stomps in, Jared swallows what he was going to say when he noticed his tutor's foul mood.

Jared instead gives a smile, then spoke, "What's wrong Koi?"

The tutor blinks, "Nothings wrong, just some personal matters that I don't want to talk about"

He begins the lecture, but Jared decides to interrupt it with a few questions. These questions had been burning in his mind since last night, "Do you happen to know anything about Gastlys?"

The tutor gives a perplexing look, "Why do you want to know?"

"I... I was just curious about how a sentient ball of gas can exist at all"

The tutor's perplexion grows, but he answers anyway,

"Hmm, yes, I know a bit, but don't get your hopes up too much, there is not much known about gastlys you see... But, what I do know, is that they are impossible to tame unless they are willing. This is due to the fact that they can turn completely invisible, and can even phase through solid objects, or simply disperse at will."

Jared blinks in thought, (that ghastly was definitely watching me the whole night wasn't he... I sure wish I could turn invisible, but I'm responsible, I definitely wouldn't use that power to spy on women while they were changing clothes, definitely not.)

"They can't simply be captured through combat either, because even if you injure or knock one out they turn completely invisible while unconscious, and then fade into nothingness, and some scientists speculate that they might be immortal"

Seeming to forget he was talking to someone, the tutor taps the table in thought,

"Hmm yes, this means that only a scarce few trainers, even throughout history have ever tamed one. They are also prankers by nature, and without them willingly showing themselves, perhaps we would never know they existed at all, and for that reason, it's also very difficult to classify their rarity...

Jared scratches his head and changes the subject, "Do you know if pokemon can talk?"

The tutor replies with slight amusement," No, while some pokemon can sense your emotions or act as a lie detector, and others can parrot words back to you, I haven't ever heard of a pokemon holding a conversation, but that doesn't mean they can't learn the language and understand you."

"What about through telepathy?"

"I've heard of psychic or ghost type pokemon using telepathy to convey emotion, but the mind of a pokemon is different from ours, just like how we couldn't understand a fish even if it could speak english, we, in turn, can't speak to the fish. There have been attempts to teach pokemon to write, but all attempts had failed."

Having no more questions, the lecture begins, but Jared felt too distracted thinking of Gastly, so the time spent was a bit wasted.

A short time later Jared was making his trek home, he was lost in thought.

(Is that gastly at home special, or is it because the trainers lucky enough to tame one never revealed they could speak?)

Hearing two men in their thirties chatting as he walked past, Jared stopped, something they said caught his ear.

"Nah man, I ain't going, there's no way my rattata has got what it takes to make it into top three."

The other guy laughs "Heh, well you still got two weeks to prepare him!"

(Top three... are they talking about some sort of tournament?)

Damn, I should have asked someone about that, oh wait, doesn't this coincide with the school field trip?

(But without a pokemon it's not like I can even participate...no... wait, that's not entirely true, if I can get that gastly to go I could definitely participate!)

Jared loses his train of thought, as he chuckles at the two men's banter.

"Nah... didn't your wooper recently evolve two months ago, maybe it's a sign that you should sign up!"

"Hahaha, if I go will you cheer me on? "

"Of course, just as long as you pay for my ticket!"

Having heard enough, Jared continues walking until he was out of earshot range of the two jokers.

Curiosity gets the best of him, so he fishes out his phone and begins punching the words, *Tapu Village Pokemon Tournament* into the search engine, and can't help but scratch his head when only one result pops up. He clicks the website link regardless, however.

Once the website loads, packs of different headlines and articles could be seen, and a few pages down Jared finally found what he was looking for.

(Hmm, I see, so the tournament will be held near the center of the city at the Tapu Village Research Center... uh... tournament rules, uh... uh... ok I see, twelve days from now, so it wasn't two weeks... At least they don't charge a fee to enter, only to watch, or else I wouldn't even have the opportunity to try, then again, if I joined the school field trip, I could probably watch for free.)

Jared schemes, (I have to convince Gastly to go, if I miss the tournament It will be three months until I can try again, and if I can become an official trainer all sorts of doors will suddenly open up to me!)

(I don't think I'll be able to finish memorizing that book in time though...and if I'm forced to leave town and go participate in tournaments I'll have much less time to study...)

(Still, even if I'm not knowledgeable enough...)

(Yes, I still can't let such an opportunity pass me by, what if the competition in the next three months is too stiff and I fail? won't I just be kicking myself for not trying now?)

An ember in his eyes begins to glow... (Gastly, you are my only hope now!)