"You need all seven of them dead. Nobody can know what happened to them in the house, understand?"
"Don't worry, I never leave my dinner unfinished..."
"Ahh, I really want to see some ghosts tonight!" Rine shouted, causing everyone inside the café to stare at her and her friends. The 16 years-old energetic girl had always been fascinated with ghosts and was overjoyed when her parents gave her a small Misdreavus for her fourteenth birthday.
"Please, stop shouting because we're getting stared at…" said Nano in a low, trembling voice before stuffing his face with a croissant to overcome his anxiety.
They were sitting at a big table in a cafeteria in Hearthome City, planning their exciting adventure, an overnight stay inside the Old Chateau, a well-known building for its peculiar and unexplainable occurrences. People thought that ghost-type Pokemon had been running rampant inside the building and it was deemed dangerous for the public. That would be another fun experience, adding up to the list they had of adventures, including the climbing of Mt Silver and the exploration of the Cerulean cave.
"Guys, really don't know how we convinced Nano to come with us inside a haunted mansion." said Natsu jokingly, having his right arm resting on his girlfriend's left shoulder. "Remember that time when a Zubat flew by him in Cerulean cave and he peed his pants?" He started laughing loudly.
Kanou removed Natsu's arm from her shoulder and with a frown on her face said "Natsu you weren't any better hiding behind me the whole time. Stop picking on poor Nano!" Now, both guys were blushing from the embarrassment of those memories.
"Anyway, Alex interrupted, we need to find a way to sneak in because, recently, it's been closed for the public to visit. They're saying something about the pokemon there causing damages and being dangerous." With his cheek resting on his hand and his mouth slurping a Razz berry juice, the black haired boy was trying to come up with a plan to trick the two guards standing outside the mansion throughout each and every night.
"We can have Misdreavus hypnotize them so they'll be sleeping." Whispered Rine.
"Yeah, I thought of that too, but when they wake up in the morning they will know that a certain Misdreavus did that to them and they'll suspect that trainers got in. If only we could have Misdreavus sneak up behind them." Alex was, once again lost in thought. The guards should be wearing special goggles, enabling them to see ghost-type pokemon as clearly as day. "Were are the twins, anyway?"
The door suddenly opened and two teenagers, a boy and a girl, walked in. They caught the other customers' attention as their blond hair and green eyes weren't that common in the Sinnoh region.
"Oh! It's Miso and Bito! Guys, Over here!" Rine shouted, which gave Nano another anxiety attack.
"Good afternoon, everyone!" said Miso with her known kind smile and cheerful eyes. "Hey…" said Bito before searching for a chair to borrow from another table as they were all taken in theirs'.
After the twins sat down with their friends, Alex explained that they were stuck with their plan and didn't know what to do. They all stayed for a minute in silence before Kanou broke it.
"You guys have brought your Illumise and Volbeat with you, right?"
"How do you think I'm gonna beat up anyone who comes close to my sister?" Bito said, retaining his unchanging snob face, making Miso turn her stare away from him in anger. "You know, this has to stop at some point. You're getting annoying." the blonde girl said, clearly fed up with her brother's behavior.
"Ugh, you already started? Whatever, can't we use them as a kind of distraction for the guards?"
"Oh!" Alex' eyes sparkled from the sudden idea. "If we can have your pokemon light up their orbs inside the forest and one of the girls starts screaming, that'll probably distract them enough for Rine's Misdreavus to hypnotize them, right?"
Kanou followed his thoughts and continued "Also because Volbeat and Illumise aren't ghost-types and it will be pretty dark right there, they won't be able to tell where the lights are coming from!"
"Babe, you're so smart!" answered Natsu after hearing his girlfriend and Kanou blushed a bit at the compliment.
It was decided. While not having 100% probability of success, with their current resources it was their only option. After some more chat, they headed for the hotel they were staying at. They originally met through an online forum that planned excursions and eventually formed close bond with each other. Most of them were coming from Hoenn, apart from Alex, who has lived in Unova all his life, up until a year and a half ago, when he moved away from his parents, in Hoenn to start on a journey to become a champion. Natsu had the same dream but was too obsessed with Kanou, at the moment, which made his quest slow down a bit.
The wind in Hearthome was rather chilly for an April afternoon. The sky was giving off peculiar hues, the colors transitioned from a heartwarming orange to an eerie and ominous ultramarine. "What a fitting atmosphere for what's going down tonight." Rine thought to herself and a little smile formed on her mouth. A couple hundred meters west, there was the Eterna Forest, which was surrounding the ghostly mansion. Generally, the forest was cold and, because the trees were huge, sunlight would hit the forest floor, rarely.
When they arrived at the hotel the group separated in three groups, the boys, the girls and Natsu with Kanou. Rine entered her room with Miso and laid down on her bed. Beside her, on the sleeping desk was a framed photograph of all of them together, right before they went in the Cerulean cave.
It was a trip they were planning for a long time and most of them were very excited to explore the famous landmark. At first it was very fun, just before they would decide to explore the cave a bit further. After a while, hoards of really strong and furious pokemon were trying to attack them. Miso and Nano were injured mildly, putting them along with Bito into a state of panic. Somehow, they managed to escape the monstrous hell-hole. And they would do it all over. All of them, even if some didn't seem like it, were daredevils, drunk from the adrenaline rush.
"What's up Nano?"
"I don't know, Spoink isn't feeling great, I guess." answered Nano, clearly worried.
Miso observed the purple pig-like pokemon, which was jumping up and down, in a rather fast, anxious pace, looking out the window. Its eyes were locked at the direction of the forest. "Probably he's getting a lot of spectral energy from the forest, because of the Old Chateau. Psychic-types are getting pretty stressed out when they're close to so many ghost-types. Nano, you aren't feeling anything right?"
"I feel something strange and uneasy coming from that forest, too, I guess." Nano, since the day he found the small Spoink injured near his house, has developed a special ability that made him sense psychic, dark and spectral energy, nearby.
Inside the couple's room, things were more cheerful. The young couple was in a close embrace, kissing and touching everywhere. "Tonight's the night." said the heated boy looking at his beautiful lover, with the most loving, but mostly mischievous eyes. "Tonight, we're having sex."
The bold statement made Kanou blush and she turned her face away. "D-don't say it like that… I just told you that I might be ready."
He kissed her neck and continued. "You also said that it would be a perfect experience for us to have our first time inside a haunted mansion with ghosts and huge queen-sized beds."
"Yeah, keep talking and you're having nothing tonight." she said jokingly and their making out went on.
At 10 o'clock, they all met up at the entrance of the hotel, all packed up and ready and headed for the Eterna forest. Everyone was really focused on not getting any weird looks from anyone who might suspect they were breaking in the haunted building, all except Rine. Rine was hopping and singing campfire songs with her Misdreavus floating around gleefully. The sky had lost it's colors. No moon was to be seen as it was a new-moon night. The darkness had enveloped everything in its sharp claws and the only thing giving off light was the street lamps. Near the exit, the city lights were dying and little could be seen as they started following the ghostly-quiet path to the bone-chilling forest.