Author's Note: Happy Halloween. This was something I wanted to try…and although I usually put this and the disclaimer at the end, I think it works better for this up here. Enjoy…
Disclaimer: I do not own Pokemon. Pokemon is owned by Satoshi Tajiri, Gamefreak, and any other respective and legal owners.
Puppeteer's Curse
Obake shuddered. Morning...how he hated it...
The small Shuppet, wandering the grassy patches of the area near the berry fields, wondered for the millionth time why in the world he had left the lovely, dark depths of the inside of Mount Pyre, or even the shrouded peak. The nice couple who lived there always gave him treats...of course, the nice couple near the berry fields did too, but the sun hurt too much in the day time. Back on Mount Pyre he could get treats during noon.
"Eeek! A Shuppet!" The ghost-type turned his two-toned eyes to stare at a young girl trainer not too far from him. "Aaaah! No! Now it's STARING at me!"
"Shuuuuuu..." whispered Obake, grinning inwardly. It was always fun to scare young trainers, and this girl was no exception.
"Uwaaaaa! No! Kai-kun, go!" Obake rolled his eyes as the brown-haired girl tossed a red-and-white device out. In a flash of red light, a blue amphibious Pokemon appeared, his bright eyes focusing on Obake. "Kai-kun, use surf!"
A wave of icy water slammed down over the small frame of the puppet, causing the Pokemon to squeal.
"Another time!"
Obake sneered, and a nail appeared in front of him, materializing out of nowhere. He laughed as it impaled him, the laughter frozen on his supposedly dead face as his health slipped away, and even as he floated to the grass as an unconscious flutter of his cloth-like body.
"What did you do, you stupid ghost!" Obake woke to the feeling of being stared down at. He opened one eye, bored, and smiled as he noticed the sun had set.
That surf-curse combo really took a lot out of him...he was unconscious for almost half a day. Usually it only took, at most, two or three hours for him to wake up from unconsciousness.
"Tell me! What did you do to Kai?" He fixed his eyes on the girl, whose blue eyes were stained red from recent and current tears. "Tell me why he hasn't woken up yet!"
Obake laughed. What a stupid girl! Couldn't even heal her Marshtomp! And here she was crying over a cursed Pokemon. All trainers, thought the Shuppet, should know that curses go away after the battle is over. If not, the Pokemon faints, the Pokemon gets healed, the curse is lifted.
"I HATE YOU!" Her brown hair swirled around her head as she sobbed into her hands. "Tell me...why Kai...isn't here now!"
Obake rolled his eyes, and started to float away. He didn't have time to listen to the pathetic trainer whine. There were sweet Pecha berries to eat over by the berry fields...
But there were none.
The Pokemon blinked, staring at the fields. What once was filled with lush berry trees had been turned into nothing-just gray ash littered with small rusted-over pieces of metal. Even the house, where the couple that owned and tended to the fields lived, was rotting away, as if nothing had been there for years. The curtains hung on thin beams, the windows were dusty and shattered, the door hung on its hinges...
And Obake sensed nothing. Nothing at all. Not even a fellow Shuppet haunting the house, happy to receive a sanctuary.
"What...what happened here?" The ghost twitched as the girl spoke directly behind him. "When I came this way earlier this morning...what happened to it?" She blinked, then turned her focus to the floating Pokemon. "This is all your fault! I know it is! Everything is your fault!"
Obake glared at the girl before floating over to the former home of the berry trees. Those metal objects looked vaguely familiar...
They were all nails. Thousands and thousands of nails, all half-covered in a coppery shade of rust. The nails littered the fields, not reflecting any small bit of light the slowly appearing stars or moon had to offer.
In fact, as Obake noticed, it was growing more and more difficult to see the celestial objects as the seconds ticked and passed by. A mist was settling over the dead route...not much different from the mist that permanently hung over the top of Mount Pyre.
"What-what's happening?" The girl murmured, hugging herself as the temperature dropped...and kept dropping...
Obake felt an odd sensation rise up in his body. It made his pulse quicken, that is, if he even had one to begin with. It filled him with this rushing sense of dread, and it clouded his senses even more than the mist ever could hope to.
He barely knew what this strange, alien emotion was called, although he knew the girl was suffering from it at the same time he was.
Panic.
Wait...the girl...
He had lost sight of the girl.
He whipped his small head around, trying to find her. Sure, they weren't friends, and she hated him, but where was she? Had the mist eaten her up?
Like...like his curse had eaten her Marshtomp up?
Suddenly, a muffled scream shot out from all directions. It sounded similar to the girl's voice, and similar to when she yelled it was...all...his...fault...
The girl! The girl! Where was she?
Clack.
Obake looked down. Although he could not sense what direction the girl's scream had come from, the soft sound that had just resonated through his entire body had a definite direction.
Down.
Where the nails lay.
He fixed his sight on the ground, littered with nails, although the mist was growing ever thicker, ever covering up the image of the metal objects.
Clack.
Again! Again! There was that sound again!
Obake blinked, floating down ever so little. He could barely see the red of the rust on the nails...the red...on the nails...
Clack.
That sound!
Clack.
Again!
Clack.
There! There! There it was!
Obake shot down, trying to see what caused the noise. He hated it...he felt his heart, something he barely knew he had, beat faster and faster and faster and faster with the panic he had just come to know.
Clack, clack, clack.
This time, he saw it. He really saw it. The nails were jerking around on their own...every now and then, one would twitch-clack-and then another would jerk-clack-then another-clack-then another-clack-then another.
Clack.
Clack.
Clack.
Heartbeat...he could hear it very well now. It was filling his ears and his sight swam.
Clack.
Clack.
The nails were jerking more and more, their movements growing larger.
He remembered the girl's scream.
Clack.
What had caused it?
Clack.
Was it his imagination, or did some of the rust not really look like rust...
Clack.
But...a liquid...a rust-colored liquid...
Clack.
But what liquid would be that color?
Clack.
He knew what it was.
Clack...clack...clack...
The movements were growing more frequent.
Obake knew he should get away...out of the graveyard of nails...but he couldn't. He couldn't even pull his eyes away from the nails.
Clackclackclackclack.
Obake knew what was going to happen.
Clackclackclackclack.
He really did.
Clackclackclackclack.
After all, it was he who brought it all on, right?
Clackclackclackclack.
What happened to the Marshtomp, the berry fields, the couple, the girl...
Clackclackclackclack.
Obake knew.
Clackclackclackclack.
The puppeteer was going to be his own audience.
Clackclackclackclack.
Then why...
Clackclackclackclack.
Did he...
Clackclackclackclack.
Feel so...
Clackclackclackclack.
Afraid?
Clack.
Silence.
Then they all moved at once, shooting up into the air.
They had one target.
Now it was his turn to scream.