There it was, the S.S. Dawnbreaker.

The ship wasn't as big as any of those horrible fishing trawlers that crawled their way through the Goldenrod harbour, but that certainly did not mean the craft was small by any means. The thing looked to be three stories tall and at least four Wailords long, its glossy white outside giving off a feeling of extravagance and a rather queer sense of new experiences. It truly was a sight to behold. I wondered what I would find when exploring the colossal vehicle.

As I boarded the ship I allowed my mess of dark hair to fall across my face, obscuring my dull, grey eyes from the people around me. Clutching my ticket from within my jacket pocket I readied myself for the confrontation with the boat's attendant. I don't really know why I felt like I had to prepare myself whenever I wanted to communicate with another human being, but I always felt so insecure about it, like the person I was talking to would suddenly decide I was crazy... well, I was crazy I suppose, but that's beside the point.

"Ticket please!" the attendant chimed, an over-exaggerated smile plastered across her face as she reached out to receive my slip of paper.

My gaze instantly dropped to the floor, my eyes hiding among the tangles of my hair. Without speaking, I took the ticket from my pocket, probably creasing it quite dramatically before placing it into the attendant's outstretched palm. As I returned my arm back to the safety of my jacket I realised that I had been shaking.

"Are you alright there, miss?" she asked, sounding genuinely concerned- something that I definitely didn't want, that would mean a continuation of the conversation- and that would mean more chances to make a fool out of myself, and that would mean that more and more people would have the chance to pin me as a freak.

"I-I'm fine," I gushed, quickly pushing past the desk and into the confines of the boat before the attendant had a chance to speak further.

I gave a sigh of relief as I pulled the hood of my jacket up around my pale face. The handing over of the ticket most certainly could have gone better, but I was just thankful that I hadn't drawn any unwanted attention. At least I thought I didn't attract any unwanted attention, the people that passed me by didn't seem to be giving me strange stares so that was a good sign.

I reached into my pockets once again, withdrawing a crumpled map of the ship. Yesterday I had managed to acquire one from the Goldenrod information centre. Apparently the vessel often took travellers between Sinnoh and Kalos, but that wasn't the reason I had picked up the map. I had spent over two hours last night studying the thing in order to find the fastest route to my room. But now that I was physically on the ship, I wasn't so sure as to where the hell I was supposed to go.

"2B... 2B..." I muttered my room number under my breath, finding it on the map and trying to correlate the markings with the corridor around me. How the hell was I going to find my way around Kalos if I couldn't even navigate around a boat?

As I trekked deeper into the ship's maze of corridors I began to hear a voice booming down the hall. It was obviously amplified by some sort of microphone. Being the curious girl that I was, I decided that since I couldn't find my room, I may as well try to entertain myself- I wouldn't get involved or anything, just find out whatever it was that was going on down there.

As I finished my walk through the corridor I felt sunshine splash on my pale face, I was on the deck of the ship now, the Sinnoh breeze tangling my hair even more than it already was. My eyes searched the area, looking for the source of the microphone, it was then that I noticed a small group of people gathered around a boy.

He looked to be around my age, definitely no more than nineteen. He was rather short for a guy, probably still taller than me- but that wasn't exactly hard, still though, despite his height he commanded attention like some sort of celebrity, drawing in eyes as if he were a vacuum. I couldn't really place what it was about him that caught these people's interests... maybe his curls of ginger hair, wrapping around his head like a hood of fire- or maybe it was his eyes, glistening a bright green that just brimmed with hope for the future. Whoever this guy was, I'd hate to hang around him. He looked like the sociable, talk-too-much kind of fellow, and that was not something I wanted to deal with.

But still, I was curious as to what was happening, so I took a place a few feet behind the main bulk of his audience, leaning against the railing of the ship as I strained to hear his words in the wind.

"How're you all doing today?" he asked, a smile breaking out across his face as his audience cheered. "My name is Damon Atlas and I'm here to entertain you all with some..." he paused, giving an intake of breath as to what was obviously an attempt at creating some dramatic effect, "Magic!"

Once again the audience let out cheers. This Atlas kid really seemed to be eating up all that attention like a child would to ice cream.

"Now, to begin I'm going to use a simple card trick," he said, making a show of shuffling a deck of cards, letting them twist through his fingers as he masterfully weaved the deck between his palms. "To do this trick, I'm going to need a volunteer. Any takers?"

A chorus of 'pick me' and 'over hear' rang out from the crowed. Good, he wasn't going to be picking us out at random, if I just stayed at the back, I could see his little magic show and then leave.

"How about you, pretty little lady?" He pulled a blonde girl with the body of a supermodel up onto the stage with him. Of course he would go for her, all of these attention whoring guys were like that.

"Would you be willing to share your name, miss?- wait, don't tell me-" He paused, making very over-exaggerated movements around his temples to show he was deep in thought. "It's Jessica, isn't it?"

The blonde giggled, "Yes, Jessica Kingsley. How on earth did you know that?"

Damon gave a sly smile, "A magician must have his secrets..." He winked before launching back into conversation, "So Jessica Kingsley, huh? I believe your family owns Parfum Palace over in Kalos, your father is a member of the elite four, no?"

Huh, so that's how he knew her name... he didn't read her mind, he just picked out a person in the crowd that he recognised. So much for magic.

"Yes, that is correct," Jessica chimed in reply, "Daddy's also going to take another shot at becoming champion soon."

"Well I wish him the best of luck!" Damon grinned, "Anyways, on with the magic. I'd like you to think of a card- any card at all, excluding the Jokers of course."

"Alright, I have my card."

"Now, I want you to focus as hard as you can on your chosen card, think of nothing else except that card."

"Okay."

"Now check your purse."

Jessica opened the small bag at her side, quickly plucking a card from its depths and revealing a seven of spades to the audience. "I don't quite know how you managed to get that in there," she said with less surprise than I had expected, "But this isn't my card."

Damon gave another knowing smile, "Oh I know that, a seven is much too low for you." He suddenly snapped his fingers and the card that Jessica was holding burst into flames, "You're much hotter than that, I'd even say... a perfect ten."

Jessica gasped and revealed the now ten of spades to the audience, "That's my card!" she giggled. Arceus that laugh was obnoxious.

I gave a sigh, the trick would have probably impressed me had he not used those cheesy pick up lines along side it. Jessica seemed to love the compliments though, good for her. Still, I had to admit that I was rather stumped as to how he figured out the card, the fire was fairly interesting too... I gave a quick glance around the deck, checking for something he could have used to help him.

Suddenly my eyes landed on something hovering above the ground just a few feet behind Damon. It was a Pokemon! He must have used some sort of move to help him figure out the card. I remembered reading up on a move called 'Mind Reader' that a few Pokemon could learn- maybe that was it. I just had to figure out which Pokemon it was.

I edged around the side of the vessel, straining my eyes to get a better look at the thing. It was certainly unlike any Pokemon I had read about in the Sinnoh libraries... maybe it was rare- no... there was something strange about that Pokemon... something that I couldn't quite place... Could it be that- no, that would be impossible- ghost Pokemon don't exist! Dark thoughts started to creep into my head again as I wondered if I was just imagining the floating Pokemon. Was I having another mental breakdown?

The creature looked like it used to be the husk of some bug-type Pokemon. It's black eyes just ghostly slits that stared blankly into the crowds around us, unmoving. There was also something strange about the back of the Pokemon- like some sort of malevolent energy was seeping out into the air, it almost felt that if I stared too far into the pitch black crevice I would be sucked right into it. I shivered at the the thought.

"This thing is not real!" I told myself harshly. If it really was there then surely one of the other members of the crowd would have noticed it by now, at least one of them would have been perceptive enough to notice the floating husk, it wasn't even hidden.

That settled it, the apparition was definitely not real.

Hm, maybe all that therapy from the psychiatrist was helping. I mean, now that I could tell when something I was seeing isn't real- It would only be a matter of time before I stopped having these ridiculous hallucinations altogether.

With a sense of satisfaction I turned my eyes back to Damon, expecting him to be readying another trick or hitting on that Jessica chick. What I was not expecting was his bright green eyes to be staring straight back at me.

I suppose I wouldn't have minded his gaze if it had just been one of curiosity, or even one of mild discomfort, but he showed none of that. While his face remained neutral, his eyes betrayed a feeling of absolute shock. What the hell had I done to draw his attention? Did I do something crazy while looking at my hallucination? Was I speaking all my thoughts out loud? Question after question raced through my head as he continued to eye me up with that piercing green stare.

Suddenly his face snapped away from mine and back to a rather confused audience, "Uh, that'll be all for today folks!" he hastily spoke, the confident demeanor from before completely evaporated. "Something just came up and I gotta get to my room to deal with it real quick!"

He ran off the stage and towards the halls of the stage, leaving a rather dumbfounded audience and a rather shaken up me to gaze at his form as he ran towards the cabins.

What the hell did I do? I gave a heavy sigh as my curiosity began to outweigh my wish to not draw attention- I needed to know who the hell this guy was. I turned toward the cabins and began to chase after him, his fiery hair like a torch allowing me to easily keep track of him among the crowds of the ships.

As I continued to weave amongst the crowds of the S.S. Dawnbreaker in my desperate flight to keep up with Damon I came to realise that he was a damn sight faster than he looked. It must be something to do with his magician skills that gave him the unArceusly reaction times that he was employing to almost flawlessly duck in between the ship-goers, something that I was not so successfully doing. I would have been embarrassed as hell were it not for the adrenaline cascading through my body.

Suddenly I lost sight of the orange-haired magician, he must have gotten too far ahead. I gave a sigh of disappointment as I realised that my curiosity would not be sated. However, just as I began to slow down to a stop I felt hands reach out and grab my right arm, swiftly pulling me to the side and sending me spiralling into the floor of one of the cabins.

"Who the hell are you?"

I groaned, taking a moment to figure out exactly where I was before pushing my hair to the side and getting to my feet. Standing before me, green eyes looking even more shocked now that he had discovered I had chased him, was Damon.

"Well?" he asked fearfully, nervously shifting his weight from one foot to the other. "What do you want from me? I have money- yes, quite a bit of money!"

"I-I just w-wanted to know why y-you ran from the stage," I stuttered, returned to an anti-social mess now that the adrenaline from the run had died down. "Y-you looked at m-me like I did something I-I wasn't s-supposed to."

The magician looked genuinely confused at my explanation of why I followed him, whether it was from what I said or my incapability to utter a syllable without stuttering I did not know.

"You mean- you're not a witch?" he asked, as if that was something reasonable to assume.

"N-no?" I said questioningly, rather taken aback at the strange bluntness of the question.

"So..." The fiery haired boy clasped his hands together rather awkwardly. "You weren't here to like, kill me or anything, you just wanted to know why I ran away from the stage?"

I just nodded my head.

"W-well that's a funny story really..." He scratched the back of his head, giving a strange sort of sideways smile, almost as if he was trying to pretend we were having a perfectly normal conversation and he hadn't just accused me of being a 'witch'. "You see... I- I get seasick! Yes, seasick! And-and I needed to use the bathroom to hurl but I was too embarrassed to tell anyone." He grinned confidently, as if he was satisfied with the explanation he had just given. Arceus he was strange- although I suppose I couldn't talk, I had just chased him into his cabin after all.

After a moment of silence Damon cleared his throat, "Alright, now that we've cleared all that up, we can leave my cabin and forget this little 'incident' ever happened. Okay?"

"O-okay." I agreed, now just wanting to leave the room and get out of the strange boy's presence.

"Excellent!" Damon moved toward the door to his cabin and holding it open. "Shall we?" He asked, motioning for me to leave before him.

"T-thanks." I managed to say before walking back out into the corridor, glancing behind me as Damon stepped out after me. After that the two of us just kind of stood there awkwardly, waiting for one of us to begin walking away so the other could immediately walk in the opposite direction. I was just about to begin heading to my right when suddenly I heard someone calling from further down the hall.

"Damon!"

It was that Jessica chick from before. I wanted to leave even more after I realised she was coming here, but Damon gave a look that was nothing less than a cry for help- and after a minor internal struggle, I decided to at least see how this played out... and try not to lash out at that obnoxious blonde.

"Damon!" Jessica smiled, "Fancy seeing you here!"

"Jessica!" Damon returned the smile, but now that I had talked to the guy, I could see that it was faked. "What can I help you with?"

"Oh, I just had one question for you, if you don't mind me asking of course," she replied, blue eyes sparkling.

"Go ahead, you can ask anything you want." The magician gave a wide grin, "How could I refuse a woman as beautiful as yourself."

Arceus that boy was charismatic. Too charismatic. He knew exactly what to say to make people smile- not that I admired him for that, his constant pandering to Jessica's appearance was almost as annoying as the girl's constant giggling.

"Ok, do you think you could show me how to do one of your magic tricks?" Jessica asked, looking up at Damon innocently, "I would love to know how to do something so cool!"

"As I said before- A magician must have his secrets." He replied. These guy was full of cheesy lines.

"Awww." Jessica pouted. "Wait a second!" Her face suddenly lit up, "What if we have a Pokemon battle! If I win you have to teach me a magic trick! Your girlfriend over there can ref!"

I immediately went bright red at that, looking over at Damon I could see that his face had flushed with embarrassment as well.

"She's not my-"
"He's not my-"

We both tried to explain at once but ended up cutting each other off.

"So you'll battle? Great!" Jessica chimed, tossing a Pokeball without waiting for an answer. "Go! Ignis!"

"Fennekin!"

A canine Pokemon leapt from the ball, baring its rather small fangs in Damon's direction. It had strange orange tuffs of hair protruding from its ears that just screamed 'I'm a fire type'.

"Alright then." Damon set his jaw, a Pokeball instantly appearing in his hand. To be honest, I thought that he would somehow talk his way out of this battle, but by the way his green eyes now shone with a hard determination I knew that he full well planned to win this battle.

"Go! Dynamo!"

"Abra!"

Now this was a Pokemon I had seen before- well, read about before. Back in Goldenrod there had been countless guides that all said the same thing- this little sucker can teleport all over the place.

"So this is a one on one battle, right?" Damon asked.

"That is correct!" Jessica chimed.

"Alright then, I suppose I should let the lady have the first move."

"Well how kind of you! Ignis, use ember!"

"Fen!"

The Fennekin let loose a small burst of fire directly toward the Abra.

"Dynamo, you know what to do!" Damon called out.

Rather than teleport away from the oncoming fire as I believed the Psi Pokemon would, it instead just sat completely still.

"Are you going easy on me just because I'm pretty?" Jessica asked, "Oh how gentlemanly of you!"

Damon grinned, "Oh I'm not going easy at all."

As the ember collided with Damon's Abra, instead of his Pokemon seeming to take any damage it instead just disappeared entirely.

"Huh?" Jessica said in surprise. "What happened?"

"Substitute happened," Damon explained, "It rolls out a clone of my Pokemon to distract you with while the real magic is happening somewhere else! Dynamo, get off a point blank Psyshock!"

"Abra!"

Jessica's Fennekin cried out as Dynamo pelted it with a huge force of psychic energy. If that attack hadn't outright knocked the poor Pokemon out then it was damn well close to it.

"Ignis, honey, are you alright!" Jessica exclaimed. "You better come back into your pokeball, dear!" With that the blonde returned her battered Pokemon.

"You are aware you forfeited the match, right?" Damon asked, slightly confused.

"Oh yes! You were much too strong for me!" Jessica said. "Oh, I know what we should do! You should travel through Kalos with me, that way you could help me learn to get better at Pokemon battling!"

Oh dear. I almost couldn't stop myself from laughing as I saw the look of horror on Damon's face. That would truly be a horrible fate, trapped with her throughout an entire trek of Kalos- if it were me deciding I would rather go through hell than have to suffer through that ordeal.

"Actually, I already promised I would be travelling with- er- her." My eyes widened as Damon pointed at me.

"Oh, but surely we could still travel together!" Jessica said, seeming rather disappointed.

"Actually, uh, she-" He gestured toward me again, "Gets really nervous in groups of three or more, so it'd have to be just us."

What the hell was this boy up to? I wasn't travelling with him! I didn't want to travel with anyone!

"Oh, ok..." Jessica sighed, "I guess I'll have to challenge you to a rematch some other time!"

"Yeah! I guess I'll see you then!" Damon replied, seeming exhausted from speaking to her for such a long period of time.

With that Jessica turned around and left toward the deck, leaving Damon and I behind to stand in an awkward silence for a while.

"Ahem." Damon cleared his throat, turning towards me. "I have a favour to ask of you."

"If you want me to travel with you, then no." I replied, a lot more forcefully than I thought I was capable of.

"Please, please, please!" Damon pleaded. "I'll do anything you want, anything. I swear on my life!"

"No."

"Come on, please! If that girl ever sees me travelling alone, I'll be stuck with her forever! Imagine what that would do to me!"

I sighed, I really didn't want anyone to travel with me- this was supposed to be an alone thing, a time for me to prove to myself that ghosts don't exist! But... maybe a friend would be useful, I mean- if I saw anything weird, I could ask Damon if he could see it too, then I would know if it was real or not... but still...

"Gah! Fine!" I said, "Meet me at Aquacorde harbour tomorrow at eight."

"Thankyou, thankyou, thankyou! You'll never regret this!" Damon yelled ecstatically.

I sure as hell hoped that I wouldn't.