Episode 11: The Forsaken Ship

Thanks to Sara, a member of Dewford Hall (and, evidently, a fan of Niko's), the group made their way to Slateport City, where Brittany would participate in her first pokémon contest. They were riding on a speedboat courtesy of Sara and the club, with just enough seats for the four trainers and the frizzly-haired fan.

According to JJ, the trip would take under a day if they didn't stop. If they did make a stop, they'd arrive late in the evening or early in the morning. For most of the trip, things seemed to be going just fine: the group was talking about unimportant things, with Sara occasionally butting in with a high-pitched comment. They had only been on the water for a couple of hours before Jake spotted something off in the distance.

"Niko, what is that?" He shouted above the motor of the speedboat. The brown-haired trainer turned in the same direction as his brother, immediately noticing the same thing: a massive ship.

"Hey, Sara, what's that ship doing there? It doesn't seem to be moving!" Niko shouted to their frizzly-haired friend.

"That's the Forsaken Ship, don't worry about it!" Sara yelled back just as they heard an explosion erupt from the back of the ship, creating large waves that rippled in every direction. The speedboat shook violently in the aftermath of the explosion.

"We should go see if anyone is in there!" Brittany, in a sudden—and rather unexpected—bout of courage, said.

JJ beamed at her in shock. "Are you serious? It just exploded! Are you mad woman!?"

"N-no…no I'm not!" Brittany said, huffing a little.

"Let's go check it out," Niko said, turning back to Brittany and nodding, tacitly supporting her idea. The brunette nodded back, and with a sigh of hesitation, Sara directed the speedboat towards the Forsaken Ship.

The ship, still on fire, was held up on a bed of rocks, suspending it in motion as if it were still operable. The speedboat stopped on its left side, and the group and Sara got out and climbed a nearby ladder, presumably made for visitors such as themselves.

Niko looked down the ship at the remains from the explosion, turned to his friends, and began running down. Brittany immediately followed, and lastly JJ. Jake wanted to go, but Sara stopped him, commenting that he was much too young to be dealing with things like this.

The flames that resulted from the explosion were beginning to die down as it began to rain. Niko looked around at the rear end of the boat.

"Well, there definitely was an explosion here," Niko said, raising an eyebrow as he cautiously leaned over the back rail to see what had happened. There was a large, gaping hole in the back that seemed to blow out parts of the bottom and top of the ship, and left most of the side walls intact. The back wall of the ship was completely obliterated, allowing the three trainers to see inside it.

"Now what?" JJ, who didn't seem too excited to be at the ship, asked. Niko turned to him and shrugged. "You're kidding me…you wanted to come here, and now you don't even have a plan?"

"Well, we could go down and see if any people or pokémon are hurt. I can't imagine they would be, since this place is abandoned, but hey, it's a good opportunity to go and explore the place, right?" Niko said, patting JJ's shoulder as he and Brittany began walking towards a nearby door, motioning for Jake and Sara to join them.

The group walked around the inside of the ship. It was damp, dark, and looked to be crawling with unknown pokémon. Niko asked if Brittany's pichu would be able to use its electric abilities to light the place up, but Sara interjected, summoning a pokémon of her own: chinchou.

The angler pokémon then lit up the two bulbs hanging off its head and illuminated the room they were in. By all accounts, it looked like any ordinary cruise ship. There were doors leading to rooms all down the hallway, and a set of stairs after every ten or so rooms.

As they were walking down the hallway, they suddenly heard an odd noise coming from one of the rooms. Creeping up to it, the group held their ears up to the door and heard a deep moaning sound coming from inside. Niko backed away nervously, as did JJ, Brittany, and Sara. In fact, it was Jake—of all people—who opened the door, albeit slowly. Peering into the room beyond, the younger brother gasped audibly at the sight.

In the middle of the room was a small blue pokémon who clearly looked frightened. Surrounding it were several clouds of fog that swirled in a circular motion. Niko cowered a little at the sight as Jake summoned mudkip to help out the pokémon.

"Mudkip, let's go buddy! Save the pokémon over there!" Jake commanded.

"Wait, Jake! Hold on!" Niko shouted, pulling out a pokéball of his own. "You need to think these things through first. Taillow, go and help mudkip!"

The tiny swallow pokémon burst out of its pokéball in pursuit of mudkip, who was already racing towards the tiny blue pokémon. As the mud fish got closer, the clouds of fog descended upon it, frightening the water type into paralysis. Taillow then jerked forward, attempting to use quick attack, but found that it was unable to do so.

"Shroomish, come on out!" JJ commanded in an attempt to help out. "Use stun spore on the clouds of fog!"

The mushroom pokémon released a puff of yellow spores from the top of its head into the air, tying to concentrate them in a single direction towards the clouds. It accidentally hit taillow, who collapsed onto the ground, also paralyzed like mudkip.

"Hmm…well, whatever they are, they're clearly ghost types. Umbreon, let's go! Use faint attack!"

As JJ summoned his starter pokémon, the fogs began to reveal themselves. Out came small little puppet-like pokémon that was covered in a gray cloth with a pointed horn on top and yellow and dark blue eyes. JJ pulled out his pokédex to get a better understanding:

"Shuppet, the puppet pokémon. Ghost type. This pokémon roams about deep in the night seeking such negative emotions as grudges and envy It retreats to its nest when the sun begins to rise."

Next to the shuppet appeared another pokémon, a floating creature in a black robe with two bones on its back and a mask that resembled a skull. A single red eye was floating between the skull's eye sockets. Again, JJ looked at his pokédex to get information:

"Duskull, the requiem pokémon. Ghost type. A glare from its single scarlet eye makes even burly grown-ups freeze in utter fear. It is a nocturnal pokémon that roams about under the cloak of darkness."

Umbreon rushed forward and disappeared before suddenly reappearing behind one of the shuppets, slamming into it as it took a shadow ball from a duskull to its side, causing it to crash back down into the ground. The shuppets and duskulls all turned to the group, who each had pokéballs at the ready.

"Treecko, use absorb!" Niko shouted.

"Umbreon, get back up and use faint attack!" JJ commanded.

"Torchic, let's go! Use ember!"

"Mudkip! Can you get up?" Jake said, running under the fire of the attacks towards his paralyzed pokémon. Mudkip looked up at its trainer. It had taken quite the scare, but was feeling ready to move again. Noticing this, Jake nodded. "Alright, let's show these guys what we're made of. Mudkip, use water gun!"

The mud fish pokémon breathed in some air before releasing a burst of water at one of the duskull, sending it hurtling towards a wall. It phased through and back, summoning a shadow ball at mudkip. As the mud fish prepared to use water gun to block the move, treecko jumped forward and took the hit, collapsing the wood gecko to the ground. Noticing this, mudkip unleashed a stronger burst of water, albeit out of anger, at the duskull, this time sending it flying through the wall behind it. Taillow, who had just gotten over the stun spore, rushed to treecko's side and helped it up and took it over to Niko, who tended to the two pokémon while the rest fought.

Torchic managed to set one of the shuppet's one fire while shroomish paralyzed it with stun spore, knocking one out. Umbreon managed to take down a duskull and shuppet on its own with faint attack, and taillow—recently getting back into the fight—took down the final duskull with a peck attack. Noticing the power of the group's pokémon, the ghosts fled the room, leaving the five trainers with the little blue pokémon.

It was a tiny little pokémon, only a couple feet tall (at best). It had no arms, only two long ears and some sort of bulbous growth on its forehead. Most notably, it had a wide mouth and seemed to be chittering in fear. Crouching down, Jake pulled out his pokédex to examine the little pokémon:

"Wynaut, the bright pokémon. Psychic type. A wynaut loves to eat sweet fruits. It cleverly picks fruits using its earlike arms. They gather in fruit gardens, drawn by the fragrance."

"Why is it here, of all places?" JJ asked as Jake was trying to calm the wynaut down.

"Why…not?" Niko asked, laughing a little at his own pun. Brittany shifted her eyes to Niko, trying to look more serious than she actually was, since she found the pun to be a little hilarious.

"Niko…" JJ said, shaking his head. "You know what I mean…"

"I do, JJ, I just don't have the answers you're looking for."

Just then, they heard someone running down the hallway. Moments later, a little girl with blonde hair and pigtails and another young blonde woman in a white pikachu t-shirt and denim shorts (who looked to be her older sister) peered in through the doorway. The little girl squealed, and suddenly the wynaut sprang up and ran towards her.

"Wyny! You're safe!" She shouted, hugging the wynaut tightly. The young woman approached JJ and the group, turned back fondly towards the little girl.

"Did you find this wynaut?" She asked, pointed over her shoulder.

"Yeah, we were touring the ship after the explosion and found some ghost pokémon terrorizing the wynaut. We shooed them away. Why? Is it hers?" JJ explained.

The young woman nodded. "Indeed, it is. I guess I should be thanking you. We were here visiting the ship, since Lacey here likes spooky stuff, and we heard the explosion only a couple doors down. It frightened Wyny and moments after the explosion, he was gone. We've been searching for it for the past hour, so I should really be thanking you all for this."

"No problem. Happy to help, I guess," Niko said, rubbing the back of his neck. The young woman nodded and beckoned Lacey to get up as they left the room. Lacey waved and thanked the group, with Wyny crying out cheerfully as they were out of sight.

For a moment, the group simply stood there, not quite sure what had happened.

"You know guys," Niko said, "I'm happy that we helped that girl and all, but I think we should get going. It's been a strange day already."

Brittany and JJ nodded. Sara, who was silent for most of this, concurred and followed the rest of the group out with her chinchou leading the way.

As they got back into the boat and continued on their journey to Slateport City, Sara mentioned something that seemed to send a slight chill down the group's backs.

"You know, it's weird. Duskull and shuppet aren't native to this part of Hoenn. For them to appear there, out of the blue, is very strange."

Niko turned around, watching the Forsaken Ship disappear into the distance, wondering what Sara meant. He quickly put it out of his mind, though, as they looked forward towards the ocean ahead, and Slateport City.