"What are you laughing at?!"
"Skull!"
"Katerina says that she is laughing at you."
It wasn't just Katerina, however. I could hear dozens of other Duskull cackling in the fog all around me.
For once, Vladimir spoke without Katerina speaking first. "You must excuse the Duskull, especially Katerina, comrade. They do not mean to be rude. It's just that they delight in the misery of small children."
"I am not a comrade of yours, and I'm not a small child! I'm already eleven!" I snarled. Since Katerina was laughing so hard, I managed to get out of her grip. I marched over to Vladimir and glowered up at him.
"Eleven is very young, even for humans."
"No it's not!"
"Dussssssskull?"
"Katerina asks you to return to her."
"No! I'm leaving this place and all of you ghosts!" The Dusclops picked me up by the back of the shirt, and I fumbled to keep hold of Ike. Vladimir deposited me back in front of Katerina and she quickly put her paws back on either side of my face. I growled at her. I was in no mood to get eaten anymore. I wanted out of here, so I could track down that man and his stupid psychic and--I don't know, report them to the police or something.
I tried to ignore the little voice in my head telling me that it wanted to do much, much more.
"Dusssssssss," Katerina snickered, touching our foreheads together once more.
"Katerina says that you have much anger in your heart. You are naïve. You are just realizing the injustices of the world."
"I'll say," I muttered darkly. Injustices was putting it lightly. Injustices was traveling through an entire Route just to have the next Center closed. Injustices was waiting in line for four hours for the newest Pokemon figurine just to have them sell the last one to the person in front of you. What had happened to me was not an injustice. It was a healthy dose of bad luck mixed in with some higher powers who must hate me, along with a dash of cruelty on the world's part.
"Dussssssss, skull-dussssss."
"Katerina says that you will have to endure much more, if you are the trainer she has foreseen."
It took a few moments to snap myself out of my dark thoughts. "…What? Foreseen? Wait--like Future Sight?" What had that black-haired man said? He wanted security before things went south, and then said something about if I had had a psychic, I'd know…
"Dusssssskull."
"Katerina says 'naturally'."
I was torn between exclaiming "you're all ghosts!" and "what's so bad that psychics are freaking out?". I was a little peeved that ghost Pokemon could apparently now see the future--and who knew what they did with that information--but I was more worried about things heading south. "…What has she foreseen?"
"Dusssssss, dussssssss dussssss-skull?" Katerina asked with a small, hoarse chuckle.
"Katerina asks if you actually want to know or are asking on impulse."
"…O-Of course I want to know." Did I really, though? Even if I didn't, I wasn't going to back down. The ghosts all already thought I was just a weak little human, so maybe I could show them that I wasn't if I showed a bit of courage.
"Dusssssssss…"
"Katerina says 'excellent'."
"Skull! Dusssssssssskull, skull-skull, dusssssss."
"Katerina says 'But you shall have to wait until a later time, after we have discussed it among ourselves'. It is against the law for any psychic to reveal information like this to humans, trainer or not."
"…You're not psychics," I pointed out flatly.
"And that is why we might disclose the future to you," Vladimir replied impassively. "You are welcome to spend the night with us. Other wild Pokemon will not bother you if you choose to."
"Hold on. Let me just spare you the trouble. If it's going to take this much effort, I'll just leave." I wasn't fond of the idea of spending the night with a bunch of Duskull and Dusclops for company in a sea of fog.
"Where will you go?"
"I need to find my other Pokemon, and then I'm leaving."
"You are injured."
"I've been injured before."
"Dussssss," Katerina interjected with a high-pitched cackle.
"Katerina says that Haunter will get you. They are very curious about why we did not eat you and want to find out."
"I can take care of a couple of ghosts."
"With only an injured Shinx to protect you?"
"Shut up, okay?! I can handle this on my own!" I snarled, stepping backwards until my back was pressed against the stone pillar, Ike clutched tightly in my arms. "I am a trainer, and I can deal with my own problems. I will find my Pokemon, and then I will leave, and I don't care what you ghosts have to say about the future!"
Then I turned and ran. I managed to make it to a wall before I looked back. There were a few pinpricks of red, and I could have sworn I saw a grey one, but none of them seemed to be following me. Just to be sure, I followed the wall until I reached a door and went through. There were no red eyes (at least none that I saw) in this room, so I deemed it safe enough. I followed the wall again until I reached a corner and sat down, leaning against it, knees drawn to my chest. Ike moved uncomfortably in my lap, growling in his sleep.
At least one of us would be getting some sleep tonight.
-.-.-
I awoke sometime later from a vicious pull on my injured arm. I snarled and lashed out at whoever it was, nearly dropping Ike in the process. My hand passed harmlessly through the purple body of a grinning Haunter. "Hau hau hau," it laughed, tugging on my arm again.
"Let go," I said through grit teeth. Not only did its pulling hurt, but I really didn't want to deal with any more ghosts right then.
"Haun!" it sang, yanking again.
"Let go!" My shout woke up Ike (finally), and he blearily looked around until finally spotting the Haunter. With a yowl, he climbed up onto my knee and took a swipe at it, but like my attack before it, his paw just went through it. "Ike--attack! Don't you know any electric moves yet?"
"Shinx shii…" he muttered sheepishly, laying his ears back. I took that as a no. If only I had Des, or even Carlita…
"Just--let--go--" I tried pulling my arm back, but the Haunter took this as a game of tug-of-war and just pulled back even harder, laughing again. Ike hopped up onto my arm and used it as a bridge to get closer to the Haunter. He fluffed up and growled, but intimidation didn't work. It just earned me another yank, and they were getting progressively more painful. I was beginning to worry for the safety of my arm. "Help! Ivan! Katerina!" I shouted helplessly, still trying to pull my arm out of the Haunter's grasp.
Suddenly, the Haunter was flung to the side. The good news was that it let go of my arm and seemed to take some serious damage. The bad news was that it didn't let go of my arm until I felt something snap or crack or something that caused a lot more pain. My arm dropped limply to the side and I found myself unable to move it any more.
"Oh. That wasn't supposed to happen." I turned and glared, watery-eyed, at a large blue Pokemon with red eyes. It looked vaguely distressed.
"Get away from me."
"I meant to get rid of the Haunter, not to hurt you further," the Pokemon said sympathetically, coming a bit closer. I recognized its speech as the telepathic kind, so it had to be a psychic. Which was totally not what I needed right then.
"I said get away!" Ike stood protectively in front of me, tail lashing behind him angrily. Haunter were ghosts, so he couldn't do much to them, but this Pokemon seemed very solid. And large, but at least solid.
"I can help you," the Pokemon persisted, coming a bit closer. I noticed that it was levitating, which meant that it definitely was a psychic. Though couldn't anything walk in this place?!
"Come any closer and my Shinx will attack," I warned, backing up until I could feel the stone behind me once more.
The blue Pokemon responded by picking up Ike with some sort of psychic attack. Ike flailed and tried attacking, but couldn't move.
"The Duskull and Dusclops have already seen to you, I see. Well, I am no ghost and I can help you. I can help your shoulder." While that sounded very tempting, I was not about to trust any more wild Pokemon.
"I can help myself, thank you. Now drop my Shinx and leave me alone!" I didn't even have anything to throw, not even a stick to try stabbing it with.
The Pokemon paused, thinking. Finally, it floated on over until it was practically above me. "I'm afraid that I can't allow you to stay in here without supervision." With that, it picked me up with that same psychic move, which my shoulder definitely didn't like. I blinked back tears and tried to think of a way out of this that didn't involve even more injury. Such a feat seemed like a far-off dream.
"Dusssssss!"
"Let the human go!"
Oh great. The cavalry arrived.
"Can't all of you let me go?"
"I am helping the human-trainer. You ghosts are the ones responsible for this, anyway." The blue psychic holding us turned, and I at once recognized Katerina and Vladimir at the edge of visibility in the fog.
"We are not the ones responsible. The Haunter is!"
"You ghosts are all the same."
"You Pokemon are all the same!" I exclaimed, but was ignored. Maybe I should invest in a psychic, just so I could Teleport out of situations like this.
"I cannot allow you to hurt the human-trainer any more. It needs to be taken care of and then set free." I didn't know what bothered me more. The fact that it was apparently referring to me as an 'it', or the fact that it was treating me like a Starly with a broken wing. "Humans, especially human-trainers, have no place here. Even you ghosts should know that."
"Dusssssskull," Katerina replied challengingly, her blind eye wandering from empty socket to empty socket.
"We will take care of the trainer. Ivan started this, so we will finish it."
"You want to tell the human-trainer about the future. Don't think we psychics haven't realized that."
Katerina flew in a great circle, cackling madly. Vladimir watched her for a moment before returning his stare to us. "We are not psychic Pokemon, so we don't have to follow your rules. We just want to warn--"
"No one should be warned of the future! Now leave!"
"You all seem so worried about me, but might I remind you that I'm kind of hurting a lot right now?! If this blue thing wants to help, then let it! You two can bicker about it later!" I interrupted. All three turned to me, surprised that I would speak up in my own defense.
"We will accompany you. Do you intend to go to Furat for this?" Vladimir asked stiffly. He must have gotten some sort of nonverbal response, because he continued. "We will accompany you and then deal with the trainer once you are done helping."
I was entirely unimpressed with the lot of them as they marched out, carrying Ike and I with that psychic move, back out of the cave-temple-thing. It was still raining and storming, unfortunately--at least it was until the psychic Pokemon did something that immediately made the dark clouds disappear and sunshine rain down instead. We went to the water's edge, where the Dusclops stepped forward and shouted, "Furat!"
Immediately, the water splashed in front of us, and another blue Pokemon I recognized as another psychic climbed up onto the rocky shore. The Golduck shook off its hands and tail, smoothing out the feathers on its head, before turning to us with a hint of irritation. The water Pokemon's gaze dropped to me before returning to the other Pokemon.
"I see you have brought me another pet to heal, Bronzong. Or is this Dusclops'?" the duck said in a feminine voice, smoothing out her feathers flirtatiously as she eyed the ghost.
"The trainer needs a shoulder fixed."
"We also need to consult you because the ghosts want to inform it of the future," the Bronzong holding me insisted, setting Ike and I down gently on the ground. I instantly was back on my feet, but only managed the first two steps on my escape attempt before I was arrested again with telekinesis.
"Hmm, hmm. What's in it for me if I help the little human?"
"This human is an important one. We need this healing, Furat."
"Fine, Dusclops. But I will not be the one to hold it still. The shoulder is dislocated, and I will need to put it back into place. Bronzong, you will hold it still. And if the Duskull starts laughing, I will leave."
"Uh, what--?!" I was picked up again after the Golduck's rather alarming words. I knew what a dislocated shoulder was, and I knew how it was fixed--the shoulder was rammed back into the socket. "I'll take the injury, I'll be fine--"
"This will hurt, little human," Furat said as she sauntered over and grabbed hold of my arm.