Chapter name: Cemetery Crisis
Summary: Loss Town has some suspicious activity going on. It's affecting a lot of pokemon and a couple humans too. Maka is determined to find out why.
"That's why you can use pokemon attacks so well," Kid said. He walked alongside Maka and Black Star with his pokedex in hand. A strand of blue hair was sticking out of it. "Most people have normal type DNA, but yours is fighting type."
Black Star smiled immodestly. "I'm such a big star that I could never be a boring normal type."
Kid gave a look to the boy beside him. "I'll make sure to tell your thoughts on the normal type to your eevee."
"Wait, people can have types too?" Maka asked.
He nodded. "Yes. It's rare, but not unheard of. As a grim reaper I'm actually a dark type, and that's why I'm a dark type trainer. It's like I have a personal connection with them."
Maka was amazed. The full extent of travelling with the actual flesh and blood of Lord Death finally hit her.
Black Star looked at the minun and plusle following his companion. At the moment, they were the only pokemon outside of their balls. "I didn't know those were dark types."
"They're an exception."
As they talked, the trees in the distance turned into buildings. They stopped at the front of the city's entrance once they reached there. It looked abandoned. A ghost town, one might say. The sun was falling, but it was much darker than it should be. The only lights to be the ones on the pokecenter and graveyard, however a thick fog muted their effects a good amount. Liz clearly did not want to go in at all. "Plusle plusle plusle! Plus plusle!" it cried, pulling its trainers leg away from the town.
"Stop it Liz, it just looks creepy but it won't hurt you," Kid said.
"Pluuuuuuusle," it whined.
Kid brought down his two luxury balls to his pokemon's heights. "Do you want to return?"
"You'd better return them," an unfamiliar voice said. It came from a woman with mid-length blue hair and deep brown eyes. Her police uniform made her identity obvious.
"Officer Jenny!" Maka said, probably sounding a bit too excited.
"Hey, aren't you the one who stopped, like, half of my fights in Death City?" Black Star asked.
Maka glared at him. "No. Don't you know that every town has a different Officer Jenny?"
Black Star thought about it and shrugged. He didn't really care.
Kid listened to his companions, but something was on his mind as they talked. "Odd of you to request that I should return them. Is something wrong?" he asked when they finished.
"Weird things have been happening here," Jenny said. "Pokemon have been acting weird if they stay here too long, then they disappear. It even happened to a person. Everyone was scared and left and I think that you three should too. You can come back when we figure out what's wrong, but until then keep your pokemon in their balls."
Kid returned his pokemon, not wanting to question the police. Maka's curiosity stopped her from sharing the same thoughts. "Why do you think this is happening? How long has it been happening? Could it be a pokemon?" she asked.
"Listen, I don't know what's happening. It's best if you just move along."
"Can I help you find out?" Maka asked, eyes gleaming with excitement.
"No, just leave it up to the police"
Black Star started walking into the town. "I guess we're getting that next badge a bit faster than we expected."
Maka and Kid followed. "Wait," Maka said, "It's getting dark. We'll never make it to another town before the sun sets and I'd rather not sleep in the wild."
"Wow, who are you and what did you do to Maka? Do you really want to not listen to the police?"
Maka looked suddenly flustered. "I- uh- no- um- wait…"
"It's okay," said officer Jenny. "You can stay here tonight and get your pokemon healed, but you should leave first thing tomorrow morning, alright?"
The three nodded. They followed the officer to the pokecenter to see Nurse Joy instead of a Nurse Medusa.
"Nurse Joy? But I thought you were all recruited to Hoenn," Maka said.
Nurse Joy sighed. "They got to go to Hoenn? I guess the communications here are still acting weird too." The nurse's attention quickly went off of Hoenn and to Jenny. "I thought we weren't letting anybody else stay here?"
"It's just for a night. They'll leave in the morning, right?" She looked at the children beside her.
Maka and Kid nodded. Black Star didn't; he was looking around distracted instead. After a soft nudge from Maka, he nodded too. Jenny looked skeptically at Black Star, but left regardless.
After taking their pokemon, Nurse Joy showed them to the sleeping area of the pokecenter. It had two sets of bunk beds, a bookshelf, and high, small windows that let in the moonlight. The kids claimed their beds, Maka and Kid chose bottom bunks and Black Star got the top bunk above Maka, and started getting ready for bed. Deciding that they were fine, Nurse Joy left them be and went to lock the doors.
Maka nearly immediately went to the bookshelf and read some books on the history of Loss Town. She was the first to fall asleep, a book still in hand. Her companions didn't slip into slumber nearly as easily, or at all.
Kid stared at the bunk above him, nowhere close to being tired. A light thumping made him take his eyes off the bed to find the source of the noise. It was Black Star trying to open the window from his bed. "What are you doing?" Kid asked quietly, careful not to wake Maka.
Black Star wasn't as careful. In his normal volume he said: "What does it look like I'm doing. I'm trying to get some sleep."
"What?"
The assassin stopped what he was doing and looked at Kid. "Don't you hear that? That singing? It's so loud and annoying and I can't fall asleep with all that going on! Maka is a freak who can sleep through anything, but I'm going to make it stop."
Kid climbed out of bed as Black Star turned back to his job. "I wouldn't call it singing, but we can't go outside; it's after curfew."
"Oh, you wouldn't call it singing. What would you call it then? Yelling? And what good is curfew if I can't sleep?"
The grim reaper wouldn't admit it, but the light hum he was hearing, which he assumed was what Black Star was talking about, was driving him crazy. Lord Death always told him to not let small things disturb him so much, so he was going to ignore it, but wanted the singing to end as much as his companion. Perhaps even more, but he was slightly less impulsive.
The sound of the window breaking after being dynamic punched made Maka stir slightly in her sleep, but it wasn't loud enough to wake her. Kid stared at the window petrified as Black Star grabbed onto it, trying to escape. "You… you broke the window…" Kid mumbled.
"I'll fix it later." Black Star could barely fit through the small window, but he made it out eventually. "Be back soon," he called to Kid.
Kid shook his head, undistracting himself from the broken glass. Grabbing his backpack, he threw it out the window, apparently hitting Black Star in the process because he said "ow." The trainer wasn't far behind his backpack; he climbed up to the top bunk and jumped out the window, fitting better than Black Star since he had much smaller muscles. He grabbed his backpack off of the assassin and put it on.
With the backpack now off, Black Star jumped up. "You can't bring me back. I'll battle if you try, and then I'll win again like last time."
Kid rolled his eyes, but even if Black Star didn't win their last battle, he had a fair chance of winning one now. Not only does his fighting type have the advantage over Kid's dark, but Black Star could easily use pokemon moves while Kid attacks best with his pokemon that currently where still in the pokecenter. "You don't have to fight me; I'm just here to help stop the noise so you can fix the window faster."
They started walking through the mist toward the main attraction of Loss Town: the cemetery. "I don't need you to babysit me."
"I'm not. I'm just making sure that you don't die."
"That's called babysitting."
Kid didn't respond. The singing was getting louder as they walked, until suddenly it stopped. Surprised by the sudden lack of noise, the trainers stopped too. From below them, a light "carosky (Care-O-skee)" was heard. They looked down to see a pokemon. It was small, about a foot tall, and very mouse like. A jerboa would be the closest animal to it, but not exact since this pokemon didn't have any arms at all and much thicker legs. It's body was smooth and navy blue with tiny yellow wings and huge ears with yellow stars inside. The same shade of yellow also appeared at the bottom of its legs with the top of its legs being gray. The pokemon's pink and magenta striped tail had a gray part at the end that looked like the wind up key on a toy. It's eyes seemed to be black buttons that had freckle-like dots below it. "Caro- caro!" it purred.
Kid smiled and he immediately grabbed his pokedex. He started taking a bunch of pictures. "Carosky, huh? That's your name?" It nodded. "Fascinating. How would you spell that? With an i?"
"Carosky?"
Kid closed his eyes, then opened them again. He could see a beige box saying CAROSKY Lv 11 and HP with a full green bar over the pokemon. "Okay, so it's with a y." The box disappeared as Kid started entering it into his dex.
Black Star looked between Kid and the pokemon. "What are you doing?"
"This is a new pokemon! Unique to Jotia." Kid pulled a hair from the creature. It didn't seem to like that since it used shadow ball, but it wasn't very effective. Kid put the hair into the pokedex. "Only ghost type… Strange, considering the wings. Maybe it evolves into a flying type."
"I don't care what it is, it kept me up!" Black Star quickly attacked the rodent, but he just passed right through it. "What?"
"Normal attacks don't affect ghost types."
Black Star glared at the carosky in determination. "Fine then." He now tried revenge, but that just phased through too. "How?"
"Fighting attacks don't affect ghost types either."
"Alright then Maka, then what does?"
Kid looked up from his pokedex for a second. "Literally every single other type."
"Well that's not fair."
The carosky looked between Kid and Black Star. "Caro-skyy~" it purred and started jumping away.
Black Star started chasing it. "You aren't getting away that easily!"
"Wait, I need a fun fact about you!" Kid called as he chased it too.
It jumped deep into the cemetery, and deep into the fog. All the way to this large brick tomb that was the size of an expensive shed. Its large metal door slammed once Kid and Black Star ran in, shrouding them in darkness. Suddenly, a carosky used flash and the room lit up along with Kid's eyes as he saw the thing in front of them.
It had the same head shape, eyes, and freckles as a carosky, but slightly larger and darker. It didn't have ears and a tail, but the carosky's wind up key seemed to move from the tail to the back of the head. It's body was long and insect like colored pink and magenta like the other pokemon's tail. It didn't have arms, but it had long, thick legs that started out magenta but turned dark purple. Large, butterfly-like, yellow wings came out of its body. Stars that were the same color as it's head, littered them. "Corafly (Core-uh-fly)," it said.
Kid ran up to it and took one of it's hairs like he did to the carosky and put it in the pokedex. "Ghost flying evolution, as I thought. Seems to be the final stage too." He started gathering pictures of the corafly too.
"This one is a flying type so now it can be attacked, right?"
Kid shook his head. "It's still a ghost type, so it still has an immunity to normal and fighting, but now it's a flying type so it's immune to ground too."
The trainers, however, were not immune to ground movements, so they both almost fell over as the ground started vibrating. The coffin inside was shifting, revealing a staircase. From there came a half dozen caroskys, which crowded around Black Star. "What are they doing?" he asked. Kid ignored him and continued to take pictures of the Corafly, so he didn't notice how one of the caroskys jumped into Black Star's mouth. The assassin tried to stop it, but his hand just phased right through. One carosky after the other jumped in. With each one, Black Star's attempts at attack got weaker and his eyes became more button like. Eventually, they stopped. Black Star's eyes seemed to be lifeless buttons.
"Hey, which do you think fits a corafly better: the Button Butterfly Pokemon or just the Button Pokemon?" Kid looked to Black Star for a response only to see him walk mindlessly down the recently revealed stairs. The reaper closed his pokedex and started following Black Star, the corafly close behind.
Once fully under, the tomb reclosed, darkening the new room into being pitch black. The corafly used flash this time, revealing an expansive room filled with many pokemon of every type, except dark and normal, and two trainers, excluding Black Star and Kid. All of them had the shapes of black buttons over their eyes.
It all became clear to Kid. "Maybe the Possession Pokemon would fit." He glared at the corafly. "Cause that's what you're doing, right? You know that by possessing any poor pokemon who happens to be affected by ghost attacks, you made people abandon this town. It's practically stealing."
"Corafly Corafly Cor Corafly."
A group of caroskys came bouncing up to Kid and tried to do to him what they did to Black Star, but he was very successful at keeping them away. "You know that you won't stand a chance against a grim reaper, right?"
The corafly flew up higher, out of Kid's reach. He started reaching for his skateboard, but a loud "masquerain" stopped him. A buttoned eyed masquerain was flying beside him.
Knowing that the half bug type posed a threat, Kid prepared for battle, putting his hands in front of him offensively. Since he was still holding the pokedex, it lit up at the presence of the pokemon. "Pokedex incomplete. No pokemon entry found," it said, distracting Kid.
He looked across the many pokemon, most of which he hadn't put into the pokedex yet. "Could you not attack yet?" Kid asked Corafly. He opened the pokedex again and started typing out some masquerain information. He took some pictures, edited out the button like eyes, and also gathered some of its DNA. All of the information needed on the pokemon was registered into the pokedex, then kid put it down. "There, now that the pokedex is done, you-"
Kid got cut off by his device. "Pokedex incomplete. No pokemon entry found." He looked to where he put it and saw a button eyed whismur standing just in front of it. Kid looked between the corafly, masquerain, the whismur and the pokedex. 'Pokedex incomplete…' he thought over and over again, until he eventually gave in and registered the whismur into his dex. A possessed wingull was waiting close behind for its entry too. Slowly, the line was building.
Maka woke up to Nurse Joy shaking her. "Where are your two friends?"
"What?" Maka asked in a tired haze. She looked over to see Kid's bed empty, Black Star's blanket practically falling off of the bed, and broken glass littering the floor. "Those idiots," she mumbled. "Black Star probably ran off. My guess is Kid followed him since he didn't like the broken window. I can find them."
"No, you have to leave! It's not safe here! I shouldn't have let you three stay here in the first place."
Maka climbed out of bed. "I'm sure it'll be fine. They couldn't have-"
Nurse Joy shook her head. "I'm not going to lose another person. You're leaving now. Do you want your friends' pokemon?"
"My friends can have their pokemon. I can find them, I promise."
A friend ball, two pokeballs, and two luxury balls were handed over to the young trainer. "Please, I don't want to call Officer Jenny to force you out of town."
Maka could hear the sincerity in Nurse Joy's voice and knew anything she said would just be met with pleas to leave. Thinking, she looked at the balls in hand. "Okay, I'll leave," she finally agreed. Maka packed up the little stuff she brought out along with her newly acquired pokemon and started walking to the town's exit. Of the three ways to leave, Maka chose the one closest to the cemetery, since it was the way to Expiry City.
Nurse Joy walked with her, making sure that she was safe. When Maka made it just outside of the town, she looked back, which Nurse Joy didn't think much of. Maka was scanning the fog for any last sign of her friends before she left. Suddenly, she saw something awfully similar to what she saw when battling Stein. Two box shaped things were faintly looming under the cemetery, one saying ASSASSIN Black Star Lv 19 and the other saying REAPER Death the Kid Lv 28. Even after she blinked a few times, the boxes didn't go away. A lot more popped up, saying pokemon names, genders, levels, and hp.
Maka looked away from them to face Nurse Joy. "I can see them."
"See who?"
"Black Star and Kid. They're in the cemetery, or under it actually. All of the other missing pokemon are probably there too."
Nurse Joy looked at her sceptically. "How can you tell?"
"I think it's because I'm a pokemon meister."
"I've heard about meisters. They can only see other trainer's names when they're looking at them, can't they?"
Maka shook her head. "At school they said that meister's abilities varied. Please trust me, I can show you where everyone is."
Nurse Joy thought about it for a second, then hesitantly agreed. After getting Officer Jenny and getting her on board, they went to the dark tomb that Black Star and Kid were underneath.
"So you say that they're all down there?" Officer Jenny clarified.
Maka nodded. "There should be stairs underneath old tombs like this. I read about it in a book at the pokecenter. The only question is how do we get to the stairs?"
"I've read that book too," Nurse Joy said. "Isn't it just a push?" She started pushing the coffin, only making it move slightly. Officer Jenny and Maka joined in on the push. Their combined efforts made the stairway visible, so the three walked down to see the many pokemon that disappeared a while ago, along with Black Star and Kid.
Nurse Joy immediately went to the closest pokemon to see if it was hurt, Maka went to Black Star, and Officer jenny went towards Kid, who was basically on the other side of the room.
Maka chopped Black Star with her book, but he didn't react. "Hey, what were you thinking? You almost got yourself stuck here." Black Star didn't respond, he just stared blankly ahead. "What's wrong?"
Kid was still typing on his pokedex when Officer Jenny made it to him. "What's going on here?" she asked
The young reaper realised that other people were there with him. He turned from the geodude he was registering to the police officer. "Officer Jenny, I was just about to get you. There's a corafly that's leading a herd of carosky's to possess basically all of the people and pokemon that it can, that's why some are disappearing." He started tiredly rubbing his eyes as he continued. "Since the possession is ghost type, normal types and dark types shouldn't be affected."
"Corafly?"
"Yeah, it's a kind of new-ish species." he handed his pokedex to the officer and pointed at said pokemon.
"Corafly. A ghost, flying type. Coraflys dwells near cemeteries. It enjoys the company of any sort, alive or not," the device recited. Kid moved it down to face a carsky now in front of them. "Carosky. A ghost type. Luring pokemon in with a ghost type song, it them can possess them, putting them in dream like states. The possessed will listen to corafly commands."
"So how do we break everyone out of possession?" Jenny asked.
"Ghost and dark type attacks should do the trick, but as far as I can tell, Corafly will attack back if being attacked."
Jenny nodded. "I see… So if you knew all of this why didn't you immediately come to us!"
Kid smiled sheepishly and laughed. He tapped his fingers together. "A-about that… I got a little distracted."
"A little? How long has it been?"
Looking at the clock on his pokedex, Kid's smile got more sheepish. "Eight hours…"
Jenny sighed. "Any plans?"
They discussed for a bit before Nurse Joy and Maka joined them, where Kid caught them up too. After a while, they all nodded, understanding the plan.
It started with Kid walking up and talking to the corafly. It didn't really matter what he was saying because he quickly got cut off by Maka yelling "Soul, faint attack! Blair, shadow ball!" said pokemon bursted out and started said attacks. Corafly looked horrified as the attacks pelted it. Caroskys started freaking out, running to attack Maka, but they just phased right through. Soon, they decided to attack her pokemon, but Kid stopped them.
It only took a couple of their super effective hits to faint the corafly. The caroskys all stopped too. They looked around confused and frightened. Nearly every surrounding pokemon adopted the same look of confusion and fright as the buttons disappeared from their eyes. This lead into phase two of their plan, where Nurse Joy and Officer Jenny help the recently fainted pokemon and all of the pokemon and people that were possessed. All but one.
Black Star ran up to Maka and Kid. "What happened! Did you upstage me again! I thought we agreed you wouldn't do that!"
Kid blinked. "I never agreed to that."
"Wait, you don't remember being possessed?" Maka asked.
Black Star shrugged. "I dunno. The last thing I remember is that stupid singing keeping me up and dragging me here." He yawned. "At least now we can get some shut eye. Thanks for making it stop by the way… just know I could have done it myself."
Giggling, Maka rolled her eyes. "Sure."
~~~~~~~~000~~~~~~~~~~~
A while later, Maka was back in the pokecenter reading while Black Star and Kid made up for their lost sleep. Her attention was moved from the book to Officer Jenny as she walked in. "They doing okay?" She asked, referring to the two boys. Black Star was tangled in his blanket, snoring loudly while Kid was stiffly laying completely still and symmetrical.
"Yeah, they always sleep like that. And apparently being unconscious while being possessed isn't the same as sleeping, but I wouldn't put it past Black Star to just say that to get more sleep." Maka said.
Officer Jenny smiled. "I just wanted to let you know that we can't thank you enough. Any of you. Without Black Star and Kid finding the caroskys and coraflys, you convincing Joy to follow you, or that plan you and Kid came up with, we would have never have saved all of those pokemon. Communications are back up, and we're well on our way to give them back to their trainers." Officer Jenny put three trainer tokens in Maka's hand. "This is the best we can do for your services, but it's nothing compared to your accomplishments today. We thank you."
Maka looked flustered. "Oh, thank you! You didn't have to. It was nothing really. This is really too much."
"It's the least we could do." Jenny started walking out, but she glanced back to Maka. "and good luck at Expiry City, even if you don't need it."
Maka looked down at the tokens in her hands. "Thank you. I'll try my best." She looked back at Kid and Black Star. "We all will."
This journey is not over (I just forgot about it a little bit. Woops, sorry). Hope it was worth the wait. Review your thoughts on it, I'd love to know them. Also, I'm not sure if the obvious Coraline inspired pokemon was obviously Coraline inspired enough. With that adventure over, what could be awaiting our heroes on their quest for the next badge? We'll find out as the journey continues.