Chapter Seven: The Haunted Mansion
After three fierce battles against the Junior Trainers of the Eterna City gym, Lucas had finally gotten to the Gym Leader, Gardenia. As he stood in front of her his first thought was not to challenge her. In fact, even after the bitter confrontations with the Trainers who had insulted him, battle was the last thing on Lucas's mind. The only thought he had now was that he knew her. Lucas didn't know Gardenia because he had ever seen pictures of her, in fact, the teen didn't know any of the Leaders in Sinnoh. He hadn't even heard the name of the Eterna City Leader until he read it on the sign in front of the building. He knew her because he recognized the green cape that she wore over her shoulders. And from the startled expression on her face, Gardenia had recognized him as well. Lucas, however, was the one to speak first, "It's you. You're the person I met in Eterna Forest. You showed me how to get out,"
"That's right. And you're the boy with the sick Eevee. It looks like everything is okay now, he seems pretty happy and healthy on your shoulder," Gardenia smiled warmly.
Lucas lowered his head, breaking eye contact with the Leader and clenching his fist, "If it weren't for you, Gizmo would have died. I found him abandoned by his Trainer. He's mine now, but if it weren't for you I wouldn't have even had the chance. I wouldn't have Gizmo, I wouldn't be a Trainer," Lucas met his eyes with hers again and stated earnestly, "For that you have my gratitude until the day I die. I'll never forget what you did. But you are the Gym Leader here, and I've come to challenge you for a badge. And I plan to win. Even though you helped me I can't take it easy on you, but I promise it'll be the best battle I can give you,"
The teen pulled a Pokeball off of his belt and waited for the battle to start. Gardenia's lip began to twitch, her face became completely red and tears formed in her eyes. She covered her face with her hands and turned away. The Trainer with the plaid skirt ran up to the two red-heads and snarled at Lucas, "Nice going, you creep! Not only did you thrash our Pokemon, now you've made Gardenia cry with your threats of beating her!"
"Megan! He has every right to try to defeat the Leader. And he isn't a bad person, just an unfashionable one," The trainer in the long dress chastised her teammate.
"It's not that," Gardenia managed to say between her bouts of racking sobbing, "It's that I can't battle you. I've-I've lost my Pokemon!" The Leader then stared bawling again.
"What?" All three of Gardenia's Junior Trainers gasped, "How?"
The grass-type Trainer tried to compose herself, wiping her eyes and nose and turned back to Lucas, who stood speechless in the middle of this strange scene, "My family has been in charge of protecting the Eterna Forest for generations. During the day I can survey it just fine, but at night I just can't,"
"Um, not to seem dumb but I don't see the connection," Lucas said sheepishly, nervously playing with the loops in his right ear.
"At night is when the Ghost Pokemon come out," Gardenia explained, "And, to tell you the truth, I'm terrified of them! I know Leaders are supposed to love all Pokemon and everything, but I can't get near a ghost-type without shrieking and wanting to run away. I know I can't do that. I know I have to at least tolerate ghost-types if I'm going to be the best Leader I can be. So that day you saw me in the forest, I had gone to the Old Chateau, an abandoned mansion in the middle of the forest. I tried so hard to not get scared, but a Ghastly popped up and terrified me. I ran away screaming. But as I was escaping, the belt with my Pokeballs fell off,"
"Gardenia, why didn't you tell any of us?" Melissa, the trainer that looked like a girl-scout asked.
"I was so embarrassed. I didn't want to tell anyone. I had hoped as strong as the three of you are I wouldn't have to. I thought you guys could keep any Trainers away until I could get up the courage to go back and get my poor Pokemon, but I just can't get the nerve to go back there," Gardenia admitted with a defeated slump. For a moment, all the Trainers in the Gym fell silent as they all thought about how to remedy the situation.
"I can get them for you," Lucas finally announced.
All the women of the Gym looked towards him. Gardenia blinked in surprise, "Are you sure?"
"You helped me save Gizmo. I figure saving your Pokemon is a good way to repay the debt," the teen explained before grinning, "Besides, there isn't a helluva lot that scares me,"
While the Junior Trainers all looked to each other, the Leader's eyes welled up with tears again. This time, she was smiling.
Lucas left the Gym and headed for the Pokemon Center to heal his team. While he thought he could survive against a Leader battle, he knew exploring required his Pokemon to be in peak condition. It was already dark as he headed towards the forest, ready to follow the directions to Old Chateau that Gardenia had given him before he left. This late at night, the Fisherman that normally peppered the pond outside Eterna City were gone, leaving the bridge and the small docks eerily empty. It had been several days now since Lucas last saw the forest, and his memories of the landscape blurry from the adrenaline-fueled dash to the Pokemon Center the day he met Gizmo. Even if he had remembered what the location looked like, he was fairly certain it wouldn't have mattered. The lack of light and long shadows gave a sinister look to the trees, making everything look unfamiliar and threatening, and the chittering and howling of the nocturnal Pokemon gave an eerie background noise to the small snaps and cracks made by Lucas' heavy boots.
What the boy said at the Gym was true, Lucas was not easily scared. Two stints of Juvenile Hall pretty much eliminated any fear of anything that wasn't truly deadly. Though he was not easily scared, the teen wasn't stupid either. The darkness was a perfect cover for an ambush by human or Pokemon, and being alert and cautious was a necessity. He could feel from the tenseness in Gizmo's grip on his shoulder that the Eevee felt the same suspicions. Finally Lucas found the fork in the road that lead to the mansion. He tried to make a mental note of where it was. Eterna Forest was very easy to get lost in, and it was much larger than just the small section he crossed in order to get to the city. As the teen walked down the path, the forest got darker. The trees grew thicker, blocking out the small amount of light made by the waning moon above him. The shadows turned part of the path pitch black, and the Trainer stumbled and tripped over the rocks and branches on the ground.
"This is ridiculous," Lucas grunted after faceplanting on the damp ground for a third time. He pulled himself up and yanked a ball off of his belt, "Go Hotrod!"
"Char, Char!" the small fire-type chirped happily. The flame on his tail brightened up the ground, finally giving the teen a chance to see what was in front of him. However, while the light made it easier to see, it also made the shadows even bigger. A chill ran down Lucas' spine, and his senses amplified by the pumping adrenaline coursing through his body. He was being watched. He could feel it. The teen glanced anxiously at each tree and shadow when suddenly two of the larger shadows moved.
"Uuuooouuu!" an unearthly groan came from the woods. The shadows morphed and shifted until they formed the shape of two humans, before becoming clear in Hotrod's light. As far as Lucas could tell they were a man and a woman, similarly dressed in garish purple outfits, covered with charms and amulets, and both wearing the same haunted expression on their faces, "The spirits are restless tonight,"
"Who the hell are you?" Lucas took a defensive posture, not sure what to make of these bizarre people.
"We are Psychics. Trainers of psychic and ghost-type Pokemon," They said together, doing nothing to diminish their unnerving behavior.
"So you want to challenge me?"
"No, there would be not much point in it," The man finally said individually of his partner, "We know the outcome of the battle anyway. Your loss would be most humiliating."
"Sure it would," Lucas said with a roll of his eyes. He relaxed his body, though Gizmo still seemed uneasy and alert.
"We came to give you a warning," The woman continued, "We know you will be going to the Old Chateau this night. Be most aware in there, if you must go at all. It is a place with a dark history of madness, and could destroy you if you're not careful,"
No wonder Gardenia's scared of ghosts when you have nuts like this running around at night. Lucas thought to himself, "What kind of dark history?"
"The Old Chateau was a laboratory in addition to a mansion. The owner was a scientist who dared to dabble in something he should have never touched. One night the entire mansion glowed like an unearthly beacon, and everyone inside vanished. Since then it has become infested with Ghost Pokemon, and occasionally those who dare to venture inside either go mad, or vanish entirely,"
"Um, well, thanks for the information. It was...informative. I hope you guys have a nice night," The teen edged away from the couple slowly, glancing back towards the path he intended to follow. The two Psychics stared at him strangely, "I'm going to walk away now."
Lucas walked quickly away from the creepy Trainers and shortly afterward found what he assumed was the Old Chateau. The building was indeed quite huge and in its heyday the young man assumed was a beautiful place. It was several stories tall surrounded by statues and intricate molding. Now the siding was cracked and falling off and all the windows were broken. And the entire building was at a slant that suggested it could collapse at any moment. The Trainer turned to Gizmo and Hotrod and commented, "As far as I can see the only thing dangerous about this place is that it looks like a small wind or decent sneeze is gonna knock the freaking thing down. The sooner we go in, the sooner we can find Gardenia's Pokemon, the sooner we can get our happy asses away from this deathtrap,"
His Pokemon nodded reluctantly in agreement, but would only move if Lucas took the lead. The door to the old building was unlocked, but difficult to open because the frame was no longer square. The teen was hesitant to put too much force on it, fearing his thoughts about the Chateau's structural integrity weren't blown out of proportion. With enough of a nudge the door eventually swung open, giving the teen his first glimpse inside. It was clear to him that no one had lived there for at least fifteen years, if not longer. The furniture was fairly modern, though most of it was knocked down and broken and coated with a thick layer of dust. On the bare wood floors he could see the footprints of people and Pokemon had come in exploring before him. In the center of the front room was a large statue of a Pokemon Lucas didn't recognize and several doors and a staircase were visible in the various directions.
Gardenia had not been very precise about where she lost her belt, only saying that she lost it sometime between being on the second floor and running out the front door. Lucas stepped forward and motioned for Hotrod to step ahead of him to illuminate more of the floor, so the teen could see all the way to the staircase. The belt was not there, meaning it had to be somewhere on the second floor. The teen walked towards the staircase when the front door slammed behind him. Lucas whirled around with his fists raised, ready for an attack. There was no one there. Satisfied that it was either the wind or a Pokemon who had caused the action, the young man headed up the stairs. He cautiously tested each one before putting his full weight on any of the steps, but despite the building's looks, the staircase felt sound. Each one creaked uncomfortably, and despite his rationalization, tiny threads of fear formed in Lucas' mind.
Despite Hotrod's light, the second floor still seemed darker than the first, like the darkness were an entity instead of just the absence of light. Though it was hard to tell, Lucas could see that there were at least a half dozen rooms on the second floor, with no idea how big the rooms actually were. For the sake of simplicity, Lucas started with the first door on the end of the hall. As he put his hand on the door, the tiny hairs on the back of his neck stood up. He could hear laughing. It wasn't the kind of laughing from a cheesy horror movie, it was worse. It was the kind of noise that so quiet you weren't sure if you actually heard it, and wondered if the noise was real or just in your head. The kind of noise the makes you question your sanity. The teen shook his head and turned the knob. He reminded himself things were only scary of it could cause him to die. Anything else was just wasted energy. The door swung open easily and silently, and like Lucas suspected, the room was vacant. The occupant had been gone for ages, leaving behind papers with scientific information the teen had no way of comprehending and a strange framed picture on the wall. At least Lucas thought it was a picture, it shined a bit and was small like a mirror. Curious, the young man approached it for a closer look. Upon closer inspection, the rookie Trainer was certain it wasn't a mirror. Though the actual figure was impossible for him to make out, the teen could recognize a pair of eyes he knew wasn't his. Despite this, Lucas continued to stare at the image, wondering what sort of lunatic would put something like it on the wall.
"Veeee..." Gizmo was growling now, his coat puffed up and his ears flat against his head. Hotrod was snarling at the picture as well. Suddenly the eyes on the image narrowed angrily. Lucas had enough.
"Let's go see what's behind door number two," Lucas said anxiously, his voice becoming higher pitched than he intended. The next room, thankfully, was no where near are terrifying as the room with the painting. This room contained only a bed, a dresser, but unfortunately, no belt. The third room down the line was empty as well and just as Lucas was leaving the fourth room more of the unnerving sounds and darkness surrounded him again. The teen spun around, trying to find the source of the event, seeing nothing that answered any questions. As the Trainer set his foot outside the door, and instinct told him to turn around once again. This time, he was face to face with a Gastly. The Gastly let out a shriek and drew its tongue against Gizmo's face. The Eevee just sat nonplussed, ghost-type moves having no effect on Normal Pokemon. Getting face to face with the Ghost Pokemon relieved Lucas immensely and had a short battle against it. Chingling's attack made short work of the Gastly and the teen added the creature to his collection.
Knowing the source of the strange noises and sights gave the mohawk-bearing young man confidence in further exploring the rest of the floor. In the fifth room all Lucas found was an old styled TV, the kind still with a picture tube like his grandfather had. In the final room the boy found his prize. Caught on a handle of a chest of drawers was Gardenia's Pokeball belt. Lucas tugged the garment free and double-checked to make sure all the Pokemon were accounted for. The Leader said she had three on her belt and all three were there.
The boy whistled absentmindedly as he walked back towards the staircase when he noticed something strange. The door to the fifth room was open and the television was now glowing brightly, the low sound of static coming from the device's speaker. Lucas froze. All his confidence and calm vanished in an instant and all sense of discerning rational from irrational fears gone. All the young man knew was that Gastly don't know electrical attacks, there was no way electricity was still flowing in the house and there was no way he turned the TV on himself. Paralyzed with fear all Lucas could do was squeak out, "Jesus Christ! I somehow got myself into goddamn Poltergeist!"