I'm back!

Sorry it took a while to post this, but I had to sort some things out with the story. Now that I think I have a plan I'll try to update it fast like before. :D

Also, bear with me, this is a LONG chapter! Like, at least 16 pages, but it's interesting! Please read and review! Thanks! And stayed tuned for more!

NOTE: The ()()()()()()() is supposed to represent a 'flashback transition', kay?

Chapter 9: A Night of Fun

Umbreon crawled out of her tree burrow and stretched. It was a lovely evening. She found herself sleeping more at daytime than night now, due to being an Umbreon.

It had been a few days since she and her childhood friend had reunited. She herself had changed a lot over the years, but she found Gastly, or Haunter, hadn't changed much except in power. He was still as playful and viciously mischievous as ever, and she didn't mind one bit.

It was part of what she liked about him, how silly he was. It made her feel good, considering everything. In fact, that night they agreed to meet under their Pecha Berry tree to go out for a 'night of fun' as he described it.

Smiling to herself, she dimmed the rings on her fur and walked through the clearing back to the river, where she knew the path to the Pecha Berry was. She walked down by the river, acknowledging the few water-type Pokémon playing with their children, and went right down to the tree.

A Poliwag and Goldeen turned their attention to her and looked to each other, "There she goes off again." Goldeen whispered, "No doubt to go frolic with that Ghost boyfriend of hers."

The two Pokémon giggled at the gossip and Umbreon's ears twitched. Thanks to her superior hearing, she had heard Goldeen's remark and their giggles. It made her hang her head in annoyance and anger.

He's NOT my boyfriend!

Ugh, the thought of that was just…way too weird. Seriously, SERIOUSLY, her and Haunter? They weren't even in the same egg group!

She walked to the trunk of the tree and looked to the branches. To her relief, the beautiful pink Pecha berries were growing healthy and strong.

Umbreon laid herself on the grass and watched orange hues in the sky slowly start turning purple as the sun sank.

Goldeen's words entered her thoughts again.

"…with that Ghost boyfriend of hers."

She sighed and grumpily laid her head on her paws.

It was blatantly obvious, and she knew it. She's been an adult for a good number of years now. Even in human years she knew she had to be an adult, and that was just pitiful.
And even so, even after ALL her traveling; she knew she hadn't found something else that her kind often did when they left to evolve.

She hadn't thought about a mate.

Heck, even her mother and father knew they were destined to be when they were just Eevees themselves.
Most social Pokémon had found a mate early on, but not her. She was different than most Eevee because she had been a loner most of her life, her only real friend was Ghastly, and he was out of the question!

But he is the only guy you've ever had eyes for…

She grimaced and shook her head.
What was she thinking? She was attracted to Ghosts now? Eww! Isn't that…wrong?

He's not really a GHOST-ghost, you know that.

She growled at her own emotions mixing up her rational thinking. Haunter could never be a suitable mate! What kind of Pokémon would be together if they couldn't even have an egg?

It's happened before. It doesn't always have to be about offspring-

She cut her own thoughts off with another rough shake of her head and rolled onto her back to look at the sky. It was a deep shade of purple and blue now. Any minute now it'd become dark all together and Haunter would be here.

She frowned when her thoughts repeated.

It's happened before…

That was true. When she was young, her mother and father were friends with a Lapras. She was very nice to her, she rememberd.

Umbreon closed her eyes, the memory from her childhood coming back…

()()()()()

One day she noticed Lapras and an older Charizard nuzzling.

She asked her father about it, and Vaporeon only told her, "Ah yes, our old friend Lapras started a relationship not that long ago with her childhood friend, that Charizard. A strange couple, but if they love each other why should that matter, hmmn?"
Espeon shortly assured her, "It's not out of the ordinary for two different types to love each other, just very rare. Many Pokémon solely rely on our instinct to reprodu-uh I mean-get an egg, but a few others look for the more human version, which is love. In any case, if love is there, it can happen."

She recalled her mother and father giving a bashful glance to one another, which caused the excitable baby to respond, "Really? Then it would be okay for me to fall in love with a Charizard too?"

Amusingly, she remembered the shocked look both parents gave her and their embarrassed reactions.

"Eh hem, perhaps. Let's just see when you're older." Vaporeon awkwardly replied, to which Espeon teased, "You know hon, even if you were a Kabutops you know I wouldn't have cared."
"Oh really?" Vaporeon mockingly scoffed, smiling, "I highly doubt that. You would have missed my good looks."

The two grownups laughed, but she was too young to get it. Then Lapras playfully called out, "You know we can hear you all, right?"

When she looked over, the adult Charizard was looking down at her with a sarcastic smirk, "Just to let you know kid, you'll have to be prepared to show your strength if you ever want to impress a Charizard."

"We became friends when I bested him in a battle as kids, and fell for each other when I bested him again as adults." Lapras smiled at him, "It turns out we both liked each other for a long time and we were just having trouble accepting it, being so different. Or rather, I thought it was okay and HE was having trouble accepting it. It just took him forever to swallow his pride and admit it."

Charizard gave a stubborn huff and looked like he was going to teasingly argue, but he surprisingly gave it up and left to take a walk with Lapras down the beach.

()()()()()

Her eyes fluttered open from the brief memory to the sky again. It was a dark shade of blue and practically nighttime already.

She sighed and sat up, still unable to control her nagging feelings.

Well, he IS very nice and suppose doesn't look too bad…for a Ghost Pokemon. He's the only other male Pokemon I know…heck, what am I thinking? At this point, even if I met more males I doubt I'd feel anything for them like I do Haunter. In fact, there was always just…something there. Something about him that I like.

Her lips twitched into a smile.

Maybe it wasn't just his humor…maybe it was HIM?

She blushed a little bit.

I wonder if he's feels the same-no-what? No!

Furious with her emotions winning over yet again, she gritted her teeth and stomped the ground.

No! Stop it will you! You don't love him! This is Ghas-Haunter we're talking about! He'd never be interested or serious enough for a relationship! We're just too different! He's my best friend, one since childhood! It'd be just way too weird!

Umbreon knew it wasn't just the fact he was in a different group, but because he was her best friend she worried that if he didn't feel the same way it'd just make things sour between them. It'd be too awkward and nerve wrecking for Haunter if he suddenly found out she likes him and he'd distance himself. It'd also probably hurt them both and they'd lose their friendship…

And she really didn't want to lose his friendship.

That was it, she'd drop it. She wouldn't ever consider him as a mate again. She'd find one, and if not that was okay too. She'd be a loner, which was perfectly fine even if it was rare for Eeveelutions to do that their whole life, what with how social they are.

Still, she'd be content. Perfectly content indeed.

Yet…he IS so nice to me, and just a few nights ago he called be beautiful. Maybe he-

She scowled at this, but was further interrupted when she felt a chill and suddenly everything went dark. It made her jump and then tense when she heard a voice say in her ear playfully, "Guess who?"

Umbreon didn't even have to ask who it was holding his hands over her eyes, "A very obnoxious ghost?"

"Aw, that hurts Eve." He removed one hand from her left eye and used it to suddenly lift a Pecha berry in front of her face, "And here I went and picked this for you."

She smiled as he removed his other hand and floated around, revealing it was none other than Haunter. He was smiling in his cheesy way still holding the pink berry out to her. She shook her head and took the berry in her mouth. Umbreon dropped it on the grass and started to eat it that way, what with having no 'hands' to grab it.

He flew up and picked another berry from the tree and flew down next to her, "Sup Eve?"

She finished her bit and cocked her head at him, "You know Haunter, I'm not an Eevee anymore. You don't have to keep calling me Eve."
"Yeah yeah I know." He laid back in the air and put his free disembodied hand behind his head, like if he was lounging on an invisible couch, "But I can't help it. I've been calling you Eve for years, so I can't just drop it. I was planning on doing that anyways even after you evolved into whatever." He took a quick big bite out of Pecha berry and swallowed, "Besides, I still think that knick name's cute like you."

She flustered a bit and dipped her head. Okay, him calling her 'cute' wasn't really helping her little internal conflict right now.

Why are you so damn nice?

He noticed her awkward silence and shifted his eyes back to her. Umbreon's head was bowed a bit and her red eyes were avoiding his gaze. That was kinda weird, but come to think of it she did also tense when he got there.

It made him freeze.

Oh no, did I do something wrong? Was it something I said? Is she catching on?

Was it true? Was Umbreon figuring out that he may have some hidden feelings for her already? Dark Pokémon were powerful and capable of unusual things, but could she really be sensing something private from him that he's ashamed of?

Panicking, he dropped his mostly eaten berry and tried to recover, "I didn't mean anything by it!" now realizing the new mistake he made by opening his mouth, he slapped both hands on it in shock.

Umbreon snapped her head over to him, confused, "What? What makes you think that I thought you meant anything by it? And what would you mean by it?"

Unable to dig himself out of the new hole he just dug, he quickly looked around and changed the subject, "Uh-hey! Come on, it's nighttime! Aren't we gonna go have fun?"

She beamed up, relieved to have the whole thing swept under a different subject, "Yeah, yeah. What did you have in mind?"

Equally happy to have dropped the previous conversation, Haunter flew up to her face, a gleefully ghoulish expression on his, "I have a place I found 5 years ago I wanted to show you whenever you came back. I never thought I'd be able to since, well, you continued missing for 5 years. Now that you're here, we can go explore it together."
He backed away from his uncomfortably close position and instead started to rock in the air, "It's really cool! I can't wait to show you!"

She grinned in amusement at him, "Oh come on Haunter, spit it out already!"

He laughed and looked right back at her, ready to reveal his surprise, "Okay, okay! It's an abandoned house I found in the woods!"

Umbreon's mouth dropped open in surprise, "An abandoned house? Here in the woods? You're kidding me!" she turned her head behind her to the random trees that lead deep into the forest. She's lived in these woods for most of her life, even explored around here for a while, and she's never seen such a house.

Haunter teleported in front of her, making her jump, "Uh huh! I was bored one night, so I explored outside of the Cemetery for a little while. I got hungry, and instead of berries I had a craving for a soul." He floated in front of her, like if he was pacing, "I didn't feel like a fight. Instead, I decided to go searching for a spare, large one cause I was really hungry at that point. Finally, I was able to sense and find one nearby. It was really old, and kinda hard for me to tell what it was. It wasn't a Pokemon, so it might have been human, and it felt very hateful and vengeful. The stupid white orb attacked me, but I easily caught it and ate it. It tasted so foul and I immediately got indigestion."
He stuck his large tongue out and rubbed his stomach with both hands, remembering the unpleasant meal, "Yuck, whatever that human was like in life it must have been very horrible to be that disgusting down to the core."

Umbreon felt uncomfortable with him talking about eating souls, it was such a disturbing feature her old friend had. It was a good thing he barely ever did it. Well, at least to her knowledge…

Haunter also knew talking about soul consumption was scary to Umbreon, so he spared her details.

Instead, he looked back in the direction of the forest she was staring not too long ago, "Trying to keep from releasing the soul, I floated around in desperation to get control of myself. Then imagine my surprise when just through a few trees was a big old abandoned house! I guess that's where the soul came from, but I have no idea why it was wandering around outside of it. Well, I was so shocked and excited by the house I completely forgot about my stomachache and absorbed the big soul. In that moment, a weird tingly sensation enveloped me all over and then BOOM!" he clapped his hands and whirled them, "Next thing I know I became a Haunter at last! At the rate of my ghost Pokémon battles and soul consumption, I thought I'd never evolve!"
He smiled, very proud of himself, "I was extremely happy, and to celebrate I wanted to go into the house and explore. Yet, I felt like it just wouldn't have been the same without you." He shrugged, "So I left and kept that adventure on hold until you arrived. Shortly afterwards, I collapsed in agony because then I got nausea." He grumbled, "The damn soul hit me hard in the stomach even after I evolved. Took an hour for me to heal again and go."

Still, that doesn't mean she didn't feel bad for him, "Oh Haunter, you should be careful. Last thing I need is for my friend to get sick from an ill soul."

He shook his hand up and down at her nonchalantly, "Meh, relax Eve. I'm fine. I've consumed bad souls before, but that one was just so evil it got me worse than the others. It makes me shudder to think what that human must have gone through in life to be so angry." He sadly shook his head, "Perhaps in my own way I did it a favor."

Umbreon sat down in thought. While she was extremely interested in the house, she had another question for him, "Haunter, why did it affect you so badly? I know it was a 'bad' soul but why would that matter? I thought Ghosts could consume any soul no matter the origin or size."

He let out a long sigh, "That's yet another misconception about my kind. I guess I can't blame you for not knowing, I never told you much about this because I know how uncomfortable my diet makes you. Well, since you asked, no, I can't consume any kind of soul. Depending on the size of the Ghost Pokémon, they can't absorb souls way bigger than them. It'll cause us to either spit them out, or in very rare cases the energy becomes too much and we can explode. That's just rumor though."
The older Pokémon gestured around him with his hands, "We also can't consume ones with special hexes or protection spells around them. If we try to, the hex will destroy our physical form and we'll go into the 'other' realm." He used air quotes, "I'd rather not talk about the spirit world, thank you. Lastly, some of us have to get used to certain souls if we want to keep consuming them. For Ghost Pokémon that are relatively good, we have a hard time devouring really evil souls. I'm not saying I eat pure souls, as tempting as they are, but I eat average ones in my same 'range', okay? But the bad ones are hard to swallow."

She stared at him in concern, "Um, what happened if you kept eating bad ones?"

He groaned at the thought, "Other than a long era of indigestion? Well, I'd eventually get used to it, right after they corrupt my own soul. I'll become insatiable, demonic even. I'll want more and more souls, good and evil alike. This will go on until I eventually become feral, attacking anything living in sight. Sadly, to my knowledge, many wild Ghost Pokémon are like this. This urge can wear off with a lot of time and meditation, but if it still continues I would become feral permanently. Though there are many spirits in the Zoryn Cemetery, none of them have reached 'feral' state…yet."

He moved his slit eyes to her direction and realized she was staring at him in a hesitant expression. The thought that her old friend could get corrupted by something he lives off of was scary.

He quickly decided it was best to just start their adventure, "Look, I'll be fine. Don't worry; I'll never lose myself to that kind of torment. I promise."

He smiled at her warmly, which surprisingly reassured her and she smiled back.

Haunter scratched the back of his head awkwardly, "Anyway, enough about my food. Let's go to the scary house and explore while the night's still young!"

Now, back then as an Eevee she would have greatly hesitated going into a dark house, even if it was her friend asking her to go. Now that she was older and with him again, she was all the more eager and curious, "Sure! But remember, we have to be careful when we go in there."

She was curious, not stupid.

He nodded and eagerly took her right paw with his hand, "This is me we're talking about! We'll be fine!" he tugged at her paw as he started to float towards the trees, "Come on! We're burning moonlight here!"

She shivered at the feeling of her furry paw in his freezing cold hand. As he heartily dragged her through the forest and started yacking on and on about the house, she for the first time began to ponder what Haunters were made of. She knew they were gaseous, amorphous creatures in physical form, but what kind of skin did they have anyway? It wasn't smooth like a Poliwag's side, fine furred like her own, or hard like a Shellder's shell, but instead very cold and shifting. She could feel, the longer he held her paw, underneath the icy exterior the molecules of his skin were constantly shifting. It was solid, but still moved in a misty form. Though he could physically grab things now, there were the familiar traces of his ghostly haze as a Ghastly.

A gentle squeeze of her paw brought her out of her thoughts, "Umbreon?" Haunter asked warily, "You alright? You're being awfully quiet." He stopped floating and turned back to her, "Is there something wrong? Am I hurting you?" he tugged at her paw slightly to indicate his question.

She blinked a few times to clear her mind and looked down to her black paw still being held by his three fingered claw. She must have really zoned out because only now was she feeling the stinging numbness in her appendage. They must have been only walking for about ten minutes and her paw was already numb from being cold for so long, even with her fur.

Immediately, the pain hit her and she jumped, nearly pulling her paw out of his. He looked at her, his eyes dimming in what she knew was hurt. Slightly offended, but understanding, he said, "Eh, it's okay. I keep forgetting how cold we are." He let her paw go, "Sorry."

She nodded to him in acceptance of his apology, and they continued. She walked a few feet behind him, feeling a little bad. Her paw started to tingle as the feeling came back to it. How could she have not realized how cold it was before? The nerves started to get to her and the rings on her fur began to glow brightly.
Haunter quivered and hissed, "Careful Eve! You know I don't like light!" he wasn't being harsh, but he was serious.

Umbreon realized the brightness and toned it down, giggling with embarrassment, "Hee-hee, sorry Haunter. They're hard to control sometimes."

He only cackled, "With those rings I bet you could be scarier than any Ghost in the graveyard!"

She smiled, happy that he was so chipper about it. Sometimes she was relieved by his constant, bizarre mood swings. It meshed nicely with her usual stubborn, relaxed melancholy.

After several more minutes, the full moon shined brightly on them through the canopy of the trees. She could see the shimmer of the moonlight hit her friends back and light it up like frosted glass. Why did it look like that? Was that a part of the misty skin or something? So weird…

These new questions abruptly ceased when he stopped moving suddenly in the air and she nearly ran into him. He floated backwards and gestured to a parting in the trees, "Through there." he said with a gleeful smile.

Umbreon walked past him and through the small opening in the trees, and there it was.

A very large, 3-story house stood before them in a big, spooky clearing. It was boarded up and the white paint on the wooden sides was chipping and flaking off. It looked very old indeed. How old though? 30-40 years in human standards?

He floated up next to her and stared at it, "Creepy huh? The exact kind of place I just love to explore!" while he giggled, Umbreon became hesitant. She was excited to go in, but now that she was there and looking at this abandoned building, it really was eerie.

Still, she pushed aside her reservations and instead forced a smile, "Yeah, looks fun. Uh, should we go in now?"

"Lets!" Haunter floated up to the door right away with Umbreon following. As she approached the rotting wooden stairs of the house's patio, she looked up to the boarded up door, "How are we going to get inside?"

Haunter floated in front of the blocked door and pondered for a few seconds. Getting an idea, he quickly said, "Wait here." And fazed through the door. Umbreon sarcastically rolled her eyes.

Oh gee like I have any choice?

After a few more seconds, she heard him suddenly shout, "Stand clear!" and the sound of energy charging.

Panicking, Umbreon jumped off the steps and hid behind the patio as the door suddenly flew off it's hinges and through the air. It hit the dark grass behind her and split into several pieces thanks to years of rotting.

Stunned, and then a little upset, Umbreon looked to the broken door and back to Haunter floating in the now open doorway, his claws holding the faint traces of dark energy of the aftermath of a Shadow Ball. Umbreon stood up and walked to him, slight anger twisted on her face.
He knew she was mad even though she hadn't said a word and sheepishly grinned, "Sorry. You have no idea how much fun it is to use that on something."

She shook her head, "Actually I do. I'm a dark type remember? I know Shadow Ball and how powerful it is. So wasn't that overkill, Haunter?"

"Hey come on." He turned around and flew into the dark room, "I got the door open, didn't I? Geez, I swear you've become a fuddy-duddy, Eve."

She gawked at him. The nerve of him! She was not a fuddy-duddy! She was still fun!

Grumbling, she ignored her mild anger and followed him inside the house. It was extremely dark in there, the only light coming from the destroyed doorway, but thanks to their nocturnal eyes they were both able to see easily.

The place looked very old and neglected. Almost all the furniture had either been covered up with a dusty sheet or had been knocked over for whatever reason.
Still, it was fascinating. Neither of them had ever been inside a human's home before, and traces of their scents were still there after all these years. As if boarding up the house preserved them somehow.

Umbreon was the first to start walking around and exploring while Haunter remained in the center of the room, admiring the flaking wallpaper, "What is this?" he asked, pulling at the paper until it tore off into a big strip. He dropped the paper and it floated smoothly to the ground. He cocked himself in the air, curious, "What's the point of putting paper on the wall? Why do you need it?"

"I'm not sure." Umbreon mumbled, pawing at a sheet until it flopped onto the ground to reveal a large old red chair. When the sheet hit the wooden floor, the dust flew up and caused her to cough and sneeze, "Oh man, this place really has been abandoned for years!" she sneezed a few more times and sniffled, "But…why? Why would they abandon a house and just leave it so furnished?"

"Who cares?" Haunter idly picked up a small wooden box in the corner and shook it, "Let the humans do what they want. What I'm more curious about is why the house was boarded up for no reason? What were they trying to keep out?"
Umbreon pondered this while Haunter opened the box and peaked inside.

All he could see was it was filled to the brim with some strange plastic sheets covered with what looked to be air bubbles. Out of curiosity, he picked up one of the separate sheets(bubble wrap)and put the box down on a nearby covered table. He looked at the strange object and used his sharp index claw to pop one of the air bubbles. As expected, it made a small pop noise that pleased him.
The pop got Umbreons attention and she spun around to see Haunter eagerly popping some plastic bubbles on a sheet with both of his thumbs.

She smiled and sighed at her easily amused friend and continued looking around. Some objects on top of an uncovered table got her attention. The table was the only uncovered one in the room. So, like a cat, she sprung upwards and landed lightly on the wooden table to look at the objects.
Umbreon was stunned to find several little, um what did humans call them? Uh…picture frames, that's it. There were five picture frames; three of them were face down on the table so she couldn't see them.

Now that was odd.

It looked like they weren't just laid on the table, but smashed down on the smooth surface. She could see tiny traces of glass here and there on the table, underneath the frames. Before she looked at those pictures, she turned her attention to the two undamaged ones. They were so dusty she had to use her paw to wipe the glass surface clean. Underneath one of the pictures was what looked to be human man with blond hair and green eyes affectionately holding a woman against him. She also had blond hair, but it was a few shades darker and her eyes were purple.
They had nice, friendly faces and looked very happy to be together. A sensation of butterflies crossed the pit of her stomach as the stared at the couple. They were so tender towards each other…was that what it looked like to be in love?

These thoughts subsiding, Umbreon cleaned the other picture and could see it was a picture of the couple again. They looked slightly older and they were standing in front of the house back when it was new. It looked large and beautiful, far better than its current pitiful state.
The man was carrying the woman with one arm under her legs and the other behind her back and she was smiling and laughing at the, erm, damn, she can't remember what the device humans used to create these pictures was called.

Anyway, she was laughing still and wearing a pretty, long white dress. The man was wearing a fitting, black suit. She had no idea what the occasion was, but if she had to guess it was important and it might have been the time they moved into the house.
Now looking to the face down pictures, she pushed one upwards with her paw until it laid against the wall, and the first picture startled her. She inspected it closely and then hesitated to lift the other two. One at a time though, she slowly lifted them both up and against the wall like the first, and ws even more shocked than before.

"H-Haunter? Can you come here?" the ghost heard her call. He dropped the shredded bubble wrap and saw his friend sitting on a nearby table. She was looking at him with her wide red eyes and seemed visibly shaken. Concern crossing his amused face, he floated over to her, "What's wrong Umbreon?" The dark Pokémon pointed at three pictures she had laid against the wall opposite of her. She pointed at them with her paw, "Look at them. Just…look at them."

Not knowing what she could be so worried about, he floated closer and inspected the three pictures. Once his brain registered what he was looking at he backed away in the air, "Whoa."

The three frames had pictures that were all of the human family. The man and woman were in them, but so were two others. They were children, one a boy and the other a girl, both with blond hair. The boy had his mother's purple eyes, but the girl…they didn't know.
What was scary was in each picture the girl's face had been viciously scratched out by what looked to be something large and skinny. It couldn't have been a glass shard, they were too wide. It looked like it was done with a huge needle or something.

One picture had the family in a group; the boy looked about 10 while the girl was just a baby and being held by her mother. The baby's face was scratched out. The other one had her as a child playing with her brother on the lawn, and her face was scratched out there too. The last one had her as a teenager with her father, her face horrible scratched out but this time more severely. Also, that picture was the only one that had two large puncture wounds that went through where her eyes were supposed to be.

What could have been the reason behind the hate of this picture butchering?

Uneasily, he floated backwards to his previous position, "Well that's weird." "Weird?" Umbreon gawked, "This is more than weird, it's downright spooky!"

"Relax Eve." Haunter reasoned, "Calm down, just…just leave them alone and go back to looking around. It will take your mind off of it."

Slowly, she decided it would be best to agree and hopped off of the table. Haunter went back to looking at the box, trying to ignore the eerie feeling crawling up and down his spine. He shook the box again and this time thought he heard something. Curious again, he turned the box upside down and poured out its contents.

A bunch of bubble wrap hit the floor, but so did something else.

Umbreon's ears perked. A weird noise echoed throughout the small living room. It was a strange, hollow noise, but also deep and frightening. Shortly afterwards a very distinct screech stung her eardrums.

Umbreon recoiled at the scream and twisted back around. She gasped when she saw Haunter floating there doubled over in pain with his hands clasped over his ears. He was shivering horribly and his eyes were squeezed shut. In front of him were what looked to be bells scattered on the floor. They were weird looking gold bells with purple, glowing carvings on them that were fading away. They must have made the noise when they hit the wooden floor, and the box they were in had been dropped not too far away. What was odd was the noise before didn't sound like a jingle to her, but more like a metal thump. She had no idea why they didn't ring.

Haunter suddenly screamed, "Make them stop! Ahhh make them stop!" Umbreon panicked and bounded towards him and in front of the bells, "Wh-what? Make them stop what?"

"That ringing!" he yelled, looking at her in desperation, "What? You don't hear that? It hurts!"

Umbreon looked from him back to the bells and reached forward to move them. Haunter quickly yelled at her, "No! Don't touch them! They're ring more!"

She was going to argue with him, but their glowing stopped and the markings disappeared altogether. Slowly and unsurely, Haunter removed his hands and looked at the bells in fright, like if they'd start ringing again.

Umbreon kept staring at the bells, "What are they Haunter? I didn't hear any ringing, just thumps."

Haunter snarled and pointed accusingly at the bells, "They're hexed! Some stupid human put a spell on them to repel ghosts!"

Umbreon cocked her head at them, "Really? Isn't that hard to do?"
"Yes, putting a hex on something and giving it mystical abilities is a practice not shared by many. To my knowledge, sometimes humans used bells to either indicate when a ghost was there, or to repel them with pain. These are small, but are extremely affective. They're very dangerous…to me. I may not be a true ghost, but the effect is the same."
He placed the box on top of them, "I have no idea what was going on here, but apparently these humans were messing with something they shouldn't have been." He growled very deeply, "Humans, sometimes even Pokémon, always try to screw around with things in the spirit world to achieve goals they can't achieve while living. Even I can't truly understand the other realm until I lose my physical form."
Haunter turned scowled at the pictures, "What were you thinking? Wanna play with the dead did you? Fools."

Umbreon wanted to say something, but didn't. If humans really were messing with hexes, then that was a foul choice indeed.

He angrily floated away into the next room, "There are some things that should be left alone. In this world…and the next…"

Umbreon continued staring at the bells and thought about what he had said.

Hexed bells? Butchered pictures? What could they have been doing here?

She heard Haunter rummaging around in the other room, "Let's just forget it. They're gone now so nothing else should harm us. Just don't touch any bells, okay?" Umbreon couldn't help but laugh at that sentence, making the air less thick.
Relaxing a little more, Umbreon set off into a different room than his. It led into a large hallway with a big staircase leading to the second floor. Behind her she heard, "Umbreon check this out!"

She turned and saw Haunter floating there with a sheet over his body and started wiggling his hands in a mocking way, "Ooh-ooooohhhh! I'm a ghost!" he pulled it off of himself and made a silly face, "Really!"

She laughed and he held the enormous sheet out, "This one's huge! I found this covering a big…eh, thingy in the other room!"
"What thingy?" she giggled, pulling her attention away from the alluring staircase. He gestured for her to follow and went with him.

Neither of them noticed the presence at the top of the stairs…

He showed her into a big room full of weird looking…well…thingys. She had no idea what they were, but the biggest one he showed her was a large black dusty object with four legs and lined with black and white bars(piano). It kinda looked like a chair, but much larger and older, a little closer to resembling a table.

Haunter flew over and pointed at it, "Watch this!" he poked one of the white bars and it made a single, sour note. She winced, "Sounds off. What is it?"
Haunter only shrugged and hit another note, "I'm not sure, but I think it's for making music." "That IS weird. Why would they use an object to create music instead of singing?"

He shrugged again and continued hitting the different keys, "These noises are irritating, but I bet if we could somehow fix it they wouldn't be so bad."

Umbreon weakly smiled as he tapped away at the keys, trying to find a sweet note. Perhaps he had a secret weakness for music she wasn't aware of yet.

And yet, she wasn't able to focus. She kept thinking about the stairway. The image was being flashed over and over in her mind, and she just had to go to it.

Umbreon looked behind her to the exit, "Hey, I'm going to go look around upstairs, okay?" "Alright." He lightly addressed, tapping another note, "I'll be there with you shortly."

She idly nodded and left him in the room. Umbreon walked into the hallway again and looked back to the stairs. They were empty and innocent enough, yet, something was ominous about them. For some reason, she felt a light sense of dread just standing before them.
Still, she shook off her fear. How stupid it was to be afraid of stairs. They were just stairs! So, bravely, she made her way up the staircase, them creaking with her weight the whole way.

Once she reached the second floor, she looked around. It was a large, single hallway that had several doors. Each one was closed and there was what looked to be a hatch on the ceiling at the end of the hallway.
Curiosity drawing her towards the hatch, she started to move to it.

As she walked down the hall, her glowing rings illuminated their surface. The yellow accented the chipping, cracking paint and made the shadows in the empty hall intensify. Though it was scary, she continued to move forward.
As she walked, she noticed something even stranger than the hatch on the ceiling. One of the doors was open and she hadn't noticed it before.

Curiosity growing greater, Umbreon slinked to the end of the hallway, just underneath the hatch on the ceiling and to the open door. She peaked inside and was surprised to see a dark small pink room littered with destroyed plush toys. The plushies all had their throats ripped out and their eyes severly stabbed out with something sharp, once again like a needle. Stuffing, thread, toy limbs, glass eye beads and buttons were all over the floor in a huge mess. Did the girl do this to her own stuffed animals? If so, why?
Other than the ruined toys, the room also had a stripped bed, a nightstand, and another picture frame on it.

A little wary after the last pictures she saw and the toys on the floor, she hopped onto the nightstand to look at this one. Unlike the others, this one only had the girl in it without her face being scratched out. She was also alone in this one and very young, maybe a toddler in human standards. She had blond hair and her father's green eyes.
What made this one usual still was the doll she was holding. It looked like a stuffed grey bear. One of the eyes were already missing and replaced with a red button over where the right one was supposed to be.

Children, so reckless with their toys.

There was something about the doll that was creepy though. It was like it wasn't just being affectionately hugged by the girl, but it was like it was STARING at you. Right through your very soul, in fact.
Almost as if it was alive and watching you…even through the pictu-

A scent stopped her thought process and caused her to become alarmed. This scent, she had smelled it before on the night her mother died.

It was blood. Very old blood but the traces were still there even after all this time.

Slowly, she turned her attention to the bed and noticed something she hadn't before. A deep, dark brownish red stain was present all over the top of the mattress. It wasn't just a small amount either, but instead covered it! Like if someone had just lifted it and dipped the entire piece into a pool of blood!

The sudden shock made her nearly topple off the nightstand and shook her like nothing else. Suddenly apprehensive, she had the horrible urge to run out of the room and back down the stairs to Haunter, who STILL hadn't joined her.

I swear if that idiot is still messing with that obj-

THUMP!

The loud noise nearly made her jump into the ceiling. Spinning around, she saw just outside of the doorway was another torn up doll, tied and weighted down with a book. Looking up, she could barely see the edges of the hatch on the hallway ceiling, opened now.

Umbreon swallowed the lump in her throat, knowing full well it was NOT opened before.

She jumped off the nightstand and was ready to hightail it out of there until she noticed that there were small attic stairs leading down into the hallway now. She was going to continue down the hall, until she heard it.

Music filled the tiny hallway.

It wasn't from below, but in the attic, and it didn't sound like the object Haunter was messing with. It sounded tiny, pretty, and delicate. The sound was sweet and almost intoxicating to Umbreon's sensitive ears and it urged her to go upstairs.

She sighed and came to her senses. She was being silly! Being afraid of this stupid house!

Seriously, she was powerful, why should she be afraid?

Laughing her fears off, she made her way up into the attic. Besides, Haunter liked music. Maybe she could find the source and give it to him as a gift?

She was in a large dark room that was bended to coincide with the roof of the house. Not real special, nothing was in it except for more destroyed toys which were still odd. Then, there it was.

Laying there, just in the center of the floor was a little box with a spinning dancer in the middle of it, the sweet little melody playing as it spun. Fascinated by the device, Umbreon went towards it and batted at the little spinning dancer, and still the music hadn't stopped.

It was joyous, and filled her with happiness at listening to the cute music and watching the spinning dancer. Shortly, she started to hum along with it as her fear of the house began to dissolve.

That was…until she heard the very soft tapping of footsteps behind her.

Immediately, she felt a horrible chill crawl over her back. It stopped her in her tracks and made her petrified to turn around. Soon after, she heard the intruder speak in a deathly, muffled male voice, "Pretty, isn't it? It belonged to her…"

Terror was what made her spin around to face the speaker, and she became shocked over everything else.

The intruder was small, only about as tall as her, and stood on two stubby legs. The color of his skin was a dark, almost black, grey. It had large, slanted arms that hung lazily from his sides and he had a large, disproportionate head to go with his wide hips. He had three wide spike-shaped deformations from the top of his head and a long wave trail grew out of the back of his head, making it look hair or a tail. He had a mouth, but from what she could see it was zipped shut with a golden zipper, the edge hanging off the right corner of his mouth, so she had no idea how he just spoke to her.
His left eye was red with a slit pupil and a white iris surrounding it and it glowed in the dark, making him more frightening. His right eye was roughly stitched up with a red button, and to him acted more like an 'eye patch' than anything else.
What was really odd was the several, huge needles sticking out of his torso. She knew they weren't just spikes coming from this body, but that they were defiantly oversized sewing needles the size of daggers! Yet he wasn't injured or bleeding.

It was a Ghost Pokémon! She could smell it was at least, but something was wrong. It didn't feel…natural. Ghost Pokémon always had this uncertainty surrounding them, but at least they were still THERE and a majority of them were born and living…somewhat, but this thing wasn't…alive. It didn't feel dead, it just felt…evil, hateful, unnatural. Like it shouldn't even exist.

That button over his eye looked very familiar, and in that instant she knew the doll had it in the picture. Was this thing the girl's doll? If so, why was it…walking around and talking?

He could see the confusion on her face, and his zipped up smile only broadened, "I see you're new here, let me explain." As his smoke the mouth moved and tugged t the zipper, but still never opened, "That girl was my master, my owner, my beloved child. I loved her so much, I loved her a lot, and she loved me. I was her favorite doll you see, and that music box she would play for us whenever we had tea parties. It was the best thing in the world."

His voice was maniacal, but not in a funny way like Haunter's. No, his was more in a menacing, insane way.

Just like she predicted, his calm demeanor changed in a millisecond and his horrid eye narrowed, fabric pulling harshly, "And what did that disgusting little wretch do? When she became a teenager, she threw me out! She threw me out and abandoned me! But not the others! She didn't abandon the others! Why did she abandon me! Me? ME? I was her favorite! Hers! She was mine! All mine! And yet she threw me away and kept them!" he pointed to the destroyed toys around them, "And when I destroyed these she would have abandoned them to! KILLED THEM! LIKE ME! ME!"

He started screaming, and Umbreon got in a defensive pose.

This guy's crazy!

The Pokémon then broke into a loud laugh that echoed the attic. When it died down, he evily smirked at her, "You won't leave, no one ever leaves. They stay with me, forever. Just like she will stay with me forever inside! Forever and ever! FOREVER!"

Umbreon was about to attack, but he was first. His eye narrowed and his face horribly twisted in ways she couldn't imagine. The image shocked her and floored her to the ground. Though she wasn't paralyzed and she could move, she felt the irresistible urge to stay and not run.

Shaking, she sputtered as his face became normal, "Wh-what did you do to me?"

"I used Mean Look on you, duh." He snidely answered, reaching into the air and pulling a needle out of nothingness, "Now, Umbreon." He called her, evil growing gleefully on his face, "Let's see what kind of curse I can place on you, hmmn? How about something that lets your organs fall out one by one? That will be fun, and I get to see your stuffing too! Oh the joy!" he lifted the needle higher, "Or perhaps I'll turn you into a doll and rip your stuffing out then? That will be fun too!"

Umbreon eyed the needle and became chilled.

It was he who butchered those pictures of the girl! She was a teen when she threw him away so that was why it was worse than the others!

He lifted the needle higher up, ready to stab it in himself like the others and curse her somehow. She backed away, knowing full well she couldn't run.

OH NO!

Uh oh! Looks like she's in a bit of trouble!

Can anyone guess the Pokemon before you read the next Chapter? You'll get another cookie if you do! I was going to add the fight in here, but I realized how long this was already and knew that take another few pages. X_X

R&R please!