Chapter Six:
Flicker
Disclaimer: I do not own Pokémon in any way, shape, or form. The only "ownership" I can claim are the personalities and my interpretation of how Pokémon look in a more realistic light, but other than that...yeah, I don't own anything on them. XD I do, however, own my original characters and writings, unless otherwise stated. In an exceptional case, a few special OCs belong to their respective owners, I'm merely borrowing them for the story that's to unfold. I'll point them out when their time to show up comes. :3
Note: *peeps head around corner and waves* Hello, all. Sorry for the delay in updates, I was away at training for over two weeks and just got back. But, I wanted to get this out here before I forgot. Now, on with the show!
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"What are we doing?"
"We're hunting a ghost."
"A ghost, exactly. Who does that?"
"…Us."
-Dean and Sam, "Supernatural"
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"You do realize just how close you're cutting it by leaving this late in the day, don't you?"
The elderly woman, who had introduced herself as Hagatha, eyed her for a lengthy period of time before turning her shrewd gaze onto the wandering Totodile. He was sniffing the cages filled with quietly resting Hoothoot, their faces hidden beneath their wings as they snoozed. One had been disturbed by the rattling his tail made against one of the cages and was now puffed up, red eyes beadily watching the Totodile. A long, dry hiss emitted from its partially open beak.
"Hey, hey! Get out of there! Stay away, you little scavenger! Please contain your Totodile, I don't want it disturbing them."
Lupin swallowed the kneejerk comment that he wasn't her Totodile, that she was only borrowing him. She didn't need the headache to explain things to every person she came across for her situation, she reasoned. She could only find it in her to simply obey the decrepit looking old woman, trudging over to the greedy-eyed pokémon and snatch him up into her arms. He wriggled and squealed protests at her, but she growled by his ear to stop it and behave.
She felt his body coil with tension, a soft hiss of warning not unlike the Hoothoot's from moments before emanate from Totodile. She scowled at the back of his head and shifted him to her shoulder. Grudgingly, he allowed her to do so.
"Googly old hag," she heard him mutter as he settled himself to drape over her like a scaly scarf.
"Shut it, and let me negotiate with the nice lady, wouldja? She's been very patient with us and if you eat her Hoothoot, I will skin you alive and give your scales to her as an apology gift."
The small comment seemed to perk the elderly woman up and she grinned, revealing several gaps where her teeth used to be.
"My, my, your mother must have taught you some good discipline skills and good manners to boot. Buttering me up like that…" She chortled, smacking Lupin's arm good naturedly before turning back toward the aviary. Lupin offered a meek smile in return, although her stomach flip-flopped on itself and her mouth went dry.
"Yes…she did. She…certainly did. Respect for my elders and whatnot," she added quietly, following after the hunchbacked woman as she motioned for her to follow.
"I get a lot of traffic from New Bark Town when trainers decide to pass through this forest. The ghosts don't bother me none, not with all my Hoothoot, but then again, they never bothered me much before either. But I was tired of trainers losing their way or, Legendaries forbid, dying in those woods, so I decided to set up this small business. It's still small, but humble enough to get me by."
Hagatha continued down the lane, gazing into the darkened cages with a sharp eye, a frown tugging her lips down. She motioned with a gnarled finger to one of them as they passed it by, "This one used to give me so much trouble. Wouldn't listen to a trainer at all, except for the pretty girls." She chuckled slyly at this at a peek of red eyes opening to watch them pass. "But now he's one of my best navigators, although he's not the quickest."
The aforementioned Hoothoot lifted its head from under its wing at its mentioning, peering down at them as they passed with red eyes. It shivered, feathers puffing up and out, before they slowly all began to settle.
"This forest is filled with ghost types. Gastly and Haunter are by far the most common. Occasionally, there are Gengar that roam about, although they don't stick around for very long and move on. I wouldn't want to be under their radar, however. It bodes ill for whoever crosses their path wrongly. Spiteful creatures."
The old woman passed her best navigator on by and paused before the end of the line of cages in the aviary and motioned to a small poof ball of feathers standing on a branch, its face hidden away under its wing as well.
"Here she is. This one. She'll take you through the quickest. I would feel better if you weren't in this forest for any longer than you have to be. Especially this late in the day."
She turned to give Lupin a fierce little stare, lips pressed so tightly together, Lupin thought she'd lose another tooth. "Keep your snaggle-toothed Totodile away from her. I don't fancy losing one of my birds to his fangs."
"I wouldn't want that scrawny little feather ball—"
Lupin abruptly cut off the insult by grabbing his jaws and pinching them shut. "Sorry. He's a rude little thing. I'm working on that."
Even if Hagatha couldn't understand, Lupin didn't want to be subjected to listen to him. She was kept under the critical gaze of the old woman before she gave a snort and a curt nod. Crooked hands worked at the latch of the cage with surprising dexterity and she coaxed the little Hoothoot awake and out of the cage.
"All I require is three hundred yen for the trip through the forest and a hundred for the care and safety of my Hoothoot. I'm not liable for injuries if you're attacked while using her, and I don't want you using her in battle, either. Simply use her Foresight to reveal any ghosts you come across trying to trick you. They'll usually flee, but if they don't, use whatever other pokémon you have on you to battle them."
With the bird in tow, she motioned for Lupin to follow back through the lane of cages and to the main house proper. Lupin glanced at Totodile perched on her shoulder, a frown tugging at her lips. If they were attacked and he was too injured to fight back, then what was she supposed to do? Run back the way she came? Or should she just fight herself? She didn't even know how to utilize a pokémon in a battle, she realized. The more she learned the less sure she felt of herself that she should continue with a pokémon as a traveling companion.
She kept her worries quiet for the time being, and slipped out of the aviary, with its scent of feather dust and bird droppings and rotted meat from the birds' daily meals behind. They entered the house proper and crossed through until they exited the front door. Totodile shifted a little more comfortably on her shoulder, watching the old woman and the Hoothoot with his gleaming yellow-red eyes, mouth slightly agape as they stepped outside into the sun.
The woman turned on her heel toward Lupin and thrust her knobby hand out toward the werewolf, fingers crooked and clawed. Her face was grim and etched with deep, weathered lines, but her eyes were sharp and calculating as she regarded Lupin. "I require half the payment upfront. When you reach the other side, you fill the little pouch on Reyna's foot with the rest."
She then motioned faintly toward the visible foot clinging to the woman's thin wrist. A little pouch sat there, just as she said, tied comfortably by a leather thong. Lupin only nodded, before pulling her wallet out of her back pocket to fish out the required payment. When the last of the money was counted off, she was offered the Hoothoot. Lupin reached out and pressed her hand against the Hoothoot's underbelly. Another leg, hidden beneath the thick down of feathers, appeared suddenly and grasped her hand with surprising firmness, sharp claws digging into her skin. Lupin winced, but was more surprised at the amount of heat emanating from the bird's scaly foot. Pulling the bird close, the Hoothoot made a soft hiss and Lupin caught wind of "damned reptile", from the owl pokémon.
The old woman studied Lupin carefully for a few moments more before nodding and giving her pokémon a last pet on the head. Then Hagatha turned toward her front door.
"Reyna is my fastest navigator. She'll get you through in a jiffy, if you follow her route, that is. I doubt you'd want to stay the night in this forest, so you'd best take off now."
With a wave over her shoulder, she closed the door and the sound echoed resoundingly in the sudden silence that came pouring in. Then the sound faded away and Lupin was left alone with the Totodile and Hoothoot, the haunted forest looming over them like a sinister, dark beast that beckoned them to come forth.
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"You don't seem to mind being close to her. She isn't human, you know. Can't you smell it?"
"I'm right here, you know."
"I can't smell that well. I see a lot better. That's how I hunt. Besides, she doesn't smell that strange."
"Still right here."
"She won't tell me what she is. She says she's a monster. I don't believe that, but she doesn't smell human. You sure you can't smell that?"
"I'm still right here! You're both on either of my shoulders; I can hear everything you two are saying! I'm not deaf!"
Feathers brushed against one cheek, scales on the other, but both were beginning to grate on her nerves. Especially the talking. The literal talking over her head was the worst.
"You don't believe me? Here. See for yourself."
The hat atop her head was suddenly yanked off with such force it left one of her ears stinging with the way it pulled her fur the wrong way. She gave a yelp of surprise and indignation. The Hoothoot sitting on her right side screeched into it in just as much a surprise, taking to the air and beating her head with short wings to flutter away. The strong gust knocked Totodile off balance and he scrabbled in vain for purchase. His blunt claws dug into her back and shoulder, tail whipping about before he flopped onto the ground with a shriek of his own, Lupin's hat still clutched in his jaws.
All three remained rooted to their spots, hearts pounding and breathing hard.
Totodile was the first to collect his wits and turned his crooked snout toward Reyna the Hoothoot and rattled off a laugh at her. "See? I told you. She even has a tail under her coat! It's fuzzy and twitches a lot."
"What is she? That's so weird, she can't be a human, humans don't have those! None that I've seen, anyway."
"I'M RIGHT HERE!"
Her voice resonated off into the darkness beyond the trail of the forest, echoing eerily into the air. Lupin barely noticed as she slid her glare from the Hoothoot to the Totodile, who still deemed it appropriate to carry on their conversation right over her head. Totodile laughed once more. Reyna remained silent, feathers puffed, wings drawn up self-consciously as though in plain shame at the act.
"You. You're going back in the pokéball," she pointed at Totodile, before turning and doing the same to Reyna. She squawked and puffed up further in shock. "And you. Just do your damned job. Get me through here quickly and then you can go home where you don't have to see these anymore and worry."
With that said, she reached down and snatched her hat up from the surprised and gaping jaws of Totodile. Settling it back onto her head with one hand, she started fishing out Totodile's pokéball with the other, already had it aimed at the little crocodilian when silence crashed down on them. The forest had already been silent before, with its deceptively cheery dappled sunlight and shadowy sinews of tree branches providing shade over the trail. But this, this was a different kind of silence. It felt abrupt, like a door slamming and the way the shadows danced, it felt as though the entire atmosphere had suddenly shifted, with the air growing denser and the light fading quickly. It was noticeable, and sent bone-deep chills crawling down her spine and the chills were worming their way deeper still. Lupin's breath caught in her chest, suddenly so, when she felt that shiver come over her in a sudden, unwelcome wave. An iron vice gripped them all, she could see the unease in Totodile and the lack of hoots from Reyna behind her only furthered her suspicion. Slowly, Lupin replaced the pokéball back into her coat pocket and slid to a knee, motioning for Totodile. He came just as sluggishly, quietly taking her offer to clamber onto her shoulder without needing further prompting. His body was coiled with tension, ready to spring at a moment's notice, but she felt he was shaking terribly. Then Lupin turned toward Reyna and she froze.
Behind the Hoothoot, a grotesque face was carved into the wood of the tree and was becoming more defined still. Sinister and appallingly so, the face actually moved. Its jaws widened and was laden with fangs, its eyes gleaming, and shaped into sinisterly gleeful slits and they seemed to glow red from the core. Tree branches began to shake around them, the wood creaking horrendously, as though they were coming to life. It blocked out the light further, throwing them into shadows and darkness. The leafless branches dipped lower, the craggy limbs arching their crooked claws down, reaching for them. Lupin's tail bristled and her ears pressed further against her head when she began to notice faces were beginning to appear on the other tree trunks. All the jeering expressions were staring at them, she realized, watching with that sinister light and she could feel the miasma of tension thickening by the second. It only seemed to worsen when she picked up on the faint, overlapping whispers and eerie, creepy laughter that echoed around them.
"Reyna…what do you do…when something weird happens in this place? What's that move your owner taught you?"
It took Reyna a moment to respond, as she began to take in what was happening around them. She shook her tail feathers and ruffled her feathers a bit, looking only slightly perturbed by the sight surrounding them. Then she took to wing and glided silently toward Lupin. The werewolf held out her arm and Reyna landed, graceful as can be and settled comfortably on her perch.
"Foresight." She simply responded, and her eyes gleamed bright red, before the light projected out and doused the surrounding area in it.
Shadows against the trees stood out starkly in the light, as though their true shapes had been revealed. As the light receded, the shadows against the trees remained, floating in midair unassisted. Hisses and moans of pain and disgruntlement filled the air now, more out of annoyance than anything.
"Dammit, you Hoothoot ruin all the fun! Can't you let us mess with these trainers more often without interfering from the get-go?" One voice called and shortly was backed by murmurs of agreement.
The shadowy shapes peeled themselves away from the trees, floating in the air still well above their heads. The longer Lupin stared, however, she could see that they weren't of corporeal shape nor did they seem physically there. They were gaseous and their bodies, even while in one place, seemed ready to shift at a moment's notice into something less substantial. Amorphous in some moments, nearly-solid in others, Lupin didn't believe they had real bodies.
Ghost types, the old crone had said, roamed the haunted forest. That was why it was called as such. She could suddenly see why the professor didn't bother to burden her with the knowledge of this place before her departure; he didn't want her to worry about running into these creatures any more than she had to. She eyed the gathered shadowy shapes above, could see sinister eyes peering down with wicked mirth in them, furthered only by the gleeful smiles full of fangs flashed their way. Totodile grew tenser, if it was possible, and bared his teeth at them in return, hissing as menacingly as he could.
Instinctively and without really thinking, she brought a hand up to stroke his head in an attempt to soothe him. She didn't feel afraid, not really, but she wasn't exactly comfortable, either. They made her fur bristle and her skin pimple with gooseflesh.
Reyna 'hmphed' from her perch on Lupin's arm, unperturbed by the floating dark creatures.
"If you don't want to end up lying around in a puddle of your own gases, then scat! She's not staying here to be your plaything, so move on and go find someone else to torture."
"Oh, c'mon, Reyna," one of the shapes moved closer, a perfect black ball of shadowy gas and wide eyes and big teeth. "We weren't gonna hurt her. Just scare her a little."
Chortles and sniggers came from the others. Reyna screeched piercingly and the ball of gas retreated with a wail and a curse. The others backed off, falling silent. Lupin winced, her ears ringing slightly.
"You've already scared several trainers, quite literally to death. Why do you think Hagatha rents us to trainers these days?" Another screech resounded from the little owl, who appeared twice her size now because she had puffed all her feathers up. "Now get out of here or you'll regret it! I'll get Hagatha's Noctowls down here if you don't!"
Lupin waited, as did Totodile. Then slowly, one by one, each of the shadowy creatures began to fade from sight right in front of them. Soon they were all alone, the three of them. Or so it seemed. Lupin felt as though there were eyes upon them still, waiting from the shadows, invisibly lurking. It sent another chill down her spine.
Reyna's feathers smoothed, but only slightly and she took to the air once more, her wing beats nearly silent even to Lupin's hearing.
"This way. It's getting late and we have a ways to go."
Neither pokémon nor werewolf complained and Lupin took off at a brisk pace, but she couldn't shake the feeling of being followed and watched.
"I have the same feeling," Totodile admitted quietly when she said so later in the day. He was still shaking, and she wasn't sure whether it was from tension or fear or both.
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"What is that?"
Reyna paused in a branch above them and hooted curiously, hopping to turn around and looked down. Lupin had paused in her blazing trail along the forest path Reyna was leading her down when something caught her eye. She narrowed her eyes at the sight beyond, dancing little lights in the shadows, almost as though beckoning her to follow and…it was tempting. Very tempting. But something else reared up in warning at the back of her head like a recalcitrant horse. It was tiny and overshadowed by curiosity, however, and she stepped off the path toward the bouncing lights. It was only when Reyna came swooping in and screeching in her face that the trance ended and the temptation was pushed to the back of her head. Totodile hissed in return and Lupin flailed an arm to push the bird away from her face in defense with a strangled cry of surprise.
"Don't follow the lights!" She shrieked, landing on a fallen tree's upraised branch, feathers puffy and menacing. "Those are Litwicks. They'll steal you away from this world if you follow them."
"Litwicks?"
"More ghost types. The forest used to be filled with just Gastly and Haunter and the occasional Gengar…but ever since other trainers began crossing through every region, they've brought their own pokémon from those regions as well. Litwicks aren't native to Johto, but they sometimes end up in this forest. A high volume area of ghost types will attract other ghost types. Litwicks don't linger often here, but they're occasional, alongside others that migrate through. They'll try to trick you into following them, pretend that they're leading you out of the forest like a helpful guiding light. Then they'll steal your life away. That's why their flames get brighter, because they feed off of the life force of those around them. It's dangerous to own them as a trainer. They might just kill you if they stayed out longer than necessary."
Lupin turned to look at the bouncing light again, before she saw that it didn't look normal, and the same creeping feeling as when the Gastly and Haunter had appeared came back. The hairs on the back of her neck rose, alongside the fur on her tail and made everything stand on end. The chill that had finally fled for the most part returned with a vengeance. The light wasn't normal, now that Reyna had inputted her word on it. It wasn't bright and cheery and tempting to follow anymore. It was ominous and dark, despite the light it provided. It was violet-hued, she also noted, such a strange and unusual colour for a flame. Violet like…
Her hand drifted to her back pocket where she kept her wallet stored, where she kept all those pictures she had found stashed away. Violet like…the eyes of the man in her pictures. Her brow furrowed, puzzled at the sudden thought, and the urge to pull it out was strong. But a light nudge from Totodile on her shoulder brought her out of her reverie, the thoughts of pictures and violet coloured eyes and mysterious, smiling faces completely forgotten.
"Keep moving. It's almost night time and that's when the ghosts really come out. I don't want to be stuck in here any longer."
She nodded, quiet on the fact that he was still shaking, and she was sure it was from fear now. Gently, she raised a hand and gave his back a soothing pet before falling back into step onto the path. He settled somewhat, eyes locked on Reyna as she fluttered above them on silent wings, casting out a blinding light ahead of them and chasing away the shadowy figures that appeared.
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The sun was sinking below the horizon when they finally passed through the tree line of the haunted forest and out into the open air. It felt fresher as they stepped into the clearing, less sick, less tempting to let the forest simply take them and never let them go. The chill that had riddled Lupin's spine was slowly easing away with the faintest of tingles and the shaking tension that plagued Totodile as he rode along on her shoulder was as well. He practically slumped against her now, too exhausted to pass along quips with Reyna as she came to perch on Lupin's outstretched arm when coaxed over.
She slipped her wallet back out for the second time that day and placed the last of Hagatha's payment into the little pouch strapped to Reyna's ankle. With a nod of approval, the Hoothoot thanked Lupin before taking off again, this time over the trees of the forest.
Lupin watched until the owl pokémon was gone before turning to look down the road.
"Do you…want to pitch up camp here or would you rather go down a ways?"
"Do you have to ask?" He grumbled moodily back, glowering at her with his one visible eye. Lupin sighed, boots scuffling as she took to the road again, although it didn't escape her notice how swollen the moon looked.
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