Sunlight kissed Manny awake. He rolled over and slept for two more hours. The house was empty by the time he arrived downstairs. He had cereal and milk with a banana. He walked outside in his pyjamas. The air was crisp, cold; the same way it had been in January. Mint, also dressed in pyjamas, was playing with an Elekid in the melting snow, pelting each other with slushballs.

"Mint, why hasn't Spring ended since we left home all those months ago? Isn't it May?"

"I dunno," Mint shrugged, then yelped when the Elekid's slushball scored a critical hit on his back. "Manny, this is your grandson. Yesterday, my Mom walked for half an hour so that he would hatch."

"That's not how egg-hatching works!"

"Yeah it is! My Mom adopted his Mom, because I don't wanna be like all those other Trainers who discard the parents after getting the egg."

"Aren't you discarding her by giving her to your Mom?"

"No; I made her a member of the family. Now Roserade and your Mom's Persian have mommy Electabuzz for company!"

"Where is my Mom, anyway?"

"Conducting her 'Pokémon Beauty Class' at Lake Verity."

Manny trekked to the lake after changing into his usual traveling clothes. There were fifty Trainers grooming their diverse Pokémon. The class fanned out in a neat cone before Johanna, who stood with her back to the sapphire waters. Instead of her usual red apron and fuzzy red slippers, she wore a gorgeous blue spring dress that matched her dark blue hair. Speaking of her hair, it was no longer a bob, but hung in relaxed tresses about her shoulders. Persian walked slowly between the groomers, inspecting them. She stopped to snap at a male Trainer's hairbrush, removing it from his Flareon's mane. The boy cringed.

Johanna took notice. "Remember the basics, Edwardo! You must only groom your companion as much as is necessary. Overgrooming is worse than not grooming at all!"

"I'm sorry, Miss Johanna!" he said, meekly accepting the hairbrush from Persian's maw.

Manny waved. "Hi, Mom."

"Morning, son. Am I beautiful?" she posed for him, one hand on hip, another hand pointed upward.

"Mom!" he protested.

"Your father isn't here to compliment me," she reproached him.

Manny rolled his eyes. "You're stunning."

"Thank you, dear. Did you eat breakfast?"

"Yeah."

"What did you eat?"

"Cereal, milk and a banana."

"Very good, Manny! You're learning how to nourish yourself!"

Edwardo perked up. "Did you say 'Manny'?" He stared at the boy. "That's him! That's our new Champion!"

The crowd murmured. Someone began to clap, flowing into a round of applause. Manny's face all but caught aflame.

"Johanna is amazing!" an elderly man shouted.

"Her son is amazing!" a young girl squealed.

"They're both amazing!" Edwardo agreed.

"Calm down, everyone! What is the next step?"

"Pedicure and/or manicure!" the crowd chorused, breaking out their nail care products. The Pokémon without nails were given a break to eat and play, because Johanna taught that health and happiness were more important than beauty.

"Mom, I have to find a Rotom. Hanny said it's an electric ghost. Ever heard of it?"

"No, but one of the Gym Leaders specialises in electric types."

Manny whipped out his cellphone to dial the operator.

"Hello? Sunyshore Gym, please. Yes. Hello, is Volkner there? Manny. Yes, that Manny. Okay. Hello, Volkner?"

"Congratulations, Champion."

"Thanks. Volkner, where can I find a Rotom in Sinnoh?"

"I caught one."

"Really?"

"You don't remember?"

Manny frowned, thinking back to his experiences at Sunyshore. He came up blank. "Oh geez. I can't remember!"

"It's okay. However, I'm not going to make it easy for you. Instead of battling me, I want you to record it in the wild."

"Where?"

"The Old Chateau in Eterna Forest."

"Okay, thanks for the info!" Click.

He turned to his mother, who was helping an old man trim his Arcanine's claws.

"Mom, I'm gonna get Mint and Hanny so we can explore the haunted house in Eterna Forest."

"Don't get possessed!" she said.

"Mom, I forgot to ask: why are you teaching?"

"To make money! I've only been able to barely survive with the money your father sends in unmarked envelopes."

"Does he send them out of guilt?"

"No. I threatened to hunt him down and remove his manhood if he refused to support you."

"Isn't manhood a personal sense of masculinity?"

"Not in his case."

"Okay, bye Mom!"

"Bye, son."

888

Where had Hanny been all this time? She had spent the night alone at her Solaceon home. Earlier that morning, before the sun got up, Hanny did. She showered, grabbed a Pepsi, then headed outdoors. In the nippy twilight before sunrise, she stood there, remembering. At last, she boarded Wise Shitashi, flying west-northwest. Landing at the entrance to Eterna Forest, she allowed her owl companion to hunt for fresh food. As the sun broke through the leaves, speckling the forest floor with gold, she found who she was looking for: he was hiding between the trunks of two evergreen mimosa trees, his empty eye sockets staring at her.

"Shen."

The little Shedinja floated no higher than her waist. She knelt to stroke his smooth, quite solid head, though her hand passed right through his crescent halo.

"Only half angel," she remembered the words she had spoken to him, half her lifetime ago. She remembered being barefoot, wearing a hoody and jeans, riding Shen as though he were a Ponyta on her parents's ranch. "I'm too big to ride you now."

In response, Shen floated backwards a bit. He did something peculiar.

All she could utter was, "Eeee!"

888

After Manny updated Mint, the boys flew to Eterna Forest. They decided to stroll at their leisure through the forest, waving hello to the Trainers scattered here and there. One Trainer asked whether Mint would be the next Champion.

"I plan to!" he replied with a thumbs-up. "I won't be fighting Manny for the title, so it'll be easy!"

Three slender saplings blocked the entrance to the Old Chateau. Safe behind the white picket fence was Gardenia. She was peering at the old mansion, a look of distress on her face. She jumped when Mint called her name.

She smiled. "Hiya! Were you intrigued by the rumours going around, too?" She turned once more to cast a furtive glance at the Chateau. "You know, people've been talking about the ghost Pokémon there. I've been hearing rumours about sinister shadows, too. As Eterna's Gym Leader, I should check it out myself, but going in there is…"

"BOO!" Mint yelled. Gardenia screamed, covering her head. The boys had a hearty laugh at her expense.

"Oooooh!" Gardenia fumed. "I should have Shaymin call down a curse upon you, too!"

"You buy into that ridiculous story?" Manny snorted through his nose. "I thought that was something the Underground Man made up to scare us kids."

Gardenia said nothing. She stomped eastward to Eterna, her face bright red.

Leaves fell into Mint's hair, nesting there. Manny squinted in the nine o'clock sunlight, trying to get Hannah on her cellphone.

"She isn't answering."

"Manny, I don't wanna visit a haunted house."

"You will frolic with ghosts if that's what it takes to record a Rotom."

"Manny, don't say th-"

They heard the echo of a child's laughter deeper in the forest. Mint latched onto Manny's right arm, his eyes dilating.

"Wh-what was th-"

The laughter echoed again. Mint attempted to burrow into Manny's side.

"Ow!" Manny yelled, shoving him off. "Get a grip! Lots of Trainers pass through here!"

"But you were talking about ghosts," he whined.

"If there ARE ghosts, we can just capture th-"

"Hey guys."

"WAH!" the boys both yelled, falling backwards. Floating before them was a Shedinja measuring eight feet from crescent to thorax. Hannah was riding it.

"This is Shen. Shen, these are the creatures I told you about. They would have made excellent Bug Pokémon, but were born human."

"Shedinja aren't supposed to get that big!" Mint objected.

"Ghosts can change their sizes at will, especially Gengar. They do it to scare people. Shen did it to give me a ride."

Mint panted, clutching his chest. "It almost gave me a heart attack!"

"Not 'it'; 'he'. Shen is a boy."

"He's the one Aaron talked about?"

"Uh huh."

"That's wonderful," Manny grumbled at the fresh dirt on his clothes. He dusted himself off as best he could. Mint started to help dust him off but Manny slapped his hand away. "You can ride 'Shen' to the Chateau, but I don't think they'll let him inside. Capture him, why don't you?"

"Nah. Shen needs to be free."

"Manny, how are we gonna get past these saplings?" Mint asked, bending one of the branches in question. "None of my regular Pokémon know the HM 'Cut'."

"You've got to be joking," Hannah muttered. "Shen, destroy them!"

Negative energy swirled before Shen, coalescing in a sphere of black light. Mint and Manny dove out of the way as Shen launched his Shadow Ball. When the dust cleared, they saw that Shen had eradicated not only the saplings, but most of the fence, as well.

"Good boy, Shen! You can go back home, now."

Hannah hopped off her loyal ghostly steed. Confuting the laws of physics, he shrank to his normal, tiny size. He gently butted his head against her knee, prompting her to pet him before he drifted into the shadows of trees.

Wise Shitashi was waiting for them at the Old Chateau, perched atop its slate shingle roof. Hanny returned him to his ball.

"Gives me the creeps," Mint whispered. The Cheateau did, indeed, have an ominous aura about it, abandoned as it was in the middle of the forest. It appeared to be very old, its high glass windows grimy, its wooden construction swollen and splintering in places.

"What are you chuckleheads waiting on?" Hannah reprimanded the boys. She strode forward, shoving the front door open with a loud creak. As she entered, the door swung shut with another jarring creak... but no hand or wind moved it. They looked askance at each other, but prepared to follow her.

"Wait," Manny said, stopping short of the doors. He had noticed sunlight glinting off a shiny thing in his peripheral vision. "What's that in the grass?"

The boys went around to the right wing of the mansion where a shiny object lay half buried in the dirt. Manny dug it out.

"Someone left perfectly good Ether here."

Mint's Pokétch pinged. It sounded like the Dowsing Machine.

"Manny, there's something hidden in that dirt wall!" he exclaimed, running there. The land, it seemed, had been carved away around the Chateau to accommodate the structure. Mint scraped dirt away from the wall before hitting paydirt.

"It's an Insect Plate!"

"Another one! What does it say on the back?"

"Uhhh…" Mint turned over the yellow-green artifact. "It says, 'Two make matter, and three make spirit, shaping the world.'"

"Who hid those things all over Sinnoh?" Manny wondered as Mint put the dirty thing inside his backpack. Wiping their hands on their clothing, the boys finally ventured indoors.

888

If there was such a thing as absolute silence, the interior of the Chateau would qualify. Here, it was as though the very wind had been silenced as it gusted through dusty louvres. Their footsteps echoed so loudly on the varnished wooden floor that Hannah told them to shush. The three of them tiptoed into the foyer, where an open doorway greeted them with stairs on either side.

Mint sneezed! It sounded like a cannon blast. Manny and Hannah told him to shut up while he sniffled and complained about the dust. He avoided the faded, worn rugs that promised a cloud of dust with each step. The three made their way upstairs.

"Gaaaaaaastly!" an eerie voice whispered behind them. Mint screamed and dove onto the floor into a fetal position while Hanny and Manny turned with utmost calm to face the gaseous ghost Pokémon. The ball of netherworld energy was attempting to make a scary face. After a few facial contortions – none of which impressed either Trainer – the Gastly gave up and floated somewhere else.

"Mint, you're embarrassing us in front of the ghosts," Manny said.

"I can't help it!" he whimpered, but unfurled his terrified body. He was not going to be left behind!

There were three doorways on the landing leading north, east and west, so they went north. They entered a long, narrow corridor that ran left to right, with five open doors leading north. Identical houseplants lined the corridor between the doors.

"Who waters these things? They're fresh and green," Hannah said, touching a leaf that still held a dewdrop.

They started with the door on the extreme left. It was a living room with chairs, tables and two bookshelves. Manny found a navy blue metal plate lying on the floor, covered in a patina of dust. While Mint and Hanny stood well back, Manny blew away the dust, erupting into a violent fit of sneezing, every sneeze echoing like a gunshot throughout the quiet mansion. Covering her mouth and nose, Hannah seized the plate, reading the engraving on the back while Manny retreated from the room, his nose exploding.

"'The Original One breathed alone before the universe came'."

"Did the Original One play Solitaire?" Mint asked her.

"That would explain entropy," she quipped.

They left the room. Manny had exhausted his sinuses, becoming dizzy in the process, and was leaning against a wall.

"I think these plates speak about a pantheon of gods, and their leader," Hanny said.

"Bluh," Manny replied, his nose blazing red.

"Awesome. You think this world was made by gods?" Mint asked.

Hannah looked at the Dread Plate, which reflected the dull sunlight streaming through the window at their end of the corridor.

"I don't have time for gods," she said, slipping the plate into her backpack.

The second room from the left just had a TV set crackling with static. The third had two beds and more bookshelves. The fourth room had one bookshelf and one bed, but then the Trainers heard footsteps in the next room. They rushed to the fifth and final room but found nothing but the TM for 'Substitute'.

"Oh yeah, haunted. Definitely haunted," Mint murmured.

"It's just a ghost Pokémon playing tricks," Hanny scoffed.

The Trainers exited south to the second floor landing, deciding to investigate the northern doorway on the first floor. They entered a grand dining hall. There was an even grander dining table, about one hundred feet long. What captured their attention, however, was an old, balding man staring at them on the other end of the table. What hair remained had turned white, clinging to the edges of his scalp like snow threatening to fall off an eave. He wore a green smoking jacket and black trousers almost as old as he.

Hanny waved. "Hello! Do you own this place?"

The old man turned and drifted to the left. He did not walk; his feet did not move, nor did his arms move, nor did his head bob up and down. He floated across the floor and disappeared through the western wall.

At that point, Mint was tattoed onto Manny's right arm, shivering.

Hannah rolled her eyes. "You baby, what did I tell you about ghost Pokémon being able to change shape? They can change appearance, too! They wouldn't be good at scaring people otherwise!"

She followed the old man's ghost westward, passing through the doorway like a normal human being.

"The ghost is gone! My Pokétch found this bottle of honey, and there's also an item ball on the kitchen floor!"

Motivated by avarice, Manny shook off Mint and dashed into the kitchen. He lunged onto the item ball, which was really a fake Pokéball used as storage. It held a Rare Candy!

"MINE!" Manny yelled, scrambling for the door.

"GLITCH, KILL!" Hanny ordered. Manny was blown backwards off his feet by a Tri-Attack aimed at the kitchen doorway ahead of him. Now covered in cement dust, he groaned, ears ringing. Glitch retrieved the Rare Candy for Hanny.

"QUERY: IS THIS FOR ME, MASTER?"

"Pfffft! This is for me, Glitch."

Hannah stuffed the blue wrapper into her pocket, broke off a piece of the candy with her teeth and started crunching.

"NOOOO!" Manny cried, one hand reaching towards her in futility.

"STATEMENT: MASTER, I APPROVE. HIS AGONY IS DELICIOUS."

"As is victory," she agreed, returning her minion to his Pokéball. "Wow, this tastes incredible. It's like crystallised sunlight! Too bad you can't have any."

"I just wanted Vaporeon to gain one level," Manny moaned, rolling over on the floor. He started to sneeze again, so he thought better of it and found his feet. Meanwhile, Mint exited the far eastern door of the dining hall.

"There's some old storage room back there, probably used to be a pantry. I found this HUGE pearl in there!" he said, holding up his prize. The pearlescent treasure was almost the size of his hand!

"Well, I got Rare Candy," Hanny said, biting off another chunk of the crystallised ambrosia.

Mint's face fell. "I'll trade ya!"

"No way!"

"Awwww!"

"Gaaaaaaastly!"

"EEEEEEEEEEEEE!" Mint shrieked, hiding under the dining table. Behind him, the Gastly snicked and drifted off elsewhere.

Leaving the hall, they again ascended the stairs, searching the western room on the second floor. There were more bookshelves here along with a few worn-out chairs. Hannah pounced upon the lone item ball when she found it.

"AHA! More candy!" Hannah squealed with delight. She held up the rectangular block of hard candy. "This one is dark purple, though. It smells like a berry, but I can't tell which." She broke off a piece with her teeth. "Wow, oh yeah, this was definitely made with berries. All sorts of berries! I'm tasting Bluk, Yache, Apicot…"

"Hanny! You could at least share!" Manny whined.

"Finders, keepers!"

"You STOLE the Rare Candy from me!"

"If you can't protect your property, you forfeit your right to own it."

"That… that's anarchy!"

"Archery?" Mint asked.

"No! She's breaking the law!"

"So are we," Mint reminded him. "We're trespassing, not to mention stealing. Glitch blew up a doorway, so that would be destruction of property, too. We broke three laws in less than ten minutes!"

Manny blinked. "Oh. Well, uh, never mind."

The eastern room on the second floor just had rows of bookshelves.

Mint picked up an old notebook on the floor, trying to read the faded handwriting: "Something so peculiar should make off with the moth… the moth?" he frowned, passing the notebook to his friends. They couldn't make heads or tails of it, so Mint dropped it where he had found it.

The Dowsing Machine could not find anymore hidden items, so the three Trainers met outside.

"I wanted to find a Rotom!" Manny grumbled.

"Look on the bright side of life, Manny! We got some sweet loot!" Mint clapped him on the back, holding his huge pearl up to the sunlight. The sun glowed through the pearl, warming it in his hand.

"You two got sweet loot. I just got blown up and robbed!" he corrected Mint, beating cement dust off his clothing and hair.

"The big, scary ghosts don't come out during the day. You have to wait until nighttime to see any," Hannah said.

Thus the Trainers agreed to spend the remainder of their day at Pastoria City's Great Marsh. What with the Galactic Bomb and chasing after Team Galactic, none of them had had a chance to explore the place before.