The next evening, Leon volunteers to go up to the goal where the medals are. He remembers the next events very well. The anime never said it directly, but an evil spirit tries to pull Ash and Angie through the portal to the other side. Maybe even to hell. While Leon knows what happens in the anime, many things have changed and he isn't about to risk it so he is at the site waiting with his pokemon. For this, he had brought Omen over from the lab. Leon wishes he had a few ghost types or at least more psychic types. The only ones he thought had a chance to fight this thing are Omen and Crystal.

"Maybe I should have you do some ghost-busting training," Leon speaks up after a while of waiting as he looks at Crystal.

Crystal raises an eyebrow. 'The fuck is a proton pack?'

'Are you sure something will happen?' Omen questions, ignoring Crystal's question, though gets annoyed at her cursing.

"Yeah, no doubt. Can't you feel it? Something very wrong?" Leon asks, figuring Omen could sense something by now.

Omen raises an eyebrow and looks around. She frowns as she starts to sense… something. It feels like energy…or blocky there. Like a hard door. And it's all near the big hole in the rock wall as she looks mostly towards it. 'Something…there…' she states, her tail wagging a little behind her.

'I…feel it too. I don't like it at all,' Crystal states, having missed it until Omen feels where it is coming from and Leon points it out.

"Crystal. These metal rebars I brought with us. Start stabbing them into the ground around the area in front and around that hole. I want something for us to grab onto if need be," Leon says before the metal rebar they carried up here is engulfed in Crystal's psychic aura before being stabbed into the ground, making it look natural as this is also a construction site.

Crystal then blinks as she senses a stray thought from Leon. Is one of…iron working as a barrier? Against ghosts? Crystal turns back at Leon for a moment but then looks back so he doesn't notice her staring or reading his thoughts. 'Okay…so we got something big. Do we have any other plans besides rebars?'

"We have an ace. I guess he might be a warden of the area. Dusknior. He is hunting what came through as we speak and hopefully, these will keep people from being sucked into the other side by the spirit," Leon explains.

'Hopefully,' Omen repeats and Leon nods hauntingly.

'So the four of us are all that stand in its way?' Crystal asks.

"Yes. The…four?" Leon asks before turning around and seeing a Haunter next to Crystal who has been listening to this whole conversation.

'Hello,' Haunter greets, waving its disembodied hand at the human.

"Uh…hi," Leon greets with a wave back. "Do you want to get involved in this? You could get sucked into the other side," Leon inquires.

Haunter seems to shrug with its hands. 'And so what? I got to make sure you guys aren't.'

"Thanks," Leon says as they get back to preparations, waiting for the ghost to arrive with Ash and Angie.

The four wait as Omen, Crystal, and Leon are on edge. The Haunter, Leon is unsure if it is nervous or not as the sun sets and their encroaching conflict came closer and closer. By now, Ash and Angie would have started battling. Leon tries to hide how nervous he is. He couldn't remember much of this spirit. Maybe because it was sent back

before it could show off what it could do. But knowing Japanese folklore like he did when something like this is involved, it never ends well for the mortals. So there is no telling how truly strong this thing is.

'So…much…stronger…' Crystal says, starting to shake now.

"They're here," Leon says, getting up from sitting on the stairs and Omen starts to growl, sensing it. Something evil is coming as Ash and Angie come into view.

"What the…Leon?" Ash calls confused. She then looks at the growling absol and frowns. "Guess we have to battle you to get your medal, don't we?" she asks, taking out one of her pokeballs with Angie doing the same.

"No, it seems neither of you has noticed something evil following you. I know you're there, evil spirit. We won't allow you to just do as you want," Leon says looking off to their side.

The two girls slowly look at each other confused before looking behind them. There, standing behind them, is a little girl smiling happily. However, one thing they notice is the very pale skin as she wears a stout little yellow hoodie. And the wide smile that appears under the shadow of the hood. Not even the nose is visible in that hidden darkness. Her little hands barely appear from the sleeves of the hoodie as it seems to be waving…no, beckoning them to come closer.

"Well…that's just fucking creepy," Leon comments, frowning that this is looking worse than it was in the episode. It showed up as a little girl, but this time, it went for more creep factor than before…and who knows what other tricks it could be hiding under that hoodie.

Omen doesn't even wait for the order and attacks it with Psycho Cut, sending a wave of energy at the creature. The thing seems surprised by how quickly it is attacked and its hoodie is damaged. Under the cut part of the hood, Ash and Angie sees there are no eyes underneath it and are horrified as the spirit started to chuckle before it evolves into laughter as its head starts twisting and turning to where it is upside down.

Angie and Ash start to back away from the now obvious ghostly apparition as its body starts to twist and seemingly mutate into some sort of horror. To Leon, it is obvious this is a Japanese yokai. It slowly takes the form of a huge spider-like creature with brown fur all over its body and an upside-down ape-like face with no eyes or eye sockets, but from inside the mouth, they could spy an eye as it comes up from its throat and came to rest against its sharp teeth.

'Fuck…what kind of pokemon are you…?' Crystal whispers hauntingly, shakily breathing out as she tries to understand the almost chimera creature before them.

"It's not a pokemon. This is a yokai. An evil ghost that spreads disaster and tortures the living and dead. Get ready as this may be the fight of our lives," Leon informs as, hearing that, the haunter lashed out with a flurry of shadow balls that the yokai dodges, unlike the psycho cut that Omen used.

Crystal decides to rip a rebar out of the ground and uses the metal stick. She flings it toward the yokai with her psychic powers, making it easily dodge as it seems to smirk and laugh at her. But Crystal smirks as she flings it right back. The iron stick quickly flies back and strikes the spider yokai in the abdomen, sticking inside it and…somehow leaking black tar. It screeches at them all, enraged now at causing it a wound. But not deterred, it charges forward in a bum rush towards them as it screeches louder. Leon grabs Ash and Angie and throws them to the side as he jumps away out of the enraged path. The spider yokai crashes into some of the ruins and construction and scaffolding equipment, sending it all tumbling down into a mess of debris.

"Oh, I hope the professor doesn't bill me for that," ' Leon hopes, seeing the destruction before crying out and scrambling away as the spider charges out of the piles of mess it left behind. Brickwork, metal, and some electric lines spark and scatter everywhere as it goes for him. It seems to have sensed that while the pokemon do present a threat to it, it understands the master behind them. "Shit! Shit! Shit! Fuck me!" he yells, running away and dodging and weaving through more pillars and columns. Each one crashes through until he weaves past a rather thick column. A sudden heavy thud braces the other side and throws smoke and dust past the edges around him.

Leon coughs as a few cracking bricks fall and land in front of him, almost missing him. "This was not in the summary!" he yells, running through an open area as the spider scrambles off the column and chases him again.

This time though, it's in wide view of the attacking pokemon. All at once, two shadow balls, a couple of psycho cuts, and a dozen rebars fly out and smack against the sides of the spider, sending it tumbling away down the stairs a little. Leon pants heavily, trying to catch his breath as he holds his burning chest. "Fuck! I need to run more when we travel," he wheezes, looking back at the yokai as it twitches and rights itself, turning straight at him. "Oh, come on!" he yells before running off again.

"Crystal, Omen, Haunter. Stop holding back. This isn't a battle. This thing is already dead. So aim to cripple or even kill it. If you don't, all of us here will die," Leon yells and those words struck Ash and Angie of how serious this is, causing Pikachu to leap into action, starting to use its most powerful electric attacks, but the yokai doesn't even seem to slow down that much from it either.

Crystal, hearing this, suddenly is overcome with a sense of helplessness and powerlessness. None of her attacks seems to be hurting this thing much at all. Her knowledge suddenly falls back to what Leon has always taught her using those chemistry and physics books. She grunts as she grabs some earth and launches a hardened sand pillar into the air after Leon runs past. The spider just crashes through like nothing is there, merely making an even worse mess. Crystal whimpers, trying to run through the list of things she can do. Some form of combination that can do some kind of interaction. But her mind is too filled. Too many thoughts are running through her head. And none are going away. Her calming techniques aren't working either. She would have to…have to…

Omen makes another flurry of psychos cuts, seeing as that's her most effective attack right now. The haunter next to her is trying its best to send shadow ball after shadow ball. But even as a ghost, the energy to make these is taking its toll as the crackling balls seem to get smaller and smaller. Omen struggles to keep her horn lit up with energy before she is suddenly blinded from her side. She takes a glance and gasps in shock at what is happening to her best friend.

Haunter starts to grow weaker and weaker before stopping and starts inhaling and letting out a haunting yell. They weren't words, just a yell that is heard throughout the area.

Leon pants as he stumbles a few times but keeps running. His weaving through the pillars and columns does work and seems to be keeping it at bay. Every time it crashes into something, it loses some speed and stumbles a few times as well. But eight legs do keep it steady enough to get back quickly into running form, unlike a two-legged human. His pants are getting laborious, burning his lungs like fire, and his heart can barely keep up by now. The adrenaline he had moments ago is now losing strength and his body is fighting against itself to keep going. He grunts as he dives behind a large column and hears it crash into it, skidding off after smacking half of itself against the edge. Leon looks on in shock as it slides and scrapes the ground before shaking itself just fine and running toward him again.

"Fuck me…"

The spider yokai screeches as it rears up to pierce him but a sudden crunch did not come from him. Leon gasps as he opens his eyes and looks on in shock at the sight before him. There, holding the driving legs with spikes at the tips at bay is Crystal. Broken pieces of ruined rocks are being used as makeshift shields. But it isn't the feat of holding this yokai back that captures his attention. It is her appearance. While Leon expects to see the cute little kirlia that always rides his shoulders standing there, he is more pleasantly surprised and relieved as a gardevoir is there. But this one is different.

Her form is not a long form-fitting dress, but a short one. Almost like a combat skirt that reaches halfway up her thighs and waves in the wind very easily. Her 'shirt', if it can be called that, also seems to have changed form from a regular variant. From an open-top styled shirt to a more workout bra as evidenced by the thin blue coloring going over her shoulders and then wrapping the larger blue around her sides and back. Even the blue on her arms changed from blue to all white as if she has no sleeves if compared with clothes.

And she looks pissed.

"Fuck off!" Crystal yells, eyes glowing bright blue before a sudden giant rock smashes into the side of it, sending it skidding off against a tree. Crystal takes notice of it all and smashes a leg into the ground in front of her before raising an arm. Her eyes glow brighter as more rocks float around her, debris broken from the constant crashing and running into things around the area.

The yokai screeches at her, but Crystal crashes fearlessly, rocks quickly following in her wake as she swings her arm down. A few rocks suddenly flew straight at the spider yokai who shields itself from the heavy barrage. So entrenched it is in a moment, it doesn't notice Crystal moving around it as she builds a wall of debris around it. She then swings her arms around with a straight lock of her limb, making the rocks sharply pepper it and crush the spiritual exoskeleton. Whatever damage it is doing is unknown, but it surely keeps it busy.

Crystal screams as she slams another leg into the ground, sending a pillar of rock up like a spire, blocking off the view of everyone from it. Arms fly around as she sends more up around it, trapping it for a brief moment. A few legs suddenly make holes, crashing through the barrier. But Crystal doesn't let up as she smashes her hands together. The sudden influx of psychic powers forces the rocks to squeeze hard and even bend like hot metal, electing a loud screech from the yokai trapped inside. Crystal then slams a fist into the ground, blowing out the ground beneath her as the same happens to the rock prison.

"For the last time…" Crystal seethes, lifting a hand and forming a fireball as she glares at the yokai breaking free of the rocky prison. "Fuck off and go back to where you came from!" she yells as she throws the physically created fireball at the creature. With the fire being made from natural chemical reactions and elements around them and the air, it soon strikes the spider's body, engulfing it in flames as the fire easily spreads with Crystal keeping the blaze contained by forming an almost skintight cocoon around the body. The fire easily singes and burns the hairs and flesh. But the yokai seems to still smile at her with that same hungry grin. Crystal glares back as she opens a small hole in her psychic shield, letting air rush in and causing an intense flashover that makes it blow through the entire psychic prison.

"Crystal. I think it needs to be punished. Boil or blind its eye," Leon instructs.

Hearing that, Crystal smirks as she notices it. The yokai always protected its eye through this entire fight. She screams as she charges right toward it. The yokai, fighting through her burning psychic prison, crashes its legs toward her. She easily reaches up and punches the legs, right at the first joints and sending them askew past her to crash against the ground. Right then, she reaches the face who tries to bite down on her. But Crystal already makes water balls in her hands that she makes the fangs bite down on. She then let's go and quickly freezes them solid, stopping them cold as it is terrified this quickly happened at all. Crystal then punches a hand through her psychic prison and grabs the eye looking around widely, stopping it in place and making it look at her. She then makes a flame appear in the middle of the eyeball before she clenches her hand, forcing air to rush in now. The sudden influx of air causes another flashover, almost covering Crystal's body and arm, but she makes the flames be redirected back into the prison and the eye.

The yokai screeches in pain as it stumbles back while Crystal slowly gets back into a stance that Leon notices looks wobbly and unsteady now, exhausted. Though, the image of an innocent Crystal is broken when he sees the dripping bloodied hand as it gets onto her leg while she tries to remain ready to strike again. "Wow…" Leon says in awe of his pokemon. And not much else can come from that as he can only look at her form. Not even the burning and screaming yokai can distract him as it crashes and thrashes around the area to get rid of the burning unstoppable fire.

As this happens Professor Rowan, Dawn, Zoey, Brock, Gardenia, and Lana run up the ruined stone stairs into view of this abomination as it turns and looks menacingly at them, the body still on fire. "I will kill all of you!" the yokai roars in anger as it starts to charge something in its mouth.

Leon uncovers his ears from the screech and looks in a fearful daze. From the look of this attack, it isn't even matching up to a hyper beam. Or a dragon pulse. It seems more…otherworldly. The spider rears back its head and prepares to fire. However, just when it is about to let go, a sudden earth wall comes up and takes the brunt of the

attack. The beams scatter everywhere and strike the many ruined buildings and pillars still standing from this rampage.

Leon covers himself, with the others as well doing the same, as pieces and dust crash down and rise everywhere. Leon slowly looks to see the monster more pissed off. And even worse, the flames are subsiding on its body. And it seems to know that. As another loud screech shakes the entire area, Crystal cries out, punching the ground to make a rock spire rise suddenly and pierce the forsaken body. The yokai screeches in pain as black tar drips down the spire. The large body is lifted off the ground now, showing everyone the creature in full unnatural glory. Crystal grunts, stumbling to her knees as she struggles to stay awake now, her gaze still locked onto the strange and powerful creature that won't die, no matter what she does. She fears that if she closes her eyes for a second, she might not be getting up next time.

The yokai uses its legs to stab into the rocks, trying to break them to free itself, but is suddenly bombarded by many attacks all at once. Everyone looks to where the attacks are coming from and sees, up in the sky, ghost pokemon like Ghastly, Haunter, Gengar, Misdreavus, Shuppet, Banette, Mismagius, Drifloon, Drifblim, Duskull, Dusclops, and one Dusknoir. There are more ghost pokemon there than Professor Rowan has ever seen in one place. There are hundreds of ghost types all using ghost-type moves to attack the yokai.

The bombardment is getting so immense, the ground shakes and dust and debris fly everywhere all at once. Crystal forces herself to reach out and uses some rocks that were kicked off by the relentless attacks. She raises them into the air before clenching her teeth while she forms and changes the rocks. Old things slowly morph and deform from their original brick or shattered shape. She slowly turns them into spear-like spires, all aiming at the yokai. Crystal then slams her hand down onto the ground, getting a loud screech as a result when they all pierce the body and pin it in place to the ground to receive all the attacks the ghost pokemon gives out.

Crystal moans exhausted before falling over flat on the ground. Her brain struggles to stay awake as she tries to use a psychic pulse to feel if the yokai is dead. But instead, she feels herself lifted as Leon cradles her and holds the psychic pokemon close to him, his arms wrapped around her as he gets ready to move the poor girl at a moment's notice. Crystal smiles at the soft warm comfort of her master and slowly closes her eyes, trying to keep a grip on his arm, but failing as she slowly drifts off to sleep.

As this happens, a cave on the side of the cliff blasts bright purple light as a purple portal opens up. Dusknoir flies at the spider before blasting it point blank, kicking up a lot of dust. When it finally clears, there on the ground, struggling to even move, is the human form of the yokai. Dusknoir shows no mercy as its eye lights up again and launches the yokai into the portal where they hear it crying out before the hole is sealed by rubble from the mountain it is a part of.

"Whoa…" Angie can only say before they notice Leon still holding the sleeping Crystal. Both she and Ash quickly get up and rush over as Leon tries to see if the gardevoir is hurt anywhere. "Is she okay?"

Leon shakes his head, looking relieved. "Just exhausted," he sighs, taking out his pokeball and returning her in. "Professor…I need your permission to use the healing station on the main campus," he asks, looking back at Professor Rowan.

"And so we are not allowed to talk about what happened up there now," Leon says as Crystal drinks a nice cup of hot cocoa.

Crystal gently and slowly sips away, sighing in relief as her exhaustion ebbs away. "Good…hope a cover story is made. Maybe the ghost pokemon are 'hostile' to anyone that gets close and they will make sure that is true," she mentions, smiling over at her master. "You still can't keep your eyes off me," she teases, giving a light giggle, seeing him still staring at her new body.

"Nope, it never happened," Leon says with an eye roll.

Crystal giggles before sighing. "Finally evolved…" she says as a matter of fact. Leon does take another look over the pokemon. He did expect a skirt, but it is not sleek and flat like a gala skirt. More akin to an almost flat frilly type. And that is only her skirt. There are many other changes that the professors and teachers took note of while the on-campus Nurse Joy took care of her. Crystal doesn't seem to mind that he is staring too long at her as she expected her body to change. But not that much in hindsight. "And…I am putting my studies to good use…but that was tiring," she admits, sighing again as she lowers her head. "Felt like I expended half my energy thinking up ideas."

Leon smiles at the admittance. "Well, if you let me, I would help handle the mad lad of ideas. You worry about yourself on the field," he offers.

Crystal smirks. "Does this mean I can move into your mind? I can pack my bags quickly," she jokes.

"If you did that, you can't make fun of your brother when he evolves into a skirt as well," Leon reminds.

Crystal laughs. "I can't help it. He deserves some sisterly embarrassment."

"You rest up, I got to do a few rounds before I call it a night," Leon says, patting her head before heading out.

Crystal gives a small wave at him before going back to drinking her hot cocoa. Leon smiles as he leaves the room, groaning as he walks the halfways now. "…fucking perfect," he mutters, not believing for one second that this event became a lot worse than it was in the episode. On top of it, he is now dealing with Crystal too. But more importantly, he knows this couldn't be programmed easily. A yokai that could kill someone or even drag them to a place where they might never return. Why would they put this in? There is no real benefit to killing anyone playing the game or was this always a thing and Ash and the rest got off lucky because of Dusknoir.

For once, Leon wonders if the game is now adding more stuff than it needs to or was this even a game.

As Leon makes his rounds, he stumbles upon Angie who is looking out at the moon outside the bunk buildings. "Can't sleep?" Leon asks, surprising her a bit.

Angie sighs in relief, jumping a little higher than normal. There is Gigan on the roof, but once he sees Leon approach, the pokemon pays them no mind as Leon is adequate protection for the girl. "Hey. Sorry. It's just the last event…kinda shaken me up. I was hoping some fresh air might do some good."

"If you weren't shaken by that, then you would have something wrong with you I think," Leon assures.

Angie gives a slight smile. "Great. Being scared at least one day of the week…I can manage I think," she chuckles before it dies down as she looks down when her mind thinks further down the rabbit hole of issues. Leon sighs and puts a hand on her shoulder to be reassuring and just waits for her to feel comfortable talking about it. Angie smiles a bit more as she gives a small glance at him. "You ever faced that on your journey?" she finally asks.

"No, that was something I never encountered. That's the kind of thing you make up ghost stories about," Leon assures.

Angie chuckles at that. "You do that too?"

Leon shrugs. "I can scare the living daylights out of you. You want a story?" he asks jokingly. Though, he does feel the girl's shoulders tense up at the mere sound of that. "Joking, I don't think anyone who saw that will be up to hearing something like that," Leon says, feeling her relax under his hand. "Feel a bit better?" Leon asks.

Angie slowly nods, smiling at him. "Yeah. Just no scary stories, please," she requests, not letting him move his hand off her by moving a bit closer. "I think everyone had enough for one lifetime," Angie says, looking at Leon

who is looking at the moon and starts thinking how handsome he looks and starts to blush like mad. She is thankful he isn't looking at her then.

"So you feel better talking about it a bit?" Leon asks.

Angie pauses, thinking about it when something comes to mind. "Were you scared at all?"

Leon slowly frowns and taps a foot against the ground. "Yeah. Once it got around to running around and it destroyed a few things, it dawned on me things could get worse. And…we could die if it got a hold of us," he admits, wondering what else he can even say about this whole thing. They almost died if they weren't as careful or even a slight bit weaker than Leon was sure they would have been.

"I see," Angie says, actually feeling a bit relieved that the one who had saved her is afraid as well.

Leon sighs. "I considered this whole academy time a vacation. Now I wonder where I can go for vacation. Maybe a beach…but I am worried I might encounter some team that loves the sea. And I want to just lay on some sandy beach…and sleep. Then again, that sounds like my hometown," he sighs wistfully.

"Sounds nice," Angie says, sounding more interested.

"Yeah, I grew up on the coast and I know quite a bit of the beach. Though, I guess it makes it redundant to go to a beach for a vacation when your home is on a beach," Leon says, feeling like he is on auto-pilot.

Angie smiles brightly at the sound of that. "Maybe if we have a chance, you can show me around?"

"Sure, I would be up for that," Leon assures.

Angie smiles over at him. "Great. It's a date."

Leon doesn't comment on that, but he starts to wonder what happened to Angie after her second appearance in the anime.