Creation began on 08-06-23
Creation ended on 09-02-23
Neon Genesis Evangelion
Penance of the Old Chateau
Even though the battle seemed evenly matched, Shinji couldn't risk the safety of the civilians and their Pokémon around the hatred of the Haunter that used to be the Ursaring he caught that died over a day ago and came back to get revenge against him, so he had to get it away from the city. And the only way he knew that would work…was to lure it away using himself as bait.
"Rei!" He called out to his Shiny Mega Gyarados, who turned away from the aberrant Haunter and came to him. "We need to get away from the city! Head to the forest!"
He and his Eevee climbed atop her head and she went to the forest away from the city. Looking back at the aberrant Haunter, he saw, to both his horror and relief, that it was following them; if it was dead set on getting revenge against him for its own demise, it would pursue him.
Come and get me, he thought as Rei flew around the trees.
"Eevo!" Misato whined in fear; the vengeance-seeking Pokémon didn't seem to know the meaning of the word "forgiveness".
-x-
"…I can't believe that Pokémon did all of this," Asuka and Hikari expressed as they and the others assessed the devastation caused to the people and Pokémon in Laverre City, seeing several injured and others scared by the Ghost Pokémon that attacked them unprovoked.
"Don't worry, sir," Valerie told a man that had been harmed by the Haunter that made itself resemble an Ursaring, "help is on the way."
"That kid with the Gyarados," he spoke up, "why'd that Haunter want to hurt him?"
"I don't think it wants to hurt him," said Hanmyo as she and her cats came to aid some injured kids. "The way it kept looking like something else… That Pokémon doesn't want to hurt him. I think it wants to do something…worse."
"But…that guy was the champion of the Sinnoh League, wasn't he?" A little boy asks. "He'll be able to stop that Ghost Pokémon before it can take him out, right?"
Rei looked out where Shinji had fled on his Gyarados nicknamed after her…and worried that his status as a Pokemon League Champion wasn't going to help him against this particular Pokémon that was after him.
-x-
They came to a halt as Rei stopped in front of a structure that gave Shinji and Misato bad vibe. There was no mistaking it, as even the hairs on his nape and the tail on his Eevee were standing on end. It was the Old Chateau, the haunted house that they didn't want to visit a second time. Only now, it was here in the Kalos Region for some reason, in front of them.
"Rrraurgh!" Rei roared as she reverted back into her evolved state.
"Eevo!" Misato went as Shinji put his Gyarados back inside her Poké Ball.
"This is insane," Shinji tells her.
Come, a voice utters out in the back of his head. Come inside… Come…
"Nope," he responds as he picks Misato up. "That ain't happening."
"HAUNTER!" They heard their adversary not far behind now.
"Eee…"
"Yeah."
The choices were very dire for them: Either run further…or try to hide inside the Old Chateau. Neither choice was to their liking. As he picked up his Eevee, Shinji turns to look back at the trees. He was looking for the Haunter that was after him, either hiding nearby…or waiting for an opportunity to strike a fatal blow.
I can see your fear, boy, they heard its voice, and your time has come.
"You're not the first person to make that claim," Shinji tells him, "and you won't be the last to, either. I'm still here…and all you're doing is whining about how your end is somehow my fault when you know it's your own."
"Rrrraaugh!" He saw the Haunter fly from behind a tree, its mouth open and its teeth elongated into fangs, resembling an Ursaring more and more now, and he dodged it by jumping onto the ground, just barely avoiding being scooped up into its mouth.
It turned to face the pair, now sporting legs…and a tail. It stood up and resembled an Ursaring in every horrible sense, down to its face and eyes that flared with rage and hate.
I will make sure that your suffering becomes legendary, the Ursaring tells Shinji, even in the furthest depths of Hell!
"Eevo!" Misato went, pointing her left paw towards the Old Chateau as its front door began to open up. "Eee! Eevo!"
"Aw, blow this!" Shinji groaned as he got up and ran towards the Old Chateau.
You can run, but you can't hide, the Ursaring snarls as it chases after him. I will kill you!
-x-
"…Thank you," a little girl praised Asuka as she bandaged her right leg.
"Merci…" Rei was thanked by an elderly man as she applied healing ointment over his cuts.
"Your friend," a boy getting his head bandaged by Hikari, "will he be alright against that Ghost Pokémon? I mean…it didn't look like any other Ghost Pokémon seen by people elsewhere."
Hikari looked at Toji and wasn't sure what to say; this was the first time they had encountered a Ghost Pokémon that had once been a Pokémon Shinji had caught…and had died just a few days ago, come back to take revenge against him.
"Shinji's the toughest guy we know," Toji tells the boy as he wraps a bandage around his mother's left arm. "Ain't no way, in this life or the next, that even a Ghost Pokémon like that is going to stop him from reaching his goal."
"Oh, my," the mother gasped, pointing up at the sky. "What's that Pokémon?"
Everyone not being tended to or was helping someone else looked up and saw a large, serpentine creature flying in the air.
"A Reyquaza," Hanmyo expressed, but then noticed some other people on its back. "It's Hisui."
"Hisui?" A woman she was helping asks.
"My friend caught a Reyquaza shortly after winning the Sinnoh League."
Hisui landed on the ground away from the city as Misato ran over to it, and saw Prof. Oak, a Mewtwo and Jynx climb off it.
"Professor Oak?" She questions. "What are y'all doing here?"
"To help Shinji," he answers. "Everyone got worried about him after his Ursaring passed."
Master looked at the forest nearby and sensed a lingering presence.
"Shinji ran into that forest, didn't he?" He asks Misato.
"Yeah," she responds. "A bizarre Ghost Pokémon appeared and attacked him."
Master looked inside the minds of everyone around and saw the Pokémon that was after Shinji.
"It is the rage of the Ursaring that passed," it explains to them the situation. "It will not stop until it obtains its vengeance against Shinji."
"What?! But that's insane!" Misato gasps. "Shinji didn't do anything to cause the Ursaring to die that day!"
"True," Prof. Oak states, "but ever since Shinji caught it and sent it to my lab, it has carried a resentment towards him that hasn't been forgotten about. Now that it has come back from its demise, it aims to take revenge against Shinji for capturing it and keeping it in check."
"You mean to say that a Hibernator Pokémon our friend caught because it was deliberately upsetting the order of nature instead of following it," went Toji, "got itself dealt with by harassing some other Pokémon belonging to another trainer…is out there, after Shinji…because of its self-righteous hatred towards him?"
"Yes," Master answers.
"That's horrible," says Hikari, worried for Shinji.
-x-
Ursaring wandered around the halls of the Old Chateau, smashing holes throughout the dilapidated walls as it looked for Shinji, but had yet to find him.
"Rrrrrrraaargh!" It roared as it went up a flight of stairs. "You hear that, boy?! That's the sound of me coming for you!"
But it wasn't sure if Shinji heard anything it said, if he was running or hiding somewhere.
"I'll find you! I will put you in the ground!"
It walked past an empty room, unaware that it wasn't as empty as it seemed. Inside, taking refuge in a closet space, Shinji and Misato waited for the Ursaring to walk further down the hall before vacating the room.
To think that I was more afraid of this place than I am of Ursaring, thought Shinji as he carried Misato out of the room and down the opposite end of the hall, towards the stairs, seeing the added devastation caused by the ghostly Ursaring in the process of trying to find him. I'm still afraid of this place.
A hand reached out from behind him and pulled the two into a room.
"Mmmm!" He gasped, turned around to face a man around the sub-commander's age, dressed like a servant of a mansion, who raised a finger to his mouth, shushing him.
"This way," he tells Shinji, leading him and Misato down a narrow corridor. "Over here."
Shinji followed him to a light source, stepping into a small room that was a contrast to the rest of the building; it was clean, well-lit, decorated with several toys and books, and was occupied by a little girl and several Ghost Pokémon that Shinji recognized from their initial encounter back in the Sinnoh Region.
"Welcome," the little girl greets them, her eyes covered by her blond hair. "This is my safe room. That Ursaring can't find us here."
Misato freed herself from Shinji's arms and climbed atop a large pillow in the shape of a Snorlax. This left Shinji to sit beside poster of a Dragonite, Arcanine and Kyogre.
"Why are you helping us?" He asks them.
"Your former Ursaring is so full of malice that it endangers everyone around it," the elderly man states, "and not all Ghost Pokémon are meant to be seen as villains."
"Gengar," the Gengar went. "Gengar."
"Ghastly, Ghastly," one of the Ghastly added in.
"Ghost Pokémon are mischievous and terrorize people in the pursuit of foolishness," the girl explains, "but never with any intent to harm or kill. They scared a young woman and her Chansey once, but when they were scared almost to death, they revealed themselves to make amends. Any Ghost Pokémon that crosses the line between life and death of another person, regardless of intent, shames all other Ghost Pokémon."
"So, what can we do about this one?" Shinji asks.
"Imprison it within the Old Chateau," the man reveals, and the Ghastly agreed with him. "This is the original Old Chateau; the one that can be found in Canalave City is a copy. This place is bathed in supernatural energies that can be used to enhance or ensnare displaced spirits."
"If we can trap Ursaring in this building, you're saying that it can't get out? Like…ever?"
"Ghastly," one of the Ghastly spoke. "No…way…out."
The girl then went to a small table where a tea kettle lay next to some cups. She picked it up and poured a liquid into the cups and into a small saucer. Then, she set the plate on the floor, and Misato came over and lapped it up.
"Thank you," Shinji praised her as she handed him the cup. "I'm Shinji. That's Misato."
"Selene," she identifies herself and the man. "Timothy."
And Shinji didn't need introductions from the Ghost Pokémon in the room. They were five Ghastly, two Haunter, a Gengar and three Rotom. He drank the contents of the cup and stated that he would help them trap the Ursaring. It was his Ursaring that was causing trouble, and, in a way, it was still his responsibility to deal with since he made it his priority to capture this misbehaving beast.
"What do you need me to do?" He asks.
-x-
"…This is getting scary, and I'm not even over there," went Antonio to Fuyutsuki and Tama Pāru as the rest of the work crew were observing the situation from every possible direction. "I hope Shinji knows what he's doing."
"He has faced threats against his life before," Fuyutsuki states, but knew why he was concerned; despite the fact that Shinji had dealt with Angels and people with less than moral intentions, he never faced an issue with a dead Pokémon that was after him. "He may survive this."
"Do you sincerely believe that?" One of the American workers asks.
"I do."
"Ghost Pokémon aren't to be taken lightly, though," said Tama Pāru as it looked up at the ceiling above them all. "The disembodied souls of those able to return from the beyond don't obey the natural laws as those who still reside in the living realm are forced to."
"But…people that walk the path of Pokémon Trainers, they're able to catch and train Ghost Pokémon," Fuyutsuki says.
"True, but like any Pokémon that is caught, their personalities are volatile; they can be tamed, they can force the trainer to rethink their strategies or make compromises. But this Ursaring Shinji caught is not looking to be tamed. It's not looking for a compromise. It's just looking for a chance to cause misery…even after its final breath was spent. To survive, Shinji will have to work a miracle…and may need a miracle."
-x-
"…That's the Old Chateau?" Toji asks Hanmyo as they all stood outside where Master had led them, looking at the decrepit building. "What's it doing here if it's supposed to be in the Sinnoh Region?"
"There are unnatural energies that are pooling in and intensifying around this structure," said Master as he levitated over to the doors with his right arm raised. "Shinji went inside and the disembodied Ursaring followed after him."
"Is he…" Misato questioned, but didn't finish because she didn't want to believe that it was within the realm of possibility.
"No, he's still among the living."
"Then, let's go in and get him," Asuka tells them as she goes over to the doors to open them.
"We can't."
Asuka tries to pull the doors open, but they're stuck, like someone welded or glued them shut.
"Jynx, Jynx," Katsuragi utters, her hair strands standing up on end. "Jynx, Jynx."
"I don't like this," Hikari expresses.
"Nobody except the Ursaring would like this," says Master.
"Oh!" They hear Rei gasp and see her moving away from a window.
"What is it, Rei?" Kensuke asks her.
"The Ursaring that died," she tells them, raising her left arm up. "It's in the room behind this wall. I think it saw me."
Professor Oak came over to another window and peeked inside…and slowly stepped back.
"I don't think I have ever seen any Ursaring with such a wicked smile before," he tells them. "It's not even trying to come out of the manor. It's just ignoring whoever is out here."
"Because Shinji's in there with it, and it's looking for him," Misato says in realization. "It has no reason to come after any of us when its actual target is nearby."
Rei turned to look inside the window and saw the Ursaring knock over a large chair before vacating the room. She prayed that Shinji was fine.
-x-
Shinji and Misato came out of hiding and walked down the stairs, just in time to see Ursaring walk out a different room on the ground floor.
"Rrrrraaurgh!" It roared at him, raising its right arm up to brandish its claw. "I have you now!"
"Eevo!" Misato retorts her disgust towards it as Shinji picks her up.
"You want to kill me that much?" He asks it. "If you want me so badly, come and get some."
He ran back up the steps and Ursaring chased after him, smashing through the steps and leaving claw marks on the walls in the process. The plan seemed simple enough to follow: Shinji had to lure Ursaring to a room with a big rug with an ornate circle. That would serve as its reckoning; as Prof. Oak informed him that Ursaring had somehow destroyed its Poké Ball, it caused an issue between its independence and Shinji's custody over it, needing to be resolved once again. Running down the hall of the third floor, Shinji looked for a door that was blue with red stains on it; that was the room he had to get it in.
"Eee!" Misato yelled.
"Yeah!" He replied, and took something out of his left pocket; his Eevee had suggested using an item to impede Ursaring, even for a brief moment.
Taking out a Repel, he threw it down the hall and resumed running. The Ursaring just slashed the canister into pieces, causing a ball of smoke to spill across the air around it.
"Do you really think a cheap trick is going to stop me?!" It yells at Shinji. "I'm going to enjoy ripping your heart out!"
-x-
"…We checked all around," Hanmyo tells Misato and the others as they regrouped in front of the decrepit manor. "There's no way to get in."
Master had tried using his psychic abilities to pry open the doors and windows, Katsuragi and Toji had tried pulling open with brute strength, and Asuka tried to throwing whatever stones she could find at the windows to break the glass, but nothing worked. It was as though the Old Chateau was keeping them out and Shinji in.
"I don't suppose that we could just have Hisui ram it open, can we?" Ritsuko suggested, and all eyes were on her.
"Jynx, Jynx," Katsuragi nodded her head in the negative. "Jynx."
Something is nearby, went Hanmyo's cats as they floated up and pointed to the trees.
"Hmm?" Hyuga expresses as he sees something moving in the darkness. "What is that?"
Maya and Shigeru look and can't make heads or tails of what they were looking at that was obscured by the trees and bushes. As best as they could tell, it looked like some sort of Stantler associated with the Kalos Region.
"Probably a Stantler," Maya suggests.
"Only one problem," went Prof. Oak says in response to this. "Stantler aren't found anywhere in Kalos. And the antlers were shaped wrong. Maybe it was a Grass-Type Pokémon."
Rumble! The ground shook a little, which returned everyone to the matter happening inside the Old Chateau.
Unbeknownst to them, the strange creature they barely saw was watching, waiting for a sign. Something of unusual power drew it here today.
-x-
"Bingo!" Shinji praised as he and Misato found the door and the rug they were looking for, seeing Gengar and a Rotom possessing a refrigerator and another possessing a fan. "Are we set?"
"Gengar," the Gengar nodded.
Shinji looked back into the hallway and saw the Ursaring running on all four towards him.
"Hey, Ursaring! Come in here for chow!" He taunted the disembodied Pokémon.
Ursaring was within claw distance and stood up to slash Shinji.
"Die!" It yelled, but Shinji ducked and dodged, leaping away from it onto the rug.
"Eevo!" Misato went, getting its attention, shaking her bottom at it. "Eee, eee, wee!"
"Grrr!" Ursaring growled as it entered the room. "You think it's funny?!"
"Eevo, eevo."
"Gengar!" The Gengar raised its voice, letting Ursaring know that it and the Rotom were present.
"Ursaring," went the voice of the girl, Selene, as she appeared with her butler, Timothy, each holding two halves of a Poké Ball in their hands. "It's time to pay for your malevolence."
"Yes," Timothy added in. "Time…to pay for it all."
Ursaring then looked down…and soon wished it hadn't. The rug it was on had an ornate stitch work that resembled how it fell in life, both by the boy that caught it…and by the Pokémon that trampled it. But it was the depiction of Shinji that made it furious, holding the Poké Ball that sealed its initial fate.
"No!" It grunted, looking up at Shinji. "I'll kill you!"
"In your dreams," Shinji responds, and tosses something onto rug in front of it.
It was a Pokémon doll shaped like an Ursaring, and then the rug glowed with dark red light as chains jumped out of the floor and wrapped around the disembodied Pokémon.
"Rrrrraaurgh! Rrraurgh!" It shrieked, trying to move towards Shinji, but its steps were weighed down. "I'll get you! I'll get you, boy! Do you hear me?!"
A chain shot up from behind it and wrapped around its mouth, bringing it to the floor.
Selene and Timothy let go of their Poké Ball halves and watched them combine into a standard Poké Ball that opened up and started sucking in the Ursaring in a whirlwind of discord.
"Rrrrrrraaurgh!" It shrieked, never taking its eyes off Shinji. "I'll…be…back!"
Then, it was sucked into the ball and was gone. The ball shook as the disembodied Pokémon tried to break free for a few seconds…until the pinging sound was heard.
Selene walked over to the ball and picked it up.
"You…should leave now, Shinji," she tells Shinji as he picks up Misato. "We'll confine the Ursaring someplace here where it will never escape."
"Are you sure?" He asks her.
"The final chapters of your story…have yet to be written," said Timothy to him, "and shouldn't be written by someone with a sadistic grudge against you. You still have a future of your own making ahead of you."
"Thank you."
He bows his head to them and then vacates the room, goes down the hall, down the stairs and sees the front door. It felt like he'd been in the Old Chateau for hours when it was really less than two, but time during a situation of this sort made time a fickle thing as he went to the door.
"I think after this, Misato," he tells his Eevee, "we could both use a day at a spa."
"Eevo," she agrees with him as he opens the door, seeing a Jynx that stood out to him. "Eee?"
"Katsuragi?!" He gasps, and then the Jynx hugs him. "Aaah!"
"Jynx! Jynx!" Katsuragi cries as she hugs him in front of everyone.
"You made it out of there!" Asuka cheers upon seeing him. "What happened to the Ursaring?"
"We had help from the residents of the Old Chateau."
"Ghosts?" Toji asks, looking past him and seeing only the decrepitude within the manor. "Is it…gone?"
"It checked in…but it ain't checking out. Ever. What about the people it harmed?"
"A few injuries, but nothing severe," Hikari tells him. "Some of the Pokémon it harm, though, they're… Some were not so lucky."
"Yeah. I saw its viciousness when some Magikarp came to our rescue."
"Eee."
"You should let a doctor see those injuries," Prof. Oak informs him, reminding him that he still had some wounds because of the Ursaring.
"Yeah."
As soon as he took a new step, there was a silence around him that he couldn't shake off. Looking at his friends and admirers, their faces were shifted from ones of relief and praise to ones of woe and shock.
Misato, both his guardian and his Eevee, looked at him with the biggest degree of concern…and he looked down at his chest, seeing five talons sticking out of his shirt, covered in a red substance. He looked back at everyone in woe of his own, wanting to say something, anything, to them. Feeling like he was being lifted off his feet, he turned back to face…the disembodied Ursaring, snarling at him with a viscous smile on its face.
"I got you," it utters to him.
-x-
Oh, no! Kensuke thought as he dropped his camera; he had been recording Shinji's return for reference.
No! Misato reacts as she sees the Ursaring that had given Shinji a hard time lifting him off his feet with a malicious grin.
No! Asuka and Rei hoped that this wasn't what they feared it was looking like; Shinji had been impaled in the back by the deceased Ursaring…and then it threw him away like a rag doll, over eight feet, out onto the ground and watched as he slammed against a tree with enough force that they all heard the sounds of bones breaking.
"EEVO!" Misato cries as she runs over to him.
"Ah-ha-ha!" The Ursaring cheered over its surprise attack on Shinji; it had escaped from the Poké Ball and its captors and chased after Shinji, saw him distracted by his lowly followers, and impaled him with its right claw before throwing him hard at a tree. "I got you! I got you! You're as good as dead now! I got you!"
Grip! Something large grabbed it from behind, and looked down to see the Gengar it had injured in its escape, looking up at it with a viciousness of its own.
"Gengar!" It went.
"Ghastly!" The Ghastly added as they appeared, forming chains and wrapping around its legs. "Ghastly!"
"Haunter!" The Haunter snarled as they raised their claws up and gripped it by its neck.
Then, the ghosts of Selene and Timothy appear before them as the Ursaring was now being dragged down the hall.
"You shall know the extent of your truest dread," the girl tells him.
"Do your worst!" It snarls at her. "I've done what I set out to do. There's nothing you can do that frightens me."
"We're not the ones you need to fear," went Timothy to it, pointing to the end of the hall. "They have a score to settle with you."
Ursaring looked behind it…and saw the head of a large Gyarados opening its mouth, revealing a dark tunnel from which promised no escape.
"By the time we're through with you," Selene says, "you'll have wished you stayed in your Poké Ball in that room."
"Aaaaaurgh! Aaaaaurgh!" It roared as it struggled to break free from them, but to no avail. "No!"
Being dragged into the Gyarados' mouth, Ursaring let out one last roar of defiance against everyone that stood in its way.
"RRRRRRRRRRRAAAAURGH!" It roared as the mouth closed around it and disappeared.
With that, the Old Chateau disappeared from where it stood, its friendly occupants watching with grief as someone they had just met today was now in another battle for his life.
-x-
He had never felt such pain like this before. He'd been shocked, poisoned, thrown around, burnt, soaked, even left in freezing conditions, but he was now too hurt to complain about anything. Too hurt to even cry as he felt his Eevee's breath on his face.
"Eevo?" He hears her say.
"It's…it's okay now," he managed to say; despite his injuries, Shinji couldn't really feel any of them now. "We got out."
"Shinji," he heard Asuka's voice as his body was slowly repositioned so that he was laying on his back, showing his torso bleeding heavily from the claw and puncture marks. "Oh, God."
"Shinji," went Rei as she took off her backpack and tried to find something to help him. "Hold on, Shinji."
He couldn't help but smile; he couldn't remember why now, but he liked that Rei was trying to be more open and helpful around the group.
"Not like this, Shinji," Kensuke pleaded. "Not like this."
"Eevo, eee," his Eevee cried as he felt his vision dimming. "Eevo."
"Jynx!" Katsuragi cried.
-x-
"This can't be happening," Fuyutsuki expresses as he sees Shinji dying from his injuries. "Not like this. Not like this."
Even Tama Pāru was not liking the way things were transpiring in the Pokémon world. It surprised it that something like this was possible, but for a foe to return after being caught and contained was like someone's twisted joke on a good person. Not even it would've wished something of this sort on someone that didn't deserve it, no matter what others believed. Who would gain from the suffering of others like this?
A bright light emanated from the screens as something new happened.
"Is that a Pokémon?" One of the crew members asked as Antonio saw something that looked like a large, blue-colored stag with rainbow antlers.
"It is," Tama Pāru states; it had heard of this Pokémon like it had known of many others. "It's Xerneas, the Life Pokémon."
"Xerneas?" Antonio utters, seeing it approach the group, lowering its head towards Shinji.
-x-
They had seen the wonders of the Pokémon world before, even heard of these wonders when Shinji's Gyarados first evolved and saved his life. But this was new. A new wonder that they couldn't believe was happening in front of them. When this Pokémon backed away from Shinji, they could see that all of his injuries had been healed and he looked as though he was asleep now.
"Thank you," went Master to Xerneas, who simply nodded its head as it turned away.
It retreated into the woods and disappeared from sight, what it came here to do done.
"That was really Xerneas," said Ritsuko as she saw Katsuragi carefully pick Shinji up. "It was incredible. Incredible."
"Yeah," added Misato as Shinji's Eevee was picked up by Hikari. Thank you, Xerneas. Thank you for saving Shinji.
To be continued…
A/N: Honestly, I didn't see that coming like that. Originally, I saw the Ursaring going out like the Chatterer Cenobite from the Hellraiser remake, but then this happened. Rest assured, I can't have Shinji go out like that in this. He's the hero and the hero can't go out like a martyr. Plus, he's gotta face Ash in the Kalos League. I want to hear what you have to say about this chapter until the next one.