A phone ringing sound played from Rotom’s speaker as it dialed emergency services. “Bzzt!”

  I checked the kid’s breathing. Well, at least he was alive. That wasn’t saying much considering how beat up he was, especially his hands. I tried not to look at his hands for too long, they were really fucked up. One had been crushed and the other was swelling like a balloon and was a rather nasty shade of necrotic purple.

  Wait, is it spreading?!

  “Please be regular poison.” I muttered under my breath as I pulled out a full restore from my pocket and began applying it to the kid’s purple hand. If it’s poison from a Pokemon I think poison heals and full restores will help.

  Why the hell is the phone taking so long to connect? I glanced at Rotom. The plasma Pokemon buzzed, flashing a low connection signal on its screen.

  Great. I had perfect cell service just a few minutes ago.

  I breathed a slight sigh of relief as the swelling on the kid’s hand went down, and a normal peachy skin color began returning to the kids hand. The purple didn’t fully go away, so I just kep spraying full restore wherever its healing effects would be needed.

  Rotom’s dialing sound abruptly stopped and a female operator answered, “911, where is your emergency?”

  “Uhhh, we’re in Santalune Forest, not near any trails.” I answered and looked around, trying to look for and failing to find any landmarks, It was just trees for miles. “I found someone pretty far off the main trail and he really really needs medical help. He got attacked by a bunch of wild ghost Pokemon.”

  I heard some fast keyboard typing from the other end, “Okay miss, I am getting your location. What’s your name?”

  “Azalea.” I glanced at the ghosts who were being rounded up and organized into rows by Winnie and Sahara. Misdreavus had to pop out of Kaiju’s shadow and pull him back by his head tufts to prevent him from trying to eat one of the Shuppets.

  “Okay Azalea, I have your location. Emergency services will be there in twenty minutes. In the meantime, can you tell me anything about this person? What is their condition?”

  “Yeah, he looks like fourteen, fifteen?” I guessed, “He’s unconscious–uh he was conscious a minute earlier. I think he’s been poisoned.”

  “What type of Pokemon has he been poisoned by?” The operator asked.

  I scanned the wild ghosts and spotted the Gengar the Sahara had been curb stomping, “...I think a Gengar?”

  Winnie, who was still disguised as Kaiju’s mom for extra intimidation factor, nodded at me with his illusionary dragon heads and pointed at the the purple shadow Pokemon with one of his side heads.

  “Yeah a Gengar.” I affirmed. “No major blood loss or anything, besides…” I winced as I spotted a bone or two jutting out of the kid’s crushed hand, they hadn’t broken his skin, but I could see the outlines of the bones and the skin becoming bruised from the inside.

  “His uh, he’s got a hand with bones going in weird ways. It’s not bleeding…surprisingly.” I heard some more typing, “I used a full restore on the poisoned parts and I think it helped, that’s all I have on me at the moment.” Glados had my bag at the moment. The AI Pokemon was cleaning and packing up the campsite. I had just tucked a few potions into my pocket. I should probably buy a first aid kit. I can’t believe I forgot to do that. The only things I had in my bag that could’ve counted as first aid equipment were a box of different sized bandaids and some antibacterial spray.

  It was probably because I had subconsciously counted Pokemon healing items as human healing items too. And to be fair, it had worked fine for me so far, at least on scrapes and cuts.

  The operator let me know that the full restore would be fine and to coat the poisoned areas in it. She also walked me through carefully laying the kid down from his sitting position and checking for any signs of neck or spinal injuries. There were none that an untrained eye like mine could tell.

  I sharply looked at Rotom as the connection began cutting out and static overtook the operator’s voice.

  “Uh, the connection is getting a bit funky. I can’t hear you super well.” I said.

  “Sta—on their way—connection—” I winced and slightly recoiled as a a painfully loud beep cut off the call. Then it sounded like a zombie that had inhaled a ton of sulfur hexafluoride groaning, “haaaaaare–aaaaaa–tiiiiics”

  “BZZZZZZT!” Rotom flailed around in the air, its screen glitching like crazy. It took a moment for the plasma ghost to regain control of its screen.

  “What the heck was that?” I asked, staring at Rotom in concern. Should I have Glados check him for viruses?

  Rotom shrugged before straightening itself out.

  “Uhhhh, try calling 911 again.”

  “Bzzt.” Rotom flashed a no connection signal on its screen.

  That is so weird… I looked at the wild ghosts. Maybe they have something to do with the bad data.

  I got up from my kneeling position and pointed at the kid, “Banette, Haunter, keep an eye on him. I’m gonna go meet the new guys. Yell or uh, just make sure to tell me if he starts dying.”

  “Sure.” Banette said, taking a seat next to the kid’s head and placing a hand on his neck to feel for a pulse and basically be a heart monitor.

  “Hey, teach me how to do that.” Haunter said to Banette as I walked away.

  I raised an eyebrow as I estimated the amount of wild ghosts Winnie and Sahara had rounded up. Why are there so many of them? There’s like thirty of the little bastards, and last time I checked, ghosts can’t be naturally found in Santalune Forest.

  I stopped for a second as I saw Glados’s bright colors emerging from the direction we had come from.

  The AI Pokemon flew over and handed me my bag, “CAMPSITE. HAS. BEEN. PACKED. IN. AN. ORDERLY. FASHION.”

  “You’re the best Glados.” I smiled and held up a fist for Glados to fistbump. It was a new trick that it had learned from Rotom. Glados happily spun its head as it successfully did a fistbump. Or a wingbump, idk.

  After putting on my bag, I walked over to stand by Winnie and put on my best intimidating face.

  “So. You guys want to tell me why you were attacking that kid?” I asked the wild ghosts with my arms crossed like a disappointed parent.

  None of the ghosts said a thing, they all avoided eye contact.

  “maybe they’ll be more cooperative if you let me eat one of them.” Winnie growled, leaning forward to snap at a few of the nearby ghosts and making them flinch. He was having fun playing the bad cop role.

  “Zweilous!” Kaiju shouted, as chipper as ever. He was already edging towards the ragged Banette that he had been using as a chew toy earlier. I took a big step over to the teen dragon and shooed Rufflet off of his head, then grabbing the dragon’s head tufts Ratatouille style to make him stay put.

  “Hmmmm, maybe.” I hummed, as if trying to decide whether or not I would take up Winnie’s offer.

  I saw a few of the ghosts fearfully looking between Kaiju and Winnie, but none of them budged. Wow okay, they’ve got balls of steel if they’re not afraid of being eaten by a dragon that looks like Kaiju’s mom. Looks like I’ll have to take a different approach.

  I did my best Sahara glare at the ghosts as I tried to brainstorm a plan B to get information out of them. I blinked as I noticed something peculiar. These wild ghosts looked…different. They looked transparent and less vibrant in color than the ghost gang, or any other ghost that I’ve ever seen.

  It’s not a regional thing, the wild caught Kalosian ghosts back at the lab looked nothing like this. Are they sick? Can ghosts get sick? Wild animals that usually avoid humans can attack humans if they have rabies. Do they have Pokemon rabies or something?

  I pushed that thought aside, the idea of Pokemon rabies was waaaaay too scary. Plus, the ghosts didn’t look rabid, just…tired.

  OH! They’re hungry! Wild animals usually don’t attack humans unless they’re desperate for food, this theory makes more sense.

  It would probably be more fruitful to tempt them with food than to try to get info out of them by scaring them. Good food is always the best solution to everything.

  I put my bag on the ground and pulled out a bottle of ‘life jewce’ from the Voodoo shop. I guess I have Justine to thank for using my bag as an extra storage unit.

  I had actually been looking to buy some ‘life jewce’ for the ghost gang because they came in different flavors. Yeah, liquified life energy can be flavored.

  I uncapped the bottle and held it up for the wild ghost Pokemon to see. A strange sour pomegranate smell emitted from the bottle that immediately drew the attention of the wild ghosts. I could feel their eyes burning a hole into my hand.

  “Okay. You guys see this?” I shook the bottle, “I will trade food for information. Useful, information.”

  The ghosts still stayed quiet, but with the way they were focused on the bottle of ghost food, I could tell they were losing the battle.

  Well, except for Gengar. The shadow Pokemon had recovered enough from Sahara’s beating to sit up and had a stubborn expression.

  “What, you one of those delusional humans who think you can understand Pokemon?” Gengar muttered under his breath.

  I raised an eyebrow, “Actually I can understand you.”

  Gengar frowned, “No you can’t.”

  “Yes I can.” I retorted.

  Gengar shook his head. “No you can’t.”

  I put a hand on my hip, “Yes I can.”

  “No you can’t.” Gengar repeated.

  “Yes I can.”

  Gengar, “Prove it.”

  I turned to the Winnie, Sahara and Thorondor, “Tell him.”

  Winnie nodded, “yep, she can understand us.”

  “Garchomp gar.” Sahara grunted.

  “Rufflet!” Thorondor chirped. A few of the ghost gang chipped in too.

  Gengar scowled, “Yeah suuuuure, you’re just saying it because you’re on the same team. How in the world are we gonna trust the word of a human?”

  Bruh, he’s just trying to annoying right now. I sighed and countered, “How am I gonna trust the words of a bunch of ghosts that attacked a person?”

  Gengar didn’t seem to have an answer for that so I turned back to the other ghosts. “The deal still stands. Food for information.”

  I waved the bottle at them, but there was less of a reaction. I gave them some time before shrugging, “Okay, I guess you guys aren’t hungry then.” I began to put the food away, but one of the ghosts, a Ghastly in the back of the crowd, suddenly shouted.

  “We attacked humans because of Coraline! She needs…souls…” The Ghastly trailed off and became more transparent from embarrassment as it noticed everyone staring at it.

  Coraline? I immediately thought of Other Mother from the movie Coraline.

  I nodded and had Glados float the bottle over to the Ghastly, who practically inhaled the contents of the bottle.

  “Who’s Coraline? Where are you guys from?” I asked as I took out two more bottles. So she’s a ghost. Why does she need souls though? Do ghosts eat souls as well?

  More ghosts began shouting out information, “Coraline is the head of our coven!” A Misdrevus shouted.

  “We’re from the tunnels underneath the city of light!” A Sableye added, then it pointed over at the ground past where Sahara was. “We came out of that hole over there!”

  Glados floated the bottles over to the ghosts who answered, as I looked. Sahara stepped back. There indeed was a hole in the ground just big enough for an adult human to go through. I didn’t notice it before because Sahara was blocking me from seeing it.

  City of light? I’m guessing Lumiose City. Of course there are tunnels underneath the city based on Paris, it’s got some famous catacombs underneath it. But this is very far away from Lumiose. How big is this tunnel system?

  “how many humans have you hunted?” Winnie asked. A few of the ghosts flinched when he moved.

  “Oooo,” I pointed a finger at Winnie, “that’s a good question.”

  The ghosts were reasonably a bit more hesitant to answer this time, but it was Gengar who answered this time. “Seventeen humans in the past year, forty two in total since Coraline took over. We tend to hunt more wild Pokemon because there are more of them readily available.”

  “For a while we kept getting a few human kept Pokemon that came right on into our territory!” A Duskull with a cracked mask helpfully chipped in, “They kept screaming about escaping a demon child and his demonic mother.”

  “Yeah, but this is the first time a bunch of humans have presented themselves on a silver platter.” A Sableye said.

  I frowned as I noted Sableye’s plural usage, oh shit. There are more people down there?

  I gestured for Glados to give out the bottles to the ghosts before asking my next question, “How many people were in his group?” I pointed at the kid.

  A Shuppet made of a burlap sack answered, “Four! They had a few Pokemon with them too.”

  The Duskull from before raised a Pokeball with blue stickers on it, “This thing has the Pokemon that was with that human over there!”

  I raised an eyebrow as the ball was tossed to me. Glados handed out more bottles of ‘life jewce’.

  Okay, so there are more people in danger. I glanced at the hole. No chance in hell am I going down there though, I’m leaving that to the professionals. Already been through one under ground ghost maze, and one’s enough.

  I gleaned around, there was no sign of any help. Shit, how long has it been since they got dispatched? Hopefully they’ll be here soon.

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Okay, do you guys know where the other three humans and their Pokemon are?” I asked.

  “They were taken to Mistress Coraline of course.” A Dusclops with a posh accent answered.

  One of the other ghosts corrected the Dusclops, “No, the one with the big Sandile got away!”

  “You mean a Krokorok?”

  “You know what I meant!”

  “You described it as a big Sandile though.”

  I raised a hand to stop them from squabbling. Well at least they were livelier than before. “Okay okay.” I turned to Gengar, there was something he said earlier that I wanted to pick further at, “Earlier you said, ‘since she took over’ when did Coraline take over your coven? Also why does she need human souls?”

  Gengar gave me a sassy eye roll, “I dunno, she came here like two or three years ago. And I don’t know what she’s doing with the souls, we just give em to her so she won’t take us instead.”

  Okay, so we’re dealing with an evil ghost. I wonder how powerful it’s gotta be to take over the Lumiose Catacombs, especially if they’re as big as the Paris Catacombs. I internally shuddered as I remembered the fight against the Mountain Lord.

  “if she’s so horrible to you, and if you guys can’t fight her, can’t you guys just ditch her?” Winnie asked.

  Gengar crossed his arms, “And where would we go? Most humans see ghosts as pests to be feared and exorcised. You think we’d be welcome in a human city?”

  “We’re not going to abandon the home we’ve been living in for centuries to that bitch!” One of the ghosts yelled. A few others muttered in agreement while the rest looked a bit scared, as if they were afraid that Coraline was watching them.

  Fair point. Pretty sure most cities would not like a tunnel system’s worth of ghosts suddenly flooding into their city.

  “Hmmm, what if we help you? I know someone who can probably get rid of Coraline for you.”

  Gengar scoffed at my suggestion.

  “Corviknight!” We all looked up as we heard wings flapping and bird Pokemon calling out to each other in the distance. That sounds like our help.

  I turned to Winnie, “Change into a Houndoom.”

  Hydreigon’s form shifted like sand, shrinking and quickly reforming into a black and orange horned dog.

  There were a bunch of murmurs of surprise from the ghosts as they saw the transformation.

  Then five bird Pokemon with people riding them descended. The first of the birds, a Corviknight, that landed was carrying a carriage below it with an ambulance symbol on it.

  Kaiju began running over to greet the newcomers, and I quickly returned him and Thorondor, then I raised my watch arm for Glados to return as well.

  I quickly turned back to Gengar, “Look, if you’re willing to work with humans, I’m sure I can find a way to help you guys out.”

  “Tch! I don’t need outside help.” Gengar growled.

  I raised an eyebrow, yeah right buddy, just look at youself. “Just think about it.” I quickly said to the shadow ghost before jogging over to the rangers, who were jumping off of their rides–two Corviknights, a Pidgeot, and a Talonflame.

  “Hey! Over there!” I shouted, pointing to the kid where Banette and Haunter were sitting next to him. Banette waved and gestured for them to come over.

  “Those your Pokemon?” The lead ranger, a blond guy with a beard, asked.

  “Yeah.” I answered.

  The ranger nodded as three of the rangers ran over and began checking the kid’s vitals and preparing to get him onto a gurney.

  The ranger who first talked to me took a good look at the wild ghosts, and then raised an impressed eyebrow as he looked at Sahara before speaking again, “So, what happened?”

  “Uhhh, yeah, so I was eating lunch with my team when I heard someone screaming, so I went to check that out and found him being attacked by a bunch of wild ghosts and my team defeated them.” I pointed at the hole in the ground, “They came from there by the way.”

  The ranger walked over to look at the hole in the ground, I followed him and we stopped a few feet from the hole.

  The ranger’s eyebrows furrowed and he cursed under his breath as he saw the bone walls and floor of the room that the hole led into. “Ah, I see. They came from the catacombs.” He scratched his beard, “I did not know they extended all the way past Santalune. What the hell?”

  Then I remembered the Pokeball that Duskull had given me, “Oh, by the way.” The ranger turned back to me as I held up the sticker-covered Pokeball, “I got this Pokeball from one of the ghosts, they said it was that kid’s Pokemon.”

  The ranger nodded and took the Pokeball from me, “Thanks. I’ll make sure the Pokemon gets checked out too.” The ranger said as he began walking back over to the parked bird Pokemon.

  “I’m Emmanuel by the way. Nice to meet you.”

  “Azalea.” I replied.

  Emmanuel handed the Pokeball to one of the other rangers once they’d loaded the kid into the flying ambulance. Then the Corviknight took off with the ambulance, along with the other Corviknight and one of the Talonflames.

  “Uhh, just to let you guys know,” I said, “there were three other people that went into the catacombs with that kid.”

  Both ranger’s faces dropped and they looked at each other, with the lady ranger saying, “Wait what?!”

  Emmanuel cursed again, “I’m calling in backup.” He quickly stepped away to begin making some calls over his radio.

  “Is there anything else that you know? Do you know that kid?” The lady ranger asked.

  I shook my head, “No. The ghosts told me. They also said that one kid escaped, the other two are either in extreme danger or dead. Take your pick.”

  The female ranger, Janet, I spotted her nametag looked rather skeptical, “The ghosts told you that?”

  Urgh, am I gonna have to explain the whole haunted forest incident to her? I nodded, “Yeah…I can understand them…”

  “Are you a ghost type specialist?”

  Sure let’s go with that. “Yeah…like,” I looked between my main team and then the ghost gang, “…like a half ghost type specialist.”

  Janet took a deep breath and then seemed to accept that, she probably wasn’t in the mood to question it further as she had bigger things to worry about.

  “Okay, did the ghosts tell you anything else?” Janet asked, crossing her arms.

  I nodded, “Yeah, a lot actually.”

  “I’m sure you know that there’s a large group of ghosts living in the catacombs.”

  Janet nodded, “Yeah, it’s the largest coven of ghosts in the world.”

  “Well, about two to three years ago,” I continued, “the previous coven leader was killed and replaced by a new leader.”

  Janet’s concern deepened, as she put up a hand to pause me and gestured for Emmanuel to come over and have him listen. “She just told me that the catacombs coven leader was overthrown.”

  Emmanuel looked shocked, “Is that true? Who told you this?”

  I pointed at Gengar, “You can ask them. They’re from the catacombs after all.”

  “If it’s true that would explain…” He trailed off. Janet nodded and muttered, “That’s just made this a whole lot more complicated.”

  I gestured at Winnie for him to bring Gengar over. Once he did, Janet knelt down and asked the ghost, “Is it true that you guys have a new leader?”

  “Yeah.” Gengar nodded, “You think we’d be in this condition?” The shadow ghost rolled his eyes and then flew back over to the other ghosts.

  That seemed to confirm things for the rangers.

  Janet pulled out a phone, “I’m gonna have to call in some favors to get a ghost type specialist, Mel is on vacation.”

  “Can’t she teleport back?” Emmanuel asked.

  “From Kanto?” Janet replied with a raised eyebrow.

  “Oooo, okay.” The blond ranger said before going back to his Talonflame, “I’ll go call Pearce.”

  I raised my hand, “Uhh, if you need a ghost type specialist, I know someone who can fill the role.”

  “They gotta be pretty strong, this isn’t gonna be a walk in the park.” Janet said as she sent messaged to people on her phone.

  “Weeell, she’s the younger sister of Agatha’s top student.” I said, making sure to emphasize Agatha’s name. “And she can borrow her sister’s elite ghost Pokemon for the rescue.”

  Janet nodded, “That’ll do, go call her.” She then turns around and makes a call of her own. I looked up as more flying Pokemon began to arrive. This was going to turn into a full blown rescue operation, like the type you’d see in documentaries.

  I moved away to a quieter place while Rotom called Justine on facetime.

  “Heeyyy~ What’s up Az?” Justine cheerfully greeted me. I could see Litwick and Mii in the background using Golurk as a play structure. Yamask was floating just behind Justine.

  “Hey Justine.” I answered, “How would you like to go into the Lumiose Catacombs? They need a ghost specialist for a search and rescue thingy.”

  “Yes! Totally! I’m in!” Justine instantly replied, then in a calmer tone she asked, “Who needs rescuing?”

  I waved my hand a bit, “Ehhhh, a bunch of kids who trespassed into the catacombs and got attacked. It’s a bit more complicated than that but your expertise would be very appreciated. And make sure to bring strong ghost Pokemon who can fit in small spaces.”

  “Will do!” There was a screenshot sound from Justine’s end, “I’ll be there in ten, just gotta go get some of the lab’s teleporters.”

  “Gotcha, see you in ten then.” I replied before ending the call and turning to Winnie and Gengar, who had been waiting for me to finish the call.

  Winnie nodded towards the shadow Pokemon, “the punk says that he’s willing to help us out as long as we get rid of coraline.”

  Gengar nodded with the same stubborn expression as before, “But once you’re done, I want you guys out as soon as possible.”

  I shrugged, “Shouldn’t be a problem with getting rid of Coraline, though I’m not gonna be the one deciding what people can or can’t do afterwards. You can hash that out with whoever’s in charge later.”

  “Fine.” Gengar said, “Go tell them.”

  I raised my hands, “Okay, come on.” I waved for Winnie and Gengar to follow me.

  I walked back over to the rangers. There were now like twenty of them and counting. A few had teleported in and were already setting up some equipment. There was already a rest section set up for the psychics who had teleported people in with some psychic type Pokemon eating snacks, drinking juice and casually chatting with each other.

  Janet, Emmanuel, and a few other rangers were talking with an older ranger with short-cut salt and pepper hair and a mustache. He seemed to be their boss. They spotted me and waved me over.

  “Hey,” I said as I joined them and then pointed at Gengar with my thumb, “Gengar is offering to guide the rescue team through the catacombs. His request is to get rid of the ghost who’s been terrorizing them and then to leave the remaining ghosts alone.”

  The older ranger, Sebastian Pearce as his nametag read, nodded, “I see. We can deal with the details once we’ve finished our common goal.”

  “Can we really trust that ghost to guide the rescue team through the maze considering its history?” Janet asked, her colleagues seemed to have similar sentiments.

  “I understand your concerns,” Pearce said, “but I trust that Gengar will help us because we have common interests, mainly getting rid of the Pokemon that has been killing humans and Pokemon alike as well as starving the ghosts of the catacombs. And it’s not like we’ll be sending in weak trainers. Bergin will also be able to tell if he’s bullshitting.”

  They seemed to accept his explanation, though some definitely still had doubts.

  How do the catacomb ghosts get food if they never leave the place? Is there some sort of infinite food glitch down there?

  Gengar huffed as if his honor had been insulted, “We’ve been living in the shadows of your city with no issue since the day you humans began dumping your dead into the tunnels. That should be proof enough. We just want to be left alone, especially by your kind.”

  I translated what he said in a slightly more polite tone, “Gengar says that the catacombs ghosts have been living there ever since humans began dumping their dead in, and they haven’t had any history of harming people unless they were asking for it. They just wanna be left alone.”

  “Yep, that’s true.” Justine’s voice cut in as she strode over. Among her team, only Yamask was present. “Aside from graverobbers and others like that, ghosts like him have been living in the catacombs with no conflicts with humans for thousands of years.”

  Gengar’s red eyes widened with surprise and fear and he ducked behind Winnie.

  Justine grinned like a Gengar, ironically enough, as she caught sight of the shadow Pokemon. “Too bad I’ll never get to meet Ankou. I heard a lot about him from my sister, and a lot about you, Roxo.”

  Gengar growled like a feral cat. Winnie rolled his eyes and shoved Gengar back in front. I raised an eyebrow, what’s his problem?

  Yamask rolled his eyes, “He met Angela back when she still hadn’t tightened all of her screws.”

  I nodded with a bit of amusement, “I see.”

  “You’re that human’s kin?” Gengar growled. Justine crouched down and patted Gengar’s head, “Yep! I’m her little sister~ Treat me well okay?”

  Gengar went to push her hand away, but stopped when he saw Dragapult emerge from Justine’s shadow. The stealth Pokemon gave the ghost a coy wave. Gengar grunted and begrudgingly let Justine pat his head.

  Then she stood up and clapped her hands together, “So, we’ve got a usurping issue. The queen bee is too aggressive so we have to replace it with a more agreeable one.”

  Pearce nodded, “Yes. You must be Justine. I’ve heard a lot about you and Azalea from Celia.”

  Oh, he knows Celia?

  “Celia? How do they know her?” One of the rangers asked.

  “They participated in the Icelands expedition.” Pearce replied, “I heard that young Azalea here faced down the leader of the Icelands Coven all by herself, while Justine provided the team protection from the Icelands ghosts with her knowledge of exorcism. It’ll be very beneficial to have you two on the team.”

  That seemed to immediately gain Justine and I like, plus ten respect from the rangers.

  I tilted my head and frowned, what? Wait wait wait wait wait, I do not remember agreeing to join the rescue team.

  “Uhh…” I tried to say something but Pearce waved the other rangers off and gestured for us to follow him.

  “Come on, you guys need to get equipped.” Pearce said, “I’ll introduce you to the people you’ll be working with.”

  I didn’t get another chance to try to object because the equipment area was like, ten feet away. There were five piles of equipment set up, and three other people already putting some of their stuff on.

  One was a short female ranger with short brunette hair, she was accompanied by a Slurpuff that was emitting a soothing sweet scent. The second was a skinny lumberjack looking dude in caving gear fiddling with the wires in his flashlight, he had a Sableye sitting on the ground near him, happily chewing on a gem. The last one was a bald guy in a punk outfit with a scar across his face, he had a Lokix with him.

  “Hey guys.” Pearce greeted the three, who looked over at us. “Now that we have the entire team together, I’ll introduce you guys.”

  But…wait…

  He gestured at Justine and I, “These two are Azalea and Justine. Justine is going to be our resident ghost type specialist, Azalea is one of Rowan’s sponsored trainers and will also be helping out in that aspect.”

  Bro just volunteered me for this…

  The others nodded and Pearce pointed at Gengar, “This is Roxo, he’ll be the one guiding you guys to the missing boys.” Gengar rolled his eyes and spat some poison onto the ground, making the dead tree leaves it hit fizzle and disintegrate.

  The female ranger nodded and was the first to introduce herself. “Good to meet you, I’m Ivy. I usually work in the caves around Shalour and search and rescue. I will be the team leader today.”

  “Slurpuff.” Slurpuff waved, the sweet scent intensified for a short moment.

  Skinny lumberjack guy waved as he put the flashlight parts back together, “Bergin, I get hired to guide city inspectors around the Lumiose Tunnels.”

  His Sableye didn’t pay us any attention, it was too absorbed in its yummy gem.

  “Lo lokix.” The grasshopper Pokemon waved at us.

  “Name’s Slater,” Bald guy said, “I volunteer for search and rescue and they needed a dark type specialist, so I’m here.”

  I was really tempted to raise my hand and explain to Pearce that I actually didn’t agree to go on this rescue mission, but I couldn't work up the backbone do to so.

  Bruh, I literally called Justine to replace me because I knew she would be excited to go into the underground, bone murder maze. I sighed in defeat as I accepted my fate.

  At Pearce’s gesture towards the untouched equipment piles, I went and to one of the two remaining piles of equipment and began examining it. There were some tall, waterproof and slip-proof boots that were also adjustable in size, pretty nice gear. Then there were gloves, a helmet with a flashlight on it, goggles, flashlights, and extra batteries, some first aid stuff, and most worrying of all, snorkeling gear. That meant the tunnels were known to flood. How great.

  The coolest thing we got though, was a multi-tool/weapon. A retractable baton that could act as either a taser, a crowbar, or a shovel.

  I grimaced as I saw Slater and Ivy loading some materials for a makeshift gurney and two bodybags into their bags. Their usage would depend on whatever condition we found the kids in.

  “hehehe.” I looked over at Winnie as he chuckled. “What?” I asked.

  “you want an excuse to opt out?” Winnie asked, seemed like he had read my mind. “I can come up with something.” He twirled a tiny illusionary twister in between his claws.

  I shook my head, “Thanks but I think we’re kind of in too deep. But I can cheese something if you and the others aren’t ready to handle something on the same level as the Mountain Lord.”

  This time it was Winnie who shool his head, “this one isn’t as powerful as her, I would’ve felt it long before we found that kid. with help from the others, it should be no issue for us to slay the beast.

  I nodded, “Aight.” I would like to stop getting dragged into stuff like this and have a normal Pokemon journey please. Hopefully the kids are still alive though.

  “though if you wanna increase our general power level, misdreavus has told me that she’s ready to to evolve.” Winnie said, gesturing at a few of the ghost gang who were talking to the catacombs ghosts.

  I nodded, “Sure, we’ll get that sorted out after the mission.”

  I glanced at the ghost gang trying to calculate how many would be ready to evolve soon. Most of the gang was currently made up of roaming form Ghimmighoul, and there were still nowhere near enough of them for them to evolve into a Goldhengo.

  The majority of the rest of the group were made up of Shuppet, Litwick, and Ghastly. It would probably still take a while for them to evolve. There were two Duskull from what I remembered, so I’d need reaper clothes for them, and Haunter would need to be evolved through a trade.

  I wonder how Haunters evolve into Gengars in the wild. I’ll have to google that. And I should have a few dusk stones in my items pocket so Chandelures galore! Dunno about the reaper cloth though, I’ll have to double check if I have any.

  Once everyone was equipped, Pearce began briefing the group. He basically just repeated what I had already told Janet and Emmanuel, though there were some new facts.

  The four kids were reported missing earlier today after they had failed to show up for school, it’s still unknown how they ended up so far in the tunnels, but one of the kids has a Poketube channel that’s all about exploring haunted places, so it’s not a hard guess how they got down there.

  As of now, two of them had been found. Jules, the kid I had rescued was number one. Not long after I had called 911, another kid called Gavin had appeared out of one of the tunnels and into the basement of a restaurant with his Krokorok.

  The two other kids were still missing, and presumably in grave danger.

  “If the stupid kids are still alive that is.” Gengar muttered under his breath. I gave the ghost a sharp look but didn’t comment.

  Bergin then asked how the kids were able travel from Lumiose to the Santalune area so fast. Justine had an answer for that, apparently the catacombs were semi-cursed by the previous coven master to make travelling in there easier for the dead, but harder for the living. It made space wonky, but the effects will probably mostly have worn off. The kids probably would’ve ended up in an ice cave underneath Snowbelle City if the curse hadn’t faded from not being maintained.

  Slater asked how no one noticed the trouble brewing underneath Lumiose for this long, especially since Lumiose regularly does checkups on the tunnels underneath it. Bergin explained that it was because they didn’t need to and because they had an agreement with the previous coven master.

  Slater didn’t seem to like the answer but didn’t have anything else to say.

  “How powerful is the current coven master?” I asked Gengar. It would be helpful to know what type of threat we were going to face.

  Gengar shrugged, “I don’t know. Powerful. She killed all of our strongest.”

  “How strong was the previous coven master?” Justine asked, “We can estimate the current master’s strength through that.”

  Roxo hummed and scratched his head, “That wouldn’t be a great frame of reference. The old man was a cripple, he was smart but kinda weak for a ghost his age.”

  “Wait, ghosts can be crippled?” I asked before translating Gengar’s words to the others.

  “Yeah,” Justine confirmed, “Ghost Pokemon can be crippled by dark or ghost type energy, though considering the Ankou was supposed to be more than three thousand years old, it would have to be nothing short of a legendary Pokemon to do that much damage.”

  “Yeah, because certain ghost Pokemon can grow in power as they age, right?” Ivy asked. Justine nodded to confirm.

  “Well what the hell could have crippled a Pokemon like that then?” Bergin asked with some concern, “Do you think it could’ve been a Spiritomb?”

  “It wasn’t a Spiritomb.” Gengar answered, “it was the God of Death who crippled Master Ankou. Nothing else could’ve done any damage to the most powerful ghost in the region.”

  I furrowed my eyebrows as I noticed the others frown at the mention of ‘the God of Death’, “The God of Death? Like Giratina?”

  Gengar shook his head, “It was a dark type with three great big claws.” Gengar morphed his body into a Y-shape.

  “You mean Ankou fought Yveltal?” I noticed Ivy give me a look and asked, “What?”

  “It’s bad luck to say that name.” Ivy replied quite seriously.

  “Oh, sorry.” I said, “But yeah, Roxo says that Ankou was crippled by uh, he-who-shall-not-be-named.”

  Justine is like, wow, really? That’s kind of insane, when did that event happen?

  Gengar cleared his throat“Just over a decade ago, the God of Death went on a rampage. At the request of the Tree of Life, Ankou went out to protect the Diamond from the God of Death’s wrath. He was successful in his mission, but had been crippled from being hit point-blank by a dark type attack.”

  “Damn, that’s…an insane story.” I remarked before repeating what Gengar said to the rest of the group. They were pretty shocked at the mention of Xerneas. Ankou must’ve been a big player if he knew Xerneas. Aaaaaand I think by ‘the diamond’ he meant Diancie?

  I heard Slater mutter to himself, asking why he hadn’t heard of an incident like this before. There wasn’t a for anyone to chance to answer as Pearce spoke, “Then the new coven leader must be around ten stars in terms of power level. Perhaps it’s equal to a crown?”

  A crown? That’s the ranking for Ace Trainers, so right below elite four level which is two crowns.

  Justine hummed, “To be safe, let’s treat it like equal to a crown.” The ghost type specialist turned to Gengar, “What species is Coraline?”

  Gengar shrugged, “I dunno, never seen a species like hers ever. And I’ve been around for decades.”

  Justine looked at me as I translated, “He says he doesn’t know, never seen a species like hers.”

  “Give me a description, I can figure it out starting from there.” Justine prompted the ghost.

  I looked back to Gengar as he began describing Coraline. “The bitch looks like an evil, bleached version of the Tree of Life. She can’t move from the wellspring, but her underlings can still move. They look like smaller versions of her, but with human faces on their trunks.’

  Once I’d translated that, Ivy made a guess, “Sounds a bit like a shiny Trevenant.”

  Justine shook her head, “Phantump and Trevenant can’t survive underground. They need sunlight to survive. I can’t think of another Pokemon fitting that description besides Cursola, but they don’t naturally appear in Kalos.”

  “Cursola don’t have faces on them, Trevenant sometimes do.” Ivy pointed out, “Also, if it’s an abandoned Pokemon it would explain why it’s been killing humans.”

  Justine nodded, “True, it could be holding a grudge against humans, but that would make it more difficult to reason with. If it’s too aggressive we’ll have to put it down.”

  “Speaking of,” Slater said, “how do we kill the ghost? Will the usual dark and ghost type attack strategy work?”

  Lokix mimed a few kicking moves and chirped aggressively as if to say, “We kick it to back into the afterlife!”

  Justine shook her head, “That generally works, but we’ll want to make sure she’s gone for good. Especially if she’s a species like a Cursola that can regrow from almost nothing.”

  The ghost type specialist patted Yamask, “We’ll attack with long ranged ghost and dark type moves while Yamask here will place talismans in a circle around the coven master.”

  Yamask proudly nodded as Justine continued, “Once her physical body has been destroyed, I will activate the talismans to banish her entire being back to the afterlife.”

  Justine then produced a few small stacks of talismans and handed them out to us, “Keep those on you, they’ll give you curse resistance. Resistance, not immunity.”

  Once we had all tucked our anti-curse talismans away, Ivy took charge and began issuing out instructions cause we were heading in like, right now while Pearce went to go meet a bunch of police officers who’d just arrived.

  “Two rules,” Ivy said, “One, no using large and destructive Pokemon in the tunnels, that should be a given. And two, stick with the group. I’ll personally whoop the ass of anyone who wanders off and causes us to waste time.”

  The rest of us showed that we understood and she continued, pointing at Gengar and Slurpuff. “I’ll be taking point with these two, Bergin, you’ll be right behind me with Sableye.”

  Bergin nodded.

  “Then Justine and Azalea,” She put one finger up, “one Pokemon out each.”

  We nodded. Obviously I was gonna use Winnie, Justine waved Dragapult back into her Shadow, Yamask was going to be her choice cause he was a lot smaller.

  “And Slater, two Pokemon in the back as rearguard.” Slater noted her order with an, “Understood.”

  “Good, you guys ready to go?” Ivy asked as she began leading us over to the hole in the ground.

  Everyone let her know we were ready.

  The ranger rubbed her hands together and waved over to Pearce to let him know that we were heading in on the rope that had been set up for us to slide down on. “Let’s go save some kids and kick some ghost butt.”