The Friendly Necromancer

Chapter 12: Things That Go Bump In The Night

Misdreavus is a dark bluish-gray ghost pokemon. Its lower half has several small appendages and resembles a ruffled dress. It has several round red gems around its neck, which are used to absorb fear or startlement and use it as nourishment. It has long, flowing lilac-tipped "hair". Misdreavus's large, red eyes have yellow sclerae.

In the wild Misdreavus lives in caves, though near humans it may seek alternatives such as basements or attics. As a nocturnal pokemon, it spends its days sleeping in darkness and its nights startling people and pokemon with mischievous tricks. Since it feeds on frightened people, it is known to yank and bite at people's hair or sneak up on them and shriek.

-----

Soft music drifted out of Diya's pokedex, slowly rousing it from sleep. The Banette stifled a yawn and groaned deep in the back of its throat as it stretched. It rolled over to look at the pokedex, from which the music was slowly becoming louder. It was very grateful to June for showing it how to change the alarm, because the default electric blare had been …

Well it had been effective, but Diya couldn't say it had much else going for it.

Another yawn tried to climb its way out of the Banette's mouth and it had to tighten its jaw to keep its lips shut. That didn't make it want to yawn any less though. Eventually it decided to risk it and clasped a hand over its mouth to hold its soul in, letting loose and yawning so wide its jaw joints cracked. Diya blinked in the aftermath. That. Had been satisfying.

Diya stretched again and then sat up, bringing its Piplup plushie with it in its arms. Time to start the day. It squeezed the plushie to wring Svartis' gaseous form out from the stuffing inside. Come on, time to get up, Diya projected at her, filling their link with impressions of waking up and being active.

Near-incoherent impressions of protest and further sleep came back.

Diya patted the less-corporeal-than-usual body Svartis had formed outside the Piplup plushie and got up to get itself ready. It was okay if Svartis was still sleepy from dawn's effects on her, Canopy Gym's classes didn't start for a couple hours yet.

---

Class was starting and Svartis was very much still trying to go back to sleep.

Canopy gym's first class of the day was on battling with and against Ice pokemon. Two instructors and a gaggle of a dozen students stood around on a trampled snowy field, their breaths pluming in the morning cold. Most of the students already had their pokemon out, not all of which were Ice pokemon. The Ice pokemon out were mostly Swinubs and Bergmites, which were some of the more common combat-capable Ice pokemon in the local area, though one student had a preening Glaceon with them. The rest of the pokemon were more eclectic, Diya saw everything from an almost humanoid looking yellow Electabuzz to a deeply alien Dewpider.

Though Diya's Gastly, currently doing her best to dissolve her body and slip through the collar Diya was holding firmly shut so she could go back to sleep, was certainly among the odder pokemon there.

Bashak held out a thermos of steaming coffee to Diya.

Diya tilted its head, then did its best to type out a response one-handed while still keeping its collar shut. <No thank you, I don't need it.>

The herder's shaggy pelt of hair bounced as he shook his head. "For her. Drink it and send her the feeling."

That drew a moment of surprised thought from Diya. Huh. Would that work?

Svartis' spherical body oozed into disturbingly ticklish eddies of gas under Diya's scarf of the day - a vivid glacial blue with rows white snowflakes on the ends. The eddies felt more solid than gas should, almost like a slimy liquid. Half-formed sepulchral murmurs about the unfairness of being awake crowded Diya's mind as she lethargically tried to slip into Diya's robes.

<I'll try it.> Diya said quickly. It took Bashak's thermos and fastened its lips tightly to the rim -it hoped Bashak wasn't squeamish about that- to carefully slurp long gulps of coffee. It closed its eyes and focused on the way the coffee settled in its chest, taking the feeling of warmth and the way its heart rate picked up and pushing them into Svartis.

To its surprise, it worked. Svartis still wanted to wrap herself around Diya's neck to shelter from the wind under its scarf and collar, but the Banette could feel a spark of alertness kindling in her now. Which was great, although … Diya sighed through its nose. <If I become a coffee addict for my pokemon, I blame you>, it typed to Bashak.

Its friend snorted, grinning fondly. "That's certain if you spend time around June. Best to get it over with."

Despite its comment, Diya kept drinking the coffee as they waited for a couple of late students to straggle in. The dawn really did a number on its Gastly and anything which would help her be awake for class was welcome.

When everyone was finally assembled, their instructor clapped his gloved hands. He was a middle-aged man with a neat silver-grey beard and a scarf that wrapped all around his head rather than just his neck. "Good morning everyone!" he called out, giving the gathered students a moment to say good morning back. "I see a couple new faces today, so to those who don't know me I'm the gym leader Ahmad. This is one of our teachers, Cor," he gestured to a pale young man whose face was flush with snowburn.

Ahmad pulled a pokeball off his belt, mirrored by his student. Ahmad released a tall statuesque Alolan Ninetails with a gorgeous white mane while Cor released a waist high Weavile which fidgeted and scratched with repressed energy. "And these are our assistants for today, Beauty and Demon."

Diya snorted at the last name, and saw Bashak raising his eyebrows from the corner of its eyes. They weren't the only students to have that reaction either. At their response Cor let out a laugh and told them, "The name fit when she was a pup, trust me."

Ahmad smiled at the byplay and continued on. "Today we're working on wide angle Ice attacks. How to use them effectively, and most especially how to pace your pokemon when using them. For most of you with Ice pokemon that will mean using icy wind or powder snow moves. If your pokemon knows an avalanche or hail type move, check with us before using it and we'll pair you with someone whose pokemon can take it."

The gym leader waited for nods from the trainers with Ice pokemon before continuing. "For those on the receiving end, you'll be focusing on two things. First, making the snap judgement for your pokemon to dodge or endure. Pay close attention to how wide of an area different moves cover and how fast your own pokemon can move or respond. Second, get to know what's the best way for your pokemon to endure attacks like these. Keep an eye on your pokemon's body language after having them endure an attack. Not all defensive moves will protect a pokemon from the cold, and finding what works best is a matter of trial and error."

Cor took over from there, calling out, "Alright, pair up, you all know the drill!" While Cor organized the students into Ice and not-Ice pairs, pairing an odd student out with his own Demon, Ahmad came over to talk to Bashak and Diya.

"Hello there!" he exclaimed, putting his hand out to shake. "Haven't seen you two before. I'm Leader Ahmad, as I said, what can I call you?"

Bashak shook his hand warmly. "I'm Bashak," he said, smiling and emphasizing the faint trill on h in 'baas-haak'.

Diya shook Ahmad's hand afterward, fumbling to shake his hand and then pull it back to type. <I'm Diya, DEE-yuh.>

"Oh, you're mute then? Or hard of hearing?" As he spoke Ahmad started gesturing with his hands, arms sweeping in front of his chest and face. "Would it help if I signed while I spoke?"

The Banette shook its head, though the offer still made it smile. <No, that's okay. I'm only mute, I can hear fine.>

"Good, good. Well if you need any accommodations just tell me. So, tell me you two, what pokemon will you be working with today?"

Bashak answered first. "I've got a few, if you don't mind. A Herdier, a Mareep, and a Skiddo."

"Hmm, so a non-Ice trainer then. Well it's your first day, so if you could stick to your best trained one while you learn the sparring routine I'd appreciate that. But once you've got a handle on it, feel free to switch between them."

"Can do."

"And a Mareep. I'm curious, are they as well insulated as I hear?"

The herder shrugged. "Depends on the breed. Mine is." Then Bashak cleared his throat. "Also, just so you know…"

"Yes?"

"I've got an injured Piloswine I'm rehabilitating. She's still too sick to bring here, but in a few days she'll be better. I'd like to train with her as an Ice trainer then."

"Of course." Leader Ahmad stroked his beard. "Claire was just telling me about some trainers who brought in a sick Piloswine yesterday, that was you two?" He smiled when they nodded. "That was good work you did."

Then he turned to Diya. "So, you'll be using your Gastly I assume?"

<Yes.>

"And as a non-Ice pokemon, I assume? If I recall correctly it's only when they evolve to Haunter that their line can learn icy wind."

Diya met Svartis' eyes, unsure, before answering. <Uh, one minute?>

"Not a problem. So, Bashak, tell me about how your Mareep handles cold-"

While Bashak and Ahmad talked, Diya conversed with Svartis. It remembered, vividly, their first morning together when Svartis had near-frozen the shower spray in the bathroom with her body. Did she think she could do something like that again, but breathe it out?

Svartis's blurry purple edges shifted and flowed as she thought. Maybe? As a Snom she could breathe out a rush of ultra-cold damp air that condensed into powdery ice crystals all over whatever it touched. But now … she still felt like she should be able to do that but she didn't have lungs. Or a real mouth that wasn't half-illusion, or salivary mist glands to make the air damp.

Well, Diya thought, why not try? If she could make a fake mouth that could actually nibble on things, why not try to breathe a fake breath and make it actually freeze things?

Hesitantly, Svartis considered it. Did Diya think it would work?

The Banette shrugged. There were a lot of things it didn't know it could do until it did them. It was always worth trying. Besides, it thought, if any Gastly could do it, she could.

Emboldened by that, Svartis drew in a deep breath just like she would have as a Snom. Or at least that's what it felt like in Diya's mind. Physically she expanded enormously. Her semi-corporeal body thinned almost to translucence as she ballooned to be larger than Diya was tall. Then she did … something. She reached for some power Diya wasn't familiar with, an energy totally unlike the phantom world's that slipped through its mind's grasp like a slick ice chip, and the temperature dropped.

There was a shriek of air displacement and in an instant Svartis' form became filled with an opaque white mist as the carbon dioxide inside of her plummeted straight past its freezing point and froze into microscopic points of dry ice. And then she breathed out.

The cloud of mist flowed out of her as she squeezed back down to her normal size. Turbulence caught the mist as it floated towards the edge of the field, peeling off fluffy bits of cloud in whirling rings and eddies. It looked slow but covered ground surprisingly quickly, like a deceptively calm river. In a few seconds it reached the edge of the field and engulfed a pine tree.

Every single needle the icy wind touched fell off.

Diya looked at Svartis. Bashak looked at Svartis. Ahmad looked at Svartis. Diya typed a message for Ahmad. <She will be training as an Ice pokemon, thank you.>

The gym leader blinked twice, then turned to the sparring students and clapped loudly to interrupt them. "If I could have your attention please!" he called out. "I'll let all of you get back to the lesson in a moment. Our new trainer's Gastly has just displayed a talent for Ice moves which as far as I know hasn't been previously recorded among Gastlys. So this is an excellent opportunity for a quick mini-lesson: How to use your pokedexes to record new pokemon behavior and upload it for scientific review." He turned back to Diya. "Diya, would you mind waiting a moment before you have your Gastly do that again? I'd like for everyone to spread out and get as many angles of her using icy wind as possible."

<Sure?>

"And Diya, this can wait until after class, but if you have time I'll show you how to submit a more detailed report on the particulars of your Gastly. It's common for researchers to put out bounties on new information for certain pokemon or moves, so if you're lucky you'll even be able to earn some money doing that. For that matter, is your Gastly local by any chance? If she is, you might even qualify for a bounty on information about local ghost pokemon which our very own researcher group manages."

Diya blinked. Then it slowly began to smile under its scarf, eyes shining almost bright enough to see under the morning sun. It had been worried about how it was going to make ends meet without relying too heavily on June and Bashak. While a skilled trainer might be able to make good money catching and selling pokemon and Diya hoped to one day sustain itself like that, Diya was not a skilled trainer capable of doing that yet.

Gyms often offered small monetary rewards to trainers for doing odd jobs, and in bigger towns gym tournaments might have petty cash as a prize for doing well. But those were designed to supplement a journeying trainer's basic stipend with spending money, not to support them entirely. As a -technically- runaway minor, Diya couldn't risk accessing its stipend. If anyone back home had reported its boy missing that would send up all manner of alerts.

But identifying unknown aspects of ghost pokemon and recording them? A giggle rose up unbidden in Diya's throat. Ghost pokemon were some of the least well understood pokemon in the world. Last night after turning in for bed Diya had scrolled through the pokedex entries for Gastlys and Banettes, while it and Svartis had laughed together over some of the inaccuracies. It could get paid for correcting those?

Well. That was most certainly something Diya could do.

---

In its pokecenter room after dinner, Diya thought for a while on what Leader Ahmad had said about research bounties.

When it looked up research bounties for ghosts it found almost more than it could read. Researchers wanted information on what Ghost types ate (if anything), how they formed, how they socialized in the wild, how they reacted to predators, if and when they were territorial, what abilities they had, everything. Extremely basic information that filled the pokedex pages for other pokemon often simply did not exist for ghosts and there were bounties on all of it.

Of course Diya found on further reading that the bounties on Ghost types tended not to be extremely lucrative. The relative rarity of ghosts and the difficulties of capturing them meant the information on them didn't have the kind of usefulness which propelled some of the sky high bounty rewards Diya found during its research. The amount offered for video of wild Blissey leading packs of multiple pokemon species made Diya's eyes go wide, and the amount offered for video of a wild Magikarp evolving into a Gyarados made it choke, but the typical rewards for ghost information were comparatively small.

Still, Diya thought, it could do this. While individual bounties were modest, there were plenty which overlapped with one another. In fact…

Diya's smile grew wider and wider as it scrolled through some of the bounties. Some of these rewards would be downright fun to earn.

It sent June a text. <Hey June. If you want to see some cool ghost stuff tonight, you should take a break and come to the park behind the pokemon center at midnight. I could use a helper for some of it.>

Her text came back immediately. <Sounds fun! What should I bring?>

<Just your pokedex, to take some video. And good shoes for running, not snow boots.>

A minute later there was a knock on Diya's door. It opened it to find June standing there, staring up at Diya with a slightly concerned expression. She looked like she was halfway finished getting ready to go out Spinarak hunting.

Diya blinked down at the short trainer.

"So," she said. "What will we be doing?"

<Uhhh, research?>

"And I'll need good running shoes because…?"

Oh. Oops. Diya had not realized how that might sound. <Nothing dangerous! You might just have to follow fast to get some of the video.>

A few moments passed as June gave Diya a long evaluating look. "Alright. Consider me curious. What are we going to be doing?"

<Playing tag.>

---

The night air was cold and the clouds in the sky suggested it might snow before the night was done. But excitement -and a pitch black scarf- kept Diya warm. Tonight it would get to show Svartis how to play catch the will-o-wisp.

Diya stood atop the tallest piece of playground equipment in the park, lit from below by June's lantern. Svartis floated next to it, oddly lit from the inside by the way the light shone through her partially transparent body.

Below them on the ground, June stood pointing her pokedex up at them. Igor sat on her shoulder as usual, observing the proceeding. June called out ot them, "Just a moment! Gotta get the night filter to work … there! Alright, start whenever you're ready!"

Svartis, Diya prodded gently, it's your show.

Through their bond, Diya could tell she was nervous and fretting. She'd never done this before. What if they didn't like her?

Diya smiled. Of course they were going to like her. After all, Diya liked her.

… okay. Okay she would try. Svartis drew on their bond, leaning on some of Diya's memories to get this right. And then, taking the mental equivalent of a deep breath, she called.

Svartis' eyes flashed red and for a moment the shadows cast by June's lantern darkened.

Diya closed its eyes and reached out, letting itself feel the phantom world. Several seconds later it felt the first return, a soft pulse of spectral energy as Svartis' signal bounced off the soul of a fellow spirit. Then another, and another, lighting up each ghost pokemon in Canopy Town to Diya's senses. The Banette smiled. If it had counted right that was almost a dozen Shuppets.

The first answering call came, curiosity and interest bound to a phantom message and broadcast into the night. Then all at once came a wave of curiosity as every Shuppet in the city sent their own calls, wondering who this newcomer was.

Just like in my memories, Diya directed Svartis. With another mental deep breath Svartis sent out a second pulse, tying this one to-

-jumping in the snow with the other infant Snoms of their cluster, nibbling on each other's half-formed shells because the moisture felt good in their mouths, chirping and burbling with the instinct to play, play, play-

Diya smiled. Svartis had chosen her memory to send out well.

It took a few minutes for the first of the Shuppets to arrive. Diya could feel it circling them, flitting between the shadows outside the circle of light June's lantern cast. But it wasn't nervousness Diya felt from it as it circled them out of sight. It was playfulness. The Shuppet wanted to see if they could spot it in the darkness, to learn something about these strange new ghosts which called for it.

Inwardly, Diya marveled that it could feel the circling Shuppet. Its perceptions hadn't been that good when it had been a Shuppet.

Through her trainer Svartis picked up on its location. Hesitantly, she worked up the courage to say hi, reaching out to the Shuppet as she would through her and Diya's bond. She fumbled a bit trying to speak to the unfamiliar pokemon; the way Diya and Svartis were learning to communicate with each other used impressions and intent to make something almost like words, but Shuppets communicated differently. Shuppets didn't use anything like words to talk to one another, instead they used experiences, something more like the memory of a feeling.

She did her best though, transmitting to the Shuppet, Hi / -encountering another Snom in the forest, snuffling and chirping at one another-. I'm Svartis / -"Gastly!" she exclaimed to the waking human lying below her-.

The jumbled mix of half-word impressions and memories Svartis sent made Diya wince a bit. But it was a good first try for the Gastly, and the Shuppet seemed to understand well enough to respond in kind.

The Shuppet floated into the edge of the lantern's light, sending its own message in response. -rubbing horns with a new Shuppet which had come into town following a homesick trainer- -wondering if this new Shuppet would stay or go- -curiosity about the homesick trainer it was following-.

On the ground June turned her pokedex to catch all three of them in the frame at once, giving Diya a thumbs up. She couldn't feel their conversation, but she could record the Shuppet's visible interactions with them and Diya could annotate the footage with what it was aware of later.

Svartis giggled giddily at the Shuppet's message. Hi! she sent again, reflecting the Shuppet's memory -rubbing horns with a new Shuppet which had come into town following a homesick trainer- back at it.

Next to her Diya smiled wryly. She'd missed some of the nuance. She'd sent her experience of getting the memory back instead of properly copying the Shuppet's experience itself. It wasn't exactly wrong, but to the Shuppet it probably registered as the equivalent of having a thick, hard-to-decipher accent. But that was why it was good for Svartis to have this opportunity to interact with her fellow spirits. She could only learn how to talk with them if she had the chance to practice.

The Shuppet floated closer. It repeated part of its previous message -curiosity about the homesick trainer it was following- and then followed it with -seeing a floating purple ghost made of gas next to a trainer in dark purple robes-.

Oh! Svartis sent. She concentrated, compiling her message carefully before sending it. -pink glowing eyes snapping open as she hovered overhead- -a strong presence pulling her with it into the phantom world- -her trainer drawing pain and suffering from an injured Piloswine- -opening its mouth to eat a dumpling and choking as bits of soul floated out-.

Yellow light flared as the Shuppet's eyes snapped wide open and its yellow pupils flared. "Shu!" it cried. "Shu! Shu! Shu!" -years ago, a Banette in a blue Phanpy plushie coming through town- -awe and reverence at seeing an older cousin so big and strong- It accompanied its last two sendings with the feeling of a question, -a Banette in a blue Phanpy plushie- -a trainer in dark purple robes-?

Svartis nodded enthusiastically and replied with a rush of affirmative feelings. Her trainer -images of a pokemon cafeteria filled with people at dinnertime, people milling about with pokemon- was a Banette! She reflected -a Banette in a blue Phanpy plushie-.

The shock of awed emotion that radiated from the Shuppet upon getting confirmation was intense. Between one moment and the next the Shuppet covered the distance between them. It slammed to a halt centimeters in front of Diya and, radiating excited nervousness, proffered its horn.

The old familiar greeting brought a smile to Diya's lips and leaned forward to press its head to the Shuppet's horn. Even if it no longer had a horn of its own, it could still reciprocate the Shuppet's greeting. Gently, making sure not to overwhelm the smaller pokemon, Diya let some of the pain it still had from the Piloswine flow out into the Shuppet. In turn it accepted from the other spirit the sharp biting feelings of a perfectionist panicking about a project, completing the exchange.

"Shhhuuuuuuu!" the spirit cried, first whirling about in place and then zipping around Svartis as fast it could, radiating delight and awe and joy. Shadows flashed darker as the Shuppet sent out a call to its brethren, crying that they had a Banette visiting, a real Banette, come see, come see!

The next few minutes were a chaotic whirlwind of spirits and phantom communication as all of Canopy Town's Shuppets descended on the park. Shuppets congregated around their higher evolution cousin, staring into Diya's pink eyes and pressing their foreheads to Diya's to exchange griefs. And once the novelty of a Banette -a real life Banette!- in their town wore off, there was still the novelty of the oddly transparent purple ghost to fawn over. Shuppets whirled around Svartis in an excited cloud, bombarding her with questions she did her best to parse.

There was also a Misdreavus in town -which took a perverse delight in startling June and Igor by materializing from June's shadow and shrieking at them- so the Shuppets weren't totally unfamiliar with other species of ghost pokemon. But Misdreavuses were much more similar to Shuppets than Gastlys. They had similarly multicolored eyes and wispy grey bodies, different only in that their eyes were red with yellow schlera and in place of a horn Misdreavuses had round red gems around their necks to absorb emotions. And while Misdreavuses fed on more immediate fears and night terrors than the general grievances Shuppets consumed, both ghosts fed on emotions. They even formed the same way, spontaneously generated from intense concentrations of negative emotions.

As far as their experiences went, Svartis was something totally new. She could choose to not have a body and dissolve into a near-invisible gas if she wanted to! She didn't eat emotions, or anything at all! (As far as she could tell, she was admittedly very young and might just not have gotten hungry yet). And she had a life before being a ghost! She shared memories with them of being something else! She even knew what it was like to have a mouth and eat solid food, and when she shared experiences of that it just about rendered some of the Shuppets catatonic.

It didn't take long for the Shuppets to abandon their awe-inspiring big cousin entirely to pester and question this new fascinating ghost. Which a part of Diya's heart twinged to see. The Shuppets were its cousins, and a part of it wanted to talk to them and bond with them as it would have played with its siblings back home.

But Diya was surprised to find that more of its heart swelled to see the Shuppets clustering around Svartis. Its pokemon 'talked' with them as fast as she could, stumbling over the memories she was using as she eagerly answered a barrage of questions. She fired off questions of her own at every opportunity, giggled as they rubbed up against her and proffered their horns for her to touch. And Diya simply couldn't find it in itself to dwell on being excluded. Its charge was so happy to meet other ghosts like her and talk to them, how could it sour that with resentment?

Quietly, Diya slipped off the park's playground equipment and walked over to June, who was filming the whirling cloud of Shuppets orbiting Svartis and cooing at her. "Peh!", "Shuu!", "Peh-peh-peh!" the ghosts called out as accompaniments to their phantom communications. June glanced over to Diya when it walked over, with a look of awe on her face.

"There's so many of them," she whispered.

The Banette nodded. It wasn't surprised to see -it did a quick head count- eleven Shuppets and one Misdreavus in Canopy Town. But it understood why June would be; Shuppets were skittish by nature. Unlike Misdreavuses, which fed most eagerly on shock and startlement they created themselves -and often got caught and tamed for their troubles-, Shuppets found their stomachs turned by negative emotions they were responsible for. The nervousness and suspicion humans tended to feel towards Shuppets tainted their meals, so for the most part they tried to go unseen.

June turned her head to keep one eye on her pokedex screen and the Shuppets, and one eye on Diya, "How intelligent are they?" she asked quietly.

It waggled a hand. That was a complicated question, one which became harder for it to answer each day it lived its new life and its old one became more distant. <Differently intelligent. They always understand any experience they absorb and all the context behind it, and they absorb a lot. And they feel very intensely about those experiences. But…>

Diya was acutely aware of June watching it expectantly as it trailed off. It didn't know how to explain this though.

Eventually it typed something out anyway, hoping the words would come as it did. <They don't have … 'separate' minds. If that makes sense? Not like they're a hive mind, they're not, but they're not 'separate' from the experiences they absorb.> it waited for June's hesitant nod before continuing. <They've got very simple animalistic minds for anything which isn't a part of what they've absorbed. And making connections between experiences is...>

How did it explain this without leaning on its own experiences? As a Shuppet Diya had known that street lamps were created by humans. It had known how long it took to put them up, what it took to maintain them, even knew what their inner workings were. It could have diagnosed an electrical fault in one, or even explained the exact composition of its metal and why that protected it from rust and mechanical failure. But that didn't mean it had known what they meant.

It had needed to think through a human's mind to see street lamps in the abstract. It had known through other human memories what a community investment was, what beauty was. But to connect those concepts and understand that a street lamp was a community investment, that had been beyond it as a Shuppet. It hadn't been able to make the leap to understanding that the way a town managed its street lamp upkeep and how prevalent they were could diagnose the town's health.

It hadn't been able to see the halo of a street lamp in snow and understand that it was beautiful.

It tried again. <Imagine if you perfectly memorized and understood everything a teacher told you, but could never make connections between different lessons and courses they didn't make. If your thoughts only ran parallel to paths others had laid.> That still wasn't right. But it was a metaphor it hoped June would understand.

And it seemed she did. She nodded solemnly. June opened her mouth for another question, then glanced at her pokedex and started when she realized half the Shuppets had drifted out of frame. She corrected that and looked over at Diya again.

The look she gave it made Diya shift uncomfortably. It was a very intent look.

Eventually she asked, "What about Banettes?"

Diya had only ever met one Banette beside itself. The Banette had possessed a child's old comfort blanket in the shape of a Stunfisk, which had been thrown in the trash by the child's parents when they forgot to dry it and it developed mold. And it … it was hard for Diya to say much about how intelligent the Banette had been, because Diya had still been a Shuppet when it met them. But it remembered the Banette having more complex feelings than Diya had been familiar with. It had worked so hard to clean itself and make itself presentable, in a way that Diya remembered being confused by. And maybe that was simply a side-effect of how much the child had loved the blanket as a source of clean warm security, but maybe that need to groom came from a greater sense of self instead.

The change Diya experienced from thinking through a living mind had been so extreme it could hardly say what differences in its mind were from its unusual possession and what were normal for Banette evolution.

It swallowed. Maybe it still had some of that Shuppet skittishness, because the thought of what June might say if it shared any of this was suddenly overwhelming. Or maybe it was just the subject itself that was overwhelming. <I … don't know. I've only met two Banettes.>

June worked her jaw and almost opened her mouth to say something to that but then visibly arrested herself. "You-"

Diya swallowed again.

"I'll ... ask you more about that later, maybe. We're supposed to be filming some ghosts, yeah?"

Diya was about to agree when it tasted an emotion oozing out of June, frustration and a gnawing unsatisfied anxiety. It wasn't a passing feeling either, the thick oozing sensation of the emotion meant it was bound up in the kind of thought which wouldn't leave her mind alone. The Banette looked at her intently and blinked once, slowly. What was that about?

"Anyway, you're gonna show Svartis how to play catch the will-o-wisp, right? You should probably get started on that, she looks a bit overwhelmed by all those Shuppets. And not gonna lie, I'm pretty interested in seeing how that works myself. Might as well get started while the night's still young, right?"

Even if the Banette hadn't been able to taste June's emotions it would have been able to tell she was deflecting. But she was right. Svartis was starting to look overwhelmed by the attention. And the night wasn't getting any younger.

And if Diya was being honest with itself, it didn't want to think about how much of its self only existed thanks to a young boy's death. If June didn't want to talk about it, Diya was happy to not talk about it either.

The Banette sent out a flickering pulse of ghostly energy laced with the memory of having sent out a pulse like that before. It was a call to attention carrying the concept of a call to attention and it served as a sharp "Hey!" to the Shuppets swarming its companion.

The wispy swarm turned in unison, falling silent in an instant.

That surprised Diya. As a Shuppet it would have had to do that several times to get its siblings to pay attention when they were being rambunctious. But now … well, now it was a Banette.

Diya stood a bit straighter. It sent off a quick private message to Svartis through their bond, telling her to pay close attention to what it was doing. And then it began to speak. It paired the memory of Svartis's second call -the one woven through with the memory of joyful play- with a feeling of remembering something which had been forgotten. Then it brought forth a memory of playing with its own siblings as a Shuppet, connected to a feeling of intent and the presence of Svartis. And lastly it let that seamlessly flow into the memory of playing catch the will-o-wisp, with a focus on the details of play and a quiet feeling of seeking confirmation attached to those details.

In short, it reminded them that Svartis was there to play with them, suggested catch the will-o-wisp as a game, and asked if they used the same ruleset Diya was familiar with.

The flurry of overlapping responses Diya got was overwhelming. It got sheepish apologies, a bit of confusion from two of the more forgetful Shuppets, joyful agreement, and confirmation that they played by the same rules it did. But the most important response was the one Diya got from the Misdreavus as it was still parsing the flurry of phantom communication.

The Misdreavus, which had been very carefully suppressing its presence, came flying out of Diya's shadow on the ground and whapped the tip of its nose with its semi-prehensile mane of hair, cackling "Mihihihihihihi!" as it flew away. As a last parting shot the Misdreavus sent Diya a memory burst of a small child crying out to her friends "Tag! You're it!".

And then the Misdreavus called a halo of heatless blue faerie fire around itself and shot off into the night.

There was a moment of stunned silence as the Shuppets processed the sheer audacity of what the other ghost had done. And then gleeful panic, as they realize they were less than five meters away from a Banette who was 'it'. More ghosts called faerie fire around themselves as they fled, highlighting their forms in the night and making it impossible to hide.

Not that fleeing did much to save them. Diya jumped a tiny centimeter into the air, just enough to clear its feet off the ground. While it was off the ground it reached out with its powers, through its shadow and into one of the long shadows cast by the playground equipment in the light of June's lamp. It pulled on the shadows, the feeling a mirror to how it would step up into the phantom world.

Diya fell into its own shadow and emerged from the other, right into the path of a fleeing brightly lit Shuppet. Whap! went its hand against the tip of the Shuppet's horn. Diya smiled, grinning wildly. It called on the same memory the Misdreavus had sent it to cry out, "Tag! You're it!".

According to the rules Diya had ten seconds to flee before it had to light itself up with faerie fire, and it made the most out of them. One step threw it back into its shadow and out onto the roof of a nearby building. The next took it into the phantom world and it leaped from building to building in the shadowy other-space, trying to make as much distance as possible before it fell back into the physical world where the other pokemon could see it.

Its rapid flight didn't turn out to be necessary though. Even as Diya fled it heard the gleeful mental shrieks of a pursued Svartis echoing through the phantom space. Clearly the Shuppet it tagged wanted to introduce its new friend to the joys of the game as quickly as possible.

Diya stepped back into reality on top of a sloped roof. But it didn't account for the difference in traction between the roof's permeable surface in the phantom world and its snow-slick surface in the physical world though and it slipped. On instinct it plunged one arm up to the elbow in its own shadow -cast by a street lamp-, pinning the shadow to the roof and itself with it. That arrested its slide and it -carefully!- got back to its feet.

The Banette's heart pounded and an involuntary nervous giggle escaped it. It was going to have to relearn how to play this game, now that it had to deal with mundane things like gravity and traction. Having the superior ghostly powers wasn't necessarily going to be enough to win against its flying cousins. Speaking of whom-

Diya looked out over Canopy Town and marveled at what it saw. Its cousins were all flying through the air as fast as they could, lit by faerie fire and blazing across the night sky. The unearthly flames didn't stream back with the wind of their flight, making them look more like flickering blue stars flying through the sky than streaks of fire.

As it watched some of them dropped into the town's streets, having decided that they'd gotten enough distance and were better served by blocking line of sight weaving between houses. Others kept moving for the edge of the town, banking on distance to keep them from being tagged. And one spirit -Diya would bet that was the Misdreavus- shot high into the air above Canopy Town, apparently confident in its ability to outmaneuver the others in open air.

The ten seconds of grace Diya was owed were probably up, so Diya lit up the top of its witch's hat with heatless flame. The Banette smiled. The rules didn't say it had to light up its entire body, just that it had to make itself visible with faerie fire. And if the way it did so caused the brim of its hat to cast a deep shadow around its feet … well, that would just be a fun surprise for the first ghost to think it had caught Diya.

Assuming, of course, that the seeker didn't sneak up on it. Diya checked behind it, casting about with its mundane and phantom senses. Playing tag became a difficult proposition when it was nighttime and the other players you were looking for were dark grey wispy spirits which could fly and squeeze through most gaps. Hence the faerie fire, necessary to make it possible to find one another, so they could actually play tag and not an impossible game of hide and seek. But there was no reason or rule that the seeker had to announce their presence with faerie fire, so getting caught unawares by a sneaky seeker was a very real possibility.

A minute later Diya heard the sound of shoes on stone, and it turned to see June running around the corner. She was holding her pokedex out in front of her with the blue scanning dome lit, and already breathing a bit hard.

Diya waved to June as she came to a stop in the street beneath it. On her shoulder, Igor waved back.

"Am I-" she took a deep breath but managed to keep the pokedex steady, "going to be running over Canopy Town all night trying to keep up with all of you?"

Diya snorted and nodded.

The bug trainer said a word she should probably edit out of the final footage.

"You are recording too though, right? I just wanted to double-check, cus we're going to feel very dumb if tomorrow morning we check and we're missing half the footage."

Diya blinked and then winced. It hastily patted its pockets for its pokedex. Diya had borrowed a harness from the pokecenter which would hold its pokedex in place over its chest, with the scanning dome set to record everything in front of it. Though for that to be helpful, it should actually put its pokedex in there and set it to record first.

It took a moment to send June a text as it got its pokedex out. <Thanks for the reminder. I would have forgotten.>

June dropped her eyes to her 'dex as the text came in. She snorted. "That's what I'm here for, to make sure the whole thing actually gets recorded."

The wind picked up, and Diya reached up to hold its hat in place. With its free hand it typed, <Speaking of, shouldn't you be following the seekers, or one of the will-o-wisps? Oh, and how many seekers are there? I didn't count.>

"What do you mean, how many seekers are there?"

<The game's usually played with more than one. How many Shuppets didn't light up?>

"Ah. Sorry, I wasn't counting. Didn't know I should be. One second, Igor would you mind-" The Blipbug tapped her shoulder twice. "Thank you." Then June smirked. "Oh, and we are following a seeker."

The Banette blinked. What did that mean?

… wait.

Diya whirled around but it was far too late. Svartis was floating behind the Banette with a grin wide enough to swallow the moon, and the moment Diya saw her she collapsed into a fit of howling laughter. On the ground June burst out laughing too. "Hahaha, that was great! Svartis tagged you a minute ago when we were talking and you didn't even notice!"

Shock covered Diya's face as it tried to process what had just happened, looking back and forth between June and Svartis for answers.

"Hahahahaha! This is fantastic, I even have video of it forever. Hahaha, ah, remember that gust of wind a minute ago? You grabbed your hat to keep it on?" June smirked. "Yeah that was Svartis." Svartis' howling laughter increased in volume as realization finally hit her trainer and percolated through their bond.

Oh. Diya saw how it was. This meant war.

The evolved pokemon reached up and pinched the peak of its hat, extinguishing the witch's fire there with a twist of will. Then it held up ten outstretched fingers in front of Svartis.

It folded one finger in. Nine.

It folded another finger. Eight.

Svartis sobered up and stopped laughing very quickly.

Seven.

"Ga!" she shrieked, and with every ounce of speed she could muster the Gastly shot away into the night.

Diya chuckled as it watched Svartis vanish into the night. She'd have to light herself up soon enough, and then the chase would begin. In the meantime Diya slipped its pokedex into its recording harness. It stretched. And it sent June a single text. <Hope you can keep up.>

Its friend said another word she'd have to edit out of the final footage they sent to the researchers.

In the distance a street lit up with the blue glow of faerie fire. Svartis' grace period was up. Diya grinned behind its pitch-black scarf. Then the Banette called shadows and began to hunt.

It wondered if it was possible to tickle a Gastly in revenge.

---

June watched her friend drop into the rippling too-dark shadows beneath them as if stepping into a pool of inky water. A heartbeat passed, then two, and then a nightmarish screech ripped through the night a couple blocks away. Consciously June recognized it as the same move she'd seen Diya use against her Wurmple. It wasn't a real noise, just the mental impression of one. June knew it wasn't real, when she focused she could tell that the screech didn't 'sound' like anything at all.

But sweet merciful spirits it felt like hearing a Garchomp's hunting roar echo over the hills while lost in a storm.

The trainer swallowed. "Gods be quiet," she whispered to herself. The fear pumped straight into her veins was a stark reminder that she wasn't dealing with a human, but the living -or perhaps undead- embodiment of a curse. But she had a job to do, so she swallowed the phantom fear and ran towards the terrifying hell-scream. Diya, who was her friend she reminded herself, was playing tag with their cousins tonight and it was her job to get as much of it on video as she could.

She grumbled as she ran, using petty complaints to make her fears feel pettier. "Tonight's gonna take a decade off my life. Don't know what I was thinking, agreeing to come along for freaking ghost tag. Yeah, just gonna run around a silent sleeping town in the middle of the night chasing ghosts, that's a recipe for a great time. No possibility of any haunting experiences, no siree, it'll be fine. Oh and speaking of which ... I swear by each of the storm gods' names," she raised her voice with each word of that last phrase, "that if that Misdreavus is still out there and planning to jump-scare me again, I will capture it and bury the pokeball."

Silence answered June.

"Yeah that's right, you better run," she muttered.

---

The night ended with Diya lying on a park bench with a cloud of exhausted Shuppets, more mist than form, sprawled out on top of it. Svartis and the Misdreavus were floating up in a tree somewhere, murmuring mentally to one another too quietly for the exhausted Banette to pick out. Igor was burying its head in a food bowl underneath the bench, consuming its just rewards for a night of hard observational work. And June was lying on the grass at the foot of the bench with her shoes off, staring up into the night sky.

But despite being exhausted and further tasting everyone's exhaustion thick on its tongue, Diya couldn't have felt more alive. Its blood sang hot in its veins, balanced by each breath of cold night air, and it could hear every heavy thudding heartbeat in its chest.

It needed to do something, say something, even as it needed to rest and get the feeling back in its limbs.

The Banette typed out a message and flopped its arm off the side of the bench, letting the pokedex dangle next to June's face. <Did you have fun?>

June blinked until her eyes refocused from the far away sky. She took hold of Diya's hand, reorienting the 'dex so she could see it better. "You know. Yes. I did. Tonight was … an experience," her tone of voice said that was a rather extreme understatement, "but against my better judgement I had fun. I got to see something I never would have seen in a hundred years, otherwise. Or at least, I wouldn't have understood what I was seeing, if I just looked out my window in the middle of the night and saw blue lights dancing around town. And I got to see a bit more of your life. Which was amazing, but also…" June paused.

"Diya, do you mind if I ask you a question?"

The Banette nodded.

"When you were chasing the Shuppets earlier, was any of that meant to be scary?"

Diya tilted its head. <What do you mean?>

"You know, the ghostly nightmare screeches, the ambushes out of nowhere, the creepy things you did with everyone's shadows?"

<Creepy shadow things?>

"I saw a Shuppet's shadow come to life and drag it into the ground -which was an empty lightless abyss at the time-, and then you reached into your shadow and pulled it out so you could tag it."

<Oh right, that.>

"Yes. That. Was that meant to be..." June fumbled at the air with her fingers, searching for the right words. Eventually, at a loss, she just asked, "Was it meant to be scary?"

Diya shook its head. <No. It's like running after a little cousin with your arms raised, yelling "Raargh!". It's scary, but not a 'real' kind of scary.> It frowned at the taste of real anxiety coming from its friend, and asked her, <I scared you though?>

June snorted. "Maybe a little, yeah. It … gods, that was really just you playing with the little kids, huh?"

<Shuppets aren't ever actually 'kids', they don't have childhood states.>

"You know what I mean. And you used the metaphor first."

Diya examined the cloud of Shuppets lying on its chest. It released a puff of stored grief for them to absorb. The little spirits stirred and murmured tiredly, happily absorbing the grief before curling up closer around their older cousin. Maybe the metaphor of them as children was more true than Diya had meant it to be. It just didn't know what that meant for itself if so, if being a Banette meant it was 'grown up' now.

<Yes. That was me playing with the neighborhood kids.>

There was a quiet silence between them for a while.

Eventually June said, "Eugh, now I feel like I've been an asshole."

That alarmed Diya enough to raise its head off the bench. The Shuppets protested and it waved them down. <Why?>

"I've been, uh, kind of nervous about the powers you have? Scared, if I'm being honest, I've been scared. And some of what I saw tonight was frankly kind of terrifying? Hah, scratch that actually, I say kind of but it was terrifying. I mean it's scary enough to know what your night shades and shadow balls would do if you didn't hold back. I looked that up and ahahaha, wow, that is a scary amount of firepower. But seeing you in full hunting mode, jumping through shadows and disappearing and reappearing from out of nowhere? The freaking nightmare screeches? You felt like a predator, and it made me think of you as something to be afraid of. But you were just … playing with the neighborhood kids. The fear was all in my head."

<Are hugs scary?>

June twisted her face in confusion at the non-sequitur. "Uh, no? What do you- oof!"

To raucous "Shuu!"s of complaint from displaced Shuppets, Diya rolled off the bench and partly onto June. And then it hugged its friend.

"Diya, what are you doing?"

The Banette had to work a bit to hug and type at the same time, and find a not-too-awkward angle to hold its pokedex for June to see, but it made it work. <I do ghost stuff. It's okay if that's scary. It's also okay to tell me that it's scary, so I can reassure you.>

It took a moment for June to process that, blinking at the pokedex held in front of her face. "With hugs," she said.

<Hugs are nice, yes.>

With her ribcage slightly squashed beneath Diya, June huffed out a laugh. "See, this is why I feel like an asshole. You're a nice kid. It's not fair to think of you as a scary monster from straight out of my nightmares when you're just a kid playing with little baby spirits."

<I am dangerous though.> Diya shrugged, and typed out the rest of its response. <It's okay to be scared by that even if you know I wouldn't hurt you. That's what reassuring hugs are for.>

It took June a while to respond to that. The Shuppets had gotten over their annoyance at being disturbed and begun to settle back down on Diya's back when June finally said, "...yeah. The hugs do work for that."

<Good. Mind if I put my dex away now? The angle is awkward.>

"No that's fine. I'm good. The, uh, the reassuring hug is doing its job."

Diya smiled and cuddled up tighter against its friend. Through the hug it could feel her trying to relax and stop talking, but after a minute the words came out anyway.

"So just … huh. So the idea is that I shouldn't try thinking of you as something that's not a scary dangerous ghost. Person. Ghost person. Because you are. It's just … you're a scary dangerous ghost person and you're a hug-happy kid with no interest in cursing anyone. And it doesn't bother you if I'm bothered by the first part, because you're a hug-happy kid who's more than willing to give out hugs until it stops bothering me."

The Banette nodded and squeezed June. It was kind of tired, but still plenty willing to hear her out.

June chewed on that for a moment. "That is very zen and it almost makes sense if I let my mind fuzz a little and try to think like Bashak. In fact I'm pretty sure if I tell him about this he's not going to say anything at all, he's just going to nod and give me a look which says 'yes, of course I am in agreement with you that this is how things work, I'm just a little confused you didn't already realize that'."

Diya nodded sleepily. Bashak was wise like that.

June turned her head to squint at Diya suspiciously. "If both of you start ganging up on me with minimally worded philosophical musings about deep emotional concepts, I will sic Igor on you two."

That actually sounded like a lot of fun, so Diya made no promises and stayed silent. It let its head rest on June's shoulder and closed its eyes.

She sighed. "Well. Thank you for inviting me. This was nice."

…

"Diya?"

Diya was already fast asleep.

"Oh." June brushed a hand over the Banette's hair. "Good night kiddo. Sweet dreams."