CH88 (702), Ghost Shenanigans

The rest of the day aside from that little Pinkan milestone went as usual, and the day once more ended with me creating more sand sculptures, though this time we took turns singing instead of me playing the ocarina after I was done sculpting for the night. Mewday once again followed the same pattern as the days before, at least for the first two hours after I left Utopia.

That changed when I unexpectedly stumbled due to a root that suddenly popped up out of nowhere while I was passing by one of the many trees around us. I managed to forcefully restore my balance, saving myself from a face-to-face meeting with the ground, and I might have seen this as me being unlucky or inattentive, if not for the creepy laughter I heard getting further away from us.

"Hades," I called out to the ghost/Gengar hanging out in my shadow. "That definitely sounded like one of your fellow ghosts," I said after he popped out of my shadow, and he actually awkwardly/nervously fumbled his hands. "Did you let that ghost close in on purpose to let it go through with its prank?" I asked and he vehemently shook his head.

"{No boss, you gotta believe me. A presence just suddenly popped up to manipulate that root before vanishing again}," he proclaimed. "{I couldn't sense it at all before it manipulated that root and its signature vanished again right after}," he insisted. "{It just vanished like a ghost}," he seriously described before noticing what he said and releasing a snort, which he cut off after remembering that he was pleading for his "innocence".

Not that I was really blaming him or anything, I was just having a hard time understanding how a ghost managed to close in on us/me undetected when Hades could detect ghosts that were much stronger than him. I mean I seriously doubted that the ghost that played that prank on me was a freaking platinum or Mew-forbid palladium stage ghost.

Still, knowing how mischievous ghosts could be and how bored long-lived Pokemon not to mention ghosts could get, I could unfortunately not discount the possibility that it was a super-powerful ghost that decided to play a harmless prank after seeing me while passing by or something like that, which was honestly fine if that was the case as long as it did not act maliciously. I didn't want to know how bad things could get if a platinum or higher-stage ghost decided to maliciously haunt an official route.

A lot of people and Pokemon could die if that happened, but thankfully the chances of that were astronomically low and it was likely just a little ghost that wanted to play a prank. I would wait and see how things went. Depending on how things developed at the end of the day, I would give the ranger/alliance either a warning regarding a renegade ghost, if it was a malicious ghost, or a little prankster if nothing else happened.

Still, if it truly was a ghost weaker or as strong as Hades that played the prank on me instead, that likely meant that it had a talent that allowed it to sneak up on us or some kind of modifier that allowed it to do so, though I honestly thought that the chances of it being a talent were much higher since I couldn't think of a modifier that could do that. Nonetheless, I chose to momentarily discard those thoughts and addressed Hades.

"Make sure to keep an eye on the surroundings. No more lazing around inside my shadow, I want you to keep an active watch, alright?" I said and Hades saluted before jumping back inside my shadow. Once he was gone, I tilted my head upwards a bit to symbolically address Mothra/Butterfree.

"You keep an eye on the surroundings as well okay?" I asked her. "I want to see what kind of ghost managed to sneak up on us like this," I added, and she promised to be on the lookout. "Thor, try to be alert as well. Who knows you might detect something we can't," I followed up since I did not want him to feel left out, and he gave me a happy smile before putting up a serious expression followed by a salute using his tail.

Only 20 minutes later a nut flew toward my head out of nowhere, and playful laughter followed as the nut closed in on my head. I utilized both my psionic and aura-sensing but neither allowed me to sense the presence of my would-be attacker, which was disappointing. I naturally did not plan to allow the nut to hit me, and after telling Thor, who was about to intercept the nut with his tail, that I had it, I simply stretched out my hand and caught it without any problems. 

That caused the laughter to abruptly cut off, due to shock I would assume, and whatever threw that nut did not seem to be amused by that since more than a dozen nuts suddenly flew towards me along with a joyful shout, which once again cut off when I stopped all nuts using telekinesis. The truly interesting part was that neither Mothra nor Hades, both of whom I was talking to via telepathy, were able to detect where exactly the ghost was.

They felt and saw nothing when the first nut flew over, and only briefly felt some energy movement when the second round of nuts came, but neither of them was able to locate the ghost even after looking in the direction the energy came from and Hades even covertly checked the area in the direction to see if he could spot the ghost, but failed. Well, at least his actions seemed to have caused the ghost to retreat, which implied that it had noticed him trying to sneak up on it even though he was trying to be secretive.

That was honestly impressive since Hades could be pretty covert if he wanted to thanks to his modifier and talent. Still, at least there was some good news since both said that the energy they sensed felt pretty weak, so unless that was on purpose on the part of the ghost, the perpetrator was probably below the silver stage, though they admitted that they could be wrong. Either way, whether it was weak or not, it was clear that this ghost had decided to haunt/stick to me for some reason, so decided to pull out some extra help in catching it. 

I brought out Shino/Yanmega and told him about the ghost that was trying to prank us. I was hoping that Shino's supernatural danger sense would allow him to spot our super sneaky ghost, and it came in handy some 10 minutes or so later when it stopped me from falling victim to a vine that suddenly came to life. The vine tried to snag my ankle, but even though it seemed to work initially, as in he got a feeling of trouble coming from our left, his senses stopped "tingling" once the vine returned to being a simple vine. 

Nonetheless, we had a rough direction, so I telepathically told Mothra to quickly send a wide Sleep Powder toward the west. She jumped off my head and nearly instantly grew to double her real size before releasing an enormous Sleep Powder cloud that she then drove westward using wind. As the Sleep Powder current swept through the area, Mothra patted her chest and guaranteed that the current would cover at least half a kilometer before losing effect. 

"Good job," I praised her and she laughed happily at my praise before shrinking back down to her chibi size so that she could settle back down on my head. "You did a good job too," I naturally did not forget Shino who had provided the clue in the first place, and he released a happy buzz at my words.

"Alright, Hades," I finally turned to my shadowy companion, who rose from my shadow at my call. "Go ahead and see if we managed to get our mystery prankster with that cloud," I ordered which made him jump out of my shadow and fly ahead after giving me a salute. "Shino, go on and help him," I added before Hades went out of sight and he said "{Roger}" before taking off as well. 

"{I'll go as well}," Thor/Raichu spoke up before blitzing right after them. He probably wanted to help with the search since he had been unable to help with the locating part. We, as in Mothra and me, naturally followed as well, but unlike the trio, who was darting around a wide stretch, I strolled forward at a leisurely pace, attentively checking the area as we passed through just in case the trio missed something due to their speed. 

I noticed a bunch of random wild Pokemon that had fallen victim to Mothra's Sleep Powder, but I left them alone. They would wake up on their own in another 10 to 20 minutes, so there was no need to bother with them directly. Still, since I did not want other unaffected wild Pokemon to take advantage of them, I handed Mothra a pouch with repel powder and asked her to fly around the border of the area that was affected by her Sleep Powder and sprinkle a bit of the Repel Powder along that boundary to keep any wild Pokemon that stumbled over out.

I made sure she knew how much to spread, and then I watched as she flew away with the satchel in her hands. The Repel Powder would be effective for around half an hour, which was more than enough for everyone to wake up. As for what the Pokemon inside the affected area would do to one another, that was out of my hands unless I decided to stick around until every last one of them woke up and police the ones that woke up early, but I wasn't going to do that. It was better to leave it up to fate.

Minutes passed and no one managed to find any ghost type among the sleeping Pokemon. Mothra returned after she finished her job and she settled back down on my head after handing me the satchel. "{I've found our culprit!!!}" Thor suddenly yelled, attracting my attention as well as that of the others. All of us moved towards Thor, who was happily waving at us before laughing triumphantly.

He pointed towards a Phantump that was lying just two meters to his right. A Phantump that neither I nor one of the others had noticed until Thor literally pointed it out to us. It was as if Phantump was an inconspicuous and unimportant part of the background. It was interesting really since all of us had overlooked it until Thor literally pointed it out to us and even more interesting was the fact that I still could not detect Phantump even though I could see its presence with my very own eyes.

Combining those factors I could not help but wonder how Thor had managed to spot Phantump. "Thor, I couldn't see it until you pointed at it and I still can't sense it, so how did you find it?" I asked pretty curious how that happened. "{Yeah, how'd you find it? I already checked this place and I failed to spot the little ghost}," Hades spoke up. "{Me too}," Shino admitted and Thor once again laughed, though for some reason I felt that he was simply trying to delay his answer.

"Come on, let's hear it. How'd you find the Phantump?" I asked again, which had him cut off his laughter. He looked at me before mumbling something so softly that I failed to understand it even with my enhanced hearing, though I did feel his embarrassment. "What? Louder please, I couldn't hear you," I said and he looked up to me looking a bit embarrassed.

"{I tripped over it,}," he finally admitted and the others broke out in laughter. I had to chuckle as well. Now, would you call that lucky or unlucky? I'd say, Thor was quite lucky to have stripped over Phantump. I seriously doubted whether we would have managed to spot it if he hadn't, so I patted his head and told him he did a good job, which had him perk up. 

His tripping over Phantump's body also explained why neither Shino nor Hades managed to spot it even though they checked the area. One was flying while the other was levitating, so there was no way for them to stumble upon Phantump. Either way, it was clear that this was one special Phantump.

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