[PRP] Gallivanting Ghosts

[Shawn Darrow]

Shadow lay on his back in the grass facing the sky, his eyes closed as he napped softly. Beside him a Jolteon sat in the noon-day sun, keeping watch over her trainer as well as the ghosts lingering about the shade of the trees just beyond.

For this of the teen's rare days off, the Rocket had finally decided to spend some time outside the base and had thus come to the second-most familiar place to him on Kodo: Camphoreon City. His pokemon - mostly consisting of ghosts - were also pleased to get out and spend some time in the sunshine they almost never saw.

Like Keese the Crobat, though, Shadow was used to sleeping during the day and thus found a nap the best way to relax. His Crobat wasn't so lucky since the other ghosts were poking at him while he was perched upside down on a limb, but the pokemon rarely got to interact with one another, so he didn't mind as much.

Eris, a Shuppet from the base, had wanted to tag along even though she wasn't officially Shadow's pokemon. She happily went around taking polaroid pictures of passerbys, blinding them with candid flashes of light and delighting in their surprise. The Jolteon beside Shadow growled at her, but so long as she left her trainer alone, she made no move to attack the ghost.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

One such passerby was a short brunette, her height increased by the heels she wore, who seemed to be looking for someone. She kept glancing around and pausing every so often to give a more thorough examination of her surroundings with her pale green eyes, and every so often she'd raise her hands to her mouth to call out, "Victor!" A very few random men happened to turn their heads at her shouts, but she obviously didn't mean any of them. It was as yet unclear who she did mean to find.

An invisible ghost slowly descended from above Shawn until he hovered directly above the sleeping boy's face by several inches. He looked so peaceful lying there, fast asleep.... Didn't he know how dangerous that was? A soft hiss escaped the ghost, very quiet at first, but it grew in volume. And as it did so, the ghost slowly faded just his head into view, until he ended on a loud note and his head fully in view. The hood shadowed his bright eyes that were narrowed in malevolent anticipation, and his zippered grin was wide and eager to scare this unsuspecting young fellow.  

[Shawn Darrow]

The picture-taking Shuppet paused to regard the girl calling for 'Victor'. She may not have been named Victor, but she was quite interested in this trainer and decided to go up to her with a cheery smile. Maybe she had some delicious, negative emotions to snack on. "Shup, shuppet?" she asked the girl gleefully, the camera dangling from around her neck.

Noticing the strange absence of flashing in her peripheral vision, the Jolteon at Shadow's side raised her head. When she saw the human girl, her amber eyes narrowed and she growled lightly. Her own trainer stirred in his fragile state of sleep.

Not wanting to wake him, the electric-type rose to her paws and gave him a fond look before trotting off toward the girl and the bothersome Shuppet. With luck, she could chase off both at the same time. Lindsay was so perturbed by Eris and Sera, however, that she failed to notice the new ghostly presence that hovered about Shadow.

"Mmm..." Shallow as his slumber was, for once the teen had no nightmares to plague him as was usual. His features contorted as a hiss reached his ears and his brow furrowed, sensing a disturbance.

At the loud, ending note, sepia eyes opened in time to see a grinning, hooded face manifest into existence in the air above his face. He opened his mouth and issued a shriek that was possibly a little higher-pitched than would have been considered masculine.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Seraphine did indeed have negative emotions, although none of them were very intense at the moment; the ones that held the most sway currently were annoyance and frustration. The sudden appearance of the ghost hardly fazed her, but she very, very briefly had a hopeful look on her face that immediately morphed to one of more annoyance. The brunette raised a hand and waved it at the Shuppet with a huff of a sigh. "You are not Victor." Close, but no cigar. A sudden flood of yellow in her peripheral vision made her turn to look down at her side, and the sight of the electric eeveelution only stirred up memories she'd rather leave alone, which only served to feed more negative emotions into her countenance - anger, sorrow, and regret. "And what do you want?" She nearly snapped, frowning down at the Jolteon.

The sudden shriek startled her, and she looked up in time to see a particular Banette bouncing in the air gleefully around somebody laying in the grass. "Victor!" She shouted, her hands balling into fists as all of her negative emotions morphed into a pure but mild anger, and she stormed towards the unknown person and the ghost above him, who had stopped upon hearing his name. "How many times do I have to tell you to stop that? Honestly. You're gonna get me in huge trouble someday." Ugh. Despite ghosts being one of her two favored types, she was really questioning her decision to keep the Banette around. He was more trouble than Jacques ever was.  

[Shawn Darrow]

The Shuppet cried out happily, as if Seraphine had expressed joy upon seeing her instead of annoyance. "Shuppet shuppet shup!" she answered. It didn't seem to bother her that she was not Victor. Snap! She tried to take a picture of the brunette girl.

Lindsay's hostility towards Sera was probably somewhere on the same level of the tone the trainer spoke to the Jolteon with, if not worse. She growled, ears pinned back against her skull as they usually were, with half a mind to shock some respect into the girl. Before she could do so, however, she jerked her head toward Shawn at the sound of his yell, her ears swerving to catch it. In an instant she had darted back to the boy's side.

"Shup?" Eris wondered aloud, tilting her head curiously. There was certainly a lot of wonderful chaos being caused here. So was that Banette the culprit? She grinned at him admiringly as his trainer seemed to throw a fit. How delightful! The Shuppet flew after Sera, eager to be around all the commotion.

"W-wh-wha-what happened?!" Shawn stammered, sitting up and getting to his unsteady feet as if the ground were covered with Trapinch. "This ghost's yours?!"

A little ways away, the other ghost pokemon paused in their frolicing lurking and looked up in curiosity.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Seraphine ignored the Shuppet regardless of its attempted photography, mostly because she was already heading towards the stranger and her mischievous hooded Banette. Victor just cackled gleefully, his zipper-like mouth pulled into a wide grin, his dark eyes gleaming out from under his hood as he started to float in quick circles around the boy despite his trainer's obvious displeasure.

"He is," the girl said venomously without a trace of affection or any sort of positive feeling for the pokemon she claimed was hers. "And he needs to cut that out. Immediately," she added with threatening undertones as she crossed her arms over her chest, leveling the ghost with a dark glare.

While he did cease his circling, he continued to cackle as he floated away from the boy, but stopped halfway between the two humans as he was distracted by the Shuppet with... a camera? What was that for?  

[Shawn Darrow]

Eris continued snapping away like a one-pokemon paparazzi, catching as many shots of Sera, Shawn, Victor, Lindsay, and whole group as she could. Unfortunately, as her ability to snap pictures without hands was limited, she soon ran out of power points and set down her camera in the grass alongside the scattered pictures. At least she could still follow the commotion on her own.

"W-why don't you just recall it into its pokeball?!" the boy asked, nearly shouting in his panic. He wore an expression that hinted he wanted to run far away and not stop until he had put at least a mile of distance between him and the creepy, hooded Banette.

The Shuppet, now free of her burden, looked up to notice the Banette watching her. She smiled sweetly and flew over. <You've caused quite a stir, haven't you, big boy?> she told him in seductive tones. <You've got excellent taste in humans. That trainer over there has this thing about ghosts.>

<That trainer?!> Another voice snarled. <That's MY trainer! Show some respect, ghosts!> The Jolteon lashed out at Victor with a Thundershock, aiming to get him back for the fright he'd caused Shawn.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Her anger at Victor turned into a mild curiosity and vague annoyance at this boy, and she crossed her arms and leaned her weight on one foot. Why was he still so frightened? A shock, maybe; he at the very least seemed to be startled, but people usually calmed down after that. It couldn't be because he was afraid of ghosts, given the number of them in the immediate area. They had to be his. "Why?" Sera asked with a frown.

Victor replied smoothly as his ever-present grin widened. me, at least, though it does make me curious why there's so many others about then,> the hooded Banette said as he shrugged his arms out. He saw Lindsay coming over out of the corner of his eye, and he grinned maliciously at her. <Your trainer? Yours and no one elses? What, are you his only pokemon, then? Some trainer,> he cackled nastily as he suddenly disappeared in an instant, leaving the Jolteon's attack to sail harmlessly through the air. He appeared just as quickly, this time immediately behind her. loudly?> He asked as he leaned an arm on her haunches, then stretched out his opposite hand to inspect his fingers - not that there was anything of interest about them, he just wanted to piss her off. Though, with her initial attack, he expected another after this, so he disappeared again, though his voice did not,  

[Shawn Darrow]

the Shuppet giggled. She beamed at Victor. She gave another high-pitched giggle as Lindsay's attack shot and missed the hooded ghost.

the Jolteon shot back at the Banette. Her fur bristled and she bore her sharp, canine teeth at him. my human. While I would have liked to have been his only pokemon,> she growled, she snarled when her opponent disappeared and reappeared behind her.

"Why?" The teen gave Sera a look as if she'd grown a second head. "Because they're dangerous, of course!" It didn't seem to occur to him to address that the pokemon watching just yonder were probably just as dangerous. He was distracted by a familiar technique in his peripheral vision.
"Lindsay? Lindsay, no, what are you doing?!"

The comment about her volume didn't seem to help; if anything, it only made her angrier and louder still.

She snapped at the phantom audacious enough to lean on her. Her barks were vicious and short and she looked as if she might have wanted to attack the pair of ghosts head-on; her rage blinding and clouding her judgement and reasoning enough for her not to realize that would have been absolutely useless. If pissing her off had been his intention, Victor had indeed done a through job of it. When he vanished a second time, her fur sparkled with static electricity and she launched a Thunder attack out of sheer frustration.

Shawn jumped backward, falling on his rear as he narrowly missed the strike of Thunder that had seared the ground in front of him. His Jolteon, realizing what she had almost done, ceased her growling and sat, still angry with sparking fur, but remorseful towards her trainer. That stupid Banette...if he hadn't provoked her, she wouldn't have almost hurt Shawn! It was all his fault!

"Lindsay," the boy said steadily, trying not to show how shaken he was, "I think you should return to your ball, girl. Don't you think you should cool down a little?"

Obliging, the Jolteon averted her amber eyes, ashamed, before disappearing into her ball within Shawn's pocket. Eris, meanwhile, went to go hover next to Sera's shoulder. Now that Lindsay was gone, a great deal of the delicious emotions she'd been feeding off of had disappeared with her. She wondered where Victor had gone to, though, and looked about, hoping to sense him somewhere nearby.

"Hey," Shawn said, mildly alarmed as he got back to his feet, dusting his baggy jeans off. "...Where's that pokemon of yours? Wasn't it just here?" he asked Sera.  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Victor's incredibly amused, condescending cackles echoed from the invisible ghost. he taunted the Jolteon, though remained invisible for now - especially at her lightning show.

"Dangerous?" Sera asked as she jumped and quickly moved away from the Jolteon's directionless attack, then glared and pointed even as Lindsay disappeared, "And that isn't dangerous?! At least all Victor does is scare people. He doesn't throw electricity everywhere and almost kill people." Holy crap, seriously. She had absolutely no desire to be electrocuted today. Or any other day. Or ever. For now, she completely ignored (or missed) his question about Victor. The ghost disappeared all the time, only to reappear a little later. Giselle did that all the time - even now, she remained invisible until needed. That's what ghosts did. They were ghosts.

The hooded Banette asked of Eris as he faded into view beside her, upside-down, though he rotated right-side up with his wide, malicious grin still present.  

[Shawn Darrow]

"Okay, yeah, I'll admit she's dangerous," the teen conceded reluctantly, "but Lindsay isn't a ghost-type. Don't you know what ghost-types can do? There's a reason they can scare people without having to throw electricity around. It doesn't take that much effort for them to kill people."

Who was this girl, anyhow? What did she know about ghost-types? He wouldn't have expected a prissy, uppity thing like her to want anything to do with them, let alone own one. "Just who do you think you are, anyway? Some kind of expert? You sure as heck don't look like one. What's with those heels?" No way would any self-respecting pokemon trainer try to go on some kind of pokemon journey or train pokemon in shoes like those. That just had to be outright torture.

As the Banette reappeared next to her, the Shuppet blushed and giggled flirtatiously. she answered, Beaming at the evolved pokemon, she tilted her head coyly. you do for fun, big boy? Other than disturb napping trainers from their slumber, I mean.>  

[BlackFireKitsune]

Good, at least he admitted it. With a huff, the girl crossed her arms and aimed a condescending glare at him. "Of course I do. I'm not stupid. That's why I have ghosts - and dark-types. They don't need to show off any fancy moves or anything to prove they're dangerous."

"Me? Who do you think you are?" She countered haughtily. An expert? Really? "I don't look like one because I'm not one - and if I don't look like one then you certainly don't, not with such raggedy old clothes," the brunette said with a dismissive, condescending wave. Mention of her shoes made her pause, though she gave him an incredulous look. "My heels? What about them?" She asked severely, aiming a menacing glare at him. Her heels were very expensive, high-quality shoes from a designer brand. There was no way he would insult such perfection.

Victor's eery grin widened further, almost unnaturally so. he commented with a gleeful cackle. <Me? Why, I don't get the chance to harass this girl's --> he pointed dismissively at Seraphine, <-- pokemon very often, so most of my fun is in harassing other people as much as I can. My favorite's stealing belts, though - falling pants in public provides practically a smorgasbord of emotions to feed off of! Plus humans are hilarious in such occasions, so it's pretty much dinner and a show,> he ended with another nasty cackle.  

[Shawn Darrow]

Taking a deep breath, the black-haired boy stormed up to the young lady, his previous skittishness replaced by contempt. "Are you sure about that? 'Cause you sound pretty stupid to me," he said, glaring. "Dark-types are almost as bad as ghosts - I mean, just their name should be able to tell you that. And it's not a contest about showing off anything! The fact that they don't need to do anything to prove that just goes to show they have a reputation. The more of a reputation they have for being dangerous, the more stupid you are for owning them; especially if you're not a pokemon expert."

Crossing his own arms over his chest to mimic the girl, he retorted harshly, "Who am I am is none of your business. At least I'm more travel-worthy and street smart. In this city, I can tell you any goon would think twice before trying to mug me, unlike you. You wouldn't be able to run a block in those things." He gestured to her heels. "You think you're all that? I don't see those dumb stilts helping you get your pokemon under control. What do you do, threaten to stop on them?"

is,> Eris crooned fondly, her gaze glazing over dreamily as she leaned back against Victor. Looking up as Victor mentioned Sera's other pokemon, however, she asked,

Blinking at his mention of stealing belts, the Shuppet quickly began to giggle again, delighted at the prospect of dropped pants and the humiliation to follow. Not to mention disgust, anger, shame...so many wonderful, horrid feelings. she murmured, sidling up to him,

Meanwhile, one of the ghosts that had been playing with the others nearby drifted closer to the humans to hear what all the fuss was about. The Chandelure had made himself invisible and was busy musing at Sera's high-heeled designer shoes. Speaking of removing things...how much shorter would she be if he could get her out of them?