ghostytrainer | prank #41

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prank #41 | video

[When the feed clicks on, it's to a close up shot of a Shedinja floating inside what appears to be a hotel room. The ghost is just staring blankly at the screen, neither moving nor giving any other sort of indication that it's alive or that it really had any reason for apparently deciding to turn the gear on.]

[Just. Staring.]

[It's probably kind of unnerving and the worst part is that this goes on for a good twenty minutes before something else finally happens.]

Ugh, Phoebe did you hide my gear somewhere again? It was cute and kind of funny like the first maybe...three times? But that's really starting to wear off, sorry to say. Jeez, where is everyone it's like a gravey--

[John's voice can be heard in the background, and just as he wonders to himself where all his Pokémon went, his feet can be seen in the background behind the Shedinja. He sighs.]

Well that explains where everyone went at least. [The neon green argyle sock-clad feet approach the bug ghost and the camera.] Exos, what are you doing over here...oh. Ugh, not you too! Jesus what does a guy have to do, I swear... [The camera jostles as John, still mumbling to himself, picks the 'gear up. He redirects the camera to his own face, looking a little exasperated.]

Sorry about that. Exos is...well okay I have no idea what the fuck he was trying to accomplish there, if anything at all. But since this is already on, may as well make some kind of point here I guess. Umm, let's see...

Tell me about your favorite type of Pokémon. Or your favorite species, anything like that. Feel free to gush about your team and the things you have accomplished together, I don't mind. It's actually kind of fun to hear what other people have to say about their companions.

Here, I will even go first. Ghost types are my favorite and thanks to Bro Strider, I recently finished my collection of grim, grinning ghosts. I now have at least one of every ghost-type evolutionary line. My favorite species is Haunter. Mostly for nostalgia reasons but Haunters have the added benefit of just being pretty awesome in general.

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Reservations? Why? ...Beyond the alarming stillness, that is.

[Or maybe the alarming stillness was it?]

Yes, they can do a lot more than people imagine. I managed to beat Morty with only a single team member that wasn't one thanks to a few interesting moves. I don't think he expected that. And my interest in them apparently spared me from Whitney's usual reaction to a loss; she was nothing but nice to me when I defeated her.

There was an incident involving Shedinja nearly... man almost exactly two years ago to the month. Normally, they don't really appear in the wild but there was this...ginormous swarm of them and they kind of ended up stealing a lot of people's souls. But this doesn't happen with trainer-raised ones, for whatever reason and I already knew that. But the whole thing just still kind of left a bad taste in my mouth, I guess you could say?

That and I didn't particularly want a Ninjask. Bug types are okay and all but they don't really do it for me, so it felt kind of...dickish to catch a Nincada solely to have a Shedinja and then just be like "Oh well bye now dude, I just raised you so I could have your reanimated husk after you evolved! So long and thanks for the memories!"

[In comparison...this really seems like a non-issue.]

Really? This is literally the first time I have heard somebody say they had a pleasant experience with Whitney. But I guess it really shouldn't surprise me. Common interests and all, Gym Leaders obviously have their type biases. Something similar happened to me after I challenged Morty using only ghosts.

...Wait, they were stealing souls? As in, a part of people that not everyone even agrees exists in the first place? Why would a bug even want a human soul? What does soullessness do to people, anyway?

[Seriously, compared to that the reanimated husk is a minor detail. (Besides, he saw that info when he broke into someone's lab that one time. Funtimes.)]

I ended up getting her number and an invitation to train together when I'm in town. Is Morty that generous with his fellow ghost-lovers?

Well it's not like they really like... actively stole them. That might have been apoor word choice on my part. But they have this hole on their backs, it's where the Ninjask breaks out during evolution. And if you look into that hole, your soul gets pulled out of your body. And you just go... lifeless. [He pauses, seeming to leave himself for second or two. He's over the incident by now, but he still can't honestly say he likes reliving Rose getting her soul sucked out.] Like you could probably almost mistake the person for sleeping if it weren't for the part where they just stare blankly into space and don't move or react or do much of anything at all.

I didn't look into their backs so I don't have any first hand experience as far as what it's like in the hollow so to speak, but I know a few people who did. The described it as being almost like a really weird and disorienting dream. Or a nightmare, in some cases.

Lucky you though! Morty didn't do anything like that for me... though I was kind of way overleveled by the time I finally made it to his gym so...and they didn't do the Elite Challenge thing back then.

...Being sent in a coma by a hole in a zombie bug's back. My world had plenty of problems, but at least we didn't have anything like that. How come the locals don't just burn them on sight, if they know it's happened before?

[He knows he's now tempted to do so.]

They didn't? Trainers who were done with a region must have found visiting the other boring.

[Shrug!]

Who knows. But maybe that's why you don't see them in the wild. Like I said, for whatever reason trainer-raised ones don't do it. Maybe being raised by someone kind of destroys the instinct, I don't know there wasn't really a whole lot of information about it. I guess it's not something that people felt the need to research. Though Shedinjas as a whole don't seem to be that well researched. It took several days for the Professor and his team to figure out how to free the trapped souls and there was absolutely nothing in any of the books I read. And trust me, I went through stacks of them trying to figure it out.

[Desperate times call for desperate measures.]

Ah, well that's the other thing. We didn't always have access to Kanto either! For almost the whole first year I was here, Johto was your only option. So maybe that's why they decided to bump up their game.

That sounds more and more like an horrifying oversight. You'd think they'd want to know exactly how it happens, why it happens, and how to fix it as quickly and safely as possible. If it happened once, it could easily happen again, even if only in a few decades.

[Hopefully none of them would still be there by then.]

You didn't...? How could they cut off access to a whole other region? Between the boat, the train, the roads that lead there...

I don't think the Nincada line is a native of this region, so that might have something to do with it. But you are right, it's kind of a glaring oversight. Part of me wonders if they're like Earth cicadas. You know, how they only come out every 13 years or so? Maybe that's also why we don't see any in the wild.

I really hope that isn't the case though, once was more than enough.

The Magnet Train wasn't operational for the longest time and the ferry wasn't even there at all until after the Magnet Train opened. It was just one of those things, you know how it is sometimes here. Things just don't make a whole lot of sense but after a while you stop questioning it.

That would explain a lot. No matter how deep you look, information about the other regions is incomplete at best. Thta would explain why even the professor knew nothing.

...I'm really hoping I'll never reach the point where I stop questioning the universe and how it works, but I'm starting to think this is a losing battle. How long did it take to build the infrastructure for the ferry?

It pretty much is a losing battle, yeah. I kind of gave up questioning some of the strange ways things works here because it was just easier on my mind. I couldn't honestly tell you how long it took though because I don't know myself. I don't think it was an instantaneous thing though, it was a while before I heard mention of that being a thing that was possible for you to do.

Well, as long as I still have some fight left in me by the time people from my world show up I should be fine. Otherwise, I'd never hear the end of it.

Oh? Why's that? Oh and, I'm John by the way. John Egbert.

I figure since we have been talking this long, proper introductions might be a good idea.

They expect certain standards and common sense from me, for some reason. Can't say I have any idea why.

[The troubles of being the moderate character, really.]

You have a point there. I'm Captain Ash. Nice to meet you.

Captain, huh? What kind of captain, that can be sort of a vague title!

[He grins.]

Friends tend to do that though, you know what I mean? There are things you expect out of them, right? Even if it's not the same standards they hold you to. It's different for everybody.

Spaceship captain. I don't think anyone would or should trust me with a sea boat.

Hey, I'm willing to accept them for what they are, no expectations required. You'd think that would be mutual.

[...Only because expecting them to not be genocidal and/or insane didn't work out.]

Woah, really? [Suddenly he's meeting all these spaceship/giant robot pilots and it's basically the coolest thing.] That's awesome!! Clarify though like...what kind of spaceship? Because when you say "spaceship captain" it brings to mind something way more advanced than the spacecraft of my time.

But that in and of itself is an expectation, isn't it? You expect them to be themselves, and honestly they are probably thinking along the same lines. They just see you as the common sense guy, so when you act differently it's surprising. If that makes any sense. Psychobabblery has never really been my strong suit, hehehe. [But with as much time as he spends around Rose, it's pretty much impossible not to pick up on some.]

Our ship mostly travels through Earth Sphere territory, docking at friendly colonies as needed. The furthest we went was the Mars Sphere, and we didn't stay there very long.

[Mostly because of the whole 'pirate on a rescue mission' thing.]

...I don't think they expect me to be myself. It's more like they expect me not to have changed at all over time, that's the annoying part.

Yeeaaaaahhhh, if you have space colonies already, your Earth is way ahead of mine. What are they like? Do humans live on the moon and such?

That's...an entirely different matter then. I can see how that would be annoying and also unfair. But...I dunno maybe I should just stop guessing and trying to understand since I don't actually know your friends. But I like to think that people cherish their friends and even if they can be insensitive dumbasses sometimes, there is actually some good to everything they think and do when it comes to one another.

They don't, but that's because the only thing there is a military base. Most colonies are just floating around the Earth.

...I know. I just wish they understood more quickly that I don't regret how I've changed.

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prank #41 | video

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