ghostytrainer | prank #19 | video / action for Dave if he's in the hotel room.

[For once, there is no smile on John's face when he turns on the video feed. Instead there is a look of tired, barely-restrained panic on his face. Also unusual are the stacks of books surrounding him. Someone went to the library. Someone found every book they could on ghosts and legends.]

[Someone stayed up all night reading all those books, and it definitely shows.]

[Barely visible on the couch behind him is a lavender-clad body laid out on the couch. The face isn't visible, but to anyone who knows her, the clothes should be recognizable as those of Rose Lalonde.]

Has... [His voice is the tiniest bit shaky. He's really trying his hardest to stay calm here.] Anyone figured anything out yet? About the people who were taken, I mean? And how to get them back? I talked to a few people about it last night but...heh, it's a different day now, right? [There's a very forced, weak laugh.] I read every book I could find...but they aren't telling me anything more than the pokédex did.

[It's a little late for "don't look in their backs."]

So...yeah. If anyone knows something, I would appreciate it.

[He gives the camera once last slightly desperate look before clicking it off.]

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So...you caught one of them, then? How did you manage that? I tried earlier and it...didn't work at all.

[This was pre-soul sucking. It was a ghost and he thought it was kind of cool looking. :/]

Nothing more than what the pokédex said about them, really. They weren't even mentioned in half of these.

That's the weirdest bit, actually. He just showed up when my Nincada evolved, appeared in an empty Pokeball. It's not easy to figure out.

[ He was some sort of telepath back home, and has limited Poke-mind-reading abilities here, but getting anything from the Shedinja is difficult. ]

From what I can gather, they're sorta... the step in between evolutions, and for some reason they stick around as separate beings. Bugs shed their skeletons when they grow, y'know? He's the shell that got left behind.

I've got a couple theories about it, but nothing concrete.

Okay that's...the weirdest evolution that I have ever heard of. Interesting. But weird. Almost makes them sound like zombies or something.

[Look, Hanekoma. You made him laugh a little bit.]

Yours...hasn't tried taking anyone's soul or anything, has it?

You'd think this place would have more menacing zombies.

[ Grinning, he raps lightly on the Pokemon's shell, while it... continues to hang in the air boringly. Aww yeah his work here is done. ]

And nah, Bones here is friendly. If he can pull that trick, he doesn't.

[ He would demonstrate by looking inside its back, but he doesn't actually want to give John a heart attack. ]

[He shrugs.] It's pokémon. I would say that looks just about right for a pokémon zombie.

That's good then...but I wonder what makes him different.

Well, I've had the guy since he hatched. I'm the one who's been taking care a' him all his life. It could be that this soul-stealing is an intentional thing, and the tame ones don't do it.

If that's it, we can hope that it's a defense mechanism and they're not actually feeding off souls, just binding them to a new form. Stealing 'em, like the Pokedex says.

That...makes a lot of sense. I'm not sure why I didn't think of that.

And I really hope that's the case. Because if they're just stealing them, then there has to be a way to take them back from...wherever they are. Do you think they're just stuck inside the shells or something?

Let's say that's it. And let's say it's a thing done consciously, defensively. It traps a soul inside the shell... then what?

[ Sanae's enjoying the speculation, and the enthusiam is starting to show. He's in his element here. ]

Best case I can think of? If we're saying it's a conscious effort to trap the Soul, it probably takes conscious effort to keep that energy stored, so it wouldn't make sense for them to hang onto it forever. Either they'll release folks on their own, or there's a way to force it.

[He just listens intently. That...is actually the most reassuring thing that anyone has told him since he made this post. It might just be speculation...but it makes sense. It's feasible.]

How would we go about forcing something like that, do you think? Would knocking them out do it? If it does take conscious effort...well it's kind of hard to do that when you're unconscious, right?

Knocking 'em out or killing 'em -- if you even can kill a Pokemon, especially one that doesn't breathe -- might release their hold on the souls, yeah. But it could also be like you're saying, that they need to be conscious to let folks go.

... if mine's behaving okay, maybe we just hafta catch and tame the things. But you said that didn't work so great, right?

No, it didn't work at all. I mean, I didn't try and weaken it or anything, I just threw one for the hell of it because...you know they're just kind of floating around and not putting up much of a fight. Or they run away if you try to fight them. But yeah, it wouldn't even go IN the ball and do the little..."wiggle, wiggle, oops you didn't catch me after all!" thing.

But yeah. Catching them doesn't seem to be an option either. At least not with regular pokéballs.

Huh. Never heard of a Pokemon doin' that before, but then again, I didn't really catch mine. He just turned up inside the Pokeball and that's the only one I've tried recalling him to.

prank #19 | video / action for Dave if he's in the hotel room.

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