The Ghost Specialist

Pryce's march through town saw a crowd form behind him. Gym Trainers led Trainers, and Pryce led those Gym Trainers. Behind them were the people of Mahogany Town, who had fallen along to look on curiously. Pryce was heading north with a purpose, and it seemed like half of this town wanted to witness what was about to happen.

Whispers and hushed discussions filled the air. None raised their voice loud enough to cause any potential disturbance. Sam purposefully joined the crowd to follow along as well. He wanted to learn what Pryce was planning just as much as everyone else.

With so many people here, he blended in perfectly. No one thought it strange he was there.

So Sam watched, and he listened. He paid attention to everything going in front of him. Gym Trainers walked backward and gave explanations to the groups of trainers working under them. Pryce stayed at the front and walked with his hands behind his back. At one point, a Pokémon Ranger swooped down on the back of a massive Pidgeot to talk to Pryce, but the Ranger left after only a short discussion.

Neither looked happy, but there had been a sense of agreement there. Sam took that to mean they had reached some sort of compromise. Any hope he had of Pryce’s plan being stopped was squashed. If the Pokémon Rangers couldn’t hold back Pryce, then not even Morty could do anything; he and Pryce carried the same rank, and this was Pryce’s town, not Morty’s.

All of the newer trainers joining Pryce’s operation were excited, with most of those participating tending toward the older and more experienced. Taking part in Pryce’s march meant more than just payment; it meant taking part in real, verifiable work that would look great on any application. Given the end goal of so many high-level trainers was to work in an organization that would let them stay with their Pokémon, just helping out here was a major step closer to that dream.

But they were nervous. This task didn’t mean taking part in regulated battles like those of a Gym. Wild Pokémon were attacking anyone who entered Route 43, and they were apparently going to stop that. Recruiting so many trainers for a single operation wasn’t exactly normal. Still, it gave them numbers.

So through those nerves, the trainers were hopeful. Unfortunately, Sam didn’t share any similar feelings save for worry.

“Sam. What are we going to do?” Redi whispered at Sam’s side. The number of people joining to watch Pryce’s march ahead grew by the second, and staying next to his friend was becoming harder and harder.

Except, Sam didn’t have an answer in the first place. He said nothing. He was too busy watching everyone he could—Pryce, his Gym Trainers, the other trainers, and even Xavier.

Despite this being Pryce’s solution for Route 43, Sam felt as though everything was falling apart.

“Alright.”

With that single word from Pryce, the march through Mahogany Town came to a sudden halt just at the entrance to that northern Route.

“We’ll be arranging ourselves into a line slanted away from Route 43’s western border,” Pryce ordered, his voice firm and commanding. “I will take the furthest, most northern point at the line’s east. Our goal is to defeat any and all aggressive Pokémon to push them out of the Route.”

He scanned the mass of trainers before him. Pryce looked through them all with what was barely present approval.

“We are covering all of Route 43 today. These Pokémon have chosen to attack us, so we will show them no kindness in return. As per the request of the local Ranger captain, this operation will stop once we reach Lake of Rage. There, the Rangers will work to make sure no hostile Pokémon will return, but at that point, what they do won’t matter. All of the largest threats will have been dealt with by us. Those Pokémon will be forced off-route, where they’ll be unable to threaten travelers any further.”

From there, he went on to explain miscellaneous details—mostly just hierarchy matters and what to do in an emergency. He brought on so many trainers to prevent any Pokémon from slipping through the line. With an average of four Pokémon to each trainer in the dozen or so groups, through sheer numbers alone, Pryce would be covering an incredible amount of ground—and he’d ensured that everyone involved was skilled enough to stand on their own, too.

“Sam.” Redi tugged at Sam’s arm more desperately. “You aren’t talking. What are we going to do?”

“They’re marching north,” he mumbled under his breath. “And when they reach the end of the Route, they’ll find where that forest fire was. Trevenant will be there. Pryce will be at the front. They’ll fight and he’ll beat it and he’ll force it out of its home.”

Sam stared at Pryce. The man wore a passive scowl.

“This plan doesn’t help it. Trevenant is lashing out because it’s in pain. Pryce is going through with a plan that helps Mahogany Town and only Mahogany Town.”

This would stop the attacks. The aggressive wild Pokémon would be forced off-route, and the local Rangers wouldn’t let the Pokémon return until they calmed down. However, this aggressive reaction from humans would do nothing but help confirm Trevenant’s thoughts about humans.

Its home had been burned down by humans. When it lashed out in response, it would be beaten back by humans. It would be forced out of its home by humans, and Trevenant would find itself trapped by its own hate forever.

It’s not right to attack travelers, but Trevenant doesn’t deserve this. It doesn’t deserve to be crushed under its desire for revenge.

This wasn’t fair.

“Sam!”

Redi’s shout brought him out of his spiraling thoughts. Ahead, Pryce finished his speech, and the Gym Leader turned to march onto the route with the groups of trainers following him one by one.

“What. Are. We. Doing?” she hissed. “Come on! You have to have a plan!”

People looked at them curiously, and Sam hurriedly grabbed Redi’s hand to drag her away and find somewhere they wouldn’t be overheard. He ignored the crowd’s amused chuckles as he moved them behind a thick enough tree.

Redi met his gaze, waiting for him to come up with a plan, but he had nothing.

Are we just supposed to rush ahead to reach that burned forest first?

“They aren't helping Trevenant,” Sam ended up saying.

He didn’t know what else to say. He didn’t have a plan.

“Um, duh?” Redi replied. “You need to help Trevenant. Quilava needs to help Trevenant. I’ve been trying to get your attention for ages, but you’ve been too busy sending death glares to Pryce to notice me shout!”

“I was?”

Sam looked away sheepishly, scratching his cheek as he stared past the trees. At the entrance of the northern route, two Gym Trainers stood on guard. Sam and Redi wouldn’t be able to walk onto Route 43 until Pryce’s plan ended.

There are guards blocking us, and it’s midday. Shadows are going to be too obvious, so we can’t rely on Ghost Types to sneak us through.

So we Teleport, then? But then what?

It was hard to think with the storm roiling in his gut.

“Alright!” Sam knew he was just wasting time. He slapped both of his hands onto his face, the sharp sting properly waking him up. “No overthinking this! We get to Trevenant, and then we fight it! We don’t kick it out of its home, but we fight it until it can’t attack and is forced to listen to us, and from there we... help it. We help it.”

That part he’d need to figure out along the way.

“Redi,” Sam said. “Can Porygon bring us directly there?”

Unfortunately, though Redi’s face lit up when Sam started to speak, her expression dropped the second she heard him mention Porygon.

“Um, yeah, about that...” She chuckled awkwardly and rubbed the back of her head. “Porygon only memorizes locations for Teleport when I tell them to. Since we were so rushed to escape Trevenant last night, I didn’t think of telling them to memorize the area. Porygon can't Teleport us over.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry,” she replied with a small voice.

“It’s fine,” Sam sighed. He rubbed his chin as he forced himself to think of a better plan. “Then, where else can we go? We can’t pass through the route’s entrance with the guards, and the more time we waste here, the further north Pryce gets.”

“Oh, that’s easy!” Redi said, smiling once more. “Porygon still has the Teleport location memorized from last time. They can bring us to the other side of the hills, but we’ll only be at the very start of the route.”

Sam took that news in stride, understanding what that’d mean.

“We’d need to run,” he groaned. “It’s going to be so much running.”

“Ugh. Yeah,” Redi grumbled. “Sorry.”

When it came to Trevenant, this situation went beyond just helping Quilava evolve. Trevenant deserved more than to be pushed out of its home. It was lashing out after a traumatic past, and it wasn’t right to punish it for that.

But Pryce would never listen no matter who Sam tried to call. The only way Trevenant could find a peaceful solution was if they calmed it down.

“So should we go?” Sam asked.

As she grabbed Porygon’s Pokéball, Redi sent Sam an apologetic look before sending out her Pokémon. After giving it a set of whispered orders, Porygon glowed, the world flashed, and the two of them appeared at the very start of Route 43, where they began to run north.

Once Porygon brought them into the forest, moving through this time around was less about hiding and more about managing the proper speed. They couldn’t move too fast since that would risk exhaustion. They couldn’t move too slow since Pryce’s line of trainers was somewhere out here, steadily moving north.

Unfortunately, Sam’s Ghost Types were unable to help with their travels. Though the thick canopies of the forest let them use some shadows in the dim light, all of this was taking place mid-afternoon. Beams of lights peeked through the trees, stopping Ghost Types from conjuring any obscuring Night Shade. The most they could do was to keep an eye out for threats.

But they never once sensed any hostile intent.

“Sam.”

After only a short while of running, Redi slowed her pace, and Sam came to a halt at the sound of her voice. At his side, Quilava stopped using Quick Attack to come to a rest next to him as well. She was wearing her scarf, but her piece of Charcoal wasn't in it—only the Everstone. She needed to be out of her ball just in case they found Trevenant early, but with how many potential battles lurked between them and their destination, they couldn’t risk getting into a fight and triggering the wrong evolution.

“Over here,” Redi said. “What do those look like to you?”

In a small patch of mud were a variety of stomped imprints. Right away, Sam knew that wasn’t good news.

“Footsteps,” he grumbled.

“A bunch of them,” Redi clarified. “And they're recent. Probably from one of Pryce's groups.”

Sam wanted to scream.

“How did they get ahead of us?” he hissed.

Given Pryce’s trainers had to walk through the gap to Route 43, Sam had thought that Porygon’s Teleport would have given him and Redi a head start. However, he spent too long coming up with a plan. The lack of aggressive Pokémon should have been clue enough; none were nearby since all of the nearby would-be attackers had already been fought and pushed out of the route.

“How do we tackle this?” Redi asked.

Simply running wasn’t going to work; there was a line of expert trainers blocking their way.

Biting his nail in thought, Sam tried his best to find a different solution.

“We’ll have to go around. If we run as fast as we can, we should be able to get ahead. Pryce has too many trainers with him to be able to move that quickly, so we might make it. But maybe...”

He glanced around before bringing his gaze west. He hadn’t been in this part of the forest before, but there was somewhere else he’d been.

“If we head directly west, we should be able to find Shin’s cabin, and he has a pretty easy path we can follow to bring us toward the edge of the route. It’ll be faster than running through bushes or being forced to move around a slope. It’s either that or trying to force our way through, which, well, it’d be a fight.”

Redi nodded, agreeing.

Sam sent Quilava a signal and she sniffed the air. Looking around, she managed to pick up a familiar scent and point with her nose toward a direction that was somewhat to their southeast. It was grating to have to backtrack, but once they found the trail to Shin’s house, they were able to move quickly with a smoother path to guide their way.

But every moment they spent heading east instead of north was another moment Pryce was building his lead. The Gym Leader didn’t even know he was in a race, but he was already winning.

“House up ahead,” Redi said, keeping a steady jog at Sam’s side.

Sam looked up to see Shin’s cabin, as expected. The path he wanted to take to get to the edge of the route was right behind it. Moving that far west would let him slip past Pryce’s marching line. However, from there they’d need to move even faster, as they would have an entire town’s worth of Pokémon trainers attempting to catch up.

His mind lingered on those thoughts until the turning gears screeched to a halt.

“Why are its lights on?” Redi mumbled, confused.

Sam flicked his gaze to the cabin’s windows and the dim light coming out from behind them. He almost lost his balance when he saw an eye peeking out from behind.

There was a similar reaction from inside, and the curtains suddenly flew open. The window squeaked open, and Shin poked out his head.

“Sam?” Shin called out. “Why are you here? Wait, did someone send you to find me?”

“Why are you home, Shin? Route 43 is supposed to be blocked off!”

“I snuck out! This is my house! Dangerous Pokémon or not, I wanted— Where are you going?”

Shin watched them run up to his house and then past it, the pair of them dashing toward the trail behind.

As he and Redi reached the trail, Sam heard the front door of the cabin open. Alongside it, the electronic noise of a Pokémon being returned to a Pokéball echoed out followed by the noise of a slam and Shin’s heavy breath as he hurried to catch up.

“Wait up! What’s going on? Where are you going, and... You aren’t angry at me for coming out here?”

“Well, we aren’t supposed to be out here either!” Sam shouted. “We’re trying to help the Pokémon responsible for all of this—before Pryce defeats it and kicks it out of its home!”

As Sam yelled the explanation over his shoulder, Shin slowed to take in the news. The mushroom collector slowed to a halt and stared at the ground before snapping his head up to stare Sam’s way.

“Let me help,” Shin said.

Though he was no longer yelling, his voice came out perfectly clear.

Slowly, Sam came to a halt, and Redi stopped at his side, crossing her arms out of annoyance. Quilava squeaked to try to encourage them to keep moving, but Sam just stared at Shin.

Shin stared back with a determined gleam in his eyes.

“Why do you want to help us?” Sam asked.

“Well, it was the forest fire, wasn’t it?” Shin asked. “Sam, you didn’t exactly hide why you asked me about that. If you’re out here trying to help whatever Pokémon’s got angry because of it, and if you think Pryce is just gonna fight it without actually working to calm it down...”

He breathed out before adjusting his shoulders to stand up straight.

“Then let me help. You helped me get through that attack, so I’ll help you with whatever it is that you’re doing!”

“Sam. We need to leave,” Redi urged.

He turned to his friend. Quilava looked just as desperate on the ground. He knew that not running meant giving Pryce an even bigger lead, yet he recognized Shin’s offer as the chance it was.

“If we go around, we’ll reach Trevenant, but we won’t have enough time to do much given how long the delay would be. Parasect doesn’t fight, but it knows Spore. You’ve seen my battles. You know just how effective putting a target to sleep can be.”

Redi was quiet. Shin nervously shuffled side to side.

“...It doesn’t bother you that we’re trying to help the Pokémon responsible for the attack in the first place?” Redi asked.

Shin shook his head.

“A Pokémon’s a Pokémon. Everything deserves a second chance. Heck, it’d be hypocritical of me to not try to help after training Parasect.”

Sam looked back at Redi, and she rolled her eyes.

“Fine.”

Quilava also huffed to agree.

“Thank you, you two.” Sam looked back at Shin. “We’re going after a Ghost Type. Trevenant. It’s in the burned section of the woods.”

“A Ghost Type?” Shin chuckled. “Yeah, that makes sense. Works better if you’re the one handling it, especially after—”

He shuddered for some reason.

Sam crossed his arms and shut his eyes as he went on to try to adjust the plan even more.

So Redi was right in that we barely have enough time as is, but how do we get past Pryce’s line? Sneak through? That won’t work when the purpose of bringing so many trainers was to prevent gaps we could have used.

No. We can’t sneak, but we don’t need to fight, either. All we need is some kind of opening. One just large enough to get by without them noticing or chasing us. Spore can be a big help, but it won’t be enough. We would need some kind of distraction, which means—

Something tugged on Sam’s arm.

Sam snapped open his eyes to see Haunter staring at him. The Ghost Type wore just the biggest of grins on his face. Behind Haunter, several more Gastly floated in the air. All of them looked eager to help out.

“I see,” Sam said. “You’re sure about this, Haunter?”

Haunter and all of the Gastly happily nodded their heads.

Looking around, Sam took in everyone here and let out a sigh of relief. It was nice to have so many friends.

“Thank you. Because of you, we’ll have a way through Pryce’s line. Hey Shin!” Sam turned to face the man waiting for instructions. “How would you feel if you and Parasect were ‘randomly’ attacked by a bunch of wild Ghost Types? That kind of distraction might be the exact thing we need.”

As Shin cautiously nodded his head, Sam smiled.

If this worked out and they managed to get through, just running north would give them plenty of time to spare.