The Ghost Specialist

Sam rushed back to the Pokémon Center and passed over Mankey for healing. He then went to a free video phone to finally call his mother. However, the second the line connected, he didn’t see his mom. Instead, the screen flashed to a close-up shot of gemstone eyes and a sharp-toothed grin.

He screamed.

Sam fell off his stool. Cyndaquil was thrown into the air from his flailing. His butt hit the ground, hard, and the Sableye on the monitor cackled at his pain.

“You,” Sam hissed.

The very same Sableye that had tricked him back in Granite Cave pulled away from the camera.

“Oh, stop scaring him. You know he didn’t deserve that,” the voice of Sam’s mother said.

When Sam managed to climb back up to his seat, he saw the last thing he expected to see; his mother sitting calmly within the Dewford Pokémon Center while Delcatty sat in her lap and while Sableye crouched on a short desk in front of her.

To put it lightly, Sam was flabbergasted.

“I... I don’t understand,” he said.

“Well, turns out we’ve had a bit of a stalker problem in the past month,” she said, chuckling. “Sableye here followed you out of the cave, with the two of us none the wiser. I had no idea he was there until you were gone—the shop felt so empty that all the little things he was trying to do to scare us actually stood out for once!”

“What,” Sam replied flatly.

“Indeed.” His mother closed her eyes and nodded sagely. “Anyway, once I figured out something was afoot, all it took was a teensy-weensy bit of effort on Delcatty’s part to find out that this one was there. After, I figured with you gone, I wouldn’t mind the extra help, so we... convinced Sableye to stick around.”

His mother spoke in a cheerful tone, as if what she was describing wasn’t absolutely insane. The Ghost Type on the counter next to her shivered, and Delcatty’s thin tail whipped out to hit Sableye on the arm, as if in reminder.

To be clear, without doing anything special, Delcatty’s tail hit Sableye on the arm. Given that Sableye was a Ghost Type, the basic attack shouldn’t have landed in the first place. It was as if Sableye let it happen because it knew that if it didn’t, whatever else Delcatty did would be worse.

“He’s actually pretty cheap, too,” his mom continued, nonchalantly. “Quartz costs less than berries. I’ve been saving money on meals.”

“I... Uh...”

Sableye grinned at Sam. The expression on its face had not changed, but it somehow looked more smug than before. In a way, its new life with Sam’s mother was almost like a trade. Sableye would get easy meals, and all it had to do was “volunteer” at the bookstore.

...But then again, Sableye had been the one to lure Sam into an extremely dangerous situation. He had a feeling that his mother wouldn't let that go scot-free.

“So you made it to Olivine! How is everything there?”

Sam was more than willing to move on, and he began to excitedly explain everything that had happened. He talked about encountering Xavier on the ship, meeting Redi and her offer of a place to stay, signing up for a surprise tournament and his acquisition of a proper trainer ID, and then most recently—

“I managed to catch my first Pokémon! It’s a Mankey—not a Ghost Type, but, well, eventually, you know?” He coughed into his hand, and his mother seemed to be able to put two-and-two together. “Do you have any advice?”

She hummed. Absent-mindedly, she pet Delcatty in her lap.

“It’s been ages since I’ve properly caught a Pokémon,” she said, not even blinking at the Sableye sitting in front of her. “I think it’s important to remember that just because you caught Mankey, Mankey isn’t fully on your team.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pokéballs catch Pokémon, but they don’t forcefully befriend Pokémon,” his mother explained. “Even Luxury Balls, which are said to promote friendship, only manage to do that by being luxuriously comfortable. Pokéballs don’t stop Pokémon from running away when you aren’t looking, and Pokémon Centers run wellness checks to make sure Pokémon actually like being with their trainers. You need to give Mankey a proper reason to be on your team, otherwise, it might want to run away.

“So, maybe talk to it and bring up the idea of food, company, a safe way to get stronger...”

She trailed off, implying that Sam would need to figure out a convincing argument on his own.

“I get it. Thank you Mom,” he said.

“No problem, sweetie! Just remember, everyone here loves you! The same to you too, Cyndaquil! I can tell you’re getting strong!” she said.

Cyndaquil squeaked fondly, and his mother smiled back.

“I love you, too,” Sam said, though he did try to send Sableye a side-eye through the screen. “For now, I think I need to go. Nurse Joy has just about finished healing up Mankey.”

One last exchange of goodbyes with his mom later, and Sam hung up the phone and stepped away. These public video phones didn’t have much in the way of privacy, only plastic dividers to keep them separate from one another. So, when Sam turned around, he jumped when he saw someone had listened in.

Redi stood there, making kissy faces at him. He groaned and moved past her, pretending not to have seen.

“Come on, Cyndaquil. We have a potential new team member to go pick up,” he said.

Redi lingered nearby, regardless.

Given that Mankey was Sam’s first real capture, the nurse gave Sam a speech not too dissimilar to what his mother had just told him. One-and-done captures weren’t a thing. The relationship between Pokémon and trainer was crucial.

Yet, she didn’t stop there. She went on to praise Professor Oak, even going as far as to recommend some of his books. Sam hid it, but he purposefully ignored her. While those relationships were the core of Professor Oak’s research, he wasn’t a fan of the man considering that the invention of the electronic Pokédex was hurting his mother’s business.

“Thank you. I’ll keep what you said in mind,” Sam lied.

“I hope so. You better treat Mankey properly,” came the nurse’s reply.

Sam nodded at her once before skipping off to a side glass door. It opened up automatically to let Sam step out into the Pokémon Center’s back, where several basic battlefields were set up. There were three of them total out here, with two of them occupied by battles actively taking place. The last was shared by a few sets of trainers practicing with their teams, with plenty of empty space for Sam to claim and train in.

“Alright, Cyndaquil. Let’s give a warm welcome to Mankey.”

“And I’ll help!” Redi added from behind Sam.

Sam sent her a glance only to see her grinning with Teddiursa puffed up at her side. He shook his head, a little amused at the reaction. Honestly, he was excited, too.

Tossing forward the Pokéball, the two halves of the device opened up to let red light pour out onto the battlefield floor. There, it coalesced into the form of Mankey. The Pokémon stretched its arms, as if just waking up from a nap, before freezing when it noticed Sam standing so close nearby.

“Hello!” Sam said cheerfully.

Mankey immediately jumped back and drew up its hands, preparing to strike if pressed.

“Wait, wait! We’re not going to fight you! I know we battled, but I captured you and took you to a Pokémon Center for a reason!” Sam said.

Looking over the Fighting Type, it was in much better shape than before. The spots where Cyndaquil attacked were healed, with the nurse going as far as to clean lingering soot off its fur. Not just that, but Mankey looked to have been washed, too. Its hair was less coarse and significantly more fluffy. In fact, it had gone from a slight tan color to a color that was mostly white.

I’ll need to start buying shampoo, Sam thought, making a mental note.

(As a Fire Type, Cyndaquil was averse to water. She instead burned any dirt off of her, so all Sam had to do was brush her short fur to keep her in good shape.)

“Alright. I’ll be upfront with you: I want you to properly join my team,” Sam said. “We’re new at this, but you know from experience that we can fight. Cyndaquil and I have dreams to become some of the strongest trainers around, and we want you to join us.”

Mankey snorted, its pig-nose twitching. After all, practically every trainer had that dream.

Sam sighed and rubbed his head. Even though he hadn’t convinced it, Mankey had at least lowered its hands and stopped behaving so aggressively. He took a look around to see that all the other trainers here were too occupied with their own teams to pay any attention to them. As for Redi, she was patiently yet excitedly waiting off to the side, ready to jump in whenever Sam would let her.

He wanted, no, needed Mankey to stay on his team. It had already demonstrated incredible agility, and with enough work together, it could become a powerful Annihilape.

Time to pull out the big guns, then.

“Come on. I think I have a way to convince you. It’s involves a secret about our training, so Redi—”

“A secret? Can’t I come?”

She looked up at him with the biggest puppy-dog eyes she could muster. To make matters worse, Teddiursa mimicked her to look even more incredibly cute at her side.

Sam immediately flinched back, weak to this devastating blow.

“I... Sorry! But it’s an advantage I don’t want others to have. Every trainer has to have their secrets, yeah?” he quickly replied.

Redi’s look faded, and she made an exaggerated show of snapping her fingers as if she had just been caught.

“Aw man. Fine. But you’ll eventually tell me, right?”

“I mean, you’ll eventually see the results if we can pull it off,” Sam said.

She grinned at that and moved off to practice with Teddiursa. It looked like she was having her Pokémon almost shadow-box, except the little bear was just scratching at the air. She cheered him on while Sam split off, encouraging Mankey to follow him to have a conversation out of view, under a tree.

From the way it was looking at him, Sam felt confident that all this talk about secrets caught its curiosity.

“So,” Sam started, kneeling down to better speak on-level with the Pokémon. “Since I want you on the team, I’m going to show you my trust by revealing a secret no one else knows.”

He went ahead to take The New Pokédex out of his pack. Mankey crossed its arms and scoffed when it saw the secret was just a book.

“Now, hold on! Don’t judge a book by its cover! This thing is incredible, and it’s filled with tips no one else can learn.” He flipped to the entry on Mankey. “For starters, did you know that you can have Anger Point as an ability? Most people think Mankey can only train Vital Spirit, which prevents you from being put to sleep, but Anger Point would let you maximize your physical attack whenever an opponent lands a critical blow.”

The Fighting Type turned away, acting like it was unconvinced. But, the ears on its head remained pointed towards Sam.

“Hmm...” Sam hummed as if he had to search for more pertinent information, but he already knew exactly what to say. “You know, this also lists a pretty extensive potential moveset. Cross Chop. Close Combat. Outrage. Bet you didn’t know you could learn those moves, huh?”

Mankey didn’t shift in the slightest, continuing to pretend to be unimpressed. That changed when Sam snapped the book shut, the sound causing it to jump. When it thrust its fists down and stomped a foot unhappily, Sam just replied with a grin.

“You sure about that? What if I told you I wanted to assemble a team of Ghost Types?”

The question was almost a non-sequitur, and it caught Mankey off guard enough that it paused where it was about to rage. It glanced at Cyndaquil. It glanced at the book. Then, it held up its own hands to look at them, and if suddenly putting the pieces together, it snapped its gaze to Sam.

“There’s an evolution past Primeape,” he said bluntly. “An evolution only I know. I wanted to catch you not just because of that, but because I saw your potential with how you could move. You have incredible agility and senses that I know we can hone together. And we’ll have this book to guide us. With a bit of work, we can get you to evolve, and then once you’re a Primeape...”

Sam shook his head as if it were obvious, and then he held out his hand.

“I can make you strong, Mankey. What do you think about joining my team?”

It hesitated for a second. It didn’t grab Sam’s hand right away. It seemed to stare at him, trying to take him in and gather his measure.

“Key,” it grunted.

Sam glanced at Cyndaquil for translation.

She held up a paw and wiggled it.

So, Mankey is still a little unsure.

Recognizing he just needed one more strike to finish it off, Sam opened up the book once more and flipped deep, deep in. Unfortunately, Mankey’s final evolution wasn’t listed with the rest of his evolutionary line, but it was instead included over nine-hundred entries in.

But once he found it, he turned the book around to show Mankey what its true final form looked like. There, Annihilape was detailed, and Mankey went stiff with shock.

A darkened body. Eyes locked into permanent rage. Hair that drifted off into ghostly wisps.

Annihilape didn’t just use its anger as a weapon; it was a species that absolutely mastered it.

Mankey stared at the drawing for a long time, not looking at any specific detail, but memorizing it as a whole. It slowly lifted up a hand to cautiously touch the book, wanting to check that, yes, the book was real, but Sam’s first instinct was to pull the book away. However, he was able to suppress that reaction to let Mankey touch it, demonstrating a level of trust.

Its fingers hovered over the page before pressing down. It grunted slightly, as if shocked it could actually feel the paper, then dragged his hand down to reveal the drawing once again.

It stared, motionless. For a second, Sam thought Mankey was about to back off in disbelief. But, it drew back its hand and clenched it into a fist.

“Man. Key,” it declared, eyes hard with determination.

“Great!”

Sam grabbed that very hand and shook it up and down happily.

“Welcome to the team, Mankey!” he said excitedly. “I’ll make you strong! Don’t worry, we’re going to go places. All of us! We’re going to be an undefeatable Ghost Type team!”

Mankey was a little dazed, but it still nodded along. It made a few “ook” noises that were much more cheerful than before.

From there, with Mankey having properly joined, Sam went ahead to flip back to the actual entry on Mankey’s species and read off as much information as he could. Mankey listened intently, taking in the vast potential that he detailed, yet Sam himself was already starting to put together a training plan in his head.

After all, with two different team members, casual practice wasn’t going to cut it. If he wanted to do well in the rapidly approaching tournament, Sam needed to put both time and serious effort into his life as a Pokémon trainer.