"Ahhh!!!" A piercing scream shattered the silence of the ship's cabin, sharp enough to rupture eardrums. Su Feng's hands jerked in shock, while his live-stream audience nearly lost their minds.
[What the HELL was that?! I'm gonna die of fright!]
[Bro, I was eating and flung my bowl across the room!]
[HA! Called it—I wore diapers this time. Totally worth it.]
[...In a way, you're even more hardcore than Feng-ge.]
Since no other humans were aboard, Su Feng instantly knew the source of the scream.
"Misdreavus!!" he hissed through gritted teeth.
As humans do when startled, Su Feng's fear morphed into irritation. Charging toward the sound, he found a Misdreavus lurking in a shadowy corner. The ghostly Pokémon giggled childishly, delighted its prank had succeeded.
Seizing the chance to evolve Haunter through battle, Su Feng barked, "Haunter, take it down!"
"Ghee~!"
The Misdreavus retaliated first with a Psybeam. Though Psychic-type moves super effectively hit Poison-types, this Misdreavus's low level made its attack feeble. Haunter shrugged it off effortlessly and retaliated with a Shadow Ball.
Boom!
The Shadow Ball struck true, exploding violently. Unsurprisingly, the prankster Misdreavus was knocked out cold.
"..."
Su Feng approached the fainted Pokémon, sprayed a Potion on its wounds, and left a pouch of Poké Puffs as apology. "All bark, no bite," he muttered, eyeing its spiraled eyes.
"This little troublemaker is Misdreavus, a pure Ghost-type known as the Screech Pokémon," he explained to his stream. "Its green, doll-like body belies its love for scaring humans—shrieking at night, yanking hair, feeding off fear through the beads around its neck. Harmless pranks mostly, earning it a 1-star threat rating... unless you've got a weak heart."
[Kinda cute though?]
[Like a spooky toddler! Low-key want one...]
[A Pokémon that lives to prank? Never change, ghost-types.]
As Su Feng nodded—Misdreavus were indeed spectral brats—the amnesiac girl wandered over. "Mr. Su, what are you doing?"
"Educating viewers. I'm a field researcher, after all."
The girl tilted her head. These "facts" felt like common knowledge to her fractured memory, but she politely kept quiet.
Turning to Haunter, Su Feng asked, "Feel anything after winning?"
"Ghee." Nope.
"Figured." The Misdreavus had been too weak. Evolution required a worthy opponent.
Still, Su Feng puzzled over the秘境's contradictions. The two Ghost-types he'd encountered were benign, so why was the Dusknoir stalking them earlier?
His bias had assumed秘境 Pokémon were hostile, prompting him to "rescue" the girl from Dusknoir—a misguided move, perhaps. Dusknoir ferried souls whose time had come, but the girl was young, hardly "expired." Yet her quirks nagged him: her silence, her floaty steps, her fragmented mind...
Then moonlight pierced the cabin window—and passed through her, casting no shadow.
The girl blinked. "Is something wrong?"
"Nothing," Su Feng lied smoothly, masking his realization. She's... not solid. Was she evading Dusknoir, or scheming something else?
Feigning ignorance, he pressed onward. The exit likely lay in the ship's heart—the captain's quarters. But as they walked, an eerie sensation prickled his neck. Whispers. Unseen eyes.
At a corridor bend, Su Feng ducked behind a wall, gesturing for the girl to follow. Seconds later, two figures rounded the corner—
"Shuppet and Chandelure?!" Su Feng paled. Unlike playful Misdreavus, these Ghost-types fed on lives.