Cassius sighed, and bent down so he was at eye level with the other pokemon. "Look, as weird as this may sound I'm honestly just trying to get to Fortree city on time- nothing sinister about it. I may not be the same as other trainers, but I really don't want a fight here" he said, speaking in English. He set Taro down on the ground carefully, then held out a hand to the pair of them. "Haunt? (Truce?)" he asked, trying to sound as un-frightening as possible.

Lulu looked at the offered hand with uncertainty, the happy little Cubone wobbling up and hugging her leg. She lifted her own hand, hesistating for a moment, then slowly reached out to take Cassius'.

Without warning, Ginger pounced from the bushes, violently knocking the Medicham aside. With a hiss, she Slashed the back of his hand with her sharp claws. "We won't be swayed by your lying, ghost!" she growled, glaring at thim through slits.

"Ginger!" the psychic/fighting Pokemon gasped. Taro hid behind her, peering around just enough to see what was going on.

The ghost trainer cried out, clutching his bleeding hand as he fell back several feet. Godfather roared, "you'll pay for that, mutt!", and charged at Ginger.

"Haunt! (No!)" commanded Cassius, and Godfather stopped instantly. The trainer got to his feet, reaching for a small potion he kept on his belt. The pokemon healer closed the wound in his hand instantly, although it didn't relieve the pain.

It was about 5:30 A.M. or so, and Mike had just woken up. Being the son of a luetiennet, waking up early was not much of a shock to him. Seeing Sidney sleeping and Cassius gone to who-knows where, Mike thought that it would be up to him to do the cooking, which he didn't mind. Actually, he was quite an adept chef for his yound age, thoug had few tools and ingrediants to work with. Nonetheless, he went off in search of some more firewood for the early meal commonly known as breakfast.

Sidney awoke shortly after Michael did. She blinked the sleep from her eyes, looking around for the other trainers. "Michael? Cassius?" Then she realized Lulu and Taro were missing as well. "What the?" Lucky for Ginger, the trainer still thought she was inside her ball like a good, little Absol. "Is anyone there?!"

--------------------

Ginger braced herself, ready to challenge the massive Pokemon. "What are you afraid of?" she spat.

"Gin, listen to me. That's enough."

Lulu cautiously approached the Absol, putting a hand on her shoulder. "Don't you think if he wanted to hurt Sidney and the others he would've already done so by now? He had more than enough chances. I think he's telling the truth."

Ginger could barely contain her temper. The angel Absol on her left shoulder told her to believe him, while the red demon on her right told her to take him out here and now.

Godfather moved to take Ginger up on her challenge, but was interrupted by a bright red beam of light as his trainer returned him to his pokeball. Cassius hesitated for a moment, then offered out his hand again. A thick red line was still visible on the back from the absol's attack, although it was fading quickly.

Static was still at camp, but heard some odd noises coming from a little while off. It set off in that direction to find Ginger, Lulu, and the rest looking like a fight was about to happen. Noramlly, Static wouldn't really care about this, but for some reason, he did. Noramlly, he'd just Thunder Bolt everyone and tell them to shut their trap. But this situation wasn't exactly what you consider normal.

"Would somebody, calmly tell me what's going on?", he said, in Pokemon speak of course.

Ginger was taken aback by this gesture. She eyed his injured hand warily, trying to deal with the battle that was taking place inside her head. Then she snorted, turning her back to Cassius and walking away. She passed Static as she left, completely ignoring him.

Lulu picked up the baby Pokemon and carried him over to Cassius. "Give her some time. I'm sure she'll warm up to you eventually. And if she doesn't, don't worry about it. At least you don't have to deal with her twenty-four/seven."

She spoke to Static next. "Just a big misunderstanding," she told the Raichu.

Cassius sighed, and shrugged; as long as Ginger didn't try and attack him again, he'd be happy. "Just please don't tell the humans about the invisible thing- ghost stories are one thing, but I really don't want to frighten them" he asked Lulu quietly in pokemon-speak.

"It's not like they'd know what I was saying anyway," Lulu replied, smiling only the way a Medicham could. "Besides, I think Sidney likes you too much to be frightened by you. Just...do what you've been doing and I'll see if I can keep Ginger under control. That's if I'm not in my Pokeball, of course."

Taro let out a squeal. The adult set him down on the grass and he ran, tripped, got up, and ran some more until he reached Static. "Cubo cubo," he said, looking up at the big, orange face through his skull.

"Alright, I won't tell Mike.", Static said. Then he turned to Lulu, "This whole trip so far has been a big misunderstanding."

Cassius smiled back, finally managing to come out with one that looked more relieved than frightening. He turned to look at the baby cubone, who was being terribly cute as he played. "I- I'm sorry to ask, but do you know how Taro's mother died?" he asked in pokemon-speak.

Lulu watched little Taro as well. "I'm not sure exactly. But Ginger told me his mother was killed by bad trainers. That's all I know." She frowned. "If you want to know more you'll have to ask her or Sidney."

Taro glomped the long tail, wanting Static to play with him.

"After listening to you yesterday," Lulu continued, "I've been wanting to ask you." She paused. "Do you think that maybe his mother became a ghost Pokemon? You said your Pokemon weren't always ghosts, so I was wondering if that was the case for everyone."

"Not all pokemon that die become ghosts," replied Cassius, "but that is what I'm worried about, yes. When a pokemon dies angry, or with something they still need to take care of in this life, they can become a ghost pokemon- mother pokemon with infants, and cubones I've found, are more prone to it than others."

"He's just lucky Sidney found him. I'm afraid to think what would've happened to him had he been left alone." She remembered Sidney suddenly. "I should go see if Sidney's awake yet. C'mon, Taro." The ground Pokemon heard the call and came running back, jumping into the Medicham arms. "Sorry we disrupted you. You can continue with your routine if you'd like. We'll be waiting back at camp."

"I was done, actually- the meditation was the last exercise" replied Cassius, getting to his feet. "I'll walk back with you, and see if I have anything left in my bag for breakfast. It's a good thing we'll be getting to the town soon- I'm almost out of marshmallows."

((Don't have time to post. Must study for test tomorrow.))

Ginger lethargically ambled back in the direction of camp. That Cassius--he made her so mad. And yet...she didn't know exactly why. Sure, she never like ghosts, but the trainer seemed friendly enough. Maybe it was the feeling of knowing she had been wrong about everything--but she was too stubborn to admit she had falsely accused him.

Were those footfalls she heard? Someone was coming! Ginger jumped off the road, avoiding being trampled by whoever was in a hurry. She turned around just in time to see a white blur passed her by. Wonderful, there went her trainer. If Sidney found out she had disobeyed her and left her pokeball, she'd be in deep Grimer sludge. There was only one thing for the Absol to do.

The Pokemon pursued Sidney with amazing grace and agility. She had to catch up to her without her seeing or hearing her, and maybe...just maybe...she could get back inside.

Ginger gathered speed until she was running alongside Sidney. She leaned close and touched the button, disappearing in a flash of red light.

Sidney stopped after she stumbled upon the rest of the group (minus Michael, who was off doing his own thing). "Well," she panted, short of breath, "I was...really...worried...something...had happened...to ya'll."

"I'm sorry" said Cassius, "I was just doing some stretches, and helping Godfather with his morning training." He didn't mention the conversation he'd had with some of her pokemon, figuring he'd better lay off his native language for awhile so neither of the others got too suspicious.

The Cubone flailed, and Lulu gave the Pokemon back to his 'mother'. "As long as you're all safe." The area still gave her the creeps, and for a second she had believe that everyone had been kidnapped by ghost Pokemon in the middle of the night. But she should've known better.

"We'd better clean up the camp and head to town, then" said Cassius, choosing a pokeball from his belt. "Rook, could you help setting the ground back to normal?" he asked, releasing his Dusclops. The large rocky ghost was the second largest in the group, next to Godfather, and it was a simple task for him to break up the rock circle and start putting them back in a more natural arrangement.

Sidney watched as the Pokemon worked, hugging Taro close to her chest. "I'm lost," she said, her eyes darting over to Cassius. "Golem? Onix? Tyranitar?"

She remembered Ginger and fumbled for her ball. "I think Gin learned her lesson. I'm going to let her out now." The Absol appeared before her. Lulu's jaw dropped. How the heck did the dark Pokemon manage to get back inside before Sidney noticed she was missing? Ginger gave her a cheeky smile.

"One of those was right" said Cassius, smiling at the dark pokemon's antics. "But no fair making three guesses at once. Rook was a golem, and he's still just as home in the mountains as he is in the usual haunted mansion. Of course, a haunted forest trail like this is ideal for him- the best of both worlds, so to speak."

((By the way, I wanted to tell you how much I liked Cassius. Sorry he has to put up with so much Ginger-buse. XP))

"You really enjoy scaring people, don't you? I bet that's the whole reason why you ran off. To frighten me." She gave him a small smile to show she was kidding. "When we finally reach town and find a Pokecenter, I'm going to be going through my deposite box. I have a few Pokemon who haven't seen daylight in days and I need to train them as much as possible before we enter the tournament."

Ginger and Lulu didn't appear alarmed about the threat of being moved to storage. They were, after all, two of Sidney's favorite fighters.

((Thanks Ginger's actually an excellent rival for him, it's always more fun to play a character being tormented ))

"Me and my pokemon share hobbies" said Cassius, smiling a little in as close to a non-vicious way as he could manage. Her mention of the deposit box had reminded him of the pokemon he'd left back home, and wonder if they'd keep their promise to behave while he was gone.