"Yo, Moon! Can you hear me?"
"As long as you keep yelling, she won't want to hear you."
"You're not exactly helping either, Gladion."
"I'm more focused on the thing that brought us here at the moment..."
"As long as it stays up there, we're coo-Oh! She's waking up!"
Moon heard the shuffling of footsteps, followed by the the soft touch of someone's hand gripping her shoulder. Her eyes fluttering open, a pounding headache revealed itself and she felt stiff, though she couldn't tell if that was from that psybeam or the result of whatever Haunter had done to them all. Above all else, the only thoughts on her mind pertained to the nightmare she had escaped from only moments beforehand. Every breath rattling, her grey eyes focused on concerned faces of Gladion and Hau, both of whom loomed over her. Gladion's arm was extended towards her, and she quickly realized that the grip on her shoulder was his.
For a slight moment, she debated whether or not she should tell them about what she saw. After all, it was far from any twisted situation that her mind could possibly imagine. No, whatever that was, it was most certainly real. And, all things considered, there was a good chance that it would happen again. Against her better judgement, however, she immediately directed their attention away from her disheveled form.
Swallowing her panic, she uprighted herself. "Where are we? Where's Green?"
"That Haunter brought us out to the middle of the woods," Hau replied before referring to the roaring fire and log seats in front of them. "Some sort of campfire, I think." He then pointed to the log across where, behind the dancing curtain of orange flames, Green lay. He was snoring softly, his messy brown hair draped over his eyes and his hands folded across his stomach. "Green's over there."
"Is he alright?" Moon asked, her worried fingers grappling hand-fulls of the grass beneath her.
Gladion, still repressing his distaste for Green, almost scoffed. "He's fine. He was just hit with hypnosis– like the rest of us." Then, shuffling through his red satchel, he pulled out an Awakening. Very awkwardly, he tossed it to Hau, who caught it with the style and grace of a baseball player. (Believe it or not, if there was anything Hau was good at, it was sports. Granted, he never played on any teams back in Alola, but that never stopped him from having a go.) "Here. This should wake him."
Bending down besides Green, Hau spritzed the concoction onto the side of Green's face, careful not to let it seep into his hair or eyes.
Immediately afterwards, Green stirred. "Wh... what's the emergency?" He yawned groggily, out-stretching his arms into a crooked "w" formation.
"Well, we've all been kidnapped by Dale's Haunter and now we have no idea where we are," Hau explained, his eyebrows burrowing as he studied the side of the the Awakening bottle. What was this stuff made out of, caffeine?
Green cocked his head to the right. "Haunter?"
"You know, Ghastly's evolution? The purple blob up there?" Hau pointed at the barren branches above them where Haunter let out a slight chuckle. "It used hypnosis on all of us and then dragged us out here?"
Green glanced skeptically at the rest of them. "Haunter never put me to sleep, my Hypno did." His eyes traveled towards the entrancing depths of the fire before him. "Hypno helps me fall asleep every night."
Just then, Dale approached from the darkness, carrying a stack of firewood, an axe strapped to his back. Hau jumped at the man's sudden appearance, scurrying into and tripping over one of the empty wooden seats. As his back hit the cold, hard ground, Haunter snickered.
"Oh, you're all awake! Sorry, lad. I didn't mean to scare ya." His gruff voice crackled with the roaring fire as he deposited his chopped load off to the side. Groaning at his stiff joints, he lowered himself onto the last empty log. Lifting the axe from himself, he swiftly cleaved it into the splintered wood beside him.
"Why did you bring us here?" Moon inquired, realizing that Gladion's hand was still clamped to her shoulder. She silently praised the fire for concealing her blush.
"For a ghost story, of course!" Dale smiled.
Gladion made a face. "You couldn't have just asked us to come out here?"
Dale's smile faded, his cracked lips pursing. "I didn't think it would be very fun that way. We don't get many visitors in this town... Haunter and I just wanted to give you kids a good time."
Moon, rubbing the temples of her aching skull, calmed the fellow's disappointment. "No, no! It's alright, sir. We totally understand. Right, guys?"
Collectively, although hesitant, the three boys agreed with Moon. Dale may have possessed a frightening appearance but it wasn't hard to tell how sweet the man actually was. He was lonely... everyone understands how that feels.
Haunter swooped down to Dale's side, happily circling it's trainer like a kart racer. Just as it did this, another Pokémon appeared, bursting forth from it's pokéball: Lucario. Lucario gave Haunter a nasty look and growled. Then, before anyone could interject, he broke out into a sprint towards the purple creature. Haunter let out a shrieking chortle and flew in another direction as Lucario threw a few close combats.
Moon, embarrassed at her Pokémon's aggressiveness, sighed. "Lucario! Calm down!"
Dale merely laughed it off. "Haunter must've put Lucario to sleep as well– he knows that fighting moves don't work on ghost types, right?"
Moon watched her enraged Pokémon dart through the trees as he ineffectively attacked his opponent. "Yeah... Luc just has a temper. Sorry about that."
The dancing flames displayed strange shadows on the surface of Dale's yellow teeth as he grinned. "There's nothing to apologize for. It just proves how loyal he is to his trainer." The four of them watched the Pokémon zoom around for a minute before Dale revved his voice again. "Where were we? Oh, ghost stories..."
"The tale I'm about to tell you isn't necessarily terrifying, but it's interesting nonetheless...
"Somewhere hidden inside the deepest, darkest caves of Kanto lies one of the most powerful beasts in the world: Mewtwo. Some say it's the child of Mew; others insist that it's an experiment gone wrong. However, everyone agrees that it's a force to be reckoned with. A creature living without empathy, it's known that Red, Kanto's own champion, crumbled against its power.
"All was silent for years until about a decade ago, when a chilling prophecy was revealed:
"When the sun sets,
And the dusk grows,
Decisions of regret
Will unfold.
"But, when the moon rises,
And four stars have shown,
Heaven will crowd with cries
And vengeance will claim its throne.
"One star with a challenge bold,
Will stand up for a daring fight,
Against a creature so cold;
A war between dark and light.
"And when the battle is deceased,
Victory will befall the beast."
Moon's breathing fell short. Stiffening, her mind trailed back towards her nightmare as a terrifying truth dawned on her: the monster in her dream said the exact same thing. Her thoughts running rampant, she began to connect the dots. The cave, the prophecy, the psybeam... was I really talking to Mewtwo?
Gladion, watching her expression morph but not knowing why, simply slid his hand towards her other shoulder, effectively wrapping his arm around her. Moon, lost inside her own mind, took ill notice. Green, on the other hand, noticed a little too well. From across the campfire, his shadowed face scowled at Gladion with a mighty rage.
Dale continued, his story grabbing Moon's attention more and more with each word. "It is believed that Mewtwo, seeking revenge on the scientists who brought its form into existence, will rise again someday. Some even say that the war it'll wage will be so deafening, that it will destroy this very region."
For a moment, the only sounds that could be heard were the crackling of fire and the frustrated grunts of Lucario. Then, Dale clapped his gigantic hands. "But hey, what do I know? Words are stories, and not all stories are true. Now, what do you kids say to a real story? The one about my first day as a trainer? Ah, I remember that day is if it was only yesterday..."
As the old man carried on, Moon stopped listening. She couldn't stop drawing comparisons between her nightmare and the tale. What if it's real? What's going to happen? She questioned as she began to shiver in the night air. The world fading away from her notice and her thoughts spiraling with horror, she slowly buried her head into the crook of Gladion's neck.
"Moon... you okay?"
"Yeah. I just have a headache."