Metang took off immediately after I sent him out, but this time around, it wasn’t because he was moving without any orders. Instead, it was better to work with him than against him, so even before the light from his Ultra Ball finished coalescing, I was already shouting a command.

  “Zen Headbutt!”

  With all of our training, practice, and now our experience against Cee, Metang was much more prepared to do what needed to be done. The Psychic-type energy that sparked up around him was an enhancement that he’d used plenty of times before, even back in the Giant Chasm. But now, there was a level of control to it, and he became a rocket that exploded forward—except he was a rocket that was actually able to dip down and slip beneath the Golurk’s hurtling fist.

  “Perfect!” I shouted. “Now, use Metal Claw!”

  Metang’s Zen Headbutt saw him bounce off the Golurk’s chest, and the hulking construct Pokémon stumbled back as Metang flipped in the air to reposition himself. Then, two steel-covered claws began to furiously carve into the surface of the Golurk’s clay.

  Overwhelming, Metang tore into it, and this gave me just a moment to glance around.

  Behind me, the Chandelure was no longer alone. Somehow, it had called dozens of Lampent, its mid-stage form, and those wild Pokémon were now working to assist with its offense.

  However, Grey’s Gengar was able to fight against all of them, led by the trainer standing not too far from my back. Dozens of ghostly flames chased his Pokémon through the air, but the Gengar just bounced around to avoid all of them, flying in erratic patterns and cackling the whole way.

  It would fling its arms out just to conjure purple flames of its own. The attack, Hex, matched and slammed into the many flames chasing after it, negating them and allowing it free rein to continue flying around.

  Seeing that Grey had them handled, I turned back to focus on my current opponent.

  “Metang!” I called out, speaking up even as Metang continued to lay into this Golurk. “Keep going! The sooner we take it out, the sooner we can—”

  A groan.

  The Golurk’s eyes suddenly flashed with a new level of alertness.

  Even through Metang’s attacks, an enormous hand snapped up to grab one of my Pokémon’s swinging arms.

  Unceremoniously, Metang was yanked from the air like a child pulling a toy off the ground. He almost went limp from the sheer amount of force applied to him as his opponent tore him back just to fling him forward.

  Spiraling through the air, Metang hurtled toward me, but all of our practice hadn’t been for naught. For once, instead of hitting the ground, Metang managed to catch himself with his natural levitation.

  He actually looked rather proud of that fact, too.

  “Nick.” Grey suddenly used that moment to speak up, sending me a glance from over his shoulder. “We’re going to keep these guys occupied. We can’t allow ourselves to fight them. But you were right to come—I need your help. I need you to push into the house and find out just why these Pokémon are so determined to protect this place.”

  “Wait, you want me to search the manor?” I asked, already frowning. “So... What? You want me to leave you to fight?”

  “Yes.” Grey spoke that word without any hesitation to his voice. “I need you to find whatever is motivating these Pokémon. The moment you do so is the moment we can finally start resolving everything here.”

  I turned back to send another glance toward the Golurk. Metang’s slashes had hurt it, but Metang was no Iron Valiant. His claws might have dealt damage, but they had only scratched at the chest of that behemoth without digging too far in.

  Already, the Golurk was beginning to steady itself, bringing itself back to its full height within this room. Above us, the countless flames from the Lampent and Chandelure formed miniature, shooting stars that were all unrelenting in their chase.

  Even with the strength of our opponents, we could win, but Grey had already made his intentions clear. He wanted to calm these Pokémon, not outright defeat them. He did not want to build any resentment; thus, he had yet to call for his Gengar to attack them directly.

  “Alright,” I said, recognizing that Grey couldn’t stall these Pokémon forever. “Where should we go?”

  “Upstairs. And fast. Like I said, Gengar will keep them here. Ghost-types can’t be trapped, but it also takes a Ghost to handle a Ghost, y’know?”

  With that, he sent me a grin, and I replied to him with a serious nod.

  Behind us, the Golurk lifted a foot, taking a step, and beginning to build momentum to storm our way.

  “...Metang, we’re going to head out,” I said quietly. “I know this won’t be a direct battle, but please protect me while I search through the house, okay?”

  Metang was still staring at that Golurk, and it was almost like he wanted to ignore my request. However, as much as he desperately wanted to throw himself back into battle, he took one look at my serious expression and then another to the rest of the room before he glumly dipped his head.

  “Thank you,” I said genuinely.

  “Now, Nick!” Grey shouted. “Run!”

  As I took off straight toward the central staircase, Metang followed me in the air, and Grey went on to shout a new command to his Pokémon.

  “Alright, Gengar!” he yelled, his voice echoing. “We’re doing this! Use your Night Shade to hold everyone in place!”

  The Chandelure and all of the Lampent were in the air, and the Golurk was chasing after us on the ground. Between all of them, Grey’s Gengar zipped up to float in the dead center of the room, and an echoing cackle left its throat.

  This had not been a quiet battle—both the wild Pokémon and their flames had been a source of constant hissing. However, from where it had stopped in the air, the Gengar just grinned and thrust out its arms.

  And then, silence.

  The sudden divide between the chaos before and the absolute nothingness that remained stood as a stark reminder of just what Ghost types were.

  Behind us, stretching from the ceiling all the way to the floor, was a perfect sphere of darkness that consumed every Ghost type present.

  “Keep going!” came a shout from Grey somewhere behind it.

  From the energy of his voice, I could tell that this Night Shade would not last long.

  I ended up charging up the room’s grand staircase, bringing myself to the balcony of the second floor. The path split into two directions up here, connecting a pair of hallways that stretched into the sides of this building.

  Making a rushed choice, I darted to the left, and Metang still followed at my back.

  However, it was halfway across that I realized that Metang was focused on something else:

  The entire balcony shook as an enormous, blue hand snapped up to grab its railing.

  “Of course it won’t be that easy,” I grumbled.

  As powerful as Grey’s Gengar was, it had been focused on keeping all of the floating Ghost types occupied. Meanwhile, though briefly stuck in that darkness, the Golurk’s feet hadn’t been consumed, and that had allowed it to charge straight through the Night Shade to reach the end of the room.

  There, it had jumped, and it was now using both the railing and its ghostly nature to somehow pull itself up to our level.

  “This way. Move quick,” I said to Metang, disappearing into that side hallway. Behind us, the floor shook once more as the Golurk brought itself up to crash onto that upper, second level.

  This side hallway was exactly like the one directly beneath it; one wall was covered with doors, and the other wall was covered with boarded-up windows. There was no telling where we needed to go or what we needed to seek, and already, behind us, the shadowy form of that Golurk was beginning to pull itself into this long room.

  “Metang,” I said quickly, turning to the side to tear open the door to a long-forgotten broom closet. Unless we were looking for a moldy broom or a bucket of dried sponges, I could tell what we wanted wasn’t in here. “Valiant can defeat that Golurk, and that Golurk is a threat. But as much as I could release them to take it out, I promised I’d give you this! So I’m choosing to trust you, Metang! Do everything you can to defend me while I search!”

  I slammed shut the door to the broom closet and ran to the next room. Behind me, I could hear metal scrape across metal.

  In response to my request, Metang was already rolling his shoulders.

  This hallway wasn’t large enough for the Golurk to do much but stand, but the Pokémon’s sheer size blocked out the moonlight that peeked through the windows behind it. It reached forward again, using an enormous hand to once again try to grab Metang.

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  “Iron Head,” I ordered, seeing that attack coming as I poked my head through the next doorway.

  This one led into a cleared-out guest bedroom, and the emptiness of the room made it clear that it possessed nothing of interest.

  With the hand coming his way, Metang lunged right at it with Steel-type energy coating his body. Though Golurk’s palm was about the size of his face, he slammed into it anyway, and the sharp impact saw the Golurk pulling its arm back from the sudden source of damage.

  From there, Metang turned. He wanted to charge, but I could tell that he knew he wasn’t in a position to leave my side. As much as this Golurk was lumbering after us, there was no telling if there would be other threats.

  So, he ended up turning to face the exterior wall, and his eyes began to glow.

  Thanks to all of his practice with the pebble on the way to Humilau, it was easy for him to use Confusion to telekinetically tear the boards away from the windows.

  The hallway became lit up from that lack of blockage, and rotted chunks of wood were unceremoniously chucked at the Golurk. Metang’s “projectiles” hardly did any damage, but each one was a toss that saw the wood briefly hit the Golurk’s tiny head and block its vision. It started to stumble; not due to fainting, but simply due to taking repeated, blinding impacts.

  Every toss at it was another second I had to charge down this hallway while ripping open doors. Every room I checked was another room that I desperately hoped contained whatever it was we were looking for.

  “Bedroom. Bedroom. Bedroom,” I said. “Bathroom and...Broom closet? A second one? Man, how many different rooms does this place need?”

  All of these rooms seemed to have been cleaned out long ago. They might have had a spare carpet or bedframe in them, but anything that might have carried value had either been removed by the original owners or thieves that had come here later.

  I started to get the sense that whatever we were looking for wasn’t going to be in rooms like these. It was then that I had the thought that we should probably focus on the much more interesting doors set at the very end of the hall.

  Down there, I could see the first real hint of something that could bring us closer to our goal—and something that could potentially provide us with a moment of safety, too. A pair of large, double doors sat fully open, almost inviting us to pass into an enormous room. However, what drew my attention was what was located just past them; the room the doors would guide us into was filled with countless heavy crates and boxes.

  If there was anything that Grey wanted us to find, then it was most likely in one of those crates and not one of these barren bedrooms.

  “This way!” I shouted, turning to bring myself forward. I knew I was skipping a few doors, but this was our best chance to resolve things sooner rather than later.

  Metang pulled away from where he had been chucking wood at the Golurk to chase after me, and in the moonlight, I could see that his metallic body had sustained a few injuries from where he had been grabbed before. However, he was used to taking damage, and all of his practice meant his telekinetic movements were still well-maintained. Although I was focused on moving onwards, I could tell there was an appreciation in his gaze at these noticeable improvements.

  “In here,” I said quickly. “Help me move these crates to block the doors.”

  I ran into that end-of-hallway room, hearing the thundering stomps of the Golurk behind us. As much as I could squeeze past the boxes that were blocking our way, Metang could not.

  He became caught between two pallets of wood, and once again, the Golurk began to lean forward to reach him.

  However, its massive hands never made purchase; to save him, Metang was whisked away into a red light, being returned from the battle. The Golurk’s hand clamped around nothing, and I sent Metang back out at my side to have him help me push against one of the larger boxes.

  With his help, the door was slammed shut, and that Golurk was all but sealed off.

  “We’re not done yet,” I said quickly. “There’s still the entrance on the other side of the room, too.”

  I was breathing heavily. My heart was racing. Once again, Metang proudly rolled his shoulders.

  He seemed to be taking our escape as his victory—but we weren’t safe just yet.

  “Help me push the crates,” I said as I dashed to the room’s other side.

  Just like the other entrance, this door was wide open, but the crates on this side had been pushed over to make room for something large; the Golurk had been here before.

  There had to have been a hallway going around this room, as I could hear thumps from behind the wall from the Golurk trying to reach this other door first. Thankfully, Metang and I had a more direct path—and we were faster. We reached the other entrance first, and we sealed it shut with crates before the Golurk could even think to squeeze itself in here.

  Its footsteps stopped the moment it reached that closed door. It didn’t leave, but it didn’t try to break through the entrance, either.

  Finally, we were safe—albeit, temporarily. Grey was still fighting, and there was no telling if other wild Ghost types would go after us in this room.

  “So, where are we, anyway?” I asked.

  This was a massive, open space, one that was almost as wide as the manor’s entrance. However, it lacked a tall ceiling, which made sense given that this room was on the upper level of the Strange House’s two floors. The large windows on the room’s back wall would have provided a perfect view of the rear of this estate, but just like every other window here, these tall, man-sized ones were all covered with even more planks of wood.

  Still, thin beams of moonlight peeked in through the gaps, and those were our only source of light. The glowing streaks illuminated the dust that had been thrown into the air from my frantic dash between doors.

  However, despite how large this space was, we didn’t have much of an area to move around in. Almost every inch of this place, save for a strip in the center, was filled with crates upon crates as well as towering mounds of boxes.

  “...Huh. The smooth floors here make me think this was some kind of dining room, but then why isn’t it next to the kitchen?” I paused. “Was this some kind of ballroom?”

  I wasn’t rich. I couldn’t speak of whatever had been going through the owners’ minds when this ‘vacation home’ was being designed. However, what mattered now was that whoever had lived here all of those years ago had repurposed this space into what had to be their makeshift storage.

  “Grey’s waiting on us,” I said. “We still have to search. Help me open up these crates, please.”

  Briefly, Metang’s eyes and claws gleamed in unison at the promise of utilizing violence.

  With his help, the lid of one crate was torn open, sending a splintering wood panel flipping back. Doing so gave me the chance to take a look inside.

  “Blankets,” I mumbled. “Wait, no. Those are only there to cover something else. Instead, there’s...”

  I paused when pulling back the blankets revealed a motionless, wooden face that stared up at me with an overwhelmingly hostile glare.

  “Some kind of totem from Alola?” I asked, confused, looking over the item in this box.

  This wasn’t a Pokémon, just an inanimate object. Once I confirmed that there was nothing special about it, I uselessly tried to exchange a look with Metang before needing to directly request his help with opening the next box.

  In that one, according to a tag attached to it, we found a chunk of a standing stone from somewhere named “Geosenge.” Then, we found a piece from the original Pokémon Tower that once stood in Kanto’s Lavender Town. Another box contained prayer beads from a channeler, and we also managed to find a blanket-covered cabinet with a label that claimed it was full of “haunted plates” that came straight from Sinnoh’s Old Chateau.

  “All of these items are... Spiritual? Haunted?” I mumbled. “They feel like someone’s collection of old, possessed artifacts. But... There’s no theme. It’s all random. And there are so many of them here.”

  I stepped away to look around. We’d only searched through a handful of these boxes, and this room was absolutely filled with them.

  “Why? And... How?” I whispered.

  Actually, answering ‘how’ came easy enough. Whoever owned this place was rich, and as I was distinctly aware, money could move mountains.

  But that still left ‘why,’ and I turned toward Metang to see if he could figure out anything with that twice-as-large brain of his.

  Unfortunately, he had no answers. He didn’t yet have the analytical mind of a Metagross.

  However, what he did have was a stare locked onto the largest box within this room.

  I hadn’t noticed it due to the lack of light in here, but now that Metang was looking at it, I realized that it stood out. It was taller than it was wide, and its front panel was missing. It was also completely empty, but I could tell from the padding just what had once been inside.

  “Looks like that Golurk was shipped here, as well.”

  From where the moonlight lit up the floor, I could see that its heavy footsteps had left a trail in the dust.

  And, given that those footsteps had disturbed dust, then this Golurk had to have woken up only somewhat recently.

  “If I had to guess... the Golurk only left its box once its help was required,” I said quietly, tracking its path to the secondary entrance that Metang and I had blocked. “And the only footsteps I see are its footsteps. It either woke up alone, or that Chandelure or some other wild Ghost type was the one to gather it. But that still doesn’t answer why they’re all so determined to keep people out. And, why was this Golurk so motivated to not be caught?”

  Metang didn’t look like he cared. He was too busy preening after having “won” his fight.

  “Just need to think, Nick,” I mumbled to myself. “This room is probably a big clue. It’s filled with haunted artifacts shipped here from around the world, and based on what Grey said...”

  I blinked.

  This whole time, I had assumed that the Golurk had been defending this place based on a set of orders, but now that I was here, I was starting to doubt that.

  If anything, the Golurk was defending this place out of a sense of duty.

  It might have created its own objective.

  As much as I could tell that I could safely stay in this room for as long as I needed to come up with some kind of clever plan or strategy, I ended up walking back toward that secondary door from before. I waved Metang over to help me move the crates back out of the way, and even with the sound of the wood scraping against the floor, no rattling came from the doorknobs of something large trying to get inside.

  Instead, I held up a hand to ask for Metang to stay back, and then I threw open the doors.

  Immediately, I laid my eyes on the Golurk standing in the hallway. It was completely motionless in how it was staring at where the doors had been closed.

  Even though I, its target, was now standing there in the open entrance, it didn’t attack.

  We just watched each other.

  I made no immediate movements, and neither of us acted in hostility. Instead, unable to think of anything else, I made the only request I could.

  “Take me to her,” I said to the Golurk. “Bring me to the daughter.”

  It didn’t hesitate.

  Immediately, upon my request, the Golurk turned and began to march away.

  Metang was itching to continue his fight, all but glaring at the Golurk’s back out of a need to throw himself at it once more. However, I brought up my hand again to silently request that he keep waiting for now.

  I left this back room to follow the construct Pokémon, and the Golurk brought me into the other hallway in these upper floors. Here, I could see that we weren’t as alone as I had thought. The Chandelure and all of those Lampent were still fighting Grey in the front room, but other Pokémon had claimed space to live in the Strange House as well.

  A few glowing candles that were Litwick poked their heads through the walls to watch the Golurk and I march. From a side room, I saw the worried eyes of both a Solosis and a Gothita—wild, unevolved Psychic-types—that were quickly pulled back by their evolved forms, a Duosion and Gothorita.

  Our passage through this hallway almost became a parade with how the wild Pokémon started to watch us, but the grim mood made this trek feel more akin to a funeral march.

  I kept silent, mostly. The Golurk emotionlessly led the way. It didn’t turn to look at me, but I did watch both it and our surroundings as we walked.

  “They... The rich owners were trying to find some way to cure her. I mean, Grey did tell me the daughter got sick,” I said, mostly just mumbling to myself as a way to work through my thoughts. “All of those things in that back room—you included—were brought here as some kind of desperate attempt to see her get better, right?”

  The Golurk didn’t answer.

  This place had been abandoned decades ago. If the sickness had been unusual, and if modern medicine hadn’t been working, then I wasn’t surprised to learn that the daughter’s rich and desperate parents had turned to the spiritual. Anything that could have even just hinted at being helpful would have been brought here. More than anything else, they wanted their child’s health to improve, and they spent everything they could to achieve that.

  But it hadn’t worked, and then they had left this place. Unable to face the memories, they had abandoned this property with all those spooky items left behind. It was no wonder to me that this house had become filled with Ghost-types—after all, what better lure than everything back there?

  “But...” I mumbled again. “Why wake up now? Why did you and the Chandelure only recently stop everyone from entering here?”

  My first thought was that the World Coronation Series was causing too many disturbances from tourists checking this place out. However, I doubted that was it. People came here all the time, even before that, and Grey had come here to enable repairs, not to stop attacks.

  There had to be a different purpose behind the presence of the Pokémon guards here, and as I mused on that, unable to find an answer, the Golurk kept leading me forward.

  Soon, however, I was brought to a certain room—and what was truly annoying was that I would have arrived here almost immediately if I had turned right instead of left when running across the upper level of the main hall.

  Only a single door sat ahead of us, and the Golurk let out a low, groaning noise as if to announce that we had arrived. Using its massive hands, it tried to turn the doorknob to let me into the room, but it had to crouch just to reach it, and it could only use its pointer and thumb to pinch at the handle at best.

  It kept failing, so I stepped forward instead.

  “It’s alright. I got it.”

  The Golurk stepped back to let me open the door, and doing so caused me to come face-to-face with a bedroom.

  Like the so many other rooms here, this room was clean and mostly empty, only consisting of a leftover cabinet, a red carpet, and a barren bed. This room had been stripped when packing, and only the barest of the bare essentials had been left behind.

  However, this room was not empty. Right in the center of the floor, on top of this room’s dusty carpet, was an item that stood out from everything else in the building so far.

  It was white, green, and shaped like a crescent. It looked impossibly soft, appearing as some kind of curved feather. A thin crack in the ceiling caused it to be perfectly lit up by a single beam of moonlight.

  “A Lunar Feather,” I breathed.

  An object of Legendary importance, one tied not to the spiritual, but to a living, breathing Legendary Pokémon.

  If the Pokémon here were so desperate to act in defense, then they were not defending the Strange House to defend the Strange House; they were defending it solely to protect this feather. They would be willing to listen to Grey and allow the League to go through with repairs. However, what they needed before that was for someone to take this feather and return it to the Legendary Pokémon that it had come from.

  In other words, these Pokémon needed someone to help them—but not just anyone.

  The Pokémon of the Strange House were waiting for a hero.

  Recalling Metang to reposition him is a direct reference to a "technique" I relied on plenty of times in Legends: ZA.

  Pokémon mentioned in this chapter:

  Gengar

  / / / /

  Nick’s Team:

  Current Placement: Great Rank

  (Note: Low-level moves have been omitted.)

  Iron Valiant (Valiant) (Fairy / Fighting type, Genderless, Serious Nature, +-n/a)

  Abilities: Quark Drive

  Moves: Fury Cutter, Feint, Dazzling Gleam, Psycho Cut, Night Slash, Close Combat, Shadow Claw, Electric Terrain

  Rotom (Electric / Variable type, Genderless (Male), Quirky Nature, +-n/a)

  Available Forms*: Default (Ghost type), Fan (Flying type), Wash (Water type)

  Abilities: Levitate

  Moves: Charge, Thunder Wave, Discharge, Shadow Ball, Thunderbolt, Thunder, Electric Terrain, Variable*

  Variable Form Moves*: Air Slash (Fan), Hydro Pump (Wash)

  Liepard (Dark type, Male, Naughty Nature, +Atk/-SpD)

  Abilities: Limber, Prankster

  Moves: Assist, Snarl, Fake Out, Bite, Torment, Hone Claws, Slash, Taunt, Night Slash, Shadow Claw, Psycho Cut, Encore, Foul Play

  (Steel / Psychic type, Genderless (Male), Adamant Nature, +Atk/-SpA)

  Pokéball: Ultra Ball

  Abilities: Clear Body

  Moves: Take Down, Metal Claw, Confusion, Zen Headbutt, Magnet Rise, Iron Head

  enormous thank you to everyone reading! Your support keeps this story going.