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Alexa's home was off in the Spirit Forest. It was a huge house, more of a mansion than house really. She had found it on her journey to get stronger and quickly became a squatter. Not that she was the only one. There were tons of ghost pokemon living there already, not to mention all of the other non-ghost pokemon. She had to fight tooth and nail just to claim most of the first floor as her own and even harder to claim a couple of rooms upstairs. The basement... let's just say that the basement is off limits.

So despite being clearly haunted Alexa lived in this mansion. She was in the process of cleaning up the kitchen. The Gastlys and Haunters decided it would be fun to 'play' with the pots and pans and flour. Why the flour was beyond Alexa. Well perhaps not. It was one of the messiest items in the kitchen and was now all over. She was sweeping it up off the floor and into a small trash can only to have it reappear back on the floor. This was because the ghosts kept dumping the flour back out. "Will you guys stop!" She shouted finally. The ghosts appeared for a moment while laughing.

Trying again to sweep up the flour Alexa turned to see Vincent's head peeking through the doorway. "No Vincent. You're too big to come in here." She said, "If they keep it up send Farvardin in. She'll chase them off." Vincent whined clearly wanted to come in and 'help'. He probably just wanted to roll in the flour. Sighing she turned back to sweeping. She didn't make it far because suddenly she was under a shower of white. This time the ghosts decided to dump the flour on her. "GGGGAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHH FARVARDIN!!! GET IN HERE!" She screamed. She had had enough. Time to chase off these annoying ghosts.

((XD I honestly never thought about it. A knocker is good!))

Farvardin came barreling into the kitchen with her tongue out. She caught sight of the ghosts and howled. She then ran towards the nearest one and tried to pounce. It didn't work as the ghost phased out and Farvardin instead pounced some dishes. She howled again and then went to bite the next one. This time it worked and sent all of the ghosts scrambling about. She continued to chased them sending them away one at a time.

Meanwhile Alexa just stood there and shook her hanging head. Why did she think Farvardin was the better option?! She was making just as big as a mess as the ghosts! She was about to yell at her pokemon when there was a knock on the door. "Oh great! Just what I need guests! Who the heck is way out here!?" She cried exasperated.

She left the kitchen and headed for the front door where Vincent was waiting while wagging his tail. "Yeah yeah." She muttered and opened the door, "What do..... no one is here!" She all but growled in frustration and slammed the door shut after staring outside for a minute. She then turned and began to walk back to the kitchen.

Vincent took up a good portion of the hall. When he heard the knock he moved from the kitchen doorway to the front door. He stared at the door expectedly and wagged his tail. He sensed something was there on the other side but he didn't know what.

When his trainer opened it up to reveal nothing he whined slightly. There was something there. He just couldn't see it anywhere.

Hearing the ruckus Masked Socks came downstairs. She looked around but only saw Alexa heading back towards the noisy kitchen and Vincent whining at the door. She flicked her tail and wondered where to go. Sure she could go fight the ghosts in the kitchen but her trainer would be really mad if she did that again. She didn't like it when she burnt some towels in there last week.

When the door swung open, Donut swung with it- right out of the door's shadow and into another's. The human girl's. The Arcanine's presence disappointed him; with such a sharp nose around, his hiding place would be short-lived. That aside, there were other ghosts in the mansion! (Having come from a similar haunt, he felt right at home here. If he weren't so intent on pestering Lore forever, he might have settled in the mansion as well.)

He had heard the other ghosts frolicking about, probably congratulating themselves on their spooking, even if it was mere country parlor tricks! He may have entered so-called 'domesticity', but Donut could show these wild types how it's really done.

When the human walked past her arcanine, a silvery arm shot out of her shadow, aiming to pluck out some of the fire type pokemon's hairs right off its heels. Ke, ke, ke.

--

At this point, Lore and the rest of her crew arrived at the foot of the mansion. With all of the clattering and howling making its way to their ears, it seemed like a very... lively household, for an abode in disrepair stranded in the middle of a forest. The androgynous trainer stared up at the windows, trying to catch a glimpse of movement within. She prepared herself to apologize for whatever havoc her gengar caused before she shrugged of her hesitation and knocked at the door.

Knock. Knock.
That was two times.
Knock/ Once more for good measure.

"Ki hi hi hi hi!" The shadow snickered quietly at the arcanine's reaction, not noticing that he was being creeped up on as well. The female human's admonition was even better! Getting other pokemon in trouble was truly an art form. What fun.

Of course, three knocks at the door announced that his human was about to come in and cut his playtime short. She was all-too familiar with his hiding places. A scowling face appeared on the shadow- where could he flee to? Just as Alexa was opening the door, the silver gengar began to peek out of the floor- however, the sight of a fluffy Flareon rocketing at his face was enough to make him duck right back in. However, this didn't keep Alexa (and as a result, her shadow) from being bowled over in a tackle.

Lore had begun to wave a hand in greeting when the shape in the doorway suddenly took off towards her. Colorless eyes widened in horror as her brain finally realized what was happening, and understood that there was no way to react in time. Her Galvantula, on the other hand, was much faster and had already leapt off of her shoulders. Potatobi dashed towards the gray-haired trainer to push her out of the way, but miscalculated; the breloom hadn't accounted for a certain Gengar, now spinning at high speed midair after being flung out from the shadow and barreling right at her.

Parn watched the epic crash from a safe distance, clapping her fluffy yellow spider palps together. A muffled applause resulted of it.

Potatobi snapped at Donut from underneath the Gengar, who was draining her heat in addition to the already-cold weather. This really wasn't the best forest for grass types. Actually, for living pokemon at all. Perfect for bratty ghost types, though.

As for why Donut had become solid, it was so that he could crash into the breloom, of course. Making her day worse always made his own *~brighter~*! He answered her rage with silly chuckles, stepping sideways out of the pileup and placing his chubby claws over a smiling mouth as if he was trying to hide his amusement at all. Never missing a beat, he twirled around to face the Arcanine which still sat in the doorway; but now there were others and a houndoom peeking over as well. Uugh, dark types. He had been about to be smooth in his introduction and bow to the doggie, but now he had changed his mind. Donut pulled an eyelid down at the house of assorted pokemon and lolled a giant, disproportionate tongue in their general direction. "GARRRR!"

This got him an eyeroll from Potatobi, who wondered why she hadn't conditioned herself to pay no attention to what he's doing yet. It was bound to be embarrassingly infantile. (Of all words pokemon are expected to run through their thoughts, infantile is probably not one of those Potatobi should possess. Alas, as the product of a few generations of a shroomish breeder's efforts to win as many Smart contests as possible, she was bound to need the words to describe how she quite unfortunately, but ultimately, felt about most other pokemon.)

Sensing that there were too many canines about, the applause ceased as Parn climbed up a tree before their ancient tradition of chasing smaller, non-canine pokemon up trees could manifest itself. The Galvantula was cold, but something about the building felt off. Six eyes squinted at the nearest window, well within reach of a string shot. She was going to hold back from climbing in... for now.

Lore groaned. She had only just begun to lift her arms to brace against the impact before it happened. Far from being on time, this instead had put the androgyne in the awkward position of not being able to brace against the ground, either. Instead, everything that could have possibly had a sharp corner in her backpack was suddenly making itself known. Oh wait, some of those edges digging into her back belonged to a certain mushroom-topped dinosaur's clawed limbs. She shifted and leaned herself off of these, achieving some measure of relief as Potatobi immediately broke herself free and angrily clambered out of the pile. Now what exactly was she supposed to do with the person on top of her?! As awkward and uncomfortable as it was, would it be rude to just, y'know, push 'em off onto the ground- and for that matter, were they out cold or something? Why weren't they saying anything? Suppose the girl gets back up and goes into her house, does Lore have to get up, too? She felt lazier every moment spent lying down and could consider just. Sleeping here tonight.

A variety of expressions visited her face as she pondered all of these things. It took a couple seconds before she finally tapped Alexa's shoulder insistingly. "Er... Not hurt or anything? You still alive?"

She was very much alive, as evidenced by the sudden burst of activity and motion. Lore winced ever so slightly at the loud apology. This made her comforting smile of forgiveness look mildly terrified instead. This expression, in turn, paled and metamorphosed into an actual look of mild terror as Alexa stumbled backwards dramatically, quite possibly knocking herself out for real this time- on her own Flareon.

Laziness forgotten, Lore practically leapt onto her feet (with no incident), urgently crouching by the unfortunate stranger and placing her hands on her shoulders. "Hey! Are you conscious!? Can you hear me?"

Donut stopped lolling his tongue, as it clearly wasn't having an effect. Of course not, he realized! These were canines. They were all about lolling their tongues. He flapped his tongue at the Houndoom, complete with ectoplasmic spittle and a PHBBTTTTTBTTT noise. He teased, before aerially twirling like a ballerina and slowly sprinkling a previously concealed clump of fur around him. The arcanine's, in fact, just to show that the gengar had already gotten the better of one of them.

Meanwhile, Lore grimaced, on the verge of calling a hospital. "If it's that bad, you might have a problem. Here, I'll help you back inside, if you want, get you seated with some ice on that head-" she fretted like a concerned grandparent over their grandchild, voice croaking with empathy for a total stranger. (Mind you, in a manner, they had already gotten quite up close.) As if ambulances would come all the way out here. It was all on the traveler and any stray wild pokemon with healing abilities. "You don't figure any Chanseys live here?" She ventured, in vain.

She tried to help Alexa back on her feet, when the time came, and was poised to help support her should she begin to wobble. "Yeah, um... s'ok. I'm sorry bout that, too. You got knocked forward. Probably wouldn't have happened if I hadn't... rang. Actually, maybe we should bring to the nearest town, see if you can get a head scan and if we can bring your Flareon to a pokemon center. Just in case. Concussions are serious business, you know." She laughed nervously, recalling all of the times she'd witnessed the terrible consequences of leaving concussions unchecked. (She had an adventurous set of friends back home whose habits included taking great physical risks like one eats breakfast.) In the worst case, she'd call over Soar, or at least attempt to. While teleporting large distances wasn't a problem for the legendary, getting signals through a Deoxys' disruptive electromagnetic field was.

Potatobi stoically watched the events unfold, not unconcerned. It was rare to see her trainer so in a hurry to get back to civilization, except when her food stores were getting weak.

Parn, on the other hand, chittered disapprovingly. The Arcanine had noticed her. This was bad news. She could not mistake his whine, and that wagging tail. This was indeed a chaser. She probably looked like a fluffy spidery squeaky toy to him, didn't she? she muttered low.

Donut gasped dramatically, icy blue eyes widening in wonderment at Farvardin's statement. The silver gengar grinned widely and lunged to hug the dark canine, planning to give her a good ol' gastly ghostly chill of afterlife affection.

Multiples of everyone? That didn't sound so good on the possible-concussion-o-meter, but Lore let it go for now, with a slumped shoulders and a sigh. Some people did have hard heads- plus, should any problems surface, she wouldn't be without company.
"Ah, well, if you say so... and oh, er, nice of you to offer. To a total stranger in the... middle of nowhere... that randomly appeared on your doorstep." Lore pondered on how weird that must seem; but then again, this (obviously inhabited) house was in a deserted forest to the far north, which brought on even more questions. She supposed accepting the invitation would give her the time to sate some of her curiosity.
"Before you begin to worry about that, actually, I was looking for that Gengar of mine- sorry for any trouble. And naw, m'not hurt at all. Backpack broke my fall."
Chided Potatobi, trudging after Alexa in search of warmth. Lore followed her cue and decided to follow the dinosaur into the girl's house.

"C'mon, Parn! We're going inside!" She called to her spider, but was only answered by a sudden attack wherein a string shot emerged from up in the trees and struck the button of the ultraball clasped to Lore's belts, causing it to open up to a red flash and close again. Perplexed, the trainer brushed off the strands of web to leave them outside as she stepped in. "Guess she's being shy. By the way, figured we should introduce ourselves! My name is Lore. What about you?" She grinned, taking off her glove to shake hands. Her hands were strong, calloused, bony and scratched all over; sure signs of an active mountain life.

Following Alexa, Lore couldn't help but notice Vincent's expectant gaze. He was a rather big pokemon, and so he possessed a rather big gaze, compelling her to pet his head. It felt exactly as fluffy as he looked. HE'S SO FLUFFY I could die... wait, then it really will turn into a horror movie! She glanced back to Alexa. Truth is, she could feel a bruise coming on. But for Lore, that qualified as quasi-unhurt anyways. By the time the fire-type trainer pointed it out, she had already noticed the silver gengar causing a ruckus. So, everything had probably been his fault...
"...Yeahhhh that's him." She said. Attention drawn to Pyrrhus, Lore looked down at the Darumaka, gray eyes widening. "Wow! Hey there!" She said, picking up the little guy with a smile. "What kind of Pokemon is this? It's my first time seeing one."

Meanwhile, Donut's short, stubby arms closed ineffectually over thin air as the Houndoom moved swiftly out of his path. Alas, this was not enough to deter the presently dematerialized Gengar, who stopped just short of Hulda- or perhaps even half a centimeter into Hulda. He floated back, his grin widening before he spun around to resume the chase. The nasal voice bounced across and through walls as he flew after the blood red canine, swiping for a hug left and right- until a Flareon passed through him, causing his previously silver ectoplasm to boil a hot orange. "Garrrr..." he cried out weakly as his image wobbled and blurred into a haze, slowly evaporating as he drifted slowly upwards and finally, into the cracks of the ceiling.

Lore grimaced at the scene. She was amused, but didn't want to cause more trouble for Alexa. "Er, don't worry about that, he's just being a drama queen. Donut, return!" She stated, pulling out his pokeball. No red flash. "...He must have left for another room." She peered upwards, tempted to break into a run and chase him down before he created another situation. She couldn't exactly go stomping through someone elses rooms without permission, though. "I, uh, should go catch him before anything happens."