Unbroken Disguise

Just as N had said, half an hour later he wandered into the lobby to retrieve Mimikyu, but what he came across was a peculiar sight. It seemed that while his new friend was indeed still on the computer, he was causing a bit of a scene. Trainers and Pokemon alike were avoiding the area he was in, carefully skirting around the edges of the room. Though it seemed as if the fairy was completely ignorant of the fact that people were acting like he was a Bouffalant in an antique shop. But before he could investigate, Nurse Joy was stepping out from behind the counter and calling out to him, a Chansey taking her place.

“You’re the one who brought Mimikyu in, right? Are you his trainer?” the nurse flipped through a stack of papers, struggling to find whatever she was looking for.

“I’m not a trainer, Mimikyu and I are just traveling together at the moment.” He supposed he should be happy that she didn’t automatically assume that he was like most people would.

“How long have you known Mimikyu?”

“A few hours at most? I only ran into him earlier today and he asked if he could travel with me.”

“I see…” she looked concerned, but finally stopped searching her paperwork, apparently having found what she was after. “How much do you know about Mimikyu? Or even just Ghost types in general?” Her eyes scanned the page in front of her.

This was a somewhat concerning line of questioning coming from a nurse. “Not much in regards to Mimikyu, I’m afraid. He’s told me a little bit, but like I said, we’ve only known each other for a few hours and he’s the first that I’ve actually seen in person.” The second question took a bit more thought. “As for Ghost types in general… I’ve met a few Frillish and Litwick… there was a Golett the one time… what exactly are you asking about?”

“Well, I know people generally don’t like to talk about it, but there are… areas of concern, when it comes to different types. Electric types sometimes have a bad habit of consuming the charge out of electronics, Fire types may accidently set things ablaze… little accidents, you know? A lot of them grow out of it as they age and gain more refined control over their abilities, or sometimes it comes with Evolution. My cousins in the Johto region know better than to leave a Pichu alone near their medical equipment for example.” N nodded along with her explanation, wondering when she was going to get to the point. “A lot of the more common types have little quirks that are easy to overlook, so people tend not to consider what problems might pop up with types that aren’t quite so common. I’m afraid I know nothing about the Fairy type because we don’t have any in the region, but when it comes to Ghost types… well…”

“Well…?” N prompted, hoping she would stop dancing around the subject.

“Their bad habit is causing terror.” She reluctantly shared with him. “That’s why people are so scared of abandoned buildings and graveyards. The concentrated number of Ghost types, many of them young and with a weak hold on what they’re capable of… surely you’ve felt it at some point, even if you’ve only known Mimikyu for a few hours.”

N could only nod along dumbly. Was that what he had been feeling? Mimikyu’s touch, the sight of its arms, every time he glimpsed a bit too much. It would also explain what the Tranquill in the forest had been talking about. “Yes, I’ve felt it…”

“I thought so. Most people find it unsettling, which is why so few people try to train them, and those that do tend to be a bit on the… strange side. Shauntal of the Elite Four is probably the most well adjusted Ghost type trainer I know of, but even she has a bit of an obsessive personality…” She seemed lost in thought for a moment before perking back up. “Luckily it’s a relatively easy fix! The more familiar they are with ghostly energy, the less likely they are to leak it out and terrify everyone around them! Use Ghost type moves on a regular basis and he’ll be able to control it in no time.”

This is why he gave Nurse Joys a pass despite their heavy involvement in trainer culture. Always eager to help out struggling Pokemon. “I’ll be sure to mention it to him, thank you Nurse Joy.”

“There is just one more thing…” Joy looked apologetic as she continued. “I don’t know anything about Mimikyu, and due to the time zone difference I can’t get any information on them from my cousins for at least a few more hours, but… some Ghost type Pokemon like causing terror. They see it as a sort of game, something to laugh about, and have a hard time understanding just how unpleasant it is for others. I couldn’t tell you if Mimikyu would fall under that category or not, but… well, it’s something to think about.”

Her Chansey partner called out from the front desk. “That’s my cue to get back to work, sorry that I don’t have more information to give you!”

“You’ve done plenty, thank you for the heads up. I would have been totally clueless had you not informed me.” N left the nurse to her duties, walking over to the computers.

He could feel it. It was stronger than before, and he wasn’t even touching Mimikyu this time. The feeling of dread got more and more powerful the closer he got to the Pokemon. “Mimikyu. Could you please stop leaking terror?”

The fairy startled, and the feeling stopped in an instant. “What? I’m leakin’ somethin’?” He spun in a circle, looking around for whatever the problem was.

“Terror. Dread. A general feeling of unease. It seems to have stopped now, but it was coming from you and everyone here was avoiding it as best they could. Nurse Joy says that it’s common among young Ghost types.”

“Ah, I getcha. Yer pullin’ my leg, ain’t ya? Could use some work though, yer delivery’s pretty trash.”

“Do you even have a leg for me to pull?”

“It’s a figure of speech, pal.” Mimikyu grumbled, not actually answering the question. But then he looked around the room, noticing just how far away everyone was, how so many eyes were on the pair. “Wait, you were serious? I’ve never heard of anythin’ like that. People might find Ghost types a bit spooky, just like they would a ghost of any sort, but yer tellin’ me…”

It seemed Mimikyu wasn’t sure how to take this information. “You said you wanted to go see Elesa, right? I’ll explain what Nurse Joy told me on the way there.”

This doesn’t make a lick of sense. The other examples, sure. Pichu had something along the lines of them not being able to control their electricity in a Pokedex entry, didn’t they? But I don’t recall anything about Ghost types just casually leaking out terror. Do I just not remember that? I guess the number of dex entries I can recall off the top of my head isn’t actually that high, but still. Now I have to worry about any assumptions I’ve made being entirely false.

I guess I can worry about that later, I think I can see Elesa on the other side of the crowd. Seems like they’re here for the park rather than her, so at least we won’t have to worry about waiting to see her.

“Hey, N. That’s her, ain’t it?”

“It certainly looks like her. Excuse me, Elesa?”

I hope I can make some progress here. Aimlessly wandering around Unova isn’t really sounding all that appealing.

Slow days like this were just the worst! Only two challengers at the gym, who hadn’t even put up a real fight. Seriously, who brings a Panpour and a Pidove that look like they were caught ten minutes ago to fight the Electric type gym? Some of these kids were young, but didn’t trainer schools exist to teach them why that was a bad idea? And then on top of that, the modeling gig for the day had been canceled at the last minute and rescheduled for next week.

Her thoughts on how disappointing the day was turning out to be were interrupted when someone called out her name. When she turned to face them, she saw green hair, an old cap, black-tipped-yellow-ears-with-red-on-the-cheeks?! She almost bolted over to the pair, excited to see a real life Pikachu for the first time in forever- only to stop short when she realized it was just a doll. Actually, was it even a doll? It looked homemade, and not exactly at a high quality. On second glance the face looked… drawn on? And was the tail made of wood? There weren’t even any arms or legs and the bottom was torn apart! If you’re going to make a Pikachu doll you should at least take care of it!

She brought her eyes back down to the guy who had spoken to her. “That’s me, can I help you with something?” Movement made her eyes flick back up. Was that thing moving? She had thought the black slits to be just tears in the fabric cast in shadow, but on second glance they looked like eyes. Was something living underneath the fake Pikachu?

“I was hoping so. Or rather, my friend here wanted to ask for your help with a few things.”

The sound that came out of its mouth was not what she was expecting. Though maybe she should have? It was halfway between a Pikachu’s cry and something that sent shivers down her spine.

“Right. Your friend, the… not-Pikachu?” Elesa questioned. Goosebumps broke out on her skin when the Pokemon responded.

“This is Mimikyu, and I’m N. He wants me to inform you that the average Mimikyu would take great offense to that description.” It almost sounded like a joke, but the feeling that thing was giving off told her it was no laughing matter.

“Mimikyu? I’m not sure I’ve ever heard that name before… What exactly does Mimikyu need help with?” She might be ready to jump out of her skin, but this could be an excellent way to make up for her lackluster start to the day. Her first interaction with a Pokemon she’d never seen before would mean a learning opportunity, and you could never get enough of those as a Gym Leader.

The green haired fellow with naught but a letter for a name sighed heavily. “Apparently he wants advice on keeping his… outfit, in ‘tip-top shape’,” air quotes told her all she needed to know on that front, “among other things that he’s yet to inform me of.”

Clothes and a bit of mystery? This was right up her alley! “Well if it’s fashion advice, I’m certainly the girl to go to! Follow me, we can talk more in the gym. Standing around out here is just asking for fans to swarm me.”

It was an odd feeling, to be led into the back rooms of a Gym by the one in charge of the place. But even that didn’t quite compare to watching Mimikyu jump off of his head in excitement at the sight of a whiteboard, using it to have a rather lengthy conversation with said Gym Leader about the intricacies of caring for delicate fabrics and a variety of sewing techniques, all the while the two of them acted like nothing was strange about this. Not having to play the translator for human and Pokemon relations was a nice change, but he didn’t particularly like having to read out everything his new friend was saying when they were perfectly capable of understanding each other.

“Thank you for the sewing kit.” The shaky writing on the board said.

“It’s no problem at all! Not every day that I have a Pokemon come to me to ask about fashion, this was fun!”

N could believe it. The woman had been all smiles for the entire… what had it been, an hour already? He should have been paying more attention to the time.

The words on the whiteboard were erased once more, this time replaced by a question. “Do you mind if I ask some unrelated questions?”

“Go right ahead! I’ve got no other plans for today, all the time in the world.” While the same was technically true for N, he might go insane if he had to spend another 5 minutes hearing about different stitching techniques.

Luckily for his sanity, Mimikyu’s strangeness reared its head again.

“How well do you know Cynthia?” the board read.

“Cynthia? Like, Sinnoh Champ Cynthia?” She looked down at the tiny Pokemon in a new light. “It’s not exactly common knowledge that we’ve even met, you know…”

Mimikyu didn’t comment on that, simply underlining his question in response.

“...I know her decently well, I guess? It’s not like we get many opportunities to interact, but I always make sure to stop in when she visits Unova.”

How would some random Mimikyu know that Elesa and Champion Cynthia were acquainted? The fairy had struggled to remember the Gym Leader’s name just an hour ago! Even N hadn’t known that the two blondes knew each other, and he had information rings that ran deeper than most.

Another erasure. Another message. “Would you happen to have her number? Or perhaps the date of her next visit to Undella Town?”

Elesa’s easy going smile had gone away when this line of questioning started, but now she was frowning, her eyes narrowed. “How do you know that she visits Undella Town?” Before N could even blink, she had a pokeball in her hand and at the ready.

“Sorry Mimikyu, but I think it’s time that you start giving some answers.”