Chapter 9

Wraith didn't bother to turn invisible as he flew through the air, diving low now and again and phasing through people to harmlessly frighten them. 'She never said don't have any fun along the way, ' the little ghost chuckled as the scene of the destruction neared, 'Ah! Here we go!'

Wraith stopped his forward momentum entirely as he reached the parking lot, soliciting an angry retort from the other end of the 'link'. "Sorry, Miranda!" he called out half-sincerely, but couldn't help laughing as several gawkers screamed and ran at the sound of "swallow your soul! Swallow your soul!" a few feet above their heads in pokespeak.

But the ghost stopped laughing when he looked up and saw what was causing the mayhem. A large, obscenely muscular bipedal reptile with a strange, helmet-ish device upon his head was tearing a wheel off an old beat-up looking pokeforce car, and was following up the motion by tossing it at a pair of humans who the onlookers seemed reluctant to go near.

"Hey!" the gastly chastised, reaching out with his mind and grabbing the wheal telekinetically, "Play fair, muscle head!"

"AHHH! A ghost!" exclaimed one of the humans, and with a sideways glance, Wraith noticed that one of the machoke's victims was already unconscious. Her aura said she'd need medical attention soon.

"Bite me!" the machoke growled in a voice that spoke volumes about his tiny reptilian brain and reached into the engine block before tearing away at the transmission.

Wraith took a moment, and turned to face the man he had frightened. "Swallow your soul! Swallow your soul!" he laughed, making the man scream and pass out.

'WRAITH!!!' shouted Miranda loudly in his mind.

'Sorry, ma'am, ' he send back with a chuckle, 'couldn't resist!'

'Wraith, ' sent Miranda again, this time her voice seemed panicked, 'Get out of there! That's Tashiro! Kathy's machoke!'

'Look Boss Lady, I'm already dead. I think that I can handle ONE little fighting-type, ' Wraith chuckled back, amused by the fact that the wall of muscle he was supposed to be afraid of was ignoring him, 'I mean seriously, what can that overgrown lizard do? Kill me?!'

'I'll be there soon, ' was all Miranda said, and Wraith felt his mind empty once more, except for the tenuous connection they still maintained.

"Oh man! She's gonna be sooo proud of me," chuckled the little ghost, focusing his attention on the machoke as the monster tore the car's transmission free, and hefted it easily over his head.

"Oooh, this is gonna be too funny!" commented Wraith, his eyes glowing as he focused his mind, and prepared to bring forth a psychic blast his opponent wouldn't soon forget.

As Tashiro strode purposely towards the unconscious bodies of Jenny and James, Wraith let loose the focused beam of mana, targeting the machoke's walnut sized brain. But as the wave rippled out, the device upon Tashiro's head activated. Small red lights swirled around the base of the helmet, and the little antenna atop it hummed as the psychic energy was harmlessly dispersed into the surrounding area.

"What-?!" hissed Wraith in aggravation as the machoke turned and smiled toothily.

"So, da little ghostie thinks he can harm Tashiro?" the pokemon chuckled, stomping heavily, leaving dents in the pavement as he went as the machoke reoriented on Wraith, "Ha. Ha. Tashiro merely laughs at your pathetic powers!"

Wraith merely laughed as the machoke tossed the transmission at him, letting the device pass right through him and crash noisily into a hotdog cart. "You can't even talk in complete sentences," taunted Wraith, not noticing as Tashiro brought his now free hands together and began to focus his chi, "And now you expect to hurt me by demolishing a car? Oh, that's rich-!"

The gastly was caught off guard as Tashiro opened his palms, and a blast of kinetic energy fired forth, catching him between the eyes, and punching a fist sized hole through the center of his ethereal mass.

"Wow!" exclaimed Wraith in astonishment as he filled in the hole, "That actually hurt a teeny tiny bit! NOT!"

"Almost as much as this will!" promised Tashiro, running forward with one of his fists crackling with electricity.

"Oooh, ya!" chuckled Wraith with a humor he suddenly didn't feel, "This is bad!"

The little ghost willed himself invisible, and easily slipped under the machoke's thunder punch before spinning in place and throwing another psychic blast his way. Once again, however, the energy was absorbed by Tashiro's helmet, and dissipated.

The machoke paused as his fist connected with nothing, and scanned the area for a moment. "Running will not save you," the monstrous pokemon promised, tapping a button on the side of his helmet, "Hiding will not save you..." a pair of dark spectacles came down to cover his eyes as he spoke, "Nothing can save you!"

With that, Tashiro oriented on Wraith's exact position and uppercutted the ghost with a second fist, wreathed in flames. 'Miri!' Wraith sent in mental panic as he spun end over end, up into the air and totally out of control as he tried desperately just to keep his ephemera from leaking away, 'Where are you! I need back up!'

But no response came. As Wraith righted himself several hundred feet off the ground, he tested the invisible mind link and found nothing. The device Tashiro wore not only blocked his psychic attacks, but had shut down his less offensive abilities as well.

"Allllrightyyyy then!" muttered Wraith, licking his lips as dark purple energy crackled cross the surface of his body, "Nightshade it is!"

The ghost took a second to target the device upon his opponent's head, giving Tashiro the time he needed to tear the engine fan out and pull it back as if to throw it at James like a discus, before letting the beam of visible purple hued light fly.

Once again the machoke was distracted, as the attack passed through the helmet, and enveloped his body. "Uhh," the pokemon muttered, dropping the fan and clutching his stomach with both hands, "Tashiro is not feeling so good..."

"That's the idea, lizard lips!" taunted Wraith, flying down towards his opponent, spiraling as he fired off several more blasts of ghostly purple unlight."

Tashiro gritted his teeth as he went down on one knee, the repeated ghost attacks making his stomach turn with the negative charge his body was building up. "Tashiro feel sick," he muttered, opening his now glowing red eyes so suddenly that the crowd of onlookers turned back on itself as people began running for their lives, "But it is good that I have strong stomach!"

The machoke rose slowly to his feet and turned to face the oncoming spirit with a loud roar of defiance. But the laughing ghost simply kept coming; firing repeatedly bursts into the pokemon's chest once he determined that the soulless mechanism upon his opponent's head was immune.

"This one's for Selece!" he laughed, hardly paying attention as both of Tashiro's fists lit up with suddenly focused chi. One was on fire, the other seemed surrounded by icy winds, "And this one's for Undine, and this one's for Vivian, and this one's for-! Ahh-!"

Tashiro growled incomprehensibly as he hammered both fists into Wraith's sides, the elemental effects making up for the lack of actually physical contact. In response, the ghost's body became a featureless black ooze that splattered across Tashiro's face, blinding him as his fists came together painfully.

"Argh!" the machoke cried, staggering back as he clawed at the sticky black goo that clung stubbornly to his face, "Get off, bad ghostie!"

"Ha! Not until you stop calling me that!" replied Wraith, oozing part of his body towards the device on the machoke's head as he clung tenaciously to his face.

"Foolish ghostie!" growled Tashiro, dropping to his knees and flinging his head forward.

"What are you-?!" began Wraith, only to feel the front bumper of the police car pass through him, and impact painfully with Tashiro's snout.

"Wow!" the ghost laughed, as Tashiro howled in pain, "They really don't make you fighting-types like they used to!"

"I show you!" the lizard shouted, his voice muffled by the ghost on his face, and leapt to his feet, just as a confused canine voice spoke up.

"What the-?!" she exclaimed, "Ah! Monster!"

"Monster?" inquired Wraith, forming eyes in the approximate location of Tashiro's just in time to see a fluffy growlithe expel a gout of flame aimed at Tashiro's head, "Oh dreck!"

Wraith phased completely, and let himself pass through Tashiro's body just as the flames washed over the machoke. He then did his best to reconstitute himself and flew in to get a closer look at the firedog.

"Criminals!" the growlithe exclaimed, spotting Wraith and firing another jet of flame at him, "Destroying my human's toy! Bad criminals! Eat my righteous burning wrath!"

"No thanks, lady!" called Wraith, arching around Tashiro's body, using the muscle bound pokemon as a shield, "I've had enough pain for one day!"

"Which one of you?!" demanded the growlithe, her eyes burning with anger, "Which one did this?!" She motioned to the trashed Pokeforce car with her snout, but never broke eye contact with Tashiro.

"It was him!" exclaimed both Tashiro and Wraith at the same time, causing the growlithe to howl with rage.

"Then I'm taking you both in!" she promised; leaping at Tashiro, ready to bite into him.

"No, don't lady!" warned Wraith, coming around to the front in time to see the machoke back hand the poor growlithe, "Told ya..."

Tashiro ignored Wraith for the moment, his simple mind finding it difficult to focus on too many things at once. "It fun to crush little puppies!" he chuckled, pulling back an ice-punch readied fist as the growlithe hit the ground a few feet away and tried to get her bearings.

"Look out!" called Wraith, zooming between Tashiro and the growlithe, catching the frozen fist in the side, and solidifying to keep block it's forward momentum, "Now-! Run!"

"Wow," commented the growlithe, shaking her fur back into place "Maybe you're not a bad ghost."

"Just get out of here, lady!" ordered Wraith, gritting his teeth and closing his eyes as he put all his energy into nightshading Tashiro's still painfully icy fist, "I don't know how much longer I can keep this up!"

"Not, 'Lady'," corrected the Growlithe, adjusting her stance as she focused on Tashiro's free arm, "Bow! My name is Bow!"

With that, Bow leapt into the air and sank her fangs into Tashiro's opposite wrist, filling her mouth with all the flames she could conjure. "Ah! Bad doggie! Bad ghostie!" shouted Tashiro, spinning around as quickly as he could, hoping to dislodge his attackers, "No fair, you gang up!"

"Hang on Bow!" called Wraith, feeling himself slipping as the machoke's rotation picked up speed, "Help's on its way!"

"Mrrf! Aggff!" replied Bow, unable to speak properly with a mouth full of machoke and her own scorching flames.

'Just... One... Chance..." thought Wraith, looking up at the psi- dampening helmet Tashiro wore, 'If only... If only I had... HANDS!'

With that, the little ghost's spherical body glowed with a brilliant white light, all but blinding the remaining spectators, who cheered as they realized what was happening.

"Huh?" managed Bow as she glanced over at the ghost, half startled as he began to grow to more than twice his former size.

"What he-?!" began Tashiro, his slow mind finally catching on as real worry entered it for the first time.

At the end of his left arm, Wraith's body expanded and reshaped itself as the white light faded into nothingness. "Yesss!" hissed Wraith, staring delightedly at the two black blurs that hovered before his face, "Just what the doctor ordered!"

Tashiro's eyes went wide with horror as a pair of disembodied hands flew towards him, followed by the echoing laughter of a newly evolved haunter. "No!" he shouted in denial as one of the four-fingered hands reached under his chin and unbuckled the safety strap, as its partner flicked the helmet off his head rather nonchalantly.

"Back up!" exclaimed Wraith, vaguely hearing familiar voices shouting behind him, "They're here!"

Wraith glanced over at Bow as he dislodged himself from Tashiro's fist, thankful to be away from the painful cold and stopping himself a few feet away, not bothering to listen to the laws of physics that insisted he go flying.

"Bow?" he inquired, his good humor returning, only to see the growlithe's grip finally give way, and her go flying through the air in the manner Wraith would have had he been mortal.

"Noooo!" shouted Wraith, his eyes glowing a burning red as he reached out with his mind, and snatched the flying firedog out of the air with telekinesis. The ghost then turned his attention to Tashiro, a malevolent grin crossing his face as he set the disoriented growlithe down on the ground.

"That..." he growled angrily as the machoke stopped spinning and clutched his face in an attempt to steady himself, "Was a MISTAKE!!!"

Tashiro barely had time to give the suddenly larger ghost a puzzled look before the wave of dark mana struck him. The machoke's eyes went wide, and he struggled for breath as his brain suffered a small aneurysm before toppling over and leaving machoke shaped crater in the pavement...

Miranda was the first to force herself through the wall of assembled onlookers, and gasped as the growlithe flew towards her only to be caught in mid air by Wraith's psychic grasp.

"Wraith, dear... ?" the woman stammered, feeling her anxiety over the severed connection between them abate as she spotted what was now her haunter, "You evolved!"

The ghost seemed not to notice his trainer, however. His concentration was focused solely on the stunned Tashiro, and Wraith's eyes were glowing brightly as he readied an attack.

"What's he doing?" inquired Misty, breaking through the crowd just behind Frank as Bow was set carefully down on the ground.

"I renamed it 'mana bolt'," explained Miranda, folding her arms and watching her ghostly pokemon's actions intently, "But most people just call it 'psi-beam'."

Misty gasped as Tashiro's expression became pained, and he toppled over with a loud thud that shattered the pavement. "Ouch!" she commented as Bow waddled over to Frank.

"Groooow..." the little growlithe whined, staggering from side to side as her trainer crouched down to pick her up.

"It's okay," he told her, just before noticing his car, "You did well, girl- What the-?! My car!!!"

"Not so fast, Detective," chuckled a smug voice, stopping Frank dead in his tracks as he saw two figures daring to stand upon the roof of what was left of his car, "Tashiro! Return!"

"Who-?" began Frank, shielding his eyes from the sun as he heard his niece curse just behind him.

"Kathy," the courier hissed, recognizing the voice immediately, even though her features seemed unfamiliar, glowering as the older woman hopped to the ground and chuckled quietly in dark amusement. "So glad that you remember me," the scientist replied with a cruel smile, "Even with this little disguise I cooked up recently."

"The pleasure is all yours," muttered Miranda, reaching to her side and gripping the hilt of her bokken, as Kathy's skin seemed to flow across the surface of her face like water. "You know," she said casually, an evil smirk crossing her face as her features altered and became more familiar, "If I'd had this power a decade or so ago, I wouldn't have needed to kill your father. Not that I wouldn't have or anything..."