The Ghost Specialist

Sam stared at Doctor Spencer Hale. The man had an amused expression on his face. A slight smile curved his lips. Sam had no reason to believe he was lying.

“Richard Greyson,” Sam repeated. “My grandfather, Richard Greyson. The Richard Greyson who lived in Dewford Town?”

“Yes!” Spencer cheerfully said. “It’s been a while, but I believe he specifically moved to Dewford to search for something in that cave there. Both of us have been a bit too busy to actually sit down and chat, but we’re definitely friends. And if my memory is correct, it was only a few short—”

“Years,” Sam interrupted. “It’s been years. You’re talking as if he’s still around. My grandfather is dead.”

Redi hit Sam on the arm and leaned in to hide her hiss.

“Sam!” she said, keeping her voice low. “You can’t just drop the news on someone like that. It’s rude! What if it were me or Quilava who passed away, and you were finding out right now?”

Sam grimaced as the corners of Spencer’s mouth quivered. The man’s cheerful smile began to fall. Spencer looked like he wanted to say something, but he also looked like he was having trouble forming words.

“No, n-no. That can’t be true,” he eventually managed to say. “No, he’s— I thought—”

Spencer ran a hand over his head and took a few steps back to collapse into a chair.

He didn’t say anything, choosing to rub his temples with a hand. Redi sent Sam a pointed glance as the doctor let his head fall back to stare at the ceiling. Recognizing grief for what it was, Sam moved closer, knowing Redi was probably right. He sighed before he spoke again.

“Sorry,” Sam said. “I shouldn’t have dropped the news on you like that.”

A short chuckle left Spencer’s throat.

“Ah, it’s alright. I suppose if we were really close friends, I would have heard about his passing by now, huh?”

He sighed as well, closing his eyes and choosing to simply breathe. He had a pained expression on his face, but he was also managing to keep himself calm.

“I first met your grandfather when he served as a guest lecturer,” Spencer said, a small smile twitching back onto his face. “He was visiting the Professor, who managed to nag him into speaking to the class. I remember how he scowled, walked to the front of the group, and said only two sentences. ‘Pokémon are special. Remember that.’ Then he walked away as if that was the biggest revelation in the world!”

Spencer laughed, and then he brought a hand up to rub his eyes with his fingers.

“Richard was... Well, he was a very withdrawn man. I had to go out of my way to get to know him, but once I did, he really opened up.”

Sam didn’t have anything to say as Spencer continued to sit back and drift off into memory. He had a fond smile on his face, but his eyes were unfocused.

Silence passed between them. Eventually, his gaze returned to Sam as he stood up from his chair.

“Your grandfather was an expert when it came to obscure Pokémon knowledge. Did you know he’s the reason we know Onix’s method of evolution?”

“No,” Sam said, frowning. “He never told me about that.”

Spencer chuckled and walked to a nearby table to set down his pen.

“We always knew that Steelix evolved from Onix, but the actual method wasn’t recorded. A member of the class was running an experiment when Richard dropped by. He took one look at the convoluted set-up and told him, ‘Just cover an Onix in a Metal Coat.’ He was right, too!”

Spencer laughed again.

“Never took credit for that, though. The method was slipped into the latest version of the Pokédex, and it became such common knowledge that no one bothered to learn how we figured it out in the first place.”

Sam wasn’t sure what to say. He knew his grandfather was rather independent—after all, Sam couldn’t remember a single time the man had left Dewford Town, or even just his own house—but he also couldn’t remember his grandfather ever talking about another person. He knew his grandfather was knowledgeable, just not to that level. Heck, most of Sam’s childhood was spent sitting before the TV and listening to his grandfather rant about battles. He was also great at knowing exactly what book Sam should read next, too.

“So if he was so withdrawn, how did you befriend him?” Redi suddenly asked.

Spencer continued his smile.

“Like I said, I had to go out of my way to do it. I caught him before he could disappear like usual and practically forced him to go out for drinks with the rest of the class. It was his Typhlosion who eventually managed to convince him, but personally, I think if it wasn’t for Professor Oak—”

“Professor Oak?” Sam interrupted.

“Oh, yes! I know I claimed to be close friends with him, but it was Professor Oak who was truly his best friend. Before he moved away, the pair were nearly inseparable! Why?” Spencer paused. “Wait, did you not—”

“Thanks for all the help, but I think we have to go.”

Sam turned around and stiffly walked out of the building. He could feel Spencer’s confused gaze following him as he left. Redi hurried to chase after him, and Spencer shouted to say one last thing before they were gone.

“I’ll make sure to submit my recommendations, and if you need anything, you can always call me!”

He also tried to shout his condolences and a thank you for telling him the bad news. Unfortunately, the door to the building slammed closed before he could finish.

“Sam! What’s with you?” Redi said, running to his side. “Did you really need to leave so suddenly like that?”

He didn’t immediately respond, choosing instead to move to a small balcony that overlooked the Ruins of Alph. He gripped its railing and took a deep breath.

“Sam!” Redi repeated. “Are you okay?”

“...I’m fine,” he said, closing his eyes and breathing out to steady himself. “My grandfather never mentioned Professor Oak. I can’t believe they were friends.”

Redi moved closer. She walked over and stood next to him in front of the railing. She leaned against it, staring out over the same view. Sam could tell that she wanted to talk about how Professor Oak was apparently a family friend, but she didn’t start with that. She started with something else.

“You don’t like Professor Oak,” she said.

“No.”

“Why?” she asked.

“I don’t like him because...” Sam frowned. “He made the electronic Pokédex. It’s putting my mom’s bookstore out of business.”

Redi stayed silent, waiting for him to speak more. When Sam didn’t continue, her mouth hung open.

“Wait? That’s it?”

“It’s a big deal!” Sam shouted, finally turning her way. “Written Pokédexes were our best sellers! The number of customers we got was cut way in half!”

His voice echoed out over the canyon. The ruins sat silently below them. A few bird Pokémon flew off in the distance, and Sam turned back around to face away.

“I don’t need a strong reason to dislike someone,” he mumbled.

Redi snorted and rolled her eyes.

“Okay, fine, I’ll give you that, but you also recognize how big Professor Oak is, right? He’s the reason written Pokédexes are popular in the first place. He’s the reason the Gym Challenge can be taken on by the average person. He’s why all the cool moves and evolutions aren’t only known by people in power. And he’s why Kanto and Johto don’t hate each other as much anymore.”

What was left unsaid was that he was also friends with Sam’s grandfather.

“I know,” Sam replied, though he wasn’t aware Professor Oak had helped cool tensions between Indigo’s regions. “I know. It’s just... My grandfather never talked about him. Or how he apparently discovered Onix’s evolution. Or how he was important enough to give a lecture to a class learning under the foremost Pokémon Professor in the world?”

Redi leaned back, her arms going taut as she held onto the railing. She didn’t say anything, and Sam didn’t either. While he could tell she was itching to speak, she didn’t. Sam really appreciated that.

If my grandfather was so important, how come he didn’t leave any money behind? My mom has to struggle every day just to make ends meet. And all of that stuff in the attic—

“Hold on,” Sam said. “I found the New Pokédex in my grandfather’s boxes. There’s no way Professor Oak is the author, is he?”

“What? No, it exists ‘cause of time travel,” Redi said, standing back up. “And if Professor Oak had it, why does no one else know anything in it? He’d have published all that weird information, right?”

Sam’s frown deepened. On one hand, he appreciated how much the New Pokédex had helped him, but on the other hand, he really wished its origin wasn’t so complicated.

“I don’t get how it fits in with my grandfather’s friendship with Professor Oak. If it wasn’t Professor Oak who wrote it, who sent it to my grandpa in the first place?”

Not to mention, the book was still wrapped in brown packaging paper when Sam first found it. His grandfather had never opened it up even after receiving it in the mail. Yet, it was placed in a box containing items that had seemed important to the old man. At least, that was what the box’s contents had implied.

A little voice in Sam’s head whispered that he could maybe, maybe, find a way to talk to Professor Oak if the Professor was apparently friends with his grandfather. But at the same time, he just didn’t want to. Oak was a region away, and Sam had the rest of his journey ahead of him.

It was a problem for later. He didn’t want to think about it right now.

“Let’s explore the ruins,” Sam said, wanting nothing more than to focus on something else. “Doctor Hale didn’t know about Hisuian Typhlosion, but he did mention that weird Growlithe. I think there’s a chance he could have seen a carving of Hisuian Typhlosion but not realize it. The two variants look alike. A poor enough carving could mean he didn’t notice.”

“Sounds good to me!” Redi said with a smile.

They both moved away from the railing and headed down, leaving any complicated thoughts behind them.

A staircase built into the hillside served as the entrance into the ruins, but so high up, the distance needed to reach the bottom was more than Sam would’ve thought. It gave him plenty of time to look over all of the dusty, brick buildings and the unmaintained environment around them. Chunks of rock hid most of the buildings, others had collapsed, and patches of tall grass spread out here and there, with Pokémon likely within.

Strangely enough, even though this place had been known for a while, new discoveries were constantly being made within the Ruins of Alph. Sam would have thought that with its age, most of the ancient settlement would have already been explored. However, with its sheer number of secret entrances and strange traps, new passages and rooms were being discovered on almost a weekly basis.

The idea of some mention of Hisuian Typhlosion being down there seemed more likely the more he thought about it.

Reaching the bottom, there was an almost hallowed feeling as Sam and Redi stepped onto a ruined path. With this place being so ancient, it almost felt like being too noisy would be insulting to its existence.

Haunter remained in Sam’s shadow, as he usually did nowadays. He was there more often than he was in his Pokéball. Quilava was returned, however, resting after spending all morning walking alongside Sam to reach these ruins. That just left Mankey, who Sam reluctantly sent out alongside Teddiursa. Redi didn’t want a knowledgeable researcher noticing Porygon, after all.

Mankey immediately glared at Teddiursa, and Teddiursa interlaced his claws to crack his knuckles. Both Pokémon took one step towards one another before Sam cleared his throat.

“You two will make sure to be on your best behavior, right?” Sam said, almost accusingly. “You know that all kinds of weird Pokémon lurk here, and you’ll help to ward them off, right?”

Mankey stopped, turning on a heel and bringing a hand up to salute. Teddiursa, however, merely scoffed and crossed his arms.

“Teddiursa...” Redi threatened.

Her Pokémon winced and nodded much more enthusiastically after that.

“Good. We need you in the best shape possible. The Pokémon here are weird,” Sam said.

He could already see one. Perched on a nearby stack of bricks, a green bird the size of Sam’s hand—a Natu—stared directly at the sun.

Sam saw others as they began to walk through. Geodude curled up into stones on the ground, but their dark colors stood out from the light stone of the buildings. Rarely, a Smeargle peeked out from behind a fallen wall. The art-driven Pokémon were likely tourists, searching for ancient carvings in hopes of inspiration.

Depictions of Unown were common. Most walls had at least one unintelligible line of letters. Sam and everyone else passed by buildings with wide openings that served as entrances. Occasionally, another human stood nearby, either a researcher analyzing a line of carvings or a tourist just looking around. Not every building was accessible or empty. Redi moved to the front of the group, peered into a few of them, and found an empty one that seemed safe enough before heading straight in.

Mankey and Teddiursa waited outside, standing on guard. Even if this place was open to tourists, it didn’t make sense to risk any aggressive wild Pokémon following them in.

The doorway was tall enough to light up the room with natural light, and four ancient pillars still somehow supported the building’s cracked ceiling. There was a brazier in the back—lit by either human or Pokémon—that illuminated the dark spaces in the back. On the wall above it, yet another carving. For once, it wasn’t an Unown.

“Look at this,” Redi said, moving closer and tilting her head to better take the carving in. “It’s like a puzzle. Someone arranged the tiles to make some sort of weird Pokémon.”

The displayed species reminded Sam of a Scyther in that it had scythes for hands and stood on two legs. However, it lacked wings, and its head was armored and flat.

Something about the carving of the Pokémon was familiar to Sam, and he quickly took out the New Pokédex to skim through. Its presence threatened to make him think about his grandfather’s history once more, but he forced himself not to.

Thankfully, searching through it was a good distraction, and he remembered it well enough to find the correct page.

“Here. I knew I’ve seen it before,” Sam said, holding the book up to let Redi see. “It’s a Kabutops. A fossil Pokémon. Am I the only one that thinks it's weird that it’s carved here?”

“No, no. That is really weird. If it's a fossil Pokémon, how long ago did it exist?” she asked.

“...Few million years.”

"There’s no way this place is that old, right?” Redi asked.

“No. The ruins are dated to be a few thousand,” Sam answered again.

“Huh.”

“Huh, indeed.”

The dates didn’t make sense. Ancient people didn’t have the same level of technology as modern researchers did now. Sam was pretty sure whoever made the Ruins of Alph couldn’t have possibly known what an ancient Pokémon like Kabutops looked like. At most, they should have only ever seen its skeleton.

As he glanced between the two drawings, Redi hummed and looked around the room. Her eyes flicked to the brazier, then to the walls, then to the pillars, and then finally settled on something in the corner.

“What if an Unown did it?” she said, suddenly keeping her voice low. “What if a few thousand years ago, they linked up like Dr. Spencer talked about and caused a few Kabutops to appear?”

“What brought that thought on?” Sam asked, whispering and following Redi’s lead.

Redi silently pointed to the corner, and Sam followed her finger to see a Pokémon peeking out of a thin gap in the wall.

It was tiny, just a bit bigger than Sam’s hand overall. Hovering an inch above the floor, its body was black and curved, with a single eye staring out and watching where Mankey and Teddiursa stood guard.

It was wary of them, but the two Pokémon hadn’t noticed it. They were too busy making themselves obvious to serve as a warning to anything that might want to head in.

“Look where it came from,” Redi said, still whispering. “There’s a crack in the wall. Looks like the edge of a door. I think the brazier was purposefully placed to make the pillar’s shadow hide it.”

The brazier was old—not as old as the rest of the ruins, but it definitely hadn’t been moved in decades. When he looked at Redi, he could see the greed growing in her eyes. Likely, she was thinking of hidden treasures contained behind that wall. However, when he glanced back to the Unown, the tiny Pokémon was staring right at him.

It clearly was about to run. Redi held her hands up and crouched, shrinking herself to try to be less of a threat.

“Don’t worry! We won’t hurt you!” she said, trying and failing to keep her voice soft.

At the sound of her words, the Unown squeaked and squeezed back through the gap. It disappeared into the darkness of the other side.

“Wait!” Redi shouted.

She chased after it. The secret door was heavy stone, but since it was already open, Redi was able to slip right in. Sam had to squeeze to follow her, but he was able to make it in after her with both Teddiursa and Mankey yelling and chasing after them.

He emerged into darkness that refused to let him see even an inch. The only points of light were two red eyes in his shadow.

“Can you use Hex, Haunter?” Sam asked.

Purple flames drifted upwards and illuminated a stone hallway with their dim light. Ahead, Redi whispered a thanks and no longer needed to struggle to pull out her flashlight. Its beam revealed that not too far ahead, the floor sloped downwards several feet before leveling out into a brick tunnel underground.

“I’ve read about this,” Sam said. “There’s a tunnel system beneath the Ruins of Alph. Entrances to it are all over the place, but people get lost in it all the time.”

“And the Unown is gone, too. Ugh! We might have been able to get it to lead us to treasure. Wouldn’t that have been cool?”

Sam sent her a flat look. Redi snorted in reply.

“Come on, Sam! We’re in ancient ruins! Where’s your sense of adventure? Secret entrances, secret tunnels, so that means there has to be secret treasure here, too!”

She paused, blinking.

“Or, you know, maybe something about Hisuian Typhlosion?” she offered.

Sam rolled his eyes, annoyed that she was right yet again. Somehow, Redi always knew the best way to convince him—either for better or for worse. Besides, she had a point that it wouldn't hurt to search the immediate area. As long as they didn’t go too deep in, a quick trip in and out meant they wouldn’t lose track of their position and the entrance.

However, as Sam started to search for his own flashlight in his backpack, he heard a grunt from behind him. Turning around, he saw Teddiursa rubbing an arm and sending Mankey a sour look.

Mankey seemed annoyed as well—likely, he disliked how they had both missed the Unown. By smacking Teddiursa, he was trying to firmly place the blame onto Teddiursa’s shoulders rather than his own. Teddiursa growled slightly as Mankey said his name a few times as if to chide.

Steam left Mankey’s pig-like snout. He lunged, eyes red with rage.

“Hold on—!”

Sam’s shout came too late. Mankey’s anger got the best of him as he jumped Teddiursa, bringing the pair into a wrestling match on the floor.

They were at least not using any attacking moves, but it wasn’t like Sam could physically stop a pair of fighting Pokémon. Redi shouted at them to break apart, but they didn’t hear her. The sound of their voices muffled all noise due to echoes.

Sam would have been more worried if he had remembered why they had tied in their match this morning. Both Pokémon had figured out a new move that let them land stronger attacks. Mankey’s Curse could increase his strength, and Teddiursa’s Focus Energy could help him land critical hits. While not a real fight, the violent tussle was more than it usually was. The pair ended up throwing themselves into that barely open door.

Redi shouted, realizing what was about to happen before Sam could. Both Pokémon stopped after a loud thunk, clutching forming bumps on their heads as something clicked behind them.

“Oh, you two!” Redi shouted, more than just annoyed.

She ran towards the door, trying to pull it back, but that thunk had made it smooth with the wall. She had no way to get the leverage to open it once more.

Sam quickly approached as well.

“Haunter, can you push from the other side?” he asked hurriedly as Redi scratched at the stone.

Haunter left his shadow, nodded, and phased through the stone. Though Sam couldn’t see his efforts, he knew Haunter was helping. Unfortunately, the secret door didn’t budge even an inch.

Sam took a step back. Redi’s hands dropped as she stared at the featureless stone walls. A bit of tapping, and no secret buttons were revealed. They had no way to go back out.

Breathing, Sam let a hand run down over his face. Next to him, Redi looked like she was in pain.

“Good job, you two,” Sam said with a sigh, still staring at the wall. “Your rivalry locked us in.”

The apologetic noises Mankey and Teddiursa made didn’t matter. They had been trapped within the tunnel and had to find an alternative way out if they wanted to escape.