There was, however, an additional factor making them even more dangerous than Ingo had been led to believe: if they weren’t content with trapping a human in their hallucinatory web and killing them, they would claim that unfortunate individual’s body for themselves.

 

He was made aware of this two months into living among the Pearls when, without fanfare, one of the villagers returned from foraging and turned on a friend. Without quite knowing where the instinct came from, he’d charged in and attempted to separate the pair, assisting Gaeric in holding Marii back while Irida fussed over Kiran.

 

Marii, uncharacteristically furious, refused to calm, thrashing against Gaeric’s chest; reluctantly, Ingo let himself be led away by a touch on the shoulder, and once Irida had gotten him to back off, Gaeric gave a piercing whistle. The warden’s Froslass was there in a matter of seconds, eyes alight with ghostly energy, and without a second’s hesitation, she barreled first through her trainer and the woman in his grasp-- emerging with a Zoroark snapping and writhing against her.

 

Driving it away from the settlement had been difficult at first as, unaffected by Hex, Froslass’s only recourse was to repeatedly use Powder Snow-- but this part, it seemed, Ingo was not only allowed to assist in, but encouraged. Gligar’s move pool didn’t boast any super effective attacks, but the variation helped keep the Zoroark off-balance and unable to predict what would come for it next, and, eventually, it was forced turn tail and flee.

 

His hand automatically drifted to Gligar’s head in thanks, and it anchored itself against his shoulder as he turned to regard those behind him. Gaeric gave him a triumphant thump on the arm-- Irida a small smile. Marii was limp in Kiran’s arms, the latter trembling minutely, and Gaeric hurried his stride to tend to them while Irida took Ingo to the side to explain.

 

He couldn’t claim to have known Marii prior to the event, but she was quiet in the following weeks, jumpy. The clan as a whole seemed wary of her in turn, as if half of them hadn’t witnessed the Zoroark expelled from her body; on top of her learned paranoia, that seemed like salt in the wound.

 

It was with an acute understanding of how the Pearl Clan’s distrust could weigh on a person that Ingo approached her; the poor girl had clearly been through something terrible. She needed support, not to be ostracized by her friends and peers-- and no one else would offer it, he would at least try.

 

Ultimately, Marii rebuffed Ingo’s attempt to help her but, with a troubled look in her eye, she’d taken the time to caution him, as someone at risk of Zoroark attacks. Be wary, act wisely-- and if the worst were to pass, be aware that the act of possession was painless, but the same couldn’t be said of being possessed.

 

So it was a dubious honor to be able to confirm that it was so much worse than she’d described.

 

Ingo could admit that he had become complacent. With a blank mind, there was only so much a Zoroark could use against him-- not nearly enough to craft a compelling illusion-- but, in time, new memories formed, and with them, psychic ammunition.

 

Which was to say nothing of the flame in the dark and his smiling reflection.

 

The exact same way awareness had returned to him, fleeting and ephemeral in the dimness of Wayward Cave, they’d dangled ahead in a building blizzard. In hindsight, he should have suspected; Zoroark didn’t stray far from the Icelands, but were known to chance the boundary between the wastes and Coronet. He’d been distracted, briefly, by the thought that the Pokemon he’d remembered would have been a wonderful ally in such harsh weather, and then… there had been a flicker. A purple mote in the sea of white. It would have been his duty to investigate regardless, but he should have been on his guard, not fantasizing about a Pokemon that may or may not have existed.

 

But he hadn’t. He’d been lured in and set upon.

 

Maybe Marii’s Zoroark had been kinder than his, or maybe she’d simply blocked the moment of possession from her memory, because it hit Ingo like the impact of a Steelix’s Iron Tail, sending him reeling back into a building pile of snow. He wanted to just lay there, to process what had happened, but without his say so, his body sat up and hurried off into the storm, leaving him as little more than an unwilling passenger.

 

There was something deeply wrong with the sensation, and it didn’t lessen as the days crawled by. Ingo wasn’t sure whether he was grateful not to cross paths with another human or if he wished someone might stumble across him, might somehow be able to assist.

 

Unfortunately, the latter came true. As the Zoroark boldly ventured into the Fieldlands, a greeting met its hijacked ears, quickly followed by Akari herself. Like Kiran before her, the girl was blithely unaware of the danger she was in, speaking a mile a minute about her ongoing research into Scyther.

 

Ingo wanted to be sick, but even the involuntary clenching of the stomach was beyond him.

 

The Zoroark didn’t attack. It allowed her to carve a path toward the village, content to maintain the ruse with a hum here and there. Akari seemed confused by the shift in demeanor-- he saw that odd looks she sent his way, but, locked away in a corner of his own being, could do nothing to warn her of the looming peril.

 

Helpless to interfere, he watched on as his body walked with her to the hill where Jubilife Village came into view.

 

Why, he wanted to ask, what was it hoping to accomplish? The language barrier was firm as it always had been, but forced together, he could feel the answering pulse of anguish, of absolute hatred for humanity and the desire to inflict it upon those who’d wronged its kind. He’d been told as much, back when Irida had explained the dangers a Zoroark posed, but it was eye opening to feel it firsthand. It was also… incredibly sad.

 

He might have spent more time with that idea had the Zoroark not chosen that moment to pounce.

 

While she didn’t have a ghost capable of exorcising the beast from his body, her Pokemon were perfectly capable of fighting back against a human; in spite of the Zoroark’s power in its own form, it could channel none of it through its stolen frame and was quickly overwhelmed. One huge Ursaluna paw pinned Ingo’s chest to the ground, and Akari’s face emerged from behind it, demanding to know what it was, what it had done to him.

 

The Zoroark, of course, had no words for her. It growled low in its stolen throat and Akari snarled back at it.

 

With Ursaluna keeping him under control and one hand holding his closest wrist safely away, she reached for one of his pokeballs-- not the first, which she would have known held Gliscor, but the third from the front. She seemed slightly surprised to get Tangrowth, and, deep in the jungle of vines that composed her body, the grass type’s eyes went wide at the scene set before her. She gave a distressed warble, cutting off only as she leaned in in an attempt to pry Ursaluna away from her trainer. Her vines went stiff, telegraphing her uncertainty, and when Akari asked her to carry him to town, she listened without complaint.

 

He would have wondered how wise that actually was, keenly aware of how eager certain Galaxy Team members were to see any abnormality as the whisper of a knife about to be plunged into their back, but it seemed to be more than just a whim.

 

If Ingo hadn’t thought he’d ever be back here, in the cell he’d spent the greater portion of two weeks occupying, then he certainly wouldn’t have considered an eventuality in which he’d be happy to be back, but there he was. Absent another ghost, this was the best he could have hoped for-- to be secured somewhere he couldn’t watch himself turn on another friend, helpless to intervene.

 

The Zoroark was… somewhat less enthusiastic with this turn of events. It responded to questioning the only way it could, in howls and barks, and grudgingly accepted the basic provisions supplied, but its patience dwindled within days.

 

With a sensation not dissimilar to being horrifically ill, it slipped out of his body, lunging toward the bars and slashing at today’s inquisitor, Zisu. Her arms flew to protect her face on instinct, and, likewise-- head swimming, struggling to parse what was going on around himself-- Ingo also leapt into action, tackling the beast to the ground and fighting to keep it there. Overhead, Zisu called to someone, but the words might as well have been another language entirely for all that Ingo understood what she’d said, preoccupied with keeping the threat beneath him neutralized.

 

That didn’t last long. Out of practice in controlling his own limbs, the Zoroark managed to flip the both of them, and Ingo’s back hit the ground-- hard-- as two hundred pounds of ghost pounced on him. Before it could savage him, however, it jolted as if struck from behind, a theory quickly proven by the pokeball that dropped onto him in its place. Hastily, he sat up, putting distance between himself and the bucking pokeball, just in case it broke free, but with a celebratory pop, the capsule locked shut, leaving the cell to lapse into a bewildered silence.

 

“Well, that explains a lot,” Zisu finally said, an uncertain chuckle cutting into the tension, “You, uh, you okay over there, warden?”

 

Aware of how badly he was shaking, Ingo inclined his head. His answering “Thank you, Miss Zisu,” came out far, far quieter than he’d known he was capable of.

 

“Of course,” She said, and, with a hard look at the cell, stepped closer, a hand dropping to her satchel. “Come on, now. After that show, I think we can get you out on good behavior.”