[Game thread] Skull Ruins Pokerole

[Dragonstrike]

Spoiler

While that glance Ralts gave her was only fleeting at best, it certainly gave Malphena a lot of Insight on the source of his woes, along with the genuine feelings of fear that he extruding like a miserable taffy machine that sorely tempted her to dig right into. He was afraid....no, he was downright tormented by something, and based on what she knew of the breed that her master told her about over his notes (*Bang!* goes the Chevok Gun!) and how such terrible feelings were almost a mirror image of his master.....she KNEW who the culprit was.

And judging by the thoroughly annoyed/miffed expression that took place on the screaming banshee's face, she was very displeased about this.

Doesn't that boy know he was sharing his misery UNDILUTED with his trusted partner, and driving them into despair too as a result?! Her master had said off handily that this 'Nathan' could be a bit insensitive at times, but she didn't expect that quality to manifest in such a offensive way! A trainer's job was to take care of their Pokémon and be with them when they need it, and so to they return the favor, but this display struck her as leaning WAY TO FAR onto his abnormal Ralts as an outlet for his grief! No, no, no , that wasn't right at ALL!

That thought firmly in mind, and figuring that Ralts would continue to be miserable/frightened and ignore any form of interaction with her unless she outright started slinging Ghostly magicks at him, the mischevious spirit decided to solve this issue by going straight to the source of it, te he !

To that end, she dematerialized from the young empath's side by phasing through the floor and leaving him by himself.....

.....and proceeded to jumpscare Nathan by shooting out of the ground and giving him a niiiiiice long and frightening glower while only inches away from his face, a low menacing *Screeeeee* being emitted by her all the while. If he was so wrapped up in his own doubts and worries that he was neglecting almost everyone else and his Ralts most of all, she'd give him something to REALLY get work up over and snap out of it as punishment, hmpt! Which should be VERY effective, seeing as he was COMPLETELY unaware of her existence until now, te he he......

Once he was all shaken up and withdrawned from his misery, she toned down her scary face and instead just fixed him with a irritated glare, before twisting around and directing her sight straight at his Ralts and back to him again, and letting out a displeased *Scree.......* . This should have indicated (to her) in a rather clear way to the boy that A) Ralts was miserable, B) She was displeased about it, to say the least, and C) She decided to scare him to teach him a lesson because.....? Given Nathan was a bright boy, he should be able to connect the dots and figure out what she's getting at. Well, presuming that Ralts didn't immediately try to sleep her with Hypnosis after the jumpscare. In which case, she at least got him out of that funk and to pay attention to the feelings of others!

During this time, Ventus had gone off to retrieve Turiel from wherever she was for the upcoming dig before he recalled her and Raphael (who elected to avoid Nathan and that conflict given his misery was making THEM extremely uncomfortable), making him completely unaware of what had went down.

At least, for now.....

It doesn't get Nathan to react in the way Nathan might have been expecting.

While Nathan was oblivious to Malphena's presence, Ralts was not.  And so, Ralts warns Nathan about what's coming (as they're right next to each other), and instead of being scared from the display, Nathan is closer to...mildly annoyed.

"...I'm very much aware of how Ralts is doing, Malphena...that's just how it is...we're trying to calm down...it's...not easy...no, I don't think there's much you can do to help..."

Swiftfire (who Nathan and Ralts are still mounted on) looks a lot more irritated than Nathan and Ralts do, btw. Probably because of the lack of input from psychic empathy. She doesn't know what Malphena's potential motivation for attempting to scare Nathan is, after all.