Peaked Interest

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Finally the duo had emerged from the tunnels that formed the Black Spiral Staircase again, the sunlight shining on them once more. Or rather it would have, would they not be standing on the Dark Void Peak now, the sky completely black for no discernible reason.
At least there weren't any feral Pokémon to be expected anymore, as William wasn't sure for how long Sova would be able to hold on. He certainly didn't look all that well. And still the Ghost type had no idea what it may be that was causing this in the Normal type.
But now that they were here maybe he would quickly realize that nothing of interest was to be found here and finally get on the way back home again. This had been quite the boring and disconcerting intermission thus far.

"Oh, but I could put you on top of a mountain too steep to climb to prevent you from ever getting into trouble in the first place. Then I would have time to do other things."
This Eevee sure was strange. His reckless, danger-defying nature would certainly be the cause for many a problem, but on the other hand it probably had been a deciding factor in not making him run away from the Poison type in terror. William was unsure whether he liked this quality in the Eevee or not. But there was not much of a choice he had in the matter. The Eevee was just like that and William would have to adapt - whether he would like it or not.

"You could, but then you'd have to worry constantly about me trying to get down anyways, because I'm me. You'd also have to keep me alive somehow and keep me company to keep me sane. So, would you really have time for other things?" Sova thought for sure he had the gengar cornered this time. He was sure there was no way he could lose this hypothetical scenario debate. While to most it wouldn't be a big deal, he hoped for any way to show William he wasn't a complete idiot. Perhaps if he tried to have witty responses to things it would help.

"Good point. I could just wall you in though and occassionally drop in some food and water. Insane the both of us are already, are we not?". Now this was interesting. Few Pokémon got this invested in hypothetical scenarios as most preferred to stop thinking about anything that would require a debate or any other situation that would include differing opinions.
But maybe Sova was actually believing that William might do something like this and was trying to argue to be spared of such a fate. Maybe.
In any case - right now there was a mountain they had to descend from. Whatever it was that had been causing those hallucinations seemed to have really gotten to Sova, so waiting would most likely only make it worse.

Sova never really considered himself insane, but he certainly knew he wasn't normal. The thought of meeting the requirements of insanity intrigued him, though. "Well, everyone's at least a little crazy. But I guess we are pretty odd." He said, a bit more serious than before. He didn't take offense to it, especially since the gengar was calling both of them crazy, but the topic was interesting enough to him for him to think about it seriously for a moment.

Fading out of his happy state of mind to consider this for just a second was all that needed. He could feel the hazy feeling returning. He had been doing a good job of keeping calm until then, but it was coming on so fast this time. After all, he had been up there for a while, the effect of the hallucinogen was bound to get worse over team.

All he could think about suddenly was getting off the mountain, but he couldn't seem to focus enough to find the words to say it. His face was pretty neutral for the moment, not showing any signs that he wanted to leave....yet.

"There's odd and there's boring.", the Gengar chuckled.
"Either you have something that makes you different or you're just another part of the masses. I wonder why being different is something that carries such a stigma with itself. Society is one strange thing indeed."
Most Pokémon didn't really understand how society worked and for William, who had spent such a long amount of time away from any civilization alone in the forest comprehending the strange traditions was even more difficult. Most of them were rooted in ancient gestures and superstitions that had no basis in reality anymore and were thoroughly obsolete, yet they were being carried out anyway. Why?

Sova was barely even paying attention any more. The hallucinated voice was quickly returning and he was having trouble focusing already. "Uh-huh...." Was all he could think to say. Even then he sounded trance-like while speaking. He still wanted to leave the area, but couldn't focus enough to figure out a good way to say it. Or any way to say it.

Then he thought of something. He could probably ignore the voice, but the image he saw earlier wasn't something he could just ignore. So he hanged his head and looked at the ground. Until he could focus again, he didn't want to look up and risk letting the hallucination get to him. Though it probably looked like he was just looking at the ground for no reason.

"You okay there?", the Gengar inquired.
"You have been getting significantly less verbose. And I don't think the ground here is that different from the one in Grassveil. Come on, we should start going back. You can stare at the ground all you want there."
With all this joking and debating the duo seemed to have lost sight of the reason they were getting away from the summit in the first place. For whatever reason it was causing strange hallucinations in Sova and now they were getting worse again. Hopefully they hadn't caused any permanent damage yet.

"Mhm" was all Sova could think to say. He didn't think to clarify what he was agreeing to, but it was to get off the mountain. He began walking almost immediately, then remembered he couldn't look up to check where to go and stopped. "You lead." He requested of the gengar, hoping to not have to look up until the effects of what ever was on the peak left him.

Look up, look at me. Please, Sova. The voice began insisting for him to look up, and he felt like he was actually disobeying his mother by not looking. It was starting to get to him already. Why did his mind want to play such torturous tricks on him?

The Eevee was getting less and less verbose by the minute. They really needed to get away from here.
Quickly the Gengar floated down the mountain again, this time keeping watch on the Eevee to make sure he wouldn't trip, stumble or fall in the dazed state he was in.
Why hadn't there been any warnings about the peak of the mountain? Had noone ever managed to return from there? Was it only Sova who was affected? All these questions were flying around in William's head. He would have to read about the mountain once they got back.
For now however he would have to take care of Sova as it was obvious that the Normal type was incapable of thinking clearly right now.

Sova made his way carefully down the mountain, not yet feeling the hallucinations subsiding in the slightest. In fact, they were still getting worse. As his mental stability decreased and his mood got worse and worse, the hallucinations got worse, no longer just harmless urging. Now it was more demanding. Look! Look at me!

He knew what he would see if he looked away from the ground now. His mind would create a trick that would make him miserable. Just the audial hallucinations were bad enough. So bad, his eyes began to tear up. He didn't even realize it at first, but once he did, it was just more of a reason to keep his head down. That way William wouldn't see.

Well, at least Sova was looking at the ground. That way he would see the best places to step to avoid falling. Hopefully those hallucinations wouldn't show him safe places to stand that were quite unstable in reality. At least they were making progress at reasonable speed. Maybe the Pokémon back at Grassveil would know how to treat this condition if it wouldn't subside naturally.
William certainly didn't know what else to do about it.
And as he kept floating, there was something he began to wonder about.
What exactly was the Eevee hallucinating? What did it feel like?
And he almost began to feel a bit bad that he would most likely never get to experience that sensation.

Sova thought about stopping and covering his ears, wondering if that would even work on something that he wasn't actually physically hearing. Blocking out actual sounds would probably just make the hallucinated voice more prominent, though. Look at me....Don't you love me!? Just as he began lifting his head to finally give in to the voice, it stopped. For a moment, there was no voice. Maybe the hallucinogenic effect had worn off?

Then the voice came back. Look! The voice was the loudest he'd heard it, which, coupled with the sudden delay, surprised him enough to make him jump up and look around. He turned around to see a similar hallucination to before, a leafeon. But this time, something was different. Its eyes were a dark red. Its entire body had a black tint to it. It looked terrifying....at least, about as terrifying as a leafeon can look. The worst part was that it had a hateful glare on its face.

The hallucination was only a few feet in front of him, sitting. As it stood and began approaching him he found himself backing away out of fear. He didn't even notice that he was now moving backwards downhill on the mountain, which was obviously very dangerous. The reminder that the hallucinations weren't real suddenly slipped away from his mind. He looked around for William, but noticed the entire area seemed to be shrouded in shadows. He could barely even recognize that he was on the mountain any more, and his ally was somewhere shrouded in the hallucinated darkness.

Of course. Of course they couldn't just get away from this place peacefully. No, Sova had to get himself into some more trouble first. The Ghost type had no idea what the Eevee was seeing, but if his stumbling around was any indication he would fall pretty soon. And while the images his mind was showing him were incapable of inflicting damage, the steep cliffs around certainly were capable of that.
Once more William found himself grateful for his spectral body. But then again this meant that he would now have to get this ball of fur out of here.
Swooping down the Gengar was attempting to grab the Eevee, using Hypnosis to keep the Normal type from injuring either one of them.

Despite Sova's eyes being locked on the hallucinated terror before him, something appeared in his peripheral vision. He turned to see William. Or at least normally he would have seen William, but the hallucinogenic had warped his perception of the gengar into a menacing black specter. Normally, he would have been affected by the hypnosis, but he couldn't even see the actual environment at the moment, which meant he couldn't see the hypnosis to process it.

The menacing creature slightly resembling a gengar in shape charged towards him, attempting to do what he assumed was attack. He ran in a random direction, which happened to be down the mountain, in an attempt to get away from the specter. Normally he wouldn't have been able to run nearly fast enough to get away, but for some reason he moved much, MUCH faster than normal. Under the extreme pressure, he had learned Quick Attack.

Then he stopped. The voice had chimed in yet again, with the evil looking hallucinated leafeon fading into view in front of him. Why are you running!? You weakling, coward! Normally those words would hit him hard, but coming from the voice of his own mother, he felt he had no choice but to turn and fight. He darted back at what he had established to be an enemy with his newly gained Quick Attack, expecting to make contact.

So for some incomprehensible reason the Hypnosis had not worked.
Instead the Eevee was now running away madly, without any clear goal apparent to the Gengar.
One thing was for certain though - chase was to be given.
But somehow the Normal type Pokémon was much faster than usual, making it more difficult to keep up, even when levitating. And then something even more unexpected happened. All of a sudden the Eevee turned around and - without warning - jumped straight at the Poison type.
Actually it was more a jumping through than a jumping at, considering that William still was a Ghost type, no matter what Sova was hallucinating.
Thoroughly surprised it took William a while before he managed to regain his composure and, sighing, kept on chasing the Eevee.