Unexpectedly, even to Gardevoir, the telepathic link came with an overwhelming wave of imagery.
Eric, Cynthia and Gardevoir, all of them were taken aback as they were pulled into Haunter's memory.
---
Decades ago.
The manor was not a place of horror, but a place of booming, chaotic warmth.
The Master of the estate was a mountain of a man. He had a booming laugh that filled the air, a thick beard, and a custom-tailored coat. He was a collector of rare things, an eccentric who made poor financial decisions just because a particular vase or painting caught his eye.
He was not a cruel man. He was simply a man too large, too fiercely vibrant, for the quiet things in life to reach him easily.
CRASH.
"Ah! My apologies, Jeeves! Put it on my tab!" the Master's voice boomed through the hallway as a priceless ceramic urn tipped off a pedestal.
Before the shards could even settle, an elderly, immaculately dressed butler stepped out from the parlour, a dustpan already in hand. He neither sighed nor complained. He just offered a perfectly polite nod.
"As you wish, sir."
The butler was the absolute anchor to his master's chaos. He was the quiet, invisible force that kept the sprawling household from completely falling apart, forever walking a few steps behind to catch whatever the Master knocked over.
Then there was Haunter.
Nobody knew where the ghost had come from. One particularly stormy evening, it had simply drifted through the walls, seeking shelter from the cold. It looked a little nervous when it did so.
The Master, who was sitting in his grand library with a glass of brandy, looked up from his book as he saw the purple ghost hovering nervously in the corner.
Now, if a normal person saw a Pokémon barge into their house, they would try to either drive it away or capture it.
The master just smiled warmly, patted the empty armchair across from him, and set a small bowl of sweet Poffins on the mahogany table.
"Take a seat, friend. The wind sounds terrible tonight."
Haunter didn't move at first. Neither did the master force it, as he just went back to his book. This went on for a few minutes till finally Haunter let go of its hesitation and floated onto the armchair, eating the Poffins.
For hours, the two sat in the quiet library. No words were exchanged, but they still enjoyed the company.
In the end, Haunter didn't go back and stayed in the chateau. The master didn't tell it to leave either.
It was never officially caught. It had simply become a part of the house. And as Eric watched the memory play out, he realized it was entirely unclear which of the two - the lonely, wandering ghost or the overly loud, eccentric man - needed the other more.
But the Master was a busy man. His life was a whirlwind of guests, business deals, and grand banquets.
He had a daughter.
She was a tiny, incredibly curious, and entirely fearless little girl. The Master loved her enormously, but he didn't know how to show it. His wife had passed away some time ago, and to withstand the grief he kept himself busy. But in doing so, he ended up neglecting his daughter.
The girl grew up in the margins of her own home.
While her father held court downstairs, his booming laugh echoing through the halls, she wandered the sprawling, empty corridors of the upper floors.
It was there she found Haunter.
The massive ghost didn't try to frighten her. It didn't perform tricks to make her laugh. It simply floated beside her and gave her company when she hid from the overwhelming noise of the parties happening below.
She was lonely in the very specific, suffocating way that children in massive houses are lonely: surrounded by absolutely everything, except the right kind of attention.
To her, Haunter was exactly what she needed. A presence that asked nothing of her. An entity that was simply there.
But the one who truly raised her, in the practical sense, was the butler.
The memory shifted. Eric saw the butler sitting by the girl's bed, reading her a storybook by the light of a small Chinchou-shaped lamp. He saw the butler quietly preparing her a small, perfectly plated dinner when the Master inevitably forgot to come upstairs.
She loved the butler. And the butler loved the Master. It was one long, quiet chain of absolute devotion that nobody in the sprawling manor ever said out loud.
And tragically, they were always just missing each other. Eric watched as the butler walked out of the kitchen with a fresh plate of cookies, only for the little girl to run out the opposite door toward the gardens. While there was loneliness, things were also peaceful - until tragedy struck.
The Master fell ill.
It was a slow, agonizing decline. The booming laughs became violent, chest-rattling coughs. He hid it terribly, wiping blood from his lips with a silk handkerchief when he thought no one was looking.
The butler knew. Haunter, watching from the ceiling, knew.
But neither of them did anything to show it. To speak of the end was to invite it in.
The Master died slowly, holding onto his vibrant, chaotic life until the very last drop... and then, all at once, he was gone.
The memory fractured violently. The warmth was sucked out of the manor, replaced by a cold, clinical grey.