Pokemon: Lord of Fear

"Overlord?" Edward looked at the tiny Gengar on his shoulder, unable to resist asking.

He knew about Overlords. The League had done some research on Overlord Pokémon, but overall, the exact origins of Overlord Pokémon were still a mystery, yet to be fully unraveled.

Many Pokémon professors in the League were currently researching Overlord Pokémon.

"Mm, this little one, like me, has the aura that instills fear in others. However, she still has some work to do. Being qualified to be an Overlord is different from actually becoming one," Gengar said proudly. It had worked hard to become a reigning Overlord Pokémon.

"Got it. It's like having the Conqueror's Haki doesn't make you a king, it just means you have the potential to become one," Edward understood. This was very similar to the idea of Conqueror's Haki.

"I don't quite get what you're saying, but if you understand, that's all that matters," Gengar gave him a confused look. It didn't understand the reference to Conqueror's Haki, but seeing Edward's expression, it seemed that he understood.

As long as Edward understood.

"Mr. Gengar, aren't you curious why my puppet theater is so scary?" Edward asked with a smile.

Gengar immediately became interested when it heard that. It was indeed curious about why Edward's theater was so frightening. The fear that echoed throughout the theater made Gengar feel a little hungry.

However, that was from before. Right now, what Gengar craved most was the fear cube that Edward made. That thing's flavor was absolutely exquisite.

Gengar regretted eating it so quickly; if it had eaten slower, it could have savored that wonderful taste longer.

"Come on, I'll take you in to experience it," Edward said, leading Gengar into the theater. The old butler had originally planned to follow them, but Edward felt that the butler was too old and decided to let him wait outside.

Edward entered the theater with Gengar, along with four other tourists. The theater could accommodate five visitors at a time.

Edward remained calm throughout; after all, he had set up all the scare tactics himself.

He even knew exactly when the puppets would turn their heads, so there was no part of the show that could scare him.

But the other four tourists were different.

"Oh my God! Those puppets are staring at me!" a girl screamed in a very high pitch. Edward thought she had potential to be a soprano.

"How did you do it?" Gengar asked curiously, lying on Edward's shoulder.

Q, perched on Edward's head, looked at the tourists who were screaming and drooling. The fear energy was just too delicious.

To Gengar, these puppets were just inanimate objects, with no ghost Pokémon manipulating them, but these tourists were terrified, releasing delightful fear energy.

"Mr. Gengar, you should know, fear comes from the unknown," Edward said softly.

This was Edward's understanding of fear.

Movies and TV shows in the Pokémon world, in Edward's view, missed the mark on fear. The biggest issue was that they weren't unknown enough. In most horror films here, Pokémon would appear, often showing up quite obviously.

At first, it might be scary, but after watching them for a while, they became very boring.

After all, it's always just a few ghost-type Pokémon playing tricks, and once you see a Pokémon, the horror movie turns into a sort of trainer movie instead.

So for Edward's films, no Pokémon ever made an appearance.

In this way, the element of the unknown could create an intense fear.

"The unknown?" Gengar became intrigued. It was now quite curious about Edward.

This guy seemed to have a very unique approach to scaring people.

"Exactly."

"Mr. Gengar, look. These puppets never move. There are no ghost Pokémon behind them. Even if the tourists release Pokémon, they won't find any ghost Pokémon around."

"This way, tourists will feel fear. Fear of why these puppets are staring at them."

Gengar leaned in, noticing something interesting. No matter where it stood or from which angle it looked, the puppets were always staring at it.

This gave it a feeling of being watched.

"How interesting," Gengar licked its tongue. How did the puppets' eyes do that?

As they continued through the theater, suddenly, a puppet fell from above, landing in front of the couple at the front.

Edward skillfully covered his ears, and the sharp high-pitched scream of the girl broke the silence in the theater, causing more puppets to fall.

This caused the girl's pitch to climb even higher.

"Is this part of your design?" Gengar floated next to Edward.

"Mm, a small mechanism, but the falling puppets are unrelated to the mechanism," Edward said, casting a strange look at the female tourist. Her voice was truly extraordinary.

Then, under the tourist's high-pitched singing, Edward and the tourists experienced various scenes like puppet interrogations, Mary Shaw puppets chasing them, and more.

By the time Edward, calmly standing on the edge of a broken iron bridge, watched the four tourists scream as they fell and were knocked out by Mary Shaw, the puppet theater experience came to an end.

Mary Shaw, grinning, flew up. When she saw Edward, she waved enthusiastically at him. Then she noticed Gengar on Edward's shoulder and immediately became alert.

"Your theater… the only Pokémon that made an appearance was this Mismagius," Gengar, unconcerned with Mary Shaw's gaze, excitedly shared its discovery with Edward.

"Exactly," Edward nodded, confirming.

Only Mismagius appeared in front of the tourists in the entire theater. All the other ghost Pokémon operated the mechanisms and sound effects behind the scenes.

"People are too familiar with ghost-type Pokémon, so when they appear, they don't feel scared," Edward explained.

His films were the same.

There were no ghost Pokémon, but instead, he used human malevolent spirits, things beyond human understanding and mostly invisible, to instill fear.

This way, the appearance of ghost-type Pokémon wouldn't alter the course of the entire movie.

Edward aimed to create something like Ju-on, but if Uncle Ying appeared in the cast, domestic audiences wouldn't be too scared.

"Unknown, huh?" Gengar thought deeply. This method of scaring people seemed very interesting. And judging by the tourists' screams, it was clear that Edward's idea was very successful.

(End of Chapter)