The Building of a Legend
The rumors began when the same, strange young woman won all the pokemon tournaments in the same year. The rumors began of a girl who could not lose.
No one could deny that she was hauntingly beautiful. This girl was tall, and slender; ethereal looking. Her hair was dark, and long, reaching past her waist. But through her hair shot three veins of blue, red, and gold, evenly spaced. Her skin was pale, as though it seldom saw the light of day. Her lips were paler still, like shaped crystals of ice, showing just the barest hint of pink. Looking straight at her, the only color in her face was in her eyes. Each one was green as an emerald, green as the forest, green as life itself.
No one really knew anything about her, for she never spoke, not even to give her name. Not even to battle. When she battled, she and her pokemon moved as one, deliberately, and there was no need for shouted commands. No one could even come close to defeating her, and seldom could anyone even scored a direct hit. Her battle style was smooth and calm: both anticipating and reacting to the opponents moves, and making moves of her own. As if in an elegant dance, she and her pokemon controlled the arena.
But her expression was the most puzzling of all. Always when you saw her, she had on her face a most profound air of sorrow and pain, made more bittersweet by a tinge of hope. However, when she won, when she won each battle, she lifted her arm to the eastern sky, and her face changed to include longing, and waiting.
Whenever she took her leave, walking away from the stadium she had conquered, she was swarmed with reporters and fans, clamoring to hear her speak, to know her name. But the girl never said a word; she merely looked at them, with the same sadness in her eyes. And the people looked away; they let her pass, their unanswered questions forgotten in an instant. They let her walk away into the sunset, and disappear until the next tournament.
And, without facts, the rumors began. Many pointed to her strong connection with her pokemon, her ability to merge with them, somehow. "How could she do this?" people asked, and others came up with answers.
Some said she was an android, a puppet controlled by some distant master, who used ultrasonic frequencies to guide his pokemon.
Or was she puppet to her pokemon? An illusion of a trainer created by them, so they could participate in tournaments. Or even a Ditto, assuming the role of someone captured or dead.
Others believed the girl to be a great psychic, communicating telepathically with her pokemon.
Were they right? Were they wrong? No one knew, because that girl's life was shrouded in mystery, cloaked in darkness. No one even knew her name.
And so they called her Shadow.