Chapter Two: Ghosts, Dragons, and Letters

As I got older, my parents grew more concerned. They kept telling me that Agni and Saras, my best friends, were imaginary and that they didn't exist. I kept denying it. One time I had pointed right to my friends and screamed at my parents that they were there and that they were blind if they couldn't see them. I got grounded for that one. At the time, I didn't care though. If my parents were so ignorant to their existence, so be it. I knew they were there, and that was all that mattered to me. Agni was happy I defended him, but Saras wasn't so sure I should be. She asked why I even bothered defending someone who doesn't seem to exist. The only response I had was the whole "you're my friend" bit. Cheesy, I know, but I couldn't think of a better answer.

When I was ten, my family and I went to my grandfather's funeral. He apparently died from a heart attack at the age of seventy-five. I had never met him, as we had never went to Japan. When we arrived, I saw many people dressed in black, but there was one man who wasn't. He was dressed in a gray suit, and he looked longingly at the rest of the weeping crowd. However, he didn't attempt to become part of the group of people near him. I wanted to ask Mother and Father why that man was standing away from the crowd, but I remembered that my parents had told me to be quiet in respect. So I said nothing. Father took me up to the casket, where my grandfather was laying. He told me that he wished that he had taken me to see him, as he had been a kind person when he was still alive. I looked into the casket and leaped back in fright. It wasn't because I had just seen a dead body or that it was too much to look at.

The person lying in the casket was that man in the gray suit.

Father took me away from the casket after that. He thought that it had been too much for me to see him like that, and that I was just shaken because he was dead. He didn't know the truth. The funeral proceeded on, with the man - no, my grandfather - watching on silently in the back. I wanted so badly to hug him, to tell him that I was his granddaughter and that I wish I knew him. I didn't, though, because I knew if I did my parents would think I was even more crazy than they already thought.

As soon as we got home, I had a mission. I had to know if what I was starting to believe was true. Eventually, I found what I was looking for: a news article dated a day after the day of my birth. It said how I had been born to my parents, and later in the article it said that two additional children had been born, and that they had been born dead. They were given names, names that I recognized.

Agni Singh and Saraswati Kaur. It all made sense now. I finally understood why I could see Agni and Saras and nobody else could. It was because they were dead. They had been dead all along, and I never even noticed. I could see ghosts.

If that wasn't scarier than my shadows, I don't know what is.

Speaking of those shadows, I hadn't had an incident involving them since the day I found out Akira wasn't coming back. When I was alone, I tried to summon and control them. At first, they didn't even show, and when they did, the shadows would go their own ways, as if they had minds of their own. I remember being so frustrated that I was cursed with this power and wasn't even able to use it when I wanted to. Eventually, I gained some control over them. I had been so excited the day I had been able to control a tiny shadow among the rest. It may not have been all of the shadow, but it was a step towards total control.

Agni and Saras still stayed with me, even though we all knew that they were dead and that I was the only one who could see them. I think maybe that's the reason they stayed with me. At least if I died now, I wouldn't be alone in the afterlife.

I was twelve, and it was the first day of school, a "day like any other" as some people might say. I was walking home, carrying Arceus Myths: Creation Myths Around the World by my side. I had always been a mythology nut since I learned I was Giratina's reincarnation. It also helped that Mother was into mythology as well. We always were reading many different myths from many different cultures. Some of the best ones were the events of the Trojan War, the epic about Gilgamesh, and the birth of Entei, Raikou, and Suicune, among many others.

I wasn't paying much attention when I almost slammed face-first into a bulky boy about two or three years older than me. I recognized him real quick, and I found myself dreading what would happen. Rama Patil, your typical school jock, and a real jerk and bully at that. He wasn't exactly very princely like his namesake was. Princely...is that even a word? Never mind. I backed slowly away from him, turning as I did so. Suddenly, two guys almost as big as Rama himself slunk towards me. Nikhil and Karna, aka his top henchmen. Crap.

"Well well, what do we have here?" Rama asked, feigning confusion. "Do we have a lost Pokémon wandering the streets?"

I gritted my teeth. I tried not to let it show that his taunts bothered me, especially that one, but right now I wasn't doing a good job of hiding it. His cronies laughed at my reaction, and Rama grinned. I knew they had me cornered, and with a sinking feeling in my chest I knew I had no way to stop them. If it had been only one of them, my partial control over the shadows may have bought me enough time to escape, but there was three of them. Again, why me? Nikhil shoved me at Karna, who grabbed me as I flailed to maintain my balance. I screamed, hoping someone would hear me. Deep down, I knew no one probably would. I took backstreets and alleys to get home as I hated the way people looked at me. Fear took hold of me as Rama approached, that stupid cocky grin on his face. Why couldn't they just leave me alone? I wanted nothing to do with them. I wanted free!

Suddenly, the world turned black and white. Karna's arms closed on nothing but air, passing through me. What is going on? Nikhil looked just as confused as Karna did. Rama, on the other hand, was livid that his prey had seemingly escaped. He was swearing up a storm, his face growing angrier and angrier by the second. I walked behind Rama, a smirk on my face. Maybe I could make some use of this...new ability. I knew it wouldn't do anything, but I decided to throw a punch at Rama. The world regained its color as my fist connected with Rama's side. He grunted, surprised by the sudden attack. Karna and Nikhil stared at me, eyes wide in shock, as if I had just appeared right in front of them like a ghost. How ironic. I tried again, and found with ecstasy that changing into a shadow was much easier to control than the shadows themselves. I moved around to Karna's side and tackled him head-on. Sure, I was small, and he was a big guy, but I had the advantage of surprise. He fell to the ground under me, hitting his head and losing consciousness. Guess Karna got his karma.

"Get her!" Rama screamed at Nikhil, who had a look of terror on his face. He was scared. Of me. That was certainly a first. The predator and the prey had switched roles. I was now the predator. Turning back into a shadow, I walked straight up to Rama. He would probably expect me to come from the sides, so a frontal attack would probably startle him more. As my fist collided into his jaw, I knew I had been right.

I could hear footsteps approaching. Panicking, I turned back into a shadow, praying that whoever showed up wouldn't see me there. It was a stupid fear, as I knew from the three bullies that I couldn't be seen, but fear is a powerful force to be reckoned with. Two men in black came running towards them. "What happened here?" one of them asked the boys.

"This girl just turned invisible and attacked us!" Rama replied, acting as if he was terrified. Or maybe he was actually terrified. The other man was on his cell phone, probably calling the police or an ambulance, possibly both. I turned and jogged away; I wasn't willing to stick around and see what happened. Hopefully they didn't hear me. As long as they couldn't see me, however, they wouldn't be able to follow.

I was out of breath when I got home. It made no sense why I was so exhausted. The world returned back to its normal color without me mentally commanding my body to change back to normal. It must be that I can only do so much as a shadow, and that if I did too much that I wouldn't be able to continue as a shadow. Kind of like a cooldown of sorts. It made sense.

My father was furious when he heard what had happened. Apparently they had told the men that it was me who retaliated against them, because it was all through the local news. Rama and Karna were in the hospital recovering from the fight. I wouldn't be allowed back in school again, and Mother would homeschool me. There was no way that Father was allowing another incident to occur again. My parents knew we would have to move; there was no way our neighbors would let us continue to stay here, not with me being a "vicious feral-child" as some put it. So, we packed our stuff; we would be heading to Father's hometown, Nara. I was sad that we were moving, but the thrill of having finally got revenge against Rama and his cronies made me too happy to care. Don't get me wrong, I'm usually a caring person, as many people somewhat knew, but it felt so good to get my say in how Rama treated everyone. I could only hope that I had taught those three a lesson and that they wouldn't hurt anybody anymore.

Three years passed peacefully in Nara. Nothing out of the ordinary happened, well, at least nothing that was as crazy as my last encounter with Rama was. I don't know what happened to them after that. I didn't have any friends at my last school who would have told me what they have been up to. I just hope they've changed for the better. Homeschooling wasn't as bad as I thought it would be; it turned out that Mother was an excellent teacher. Agni and Saras came with me to Japan. After all, they've been with me since we were literally born, if they truly were born at the same time as I was, which I didn't doubt. They kept me company when I wasn't being taught and were happy to be with me. Saras in particular loved the atmosphere in Japan.

We had went out shopping for my birthday. I was going to be sixteen in a week, and I was allowed to choose one thing to get; the rest was already bought and awaiting the day I would be sixteen. As we went through shops, I found myself drawn to a vendor who was selling jewelry. Looking at each piece of jewelry, I stopped when I noticed a pair of earrings. They were shaped like teardrops and dangled on wires shaped like hooks. The earring itself was gold with a black gem as the large part of the teardrop. I knew then that was exactly what I wanted. My parents purchased the earrings and gave them to me. As we walked, I took the earrings I was wearing out and put my new ones in. I wished I had a mirror to see them, but that would have to wait.

I glanced behind me and noticed a man following us. For some reason, it creeped me out. Maybe he just was going somewhere and we just happened to be going in a similar direction? No, I knew otherwise. It was just too much of a coincidence. "Father?" I asked tentatively.

"Yes, dear?" he asked. I could tell he hadn't noticed the man and that he had no idea what I was about to ask.

"Can we head back home now? I'm feeling a bit tired," I replied, faking a yawn. As I was doing so, it turned into a real yawn. I hadn't realized how tired I was.

"Alright, then," he said. "You sure? We were going to take you out to eat tonight."

"I'm sure, Father," I answered. The last thing I wanted was to be away from home with someone potentially tailing us. We drove home, and the man hadn't followed. I guess maybe I had been more paranoid that I thought. Oh well.

The next day, a letter arrived addressed to me. I opened it up, unsure what it was about. It wasn't like I had been applying to college or anything, and I didn't recognize the address. It was from a school called The Academy for Gifted Trainers, which left me completely confused. I wasn't a Trainer. The only Pokémon I had been around were either wild or Miya, our Purrloin who had ran off several years ago shortly after Akira left. I continued to read the letter anyway. It was asking me to attend, and that they could protect me and help me develop my powers.

Wait, how did they know about those? I wondered. I hadn't used my powers in public since that day all those years ago. I had made sure of it. Had someone seen it and waited until now to tell me to come? Whatever the reason was, in front of me was the letter that could possibly change my life for the better. If I could control my powers, I wouldn't have another incident that would cause people to fear me and leave me alone. There would be no more Akiras or Ramas.

That decided it. I was going as soon as possible.

Another chapter so soon? I must be crazy...or motivated. Or crazy with motivation. This is not going to be a normal occurrence, trust me. I am the queen (self-proclaimed) of procrastination, after all.

Thank you dthughes19 for following this story! I hope you've enjoyed it so far!

There are many references to real-life things in here, but I'll only mention two I don't think many people may know. I'm sorry if I'm insulting people's intelligence, because I didn't know these:

-Ramayana is an ancient Indian epic poem that "narrates the life of Rama, the legendary prince of Kosala Kingdom, his banishment . . . by his father . . . his travels across forests in India" and much more and "Rama's eventual return to Ayodhya to be crowned king." That's from Wikipedia though so it may not be completely accurate, as I've never read it.

-The book referenced is actually called Primal Myths: Creation Myths Around the World by Barbara C. Sproul. Yes, it's a real book. No, I have not read it. Would I if I had it? Yes.

Do I own the rights to these referenced materials? No. I also don't own Pokémon, of course.

Also, yet again, if you haven't read Spirits by Clarified Conundrum, go read it! Seriously, do it! Now!

Shameless advertising aside, I hope you have enjoyed it so far! If you liked it or you see some improvements I could make or just want to say hi, please leave a review! Seeing reviews gives me motivation to keep going! And motivation equals more story! Well, maybe. Once I get to the point of Spirits, it'll be more based on updates on that story.