One

- - -

The wind blew gently over the low valley slope, eddying round the higher slants of Cloudspin Mountain and stirring the grass in its wake. The breeze gently lifted the short summer coat of the large mountain mareep lamb. Maelstrom had woken up to find the other lambs mercifully gone playing elsewhere.

He stood alone in the morning sunshine. He didn't like being alone. Seeing a small butterfree flittering over the wildflowers, the ramling reared and charged towards it. Maybe it wouldn't mind playing lamb games.

The butterfree chittered and easily dodged him, then resumed gathering nectar.

Not much of a ram, are you? Can't even make a butterfree flinch! thought Maelstrom. He pawed his hoof over the grass, then ran after it again, against the advice of his flock elders which always said not to taunt butterfree.

The butterfree released a small cloud in Maelstrom's face and fluttered off over the sloping field. Maelstrom thought he heard it laughing as his nostrils drew in the poisonous powder, and as he inhaled it he was inflamed with an aggressive lust for battling. He sneezed the seeds off a woldflower gone to seed. Clumsiness set into his muscles as the powder took effect. He growled and prepared to run headlong after that butterfree--

"Hey Snorlax!"

Maelstrom recognised the voice of the other lamb through the red mist of confusion. He looked behind him along his furred flank, and then the mareep, always large for his age, saw the lambs coming. They found you after all.

"Moonbeam snorlax," said another of the ramlings approaching him. "Too big AND evil."

"Hey big butt!" One of the ramlings headbutted Maelstrom in the side. Maelstrom went staggering backwards in the grass, which helped cushion his fall. The lambs laughed as he went down.

Öooooh, now he's mad," taunted the lead lamb as Maelstrom got up and glared at him from his lowered head. He charged the other lamb, who ran and dodged his track. Maelstrom felt someone's head butt him in the rear. He turned round with a growl as they laughed at him.

"Brelanda!" called the lamb that Maelstrom chased. "Moonbeam's scum's after me again!"

Maelstrom's poison-dizzy head spun as he saw the elder ampharos ewe, the eyomah or flock leader, up on the knoll.

Brelanda looked up from grazing at the sound of her name. She surveyed the fields and flock from her vantage point. Cumulus clouds floated above in their paths in the sky. Seeing the lambs taunting Thalenes' lamb again, the elder ewe blinked her lights to Thalenes, who was busily grazing along with most of the ewes.

"They're going at Maelstrom again."

"Mayy bebbee!" Thalenes, easily the largest ewe in the flock, stood right up and bounded down the slope into the more level field. Thalenes knew her lamb didn't like it when she intervened in these issues, but she couldn't bear to see him tormented.

"Ihate you!" Maelstrom reared and bucked at the lambs behind him. Sparks crackled in the air, fizzing over his golden tailbulb. His short wild coat stood on end. Through the butting, scuffling group, despite the heads hitting at him and knocking him down in the dust, Maelstrom saw his mother coming. Her lights were like a beacon. And at the same time came dread. They would tease him even more for this. Why did he always need his mother to rescue him from his own peers?

"We weren't doing nothin! He started it!" cried the lead ram as Thalenes arrived, her tail lashing back and forth.

"Aye, an' yeh weren't doin'nuffin but beatin' on my boiy! May bebbee..." Thalenes reached into the crowd of lambs. Her flippers found her son and started brushing the dirt off him.

"Mama, I'm fine," said Maelstrom as Thalenes held his sides to right him. His four hooves found the ground under him and he saw all the grinning, laughing lambs. He kept his eyes trained on the ground, lest he see the smiles of the other lambs on him. But his wide vision still caught their grins.

Thalenes stood tall in the middle of the lambs. "Yew knoow batter behavin' than this! Yuh oughtter be asheeemed. Maalstrom deear, come back tuh the flock weth us." She planted a kiss on the top of his furry head and started back up the slope. Maelstrom flattened his ears and followed. He heard the other lambs laughing at him from off behind him.

- - -

"Yuh must'na let dem lambs get tew yew," Thalenes gently nuzzled Maelstrom and let him nurse on her while she grazed. She was worried for her son's future. If the lambs did not stop treating him this way he might never learn to live normally in a flock. But, she thought, most of it was her fault. She remembered last fall, being captivated by the towering huge black ram named Moonbeam, the one the flock had warned her about. Saying that no son of Moonbeam's would ever be welcome. Thalenes had let her nature get the better of her. And Moonbeam had, in the way of rams, then disappeared, leaving her to raise their son within the ewe flock. He might be gone now, but the others all knew Maelstrom was his son.

Maelstrom took sweet comfort in nursing. He drank his mother's milk dry, then quickly denuded a patch of lush green grass. He kept looking up, now and then, to make sure the other lambs weren't coming over to pick on him about his large appetite, as well as his large body. Mama always reassured him and told him he would be a very big ram, but he hated the curses he had been born with.

"Iwant to go back down the slope soon." Maelstrom felt that he was being punished for having been picked on by having to sit around with the ewes all day.

Thalenes blinked her lights in the pattern that said 'no.' "Is baatter if yuh steeey raight haare weth yer mum fer noow. At least teell tha' buutterfree powder wears off a wee bit...ah done tolja nat tuh chase them, maripu." She stroked the shock of fur that stood straight up on her son's head.

Maelstrom growled and pawed the ground with a hoof. He had some cud to chew, but he wanted to show those lambs he wasn't afraid. As he sat down and chewed, Brelanda came grazing her way over.

The elderly amp smiled at Maelstrom. She knew what might help the lamb at this point. "Who wants to hear a story?"

Maelstrom was laying on his belly, blowing gently at a grass blade in front of his nose. He pawed at it with his hoof. Ï guess."

Brelanda graciously stood up. Her age-spotted yellow flippers spread out in the sun, and she created a small amount of cotton-spore, which floated down around her. Ï now tell the story of Phos and the first light."

Maelstrom lifted his head and turned to look at her. He chewed his cud and listened.

"Before the world was there, an unending darkness shifted around its black center. Nothing could be seen, anywhere, for there was no light. And without the light to warm anything, it was colder than the dead of night in the dead of winter.

"Then, Ko the mother of all, came out from the center of the darkness. Ko the mother of light and lightning charged her denki, and when her current was fully charged, Ko released it in a boom of great thunder. And the blackness lit up, in a flash of light. Then the light flashed out. It grew dark again."

Brelanda crouched and paused, her flippers held out in front of her. Then she jumped up with a spryness belying her age. "Then Ko called forth her denki once again. 'Light! Come!' She boomed lightning. And the light lit the air but then went black once again. And darkness and silence ruled.

Änd now, trying as hard as she could, Ko charged herself up even stronger. Lightning looped out from her shadowy body, in a great big vine of blue-white light. It was lightning alive, and--like it is when you are hit by lightning--all of everything was lit by blue-white light. And nothing was heard but the cracking boom. 'Light! Come!' she cried. The Light stayed alive. And everything was lit, and grew warm and beautiful bathed in the bright white ball that was the First Light. The light started a seed growing. It grew up towards the light and became larger and larger, until it was a giant venusaur, with the head and tail of a Meganium. It was Mother Megga. Mother Megga grew up within one day to become our world. So powerful and new was the First Light in those days, at the beginning of time.

"Mother Megga gave birth to Watakko, the giant jumpluff that is the sky. And at first, Watakko had a problem. She could not catch the wind and soar because she was stuck to Mother Megga. They had to rub together, to discharge static, and this way they became unstuck.

"The discharge of the static created great lightning storms. Bolts of lightning shot out between them. And Watakko got free, and caught the strong winds of the storms, and rode them up high. She floated so high, and stayed there for all time. And electricity is still there between them to this day.

"In that great discharge of electricity, great storms roiled in the sky. Rains fell on the second day, all through that day and they fell so heavily that the sea came to be.

"And on the third day, Mother Megga sat down in the sparkling blue sea to rest. She sank in up almost to her back, and went to sleep.

"Back in the earliest days, when even the hours were few, there was light all of the time. Watakko brought the winds blustering through on her great pods of fluff, riding beneath her great wide blue belly. The wind spirits whooshed in bringing more thunder. Thunder stomped and made the rain fall onto Mother Megga. Lightning flashed as the spirits waved their tails.

"And new pokemon came up out of the plants, up from the soil and the mud as lightning bolts went to ground. The souls of new pokemon rode down to the ground as bolts of lightning.

"And all the creatures were born. They walked on the sacred lands everywhere. They walked a world that was blinking, young, dazzled by the brand new First Light and yet to ever be cursed. The pokemon danced and sang in the paradise that was their birthright, and that they would never know again.

"One pokemon was born in a bad place. He was born deep under Mother Megga and he was called Bangaa. A charcoal-coloured tyrannitar with a skull head like a marowak, taller than the Groudon Bangaa he was.

"And Bangaa heard the other pokemon singing and laughing, but he could not escape his cave prison. He had to dig a long, long time to get out. And by the time he did escape, the digging and rough soil had worn on him, as had the endless darkness beneath the ground. He had become of the essence of the ground and darkness. And he had been languishing in the dark so long that when he finally looked upon the face of the First Light, it nearly blinded him. Bangaa screeched in pain and clutched at his eyes.

"And Bangaa became scared. Using his great strength he climbed up towards the First Light. He was determined and desperate. Then Bangaa grabbed the First Light and ran away with it. Bangaa stole the light."

Brelanda lowered her own lights, which did not produce the same effect as it would have had she been telling the story in the evening, which was when stories were usually told, but any time was a good time for one in her opinion.

"Bangaa ran with the pain moving through him. The Light was carried in his hands. He did not stop until he had run down into the deepest darkest cave, and as he dipped down into the shadows, all the world grew dark.

"Bangaa thought that now the Light could never hurt him and he would own it once and for all. But when the Light was stolen away from the world, the world got dark and cold. All the pokemon became lost in the dark, and they all hid away in fright. The world was cold, dark and quiet.

"Now Phos, the ampharos, was nibbling on a delicious clump of crabgrass."

The folks listening to the story had gathered from all over the flock. Ewes and their lambs sat in a loose ring around their eyomah as she told the story. They had all heard the story before, but it never grew old for them.

"He was nibbling on some blossoms when Bangaa stole the light. Now Phos was the first ampharos, and in those days, ampharos had no lights. No lights were needed for the First Light shone all the time. So when the Light was stolen, Phos had to use something else to find it. He used his denki and his instinct, which we all have, for knowing which direction to go in to find a beacon. And as he got on the trail, he began to use something else too--his sense of smell, for Bangaa's stench lay thick over the path.

"His senses and electricity led him straight down into the deep dark cave where Bangaa hid and held the light away from the world. Phos knew he had to go into Bangaa's dark domain to get the Light or no one would.

"When Phos met Bangaa, he found himself looking at someone over twice his height. Bangaa stood bigger than a Groudon. The smell of death clung to him. He swished his spiky tail, and from his dirty bone mask he roared. The cavern trembled all around him.

"Bangaa attacked Phos with his dark ground powers. But Phos looked for the power of light in his soul, his den, and it became a streak of lightning. Phos told the lightning, "Find the First Light!" And the lightning raced through the air. Phos grabbed the bolt of lightning by its tail! He leapt to the bolt with both feet and spread his flippers." Brelanda did so herself, taking on the same position. "He landed on the great First Light that Ko had made and clutched it close. He was Denryuu and he could do anything."

Maelstrom felt less down and angry as he listened. He remembered what he was--one of the Denryuu, one of the children of light, Phos's children, and that they were the strongest pokemon in all the lands, because they were the beacon to all the living.

Brelanda continued the story. "Bangaa came creeping up behind Phos. Phos had very wide vision as all sheep do, so he saw him coming. He spun on Bangaa and thrust the First Light at Bangaa's face. Bangaa, the great ruler of the caveworld, roared as the Light blinded him. Phos put the Light onto his tailtip and ran off with it. He carried it up above ground again.

"Now Phos went all over with the Light on his tail. He carried it to all the lands, throwing light everywhere, on everything. All the pokemon emerged from hiding, and they followed the Light as Phos travelled all over. And finally Phos climbed up towards Watakko, to where the Light had been. The pokemon remained on Mother Megga as the world warmed. Phos met Watakko and the light remaind between them, still on the end of Phos's tail. Phos gave his denki and his seed to Watakko and they became many lambs inside of her. And Watakko gave birth to the first flock of mareep.

"Phos and Watakko said, 'Shine and be beacons to all the world. Light up the great big water, guard the fields from shadow. Be a beacon to anyone lost, and never become lost yourselves.' And those became the first Ampharos, each with a piece of the first Light on their heads and tails. And also the ability to create Jumpluff cotton." Brelanda waved her arms and created a tiny bit more cotton spore snowing down over the audience. The ampharos grew and multiplied until their numbers rivalled the stars in the sky.

"And what became of Bangaa? When Phos caught and defeated him, Bangaa got scared. He dived back deep down underground. Even the great big rock snakes, even the Groudon could not find him. And there Bangaa created the ground types, the enemies of denryuu. He created the pokemon that hunt in the darkness, and run from and hate the First Light. But light is stronger than darkness, so that is why Bangaa is afraid and hates the light. Every night Phos must go down below to fight Bangaa back and keep him at bay, keep him from breaking loose to try and steal the Light once again. Phos has the power of Light and light can never be defeated."

"An'yer part of that light dear," Thalenes nuzzled her son.

Maelstrom blinked his light and stood up, stretched. He felt a lot better, but he knew the feeling would fade. Ï know."

The ramling began to wander down the slope again when he saw a small flock in the distance. Four ampharos ewes were coming across the field, their mareep lambs with them.

Brelanda observed the approaching sheep. It was getting to be that time of year, the summertime, when smaller flocks began to gather into big ones. And this mountainside was where the flocks gathered.

Maelstrom watched. A ewe lamb was running out ahead of the group, her heels kicking high in the air. Maelstrom stood there, the wind ruffling his fur, the wild mountain ramling feeling suddenly shy. He knew how lambs usually treated him.

"Hey! Hi there!" called the lamb, bounding in a circle ahead of her flock. "Hi! YOU! Hi!" She giggled at Maelstrom.