Pairing: Ash/Misty (?)
Genre: Mystery/Adventure
Rating: T
Summary: In which Pokemon meets Dark souls
XOX
Welcome, champion of ash
After death, not all of us die.
Unkindled one, rise.
Long ago live an old lore about the world: when pokemon died, their souls fell into a permanent stasis of limbo. A world unable to move forward in time, only backwards. It was the Chosen One's job to save them from such retched hell by linking the five flames, and destroying the Lord Cinders. All humans, who died suddenly would occasionally meet in this world; where the sun never rose past the gated horizon, and scent of embers replaced the scent of rain.
Ash didn't believe it, after all, the world of pokemon was a glorious, and beautiful world of many different styles and culture, of adventures and bright community. Full of love, and light—he never imagined the world would have a mirrored universe, destroyed and unkempt, dark and full of relentless, ever growing smog that forever clung to every surface of the environment. Gray, dark and empty, surrounded by the corroding edges of long lost battles, and graves.
Everything that happened, the world above them separated on behalf of the unkindled world of limbo, stuck as a permanent reminder of great mistakes; the most in depth of them all, a large grave site, masking the deaths of thousands of innocents over the years, that he never realized existed.
Save us all. A voice called to him in the darkness.
Ash wasn't sure what to think of the situation he crawled himself into—quite literally ripping away at the dirt that buried him under soiled and ruined earth until he passed through the dire crevice of the world above him. He stared into hell, a dark, gray area with nothing more than a few shriveled trees racing his presence, and graves as far as he could see.
He might have imagined seeing bodies—but when he called out, his voice dare not travel. A few days ago, he was enjoying a nice, warm, cup of hot cocoa with his mother before the strange occurrences started again. Snow in the summer time, pokemon freaking out—though the only difference was that Shamouti island was hours away, and according to Melody, who he spoke to on the phone—at peace.
It was only here, at his location the world started to chip away with an ice pick.
He wasn't dead, no, Ash could feel his soul sweltering inside him like a long lost fire, burning hotter than he ever felt before. Even so, he woke up here, miles, possibly light years away from Pallet Town.
Rise, the uncomfortably familiar voice at the back of his head called to him once again, and he finally pulled himself to his knees. Dressed in rags, he didn't recall how he got there, with nothing to defend himself from the darkness, he felt naked beneath his burnt clothes. When he turned around; he was facing his own grave.
Ash Ketchum, 1990-2065, but the rest was corroded off.
...He didn't feel dead.
How... how had this happened? Scuffing up the back of his neck, he tumbled backwards into the graveyard, tripping over dead and shriveling roots into the gray dirt and silence. His shambling limbs were the only sound echoing through the large area. Above him, he saw nothing but a lightness sky, and endless clouds.
Where in the world was he?
XOX
Ash couldn't be sure how he got there, when he got there, after what felt like a torturous amount of running, fleeing from whatever was behind him. Hungry, deformed creatures chasing him for the embers that burned deep in his bosom. He was trapped against a closed door when he looked upon the shrine before him; nothing more than a grave-keepers mausoleum faced him at the end of the hill, a giant, lumbering tower in an otherwise dim area—no light burned from the inside, no indication of life outside of himself, yet he felt it calling after him, urging him forward with every step.
Shuffling through the dense ground was no easy task, it was as if his basic motor functions were dissociated by sleeping for so long beneath ground. His mind was fuzzy.
He no longer remembered where he was before this, what it was like in a place unlike this one, and he felt so cold, though the world smelled like ash.
Making is way up the lumbering steps of the mausoleum, he questioned parts of his own sanity, if what he was seeing was really real, and everything that fell between it. Specks of white orbs glowed occasionally from the corner of his eye, and sometimes he saw shifting in the new area, but kept as quite as a mouse as to not disturb anyone.
He felt as though he only needed to reach the top, and all of his questions would be answered.
Once there, he pushed through a cracked, wooden door that splintered where he touched it. In the immediate darkness, he was like a candle in the night. What lied ahead was an empty chamber of endless voices; a void to the lost souls of the world, gathered at a single point at the center of the large room, where five chairs sat empty around the chamber.
Unsure, Ash felt compelled to move forward, past the broken steps and destroyed archways, until he, too stood at the center of the room, before what appeared to be a small fire, with a coiled, rusted metal sword at its center.
As he reached out to touch it, the figure of a woman dressed in all black garbs poked out from the darkness beside him, pale hands clutched together before her waist as she looked on at the new-found champion, only-he saw no eyes, only the distinct color of red hair falling in heaps around her face and down her back.
"Welcome, champion of Ash." She reiterated the first words he heard, and his mouth fell open.
"Touch your flame to the sword to begin your journey." She didn't smirk, no facial expression he recalled ever felt so cold. "We have much to discuss."
And just like that, he followed her into the abyss, where he noticed that she had a remarkable glow within her as well.
The soul of a fire keeper.
XOX
Meanwhile, in the real world.
"C'mon, Ash, he's the easiest boss! Just dodge him!"
"I'm trying, Misty!" Ash shouted flicking the controller he held several directions until the character on screen rolled past another huge whip of some growing, black parasite. However, Ash's character didn't move fast enough, because the harrowing, deep scream followed by a punctual.
You died.
Ash stared at his screen then lifted his hands up in absolute defeat! He could stop the world form ending, saving people, even date Misty Waterflower and not bat an eye, but a stupid video game was kicking his ass!? He hated these things!
"Here, give it to me, I'll kill him for you." Misty urged, trying to take the controller from his hands. He jerked away from her, causing her to shift practically into his lap from where they were sitting. It was clear that one of his routine visits had branched into a long night of lounging around Misty's apartment, doing nothing in particular because soda cans, chip bags, and garbage strung up around them like a fortress.
Misty bought the most recent, hip video game last week to play with him, and was well over level 100 by the time he came to visit, so her persistent need to help him only made him angrier.
"I can do it myself." he shoved away from her, wiggling the controller close to his lap while he clicked through the loading screen to where his little man on the screen was standing at another fire.
"If you had just made a normal character instead of a deprived."
"I wanted to be challenged!"
"You're mentally challenged." Misty snorted, blowing a strange of hair from her face and receiving a nasty look in return.
"You're ruining the mood." Ash pointed to the screen and Misty rolled her eyes.
"Just because you spent three hours making your character look exactly like you does not mean it's you!"
"It's a champion of Ash!"
Misty threw her arms up quickly walking from the sofa, to the gaming platform and promptly clicking the off button, much to Ash's anger.
"Hey! I was just getting starting."
"We've been playing for ten hours!" Misty whined. "It's 3:00am, let's go to sleep!"
"But, but!"
"You died 45 times!" She added hotly, and Ash stuck his tongue in cheek at her and sat back.
"Well, so?"
"Go to bed."
"You're not my mother." He mouthed off to her, tossing the controller onto the coffee table and sitting back to kick his feet up and properly pout in response to her nagging.
Releasing a loud sigh, Misty moved towards him once again, tugging off a blanket from the corner of the couch, and threw it at his face before taking a seat beside him and nuzzling beneath his arm.
"Fine, if you want to play, go ahead, but I'm sleeping."
Enamored by her comical display of affection, Ash snorted. "Go sleep in bed."
"Only if you come with me"
"Miiiiisty, that's not fair."
"No? Then you better get used to playing like this, because I'm not moving."
Ash sighed, looking down at her. She was facing the screen, eyes squeezed closed in her best attempt to burn out the images in her head so she could get to sleep; and Ash huffed.
"Fine." He murmured, and Misty moved just a little, believing she had won until Ash leaned forward and snatched the controller again, and used the start button to turn on the console again. She deflated immediately while he grinned triumphantly.
"No worries, Misty, I promise to be quiet." He cheered and Misty groaned.
It was a mistake to show Ash video games.
Author's Note
Only I would do this, right?
Ash would be that guy that gets into every character he makes in a game! He would go out of his way to make sure each character was like, perfectly in sync with himself and it would be a glorious moment because, yeah. Anyways, I was -going- to make an actual story where I put pokemon into dark souls, but that just seems like so much work, that I'm gonna say nah for now and turned it into a big joke. XD
I have a million of these Mad Season chapters (including the requests I've written for people) in a back folder and I just need to edit them. So much to do!
Hope you enjoyed reading!
NINT