Chapter 3

The Myth of the Sword

Ash was sitting on a tree stump in the road, aimlessly thinking about how he could contact Misty. Although he rarely used it anymore, since he had long ago given up on pokemon battling and trying to catch anything, he kept his old pokedex around as a memento of his time on the road. Ash was scanning through the entries, reading every one of them. It was here that he found his inspiration.

Ash turned to the pokedex's page on Yamask. "Yamask: The Spirit Pokemon. Yamask is a ghost type with the ability to neutralize other pokemon's powers with its Mummy ability. Yamask are strong defensive pokemon when used in battle. Each of them carries a mask that used to be its face when it was human. Sometimes they look at it and cry."

"So, is that it? Do we all become a Yamask when we die?" Ash asked himself. An idea entered Ash's head. "Maybe I don't need to look into all this stuff about séances, and mediums, and metaphysics. Maybe this whole thing is as simple as summoning a pokemon?" Ash said.

He went to the Cerulean City library. He walked up to the librarian, a blue-haired woman named Margot whom Ash had grown to know over the years. She was used to him asking for strange books and spreading his unique brand of crazy everywhere he went.

"Sorry, Ash, we don't have any new books on occultism or black magic or anything like that." Margot smiled. "Well, that's okay. I'm not looking for that right now. I'm looking for a way to summon pokemon." Ash said. Margot looked at him, and put her face in her palm. "Ash, you don't need any black magic or anything like that to summon pokemon. You just go outside and there they are." Margot said. "No, not just any pokemon, a specific pokemon, one with a name that I used to know." Ash said. Margot lightly laughed at him. "Oh, there are a lot of people looking for their lost friends out there. No one's really figured that one out, not with science, not with magic, not with anything. The best you could do is ask the police and they might file a missing pokemon report." Margot said. "Ah, the police would never take me seriously." Ash said. Margot could not deny that. Ash was just another dirty vagrant to them. "Well, we got nothing." Margot said. "Come on, Margot, I'll take anything, no matter how stupid or crackpot it is." Ash said.

Margot thought it over for a moment. "Well, I guess you could check the mythology section. The closest we got are some myths about why pokemon come to you when you go out. Maybe you could use that as a starting point." Margot said. "Aw, thanks. I'll be right there." Ash said.

Ash perused through the old mythology books. Most, when talking about why pokemon come to people, simply repeated this old myth:

Long ago, when the world had just been

made, Pokémon and humans led

separate lives.

That is not to say they did not help

each other. No, indeed they did.

They supplied each other with goods,

and supported each other.

A Pokémon proposed to the others

to always be ready to help humans.

It asked that Pokémon be ready to

appear before humans always.

Thus, to this day, Pokémon appear

to us if we venture into tall grass.

"Oh, come on, there has to be more to it than that!" Ash said. He kept looking through the mythology section, until he found an old beat-up copy of a book called "Of Swordsmen and Sorcery". Its pages were tattered and yellowed with age, its binding broken. It was not even stored properly. It had to be more than one hundred years old. It lay flat on the bottom of the shelf with its spine facing inwards. Ash had to remove six other books just to get it out, almost as if someone wanted to keep him from reading it.

"Well, this is it. If any of these are going to have anything different, it's this." Ash said. He opened up the book and slowly, gently perused its pages. He felt like t would fall apart in any minute. As he went, he found a myth containing what he was looking for, a story about how to summon any pokemon, The Myth of the Sword:

A young man, callow and foolish in

innocence, came to own a sword.

With it, he smote Pokémon

with carefree abandon.

Those not taken as food, he

discarded, with no afterthought.

The following year, no Pokémon

appeared. Larders grew bare.

The young man, seeking the missing

Pokémon, journeyed afar.

Long did he search. And far and wide,

too, until one he did find.

Asked he, "Why do you hide?"

To which the Pokémon replied,

"If you bear your sword to bring

harm upon us, with claws and

fangs, we will exact a sacrifice.

"From your kind we will take our

sacrifice, for it must be done.

"Done it must be to guard ourselves

and for it, I apologize."

To the skies, the young man shouted

his dismay.

"In having found the sword, I have

lost so much.

"Gorged with power, I grew blind

to Pokémon being alive.

"I will never fall savage again.

This sword I denounce and forsake.

"I plead for forgiveness,

for I was but a fool."

So saying, the young man hurled the

sword to the ground, snapping it.

Seeing this, the Pokémon disappeared

to a place beyond seeing.

He followed, and was never again heard from.

But his broken sword carried a strange power.

Those who held it,

could attract whatever Pokemon

their hearts desired.

The broken sword was a symbol of peace

for mankind and Pokemon alike.

Those who desire peace

are drawn to its presence.

Ash looked at the text, trying to make sense of it all. "Well, if I can just find a piece of that broken sword…" he said to himself. Images raced through his mind of wandering the land looking through museums and dusty old ruins. "No. That could take a lifetime. I need Misty now." Ash said to himself. "I don't need to find a piece of the original sword. I'll make my own." Ash said.

Ash set out to a novelty store in Cerulean City's shopping mall. It was a dirty little store that very few people ventured into, full of statues, strange shaped vases (actually bongs, but Ash didn't know that since he was never really into drug culture), anime videos (mostly tentacle hentai), leather clothing, and yes, knives and swords.

Ash walked up to the clerk, who smelled of rancid marijuana. "Hi. I need a sword." He said. The clerk rubbed his eyes. He had been staring off into space, thinking deep thoughts, almost a kind of meditation. "Uh, what kind you want, man? We have replicas of the Zelda sword? You like Zelda, right?" The clerk asked. Ash looked at his wallet. He didn't have a lot of money. He had been effectively homeless for the last few years, surviving on handouts and the occasional visit back to his mom for a little bit of money and a warm meal and bed when he needed it most. "Um… I just need a sword. What's the cheapest one you got?" Ash asked. "Well, we got these medieval style daggers for…" Ash cut him off. "Not daggers, a sword." He said.

The clerk took him over to a jet-black machete. "This is it. It's called 'The Zombie Slayer', made for surviving the world eventual zombie apocalypse. You preparing for when zombies come around?" He asked. Ash silently scoffed at the idea. Everyone knew zombies weren't real. Still, it seemed a cruel irony that he would use a sword built to slay the dead in order to bring them back. "Yeah… Zombies… Sure. I'll take it."

As Ash walked out of the mall, carrying his new machete in a plastic bag saying "Thank you for shopping" on it, he mentally went over everything he needed to do. He thought to himself, "Kill pokemon, go to the place unseen, smash the sword, take its shard." It was easier said than done. Ash knew he would have to do some terrible, nasty things now, but if it meant he could be with his beloved Misty again, he felt it would all be worth it. For her, he would do anything. Anything.