1 The Herald of Death
A flash of lightning lit up the sky, thunder rumbled in the distance, and rain swept across the village. But nothing could dampen her spirits. She gazed lovingly at the infant clutched protectively in her arms, it didn't matter that his father had left with the intent of never returning, she would make sure her baby boy was raised with everything he wanted.
A shame it wasn't up to her...
~~~~~
At the same time, Professor Oak held baby Gary in his arms, a bright, if tired smile etched upon the mother's face. The father stood proudly as he cooed at the infant, his blastoise coming up to poke warily at the blob of meat.
Blastoise's ear twitched at the sound of a loud caw, turning his blue head to watch a group of murkrow and honchkrow circling the hospital Delia was at. His eyes narrowed and a deep growl came from him. His trainer caught his gaze and followed it to the swarm of darkness pokemon.
All of them shifted uneasily as the omen of death hung heavily in the air. Professor Oak was the one to break the tense silence.
"I'm sure it's nothing but a coincidence..." Lightning flashed once more.
~~~~~
Unknown Location
A figure raised their head, turning it to the location of the town, his white mane flowing in the wind and red spikes around his neck. The figure himself being wreathed in shadows.
His teal blue eyes glowed once as he felt the energy radiating from the direction, 'Looks like the Herald of Death has finally arrived...'
~~~~~
That night, several people got sick, dying in a few days. But that wasn't the end, the plague, as it was later known to be, spread, infecting many, killing many more. In a year, it was finally brought under control. More than three quarters of the village fell to this mysterious disease, including Delia, and Gary's mother and father. Blastoise disappeared once his trainer died, consumed by grief and left to be in the wild, leaving baby Gary with his grandfather and a vague memory of a loving blue blob.
The only reason it didn't wipe out the town, was the fact that the people that contracted the illness died quickly after. The aftermath was disastrous, the mass funeral grim and somber. Fury at the cause of so many deaths, grief and sorrow for the fallen, terror that it may return, guilt for surviving when so many others didn't, emptiness at the loss of family, horrible realization of the mortality of men.
All their conflicting emotions, with nowhere else to go, lashed out blindly as what they perceived was the cause of this grief. The young raven haired child born that day whose hospital was swarmed with murkrow and honchkrow.
~~~~~
Who's that Pokemon!!!!!
The Legendary Pokemon.
Fire Type.
Its magnificent bark conveys a sense of majesty. Anyone hearing it can't help but grovel before it.
5.
4.
3.
2.
1.
It's Arcanine!!
~~~~~
Ash was an orphan, living alone in his house ever since he could remember. Someone would always come to check on him to make sure he didn't set fire to anything or cause any trouble or some shit like that. Even at his young age, he knew he wasn't well liked, many even hated him.
When he started attending school, he quickly learned to keep his head down, getting bad grades on tests and quizzes to not stand out. Because of this, he was thought of as stupid, but he that didn't bother him. It happened too much for it to bother him.
It was his birthday, his 6th birthday, but it wasn't anything special, it never was. Ash was walking home from school, head bowed and eyes locked on the ground.
That was the reason he didn't see the bully standing in his path. He crashed into Gary, who snarled, shoving Ash roughly. He hit the ground roughly, wincing in pain as he landed on one of the old wounds that hadn't fully healed yet.
"Oy! Watch where you're going, Ashy boy!" Gary sneered, glaring down at the raven haired boy. Gary had blamed Ash for his parents' death and Blastoise's disappearance as soon as he caught wind of the rumors surrounding Ash.
Ash murmured an apology, gathering his stuff that had spilled out when he hit the ground, and standing up, eyes tracing patterns in the dirt. He knew better than to talk back or look up. Gary was the son of the previous Kanto champion and the grandson of the world renowned Pokemon professor, Professor Oak.
And Ash, Ash was the pariah of the town, the reason why its populace had shrunk dramatically and the reason why the best trainers in the Kanto region had died along with his own mother, he was cursed, and everyone affiliated with him was cursed too. He still remembered when that rumor spread.
He had a friend once, when he was 4. He doesn't remember what happened, only that one day, he and his friend walked into the woods together. Half a day later, Ash walked out of the woods alone, the friend gone forever.
Nobody talked about it in the open. It was only when they thought he wasn't paying attention that they would talk. Hushed murmurs and not so discrete glares permeated the streets wherever he went, he just bowed his head and ignored it, like always.
He was nothing compared to Gary Oak, and Gary always loved to remind him of that fact. A sharp pain on the side of his face, and suddenly he was sprawled out on the floor, hand cupping cheek. Ash lifted his gaze, and it wasn't that hard to figure out what had happened. Gary was standing over him, fist still raised and eyes burning with rage.
"Are you ignoring me?!" he snarled, stalking up to Ash, "I'm better than you in every way!" Ash watched him with dead eyes, already prepared for the pain he knew would come. What he didn't expect was the glint of silver that appeared when the fading sunlight reflected off the sharp knife grasped in the 6 year old's hands. How he got his hands on it, Ash would never know.
Gary grinned, seeming to relish the way the raven's eyes widened slightly in fear, "Yeah, you killed my parents. Now, I'll kill you!" His lips quickly turned into an angry snarl as he plunged his knife towards the fallen boy.
Ash closed his eyes, awaiting and accepting his fate. That's when he felt it. He heard the rustle in the bushes, the roar as something big barreled out, the whoosh of something rushing by, Gary's shriek of agony. He smelled the scent of ash and the acrid smell of burnt hair. He saw the flash of bright light behind his closed eyelids.
And when he opened his eyes, he saw Gary's body. He was badly burned. That's all he could see before he turned to the side and vomited, retching up his, admittedly small, lunch. Through blurry eyes, he could see the retreating form of an arcanine.
And that's how the villagers and Professor Oak found him, kneeled next to the barely breathing, badly burned body of Gary Oak, a silver knife slick with blood knocked to the side.
