Heart Of Ghost {Pokemon Action Adventure}

Chapter 1 - Shadow Ball

16 Years Ago...

A high pitched throbbing flatlined.

Feet shuffled in the brightly lit room in a panic. It was if everyone had their own distant event that they were already horribly late for, but didn't know where to go.

"We're losing her!" said a doctor, grabbing an infant from her mother. He forced his way out through the sea of nurses, then stopped at the door.

"What's going on?!" cried the mother, eyes too clouded by tears to see her newborn child being carried away from her arms. Blankets laden with blood rested between her legs, and her body was still in shock from all the pain she had just endured. Her black hair as silky as a spider's web splayed out in every direction.

"Her heart! It's stopped!" The doctor turned towards the new parents. "The worst case scenario we talked about has come true. Your decision: now!" He knew that if neither of the parents spoke up immediately, he would have no choice but to bolt out of the room on his own volition.

The mother looked to her husband, grasping for answers while still in disbelief.

The father's lip trembled. He instinctively knew the expression that his wife was bearing towards him, and he couldn't look her way, lest his heart break entirely. "Do it," he stammered, and then turned away, ashamed of the decision that had forced his hand.

Neither the parents nor the doctor said another word while the babe was carried to another room. Their tears formed a channel of communication all on their own. The scores of legs shuffled out of the room, leaving the parents alone in their despair.

The wait crushed those not in the operating room, time feeling just as heavy as stone.

Still refusing to look his wife in the eye, the father hit the wall. "Why?! Why must it happen like this?! Why must the choice of whether my child lives or dies be an ethical dilemma?!" He rested his head slowly on the wall. "Why couldn't there have been a different way?"

The mother solemnly picked up a manilla envelope from her bedside and gingerly flipped it open. A picture of a Pokemon in the shape of a candle slid out and onto her lap. She put down the other papers and held the picture up in front of her. She looked at it silently, then pressed it against her chest. "I'm sorry... You don't deserve to be a sacrifice for my daughter's life..."

The doors creaked open eerily into the hospital room. The sound of a baby crying entered the room.

"The operation was a success," said the doctor, handing the babe to her mother. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I must leave."

A red-orange strand of hair poked out from the newborn's head and spiraled into a curl. The mother looked at her child, and a strange sense of relief filled her mind. She played carefully with the single hair and smiled at the child. "Saffron. I think that's what we should call her."

"Yeah," the father said quickly, not giving it any thought.

She looked at him, ready to criticize him for not taking any interest in their child, but then stopped herself. As much as she felt wrong for it, she understood and could not blame him.

"Saffron, you'll grow into a wonderful woman some day, I know it. This all happened for a reason, right?" She tickled the baby and her tears stopped. The baby burst into laughter, a shrill, loud laughter.

-----

And Some Time Not Too Long Ago...

Energy coursed across the planet outwards from Kalos. Life in its purest form surged across the surface, instead of the death that was supposed to wreak havoc. Not too far from the epicenter, a long-slumbering figure was disturbed by the weak but present energy.