The child kneeled there, in the center of a symbol of his own making, though not one of his own power. He was no longer a boy in the ways of his people, though not yet a man in the land he had only just found. Though, perhaps, he was Journeying to find that man, in a manner most unusual.

Etched in the soil around him with wood and will, as though a novice in the ways of mysticism, or a great master bent with age, lay symbols of power and belief. All writings contained such a measure of strength, for belief and will imbues it with such, yet these lines, writ in the loamy earth, contained a touch more than simple belief, for some truths were greater than others.

Yet that remains a story for another time.

The uneven markings, unalike in their depth, width, and power, revealed the truth as to their marker. A novice, not master, using knowledge beyond his grasp, in the manner a leaf yearns for the sun, unknowing of the all-consuming fire above.

Alone but for his companions three, the child kneeled: a friend as old as his childhood when he bore another name, a turtle weak for now but promising great strength should it dare survive, and a beauty that rashly dove ahead ever onwards.

He was watched, for little could pass through a forest as ancient as this without being seen, though few eyes bore the spark of a greater mind. They observed with disinterest or minor curiosity, merely hoping that the young human continued his journey without the disruptions that the others caused. For now, he traveled unchallenged, for the child respected the law of the land and was sheltered by the will of a love long nurtured.

He tread no Route, patrolled and cultured so that even a child could walk unharmed. This was the wilds of old, where monsters dwelled and trespass was harshly rebuked, by fang or by claw.

Greatest among them all was the one who bore sickness and madness like a great forest battling an infection of rot. Even as it helped, it hindered, and the urge to raze and destroy, to do unto others as was done to it, rose within the powerful beast. It was spelled to quiet for a time, but like the waves that struck the store, it was unending, with highs and lows as the seasons passed. Yet the pains of the past were renewed and the arrival of the distorted surged its fury as it was forced to observe lest it hinder where it intended to help.

And so it watched, through root and leaf, by sky and by thought, the child kneel amongst symbols that would pause even him.

For some powers remained above all others.

Still, a story for another time.

Believing himself safe amongst the markings of the original power, devoid of physical protection and clothed only in the fibers bloodlessly harvested, the human, no longer a child-but-not-yet-a-man began to speak.

He spoke not in the common tongue of his people nor in the noble dialect, used only by Warriors and the noble clans of his homeland. The speech was not one of trade nor even of the secret language given lovingly from mother to son, in an effort to pass down culture long since sworn against.

The words the youth used were older, dating back to when humans battled with nothing but wit and stone, hunting like some common animal struggling to survive. A language long thought forgotten and left behind.

His words were stilted and rough, for even the great scholars struggled to hold history. Yet still, the sound tugged at those who watched and the great beasts grew wary. For though the words did not have power, they bore a weight that was undeniable.

A threat of presence and attention that could be as wonderous as it was ruinous.

He cried out to world, asking for the strength and blessing of will to confront the shadows that clung to him. Yearning for a protection that no longer shielded him, as to leave boyhood was to leave behind the safety of home.

He invoked, speaking words of summoning and greeting, demanding an audience with that which would bind itself to him. Refusing the path of a warlock, stealing power wrongly granted, pressing for negotiation or better, release.

He spoke in the ways of pacts and ceremony, as one would when greeting a guest in their home. As the tethered spirit of distortion had power over his body, so too did he have power over it. Though his path was not one of Ceremony and Tea, custom still dictated the acknowledgement of hearth and home.

Ancient words, forgotten bonds, and strong tradition shook the spirit with power of belief and will. It touched that which was now buried in barren ground, echoing deep into the salt sands below.

Ghosts lie on the path of rituals and curses, righting wrongs and wronging rights. Stronger are those who gather together, begrudged to a larger purpose and bound by the Energy once had in life. Here, knowledge is a power of its own and no strength of might or body can avail one who seeks to confront such a spirit.

Only through the strength of will, enforced by mysticism and wisdom, can mortal to do battle with spirits, be they evil or worse, good.

Stirred to wakefulness, the distorted answered. It knew not why it was called to like such, as a Master would an unruly servant or as a man would a thief who sneaks into one's home. Collecting its sparse energies, drained as they were from the efforts of this season, the sandy heap of a spirit arose.

Trapped as it ever was, the spirit of grudges could only answer will with will, forcing its aura beyond the metal shell that contained the physical form it inhabited. To do so only served to drain it further, yet for a friend and spawn of the same again it would do far more.

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Its presence was that of a cold salty wind on endless sand, chilled by the nightly waters that consumed the land, with each wave that lapped at the earth. As eternal was the sand, so was the spirit, until grudges were fulfilled and the land devoured.

Across the child's skin, hairs rose as he sensed the spirit's attention manifest upon him. His voice lowered, shaken by the sensation and knowledge of what he was doing, but he continued to speak. To stop now was to invite enmity and wrath. As wrong as it was to interrupt a Master of the house, so too was it for the Master that spoke dishonorably.

Kenji finished speaking, his novice ritual, made from half remembered words and bonded by childish beliefs, coming to a close.

Still the spirit waited for its part in this dance of mysticism and belief for, while childish, it was of the ways of childhood. When young boys and girls played in sand and waves. It longed for the twilight nights when it played with a young boy under a different name in the cool sands. Remembered like a dream was the young girl who watched, now aged in the way of mortals, ever wary though the begrudged spirit would never harm her kin. Distant still were the memories of times long consumed by the waves, lost to the land beneath the sea.

With the dredges of its power, the spirit greeted the boy who was now becoming a man. The Gast of Sand and Grudge, it greeted the friend as it ever did. The spirit called upon his memories of sun and sand, the cool wind bearing salt and promises of a storm blown from the sea.

Through aura and suggestion, the boy-becoming-a-man was reminded of the nights with the friend-now-mother on the beaches of his kingdom. The father, foreign and distant to the spirit, watched, guarding from both man and beast, as the three played with sand.

Eyes misted and breath came quicker as the youth was forced to relive innocent days. Memories shifted, like the shape of a shell as the water passed over and frothed.

The spirit waited, knowing the boy wished to remember the mother as it wished to remember the girl. Together, they reminisced, experiencing the past from the present.

Prepared as he was, the youth did not fall sway to the illusion of mind for long. His will firmed, held strong by his core of spirit. He breathed in a mighty breath to both recover from what he saw as trickery and to settle the disquiet in his mind. The words he spoke next were not the ancient language still held close by his people in ceremony and tradition but the common tongue.

"Great Spirit!" he cried out. "I have called to you, you who take my body for your own, to both beseech and warn you. Leave me. There is naught to gain from haunting for I am but lost and alone. Word of you will not spread nor will you grow in power."

The words of the child shook the spirit. How could he wish to discard it? It who stayed by his side, played with him and him with it. They were inexorably linked, bonded together closer than even the girl it wished to remember. A connection that still held strong even after the countless seasons separated from each other. Did the boy not feel it? The strength he borrowed yet never returned, the Energy to yield yet remained unchanging, renewed the waves that ate at the land.

Fury threatened to rise in the begrudged spirit, a rage at the rejection offered so easily to it. The spirit was one of grudges and the fallen, formed of the will to press on when even the mortal limits held firm. The hate rose and rose, like a wave threatening to consume all.

Yet.

Yet it remembered the girl.

The child it played with so painfully long ago, on beaches far different than the sand it played in with the boy. She was different from the others, seeking only to play rather than fight and grow. Oh, they castles they would build and build.

Together they raced, playing, never fighting.

And so it promised the girl, now a mother, to protect her boy as it once protected her. The wave of fury crested and crashed against cliffs of that promise, denying the grudges their desire for violence and hate. A promise was a promise was now a bond linking the spirit and the boy together. It could not hurt the child any more than it could turn back the waves.

The child sensed its confusion and rage, wisely holding his tongue. The youth could understand the rage, for even children could hate as only children could. Yet, why the confusion? Did the spirit not know what it was doing was wrong? Confused himself, the youth held still, though he could not resist reaching out with senses beyond mortal in an effort to understand.

Unknowing of what he was doing or even how, the Warrior sensed the interactions of foreign aura upon his spirit. The illusion was revealed for what is was, memories reaching for memories, though he could do little to resist it. Around him the spirit's aura billowed, nebulous yet contained within the ancient symbols in the ground. He did not know if the ghost was truly contained by such but he prayed that it was.

Still, he sensed an oddity, a strangeness to the foreign aura. It was diffuse and weak yet there was a hardness to it, as though the more he sensed the more compacted it became. The strength, the density of the spirit's aura, grew the closer it was to his body.

As the fury of the ghost crested and crashed, he was able to discover where the power originated from. Not from his body or own spirit as he first assumed but from the pendant that he wore, the necklace that his mother passed to him in their final moments together.

Then anger of boy's own rose, like a tar that stained wood, for how dare the spirit inhabit the last token he had of his family. His will swirled, driven by hate, and focused upon the pendant of his mother, now his.

The spirit's confusion grew and like air escaping the sand, fear bubbled within it. Once more it attempted to connect with the boy, the friend that it bonded with closer than any other. In the past, its efforts were always stymied by the metal containing it and silencing the link it shared with the child.

However, never before had the boy attempted to connect with the spirit while it reached out.

Fueled by emotion and driven to share their rage or confusion, the link between Warrior and Pokémon sparked.

It did not blaze as a dry forest did, with so much tinder and wood to ignite it, nor did it burn as even a campfire might. The link connecting the two, smoldered with a dull hibachi flame. It was dampened by the pendant separating the two, for the creation was old and worn, by trials and by years it was not meant to endure.

The emotions echoed through the sparse bond linking the two.

The spirit held fast against the hate easily, for it was formed from grudges far greater than the misguided fury of a child. The youth was not so strong, for the confusion and desire to understand and connect was both unexpected and overpowering. His fury drained, blunted by the opposing current of emotion, leaving behind only puzzlement.

"What is this?" the boy, long a Warrior, asked of the world and the spirit. He grew wary, seeking to parse the deception that the ghost was attempting this time.

However, as before, the link was no manner of trickery, only one of connection. With the last of its power, the distorted being passed along a measure of its power and intent. It only wished for the boy to survive and for them play together in the sand once more. Tired and weary from disguising him from the world surrounding them, the spirit withdrew the last of its aura.