Chapter 9
It was nothing at first. The milky white eyes that the woman had just glinted malevolently 
for a few seconds, but then Ash felt himself blasted backwards by an invisible force.
   “Have to do better than that, Ashy boy!” the woman cried, laughing.
   Ash lay on the ground, twitching.
   All the memories of the lives and sacred places he had destroyed to get all the tablets, 
and all that stood in his way to try and make it better again was an old woman. He wasn’t 
going to fail. He was going to kill her.
   He jumped to his feet and ran at her, but she burst into a fog of smoke which Ash went 
right through, before she became solid again. 
  Ash smiled.
  “That’s cheating.” he said. She turned to face him.
  “That’s self defence.” she replied, throwing him backwards. He fell over the side of the 
building, the ground twenty feet below. As he fell the force that vibrated from him 
smashed the windows in the building, sending shards everywhere.
  “Charizard, GO!” Ash yelled, releasing the dragon and flying back up to the top of the 
building, before returning his faithful Pokemon to his pokeball.
   “Seems you’ve got an advantage.” the woman said.
   “He may not be a dangerous blind eyeball, but Charizard is useful.” Ash agreed. He 
jumped towards her, and yet again she turned into smoke and appeared a few metres 
away from her original position. 
   “Too slow.” she smiled.  
   Ash took his opportunity. He turned swiftly to face her and threw a shard of the broken 
glass at her, his now cut hand spraying blood on the ground and the shard itself.
   The shard hit and stuck into the woman, making her gasp in pain. She glared at her 
wound then smiled at Ash.
   “Very good.” she whispered.
   Ash revealed a second piece in his left hand, which he quickly passed to his right.
   “Let’s end this!” he growled, running forwards, the wounded elder unable to become 
smoke.
   Ash slashed forwards with the shard, which she dodged, jumping to the side then head 
butting him in the stomach, sending him sprawling backwards.
   “Come on, Ketchum.” she hissed, pulling the first shard from her side, blood pouring to 
the ground. “I may seem human, and I may bleed like a human, but being the tablet I 
have powers you can’t even dream of.”
   She blinked. 
   Ash wasn’t on the ground, five feet away. He was behind her, restraining her hands 
with his left and his right at her throat, the second shard in it.
   “How did you….?”
   “As I said,” Ash whispered, “I’m an exception.” And he slit her throat, letting her fall 
to the ground and bleed.
   Ash waited, and then she began to glow, her physical essence disappearing in a cloud of 
smoke. As the glow subsided, all that was left was the stone tablet, its face blank, no 
picture depicting its power.
   Ash smirked. “Old magic of the Karkas, the legendary people of the sky. I should have 
known they’d hide their treasures like this.” Then his smirk faded and he began to cry, 
wiping the blood vigorously from his palms.
   “….. Remember, Ash…..”      
   His eyes red, Ash looked up to the sky. “… what is it you vile monster?”
   “You hear the music, and you have mastered the power of speed.” the disembodied 
voice of the old lady croaked. “And as I die, I must tell you…”
   “What?”
   “…The Fire Skies are coming.”
   And the voice faded away. 
   Ash nodded. He understood what she meant by Fire Skies. A great danger to all 
existence. Team Rocket, obviously. And yes, thanks to listening to the music he had been 
able to move faster than light for only a few seconds or more, but it terrified him. He 
knew that he had been given these gifts for a reason, and he didn’t know what. Though he 
didn’t class these abilitys as gifts. 
   And as he flew off the building on Charizard, tablet in hand and tears in his eyes, he 
nodded. 
  Yes. They were curses.
* * * *
   “You got it already?” Giovanni asked incredulously down the phone.
   “Thanks to the technical department, yeah. And I went through a lot of bother.”
   “As usual.”
   “As usual.” Ash agreed.
   Giovanni smiled. “Give me the tablets and I’ll release you from our contract. Well 
done, Ash.”
    “Thanks.” There was a pause. “Giovanni….”
    “Yeah?”
    The voice on the other line went cold.
    “When I do give the tablet to you, I will do everything in my power to stop you and get 
the tablets back.”
    “Thought so,” Giovanni said coolly, “just give it to me first. I’ll be in the Hoenn 
Region setting the operation up. See you in a week or two.” And he hung up.
    He laughed. It was nearly time…..