Before the towers burned, before the Pokémon of legend rose from ash and sorrow, there was something else.
Not a creature.
Not a god.
Not even a spirit in the way the monks of Ecruteak might understand.
It was a whisper.
A ripple in the soul of the world.
They did not name it at first—because names are for things one can see, hear, touch. But this… this was different. It was the space between words. The silence after grief. The memory of something long buried, clawing its way to the surface like a hand through soft soil.
Later, they called it Amaranth.
Some say it was born in the moment three beasts died in the fire that consumed the western tower. That their cries, so full of pain and innocence, bled into the fabric of the world and echoed endlessly until something heard them.
Others claim Amaranth predates the fire. That it was always there—drifting between ruins, hiding in unspoken guilt, feeding on emotions too heavy to carry and too dangerous to let go.
It is not evil, the way a rampaging Gyarados is evil. It is not chaos, like Giratina's world.
It is a mirror.
A reflection of everything that festers in the cracks of the human heart.
Regret.
Loss.
Grief.
Guilt.
These are its favorite flavors.
It has no true form. But sometimes, it wears the face of a Pokémon lost too long to sorrow. Sometimes, it speaks in the voice of a loved one long passed. Sometimes, it shows you exactly what you wish you hadn't forgotten.
Most who encounter it do not remember afterward. Some dream of it. Some feel it in their bones when they pass through certain forests or caves, the same way a storm presses against the chest before the clouds arrive.
But a few… remember.
And among those few, one man—driven by questions no one else would ask—climbed Mt. Silver in search of what the towers tried to bury.
He never came back.
Yet his son still hears echoes in the wind.
They say the fire in Ecruteak was the beginning.
But for those who listen carefully, the story doesn't start with flame…
It starts with silence.