chapter 1

Small rays of light orbit the sword's vicinity, each gleaming circle passing across the trees by darting from trunk to trunk in a loyal, however brief, escort. With naught but the blinking of the sun through the gaps in the verdant canopy and the sounds of gaia attending to feral business as usual, the nameless honedge is left again to his thoughts. His cyclopic eye, cat-slitted with a bright blue sclera, narrows wistfully. Out of habit, the honedge reaches for his form. His mind's equally solitary eye scans his length, first to observe, then to find meaning. He was always successful in performing the former.

By sword standards, the honedge's craftsmanship was simplistic. A blade of ordinary steel fashioned wth machine precision extends straight out from the hilt and guard, slightly thicker along the central bulk, and with an angular tapering to the edge. The guard - why would a honedge need a guard? - is a narrow, shallow crescent in gold, aside from the central circular support upon which the sword's eye is fixed. From the top of the guard, the hilt protrudes. It's made from the same gold as the guard, and flares slightly at its flat head where a pommel might normally screw. As a honedge, the similarities between himself and a mere sword end here.

A thick tassel of vibrant blue fabric longer than the spirit's body is attached to the hilt's end, and its midsection subtly flutters in the spring breeze. It broadens with distance, with its opposite end cut into four strips that are presently curled around the sword's sheath. The honedge hates the sheath.

It's a fine article of hardware, fitting the blade perfectly and guaranteeing an obsolete protection against harm or the elements. Functional, at the very least. That's more than could be said for its wretched design. Unassuming, curved bars of gold lead up the length of the sheath, joining and concluding in a mischevious intrusion on a mockery of a face. Golden lips, white, straight teeth, and two fake eyes raised slightly off the surface of the scabbard. As a final insult, a third raised circle sits atop the first two, only this ring is hollow. It frames the honedge's eye, a cursed lens through which the spirit must look.

The presence of a curse is unquestionable, for as much as the sword despises this useless device, he cannot release it from his cloth grip. The twisted implication of purpose carved into its design defies reason. What breed of entity would write such details upon the shell of a doomed spirit? And yet, the inanimate half of his being remains a part of the spirit's whole.

This is all, of course, worsened by the honedge's nature. In the thousands of species of Rodannian wildlife, those comprised of ghosts surely received the shortest end of the existential stick, he thought. The rest of nature's creatures weren't brought back from the far side or denied entry to final peace. No, when another creature closes its eyes for the final time, its soul leaves the shackles of the earth below. The honedge knows this, for he's witnessed it several times.

For the animated blade, however, there is no proposition of final rest, or indeed any sort of rest. He needs neither sleep nor sustenance, nor does he suffer sickness or age. His edge never rusts, never chips, and never breaks. The honedge is unwillingly invulnerable to a point - while, as any other wild creature, he has fallen in battle, he does not "faint" as his many flesh-and-blood counterparts do. Even in defeat, he is cursed yet again with an indestructible awareness of his failings in the moment that he fails.

His psychic voice whispers towards the heaven to which all less punished souls travel. *"Why am I even here?"* The steel of his blade is dense, but his purpose yet remains empty.

"I don't know," an rapid, excited chittering exclaims from below. A bright-eyed rattata snaps up at him as if addressing a friend and not a random possessed sword floating eerily through the forest. "But there's a stranger!" It pauses, staring unblinkingly through a gleeful tremble into the sword's eye.

The honedge releases all the tension its rigid figure can hold in the most futile expression of slight exasperation possible. "What do you mean?"

"A stranger! Really black! Really big! I saw it! It's over here, over here!"

As abruptly as the rodent had impolitely announced its presence, it's darted off through the trees. It sounds a petty distraction to the honedge, but deeper within, he cannot deny his piqued curiosity. "Really black" and "really big" never described anything he'd seen in person. Would it be dangerous? He experimentally slices his edge through the air as if to shed imaginary dust. It rends the open space like a charm. Satisfied enough - and insubstantially, but notably nervous - he peels after the rattata.

By the time the honedge swoops into the clearing in which the entity stands, all that's left of the rodent is a subtle disturbance in the grass several feet back into the opposite side of the grove. He turns his sky-blue eye to the figure, and finds that it fits the rattata's description to an uncomfortable degree.

It towered over all but the trees, at least a third as tall as an onix is long. Its hulking mass, with a thick, black hide all over and around it, resembles nothing the honedge had ever seen, and certainly not a pokemon. After the initial, shocking split-second, the honedge realizes that its hide isn't its body. It's wearing something. The real creature is somewhere underneath the ebony coverings.

The object obscuring all vision of its head is elongated forwards and up and back, but it clearly has a visor, if one so tinted and cloudy that any discernable color or feature is impossible. It's much too large and odd for a human, too. Two unnatural bulks spread out from its back - one a large, oblong mass taller than it is wide, like a great, ugly backpack, and the other unmistakably a tail. It sways and whips idly behind the creature. The general appearance of the thing is so bizarre that the honedge spends multiple seconds failing to notice that the entity loosely wields a wooden sword. The implement is much too small for the stranger, but perfect for a human child. The honedge tenses at the implication that this monster had just done something unspeakable, but if that were the case, the rattata should've said something....

The black giant seems surprised by the sword's presence, taking a sudden step back. The two of them stare at each other, visor into eye and vice versa, in the sort of lock that warps time to a crawl. Then, the black thing casually lifts its wooden sword. The honedge prepares itself on instinct, for a sword is only good for one thing. It steels its length with an uncharacteristically adventurous thought. *So you want to fight? You've got it. Welcome to Rodann, monster.*

The honedge launches itself in a sudden spiral towards the beast's chest. The wooden weapon lifts to guard against the attack, but the giant's sluggish reaction is meaningless to the honedge's fine metal. He strikes into the creature point-first, visibly denting its torso covering inwards, though failing to stumble it. His reward is the giant's fist pounding into his fuller. The hooking strike launches the honedge away from his opponent and into a spin that requires several seconds of recovery. The ghastly sword is not so easily dizzied, however. Instead, his eye pops with intensity at the thrill of battling this exotic entity, its iris burning a hole into the giant as the latter settles into a proper fighting stance. The behemoth charges.

Sparks leap joyfully from the frenzied scrape of steel against wood. The honedge is unburdened by concerns of self-preservation. He intends solely to batter this intruder in the combat it had so politely requested. He slices with the pent-up fury of a dozen soulless battles and as many empty months, carving upon the duel as an enraged artist upon unreadied canvas. The giant's toy sword is little more than a comical accessory indicative of low intelligence. Most of its work is performed through the thrusts and swings of limbs, but no blow that finds smashing purchase upon the honedge's steel succeeds in more than thowing it aside.

Passion negotiates with frustration as the honedge's strikes produce no further progress. No matter how many stabs or cuts, the beast does not slow, grunt, or pant. The two are perfectly silent duelists aside from the thumping of the giant's step and the clap of materials joined suddenly together. Still, neither seems willing to give up - egos are invested, and a victor ought to be decided.

At least, this sentiment persists for an hour or so. In the fading glow of a sleepy sun, duelists become dancers. The frenzy of the pretense of life-and-death transitions into conversational rhythm, with the giant offering up fresh, slower attack patterns, and the honedge politely declining. The meditative state of stacatto combat grows devoid of rage, until the black figure offers a deliberately lazy parry and takes a step back. The honedge stares, but does not lunge again.

The entity speaks for the first time, and in a definitively male voice; it subtly thunders with a rumbling baritone in a language the honedge has never before heard. "Good fight."

Then, he simply begins to walk away, as if having concluded his business. The honedge, however, has no intent of permitting this creature to abandon him. After arousing such curiosity and fascination within the sword, and after dueling him for so long, the spirit senses that he's owed something by the other. He quietly trails along, floating in complete silence several feet behind the entity.

Invariably, the feeling of being watched overpowers the giant, who turns to look back. A snorting noise escapes his mask. "What, do I have to take you home, now?"

The honedge stares, entirely incapable of comprehending the speech the creature's just issued. This prompts the giant to swing his head around, as if to ensure he's not being watched and this isn't some bizarre prank. "I hate to tell you, but home's pretty far away." Again, no response from the sword. "Do you have a name?"

He's hoping the floating weapon will give him a nod, a shake, an awkward wiggle - anything. Unfortunately, he has only the honedge's interest. "Well, then, I'm going to have to give you one, because you won't go away. I assume this is because you have no idea what I'm saying." Nothing.
"Very well. I'll call you Caliber. That's a cool name. Justifies the endurance and skill you demonstrated."

The entity shakes his head and sighs, attempting to appreciate his own monologuing. He gestures to the sword and slowly repeats, "Caliber." Then, he gestures to himself in what he hopes to be a universal motion. "Cosmo."

The honedge is quite sharp and understands this concept perfectly. 'Cosmo' has granted him a name. At this, Caliber moves his eye up and down. This motion appears to earn relief from Cosmo, who nods in return. "Great," the stranger says. "At least we've established something here. Welcome to weird critter land, Cosmo."

Caliber questions himself, following this clueless alien around. Still, he reasons, it's better than floating about the forest and feeling sorry for himself.