"For wheat is wheat, even if people think it is a grass in the beginning.”

Let's start 2018 with an adventure.
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Veilstone's Myth (Japanese: トバリの しんわ Tobari's Myth) is about a young swordsman.
"A young man, callow and foolish in innocence, came to own a sword. With it, he smote Pokémon, which gave sustenance, with carefree abandon. Those not taken as food, he discarded, with no afterthought. The following year, no Pokémon appeared. Larders grew bare.The young man, seeking the missing Pokémon, journeyed afar. Long did he search. And far and wide, too, until one he did find. Asked he, "Why do you hide?"To which the Pokémon replied..."If you bear your sword to bring harm upon us, with claws and fangs, we will exact a toll. "From your kind we will take our toll, for it must be done."Done it must be to guard ourselves and for it, I apologize." To the skies, the young man shouted his dismay. "In having found the sword, I have lost so much. "Gorged with power, I grew blind to Pokémon being alive. I will never fall savage again. This sword I denounce and forsake. I plead for forgiveness,for I was but a fool." So saying, the young man hurled the sword to the ground, snapping it. Seeing this, the Pokémon disappeared to a place beyond seeing..."

To this day, there are wayshrines depicted to the muses of spirit (Mew, Celebi, Victini, Jirachi, Shaymin etc) all over the world and especially at the start of every route or landmark. They are ancient stone lanterns that are believed to guide the souls of Pokemon back to the world for their reincarnation. As humans are left out of the Pokemon cycle of reincarnation, and Pokemon that die in battle are believed to be as well, these beacons serve a selfless purpose motivated through solemn respect.

Travelers pray at the shrines for the muse's blessing - their prayer and wish depending on the muse it depicts and displayed with written charms/tags. Offerings are left behind, for the wild to reclaim. It is an egregious sin to take what  you do not need from a shrine, and to be human and take without placing an item back in return is only a deathwish. The wilds watch. The wilds wait. They give what they take away - and human lives are not exempt from that natural order.

There are many tales of those who desecrated a shrine that never came back.

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