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Thread: The Quest for the Legends

  1. #41
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    I prefer the first version,but the crazy one is....funny^_^.*waits for chapter twenty-two*

  2. #42

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    OK, chapter 22 everyone! I'm not too happy with it. It's Alan's story, in first person, but the thing is that it's actually my first piece of pokémon fanfiction ever modified for first person. It still doesn't really sound natural in first person, even after I fixed what I could in the revision. So... well, interesting story in not-very-good writing... next chapter is great.


    Chapter 22: Alan’s story


    “Well, like I said, it all started when Dad had a dream. Molzapart was in it. He told his friends about it, and it turned out one had the exact same dream. They figured that if it could get into people’s dreams, it must be a Psychic type, and since it looked like Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres combined, they figured its type was most likely Fire/Electric/Ice/Flying/Psychic. Anyway, he went on a journey to find it, and – well, you know Dad is some sort of a magnet for legendary pokémon. He ended up finding Molzapart. Molzapart told him he had been waiting for him and that he had to tell him something really important that would have to be a complete secret hidden from everyone until “the time would come”.”

    “What was that?” Mark asked.

    “I don’t know. It’s a secret, and Dad took this really, really seriously.”

    “Oh. Go on, go on...”

    “Well, then Dad asked Molzapart if he could research him.”

    “You’re joking.”

    “No. And Molzapart took that just fine. He told Dad everything about himself, and Dad wrote it all down. When Dad came home, he used all the information to make a pokédex entry for Molzapart. He got it to Gary Oak – you know, the one who continued with the pokédex research after old Samuel Oak, his grandfather, died – and got him to put it in the pokédex. Didn’t tell Gary anything about how he saw Molzapart, of course. And no trainers have ever gotten to see Molzapart except maybe if they were killed too, so me, Dad and Gary were the only people who knew about Molzapart’s pokédex entry.

    Well, shortly after that, a month before my tenth birthday, I was like usually nagging Dad to give me a pokémon now instead of waiting for a month. In the end, he gave in and said I could go and buy a pokémon as a pet in the pet shop. I went and bought a female Meowth and named her Pamela. On the way back, I saw a boy who was just evolving his Growlithe with a Fire stone. The Arcanine saw Pamela and started growling. The boy turned to me and said “Hey, I challenge you to a pokémon battle. My Arcanine against your Meowth.”

    I told him I was not a trainer yet because I was too young.

    “Oh, sorry,” he said. “I thought...” But then the Arcanine got itself out of his arms and was about to jump at me. Pamela jumped down from my arms, too. The boy didn’t seem to know what he was doing, he took out his pokéball, but the Arcanine, who was apparently called Aaron since the boy called him that – just grabbed it from his hands, spat it on the ground and melted it with a Flamethrower. He asked me if I happened to have a pokéball, and I told him of course I didn’t, because I wasn’t a trainer. He told me that was his last ball because Aaron came from a trade and didn’t obey him and always melted the balls. I shouted at him that he had to recall him because of Pamela.

    And he ran out to the pokémon market. Pamela was defending herself pretty well, actually. High Speed. Evaded Aaron’s attacks. When the boy came back, he panted and said: “You won’t believe this! They were all out of pokéballs! Exactly now! And I can’t go to the next town without a pokémon, Aaron is the only one I have! What can we do now?”

    While he said that, Aaron was getting tired and collapsed on the ground. The boy stared at Aaron like he was just about remembering something, and suddenly he muttered: “No...” I asked him what was wrong and he replied: “I – I evolved Aaron because he hated me. He missed his original trainer, Growlithes are so loyal. But the other trainer said he wanted him back, and... I mean, evolving him? If pokémon are too young when they evolve, their personality changes... and his personality has changed, so he must’ve had a personality that was pretty weak to evolution... still to young to keep that personality... he could as well be dead. I feel like Team Rocket or something.”

    I wanted to comfort him, so I said: “Well, they aren’t that bad. They tried to steal Dad’s Pikachu hundreds of times, but he said they weren’t evil at all. Just funny. And sometimes they even helped him.”

    You know, I was nine years old, so I didn’t really know exactly how to comfort people... but he said: “But what can I do? Maybe I can catch another Growlithe?” I told him that Dad says a good trainer can always tell the difference between his pokémon and another pokémon, and he asked me who my father was, anyway...”

    Mark could just imagine Alan, nine years old, with his I-hate-attention expression, telling someone who his father was.

    “Well, he was a bit like you when I told him – no offense meant – you know, “wow, that’s so amazing” and all that...” Alan continued. “Then he asked again what he could do with Aaron. And well, because I really, really wanted a real pokémon that could battle, I told him: “You should just tell the trainer that Aaron hated you so much he ran away, and then you can catch a Fire pokémon and give him instead. And I’ll take Aaron as a pet, Pamela likes him.” Pamela was licking Aaron’s face, trying to get him up again, you see. And then I added, to sound less selfish: “I’ll ask Dad if there is any way to devolve pokémon and get their old personality back.” Of course I knew there isn’t. He thanked me and asked me when my birthday was. I told him it was September the ninth. He also asked if I was nine years old, and I said yes. He asked if I would start training pokémon then, and I said yes. He asked me to give him his phone number and be his friend, and I said yes. That was how Peter became my friend and I got my hands on Aaron...”

    Alan paused for a moment, then said: “After we registered each other’s phone numbers, we saw that a Jynx was attacking a Pikachu in an alley. He asked why Pikachu wasn’t moving. I told him it was most likely frozen solid and was going to say that Dad had taught me a lot about battling status when I recognized the Pikachu as Dad’s. So I jumped forward, to get Pikachu, only to get hit by a Blizzard and get frozen too. I couldn’t move, but I watched as Peter got Pamela to attack the Jynx, and managed to drag us home. Dad made the Cyndaquil he meant to give me as a choice for a starting pokémon (the pokémon he intended to let me choose from were bred from his old Johto starters) thaw us out, and because Pikachu had been in the middle of using Thunderbolt when he got frozen, he shocked Dad. The funny thing was that we had a photo of him being shocked by Pikachu on the wall, and he looked exactly like the photo... anyway, he decided that because Peter saved us, he should get Cyndaquil as a gift. So Dad had no Cyndaquil to let me choose for a starting pokémon, so he decided to use a Charmander bred from his Charizard instead. That’s how I ended up with Charlie when I chose a starting pokémon one month later.”

    “And then you started training pokémon?”

    “Yeah. And Dad gave me Master ball before I set off. “Use it wisely”, he said. And I intended to. I went to Johto, to route 46, to catch some rare pokémon I knew were hiding there. I didn’t believe my eyes when I saw what I thought at first sight that was Suicune – that was where the head came from, at least. And then it had those unique ribbons Suicune has. Without thinking, I threw my Master ball because I knew Charlie wouldn’t stand a chance in a battle. But when I pointed my pokédex at the ball, it said it was a Fire/Water/Electric type with no data available. Well, it was Rainteicune. That’s how I got Rainteicune. Then I started training him and stuff... well, I battled someone the next day. And I ended up winning, but with Charlie badly paralyzed. I went to the nearest pokémon center and got the nurse to heal them... she took Charlie and Rainteicune into the back room but a few minutes later she hurried back telling me Charlie was evolving. And I didn’t want Charlie to lose his personality like poor Aaron, because Charlie was most certainly a lot too young to keep his personality after evolution, besides that his father hadn’t even when he was a lot older when he evolved. So I hurried to the back room, but I was too late to stop him from evolving. The Charmeleon was not like Charlie at all. It took ten minutes to get him back into his pokéball with Nurse Joy helping me, and when we finally did it, I had some bad burns. I put Charmeleon in a PC box and never intended to take him out again because I really didn’t feel like he was Charlie. Instead, I focused on Rainteicune, trained him and he was... very, very strong. I did well in the Johto league with no other pokémon at all.

    But one day when we were up in the mountains, I saw a magnificent bird pokémon. And it came down to us; it was none other than Molzapart. I was scared, but Molzapart said: “I’m not here because of you. I’m here because of your pokémon, Rainteicune.”

    And I asked Molzapart: “What do you want with Rainteicune?” And Molzapart answered: “I knew Rainteicune. I didn’t really bother when you caught him, but now is an odd situation and I need Rainteicune to be wild.”

    I was stunned, because I really loved Rainteicune now. The only thing that could ever take Rainteicune’s place was Charlie with his old personality back, but I knew that wasn’t happening. But then Molzapart added: “Of course I don’t ask for a favor for nothing in return. And I can give you the best replacement for Rainteicune you can imagine.” And I asked how, and he said: “I have many abilities I don’t even know myself. All pokémon, actually, have many abilities they don’t even know themselves. But I’m special, you see. I can know any amount of attacks at once.”

    “I thought it was just five,” I asked.

    “No, it’s not just five,” said Molzapart. “That was what I thought when I told your father of myself. But now I know more. Much, much more. Wildness is one. It is what I’m going to use on Rainteicune to make him able to go wild even after being caught in a Master ball. Another one is Devolution beam, which I can use on your Charmeleon to turn him back into a Charmander and regain his old personality...”

    Of course, I couldn’t believe my luck. But Molzapart continued.

    “The downside of this, however, is that Devolution beam cannot be used without using another special ability of mine called Power drain. And let’s just say it hurts. Devolving a pokémon requires a lot of power, you see. It’s the same reason as why the trainer needs to help a pokémon to stop it from evolving most of the time, except it needs a lot more power. This power can only be supplied by using Power drain, and Power drain can kill a weak pokémon, but Rainteicune is certainly not weak. However, with Wildness added... Wildness hurts too, you see. So Rainteicune will at least be in a pretty bad condition after it, and there is a chance that he may not make it...”

    I immediately said: “Then use Power drain on me instead.”

    Molzapart was going to protest, but I added: “It won’t kill me, will it? And if it won’t, then it’s far the safest way for both of us. I’m ready to get hurt a bit.”

    Molzapart said: “It won’t kill you, certainly not. What I’m worried about is that I’m not sure using human energy for Devolution beam has the same effect as pokémon energy. He may evolve instead of devolving... or not get his old personality back... or the Devolution beam might do nothing at all.”

    I thought about it, but in the end I decided that at least Charlie could barely be worse off after it, and it was at least better for Rainteicune. So I got Molzapart to use Power drain on me. I tell you, that’s the worst feeling imaginable, I felt like I was going to die, but then Molzapart used Devolution beam on Charlie, and he glowed white... but to my disappointment, he evolved into a Charizard instead of devolving. But he wasn’t like Charmeleon had been, he was like Charlie, so he had his old personality back. Then suddenly, he glowed white again, and became a Charmeleon – but he didn’t go running around and trying to burn me.. And finally he changed back into a Charmander, looked curiously at me and then tried out this evolution thingy a few times, and it worked every time and his personality never changed again. So, the Devolution beam had not only brought his old personality back, but given him this added bonus! Then I said goodbye to Rainteicune, Molzapart used Wildness on him, and they were about to go when I asked Molzapart for a little extra favor. Namely devolving Aaron. And after that, I flew home on Charlie in Charizard form, phoned Peter and asked him to take Aaron to his old trainer and tell him that he just turned up. After that, I decided to compete in the Ouen league, I caught some other pokémon, and... well, that’s about it.”

    “Wow.” Mark simply said. “Eh, Charlie? You know, I’ve been wondering for very long what it feels like to evolve...”

    The Charmander looked at him, then said: “Well, I thought I saw I was in total darkness, lying... and a Charmeleon walked up to me, grabbed my tail and started pulling me. Something told me I should try to stay there at all costs... but the Charmeleon was stronger, pulled me off my place and lay down there instead with a smile of victory, then he faded away and I was alone in the dark... I lost track of time and I didn’t know what I was doing there, until suddenly I saw the Charmeleon in front of me, and it was like he was being pushed away from there, he tried to hold on but I came, pulled him off and took my place again, but a Charizard came... he tried to push me off, but I wasn’t as young, I endured... and then I felt like I was melting away with the Charizard, and – then I stood there with Alan, but much bigger, with wings, in a Charizard form... but it was still me... for some reason I did something and I was in the darkness again, but this time as a Charizard... and Charmeleon came, but didn’t manage to do anything against me... and I felt like I melted away again, and then I was back in front of Alan as a Charmeleon. And I wondered: Can I do that to make myself a Charmander again? And I did it again, and I was back in the darkness, and I saw myself coming... and the other me and I melted together instantly, and I was back as a Charmander... it’s a really weird feeling...”

    Mark looked at the clock on the wall. “Look at the time! Sorry, my friend’s battle is probably already over and she’s wondering where I am... thank you for the story – stories, that is. Bye!”

    And Mark rushed out.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  3. #43

    Default Fanfic Updates - What's been updated and when!

    Chapter 22 of The Quest for the Legends is up. I've done better ones, I'm not good at converting a really old third-person story into first person... but the content is more interesting than the style.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  4. #44
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    That explains where Rainteicune went. It's cool how you described evolution, IMO. And it's still cool how CHarlie can evovle and devolve at will.

  5. #45
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Oh... My... God... You have to post the rest of the chapters before you give up on it, your work is some of the best I ever read(perhaps on par with Shadowed_Mewtwos ).

    KEEP IT UP!!!

  6. #46

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    I wouldn't give up on it if I was paid... there's a load of good chapters left, I've written chapter 30 and everything before it, planned many, many future chapters, including the second-last chapter, the last chapter and the epilogue. So yeah... something REALLY much has to happen if I am to give up on this fic.

    Chapter 23 is currently being revised and it will need some time for that. Not because I need to change something (I actually need to change very little), but because I'm going to add eight battles into it. Yep, eight. Just give me some time.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  7. #47

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Here's a preview of chapter 23. As you should probably have figured out, it has a lot of action... and is rated PG-13 for some violent pokémon battles. ***PREVIEW IS RATED PG-13 TOO***

    Meanwhile, the Sceptile got wearily up, plucked a leaf off his tail and held it in his hand like a sword. It stiffened and started to glow. Then he rushed at the Scizor, and quicker than she could react, he slammed the leaf into her. However, it didn’t hurt her very much since she was coated with steel armor, and she stood slowly up again and held up one arm, looking seriously at the Sceptile. He was confused, but after she pointed at his Leaf blade with her other pincer and then at the one she held forward, Blade understood and smiled, narrowing his eyes.

    Then a ferocious duel began. They moved their arms faster than the eye could catch for a while, then stopped to catch their breath.

    Scizor held up her other pincer in the same way as the one she was using as a sword. Blade nodded and plucked off another leaf from his tail with his free arm. They swung their weapons slowly around like showing them off, then Scizor suddenly attacked, and the duel started again. Every now and then the audience could hear roars when they were hit, but as the duel went on, Blade’s type disadvantage started to show as he was getting covered with scratches and blood was leaking from a big gash on his head, but Scizor was barely harmed at all. In the end, it appeared that Blade gave up, as he dropped his Leaf blades to the ground and then lay flat down on his belly, closing his eyes. Scizor smashed her pincers into his skull and a sickening crack was heard as blood started prickling from his mouth.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  8. #48

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter 23! It's ten pages now, some of my very best chapters yet, at least some of my best battles, and I love it a lot. One of my favorite chapters too... and you'll like it, Iveechan. It's the chapter with the Hitmonchan, and I made him even better in the revised version. I think I'm going to make him appear again...


    Chapter 23: The pokémon frenzy tournament (PG-13, for violence)


    (A/N: There will be a lot of what the pokémon are thinking in this chapter. Just so no one will get confused, everything a pokémon is thinking is in italics. Not everything in italics is what a pokémon is thinking, but you really should be able to recognize those cases yourself.)

    May was just returning from the gym.

    “What were you doing in there?” she said blankly.

    “Ash Ketchum lives there,” Mark replied. “And his son.”

    No!” May gasped. “That just can’t be... you saw him?”

    “Well, no,” Mark admitted. “But I saw his Pikachu.”

    “Really?”

    “Yeah. And Alan, his son. He invited me over to tell me that Chaletwo has killed four trainers who had all somehow wanted to catch it... and he saw Molzapart. And owned Rainteicune. And he told me of it. And...”

    “Molzapart? Rainteicune?” May questioned.

    “Oh, of course... you didn’t read that book. Well, Molzapart is equally powerful as Chaletwo. Rainteicune is a mix between Raikou, Entei and Suicune... and then Alan has a Persian, and a Vaporeon and a Grovyle and a Rapidash and a Misdreavus, and a Charmander that can evolve or devolve at will...”

    “Mark – you’re speaking way too fast,” May said.

    Mark explained everything in details a bit slower.

    “Really?” May said after Mark had finished. “Well, we can think about him later. Shouldn’t we go and find a hotel?”

    They found a hotel, sure enough. It was almost full, though, because over the festival days, there was an awful lot of tourists in Green town, but since they were there early enough, they managed to get decent rooms anyway.

    The rest of the day and the next day, they spent training their pokémon and watching the preparations for the festival. The day after that was the “more info” day, so Mark and May checked the program to see what they needed more info about.

    “The pokémon frenzy tournament. That doesn’t exactly tell much about what it is, so we should at least get more info on that,” said May, peeking at the first part of the program.

    “Evolution day. Well, I haven’t got any stone-evolving pokémon, but you have Pikachu...” Mark said and looked at May.

    “Nah, I don’t think so,” May replied. “I want Pikachu to learn all of his attacks before he evolves.... hey, look at this... Attack approval. I’m entering that. And I’m definetly going to get some more info.”

    “Me too,” said Mark. “And then... Trainer’s market. Well, you don’t really need more info on that, do you? Besides, it doesn’t say it has any more info.”

    “Nope. And then the starter pokémon giveaway... the “more info” for that is most likely just for those who are going to get starter pokémon there. So we’re going to the Pokémon frenzy tournament “more info”, 2 PM, and the Attack approval one, 2:30. Let’s just hope we can get to both.”

    At two o’clock, they were down in the Green town pokémon stadium. There was a man with a megaphone on one end of the arena. Meanwhile, some people were preparing the attack approval information. The man with the megaphone was shouting in it, making his voice echo through the arena much too loudly.

    “Do your pokémon want to be champions? Not with you always telling them what to do? Maybe you’re not a good trainer, but you have very strong pokémon? Or maybe you only have one strong pokémon, but no others so you can’t enter the pokémon league? Then the Pokémon frenzy tournament is something for you, or rather your pokémon! Here, the pokémon battle with their own strength, wits and attacks, without trainers to command them! The pokémon finally get some credit! They finally are the champions, not the trainers! Are you interested? Is your pokémon interested? Go to the lady over there to enter your pokémon! Not for anyone too sensitive... or Water pokémon that need water to battle.”

    “I think I’m entering some of mine,” said Mark.

    “I think I’m not entering any of mine,” said May coldly. “My pokémon don’t need to have crazy battles that will most likely include a lot of blood to be champions.”

    “Well, I think I’m entering all of mine,” said Mark. “Or maybe not Dragonair, he’s a bit sensitive... and Gyarados isn’t allowed.”

    He went to the woman.

    “Good day. Are you going to enter some of your pokémon?”

    “Yes, four,” Mark said.

    “Okay then,” she said and handed Mark four forms to fill out. The forms looked something like this:

    Species: ____________
    Nickname (if none, leave blank): __________
    Gender: _ Male _ Female
    Level: __
    Trainer’s full name: _________
    Comments: __________________________________________________ __


    Mark filled the forms out.

    “Anything else?” he asked the lady.

    “Then you have to sign this,” she said and handed Mark a paper. He read it: “By signing this paper, you are clarifying that all information about you and your pokémon is correct...” and blah blah blah. Mark signed it and handed it to the lady.

    “And this,” she said and handed him another paper. It said: “You hereby declare that you are aware of the rule that the trainer is not allowed to have any business with his or her pokémon’s battles in the Tournament. You are aware that in this Tournament, the trainer is no more than audience. You are also aware that neither the staff of the Tournament nor of the festival can be held responsible for any physical harm or injuries on your pokémon after the Tournament is over.” There was more, but it didn’t appear to be anything more than repeating these lines with different words. Mark signed it, and then the lady told him he could go now as she stapled all of this together and put it aside where signed forms would go.

    Mark got out just in time to catch May on the way to the attack approval information. There were a man and a woman standing by a pile of what seemed to be Clefable dolls. There were long queues to each of them and Mark went to the one to the woman right away but May counted the people in both queues carefully and then chose the man’s one.

    At long last, Mark reached the woman.

    “I’d like to enter, please,” he said.

    “Yes. Take a Clefable doll,” the woman said.

    “What are they for?” Mark asked as he picked one up.

    “They’re hi-tech caculators for the base damage, type, accuracy and power points of the attack used on them,” she said. “You take one, then when you’re going to practise your attacks, you turn it on, let your pokémon use their attack on it as many times as they can, and the doll will show you all information you need about the attack. The doll can store information about six attacks at once, and when it comes to the attack approval itself, you give us the doll so we can see the information about the attacks, and then you show us the attacks.”

    “OK, thanks,” said Mark, took the doll and walked to May, who had gotten her doll long before him, being in the shorter queue.


    Finally there came the twentieth. Mark and May walked to the stadium at half past one. Mark handed four of his pokéballs to the man who was collecting the pokémon that were to take part in the tournament, then they went and found decent seats. The pokémon frenzy tournament apparently did not use the whole arena; a small part of it was marked off. There weren’t as many people there as Mark had imagined, but there were still quite a few trainers. At two o’clock, the megaphone man came.

    “Okay! Round one begins!” said the man in the megaphone. “I will be commenting on the battles. The first fight is between a Jolteon, level 35 male, no nickname, and a female Vibrava called Terra, level 35 also!”

    The pokémon were sent out and Jolteon looked up into the audience for Mark. After he spotted his trainer, he turned to the Vibrava, who had flown up into the air, and examined it. He had never seen one before.

    A dragonfly. Looks like a Bug/Flying type. Weak to electricity, then... this will be easy.

    He charged a Thunderbolt and fired it at the dragonfly pokémon. It didn’t move, just leviated there and took the full blast, but seemed completely unharmed.

    Huh?

    The Vibrava, Terra, slammed hard into the ground.

    “And Terra uses an Earthquake! Jolteon makes, it, though... he stands up and faces her again...”

    Earthquake? What the heck?

    Terra smashed into the ground again, but Jolteon was ready and jumped on top of her as she landed. Angered, she flew faster as Jolteon tried pumping more ineffective electricity into her, and he fell off to the ground. The dragonfly pokémon took a deep breath and then breathed this weird sort of pale, kinda greenish fire at Jolteon. He avoided it using Agility.

    Earthquake? Dragonbreath? No bug can do that... Ground and Dragon attacks... Ground/Dragon... no Flying type... so Bug is neutral...

    Jolteon roared and blasted a flurry of pins at Terra.

    “Jolteon counters the Dragonbreath with a Pin missile! He gets the point, Vibrava is a Ground type and unharmed by electricity!” the megaphone guy announced.

    Jolteon’s first two flurries of pins hit as well as the third one. The Vibrava was getting too hurt to keep flying, enabling him to hit two more times. His back end was clearly less spiky now, but one Quick attack finished the Vibrava off.

    Take that, bug look-alike!

    But he was very weak and weary after this battle.

    “Jolteon wins! Next match... it’s a Scizor, level 45 female with no nickname, and Blade, the level 50 male Sceptile, who is also (not that it has anything to do with anything) the highest level pokémon in this tournament! But will his level be enough to match up for the type disadvantage?”

    The two pokémon emerged on the arena. Mark compared the crimson red, metallic bug with some sort of pincers on its arms, and the green reptillian creature with a fern for a tail. Sceptile had always looked pretty strange in his pokémonology textbook, because Mark had always gotten the impression that its tail was a christmas tree. Now, when he saw one in real life, he had to admit it looked pretty cool.

    The Sceptile, Blade, leapt at the Scizor, roaring. The Scizor hadn’t seemed to be paying any attention to her oppoment; instead, she just stood there and did some sorts of ninja movements with her pincers while looking in the other direction. But when Blade drew nearer, she suddenly turned, swung her arms forward and grabbed his left arm, then somehow swung him back and into the ground as easily as if he were a sheet of paper.

    “Ooh! Scizor made it look like she was being careless while she built up her attacking power with Swords dance! Clever move!” said the announcer.

    Meanwhile, the Sceptile got wearily up, plucked a leaf off his tail and held it in his hand like a sword. It stiffened and started to glow. Then he rushed at the Scizor, and quicker than she could react, he slammed the leaf into her. However, it didn’t hurt her very much since she was coated with steel armor, and she stood slowly up again and held up one arm, looking seriously at the Sceptile. He was confused, but after she pointed at his Leaf blade with her other pincer and then at the one she held forward, Blade understood and smiled, narrowing his eyes.

    Then a ferocious duel began. They moved their arms faster than the eye could catch for a while, then stopped to catch their breath.

    Scizor held up her other pincer in the same way as the one she was using as a sword. Blade nodded and plucked off another leaf from his tail with his free arm. They swung their weapons slowly around like showing them off, then Scizor suddenly attacked, and the duel started again. Every now and then the audience could hear roars when they were hit, but as the duel went on, Blade’s type disadvantage started to show as he was getting covered with scratches and blood was leaking from a big gash on his head, but Scizor was barely harmed at all. In the end, it appeared that Blade gave up, as he dropped his Leaf blades to the ground and then lay flat down on his belly, closing his eyes. Scizor smashed her pincers into his skull and a sickening crack was heard as blood started prickling from his mouth. Mark heard May fuss beside him. She had been right in one aspect: these battles did seem to include a lot of blood. Even while bothered by the fact that no one did anything to prevent this from happening, he couldn’t help noticing how civilized pokémon were. He never thought pokémon had actual duels with rules. Even less that they took the rules seriously enough to lie down and wait to be killed after losing.

    “And Scizor won this battle!” the announcer cried. “Next... it’s a level 40 Hitmonchan called Fury, obivously male since all Hitmons are... and Happy the level 38 female Blissey! Who will win?”

    Mark couldn’t help rolling his eyes. A higher-level Fighting pokémon against a Blissey? What excitement did that guy think he could create over an obivous result?

    The Blissey appeared, disgustingly happy-looking, as a cool humanoid pokémon wearing a tunic and boxing gloves appeared on the other side. The Hitmonchan did a funny copy of the Blissey’s expession, then punched her hard in the stomach. She shrieked and then fell down, fainted. Fury jokingly stroke some nonexistant sweat from his forehead and pretended to be exhausted. Mark laughed. Fury had a sense of humour.

    “Ummm... yeah. And after this... er, great match... we’ll see Jaws the male Feraligatr, level 42, and a male Blastoise called Cannon.”

    The two water pokémon were sent out from the sides of the arena and for a while they just glared at each other, showing their teeth.

    Then suddenly, Jaws rushed at Cannon, they grabbed hold of each other and started wrestling. Jaws bit the Blastoise’s cannon and he immediately started pumping water through it. Jaws was cast back but he stood quickly up again and used his own water attack agains Cannon’s.

    As suddenly as before, Jaws bent down and out of the way, and rushed at the tortoise pokémon and slashed its face. Cannon slammed hard into Jaws’ back, but he was strong enough to withstand it and to retailate he bit Cannon’s arm powerfully. Then Jaws used what was, according to the announcer, a Dynamicpunch, and this sent Cannon flying backwards. He landed helplessly on his back, and Jaws smashed his tail into Cannon’s belly, ending the battle.

    “Jaws wins! And it’s time for the next match – it’s a level 35 male Sandslash with no nickname versus a level 32 male Umbreon called Ringwraith! This will be interesting!”

    Mark watched as the pokéball people at either side of the arena recalled Jaws and Cannon, and sent out Sandslash and that Umbreon owned by a Lord of the Rings-obsessed trainer. Very obsessed, apparently, since the trainer had painted Elvish runes on the ring on Umbreon’s forehead. Mark was actually surprised that the other rings had been left alone, but then figured that the trainer just took “The ONE Ring” too seriously to make many of them.

    Sandslash faced his oppoment. Umbreons are calm pokémon, Mark thought, so Sandslash will probably get the first hit in.

    Sandslash rushed at Ringwraith and slashed him with his claws. Ringwraith got some deep cuts, but didn’t show any signs of pain. His rings glowed, making the Elvish runes even more noticeable, as a black orb started forming in front of him, and then the orb shot forward. Sandslash quickly curled up into a ball, but the orb still hit him with a lot of force and sent purple sparks flying all around.

    “Sandslash started this battle with Slash, but Ringwraith used a powerful Shadow ball to counter it! And hey, that looks like a Sand attack!”

    Ringwraith was kicking sand randomly up, surrounding him in a cloud of sand.

    I’ll never hit him like that with Slash...

    Sandslash rose up on two legs and then slammed his whole body into the ground, causing an earthquake. The earthquake sent sand swirling up everywhere. When it was back on the ground, the Umbreon was still kicking up sand all around himself.

    You asked for it...

    Sandslash turned his back to the cloud of sand and suddenly, the spikes from his back started flying forward at high speed, straight at the middle of the dust cloud. Then he raced at the unclear, dark shape and slashed randomly in hopes of hitting something. When the dust ceared, Ringwraith had Sandslash on top of him, clearly unable to battle.

    “This battle goes to Sandslash! Sorry, but the One Ring has no power in a pokémon battle!”

    The announcer waited for laughter, but when he didn’t get any, he continued.

    “Next battle... a level 35 Charmeleon who’s male without a nickname, and a Jynx without a nickname, level 37 and obviously female...”

    Mark watched as Charmeleon was sent out, facing a purple-skinned pokémon wearing a red dress and blond hair.

    Charmeleon looked at the Jynx with disgust, then raised his hand to his mouth, breathed a bit of fire into it. Then he aimed and shot.

    He hit his target, straight in the face. The Jynx then raced towards him and gave him a huge kiss. Charmeleon got an awkward expression and Mark couldn’t help thinking he looked drunk when he put his hand forward and mumbled: “Char charmeleon?”

    “And it’s a Sweet kiss, and Charmeleon is confused! What will he do now?”

    He didn’t get the opportunity to do anything, because the Jynx started wriggling her hips and blinking her eyes rapidly.

    “Oooh! Attract!”

    Charmeleon’s eyes went all hearty and his mouth fell open. Then he just stood there with this stupid expression. Mark heard May snicker beside him.

    Finally, the Jynx bent down to kiss Charmeleon on the lips. He joined heartily in as his eyelids were dropping slowly. Then, when he was starting to look really sleepy, he suddenly seemed to realize what he was doing, his eyes opened wide and he ripped himself free and blasted a Fire blast straight in the Jynx’s face. Then he slammed his tail into her body and, as mad as he now was, used Rage.

    His tail flame burned powerfully and he attacked the Jynx with a wild glow in his eyes.

    How did I ever fall for that! This is the biggest humiliation of my whole life! Take this! And this! And THIS!

    The Jynx ended up lying all charred in a pool of water.

    “And Charmeleon managed to withstand Jynx’s Lovely kiss and beat her! Good job to him! Next battle: a level 43 male Scyther without a nickname, and an Absol by the name of Armageddon, level 45 and male also!”

    Scyther appeared on the arena along with an Absol. Scyther smiled cunningly and held forward his scythe. Armageddon bowed so that the blade on his head pointed forward. Then they walked up to each other, and Mark realized that he’d be seeing another duel similar to Scizor and Blade’s.

    If he ever thought Scizor and Blade were fast, it was nothing compared to Scyther and Armageddon. Their blades moved like blurs. But Scyther was faster, and since speed was an important part of this, in the end Scyther knocked Armageddon down and stood there breathing rapidly for a few seconds, then when Armageddon didn’t stand up again, he lowered his scythes and waited for his fallen oppoment to be recalled.

    “And then it’s the final match of round one – Casey the female Pidgeot, level 49, and a male Haunter without a nickname, level 40...”

    The Haunter’s hands started glowing as soon as he faced Casey and she started to look a bit drowsy as she looked into his eyes. After a few seconds, she collasped, fast asleep. Haunter then came carefully and put his hand on her head. She glowed purple, as did his hand (Mark noticed that he was apparently left-handed), and then he moved the hand slowly away, containing a red orb. He put it into his mouth.

    “PIDGEOOOOT!” came the Pidgeot’s cry as the ghost pokémon ate her dream. She woke up, looked quickly around, then flew up into the air and started flapping her wings rapidly. The Haunter, being only floating gas, was blown right back into the pokéball.

    “And round one is over, and it’s the start of round two! The winners from round one will now battle, while the losers are out of the tournament. So, round two begins, and it’s Jolteon and Scizor!”

    The men with all the pokéballs on either side of the small marked arena sent out the pokémon, Jolteon and that Scizor.

    A Scizor. It shouldn’t be too hard...

    Jolteon didn’t hear the levels, so he didn’t know how much stronger Scizor was, but he found out soon enough because the Scizor was extraordinarily fast for a Scizor, as had been clear earlier by her duel with Blade. She came at Jolteon at high speed, grabbed his leg and tightened her grip. There was a sickening crunch, which could even be heard through Jolteon’s shrieks of pain, that told Mark Scizor had broken Jolteon’s leg. Jolteon discharged electricity into the Scizor’s body, and she let him go. Jolteon whimpered on the ground and shot a Thunderbolt at the Scizor, which she evaded before she dived down and smashed Jolteon to the other end of the arena. Jolteon fell unconscious.

    “AND SCIZOR WINS! The next match is,” the announcer said as the pokéball men recalled Jolteon and Scizor and took out new balls, “Fury the Hitmonchan and Jaws the Feraligatr! Will Fury’s punching power bring him victory in this battle like his first one? Or will Jaws override the Fighting pokémon with his jaws, claws and Water attacks? We’ll see!”

    The alligator and the boxer pokémon faced each other, ready to fight. Neither moved. Then suddenly, Fury jumped at Jaws and punched him in the stomach.

    “And Fury’s decided to start this out with a Mach punch!” cried the announcer. “Jaws – Jaws – he uses a powerful Slash, but Fury evades it! Fury uses Comet punch, Jaws bites Fury’s arm! Ouch! No, Fury is Mega punching Jaws’ lower jaw – this is one tough Hitmonchan! Jaws doesn’t let go – Fury headbutts Jaws and gets his arm out! What will Jaws do... it’s a Hydro pump! Fury evades it, and – and – Dynamicpunches Jaws right in the head! Ow, that must’ve hurt! The Dynamicpunch made Jaws confused – oh! Fury strikes again with a Dizzy punch! And Jaws – Jaws – Jaws has fainted! Fury the Hitmonchan wins!”

    “I wonder who this Fury will be battling next time,” Mark muttered to himself. “Hopefully none of my pokémon... he seems pretty darn strong too...”

    “The next match – Sandslash versus Charmeleon!”

    Sandslash versus Charmeleon... they apparently made no efforts to avoid making pokémon owned by the same trainer battle. Sandslash and Charmeleon were sent out into the arena. Sandslash apparently didn’t want to battle Charmeleon, but Charmeleon took the tournament more seriously than that. He used a Fire blast and when it hit Sandslash, he maybe rolled a bit too much to keep it looking real. The announcer wasn’t going to try to make them actually battle.

    “And Sandslash seems to have given up!” the announcer said. “Charmeleon goes on to the next round!” And Sandslash and Charmeleon were recalled after this short battle.

    “And the last match before the next round, Scyther versus Casey!”

    The two pokémon were sent out. Casey looked at Scyther with disgust, shook herself dropping a few loose feathers to the ground, and Scyther and Casey then both flew up at the same time.

    “And Scyther has his scythes raised, Casey has her talons ready! They clash, and – and...” Scyther and the Pidgeot were in a mighty battle in mid-air and they both moved so fast there was no way to see clearly what was happening until they kicked each other away and then Scyther was covered in cuts and Casey’s feathers all stood on end. They panted there for a few seconds, flapping their wings, then flew at each other again.

    She’s strong... Very strong. But I have the upper wing...

    When they went back to rest for a few seconds again, Mark saw Casey’s right wing was hurt. She could still fly, but with more difficulty. Then Scyther flew at her again, slashed at her injured wing and she fell down to the ground, unable to battle anymore. Scyther landed and collapsed on the ground too, just out of exhaustion.

    “SCYTHER WINS!!!!!!” the announcer bellowed. “And now it’s round two! The first match is this Scyther, who is, in case you forgot, level 43 male, and the winner of the first battle, Scizor! This will be interesting – for anyone who might not have leaned that yet, Scizor is the evolved form of Scyther, but their total strength is still equal. So this will probably be an exciting battle!”

    “They’re going to make Scyther battle twice in a row?” Mark stared open-mouthed at the announcer. “When Scyther is that exhausted? I can’t believe it!”

    “I told you this tournament is run by people who don’t care about cruelty to pokémon!” May hissed. “No one in their right mind would organize pokémon battles where everything is allowed except making sure no one gets seriously hurt! This is madness, and I always knew it. I tried to tell you!”

    But when Scyther’s oppoment, that Scizor, was sent out, Scyther caught an eye on her and his eyes suddenly flamed with hate. He stood up, and as fatigued as he had been just a few seconds ago, he now didn’t seem tired at all. He stared into Scizor’s eyes and she stared back. Apparently, Scyther had battled that Scizor in the Metal city gym not just for the pride of all Scythers that haven’t been evolved. In fact, Scyther seemed to hate and loathe Scizors more than anything else in the world, judging by how he seemed to want to rip Scizor apart just by staring at her.

    A Scizor... Scizor... I want to kill... I want revenge...

    Scyther leapt up and shot at the Scizor. She evaded him.

    She’s fast... for a Scizor at least. But no Scizor is faster than any Scyther...

    Scyther shot at her again, and as she was trying to evade him, he changed direction at the moment she moved. He hit her with great force, knocking her to the ground. She locked her pincers around Scyther’s arm and tightened the grip, but because bugs don’t have any bones to break but instead have this hard shell around them, it wasn’t quite as effective as it had been on Jolteon. It gave her the opportunity to stand up, though. Now she shot at Scyther, but he flew up to evade it and then dived down and landed on top of her. Scyther held her down and searched quickly for a place where she wasn’t covered with steel plates that prevented his scythes from doing any serious damage to her. The weakest spot was on her neck, just below her head. She made some attempts to push Scyther off, but she was too hurt to manage it.

    Prepare to die, filthy little Scizor...

    Suddenly, a trainer in the top row stood up.

    “NOOO! STOP THE BATTLE! THAT MONSTER IS GOING TO KILL MY SCIZOR!”

    Scyther looked angrily up at him.

    “THAT’S MY POKÉMON DOWN THERE!” the trainer bellowed. “STOP THE BATTLE!!!!!!!!!”

    “Scizor’s trainer is breaking the rules, the trainers aren’t allowed to interfere with their pokémon’s battles! And it seems like he didn’t read the papers before signing them – it clearly said that “the staff of the Tournament or the festival are not to be held responsible for any physical harm or injuries on your pokémon”...”

    “NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!! SCIZOR!!!!!!!!” the trainer roared. Mark now finally understood the point of that sentence in the papers – they didn’t want to be sued if a pokémon got killed in the tournament. But, although the staff ignored the trainer completely, Scyther didn’t. He looked at the trainer and the Scizor several times and after staring at the Scizor for a few long seconds, he stood up. The Scizor lay still, but conscious, and Scyther stared at her. She didn’t stand up, and Mark guessed that meant she admitted defeat.

    The announcer frowned, like he had been hoping for a real ‘exciting’ end to the battle. “Scizor has given up! Scyther is the winner!” was his failed attempt to sound like when announcing the outcome of the previous battles. He still had a clear tone of disappointment. “Next up are Charmeleon and Fury.”

    Scyther and Scizor were recalled and instead Fury and Charmeleon were sent out. They glared at each other.

    “Um, Mark?” May said. “Do you know what I just discovered? If Charmeleon wins this, we’ll have Scyther versus Charmeleon in the finals, and that might not be... uh, a very good idea...”

    Mark froze. She was right, of course. Why hadn’t he noticed before?

    “Scyther versus Charmeleon? But... even though Charmeleon has the type advantage, Scyther has the level advantage and he can fly but not Charmeleon... and of course Scyther has those scythes... I’ll end up with a bunch of Charmeleon slices!”

    May’s answer was not encouraging. She just nodded and said: “Yeah, something like that, I’m afraid.”

    Meanwhile, Fury and Charmeleon were down on the battle arena, staring at each other. Catching Charmeleon off guard, Fury suddenly shot towards Charmeleon and started punching him, first in the stomach, then in the chest, then in the jaw, then straight in the face. Then Fury leapt back, waiting for Charmeleon’s reaction. Charmeleon looked like he was going to vomit, then bent down and spat some blood on the ground. Then he rose up again, inhaled deeply and sent a swirl of flames at Fury, who tried to leap aside, but nevertheless got hit by it. However, Mark knew about the awesome ability to withstand elemental attacks the Hitmons had. Fury shot at Charmeleon again, but this time Charmeleon was ready and leapt aside just as Fury was about to punch. Then Charmeleon jumped on top of Fury and bit his arm.

    “No,” Mark moaned, “don’t win... please...”

    But his wish did not come true, in a few seconds Charmeleon had Fury in a headlock and Fury was forced to give up.

    “And Charmeleon is the winner! The final match is... SCYTHER VERSUS CHARMELEON!!!!”

    Charmeleon watced with a look of satisfaction on his face as Scyther was sent out at the other end. Scyther took his place perfectly calm and expressionless.

    Now is the time... time to advance...

    “Char,” Charmeleon said. “Chaaaaaaarmeleon!!!!!!!!!” He closed his eyes, and something incredible happened.

    He glowed white.

    He went larger, much larger; batlike wings spread from his back; the head went longer and the horn on his head split into two much narrower ones. He stopped glowing, revealing a Charizard.

    “Whoa! Look at that! Charmeleon has decided to evolve a bit early! Actually, those two look like they hate each other... hey, wait a minute... this is strange... they’re both owned by the same trainer! What’s up with them?” said the announcer.

    “Oh no,” Mark moaned. “I don’t want to watch them kill each other...” He looked straight down at his own legs and concentrated on an ancient mouldy piece of chewing gum that happened to be just there.

    “Mark, wait,” May said. “Scyther doesn’t really look... up to battle.”

    Mark dared to look up again and saw she was right again. Scyther looked more “hey, aren’t you overdoing this a bit?” and his scythes twitched with Charizard’s every movement, like he was going to stand there until Charizard attacked, then try to defend himself.

    “Maybe it will be okay after all,” Mark said hopefully.

    Charizard looked like he was going to vomit again. Probably time for more blood-spitting. And apparently, he thought the blood would be wasted if it landed on the ground, so he decided to spit it at Scyther instead, then flew up. Scyther’s face got completely covered in it...

    Blood.

    Blood is red.

    Something red in a Scyther’s eyes equals disaster. That was one thing he had learned in pokémonology.

    “Uh oh. Bad idea, Charizard... bad idea...”

    With a terrifying, mad roar, Scyther shot towards the nearest moving object: Charizard’s wings. He slashed them madly, but Charizard’s thick skin prevented them from being absolutely torn apart. Charizard turned around in the air and shot a Flamethrower at Scyther. Scyther evaded it and was shooting at Charizard again, but Charizard swung his tail around and hit Scyther with it. Scyther was smashed to the ground but he stood right up again, but the blood seemed to have cleared out of his eyes. He stopped to think, and while he stopped to think, Charizard’s tail came smashing into his back again, sending him flying up, then he landed on the ground, face down. Charizard raised his tail again.

    One more attack, and Scyther will never attack us in our sleep!

    “You know, I think Charizard’s just going to kill him...” said the announcer with more interest than ever before.

    He suddenly lowered his tail.

    Maybe I don’t need to finish Scyther off once and for all.

    Scyther’s body twitched; Charizard raised his tail again.

    No, I better finish it now, since I’ve started.

    He hesitated again.

    Why am I doing this?

    We did hate each other. But why? Scyther has never done anything to me.

    I got him to hate me too. I wanted him to hate me too.

    It was because I was afraid Scyther would attack Mark... try to kill him...

    Or, that was what I got myself to believe. I was just jealous.

    Of course, that was when I was a Charmeleon. I’m more mature now.

    But my actions may not be taken back...

    What have I done?


    Charizard lowered his tail completely. He stopped flapping his wings and fell down on the arena, and lay there completely motionless.


    The announcer, who had been too busy watching this unusual fight, finally got himself to speak. “Well, it looks like this terrifying battle ended in a draw! Charizard has given up, but Scyther doesn’t seem to be in a very good condition, either!”
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  9. #49
    Banned
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    Sep 2003
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Good chapter. I was kinda suprised when Charizard gave up. I thought he would faint from exasutaion or something.

  10. #50

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Grrr... I wrote out this long reply and it got deleted...

    Well, what I said was that this is one of my favorite things in the chapter. You see, I made that thing about pokémon who evolve too young or have a too weak personality getting different mentally as well as physically when they evolve. Charmeleon was mean, arrogant, cocky, with a tendency to get jealous... just a very nasty character. When he forced himself to evolve into Charizard, he evolved a bit early (he was still level 35) so he changed again and stopped being so nasty, and being an adult now, he was more mature and had a better feeling for understanding his own emotions. The battle was too fast for him to think, really, until at the end when he started realizing that he had been a terrible person as a Charmeleon, started to regret everything he had done, and you'll see what happens then in the next chapter...

    But anyway, there's the irony in it that Charmeleon forced evolution for the sole purpose of killing Scyther, but what stopped him from giving the final blow was exactly the fact that he had evolved.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  11. #51

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter 24. I was in a writing mood when I wrote it, so it's one of those chapters where I stir in some tiny little thoughts in between the lines. It also hints a tiny bit towards chapter 30, but you can't see the hit unless you've read chapter 30.

    EDIT: Forgot to copy + paste the chapter... I'm so strange.

    Chapter 24: The evolution day


    Mark never remembered what happened after that. The next thing he knew was that he was lying on a bench in the pokémon center, just waking up, with Nurse Joy’s face going in and out of focus, telling him that Scyther was going to be all right. May seemed to have been sleeping on the next bench because her hair all stood on end and she looked very tired, but she was sitting now, listening to Nurse Joy.

    “Do you want to visit Scyther now?” she asked Mark finally, after some non-understandable explainations.

    “Er, maybe in a few minutes...” Mark said, trying to remember what was happening. Checking his watch, he saw it was half past two AM.

    “May? Could you come over here?” he said, everything seeming completely out of order in his brain. She came over.

    “What?” she asked.

    “What happened?”

    “Huh?”

    “The last thing I remember is when Scyther and Charizard’s battle was over...”

    “Really? Well, after all, it must have been something like that, you went all strange... you walked down to the arena and I followed you, trying to ask what you were up to but it was like you didn’t hear me... you took the pokéballs off the people who just recalled Scyther and Charizard, shouting... er, something I don’t want to repeat... at them... the basic meaning was “why didn’t you recall them before it went like that?”. Then you went to the pokémon center, I was still following you, and you put the pokéballs on the desk in front of Nurse Joy without saying a word, then went over here and sat down on this bench... I went and explained everything to Nurse Joy, then came and tried to talk to you, but you didn’t answer... then I gave up and sat down on the bench here. In the end, you fell asleep, and I did too. I trust that you remember what happened after you woke up?”

    “Yeah...” said Mark. “This was a bit odd... hey, Nurse Joy! Charizard! How is Charizard?”

    He just suddenly remembered that Charizard existed too. Nurse Joy, who had been waiting at the counter, came over.

    “Well, physically, he’s fine. I mean, of course he’s got some cuts, but it’s nothing serious. But mentally... it’s one of the worst cases I’ve ever seen. He just lies there and won’t move, won’t eat... just come and see for yourself.”

    Mark and May followed Nurse Joy into a room where Charizard lay on the floor. He showed no signs of noticing when they walked in.

    “Charizard?”

    No reactions.

    “You know, Scyther’s going to be all right.”

    Still nothing.

    They walked to Charizard’s front. Even though they were right in front of his eyes, it was clear that he wasn’t looking at them, but through them.

    “Are you sure he’s... still alive?” Mark asked, still keeping an eye on Charizard.

    “Oh yes, he is. But I’m afraid he may not be for much longer.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “He’s trying to starve himself. Won’t eat. Won’t even look at the food.”

    “Did you try feeding him? I mean, can you force his mouth open and just put food in it?”

    “We tried. But then he doesn’t swallow it. He’s just... completely limp. Exactly like dead, but he’s still breathing, his heart is beating, his brain is working...”

    “Charizard? Can you hear me?”

    “He can. But he won’t react to it...”

    There was silence which wasn’t broken until the door opened again. It was Scyther who came in, still with some bits of wires connected to him. Finally now, Charizard showed some reactions. His eyes moved to Scyther, and followed Scyther through the room to them.

    “Charizard, I’m not angry with you at all,” said Scyther, in his usual, calm, serious tone. Charizard didn’t answer.

    “You didn’t kill me, Charizard. You didn’t cause any permanent injuries to me. I’ve forgiven you already. So what’s the problem?”
    Charizard still didn’t answer.

    “Don’t kill yourself for having almost killed me, Charizard. It’s pointless.”

    Nothing.

    “Fine,” said Scyther. “If you’re going to starve yourself, I’m going with you, and we can get this clear in the afterlife.” Scyther took one more step towards Charizard and moved his right scythe slowly towards the segment between his upper and lower body.

    Charizard still stared at Scyther, but didn’t say anything.

    “Charizard, I’m serious,” said Scyther. Very seriously indeed. But Charizard still didn’t move.

    “So be it,” said Scyther. His scythe moved very slowly but steadily up to the segment and cut just a tiny bit into it.

    “Scyther, don’t do this to yourself,” Charizard finally breathed.

    “I’m sorry, Charizard, but if I can’t affect your decision to commit suicide, I don’t see the fairness of you being able to affect mine,” said Scyther calmly. Even at a moment as serious as this one, Mark couldn’t help but noticing how well Scyther handled conversations completely without losing his temper, getting nervous or begging.

    “Why do you think I’m trying to commit suicide?” Charizard muttered, still not taking his eyes off Scyther.

    “Why? Because you are, Charizard. I’m not an idiot. I know perfectly well what you’re doing; you don’t want to live because you almost killed me and regret what you have done. But I’m okay, and I don’t care that you could have killed me. You’re not a Charmeleon anymore and you know what you did was wrong. Since you’re leaving this world for having almost killed me, the least thing I can do is giving you a better reason and actually be dead with you...”

    Charizard didn’t answer.

    “Since that is what you want...” Scyther’s scythe started moving into the segment again. He gritted his teeth to ease the pain; it moved very, very slowly and even now it had only reached about half a centimeter into the segment.

    “You wouldn’t do it,” said Charizard suddenly.

    “Oh, yes, I would!” Scyther hissed, his scythe stopping. “Don’t forget, Charizard, that I’ve been dead before. It’s not bad at all. In fact, it’s a great deal better than living in this cursed world of pain and injustice for ages. The only reason why I didn’t kill myself again long ago is that it would be betraying Mark – who happens to have saved your life.”

    That last thing hit the spot. Charizard actually looked at Mark. Only for a bit of a second, but it was still a big improvement. Then Charizard looked Scyther again, and they stared at each other for a while.

    “Scyther, do you know what?” Charizard finally said.

    Scyther didn’t reply; his expression showed nothing at all.

    “Let’s save dying for later.”

    Charizard smiled; Scyther smiled too. Mark felt all warm. Nurse Joy smiled, and May looked at the two pokémon and then at Mark.


    Scyther and Charizard’s rivalry was officially settled when they shook hands in front of the pokémon center, both smiling just like before. Mark did notice that there was something special about the way they looked at each other, they seemed so close, like real friends. At least this whole thing had a happy ending... it had been so close to a sad one.


    Mark and May came to the stadium at 1:30 after some more sleep to watch the evolution day. It was surely a lot more popular than the Pokémon Frenzy Tournament, probably because people had seen or heard of the Pokémon Frenzy Tournament. And were probably just a bit smarter, thought Mark bitterly. As they squeezed themselves to the enterance, they saw that on each side was a desk and there was a woman sitting by each desk.

    “Your pokéballs, please,” the one on the left said. “If you’re entering your pokémon, give the balls to the lady on your right. This is done for security reasons as pokémon battles could otherwise burst out among the audience. Your pokéballs, please...”

    Mark handed his pokéballs to the woman without trouble, but when May had taken all of hers, someone bumped into her, causing her to drop all her balls. She picked them up again and put them on the desk in a bad mood, then they went to the enterance itself where there was a man with a pile of some buckets, handing one bucket to each person.

    “Evolution stones, full set of Fire, Water, Thunder, Leaf, Moon and Sun stones,” May read. She looked at the man. “What are they for? We’re not entering any of our pokémon...”

    “Didn’t you go to the more info?” the man asked.

    “Uh, no,” she said.

    “Well, I guess you’re the only people who didn’t,” said the man. “Go on, there are people after you...”

    They went in and found good seats, May still looking puzzled at the bucket. After a while, everything was full and the pokémon came into the arena. At least Mark and May were not alone of having no idea what this was about; the pokémon were looking puzzled at each other, obivously having no clue what was going on. They ended up in a group in the middle of the arena, some looking curiously at the audience, others seemingly asking each other if they knew anything about it. The giant clock showed five seconds to two, and everyone went silent. Four... three... two... one...

    With a roar, everyone opened the buckets and started tossing the stones at the pokémon. The pokémon panicked and started running around in circles, trying to avoid the stones. Some got hit by stones that had no effect on them, but the first pokémon that evolved was a Pikachu that tripped over a Weepinbell and got hit by a well-aimed Thunderstone a second after that. It glowed white and evolved into a Raichu, then grabbed a nearby Leaf stone, smirked and threw it at the Weepinbell, evolving it into a Victreebel. As a Fire stone was flying past, the Victreebel used its leaf to smash the Fire stone at a Vulpix.

    “That’s totally barbaric!” May hissed.

    “It’s not as bad as you think...” Mark said, reading the back of his bucket. “It says these are “special light edition evolution stones, weigh almost nothing”. So at least the pokémon aren’t being knocked out by being hit by those evolution stones...”

    “Who cares?” said May in her dangerous voice. “This is still totally barbaric! Thank God I didn’t enter my Pikachu...”

    May stopped, looking down. There were now very few pokémon left unevolved; an Eevee was just being evolved into Jolteon while a weary Seel got hit by a Water stone. In fact, when a Growlithe evolved after a long chase by the evolved pokémon, the only unevolved pokémon left appeared to be a Pikachu.

    “My Pikachu??!! Mark! That’s my Pikachu down there!”

    “What do you mean? You didn’t enter him...”

    “Remember when I dropped my pokéballs? That guy who made me drop them dropped his too. I thought I saw all of his balls rolling in the other direction, so I picked up one that may not have been my Pikachu, but his... and he entered the Pikachu he picked up, which was mine...”

    They both stared down. The lone Pikachu was still being given chase by some of the evolved pokémon, mainly Raichus. The people appeared to have tossed all their stones already so Pikachu decided to run up and find May. He jumped on a few people’s heads with one Raichu following. The other pokémon were getting tired of this and just stood on the arena, looking around and trying to see their trainers. Pikachu reached Mark and May’s row of seats, eyed May and started running on everyone’s heads. The Raichu climbed up from the row in front, thus facing Pikachu, aimed and tossed the Thunderstone. Pikachu avoided it and instead it hit a man in the eye. The man took the stone and threw it back, and it hit Pikachu in the back just as he reached May. Pikachu stopped, glowed white and evolved.

    “Rai,” he said, scratching his ear.

    “Oh,” said May blankly. “Now you won’t learn Thunder.”

    May was so strange sometimes. If it had been his Pikachu, whether it would learn Thunder or not would’ve been the last thing Mark would think about. Oh well.

    “All the pokémon have evolved! Now, all trainers can come and get their pokémon by the enterance!” boomed a voice over the arena.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  12. #52
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Hooray, Scyther is alive! Scyther is my favourite Pokémon in the fic, personality-wise (second being Charizard). It was kinda odd what May eaxplained to Mark. SOunded like a trance.

  13. #53
    Master Trainer
    Master Trainer

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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Nice work so far! I was impressed with Charizard and Scyther. I can see you don't want either to die, Dragonfree. It was touching when Scyther wanted to die too, if Charizard would, and how they doubted each others actions.

    Very good work! I'm also pleased Raichu's in ^_^

    Show-Off
    Contest fic
    *Chapter 37 up*
    Posted September 22nd, 2013


    ________________________________________________



  14. #54

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    HedgeCat: Well, they're pretty much the only pokémon with a real personality so far. The others will follow, and Gyarados will actually prove to have a very big story behind him (Scyther's is even bigger though, hehehe).

    Chris: When Scyther mentioned having considered suicide before, it was actually a hint towards chapter 30. What is bothering Scyther? What secrets is Gyarados hiding? All in chapter 30, where the pokémon are the main characters for one chapter...

    I sound like I'm advertising, don't I?
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  15. #55
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    I read the chapters twenty-three and twenty-four.I like them,especially the chapter 23.My favorite character was Charmeleon,now it's Charizard.I like his new personality^_^...


    *waits for chapter 30*

  16. #56
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    I couldn't resisit. =D

    [see attachment]

    [attachment deleted by admin]

  17. #57

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Heh, that's funny. Hey, I could use it to advertise in my sig... nah, though, it would look too funny for this fic, it's growing darker with every passing chapter.

    Anyway, I just wrote a poem that comes between chapters 30 and 31 (31 is the chapter I'm currently working on). It's not a chapter, just a poem about what a... *ahem* certain character is dreaming between the two chapters. Chapter 31 is in progress, not that you can have the tiniest idea what could possibly be happening in it...
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  18. #58

    Default The Type Chart

    The pokémon-ness is the first thing to happen in chapter three, and I've already written a bit of it, so there won't be a long wait until you get what this is about. Hey, at least it doesn't take twenty-seven chapters like The Quest for the Legends...


    The Type Chart
    Chapter 2: Morpheus

    The 00bers (what a stupid name) took me into their car and drove for a long way, took me inside a building and into some sort of an interrogation room. One of them offered me a seat in a disgustingly polite way and then sat down himself in front of me. I couldn’t help wondering what the hell was up with those shades everyone was wearing.

    The 00ber took out a folder labeled “Thomas A. Anderson”, opened it and put it on the table. Whether he was looking at the papers he browsed through or at me I couldn’t tell.

    “Hello Mr. Anderson. My name is Smith. As you can probably tell, we know a lot about you already. You live two lives. In one, you’re just some average Joe who pays taxes, has a job and all that stuff. In the other, you’re an absolute madman who’s in deep love with his computer, goes by the hacker alias Neo and has a problem with obeying the laws we have about computer usage.”

    I somehow felt like I was being swallowed by the depths of my chair.

    “Look, I’m going to be honest with you,” said the 00ber, Smith. “You’ve been contacting a man called Morpheus. He’s a terrorist, probably the most dangerous man alive, and we were hoping that you’d be cooperative and help us get him to justice.”

    “Great deal,” I said. “But I’ll make you an offer that you can’t refuse.”

    He raised his eyebrows.

    “I’ll give you the finger…”

    I did so and was about to continue when Smith interrupted with soft laughter.

    “You don’t know how ridiculous you look right now to me, Mr. Anderson. You think you’re being cool, but all I see right now is a poor guy who needs help because he thinks he’s someone he’s not.”

    “What are you talking about? I just want the phone call I have all rights to…”

    “Why do you want a phone call?” Smith said as some really foul-smelling tape appeared out of nowhere gluing my lips together. “You can’t even speak.”

    The two other 00bers approached with some kind of a berry. They ripped the tape off and as soon as I opened my mouth to shout, they shoved the berry in and forced me to swallow it. It was the worst tasting thing I’ve ever tried; like it was rotten or something.

    Then I woke up, and realized this had all been a dream. I stroke the sweat from my forehead. What a terrible nightmare. Then my heart took a leap and I looked at my desk – only to see that my computer was still ruined. Too bad that part wasn’t a dream too.

    I stood up, and the phone started ringing. I stopped dead. Morpheus? Trinity? Someone else? I slowly picked it up.

    “I must be brief. This line is watched,” came Morpheus’ voice.

    “The 00bers…”

    “I know all about that,” said Morpheus. “If they knew all I know, you’d probably be dead.”

    “Huh?” I asked.

    “They haven’t realized how important you are.”

    “What the hell?”

    “You’re the One, Neo.”

    “The One? Who’s the Two?” I asked sarcastically. Morpheus ignored the comment.

    “Do you still want to meet me?”

    “Er…”

    “Great. Go to the Adams street bridge.”

    The built-in curiosity could easily overcome the fear of maybe getting involved in something I didn’t want to know of.


    When I was on the bridge, there was a car already waiting for me. I saw Trinity in the car, and then a man and a woman I didn’t know.

    “Get in,” Trinity said, her face free from expression. I got into the car and was greeted by a gun held by the woman.

    “What’s that supposed to be?” I breathed.

    “It’s for our protection,” Trinity answered.

    “Protection? We need protection?”

    “From you.”

    “What the…”

    “Here,” she said and handed me a paper bag. “Puke in this.”

    “Huh?” I asked, more confused than I had ever been.

    The woman with the gun sighed.

    “Look. It can be our way,” she pushed the gun forward until it touched my forehead, “or…”

    “OK, your way, as long as you don’t hurt me,” I squeaked before she finished the sentence, my voice unusually high-pitched. Trinity smiled.

    “We won’t. Just puke in that bag.”

    “Why?” I asked, still confused.

    “We think the 00bers had you Berried.”

    “Couldn’t you just have asked?” I snapped. “No need to point a gun at me! They did force me to eat a rotten, foul-tasting berry, yeah, you could have found out much sooner if you had just bothered to ask!”

    “Puke in the bag,” Trinity just ordered.

    “How am I supposed to puke just like that?” I protested.

    “Puke or you’ll get to eat a bullet,” said the woman and the gun clicked.

    “Wait,” said Trinity. She glowed purple and suddenly I felt this incredible feeling of disgust. I immediately grabbed the bag and puked everything I’ve eaten in my life into it, or so it seemed.

    “Let’s get rid of that,” Trinity said as she took the bag and threw it out of the window. I thought I heard it land on the front window of one of the passing cars.

    We drove to some hotel-thing and Trinity took me to room 1313. I was already feeling that I shouldn’t have come here.

    “Be honest, he knows a lot,” said Trinity as she pushed me forward into the room.

    Inside, a tall man was standing in front of the window, looking out. He freaked me out for some unknown reason.

    “You’re here at last,” he said in a voice that made me almost expect him to add Mr. Anderson after it.

    “Yeah…” I muttered, not really knowing what to say.

    “Welcome. You can probably already guess that I’m Morpheus.”

    “It’s an honour,” I said, daring to be a bit louder.

    “The honour is mine, Neo. Sit down.”

    Trinity left; she apparently had nothing more to do here. I slowly sat down, not taking my eyes off Morpheus. He also sat down and sighed.

    “So, you must feel like you’ve tumbled down a rabbit hole, I suppose?”

    “Rabbit hole?” I questioned.

    “Alice in Wonderland…”

    “Yeah, of course,” I said. “But I don’t get it – I’m not in Wonderland, I’m just involved in something freaky.”

    “You are expecting to wake up,” Morpheus stated.

    “Huh?”

    “That’s why you accept this whole thing – you think it must be a dream.”

    “Er…”

    “Why are you here, Neo? Can you tell me that?”

    “Because I decided to meet you,” I said. Finally he asked something I could answer with full confidence. “Most hackers would die to meet you – almost…”

    “Ahh…” said Morpheus and smiled. “But then we get to the point: Are you sure it was because you decided to meet me? Are you sure you are in control of your life? Or is it the Type Chart that controls you?”

    “What is that Type Chart thingy you go on and on about?” I asked furiously.

    “The Type Chart is everything. This,” he picked up a bottle of beer from the table, “is the Type Chart. The table I picked it up from is the Type Chart. You are the Type Chart, your friends are the Type Chart, your beloved computer was the Type Chart…”

    “Are you trying to tell me that I’m some freaking “Type Chart”?” I asked him, getting convinced that he was utterly mad. Probably a terrorist too. Or whatever.

    “The you that you know yourself is the Type Chart. The you that you have no idea about is a part of the Type Chart.”

    I said nothing; I didn’t get one word of what he was saying, anyway.

    “But unfortunately, no one can be told what the Type Chart is. You have to see it for yourself.”

    He held out his hands. In one there was a blue pill, and in the other there was a red one.

    “Take the red pill, and I’ll show you what the Type Chart is.”

    I was in doubt. After all Morpheus had tried to make me commit suicide before.

    “What will happen if I take the blue pill?” I asked.

    “Funny you asked. Normally it would kill you, but since you’re the One…”

    Without words, I grabbed the red pill and shoved it into my mouth. It tasted like cardboard. I just stood there and looked at Morpheus for a few minutes; he didn’t move or say anything at all. Then I started feeling dizzy, my eyes went out of focus, I lost my balance and fell to the floor. The last thing I heard was “Take him and prepare the operation”.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  19. #59

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter 25... I need less revision with each passing chapter. In this one I tweaked around only a few sentences. Anyway, it's not to interesting, it's just about the Attack approval and how Mark and May do in that. The main point of this chapter is character development. But just wait for chapter 26... the point with that chapter is electrifying the atmosphere for chapter 27, and it does that pretty well to my opinion.


    Chapter 25: The Attack approval


    “Mark, I think we should start practising for the Attack approval now,” said May when they were back at the hotel. “And we mustn’t see each other’s attacks, so I’m going somewhere to practise mine and you go somewhere to practise yours. OK, bye.” And with those short words she was off with her Clefable doll.

    Mark went in the other direction and ended up finding a large open area a short way out of the city. He sent out Charizard first.

    “Hi Charizard. Is everything OK?”

    “Yeah, fine,” said Charizard. “At least everything that has to do with Scyther, if that’s what you’re asking about.”

    “Great. Well, the Attack approval is tomorrow, and we need to practise some attacks for it... any ideas?”

    “Mmmm, I dunno,” said Charizard. “I’m still a bit stiff after lying still for so long, so it’s fine if we just try something...” Charizard started flapping his wings slowly.

    “Yeah... um, try flying up as fast as you can,” said Mark, sitting down in the grass to watch. Charizard took off and shot up into the air at high speed, then looked at Mark. “What next?” he asked.

    An idea was forming inside Mark’s head. “Hey, try shooting a Flamethrower at that Clefable doll, and while it’s blinded...”

    “How can it be blinded, it’s not alive,” said Charizard.

    “That’s what it’s about when using it on an actual oppoment. At least, while it’s blinded, dive as fast as you can and attack. Is that too complicated?”

    “I don’t think so,” said Charizard and did just what Mark was thinking about.

    “You’re supposed to do it again and again until you can’t do it anymore,” said Mark. “Sorry, but that’s how it is...”

    Charizard grunted and did it again a few times, then lay down to rest while Mark picked up the Clefable doll.

    “Two-turn attack. 95 Fire type damage on first turn, 80 Flying damage on second turn. 5 Power points, 95% accurate, 10% chance of burning on the first turn,” said a screen in the Clefable’s mouth.

    “I’ll call that Inferno dive, just so it sounds cool. Okay, that’s enough, Charizard,” Mark said, recalled Charizard and sent out Jolteon.
    “Jolteon, we need to train for the attack approval now. I actually have something in mind for you already. Try charging up electricity...”

    Jolteon nodded and started sparkling.

    “...yes, and then you – you just use Pin missile, basically.”

    Jolteon raised his spikes and then fired them rapidly at the Clefable doll. Even after Jolteon stopped, the doll was still sparkling for a few seconds. When Mark checked it, the screen said:

    “Hits 2-5 times. Electric. 20 Base damage. 25 power points, 95% accurate, 30% chance of paralyzing.”

    “OK, great. I think I’m going to call this attack Thunder spikes. Jolteon, return!” Mark recalled Jolteon, who seemed very happy about the excercise. He took out Sandslash’s ball.

    “Sandslash, I choose you!”

    Sandslash emerged from the ball and stretched his claws out, yawning.

    “Sandslash, we need to practise for the attack approval. Do you have any ideas of attacks?”

    “Actually, I do,” Sandslash said. “But maybe you don’t like it...”

    “I will,” said Mark. “Just show me.”

    Sandslash put up a whatever-expression and turned around, then put his claws to the ground, aimed carefully at the Clefable doll and then, with a quick and powerful movement, shoved up a great deal of soil straight at the doll’s eyes. Then, as quickly, he continued digging, and in a second, he was underground. Then he came up behind the doll and slashed it.

    “It’s a surprise attack,” Sandslash said. “While the enemy can’t see, I dig underground and come up behind them, and when I slash them, it’s almost always a critical hit as they couldn’t defend themselves in any way. I practised that way back when I was a Sandshrew, but I never thought I’d be able to use it in a real battle...”

    “That’s great! Do it until you’re too tired to do it again, then I can see how powerful it actually is!”

    And Sandslash did it again and again, noteably needing less time to aim as he did it more often. Then Sandslash announced that he was getting tired, and Mark checked the screen on the doll.

    “Two-turn attack. Lowers accuracy on first turn, 70 Normal damage on second turn. 10 Power points, 100% accurate, 80% chance of a critical hit.”

    “Looks very good,” said Mark. “I’ll call that... uh, Blinding slash, that sounds nice... OK, that’s enough, Sandslash. Return, go Gyarados!”

    He sent out Gyarados on a small pond and explained about the Attack approval.

    “Actually, I have an idea,” Gyarados said. “A very good idea. Watch this.” He started concentrating with his eyes closed as the color seemed to drain from his body. When Gyarados was turning a dull shade of gray, he opened his eyes, they glowed bright red and what looked very much like a laser beam shot from his eyes at the Clefable doll. He waited as the color slowly brightened again. After using the attack a few times, Mark noticed that Gyarados was grayer than usual, even after the color should be back. Gyarados paused.

    “It’s very powerful, but it makes me weaker every time I use it,” Gyarados said. “And now I don’t have the energy left to use it again... don’t worry, you just have to take me to a pokémon center and I’ll be fine.”

    Mark took the Clefable doll and read the attack description.

    “A go-last attack. Type: Dragon. 150 Base Damage. Needs to recharge on second turn. 5 Power Points, 100% accurate, 50% chance of inflicting a random status affection. Decreases Special attack after use.”

    “Good, now it’s time for Dragonair. I’m going to call this attack Dragon beam!” Mark said, recalling Gyarados.

    Dragonair had no ideas of anything to use in the attack approval.
    “You can... you can...” Mark paused. He couldn’t think of anything either.

    “Maybe you shouldn’t enter me in this,” said Dragonair. “I’m not sure if I can do anything special at all.”

    “Just do something,” Mark said.

    “I can’t do anything,” said Dragonair dully.

    “Of course you can do something, just try... uh... haven’t you ever experimented with your attacks?”

    “No,” Dragonair replied.

    “OK... what do you want to do? Just anything...”

    “Rule the universe,” Dragonair said with a weak smile. Then suddenly he started talking in another tone. “You know, I’ve always been frustrated that we can’t use something like Fire blast properly when we can use our Dragonbreaths anytime. I mean, even if dragon fire is weird and isn’t affected by water and whatever – why shouldn’t we be able to attack with normal fire as well? You’d think that’s easier, that someone who can use Dragon rage and Dragonbreath will use Fire blast properly, but...”

    “There we have something!” Mark said happily. “Try to do something to power up your fire attacks!”

    “But how?” Dragonair said hopelessly. “It’s not like I can just engulf myself in dragon flames, it could kill me...”

    “Anything is possible. Just try thinking about how unfair it is that you can’t use a simple Fire blast better than a mere Charmander... how extremely angry you are...”

    “I’m not,” said Dragonair.

    “Imagine that you are. Imagine that you’re so angry you could go on fire...”

    “This is stupid, Mark,” said Dragonair and sighed.

    “Yeah, maybe, but who cares? There’s no one watching us!”

    “Mark, look, I’m not taking part in this.” Dragonair went into his pokéball.

    “Oh well. It’s Scyther, then...” Mark took out his last pokéball. “Scyther, go!”

    “The Attack approval, right?” Scyther asked as soon as he had emerged.

    “How did you know?”

    “Charizard told me,” Scyther answered. “Don’t look at me, I don’t know anything special to do in this Attack approval thing. Scythers specialize in slashing tricks and aren’t made for anything else.”

    “Then just try doing some tricks while I try to think of something,” said Mark. Scyther started doing ninja tricks of all sorts on the air. Mark couldn’t help noticing how accurately Scyther managed to prevent all wrong movements that would result in cutting the other arm off even while moving faster than the eye could catch. Suddenly, an idea struck him.

    “Scyther?”

    Scyther stopped and looked at Mark.

    “Can you hold your scythes crossed in front of you?”

    Scyther did without words, although it looked awkward.

    “Try to look a bit more defending... this is a surprise attack, you see...”

    Scyther leaned back a bit and turned his head to the right, still watching Mark closely. It was amazing what a difference it made, it truly looked like Scyther was trying to defend from some kind of an attack.

    “Then wait for the enemy to try to attack you with a physical attack, and when they come within reach and are just about to strike, you slash with your left scythe, then your right, and then both at once, very fast so the enemy won’t get the chance to attack in between.”

    “Fine. Just one thing... how is the doll supposed to approach me?”

    “Hmmmm...” In fact, Mark had no idea. He examined the doll closely and then noticed a button that said “Walk”. He pressed it and put the Clefable doll on the ground, and it walked slowly towards Scyther, who looked like he was dishonoured by wasting his scythes on a robot Clefable doll, although he didn’t complain. The doll approached, and Scyther went into the defending position. When it was right in front of Scyther, he slashed the doll at incredible speed three times. Then he flew a bit back, and the Clefable doll got up, and walked towards him again. This chase went on and on for what seemed like hours, until Scyther was too tired to go on. Mark went and checked the doll.

    “A go-last attack. Fails if the enemy doesn’t use an attack that makes physical contact. If successful, avoids the attack. Type: Normal. Hits one to three times. 50 Base Damage, 100% accurate, no special effects.”

    “Great! I’ll call that Triple slash!” Mark said, recalling Scyther.


    On the way back to the hotel, Mark met Alan.

    “Hi, Mark!”

    “Hi, Alan!”

    “Are you taking part in the Attack approval?” Alan asked.

    “Yup. Do you know how they give you permission to use some attacks in the pokémon league, anyway?”

    “They put it on your trainer card...”

    “Trainer card?” Mark of course still didn’t have a trainer’s license, or a trainer card. “Um... you know... I... sorta.... don’t have one...”
    “Huh?” Alan said blankly.

    “Erm... I’m not an official pokémon trainer. I just found a Charmander on the road and... I was going to get a trainer’s license, but I forgot it...”

    “Wow. You’re lucky. I mean, someone should have caught you by now... they sold you pokéballs, gave you gym badges... you’ve always landed on someone who doesn’t ask for any identification at all. Very lucky of you. The first person I bought pokéballs from needed to see my trainer license.”

    “But what can I do, then?” Mark asked. “I mean, I can’t just walk in somewhere and admit I’ve been training pokémon without a license for ages...”

    “No, you can’t,” Alan answered. “But Dad has permission to give out trainer licenses and starter pokémon... he’ll be the one handling the starter pokémon giveaway in the festival, you know. And he’s always ready to help my friends...”

    “Really?”

    “Yup. If I ask him to.”

    “Wow! Thanks!”

    They went to Alan’s house and Alan opened the door. Pamela greeted them by lying down in front of them and refusing to move until they had patted her for ten minutes. When she finally stood up, Alan laughed and then shouted: “Dad! My friend is here and needs a favour!”

    Ash came down the stairs, Pikachu on his shoulder. “What? I’m kinda busy right now... you know, preparations...”

    “He needs a trainer license,” Alan said.

    “Can’t he wait like everyone else? Really, I never thought people couldn’t wait for two days to get a starter pokémon...”

    “He has a pokémon. He’s been training for a while.”

    Ash looked at Mark, raising his eyebrows. “The people you make friends with, Alan,” he then said seriously, nevertheless obviously finding it very funny. “Well, we’ll fix that, won’t we? Pikachu, if you’d be so kind...”

    Pikachu jumped off his shoulder, went back up and came a few seconds later holding a camera in his mouth. Ash took the camera and said “Thanks, Pikachu” as Pikachu jumped back onto his shoulder.

    “This is a special camera...” Ash said, taking a picture of Mark, “...to make trainer cards in a few minutes.” While he talked, Pikachu went back up to get what was obivously a blank trainer card, and Ash took it, put it into a slot at the side of the camera.

    “Your ID number?”

    “04395.”

    Ash pressed a few buttons and then handed the trainer card to Mark, now bearing his picture and ID number.

    “Wow, thanks,” he said, putting it in his pocket.

    “Don’t mention it,” Ash said.


    The day after, when it was time for the Attack approval itself, Mark and May headed to the arena. They walked there in silence, like they were afraid they’d let something slip about their special techniques. When they got there, everyone was supposed to get in line with their Clefable dolls, show their attacks to the judges, and then get them engraved on their trainer cards if the judges accepted them.

    When it was May’s turn, she looked nervously at Mark once, then went to the judges, handed over the Clefable doll, and then sent out her first pokémon – Raichu.

    “Raichu, Thunderstorm!” she commanded, and Raichu started chanting “Rai... rai... rai... rai...” as black, stormy clouds started hovering over the arena. When a good amount of black clouds had gathered, a lightning struck Raichu, charging him with some more electricity. Then it started to rain and people booed because they weren’t dressed for a rain, but one of the judges sent out a Bellossom that used Sunny day and cleared the sky again.

    The judges looked at May, expecting the next pokémon out, and she recalled Raichu and sent out Butterfree instead. Butterfree fluttered around happily before starting to pay attention to May.

    “Butterfree, Powder spores,” May said, almost lazily, to her pokémon. Butterfree flapped her wings and released a cloud of dust into the air. Mark didn’t know what exactly it was supposed to do, but the judges knew as they had the Clefable doll. They nodded towards May, who sent out her next pokémon: Skarmory.

    “Skarmory, Feather drop!”

    Skarmory flew up into the air, then dived down like he was going to use Drill peck or something, but instead swooped back up about two meters from the ground, but dropping some metallic feathers down at great speed. They stuck into the soil like swords and one came dangerously close to nailing May’s foot to the ground. She didn’t wince.

    Next up was Lapras. There was a special pool for Water pokémon to perform their attacks in. May sent her out there.

    “Lapras, Freezing water...”

    Lapras glowed a bright blue as the water in the pool froze all around her. Then she shot a blast of water on the ground, but it froze almost immediately, forming a thin layer of ice that almost made you slip just by looking at it.

    The judges seemed impressed, looking at each other and nodding. Mark wondered if they were specially trained in nodding like that. Meanwhile, May recalled Lapras and sent out Pupitar. When the judges were ready, she turned to her pokémon and said:

    “Pupitar, Disguise.”

    Pupitar summoned a cloud of sand, surrounding him, and when the cloud disappeared, Pupitar did too. Although if you looked better, you saw that Pupitar had just buried himself a bit in the sand so he looked like any ordinary rock on the arena. Clever move, although useless where there was no sand, and actually it wouldn’t be of any use after he evolved, either.

    The judges looked at each other, whispered and then looked at May, nodded all at once and she came over with her Trainer card, they took it and put it in some device on the table that was attached to a keyboard. They asked her about the names of all the attacks again, just to be sure to get them right, and then handed the trainer card back to her, smiling. Now it was Mark’s turn.

    He walked nervously forward with the Clefable doll, gave it to the judges and then took a deep breath and pulled out Charizard’s pokéball.

    “Charizard, GO!” he shouted as his faithful dragon emerged. “Use Inferno dive! Now!”

    Charizard recalled the attack in his mind, then flew up, fired a jet of flames at an invisible oppoment and then dived down. Of course, it looked a bit weird with no oppoment there, but the judges didn’t care. Mark looked back and saw that this time, May had decided to wait for him.

    Mark recalled Charizard and sent out Jolteon.

    “Thunder spikes!” he shouted and Jolteon fired the electrified pins at the ground like before. The judges were whispering to each other, and a certain thought occured to Mark. Maybe he wasn’t being too original in his attacks, both of these had in fact just been a mix between other attacks with a small twist... and Sandslash’s was too...

    It was too late to think about that now. He sent out Sandslash as the judges were already waiting, and commanded him to use Blinding slash. If anything looked stupid without an oppoment, it was that...

    Next up was Gyarados. Mark sent him out on the pool, remembering how Dragon beam made Gyarados grayish and weak-looking.

    “Dragon beam! Now!”

    Gyarados’ color started draining from his body again, his eyes glowed red and the familiar laser beam shot at the ice layer Lapras had made. It melted instantly.

    The judges seemed very pleased with Gyarados; they were talking excitedly and kept shooting quick looks at Gyarados. Mark smiled. Gyarados was impressive. Finally, it was time for Scyther.

    “Triple slash!!!”

    Scyther went into the defending position, but the judges didn’t exactly get this, especially as there was no enemy and no doll with a walk mode.

    “Um, now the oppoment is supposed to come...” said Mark lamely, and then Scyther slashed the air. Finally, it was over... Mark felt like an idiot after Scyther’s attack. He walked up to the judges’ table, but then Dragonair popped out of his ball.

    “Mark,” he said. “I’ve changed my mind. I’m ready – I’ve been practising it in my pokéball all day...”

    “But you haven’t used it on a Clefable doll!” Mark said.

    “Can’t I just use it on a Clefable doll now, then?” Dragonair asked. Mark looked at the judges, who didn’t appear to mind. He took the Clefable doll and put it in front of Dragonair.

    Dragonair started to shake violently; he glowed red and went all fiery, and then he blasted some fire up in the air. It surely looked more powerful than normal.

    “That’s Dragonflame,” Dragonair said. “Thanks, do I need to do anything more?” He disappeared into his pokéball again. Mark handed his new trainer card to the judges, and smiled as it got confirmed that all six of his pokémon now officially had a unique fifth attack.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  20. #60

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    This chapter holds the record of having the very longest name of all the chapter. Also is very likely to tell you that chapter 27 is up for something BIG...


    Chapter 26: The trainer’s market and the starter pokémon giveaway


    Next day was the trainer’s market. Before it opened, Mark and May came over to watch the preparations. They saw as may long tables were being carried in, put together in long rows covering the whole arena, although it was still very easy to get around between them. People started carrying in boxes of trainer stuff.

    “Wow! Master balls!” Mark said as one man tripped, fell down with his box and it opened, sending Master balls rolling around everywhere. They helped him pick them up and put them back in the box.

    “Thanks,” he said. “How about if you two get a little off these beauties? That is, assuming you were going to buy some...”

    “I will,” said Mark automatically. After all, Chaletwo was around... no, he mustn’t think like that, Chaletwo was impossible to catch... would just blow up the ball... besides, of course, he could get killed. But a Master ball was nice to have anyway, especially if you got it cheaper.

    “I think I’d accept that too, thank you,” May said politely. “I could use it to catch Mutark...”

    “Oh yes! Victor wanted to talk to you about Mutark at the festival!” Mark suddenly remembered. Just as he said that, a familiar raspy voice was heard from behind them.

    “There you are. I’ve been looking for you.”

    They turned around, and indeed it was Victor.

    “Um... do you mind if we talk elsewhere?” he said, looking anxiously at the people around them. “You see...”

    “Sure,” May said, as she started walking out of the arena.
    “Shouldn’t I just wait here?” Mark asked.

    “Um... it would be better if you came too,” said Victor. He looked uneasy.

    “Yeah, well, but I don’t know...”

    “Just come,” said Victor quickly.

    “OK.”

    They walked out of the arena and after making sure no one was around, Victor turned to them.

    “So, what did you want to say about Mutark?” May asked.

    “Er... well... actually... that’s not the reason why I wanted to talk to you here,” he said.

    “Huh?” May asked and looked at Mark.

    “Well,” said Victor, “uh, where to start... um... OK... you see... Mitch...”

    “The Scorpion city gym leader?” asked May.

    “Yeah, him. Well, he’s a psychic, you know.”

    “No, we don’t know,” said May simply.

    “Or... not really a psychic, you know, but he... gets feelings for stuff that’s going to happen.”

    “I never knew that,” said Mark.

    “Well, just after you left Scorpion city, he walked up to me, still staring after you, and said, “Do you know who he is? And the girl who was with him?” And I answered, “Yes, I battled him, why?” And he said “I have the feeling that the girl will suffer and have to make a hard choice. But before that, I feel that something terrible will happen to the boy.” Then he disappeared when I looked off him, like he can do... but I thought I should tell you...”

    Mark and May both stared at Victor.

    “Are you sure he’s not just making it up?” said May.

    “He doesn’t seem the type who would walk up to you simply to tell you a made-up story of how someone else is going to suffer or have something terrible happen to them, does he?” said Victor.

    “Um, no, but maybe he’s just going a bit crazy,” Mark commented.

    “Maybe,” Victor admitted.

    “Well, if that’s all...” said May, turning towards the arena again. Mark followed.

    “Or maybe it’s Victor who goes around trying to scare people,” May fussed. Just then, Mitch’s voice sounded from their right.

    “Hello.”

    “Hi,” they said.

    “Did you meet Victor?” Mitch asked.

    “Um, yes,” May said. Mitch nodded, seeming pleased, and then went out of the arena.

    The trainer’s market was about to start. The boxes had been opened and now stood on the tables with a few examples of what was in them spread around the table. Mark hurried to the Master ball table, and about twenty seconds after he reached it, it was two o’clock and a voice announced that now everything on the tables was for sale. People started streaming inside.

    “So, going to get the Master ball?” said the man with the Master balls they had helped before. “For everyone else, it’s 10000, but for you, it’s 5000.”

    Wow. They got 50% off just for helping the guy pick them up?
    Mark handed over his trainer card, which could also be used as a credit card, and got his Master ball. May was next in line and bought one too for half price. They went around the tables, buying Ultra balls, Great balls, normal Poké balls, Full restores, Antidotes, and everything else a trainer would ever need. Soon they had forgotten all about Victor and Mitch.


    The next day, it was time for the starter pokémon giveaway. On a large poster near the enterance, you could read which pokémon were being given.


    Bulbasaur
    Charmander
    Squirtle
    Pidgey
    Rattata
    Spearow
    Ekans
    Pichu
    Sandshrew
    Nidoran female
    Nidoran male
    Cleffa
    Vulpix
    Igglybuff
    Zubat
    Oddish
    Paras
    Venonat
    Diglett
    Meowth
    Mankey
    Growlithe
    Poliwag
    Abra
    Machop
    Bellsprout
    Geodude
    Slowpoke
    Magnemite
    Doduo
    Seel
    Grimer
    Shellder
    Drowzee
    Krabby
    Voltorb
    Exeggcute
    Cubone
    Koffing
    Staryu
    Smoochum
    Elekid
    Magby
    Ditto
    Eevee
    Chikorita
    Cyndaquil
    Totodile
    Sentret
    Hoothoot
    Ledyba
    Spinarak
    Togepi
    Natu
    Mareep
    Azurill
    Wooper
    Wynaut
    Pineco
    Snubbull
    Teddiursa
    Slugma
    Swinub
    Houndour
    Phanpy
    Tyrogue
    Treecko
    Torchic
    Mudkip
    Poochyena
    Zigzagoon
    Lotad
    Seedot
    Nincada
    Taillow
    Shroomish
    Wingull
    Surskit
    Skitty
    Baltoy
    Corphish
    Trapinch
    Makuhita
    Electrike
    Numel
    Spheal
    Cacnea
    Snorunt
    Spoink
    Meditite
    Swablu
    Duskull
    Slakoth
    Gulpin
    Whismur
    Clamperl
    Shuppet
    Aron
    Ralts


    “Wow,” said Mark. “That’s some list. 100 pokémon.”

    “Yeah,” said May. They went in, got some seats and saw that Ash was already down in the arena and Alan was assisting him. At two o’clock, 100 nervous kids walked in in a queue, ready to pick a pokémon. The last kid was obivously not very happy, since he’d have to take the last pokémon left, which was bound not to be the one he wanted. The first one was a girl. She walked up to Ash and Alan, who was carrying a megaphone. Ash asked something and the girl replied, and then Alan’s voice boomed over the arena.

    “This is Joanne, who is about to pick her first pokémon! And what does she choose?”

    Joanne seemed very nervous, then said something to Ash.

    “And she was thinking about picking Bulbasaur, one of her favorite pokémon! Bulbasaur is an important pokémon alright, being pokémon number one, neither more nor less, in the National pokédex! Bulbasaur evolves into Ivysaur at level sixteen, then Venusaur at level 32, and this evolution chain specializes in ranged combat, having Special attack and Special defense as its strongest point, but its stats are actually pretty evenly distributed, making this a well-balanced and nice pokémon to have! The Bulbasaur line uses a lot of spore and powder attacks, but also likes to use Vine whip, Razor leaf, Solarbeam and the like.” Alan said all of this in one go, and Mark had the feeling that the reason why Alan was there was that he knew practically everything there was to know about the pokémon being given out.

    Joanne asked something else and as before, Alan boomed out:

    “She maybe wants to pick Charmander! Charmander is pokémon number four in the National pokédex and evolves at level 16 into Charmeleon, then at level 36 into Charizard! Charmander has always been a very popular starting pokémon, given how cute it is in Charmander form and how strong in Charizard form. I myself started with a Charmander – not that it should affect anyone’s choice. The Charmander line specializes in striking fast and hard with special attacks, but their Attack isn’t to shabby either! The Charmander line mainly focuses on attacking, but they can also use moves like Swords dance learned from a TM.”

    Joanne ended up picking Bulbasaur, Alan announced that and some groans were heard from the other kids who wanted Bulbasaur. Next in line was a short boy with blond hair who seized Alan’s megaphone and then shouted in it “I CHOOSE PICHU!!!!”. Mark thought he sounded a lot like an Ash wannabe. At least, Alan didn’t bother to explain anything about Pichu, Ash handed him the pokéball and the boy almost forgot to get his trainer card.

    Next up was a brown-haired boy, pretty tall. He said something, and of course he hadn’t sooner said it than Alan grabbed his megaphone.

    “This is John, he made up his mind yesterday and he wants... DITTO! Ditto is the only pokémon we’re giving out today that doesn’t evolve, but Ditto has powers very few other pokémon have, the ability to transform into an exact copy of its oppoment! In its natural state, Ditto is pretty weak, but as soon as it has transformed, it matches its oppoment exactly in strength. That means that how the battle goes depends on the trainers. The catch about Ditto is that to be able to use it well, you have to know all pokémon’s attacks, otherwise you will just have to mimic the oppoment’s attacks and that’s no good! But if you’re ready for it, Ditto can be very useful!”

    So it went on, the queue went shorter and shorter until all the kids had received a pokémon. Some took long to decide, others had made up their mind already. It made Mark remember the night when he found Charmander... it seemed so long ago.


    “So, Chaletwo’s appearance is tomorrow,” May said on the way back to the hotel. “Such a powerful pokémon... imagine if he were evil. The world would come to a quick end...”

    “Yeah,” Mark said, remembering the conversation with Alan. He had never told May the part about him being in danger too. Relax, he told himself, of course you’re not going to get killed...
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  21. #61
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Good job on the chapters. I really enjoyed chapter 26 for some reason. Bleh, anyway, Gyardos and Dragonair's attacks were cool. I wonder what Victor's Pokémon are (other than Mutark.).

    K.

  22. #62

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    You'll see Victor's pokémon in an amazing battle...

    Unfortunately, not until much, much later. But he has (it was told in chapter 16) Mutark, Absol, Houndoom, Sneasel, Mightyena and Sableye. His Absol is veeeeeery powerful... and Mutark, of course. Absol was his first pokémon, after... :X can't say any more...

    Anyway, to the progress of the fic, I had an amazing inspiration today when... I fell asleep in Math. I don't really know if I dreamed it or just thought of it when I woke up, but it's an amazing start to chapter 31. That start is definetly some of my very best writing to this day, so stay tuned.

    Chapter 27 is ready and revised, but it's too important (and too good) to be posted like any other chapter here. I also made a cool banner for the fic, but that's all about chapter 27, so first chapter 27, then the banner in my sig. It's animated, so it's bound to draw attention to it...
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  23. #63
    for all seasons Moderator
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Well, I certainly have enjoyed reading through this fic so far, a lot of great characters and clever ideas. I like it ^_^

    And additionally, it's quite interesting to see how much the writing style has changed from the beginning to here. The first few chapters were a lot of fun in my mind, but they've definately taken a turn for the better.

    Lookin' forward to progression!
    Quote Originally Posted by Oslo View Post
    Tony is gay for little Snorlax.

    Watch my YouTube to support my drug habit

  24. #64

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    ...
    Are you ready for this?
    Most of my readers agree that this is THE best chapter so far.
    And... I think so too.
    It's also the most important chapter for the progress of the fic. It is everything. It's the chapter where the main plot changes from a trainer fic with the pokémon unusually deep characters to something bigger.
    Also, the chapter has a certain effect I really love that's maybe not really very noticeable, but it adds to the depth.
    And it's long.

    Ready?


    Chapter 27: Molzapart and Chaletwo


    Mark woke up early the next morning and couldn’t fall asleep again. Today he would get to see one of the two strongest pokémon in the world... and get himself in mortal danger at the same time. Oh, come on, he said to himself, if I’m that scared, I surely can’t still want to catch him...

    Mark decided to talk to his pokémon since he had nothing better to do. He sent out Sandslash.

    “What is it?” Sandslash asked.

    “Nothing, I just wanted to talk.”

    “About what?”

    “Anything.”

    “Then I can’t help you to find out what that anything actually is,” said Sandslash.

    “I can’t either,” said Mark.

    They were silent for a while.

    “Sandslash, can you answer something honestly?”

    “I guess I can,” said Sandslash.

    “Do you like me and the way I train you?”

    Sandslash didn’t say anything for a few seconds, then replied, “It has to be admitted that I haven’t gotten to battle very much...”

    “Sorry,” Mark said quietly.

    “But then again, you don’t really battle much at all, do you? So you should make up for it by letting us out of our pokéballs sometimes and allowing us to do whatever we want, then we just have to make sure we’re back at the place where you let us out at a given time. No pokémon likes being stuck in a pokéball for long, especially not Jolteon, he sometimes gets very frustrated about it.”

    Mark was silent, then said, “I’m not sure I’m a very good trainer.”

    “You are,” said Sandslash.

    “I don’t know if you really mean that,” said Mark. “I mean, take May...”

    “You’re a better trainer than her,” said Sandslash immediately. “Being good at battling isn’t the same as being a good trainer. She’s better at battling than you, but you’re a better trainer.”

    The fact that Sandslash had just said May was better than him at battling gave Mark the feeling that Sandslash was really being honest, so he asked: “How?”

    “She’s too determined to win,” Sandslash said. “She doesn’t care about her pokémon as much as you. You are a lot more ready to listen to us than she is. She’s slowly realizing it, but does she ask her pokémon if they want to evolve? No. Did she care about how Raichu felt after evolving? No. She just cared about the attacks he would have learned if he had remained a Pikachu. You are not like that. You care about our happiness. After I evolved, you regretted having never asked me if I wanted to evolve. And of course, just a minute ago you sent me out, one of your pokémon, just to chat, and then asked me if I liked the way you train us. Try to realize, Mark, that this is something most pokémon could never dream about. You are a really good trainer, and with a bit of outside time like I talked about, you’d be the best trainer we could ever get.”

    There was a knock on the door, and May’s voice was heard.

    “Mark, are you there? I thought I heard voices...”

    He opened.

    “Who were you talking to?” she asked.

    “Sandslash,” said Mark. She looked at the pokémon sitting on the bed, then at Mark, still wearing his pyjamas, raised her eyebrows, and then said, “Shouldn’t you get dressed now? Then you can join me at the breakfast table...”

    She went down the stairs for breakfast.


    At four o’clock, everyone was gathering around the grass patch where Chaletwo appeared. There was a man selling small Chaletwo figurines (which looked like he had bought a lot of Mewtwo figurines and then painted over their eyes) and another one selling black T-shirts with bright yellow eyes in the background saying “I saw Chaletwo – have you?”in red letters. Mark found a good place to stand, May was somewhere else and everyone else was all around them. A two-meter radius around the exact spot where Chaletwo appeared was marked with a yellow line in the grass, and no one stepped over it. They waited there for what seemed like ages, until someone shouted “Ten!” Everyone joined in the countdown.

    “...Four! Three! Two! One!”

    And suddenly, Chaletwo stood in the grass.

    He looked very different from how Mark had imagined it. He had always thought he would simply look like a Mewtwo with its eyes closed and nothing more than that. However, he had been very wrong. Indeed, the body shape was the exact same as a Mewtwo’s, but even with the eyelids down, it could still somehow be seen that he was looking around, and also Mark suddenly understood what Alan had meant when he said Chaletwo simply wasn’t evil – how could Mark ever have thought that? It was so obvious. How it was he couldn’t tell, but it was still obvious.

    Chaletwo turned slowly, looking down every now and then to see the other side of the planet. When he turned to Mark, he stopped turning, and Mark really felt watched. Sweat appearing on the back of his neck, he started trying to think as much as he could about how terrible it would be if this was the last moment of his life, attempting to destroy all desire to catch the pokémon in front of him. After a second, which had stretched to five minutes from Mark’s point of view, Chaletwo turned past him. Mark breathed in relief. Suddenly, a tiny voice started speaking deep inside his brain. He’s facing away from you, it said. What if you just throw the Master ball now, nothing can stop you...

    No, I mustn’t think like that, a clearer voice spoke out, but it was too late. Chaletwo had already noticed something, turned quickly back to him and stared at him (still with his eyes closed) while Mark did his best trying to eliminate the little voice. But it was unsuccessful...

    And Chaletwo’s eyes opened.

    The first thought that occured to Mark was that bright yellow did not quite describe Chaletwo’s eyes; they were a lot more than bright yellow. They were terribly, blindingly, unearthly yellow, each ten times as bright as the sun, piercing through his eyes like a knife, but yet so oddly beautiful in their terror that he couldn’t turn away.

    Then, very suddenly, came the pain. For short, it felt like a burning hand was trying to rip his heart out, just ten times worse. He screamed, but it sounded far away. The screams of the people all around him when they realized what was happening followed, sounding just as far away. His vision was also fading; everything was slowly turning blacker except for the eyes, the worst of all, still as terribly bright...


    Suddenly, it stopped. Very suddenly. He didn’t feel pain anymore. In fact, he felt nothing at all. He was located in total darkness.

    The first thing he thought was “What happened?”

    To his surprise, he got an answer.

    “I can help you find out.”

    It was a deep voice that echoed in his brain, a telepathic voice. Although Mark couldn’t see anything (maybe Chaletwo’s eyes had just blinded him, hopefully only temporarily), he knew it was Chaletwo’s.

    “Touch, but you will not be felt. Dance around, but you will not be seen. Shout, but you will not be heard.”

    “What the - ? No, wait a minute... are you trying to tell me I’m... dead?”

    “Indeed you are,” said Chaletwo.

    “But... but... that’s impossible! I’m here! With you!”

    “Here is nowhere,” said Chaletwo.

    “Of course here is somewhere,” Mark argued back.

    “No. Why do you think you can’t see anything here?”

    “Because there’s no light here! Or I’m blind!”

    “Wrong. It’s because there is nothing here to see. Nothing but the two of us.”

    “Then why can’t I see you?”

    Chaletwo’s voice suddenly didn’t sound as mystical. “Because there is no light here either, you idiot!”

    Mark didn’t point any words at Chaletwo, but Chaletwo was obivously reading the whole of his mind.

    “What, I’m tired of being so stupidly dramatic! Let’s just talk normally!” Chaletwo hissed. “But for that matter, giving you light is the least of a problem.”

    “Then give me some.”

    Mark saw a small orb of light form and grow, lighting up Chaletwo’s hands which had the orb in between them, then his body, and finally the whole Mewtwo-like shape was clearly visible. Chaletwo put the orb aside, still lighting him up. The orb stayed where it was, in mid-air.

    Mark waved his hand in front of his face. That was what he was trying to do, at least, but he got no response from his hands telling him they were being moved upwards. What bothered him more, however, was that he couldn’t see anything where his hand was supposed to be. He looked down at where his feet should be, but there was nothing there. Nothing where the chest should have been, either.

    “What’s wrong?” Mark asked.

    “The simple fact that you are nothing more than a spirit,” answered Chaletwo. “For short you’re dead, but you refuse to believe it.”

    “I can’t be dead!” Mark protested. Chaletwo looked annoyed, then said, “Want better proof? Okay. Tell me, are you breathing?”
    Mark waited for a short period of time.

    “Er... I don’t think I am,” he finally answered.

    “No, you’re not,” said Chaletwo, “because it’s your body that needs oxygen and currently, your body could as well be a stone statue, with the addition of being located in another world.”

    It took Mark some time to swallow this.

    “OK then. Fine. I’m dead. Then why did you kill me?”

    “Because I needed to talk to you,” Chaletwo answered.

    “Couldn’t you just have talked to me without killing me first?” Mark asked, feeling very annoyed.

    “Think, human, think!” Chaletwo hissed. “How does this sound: The legendary pokémon Chaletwo, famous for having killed four trainers for no other apparent reason than that they wanted to catch him, suddendly decides to walk up to a trainer and start talking to him! That’s suspicious. Chaletwo taking a trainer with him when he teleports away is also suspicious. A trainer suddenly disappearing with no explainations is also suspicious. But this – Chaletwo doing what everyone deep inside knew he would do, killing someone in front of hundreds of people for the fifth time – that’s not suspicious. Not the least bit suspicious. Of course everyone who knew you will cry their eyes out, these crazy guys will write yet another article about how evil I am, everyone will talk about this for a few days, all that – but that’s about it. Then everyone will turn their minds to something else, and even if you danced the macarena naked in front of them, they’d just think it’s someone who looks like you and stop thinking about it. It has worked four times before and it will work again.”

    “What do you mean, it has worked? Are you going to...”

    “Resurrect you, yes,” said Chaletwo. “After we’ve talked. So let’s finish this off... just hope Molzapart is coming...”

    “Molzapart? Is Molzapart in this with you?”

    “Yes, of course. As soon as I felt a source of power rivaling mine, I rushed to Seafoam islands, found Molzapart and made friends with him, otherwise we might have battled sometime and killed each other or worse. All the trainers both of us have killed were killed for the same reason as you.”

    “Which is...?”

    “That can wait until Molzapart arrives.”

    Mark noticed that Chaletwo had his eyes closed, even with nothing to blow up or kill accidentally. Chaletwo answered without being asked.

    “I’m blind with my eyes open.”

    “Oh.” Mark hesitated, then added, “That’s weird.”

    “From your point of view, maybe,” said Chaletwo. “From mine, eyes are weapons when they’re open and tools for seeing when they’re closed.”

    Just then, Molzapart appeared in thin air. He looked more graceful than Mark had imagined, but much closer to his imagination than Chaletwo had been.

    “Lots of courage in this one,” Molzapart said, looking at Mark. “In fact, enough courage to count as... foolish...” He peered at Mark.

    “That’s not a flaw, Molzapart,” said Chaletwo. “We don’t need someone who will go on as long as there is hope. We need someone who will go on when there’s no hope at all and give us new hope. We’re running short on time, Molzapart, and you know it.”

    “When are you going to tell me what I’m doing here?” asked Mark.

    “That’s a good idea, let’s get to the point,” said Molzapart.

    “Well, you see, there is something no one knows about but us and one other pokémon in the world – Mew,” said Chaletwo.

    “And that’s this,” said Molzapart: “Once every thousand years, the power of the legendary pokémon will slowly start to even out. The moment when they are equals, the Moment of Madness, makes them all mad. Thus the War of the Legends shall begin, and the world will turn to chaos. The legendary pokémon will fight each other so violently that after the war, the only living creature left in the world will be one of them. Every human, every pokémon, every plant and every tree will have died. The Survivor’s madness will wear off, and then it is the Survivor’s job to restore life and create new pokémon for the fresh start of the world. The war is inevitable, until human legendary collectors hold all the legendary pokémon captive at the Moment of Madness. Then the War will be canceled that time and for ever through eternity will the legendaries live in peace.

    “The survivor of the last war was Mew,” Chaletwo continued. “That is why scientists have found that Mew holds the DNA of all pokémon, as Mew revived all life after the War.”

    “And now the War is about to happen again,” said Molzapart. “The power of the legendary pokémon has already started to even out. The other legendary pokémon are getting stronger, along with our powers growing weaker. So the other legendaries are almost equal to us, and we discovered that too late to have enough power over them to bring them here and make somebody able to catch all of them at once.”

    “Well, this time, we are afraid the legendary pokémon are too many and too powerful. We are afraid that there won’t be a survivor and this War of the Legends will be the end of the world,” Chaletwo finished.

    “And... am I that legendary collector who’s supposed to save everything?” Mark asked.

    “You may be. We hope you are. The other ones could also be, but they haven’t had much success. And now we feel the Moment of Madness drawing nearer, and we are afraid we don’t have the time to inform more legendary collectors about this. So we are going to stay in your pokéballs, just to make sure we are at least held captive at the Moment of Madness... one legendary pokémon out of a pokéball will ruin everything. If there’s as much as a single legendary pokémon still roaming free at the Moment of Madness, the ancient magic behind the War of the Legends will make sure all the other ones will get out of their balls at that very second. So you have to try to catch all the legendary pokémon... and nothing is more important than that you don’t ever let one of them out of their pokéball. The Moment of Madness could be any moment, remember that.”

    “Why isn’t Mew with you too?” Mark asked.

    The two legendary pokémon looked at each other, then Chaletwo answered:

    “Well... we had a bit of an argument. You see, Mew believes in fate. We came right to Mew when we felt our power getting weaker, but Mew just said: “If the War is not supposed to happen now or ever again, someone will hold all the legendary pokémon captive at the Moment of Madness, no matter what we or you do. If the War is supposed to happen again, there’s nothing we can do to stop it. And I’d rather be free than waiting in a pokéball for the inevitable.” Then Mew left and we’re alone with this plan...”

    “For how long have you been doing this?” Mark asked.

    “Many years,” said Molzapart.

    “Then why has Chaletwo only killed four trainers?”

    “I have killed many, many more, since we first noticed our powers fading. Chaletwo has been too busy with being a guardian. Four years ago, we realized that we were running very short on time, so he finally started helping with it.”

    “You were lucky it was me who killed you,” Chaletwo suddenly said. “Molzapart has a little thing about torturing people to death by using Thunder, Blizzard, Fire blast, Drill peck and Psychic at the same time...”

    “Well, at least I finish my work!” said Molzapart. “I kill them somewhere far away from everyone, then make everyone forget them. You kill them in public, with hundreds of peolpe watching, then leave. And look what that has done to you! Five long newspaper articles about how evil you are!”

    “The people who wrote these articles are just stupid people who look at the clues rather than the facts themselves! Unlike you, I have a magic aura that convinces everyone who sees me that I’m trustworthy!”

    “...Besides...” Molzapart looked at Mark with a glint of triumph in his eyes, “...the boy doubts my way is any more painful than yours.” That had been exactly what Mark was thinking.

    “How am I to know what Death stare feels like? I have never tried!”

    “Maybe you should try before jumping to conclusions!”

    “And I didn’t like the way you said I was “too busy being a guardian”. I am a guardian, I’m born a guardian, and I will be a guardian!”

    “A guardian born with weapons of killing right there in his eye sockets?”

    “I can’t to anything about the fact that I have my eyes!”

    “No, I’m just asking why a “born guardian” is born with the most powerful weapons in the world...”

    “Chalenor had them too!”

    “And how comes the guardian before you was also born with the most powerful weapons in the world?”

    Don’t you dare insult Chalenor in my ears!

    While they argued, Mark felt something strange happen to their voices. There was something really scary about them... Mark knew he had to stop them somehow.

    “Stop it,” he thought desperately. They didn’t seem to have noticed.

    Are you asking to be attacked?

    I’ll show you an attack!

    A dark purple orb started forming between Chalewo’s hands while Molzapart started glowing blue.

    Mark imagined he was alive and actually had a real voice, then roared as loudly as he could, without any sound, “STOP IT!”

    Molzapart and Chaletwo looked at him, still in the middle of charging their attacks, then looked at each other, then Chaletwo put his hands together so the orb vanished, and Molzapart stopped glowing at once.

    “What happened?” asked Molzapart, his telepathic voice shaking. “Are we too late? Is the madness already overtaking us?”

    “No,” said Chaletwo. “That can’t be. There is just this one moment, before it everything is normal and after it all the legendary pokémon are mad and it won’t stop until there is only one survivor...”

    “Then what happened?”

    “We can’t know for sure, but I have a theory,” Chaletwo said. “Well, we are too powerful to give up in any way. I’d even go as far as saying it is against our instincts to give up in any way. So when you answered the boy’s question...”

    “I have a name,” Mark commented.

    Mark’s question, then. Well, when you answered his question, you just happened to put in a little comment about me being too busy being a guardian to help you with anything. And I can’t just let you say that, so I come with a little comment... you answer it... and so on until we’ve started attacking each other. It’s lucky that you were here, Mark,” he added, turning to Mark, “otherwise this might have been an early start on the War of the Legends...”

    “Shouldn’t we get back to the point?” Mark asked.

    “Yes. Well, while the other trainers haven’t managed to catch any of the legendary pokémon, we have gotten help from a most unexpected person...”

    “Who?”

    “Rick. The Cleanwater city gym leader. He already holds many of the legendary pokémon captive and never lets them out of their balls.”

    “But he just clones them and releases them, doesn’t he?” Mark asked.

    “Oh, no,” said Chaletwo. “That’s what is said. True, he released Suicune, everyone would notice if the lake stopped being cleaned, and some others, but most he kept. The pokémon he still has are Zapdos, Moltres, Mewtwo, Raikou, Ho-oh, Lugia, Celebi, Regirock, Regice, Registeel, Groudon, Kyogre, Rayquaza, Latias, Latios, Jirachi, Deoxys, Hogia and all the Dracolor and evolutions in existance except for one Dragold and one Dragoblack.”

    “Which means,” Molzapart added, “that the pokémon you have to catch are Articuno, Mew, Entei, Suicune, Waraider, Flamer, Leafer, Freezer, Hydrocean, Electrone, Psycon, Darkan, Rainteicune, one Dragold and one Dragoblack. Fifteen legendary pokémon.”

    “Hey, Molzapart – I just suddenly remembered – why did you want Rainteicune to be wild when you talked to Alan Ketchum?” Mark asked.

    “Ahh, so you know of that,” Molzapart answered. “You see, we didn’t want to tell anyone about the War of the Legends except for the legendary collectors. And we couldn’t just say “hey, don’t ever let Rainteicune out of his ball again”. So we decided that it was worth it to have one more legendary pokémon wild for the legendary collectors to catch to make sure that at least it couldn’t be out in battle at the Moment of Madness... well, now that you know what you’re supposed to do, I guess I’m off. Chaletwo will handle the resurrection.” And Molzapart disappeared.

    “Er... Chaletwo, can I ask you something?” Mark asked.

    “It depends on what the question is,” said Chaletwo.

    “OK... why do you have a two in your name? Are you a clone? And are you in any way related to Mewtwo?”

    Chaletwo sighed deeply, then said: “No, I’m not a clone, but related to Mewtwo? Well, that’s a long story... it all started before the last War of the Legends. There was a guardian of life then, just like me. That was Chalenor – you heard me mention Chalenor when me and Molzapart were arguing, didn’t you? – and Chalenor had the same powers as me, same Dark/Psychic type, same timetravelling abilities, same eyes, same Death stare... but not the same body. Chalenor appeared once every year, like me, and basically did everything I do. Once Chalenor went far into the future, around a thousand years. There he met Mewtwo, who introduced himself as the most powerful pokémon of his time. I don’t know what that could mean about the War of the Legends now, as I don’t know how far into the future exactly Chalenor went, but anyway – Chalenor introduced himself as a pokémon of the past, actually the most powerful of his time. Now, they had a conversation, and Mewtwo turned out to be very interested in Chalenor’s time. And when he heard that Mew was there, Mewtwo asked Chalenor if he’d let him have a look around his world. Chalenor agreed, and they went together to Chalenor’s time.

    What they didn’t know was that the War of the Legends was already drawing closer. The power of the legendaries had already started to even out. When Mewtwo entered this time, he actually felt his power level change. When he asked Chalenor, he said that he usually felt something like that just after travelling through time, so Mewtwo accepted that. That was how Mewtwo took part in the War of the Legends, almost two thousand years before he was created.

    And the War started, and all life was killed except Mew. When Mew’s madness wore off, the look of the world was terrible. Bodies everywhere. Mew didn’t really know what had happened, but then there was an explosion nearby. Mew went to check it, and it turned out to be Chalenor’s eye, the only thing left of the most powerful pokémon of all times, still bearing the power to blow things up. Mew now realized what had happened; everthing was dead, including the protector, Chalenor. As Chalenor and Mew had been very good friends, Mew desperately picked up the eye, found the nearest whole body, which happened to be Mewtwo’s, and then used psychic powers to transfer the power left in the eye into Mewtwo’s body, turning it to life. Thus I was born, gaining the powers of Chalenor in the body of Mewtwo, but a whole new pokémon with no memories of anything. Mew had succeded in making another Chalenor. But of course, Mew wanted me to help building up a new world, so Mew sent some psychic messages to me, the first one being “don’t open your eyes”, followed by everything about Chalenor’s job and what had just happened. And together, we resurrected as many humans as we could, modified their memory, planted trees, and then created new species of pokémon. And I decided the time and place at which I would appear to watch over the Earth, and Mew went and bounced around the world.

    So, either I am Mewtwo, but with Chalenor’s powers, or I’m Chalenor in Mewtwo’s body. You decide.”

    “Wow. Impressive,” said Mark.

    “Well, what are we waiting for? I think I’ll send you a few days into the future along with resurrecting you. First after you’re back to life, you’ll be unconscious, but when you wake up, you’ll find that me and Molzapart will already have caught ourselves and we’ll be in your box on the PC storage system. We may sometimes transfer ourselves to the balls you carry to talk to you. But remember: never send us out.”

    “Resurrection must take an awful lot of psychic powers,” Mark said.

    “Well, actually, resurrection is quite simple. You need a ghost, a body and just a tiny bit of psychic powers to combine them again. The psychic powers are not the problem. You’d be surprised by how many pokémon have psychic powers. Ariados has psychic powers. But a ghost and a body are the hard ones. After dying, some people leave quickly. Others stay for a while. A few never go, but instead decide to haunt the place where they died. If the ghost is gone, there is no hope of resurrecting the body. So you either need to resurrect the dead one just after death when the ghost has definetly not gone anywhere, or be able to communicate with the ghost to tell it that it is possible to return back to life, maybe teleport the ghost to a location that doesn’t exist like I did with you. That’s something few pokémon are capable of... me, Molzapart, and ghost pokémon, really, that’s about it of pokémon that can see ghosts and also have psychic powers. The body is even more of a problem. There are limits to how damaged a body can be to be able to be resurrected. When you die of natural reasons, it’s because the body is just to old to work anymore. That means no resurrection. Cancer causes the cells to malfunction, that makes resurrection impossible too. Death stare happens to leave the body completely unharmed... and don’t forget that pokémon have a much better ability to heal themselves than humans, so their body can be more damaged... resurrection under other circumstances is a miracle.”

    “But can I ask something else?” Mark asked.

    “Depends on what it is,” answered Chaletwo.

    “Can I tell someone about this?”

    “Well, only if you really can trust them... or if it’s Ash Ketchum. Remember that he can help you.”

    “Is it OK to tell one of my friends?”

    “If you think you can trust her,” said Chaletwo.

    “Can you then put me back near where she is?”

    “No problem. I’ll put you back now, then... and remember which pokémon you must catch. Articuno, Mew, Entei, Suicune, Waraider, Flamer, Leafer, Freezer, Hydrocean, Electrone, Psycon, Darkan, Rainteicune, Dragold and Dragoblack... you... must... catch... them... all...”
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  25. #65
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Wow.This is a really good chapter,and your readers were right.This is the best chapter so far.Wo-o-ow.But I think chapter 28 will be better,so...*waits for chapter 28*

  26. #66
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    so... this is the answer to all the riddles?

    Good luck, mark...

  27. #67

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    LightNinetales: Well, I think chapter 27 is better personally. But chapters 30, 31 and 32 are great. Especially 30 and 32.

    Ralts_mudkip: Yup, that's it! The answer! Good luck? He'll need it, I assure you. He'll need it...


    Mark: Errr... huh? You know, I'm considering quitting this fic...

    Me: Don't even think about it, the world needs you...


    Chapter 28: Dead or alive


    Mark woke up in a forest. An ache all over his body announced that he was back to life. He stood up, feeling all dizzy. Then he looked around and started walking in a random direction.

    He heard something, and saw it was a Beedrill battling a Pupitar. He didn’t see anything special about it until he remembered that Pupitars aren’t likely to be found in a forest. When he moved a little, he caught a glimpse of blue hair.

    “May!”

    She looked around, and he hurried to her.

    “Who are you?” she said blankly.

    “Do you have amnesia?” he said, having completely forgotten that he’d been dead for a few days. She looked at him for a moment, then said, “Look, I don’t know who you are or what you want, but you’re certainly not the brightest person around, if you’re pretending to be someone whose death occupied six to eight pages in all newspapers in Ouen!”

    “It did?” Mark asked. “Wow, I’m famous!”

    “Come on. Who are you?”

    “Really, I am Mark! Just ask me something only I would know!”

    She rolled her eyes, then asked, “What is my last name?”

    “What the – but – you never told me your last name!” Mark said furiously.

    She raised her eyebrows. “No, I most certainly never did,” she said. “So, you are that Mark, but who was it who died?”

    “That was me too, but let me explain...”

    “Mark – have you been out in the sun for too long?”

    “No, I...”

    “Then why do you suddenly think you’re a ghost? You look solid to me...”

    “I’m not a ghost!” Mark shouted. “I’m trying to...”

    “Then why are you saying you’re dead?”

    “SHUT UP FOR A MOMENT, I’M TRYING TO EXPLAIN EVERYTHING!!!!!!” Mark roared.

    May looked at him for a few seconds, then said, “You’re becoming a bit like me, Mark.”

    “What do you mean, a bit like you?” he replied hotly.

    “The Mark I met at the Lake of Purity would not have told me to shut up. And because I’m well aware that I have a bad temper and I’m the only person who could have been influencing you at all...”

    “You haven’t been influencing me!”

    “Are you saying you’re not Mark, then?”

    “No!”

    “Then you are getting a bit like me.”

    “I... oh, whatever. I should explain first...”

    However, May was about the worst listener imaginable. She kept interrupting, usually asking about something Mark was just coming to, and when he had struggled through the whole story, she said, “I’m not sure I believe you, Mark.”

    “WHAT??” Mark was losing his temper again. “I SPEND AGES TRYING TO TELL YOU WHAT HAPPENED, AND YOU DON’T BELIEVE ME???”

    “You’re becoming a lot like me,” May simply said.

    “I...”

    “Show me Molzapart or Chaletwo to prove it,” she said.

    “I can’t!”

    “Oh, so you just can’t?” May said sarcastically. “Maybe because you were making all of this up...”

    “I’m not...”

    But he didn’t get any further, because a voice speaking inside their heads interrupted.

    He is not lying. I am right here inside one of his pokéballs.

    Chaletwo, Mark thought at once.

    He must not send us out, ever. If a human saw it, everything would be ruined. It all depends on being done secretly.

    “Chaletwo?” May said, her eyes wide.

    Yes. Believe him, help him, and don’t tell anyone... except Ash Ketchum. Go to him now, talk to him. It’s important.

    “Wow...” May said after this managed to sink into her. “Wow.”

    “Where are we, by the way? And for how long have I been dead?” Mark asked.

    “We’re in Ruxido, the forest between Green town and Stormy town. If we’re to speak to Ash Ketchum, we need to go back to Green town. And you died a week ago. Wow, this is weird...”

    They walked back, all the way to Green town, pretty much with nothing interesting happening. Then they knocked nervously on the door of Ash Ketchum’s house. Mark noticed some people who stared at him, then shook their heads and kept going.

    Alan answered the door, his gaze ran from May to Mark, and stopped there. Then his mouth fell open, he raised his hand slowly, pointing at Mark, and said, “You are dead.”

    “I’ll explain inside,” he said and sighed, and Alan stepped aside, still goggling at Mark.

    “But... I saw it... Chaletwo killed you... before my very eyes... I’ll eat Pamela if it wasn’t you...”

    “I’m no more dead than you,” Mark said.

    “No more than me...? Do you mean... a – are you coming to get me? I – I think you’re taking me for someone else, I’m sure I don’t have cancer or anything, I’d surely have noticed if I’d been murdered... and I’m much to young to by dying for natural reasons now... and I like my life, I’d not go and commit suicide, least of all without being aware of it myself...”

    Mark was trying hard not to laugh. “You’re not dead either.”

    “But you are,” Alan said and pointed at him again. “You are.”

    “Let’s sit down and pretend both of us are alive, and I’ll explain it to you. Then I need to talk to your father.”

    Again, Mark explained everything. Alan was still staring at him, keeping his hand on the table like he was afraid otherwise Mark could suddenly melt it or something. When he finished, Alan opened his mouth.

    “Wow.”

    “And... er... are you having problems believing me?” Mark asked with caution.

    “Wh... no, not at all. I should’ve known.”

    “What do you mean?”

    “Chaletwo. Chaletwo wouldn’t kill people just like that, I knew it.”

    Mark thought about May’s reactions earlier. Alan was completely different. A different person. Had an easier time trusting people, even when he didn’t know them too well.

    “Where is your father?”

    “Upstairs, I think,” Alan answered.

    “No, I’m right here, actually,” came a voice from behind them. It was Ash, of course.

    “Brought more friends home, have you, Al...” Ash noticed Mark. “Ahh, I see,” he then said. Alan looked just as puzzled as them.

    “Chaletwo killed you, right?” Ash said.

    “Ummm... yeah...” Mark said, not sure why Ash seemed like he’d been expecting him for a long time.

    “You don’t need to explain anything. Molzapart told me what would happen, years ago when I first met Molzapart, and it is time I tell you.”

    He sat down at the table.

    “Molzapart told me that one day, I would meet a dead person – someone, that is, who had been killed by either him or Chaletwo. Molzapart told me everything about the War of the Legends, and that they weren’t going to send anyone to me until it was pretty much their last chance.

    Well, for short, Molzapart told me that once I met that person, I should help them. Go with them – because everyone should know that legendary pokémon seem to come within my eyesight quite often – and help them find the legendary pokémon and catch them. And Molzapart also said that the ability to attract legendary pokémon would inherit from father to son...”

    “Me!” Alan exclaimed. “That’s me, I can go just as well as you! Please, can I? I’ve always dreamed of going on a real adventure, not just a boring old pokémon journey... can I go, even though you’re not dead?”

    “Well,” Ash answered, rubbing his forehead, “I personally have nothing against it, but – I have to admit that I’m surprised, Alan, that you are asking to get to go and save the world. You’re the last person I’d have expected to want that – save maybe Charlie.” He chuckled.

    “We’re not going to tell anyone, are we?” Alan said. “It’s secret – no one will know and I’m not going to be famous or anything...” He looked at Mark. “Or will I?”

    “I doubt it, if you don’t want to,” Mark answered.

    “Besides, this is worth being famous for, it’s...”

    “You talk like it’s a bad thing,” Ash said.

    “Dad, you have so, absolutely, NOTHING to say about that!” Alan yelled hotly. “You were never stared at in school, just because your father was your father! You had some private life when you were a kid! Everyone didn’t know who you were! Everyone didn’t always expect you to be good at everything, just because you were the son of your father! Most everyone didn’t keep from coming near you, just because your father was famous! And now I have the chance to go on a completely secret journey that actually has an important purpose, with no one but two kids who are keeping it completely secret too and our pokémon, and it will even give me a reason to be famous, I am going to enjoy being in a simple group of three humans and some pokémon for the first time in my life!”

    Ash didn’t say anything for a few seconds, and no sound was heard except for Alan’s rapid breathing. Then Ash finally said, “I understand. I’d never have liked being a famous person’s child, and of course I’d want to go if that was my opportunity to finally deserve all that attention and at the same time getting to be left alone. Well, shouldn’t you kids get a move on, then? We have no time to lose.”

    “Yeah, of course...” said Alan. “Wait...” he ran upstairs and came down with an official pokémon league cap that looked so ancient it would belong in a museum.

    “Can’t go on an adventure without Dad’s old cap, can I?” He laughed and put it on. “Now I’m ready.”

    Mark noticed the five pokéballs at his belt, and assumed that Diamond, Alan’s Rapidash, must still be outside. Meanwhile, Ash was packing down things in a backpack, and was surprisingly quick getting everything needed there. Alan disappeared to somewhere and came back with a saddle and a bridle.

    “If you don’t mind,” he said. “You can try Diamond out too if you want. She’s great, and very, very fast.”

    “Your backpack’s ready, Alan,” said Ash, handing the backpack to Alan.


    When they got outside, Alan went straight to the left, Mark and May following. When they reached the border of the city, he called out, “Diamond!”

    There was a sound of hooves, and a Rapidash sped out from the wilderness and stopped in front of Alan.

    “Good girl,” he said, putting the saddle on her. Then he got on her back, and said “Agility!” Diamond nodded with a wild look of happiness on her face, and galopped forward fast as lightning while Alan went crazy and yelled “WHOOOOOOO!!!!” When they returned, Alan got off and asked, “Anyone else wanna try?”

    Mark mumbled “No, thanks,” but May accepted right away and went on a wild ride on Diamond too.

    “How will we manage to catch all these legendary pokémon...” Mark muttered. “How can we possibly manage to...”

    “Well, as Dad always says: ‘To find legendary pokémon, all you need to do is being incredibly lucky like I seem to be, and not looking for them’,” Alan answered. “According to Molzapart, I will be incredibly lucky too, so you can just concentrate on the pokémon league, and we will find them in the end. What’s more of a problem, I’d say, is how you’re going to catch them, it’s not like you have fifteen Master balls ready at hand...”

    “I have one,” said Mark. “And we can always buy Ultra balls.”

    “True, but if the weaker legendary pokémon are getting stronger, Ultra balls may not be enough to catch them.”

    “Do you have a better idea?”

    Alan didn’t say anything.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  28. #68
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    ‘To find Legendary Pokémon, all you need to do is being incredibly lucky like I seem to be, and not looking for them’
    Hmm… That quote seams awfuly familiar… Oh yeah! this one member asked for help w/catching Raikou/Entei/Suicune and Agent Elrond replied with pretty much the same as the above quote, im sure Agent Elrond would be very proud to have gotten a small mention.

    …Or was it just coincidence…?

    Eather way, keep writing!

  29. #69

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Originally posted by ralts_mudkip
    Hmm… That quote seams awfuly familiar… Oh yeah! this one member asked for help w/catching Raikou/Entei/Suicune and Agent Elrond replied with pretty much the same as the above quote, im sure Agent Elrond would be very proud to have gotten a small mention.

    …Or was it just coincidence…?

    Eather way, keep writing!
    o.O Really? It was certainly just a coincidence, unless I flickered through that thread something and that post got into me at a subconscious level.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  30. #70

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Here comes chapter 29. It's a gym battle, and they're boring to write now that I have a plot. But it might be pretty interesting to read, because it's the first battle with trainers since chapter 20. I think I've improved a lot. Also, I was in the make-fun-of-pokémon-clichés mood.


    Chapter 29: The Green Town gym


    Mark went to have his battle in the Green town gym while May and Alan played with Diamond. He was sort of ashamed that he didn’t dare to sit a Rapidash while it used Agility, but he thought “Well, at least I’m more careful than those crazy kids” and that thought comforted him in an odd sort of way.

    He entered the gym. Inside it, there were two girls, one who he assumed was around 18 and one younger, twelve or thirteen.

    “Hello?” said the older one.

    “Hi, I’m here for a badge,” Mark said.

    “Of course you’re here for a badge!” she snapped. “No one comes into a pokémon gym without wanting a badge!”

    “Err... guess you’re right...”

    “OK, it’s junior trainer first.”

    The younger girl stepped forward. She wore a white T-shirt with a picture of all sorts of grass pokémon on it.

    “Go, Tangela!” she yelled. Her voice was kind of squeaky.

    “Go, Charizard!” Mark roared and hurled the ball forward.

    “Tangela, Sleep powder!”

    “Charizard, blow it away with your wings!”

    “Tangela, hold that Charizard still!”

    The Tangela’s vines shot forward and bound Charizard tightly, and then it released a cloud of spores that engulfed Charizard. As soon as he inhaled it, he was fast asleep.

    “Tangela, Slam!”

    The Tangela slammed its vines down on Charizard’s back, and then again, and again, always muttering “Tan-gela! Tan-gela!” until Charizard woke up due to the beating, and without warning shot a Flamethrower at the vine-covered pokémon. It stood there for a second all charred, then collapsed while Charizard wearily got up.

    “Sunflora, do it!” the girl shouted and sent out a sunflower pokémon.

    “Flora,” it said happily.

    “Charizard, Flamethrower!” Mark ordered.

    “Sunflora, Solarbeam!” the girl said, clenching her fist. Charizard fired a jet of flames and the Sunflora didn’t even manage to charge the Solarbeam before it hit. And Sunflora fainted on the spot. Mark smiled triumphantly; Sunflora was, if he knew his pokémonology correctly, one of the very weakest fully evolved pokémon of all. And Tangela wasn’t all that great, either.

    “Ah, well, it happens every time,” the girl said and looked anxiously at Mark as she took out her third, and last, pokéball.

    “Go, Jumpluff!”

    Mark smiled again. Jumpluff was weak too.

    “Charizard...”

    But he didn’t get any farther, beause the girl had already yelled “Jumpluff, Stun spore!”

    The Jumpluff released a cloud of spores, and Charizard froze, completely unable to move. He collapsed to the ground like a stone statue.

    “Guess you can’t battle anymore,” said Mark, recalling Charizard. “Go, Scy... no, Jolteon!”

    He changed his mind on the last second; he remembered what Sandslash had said about Jolteon being annoyed at not getting to battle.

    Jolteon emerged from the ball he hurled forward, clearly happy to get fresh air.

    “Jolteon, Thunder spikes!”

    Jolteon charged up electricity and being very fast, he managed to fire the pins before the Jumpluff could do anything. It fell to the ground, and Mark quickly ordered Jolteon to finish it off with a Quick attack, ending the battle.

    The older girl walked forward as the young one recalled her Jumpluff, stuck out her tongue and went to sulk in the corner.

    The older one had long dark hair and was wearing dark green clothes. She eyed Mark and started her speech.

    “I’m Flora, the gym leader. I’d like to mention a few things before we start our battle. First off, I hate perfume. I don’t train grass pokémon ‘for their scent’. I don’t train them because I’m a flower-mad hippie either, because I’m not. The reason why I train grass pokémon is that they have spore attacks, and that means strategy, more strategy than all-out attacking. Status affections, I’ve found, are far the easiest way to win a battle, and that’s why I train grass pokémon, they have spore attacks, which cause status affections. Then, I want to remind you that I wasn’t a gym leader when I was born, so my name is just a coincidence. Heck, it’s my parents’ fault, not mine! I didn’t ask to get a name that sounds like a pun on my job!” She took a deep breath, then continued in a calmer tone, “Shall we start the battle, then?”

    “Yeah,” said Mark.

    “OK then. Go, Victreebel!”

    A vicious-looking plant pokémon came out of the ball.

    “Go, Scyther!”

    Scyther faced the plant, and they stared nastily at each other.

    “Scyther, Fury cutter!”

    Scyther leapt forward and slashed viciously at the Victreebel. Flora clenched her fist and said, “Victreebel, Sludge bomb now!” The Victreebel fired a ball of sludge from its mouth at Scyther’s face and he slashed back, but the Victreebel cut back with its razor-sharp leaf whip.

    “Scyther, Slash!”

    “Victreebel, Razor leaf!”

    The Victreebel fired a bunch of leaves at Scyther, leaving him all cut and bruised, but he slashed it one more time and it fainted.

    “Return, Victreebel! Go, Vileplume!”

    “Viiiiile!” said the Vileplume’s voice as it came out of the ball.

    “Vileplume, Poisonpowder!”

    A cloud of dust came out of its flower and Scyther inhaled it. Weakened, he attempted to slash the Vileplume, but it got out of the way.

    “Vileplume, finish it off with a Petal dance!”

    The Vileplume shook itself violently and red petals shot towards the already hurt Scyther. The petals hit him with a lot of force, and he collapsed on the ground.

    “Strategy,” Mark muttered to himself. “Strategy is what she has, but I lack.”

    He took out a pokéball.

    “Go, Dragonair!”

    Dragonair faced the Vileplume.

    “Dragonflame and then Fire blast!” Dragonair flared up and then blew a blast of flames at the Vileplume. It was apparently very flammable as the fire one petal caught spread around its body at incredible speed while the plant pokémon screamed in agony.

    “I have more pokémon than this,” said Flora as she recalled her injured Vileplume. “Go, Meganium!”

    A dinosaur pokémon came out of the ball she threw forward.
    “Body slam!”

    The Meganium flung itself on top of Dragonair, but as he was still flaming, the Meganium got badly burned and as the underbelly was its weak spot, it was seriously weakened.

    “Dragonair, come back! Go, Sandslash, and use Slash!”

    Sandslash slashed the Meganium hard with his claws, and roaring, the dinosaur pokémon fainted.

    “You shall not beat me! Return, Meganium, and go, Bellossom!”

    “Sandslash, Slash again!”

    Flora hadn’t considered the fact that Bellossom was a very small pokémon and slashing it would be much more effective than on a big one. This lead to the fall of her Bellossom, bringing her down to her last pokémon.

    “I made a mistake, but I won’t make another one,” Flora said determinedly. “This is my strongest pokémon, just try to beat it! Go!”

    She hurled a ball forward as hard as she could, and out of it came a Venusaur.

    “Venusaur, Vine whip!”

    Even though Vine whip was a very basic Grass attack with only 35 base damage (at least if Mark remembered his pokémonology correctly), it was very effective nonetheless. Sandslash curled up to defend against it, but started spinning around when the whip hit him, and he ended up on his back, unable to do a thing as Venusaur fired a Razor leaf at him, finishing him off.

    “Sandslash, come back! Go, Gyarados!”

    Mark sent Gyarados out in a pool that was on the arena like required in all pokémon gyms.

    “Gyarados, Dragon beam!” he roared.

    Gyarados roared too, then closed his eyes and started concentrating, getting grayer like when they had been practising for the Attack approval. The laser beam hit the Venusaur and it roared, then it froze as icicles started forming on its leaves. Gyarados rested a bit while Venusaur couldn’t do anything, and then fired another Dragon beam, winning the match.

    “You won with luck,” Flora muttered.

    As the trainers recalled their pokémon, the junior trainer went somewhere to the back and came back with a small badge, handed it to Flora without words and then stood there and waited while Flora gave Mark the badge. He then went outside to meet up with May and Alan.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  31. #71
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    That was a good chapter. I'm kinda suprised how fast Charizard went down against Jumpluff. The gym battle was good and FLora is a freak.

  32. #72

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Oh, not a freak... just my victim. Seriously, those coincidences with gym leader names are really weird. I mean, isn't it strange that the Normal type gym leader in Hoenn happens to be named Norman? How curious.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  33. #73

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Like I say: This chapter is like a hole. Deep, dark and long.

    Yup, if you thought the pokémon were deep characters before, look at this. The secrets of Scyther and Gyarados are finally revealed, Scyther turns into a psychologist (just to warn you, he'll do that quite a few times later) and... it's time for CONNECTIONS! How this story connects to The Second Clone... how everything connects with the animé... a bit more of how May connects to me (although you can't know unless I tell you)... how many events in the story connect, too... look, this is what I'm good at, taking plot holes and loose ends and tieing them firmly up in a later chapter so that it all makes perfect sense. Anyway, to the chapter...


    Chapter 30: Shadows of the past


    They walked slowly across the wild land and took turns riding Diamond. She could go incredibly far without getting tired, and when she did, Alan just sprayed an Elixer on her and she was brimming with energy again. Slowly but steadily they walked on and towards Ruxido. After Ruxido, they’d need to go through some more wild land, and then they’d get to Stormy town, where nearby an unexpected thunderstorm started twenty years ago or so and hadn’t stopped since.

    It was getting dark, and they agreed that they should rest. They lit a campfire and sat down, letting their pokémon out of their balls. Then they sat in a ring and stared like hypnotized at the fire.

    “I wonder...” said Mark, still staring at the flames, “...what is it like to be wild? I mean, a wild pokémon. What was it like?” He looked at his pokémon.

    “When I was wild,” Scyther said, still staring into the fire, “we used to have duels. Nothing is like a good duel. The Mew hunter let me have duels with Kabutops, but nothing is like duelling another Scyther. It was a whole lot better than nothing, though... made me stronger than the average captured Scyther... if only his desire for Mew hadn’t poisoned his mind like that, he would’ve been the best trainer I could ever get. Knew what he was doing, oh yes. Knew what our scythes are worth. Deep inside he really cared for us, his armed squad of pokémon. But I knew that when Mew was somewhere, he’d act like we don’t exist. Just grab the ball, find Mew, catch it, and then plan world domination. While Mew seemed completely out of reach... then he was a very good trainer. We were precious to him, and I knew it. Kabutops was a good friend of mine...” Scyther suddenly seemed to realize he had wandered off the subject. “Yes. Wild. Duels. I remember my last duel in the wild. She was a female. The fastest Scyther with the sharpest scythes I’ve ever seen. But she dared calling me a Scizor... there is no worse insult in a Scyther’s vocabulary.”

    “Why did she call you a Scizor?” Mark asked.

    “We were having an argument... I guess I called her some things too... but nothing half as bad as that. So, naturally, I challenged her to a duel. A duel about life and death, to be exact – the winner kills the loser. Or well, that’s the unofficial rule. The official rule is that the winner decides what happens to the loser. Not like anyone would accept a loser in the swarm, anyway. But – I mean, if both have agreed to win or give the other one full freedom to kill them, you’d be considered just as much of a loser if you were tender enough to let them live. Anyway, we duelled. She was tough. And I lost. But she... she just looked into my eyes, and then leapt off me and dashed away, without doing what she was meant to do.”

    “Well, that’s good,” Mark said.

    Good? No. This is exactly what ruins the reputation of both. Like I said, she was now considered a loser who didn’t have the guts to finish off a fallen enemy, and I was considered a coward begging for mercy. If she had killed me, nice and clean, it would’ve been better for both of us. But it’s not like I cared then, because I happened to fall in love with her right away. She was just so fast... so graceful... I followed her secretly for a few days. Then, a trainer came when she was sleeping. I, the coward, didn’t do anything. The trainer attacked her and caught her, then walked away. I followed him, just to see what he would do. Like I didn’t know it already. Of course he went to a pokémon center, found another trainer, took a Metal coat... for short, evolved her... I’ve never felt so mad in my life. In a rage, I broke the window, and went iside. Two victims, neither of them was that trainer. No,” Scyther added when he saw the look on Mark’s face, “I didn’t kill anyone. One guy got two fingers cut off and I kicked a small kid, although I didn’t intend to, so he got a bleeding nose. Someone had a gun and shot at me, I came to my senses and figured I’d better get out. A bullet hit me just after I got through the window, and everything went black. When I regained consciousness, I was lying somewhere in the grass along with a pool of my own blood and the Mew hunter just noticed me. He took out a pokéball and caught me, and I was sure I was doomed to the same fate. But he just removed the bullet and got me back to health. I tried to forget her, and managed to pretty well. That is, until I battled that Scizor in the pokémon frenzy tournament. I was quicker, she lay there defeated, I was ready for the kill. Then the Scizor looked into my eyes, and said, “You”. I didn’t know what she meant, but I wasn’t bothered. That stupid trainer rose up and started moaning about his Scizor... he looked familiar, but I couldn’t make out who he was. Then I looked at the Scizor again... I suddenly remembered it all like yesterday. When I was under and she claimed victory, when I thought, “Why did I challenge her, I knew she would kill me or I’d have to kill her, both were bad”. And I realized... she was fast for a Scizor, she had a familiar trainer, she knew me, she awoke those memories... this Scizor was the same as the Scyther that didn’t kill me... so in return, I didn’t kill her.”

    “So it wasn’t because of the trainer!” Mark realized.

    “No, of course not!” Scyther said with disgust. “Trainers who evolve their Scythers don’t deserve to get anything they want. Personally, I’d have liked to give him the slowest, most painful death imaginable, but it’s not like the stupid laws nowadays give pokémon any rights to attack humans. But at least, it’s common courtesy to let someone live who let you live. That’s basic, and that’s why I didn’t kill her that time.”

    “Why didn’t you talk to her or something?” Mark asked.

    “I did say something to her,” said Scyther. “Before we left the battlefield, I said “Look who’s a Scizor now”. That was the only thing I wanted to say to her.”

    “But... isn’t love more powerful than some hate for Scizors? Can’t you love her anyway?”

    “It’s not that simple, Mark,” said Scyther and sighed. “We’re brought up to hate every bit of a Scizor. And in addition to not having the two things Scythers care about in life, speed and scythes, Scyther’s evolution isn’t natural. The only way to trigger it is to make the Scyther wear a metallic coat and then compressing it into a different form of energy, like when traded through a trading machine. That’s simply a situation that doesn’t just happen in the wild. Being a Scizor means you’ve been caught by a trainer, which is a sign of weakness and automatically puts you in a lower class than others. This is some strong hate going on, and I can’t help feeling this kind of disgust when I see a Scizor. And this makes me confused...”

    Scyther paused, then coninued, “Everyone has a sense of emotion. It means the ability to understand people’s emotions, yours and others’. If it’s strong, you have an easy time understanding emotions, otherwise not. Females have a stronger sense of emotion than males on average, but of course it really varies. Your sense of emotion is split up in two; the negative part and the positive part. If your positive part is weak, you’re for example likely not to understand when you’re in love. If your negative part is weak, you’ll have a hard time understanding why you dislike someone or something. My sides are both pretty strong, but the negative one is significally stronger. So when there’s someone like her around, whom I feel very strong feelings for on both sides, in fact, too strong for me to fully understand them, I’m confused. Sometimes I will despise her, sometimes I’ll feel like abandoning the Scizor hate, freeing her from the trainer and then we could live happily together. But seeing as my negative sense of emotion is stronger, I always have this prickle of hate, and as much as I’d like to love her, I can’t help hating her sometimes. At the moment I love her, but who knows what I’ll think of her tomorrow? It can change overnight.”

    Mark was charmed by Scyther’s story, even though he didn’t understand Scyther’s thinking. There was a silence that meant Scyther wasn’t about to say anything else. Mark looked at his other pokémon.

    “I was originally a Magikarp,” Gyarados finally said. “A strong Magikarp. That’s very fun. Young trainers used to come to the lake and use their weak pokémon to fight Magikarps. I beat them and watched them run away in horror. Oh, that was the best life I could imagine. But since I liked fighting despite being a Magikarp, it’s only natural that I evolved. Suddenly, I turned into a predator. That wasn’t a problem. You couldn’t see more than two centimeters away from you in that icky stuff, so the prey couldn’t see me. I could just shoot across the lake with my mouth open and it filled with delicious Goldeens completely unaware that they were being eaten. I sort of missed the look on the weak trainers when they just got defeated by a Magikarp, but it was fine, too. The people of Cleanwater, however, weren’t happy with that. They didn’t understand that everyone has to eat. They made up some ridiculous mixtures they called ‘poison’... poison for them, maybe, and poison for the other Water pokémon, but not for me. For me, it was a feast! Dead fish pokémon everywhere! But then that dratted Suicune came. Cleaned the lake. The few living fish pokémon left could see me from the other end of the lake. There was no way to hunt. After the ones that died of the poison were all finished, I was starving to death, but in the end I found a hole. It was small, but I was thin enough to squeeze myself into it. There I lurked and grabbed an occasional Magikarp or Goldeen or Remoraid that happened to swim by. It kept me alive. No one knew where I went. They didn’t bother to check the hole because they thought a Gyarados wouldn’t fit into it. But I was still starving. I completely lost track of time, night after night after night passed, and Suicune always came and cleaned the lake. I tried many ways to get Suicune to stop cleaning it and therefore disabling me from eating. I tried waiting deep down where it hopefully wouldn’t notice me, but when it came and I swam up, when I reached the surface, it was already gone. I tried hiding in my hiding place and trying to hear when it was coming, but then it came slowly and quietly. I tried hiding and counting the seconds to know when to go, but then it came early. I tried waiting near the surface, but then it came at the other end of the lake. And even, when I was the most desperate, I waited with my head out of the water, just so I could ask it to stop, but then it didn’t listen. I hated Suicune, I wanted to get it to stop cleaning the lake, in any way at all, maybe kill it, maybe talk to it, but just somehow make it stop...”

    “I’m sure Suicune didn’t intend to make you starve,” May commented.

    “Well, either that or Suicune doesn’t understand that I have to eat,” Gyarados replied darkly. “Suicune was afraid of me, of course. If a Magikarp is strong, then what can the Gyarados it becomes be?”

    “That’s why Rick’s Suicune refused to fight you!” Mark found out.

    “Yes. It was a clone of the real one, and didn’t want to fight me just like the real one. Well, I hope you understand why I ate that Sharpedo the other day... wild prey after all those years was just something I couldn’t let go...”

    Mark was stunned by Gyarados’ and Scyther’s stories. He had never thought about how their past was before.

    He turned to Charizard. “What about you?”

    “Well, my past isn’t interesting,” he said. “I was just born from an egg and given to Taylor. Although I think there was some deal about me being the son of Ash Ketchum’s Charizard.”

    “Dad’s?” said Alan suddenly. “But that would make you...”

    “Charlie’s little brother, I know,” said Charizard and looked at Charlie, who was in his Charmander form. Charlie looked up at his brother and found it awkward to sit there so tiny compared to his younger brother, so he evolved into a Charmeleon, then a Charizard. Charlie was a bit taller as a Charizard than Mark’s.

    “Sandslash?”

    “Me? When I was a Sandshrew, I was scared of just about everything. I remember when I had a mock fight with one of my friends – we did that quite often – and he evolved, and I got so scared I ran away. I was always like that, whatever happened. We also used to have digging contest, the fastest digger wins. I was never really good at it, though. Life was one big game. After you caught me, it all changed.”

    “How?”

    “Well, I felt this thing... that you were the one and only way for me to get the strongest I could be. And it caused me to want to do better for you, and when I evolved I just felt so mature...”

    “That’s the case with all pokémon,” Scyther commented. “It’s in our instincts to want to be the strongest we can be and consider anyone, who has shown superiority in battle and is ready to help us to be strong, the one and only best way to be strong.”

    “Yeah,” said Sandslash. “Something like that.”

    There was more silence.

    “My mother was a Flareon,” said Jolteon at last. “She left us while we were still very young to search for food, and... didn’t come back.”

    Mark didn’t say anything. He couldn’t believe that on the second day of his pokémon journey, he had been trying to cause more troubles to Jolteon, who was then just a tiny little Eevee.

    “My siblings believed that she was going to come back. But I did not. Of course, I hoped she was there somewhere, maybe just hurt. So I went to search for her. My siblings denied the possibility that she wasn’t coming back. I guess they all died. But because I went to search for her, I managed to find food on my own and even managed to fight off a few pokémon that attacked me. I was just about to give up, lie down on the road and wait for a car to end my troubles when I found you. Of course I thought you were going to do something bad to me, and when you threw the ball at me, I thought it was over – but Charizard, then a Charmander, explained it to you, and it was such a relief when you realized it and took me to the pokémon center, although I didn’t know what you were going to do at first. And well, that’s about all that is to tell of me.”

    “There’s nothing interesting about me either,” said Dragonair. I just lived in the Lake of Purity and one day you came and I was so stupid I wanted to touch everything I saw. Like your pokéball.”

    There was a long silence.

    “Come on, all of my pokémon have said something,” Mark urged the other pokémon. Still, no one said anything.

    “OK, Butterfree, now you just tell us something about you.”

    Butterfree sighed.

    “I don’t really remember anything. Becoming a Metapod sorta compresses your brain into almost nothing and throws everything away...”

    A few of them laughed, Butterfree’s face went red as she looked hatefully at them.

    “My past wasn’t interesting at all,” said Skarmory. “I just lived, my mother brought food back to the nest, and I left the nest when I was able to fly. Then she found me and caught me. That’s it.”

    “Raichu?”

    “Me? Well, nothing interesting... but mom claimed that she met Ash Ketchum’s Pikachu once and he saved her...”

    “Whoa!” Alan exclaimed. “She must have been the Pikachu Dad told me about... that one time when he was going to release his Pikachu!”

    “He meant to release PIKACHU?!” Mark said in disbelief. “Seesh, how many pokémon can one person care this little about?”

    “It was because he cared so much about them,” said Alan in defense. “Pikachu wanted to join a group of wild Pikachus and Dad had a really hard time deciding whether to let him or not, in the end he decided to let him go, but Pikachu came back.”

    “Oh,” said Mark blankly. “Well, that’s how they always explain it...”

    “He cares about his pokémon, goddamn it!” Alan said loudly. “Too much, if anything!”

    Mark decided it was best to change the subject, and so did most of the pokémon, looked expectantly at each other, hoping for someone to say something. They didn’t have to wait for very long.

    “I lived in the Lake of Purity with the other Laprases there,” said Lapras. “But they mocked me all the time because I was weaker than the average Lapras... I was actually crying when she found me and caught me... I still remember how much that Thundershock hurt on top of all my woes...”

    Lapras looked accusingly at May. She didn’t say anything; she was messing with her fingernails yet again.

    “Pupitar, now you’re alone left of May’s pokémon...” Mark started, but May interrupted.

    “He won’t say anything. He barely says anything at all. He isn’t very social.”

    “Oh, OK,” said Mark, glanced at Pupitar, whose expression remained the same, and then turned to Alan’s pokémon.

    “I was his first pokémon,” Pamela purred. “But I was born in a stinky old pet shop that dishonoured me in all ways. It was lucky he came and bought me before it had a bad influence on me. All the Skitties there with their snobby behaviour... I was happy to get out. Otherwise I don’t know what I’d have ended up as...”

    Alan snorted, but she ignored it, curled herself up and went to sleep.

    “I was bought, too,” said Diamond before anyone asked. “From a farm near Cleanwater...”

    “I know what farm!” Mark said quickly.

    “Yes, yes...” said Diamond impatiently. “It was a pretty boring life, now that I think back. And you were always locked up inside a fence. Didn’t get to run at all... now I get to run as I like! Whee!”

    Mark thought she sounded like a very hyperactive character.
    Victoria opened her mouth. “You know, I just lived there in Mt. Silver, floating around and scaring the heck out of passing trainers. Every day was the same, once I had a very foolish Golduck attack me, but that was about the most interesting thing that happened in my life. Then Alan came and spotted me, I got really scared and tried to hide but he found me and caught me... and, as weird as it is, I’m glad he did, since otherwise I’d never have seen many of the things I saw while we were in the Johto league.”

    “I was born for you, buddy, right in Hoenn, the place of all places!” said Racko happily. “And life in Hoenn was too great for words, so let’s not speak of it!”

    Yeah right, Mark thought, but didn’t say anything.

    “Well, then it’s just me, I guess,” said Mist and sighed. “Well, I was born in Itsruban, a city that’s pretty far away if I know correctly. I always dreamed of becoming a Vaporeon, and well, here I am. I had a sister called Mystic, and three brothers called Shadow, Wave and Pyro. We all used to hate each other for every reason possible. We were taken by the human who owned our mother out in a cardboard box and left in the garbage, and we then had to look after ourselves.”

    “What?” asked Scyther, suddenly turning his head to Mist. “A human threw five Eevees in the garbage?”

    “Yep,” said Mist and sighed.

    “That’s disgusting,” said Scyther. “How can anyone be that terribly selfish? How can anyone think that just because they don’t need more life to feed, they can throw it away like something nasty they want to get rid of?”

    “Suicune threw me away,” said Gyarados bitterly. “Left me there to starve to death in the lake.”

    “I don’t understand that either,” said Mark confused. “I mean, legendary pokémon are supposed to protect the pokémon they’re the guardians of, aren’t they? And Suicune should guard water pokémon...”

    “Should,” said Gyarados dully. “But didn’t.”

    “Anyway, I think we should go to sleep now,” said Alan, probably just to get Gyarados off that subject. “What about if our pokémon all get to sleep out of their balls tonight?”

    They all agreed, the pokémon found nice places to lie as the kids took out their sleeping bags. When Mark was in his bag, he started thinking about everything he had found out tonight. Scyther’s story. And not to mention Gyarados’. He had never known his pokémon could have that much of a past behind them. But why on earth didn’t he think of asking before? Scyther just turned out to be a heartbroken philosopher, and Mark knew nothing about it. Could his pokémon be hiding more secrets?

    His thoughts drifted away into a dream.



    There's a poem next, it's the so-called "Extra #1", which happens between chapters 30 and 31. I'll post it sometime soon, as I don't think I need to revise it.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  34. #74
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Now this was an awesome chapter. Good length and details. I, personally, want to know about Racko's past. Probably because i'm really curious though. My favourite pasts were Scyther's and Gyaradoses.

  35. #75

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    HedgeCat: Of course they were the best pasts, they had far the most thought put into them, and they're the only ones that actually matter for the rest of the story.

    Anyway, time for Extra #1, the poem...

    Extra #1: Switching Sides
    ~~~~~~~~~~~
    Such a perfect being
    oh, so perfect...
    Your scythes, ever so sharp,
    oh, it would have been an honour to have them sweep the life from my body.
    But not as sharp as my pain when it happened.
    Your cuts were so deep,
    but not as deep as the blackness of your eyes.
    So deep that the tiniest scratches drew blood,
    but nowhere as much as the blank in my heart.
    The cuts were so narrow,
    but not as narrow as the thread of my will to live.
    So narrow that the biggest slashes didn’t cause me pain,
    but that didn’t make it less painful when they did it.
    Your wings beating faster than everything I’ve seen,
    but not as fast as my heart when he got you.
    Your anger so terrible, so pure in fury...
    But not as terrible as feeling that I failed you.
    Oh, why did it have to be you?
    Why, why, why...

    How can I bear
    to be better off than you?
    How can I bear
    that you’ve lost all you had?
    How can I bear
    that half of me hates you?
    How can I bear it?

    Why do I still have the pride of all Scythers?
    Why do I still have my scythes?
    Why do I still have my speed and agility,
    when you have nothing?

    This isn’t fair...
    Oh, the injustice in this world...
    I wish my pain was over,
    I wish I was dead...
    Sometimes I even truly wish I had suffered the same fate as you.

    But I feel like I have a job to do,
    it can’t be our destiny to be together...
    I must leave the dreamworld...

    My negative emotions take over...
    you’d better get out of my mind for a while...
    I’m becoming angry...
    I’m becoming hateful...
    Oh, I hate you so much for this pain you have caused me...

    Farewell, for I will never forget you, whatever I may think of you.



    Yeah, I know it's weird, but it's just exactly how Scyther feels right now. Chapter 31 and 32 are pretty Scyther-themed, and I'm starting to think this fic will come to the point where I say "Screw Mark, Scyther is the main character". It's still Mark's perspective, but Scyther is starting to take a bigger part in the story.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  36. #76
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Not not an expert with poems or anything, but I think that was very good. Scyther's talking about that Scizor he loves, right?

  37. #77

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Yup, obviously. As you see, he's now switched to hate her - he was right when he said it could change overnight. Because this is his dream.

    Chapter 31... no action, bit more Scyther (are you getting bored of him?) and then... RANDOM EXPLAINATIONS! That is, one of those things I'm starting to do very much, taking some unsolved mystery in pokémon, making up an explaination that makes sense and then putting it in The Quest for the Legends in some form. Also another thing I'm starting to do a lot: hiding anti-anti-pokémon in it. Basically, this chapter is one of those conversation-wondering-thought-philosophical chapters...


    Chapter 31: The biology of pokémon


    Mark woke with a start very early the next morning, when the sun was casting its very first rays upon the morning dew, despite it not being in sight yet. He looked quickly around, confused, until he realized that it had only been Scyther turning over in his sleep and touching his sleeping bag lightly. He breathed in relief, sat up and went out of the bag, and looked at the sleeping figures all around him. He smiled. Then he looked at Scyther again. Every now and then, a wing, arm or leg would twitch a bit. He was dreaming.

    Because of the strange appeal of someone’s movements while they sleep, Mark decided to watch his bug pokémon a bit longer.

    Scyther reached out randomly through his sleep, but found nothing but Mark’s empty sleeping bag. He grabbed it carefully with his scythes and hugged it firmly.

    “I hate you,” he muttered and hugged the sleeping bag even tighter. “I... hate you...”

    Scyther then opened his eyes. They were blank and obviously still not looking at anything but the dreamworld. But this gave Mark the opportunity, for the first time ever, to look properly at Scyther’s eyes, instead of into them and the mind behind them. There was nothing behind them now but the dephts of his soul.

    They startled Mark. They looked so... helpless. Sad. And... watery.

    Scyther screwed back his eyes again and twitched violently, still muttering “I hate you...” and clutching the sleeping bag, while what was unmistakeably a tear burst out from under his eyelid and ran down his cheek.

    Mark almost cried, too. The fact that the pokémon, who lay so helpless on the ground now, had deadly weapons attached to his arms from birth and was feared by humans and pokémon of the past, present and future, was just so sadistically ironic, he couldn’t help being completely overtaken by pity.

    Scyther had stopped twitching, so he apparently was now in deep sleep. Mark waited a bit, hearing nothing but the breathing of May, Alan and the pokémon, then carefully retrieved his sleeping bag. Scyther didn’t move. Mark crawled back into the bag and quickly fell asleep as the drying salty water in his eyes glued his eyelids together.


    When Mark woke a few hours later, he had pretty much forgotten what he had witnessed before. They just wrapped up their sleeping bags in silence and walked on into Ruxido. The sky was clear, Taillows were singing everywhere and reminded Mark of how they were among the few Hoenn pokémon that had managed to spread to other parts of the world. It was a beautiful day.

    Mark! Behind you!” he suddenly heard Chaletwo’s voice. He stopped and turned. May and Alan also did. He saw a herd of something like horses, landing on feathery wings on the plains far away, unaware of the three kids who just disappeared behind the trees...

    “Waraider...” Mark muttered, and grabbed a pokéball.

    No!” said Chaletwo’s voice. “They’re eight, and all with terrible powers. The only way they’d ever let you come near would be if you came out and let them see you – not catching their attention, just letting them see you – with your beltline clearly visible with no pokéballs. They consider it way below them to attack something as weak as passing human kids with no pokémon for protection.

    “But how will I catch them?” Mark muttered.

    Take out your Master ball and some Ultra balls, and hope for a miracle.

    Chaletwo said nothing more.

    Mark sent his pokémon out and immediately warned them to be quiet by putting a finger on his lips. He explained the situation.

    “Mark,” said Sandslash, “if you’re going after them, at least let us get some fresh air and excercise. Remember what I talked to you about?”

    “You’re right,” said Mark. “And since they’re so far away, almost the whole way back to Green town, I’ll probably go and buy some more Ultra balls there because I’ll most likely use them all...”

    His pokémon nodded. Mark noticed how Jolteon looked like he was itching a lot. He smiled. It seemed so obvious now. Of course he shouldn’t have kept someone like Jolteon, who obviously hated being locked up, inside a pokéball all day! That seemed ridiculous now. All because he had woken up early on the twenty-fifth with no one to talk to.

    He walked a few steps forward, still with Chaletwo’s voice echoing inside his head. Once he was far enough for the legendary pokémon ahead to see him if they bothered to look in his direction, he froze, waiting for their reaction.

    One of the unicorns raised its head. The others slowly did also after they noticed the one that was staring over there. For a few seconds they were all staring at him, then one looked away, followed by the others.

    Part one of the plan worked,” came Chaletwo’s voice.

    Mark kept walking, losing the feeling for his legs gradually as he went on. He looked back and saw that his pokémon already left into Ruxido, but May and Alan had sat down and started to talk.

    He turned back to the Waraider herd. All the unicorns now looked at him again as he walked towards them. For ages, it seemed, he walked on. Suddenly, he discovered that he was very close to them without even noticing.

    Sweating, Mark stared at the herd and could feel the presence of great power in the air. He was starting to wonder how on earth he was supposed to have a chance at anything right now. Slowly, he reached back, and then with a quick movement, he grabbed some of the Ultra balls in his pocket, clutched them, then threw them all at the herd.

    “WAAAAAR!” the white one neighed as the herd scattered. Then the Waraider took off. Mark breathed in relief; if the leader of the herd was going to flee, the other ones would probably too. He threw a few more Ultra balls at the unicorns, who were flying upwards one by one, then when they had all taken off, Mark collected the four or five Ultra balls that the Waraider herd hadn’t destroyed in some way or another, and sighed.

    “I’m hopeless at this,” he muttered as he put the Ultra balls back into his pocket. Green town thankfully wasn’t far ahead.


    After he bought more Ultra balls, Mark was getting hungry, bought a sandwich and was about to walk out of town when he noticed that the bench he was walking past, which had been empty a few seconds ago, was now occupied by the only person who could appear out of nowhere like that: Mitch.

    But that was not what interested Mark. What he did find curious was that Mitch looked at him perfectly calmly, and wasn’t surprised to see him at all. He wondered if he had just not heard of it or something. Or if he believed in ghosts. Or just anything. At least, Mark stopped and turned.

    “Will you have a seat while you finish your sandwich?” Mitch offered and moved to the right, making more room for another person beside him. Mark sat down, and saw that Mitch was looking into the air again. Mark had a strike of deja vu.

    He unwrapped the sandwich and took a bite. Mitch sighed.

    “So,” he said, still staring into the air, “guess we are on the same boat now.”

    “Wha’cha mean?” Mark said with his mouth full.

    “Why, we are both dead, of course.”

    Mark hurriedly swallowed the bite of sandwich, then said:

    “How?”

    “I told you, remember,” said Mitch. “Seven years ago, a little kid called Richard Brown started a pokémon journey. He went into the desert, and died there. Instead, some months later, this guy called Mitch appeared in Scorpion city with a bad case of amnesia, first thought he actually was the poor little boy, then remembered his name and that he was thirteen years old. Inside him, there is a little boy called Richard Brown who doesn’t like Mitch at all. But what can he do? He cloaked himself with that Mitch, and now he thrives on the costume.”

    “What? You’re seventeen?” Mark blurted out.

    “No,” said Mitch and suddenly looked right into Mark’s face. Mark had forgotten about how special his eyes were. “Richard Brown is ten. Mitch is twenty. You see? I changed myself into the man Mitch. But half of me is still the ten-year-old kid who was thought to be dead and no one believed him when he came back, and the kid is scared of Mitch, the man who has seen so many deaths, so much pain, so much sorrow. Too much for a little kid, who was hidden inside Mitch where he did not get to grow and become an adult. Do not make the same mistake I made. Do not hide yourself inside a new person you make up. Even if no one believes you, you should stick with that you are you. It would drive you crazy to be like me. It drove me crazy. I am two people! I am still half a kid! I should not have seen all that I have seen! I should not have heard all that I have heard! Be you. Stay as you. Being locked inside another person because you are afraid of other people is not the right thing to do. Do not do it! Do you hear me? STAY AS YOURSELF UNLESS YOU WANT TO END UP LIKE ME!!!”

    He took a deep breath and looked into the air again.

    “Sorry, you get what I mean,” he said. “I am not real. I am a dead kid, and I am a made-up character.”

    Mark took another bite of the sandwich and thought about what Mitch just said. They sat there for a long while. Then Mitch suddenly looked at Mark again.

    “Do you know about the animal world?”

    “Yeah,” Mark answered.

    “I think humans came from there,” Mitch went on.

    “What?” Mark coughed out through the half-chewed sandwich in his mouth. “No way!”

    “But, you see, it fits perfectly. Ever wondered why you cannot catch a human in a pokéball? Why you cannot store humans digitally on a computer? Why humans do not have levels, stats, attacks, abilities, hit points, anything?”

    Mark didn’t say anything. Now that Mitch mentioned it, it was sort of odd.

    “It’s because humans are a whole different thing. A different kingdom of life.”

    Mitch paused, then looked at Mark. He was starting to understand why Mitch kept looking up while he talked; there was just something about his eyes that disconnected you from your surroundings and gave what he was saying an additional meaning that made you pretty much unable to look off them. Suddenly, a cold shiver went down Mark’s spine. He just remembered what Mitch’s eyes reminded him of: Chaletwo’s. Like a weaker version that didn’t kill what they were pointed at.

    “Are you interested in biology?” Mitch asked, still looking at Mark. It made him feel uneasy, as the eyes went more creepy the longer they looked at him. He looked away and blinked a few times, then looked back at Mitch.

    “What, pokémonology?”

    “No, biology. Concerning all forms of life.”

    “Oh, that.” Mark paused. “Yeah, sorta... I guess.”

    “Should I explain what I’m talking about? The biological way?”

    “Yeah, give it a try, at least...”

    Mitch pointed at the space between them.

    “This here is all life,” he started and circled the area with his forefinger. “Every life form is located in this space. The more basic ones are on my end, the more advanced ones are on yours. That is, exactly where I am, all inanimate objects would be placed. They are not alive, so they are outside it.”

    He pointed at a spot just by his side.

    “Here we have viruses. Not really alive, but they multiply so we can put them in.”

    He pointed at a black spot on the wood, a little nearer to Mark.

    “Bacteria. Very basic, but still have the gift of nature’s most clever invention: life.”

    Now his finger went a bit farther on and stopped about one third of the way towards Mark.

    “Protists. Still more advanced.”

    He went on.

    “Fungi, plants, animals. Humans are a part of the animal kingdom. But all the way over here...”

    His finger pointed at a place about an inch away from Mark.

    “...pokémon.”

    He looked into Mark’s eyes again.

    “Pokémon are made of 96% pure energy, Mark. Power seeks order, because chaos is a weakness. So pokémon are all orgnized in a big system of levels, attacks, abilities, types, weaknesses, resistances...”

    “Wow,” Mark said. “I never knew that. I mean, it all makes sense, but I’ve never thought about it.”

    Mitch smiled, looking up. “Humans are the only beings in the animal kingdom that exist here. How? Animals were a big success in the animal world, hence its name. So why would viruses, bacteria, protists and plants survive here but not animals?”

    He paused, then continued:

    “My theory is that humans originated in the animal world. Then, sometime long ago, a gateway between the two worlds, the pokémon world and the animal world, opened, and some humans got through. Maybe some other animals too, but humans were the only ones who could outwit the much more powerful beings in this new world. So they were the only ones who survived. The only way they could survive among pokémon was to get some of them to fight for them, and they managed to. Very clever indeed. But the pokémon’s end of the deal is even more clever when you think about it. They could have wiped out those pesky little humans trying to order them around, but they did not. They rather wanted to battle other pokémon, they figured that humans had the gift of thinking strategically, logically, and do it well and easily – something that was much harder for them because the average pokémon’s brain is mainly designed to focus their attacks.”

    Mark was just finishing his sandwich.

    “You should get going now, right?” Mitch said. Mark nodded, said good-bye to Mitch and then hurried back to the edge of Ruxido. He was later than he had expected.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

  38. #78
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    This is the best fan fic ever!!!!!!!!!All of it is good except for one part......
    All the Skitties there with their snobby behaviour...
    DON'T INSULT SKITTIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  39. #79
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    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Aw. Dang, I wanted Mark to catch a Waraider. But can't Maek just walk up to one and touch it with a master ball? WOuldn't that catch one, because they can't escape from master balls and the ball never left Mark's hand?

  40. #80

    Default My "other fic": The Quest for the Legends

    Skitty_Pelipper: Tell Pamela that. I love Skitty, except for the name which has a rather unpleasand meaning in Icelandic.

    HedgeCat: When you just take a lot of balls and randomly throw them, it's not very likely they'll hit. Not one of the balls hit, actually. He couldn't have walked up to one of them and touched it with a Master ball, I mean, would a wild horse let you come near enough to reach it with your hand? They're even smarter, so that would be hopeless. Actually, it was Chaletwo who was being stupid. He's just desperate so he wanted to try every possible way, even if it's this unlikely to work. They only way he COULD catch them would be to sneak up on them (which was not possible there as it was an open area) with his pokémon and then use his pokémon to battle them, THEN catch them. Waraider and evos are smart, they won't let some loser catch them this easily.

    Besides, why did you want Mark to catch one, anyway? He can't send them out in any situation at all, so it's not like you'd see them in battle, anyway. Really, if Mark tried to use one of them in battle, he'd be run through with a horn before he could utter out a command. So sorry, doesn't work.
    The Quest for the Legends

    Chapter seventy-seven, THE END, up!

    Also check out the spin-off, Scyther's Story, as well as its sequel, The Fall of a Leader.

    Morphic
    Winner of six 2008 Silver Pencils, including Best Fiction Overall and Best Plot
    Now concluded with chapter fourteen!

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