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 Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 4:58 pm
"Hahaha, not for me, sir," Bill said. "What I want and what I got out of life are two different things. Frank of it is, world is a corrupt piece a s**t, if you ask me. So to get by until it can be fixed, cigarettes are needed. Cheap, short lasting things."
He stood up then(unless he already did, then he stretched or something) and he offered Blackbird a hand. "Besides, guys like me don't really expect to see the end, just to push our buddies along to it."
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 5:30 pm
Blackbird got up, using Bill's outstretched hand as leverage. “Wow, that’s a little bit of a bummer, man. So does the world play a sad tune for you? Or is it just ear buzzing madness?”
He picked up his violin case and slung it onto his shoulder. “I mean, the world can sound amazing if you work to play the right music, you know what I mean? You sound like you’re sacrificing something in order to help out some friends. Don’t get me wrong, I think that’s a noble cause. But I just hope that’s because it’s what you really want, not because you feel like you have to do it.”
The musician face didn’t look as bright anymore, although he still held an optimistic tone. “I’m in a similar sort of boat, see. But I hope that I’m the change that I want to see in the world. It can be an awfully quiet place, but only if you let it be.”
He grinned again. “I take it that you’re trying hard, though. Who am I to say you aren’t playing your loudest? Zeraaaa~shashasha!”
****
Although the sun had set, Nacrene City still held the feeling of life even in the night. While it was in it’s artistic frenzy as it usually was in the daytime, people still walked and talked about the calm streets.
Salieri walked about the shelves in the Nacrene Gym’s library. She had been told that the Gym Leader, Lenora, was able to be challenged here. But as soon as she had gotten to the massive library, she just had to start reading the books. The collection was enormous, and there were many books with helpful tips on how to be a trainer.
She had read up a book on the history of the gym, and discovered that the default method of battle against the Nacrene Gym was a double battle. Sal had also learned that the Type used here was Normal. With that knowledge known ahead of time, she began to plan which pokemon to use.
I know I want to use Wukong here, definitely, she thought as her fingers scanned over the spines in a shelf about Normal types. I want to give Liuye Dao a shot at this too. Steel types resist Normal, so that should be helpful. They could make an ultimate combo.
While rounding the corner, she saw the silver haired kid that Wayne knew reading one of the many pieces of literature in the library. Curiously, she walked to him and briefly looked over his shoulder, slyly smiling.
“Hey, you beat the Striaton Gym, right? Came here to challenge this one?”
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 5:48 pm
((You guys and your posting. I seem to spend most of my time catching up these days razz ))
The library: a veritable tomb of tomes; cavernous and filled with bookcases that stretched to the high ceiling. A vast container of knowledge situated at the back of the museum. This late at night, the place was deathly quiet, an almost palpable silence hanging on the air.
Takamaru (and Salieri) would hear noises echo. Distant whispers. Vague shouts. Then howls, roars and screams of agony and rage. Animalistic wrawls that existed in a form no human should be able to make. But there was something strangely familiar about these cries, which descended into a short, broken sobs.
Then with a clunk and a whir, one of the bookcases near the middle of the library split in half lengthways and shifted open, revealing a staircase leading down. A weaselly-looking man crept out, shaking and shivering. He craned his head around, almost jumping out of his pasty skin when spying Takamaru. And Salieri.
"Oh, oh!" he scurried over, keeping his fumbling hands close together as he twitched nervously. His eyes traced down and he spotted Takamaru's pokéballs. And Salieri's. "You're trainers? Oh thank god."
He clutched his chest, wincing a little. "Um, my name is Hawes. I'm the assistant director. You must be here for the gym challenge? Um. Even though it's late..."
Hawes huffed and seemed to be gathering courage. He turned towards the open staircase he'd appeared from, "Deeear! Dear! There're trainers here! I think it's for the gym challenge!"
Guttural roars echoed from the staircase. A kind that shook your very core and frightened small children. Hawes turned back to Takamaru. And Salieri.
"She says you can go down."
((ed: aww, dammit jump sad ))
((ed2: the editor. fix'd))
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:02 pm
Bill laughed. "You gotta work to have fun. It's only natural that you end up with some sacrifices," he said.
This man was a man of puns and jokes relating to music. It was actually sort of crafty the way it would flow. Still, he looked like a homeless man, beard and clothes. Bill shrugged.
"You are you're trying to be the change you want to see, but how are you getting along? You look old 'n beat, kid, like you've been on the streets for too long."
Now Bill, it seemed, could tell that Blackbird wasn't a silly old Santa.
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:43 pm
More pokémon cries echoed across the cold nighttime air. Wayne stared at the sky. It was clear on the routes; any rainclouds having drained themselves out of existence. The grass was wet, but it didn't bother him. He wasn't exactly in a good mood today, even after winning his badge. He was at a loss. Didn't have it in him to train properly.
Instead, to feel like he was at least doing something, he let Hitmonlee out to train himself. A day earlier and he might have worried that this kind of training would only widen the gap between trainer and pokémon, but today he just didn't care.
Wild pokémon after wild pokémon attacked the Fight Type as he trained beyond the hill. Every now and then their screams could be heard amidst battle cries. This pokémon had spent half the day destroying their homes and families in the name of training. And he wasn't getting tired. He was getting stronger.
Their desperation was beginning to mount. They couldn't even touch him.
Flashes of light, electricity, and rumbles of powerful blows. Wayne eventually sat up, keeping his knee close to his chest, arm around it, as he watched carelessly toward Hitmonlee's training ground.
On the other side of the hill, pokémon missed their attacks. Blows coming in from all angles, but Hitmonlee would fade out of existence as they struck. They should have known, they cursed in anger after the misses, again and again. A second before their attacks struck nothing, Hitmonlee would turn transparent and the real one would appear somewhere else.
---
"Huh?" Wayne mumbled as he spotted something shiny poking out of the grass. Petilil and Melty continued to train their Melty-hat strategy with Henrietta while he crept away to investigate.
What was this thing? He knelt down and picked it up, wiping away the mud and grime. A disc? Oh right. It's a-
---
"Technical Machine," the same trainer said with a different outlook. Hitmonlee's eyes narrowed on the glimmering disc, "These things are hard to get a hold of. They teach pokémon how to use moves quicker than any trainer could."
Hitmonlee's interest was now evident in his eyes. Wayne pretended not to notice.
"Watch," he took out his pokédex and slid the TM into a slot on the end. Sliding his finger against the touch screen, he selected Hitmonlee from his list of known pokémon and the pokédex said that he was compatible with the move.
Then Wayne held up the pokédex, screen facing Hitmonlee. The pokémon stared at it. And then the device overflowed with flight, engulfing the Fight Type, bathing it in white. The light seemed palpable, clinging to the pokémon's body before sinking inside of it. Physical knowledge.
Hitmonlee appeared enlightened and the TM popped out of the pokédex with a metallic twang, quickly being caught by the trainer.
"Now you know the basics," he said and Hitmonlee nodded. The pokémon didn't know how exactly. It felt like he was remembering something he'd forgotten. Like he'd always known how to perform the technique. "Except right now you can't use it in battle. You have to practise. There are some wild pokémon on this route. I think you know what to do."
---
And so Hitmonlee fought pokémon for hours, his Double Team beginning as a bunch of poor, sickly copies, before becoming something that could easily fool these wild pokémon. He noticed that each time he used the move, he was forced in a direction to make way for the clones he created.
It was this sensation of being moved away quickly that helped him evade most blows, at least more than the clones outright tricking their foes. With practice, he could probably learn to heighten this high speed movement aspect of the technique over the clone aspect. It seemed a lot more appealing to him.
Wayne stood atop the hill now, hands in his pockets while looming over the scarred battlefield. The grass where Hitmonlee was training had turned dead, churned and now mud. Scorch marks from Blitzle electric attacks had turned areas into hard, blackened soil. The occasional wild pokémon lay subdued, unconscious in the mud, only parts of its body poking out from the brown slush.
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 6:45 pm
Finding people had to be the most annoying task in the world. Dizzily, Henrietta had moved through the city and, at some point, she'd released Melty for company. Though he was more of just a hat at this point, leeching her very soul.
"Man," she said as she stumbled outside of the city, "Wayne is elusive."
She felt like she'd checked the entire city. She hadn't, but she was certainly done doing that. To her surprise, she'd find him outside, on the route.
"Wayne~" she shouted upon seeing him and, tripping over her own feet, catching herself, and then somehow making it to Wayne without falling on her face she'd say, "hi!"
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 7:12 pm
Eunmi stared down at the bathroom tiles, her palm pressed against her forehead, causing strands of her bangs to stick up in different directions. Her other arm hung limply over her crossed legs while she sat with a vacant expression, somewhere between depressed and feeling sick.
D-Vee poked his head through the doorway, giving his current trainer a sidelong glance. The normally eccentric and sociable teenager was surprisingly difficult to read when she appeared lethargic.
"Smear smeargle smear," he said, tugging on her hand. She jolted up, as if woken from a trance.
"W-what?" she stammered, closing and opening her eyes once or twice. She looked down at the Smeargle.
"Smear?"
"I'm okay, I'm just ...worried about tomorrow," Eunmi said, sighing and lifting her arms up to fold behind her head as she stood up.
"It's really late, huh?" Eunmi said, her fingers dragging against her neck before she dropped her hands to her sides. She looked into the mirror. "I wonder what's keeping Henrietta..."
"Smeargle smear smeargle!" the pokemon said. He began to teeter back and forth.
"What?" Eunmi said, kneeling to look the Smeargle in the eye, as if that would help.
"S-s-s-smear," he stuttered, continuing to teeter out of the bathroom and towards the door. He stopped in front of it and pointed at it. "S-ssmear, s-smeargle s-s-smear."
"Why are you stuttering like that?" Eunmi asked, and then realized he was impersonating Henrietta. "Henrietta... she left."
He continued to stand there, wobbling back and forth.
"While still drunk?" Eunmi said. She quickly opened the door. "D-Vee, why didn't you say something sooner!"
"Smeargle smeaaar," the pokemon complained, as though to say, "I tried!"
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 9:46 pm
Danny caught the badge by snatching it out of the air, unwilling to let it drop to the floor and crack and break, especially after his Blitzle worked so hard to earn it.
The young man looked at the badge for a second before placing it in a soft pocket in his bag for safe keeping. He was about to say thanks to the gym leader, but Chili had long since left, not happy with losing.
Shrugging, the trainer made his way out of the building and into the main town square. Time was moving ahead, but he could probably make it to the next town.
Taking the other occupied poke ball off of his belt, he opened the latch and released his Ponyta.
The fire horse whinnied and rubbed her snout against Danny's face and neck, before standing still. Danny hopped up onto her back and clicked his tongue, directing the horse.
She then took off, headed for the next route. According to a sign he saw, he was heading for Nacrene City.
His travel time on the route was miniscule, and he found himself trotting into Nacrene City.
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 10:54 pm
Salieri gulped. The mysterious noise from the basement even intimidated a girl as tough as her, but only briefly. She regained herself quickly, or so she thought.
“We can both...surely you mean…”
Both at the same time? Were they expected to become a team to challenge the gym? Such a challenge would be too difficult for trainers at the level of the second badge. So Salieri refused to believe it as she gave Takamaru a reassuring pat on the back.
“Hey, dude, you were here first. The battle’s all yours,” she egged on, trying to get Takamaru to battle first. Somehow, she felt slightly unprepared. Like whatever lay down there was some sort of monster. Not to mention she still had somewhat of a headache. With all the books around, Salieri felt like this upcoming battle would be some sort of proficiency exam. And she hadn''t done enough studying.
~~~~
Blackbird sighed. It looked like Bill was a perceptive guy. Had he seen through the disguise so quickly? And to think such a simple thing had worked for him all day long, even in the rain. Still, he wasn’t surprised to be caught so quickly, although he was mildly shocked to be called “kid.”
“Honestly? I feel like I’ve been wandering around for a long time. I wish I could settle down somewhere nice, and become a permanent note in the symphony one calls home.” Although he smiled, there was a nostalgic twinkle in his amber eyes. It was almost a little sad.
“But I don’t want my family to have me around as a burden. For them, this is the better choice. It makes me happy to know that I’m no longer this heavy, unwanted note in their melody. As long as they know that I care, I feel like I can keep going on.”
He reached out and patted Bill on the shoulder. “I’ve been trying to help out people all day. Thank you for returning the favor. I needed some clarity in my life, solo or not. You're a good guy, don't let anyone tell you differently.”
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Posted: Tue Aug 02, 2011 11:23 pm
Robby's day had been going awesome! First the free breakfast, even if it wasn't enough. Then the yummy lillipup, even if it was kinda small. Then the awesome stack of pokemon that had seemed to be drawn to him. Of course, that had been because they were hungry and smelled cooking pokemon. Poor things. Sure, it had hit a sort of odd snag when the pokemon center was closed to trainers looking to stay a night. That had left him with a sigh, a return of his pokemon, and a wandering. Rather than doing the smart thing and finding a hotel, he had ended heading towards some weird forest thing. Once there, he wandered a bit longer, until this rather large nest appeared before him, and he went to lay in it. A comfortable nest, his eyes closed, fatigue helping to put him down... And then Robby looked up.
There it was, food. A giant egg, so delicious looking, larger than any pokemon egg he'd seen before in his entire life. The obese lad felt himself munching on chips as he stared up at it, and he felt a kind of amazingly, epically, awesome bliss that could only be felt once in a million years. When the obese lad's body finally found itself rising, the egg seemed to move, dancing. He walked towards it, trying to figure out how to break it, and where he'd find a big enough pot for it. And then he realized, the dancing was, in fact, real. The egg was moving... An instant later, the shell cracked, egg pieces flying away as a pokemon began to reveal itself. Its voice as it cried out was fearsome, the shattering of the egg was an amazing thing to watch, an amazing aspect of life.
And then the ten-story torchic appeared, finally free of its confining egg. The pokemon looked up and out to the light of the world that the humans so freely used and loved. It looked out, and let loose a yawn, with an ending "chic" that would have been high-pitched and adorable to anyone and everyone who was its size. Unfortunately, to the actual world that existed, it would seem a high-pitched monster's roar, ear-shattering, glass-destroying, tree-shaking, pokemon-frightening. The chick that Robby had decided would be his food stood now, and the obese lad bum-rushed it, just in time to miss as its leg lifted. The ten-story chick shook the leg, outstretched, tree-destroying, pokemon-crushing and -flinging. As it did, it let out another "chic!" The pokemon moved, suddenly, as the obese lad slowly pulled himself up.
As it moved through the forest, leaving a wake of frightened pokemon, and a few corpses that stalled Robby long enough for the chick to make some right proper distance, the chick began chirping happily, eyes giving away a smile that its lack of lips prevented it from producing. The sound was destructive, causing the pokemon around the chick to run further in fear, away from it, behind it. Because it was leaving Pinwheel Forrest... Robert followed after, finally, and was the first to see the pokemon's biggest bonus. It laid a giant egg. In that instant, Robby felt his bliss exponentially heightened. A pokemon that laid giant eggs? That created the perfect breakfast menu for the obese lad? As he finished the last of the corpse-meat, the obese lad decided that he must have it. HE MUST CATCH THAT TORCHIC!
The obese lad chased the giant chick as it moved through the route, towards Nacrene city, singing its happy-go-lucky song of devastation, dropping an egg occasionally. Robby seemed to have produced some giant storage device from somewhere, as the eggs left in his wake were gone, and on his back was a giant net that caught them, making them vanish. Of course, they were only seeming to, as the obese lad was chewing as he moved. Sure, there weren't actually that many eggs being dropped, but they were so large that it should have been amazing he ate them so fast. But this was Rubby Tums, the eating contest champion, epic lad, and master chef. Probably could have been an iron chef, but that was up for debate and/or him actually proving it. The pokemon was stalked, as it entered Nacrene, and then it stopped, looking around at the buildings, windows shattered by its song, people running in fear. It seemed confused at all the yelling...
The obese lad took this opportunity to get ahead, and he climbed one of the larger buildings. It seemed fate that the giant torchic moved towards him as he stood on the roof, lowering himself into a stance as his center of gravity shifted. The ten-story chick began its song again, as it neared him, and the obese lad rushed, jumping full-powered from the building in a spear at the torchic. As he collided with it, the pokemon would collapse, falling back in a devastating landing, it would cry out in pain. The obese lad took no time, climbing towards its neck, putting it in a headlock and subduing it as well as he could. "You're my pokemon! Get it?" His yell stopped its shrieks of terror momentarily, until it understood what was happening. Then the shrieks came louder and louder, calling for someone to save it in its adorable-yet-destructive-call. It struggled against the obese lad's weight, trying to fight back, while he yelled that it was his meal ticket, the chick cried louder and louder, begging for a savior.
And then it stopped, suddenly, defeated. No longer able to fight back, accepting that it would be the obese lad's pokemon. In that instant, that instant that it submitted, the torchic began to glow. Robby, who had only noticed the lack of a struggle, didn't notice the glowing until it was too late. The pokemon's body seemed to shrink, instead of the natural course of growing, and the moment that Robby knew he had won, where he was truly in heaven, was ripped away as he saw the transformation, the shrinking of the pokemon. And then it was no longer a Torchic. Combusken lay there, no longer ten stories tall, but fifteen feet. It lay in defeat, crying, lamenting the loss of its innocence. Robby, filled with some disappointment, but still hopeful that this pokemon could lay giant eggs, tossed one of his crumb-covered balls at it, the ball secretly having been a heavy ball. The pokemon was hit, and the ball shook, until finally a click could be heard. With a short struggle, the obese lad lifted the heavy ball, and walked away, his perfect meal-ticket taken. It was almost like this was all a dream, like it was too good to be real. Laughter escaped the obese lad, and he moved through town, heading back to the nest he planned to sleep in. It really was quite comfy.
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Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 12:42 pm
"Very brave of you, sending a twelve year old in first" came his sarcastic reply though he himself was rather scared at this point, 'what could be making those noises!?' thought a stiff legged Tk. He was at somewhat of a Loss for words, he barley had time to great Sal and now here he was about to descend towards the noise itself. "If im not back within one hour, get the police" he said very seriously.
Placing the book he was reading down on a nearby table ('Methods for Hand to hand combat') he walked pass Sal with a -Here goes nothing- look on his face. What he would find at the bottom of the staircase, he would not know.
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Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 3:24 pm
((He's twelve? Zamaku, you're not twelve in real life, are you? 'cause then I'll be like 10 years older than you and I'll feel really really really old. And kinda weird.))
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Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 3:26 pm
The Battle Girl nodded, unashamed of sending a kid in first. There was no way she was going into another mysterious underground chamber without someone else to scout it for her first after the whole Dreamyard thing. Salieri put a hand on her hip and flashed Tk a thumbs up. "Good luck to you, kid."
After he had left, she went back to the books. While she wasn't looking for anything in particular, she did find one things that caught her eye. On the spine of a math book there was a picture of a cube puzzle with a hollowed out center. The same one that hung on N's belt.
Salieri never had an interest in math, save for the basics needed for training. But she found herself picking up the book anyway. Why am I reading this? she thought after a few seconds. I just picked it up because it had a picture of that stupid-
Her trainer of thought came to a stop when she saw a particular sentence about variables. "Generally speaking, the variable N is most often used when there in an unknown piece of the equation. Once that piece of information becomes known, N gets...replaced..."
She read the sentence again, and then snapped the book s**t. This library was starting to creep her out. Maybe she shouldn't have been challenging the gym without some training first. After all, her specific training to battle Chili turned out to be essential. Perhaps it would be for Lenora as well.
Maybe I can sneak in some sort of quick preparation with Wukong and Liuye Dao before I battle this gym? Or perhaps I can save it for tomorrow and get everybody some rest. I'm not tired though, I don't want to go to sleep yet. Maybe it's because of that nap I had in Wayne's-
Wait a second. She scratched her chin. How exactly did I end up in Wayne's room? I remember looking for someone to help me train...oh. Oh no, did Chen Zhen and I burrow a hole in his bathroom floor? Yep, yeah I'm pretty sure that wasn't part of the dream. Wow. Wooooow, why would I ever do that? He is going to kill me when he sees his bill.
Salieri snapped her head back to the nearly infinite number of shelves. The task ahead looked impossible. Not only was she going to have to train her pokemon to have coordinated teamwork, but she also needed to train herself in the art of reconstruction. Right, time to find a book on tiling...
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Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 3:37 pm
((Takamaru is a murderer, he'll be fine by himself.))
"If you're weighing others down it's cause you can't support yourself," said Bill. It was a simple idea. "So if weighing your family down is your concern, you should figure out how to stand up on your own first. Otherwise you'll end up homeless."
Of course, he already looked homeless. Hell, Bill probably had said that to drive the point home.
***
"Hm," said a man dressed in a lab coat. Eyes covered by glasses that shined with the light almost everytime he moved, like the light was special or something. Or perhaps it was the glasses. Clean, short, brown hair, and a scar on either side of his lips that drew back to his ears.
"What is it, sir?" asked his assistant.
"I seem to have misplaced my Torchic egg."
The assistant cocked a brow.
"How?"
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Posted: Wed Aug 03, 2011 3:57 pm
Something about what Bill said struck a chord with the musician. Not the homeless part, the part about weighing people down. I wish someone had told me that a long time ago.
"Shashasha, you may be right about that. I've been looking for a way to do that. It's a hard task for me, though." Blackbird tapped his walking stick on the ground, sending one of his pokeballs up to be held at the end by the wooden prongs. It released his Whimsicott, who floated up to be eye level with the two men. The Grass type bobbed up and down slowly as it sat atop a tiny, localized whirlwind.
"I have something I'm looking for, you see. But I don't know where to look. So until I can walk on my own, I'm going to need the help of my friends to do it. Isn't that right, buddy?"
He stroked the underside of the Whimsicott's chin, who giggled in approval. "Cott cott!" Blackbird grinned.
"The more friends I have, the more I feel like it's easier to carry that weight. Call it selfish, but without other people I'm nothing at all. And if I ever reach my goal, I can pay back all my friends a thousand fold for all they've done for me."
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