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 Posted: Mon Feb 19, 2007 8:03 pm
Fighting to keep his eyes open, and yet at the same time resisting the urge to look at the food, Shawn peered up at the boy from the table. It felt too cold and hard to be comfortable, but even so, he found he was having trouble staying awake.
"Ghost pokemon?" He repeated, unsure whether he had mentioned such a description to Demitri or not. "Well, I don't know how many of those pocket creatures can be considered 'ghost pokemon', but the thing that followed me that night must have been one. It didn't have arms or legs or even a shadow; only a head and a pair of dislocated hands that floated in mid-air. It was transparent, but purplish. And it had this huge, gaping red mouth. The whole thing probably could have eaten me whole if it opened it wide enough. From the floor, I'd say it was at least five feet, but it was hard to tell because it was so dark out."
"Anyway...yeah, my ally - er, I mean the alley behind my...um, where I live..." He paused, fumbling over his words. He couldn't call the back ally behind a corperation building a home, exactly, could he? "Well...where me and my parents lived, there were a lot of pokemon. Most of them smelled bad, but that's expected in a city...lots of poison types, I guess they can be called."
"There was something someone told me was Grimer, and then Muk...those were some of the most common. And Koffing, and Wheezing. My mother was especially sensitive to those, but what she eventually died from was the toxic sludge that the Muk and Grimer left behind." He said this unflinchingly, his only reaction to the mention of his mother's death was the casting of his eyes from Demitri to the tabletop, and then down to the floor.
"All of those I learned to avoid though. They never cared too much about humans. Occassionally one might give us a hard time, sometimes about a bit of something they thought was our trash, but for the most part they just went their own way, and we went ours. No...the worst were definately the 'ghost' pokemon, I guess you'd call them."
He looked up seriously. "There were two other kinds, besides the one that bright me here. That one and a smaller, round one were poisioness. But the biggest of them all wore this huge, creepy grin and had bright, glaring red eyes. That one was said to sneak up and kill people. And while my parents had told me it was only stories, there actually were people we knew who went missing every now and then. So I grew to fear them." He neglected to tell Demitri that the people who had disappeared had been homeless, just like his family had been. It was the only reason the city hadn't noticed the crime.
"They weren't like the other pokemon you could learn to avoid, or draw off. The ghost pokemon were everywhere. They mostly came out at night, and they showed up at random. They could walk through walls and everything. They hypnotized adults into freaking out their children. They terrorized us even in our sleep with nightmares and little kids claimed they ate their dreams. I know they appeared in mine more than once." Shawn seemed to shudder.
He shook his head and put his hand to it, leaning his elbow on the table as he closed his eyes to think. "Their toxic gas made it even worse, because we could smell when one of the smaller ones were near, and we had to cover our mouths and noses and stop breathing 'till they passed. Only, many times they didn't. They stayed to watch our faces turn blue, and laughed when a child fell down unconcious. They even tried to get us to laugh with them, but we dared not, for fear of what would happen if we breathed their poison air."
"If you knew what I had been through growing up, Demitri...you'd never be able to think of any pokemon as a friend." He sighed, finally resting his head again on the table, but this time face down, so he could feel the coolness of the table on his forehead.
"Is it? Is it really better to remember?" Darrow sat up suddenly, raising a brow as he gave the other boy a quizzical look. "I don't know...have you had any nightmares about your parent's throats being ripped out?" There was no malice in his voice, only genuine curiosity tinged with sorrow.
"I couldn't answer that, Dem...I just don't know" Shawn's wearliness was beginning to take over now. He knew either his hunger or his exahustion would get the better of him soon. He could hardly think as it was, and he felt his brains were turning to mush. "All I do know that I was thinking straight enough to understand what was happening. It wasn't an illusion. And the only way I knew was because I promised myself I'd never be decieved again."
"Believe me or don't. It's up to you. But - wait a sec, did you say a shot?" He blinked, still for a moment, then rolling back his trench-coat sleeve again to reveal the pin-p***k wound. "Oh god...Demitri..." He stared at it, his thoughts on fire.
"I have a feeling that shot was no sedative..." He held out his arm for his friend to see. "Because I got one too. Only...I was already out cold when they gave it to me..."
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Posted: Fri Mar 16, 2007 2:05 pm
The other boy completely stopped eating once he'd had enough. It wasn't as though he couldn't go without food for a while -it was just that he didn't like it, nor was it easy for him. Mostly because he usually had enough food in his pack for himself and all of his pokemon. How long had Dr. Hakan said he'd been out? He found that he couldn't remember. It wasn't that long, but still, it had been long enough to cause his appetite to grow and take over almost all of his body.
Now that his stomach had been appeased, he started thinking about Shawn more than he'd been able to before. "Yeah, a ghost pokemon. They usually don't bother me since I stay out of the darker places. Here, I'll show you an image of one." His hand went into his pocket, expecting to grab hold of the small red device that gave him most of the information that he used in his travels. But as it flailed around in the small area, Demetri felt nothing in his pokedex's usual pocket.
"Oh..." He said quietly. "It must have fallen out." All of the information held within it was lost to him. But what he didn't think about was the idea that it could have dropped into the depths of the water. "Lapras probably has it. It knows to keep it safe." He smiled before listening to Shawn's story.
Demetri looked more shocked than Shawn at the mention of his mother's death. Of course, he had no idea if his parents were all right or not. "I'm sorry, Shawn." It was all he could think to say. He'd had an encounter or two with a poison-type pokemon. Just one had made him almost fall over. Cerulean didn't have many, but occasionally, like the ghost pokemon, certain Grimers would wander into the area. "Well, the one that attacked you was..." Though he didn't have a pokedex, he could still remember a large amount of the pokemon that he'd met. What they looked and acted like, anyway. "A Haunter. Haunters and Gengars are the ones that cause the most trouble." He'd known someone who'd been haunted by a Gengar for a while. That was before she caught it, anyway. Oddly enough, they'd managed to form a bond. The last time he'd seen it, the ghost had been much more calm.
He looked away, the thoughts of what had happened at Shawn's home completely filling his mind. "I wish I'd known about it before." Even if he couldn't do anything about it, just one more person knowing about such a thing would help. Demetri did know someone who might be able to help, anyway. "No, Shawn. I don't know what you went through. But still. Just because the Pokemon you've seen were horrible doesn't mean that all Pokemon are. If mine were here, then I'd definitely show you how nice they can be." He smiled slightly at the thought of his partners.
"Would you rather not know what happened to them?" He asked the other teen, genuinely asking as Shawn had. "Though it mig-" He paused before showing Shawn the small wound that the Doctor had given to him to seemingly help him sleep. "But, why, then?" He still couldn't figure out what else it could be. "I mean, giving you a sedative while you're sleeping doesn't seem very smart."
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Posted: Fri Apr 06, 2007 10:14 am
"So...they only stay in darker places?" Shawn questioned inquisitvely. "That's strange...I guess they did tend to lurk around - " he stopped himself, still reluctant to mention his living conditions in the back allies. Of course, he never had had a problem with the dark. Now he realized that might have perhaps been a major fault in himself. The haunter who had been following him had indeed been brave enough to expose itself in the street lamp light, but it had been night.
Besides, it probably knew Shawn well enough to know he had no illuminated places to hide. It must have been watching him for a while, invisible to the boy. He shivered now just thinking about it, as if he could feel the ghost pokemon's eyes upon him.
Darrow banished the thought from his mind after an involuntay glance over his shoulder. He turned his full attention to Demitri, who had just offered to show an image of the pokemon only to find it missing. He raised a brow, curious. "You, um...you don't go around carrying pictures of ghost pokemon, do you?" Shawn asked, uncertain of just what sort of image Demi had intended to show him.
"Your pokemon knows to keep your things safe?" he repeated doubfully, wearing a skeptical look. "You really do trust it, don't you? Well, where is it then? I haven't seen any pokeballs or whatever you trainers use with you ."
At the blue-haired boy's apology for his parents' fate, Shawn shook his head, something that almost resembled a smile threatening to his face. "Nah, don't worry about it, Dem. I hardly remember them anyhow." He was very tempted to ask more about Demitri's own family, but resisted; he didn't want to pry, after all, and if Demi wanted to tell him about them, then he would.
"A...a Haunter, huh?" He was silent for a moment, lost in thought, trying to associate the purple, wide-eyed, big-mouthed pokemon with the name. "...and Gengars..." A picture of the thick, large shadows, creepy cheshire grins, and scarlet glowing eyes came to mind. He didn't think he had ever seen a Gengar properly, but his parents and others had described them well enough. They seemed vague, shadow creatures who concealed themselves in darkness until they were ready to sneak up on their victims. "Thanks, Demitri...at least I know their names now, I guess..." It actually relieved him somewhat to be able to name his fears. At least he could define them in his imagination instead of them appearing as unknown, horrifying, mindless monsters.
Shawn sat for a while and mulled over Demitri's words. The injured trainer may have been right. After all, wasn't that the way it was with humans? Then again, he still hadn't confirmed any humans were completely trustworthy. He had only just met Demitri, so it waas too early to judge. But Shawn would never believe his claim about all pokemon not being horrible until he saw one prove otherwise. "So they're not," he said finally. "They're not here. Your pokemon."
Scooting back his chair, Darrow got up abruptly from the small table, reaching for Demitri's tray and his own to put away. "My family? No, I probably wouldn't want to know. They left me to rot, so I figure why should I care what happened to them?" he commented rather bitterly, trying to keep his mind of the remains of food as he disposed of them.
After having stacked up the trays, Shawn turned to see Demi's injection wound, seeming so insignificantly tiny compared to the larger, more serious injuries he had sustained during his fall from his Lapras. It just didn't seem right. For some reason, Shawn suddenly felt as though their miniscule pin-pricks would each cause them more misery and pain in the future than any physical wound.
Then again, he had always been pessimistic. It could just have been nothing more than a shot. "Don't worry about it, Demitri," he murmured suddenly. "I'm probably wrong. It's just a guess anyway. Maybe they gave it to you because you needed to rest, and to me to have me sleep longer or something."
He glanced at the guards out of the corner of his eyes, lowering his voice. "Hey, Dem - where're you headed next? Gonna get some more rest? You look like you could use it."
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Posted: Wed Apr 18, 2007 6:55 pm
"From what I've been told, they like it better there. I never caught one, but I think they're really, really sensitive to light." That might not have been true of all ghost pokemon, but if they were stereotypical, they would probably loathe the light. At Shawn's sudden halting of his sentence, Demetri looked around to see if there was a visible reason before looking back at Shawn questioningly. "Lurk around where you lived?" He was still thinking in terms of a neighborhood, though.
Dem sighed once again, slightly depressed to find his small, red electronic guide missing. "I guess you could say I do." He laughed at that thought. He hadn't taken the pictures of the many pokemon in his dex, but that led him to ask the question of who had done so. He should thank them, whoever they were. "When I first became a trainer, I was given this little thing called a Pokedex. It tells me everything known about certain pokemon when I want to know. But I guess it fell out of my pocket while I was floating around..." He leaned his head into one of his palms. Who knew where it was right now. It could have reached Cinnabar already, long before he had.
"Yeah, they're really reliable!" He'd always depended slightly on his Pokemon, as they depended on him. Oddly enough, they were sort of like his family away from his family. "But my pokeballs must have fallen out, too. The good thing is I wasn't carrying all of them with me. The Professor will take care of the other, but as for the six that I lost, they'll probably be found soon." He smiled with hope in his eyes.
A faint smile lingered in his expression as he spoke again. "I haven't seen anyone in my family for a long time -I hope I'm not starting to forget them."
Nodding solemnly at both of Shawn's pronunciations of the Pokemons' names, he saw images of the two of them flash through his mind: lingering memories of the images shown in his Pokedex. "Well then, you're welcome, I guess." He grinned. Maybe sometime in the future, Shawn would be able to use that knowledge. Or not. But regardless, he knew now what the given names of the monsters were.
Now glad that he had made the connection between humans and pokemon to help Shawn understand, he handed the other boy the tray with the slightest bit of pain. "No, they're not. I kind of wish they were. I know it sounds weird, but I miss them already, and it's only been maybe a few days." He laughed shortly again, carefully rubbing the small needle mark on his arm.
"I won't, then. What happened could have just been a coincedence, after all." And with that, he dismissed the thought from his mind. It would definitely come back to haunt him later, but that was too far into the future for him to worry about.
"I do?" He questioned, matching the teen's volume. "I guess I should, if I really look like I do." The thought of sleeping again made him yawn.
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Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 4:50 pm
"You're probably right," Shawn replied, nodding. "I just never thought about the light effecting them before. But I guess since I'm from a city with so many tall buildings, it's pretty dark where I live." He shrugged off Demetri's questioning look. "You know how pokemon are...Grimer and Muk made their way into everything," He shuddered involuntarily. "I didn't exactly live in the best part of the city, but it was a good enough life."
Raising a brow at Demitri's laugh, he listened to the boy's description of the thing called a Pokedex. It sounded pretty handy, but Shawn was sure he could never afford it. Perhaps it was only given to Pokemon trainers. "Huh. That's too bad. It sounded like it could have been pretty useful." He frowned as a sidden thought occured to him. "I sure hope these Cronus creeps didn't steal it. Come to think of it, they might have your pokemon too. Maybe you should ask later, or nose around a little."
That would be just like Cronus, wouldn't it? Leave them as defensless as possible while pretending to be a madical facility. It was just too bizarre. As was Demi. He couldn't help but smirk at his peer as the kid spoke so enthusiastically of his pokemon. There was no doubt he trusted them, but then it was probably trust that got Demitri and the rest of them stuck on the island in the first place. With a bitter smile, he looked away, shaking his head in a pitying manner. The guy may have been a pokemon trainer, but to Shawn, Dem didn't seem to have a clue about the real world. His smile was still too happy to suggest he knew enough to understand human nature, no matter how much he thought he knew about pokemon.
"Don't worry," Darrow told the boy on mention of his family. "It seems you're doing all right for yourself without them. You miss them?" He blinked. "You'll have to tell me about them sometime. Maybe I can drop by your room later when you're not so tired. You need to rest." Shawn was starting to worry.
What kind of person in their right mind would talk about their missing pokemon like that? He wondered, continuing to frown slightly at Dem. He's acting as if they're his family or something...he probably needs a nap...
"Good," he said as Demitri voice that he wouldn't let the thoughts on the pin-p***k bother him. "Yeah, a coincedence...you just take it easy for a while." Again, Shawn couldn't hold back a smile as Dem yawned. "I'd walk you to your room, but the guards over there might find it suspicious." He nodded toward the large men by the doors. "I'll see if I can find it later, though. See ya around, Dem. Thanks again for everything."
With a wink and a wave, Darrow delivered the stacked trays to the depositing station, forcing himself to ignore his growling stomach.
((After this, by the way, is when the 'Suspicions of a Fearful Kind' RP takes place, in case anyone wanted to know. Shawn's too weak from lack of food to think straight, so he nearly passes out in the hall before encountering Icarus.))
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Posted: Sat Aug 11, 2007 6:04 pm
"When you get back, try a flashlight on a couple of them! That should at least scare off a few of the mean ol' things." Demetri gave his best monster impression, baring his 'fangs' and curling his fingers to form makeshift claws. "I remember hearing about an incident a while back where they overtook over a whole city! This was a long time ago, though. I don't even remember exactly where I heard it." He laughed at his own forgetfulness.
Sighing with disappointment at the loss of is partially-completed dex, the water pokemon trainer shook his head. "It's really cool, because I could log a lot of information into it. It even knew how many Pokemon I'd caught!" He bounced back quickly, only to have his mind wander to what might have become of the little electronic masterpiece. "I still think it got washed away by the tide or something, but I guess it is possible that they took it from me while I was sleeping." The thought of Dr. Hakan taking his Pokemon, however, was hard for the boy to imagine. He'd had to ask which ones Demetri had brought with him, after all. But Shawn could be right...
"Yeah..." He smiled at his peer. "Yeah, I'm doing fine. A couple of bruises never stopped anyone!" He spoke with confidence, though it was more than 'a couple of bruises' that was making him burn with pain right now. "I promise I'll tell you all about them next time, then. And sooner or later, maybe you'll get to meet them, too!" He said with honest hope and charisma. "Really, don't worry about-" he interrupted himself with a yawn, "it. I'll see you soon, then, Shawn! Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll be able to find your room, too!" So long as he didn't get lost in the halls on his way there. He stood up, aching in more places than he could count, yet with the same cheerful grin on his face.
The guard gave him an odd look when he asked to be walked back to his room because he'd forgotten the way, but Demetri continued to give the man an innocent smile, content and completely serious.
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